Morning...

I tried to write this out a few days ago when I blogged about using the library. I lost the first version. It rawked. I could have kicked the computer. But really? What purpose would that have served? So, I just let the version that posted stand as is.

We were here last week - Papi, Shmolee and me. Stinkapee was at school. Papi, hair uncombed as is his style and his perogative, was wearing the new rock kiss boots I got for him a few years back. Vicarious living through him...that's what I was doing. I wanted the boots for myself. But I can't afford to break my ankle and in my present "what not to wear" camp incarnation, I don't really have anything that would go with a pair of massive black and silver, silver buckled platform boots. So, I got them for Paps instead

So, he's stalking around the library looking every inch the late teenager or early twenty something to the untrained eye who more sees the sparkle in his eye, his slight body, his height and his boots rather than the crop of grey sprouting from his scalp

He goes up to one of the librarians, a grey haired, sour looking woman dressed conservatively. He wants to use the phone to contact someone from craigslist who wants to buy something we've got hanging around. Yes, I'm back on craigs doing stay at home trader again.

The librarian says to him: "Well you're not supposed to use it to call your MOM to let her know you're going to be late or to call about a job

I was sitting a few meters away when the interaction happened and I clearly heard her every word. So, understand she was speaking loudly as she attempted to humiliate, infantilize and dominate Papster

My neck seized up. More interested in the phone than in her, Papi moved through her

She got stuck in my craw, though

He came back and I was like: What was that

Speaking with equal clarity, I named her actions...classism, racism, ageism.

Classism and racism because the library is oddly located in that it is positioned inside a middle and upper middle class area that is adjacent to a government area to the south and a working poor to the south east. This means that the mix of people using the library is white middle class, white upper middle class, phillipino nannies with the children of the afor mentioned white people, a small majority of middle class men, wimmin and children of color, white and of color working poor and working class people.

I know what dimwit thought she saw when she set eyes on Papster. (evil little smile) I know what she felt could do and how she felt entitled to speak to him.

Unh...I think my period is coming...but I won't give all the credit to my hormones. I already said I really hate coming out of the house and dealing with people and their shite.

Nonetheless...

I got up and went over to the counter. The woman was still there. I chose to address the woman standing next to her. I asked for the name of the woman who had so obnoxiously spoken to Papi. First and last. The woman uttered the woman's first name but said she couldn't give the last name. I said "Fine then I'll have all your names." The air crackled.

She said that I could ask upstairs. I said "I'll be taking this up with head office."

In a carefully modulated, well articulated, clipped voice that let the other woman (still standing nearby) know that she had perhaps chosen the wrong darkie to oppress, I proceeded to explain that the other librarian's actions were completely uncalled for and that she had made massive assumptions about who Papi was and about what she could get away with.

Just about this time the other woman, much more respectfully than she had done with Papi, addressed me explaining that people do try to use the phone to call home or to get jobs. I said that was no concern of mine. I reiterated that she had made a set of assumptions. She said she apologized.

By this time Papi was standing next to me with Shmolee in the stroller. I said that I would be contacting the head office. Papi later said that she looked upset, red faced. I told him I didn't notice. The colour codings of white people's faces are meaningless to me.

I said that she hadn't apologized. She said that she had. I said she had not addressed Papi and had not directed her apology to him. I instructed her to apologize to him. She turned to him and did. She tried to offer her explanation for her treatment of Papi saying maybe he would listen to reason.

I explained that I would be taking up the incident with her head office and that she would have to deal with it. Then we left.

I've been in the library every day since then. I haven't seen that white woman. Hmmm...maybe I haven't looked for her. Suits me just fine. I'm just here to write on my rattid blog not to deal with people's everyday oppressive shite. I just want to type my sentences and keep pretending I don't live in this cesspool of a city.

Cheerio!

And Mountain?

Don't listen to Michael Moore. kkkanada isn't better than the states. Actually I prefer the honesty of the oppressive warlike gun totting hoard down south.

Here in kkkanada, people smile and chat and invite you out for drinks and hug you and touch your arm in the bulk food store and they expect you to smile back.

And I do even as I know they're nasty, underhanded, insecure, oppressive and completely invested in hierarchical systems of domination.

I think all the smiles and courtesy throws off the amerikkkans who tend to be so overtly rude.

Here the object of the game is to make sure that everybody bows to domination.

Courtesy, silence, denial and rigid control are the norm. Everything must seem a certain way and that seeming is so powerful everyone enforces it for all they're worth. If you don't follow suite they will find an indirect way to nudge you back into line or to harm you if you refuse to go. It's the same in all communities, even communities of resistance which are peopled with folks raised in mostly middle class or middle classing kkkanadian families where this way of moving and dealing is the order of the day.

sigh...
I guess I could see how that might look like peace and love to the untrained eye. I've been living here for 32 years, though.

For me the appeal has worn thin.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Happy belated birthday, CJ...

I went by CJ's today and found out that she had just had her thirtieth birthday. She enters the decade as I finally, painfully, knowingly, expectantly exit it.

I remembered as much as I could remember about every year of that chaotic, random, inspiring, draining, disillusioning, disappointing, desperate, dorky decade called my 20's.

Then the clock struck midnight, I breathed a big sigh and smiled a big smile, hugged my boyfriend, and tossed and turned for a bit still trying to remember, to find things in my memory, little bits I may have forgotten...when I realized, really realized that it was all over. Not only that, but it didn't matter that it was over. Life didn't end here. Life doesn't end ever, until it does. Nothing had to change, but everything could. Nothing had to be regretted, but learning from my mistakes made my life better. Nothing had to be tucked down, swept away, forgotten...not matter how painful, embarrassing, inconvenient. All that had been done and said, all that had happened had woven itself into the fabric of my being, bringing about the thoughtful, questioning, curious, strong, sensitive, gentle, direct, loving, comfort-seeking, lazy, never satisfied, angry (though becoming less so), anxious (also lessening), loud, awkward human I had become, am becoming.

It's all good. I never thought I would even make it here, live this long, come as far as I have. But I did. I did it.

I'M STILL HERE!

And all is well. :)

the rest of her post is here...

Yes..
A wondefully imperfect, stridently honest, human inspiration stumbling towards something that unfolds in its own way over time. She is still here. :)

Happy Birthday.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

I need to rewrite one of his paragraphs...

You go on sing your musical, ahistorical white domination, Elton.

So...

I'm reading The Slave Ship. It promises to be as triggering as reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee which, over a year later, this normally voracious reader, still hasn't finished. I stop in between paragraphs for weeks at a time to rewire false consciousness and to reconfigure my understanding of how my personal links to my political.

Here's an example of some really "fun" text from The Slave Ship:

A second case was even more gruesome. Another captain facing a "rage for suicide" seized upon a woman "as a proper example to the rest." He ordered the woman tied with a rope under her armpits and lowered into the water: "When the poor creature was thus plunged in, and about half way down, she was heard to give a terrible shriek, which at first was ascribed to her fears of drowning; but soon after, the water appearing red all around her, she was drawn up, and it was found that a shark, which had followed the ship, had bit her off from the middle." Other slave-ship captains practiced a kind of sporting terror, using human remains to troll for sharks: "Our way to entice them was by Towing
overboard a dead Negro, which they would follow till they had eaten him up."

I am descended from people who may not have chosen to live, but who may have been intimidated into continuing with a perverse facsimle of life no one in their right minds would have wanted to continue. Some of my foremothers and forefathers were forced to live.

When I read these sorts of accounts I have no choice but to reckon with what this level of ongoing violence actually did to the spirits of my ancestors, recent and distant. They were horribly harmed, forced to live alongside vicious abuses, forced to tolerate brutal violence on all levels which left them shaken to the very core of their beings, moral compasses completely crushed, in their place was substituted something ugly. Survival nested a nasty little cuckoo's egg in their chests, a nasty little "gift", ugly ways foisted on them by their captors.

My foremothers and forefathers were the recipients of horrible abuse.

I am an abuse survivor not just because of what I've encountered in this life which has been plenty, fierce, evil, threatening to poison my spirit and quash any vestiges of hope for a better life to this very day.

I am an abuse survivor, a holocaust survivor who sees the imprint of all what my people survived in the day to day interactions of descendants, daughtas and sons, sistas and brothas who have not been able to do more than simply present to the world as completely freed, emancipated.

But you don't get free from that kind of horror imposed over hundreds of years by just clicking your muthafuckin ruby red shoes together, squeezing your eyes shut, repeatedly saying "Black is beautiful, Black is beautiful, Black is beautiful" for thirty years or so and wishing hard to be back in Kans...the motherland.

Black IS beautiful. But, sadly, I also have to admit that Black has been driven stark raving fucking mad by living next to and being occupied by the seeds and systems of colonization for a few hundred years. (insert: dear GAWD! Please no one write me explaining that it's much more complicated. I know that. What I'm trying to say is that the work that has been done by Black people as a collective only scratches the surface in that it's mostly been externally focussed. There has been no movement specifically concerned with our inner lives as profoundly damaged emotionally limping colonized beings. Until this happens we will continue to believe that our collective foundation lies in getting degrees, good jobs, suitable heterosexual marriages and more buying power. Black truly has been driven completely mad.)

I'm smiling my crazy "gonna set the roof on fyah not in hip hop music style but just in oops watch out I think our lovely blingin' clothes are on fire" ways again. :)
There is hard, nasty, monstrous, fucking draining excavational work here. There are truths to be told about how our families stay. I'm not particularly interested in clucking my tongue over crazy ass ex Nazi types who never got counselling, just brand new cities built in the rubble of old evils who lock their children in the basement and fuck them.

Nah.

I know that people will want to not make the links. I know that they will want to pretend that old is new again and that they don't remember what happened in that neck of the woods just a few short decades ago that left its imprint on those people, not just that crazy man, but all his neighbours who knew exactly what he'd done.

I don't have time to worry about the ills of white folks. :) I'm completely birthed out of the ills of white folks. I'm in here screaming and reeling with their good works. No need to bounce over to Austria to take a peak.

I always prefer to look closer to "home". "Home" where I ground in the memory of what my foremothers and forefathes were taught to tolerate and make space for.

"Home" where we have our own nasty little secrets tucked away in colonial closets while we publicly trumpet about liberation without putting openness, full speaking and the destruction of denial in our communities and in our families on the agenda for all to see which would allow us to link intimate and tragic struggles to our experiences of racism in ways that would allow us to fight the power FULLY, to challenge FULLY, to question FULLY, to expose FULLY and to weed out the roots of our own domination so intimately entrenched...relentlessly.

