Growing
Despite everyone obsessing over Barack’s appearance on Leno, I think Michelle ‘shovel ready’, planting veggies around the White House was the far more provocative political moment of the last few days.
If the country has come to characterize Ms. Obama as someone accessible and unpretentious, perhaps watching her toil over a patch of land around the White House was pushing things.
Yes, black folks should garden but there was something about watching her, our black first lady, digging and planting in what did not look like a yard as much as a field, that was difficult — even as I applaud her efforts to lead America into a Green era.
Equally as interesting was her appearance at a DC public school where she attributed her success as a student in the black Chicago of her childhood to ‘talking like a white girl.’
I’m sure if Ms. Obama had been able to elaborate in less of a controlled setting, a really interesting discussion about black versus white English would have spun out because the Obamas – like most black people and even some whites who use black English to varying degrees, switch back and forth between both.
I believe Ms. Obama’s message to the young black audience she was addressing was that there are certain skills you have to acquire to make the transition from the margins into the mainstream though to some it may have seemed that she was advocating imitating white people as a program for self-improvement which I’m fairly certain she was not.
The whole subject of how black folks talk in America is weighed down by very neurotic identity issues. If I wanted to be morbid, I could recount stories of being ridiculed back in my own school days for the same reason as Michelle Obama, but the fact of the matter is you adapt.
At 48, I now speak all kinds of ways.
I switch codes so much, I don’t even know what the real way is that I speak anymore – though when I’m in the company of certain African-American women there’s an expectation that I use a very specific black female voice – you know that cynical song that the black female character in every commercial and TV show has to sing with her hand on her hip and one eyebrow raised – that I’m afraid for so many reasons just doesn’t work for me.
In fact, recently, during a first time business meeting with another black woman, when she instantly referred to me as ‘girl’ and then ‘chile,’ instead of her breaking the ice with me, what she did was make me doubt that I should be taking her seriously.
I’m middle-aged, gray haired, in no way a child or a girl and find it unfortunate that so much of what passes so proudly for black English, including that infamous word thrown around in every other rap song, is just an exercise in self-deprecation.
A few summers ago, I got in a cab in Harlem with a Guinean driver named Alpha, an intense guy who could switch from English to French to Spanish to even Russian not because he had some great passion for learning the world’s languages but because he had had to become versatile to survive.
Similarly, Black people in America are going to need to embrace a much more complex sense of self.
That said, may a patch of organic collards sprout somewhere in the Obama garden. Because this new paradigm could be as easily served by just seeing the greens in Green.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
It looked “Slave like” lets face it.Especially without directly linking the gesture to
environmental issues”.Black is the new green” something.The psycho-social constructs are in place.the symbolism stands.
Nothing wrong with gardening.but i must say ” Robert,Colescott,kara Walker paintings came to mind. Like the “slave in the field picking cotton wearing an Ipod touch with laptop close at hand! Sorry Michelle a little recontextualization
would have been nice.. What is this the “special olympics” oops!
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
“Green is the new black”Not yet it isnt!
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Our first lady, Mrs. Obama, “toiling the field” proved to be a bit problematic for me as well, notwithstanding the green movement behind the whole concept.
I instantly thought of a story recently in the news about Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose resigning after sending a racist email with a picture of a watermelon patch on the White House front lawn. I avoiding going any further with those thoughts knowing that Mrs. Obama cannot dictate her actions based on the avoidance of fulfilling some racist stereotype. There are so many potential ones, she will be restricted to doing nothing, or something mirroring Laura Bush.
Yet I do think she should have had someone out there with her, perhaps Alice Waters, the natural foods activist who was featured on 60 Minutes last week. Waters voiced how she’d been pushing for a White House garden for years.Would have contextualized it a bit more.
