I am trying to achieve some synergy between Sydette and the Amazon.
Personally I have long situated myself as an "outsider", outside the mainstream, outside the feminist blogging powers .
Outside Outside.
My first day at AMC I was in a space where not only could I see myself as outside, I actually spent a good amount of time walking OUTSIDE, as my body went OH HELL NO.
I speak outside my experience a lot because the proper voice, the voice I learned in my Ivy League/private travails is
Outside.
I had to be objective, or I had to claim that I wasn't doing the "inside" thing to be left alone by the rules I felt strangling me.
Some of it is bravery , hearing you don't matter and going f-off I do. Some of it is cowardice, hearing you are this, and you can't do this unless you this and going well yep you are right.So I guess I don't want it that much.
And it hurts to admit that you have allowed yourself so far from the things you love to maintain a proper distance.When I sat in the rooms at AMC I came with the idea that I would be firm in my ability to make contacts and progress as a media maker. And having family reunion.
Media makers have value. Family members have value .
Underperforming Fat ivy leaguers, platinum voiced non singers, frustrated writer/actor with MONUMENTAL stage fright? Yeah not so much.Weeping under student loan socially anxious,WOC, permanent ICE watch members,assault victims, hooddwellers, let's not even pretend.
Outside
I started blogging because of wanting to see even if it was just myself, that voice reflected in some kind of media.
And in someways over the past couple years it has become much more open and more prevalent.
Except it has become from the outside.
Topics are now " zeitgiest" , they are trended and compiled.
The subject of things that make me , race sex gender geekery, are new fresh and in demand.
The identity of it , the parts of it that are non digestible, that are not transferable are not.
Immigration is a great topic, centering immigrants making safe spaces for them to talk to be credited and set the tone for their work
Not so much
Talking about black women/people , issuing dictums and easily digestible pieces for non black audiences, or even having to prioritize non black audiences over black ones.
Can make you famous.
Being one often makes the act of reading news something to be accompanied by a finely tuned bullshit meter and someone to hide the sharp objects so you don't go to jail.
Outside Outside.
This phenomena makes news kind of easy to take writing steps and paths that take us outside.
Let's speak about events as snippets that we can skim or miss, let's write more and more about populations we are not a part of , or frame the populations we are apart of as voiceless by not actually hearing from them.
Because news is moving that way , people go to more places to get less news. Find ways to keep them where we are , show em we are worth it.
Outside.
How can we become powerful to push,not sustainable to live.
Except when I started blogging it was about being
Inside.
Inside the skin of A WOC, of a brillant mind, of a person undergone state violence,
inside.
And forcing the change and the dialogue I wanted required me to be inside my skin. To not be trying to get somewhere but to live right now.
Inside
It also required of me to be honest about seeing things from other people's points of view inside.
And while it sounds wonderful and is in many ways healing and exciting.
It jarrs not just myself from a position of outsider but conversations.
Because inside the skin, certain things have much more significance.
Part 2 What does that mean for media?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Black/Bottom
So Henry Louis Gates got arrested
In his own damn house.
And I am in a weird place about it .
Because during AMC I was sitting with the lovely BFP and Elle and we got to talking about thangs and one of them was the " class thing" among black folk.
I then had to haul butt to the session I was presenting on Broad Band Internet and spoke about my " class background" ( short story insanely well educated insanely broke)
and then this happened and my networks, exploded.
Full disclosure I am a graduate of one of THOSE schools. Subsitute Cambridge for " University City" and you're golden.
And frankly this is so common for POC professors through THESE schools that my first reaction was wow this ain't at all new. and second was
THEY MESSED WITH GATES AND HE BROUGHT IN OGLETREE
Let's get it!
But something more strange hit me
The feeling/ then the concrete knowledge that had it NOT been HLG we would have barely heard about it. That the outrage isn't so much that a black man was disrespected and abused in his own home while disabled but that it was a certain KIND of black man.
Mind you the person who called the cops on him worked for a magazine that often has him ON THE COVER. Also knwo that HArvard is okay with this kind of policing for the most part
And the incident that broke the damn door in the FIRST place, unseen.
So color me doubting as Thomas when I I read people being shocked and awed.
This goes on often without fail and it is mostly something that is tsked tsked and line itemed.
Lets be clear unless someone dies or that someone is famous and or insanely wealthy and in the case of the football player who was detained outside the hospital of HIS DYING MOTHER IN LAW with her GRIEVING FATHER ( hey sir not only must you deal with the reality that you are about to bury your baby you can't go see her cause you are brown).
