| | | Janet Mock interviews leaders of the Women's March on Washington, fighting for Planned Parenthood, and more. | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | January 17, 2017 | Letter No. 69 | | | | | | | | | | | | Hello, sweet 'n' sour Lennys,
Last week, I went into the national offices of Planned Parenthood in NYC for a touch of media training. Those words have always made me cringe, summoning Manchurian Candidate vibes. But this wasn't some aggressive polishing session in which I was asked to brush my hair and enunciate and look relatable. It was simply a group of Planned Parenthood employees — loyal, passionate, and so hardworking they make me feel like a professional Beanie Baby collector — sharing their experiences about how best to communicate on the subject of reproductive health and freedom. (Hint: thoughtfully, with compassion for those who think differently and a constant eye toward intersectional politics and reversing stigma.)
What impressed me most was how hard Planned Parenthood works, even in its hundredth year, to keep learning and changing. Attacks can harden us, make us into angry little mollusks hiding deep in the sand. But Planned Parenthood spends every day thinking critically and working to do better, staying open despite how hard the world tries to shut them down. Its leaders fight complacency in the world, and they never stop fighting it within themselves. That's a lesson we can all use.
Today, I'll be in Sacramento, using my brand-spanking-new knowledge along with my lifelong passion, to lobby against the defunding of Planned Parenthood. I'll be joined by hundreds of Planned Parenthood staff and volunteers on the steps of the state capitol, where we will talk about the devastating consequences if the GOP-led Congress succeeds in defunding the organization: 850,000 women in California alone will lose access to lifesaving and essential healthcare, most of whom are young people, people of color, those with low incomes and those who are undocumented. Those for whom Planned Parenthood may be the only health care provider they see all year.
I had the pleasure of designing a T-shirt — using my favorite creative instrument, a Sharpie — that represents the fight we have ahead of us using a pair of funky pink boxing gloves. If you wanna grab one at Omaze.com/Lena, you'll be helping to protect Planned Parenthood and its patients no matter what happens.
Today, I also have the honor of premiering 100 Years, an animated film that I made with an incredible group of collaborators including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, America Ferrera, Constance Wu, Mindy Kaling, Hari Nef, Tessa Thompson, Alex Ronan, Kirsten Lepore, and so many more. We've been working on the film for over a year in an attempt to shed light on Planned Parenthood's remarkable history and ongoing battle to keep serving the people who show up to their health centers every day of the year. I really think it's the best cartoon about the history of reproductive freedom ever made, but it may also be the only cartoon about the history of reproductive freedom ever made.
The spirit behind this video will hopefully take us into the Women's March on Washington this weekend, where we will be showing our new president that we're not going to allow a hundred years of progress to disappear overnight.
Thank you for watching. Thank you for reading. Thank you for fighting.
With Vigorous Hope,
Lena | | | | | | | | | | | | The Utopia and Reality of the Women's March | | | | By Janet Mock | | |
More than 200,000 people are expected to gather on January 21, the day after Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, for the Women's March on Washington. The earliest incarnation of the demonstration began on Facebook as soon as the election results made it clear that Hillary Clinton would not be the victor.
Bob Bland, one of the first women to organize online, was appalled by Trump's rhetoric, which had previously inspired the fashion entrepreneur to launch "Nasty Woman" and "Bad Hombre" T-shirts that benefited Planned Parenthood. "We will use the Women's March as the touchstone of ongoing action," says Bland, who serves as a national cochair for the march. "We can break these barriers, these silos, and become more unified again as a people."
Unity feels like a utopian, almost mythical goal in these United States of America. It is difficult, backbreaking work to build and organize among varying identities, experiences, and urgencies — even under the umbrella of womanhood. In less than a day, as the march went viral, it garnered criticism for its leadership (all white women) and its initial name (the Million Woman March, which was the name of a 1997 demonstration for black women in Philadelphia, organized by Dr. Phile Chionesu). It brought black women, intersectional feminists, and women of color to a collective side-eye. The Women's March, like the wider feminist and women's movement itself, demonstrated that our collective issues are as deep as Trump's side part.
Within a day, the founders of the March recruited leadership from experienced organizers who reflected the varied lived experiences of American women. Carmen Perez, executive director of the criminal-justice-reform group Gathering for Justice, was one of three women of color (alongside Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, and gun-control activist Tamika D. Mallory) brought in as national cochairs to steer the march toward a more intersectional and inclusive lens.
Perez, who will turn 40 the day of the march, admits that she's battled insomnia organizing this gathering. Still, she says, "We've been dreaming about this."
