Issue #5: Mid-Year Check-in
“Pain was greedy; it demanded all of her attention.” - Toni Morrison, Sula
Welcome to Shamira Explains It All/Shamira Explique Tout, a culture newsletter discussing the origins and impact of Black production and exchange, identity, and intellectual property via our digital, social, and archival discussions - and whatever else may be timely and interesting. Part English, Part Francophone. Reach out with feedback, suggestions, tips, and ideas at contact@shamirathefirst.com.
Approximately three months ago, I was rushed to the ER for what doctors were at the time was convinced was a severe panic attack triggered by my existing anxiety and depression. I had uncontrollable back and leg spasms that sent me careening to the floor; my chest was so tight that I was convinced that either my heart would burst right out of it or the dark hold that had a grip on me would swallow me whole as wave after wave of muscular contractions kept coursing through me with unrelenting abandon, from the base of my right foot to what felt like the base of my skull.
At the time, I was not entirely sold, because for weeks, I had increasingly escalating neuromuscular symptoms: tingling in my extremities, frissons when I would move my neck — a feeling akin to SSRI “brain zaps” for anyone who has gone through the unfortunate experience of attempting to come off anti-depressants cold turkey — and sensations somewhere between that feeling of static shock and your foot falling asleep mid-stride. For someone who has always been hyper-aware of my body — through sports and dance, via scrutiny of performance of Islamic modesty, and crippling body dysmorphia that I’ve battled over the years — to say that I was anxious would be akin to saying that Eric Adams has somewhat of a consistency issue in his messaging. Once, I awoke in the middle of the night and my neck felt locked in a an abnormal forward movement like a New York City pigeon, unable to breathe or speak; it wasn’t until I called my poor mother in a panic at 2 in the morning that my muscles relaxed enough to release my voice. She hasn’t been able to sleep without me checking in with her since.
I took weekly vitamin B shots and all kinds of pills and blood work; nothing came up, and my life went from being frustratingly sedentary due to my work from home schedule of working and writing to terrifyingly so — there were two days when I couldn’t put weight on my feet because of the spasms that immediately began to pulse through, and I had to fashion my computer desk into a mock wheelchair and chug tonic water in the hopes that the quinine would help suppress the the intensity. With the support of my manager, I took mental health leave from the competitive day job that I, frankly, excelled at, and was positioned to move into a manager position of my own as my next step; I was despondent and out of answers, and it was either take some time away, or walk away for good.
As it turned out, (unpaid) FMLA leave was my saving grace, as this country’s predatory healthcare system still only affords the best benefits to those deemed employable enough to deserve it. Multiple neurologist visits, an MRI, a rheumatologist, pain management specialists, and a lifesaving physical therapist later, I was diagnosed with a pinched nerves in my neck and shoulder due to constant overwork that was leading me to mimic MS-like symptoms of tingling extremities and radiating pain, which my anxiety augmented. I had truly burned myself out, and my body was crying for help.
Since then, it’s been approximately 6 weeks of physical therapy, 3 times a week, with a lot of stops and starts — I am not a slow and steady person, and spinal/neuromuscular work is a slow and steady process, no matter how badly I want to get back to the gym. There have been tears and setbacks, and a lot of self-doubt about if I’ll ever rediscover the person I was before my back was covered in kinesiology tape, both in spirit and in physicality, which has required a lot of self-work on lingering issues of self-love and trust. Most critically, I am getting better — the neck pain is entirely gone, and while the spasms remain, and I am still sorting out my back and stride, it is much more manageable than before.
And perhaps most importantly, upon my planned return from leave from my job, I had to make the choice to tell my manager — who I am quite fond of, particularly since they went to bat for me to ensure I could have the leave I needed — that I was going to have to walk away from our Engineering team. That may seem like the obvious choice, but it isn’t for someone whose entire life since childhood has been geared towards being rewarded for their ability to work, produce, and not only survive, but thrive under the most grueling of circumstances. For now, I am financially situated to have enough of a buffer to step away for a bit and put it all into writing on my own terms as I figure the rest of it all out for the time being, as terrifying as that may be. But given the choice between making the leap and risking public failure and losing my life — I choose my life.
