Quirky Black Girls

The Real Housewives of The Help Go to Africa

2012-01-30T10:53:00.001-08:00

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The Real Housewives of The Help Go to Africa

via my best friend gayle by summer of sam on 1/30/12

Hollywood is so full of liberal do-gooders always on the cutting edge. As such, in advance of Black History Month, they have bestowed many acting awards upon members of the cast of The Help, namely Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, who both won SAG Awards last night.

Perhaps it was because the embarrassingly entertaining Real Housewives of Atlanta happened to be arguing about how to properly acknowledge one another at the mall at the same time the SAG Awards aired, but Twitter responses to Marlo's desire to eat some African (it's a country, you know) food like fish (what she order?/fish filet?) were briefly interrupted by folks going on and on about the greatness of Viola Davis' acceptance speech. My allegiances are to RHOA, so I googled the speech. Davis looked really nice (those Bassett-esque arms!). Her professional community gave her a standing ovation. She talked about dreams. Shouted out Cicely Tyson and Meryl Streep.

If my feed was any indication, (Black) Twitter really loved this moment. When the most sensible member of RHOA has to be fed a line about apartheid, I can understand the adulation. Juxtaposition compels one to do odd things.

But wait.

Weren't we just mad about this movie three months ago?

Although I tend to think I have the ability to understand contradiction, I'm having some difficulty comprehending the collective embrace of this ambiguity. Many of us criticized--or refused to read--the book. Many of us criticized--or refused to see--the movie. Yet, we laud the speech of an actor who has become a critical darling and gives a speech we deem "brilliant," "wonderful," and "beautiful," precisely because she starred in the very film that we so stringently derided? Um, how does that work?

Perhaps it was the fact that I experienced all of this through social media, but the RHOA/SAG Awards moment was so incredibly odd. On one hand, I'm reading tweets about how embarrassing the former is--a humiliation so integrally tied to context. The twitterati's chagrin was so palpable, you would have thought Nelson Mandela was within earshot of Sheree and Marlo's argument. After all, the RHOA are up to their usual weekly shenanigans, but it's the fact that they're in an apartment in South Africa that makes it all the worse. And we all know you don't play with Africa. It's the Motherland! From whence we came! No jokes nor (n)ignorance allowed. Serious business. Singular and serious focus is required at all times. So much so that we cannot possibly begin to unpack the way in which that kind of grave reverence is based upon a fetishization that is just as problematic as Cynthia's dashiki or Kandi's chosen animal print dress for evening festivities. On the other hand, voices from the same cohort praised Viola Davis' speech. An admiration that required a willing forgetfulness of the vehicle which brought her and her co-star, Octavia Spencer, to that stage last night. An admiration totally divorced from that context. Convenient, really. Inconsistent, truly.

Davis and Spencer are both incredible actors whose talent demands that they consistently star in--and be awarded for--performances that do not require the revivification of old stereotypes. And if it is our claim that Hollywood needs to do better, I'm not sure how we applaud acceptance speeches that don't begin with, "Damn, it sucks who I had to play to get this..." Context is everything. And it is not a convenience. We cannot cringe at the thought that @BravoAndy has watched and will be commenting upon Negroes acting crazy for our entertainment with some Hollywood celebrities (or the owners of RHOA resident house slave, Sweetie, for last night's episode) after we've stopped shaking our heads, then not feel similarly nauseated by the visual of a room full of (white) Hollywood standing and applauding our latest pitch-perfect portrayal of a maid--even if she is dressed to the nines.

Despite the implications of that last line, I say that with a deep respect for Viola Davis' dream and her ability as an actor. My comments, though inspired by, are not about her. But how we applaud her acceptance speech without giving her at least a little Sam Jackson Face is something that perplexes me. (Unless, of course, it's because we had a sneaking suspicion that someone had to tell Mo'Nique who Hattie McDaniel was, and we assumed Viola Davis knew her history all along.)

Clarity regarding the matter would be greatly appreciated.

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The World Can Wait

2012-01-30T04:27:00.001-08:00

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The World Can Wait

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by moyazb on 1/30/12

Cis and trans* women of color do a lot of work that they don't get paid for. Work at home, work at work, work in our communities, everywhere really. And a lot of it is done out of love. Love for our communities, love for our lovers, and things/people we believe in.There's a saying, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and it has always missed the mark for me because it assumes that we would and do treat ourselves well. Women of color don't always do that. We have a well documented history of doing for others before we do for ourselves. This self-sacrificing martyrdom has its consequences but I'm really interested in the impact it has on each of us.

It seems like we expend so much energy helping and saving others, we have nothing left for ourselves. I see too many of us feed everyone else and forget to eat. In the case of this blog, I've seen us use a lot of energy dealing with negative comments and backlash, finding and becoming resources for those who ask, then end up with little time or reserves left to support each other.

I take inventory from time to time of what posts get the most attention on the blog. Pop culture posts and even more specifically, moments in pop culture when white women do racist things or black men do sexist things get folks all atwitter. To me, this speaks to the gendered racism and racialized sexism that impact many of the cis women of color bloggers here. These posts that rise from our particular stand point are often the ones where we have to do the most work, reminding folks that no, this is not a post racial world and gender, race, and sex are always at work in complex ways. And we want so badly for folks to get it, that we neglect each other and ourselves in the process.

I think because we are so used to an embattled position with folks who wield power over us, we cut corners and are sometimes less patient/more careless with each other. As of late the CFC has taken some hits from other women of color, some deserved, some not, about what and how we write here. I've seen moments of real opportunity for engagement squelched by reactionary stances. I look for models of fierce and loving critique between women of color and I'm saddened by how rare it seems to be.

As I check my own willingness to hear the hard truths about myself, I see another connection to my thoughts about women of color's labor in the world. Why is it that my self-care to do list is the shortest and the last one I get to? Why do I expend more energy trying to make people understand rather than giving that time to the people who show up for me? Why do I lay claim to allyship when I'm too busy to be present in the ways people ask me to? Honestly, I think I find it easier to deal with someone else's stuff than my own.

Racism, sexism, queer hate? I know how to handle those. I've got my arsenal of feminists theory and lived experience to take them down. By dealing with the world, I can avoid my own places of privilege or the stickiness of issues that don't have such clear power differentials in my life. In an age where internet courage can allow you to rail at any deemed threat through a screen, we still have trouble saying the hard things to the people who are closest to us.

But I want to do better. For me that means not using the continued assaults on marginalized people writ large to shirk my own accountability to myself and fellow marginalized folks who I claim to love. It also means not expending inordinate amounts of energy on people who have no interest in my well-being because it impacts my ability to be there for the folks who love me.So, I'm adopting a new (for me) and modified mantra:

Me and mine first.

The self-care list gets checked first. The work I need to do for myself is next. Then comes the family/friends/loved ones.

The world can wait.

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Scrying Nicki Minaj, Stupid Hoe, and #Afrofutures

2012-01-29T18:39:00.001-08:00

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Scrying Nicki Minaj, Stupid Hoe, and #Afrofutures

via Nuñez Daughter by Kismet Nuñez on 1/29/12

If a video drops in a forest of things that seem to matter a lot–like fingers waving in presidential faces and self-deportation–does sit make a sound?

Nicki Minaj dropped "Stupid Hoe" last week.

Maybe I'm too old to have my thumb on the relevant spaces in the interwebs, but it seems like the video barely caused a buzz. Responses from Jezebel, Clutch, and Vibe were mainly negative, complaining about Minaj's use of animalistic imagery, neon colors and her less than creative wordplay. Black feminists offered mainly negative critique for obvious and perfectly legitimate reasons. Minaj's challenge to "stupid hoes" included a reference to "nappy-headed hoes" and images of a pale, plastic, Venus Hottentot Barbie.

Me? Minaj hurts my head. She perplexes me. I think of her as Trickster, two-faced in her betrayal of global black feminist possibility and powerful in her contradictory elucidation of black woman's power within the realms of celebrity and hip hop. Reading her as Ellegua, that frightful guardian of the crossroads and the in-between and the everything-that-is-not-yet seems to fit an artist who switches alter egos as easily as she switches clothes. Conjuring the ritual and physicality of possession seems to fit a celebrity who changes clothes as she changes personality, putting on her and taking off her tropes as each personality comes down. The sometimes garish, sometimes delightful carnival of color, glitter and expression–even the repetitive dancehall/house music refrain–also fit a woman whose aesthetic choices continually find their footing in her Trinidadian roots.

In other words, I think of Nicki Minaj as diasporic black, as radical, and as speculative.

A week ago, I would have said she is also afrofuturistic. There is something otherworldly about her ability to pick up and put down masks and characters. It's more than just having a stage persona. It's something I see as rooted in a longer black experience of contending with mainstream politics and culture, both of which prefer black female presenting people fit neatly into particular boxes. Those boxes come in different shapes and sizes. Some are just bodies, but with bionic booties for your jiggling pleasure. Others are all-knowing Mammies with wisdom for latently racist white girls. Still others are cruel, pray-the-gay evangelicals with anger written in hard lines across their faces.

A black gyrl can't walk out the house these days without falling into one of these boxes. Hell, with Oscar season on top of us, we've seen all of these stereotypes appear in the media, one right after the other, at one point or another, just over the last few weeks.

But I'd argue we've never seen anything like Nicki Minaj–or at least nothing like Minaj and her alters. What she represents, yes even in all of her problematics and misogyny, what she represents is a black gyrl who has chosen. She knows she can't walk out the house without falling into one of several boxes. Which is fine by her because she has a walk-in closet full of handcrafted masks, carved, of course, in the raw material caking the bottom of our worst stereotypes (let's not be wasteful, yall). And she has decorated and bedazzled and glitter-taped them all and those masks are no longer theirs or yours but her own. And she doesn't walk out of the house; oh no. She skips or saunters or "twerks and spins away" according to whichever personality she has decided to put on her head.

I think this is why, in an epic conversation on Twitter with (Kima) @sweat_btwn, (Summer) @fecundmellow, @zero317, @AfroFuturAffair, and (Treva Lindsey) @divafeminist (the conversation, Storified here in full by @sweat_btwn, read away), I suggested Minaj could be read as afrofuturistic. The conversation that ensued was amazing and hinged on clarifying and articulating what afrofuturism is.

For some of us, to be afrofuturistic meant more than aesthetics or appearance. It meant contributing to a specific political project part of whose purpose was, in Kima's words:

"abt a politicized body with a specific gaze toward building multiple blk communities in the beyond–beyond the scope of patriarchy or capitalism or racism."

Octavia Butler was the patron of this powerful vision, key being her ability to articulate the potential of the beyond–and its dangers. And the ability to imagine and move beyond this world, into other realms, was crucial.

For others, the aesthetics actually were of importance, as was the potential for Minaj to inspire a particular vision, and the right of readers/viewers/fans to use Minaj's project as inspiration for their own afrofuturescapes. As @AfroFuturistAffair noted:

"…it is political but it is also aesthetics and imagery. she may fit in that sense…"

The conversation lasted for hours, with people coming in and out. And I hope it continues.

