Towards
Atonement: Revolutionary Struggles and Gender Impartiality
Part 1: A Realistic
Spirituality
WHAT IS SEXISM?
The Gospel According To
Dr. Phil Valentine
“Sexism is
heterosexuality and only lesbians and dykes complain about sexism.”
“The overwhelming
evidence seems to suggest that gender based hierarchies and gender
subordination combined with structural racism are being reinforced by
globalization. African women are among the most severely affected.” -
(Steady, 2002)
REVOLUTIONARY ISLAM
The Gospel According To
Dr. John H. Clarke
“You can be a
Moslem if you want to, but understand that the Afrikan created a revolutionary
Islam. In Arab Islam, no woman ever rose to state power, even today. In Afrikan
Islam the women hold state power.”
DIE FOR YOUR CHILDREN
The Gospel According To
Brother Amin
”My
willingness to die for my children makes me a parent. My willingness to die for
'your' children makes me a warrior.”
THE IMAGE OF GOD
The Gospel According To
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
“The most disastrous aspect of colonization, which you
are the most reluctant to release from your mind, is their colonization of the
image of God!”
“We have to realize
that the conventional image of God has to be destroyed so that the deeper
reality of God can be experienced.” – (David Tacey, The Spirituality
Revolution: The emergence of contemporary spirituality)
“Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes” –
(Confucius)
“An answer brings no
illumination unless the question has matured to a point where it gives rise to
this answer which thus becomes its fruit. Therefore learn how to put a
question.” – (Ancient Kemetic{Egyptian} Sayings of Ptahhotep)
“Fear and bravery are
not as mutually exclusive as some would have us believe. As I go into danger, I
feel both at once. Is it brave to overcome ones fear, or just curiosity about
human potential?” – Gilbertus Albunus, A Quantitative Analysis of Emotions
Sexing The Art
Lately I have been rather preoccupied with an artist by the
name of Frank Ocean, a stage name that fits him so aptly. He is the talented
R&B singer, pianist that has been blazing the Hip Hop and Rhythm and Blues
charts with a highly polished yet refreshingly ‘Frank’ approach to song writing
and a disturbingly off-kilter style of cinematography. One of the songs from
his debut album Channel Orange is titled Pink Matter and it features the
equally lyrically handsome and wit-some Andre 3000. The lyrics and even the
mood of the song are as somber and as languid as a mindless, loveless fuck.
Frank begins thusly: “…What is a woman/
she is just a container for the child…” These lyrics had me thinking quite
deeply and I saw in them something more than the theme of the song which was
more or less of a ‘love song’.
The reason I begin with this is due to the fact that Art has
a deep-seated effect on the psychology of a people. Afrikan and Black art-forms
in particular have made a huge impression on the way we as Blacks are perceived
and this has had both negative and positive effects. From the earliest 20th
century, Rag-time to the Blues to what has been called the Jazz era, sex and
sexuality has always had a central role. Certain dogmatic and moralizing people
have even called Jazz the ‘devils music’; mindful of its origins in the
honky-tonk clubs, whore-houses and the sexual overtones of its lyrics and
sound. They were also decrying the fact that some of the most famous musicians
in Jazz and the Blues tended to hold nothing truly sacred. In the Deep
Amerikkkan South, Blues singers would interpret some of the moans, Afrikan
inspired groanings and Negro Spirituals into sex drenched popular hits. This
sexing of the spirit was seen as a social corruption and immoral by the Bible
bashing Blacks of Amerika.
Yet there was no stopping the indefatigable sound of Jazz (a
word derived from jizm/sperm and has connections to the word orgasm and also
the intricate language of the ghetto trickster). As one of the prominent
Cultural and Jazz critics Stanley Clarke has written: “Hierarchy has always given Americans trouble. We believe that records
are made to be broken, or to be broken free of, which is why, along with that
pesky skin color, the Negroid elements central to jazz were rebelled against as
soon as possible.” The story of Jazz has also been intrigued with not just
sex, but also intense racial tensions.
