or have been appropriating the language of intersectionality , while still prioritizing gender over race , and calling themselves enlightened.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
So it's not just me.
That famous " feminists" have been all but non existent in speaking on Sotomayor
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Consider this a free edit
Just so I can stop hearing the ridiculously stupid.
But for real for real, I would really REALLY like to not hear about the problems younger women have form "older women" and inter sectional feminism from people who complain about the cat fight image of women.
Especially when the people who originated and pioneered much of the scholarship on the topic wrote it and developed it
starting in their mid/late twenties into early thirties and continued well till now ( when many of them are 60) or well till the passed on ( still old enough to be OLDER women)
also the assumption that " younger women get it" ( has flashbacks, also was you know AWAKE for the past year for the fun book covers, boycotts old and ONGOING, as well has the reports form many other women who have a deep problem with the racism classism,transphobia, ablism and heterosexism among the "youth" movement.)
the really assholish denial that "older woman" is in fact
AN INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITY
rounded out by the fact that every time I've heard this bullshit
it has
predilected such emptyheaded "dialogues"
on all the older women being white.
But for real for real, I would really REALLY like to not hear about the problems younger women have form "older women" and inter sectional feminism from people who complain about the cat fight image of women.
Especially when the people who originated and pioneered much of the scholarship on the topic wrote it and developed it
starting in their mid/late twenties into early thirties and continued well till now ( when many of them are 60) or well till the passed on ( still old enough to be OLDER women)
also the assumption that " younger women get it" ( has flashbacks, also was you know AWAKE for the past year for the fun book covers, boycotts old and ONGOING, as well has the reports form many other women who have a deep problem with the racism classism,transphobia, ablism and heterosexism among the "youth" movement.)
the really assholish denial that "older woman" is in fact
AN INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITY
rounded out by the fact that every time I've heard this bullshit
it has
predilected such emptyheaded "dialogues"
on all the older women being white.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The sad thing is I still got to work on time.
I may have cost a woman her job today.
Because we were poor and brown and I couldn't afford even ten dollars.
My local train just stopped working dumped an entire train full of people with no directions out into the street.
I thought I could split a cab until thre prices for the cab were between thirty and fifty dollars. ( mind you from anywhere in Manhattan to JFK is $40) and all I had was twenty.
She worked in a hotel , doing service labor and COULD NOT BE LATE.
I work in a slightly more skilled position and called my job, who let me know thanks to those skills I'd be okay.
Which meant that the little money I had did not have to go to teh worlds most overexpensive cab ride, or a cheap cab ride in someones car
or helping the lady get to her job on time.
Even as she was saying she would pay nearly thirty of it
because frankly having to juggle and call bill collectors who are laying the ahmmer on me EVEN THOUGH THEY CANT SPELL MY NAME RIGHT
and not having time to grocery shop so needing to overspend on food
I didn't have it
and where we were where the subway is the ONLY WAY IN
this is the shit that bugs me out about things like the post below.
Feelings and self worth are important enough to stop time
if it's a white person
but us we're supposed to be put in only out for ourselves scraps hustling always hustling
but you don't think I or anybody else wants to not be an asshole or not be out for number one
like we don't want ways of aiding ourselves
but hey
this will be believed only after your appropriate white person writes it.
I left her thirty minutes in when the train ran again.
Still searching for a cab less than half my days pay.
Because we were poor and brown and I couldn't afford even ten dollars.
My local train just stopped working dumped an entire train full of people with no directions out into the street.
I thought I could split a cab until thre prices for the cab were between thirty and fifty dollars. ( mind you from anywhere in Manhattan to JFK is $40) and all I had was twenty.
She worked in a hotel , doing service labor and COULD NOT BE LATE.
I work in a slightly more skilled position and called my job, who let me know thanks to those skills I'd be okay.
Which meant that the little money I had did not have to go to teh worlds most overexpensive cab ride, or a cheap cab ride in someones car
or helping the lady get to her job on time.
Even as she was saying she would pay nearly thirty of it
because frankly having to juggle and call bill collectors who are laying the ahmmer on me EVEN THOUGH THEY CANT SPELL MY NAME RIGHT
and not having time to grocery shop so needing to overspend on food
I didn't have it
and where we were where the subway is the ONLY WAY IN
this is the shit that bugs me out about things like the post below.
Feelings and self worth are important enough to stop time
if it's a white person
but us we're supposed to be put in only out for ourselves scraps hustling always hustling
but you don't think I or anybody else wants to not be an asshole or not be out for number one
like we don't want ways of aiding ourselves
but hey
this will be believed only after your appropriate white person writes it.
I left her thirty minutes in when the train ran again.
Still searching for a cab less than half my days pay.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
White People Like to Discover Things
So white people have discovered " gentrification".
I'm so not sorry but I feel this is one time where I have to insert I am about to be an unapologetic asshole about something.
Dear, 20-40 year old " liberal" white people .
Please shut the fuck up about gentrification, if your main goal is to express how much you are aghast at what you are " not doing" and what more can be done .
Now that you have pretty much discovered that you might not be able to move out or the neighborhood won't be changing fast enough for you to not have to deal with those growing pains, and how you can still keep your I am a good liberal creds.
This article pissed me off HARD
Because while you may desire to be a part of " meaningful conversation with your neighbors" . Notice how even though the article you LINK TO has quotes from RESIDENTS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD , they are " summarized" and moved on to the important quote of stuff we can do .
Because truly the gentrifier and the gentrified truly have similar responsibility or capabilityility. And untangling the issues still ends up being about how YOU can do something not the effect your having or WHY?
The Brooklyn Rail piece was also an annoying copout because it came reallyclose to hitting on some really fundamental truths and then glossed over them to remind us what WHITE people could do, and how white she felt.
( IF you want to have a conversation solely among white folk fine , but stop doing it in public and pretending that mentioning brown people is the same as talking to them especially if the end result is how to make you shiny).
Then someone showed me this and my flip out is complete.
The comments are good ( Nanette and La Lub for the win) but, not only does the question pisss me off but the preface does me in.
( not to mention WHERE people are trying tohave these convos)
The common thread to all of these conversations is that while everybody is very concerned that people understand they have "history" and aren't " that Kind" of gentrifier, and have basic knowledge of where they are( and I do mean basic), they seem to fail to connect linear time, and the same sense of importance to the history of the neighborhood as they do their feelings and slow realizations, not to mention the straight up it seems in ability to master a basic GOOGLE search.
The Brooklyn Rail piece mentions the fact that people were 70 years remove from the Civil War and part of the great migration.
Translation : These are people WHOSE RECENT FAMILY HISTORY involves slavery, the massive move out of the South to escape large scale discrimination, lived through said neighborhoods being flooded with crack and benign neglect only to be displaced by people who need wireless internet in cafe's
( and I will leave the West Indian bit alone as this will get long and cursefilled so read this and you'll have some Idea)
and can't even speak to you when you smile and say hello .
and seem confused by your reticence when they finally do. ( mind you this could be as many as 5 YEARS as protests were happening THEN)
( shit Wiretap covered it 2007)
The lack of ability to see people as people , not as stars in your quest for enlightenment, or demographics thrown together that make them alien. Or having such a low neighborhood expectation that common courtesy extende dto you is evidence of " good relations" ( how littel do you experience community or how little do you expect of people that them extending common courtesy to you is noteworthy don;t answer that)
but suddenly want to have this discussion as the building has stopped and the ability to move you up and out is decreasing.
