Thursday, June 20, 2013

Dark Girls documentary, and a google reader alternative.

Let me tell you a story about one of life's simple pleasures. Rabbi Shmuley says that the way to be happy in life is to find pleasure in the mundane, since the mundane is what makes up most of your days.

Before we moved, I used to have OWN. I watched it all the time. The show about the eating disorder clinic, Ryan and Tatum O' Neal's show about their messed up relationship, Sarah Ferguson's show where she screamed in the desert and followed a string around the backyard while blindfolded--I was all over those. Then we moved and I thought my access to OWN was gone forever (or at least as long as we lived here.)

Then after we had been living here several months, I saw a tivo suggestion that had recorded on OWN. I clicked on it, fully expecting to see a blank screen and a message about how that channel wasn't authorized. So imagine my surprise when an actual show came on! I had OWN again! Who knows how long I'd had it. Instead of focusing on the shows I'd missed, I figured it better to focus on all the shows I could watch in the future. So, the last thing I watched on the channel was Master Class with Susan Sarandon, where she shared gems like it being important to celebrate rejection like you celebrate victories, because not getting something you think you want opens you up to getting something else.

So how this all relates to race and inequality: Oprah's network is showing a documentary this Sunday called Dark Girls. It is all about colorism, something I talked about in my first point of this post. You can watch trailer for it below:




They also have a longer (9 minute) trailer you can watch on the film's website here.

So, if this seems like a topic you would be interested in learning more about, I would encourage you to watch the documentary this Sunday, June 23rd at 10/9 central.

And now for the second part of this post's title. It looks like Google is not changing its mind about getting rid of Reader at the beginning of next month. I have switched over all the blogs I read to Bloglovin'. I haven't completely figured it out, but it is free and it seems to be good enough. They have a way to automatically transfer your blogs from reader to them, which seems like it would be helpful if you read a lot of blogs.

If you don't follow a lot of other blogs, you can like my blog on facebook.
You can also follow me on twitter.

The good thing about both of these avenues is that I sometimes post things on both of these sites that I don't necessarily discuss here on the blog. Like bonus features of a DVD or something. Though twitter is more like the blooper reel :p

I also have an option where you can sign up to receive new posts via email. I don't know how to post a link for that. But if you're not on a mobile device, you can look on the right sidebar (right under the about me section,) and sign up. And if you are on a mobile device, you can wait until you get to home or work and get on an actual computer and then look on the right sidebar under the about me section and sign up.

I think that's everything. Feel free to leave me a comment, though I don't know that I said much to comment on. Maybe you can tell me your favorite show on OWN.

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:12 PM

    What the actual hell.

    Now, in White culture, it's not okay to be light skinned. Girls damage themselves in tanning booths and obsess over which self-tan lotion looks the most natural. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have been called "pasty," "glow in the dark," "pale," and so many other things. Mostly by other women, occasionally by men.

    The pain was mostly balmed over into simple irritation by my father, who always praised my "beautiful alabaster skin" and begged me never to mar myself with tattoos or worry about tanning. God bless my affectionate Dad.

    I am not specifically speaking to race, but intra-racial colorism is a real thing, in my individual experience.

    The pain that I saw on some of the women's faces in this short movie trailer sickened me.

    It is too flippant to say, "I have always thought that dark skinned Black women were so beautiful," because I know that isn't a big part of the complex issue. Of course I watched Lauryn Hill and Naomi Campbell from my suburban TV when I was in middle school and absorbed their magical physical beauty as a given. But were there beautiful dark skinned girls living within a few miles of me who CRIED, actually CRIED because they wished they were lighter? This is unbelievable to me. Baffling. Horrifying.

    What can someone like me even DO? Are my hands tied? I so deeply wish colorism wasn't a "thing."

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  2. D. Austin9:38 PM

    I already had it set on my DVR. It should be interesting.

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  3. Nicola - love your comments. I, too, am a very fair skinned lass. Sometimes others have made me feel "less than" because of it, and then I'm like wtf?

    So I used to be on the track team in high school and one of my relay partners had very dark skin. It was often hot & humid during our meets, and she'd be wearing long sleeves & pants. I remember asking her about her clothing and she replied "well, I don't want to get darker." I didn't quite understand that when I was 16.

    Regarding the video clip, I'm still pissed off at the guy who said he didn't like dark-skinned girls.

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  4. Pam Line10:12 PM

    I find this so GREAT and fascinating because A) I consider myself dark skinned and B) For graduate school I wanted to do my thesis on skin bleaching and colorism in Jamaica or some predominately black country. UnfortunaeIy, the MA program I was in had Profs that were uncomfortable with these type of sbjects. Sad times we don't have cable but will find some way to watch it!!

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  5. I'm using feedly. :)

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  6. I want to send you an e-mail. When I tried going to your blogger profile I was told that e-mail box was full and received an error message.

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  7. what a profound issue. reminds me of chris rock's documentary on 'good hair.' i appreciate the observation that the effect of this is to 'shrink the soul' and create a deeply devalued self. so painful to recognize that truth.

    myself, as a white man who is conventionally attractive (how do you refer to that without sounding arrogant?), there is so much 'free ambient' support for me feeling good about myself - in the particular area of feeling valuable for appearance. Some of it is for my skin tone, and some for the shape of face and body.

    Even isolating the effect of skin tone - it's as if dark skinned folks experience a poison in the air, and I experience an uplifting feeling from the same air. it pains me to recognize just how painfully unfair these different realities are.

    I do face my own challenges, and traumas and misfortunes, too. But in this moment it feels grounding to recognize the challenge that others face.

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