Karen Lum is the User Experience Designer at Everyday Feminism. She first gained interest in feminism when she was 16 and made a film called “Slip of the Tongue,” which addressed unrealistic westernized beauty standards and features spoken from Adriel Luis.
Her film subsequently won a regional Emmy Award and was screened in 40+ film festivals around the world. A graduate of Stanford University with a B.S., she now works as a user experience designer in Silicon Valley. Her goal is to help young women build self-esteem and confidence, in order to set themselves up for stronger relationships, fulfilling careers, and an enduring sense of self.
made this film when I was 16 as a defiant rejection of unrealistic beauty standards.
For a transcript of them poem, go to HERE to http://everydayfeminism.com
“Slip of the Tongue” won 12 awards, including a Regional Emmy Award.
It was also featured in over 40 film festivals, including SF International Film Festival, LA International Film Festival, Lunafest, Media that Matters, and Asian American International Film Festival.
Directed and Edited by Karen Lum
Spoken Word Poem written by and performed by Adriel Luis http://drzzl.com.
Starring Karen Lum and William Tsang
Filmed by Karen Lum, Andrew Baxter, German E. Rodriguez
Shot entirely in her hometown of Oakland, CA in the Summer of 2005
Follow her
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where women own their stories.
For a transcript of them poem, go to http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/04/g.
My glares burn through her.
And I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the essence of her beauty is, well, the essence of beauty.And in the presence of this higher being,
the weakness of my masculinity kicks in,
causing me to personify my wannabe big-baller, shot-caller,
God’s gift to the female species with shiny suit wrapping rapping like,
“Yo, what’s crackin shorty how you livin’ what’s your sign what’s your size I dig your style, yo.”Now, this girl was no fool.
She gives me a dirty look with the quickness like,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
so I’m looking at myself,
“Boy, you must be stupid.”
But looking upon her I am kinda feelin’ her style.So I try again.
But, instead of addressing her properly,
I blurt out one of my fake-ass playalistic lines like,
“Gurl, you must be a traffic ticket cuz you got fine written all over you.”
Now, she’s trying to leave and I’m trying to keep her here.
So at a final attempt, I utter,
“Gurl, what is your ethnic makeup?”At this point, her glare was scorching through me,
and somehow she manages to make her brown eyes
resemble some kinda brown fire or something,
but there’s no snap or head movement,
no palm to face, click of tongue, middle finger,
roll of eyes, twist of lips, or girl power chant.
She just glares through me with these burning eyes
and her gaze grabs you by the throat.She says, “Ethnic makeup?”
She says, “First of all, makeup’s just an Anglicized, colonized, commodified utility
that my sisters have been programmed to consume,
forcing them to cover up their natural state
in order to imitate what another sister looks like in her natural state
because people keep telling her
that the other sister’s natural state is more beautiful
than the first sister’s natural state.
At the same time,
the other sister isn’t even in her natural state,
because she’s trying to imitate yet another sister,
so in actuality, the natural state that the first sister’s trying to imitate
wasn’t even natural in the first place.”Now I’m thinking, “Damn, this girl’s kicking knowledge!”
But, meanwhile, she keeps spitting on it like,
“Fine. I’ll tell you bout my ‘ethnic makeup.’
I wear foundation,
not that powdery stuff,
I wear the foundation laid by my indigenous people.
It’s that foundation that makes it so that past being globalized,
I can still vocalize with confidence that I know where my roots are.
I wear this foundation not upon my face, but within my soul,
and I take this from my ancestors
because I’ll be damned if I’d ever let an American or European corporation
tell me what my foundation
should look like.”I wear lipstick,
for my lips stick to the ears of men,
so they can experience in surround sound my screams of agony
with each lash of rulers, measuring tape, and scales,
as if my waistline and weight are inversely proportional to my value as a human being.
See my lips, they stick, but not together.
Rather, they flail open with flames to burn down this culture that once kept them shut.
Now, I mess with eye shadow,
but my eyes shadow over this time where you’ve gone at ends to keep me blind.
But you can’t cover my eyes, look into them.
My eyes foreshadow change.
My eyes foreshadow light.
and I’m not into hair dyeing.
but I’m here, dying, because this oppression won’t get out of my hair.
I have these highlights.
They are highlights of my past atrocities,
they form this oppression I can’t wash off.
It tangles around my mind and twists and braids me in layers,
this oppression manifests,
it’s stressing me so that even though I don’t color my hair,
in a couple of years it’ll look like I dyed it gray.
So what’s my ethnic makeup?
I don’t have any.
Because your ethnicity isn’t something you can just make up.
And as for that shit my sisters paint on their faces, that’s not makeup, it’s make-believe.”I can’t seem to look up at her.
and I’m sure that such actions aren’t foreign to her
because the expression on her face
shows that she knows that my mind is in a trance.As her footsteps fade, my ego is left in crutches.
And rejection never sounded so sweet.
There may be small errors in this transcript
Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com
DEALS and STEALS
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Some irony here, but I love that poem