DKNYoop

The first time I read GOOP, I laughed like Mehcad Brooks was tickling me. It was for the same reason that I love to watch Barefoot Contessa. I enjoy people who are fabulous to the point of being preposterous. Ina Garten floats delicately through her Hampton home casually referencing (because we should all already know) the importance of using only "very good vanilla" or "the best truffle oil you can find". If you can't get your cardamom pods freshly fertilized by only the most discerning mountain goats in the hills of Nepal, you might as well just burn your kitchen to the ground now and allow yourself to perish in the blaze. There is no point in going on.

As a real person from the Third World, I regard these folks with glee, and not as much judgment as you might think. I love interesting recipes and fancy things, and am currently enduring a self-imposed shopping fast to arrest my acquisitive nature, but surely one does not absolutely need two pieces of perfectly snipped Spanish chervil to garnish the side of one's Sunday frittata. You could pluck a couple pieces of Aunt Rhoda's fern and we would be none the wiser. So I have once or twice found myself staring at a GOOP article saying out loud - apparently to Gwyneth Paltrow but really to no one - "Gwyneth Paltrow, A Perfect Murder is my guilty pleasure (in part because you just had to have your character speak in perfectly-lisped Castilian Spanish so we would know that even though you seem boringly American, you are in fact well-travelled and severely interesting.) But you are a ridiculous person."

Still, Ina and Gwyneth have and know their audience. There are similarly ridiculous people out there (actually, Ina is not that ridiculous in substance. I make her food all the time. One manages to overlook the condescension and just go ahead and throw in the very mediocre vanilla) and others who aspire to be similarly ridiculous. Presumably, all the fancy people congregate in these and other fancy places and barter very good vanilla, cardamom and chervil. But when I open a modest little Allure magazine and Donna Karan's "10 Things Every Woman Should Have" begins with "Haitian craft", not even Alfre Woodards's psychopathic son could inspire such chortles. Here's the entire list:

1. Haitian crafts. This turned out to be the least absurd of the list, although at first it seemed hilarious. It suggests that we should all try to make active, social choices through our consumption, and that one way to do so might be to support companies that invest in and help create markets for the products of artisans in developing countries. Noble, if oddly specific.

2. A bodysuit. Donna starts her day by wearing it to yoga and then "adds and subtracts layers as the day goes by." A bodysuit. They should have named this article "10 things Maybe Four Women should have if three of them are Beyonce".

3. Art to call your own. There is some text here about being married to a sculptor. I haven't met my sculptor yet. But I know a guy who carves fallen twigs on the beach and sells them to tourists.

4. A yoga mat. You can lay on it and consider how much you hate yoga.

5. A sanctuary. This I can agree with. Women tend to be disproportionately burdened with care responsibilities in addition to academic and professional commitments. Having the space to regroup is important, even if it's just alone time outdoors in the fresh air. Of course Donna Karan's sanctuary is Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos, which she calls her "three-hour Bali". So...you know...fresh air or that.

6. Donna Karan Cashmere Mist Body Lotion. This one has her name in it. My. How curious.

7. Cashmere scarf cozy. For $2000 from Donna Karan stores. Curiouser still.

8. Essential oils. Ok.

9. Green juice. Ok. And no thanks.

10. A belt bag. It frees up her hands and she can feel it on her body. If I'm trying to feel anything on my body, Donna, it's not a $1695.00 glorified fanny pack from your store.

I know this is Allure - a glossy whose business is selling crap. But who is Every Woman? Reading this article prompts me to again wonder who magazines like this are writing for. Is it all aspirational? Are we all spending our bus pass money on the March Allure each believing that all the other women reading it have bodysuits on under their jackets and we are the only losers who don't own Haitian craft or cashmere scarf cozies? (Interestingly, the average woman in Haiti is clearly not even being counted as a woman. But at least if she were, she would probably already have item 1 covered.)

Of course, the simple answer is that the entire industry is absurd and built on hyperbole. A 'steal' would be a $500 feather for the hair if a 'splurge' is a $12 000 fascinator. And 'every woman' means 'every woman whose lifestyle can support our recommendations and whose interests mirror ours, or who wishes she fit into the latter categories'. Still, one can't help but chuckle at the earnest tone of the GOOPs and the Allures in their pretense that we're all in this together. Or at least we will be when some of us return from wintering in Bali.

The houses that slavery built

There is a thing happening now that is confusing to me. Perhaps you can help me understand it. The Barbados National Trust is a local charity concerned with "the preservation of places of historic and architectural interest or of natural beauty and ecological importance". One of their programmes in an open house initiative, in which the public is invited to view not only historical homes, but also "newer, luxurious Bajan-Style villas". You pay some money, enter the property, engage in due amounts of oohing and aahing, and there. You've had your open house experience.

