Today Every Officer in teh Sean BEll trial walks.

Peopel are actually admitting to not having paid attention or gave a shit when reading and endorsing a book  portraying things like "jungle" amazon and dark brown savages being KILLED as a metaphor for the triumph of a white woman.

Yeah if your waiting for an opinion on this right nwo . 

Google Amazon and Guyana

Check my archives to see why I named myself Blackamazon.

And thenthink real fucking hard abouthow you think I feel right now.

and then 

keep fucking waiting.

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Five For One

* looks to make sure everyone whose simply here for the bloodsport is gone or at least kind of gone*

So in my typical Leo fashion, since nobody asked . I am going to TELL you anyway. and directly because after this I am not sure. I hope this post accomplished about four things

1. The meme by PRofBW on why Gender Studies ( which I hope to be getting into)
2. The question by Sudy Why blogging?
3. A response to the orgasmic brillance that is my sistren BFP ( with some disagreements but goddman she fabulous)
4. A statement of my personal manifest ( as per my horoscope and my wifey)

   This would be a perfect time for you to write your ultimate personal manifesto. I'm talking about composing a sweeping statement of the core ideas that fuel your lust for life. To get you in the mood, take a look at the following lyrics from Danny Schmidt's song "Company of Friends." "I believe in restless hunger . . . I believe in private thunder . . . I believe in inspiration . . . I believe in slow creation . . . I believe in lips on ears . . . I believe in being wrong . . . I believe in contradiction . . . I believe in living smitten . . . I believe our book is written by our company of friends."

5. A restate of the Soul Shaking Love Post where I am not a whiny speaking of myself in third person scaredy cat.

Knowing me they may accomplish none or all or even more. But my big push right now is to stop doing what I do in number five .

Which is being mad and mean and furious with myself at not being perfect. To stop joining in on a chorus of people QUICK to berate me for not being some idealized version of myself in my head.

And more than ever the past three weeks have shown me I can't do that here. Not in the way I have been.

I am tired, I am un well , and I am exhausted. I barely listen to music , I rarely dance and I don't sing . I haven't read for fun in ages.I have repeated dreams about being trapped in cold snowy places with minutes to live and not being able to squeeze through , and having to fight my body to wake up. I am unsure of myself and cry constantly when I am alone. And then I have to get up put on a mask and pretend that it is okay to make sure I don't get evicted.

I don't believe in these dreams , in these feelings or this life. I CAN'T believe in this or I will not make it.

I believe I want to study in "academia" again, because I miss reading and thinking and " labbing" work . I miss what I had started to do towards the end of my academic career , not in classes but in my own person work, examining my reality and history , as a WOC performer and thinker as a conduit for cross cultural exchange in performance. I believe in books , and opera , and hip hop. I believe in long ass strenuous workouts, physical , mental ,vocal, creative that make this happen.

I believe that there should be canonical works. I believe that those works should be just that, CANONS. Open salvos in " battles"designed to literally grapple and destroy and rebuild them . Text that lives an breathes and is on it's feet , on it's back , on it's toes. How we take theory and make art. And how that is CONNECTED eternally through performance and history.

Most importantly how that performance is SPECIFICALLY and practically located in POC bodies and there interactions with personalizing and culturing various artforms , both intentionally and SIMPLY BY THEIR PRESENCE.

I believe that this means not the current model of constantly vulturing, picking and stagnating art and artist by bring them into the academy , but of pushing the academy OUT into art. I believe teenagers should ALWAYS have a place on campuses but more importantly colleges should always be in place and accountable to teenagers where they live. I believe that archives and knowledge should be ACTUALLY accessible to the people not just theoretically so.

I believe every Ivy League college should have a community center,garden and school on its campus, RUN BY THE COMMUNITY of which it is not a benevolent overlord but an ACTUAL COMMUNITY MEMBER.

I believe I can help bring this about by TEACHING and LEARNING from youth , form elders, friends enemies , loves , and lovers by studying, truly interacting and living a life dedicated to
studying Women , Gender, Women of Color as not a discipline but as a living breathing NECESSITY TO OUR INTELLECTUAL AND CORPOREAL LIVES.

I believe that I started doing this work by blogging. I believe that while I had no way of knowing when I was 21 what it would come to I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted to write my self into existence and I believe I wanted to share my thoughts with the world. I believe that teh Seal Press mess and WAM and FFF have shown that I did that .