I weed when and where I can. I am fucking relentlessly both with myself and with other Middle Passage children who really should not in this day and age be slipping into denial about who we actually are.

Yes, boo, BOO!
I am the bitch.
I am the meany.
I am the one who must be undermined and and hunted.
I am not as nice as your other fucking Black friend who always smiles and dances and entertains and only pushes in the most gentle and uncomplex ways possible.

Sorry for you. But I'm not her.

I challenge because it is within my power to do so. I have the constitution to deal with other abuse survivors, other holocaust survivors, other sistas and brothas who willingly and willfully maintain the horror, gently carrying kernels of the horror, feeding it, fertilizing it, growing it, transplanting it wherever they go.

Hmmm...yeah. This kind of excavation won't help me top anyone's idiot list of most influential steppin' fetchit darkies in this city or any other. But it helps me sleep at night. That's fer sure.

Piece number two:

I read this paragraph day before yesterday, also in The Slave Ship and I was completely mortified by the glaring absence.

I'll just type out the paragraph and then I'll try as best as I can to fix it. Otay?

"The ship was thus central to a profound, interrelated set of economic changes essential to the rise of capitalism: the seizure of new lands, the expropriation of millions of people and their redeployment in growing market-oriented sectors of the economy; the mining of gold and silver, the cultivating of tobacco and sugar; the concomitant rise of long-distance commerce; and finally a planned accumulation of wealth and capital beyond anything the world had ever witnessed. Slowly, fitfully, unevenly, but with undoubted power, a world market and an
international capitalist system emerged. Each phase of the process, from exploration to settlement to production to trade and the construction of a new economic order, required massive fleets of ships and their capacity to transport both both expropriated laborers and the new commodities. The Guineaman was a linchpin of the system."

Okay...
Now I'll do a rough hack/fixit.

"The ship was thus central to a profound, interrelated set of economic
changes essential to the rise of capitalism: the COVETING, INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF THE ANCESTRAL LANDS OF NATIVE PEOPLES, NECESSITATING THE FORCED MIGRATION/RELOCATION OF IMMENSE POPULATIONS OF NATIVE PEOPLES, THE ATTACK OF
INNOCENT MEN, WIMMIN AND CHILDREN, THE MASS MURDER OF THE AFOR MENTIONED MEN, WIMMIN AND CHILDREN, THE THEFT OF COPIOUS RESOURCES CONTAINED WITHIN THE INVADED
LANDS, THE IMPRISONMENT OF WHOLE POPULATIONS OF RELOCATED NATIONS ALL CULMINATING IN THE DEFINING OF THEIR LANDS AS "NEW" WHICH PAVED THE WAY FOR THE
expropriation of millions of people and their redeployment in growing
market-oriented sectors of the economy; the RAPE OF NATIVE LANDS IN THE SEARCH FOR gold and silver, the cultivating of tobacco WHICH HAD BEEN INTRODUCED TO THE WHITE SETTLER OCCUPIERS BY NATIVE PEOPLES and sugar, A DANGEROUS AND ADDICTIVE
(I'M AN ADDICT) DRUG IMPOSED ON NATIVE POPULATIONS AND AFRICAN FORCED WORKER POPULATIONS IN ITS PURE FORM BUT ALSO IN THE FORM OF ALCOHOL; the concomitant rise of long-distance commerce; and finally a planned accumulation of wealth and
capital beyond anything the world had ever witnessed WHICH ALLOWED FOR A PARTICULARLY HIGH STANDARD OF LIVING IN THE COLONIES WHICK PAVED THE WAY FOR A MASSIVE WHITE BABY BOOM BIRTHED THROUGH THE PATRIARCHALLY COLONIZED, LEGALLY PURCHASED GENITALS OF MARRIED PATRIARCHALLY ENSLAVED HETEROSEXUAL WHITE WIMMIN, SUPPORTED BY THE VARIOUS INCARNATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH WHICH COMPLETELY PARTICIPATED IN THE CAPITALIST IMPERIALIST LAND THEFT AND FORCED WORK PROJECT, WHICH ENSURED THE EVENTUAL OUTNUMBERING OF NATIVE AND FREED AFRICAN POPULATIONS IN THE AMERICAS. Slowly, fitfully, unevenly, but with undoubted power, a world market and an international capitalist system COMPLETELY PREDICATED ON MERCILESS, VIOLENT DOMINATION emerged. Each phase of the process, from exploration to settlement to production to trade, TO the construction of a new
economic order AND FINALLY TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER COMPLETELY BASED ON OLD WORLD EUROPEAN IDEALS TRANSPLANTED AROUND THE WORLD, required
massive LIES BE TOLD AND THAT THESE LIES TRAVEL VIA fleets of ships AND IT IS THIS capacity to transport expropriated laborers, INVADING HORDES OF SETTLER COLONIALS WHO PROVIDED A READY MADE CONSUMER BASE, the new commodities THEY WERE
TAUGHT TO CRAVE AND THE DOMINATION THEY WERE ENCOURAGED TO BELIEVE WAS A NECESSARY FACET OF THEIR NEW MARKET PLACE THAT CULMINATED IN THE FORMATION OF A
POWERFUL NORTH AMERICAN MARKET WHICH REDEFINED THE WORLD MARKET IN WAYS THAT HAVE NOW BROUGHT US ALL TO THE BRINK OF DISASTER. The Guineaman, FIRST AS FORCED
WORKER, THEN AS "FREED", UNDERPAID AND SUBJUGATED WORKER AND X-TREME CONSUMER SEDUCED INTO PARTICIPATING AND PERPETUATING SYSTEMS OF SETTLER DOMINANCE ESPECIALLY IN NORTH AMERICA AND CANADA AS A WAY TO DEAL WITH THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF ONGOING RACISM AND DOMINATION, was a linchpin of the system. BUT DESPITE THE LACK OF ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP LINKING THE NATIVE HOLOCAUST, THE THEFT OF NATIVE
LANDS AND THE RELIANCE OF "CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY" ON RESOURCES RIPPED FROM THE BOWELS OF ANCESTRAL NATIVE LANDS TO THE BLACK HOLOCAUST AND THE ROLE OF WHITE
WIMMIN AS VESSELS UTILIZED TO MAINTAIN BIOLOGICAL DOMINANCE EVEN AS NATIVE WIMMIN 'S CHILDREN WERE KILLED OR STOLEN AND EVEN AS AFRICAN WIMMIN'S CHILDREN
WERE STOLEN, BRED AND SOLD WHICH EXPOSES PARTICULAR SEXUAL RELATIONS THAT DO NOT USUALLY MAKE IT TO THE PAGES OF RESPECTABLE ACADEMIC HISTORICAL TOMES SUCH AS
THIS WHICH, IF THE ROLE OF WIMMIN FORCED TO BREED, ENTICED TO BREED WITH LEGAL INCENTIVES OF STATUS, CLASS, FINANCIAL INCENTIVES AND PATRIARCHAL PROTECTION, OR
NOT ALLOWED TO BREED, WOULD FORCE US TO ASK PARTICULAR QUESTIONS THAT WOULD HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL SEXUAL TRANSACTIONS COMPLETELY
GROUNDED IN A CAPITALIST MODEL THAT WERE INTIMATELY LINKED TO THE DOMINATION OF NATIVE FAMILIES AND NATIONS, TRIANGLE TRADE, THE FORCED MIGRATION OF AFRICAN POPULATIONS, THE BIRTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE RISE OF CAPITALISM AND THE EVENTUAL DOMINANCE OF THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION ALL NEEDING FRESH SUPPLIES
OF ADDICTED, ABUSED, SUBJUGATED, UNDEREDUCATED, SEXUALLY SUPPRESSED AND ULTIMATELY EASILY CONTROLLED WORKERS ALSO SERVING A DUAL ROLE AS PAYING CONSUMERS ALL BRED IN THE FLESH RIGHT HERE ON STOLEN LAND."

hmm...it's messy...need some paragraphs and sentence breaks :). But, nonetheless, I really like it.

Now his paragraph makes sense to me.

But anyone who has other pieces they want to add, feel free to jump in cuz I know say I don't have everything that should be or could be included here.

Island Girl signing off.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Performance...the okay kind...

A few days ago Stinkapee had her big school concert. It was big ting in our house.

She had her daytime performance outfit and then a complete nighttime change for the evening performance.

Daytime was an unbleached white cotton dress with a diagonal neckline, fitted around the torso and skirted below just skimming the knees that didn't zip or button but instead tied off at various points. It was decorated all over with multicoloured embroidery. She wore it with an unbleached sleeveless cotton shift dress that Papi got her in Mexico when he was there working on an indy doc and a pair of light khaki shorts with bright fuschia tights and shiny patent leather black shoes.

Her evening outfit was a simple sleeveless white shift/dress with a tiny ruffle along the bottom and a scattering of embroidered flowers, under which she wore a pair of white jean peddle pushers with teal embroidery and baby pink tights that matched the flowers on her shift/dress, which also matched her baby pink motorcycle jacket.


But la piece de resistance had to be the hair. :)

Joy, pain, intimate torture, rebellion, culture, more pain a few sheiks and growls "MAma THAT HURTS!" My back was killing me I was so stressed working on her hair, tiny cornrows following the line of her brow right on down to the point right in front of her ears, five or six rows parted in the middle, ends collected and pinned up with one discreet bobby pin on either side. Then I let two thirds of the hair bound free afro style from crown of her head on back.

Knowing that she had to deal with a bunch of what we call "limp hair" children (her white classmates) who have all been nonverbally informed of the supremacy of their thin, hanging hair by parents, friends, media, entire world...Stinkapee wouldn't actually leave the house with her afro style unfettered.

She fought with me.

She insisted on an elastic for the back portion.

We fought. I fought with her because my rosy adult cultural revolutionary vision completely conflicted her pint sized Black child dealing tangibly with the white supremacist views and aesthetics of white children on the daily educational experience.

I felt stupid and petty and regrounded in the fact that no matter how conscious she is my Black hair pride/obsession would not be enough to protect her from the white children who have been socialized to be clueless about their own white privilege.

Her concerns were completely valid and me debating with her about the merits of having her own hair/style and not bowing to tiny classroom aesthetic conventions could not move her.

I backed down and gave her the elasticized pony tail and apologized for directing my anger in the wrong direction, wished her a good day, told her she rocked. We kissed and hugged and she ran off with Papi with a bounce in her step.

