Rihanna, "Man Down"

Folks, be careful- there are triggers in this post, for sure.  

I do not follow popular music.  I hate radio stations.  Songs are overplayed and I grow tired of something that might have been decent.  damn repetitive.  We also live in a society that is hyperaware of its celebrities.  I heard about this new Rihanna video where she shoots a man that sexually assaults rapes her (let’s just call it what it is so we start on the right foot).  This intrigued me.

I guess people have their underpants all rumpled up  because this video is violent.  I listened to the song, and the song is rough.  Rihanna did respond to the hubbub on her twitter with some flippant comment about  'real life.'  This was a teachable moment and I really wish Rihanna would have taken advantage of it.  But I wonder if she even knows what she is dealing with- that she at this moment has a soap box that she can stand upon.

Watch the Video if you haven’t because I am about to spoil it.

The video starts with Rihanna shooting a man in the throat and it is very graphic.  The man lies lifeless on the ground with blood pooling around his head.  This is a very alarming scene depicting very real violence.  But to leave it as just “gratuitous violence” would be missing the point completely.  Her song is not about random acts of violence.  People are not upset because the video is violent.  People are upset because the nature of the violence is a woman aggressively defending herself, they just haven’t realized it yet.    

I am pretty desensitized to violence.  My generation (the Columbine Generation) has seen it all.  Our movies and video games are horrendous.  I have an older brother and I have seen the movies he watches and the games that he plays.  However, I am not completely numb to all of the destruction.  I still feel very tender when I watch movies or certain crime centered tv shows.  When fights broke out in my high school, I remember physically shaking as I witnessed someone being beaten before my eyes.  Violence is real in this world and I know it.  

So, Rihanna is right. 


One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and about 1.3 MILLION women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year (note that the US Department of Justice says that “domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes”). And women are usually victimized by someone they know.  

One of my favorite documentaries, This Film is Not Yet Rated, talks about the rating system for movies (MPAA) in the USA.  Watch this film and let it blow your mind (watch instantly on Netflix).  The film examines lots of issues dealing with censorship and the portrayal of life in film.  The big debate in the film is about sex and violence.  The things that the MPAA deems appropriate for 13 year olds to see are rape, violence (murder galore, beatings, gun violence, blood splatters, bloody massacres), and sexual violence.  The things they thought children couldn’t see were females having sexual pleasure.  


Let me say that again.  


It is okay to see women get beaten and raped and shot, not okay to see them in a consenting and positive sexual encounter that results in an orgasm.  They also discuss at length the complications they found while trying to come up with a rating about a documentary on the Iraq war and the life of soldiers (uncensored, unfiltered, unscripted).  The soldier's use the foulest of language and the footage is graphic and violent.  It seemed like the documentary almost broke the MPAA rating system.  They couldn't seem to agree on how to handle the content because it wasn't a scripted movie.  The situation is complicated.  How do you rate real life?  

Rihanna's flippant twitter response about her video depicting real like reminds me of this MPAA conundrum.  

I finally watched the video for myself and noted:

1. Yes, that is some graphic violence, she shoots a man in the throat and he dies
2. Rihanna depicts herself as a vibrant and beautiful member of the community
3. She hugs children and kisses old women and greets people kindly
4. She goes out to a club for a night of fun and dancing
5. She dances with an attractive young man
6. He comes on strong but she pushes him away
7. She heads home looking happy
8. He follows her home and attacks her
9. She fights him, loses and is raped 
10. She is crumbled in an alley
11. She gets up, runs home, and pulls out  gun hidden in her home

I am not advocating that someone should emulate her if they find themselves in her position.  But I am hoping that people think critically about the content of her video.   

Our culture swallows the horrid reality that, on a regular basis, women are physically and emotionally beaten, and raped, and killed.

Our culture swallows whole that that sort of thing is okay for 13 year olds to see in films.

