Biker Babe...

Bike riding has been an orgiastic pleasure. :)

Image of the homebirthing, attachment parenting, co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, home cooking, "good", Black "mother"...

The "Mother" went to a Burlesque show on Saturday night. As I was leaving, Papi, Stinkapee and Shmolee came back from having burgers and fries. We all stopped for a bit and chatted. Kisses and hugs for everybody. Then Mama left to go roam and get up to mischief and the babies went home to bed. :)

Of course it's worth it...su-WEET...

Not strictly true, but close enough...

"School is just for white people looking for other white people to read to them. I figure I save my money and read to myself."

Tara - True Blood

One day I'd like to have my picture taken with Oprah...

I think I went ballistic on Henry...I should fix that...

I've added some more. :)



Oh Henry, given your recent travails, I'd like to write you a poem or maybe a short story offered as a hug and a victory sign.

I'd title it something like:
"I know you're scared to layer your insights, let me hold your hand and talk you down, okay?"
Or
"It's too fucking late in the game to be still just talking race"
Or
"There's a place and time for old school, way back consciousness, that's called history class"
Or
"Dude, do you know what tha fuck is actually going on in the world outside your nicely classed reality?"
Or
"Please, Henry, please...sock it to me just this once...I promise I won't tell that you went all the way"
Or
"Henry, you do realize working class black men die in there and queer black men are sodomized and infected then die in there"
Or
"Mediations on...oh, wait...it's unspeakable...they're untouchable...do not store together..."
Or
"Oops! I said it, I said it! I keep saying it! I keep putting them together. Please don't hurt me!"
Or...
sigh...
Henry, let me just give you the straight goods for one sec, okay?

I know because you're a middle class presenting as heterosexual successful academic man, race is the thing you mostly have to deal with that sets you apart. Accruing as much class as you have, which you are actually brave enough to try to talk about still hasn't offered you or the folks who read you, it seems, a jump off point to incorporate a wholistic approach to discussing oppressions.

I understand that it's easy for many to just concentrate on one or two experiences of oppression. That's what privilege looks like. They have a choice. They can choose to focus right...in...tight...in....just examining what they feel they need to. Not what they are forced to. No, never what they're forced to because their very existence depends on being able to go wide, see broad.

Dear gawdess,
Please give the academics who feel they lead the charge of some great light brigade the common sense they need to look at the whole picture, the courage they need to push past what has come before.

Let the ones who are well known pick up a gauntlet that many have thrown down before me...a challenge. Put it tha fuck together. Pull your analysis together. Be done with issue fragmentation.

Remember that race is linked to gender binary oppression is linked to sexual oppression, is linked to settler colonialism, is linked to homophobia, is linked to lesbophobia, is linked to classism, is linked to shadeism, is linked to fat phobia, is linked to elder targeting ageism, is linked to youth targeting ageism, is linked to sexism, is linked to academic elitism, is linked to imperialism, is linked to nationalism, is linked to, to, to, too many for me to even pretend I even get all the pieces, but these are the ones that come for me and so I offer them here for easy perusal but not debate.

Dear gawdess please help Henry and his clique of academics who it seems have branded their theoretical territories so completely that they have boxed themselves and their ideas into really tight, small spaces, which doesn't leave them enough space to cross over enough for my liking, don't tend to make enough links for my liking which would lead me to take them more seriously as great minds because I figure great minds should be amazingly capable multitaskers who I'd think would have an easier time making the links since they spent so much money on their degrees and have many more degrees than this stay at home breeder shit disturber who couldn't stick it out for very long in the hallowed halls of puking academia because clearly I didn't have the right stuff, the wherewithall to stay and learn from those who clearly know and understand more than I do, because I was so scared and incompetent that I couldn't even string together two coherent words and should have gone back to living next to the hydro field in the roach motel I grew up in, leaving talk of the political to my betters who are clearly so grounded they forget their own house keys in the house and did not use their massive brains to think proactively beforehand and leave a spare key somewhere accessible and had to break into their own house only to have their white cracker ass neighbour, who I guess no one had been swift enough to socially manipulate into being kind to a darkie classed academic icon, call the popo on their ass and cart them away to jail...was it one of the new cellular prisons they've been building, I wonder?

sigh...
I have no righteous indignation with which to puff my chest up and out over poor ass Henry.

I save my righteous indignation for the Black, people of colour and First Nation's people who are in jail fer real. They have been imprisoned because oppressions, even though they do not have to interlock in order for an academic to publish successfully, repeatedly and to gain renown, oppressions do interlock real time in ways that not many seem to want to discuss.

It's not these oppressions that form jail bars, but the silence around how they interact, the deafening silence that is killing us slowly, that is killing me slowly, that kills our hope for any real solution, any real and future change...slowly.

As long as some of us carefully choose to scream and whine and demonstrate and write uni-layered politics on the left, highlighting one or two or just a handful of oppressions separately as if to say it/they/these function independently of the rest, we pretty much ensure that the combined effects of all kinds of domination to be found in this world will continue to hold us in their paralyzing grip.

Henry, I'm sorry beest man picked you up. He got me and my sister when we were just kids. We should talk some time. Yeah, really, we should talk. :)

Oh, and have you been offered a book deal? I'm sure there's a book in here somewhere. How about this for a title? "Brotha man, don't go for tha soap" :)



inserted next morning...

sigh...
Henry,
When I was a young immigrant latch key I used to sometimes forget my key at home or I'd lose it. I learned how to use an identification card slipped...just...so...between the door and the door jam, serving as an impromtu "key", so I could come home and not have to wait out in the hallway of our apartment building until my father showed up.

I took care of myself.

When I couldn't make the card trick work I stayed with neighbours who knew me and my father. Sometimes they were Black working class, sometimes they were white working class people.

They all recognized me on sight. I don't know what I'm trying to say here about the neighbourhood you chose to buy a house in, Henry or about the people you chose to live among. (Oops! Papi tells me you were leasing...what middle class people call renting...) Was it status that did it? Was it class? How does someone buy a house in a neighbourhood where the white people are so disgusting they would actually call the police for you?

My neighbours are mostly white middle class liberals. I live near downtown. the woman who lives directly acrosss from me has a massive kkkanadian flag on her house. She's not a liberal. She'd call the police for me if she could. She's moving. You see I think it's killing her that a completely not conservative darkie family, with children live across from her and never say hullo and completely ignore her and her blonde children. :)

We've always ignored her. Her racism combined with classism combined with white mother combined with hyper thin blonde woman stuff combined with career related pomposity combined with so much that makes her unnattractive, was clear from the moment we laid eyes on her.

We weren't, are not safe in our neighbourhood.

There is no safe neighbourdood we can move into and just occupy and blend in and forget who we are as recipients of various kinds of domination.

So we made "friends" with all our other white middle class conservative sex negative monogamous cultured patriarchal neighbours.

They "like" us, which really means they tolerate us and wouldn't overtly or even covertly harm us. We made certain of that. Our survival and that of our children depends on it.

hmmm...
Henry, did you just assume that class would keep you safe?
Did you think your profession and status as academic icon would?
Did you think maleness would?

This is me saying that I notice that you seem surprised about how you were treated. It seems that you did not know to expect it?

Do you spend most of your days in denial, Henry?

My son is three years old and I know a day will most likely come when I will have to literally pry him out of the grip of beest man or more than likely a racist white judge.

I did it for my father once. I'm really good at it. The judge was impressed. It seems that he thought I had good oratory skills. Go fucking figure.

Henry, were you surprised that they took you away?

I'm not.

Does this personalize it for you, Henry?
Does this light a fervent, violated, semi religious zeal under you ass, Henry?
Does the experience change things for you? Bring it on home?

I'd imagine it would.

Papi told me that folks are all up in arms because the popo took you away. :)

I told him I don't wanna fucking hear any of it.

From where I'm sitting, their rage is linked to class and patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality and conservatism and capitalism.

You see...
They understand that an unholy pact has been struck. It's like Torchwood. Henry, did you watch Torchwood? I just watched it and I really liked it. Especially the scenes where the two male leads did tonsil hockey. That was so fucking hot.
BUT!...
I digress.

