Persisting to Love

A dulled light of day was shining into our bedroom, matching the sullen mood, enhanced by caresses, with a heavy mixture of love and pain. Car alarms rang off rhythm to the sad bachata blasting from someone’s car stereo. Our bed sat by the half open window, at level with the sill, and as I laid belly down with child, sprawled over his body, I could see the littered concrete dotted with idle, middle aged Dominican men singing along, and round bodied brown mothers, grocery bags and children in hand, walking to the slow, constant beat of despair. I became aware of the miracle we were – imperfect but persistently, striving to become ourselves, striving to know love. Baldwin states, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” Loving can be a painful process. These masks exist as a defense or shield from environments of terror and numbness. We mistake false identities for ourselves. Removing masks would make us susceptible to become vulnerable to these fatal environments, and so we sleep and wake and bathe with our masks on and forget there was once a bright face looking back in the mirror at the innocence of our early youth, however long that might have lasted – for some, 10 years, for others, possibly 3. We become a colony of preconstructed characters, blind to the concept of a community consisting of honest individuals. The fear of removing these masks contribute further to the poison latent in our fatal environments.
In today's time, loving can be a painful process because loving means we come to accept that the world does affect us; that the constant grilling, the sight of children being frisked by authorities, the smell of piss on every wall of each abandoned building we walk by, the idleness of life or the moral ease of those who end it, their own or others', all have the ability to make us weep and become filled with true anguish, or loose our minds completely. But without coming to accept and understand this, we would have no incentive to want to exist in a different kind of world, or exist at all. And if we cannot exist as ourselves, outside of these masks, in our environments then we are left with two options – to change our environments or run away from it, and the spaces where oppression does not exist at some level are becoming endangered, quickly. Part of our attempt to change society must be to develop ourselves and offer the people we were meant to be to each other..
We laid there, two lovers, both tainted by the terror of this world, trying to understand the answer to this question – how can love become an oasis where realizing our highest selves will not be compromised? This, for us is a new concept, for we both come from histories where loving has taken us through moments of deceit, anguish, and pain, often times by attempting to love others who have not had the courage to notice, no less, remove their own masks. Yet still, we laid in our humble bedroom – a paradox, hope fighting to exist among week-old laundry thrown in corners, each clothing piece a removal of some weight picked up by our interaction with the shaken world, the walls scented of day old incense burned to center ourselves within what parts of ourselves we’ve come to know, mixed with whiffs of spiced meats and fried platanos carried by the cool draft of a new autumn in that old fifth floor apartment where our lives as a new family is to begin. I imagine we were both at some point in our internal conversations, wondering how this miracle is supposed to unfold with a lack of known references of liberated love. A dear friend once asked me, “Is it possible to imagine or know freedom if our legacies have never truly experienced it within the last 500 years of oppression?” What must it be like to live with no masks, and love with no limits? We can try to imagine what this oasis might look like, but even our imaginations are tainted with the pain that has held our true identities hostage. We try to caress and kiss away the false illusions we’ve acquired over time, but we cannot pretend that the world does not enter our attempts to love.
One night I was under the false illusion that my body was dirty and worthless. It was difficult to be held and for parts of my body to become exposed outside of our bed sheets.. That day, a young boy had violated my right to have my body protected from unwanted touch or exposure. He was no older than 12, with the face of a terrified child. The world had put in his mind that it was okay to violate women to his own pleasing or for his own curiosities. It was probably the first time he had tried to pull down a woman’s shirt, for his body language and his eyes were so full of fear of his own actions. His environment had placed the mask of “sexual assailant” on such a young face. His toxic environment had shaped the emotional state of my body. A hot shower could not wash away the filth and anguish that sat like silt upon my pregnant belly, naked breasts, and reoccurring memory. All throughout that night, whenever I became aware of my body, it only existed within those short moments of feeling violated and humiliated.
Being a woman of color who has cracked her mask in this world makes one become even more deeply connected to the pain that exists in these war zones. We become exposed to the efforts of a white world trying to erase our existence, but we also become exposed to a dystopic patriarchal society – even among our brothers of color – that also seek to null our true power and beauty, either because they do not understand it or are intimidated by it (therefore the need to control or undermine it). The product of males of color feeling powerless in a white society is the sexually violated woman of color. When boys and men of color are given no spaces with which to experience or understand authentic power, they take up the white man’s illusion of power – to conquer and control- and turn it on their own women (and in other ways, on each other). This results in communities of masks laden with false power and bodies with limited abilities to feel love and security, communities of unknown or lost identities.
The perseverance of love between my lover and I, consists of a lifetime series of attempts to know ourselves, discover true power, and share our unfolding selves with each other. One element of our love is essential if it is to survive in a world where freedom is an alien concept, and that is – our love must have the ability to overcome oppression – oppression embedded within ourselves, oppression perpetuated in society. We are left with no tools but our own developing imaginations and the courage to take on this challenge, and courage is essential if we are to walk and love and speak without masks. It takes an enormous amount of trust amongst ourselves to take on this task. We are still in the process of fully understanding and realizing love, although our imperfect attempts are miracles because against the weighty odds, we persistently choose to exist, to find our highest selves within ourselves and between each other, to love, in the context of deliberate numbness and inadvertent hate.

