What Happened: On Tuesday, I had a workshop for Playwriting, which was a little daunting. I've never been so nervous during a workshop before. I've never written a play before either... (the pseudo playwriting format fanfics and the Tenchi Muyo/Sailor Moon radio play do not count. Nor does the Digimon one...) so I was extremely out of my element. The workshops are conducted a little differently than the ones for fiction. In fiction, we typically have to read our own work and we spend at least half an hour or more discussing the piece. In playwriting, you have other people reading your work. Since it's a ten minute play, we spend ten minutes reading the play and ten minutes discussing the work.
So the high points of the workshop:
Listening to other people reading it out loud and performing it the way I imagined it. Awesome feeling. As a novelist, it's kind of similar to having someone draw a picture of your characters the way you imagined them.
Being told it was pretty descent. Definitely ego boost after a exhausting weekend.
Listening to other well-written plays.
Low points of the workshop:
Realizing that I forgot some important aspects of a play like protagonists and goals and stuff.
Noticing that I still had a butt load of typos after rereading it repeatedly.
I don't think I can understand the notes that I took. I rarely ever understand the notes I take...
Likes: I enjoy that we don't spend a lot of time discussing the work because once you hear the story, you can kind of notice what's working and what's not working.
Dislikes: One thing that I didn't like is that the playwright isn't given time to ask questions (which I suppose is what office hours are for, but it's kind of good to get questions answered by peers). Another thing I didn't like about playwriting workshop is not being able to explain your intentions. With a fiction workshop you can say "My intent was blah blah blah." and your classmates and teacher can be "Oh, I see. Well, this might help you better reach your intent". In playwriting, there simply isn't enough time to do any of this, which is unfortunate.
At any rate:
I have a love/hate relationship with playwriting. On the one hand, I can focus on things that I think I'm strong at which is dialogue and characterization. On the other hand, it reminds me of all the things I'm not so good at which is everything else. Okay, not really everything, but I do have a problem with clarity and trying to tackle too much in a story. These are reoccurring issues that other people have pointed out to me in my writing and I have to agree. And it goes all across the board, playwriting, poetry, short stories, etc....
A part of it has to do with not allowing myself enough time to work and rework things. I get a certain rush from working right up until the deadline, but doing that requires some sort of sacrifice. Out of all the plays I tried to work on, none of them were working. In the case of the play I wrote for class, to get the dialogue, characterization, I neglected motivation and character goals. So instead of a "play", I got two people talking in an elevator. Which, when it was read out loud in class, is all well in good, but it's not a play it can't be performed only read. There's tension, there's conflict, but none of the characters had any goals and because of that there was no clear cut protagonist and antagonist. I think this happens when you let the characters do the talking and don't attempt to reign them in every so often.
The cool thing about revising a play is that it's all in the dialogue. There's no descriptions to fill in and what not. That's also one of its draw backs.
My notes for revision are below. I'm only posting this as a blog because I think it would be cool to catalog my process for revisions. It seems like the play is worth pursuing because of the mostly positive response about it and I feel that it needs some minor tweaking compared to some other hot messes I turned in for other classes that will never see the light of day:
First and foremost, my mother's birthday is in 4 days. My birthday is in 26 days. I'll be 22. Egad, my friend was right, after 21 everything goes downhill from there. I mean, no one ever waits until they turn 25. I remember wanting to turn 13, then 16,then 18, then 21, and when those times came, it was a little lackluster. For all the young kids out there, savor your childhood because you can never get it back. You'll find yourself getting nostalgic for the old days, which for me are the great old days of the 90's.
At any rate, I'm going to try to make true on my promise about reading for leisure on the weekends. I'm also going to take Thursdays off to read leisurely too. Classes are going okay. I had a mini crisis because I was behind on some work, but I have the weekend to get caught up. I wrote my first play yesterday too and I'm quite happy about it. When I get my grade, I'll most likely post a lot of my work or at the very least after the quarter is over. I don't want to post it before in case someone sees and thinks that I'm trying to get critiques beforehand (people flipped out about that once and it was very irritating and they didn't even help!.).