Yeah they forgot to mention that in these articles.
Part of the move to discuss these things is that as long as we are in an economic crisis , gentrification agents have lost the capital to be as swift or complete as they once were. Usually it took about 7 years and most of the people who were protesting would be priced out , but now that construction is stalemating and condos are lying fallow, as well as the young " creative types job prospects to fill them"
You can't really ignore your neighbors anymore while jetting off to other points. The multicultural fantasy is colonism gone rancid.
Aka now that the end game isn't as obvious THEIR comfort gentrification is something we need to discuss.
What has happened is that now more than ever in a dismal economy our futures are tied tighter together.
White flight isn't an option.
And now that white flight isn't an option suddenly there is an option for white " neighborhooding".
Aka the phenomnon of trying to create something that was there but just didn't include you or you were certain was not on your list of priorities till now.
It's the price of believing your own bullshit, pretending that all the time you WEREN"T having this conversation isn't just as much a factor as the time you do.
It's the " zeitgiest" phenomenon. The believe that until it breaks in national pages ( putting you firmly BEHIND it) it's not so much of a concern.
But mostly it's really awesome disgusting privilege being unable to reference any non white people speaking about it , or having no idea where to find such perspectives until AFTER called on it.
I am all for dialogue and conversation and actual building but , when the privilege is so ingraned that we watch discussions and words taht have been coming from communities of color FOR DECADES, being suddenly discoverable. The discussion rings false.
It's not progress, it's a constant culturally convenient, colonial advantageous of keeping every protracted ill of POC as a " new discovery" so no one has to do anything while they "gather information" and get tehir feelings honored. It's the kidn fo discussion that wipes out entire towns , blocks and neighborhoods because no one has to think about what tehy say or who they're saying it to and about until it comes "home"
Because point blank if it wasn't NECESSARY , you wouldn't be in love with our communities or in our neighborhoods, because when you weren't your barely pretended they existed. COnsidering many of these communities are formed of love, pride, solidarity and or reaction to descrimination , lets talk about a conversation predilected on you having to
SETTLE FOR OUR LIVES. and finding out all teh stuff we were saying , but you had better things to get to
ARE TRUE
That maybe if you are really comitted to " doing something about it" you are first honest, REALLY HONEST about what you're doing right now.
You are in no small way destroying many peoples lives and communities which maybe you'd get a better sense of if you actually pretended like you wanted to listen as much as you want to talk.
I'm so not sorry but I feel this is one time where I have to insert I am about to be an unapologetic asshole about something.
Dear, 20-40 year old " liberal" white people .
Please shut the fuck up about gentrification, if your main goal is to express how much you are aghast at what you are " not doing" and what more can be done .
Now that you have pretty much discovered that you might not be able to move out or the neighborhood won't be changing fast enough for you to not have to deal with those growing pains, and how you can still keep your I am a good liberal creds.
This article pissed me off HARD
Because while you may desire to be a part of " meaningful conversation with your neighbors" . Notice how even though the article you LINK TO has quotes from RESIDENTS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD , they are " summarized" and moved on to the important quote of stuff we can do .
Because truly the gentrifier and the gentrified truly have similar responsibility or capabilityility. And untangling the issues still ends up being about how YOU can do something not the effect your having or WHY?
The Brooklyn Rail piece was also an annoying copout because it came reallyclose to hitting on some really fundamental truths and then glossed over them to remind us what WHITE people could do, and how white she felt.
( IF you want to have a conversation solely among white folk fine , but stop doing it in public and pretending that mentioning brown people is the same as talking to them especially if the end result is how to make you shiny).
Then someone showed me this and my flip out is complete.
The comments are good ( Nanette and La Lub for the win) but, not only does the question pisss me off but the preface does me in.
( not to mention WHERE people are trying tohave these convos)
The common thread to all of these conversations is that while everybody is very concerned that people understand they have "history" and aren't " that Kind" of gentrifier, and have basic knowledge of where they are( and I do mean basic), they seem to fail to connect linear time, and the same sense of importance to the history of the neighborhood as they do their feelings and slow realizations, not to mention the straight up it seems in ability to master a basic GOOGLE search.
The Brooklyn Rail piece mentions the fact that people were 70 years remove from the Civil War and part of the great migration.
Translation : These are people WHOSE RECENT FAMILY HISTORY involves slavery, the massive move out of the South to escape large scale discrimination, lived through said neighborhoods being flooded with crack and benign neglect only to be displaced by people who need wireless internet in cafe's
( and I will leave the West Indian bit alone as this will get long and cursefilled so read this and you'll have some Idea)
and can't even speak to you when you smile and say hello .
and seem confused by your reticence when they finally do. ( mind you this could be as many as 5 YEARS as protests were happening THEN)
( shit Wiretap covered it 2007)
The lack of ability to see people as people , not as stars in your quest for enlightenment, or demographics thrown together that make them alien. Or having such a low neighborhood expectation that common courtesy extende dto you is evidence of " good relations" ( how littel do you experience community or how little do you expect of people that them extending common courtesy to you is noteworthy don;t answer that)
but suddenly want to have this discussion as the building has stopped and the ability to move you up and out is decreasing.
Yeah they forgot to mention that in these articles.
Part of the move to discuss these things is that as long as we are in an economic crisis , gentrification agents have lost the capital to be as swift or complete as they once were. Usually it took about 7 years and most of the people who were protesting would be priced out , but now that construction is stalemating and condos are lying fallow, as well as the young " creative types job prospects to fill them"
You can't really ignore your neighbors anymore while jetting off to other points. The multicultural fantasy is colonism gone rancid.
Aka now that the end game isn't as obvious THEIR comfort gentrification is something we need to discuss.
What has happened is that now more than ever in a dismal economy our futures are tied tighter together.
White flight isn't an option.
And now that white flight isn't an option suddenly there is an option for white " neighborhooding".
Aka the phenomnon of trying to create something that was there but just didn't include you or you were certain was not on your list of priorities till now.
It's the price of believing your own bullshit, pretending that all the time you WEREN"T having this conversation isn't just as much a factor as the time you do.
It's the " zeitgiest" phenomenon. The believe that until it breaks in national pages ( putting you firmly BEHIND it) it's not so much of a concern.
But mostly it's really awesome disgusting privilege being unable to reference any non white people speaking about it , or having no idea where to find such perspectives until AFTER called on it.
I am all for dialogue and conversation and actual building but , when the privilege is so ingraned that we watch discussions and words taht have been coming from communities of color FOR DECADES, being suddenly discoverable. The discussion rings false.