Because I think I'm on the fence now as to whether Minaj is afrofuturistic. That afrofuturism must be beyond-this-world is valid as shit. Whether that means into outer space or into the underworld, to be afrofuturistic means being self-aware about what the next day or days will hold–even if the next day or days will be the end of days. To the extent that Minaj or her alters have a specific gaze toward the future is questionable.

But the underlying assumption behind this definition of afrofuturism is that time is linear and revelatory. It speaks to a conception of time that is Anglo-black in its ideal and Judeo-Islamic-Christian in its eloquence. Time soon come. Time will be here. The time is now.

What if the underlying assumption behind this definition of afrofuturism was challenged? What if, instead of black life and thought (and future) existing in time and on straight, if intersecting, lines–what if it curved? Webbed? What if you wore time on your person so that instead of the time is now, time IS now, and then, and later. What if the moment you are living here is being written of as the moment that will happen and the moment you are just past?

I opened the Storify by saying I see Minaj and moments like these as an afrofuturista. I do. But I'm also a radical womyn of color who sees the future through the lens of Afrolatinidad. Latinidad has less room for linear time in its conception of the future. Infused with indigenous elements, the future is happening now and has happened already. Speculative latinidad, in some ways, is about the inability of being able to call the future what it is, or send the past back. So that something like "Long Time Ago" by Leslie Marmon Silko (poet and author of Laguno, Pueblo, Mexican, white descent) can resonate as cautionary, prophetic and preemptive all at once:

It's already turned loose.
It's already coming.
It can't be called back.

While speculative latinidad is often placed in the category of magical realism, I wonder if it is also futurist. I wonder if it's just that speculative/futurist latinidad imaginings are as much about the past as they are about the future. And if that's the case, and if afrofuturist imaginings are as much about the future as they are about the present, I wonder what Afrolatinidad looks like?

In other words, preoccupied with the slaveholding past and concerned about the racialized future, does an afrofuturist latinidad live at the crossroads between magical realist latinidad and the Afrofuture?*

Engaging with Minaj (and for my black-Puerto Rican, Chicago house music self, this also means engaging with the Caribbean characteristics in her work) forces me to consider ways afrofuturism can include magical realist latinidad and vice versa. Earlier I said I was on the fence on whether Minaj is afrofuturistic. Why? Because she is still very much about, as Summer noted, a hyperhyperpresent, her caricatures being as much about mirroring our own stereotypes as they are about her self-representation. Hottentot Venus Barbie aside, she also does not seem to be concerned with reevaluating the past-as-prophecy (unless in the Story of Female Emcees Past). In other words, she is espousing neither a dream nor a nightmare of the future.

But what if she isn't supposed to be the vision?

What if she is just the oracle? The vessel? A portent of things to come?

What if she is just the keeper of the crossroads?

She may be what lives at the crossroads between magical realist latinidad and the Afrofuture. Well, mira, not her (praise Gawd). But oracle work, scrying, divination. All making the act of and attempt to see the future just as important as the past-future seen. The moment in the present before the past and future separate and becomes siblings as #relevant.

What if at the heart of an afrofuturist latinidad/futurist afrolatinidad is good, ole Second Sight? And #Obatala?

*Which of course is a project to superimpose ON TOP of pushing latinidad itself to include its own black and African elements.

Filed under: Speak Your Mind, TechnoAfrocats, The Sable Fan Girl, Turn the Volume Up Tagged: afrofuturism, black feminists, bodies, catch a fire, diaspora, feminism, guardian of the crossroads, inspiration, latinegros, media, music, race and racism, rwoc, sex, still brave, TechnoAfrocats, venus hottentot, video

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Teach-In - Stand in Solidarity with Tucson

2012-01-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

Greetings Good Folks,

I am writing on behalf of Georgians for Freadom, a new collaborative effort designed to respond to the ethnic studies ban in Arizona. We are interested in planning a "Teach In" to educate teachers, students, professors, and community members in Georgia about the AZ ban and about how Georgians can respond. We are a collective of faculty, graduate students, and teachers from Georgia State University, Emory University, Clayton State University, Kennesaw University, and metro Atlanta districts.

Our event is scheduled for February 4th from 11:00am through 2:00pm at Georgia State University's College of Education. For those of you not in Atlanta or unable to be there with us next Saturday, we will be streaming the Teach-In live, and we are encouraging folks around the country to organize gatherings to watch the stream, discuss, and plan local action. I will forward the url for our live stream once we get it.

We are interested in your support for this event and hope you can consider our request.

Overview of Issue:
As you have probably seen, the Tucson Unified School District in Arizona just banned Mexican American studies from their curriculum. They also banned several books from the curriculum, including Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, major contributions to the Chicano(a) studies movement, a book by Rethinking Schools, several books by Sherman Alexie, Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities, and even Shakespeare. Teachers may now not teach anything where "race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes." Here's a brief overview if you haven't heard about it yet: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest Our Teach-In was even highlighted in Huffington Post yesterday!!: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/arizona-unbound_b_1232285.html

Overview of our "Teach In":
Attendees will gather for a general session in which we will introduce them to the events in Arizona and the implications for Georgia educators. We have already confirmed four "virtual" guest speakers whose books have been banned in Tucson. These well-known speakers will share their backgrounds and information with the audience. A lunch break will lead into three smaller sessions.

These three groups will include: (1) curricular action, in which participants create lesson plans and activities for PK-12 students on issues of censorship, critical pedagogy, and/or Mexican American history; (2) censored books dialogue, in which participants learn about the books that were banned and the theories contained within them; and (3) legislative overview, in which participants discuss legal implications of the ban in Arizona and around the country. Finally, the group will come back together and discuss responses for higher education, PK-12 schools, and community settings.

How you can help:
In order to proceed with our goals and plans, I hope you can attend the event, spread the word, and let me know if you and/or the organizations for/with whom you work/volunteer/engage in struggles for social justice can offer financial support.

As we need to move quickly on the plans for the event, we hope to hear from you soon. Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

In peace,
Jillian Ford, on behalf of Georgians for Freadom

--
HELPED are those who receive only to give; always in their house will be the circular energy of generosity; and in their hearts a beginning of a new age on Earth: when no keys will be needed to unlock the heart and no locks will be needed on the doors. ~The Gospel According to Shug [Avery]

I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way. Or not. AKA I heart Mir...

2012-01-25T06:57:00.001-08:00

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I'm on the right track, baby, I was born this way. Or not. AKA I heart Miranda Hobbes

via QueerBlackFeminist by andreana clay on 1/24/12

I'm just going to come out and tell you right now that I watch endless reruns of Sex and the City. And I'm not ashamed. I have lots of guilty pleasure TV, but Sex and the City is something I will turn on when I'm working, bored, whatever and watch, even if I've seen the episode. Like, five times. Of all the characters, Miranda was, is, my favorite (although the whole 'I'm going to date a Black man, Robert, and NEVER talk about race cause he's just great!' pushed my limits). And, given that the actress that played her, Cynthia Nixon, is apparently as outspoken as her character was, Miranda will always reign supreme.

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Obama Comes to Harlem

2012-01-23T06:44:00.001-08:00

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Obama Comes to Harlem

via Black Youth Project by Summer M. on 1/23/12

Late last week I caught a little flack for hatin' on Obama's incredibly brief rendition of the Rev. Al Green's classic, "Let's Stay Together." I'm sure you've seen the clip. If not, here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6uHR90Sq6k I hear he gave a speech after hitting the falsetto. Of course, that's not the impression one would get. Those 55 [...]

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What would the World be Like if all Little Black Girls Were Treated Like Ms....

2012-01-20T13:15:00.001-08:00

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What would the World be Like if all Little Black Girls Were Treated Like Ms. Blue Ivy Carter

via Black Youth Project by Fallon on 1/20/12

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR9NNyT5yEA What if we treated every little girl of color like we treat Ms. Blue Ivy Carter? What would the world be like if everyone in the world waited with breath held for every little girl of color Spirit to divinely make their grand entree into this world because as Jay Z so methodically rapped [...]

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When the Shit Hits the Fan: On the “Shit [People] Say” meme and why it matters

2012-01-18T07:21:00.001-08:00

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When the Shit Hits the Fan: On the “Shit [People] Say” meme and why it matters

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by moyazb on 1/17/12

In case you missed it, there's a new meme on the block and its kind of my favorite thing ever! The video that got things started, Shit (white) Girls Say, makes up for its own lacklusterness with the brilliance that it inspired. I have to admit, it's been a while since I've been around groups of straight white women to know if those characterizations are true or not, but it smacked of sexism that made me think it's more projection than accurate performance. It was followed by Shit Black Girls Say which failed to capture the things I say as a Black girl. These weren't simply reflections of "shit girls say" but a demographic of straight white and black women with a particular class background. The infantilizing title aside, "Shit Girls Say" poke fun at women through the use of the male gaze.

I realized what didn't make these funny to me was exactly what made the ones that came after them work so well: Privilege, or rather the lack there of. The power differential in "Shit Girls Say" is skewed. Men dragging women and parodying what they believe to be their words as marginalized people in society has significant limits. In contrast, the videos that have marginalized folks speaking for themselves and back to the power structure by simply repeating the privilege denying questions and statements they field, are solid gold!

None has more fully made its way around the Interwebs than Shit White Girls Say… to Black Girls. I have heard every one of those statements. And according to facebook, so have many many of my friends. Comedian Franchesca Ramsey brilliantly pulls the meme out of patriarchal hands and creates the opportunity for folks to see and hear privilege in action. Her appearance on Anderson discussing her viral video actually underscored many of her points. Anderson was shocked an awed that she had experienced what she described in the video and the sad truth that many white people still don't know what racism means came to the fore.

Shit White Girls Say… to Black Girls begat so many gems:

the list goes on. A friend on facebook quipped, "I'm almost starting to feel sorry for white girls. almost." And that got me to thinking about the limits of this meme.Laughing at the ridiculously offensive things that white women say to women of color is one thing but it's much harder to laugh at the threats of violence that are often embedded in the things white men say to women of color. Watching Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls didn't make me laugh it made me sad and it made me pause and think seriously again about power differentials across axes of color and gender.

Watching Shit People say to Native Americans left my heart feeling heavy. Shit Black Guys Say did make me chuckle but again, my laughs were stifled by the dishonesty directed at female partners laid bare (I was super excited to see a comedian favorite of mine from my favorite web video ever). Shit gets real and not very funny when the power differential is wide.

And as much as I love the witty way that people are speaking back to oppression through this meme, I realized that some conversations are just too fraught to be distilled in this way. I started to think about conversations amongst different "girls" of color, what a Shit Black Girls say to Arab Girls (or vice versa) might look like. I don't think that this format could hold the complexity of such a conversation and it definitely couldn't be the one sided, question/statement only nature that these videos suggest. But now as the meme starts to peter (maybe?), we might be open to thinking about conversations and exchanges amongst the margins and how that might shift the camera lens.

