The Divas Doth Protest Too Much | The Obsidian Files

If you’re in the NYC metro area, you might have heard about the big brouhaha over a recently painted mural over on Times Square. More than 90 feet long, the mural depicts African American and Latina Women in various poses.

The mural itself was painted by a Latina artist from Puerto Rico and lives in the Bed-Sty section of Brooklyn. She’s come under fire from some Black and Hispanic communities up in NYC for making a mural that demeans Women and the rest of it.

Then I get word of an outfit of professional Black & Latina Women called “Phenomenal Women Inc.” basically waging a media campaign against the powers that be who bankroller the mural in the first place. Now, I’ve seen pics of the mural itself, and while I can see their point, I’m sorry but somehow I really don’t see this as something to raise much of a ruckus about-but I DO have something to say about these “Baps”. I’ll let er rip after you get a chance to see the mural for yourself:

OK.

You may recall my recent posting up of an all-White step team who won a nationwide step competition? I didn’t say much about the issue at the time, mainly because I really wanted to hear what you all had to say about it instead. This time though, I gots to vent my spleen…

You know, the thing that really burned me up about the White step team incident, wasn’t that they won, but that the haters were mad ’cause they got beat at their own game-worse, they’re so pretentious that it all would be a big joke if the stakes weren’t so high. The Black Greeks claim to be about “the community” but after a century of being in existence the only time in recent memory they can make the headlines is when an all-White squad shows them up at a contest the Black Greeks organized to begin with. Sure, their supposed noble aims are outlined in their charters, and that’s exactly what I’m zero-ing in on here-exactly what do they have to show for all their claims of “community involvement”? From where I sit, not a lot, unless one wants to count corporate sponsored step shows-which get won by White teams, I might add.

Meanwhile, all the familiar and longstanding problems besetting Black America continues, unabated; HIV/AIDS, among other STDs, are still astronomically high. So are highschool dropout rates, Black Male unemployment rates, homicide rates, incarceration rates, illiteracy rates, homelessness rates, infant mortality rates (btw, Bronx has one of the highest infant mortality rates IN THE COUNTRY-where are the “Phenomenal Women” on that???), etc, et al. in Baltimore, the school where Thurgood Marshall attended is now on the brink of being closed down, just like what happened to half of all schools in Kansas City last week-where’s the “Phenomenal Women”, the socalled “Divine Nine” on that?

Why, they’re really making moves addressing White step teams and racy murals, of course.

Meanwhile Black and Hispanic America dies slowly on the vine, and a big part of that reason is because outfits like the two mentioned above not only major in the minors, but also because they’re all too quick to wanna ape their White betters. There, I said it. I mean, let’s not mince words here-the Black Greeks and “professional” outfits like the one this post is about want to be Muckety Mucks in their own right, but can’t get on in White America for real-so they make their own cliques and basically do the exact same thing they see Ms. Ann and Mr. Charlie do. Only in Black-and now it seems-Latinface.

If the “Phenomenal Women” really want to make an impact on Times Square without so much as firing a metaphorical shot, all’s they gots to do is DON’T GO THERE. Do spend money there. In short, do all they can to simply avoid the place. Simple. Problem. Solved.

That’s what I do when I have reason to believe groups or businesses or corporations are dissing me and mine-I simply take my business elsewhere. For good. When Eddie Bauer gave those two Brothas a workout in one of their stores in suburban Maryland a decade ago, I decided Eddie Bauer couldn’t get my money anymore-and this is coming from someone who actually liked Eddie Bauer apparel a lot. But I did it. And I never looked back. I didn’t ring up the Reverands Jackson and Sharpton. Didn’t flail about trying to organize a boycott. I just simply stopped buying Eddie Bauer shit. The end.

And as for the group/association thing, of which their exists a gazillion umpteen of em I Black USA, I belonged to one that had within its ranks Men from all walks of life and ages. We put up the money to run our own candidate for local elected office; we lost, but it felt good to know that I could make a difference in the local politics of where I lived. We adopted a few public schools and volunteered to mentor the young boys. One of them is a national chess team legend. We put out our own local journal magazine, airing issues and putting a spotlight on problems we thought needed to be addressed, and for a good five years it was highly profitable. And we organized our own town watches, which aided the police in reducing crime. For my money, that beats just about anything the Divine Nine or the Phenomenal Women are doing.

Look. I hear these gals on the symbolism thing, and for what its worth, I do think a bit of balance could have been depicted in the artwork-theres nothing wrong with showing a few Sistas and Latinas carrying briefcases, too-but the plain truth of it is we’ve got some seriously big fish to fry in both communities, to be wasting so much time and energy on something that, at the end of the day, really won’t help do much to turn the things I wrote about above around. If these Women really want to be Phenomenal, they can start by actually taking some of the Sistas and Latinas in the hood under their wing and do some longterm one on one mentoring, starting with the basics, like relationships, childrearing, deportment and so on, all the way through seeing them through job training or schooling. This is something all of them can do, doesn’t cost a lot if anything at all, and doesn’t require getting a grant, waging a media campaign or organizing a boycott. If things are gonna get any better for Black and Brown folks, its Talented Tenth is gonna have to do a lot better than making mountains out of moehills.

Actually showing their faces in the hood is a good start.

Now adjourn your uppity asses…

The Obsidian