All Things Get Better.

Discovered this song on Saturday, have listened to it almost everyday since, and it lays me out every time. Can't get through a single listen without tearing up. Thank you Kirk Franklin, for continuing to use your gift of song and story (Lawdhammercy, those lyrics!) to heal hearts even after two decades. And thank you Geoffrey Golden, for coming out of the gate strong after winning Sunday Best. We young'uns need peers like you set the example that you're setting.

"Before we all perish." -_-

In today's episode of white supremacy/conservative paranoia/TakeAmericaBack BS at the bookstore:

Just before the end of my shift at customer service this afternoon, I was called over to the cash registers to wrap two books for a customer. An up-in-age suburban white lady. One of these books was Plunder and Deceit, yet another publication by an educated bozo, the value of which this up-in-age  suburban white lady made a point of impressing upon me while I wrapped her purchases. She's got grandkids in college, and is buying this book for all of them because apparently this book has the key to solving all our problems, and without it young people won't be able to save all 320 million of us from imminent doom due to government overreach:

 "This is the generation that's gotta turn things around. Before we all perish."

....Excuse you?

Hmm.

 

Explain to me, up-in-age suburban white lady, how your life is in danger when you have:

1. The resources to drive or be driven to one of the largest bookstore franchises in one of the whitest, richest areas of the whitest, richest county in Michigan.

2. The money to pay for hardcover and leatherbound books at full or even slightly discounted price.

3. The time to not only wait to have said books wrapped, but also to spout off your non-knowledge to a complete stranger and try to lecture her about the art of wrapping gifts because apparently she wasn't doing it right.

 (Well dang! If you know so much, why didn't you just ask for someone to cut the paper for you so you could do it ya durn self instead of slowing me down with your unnecessary input? I stopped what I was doing and left my post to help you. I am doing you a favor. I am not a child. I am no one's dummy. And I'm certainly not one of your lil pampered, sheltered, entitled, bootstraps myth-brainwashed grandkids. Fall. back.)

Access, money, free time! Oh the horror! Oh the peril!

You're worried about the government getting too much into your business? When there are people out here who can't even read, much less afford to buy a brand new book like you're doing right now? When there are people out here being abused/killed everyday just because of what they look like?

What you refuse to acknowledge is that you are the government. YOU! Most of the people in it look like, are in the same age range as, have a similar socioeconomic background as, and think just. like. you. The government, this entire nation, is working for people like you. YOU! And you call yourself saving the world with your dramatics? 

Eff outta here with that BS. "Thank you and have a great day!" -_-

This.

Korean and Japanese men collaborating? Rapping to trap music? And goin' hard? You can't tell me that Black people, the hood, and the things we create aren't all things powerful and transcendent. This is all the proof you need. You're welcome.

Getting Rid of Our Own Warning Signs?

Currently listening to a podcast (The Black Dad Podcast's episode entitled "The Challenge of Black Fatherhood in America") in which a young Black father argues that we shouldn't be so quick to erase Confederate symbols because:

1) It'll be harder for people of color to know who our enemies are, and

2) Getting rid of things will only facilitate more willful forgetting and revisionist history, since people will look back decades from now and there'll be no more proof that these wrongdoings and strongholds of racism have lasted as long as they have (read: that there are real centuries-long problems that aren't going away so long as people twiddle their thumbs, persist in non-versations, and stick their heads in the sand).

I've never heard this particular argument before. Are POCs darned if we do, darned if we don't?

Everybody Comes from Somewhere - Straight Outta Compton.

As I did when I saw Twinsters, I gave myself a week to process the film before writing about my thoughts on it. Hoping that I won't say too much of what's already been said, although perhaps that's unavoidable. Over the past few years I've become more selective about which films I bother paying to see, but even with the great feats of cinematic storytelling that I've seen this year, I don't remember loving them at first viewing as much as I loved this one.