As for writing, I will try to spend most of October finishing Sex, Drugs, and Steampunk for Novel Push Initiative, which starts today. I have 6/26 chapters which is a start and I really like where the story is going. During NaNoWriMo, I'll set this aside and work on my untitled contemporary YA. December will be for script writing for IAR the graphic novel edition (this playwriting class is really helping me out a lot). I can't believe this is going to be my last Fall quarter. It's kind of scary and exhilarating at the same time and after that, one more quarter left!
I think I'm going to do these Life Updates whenever there is a lag in updates on my blog. It'll give you an idea of how crazy things are on my side of the world.
School:
So some of you may or may not know that I'm a double major. A quarter before graduation, I decided to pursue my dream and add Creative Writing as my second major. At any rate, this quarter I have four classes, three days a week.
Anatomy of Fictional Styles: Basically what we're going to do in this class is analyze different genres and styles of fiction. It seems pretty interesting. The teacher is a bit of a spaz, but what creative writing person isn't? This class is on Monday 2-5.
Intro to Playwriting: We're going to learn to write plays. I want to adapt one of my old stories into a play. I feel this might help me with action and dialogue. I'll be sure to share what I learn with you guys in case you want to learn these things too. This class is on Tuesdays and Thursdays 10-12.
Metafiction: This seems like the heaviest class with a book list of 10. So far what we have been doing is interesting. The teacher is cool and all. What we'll be doing in this class is surveying metafiction which is a type of fiction that is aware of itself. It's like when cartoon characters or tv characters break the fourth wall and address the audience. However this is a book that is aware that it's a book. I hope that makes sense and if it doesn't I hope during the course of a couple days I'll learn what it actually means. This class is Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3:30.
Survey of Contemporary Fiction: Is a survey of contemporary fiction with all the authors being within this decade. We're also reading the teacher's book, which is going to be strange. I never had to read a teacher's book. I've read books of people who taught at the school, but they were never my teachers. This should be interesting. I do like this teacher, he's cool. He reminds me of Spike from Cowboy Bebop, but that's besides the point. This class is Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3:40-5:00.
I have work on Wednesdays for one hour and I will probably schedule some hours for my internship. I have Fridays off, so the weekend for me starts on Thursday. At any rate, I do want to do some more things with my blog, but I'm not sure if I'll have the time. I have to do schoolwork first, which is mostly reading. The books we've been reading have been pretty cool so far, that's not too bad, but it's a lot of reading. I don't think I'll have the time to read much for leisure and if I do, it'll probably be a long time between books. I hope to read for leisure on the weekends.
My goal is at least one book a week in addition to the books that I read for school. For the academic books, I think I'll include a section in the reviews that analyze what you can learn from this book from a few of my favorite passages. I might do this for the leisure books too, but maybe if I feel there is actually something to learn and imitate.
I will most likely update on Monday/Wednesday/Friday with book reviews on Saturdays or when I finish them, which ever comes first. I don't think I have the energy to do the Blog Hop for a while. Not that it's all that hard, but I like looking at other blogs and things and I feel that I haven't been doing that actively in the last couple hops (sorry. =/) .
So what would you like to see? If you're starting school, what classes are you taking?
*sigh* Writing is hard. You have to create characters, create plots, incorporate themes, and then you have to write the damned thing. When your in high school and you are somewhat creative, like to write, and friends with a bunch of anime geeks, you kind of have half the story pre made. See, at least in my experience, my anime friends and I followed a set of tropes because you know... that made things easy. We didn't have to see each other beyond our love of anime and other mutual interests. And then you grow up, realize that you were a moron in high school, go to college, and meet other people who you get to know on a deep and complex level. Hopefully, you'll learn to realize that your high school friends are complex and deep individuals as well. And then you have the cases when you realize that... the people you were friends with are morons who will contribute nothing to the world. (harsh, but true).
Why am I saying all this? Because, I, dear readers, made a terrible mistake when I was in high school. I wrote a story about it. A story that I should never have let see the light of day, but instead had such high hopes that it would one day get written, become a huge success, become a cartoon series, and rocket launch me into international stardom and happiness. I became invested in it, my friends became invested in it, and then it just snowballed and got out of hand.
This next post in this series of "The Scientific Method" better known "Why Najela Can't Get a Man(and perhaps why that's not a bad thing)".
While I was driving home today, I was thinking about my lack of ability to find a guy. I had to analyze why I haven't put myself out there. I finally came to two conclusions:
1) I'm terrible at reading whether a guy likes me or not.
