Princess to Princess

Once again, the BBC World Service has managed to thwart my daily plans with one of their captivating interviews. I swear, they need to quit messing with my head AND my schedule.

Today's method of entrapment was an interview with the wildly popular songstress, widely referred to as the "Princess of Africa," Yvonne Chaka Chaka. Whenever I hear that name, I can't help think of "Chaka, Chaka, Chaka, Chaka Khan. Chaka Khan, let me rock you..."

But I digress. This south African singer is a living legend, for a lot of reasons. I just learned through a Google search for her photo that she was the first black South African child to appear on National TV in 1981, on a talent contest. It reminded me of my 1979 High School Senior Year Thesis/Outraged Lament about Apartheid.

So to hear that among her myriad accomplishments, Nelson Mandela calls Yvonne Chaka Chaka "daughter," feels pretty vicariously amazing. I bet that little girl belting her guts out on her path towards history never could have imagined that day would come. And just like with Sierra Leone's Foreign Affairs Minister Zainab Bangura, Yvonne's mother insisted on education, even though she was a mouthy little rascal who almost got her mother fired from her job as a maid.

Again, I could relate. Not with being mouthy, but with having a mother who who was a maid. Apparently, little Yvonne had the audacity to ask the white South African lady of the manor why she and her mother lived in one-room squalor, while Mrs Afrikaaner and her Krew were rocking a spacious crib. Yvonne recalled her mother snatching her up and warning her not to make "her White lady" mad.

I like a kid with spunk. I mean, she wasn't being bratty, she just noticed the blatant inequities and inquired about them. I was such a mute, shy child, I would never in a million years have done something like that. Sure, I've made up for it in recent decades, but back then....

Anyway, there are two main reasons I admire Yvonne Chaka Chaka, based on what I've heard about her in recent years and on today's BBC report. First, the woman seems intensely sincere about wanting to use her fame and fortune to help improve conditions for women and children in Africa. Everything thing I've read and seen about her always leads me to that conclusion. She seems to work just as hard raising awareness about issues like HIV/AIDS and fistula and poverty, and girls' education, as she does when performing her powerful African melodies.

But something Yvonne related in this morning's story intrigued me even more. While her mother insisted she get an education and have a career, she would have preferred that Yvonne become a lawyer. Something a bit more respectable than being an entertainer. Still, I'm sure Mom had to be proud of her...but apparently, only up to a point. You see, Yvonne had already achieved a significant amount of fame when Nelson Mandela came calling one day, a few years after he was released from prison and was President of South Africa. He wanted Yvonne to sing at an ANC event, and even wrote her a letter afterwards, making the request more formal.

Yvonne's moher was absolutely terrified that someone would find that letter and link the family to the ANC. You can't blame the woman for being afraid...she had lived her entire life under the insanely cruel injustice of Apartheid. Even though it seemed those days were over, her mother wasn't taking any chances. She didn't want any evidence of an ANC affiliation lying around so...

She ordered Yvonne to EAT the letter from Nelson Mandela. To literally chew it and swallow it. Get rid of any proof it ever existed.

And Yvonne obeyed.

But from where I sit, it looks like that dramatic concession to fear may have been the ultimate fuel. Yvonne deepened her link with Mandela, and rose to stratospheric heights of stardom on the African continent. Something tells me she's not afraid of much of anything anymore, especially when you have friends like Madiba.

Sounds just like a proud, feisty princess, to me. Yet again, I can relate.

Culture Clubbed

Ever since my Kenyan buddy Phil-O hipped me to what I'd heard was THE "American Song of Summer 2010" a few weeks ago, I can't get the danged thing out of my head.

Sitting at his desk watching the video for Cee-Lo Green's "F..k You," I felt kind of silly. First, the song has been out for ages apparently, but beyond reading about it on a couple of US gossip websites, I hadn't tried to track it down. Plus, I was bobbing and weaving to the retro-soul sound, really feelin' it, until he crooned "F--k You and, uh, F--k her, too," and then the guilt crept in, like maybe my favorite teacher from fourth grade, Mrs. Flewellen, was peering down at me in utter shock and embarrassment.

I won't apologize for grooving to the music, or for absolutely LUUURRRVING Cee-Lo Green's smoky wail of a voice. Sometimes, when things get especially tense, I put "Crazy" on a loop until I calm down. ("I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind, There was something so special about that place...") But I think I do need to apologize for succumbing to the siren call of what I've been considering the coarsening of American culture in recent decades.

