When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost

by Joan Morgan

  What is your relationship to hip-hop now?

  What is my relationship to hip-hop? I don’t have much of a relationship to contemporary hip-hop at all.

  A Tribe Called Quest just dropped We got it from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your service. It’s their first album in eighteen years. I think that the title of that album is very indicative of my generation’s relationship with present-day hip-hop. There’s a little bit of a flex in the title that I identify with completely. I’m part of an era of black cultural producers—rappers, producers, graffiti artists, hip-hop journalists, novelists, poets, designers, stylists, music execs, deejays—who built the house contemporary hip-hop music and culture stands in.

  There is the arrogance of We built this house. I don’t romanticize at all what we now know obviously were flaws in the foundation—misogyny, homophobia, hypermasculinity—but I do have to own that I’m not all that interested in the new architecture either. Some of it is just ageist on my part. When you get to a certain age, your ear kind of ages out. What’s “good” to you is invariably influenced by a nostalgic affinity for the rhythmic patterns you came up on. Can I still identify new hot shit? Yeah, that’s never going to go away, but I also recognize that it’s not mine.

  Do you still consider yourself a hip-hop feminist?

  I rarely think about it. I’m a black feminist. Hip-hop helped give me the initial language to articulate an identity that was still pretty nascent. I don’t know that I need hip-hop to do that now, but I also don’t reject hip-hop feminism as a label.

  If you were to write Chickenheads now, would you change anything?

  No, I wouldn’t change anything. The book was never meant to be prescriptive. It was my way of sharing my process, how I came to understand a particular and very specific cultural and feminist moment in my own history that many thought were incompatible. I certainly would have loved the insights my exposure to queer theory and my understanding of gender fluidity provide to my work now, back then.

  But I love this book exactly the way she is. Just as I’ve come to love the shortcomings, real or imagined, of the woman who birthed her.

  Let’s talk about your present work. A lot of your work around articulating a politics of pleasure in black feminism focuses on resisting narratives that only see black women’s sexual selves through the lens of racial and sexual trauma. You’re trying to get us to widen our lens of analysis to include pleasure. We’re in a moment where we’re experiencing an incredible range of black women’s erotic expressions through a host of new shows and characters: Queen Sugar, Empire, Survivor’s Remorse, Lemonade, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Shameless, A Seat at the Table, and yet we’re actually seeing comparatively little writing in terms of cultural criticism. What gives?

  Well, the good news is that we’re seeing more fully realized black female characters with rich erotic and interior lives. The bad news is that cultural criticism in its current state doesn’t really have language yet to talk about them. This is where your rote recitations of Patricia Hill Collins start to fail you. If you don’t have language to see these characters in more complex ways than just new iterations of Mammys, Jezebels, and Sapphires, or your analysis can’t get past respectability politics and debates about positive vs. negative images, then you’re at a loss as to what to say. Pleasure politics tries to help with this process by creating new language and lenses. And there are some pretty badass scholars helping this process along on the academic side—Mireille Miller-Young, Ariane Cruz, Uri McMillan, Francesca Royster, LaMonda H. Stallings. So it’s coming, but it’s a process.

  How do you see your work now moving us toward a black feminist future?

  I’m very committed to this new body of work that I’m doing around pleasure, but I see it as a continuation to a legacy of black feminist scholarship that I’m fortunate enough to inherit. So pleasure politics build on the work Evelynn Hammonds had already started several decades ago when she highlighted the need for a politics of articulation around black female sexuality. So these are questions we’re still reckoning with. How do we talk about our bodies and our needs and our desires? What does it offer us when we not only explore but respect the ways black women are scripting their pleasure—performing it, consuming it, demanding it—often in the face of virulent critiques from other black women. I’m interested in those practices that other feminists dismiss as frivolous. Like selfies. As a feminist I see black women visually inserting themselves into a beauty narrative that deliberately excludes them. I see us showing up and showing out, making visual declarations that say in no uncertain terms that I’m here, and I’m beautiful, and I demand to be seen and recognized. Our pleasure guides my lens and my particular kind of theory-making.

  In this moment where black women, femmes, and transfolk are losing their lives to violence, and black feminists are tasked with writing them into the more popular narrative of black males being at risk, what does a pleasure praxis actually look like for us? How do you put a politics of pleasure into practice?

  Black joy is critical to our survival. So for us a pleasure practice has to involve radical self-care. We tend to give a lot of attention to the impact of more blatant acts of oppression, but we also have to become more diligent about quieter, equally valid concerns. I’m dismayed by how many of us are genuinely lonely. How many of us go for long periods of time without loving or healing touch in our lives? I think it’s critical we prioritize addressing these needs as mandatory. That we ask each other, “Sis, when was the last time you had a massage?” That we create opportunities for healthy, consensual, respectful sex whenever possible and that we encourage self-pleasure.

  We also have to remind each other to connect outside of the digital realm. Social media is fine but not at the expense of physically checking in and spending time with each other. A pleasure practice for me also looks like exalting our friendships, because Squad is so necessary to our survival.

  What’s your greatest concern for women and girls?

