Flashback to Revolutionary TV: A Different World

cross posted from my Media Justice column

The first time I started this series I focused on The Golden Girls. Today I focus on another TV show that continues to impact my life: A Different World. Many may know this show to be a spin-off of The Cosby Show. This is true, but it was also its own solid show that began with Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) going to college.

Centered at a fictional HBCU (Historically Black College and University) named Hillman, we follow several students (beginning with Denise from The Cosby Show) as they interact with the struggles that come with being college students of Color: time management, interracial dating, HIV, consent, roommate challenges, managing work and school, class differences, dating, friendships, joining sororities and fraternities, being an activist, gender differences, apartheid in South Africa, and shadism.

The first season of A Different World we follow Denise as she rooms with two women, Jalessa (Dawnn Lewis) and Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and makes new friends with women in her dorm such as Whitley (Jasmine Guy) and Freddie (Cree Summer). Of course meeting men was also part of the storyline and they included Dwayne (Kadeem Hardison), Ron (Darryl M. Bell) and Shazza (Gary Dourdan).

This series began when I was just completing my first year in high school. It was one of the first series where I saw people of Color as college students, as intellectuals, creating supportive environments for each other, and investing in a form of delayed gratification (obtaining a degree). At this time it was rare for a young person of Color to see themselves validated on a public TV station and represented beyond the one-dimensional stereotypes of youth of Color (which still continue today.

The opening song for the series is a perfect example of how the show was centered on normalizing the humanity of youth of Color. Performed by Aretha Franklin check out the opening credits and song below:



The lyrics include:
I know my parents love me,
Stand behind me come what may.
I know now that I'm ready,
Because I finally heard them say
It's a different world form where you come from.

Here's a chance to make it,
If we focus on our goals.
If you dish it we can take it,
Just remember you've been told
It's a different world form where you come from.
It's a different world form where you come from.

The lyrics read as a mantra, an affirmation, something one puts on their mirror or writes down to hold and be reminded. To this day I can sing along to the song whenever I hear it. It’s part of my socialization into young adulthood that I’m very privileged and proud to have had. It also makes me sad that the young people I work with today have nothing close to A Different World. There are no shows or narratives that speak to these topics in such an important and entertaining way.

Sure, many may recognize additional members to the cast such as Jada Pinkett (before she became Pinkett Smith) playing Lena, Sinbad as Coach Walter Oaks, or the guest appearances of folks such as rapper Tupac, Tisha Cambpell-Martin, Gladys Knight, Billy Dee Williams, Jesse Jackson, Heavy D, En Vogue, Halle Berry, and Diahann Carroll who performed as Whitley’s mother and Patti LaBelle who performed as Dwayne’s mother. For the past decade, and maybe even the past two decades, there has been no show that has brought so many people of Color, especially Black celebrities and talent on a television show. I can’t think of one right at this moment.

One of Jada Pinkett’s performances was uncovering and sharing with Whitley (a wealthy light-skin legacy), who is the dorm director, that her great great grandfather bought and owned slaves. In “Mammy Dearest” Whitley’s background becomes important because she plans her dorm’s official dedication ceremony and chooses to include images of “mammies” (black nursemaids, often forced into that position during slavery) to remember women’s roles in history. Kim disagrees as do some other students and the topic of shadism and how the mammy image continues to impact Black women. The outcome is that at the dedication several women, including Kim, create and perform a piece on the evolution of Black women. This message is so important, especially after still witnessing Blackface performed at the Oscars.

Another episode titled “If I Should Die Before I Wake” discussed how HIV and AIDS impacts the Black community, especially the impact on Black women. Tisha Campbell-Martin is Josie, who shares her eulogy, a requirement for the class they are taking, and comes out as a young Black women living positive. Her professor is Whoopi Goldberg. Watch the clip starting at the 3 minute mark. The class does an amazing job of being honest, showing fear and ignorance, and of discussing how HIV is transmitted. “I am a voice in this world” is the motto of this episode and to this day I adore this message.

