So, those of you who still have the stones to follow me on Tumblr, or are just recently following me, may have seen my post about my renewed interest in Japan and its variety of subcultures, particularly that of gyaru. I’ve been setting minor goals and getting tools to achieve the look in the face at least, which I will attempt once I get my hair done. I just came back from Wal-Mart.

So far I’ve gotten:

1. Ecotools make-up brushes 100% organic made from bamboo. These include a foundation brush, powder brush, eyeshadow brush, and a spoolie brush (whatever that does). I only got these (they were about $14 for the whole pack plus the makeup pouch) because the brushes were softest on my skin. My face is easily irritable.
2. Revlon false lashes.
3. Salon Perfect wispies.
4. Salon Perfect waterproof lash adhesive.
5. White eyeliner.
6. Maybelline “Lasting Drama” gel eyeliner.
7. Black Radiance Face Primer
8. Black Radiance Liquid Foundation
9. Essie LuxeEffects “as gold as it gets” nail lacquer.
10. Two bottles of Neutrogena’s oil-free daily scrub/acne prevention.

A pretty tame version. Gyaru itself has a ton of subcultures.

I think I’m ready to begin my journey into the realm of the gyaru subculture, as far as make-up is concerned. And no, I will not wear those lenses. Those things look cool on some gyaru, but I think it would just make me look creepy and alien. False lashes are okay, though to make my eyes pop.

Now, music. I found out I already like gyaru music (based off my unusual love for the ParaPara Paradise soundtrack), but I’m open to recommendations to artists to listen to. I’ve already got recommendations for clothing shops (YesStyle and GMarket are two good ones), and I’ve already got shoes aplenty.

Something tells me I’m going to love this style.

A friend on Tumblr asked me recently what drives me through life. In the midst of all this hate mail I’ve been receiving and racist ass anonymous messages threatening me with rape and violence or whatever, he asked me what keeps me going. Honestly, the answer is so simple in and of itself that it seems silly to even dedicate a blog post to it.

My career in which I’ll be training in later this year is going to be making me an entire mess of money. Not anything to make me a millionaire, but as a single, unwed, childless woman in her 20s, it’ll be enough to live comfortably in the years to come. When I retire, I want it to be by the ocean, or on a lake…somewhere by the water, sequestered enough from big city living that I can see the stars at night, but can still drive to the city when I feel like getting a dose of urban living. Basically, the suburbs…or the countryside.

My only drive is to get to that point of contentment, to the point where I can actually say “Hey, I want a dog as a companion” and get one without forethought, and be able to afford that dog. You see where I’m going with this? It’s a silly notion, but it’s simple desires like contentment, a small manageable home, and a canine companion that drive me. I don’t want to drive a fancy car (I don’t count Audis as fancy cars), I don’t want to live in a huge house that takes an entire mess of people to clean, and I don’t want a lot of expensive shit. Not to say I won’t enjoy luxury brand items like clothes, shoes, perfumes, and make-up, but it won’t be the focal point of what I do with my money.

Maybe I’ll meet a handsome man who is just as simplistic in his desires as I am, maybe I won’t. I’ll at least have a dog to keep me company and I at least have a realistic list of things I want to do with my money besides impress people with how much of it I have.

So that’s what drives me: the prospect of having all of that for myself in the future, and that it is well and absolutely attainable if I keep myself focused.

It exists. And you may think I have an anecdote for everything race-related, but hey, that’s what happens when you’re proud of a heritage that the country you live in tells you is worth no more than the shit on the sidewalk, right? That’s what happens when you make the “mistake” of being Black in a society built on keeping you in a position of worthlessness and subservience. Anyway, the story I want to share with you today is one from my earliest experiences with anti-Blackness from people who were not white.

I used to attend classes at my local masjid (mosque) to learn Arabic so I could read the Qu’ran without English translations. I was still in the process of learning the alphabet and numbers at the time, and one of our lessons was to discuss the hadiths—or life lessons according to Islam—of the Holy Prophet Muhammed (saw).

In any case, my instructor was a Desi woman. I used to adore her. She was so kind and she was very pretty and she was very patient with me regarding Arabic as she grew up speaking Hindi and Bengali (from Bangladesh). Anyway, one day we were discussing a hadith and she totally flipped the script on me. I was one of the two Black children in the class, as the rest were Pakistani, Indian, Bengali, and a few Arabs. One of my closest friends at the time, Tamana, was from Bangladesh and she would help me when I’d have trouble. The Desi teacher asked me how I practice Islam at home, and I told her the same as any other Muslim, however, my father was part of the Islamic sect of Ahmadiyah. All of a sudden her entire demeanor changed.

“You’re not a real Muslim,” she said. The entire class went quiet. There were only 15 of us in a small room in the women’s section of the masjid. I blinked, because I thought maybe she’d misunderstood what I was saying.

“How can I not be a real Muslim? I make salat five times a day, I practice halal, I worship Allah the same as any other Muslim.” But she was singularly determined to prove I wasn’t a real Muslim because of the sect my father was part of.