It has seemed to me over the years that most of the people who attended the open houses were tourists, along with those locals and expatriates with a particular interest in architecture or museums. But there seems to be an effort afoot this year (I can't say with any surety that the effort is peculiar to 2010, but I am just noticing it in the campaign's publicity) to encourage more locals - your, ahem, average Barbadians - to participate. The CBC Evening news ran a segment this week showcasing the first open house of the season, and this is where I'm going to fail you on the details, because I don't recall the location, and I don't have a clip or article to show you. I have nothing, in fact. You essentially have to take my word - paraphrased as it is - that this is what happened:

Dr. Karl Watson, a UWI historian and local champion of historical and environmental preservation, was in attendance at the event, as expected, and as the camera panned around to show who the guests were, was giving his thoughts on the importance of open houses and the like. He was pleased with the turnout, and the fact that there seemed to be more locals there, because Black Barbadians should take an interest in seeing the homes that their ancestors had built. Sounds harmless enough, although Dr. Watson being a White man does tend to nuance his telling Black Barbadians in which parts of their heritage they should take an interest. But let's accept this and move on.

The reporter on the story also heard from the owner/resident of the property - also a White man, this time of non-Barbadian provenance - who was chuffed that people had taken the opportunity to come out and see his home, because when he first moved (t)here he had spoken to the people in the village from time to time, and they had said no, they'd never been inside, and had no idea what it looked like, a fact by which he seemed surprised.

Right then, so this is what the invitation translates to: I, as a descendant of slaves, should be interested in paying for the privilege of being allowed inside the homes built from the toil of my enslaved ancestors, in order to observe the inordinate wealth in which slave owners lived at that time (especially as compared with slaves, who literally owned nothing, including themselves), and in which White owners of these properties continue to live today. Yeah. Thanks.

Now I might be wrong about a fact or two. Perhaps in the interest of getting more locals in, they waived fees for those coming from the surrounding areas. I don't know if that's true. It would make sense if they had, and if it's true, feel free to correct me. But it doesn't change what is wrong with some of the absurd statements I heard in that newscast. Barbadians are famous for our reluctance to have anything to do with the history of slavery (incidentally, Dr. Watson is also making absurd statements in the article linked here, although I'd like to think the cluelessness is a result of something lost in the journey from the newsroom. Barbadians don't want to cut sugarcane because they see it as a relic of slavery? I can't think where they would get that notion). And I have my own thoughts on that - on the idea that engaging in any discourse that recalls the horrors of slavery is necessarily an undesirable thing - but I understand it. A few have tried to widen that discourse, to demonstrate that it might actually be a useful and empowering one, but the jury's still out on that. So I get that there's a need - as far as some of us are concerned - to stimulate Barbadians' engagement in learning about our heritage. But here's what I don't get: a group of privileged, often White, sometimes non-Barbadian, sometimes non-descendants of slaves telling me in what parts of my heritage and consciousness-raising I should engage as a Black Barbadian. And worse, encouraging me to do so in an environment that reinforces the racial and economic hierarchy that existed in the time of slavery. I'm meant to mill about a rich, White man's property - one that was built by slaves - as said rich, White man looks on - and then go home feeling honoured to have been allowed?

I say all that in the first person because there were Black Barbadians there, who said on camera that they live nearby, and had been curious about the place, so they took the opportunity to go in and see what was what. One woman, when asked her impressions, basically said (I'm paraphrasing again) that the stuff inside didn't seem all that ornate and she was expecting more expensive things, but overall it was nice, which made me chuckle.

I am not against the work of the National Trust in preserving and showcasing historic sites. I think it's a great thing. But here's the thing: when the only commentary you have to make on race relations in Barbados - both old and new - involves telling me how to experience the history of slavery on your terms, in an immediate environment not unlike the actual environment at that time, where the property built by Black slaves was occupied and enjoyed by the wealthy White, and you do not see or acknowledge what is problematic about that picture, then that's where I have a problem.

I was speaking to my friend about it last night, and I told her "I am going to call that man - Dr. Watson - on the telephone." And she agreed that I should. So I will. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Carol Thatcher disgusts me

In February of this year, Carol Thatcher, daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was dropped as a roving reporter on BBC1's The One Show after calling a black tennis player a golliwog in the show's backstage green room, and then refusing to make a full public apology over the remark. In the aftermath of her sacking, the BBC received over 3 000 complaints against their decision to fire her, and the mayor of London Boris Johnson publicly declared that he thought it was the wrong decision.

Thatcher was back on the air last week on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show, and not only defended her use of the word - which is not surprising given that she refused to apologize in the first place - but also made two statements which I found indefensible. She first informed us of the many letters of support she received and of the fact that her golliwog collection had now greatly increased since like-minded people had included the keepsakes in their fan mail; and she suggested that the whole brouhaha was a result of people being overly sensitive and politically correct.