Below, Perez and Bland discuss their experiences planning what could be the largest mass mobilization on the first day of a new president's administration.
Janet Mock: The idea of the Women's March came from women with little organizing experience who drew tens of thousands who expressed an interest in participating. Initially, there were no concrete plans or infrastructure to actually get people there. How did you both get involved?
Bob Bland: The march was organically founded by about four of us who had separately decided that our reaction to Trump's election was that we wanted to do a march on Washington to reiterate that women's rights were human rights, and to ensure that we could all come together around protecting each other over the next four years. We never had any idea that it was going to go viral.
When we realized that this was now something that could become an incredibly historical moment and transformational, we reached out to women of color who could lead. We were blessed to meet Carmen, Tamika, and Linda, who had extensive experience in organizing and putting on marches similar to this. They came on day two, and we've all been working together. Now we have dozens and dozens of volunteers as part of the national committee. It's really incredible.
Carmen Perez: I'm the executive director of Harry Belafonte's organization. He is one of the honorary cochairs, with Gloria Steinem. Harry was a part of the 1963 March on Washington and he has mentored me for the past twelve years in regards to the different tactics, ideology, and philosophy of Kingian nonviolence. It was important to bring in that perspective but also the continuation of legacy. The continuation of the people whose shoulders we stand on. It's been beautiful to not only bear witness to this organic type of organizing, but also to be a part of developing some of the messaging and reaching out to individuals and being really intentional about [who we bring] on board. It's a huge endeavor, but I'm really excited to be a part of it.
JM: What can demonstrators expect in Washington on January 21?
CP: They'll be listening to a wide range of speakers from different issues and areas of expertise. They'll also be listening to performances. They will be inspired to act locally. I think a lot of the people that we've seen sign up are new activists. They were feeling like they needed to connect to something larger than themselves. The program will begin at 10 a.m., it will run until 1 p.m., and then we will march.
BB: We now have volunteer organizers representing all 50 states and many countries, all converging together with their groups, so it's tens of thousands of women and allies. We're actually having 150 sister marches in unity with the march in Washington. We're working to create a system of livecasts so we can share experiences and marches in various cities across the world.
JM: Women, obviously, are not a monolith and are deeply divided along party lines, race, income, and education level. Exit polls indicate that 53 percent of white women voted for Trump. It shatters the idea that women are a cohesive voting block. Have you been able to engage conservative women who may have even voted for Trump? Will they show up to the Women's March?
BB: Anecdotally, I can tell you that we receive emails daily from women who are conservative-leaning who are coming to the march because they cannot stand the misogyny that they've seen expressed over the last eighteen months. This is why we have the hashtag #WhyIMarch, and why we're so vocal about telling the stories of all of these different people and why they're coming to Washington. It's important that this transcend politics and be about not allowing for the rollback of human rights that we've all worked tirelessly to build in this country for generations. We're working to preserve our democracy here.
CP: Before we got the permits, before we drafted a manifesto, before we began to think about inclusivities, so many women were already coming. We have a lot of inquiries. People want to make sure this isn't anti-this, this isn't anti-that. One of our principles in Kingian nonviolence is: attack the forces of evil, not people doing evil. That's why we've been saying this is not about Trump, this is about something larger. This is about systemic racism, this is about women's rights, this is about all these different issues. Mr. Belafonte teaches us that you've got to champion people to your cause. You just can't work in your own silo. We have to speak to people, we have to provide entry points for people, and I think this march has provided an entry point for the average human being to get involved. We may not share the same political view, but we all have something that is deep in our heart that we care about.
JM: Ongoing criticisms that plague the Women's March include it being an emblem of white feminism where women who are not white, straight, cisgender, and able-bodied are not centered. Three of the four national cochairs are women of color, which is a signal that women of color are now, in fact, central in leadership. Still, women were not the only targets during the 2016 presidential campaign — Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ folk, black and brown people, Native communities, the disabled, and survivors of sexual assault were also attacked. How are you mobilizing a wider coalition of marginalized folk who are not and do not identify as women? Or is this not a primary concern when organizing a women-centered space?
CP: I work in the police-brutality world, and black trans women specifically are the target of police brutality. We have to do better. Again, it's also about having those conversations. How are we going to include trans voices? How are we going to include the voices of people who are disabled who can't make it, who can't march? Those are the continuous conversations. Also, bringing them into the convener's table, into leadership positions, but certainly, it's an intention that we have. It makes us look beyond our own issues.
