there slips-through-fingers, here is the waking

shudder

Once a man travelled to a sea

of white spruce and lodgepole pine and the yellow fir.

He hid from the world and his wife in a cabin he found

crammed with things

which toppled onto him when he opened any door.

He picked each thing out,

one by one arranged them on the lawn, and made his way in.

Bookcase basket lamp glasses

pillow shoe coffeepot toilet-seat radio

candlestick ribbon spanner matchbox chair shoe

shampoo pill-box hairclip bathtub casserole-dish

everything was on the grass except

the thing

And once he was inside the cabin,

the night fell in slow motion. He lay on a bed

with white borders and in the morning

the things on the lawn had all slipped away like snow.

By Bella Hammad

there slips-through-fingers, here is the waking

shudder

Once a man travelled to a sea

of white spruce and lodgepole pine and the yellow fir.

He hid from the world and his wife in a cabin he found

crammed with things

which toppled onto him when he opened any door.

He picked each thing out,

one by one arranged them on the lawn, and made his way in.

Bookcase basket lamp glasses

pillow shoe coffeepot toilet-seat radio

candlestick ribbon spanner matchbox chair shoe

shampoo pill-box hairclip bathtub casserole-dish

everything was on the grass except

the thing

And once he was inside the cabin,

the night fell in slow motion. He lay on a bed

with white borders and in the morning

the things on the lawn had all slipped away like snow.

By Bella Hammad

By Ollie Mann

Beyonce premiered her ‘Run The World(Girls)’ music video in June, the first single from her new album 4. Set in some part of Africa, perhaps Ethiopia, Beyonce is at once with Abyssinian lion and is once that lion King. She writes ‘King B’ on a mirror whilst looking at herself in one of the 4 album stills and I can’t help but think of John Berger’s idea that women watch themselves being watched – I certainly can’t stop watching her. And although her video may be about the revolution of the ‘third sex’, a revolution that Simone de Beauvoir did not anticipate, this video bares relation to Beyonce’s husband’s ‘Run this Town’ video and so I can’t help thinking whilst watching this that as James Brown put it ‘This is a man’s world’.

One man who would like to run the world, it would seem, is Dr Satoshi Kanazawa – the George Bush of social science.  Having previously published articles such as ‘Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?’ (in which he argued ‘high-class prostitutes like Allie and Maggie have more in common with college professors, corporate executives, or poets than with the more affordable and visible members of their profession.’), in the same week that Beyonce premiered ‘Run the World(Girls)’, LSE’s Dr Kanazawa published an article in Psychology Today in which he argued that ‘Black women are … far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women’. And so it would seem that such a man would be against the idea that women, let alone ‘black women’, could ‘Run The World’.

Kanazawa’s claim that ‘black women are less attractive’ is not only an inane instance of racism, but more importantly it is another instance of the racist’s idea that black people (by virtue of being called ‘black’ people) are a homogeneous group of people who are all the same colour (black and not varying shades of brown) and all originate from the same country (that country being the country of blackness known as Africa). What Kanazawa’s ‘research’ seems to want to show is that it is not black woman that are unattractive but it is African women who are unattractive. But perhaps what people can away take from his ‘research’ is that the people who were shown photos of these ‘black women’ did not find these women attractive, and from that we can conclude that these ‘black women’ were not found attractive by the people who saw their photos. Why must we then start making generalisations about ‘black women’?

I think that what is most important about Kanazawa’s ‘research’ is that it shows an impulse to want to define who ‘black women’ are. So that even in generalising about ‘black women’ Kanazawa shows us that even racists struggle with the concept of blackness. Psychologically speaking racists like Satoshi Kanazawa want to know something more about ‘black’ people like where they come from, in order to help them come to terms with them. The words ‘African’ or ‘black’ are no longer enough even for such people; and perhaps they are no longer enough for the ‘black’ people in question. Somewhat bemused at the idea that although he is telling ‘black women’ that they are objectively unattractive black women insist on seeing themselves as attractive, Kanazawa writes ‘It is very interesting to note that, even though black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women, black women (and men) subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others.’ Yes it is very interesting; it is very audacious.

Let us question Kanazawa’s use of the word attractive and his ideas about attractiveness. If by attractive he means ‘sexually desirable’ his claims are necessarily false. We infer that his are false claims from examples of the millions of black women that have been born and therefore exist, from the millions of black women who find themselves being desirable and are thus able to have sex with men and/or women, and what do the x amount of black women who were raped during colonisation, the slave trade, the abolition of the slave trade and today tell us about attractiveness and the power of ‘black women’? Indeed if black women were truly as unattractive as Kanazawa says they are it would seem that they would not exist and he would have no reason to make such claim. Thus the very existence of a ‘black women’, whether she is Ethiopian or African-American, is necessarily undisputable proof of attractiveness of other types of black women.

Now, I’m not attempting to answer any of the sociological implications of attractiveness; I am merely addressing the biological ideas of attractiveness that Kanazawa draws his conclusion that black women are unattractive from. Yet from the observations I have just made it is obvious that to say that black women are attractive is false. Thus what Kanazawa really wants to be saying is not that black women are unattractive but that they are ugly, and this is of course a very inane thing to say, and it is precisely because he attempts to do this is why his arguments must be interpreted as racist.

