lubiddu: Blackamazon is too much: Also cause...

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Blackamazon is too much: Also cause well I am BA

blackamazon:

I need to take a survey from the self righteous muhfuggas in da room. Since so many folks know what they would do if a partner was suddenly violent:

IF you were to leave your current romantic partner , how many of you could find other housing on a semi permanent basis immediately/ or continue to…

You know, I want to know why people are so quick to jump on the “but Rihanna’s rich and successful and all!! She could instantly cut all ties and not suffer any consequences; she’s not stuck!!

….without acknowledging that she’s a Black woman in an industry that (even moreso than most) chews up Black women and spits them out; uses their talents, skills and bodies to enrich the captains of the industry without paying the artists the level of compensation due for profits generated by their artistic creation. Without acknowledging that she’s a young woman who hasn’t (believe it or not) established her career to the degree where she has any real power or her own escape route/alternatives if the mainstream decides to dump her for the next young woman to come along. Tina Turner had a well-established name, career and connections, and it took her years of long, hard work on the road before she got another recording deal after she left Ike. Tina Turner was (is) a fucking institution in rock and roll, and she had to rebuild piece by fucking piece.

Furthermore, why no acknowledgement of the entertainment industry using the tragedies of artist’s lives to make bank? Why is Rihanna the one to bear the burden of an industry that is all too happy to grind her down when they think there’s nothing left to take? Why is she the one to bear the burden of “setting an example”? How many examples has the peanut gallery of critics set by: taking in an abuse victim, taking a day off work to testify for an abuse victim, screaming “stop!” or doing anything else to get her away from her abuser….hell, even just calling 911 or learning/providing 101 education to eradicate domestic violence myths or ostracising people within one’s own circle that have abused others. The first lesson I learned being a survivor of domestic violence? Was that no one else gave a fuck. I mean, a fuck. At all. That was my problem to deal with. Make your bed, sleep in it.

So how do I answer those questions now? Now that I’m in my mid-forties instead of my early twenties? Yes, I have the resources to leave. My union card is my blessing—-I can travel and get jobs with it without having to go to job interviews (we have a hiring-hall system). I have savings (I’ve had the time to build them). I earn decent pay. I have a 401k I could cash out if I absolutely had to (don’t get me wrong; that would fuck me in my old age; I work at a job that uses up your body. But it’s an option so many other people don’t have).

But…it’s an academic question for me. I’m not partnered. There’s probably a reason for that, somewhere.