Although Jazz is still very much alive, today this dual
purpose of musical art has evolved and finds itself expressed in the form
called Hip Hop and Neo-Soul. Frank Ocean falls somewhere into this category; As
the latest sex symbol, the 24 year old epitomizes the Amerikkkan dream of Sex,
Love and Money, the sacred trinity that drives, sells and sustains Pop culture
to a generation that is increasingly amnesiac.
The mixture of being black and
endowed with good looks, prodigious talent and plying a trade within a white
supremacist and male dominated system is a precarious condition. Added to all
of this are the suspicions, gleaned from some of his lyrics – that the young
Frank Ocean is actually openly bisexual. This somehow throws a spanner in the
works. The Hip Hop world has been stigmatized for its over-emphasis on
stereotypes of maleness, sexist depictions of mostly Black women with an
increasing trend towards the lighter skinned varieties. Many documentarians
have explored the implications of that mythic allure and ‘glow’ of white women,
their flowing hair, their golden and even pale-pink or tanned skin juxtaposed
against the phallic sexually imposing Black male. But few have ever dealt with
the connotations of homosexuality and bisexuality in this white owned and black
artists dominated industry.
The sexuality of a Pop star might not seem connected to an
analysis of patriarchy and sexism in the work of revolutionaries, but as I have
said before, music is a spiritual connecter. The lyrics mentioned above may or
may not expose the bisexual artist’s thoughts about the purpose of women, since
it may just be a simple articulation of wordplay. But then again, these are the
words which end up being repeated as mantras and affirmations by the boys and
girls through out the whole world. While neo-liberalism and the
over-determinism of free market capitalism may infect all aspects of life,
including romantic and sexual love, which makes up 90 percent of the songs in the
mainstream culture, the tendency is towards the superficial aspects of
sexuality. People have tended to worship the stars rather than to care deeply
about what they actually represent or what they are really promoting.
A case in
point is some people’s fascination with whether certain artists are members of
the occult Illuminati/Free Masonic sects, or have sold their souls to the
devil. These speculations have always been around in Popular music, but none of
these speculations truly address the gender imbalances in the white media
controlled and black dominated industry. The ones who propagate a more
conscious and even a militantly antagonistic approach to art are usually
silenced through the various avenues of career suicide, which are almost always
linked to Sex, Drugs and Money.
Basically the words of the most popular artists become
effectively the belief system of the youth or the listeners. A lot of people do
not analyze the ironies of artists such as R. Kelly, Beyonce and many others
who sell sexual promiscuity and expressiveness with a Christian Gospel stylized
under and overtone.
To many it’s nothing but music, yet music is a language, a
universal franchise that has a powerful influence in the psychology of impressionable
minds. If a woman is depicted as merely a romantic or sexual subject, there
will be no end to the objectification of gender-roles; there will be no end to
the biases that continue in our societies.
I think it was Thomas Sankara who said “There is no such thing as neutral writing.”
To some, the highly creative hedonism inherent in some of
these lyrics verges on pure misogyny, but yet again what would music sound like
without the poetic justice of word-play?
“dim the lights
& fall into you
my god giving me
pleasure
pleasure pleasure
pleasure
pleasure over
matter
(andré 3000)
since you been gone
i been having
withdrawals
you were such a
habit to call
i aint myself at
all had to tell myself naw
she’s better with
some fella with a regular job
i didn’t wanna get
her involved
by dinner mr.