The twinge in me is the constant reminder that those degrees, that money are supposedly ways to get OUT of that sort of treatment.
That teh outrage is more than a little grounded in you don't treat "us" this way.
And there is a very specific us that comes to mind .
And in that "us" the rest of those treatements are kind of silently condoned and understood or overlooked because well that's the world.
My university is built on Black Bottom where gentrification meant pushing black folks as far west as possible.
So I wonder what the outrage and shock actually is.
That being said
Give em hell HLG.
In his own damn house.
And I am in a weird place about it .
Because during AMC I was sitting with the lovely BFP and Elle and we got to talking about thangs and one of them was the " class thing" among black folk.
I then had to haul butt to the session I was presenting on Broad Band Internet and spoke about my " class background" ( short story insanely well educated insanely broke)
and then this happened and my networks, exploded.
Full disclosure I am a graduate of one of THOSE schools. Subsitute Cambridge for " University City" and you're golden.
And frankly this is so common for POC professors through THESE schools that my first reaction was wow this ain't at all new. and second was
THEY MESSED WITH GATES AND HE BROUGHT IN OGLETREE
Let's get it!
But something more strange hit me
The feeling/ then the concrete knowledge that had it NOT been HLG we would have barely heard about it. That the outrage isn't so much that a black man was disrespected and abused in his own home while disabled but that it was a certain KIND of black man.
Mind you the person who called the cops on him worked for a magazine that often has him ON THE COVER. Also knwo that HArvard is okay with this kind of policing for the most part
And the incident that broke the damn door in the FIRST place, unseen.
So color me doubting as Thomas when I I read people being shocked and awed.
This goes on often without fail and it is mostly something that is tsked tsked and line itemed.
Lets be clear unless someone dies or that someone is famous and or insanely wealthy and in the case of the football player who was detained outside the hospital of HIS DYING MOTHER IN LAW with her GRIEVING FATHER ( hey sir not only must you deal with the reality that you are about to bury your baby you can't go see her cause you are brown).
The twinge in me is the constant reminder that those degrees, that money are supposedly ways to get OUT of that sort of treatment.
That teh outrage is more than a little grounded in you don't treat "us" this way.
And there is a very specific us that comes to mind .
And in that "us" the rest of those treatements are kind of silently condoned and understood or overlooked because well that's the world.
My university is built on Black Bottom where gentrification meant pushing black folks as far west as possible.
So I wonder what the outrage and shock actually is.
That being said
Give em hell HLG.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ota to Ishi, Malia and Philly
It is summer and it is not safe for our brown bodies to be out.
We contaminate everything we touch.
We are unfortunate ghetto displays
I refuse to make you feel enlightened today.
I don't care to " call you to action".
Right now someone will write you a beautiful moving essay about the struggle of pain they felt when it happened to them.
Even when we were supposedly over it. Someone else will will wax philosophic about believing t could not happen to their child/children/friends kids because time/location/class/money
was supposed to protect them this time.
Forget that there will be no " public pain" for this one .
I speak three going on four languages. And in none of them today will you here me talk about why I need you to fix this issue for me and " ease my pain"
Frankly fuck this and your " feel good campaigns".
I don't want to read nor write another essay about how you can feel good about your contribution to the great fucking utopia you imagine in your head.
I want to stop hearing words like " can't believe, and unreal and unbelievable".
Because all your telling me is when we say there is racism, you don't believe us .
All it tells me is that for every cred from the left to the right you flash, you still believe the ultimate decision of racism is up to you.
Save me your indignation that "forced you to write a letter".
All that says to me is that for you , a letter will fix this.
For these few morsels , it is expected that some vein will be slit open , some damaging memory laid forth , some heartache on display , attached like a post it note
" This one this time you should do something ,here's my soul to prove it"
Your shock and amazement and horror show me nothing except that when we spake and spoke and speak.
You do not listen, except for the show.
here you are excited because you can use your force your screaming your yelling.
And I will quietly think that every news source that looked like us... Had between two and three days ago.
Here is a time to be excited because you can be an advocate and ally perhaps experience the rush of .
And I will remember the silence of what happens when we ask that we work to make sure I don't need you to advocate for me all the time because the world believes me when I advocate for myself.
of when I ask that another brown baby doesn't heave and sigh and bear a weight larger that any bookbag, and remember to never hope for certain things because NOTHING could feel as awful as being disappointed like THIS.
That little girl can not have her hair in any way and have you
That still after all this the only way of being treated like an animal in a zoo, is to display a little more for your viewing pleasure.
