2001
11 November 2001
Carolyn, my partner, has been bugging me to write a positive entry. Is today a good day for that? Yesterday, we weren't even speaking, and I was trying to figure out what we were going to do because surely this was the end and we had just renewed our lease for another year. But this morning, after all that angst and tension, we just looked at each other, started to speak, and laughed. And then I spent the day catching her up on all the little things I'd noticed the day before that our stubbornness wouldn't allow me to share. Like that a book I co-wrote was included in a layout in the new Restoration Hardware catalog. I don't know why, but I've come to believe that having one's book included in the fake domestic scenes in home furnishing catalogs or magazines is the pinnacle of success, sort of, as though the chic people who live there—rather than the art directors who went to art school and therefore have these books lying around—would be reading your work while sitting in their $2000 leather club chair. (Maybe if I were actually the book designer this would be more true, but I still get a kick out of it.)
Relationships—all meaningful relationships—are life's real work: compromise, sacrifice, negotiations, all that good stuff. I think everyone in a romantic partnership fantasizes from time to time about having that freedom again—eat Chinese take-out everyday for a week and no one says you're spending too much and not eating nutritiously, stay up 'til 4:00 a.m. on a Wednesday to watch movies and no one complains that you really shouldn't because you need a regular pattern of sleep to function properly and there's work the next day, flirt with everyone who comes into view (wait—no, I never actually did that), dumb shit like that. The problem is, was any of that stuff really fun when you could do it? Did you really do it? The grass is always greener, right? But, you know, there's nothing like simply having some grass of your own for someone else to envy and long for. I'm a control freak, my family is nuts, I complain about the world constantly, I get stressed and cranky beyond belief and reason when I am past a deadline, so like every human I am far from perfect, and, yet, someone loves me. Wow. At times this simple fact just gives me pause. I remember so clearly the many years when I assumed that I would live my life alone. That was okay, too, but a small part of me wanted to know what it would be like if that weren't true. And now I know. It's better and different and more complicated than I ever imagined, I guess, during all that time when I would just script relationships and conversations for them in my head. But, to borrow a favorite phrase from my hero, life's so different than it is in your dreams.
Yes, it was easier being an artist when I was single because of the way I worked and it would be easy to say that I don't make art now because of my relationship, but that isn't true. I don't because I don't, but I think every creative person knows, especially those who work regular jobs, that in order to make that work, to find that selfish time alone, that you have to take it from somewhere and that somewhere is usually time spent with loved ones. You're extremely lucky if you do not have to make that compromise, that choice. I make it, to be sure. But at least I am in the position to get to make that decision. Many people cannot, because life and its responsibilities make those choices for them. I was reading the other day that Lorraine O'Grady basically stopped making art for 7 years because she became her mother's caretaker. It's amazing to me, because she did such terrific work before, stopped to handle her business, and then came back to make equally powerful, very different art after. That takes a lot of courage, strength, conviction, and security in your ideas and ability and desire to express them. Life intervenes for many reasons in that mythical "path" that some of us put ourselves on and I, for one, have to constantly reminded myself, it's the journey, not the destination. I am, unfortunately, one of those destination-oriented people. The forest has too many trees.
So, where am I going with all of this? Hell, I don't know. Life's short. Be happy. Appreciate what you have instead of bemoaning what you don't. We've all heard that before. I just came back from a week of helping my parents move from their home of 17 years into separate apartments after 46 years of marriage. (They didn't divorce, just separated.) My sisters and I have helped them constantly since January to get themselves organized and on a budget. We cleaned their old house to sell it, found them apartments, moved them to their new places, and yet all they've done is complain that they've had to get rid of all the junk they'd accumulated simply because they had had the means and the space. (Well, it's debatable whether or not they actually had the means.) My father has literally hundreds of watches and cameras that he will hoard as though they mean something and they will be put in the trash at his death. At least half of the stuff my mother moved went promptly back out the door to charity. I don't want to be like them. Genetics scare me. At 69 and 70 have their lives and love really been that meaningless that they have been reduced to things, to junk that even they can't say why they want it? I want to be able to recognize all that I have and be grateful, truly grateful for it. And what I am most grateful for, and what they both (especially her) seem to have lost sight of in all of their disappointment and bitterness, is how lucky they are to have people who love them. Daughters who were willing to leave their jobs and lives for weeks at a time to help them. Daughters who still call to see how they are even though the impulse is to grab them and shake them, hard, until they come to their senses. My mother actually said to my sister, the mother of 2 of her grandchildren, that she would rather not live if she couldn't bring all of her craft paraphernalia with her to her new apartment. When I called her on it, she couldn't even see what was wrong with that statement. And now that she's about 3 miles away she has yet to even go see those grandkids.
