feminism popular culture popular feminism intersectional solidarity empowerment girl power advocacy neoliberalism surveillance sexuality sexual power W r i t i n g

We opened this class by looking at the Linda Lindas song “Racist, Sexist Boys,” and talking about how popular culture can both reflect and help shape our social realities. By way of review for the full course, re-watch their performance and think about the connections we made — we talked about righteous, justified anger toward social oppression and injustice, we asked questions about how anger is gendered, and we talked about the Linda Lindas’ song as a response to anti-Asian hate.

Here are the lyrics:

A little while before we went into lockdown
A boy in my class came up to me
And said that his dad told him to stay away from chinese people
After I told him that I was chinese
He backed away from me
Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience
So this is about him and all the other racist, sexist boys in this world

One, two, three, four!
Racist, sexist boy
You are a racist, sexist boy
And you have really dangerous toys
Fake dance, shoot and destroy
You are a racist, sexist boy

You say mean stuff and
You close your mind to things you don’t like
You turn away from what you don’t wanna see

Racist, sexist boy
You are a racist, sexist boy
And you have racist, sexist joys
We rebuild what you destroy
You are racist, sexist boy

You say mean stuff and
You close your mind to things you don’t like
You turn away from what you don’t wanna hear

Poser
Blockhead
Riffraff
Jerkface

Racist, sexist boy
You are a racist, sexist boy

***************

.[In earlier versions of this class, we have opened with Nitty Scott’s song “For Sarah Baartman 

Here are the lyrics:

Uh, yo
Body hurtin’, seen a world still turning
A witch that wouldn’t burn, to be brown and to be woman
To be permanently stuck in the skin of a sinner
Like bitter cinnamon and broken mahogany splinters
My role is holy and my mother is too
Is it because I’m magic that my veins are not blue?
Sisters and hoes know the woes is the same
If you, you found me slain, would you still say my name?
See, I know about the black man and what he been through
What about if I sung about the woman that he brought it home to?
I been crying for my brothers, but I cry for me, too
Cause I’m the only one left to be more powerless than you
Even though it was she who taught the son to get melodical
I’m plenty blended but don’t call me exotical
Like I was half black and half beautiful
It’s so methodical I find it diabolical
All encrypted in a code, it’s biological
You stripped the pride that is rising in my follicles
But these curves are not a caricature for your capitalizing
Now decolonize me
As a western metropolis, yes
Down to money, Mississippi all the way to the west
I feel my back is breaking and they yanking my chest
The fruit is getting stranger and the streets never rest
But this is for you, Sarah Baartman
You were art to these marksmen
Show you in the town square, put you up to buy
And with your wildest cries I identified
See, I been on display like items for their eyes
And I tried to board a midnight train
I said I have no money but I have a lot of pain
All I wanted was to leave my father’s house, make it out
But every time I sing they remind me of disdain
And I wonder who’s gonna know, who’s gonna hold her
The last of left out, lost and looked over
The songs of […] only rain on some
And it’s man’s world, the change gon’ come…

****

What keywords from class would you apply to this song, now that you have completed the class? 

Here is a word cloud example of keywords that could be applied: are solidarity, surveillance, intersexuality, and more.

Think through some of the questions that we could ask back to this word cloud: How do the opening songs for this course demonstrate sexual power and pleasure, if at all? Does feminist masculinity actually apply here? Does the song help us visualize new possibilities for embracing and revaluing an empowering, feminist re-valuing of Asian female sexuality or of Black female sexuality? Is the song heteronormative? How so? Is the song intersectional? How so? Does the song foreground solidarity as an ethic? How so?

Use this exercise to help you think about which keywords from class most impacted your learning in this course.

Here is the full list of keywords we explored:

feminism
popular culture
popular feminism
intersectional
solidarity
empowerment
girl power
advocacy
neoliberalism
surveillance
sexuality
sexual power and pleasure
feminist masculinity
queer
quare
binary system
care web
hetero/normativity
resistance
emotional labor
possibility
sample
subversive
visualize

_______ ASSIGNMENT INSUTRUCTIOSN ________

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Choose a song (it can be one of the songs you have encountered during the course or it can be a new one) and – similar to the final review – think about how course keywords and readings relate to it.

You might approach this from the perspective of thinking about what you have learned in this course. Choose at least 2 (and no more than 4) keywords that reflect your learning in the course. Why and how do these 2-4 keywords demonstrate your learning in the course? For example, are they new concepts with which you were not previously familiar? What about words (e.g., feminism, empowerment, possibility, etc) with which you were already familiar – do you now think about them in a different way?

Choose a song that will help you discuss what you have learned in the course. You may find it helpful to be specific about the song — either by analyzing specific lyrics and connecting them to course readings and keywords or by talking specifically about the music video and various scenes in it. As you explain the importance of these keywords to your process of learning, be sure to demonstrate your understanding of the keywords – a great way to do that is to reference course readings. You should reference at least 2-course readings.