It's not progress, it's a constant culturally convenient, colonial advantageous of keeping every protracted ill of POC as a " new discovery" so no one has to do anything while they "gather information" and get tehir feelings honored. It's the kidn fo discussion that wipes out entire towns , blocks and neighborhoods because no one has to think about what tehy say or who they're saying it to and about until it comes "home"
Because point blank if it wasn't NECESSARY , you wouldn't be in love with our communities or in our neighborhoods, because when you weren't your barely pretended they existed. COnsidering many of these communities are formed of love, pride, solidarity and or reaction to descrimination , lets talk about a conversation predilected on you having to
SETTLE FOR OUR LIVES. and finding out all teh stuff we were saying , but you had better things to get to
ARE TRUE
That maybe if you are really comitted to " doing something about it" you are first honest, REALLY HONEST about what you're doing right now.
You are in no small way destroying many peoples lives and communities which maybe you'd get a better sense of if you actually pretended like you wanted to listen as much as you want to talk.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
La Mapu and Pennies
My first largely published work will be dedicated to La Mapu and pennies.
My mother and father will forgive me and Katie will understand.
But the first one goes to La Mapu because
We threw a party and no body came.
We threw a party and we ran from work, and counted pennies and lifted chairs , and baked cupcakes , and fought with strollers, and
nobody came.
And when I saw La Mapu , my first thought was " why is she here" . My second" YES SHE IS HERE"
because we wanted to show her something.
because we believed that people who said they would come would come.
because we believed that even though every " working on it white woman" who couldn't find their way to a decent link or even a respectful rsvp couldn't stop us
because having to bed people who quote you to treat you with even a MODICUM of respect or swallowing the bile again this time because maybe you might get enough money to live
because we didn't have to be flashy or "cool" or with it or "hip"to be respected .
That for one night she could see us being loved and listened to for who we are.
That was not the night.
we waited as it settled chasing Poroto , giggling , laughing, fighting it back watching two hours slip away
No one was coming
No one wanted to show Mapu that.
We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump.
How no one could understand what it was like to work and grit your teeth against every " Why are you here? " question. Even when asked with love because until someone else wants to pay your loans, mothers health insurance, fathers upkeep and deal with your bad teeth, tired soul, and old eyes in a young face the wonder at the "wasting of your life" is just one more judgement you don't need.
To be a mami and wonder exactly how many times you gotta rob Peter to pay Paul and how in the hell did these muhfuggers get your money anywho?
To read how amazing you are , while no one gives a damn about mitigating your pain , your suffering or even finding out what your history is?
or can even say your name when they talk about how amazing you are.
to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness " is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences , because someone is always eager to take your place?
and you 've no idea which is worse.
we wanted to show her something different and this was not the night.
And I cried myself to sleep for three days , and rediscovered my habit of wiping my dry face to remember not to cry
and promising my first work to La Mapu and the pennies that were counted to get her there.
So I can promise nothing more of "fight" in me for a while but this CD , this thing that is such a danger that is such a myth that it's existence is whispered ignored or written out of hat as the raving of "those women"
is still available.
and we still believe .
if nothing else we show her that.
My mother and father will forgive me and Katie will understand.
But the first one goes to La Mapu because
We threw a party and no body came.
We threw a party and we ran from work, and counted pennies and lifted chairs , and baked cupcakes , and fought with strollers, and
nobody came.
And when I saw La Mapu , my first thought was " why is she here" . My second" YES SHE IS HERE"
because we wanted to show her something.
because we believed that people who said they would come would come.
because we believed that even though every " working on it white woman" who couldn't find their way to a decent link or even a respectful rsvp couldn't stop us
because having to bed people who quote you to treat you with even a MODICUM of respect or swallowing the bile again this time because maybe you might get enough money to live
because we didn't have to be flashy or "cool" or with it or "hip"to be respected .
That for one night she could see us being loved and listened to for who we are.
That was not the night.
we waited as it settled chasing Poroto , giggling , laughing, fighting it back watching two hours slip away
No one was coming
No one wanted to show Mapu that.
We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump.
How no one could understand what it was like to work and grit your teeth against every " Why are you here? " question. Even when asked with love because until someone else wants to pay your loans, mothers health insurance, fathers upkeep and deal with your bad teeth, tired soul, and old eyes in a young face the wonder at the "wasting of your life" is just one more judgement you don't need.
To be a mami and wonder exactly how many times you gotta rob Peter to pay Paul and how in the hell did these muhfuggers get your money anywho?
To read how amazing you are , while no one gives a damn about mitigating your pain , your suffering or even finding out what your history is?
or can even say your name when they talk about how amazing you are.
to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness " is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences , because someone is always eager to take your place?
and you 've no idea which is worse.
we wanted to show her something different and this was not the night.
And I cried myself to sleep for three days , and rediscovered my habit of wiping my dry face to remember not to cry
and promising my first work to La Mapu and the pennies that were counted to get her there.
So I can promise nothing more of "fight" in me for a while but this CD , this thing that is such a danger that is such a myth that it's existence is whispered ignored or written out of hat as the raving of "those women"
is still available.
and we still believe .
if nothing else we show her that.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Yeah I'm a geek
You need to know I am a geek . I big geek , Spock was one of my first crushes, I have seen every episode of firefly twice, I readfanfic, and review entire comics cannon
NERD child.
It's not aprt of my interests I regularly blog about becuase well this blog was bout me being a woman of color and my specific experiences and
well that includes being a fen of color.
And it's RACEFAIL 2009
Now what's special on this race fail is that it's not feminism but general fandome but the principles remain the same.
We don't exist
It's only now that we knew you were here
we're so poor and irritated blah blah blah to be a part of the fandom
More importantly
seeing Star Trek with SPOCK/UHURA
so my spock crush and my little black girl linguist fantasies were both honored
but something crept up in the fandom ( an essential part of fen is that you form community fan fic smut loving you may not want to but you claim these weirdos as your own community)
People are UPST that Spock is with Uhura
now this is where my nerd child kicks into gear, as Uhura is the only one to play the vulcan lyreAND is the only person to get a smile out Spock and is IN CANNON as his mentee
and then I though about my other love
Firefly
and how Zoe while being the kicking assest to ever kick ass woman in the verse.
was often reviewed by some members of the fandom as being doting or "weakened" by her husband
and it' s become something I call
the
" Why is the black woman allowed to have a husband"
AKA as the like clockwork character assassination of any sista who is romantically attached to anyone above the accepted B-list sidekick of dubious talents
What struck me about these was the sheer mental gymnastics it takes to justify being against a relationship for this women
because while a flawed struggling romantically inclined heroine in a white woman is GREAT AND STEPS FOR WOMEN
a black woman must walk an impossible to thread line that straight up
NEVER includes her own personal fulfillment
Star Trek has been a doozy
(this post gives you the gist of it)
but if you notice the ultimate end game is that she can not regardless of what she does , make a pleasing choice that ends up with her happy
and it is especially amusing as a " trekker" I say trekkie my love for all of my geekiness knows no bounds is that
while science fiction can imagine alien furballs and spawn multiple full languages it can not imagine a future or a space where Black Women can be happy with out having to invoke whore, or in a no win double bind
but is happy to complain that there aren't enough women to introduce a character FOR THE SOUL PURPOSE OF BEING WITH SPOCK WHICH THEY CLAIM MAKES UHURA a whore NOT TO MENTION NO CANON
or taking shots at a woman's willingness to be in her relationship as " subservience"
and how much does it mirror the experience of black women IN fandom.