Seen Friday, August 14th: Straight Outta Compton

A biopic about N.W.A ("Niggaz wit' Attitudes") a rap group composed of five rapper and musician friends out of Compton, California. From a town considered to be "nowhere", these nobodies were  among the pioneers of gangsta rap and "reality rap" emerging in the late '80s and early '90s, using their art to express the cruelties of their everyday reality. While many (including white parents and the Feds) lambasted N.W.A. for glorifying violence, many more loved them and their music for keeping it real. N.W.A. made history, prized their integrity as artists, and their impact helped to inspire and launch the careers of many monumental hip-hop artists who followed after them. 

"The World's Most Dangerous Group" 

What I really like about this film: I love how the film depicts hood life without taking any dignity away from hood people. I love how Ice Cube's legacy is honored by his son's portrayal of him, nearly 30 years after starting on this journey, the outcome and impact of which neither he nor his fellow group members could have anticipated. Most of all, I love how the film celebrates black brotherhood. A group of  black men, brothas (literally, figuratively, and colloquially) being there for each other, igniting each other's artistry, backing each other up not only when it came to fights or police harrassment, but also supporting each other during their most devastating moments. Not afraid to cry for each other. Not too macho to tell each other "I love you" when it matters most. That's not something you see too often in Hollywood films, especially not in blockbuster ones ($55 million earned in its opening weekend, $27 million in its second!), and especially not in ones that are already poised to have their characters perceived as thugs and no-gooders. Oh! And of course, how could I forget! I love the film's message that people should be proud of where they're from. Not only has "Straight Outta Somewhere" been a wildly successful promotional campaign on social media, but as it concerns the film I also think it's a vital reminder that the members of N.W.A. weren't ashamed of their beginnings. They took the place that made them, repped it proudly, and used their work to change the world. Everybody comes from somewhere....

What I don't like about this film: Already there has been much criticism that Straight Outta Compton too conveniently portrays these men as good ol' boys, sweeping over the more unsavory details of their behavior and never questioning the way women are used (both around them and by them directly). To that I give the same answer I gave to a friend who questioned me about this: Those arguments are more than valid. But personally, I watched the film first and foremost to learn more about N.W.A. as people/artists with vision and integrity who made an impact, and in that vein I still think the movie is exemplary. With that said, the only complaint I have about the film is that I wish the audience would've been given more of an opportunity to become acquainted with MC Ren and DJ Yella. As someone who'd been vaguely familiar with N.W.A. beforehand, I hadn't even remembered there being members other than Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, and Ice Cube. Ren and Yella were plenty visible, but still somehow faded into the background, which perhaps also happened when the group was in its prime. I don't know. Regardless, I would've liked to know more about them.

Would I recommend it?: Absolutely! Not only that, I wholeheartedly believe that this film should be required music history viewing. Straight Outta Compton is a cinematic masterpiece and a phenomenal piece of history. Y'all know what to do. That is all.

Canton/Plymouth

Before another Saturday comes around and I forget, here's a little blurb about my latest excursion. This past Saturday I got off work at noon, took a nap, and then headed to Canton to visit my friend Irene (alternatively referred to as "Ivy" in the past). She's an MSU student like I am (well was now, weird.), but I actually met her while studying abroad in Japan two years ago. She was back in her hometown, and I've been in my hometown this whole time, so I drove to her area so she could show me around. Now, did I have a good time? Hedgehog. Ikea. Cake. Put all that together. What do you think?

Canton/Plymouth photos

BOOKS! (The Good Shufu)

Last time I mentioned a certain recent Facebook post of mine: "When you read a book that's so good that you start reading another one concurrently just so you can make the first one last longer... I know, I know. I have a problem. ‪#‎bookworm‬." The first book was One Hundred Years of Solitude. The second book was The Good Shufu. The latter was something light to breeze through and balance out the draaamaaa of the the former.