Even as I wrote that last sentence, I could feel a new crop of gray hairs sprouting from my scalp, and a surging tide of vinegar flowing through my veins. Yeah, I'm officially an old lady...deal with it! But I think I have some fairly credible evidence to back up that opinion. The first time it really hit me was about five or six years ago, when I was flipping through network TV channels and stopped at one of the 10 billion sitcoms where some fat schlub and his model-grade wife get caught in a web of hilarious hijinks each week.

Well, during this particular episode, the fat schlub and his pimply son were both drooling over the hot new single lady neighbor who'd moved next door. (Come to think of it, it may have been Bo Derek in a very special guest appearance, but at this rate it could be any of a broad range of bony, fake-boobed, cougarish, bleached blonde D-List actresses.) Since I can't remember most of the inane plot, I'll just invoke the one element I found particularly objectionable. At one point, the father and son stood outside the neighbor's window watching as she did some sort of yoga type exercise, and they both got, shall we say, stimulated to the point of nearly shouting their orgasms in unison.

Now, even though I don't have kids, and recall thoroughly enjoying sex back in the day, I found myself shocked that a scene like that was being depicted during what the networks call "The Family Hour." I simply couldn't imagine being a parent sitting there with an 8 year old kid trying to explain why the Dad and his son were moaning so loudly while they looked at the lady. But I COULD imagine feeling pissed at having to do that during a viewing time that's supposed to be "safe."

Then I happened to catch an episode or two of "Two and a Half Men," which is only missing One and a Half Horsemen of the Apocalypse as far as I'm concerned before the Lake of Fire opens up and swallows us all. Forget the fact that show's the jillion dollar per episode "star" is an erratic, allegedly sex-obsessed, knife-wielding drug abuser who gets paid handsomely to basically portray himself every week. What I understand least about that show is how the kid star's parents allowed him to utter completely inappropriate sexualized dialogue, or to be exposed to it, on a regular basis. And then I remembered that the kid probably shagged a six-figure salary every week himself.

I could go on and on with these kinds of examples, but it almost seems too quaintly absurd. I mean, I'm the gal who thought my best friend Faith would be surely singed by a thunderbolt for the poster of a half-naked, leopardskin wearing Prince in her Northwestern dorm room 31 years ago. The way musical lyrics have been sexualized and degraded since then, vintage Prince almost sounds like Mr. Rogers. Come to think of it, my boy Cee-Lo crooning "F--k You," is almost a balm to my ears.

But then the other day, I was wasting precious moments of my remaining lifespan watching another American reject sitcom on cable, and I had an epiphany about why most Africans blame Western culture for spreading its sinful influence around the world. It was a scene from some banal bulls--t program called "Romantically Challenged," already canceled but most notable for highlighting the tragic arc of the less-than-talented Alyssa Milano's career. Anyway, the scene was a couple in the bedroom, and she was on all fours on the bed, and to paraphrase the zany dialogue, she was ordering him to treat her like a dirty girl.

I sat there stunned into a sort of psychic paralysis. I mean, that show was on ABC. Free Network TV. Okay, maybe it ran during the 9 to 11 time slot, which I believe is beyond "Family Hour" (if that concept even exists anymore). But I'm sorry, I look for that kind of fare on Showtime or HBO. I can even appreciate the artistic value of such a scene if executed skillfully. Whatever, it just ain't appropriate for a situation-comedy on Disney-owned ABC. No way, no how.

So, to use a phrase I've learned since living in Kenya, American culture needs to pull up its socks. But then, I suppose since I'm still groovin' to Cee-Lo every chance I get, maybe I need to pull mine up, too.

Mama Used To Say

Listening to the story of Zainab Bangura on the BBC World Service this morning put me a bit behind schedule, but I'm so glad it did.

She had me at "Mother." That is, her description of how her mother sacrificed everything to make sure she received an education in their tiny Sierra Leone village. Her Muslim cleric father agreed--up to a point. That would be age 12, when he declared she had learned enough and needed to get married.

Zainab's mother refused to let that happen. She herself had never gone to school, couldn't read or write, and married young. She was determined it would not happen to her only child. She even threatened to end the marriage if her husband insisted. He took her up on that, and so Zainab and her mother were pretty much on their own afterwards.

I've lived on the African continent long enough to grasp exactly what being "on your own" here means. When you have nothing, and no way to change your circumstances, and you're scratching out a means of survival in ways that challenge your health, safety and dignity on a daily basis, when is there time to think about education, and careers...even the future in the most generic sense? And though tomorrow is not promised to any of us, some people have even less of a reason to believe they'll see one more dawn.