Now, I'm going to try and keep this short because we've had an extended conversation about this before, and because this kind of wilful racism does not stand up to argument. But the fact is, just because you grew up seeing golliwogs on the side of your jam jar as you sat at your breakfast table with your white, wealthy family and friends, does not entitle you to decide for another group of people what they are and are not allowed to be offended by. Carol Thatcher is a white woman, who was never the subject of the racist taunts of which the word 'golliwog' was a part, and who clearly does not understand that even the origin of the figure as a blackface minstrel is in itself far from flattering and arguably racist. As Labour's Jennette Arnold pointed out in response to Boris Johnson's defense of Thatcher's position:

"The symbolism of the golliwog is colonialist, racist, and harks back to time when black people were dismissed as slave, servant, and figures of fun.

"It is an image associated with the demeaning of black people. There are no second chances when anyone in public life uses such offensive language.

Boris Johnson seemed to think that Thatcher should have been disciplined internally with a small slap on the wrist, arguing that [emphasis mine]:

"The way to deal with it is if someone says something a bit offensive in a green room and you're the producer of the show and everybody else has taken umbrage and feels uncomfortable ... you take that person on one side and say: 'Listen, you've got to understand we've got to work together and you've got watch what you say and you've got to be sensitive,' but I don't think you fire someone. I really don't."

I often wonder how it is that people's self-censorship mechanism fails to engage in these situations; how it is that they do not realize that as people outside of the group whom this directly affects - and worse, part of the group that has perpetrated the racism in question - they don't get a vote. Now Boris Johnson's comments are less to do with whether the word itself is offensive and more to do with corporate equality policy, which is an important debate for everyone to have, but the fact that he calls the expression 'something a bit offensive' gives us a clue about how damaging he thinks this language really is (not very), and in fact, he should just have shut up.

I was disgusted by Thatcher in this Andrew Marr interview, because alarmingly, she seems to be part of this club of golliwog collectors who think their quaint little hobby is more valuable than the historical and current subjugation of an entire group of people; and worse, she is also one of those who has assumed the role of victim because The Man wants to take away her right to hurl racial slurs at people. And the rest of us should just get over it so she can have her golliwog fridge magnets and make fun of black people.

The issue of whether the term 'golliwog' and its image are offensive seems to be a recurring one. And for me, it is simple. As a small child, one of my favourite Enid Blyton series was The Three Golliwogs. I adored the characters, Wiggie, Waggie and Wollie, and saw them as just three toys come alive who got up to mischief. Of course, I grew up in Barbados. By that time, no one had ever called me a golliwog, and I hadn't yet learnt about the practice of blackface or really any of the history of slavery. As I got older and learnt more, no one needed to point out to me that these characters were a product of a racist time and tradition. It naturally became apparent - even before I learnt that one of the original names of the golliwogs was 'Nigger'. So just because you found a name or image harmless in childhood, either because you were part of a privileged group towards whom it was never directed, or because, like me, you were black but lived in a society where that kind of nomenclature was not a common form of attack against your group, that does not mean that the word or image was not harmful or racist. Both sets of circumstances can obtain, and in this case, they do. And here's what I also find problematic: it is not alright to say "well, people at the time were racist. So what can you do? I'm going to continue to read this book to my children because people nowadays are way too sensitive." You can do that, but if you do, be aware that you are in fact perpetuating racist stereotypes, and be prepared to be called a racist when someone comes to your house and sees your little golliwog fridge magnets. Because the fact that you know better and still refuse to adjust your behaviour means that that's exactly what you are.

A few months ago, I went exploring a closeby neighbourhood in search of cheap hangers on which to store my ridiculous amounts of clothes. (I'm always buying hangers, because apparently we have a hanger ghost who cannot cross over until she has hidden all of mine under bushes and brambles far and wide. Either that or I should stop shopping. My money's on the ghost.) I came upon this home supply store with cheap hangers of all materials and colours and as far as the eye could see! It was some kind of hanger paradise! So as I was scooping madly, my eyes happened upon the back of the store, which seemed to be where they stored the toys, and against the entire back wall, from floor to ceiling, were all kinds of toy golliwogs, their hundreds of black faces, white eyes and red lips grinning back at me. I have to say that I was horrified. I immediately felt vulnerable, because if these were the kinds of people who would so unashamedly offer these items for purchase, what, I thought, would they do with a real, live black person (I was the only one) in their store? Because clearly, they weren't worried about seeming racist.

It must have been people such as this who sent Carol Thatcher their letters of support, people who are banding together to protect their right to display icons of the racism they practice when they think no one's listening. Well, carry on with your crusade. But don't be surprised if you lose your job over it.

Father of The She-Wolf

I’m running off for a not-so-secret rendezvous with my good friend and favourite DJ. But before I do, I must take a minute to acknowledge the birthday of pioneering, abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, who died tragically in a car crash in 1956 at the age of 44. His 1943 ‘The She-Wolf’ (pictured below) is still one of the most striking things I have ever seen on canvas. Why must all the geniuses die young?

If you haven’t yet seen Pollock, the film about his life and work, do. It features riveting performances by the brilliant and delicious Ed Harris as the title character, and Marcia Gay Harden as his wife Lee Krasner. Go see it! Now!

The mongoose shall return.