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Scholarship applications for student activists available

2012-01-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

Student activist scholarship application available

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Please distribute widely

ATTENTION STUDENT ACTIVISTS!

Are you organizing for progressive social change? Leading student movements on your campus or in your community? If so, read on.

The Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund has applications available for student activists who are building progressive movements for social change and will be enrolled in school during the 2012-13 academic year. Our website provides answers to questions about the Fund, the application process, and the students we support. If you know of students working for peace and justice, or if you have a list of activist contacts, please send this announcement along and refer potential applicants to the Fund's website: www.davisputter.org.

Since 1961 the Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund has provided need-based grants to students who are involved in building movements for social and economic justice and are able to do academic work at the college level. Grantees are both graduates and undergraduates enrolled in accredited schools for the period covered by their grant. Although citizenship is not a consideration, applicants must be participating in activities in the US and plan to enroll in an accredited program in the US in order to qualify.

The maximum grant is $10,000 and may be considerably smaller depending on the applicant's circumstances and the funding available. All the funds come from individual donors and there are 25-30 grants awarded each year. Grants are for one year although students may re-apply for subsequent years.

Applications and the supporting documents -- transcripts, a personal statement, two letters of recommendation, a photograph, financial aid reports -- must be postmarked by April 1, 2012. Those selected to receive a grant will be notified in July.

In solidarity,

Carol J. Kraemer
Director
Davis-Putter Scholarship Fund
www.davisputter.org

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We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most...

2012-01-16T16:10:00.001-08:00

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We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most...

via Liquor&Spice on 1/16/12

We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most skills and those who know how to manipulate the system. But also for and with those who often have so much to give but never get the opportunity. - Dorothy L. Height

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Latoya by Alan Coulson 2011.This is...

2012-01-12T07:37:00.001-08:00

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Latoya by Alan Coulson 2011. This is...

via the gang's all QUEER on 1/11/12

Latoya by Alan Coulson 2011.

This is stunning.

(via tea-and-blackfigs, via @bklynboihood)

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rhivolution:saathi1013:Found her! BlackBettie on...

2012-01-12T07:36:00.001-08:00

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rhivolution: saathi1013: Found her! BlackBettie on...

via mosaic on 1/11/12

rhivolution:

saathi1013:

Found her! BlackBettie on DeviantArt.

And ohmigosh, I LOVE ALL OF THIS. I couldn't settle on just one pic from her gallery, so HAVE A PICSPAM. :D

Wow. WOW. She is AMAZING.

[Images of a black feminine person dressed in various steampunk outfits, predominantly involving machine repair. amaze.]

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lgbtlaughs:[edited ‘Clean all the Things!’ Hyperbole and a...

2012-01-12T07:33:00.001-08:00

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lgbtlaughs: [edited ‘Clean all the Things!’ Hyperbole and a...

via freedom fighter. on 1/11/12

lgbtlaughs:

[edited 'Clean all the Things!' Hyperbole and a Half image: "support trans girl scouts - buy all the cookies!"]

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madonnawhorereject:This picture is too badass OH LOOK!...

2012-01-12T07:32:00.001-08:00

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madonnawhorereject: This picture is too badass OH LOOK!...

via Liquor&Spice on 1/11/12

madonnawhorereject:

This picture is too badass

OH LOOK! I'MA REBLOG IT AGAIN!!! Anybody know homegirl's name? Cuz she wins life.

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deejaybird:“Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning...

2012-01-10T12:28:00.001-08:00

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deejaybird: “Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning...

via The CFC on 1/10/12

deejaybird:

"Uhura" comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning "freedom". Uhura was pretty much the first ever black main character on American television who was not a maid or a domestic servant in 1966. TV network NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a "day worker," but still included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, and it was kept secret from the other actors, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols, constantly trying to pare down her screen time, purposefully dropping racist comments in her presence and even withholding her fan mail from her.This deplorable state of affairs led Nichols to make the decision to quit after the 1st season, but then she happened to meet the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who pleaded with her to stick with the show because as a Black woman she was portraying the first non-stereotypical role on television. I had a crush on Uhura as a kid. LOL.

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a request

2012-01-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

hello, hello,

I am writing you with a simple request (the kind that i am sad to say have become rather common these days) but I am hoping that you will take it very seriously and be willing to help.

A long time friend of mine in North Carolina, Victor de la Cruz, was randomly targeted by police and picked up to be deported back to Mexico(he was stopped while driving home from work). I have known Victor and his siblings since they were kids. I would take them around Durham, to go rollerskating and to my house to watch movies. He has not lived in Mexico since he was a child and his life and family are in the U.S.

His story is described briefly in the link below, with information on how you can sign a petition for his release

http://action.dreamactivist.org/ncvictor

We desperately need people to sign this petition on Victor's behalf (which takes no more than 30 seconds) and also he needs at least 100 phone calls to come in, his sister tells me. This is a small thing that is sometimes hard to do, but I would be so grateful if you were moved by my request to call and help my good friends in this nightmare of a situation.

There is even a script to follow, but it makes a big difference in terms of our bearing witness to this type of state violence against law-abiding members of our society. "Dream Act" youth are kids whose parents brought them here. They are not criminals. Victor is a hardworking, sweet father of 3 young children and needs to be home with them.

It is truly heartbreaking for me to see this happen to my friends who have been like family to me for almost two decades. But this issue will continue to hit home for all of us: Immigration and issues of borders affect us all in the world we live in today, state violence (such as locking up tax-paying NC residents for driving while Latino, and separating parents from their US citizen children) is something to which we must loudly object.

Thank you in advance for any time you can give to this.

Sending much love to you all in the new year,

Rachel

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. ~ Lorraine Hansberry

Y'all...

2012-01-09T15:14:00.001-08:00

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Y'all...

via Liquor&Spice on 1/9/12

Why did you let me click over to the Irrational Black Woman blog???? WHY????

Like…a third of the posts are some form of "Black woman does a thing, GETS MAD WHEN SHE GETS HIT." Complete with a gif of the words "hit me" and a dude shoving a woman to the ground. Basically it's just a circle jerk of justifications for the violence Black women experience. There's also plenty versions of "She wore a thing, got made when she got attention." And I think it's very interesting how they use the word "attention" instead of groped/threatened/assaulted/grabbed…. Not that I expect men to accurately portray the violence they commit against us. Ugh. Whatever.

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Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls” | Clutch Ma...

2012-01-09T15:13:00.001-08:00

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Not Everyone’s Laughing At “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls” | Clutch Magazine

via New Model Minority by newmodelminorityarchive on 1/9/12

Not Everyone's Laughing At "Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls" | Clutch Magazine:

ancestryinprogress:

dumbthingswhitepplsay:

eshusplayground:

White Women's Tears over the "Shit White Girls" video. Not like nobody was expecting it.

But I do wonder why there are suddenly all these criticisms of the video being sexist when it's blatantly stated to be a parody of the "Stuff Girls" video(s). But I suppose when Black women do it, it becomes magically MORE sexist than when men (of any race) do it.

Er, OK.

lol every time white women don't like something black women do they blame it on misogyny.

because errybody knows that you're either black OR a woman, no one ever is both!

shekinah glooooory. you betta SAY that riley.

I'm so SICK of being made invisible by people. Can't be black and queer. Can't be black and female. Can't be black and non-religious. Like, what the fuck? I need some of y'all to have a fucking seat.

Again. "I'm so SICK of being made invisible by people. Can't be black and queer. Can't be black and female. Can't be black and non-religious. Like, what the fuck? I need some of y'all to have a fucking seat." #Done.

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Toure's Northern State of Mind*

2012-01-09T09:49:00.001-08:00

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Toure's Northern State of Mind*

via my best friend gayle by summer of sam on 1/9/12

A few weeks ago, writer slash (cultural) critic slash Twitter all-star, Toure published a piece in the The New York Times about the allegedly recent flurry of white women rappers. From rehashing black respectability in an article about Michael Vick, to considering the black middle class in a discussion of the Obamas' vacationing tendencies, Toure is no stranger to writing incendiary and ill-conceived articles. And this latest work is no different. Like the ones before them, this story generated a considerable amount of discussion on Twitter and other social media outlets where anyone with an internet connection can articulate her beef.

In the piece, Toure argues that even within a genre considered so hypermasculine and black, the combination of the largely white male demographic that listens to rap music and Americans' overall obsession with blondes indicates that eventually--perhaps even soon and very soon--a white woman rapper or several will garner mainstream attention. Toure then goes on to list a small group of white women emcees who have gained some notoriety on the web.

Of course many took ~~the bait~~ issue with Toure's article and his list. Some showed concern over the fact that he ignored a slew of white women rappers, such as Detroit's Invincible, who have been around since before a Twitterfeed and a YouTube channel was all one needed to become famous. Others scoffed at his vehement reluctance to acknowledge black women rhymers in any sustained manner. I have no similar beef. The problem with Toure's work here, as I see it, is the position he has to adopt in order to make this subject matter even remotely interesting--or infuriating--to readers. In the preamble to the list, Toure writes:

There is nothing about the skills required to be an M.C. that makes it impossible for white women to rhyme. It's not that their mouths can't do it. The true barrier to entry is that there is an essence at the center of hip-hop that white women have an extraordinarily hard time exuding or even copying. For many Americans, black male rappers are entrancing because they give off a sense of black masculine power — that sense of strength, ego and menace that derives from being part of the street — or because of the seductive display of black male cool.

Black women and white men who have been successful in hip-hop have found ways to embody those senses and make them their own. But hip-hop coming from a white woman is almost always an immediate joke. Take Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, showing how much she loves hip-hop by earnestly rhyming the lyrics to N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" on a British television show or Natalie Portman furiously spitting rhymes ingangsta-rap style on "Saturday Night Live."
As soon as white women start rhyming, no matter what they say, it's seen as cute and comical, like a cat walking on its hind legs. Seeing them try to embody the attributes of hip-hop's vision of black masculinity is a hysterical gender disjunction: they wear it as convincingly as a woman wearing her husband's clothes.

A (re)phrasing of the assumptions made in this argument are in order. And I understand it as this: The premise of the entire article is the reification of racialized gender stereotypes in order to delineate the kind of aural and visual dissonance that seeing a white female rapper compels in the viewer. In order words, white women have to be understood as the apotheosis of American cultural femininity in order for this article to be at all "interesting." White men can quasi-access this (black) male masculinity because they are men. Black women can almost gain entrance because they've been emasculating black men for centuries, as the story goes, so their appearance in the hip-hop cosmos, if I may borrow Toure's language, isn't at all worth note. So although I appreciate those who want to teach Toure his white female emcee history or call him out for his ignoring and utter disrespect for black women--again--in this case, I think those critiques miss a central and problematic point.

