The Dithering of a District Diva

In early 2010, I introduced many of you to “Happy Black Girl Day!”, a holiday created by Brooklyn diva extraordinaire and fellow blogger Sister Toldja. This once-a-month holiday allows us to take a break from the constant media assault on Black women and to celebrate the sisterhood with showers of positivity. The way I choose to celebrate HBGD is by highlighting an extraordinary and prototypical Black woman.

December’s Prototype: Jamilah Lemieux, A.K.A. “Sister Toldja,” award-winning blogger, media personality, and creator of Happy Black Girl Day!

On the second Wednesday of every month, Twitter feeds and Facebook streams are filled with exclamations of “Happy Black Girl Day!”  Blogger CaShawn Thompson hosts a “Happy Black Girl Day!” happy hour at various locations throughout the District, and The Dithering profiles a prototypical Black woman.  But there would be no monthly celebration called Happy Black Girl Day! without writer, blogger, and feminist champion Jamilah Lemieux. There is, therefore, no better way to end a year of celebrating prototypical Black women than by profiling and honoring the mother of it all.

Born out of frustration over a seemingly unending barrage of criticism of Black women, Jamilah had finally had enough, and set out to put a stop to it:

It was about 11 o’clock at night and I was on Twitter and I think it was around the time the story about 50% of black women having herpes came out — which later turned out to be questionable — and I was just having an “enough is enough” moment.  I was  just sick of hearing all the negativity about black women in the media and I decided we just need a day where everything that we say to and about one another is happy and nice. It may sound silly, but I felt it was needed and so I said, “Tomorrow will be Happy Black Girl Day!” At first, I didn’t really sit down and think, “What do I want this to look like?” which I regret,  but I still I think it has turned out well. The biggest criticism that I’ve heard is that it’s called Happy Black Girl Day instead of Happy Black Women Day. But, [using “girl”] just makes me think of the happier shinier moments in life, when we were four or five, with braids in our hair and were sweet and innocent. Not yet subject to all of this nonsense. But overall, people have embraced it, and I am happy about that. We deserve this!

And because we deserve this, Jamilah is ramping up her efforts to increase the impact of the holiday on Black women everywhere:

I do plan to put more attention into it in 2011 because I think it’s really valuable and has resonated with many women.  And [DCDistrictDiva.com] and CaShawn [Thompson at DirtyPrettyThangs]  have kept it alive. So next year, I definitely plan on having a big Happy Black Girl Day event in New York to celebration women in this area who deserve acknowledgment. [Stay tuned to TheBeautifulStruggler.com for more info]

Also, next year I would really like for the presence of HBGD to be felt online every 2^nd Wednesday of the month. I want more bloggers to say “Let’s put the spotlight on my little sister, I’m so proud of her! “ I would love to hear more stories like that, or for women to say “On the 2^nd Wednesday of the month my homegirls and I meet for a drink,” or “I’m taking my girlfriends out to dinner.”  I want it to be a day of just appreciating the black women in your lives and appreciating yourself.

Also, be on the lookout for a Happy Black Girl Day! site. I will say that it really upset me to see that so many people bought the domains the day that I created it. I appreciate that people valued something that I created but I just think that it’s something that I have created. It hasn’t made me a super star, but I’ve built a base of supporters, and to take someone else’s things… it’s not very sisterly. But there’s a site my site designer and I have designed that I really hope that we can get off the ground soon. It will be a HBGD site where we can highlight other black women and writers. The site will exist all month. It will be a living breathing Happy Black Girl Day experience.

But this holiday is only one way that Jamilah has dedicated herself and her writing to the feminist fight.  Since 2005, the self-described “warrior woman” has made it her goal to help educate and reshape our understanding of what it means to be feminist.

It isn’t about man-hating or bra-burning, or this idea that we don’t need a man.  Particularly as a Black woman, we have always acknowledge the importance of Black men in our community and celebrate that.

In fact, this feminist is bound by none of the usual labels slung at those who identify with the movement. Jamilah is as sweet as the cakes she bakes and sells all over the country from her Sweet Honey Desserts website.  She is also a Soror of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., to which she says:

[D]on’t assume that because you have read some one’s writing, even for years, that you truly know them. I’m Black power, feminism and I’m Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. These are not things that contradict one another; in fact, they work in tandem and always have.  And I hope that you will all understand that the values of my beloved sisterhood are the very same ones that drive the spirit of The Beautiful Struggler and Sister Toldja. If I don’t seem like a typical ‘sorority girl’ to you, then perhaps you should revisit and revise your idea of what it means to be one.