Case in point: At my job, a coworker and I were talking about all the heavy lifting that we have to do. For those who don't know, one of my (many) odd jobs is working as a Mad Scientist. I teach children science through hands on learning. Normally our kits aren't too heavy, but one school asked for a system I had never taught before and all the kits were extremely heavy. The coworker and I were talking about how buff we had gotten over the course of a few months. Another coworker who was listening to our conversation decides to join in.
Coworker: I'm single.
Me: Oh yeah, me too.
Coworker: We should exchange numbers.
Me: Okay... (incredulously) wait... seriously?
Needless to say, I think I blew it. Not to say that I was interested, he's a nice guy. Smart, descent looking (He was wearing sunglasses so I didn't get to see his eyes. Beautiful eyes are a major turn on for me.), and has a degree in bioengineering(cha-ching). We had a few conversations about majors school related things, and work related things, but I never got the sense that he was interested in me until that point. That whole conversation had me intrigued. This isn't the first time that it's happened either. I'm either giving off the wrong impression or not picking up signals from other people.
2) I am actually content with my life without a boyfriend.
In my life, I've always had a male companion. He wasn't a romantic partner, but he was my wingman, my right hand guy. I had more guy friends in elementary school. In 9th grade, it was my friend Micah. In 10th grade, it was my ex-boyfriend (the first time I realized that some guy friends are better left undated), in 11th and 12th grade it was my friend Andrew. In my first year of college, I think it was a friend I went to high school with (but he lied about some serious things) for just a little bit. In 2nd year, it was my friends Andy and Danny. The end of 2nd year, all of 3rd year, and part of 4th it was one of my friends who I met through RHA. Then my wingman graduates from college and I'm wingmanless. No more semi-dates and goofing without any intention of a romantic relationship.
At the time the first post in this series was written, I was guy friendless. I thought I liked a guy, but then I talked myself out of it. Then I realized I didn't want a romantic relationship. I needed a wingman. I needed someone who didn't expect me to be a girlfriend, but just a friend who happened to be a girl. I don't really know what goes into being a girlfriend. I'm not the type of person who is going to call every night and needs to keep tabs on what you're doing and where you're going. I would trust you enough to not worry. I used to be the jealous type, but I have been working on that as well. I try not to let my jealousy show, because it tends to ruin relationships. When you're a girlfriend, ugh, there seems too be so much stress into playing that role. Playing that role is kind of limiting.
So it's not really about love or even being in a romantic relationship. That's not what I really want or need at this point (though I'd welcome it, if it came along). I just need to focus on nurturing the friendships I already have and welcome more friendships in.
For the friends who are worried about me and my relationship woes, you don't need to worry. I think I got it all figured out. It's not that I don't deserve love or even that I can't get love or whatever. I'm not desperate enough to just throw myself out there for any old person to catch. It's not even the fact that I may or may not be ready for a relationship. The fact of the matter is that I think I've grown up enough to approach things cautiously. The last relationship was an intense high school thing where I had to be with this person now and if I didn't hurry up and act, I might lose out. That's not the right way to approach a relationship with anyone. It's not a race. There's no rush to get a ring on a finger or put a bun in the oven (at least not until you're 35), so why not slow things down and get to know someone. I watch too much damn daytime television to know what happens when you move things too fast. That's just a recipe for disaster.
So sexy blog readers: Do you have your right hand man(or woman)? Who are they (you don't need to say names) and what do you guys do together?
The Observation:
I was going through my old notebooks a few weeks ago when I came across some old letters that people had written to me. Against my better judgment, I read one from a former friend over some drama that had happened. To give a basic rundown, I dated a guy, ditched all my friends for him, got dumped, and apologized and my friendship with those people got stronger. The letter I found was from the girl that dated my ex a week after we broke up. She used to be my best friend, but as with all teen angst, the person you think is your BFF turns against you and you find out who your true friends are. Yadda yadda. I've since forgiven the girl, but I had to come to the realization that I still haven't forgiven myself for the situation.