This article is remarkable precisely because it relies on and echos a problematic understanding of black maleness and gender roles that black women have never really had access to--and frankly, why would they want to?--in order to be noteworthy. So Toure's dismissal of black women, it seems, is less about his dislike, but more about his implicit rehashing of damaging stereotypes in order to justify a thousand words on white female rappers. Gwyneth Paltrow's recitation of NWA is funny and "cute" only if we interpret her as an ideal example of femininity and female beauty articulating a language that is thoroughly antithetical to her physicality and our understanding of her social position. Our laughter ceases, however, when we realize what such chuckles would require us to think of white women, black men, and everyone in between. It's all very Soul on Ice if you ask me (see: "The Allegory of the Black Eunuchs"). This is why Invincible, those unnamed black women rappers, et. al. don't make the cut: they're not feminine in the way Toure needs them to be.

I bring all of this up not simply to knock Toure's hustle--and a hustle it is--or take it as another opportunity to call him out for the way his antagonism toward black women is always present just underneath the surface (as exemplified here). Nor is my desire to note how un-post-black (whatever that means) Toure's work often seems despite his recent book. Rather, I wanted mark this latest moment because Toure seems to be mainstream media's latest black "it" guy. He's evolved from that crazy Afro dude who wrote that one article about Lauryn Hill and appeared on all those Vh1 shows, to a suit rocking commentator with expertise enough to explain racism in sports and moderate some topic of discussion involving black people in a city near you. Folks, this is the latest guy charged with explaining black people, black culture to the masses. Yet as fresh as his face might be to many, it seems that this jack of all trades has simply repackaged an ever-problematic understanding of the way race and gender work.
So retweet and quote him if you want to, consider him your Twitter guide to all things black and relevant, but remember that it's all the same song. A misogynistic and un-nuanced notion of blackness refrain that should grate upon your ears more than his voice does. #justsayin

*FYI: Northern State

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The Zine is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-01-09T07:08:00.001-08:00

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The Zine is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

via Shawty Got Skillz by crunkfeministcollective on 1/9/12

For those of you who made this possible the zine is finally here!!! Folks who contributed funds, you should get your 'Zine electronically this week! We can provide other formats as needed!

xoxo,

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Go See Pariah!!!

2012-01-06T09:06:00.001-08:00

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Go See Pariah!!!

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by moyazb on 1/6/12

I've been trying to write a review for the movie Pariah for a while now but I can't write anything that conveys what this film accomplishes. For those who need to know about the film before you see it, read Summer M.'s take and the review by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan at the Feminist Wire. Brilliant commentary (and Spoilers, FYI).

What I really want to talk about is the power of showing ~~out~~ up for art that creates new narratives and provides another lens on worlds that we don't often get to see centered on the big screen. As much as I despise Tyler Perry's films, I appreciate people's willingness to pay for what they want to see and go out en masse premiere weekend. His audiences' loyalty is what allows him to continue to create and branch out into other mediums like television. I want that opportunity for longevity and growth for folks who are trying to offer a different perspective. Dee Rees' Pariah was years in the making and it took a village to raise it. I'm certainly proud to be a part of the community from whence it came and I've been rooting for its success for some time.

Three years ago I got an email from Beverly Guy-Sheftall, the indomitable director of the Spelman Women's Research & Resource Center (and the professor that started me down the path of my feminist future), about a young filmmaker who was working to turn a short into a feature length film. I hadn't even seen the short but I emailed everyone I knew based solely on the premise and the title. Pariah was a queer coming of age story with a Black girl protagonist. Nuff said.

Krys Freeman and I mobilized our respective networks and helped the film win a coveted Sundance prize that allowed it to be developed into a feature. We told folks to vote, asked people to donate money and we did! We weren't alone. So many people were excited for this movie to exist. The opportunity to support a film for us by us was something a lot of folks could get behind.

On the CFC we offer critiques of culture but we also like to provide people with information about the things that inspire us and provide proof that another world is possible. Pariah is one of those things! Show up and show OUT for this movie! We are planning a "Let's go OUT to the Movies" meet up in Atlanta to see the film when it premieres January 13. I encourage folks in other cities to do the same! Leave details in the comments if you'd like to attend or organize such an OUTing in your city!

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new mixtape is fiyah.bizzarh:bizZarh.

2012-01-05T21:40:00.001-08:00

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new mixtape is fiyah. bizzarh: bizZarh.

via bklyn boihood on 1/5/12

new mixtape is fiyah.

bizzarh:

bizZarh.

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Help shape AMC2012 - take a 10 min survey

2012-01-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

Next week, 34 coordinators of the AMC2012 tracks, network gatherings and practice spaces will meet up in Detroit for three days of intensive planning.

At this meeting, we will launch the six-month process of content-development, cross-network collaboration and grassroots fundraising that will result in a glorious AMC2012.

We need your input in this planning process! What skills do you want to learn at AMC2012? What strategy conversations do you want to have? Who do you want to make sure participates in the conference this year?

Tell us all these things and more in a super short survey. It will only take 15 minutes of your time and it will contribute volumes to the awesomeness of this year's AMC.

If you are inspired to give more detailed input, please fill out an additional survey designed by the coordinators of the Webmaking Track to assess what web development skills should be shared at AMC2012.

While we will continue to accept responses over the next several months, your input will be MOST VALUABLE to us if we receive it before 9am EST on Friday 1/13. This will allow us to incorporate your feedback into the coordinators' planning meeting next weekend.

Thank you for being a part of the AMC network,

AMP Staff

Save the Date: the 14th annual Allied Media Conference is June 28 - July 1 in Detroit, MI.

Pariah's Pariah: A Review, a Critique

2012-01-03T16:43:00.001-08:00

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Pariah's Pariah: A Review, a Critique

via my best friend gayle by summer of sam on 1/2/12

*Spoiler Alert*

On Friday, Dee Rees' much lauded independent film,Pariah will expand its release from four theaters to eleven, increasing the opportunity for many to view this incredibly important Focus Features release. Rees' debut work has deservedly generated a deluge of critical praise, and should at the very least garner a few nominations come award season.

The coming of age story centers on Alike (pronounced uh-LEE-kay), played pitch perfectly by Adepero Oduye as a somewhat awkward 17-year-old high school student and aspiring poet. On the cusp of fully coming in to her sexuality, Alike dons herself in boy's clothing at school and as she explores the gay nightlife New York City with her friend Laura (Pernell Walker). At home, however, Alike dresses in a more traditionally feminine costume to throw her mother, Audrey (Kim Wayans) off of her increasingly difficult to mask scent. This, of course, is the core tension in the film, and the viewer's stomach tightens as the stakes get increasingly higher. As this central narrative unfolds, Alike smartly navigates her way through personal discovery, experiencing first love and a gut-wrenchingly painful heartbreak, all the while preparing for that ever difficult task of leaving the (parents') nest.

I had the fortune of screening Pariah at Chicago's Reeling Film Festival last fall, and it is excellent. The film is visually stunning and presents New York through an incredibly fresh and unique lens. Writer/director Rees has crafted a compellingly human cast of rich characters, including veteran comedian, Kim Wayans, whose convincing turn as Alike's prudish and lonely mother is surprising to those familiar with her résumé. Wayans was absolutely impressive in her role, and has rightfully received buzz for her dramatic performance. Alas, Wayans' character is the most glaring of the few troubling aspects of Rees' otherwise awesome work.

At several moments in the film, I was reminded of Lee Daniel's comparatively more problematic movie, Precious (2009), the filmic rendering of Sapphire's novel Push (1996). My recalling Daniels' work has nothing to do with limited knowledge of film or a (mainstream) reviewer's rather lazy impulse to compare Pariah to the other, black film she was last required to see. Rather, the commonalities between the two films are few but significant, and include but go beyond the way that--although the lens is softer--the milieu, the visual effect of Pariah reminds me of the scenes inside Precious' apartment. And although both Precious and Alike are helped along the road of self-discovery through writing and poetry and the support of a (light-skinned) English teacher, that similarity is not the most glaring. In fact, Pariah has none of the issues around color Daniels' work does. One might determine that my comparison is rooted in the fact that Wayans, just like Precious' Mo'Nique, was known as a comedic actor before being cast in a dramatic role as the mother of a black teenager. And that is at least in the same region as my issue. For as impressive as Pariah is, the tension that propels this narrative is the unfortunately familiar castigation of black motherhood.

My praises of Wayans' portrayal notwithstanding, though the character she is charged to play is the seeming antithesis of Precious Jones' mother, she reeks of a similar kind of pathology. That is, Audrey is unliked, distant, and the enemy of her daughter. As the matriarch of her conservative family, Audrey has an investment in maintaining a traditional, respectable family image that both her daughter and her husband (through his implied extramarital affair) reject with their actions. The irony, of course, is that black mothers are generally vilified for their inability to assimilate into the common nuclear family structure through their out of wedlock children, unmarried status, multiple sexual partners (and hence baby-daddies), and poverty. Wayans' Audrey shows that even attempting to emulate the nuclear family structure through consistent church attendance, commitment to traditional gender roles and heterosexual monogamy does not give one access to a kinder, gentler image of (black) motherhood that is seemingly endemic to one Clair Huxtable. Instead, Audrey, like black mothers before her, is cold, irrational, and incapable of unconditional love, a fact reiterated in a scene between Laura and her mother. Although Audrey's struggle to maintain a grasp of her traditional family unit through these resistances might allow for the structure itself to be called into question, the film expresses that the problem lies with Audrey and her selfish refusal to let her husband and daughter evolve (away from her).

Audrey is the personification of repellent. Nobody likes her. She has no work friends (she eats lunch alone while her coworkers talk about her within earshot), and her only social engagement is at church. Audrey's isolation might generate sympathy from the audience, but her inability to control her Lutie Johnson-esque rage means that the anger continuously boils over, scalding her family. The audience's spying of Audrey waiting for her allegedly adulterous husband, Arthur, is the lone attempt to engender some form a sympathy for Audrey, but her other antics neutralize the scene, rendering it meaningless. Further, it's Arthur's adultery that becomes his part of an unarticulated connection with Alike.

Both Arthur and Alike forge a bond by knowing and keeping each other's secrets--from Audrey. Although this subplot sweetens an already loving relationship between father and daughter, the problem with this subplot is that it requires an understanding that the two have a common enemy, Audrey, and further ensconces her as such. So, as much as the audience thirsts for this black father-daughter link, that connection is predicated upon an implicit castigation of black motherhood. Which, as award history suggests, is probably part of the reason why Wayans is the cast member most likely to win an award. At least Mrs. Jones got to explain herself. Pariah leaves the impression that Audrey will soon lose her already tenuous grasp. And the audience is left with the impression that it should not care.