Henry the Black middle class, as well as the middle classes of all oppressed communities have struck a bargain with their oppressors, with various oppressors. They and their get to be immune from certain kinds of maltreatment, get to walk with their heads held high, get to not be crushed by particular black standard issue boots, get to have access to credit, get to shop till they drop at costco, get to wear fancy clothes (and I guess, bowties) get to live free of some of the crap, or at least to wall themselves and their consciousnesses off from some of the crap.
What do they offer to the oppressors of their communities?
A buffer zone.
A wall, a ceiling, a cap, an electrified, ever at the ready human fence designed specifically to keep the hordes of truly sorry ass malcontents away, keep them down, keep them pacified, keep them occupied, keep them feeling so pathetically useless, dirty, criminal, stupid, crazy that they don't have time to think about the folks who are oppressing them, don't even have time, mostly, to even adequately resist the proxy oppression their own middle class directs their way.
The middle classes of different under seige communities are middle management. they fight and attack...so that the higher ups don't have to get their hands dirty.
Sweet.
They expect to be taken care of by the police, treated well, helped with little problems like losing their keys and getting locked out of their houses. They expect to be liked by their white neighbours. After all, they and their white neighbours fight in some ways on the same side...just in different warzones.
I think the middle class cullids sometimes forget that white neighbours are simultaneously grunts in a race war. The race war is layered over the class war is layered over many wars being simultaneously fought. They actually all fit really nicely together to form this lovely matrix of domination.
BUT!...
Again, I digress.
Henry, y'know why I think people are making such a massive stink about this?

Well, you're not going to answer me cuz you're not really here and in truth if you were I wouldn't be typing, I'd be talking.

But I'll continue to use the fiction of your presence in conversation with me to help me sort this through, if you don't mind, Henry.

Y'know why I think people are making such a big fucking deal about you being taken away? It's not specifically about race at all. It's about academic elitism and class and conservatism and patriarchy and all the other privileges you have...
It's about how these should have been enough to safeguard you, to protect you.
It's about the fact that, (Oh! and this is where the Torchwood reference comes into play...) It's about the fact that everybody knows you had a deal! You made a deal. You're part of the pact. You're part of the Black grouping that functions as middle management holding back the hordes of dispossessed darkies who would otherwise be going all L.A. riot on everyone's asses, dangerous and unpredicatable as all hell.

Yeah, you've made a pact and there are supposed to be perks!

This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen to one of YOU!...one of the ones who holds the line, who toes the line, one of those who behaves, who doesn't take crack, who doesn't pimp out his girlfriend and her daughter, who doesn't live in a building with boarded up windows...

"WHOSE IN CHARGE HERE?" Everyone seems to be saying?
"WHO IS GOING TO GIVE HENRY A CREDIT FOR TIME SERVED AND GOOD BEHAVIOUR?"
"WHO IS GOING TO APOLOGIZE?"
"WE WANT TO SEE A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE HIGHER UPS!"

I see that the Blackchurian Candidate, he who is now The God King, is weighing in on this. I think Henry might just get his audience with a representative (obamarama) of those who rule after all.

A pact has been broken. The word of the higher ups is in question and that just won't do.

The police officers who took Henry didn't keep faith with the pact. They focused on Henry being a darkie and completely ignored his clearly evident class status.

I'm sure they weren't listening to the perfectly enunciated cadence of his wonderful academically honed voice. If they were paying attention, would they have stopped and fallen into line?

That sometimes works for me. I just sort of clear my voice and begin to speak in thoroughly UNaccented english. The racists I encounter, who are often in the neighbourhoods I walk in, who are also virulently classists, will sometimes fix their tones or attitudes if they hear me speak in iconic tones representative of my supposed classed location.

It's not a tried and true method, though. Sometimes it's not enough.

Clothes are pretty iconic. I wonder if the police looked at Henry's shoes? Well, it was probably dark and Henry was dark.

Did he assume they'd notice his suit and tie? Did he assume the popo would gaze on the business attire and understand its significance?

Property is supposed to work, as well. Really expensive, well appointed properties with lots of curb appeal should indicate status and in so doing protect from the popo thereby cushioning the middle class person, this middle class person, that middle class academic conservative man from the effects of his own subjugation as a member of an ancient peopling who were royally fucked up the ass without the lube for many hundreds of years...without a union deal...a few hundred years ago.

Oh! Being unionized!

Tha's also a sign of class privilege for some. Not sure if some middle class folks realize that a person like me could say...live their whole life without medical and dental coverage, It does happen. But I'm sure no one is worried about my bone loss and about how class works to make sure that some people have access to the best dental care while others have none.

No!
We want to make sure that Henry gets some satisfaction and that the oversight is acknowledged.

Yeah, I can see why people would be all up in arms. Henry wasn't supposed to end up in jail. What did someone write? About racism even daring to reach up into the higher echelons? If that way of seeing things isn't indicative of class I'm not sure what is.

I can see that people, probably many of them middle class (who then in turn would expect emotional engagment and attention for their "woes" from those they dominate...the Black working class and poor, who have been told, no doubt, that this is about all of us) would find what happened to him scary.

If Henry can get carted away, how do we in all good conscience, encourage our sons to behave and keep their heads low and not become aggressive or violent in the face of all what is happening in our world and in our communities, just go to school, get good grades and get middle management oriented jobs where they accrue (relative) status, wealth and power?

If Henry's status, access to credit, fame (in academic circles) and unearned power as a member of the middle class, as a respected Black patriarch, as someone who presents as heterosexual, couldn't protect him from being targeted by police, all the unholy pacts and covenants made between those of the dominated who are for sale and those who dominate them, actually mean nothing.

This means the middle class have been lying to themselves. It means they've sold out their less well off brothers and sisters for thirty pieces of silver foil covered rotted, stale bubble gum.

It means the Black middle class is participating in the maintenance of class domination just...because...?

But that's not true, is it?
I mean...none of what I've written is true.

It's preposterous.

It's mean spirited

Vile!
Harsh!

Clearly crazed!

These are the delusions of someone who clearly has an axe to grind. Don't believe me. None of what I write makes sense. It never does.

up next...
dear darkdaughta, will you puLEEZ incorporate an analysis of ableism and of the fact that Henry Louis Gates Jr. is clearly living with a disability into this story?

This is very thoughtful...

...but they forgot kkkanada and amerikkka when they listed the places where genocide is ongoing to this very day.

A pesky little detail about all of us still squatting on first nation's land as high level, mid level and low level settler occupiers while native people resist attack after attack in various forms all designed to achieve a final solution, the destruction of the various peoplings who were here when european settler occupiers came to murder, steal, manipulate and dominate.

And this group of lovely young amerikkkans want to rid the world of genocide by running?

Who let them run around with only partial consciousness, without the whole story?
Have their parents not explained that there is nowhere on the planet they can run to be rid of genocide, terror and domination?
Has no one explained that one of the largest exporter of genocide on the planet these days seems to be their beloved U S of A?

I wonder...
Where do they think they will be able to run to that will allow them to continue to forget, to ignore the genocidal nature of their own government and army?

And...
Where does iraq sit on their list?

Oh wait! Iraq didn't make the list either? Holy shit! Don't the millions of deaths of iraqis count as genocide, too? does depleted uranium as a weapon of mass destruction passed on to innocent babies who are born in pain and die that way, too...isn't that...genocide?

i dunno about this run of his. maybe he should just do a run to end murderous evil ass denial.

yeah, i think that would be a better idea. :)

I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian...

not vegan...let's not take the "fun" too far. :) i still want to eat eggs, fish and cow puss cheese and cow puss milk. i'm just not doing well digesting red meat, the other white meat and poultry. so i think they should be gone.

When I think of friends, hallmark cards and violins don't come to mind. I don't think of hugging and hanging out and shopping for clothes first and foremost. I don't think of them being bridesmaids at my wedding or being godmothers or godfathers to my children. I don't think of them coming to concerts with me or going to toss a few back at a pub.