During the episode titled “Ms. Understanding” Shazza publishes a book about the relations between men and women that starts controversy all over campus. The women plan a boycott and the men choose to do the same. The interracial relationship that Kim is in at the time also becomes a focus for other students. Gender differences, roles, and expectations along with misogyny is the focus of this episode, and these are always important reminders.

The episode “No Means No” focuses on sexual assault and rape on colleges campuses. Freddie is courted by a Garth (performed by Taimak) who is a popular athlete. This episode the young men athletes question what rape and sexual assault include and how it is defined. They confide in Coach Walter Oaks who holds Garth accountable while Dwayne does the same. The men are educated and taught what their responsibilities are and the men hold one another accountable. Check out the way Dwayne supports Freddie and how her community comes to support her as well. Unfortunately, these are not the ways that many young women of Color on college campuses are supported.

These are just a few of the episodes that stand out to me. They are formative and important pieces of US media. I have a presentation coming up discussing media and sexuality and I’m going to use these representations as examples of media justice. I encourage folks who have not seen the show to take some time out and watch it! There were six seasons in total and they are still quality episodes for each season.

Sadly, as the theme song shares, it is a different world from where you come from. It was a different world when the show was on, and today without the series being accessible, that world has yet to value difference in the ways we know we can. Instead we experience isolation, limitations, and oppression because of our differences. The memories I have of watching A Different World are fantastic! It was something we did with our families, it was what we talked about at school on Friday afternoons. I remember the collective screaming in anticipation and surprise at some of the endings of the episodes (especially during the relationship of Dwayne and Whitley). If there ever was a TV show that needs syndication because those images and narratives still need to be shared, I’d argue that A Different World must be at the top, if not the first item, on that list.

Latina Sexuality in Poems

I've started teaching my class Women, Art & Culture. Today we read our first poem from the book Loose Woman Poems by Sandra Cisneros.

It's funny how some poems come back to you. I've been teaching this class for over five years and always go back to reread them. This poem spoke to me this time around for many different reasons. Often I'm an "outsider" when reading some poems, other times it's as if poems capture exactly what I'm experiencing.

Our first poem is "Perras" which I've provided below:

I can't imagine that goofy white woman
with you. Her pink skin on your dark.
Your tongue on hers. I can't
imagine without laughing.
Who would've thought.

Not her ex-boyfriend--
your good ol' ex-favorite best buddy,
the one you swore was thicker than kin,
blood white brother, friend--
who wants to slit you open like a pig
and i don't blame him.

Isn't it funny.
He acting Mexican.
You acting white.

I can't imagine this woman.
Nor your white ex-wife. Nor any
of those you've hugged and held,
so foreign from the country we shared.

Damn. Where's your respect?
You could've used a little imagination.
Picked someone I didn't know. Or at least,
a bitch more to my liking.

p. 58

Friday Nights in AZ

Elena picked me up from the Sex Conference on Friday and we went straight to the Heard Museum to hear a panel on art, gender, and sexuality. I was just really excited to hear women of Color speak on these topics, especially from after the last session I attended at the conference. I was also super excited to hear the Crafty Chica. Some of you may not know this but there are some folks who are just famous to me, she is one of them, so when I saw her walk in I got all uber nervous and chickened out on talking to her! For those of you who have received my gifts of candles, it was her book that inspired such art!

There was the gorgeous DJ Brazillia spinning great music prior to the talk. I saw my favorite Mexicans who I had not seen in years! And we took our seats for the presentation. I rather not hash out the specific discussion of the panel, but I do want to add that Crafty Chica was the best on the panel (of only 2 women of Color out of the 5 women). I asked a question about how women can control the gaze and make choices to engage their sexuality through performing their gender expression in a particular way and two outspoken panelists were very condescending in ways that I wish I could forget from my days as a graduate student in a Women’s Studies program.

They argued that women can not control the gaze when working in particular spaces. I found this ironic for second wave feminists to state since choice and agency are at the heart of that time period. They tried to “school” me, but what they really did was misunderstand what my question was. When I didn’t back down, and told them that I’m asking about “next steps” from the “not controlling the gaze” to a space where women have choice and agency, then what? Can they speak more about that? Only the Crafty Chica did.