Recently, my partner and I went to Atlanta for a brief vacation and we encountered unusual friendliness and kindness from total strangers—people who we'd just met offering to open their homes to us and to spend time with us so that we would have a memorable visit. As much as I frequently disdain my fellow persons (and you SUV-driving, flag-waving, clueless, selfish ones, you know who you are), I find that this is more often true than not. Many, sometimes unlikely people are kind. They're good. Years ago I was working as a cashier in a clothing store and I was bemoaning something horrible that was happening in the world, and a woman I worked with pointed out that there is just as much, if not more good being done at any given time but it isn't newsworthy, so we never hear about it, but she assured me that it is there. I want to believe that still. So, go out and do something truly good. Help someone. Smile. Bring happiness to this life into which we are quick to bring hostility, misery, anger, and cruelty. Tell someone you pass that they look beautiful instead of cutting your eyes at them in jealousy. Make eye contact with and speak to the homeless person who speaks to you. They are human and they are equal to you and they deserve your respect. When you're driving, yield to the pedestrian or the cyclist. Their fragile bodies are no match for you in your thousands of pounds of steel, but their lives are more precious than the time you think you're losing by just waiting for them to make their way. Get off the phone. Pay attention. Someone loves that person you're not looking out for. (yeah, traffic safety is my soapbox.) You know, these are the transgressions most of us witness, or enact, on a daily basis, mostly without even thinking. But just remember the goodness in yourself and bring it forth into the world. I, myself, am trying, if for no other reason than I don't want it to take months for me to be able to conjure up something positive to write about. That simply shouldn't be.
2 September 2001
Does no one do something for nothing anymore?
I have a friend who is talented, extremely hard-working, successful, and generous to a fault. She has worked tirelessly to help other people and it never fails that, no matter how much she does, people always come back asking for more. What should be a simple "congratulations" or "thank you" to her when she achieves something invariably turn into "and can you do this for me?" or worse, people will call her up and bitch at her because they don't think she's done enough for them, like because she has been good enough to help them in the past she perpetually owes them something. Some shameless shit. I'm constantly astounded by the lack of genuine generosity in others. Whatever happened to just giving kudos to the other person? To being grateful? To doing it yourself rather than bitching about how someone else is not doing it the way you think it should be done? Why does there always have to be a "gimme" attached? It's really appalling, and it really makes me question human nature. Are we that desperate for our own successes and our own props that all of our relationships and interactions are calculated to maximize benefit to us? Are those that do it even aware that they do it? Do they even care? Is the subsequent success sweet after you've clawed and gnawed your way to it?
