Couponing

I've recently become fascinated with couponing. I am going to be 35 years old this year and it had never really sunk in before that I can use a coupon to save money on a desired item at the grocery store. And I'm not rich. I've never been rich. But I've always pretty much ignored the coupons in the newspaper that I could have cut out and used. The other night I saw a show on TLC entitled "Extreme Couponing" on which people saved THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS on groceries for themselves and their families. I am now a believer. The other day I went to Safeway and used two coupons to receive discounts on toilet paper and soy milk. It felt good. And naughty. I felt a real rush when I handed the cashier my slips of paper - my COUPONS - and he happily gave me my discount rather than giving me a lecture on how I was taking away coupons from people who REALLY need them because I'm a lazy, good-for-nothing delinquent who rebels against societal norms by not paying full price for everything at the store. (I don't know where this guilt on my part is coming from.) Coupons are like a sale and I love sales. I look for sales. Why not look more consciously for coupons? Why should I pay full price for broccolli if I don't have to? Why not use my coupon for whole wheat pasta if I've got it? Saving money in a recession is definitely revolutionary act and I would encourage anyone to take what you can get when you can get it. Survival, baby.

My Mother and Angela Davis Made Me A Revolutionary

My mother made me a revolutionary. She did this by, among other things, having a copy of The Autobiography of Angela Davis on our bookshelf at home. Just having a book lying around was enough to set the course of my life.

I remember the day I discovered it wedged in between all of the Georgette Heyer romance novels that my mother adored reading. (I briefly went through a period where I was reading romance novels as well.) I was enamoured with the black woman with the afro on the cover, but had never opened it before. Then one day when I was around twelve or thirteen I decided to. My world changed. As I read I realized that a black woman could be a powerful force. A black woman could be a Black Panther and a philosopher and a college professor and also be on the America's Most Wanted List. A black woman could fight for her rights, and the rights of others, with strength and dignity. A black woman could SPEAK. I don't know why I didn't know it before. I was fascinated by Angela Davis' narrative about her time at the House of D and the way she was treated while awaiting trial for a crime she didn't commit. I just didn't KNOW the statistics of black people in correctional facilities until Angela Davis told me; I didn't know that slavery had taken on this new insidious form. How could I not have known? I'd never been associated with anyone who had been in prison. Incarcerated people were the invisible; Angela Davis made them visible to me and from that point on I really couldn't pretend that they weren't there.

Sometime around thirteen I learned the term 'political prisoner' and it's a term that resonates for me still now. To be imprisoned for one's beliefs and for acting one's beliefs, but to keep believing and acting on them anyway. To be brave enough to be who you are. To be brave enough to fight for what you know is right. To suffer for the greater good. To speak out against oppression and suffering. That's something.

Later while I was Yale as a undergrad Angela Davis came to speak and I was reminded of how much she moved me when I was just becoming a teenager. There she was, this FORCE - this WOMAN - who spoke with an eloquence and a strength and warm that filled me with a sense of purpose. She hardly seemed real and yet there she was. Her words rocked me to my core. Words and the ability to speak them is some powerful stuff. Words can really change lives.

After I graduated college I became involved with Rehabilation Through the Arts...and so it began, this journey I'm on...

The N-Word And Art

I have been struggling with the use of this word within the context of plays, books and films. Recently I attended a meeting in which a group of people spoke of the impact of this word in a play. It should be noted that it was mostly a group of white people with myself and another black woman being the only representatives of the black community within this conversation. The general feeling was one of discomfort at having the hear that hateful word, but there was also a sense of needing to justify its use because of the historical time period in which the play is set. Nobody wants to censor ART, as it were. And yet. I am troubled. I have never been an advocate of censoring art. I am, in fact, an artist. How do we as artists deal with presenting work that causes others pain? That causes ourselves pain? And I don't simply mean discomfort. I mean PAIN. Humiliation. Rage. I can't think of an equivalent word in the English language to the N-word.

There was talk of the use of this word within art being a "teaching moment". But for who? As a black person, I don't know that I need to be taught this lesson over and over again. I know that the word is wrong. I know what is feels like to be called 'that word'. Just the thought of it is enough to bring me to tears of rage and resentment. I am ambivalent about introducing black children to a narrative that places them lower than others. It feels like we, as educators and artists, are saying, "Look. This is who you were. This is who you are." As a black woman, I wonder how one turn that around and makes it a moment in which a black child can feel good about themselves? It's one thing to hear that word in reference to another race. It's another thing to hear that word in reference to YOUR race. It's a real rabbit hole of despair when I think of all of the American literary "classics" that contain that word. Here I am, trying to find a way into the story and suddenly I am told, as a black female reader, that I'm on the periphery, the edges, and I don't matter at all. Suddenly I can't identify with the main character, but am instead tracking all of the black people who hover around, the angry, or downtrodden, or trifling Negroes who the white people talk about as IDEAS or SYMBOLS more than actual persons. I recently read "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" and was struck by the positioning of the black people in that narrative. I don't know if I was OFFENDED exactly, but I certainly was left with a lot of lingering questions and a certain discomfort.

There was talk around this table of mental and emotional explorers (all of whom were brave enough to attend) of the N-word being used frequently within hip hop culture. I'm not exactly sure why this point was made. Not ALL hip hop music utilizes this word, just like all hip hop music doesn't refer to women in a derogatory way. Several people (several WHITE people) said that it was okay for black people to call other black people that word, but that a white person cannot use that word. (I appreciate being given 'permission' to say what I want to people of my own race by people of another race.) While I believe that it's true that a white person cannot use that word, I think it's a fallacy to suggest that black people call each other that. I don't use that word and I won't let anybody call me that. It doesn't make me feel good about myself. I don't care who you are. Calling me that is one quick way to start a fight. I'm not of the school of thought that says it can be used as a term of endearment or affection. But I also don't call my female friends "sluts" or "bitches" when I'm trying to be affectionate. To me it feels like a strange version of self-loathing. To call someone the N-word to be affectionate feels like saying, "I love you, but I also hate you." It's awkward and falls out of my mouth awkwardly. If it falls out at all which it doesn't.

So how do we as artists deal with this hateful word? I don't know. How do we avoid alienating people by referring to them as less than within the scope of a theatrical or literary piece? Do we simply accept the fact that some things are for a particular audience? Do we accept that nothing is universal and that there is always a group that's going to be left high and dry and recognize that sometimes that group is going to be YOU? How do we as artists deal with the fact that in order to create art we have to sometimes be ruthless and hurt people to their very cores? Art is generally not NICE; it's as human as humans are. It's messy and offensive and powerful and challenging and pathetic and unfair and sometimes, just sometimes, beautiful. I wonder: do I need to work on embracing that word the way I would embrace someone who hurt me - with empathy and forgiveness? Is that my role as an active art consumer? Something to continue pondering...