tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33989412969937736212024-03-13T18:37:49.103-07:00Queer, Gifted & BlackAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-43473042403392748002012-04-08T21:45:00.001-07:002012-04-08T21:47:10.964-07:00DoneI am tired of talking about 'whiteness', tired of responding to and negotiating it, being assaulted by it, being drained by it. Here's why, literally EVERYTHING that could be said about racism and white supremacy has already been said.
People of colour have been prolific in naming it, resisting it and educating about it in ways that sacrifice our mental, emotional and spiritual health - even in our decisions to walk to the store just in our bodies can end in racial profiling, rape or death.
We've written books, manifestos, made movies, films, art - if you can google and find the address of the nearest hipster hangout with wifi, I know you can learn in detail about the legacy and continuing effects of systemic racism.
And then, WE STILL take the time to educate, our friends, our colleagues, our lovers about the violence we are subjected to and we need to deal with defensiveness, derailing, name calling (too many of us have been called psychotic), tone policing - we are asked to say it softly or not at all, to ease up, while still having to negotiate the ubiquitous experience of racism - from which we get no break. To ask us to stop talking about it is exercising a privilege we don't have - the privilege to stop thinking/feeling/living racism.
And because we do this, we don't get to talk about ourselves, don't get to talk about the dynamics between us as people of colour. I wanna talk about the connections/love/pain between Black communities and Latina communities, between East Asians and South Asians, between First Nations communities and Pacific Islanders - I want to talk about the ways we live those experiences as Afro-Latinas, as Indigienous Pacific Islanders - I want to talk and learn and build together as communities of colour.
If you believe that Black Men are all violent offenders, that every womyn in a Hijab is oppressed and you don't understand why people of colour are so angry, I'm done.
Read a book, use the Internet, look around, do some work.
No more apologies, do something.
If you make $250,000/yr, break it up into several people's salaries and hire some brilliant womyn of colour. Tell your old racist aunt who means well to stop talking. Stop mining diamonds, for the love of all life, stop wallowing in self pity and change the system that you benefit from every single day. Do it now. And do it daily.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-56391109229196023092012-03-25T21:22:00.002-07:002012-03-25T22:00:22.846-07:00We Are Life<div class="statusUnit" style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="tlTxFe">
<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_4f6fed7f08ba90018489061">
We
womyn, we queers, we trans folks of colour will be the ones to lead
this revolution. We the cash poor, the differently abled, the Global
South, First Nations People - we are life. <br />
<br />
They thought that
if they killed our men that we would not continue. They thought that the
revolution did not lie in us too. They left us behind, devalued our
contributions, didn't even give us the dignity to acknow<span class="text_exposed_show">ledge us strong in their narratives, named us as weak, as sissies, as violent, as 'crazy'. <br /> <br />
As we worked tirelessly, our bodies raped, colonized, our stories and
our majik co-opted, we endured. And we are here on the front lines, in
their organizations, held into debt by their institutions, whether it be
wage, education, health'care' and we resist. <br /> <br /> We dare to wear
glitter, and dare to worship god(dess), dare to teach, to learn, to
search, to laugh, to love. We are miracles every last one of us. We have
been stripped down to our core and what is left is vibrant, willful,
creative spirits. <br /> <br /> And I say to those upholding patriarchy,
whiteness, sexist, heterosexist, economic supremacy -- are you scared,
are you scared that behind these systems of advantage and your ill
gotten gains, you are nothing? You are lacking in integrity and
inventiveness, in soulfulness and resourcefulness. What have you traded
your humanity for? <br /> <br /> To be 'neutral', to be 'objective', to be
the thing that is never named, but suffocates us all? You traded this
for the richness of your difference, the varieties of your gender,
ethnicity and sexuality. You traded love for towers held up fear, built
up lies and surrounded yourselves in fun house mirrors. <br /> <br /> We may
not live forever, but we live richly, in our relationships, in our
stories, sometimes only in our dreams. And we dream of a time where the
world can be in technicolor, where no one is disposable, where life is a
value and work is a negotiation and liberation is for free. <br /> <br /> Instead you dream of nothing but grey skies and beige life. <br /> <br />
I am so proud of us, proud our ancestry whose reverberations I feel
now. Even if no one sees your actions, no one compensates you for your
work, even if no one hears your voice and all the things you want to say
(all things that we deserve), know that you are valuable regardless of
whether anyone bears witness to you - to us. <br /> <br /> Our energy and
our spirits persist, the universe is grateful for your brilliant life
force and this little brown queer, like a lot of others thank heavens
for your presence and the life affirming solidarity that tells us that
we are not alone. <br /> <br /> I will keep resisting, we all will in our
own way. We will fight even though we shouldn't have to, we will teach
even though it is not our responsibility and we will be murdered even
though there is more than enough to go around. <br /> <br /> We are radical just for existing in everything that we are and all that we are not. And again I say, we are life.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="fbTimelineFeedbackShares"><a data-hover="tooltip" href="http://www.facebook.com/shares/view?id=10151416672075551" rel="async" title="Show shares"></a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-15668435408690770192012-03-23T22:10:00.001-07:002012-03-25T21:22:36.113-07:00Solace<div style="font-family: inherit;">
I find comfort in knowing I shouldn’t take any of this rhetoric
personally, because I understand that it isn’t about me. It is about the
insecurity of people who are afraid of losing their ill gotten gains.
Once I realized that, loving myself, loving other womyn, loving us when
we are on social assistance, when we are sex workers, when we are trans
womyn, when we are womyn of colour was easy - all<span class="text_exposed_show">
these womyn are surviving and challenging the patriarchy with every
single breath they take. That means I have so many examples of beauty,
of resilience, of creatively navigating the system. Every time we
organize, we love each other, we forgive each other, we heal other,
every time we name this shit, we are a threat. Breathe, play, fuck,
rest, resist sisters, we are beautiful threats.<br /> - Kim Crosby<br /> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="text_exposed_show">“They said, “You are a savage and dangerous woman.”<br /> I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.”<br /> ― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero”</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-41558074306115414082012-03-13T16:54:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:24:45.779-07:00Whole<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What does silence look like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What does remembering taste like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What does loving feel like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Feels like standing on the edge of a precipice,
arms wide, eyes shut</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Trusting, knowing that fear gives way into
the endlessness of possibility.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My journey with my Blackness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Silence</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Remembering </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Loving</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And again.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In the presence of a world that thrives on
the absence of ourselves and the desire to sell selves, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I learned as girl
that I did not exist</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I searched in critical eyes, fine printed text, swiftly moving images</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">For some sign that I had been there before</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">That we had been here before</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Girls made of other-worldy browns, tightly
wound spirals, thick black plaits with Technicolor bubbles in our hair </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Girls who smell of islands, sweetness,
blinding brightness lingering on us everywhere we pass</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Girls </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Black Girls</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Brown Girls</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Lost and found girls</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My mama is 1/4 Venezualan Arawak and ¼ Dutch
and half Indo-Trinidadian.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My granny was stolen at 6 by her father and
brought to work for her father’s new family in Trinidad. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My Grandpa was 1 in a long line of indentured
workers brought to Trinidad to build bridges away from Blackness. Brought after
his family watched India ravaged by the British. Brought up in brashness,
halfness, neither white nor blackness, remembering a world that once made space
for his burnt sienna brown.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My father is Half Scottish White Plantation
owner and half West African slave stock, bred in Dominica. My father’s mother
did not have the choice, did not have any, many choices, but to have my father,
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">as my father’s father, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">well everyone called him Massa.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Divided and conquered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Silent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And I name it my Blackness because Blackness
is the presence of all light, of all colours. And it was my Blackness that I
ran from. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And now,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It is my Blackness that I run to</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It is what surrounds me, what reconciles me,
what makes me whole, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">whole </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">whole</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">full</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">round</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">full </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">deep</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">full. soft. full.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Whole</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-60000070289271861892012-02-08T11:03:00.001-08:002012-03-25T21:26:11.921-07:00Community Members Unite to Save World’s Oldest LGBTQ Bookstore<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">LOVE SAVES THE GLAD DAY</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Community Members Unite to Save World’s Oldest LGBTQ Bookstore</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Michael Erickson</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">February 9, 2012 michael@michaelerickson.org</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">TORONTO,
ONTARIO (FEBRUARY 9, 2012) - For months, the future of Glad Day
Bookshop was uncertain. Now, a group of community members have pooled
their funds to buy Glad Day Bookshop, ensuring that this piece of queer
and trans history isn’t lost and that a new era of creativity,
liberation and story can begin.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The current owner, John
Scythes, has been shepherding Glad Day Bookshop for over 20 years.
