HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO

ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am 24!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I shall accept love and affection now please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and and astrology reports

and schnuggles

and kitties

and please god manflesh soon

and and

a new job.

and pastry



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I don't even have angry right now.

I don't even have fury.

I have what only cna be called a deep dark blackness at my center that doesn't come out very

often.

But it is primarily horrible .

Because frankly. I have no shock in this.

There is no shock in my reading this .

I watch it and my teeth grit , my jaw sets , and I think of high school, and college and borders, and camps and wars.

And I think over and over again that

THIS

is why .

we tell girls to watch what they wear.

THIS

is why we tell girls not to walk at night.

That

THIS

is why our brown skins, rounded hips, curly hair, slanted eyes , musical tongues

are constantly warned to be straighter , closer PURER than holy water.

because those things make us playthings.

Should we desire to fight for our lives, should we express FURY , should we express the right to even remotely illustrate WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO US FOR CENTURIES for even SECONDS

we will be sent reminders.

You see that video wasn't just about Isabel Garcia.

This was bout sending about sending a message to brown bitches using one of their own.

Does it matter that the gathering was interracial, planned and obviously in protest. That literally

SHE ONLY PICKS UP THE HEAD OF THE PINATA ?!?!?

that this wackass has no beef with Hillary , Barack or other Pinata's ( hat tip Ilyka)

or even with it AT THE FUCKING TIME 9 scuse my language)

but that he can be famous.

he cna be famous by taking a womens faux body

whispering

it in her ear

and calling it love

That he can send a message to all his cronies about what we do with brown women.

ABout looking for others to share the humiliation, the embarrassment, about her body as a vehicle to be degraded , a place to assert his role in society

that a woman will laugh off camera because that's not something that would happen to her

a good woman

and make his name.

I have no real rage here. I have knowledge.

And that dark place,

that place i go to when I think of lil brown girls

that THIS IS THE TERROR your life is expected to be in.

That dark place that this kind of "joke" is funny this threat to your body.

And I think things I shouldn't that " good girls " never have to

and godo brown girls are taught they shouldn't

and I understand things my father only told me about , that long ago the women could be capable of.

And God forgive me but I ain't sorry.

I want them to be capable of again
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YEAH NO

http://heidischnakenberg.blogspot.com/2008/07/some-clarity.html


This pretty much covers it

I just have one thing to say on this bag of magical white entitled bullcrap.

You don't understand shit , if all you got form all that was written is we should try and forgive?
Forgive what ? tHE idea that you clicking your heels and wishing and trying to make a grand ole plan for YOUR new vision is teh "way"


but teh only reason I'm writing this is this

Feminism is reprimanded for being numb to white privilege, while the civil rights movement gets away with unapologetic male privilege every day.


BEcause that's not just stupid it's a damn lie. iT's an ignorant disgusting lazy lie that only exists to make you a peacemaker by allowing you to abscond iwth things like FACTS and responsibility for KNOWINGS OMETHING BEFORE YOU OPEN YOU DAMN MOUTH

I'm glad you get spoonfed your history and can drop some names,

DO you kow about Grace Lee Bogs,Ella Baker, Angela Davis ETC ETC who spent their LIVES adnd are spending their LIVES fighting sexism racism and classism while you " use your white privilege " to out right erase them and their work

SO you oh glorious one can unite women.

And I'm glad your ultimate concern is unity. Mine is women's lives and womens agency.

And teh lovely constant white girl trick of female competitiveness, because of course when a women goes NO I DON't WANT THIS SHE'S BEING COMPETITIVE!

What massive crimes , slave labor much of it perpetrated by women against women , in the US using privilege to enslave women BECAUSE OF THEIR COLOR these barriers but you know we need to be kinder.

And you don't use your white privilege you benefit form it AT THE EXPENSE OF SOMEONE ELSE, but hey it never once crossed you mind to ask why the WOC responses don't make alternet , or to directly quote any of the people your chastising.

But hey you don't even have the respect to ask or consider how these women your talking about feel

since after all the important thing is about how it SEEMS TO YOU!

Look rightnow I don't give a hell what the heck that special ass brand of erasing bullshit does , but I'll be damned if WOC warriors get erased cause you can't be bothered to hit google or WOC trans women LGBT women cause of course in this special bastion of snowflake power (intersectionality is ONLY ABOUT RACE regardless of the weak ass last minute tack ons used at the end.)

