Afrofuturism and "Trans"

Afrofuturism: Black Science Fiction - Nnedi Okorafor

To start off this interesting debacle at the Bruce D. Nesbitt African-American Cultural Center (or as everyone calls is BNAACC or even more commonly Black House), I arrived a few minutes before the talk was supposed to start. There were very few seats left and the space was awkward to maneuver around. This is not BNAACC's fault, we all have shitty facilities and we do what we can with them. But this talk was part of the "Lunch on Us" series. As I said previously, I usually avoid these talks because they often are bad. But the topic of black sci-fi doesn't come up every day so I thought I would check it out.

BNAACC had pb+j's as well as cereal. It is cool in theory, but once you add trying to balance a bowl, milk, sandwich, cup with water, backpack, and coat/notebook/anything else you might be carrying... It was awkward. I spent the first five-ten minutes trying to figure myself out. I had to put the bowl down and take off my coat and then get up and reposition and get water and then sit down and then pick everything up for someone who wanted to get out... I ended up spilling milk on myself and the ground and then had to get up to find a napkin or paper towel... ugh.


If there was any lecturing taking place I would've missed it, but luckily there was ten minutes of announcements... -_- This worked for me because I was figuring my life out (and by life I'm referring to  cereal and pb + j). But if I had decided food was irrelevant and was ready to learn, I would've been waiting and hearing every schmo's two-cents about their upcoming internship opportunity, community vote, and zit they recently popped. I only was focused for about two-three minutes of announcements and I was already done. It was a waste of valuable time.

Anyway... when Nnedi Okorafor actually started to talk, I was impressed. She started off by giving a brief list of black sci-fi authors to look into: Sam Delaney, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson. She also explained the differences between fantasy (mystical, unexplained) and science fiction (technology, science). Then there was a blurb for an anthology we could look into called AfroSF. It contains sci-fi written by Africans. That would be interesting to investigate.

Nnedi then started to talk about her life. She grew up in South Holland, Illinois and said it was very racist during the 80's. She would go to Nigeria every year and was astounded that race had no significance there (although their big issue was tribalism). She attended UIUC and ran track and then was diagnosed with scoliosis after her freshman year. She had surgery and was supposed to be fine but ended up being paralyzed from the waist down. She had to go through rehab and teach herself how to walk again. While she was going through rehab she had a lot of down time and started to write to escape her bed. Then she kept writing.

What I loved was when Nnedi started discussing the fears that come with being a black writer.

- Fear of being too black. This includes revealing your black name. She said if there is an African name and the audience can't pronounce it, they will probably not read the story. She also related it to J.K. Rowling not revealing her name out of fear that young boys wouldn't read Harry Potter.

- Fear of showing your black picture on the cover. They worry about sales dropping when they see a black person on the book sleeve or inside cover.

- Fear of writing a black planet. This one relates to sci-fi, but the idea that the majority is black or an entire culture is black. She later tied this into her character development and maintaining black characters.

Another interesting anecdote came up when Nnedi discussed the cover art for her novel "The Shadow Speaker." She brought up the point that we assume characters are white until further notified. She knows of this and continually mentions the dark skin of her heroine throughout her story. But when the cover came back to her it showed a white woman in the desert. She was outraged and had them retry. They sent the same cover back but had darkened her skin a bit on Photoshop. She was still outraged and asked for them to re-do it. But they said they had no black people in their stock archives. HA. That was ridiculous to me... but it was not surprising. Anyway, they re-shot a cover with a black girl and Nnedi was still upset because her character was supposed to be bald but decided it was a compromise she could live with.

So I just keep rambling and going but at the end of this all I was intrigued and inspired by black sci-fi. You don't see a lot of it (the same goes with most black media in America) and when you do it often never focuses on Africa (except for Egypt and S. Africa). This recent work I've been doing has been dealing with black and white and Africa hadn't crossed my mind. ...it did, but I don't think it's going to come into play anytime soon in this series of work. I just want to read now...

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Trans Screening ...

This movie sucked ass.

trailer: http://vimeo.com/34482159#

Should I even say more about it? I don't know, maybe I am biased from my history in LGBT issues, but I feel like this film pretended as if it would shine a light onto trans* issues. If it did anything it was teach a very very simplified (in a bad sense) view of transgender people and fed into stereotypes.

First, the cinematography was similar to local downtown shopping adds (it looked like local furniture store quality) and the editing was horrendous. We would suddenly switch back and forth from 6-10 (I lost track) stories of different transgender people and then suddenly someone else would be brought back into the mix and it was a mess of confusion that made me want to leave the room. The music was all royalty-free music that could probably be found on iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. It was horrendous and was used poorly in a way that made these serious topics almost appear a mockery or a joke.