I am still figuring out what my writing future looks like. There are a few things that are in the works, such as the as-yet unnamed book proposal (which will likely be happening this year or next, recession notwithstanding), and more feature writing that is catered around the relationship between race and the technological apparatus. There will be more music writing from me, Francophone dialogue, Comorian narratives, and just more longform culture criticism from me in general — in digital and in print. I may do the occasional paid post one way or another on here, probably by linking my CashApp on here or something — I am not a fan of the newsletter subscription revenue model for several reasons, and don’t want to turn it on as a result. Ultimately, the frequency may not necessarily change as much as the potency and nuance; now that I (hopefully) have more time to breathe and read and digest, I hope that it will also be reflected in the writing. Should go without saying, but if you’re an editor, and any of these things interest you, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I also may be teaching a class this fall at the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism on “Reporting and Writing on Internet Culture” (pending enrollment numbers). It’s an opportunity that I completely didn’t expect to come my way, but sits at the convergence of so many of my interests, skillsets and passions. If you’re at all interested in participating in the class as a non-matriculating student let me know and I will put you in contact with the Dean of the program - it is a 3-credit course, costing $470 per credit in-state and $855 per credit out-of-state.
Thats all I got, folks. Here’s some music and some writing of mine to catch up on.
Shamira’s Latest Writing
The Real Story of Black Women in Pop - A Conversation with Danyel Smith for The Meteor Newsletter
Smith: “It’s so difficult for people to just hold Black women in esteem. Black women are on a continuous journey of trying to make it clear – I am who I am, and I said what I said – and the naming thing is a big part of it. I hate to take everything back to slavery and reconstruction, but Black women were rarely, if ever, called by their true honorific. They were called whatever anybody felt like calling them. My grandmother’s name is Lottie. A lot of times, people just called somebody Lottie, and they would call the next Black woman Lottie again. A lot of times, people just call people Auntie. White people just called every Black woman over a certain age Auntie. Hey, Auntie, bring me a lemonade.
So pardon me If Diana Ross wants to be called Ms. Ross. Pardon me if Lauryn Hill wants to be called Ms. Hill. I understand why people are resistant to it. But it’s time to stop. Hip-hop is problematic in a lot of ways, but it is wonderful in that it was a big huge renaming. I’m Dana Owens, but I am Queen Latifah. I am Nicki Minaj, I am Cardi B, I am Yo-Yo, I am J.J. Fad, I am Doja, I am whomever.”
Emily In Paris Lacks Black Women Representation — In French Cinema, That’s Par For The Course - Refinery29
“The invisibility you see onscreen in shows set in France is the most accurate reflection of the Black French reality today — Black women are underbooked and only selected to be typecast. The exceptions happen in roles where they have more control behind the camera and of the story, in which case they usually don't get the institutional support they should. Where there is representation on mainstream programs, it is rarely the kind that Black French women find favorable, such as Celine Sciamma’s Bande de filles/Girlhood, which was critically lauded as another outstanding work by the famed director, but sharply critiqued by many locals[…] When asking for more Black women on a French show, we should be judicious about what we are asking for and who we are asking on behalf of, lest we be complicit in painting Black people onto a milieu that is full of the unseen dangers involved in participating in the show itself, whether it may be terrible pay, colorist casting, limiting and negative characterizations, or merely devoid of the context of the Black world that they interact in on a day to day basis.”
Negritude #3: Voyage of the Hyena — France, Cultural Productions, and Colonial Violence - Amaka Studio (English & French)
“In the context of the film, the hyena, a canonical scavenger with a significant presence in West African mythology, serves a dual function – as a trickster, the lead characters are willing to beg, borrow, and steal for what they perceive to be a justifiable end result. The counterpart to that, however, was their willingness to be deceived and allow the fantasy of France to function as a character unto itself, luring them into a false sense of freedom that belied the violence they had come to know. It is that modality that France operates under in the present tense, using the cultural currency and political power the country has acquired within the Global North to obscure the sins committed at the expense of the Black diaspora and their respective homelands, hoping that migrants will continue to be duped long enough to continue making the journey[…]Since Benin has received the looted art from France in November of 2021, direct conflicts within West African nations at the hands of French military forces have increased -- Niger in late November, Mali in January, and most recently, Burkina Faso – while continuing to meddle in efforts for West Africa to move towards its own monetary union. While the artistic efforts offer a critical boon and a significant laudatory cover, the violence that the acts are contemporaneously paired with is the deceit endemic to the hyena of Mambety’s films; no matter how often many of us learn the lesson, we continue to hope for benevolence by the structures that we responsible for our destruction in the first place.”
