BlackWife

Like we were saying…because we had a conversation the other night that went, “So, have you noticed Barack’s hair lately,” etc. (’cause his hair has not been looking right, chile, and we know it is from stress), we were looking around to see whether anyone in the world had written about his hair. Unfortunately somebody has. To wit: “This might be an entirely subliminal thing but Obama’s haircut and appearance always has reminded me of those bow-tie wearing Nation of Isalm [sic] people.” This from a very goofy comment (see why the Wife doesn’t do comments?) on a thoughtful post about Obama’s tentative (strained) relationship with Jewish voters.

We have admired Barack’s hair for a long time, and remember reading a very touching story about how his barber, an old regular black man from Chicago, cuts his hair every two weeks for the last twenty years, or something like this.

Now we are really distraught. We have never heard anything like this before, although we admit unfamiliarity with the kooky internet talk. Stating the obvious: Immaculateness of fade is not evidence of anti-Semitism or any other kind of racism. It may not even be evidence of immaculateness.

says Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury.

I am supposed to say something about Faulkner in a gender theory seminar next week, so I’ve been thinking about his greatness, for me, and laughing out loud like I always do at this kind of “offensive” language in his work. Then I read something in Robert Reid-Pharr’s Black Gay Man about how whiteness assumes its own transparency, how whiteness becomes racism by projecting itself as if it were a given.

Somehow poetry (and I guess I am erasing some practices of poetry when I say this, marking myself as I-don’t-know-what-kind of negro) seems especially susceptible to the complaints that follow. What white American poets of the 20th/21st century accomplish what Faulkner accomplished in this regard? (Continued)

Santi White, a talented and unpredictable creature, is my sister. I am moved this morning to talk about her work, which I have always admired and has lately morphed into something freakishly large and beautiful. Santi gets a lot of press, most of it good. Marco Villalobos, in particular, follows and fairly chronicles her developing genius. But her ability to swing playfully between vocal styles and genres has led to a bunch of mostly off the mark, missing the point comparisons (Stiffed/Gwen Stefani; Santogold/M.I.A) and silliness. Let’s fix that right now.

Leaving aside her work as a third party songwriter, we can usefully compare Santi to Chrissie Hynde, Bjork or PJ Harvey. Hynde’s unquestionable leadership of the Pretenders and clear clear songwriting voice, Bjork’s pop cultural reach, and Harvey’s bitter femininity . . . “Man-Size,” in which the female musician imagines crushing opposition, with both classical and rock instrumentation. We are interested in the sound of female ambition, the sound of being human and wanting to be on the radio.

All female? All white? I think and think about this and discover that there is no use allocating identities here. I could say she is a disco queen, a blues or opera diva. Some important considerations: Santi, while a competent guitar player, is not a virtuoso instrumentalist. She is not, per se, a singer. Santi is a rock star.

Nonetheless, when I hear Kathleen Battle singing “I am Not Seaworthy,” (look how the fish/mistake my hair for home) I think of my sister, the idea of the black woman in time . . . and the desire to perform. Carl Phillips says of the good poet, she must “risk self-betrayal.” The black female public artist in its rock star incarnation risks a brush with whiteness and oblivion. The pushback and cage of industrial black music and also the possibilities inherent and achieved in all blues and soul music. See?

Which brings me to the question of her words. If I could write songs, I would write “I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up/If I could stand up mean for all the things that I believe.”

All my life, I have watched politicians from my kitchen, from side rooms, from small offices not in corners. I have served them coffee, collected checks for war chests, made speeches as my little-girl self for their amusement.

Michael Nutter won Philly’s Democratic mayoral primary yesterday, which I watched obsessively from exile in Bed-Stuy. I’m confused by his appeal. I object most strongly to the creepy way white liberals have embraced him (What was up with his daughter’s appearance in television ads?). Analysis on NPR’s Radio Times: An “insider/outsider” — Good luck with that.

Traveling. Since last Tuesday, we moved between Philly, New York, and Mississippi, entrusted with caring for Naim. Me and Naim fell out over my refusal to feed him Sprite for breakfast. Even I was sick of me.

Arriving in the City yesterday by train, I struck into Brooklyn by taxi. This is rare, Brooklyn by taxi, by day. Spring is beautiful this year in the east. In Philly, I ran along the Schuylkill, and with “Best of You” on repeat, I really felt victorious, almost forgetting that I have lately seen the body of my dead uncle and my brother, who laughed at us for taking photographs of a red calf in a pasture and cursed us (and seemed to wish the Klan on us) because we were free to take those pictures. Folks going by just waved. There were blackberries along that fence when I was very small. My brother would have been three or four then. He was sweet and strange, and destructive.