I have experienced that to some degree with this site. People will write and ask for research information and I gladly copy materials I have and send them or E-mail information to them. I figure information does not belong to me, I just sometimes have access to it. I'd say that at least 70% of the time I never even get an acknowledgement that they received it, let alone a "thank you." While I'm disgusted by this behavior I hope it never prevents me from wanting to share information with other people. I'm not perfectly selfless, either, I don't openly share dream project ideas, for example, but I never ask for anything in return, not postage, nothing. At the same time I just want to call out some names of the offenders to publicly shame them. I don't care how busy you are or how important you think you are, show some common courtesy next time someone does something for you. The first time this happened a friend asked my to copy some Venus Hottentot materials for a colleague. I did, and mailed them to her, and she never once even acknowledged that she'd gotten it, but she, in turn, copied the information and distributed it to her classes. I was undone. I could not believe that she would behave as though this was due to her and that she needn't bother herself with trivialities such as thanking the person who'd helped her. She, consequently, is on my permanent shit list because, well, she acted shitty. (There's a clue hidden on this site as to this rude offender's identity 'cause I was so pissed at her behavior.) It happened again recently with another friend of a friend who was asked to do something for the friend and instead kept responding with requests for the friend to do something for her. At first I thought it was just me, but the friend noticed it, too. And it isn't just so-called professionals who do it. Parents, teach your children some manners. I sent two books I had written to my nieces, and could they be bothered to get on the phone to utter a thank you? My sister called, but I had not sent the books to her, which I pointed out. Next time there won't be any freebies from Sucker Aunt. Bitch Aunt is tired of it.
Sigh. Maybe it's me. Is expecting a simple, verbal "thanks" defeating the purpose of my own supposedly no-strings-attached generosity? If so, then color me guilty. I don't think courtesy is too much to ask. But maybe we all need to check ourselves and our behavior from time to time. That "me first and only" mentality is ridiculous, divisive, and unnecessary. Our communities and families are relatively small in the scheme of things. There's no hope for the planet if we can't even manage to be decent among our own.
16 August 2001
I like labels. I've never been one of those persons who doesn't want to be categorized. As an artist cultivating an audience on the Web, I use all the labels I can think of to make me accessible:
black photographer lesbian environmentalist woman artist researcher archivist womanist self-portraitist feminist Californian African American historian Westerner sister aunt
Oh, you know, my own private metadata.
I have never found these to be limiting but rather they open up avenues of access to approach my work. I rely upon them not only for locating my work but for going out and finding work that is relevant to me and the discussion here. I've been thinking about labels and what they mean and how we use them and frequently misuse them, about assumptions we enlightened liberals make all the time and are often just dead wrong.
This past weekend my partner and I went to Michigan Womyn's Festival. We had never been before, and since we are not camping types with a lot of vacation days we planned only to stay one day, less than 24 hours, in order to at least experience some part of it. We were even happy to fork over $200 each for the abbreviated visit, knowing that it was going to support the festival and the other womyn who are unable to pay. So we're thinking one big womyn-only comfort zone of community living and acceptance. Boy, are the '60s gone. Maybe it was the undercurrent of paranoia about right-wing Christian infiltration (oh, yeah, we really looked that part). We didn't feel particularly accepted there. Sure, we didn't take off our clothes for that really liberating sunburn, but we didn't stare, either. Like we haven't seen tits and twats before. We don't wear rainbows and we don't look particularly butch, femme, or anything else. Just plain folks, we are. And in our thirties, no less. I guess we're not "in." I'd have to say that as a group the women there were among the most unfriendly I've encountered (although there were definitely some extremely nice individuals.) What's up with that? I used to think, like many people have thought, that people who have been discriminated against couldn't possibly turn around and perpetrate the same evil. WRONG. They can. They do. Forget that nonsense about black people being incapable of racism. There's a lot more to it than black and white and everyone is capable. It might be race or age or it might just be your style. Folks have a way of letting know you aren't in the club.
So, I've long thought that homosexuality was one of the best things that could happen to white men because it kind of takes a bit of the gloss off of that smug superiority and entitlement that so many carry around and now I'm going to include white women in that statement. (And before you get your panties all in a bunch, my partner is a white woman. I'm generalizing here.) I have to say I'm often amused, somewhat, by the righteous indignance of gay white people that they would be discriminated against. Can you imagine? Who would presume to discriminate against them? The shock and surprise always amazes me. HELLO? Remember us, all us dark ones? Been there, done that. Well, now you know how it feels. It's real, ain't it? Lots has been written about insensitivity to racial issues, if not the existence of out-and-out racism, in the gay and lesbian community and in the feminist movement. Now, I'm not saying our reception there was a race thang. The black womyn weren't friendly, either, my sistas. But what's with the attitude? Why are folks so bloody attitudinal? Is it a defense mechanism? Shit, I smiled at and said hi to everyone walking into that festival. Same as I do here walking the streets of Santa Fe. I'd say, oh, I got about a 15% reciprocation at Michigan Womyn's. I get at least an 80% return here and Santa Fe isn't exactly teeming with black lesbians and those who love them. Is it disinterest or indifference or what, exactly? Where's this lovin', accepting community? We were treated more equally by the street people in Minneapolis a few days later as we loitered for hours on a busy downtown corner.