BB: I just want to say how much having the leadership of a very diverse range of women of color who have worked in so many different intersectionalities has been an incredible learning experience for myself and those of us who had not worked in that lens previously. I come from a local manufacturing and domestic manufacturing background and I worked in fashion, so I've worked a lot with undocumented immigrants and the Sunset Park community in New York. I think that by centering women of color, by ensuring that we have equity within our leadership that is proportional to what we actually see, what the true face of the nation is, it allows us all to, for those of us who started this, to take a step back, allow other voices to be heard, and then to learn from that. Being a part of this and having what Carmen calls "courageous conversations" that you never thought you would have and are sometimes uncomfortable. Sometimes they break down your worldview, sometimes you then have to go back and think and build it back up again into a new view. That experience will be replicated at the march for hundreds of thousands of people.
CP: To reflect that on the stage is going to be really important for us. We want people to be able to see that on the 21st. For us, [the work involves] making phone calls, having one-on-one connections, answering a lot of questions, and asking them: How do they feel they want to show up in this space? What do they need from us? What does support look like? That's the way we've approached it.
We want to make sure that women of color are at the center. It is about solidarity, but solidarity looks very different for people, so we also have to make sure that we are all on the same page. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it has not been easy. We're listening, and we're responding to emails on a daily basis, just answering people's concerns. Also, where there are gaps, we're analyzing that, and we're making sure that those communities that we haven't seen represented get reached out to.
JM: Carmen, you work at Gathering for Justice while volunteering full-time with the Women's March. How are you taking care of yourself while doing this grassroots, underfunded work?
CP: I make it a point every morning to get up and exercise. That's what keeps me balanced. I have it blocked. Then I'll work until 11, or 1 in the morning. I've been praying a lot. I'm very spiritually grounded. I've also picked up a book I haven't read in over a decade, and it's called How to Live a Meaningful Life. Every day I walk into my home, I pick up the sage and I smudge the house, and I'm really relying on a higher power to help me through this.
There's moments when we forget to eat. It's why I have accountability partners, people who will call and say, "I'm here to check up on you. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm not here to listen to your work and what you're doing. I'm here to remind you that you have to drink some water." I run my organization and I run a group called Justice League NYC, and I am extremely ambitious, so I can get lost in work. One of the other things that I'm doing a lot better is delegating what I don't need to do. I'm developing teams of women to take on certain tasks that I would usually do. I'm looking forward to January 21st, but it hasn't been easy.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Janet Mock is the author of the New York Times bestseller Redefining Realness and the upcoming memoir, Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me, which will be released in June. | | | | | | | | | | | | A Brief History of Women's Marches | | | | By Alexis Coe | | |
On January 21, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration, women will march on Washington with a message for the new administration on their first day: women's rights are human rights. By doing so, they are not only fighting for our future, but honoring the long legacy of women marching on Washington to bring about meaningful change.
March 3, 1913. Woman Suffrage Parade.
On the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, Helen Keller was one of 5,000 women who "march[ed] in a spirit of protest against the political organization of society, from which women are excluded." They lined up under banners representing their states, their occupations, and their organizations in Washington, D.C., accompanied by nine bands, four mounted brigades, and twenty floats.
Keller wasn't the only famous woman in attendance. Jeanette Rankin marched under the Montana banner and would return four years later as the first U.S. congresswoman. Ida B. Wells defiantly marched with her state, against instructions from organizers Alice Paul and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. White Southern members had insisted women of color should march in the back with a segregated unit.
Another surprise: the tens of thousands of men in town for the inauguration had not been cleared from the streets, and those men, most of whom had been born with the right to vote, thought of the privilege as exclusive to their gender. And so they jeered at the women, at first, and then they jostled and shoved and tripped the Suffragists. Police were there, but most of the men in uniform stood still, complicit in the violence. Red Cross ambulances struggled to get to the 100 women who, newspapers would later report, ended up in the hospital.
Finally, the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania National Guard stepped in, and young men from the Maryland Agricultural College formed a human shield, helping the women finish the march. It led to Congressional hearings, but not the kind the women had hoped for. The hearings were about the violence and resulted in the dismissal of the superintendent of police. The next time Congress considered these women, seven years later, they finally got what they had come for on that cold winter's day: the right to vote.
January 15, 1968. Jeanette Rankin Brigade.
Fifty-five years after she'd marched for the right to vote, Jeanette Rankin, then 87, held a banner that read: "End the war in Vietnam and the social crisis at home!" Five thousand women followed, many clad in black as a tribute to the war's mounting death toll. They sang, along with folk artist Judy Collins, "This Land Is Your Land."
The march was technically illegal. The Capitol Police invoked a law forbidding demonstrations that had never once, despite having been on the books since 1882, been used. The Brigade sued the Chief, but nothing had been decided on the day of the march.