But I also believe that's not where I want it to end. I do NOT want to be Jimminy Cricket to a white feminist movement. An undervalued often shunted aside conscience that is there solely to demonstrate how hard they are trying. I believe I want to work with my sistren, brethren and family. I believe that no matter what I come to this and from this with a fierce earth shaking LOVE.

What I didn't have and still in many ways don't was lot's of time and or money. So I blog because

It is where I am at NOW.

However it is not where I believe I will or can stay.

I believe I will find and have found some community , and that I can both achieve my dreams and be of better service, not to my " movement" and " the greater good" but living breathing people whom my life and destiny ARE INTERTWINED WITH.

Part of what I believe in is that because our destinies our intertwined

Nobody INCLUDING ME gets a pass.

I adore my people but part of what scared and has scared me about this mess so far is that while yes I did turn out to be "right"

I won't always. I will screw up I will fuck up

and I should be held accountable. Even if you believe that I am good and wonderful , when I OR ANYBODY says or does things ,( in my case completely without any good forethought) t hat so stringently and forcefully condemn , or create .

THEY SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE. Not berated or yelled at or armchair analyzed or fought with but battled. That we must create non defensive open communities where everyone not only is held accountable but welcomes that accountability as part of membership. That each INDIVIDUAL is held for what they have done.

I believe that for whatever reason , I have not participated fully in creating and fostering that community, by being an active present listener commenter, and fostering the discussions I hope for.

I have many problems that I am still working out over this new explosion, is that there seems to be a general consensus I do this on purpose. As if i say things looking to inflame. I read my own stats , I NEVER imagined I had the ability to generate THIS KIND OF READERSHIP.

Do you know what it's like to read the website that helped start your progressive /radical life describe you being disrespected and hurt as a maelstrom?TO mention your name once and magically turn you into women of color while expressing sympathy for people who flat out made you cry. To turn one SINGULAR you into this monolithic beast as if the people who agreed with you couldn't possibly be diverse interested in their own realities but some side that is being 'counterproductive" and not ACTUALLY wounded?

And then to say I won't pick a winner? As if this was some kind of GAME?!

DO you know what it's like to read time and time AGAIN someone you love dearly be frigging ROASTED in " polite terms" and have it be okay. To watch people make pledges and commitments that magically disappear the REALITY and specifics of what has harmed you and hurt you in the name of " objectivity". Where in objectivity means we're going to protect HER in expense of HER and EMPHASIZE the power we have by promising that THIS TIME we will give it to you?

As if that doesn't make us the ULTIMATE OTHER? As if This benevolent desire to lead or to do BASIC frigging research is such a life changing act, and not ANOTHER way of affirming a death grip on privilege power and NON equitable action?

And those are the " GOOD" responses!

And just in case your wondering in the grand cluster screw of this how many people actively involved with basically screwing me over, making me uncomfortable, or cry have actively in any way tried to CONTACT AND TALK TO ME

Zero.

I believe i am in a place however where that thing still bothers me . It matters to me. I am still in some ways waiting hopefully for a dialog that is in no ACTUAL interest to people.

I believe that if I am and i continue, what little power and hope I have carved here will ultimately be frittered away in the WRONG direction. i believe there are now connections and
communities and opportunities I am actively avoiding because of fear and sadness and NOT ENOUGH TIME.



I believe that there is better to be done. I believe I can find it I believe until until i can find those communities and truly contribute. I am not truly living those beliefs.

I will not be gone forever, I need to fundraise for AMC , bring light to the dark places and support those I Love .

but I believe first I need to take care of myself.

This BlackAmazon

Signing Off
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No one asked

There is no excuse for what I said.

It was not one of my more thought out and planned moments , it was not one of the best exemplars of my mothers raising me to be a " proper" woman.

But I said it and I meant it.

I had no intention of saying why I said it ,and as the converstaion has broadened it seems no one cares. Which was fine and dandy with me.

However contrary to the popular theory , I am not Manute Bol in heels, I am not a 60 year old sage.

I am a 23 year old girl, I am a 23 year old girl who started a blog at 21 to deal with teh most painful things you can imagine, I am a 23 year old girl who still doesn't comprehend fully how these two plus y ears of writing have evolved into this community , and this perceived influence ( did I really end up on SALON ?!?! Did I really just get see Bitch have dang nigh three posts on me?) I am a 23 year old girl who was put in what was an upsetting and hurtful and pretty gobsmackingly racially charged situation, and came to the end of my rope and then

Saw someone I love hurt.