Because truly we have to bleed and beg to be treated as human, because you are doing enough aren't you, because god you actually could care about us
Because really you only pay attention to us to feel good about yourselves , because as soon as it is "enough"
Really they are other things to worry about rather than stopping the pain
Like how much better you can feel than the next person when it happens again
Liek how much better you are than the people who ignored it , but none on how better you made it for us.
How strong will you ask us to be , how much will you ask us to bleed, till you remember that
maybe ust maybe we are telling the truth.
We contaminate everything we touch.
We are unfortunate ghetto displays
I refuse to make you feel enlightened today.
I don't care to " call you to action".
Right now someone will write you a beautiful moving essay about the struggle of pain they felt when it happened to them.
Even when we were supposedly over it. Someone else will will wax philosophic about believing t could not happen to their child/children/friends kids because time/location/class/money
was supposed to protect them this time.
Forget that there will be no " public pain" for this one .
I speak three going on four languages. And in none of them today will you here me talk about why I need you to fix this issue for me and " ease my pain"
Frankly fuck this and your " feel good campaigns".
I don't want to read nor write another essay about how you can feel good about your contribution to the great fucking utopia you imagine in your head.
I want to stop hearing words like " can't believe, and unreal and unbelievable".
Because all your telling me is when we say there is racism, you don't believe us .
All it tells me is that for every cred from the left to the right you flash, you still believe the ultimate decision of racism is up to you.
Save me your indignation that "forced you to write a letter".
All that says to me is that for you , a letter will fix this.
For these few morsels , it is expected that some vein will be slit open , some damaging memory laid forth , some heartache on display , attached like a post it note
" This one this time you should do something ,here's my soul to prove it"
Your shock and amazement and horror show me nothing except that when we spake and spoke and speak.
You do not listen, except for the show.
here you are excited because you can use your force your screaming your yelling.
And I will quietly think that every news source that looked like us... Had between two and three days ago.
Here is a time to be excited because you can be an advocate and ally perhaps experience the rush of .
And I will remember the silence of what happens when we ask that we work to make sure I don't need you to advocate for me all the time because the world believes me when I advocate for myself.
of when I ask that another brown baby doesn't heave and sigh and bear a weight larger that any bookbag, and remember to never hope for certain things because NOTHING could feel as awful as being disappointed like THIS.
That little girl can not have her hair in any way and have you
That still after all this the only way of being treated like an animal in a zoo, is to display a little more for your viewing pleasure.
Because truly we have to bleed and beg to be treated as human, because you are doing enough aren't you, because god you actually could care about us
Because really you only pay attention to us to feel good about yourselves , because as soon as it is "enough"
Really they are other things to worry about rather than stopping the pain
Like how much better you can feel than the next person when it happens again
Liek how much better you are than the people who ignored it , but none on how better you made it for us.
How strong will you ask us to be , how much will you ask us to bleed, till you remember that
maybe ust maybe we are telling the truth.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Sick BlackAmazon is sick ( in many ways)
Bring these fabulous to AMC
Why not help send me and some other lovely ladies? Via Noemi:
Bring these fabulous to AMC
Why not help send me and some other lovely ladies? Via Noemi:
AMC. We need to get there.We have fundraised, asked for grants, compromised, felt energized, asked for days off, gotten free airline tickets, borrowed time, overcharged credit cards and emailed/talked/made plans with friends and strangers across the lines.And still call us shameless, we ask for more. Y porque no?
please consider donating to these fine, chingona mujeres
Maegan “la Mala” Ortiz, raising chingona mujeres. Sending single mami love
laMamitaMala.com
mamitamala@yahoo.com
Elle, southern sistorian, who I shall meet one day even if we live closer than other folks. Oh we shall share a beer very very soon
http://elleabd.blogspot.com/
mselleg@aol.com
blackamazon Sydette otherwise known as the bad ass who I love
http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/
Sydette@gmail.com
Fabiola, fabmexicana who guest blogs here, leaving pedacitos de su corazon.
Otra mami soltera de Califabmexicana@gmail.com
Noemi Martinez
spiller of dreams-single mami hermanaresist.com
csdistro@gmail.com
ms. cripchick
a powerchair-roaring queer radical woman of color
cripchick's weblog
stacey.milbern@gmail.com
Many of us will be taking part in the Women’s Media EquitySummit on July 16th.At the AMC, we’ll be involved in several different caucuses, meetings and generally raisinga ruckus wherever you may find us. And OUR KIDS WILL BE CAUSING ALL SORTS OF MAYHEM AT THE KIDS TRACK AND IN GENERAL. It will be a sight to see. Things will happen. We will write/blog about it.
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