When I think of friends I think of warriors.
I think of people who don't understand me as enemy to be blocked or competed with.
I think of radically oppositional rogue intellects.
I think of people who read to learn and grow.
I think of grounded, responsible and passionate emotors.
I think of people who use words even when doing so is risky.
I think of people who make insightful, intentional life choices.
I think of people who embrace change...unh, I think of people who understand that obamarama's idea of change (whatever he's on about) isn't what I mean.
I think of people who embrace ongoing growth.
I think of people who, despite abuse and oppression, against all fucking odds, fully and boombastically believe that both they and I CAN.
I think of people who have good boundaries who support me to maintain mine.
I think of people who do not confuse being confident and assertive with being aggressive and violent.
I think of people who see counsellors because they understand there's no way to survive in this world without ongoing, personalized, focused, professional, anti-oppression based, emotional support
I think of people who purposefully choose difficult paths when choosing easy routes would be more "fun".
I think of people who are skilled at dealing with the voices, who know how to relate effectively and healthily to the voices, who know how to recognize those voices that tell them they're ugly, they're crazy, they're shit, they're stupid, they're less, they're fucked up, they're weak, they're incapable of creating, they're shameful, they're useless, they're dirty, they will fail...people who know how to drown the voices out, who replace the evil dead voices with new self loving scripts, who won't centralize or foreground their voices as a way to avoid being clear, honest, conscious and accountable, who won't try to hobble me or themselves with their voices, who want both of us to be free of any undermining, core issue related voices.
I think of people who know how to watch my back and choose to do so.
I think of people who have compatible ideas of and criteria for friendship.
I think of people who are honest and ethical.
I think of people who come bearing knowledge, access and resources I don't already have, who would like to share.
I think of people who understand that there are always options, who believe they have options, who are invested in creating many of their own options.
I think of people who prefer to co-create.
I think of people who know how to keep the scope and reach of their messed up coping strategies to an absolute minimum...with the remaining messed up, fucked up ways of interacting and moving through the world being mostly compatible with my messed up, fucked up ways of interacting and moving through the world.
I think of cardinal Powers...when I think of friends I'd like to make and keep close, hold dear for the rest of my life.

I have criteria related to making friends. I have been known to waive these criteria. When I do there is always trouble. Better stick to trying to find what works for me, I think.

Here...

Aside from the stuff directly related to smushing genitals (with me), I realize my criteria are pretty much the same for friends as for lovers.

One day soon, I'll do version 2 of this - the friendship repulsor - then I'll be able to track the void in that part of my life, as well. :)

hmmm...
definitely have to include a section dealing with scylla and charybdis also known as me making friends with other wimmin, especially those who don't have a radical analysis that incorporates all or many facets of the matrix of power and domination...
without that kind of consciousness as underpinning...
in any situation where there is an absence of consciousness linked to how a woman lives, moves through the world, relates to her own body/spirit/consciousness/self, makes choices about her friendships, embraces her sexuality and sexual options, makes choices about her loverships and relationships, engages with her biological relatives, pursues what some refer to as an "education", figures out her career options and goals...
without consciousness intentionally wielded in these areas of a woman's life, connecting is pretty much gonna be all blood, guts and gore.

And yes...
of course there are massive benefits to be had, have always been massive benefits to be had, when I've managed to make true friends with another one of the dominated. All shiny, sparkly, happy time, bubbly well springy, creative chaos-y kinds of good times to be had by all.

I've had that happen...more than once.

In its healthy form the experience has been infrequent enough that I think of it as much like encountering a rare kind of jungle flower that blooms once every hundred years, next to a particular spring, on a particular side of an ancient rock, for ten minutes in the early morning, after which it is usually eaten by an equally rare thought to be extinct paleolithic creature of some kind that emerges out of a crack in the forest floor only to burst into flames right after having eaten the aforementioned rare jungle bloom. :)

But usually...
because of ongoing systemic indoctrination offered to all the dominated which cause us to eat away at ourselves and each other in ways that are very often not visible to the naked and untrained eye...
and because of how amazingly effective attacks can be from really close range...
because of what can ensue when someone who is socially positioned in ways that are close to where I sit gets annoyed with me and starts lobbing grenades at me from right next to me...
I usually tend to expect more consciousness, not less from folks who are similarly located and/or oppressed.
You see...
my shields and alarms tend to ring more reluctantly and much less powerfully when another one of the Dominated has managed to make it past my bubble of safety.
Once inside and seated next to me, anyone I let in who does not have more than a modicum of consciousness, a string of 101 classes that really amount to just kindergarten level analysis, if they should choose to get stoopid all up in my ass, what they could accomplish at close range is pretty awful...has been pretty awful over the years.

So, with that in mind...
I choose love of this self, mySELF first over love of any person I might meet who has a particular experience of oppression. I work hard to resist caretaker impulses, rightfully expecting adequate levels of consciousness and intentional behaviour of sibs from the different tribes I'm distantly linked to. Yes, they usually have to show copious evidence of being able to walk their talk before I feel safe enough to stop looking at them out of the corner of my eye.

Some have called this me being colonized or me not being a good feminist and lover of wimmin. Me? In a world where the oppressed can and do function as agents of their own internalized domination, where we have been encouraged to and will make the choice to harm each other on sight, I understand myself to be proactive and not living in pollyanna-ish denial at this point in my life. I don't believe I should have to open myself to the very real possibility of intimate harm in order to demonstrate my loyalty to various causes and movements.

I used to think so. See? I've got the scares. Oh wait! They don't show. Trust me, they're in here with us. Suffice it to say, I don't believe in the martydom approach to community networking and friendship building, anymore. It...didn't...really...work for me.

sigh...
In any case...
The first bit I've put in blue because it's already in my sidebar. Other than that, for anyone who'd like to make contact with me, this is pretty much what I'm seeking... "enjoy"

shall we begin?

in some ways very much an INTJ...

i am more...

precious and rare...
i am a woman who runs with the wolves...
i am a succulent wild woman...
i am a maturing woman who connects powerfully with the child inside...
i am a darkdaughta...

wrongly labeled as curmudgeonly, unkind and arrogant by those who prefer to, in deep denial, swim peacefully with the tide not rage valiantly and vigilantly against it...
i am a...
41 year old, fiery WYSIWYG, Black conscious, caribbean (not at all the same thing as a Black amerikkkan), north amerikkkan raised, first born child of divorced parents, capricornian, anti- (capitalist/imperialist expansionist corporate) war, dark(er) skinned, [[matriarchal]], [[polyamorous]], class conscious, fat, tall, rogue scholar happily living in exile, [[eclectic pagan]] ancestor/universe/ [[goddess]] worshiping, [[kinky]] (doesn't mean i'll be sexual with just anyone), [[queer'd]] (i lived a good portion of my life as a lesbian turned dyke before i decided queer as a way to indicate my radical sexuality-oriented political worked...that's in flux...oh, wait...identity related dimensional shift in process...in my head i've been trying on "heterosexual" for size), [[cisgendered]], [[femme]], polymath, bottom (who can but doesn't really prefer to switch), far-seer, verbal, confident, introvert who presents as extrovert, RADICAL [[lefty]], [[feminist]], [[anti-authoritarian]], [[socialist]], [[homebirther]], parent.

who are you?

and please don't give me any BUMbakleet foolishness about how writing a lot about yourself, describing who you are is decadent or self centered. Or that other line about how much you hate labels and try to avoid them whenever possible.

you do realize...
there's a difference between being labelled and describing yourself and who you understand yourself to be using copious words, especially self chosen descriptors?

if you don't understand or value this approach, that's fine. it's just that we won't get along cuz i need to know who i'm dealing with. and unless you have psychic powers and can beam pictures and pure thought directly from your brain to mine, language is our best bet. :)

i speak english. but it's not my mother tongue. i don't know what that is or would have been. or to be more specific, i don't know the languages of the peoples i'm descended from.

at home and around friends i speak a mixture of what would be termed "proper" english, the old english spoken by the people who kidnapped my people, that english now having mostly gone out of style and use except by working class denizens of the british isles, definitely forgotten by the white denizens of this continent who when they encounter the languages that are a combination of african inflection and old english, usually fall back on lack of memory and sheer denial, choosing to pretend they don't understand my people's because we have "accents" and don't speak "proper" english. sillies.
hmmm...
i also speak feminist speak, academese, federation, white working class kkkanadian (enh?), jafake-an, all spiced with heaping doses of cuss wordings...depending on how happy, horny or pissed off i am. :)

what do you understand of the languages you speak and why?

moving on...
i like facial hair...on men (though being clean shaven is perfectly fine, too...)...
i love shopping for great deals on craigslist, bringing home beautiful things people leave on the curb without realizing they're still usable, hyacinths, flames on my [[acrylic nails]], costuming myself as drag queen on any day besides hallowe'en...
i have a hard-on for rumbling motorcycles... unh ... clarification ... riding with arms and thighs wrapped tight 'round someone riding a motorcycle...
i like knives and sharp pointy weapon things (i aspire to one day own a bat'leth), massive ancient rock formations (google "canadian shield")...