On the other hand, I DO know what it's like to have a mother who was willing to do whatever it took to make sure her daughters were able to fend for themselves on American soil. My challenges as a poor black girl in the Midwest seem trivial compared to what Zainab Bangura endured in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. But there was a common thread--we both had mothers propelling us forward. Making sure we got an education. Demanding that we hold our heads high, keep our legs closed and imagine a successful future for ourselves. Women whose own dreams had been literally strangled, but who damned sure weren't going to let that happen to their own daughters.

It's a fascinating thing, when you think about it. Now, speaking for myself, I'm not saying that matrilineal propulsion came without a significant psychic toll--on me. Frankly, Eloise Jones put a kind of a man-hating spin on all of her admonitions that inevitably left a deep subconscious imprint I'm still grappling with. It wasn't quite "Men ain't shit, so don't be a sucker and expect them to take care of you," but it was damned close. And considering that during my early years, she had given birth to 10 children was cleaning house and helping care for some white woman's kids on the other side of town, and was STILL poor while she was dispensing that advice, I was definitely programmed to take heed.

Besides, Zainab's father, and mine, were pretty much prisoners of their own lives and upbringings. Lewis Jones was born in 1916 Mississippi, without a single thing in his life to shape him into a strong, vocal, caring, interactive parent. Zainab's father was a Muslim cleric who was simply following his faith and a 1,000 years of cultural practice. Heck, Zainab was lucky he let her go to school at all, I suppose. Marriage at age 12, to some crusty old goat, was just the way life was. But somehow, without a supportive, interactive male influence, we both endured.

Guess I'm burying the lead a bit. You know who I am. Zainab Bangura is now the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Sierra Leone. The first woman to hold that job, I believe, and she was also the first woman to run for President (unsuccessfully) in 2002. She's married with one child, a son, and a lot of the people interviewed for the story describe her as pushy, impatient and egotistical. She may be all of those things.

But here's one thing I've become utterly convinced of. As long as the majority of women on the African continent are oppressed, subjugated, abused, exploited and denied opportunities for education and advancement, Africa will never--EVER--truly progress. I don't need to argue that point. Zainab's story proves it. If her life had followed its seemingly inexhorable pattern, she'd be a weathered, mute, bowed and bent grandmother by now...IF she was still alive.

Here's the thing. Tens of thousands of women die or are seriously maimed during childbirth each year on the African continent. An equal number are left mutilated by female circumcision. Exponentially more are consigned to early, polygamous marriage, which endangers their health and denies them education.

I don't know about you, but to me, that just translates into a horrifying waste of one of the most powerful natural resources on the face of the Earth. It doesn't make business or development sense--for example, women perform more than two-thirds of the agricultural labor in African countries. It doesn't even make common sense. I know I won't live to see this situation change significantly, but as long as I'm working in this region, I'm gonna do what I can to help move the ball in the right direction.

It's what my Mama, and Zainab's Mama, expected of us.

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

It's funny how a chain of events can unfold sometimes. Just last night, I briefly watched part of a John Ritter movie on cable, the one where he moved his family into this Stepford-like cul de sac run by Hal Linden, and slowly has his life controlled and nearly destroyed by the evil suburb-bots.

Then this morning I read a brief review of John Ritter's widow's new book tribute. Amy Yasbeck wrote in part about how his fatal heart condition had been misdiagnosed. He'd apparently suffered an aortic dissection shortly before dying at age 54. Yasbeck tried unsuccessfully to sue his doctors for the misdiagnosis, but she was also determined to use the tragic event to get the word out about this condition.

I Googled "aortic dissection," and remembered all the times I've joked about something stressing me out so much, it was giving me an aneurysm or a stroke. Made a mental note to never joke like that again. After all, I'm not a 20 year old with a 10 percent body fat and 90 over 60 blood pressure anymore. I'm in the age range where it's distinctly possible that my high blood pressure could cause the walls of my aorta to thin out and tear, and lead to a stroke. One needn't tempt the fates these days.

And then about an hour later, I saw a posting on a former NPR colleague's Facebook page. It was about the man in the picture up top. I had worked at NPR for about 4 or 5 years before I connected the name David Rector to this man's face. He was just one of many engineers there, most of whom I never really got to know. But I do remember thinking David had a kind face, and that he looked like a really mellow brother.