As much as I enjoyed Pariah and as much as it increased my fandom of Kim Wayans, I found her character disappointing. Pariah is an incredibly rich film that explodes caricatures of blackness and sexuality through its commitment to expressing the humanity underneath those identity markers. Unfortunately, as powerful as the storytelling is, it still rests upon and forwards an all too common image of black motherhood. So even as I applaud the film and strongly encourage everyone to go see Pariah, my ovation is tempered and slightly hesitant.

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2011: A Year in Crunkness

2012-01-01T09:57:00.001-08:00

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2011: A Year in Crunkness

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by crunktastic on 12/31/11

It's that time of year again. Another year has come to a close, so it must be time for our second annual Crunk List! CFs offer up the books, blogs, films, etc. that get us crunk and keep us crunk!

CF Crunkadelic

It's hard to narrow it down, but these books were really significant for me this year.

Hanne Blanks' Big Big Love. (Revised, updated, and re-released this year)

"Big Big Love is the only one-stop-shopping handbook on relationships, sexuality, and big sexy confidence for people of all genders, sizes, and sexual orientations who know that a fantastic love life doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the number on the bathroom scale. Covering everything from dating to sex toys to getting on top, this guide also features tips on navigating tricky topics like making peace with your belly, coping with weight-related prejudice, and creating a happy, satisfying sex life in a culture where no body is ever perfect enough."

This book is funny, affirming, and overall plain awesome. Check it out.

Barbara Neely's Blanche White series.

This book series is not new, but it was new to me this year. Mystery lovers, check this series out. Blanche is an African American domestic, amateur sleuth, and all around crunk feminist who solves crimes in four entertaining and captivating novels. (She could kick everyone's ass in The Help). Get into this, people!

Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

At first I was not sold on this book and it languished on my nightstand for many months. When I finally picked it up I was pleasantly surprised. Some of my favorite tidbits from the book are "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" and "Be [insert your name here]" (i.e., be you, and no one else). Trite platitudes, perhaps, but stuff that's good to be reminded of sometimes.

CF Crunkista

1. I absolutely LOVED the film Miss Representation.

"The film explores how the media's misrepresentations of women have led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence."

I thought it was very educational and incredibly powerful. Great for full-fledged feminists, feminists in the making, and all those that still question the value of feminism. )

2. Sculpture – Paige Bradley's Expansion. I just found this sculpture to be one of the most inspiring works of art I have ever seen. It's an amazing reminder of a woman's strength, inner peace, and balance with the universe.

3. "Miley on Marketing" – "Why does all the girls have to buy pink stuff and all the boys have to buy different color stuff?!"

This YouTube video couldn't come at a better time and it gives me hope that there are tiny CFs everywhere and that we can teach our children to be critical about the toys they play with.

4. NBC's Parks and Recreation super unhidden pro-feminist agenda. In the "Smallest Park" episode of Parks and Recreation, Andy, April, and Ron visit an Intro to Women's Studies class. They make Feminism seem like exactly what it is – AWESOME!

5. The film Pariah.

"A rousing success at its world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, this deeply felt human drama is the feature debut of writer/director Dee Rees. Adepero Oduye portrays Alike (pronounced "ah-lee-kay"), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister (Sahra Mellesse) in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. A gifted student, Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the support of her best friend Laura (Pernell Walker), she is especially eager to find a girlfriend. Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity."

AMAZING film! Beautifully written and beautifully shot!

6. I have read hundreds of articles on positive body image but there is something extra special about how this woman talks about loving and accepting our bodies.

7. The film Gun Hill Road.

This movie was one of the best films I have ever seen. It was so beautifully written and so authentic to urban transgender youth experience.

"Gun Hill Road is the story of a family in transition. It is the story of a young man exploring his sexuality in an intolerant and judgmental world and his exploration's impact on his relationship with his parents and himself."

8. B. Steady ) Talented young singer songwriter…and oh sooooo cute!

9. More Princess Boy – "Five-year-old Dyson Kilodavis is a little boy who loves sparkly things: princess gowns, hot pink socks, glittery jewelry. Deal with it."

Dyson inspired his mom to write a book about accepting difference and inspire all of us to think about what we teach our children.

CF Crunkonia

Black women's responses to The Help: Although the Oscar's and The Golden Globes may not have taken heed, black women responded to this year's white-woman-centered portrayal of southern race relations in a major way. Even though we were often speaking to ourselves, we spoke nonetheless.

Nikky Finney's National Book Award Speech: John Lithgow called this speech "the best speech for anything [he's] ever heard." In it, Finney names the spirits of her ancestors who stand at the podium with her, ancestors for whom literacy was once illegal. Head Off and Split is Nikky Finney's fourth book of poetry and her long career is evidence of her brave engagement with the key historical events that center on black women's bodies.

CF Crunktastic

Websites:

thefeministwire.com — Launched earlier this year, this online feminist magazine offers some of the most diverse and well-written rigorous, yet accessible, articles with perspectives on everything from politics, to pop culture, to academia.

Videos:

The new "I'm Feminist Enough…" series features women of color offering fresh perspectives on what feminism frees them up to do!

Check Vol.2 here:

Amy Poehler's "Smart Girls Have More Fun" Series.

The future of feminism is extremely bright if Poehler's interview with 7 and 3/4 yr-old self-proclaimed feminist Ruby is any indication. See the video here—> Smart-Girls-At-The-Party-The-Feminist-88764816

Books:

Samhita Mukhopadhyay's Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life.

This fresh feminist perspective on dating and relationships, written by the executive editor of Feministing.com, is a breath of fresh air, amidst the shamtastic dating and mating manuals that continue to crop up like weeds.

Demetria Lucas' A Belle in Brooklyn

This Black-girl-feminist dating memoir is laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and reminds us that when it comes to love and romance for Black women, there is still hope

Gwyneth Bolton's Ready for Love

If you still like romance novels but wonder how they comport with your feminist politics, check out the novels of Gwyneth Bolton, which always have feminist characters and/or themes.

Songs:

Marsha Ambrosius' "Far Away" –This song and video offered a powerful message in the fight against homophobia, particularly in communities that listen to R&B and neo-soul.

Films:

The African American Film Festival Releasing Movement–

Director Ava DuVernay began this groundbreaking indie film initiative to open more avenues of distribution for quality African American films. She released two films this year to critical acclaim: I Will Follow and Kinyarwanda. Check 'em out.

CF Moya

Ditto on Pariah. Here's a great post with deets!!

http://gingerfeminist.tumblr.com/post/15009672309/reblog-i-saw-pariah

CF RaeOne

Last year an online article asked "Are Cameras the New Guns?" because Facebook and YouTube are continually flooded with citizen-shot videos of police abuse that rarely makes it to the news (and when it does, it is edited or re-presented in a way that many have argued, unjustly re-constructs the events). My vote for video of the year, answers this question with a big, crunk YES, and creates a rally cry for citizens to arm with iPhones to film the police!

"Film the Police," a video from rapper/activist B. Dolan of Rhode Island, was released after much of the #occupy movement evictions, where reporters cried unfair media blackouts. This remake of NWA's famous anthem "F*ck the Police" is a digital collaboration across the states: Minneapolis/Rhode Island-based rapper Sage Francis kicks off the track as NWA's Dr. Dre. He passes the digital mic to rapper/activists Toki Wright of Minneapolis as MC Ren, and then to Jasiri X of Pittsburgh as Eazy E, over a re-made track produced Buddy Peace, also of Rhode Island.

The video was posted on YouTube in early December, and in three days the video reached over 70,000 views. The video brings the crunk energy of rap and hip-hop activist rally cries, packaged in a remixed music video. Original content was filmed of the rappers in home cities, keyed on to television screens, and are intercut with user-activist generated content – YouTube footage of the occupy protests across the world. In my opinion, this represents the best, most crunk use of user-generated media and social media distribution of a message, packaged in a creative (see copyright criminals) hip-hop kind of way. Just watch yo'self when you aim at the police! The constitution protects your right to film for now but it won't protect you or your gear from the pepper spray, pellets, or rubber bullets they shoot when you film!

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyT1buoyTnY

CF ReninaJ

GEMS just published a book on sex trafficking of Brown girls in the US. Check it out: http://www.gems-girls.org/get-involved/girlslikeus

CF SheriDF

I nominate the Grassroot Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) for the 2011 crunk list in the category of movements-climate justice. It is an alliance of grassroots organizations building a global social movement to "cool the planet." The alliance helped organize and coordinate the international "peoples" presence at the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in November 2011 in Durban, RSA. This alliance brings together indigenous peoples, displaced peoples, people of color, and progressive climate justice organizations and networks from around the world to fight against greedy multinational corporate agendas–colonial projects–chopping up the world's resources for profit.

***

Please share your own crunk list in the comments, on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter!

Thank you all for your support and love this year! Wishing you all the joy you can stand this new year and always!

Yours for the revolution,

The CFC

–Compiled by Crunkadelic

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Real Reading Rainbow: Queer Black Intergenerational BookLUST! Kwanzaa edition!

2011-12-26T08:58:00.000-08:00

Kwanzaa is challenging for a queer black feminist. Check out some of my favorite books by my favorite poets and how they challenge, qualify or add insight to the seven principles of Kwanzaa.

Jennah Bell

2011-12-23T09:29:00.000-08:00

Courtesy @afroqueerizdbee

Fightin’ Words: On Awkward Black Girl and the CFC

2011-12-13T11:28:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

Fightin’ Words: On Awkward Black Girl and the CFC

via my best friend gayle by summer of sam on 12/12/11

Of the many things I've received from the inimitable Grandma Charlotte, including second-hand smoke, the basics of knitting, and a tendency to yell at people appearing on television as if they can somehow hear me, her literary example and advice on general matters are probably the gifts I hold most dear. Grandma Charlotte is always reading; she has been known to give people book covers as gifts because she has not finished the book it clothed. Along with telling me that books were my friends, it was from Grandma that I first learned the following axiom on semantics, "It's not what you say, but how you say it. It's not the words that you use, but the way that you convey it."

The above saying was one of the first things I thought of when I heard about the response (and ensuing "controversy") to the latest episode of the increasingly popular webseries, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which has garnered praise from several websites including this one. Like many, on the first Thursday of each month or thereabouts, I log-on toYoutube and watch Issa Rae's extremely likable character, J, get in and out of awkward situations at work and in her dating life. This last clip is no different. After having dissed her best friend, Cece to continue trick-or-treating with one of her suitors, White Jay, J has to implore Cece to forgive her, because after an awkward moment on her date with White Jay, she needs advice. The trouble is this: the couple run into White Jay's ex-girlfriend, a moment that renders him speechless and J invisible. As J and Cece discuss what happened, J admits to feeling like Missy Elliott (she was wearing a garbage bag; see Missy's video "The Rain [Supa Dupa Fly]" to catch the reference) next to Angelina Jolie, to which Cece replies that "[White Jay's] ex-girlfriend is a tranny bitch in heels."