The letter from this girl essentially said that because I mistreated my friends, I deserved what I got as far as breaking up with the guy and I suppose she took it upon herself to deliver that to me (She got her comeuppance in the end too, just so you know). She said that I was the only one who showed the guy any attention that's why he went out with me, even though she apparently liked him before me and she was doing me a favor by holding back so that I could pursue him. (Ha, bullshit!) The whole letter was a backhanded apology that essentially blamed me for everything while she refused taking responsibility for the role she played in the whole thing.
The Theory:
Rereading these old letters and reading the recent posts on my blog, I have come across an interesting parallel. I bought into the idea that I didn't deserve to have a boyfriend. Case in point "I don't have a boyfriend, I'm too self-absorbed, selfish, and too lazy to put in the effort into maintaining a relationship while I'm juggling work and school." I wrote this and looking back on it, I can't believe that I wrote it. WTF? I woke up a couple days ago and said "When will I ever have the perfect personality to be with anyone?" The answer is never. And you know what? That's okay. I'll get to the why in a minute.
People keep mentioning that I'm a nice person and for some reason, I can't see it. When people tell me I'm nice, I have to convince them otherwise. I keep saying "I'm manipulative and vindictive. I'm a bitch...etc..." Why? Of course, I believe it's true. It is true. It's just one side of me though, but I've been defining myself by it for such a long time that it's hard to see the good qualities. There are good things about me. I'm friendly, funny, confident, honest, and I clean up pretty nice. Obviously, I still have my true friends who saw the dark sides of me and chose to forgive me despite that fact. This whole situation happened six years ago, but I've been a state of mistrust since then. I didn't trust myself to treat someone with love and respect they deserve. I didn't think I deserved it because I was a mean person.
Coming back to "When will I ever have the perfect personality to be with anyone?"question. I wrote the answer "Never" because it's true. Is there ever going to be a time when I'm not working or going to school or doing something to further myself? I doubt it. There is no such thing as the perfect person. I'm not perfect and I have to just accept that. I have to accept that who ever I date will not be perfect either. I guess the whole point is if we can get over ourselves and work with our flaws instead of defining ourselves by them. That remains to be a hypothesis that has yet to be tested.
The Hypothesis:
If Najela truly forgives herself for being such a bitch, then she might be able to open up and be honest with her feelings.
The Experiment:
This should be obvious. Put myself out there and be honest with my feelings. I did it once before, that's how I got into this whole mess. I have no idea where I got the balls to just approach the guy I liked without a care in the world and just let him know how I feel. I didn't care about the outcome, but I just had to let him know. What happened to that girl? I'm trying to find her. A part of her came out in Vegas, but she went back into hiding as soon as we got back. Why? How do I bring her back without sucking down Adios Motherfuckers and shots of Patron and Jagerbombs? (not that this is exactly a bad way to go) I wasn't drunk during most of that vacation anyway and I definitely wasn't drunk back in high school sophomore year. I need to be more open and interested instead of actively disinterested because I don't think I deserve it. I do deserve to be happy, just like everyone else. Everyone has bad aspects to their personality. The lucky ones are the ones who realize it early enough to maintain them.
I need to just be myself, stop freaking out, and stop defining myself by past.
The Results:
Will Report Findings at another time.
Introduction:
I've been thinking about this post for a long time. I wanted to write something about Race and writing and all that good stuff. I always tend to drag my heels when stating opinions about things partly because (A) I really don't have a strong opinion about most subjects. (B) For some reason, despite claiming I don't care what people think and usually I don't, but when it's "taboo" subjects, I tend to be afraid that someone is going to flame me. At any rate, I've gotten used to flames and in fact, those flames help fuel some of these posts. If I'm going to get anywhere in life, I'm going to have to be more open to sharing my opinion on things. And what better way to do that than on the internet. Let me start off by stating that is just an opinion and it is not fact. I also apologize if you are somehow offended by something I write. (This will probably be the last apology, because I shouldn't have to apologize for having an opinion about anything, but it's worth saying because some people are crazy and find any reason to be offended.)