Scythes is thrilled that a new generation of owners are committed to
preserving the legacy that he and founder Jearld Moldenhauer have built
at Glad Day Bookshop since 1970.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“I really didn’t want to
see Glad Day close its doors – it has been, and continues to be, so
important to so many people.” said Scythes. “These new investors are
full of energy and ideas, including ways to use new technologies. They
know that I am only a phone call away if they ever need anything and I
wish them all the best!”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The group of investors is quite
diverse in identity, including age. At 23, Spencer Charles Smith is the
youngest investor. “Glad Day Bookshop was a crucial centre for the gay
and lesbian liberation movement in Canada,” said Smith. “I know I owe
so much to the activists who came before me so I am investing my money
and my time into Glad Day as a way to honour them and to give back to
the queer community.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The importance of story has been
central to legitimizing and celebrating lesbian, gay, bi and trans
identity and community. Generations have fought against censorship,
against being silenced and against annihilation. This fight continues
around the world today. At a time when the big bookstores only offer
‘what sells’, a business like Glad Day Bookshop will continue to be
committed to the stories we aren’t hearing about and the voices that the
mainstream media and mega-bookstores don’t feel comfortable with.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Arts
and culture give our community wings.” said investor Rio Rodriguez.
“With creativity and representation, our communities find healing,
inspiration, education and celebration.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Over the coming
months, there will be a series of announcements as the new owners reveal
their plans for revitalizing the bookshop and launching initiatives to
build community, foster creativity, support local artists and honour the
importance of pleasure and love in our world.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Glad Day
Bookshop still has the potential for being a cutting edge space to find
queer resources, gather, have conversations and galvanize for our
ongoing and future struggles.” said investor El-Farouk Khaki.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
group of investors includes: Andy Wang, Doug Kerr, El-Farouk Khaki,
Fatima Amarshi, Jonathan Kitchen, Kim Crosby, Lisa Gore , Marcus McCann,
Mark Schaan, Michael Erickson, Michael Went, Nat Trembley, Rio
Rodriguez, Scott Robins, Spencer Charles Smith, Tessa Duplessis and Troy
Jackson.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-16452568880163062752012-01-30T20:26:00.000-08:002012-03-25T21:26:27.849-07:00Why Reverse Isms Don't Exist<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is why things are not equal and this is why you can't just tell people to get over it, do something about it, not be angry about it or treat everybody the same. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is why reverse racism, sexism, heterophobia doesn't exist. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A member of a group with less power cannot affect a group with more power. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Similar parallels can be made with sexism, women as a whole do not have the ability to exercise power over men, but men do. Globally, men are in the most decision making positions. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Queer people don't have the ability to exercise power over straight people, they don't have decision making power, when queer people want rights, they have to appeal to the straight or straight acting dominant structure. Don't you think if Queer People could just band together and have all the rights that we wouldn't just do that? It's not that we haven't thought about it. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Differently abled people don't have the power to exercise dominion over 'Able-bodied' people. This is why so few places are accessible. It isn't an accident, able bodied people didn't think about different bodies, mothers with strollers, seniors, the chronically ill. And even though they would all like to have all places completely accessible to them and work hard to do so even while managing negotiating an oppressive world and violent institutions, they can't change everything because built into the system they have no power. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Poor people don't want to be cash-poor, cash-poor people don't want to hate rich people, cash-poor people are working really hard, just as hard and often harder than rich people, but capitalism requires that a lot of people be poor for it to function. This isn't an accident, it is intentional, it was designed that way to keep a few people really rich and dominating everyone else. And the biggest lie is that they say it is our fault, that the reason why we are in these positions is because we are lazy, sinful, angry, ugly. And then a lot of us believe it, we internalize it and the people in power believe it with ease because it helps them sleep at night after they have millions off of us. They dress up as us for Halloween, they make caricatures out of us, they buy our music and keep us out of their clubs. Lawd Jesus! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And it could all change if people who have power and privilege would give some up and stop arguing about how much you have. We learn this in kindergarten, if you cut me a quarter of the cake, keep 3/4's for yourself and then shit on it, don't be mad when I don't want to eat it or cry when I give it back. Yes it is different from not feeding me at all, but I ain't proud of you for acting right.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">If we could actually acknowledge who was making decisions and the ways they got there, if we could start acknowledging and talking about what is really happening, if only 3 racist things happened to me in a day, I would consider racism dead. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">When you suggest that it isn't hard or we aren't working hard enough or that everyone is equal or that we are being or not being fair, when we know for a fact and it is clear and self-evident that it is not equal, what is happening to us is violent and we are working our assess off every damn day to survive - this is oppression in its finest. If you have privilege in this power structure and someone does you the service of telling you about it, be grateful that you found it, angry that it is happening, and committed to doing something about it.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-9033623970360666062012-01-03T16:58:00.000-08:002012-01-03T17:05:34.457-08:00T-Dot Renaissance Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fubys1lSyJY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
For those of you who weren't able to make it and for those who were part of the fabric woven in the space, here are some of the community musings on our most recent installation of T-Dot Renaissance. <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-55462884231617046072011-12-18T16:39:00.000-08:002012-03-25T21:26:44.907-07:00Truth<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Just wanted to share this that was also reblogged by witchsistah and theoceanandthesky.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">*Trigger warning, writing about sexual assault.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This so fully captures what my personal experience of being sexually assaulted late last year as well as the ensuing court case and to be honest also the years of sexual violence I have experienced prior to that. It meant so much to me to read this, cause it can be so difficult to find language to speak to the paralyzing experience I still have when faced with sexual violence. It is difficult to feel entitled to protect my body, to deny others access when my whole life I have been taught that my body is not my own. It is difficult to explain to people who don't live it, that saying no is an enormous privilege.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I still think about how to be nice even when my physical body is being threatened, but I am getting better at not giving two fucks.
I would also add as layer, the experience of being a womyn of colour, or in my case as a Black womyn, and worrying about whether people will think I'm a 'bitch' and therefore use the 'angry black womyn' trope to discredit me. I appreciate Malcom X's sentiments in this case, “I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">So what everyone is saying that I need to respond sweetly when someone yells misogynist comments or grabs at me or disregards my constant pleas to leave me alone and then I get blamed for being the cause of the very violence that is being perpetrated against me. Umm, no.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This in part is why I reappropriate words like bitch and cunt. Bitch has been used to dismiss the experiences of violence that we have had, to act like we are entirely unreasonable for being angry when we are being deprived of basic human rights.
If you run into me in the streets, I won't have a smile, cause I am protecting myself against racism, misogyny, if I am on a bike, a violent car culture and now, it is also cold.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But when I look across the street and I lock eyes with the adorbs Queer & Trans POC that resist by existing in glitter, bow ties, swagga that won't quit - I remember our resilience. I know we ain't got a choice, but babies you do it with such style, such grace.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Thanks for keeping me whole.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“TW FOR RAPE
If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes.
Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.”
Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Women who are taught that refusing to flirt back results in an immediately hostile environment will continue to unwillingly and unhappily flirt with somebody who is invading their space and giving them creep alerts.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">People wonder why women don’t “fight back,” but they don’t wonder about it when women back down in arguments, are interrupted, purposefully lower and modulate their voices to express less emotion, make obvious signals that they are uninterested in conversation or being in closer physical proximity and are ignored. They don’t wonder about all those daily social interactions in which women are quieter, ignored, or invisible, because those social interactions seem normal. They seem normal to women, and they seem normal to men, because we were all raised in the same cultural pond, drinking the same Kool-Aid.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And then, all of a sudden, when women are raped, all these natural and invisible social interactions become evidence that the woman wasn’t truly raped. Because she didn’t fight back, or yell loudly, or run, or kick, or punch. She let him into her room when it was obvious what he wanted. She flirted with him, she kissed him. She stopped saying no, after a while.
”</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">—
Harriet J on Another post about rape (via archenemies)
Oh my god, this. All of this.
(via one-bite-at-a-time)</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-4536583843458739432011-12-03T10:36:00.001-08:002011-12-03T10:36:46.467-08:00GYC Profile: T Dot Renaissance<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IvsyMVJSxrQ?rel=0&hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-77778765132424863512011-11-21T13:10:00.001-08:002011-11-21T13:14:39.292-08:00In Praise Of The Vulnerable Femme: The Redux<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Times;
panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
span.messagebody
{mso-style-name:messagebody;
mso-style-unhide:no;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My breasts sag.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
They are small, soft, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Easily laying against my chest</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Falling off to the sides</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Across them light lines that weave
stories like rivers flowing downward to the earth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I have practiced exactly one thousand
positions, casually cupping them, shrouding them</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Your eyes averted, kissing around them</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You pretend my breasts don’t sag</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I pretend my breasts don’t sag</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We pretend our breasts don’t sag,
pretend our bellies are flat, pretend our hearts do not hurt.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And I want to say
that there is power in our softness, in our vulnerability. When I see us in
mirrors, biting lips and furrowing brows, I want to drop to my knees womyn and
tell you that we are perfection. But we stand in this all together, carrying
with us the whispers and shouts of a glossy photoshopped world that tries to
will us into non-existence with size 00's and I see you worry that my gaze
comes with a judgement but I promise you it doesn't. (And to be clear no shade
to my slender sisters, I simply believe that you/we should all get a real
number)</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<span class="messagebody">Dorothy Allison says “Femme girls dance on razors every
day of our lives, and some days it is only bravado that keeps us upright."
And womyn I see you, I see you in your fierceness, your anger and your
insecurity and I love you in all of it. </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<br />
I love the many expression of femme-ness, love the subtly and directness in our
sexuality, love the war paint, love us knee deep in the swamp and wide eyed in
my arms. I love it when you tell me what to do and love it equally when you
have no idea.<br />
I want to shield us from the whole world beautifulbrokengorgeous as we are. I
think that your round bellies are so sexy, the way you wrap your tight
curls/locks/braids/crown is artful and commanding and when you say something crass/brilliant/provocative/brave
I.melt.every.single.time.<br />
<br />
And I can't fit it all in here, nor will I try, but I promise to tell you all
that I love you more. Proudly declare it and treat you preciously. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In this patriarchal, racist, mind fuck
of a world we are both what is desired and defiled, vessels of power and of
shame. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A world often</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
surprised by our intelligence and dismayed by our independence.<br />
<br />
But babes we are oh so hard on the world, can't help but turn heads and drop
jaws. Can't help but free minds and steal hearts. We are scientists and sex
workers and when we find each other and find ourselves in each other, I know I
am watching god.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And it is oh so hard to love without
conditions, to love with the urgency that we deserve, and in defiance of all
that opposes blackgirllove.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For the moments we forget, for the
moments we can’t find the joy in our arms curve, the blessings in our fat
thighs, the bliss in our sagging breasts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For those moments,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I want to remind us that we are never
too much and always enough.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Explosions of stardust</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bodies of pure worship</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Magnificent in our ugly</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Eternal in our darkness</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-36944644899726204222011-11-08T09:37:00.000-08:002011-11-08T09:37:45.026-08:00T Dot Renaissance Elders Dinner: The Trailerhttps://<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hEyzYo-uztI?rel=0&hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-38217501431673409782011-10-24T19:20:00.000-07:002011-10-24T20:17:57.165-07:00Ancestor Worshipping: T Dot Renaissnce Style<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0hsRCKalhCRcNPaJkeuCZAjRuVl8zCCYCf-KaJdWXYI8MVHnJcwzgWnqGwabUD4MbTVYPr-mamelCagx_7kWeyRE9GxV9PTiLyxAZxE-Ywn5WfMlLiiuNuOTC_SRXTnebr7GawHayRU/s1600/THISONE.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0hsRCKalhCRcNPaJkeuCZAjRuVl8zCCYCf-KaJdWXYI8MVHnJcwzgWnqGwabUD4MbTVYPr-mamelCagx_7kWeyRE9GxV9PTiLyxAZxE-Ywn5WfMlLiiuNuOTC_SRXTnebr7GawHayRU/s320/THISONE.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I walk here because you walked first,"</span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Since my grandmother passed, I talk to her all the time. In a very real way, since she outgrew her physical body, her fyre has been liberated into the universe surrounding me always. I have come to understand my actions as offerings I give her on the alter that is the life she gifted me with. Knowing this, it has made me more conscious of my actions and their significance backwards (into her arms), forwards (to my babies) and side to side (my community).</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But in my experience, in our families, the cycle of hurt, trauma and violence can often mean that love skips a generation. This can look like 'bad parents', 'great grandparents', like endless Aunties and 2 Moms, even 3. This happens in a whole other sorts of ways too, this is not 'the' solitary experience, but one of the experiences that resonates for Folks of Colour. All too often because of slavery, residential schools, wars, silence, our parents didn't learn how to parent because they never enjoyed such a privilege. And at the same time, we also had elders that could turn $20 into 2 weeks of food, that made birthdays feel like national holidays, moved us across oceans and helped us do our homework. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As children of the diaspora, we also learned how to craft new families, seek our villages in the cities and the hoods. Elders, parents, caregivers can look very different for us. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And it is here is where this idea sprung up. At this intersection between elders and ancestry, at the point between worship and honour and at the place between love and gratitude, we birthed our 'Elder's Dinner'.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">For the past year, I have been meeting as part of the T-Dot Renaissance Collective.
<span style="color: black;">We are a group of emerging and interdisciplinary artists, working and
rooted in Toronto. Emerging from the successful staging of Amanda Parris’s
theatrical production, <i>32C,</i> and her motha luvin incomparable Artistic Direction we have converged to tell a single shared story through different mediums. We will be having our</span>
<span style="color: black;">first-ever
collective art installation exploring diasporic journeys, from December 3-4<sup>th</sup>,
2011 at Loft 404 (located at 404-263 Adelaide St. West). </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">And as I met with some of the members of the Audio and Visual Group, Keisha-Monique, Logik Donaldson and Alix Mukonambi, the idea came that we should host a dinner. A dinner for our elders, a dinner where we cook for them and sit with them and ask them questions and hear stories across diasporas, across, decades and oceans, across Ackee & Saltfish and </span>Ugali.