A letter appeared on the Crunk Feminist Collective Tumblr site in response, mainly, to this bit of dialogue and some other issues the composers of the letter wanted to bring to the fore.* A mini-internet controversy commenced in response to the response, with commenters calling the writers of the letter too sensitive, too politically correct, too much. In other words, many were just not going to allow any sort of critique of ABG stand, while others defended the perspective the letter took, while still others simply instigated everything. My purpose here is to do none of that. Rather, I'd like to unpack what I think the entire issue circulates around, which, put succinctly is this: the joke just didn't work.

Part of what makes Rae's series successful is main character J's likability, and part of this likability is the audience's ability to readily identify with J's context, her cultural touchstones. We understand the above Missy reference without the assistance of Google. We appreciate the casual shout outs to Saved by the Bell and California Dreams. We've seen School Dazeas many times as she has; we'd quote Sam Jackson characters in our rap lyrics, too. Her touchstones are ours. To echo one of the central themes of this season, we get J. And we think J, in turn, gets us.

What we also get is that the writers of ABG know how to navigate touchy subjects like race and gender for comedic effect very well. They know what the words mean, they know what they meant, they understand interlocuters' relationship to them and how, then, audiences might respond to their use. They're well-versed. And generally the effect is funny. ABG thrives on our understanding that what happens is ironic and/or absurd. So when the omniracial character uses his racial illegibility to make stereotypical statements, but is later outed as Armenian and has to go to racial sensitivity training, we're supposed to laugh because it's ironic. Sub-plots like that work because we can see how the writers' mastery of the subject matter allows for that kind of manipulation. The writing is less successful when the fat jokes and lines about tranny bitches in heels get used as throwaway dialogue that is supposed to make J feel better and/or audiences chuckle. It becomes clear that the writers were less adept at understanding how those phrases might come off than they are about others.

And I think that's where I can understand what the letter posted on the CFC Tumblr was trying to do, but was unsuccessful because it resembles the kinds of texts people often associate with censorship through the forwarding of politically correct language and language policing. I understand another version of the letter might have read: Hey, FYI: These words may connote some stuff you might not have realized and/or may want to think about the next time you decide to use them. kthxbye. I may have written a version of the note that simply said: I don't think these kinds of jokes work, and here's why... But that message gets buried by the rather unfortunate line, "We have seen your responsiveness to the fans of ABG and we hope that by raising this concern you will respond accordingly by not using such language in future episodes."

Right or wrong, asking/telling people not to say things because they hurt our feelings inevitably engenders the kind of backlash we saw after the letter was published, and truly undermines the other, really useful parts of the note. Instead of a fruitful conversation about what does and doesn't work in this genre, the black versus queer debate was again inflamed and the lede got buried. Now we have, oddly, blackness in one corner and queerness in the other. Even worse, those on either side of the debate are deploying what I, in my secret life of writing stand-up jokes, call The Nigger Test.

Bear with me.

If I were a stand-up comedian, I'd have a joke called The Nigger Test. The Nigger Test is something people use when someone says something that is ostensibly, debatably offensive. It works like this: someone says fag, someone takes offense, some else says, "What's the big deal?" Then someone else says, "If they had said nigger instead of fag, you'd feel differently." In other words, substitute the offensive word in question with nigger, try the statement again, and see if it's offensive now. This test is in the politically correct handbook or something--and I hate it: 1. I'm tired of black people being used as some baseline example of discrimination, as if that's all we're good for; 2. If I am ever in a situation where I'd have to use The Nigger Test, I'm going to gouge out my eyes because the person I'm talking to ended up in the wrong century. Seriously, if your response to hearing someone use The Nigger Test is, "Ohhhhh, I get it now," please leave 2011; 3. Nigger is not a synonym for other offensive words. It is not analogous to other words, not even slave. Nigger has its own history, and it is not available for lease; 4. Slurs and other offensive language have their own histories that need to be heeded and known on their own accord.

Folks defended both sides by using The Nigger Test, and it doesn't work. It didn't work because it obscured the issues the letter writers were concerned with and placed queerness and blackness at odds. It also didn't work because we know that the writers of ABG know how to deploy nigga properly. In addition, The Nigger Test also allowed for the false analogy of ABG and other, non-fictional use of slurs and offensive language like Michael Richards or Don Imus, for example. The fallacy of those comparisons is that the latter examples were moments where such language was used with either lack of forethought or with the precise desire to incite, whereas the scene in ABG offers none of that. Which brings me back to Grandma Charlotte's point: It wasn't simply what Cece said; it was how she said it. Reviewing the scene, it's clear to me that those who wrote it have no Imus-like intentions, which is to say, they know what they're saying is problematic, and that's exactly why they're deploying it. Instead, what I saw was an attempt to say something snarky, funny even without knowing the full context. Like a kid cursing. The remark seemed lazy, haphazard. An attempt at a quick laugh that fell flat.

The joke didn't work. And it didn't work for the same reason the other jokes in the series do, which has nothing to do with being part of the in-group. Rather, it is a matter of being impeccable with language and requires an intimate knowledge of the words that are deployed. Still, eliciting offense instead of laughter does not call for the jettisoning of such language altogether. We must allow words, even the ones that hurt our feelings, to breathe. As writers, we have to be purposeful with our language. And should we choose to water the seeds of certain words, then it behooves us to understand the soil from which they grow. And if we fail at that, then our narratives do, too. It's a risk we take. It's why revision is key. It is why criticism--including the CFC letter--is crucial. It is why Grandma Charlotte, as she told me when I was a child, is always right.

*Full disclosure: I consider myself a friend of Moya Bailey, one of the letter writers, and chatted with her briefly regarding this issue.

N.B. There's a really good scene in the series, Louie that articulates this issue much better than I have. Feel free to skip to the 5:10 mark. *NSFW*

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Superheroes, Supervillains and the Black Feminist Brilliance of Badness

2011-12-12T03:35:00.000-08:00

"Quirky Black girls are not quirky because they like white shit; rather they understand that because they like it, it is not the sole province of whiteness."
-QBG Manifesta

This is not one of the lines of the QBG Manifesta that I wrote. In fact I had to look at many examples on google to even understand how the colloquialism "sole province" is used. And I don't think any of these Black Feminist QBG love letters to date have really dealt with this aspect of the QBG constellation. But from the province of my own soul I want you to know that is not because I am some pure Black feminist who has purged all non-radical women of color generated media from my life. Not by far.

In fact, a few months ago I watched the entire series (the entire series!!!!) of Mad Men in an unhealthily short amount of time on netflix. And I think the show is smart. And also quite depressing. After intentionally filling my days and nights with brilliant, radical, brave, self-actualizing women of color and queer folks of color it is a major contrast to watch straight and closeted corporate white people living awful shallow desperate lives that they sometimes have deep moments about. Why did I do this to myself? I asked (myself) while popping more popcorn one day. And then I realized that my need to know what Don Draper/Dick Whitman, the main character on Mad Men, a rich white corporate bewildered would-be patriarch who stole his identity from a dead superior officer in the army towards a class mobility that provides him with eternal emptiness and shame which he medicates by womanizing and over-drinking and raising his eyebrows ironically at people he never thought would be his peers...was not even new. Could it be? This was not the first time that I, a Black feminist poet on assignment, had identified with a character who shared basically none of my characteristics? A rich, tortured white dude with a secret and his own dark orchestral theme music?

Flashback to middle school Lex, afterschool with her siblings eating snacks and watching Batman: The Animated Series (not to be confused with any other Batman cartoons without that specific subtitle). We loved that show. And we were right to love it. It really was one of the few shows on television accessible to kids that had intelligent writing, developed characters and complex stories. I would never say that it was some sort of precursor to transformative justice (the bad guys usually ended up incarcerated in Arkham Asylum/Prison eventually...at least for a while). But unlike the "perps" on, for example today's Law and Order SVU each villian had a story. There was a backstory that made their supervillian actions seem almost logical. They didn't come out of nowhere. They had been severely wronged, usually by the dominant system. They were freaks and weirdos. They were super-smart and profoundly misunderstood. They had a vision that was completely unacceptable to the ruling norms of Gotham and creative elaborate plans that would definitely cause a lot of damage.

"I'm having a bad day. I'm sick of people trying to shoot me, run me over and blow me up." (Kicks Batman in the head.) Harley Quinn, Batman: The Animated Series

Writing about it now, is it any wonder that my siblings and I, 3 silly black genius scholarship kids in classrooms and hallways all day with rich kids at a white school ate that up. We loved it. If we had been rich we could have supported the franchise. Kept the showing going longer than it did. But we watched the reruns. It seemed to never get old. It seemed to bridge the 8 year age gap between all of us. Even now as grown-ups Batman: The Animated Series (not to be confused with any other incarnation of the Batman myth...although we do collectively endorse and obsess over the Dark Night films) is still a major theme of our gift giving. I almost cried with gratitude when my brother gave me the box set of the entire series for Christmas.

"I tried to be good. I really did. But if that's not good enough, fine."-Harley Quinn Batman: The Animated Series

And when we could, as kids we asked for action figures and got mini-Batmobiles and even a Batman themed batcave tent that we could actually fit in (well not all three of us at once...but), but the thing is the franchise is in support of the hero. Even though on the show there is one Batman and many diverse supervillians, in the toy store there are a thousand varieties of Batman action figures and... not so many villain toys. I never found one of Harley Quinn (erstwhile employee and lover of the joker, and ultimately witty and ironic badgirl on the loose or tricking asylum employees), my personal favorite.

So what did I do? What did we do? We told ourselves that we identified with the hero. We had enough in common with him (sans white straight male privilege and unlimited wealth...small things). We loved the color Black. We rarely shared the complex and sometimes painful stories of our family of origin. We stayed up late and worked really hard. Especially me. I was driven. A person compelled on a mission. A person creating an image for the world of who I was, larger than life, reflected in shadow to hide the smaller weaker person that no one could know about. You know, for the safety of the world. For the sake of my ability to protect the helpless. A superhero. Michelle Wallace did and did not write about me.

I became a superhero. Full package. With the shame of a secret identity (usually my class identity was/is my most closely guarded secret), the self-sacrificial attitude that I was individually responsible for the fate of the world every day, and the utter alienation of would-be friends and loved ones. I wore the cape.

But now, even though superhero language is everywhere and so compelling...within Black sci-fi theorization and activism, within social entrepeneurship narratives for those of us Black girls with our own quirky projects and many other domains of our quirky black girl nerdy amazingness...I realize that I chose to be a super-hero because of the trick of narrative.

But let's look at the facts. I am a brilliant Black girl. My brilliance is criminalized. My plan for the world is dangerously transformative. There are white men with endless money who do not want it to happen. Who will stay up at night to find ways to scare me out of it. They will lock me up if they want to. Like Assata Shakur, I might have to break out. Why mold myself into the lonely posture of the shame-filled, stressed out superhero, when I can be part of a diverse bold, quirky (and sometimes still stressed, still shamed) community of supervillians?