Sanctuary:
I was blessed to go to a public charter school that taught students to be well-rounded. We learned music in first grade and chose an instrument (I chose saxophone) in fourth grade and we also learned piano. We learned Spanish beginning in first grade (and I'm still not as fluent as I should be, but if you don't use it, you lose it) and we had plays, concerts, among many other things. This school had a mixture of kids; Blacks, Latinos, Whites, and a few Asians. Most of my friends were also a mixture too and I guess when you're young, you don't really notice color. Or rather, it's not of consequence. In elementary school, you'd never say "I'd never hang out with so and so because their so and so ethnicity" and if you do say it, it's usually because "My parents don't like so and so ethnicity skin color" (kids that say this were few and far between). This was a protective little bubble. My daycares were the same way (my mother being a single parent, I had to go to daycare). Skin color wasn't of consequence. However, this wasn't how the world worked, and this definitely wasn't a reflection of our city.
Loser Middle Schooler:
After sixth grade I was kicked out of that protective bubble of elementary school and daycare and started middle school. I started hanging out with a group of girls that were mostly Black and Latino. It was still not a consequence of skin color, but more of individual differences. I was obsessed into anime, and they weren't. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you grow apart because of these differences. It seemed when I started hanging out with my other friends which my main group of friends were Asian/Pacific Islander and/or White, problems arose. And it wasn't from White people, it was from other Blacks.
These problems with the Black girls probably came because I looked like a victim. I didn't talk to people, wore descent looking clothes, had my hair done every week or so, had braces, acne, and glasses. I looked like I had mostly everything together. I wasn't terribly ugly(that to say if I wanted to make myself look pretty, I could, but I didn't care), but I was going through that awkward middle school stage. We all were. And as a consequence of that, we were at the stage where we are working on ways to build our self-esteem. Some people turned inward and found their own self-confidence, like one of my friends, who rose above certain aspects of her life (aspects I didn't even know she had to overcome until after high school) and stayed true to herself and her dreams. Others looked inward and began to self destruct when they didn't like what they saw. Others chose to look towards relationships (boys) to get some sort of validation that they weren't getting from others. Others chose to look outward and lift people up. Others chose to look outward and bring people down.
Realization:
I think I was one of those people who looked outward and brought other people down. I already had the inner self confidence for the most part, but somehow it took a radical turn. Black people have been taught, whether subtly or not, to hate themselves. Yet, everyone wants the "benefits" of being Black, without all the negatives. People want to tan, have big butts, and the ability to change their hairstyle and have it stay (unless you add water) without having to worry about being followed around a store, being pulled over for driving in the wrong neighborhood, or having feelings invalidated by others because you're being too sensitive about racial matters.
At any rate, I was a self-hating Black person. Yes, I admit it. It took a long time to get to the point where I could actually realize it. I didn't hate myself because I personally was Black, I love being Black, it made me different. If I were any other race, I'd be even more boring than I already am. I hated other Black people, not because they were Black, but because I believed they were perpetuating the stereotype. It took a long time to realize that these stereotypes weren't created by them, but created by the media. I didn't realize that being Black, no matter whether you were stereotypical or educated or other, was a negative until I experienced the prejudices of people in my town. When I started Middle School, I was allowed to go to places on my own and felt the way people treated me when it was based on my skin color and not my personality (which I'll admit isn't the most lovable, but at least when it was personality, I knew)
It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I expected Black people to be mean to me, because that's what I believed that Black people were, they were mean. So I became standoffish and most likely, stuck up. I wasn't stuck up to begin with, but I'm sure I filled a self-fulfilling prophecy for them as well. When you're trying to come to terms with a society that's pitted against you, you have to come up with coping mechanisms. My coping mechanism was to avoid Black people. I came up with ways like "Oh, I'm part Native American and West Indian and... blah blah" even though I am mixed with Black (we're still in debate about whether my great grandfather was from Ghana or the Caribbean), White, and Native American (found this out after doing some research for a paper in college), it doesn't matter. Nobody is doing a DNA test when I walk into a store, I still look Black and people are going to treat me like I'm Black, no matter how many degrees I have, or how ever many colors I have in my hair.
It's not my fault, it's not theirs. It's no ones fault if you aren't aware of the forces that pit you against your fellow man. It's society. Society comes up with ways to keep Black people from coming together. Society comes up with ways to keep everyone from coming together. Imagine what a powerful we could be if we all learned to cooperate? It would be amazing. It would also be dangerous. Very dangerous to people in charge, the ones that make our decisions and make the rules. That small percentage that owns all the wealth and is too afraid to let go of their power. God forbid we start demanding things like racial equality, gay rights, and universal health care. God forbid we start demanding to be treated like human beings.
