{"id":859,"date":"2016-02-08T04:10:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T04:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=859"},"modified":"2016-02-15T13:44:36","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T13:44:36","slug":"somebody-almost-walked-off-with-all-of-my-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=859","title":{"rendered":"Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"
From\u00a0For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is<\/em> Enuf<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff<\/div>\n
And didn’t care enough to send a note home saying I was late for my solo conversation<\/div>\n
Or too sizes too small for my own tacky skirts<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
What can anybody do with something of a nobellier on an open market?<\/div>\n
Did you get a dime for my things?<\/div>\n
Hey man, where are you going with all of my stuff?<\/div>\n
This is a woman’s tripping, I need my stuff to ooh and aaah about<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Honest to God! Somebody almost ran with all of my stuff<\/div>\n
And I didn’t bring anything but the kick and sway of it<\/div>\n
The perfect ass for my man and none of it is theirs<\/div>\n
This is mine…Phemelo’s own things…<\/div>\n
That’s my name now give me my stuff<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I see you hiding my laugh and how<\/div>\n
I sit with my leg open sometimes to get my crotch some sunlight<\/div>\n
This is some delicate leg and whimsical kiss<\/div>\n
I gotta have to get to my choice<\/div>\n
So you can’t have me unless I give me away<\/div>\n
And I was doing all that till you ran off on a good thing<\/div>\n
And who is this you left me with? A bad attitude<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I want my things, I want my Oooh with a hot iron scar,<\/div>\n
I want my leg with the flee bite, yeah I want my things<\/div>\n
I want my calouse feet and quick language back in my mouth<\/div>\n
I want my own things how I love them<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Somebody almost ran off with all of my stuff<\/div>\n
And I was standing there looking at myself the whole time<\/div>\n
It wasn’t spirit that ran off with my stuff<\/div>\n
It was a man who’s ego won’t drown like road ants shadow<\/div>\n
It was a man faster than my innocence<\/div>\n
It was a lover I made too much room for almost ran off with all of my stuff<\/div>\n
And the one running with it, don’t know he got it<\/div>\n
I’m shouting this is mine and he don’t , and he don’t even know he got it<\/div>\n
My stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure of the year<\/div>\n
Did you know somebody almost got away with me!<\/div>\n
Me! in a plastic bag under his arm, Me! Phemelo Motona!<\/div>\n
Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The following Tweet inspired me to reflect on this Shange piece:
\n\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Since my project is titled “Mental Wellness: \u00a0A Community’s Guidebook,” I was interested to the mental and emotional component that was drawn out in this Tweet and wanted to explore it a little further.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In thinking about how this piece relates to my project and me personally, I needed define what the Lady in Green meant by “all of [her] stuff.” She references that she wants her “Oooh with a hot iron scar,” her “leg with the flee bite,” and her “calouse feet and quick language back in [her] mouth.” The stuff seems to signify her mental and emotional baggage; the baggage manifests itself with physical markers on the body and indicate the things she has experienced. The line, “Did you get a dime for my things?” resonated with me because it\u00a0made me question the worth of my “stuff,” my own personal baggage as a black woman and who decides the value my stuff holds. The lines, “I gotta have to get to my choice\/ So you can’t have me unless I give me away” also made me wonder about the agency I have in what I chose to disclose to others about my personal baggage.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Because the Lady in Green has her stuff taken away against her will she is left with “a bad attitude.” In thinking this piece and\u00a0mental wellness, I looked up “attitude” in the The Webster Dictionary\u00a0\u00a0and found the definition “a mental position with regard to a fact or state.”Since identifying language black female artists use to talk about self-knowledge and mental health is one of the goals of my project, \u00a0I thought I made headway by identifying the particular diction Shange employed in this piece to talk about a mental state.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There is still so much I can unpack in this piece, for instance:<\/div>\n
– Who is the thing\/person\/institution\/system running away with the stuff (“it wast spirit… it was a man… it was a lover”),<\/div>\n
– Whether that thing\/person\/institution\/system is aware they have the stuff (“don’t know he got it”),<\/div>\n
– If the stuff gets depersonalized by the taker (“my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure of the year”),<\/div>\n
– And finally, if the stuff defines the self (“did you know somebody almost got away with me!\/ me!\/ in a plastic bag under his arm, me!”)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
These are all things I will be coming back to in thinking about my project.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From\u00a0For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf Somebody almost walked off with all of my stuff And didn’t care enough to send a note home saying I was late for my solo conversation Or too sizes too small for my own tacky skirts What can anybody do with something of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,57,1],"tags":[72,236],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","category-student-blogpost","category-uncategorized","tag-for-colored-girls-who-have-considered-suicide-when-the-rainbow-is-enuf","tag-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}