</span><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Arial;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073711037 9 0 511 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-size:10.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Through all they have done and lived, do they know, I mean really know that they are not alone? And not just as a Black womyn or as a Red womyn, do they get to sit in the collective experience as a Womyn as Men and People of Colour and feel affirmed in knowing that in pain, imperfections, the brilliantbrokenblessed parenting, they cleared space for us to have a resistance? They have given birth to Activists, Artists, Cultural Curators, <b>Fathers</b>, Life Givers? They gave birth to us.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Do you remember when we were little and our elders (parents, caregivers, chosen family) may have suggested that you have a playdate with someone. Maybe because you both like to jump rope, you were both 8 or maybe just cause they wanted to have some adult conversation for an hour...this is not a grown-up play date. Not for the faint of heart, but for the exact opposite.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Welcome to the renaissance.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-56002692809541038052011-10-22T07:19:00.001-07:002011-10-22T08:22:36.371-07:00Learning To Love In The Dark<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/UvotUbTQZW8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />As I young girl growing up among mostly white people and mostly rich, racist white people. I was left with a long legacy of internalized racism. I think that is why I am so vocal about it, because I know how powerful and destructive the tools of colonialism are. Whether they are movies or Christianity. Anything can and is used as a tool to keep up oppressed, and we must be ever vigilant, because they work. And I want us to be free.<br />
<br />
One of the ways I am working to decolonize my spirit, is by loving myself and loving my and our blackness. It has put me in a time in my life where my relationships with Black and Brown Womyn are my priority, to love them and give them my best and that includes myself. Because for a long time, I wasn't very good to myself. And whether it was because at 15, when my boyfriend's mother told me that she was pleased I was not one of <i>those </i>immigrants who were destroying her white middle class neighbourhood. In order not to believe I could be as bad as she described, I instead chose to pretend that I was outside of that. As a mixed race girl, it is one of the 'privileges' that we enjoy, we are able to reject Blackness. White plantation owners would do the paper bag test to us and not our darker skinned sisters, this meant that we had the option of social mobility, even if it was only out of a strategy of divide and conquer, letting a few of us through so we could oppress each other. As Keisha-Monique says, "the most powerful tool of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed".<br />
<br />
As someone who has dated a lot of white folks or folks with white privilege and now in a relationship with not only someone who is descriptively Black, but someone who is politically Black American, I am confronting other remnants of that internalized racism, some white guilt I was holding on to, some body issues, so much in fact. And inspired by this radical (remembering that radical means from the roots;) process of loving and healing, is this piece I performed at <a href="http://www.brownstargirl.org/index.html">Leah Lakshmi Piepzna- Samarasinha</a>'s launch of the most important and beautiful <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Love-Cake-Leah-Lakshmi-Piepzna-Samarasinha/dp/1894770692">Love Cake</a>. There are two pieces I perform in this, the first one is a version of a poem I submitted to Soy Forde's Creative Commess Blog Carnival, check out her blog <a href="http://soyluv.wordpress.com/">here</a>.<br />
<br />
I try to remind myself that there is no purity in any of it, decolonization, even liberation are processes we move in and out of, ebb and flow, live and learn in. There is no inauthenticity in any of it, through it all we Black and Brown, this too is a part of our experience. There is so much nuance, degree in all of it. It's why I love it when we tell our stories, all of them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-41598072333904939842011-09-16T13:12:00.000-07:002011-09-16T13:14:52.683-07:00Justice<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Times;
panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
p
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Times;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Times;
panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-font-charset:78;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Cambria;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
mso-themecolor:hyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
p
{mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0cm;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0cm;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Times;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS 明朝";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
@page WordSection1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:36.0pt;
mso-footer-margin:36.0pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
-->
</style>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">To all the survivors, you beauties made of
stardust out there, again I open this post with a trigger warning. I will be
talking about sexual assault and know that you don't have to read this if you
don't want to.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I decided to press charges. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I learned this morning that the white man who
sexually assaulted me on November 4<sup>th</sup>, 2010 for over an hour was
just found not guilty and acquitted of all charges.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On August 16<sup>th</sup>, I testified in
court against this man to a white judge. This person was represented by a white
man who cross-examined me for over 7 hours. The court reporter another white
man, flipped through a catalogue and highlighted things that he would like to
purchase in the future and was visibly bored as I choked on tears, words and
visions of a night I did not want to remember.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The lawyer who defended him did everything
that he could to malign my character, to degrade and dehumanize me, even to go
as far as calling me a circus freak at one point. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I was lucky to have family in the while I sat
there staring out across at Babylon.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">These people with a comfortable stride, with
smiles on their faces, the lawyer, this attacker – I could see in their eyes
the hatred, the complete disdain for life that led to the middle passage, that
perpetuates a prision industrial complex that feeds on the souls of folks of
colour, that drives a genocide of First Nations and indigenous peoples around the
world.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">There was no plea I could make, no logic, no
reason that this little Nigger Grrl could create. Not even the truth in all of
its rough, raw and shameful entirety was sufficient. Not even the fact that I
had nothing to gain from this process and so much to lose. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Throughout this whole process, the
responsibility, the work has been left with me and my folks. Queer and trans
folks, young people, people of colour, cash poor, we are used to the tragedies,
the late night calls, the never ending battles and the lawyer - well he drove
home in his Lexus. </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The work of trying to forget what happened in
order to cope, the work of rehearsed remembering in order to hold him
accountable, the work of walking out of the courtroom on a ‘break’ only to be
expected to share the same space with him and his conspirators. The work of
being okay of making it through each day and of reconciling my years of
surviving sexual violence prior to that. This is our work.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And through all this, I know that I am not
alone and in many ways I am privileged to have a community of people who have
shared experiences, who have brilliant wisdom and the capacity to support me
while they make it through everyday.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And when I think of the mass injustice faced
by Womyn Of Colour the world over, I am enraged and I need you all to be too.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think about the 11 year old girl gang raped
by 18 men in Texas, who didn’t tell a soul, and the way it came to light was
because it was videotaped and put on facebook.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/11-year-old-girl-gang-raped-by-18-men-in-texas.html">http://www.care2.com/causes/11-year-old-girl-gang-raped-by-18-men-in-texas.html</a></span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think about Assata Shakur and Angela Davis.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think about the Toronto Police officer who
gave us the key to avoid sexual assault and rape – just stop dressing like
sluts.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think about the 'Highway of Tears'.