March 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 pm
As for digging in the soil, why is it associated with shame and “ignant work”? Well, we didn’t set that reel to rollin’ (btw, see Rebirth of A Nation if it comes your way). Working the land used to be associated with honor. No, that little motion picture is just something going around in our heads, because sitting in front of a laptop screen (my current activity) we now believe, is more indicative of sound thinking than helping things grow. Not First Lady Michelle’s fault really. We at the Langston Hughes African Ameican Film Festivaal showed “Rebirth” as a part of our Underground Railroad series. Experimental and pretty hip I’d say. Also, I might have waited until I was picking the winter collards with the touch of frost upon them. A chance to spread knowledge about collard greens, good stewardship of earth, the age of black folks’ wisdom about the earth and soil conditions. And . . . probably, only if I could count on strengthening the respect flowing towards this smart administration from the earthbound, strongly belief-conscious sector of the electorate - which somehow manages to vote counter-intuitively campaign after campaign. It’s becoming such a place of disconnect for we Americans since the people from Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary chase down a dream that will NEVER RETURN. Leaving the urban and suburban rest of us shaking our heads and holding pity in our hearts.
Ye ole “black man/black woman is my doorstep” routine is truly: a yawn.
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Hmmmm….very interesting. I am finding the comments relating Mrs. Obama planting vegetables to working the land (slavery) quite interesting and a bit disturbing. I myself would not have made that connection. Not to say that maybe there isn’t any validity in making that relation, but…sometimes I feel that African Americans bring themselves down with the images of the past instead of rising above them (maybe this doesn’t make sense to everyone).
The thing is, African Americans have a long way to go in terms of healing slavery/racial wounds and improving how they see themselves and other people like them. I grew up in America and lived here most of my life, but I sometimes do not relate to everything African American/Black American, and I know that the difference is culture. I wish that somehow, someway, every Black person in America knew their history, where they came from and why they should be proud and never look down on themselves or put images in their mind of someone planting a vegetable garden as “toiling the field” or “plantation like.”
Growing up I lived in the city (Philly), but we had an unusually great area to garden in our back yard and my parents planted tomatoes, greens and all kinds of vegetables and we even had a fig tree. I remember during the summer months just going to the back yard, picking whatever was ripe, washing it off and eating it. Until this day its one of my best childhood memories, and until this day I love veggies. It’s the kind of message she was trying to pass on–which is start the cycle of healthy eating and pass it down to your children.
It’s not that I don’t get where people are coming from, it’s just that I am coming from a different place I guess.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Mina there is absolutely nothing wrong with the first lady gardening!
getting kids involved etc.Personally I’m not as concerned with images of the past,
I am preoccupied with how we postition ourselves and define
our image in future.I expect something more futuristic from Michelle Obama.
A little more Octavia Butler,more discussion of renewable fuel sources,
More focus on the inter-relationship between natural and urban.
Organic foods,Bio-fuels, solar energy. More discourse about earth as a conscious
living organism. etc.I want her to be bolder. I think she’s amazing and I’m grateful
for her presence.But I want more…
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
By the way, I grew up in the suburbs on “garden st” +almost every family had a garden,My mother and her 6 brothers and 5 sisters grew up on a farm in North Carolina. Never, not once did I associate that experience with slavery.Then or now.
Only with love, pride and the freedom of running, playing and knowing that as far as the eye could see,the land was owned by my family. It was a small farm aprox.
2000 acres, biggest mistake my familly made was selling that land.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 am
Correction:The farm was 200+ acres. Sorry : )
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:01 am
The Alice Waters idea is a good idea for a future photo opp, but the image of her with the youngsters was good in that it reminded me of her involvement with youth and youth just moving away (maybe - - some parents), in some cases, from “a salad from McDonald’s and Wendy’s chili is o.k”. President Obama once worked preserving social justice and stability, serving among the Common folk (you know, like Common taking the name of the masses) or Tupac expressing awareness of & solidarity with the disenfranchised among us. Keep the connections and pass along the good stuff (like “the system is battered-but-not-completely-busted” or having a knowledge of the constitution sufficient to get our money back through taxation from the one And two million dollar bonus people). The deal is that the Obama first family seems to understand a bit of down-to-earth never hurt anybody. Many of our American populace still do stuff where you bend over and beads of sweat trickle down under your armpits. In these difficult days it’s interesting to find a first family who do not feel completely aloof from our toil not to mention our truths.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:26 am
When CNN covered they story, they inserted a clip of Alice Waters talking about her excitement at Michelle Obama planting a garden - they talked about how Waters sent a letter to every president since Bill Clinton to ask for the re-emergence of the Victory Garden that Eleanor Roosevelt planted during her day. Hillary said “heck to the no,” as did Laura Bush. Only the Obamas took Mr. Waters letter proposal and said, “Yeah - we need to do this.”