We were in Minneapolis for a concert. Amy Ray and the Butchies (Hey, Kathleen, we hope you get your girl!). Phenomenal stuff. The performance group/band Le Tigre performed (Ladies, did I really hear you give a shout out to Lorraine O'Grady?!?! I can't wait to get my CDs to verify!). Le Tigre is Kathleen Hanna, J.D. Samson, and Johanna Fateman. They are an amazing punk-feminist-artist group tackling a wide range of serious issues in their work—art-world visibility, incest, racially-motivated police murders, you name it. I was blown away by their intensity and sincerity. Even if you don't like punk music check them out. I guarantee you will learn something and feel a part of something and be humbled in the process. Also check out their label, Mr. Lady records, run by one of the Butchies, Kaia Wilson, and Tammy Rae Carland. They have music and videos, including some by and about black lesbians. Wow! Those aren't exactly readily available stuff. I can't wait to get those, either.
So hearing Le Tigre and the Butchies and then coming home and doing a little homework and discovering how much their work overlaps with my interests and concerns as an artist was incredibly inspiring and reaffirming. I felt present and acknowledged as a little bobbing head on the other end of the stage, my work validated a little more by experiencing theirs. And they were identifying and labeling themselves all over the place and in that way I knew I was in the right place, and it didn't feel compartmentalized or segregated or predetermined by someone putting a label on it and making it conform to whatever definition happened to come with it. Instead it felt encompassing and liberating. Something there for everyone, in a sense. Even the totally wasted girl staggering in front of us was feeling something—bless her heart, she was seriously high but could still recite the lyrics. Now, they had all played Michigan Womyn's, too.
Played to those same women among whom I didn't feel any of that rightness and sense of place. What, I wonder, do those women see and hear when they see and hear any of the above-mentioned artists? Simply that they're dykes and they rock? I cannot imagine that it is even remotely what I see and hear, but at the same time I can't fathom how it cannot be.
20 July 2001
Another rant. I'm sorry, but it's my forum to rant, right? It's that damn Temple book. (also see below). I am ashamed of it. I want it to disappear quickly and I want to never be reminded of it again. (Sorry, Deb.)
My first HUGE complaint—instead of the $20 range we initially discussed, this book is going to cost $60. Okay, yes, I understand that a book with a lot of illustrations has a higher production cost, but three times the amount? We never pretended it was going to be anything other than what it is, so why, suddenly, has the cost skyrocketed? I rarely, maybe once every two years, pay $60 or more for a book, and even then I really have to want it. Frankly, I feel disgusted that my name will be on a $60 book that is now being marketed as a coffee-table book. This is not a coffee-table book. It never was. If I'd known it was going to turn into one I'd have never bothered. Coffee-table books don't have text. I think we've been hoodwinked.
It's unreal the way in which something that was so positive, of which I was so proud initially has turned into such a horror story. I think I'm trying to pretend that it isn't happening to us. If I don't my rage and disappointment will consume me. We just received the galley pages so there goes the rest of my summer. They even rewrote the first bloody sentence in the book! And this, in galley format, after we had previously received virtually no edits from our editor. Please, anyone else who has published a book—is this usual? Once it has gone to galleys we, the authors, can't make substantial changes, but how could the editor have made such substantial changes and sent it to galleys before we even saw them? We got the redlined version with the galley version. I feel nauseous with the prospect of having to read it.