I've been wanting to do more with this blog for a long time. I've been reading some blogs that are just crazy, outrageous, TMI, yet interesting. Some people have platforms like "I'm only going to read books by XYZ author" or "I'm a published author and I'm going to blog about how to be as cool as me" or the always entertaining "I'm a very opinionated person and I'm going to blog about all the things that piss me off". Then you have people like me. The most boring people in the world.
I like to read, but I don't have a particular type of story or type of author I like to read. I read the stories that sound interesting. Most of these would include YA novels because they are quickly paced and tend to have fresher writing in my opinion. I'm trying to be a bit more proactive in choosing authors of color, but at the end of the day, the story has to be good.
I like to write, but I don't ever finish anything that I try to write. I've been working seriously on IAR for 3 years (8 years if you want to get technical) and I still have nothing to show for it other than a really nice website that I partially coded myself. None of my ideas are ever seen to fruition because I can't get rid of that inner editor. I can never get myself to write the first draft, something always prevents me for pushing the story forward and I have no clue what it is.
I don't blog about the few interesting things that happen to me because I rarely go out. I like staying at home, locked in my room with a bag of pita chips, roasted garlic hummus, and a can of root beer, reading books with the TV on mute in the background. When I do go out, nothing out of the ordinary happens. I don't really party and if I do, I don't really do anything at the parties worth blogging about (although there was this one time in Orange County...). I drink, but I rarely get drunk. I don't do drugs intentionally and never been in the position to do them unintentionally.
I don't really rant about people or things because too afraid to offend people if I name them, in case they do read this blog. I could definitely rant about work but I'm afraid that I'll get fired if I say something negative in a public space no matter how vague I am. I actually like my job(s).
I don't have a boyfriend, I'm too self-absorbed, selfish, and too lazy to put in the effort into maintaining a relationship while I'm juggling work and school. The guys I'm attracted to (which is few) seem to be just as self-absorbed as me. It can be done, but it's not worth the hassle and the drama. So since I don't have a boyfriend, I don't go out and have casual sex. Hell, I'm proud to admit that I'm still a virgin. I don't have the time or the energy to engage in that kind of lifestyle at this point in life. My reasons are selfish. I need security and commitment because I'll be damned if I have to take care of a kid by myself. The child's already at a disadvantage having me for a mother, so I need to get my shit together before I can even think about having kids or getting into a relationship for that matter. I owe who ever I'm with at least that much.
I don't have much of opinion about anything. I'm not for or against a lot of things. Most of the stuff that people are fighting for, I really don't care about. Everything has a lot of gray area for me, like abortion or gay marriage or those controversial subjects.
I still want to do more with this blog though. I want to get more vocal about the gray areas that I see. I want to talk about race, sexuality, writing, reading, work, crazy situations that I get into, random musings, bits and pieces about works in progress, worldbuilding, and everything inbetween. I'm not going to put them all on different blogs, frankly because I don't think I have enough to say about either of these subjects to fill up an entire blog. I guess I shouldn't worry about offending people. There's a lot of people who are wrong on the internet and there are a hell of a lot of people who write offensive things. I won't be doing this on purpose, but I do realize that some of my opinions don't fit with the mainstream, but that's okay.
I want to challenge myself to write something, be a little bit more raw in my blog. I tend to use discretion when I speak what's on my mind, so I'm not going to set out to hurt someone's feelings. I'm not going to hold back as much as I usually do. It's not that I'm dishonest or making up shit just to put in my blog or one of those people who only does things just to brag about them in their facebook status. I'm just going to be a little less formal and PC and a little more true to myself and how I feel without worrying about people's feelings.
So starting in April, I'm going to kick off the blog with a post about my spring break in Las Vegas. I'm going to talk about race, writing, sexuality, my views on things in society, and push myself to be more outgoing in the future. I'm still going to be reading and writing book reviews. Check it out.
I am a little slow on things, not because I don't know about what's going on in the world, but I tend to try to stay neutral and not get caught up in the "hype" of certain things (Like I still haven't gone to see Avatar and probably never will). It also takes me a while to get upset about things too because I like to stay neutral, so I'm trying to override my natural defense mechanism of being quiet and instead speaking out. I'm a week late, but at least I'm saying something. Hopefully I'll be more involved in what's going on if things like this happen.