Charlie Sheen, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Chris Brown, R. Kelly.  Abusers of women.  Rapists.  Molesters.  There are many more we do not know about.  We praise these men.  We pay them.  We do not punish them.  We do not hold them accountable.  Chris Brown threw a chair at a window in his dressing room on the set of Good Morning America because they asked him about beating Rihanna.  Did they press charges?  No.  

I am not advocating vigilante justice, but I imagine that if any of their victims when after these men, they would be charged and tried.  Maybe if the justice system and our culture served victims of domestic violence and sexual violence better, Rihanna’s video would upset me.  

I think most folk do not have a problem with Rihanna’s video depicting rape.  What got them going was that a woman got up off the ground and killed her rapist.  That act upsets the balance of our created universe of sex/power/control/gender dynamics.  The video spits on the patriarchy.  

This video is alarming and disturbing- do not get me wrong and go bat shit in the comments section.  Her previous song about domestic violence “Like the Way You Lie,” literally makes me nauseous.  My stomach churns just thinking about what that song means.  When I first heard the lyrics, I knew what it was about; a woman in an intimate relationship with a partner who beats her, he keeps beating her and apologizing, she keeps staying even though she knows its a lie, it escalates and he eventually kills her.  This video has over 6.5 million hits.  My father-in-law said he liked the song.   

I was horrified by the lyrics because I know that this shit is real.  When I finally saw the video, I was almost sobbing by the end of it, because I know that domestic violence and intimate partner homicide is on the rise.  I want to know why more people are not infuriated over that video.  But I already know why folks are not upset by it.

That kind of behavior is silently approved. 

When a man beats a woman she deserved it (I have heard male comedians joke about this).   

I encourage you to self-educate.  Read these facts on domestic violence (I quote a lot of them).  Read anything that Inga Muscio writes.  Read Yes Means Yes about rape culture.  And for the love of god, do not watch movies or support films that depict ladies getting beaten and raped without thoughtfully talking about them.  

  

Haters Anonymous

Hi, My name is _________, and I am a Hater.

I wrote this when I was still in college *ahem* over three years ago.  But it reminds me of the recent political unrest that has lead to the murder of 6 people in Arizona, including a child.  

May God have mercy on us.  

I was doing research for a project that I was involved with. The project had to do with society’s interaction with the LGBT community (queer folk for most of us that do not know what all the letters stand for); especially the Christian church. As I was looking for articles on the internet I came across a report about hate crimes. This report had been compiled and contained hate crimes in chronological order from 1998 until 2002. The report was 51 pages long and appeared in relatively small print.

        I scanned the article, thinking that the hate crimes would only be a few pages and then the rest of the article would be a discussion of some sort. I was surprised to see that all 51 pages were accounts of hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, gender (toward women), religion, and sexual orientation. 

I printed it out so that I could read thru the accounts at my leisure on my commute to and from school and not have to rely upon the computer (I would also use it as a source for a paper that would accompany the project). 

I soon realized that the task of going through 51 pages of hate crimes was not as easy as I had anticipated. I stopped frequently and would find myself starring into space as I tried to imagine the things I read about actually taking place. The words were so disturbing that at one point a member of the group I was in, placed their hand on the article, and told me to quit reading it. But I was compelled to read of the ugliness of the world. Someone had to. Someone had to know how all those people died from the hate that someone had nurtured for so long. 

The stories were of beatings, burnings, sexual abuse, gunfire, and murders. Of persons, men, women, and children of all shapes, sizes, religions, and sexual orientations. I thought to myself, is this what God wanted? I mean, even if he did find people’s lifestyles deplorable, are we to kill and beat these people to death? Obviously not. God doesn’t hate people. He doesn’t even hate the haters. I can never let myself hate so much that I would destroy human life- never ever, ever.