Crafting the Journey of Radical Brown Motherhood

On this mother’s day of 2009, one day away from 20 weeks of carrying a life inside of me, I ponder the journey set before me as a Latina mother that has chosen to walk with the guidance of truth by her side. I did not choose to be brown, but I do choose to engage in the meaning of what it means to be an individual in a society that strives to erase us into the blank page of conformity. In a world that attempts to numb our spirits and mute our hearts, I choose to dig deep into the female instinct, that is a warrior instinct, one that is drawn to protect life and uncover its meaning buried underneath the fallacies of heteronormativity and patriarchy- diseases that affect the lives of all genders and the threaten the foundation of life itself. As I came to make these choices, it was no surprise that I came to understand the meaning of struggle- a journey full of sacrifices, misunderstanding by those close to me as well as those I expect misunderstanding from, but also the blessing to have met others who have also chosen their own paths of warriorships of love and truth, although often times it does become an isolated path.

It is not easy choosing what one must do over what one wants to do, but this is the journey of radical brown motherhood, and it is a journey full of love as it is full of struggle. Choosing to walk with truth does not give one the option to disappear into non-existence. I believe everyone comes to this planet with some gift, some contribution to humanity, some great feat or goal to accomplish that sets us apart from solely eating, shitting, sleeping animals. Walking with truth means loving ourselves enough to know what that feat is, to authentically know our identities. To stray away from this path is to never have known ourselves, our potential, to have never really existed in this world. As a warrior of life, seeker of truth, and soon to be mother, I ponder whether there is any distinction between the first two and the last.

There are those that try to distance the act of motherhood from warriorhood, while I believe that one cannot exist without the other. The work of motherhood must engage in also shaping the world her children will come to know themselves in. A radical mother, a self-aware mother also becomes an advocate for truth-knowing among others as she must advocate with her own child. We live in a society of individuals who have had their highest selves hidden from them. It is a toxic environment. No radical mother, or no loving mother wants her children to be exposed to toxicity. The work to provide others with the opportunity to know themselves is parallel to the work of mothers who nurture their daughters and sons with the opportunities to see truth.
I believe that this life inside my womb is closer to knowing truth in its most fundamental form than it will ever be before it passes on to life after flesh. His early growth is a nine-month prayer. He is vulnerable but does not know fear. He learns, remembers, dreams, discovers, and I believe is in constant connection with a divine life-giving force, growing and moving in unison with the will of Most High, as if singing in perfect pitch with the wavelength of the universe. His obstruction from the oppressive world outside the perfect womb is limited. My challenge will be that when he does enter this world, that he will continue to learn, dream, and discover in unison with this divine force without self-doubt or fear; that he will continue to sing in unison with Most High by distinguishing truth from the fallacies of our world and find his own authentic journey through the world carefully perceived by the womb of his heart and critical mind. These challenges I take on for my own son cannot be distinct from carving the world he will come to know himself in. And so I do choose a more difficult, less luxurious path, but a path that recognizes my own existence; a path that refuses to have my life, the life of my son, and the lives of others dissolve into the dangerous waters of complacency and self-negation.

Still Black - A Portrait of Black Transmen

I finally met Kortney Ryan Ziegler in person (after years of knowing her solely in the blogsphere) during the showing of her film, Still Black, for the Black Queer Film Festival in NYC. The above is a piece from my fave interview in the film. What I loved most about the film is the exposure of the juxtapositioning of those who are attempting to redefine gender identities in a world where identities are pre-constructed and shoved down our throats through mainstream media. I find this process parallel to all other forms of self-actualization, where folks who try to authentically exist in the world are faced with the pressures of pre-constructed fallacies of today's society. What I heard echoed throughout the film were Black men challenging others to be true to themselves. This in itself takes courage, because the world pushes us to participate in living lies, to deny our own freedom and help perpetuate and build our own psychological, emotional, spiritual, as well as physical prisons. The Black men in this film expose the process of decolonizing the concept of humanity in a world that dehumanizes.

Thanks Kortney for your brilliant work.

Reflections #3

I'm grateful for this space. Its sort of like a time capsule. It serves as a reminder of who I am becoming, and lessons I've forgotten. After re-reading my reflections series #1 and #2, I realized how much more relevant these realizations have become over a short period of time, and how important it is that I keep these in mind as I make my major transition back home to New York City in July.

Recently, I've been hit with a blessed humbling experience. I came down to NYC from Rochester and met up with a homie I haven't kicked it with in 8 years. Imagine that. This was the cat that turned me on to the Bay Area, and now he's turning me on to myself. During these 8 years I've completed a Bachelors degree, and now I'm finishing up my Masters. The Bay Area had turned me out to some new critical eyes for looking at the world. I learned that I had been living a life of systematic power indifferences. What trips me out though, is that this shouldn't have been news. I guess I was taught to not look at my own life experiences as sources of knowledge, truth. So, I came to understand the value of my perspective through theory, politics, and academia.

Seeing my homie made me realize how much I've become immersed in the language of academia and lost touch with the language of my self. The balanced had been tipped, and I became this thinking potato that seems to have forgotten where I came from. I'm grateful for him caring enough to challenge me on my shit. Grounding me in my own dirt. I came back to the East Coast thinking I had to be accountable to the community I left behind. What I'm realizing now is that I've got to become accountable to myself... first. There's this piece of me I've been unaware of. And its something I need to battle and be conscious of as I'm reorienting myself back into my old stompin grounds. Again, the lesson of humility is worth remembering here. Its time for me to reconnect.

