Amongst Women Part 1 - The Importance of Communication

Red Table Talks: Jada Pinkett-Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield Jones and her daughter, Willow Smith Talk Love and Family

Red Table Talks: Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow Smith Talk Love, Family

Before I comment on what this video is about I wanted to talk quickly about the success of all relationships resting in those involved being able to express themselves. It's more than healthy to be confident in expressing one's needs and to show openness to receive information from the other. The skill of Listening is a fading (faded?) art, it seems. It's crucial to articulate grievances without aggression or an ulterior motive to undermine someones confidence, destablize them. #Playfair.
 Verbal jostles are real but they're not the be all and end all. Sometimes they're useful for letting off steam but not to hurt. If you play fair its just a rutting session.  Two people with intimate knowledge of each others communication ability allows compassion to exist between them and can be part of a sense of home for someone when they feel so understood. Like an unconditional clause in the unspoken family contract.

But what if home is not so secure? Many find that they fail in communicating their needs because they just don't seem to be able to get themselves understood. They may have

Even though its just a taste...

...its ok. The year is young.

So finding this now video by Kali Films is enough to add to the galvanized and inspired spirit I am feeling for the next phases of creating and completing Travelling Light.

Alice has been a childhood inspiration for me, The temple of My Familiar being my favourite book of hers. The strength of her voice and the faith of those in it, consistently re-ignites a humble fire in me to continue to put one foot in front of the other in times of uncertainty while navigating the tricky road as artist, writer and activist.

Watch this blog space. I feel it will be prolific this year....

BEYONCE - A CRITICAL DEBATE

 Beyonce? Am i bovvered? Seriously?

As the most strong-minded and beautiful business woman and Artist of 
colour in mainstream media (after Oprah),who makes highly consumable 
music and is rockinga blond weave, why should we care? Breaking down 
the Girls Run the World vid,we'll examine why the love/hate debate rages on.

HOSTED BY THE OCTAVIA FOUNDATION

http://www.octaviafoundation.org.uk/ 

On Tuesday, July 19, Zena Edwards, a renown spoken word artist, singer, playwright and actress invites you to take part in a critical discussion surrounding Beyonce's 'Run the World' video. This session will take a deep look at the themes, issues and controversy that has been surrounding Beyonce's video since its release.

Topics/issues covered in this session will include:
*Beyonce - a voice for strong women? 

*How do women of all ages connect with Sis B?
*Images of the men in the video
*Sexuality and empowerment
*Popular culture and role models
*Mainstream media representations vs the individuals reality
*and much more......

GOOD HAIR

After the advent of Chris Rocks  movie “Good Hair” this poem kept the debate going in the UK.

The politics of hair affect all women around the globe. We are under constant pressure to be beautiful and to manipulate our outer appearance taking our focus away from engaging and empowering our inner world. The first place we can attack is our hair because it’s accessible and so malleable. But the world is fickle and making those changes will only put demands on us to reach a next level of perfection that will always be unattainable. Distracted again.

The trials for Black women though, is  weighted in our historical confidence in our colour,  as well as  to our physical attributes and  "failings". Our beauty is tied up in a hierarchy of concepts that start with how we value our African features at the foundation.

But how do we get to hating and obsessing about our hair so much? Let me give you a scenario. After a meal with a friend, he was picking his teeth telling me the one thing he cannot stand about black women (he dates white ones), is a busted up weave.  I conspiratorially giggled a  bit and let it slide because I didn't want to get in to the whole weave debate after such a nice meal.  A few minutes later, I started commented on my own natural hair and pointed out "See that bit there? Just there?" He replied, "What, where its all picky picky?" He said it as if I just spit in his mouth. And there it was, out in the open - his disdain for my natural hair, dred on top, short at the the sides, with neat little 'pepper corn' curls,  relegated to a cuss, to "picky picky" by a brother with the same textured hair as me.
Now, I'm not going to go on a 'he just hates himself and his mother',  I want to deal with how he was a blatant example of contributing to the decreased confidence in self image for naturall ynappy headed women of colour, because it would not matter what I had on my head HE would've found fault. Part of his brain is imprisoned into

SLUT WALK LONDON 12th June 2011

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

These images are from Slut Walk London that walked th elength of Piccadilly and convened on Trafalgar's Square (under nelsons phallic column) on a fresh sunny day in London. As I stood with camera and hand held recoder in hand, I wondered what I had come. Was I wanting to be inspired, pumping my fists in the air every 20 seconds? Did I want to document a feminine utopian event that hopefully marked the new beginning of women of all class and cultures, standing up and speaking out against violence against women?  Was I expecting a tirade of man-bashing speeches that was a call to arms? 

What I got was common sense on a humanist level and wasn't disappointed as such, just hoping for even minor incendiary provokation. Not a bra burning but a  something that made my heart beat a little faster. Not Beyonce's Girls Run The World war on Man but was some kind of Kali or Nzinga defiance

THIS BRIDGE POEM by Donna Kate Rushin