Why Shawties Need Skillz

It has become more and more necessary we speak to you in OUR tone of voice.

Hello everybody my name is Sydette. I don't use it often , it causes me great panic but I need to be real with you , and part of that realness is my name.

I gotta ask you for something ,else.

On June 23-26 there is a conference in Detroit called the Allied Media Conference. I have attended it three times, advised once, met some of my nearest and dearest for the first time .

This year I am presenting as part of the Shawty Got Skillz skillshare and

Y'all we need funds

We need 6,000 dollars and we're asking it in a time when we know folks is in need and in straits.

But Shawties Got/Need Skillz.

I been online long enough as my pen name and alive in my self to know what Shawties don't got. We don't have the "right" connections, the "right" degrees , or the "right" bodies , in the " right" combinations to be important.

We are the downfall, the problem, the thought police, the overly PC, WHY YOU GOTTA TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUS ,

the hood rat, chickenheads, tramps, tricks

the nerdy, bookish,elitist

the myopic stupid, too ghetto, provincial

popping gum , popping off , curse too much,

butch dykey don't know what dey is

Praise Lord and Love the Lorde

Bump Beenie Man and Get A Little TOO Low to Lil' John

and we just

Laugh.

Too young for wisdom, too earthy for expertise

Shawties get Skillz

we find the loop holes and the cracks

we study the books and the papers and the journals

we battle the MARTA, MTA, BART , SEPTA Tunnel

back roads school yards bashments

we are in the long lines of miracle workers

herb women

bad bitches

Who are taught very early not to ask for anything.

Not without a preface , or a qualification, not without expecting a sacrifice, the mythic pound of flesh, piece of ass, peace of mind

Parts of ourselves.

Shawties Need Skillz

And I am not going to overinflate my case. I am not asking you to do anything less than change the world for a couple people.

So they can change the world for a couple others , so on and so forth

This is not glamorous, this will not " shift the discourse" , or break ground or make the news or get us good air time. We are not gonna be aiming to stick it to someone, to expand the name , to be new and fresh and ready for primetime.

There are never enough voices, never enough stories, never enough ways for us to save our selves , we have what we need and we have what we need to make even more

This is not about shortage or lack but abundance. We want to create a space where we can share and grow and create. There will be no profit because the skills we will make free. There will be a product because we are working and we create.

This is about healing and sharing tools to heal, to report and to connect.

You are not aiding the downtrodden and the resourceless.

Shawties Got Skillz, talents, and magic but we do NOT have money.

So we're asking for it.

I am asking for it as a big ass shawty I am asking you to go here

Look at these miracles and help them make some more.

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I am part of this Chipin , but I am requesting that you donate here first and that I be funded LAST as part of the goal . I need the money but help should go to those who haven't gone first.

IF you can't give believe me I understand but spread it far and wide as you can .

and yes i closed comments

first time ever find my ass on tumblr

you laugh to keep from crying

Laughing at that Feministe nonsense

Straight pulled something.

I know that the appropriate thing to do would be to give a deep well reasoned analysis of whats going on but

Y'all I'm trying to real with myself for May and I am not that good of a person.

I am also " irrelevant" so I'mma let it rip.

This is not about call out culture. This is about the shift in technology and the rise of web and community based interaction in the blogosphere. This about not being able to dismiss out of hand the concerns of people you used to just cut off

This is about a post about " filling the gaps" kind of magically and mystically skipping over much of the shit done to fill the gaps to make a point.

It's strawmanning and honest to god forgive my foul language privileged handflailing bullshit and it's finest .

Using the concerns and language of marginalized people and their interactions withe ach other to try and recast every fucking nasty and mean and willfully privilege omitting ( I just didn't SEE THAT ) step.

I love that it's turned into oh my god why does her publisher/publicist SUCK and no one is talking about at all IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM

• Why such a book might not be able to pick up a more mainstream publisher?


• What kind of privileges go into the process and " friendships" go into those connections?

And let me cause I'm a whiny fucking diva and I'm owning that shit .