The Courage to Write

I've decided to highlight one of my students' assignments on my own blog because of her ability to do what is most difficult for writers to do: to take risks. Once we settle into ourselves and realize that the places from which we must write from are our most vulnerable and painful ones, we've become self actualized writers. Here, a 9th grade student, early in her writing, establishes this inherent ability in her writing.

Amane, a practicing Muslim, focuses on how the social experience of 9/11 and the "war on terror" has affected her personal experiences in day to day life. She begins by establishing her experiences as a young citizen in the U.S.:

I practically lived in the United States my entire life. I stood up and and put my hand over my heart and recited the pledge of [allegiance] every day in elementary school. I watched the [superbowl] and sang the national anthem, every time, just like every one else in the U.S. does....

She goes on to describe how this has changed after 9/11:

After 9/11 occured every thing changed. I would go places and get insulted. "Terrorist, go back to your own country. We don't need more of you here." They would say things like that and even worse sometimes. I didn't understand, this is my country....

Do you have any idea what it's like for me to go for a ride in a car and role my window down. I get middle fingers, I get called names, I get spit at, things get thrown at me, and again I also get shouted at. Like other kids my age, i go to the mall to go for a walk and go shopping. But i wish i could do this with out being stared at, gawked at, laughed at, talked about, threatened, and again "Go back to your country."

What is most compelling about this account is that after having been targeted and dehumanized on numerous accounts, still alive in her is the courage to imagine and hope for a world where difference is not a threat and empathy is the norm:

I believe that away from here, a place for rebels, outcasts, untouchables, and uncomfortables to be free. To become their own society. That way they would all be normal, and they would all keep their pasts in the present to think before they hurt or cause hurt the way people bestowed it on them. We, outcasts, we can all be a family. A real and true 'free country'. An outcast is someone who is ostracized by society. An out cast... is me.

I would like to invite Amane to extend that hope to the people of the very land we stand on. With persistence and a struggle rooted in love, justice will prevail. To read her complete post visit her at http://xxarabianpunkxx.blogspot.com/2008/03/outcast.html.

M.O.V.E.: Challenging U.S. Hegemony

Conquest

Come over to SPEAK and check out our read-a-thon in support of Andrea Smith's tenure case at U of Mich. Andrea Smith is one of the most revolutionary thinkers in exploring the intersections of oppression of people of color, women, survivors of sexual assault, and writes from an indigenous perspective. She's also a co-founder of Incite!.

Conquest is a must read for folks who are working for social change in any setting, and a must read for folks who are trying to understand how to reflect on their own process of decolonization.

Transforming Silence into Theory

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you sicken and die of them, still in silence? -Audre Lorde

On my venture to discover an epistemological framework that stems from experiences like my own, I've started to read and re-read some authors by radical women of color. First on my list is Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider." I've only read a number of selected essays, including "Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving," Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power," "Sexism, An American Disease in Blackface," "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," and "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference." (Whew!)

While I took more extensive notes relating to very specific moments and influential people in my life, I am choosing (at least for now) to focus on some broader themes. Below I've listed a few quotes that I think should be considered on this venture. The quotes I chose are focused more on initiating self-reflection and understanding the context of myself in society and myself in the movement. Definition and redefinition.


The future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference... For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are a result of those structures. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. (123)
As I reflect on my responses to oppression, it seems that a lot of my inspirational drive is rooted in anger and destruction. I don't attempt to invalidate the existence of anger and the desire to destroy oppressive systems within society and within myself. I believe this drive comes from the desire to eradicate with urgency the injustices we survive each day. Every day is filled with negation- institutional driven negation, self-negation under the guise of self-regulation. But at what point and in what spaces do I really get to experience and understand an authentic self outside of "the master's house"? How am I to build a new "blueprint" for living if what I seem to have at my disposal are the master's tools?

[The master's tools] may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support. (112)
To what extent have I been working under the influence of competition? Has my response to oppression been locked in a set of behaviors that perpetuate stagnation?

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting. -Simone de Beauvoir quoted by Audre Lorde (113)

What are the sources of knowledge I have not yet tapped into that stem from my own experiences? How have I been forced/trained/pressured to silence those places where knowledge has been forbidden? If I haven't been reaching into these spaces, where have my sources of knowledge been coming from and what are these other sources rooted in?

Wishful Thinking: Reflection and (Re)Vision

My body has spoken. One of the best words of advice I have recently received was from a fellow blogger hermana, Sudy, who said, "your body never lies." This is probably the most honest blog entry I've written in a long time.

Lately I've been insulated by the "go, go, go" motion of daily living. My body is tired, unmotivated, and unwilling to invest energy in situations I have in the past been able to sustain. I've only recently stopped to think, reflect, and scratch the surface of this ongoing depression. My mind took me to the one place I've been scared to go: What if the goal I've set for myself is not conducive to my role in inciting the change I want to incite? As a go-getter, strong willed (read: stubborn), goal oriented individual I was frightened by this prospect. Often times though, our bodies will take us to places our minds will not allow us to wander.