LEGITIMATE AND LIFE SAVING REASONS FOR BEING DONE WITH THIS SPECIAL BRAND OF HORSESHIT be erased cause you used your white privilege to erase them for a byline

or have a pity party with an inflammatory race baiter because you get to be feel good about yourself today I'll be damned.

No your clarity is NOT more important than OUR lives. And newsflash people have to actually WORK for forgiveness.
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Yipes

So to follow up on a post I made earlier on taking care of myself I, I finally started making doctor's appointments.

And because of who I am , and how I have been treated medically , this is not a relieving step.

Rather than a PHEW I made a good step in taking care of myself.

I am mentally prepping.

You see WOC often have interesting times with their physicians.

Me personally , I have never not been part of a health plan that wasn't blatantly and comically sub par , or part of my elite education ( that's four years) .

And the results have damn nigh always been the same.

From the doctor who berated me about my weight pre school even as I could barely talk thanks to a life long battle with ear infections

or the ER docs who made comical assertions about my fathers and I weight as his leg was dangling from his knee and I was urinating blood.

Being fat and poor makes for fun times in the health profession.

Especially if you don't fit the "fat " profile.

BA

has low blood pressure , like comically low , as in the large woman will often go dizzy and stumble from low blood pressure and anemia.

I have been comically flexible all of my life and frankly part of the reason I'm going to a doctor is because i stopped being able to put my feet to my head one of my main measures of my body balance.

Now I Don't say this to say I am not one of " those" fat people but to say.

I'm a person

I have a medical history ( and to be honest I am not at my optimal weight for me which is still happily fat)

IN a WOC body , in a fat WOC body suddenly no matter what i have become conditioned to be afraid of healthcare.

And sexual healthcare

HA!

forget it .

I Guess this is why this comment struck me so hard .

you see my first real gynecological experience involved me being poked and prodded after the above accident.

and being told how mature I was . Yss sir did i need the third VAGINAL exam

You see young girls of color AND size . Are supposed to accept a certain future of being taken for granted

and to take anything.

Jill Scott's Thickness

You see part of the fat thing is not the you can't get a man but the very understood but non admitted ( except for comic relief) that

Fat girls fuck well.

They take anything , will do anything cause who wants them anyway.

Or that by even having these bodies we are automatically sexualized and deserve whatever is heaped onto us

and i mean really were fat so it's not like we can't take the weight.

So i Have a doctors appointment lets hope i don't break out in cold sweats
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I AM My Hair

Oh goody!

Many people are commenting on the this is bad satire aydayadyad ayppy ish of this but , I am gonna comment on the hair.

You see the hair bothers me on multiple levels.

Now for this exercise or at least part of it I am going to " accept" the premise that this "satire"

Now my focus is of course the hair. Now his satire implies that this image of America is RIDICULOUS

We smart east coast liberals and our scaattered syncophants I mean people we agree with know that these " terrorist" versions of the Obamas are the silly product of stupid backward minds.

I mean never would a cultured and politically intelligent couple be like this .

This being teh worst terrifying image in our minds as jingoistic white supremacist asshole "intelligentsia" and non intelligentsia alike?

Now Obama's sketch to me is so painfully racist and Islamophobic as to make me not want to analyze it so much as start screaming .

OOh he's dressed like a middle easterner AHHHHHH. That's the satire that we shall comment on the racism of folks by using racism? That we shall call viewing him in this way silly because essentially he's not one of those , we know he's a " good " one hereby rendering this culturally specific scare tactic stupid, not because our American racism is in and off itself ugly and ineffective but because in THIS CASE it's silly.

Are we chortling over port yet, being appropriately witty over our bravery and wit in our gentrified areas of Brooklyn?

ANd then Michelle I mean who would ever thing she would be this horror show of black woman terrorism exemlified by

* ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP*

ahh here's where it gets sticky.

UH se eMIchelle the BIG difference the one that signals TERRORIST!!!!!!!!

The fro

You see who could ever believe that Michelle Obama would be that scary angry black militant by doing something as FRIGHTENING as

LETTING HER HAIR GROW IN WITH OUT A LYE RELAXER.

LEt's get this straight in case our friends in the back don't get it . The way we typefy scary in black women form Cynthia McKinney to now Michelle Obama, is to say she doesn't have a perm.

* Blackamazon runs her hands through her head and realizes she ain't SMELT lye since say 2004*

Let's make it plain that in the mind of a LIBERAL EAST COASTER the most he could do was to take out the perm

This is how WOC are judged as bodies and how our conformity is measured. From Glamour's wack ass to haters to not knowing the " real problems"

The minute we show any rejection or refusal to be subjugated to any standard we are possible terrorists and should we screw around and reject beauty standards we are ACTUAL terrorists.

This is funny to teh author not because these stupid assinine tropes are racist fear mongering or wrong but because

IN ONLY THIS CASE it's un true.

In his wee mind a Michelle Obama with a fro IS a terrorist , but s he ain't got one so funny.

So while everyone trips the hell over themselves going this is so bad , let's remind ourselves taht as we start yellinng about it being racist and tastelest that we literally in our good liberalism agreeing that natural hair represents terrorist leanings!

and that's when we ACCEPT it's satirical.

But you know what really just makes me less mad and more how do we fix this smug shit.

This kind of attitude not even the editorial decision buta ttitude that black bodies are up for analysis and mocking

IT's hitting the kids

Kids can't have clubs and be in place without the smug commentary we're just being jolly isn't it funny cause it's not true but people think this but lets be honest we think we have a right to speculate and consume black bodies for our jollies ( or defend them for our consciousness) as PROXIES to mock, belittle or communicate with OTHERS

means kids can't even graduate in peace.

OR feel good about their natural bodies.

Cause that makes em terrorists and punch lines










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Today's Short Burst

Iam irritated

I'm working fourteen hour shifts ( WITHOUT travel)


So when did we start thinking that incorporating shit was a good idea for social justice movements.

So it is the truth that folks basically wish real hard for the difficult WOC to disappear and then kind of shamelessly steal their ideas. My research on Stonewall just makes me ANGRIER

I really in my life need less white women having extended conversations about how their brilliance is squashed by " sexism " that are base don how I don't understand what it is to be "stifled". I am also going to need those women to have actually read some of the names they throw down for the get into it with me.

I have a writing list it is longs, That makes me happy.

I am now amused that black kids who organize and form unions and are graduating and being " productive citizens" can't even get year books without racial slurs. It's not fucking funny it's not amusing.

I truly truly dislike Williamsburgh's whole ethos. And i taught there for six months. Irony is not funny its kind of boring and wack. YEs you small unknown music heroes are writings ongs about not liking you. No it's not betrayal and yes you're bitter that POC took skateboarding,biking and synth pop and made it cooler by being oh i don't know

SINCERE?!?!

IF you are in a room full of white people and me. I don't make it diverse.

It always amuses me how quickly people being " funny " snap and roll their necks at me . And how even funnier it is when I go " What is it with Americans and popping their necks ?" The mini head explosions make it worth while.

If you think you can experience a country by only going to cafe's and clubs or that you can checklist it off . I may need to cuss you out. Please also avoid using props. If you experience involves a guided tour for an entire continent , don't talk to me your feelings will come back hurt

so anybody thought about Megan Williams, Sakia Gunn, Dunbar Village.

IS anybody in their rush to claim women ARE defending MIchelle Obama gonan notice that MOW was started specifically because mainstream sites took so damn long.

My afro now makes me a terrorist?

THANKS NEW YORKER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh and I'm loving the self congratulatory white woman bullshit of " we're discussing intersectionality"

when not a single convo pulls up any WOC in any way

Good Job Alternet!

So where cna i find reasonably decent non faux liberal news now


BUt I end in this good thought of my love:

SO much good stuff happening in places no one thinks to look.

todays google term of glory

Sista II Sista
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Listen

Just who do you serve- Rose


Who are we listening to?

One question that has constantly reverberated in my mind is who are we listening to ?
At some point not now and probably really no time soon i will be able to express the love for my sisters and the joy ad the way i have tucked these wonderful people of all kinds in to my hearts.

I will talk of meeting danadocus Ravenm and others and their amazingness.

But what has concerned me is that when I came back full of love and full of drive, and returned to the blogosphere.

And at AMC I was uplifted and inspired by many people seeking to do work that served communities and was LED by communities.

But I find myself asking once again ( and thank fully in the space I asked it in this time I was not made to feel like I was alone or crazy but instead embraced)

Who are we serving with this?

This being environmentalism, racial justice, educational reform.social justice,LGBTQ rights

Who are we trying to listen to?