I know a girl whose father sexually abuses her. This is not the thing of the past, but of the present. He is a coward and not worthy of the title “father” or “man.” He is sick and despicable. I promised myself that if I ever met him in person that he would have the indentation of my fist and teeth in his face and limbs. I promised myself that he would know me and that he would know that I know what he does. I know that God wants me to forgive him and to not feel this way about him. I know that God’s graces are extended to him, though I do not want them to be. But they are. God’s love is big enough to forgive a molester and a rapist and pedophile. And honestly- sometimes I really dislike this about God.  I really want God to hate the people I hate.  And some people go out of their way to form their god into a being that acts and thinks exactly like themselves.  But I am a douchebag, and an evolved douchebag at that, who knows that God is so much different than me.  And this is a really good thing.  God’s ways are better than whatever I imagine. And I longed for the day that I would want to change how I felt about this despicable person. And it came. 

I realized that my hate for this man was the same hate that motivated crimes that took so many lives. Now mind you, I am not just picking some random man to beat or kill; I wanted to harm just my friend’s abuser. I saw the bruises she tried to hide, I saw the scabs she tried to hide.  And I knew there were wounds he gave her that I could not even begin to imagine.  And I wanted him to taste his own blood, maybe swallow a tooth or two.  I felt rage and hate, justifiably.  But it is the same hate in God’s eyes. I hated, and I already murdered him in my heart. Yes, he still lives and breathes (which I regret that he has the privilege) but I cannot live my life with that hate. I cannot allow myself to have that hate that killed a 6 year old girl with a machine gun, the hate that ran a car over a group of black kids, the hate that hung a black man in his front yard, the hate that tied a homosexual to a fence to die, or the hate that carved “fag” in the skin of a college student. I cannot let that same hate have a place inside of me to nurture. God said, “Love.  Love everyone.  Love everyone through your actions.  These actions should look ridiculous and largely generous.  Give your love outrageously to everyone, especially the poor.  And while you’re at it, love your enemy, too.” I think he did that so we could peer into how tremendous he is at loving and forgiving and giving grace. 

So hate has made me flinch. I cannot hear the word without having those stories flash like lightning in my stomach and the nausea rise a little. The night after I finished reading the entire compilation, I turned off the light at 1am, and I was petrified. I was petrified of the hate pool that I so willingly contributed to, to the hate that we participate in, and of how God must be so sad that we have it so wrong. I had nightmares that night that I kind of remember, and that I appreciate not remembering. My husband told me the next morning that I was talking so much in my sleep that I woke him up. I might have been calling for him or help or something. I don’t know, but it wasn’t good. I never talk in my sleep; that’s just how disturbed I was by all that I had read.

In hating, I too committed a hate crime. May God forgive me, as he is willing to forgive them, too. I don’t want to participate in that anymore. No more. 

Oakland 1.0: Tamara and the Patchwork Family

            I lived in Oakland, CA once upon a time.  I did this christian-y program that had me there for a little under a year.  I rarely talk about it for numerous reasons.  Mostly I miss it: I miss the friends I made, I miss the job I had.  There are few people who I think would care to sit and listen to me as the dam breaks.  I am also terrified of re-enforcing negative stereotypes, that I am often silenced; don’t want white people to misunderstand and misconstrue.  

But I think it is time to start telling.  I will start with a small person I met.  She was a 5 year old girl, named Tamara.  She lived a few houses down from our duplex.  She had an older cousin who lived with her named Dante, in 4th grade, and a younger brother, Calvin who was under 2.  

Tamara, Age 5

Tamara: a perfect, silly, little girl.  I saw her butt crack often.  Not that I should talk, but her pants barely stayed up.  We tied a brightly colored soft scarf through her belt loops to keep them up.  It kinda worked.  We had dance parties.  She showed up at the door of our duplex and asked for a banana or yogurt, or an apple.  She would get pink yogurt on her chin, it would drip on her shirt.  Her water glass would end up sticky.

Her eyes were brown and sparkled brightly.  She smelled sweet and her hair was spongey-soft.  We would rip up cereal boxes and then paint with glitter and glue on the back of them.  She asked questions that were so deep they scared me, and she taught me profound spiritual truths about faith and illustrated for me the basics of Jesus.  