What does it mean that in a space devoted to this topic, a field of which I’ve been an active part of for over a decade, two panelists can so comfortably tell me I’m wrong and do not know what I speak of? What does it say about them, as women, as artists, that they cannot allow themselves to imagine a space where women do and can have such choice and agency?

After the session my hermanos y hermanas said they “understood my question” and that it was a “good” question. As if I were a magnet, two White women approached me and said they agreed with what I had to say, that they appreciated it, and wanted to engage me more. I shared what I wrote above. I also wondered to myself why they hadn’t said these things within the group versus with just me on the side. To be fair, one woman had spoken briefly about her courtship practices, but at the time I could not see the connection to my query.

This always seems to happen to me. Folks approach me after the conversation is over to tell me they agree with me. They appreciate my comment. They like my perspective. Yet that support, encouragement, community is not there the moment shit hits the fan and I get all the backlash. Does it matter that people approach me after the verbal lashing?

Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

This time it did.

She's A Dancehall Queen For Life

I'm known to be an independent in more than one way, but most especially on the dance floor. I'll dance best believe I'll dance. But I don't want you telling me what to do with my body. So partner dancing where a "man" leads me is not going to happen unless I want it to happen. As a result, I LOVE dancehall. I can do what I want to do with my body and be all glittered up and fake eye lashed out and still be a member of the community and taken seriously! It's a performance that I personally love. When I go to a dancehall, I am in a form of drag, an exaggerated image/representation of what I believe my Caribbean female body can be presented as and I am in control of that image. I control the gaze.

One of my favorite movies EVER is Dancehall Queen. It is one of the first films that I saw that discusses Caribbean women's work. It demonstrates how working class and working poor women and mothers make choices, and it recognizes how dancing is a form of work. It shares how complex and important dancehall is to a community and culture. Plus, the leading female character is strong, has convictions, is complicated, and preservers. When was the last time we saw a Black Caribbean women in such a role?

In any event, I love watching some dancehall videos, especially the ones where women are hired because they can DANCE versus just hop around and throw their asses in the air against a semi-erect or twitching biological male's pelvis. That's why I really appreciated Sean Paul's earlier videos. I love how Sean Paul knows his dance skills are limited (or he chooses not to dance that much) so he 1. hires people who know how to dance, 2. he hires women that look like REAL women and 3. the women can dance. The dancing and the performance are at the center, at least from the lens I use to watch the videos. The women are strong, powerful, and are given space to demonstrate all their strength and abilities. The dance floor becomes a space for sharing creativity and exchanging aspects of power. After all, there are some "battles" in some of the videos on the dance floor.

So, what's dancehall got to do with sexuality? You tell me. I think sex is powerful and strong, just like the women dancing in the video. What do you think?

Sexual Baggage & Values

I attended the recent Guttmacher Institute Exchange entitled "Where Do Young People Learn About Sexual Health." There was a panel of six people, four adults and two youth speakers. I'm not going to sit here and rehash the entire panel because you can listen to it online as it was recorded. However, I do want to discuss one specific area that was very much a trigger for me as a sexuality activist, woman of Color, and educator.

The second speaker was William Juzang, the Vice President of Business Development of MEE Productions, a media organization that creates "cost-effective and culturally relevant messages for hard-to-reach urban and ethnic audiences." Juzang presented information from their Black youth sexuality research from 2002 entitled "This is My Reality – The Price of Sex: An Inside Look at Black Youth Sexuality and the Role of the Media." This is a national survey of youth from several cities in the US using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

When I first heard him mention this work I thought "Ok, this research is 7 years old since publication, which means it may be almost 10 years old, but let's see what they found and if anything has changed or stayed the same." I sat and listened to his overview of MEE Productions and how their work is imperative for our community. He addressed how understanding, as educators and communicators, where we are, what our baggage and issues are. I agree with this, but when he said it during his presentation it did not resonate with me until he began to share the findings from the research in their Black youth sexuality research.