I didn’t see MO’s planting as connected to the slave image either. I thought of my grandmother, and my recent ancestors from North Carolina - like Danny Hamilton. I also thought about - oh geez - I gotta get my garden weeded and ready for the season! The story put me on point. The imagery - with the working with school children - reminded me to have my girls weed the front flower garden, and that I need to hit Home Depot to get dirt and peat moss for the season.
Back to the slave image - what struck me was this: part of the coverage of MO - she was digging a bit, then she stood up and said, “We almost done yet? I’m tired!” From there, they switched to the overall layout for the garden, and what would be planted — and it was crystal clear (at least to me) that MO was not going to be doing the planting. lol!
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 am
I just read your most recent comments, “Growing” about Michelle Obama and the hats we feel compelled to wear in a myriad of situations.
You know, we used to have a connection with each other, our shared Otherness from the status quo, which I guess does not exist anymore from the perspective of some of us who have achieved. An expressed formality acknowledges “independent” success. Perhaps you are correct, and deserve to be treated by fellow African Americans in an anonymous/businesslike manner. Is that what we are striving towards?
I’m amazed that Michelle Obama would make such a statement, unaware that its meaning could be so ambiguous.
My peeve is with the many African American who criticize names like Shaynequa, Raydell, etc., claiming that these children will be unacceptable with these names as adults in the workforce. The names seem to be quite acceptable in professional sports. I think these critics are absolutely wrong, and the most prominent example is Baraka Obama.
These “ghetto” mothers are naming these children out of love, just like the parents of john, bill and sam did centuries ago. Shaynequa, has more meaning to me than Sally. I applaud their creativity and courage to name their children as they please, the same way Europeans did. Socrates?
Apparently Baraka Obama’s mom was less concerned with his name than with his education and his character. That is what I concentrate on with my two children. They both have African names that do have specific meanings, but more importantly, I wanted them to have names that would be special to them as adults.
I believe we must stop aquiescing to racism and bigotry. While we must discard some hateful ways we treat each other, we must hold on to many wonderful aspects of our culture regardless of the fact that others ridicule us for it. If it were not our names, it would be something else. Look at Angelina Jolie’s lips, and the cruel irony that we have been demeaned for centuries for full lips.
I agree with you, there are times when it is appropriate to speak in different ways, but we give up too much. I teach my daughter to articulate in whole sentences instead of “whatever” or “like” which white girls use too often.
Look at poor, psychologically damaged Michael Jackson. He may have had reasons for the skin color change, I don’t want to judge. But the nose and lips are a rejection of his African (human) self it appears to me.
Finally, I like your blog. It has depth, and is worth reading. Thank you my sister (if I may) for the opportunity to comment.
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Hi Rosemary, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I don’t think blacks become anonymous or lose their humanity unless they speak ‘black.’ It’s the ideas someone’s communicating, their intentions and actions that should or should not create a personal link between them and others. Blacks from the mid-west ‘talk black’ differently from blacks in New York. Blacks on the West coast have a different sound from blacks in the south. Jamaicans ‘talk black’ but differently than Trinidadians. Talking black’ is going to increasingly include a very very broad range of options. The world is opening up and different cultures are cross pollinating each other. Finding unity in difference will be the key and in that I think there’ll be more promise than pain. As for what people name their kids, that’s evolving too. The younger the kids, the more inventive their names are.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Hi Mina, you know this comment section can be like a game of telephone where the message changes more and more as it moves from person to person! I never felt that Michelle Obama looked like a slave. That’s coming out of this message thread more than my posting. I do know that the TV frame she was in as she planted and dug enabled racist jokes, and my sensitivity to that made it difficult to watch but funny thing, what made watching her struggle to lift that shovel tough for me was the way it colluded with the notion of the black woman being a heavy laborer. One of the aspects that black women most appreciate about Michelle Obama is how she rescues our femininity. Esther Armah mentions this in Byron Hurtt’s movie, ‘Barack & Curtis.’ Anyway, I better dash — dinner time! More later…
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Thank you for taking the time to respond Jen. However, my comments were all over the place and I may have been confusing. But I was not addressing ‘black talk.’ I was trying to speak to the familiarity we sometimes share with each other (sister, girl) that I am suggesting emanates from our sense of shared oppression.
