On a discussion that emerged from a line in a newspaper column, on “ugly” as defined, by behavior and physical appearance, there too the issue of colorism in the Caribbean context; and how beauty is even possibly to be seen or negated because of color, dark or lighter. This write up/ and exploration.
painting: Above and Below, MDHuggins
“Politics, they say, is show business for ugly people, and there's no question that Works Minister Jack Warner is a showman.”
what's interesting are the COMMENTS on that article from the illiterate twits who automatically ASSume that when she said 'ugly' its a racial comment ... dotish people ... 'ugly' was not for his looks at all but stupid 'smart' Trinis as usu...al see only what they WANT to see. Goodness Gracious! how stupid are people? really?
xxx Lisa xxx
xxx Lisa xxx
Maven Huggins "how stupid are people? really?"
Lisa, i am over the moon convinced, that it is a special, extreme, total and ever persistent/consistent strain, here in Trinidad
Lisa, i am over the moon convinced, that it is a special, extreme, total and ever persistent/consistent strain, here in Trinidad
Phillip Edward Alexander Race is used conveniently in the absence of a better argument, I not buying that cause she not a racist as far I am aware.
But it was a brilliant way of saying Warner is ugly lol
But it was a brilliant way of saying Warner is ugly lol
PEA, to who is your comment directed, or to what comment is it directed?
I thought you were being cute in your first comment...but do you really think JRaymond was calling Warner ugly? Even coyly?
On my own, i would not think so. That comment... is the second such disparaging comment i have read about politics in the last seven days. I posted the other one as it is quite broad in description, and said, it was a wake up call for what was the purpose agitating in the political arena given such definitions and realities surrounding politics, kind of like, me, we us, are wasting our time...i see Raymond's 'politics is ugly' statement in the same vein.
but, then again, i can be snidely naive just as i appear to be caustically critical
:)
I thought you were being cute in your first comment...but do you really think JRaymond was calling Warner ugly? Even coyly?
On my own, i would not think so. That comment... is the second such disparaging comment i have read about politics in the last seven days. I posted the other one as it is quite broad in description, and said, it was a wake up call for what was the purpose agitating in the political arena given such definitions and realities surrounding politics, kind of like, me, we us, are wasting our time...i see Raymond's 'politics is ugly' statement in the same vein.
but, then again, i can be snidely naive just as i appear to be caustically critical
:)
"Politics, they say, is show business for ugly people, and there's no question that Works Minister Jack Warner is a showman."
It's a style, create the situation and leave it there for the leader to make the link.
It is all fun and I think qu...ite clever.
Me making the link and then broadcasting it is my own doing and should not be ascribed to the writer.
It's a style, create the situation and leave it there for the leader to make the link.
It is all fun and I think qu...ite clever.
Me making the link and then broadcasting it is my own doing and should not be ascribed to the writer.
i am amazed you all are missing the other meaning, any other meaning of Ugly People, and really, the reason I never put up a pic of myself is because this culture is so hung on what people look like and value people because of that. you can... be the most beautiful thing and then if the wrong color, you are invisible...but i went off the wrong slide there, i am building back up
but i will totally backtrack.
i know my read is because of my peculiarity and my value
i know, agree and understand that everyone else will see 'ugly people' and just think of people's appearance.
i read 'ugly people' and think of people's behaviors, characters, gossipers, backstabbers, group thinkers, spirit stealers, liars, thieves, manipulators and human machinations. that to me is Ugly People.
Reads like Trinidad eh?>
Also, early on, I have no idea if it was because I was an ugly duckling. not sure if i really was an ugly duckling but i took the story for how much i hear people proclaim me beautiful...but if for my sensitivity because i never liked to hear people call others ugly or make fun of them...i vowed never to use that word to describe someone's appearance. so unsused in my psyche, it is, i don;t even think i use it for ugly people descriptions of my own definition.
from young, i always said and thought, you may have ugly children one day- and ugly is so full range: wattle necks, flat faces, wide eyes, close eyes...we all can show up like that...make children like that...since children and how they come out are a crap shoot, just never call people ugly
PEA you are tripping. if ugly is what raymond meant, she wrote it. so how can you take credit for the meaning. get a grip brother dear. you dont have to please everybody. and it is a clever line
an ironic line, cause there are ugly people in plenty other professions.,
so, anyway, I am not and any longer contesting or querying the meaning. what i will say is that I read it along the lines of
politiics is for ugly people = politics is ugly business
for really, arent there more good looking or fair* enough looking people in politics than fugly ones?
and will we even be able to see fugly here for light and lighter skins
just asking
and trying to make it out with my life intact as well
i now recant my first comment. i concede that would be the popular view.
