Back in the day, for several hundred days, I was the editor for three community newspapers and wrote a weekly column for a daily newspaper. That meant that everything I did that week came out on Thursday. It was the one day of the week I could take at least half a breath — and it was the day when it hit the fan. If I wasn’t getting calls about the column, then someone was accusing us of having personal vendettas against high-school kids because his kid’s photo wasn’t in the paper. Despite all that, Thursdays were actually kind of fun.
All posts by Nafari
Shaking off a bad Attitude
Won’t normally cross-post from the tennis blog, but this has just been me, yo, right here:
I’m not gonna lie – part of the reason my husband and I decided to uproot our family southbound was so that the kids could be outside more (that’s code for “we could be outside more playing tennis!”). We’re considerate parents like that.
None of us envisioned that when the chance to move finally came, it would be piecemeal. We wouldn’t be together, not right away. But even then, I thought it’d be a couple weeks only, not that long. Long enough for a working mom to take a breather from the family that always needed something, am I right?
Haha. No. Of course not. Nearly two months ago now, I packed up my car, interviewed a real estate agent with my husband, said goodbye to my distracted children as they watched Chuggington (and then again during Octonauts), surrendered my house keys to my very best friend in life, told him I’d see him soon, and drove to Florida. I would say half of that drive on the first day was done pretty artfully, considering my eyes were just randomly filling with tears. I think my husband and I always figured that when we finally made it to perpetually sunny skies, we would do it together. It just wasn’t the same to get there without him, or them.
Regardless, as soon after I arrived here, life went on for everyone else. The French Open came and went, and watching on TV as Serena won it from her knees was craaaazy fun and even before nude Stan Wawrinka came along, watching him play solidly throughout the tournament was kind of a tennis turn-on. (I can’t be the only one who thought Nadal’s injury in last year’s Australian Open final was the ONLY reason he won. Well, I sit corrected.) But still, something was missing. Naturally, it was my tennis spirit-twin who knew it.
“Why don’t you go out to the courts and play some tennis?” my husband nagged me over the phone (because that’s how men roll).
“OK, maybe after work one day.”
Which I of course didn’t do. In retrospect, a lot can be said for my frame of mind when you realize that I preferred leaving my new job and going back to my dark room at the local Travelodge and watching Penny freakin’ Dreadful on three Showtime channels throughout the night rather to going to the nearby tennis courts. (Also watched ‘Boyhood’ at least three different time. Do you understand now?)
An even better commentary on my relationship with my racquets at this time, which had now been untouched for two months – the day I finally went over to the tennis courts, I got out of my car and walked over to the office to find out about the leagues in the area. A man yells over at me, “We need a fourth!” And I say – wait for it – “Oh, I can’t right now!”
Yes, of course I could have. It was Saturday for heaven’s sake. In theory, the reason I went to those courts was to play tennis. Someone offered to play tennis, and I said no.
Yeah. Exactly.
The only thing that broke me of whatever the hell this was was my spirit-twin, as usual. He told me he was signing up for a tournament for one last go-round with his partner. And finally, it hit me: If he can still want tennis, even with two small children hanging around his neck at all hours and the stresses of moving and selling a house constantly clawing at his sanity, then what the what was my problem?
And if you wanna hear something hilarious, it was that guy I turned down for tennis who still got me back into it. I’ve been playing with his Saturday morning group (horribly, but that’s what you get for not playing for two months – there ARE NO SHORTCUTS) and doing my backboard penance for about three weeks now. Maybe I thought I would punish myself for not having what I really want right now by depriving myself of the other constant in my life for nearly 14 years. Or of the other habit of mine that’s been with me forever – writing. Well, I guess my punishment’s over. It’s about time for some Attitude to start flowing around here again. The good-bad kind. Not the bad-bad kind. You understand.
Bloody Sunday really happened, you guys.
When I was in high school, I had to complete a public service project for one of my classes. I chose to take a Saturday morning and go to Fulton Avenue in Brooklyn, and try to get people to register to vote. It sounded easy enough. And it wasn’t physically demanding or in a particularly tough area — I thought I’d go shopping afterwards. It also left me with an experience I’ve never forgotten.
As expected when you approach strangers on the street, I got ignored a lot. Some people were happy to register. One woman almost cried because she wanted to register to vote, but never knew how. About a third of the people said something like this: “Girl, please! Why waste your time voting? It doesn’t make a difference.” I was 17, so I argued right back with them: “Then don’t complain about your government!”
