I am not my hair - pseudo-review

As I was running around the Internet and youtube, I stumbled upon a song for a certain India.Arie, the song is "I am not my hair" I had never heard of either the song or the singer.

The message is clear, she is not her hair, she is the person behind the appearances.
In theory we all agree that we are not our hair, we are not our appearances we are the humans within. A human being is a human being regardless of the color of the sink, the fair, the shape of the head, the waste and anything else related to appearances.
But what is interesting about this song (and the message behind it) is not the simple statement, it should be common knowledge. I agree that it's sadly not true when it comes to the actual life, but in theory everyone agrees we should be seen according to who we are not to the way we look.
But anyway, put that aside, what is interesting about this song, is the way the message is formulated. The singer is not arguing with the gossipy-gossip girls gossiping about the way she looks and the way her hair is done... No she is saying who she is!
So thumbs-up for Arie, you are not your hair, you are the person behind those appearances and judging from this first encounter, it's an awesome person behind.
Interesting fact #2: in the third paragraph, India mentions women struggling with cancer. And not surprisingly, this song became a symbol for women's struggle against cancer. With this paragraph Adrie certainly hits the right cord. A woman is so used to putting so much importance into appearances that when she loses a fundamental component to that beauty (such as a woman's crown aka her hair) she loses a lot, though she is fighting for her life she finds herself attacked with either disgust or pity, because she "lost her hair" when did hair become more important than life?

If you google the song you might find dedication made by women to women fighting cancer and those who have lost their hair if not their lives in this battle. India wrote this passage as a dedication to Melissa Etheridge (Female rock star, Lesbian activist, Environmentalist, survivor of cancer in 2007, mother of 4, blond... you pick the identity you want to label her with) inspired by the latter's triumphant performance during the Grammy awards where she appeared bald and alive.

Her performance brought tears to my eyes," Arie says. "At that moment in time, her performance was a juxtaposition of pain and beauty. It symbolized the beauty of strength

Interesting fact #3: check out the lyrics of "I am not my hair"... there's an adsense bar at the bottom of the page, I would bet you anything that it is an ad for cosmetics, non? You see, even if the singer is literally attacking shallowness and attachment to appearances, a robot like google ads would assume that the people reading this article would also be interesting in reading about products that help them cheat to improve the appearances.

Just thought like sharing :)

Event Review: Taste of Culture

On May 2nd, the “Taste of Culture” festival was held in Souk el Tayeb to honour the labour of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, followed by panel discussions in the evening in Masrah al Madina, a photography exhibition, and a hip hop/reggae concert to end the long day with.

FC members, Zainab and deema, sat down and talked about the event.


deema: So how did the taste culture festival at souk al Tayeb go?

Zainab: It was good. Good food, good music. Simba Rousseau, who was responsible for organizing the event, said that she was very satisfied. Basically, it was Saturday, it was Souk Al Tayeb, and there were many people there, from Lebanon and other countries; they weren’t there for that particular event per se, but people seemed interested in approaching the people who were offering the food, asking about the dishes and then buying. And those who were selling the food—cultural dishes from six different countries, seemed to be enjoying their time selling what they had prepared. I tasted the Sri Lankan food, chilli chicken with rice—very delicious!

deema: The event was held to honour migrant domestic workers on Labour Day. Were there many migrant workers there?

Zainab: No, not so much, which is understandable, because many workers are not free to leave the houses they work at, or to attend events. And how about the panels at Masrah Al Madina. There were two panels there, right? What were the topics discussed?

deema: Yeah, there were two panels. The first one was a “Lebanese panel,” of “experts” giving an overview of the situation of migrant workers, presenting a gendered look at how racism and sexism of the Lebanese society is working against migrant workers, and talking about the efforts caritas is doing to help.

The other panel, which was by far the more interesting, and the more important panel, had the leaders of the migrant communities in Lebanon to speak about their situation. The first speaker, from Madagascar, told about her work with migrant women, how she listens to them and offers them affection. As she told us, these women have sad stories to tell, not just about their lives in Lebanon, but back in their home countries as well.