where in women in fandom are constantly finding things " wrong" with the representation of women but has no care to listen to the representation of BLACK WOMEN and how they perceive these things meanwhiel championing white heroines as "complex"
a black woman must walk an impossible to thread line that straight up
NEVER includes her own personal fulfillment
Star Trek has been a doozy
(this post gives you the gist of it)
but if you notice the ultimate end game is that she can not regardless of what she does , make a pleasing choice that ends up with her happy
and it is especially amusing as a " trekker" I say trekkie my love for all of my geekiness knows no bounds is that
while science fiction can imagine alien furballs and spawn multiple full languages it can not imagine a future or a space where Black Women can be happy with out having to invoke whore, or in a no win double bind
but is happy to complain that there aren't enough women to introduce a character FOR THE SOUL PURPOSE OF BEING WITH SPOCK WHICH THEY CLAIM MAKES UHURA a whore NOT TO MENTION NO CANON
or taking shots at a woman's willingness to be in her relationship as " subservience"
and how much does it mirror the experience of black women IN fandom.
where in women in fandom are constantly finding things " wrong" with the representation of women but has no care to listen to the representation of BLACK WOMEN and how they perceive these things meanwhiel championing white heroines as "complex"
and mainstream fandom spins around every ten years to tell us well it's TO HARD To deal with becuase we are so NEW ( as NEW as we were last decade)
or the constant barrage of unfounded ungrounded insults and degradations that go unanswered becuase someone jsutc an't explain why we make them so ANGRY
but where here today and we'll be here tomorrow
and yeah no only does impractical hair teh ability to wear the fuck out of a mini skirt and a love for dangly earrings ( or relaly huge boobs) not make you an amazingly big nerd
Niether does brown skin.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Talk to someon different
I have been on vacation for the better part of a week and a half.
Hence why it goes form a blog post a week to two or three every day . Well more like these past couple days.
The most important part of my vacation however happened on the first day, yesterday,and today.
First day: I taught kids as a visiting person.
Yesterday: I saw Star Trek.( which will get a longer whole separate post later)
Today: I got Google Reader.
Teaching the kids was interesting , because my personal background is teaching. It is instinctive, and probably reflective of my ginormous ego , and my stupefyingly large mothering instinct. I hadn't been in a class with kids however in any meaningful way for a year . So I came in prepared . READY OUTLINED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I was late so totally and completely late . I swear to everything , I was cussing Queens, Brooklyn, the MTA , The DOE, the NYPD and traffic lights.
I entered the building in a Storm( is diva brings drama ) and had no time to do my notes. Not that I would have anywho , so I pulled up a chair and essentially said
Talk.
and it ( for the most part) worked.
They talked, I made jokes, and I got to listen. To the hopes fears, coping mechanisms, and effects of being young in the digital era.
It was funny. " My mom hears the word myspace on the news and wakes me up to tell me about"
and heartbreaking " I can't I'll say it wrong"
but it was the first time I had to in any small way describe myself to children as a blogger as a writer and it was good for me.
Because I had become afraid, and disillusioned and tired and gunshy.
I am afraid to speak on this blog. I am cautious and trepidations and obtuse.
I never was that.
I am afraid that the mere act of opening my mouth will get me labeled, drama queen or trouble maker or jealous. I am afraid that having any memory longer than two months will get me tagged as stalker ish and nitpicky and jealous. I am afraid to write because I have become disgustingly familiar with seeing things I have said watered down, and processed for palatability with no credit .
And no one can say that's not true , because everyone has seen it happen.
I have sat on it till it permeated my soul with the kind of anger and meanness and jealousy ( and coupled with my 9-5) exhaustion, that was literally dampening who i was. I was ALWAYS COMPLAINING , or philosophizing trying to martyr myself on some cross .
and then I listened to the kids.
and they promised me and I promised them that I would talk to and with new people, or newly to the people I know
so I'm a try one
There is a conversation going on some of the larger feminist blogs ( here,here, and here) about the opening of a new women's blog. called Double X( google reader is my downfall)
I am deeply perturbed by essentially everyone talking for various reasons. But mostly I have to share something.
One of the number one hits to my blog is a marketing agency. I will be the first to tell you I am not that big a fish in the blogosphere, even more so now that many people have pretended I do not exist.
That being said this development of women's magazines, and sites that re explicitly not only biting back at women's magazines, BUT ALSO "feminism".
As a RADICAL WOC my critiques have been specific to my experience but time and time again not just WOC, but trans women, young women,older women, mothers have online talked about feeling isolated not just from the stereotypical idea, but a feminism that claiming to speak FOR them not only would not engage with them in ANY way but expert to plebeian.
While many of them insist that the model is why you needs feminism , a LARGE HUGE GAPING HOLE is
" why does feminism need us"
If you are smarter, sexier, more human , better and do it ( whatever it) is that some of us
while needing to be lead taught handheld babies, and begged to treat us as human by others of us
while still others should be a okay with you stealing co opting ignoring tokenism
why should we sign up for this treatment?
ESPECIALLY if when challenged by the mere plebeian set there is nothing but challenged by anyone with hint of PATRIARCHAL power suddenly discussion is vital
( even though you're tired if you're tired I'm telling there are people who are EXHAUSTED)
and if these discussions result in a proliferation of people walking a way and saying
" I will wait for something that represents me , I will wait for someone that speaks to me on my level, I will wait for someone who shows me basic courtesy and respect or I will make my own"
If an entire swath of women can sound like 80's Janet Jackson " What Have You Done For Me Lately"
and your answers read more like what you've done for YOURSELF, there is a disconnect.
There is a desire to say well it's not in good faith , but the question is what has anyone done to earn it?
And if your rebuttal is well writing for women doesn't get enough real clout so why bother, it carries the underlying message that it is more important to get that clout than to solidify ( or even have a real discussion ) on solidifying the power women can have.
REGARDLESS.
The absence, silence and "forgetting" or being too busy being FABULOUS FEMINISTS to deal with " those women"
Someone will , if women and I've been in it for three years are responding to many of these conversations ( which essentially aren't happening ) with removal retraction and the firm sentiment that you're just not talking to me.
EVEN THOUGH I AM INTERESTED.
there now is a market for someone to say
" why worry about them at all?"
and this is not online , hell this isn't even NEW.
Time and time again , commercial market interests have proven that hey are often more wiling to listen to populations to sell them something , than activists are to organize with them.
That's historical. And rather than do any sort of gathering of the people you claim to representing to find out what's going you yell outwards toward the people who claim and will say in public that they have no interest in you
All in all it will be more of the same, because as always these conversations while claiming to be about "women" show and continue to show no interest in listening to women , at least not the ones who aren't in the right place saying the right things that can get " national change ( and for hells bells can we stop pretending that change don't matter unless it's big and flashy ) or the great Macguffin of getting something men had will essentially trun into a cooler than hipper than tou psuedo mix of opinions furthering some while essentially becoming simply one more scan through on google reader.
But prove me wrong , talk to someone different. Make me believe that what I told those kids is true.
Hence why it goes form a blog post a week to two or three every day . Well more like these past couple days.
The most important part of my vacation however happened on the first day, yesterday,and today.