Ironically, reading the Facebook link almost stopped my heart. It was entitled, "They Are Killing David Rector." I won't even try to relate the whole story, but I will include the link here.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2010/09/they-are-killing-david-rector.html

Eighteen months ago, David Rector suffered an aortic dissection and a stroke. He was living in San Diego with the beautiful woman pictured with him above. His fiancee, Roz, has been devotedly caring for him ever since it happened...against horrifying odds. Long story short, because she's not legally related to him, his care is being decided by a cousin who lives on the East Coast. And apparently, there's not too much thought being given to those decisions.

This story is literally haunting me, people. I sometimes hate how I always manage to filter these kinds of situations through my personal life lens, but sometimes you just can't help it. I mean, what would happen to me in that kind of medical emergency? If I were completely incapacitated by a stroke while I'm here in Nairobi....God, I don't even want to think about where I'd wind up.

But what's even more depressing, the picture wouldn't be much rosier if I was back in the States. Don't get me wrong, I'm blessed with many wonderful friends and family, but who the heck would want to devote their lives to wiping my ass, for Christ's sake??? Blood relatives who legally could call the shots would probably look at my crippled bag of bones and mutter, "That silly bitch should have penciled a husband onto her schedule at some point, dammit! Hell, she could have at least gotten knocked up 25 years ago and had a kid who'd be obliged to deal with this crap!"

Okay, I'm being wildly sarcastic here to mask a really deep-rooted fear that I probably spend an inordinate amount of time trying to pretend doesn't exist. David Rector's story follows another one I saw back in March, about a CNN producer/camerawoman named Margaret Moth. Again, long story short, Moth lived this amazing, adventure-filled life, but was living alone in an Istanbul apartment filled with cats shortly before she was diagnosed with cancer and transferred to the Minnesota hospice where she died. Oh, sure, she was deeply respected and had many dear friends, but apparently, had no life partner to hold her hand at the end.

I guess that's why, even though David Rector's story is tragic and will probably keep me awake most of tonight, I can at least visualize this beautiful, radiant woman who is fighting against terrible odds to stay by his side. Roz is being disrespected and disregarded, but she loves him and she won't give up.

Which makes him one of the luckiest people I've ever known. Like I said, it's funny how a chain of events can unfold sometimes.

Yin and Yang

About 10 minutes after I finished the previous post, I got a Facebook email from another former colleague named Joe Ritchie, from my years at the Detroit Free Press. It was about our mutual former free Press colleague named Hugh Grannum. Two years ago, Hugh photographed artist Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts, an elder in Detroit's creative community. He was producing a pictorial story about Pitts' recovery from a stroke. During that story, Hugh met Aaron's younger brother Benjamin, and they became friends. In the interim two years, Hugh's kidneys began to fail, so much so that he had to stop working, and was placed on a transplant waiting list.

He was number 2,500 in line.

Last month, Hugh and his wife Carolyn got a phone call. There was a kidney available. It was from Benjamin Pitts, who was just 5o years old when he died of a stroke.

Hugh received the transplant on Friday, August 13th.

Last weekend, he went to the Detroit International Jazz Fest.

I'm smiling, because I remember how funny and nice and full of life Hugh Grannum was. Still is.

Read all about it in Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley's latest column. I'm too busy just meditating and praying about the yin and yang of life right about now.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100912/COL10/9120522/1322/Kidney-an-answer-to-friends-prayers

"What's Going On?"

Most times, when I think about what's going on in America these days, Marvin Gaye's lyrics are the sound track in my brain.

"Picket lines, and picket signs. Don't punish me with brutality. Talk to me, so you can see, Aw, what's going on."

So-called "Tea Parties," and Islamic Center protests, and laws requiring Mexicans to show their papers or get deported, and Quran burning, and just a lot of ugliness that frankly, I've been away so long I surprise myself by how much it shocks me. Let's see, I left for Gulu in June of 2007, but even with a 5 month-stint in DC in 2008, I've spent most of the past 3 years living in East Africa. Because I missed the direct impact of the financial meltdown, the election of the first black President, massive unemployment and layoffs, and now, the shocking demonization of Muslims, I almost feel embarrassingly naive.

I thought about that yesterday at one of the suburban Nairobi shopping malls. It was the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and I have never been in any venue with that many Muslims before in my life, all of whom were preparing for today's holiday, Idd ul Fitr. As I walked through the mass of women in mostly black gowns and head coverings (very few hard-core burqas, by the way), and men in their traditional gowns and caps, I realized that most folks back home would have completely freaked out in that setting, mostly because of the highly-charged media images they're inundated with.