what kinds of things do you do for fun. what does recreation look like for you?

i like experimenting, truth telling, sharing lots and lots of words as a way to establish mutual understandings, goals and boundaries...
i am committed to struggling against the "good" mother icon by acting out in thoroughly unmotherly ways, struggling against ageist, aging woman stereotypes by behaving in some thoroughly non...anti-...unh...i try not to act like a fucking stereotypical 40 something year old woman mummified while still alive when and wherever possible :) ...

what sorts of oppressions do you most intimately and ferociously fight that people around you don't seem to understand? by this i mean, if you're black, don't tell me about being black cuz i'm black, too. that's really easy. do you have a take on shadeism, on classism, or silence, or ageism, or sexual abuse in the black family, the impact of colonized ways including the focus on nuclear family/patriarchal dominance/marriage and who set the agendas that say these will free black communities once and for all...they should be lobotomized...oh wait! if they're developing agendas like those, then clearly, they've already been to see the men in the white coats. :)
hmmm...
what are your thoughts on sex negativity and the church...especially if you're queer...don't wanna talk about homophobia or lesbophia and black community unless it's partnered with some of the stuff up above...
if you're a woman, let's not spend copious amounts of time talking about patriarchy...unless it's linked to what it means for wimmin to function as agents of their own domination, what it means to participate in the domination of the wimmin around us, silence, fear, acceptance, external validation, popularity, hierarchies among wimmin, fucking with the "good" girl, fucking with the "good" mother, fucking with the "good" wife, fucking, exposing parts that are supposed to remain hidden, the difference between power (over) and personal power, manifesting more of what we want in our lives...
if you just wanna talk about being oppressed under patriarchy, more power to you. but those kinds of basic conversations make me yawn.
please tell me you're thinking interesting thoughts.
if you're queer, could we not spend all our time talking about fear, reticence, longing and the closet? Let's talk about community gentrification or desire, sexual radicality and race and/or shade oppression or expressions of gender androgyny as related to fat phobia, ageism and class or queer youth, seeing/seeking themselves via mainstream television/film and defining themrselves accordingly or...
there's so much we could talk about...
if you're a mama...
i was a dyke for enough years that us talking about visitation, child support, what your e-husband is telling you, negotiating space for growth with your male partner, having to step lightly around him, how happy you were when you found out you could have children, how upset you were when you realize you couldn't have children with your man, how surprised you were when you got pregnant even though you never used birth control so it wasn't a big miracle, what a miracle your child was/is, what your child ate for breakfast, what the mothers talked about at the park, who is buying a new house, who cut her hair, who is divorcing her husband...
if you like to discuss these kinds of topics, i hope you like to talk context, because i do and will do so if you bring me these kinds of conversations as a form of engagement.
if you're young, meaning you just turned twenty, or just turned thirty, please don't come trying to engage me in conversations about aging....unless they are grounded in a consciousness of the space that lies between you and me. aging is relative, yes. we all age. but

there's more to me...just keep reading...

on paper i am partnered with seminalson. we're best friends, co-parents, family and business partners. these roles work much better than trying to shoe horn ourselves or each other into any traditional, limited, oppressive, emotionally stunted monogamous, binary, government/church/family sanctioned relationship model. if you understand what i'm on about in this paragraph we might be able to get along. :)

in terms of connections to wimmin, i don't actually date wimmin right now. it doesn't make total sense for me in terms of how my identities are shifting.

i'm enjoying meeting and dating different people...men.

i crave real time touch lovingly administered by people who meet at least a handful of my criteria who would like to do things like meet for drinks or dinners or movies or to attend events or to participate in unspecified acts of mischief and mayhem. :) ideally these would be people who actually like to have indepth conversations about things other people find difficult, semi scary, hard to understand or unpalatable. i like that. in short, i have lots of space for intelligent, grounded, respectful, sane recreation...not very much for drama.

more...
i'm mourning the death of my father. he passed over very recently. my grieving process has been filled with words and emotions. it continues. day or night, sun or cloud mourning booby traps me from time to time. though i'm not in as raw a place as i was a few weeks back. however, if you don't know how to deal intelligently, mindfully or lovingly with someone who has experienced a massive loss, you might not want to try to contact me...for a few decades.
sigh...

he's the parent who raised me...as best as he could. raised by him means i was raised by a man. often my ways of interacting reflect this. i'm happiest when i don't mince my words, communicate in indirect or circular ways, don't play the flirtatious, ego stroking coquette. these are self destructive, self effacing ways of being so common among wimmin and teenaged girls that i would have learned from other wimmin...from a mother. how thankful am i that i wasn't fully inculcated by a maternal woman whose job it was to teach me how to behave like a "woman"? a complicated, sadness tinged kind of insanely happy. :)

also, being raised by someone whose first love was music who resisted working in the 9-5 realm as long as he possibly could means that i was raised with famine and feast in full effect. often we did not even have basics like money to pay bills, shop for new clothes or buy food. there were certainly no expensive camps or trips away on vacation.
hmmm...
you should know that i've been strategically and purposefully middle-classing with a vengeance for the better part of the last ten years. before that none of it mattered as i mostly circulated inside cocooned spaces of resistance where i could lie to myself and pretend that money, class and access didn't matter.
i was a fool.
even inside spaces peopled by those who understand themselves as oppressed, power and dominance based on money, career, land ownership and class reigns supreme.
when i left those spaces and came out into the larger world i had a steep learning curve to climb and navigate. i had to learn how to move in a world where power plays and hierarchy was more overtly acceptable.
learn i did.
so it's like this...
i'm the mama of two black, african descended children, the descendants of people who were dragged here to work for others while being verbally, physically, emotionally and spiritually abused. obamarama or no, the places i/we/they can travel to in this world are limited by white domination and racism which, along with classism combine to reduce life journey options in a myriad of ways. i can't change the amount of melanin in our skins. but i can consciously yet mercilessly accrue and utilize class privilege in order to minimize the effects of domination in my/their/our lives.
this is what i am doing.

what does this mean? well, it means that if you should attempt to engage with me you should realize that you are dealing with someone who, on the surface, has middle-class affiliations and a single class identity, who actually has working-class affiliations due to having been raised working-class. this means that my perceptions, values and loyalties are mediated by a harsh and completely jaundiced critique of the middle and upper classes, their consumerist ways, their status consciousness, their obsession with owning segments of the outer crust of the planet, their obsession with who has good blood and who does not.

so...
if you believe in the viability of the free market...
we're gonna argue.
if you make cracks about working class and poor people being less than human...
i will want to harm you. :)
if you believe that people who don't have homes or jobs don't deserve to access the full and free support of the state...
i will tune you out.
if you want to make sure that any children you presently have or might have in the future don't associate with people who don't make as much money as you, or who don't rent their homes from the bank at an extremely inflated rate (called having a mortgage) as opposed to from individual independent landowners (who in turn rent the homes they rent out from the bank at an extremely inflated rate)...
i will understand you as evil and dimwitted. :)

so yah...
it's crucial that you understand who i am as not just a raced and gendered being, but also as a classed being in this world. you dig?

still more...
when being raised by a man and being raised working class converge and outwardly manifest especially through the ways i choose to communicate, i'm called names like immature, mean, harsh, evil, hurtful. when the very ways i choose to communicate ruffle the feathers of those with privilege who have been taught to present themselves in less confrontational ways because they can do so and still get where they need to be...they bring me their rage, confusion, upset and demands that i cease and desist.

if this sounds like something you might be tempted to do when witnessing me present in my full glory...it's okay to go now. be well.

other than that...
if you are someone i might be interested in engaging with it will be clear to you because quite a few of the following have something to do with who you are:

-are weird/strange/odd/deviant/marching to your own beat/eccentric, out and proud about it...very different than being an attention seeking drama machine...that's not fun

-have AT LEAST two CURRENT photos on okc...that look like you. my photos actually look like me. so no surprises, all right? :)

-are compatible with me over %75...with an enemy percentage lower than %20...of course if the percentage of compatibility is lower you can take your chances. some have. mou-ah-ah-ah-ah-aahhhhhh....

-if you live in another city, another country or another part of the world, you are willing to travel to come see me. otherwise, stop here. end story. go no further. not seeking penpals or cybersex buddies. dry, dry, dry as biscuits.