First day: I taught kids as a visiting person.
Yesterday: I saw Star Trek.( which will get a longer whole separate post later)
Today: I got Google Reader.
Teaching the kids was interesting , because my personal background is teaching. It is instinctive, and probably reflective of my ginormous ego , and my stupefyingly large mothering instinct. I hadn't been in a class with kids however in any meaningful way for a year . So I came in prepared . READY OUTLINED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I was late so totally and completely late . I swear to everything , I was cussing Queens, Brooklyn, the MTA , The DOE, the NYPD and traffic lights.
I entered the building in a Storm( is diva brings drama ) and had no time to do my notes. Not that I would have anywho , so I pulled up a chair and essentially said
Talk.
and it ( for the most part) worked.
They talked, I made jokes, and I got to listen. To the hopes fears, coping mechanisms, and effects of being young in the digital era.
It was funny. " My mom hears the word myspace on the news and wakes me up to tell me about"
and heartbreaking " I can't I'll say it wrong"
but it was the first time I had to in any small way describe myself to children as a blogger as a writer and it was good for me.
Because I had become afraid, and disillusioned and tired and gunshy.
I am afraid to speak on this blog. I am cautious and trepidations and obtuse.
I never was that.
I am afraid that the mere act of opening my mouth will get me labeled, drama queen or trouble maker or jealous. I am afraid that having any memory longer than two months will get me tagged as stalker ish and nitpicky and jealous. I am afraid to write because I have become disgustingly familiar with seeing things I have said watered down, and processed for palatability with no credit .
And no one can say that's not true , because everyone has seen it happen.
I have sat on it till it permeated my soul with the kind of anger and meanness and jealousy ( and coupled with my 9-5) exhaustion, that was literally dampening who i was. I was ALWAYS COMPLAINING , or philosophizing trying to martyr myself on some cross .
and then I listened to the kids.
and they promised me and I promised them that I would talk to and with new people, or newly to the people I know
so I'm a try one
There is a conversation going on some of the larger feminist blogs ( here,here, and here) about the opening of a new women's blog. called Double X( google reader is my downfall)
I am deeply perturbed by essentially everyone talking for various reasons. But mostly I have to share something.
One of the number one hits to my blog is a marketing agency. I will be the first to tell you I am not that big a fish in the blogosphere, even more so now that many people have pretended I do not exist.
That being said this development of women's magazines, and sites that re explicitly not only biting back at women's magazines, BUT ALSO "feminism".
As a RADICAL WOC my critiques have been specific to my experience but time and time again not just WOC, but trans women, young women,older women, mothers have online talked about feeling isolated not just from the stereotypical idea, but a feminism that claiming to speak FOR them not only would not engage with them in ANY way but expert to plebeian.
While many of them insist that the model is why you needs feminism , a LARGE HUGE GAPING HOLE is
" why does feminism need us"
If you are smarter, sexier, more human , better and do it ( whatever it) is that some of us
while needing to be lead taught handheld babies, and begged to treat us as human by others of us
while still others should be a okay with you stealing co opting ignoring tokenism
why should we sign up for this treatment?
ESPECIALLY if when challenged by the mere plebeian set there is nothing but challenged by anyone with hint of PATRIARCHAL power suddenly discussion is vital
( even though you're tired if you're tired I'm telling there are people who are EXHAUSTED)
and if these discussions result in a proliferation of people walking a way and saying
" I will wait for something that represents me , I will wait for someone that speaks to me on my level, I will wait for someone who shows me basic courtesy and respect or I will make my own"
If an entire swath of women can sound like 80's Janet Jackson " What Have You Done For Me Lately"
and your answers read more like what you've done for YOURSELF, there is a disconnect.
There is a desire to say well it's not in good faith , but the question is what has anyone done to earn it?
And if your rebuttal is well writing for women doesn't get enough real clout so why bother, it carries the underlying message that it is more important to get that clout than to solidify ( or even have a real discussion ) on solidifying the power women can have.
REGARDLESS.
The absence, silence and "forgetting" or being too busy being FABULOUS FEMINISTS to deal with " those women"
Someone will , if women and I've been in it for three years are responding to many of these conversations ( which essentially aren't happening ) with removal retraction and the firm sentiment that you're just not talking to me.
EVEN THOUGH I AM INTERESTED.
there now is a market for someone to say
" why worry about them at all?"
and this is not online , hell this isn't even NEW.
Time and time again , commercial market interests have proven that hey are often more wiling to listen to populations to sell them something , than activists are to organize with them.
That's historical. And rather than do any sort of gathering of the people you claim to representing to find out what's going you yell outwards toward the people who claim and will say in public that they have no interest in you
All in all it will be more of the same, because as always these conversations while claiming to be about "women" show and continue to show no interest in listening to women , at least not the ones who aren't in the right place saying the right things that can get " national change ( and for hells bells can we stop pretending that change don't matter unless it's big and flashy ) or the great Macguffin of getting something men had will essentially trun into a cooler than hipper than tou psuedo mix of opinions furthering some while essentially becoming simply one more scan through on google reader.
But prove me wrong , talk to someone different. Make me believe that what I told those kids is true.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Post 500
I'll be memorial like later now I'm just mad
I am very very protective of people I love.
Mostly because I believe they will suffer for loving me. It is the first lesson my mother ever taught me.
I don't think she believes it , nor was it what she intended to teach , but I watched as the world taught her that.
The very IDEA behind this post brings out a rage in me.
Because while 5'7 and adorably athletic , the same thing would happen to my mother at periodic intervals.
You see there is an assumption in a woman especially of color with an accent has better things to be doing than raising her own kids.
And it is resurfacing again because now we are taking care of a precious baby boy , because his momma is dead and his grandma
is not a citizen
and is
someone else's nanny.
and what most of elle's " liberal" commentators fail to realize ( mostly because rather than listening to elle is secondary on their road to finding a way for THIS NOT TO BE RACIST)
is that there are perfectly acceptable conversations that happen when you find someone your child clicks with in a "special way" that value that connection and that person .
And none of these things happen there in.
Pretty and friendly as a hostess is par for the course. There is something about pretty and friendly in this case that ELLE'S NIECE was taken aback by that signaled something unsettling about the RIGHT TO BASICALLY TRY AND USURP HER AT HER JOB.
what clapifyoulikeme keeps saying is but babysitting young blah blah blah .
Well if you AREN'T AT WORK ALREADY cool, but the presumption that the job you have is less important than tending some kids you don't know WITH NO SETUP NO INQUIRY AND NO ACTUAL WOOING isn't an offer it's a presumption of hierarchy.
