Dear Blackamazon.

One of the things that has been most important to me about Red or at least my vision of it both the color and the day is about changing the way we look at people of color.

My self included.

Today I wore red and prowled Brooklyn looking for a house to import my wife into. And had huge dreams of the life I would want to live.

I had dreams.

I had desires.

And I am worth it.

That is always something that strikes me when I read WOC theory or words form alll parts of our beautiful spectrum

is

We

Are

WORTH

IT

.

It is something that we have said in so many tongues across so many times in so many ways.

We are worth it when we love each other.

Not in the platonic ways that are comfortable. But in the messy sweaty fluid ways that tear into our bodies with lust and fire

Red

And we are worth it when we walk the streets in doo rags and baggy jeans and defend our lives and our lust

Because they are ours and we are worth it.

We are worth it not REGARDLESS

but

BECAUSE OF THE FACT

we will fight to be ourselves even when our bodies will not match our spirits and hearts.

We are worth it

Red

Because of the fact that we make livings from our bodies and they are not " stolen damaged goods"

REFUCKINGGARDLESS

if you like it, or it's accepted.

Because we are scarlet lettered and scarlet lipped.

AND STILL

NO

IS

NO

Because who but us could control these gifts we call bodies.

Because we love a sister in WVA, a baby sister in Arizona, 7 sisters in New York , sisters crossing the "border"and sisters we do not know yet

We love them as we wear our own skin

We love them as queens and sisters

WITH NO QUALIFICATIONS

NO LIMITATIONS

AND NEEDING NO JUSTIFICATION

We love them not in spite of but BECAUSE OF

Because we are not last minute notices, but all time LIVERS

not survivors but livers

giving breathing

LOVING OUR LIVES

and more so

Because to day we are proudly wearing across our breasts

Our love for one another.

Because our silence has hurt us healed us and helped us LIVE

And we are here

And we are beautiful

And wonderful

AND YA DAMN RIGHT WE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAT YOUR COSTUME OR YOUR CANDY!

" because even with so much pain we have so much joy"-Rose

Because

Because of today I will think of red

and

Smile



I am worth it

And so are you
Read more!

Ohh Donna

For week Red I wanted to write letters .

To Female Bloggers of Color about things the wrote or we talked about and why they were connected to the concepts and values that I ( only me by myself this girl here) thought were important to silence.

My first letter goes out the lovely Donna at The Silence of our Friends, ( why yes her blog title is serendipitous and related)

Dear Donna,

This is a horrible convoluted conceit as I emailed you like yesterday , but please indulge the sniffling toddler.

As per your usual your post Bitter Laughter was awesome . Kind of uncomfortable making , full of fire and brimstone but it really, really got me thinking. It also made me think back to Kindergarten .

Remember the Golden Rule.

" Treat others as you wish to be treated"

Up until blogging I thought that was a great idea . It is the liberal mantra ne plus ultra. Everyone is equal we are same under the skin , or the goal is to make us same under the skin.

Thank god I gave that ish up.

Your post which i know refer joyously to as " Hypocrisy: The Madlibs version" made me think hard about why it offended me so , and I noticed your blog title and i Thought of red and thhen my mind did a happy synaptic firing

And then my heart kind of broke.

Silence.

Silencing.

The reason the " golden rule" offends me so now , is that it appoints the user ( we'll say me ) as the "decider" of what way they should treat people. I get to say that this is the way I enjoy being treated , I will treat everyone that way and it shall be good .

As Women of Color , we know more than anyone else that we are not the same , and the incidences of oppression and violence we face , while achingly similar are often wildly divergent in their historical origins, and personal impact.

And every time someone gets up and says that this will work for women without addressing seriously the very explicit gaps ( or GORGES) in female experience , it fails certain women.

And by certain women , I mean the same women ( trans, disabled,WOC,queer, etc) over and over again.

Worse yet when it is talked about , the white women tend to phrase it ( and I'm not kidding I noted this in both real life and online conversations ) as " a constant criticism , or one criticism of feminism"

So for what is for many women a long standing barrier to them becoming part of feminism ( if i read one more white woman be shocked and awed about WOC " espousing feminist ideas" but not claiming feminism . I'm just gonna start a mockery list) is not to them a grave concern but one of the many criticisms of feminism.

Silence.

We are not specific but simply one of the many things people "complain" about, how is it to be addressed.Suddenly we are in the conglomerate with or without our permission .

Our successes are "theirs" and our challenges are their statistics.

I live in an area that has one of the highest HIV rates in America. Also an extremely high incidence of sexual violence, to my knowledge their are no immediate women's health centers or WOC friendly women's health professionals available.

Programs that were and continue to be stunted by the efforts of not just patriarchy but women who believe that any focus on WOC is divergent from the " real goals" while still campaigning using these lives to bolster their position WITHIN patriarchy.

It would be funny , if it didn't involve wondering how the two twins in my yard were gonna live with out their mother.