Point out that this book was mentioned on the SAME FUCKING DAY in the same thematic as a post by Latoya who decided to omit my name due to personal issues when we've interacted personally ONCE and online usually around her very problematic handling

• of work of people I love not being diverse enough ( Women of Color Beauty carnival


• BOOKS ( I am gonna hernia something I SWEAR) and why the publishing of such was not the be all end all and why the " good work " wasn't enough to justify


• Me not being able to say in a way SHE like what I "wanted" because I was so obstreperous


• oh and her decision to omit me entirely from a " life and world view changing even" that happened to me because essentially she doesn't like me ( yep I said it twice)

and ya know what I'm gonna say to that

IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER ! BECAUSE IF I AS A WOMEAN CONCERNED FOR WOMAN CARE ABOUT VIEWS THAT ARE UNDER REPRESENTED AND THIS BOOK DOES THAT WELL ...

I BETTER GIVE IT SOME GOOD ATTENTION!

If this accomplishes the work I claim to be for , well ic an take a minute form my list of bougois activities ( and save me the but but self care fine great do you but people all live you make priorites)

set up a fucking feed reader or better communication

To DO THE WORK I CLAIM I AM FOR.

It's not that you choose or choose not but that you'll write screed after screed about it and

FAIL

and no the fact that it wasn't given to the SPEAK CD! ( yeah you know the first media project sponsored by AMC , sold out , in feminism journals etc etc)

or the fact even in that post a book/book proposals by ONE OF THE PEOPLE SHE DID MENTION WAS UNNAMED

Mind you I expect this to be rebutted by teh good work of the intensely fucking "borrowed " Yes Means Yes

or the WELL WE MENTIONED ONE POST ABOUT SPEAK

or Blackamazon you're a bitch we don't like ( repeatedly)

if it is so rare and so NECESSARY

if I can suck up faux news to make a point

YOU CAN DO THIS

versus the continued career pimping of SPEARCHUCKING MONKEY WRITERS!!!!

and

this was on a NOT SMALL SITE

sorry I don't go there often but

COMEON SON!?!

Racialicious isn't small

Damn sure wasn't small when you were looking for shit to shut up protesting WOC in 2007-9

and why

* long as details about privileged life* leading to

essentially I couldn't be bothered

That wellI will read NYT first!!

Because the paper that makes you sound cultured even as it steeps it self in rape culture YOU CLAIM TO FIGHT

is more important than staying up on one of your supposed inner circle

( and trust me the back channel emails are a flying SWIFT AND FREE)

so why NOW ?

Because earlier they could do what they're USED to doing

which is ignore circle the wagons shut up, whinge about the HARDNESS and keep it moving

except now in a culture where let's be honest we're doing a lot of this on smartphones and newsfeeds and insta papers( another reason why Um ID ont read that doesn't fly)

the issue is that bunking down and declaring radio silence doesn't work

Folks can shut you out and get their shit elsewhere

they cna hold you accountable and undercut you STRONG

and for folks who've based their ACTIVIST personas on being privileged, and famous and hard to reach

how in the hell do you function in a media climate that puts a premium and a media community on being CONNECTED AND TANGIBLE AND IMMEDIATE

and in such a climate what do you do when you keep getting called out for being well

SEVERELY AND UTTERLY LACKING

in ways both about accounatblity

and also sometimes about just assholery

do you link to peopel talking about it who are in it and talkinga bout it according to marginalized communities ( NOPE)

start thinkinga bout what community and this culture has meant politically and what it means that we are still here as feminists liberals ( um did you read my post on new york shit)

talk about extensive conversations that have happened around that ( well no because your newest and youngest has fucked that bad boy up royally)

or do you lump them together under the second half steal the nascent language around it to replace the old charge of policing and reposition yourself as struggling to come to grips and now a lone voice of reason?

DING!

And why does this unload my mega bitch and sarcastic ROYALLY?!?!