This lady had no goddamn interest in this girl besides a pretty commodity and while it means something TO YOU it may mean something very different who has DIFFERENT history with being sold.
aka as your opinion in this story serves to further nothing but alleviating this white lady by inserting your self in the position of someone ( someones actually an entire family of WOC who are offended
This is not the way you ask someone you respect to consider working for you at their place of employment. Notice how everyone changes this from a place of employment to just a simple "conversation"
all on the basis of the belief much like miss millie that self love and care would automatically be extended to her offspring
Bluey 512 while your busy looking for a way to propose that this might not be exploitative try this
In any situation where in the power dynamic is so imbalanced that you can safely assume that any response that does not AUTOMATICALLY privilege one party over another could be harmful or detrimental to the second party even if they are simply expressing they're actually desire ,
if the more privileged entitled party DOES NOT GO OUT OF THE WAY TO ENSURE EQUITY
guess what
it's exploitative.
and the false what is her role as a mother bullshit
What is her role as a mother
to raise her kids.
thank you for the nice try at making POC who are marked y generations of mothers being unable to raise their own kids not liking a dynamic that forces them to enable white women exploring other venues at THEIR EXPENSE as some sort of misogynistic fantasy.
It fails miserably
raising your own kids DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean staying home ,but using someone else's labor to establish your standing , and or participating in an unfair economy
IS YOUR OWN DAMN CHOICE
( and the fact that while elle mentions no mention of rate you feel the need to tack it on SPEAKS VOLUMES)
and save me heartbreaking irony
It's manipulation and coercion. It's use of privilege to ensure a certain lifestyle that very often disrespects any kind of community connection the worker may have to maintain a certain status and or leisure .
You don't ironically pay someone less than their worth, you don't ironically ask someone to do the day to day labor or raising a child while inherently needing to undermine their authority ( another post) .
Parties, running over sicknesses, projects,etc ESPECIALLY IN THE EXAMPLES ELLE USED which all of you ignored weren't some choice thing or a sad fact.
but scraped knees abandoned children less important than white ladies intent
Because childrearing this job doesn't not involve overtime and care and long term in equity or tales of women left leaving their kids because
she has been explicitly told to overstay or wait because " I Don't want to leave my children alone or with someone else" ( notice the denial of her personhood or her SEPARATION FROM HER EMPLOYER)
while I am bouncing PBB asking for his nana.
Because her children are more important than him?
NOPE cause her whiteness and her class are
My mother was often asked INFRONT OF ME to be other children's nanny at my private school because it was assumed the task of raising me had been done enough. Does the scenario of a stay at home propositioning another stay at home mom of same race and similar class pop into your head because her kids were "raised enough"
oh yeah that doesn't happen.
but please drown in more hypothetical while ignoring how elle elle's niece elles family and EVERYTHING ELLE WROTE so you can find the magic balm for how not to be racist
and ginmar
ahh ginmar
I'm going to speak like you for a bit
Fuck off.
Actually fuck off and fuck your wack ass shit. It's nice that you find a great strum and drang in "letting men of the hook" and disappearing men
but your so intent on protecting "women" ( not elle's niece or even elle who you can't mention by name)
that you completely ignore the article to complain about generic women and their husbands.
so way to disappear the entire post to save any kind of responsibility!
I get angry about this shit. I get hot and I get pissed because this ish right here is the example of so much of what is wrong , instead of analyzing and listening and working to effectively mobilize and de stigmatize places where they do have power you get to read page and comment of BULLSHIT of people trying to shift t blame about how it's cause they don't have enough power
as if we are to believe MORE will make them rescind this assinine self serving behavior.
OR maybe it's cause I get cranky as hell watching my mother talk about all the time she never got to enjoy being my mom in public having to fight this off
of the money she lost because they would pay enough to get me a sitter but not enough to actually let her be my mother
or it's because I love a little child who can't get all the things these women think are so essential to their own children because the idea of having to negotiate a live that DIDN'T EXPLOIT the women who provide it isn't something allowed on the table.
I am very very protective of people I love.
Mostly because I believe they will suffer for loving me. It is the first lesson my mother ever taught me.
I don't think she believes it , nor was it what she intended to teach , but I watched as the world taught her that.
The very IDEA behind this post brings out a rage in me.
Because while 5'7 and adorably athletic , the same thing would happen to my mother at periodic intervals.
You see there is an assumption in a woman especially of color with an accent has better things to be doing than raising her own kids.
And it is resurfacing again because now we are taking care of a precious baby boy , because his momma is dead and his grandma
is not a citizen
and is
someone else's nanny.
and what most of elle's " liberal" commentators fail to realize ( mostly because rather than listening to elle is secondary on their road to finding a way for THIS NOT TO BE RACIST)
is that there are perfectly acceptable conversations that happen when you find someone your child clicks with in a "special way" that value that connection and that person .
And none of these things happen there in.
Pretty and friendly as a hostess is par for the course. There is something about pretty and friendly in this case that ELLE'S NIECE was taken aback by that signaled something unsettling about the RIGHT TO BASICALLY TRY AND USURP HER AT HER JOB.
what clapifyoulikeme keeps saying is but babysitting young blah blah blah .
Well if you AREN'T AT WORK ALREADY cool, but the presumption that the job you have is less important than tending some kids you don't know WITH NO SETUP NO INQUIRY AND NO ACTUAL WOOING isn't an offer it's a presumption of hierarchy.
This lady had no goddamn interest in this girl besides a pretty commodity and while it means something TO YOU it may mean something very different who has DIFFERENT history with being sold.
aka as your opinion in this story serves to further nothing but alleviating this white lady by inserting your self in the position of someone ( someones actually an entire family of WOC who are offended
This is not the way you ask someone you respect to consider working for you at their place of employment. Notice how everyone changes this from a place of employment to just a simple "conversation"
all on the basis of the belief much like miss millie that self love and care would automatically be extended to her offspring
Bluey 512 while your busy looking for a way to propose that this might not be exploitative try this
In any situation where in the power dynamic is so imbalanced that you can safely assume that any response that does not AUTOMATICALLY privilege one party over another could be harmful or detrimental to the second party even if they are simply expressing they're actually desire ,
if the more privileged entitled party DOES NOT GO OUT OF THE WAY TO ENSURE EQUITY
guess what
it's exploitative.
and the false what is her role as a mother bullshit
What is her role as a mother
to raise her kids.
thank you for the nice try at making POC who are marked y generations of mothers being unable to raise their own kids not liking a dynamic that forces them to enable white women exploring other venues at THEIR EXPENSE as some sort of misogynistic fantasy.
It fails miserably
raising your own kids DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean staying home ,but using someone else's labor to establish your standing , and or participating in an unfair economy
IS YOUR OWN DAMN CHOICE
( and the fact that while elle mentions no mention of rate you feel the need to tack it on SPEAKS VOLUMES)
and save me heartbreaking irony
It's manipulation and coercion. It's use of privilege to ensure a certain lifestyle that very often disrespects any kind of community connection the worker may have to maintain a certain status and or leisure .
You don't ironically pay someone less than their worth, you don't ironically ask someone to do the day to day labor or raising a child while inherently needing to undermine their authority ( another post) .
Parties, running over sicknesses, projects,etc ESPECIALLY IN THE EXAMPLES ELLE USED which all of you ignored weren't some choice thing or a sad fact.
but scraped knees abandoned children less important than white ladies intent
Because childrearing this job doesn't not involve overtime and care and long term in equity or tales of women left leaving their kids because
she has been explicitly told to overstay or wait because " I Don't want to leave my children alone or with someone else" ( notice the denial of her personhood or her SEPARATION FROM HER EMPLOYER)
while I am bouncing PBB asking for his nana.
Because her children are more important than him?