Calvin, Age 2

 

             My roommates and I were very close to her and her cousin and brother.  Their parents were young and struggled, and their grandmother was overwhelmed and overworked.  We eventually made it a habit to invite them over once a week for dinner and we would eat and pray and talk...with these little people that we loved so much.   Sometimes Calvin’s diaper sagged and he played alone all day.  We saw him outside playing as we walked to work, and he was still there when we came home.  We brought diapers and wipes home and we would change him so his baby soft skin would not get a rash or irritated.  We would always walk the kids over to their house to inform their parent or sitter where they were.  But sometimes we were met with apathy, sometimes grief, sometimes they had so much weight on their shoulders that the whereabouts of a 2 year old were out of their heads.  Sometimes Calvin smelled like pot.  Tamara was holding her uncles hand when he had been shot.  Dante shyly hid that he could barely read.  

But when they were in our homes we loved them and they loved us.  And we were the most ridiculous looking family ever known to man.  Hands down.  A jock that stood at 6”4’, 2 gorgeous blondes women, an indian guy, a tall geek with strawberry blond dread locks, and a mexican (looking) girl, with three black children.  And let me tell you- I think we were all in love with it.  We ate grilled cheese one night, pancakes another.  

Dante dancing with a mexican-looking girl.

One night a week everyone in our home would gather for a bible study, and the kids knew that they could not come over to play while we did that.  It was grown-up time.  But Tamara would knock on the door; looking cute, and pathetic, and lonely.  I am glad I did not have to turn her away.  I refused to  answer the door and look at her sweet face.

One day we were playing in the driveway of our duplex and Calvin looked up at me, reached his arms up and puckered his lips.  I thought, what the hell, and gave him a wet 2 year old kiss.  A few times as I was coming home from work, he would see me on the sidewalk and he would break out in to a run, arms out wide, to embrace me.  It was delightful and heartbreaking at once.  I felt his love and I loved him back, but I knew it would not last.  I would go home in a years time and he would play alone on the street again.  

The moment that fucked me over the most was when Calvin was playing with one of my male roommates (who adored Calvin deeply) and Calvin looked up at him brightly, like his sister but with longer eyelashes, and said, “Dada!”

My roommate and I made eye contact, laughed, felt embarrassed, and ignored it.  We did not talk about this incident; because if we had it would have broken our hearts into a million bits.  This young baby’s proclamation had summed up so much; the closeness of all our bonds was genuine and powerful.  But we were leaving soon, and this college-aged guy could not be his father.  In a few months this baby recognized the love and family he wanted and assumed that this guy must be a dad, his dad.

Tamara, Sparkling

Our assignment had us in Oakland for a year, and we knew we would leave soon, ripping universe-sized holes in their little tiny hearts (that had already been broken too many times).  But we were lucky as hell.  They moved out and left the neighborhood before we did.  They left us.  My heart shattered.  I am so glad they were the ones to leave.

Real Life Wedding Vows

I am not here with you because of the big party, the fancy clothes, the good food, the cake, and the gifts. I would marry you again today in a flash flood, in a hurricane, in nuclear holocaust, in rain, in sleet, in blizzards, wearing a burlap sack with a half-crazed officiant who barely spoke broken English. I would marry you if all that awaited us was a cardboard box and roach roommates so that we could be together each day.

I know that I will disappoint you and that you will disappoint me because we are not perfect, but I promise to try to be better and do better for you and me each and every single day.

I promise that I am not marrying you secretly hoping that you will change, but because I wouldn’t change a thing about you. I utterly adore everything about you right now. And the only thing I want from you is for you to become a more brilliant you, like a black and white photo that suddenly becomes vividly colored. I want to hold your hand as you become Technicolored walking in to Oz.

I promise that I will let you tell me when I have betrayed myself, and thus you. I won’t hold it against you when you call me out, but I will be thankful, appreciative, and I will try my best to fight my way back to the core person that you married. In turn I will never let you lose sight of yourself. Even if you want to break it, I will hold a mirror up to your face so you never forget who you are.

