So I was gone for a week and and missed some things I'm glad I did, read a book that made me annoyed with a whole lot of people
I missed something I really hoped I wouldn't and if they will be so kind as to excuse my tardiness I would like to participate
National Day of Truth Telling by the wonderful women of Ubuntu
So here are a few of my unassailable truths.
People are selfish ,self absorbed jerks.
It allows me to go through my life with joy and optimism.
Why ?
Because I believe very little in the world is ABOUT me.
When people do things it became very clear to me early on that it was about them . How it feels to feel good about them , about how they think of themselves.
And the truth is ..
I feel little to nothing for the sisterhood anymore.
It doesn't exist.
And I thank god for it everyday.
Don Imus and VT showed that to me loud and clear.
Suddenly race was on everyone's lips.
No one asked the sistas.
And I mean the poor ones the ones who were degraded. Not the ones who looked good and had pedigrees.
No one asked the loudmouths, the protesters,the women who had stopped buying hip hop albums long ago and had been flipping their shit since time immemorial.
No one asked the ones whose main concern was not that they had been called nappy , but that they had been disrespected.
It became a referendum on hiphop where the shining talented acceptable got to wring their hands, and if we weren't pictured we obviously had accepted it no?
Where hip hop became some devil music even though emo songs talk heavily about emotional manipulation and "deep" white male artist songwriters are let go for their pretty lyrics
which are always a women who did them wrong.
BEcause their needs to be a referendum because the underlying message is that we need to check these men
VT was the quickness with which an American is cast out the fold. How fast can we spin s tories and tell tales to make him not one of ours.
Because the truth is POC/WOC unless we are " good ones" we are never one of theirs.
When my body and my trauma when my emotions when my sisters are only relevant on the days you remember when we are women
When the pressure when the fury that comes with our skin and eyes is only thought about when it hurts you?
How long do you hope we believe that it involves us at all?
As a blogger of color , I am often stunned by how often things are forgotten when we come up?
How often my monetary poverty is more important than my stellar education. How much more comfortable people are calling BFP a single mother no matter how many times she mentions her husband.
How many times unity is called for when they fun out of topics and forget how often I was called stupid to my face.
Truth Is
The book I've finished Unhooked brought this into stark relief. (courtesy of the fabulous folk at black folk)
I officially do not care at all about White womens battle of sex and femininity. Not a whit Not a jot not at all.
Let the sisterhood duke it out over and over again being as disrespectful and rude to each other as possible.
Let one side battle about how best to en joy the hundreds of years of privilege over black bodies, and brown ones while co opting our clothes,fashions, and literally physical attributes
and continue to ask us to to find benevolence in that while swearing up and down we do it not to have more power than you but just for ourselves.
Go ahead
While the other sides throws around words like slut and whore, and no woman would. Not for once thinking of those who can and do or who may have no choice. Go ahead make the cock sucking lips cracks and dancing like trash giggles and guffaws and backpedal madly , about these things and remember us only when you can't think of anything else you're relatively easy exisistance offers you
Please go right ahead
Please argue somemore about the protection garunteed to you while making bad choices or silly ones or self indulgent stupid ones
While never ever EVER considering what goes in to you being able to choose at all.
Truth Is
Their is no sisterhood. I can only depend on those who actually stand with me.
because the sisterhood can continue arguing about how we reach orgasm and how we dress and eat and stand and sit
And the women of Juarez will still disappear
The sisterhood can talk about abortion till it's blue in it's face parsing and plotting arguing and card checking
And women in Columbia, and Sunrise Heights will never ever get to make that decision again because their right to have children will never register as important enough to have an out for your mistakes.
Truth Is
The distrust we feel has gotten to the point that it only grows when you do show up.
Because there is something in it for you
Truth Is
Class woman has never existed. Just women with you and women not.
And some people may be interested in fixing this but first you must tell the truth.
Because the truth is
for many it's already to late
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Truth Telling
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17 comments:
crap, i did see that "National Day" and wanted to post on it, but thought--yeah, today is the last day of April, isn't it. i need to catch up on a lot.
and, uh, wow, that photo/ad at the lj link--jesus. that's, well, yep, pretty blatant all right...
I feel like a self centered moron at the moment. I planned to write on this too. My brain is so fried...
I think I shall go kick myself, dose up on allergy meds, go to bed and ponder perspective...
and--who's calling bfp a single mother?!
BA, this is very thought-provoking stuff. Perspective: yes.
I can't believe that photo ad either. Unfuckingreal.
This especially is interesting to me, could you elaborate?
"Let one side battle about how best to enjoy the hundreds of years of privilege over black bodies, and brown ones while co- opting our clothes,fashions, and literally physical attributes"
What I really, really want to know is... when are you writing your book of essays?
Just amazingly powerful stuff, this.
excused, welcomed, celebrated...always! Thank you for your powerful words!
Octagalore
I want to freestyle on this later but frankly makeup body types music all of these supposedly gendered devoloped are heavily raced from yoga to belly dancing to brazilian but lifts and waxes all come from heavy cultural appropriation of degradation so that certain women can capitalize on the commoness of american consumption
that goes for the "crunchy" (and hence a lot of "cultural feminist") style stuff too, of course, as well as nearly everything we consume...
most definitely BD
Wow BA! Me loves it.
But seriously, good point about the commodification of our cultures and bodies (POC's that is) and how that appropriation is sidestepped whenever we air grievances or are targetted by some new "cause."
That was a pretty damn amazing post. The first I've ever read of yours. I know it's your prerogative, but I kinda wish I could have seen what was said in the posts you removed. Was it just spam trivia or were they insults or disagreements?
I didnt delet them a poster posted osmething three times due to blogger being special
Aah, good to know. I wonder if it's worth having the ability to state the reason for the deletion. I'm not just thinking in this case, but in general. "Deleted by author for duplicate posting" for instance. A distinction between good maintenance vs. content filtering. Just thinking aloud here.
-- A new regular visitor
Clinton Fein
"I want to freestyle on this later but frankly makeup body types music all of these supposedly gendered devoloped are heavily raced from yoga to belly dancing to brazilian but lifts and waxes all come from heavy cultural appropriation of degradation so that certain women can capitalize on the commoness of american consumption"
BA, thanks for responding -- I just realized that you had. Appreciate it.
True -- much of this is appropriation of degradation.
But doesn't some of the adoption of ideas from other cultures have a complimentary aspect?
I'm not dismissing, of course, the many instances where it's the opposite.
When I was 5 and then 9, my parents adopted my sisters, one at two and one at seven, from Korea. We joined a group called the "Open Door Society" of adoptive parents and families. The adoptees were Black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, etc. Every month there was a party celebrating a different tradition, a kind of music or dance, or origami, or a kind of food. And some of those traditions, we incorporated because we liked them. My sisters, I think or no, I know, appreciated that this often involved going to places, like Korean markets or restaurants or dances, where they were the norm.
I agree with you, the lip collagen, butt lifts, hip hop, etc. can involve major cultural appropriation. But where do we draw the line between an admiration for other cultures' mores and customs, and cultural appropriation?
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