benjamin was sittin in awe
hopped into my car
drove far
far’s too close
& i remember
my memories no
sharp
butter knife what a
life anyway
i’m building y’all
a clock stop
what am i hemingway
she had the kind of
body
that would probably
intimidate
any of ‘em that
were un-southern
not me cousin
if models are made
for modeling
thick girls are
made for cuddlin’
switch worlds &
we can huddle then
who needs another
friend/ i need to hold your hand
you’d need no other
man/ we’d flee to other lands/grey matter
blue used to be my
favorite color
now i aint got no
choice/ blue matter
you’re good at
being bad
you’re bad at being
good
for heaven’s sakes
go to hell
knock knock knock
knock on wood
well frankly when
that ocean so muphuckin good
make her swab the
muphuckin wood
make her walk the
muphuckin plank
make her rob a
muphuckin bank
with no mask on
& a rusty revolver”
-
Frank Ocean – Pink Matter
What this song does, is intelligently and wittily play upon
the stereotypes that characterize the relationships between boys and girls,
women and men. Note how the rapper Andre 3000 mentions that “blue use to be my favorite colour/now I
aint got no choice/blue matter…”;
He is virtually dealing with the
nurturing of boys and girls via the colour schemes of blue/pink et cetera. We often have no
choice concerning the things we say we prefer or like once we become adults,
but everything to do with a dominant world-view, in this case, that is the Eurocentric
colour-scheming.
We have been conditioned a certain way and that has nothing to
do with our biological or physical make-up. Some of these stereotypes have been
instilled via fairytales, traditional songs and of course the popular songs and
myths that have been entrenched by media and religious dogma. A lot of what we
think is naturally inherited and a result of biological development has been
nothing more than the prejudiced ideas of religious indoctrination.
Some men have said that the reason why there’s such an
increase in cases of rape, indeed South Afrika is now shamefully dubbed the
rape capital of the world where 4 out of 10 women has been sexually violated
and even grievously assaulted by a partner, a close relative or a stranger – is
because women are wearing pants and ‘flashing their thighs’ in mini-skirts.
This is ridiculous on many levels. Firstly, we are blaming pieces of clothing
on the moral degeneration of an entire generation. These men also conveniently
forget that in traditional Afrikan societies of the not so distant past, young
girls and women would wear very short apparel and even go bare breasted without
fear of being violated.
This is where the contradictions of imperialism,
neo-colonialism and a world determined by western initiated value systems loom
large. The Black man and woman are caught up in crossfire as dehumanized
participants in their own destruction. This is also where the concept of Ubuntu
needs to be correctly applied. Yet certain white opportunists and New Age
charlatans have abused this essentially Afrikan principle to a point whereby
most Black Consciousness adherents tend to totally reject it. It has lost all of
its revolutionary appeal as most calls for Ubuntu emanate from a moneyed and
comprador class of Blacks who are comfortable and safe behind religious and financially
sound walls.
Ubuntu thus appears to have lost its unifying and edifying appeal.
It has been reduced to charity when it is much more than that. When it should
be applied in many social and personal actions including the
intra-communication between men and women, it has been devalued through
commodification.
Contrary to this, here is what one of the preachers of
Ubuntu/Hunhu has to say in his book The
Sacred Gospel of Hunhu/Ubuntu: An African Philosophy of Oneness:
“Due to ignorance
concerning what ‘is’, munhu/umuntu is trapped in the endless cycle of
joy-sorrow, joy-sorrow, a tormenting spell. A man of ignorance sulks behind his
own shadow, suffering from fervent spates of insecurity. The lover of the Law (the
law of Maat) walks hand in hand with the king of peace being an heir to the
throne of eternal bliss.” – Simbarashe Simbarashe.
Elsewhere on the subject of the Seven Vices, Simbarashe
asserts:
“Hate arises from
fear. Hate feeds on fear. One can hate a song, an animal, a person, or even
oneself. Self hate is the peak of self deception, the summit of ignorance… Hate
is like drought, it causes much suffering, barrenness and death. The terrible
heat of hate dries up the spring of love flowing from the gentle heart. Hate
turns beauty into ugliness.”- (page 131-
The Sacred Gospel of Ubuntu/Hunhu)
What I mean to illustrate here is that although the propagators
of the message of Ubuntu have continued since time immemorial to sing the
elixir like praises of It; there appears to be no end to Afrikan societies
degeneration. This has dire implications on the relationships between males and
females. In the Zulu language there is
no word for He or She, there is a natural acknowledgement of the different
genders yet there is no clear antagonism between the two. Today we are living
in a much more complex society, wherein there are more than two biologically
distinctive sexes.