The second speaker, a woman from Sudan, also went over the particularities of the Sudanese migrants’ case, where they willingly flee their country and come to Lebanon with their families, but their visas expire and for political reasons, don’t get extended. And so they become unregistered. Sudanese migrants may not live in their employers’ houses, but they face similar attacks of racism from society: from harassment on the streets, to bad treatment and underpayment where they work, with their children also experiencing racism at their schools.

The speaker from the Philippines added her perspective, telling us that the minute migrant workers step off the plane, the bad treatment begins. Employers expect her to work all day, she said, from the moment she opens her eyes till they decide to go to sleep. And she has not yet found the family that treats her as a human.

Zainab: Could you talk a bit about what went wrong? Cos some of us, and not just from the FC, expressed dissatisfaction during the panels.

Yeah, what went wrong was that we seem to think that the migrants can’t speak for themselves. That we need “experts” to introduce the issue and to give us an overview. But those women know their own situation pretty well, they know about the law that doesn’t protect them, that throws them in prisons under the worst conditions and forgets about them there. So that first panel—the “Lebanese panel” was not really necessary. It lasted too long, and we didn’t really learn much from it. It should’ve been all by migrant women. So that’s a lesson for us for our next event!

Apple

The first time I came out to my parents, I came out to them as a pagan, I was thirteen. Being from a catholic background, outing myself as a pagan was just as bad as outing myself as Queer.

There was always something in spirituality that attracted me but during our religious studies at school, nothing made sense. I had questions and so many and instead of having them answered I would just get kicked out of class under the pretext that I was causing discomfort and opposing the teacher.

It never made sense to me, the sudden birth of an Adam and Eve, it didn't make sense to me that all the prophets were men and wisdom and spirituality was accessible through their words only, it didn't make sense to me, that I, who was supposed to be the image of God, as taught in my religion, found him white bearded and old in our religious study books.

I came across Gaia, mother earth, I came across all her elements and bit by bit, in my teenage head the world around me made sense. I was the image of a god, but this god was not defined by gender, this god was a one and this "One" combined all genders. This "One" combined all my facets, all the elements. Fire was in the energy of rubbing your hands against each other, air was in every breath, water made up most of my mortal flesh and this flesh was to return to dust, to earth… and all this sheltered a spirit. It made sense to be part of the One, a small particle of something big. With this I understood that we are all similar particles, that there was no hierarchy in defining human existence, that there shouldn't be.

I don't understand why my questions caused such a riot in my catholic school, had they looked deep enough beyond dogma they would have realized that these are the basic founding teachings that they were supposed to transmit.

As I dwelled deeper into my pagan readings, I came across feminism and matriarchal societies, I came across woman deities and strong female mythology figures. None of this was taught at our school. No one had told me the role Ishtar played, no one had explained to me the evolution of Adonis into a certain prophet centuries later, no one had given me the option to make up my own path. No one had told me that women could be warriors instead of just child baring beings, they had not explained the sanctity of a yoni (the vagina). A woman belonged to the "Father" and from the father, passed to the husband and Lillit was nowhere to be found, she had rebelled, copulated with the devil, unworthy to go down in history. So they created Eve, but Eve could not possibly be an example for mankind, let us not make her so, let us burden her with the original sin which we shall burry between her legs and breasts. And so it was decided, what an evolution!

I grew up hiding my breasts, I grew up crossing my legs, I grew up choking my words, my thoughts, swallowing the apple over and over and over again as whole, having it stuck in my throat blocking every potential thought that dared to try to escape. They fed me that apple and St. Paul asked me to shut up and "not speak, for the Man is speaking" and I hid my breasts and cursed my period and got disgusted by my own blood and choked all of me…

The apple has rotted, it has fallen to pieces swallowed and released. I have found the One within and this is what they fear, for you to find that your hand can move energies that your breath can do miracles and that , as it was once, your body is indeed a holly pathway.

Pomegranate