Not some theory , not some chance at my livelyhood , no some shot at teh old boys network, but this amazing wonderful human was todl essentially:

Great Job , not white enough.

And you know what after a day or so of this

( so good she needed two parts)

I was at that point.

FUCK EM.

We'll get this done ourselves , in fact in the car on our way most of the time in Donna's minivan of glory was spent finding ways to get it done through other venues. We don't sit and wait , we do

When i went back to the hotel and wrote. I wrote to Adele , I wrote to BFP, to Sudy, to Mehta, To Wifey, To Lex, to Jessica,To Nadia.

So THEY knew where my heart was, so THEY knew what was my priority , which was FUCK EM we can and will and have done this ourselves. That this book these words we could take care of.

And then all hell broke loose.

And yes she wanted to call and say something , and I said uh NO!

If my priority is this book , these words ( which NOPE she wasn't proposing to SEAL ) then why on earth does she need to get involved off of my big mouth using bad phrase choice?

But you see I love good people. And I support her wanting to come forward and i will hold her up in doing so .

Because it is this support that makes teh difference , the specific and real and NAMED acknowledgement that our pain our lives aren't theory.

And everyday in thsi blogosphere for the past weeks for me has made it harder and harder.

Because this incident and teh loss of BFP ( why yes to me the big story is not about X's deals or credibility but I don't have the words of this amazing woman in teh public anymore) is the erasure of WOc as human beings.

Funnily enough if you go throughout the web as this has blown up propogated and multiplied, something is conspicuously absent.

ME.

You see part of the reason I didn't want Adele to come out with this,

NO ONE ACTUALLY ASKED

No one cared why I said what I said , just that clutch your pearls TEH BIG MENA BLACK WOMAN PICKED ON A PRESS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because being todl tiem and time again that your message and your tactics and teh space you create for yourself is imperfect, badly toned or not important enough ( yet)

but to watch it magically become so if here is enough "buzz" or the right (white ) face behind it

That does not even have words to describe it.

We have no words for it we have only events.

We have only discoveries of graves and bodies, of " untold attrocities".

that we have been telling .

I wonder what kids said something and were todl it's not important yet, that we'll get to it

maybe when it's a zeitgeist

And then to see the responses that have bended backwards and forwards to protect some participants , while going so far as to speculate on others mental health.

to see time and time again pledges made that this time , from this moment forth they will do better for their movement

and THat's what it takes

because they have platforms and they want to lead.

As if by wnating to lead they don't seem to understand that once again means we have to follow.

That all of these things can happen and NONE NONE of the WOC involved were given as much as a by your leave

and it's called progress.

That these experimentations in doing better aren't almost always spreding shit in our backyards to se eif maybe this time it will save us.

Better feminism ,

meanwhile these great upsurges to lead to be better.

Only serve to distance a
( as BFP so eloquently wrote)

our WORK from our communities or PEOPLE , by validating systems where it is assumed no only do we need whiteness as validation but that we have no access to it

and then to call that process of doing it to our faces instead of in your backs
PROGRESS?!?!

to someone I love.

Yeah I said Fuck em

We will do what we always done, inthose cars, in those hotel rooms, churches,mosques, basements,fields

we say it to save ourselves

but no one actually asked me.
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A Soul Shaking Love Or...

I really have no idea what to say at this point.

Wish I did .

I can only watch with some amazement as it goes .

First off, I would like to thank , even though when she sees the timestamp she probably will kill me my wifey who has made her own blog here .

It is a complaint among some of my readers that I constantly reference my age in some degree of amazement.

Well to be honest, with some of the things I have lived and seen , I often don't remember. Especially when it comes to interblog dialogs.I say this ( and I say this repeatedly) ot to excuse or explain my hot headed behavior , but mostly to marvel at how I am discussed.

Or more appropriately how I am imagined in the minds of others.

As I was having my small nervous breakdown in exhaustion on the streets of New York, I started babbling about this has happened again , I am cast out of the holy.

You see when I was 18 all of five years ago , i rescinded my very secret but very deep desire to become a nun, as I felt that I had been cast out. The deeper and deeper I sat with it , the more and more I felt God , but the more and more I also felt that I could not, WOULD NOT support any thing that expected my love and devotion ,but based it self in the principle that my origins, as a woman, as a woman of a couple colors were innately MORE sinful than any other human beings, and therefore wrongs against me were ok , or preventing me from DEEPLy participating in my love of God as an ACTIVE servant would kill my soul.