NOPE cause her whiteness and her class are
My mother was often asked INFRONT OF ME to be other children's nanny at my private school because it was assumed the task of raising me had been done enough. Does the scenario of a stay at home propositioning another stay at home mom of same race and similar class pop into your head because her kids were "raised enough"
oh yeah that doesn't happen.
but please drown in more hypothetical while ignoring how elle elle's niece elles family and EVERYTHING ELLE WROTE so you can find the magic balm for how not to be racist
and ginmar
ahh ginmar
I'm going to speak like you for a bit
Fuck off.
Actually fuck off and fuck your wack ass shit. It's nice that you find a great strum and drang in "letting men of the hook" and disappearing men
but your so intent on protecting "women" ( not elle's niece or even elle who you can't mention by name)
that you completely ignore the article to complain about generic women and their husbands.
so way to disappear the entire post to save any kind of responsibility!
I get angry about this shit. I get hot and I get pissed because this ish right here is the example of so much of what is wrong , instead of analyzing and listening and working to effectively mobilize and de stigmatize places where they do have power you get to read page and comment of BULLSHIT of people trying to shift t blame about how it's cause they don't have enough power
as if we are to believe MORE will make them rescind this assinine self serving behavior.
OR maybe it's cause I get cranky as hell watching my mother talk about all the time she never got to enjoy being my mom in public having to fight this off
of the money she lost because they would pay enough to get me a sitter but not enough to actually let her be my mother
or it's because I love a little child who can't get all the things these women think are so essential to their own children because the idea of having to negotiate a live that DIDN'T EXPLOIT the women who provide it isn't something allowed on the table.
Do Not
Ask me about my feelings on "feminist" support or women's alliance right now.
Because I just had the realization of
ONCE AGAIN
with people this time being extended the olive branch and courtesy of the voices of my sisters and the hospitality of my BEST FRIEND
have not tried to help contact or even SPEAK one iota
and did not have the COMMON FUCKING DECENCY to return contact on PERSONAL INVITATIONS.
And tell me again this shit isn't premeditated
Because I just had the realization of
ONCE AGAIN
with people this time being extended the olive branch and courtesy of the voices of my sisters and the hospitality of my BEST FRIEND
have not tried to help contact or even SPEAK one iota
and did not have the COMMON FUCKING DECENCY to return contact on PERSONAL INVITATIONS.
And tell me again this shit isn't premeditated
Saturday, May 09, 2009
The Ten Things You Need to Know about BIRKENSTOCKS
Any conversation that asks me to critique feminism along of Birkenstocks vs non birkenstocks
will be handled thusly
1) Everyone does know that the cheapest " classic" style Birkenstock is well into the $100 dollar range right? So when you throw up the we're not THEM , it's less of a comment of your purpose than your spending habit cause you're actually not that far apart.
2) The stereotype of early feminists as non shaving Birkenstockers is why you have things like sex shops , and NOW etc.etc. so before you get all indignant about I AM NOT. I'm gonna need you to point out why your so adverse to such a characterization considering for a lot of you speaking they are the ONLY reason you have some of the shit you are saying
3) Because last time it happened in "the movement" it was the worlds thinnest veiled homophobia.
4) I respect no commentary by anyone who would be up in arms about it and then use it as a contrasting "caricature" for how non stereotypical they are.
5) Notice how no analysis of WHY this dumbass conversation comes round and round again and how it has to do with institutionalized power and privilege and avoidance of change in EITHER "side" ever comes up.
6) If you notice that any discussion of this phenomena constantly focuses you on white ablebodied women of a certain privilege. This is not an accident, and it's not something that you going " BUT BUT IT CHANGED MY _____________" makes any better.
6b) If you only notice this sort of thing because your group of choice is USUALLY included. See number 6
7) If you counter by listing the "activist brand" shit you do . The convo has failed keep it moving
8) This is not actually a generational conflict because you bet your sweet bippy the issues women who aren't in these groups run into with there elders NOT in these groups WHOLLY different.
9) The proper answer to any woman critiquing another woman for choosing her own aesthetic style un informed , for the sole purpose of providing not so subtle hints about how one could be more palatable to patriarchy is not " THAT'S SO UNFAIR TO ME" but so the fuck what ? Her life her choice , or does that only apply to you.
10) You know what the strawfeminist DOES EXIST. Somewhere out there there is a hairy legged 6ft manhating lesbian vegan, is she as prevalent as people want us to believe . Probably not, but before you fall all the hell over yourself declaring NO NOT TRUE " She doesn't exist , and fine if she did we'd understand the shit you do. Please Please for the love of humanity consider why we are okay with
Thank you and have a nice day
will be handled thusly
1) Everyone does know that the cheapest " classic" style Birkenstock is well into the $100 dollar range right? So when you throw up the we're not THEM , it's less of a comment of your purpose than your spending habit cause you're actually not that far apart.
2) The stereotype of early feminists as non shaving Birkenstockers is why you have things like sex shops , and NOW etc.etc. so before you get all indignant about I AM NOT. I'm gonna need you to point out why your so adverse to such a characterization considering for a lot of you speaking they are the ONLY reason you have some of the shit you are saying
3) Because last time it happened in "the movement" it was the worlds thinnest veiled homophobia.
4) I respect no commentary by anyone who would be up in arms about it and then use it as a contrasting "caricature" for how non stereotypical they are.
5) Notice how no analysis of WHY this dumbass conversation comes round and round again and how it has to do with institutionalized power and privilege and avoidance of change in EITHER "side" ever comes up.
6) If you notice that any discussion of this phenomena constantly focuses you on white ablebodied women of a certain privilege. This is not an accident, and it's not something that you going " BUT BUT IT CHANGED MY _____________" makes any better.
6b) If you only notice this sort of thing because your group of choice is USUALLY included. See number 6
7) If you counter by listing the "activist brand" shit you do . The convo has failed keep it moving
8) This is not actually a generational conflict because you bet your sweet bippy the issues women who aren't in these groups run into with there elders NOT in these groups WHOLLY different.
9) The proper answer to any woman critiquing another woman for choosing her own aesthetic style un informed , for the sole purpose of providing not so subtle hints about how one could be more palatable to patriarchy is not " THAT'S SO UNFAIR TO ME" but so the fuck what ? Her life her choice , or does that only apply to you.
10) You know what the strawfeminist DOES EXIST. Somewhere out there there is a hairy legged 6ft manhating lesbian vegan, is she as prevalent as people want us to believe . Probably not, but before you fall all the hell over yourself declaring NO NOT TRUE " She doesn't exist , and fine if she did we'd understand the shit you do. Please Please for the love of humanity consider why we are okay with
- declaring such a person unreal and or unvalid and some sort of collective boogey man
- running from her as fast as our variously be shoed feet can take us
- invoking her only when speaking to or in view of patriarchy
- and re enforcing the belief she should be treated badly
Thank you and have a nice day
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Of This
There is something about THIS
that leads to this
that makes me think of that
but I had to hold it in so I wouldn't post on Cinco De Mayo.
because ultimately it was all about this:
The somewhat theoretical understanding of how much those physical arts owe to the experiences and expression of oppressions of POC and other marginalised peoples coupled with the constant burbling undertone of
" You are already in a discipline fighting for legitimacy , please PLEASE please don't make it even harder by mucking it up with your *GASP* politics"
Meanwhile everyone pats there backs on how "liberal" they are, and you look around and you notice in a class on transgressive art talking about POC artists you are one of few POC in the room and pointing out that no one can speak to that but you has just made you really unsafe.