The Capitol Police could try to challenge the women's First Amendment rights, but ultimately, Rankin had the best representation — herself. As a former congresswoman, she could enter the House floor and hand a peace petition directly to the House Speaker, John McCormack.
Rankin met up with Coretta Scott King, 40, who gave a speech calling for peace at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, but not all women felt represented by wives and mothers. A group of 200 to 500 women wearing miniskirts tried to take over the stage, and encouraged the marchers to join them in a mock funeral procession of "traditional womanhood" at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Washington Post described the Jeanette Rankin Brigade as "peaceful and ladylike," though Congress did not act on its petition. Rankin died in 1973 at the age of 92. A statue of her stands in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The inscription reads "I Cannot Vote for War," commemorating neither of her marches but her statement as the only member out of 389 delegates in the House who refused, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to vote in favor of going to war with Japan.
August 26, 1970. Women's Strike for Equality.
On the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage, women earned 59 cents on the dollar, despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Only 5 to 10 percent were accepted into institutions of higher education. In 43 states, women were prohibited from carrying more than 25 pounds, about the size of a toddler, and in many of those states, they still couldn't serve on a jury or own property.
In D.C., 1,000 women marched down Connecticut Avenue and presented the Senate with 1,500 signatures, but this was a nationwide effort. Twenty to fifty thousand feminists marched throughout the country demanding equal pay and greater political power. At the time — a period when Congress was discussing the Equal Rights Amendment — it was the largest gathering of women in the United States.
In turn, the country was watching them, and highly critical. The New York Times's headline read "Leading Feminist Puts Hairdo Before Strike," noting that Betty Friedan, the president of the National Organization for Women and march leader, was 20 minutes late to her appearance in New York, and had been running similar articles in the previous days, asserting that traditional women's groups like the League of Women Voters and Daughters of the American Revolution "prefer to ignore Women's Lib." The paper quoted sources who characterized the women as "a band of wild lesbians" and who put on "ridiculous exhibitions."
In 1971, Congress passed a resolution declaring August 26 Women's Equality Day. The Women's Strike for Equality is now remembered as the first major protest of the Women's Liberation Movement. Both houses passed the ERA, but Phyllis Schlafly argued it disadvantaged housewives and successfully mobilized conservative women in opposition. Ratification of the amendment slowed by 1973, falling short of the states needed.
July 9, 1978. March for the Equal Rights Amendment.
The 95-degree heat didn't stop swarms of women dressed in white, gold, and purple from showing up in Washington to demand an extension to the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, but their swelling numbers delayed the march by 90 minutes. Once Constitution Avenue had been completely shut down, 325 delegations, clad in the colors of the National Women's Party, began their march. The first banner to be seen read "Alice Paul, 1885–1977," a tribute to the late author of the ERA, and those who held it waited for three hours for the last group to join them on the west steps of the Capitol.
They succeeded in the extension, although the ERA would be defeated in 1982. Legal scholar Joan C. Williams argued it was dead the moment Phyllis Schlafly "turned it into a war among women over gender roles." Her anti-ERA movement also received support from special-interest groups, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, and Southern whites.
Since 1982, the amendment has been reintroduced in every session of Congress.
April 25, 2004. March for Women's Lives. Sponsored by the National Organization for Women.
The largest march in U.S. history started, unofficially, in 1986, when 80,000 women took to Washington in protest of anti-abortion laws pending in the Supreme Court. In April 1989, that number swelled to nearly 300,000 and included Madeleine Albright, who would later become the first female secretary of State. The National Organization for Women continued to hold demonstrations when women's rights, including reproductive rights, were threatened, and after the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, they began to organize a milestone protest.
On April 25, 2004, more than 1.1 million people marched for Women's Lives. NOW was joined by the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Planned Parenthood, the Black Women's Health Imperative, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Code Pink, the American Civil Liberties Union, and many others. Despite the large numbers and presence of pro-life protesters, there were no incidents of violence. Albright was once again in attendance, as well as Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton, and celebrities ranging from Moby to Julianne Moore.
The march proved to be largest in history — not just women's history, but U.S. history — though the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was not repealed.
May 14, 2000. Million Mom March.
Mothers are revered during election cycles and then generally ignored by politicians, but on Mother's Day in 2000, around 750,000 men, women, and children forced elected officials to take their agenda seriously by putting on the largest demonstration for stricter gun laws in history. In addition, there were more than 70 related marches held in satellite cities around the world, adding another 150,000 to 200,000 people to the total head count.