Round One done.

Evening. Pre performance number two.

Round Two.

Again I comb and oil as Stinkapee in a thoroughly rebellious and verbal way lets me know that my hair combing is completely not synonymous with any sort of gentleness no matter how much I try to dellude myself into thinking I am going easy. She fights and fidgets and growls and exclaims.

Then.

It is FINISHED.

Hair masterpiece take two. (Sorry no photos. But you have to know she rocked.)

Nonetheless, Stinkapee is not at all happy with me.

I am trying to maintain a brave face but I am practically in tears over the fact that she was in pain and did not enjoy the big Black mother and daughter bonding ritual. Well, that's how I'd like to frame the whole hair braiding thing anyways. I'm a Black conscious lefty politico. So sue me. :)

In any case, just when I thought all was lost, Stinkapee went upstairs to check the do in the mirror. Bingo.

She came back down all aglow. If the hair could flick, she would have been flicking it. Loudly and proudly she exclaims: "I love my hair!"

She sashayed around the house with such a sense of purpose and pride my happiness knew no bounds. Papi and I exchanged knowing, relieved glances.

The resident diva. Master of all she surveys was in love with her hair.

Now I can't tear her away from the mirror. She has resumed braiding with increased vigor. We're teaching Papi to braid.

That evening the family left the house with a six year old who, as usual, walked the sidewalk, mistress of her own personal space, naps a halo around her head, glistening in the sun light. A tiny daughta of the Middle Passage, learning to recognize and fully walk with a consciousness of her own beauty.

Take THAT white domination.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

I believe that everyone should have their relationships supported...

I'm not particularly active around supporting same sex marriage because I think that the issue really is about marriage as it exists today being an oppressive and exclusionary tool utilized to offer access, status and state validation to some and not to others. When I think of others I'm not just thinking about gay and lesbian couples, I'm also thinking about poly groupings, too.

Of course I'm also understanding that marriage when viewed as the best way to demonstrate commitment, to model what it means to create mature bonds, constructed as the most beneficial and healthy relationship model inside which to raise children, is oppressive in and of itself. The whole idea of coupling or being in any relationship constellation as desireable if not of paramount importance necessitates the subjugation of people who choose to fuck non-monogamously and never "graduate" to coupledom. It also oppresses people, especially wimmin (spinsters) who intentionally or accidentally choose not to have romantic or love based relationships with any gender for any length of time at all.

Having written all of this I wanted to share some old news that was new for me. I got tingles. It wasn't because he got an award from the state. Their awards are always suspect. And you know I don't habitually get all gushy over the exploits of white people even white queers. I still think that as a collective they have a long way to go before they can say they've dealt with their race problem so intertwined with dominant white queer aesthetics and their erotic. And I didn't get all teary eyed because this person is an ardent supporter of same sex marriage.

Nah.

I think my fierce happiness was due to the fact that he thought past his immediate safety and well-being, past his own status and reputation, past his earning potential.

I was excited because he was willing to put his life on the line to make a stand. I really can't stand scared people who cower even though they know what is right. I have no space of acceptance to offer them when they make self serving, calculated decisions with no historical scope whatsoever and in so doing choose to follow the status quo because it's easier for them to be liked, to get along, to tow the line, to just keep their heads low and pretend they don't see or hear anything.

Ick.

Marrying the oppressed in a bullet proof vest? Not cowering in fear of loss of life, loss of comfort, loss of anonymity. Not bent on modeling all the wrong lessons because it's much easier?

Warrior. Totally a warrior.

Pastor Credited With Canadian Gay Marriage Win Receives Highest National Honor
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: February 21, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(Ottawa) Longtime Canadian LGBT civil rights activist Rev. Brent Hawkes will be invested Friday into the Order of Canada by the Queen's representative.

The Order of Canada is the country's highest civilian honor.

Created in 1967, it recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to community and service to the nation. Over the last 40 years,
more than 5,000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order.

"To my knowledge, Rev. Dr. Hawkes, is the only person to receive their country's highest honor in recognition of their gay activism," said Douglas Elliott, founding president of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association.

Hawkes has been on the front line of gay activism in Canada for decades. For more than 30 years he has been the senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.

In 2001 under considerable publicity he conducted a double wedding for two same-sex couples at the church and then went to court when the province of Ontario refused to register the marriages.

He performed the wedding ceremony for Kevin Bourassa & Joe Varnell and Elaine & Anne Vautour, wearing a bulletproof vest on the advice of police and following a series of threats from socially conservative activists.

To conduct the ceremony without marriage licenses - something that had been denied gay couples - Hawkes found a loophole in the law. It allowed the ancient Christian practice of Publishing Bannes.

By announcing the impending marriages in church on three consecutive Sundays marriage licenses were not required.

The Ontario government refused to register the marriages, citing federal law. Under Canadian law the definition of marriage is a federal responsibility while registering and recognizing them is a provincial matter.

The couples along with seven couples who sought secular marriages in Ontario took the government to court. A judge ruled that the prohibition on gay marriage was unconstitutional and gave the federal government one year to amend the law. Eight other provinces and territories followed.

Finally the federal government abandoned plans to appeal and brought in legislation legalizing same-sex marriage across the country. (story)

Michaelle Jean, the Governor General of Canada, will preside over the investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall, the Royal residence in Ottawa.

Hawkes has previously been honored with the City of Toronto's Award of Merit, the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal, the United Nations Toronto Association Global Citizen Award and the YMCA Peace Medal.

In 2006 Hawkes had his own wedding, marrying longtime partner John Sproule.

©365Gay.com 2008

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Resume transactional relations exploration...

Transactional relations on a Monday morning....

This morning I woke to the phrase "knowing your worth" skipping through my head. I thought about how "knowing your worth" has been made synonymous with having self esteem. Being "worth" something, a capitalist phrase if I ever heard one, has been conflated with having a powerful sense of self. The reasoning? Well, if you have a powerful sense of self then you will be able to trade that that self understanding for something on the capitalist open market.

Gotta run. I'll be back to flesh this out. But needless to say, today I will be talking about what it means to understand myself as having a powerful self esteem, a powerful sense of self and be surrounded by people, even political people who do not share my opinion because they see me not attempting to trade my sense of self on any capitalist open markets. Yeah...that should be thick and rich. Feel free to jump in wherever you can.

Hmmm...
My "worth". Knowing it. There is a gap between what I - a Black queer female mama fat femme immigrant educated english speaking raised working class self taught defiant rogue scholar - understand as my "worth" and what this world designed to either destroy or to co-opt so as to better utilize someone like me, teaches most people to understand as my "worth".

"Worth" in a society where capitalism, the market, consumerism and an exploitative work ethic are so entrenched inevitably ends up being measured in terms trading, buying, selling.

This body is a site of capitalist exploitation. I exploit the labour of others by just drawing breath on a continent where I have been taught that I must buy, exchange paper for goods and services and access and status, in order to survive.

I am exploited. My fruits of my labour are exploited in a society where there are only two acceptable sites of respectable and acceptable exchange for those who use language to convey ideas. (insert: For those of us who write there is publishing via a press or publisher where words and ideas can be circulated in the form of a book, a product contracted by a publisher or press, commissioned from a writer who can deliver a quantity of letters printed onto numbered pages, gathered together in titled or numbered chapters, held together between front and back covers suitably decorated with cover image and text carefully chosen so as to attract the interest of people who will pay to access the words within either for themselves or for libraries where those who cannot afford to pay for personal ownership can still access book/products for a short and predetermined period of time.)

Then there's academia.
Academia is a market, a meat market where flesh in the form of words, ideas, theories are sold to the highest bidder the university corporation who accepts fees from those who request entry so as to better access hoarded bits of thought, word, information, access, status. Academia is the premier market, the beloved market place, still mostly uncritiqued by those who understand themselves, who define themselves as resisters even as they collude and compromise revolutionary struggle so as to better access status and access evidenced by the letters after their names. The more letters, the more success they have had in the market place transactionally exchanging not just ideas, words, money, but also offering silence and loyalty to the corporation so as to better seal their fate, so as to better entrench themselves inside the market, so as to better create environments where a writer/thinker/resister like myself can be understood as not knowing her "worth"...because I have so foolishly not taken myself, my ideas, my words to market.

(insert: Papi adds that the influence of academia reaches beyond it's hallowed halls as those who have received the corporation's stamp of approval for suitably prostrating themselves, thereby substituting an inwardly grown sense of worth for a sense of "worth" completely predicated on their willing and skillful participation in academic market places where knowledge is hoarded and silence about this fact manufactured on the daily, can now be offered jobs where they can utilize the letters placed prominently after their names to create an artificial and completely elitist sense of "worth" that undercuts the self worth and perceived worth of those who have not received the university corporation's stamp of approval. Sweet.)

My "worth".
In the 21st century, hundreds of years after my ancestors, free African people, human beings, were first stolen and then purposefully redefined as cattle, animals taken to market (rage at the thought of it bubbles to the surface, hot blood floods my face...), I understand that my liberational politic needs must involve a critique of the disgusting market place, of the corporation that has its roots in the horrific trade in human beings that left me fucking stranded here without a clear way "home"...no "home"...no muthafuckin "home".

My "worth". I understand that my image, my flesh, my identities, my way of speaking, my way of writing so as to better convey my thoughts and ideas...I understand that all these are for sale if not by me, then by unscrupulous others who laugh and gesture at what they understand as my inability to sell myself so as to better survive in an adequately diseased fashion in a world where each and every one of us is called on to conflate a sense of self worth with an agenda that includes and prioritizes a willingness to sell ourselves on a planetary open market.

I am the descendant of free Africans who were sold against their will and I am bought and sold...still. There is no escaping this fact.

When I write about sex work, I consciously implicate the sanctimonious married whores who have been taught to erase the knowledge of marriage as transactional relation that, regardless of whether their husbands kiss their toes every morning, whether their husbands speak respectfully, whether their husbands take counsel from them, whether their husbands remember to remain faithful, still is an economic transaction that predates capitalism that purchases a uterus, a cunt, a blood flow indicating fertility, children, respectability, legal and governmental loopholes aplenty, business opportunities, social lubrication for the man who is then expected to share at least a portion of these with the cow he has lawfully purchased...but he doesn't have to...though these days the cow can take him to court for breach of contract and perhaps sue for a portion of what she should have gotten even as she realizes that this will in no way fully represent what she could have accrued if he had fulfilled his end of the deal and in so doing allowed her to save face and stay.