Supervillains unite. This is a love letter for that power in you that will re-create the world. That vision born of oppression that makes those in power wear all manner of costumes. This is a love letter for your genius. Your stolen laboratories, your exasperation with the status quo. This is an affirmation of your belief that things should not stay the way they are. This is a kiss on the cheek of your disdain for the day job. Your profound sense of the unfair. This is love for the supervillain in you, bad puns, elaborate monologues and all. That unvalidated faith in your ability to succeed even when the white guy comes and messes things up every time.

We are here. And those of us who are on the loose?
Got some trouble to make.

Love always,
QBG Lex

blackfeminismlives.tumblr.com
blackfeministmind.wordpress.com

Happiness is her trademark… Love THIS! via pierrebennu

2011-12-09T06:32:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

Happiness is her trademark… Love THIS! via pierrebennu

via sister resistor... on 12/2/11

Happiness is her trademark… Love THIS! via pierrebennu

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oh delphine… this is coming from somewhere...

2011-12-09T06:12:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

oh delphine… this is coming from somewhere...

via p . s . on 11/27/11

oh delphine… this is coming from somewhere true!

shaylacox:

support amazing work.

donate here.

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DEE REES!! (Pariah, Director)

2011-12-09T06:08:00.003-08:00

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DEE REES!! (Pariah, Director)

via bklyn boihood on 11/28/11

DEE REES!! (Pariah, Director)

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Alia Hatch. Photography by Cherie TaySee more photographs at...

2011-12-09T06:08:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

Alia Hatch. Photography by Cherie Tay See more photographs at...

via bklyn boihood on 11/30/11

Alia Hatch. Photography by Cherie Tay

See more photographs at http://www.facebook.com/AliaHatch

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Shout out to Al the pal. -Sebas’bklynboihood:Dirty...

2011-12-08T07:48:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

Shout out to Al the pal. -Sebas’ bklynboihood: Dirty...

via fuckinfuckyeahsebastian on 12/7/11

Shout out to Al the pal. -Sebas'

bklynboihood:

Dirty Sensibilities… (featuring Al Janae and others…) http://www.aljanaehamilton.com/blog

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click the image to go donate!!

2011-12-08T07:47:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

click the image to go donate!!

via Composed. on 12/7/11

click the image to go donate!!

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katrinfane:Favorite People » Nina SimoneAll I’m trying...

2011-12-08T07:40:00.003-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

katrinfane: Favorite People » Nina Simone All I’m trying...

via guerrilla mama medicine on 12/7/11

katrinfane:

Favorite People » Nina Simone

All I'm trying to do all the time is just to open people up so they can feel themselves and let themselves be open to somebody else.

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azealia banks — l8r

2011-12-08T07:40:00.001-08:00

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azealia banks — l8r

via guerrilla mama medicine on 12/7/11

azealia banks — l8r

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Teaching Moments: On Accountability, Love & Patience

2011-12-08T07:39:00.001-08:00

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Teaching Moments: On Accountability, Love & Patience

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by rboylorn on 12/7/11

I teach and do research on issues centering on identity and diversity. As the fall semester is coming to a close, I had the benefit of watching my students, many who started the semester ambivalent about difference and the need for diversity and acceptance, come full circle. Through presentations and last words, they expressed how life changing the opportunity and challenge to think about difference differently has been. Their embrace of diversity and each other (across race, class, gender, sexuality, religious and ability difference) has been transformative.

At the start of the semester I warn my students that learning about diversity and various methods and strategies for communicating about and across difference can be challenging. I tell them that when your concrete ideologies are compared with other concrete ideologies, it is not easy. I remind them that unlearning discrimination and prejudice will be difficult and uncomfortable. I encourage them to be open and open-minded and to trust the process. I tell them I am not their homegirl and therefore not invested in them "liking" me (so I will not be moved or persuaded against pushing them to fully engage the material, whether they like it/or me/or not) . Likewise, my mother was never interested in being my friend while I was growing up because she was busy raising me, teaching me right from wrong, and tempering my bad ass attitude because I thought I knew everything I needed to know to get along in the world (SN: Now that I am grown, my mother is my very best friend, and I am grateful that she was a parent when I was growing up, which is what I needed, not a friend). I ask them to question what they think they know and to be honest about their prejudices. I tell them we will have good days and bad days and that we will experience a range of feelings from ambivalence to fear to anger to confusion to excitement to curiosity to embarrassment to rage to sadness (and back to ambivalence again). I ask them to take what they learn and utilize it in their lives and relationships. I challenge them to hold others accountable in the way that I (will) hold them accountable. I beg them to not be silent in the face of discrimination of any kind (anymore).

In the classroom, I expect silence, discontent, frustration, rolled eyes, elevated voices, misunderstandings, anger, sarcasm, disrespect, and distance as we discuss taboo topics of class(ism), racism, sexism, homophobia, sexuality, ability and the various intersections between them.

I struggle through moments of the wrong things being said (and deciphering what the right response is), defensiveness, divisiveness, strife, self-imposed segregation, and blind allegiances. It is a practice of patience…and stamina. But teaching is repetitious (and frustrating/exhilarating/terrifying at times), and I am accountable to every potential representation in the room. There are particular rules in my classroom space. Students must filter their words. When someone says something offensive or problematic, I interrupt them immediately to correct them and explain how and why their word choice, regardless of intent, may be harmful or hurtful. I love on them, require their acknowledgment and accountability, and encourage them to be mindful of the impact of their words. I require them to listen to each other and not just respond reactively, or echo like minded individuals without being thoughtful and reflective. I put them in uncomfortable situations. I give them readings to make them uncomfortable. I share personal experiences to make them uncomfortable. The discomfort pushes them to think about what they are feeling and why. These are all teaching moments.

The first few weeks we juggle extremes and trade silences while they decide if what I am saying is bullshit or brilliant, because it challenges everything they (think they) know. And I worry that they will be offended rather than changed and/or walk away from the experience with the same stereotypic mindsets they started from. But then it happens. Unexpectedly and unannounced, they get it! I can see it in their eyes, read it in their posture, and experience it in the roundabout way that they become easy with one another and less judgmental. Our conversations become longer. We tell transparent tales and connect in the ways that we are alike, astonished sometimes that we are not nearly as different as we look/seem. We look at each other instead of avoiding glances. We listen to each other's stories instead of passively hearing each other's words. And while I can never pin point when it happens, there are miraculous moments when brave students share their truths, when public stories give us the opportunity to have private conversations out in the open, and when misjudgments, stereotypes, and mischaracterizations are corrected through conversations that prove missing each other on purpose misses the point and wastes opportunities for connection.

If ignorance is bliss, it is also dangerous and we are accountable for what we know. We are also responsible for having difficult conversations. Because of this, we will occasionally be misunderstood or attacked for standing up and defending our passions. And that is okay. I feel that we are called to love people past (in)difference. And like I said, I am not their homegirl

And while teaching (classes and the larger public) is not always easy, seeing the benefits of the effort (which takes time, sometimes a lifetime), reminds me that it is always worth it!

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Rainforest Middle: The Gift of Dark Days

2011-12-05T03:15:00.001-08:00

"We may be blinded by the light, but in the darkness there is healing."
-Mothering in Wilderness: A Sermon by Melva Sampson (among many other references)

This is the part of the year where the darkness prevails. Sun gone before work gets out. Kids barely have a chance to get home. This is the time of year where usually I start protesting. Who even thought human life in this part of the hemisphere at this time of the year made sense. The time when I shake my head, convinced that my ancestors from closer to the equator want my body back. Where the workaholic in me used to lament the short days and way they made everyone, including me, just want to go sleep.

While I was in middle school, my mom was in graduate school for psychology and sometimes I think I internalized her textbooks. During very normal occurrences (like pretty much at the same point in every moon cycle) I start diagnosing myself. And every year as solstice approaches I get clinical. Wanting to sleep all the time? Less energy? More reflection? Is this it? The the onset of the depression I've been vigilantly looking out for since I was 12?

But FINALLY (if not necessarily actually for the last time) I have been able to get over it. I am not in the wrong place at the wrong time. The sun is not gone, the planet is not wrong. The moon is not laughing. And I am not a robot that is supposed to work unchanged as the planet shifts. This happens every year. Darkness prevails. And it is a gift.

This understanding of darkness as a gift, more general even than my hard-won, intergenerationally taught black self-love and communal appreciation, at least as cosmic as my blissed out love of the sacred skin of my partner, came from an experience in a rainforest at night.

How did I end up in a rainforest at night you ask? Good question. I surely didn't imagine my Quirky Black Behind would be in a rainforest at night, but lo and behold while in St. Croix communing with the spirit of Audre Lorde and the awesomeness of Gloria Joseph I met a Quirky Black Midwife (Hi Dr. Chinzera!). And as she and her daughters taught me about the ecological and cultural history of the resistance of enslaved Africans in St. Croix we manged to stay in the rainforest through a rainstorm into night. And there, in a darkness I had never experienced, much much deeper than out-in-the-country or even Anguilla darkness which is interrupted by the brilliance of stars and the often moon. This darkness, where even the moon, or a possible star beyond the rainclouds, was covered by layers and layers of cathedral trees, was the most extreme darkness I (with the privilege of having adequately supplemented nearsightedness and therefore mostly uninterrupted vision) have ever experienced. And for me this darkness was a profound shift in my relationship to my own ability to see. My own understanding of vision. This was a darkness that was not empty but full with huge trees and vines and animals and plants and the sound of rain touching everything that I could not see. I was safe with a family of folks who had lived in communion with the rainforest for years, but profoundly alert and awake. Surrounded by the undeniable presence of everything that I could not see, I could feel my heart.

And like a miracle I started having revelations. I was able to sense invisible but profoundly present truths in my life. I was able to get intense clarity on unseeable futures. I made major life decisions. (Like my decision to get trained as a full-circle doula and to start a mother-daughter doula practice with my mom! But more on that later!) I arrived at a major truth about life. There is so much happening, so much surrounding us that for many reasons we cannot sense with whatever senses are dominant to us. And for that reason many truths with healing power for us remain outside of our consciousness. I got clear about the fact that there were many realizations crucial to my own healing that were right there in my heart, invisible. And until darkness, aka that situation where it becomes necessary to be aware of everything that you can possibly be aware of, whether it is obvious or not, whether is is accessible by senses I am used to using or not. Darkness is the gift of the infinite presence of transformation. Like they say on the Blackstar album..."the color of the universe."

So now, during these dark days, I am present to the gift. Darkness is full of revelations, delicious unknown truth that I get to learn through stillness, intimacy with myself and others. The use of ways of knowing that I usually ignore. And so this year as the days get darker I am gathering food, preparing food, treasuring the warmth of friends and spending much time in my sweet little cave visioning a future I couldn't see before. Drawing dreams in marker, learning new methods, and incubating plans and schemes that won't see light until 2012. (I can't wait to tell you! But I will! :)

And so I am wishing you the gift of your own darkness, and for those who share this part of the hemisphere with me, the gift of these darker days where dreams are so thick we can touch them. And sleep into them and grow deep in ways no one will know about for a green while.

