Education, cultural markers, womanism, snark, and loyalty.-Karnythia (awesome cyber auntie and editor of Verb Noire
With as much love and directness as possible, can we come to the beginning of a series of conversations that our explore our differences and widen the table at which we all sit – as readers, writers, bloggers, and activists of color?
What does the word radical mean to you, either as a self-descriptor, or as a descriptor for others with whom you do not identify? What implications does it carry? How/has it been reclaimed?
What is media justice and media reform? What are their points of tension? Points of potential collaboration?
How does engagement with feminism divide us? Help us collaborate?
What do you envision when the word “collaborate” is used in reference to White feminists? What experiences shape your perspective?- Lisa AWE
Karnythia gave me those words as a self description exercise many MANY months a go and Lisa ( the amazing wonderful Lisa used these questions to open up a space for WOC to discuss radicalism) and I kept trying to find clever ways to combine them cause well I'm lazy and couldn't but then I had a SHITTY ass day and burst into tears and went maybe if I write it out I'l feel better because i have so much to do.
I fell most radical when I am passionate. I find it funny because to me it is . It just it is.It is part of my DNA it is part of my cultural heritage.I started this blog with jokes about my machete, and my I am coming to get em.
My mother saved her mothers life in the face of a machete.
From her father, my grandfather who beat my grandmother with the special kind of hell fire that man who thinks he's better than his wife can. and she in turn would wail and beat on my bother because she was afraid. Afraid of what would happen.
Oddly enough my mother was my grandfather's favorite. And as befits the mothe rof someone who has the gall to call her self an Amazon., was a pistol becoming on of the first women to try and join the police academy. My grandfather was puffed with pride.
" What is the first thing you gonna do when your an officer?"
" If you keep beating mommy arrest you."
I come get you , I come get em. That's the stories I grew up on , of loyalty of love . No matter what if I pledge to you that I'm a come get em or you . You do
or at the very least I make sure you don't have to stand alone. If I fail we are honest about . We live this moment the next moment here with you for you.
We come get you, we don't lie, we don't obfuscate and if it takes a life time to get you . To understand to love to save even if we're not sure why if we bond our lives to yours we come get you. We don't leave you behind.
And I want to say it's led to some fantastical life for me as so many people seem to think it has. I overcommit to everything. I'm so sensitive I'm unhappy at work so i'm starting to break out in hives,i can't stick up for myself . I'm afraid toc omplain becuase I'm scared and we all knwo what happens when I open my mouth right
And I feel it
I feel we have to help we have to be THERE in that moment.
Becuase it gets beat out of us so hard. To me most of my eductaion while full or opportunities and learned skills was more about getting it beat out of you so hard.
If you meet me ask to see my wrists, the left one is scarred and marked and both from tiem to time would be full of the "cicatrice"
I want to say I stopped , I'm pretty sure I told yall I did but when I am sad or enraged part of my education was to hurt myself.
I was this child writing suicide notes at 12. Researching just how many asprin it takes to kill a fat girl how much drano do you have to drink and will it hurt, They say if you bleed out it's like sleep.
I wasn't gay , but I was fat and nerdy and blind and teased and hit and so full of rage that i couldn't use that till now when it bubbles things break. That being chased into bathrooms and ripping doors of hinges wasn't okay even though they threatened to whop my ass because I had to be good. I had to be ready to be good to be polished to be right to have those markers.
That is why we come for you, I come get emTo go through this. TO delight in Shakespeare, and realize you were a zoo animal. To learn your voice is dippes in platinum and never get to use it right becuase unlike others you were sending your money home to pay rent. To know those who had it so much worse and better.
And feel that the entire point was to get "in" not to learn not to be but to get in. To read that and realize the sheer unadultered rage I felt and recounting these things . To hear these well I'm in so how do I keep my in in every single quote. To hear the whispers of how do we get them to stop making us feel bad by breathing.
But I'm getting you "in"
and realizing YOU the real YOU that YOU you got made doesn't get in.
That is why we come for you I come get em.To get that razor tongue well versed multilingual that verbal machete that CUTTER. And realize that this this snark , this artifice is valued more than your passion your love.
That your not in but you can make it look stupid. Or that the world is so fucking bizzaro so built on you being hurt and erased and silence that fuck it we will snark it but good cause if we didn't wed'd sob ery day and if we do get there someone will tell us stop be good, be nice to the people who assault you. Who steal
your humanity, who pretend you don't exist, who think it's okay to steal your ideas and use your life to
justify one MORE ROUND OF MEEE MEEE MEEEThat all of this bundeled me toward womanism , toward this radical loves love auntie. That if the Idea that we don't concentrate on getting in or getting out but comeing to get each other to get that thing that hurts that if nothing
else we will be the people who think of each other as human first
That is what I think of as media , that is what I imagine it is to bring justice OR reform .
That when we say radical love , it's a joke its an in crowd thing. It is pie in the sky because we believe that the end point is not validation but sight , that i see you that i hold you that i let you be
and I will travel to do so
I come get you.
That when I reach out you reach out that we stand in the face of everything and we say what we mean.
That coming to get you isn't about ME
It's about being there for you seeing you loving you is about making sure that you get be you teh you you are teh you you wnat to be
safe and loved and free
that si the radical , teh loyalty .
That is teh tears the pain teh circatrice the blood
that is teh after ALL OF this teh get up again.
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