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...Well, not quite, but couldn't think of alternative title for this post.

I believe I am among the 95% or so of bloggers who don't blog - meaning, bloggers who haven't touched their blog in ages. I am currently running about an average of less than one post a month...or perhaps every two months. Life likes to get in the way, but then there is also the convenience of Twitter and there was the time that I used to, from time to time, update my Facebook status. Used to. Way too many "Friends" who, at best, are mere acquaintances. Never thought I would say this, since I am not terribly private with my online identity, but Facebook is getting a bit too nose-y for my liking.

I've often found myself killing a blog post idea mid-thought because there just wasn't enough "there," to warrant a post and, unfortunately, 140 character Twitter limit just wouldn't do it justice. Yes, I am aware that there are avenues by which to defy the 140 character post limit, but I fancy myself a social media purist - if Twitter says 140 characters, I'll abide by 140 characters...if Facebook says, link up with old friends - I will...no posting of birthday presents, planting of flowers, nor indulging in anonymous "Ask Me Anything" apps. I guess, in the realm of blogging, I set out to adhere to certain rules - such as the idea that a blogpost must have a beginning, and end, and most importantly, a point - but it seems like such standards are more stifling then ever. My Blogger list of posts hosts a number of unpublished thoughts that didn't make it to daylight, because the post simply didn't have much of a point (much like this one) or didn't fit with the overall "theme" of the blog.

Well, I guess all this is to say, that, hopefully, in the future, I will slowly begin to tear myself away from these rules I created and thus imposed on myself. Pyoo wata is getting on in years - This November will make it four years. I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that after four years, there is still no unifying theme to this blog and perhaps will never be.

2

My father once told me that someone who chases after a mad man will eventually look like him as well. So for the most part, I have tried to maintain a comfortable distance from the crazies on the Right, other than a chuckle here and there at Palin family antics. I was never taken to viewing the Birthers as a distinct subculture, but rather a group of individuals plagued by delusional thinking and fits of paranoia. That was until recently, when they found a vocal figurehead in the multimillionaire, Donald Trump. My problem wasn't with Donald Trump, in the same way I do not apportion blame to the mentally ill. I only felt sorry for him - and, pity, for the sane members of the Republican party whose names are brought in disrepute on account of these people. My beef, however, remains with the onlookers in the media who for the past couple of weeks have edged on Trump and others of his ilk to continue dancing naked in public.

The back and forth antics between Trump, birthers, and the remainder of American public culminated in Obama's public release of his birth certificate earlier this week, in a failed attempt to squelch this horse and pony show played by extreme factions of the right and ratings-starved members of the media. Hardly - that is the unfortunate nature of paranoia - continued suspicion despite clear evidence to the contrary. And the dance continues.

No relief has come from the release of the birth certificate, for me, only disappointment. Several have likened the release of Obama's records to the literary tests minorities once underwent in order to vote in this country. I have often tried to keep myself in check in regards to my hypersensitivity towards race relations, but there was no doubt in my mind that race is on the minds of Birthers and those who seek to "Take our Country Back." And yes, I, too, am of the opinion that racism is pathology. Kola also comments on this Sad Day in America and I couldn't help but share this video on my blog after hearing about it from @Saratu. Both put to words my anger and sorrow towards America's descent into this pit.

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I know, my neglect of this blog ... or any blog in general, is almost criminal. I blame this on Twitter and my over-reliance on my Google Reader feed - so much easier to be a consumer of this new media than to produce it. Oh yeah, and life and school in general...

When chanced, stop by Saratu's post, Not Speaking Yoruba, which echos my sentiments on not speaking Igbo...well, at least the kind intelligible to others beyond myself and my forgiving parents.

Such brought up an interesting conversation on Twitter some weeks ago - see my timeline here...which later degenerated into a somewhat useless conversation about dialects and the inherent pleasantness of one over the other. Also, I wondered aloud (though not on Twitter, I don't think) as to why films are no longer produced in Igbo, but Nollywood films of other languages are thriving. I grew up happily struggling to understand the storylines of Igbo films, which despite their horrible acting, still presented some degree of authenticity basically non-existent in some modern-day English films. Somehow along the way, we went from films in entirely Igbo language films, to films in which perhaps the village scenes were in Igbo, to English films with Igbo chorus lines, to present-day overt English language films, even among all-Igbo speaking casts.

Onyeka Nwelue also laments the flight of Igbo language film here and realizes that "we don’t need a story to be told in English before we realize it is a good movie." A fairly obvious conclusion. In the comments section of the article, Niji Akanni, Yoruba screenwriter and director, sheds some light on our reticence to produce Igbo language films.