“The cascade of neglect and dormancy that has emerged in service of safeguarding the binary framework of “good versus evil” has resulted in a range of malfeasances. Some students were left to stand in line at the Polish border of Medyka for days at a time with little movement, leading to starvation and hallucinations; others have been beaten with batons for trying to get on the trains. In Sumy, there are still over 500 predominantly Black students cornered, unable to move safely because of surrounding and ongoing violence. Reports have emerged of Polish Nazis terrorizing African migrants on some parts of the Polish border after crossing; tragically, some classmates have died, an unbelievable devastation that has arisen not from Russian munitions, but from the unremarkable consistency of anti-Blackness.”
The African diaspora has long had an interplay with American pop culture, but mostly by way of sanctifying breakout stars into a prestigious class of gifted musicians. There was Miriam Makeba’s breakthrough as “Mama Africa” in the 1960s, Fela Kuti and Ali Farka Touré’s jazz-influenced works in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Koffi Olomide’s Quartier Latin and the soukous wave of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and Kidjo’s popularity in the ‘90s and beyond. Despite their critical reverence, these artists were still largely grouped as “international,” competing alongside the likes of Ravi Shankar’s sitar and Sergio Mendes’ bossa nova. As David Byrne wrote in a 1999 essay for the New York Times, this kind of classification was “a convenient way of not seeing a band or artist as a creative individual, albeit from a culture somewhat different from that seen on American television. It’s a none too subtle way of reasserting the hegemony of Western pop culture. It ghettoizes most of the world’s music.”
Redefining the Working Class - The Baffler
As costs of living continue to accelerate beyond many workers’ wage increases and as businesses continue their inevitable backlash against union drives, it will become even more critical for our conception of the working class to shed the white supremacist artifice of its past in favor of a multiracial coalition. The last several decades have seen codified frameworks built to do exactly the opposite; the challenge will lie not only in nullifying them but also in shattering an entrenched oppositional structure that uses racial division to minimize solidarity and keep nonwhite workers on the margins. “This new working class faces a triple-headed challenge: overcoming entrenched corporate power, defeating the economic hegemony of neoliberalism, and tackling pervasive and stubborn racial, ethnic, and gender oppression,” as Tamara Draut puts it. “The first challenge to toppling such powerful and historical injustices is making visible the cause and the claim.”
These new deals are constructed as brand extensions between chain and artist, in which the artist is essentially a special-purpose vehicle partaking in part of the risk, part of the design, and ultimately part of the equity profits. McDonald’s launched a J. Balvin meal in October 2020 with a planned merchandise line pairing that was canceled and refunded due to production challenges. K-Pop supergroup BTS, who are known for having some of the most loyal fans this side of the solar system, launched a meal that ended up outpacing Scott’s in popularity, pairing their rollout with a merchandise drop and in-app content for a global fan base[…]While the size of these endorsement contracts may seem colossal, the perceived benefits for the fast-food industry — chief among them being a diversion for coordinated lobbying against the ongoing labor fights for service workers across the nation — make the gargantuan investments worth it. Since 2012, the restaurant industry has been at odds with an uprising of service-class workers that would ultimately turn into the Fight for 15. Companies such as McDonald’s were facing accountability in the press for lobbying with the National Restaurant Association to stave off efforts to raise the wage floor, persuading the Trump administration against paid sick leave at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and not providing employees adequate access to PPE, leading to countrywide strikes against the world’s second-largest private employer. By the time George Floyd became a national name, any messaging that McDonald’s tried to put out in solidarity was met with open revulsion: Do Black lives matter when they work in your restaurants?
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