I did it fro me I didn't call anyone just me.

This blog is neither different,nor less important to me.

It was and is about a personal chronicle, of a personal journey that began out of being cast apart from something I held dear.That being said parts of it have contributed to ways I treat myself that are NOT life affirming.

Which in the end was the entire reason this blog came to be. I needed to affirm one (at the time) anonymous life. One not so little black/brown immigrant girls right to say


I am here.


There were and are no Machivellian plans behind , no career goals, just a desire to make someplace where I was that was mine.

As such it is a reflection of me.

What this past two weeks however has done in terms of my realization of how important that needs to be considered has also astounded me.

I said something crass. and vaguely explained.

And the world rushed in.

Had I an inch of foresight into the BOOM I would have made would I have done it?

NO!'

That being said I am not sorry. Reading the explosion on line however has been sombering, and also saddening, and hopeful.

I said it not has been intimated because I was sitting somewhere " hatin" on a press. I said it because someone I had come to love had been hurt and in this little square inch of interweb, I wanted a WOC to know how fierce the love I felt for her and what she was trying to do in the world was.

I wanted her to know violently I would reject and defend her from those who would do anything in any way to minimize that.

so I in my basic vernacular "popped off".

This was not as has become intimated, a " business" strategy. I do not know how stupid these people think I am , but even in my hottest moments of temper , I comprehend that my propensity of going FUCK THIS SHIT in the general direction of those who hurt my loved ones is not at all ladylike, or even better smart.

It is one me , I did not think the press itself would come here, or that frankly it mattered that much coming from me.

Small insignificant blogger I am being called.

I guess I do not knwo yet my place in this world , cause they did , and even in my UM UH WAHTDADELLBBQ?

I don't back down . And what has stricken me is how separated I got from seeing this as something related to me . Sounds strange but as the fur flew, I fell out of my own head and became more concerned with how this was being wielded against the " you all" , this few this happy few I had become to regard as part of my family.

I don't think that was expected. Nor was it received well . So I went to the places I find love and support and said yipes. I went to my wifey and went maybe I did something wrong. And I went to myself " You dumb ass with your big mouth you done done it"

And I watched and read .

These

stories

I read them them , these constant but their both wrong, but can't you see how THEY could feel personally hurt while my feelings and damn nigh existence was melted into a conglomerate. That analogies made this little square inch or land seemed predatory or menacing, some far off new territory that why couldn't anybody understand was no where they had ever been before. That official editors had a right to defend against this vague predatory menace. That we weren't doing enough to save ourselves ( where are my bootstraps again Penn wasn't enough , employment multilingualism not enough must remember to save feminist book proposals too!) And I didn't even skip a beat.

While the ediotors of Seal Press could be peopel, and it didn't matter what capacity they acted in or did if it was emotional . there show of emotion was okay.

I however was alien territory, the voice of a monstrous horde ,Manute Bol of online women. 

And more importantly it was all ok.

Yet and still there is a running discourse in an "objective"article , to continue the perception that I at any point EVER I expressed wanting a book deal. That the entire point of that was about me wanting a book deal .

Even though I don't even say book.

That article after article by " feminists" by "allies" skims the ENTIRE article full of love and joy and  hope for my sisters.

To cast me as a hater to cast me as a person who was asking for something.

Except I asked for 

NOTHING.

Show me where I said  Fuck seal press cause the won't give me a book deal?

Show me where I asked for anything.

Instead the bulk of this post , was about something I created in love. And something I was defending in love.

And you know what the funny thing is ?

To this day no one has asked why? Not that I would say , but that wasn't on ANYONE's mind .

Just that I was a hater or I had spoke in a way that  belied my place.

The idea that I was supposed to be aiding something, that what ever it was  they had I obviously wnated even though in the plainest three words in the english language I had said no.

But there is not an I.

 There is no I there to the point  even I didn't see it

I didn't see myself as being attacked but only as a proxy for those do nothing won't help " stop playing the race card " women of color"

And the simple truth is 

That is AOK in this blogosphere.

For all the talk about the gender gap. the concern for issue The " objectivity" the plea for some people's feelings ( I have yet to be mentioned as having those , I have emotions are high which somehow lack the weight or forgiveness as having feelings does") I am never mentioned as having them. And if anyone thought I did their not important

Because I don't have feelings, no one cares at all what I went through. Because I have no power , I don' t have a " struggling press"

I just have a struggle

And I believe .