The purported democratic society has elevated the human
rights of all individuals into the mainstream and many cosmopolitan lifestyles
have trickled down into all spheres of society. Even though the ravages of
colonialism and industrialized society left no stone unturned in the lives of
the oppressed, families were divided, nature based customs and age old
traditions were uprooted – its harshest effects are felt and stomached by the
oppressed Black woman. Hence Thomas Sankara has said;
“Woman’s fate is bound
up with that of the exploited male. This is a fact. However, this solidarity,
arising from the exploitation that both men and women suffer and that binds them
together historically, must not cause us to lose sight of the specific reality
of the woman’s situation. The conditions of her life are determined by more
than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific
oppression. The specific character of this oppression cannot be explained away
by setting up an equal sign or by falling into easy and childish
simplifications.
It is true that both she and the male worker
are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current economic
system, the workers wife is also condemned to silence by her worker husband.” –
(Thomas Sankara Speaks*)
This debilitating silence that Sankara speaks about is
further exacerbated by a rigid adherence to obsolete traditional ways of life,
many aspects of which have no suitable place in modern society. But one still
finds women, especially the subservient and religious types who fervently
defend these oppressive mores by citing that they are morally sound and based
on the preservation of the family. Indeed many women would go through hell just
to preserve the ‘honour’ and image of their families and partners. This is what makes all work on patriarchy and
gender impartiality more complex, especially in conservative and so called
traditional societies.
Then again, Steve
Biko offers a theoretically simple yet practically difficult solution:
“As people existing in
a continuous struggle for truth, we have
to examine and question old concepts, values and systems. Having found the
right answers we shall then work for consciousness among all people to make it
possible for us to proceed toward putting these answers into effect. In this
process, we have to evolve our own schemes, forms and strategies to suit the
need and situation, always keeping in mind our fundamental beliefs and values.”
– (I Write What I Like -*)
Surely the fundamental beliefs and values that Biko is
talking about cannot be the same ones that have built and sustained the
capitalist world of free market competitiveness and aggressive public relations.
It is clear that Biko is dealing with the hard work of invigorating the
dehumanized subject of western oppression, the Black person, whose very
culture, lifestyle and psychology has been curtailed by an overwhelmingly white
male dominated system. This fundamental belief and value must surely be
contained within the seemingly ineffectual injunctions of Ubuntu, a principle
which although encompassing all of humanity has been distinctly attributed to
AbaNtu, the Black peoples of Afrika.
In our songs and other cultural expressions, the subjects
and politics of sex and sexuality are not shunned; contrarily, they are given
their proper place and contextual times and spaces. There is effectively a song
for every occasion. Some of the traditional hymns reflect the fact that much of
Afrika has been a matrilineal society. Please note that I say matrilineal and
not just matriarchal since there is no evidence to indicate that Afrikan
societies were based on a patriarchal or distinctively matriarchal system. The insistence
by western scholars and feminists included that Afrikan men are inherently
abusive towards their women is based on a racist and biased worldview that has
no foundation in fact. Prior to colonialism Afrikan societies tended to be in
harmony with environmental conditions and the roles of each member of the
community were based on merit and levels of initiation and giftedness.
There
are even places where certain women were married to more than one man and this
was not seen as Taboo as long as the woman’s position and status was recognized.
Hierarchy played no role in such arrangements. Everything is treated with
appropriate respect and no value is given to mere sensationalism or expressed
just for the sheer sake of profit of egotism. Matters of social justice are not
reduced to dualistic analysis of westernized gender standards since the ethical
imperative of Ubuntu is to sustain humanity and its natural relationships
without bias.