That your perseverance, your struggle which is not noble fodder for dram but the only thing you could think of doing ( you being your mama her mama her daddy those play cousins) , that triumph turns into
a tequila swilling booze fest, and it's not that, that erasure for repressed idiots to get there kicks
but the fact that it's canceled because the news needs sweeps month xenophobia to stay relevant so they drummed up a faux epidemic that conveniently manages to feed off of a hatred so bad that
you can be killed in the street
but the link that gets play is the one about white people because well they're not them right.
Everybody gets to go home but us. They don't even make time to talk about us when they're talking about us.
It is always about art, because in the end anything where we seek to tell a story even a " factual one" we are framing and moving choosing and not choosing concealing and highlighting and creating something.
I'm trying to find a way to go home.
Home is a dream , a peace of art just outside of this real world , where we don't have to be sorry or useful or explain why we deserve to live. Where we don't have to take shit, where speaking our language, swaying our hips , or living our lives aren't excuses to try and crush us.
I just want to go home
Home is real , the hood, Guyana, Barbados , India,Portugal,Brasil,Haiti France , Ireland all those places with my father, aunties and uncles and cousins and for mothers and brogues that course through my blood, but are more real to me as places people go to be drunk , or feel calls to or one off facebook experiences to find yourself, with full intent of leaving the ashes of what it took to do so right there.
What about me , I was never lost? What about if I ever found myself I'd never leave, and I'd never sell it , and I'd never expect nobody to be grateful for giving me such a boon
When Nadia writes about literally being told having a connection to a place being seen as a bad thing , it reached inside me somewhere and squished
The idea that it is better to bring in complete strangers with little to no connection as " objective observers" rather than educate those whose lives depend on it to best be the voices for themselves
Because when we use those voices, we have the audacity not to talk about them.
We're selfish that way , not to want to consider the big global impact or the " bigger picture" but instead our lives right here right now.
There is no competition in it for us. I read this all the time through out the blogosphere about the death of newsmedia, PRINT MEDIA IS DYING , followed by a triumphant shout.
And I want them to stop being so excited, because there not better. Print media is dying, and bloggers dancing on it's grave ain't no better.
Nobody is talking bout being thorough , or being good, or being responsible or accountable, nobody trumpeting about citizen journalism is pointingo ut what those citizens look like.
They just excited to kill somebody. And what about us?
What about those of us who don't want to kill nobody to eat, to live , to not die.
What about those of us who want to make art to go home, to tell a story to love something, to jsut make a loud crash, to reach out and be WITH the people , not above them.
Everybody gets to go home but us?
That all the people who are suddenly discovering their responsibility to brown people , WOC, trans people that have "come on home"
( and how quickly that return home is followed by asking for money or sweat, or using home as bully pulpit to chastize someone else for doing the shit they did less than two weeks ago)
but don't understand why we would be so angry about them deciding that this is suddenly home.
BUt mostly you should think about THIS
and wonder why being this or that of the other thing makes wanting to go home
something we have to explain.
that leads to this
that makes me think of that
but I had to hold it in so I wouldn't post on Cinco De Mayo.
because ultimately it was all about this:
It makes perfect sense to me that the students at THIS are having such violent reactions to merely desiring to take up space on their own terms. Especially in art, any art but especially those that involve the physical body as the primary tool, dance, theater, vocal music there is a strange disconnect.
Everybody gets to go to my country but me- Nadia
The somewhat theoretical understanding of how much those physical arts owe to the experiences and expression of oppressions of POC and other marginalised peoples coupled with the constant burbling undertone of
" You are already in a discipline fighting for legitimacy , please PLEASE please don't make it even harder by mucking it up with your *GASP* politics"
Meanwhile everyone pats there backs on how "liberal" they are, and you look around and you notice in a class on transgressive art talking about POC artists you are one of few POC in the room and pointing out that no one can speak to that but you has just made you really unsafe.
That your perseverance, your struggle which is not noble fodder for dram but the only thing you could think of doing ( you being your mama her mama her daddy those play cousins) , that triumph turns into
a tequila swilling booze fest, and it's not that, that erasure for repressed idiots to get there kicks
but the fact that it's canceled because the news needs sweeps month xenophobia to stay relevant so they drummed up a faux epidemic that conveniently manages to feed off of a hatred so bad that
you can be killed in the street
but the link that gets play is the one about white people because well they're not them right.
Everybody gets to go home but us. They don't even make time to talk about us when they're talking about us.
It is always about art, because in the end anything where we seek to tell a story even a " factual one" we are framing and moving choosing and not choosing concealing and highlighting and creating something.
I'm trying to find a way to go home.
Home is a dream , a peace of art just outside of this real world , where we don't have to be sorry or useful or explain why we deserve to live. Where we don't have to take shit, where speaking our language, swaying our hips , or living our lives aren't excuses to try and crush us.
I just want to go home
Home is real , the hood, Guyana, Barbados , India,Portugal,Brasil,Haiti France , Ireland all those places with my father, aunties and uncles and cousins and for mothers and brogues that course through my blood, but are more real to me as places people go to be drunk , or feel calls to or one off facebook experiences to find yourself, with full intent of leaving the ashes of what it took to do so right there.
What about me , I was never lost? What about if I ever found myself I'd never leave, and I'd never sell it , and I'd never expect nobody to be grateful for giving me such a boon
When Nadia writes about literally being told having a connection to a place being seen as a bad thing , it reached inside me somewhere and squished
The idea that it is better to bring in complete strangers with little to no connection as " objective observers" rather than educate those whose lives depend on it to best be the voices for themselves
Because when we use those voices, we have the audacity not to talk about them.
We're selfish that way , not to want to consider the big global impact or the " bigger picture" but instead our lives right here right now.
There is no competition in it for us. I read this all the time through out the blogosphere about the death of newsmedia, PRINT MEDIA IS DYING , followed by a triumphant shout.
And I want them to stop being so excited, because there not better. Print media is dying, and bloggers dancing on it's grave ain't no better.
Nobody is talking bout being thorough , or being good, or being responsible or accountable, nobody trumpeting about citizen journalism is pointingo ut what those citizens look like.
They just excited to kill somebody. And what about us?
What about those of us who don't want to kill nobody to eat, to live , to not die.
What about those of us who want to make art to go home, to tell a story to love something, to jsut make a loud crash, to reach out and be WITH the people , not above them.
Everybody gets to go home but us?
That all the people who are suddenly discovering their responsibility to brown people , WOC, trans people that have "come on home"
( and how quickly that return home is followed by asking for money or sweat, or using home as bully pulpit to chastize someone else for doing the shit they did less than two weeks ago)
but don't understand why we would be so angry about them deciding that this is suddenly home.
BUt mostly you should think about THIS
and wonder why being this or that of the other thing makes wanting to go home
something we have to explain.
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