Unbothered by Awkwardness

let's hear it for the truth tellers

ROCK PAPER RADIO is a dispatch for misfits & unlikely optimists by your favorite hapa haole, beet-pickling, public radio nerd. It’s a weekly email newsletter that shares three curiosities every Thursday - something to hold on to (that’s the ‘rock’), something to read (that’s the ‘paper‘), and something to listen to (you guessed it, that’s the ‘radio’). Themes include but are not limited to: rebel violinists, immortal jellyfish, revolution. Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word.

“That's why I say, greed is a motherfucker.” - Scholar bell hooks in-conversation with rapper Lil’ Kim for Paper Magazine, July 11, 2018. Street art photo credit: Jon Tyson

SOMETHING TO LISTEN TO

NPR’s Steve Inskeep probably wasn’t expecting a dive into our country’s persisting school segregation problem when he sat down with Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon to talk about his new memoir From Staircase to Stage.

Lucky for us though, Raekwon didn’t hold back, and what we hear in this 9-minute interview is not the neatly packaged story of a fatherless urban kid-turned-hip hop legend, but instead it’s the journey of man who survived and thrived despite a public school system that continues to leave so many (Black, male) students behind.

And this too—we also hear a few Wu-Tang classics and Raekwon’s big, generous laugh as he talks about school lunches and the karate movies that raised him. If I were still teaching, I’d fold this piece into a Socratic Seminar with my students for sure. Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan on the highs and lows of success.

SOMETHING TO READ

We should probably resist the tendency to idolize our dead, unless, of course, the dead in question was the kind of woman who could say to Ms. Magazine co-founder Gloria Steinem in front of a packed audience, well, since we’re talking about transgression, let’s hear some about your marrying a man…and then go on to point out that Steinem’s choice to become a wife made a lot of feminists angry for betraying The Movement.*

WHO COULD BE SO BOLD??? That would be bell hooks, obviously. A woman not only unbothered by awkwardness, but also a woman with unmatched range. A few years after that fearless exchange, hooks sat down with rapper Lil’ Kim to talk about pornography, power, and pleasure in this not-often-enough quoted interview for Paper magazine: Hardcore Honey: bell hooks Goes on the Down Low with Lil' Kim.

And for the record: all three of these women were in heavy rotation for me as an undergrad and will forever have a place in my married, feminist, hip-hop-loving heart. I’m aiming to forge forward into the abyss of the New Year with all three of their voices guiding the way.

SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO

The original queen of selfies Frida Kahlo did and said many remarkable things in her lifetime that made weirdos feel a little less alone in the world, but it turns out she didn’t ever say this:

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there you read this and know that yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”

In fact, that little hopeful yet lonely declaration was written by a woman named Rebecca Katherine Martin. Apparently Martin wrote those words on a postcard decorated with images of Kahlo and then sent it off anonymously to Post Secret, not realizing that all across the wilderness of the World Wide Web her misfit wisdom would be attributed to the painter she admired.

Thanks to Martin’s friend @trophyhuman and the dogged reporters of Quote Investigator, Martin is finally getting the credit she deserves. This piece is as much a fascinating glimpse into the journey of one quote, as it is proof that misinformation is one of the many viruses that should be keeping us all home and off the internet for a while: It’s True I’m Here, and I’m Just as Strange as You.

HAPPY COVID HOLIDAYS

That’s a wrap on issue 64, friends. Thanks for listening, reading, holding on.

I’ll be taking next week off to make my way through a tin of those Danish butter cookies while attempting to wrap my dog and teenager in Christmas lights, but then I’ll be back in your inbox the following Thursday on January 6 with some big news.

Stay safe out there, misfits, and happy homebound holidays. As I’ve shared before, I’m a big fan of clear closures and fresh starts with all the related lists of reflections and resolutions. As we head into 2022 (and season three of the pandemic), just know all of you loyal newsletter readers, link sharers, and note senders are on my gratitude list for sure.

See you the Thursday after next.

K.

*hooks and Steinem were in-conversation at Eugene Lang College in 2014 for this amazing exchange about Steinem’s decision to marry, which starts at 54.54. Steinem was 66 when she traded vows with skateboard importer David Bale. She had previously dismissed marriage as an institution that destroys relationships. The shift that follows this moment in their conversation is a beautiful and radical testament to the power of women having each others’ backs.

You can find ROCK PAPER RADIO on Instagram and Twitter @RockPaperRadio. You can find Kristin on Instagram @leongstagram and on Twitter @kristinleong. 

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