...I’d say the Igbo language film died because my Igbo brothers in the Nigerian film industry have simply forgotten (or neglected) who or what exactly their films speak to...I think my Igbo colleagues continue to work under the illusion that they can make films to appeal to ‘everybody’ – from the struggling pure water vendor on Eko Bridge, through the primary school teacher in Offiaoji to a native German professor who knows next to nothing about Nigeria as a whole or Igbo culture in particular. What comes across then are films that address everyone only by entertaining them but not speaking to anyone in particular.

...Then there is the issue of cultural authenticity. I suspect very strongly that most Igbo filmmakers are either grossly ignorant of their authentic cultural roots or simply too timid to explore those roots, knowing that their responses to such exploration will ultimately lead to questioning/interrogation of certain traditional assumptions...My prognosis is that the revival of Igbo-language film, if it ever happens, will only come from Diaspora filmmakers of Igbo origin: those who can listen with fresh (but not emptily nostalgic) ears to the authentic rhythms of the numerous Igbo dialects, who can look with untainted eyes at the various dissonances of their cultural heritage, and above all, can honestly and boldly address such dissonances, not just as an appendage to “all-about-entertainment” cinematic fares.

Yes, the Nollywood film market, is largely (perhaps entirely) driven by profit rather than art - which may explain the desire of Igbo filmmakers to capture a wider audience by producing English language films. However, I'm not terribly confident at his prediction that Diasporan filmmakers (wherever they may be), may offer a solution. From personal experience, I find that we either fall at one of two extremes (here in the States), on one hand, we seek to be more oyinbo than the original oyinbo or on the other, we tend to craft a vision of our fair homeland, that has very little basis in reality, producing a product that is unrecognizable to both Diasporan and indigene. Though, admittedly, and by some miracle, we were able to get it right in the arena of literature. But, like they say, lightening rarely strikes the same spot twice.

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Because of course, you're not like one of them...

The end result of the African foreigner privilege, usually dispensed with condescension, is that Africans are becoming buffers between white and black America. There is now a plethora of reports comparing African students to African American students. The conclusion is that if Africans fresh off the boat are doing better than African Americans who have been here for centuries, then racism can no longer be blamed. But the reports do not consider that, just maybe, at either Harvard or a community college, Africans experience race differently from African Americans. Africans experience a patronising but helpful racism, as opposed to the hostile, threatened and defensive kind that African Americans grow up with. Racism wears a smile when meeting an African; it glares with hostility when meeting an African American.

And he continues on race relations between Africans and African Americans, which I believe is spot-on...

Africans in the US can end up becoming foils to continuing African American struggles, because they buy into the stereotypes. They end up seeing African Americans through a racist lens. This is not to say that African Americans have not themselves bought into racist stereotypes of Africans, where Africans are straight out of a Tarzan movie. But to the credit of African Americans, they have actively, through organisations like Africa Action and Trans-Africa Forum, agitated on Africa's behalf.

From Mukoma Wa Ngugi's Guardian essay, African in America or African American?
H/T Loomnie

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....before the end of the year. My (free) Christmas gift to you.

I'm usually not a fan of remixes, but I had to give this modern take of "Osondi, Owendi*" by Flavour et. al. a pass since it does pay homage to Chief Osita Osadebe. The beginning skit is cute...the rest of the video - yawn. But then again, this group, while skilled at creating/remixing insanely catchy songs (I find the Anambra dialect used in their songs annoyingly endearing), they are not terribly known for their creativity.

Oh, by the way, my apologies for the screwed up search feature. Something happened when changing the website address. Oh, and yes, you can now find this blog at www.pyoowata.com !!



*It pleases some, it angers others.

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20-minute documentary on "shadeism" below. H/T Clutch.

Shadeism on Vimeo.