I must admit, I am offended now and then by the looks I get from other African Americans who seem to dare me to say hello, or acknowledge them at all. They appear to be saying “I am a human being, not your brother or sister.” It feels as though they give honor only to the memory of Dr. King for the progress we as a people have achieved. They do not have understanding or acknowledge that there were thousands, millions of ordinary people who put their lives on the line during the civil rights era for the changes that have occurred–that now allows them inclusion in a world community.
I remember marching in a civil rights march when I was just a little girl, and wondering if we would ever make it across a huge bridge that went on forever. But I felt extraordinarily alive and a part of something exceedingly important, even though I thought we had failed when King and Malcolm were taken.
It’s not about black talk for me at all, it’s about respect, love and compassion for all people–but can’t we begin with just a little bit for each other?
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Creating common ground is a constant process. It’s possible everywhere, between everyone. Excuse me for being so gray, but I’ve moved around all my life from a young age and have the instincts and moods of a bird. Nothing’s inevitable, but some outcomes are possible with work. Lots of work. As for people who are unfriendly who may be African-American, ’soy-guh’ as my grandmother used to say. People who need privacy in public don’t bother me. Depending on the kind of day I’m having, I can be one of them.
On the subject of oppression, I have to break that conversation up into smaller pieces to manage it. At any given moment, what’s oppressing me shifts. Sometimes it’s the news. Or the economy. Or this damned cold weather on the east coast that just won’t ease up. Other times it’s finances or family demands or an extremely tight elevator. You know, one of the reasons I do this blog is to break free and and offer a really good ride to anyone who wants to ride with me.
March 24th, 2009 at 1:17 am
“Let’s hear it for vegetables!” Obama cheered. “Let’s hear it for fruits!”
are, for me, lessons in the abstract. These elations catch the flash,
a green lingo from our “black first lady,” who, re-captured (via the Washington Wire) as one who “wore a black sweater dress, black stretch
pants and patent-leather boots that were covered with dirt, [who] told the students to “be really ready for dirt.”
I, too, am really ready for dirt, shoveled up, broken into, out of the earth of a green patch, where this un-chile’s layers of hair shine in the sun.
But in the gleaming, how can I be so uncareful as to think shovel not spade, not spy a sista in a field without the cyst leaking from another dig?
“….and judging from her hips and her wide a$$, this is the first time she’s been this close to vegetables.” Spun out of another comments section
into what I love about blacksnextdoor, is that it makes me dip in and around to think about Blackness, to find bird-like, too. Thank the lawd!
Oppression’s subtle back-image, the brilliant re-capture, to ponder
“greens in the Green” as soft black patent leather soles press in soil.
April 3rd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
http://postcolonialweb.org/uk/ishiguro/rodcolonize.html
hegemony and local resistance are paradoxical. The Sub-Saharan African’s entry into Western European culture, including of course US, was not by choice but by brutal force. Now post-colonialism, he/she is faced with the problematic issue of assimilation of the Western Tradition. The Western Tradition is the evolution of the pracitical sciences, workable business speech and protocol etc. It is also historically anti-black and imperialist.
To reduce things to specious binaries like “talking black or white” is conventional but crude. “Blackness” is an imaginary line drawn around people of vastly different cultural histories and material practices..it’s a THEY term which doesn’t help in the progress of mending the scars of the Colonial period.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
This post is deep. The comments make it even more profound. I am a fan of Michelle Obama’s style and poise. She has a huge responsibility as the First Lady.
However, I find myself thinking more and more that so many of us are analyzing and internalizing every move she makes, and if she does something we wouldn’t do, then we are offended. This is bordering on voyeurism. Every move the First Family makes (for the most part) is planned out and has a purpose. They are not in the White House solely to boost the self-esteem of our community.
Jen, two phrases you wrote are seriously inspiring me to write a post…the concepts of “versatility to survive” and “greens in Green” - if I write them, I will let you know/trackback.