The "Compton Cookout" (I'm not posting a link because the race-fail is just terrible) debacle is week-old news by now. I knew what the "Compton Cookout" was and for those who don't know, several fraternities at UC San Diego thought it would be a cool idea to have a party that made fun of Black stereotypes in the spirit of Black History Month.
I wonder what these people were thinking when they came up with this concept. It sounds like a good idea if you're an ignorant dumb ass. Let's have a party to dress up like ghetto Black people and be stereotypical with ghetto clothes, grills, and all the stereotypes of being a Black person. I quote the suggestions for girls, since it's more relevant (at least to me) and longer.
For girls: For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks-Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes - they consider Baby Phat to be high class and expensive couture. They also have short, nappy hair, and usually wear cheap weave, usually in bad colors, such as purple or bright red. They look and act similar to Shenaynay, and speak very loudly, while rolling their neck, and waving their finger in your face. Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary, and attempt to make up for it, by forming new words, such as "constipulated", or simply cursing persistently, or using other types of vulgarities, and making noises, such as "hmmg!", or smacking their lips, and making other angry noises,grunts, and faces. The objective is for all you lovely ladies to look, act, and essentially take on these "respectable" qualities throughout the day.
WTF? What. The. Fuck. Seriously, I don't know where this person is getting their information from. They aren't many Black people living in San Diego and those that probably do don't fit this stereotype. In fact, many Black people I know personally don't fit this stereotype. Believe it or not but very few Black people fit this stereotype. Even the people the appear to fit the stereotype don't act like that all the time. The stereotype is bastardizing certain aspects of the African-American culture and it's sad. Besides, as a woman of any race, whether Black, White or anything inbetween, why would I flaunt myself around like a fucking idiot making fun of Black people? Why would you walk around like an idiot making fun of any particular ethnicity. That shit's not funny. It's stupid, especially when you know that Black people don't act like this.
I'm so perplexed I can't even feel offended (like that time my roommate asked me if I liked watermelon). I'm so surprised at the level of stupidity that is in the world. It is a mockery of Black History Month that is justified by stating We virtually make fun of everyone, we're equal opportunity. No one is discriminated when we decide to discriminate and use stereotypes. Now they are trying to state that their freedom of speech is being violated. Things like this do not work in reverse. You can't hit someone first, then punish them for telling on you. It just shouldn't work this way, but it does.
This would have been a perfect opportunity to uplift a community. How cool would it have been if someone came dressed as a Black person who has done something positive? It might have been lame, but it couldn't been any lamer than the idea they came up with. I mean, people probably don't know about Benjamin Banneker or the ancient civilizations(Kmt- google it) in Egypt that were far more advanced than we've been taught to believe. At the very least, people could have people dressed up as Jay-Z or Diddy or even Tupac or Biggie. Wouldn't it be a little bit cool and a little less offensive(but still offensive in a way) if girls were told to dress up like Oprah, Halle Berry, Tyra, and countless other Black females that make a difference in the world(I'm ashamed that I can't name more), not the Shenaynay stereotype?
Or better yet, just apologize instead of getting defensive. People make some seriously stupid mistakes and this was a HUGE mistake. Some people are ignorant idiots who just need to be taught a lesson. I'm not saying to go butt fucking crazy and beat these people down, but to try and get a dialogue going where people just talk about the issue, people explaining why they were offended, people thinking why they don't think it's a big deal, and maybe hearing a little bit of what these people were thinking when they came up with this stupid idea.
Racism still exists because people don't own up to their mistakes and get defensive, instead of seriously trying to learn what they did wrong. Another reason why racism continues is because people are afraid to talk about it because of the tension. Maybe these people clearly didn't think they were doing anything wrong or rather, they knew but didn't think anyone would mind or even notice.I think outrage is an appropriate reaction to this. Nothing is going to get solved with dismissal. People seem to think that we live in post-racial society because we don't talk about race. Racism depends on the fact that people don't say anything and that those who fuck up don't take responsibility and say "Hey, you know, we fucked up. We're sorry. What can we do to make this better somehow?"