So I entertained this possibility. I had to reexamine my vision and its clarity. I had to reevaluate the course I was on. I had to rethink what epistemology I was working with. How much of my theoretical framework is male-centered? Has my vision been co-opted? An even worse fear came upon this reflection: Have I been unknowingly functioning through a framework that negates me and others like me (i.e. woc, queer, survivors of sexual and domestic violence, etc)?

Lex calls these silenced spaces. After talking to Lex, another blog hermana, I was surprised to find that someone else understood so clearly what I was experiencing. Ashley, another hermana I know from the world of educational institutions has experienced the exact same process of self examination. I am so blessed to share words with these amazing women.

Some of the questions I've begun to consider are:
How much do schooling institutions limit the way I want to reach my community? What was my vision before I became inspired to work in schools? What is my vision now, after working my way into that goal? How have others worked to inspire that goal and is this a vision that I truly encompass? Is this truly my vision? How effective is this vision in addressing and working through the issues that are important to me and those in my community? Do schools offer the authentic spaces for healing, decolonization, and self/community -actualization? Am I most productive in spaces of actualization vs. infiltration? Which one, if not both, or is there some other framework that is more conducive to epistemologies that reflect experiences like my own as a queer woman of color and a survivor? What DOES a queer/woman of color/survivor epistemological framework look like???

As part of trying to explore these questions, I decided to start by using a tool I've come across (sort of serendipitously on several occasions) through others' blogs. Its called a wishful thinking list. I sighted it first in Lex's blog and then mendi lewis obadike's website. I'm using it as a tool to clarify for myself what my experience is, what my vision is, and what my community is. This list is dedicated to my mother, myself, and other survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The number of items, 39, represents the number of years my mother has survived an abusive marriage with my father. The list is a work in progress and I could probably make other lists dedicated to other groups. This particular group or issue is one that stands in the forefront of my experience right now. It is the issue my body is working through, and the one my mother is working through in everything she does. Its a public issue that tends to get only personal attention:

1) People are attracted what you say before what you wear.
2) Your lovers respect you out of love and admiration.
3) When looking for work, building friendships, or making love, there is equal balance in power on all sides.
4) When you speak, your accent always enhances the profundity of your words.
5) At all learning institutions, teachers and instructors are aware of your presence and the learning needs of others like yourself.
6) Others do not see you as up for game as you walk to the corner store and any man that comes to close proximity is not a threat.
7) If you feel that the fire has burnt out, your lover will not manipulate you into staying.
8) Your body is unscarred and holds memories of only love.
9) Your heart is unscarred and unafraid to love.
10) You control who has access to your body.
11) Your lovers remind you that they are blown away by your keen insight and intelligence.
12) Male leaders in your community are genuine, consistent, and acknowledge your skills as necessary assets to your community.
13) The female leaders in your community are plentiful and draw from their experiences as women; they are a reflection of you.
14) Financial difficulties have never been a factor in deciding whether to bear children or not.
15) You feel alive, healthy, and strong in your body, all the time, everywhere.
16) What, how, and where you worship has never incited fear or violence.
17) All human touch you experience from others will come out of love.
18) You are calm, comfortable, sociable, and happy around others you don’t know.
19) No one will try to isolate you from the people you love.
20) You know where you came from, what your name is, and where you want to go.
21) You have memories of your father guiding and loving you with words of encouragement, inspiration, wisdom, and love.
22) Your cultural practices are valued by those different than you.
23) There is no dominant culture; the only thing dominant is diversity and love.
24) Nobody takes you for granted.
25) Your children are safe wherever they are, whomever they are with, and whatever they are doing.
26) Any country you choose to travel to acknowledges the strength, value, and inner-beauty of all women.
27) You can acquire clothing and other goods without wondering if other women and children were abused in the process of its creation.
28) When you speak, others listen.
29) Every opportunity for intellectual, physical, and spiritual growth is available to you just when you need it.
30) When others use your name in conversation, you are assured that they refer to your greatness and talent.
31) When you dream, you smile in your sleep.
32) When I smell your scent in a piece of garment, I am reminded of memories of you as always happy, free, and loved.
33) Your children admire your strength.
34) There is always time to pursue what your heart desires.
35) You know what your heart desires.
36) Your stories are considered anecdotes for wisdom.
37) You consume food without guilt.
38) Every tear your have shed has been out of joy.
39) Every moment you spend alone is done with self-love and out of choice.



Much like BFP's 40 Days of Contemplation I've decided to embark on a journey to define my epistemological framework by reading works by other radical women of color, queer woc, and works by woc on survival. Audre Lorde, Sandra Cisneros, Andrea Smith, Patricia Collins, and Anzaldua are among those in my list. If you could recommend any please share. Also, if you've got a list to share of your own, please link it here, as I am continually inspired by others who are exploring their visions as well.

Fem Watch Episode 1: Say It Ain't So Feminism

Commentary on "feminist" blogging. Hilariously serious!


Sudy ROCKS yall!

Challenging our Notions of Social Change

A huge part of working for social change is the ability to grow through challenging our concepts of what social change really means. BrownFemiPower posts Naabeeho Nakaii: Why Can’t We Be Friends, a speech written by Reid Gómez, an urban raised Navajo writer and photographer with a Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies. Gómez challenges us to think about how our identities inform the way we think about social change.

Below is my comment reply to the post above, but you really should read the speech first:

“Many laugh at the insanity and impracticability of my dreams and I reply, who’s filter are we putting our dreams through? What origins and philosophies are we embracing and what are the consequences of those embraces?”