Now Satoshi Kanazawa may not find whatever he considers ‘black women’ to be attractive but I don’t particularly find chubby-mole speckled-middle aged-racist academics attractive, regardless of their ‘race’ – but that’s just me. I do not dispute that people have the right to express themselves, but Kanazawa has a status as a social scientist, he is a lecturer at LSE and so that means his mode of expression should be rooted in scientific practices.  But his practices are not scientific and so we have to question the nature of his study: who were the ‘black women’ that were shown to these people and how were they selected i.e. were they all from the same family or country? How did Kanazawa’s biases of what he thinks the ‘black women’ are affect how he chose black women? Moreover the Japanese UK based social scientist argued that Asian women ranked the highest but what did he mean by Asian, i.e. South Asian, East Asian, Middle Eastern? Essentially we must ask what biases were at play, in order to test how valuable his findings are.

Dr Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. Jelte Wicherts have since conducted an independent analysis of the same study that Kanazawa used and found that amongst other errors of Kanazawa’s analysis, black women were not rated as least attractive. Their study showed “there is no difference between the ethnicities in terms of ratings of physical attractiveness.” The percentage of black women and Caucasian women who were deemed ‘very attractive’ and ‘attractive’ were exactly the same. And Asian women had a slightly higher rating, in the same way that black men had a higher rating than men of other racial groups in the study Kanazawaa conducted (indeed the fact that Kanazawaa’s study was not entitled ‘why black men are more attractive than other races’ or ‘why Asian men are the least attractive of all the races’ shows us more about his own prejudices than any objective facts such a study could show). Now of course this independent study shows Kanazawaa’s research to be ‘scientifically’ false. And yet I would argue that Kanazawaa’s research was not research, it was not valuable, it was a weird parody of the BBC 3 make over programme ‘Snog, Marry, Avoid’; and any repeat of such research is also that. A necessary repeat perhaps but a repeat nonetheless and so we must not attach much value to such findings. Or should we?

For if Satoshi’s findings are right it seems that we can say good bye to the millions of black women, who indeed by 2012 will surely become an endangered species. We can say goodbye to figures like Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Iman, Grace Jones, and Beyonce who are valued in other terms of attractiveness i.e. their talents, their intelligence, and their iconism as well as their ‘beauty’. Indeed Oprah Winfrey has been listed as the most influential women in the world (and yet I would argue that Michelle Obama is giving her a run for her money) although since Kanazawaa’s ‘research’ was published I’m sure that her influence has started to wan. Scared, I count the days until she is kicked of the Forbes list. I count the days until lots of other black women start disappearing…including myself. Let’s hope that women, whoever they may be, can finish the revolution Beyonce sings about. But please hurry….the light has gone off and I can’t see myself (being black and all).

By Clarissa Pabi

acoustic reverberations marinated in stone

and you plant yourself

moonstruck and heartbroken and soul strung

are you wrong

to be drones in a lonely crowd

to make shoes for a commonwealth

gut worms fossilizing flesh

ringing out in seismic waves,

deaf to your echoes and glad of that fact?

Are you wrong to massacre the humdrum,

inflate a soundtrack with mesmeric song

and then to revolt in the belly, torch microvilli in tunnels

underground moles that walk all night in tube stations,

pale from deprivation.

this is the new order

protecting the valiant through submission to fashion.

The glamour is thin: this is known,

known, this becomes a buyable thing.

The high will be low, tastefully.

Well then fossilized jailbait, mechanically up-thrusting:

swallow here this slice of mine

that will appreciate like your humble high

street cred appreciation.

Look at it: full-moon round, like a constant cartwheel.

Like a backwards somersault on a vaulted trampoline in space,

where gravity fails and oceans fall upwards.

This is your phantasma and hideous dream;

the interim of action;

the unglorified insurrection;

the perpetual Piccadilly where we all impersonate beautiful children.

By Bella Hammad

Photos by Joel Phillimore

FOUND! was part of ‘Mindful of Art’ at The Old Vic Tunnels.

For more details about other Flipping The Bird productions, see: http://www.flippingthebird.co.uk/

Spit juicy-dripped, no short supply

To irrigate with spray slight cabbage sprout, as

Pressed into a sidelong scrape of scumberous soil.

Potent mouthspill, spell, or other surprise?

From spare and scroungy earth the cabbage spurt

Whowsed upward swift with sprunt and shoot

What a bounding spring! A quick rush to ceiling.

Old man holed the mouldy floor above,

Span for the prodigal vegetal premium springer

And up to the roofing, the thatching, the rafter it sped

High with hopes for the hoist to open space

Albescent with awe, elder ascended stairs

To rise to the roof and arrange further passage

Rend off tile til light chink

Spread to open pool and no obstacle.

So outswept cabbage clean skyward

Shuffled off shade and swung to the heavens.

The leaf-tongued trees left talk

To hang still with the dumb weight of wonder.

And the man gaped out of the hole like an eye in the roof

As leaves furled forward and fed forth the shoot.