-have answered AT LEAST 1000 questions...of course if you've answered considerably less...but still more than say...500...you could attempt to hail me...who knows...? (shrug)

-are confident...not overbearing, arrogant, self-centered or aggressive...just clear about your skills and abilities...your height, your bmi and your aHEM plumbing should be things you feel comfortable with however they measure so that you don't approach me full of insecurity and needing me to be less than who i am or with you needing a lot of attention and stroking in order to engage with me...if you're so pathetically lacking in [[self esteem]] you might need to slash me down to size so you don't feel so tiny and that will leave me feeling less than interested in dating you, let alone being around you or having conversation with you

-have access to a wide range of emotions that you know how to claim, discuss and express in honest yet appropriate ways

-this one's tricky...
part one - are not a blackophile, meaning you don't pursue Black people/wimmin almost exclusively...i am mySELF not a reasonable facsimile of your last wife/date/lover/mistress who was Black and really made you feel like the center of the universe...oh and...it should go without saying that you not believing in [[racist stereotypes]] about Black people/wimmin being more sexual, more passionate, more dominant, less needing of tenderness, affection, compliments, care, nurturing or other forms of loving interaction

part two - are able to see beauty, wonder, intelligence, lovableness in darkness without constantly referencing white skin, caucasian physical/facial attributes and/or european cultural standards as an imperial measure...extra kudos if you can understand what i mean here without asking me

-like how my pics look just fine but more interested in finding out more about how who i am as a politically left, analytical, feeling, intentional, maturing human who is socially located in a variety of ways some oppressed, some privileged.

-have the ability, interest, time, space, knowledge needed to voluntarily and ferociously process multiple layers of information in ways that cause you to think deeply about your choices, who you are, where you've been, your past/present/future relationships, the kind of future you're building and, most importantly, about what you want from me

-devour books, articles, journals, blogs, websites. you're an information and ideas whore...intelligent, delving conversations about things other than sex excite you...as much as talking about sex. ;)

-are politically a lefty...i should clarify here...when i type "political" i don't mean extremely interested in official state endorsed party politricks...i don't even mean like to organize or attend demos or marches or conferences or town halls...i mean your life choices and daily social interactions are grounded in an understanding of power and dominance, hierarchy and oppression...if you don't understand what i mean or if you have no interest in attempting to walk your theoretical, academical talk we will not get along...end of story...so! having said, that you are a lefty...more than just left of center, more than liberal or progressive...radically, critically left of center...you (and, more importantly, any lovers or partners you may want to expect me to engage with deeply and lovingly) actively question how you were raised to see self, others and the world around you...massive sigh...otherwise conversation with me is gonna give you (or, in truth, more likely me) a nosebleed of epic proportions quickly followed by a brain aneurysm leading inevitably to a cascading systems shut down...or being around you for any length of time or having extended conversation with you or chatting with you is really gonna really hurt, frustrate and just generally piss me off very, very shortly...

-are queer or extremely queer positive...meaning that your understanding of the issues effecting queer communities moves far beyond the right to get killed in the military or the right to buy rings and play house as validated by the state :)

-are not a rescuer or knight on steed looking damsel in distress...although i can sometimes be truly in distress, i've found that my ability to play the role of trapped, uncertain, needy, hesitant, fearful princess leaves a lot to be desired and doesn't seem to impress those who need to feel extremely needed, smarter, more capable or more powerful than their mates/girlfriends/lovers/partners in order to experience what they understand as desire

-(related to above point) have an allergic reaction to wimmin who are quiet, soft voiced, uncertain, sweet, hesitant, insipid, surface, pliant, not centered, unable to do hard work (for reasons having to do with performing femininity not due to disease or disability), purposefully starved, performing fun and light, numb, perpetually in needy crisis, sexually repressed, silenced, lacking powerful opinions about anything beyond how to encourage or compel other wimmin to be more patriarchally pliant and self subjugating. oh! and...if by chance this collection of anti-traits resembles any of your long term partners or lovers or really good friends who you also like to sleep with, it may very well be that you will not be able to lovingly, deeply, intelligently, consciously, maturely, passionately understand and relate to a woman like me. In short, if your beloved female companions, lovers and partners are not Powers to be reckoned with, they may end up feeling threatened by me, feel the need to demonize me...eventually I will grow tired of trying to engage with them as fellow feminist amazons. I will grow tired of watching (for) them (to) perform acts of indirect violence of the kind wimmin in this society have been raised to do as a way to harm without retribution when they feel threatened. You may feel trapped in the middle and probably construct me as the one with issues who has rocked the boat. Not a good scene. Don't bring it to me.

-are OUT OF THE CLOSET and/or still open to exploring your own sexuality...comfortable about what you know so far but not closed off to becoming more than you had expected

-have had AT LEAST 2 or 3 long term relationships of note (since you came out of your teens) where you can honestly say you've learned how to communicate effectively, respectfully and intentionally without being pushed, begged or offered ultimatums. life and love have taught you to embrace transparency and openness which makes you an ethical creature who is honest to a fault. you prefer the sharing of pertinent information to hoarding and/or withholding. when left to you own devices you choose to use copious analytical, descriptive and emotional words to convey how you feel, who you are and what you want

-are either single but polyamorous or you are in an open, honest, respectful, intentional married/committed relationship that welcomes new loves and, more importantly, new family members. you actually KNOW what polyamory means...if you don't please don't waste my time

-have a framework for conducting your relationships that you can easily discuss with potential lovers. this is especially important because i'm seeking open, proud, clear, verbal polyamorous men whose lovers/partners/wives make it their purpose to actively engage with potentials

-although you are poly and/or available and/or interested in me you have space. you have space in your life, space energetically, space in your heart, space in your social life, space in your mind, space close to you for another...space for me...because i have made space in my life, heart, energy, social life, mind, right up close to me in order to accommodate the person or people i encounter who i want to be close to.

-you have processed or are actively and intentionally processing difficult or challenging issues in past or present partnerships, loverships, defunct relationships. you don't have to be mess free. but you must have a grasp on what has gone on in your life in regards to life and love and are willing to apprise me of any outstanding or pertinent issues that might impact a relationship between us should one develop

-you are capable of meeting me word for word, energy for energy, thought for thought, joy for joy, spirit for spirit, love for love, lust for lust...terror, discomfort or doubt are not things you seem to feel when i meet your gaze or ask for your presence. you are brave and grounded in your own power. you are kindred

-you have different intelligences than i do. i'd like to learn and experience new things or old things with new eyes

-if you're poly you don't believe that simply reading one heinlein book or the ethical slut will teach you all you need to know about the ethics and practical aspects of doing poly

at the end of the day, after all my big lists of attributes and desires have been drafted, typed and eventually read, what i'm in effect saying is that i'd like to meet intelligent, creative, emotionally intelligent, radically politicized on the left, loving, passionate, kinked out, fat friendly, communicative, spirited, spiritual, anti-authoritarian, child friendly, multifaceted, queered or queer positive individuals, dyads, triads, quads or families who are polyamorous if not downright polyfidelitous.

this is what i envision. this is what i welcome. this is what i open myself to abundantly receiving.

i say pretty much the same thing down below in the you should message me if section of this page. but i realize that sometimes people are not getting that far. so i thought i'd bracket what lies between with pretty much the same info, just stated in more detail down below.
hmmm...
so...
if you want to make contact with me it's best to start off with an email or a woo rather than an IM as an IM sort of parachutes you into my sovereign space without me knowing much about you, forces me to communicate with you before i even decide whether i...want to.

i don't like that approach.

happy new year, new deal, new approach to intermingling with the denizens of okcupid. i'm looking forward to meeting, having conversation and even potentially to getting together with at least a few of you...even if getting together involves planes, trains or automobiles. :)

hugs...
darkdaughta

I keep forgetting to do one of these for people who want to be friends...

Every now and then I get a wonderful note from someone who has connected with something I wrote here. That makes me feel good. It's not so much about acceptance or popularity or about not blogging in isolation...
It's about the fact that beyond meeting really unethical folks in communities of resistance who read what I write here and then attempt to translate my words into gutted, marketable, inconsequentialities they can trade for profit in not-for-profit (my ass), academic, literary or arts environments, where corporations and the state pay big bucks for their down low thefts when written up on the appropriate grant applications, sign here, x there, proposal outlined here, budget itemized there...
Aside from understanding how I encounter these people via the theft and marketing of my reflections and realizing how little faith in change originating inside the ranks of those who resist for pay, I have...
It still very often surprises me when someone tries to come and just engage for engaging's sake.