“The problem with accepting or embracing a position as immigrant is that it rests first, on the validity and longevity of the United States’ occupation and secondly, on the subjection of the People. Which begs the question, who are you giving the power of recognition to.”

“In order to survive we must know what beliefs and actions take us away from the inextricable relationship of the People and the Land.”

“If you relate based on looks you are driven by racializations. If you relate based on colonial languages (English, French, or Spanish) you may think you have alliances with those you do not, and vice versa. Those who speak or do not speak English, French, or Spanish are not necessarily friends, family or foe.”

Its so funny that you posted this. I’m glad you did. Lately since I’ve been in Rochester and outside of the Bay Area Radical Bubble, I’ve been reflecting on the need to challenge and reconceptualize how I think about social change. I’ve grown frustrated with “solutions” that sound more like reforms, or new ways to protect the power relationships that exist. I think it was Andrea Smith who stated that the core root of the Native struggle for freedom is the fact that, unlike (most) other “movements”, they question the legitimacy of the state. The more my thoughts around solutions to teaching in the U.S. stem from this idea of challenging the state (both as an institution and as the authoritative framework in identity development), the more people really “don’t get me”.

I believe we continue to walk blindly if we aren’t aware of how these watered down and destructive solutions are connected to our own personal identities and our limited ability to reflect and achieve a deeper level of decolonization. So lately, I’ve been sitting in this space asking myself, “ok what do I need to change about how I view myself and my thinking, in order to gain a clearer perspective, so that I may teach from that perspective- the one that is always working from the root of the problem: challenging colonization and Native land occupation.” At this point in my development process, I have to be honest, I cannot fathom what it will be like to teach in a truly radical way and to help incite a true struggle against the state. I’m at the point where it is easy to deconstruct and help others deconstruct, but what about the more challenging process of building up? A huge part of teaching is enabling students to feel like agents, so how do I empower students to move past deconstructing the issues and into acting upon those issues in ways that challenge the existence of the state? How is it possible for us to build if we have not connected to what freedom is? For many generations we have not known freedom, but Reid Gómez says “We have choices. Aligning ourselves with existing community members, neighboring community members, family histories, recipes and when and where whose archives fail we have the land itself.”

This quote was given in the context of struggle and to keep it in its context I ask myself what “existing community members, neighboring community members, family histories, recipes” within my own heritage actually threaten my own freedom and the freedom of others? And I ask this because I am aware that my own history, even as a woman of color with a history of U.S. antagonism against my people (as well as collaboration with the mis-leaders of my people), is tainted with false notions of identity and freedom. So I have to reflect and think about how I’m affected by this and how this reality may have limited my scope in imagining and constructing in my mind real oppositional approaches to colonization.

Free Lesson Plan: Teaching Social Justice, Exceeding Standards: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

So some teachers are possessive about their lesson plans and their syllabi. Why? Isn't the point of teaching to spread knowledge and awareness? Are these teachers really serving this purpose if they're thinking about their individual recognition before the development of students' minds? I don't buy the argument, "I worked hard to create this, why should someone have it without having put effort into it"?

Well social change and anti-racist teaching (and work in general) DOES involve busting your ass for the benefit of our communities and society as a whole. And much of the time that will mean sweating blood and tears for someone to have access to a new way of understanding this complex fucked up world.

So I'm sharing this lesson plan I created for one of my grad school courses that I actually want to utilize in a real classroom. When? It depends if I hook up with a radical enough teacher mentor this coming year who will let me carry it out, or if I have to wait until I have my own classroom. If you're a teacher and you use it, you HAVE TO (well you don't have to, but it would be nice) tell me what worked for you and what didn't. And if folks have some constructive feedback, that would be great too! Enjoy!

Oh, can I also say that I LOVE google documents?

QUIET WARS

To whom it does concern:

You have a certain way of doing it. It began with the identical set of questions you had asked other women, students, about their personal lives. One woman who spoke didn’t let it get past the questions. I was in a slightly different position. The people I trust, the people who had changed my life have close relationships with you. I was familiar with your work in the community and had personal relationships with those who collaborated with you or worked under you. Students were ready to risk their university degrees for your cause, because they believed you were deep in the struggle. I was caught up in the fabricated glory of you. So I answered your questions without a second thought, and asked some myself, not knowing yet where this was going but not feeling threatened at all.

Each night, once a week on the same weekday after class you’d come upstairs and into my door or we’d go out to dinner, and the plan was to go over some work. This only happened two or three times. Other nights were continuations of the questioning with drawn out conversation. Flirting. You asked me about my general intentions. I told you I wanted nothing short of commitment. I was moving into a new cycle in my life, where I wanted to be patient with the next person. To wait a while. You said you were glad I was 25 at the time. That I had a certain maturity and certainty about my path. There was a clarity that developed through the late night conversations and the short moments of physical closeness.

There was that first night. Before a trip to some academic conference you were flying out to. We agreed it was cool for you to spend the night, so we could continue our talks. The late night came and went, and then came tiredness long past midnight. You told me to bring an extra pillow. I figured there wasn’t any harm. I reminded myself that there was a given mutual trust and respect.