Because if she has butchered it (which I completely suspect) it is too late for us to do much about it. No wonder talented people drop out of society. I don't know how talented I am, but I'm next. (Although I do still entertain fantasies of my dream job—ghost writer. If anyone is looking for a ghost writer [who promises not to be indiscreet in an online journal if the experience is horrible and demoralizing], E-mail me.) But never again will I publish something like this which is original research. It is not worth it.
Sigh. Bottom line—DON'T BUY THIS BOOK. (Again, sorry, Deb.) I wouldn't. It's overpriced and maybe if no one buys it is will go away quickly and quietly.
1 July 2001
You know, sometimes it ain't all good.
I'm proud of this site, and what it does and the fact that people really use it. Last week I participated in a "Digitizing Divas" conference and everyone was so terrific and energetic and enthusiastic that I left feeling valuable and inspired and fired up to continue my work and expand and put more out there.
This week—I'm ready to quit. Anybody want to host a site about black women artists? Content's already been established, just need to update occasionally, re-do the scans.
The perpetual dilemma—why do I do this? Why do I stay in the art game? Keeping this site keeps me too connected. I don't make art, really. Rarely. It's generally like pulling teeth, something I'll do if it's absolutely necessary and only if everything else is finished first. Everything else, out of necessity, comes first. That is simply the choice I have made in my life. I love art, love images, but lately I find I love staring out my window more. Frankly, I'm just good at recording minutiae, remembering trivia. I'm no great thinker.
We moved to New Mexico in November 1999. To slow down. To improve our quality of life. I've never been busier, and I'm miserable.
I am two things—exhausted and overwhelmed.
I'm not even gonna bring up my parents and all that stress. I guess you'd call it burnout.
First problem: I never say no. I don't feel as though I can afford to. I would love to freelance full-time, but if I turn something down it might just be the "big" thing to turn the tide and allow me to quit my 9-to-5 forever. So I can't say no. Except to that 100,000-word book to be written on spec. At least I had better sense than to sign up for that. (no disrespect to the project editors—it just wasn't for me.) I already know—painfully—from writing a book out of my own pocket (see tirade below).
Second: I'm human, I crave recognition. Sure, I'd love some fame. And yeah, I'm ashamed to admit it. Only I went about it all wrong. I can say I'm the only one of my friends who stuck to our early, undergrad convictions. I've never sold my work. I tried briefly on this site and scared myself away. I always believed that art is about ideas and ideas should be given away, shared freely. I wanted there to be something of value in this world that wasn't associated with a bottom line.
What a chump.
I worry about money constantly. Constantly. Even when there's enough there's never enough. Even though we've pared down and try to live more simply it's a constant, nagging reminder that I chose the "high road" and didn't sell out and since I didn't sell out I can't buy anything. Well, books. I still buy books. But then I can afford nothing else. And no I'm not a horrible typical American over-consumer just concerned with acquiring stuff I don't even need. It isn't that. It would be really nice to have a new bed. Instead I'm still paying student loans on a career I'm constantly unsure I even want. At least I'm not still racking up debt.
I took a pay cut to move to New Mexico. No big deal, only money, wasn't the most important thing in the grand scheme of things. This was where I wanted to live, big skies, clean air, space around me. I quit being a curator to become a part-time office assistant because I couldn't stand the Schomburg. I knew what was important. I was a Westerner, and I was gonna live in the West. But L.A., my hometown, had too much smog and too many people, so me with my area of speciality being African American photographers and photographic subjects I move to one of the only states in the bloody Union with less than 2% black population so in other words no-job-for-you-black-girl if you want to actually work at what you know. (I think that was number 3.) And I miss my nephew terribly—why did I move here? There's not even an ocean! Okay, Carla, get a grip...
Have patience, right? You're getting there. Slowly but surely. Argh! Fuck patience. Now I'm impatient. I'm getting old and tired of waiting to break. And I hate even feeling like I have to clean up this journal because, you know, somebody "professional" might look at my site and then what will they think of me? They'll never hire me for anything! (don't worry—I didn't edit this one and if anyone who currently employs me is reading this, no, I'm perfectly happy where I am.)
