Scandal ~ a View from a Black Woman

Oscar Wilde a writer and poet once said “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” This statement causes quite a stir when we look at Olivia Pope. Is Life imitating Art or Art imitating Life?  That is the question to ponder as I am an avid viewer of Scandal. 

I tune in each week with my favorite snack, comfortable clothing, and no other distractions.  I tune into every aspect of the show including the latest fashion, hairstyles, power moves, one-liners, and intriguing scenes.  I view Scandal as entertainment through the lens of a Black female writer and star.  A Black woman named Olivia Pope who is known as the fixer, mistress, and mystery to most.  This mode of entertainment often mimics life in many ways as we deal with white supremacy, patriarchy, homosexuality, infidelity, and a host of other life events in this weekly one-hour show.

If I viewed the show as art imitating life, I find myself dismayed at the dysfunction, mistrust, heinous, sex-riddled, murderous behavior that is happening somewhere in the real world.  If I viewed the show as life imitating art, I am then compelled to anger as Black women are placed in stereotypical roles that over sexualizes, dehumanizes, and marginalizes women depicting a false sense of power.  I am compelled to view Scandal in the former lens: art imitating life.  Scandal is a fictional show based on real life characters using a stretch of the imagination, added intrigue, and at times advocacy through real-life story lines. 

As a preacher, I honor and value ones lens and stance in life. Good, bad or indifferent we have an unalienable right to live and live life to the fullest.  Yet, while television shows like Scandal tend to be scandalous, we must know who we are, rooted and grounded in a spiritual being who defines us more than what we see on television, more than being called out of our names, more than our young men being killed on the streets, more than a Black woman depicted with power and weakness simultaneously.  Instead of judging ones character on the fact she/he watches Scandal (or Empire, Being Mary Jane…) I am more concerned about the images you see and how you respond to them. 

It is important to offer balance in one’s life to off-set the negative images put forth and to celebrate the positive messages and images despite the negativity.  I can watch Scandal because I know I am more than what is depicted on television.  I can view Scandal with an entertainment lens and at the same time have theological and sociological discourse pertaining to the Black woman and the challenges thereof to propel us beyond what we see and how we as Black women are viewed. 

I will continue to view Scandal as a form of though-provoking entertainment with the knowledge that this may not be mindless to some and quite influential to others.  Therefore, I must send positive messages and lead by example to dispel the status quo and push us beyond sexualization, skin color, hair length, and body type to the life-giving, amazing, beautiful, creative, nurturing, powerful women we are destined to be.  

Never hopeless ~ always searching...

The oppressed becomes the oppressor... Wake up!

And we do not realize this is happening because we are so ingrained in oppressive-like behavior.

In his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire speaks of "the banking concept of education" in which the actions of a teacher-student relationship is rooted in and limited to a student receiving from the teacher leading the student to be full of information but without skills to implement, create, explore, or transform in this was he calls a misguided system. The teacher will posit information without regard toward culture, identity, context, or ability just like making a deposit in a bank. As long as it is your bank (problem number one) the teacher will make the deposit and walk away knowing, barring all other circumstances are in place, the money will be there when she/he returns.  As a matter of fact, if the money is deposited in an interest bearing account the depositor will have a few more dollars without doing anything further than making that deposit.

This sounds all too familiar in our education system in our marginalized, low-income communities as well as our churches. Due to lack of resources, over-sized classes, and raising a generation of teachers who teach in marginalized schools to either get their student loans paid or as a stepping stone, we have created a banking system of teaching hoping the deposit will gain interest called success.   For all the teachers who teach in marginalized, low-income communities who actually love what they do for the sake of teaching, we do them a disservice by overcrowding their classrooms, overworking them, and then penalizing them when their numbers do not meet state expectations.  And these days we even throw them in jail to do more time than police who kill our Black, unarmed, defenseless children.  (Say what you want about she/he should not have.... in the first place. I am unarmed, you have a gun, and I get killed... the math just doesn't add up PERIOD!)

In any and all educational circumstances and opportunities we must institute a space in what Freire calls "...the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students." As soon as I walk into a teacher-student setting and I believe, as the teacher, I know it all and cannot learn from my constituents, herein lies the problem! How can I teach if I am not willing to be taught? How can I empower when I am not willing to be empowered? How can I transform when I am not willing nor able to be transformed?

The truth is as long as we continue to define the marginalized as marginalized, ostracized, demeaned, and discounted we will continue to remain on the hamster wheel of perpetual insanity (this is for another blog post.) Freire states "...the oppressed are not marginals, are not people living outside society.  They have always been inside - inside the structure which made them beings for others.  The solution is not to integrate them into the structure of oppression, but to transform that structure so that they can become beings for themselves."

This brings us to the church.  This same pedagogy of the oppressed can be relevant in the church.  If the leader/preacher/teacher is not in a dialogical relationship with constituents/members/ parishioners... we institute the same "banking system" Freire speaks against.  If we the pastor/preacher/teacher believes she/he is the do all-be all-end all to this thing called Christianity we have now become cult-ish leaders who think more highly of ourselves than we really are (Romans 12:3.) If we, as spiritual and educational leaders, do not enter into a reciprocal, dialogical, relationship with our constituents we are creating a community of death. Without creativity, nurturing, growth, innovation, critical thinking, exchange... we become mundane, worthless, and die. We will forget our natural, innate value and remain on the hamster wheel where we will tire out, fall off and not know what to do to liberate ourselves.  Freire says that we must be committed to liberation that must reject the banking system and adopt a concept of women and men as conscious beings and consciousness as consciousness intent upon the world. It is consciousness that breeds life!

We must be intentional about creating a space of relational dialogue where there is an exchange in the role of teacher/student, pastor/parishioner. Gone are the days of three points and a whoop. Gone are the days of uncaring, numb, number driven educational/church systems.  Gone are the days of a banking system where we are blaming our young people for doing what they do when we have not taught them how to be in relationship, to value themselves without outside dictation, and to think critically about action - consequence - action.   Gone are the days where we look at the Bible as a compartmentalized piece of literature, picking and choosing what to preach/teach; who to degrade and demean; how to gather more members/student for financial gain...

"The revolutionary's (pastor/teacher) role is to liberate, AND be liberated, with the people - not to win them over" otherwise, the oppressed has now become the oppressor. Wake up!

Never hopeless ~ always searching

(Inspired by the heinous misguided institutions and Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed!