I wanted you to see me

I wanted you to see me


Transcript by the amazing Aaminah

Transcript:

Good morning, my name is Black Amazon, and I wanted to say “hello”. This will be the five-year anniversary of my blogging. For those of you who have followed my blog for more than about 3 months, I talk about it all the time. The start of my blogging was connected to the deportation of my father and my issues around immigration, etc. etc. Well, in less than 10 days, I’m gonna be going home to see my father, and also see my home country, for the first time in 5 years. This seems like an appropriate capstone, and I’ve realized now that I have a computer that can do it, I wanted you to see me.

I also have noticed that people have been really upping my hit count around the Seal Press debacle, and it was – it’s important to me that for what, what happened with that, that people see my face. People see what I look like, people see what I sound like, people see me. And it’s important that people see me because a lot of what happened went into jealousy, or has centered a lot around Seal Press and how badly they behaved, and not on women of color and how they were treated, not so much as an entity but real flesh and blood, dramatic, me (laughs), loving, working people. And for me as a blogger, especially coming from a spot where I got pushed into a lot of these issues, coming… I think expecting a very, even pseudo-privileged life, and getting that financially, economically, literally the state of my citizenship yoinked out from under me. I was already pretty progressive but that event, this event that I’m looking back on, had made me really radical.

And I wanted to affirm that this - what we wanted to talk about, what happened – wasn’t just about kind of silly women behaving badly and “downtrodden women being downtrodden”. I’m here, I’m rather smiley, kinda big-eyed but I’m happy. But most importantly, I think, what happened, and this is especially important for me to get out at some point before this weekend, because I am sending one of my loved ones to Netroots and I’m not happy because of what’s about to go down, and I’ll tell you later, but it’s important that people understand: we have these reactions, we have these, or I have these reactions, me, no we, I reacted as strongly as I did, the whole story… Google it, I’m doing more of these, if someone desperately wants to hear my side of the story that’s out of my mouth that’s not on my blog, that might actually be better, because I do better with speaking than typing. It’s about the work. And ___ of Seal Press we went to a conference dedicated to women, where we had a time, time we could find, and we said we wanted to do work, we said we wanted to go on love. We made an amazing space, I still have an email from one of the elders, I love it. About love and in this space someone gave her work of love, someone I love, gave out her work of love and was told, essentially, she was not enough. Because she didn’t have a built in audience, she didn’t have Gloria Steinem, and they didn’t think she could get her, you know, she’s a really, really important to the movement, and the person I’m talking about is just a woman and that’s not enough. Not for somebody I love. I acted a mess. I have always said that is not one of my prouder moments, no matter what they did, not one of my prouder moments. But right after they come out with It’s a Jungle out There. Now they’re saying they don’t value women of color and they have a book with spear chuckers! And it was, this point, every excuse has been given, everything has been said. But what is… what I want people to understand is that there are spear-chuckers in the book, there are images of a white woman killing brown people or attempting to kill brown people and reinforced stereotypes of cannibalism. The cover before that was a gorilla running away with a white woman. If you know anything about stereotypes, you know where that goes. And as of now, that book hasn’t changed. Amanda Marcotte is speaking at multiple Netroots Nation caucuses.

Netroots Nation is holding caucuses about why the progressive movement is losing people of color or cannot connect to people of color. And Amanda Marcotte is giving a speech about how to reach out. My issue is not Amanda Marcotte, well, I do have an issue with her but I don’t care, I don’t care to make this the center of it. My issue is, someone I love will go into that building where that type of thing is celebrated. She will go into that building having built a blog from her own hands and have to be around people who not only think that thing is okay but should be celebrated. And she will have to talk about it, by herself, in a lot of ways, with one of her precious precious angels. And she will have to do work, work to inform and educate and be aware and make people aware of amazingly important issues, in a space where she will also be alone and a space that believes that if you become popular showing images of people like us dying, as long as you’re close enough to “progressive” – showing the air quotes – it’s okay. Go into a room where people think you dying is irony, and that’s the “good side”. And it’s okay.