Third: Even if we don't stay here we will never move back East, thus effectively lessening my options for work. This much I'm almost certain of. I met someone the other day who lives here but went East for a couple of years to earn a living. Lovely. Is that how it really works? That frightened me. And who am I fooling? I'm no academic. What would I even do? I wasn't a curator, either. What exactly is it that I do? Sit at my computer and rant and rave? I've got deadlines tomorrow. I've got lots to do right now.
Okay so since I'm ranting anyway can I just say and come clean and be outed that no, I wasn't down with my people in college. There, I said it. I didn't go to the Third World Center. Well, once. I never went to Philly even though it was just as close as New York. I didn't do well in my African American Women Writers lit class (and so yeah, years later when I met Valerie Smith again in another context I was just so sure that she remembered, that she knew.) Look, I was 16 and everything was new to me and I made fast friends with the white girl the computer assigned as my freshman year roommate who was going to be my lifelong friend but who now doesn't even bother to stay in touch with me (was it my girlfriend, my woman-love that did it?). Does the past never go away? I am in no way the person I was then, nearly 20 years ago. I can barely even remember that girl. I don't know that I would have even liked her. Will I always be awkward, feel like I've been nailed when I meet some other black Princeton grad who asks me who I hung with, or where? Yes, I went there. No, I didn't know her or him. (They didn't know me, either.) Alson Alston, wherever you are, I'm sorry, brother. You were right about me. I wish we had remained friends.
Fourth: I'm petty and jealous. Okay, big admission there. It seems like everyone else is succeeding, passing me by. And with only one exception, I at least possess the capacity to be happy for everyone else's success, to recognize that what they accomplish benefits us all and no, I couldn't have done it, certainly not any better. Sometimes I'm the shoulda-woulda-coulda queen: I shoulda tried to peddle my wares to the galleries. I woulda been successful if I'd only tried. I coulda been a big-time curator with a travel budget and new clothes every season (okay, my curator friends, I know this isn't you, either!) and occasional mentions in the newspaper. Sigh. No, I would never have. I should never have. And I certainly could never have. I chose the path I wanted and at least I stuck to my guns. I'll sleep it off and get up in the morning and finish my ½¢-per word encyclopedia entries. Some of them, anyway. Actually, it isn't even half a cent. Hopefully I won't even be dizzy. Then I'm gonna start writing that novel and make some fantastic pictures in which I'll look slender again and everything is going to be great. Just great.
Carolyn, I'm sorry about the weekend. But really, there's nothing wrong with me.
9 May 2001
This past weekend Sweet Honey in the Rock came to my town. I'd never seen them in concert before and they had sold out the house. When they took the stage, six beautiful black women commanding attention and respect, I started to cry. Their presence was so overwhelming, and I had to stop and realize that I had never seen six black women, particularly not six black women over the age of thirty, on a stage at any one time. My pride was an overwhelming emotion at that moment. Maybe I'm just the weepy kind, but I find that I am often moved to tears by declarations of womanhood, black womanhood in particular. It sounds fairly corny to say so. But take, for example, India.Arie's song "Video." Hearing the words of her refrain articulated gives my goose bumps—they're so righteous, so powerful. At the same time, I get goosebumps hearing Lil' Kim rapping "We're independent women/some mistake us for whores/ I'm saying 'Why spend mine when I can spend yours?'" It isn't always p.c. what moves me, but that unmistakeable, undeniable assertion of one's voice, particularly a black woman's voice, is utterly exhilirating.
26 March 2001
We are still invisible in the picture.
I was going to write about driving and how bad most of us are at it and how we should really try to do better (yes, I had recently gotten a ticket, gotten indignant, gone to traffic school and then gotten repentant) but something else has caught my attention recently.
