Whats My Name
“Nina, two ninas, a peice, they don’t even see us…” - Eminem
All it takes is ONE person to miss my writing for me to start back up!
I have a tendency to connect the dots, even if they don’t seem like they should or could be connected. Its sort of a game for me. SO,lets play. I’m going to connect all the dots, see if I can take everything I’ve read and done this week and pull it together into one cohesive piece.
Swagger jacking. It sounds so silly, so trivial. Yet, I am not fond of swagger jacking and I protect my style fiercely. Whats the deal? And is it me, or does it seem like it’s very much a black thing?
Perhaps other groups worry about it, but I don’t hear or read the violently angry and emotional responses to reported swagger jacking and style biting from others. So lets allow someone else to cover them.
This week, I was working on my paying job. I manage brands and identitys. I manage and sell image. I manage the image of image sellers. I manage and sell my identity as the manager of the image of the image sellers. So you can bet that image and identity concern me.
Today I had a meeting, I devised a competition and we had to work out the details. The competition is to see who can best show their swagger. Well, thats not what we are calling it, but that is what it is.
A friend and I were hating on Beyonce, saying it drives us mad that people say Shakira bites Beyonce’s style, when we feel that it is clear that Beyonce is the QUEEN of the swagga jack.
I watched a portion of Black in Brazil, or something like that, as I fumed at yet another female person who decided to exclude me based on my appearance, speech and refusal to consume the macaroni con queso. I read some stuff on Dominican identity, because my quest for hair conditioner led to me an article on Dominican blowouts.
Whats the deal, yo?
You know (Because I guess Im chatting and not “writing”), its like this. You have people, LOTS of people, MILLIONS of people who just don’t know who they are or where they are from.
(Pause. My 6 year old daughter is next to me doing homework and WHY is she singing “I’m a single lady, Im a single lady?” WHERE has she heard Beyonce?)
Africans came to this country, to the Americas, mostly in chains. They were ripped from their homes and their cultures. They were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their religion. THey were isolated from their countrymen to prevent unity and uprising. They lost their names. ‘My name is not Toby! My name is KUNTA!”
They were forced to change their way of dress, their way of eating, their way of worshipping. They lost their identities. Most have been lost forever.
I, perhaps, am fortunate. The name I was born with is a family name, one passed down along with the DNA I carry. In that sense, I know who I am. My children are carry the name of at least one ancestor. My youngest child, is named for me. And when I think of changing my name now that I am divorced, I dont want to because ITS MY NAME and because if I change it,my daughter and I wont have the same name anymore. The males in my family and I do share my mom’s maiden name,but its not the same thing.
Tina Turner, when leaving Ike, if the movie is to believed, said all she wanted was her name. Thats it.
When your history only goes back 3 generations, when all you have is what you have made, when your identity is new and fresh and still being formed you treasure it. You guard it and protect it jealously. It is all you have to stake your claim to a piece of this world. No known homeland,no known kin, no known clan or tribe. When you have lost it all, you aren’t keen to lose what you later make for yourself.
I mean, who IS anyone? Negro? Black? Colored? Afro-American?African-American? Afro-Brazilian? Afro-Dominican? Dominican? Latina?
There are entire cultures who are still struggling to name themselves, to define themselves.I know people who can say- I’ve been black and colored and african america and afro latina and negro and multiracial and an afrodescendant. I wake up tomorrow who KNOWS what they’re going to tell me I am. Is Wentworth Miller black?Is Mariah?Is Lala Vasquez? Is Colin Powell? If Colin Powell, a Jamaican, is African American why isn’t Obama? Because being a foreign born child of the diaspora trumps being a native born child of the motherland? Who is who? Who are we? Who do we include? Who do we exclude? What about Kimora, what about Tiger?
Is Obama like Justin Timberlake and others before him who swagger jack “real” black people to reap the benefits of inclusion, while escaping the pitfalls? Because you know, we dont really KNOW.What about J Lo who made her way to the top with the help of a black tv show and in black movies and dating a black mogul and singing black music, but left it all behind when it was convenient? Are we, who have struggled to forge an identity for ourselves, letting in the wrong people who will then take our identity and run,leaving us behind while they profit.
I hear them, I hear their complaints-
You take our names, our identities, our culture and our music from us and leave us with nothing. You treat us like shit and demean and demoralize us. But we persevere and survive and thrive, and then you steal our shit. You take our black merengue and form groups fronted by white boys, they get the credit while the black man in the back is ignored. You take our rock and roll and get famous, leaving us broke and destitute in our old age. Sure the Beastie Boys can have fun, but in 30 years LL Cool J is a nigger and the Beasties are just middle aged white men.You take reggaeton and ignore the darker artists and crow over the whiter ones, crown Elvis the King of Rock and Roll and declare Eminem the best rapper ever. And, um, 1 word- Madonna.
Our countries fall apart and rather than send 30,000 to help a family, you spend 30,000 to take our children. You take our genes as we are dying and sell them and get rich, while we can’t afford basic healthcare.
You want our bodies to labor in your fields. Our babies to sell as property. Our music to entertain and make you rich. Our style to export to Paris. Our genes to make your drugs. There is nothing you won’t take from us. YOU profit from being us and we don’t. You want everything but the burden.
How can you not be angry? How can you not be jealous? How can you not guard your style, your swagger, your identity? When everything else can be taken, at the very least you want to have yourSELF to yourself. How can you sit idly and watch another person profit not just from taking things from you, but taking you and even BEING you?