And she’s going anyway. Not to network really, which is what a lot of this crap is called, but because she believes it is important. This isn’t her career, this is her work. This is her love for the work. No matter how she’s been treated, this is her love for the work. And I cannot help but be amazed by her. (blows kisses) I love you Mama. But I also cannot help but be amazed by how many women have made that the work and have evolved and changed over the 5 years I’ve been online, and the honor it is for me to work with them. Right after this you will see a quote from the amazing friend, organizer, all around awesome-sauce person and my buddy, CripChick (blows kisses), I love you – about that I think is the best thing to encapsulate what I’m doing here with you and what I hope to start. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.

Quote: Let this be a summer night’s prayer for brave desire. ~ cripchick

my first Global comment article

is here

On submitting

Look come out and say it's Seal Press .

I promise you

no one thinks what they said or did to me or anybody else involved is enough to stop them from pursuing whatever goal they have in mind.

I say this without anger per say and at this point even without much hurt.

This happened with Yes Means Yes already

Peopel fell over themselves to applaud it's ground breakingness

even thought the submission had actually been almost entirely REWRITTEN by WOC and trans people due to it's heterocentrism , classism and racism.

It's straight up in the archives

And I picked up a lifelong bully for DARING to be upset

I mean it's right and okay that trans peopel and women of color can get stolen from.

That I can be yelled at and bullied and screamed on and have all sorts of classist racist attacks perpetuated against me and mine

because I have the gall to point out that hey this isn't an isolated incident , this is how this world works

I'll keep it to myself that every single fucking person

who asked me

" well what do you want, this is how you have to play with them"

is always a contributor to these visions

and makes their bones and bread of being linked and distributed as the lone voice standing out against these perpetuated injustices

has spoken again and again about how when it happens to them it's a long history of injustice

but manages niether the decency nor the integrity to say my name

except to curse me

The pictures are still in Marcotte's book and she knew ( but I'll be shocked if those files don't go mysteriously "missing")

Trust me everyone thinks erasing ,attacking,the work of people like me and

DAMN sure specifically me is entirely okay to produce a product and further a career(s)

but please PLEASE

at least say who and what your trading and considering for.

AT LEAST make these names as important as Seal Press

except that's entirely the point

we aren't.

Walking my scorpio

Walking my Scorpio ( TRIGGER TRIGGER )

please please note mentions of blood sex death visceral sexuality mental conditions and violence will happen here

or meditations on a 26th birthday.

or half an answer to so treu’s question

But today Is two weeks from my 26th birthday .

and i can’t really think of anyway to structure this except around walking my “dark” side.

Random astrology answered my question and it’s awesome but I come up against teh 50 50 split alot.

My mom swears i was born at night under a full moon and until 18 when I SAW my actual chart I believed her , but it made Mars my keynote planet and my Mars is in Scorpio

not just in Scorpio but in my second house squaring a leo venus

but there was no full moon

( only the one I was powerful enough to make in my mamas eye )

But Scorpio is still strong in me ( I have a hate love relationship with every scorpio I knwo I love those bastards or hate and need to never se ethem again)

but that’s a long way of telling you

I FEEL life

I Feel death

I have known in my chest in my hands what it was like to want to kill someone ( no bullshit I’m feeling it towards someone right now)

I have DREAMT of of collapsing bones and spewing blood and glazed eyes.

so if for only that I know life if only because i have felt it in my chest the desire to end it.

Most often times my own

I come from peopleS ( plural ) who do not NOT F around with death ad life

You never wear all black or white unless your in a religious ceremony

leave bathroom doors closed

stairs don’t go out the front door

keep something only for a lover to see

you must give bread or alms on every day you receive money

Our actions preserve LIFE or end it

and you see that bullshit with the 11 YEAR OLD GIRL

this is not a fucking game

SHE IS NOT A FUCKING PRODUCT

we are ending parts of her and nurturing them

we grow shit we kill shit

we absorb we expel

we are pissing about with nothing less THAN LIFE here.