  The outcome of the election, certainly. The racial disparity between these votes is incredibly indicative. Black women voted overwhelmingly for Clinton despite the fact that many were conflicted about her political centrism and her corporate cronyism. And yet we showed up like Yoncé, #InFormation. This says to me that the work black feminism has done to help folks understand intersectionality—the critical interconnectivity between race, class, and gender oppression—has not gone unnoticed by black women or black men who gave Clinton 87 percent of their vote. These numbers indicate to me that white feminists have been far less successful in reaching their own. This was a fail that comes on the heels of years of us warning white feminists that teaching intersectionality should not solely be the labor of black feminists. And it’s a fail that all of us are going to pay dearly for.

  So I think white feminists have a lot work to do with white women. While it’s impossible to say that every white woman who voted for Trump is a racist, it is quite fair to say that those who did were willing to overlook both his racism and his sexism (and his anti-Semitism, ableism, xenophobia, Pence’s homophobia, and this country’s possible descent into fascism) in order to protect their own race and class privilege. That is what we call #PeakWhiteness. The shock and heartbreak I am seeing among my white feminist friends is them having to reckon with what that looks like amongst their own. But black feminists have long known that American patriarchy has had no better BFF than white women’s unacknowledged racism. And we’ve known this since the Suffrage Movement.

  At some point white feminists are going to have to reckon with the inescapable fact that the foundational myth of white patriarchy that says strong, safe, families/ communities/countries need white, cis-gendered men at the helm is still quite seductive in 2017. Fifty-three percent of those voting white women refused to elect a female president. I have no doubt it’s because some of them would rather be Melania. Talk about chickenhead envy.

  All of us who consider ourselves feminist are going to hav
e to reckon with what it will mean to live in a country where a Republican president ran a campaign full of hate speech, is unequivocally sexist, was endorsed by the KKK, and is backed by a Republican majority in the Senate—one that has repeatedly demonstrated how hellbent it is on limiting women’s reproductive rights. Since we have witnessed escalations in hate crimes around the country when Trump has only been president-elect for a few days, I’m certainly bracing myself for more of the racialized, gendered violence we’ve already seen compromise (and in some cases end) the lives of black and brown women, transwomen, and femmes. What does that mean in terms of how we organize and move forward? How do we ensure their safety and prepare them for the fight that is definitely coming? Or for the fact that they will have to go much of it alone because it is crystal clear now who our allies are not?

  What’s the most exhilarating thing about being in your fifties?

  I love the sense of confidence and sexiness that comes with self-acceptance. I wish at thirty I could have predicted that this was what was in store. I wish I’d known that the things I thought were mistakes or terrible missteps at the time were really just adding to the richness and texture of my life. I’m also a lot more forgiving of myself. I’m intrigued by my errors. I like the way this age looks on my skin. And I don’t have that very twenties/ thirties problem of saying yes to things I don’t feel like doing because I’m afraid I’m missing out on a moment or an opportunity. The world sometimes moves at a very different pace and rhythm than I do. And I’m completely comfortable with that.

  Plus the sex is better.

  Let’s do a couple of “What’s the lasts”:

  What’s the last thing you read that sent a tingle up your spine? The opening pages of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. I return to them over and over again. For the mastery of the prose, of course, but more for the command he has over riddim and lyricism. Its effect is the literary equivalent of Gregory Isaacs’s reggae chune “Night Nurse.” Both command submission. I actually read it out loud sometimes because I love the way the words feel on my tongue . . . Fucking Jamaican men, man. I love them. They’re the worst.

  The last three things that took your breath away?

  A sunset in Santorini, the film Moonlight, and a recent kiss with someone I’d last kissed in high school.

  The last fabulous pair of shoes you purchased?

  Flat, camel-colored suede, knee-high Prada boots with laser-cut holes everywhere except the heels and the toes. Completely impractical for New York winters and subways. And absolutely stunning.

  What’s the song most likely to make you cry?

  Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

  Let’s hear some faves . . .

  Favorite cities?

  Paris and New Orleans. And then New York because home is home.

  Power colors?

  Clothing. White.

  Lips. Red.

  Recent meals?

  I have three. My fiftieth birthday dinner at Le Cave di Maiano in Fiesole, the cacio e pepe at L’Osteria di Monteverde in Rome, and the brown stew fish special at Ripe in Mount Vernon.

  Current crushes?

  Mahershala Ali, cuz men who beast their crafts are always crush-worthy. Amandla Stenberg, because her flawless social critiques are fused with a #BlackGirlMagic that embodies beautiful possibilities for black feminist futures. My current favorite Bronx Girl, Cardi B. The daughters of my friends who were clear they were feminists since high school and infuse it in all of their activism. It took some of their mamas years to even read Chickenheads.

  Pick one: the character Ghost from Power or Ralph Angel from Queen Sugar?

  Both are fine, but the whole fine drug dealer turned entertainment mogul and/or the beautiful troubled soul who looks like good loving and bad decisions would have been me in my twenties or thirties—before God had the good sense to give me a child to raise. These days, my choice would probably be the cane farmer Remy Newell, who typifies a quieter, kinder type of love. The kind of man who prides himself on knowing how to protect, nurture, and support his woman.