The Million Mom March was a grassroots campaign led by women with little to no organizing experience, making their numbers all the more impressive. A community-based coalition in Bridgeport, Connecticut, had taken guns acquired through a buyback program and melted them into a 400-pound brass bell. One at a time, twelve children, representing the number of children shot and killed on a daily basis, came forward to ring it. Elsewhere, children were encouraged to write Mother's Day cards to lawmakers. A memorial wall listed the names of 4,001 victims of gun violence.
"We've come here in the names of the children we love, the children we have lost, the children we have saved," Hillary Clinton, then a Senate candidate in New York, told participants, some of whose children had been gunned down. The protesters would receive a different description from the media; articles led with moms checking to make sure everyone was wearing sunscreen, noted women crying, or dismissively suggested a "boosterish inflation" of totals — but no one could deny their impressive nationwide commitment to "common-sense gun control," a struggle that continues today: already this year, a dozen children have been killed or injured in gun violence.
Alexis Coe is the author of Alice+Freda Forever and co-host of Audible's Presidents Are People Too! She's currently writing a biography on George Washington (Viking 2018). Follow her. | | | | | | | | | | | | Spicy Vegan Orange-Coconut Vegetable Curry With Red Lentils | | | | By Christine Elise McCarthy | | |
| (Photos courtesy of the author) |
I am Christine Elise McCarthy — known mostly as Christine Elise — the actress who played Emily Valentine on 90210 and also the actress who killed Chucky in Child's Play 2. What many people do not know is that I am a novelist, a photographer, and an avid cook. I started a food blog about four years ago. It allowed me to combine all my passions in one: writing, photography, and eating (mostly eating!). I was a pescatarian for about 25 years or so, until I gave up seafood three years ago. I gave it up partly because I just felt it was time, and partly in reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the effects that has had on the ocean. Although my diet skews increasingly more and more vegan, the truth is that I am not yet fully vegan because … CHEESE! Cheese is my drug. I hope to become vegan eventually, but my weakness for cheese keeps tripping me up.
This recipe is a favorite mainly because it is made in a slow cooker. I LOVE SLOW COOKERS! Is there anything more lovely than walking in the door after work and being greeted by the aroma of a warm dinner waiting for you? This recipe is one of many that I have created based on ingredients I already had lying around. I love to challenge myself to make delicious meals without having to run to the store for anything. I get a real sense of satisfaction when I am able to salvage produce that is close to the end of its shelf life, and I love using economical ingredients like dried beans or lentils.
I adore this recipe because it's healthy and vegan, but mostly I love it because it is very customizable and it makes a boatload (try freezing the leftovers!). For example, you could add chicken or seafood (but it doesn't really need it), and you can add, lose, or substitute the vegetables for ones you prefer. I used frozen carrots this time because they were inexplicably in my freezer despite the fact I never buy frozen carrots, and yet … there they were. I served it with quinoa, but any grain will do, and of course, if you like some spice in your curry, you can add diced jalapeños or a few squirts of sriracha.
Spicy Vegan Orange-Coconut Vegetable Curry With Red Lentils
INGREDIENTS
½ cup orange or tangerine juice
8 cups vegetable stock
12 small potatoes, cubed
2 onions, diced
2 pounds red lentils
½ pound sliced carrots (fresh or frozen)
1 head cauliflower, cut into florets
1 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons grated or jarred ginger
3 tablespoons red curry paste
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
6 ounces tomato paste or purée
13 ounces coconut milk
Cilantro as garnish
Cooked rice or quinoa
DIRECTIONS
Put everything except the rice and cilantro into a slow cooker, and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for eight hours. Serve with the cooked rice or quinoa, and garnish with the chopped cilantro.
Christine Elise McCarthy is recognized primarily for her roles as bad girl Emily Valentine on Beverly Hills, 90210, as Harper Tracy on ER, and as Kyle, the gal who killed Chucky in Child's Play 2. She maintains an irreverent food porn blog called Delightful Delicious Delovely. Bathing & the Single Girl, inspired by her short film of the same name, is her debut novel. | | | | | | | | | | | | Keeping Her Eyes Open | | | | By Ilana Kaplan | | | |
Growing up in the '90s, it was amazing to see the trio of powerful, creative women in Destiny's Child launch their career. From the first time I heard "Bills, Bills, Bills," I wanted to be as confident and cool as the young women singing about refusing to pay for some scrub's flip phone. I admired Beyoncé Knowles and Michelle Williams, but what made Rowland shine was her empowering attitude, determination, and powerhouse vocals.