I promise not to expect everything of you, because that will destroy our relationship. But you will always be my favorite and my preference, and my best friend. I promise to not keep secrets from you, because that would be our Achilles heel. If I wonder if I should tell you something, I will definitely tell you about it.

I may find other people physically attractive, funny, charming, sexy, or interesting, but the unique recipe that is you is the most divine combination of all those things and more. I would never give you up for some one-dimensional characteristic. You are absolutely the living end for me.

I will faithfully stand by you when life throws its most dastardly things at you or us. I would rather have my back against the wall with you than be alone or with anyone else.

I know that your body will change. The fat pads will come slowly or quickly, hair will grow or fall out, wrinkles and stretch marks will betray our efforts to stay chiseled and perfect, but all of that doesn’t matter to me. You are not your physical body, and yet I love your physical self so much- it does not define you. I love whatever package you are wrapped up in, and I know that you love mine.

I promise to stick by you during debilitating, terminal illnesses. If you cannot remember who I am or who we were together, I will not abandon you- though you wouldn’t know it if I did- it would still break my heart knowing you would never abandon me. I promise to tenderly change your diaper, knowing that it humiliates you, but it doesn’t bother me because you would lovingly clean me up if the tables were turned.

I promise to never betray you or myself for worldly things. Money, things, power, lust will never lure me away from you and the life that we build together. I won’t be your Benedict Arnold.

We will stick together if all of our plans fall apart. Even if we can never pay off our debt, our jobs continue to suck, layoffs come, unexpected pregnancy happens, the pregnancy we want eludes us, our parenthood wasn’t as grand as we had expected; we will never abandon each other. With each heartbreak that we face, I will wrap bandages around your wounds, and then you will clean mine up and we will use lots of gauze. But I will remain dedicated to you and I won’t allow my pain to blind the truth that our love is greater than all of that pain.

I will stand up for you and fight for you, even if you don’t ask. I won’t let the world trample you to smithereens.

These are my promises to you and I promise you nothing less.

My Church Manifesto

         Someone recently asked me what my ideal church looked like. For years I have been discussing, with a close friend, the inadequacy of the Christian Church to meet our needs and the needs of the people we love. I have been scalded by the Big Business that the Church has become. And I hope for a real manifestation of church that I can experience in my lifetime.

          Henri Nouwen says it perfectly: “More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”

          Henri Nouwen articulates the basic idea of church perfectly: living together and loving each other. But I think he only scratches the surface. I find that most people need more specific direction because it is so easy to get off track and lose focus.

Jesus emphasized ideas that seem unnatural and unwise in popular culture; strip naked to clothe whomever asks you for clothes, give generously until it doesn’t make sense, value the persons in your community who are most invaluable, lose your life to save it, oh yeah- and you will probably be homeless. These notions frighten most people who are willing to admit that this is, indeed, the call of Jesus. So instead of people being taught to live a life that is this passionate and severe, we have people that want to hear the Gospel of Comfort, and they want to reserve their pew in heaven next to the people that look like them and make them feel numb. Well, if the Bible tells us anything, it is that Jesus just doesn’t work that way.

          My good friend once said, “This is not ‘fluffy’ Jesus.” This isn’t the squishy little lamb that we get in our Easter basket with Peeps and Reece’s Peanut Butter Eggs. Those candies serve as good Communion in a pinch, but they would melt into piles of sticky poopy goow in the mere presence of the fire and passion of Jesus. He told his disciples- some who smelled of fish, some who were women (the modern day equivalent of being gay in ministry), some who would have belonged to the NRA, and some who probably wanted to smoke pot and sleep on the beach- that they should take only the clothes on their backs and go out there and do it.

That’s it.

