Delorys Welch-Tyson's Open Salon Blog

AN AIR OF MENDACITY

Tue, 29 May 2012 04:05:21 -0400

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipvQEuRsdOs

Although we lived in the North, my family maintained property in both Mississippi and Alabama for generations. My mother’s family originates in Alabama and my Dad’s family, Mississippi. Although my two brothers and I were born and raised in New York City, we spent most of our childhood summers in Alabama on my maternal grandparents property in Escambia County, Alabama.

I was born in 1951.

Of course I remember the years when we had to change train cars after Washington DC to the Colored Section, and other weird manifestations of Jim Crow Laws during our visits to the South.

This all ended…basically… after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed major discrimination against Black Americans and women. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.

That was over fifty years ago.

Although my memories of our Southern holidays are more positive than disturbing, I have put those disturbing memories in their proper place.

In the past.

My bothers, who were born in 1955 and 1957 have hardly any memories of Jim Crow at all.

It has been documented that Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, was born in 1969. Five years after the passing of the United States Civil Rights Act.

Ida E. Jones, the national director of the Association of Black Women Historians, released an open statement criticizing The Help in An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help. The letter stated that "despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers".

Also, "The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment."

The whole book project around the Help, seemed rather disingenuous to me, from the very beginning.

Nevertheless, The Help was awarded the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Books_Boeke_Prize) in 2009.

Again it’s beginning to look as if somebody’s “biting offa my history with a ‘high five.’”http://open.salon.com/blog/maxwell_dumaurier/2010/08/09/roots_with_a_twist

But then what do I know. I could be getting it all wrong.

Read it. Tell me what you think!

DIVIDE AND RULE

Sun, 20 May 2012 08:05:25 -0400

google images)

So, today I ran across this headline:

"CANNES FILM FESTIVAL SLAMMED BY FEMINIST GROUP LA BARBE FOR EXCLUDING WOMEN DIRECTORS"

(The feminist group La Barbe which started several years ago in response to the sexist media treatment of Segolene Royal in her race against Nicholas Sarkozy, has taken on one of the most sexist film establishments, the Cannes Film Festival for its exclusion of female directors from this year's competition. They are kind of like the Guerilla Girls in that they dress up in beards and as they say "crash high level meetings to protest male supremacy.")

This is my assessment of the situation:

Divide and Rule:

In politics and sociology, divide and rule (derived from Latin divide et impera) also known as divide and conquer is a combination of political, military and economic strategy of gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into chunks that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures and prevents smaller power groups from linking up.

Elements of this technique involve:

creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects in order to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign

aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign
fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers
encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political and military spending

Historically this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories.

As a Black American let me give you Mother Africa as an example:

art by Ben Heine

The divide and conquer strategy was used by foreign countries in Africa during the colonial and post-colonial period.

Germany and Belgium ruled Rwanda and Burundi in a colonial capacity. Germany used the strategy of divide and conquer by placing members of the Tutsi minority in positions of power. When Belgium took over colonial rule in 1916, the Tutsi and Hutu groups were rearranged according to race instead of occupation. Belgium defined "Tutsi" as anyone with more than ten cows or a long nose, while "Hutu" meant someone with less than ten cows and a broad nose. The socioeconomic divide between Tutsis and Hutus continued after independence and was a major factor in the Rwandan Genocide.

Another example:

During British rule of Nigeria from 1900 to 1960, different regions were frequently reclassified for administrative purposes. The conflict between the Igbo and Hausa made it easier for the British to consolidate their power in the region.

Regional, ethnic, and religious splits remain a barrier to uniting Nigeria, today.

Where am I going with this, you ask?

You see, my analysis of the Cannes film festival situation and the film industry in general is this: perhaps if we women weren’t so bogged down in ideological wars between Lesbians and Straights, none of this kind of thing would be happening... on such an international level, no less!.

Afterall, women are a majority group, right?

Talk to you later...

ALL UP IN MY KOOL-AID AND DON'T EVEN KNOW THE FLAVA'

Fri, 11 May 2012 21:05:54 -0400

(google images)

Recently, a person wrote me asking how I handled racism in the South of France. This person claimed they had lived here and found the people extremely racist to the point of driving him out of the country. The writer claimed that he was East Asian and Caucasian.

When I asked him to describe his experiences, I never heard from him again.

He ran away. Puff!

Numerous persons of color…all kinds of colors, let me tell you… have asked me about French racism assuming that I would be qualified to discuss racism in France simply because I’m Black.

I am an American.

I consider myself an expert on racism in America as an eighth generation (on my Mom’s side, even more on my Dad’s), Scots, Irish, Seminole, African decent American citizen, but am not arrogant enough to believe I am able to discuss something that exists in France between it’s Caucasian citizens and its immigrants from the former colonies….somebody’s former colonies, anyway.

Whatever racism which exists in France I’m sure is being worked out among its citizens as it was in America over a 500 year period of racial terrorism inflicted on a small racially mixed minority group called Nig___rs, Negros…uh, Colored people…um Afro…um Blacks Ummmm……

Anyway, the Black people of America who were imported in chains to build the very infrastructure of a new Western, Eurocentric society had to find a way with very little help from the outside world to assert its humanity in their own country. No one ever threatened American with divestiture, for example, due to its human rights violations of the Negroes of the US.

We had to do it ourselves.

Racism in America, is violent, institutional, simultaneously blatant and subtle and is incredibly, incredibly Butch! You know?

Why ask me about French people? Ask the colored French people about French people.

Perhaps there is certain nobility which surrounds people who have risen above oppressive regimes the way Black Americans have, which might elicit envy among others, who have no idea of who you are except for Will Smith movies, Mike Tyson, Martin Luther King speeches and Jazz music. As a result they try to *“bite offa yo’ history” with a “high five.”

*BITING:

(Definition: Copying in a plagiaristic context, though mainly just unoffical fad-related things; such as made-up words, clothing styles, types of music, etc.

ie: "Dude, those kids are totally biting on my style!"

~The Urban Dictionary)

What bothers me in France is far more complex than the so-called racial issues.

My problem is, why do the people in the North of France look at those of us who choose to live in the South of France, as right wing country bumpkin imitations of residents of the 16^th arrondissement in Paris?

Answer that one, instead of trying to “steal my kool aid”.

Get it?

I Want To Be Your Friend

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:04:54 -0400

‘What’s the matter, Martin? You seem very agitated.’ asked Harry Belafonte.

‘Well, I am, because I’ve come upon a thought that I don’t know how to deal with at this moment.’, Martin Luther King Jr. replied.

‘Well, what is it?’

Martin said, ‘We’ve fought long for integration. It looks like we’re gonna get it. I think we’ll get the laws,” he says. “But I’m afraid that I’ve come upon something that I don’t know quite what to do with. I’m afraid that we’re integrated into a burning house"

SOME WEIRD SH_T TO SHARE WITH YOU!

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:04:10 -0400

This time courtesy of the Swedes...

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/clitoridectomy-cake

This leaves me speechless to say the least..

Well...not really

Swedish Artist Kakode Linde

Sometimes the public can become so bogged down with concepts of racism that it can miss the entire point while creating controversy.

There is an old proverb that goes: When the axe came into the Forest, the trees said "The handle is one of us"

My question is: What would the public response have been if the cake was cut, more appropriately, by an African woman as opposed to the Swedish female participant in the event?

Swedish Minister of Culture Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, cutting "the Clitorectomy Cake"

I ask you... as a former art gallery owner and artist, myself ...what on earth does African Female genital mulitation have to do with Scandinavia?

Have a great day! A really, really great day!