http://www.missingnativewomen.org/bc.htm </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think about hundreds of women I have met
who abound with stories of injustice and deal with the internalized sexism that
persuades us that we have no one to blame but ourselves.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I am furious.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is not over.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And in the illustrious words of a sister of
mine, </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“we are bigger than this system, we are
bigger than it all”</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I am not going down without a fight.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">We are proud, resilient and free.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And I am not going to pour my energies into
people into a system who deny our existence, who deny a system designed to oppress
us.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I am determined to love my community even
more fiercely, to nurture and feed myself and each other, and to remind us in
the face of everything that we see that we are magnificent and abundant.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But today, I rest.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In Love & Solidarity</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-15280654026024163352011-06-27T09:25:00.000-07:002011-06-27T09:25:50.919-07:00CBC.ca | Metro Morning | Transgender Art<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/episodes/2011/06/27/transgender-art/">CBC.ca | Metro Morning | Transgender Art</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-78869229246960074772011-06-21T20:59:00.000-07:002011-06-21T21:05:39.602-07:00Gender: An Exhibit Of Epic Proportions<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YLqUjKF7YEv3wEPCcl_YpuedcsrLKRI_LUslQMtti6qhcbGRrw963Q1FjDs7ojv89utR1gzZGm2ED4J8c7LFVdxQPwC5LQ7lgLKvcYPflBoAN_fLiBqCIZBcuNl-QLFI7K1qn6WsvBg/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-06-14+at+10.37.20+AM.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 325px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YLqUjKF7YEv3wEPCcl_YpuedcsrLKRI_LUslQMtti6qhcbGRrw963Q1FjDs7ojv89utR1gzZGm2ED4J8c7LFVdxQPwC5LQ7lgLKvcYPflBoAN_fLiBqCIZBcuNl-QLFI7K1qn6WsvBg/s400/Screen+shot+2011-06-14+at+10.37.20+AM.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620889938979490194" border="0" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-64011093849103349662011-06-12T22:35:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:33:10.774-07:00In Praise Of The Vulnerable Femme<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My breasts sag.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I don't need to be reassured that they don't, nor do I need to be told that I am still pretty anyway or that it doesn't matter because breasts are meant to feed babies.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The reason I don't need any of those things is that I love that my breasts sag. I haven't always, I have had partners who promised me that once I had 'their' babies that they would gladly buy me breast implants. I have had my breasts ignored outright in sex despite the fact that I see the goddess herself when my breasts are being worshiped, I have had sales associates in bra stores advise me strongly to get something with more support that keep my girls up high.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The thing is, sometimes I wear my hair up and sometimes I wear it down and I wanna wear my tits in the exact same way.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Sistas it is hard, I ain't gon' front, but the self-consciousness is exhausting because in truth I have so much else that I need/want/love to do. And I hate the shame game. As a womynist, there is often the projection and the self-perception that you have it all together or that you don't have permission from anyone to do anything but be secure and powerful. And I want to say that there is power in our softness, in our vulnerability. When I see us in mirrors, biting lips and furrowing brows, I want to drop to my knees womyn and tell you that you are perfection. But we stand in this all together, carrying with us the whispers and shouts of a glossy photoshopped world that tries to will us into non-existence with size 00's and I see you worry that my gaze comes with a judgement but I promise you it doesn't. (And to be clear no shade to my slender sisters, I simply believe that you/we should all get a real number)</span><span class="messageBody" ft="{"type":3}" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br />Dorothy Allison says “Femme girls dance on razors every day of our lives, and some days it is only bravado that keeps us upright." And womyn I see you, I see you in your fierceness, your anger and your insecurity and I love you in all of it. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I love the many expression of femme-ness, love the subtly and directness in our sexuality, love the war paint, love you knee deep in the swamp and wide eyed in my arms. I love it when you tell me what to do and love it equally when you have no idea.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I want to shield us from the whole world beautifulbrokengorgeous (thank you Leah) as we are. I think that your round bellies are so sexy, the way you wrap your tight curls/locks/braids/crown is artful and commanding and when you say something crass/brilliant/provocative/silly I.melt.every.single.time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And I can't fit it all in here, nor will I try, but I promise to tell you all that I love you more. Proudly declare it and treat you preciously. The world is oh so hard on us, we are pursued by men, women and other genders who can love us and demean us in the same breath. Who are surprised by our intelligence and dismayed by our independence.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But babes we are oh so hard on the world, can't help but turn heads and drop jaws. Can't help but free minds and steal hearts. We are scientists and sex workers and when we find each other and find ourselves in each other, each time I am sure the stars align.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And so I am grateful that you have shown me how to love myself, how to forgive myself and how to push myself.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And with those gifts diosas, I will love my saggy breasts and love yours too.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-75439783419147923792011-06-12T18:24:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:32:24.746-07:00Our Call To Revolution<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It has been very hard for me to write this, my head is full of voices, parallel thoughts, ideas and emotions churning tumultuously to the point that I just want to turn it off.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But there also is a feeling of urgency and a desire to communicate this and a profound fear of what happens when we as oppressed peoples speak our truths.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">At an event today held by Felicia Mings, we watched a documentary about Patrice Lumumba. He was the first Prime Minister of the Congo after they 'gained their independence from Belgium' (for any First Nations folks, folks from the Caribbean, South or Central America or from Africa, you probably know first hand why there are quotations marks around that heavily loaded statement). He like so many who came before him and after him, he like the Mohawk of Kanesetake or the people of Haiti had the audacity to speak the truth. He denounced the atrocities of a country who built themselves on the backs and bathed in the blood of the People of The Congo. A country that instituted policies where Black Africans not meeting their quotas around the production of rubber would have their limbs chopped off. He would not stand idly by while Belgium attempted to rewrite history with themselves as humanitarians, as stewards of civilizations and with the Congolese people as 'incapable savages' unable to govern themselves as individuals much less their massive country. And for this and in his attempt to salvage an unsalvageable, inherently oppressive regime, a regime destined to crumble - not because the People Of The Congo failed it, but because it failed them; he was brutally murdered.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Can we blame these leaders who attempt to work within these systems and who are then made martyrs by the colonial powers? We may know that 'master's tools cannot dismantle the master's house', but there is no purity in this system, we do what we can. There is no outside, we are survivors, perpetuators and perpetrators at various times in various spaces and perhaps all at once.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But that isn't the point.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I watched X-Men Origins today with Nabil. (Promise no spoliers) And one of things that the movie explored was the complexity between Professor X's approach to activism and Magnetos. Professor X was definitely on the "Forgive them father, for they not know what they do" tip. He preached understanding, forgiveness, non-violent action and faith. But what the movie also shared was some internalized self-hatred and a desire to make himself and all mutants invaluable to the humans in the hopes that they would accept them. Whereas Magneto, a Holocaust survivor had suffered directly at the hands of 'men doing their jobs' and had no reason to trust humanity, believing that if they had to make themselves useful in order to be accepted, the moment they were deemed no longer immediately useful, that they would be exterminated.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Nabil and I thought about the way that Malcolm X was demonized for being unwilling to trust a group of people who hadn't yet shown themselves to be trustworthy, but Martin Luther King believed that someone had to trust first, had to forgive first, had to love first and he was asking us as the truly powerful ones to do that.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">When I first started doing this work, although I didn't know it at the time, I did it in part because I wanted to be accepted by White people, by Straight people. I wanted people to acknowledge me as smart and valuable. I want to be invaluable and I thought that would grant me safety, it would protect me and allow me to protect others like me. I wanted to be recognized as equal and I would sit in workshops while people said horrible things and I would understand and absorb. I would put myself aside while listening to homophobic and racist things and I would remember the context of the situation that we were in and I would forgive, and I would explain, and I would love.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Now a decade later,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1. I have learned that 'forgiveness' cannot and should not happen without accountability. The order may change but they both must be present.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2. I learned that no one can grant me equality, acceptance. I know that even if they gave these things out, you couldn't pay me to take it from the powers that be. And here I am paraphrasing what Alexis has said, 'we are not valuable because of what we produce, what we create, who we entertain, or how well we pretend to be happy'. I am valuable as I am a child of the universe, no less than the sun or stars</span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">themselves.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">3. I have learned that there is no I, there is a we and the change that we are </span><span style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">manifesting</span><span style="font-size: small;"> today, is not the change I was </span><span style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">fighting</span><span style="font-size: small;"> for then.