          He said: “Take your butts out there and love people, touch ‘em, heal ‘em.  Touch blood, touch lepers, touch skin infections and boils, touch people with debilitating mental illnesses (depression, DID, psychosis), touch women, touch gentiles, touch Samaritans (comparable to modern day Muslims), tell children that I want to see them and hear them, eat with them, go in their homes and tell them I love them and that I came here for them. Tell them and show them that you love them. Tell them that this life sucks, but with me and each other we can live a slice of Heaven on Earth, and it is freakin’ free, and no one can steal it away from us once we own it. Oh and, FYI, I love the least, the last, and the lost. The first will be last. The last will be first. Lose your life if you want to save it. Got it? Go.”

          Jesus was unimaginable. I know for a fact that if he showed up today, we would kill him all over again, because he would jack with our notions of faith so hard, that he would send us in to a furious rage. In his day women did not show their hair unless they were prostitutes. And some lady washed his feet with her hair. That is almost Biblical Erotica. Some married women never showed their husbands their hair, and they were proud of that. Some rabbis didn’t even look at women. Jesus let women be his disciples and learn from him so they could be rabbis too. I try to imagine what that would translate to in our society. It is something like Muslims, queer folk, and people with disabilities all having a BBQ with Jesus and learning to be his ambassadors. Sounds like a rockin’ party if you ask me. Jesus made people uncomfortable. And he reached into the horrid despair of the lost of society and he made them whole, hopeful, and they left their jobs and families to follow him; to get a glimpse of him. I get the idea that Jesus and his ideas should upset me and make me feel uncomfortable, and if they don’t, I’m doing it wrong.

          His church. People living simply. Taking what they need, so that everyone can have some. Everyone is welcome: gender, sexual orientation, abilities, disabilities, illness, age, race, language- you need not apply. The door is open and you have a place at our really large picnic table. Each person has gifts and values and we help each other find our places and our gifts, kinda like L’Arche. What the world says is important: stuff money, selfishness; we fight against. We advocate for generosity that borders insanity and love that heals wounds.

          I once heard people complaining about church. Too boring, I don’t want to get up and hug people, too much scripture reading, the music is bad and slow. 

         Maybe church isn’t about what you get, but about what you can give. Yeah, so maybe sometimes going to church on Sundays sucks a little. But that is missing the point entirely. Going to church on Sunday is a small piece of what Church is. I go to the building to see my friends, hear some good ideas that someone studied over all week, and have a snack. But church doesn’t start or end there. It started a long time ago, with the loaves and the fish. And we are to take the baton and keep it rolling. I have church in the park reading, while my friend naps in the shade, while on the phone with friend, while listening to music, or at the beach with my dogs. Church is a lifestyle; a purposeful choice to hear and do what Jesus talked about. Getting together with other people to figure it all out and going out there and helping each other do it. Church is looking into the face of people that society discards and inviting them in to your home and life, permanently.

          Oh, and it is not easy. You are going to hear things you don’t want to about yourself, about sacrifice, about your lifestyle. This is hard. What part of, “You have to lose your life to save it” didn’t you understand? You may not have a place to lay your head. Sometimes Lazarus dies. You may have to leave your job and your family. Jesus didn’t promise material or physical comfort. He said, “Love your enemy, don’t hate anybody…oh, and lots of people will not like you and may do bad stuff to you because of me.”

          In a Bible study someone once said to me that they were not sure this Jesus stuff was worth it. It is hard to follow this guy, do not underestimate that. And all I could think of was Jesus saying that only the sick need physicians. He came for the people that line up outside his door and break in his roof to be with him and see him and be healed by him. If you don’t feel ill, you don’t go to the doctor. If you don’t see the need for Jesus, you don’t need him. Leave him alone then. Don’t sign up for this if you can’t hack it. Because those of us who know we need it, who know our very real illnesses, need treatment; those of us who have touched despair, death, poverty, loneliness, and rejection find that Jesus is very worth it. Our life with him surpasses our shitty existence without him.

          And in His Church we get together. We try to do what he would do. We do things that don’t make sense to everyone else. We learn, we study, and then we try to do it out loud.

That’s Church.