The Good Shufu: Finding Love, Self, and Home on the Far Side of the World by Tracy Slater

The gist of the story is as follows. Tracy Slater is a Jewish, upper middle class, born-and-raised proud Bostonian writer and teacher with a PhD in literature. She takes a job teaching English to Asian businessmen enrolled in an MBA program for corporate executives. Her first post is in Kobe, Japan, beginning in May 2004. While there she and one of her students, Toru, take to each other. Three weeks in, he tells her he loves her. In 2005, Tracy visits Toru in his hometown of Osaka for the first time, after which she routinely splits the year living in both Osaka and Boston. In January 2007, she and Toru are married. Due to the language barrier, a lack of full-time employment on this side of the ocean, and a desire to settle well within her family and the rhythm of life in Japan, Tracy endeavors to learn how to become a good shufu (主婦; housewife, homemaker). By 2010 she is living in Osaka nearly full-time, all the while struggling to like Japan as much as she loves her husband. And now, in 2015 we have Tracy Slater's memoir, The Good Shufu (a play on "The Good Wife"). To paint a better picture of the mental highs and lows Tracy experienced while adjusting to her new life, she divides the book into six parts, all of which start with quotes from Paul Pederson's The Five Stages of Culture Shock.

First of all, Tracy Slater deserves all the props in the world for exposing her expat trials and her relationship like this. Going to Asia for a teaching job, getting hot and heavy with one of her students within weeks of  meeting each other, and sneaking around for months before working to keep a long-distance relationship alive? Some of that's pretty scandalous, and that's only the beginning of their love story! But Slater lays it all out there, and I respect that. For the most part, what Slater reveals about Japan is nothing new for people who have been there and/or spent a considerable amount of time studying the language and culture. What's most engaging is how she handles trying to understand and adapt to it all, as well as oscillating between being a full-time professional in her home country and a part-time housewife in her husband's country. I especially enjoyed chapters 14 and 15 in which she touches on her hardships doing IVF for a number of years, as a foreign woman in Japan, approaching her mid-40s. I've read very little about how difficult infertility problems can be, nothing about how IVF is done in Japan, and nothing about trying to become a mother at a high-risk age, so that whole arc of her story was unbelievably fascinating for me to be privy to.

But I have to be honest. From the moment I saw the cover and read the jacket, I really wanted to love this book. And I just didn't. Liked it well enough, but didn't love it. Tracy Slater has a remarkable story and through it has demonstrated the equally remarkable capacity that one can have to adapt to unusual, cross-cultural, and bi-continental circumstances. But as open-minded as she tries to be, for the first half of the book she seems just...  just too naive, too attached to the world she already knows, too attached to that sappy form of American patriotism that only some people can afford to subscribe to anymore. Early on she talks about Boston as if it's the only place in the world, and can't bear the thought of living anywhere else. Later when she first starts visiting Japan for long periods of time, for a while she avoids learning Japanese (so as to maintain her identity and not become too engrossed with Japan) and purposely only befriends fellow expats (who are presumably easier to relate to because of their shared foreignness). Granted, self-preservation and feeling in control are important, but I just wasn't feeling it. 

I guess, because I study Japanese and have spent time in Japan, having the opportunity to start a new life and settle there would be a dream come true to me. Since I was projecting my preferences onto Slater, I ended up being quite judgmental and annoyed with her during the first 2/3 of the book because I felt like she was being ungrateful and too typical in her American stubbornness. But I had to check myself and remember that my acquaintance with Japan was born of genuine interest and my own initiative; Tracy's was born more of circumstance and necessity, and she changed tremendously because of it. Given how the trajectory of her life has veered so far away from the plan she'd had in mind, I think she's handling it extremely well and has been able to use her life to create something that not only entertains but also reminds us to love across boundaries, and not take our plans or who we think we are too seriously.

Favorite quotes: 

"Toru turned from the window to throw me a silent smile, seemingly unconcerned that he couldn't get my meaning. Then he swiveled back to the view. I felt equally unconcerned, and then surprised, as I suddenly though how many relationships would benefit from a lack of shared linguistics, from the absence of expectation that our partners would, or even could, understand us most of the time" (23).

"My dear, no one loves Japan. It's just that the country is so endlessly fascinating. That is why we stay" (210).