Silencing induces more silence permanently.

But it is better to speak.

The post itself and the post script , and your first comment from zuzu.

Donna they honestly made me cry.

In thinking about this and what this RED is trying to be, and places where there are problems and seams and things that we are doing right and doing wrong . The sheer effort on so many women are putting in , that they HAVE to put in .

Because WOC organizations are underfunded. Because people ( my simple ass included) are often inconsiderate of LGBT issues, because disabled people are so quick to be made as non obtrusive and so on and so on and so forth.

IS NOT A QUESTION OF CLARITY.

It is crystal clear we are failing each other.

It is crystal clear that from that post , it is much more important to engage and intellectually deal with men who are condescending and snide, than with women who are honest and committed.

You brought up the book and I went back through it and it still is a gut shot. These men who are condescending assholes are given point by point rebuttals. Petit,Sylvia and I can't even get our names said.

Not because of hits or traffic but because we are/were real people with real issues who invested REAL time and damn it WE WERE there and trying .

Because it was important that what we loved was treated fairly because IT HAS REAL LIFE Consequences.

Not even our names.

But whats his face can get entire paragraphs dedicated to how he's a " good guy" ?

Your entire post pouring your heart out about how this behavior is damaging and hurtful to our spirits and souls

One line about how you misunderstood and not another engagement? Something to acknowledge the actual time and feelings you were in while you did this.

Nope just a line so you didn't misunderstand HER words?

Is this truly what we are? To be used to show how they are evolving in arguments with white men?

Is it any wonder that anytime an ally posts for Red anywhere there is an upcropping of what about this case ? And that case is without fail a white woman?

OR that people still truly think that an attack on LGBT people aren't crimes about sex?

That it is ocmmon thought that because it's a DV case Megan Williams can't be a hate crime

While the difference between cyberspace and real life gets more blurred every day. The lives of WOC do not.

We are not anybody else, we are not a faceless , voiceless mass, we are NOT one and the same.

And we are not argument fodder., or stepping stones.

Do they realize we are people ?

Independent autonomous people who are NOT extensions of some nebulous ideal?

We do not wish to be treated the way they are treated

but as ourselves.

And we shall be silent on that no longer
Read more!

Red Charlie Boy.

For one week this blog is red

Why Red?

And why that day?

Don't you know any better colors? Don't you know it's Halloween?

Don't you think people would be more likely to support if it was on you know another day?

Don't you know it's about women not race.

Don't you want to work on eliminating race ? Why would you focus on it?

I am wearing Red and talking Red and breathing Red because my heart beats Red.

I am wearing Red because on facebook , faced with the prospect of women across the nation and possibly the world speaking their truth in the color that floods there veins.

We are told maybe we should reconsider remember this is the day we get to dress up. How dare you think about not letting us debauch.

Because there is always a better time , a better way because we always need to stop and consider fighting to be alive.

Because I receive rivers of pink, even though simply by being female and of color.

I will more likely die in red

I am , WE are " easy women" who are not easy.

The stuff of fantasies, and fetishes , fiction and fact.

This is red because we beat it and bleed it.

This is red because there is never a " good way" to be angry about being raped, ignored, and abused.

There will never be a "right tone" to shout , Yes we are still here.

I will wear red because it makes people uncomfortable. I will wear red because Tina Turner taught me to walk, Angela Davis and bell hooks taught me think, Celia Cruz taught me to feel joy, and my grand mas gave me a vessel to do it with.

And that vessel is mine

I will wear red because I am as much whore as queen. And i don't "prefer" one to the other.

I will have red eyes and a heaving bosom. I will wear three inches of heel and make a dress beg for mercy. I will walk with a switch that i have had for 13 years that only comes from believing that you should dance in a squat till you sweat out a perm to a bass so thick(just like your body) it vibrates your soul.

I will blistex and lipstick lips that have been described as "bioengineered for cocksucking"

so I can tell anyone who asks.

The choice is mine and mine and mine alone.

I will wear red because that idea is still revolutionary

Red not pink or burgundy.

Red. Red. *Red*. *Red*, Charlie boy. *Red*! Is the color of sex! Burgundy is the color of hot water bottles! Red is the color of sex and fear and danger and signs that say, Do. Not. Enter. All my favorite things in life.
Read more!

*peeks*

*waves*
Read more!

By hook by crook

They will make sure that boy gets the book.

There is no such thing as retaliatory justice right.

This was fair.

There is no way this connected to the larger use of society to silence people of color and the timing of this is not at all suspect.

Mychal Bell, one of the so-called Jena Six, is back in jail.Bell reported to juvenile court Thursday, expecting another routine hearing, his father said.However, according to his father, the judge ruled Bell violated his probation because of an old drug charge that had never been tried.

There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why this happened now AFTER the media glare is gone.

I mean there is no reason why all eyes need to be focused on here and why young POC may have a distrust of the system?
Read more!