My muthafuckin "worth".
This weekend, as I walked with Papi, Stinkapee, Shmolee, our present international guest and our past guest, I saw a Black lesbian....perhaps that's too radical...a Black gay woman...who I made acquaintance with many years ago. We were both in our early/mid twenties. I was fully out. She cowered near the closet door, trying to find a way to reconcile her experience as Black Muslim, as reliant and fully believing in the centrality of heterosexual Black community with her love...fuck that....her lust for wimmin. Sad woman. So confused. So self limiting.

I'm smiling because her and her cowardly self have found a nice and comfy place inside queer community, a protected place. And me? Well, I walk the margins not able to call any Black dyke my friend at this point. The conservative swing people speak about with such vigor that touches all world governments, has also had its impact on communities of resistance. The gentrified conservatives who hesitate, who self doubt, who silence, who keep others silenced, who keep the bar low, who are rewarded by white queers for keeping the roiling masses in check, are running tings. Sweet.

So, yeah...
I walked by this woman as she stood smuggly smiling at me, standing next to an older Black man. Her father? Perhaps.

Her words to me? "Hey Mommy."

I looked into her eyes as I allowed my feet to carry me away from her and her disease. I saw the madness, the colonialism Rozena described to me last week as we walked and chatted. We spoke about what I call scoffing, what she calls mocking. We both speak about that nasty, sarcastic, smiling, veiled menacing way colonials, the colonized have of dealing with those they understand must be punished, must be blocked, must be kept away from view if the status quo is not to be disturbed. Feel powerful enough to do them subtle harm, to deliver subtle cuts.

I remember talking with the Black queer wimmin I lived with around the time I started work on this blog, who delivered what I called butter knife cuts verbally. It was their preferred way of dealing death slowly over time. Nick, nick, nick. Cowardly nick. Indirect nick. Smiling, sanctimonious, power based dominated and dominating nick.

I remember Rozena saying that this is what they learned from the settler colonials who had so horribly abused them/us. This is the manifestation of the daily domination that emotionally and psychologically harmed far worse than any, ANY whip could ever do.

Those cuts, delivered by white church goers, white men, wimmin and children who really believed themselves to be racially, morally and socially superior, must have been soul destroying. It must have been pretty damn near impossible to defend against those invisible blows especially given the fact that the slaves were not allowed to speak back even after they were "freed".

They could not speak back. They could not talk back. They were not allowed to cuss back. They could literally be destroyed, taken off the face of the earth for breaking their silence and openly resisting.

My brow is furrowed. I'm struggling to keep my eyes open, to keep typing. Images of all the Black people I've known and encountered over the years are flashing past my mind's eye. So much pain. Most of them have scoffed and mocked each other, their partners, their children, the family members. Most of them have been harmed by other Black people who scoffed and mocked at them, subtly verbally, emotionally and psychologically abusing them.

I undestand that because our ancestors could not resist by verbally pushing back the filth, the smiling, hateful, sarcastic, caustic, abusive shit those people who treated them as if they had no "worth" filled their ears with, they eventually learned to understand themselves as only having "worth" if they, too could utilize these techniques designed to maintain social hierarchies.

Confused?

Let me explain it another way...

If formerly free African human beings were bought by sub humans who artificially set themselves up above their captives and if these people controlled every facet of their existence including the definition of their "worth" and if these people, these savage, brutish, emotionally diseased, spiritually and morally lacking sub humans day in and day out basically made fun of their captives utilizing subtle verbal jabs as a way to emotionally and psychologically subjugate and if children, who did not, who could not remember, who had no memories of a time before, when relations were not so purposefully infected with diseased dynamics, were born into the toxic stew, and if those children eventually grew up surrounded by the evidence of verbal and social subjugation not just in the form of physical and sexual abuse, but also in the form of this disgusting colonizing scoffing meant to lay them and theirs low...
What else would they eventually be able to do save perpetuate it, utilize it, turn it not on those understood as "worth" more than them, but on those they could construct as "worth" less than them...

What else could they do but scoff and mock so as to construct hierarchies within hierarchies? What else could they do besides unknowingly...that's too easy...besides knowingly perpetuate the way of dealing they'd been taught would give them more of a sense of "worth" at the expense of others also struggling to hold to some sense of worth in a system completely predicated on none of them being seen as "worth" anything?

As I passed that poor, sad, misled, angry, scoffing Black woman...Black gay woman who probably defines as quite radical and politically conscious because the understanding of the people who surround her has created a context that is limited enough to allow her space to construct herself as radical in a time where there has been an extreme right swing inside communities of resistance that mirrors the extreme right swing of governments here in north amerikkka...

As I passed her, not bothering to stop, not at all interested in keeping up appearances which is another really "fun" hobby of Black people, especially middle-class or middle-classing Black people from the english caribbean (I can only speak about the english regions)...for those of you who fucking love to read caribbean wimmin writers, take another look, re-read what you thought you had adequately read and desconstructed and written term papers about, it's all there, just really deeply buried...

As I passed her, knowing that her analysis, what little there may be, only allows her to see me and read me as punished woman, as stupid, as suitably subjugated for the crime of speaking openly and fucking even more openly...

As she spoke her idiotic words of veiled sarcastic greeting "Hey (Or was it "Hi") Mommy!" I responded in a way that would allow me to keep walking.

I responded in a way that did not leave any space for a meaningless dialogue that would not cut through her ignorance, her lust for power, her willingness to participate in her own subjugation by attempting to subjugate me...

I responded, substituting my self understanding for her painfully obvious lack of understanding. I responded, centering mySELF and destabilizing for me, but probably not for her, her attempt to dominate me using a tried and true colonial technique learned from those who stole the flesh of our ancestors and who attempted to complete the theft by redefining their powerful sense of worth not at all located in the market place or on the auction block, transforming it, perverting it into something that would allow them and their descendants to be bought and sold as things only of "worth" when defined as objects not as subjects.

I responded to her scoffing by reminding her of my worth grounded, located deep in my core, able to be called on in moments such as this by a simple utterance. I called forth my worth and held tight to it manifesting it with full voice, powerful and clear as I walked proudly and consciously away from her.

"My name is T.J."

I am their daughta. I do not forget.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Her beautiful cervix...

I know I said I would write about "worth" but I got distracted by this beautiful woman whose inner beauty is so very evident...I found her images via earth hearth. Thanks to them and to this courageous student midwife.

I've touched many wimmin's vulvas in lust, felt their cervixes or rather tried to avoid banging their cervixes as my fingers explored, sliding in and out in and out over smooth or ridged surfaces.

Honestly? I can't say I've ever actually looked inside a woman lover. I know these pictures from touch and taste and smell and sigh and groan and shriek.

This adds a whole other dimension to all our insides. Much appreciated. ;)

One full cycle of Cervie Love...

I am a 25 year old woman who has never given birth.

My intention with this project was to better understand my cycle and the changes in my cervix throughout the month. As a student midwife, I used this project to help me see how a cervix might look different throughout the cycle in the absence of vaginal infections and to understand speculum exams. You may notice on the right side of some photos, some jagged looking skin, which is the remnants of my hymenal ring.

Each photo was taken at approx 10:00 pm every day starting the first day of my menstrual cycle. I re-used a plastic speculum (order one here) and macro function of normal digital camera (and a very talented boyfriend with a headlamp). For the duration of this project, we used condoms as our birth control method so as not to introduce semenal fluid into the photoshoot. I also charted my basal body temperature to notice when the post-ovulation rise in progesterone triggered a rise in my body's temperature.

This cycle I photographed is of normal length for me, about 33 days. The diagram above is for a 28 day cycle. My cycle's follicular phase (variable number of days preovulation) lasts until about day 20 or 21. My fertile phase lasts from days 12 to 21 with ovulation on day 20. My luteal (postovulation) phase is 13 days long (12-16 days is the norm and is not variable).

Above is a graph of my basal body temperature for this cycle. As you can see, after ovulation on about day 20, my temperature began to rise due to the heat-inducing hormone progesterone produced by the corpus luteum. This temperature shift signifies that ovulation has already occurred. Check out more information about the Fertility Awareness Method of birth control.

I love her loving her cervix reminding me to love mine. The rest of her wonderful images are here...

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Proceed with cerebral expansion project...

Verbivore has left a new comment on your post "I did not know his work directly, but...":

If you do get the chance to read some of his work, I'd also recommend reading his wife's poetry (she didn't write much, only in the beginning and, sadly, she died very young) because they offer different versions of a response to the same anger. Her name was Suzanne Césaire and she helped him found the revolutionary journal Tropiques.

Very glad to have found your blog, I'll be staying tuned.

Oh thanks for that nudge in her direction. I studied the surrealistes as part of my fine arts degree but funny how her name never came up as I was encouraged to pay copious amounts of attention to fur teacups. ;)

I immediately went and googled Suzanne Césaire...

	Photo d'archives, D.R., vers 1950

Suzanne Roussi (Roussy) est née le 11 août 1915 en Martinique. Elle fait ses études à Toulouse et à Paris, où elle rencontre le jeune Aimé Césaire, avec qui elle travaille à la rédaction de la revue L'Etudiant noir. Le couple, marié en 1937, aura six enfants. En 1941, à Fort-de-France, avec la collaboration de René Ménil et d'Astride Maugée, Suzanne et Aimé Césaire fondent la revue culturelle Tropiques. C'est pour cette revue que Suzanne Césaire écrit les seuls essais qu'elle a publiés – sept textes au total.

Les premiers essais de 1941 traitent des influences européennes, notamment celles de l'ethnologue allemand Léo Frobenius et du surréaliste André Breton. Dès son quatrième article « Misère d'une poésie », publié en 1942, Suzanne Césaire établit les fondations d'une nouvelle littérature d'identité martiniquaise, fortement distincte de la perspective qu'offre l'ancien continent sur les îles. Par la suite, dans « Malaise d'une civilisation », elle avertit les Martiniquais des dangers de l'assimilation et conseille à ses lecteurs de reconnaître « toutes les forces vives mêlées sur cette terre où la race est le résultat du brassage le plus continu ». Suzanne Césaire rappelle aussi la dette du mouvement surréaliste envers ses pratiquants extra-hexagonaux dans son essai « 1943 : Le Surréalisme et nous », qui s'approprie le surréalisme comme arme de choix d'une poésie martiniquaise. Dans ses écrits, Suzanne Césaire prévoit une Caraïbe multiethnique et dynamique, une vision qui culmine dans son dernier essai, « Le Grand Camouflage ». Celui-ci examine les origines historiques, sociologiques, et économiques d'une Martinique multiple et invite ses lecteurs à inventer une littérature nouvelle.