I believe and always have been a believer that the struggle the actual making of peoples lives, the way and how we do things is just as important as the structures we build.

That even non believers and questioners, even out right assholes should be allowed to speak.

But frankly what is it worth.

When I can't even see myself?

What is this worth?

This conversation?

That was hilarious , in the no seriously  I am laughing cause I can't cry much harder and stay upright.

While the fire jumped and grew , BFP's name was insulted by people freely to save their own asses.

While accusatiosn flew, I still didn't have my sister.

I still don't have my father,

These women still don't have safety and dignity

But this is someone's livelyhood.

But these are people's LIVES.

Because rampant years long sexual abuse being  written about by a white women even though that same work has been done

BY MANY BROWN WOMEN 

is a zeitgeist and not a life or death situation.

That it's just a n emblem of smart people talking

not brown folks dying and being massacred.

That this is instead a way to make sure that no matter what happens it will be about a white woman's feelings or livelihood.

What is it for?

That no ONE at all noticed there were no women of color , the fighting accusations featured almost no WOC while we were slandered and debased.

And that was okay.

That my space is no unsafe and canon fodder for every person who has a vendetta an argument , or evil thing in cowardice they wish to say to WOC.

That is okay.

That for a movement that bases thing on the work of women to create. 

That because no one Pays me , my creation BFP creations are expendable.

That this a bad week in OUR blogging as if we did anything but try and be fully human

and simply get told NO

That is NOT our right in this movement.

That it is ok for a movement encouraging young women to grow to change to explore to treat a young woman as if she had all the power in the world and needed to have her voice destroyed because , what little she had in herself dared make for herself any space and define exactly who and who not she considered in her space .

Because someone else assumed she wanted attention, that she wanted what they wanted. 

That she can no longer read her name and her age and believe it because, this movement this movement doesn't do that to it's young right.

That still somewhere this young girl has faith enough to Doubt to doubt that this is the best we can be.

but who can barely bring herself to type as herself.

She of little faith.

*memo to those who know yes its's from LLG/TLG/SLG's website me is pathetic*

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That's All She Wrote

Never.

Never in 23 years of life did I ever think I would have to explain what fuck you meant,to grown people.

But as I sit here gazing at the black page that used to house one of the best resources in the world period.

Never as in the two years I have been doing this blog did I EVER envision the kind of heartache I would feel at a white page.

In my early post I said there was a later for explaining what I thought about the presumption that has run amok about " dialogs" "discussion" and unfettered bullshit that is in the blogosphere since wam.

But She is gone and here I am.

She is BFP .

And she was a BEACON to the concerns of POC on this internet. And she finally had enough.

She has asked that I NOT link and I will respect her wishes.

Someone should.


And I guess the little part I can do is explain fuck you.


See when I said Fuck Seal Press .

It wasn't an invitation to a dialogue. I didn't ( and still don't understand) why that was taken as anything else. I had the joy of watching three grown women . THREE mock my work , obfuscate , use derogatory and flat out racist posturing to protect themselves from critique, while using me essentially as a conduit to engage in gross bullshit self protective BUT WE"RE TRYING hemhawing.

And when it didn't work

When it was obvious that it wasn't enough that they had a press, that I had a blog I had created MYSELF for the express purpose of CREATING a place to do the POSITIVE WORK I love ( Jena 6, Southhall Black Sisters, general 23 year old happy stuff)

That MANY amazing articulate multihued diverse people wanted more , needed more and would HOLD THEM TO MORE

They simply disappeared it . To make us all crazy. To make it all just us screaming into the thin air.

Because that's exactly how this works right, slip out , demand it done your way, and expect to be served right?

And if it doesn't work your way, try and make everyone who witnessed a liar.

That's what happens in a movement/situation/press focused not on trans formative informative actually equal change.

Because when THEY say fuck you

What they mean is :

I want attention. I want to have power and if you give it to me, if you give what i want I'll mean it differently. We're not talking or demanding any change just our share. We'll work on supporting this structure LONG AS WE ARE IN IT. I am doing this to get/keep your attention, we both know if you give me the right thing , we can both USE the fact I said fuck you together to show how much the structure is wonderful and can be worthy


When I say fuck you:

No seriously I mean fuck you. I mean I find something you've done deplorable lily livered weak assed and tired and you need to pick up your grown folk underoos for you speak in my direction again. And you need to know this cause I'm gonna be looking at you sideways the entire time . Plus you come wrong at me and mine ( cause I tend reserve folks for incursions upon family) , me I might let slide, family tends to mean you want us to be in a public space near law enforcement cause depending on bad it is I may come get you. I fight fair , but I still fight.