In 2002, each member of Destiny's Child began to pursue solo careers, something that has continued for the past fifteen years. Rowland stood out because of her ability to be genre-fluid; she showed she was able to transition from hip-hop to pop to R&B and EDM seamlessly, care of collaborations with Nelly and David Guetta and her own material. In 2009, she boldly made the choice to cut ties with longtime manager and father figure Mathew Knowles to instill full creative control in her profession.
When it comes to Rowland's career, one thing is clear: she's never been afraid to take risks and try new things. Rowland has four solo albums under her belt (with a fifth on the way), led a TV search for the next big girl group on Chasing Destiny, and had a recurring role on Empire as a young Lucious Lyons's mother. Now a mother to a two-year-old son, Rowland has gone down another career path, this time as the author of Whoa, Baby!: A Guide for New Moms Who Feel Overwhelmed and Freaked Out (and Wonder What the #*$& Just Happened), a book she co-wrote with her OB-GYN, Dr. Tristan Bickman. Rowland wanted to provide comfort to new mothers who didn't know how to handle the physical and emotional effects of post-pregnancy.
2017 is looking to be a big year for Rowland with the release of her book, an album coming down the pipeline, and even a makeup line for women of color. I spoke with her about living in a Trump world, the impact of her new book, and reflecting on Destiny's Child.
ILANA KAPLAN: What was your reaction to the news that Hillary Clinton didn't win? Were you expecting it?
KELLY ROWLAND: I was stressed. I kept rubbing my head and touching my heart and trying to figure out how this happened. It was disappointment, wonder, and anxiety. I just went and had a glass of wine. I couldn't wrap my head around it. All I could think about was women, my friends, a job in the future I might want to have … do I want to have another child? I thought about my nieces, my family, and this country. It terrorized me for a second. I was really praying for the best and trying to be hopeful. I was trying to find a silver lining somewhere, which is really tough. I was trying to figure out what I could do to not be a lazy citizen. Don't sit by and watch things happen. You see things coming on in the news and there's different information, you need to listen and keep your eyes open. Once you have the knowledge, and you realize there's a responsibility to change it, you have to act right in that moment.
IK: Have you thought about how you're going to talk to your son about this?
KR: Yes. My son is two years old. I don't even know what to tell him. I had these conversations with my friends who have older kids. One of my girlfriends said her daughter went to sleep before Election Night saying, "I'm so excited tomorrow we're going to have a female president. I could be president." She was so excited. My friend said, "I literally cried when I heard my girls moving because they were going to be ultimately disappointed." Then I talked to a friend of mine whose son is eleven years old, who is a beautiful, young black boy, and he asked about his safety. We're all trying to figure it out. I think our president-elect doesn't make us feel safe. We have to do whatever we possibly can. It's important to protect myself and protect my family.
IK: Onto a brighter topic: Can you tell me about your upcoming book, Whoa, Baby!: A Guide for New Moms Who Feel Overwhelmed and Freaked Out (and Wonder What the #*$& Just Happened)? What made you want to write about the time after having your son?
KR: After I had my son (and this is no exaggeration), I had at least a thousand questions and at least a couple of visits with my doctor. I would call or text her in the middle of the night. I didn't have that many questions before I had [my son]. I was wondering why there wasn't a book like an answer to What to Expect When You're Expecting. That book made me feel very comforted and safe. I was talking to my OB-GYN, Dr. Tristan Bickman, and she was just like, "You're not the only person to tell me that. All of my patients say that all the time." So I said, "Let's write a book." That's exactly what we did. There were so many things happening to me mentally, physically, and spiritually that I wanted answers to the questions I had. I'm so happy I had an awesome team to do this with me.
IK: You have your hands in so many different projects right now. What made you want to create a makeup line that was more diverse than your standard brands?
KR: I'm a fan of makeup — I always have been. I think that was passed down to me through my mother. She would go to Target and spend so much money. I've always wanted to do a makeup line. I felt like there weren't proper colors for women of color — not just black women, but women of color as a whole. I just wanted to be a part of changing that.
I feel like when we look in the mirror, we need to embrace what's already there. You need to start with a beautiful canvas, and I think it's important for women to embrace. It'll be out in 2017. It's an acronym for FACE: "For All Created Equal."
IK: What's been the best part of working on Chasing Destiny? What's been the most important lesson you've been able to teach young women?
KR: The whole experience was awesome, and it was really a blessing to watch these ladies evolve and learn about themselves. I've watched it happen right before my eyes. With one girl specifically, I had to walk outside the room because I was just so moved, she first walked in so broken, and now when I look at her, she's just a different person. She's remarkably talented and so sweet. She doesn't take the opportunity for granted. It's a tough card she's been handed in life, and she's just made lemonade out of lemons.