A couple of weeks ago I took spring break off and finally inaugurated the DVD player that came with this computer. We rented a bunch of DVDs of movies we'd wanted to see. One was Boogie Nights. Now, I remember all the press hype that surrounded this movie when it came out. You know I loved my Entertainment Tonight, my E! Entertainment television, my magazines, my Hollywood. (Maybe it was growing up in L.A. that made me that way.) Who didn't get press on that one? The relatively-new writer/director, Paul Thomas Anderson, Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg and his big prosthetic dick, Burt Reynolds' Oscar®-nominated comeback (we'll all forget the butchering of Carl Hiassen's Striptease), Heather Graham's so-called breakthrough performance (although, wasn't that supposed to be in Drugstore Cowboy?); good old reliable Don Cheadle being good and reliable again, good old reliable Julianne Moore also being good and reliable again, William Macy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alfred Molina in a bit-part as a drug dealer—hell, even porn queen Nina Hartley doing a little R-rated onscreen fucking (literally, in all of her scenes) rated some mentions.
So, I'm reading Essence a couple months ago and there's a story on Ari Nicole Parker, who stars on Showtime's Soul Food. The article lists Boogie Nights as one of her credits, though I don't recall ever seeing her mentioned in any of that press. Sure enough, though, she had at least an equivalent role to Cheadle or Macy, certainly bigger than Molina or Hartley, with a story line and happy ending with her Pep Boys manager and everything, and even though, admittedly, all of the other actors were known for previous roles she's never once mentioned in the film's press. Not even in the short summary of the cast. As though she is not even there. In short, the black woman, the only black female in the cast, is invisible within the (movie) frame. I saw her, she was really in the movie, she really acted in it, and was pretty good, at that, but for all intents and purposes—of reviewers and critics, press-release writers, at least—she wasn't even worth mentioning. Not even to spell her name right. Nothing. Doesn't exist.
Was I surprised? No, how could I be. But I was shocked, and pissed, and it wasn't the first time. Several years ago while doing research on the French photographer Jacques Antoine Félix Moulin I found a reproduction of one of his images in the book After Daguerre: Masterworks of French Photography (1848-1900) from the Bibliothèque Nationale published in 1980, now more than twenty years ago. The photograph in question from 1852 depicted a nude white female model seated on the floor leaning on and gazing up at a dark-skinned black man wearing a Zouave uniform. Clearly two people in the frame. The brief text that accompanied the photograph pointedly refers to "this model," not "the female model," discussing the design of light on her breast yet never once acknowledging the other figure in the photograph. Is he invisible? He takes up half the frame. I was as appalled when I first read it as I am now. Just like for decades scholars wrote essays and books about Manet's painting "Olympia" without once mentioning the very real presence of the black model, Laura. How could that be? There are two women in the frame, just two; how can one of them not even be mentioned in an entire book about this single painting? Is the black person so beneath consideration that you needn't mention him or her at all? Is that it? So when I finally saw Boogie Nights it was that samo, samo, all over again. What is it that makes these particular figures, these black bodies, inconsequential to the point of being rendered invisible? Because they are there, I can sure see them, and there are some of us who are more interested in their stories than the others. And we read and buy movie tickets and are watching and listening and know what's going on. You are not as subtle as you think you are. We are not as dumb as you think we are.
And I, for one, am unwilling to be invisible while present, while I'm standing right in front of you. Every time I'm standing at a counter waiting for something and a white person walks up and gets served first (happens all the time), I can't help but wonder if that clerk is choosing not to see me, if it's just an automatic association that I should come second, come after, behind. I've still never worked up the courage to use my (favorite) mother's line, "As big and black as I am I know you see me standing here," that sent the woman who had walked up and stood in front of her in a line scurrying to another register. That's why I do what I do, with this website, my photographs, my writing. Oprah's a mogul, Lil' Kim's a spectacle, Whoopi's a lovable freak, Halle's the tragic—but very cute—mulatto. Mainstream society has absorbed them. So where does that leave the rest of us, the majority of us, the bulk of us? Because the invisible black woman syndrome is alive and well and thriving. And, frankly, I'd like someone who is guilty of perpetuating it to tell me why.