When BFP wrote about X ( who I choose not to name cause I really can't break my computer screen) straight up fuckery. She being the incandescent human concentrated on how that complete and utter rewriting of historic precedent

ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTED TO THE HARMING OF WOMEN DOING WORK"S EFFORTS.

But once again we got to here about some FEELINGS!

There in lies the problem.

YOu see these women X, Seal Press whomever else will no doubt get upset that getting to do what they want often and without fail screws with the lives of WOC royally and repeatedly, while using them as TOTEMS ( We want you WOC *plays pokemon theme in head*)

It's the constant utter derail, pretending not to comprehend while STEALING YES STEALING .

IF not verbatim, than coopting for relevance and social cachet, weeping gathering the troops using the same in danger white woman tactics that supposedly they want to end to defend from those mean evil , ill informed always jealous

( Except I said fuck you, BFP said nothing and we're now almost guaranteed that a professor in charge of women of color TRULY BELIEVES we spend our days envying white women. HI you ever present hardheaded CLOGGED EARED ninny. I AM NOT BFP I AM ALSO NOT ALL WOMEN OF COLOR but hey you can't even follow proper citation arguments so at this point I THROW UP MY HANDS TO THE LORD)

so people can have bylines or more " diverse catalogues"

And my friends aren't digging themselves holes.


My sisters aren't GIVEN the option to swing their feelings and their privilege to suddenly disappear dissent or ScarlettO hara out of being held accountable .

My sisters don't feel safe feeling sad in rooms in fornt of stories of their families without hearing about BILL O REILLY

My sisters struggle again and again with doing beauty only to be AGAIN AGIAN AND AGIN confornted iwth ugliness for daring to dream of better worlds

Me and my sisters are mocked ridiculed for being brave enough to be what others HOPE to be until

My sister's are heartbroken, unable to see and think and feel and speak without feeling underseige

leaving nothing but blank pages

Je t'aime m'amour. Ma souer, mon couer. Je t'aime
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I Am The Firestarter

I wish a motherfucker would. I wish not for gifts or presents or stories. I wish for the strength. I do not wish for I wish to do. I wish the way my foremothers taught me Ida, June, Angela, In The Name of Lourde I wish to be able to rise and face and overcome And I wish to be tested with those gifts when I WISH a mother fucker would - Blackamazon ( kinda ) 2008

.

I Reread this piece by Jessica Hoffman and this amazing description of how i made up my wish:

[Alexis] was trying, she said, to think about accountability--about who she was accountable to in that space. She was accountable to women of color who were there, and could everybody spend some time thinking about their session for the next day, envisioning what they really wanted it to be, what kind of space they wanted to create for women of color in this environment?

In the space we created at WAM I was guided by my sistren to be accountable to love.

Love of Women of Color and allies and teh things we love

Love through wishing.

And my love?

My love is fierce. My love throws chairs , my love is selfish, my love is grandstanding dramatic, backed with 200+ pounds damn near 6ft of muscle fat sinew and crazy.

And I start fires.

To be honest to me the newest fire ( which this my in total maybe 4th comment on ) is an out cropping from my experience at WAM.

Sudy does an excellent blow by blow and . Donna's link round up is wonderful.

When I read these things I am so proud and happy that peopel felt safe and warm and comfortable being open in our session.

Because speaking for myself I felt ill often, jittery, un welcome and spectated.

It started form the beggining didn't get better and the after math as you can see is absolutely fantabulous.

Please understand that teh place where Sudy was " jokingly" told she would be executed, was a space we had to pay for in hopes of possibly maybe making connections. Sudy's ability to do media was secondary to concerns we might make someon elook bad.

Execute .

After I stood to talk about my father.

After Nadia talked about death threats

" Where women's words matter"

Not ours.

Because when we say we right through fear of our lives those threats are back burnered to making a joke at how "serious" this space is taken.

Execute.

We paid for thsi privilege.

To be unable to make anything that might hodl people accountable , so that we can be accountable to them.

Execute.

My face must look like thunder.

