Stupid Girls

Thursday, February 03, 2011

reminded of the hate in Indiana

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just a reply to a facebook friend who was quoting some "color purple"

y'know, all that bs about Shug makin' up with her preacher daddy? That ain't in the book. Nope. That's Spielberg for ya: a Black woman from the South, an alien from outer space? Same thing. I so didn't like the color purple. It messed up my head: WHY did Walker allow him to butcher her like that? But the talent in the film is awesome. Quincy Jones is amazing. Oprah was fierce. I loved the juke joint and Mister's house. I showed the kiss as part of my final project in a course called "Effects of Mass Communication," in an oral presentation on Vito Russo's Celluloid Closet. This was in Indiana, too close to Ku Kluxer towns. Very Rush Limbaugh and Pat Roberston. Well, they tore me apart. I'd even learned how to edit video tape to make that presentation. They tore me apart and the instructor let them. I ran from class in tears. Later, a psych proff who's a feminist invited me to give my presentation to one of her classes, so I did. They LOVED it! I went to the little Queer center on campus, feeling vindicated and victorious. They said, "Don't you come in here! We heard you made a scene in Ms. so and so's class! You're giving us a bad name...." It wasn't true, of course. But they wouldn't listen and did not want to be associated with me. I dropped out of school and overdosed on pain meds. Incomplete suicide. Ironically, the President of Indiana University Southeast was on the Board of Directors of the First Unitarian Church of Louisville, my fellowship. After that communications class had been so evil to me, it was Richard, their minister and my close friend, that I called. He rushed to meet me at Campus and, when my instructor REFUSED TO SEE HIM, Richard spoke to the Dean of the dept., who was also a cough "chaplain." Richard leaned over the guy's desk and said, "How DARE you allow this behavior in a university! What if this woman had been Black, doing a presentation on Blacks in motion pictures? WOULD YOU ALLOW THAT BEHAVIOR THEN???" basically, the dean told Richard, yeah, he would and waddya gonna do about it?

I cant' watch any of the films in that video tape I put together for that class without sobbing uncontrollably. When the class saw the kiss between celie and shug, they screamed and moaned and said eewwww and gross and perverted and.......

never went back to a college since.