Après la guerre, Suzanne Césaire retourne à Paris avec son mari, élu député du nouveau département à l'Assemblée Nationale. Enseignante, elle continuera à travailler dans le domaine culturel et adaptera une nouvelle de Lafcadio Hearn (Youma, The Story of a West-Indian Slave, 1890) pour un groupe théâtral martiniquais en 1952. Cette pièce, intitulée Aurore de la liberté, traite de la révolte noire en Martinique de mai 1848. Mis en scène par un groupe amateur, le texte n'a jamais été publié.

Suzanne Césaire se sépare de son mari en 1963 et meurt trois ans plus tard, à l'âge de 50 ans. Les traces de son influence restent visibles dans l'œuvre de maints auteurs contemporains, dont Daniel Maximin et Édouard Glissant. Sa vision d'une littérature antillaise ancrée dans une terre qui fait partie de ce peuple « aux quatre races et aux douzaines de sang », son refus de l'exotisme littéraire, et sa reconnaissance des relations dynamiques et interculturelles en jeu aux Antilles continuent à fasciner et à inspirer.

– Kara Rabbitt

Such beautiful language.

Nobody ask me to translate. Comprehension is a separate skill from translation. I could probably take apart the concepts, flip them around and regurgitate them as english, but that would take more time than I have and Shmolee is screaming in Papi's arms as I type.

So, I'll just say, she sounds like a very fascinating woman. Here's the link to the page I found the above text on. Here's my google search page link.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

I have a lot of comments to respond to...

I think I'll spend the weekend catching up on all the notes people have left. Sorry for the delay. There was sun this week. I went outside instead of blogging. :)

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

When I walk the streets and run into them I remember what I have no choice but to resist...

Today as I walked and chatted I thought about what I could possibly write that a gathering of political people interested in the most simplistic presentations and verbalizations would find of use, not too offensive, too difficult, almost impossible to digest. I wondered what witty, rhythmic and kewl single-layeredness I could possibly market that would draw an audience prepared to come, pay and listen.

I originally placed this film treatment on my homeworldsite.

I thought of this work and came to the conclusion that something based on this treatment could not possibly work. It's much too messy and asks for accountability and consciousness from deep, deep inside my own yard. Definitely something that should never see the light of day. Don't you think?

one the difficult things about living in toronto black community where folks are accessing education at the post-secondary level is the fact that they/we are gaining the trappings of particular kinds of activist/revolutionary/feminist politics while simultaneously not actually internalizing any tangible everyday ways of resisting stuff like patriarchy/classism/homophobia/erotophobia.

as a black, queer woman who is bent on change the shitty fact has been that i'm most often not dealing with men around their patriarchal shit, but instead dealing with the wimmin [queer or hetero] who, out of a need to be considered acceptable and useful, have allied themselves with these men by not actively analysing and questioning black male dominance and other forms of oppression inside black community. they prefer to not be seen as too 'negative'. not be seen as 'haters'. not be seen as 'problems'. they prefer to be 'popular' and 'liked'. why, i've even had one young[er] black woman ask me: 'don't you want to have friends? don't you want to get invitations to parties?'

it hurts my head. but it has also been disastrous for me personally in that my communications and interactions...well actually lack of communication and interaction with other black wimmin who may be calling themselves political/activists/feminists in Toronto is rife with strife linked to the inability of our 'brethren' to socially/politically/personally transform and just fuckin' grow up.

not his lucky number is the story of juma, a cowardly bully of a man whose favourite targets are powerful wimmin. he meets his match in his thirteenth victim - an intelligent, perceptive, defiant dark queer gyal named aya. it's a metaphor for the power structures i'm presently bucking up against in black, conservative, sex-negative, classist, patriarchal community...it also resonates with my ability to name dominance and to resist.

a treatment
not his lucky number
a film about resistance, black male patriarchy, black female goddess energy and breaking the silence

a black man in his late twenties, early thirties, named juma stands in a bedroom. he has long locks pulled back in a pony tail. his face is bearded. he wears a loose fitting white cotton tunic with embroidery around the neck and a pair of loose fitting pants with an ital coloured belt. the room isn't well lit and has only one small window. it's messy and furnished with bits and pieces of unmatched furniture.

there is a low futon with mussed, psuedo african designed sheets. there are framed posters of erykah badu and lauren hill on one wall. there is a broken down dresser in one corner. atop it is one lone photo in a frame of an older woman holding the hand of a young black boy. on another wall is a poster of some famous or some powerful, feminist woman that has obviously been slashed with a knife many times.

surrounding the defaced poster are twelve photos of different wimmin of colour. the photos are crumpled and gouged. juma removes a photo from a knapsack. it's a photo of a black woman in her late twenties or early thirties named aya. juma gazes at the picture intensely for a moment, then angrily crumples aya's image in one hand. he then meticulously uncrumples the photo and tapes it to the wall among the twelve half destroyed photos.

he puts on his coat, picks up the knapsack and walks out of the room closing the door behind him.

when next we see him, juma's at an intimate house party at a house in an artsy yet fast becoming bourgie part of town. soft, soulful neo-soul music is emanating from a small, yet expensive stereo system. the walls of the apartment are covered with costly afrocentric art of the heterocentric, family values, airbrushed variety. incense wafts from a holder on a small, intricately carved table. there are groups of black people in earth toned, urban, ethnocentric african inspired seventies wear scattered around, punctuated by a few white or coloured others who have been offered welcome and safe passage. these people are mostly sporting various kinds of matted hair do's.

some of the tie head, dreadlocked or nappy afro wearin' wimmin in the room are recognizable from the wall of ravaged photos back at juma's place. these wimmin approach him and welcome him with coquettish smiles and playfully submissive conversation.

in one corner of the room, we see aya smoking, holding a beer, talking emphatically to different people and laughing exuberantly. she is wearing a brightly coloured, tight fitting knee length dress that emphasizes her voluptuous figure. on her wrists are leather cuffs. her multicoloured hair is arranged in a bunch of pom-poms . on her feet are high heeled black boots of the fetish variety.

juma spots aya but does not approach her. instead he moves around the room from group to group, whispering in different people's ears and gesticulating in her direction. the other people at the party begin to whisper. they begin to ignore aya.

aya eventually finds herself standing alone in one corner. she spots juma and immediately realizes that he is the source of the negativity in the room. she fixes him with a look of annoyance and impatience.

aya makes her way towards juma. he seems uncomfortable, scared. he tries to elude her, remaining in the shadows, keeping other people between himself and her. realizing that he will not be able to avoid her for much longer he attempts to make his way to the door of the apartment. as juma moves across the center of the room, a circle of onlookers forms around himself and aya trapping both of them within its confines.

aya approaches juma without hesitation. she stands in front of him and stares him straight in the eye. at first juma puffs out his chest and tries intimidate her with his intensity and with his masculine energy. aya's gaze does not waver. in fact, she smiles at him knowingly as if to say she sees right through his bullshit to the heart of his fear. then she yawns. a big, lazy, drawn out, loud yawn.

juma tries to once more enlist the help of the others in the room. he plays on their fears, works their limitations, using their own assumptions about wimmin, queers and sex against them. it especially works well with the wimmin who are already scared of stepping out of line. it works really well with the men, many of whom are filled with castration fears projected, steeped in ego insecurity and gender constructed masculinity issues. beyond their talk about african queens they hope that the black wimmin they know will forget who they really are and allow themselves to be controlled.

in sinuous, slimy tones, juma reminds them that aya is different and therefore unknowable, therefore uncontrollable, therefore a threat to the community, therefore she should be avoided if not out-and-out physically hurt in some way.

as he speaks and gestures and points at aya, juma smiles evilly, triumphantly, seeing success around him. he will have his way. the crowd roils menacingly, angrily. they chat about aya and laugh in a manner that belies the imminent threat they pose to her safety.

without fear aya looks down her nose at all of them, letting them know that they are brainless minions following a very small-minded, terrified man in search of personal power, who does not deserve to have the attention they so freely give him.

the music stops. the people around aya and juma fade into the shadows and a piercingly brilliant light illuminates the two of them. aya transforms, growing in stature, taking on the aspect of some powerful warrior goddess. she is vengeance and justice combined. vengeance for herself and her name sake. justice on behalf of other wimmin who have struggled or expired under the malicious machinations of men like juma.

her eyes flash and she stomps one foot as if to shake the earth. her teeth are bared. juma cowers, forced to play the victim. his malignance has been discovered, his weakened state exposed under the merciless light from above and the strength of aya's gaze.

aya begins to circle him. her hips gyrate. her body undulates as she ravages juma cursing him, chanting:

back to your mama!
back to your mama!
back to your mama!

little man, little boy,
still stuck in the playground?
in the playground you'll eventually die.

back to your mama!
i can't heal you.
betta go get yourself some help.
if you don’t claim your shit,
you'll be seeing the effects on your sex.

back to your mama!
your patriarchal ways are hell bent,
you hide your need for dominance,
taking care of no one but yourself.

back to your mama!
there's no goodness in your heart.
your energy is stink,
your soul a resounding fart.

back you your mama!
woman hate is what you sell.
they listen to your bile,
then your malicious lies they tell.

back to your mama!
this defiant one is not about to go away,
won't give in to being ruled,
in your face she'll always stay.

back to your mama!
her woman flesh fed you.
if you forget that,
increased sadness will be your due.

back to your mama!
focus of your original hate.
continue avoiding knowledge,
and doom our people to a singular fate.

back to your mama,
you don't deserve to look upon me,
avert your eyes!
twisted reality is all you see.

back to your mama!
back to your mama!
back to your source!
back to your origin!
respect your mama!
respect this mama!
respect your source!

little man, little boy,
i feel sorry for your mama.
in you,
she's birthed a foul facety curse!

by the end of aya's chanting the other people in the room have joined in: 'back to your source! back to your source! back to your mama! back to your mama!'

the wimmin are chanting to the men and they are all chanting at juma.

the light from above fades as abruptly as it appeared. no longer possessed of goddess energy aya slumps. juma, exposed for as a pitifully moronic fool, is enraged. he takes advantage of her physical vulnerability by trying to hit her. one of the people at the party finally moves to intercede; a brethren grabs hold of juma's hand and holds it firm. juma wrestles his arm away, grabs up his knapsack and runs out of the room.

surrounded by cheers and support all come too late, aya stomps her foot again. the room goes silent.

she fixes all of them with an unforgiving glare. she remembers that they had just a few moments ago been allied on juma's side. she doesn't forget that they would have stood back and watched, letting him have his way with her. she doesn't trust the wimmin's fickle change of heart either or their shaky attestations of friendship. when aya turns to them all she sees is their inability to meet her gaze.

she kisses her teeth, takes one last look around, turns and saunters out the door. a few of the wimmin nudge their way through the crowd and follow her closing the door behind them.

the music begins again. the 'party' continues.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

I see her every few years and she insists that I stop fucking around and do some work...