Magic Under Glass, a debut novel by Jacyln Dolamore has been garnering great reviews for its writing, storyline, and characters. On some blogs that I've read, it's being compared to the next Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray, which is amazing because that book series is amazing. Anyway, my only problem with this has been the book cover, which features a white girl on the cover of a book about a person of color. Thankfully they are changing the cover, but I wonder what made them do that in the first place and hopefully what can we do to prevent them from doing it again.
I was writing my Psych 168 paper on the Liar controversy when news about Magic Under Glass started spreading. I wish I would have said something earlier, but there were so many people who can say it more eloquently than I could ever hope to try. By the time I got my thoughts to say about the matter, the incident was handled and the problem with this one particular book was solved. Besides, I think my paper on the Liar controversy was much more interesting than what I had to say in my blog. I wanted to get my grade in that before I posted it anywhere else.
I never got my paper back anyway, so I never had my chance to give my thoughts to the general public before then. Waiting instead of taking action. I don't want to be accused of plagiarism just in case, but now that I have my paper turned in and hopefully graded with an A+. This blog has my name written all over it, so I hope that if the teacher does manage to read this, she'll know that it's me. (Hello Dr. Murray).
More...
An interesting blog post about book covers and race started by Justine Larbalestier caused an interesting discussion on whether book covers represent or in this case, misrepresent, the characters portrayed in the novel. Larbalestier discusses the book covers that had been chosen for different versions of her book entitled Liar. The author states that her main character, Micah, is "black with nappy hair which she wears natural and short." The United States edition of this book is in black and white, but the girl on the cover is clearly white.
Larbalestier, an Australian author, states that none of her Australian fans were concerned about Micah's ethnicity and in fact, most of her fans from around the world admire the author for writing about non-white characters. In outrage to the white-washing of her American edition book cover, she asked how other authors, both white and non-white, dealt with white-washed covers. Larbalestier saw a reoccurring theme in the publishing world. "...Authors have told me that their books with black covers are frequently not shelved in the same part of the library as other YA [young adult literature]...and many bookshops simply don’t stock them at all. How welcome is a black teen going to feel in the YA section when all the covers are white?" This is a good question and one I will attempt to answer from my perspective as a black woman. My perspective is only one unique perspective about the black experience.
I am an young adult literature reader, but I will admit that most of the stories I do read about are about white main characters or written by white authors. I fully enjoyed those books and I even kept a record of how many books I read, who wrote them, and what the book was about. At the end of the year, I reviewed this record and realized that out of the thirty traditionally published books I managed to read this past year, none of them were written by African-American authors. Even though they had some African-American characters, none of them portrayed African-Americans as the main character. This was disconcerting for me. It made me wonder why this was the case? I didn't actively seek out books based on the characters' race. In some books race was never mentioned, but it was assumed that a character was white by certain characteristics, and in others, race was only mentioned to say that a character was non-white. This implied that my default setting for most characters was(and probably still is) white. Why is this?
First there is a stereotype in the publishing companies that books written by black authors are only written for a black audience. If I were to seek out a book about African-American characters written by African-American authors, these would normally be categorized in the "Urban Fiction" section, regardless of whether the setting is urban or otherwise. This is what black authors have become associated with and while it's not necessarily a bad thing to have an author have a defined niche, most books will never reach a wide distribution beyond their niches. The niche is for African-Americans, which only supports the publishing paradigm of black authors writing for black readers. If I wanted a book with a character that looked like me, I'd have to go to the "Urban Fiction" section, but I don't think my local bookstore or library has an 'urban fiction' section. Where do I have to go to find good books with African-American main characters?
The strange thing is that there are white authors writing about Black main characters all the time and those books aren't directed towards black audiences nor do I see them shelved in the Urban Fiction section. A Black author writing about a White character has an easier time than a White author does writing about a non-white character. This is because African-Americans are bombarded with ideals of a Eurocentric pop culture. Most white writers are scared to try writing about non-white characters, which is unfortunate, because at this point they have the majority of the market. I believe that many authors would want to portray a non-white character correctly by doing adequate research and observations of different types of people. It would be to their benefit and credibility to do so. If there were more books about black characters in general, whether written by black authors or not, perhaps this would allow my default setting and as well as others in my position to expand a little bit to encompass the way the world truly is.