Technical aspects aside, the content was poor too. They only focused on people who felt a full shift from male to female or female to male and relied on stereotypes to reinforce that switch. The little boy who "loves to play with dolls and wear dresses" or the girl who "played with trucks and liked sports." It is a very limiting and generalizing view of transgender.

They didn't mention any other parts of trans* identities. (I found out a few weeks ago that you should put a * after trans to include everyone on the gender spectrum. Always want to be inclusive.) They had males who became females and got vaginas made and they had females who became males and had their breasts removed and looked into penis grafting and such. But what about the females who never get a penis or their breasts removed? What about males who get breasts but keep their penis and still consider themselves trans? What about someone who one day feels like a man and dresses the part and the next day feels like a woman and dresses the part? What about them?

Apparently there is only female to male or male to female.

Eh, at the end of this story I was disappointed and would not recommend this film to anyone ever.

But my teeth look good and Alejandra looks cute.

Lincoln's Legal Career

I made my way over to the Rare Book & Manuscript Library and was astounded by how nice my shoes sounded on the third floor of the Main Library. It must have been from the silence echoing through the deserted hallway. I thought this over for a long while.

As I entered into the room I was impressed by the layout of the conjoining rooms. I assumed that they were viewing rooms. There were large glass windows with empty tables behind them. Being rare books and manuscripts they want to make sure people don't damage them or steal them. Constant surveillance. But it makes for a sexy library.

A man from the library introduced the lecturer, Guy Fraker, and put in a lot of Lincoln humor. "Lincoln's birthday was eight score and six days ago." "Buy this postcard set, it will only set you back a Lincoln (aka $5)." I thought it was funny. Oh yes, it was also President's Day. Everyone in the room was a total Lincoln-phile. President's Day is like their Christmas.

So Guy Fraker (who got a BA and JD at UIUC) started to introduce himself and talked about his admiration for the library at UIUC and how he is a lawyer not a writer so he needed a lot of help writing his book. Eventually he started to talk about Lincoln. Fraker stated that the mission of his book was to give Central Illinois credit for putting Lincoln in the White House.

The rest played out as a very specific history lesson. Let me summarize into the things I found most interesting:

- Lincoln cared about keeping the Union alive and abolishing slavery. When he said Union he meant democracy more so than just a group of states. Also, it is a misconception that Lincoln didn't care about slavery. Lincoln's views on equal rights for all races was a little less equal but he did view the act of owning another person as evil and immoral.

- Lincoln was one of the few lawyers who went on the whole county circuit. Most would hit up one or two counties, but he hit up all 14(?) counties. He would be gone for eleven weeks, twice a year, so twenty-two weeks total. Many thought he did this because he didn't like staying at home with his wife, Mary. She had to raise the kids all on her own. Then she went crazy.

- The county circuit was Springfield - Tazwell - Woodford (where I'm from) - McClean - Lacon - Monticello - Champaign - Danville - Paris - Shelby - Sullivan - Decatur - Taylorville. From this I learned that Champaign County was the second smallest until the railroads and the University were built.

- Also, alcohol was a bigger issue than slavery in Illinois because no one in Illinois owned slaves. Most of his circuiting was for alcohol distribution rights.

- A lot of the people he knew on the circuit court encouraged him and helps get him votes to become President. 

Really this was just a fun little history lesson about Lincoln's time in Illinois. They had cake, but I didn't eat any. I was definitely one of two people that were not librarians, histories, or some other form of high scholar. I made a swift getaway.

They were selling his book. I did not drop any Lincolns for it though...

4000 Years for Choice - Heather Ault

I have been semi-attending the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations "Lunch on Us" series for the past couple of years and what I have generally found is that they are current MFA or PhD candidates giving us a proposal of a theory they have. I generally do not learn much and then end up feeling like I am stealing food from the University. I steer clear of these lunches.

But "4000 Years for Choice" was a lunch and lecture made in heaven. I was so impressed.

The lecture took place in the Women's Resource Center (which is unfortunately hidden by Coco Mero diminishing visibility and access) and when I entered the center the first thing I noticed was they were serving Indian food.

Destiny.

I had walked past Bombay Indian Grill on the way and muttered to myself, "Maybe I should skip this lecture and get Indian food." But I convinced myself to attend, BAM! Life kicked in and rewarded me with naan and eggplant curry.

So anyway.... The lecture was being led by Heather Ault, a local designer who got her MFA in New Media here at U of I. That was pleasant surprise #1. She had also done some classes (maybe got her BFA? it was unclear) at Humboldt State... Luke Batten, lololol. Pleasant surprise #2. Lastly, she wasn't awful and presented sleek, sexy materials that promoted positivity and a re-approaching of the activism movement. And that was all I learned within the first ten minutes.