I went out for coffee with my mentor and friend this afternoon. We talked about being wimmin who don't agree to be patriarchally col0nized married and silent possessions of men. We both agree that being married does not mean we have to collude with patriarchal domination and respect unspoken or spoken contracts related to wimmin speaking obliquely or not speaking at all about marriage and motherhood as potential sites of oppression.

I said to her that the wimmin I am acquainted with always seem so scandalized about me speaking openly to Papi about his actions, his emotional baggage, my boundaries and the kind of family I want to rear Stinkapee and the Shmolian in. I said that there is a way that even feminist wimmin understand that there must be a lapse, a gap between what they believe about patriarchal relations and how they deal with their male partners real time.

We both agreed that we have no interest in this kind of gap. We traded stories about our daughters being forthright and challenging of their male parents and of us. We laughed with pride and discomfort, too, at their ability to verbalize and insist on behaving according to what we have modeled.

We talked about writing revolution, about creativity. She cautioned me, as she always does, to not share my work so openly.

They will demonize you so as to destroy you and then once they understand the "original" to have been eliminated, they will then pass a watered down version of your words off as their own.

I said that I know this.

We exchanged stories about this having happened time and time again. I told her that I'd experienced this both in real time and in blogland. I said that I felt sad for the wimmin especially women of color who cannot stand on their own merit, who do not know how to cite their sources or who do not have a strong enough ethical center that will allow them to do this, who do not know how to not participate in hierarchies predicated on domination, scarcity and treachery who I usually end up discovering are also complaining about others, usually white wimmin who attempt to eliminate or ignore them so as to better appropriate their words.

Hee. Hee. Muthafuckin hee.

I told her that I watch them come and move through me in in waves, moving in close, learning, reading, becoming uncomfortable, constructing me as evil, not nice, offensive as they back away, while still taking notes which they can then use to beef up what they say, write, perform.

I told her that I was sad but that I content myself with realizing that they can't steal me. They can only bite off manageable pieces which they will then have to water down so as to make sure they remain popular with readers, viewers, audience members who like their politics lyte and easily consumable rather than difficult and horrifying.

I said that I wait for them to get their well paying government, academic or not for profit jobs where they will be locked away behind office doors and sound proof movable cloth partitions until they expire or shoot themselves in the head out of sheer dissatisfaction with the tiny little lives they constructed for themselves.

I continue, I told her.

I said that perhaps my real calling will be pushing out revolutionary babies who have the benefit of being exposed to every single last blasted political insight I have. Maybe that will have to be my right work.

Nonetheless, I keep going and writing and thinking and creating.

Creativity bubbles out of my mind, exiting via my fingertips. Nothing, no gossip, no defamation, no witch hunters will ever change that.

I told her that I watch them pass on and over knowing that I will live, that I will keep all my hair, that my face will remain smooth, that my heart will continue to beat at a regular rate because I don't have any anxiety about being caught perpetrating a massive fraud and passing it off as a career or calling...

I will live and they will continue to live their anxious, disturbed, unclear half lives, not fully present in their own bodies, desperately trying to find a way to hide away bits of who they are...

We spoke fully, our conversation punctuated by cussings, giggles, exclamations and touch.

She wants me to stop giving all my words and ideas away to blogland. I told her that I've been seeking a place to be and I can cover the most ground using this blog as a tool. I search on a planetary scale. I said I had found very little that leads me to believe that there will ever be an economically viable market for my words.

She still wants me to write and travel and read and personally deliver my own words. I said I'd consider it. Okay, I said I'd do it. sigh...

What have I gotten myself into? I really would much rather stay home and blog to my readers.

It was good to get out of the house and see the sun without living-room window as intermediary.

I have a crush on a man....real time. He's attractive. Papi swears he's gonna help me work it out. I'm not sure if I want a co-conspirator. I don't know if that's necessary. Not really up for another man. But he is very cute...probably completely oblivious to my attention. People usually don't see anything but the stroller and fatty baby. Cute...oblivious...cute...Papi and I have been talking about poly and jealousy and me going out...without him. It's spring. Hormones are doing things. They'll calm down. I've always got my blog.

Oh! And I talked with Ophelia last night. She called. Our discussion is percolating. I think that if I hadn't written all the difficult things on this blog earlier this week, I wouldn't have been clear enough to speak with her so forthrightly last night.

Crying convulsively and deeply is such a cleansing thing to do. I need to make space to do more of it. I want to live and this will involve jettisoning some of the crap I've encountered out of me rather than hoarding away the cancerous bits like wondrous treasures.

I'm making a paella with arborio rice and pork chops this evening. Gotta run.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Unless you're planning on further entrenching the dominance of amerikkkan political bloggers....

The BlogHer Newsletter

Want to find women who blog politics by state and political party? Announcing the BlogHer guide - add your favorite now!

2008/04/17 19:03 Eastern Daylight Time

Hi everyone,

Do you write or read political blogs? Do you hunt for new ones by state and/or party? Have we got the widget for you:

We're excited to announce our latest project, BlogHer's Guide to Political Bloggers, brought to you by BlogHer's politics team and our friends at Cerado. While we love the many blog-lists that abound of amazing political blogging by women, we got tired of trying to guess which state bloggers are from and/or which party they're in or leaning toward. That's why, as a non-partisan guide to women who blog, BlogHer has developed a widget that you can instantly categorize your blog in and find other bloggers. You can:

* Search by state
* Search by blogger's first or last name
* Search by political party using our color key:
Blue = Democrat
Green = Green
Gray = Undecided
Khaki = Libertarian
Orange = Independent
Purple = Other/Multiparty
Red = Republican

This guide is incredibly easy to use --both to list your blog and then to post on your blog, too. We've pre-loaded it with a few bloggers we know, but hey -- we don't want to make a mistake about where you live and what you think! So rather than pour all 700-ish blogs from the BlogHer Politics blogroll into the mix, we think it's better if you add your blog. Here's how:

How do I add a blog?
A: Click the "Add Yourself" link and answer the questions. You'll be added as soon as you publish!

How do I edit or remove a blog listing?
A: Please email help@blogher.com and put "Guide to Political Bloggers" in the subject line.

How do I put the guide on my site?
A: Go to http://www.blogher.com/bloghers-guide-political-bloggers for more info. (As you'll see, you can download a skinny sidebar widget that's 160x600 pixels or a square widget that's 300x250 pixels.)

How do I reach political bloggers in the guide?
A: Click on a blog name to go to that blog's homepage.

How do I read the guide on my iPhone?
A: Go to http://www.blogher.com/bloghers-guide-political-bloggers for info.

What powers this widget?
A: You. Go add yourself already! And our friends at Cerado, who built it for us using Cerado Ventana (tm).

We hope you're as excited as we are -- this is just one more way in which BlogHer is trying to put the question "Where are the women bloggers?" to rest forever, and to get the word out about what all of you are doing.

So tell us - what do you think of it? What would you do differently? What should our next widget be about?

Really looking forward to your feedback...and a special shout-out to the team who worked so hard on this: BlogHer's Denise Tanton, Morra Aarons-Mele, Erin Kotecki Vest and Cerado's Chris Carfi and Sarah Dopp.

Dear BlogHER,
I got the email you sent out about your brand new service. Congratulations! It's so exciting to find new ways to locate the bloggers I read. But it was also good to contemplate inserting myself into other places where my blog might be noticed and perhaps attract new readers.

Then I read the description you wrote and my brow furrowed. I was like...HUNH!?

This service obviously only makes room for amerikkkan bloggers.

Well, that makes it redundant as amerikkkan bloggers are already getting quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere and they already form a massive ol' boys, ol' girls, ol' cullid boys, ol' cullid girls' club that is completely power based and hegemonic in nature, mirroring the dominance their country has managed to foster realtime with an imperialist expansion and affirmative action project that completely supports the promotion of amerikkkan group blogs, news blogs, individual blogs, feminist blogs, women of color blogs, lefty blogs, progressive blogs and leaves precious little space for bloggers like myself who aren't interested in mindlessly blogging about Hilary and Obama or the exploits of The Daily KOS or Feministe every rattid day.

So dry. So limiting.

Pardon me, but I want more and I have more to offer. I suspect that there are other bloggers out there who aren't based in giant bully land who also have interesting things to share who would like to have their political blogs promoted.

So...
There is a lot of space in what you've envisioned to really tighten up your concept because either the mandate of your service is too broad or your geographical and political focus is way too narrow. There's a conflict somewhere in there.

For instance, nowhere in what you've written have you described the service as being specifically about amerikkkan bloggers and yet, when you get into the logistics of locating a blogger's stomping ground, you only speak of location in an amerikkkan context as being about the blogger's home state. When you speak about blogger partisanship you only reference the really simplistic amerikkkan political party system.

Basically your service seems to be completely about promoting amerikkkan bloggers without this being specifically stated.

So, I'm thinking you might want to consider either changing the name of your listing to something like:

We Think Amerikkkan Political Bloggers Are the Only REAL Political Bloggers On The PLANET

or...
Perhaps you might want to consider changing the make-up of the listing to something that is more international with ample space to list political bloggers based in:

-Native nations on unceded yet still stolen lands anywhere on the planet
-kkkanada
-countries in africa
-countries in central and south amerikkka
-countries in east/south/south east asia
-countries in the middle east
-island nations in the pacific
and...
Could you conceive of some way to make space for expats and exiles, landless people like me who can't quite claim a country comfortably because racist imperialism and colonization has made things a bit more complicated?

C'mon! You have a real opportunity to open up and share the full scope of the political blogging world. I think this would be a particularly good idea because I'd like to be listed and I don't live in a state. I live in a province. And I wasn't born in a state, I was born in a parrish...