Execute they say this to my Sudy. And the eyes on us with no names , no intros , no NOTHING have already begun ,

Because I admitted to be Blackamazon (firestarter)

Reception I am so hungry I could die and HOUSE fig spread and puffs.

"Bitch is teh new black" is social commentary , because black bitches don't get power you see. We may want to be black , you may want to replace black with bitch but the both doesn't happen. Reams of lists of teh poor treatment Hillary is getting but pleas etack on racism at the end.

Bitch is the new black.

I keel over and breathe deep , those eyes again and again, as if I can't read name tags and know who you are.

I look right back

until

Bitch is the new Black.

and I keel over because my head get's light and I can't get air. my friends rub my back

As i listen to wishes for a female Don Imus.

Conveniently forgotten that he destroyed teh joy of a team , mostly of the black bitch variety not the new kind but the old to be famous.

but the famous is what counts.

There is no accountability to teh fact that for is prominence art of his schtick was to run over WOC to his fame.

just envy he has it.

When we can't find a room we are wrong it is impossible , it will be handled?

Until my face is liek thunder , when tehyf inally find one , and I turn she jumps back as if i will eat her.

That stare again , that look.

Because i don't getupset that you're taking time to create love and peace with those I love .

No

I of course am focusing on how to hurt you .

BUt then there is the love. so Much I can not contain it, i feel it it's weight

so much

so varied

and i made my wish
------------------------------------------------

Then I blogged and I said three words and kerplowed the web it seems.

II am guessing my question about this and other things is the assumption of mutual desire.

When I look over my comments , Brooke states well she wanted to start a dialogue.

Except what about me going FUCK SEAL PRESS says I want a dialogue?

I am actually not saying this to be rude or sarcastic , but it was three words, in caps and emphatic.

I know there are people who don't like me, I know there are people who love me but both tend to agree , I am a bit unwavering ( nice way of saying stubborn like a damn ox) .

It wasn't an open statement. It also wasn't kind or measured but I wasn't intending it to be.

This desire to have a dialogue was assumed.

That assumption is often presented as a esire for saving? the movement/website/etc/

to help women/the left/ the democratic party.

It's also ALWAYS couched in the threat of you have no where to go , or I will blackmail/end / silence / not support you when needed.

That underlying threat is in my mind deplorable.

I don't necessarily WANT TO TALK. I am one me. I am NOT a publisher, editor , nor do I ever present my self as one. And time and time again present themselves to me privileg first,

hoping to either intimidate , or solidary shame me into doingw hat they want.

With those threats ,these assumptions

And frankly the assumption that doing so with me is doing me a favor is arrogance at it's highest , if not straight up condescending white/male /class privilege

ESPECIALLY the way it's presented to women of color.

We have other places to go.

We have ALWAYS had other places to go.

And when we don't

We make them.

People keep repeating that they felt safe and loved and protected at our session.

Which is wonderful and makes me happy and is something we had to create or at least I felt we had to

BEcause i felt anything but.

I spent most of WAm feeling sick, ready to cry , and trying desperately between sadness and sheer white hot shaking fury to get some air into my lungs.

Having people be scared of you or walk into things or half glance a you , makes some people feel powerful , it makes my stomach hate me. Mind you I won' t change to make people at ease cause damn it not my job ( told you stubborn like ox)

But no I am not on this power trip I am not an attention needer ( for these cases)

I have interests, friends, enemies . loves,hates ,crushes shiny objects, and a whole variety of things

Like any other human being so when some wants something a dialogue

They are ASKING me something

and yes you have to ask me in a way I want.

Call me whatever you like but bottom line

No matter what you think you have no right to me. Just as I have no right to you

The Seal Press blow up is interesting to me ( in a kind of wait a minute how did i do that one OH man) in so much asconcurrently people from WAM have been responding to posts and round ups . While the answers have been in my mind more of the same said to WOC online since we got it bumping about two years ago, but you know what their asking us for something.

However right now

I wouldn't go back.

I frankly am just weary. I am weary of hearing the explanation of why this mistake or that mistake was made oddly with just about every part of my experience

while also reading how other people with characteristics that magically fit certain criteria have over the moon times.

I'm just weary of hearing but hey I'm/we're representing these things and in our happy utopia oops we forgot and maybe next time well get it right . Care to try again?

I'm weary of having to listen to discussion after discussion that ends up improving things that I had little part in making

Or when that conversation predicates on saying well hey even though I was in your space,felt unsafe , felt , unwelcome, was mistreated

just because you didn't intend to means you did nothing wrong. That requires I absolve guilt before we even talk

I'm weary of having to here these discussions as why we should give more and more and more.

I'm not tired in the sense of this ways on me and saps on me and i take it around.

I have a place to go, I have presses and conferences, and friends and interests and ways to work and build to

This burden I can lay down.

I made this blog for myself for those I CHOOSE to represent and no I don't to have to.

You are asking

I don't have to make you feel good about asking for something YOU want.

I am not part of anything concerned in my own mind with power and showing out for the attention.

If people agree or disagree with me they do so of their own accord. We're not just shouting to be included. We're shouting because we're angry

And our anger isn't a tool to get things from someone . I have my thoughts on why it's perceived as such in certain quarters but frankly

I don't think for most folks they matter.

BEcause in the end I am not being seen through the realities of who I am , what I do, and

Frankly it's not about even seeing me as a human.

It's about seeing me as a saint, a token, a rep for diversity, a heathen , a brat , a bitch

I am not accountable to these people.

They are not entitled to me

I am willing when I am treated how I want to be treated to talk to ANYONE but no I no longer and should have never had to keep dealing with ANYONE just in the name of "solidarity"

when I have the choice of dealingw ith those I want and can see building actual change with

and that includes my very crazy foul mouthed

HUMAN love

A love that starts fires

and owns them

I am the firestarter

and I wish

A motherfucker would.

In Love STILL,

BA

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Wifey's wishes

Wifey makes her blogging debut she wanted to good versus bad and I shal join her and were both leaving all sorts of teeth marks in Veronica

i wish on stars, on fallen eyelashes. i wish at 11:11 and when i see fields of hay. i wish for hope and dreams and love and wishes that aren't so far off from the wishes i wished twenty years ago.

and then i wish new wishes.

i wish it did not take as hostile a space as wam to meet women as loving as nadia, sudy, bfp, lex, adele, donna and jess.

i wish for every one of them to know how wonderful and inspiring and brilliant and giving they are and for each of their worlds to be made up of individuals with the same vast generosity of spirit each of them possesses.

i wish for all women to have at least one friend who knows them and cares for them with the most resolute fierceness that i feel for my wifey. using my words to call sydette my "best friend" often feels not enough. but bfp's words brought me to tears as they captured our friendship.

i wish my purse was never stolen but i wish that anyone who experiences such a quick sense of loss and vulnerability is able to do so in a space shared by five other individuals who are willing to walk across creation with them in search of a police station that "might not be there," and who will stop and stand and scream on a street corner when that's the only thing to do.

i wish sylvia could have been in boston with us.

i wish to enjoy the glory of red mango with jaz.

i wish to buy one of the first copies of adele's book. soon.

i wish to remember to joy of nadia's laughter, the peace of lex's voice, the power of bfp's teaching, the safety of sudy's generosity, and the depth of my wifey's thoughts.

i wish to see everyone in june. because "detroit: it's not boston."
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URGENT : SEARCH TASHINA GENERAL

We now pause to talk about something important. Taken form the UBUNTU comment section


Today I'm reaching out to everyone I can thing of to tell
you all that Tashina General, a Mohawk woman from the Six Nations
Reserve near Brantford, Ontario, has gone missing.

She is five months pregnant, and she has been missing for
almost three weeks.

Tashina is the cousin of some family frineds of ours;
they are frantic. Because she is a Native woman, there is not much
press coverage of her disappearance.

There are over 500 missing and murdered aboriginal women
in Canada; the violence Native Canadian women face is connected to the
violence indigenous women are facing in Guatemala and in El Salvador
and along the US Mexico border in the Juarez region.

In your piece, you spoke about the "rapeability", to use
Andrea Smith's word, of black women. Native American and First
Nations women, too, are considered somehow especially or inherently
"rapeable".

We all and up frozen inside our own communites, or even
limited to our own homes, or to a room in that home, and some of us at
times go without any sort of home at all, trying to keep our back pack
close to us, as it has now become our only safe space in the world. we
need to reach out to each other.

The white women who go on to date or marry those young,
privileged white men will likely rue the day they thought that somehow
their men would hurt "that other sort" of woman and not them-- the
reality is that all of us are considered "rapeable", and there is no
"other sort" of woman.

Our lack of solidarity as women is killing us.

Please keep Tashina in your prayers, and if you'd like
to know more about Tashina and the other missing women, please google
NWAC, the Native Women's Association of Canada.

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