Of course invariably, or with very, very few exceptions, I'm still being hailed by community types who have massive windfalls to gain from being able to tap into my flow, who usually tend to downplay this as part of why they are so very grateful to have found me and this blog. Most talk in generalized tones about a hazy personal life/world/change.

Few talk about what they do for a living, how they earn their green (or multicoloured bills), who they network with, who they know.

If they did that they might have to share with me in true friendship and alliance. And let's not be too hasty. Nobody said anything about sharing resources. Only a fool would...make friends like that. It's all about strategy. Keep your cards close to the cuff. Get what you can. See what/who you can use.

Don't worry. I get it. I'm learning those rules of engagement. I'm getting all up in the fun and games. My hands have been soiled. I'm implicated and involved. Ick.

I don't think that most people realize that what they call friendship, that guarded, carefully worded, semi-obscured self, popularity and privilege driven beast they understand as friendship, could probably be more aptly described as strategic acquaintanceship.

Strategic
Acquaintanceship

Strikes dread at the very core of me.
I plan out interactions with acquaintances.
I prep my fake-ass, can't last longer than ten seconds smile for acquaintances.
I dress in my will definitely murderdeathkill them with surface inspired awe finery when I walk among strategic acquaintances.

I gird my loins and prepare for doom and passive aggressive battle when I encounter strategic acquaintances.

I fucking hate strategically engaging with acquaintances.
I can't stand folks who confuse and/conflate strategic acquaintanceship with friendship.

sigh...
Friendship

It's a lovely idea. I have a few friends. Literally a handful. Not many.

When I think of friends, hallmark cards and violins don't come to mind. I don't think of hugging and hanging out and shopping for clothes first and foremost. I don't think of them being bridesmaids at my wedding or being godmothers or godfathers to my children. I don't think of them coming to concerts with me or going to toss a few back at a pub.

When I think of friends I think of warriors.
I think of people who don't understand me as enemy to be blocked or competed with.
I think of radically oppositional rogue intellects.
I think of people who read to learn and grow.
I think of grounded, responsible and passionate emotors.
I think of people who use words even when doing so is risky.
I think of people who make insightful, intentional life choices.
I think of people who embrace change...unh, I think of people who understand that obamarama's idea of change (whatever he's on about) isn't what I mean.
I think of people who embrace ongoing growth.
I think of people who can tell the difference between synthesizing from multiple influences and directly copying from whatever source they encounter.
I think of people who, despite abuse and oppression, against all fucking odds, fully and boombastically believe that both they and I CAN.
I think of people who have good boundaries who support me to maintain mine.
I think of people who do not confuse being confident and assertive with being aggressive and violent.
I think of people who see counsellors because they understand there's no way to survive in this world without ongoing, personalized, focused, professional, anti-oppression based, emotional support
I think of people who purposefully choose difficult paths when choosing easy routes would be more "fun".
I think of people who are skilled at dealing with the voices, who know how to relate effectively and healthily to the voices, who know how to recognize those voices that tell them they're ugly, they're crazy, they're shit, they're stupid, they're less, they're fucked up, they're weak, they're incapable of creating, they're shameful, they're useless, they're dirty, they will fail...people who know how to drown the voices out, who replace the evil dead voices with new self loving scripts, who won't centralize or foreground their voices as a way to avoid being clear, honest, conscious and accountable, who won't try to hobble me or themselves with their voices, who want both of us to be free of any undermining, core issue related voices.
I think of people who know how to watch my back and choose to do so.
I think of people who have compatible ideas of and criteria for friendship.
I think of people who are honest and ethical.
I think of people who come bearing knowledge, access and resources I don't already have, who would like to share.
I think of people who understand that there are always options, who believe they have options, who are invested in creating many of their own options.
I think of people who prefer to co-create.
I think of people who know how to keep the scope and reach of their messed up coping strategies to an absolute minimum...with the remaining messed up, fucked up ways of interacting and moving through the world being mostly compatible with my messed up, fucked up ways of interacting and moving through the world.
I think of cardinal Powers...when I think of friends I'd like to make and keep close, hold dear for the rest of my life.

I have criteria related to making friends. I have been known to waive these criteria. When I do there is always trouble. Better stick to trying to find what works for me, I think.

Here...

Aside from the stuff directly related to smushing genitals (with me), I realize my criteria are pretty much the same for friends as for lovers.

One day soon, I'll do version 2 of this - the friendship repulsor - then I'll be able to track the void in that part of my life, as well. :)

hmmm...
definitely have to include a section dealing with scylla and charybdis also known as me making friends with other wimmin, especially those who don't have a radical analysis that incorporates all or many facets of the matrix of power and domination...
without that kind of consciousness as underpinning...
in any situation where there is an absence of consciousness linked to how a woman lives, moves through the world, relates to her own body/spirit/consciousness/self, makes choices about her friendships, embraces her sexuality and sexual options, makes choices about her loverships and relationships, engages with her biological relatives, pursues what some refer to as an "education", figures out her career options and goals...
without consciousness intentionally wielded in these areas of a woman's life, connecting is pretty much gonna be all blood, guts and gore.

And yes...
of course there are massive benefits to be had, have always been massive benefits to be had, when I've managed to make true friends with another one of the dominated. All shiny, sparkly, happy time, bubbly well springy, creative chaos-y kinds of good times to be had by all.

I've had that happen...more than once.

In its healthy form the experience has been infrequent enough that I think of it as much like encountering a rare kind of jungle flower that blooms once every hundred years, next to a particular spring, on a particular side of an ancient rock, for ten minutes in the early morning, after which it is usually eaten by an equally rare thought to be extinct paleolithic creature of some kind that emerges out of a crack in the forest floor only to burst into flames right after having eaten the aforementioned rare jungle bloom. :)

But usually...
because of ongoing systemic indoctrination offered to all the dominated which cause us to eat away at ourselves and each other in ways that are very often not visible to the naked and untrained eye...
and because of how amazingly effective attacks can be from really close range...
because of what can ensue when someone who is socially positioned in ways that are close to where I sit gets annoyed with me and starts lobbing grenades at me from right next to me...
I usually tend to expect more consciousness, not less from folks who are similarly located and/or oppressed.
You see...
my shields and alarms tend to ring more reluctantly and much less powerfully when another one of the Dominated has managed to make it past my bubble of safety.
Once inside and seated next to me, anyone I let in who does not have more than a modicum of consciousness, a string of 101 classes that really amount to just kindergarten level analysis, if they should choose to get stoopid all up in my ass, what they could accomplish at close range is pretty awful...has been pretty awful over the years.

So, with that in mind...
I choose love of this self, mySELF first over love of any person I might meet who has a particular experience of oppression. I work hard to resist caretaker impulses, rightfully expecting adequate levels of consciousness and intentional behaviour of sibs from the different tribes I'm distantly linked to. Yes, they usually have to show copious evidence of being able to walk their talk before I feel safe enough to stop looking at them out of the corner of my eye.

Some have called this me being colonized or me not being a good feminist and lover of wimmin. Me? In a world where the oppressed can and do function as agents of their own internalized domination, where we have been encouraged to and will make the choice to harm each other on sight, I understand myself to be proactive and not living in pollyanna-ish denial at this point in my life. I don't believe I should have to open myself to the very real possibility of intimate harm in order to demonstrate my loyalty to various causes and movements.