Americans who've never even seen a copy of the Quran know what the word "jihad" means, because they've seen or read or heard news stories that imply every Muslim wants to declare it against America. And when the idiot in Florida decides to go for his 15 minutes of desecration-based fame, the cable networks rush to illustrate round the clock coverage of his bombast by using either file tape of fiery anti-American protests in Muslim countries, or sending crews to film new examples of impassioned outrage.

I understand that most human beings need to have those kinds of markers, those kinds of black and white symbols of good and evil. "My religion is right, yours is wrong. My skin color is better than yours. My country is more humane." And those are only the grandiose themes. We're further bogged down by, "My house is bigger than yours. My clothes are more expensive. I'm hotter than you are. My job is better, and I'm a lot smarter. And skinnier."

What IS it about being human, anyway??? Why can't we learn from history? For example, why can't we Americans remember that the country was formed primarily because the founders wanted to escape religious oppression, and form a country where you could believe and worship however you wanted?????

Oh, wait, see, there's another example of my increasing Expat naivete. It's like I'm almost forgetting sitting at home 9 years ago watching those planes slam into the World Trade Center and thinking it was the end of the world. For the first couple of 9/11 anniversaries afterwards, the shock was still so real, I wasn't really focusing on the religious-political implications of the act. I was still horrified at the loss of life, and the loss of those iconic buildings, and the loss of our seeming invulnerability on American soil.

But I suppose it was inevitable that something would tear off the scab and reveal the ugliness and pain and fear, and I suppose the plans for the Islamic Center near Ground Zero were just the ticket. As I process it from 8,000 miles away, I have to wonder if the historical cocktail of circumstances over the past nine years made what's happening in America right now completely unavoidable. Heightened conservative rhetoric and bullying in the political realm. Two soul-draining, life-snuffing, budget-busting wars. Fear and resentment of immigrant "usurpers." The election of the first black President who happens to have had a foreign father whose weird name he shares and who happened to be Muslim. Just like those evil men who slaughtered thousands of Americans 9 years ago, and who prayed in ways that seem weird and threatening, to a God who doesn't look like ours.

It's a pity we can't turn back the clock to September 10th, 2001, and then somehow make that day never end, just like a 9-year episode of "Groundhog Day" or something. But even if you could, and at some point during that day somebody told you that tomorrow, the World Trade Center would be destroyed and the Pentagon would be dive-bombed and a plane intended to destroy the U.S. Capitol would crash in a Pennsylvania field, and more than 3,000 Americans would be murdered horrifically, you might not have been able to comprehend it.

Sort of like I can't comprehend what's happening in my country right now.

"I'm just Sayin', Dawg," Part 24"

You know, it really pisses me off that I have been so busy and distracted lately (more on why that's the case at the appropriate time) that the only thing motivating me to resume blogging is yet another Satanic Sartorial Ensemble from one of the Williams sisters.

*Sigh*

Here's the thing about these amazing young women. I am so torn between wanting to be able to say that as long as they're two of the greatest female tennis players in the history of the game, they can wear burlap bags if they want to. I'd love to be able to say that most criticisms aimed their way are served up with an ice cold glass of Hater-ade, and that as talented as they are, they still can't escape being viewed through a faintly racism-tinged lens.

And THAT'S where my ruminations go off the rails. This ain't about race. It's about class. Or lack thereof. It's about making peoples' eyes bleed with the tacky threads vomited up from the bowels of your so-called "creative fashion vision." It's about being excoriated ad nauseum through the years for said outrageous and mostly unflattering duds, and still thumbing your nose at the world.

But mostly, it's about being silly enough to wear something that you have to constantly pull out of the crack of your ass to be comfortable, during an imporant match being viewed by millions of people around the world.

Now, you might want to jump right on in here at this point to remind me that Venus won that match, and is likely on her way to snagging another title. That's not the point of this particular rant. What I'm trying to get across here is that the line between being avante garde and ridiculous is dangerously thin. And these brilliantly talented young athletes keep foot-faultin' all over it, out of some deeply-rooted need to thumb their noses at us and say, "We can wear whatever we want, and the less you like it, the more we'll keep doing it."

It's either that, or they actually think they have fashion sense. Frankly, I'm not sure which is scarier....

"I'm just sayin', dawg....."