Collage: One Caribbean Story, MDHuggins
but i will totally backtrack.
i know my read is because of my peculiarity and my value
i know, agree and understand that everyone else will see 'ugly people' and just think of people's appearance.
i read 'ugly people' and think of people's behaviors, characters, gossipers, backstabbers, group thinkers, spirit stealers, liars, thieves, manipulators and human machinations. that to me is Ugly People.
Reads like Trinidad eh?>
Also, early on, I have no idea if it was because I was an ugly duckling. not sure if i really was an ugly duckling but i took the story for how much i hear people proclaim me beautiful...but if for my sensitivity because i never liked to hear people call others ugly or make fun of them...i vowed never to use that word to describe someone's appearance. so unsused in my psyche, it is, i don;t even think i use it for ugly people descriptions of my own definition.
from young, i always said and thought, you may have ugly children one day- and ugly is so full range: wattle necks, flat faces, wide eyes, close eyes...we all can show up like that...make children like that...since children and how they come out are a crap shoot, just never call people ugly
PEA you are tripping. if ugly is what raymond meant, she wrote it. so how can you take credit for the meaning. get a grip brother dear. you dont have to please everybody. and it is a clever line
an ironic line, cause there are ugly people in plenty other professions.,
so, anyway, I am not and any longer contesting or querying the meaning. what i will say is that I read it along the lines of
politiics is for ugly people = politics is ugly business
for really, arent there more good looking or fair* enough looking people in politics than fugly ones?
and will we even be able to see fugly here for light and lighter skins
just asking
and trying to make it out with my life intact as well
i now recant my first comment. i concede that would be the popular view.
Collage: One Caribbean Story, MDHuggins Maven if I could I would shin the brightest light ever on the stupidity of racism to make it go away.
I personally do not associate ugly with color but I am sure there are others who do. Sad really, because ugly to me is the essence of a per...son seeping out through their pores, as is beautiful, not the construction of a face.
I personally do not associate ugly with color but I am sure there are others who do. Sad really, because ugly to me is the essence of a per...son seeping out through their pores, as is beautiful, not the construction of a face.
Melville Foster Phillip,how color get into this beats me ! I totally agree.There are many beautiful people ,who because of their foul temperaments,are downright ugly and some homely,good people,who shine with a radiance.Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela come to mind.
how color gets into this beats you, Melville?
google color study to learn how children all over the world will choose between identical dolls, save they be white or black or dark and light and will choose the white and light dolls every sing...le time. I believe the study was done 30/40 years ago and was replicated in the US again recently; AND> especially dark and black children
google black women in dating sites research and learn how black women are almost never communicated with on such dating sites. several articles on that came out in this year.
"how color get into this beats you, indeed
And, are you Trinidadian, born here, raised here? I am not. Was not raised here. Just got here 7 years ago. And even i have learned how dark and black is seen, blindsided, negated or maligned in terms of beauty. Light skin Ugly beats Dark Classy Beauty Every Time, Seven times on Sunday and 49 times with a Carib
there have been so many discussions with Tillah Willah in particular of media depictions, ads and such and the lack of black folk; popular and culture magazines missing that part of the spectrum....
so your comment hits a particular high, if you live in trinidad , have context here, and smacks of gross denial. I am told, someone told me just within the last few weeks, on Angelo's page actually, that what happens in Trinidad is joke compared to Jamaica...on Angelo's stream he was talking about how he was at a social The OTher Day..and heard a white woman speak of another White Person as having a "broad dollop of the tar brush" or something so...and I took the quote and posted it, asking "heard in an 18th century joining room or a 21st century social?"
how it gets into this? For most of the world beauty that is dark is invisible.
come on.