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Today I am profoundly disappointed in the non-profit industrial complex that I am part of in Toronto. I am tired of being funded to provide the social services our government is meant to provide, to provide the education that our school system is meant to provide, to act as a consolation prize to a system that is/has failed us and has gleefully lied in our faces the entire time.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am insulted by the 'core service review' being conducted by the Ford Government; by a process that asks people if they would;</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">a) Like to privatize hydro</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">b) Want to keep it public</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">c) Don't care as long as the service is good!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And in a society where it is painfully cool not to care, where the voices of people who know better are routinely ignored in favour of the people who have the most money - this 'review' process is a joke. It is a tokenizing process where we will fight and watch as our essential services are turned over to institutions that not only can't run at a deficit like the government can, but in fact their primary purpose to continue in perpetuity to increase profits and at the end of it all, we will be told that in fact we were consulted.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am angry at a system that sets us up to fail, invests money into a sector without supporting the development of real skills, pushes us beyond all reasonable capacity so we don't even have the mental space to innovate and then blames us when we haven't met our three year plan. And despite </span><span style="font-size: small; font-style: italic;">their </span><span style="font-size: small;">inability to morph into successful social enterprises, expects us to do so while solving poverty, racism and making a series of documentaries and 'zines about it without owning any resource that we can leverage.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am outraged at a government and a country that has never been able to hold itself accountable for the injustices of residential schools, for Japanese internment camps, and an education system that effectively ignores all of the work made by people of colour historically both their forced and voluntary contributions all while defending their 'lily white' reputations as peace keepers on the global stage.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There is a quote "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." And I say fuck that, fuck a system that tells me that darkness is something I should be afraid of. And in fact we know that we are powerful beyond measure, and we are not afraid of this, but the colonizers, the appropriators, it is them who are afraid, who teach us to be afraid of our colours, of the Red, Yellow, Brown & Black, of the boundlessness of our Genders, and our Sexuality. They teach us to devalue our roles as farmers, as stewards of the land, of the knowledge that is indigenous to our people all so they can take it from us.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A small example: urban sprawl. Cash-poor, POC, Queer & Trans folks are all encouraged to move to the cities for the jobs and the liberalism and the everything. And we do, we come in droves because in the rurals, we have watched the lands become factory farms, and in our home countries we have been persecuted and in our islands we have watched slavery morph into indentured servitude and yet again into sweat shops. Meanwhile they move to the country and buy cottages, and they move to Trinidad and they buy the beach I played on as a child and we live in apartments the size of closets, and freezing cold basements and on the corner of King & Dufferin.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I could go on. We all could. And you know who I am speaking about when I say we.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And we are demanding (and I say we because this is built on conversations and experiences I have had with so many of you) is a change. And we have been demanding a change historically, consistently, fearlessly.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But my question is about now and here in Toronto, what are our demands? And family, can we come together at the same table and make that list with the knowledge that we have the power in numbers, in knowledge, in culture, in creativity, in innovation?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What would it look like if all of us non-profits and community organizations united and demanded funding for capital, for buildings, for infrastructure and to not just to be exploited through project funding? We need to have resources in order to leverage, in order to sustain this work that in truth needs to be done by millions.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What if we refused to be young leaders, refused to be picked off and groomed and fawned at? Instead we chose to leave no one behind and everytime we are individually invited to any table, we consulted with our community before and after to ensure that all of our interests being met. And if they weren't, then we would not go, because our precious energy is meant to be used somewhere else.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What if we practiced community accountability? If we didn't kick out of members but instead held them and ourselves accountable for the mistakes that we made and we did so out of love and not shame.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">What if we demanded the education that we are entitled to? What if we went back to our high schools, elementary schools and the school board and demanded to learn about Audre Lorde, and your Granny, and the battle of Tecumseh and wouldn't leave until they taught us and all of the other kids?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">No one should do it alone, that is how we become martyrs.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My question, family, is 'How do we do this together?'</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-12277609588905390492011-05-18T19:36:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:32:05.745-07:00Courage<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpFirst" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It has taken me a long time to write this and I thought perhaps it was because I was so frustrated, angry or disappointed by it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But what I have learned during this most affirming time in North Carolina, that in fact I was deeply hurt. My feelings, my heart and my spirit were assaulted during that experience. And it could have been avoided, it could have even transformed in real time. But the folks in charge wouldn’t allow it, despite the surging of energy in the room. I felt tokenized, exploited and silenced, so I left early and didn’t return – until now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">But I want to, I need to write about this because I want to warn us all, to affirm us all, and to remind us to trust our intuition, and to conserve our energy in order to nourish ourselves and our communities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">That is the thing with oppression, it is violent and violence hurts. But unlike a hit to the face, which can be treated directly, with intention. You can ice that until the swelling goes down. Oppressive violence, whether it is overt, subtle or systemic doesn’t operate in isolation, it becomes chronic, exists across centuries and can seed itself on our insides active or dormant, lodged in our subconscious. It is a parasite. You may not even notice that it is there at first. It may have already had time to multiply inside you, trick your body and brain to believe that it is supposed to be there. That its presence is somehow normal. It may have you doubting yourself, your very right to exist - but my folks it is real. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I have had many elders in my journey recount that prior to segregation, at least you know what was good. You knew that the government didn’t believe you were human. But now, they want us to believe that it is somehow a post-racial time, that all these experiences are things of the past, figments of our overactive, understimulated imaginations. And that all the power lies in you. If you fail or succeed, it based on your own individual efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is not true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The workshop I attended was around ‘walking out’ of systems or structures that are failing, recognizing that although there can be no purity in a walk out because we are all still part of a larger system that is inherently fucked up, it is still possible to resist and challenge/change parts of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The first question we were asked was around courage, and where do we need courage. And I sat with it for a minute and realized the question itself was seated with so much privilege. In my communities, courage is not the question. For my genderqueer siblings who have to go to public bathrooms every day, for all the survivors of war and refugee camps who have to sit through another obnoxious air show, for all the First Nations folks who have to listen to one more O Canada, for all the nannies and caregivers who raise another one of their children only to have to exit through the ‘help’ door – courage is not the question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We have courage and lots of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We keep going in the face of a system that criminalizes us, erases our histories, denies us access to basic civil liberties. And we still create culture wildly, irreverently. We still raise beautiful children into strong and resilient adults, we still learn and share our stories. We scare the shit out of the folks at the ‘top’ and still are the source of most if not all of the innovation in this world and we watch as our ideas are appropriated again and again. Watered down and whitewashed out. I look across the frontlines and see our bodies littered there, from Tecumseh to the Black Panthers, I need a damn good reason to continue sending our bodies out there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The question for us isn’t courage and maybe it is for other folks. Do you have the courage to take a $30,000 pay cut, do you have the courage to check the racist things your family says, do you have the courage to seek justice?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The question for me is this;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Why are we going to work so hard to affirm the youth in our communities to remember their brilliance if you are still going to racially profile and deport them? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Why am I going to praise the beauty of gender diversity if you are still going to watch while others call them deviants in the street? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Why am I going to make another incandescent mural to affirm hope if you are going to murder one of our participants? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My question is; what is the work that you are willing to do? What power are you going to give up? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My challenge to you is to put your money where your mouth is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Are you willing to give reparations and not charity?