I used to think so. See? I've got the scares. (...unh...hee, hee!...typo...that was supposed to read "scars"...telling...both "scares" and "scars" apply, I think.) Oh wait! They don't show. Trust me, they're in here with us. Suffice it to say, I don't believe in the martydom approach to community networking and friendship building, anymore. It...didn't...really...work for me.

sigh...
In any case...
The first bit I've put in blue because it's already in my sidebar. Other than that, for anyone who'd like to make contact with me, this is pretty much what I'm seeking... "enjoy"

shall we begin?

in some ways very much an INTJ...

i am more...

precious and rare...
i am a woman who runs with the wolves...
i am a succulent wild woman...
i am a maturing woman who connects powerfully with the child inside...
i am a darkdaughta...

wrongly labeled as curmudgeonly, unkind and arrogant by those who prefer to, in deep denial, swim peacefully with the tide not rage valiantly and vigilantly against it...
i am a...
41 year old, fiery WYSIWYG, Black conscious, caribbean (not at all the same thing as a Black amerikkkan), north amerikkkan raised, first born child of divorced parents, capricornian, anti- (capitalist/imperialist expansionist corporate) war, dark(er) skinned, [[matriarchal]], [[polyamorous]], class conscious, fat, tall, rogue scholar happily living in exile, [[eclectic pagan]] ancestor/universe/ [[goddess]] worshiping, [[kinky]] (doesn't mean i'll be sexual with just anyone), [[queer'd]] (i lived a good portion of my life as a lesbian turned dyke before i decided queer as a way to indicate my radical sexuality-oriented political worked...that's in flux...oh, wait...identity related dimensional shift in process...in my head i've been trying on "heterosexual" for size), [[cisgendered]], [[femme]], polymath, bottom (who can but doesn't really prefer to switch), far-seer, verbal, confident, introvert who presents as extrovert, RADICAL [[lefty]], [[feminist]], [[anti-authoritarian]], [[socialist]], [[homebirther]], parent.

i speak english. but it's not my mother tongue. i don't know what that is or would have been. or to be more specific, i don't know the languages of the peoples i'm descended from.

so yeah, english is the language my ancestors were forced to speak after they were stolen from their homes, killed in the millions, raped, force worked, emotionally abused, bred like cattle and generally maltreated on an epic scale.

it was the language of their captors. it is the language the descendants of those captors speak today...with some really fascinating etymological bits and pieces thrown in from all over.

my mother tongue was taken captive and excised. my tongue is colonized.

why do i even bother to point this out?

well, as i read okcupid's profile descriptions i run across people who threaten to tantrum or disregard or socially shun those who do not utilize the colonizing imperialist queen's "good" english with deference and exacting perfection. they call themselves sticklers for good grammar, spelling and punctuation. they write posts about how important it is to write in ways that will let people know you are educated and value the written word.

i cringe when i read these profiles so full of arrogance. i am enraged and driven to tears by the ability of certain people to completely preoccupy themselves with a system of communication while manifesting such ignorance about how that system of communication, that language has virulently spread itself across the planet thereby ensuring the dominance of those who speak it. i am disgusted by the ways these sticklers for grammar, spelling and punctuation can serve as vehicles for the spread of an oppressive toxin without realizing who they are or what they do.

i realize that these sticklers will not be interested in learning how i came to be a victim of the virulent toxic system of communication they prize so highly above all else. i realize they will not want to ground themselves politically or historically so as to emerge from their indoctrinated ignorance. i realize they will not want to hear about the contempt and bitterness i feel towards their beloved language which has infected and thereby colonized my mind and my tongue. i realize that they will not want to hear of anything that tarnishes their perception of their beloved english which locates it as part of a centuries old genocidal war machine.

nope. i'm sure they will not be glad to hear of any such cunting tripe. :)

moving on...
i like facial hair...on men (though being clean shaven is perfectly fine, too...)...
i love shopping for great deals on craigslist, bringing home beautiful things people leave on the curb without realizing they're still usable, hyacinths, flames on my [[acrylic nails]], costuming myself as drag queen on any day besides hallowe'en...
i have a hard-on for rumbling motorcycles... unh ... clarification ... riding with arms and thighs wrapped tight 'round someone riding a motorcycle...
i like knives and sharp pointy weapon things (i aspire to one day own a bat'leth), massive ancient rock formations (google "canadian shield"), experimenting, truth telling, sharing lots and lots of words as a way to establish mutual understandings, goals and boundaries...
i am committed to struggling against the "good" mother icon by acting out in thoroughly unmotherly ways, struggling against ageist, aging woman stereotypes by behaving in some thoroughly non...anti-...unh...i try not to act like a fucking stereotypical 40 something year old woman mummified while still alive when and wherever possible :) ...

there's more to me...just keep reading...

on paper i am partnered with seminalson. we're best friends, co-parents, family and business partners. these roles work much better than trying to shoe horn ourselves or each other into any traditional, limited, oppressive, emotionally stunted monogamous, binary, government/church/family sanctioned relationship model. if you understand what i'm on about in this paragraph we might be able to get along. :)

in terms of connections to wimmin, i don't actually date wimmin right now. it doesn't make total sense for me in terms of how my identities are shifting.

i'm enjoying meeting and dating different people...men.

i crave real time touch lovingly administered by people who meet at least a handful of my criteria who would like to do things like meet for drinks or dinners or movies or to attend events or to participate in unspecified acts of mischief and mayhem. :) ideally these would be people who actually like to have indepth conversations about things other people find difficult, semi scary, hard to understand or unpalatable. i like that. in short, i have lots of space for intelligent, grounded, respectful, sane recreation...not very much for drama.

more...
i'm mourning the death of my father. he passed over very recently. my grieving process has been filled with words and emotions. it continues. day or night, sun or cloud mourning booby traps me from time to time. though i'm not in as raw a place as i was a few weeks back. however, if you don't know how to deal intelligently, mindfully or lovingly with someone who has experienced a massive loss, you might not want to try to contact me...for a few decades.
sigh...

he's the parent who raised me...as best as he could. raised by him means i was raised by a man. often my ways of interacting reflect this. i'm happiest when i don't mince my words, communicate in indirect or circular ways, don't play the flirtatious, ego stroking coquette. these are self destructive, self effacing ways of being so common among wimmin and teenaged girls that i would have learned from other wimmin...from a mother. how thankful am i that i wasn't fully inculcated by a maternal woman whose job it was to teach me how to behave like a "woman"? a complicated, sadness tinged kind of insanely happy. :)

also, being raised by someone whose first love was music who resisted working in the 9-5 realm as long as he possibly could means that i was raised with famine and feast in full effect. often we did not even have basics like money to pay bills, shop for new clothes or buy food. there were certainly no expensive camps or trips away on vacation.
hmmm...
you should know that i've been strategically and purposefully middle-classing with a vengeance for the better part of the last ten years. before that none of it mattered as i mostly circulated inside cocooned spaces of resistance where i could lie to myself and pretend that money, class and access didn't matter.
i was a fool.
even inside spaces peopled by those who understand themselves as oppressed, power and dominance based on money, career, land ownership and class reigns supreme.
when i left those spaces and came out into the larger world i had a steep learning curve to climb and navigate. i had to learn how to move in a world where power plays and hierarchy was more overtly acceptable.
learn i did.
so it's like this...
i'm the mama of two black, african descended children, the descendants of people who were dragged here to work for others while being verbally, physically, emotionally and spiritually abused. obamarama or no, the places i/we/they can travel to in this world are limited by white domination and racism which, along with classism combine to reduce life journey options in a myriad of ways. i can't change the amount of melanin in our skins. but i can consciously yet mercilessly accrue and utilize class privilege in order to minimize the effects of domination in my/their/our lives.
this is what i am doing.

what does this mean? well, it means that if you should attempt to engage with me you should realize that you are dealing with someone who, on the surface, has middle-class affiliations and a single class identity, who actually has working-class affiliations due to having been raised working-class. this means that my perceptions, values and loyalties are mediated by a harsh and completely jaundiced critique of the middle and upper classes, their consumerist ways, their status consciousness, their obsession with owning segments of the outer crust of the planet, their obsession with who has good blood and who does not.

so...
if you believe in the viability of the free market...
we're gonna argue.
if you make cracks about working class and poor people being less than human...
i will want to harm you. :)
if you believe that people who don't have homes or jobs don't deserve to access the full and free support of the state...
i will tune you out.
if you want to make sure that any children you presently have or might have in the future don't associate with people who don't make as much money as you, or who don't rent their homes from the bank at an extremely inflated rate (called having a mortgage) as opposed to from individual independent landowners (who in turn rent the homes they rent out from the bank at an extremely inflated rate)...
i will understand you as evil and dimwitted. :)

so yah...
it's crucial that you understand who i am as not just a raced and gendered being, but also as a classed being in this world. you dig?

still more...
when being raised by a man and being raised working class converge and outwardly manifest especially through the ways i choose to communicate, i'm called names like immature, mean, harsh, evil, hurtful. when the very ways i choose to communicate ruffle the feathers of those with privilege who have been taught to present themselves in less confrontational ways because they can do so and still get where they need to be...they bring me their rage, confusion, upset and demands that i cease and desist.

if this sounds like something you might be tempted to do when witnessing me present in my full glory...it's okay to go now. be well.

other than that...
if you are someone i might be interested in engaging with it will be clear to you because quite a few of the following have something to do with who you are:

-are weird/strange/odd/deviant/marching to your own beat/eccentric, out and proud about it...very different than being an attention seeking drama machine...that's not fun

-have AT LEAST two CURRENT photos on okc...that look like you. my photos actually look like me. so no surprises, all right? :)

-are compatible with me over %75...with an enemy percentage lower than %20...of course if the percentage of compatibility is lower you can take your chances. some have. mou-ah-ah-ah-ah-aahhhhhh....