She talked about how she focused on four segments of pro-choice activism to re-imagine the way people protest for pro-choice organizations. History, Images, Language, and Spaces. I will try to briefly sum that up:

History - can date back at least 4000 years to Ancient Egypt, books in the 30s, Roe v. Wade in 1973, and most people surveyed today think that contraceptives were created within the last 40 years
Images - pro-life and pro-choice campaign photos, historical ads for syringes/sponges/condoms, cartoons, focused on fallopian tubes rather than the fetus image
Language - National Abortion Rights Action League vs 40 Days for Life, looked at emails sent by them, language they used, Battle vs. Story, mobilization vs. persuasion, saw that pro-life emails were more positive
Spaces - transformed posters into signs, professional-looking signs (people thought they were pro-life because of how professional they looked)

Then I had to go to make it to class and missed the last ten minutes.

Ault did not look at the pro-choice movement from the tradition lens of "WE ARE OPPRESSED! WE HAVE NO RIGHTS! WE ARE BEING MARGINALIZED!" but instead from a positive "WE ARE PROUD! WE ARE STRONG! WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE!" This positive we-succeed instead of we-need attitude caught my attention and from researching the "4000 Years for Choice" project other people have noticed too. I want to follow in Ault's footsteps and use my work in a way that is positive about what I am fighting for and not victimizing myself... because honestly people get bored with that and end up resenting the person crying about how their woes are worse than everyone else's.

Me before the lecture

Me after the lecture

I also learned a ton about the sexy history of contraceptives.

;-D win win.

Keith Boykin

I had heard a little bit of Keith Boykin in passing from various campus leaders that I work with from time to time, and I was intrigued by what he would have to say when he came to Champaign-Urbana. But I didn't want to get my hopes up too much because sometimes these quasi-celebrity guest speakers just disappoint.

And then half the class was there.

Keith Boykin did not disappoint.

First of all, he spoke well. He was intelligent and funny and spoke with a clear organization and he was not just interested in talking up his new book (which basically was the reason he was here). Second, he had a purpose and actually cared about what he was talking about and who he was talking about. Lastly, he has lived through some prominent moments of LGBT history and has worked on some of the strides (and setbacks) for the fight for LGBT rights. 

Half the class was present for this lecture, so that was cool.

Keith's lecture was kind of set up like a timeline of his life and the moments he encountered. I'm not going to go into all the details but Keith's life in short was born in St. Louis, a series of moving around, college in New Hampshire, worked on Dukakis campaign, taught for a little bit outside of Atlanta, was a consultant for a little bit in St Louis, went to Harvard Law, worked on the Clinton campaign, worked for Clinton administration, wrote some books, did political commentary, reality shows, etc. For a more detailed bio of his life check his Wikipedia page. Unless you're not into Wikipedia... then my summary will have to do.

While Keith's story was fascinating I found myself thinking heavily about a couple of key points that Keith brought up.

He had been participating in a live discussion on Huffington Post about an op-ed re-questioning if gay is the new black previously in the day and the point was made that even gay people can be racist. But Boykin responded, "It should not be about who is more oppressed, it's that nobody should be oppressed at all."

I recalled my work from junior year in which I questioned myself as a white man in the realm of 'diversity.' Was I allowed at this table of diversity if I had privilege in 3 or 4 realms? Was my sexuality enough to bump me enough to be "diverse?" This thought has continued to mold my work over the past couple of years and will probably always influence my work and everything I do. But I really connected with Boykin on this statement and how he thought it was relevant in today's society. We like to one-up each other by acting like we are worse-off, but if we are suffering, does it matter how much?

Boykin also quoted Audre Lorde,

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

This quote was empowering and shot momentum through my body. I want to do more and not worry about my fear. Besides, in 40 years there will be people looking back who were protesting these big issues (marriage, civil rights) and say "What was I thinking?" Boykin brought up the iconic picture of Elizabeth Eckford and how the angry women following her look back today and know that they were wrong. It will be the same in the years ahead.

He also said NEVER COMPROMISE ON YOUR BELIEFS! He was referring to Obama and Clinton. Clinton passed Defense of Marriage Act to appeal to conservative voters, Obama negotiated health care to appeal to conservative voters. In the end, the conservative voters did not vote for Clinton or Obama. Basically he said if you were on the right, be on the right, on the left, be on the left. True dat.

Keith Boykin said a lot of things that were thought-provoking and inspiring. He sort of made a call to action to help out those who are bullied and upset that they would consider taking their lives. He focused on how to participate in making change and he did it well, which makes all the difference.

Here's a little video of the beginning of his coming out story.