Imagine holding the sphere of sky in your hands

Balloon with threatening needle speeding out from within.

For the growing kept going, no slowing from sowing to soaring

And sure as the needle approaches, the breath is held down

but the wind round the hurtling stripling not dropping but roaring

as the brink of vertiginous sky is approaching, approaching –

Breached, blue brim of broad space:

Not burst to azur scrap like needled balloon

But opened, a cabbage plant pointing the way

And a tiny black star in the bright sky.

One open mouthed old man began to climb

The stem’s solid trace of its own trajectory

Like Jack who accomplished another beanstalk clamber

On his own prodigious botanical scaffold –

As if whole human become ant, silhouetted,

Crisp speck on a whole new scale,

The tiny attempting tremendous ascent

Towards the giant, the huger than known.

So he rose, rose and rose with a hero’s resolve

Til he gained the hole that gaped like the dot on an I

And poked thru his head ready to lap up the sight

As pupils, eyes dots, spread outwards like pools.

In blackness abounding were millwheels and millwheels

Each distinct as if doused with daylight

Which with each turn loosed a loaf –

Warm crust that cracked with slight crush of thumb.

Stringfingered old man broke off a chunk

Chewed deeply, yielding gracious savours –

Tears slipped from his ducts at the taste on his tongue

Unleashed by lacings of saliva across divine dough.

Swift descent fuelled by the tang of the sample,

And cry to his waiting wife of wide joy

“at the top of the stalk is an ambrosial spot –

there are millwheels there, each time they turn

they freely toss out sweet loaves,

the best of breads, of soft white flesh

which houses the thumb’s impress when tenderly touched

and the crisp crust splintered to flakes and crumbs.”

“Show me!” cried wife “haul me up in this bag”

for she hopped in a hessian sack hotly eager,

and was willingly lifted in renewal of upward adventure

a return to the loaf-haven, harbouring delights.

Perhaps it was due to pads of fingers still reeling

From the kiss of a yielding crust just moments before

Too electrified to stick to slack hessian here –

For they betrayed the man’s grasp at the topmost height!

Trusting wife, living contents, tumbled

With plummeting increase of speed in the downward plunge

An inversion of flight, to achieve no fabulous zenith,

For the crust of earth did not yield or open with contact.

From above the man saw his wife become a bag of bones

Powerless, his loss of power the exclusive cause

Of such dismal demise, a dire, too-human crumpling,

A fleshy death unabsolved by the bounty of bread.

Down crept the man, hunched, grief-doubled

Till he sat and wept by himself on the floor

Tumbling tears told a tale of tragic trajectories

And each turn of the heaving heart freely loosed a sob.

Along came a fox who saw the sorrow

And silently discerned the cause of distress to the man –

Witness to a sack several metres distant

He muttered, he spilled out sly words of comfort:

“O stranger, rejoice, I’m the fox, the fox doctor

and I’ll deal with your dismantled companion deftly –

give me a matter of minutes, some oatmeal, and honey

and leave me to perform operation in peace.”

The man felt hope flicker an instant –

Perhaps here was a dreamt of wife-restorer –

So he installed the fox in the bathroom with fervour

And sat once again in tired tears’ pools.

The fox, wily, wicked – pure evil – exalted

Here was a feast from this luckless old fool!

He opened the sack and slaveringly set about

His operation – the fresh consumption of tough flesh.

Finished, he fashioned a fine desert from the oatmeal

With honey run in, achieving delectable sweetness

And for a fiendish flourish he then took a bath

Reclining warmly in pools of saltless water.

Outside the man was waiting wet with sorrows

When the fox leapt out and devilishly dashed off.

The door swung open on dined-off bones

And the man was left where he dwelt in his misery.

 By Joe Minden

A touch is just a touch is just a touch is

Only an inch, a moment, a glance away

From not being a touch.

It’s a cheek against a cheek, a hand in a hand, a body in body,

Any body.  Anybody.  Anybody will do.

It’s not the meeting of hearts, it’s the meeting of parts, innit?

Innit.  In it.  Except when you are in it.  Can’t control it when you are in it.

Can’t explain it, justify it, don’t try to rectify it, when you know you can’t defy it.

When you know you can’t define it.

In it.

A kiss is just a kiss is just a kiss is

Eyes closing, lips touching, pulse rising,

Then swinging to and fro, before falling back down so low,

But not solo

‘Cause after all this hesitation, I’m now getting this sensation

That there’s a kind of syncopation between

Mine

And yours.

A fuck is just a fuck is just a fuck is

In.  Out.  In.  Out.  You shaking it all about.

Getting to know you.  Getting to blow you.

Letting you blow me, now, I see,

That a fuck is not an accurate reflection of affection.

Correction.

‘Cause when I’m laying bare on you,

I’m baring myself up to you.

My wrist, your knife.  My neck, your noose.

And all I want you to see is that this is open.

Can’t be shut.  But

All you say is

I’m just a

You’re just a

It’s just a

Fuck.

By Leo Marcus-Wan

By Dolly Kershaw

By Sophia Satchell-Baeza