your beautiful puppies,
"microcosmic" politics and "macrocosmic" religious views should alert you to that and not have you made that comment
sorry. just my read on it
and it will never stop until people stop play acting as if it is not real, or stop being in denial; and like everything else, it is the ones of privilege who will stop a problem. Meaning. White people to stop racism. The Beautiful ones to stop pretty bias....there is a book by the way titled "The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born...and given the state of the world, i believe it might be true.
but i am ending this here. so anything else said, I will just nod an O. K
{Gee. I think I am going to ban myself; can i take a break? geesh!}
Drawing: Twin Selves, MDHuggins
google color study to learn how children all over the world will choose between identical dolls, save they be white or black or dark and light and will choose the white and light dolls every sing...le time. I believe the study was done 30/40 years ago and was replicated in the US again recently; AND> especially dark and black children
google black women in dating sites research and learn how black women are almost never communicated with on such dating sites. several articles on that came out in this year.
"how color get into this beats you, indeed
And, are you Trinidadian, born here, raised here? I am not. Was not raised here. Just got here 7 years ago. And even i have learned how dark and black is seen, blindsided, negated or maligned in terms of beauty. Light skin Ugly beats Dark Classy Beauty Every Time, Seven times on Sunday and 49 times with a Carib
there have been so many discussions with Tillah Willah in particular of media depictions, ads and such and the lack of black folk; popular and culture magazines missing that part of the spectrum....
so your comment hits a particular high, if you live in trinidad , have context here, and smacks of gross denial. I am told, someone told me just within the last few weeks, on Angelo's page actually, that what happens in Trinidad is joke compared to Jamaica...on Angelo's stream he was talking about how he was at a social The OTher Day..and heard a white woman speak of another White Person as having a "broad dollop of the tar brush" or something so...and I took the quote and posted it, asking "heard in an 18th century joining room or a 21st century social?"
how it gets into this? For most of the world beauty that is dark is invisible.
come on.
your beautiful puppies,
"microcosmic" politics and "macrocosmic" religious views should alert you to that and not have you made that comment
sorry. just my read on it
and it will never stop until people stop play acting as if it is not real, or stop being in denial; and like everything else, it is the ones of privilege who will stop a problem. Meaning. White people to stop racism. The Beautiful ones to stop pretty bias....there is a book by the way titled "The Beautiful Ones are not Yet Born...and given the state of the world, i believe it might be true.
but i am ending this here. so anything else said, I will just nod an O. K
{Gee. I think I am going to ban myself; can i take a break? geesh!}
Drawing: Twin Selves, MDHuggins
sorry. just as i went to post for a need for an intervention...i see pics...and it makes me come back to say..you know this color thing is real real bad in the Indian community. Rel Extreme/ the lighter the fairer, the more beautiful
they ha...ve a booming skin bleaching industry...I wonder why
#howcolorgetintobeauty?indeed
ps Melville: i stared at the puppies for a long time, then discovered your religious and political views which by words, were impressive. if i used labels, that would be me.
thanks for that/cool/cute
they ha...ve a booming skin bleaching industry...I wonder why
#howcolorgetintobeauty?indeed
ps Melville: i stared at the puppies for a long time, then discovered your religious and political views which by words, were impressive. if i used labels, that would be me.
thanks for that/cool/cute
Drawing: The Soul of Internal Selves, MDHugginsthis is important so don't ban yourself.
I am downplaying it here, but we need to engage this conversation. You just gave me information I did not have and would like to know more on.
The initial thread was barely a joke, this is important.
...
And a lot of what you say I agree, now what is required to fix it?
I have always said crime is tied to low black low self esteem, and is important to any realistic approach to a better society.
See why I say the Social Services Ministry needs to be the biggest, most funded and staffed by the most educated and informed?
You could see it as constituted dealing with so fundamental an issue?
No please don't hold back.
I want to know more.
I am downplaying it here, but we need to engage this conversation. You just gave me information I did not have and would like to know more on.
The initial thread was barely a joke, this is important.
...
And a lot of what you say I agree, now what is required to fix it?
I have always said crime is tied to low black low self esteem, and is important to any realistic approach to a better society.
See why I say the Social Services Ministry needs to be the biggest, most funded and staffed by the most educated and informed?
You could see it as constituted dealing with so fundamental an issue?
No please don't hold back.
I want to know more.