Because this discussion on policing call outs triggering is

REAL SHIT , It has lead to awful experiences and exchanges, pull outs and loss of energy. It is being handled RIGHT NOW in a very real way at CrunkFeminists

it is something that needs examination because dear god how do you deal when you only have so many spoons, teachable moments, racial tension headache pills , appropriation lectures in you

and the person

across from you who you kinda honestly want to tell to go the fuck away

is dealing with the real shit too

when we're trying to plan how to build shelter

with two paper clips a napkin and half a coconut

and it's ENRAGING

to see it use dto cover up a kind of automatic laziness when it comes to work that isn't yours , or from the people you think are important

or anything that might have you having to go you knwo what it's nota bout me or my work or my feelings so I might have to shut up and being PROACTIVE about doing well

it's now our fault for eating our young or some shit so we need to back off

um i'd be less nasty if i hadnt predicted this in 2008

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Oh and for all of you who think this work is IMPORTANT BUT THE BOOK IS SO HARD TO FIND

HERES THE GODDAMN LINK!

This is the tIme

I remember September 11. I was in college 17 years old, when school workers announced it infront of all our classes.

Smart aleck asshole kids would argue with them,but it was real terrifyingly real. I couldn't find my mother for 8 hours, and she like me is a wanderer. She goes of on fanciful brainwaves, where if she has fare and company , it is not unheard of to hear she went to Jersey cause she left a message.

My father spent most of the day talking me down from sheer panic. I started a chat room and published my first real article on what it meant to hear about this being " American" to me and why so much of America was commerce and money.

So you can say this is when my general radicalness started to take public light.

My best friend in highschool and I were called the " Twin Towers" tall black girls usually in a pair stalking down the halls.

One of my dearest friends now, had to run from her building in horror as it was right under the WTC.

I rode back with two of my roomates, looking just looking for the place where they used to be, gasping because they were actually gone, and part of me , my nickname how i always found downtown is gone with them.

I remember all to clearly how many of these same war loving , America banging , assholes told us we deserved it. That's what brown , sodomite, immigrant ,New York got.

The emptying our of New York , the loss of money , the loss of parts that will never really come back , that were replaced with " spending money is patriotism" gentrifying.

I remember wraping my arms around my college roomate during the start of the war in Iraq, feeling furious because the city I loved that was attacked, that was floundering, that couldn't get money from people dying of black lung had f'all to do with this .

I remember the carte blanche the Patriot act got , and what it lead to for me.

Watching beautiful babies covered in blood, young men come back in pieces, and every 7 months finding a video from Osama Bin Laden, wondering what the fuck is going on.

So this is the time. It has always been the time , to ask the questions and feel the feelings about what the hell is going on.

This is the time to be scared , to be absolutely fucking terrified about an America that gets it's biggest push to joy from death, that concentrates so coldly and directly on killing that whatever it takes, whatever it means , whoever else it kills.

This is the time ,where you know what , my politics my love my being in the world is not about me being perfect about me being the most awesome saucest activist ever , where if it's about actually helping and healing and working towards a better world for people . I have to be honest, because this ENTIRE campaign and politic has been marked by dishonesty and honestly

Glad he's dead. Happily glad he's dead .

And it's time to sit with the real uncomfortable part of , while I'm glad he's dead , what allows me to have that strong emotion? that part of my life , location and privilege that makes the cost of it however radical I perceive myself to be , distant enough that ANY part of me can logically seperate his death from the sheer unspeakable destruction the mission to kill him has caused?

It's time to sit with the idea that this is being celebrated by people who are so racist , who are so deep in there thoughts that they would change the space time continuum than give the black president actual credit or responsibility for killing their main target, a brown man

That we have a president who quietly , can have a focus on something quietly and directly , that he starts his entire presidency with THIS and has teh presence of mind to make jokes about the idiot blow hard who haros on his citizenship AND govern a country that somewhat in large chunks HATES him , for the perceived weakness and lack he has

and also a man who would peacock over this?

The pushing forward of the idea that , no matter what if you fuck with us we have the right to unleash all kinds of hell , cause well we said so, that this was as much a war for our right to death dealing imperialism versus death dealing guerilla war fare ( it's not random terrorism if they declare war on you) and since the death of Bin Laden will NOT end this what that mean for our ways of battling BOTH?

as now they will look so very different.

It is always the time to ask the hard questions.

That is something I hold on to fiercely , deeply, and necessarily. Because there is no clean feeling in my heart now and for me I need toknow why.