—————————————————

I’m applying to grad school. Trying to create a life as feel an unknown specter of my window to be fruitful to honor my parents and support myself grow smaller and smaller and

it’s a comedy to me

because I am good at what they like

I can take a test

I cna research for days

weave stories

create castles in clouds

but I am bad

because i use that good to create things

Uncomfortable silences

bad questions

unwanted analogies

I flash these fucking obsidianbrown eyes and get angry get heated

and remind you that yes the shit coming out your mouth has consequences and please believe that

that there is a line that you may cross and this table and my rage may make those seefar , curandera dreams real.

destroy things

I create spaces for black girls to chop perms say they don’t agree stand tall

do better than me

have lifes

and cut and burn and eat and starve myself i

Create

Destroy

———————————————————-

academicia is ( yes ZUKY TMYMCBL you were right) and *f* you knwo what fuckit

cocktail party game of life

is that

death is the ever present stench

and LIFE

there is no battle no war raged

there is to be no pain

This is where you go to become sellable labelable product

It’s no accident that they rise of THESE KIDS ARE TERRIBLE coincides with the ( minute) rise in POC students especially with how angry and tetchy those kids were

because those kids

created something

records words and photos

problems

LIFE

showing how little scholarship can actually matter

cause when life and death is on the line you want to make sure that its measured by the fact they didn’t want look bad in US news and wold report

if it was actually about learning they’s do better

but it’s not

when I was in high school tehy told you to read teh NYT

because it used the words on teh SAT

read the words they use for the folks in charge

cause they cry cause it’s not easy

they didn’t get the life they wnat

their kids are breaking teh covenant

generational gaps read like white folks crying cause even with all tehy had tehy never learned to CREATE( hat tip amandaw)

so all they have is death

but blame that dying stinking rotten entitlement on hiphop

Let em know who they shouldn’t be like

pretend it has nothing to do with allteh brown kids in you schools tv and culture

read teh times to figure out how to talk liek them.

———————————————-

if i feel real lust if i feel a deep desire if i respond anything out of safe basic surface level

I will eat

eat till i hate myself

stop walking

or dancing or

shadow boxing or belly dancing

not to have that body

that shows when i get to close to right

that body

that keeps the snake oil roaming probing fingers from this gift

this curse

I killed something

felt it wither and die inmy chest

cause i couldnt kill him

——————————

it won’t die

no shit from our people really dies

——————————————————-

It’s 12 years later I still dream of snapping his neck

—————————————————————————

I heard my momma beg for the examination

because she wanted them to BE SURE I was okay

beg

beg

beg for my education

beg for my father

beg for my family

beg beg

that makes me okay to fucking bully

ever dug a fork in your hand so you didn’t cuss while you ate at a fucking scholarhsip brunch

you don’t get it next year you don’t beg pretty enough

but your skin is tough you and mam get through anyway

you hope that fucker dies in a fire

smile pretty

beg beg beg

no one remembers that even though you have the grace of a dancer you’re always bumping crashing tripping and cutting yourself

beg beg the body finally breaks

even this it denies you

——————————————————————

They ask you how you are

a shining star

workinga shit job

stolen from

government broken

they don’t ask again

you are disposable.

————————————————

you dream of ghosts and the blood of your enemies dripping from the machete you put away

you forget the blood grows flowers

your forget behind you stands what you were protecting

you forget

and when you turn to talk to them

your mouth fills with ash

you hope you can use the shit that spills instead to remember but

the latrine is in the lions den

and you must eat more shit before you can spread it.

Make sure to send the 100 dollars by cashiers check when you apply.

—————————————————

they ain’t thinking bout life mama

They don’t know it

tehy don’t know death and rot and hell liek we do

cause only bad ting

see good things and prefer bad

Can I tell you I’m scared that i

don’t knwo godo ting anymore

how to mek it

for myself

just how to defend it

how to kill it

but obeah man , curandera seefar na teach ya fi kill ting with no soul.

even yourself

———————————————————————-

there is no such thing as enough in life

or in death

not if you making it

you don’t know life?

you don’t know death

then shit it’s all about moving product

cocktail party game of life

you never hold blood in your hands

you never dream of falling teeth

you never rush past a mirror cause you will see a ghost

you never create nothing

so there is enough.