“Well, for one,” she said, and she got real uppity about this, “you’re Black, and your father is Ahmadiyah. We all know the Ahmadiyah don’t believe in God.”

When I tell you all I saw was fucking RED…I didn’t curse at her, and I didn’t raise my voice, because this was the masjid after all, but I did argue with her that Islam is one of the fewfaiths in which even though there are different sects, the worship is the same. The Five Pillars of Islam don’t change, and we don’t read the Qu’ran or make Salat any differently than any other Muslim.

I burst into tears, because it was the first time anyone had denied my faith based on my skin color and my chosen sect. But could I leave the classroom? No. I didn’t have a choice at the time. I was 12, and classes weren’t over for another two hours. I had to sit there in my pain and you know what? No one defended me. Not a single one of those kids who yucked it up and laughed at my jokes during the lunch break. Not even the other Black kids, although they did look uncomfortable.

My point is, the anti-Blackness racism that goes on comes from more than just white people. Sure, white people started it, but they did so in such a way that it’s self-perpetuating. I know way too many Desi people who adopt the “white is right” attitude, and the time I spent in India’s very insular American community proved that whiteness has left an indelible mark on the psyche of those people. Why else would skin-bleaching be so prominent there? Skin bleaching and colored contacts. You think Ashwariya Rai was always that light? Please yo. You think Bipasha Basu was always that lightskinned?

C’mooooon son.

And it’s not just in India, either. China too. Sudanese-Arabs hold themselves in higher regard than their “darker” kin (I saw this first hand for myself), lots of West African are adopting skin bleaching and dying their hair in an attempt to look more lghtskinned because lighter skin (or as close to white as possible) is considered more desirable.

Why the fuck do you think that is? In Africa, where a majority of the people are as dark or darker than I am and have been for thousands of years? Why is having lighter skin suddenly so important to the rest of the world. Why the colored contacts, the lightening of the hair?

Why the prejudice between people of color based on which shade of the melanin-scale you fall under?

Why do you fucking think that Desi teacher cited my being Black as a reason I couldn’t be a Muslim?

You’re not going to sit here and tell me it has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve been born and bred to believe that Blacks fall at the bottom of the social ladder. Matter fact, some of you brown folks must in the back of your mind not even put Blacks on the social ladder?

No, the only time a Black woman’s body is acceptable is when she super thin, and therefore cannot be sexualized because she lacks the curves of Nicki Minaj. It’s okay to like Black woman who have Eurocentric features, but don’t let her acknowledge her Blackness! Then it’s time to deep six her and abandon ship.

I’d love nothing more than to have some solidarity between people of color because I think that’s one of the top ways we all can combat racism in a white-washed society that really views us all as inferior. You can bleach and avoid the sun all you want, wear all the colored contacts you like, but you will never be white, and your racist oppressors know it. Sit there and deny it all you fucking like, but if there’s one thing being kicked around at the bottom of the social ladder has taught Black folks, it’s the fucking truth.

The Angry Eye: Jane Elliot – I advise you to watch this before reading the following commentary. This is a video I linked earlier, both on Tumblr and Facebook; a social experiment done by Jane Elliot in which she segregates the classroom according to brown eyes and blue eyes. The blue eyes are then subject to undergo discrimination in a systemic way to give them a perspective on what the daily life of a person of color is like.

“WHITE PEOPLE’S NUMBER ONE FREEDOM, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IS THE FREEDOM TO BE TOTALLY IGNORANT OF THOSE WHO ARE OTHER THAN WHITE. WE DON’T HAVE TO LEARN ABOUT THOSE WHO ARE OTHER THAN WHITE. AND OUR NUMBER TWO FREEDOM IS THE FREEDOM TO DENY THAT WE’RE IGNORANT.” —Jane Elliott

And I’ve gotten a lot of backlash (from white folks–go figure), about how Jane Elliot was being too harsh on the students who were picked to experience discrimination in a controlled environment.

Let me tell you why that’s bullshit, and none of these reasons even touch on the fact that Elliot was actually being LENIENT compared to some of the shit I’ve had hurled in my face by teachers for daring to be young, gifted, and Black.

The exercise was to teach white people/white passing people about the daily racism that POC face by putting them in a position to be discriminated against constantly. This was the point of the “A Class Divided” exercise.

Now, these students were all required to sign waivers saying that they would undergo high emotional stress from the exercise. They signed knowing that they were going into a situation that would stress them out. You paying attention? That means they had the option of opting out of this. They had the privilege to end it when they felt things were getting too hot.

I have no sympathy for you. Suck it up, buttercup.

As the exercise continues, after barely thirty minutes of being discriminated against, two white women have burst into tears, one of which stormed out and never came back (we call this phenomenon White Woman’s Tear’s ™). Elliot goes on to make the point that when people of color are in these situations where they’re fed up…WE DON’T HAVE THE OPTION TO STORM OUT AND NEVER COME BACK. For most of us, leaving could mean the difference between having a job or keeping a job and continuously facing racism/sexism/homophobia. For some of us, it could mean the difference between continuing an education or dropping out of school. Since the discrimination this exercise is dealing with race, I’m going to focus on that.