I feel like I should be more bothered by this topic, but for some reason, I'm sort off "meh" towards it, and have been so for most of my life. My first encounter with shadeism came when I was five, attending school in Massachusetts and a girl of biracial heritage told me that I could not play with her and her white friends because I was simply too dark. At the time, I could care less, because there were more than enough "dark" classmates to play with (especially this adorable Rasta child, of whom I was completely enamoured with - and of course, like any five year old girl, I displayed my affection by terrorizing him at the playground - I was a bit of a bully back then. So he was my first crush, my second was Michael Jackson...don't judge). It was only when I was older that I realized it was a pathology. But even now, when I encounter such instances of black-on-black discrimination, it hardly fazes me. Like for example, an older relative of mine expressed a desire for her children to wed men of other races in order that they may sire beautiful children (but beyond that, she also has some gripes towards Igbo men, which receives a bit of a "Kanye Shrug" from my end). On another occasion a family friend was lamenting that the others are reticent to discipline their mixed-race four-year-old because of the colour of his skin. Of course, the Nnewi man was not having it, and half-stated/half asked, "This child cannot be more beautiful than me?" Yeah...side eye....not at the instance of shadeism...but rather at the sheer ridiculousness of the question. (Oh, and I'm assuming/hoping that most of my extended family is not aware of my blogging exploits...an aunt was worried that I may get arrested for my opinions, or worse still, not find a husband, because of it. Had to reassure her that it wasn't that serious, yet).

I feel like I should be more aggrieved towards such statements in the same way that I am towards racism. I find that among the African American community, individuals are much more sensitive towards shadeism, while in other communities, such as those represented in this film, expressing a preference for lighter-coloured children has long been normalized.

But, beyond the instances I just mentioned, I feel that overt shadeism may not be as pervasive in the Nigerian community. From my limited personal experience, we tend to denigrate those with blotchy tell-tale signs of chronic skin bleaching, and we extol darker- skinned actresses like Genevieve or Clems Ohameze, who in his day, was known as "black beauty." I think there is an element of "Nigerian pride," which, perhaps in this day and age, trumps the need to adhere to Eurocentric ideal of lighter-skinned beauty. Or perhaps, which is more likely the case, I am trapped in my own, "Black is (unquestionably, regardless the shade) beautiful" bubble.

There are some other bloggers who covered in relation to this film (simply Google "shadeism") - but I have yet to see a Nigerian blogpost on the topic. Though, I have seen a number of them on the politics of hair - which at this point in my life gets a "meh" from me as well.

7

By habit, I always pick up a new book anytime I travel to a new place - even if it is just a couple states over. It's something I started in my teens when I had some access to disposable (or borrowed - still owing some folks) income. Repeated the same thing this time I travelled to the west coast for the first time ever. I think...can't ever say ever since I got in trouble with Canadian customs last year for sneaking across the border in '86. Note, I was barely crawling that year...yeah, a relative "borrowed" my social security number - ah the life and times.

Came to the realization some weeks ago that my paltry book/music collection, save for textbooks and lecture recordings, is crying for some diversity. I have a primarily black library - spanning various corners of the African diaspora - Harlem, Enugu, Kingston, Umtali (Mutare) etc. There's a spattering of brown lit - but again, the same resistance and post-colonial themes. Largely, it's symptomatic of growing up in public high school that zealously guarded the "black is beautiful" mantra and then proceeding to a liberal arts education that offered a buffet-style selection humanities courses for those in the sciences. I grew all too comfortable in books that felt like home.

So this trip, I made the mistake of looking for book that would be representative of this elusive whiteness, you know, like how some would assign Things Fall Apart for a two-week introduction to the African experience. Needless to say, I failed horribly at this assignment.

First, it was an impulse buy at an airport bookshop. Although, I have been lucky, at times, with such on-the-fly purchases, airport shops are largely known for bright, empty magazines and self-help books. Second, I was moved primarily by my pocket and some feigned interest in the environment. You see, there was a shelf dedicated to previously read books - pre-owned novels which were 50% off. Not only was a getting a sweet deal but I was doing my part to save this text from clogging up our landfills. And third mistake - and quite cliched - I judged a book by it's cover. If I was going to read the whitest of white, why not pick up the memoir plastered with with a picture of Julia Roberts on the front?

Yes, I bought the wildly popular Elizabeth Gilbert memoir, Eat, Pray, Love - chick lit made into a chick flick a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was somewhat embarrassing, especially considering that my travel mates had their microbio textbooks in tow (don't know how I forgot mine, but was able to get a hush-hush .pdf copy hookup...whoop whoop!)

While I find Gilbert's story, thus far, refreshingly open and honest, it's a bit too stereotypically white and Western for my liking. And somehow, I empathize. It appeals to that part of my American self that I consciously work to squelch out in the open. Her story represents that part of me that tends to exoticize the other, the one that doggedly personalizes the spiritual to the neglect of the communal, the part of me that in my quiet moments, is fastidiously self-absorbed. Elizabeth Gilbert is my id.

I have yet to finish the book (may hold it off until Christmas vacation, unfortunately - got to memorize those bugs.) I'm praying for a happy ending with this book, though I have yet to put to words what that looks like. But from the reviews I briefly looked through, I doubt it.