At AMC it was a medley of silliness (hold in your mind a picture of me and the wife skipping down the hallways in joy, chasing the Little and Baby BFP's screaming lunch time, entering a bar with the phrase the bloggers have arrived, and the best rendition of I Feel Pretty you will ever hear)

A medley of sadness ( no seriously Detroit is beautiful , what the fuck is up with not giving land to the people, yeah more trans gender bashing with VIDEO , yet she "started" it, police in NY never fail to disappoint )

And a medley of joyfulness ( SPEAK RETREAT! speak CD, Cyberquilting,INCITE!)

but when I came back both energized and frustrated but most importantly galvanized to do work?

I had to look at what I was working in , and things happened and I want to say I didn't respond with my trademark *String of expletives* oh hell no

this time i did something different inspired by the amazing women of color /women/people I had spent time with and listened.

I wanted to know why I was so angry, yes racism , yes sexism, yes general privileged stupid, but more than a few times when updated , or made aware of situations of people claiming to "listen and learn" and I responded not with not " Yeah progress but

" This shit again"

and not in a beleaguered way . But in a way that I will be fully blunt was designed to make the offender feel as damaged and unappreciated as possible.

What was I concentrating on that enlisted this response rather than a better more action oriented one?

* anvil from sky*

Just as much as i present myself here asking What we are listening to .

I have to ask ( continually no epiphany easy shit here) what I am listening to?

And I am angry , but I am angry because I am frustrated , I am sad, but MOST importantly.

I am terrified.

I am terrified at what we are listening to, where efforts are being directed, and how I myself can help feed that.

I am terrified of returning from AMC to look at COF and finding transphobic bullshit. I am terrified not because it exists , that is the sort of thing that sadly I understand is part of the fight.

What terrifies me is that it is handled once again with the meme of "busy/tired/just one person.

When this happened with the various racial specialness I have encountered, my personal FURY and hurt ran to the forefront.

What happens when I look a t it through my love?

It terrifies me that people I love , living their lives must from their allies be told that when it comes to importance it is not significant enough that in the rush to do whatever , making sure that transphobic crap , is not pushed forward NOT validated,for WHATEVER purpose, that instead of searching for buzzword diversity we consider dedicated movement building.

I am terrified when ALLIES ( self proclaimed) take little to no responsibility, or refuse to see how that lack plays into a very dangerous reality.

I am terrified to know what Ebony had hear before someone took her life, and that even people who want to support her can not find ways outside of their transphobia to truly respect her life,and stop calling her by a name she left long ago.

Where do people go when allies will call cops on them ( Yeah rose I am still not okay with that)

I am terrified when new WOC bloggers are frustrated and enfuriated

I am terrified because I have been there. I am terrified because I have read and been told and been grapevined , and back channeled that these people are " listening" . As if death, and rape and devaluing was something we listened to . As if not knowing what two say two weeks after many women of color already said it was something.

Here I will admit to still harboring anger, because this is not okay. This has not gotten " better". The specifics are no longer important or relevant. It is about the fact that tossing in bits and pieces that feature women of color but magically having not to say , while finding droves of ish on commercial ventures is not a benign neglect.

It's about these listening , improvement gestures never being FOR WOC but solely always on " your terms " in spaces you feel safe and never EVER performed with anything resembling the follow through with anything involving big pretty kyriarchy, and when called on it wringing your hands in hopes we'll go away and no one will notice this " good person learning process" has rendered more people unsafe, and uncared for.

I am terrified that I am still so angry so young, or that I should even be so concerned , I am terrified that this is a real concern. As this process while being continually introduced as something new , that the very real specter of erasure of destruction and demoralization of beautiful people is here and happening before our eyes.

That there is a precedent to write people out of the very history they created. That they wonder if they will even be invited. No one has to wonder if they were allowed to take a beating .That forty yeas later the children they forbears still have issues finding places to be loved.

I am terrified because these things become forgotten and subsumed , until we are Angry Black woman, Loud Latinas, with no history no connections.

Who are we listening to?

I need to listen to something new. I need to find a new way of looking at these things of writing these words, that serves not the desire for attention , but the love and concern I feel for these things.

I am mostly terrified that this idea, of love of speaking first from love and not from fear, to speak even in my frustration to no how my anger which is large and can do something , but how I can turn that same force forward in my love.

That peoepl I love are finding amazing ways to look at culture , that honor our humanities.

That peopel I love are coming back to write and I am excited.

that some where love keeps picking people up.

That is what I want to listen to.

To be continued
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No idea what to start with so I have started with nothing and done nothing and wrote nothing.

BUt always Thank you

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