On Juzang's second slide which was part of the qualitative focus groups, MEE Productions examined environmental factors that went into how Black youth learn about and are impacted by family, education, media, streets, influence of health care. He read off the list of items youth provided and then he said this:

"Black females are valued by no one."

I can't begin to explain to you the warm feeling I had that filled my body from my head to my toes. I clinched my teeth and tried to hold tears back as I heard him move to his second slide where they examined the statement further. Youth discussed the negative name calling, images seen in videos and other aspects of media, lack of "sisterhood," and women being in limited no win situations.

Data that is almost a decade old and our youth know that Black women are not valued by anyone in their community or outside of it. I've heard so many parents and educators talk about how we want to "protect" our youth from such negative messages, but how is it that regardless of how we raise them there are even more messages they come into contact with that tell the the opposite? How can years and years of work become undone so quickly and in such an intense and stunning way.

I was hurt. I am still hurting. Some may wonder why I am writing about this on a Latino Sexuality website, and that is for several reasons. First, Latinos can be of any race especially with the racial formation that is created and held in the US. Second, do we think this idea and belief (and fact!) that "Black females are valued by no one" excludes any other women of Color? This can clearly be applied to anyone who is considered "Other." Third, this affects all of us. Fourth, I believe we can make the same statement and include men of Color too.

As I listened to the rest of the panel, Juzang being the only Black male on a panel full of White women (the two youth were young people of Color), my palms started to sweat, I found myself restless in my seat, I zoned out and could hear my heart beat through my throbbing ears every time I swallowed my orange juice. i found myself questioning more of the panel's discussions in relation to this one statement Juzang had presented.

When the panel was opened to questions from the audience (there were about 50 people in the room), I put my pen down and put my palms on the side of my legs to absorb the sweat that had been produced. I wondered how I would ask all of my questions, should I comment on what Juzang had mentioned, would someone else bring it up besides me?

Four questions in and nobody brought it up yet. Topics of reaching youth and families who speak Spanish, how to make websites more youth friendly, and ways to reach parents were discussed. I raised my hand and was selected to comment and ask my question.

I warned participants and panelist that I had several questions and one comment. I chose to begin with my comment based on Juzang's research finding. I shared all that I wrote above about not being able to describe the feeling of seeing those words on a screen. I got choked up. I had to pause. I clinched my teeth so that I would not cry or let any tears fall. A few seconds passed and I realized the room was quiet. I looked up and saw Goddesses Rising who had invited me, looking at me with an expression of support, understanding and solidarity. I began to finish my comment and thanked Juzang for reminding me of this no matter how painful it was.

I shared with the group how Juzang's mention of educators and providers needing to understand what baggage we bring to a space resonated with me in a whole new way when this finding was presented. I realized this is my baggage. The fact that in the US I am not valued. My homegirls are not valued. We do not value one another. What kind of educator and activist am I if this is my baggage? How do I try to mask the fact that I know this to my youth? What is available or currently in existence for those of us in this field to regroup, process, and heal so that we can continue to do this work? I realized I do not have such a space and that it is sorely needed (happy hour doesn't count! Plus I'm not a huge drinker).

I've resisted writing this down because it is so painful. To be in a group of people committed to this movement of sexuality and sexual health and to have that ideology at the center of the work I do and there being no discussion of it any further than what I mentioned. I'm hurting.

I don't want to place blame on any one individual, that is not what this is about. It's about how our youth are so much more intuitive and astute than we give them credit for. They know what is going on no matter how much we think they don't. They know more than we think they do. Our youth know.

So, I ask, what is next? What do we do? How does knowing this information change how we work with our youth? How do we change our messaging? Do we discuss how our bodies have been abused, raped, ignored, tested, probed, murdered and how they continue to be? How do we create spaces for us to cope with this reality when we need it to continue the work that we do? I'm open to suggestions as I know a group of activists and educators are in the same situation as I am. We need to preserve not only or spirit, but our bodies, minds, rituals, cultures, families, community. We need to preserve and take care of ourselves and each other. A todo mi gente: I got your back.

Thank you Goddesses Rising for being present when I found myself struggling. Those few seconds gave me all the strength I needed to complete my thoughts and honor our bodies.