And perhaps, one day, a preface that a feminist can also enjoy cooking, baking, cleaning, and sorority life will not be necessary. In fact, that is the reason why she continues to put forth her dynamic social commentary week after week and month after month on Essence.com, Clutch Magazine, Soul Train Online, The Fresh Xpress, The Griot, NPR, and her own site:

As Marc Lamont Hill says: “Another world is possible.” Change can happen, and it may not be in our lifetime, but we might be able to change small things, or change one person’s mind when it comes to things that desperately need to be addressed. You may not change your city but you may change your neighborhood. We all have the ability to do something.

But I won’t say that it isn’t frustrating. I’ll go through a period of frustration where I won’t pitch [stories for awhile] or I’ve been kind of quiet on the blog. It’s hard, but the number of people who have reached out to me to let me know that something that I’ve said has resonated, that really makes a difference. It’s encouraging. Even if it’s only two or three, it seems like something that I’m saying matters. I’m just a person with ideas and when you have ideas that people read or relate to and agree with or it challenges them, it raises a conversation. There’s value in that.

And there is value in Black women telling our own stories. I think we have the responsibility to guide the conversation. People outside of our community are already talking about it. If they’re out there trying to throw us under the bus under the guise of reporting what’s out there, then we have to be there, too. If we’re not shaping that conversation, we suffer.

Jamilah has a theory on why Black women have been receiving so much negative attention as of late:

I think that the success of the Obama marriage has really jump-started a lot of this criticism. We were seeing all of these images of this beautiful family who have these two kids and are adorable and loving with each other. I think some people felt there was a need to kind of counterbalance that. Even though the Obamas are only one couple and that doesn’t negate the statistics, it is definitely something to feel good about. And I think some people didn’t want that.  Black people doing well may not sell as many books but I think that pain is very profitable.

And now we’re on to Black women. Apparently there is a Black women “marriage crisis” because 42% of marriage-age Black women have never been married, but 44% of Black men have never been married, yet there’s no “Black man marriage crisis.”  And when you factor in that there are 2 million more of us, there’s some fuzzy math going on there. So, right now, I think there’s a market for doing this to black women. [The book] “He’s Just Not That Into You,” took advantage of all women, and I just think it was that magical moment for Steve Harvey and Jimmy Izreal.

But in focusing on profit and hype, Jamilah fears we miss out on an understanding of the root of these very real social problems:

What bothers me about this is that the true reason behind the disconnect between [Black women and Black men]  no one wants to talk about. We have to go back to slavery. We were separated and pitted against each other [by gender and skin color]. So when another community is in charge of telling the story of what’s happening in our community today,  we’re not going to talk about slavery, we’re not going to talk about the Moynihan Report, we’re not going to talk about how complicated it is to be our brother, sister, and lover at the same time. Keeping us unhappy serves the status quo. It may simmer down, but I don’t think it’s going to go away, especially now that we have the internet and anyone can say whatever they’d like.

But to Jamilah, the internet cuts two ways, and can also be a space for us to tell our own stories and take back the responsibility of defining who we are and what roles we play in our own community and in society. To those who want to start their own blogs she says:

Just  be aware of yourself as a brand, but don’t take yourself so seriously that you lose the humanity in your writing. If you have 12 readers or 20, you’re just a person with ideas. Even if you have a PhD, you are just a person with ideas. Don’t get so caught up in your need to promote those ideas that you lose your ability to challenge yourself or be challenged by someone who doesn’t see the world the way you do. Always grow. My pieces now sound so different than they did when I first started. I’ve switched up my style because I am growing.

To those who may not have the nearly 10,000 twitter followers or steadily rising blog statistics, that she has, she says:

Don’t let a seeming lack of interest in what you have to say discourage you. I’ve had my site for 5 years. Don’t focus on pandering to an audience. There are a lot of gossip bloggers fashion bloggers, find where you fit in. And tell your truth.

Don’t let your online life overtake your offline life. The richer and fuller your offliine life is the more you’ll have to say. There may not e as much value in the things you think. Be mindful of the fact that the people who are behind the twitter handlers are real people.

Not only does she encourage others to produce content and tell their own stories, she is preparing her own book of essays that she will self-publish this spring, in addition to writing for various sites. And when it is all said and done, she has but one over-arching goal:

I hope I can introduce as many black people as possible to the concept of feminism/womanism. Not just black women, I think its even more important that we get black men on board. You cant win oppression without swaying the oppressor. Maybe we just don’t need to give the black man his rightful seat at the table. We need to find what works for us and find how we can achieve balance and how do we have a community that is male-nurturing without weakening Black women. That’s what I hope for, to get people talking about gender within the race.

Prolific writer, feminist fighter, cake-baker, and history-maker, Jamilah Lemieux is: The Prototype.

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