I don't mind,Ma'amIt is just that I thought we are(observe that I did not say have)moving away from that.I personally reserve the right to dislike someone based on their character and personality,not their color.We know that racism exists b...ut so does prejudice of all kinds.I was beaten in infant class for using my left hand for writing many years ago.And up to today,I cannot think of a valid reason for so doing.But,like Phillip,I would like you to
expound further.I agree with a lot of what you say.
expound further.I agree with a lot of what you say.
PEA, electricity (current-lol) went. But I was writing when it went...and will share what I explored in response to your entreaty...
I find elation in synchronicity Melville. And just this weekend at family gathering we talked about left han...dedness..its significance, the way in the world for some such, and the pressures and beatings to be different especially in this speck of a place. Interesting.
lets see if this thesis will fit here...
I find elation in synchronicity Melville. And just this weekend at family gathering we talked about left han...dedness..its significance, the way in the world for some such, and the pressures and beatings to be different especially in this speck of a place. Interesting.
lets see if this thesis will fit here...
Painting: The Spirit and the Veil (Jinn's Veil), MDHuggins -------------
well. PEA, you probably dont want to read my response. I woke up this morning thinking about my Iranian female professor in grad school studying animal science. She told me "you cant save the world" and that was 17 or so years ago. in the states. Now here, having experienced this last election, primarily because my engagement took place on FB, I really know now that we cant save the world.
I remembered my Iranian female prof because I watched the film For Neda last night...the Iranian sister who got killed in the election protests in Iran that women led. I watched another piece on CNN this midday on Nigeria...so much wealth yet half its population poor.
Same thing with Trinidad. And it may seem I am rambling and all over the world, but it is all connected. And i would need more room to connect the thread. but Neda was one stunningly beautiful woman who was stunningly beautiful inside and had a heart of gold for equality and justice. I learned that through the documentary. and the issue of activism, spent life, social change...but do things change? People make invaluable contributions but do things change
A small connection to that above and your question is people's consciousness. Period. I LOVE Melville's microscopic/macrocosmic...and we are each called to inhabit that. to be microscopic in being alert to ourselves and the world about us, and the costs, prices and lives of others, to relate and more than empathize and sympathize –to do what we can in the microcosm to do and be different; to not be part of the problem. I read once, it is not enough to be against something, what are you doing to convert, reverse or correct it? Does it mean that all men should choose dark and black women? Hell. do you know there are studies that show black men aren't even interested in choosing black women!!!!
Where would all that self hatred, self immolation come from. Color bias and colorism is just a shade of the larger problem of racism. And racism is different but related to bias, prejudice, ignorance and just plain “ugly” (as in unbecoming behavior).
Can we really fix that. I am trying hard in my life not to be delusional. It has been my personal microcosmic politic…so I am not sure that I feel we are to fix anything. And my learning studying zen, spirituality, Buddhism, I wonder again, are we to fix anything. Cause all that says is what ever we see is within us, right. So if we have to fix something, is to fix ourselves, right. But we cant fix anything if we do not see it. And we cant see it if we are mired in stories, masques, stages, lies and denials, right. And we could never embrace anyone lest we see that person is us. Me. i. and we cant see and embrace anyone lest we see, and embrace ourselves. If we do not know how to love and keep safe ourselves, can we do it for another.
And this gets me to another big issue. Our role as activist. At least those who claim the title. It is to understand or at least think or muse on this stuff. These questions. These issues. For if we don’t then we are just off on ego and more delusion and self proclamation and advancement.
As sad as it is to me, PEA< I don’t know if we can fix it. I mean, I have had some deep blows lately, trying to fix it. You know what I mean? Slaves and Indentured prefer the plantation and the overseers backpocket.
And freeing of self is hard work. That is how we fix things. We fix and free ourselves from all these tethers, blinders and strictures..anything more than that, and I don’t know.
