some ramblings re: I Am Not My Hair (part 2)

ramble 1

i do want to say that i'm not an india.arie hater...at all. what i was trying to point out is the relatively easy slippage between a "positive message" and a fundamentally flawed ideology upon which that "positive message" is built...i am continually worried when attention is called away from the body towards something else. still, i am very cognizant of the dangers of essentializing the body, particularly in a patriarchal and misogynist society that objectifies women's bodies as play-things and sexual toys...since one of the responses has been that india was not only responding to anti-black ideologies but was also responding to patriarchal and misogynist readings of women's bodies, i'll pick up on that train of thought.

i contend that objectification of the (woman's) body is not tantamount to loving the body OR looking at the (particular) body. i think objectification points elsewhere (e.g., power, status, control) but becomes discursively scripted on bodies. (bodies which can become em- or dis-empowered, gain or lose status, be "in" or "out" of control, etc.) for this reason, it seems that different bodies can be objectified and there is no essential objectification, objectifier or object...

in the case of IANMH, i believe objectification of the body can find it's locus in the very pronouncement, "I am a soul that lives within"...it trivializes the body at the expense of the soul. though i understand sentiment, i think the deployment is a bit messy, for lack of a better word...

because i'm concerned with the religio-cultural dimensions of the discussion, and what i've said has always been linked to a western/christian notion of a body/soul dualism, the song, for me, also intimates (i.e., hints at) an ontological womanhood that is weaker than and subordinate to an ontological manhood. it is this ontological womanhood that allows or even necessitates the objectification of the body...

simply: what i think happens by saying, "look at my soul, not my body (or, more directly, "I am a soul that lives within")," is that the soul is viewed as essentially subordinate as it's a woman's soul...and thus, the same problem of objectification occurs read through a patriarchal, misogynist mindset...just what do we do when the essential soul is objectified? just what can we say when the essential self, that which "lives within," is both that which we can't see and the reasoning behind (or, better, underneath or below) the objectification of the woman's body?

ramble 2

moving further, just how does one look at the soul that is within? this soul to which we are told to look toward, to gaze upon, to appreciate cannot be looked at, gazed upon or appreciated aside from the body which it animates. what is the particular body politic for women when the soul is fundamentally what we should see? if the song is a call for women to recognize that they are not their bodies but something much more profound within their bodies (but which can never, not even through medical interventions, be seen), is not the song intimating christian eschatalogical ideolgy?

i *must* unpack that: christian eschatology espouses an idea that humanity is presently living in the already/not yet with regard to the "kingdom of God" (and i'm using the word "Christian" understanding that there are a variety of Christian beliefs...but i want to normalize and say that there is a specific one to which a "good deal" adhere...hey...this is a blog, not a paper...lmao). the belief that Jesus came and conquered evil by the power of God through his death, burial and resurrection (by the way, i'm not a fan of sacramental theology...but), humanity is living in the "already." the kingdom of God is said to be here presently because of what is already done. yet, the "not yet" is still apparent because evil still exists in the world and the full "kingdom of God" has not been realized on earth (i.e., very loosely, "eternity" and living on earth with God hasn't begun). in other words, there is a gap between the already here and the not yet here of the "kingdom of God."

daHELL this gotta do with women, you ask? or...daHELL it gotta do with IANMH? there seems to be a gap between the already and not yet situated in the argument for "I am a soul that lives within." the already is the body which we can perceive. the not yet is the soul which we cannot see. The gap is liminal space...it's where shit really doesn't make sense...it's unintelligble...it's unnamed... at what point does that which is inside become that which is outside and vice versa? and just how wide is this particular liminal space between body and soul?

ramble 3

returning (or rambling...according to who is reading...lmao) to a religious discussion, i think the Eucharist (or...for pentecostals and a whole lotta black folks in general) Communion (every first Sunday) is quite instructive here. "this is my body which was broken for thee," and "this is my blood which was shed for thee," says something profound about the body (though, it also says something equally damaging about what should be done to the body for salvation, though this is not apart of this particular argument). with this particular belief, the body is essential to the meaning of salvation and ritual practice. not only was Jesus his hair and skin, but Christians worldwide partake of his hair and skin (i.e., the body and blood). the reenactments underscore the importance of the body...both by the assertions of broken body and shed blood and by the bodies which partake in these reenactments...