Seriously, that group of people — all of them black people — really pissed me off at first. And then the experience just stayed in the back of my brain. After I saw “Selma,” they came back to me. Of course I knew what happened 50 years ago on March 7 on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And here’s hoping all of us will take the 10-15 minutes to read President Obama’s speech about what happened that day, and what has happened since.
Here’s one thing that’s happened since: People, black and otherwise, still sit on their very powerful hands on Election Day, even if they are registered to vote. This happened, although others literally died and took a boot to their face so that everyone could have a say in how our system works. And what do we do to repay that debt? And it is a debt — and let’s just think about this for a second. Fifty or so years ago, a white woman, Viola Luizzo, driving protesters home was killed because she wanted to help. It’s an impact on a movement, but it’s an impact on a family. Someone lost a wife and a mother for the idea that someone else should have what this woman had — something she just got herself! The fabric of a family was torn because of this idea she had about equality everywhere.
But we need to be reminded that it’s Election Day, when it’s the same effin’ spot on the calendar every year. I cried during the scene on the Pettus bridge in Selma because of this mostly. It’s the idea that John Lewis got his ass kicked for black people, and the only time they can find their way to a voting station is when a black person is on the ballot.
“My voice doesn’t matter,” you, you person who refuses to vote and actually brags about it to your family and coworkers, say? “The system doesn’t work anyway? My vote doesn’t make a difference?” Well, there is a point nestled in there somewhere. Our government is imperfect. The idea that lobbyists even exists shows that our system is flawed. We have lawmakers fighting a healthcare system that has been found to be largely beneficial to many of the people they “represent.” Yet these things persists. You know why, right?
Because we think our voices don’t matter. But if Bloody Sunday taught us anything, it would have been that if enough of us talk, people have to listen. That would have been the lesson if we had been listening. But hell, who has time to vote?
#Oscarssowhite. duh.
Was it me or were the Oscars really awkward to watch this year? In the wake of accusations of racism against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it seemed like they set a new quota for this year — at least one person of color in each frame. The awards ceremony usually does come up with some cheesy gags, but the one with Octavia Spencer was interesting. Her job was to watch a case for host Neil Patrick Harris. I guess she was reaaally good in her role in “The Help.”
The whole program reminded me of someone who gets accused of being a racist. He’s like, “No, no — I have a ton of black friends!” And then you bust out Terrence Howard for no solid reason.
And then there were the nominations. Part of what made me cry about “Selma” was that (most of) it really happened. Not only did it really happen, but today, black people refuse to register to vote despite the fact that people literally died so that could happen.
But that’s me. Me? I saw that movie and thought David Oyelwo, Carmen Ejogo and Wendell Pierce should have been nominated for acting Oscars. I thought Ava DuVerney should have been nominated for best director. It’s another question to ask if they should have won — a question you can answer if you’ve seen every movie nominated in that category. I have not.
The Oscars committee, made up largely of old white males, said, “Meh. I like this “Birdman” movie.” Two things: If you identify more with a struggling actor who is tired of being typecast, but cannot identify with the movie about the thing that happened in the country you live in, it’s just hard to know what to say about that. Second, there’s originality and then there’s just nonsensical. “Nightcrawler?” Original. “Birdman?” Nonsensical. No spoilers here, but seriously, “Birdman” made me want to punch something, especially because I had initially decided after an hour that it wasn’t worth my time, but then I let my husband talk me into finishing it. Besides that, it was also really annoying. Like, someone took the phrase “Drumroll, please,” and went all the way to town.
But anyway, there’s been some accusations of racism about the nominations this year — I wrote a column about this last week. It’s like the president of the African American Film Critics Association told me — it’s not racist, really. It’s perception. It’s having a different set of eyes because only you can see what you’ve seen in your life. It’s why some people I’ve talked to think Birdman is awesome, and others who agreed with me about it. It’s true with all art. To this day, I can’t understand why people like The Great Gatsby. When I was reading it in high school, I was thinking, “You think Daisy and Jay have problems? Whatever!” Of course, I had a library card, so I was reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Langston Hughes plays at the same time. Perception. See?
But it does suck that the Academy’s general lack of color bleeds into their decision making, because if you do good work, your peers should give you credit for it. You shouldn’t need a special group of critics to make sure that happens.