<br /> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Are you willing to fight for affordable housing not because you need it, but because we need it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Are you willing to show solidarity and not sympathy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Do you recognize that all of our liberation is wrapped up in each other and that you don’t need to save us, you need to save yourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The conversation continued and a model was shown to us that proposed that belief systems come into existence, as they peak, then people begin recognize that it is flawed and they and others work together to hospice the old system, and create something new from the old one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And even in the way it was framed, we were asked to just accept it as a pattern that has been noticed across the world and not to criticize it. Now I have seen this model before, and I had the same criticisms then as I had in that moment even though I was asked to silence them in order to participate in an education system that was denying that I exist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">If we fill this model with people, what it looks like is this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpFirst" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpFirst" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Cash poor and racialized people are at the bottom and have been for a while. They have always known that the system doesn’t work. It was built on their backs whether through the trans atlantic slave trade or through the prison industrial complex or through the non-profit industrial complex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Middle-class folks ride that line. The system was designed to keep them placated and at first things are good and then they get better. But somewhere along the peak, things aren’t as good as it seems, the quality of life might decrease, they might finally hear the folks on the bottom, they may even feel responsible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpLast" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel2CxSpLast" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">3. At the top are the rich, the ones who making away like bandits, who ultimately need to quell the dissent to maintain their raping and pillaging. They figure out how to package, propagandize and institutionalize the new system these ‘edgewalkers’ ‘create’ so that ultimately the status quo doesn’t change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpFirst" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Now this is just my idea and I welcome other ways of reading this model. But the way it is presented is inherently oppressive because it assumes that all things/experiences/people are equal and that simply isn’t true. It is very similar to the same primary fallacy with economics, the assumption that resources are infinite and that profit can grow forever is akin to the primacy fallacy that plagues this model – that somehow race, class, gender – one’s social location doesn’t matter. And I hate to break it to y’all but in this day and age, it is impossible to have any meaningful dialogue without acknowledging that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Environmental movements are meaningless without conversations around environmental racism, just as state and foundation sponsored anti-violence initiatives are irrelevant without criticism of state sanctioned violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">We need to recognize that we have different work to do. While we are figuring out how to heal, how to live away from the edge of subsistence, how to learn to love ourselves and each other – those who enjoy vertical mobility need to step down from the seats in government and ensure that the people most directly impacted by policy are in fact the decision makers, they need to learn and study the real histories of the people in the world, they need to give money back – money made through plantations, slavery and fucked up foreign policy. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0cm;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0cm;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
But a start to all of this, is to have the courage to step aside so there is finally room for all of us.<o:p></o:p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-56621442632652253992011-05-17T21:23:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:35:07.510-07:00For Femmes Of Colour Who Rose Too Early & Set Too Soon<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This is some real hard talks and for all my sistren who have lived through or who are living through sexual violence, be careful with yourself. You don't have to read this to prove anything to yourself or others. You are magnificent as you are.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I, like many of the femmes of colour in my life, regardless of sexual orientation, have experienced sexual violence at the hands of strangers, friends, family even lovers. Hell the media and the government actively participate in this shit as well, even knowledge masquerading as 'science' (psychology today, I am looking squarely at you) are to blame. It requires courage to as the brilliant Arti Metha says to walk out with, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 14px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">me and my slutty thigh high sparkly fishnets against the world". </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 14px;"></span>Over the course of my life this violence has come in the form of caregivers, street harassment, and at the hands of partners both male and female. I was introduced to sex and sexual desire at a very young age, and let me be specific, I was introduced to being 'sexually desired' at a profoundly wrong age. I felt deep, gut wrenching shame, responsibility and oh so much guilt. I was sure that people could see it written all over me. I begged and pleaded to what I understood God to be, to have me forget. To wipe away the memories, the sounds, the dreams, the flashbacks and start me all over again. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I think something very different happens to girls know sex too soon. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Girls who come to know that sex is a currency and we are in a recession.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Girls who don't yet know the context, that we come from a history where sex workers were priestesses and now our bodies are regularly dismembered and commodified. We are blamed and branded as w</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">e tap into a power stemming as far back as time immemorial. And my sistren, I want to remind us that we remain both beautiful and priceless no matter how many people we sleep with, no matter what happens to our sex.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In this patriarchal, racist, mind fuck of a world we are both what is desired and defiled, vessels of power and of shame. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And there I was trying to walk that impossibly fine line between Madonna and whore. Completely inexperienced, but with a body that clearly said otherwise and I had no allies. Had no mentors, had no women I could ask to provide me with guidance as I wandered, or rather strutted. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And then we are told that this is what makes us special. And at first it feels like it, and even when it doesn't it still is the only place where women are truly 'validated'. We can be smart, athletic, creative, but we all are required to still be attractive. And being this exceptional, holds in betwixt the fingers of its' mysticism the promise of love, attention, adoration, but mostly the promise of a promise. The promise of something more.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I find myself searching the eyes of each person I meet and asking the following questions:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1" style="margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Could you love me?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Would you hurt me?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Do you want to fuck me?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“And how would I know the difference?”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I imagine that it must be so freeing, so beautiful to look into someone’s eyes for the first time and see eyes, and feel nervous and curious, maybe some butterflies, some deep in the chest, down in the belly welling up of something. I wonder what it must be like not to need to know the answer to these questions, not to have your survival depend on knowing whether someone’s desire to fuck will overwhelm their desire to protect you from harm, on knowing what you must exploit, what you must manipulate in order to get space in the midst of this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">We girls of the fatherless tribe, girls of the motherless tribe we work in trade. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And I have done it too - for love, support, to build family and to find freedom.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And I have no regrets.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Not one.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">We glorify men as pimps and hustlers, but I want to shout out to all the womyn doing what they have to do to survive, all the womyn doing what they have to do to thrive. To the video girls, and the trans womyn, the sex workers and the dancers. Our society gives us few options and we are still able to leverage these experiences into book deals, professional dance careers and Masters degrees in physics. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And I want to say, it's not enough to tell us to keep being strong and keep on hustlin. We actually need work, commitment for others to challenge this culture and transform the dialogue. And I want to give props to those of you who do it. Those of you who sit with us and devise plans for us to come home safely, those who tell us that we are are your heros, those who check their brethren when they spit whack 'game' to a sister - because it isn't a game. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This is our lives.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1" style="margin-left: 0cm; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And these are our bodies.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And even if we like sex that is rough or that explores rape fantasies, even if we love or have deep appreciation for masculine energy regardless of the body that it comes in - the fact of the matter is that the consent is what turns us on. We are giving permission to ourselves to be submissive and this in fact is a reclaiming of our bodies in a culture that decries that it is our 'no's' that mean 'yes'. It is possible to protest misogyny with my legs spread wide open and I am going to just that.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And as much as wish I didn't have to say this, we have to say this.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Don't rape us.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Don't shout slurs at us on the streets.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Don't act with ownership over our bodies.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Don't police our bodies and that includes how we dress, how we fuck and how we birth.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Yes means yes. That's it.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Don't drug us, slip things in our drinks, wait until we are drunk - these things are not consent.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">We are not responsible for getting you off, or tempting you or in general for your lack of self control. </span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">We are children of the universe no less than the sun or stars.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It's time you all acted like it.</span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-59345180069863915232011-05-14T20:59:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:36:46.635-07:00Erosion<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The silence and the noise between us is deafening and defining us </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As we speak and mouth words of sorrow and promises, things far too delicate to share. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We instead stick to the profane </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Eroding each other's heart</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Happy to feel the soft, warm spot</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Where we can again lay our weary heads</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-62941274780418572602011-05-03T20:59:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:57:15.685-07:00re.member.ing.