Salon.com > Syreeta

Petraeus scandal widens, and the slut-shaming begins

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:54:00 +0000

Dear American Media, can we not write headlines like this:

This Reuters article does something pretty annoying in my view. It tries to piecemeal a triangle between Paula Broadwell, Jill Kelley and Holly Petraeus, struggling to cobble a narrative arc ultimately leading us down the path to absolve David Petraeus as if Guido Anselmi in Felini’s 8 1/2.

“It’s not a traditional America anymore”

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:29:00 +0000

Some of us might well have considered the first term of the first African-American president was a dream. A sweet dream that would come to an end as we were all lost in the deluge of insider baseball talk between pundits, strategists and pollsters. Watching last night's acceptance speech, I’d wondered if in the back of Obama’s mind, he’d wondered too if this sweet dream of his first four years would extend to another four. A break and a swell to a rise, President Obama nod’s to his 2004 speech:

America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.

Politicizing black hair

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Full Disclosure: I’ve been natural for nearly 12 years. Many years ago, when I was working on a big real estate project as an entry level project manager, a fellow black woman admonished me for wearing a colorful headscarf. At the time, I wore my hair in double strand twists that I would do myself, a tedious,painstaking project that would warrant me wearing a headscarf for a day or two because until I completed it. She told me that she ‘didin’t want people to get the wrong idea about the project.’ Her hair, by contrast, was chemically straightened, permed in the natural parlance of black hair styles. She occassionaly wore hair pieces as well.

Context here is king: we were black women in a predominantly white male environment represented a contrasting view of black female identity. And hair, is a trait of that identity. I naively assumed that at the dawn of the 21st century, my hair was not relevant fact in convincing loan officers to invest in a real estate transaction.

Call racism what it is

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 04:02:00 +0000

At the risk of sounding redundant, but again… enough with the race talk:

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr. Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.”

Perhaps we can’t say it enough. I personally have made light of it, uncomfortable , sardonically swiping at the candidate and foot soldiers, noting ironically how this all boils down to resentment that there’s an African American in the White House.

But again, when thoughtless (yet tactical) racial animus comments like these are made in the presidential campaign, do we not call it what it is? To say ‘Anglo-Saxon heritage’ in this context is being esoterically cute and patently racist. It is. Don’t sugar coat it. Don’t couch it in false equivalencies. The language is racist. Coded to signal to me, American of African descent, that the identity of the Republican candidate for President is more vital than the actual policies and competency in governance for the nation.