Your hands. They caught me by surprise- attempting to find their ways into places I was not yet ready to give. I wanted to be held. But I was not asking for more than this. I pushed your hands away- several times. Eventually you stopped, turned around, and fell asleep facing the wall.

It was that second night. We studied at your house. The place that you were so thrilled to show me. This was yours. Your accomplishment. Your big privilege. Not mine. At times you would say we were privileged, that we could do whatever we wanted. Clearly you misunderstood who I was, and you were immersed in your acquisitions. There was an obsession about you. Always wanting to get published. To out-publish this person or that institution. Naïvely so, I got caught up in the glory of this world I confused for my own. I slipped outside myself to become enraptured with the idea of co-publishing with you. Of thinking that this was going to become part of what was going to define me. This was your way of doing things. It was not long before I discovered that your vision was never to incorporate my valuable thoughts into what was to be your accomplishment. Your big privilege. To have someone run around and look things up for you. Your academic maid. Xerox copies. Research. I was too busy for this. I had to defend my time. And even that night I couldn’t finish my own work, because yours needed feedback, processing, analysis, refinement. When I said I had work of my own to do, I caught you stopping yourself before you said my work was insignificant in light of yours. Blinded by the glory, I doubted that this was what I heard. But I look back into the image of that time, and that's exactly what was said.

Still, that second night you had your way of doing things. Between the work, there was the continuing conversation over tea. You said this could work. This secret affair. Someone would have to make compromises when it came time for me to make the decision to move back home, but we should try it. See if it’s worth it. See what comes out of it. You were seriously into me. You were feeling me. You were feeling this. You said this. And I reiterated what my intentions have been. I was not a fling. I was looking for the real thing and you responded saying you were looking for the same. I believed you. Caught up in the glory of it all. That second night continued. The drowsiness came in, but we were caught up in your bedroom. I was not so reluctant as the first night. I had your words with me. Still, it wasn’t easy. There was kissing and stopping. Touching and blocking. Reaching, and grabbing, and pushing away. Thinking. I had your words with me. Your words that so many had relied on for validation. Your words that were inquired into by academic experts supposedly in the struggle. Your words that have compelled others to question, think, and reason in new ways. Your words made it okay. They were worth something. They were worth all the faith I had in the work you do and the people who have worked with you. And so it happened your way. I took you for your words. This was your big accomplishment. Your big privilege. Your words have given you all the access. Power. Money. Sex. Reputation. Status. This was your way of doing things. And then came morning and the rest of the day as it usually comes to me. Work. School. Home. Sleep. The quiet war had started, yet I still didn’t know.

The next morning you had made your decision. You picked me up from my books and took me out to breakfast. Crepes, coffee, and home fried potatoes. This was your way of doing things. You said we couldn’t do it anymore. It was too risky. You could loose your place in the game. Your accomplishments. Your big privileges. The cause that you had everyone else so worked up for. We could just be friends. That morning you tried to dishonor the names of those who have been loyal to you, loyal to the struggle. You projected yourself onto them: saying that they’re caught up in their own privileges, that they’re not consistent with their words, that they don’t “ride” for you. We could still work together, you said. I looked at you. I had no words. You tried to draw them out of me, but I had not yet formulated cogent thoughts. I only knew I felt defeated. Back-stabbed. Used. You wanted me to be okay. Okay with this. Your decision.

The next week I had taken myself out of the glory of you and your world. I had slipped back into myself, finding myself angry at having abandoned my self. I looked at what had come over me. Recited your words in my memory. Replayed every action. Remembered every response you had for every word I said between us. Re/dis/covered your way with things. I called you. Texted you. There were no longer the prompt responses. I had some thoughts I wanted to share. You were too busy now. It was important, the words you tried to draw out of me- I found them. You called me from the doctor’s office, in a hurry. But, my words needed time. Respect. Space. Serious consideration. I was about to tell you something about yourself you couldn't see. Or so I thought. Something that called for reflection. Change.

Months went by with no replies. Days came and went with the usual school and work business, but now with this quiet war in my mind that I tried to ignore. Until a woman came up. She had her war too, and she had it with you. She was a random woman I didn't know who had spoken. I listened. I decided to speak too. Through this act of self-love, of speaking, of naming, I learned from other women who knew you closely, that this quiet war wasn’t just about me. There were a list of women who had their quiet wars with you too. I was enraged. Disgusted. Feeling more defeated than the morning you had made your decision. This was a way you had with other women too. It was systematic. I had been a bent up cog in your machine used to fabricate the false power you exude. My existence, my QUEENDOM had been diminished to that. And there was the struggle: a chariot used to carry you across the world with women of color for horses. I saw things now as they had been before me, as they continue to be for other women who fight these quiet wars. I spoke. Made it known. Swept the pile of dust from under the rug and into the wind of the world you share with your closest ones. The ones who validate you. The ones who should challenge you and your way with things.

