On Beyonce and Pavlov

There's this viral video where an adorable baby just starts dancing:

It's funny, sure, but I also find something unsettling in watching a baby sleep peacefully... until she is suddenly jolted awake with an infectious beat. I trust that her parents know her personality, and that she isn't really as anxious as she looks while flailing her arms to "Gangnam Style." In all honesty, I found it unsettling is because I felt like I was watching a biological reflex to catchy music. The implications are that pop music really is the cranial crack as Jason Castro discussed in his 2011 Scientific American article.

An addiction to pop music is a guilty pleasure, and we all have them. I know that I have a Pavlovian response once I hear Sean Kingston's synthesized voice cooing "fiyah burning..." I'm going crazy dancing in place even before he starts reciting his ultra respectful lyrics: "shawty got that supa thang, hotta than the sun in the south of Spain..."

Which brings me to this question... do we allow ourselves the guilty pleasure of addictive pop music, even though we know that it is coming in direct opposition to our values? The area is iffy for most.

For example... all of us watched Beyonce's Superbowl performance that dripped with all of the fanfare worthy of a ruler of a small country. She was wearing things and shaking things that demanded gross objectification, but all of the intelligent women in my company couldn't resist cheering and clapping. I was turned off by all of the implications of one of our generation's most beloved "icon," but I felt just like that baby flailing around in her carseat. Something in my brain was stimulated, I was confused by what was happening around me, I was not visibly enjoying the forced melody as much as the people around me... and I just wanted out.

Alas, Mrs. Knowles-Z spun around the stage with crazy eyes and crazy amounts of overstimulating effects. I couldn't rip myself away, and I wished that I'd gone downstairs with my husband before this had happened... but was so happy that he wasn't watching Sasha Fierce (in her own words) slap her thighs, swing her hair, squint her eye, and... shake her jelly at every chance. I couldn't help wondering what kinds of synapses were taking off in the brains of the young men in our company. But... more likely than not... they were probably already desensitized to this nonsense.


The show concluded with strange fans trying to caress Beyonce's thighs, and fans doing the illuminati hand gestures. I turned to a friend next to me and asked: "is that really...?" Recently, illuminati-inspired societies (organizations with pretty sadistic roots, if you ask me) continue to gain mainstream acceptance through its promoters that include Jay-Z and (perhaps inadvertently) Beyonce.

Knowing that my students were all planning to watch the Superbowl, I tried to imagine this performance through their points of view. Football is the most watched professional sport for children ages 7-11, and while the myriad of ads for alcohol, erectile-dysfunction pills, and shoot-people/sleep-with-many-women shows might turn some parents off... you know that most kids demanded to see Beyonce. What world view did that form?

So, even then...
as a woman...

as a lover of Jesus...
as a teacher...
I just couldn't peel my eyes away.

As people debriefed over how spectacular the show was, I couldn't even begin to articulate why I felt so dirty... so upset... so thrashed. Even worse, I was the only person to notice this... which makes me so judgmental.

Next time, I'll just go downstairs with my husband. Less complicated.

On Street Smarts

Watching the Sandy Hook students performing at the Superbowl, I started bawling. The music, the children, and the symbolic healing that is coming from the brilliant foundation: sandyhookpromise.org

Back here in Oakland, there have been a lot of ramifications for the Newtown shooting. The most recent notion that teachers ought to be armed in dangerous schools. Um yeah... Oakland School Board... way to put on the thinking caps with that one.

The interesting thing is that the week before the Newtown shooting, there were several other shootings... the one near Andrea's sister's elementary school, the one just outside of Isaac's home that lodged a bullet into their wall, the one that killed Loxxi's sister, or the one that startled Alyah's grandmother into a heart attack. When my students heard about Connecticut, they felt sorry for these kids, but not for reasons I'd expected. They noted that the Newtown kids grew up in suburbia, so nobody taught them how to run away or how to protect yourselves from stray bullets.

They know.

Some give it the detached term "street smarts," which seems to indicate a savviness in the way the world works. If ever the topic of funerals were to come up, these kids have an entire series. Lighter news comes in the form of the boys discussing video games and how to deal when CPS takes you away for awhile. Girls share tips on mascara and how to react when your house is broken into in the middle of the night... when you should feign sleeping, when you should hide, when you should run away, and when you should brandish your parent's weapon.

Yes, "street smarts." As thought there's no difference between being aware of your surroundings and living as though you're in a war zone... day on top of day... trauma on top of trauma. It's enough where I just want to rip out my hair and shout:

MY KIDS ARE NOT STREET SMART! 

They are more detached than anybody from the way the world ought to work. 

STOP F-ING TRYING TO SOFTEN IT BY CALLING THEM STREET SMART!!!!

Please... just allow them their innocence... just one more year...


Andrea's mom stayed in my classroom late today. Twirling her fingers, with very few people to speak with frankly, she shared with me the fear for her girls... the feelings of failure when she was unable to shield her six-year-old from seeing her first murdered body. At least Andrea was nine when she saw her first. I just hugged her, and that's really what we should do in the face of trauma... create the ways in which we know how to promote healing. Otherwise the kids become hardened... defiant... angry perpetuators of the "street smarts" they've seen modeled.

I'm glad that the Superbowl showcased these kids, and for the healing that it promoted in their community. I just wish that my students had the chance to isolate their individual trauma, and experience the same scale of healing for themselves. Praying for my kids in the car... and I know that they will.

They will.