Oops, I think I passive aggressively left europe off my places that needed to be included list. But they could be included, too. Sure!

Please feel free to write me when I can finally come and be counted by adding my blog to your wonderful list of poltical blogs.

Thanks so much.
darkdaughta.

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

I see no bravery, only sadness...

I've seen a video clip of him performing this live, banging out the pain and horror on his piano, his face contorted with memory, regret and probably a host of other emotions...a soldier, himself.

When I hear this song my response is layered. I see the images in this video and I am horrified, saddened, scared, enraged about the various imperialist, racist wars taking place all over the planet.

But I am also listening with a different part of my consciousness, thinking about my dismay, frustration, disgust over the state of things in blogland where those who are widely understood as brave and insightful leaders pursue tiny minded agendas grounded in fear, craving of external validation, manipulatively, repeatedly threatening to stop blogging and thereby disbanding the networks they have built if they are not continually centralized and understood as the prime sources of information in the feminist blogosphere, in the woc rad feminist blogosphere.

What hypocrisy, what insecurity, what monumental button pushing irresponsible, unethical bullshite. I'm tired of hearing her squall for more attention and more validation.

It sickens me. I see no bravery...no bravery...no bravery in those eyes anymore, only pathetic sadness. I see no allies...no allies...no allies in their eyes anymore only lies, stupidity and sadness.

I've been having the best and bravest email conversation I've had in blogland about what it means to question inside my own yard rather than perpetually lobing grenades over into other feminist wimmin's yards into white feminist wimmin's yards which I understand as being a really easy way to get cred, to get noticed, to seem powerful without having to try too hard.

When all feminists of color understand how important it is for white wimmin to deal with their virulent racism and white privilege, how easy is it for some unscrupulous or perhaps insecure women of color to utilize a framework that seems to request this kind of questioning for other purposes? For their own purposes?

Fuck. Useless white guilt means that many white feminists, when questioned about their racism will roll over with ease. Useless lack of consciousness means that there are many, even in situations when they do need to question their own actions and choices, will try to ignore their white privilege. I don't dispute the existence of foolish, politically ignorant white feminists who insist on ignoring their own racism. I think they have severe difficulties.

Sadly, I don't think that what happens in blogland where white wimmin are challenged by premier women of color bloggers has anything to do with challenging racism in the blogosphere.

I think that these little ritual dances have everything to do with mounting and grasping at power (over) in ways that are thoroughly unattractive.

I dont' know any of these wimmin personally, but I am gathering that there is a drug like rush that probably cannot be duplicated.

With the blogger who is the subject of the post I linked to up above, I see that she seeks the blood rush that comes from targeting big fleshy powerful game, prominent privileged, usually white wimmin bloggers every few weeks.

I see her carefully claim her victims from among the most well known, most well situated.

A twisted little game that has absolutely nothing to do with questioning the racism of white wimmin and every last blasted thing to do with repeatedly masturbating on them in plain sight so as to feel less tiny, less insignificant, probably because she has been made to feel so insignificant.

Let me explain how it works...
Claiming the status of ultimate victim, martyr status allows space to carefully, insidiously wage an assault not against white domination but against individual white wimmin who are always vulnerable to this kind of manipulation because in their own estimation, she, as a woman of color, as THE woman of color who can only ever be victim never passive-aggressive power wielder who cannot be defended against because to defend against her onslaught is to further attack her and victimize her...oppressing her.

I've been watching her do it over and over again over the years. She did it to me. :)

I've been watching her feed. I know her kind. I've loved them. I've befriended them. I've lived with them. I've learned to recognize them. I've learned to not shelter them. I've learned to not tolerate them. I've learned to give them a wide berth whenever possible.

But since I already got my ass kicked for not giving a good enough rimming...I will keep on blogging and digging myself a sweet, deep hole six feet under.

I understand her.
I understand her need to experience the rush of power, to feel more powerful as someone who has been dominated in a racist world. I understand that she may even, somewhere under there have an experience of more intimate horror that her focus on racism does not allow her to voice or blog. I see that she is sitting on something massive that haunts her and drives her.

I'm haunted and driven. So, I get the pain, the hunger to punish someone, anyone for all what she has encountered. However, I will never, ever validate her methods.

Her witch hunts do not serve me as a Black feminist who has learned to break silences in the outside world but also inside communities of resistance.

The witch hunts have set a particular tone in the feminist blogosphere. The witch hunts have harmed me and profoundly disturbed my relationship to the women of color radical feminist blogosphere.

I do not understand her indirect power based forced rimming hunts as beneficial. I understand the repeated mountings as horrors that undermine what could be her true power, that undermine relationships among blogging feminists of color and undermine whatever could be possible among those wimmin who most understand as the cream of the blogging feminist crop.

Her feeds are pathetic bids to keep herself seeming current, necessary, central and important.

Her feeds are unnecessary.

I don't think she realizes, caught and cornered as she seems to perpetually feel, that many people understand her as central, important and irreplaceable, already. So sad.

Soon the feeds will be every few days. She will definitely need to consume more and more. Her hunger, never quite satiated, will grow and grow. And those white people, guilty fucks who who define themselves as allies, who helped her with her attempt to mount me, a radical Black feminist who would not play ball, who literally do not know how to engage fully with their own racism, who need to participate in these feeding frenzies in order to feel like real white allies, who will they allow her to consume next? Will it be another Black woman or woman of color? Will they be able to rationalize away their participation in the social domination of a woman of color as an act of anti-racist alliance? And will participating as supporting players in the feed give them respite from their own white privilege and racism? I think not.

I'm hoping that at some point someone will notice that the vigilante posses don't actually achieve anything except the publicizing of the blogs of those who participate on her "side", on the side of the perpetual "victim" who needs everyone to get together and go:

"No! Please don't shut your blog down. Please don't leave us. We need you! We love YOU! WE WANT YOU! Who would you like us to harm? Who do you want us to firebomb? Who would you like us to ostracize? Just let us know and we'll fuck them up because they're mean to you and that won't do!"

Since people are fairly simple and have a fairly simplistic understanding of us women of color and our political agendas and our differences, I fear that no one will ever take a moment and track the many times she's done this move not just to white wimmin but also to the wimmin her cronies claim to represent, other wimmin of color like...me.

sigh...

I am thankful. I was able to write about that experience in extremely direct terms today in an email to a blogger who prefers to remain nameless. Talking to her felt like flowers, birthday cake, a deep muscle massage, a good slow fuck ending with a deep, deep soulful pained cry.

I'm still coughing up flies, barking, choking, convulsing around what it means to be a blogging political feminist of color. But I am eternally thankful to the one who actually was able to step to me, read my treasonous rad feminist woman of color words, make her own intelligent brave links and respond fully.

I am washing myself clean. I am blessed.

Oh, and if you're one of the simpletons who responds in knee jerk fashion to the insecure attention based tantrums of any of the premier feminist bloggers, don't come commenting or emailing me hoping to intimidate me into silence. I will cuss you stink and feel sweet about it. Kid gloves are completely off where simpleton politicos with only shallow understandings of fairly complicated issues are concerned.

insert:
I was in bed just now with Stinkapee when I remembered the fact that one of this woman's cronies, one of the ones who had supported my swarming by writing really awful things about me over on her blog had shown up her a few months back asking if it was okay to link to me.

Reloading...

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Context?...

bint alshamsa has left a new comment on your post "Well with a toddler in one arm...":

DarkDaughta,

I want to add you to my blogroll but, given our last interaction, I thought it best to ask your permission first. If you would prefer that I didn't, then please let me know in some way.

I saw you on Kili's blog and I realized that I hadn't visited here in a few months. It's good to see you still kicking ass and taking names. You have a lot to offer (but you already know that) and I think that if I'm going to continue to enjoy your writing, it shouldn't just be a parasitic thing. All I can offer in return for being able to read what you write is to make it available to whoever visits mine and might be interested to see what/who I'm reading on a daily basis.

salaam

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.

oops! If I wasn't clear, sorry. this is my response to her note:

I was going to keep going with the link making, but I got tired re-reading the shite and I started to feel like I was being drawn from where I wanted to be.

Last night I had an argument with Papi. He tried to shut down, which is what he usually tries to do. I didn't pursue him or the conversation...for a bit. Then I looked at him and he looked at me and I looked at him...and he looked at me...and looked away.

I finally asked him if he was going to leave the conversation where he had abandoned it.

He started to talk. This was good.

I pointed out to him that at this point, so many years in, though, what I'm actually seeking is for him to resume conversations when he exits. I'm wanting him to take responsibility to dealing with enough of his stuff, letting his ego quiet enough that he can speak clear and true from what he knows rather than speaking so as to cover, to hide, to obscure, to keep up appearances from a place of fear, no longer worried about discovery.

I said I didn't want to create the space for this to happen, as I had been attempting to do this for years to no avail as he had, at different moments, attempted to demonize me and to locate the pain I feel in these moments or the anger I speak to in these moments, as his reason for having to hide some more.

I think he got stuck there, cuz he started falling back on his usual conversational coping strategies, those he admits to having learned in his bio family home. Most importantly, he stopped listening to me.

We were still exchanging words, but that was all.

I sighed and thought about active listening. I mentioned it to him and described it. He was the one who remembered the phrase "active listening". He googled it and started reading.