This letter is not for you. This letter is for all the other women who fight these quiet wars. Every time I must face other students, other women, caught up in the glory, speaking about how great your lectures are, how innovative your academic articles are, how great it must have been to study with you, independently, I fight that quiet war. For every word I do not speak in these instances, my existence dissipates into the abyss hidden beneath the disillusionment of academic glory. I wish I could tell the world about what you do after your reputation is done doing its flaunting for the day in the ivory towers. How your integrity should be called into question. How that detailed letter you wrote to the colleges for me was not about me, but a copy and paste unfounded story about a different student. I bet you thought I wouldn't speak. How long would you think this game would play for? How long before you'd mess with the wrong QUEEN? But I know there is no design in place for healing and accountability. There is only punishment. And within revenge exists no change. No transformation for a colonized man of color in a white colonial system. No healing for the women of color who fight these quiet wars. I’m not interested in apologies. I won’t answer to any phone calls, letters, or emails about your excuses for the truth. I was there. The other women were there. Your character has already been determined by your actions. The conversation you must have is not with me or the other women you have dishonored. The conversation you must have is with yourself.

Sincerely,
Rosa Cabrera

P.S.
From the 5 Mindfulness Trainings you say you observe, the one you will not post on your big windows and walls:
The Third Training: Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I vow to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.


(This is a first draft of a work in progress. Constructive criticism welcomed!)

Structural violence and its intersectionalities

This is a snippet by BrownFemPower from the Radical Women of Color Think Tank:

"The nation/state, men of color, violence against women of color

So I've had two thoughts twirling around in my head for the last week or two--both of them presented to by two polar opposite folks.

First, I got an email from Poor Boy about a recent graduation from Army Boot Camp he attended. Poor Boy noticed that many of the graduates of the camp were men of color, and in many cases, men of color who were not U.S. citizens.

Then, Nappy As I Wanna Be informed me about a horrific gang rape of a young Latina girl by a group of grown black men.

Although these conversations might not necessarily seem related (and I think Poor Boy was looking at the subject he emailed me about in a different way than what I am going to address here), I think that the two incidences are very much related and so I want to address them as such."

Find out what the important connections are, and how these connections include the intersectionalities of race, gender, colonialism, and violence at the Radical Women of Color Think Tank

This new perspective...

Life.. has shifted my worldview, my identity, and the means to its (life's) objectives a number of times. Somehow this new perspective I seem to be growing into is significantly weighted and pivitol. I have always been one to seek accomplishments through somewhat spontaneous choices, all that I have grown from and that I never regret. Although there seems to be a side of that that is still there, and will always be a part of who I am, looking into building upon more long term choices and their implications seem to be comming into the forefront. It is an uneasy shift. One that at times has me feeling alone in what seems like a world full of people who place value in acquring wisedom through being in constant transition. A value I have always held throughout my life, and still do.. to some extent now.

A shifting worldview is opening up, one that sees freedom in choices that involve long term negotiations and renegotiations. One that sees wisedom and growth in becoming through building strengths through people, places, actions that call for long term challenges and flowering that never stops reaching out and refining its beauty. I am comming to see the importance of this woldview to my commitment to my work, to revolutionary liberation, to those in my life who have vowed to dedicate their lives to the same. Through this changing perspective I have also seen fears come exposed before me, those that have blinded me to possibilities but also those fears that I needed to experience, understand, and learn from in working through and building a new sense of viewing my life, my people, my world.

I call this a shifting worldview because to completely grow into it is to decolonize myself from all the fears of taking on the work necessary to impact real, true, and effective change. This kind of change has always been my goal, and I have always been on this path. The means to which this goal is achieved is constantly being redefined and refined. Admiting to these changes are moments of overcomming " distortion (s) of the vocation of becoming more fully human," as Paulo Friere puts it. The second challenge comes in instituting a form of personal "praxis". Although Friere speaks about liberation as a social agency, through analyzing this shift I am increasingly becoming convinced of the significance of self-liberation through the process of our work and relation to the world, to our people, to revolution.

In a world that does not value those liberating factors that bring the actualization of self into the forefront of human development (because this would be a threat to a system of dehumanization itself), this process of self-rediscovery seems like a solitary vocation. This dehumanizing society does not value the implications that humanizing relationships and humanizing work has on our lives. It is programed to see these gems as less than secondary if we are lucky to see them at all. Even when we are given these opportunities, we are forced to make choices that dehumanize us and our people, because these choices are safer, because they are so normalized that anything outside these choices would be too risky: "But while dominated by the fear of freedom they refuse to appeal to others, or to listen to the appeals of others, or even to the appeals of their own conscience. They prefer gregariousness to authentic comradeship; they prefer the security of conformity with their state of unfreedom to the creative communion produced by freedom and even the very pursuit of freedom." -Paulo Friere

It would be easier to choose to ignore this shift of wisedom by ignoring the value of long term growth and the challenge to engage in work that calls for an ongoing presence and commitment. It is easier to say that I am committed to some abstract idea of "the revolution." In exposing these truths I am making the choice to accept those blessings that cultivate outcomes of true and tangible products of revolutionary action. These choices will involve personal challenges, but also growth; these choices will include the need to redefine myself to the world and defend the authenticity of who I am becoming; these choices will mean beating against all the odds that a dehumanizing society will try to screw me with. These choices are the choices of a growing warrior, an identity I have always known, though am still coming to know. A warrior who defends life, a warrior who will cross the edges of of a preconcieved world to prove that it is in fact maleable without a definate shape, a warrior who will take on the necessary battles to defend love till death; a warrior with a will to teach, expose, and become truth; a revolutionary warrior; a warrior for life.

Blog Against Heteronormativity Day

Other bloggers participating in Blogging Against Normativity today.