IK: That sounds like a familiar statement to me. Did watching these young girl groups come together make you think of your days in Destiny's Child?
KR: It just makes you humble because you think about what it took and how far you've come: the passion and sacrifice it took to get there. You don't want to forget that. When you hold onto that, it makes you appreciate everything more.
IK: There has been talk for years about a Destiny's Child reunion. Is it likely to happen in the near future?
KR: I haven't heard anything about it. We don't even talk about it. I give the same answer to everyone. We talk about everything else: we've got kids, we're trying to get Michelle married off. We focus on other topics.
IK: You have a new record coming out. What can we expect on this LP?
KR: It's happy. I said I wanted a record full of up-tempos. A lot of my albums and songs have been slow, except for tracks like "Commander" or "When Love Takes Over." I said I wanted this record to be happy because we need that right now, more than ever. That's where my heart is.
IK: What were you listening to when you were making the record?
KR: I was literally listening to everything: old '90s R&B and these old records my mom put me onto.
IK: A lot of young women look up to you. Who is someone you look up to?
KR: Michelle Obama is my ultimate icon. I love her. I love what she stands for. I love how classic she is. I love the mother she is. I love the wife she is. I think that she speaks from a very genuine place, especially in meeting her so many times, she says what she feels. She doesn't hold her tongue for anybody, and she doesn't have to.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Ilana Kaplan is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She's forever a Destiny's Child fan. | | | | | | | | | | | | Student Evaluation | | | | By Kim Brooks | | |
I'd come to teach a course as part of a writing festival at a university. It was a low-stress weekend gig. No administrative drudgery. No grades. All grown-ups, eager and motivated and grateful to be there. These were people with jobs and families who were willing to travel and take time off to learn about the craft of writing. Usually, I found it to be the easiest and most enjoyable kind of teaching.
My first exchange with the student who would make this time different from all the others was not an unpleasant one. He was a smiling, well-caffeinated, 30-something man, a college administrator who exuded a confidence that made me mistake him for a fellow instructor. A few minutes before class began, we were prowling the leavings of the continental-breakfast table when he smiled in my direction.
I nodded and smiled back. "What is this?" I said, pointing to the table. "Five different kinds of croissant and not a single bagel?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking: Where the hell are the bagels? How can you have a continental breakfast without a bagel?" He smiled as he spoke, maintained a salesman's practiced charm. When I realized he was entering the classroom behind me, I felt neither pleasure nor dread; it didn't occur to me that he might be the kind of student with whom friendly banter and familiarity are entirely the wrong tack to take.
The trouble began almost immediately. "Here we are," he said, as I put down my folders, organized my desk. I didn't answer, gave a polite but more guarded smile. I wrote my name on the board, talked a little about the course, then suggested we go around the room to introduce ourselves. Most students spoke for a few minutes, told the room about their background or interests or reasons for taking the class.
When his turn arrived, the tenor shifted. What he offered sounded more like a prepared speech than a casual introduction; he didn't so much speak as take the stage. He had prepared this in advance, I could tell, a statement of purpose — this was his chance to share it. He was a serious writer, a man with many important and complicated stories to tell about love, loss, youth, women. He had a lot to say and we were going to listen. He stood as he spoke. He paused for dramatic effect and made sweeping gestures. "This class is going to be amazing!" he assured us all — he assured me, the teacher. "I think we're going to do great things in this class."
During our first break, I approached another teacher, who happened to be my husband. He'd come along for the weekend with our two small kids. "I have a problem," I said.
"You forgot your lesson plan?" he asked.
"Good guess, but no. It's a who, not a what." I tried to explain to him the student's aggressive extroversion, his overtalking, his performativity and almost garish affect. My husband didn't seem surprised. He worked in academia and was more accustomed to challenging students of every stripe.
"Say something now," he suggested.
"Like what?"
"You pull him aside, tell him you appreciate his enthusiasm, it's great to see him so invested, but he needs to tone it down and share the stage with his classmates."
Softly, I groaned.
"Seriously," he told me. "It's the kind of thing you have to nip in the bud. The longer you wait, the worse it will be."
"OK," I said. "You're totally right. I have to say something. I will."
I returned to class and said nothing. Somehow, I couldn't. There was a part of me that saw exactly what was happening, the damage he was doing to the class, the way his behavior was poisoning the atmosphere. But even as I saw it, there was a part of me that didn't quite believe what I was seeing. And so instead of confronting him, I hedged and evaded. I made lame, ineffectual attempts to contain the student as he grew more insistent in his bids for floor time. I tried not to call on him, to cut him off after a reasonable amount of time, to communicate to him through body language, eye contact, unspoken social cues, and the like that he was acting like a jerk. He noticed these efforts and grew icy, then more determined than ever to gain center stage. He asked disruptive questions that had nothing to do with the material under discussion, wondered aloud if I might help him get an agent or offer him the contact information of my writer friends.