  And finally, do you still believe that we will win?

  Yes, but that’s because of how I define winning at fifty-one. I see winning as less of an end goal than a state subject to a fair share of flux. Along the way we are going to have some wins—some clearly identifiable, some much subtler. We are also going to have some devastating losses, but I’m clear that even the ability to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and go on (which black people always, always do) is, in and of itself, a win.

  There are some specific wins I’d like to see happen:

  • I would like to stop seeing our bodies riddled by un-warranted police fire.

  • I would like our reproductive rights secured once and for all.

  • I want black women, femmes, and transfolk to be able to own our bodies, to be able to carry them in ways that are not constantly braced for spiritual, physical, and emotional attacks.

  • I would like to see black love manifest in healthy, loving relationships. And when it comes to the “with whom,” I could care less about race or gender.

  • I would like to see black women take the lead redefining heteronormative, cis-gendered narratives on marriage and family that leave far too many of us lonely and waiting anxiously to be chosen.

  • I want black men to be less scared for their hearts, to work out this terror they seem to have with intimacy.

  • I want this next iteration of young black feminists to unleash the transgressive, resistive power in our deceptively simple and beautiful hashtags—#BlackGirlMagic, #CarefreeBlackGirl, #BlackGirlJoy.

  • I want us all to GET FREE.

  one last thing before I go

  I know that ours has never been an easy relationship. Sistahood ain’t sainthood. That nonsense about if women had power there would be no wars is feminist delusion at best. We might not get down with guns and bombs but when it comes to emotional carnage we can be quite brutal with ours. Ain’t a black woman alive who hasn’t experienced the jealousy, duplicity, backstabbing, and competitiveness sistas are capable of. This is especially true when racism and sexism’s got us convinced that there just ain’t enough happiness to go around. So while we go ahead and kill each other over one tiny-ass slice of the American pie, the white boys walk away with the lion’s share.

  That being said, know that when it comes to sistahood, I am deadly serious about my commitment to you. The communal bonds forged by shared historical, cultural, and spiritual experiences have made us fam. As long as inequality and oppression remain constants in our lives, sistahood is critical to our mutual survival. We owe it to each other (and the yet shortys to come) to encourage other sistas through the doors we’ve passed through. Giving the gift of our survival experiences freely is part of the debt we owe to the sistas who battled not only for their empowerment, but our own.

  The quest for power is not a solo trip. This book only starts the journey. Only you can complete it.

  See you when we get there.

  Joan

  SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS READING GROUP GUIDE

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  WHEN CHICKENHEADS COME HOME TO ROOST

  1. Morgan says that, more than any other generation before, this generation needs a feminism committed to “keeping it real.” How does this translate day-to-day, person-to-person? Is it possible for a woman to be a good feminist and not pay for her own dinner, not hold the door open, or not become a master mechanic, as Morgan’s feminism prescribes? Are you a feminist? What does Morgan mean when she says that “the empowerment of the black community [has] to include its women” or that “sexism [stands] stubbornly in the way of black men and women loving each other or sistas loving themselves”?

  2. Hip-hop and rap have come under attack lately on many fronts. Is it possible to like this music despite the fact that it contains so much misogyny? Are you able to listen to the music and use it as a tool to understand how the community works, as Mor
gan advocates, or would it be better to silence its violent content?

  3. Morgan says, “We’re all winners when space exists for brothers to honestly state and explore the roots of their pain and subsequently their misogyny, sans judgment.” Besides rap and hip-hop, what are some effective ways, or forums, in which black men and women can “lovingly address the uncomfortable issues of [their] failing self-esteem, the ways [they] sexualize and objectify [themselves, and their] confusion about sex and love”? How about ways to address the “unhealthy, unloving, unsisterly” ways black women treat one another? What are some things you regret doing, and how would you change your words and actions?

  4. The author says that, by consenting to appear in raunchy music videos, certain women only promote sexist images of themselves and that there will always be women who trade on their sexuality to get the person (or the “protection, wealth, and power”) they want. Do you agree that young black women share in the responsibility for hip-hop’s antiwomen attitudes? Do you believe that women who value their erotic power over all else stand to seriously damage their self-esteem? Are there other ways, besides trading on sex, to attract the opposite sex? Is there a bit of Chickenhead in all of us?

  5. What do you think of Morgan’s notion that the popular urban myth of the “ENDANGEREDBLACKMAN” (EBM) should also apply to black women, who suffer from breast cancer and AIDS and poverty and incarceration at rates much greater than white women? What does Morgan mean when she states that ENDANGEREDBLACKMEN “succumb to being ENDANGERED” and that “EBM are wholly incompatible with daughters raised to be strong women”?

  6. Does the notion of the “STRONGBLACKWOMAN” empower you or oppress you? Do you agree that contemporary black women perpetuate the myth of the STRONGBLACKWOMAN to boost their fractured self-esteems? How do they do this? Do you believe that black men are less capable of surviving the afflictions of life than black women?