Move the product

move move

————————————————

tell you i was assualted

molested

scared

knwo my own blood like a love letter

dream of death

and destruction

and loss

and knwo oshun and obeah

and jusus

and acnestors is angry with me

and knwo they no where near as angry as I am with myself

and of the dream of crushing flowers into blood

and growing food from flowers

of a ting

of half and half

how do you walk the pieces of yourself that will kill just so tehy don’tdie aloneh

For elle and oscar at teh bottom of my glass of wine

I'm drinking .

I just need to be honest . I am drinking

I am staring at something else I'm writing and I'm thinking and I'm drinking.

I guess I wnat to have a strong woman response but i just can't .

Think of a little boy four years old, who loves his car games , who breathes his bad child beath over your skin and nose who cuddles you and curves into you and sighs happily who screams thats ridiculous and loves the first letter of his name.

Think of a man dapper of charming dressed to the nines erudite brillant talented. of his turn of phrase of his wit and charm, of his laughter of his resemblance to a father

Think of a musician talented militant funky hiding well honed daggers in his million watt smile , think of man so bright and so raw his wife admits she keeps his bail money

think of a baby brother, who loves everyone , who isn't your blood but who you love who works , who wants to be a pip to your gladys who baby or no can kis s you on your head and make your day better

think of a beautiful man with two earrings a shy smile and an amazing ass

think of a beautiful man with wide cheekbones gorgeous lips and the warmest friendliest platonic hug who you've worked with and laughed with but still don't remember his name

think of a man who loves his mama calls you queen and has lashes straight out of cosmetic catalogue , father who delights in his son think of that bright wide smile when he thinks of his son and those eyes with those eyelashes that grew in that son till they call him fandancer

of a singing gospel gay fashion designer/nurse who laughs and calls on you right from the club to make sure you got home okay

think of a tortured soul , who makes noise when he walks broad as a barn yard door , beautiful , of big brown eyes and feet in the mouth and a sweetness long winded highhandedness that makes you laugh to your toes and bows when he sees you

think of these men just the random sampling of what cuts through your wine glazed head

wrap them in skins that are so beautiful so integral to survival they can only be thought of as sweet foods of caramels of caffes of milks

think of the joy the sadness the arousal the laughter the LIFE they bring to your life

and then think about wanting them to be LESS

to hope they know not to be all of themselves all of the time because they may die and your country thinks its okay to kill them

Fuck outrage think of wanting to place a limit on your heart and your love because you no longer think what if

but what when.

think of your stars in your sky

their beauty their grace their intelligence

think of knowing someone you love can need your strength

think of never being able to catch them think of not being their to hold them

think of being to busy surviving to give them that love

think of them struggling being needy

and think telling them to never be able to be proud

because they will never be safe

they will never be treated well

because if they have to much they are too much

they will be owned

if they are too little they will be disposed of

think of having no skills or tools or having them leave you

that aren't simply be bigger faster stronger

be big enough ( while still be ing less)

so maybe you can force the hold.

if you can force someone on their knees they can't force you face down

think of thinking and praying and hoping and think of having the only answer be

think of hearing reading and seeing that people are more enraged one beautiful black boy went to the wrong city as a free man

than another beautiful black boy met his maker as a dead man.

think of this being just a sliver of a section of a point of what happens when you look at those brown faces

think of the fact you missed the beautiful faces with the rolling r's or the beautiful eyes or the love of their own gender , the rejection of gender , the different bodies

think of each sweet and lovely piece of your heart

and think of what it feels like to have your only solution

just please be less

think

and then

then realize you live it

Yeah I'm drinking cause the days you see the world like that you don't want to be anwhere but at the bottom of a glass of wine