While he was reading, I started thinking about all of you and about the shite. I thought about whether things would have gone any differently if I had communicated with less of my angry, pissed off, fearful, sick and tired, muthafuckin' imp. :)

Would things have gone differently if I had maintained interactive accommodating mama once people's oppressive stuff squashing this neck hadn't abated? If I had continued to say: There is an issue here that arose directly out of someone's reaction to things I posted on a mama blog, things that spoke about my identity openly and with courage, in opposition to much of what most black wimmin are allowed to state about who they really are as sexually autonomous beings. They/we are expected to embrace various closets and to understand our poonies as possessions. Precious possessions, but possessions, nonetheless. When her writing, designed to reclaim space for only the most narrow expression of wimmin's erotic (patriarchal heterosexual monogamy) ended up in a women of color venue where my work had been chosen, without context and without my permission, I understood that there would be more soul sucking, oppressive conversation directed my way. In my interactions with women of color/feminists of color who, at the time I came into blogland were writing posts that betrayed the fact that they had precious little comprehension of a radical political erotic (I remember one really special post where one of the premier women of color wrote about how disabled wimmin don't have time to worry about desire because they are oppressed...sweet...)sigh...I have often, mostly been constructed as the source of a particular approach...without context. It's almost as if to say...I am the originator of particular ideas about the erotic, which means I am the "go to person". I usually avoid these sorts of set ups as being the "go to person" inevitably means that my energy and work will be utilized rather than folks using their own energies to do their own research in order to painfully arrive at their own conclusions. So, major anxiety about my boundaries about to be crossed by every and any woman/person who would read that woman's post about the benefits of monogamy and then come on down the line to my post and attempt to engage me in questions, force a situation where I would be compelled to answer questions that this woman had left unanswered out of sheer and obvious ignorance. I had not agreed to the dance. I had not agreed to enter an artificial binary debate format so popular among the amerikkkan bloggers I had encountered. Yes, because blah, blah, blah. No, because blah, blah, blah. I agree, because blah, blah, blah. I don't agree, because blah, blah, blah. He's right because blah, blah, blah. He's wrong because blah, blah, blah. This was less of a "her side"/"my side" artificiality and more of a "there is a lot of information she hadn't read because as a patriarchal, heterosexual, monogamous woman, she didn't have to" sort of situation. (Oh, by the way, should she be lurking, I'm still not interested in debating the oppression that comes with patriarchal heterosexual monogamous value systems)

Could things have gone differently given that the onus was on me to tolerate the crossing of my boundaries, to accommodate those who had done it even as they explained that they were a gathering with rules they expected me to bend to which meant they could according to their own rules ignore my feelings, which would inevitably lead to me being forced to educate those who would come, directed by my link positioned in their gathering without my permission? Only if I was willing to be dominated into silence by these wimmin who should have really known better, who attempted to, through writing about the ethics of their carnival and not taking anyone's work without permission, to perform as if they knew better and as if this knowledge had just dropped out of the sky...after the fact...after I explained to them about requesting permission and not just taking someone's post and using it to their own ends.

Having spent years serving as bridge for women of color who did not could not respect my boundaries, I was clear about not being interested in being a bridge, exhausted, drained, sad, used, broken, this time.

Forced to be a bridge nonetheless, my teenager, the pyromaniac burnt it down around all our ears...she relights the fires every few days, now, not as a beacon to anyone who might be brave enough to brave the fires, but as a reminder to those of you who came so long ago...don't push me, cuz I've gone o-vah tha edge...

sigh...
Early this morning discussing active listening with Papi, I thought about all of you...well the ones I had had the misfortune of encountering. In that swarming, mob ruling, moment I yearned for active listening past the defense of public radical revolutionary personas.

Papi read on about active listening and we spoke. The conversation ended in a hopeful place. The light was on in his eyes. Change was brewing.

I had to pee. But instead I went to the computer at just after 3am to check my mail and look for comments. I used to dread them...after all of you came and wrote, after I left....

But, recently, as I've written with more clarity about who I am, my agendas and about my expectations in my sidebar, I got less odd comments from people who didn't realize they were draining and more comments from people whose blogs I liked to read sometimes.

Happy.

I had to pee. But instead I sat down, opened my yahoo account and saw your name. Bint Alshamsa. The pee dried up. :) It just evaporated.

Your communication seemed so benign, so respectful, so friendly...I still can't find that post of your where you called me "evil" in the title. (wan smile...emotions buffered by distance, I think...)

My hands felt cold. Papi asked if anyone had commented, which is what he always does when I sit down to check my mail. I lied and said there was nothing important there. So not true. But I wasn't able to deal with all of what lay below the surface of your seemingly innocuous note.

I went upstairs to the second floor.
Bathroom.
Pee now. Peed and then I started to push. There was shit. Lots of shit. My mind reeled with it. Reeled with the emails, the posts, the interactions. Reeled with the home environment I lived in when I started this blog in utter desperation, seeking something that would save my life. Reeled with the conversations, with the comments, with the posts, with the personalities, with the hope, with the frustration, with the eventual despair. Sitting, peeing, shitting, I reeled with aloneness.

There was shit, tiny little channas...I'm constipated, blocked. This stuff is blocking me, cycling me back, time and time and time again.

I am a treasure.
I have lots to offer.
I am useful.
I am smart.
I am insightful.
I am brave.
I am loyal.
I am honest.
I am loving.
I am taboo.
I am alone.
I am blocked.
I am feared.
I am hated.
I am avoided.
I am no one's sister.
I am not a pretty, light, fake friendly, nice, wispy voiced, frail sound byte.
I am a warrior.
I am a necessary monster.

Pushing out shit, I remembered lying on my bed at the intentional community old house, in labour, with so many points of departure, abandonment, leave taking, roiling inside me, a stormyemotionpainbleedingmemorymass wanting to take over my birth, wanting to send me to the hospital, wanting to cut me open, wanting to sacrifice my child.

I laid there, every brain cell, every ounce of control, every bit of power in me, holding back a wall of rage directed not at me, I understand, but at what I represent to those diasporans and coloured 'uns raised in the old way. Its not me they want to harm, I understand. It's the new, it's the change they have been seeking coming in ways they don't recognize. Change come too soon in a body they can't legitimize. Change sharing space with rude, not nice, uncomfortable, loud, cussing, ugly, smelly. Change is supposed to be more attractive. :)

I pushed out shit, pieces coming together, going CRASH, tears flowed, conscious of all what your note did not say, avoided saying, could not begin to explain.

I wiped myself and stood in front of the sink. I turned on the water picked up the aloe soap and looked at my hands, feeling them tingle with blood feeling like molten lava flowing inside. I wrung those hands around that soap, spreading suds and bubbles trying to feel...something...

Tears...we'll be coming up on two years of passive aggressive war between me and those you understand as your own, real soon...two years of suppressed tears and shrieks, you and yours will never hear or witness...soap suds...washing away shit, cleaning away shit...tears sobbed into the quiet of the night, my children and partner asleep...tears of regret...not for having spoken or resisted ... tears .... tears ... for having been born different enough that "home" may never be found in this life....tears, now, tears...shit and soap mingling...tears...there isn't enough water to clean it all away...tears shit soap just makes more mess for me to try and explain potentially more mess for you and yours to try and bury...

I want to bless you. But I'm not that strong or benevolent. I want to embrace you, Audre, bell, alice, luisah, angela and all the rest resonating in my ears, singing in my heart to this very day...I love, I love, I loved who I was when I read myself in their simple, flat, singular black woman words...they did not prepare me for life on the messy, layered frontlines. Or is it that they explained and I didn't understand?

I want to bless you, but I think I'll have to settle for releasing myself and claiming my tears.

I'll bless my tears. I'll claim them. Tears, running down my face now as I type and feel and remember, I'll claim them and love them because they're mine.

I am a treasure.
I have lots to offer.
I am useful.
I am smart.
I am insightful.
I am brave.
I am loyal.
I am honest.
I am loving.
I am taboo.
I am alone.
I am blocked.
I am feared.
I am hated.
I am avoided.
I am no one's sister.
I am not a pretty, light, fake friendly, nice, wispy voiced, frail sound byte.
I am a warrior.
I am a necessary monster.
This monsterwarriormamasisterscornedone will decide what bridges I want to build and what bridges I will have to let fall, which bridges I needs must allow to burn.

I am human, a human being striving towards change in her own way.

And so, despite all of it, despite what hasn't been claimed in your note, despite the voids, the absence of meaning and context, despite having experienced you as their bouncer woman, an enforcer come to make me eat my words, come to defend the indefensible...despite having grave misgivings that you come to once more fulfill that very same role with more stealth this time because so many are watching, I'll say:

Virus/thought/meme/change, I am.
I was born and raised to aloneness, perfectly suited to the nasty, ugly, unpalatable work of change best done when not seduced by popularity or group acceptance.
I have a job.
I have a purpose.
My purpose is served even when those who hate me visit me here.
My purpose is served even when those who don't get me visit me here.
My purpose is served even when those who shrink away from my choice of words visit me here.
My purpose is served even when I'm cut to the core. My job is sometimes about being cut to the core. This is painful, saddening, horrifying, depressing, infuriating, frustrating, hopeless, hopeful work, that, when done well, elicits no applause, no rewards. I don't usually feel the love. :)

My experience with you and some of the other key members of the radical feminists women of color confused me, cut me to the core and left me with the feeling that, even searching a whole planetary human continuum will not yield sistren, brethren or family.

That experience changed me, derailed me for a moment. It altered my plan of approach here in blogland, turned this blog into an attack vessel, not an invitation to forge treaty. The pain was crucial in that it actually served to adjust my tone so as to best be heard by those who would ignore a softer sell. My chosen approach has served me well even as it has left me a marked woman, bloodied and fearsome. From digging around here and there I understand, see and read that the experience that helped to craft this blog, this weapon, has changed many of you, too and perhaps served you all, as well.

Now, hot tears finally shed, I can say that I am glad to have entered a crucible, however unwittingly, however unwillingly, with some of you. A layer of sensitive, protective flesh was stripped off me and it was so easy to howl in pain, to draw away and to hate. I didn't budge from that place, couldn't budge from that place until your note, so emptied of context, forced me to draw together whatever bits I could so early this morning in service of my own sanity.

Seeing how I have moved in terms of the thoroughly unrealistic expectations I had when I entered blogland I am thankful for the intensely wicked (double entendre in full effect) reality check. Stripped of another layer of assumption about what it means to be a political lefty black woman diasporic african feminist woman of color, I am thankful for the raw, pulsing, bleeding soreness indicating the place where I attached and detached only to continue working in tandem...from a calculated distance.

I can't re-attach. This post/response isn't about re-attaching. Though, in reality, if any of what has happened could be grabbed by tiny sparse hairs and pulled out into the open by anyone save me, you'd be able to knock me over with a feather, grab my locks and drag me right back on over, red rover, red rover. If any of you could be courageous enough to claim your part in this shit, I'd have no choice but to come back on over.

sigh...

Change. I have a job. It doesn't pay anything. It's dangerous. It's unpopular. I fear for my children. My job will never be comfortable. I am very rarely comfortable. Reading your note was uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable now, as I type. But, this is the work of making change. So, yes, Bint Alshamsa, visit at will and link away.

After I wrote and posted and inserted and republished and re-read all of what I had shared here, I was able to cry. I'm still crying. The tears are riddled with diseased dry coughs. I think I'll be able to heal from this present incarnation of my dis-ease, the cough, now.

Someone help her stop the feed. Help her heal. Help me. Help us. Help us all. There is no bravery, no bravery...

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.