In my American Indian Women class we discussed the topic of Two-Spirited people in American Indian tradition. We also talked about it in contrast to the more western/contemporary Third Gender term (not that existing outside of the gender binary is anything new of course).

What I found intersting about the discussion was the ways in which American Indian and non-American Indian folx who identify outside of the western gender binary assert themselves within society. The argument was that American Indians tend to reestablish already existing traditional roles within their historical communities. Two-Spirited folx tend to seek those roles that continue to keep traditional identities alive. In some AI communities your work and/or spiritual essence for example determine your gender. There are also more than just two genders in many AI traditional communities. So there are not just a variance of gender possibilities within these communities but there are also already prescribed roles for each of these genders, not just validating their identities but also incorporating them as functioning members of society (in many instances as medicine people and mediators between genders in community and marriage disputes for example). So their identities include more than just sexual desire (don't you hate it when people assume or think that your sexual identity is EVERYTHING you are?). So today American Indians many times choose to reassert themselves into their communities as opposed to negating themselves from it.

The Third Gender idea tends to separate the experience of gender variance away from one's community. I understand too that communities that have internalized oppressive western notions of heteronormativity perpetuate this by marginalizing those who do not fall into those assumed norms. Also many American Indian communities have interalized these norms themselves and marginalize their own community members, so this is not to say that all Two-Spirited folx have it that easy (sometimes they leave the rez in fear of physical attacks). But the reason this topic interests me is two things:

One: Finding solutions by encouraging our communities to understand how heteronormativity is a tool of oppression that we have internalized among all the other stuff, which in turn usually corelate to heteronormativity itself (sexism, patriarchy, sexual assault and its assertion of power, ect). We should understand that discarding heteronormative ideals is a healing process, not just for those who exist outside of the western gender binary and those who feel sexual desire for not just/other than those of the opposite gender, but for the whole community. Perhaps if heteronormative values and messages were non-existent our youth would grow up with more options of self-identity and less emotional/psychological complexes.

Two: (Not that "one" doesn't apply to this group because it does.) The tendency for white Third Gender folx to pretend that because they don't identify within the gender binary that they qualify for exemption from white privilege. I don't see many Third Gender white folx doing much work around understanding and eradicating white supremacy/racism and white privilege. Instead of taking the idea of reasserting themselves into their communities and initiating healing processes, I see the tendency to disown and deny any historical access to white privilege and create a separate "race" of people they consider to be right alongside the historical exprience of people of color. Of course this does not apply to ALL Third Gender white folx (because I know some myself that are doing anti-white supremacy work) but I would like to see those numbers grow.

Well here is a link to one of the articles we read on Two-Spirit folx in American Indian communities.. Hope this topic gets folx thinking as well.. http://eres.sfsu.edu/eres/docs/20259/ais_420_f8_1.pdf

Tigera

Integration vs Cultural Autonomy

So I'm really annoyed lately with the way this conversation is going between my Urban Poverty teacher (white female) and I both outside of and during class. We are talking about the concentration of poverty and racial segragation. To her, the only two solutions is to either move people with higher income into the low income neighborhoods and/or move poor folx into the high income suburbs. The whole conversation seems to be centered around the fact that brown and black folx living in their own communities is a bad idea. Of course she uses numbers to show that places that have been integrated have had higher employment rates and better academic achievement than when they were in racially segregated neighborhoods. What's my beef?

This issue as I see it is that communities of color are constantly targeted for budget cuts and cutbacks in services, historically. It is the LACK OF RESOURCES and economic marginalization that causes concentrated poverty, not "too many black/brown folx in one neighborhood." I make the argument that integration produces cultural genocide as the assimilation and removal acts did for American Indians. Same shit. I see it happen, comming from Harlem. Gentrification: move the white yuppies in and the character of the community changes, the grocery store that had collard greens closed down, platanoes cost more and you have to go further to do grocery shoppin, you get looks for kickin it on your own stoop on hot summer days, all the mom and pop spots that have been trying to survive are wiped out ect. ect.. So of course if you live in a "white" neighborhood and go to a "white" school and become assimilated to speaking "white" and thinking "white" you're gonna become successful in a white-value dominated society...(of course though they wont let too many non-white whites get too many crumbs). What the numbers DON'T tell you is the cultural affect of moving into a white suburb or having your neighborhood gentrified... Who's perspective are we looking at when we say that integration has been "successful"? My nephews who relocated into Orlando don't speak a lick of spanish and eat microwaved macaroni and cheese more often than rice and beans. I don't get to see them often and I haven't had a chance to be a part of their lives. How can moving people away from their homes be a good thing if it separates families and weakens community ties? Why should we buy into the american-way individualistic way of living? Should we not have the choice to live in healthy communities of our own? Call me a separatist, sure, but there's nothing about being a separatist that means we can't work in solidarity with other groups who share a common history, so there ain't nothing wrong with being one. My point though is that our cultural autonomy is being challenged with conversations about "culture of poverty" or more like victim blaming instead of looking at the structural flaws.

So what do other folx think? Integration or Cultural Autonomy/Separatism
Should we not decide within our own communities how economics should function, what kind of schooling our youngsters recieve, what kinds of employment will be available to us (meaningful shit, like entreprenuerial work, culturally appropriate and mind stimulating work, not factory or copymachine housekeeping corporate work), how the physical structure of our communities should fit our lifestyles, and what kinds of policies will benefit us most?