Most of what is called patriarchy within Black society is
nothing but a pathological reaction to the harsh conditions that the males and
females find themselves in. We have tended to simply perpetuate the stereotypes
lumped upon us. The oppressed become the oppressor at home and within their marginalized
societies.
Imagined Gender Roles
(Welcome to The Future)
The role of the arts n revolutionary work is quite a
substantial one, there is no denying the impact of the work of the likes of Peter Tosh, Lucky Dube,
Bob Marley, Fela/Femi/Seun Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Erykah Badu, Miriam Makeba,
Brenda Fassie, Busi Mhlongo and many more others in psychological and cultural
lives of society. But while there may be a few positive role models who
propagate revolutionary visions and messages, there are many more who promote
the vainglorious images misogyny and debauchery and that is simply because mass
media is selling sex and delusions. This is not only true of music, but in
various art-forms, the psycho-somatic engineering of society is a daily task
that generates huge amounts of money. The pornography industry is one such
avenue where both woman and men, and even girls and boys are exploited and
sometimes willingly exploit their own bodies for profit. Like the sector of
prostitution, the porn industry is a highly legislated and hotly contested
battlefield of ideas, where morality and human rights are often eschewed for
rational and even irrational decisions that have wide-ranging effects on global
society.
The sex industry has become one of the most profitable,
technical and contentious fields of scholarship, authorship and technological
advancement.
The roles that girls and women play in this field are widely
divergent. While we have the most exploited, forced and enslaved victims on the
one end, there are women who have a powerful influence behind the camera’s,
behind the sex shops, publications and all other forms of ‘sex-work’. Some of
these women who are now powerful Queens of the blue/red-light districts and
pleasure-industry started at the ‘bottom’, as prostitutes, secretaries, porn
artists until they ended up with ‘creative’ and business control. Where does
the intellectual and revolutionary vanguard place such women? It would be
simplistic to even assume that they are limited to a minority. It is another case of the victim evolving or
devolving to become a victimizer. (add research here).
One of the most visually stunning and mind-bending films to
ever appear on the contemporary scene was the Matrix Trilogy. I have read
somewhere that this film is actually based on a science fiction novel written
by a Black woman. Here’s some ‘proof’ of that:
“Sophia Stewart,
black author wins The Matrix Copyright Infringement Case:
-
A six year dispute has ended involving Sophia
Stewart, the Wachowski Brothers, Joel Silver and Warner Brothers. Stewart’s
allegations, involving copyright infringement and racketeering, were received
and acknowledged by the Central District of California, Judge Margaret Morrow
presiding./ Stewart, a New Yorker who has resided in Salt Lake City for the
past 5 years, will recover damages from the films. The Matrix I, II, III, as
well as The Terminator and its sequels. She will soon receive one of the
biggest payoffs in the history of Hollywood, as the gross receipts of both
films and their sequels total over 2.5 billion dollars.
-
Stewart filed her case in 1999, after viewing
the Matrix, which she felt had been based on her manuscript, “The Third Eye”,
copyrighted in 1981. In the mid-eighties Stewart had submitted her manuscript
to an ad placed by the Wachowski Brothers, requesting new sci-fi works.
-
Stewart has confronted skepticism on all sides,,
much of which comes from Matrix fans, who are strangely loyal to the Wachowski
Brothers. One online forum, entitled Matrix Explained has an entire section
devoted to Stewart. Some who have researched her history and writings are open
to her story.
-
Fans who have taken Stewart’s allegations
seriously, have found eerie mythological parallels, which seem significant in a
case that revolves around the highly metaphorical and symbolical matrix series.
Sophia, the ‘Greek’ goddess of wisdom has been referenced many times in
speculation about Stewart. In one book about the Goddess Sophia, it reads,: ‘the black goddess is the mistress of web
creation spun in her divine matrix.’”
-
Although there have been outside implications as
to racial injustice (Stewart is African American), she does not feel that this
is the case. “This is all about the Benjamins,’ said Stewart. “it’s not about
money with me, it’s all about justice.”