For some  of us, leaving could mean federal prison—I’m in the military, which I’ll just come right out and spill the tea: it’s a cesspool for racism, sexism, and homophobia. I face sexism and racism everyday, and you know what? After 23 years of facing racism and sexism, you learn to swallow the poison.

 You become immune to most of the microaggressions on the outside, but inside, you’re dying to react, and you know you can’t, because the deck is stacked against you, but sometimes, the armor wears down and you have to repair it.

The purpose of this exercise was to show you white folks that we (POC) don’t have a choice. I can’t go outside right now and be secure in the knowledge that I won’t be met with some level of discrimination based on my appearance. I can’t turn on the TV and be secure in the knowledge that representations of my race won’t be overblown caricatures or typecasted roles.

People of color don’t have the option of bursting into tears and storming off, because you—white folks—have the power to take away from us what we have. Our rights, our freedoms, our livelihood. You getting your feelings hurt by some person of color is not the equivalent to me having to swallow the poisonous racism of my teachers from middle school to college. To fucking college. That’s over twenty years of racism from people who are supposed to be responsible for my education. And you know what? Fuck them.

You’ve probably seen–if you follow my SJ Tumblr–all of us sharing personal experiences about the mistreatment we’ve received from our teachers, our superious, and our own age-mates; the constant judging, the fact that there is no safe place for us to go and simply be ourselves without fear of being judged and ridiculed or put under the microscope. There’s no safe place for us to even vent our frustration because if we react to all the racism we’ve been forced to normalize just to make it through the day, we’ll be labeled as “angry”, “over sensitive”, “over reacting”, and in my case “militant”.

The point of this video was to hurt your feelings, folks. To hurt your feelings so you can have some fucking perspective. And you know what? Your. Feelings. Don’t. Matter. It is the number one thing you should take away from this. Your feelings regarding racism against POC do not matter because it isn’t about you.

You’re not losing anything having these discussions…except the glittering dreamland that your privilege has kept you in. You still get to go outside and be as white and carefree as ever. You get no sympathy from me just because a Black girl made fun of you in school one time, and suddenly you think you’ve gleaned what it means to be oppressed because of your race. Making fun of you isn’t oppression. It’s mean, but in the end you still come out as privileged and white as ever–you have the option to walk away and look at it as “that one time that Black girl made fun of me for being white”, which you subsequently try to shove into a discussion about racism to derail the conversation and make it about your feelings. We don’t have that option. We’ve been picked on, beaten, mistreated, killed, and even if we come away from it alive, we’re not unscathed, and we know we’re just going to have to face it elsewhere from someone else.

We have to fight that battle everyday until we either give up and die, or fight back and be beaten back even harder.

So, unfortunately for me and my social networks, the latest buzz isn’t anything worth talking about, unless of course you’re obsessed with Kim Kardashian.

Recently, Kim Kardashian was engaged to athlete Kris Humphries, which resulted in a highly-publicized (it had its own special on E!) $10 Million Dollar wedding over the summer. Everyone–myself included–speculated that Kim Kardashian’s newfound boytoy was yet another publicity stunt to keep her name in the trending topics on Twitter and the press’ eyes on her. Of course, some women attacked us saying we’d use anything to tear Kim Kardashian down, including how she came to fame in the first place: via sex tape.

It’s not something one forgets, honestly.

In any case, for a time it seemed as if Kim K had finally found love and was about to settle down and enjoy the fruits of her labor. Then, this morning, it was reported Kim had filed for a divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences”. Well, okay then. If I was a betting woman, I would have collected a fortune on the lifespan of this sham of a marriage alone, because that is what it is: a sham.

I’m not going to go out on a limb and say Kim Kardashian is what is wrong with today’s society because she is by-far the least of concerns on my list of problematic issues in Hollywood and American society in general. No, unfortunately, Kim K is a symptom of the cancerous illness in our society known as “celebrity worship”. We have devolved into a society that follows every waking moment of our favorite celebrities, where social networking and reality television has steadily closed the gap between celebrities who were once untouchable and us…the crushing masses who could only ever really speculate about their lives.

In any case, Kim Kardashian has successfully turned her life into a joke, and you know what? I pity her. I have never watched an episode of the reality series associated with her family, but I do know her sister, who is cited as being less attractive than Kim, has managed to maintain her own marriage, and her other sister is in a long-term relationship. Part of me suspects that Kim’s sudden rush into marriage was a result of her competitiveness with her sisters who are constantly viewed as standing in her shadow. Kim Kardashian is the head of the clan, the most gorgeous, fashion-forward, charming, etc. Society has viewed her as the top of the pyramid, and therefore, she should be first and happiest in everything, and her siblings should simply fall in line after her.

But now Kim is looking quite bad; oh she’s still the most gorgeous and fashion-forward and possibly the most wealthy, but the intangible things people expect her to have: love, companionship, healthy marriage–have not been claimed by her first, and I believe she rushed to get married in an effort to prove that she too was not a joke.

LOL Kim. Sorry, but the joke is definitely still you. Hey, at least you’re still stylish and gorgeous with your battalion of plastic surgeons at your back, right?

Right.