<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I don't have a really strong grasp on what family means.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And trust and unconditional love are things that I found only in my relationship with my grandmother. So now as I look through footage of my grandmother and think of how to piece things together, I find myself walking into increasingly uncharted territory. Soft and sharp memories, unending contradictions.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am trying to challenge myself to be honest, not narcissistic, but to release the shame that has kept my womyn suffering in silence.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am also trying to observe, and note the inevitability of life and the passage of time and energy from one body to another.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I grew bigger as she grew smaller.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I grew louder as she grew quieter.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I learned more and she remembered less.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Granny, do you you really think I am ready to hold your legacy, to carry our stories in my bones alone? </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-47233719790104617022011-05-01T20:02:00.000-07:002011-05-03T18:55:34.910-07:00Radical EducationI read once that radical means grasping something at its' roots.<div><br /></div><div>It took me more than a minute to get what this meant, so maybe I can share my process of understanding cause I feel like it helps illuminate how I finally get to the crux.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Big Ol' Metaphor</b></div><div>The medium is the message. This is what I realized in this process, the 'how' is just as important as the 'why' and sometimes more so.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Premise</b></div><div>North American/European ideals and colonization itself relies upon a symptomatic (probably not the right word, I would love to get another) linear understanding of the world in order to oppress and exploit.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Message</b></div><div>Another way to think about this, is that what happened second gets told first. i.e. "Columbus discovered America" as opposed to "First Nations people living on Turtle Island had complex societies all across the continent and Columbus couldn't navigate his way out of a paper bag and somehow made it to their homes." </div><div>This type of messaging or propaganda is necessary because it allows for the empty and unrelenting pursuit of profit and policies that support this.</div><div>Another example is 'The War On Crime" as a policy as opposed to recognizing that people commit crimes because of being cash-poor and oppressed, lacking access to basic human rights like healthcare, self-determination, right to education that affirm their identity. As well realizing that many people in prison didn't commit crimes at all, but we have an inherently racist system.</div><div><br /></div><div>The truth is, it's all just a cover for ensuring the perpetuation of legalized slavery of these "criminalized", "demonized" bodies of Black, Brown & Red bodies.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>The Delivery/The Medium</b></div><div>It needs to be linear as opposed to circular, because that shapes the mode of understanding. Linear and monotheistic means that there is only one model, one path, one right answer, one god and only ONE right answer.</div><div><br /></div><div>So all this to say that I think that what would be radical would be to grab things at the root with our whole hands encircling the plant.</div><div>The roots are the content and a full 360 grab will now be the method of delivery.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bear with me family,</div><div><br /></div><div>I am proposing that education go down way differently.</div><div>I am proposing that these institutions like 'elementary school' or 'university' teach the practical.</div><div><br /></div><div>Community educators teach the practice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Elders, in particular people of colour, teach and tell stories (because that is what history is at it's root, adding 'his' to the front of story does not add to its' legitimacy in my opinion. Stories from our past should be told by many different people in order to share many different perspectives)</div><div><br /></div><div>Children would teach joy, honesty, playfulness and remind us of the basic things in life we need to survive. Nat's nephew Faenin is so self-aware that he has been able to turn to me and tell me "I am grumpy because I have to poo." Sometimes friends, that is all people need, sometimes people are just full of shit.</div><div><br /></div><div>And what if we qualified them all as educators, even the media.</div><div>And they articulated their responsibility as educators.</div><div>And no one was exempt from this responsibility, we were all held accountable and we all took ownership of educating our young.</div><div>And it was actually a village, a global village that was committed to raising our young as though they all were our own.</div><div>And educators wouldn't have to fight against horrible, irresponsible and damaging messages. Instead we would be in it together.</div><div>And mothers, aunties, fathers and humans would all be honoured for the role in educating.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let it be clear that we wouldn't all be performing the same role, there would still be a separate and distinct space for those who chose education as a life's purpose or career. We would not be participating in this in the same way, that doesn't make us all valuable and complementary.</div><div><br /></div><div>This would mean that the work would be done by millions as opposed to few and there would be structural change to support this.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also want to recognize that the trauma of past generations, particular of Red, Black, Brown, and Yellow folks and even current experiences can leave many unable to speak, to share stories. I know that the legacy my family has passed down to me has often been silence, secrets and shame. This too is something that we can learn from. I don't have delusions that this would be easy, but I would like to talk to my community about the stories we need to tell to our youth and to each other. I would like to hold advertisers and food companies accountable for the lies that they tell in the pursuit of profit.</div><div><br /></div><div>I was lied to for a long time in our 'traditional' school system. From Columbus to the war of 1812, I only began to learn some of the truth in university. During my 3rd or 4th African History class, I cried, there was so much I didn't know. And since taking my learning into my own hands and into the arms of my community, I have been able to root myself as part of a narrative of cultural creators, activists, nurturers, femmes, as well as Red, Black, Brown, and Yellow people. My story is woven together from the stories we never hear. The moment I began this learning journey, my ability to self-determine drastically transformed. No one could name me, I now had the language and context to name myself.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is radical.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-36194962323258098032011-04-30T06:05:00.000-07:002011-04-30T06:11:13.617-07:00How To Protect and Preserve Your Sanity<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbOmr5636gM1Mht0YOnBzUTcMLx7Dj62FGMPOeLSR2lt5E_D-71INx2fNOqE6QTyXKOMBf1yT8wcnYApm0o0N6pf9mJksaskFdRNACj6wnEEZ-kQI-yv_dF2oqJn0sthyphenhyphen6mVbhJrvf-s/s1600/Discussion.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCbOmr5636gM1Mht0YOnBzUTcMLx7Dj62FGMPOeLSR2lt5E_D-71INx2fNOqE6QTyXKOMBf1yT8wcnYApm0o0N6pf9mJksaskFdRNACj6wnEEZ-kQI-yv_dF2oqJn0sthyphenhyphen6mVbhJrvf-s/s320/Discussion.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601362222817655970" /></a>I realize that I need to institute this as a life policy. For when I get into ridiculous arguments on the street with Pro-Lifers, Jehovah's Witness, everyone working for "Free/Save/Exploit The Children", I need to have this present in contract form and ask for them to sign it before I proceed. Smh, it is not our responsibility to educate people, sometimes we just need to remind them to do the work.<div><br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3398941296993773621.post-75219023134599067222011-04-28T10:44:00.000-07:002012-03-25T21:58:06.342-07:00Living, Breathing Self-Care<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">On this past Monday I attended this session organized by CITY Leaders called A History Of Activism: An Intergenerational Dialogue with self-care heavy on my mind. In a room full of activists, young and old and culturally diverse, when I asked the question of what it has looked like or meant to these folks, they began to regale us with war stories of terrifying burnout. Full collapses leading to bouts of depression, pneumonia, deep depression - the spoke of these tales with smiles on their faces, a trait that is so distinctly a part of this work. Finding pleasure in the heart, finding the learning in the hardship, knowing intimately the beauty and the necessity in sometimes giving everything you have, and often even more. Then the conversation took a sterner tone, a more mindful one and I realize in reflection that this was due to the difficulty their bodies remembered in learning these lessons:</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I also want to say although I am attributing the quotes to coming out of the mouths of specific people to honour the lived experiences they endured in order to share that wisdom, I also want to say much of what was said and shared was a product of the shared brilliance of the room</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1. "It's not a sprint, it's a marathon." "We need to be able to live to fight another day" (Sakura Saunders)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>I loved this metaphor, but then I was reminded that it isn't even a marathon. At the end of a marathon, you vomit and fall to your knees. (Dave Meslin) </i>If our goals are to increase the quality of our lives, then this goal must part of the process.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2."When people were asked how they became activists, they said it was because their friend was involved." (Judy Rebick)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We need to count it as activism when we cook each other dinner, watch plays together, cuddle and generally just play with each other. We need to be social beings and love and be loved.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">3. "We are not trying to live forever, but we are trying to make ourselves obsolete, reproduce ourselves."</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is something I work hard to live by. Few should not do the work of millions. We actually need to decentralize leadership friends, this means not leaving anyone behind and instead of speaking on behalf of others, we need to bring more to the table - this is not only good for ourselves, but good for the movement.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">4. We can't use activism as a way to deal with or to avoid dealing our own personal traumas or guilt. (Adrienne Marie Brown)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Transforming yourself, this can be the deeper work. This is what liberates into the world we want to see.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">5. We have to have joy. (Adrienne Marie Brown)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Right, we know this one family. But we need to practice it with authenticity and intentionality. Write down what joy feels like organizationally, and individually, a meal together, a cookie, cheese (I may just be a bit hungry;)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is a working list, any other ideas?</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18427543969776357173noreply@blogger.com1