At one point, during a writing exercise, he rose and approached my desk, raising his hand high above his head. I stared at him, squinting, for at least twenty seconds. Was he choking, saluting, swatting a fly? "Give me a high five!" he said at last.
"I'm sorry?"
"Come on. High five. This class is awesome. This is the most awesome workshop ever. High five. High five."
The other students were watching, appalled. Here was the moment to draw a line, to ask him to speak to me privately. Instead, I put a finger to my lips, then gestured pen to paper. He snickered, then shook his head in a way that communicated his disappointment. As he returned to his chair, I felt a mixture of embarrassment, exhaustion, but most of all disgust, not at him, this socially challenged and possibly personality-disordered student, but at myself, my utter inability to manage and contain him.
"Just wondering," my husband said when I admitted I hadn't taken his advice. "Would it be easier if he were a woman?"
It wasn't the first time I pondered the particular difficulties women face as teachers, especially a woman who is trying to maintain authority and is directly challenged in her efforts by a man.
I remember my very first experience teaching. I was 23, a graduate student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. My pedagogical preparation involved a three-hour orientation on classroom management and the late Frank Conroy bellowing at me and my 50 other new classmates not to sleep with our students. This is all to say: I had no idea what I was doing. I admitted as much after the first, terrible class to a male friend who was in the same boat.
"You know what I did that helped?" he said. "I wore a tie. Huge difference. Also, I told them straight out that I didn't want any bullshit. They seemed to respond to that."
"You know what they responded to?" I countered. "They responded to your penis. The fact that you have one."
"Nah," he said. "It was the tie. Also, the hard-ass attitude. Give it a try."
I did, half-heartedly, intermittently. At times it seemed to work. Other times, no. But I remember one evaluation above the rest. "Ms. Brooks knows her shit. But she can be a total BITCH!!!" the student wrote.
For what remained of the festival, the student's behavior continued. I knew the other students were annoyed, but I didn't understand how fully I'd allowed him to hijack the class until the day after I returned from the festival when another student, a woman, contacted me. She and several of her classmates had received hostile emails in which he'd berated them for not taking his work seriously and giving it the respect it deserved. She forwarded me his email, which was full of expletives and accusations. It was near-hysterical, vaguely threatening, and far beyond the normal and accepted etiquette of a writing workshop. I cringed as I read it. I cringed as the student went on to tell me that whenever I wasn't watching or was attending to another group, he referred to me as "Mommy." I cringed when she ended the email by stating plainly that she'd found his behavior oppressive and disruptive, and that while she enjoyed the class overall, she was disappointed that I hadn't done more to take back control.
It's never easy to read this kind of feedback from a student, but in this instant, it was particularly difficult, mainly because I knew that she was right.
In the months since this occurred, when I find myself remembering the incident and attempting to formulate some lesson from it, I think less and less about the student himself and more about myself in the moment — or moments (there were several of them) — when I failed to take control. I think about the feeling I had in those seconds. It was closer to uncertainty than intimidation, a feeling of not trusting myself, of not quite believing in the validity of my interpretation of events. If I'd been able to freeze time, if I'd been able to receive some secret, silent message from the other students, confirming my experience of what was happening, I would have done more. But I couldn't, so I didn't. I had only my own reading to rely on, and in the end, I didn't trust it. Maybe I'm overreacting, I thought. Maybe I can work around the disruption. Maybe it's not really that big a deal.
As women, we are asked to do this all the time, to reconsider feelings that are inconvenient, to make adjustments in what we think we believe. We're asked to smile, to feel less deeply, to be less sensitive, to get along and gain consensus and constantly negotiate our needs. My husband had asked if it would have been easier to exert control if the student had been a woman. I hadn't answered him at the time, probably because I wasn't willing to admit to him or to myself that the answer was yes. Only in retrospect could I see it clearly, that despite my most deeply felt convictions, there's still a part of me that wants to be approved of by the man in the room, even a man like that one. It's not a part I'm proud of, but there it is, rearing its head, whispering in my ear to make nice, to be liked, to go easy. Sometimes I feel like I've been doing it, faking it, betraying what I ought to be protecting, all my life.
Kim Brooks is the author of a novel, The Houseguest, and Small Animals: A Memoir of Parenthood and Fear, which will be published next year by Flatiron Books. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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