You saw that I posted the other day, “I used to try and save the world, Now I am just trying to leave the room with my dignity intact”
To come back to the issue as you frame it. You are on point. That Social Ministry. Related to how a country rich in resource, oil and money will then not have the consciousness to know what to spend their riches on…on building enlightened human beings or empty buildings. Nigeria and Trinidad and India, those three countries. Are almost identical. And I am not sure yet if the common denominator was colonialism, but there is that. And the total annihilation of self, of the indigenous self, the indigenous spirit self…to that cause of Queen and common their wealth, our blood and life and future… But we got a lot wrong. And the throngs of those least and lessor of us is the proof of that. The ignoring of our bellies writhing on the ground for the highlight of the red carpet modernity. Is the issue. It is why we are beset with so much corrupting of the individual to collective self hood. How can that be fixed?
And it is not just social ministries. Cause the social is related to the family. The community. The adults. The education system. The more I write the more I see something I have been saying for a long time. And things just have to play themselves out to their completion..cause this is all energy. Energy for light or Energy for darkness and what is more predominant. And when I see neighbors cutting down fruit bearing trees…am I to delude myself in thinking we are going up when as I ride down the escalator?
If the best of us do the stupidest of actions…what then? What is the sign and the conclusion? To me it is just the science in the cosmos and can we really fix and change that…we would have to be some real serious socio-psycho paths to believe that…Yes we are Gods, and Goddesses but to whom. Our Mother Gaia…are we suddenly larger and greater than her? To dream the impossible…
Do we teach children this knowledge in the schools, here or anywhere? And what I see of the schools here is worse than even up north, and it is detrimental there…but the majority of the children here –people send their pickney to school to be declared dunce because it is not about embracing every child to proclaim self in the context of a larger collective, but to pull out the few for lording over all, in separation. What will be the outcome of that? The answer: the vagrant class. The entrenched poor and the Criminal. And we live in a place where the latter is the one shared kernel up and down the social ladder.
What social ministry will fix that. How do you give everyone a lobotomy of dead and detriment to enlightenment and consciousness? The person with that answer is the Next God after Nature.
Fix?
how do you fix a storm when it has already been formed PEA?
how do you fix a storm when it has already been formed PEA?
That is just my sense at this juncture. I wait to see how I learn differently in the future.
PEAce and Embraces
-----
And more PEAculiarities—electricity when at 2:27 when I was writing this personal exposition…which allowed me to fallback on what used to be my default activity, reading…picking up an old Parabola magazine from April/May that I never finished…and what do I read…an article on Carl Jung;’s Red Book and he cites:
“The first depicts a multilevel relationship of microcosm with macrocosm” and another article of Frank Sinclair where he says, “without this new alignment between the head, the body and feeling, these higher energies are denied to me. They don’t enter. They cannot enter, into an unconscious piece of meat.”
“The first depicts a multilevel relationship of microcosm with macrocosm” and another article of Frank Sinclair where he says, “without this new alignment between the head, the body and feeling, these higher energies are denied to me. They don’t enter. They cannot enter, into an unconscious piece of meat.”
The point both articles make, and I will try to find to post, is that we are fragmented, broken and unwhole. In disarray and unaligned. And our work of this life is to bring alignment so that we can attain consciousness, enlightenment and the true self that transcends ego, me and I and enters the void of God self and all possibilities.
It echos my belief why our much action and activism is a waste of time. In the classic trope, it is pearls before swine. They have no knowledge, frame, understanding with which to even embrace….”a fix”
This has been good for me. This writing. I really want to find the Jung article on his Red Book. I encourage you all to find and read about it. It was big news earlier in the year when it was published and released. In the article here he writes., “create your own kind of Red Book as a method of dealing with your own inner processes. You can go to the book, turn over the pages and for you it will be your church, your cathedral---the silent places of your spirit where you will find your renewal…for in that book is your soul.”
That blew my mind. Decades now I have been entreating women and gave workshops for women to write their lives with this same tenet in mind: to find, proclaim and free oneself, and once the inner, then the outer world
The world is as it is, because we are all tied up in disarray and fragmented…it is just a mirror of the individual micro self. It is not for me to fix that. But just myself. An integration of all; good and bad, the middle and center is where I am to get to…
Deep sigh/
A personal page in my own Red Book Redemption
Sources:
http://www.parabola.org/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage-ask.tpl&product_id=354&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=80 An excerpt from a new book about life, death, and beyond
An acclaimed biographer explores Jung’s secret book
My Original Art Pieces that relate to Explorations for Personal Redemption
Graphic/Painting: Sailing Soul Matter, MDHuggins
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