-
Stewart’s future plans involve a record label,
entitled Popsilk Records, and a motion picture production company, All Eyez On
Me, in reference to God.
‘I wrote the
The Third Eye to wake people up, to remind them why God put them here. There’s
more to life than money,’ said Stewart. ‘My whole – to the world is about God and good and about choice, about
spirituality over technocracy.’” – ( Cassiopaean Sandbox > Movies &
Trivia: Picks & Pans/www.truth
aboutmatrix.com/ www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp)
There is no need to further
explain the above, racism is just as essential to the perpetuation of sexism as
any other social ill. The cultural rejection of Black women is rampant in Pop
culture. As much as many Black women have virtually built some of the most
spectacular monuments of popular culture, their contributions have been denied
by the white-male dominated world. And in one of the many books that I have
been blessed with I gleaned this about the Matrix Trilogy and I had intended to
insert it in an essay I titled;
Gendered politics in the knowledge economy/ Information Technology Revolutions
and Sexism:
“In striking contrast to the virtual world of the Matrix is the
underground city of Zion. It depicts an advanced society, not only in terms of
technology, but also with respect to social justice. Racial and sexual equality
seem to be pervasive in Zion, with both men and women and people of all races
and shades in positions of power. This can be seen in the composition of the
governing council and in the crews of the hover craft fleet.
We see it as
Charra and Zee fight the machines in the frontlines – And the insignificance of
race and sex clearly goes beyond social positions. We find no signs whatsoever
of racial tensions in Zion, an the competence of women is never questioned.
Zion depicts the Wachowski’s (lmbao!) vision of a society of the future, and of
the social changes that might occur over the next century or two.
If Zion is a
social ideal, then interesting philosophical questions arise: Does Zion really
represent the ideal that we should strive for? And if not, how does it fall
short? And what relevance, if any, would race and sex have in the ideal society.”
– ( page 87, Virtual Bodies: The Construction of Race and Gender In The
Matrix: The Matrix and Zion: Contrasting Visions of Race and Gender – by
Matt Lawrence.
In order to reach a level of
atonement and become the revolutionaries that we hope to be, we have to begin
by recognizing the Matrix-like deceptions inherent in our daily lives. This is
the only way that racial and gender justice can be enjoyed. A group of angry
men and angrier women is not going to take us to a Zion* or zeitgeist moment.
We have to be willing to work out the social ills via a broadminded and
optimistic view of the world around us.
If we do not believe in each
others abilities as people, we have no hope of being in harmony with our
environment, animals and nature will continue to suffer from our ignorance of
the interconnections between us.
I wear an Ankh around my neck most of the time,
it is an Ancient Kushite and Egyptian/Kemetic symbol of union of opposites,
much like the Asian Yin and Yang, it depicts an image of man and woman in a
unified position. It has nothing to do with private expressions of sexuality
and public conduct, but everything to do with the Indivisibility of Life, the
Oneness, the togetherness that is conducive to our enjoyment and progress.
That
is something that money can’t buy and Pop culture cannot denigrate.
Within the pan-Afrikanist vision
of Black Consciousness inspired revolution, the Zion of the Matrix triology may
be just one example of the ideal world, but BC is not based on seeking any kind
of utopia, but it is pre-occupied with transforming the mentality of the
oppressed victim of white supremacy. In this broad based and multifaceted
vision of restoring Black dignity, there is no question about whether the
victim is a man or a woman, what matters is that the socio-economic and dominant
cultural conditions that affect both are radically transformed. If we work at
ending the root of the problem, which is Neo-liberal male centered white
supremacist racism in all its nefarious forms, we are assured that the relationship
between boys and girls, men and women will improve drastically. We shall no
longer view girls as naturally pink matter and boys as essentially blue matter,
in reality, such matters won’t matter.
Hutuapo!
Menzi Maseko ©