-if you live in another city, another country or another part of the world, you are willing to travel to come see me. otherwise, stop here. end story. go no further. not seeking penpals or cybersex buddies. dry, dry, dry as biscuits.

-have answered AT LEAST 1000 questions...of course if you've answered considerably less...but still more than say...500...you could attempt to hail me...who knows...? (shrug)

-are confident...not overbearing, arrogant, self-centered or aggressive...just clear about your skills and abilities...your height, your bmi and your aHEM plumbing should be things you feel comfortable with however they measure so that you don't approach me full of insecurity and needing me to be less than who i am or with you needing a lot of attention and stroking in order to engage with me...if you're so pathetically lacking in [[self esteem]] you might need to slash me down to size so you don't feel so tiny and that will leave me feeling less than interested in dating you, let alone being around you or having conversation with you

-have access to a wide range of emotions that you know how to claim, discuss and express in honest yet appropriate ways

-this one's tricky...
part one - are not a blackophile, meaning you don't pursue Black people/wimmin almost exclusively...i am mySELF not a reasonable facsimile of your last wife/date/lover/mistress who was Black and really made you feel like the center of the universe...oh and...it should go without saying that you not believing in [[racist stereotypes]] about Black people/wimmin being more sexual, more passionate, more dominant, less needing of tenderness, affection, compliments, care, nurturing or other forms of loving interaction

part two - are able to see beauty, wonder, intelligence, lovableness in darkness without constantly referencing white skin, caucasian physical/facial attributes and/or european cultural standards as an imperial measure...extra kudos if you can understand what i mean here without asking me

-like how my pics look just fine but more interested in finding out more about how who i am as a politically left, analytical, feeling, intentional, maturing human who is socially located in a variety of ways some oppressed, some privileged.

-have the ability, interest, time, space, knowledge needed to voluntarily and ferociously process multiple layers of information in ways that cause you to think deeply about your choices, who you are, where you've been, your past/present/future relationships, the kind of future you're building and, most importantly, about what you want from me

-devour books, articles, journals, blogs, websites. you're an information and ideas whore...intelligent, delving conversations about things other than sex excite you...as much as talking about sex. ;)

-are politically a lefty...i should clarify here...when i type "political" i don't mean extremely interested in official state endorsed party politricks...i don't even mean like to organize or attend demos or marches or conferences or town halls...i mean your life choices and daily social interactions are grounded in an understanding of power and dominance, hierarchy and oppression...if you don't understand what i mean or if you have no interest in attempting to walk your theoretical, academical talk we will not get along...end of story...so! having said, that you are a lefty...more than just left of center, more than liberal or progressive...radically, critically left of center...you (and, more importantly, any lovers or partners you may want to expect me to engage with deeply and lovingly) actively question how you were raised to see self, others and the world around you...massive sigh...otherwise conversation with me is gonna give you (or, in truth, more likely me) a nosebleed of epic proportions quickly followed by a brain aneurysm leading inevitably to a cascading systems shut down...or being around you for any length of time or having extended conversation with you or chatting with you is really gonna really hurt, frustrate and just generally piss me off very, very shortly...

-are queer or extremely queer positive...meaning that your understanding of the issues effecting queer communities moves far beyond the right to get killed in the military or the right to buy rings and play house as validated by the state :)

-are not a rescuer or knight on steed looking damsel in distress...although i can sometimes be truly in distress, i've found that my ability to play the role of trapped, uncertain, needy, hesitant, fearful princess leaves a lot to be desired and doesn't seem to impress those who need to feel extremely needed, smarter, more capable or more powerful than their mates/girlfriends/lovers/partners in order to experience what they understand as desire

-(related to above point) have an allergic reaction to wimmin who are quiet, soft voiced, uncertain, sweet, hesitant, insipid, surface, pliant, not centered, unable to do hard work (for reasons having to do with performing femininity not due to disease or disability), purposefully starved, performing fun and light, numb, perpetually in needy crisis, sexually repressed, silenced, lacking powerful opinions about anything beyond how to encourage or compel other wimmin to be more patriarchally pliant and self subjugating. oh! and...if by chance this collection of anti-traits resembles any of your long term partners or lovers or really good friends who you also like to sleep with, it may very well be that you will not be able to lovingly, deeply, intelligently, consciously, maturely, passionately understand and relate to a woman like me. In short, if your beloved female companions, lovers and partners are not Powers to be reckoned with, they may end up feeling threatened by me, feel the need to demonize me...eventually I will grow tired of trying to engage with them as fellow feminist amazons. I will grow tired of watching (for) them (to) perform acts of indirect violence of the kind wimmin in this society have been raised to do as a way to harm without retribution when they feel threatened. You may feel trapped in the middle and probably construct me as the one with issues who has rocked the boat. Not a good scene. Don't bring it to me.

-are OUT OF THE CLOSET and/or still open to exploring your own sexuality...comfortable about what you know so far but not closed off to becoming more than you had expected

-have had AT LEAST 2 or 3 long term relationships of note (since you came out of your teens) where you can honestly say you've learned how to communicate effectively, respectfully and intentionally without being pushed, begged or offered ultimatums. life and love have taught you to embrace transparency and openness which makes you an ethical creature who is honest to a fault. you prefer the sharing of pertinent information to hoarding and/or withholding. when left to you own devices you choose to use copious analytical, descriptive and emotional words to convey how you feel, who you are and what you want

-are either single but polyamorous or you are in an open, honest, respectful, intentional married/committed relationship that welcomes new loves and, more importantly, new family members. you actually KNOW what polyamory means...if you don't please don't waste my time

-have a framework for conducting your relationships that you can easily discuss with potential lovers. this is especially important because i'm seeking open, proud, clear, verbal polyamorous men whose lovers/partners/wives make it their purpose to actively engage with potentials

-although you are poly and/or available and/or interested in me you have space. you have space in your life, space energetically, space in your heart, space in your social life, space in your mind, space close to you for another...space for me...because i have made space in my life, heart, energy, social life, mind, right up close to me in order to accommodate the person or people i encounter who i want to be close to.

-you have processed or are actively and intentionally processing difficult or challenging issues in past or present partnerships, loverships, defunct relationships. you don't have to be mess free. but you must have a grasp on what has gone on in your life in regards to life and love and are willing to apprise me of any outstanding or pertinent issues that might impact a relationship between us should one develop

-you are capable of meeting me word for word, energy for energy, thought for thought, joy for joy, spirit for spirit, love for love, lust for lust...terror, discomfort or doubt are not things you seem to feel when i meet your gaze or ask for your presence. you are brave and grounded in your own power. you are kindred

-you have different intelligences than i do. i'd like to learn and experience new things or old things with new eyes

-if you're poly you don't believe that simply reading one heinlein book or the ethical slut will teach you all you need to know about the ethics and practical aspects of doing poly

at the end of the day, after all my big lists of attributes and desires have been drafted, typed and eventually read, what i'm in effect saying is that i'd like to meet intelligent, creative, emotionally intelligent, radically politicized on the left, loving, passionate, kinked out, fat friendly, communicative, spirited, spiritual, anti-authoritarian, child friendly, multifaceted, queered or queer positive individuals, dyads, triads, quads or families who are polyamorous if not downright polyfidelitous.

this is what i envision. this is what i welcome. this is what i open myself to abundantly receiving.

i say pretty much the same thing down below in the you should message me if section of this page. but i realize that sometimes people are not getting that far. so i thought i'd bracket what lies between with pretty much the same info, just stated in more detail down below.
hmmm...
so...
if you want to make contact with me it's best to start off with an email or a woo rather than an IM as an IM sort of parachutes you into my sovereign space without me knowing much about you, forces me to communicate with you before i even decide whether i...want to.

i don't like that approach.

happy new year, new deal, new approach to intermingling with the denizens of okcupid. i'm looking forward to meeting, having conversation and even potentially to getting together with at least a few of you...even if getting together involves planes, trains or automobiles. :)

hugs...
darkdaughta