(though there is a lot of nuancing that could occur regarding the Eucharist...but eh...i'm tired)

ramble 4

all that to say: i believe IANMH, while a song moves toward self-affirmation, it can (and does) easily fall prey to western/christian notions of body/soul dualism.

don't agree? confused as hell? let's talk about it...cuz the more you respond, the more clarity i gain on my own thoughts...and hopefully, we can all learn something...

i am not my hair?!?!

divorcing the mind/spirit from the body/flesh
or
i am not my hair

so this song has served as inspiration for a lot of people lately. india.arie comes out with the hits...brown skin...anytime you hear a white woman exclaiming "brown skin, you know i love your brown skin...i can't tell where yours begins, i can't tell where mine ends..." you know she's on to something. and yes, i've heard many a white woman say that that song (in particular, interestingly) has served as inspiration. so it seems the same is being said for i am not my hair though i don't think i agree with the contours of the argument

true. i am not my hair. i am not my skin. i am not your expectations. no.

but...i am my hair, my skin and my expectations. i think the fallacy with claiming that we are not what others see is that it somehow lifts up an inner-self that is more valuable than, more true and more pressing than the outward self...

it functions in two directions. in one direction, you have people placing expectations on you based on what they see...so they see nappy hair, dark skin and full lips and they expect dumbassedness...they expect failure...they expect problems...

but in the other direction, the one from the self that declares that they are not their hair or skin, there is a way in which the declaration separates the outer from the inner...it's the old sacred/secular split of victorianism. what i believe the song implicates, ever so delicately and even unconciously, is that life exists in dualisms and that which is apparent is the fallacious whereas the one that is not apparent is the true, the good, the underlying. what i mean, simply, is that saying "i am not my hair...i am not my skin" forces folks to look elsewhere for your meaning. it causes the eyes to avert away from the intelligible self, that is, the body which we can see, to search deeper, further, inwardly for some other, hidden value. and it's the hidden, inward, secret, deeper that causes problems for me. because this deeper level is purported to speak to something much more profound and, at the base level, real than what is perceived outwardly...

it's the apostle paul's declaration that there is no good thing in the flesh...and that the spirit wars against it daily...

it's the victorian ideal that white flesh (what is outside) is more godly because it's more reflective of a white, clean soul (what is inside)...

so for a black woman to declare that she is not her (black, nappy) hair and not her (black, dark) skin is to cause us to wonder...well where are you? the worth and value must be somewhere else...somewhere inside...as india.arie says, "i am the soul that lives within..."

though i understand the need for self-affirmation, this is peculiarly similar to how folks have bastardized the and trivialized the statement, "Not the color of skin but the content of their character" as put forth by Martin Luther (the) King, Jr. (lol)...

i'd rather a song that declares...i am my hair...and my skin...but not your expectations of them...the soul that lives within is only intelligible through the body that lives and surrounds it. instead of reorienting people to see some huge worth inside my being, why not reorient and affirm that which is on the seeming outside? why not cause people to respect my hair and my skin and change their perceptions and expectations, yes! you don't have to see my soul to know that i have intrinsic worth. you don't need to divide and divorce my flesh and hair from my being...

this is why baby suggs is such a paradigmatic figure...in her sermon (Beloved), she exhorts the crowd to do love their bodies...

Baby Suggs called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes the women let loose.

It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried; children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart…

“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it…No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them! Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face ‘cause they don’t love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain’t in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again...

This is flesh I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved.

i'm worried that not being "hair" or "skin" is away to let xenophobic folks off the hook. an exclamation of not being "hair" or "skin" allows others to look away from that which is grotesque: dark skin, nappy hair...and i don't want you to look away but i want you to look and bask in all of my blackness...and fatness...and nappiness...

but taking my cue from baby suggs, i'm gonna be my hair and my skin and i'm gonna love it...and love it hard