So eat and stay warm. Sleep and be satisfied. Dream and be dark.
I love you through the coldest day with the warmest need. Forever.

Love,
QBG Lex

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Some Thoughts on Jay-Z and Those “Occupy All Streets” T-Shirts

2011-11-28T10:57:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

Some Thoughts on Jay-Z and Those “Occupy All Streets” T-Shirts

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by Reninaj on 11/28/11

Sometimes, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why we expect rappers to be invested in social justice. Rapping is a job.

This is not to say that they can't be. I only ask why we expect them to be.

When Kanye showed up at OWS NYC, I thought this is interesting.

The US has an interesting history of Black celebrities using their voice to advance causes on the behalf of those who have less social power than they do.

Think Muhammed Ali.

Think Sidney Poitier y Harry Belafonte.

Think Lena Horne.

There are countless others.

There were also several other folks as well who are not necessarily Black. John Lennon and Yoko Ono come to mind.

The process by which a person becomes politicized, and by that I mean becomes willing to read, think and take action to change some janky shit (on an individual or a systemic level) varies from person to person.

It may come from participating in an event at your school and realizing that if you become organized you can change things.

It may come from registering folks to vote in your neighborhood and realizing that if you become organized you can change things.

It may come from working with a youth advocacy organization and learning that if you work together you can prevent the city from implementing a 17 and under 10pm weekday curfew and building a half a million dollar youth detainment center for those who were caught outside past curfew. That would be mine. We did this in 'Frisco.

I do understand that given the history of rap music that there has always been a variety of voices, some progressive (PE, early mid career Ice Cube), some partying and misogyny (Too Short) some fun (LONS, Digital Underground) some darkness (Geto Boys). The point is that not only was their variety in content, but because it was largely marginalized music, remember MTV had to be convinced to play Rap videos, it existed on some pop stations and largely on college radio and mom and pop outlets.

My point is that I don't romanticize rap music as some glorious do-right genre.

However, I do think that there is something particularly important about the fact that these t-shirts even exist (or existed).

When I saw the shirts, I thought of the contradiction.

With Jay-Z, here is a man, who embodies a rags to riches story, in possibly the most American sense possible. One of the richest Black men in this country. Low income kid from the hood who did good. We are similar in that way. Why is one of the richest Black men in the country making money off of a movement based on people taking action because many of them are not eating. The hood is not eating. Apparently neither are the suburbs.

For examples of people missing meals see:

This.

In some ways those Occupy All Street T-Shirts reminds me of how capitalism, in its very DNA, will try and squeeze profit out of everything it comes into contact with, even if it is blood from a rock.

You know how Ross has Maybach Music? When I saw those t-shirts, I thought of Watch the Throne (Jay Z's and Kanye's new album) as 1% music. How could it not be?

All of these thoughts leave me with a few questions.

What do we stand to gain if we stop looking at rappers as "activists"?

Why do we even do that in the first place?

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?uestlove was Wrong — Kinda

2011-11-28T08:12:00.001-08:00

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?uestlove was Wrong — Kinda

via Black Youth Project by Summer M. on 11/28/11

Last week, The (Legendary) Roots crew, ?uestlove in particular, got into a bit of trouble for choosing to play Fishbone's song, "Lyin' Ass Bitch" as the walk-on music for Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann during her appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqeVjopXLWI Brother ?uestion was wrong. But I understand. It was totally impolite. [...]

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http://supportcece.wordpress.com/

2011-11-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

CeCe is a creative and energetic person who, before her life was so unjustly interrupted, was studying fashion at MCTC. She had a stable home where she lived with and helped support four other African American youth, her family. CeCe's family describes her as a leader, a role model, and a loyal friend. She is known as a wise, out-spoken, and welcoming person, with a cheerful disposition and a history of handling prejudice with amazing grace. <a title="PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS! Read about CeCe in her own words here.

Around 12:30 am on June 5, CeCe and four of her friends (all of them black) were on their way to Cub Foods to get some food. As they walked past the Schooner Tavern in South Minneapolis, a man and two women (all of them white) began to yell epithets at them. They called CeCe and her friends 'faggots,' 'niggers,' and 'chicks with dicks,' and suggested that CeCe was 'dressed as a woman' in order to 'rape' Dean Schmitz, one of the attackers.

As they were shouting, one of the women smashed her drink into the side of CeCe's face, slicing her cheek open, lacerating her salivary gland, and stinging her eyes with liquor. A fight ensued, with more people joining in. What happened during the fight is unclear, but within a few minutes Dean Schmitz had been fatally stabbed.

CeCe was later arrested, and is now falsely accused of murder

For a month, CeCe was kept in solitary confinement "for her own protection"; she had no say in this matter. Finally, she was transferred to a psychiatric unit in the Public Safety Facility. It was nearly two months before she was taken back to a doctor to check up on the wound on her face, which by then had turned into a painful, golf ball-sized lump. CeCe has since been bailed out of jail on conditional release.

Later on, CeCe's friends were harassed on the street by people they recognized from the scene of the fight. Individuals circled the block that CeCe's friends were walking on and called them 'niggers' and 'faggots' and told them to 'go back to Africa.' When they attempted to wave down a passing squad car for assistance, the officer driving the car said he would not help them.

Help us fight for CeCe, and for an end to racist, transphobic violence in our communities! Visit our What You Can Do page and find out how to get involved.

Thankful

2011-11-21T10:25:00.001-08:00

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Thankful

via Black Youth Project by Summer M. on 11/21/11

When I was a kid, after every Thanksgiving dinner my dad would go around the table and have each kid say what we were thankful for. It was an excruciating process–and nothing like the scene from The Cosby Show. Since my siblings were younger and cuter they came off a lot less abrasive than a [...]

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Conflict is forever: Can we change attitudes about diamonds?

2011-11-21T10:23:00.001-08:00

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Conflict is forever: Can we change attitudes about diamonds?

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by eeshap on 11/21/11

It's holiday season. Often, this time of year, people feel romantic. Consequently, engagements and gifts of jewelry abound. Having many people in my life become engaged and married of late, I've been thinking a lot about all the bling that goes along with these endeavors.

Specifically, I've been thinking about diamonds. Why, you ask? Well, because as I see more and more friends and family become engaged I have been seeing more and more diamonds. To be clear, I have not become pre-occupied with the idea of engagements and rings, but with the desire for diamonds in particular. I've been trying to understand just what it is that makes them so desirable, given that we all know, on some level, that the market demand for these stones fuels violent conflict, war and suffering in many places of the world. That is the connection that I aim to tease out.

A caveat: I have many friends and family members who own diamonds and covet them. In fact, I, too, find them quite beautiful, as a self-professed lover of shiny, beautiful baubles. I possess one pair of diamond earrings that belonged to my Nani (grandmother) in India and were given to me by mother after Nani passed. I love those earrings, and wear them rarely, with a mixture of both sorrow and joy. When I see diamond rings, earrings and necklaces on others, I admire their beauty. Increasingly, though, I find it very hard to un-remember the social ramifications of our cultural desire to give/own/receive diamonds as declarations of love and affection. Especially, when I think of the wars that these beautiful objects make us complicit in.

In specific regard to engagements: others have argued about whether or not they are an outmoded social custom. Quite honestly, I believe in living and letting live on this issue. I'm not here to be the crunk feminist betrothal police. I certainly, have my own opinion about engagements (I'm down) and weddings (it's complicated) and the relation of all these things to romantic love (perhaps a forthcoming blog-post?).

A smidgen of history: The "tradition" of the diamond engagement ring is actually rather new. The first known diamond engagement ring was commissioned for Mary of Burgundy by the Archduke Maximilian of Austria in 1477. Then, in the late 19^th century, mines were discovered in South Africa, driving down the price of diamonds. After which, Americans regularly began to give (or receive) diamond engagement rings. Before this moment, some women got thimbles instead of rings to signal their betrothal.

Now here's the clincher (from a great piece by Meghan O'Rourke in Slate):

"Even then, the real blingfest didn't get going until the 1930s, when—dim the lights, strike up the violins, and cue entrance—the De Beers diamond company decided it was time to take action against the American public.

In 1919, De Beers experienced a drop in diamond sales that lasted for two decades. So in the 1930s it turned to the firm N.W. Ayer to devise a national advertising campaign—still relatively rare at the time—to promote its diamonds. Ayer convinced Hollywood actresses to wear diamond rings in public, and, according to Edward Jay Epstein in The Rise and Fall of the Diamond, encouraged fashion designers to discuss the new "trend" toward diamond rings. Between 1938 and 1941, diamond sales went up 55 percent. By 1945 an average bride, one source reported, wore "a brilliant diamond engagement ring and a wedding ring to match in design." The capstone to it all came in 1947, when Frances Gerety—a female copywriter, who, as it happened, never married—wrote the line "A Diamond Is Forever." The company blazoned it over the image of happy young newlyweds on their honeymoon. The sale of diamond engagement rings continued to rise in the 1950s, and the marriage between romance and commerce that would characterize the American wedding for the next half-century was cemented. By 1965, 80 percent of American women had diamond engagement rings."

[For an interesting demonstration of cultural production, please see the DeBeer's Website for their version of the history of the engagement ring.]

So, in light of all this, let's return to the central question: what exactly is a conflict diamond?

From the UN:

"Conflict diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council."

According to the NGO, Global Witness, conflict diamonds have funded brutal conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Côte d'Ivoire. These conflicts have resulted in the death and displacement of millions of people. Diamonds have also been used by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to finance their activities and for money-laundering purposes.

Brought into the mainstream by the film Blood Diamond, which featured Hollywood heavyweights like Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly, there has been some attention drawn to conflict diamonds and the long standing movement to curb and eliminate their production.

In 1998, Global Witness (which was co-nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for this work) launched a campaign to expose the role of diamonds in funding conflict, as part of broader research into the link between natural resources and conflict. In response to growing international pressure from such NGOs, the major diamond trading and producing countries, representatives of the diamond industry, and NGOs met in Kimberley, South Africa to determine how to tackle the blood diamond problem. The meeting, hosted by the South African government, was the start of a complicated and fraught three-year negotiating process, which culminated in the establishment of an international diamond certification scheme. The Kimberley Process was launched in 2003, and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Security Council. According to NGO's like Global Witness, who are monitoring and evaluating the Kimberly Process it's clear that diamonds are still fueling violence and human rights abuses. Although the Process makes it more difficult for diamonds from rebel-held areas to reach international markets, there are still significant weaknesses in the scheme that undermine its effectiveness and allow the trade in blood diamonds to continue.

Knowing this, here's why I decided to research and write this post: we can actually stop this. Diamonds are not food. Diamonds are not required for survival. A change in cultural attitudes can actually stop these conflicts. It can stop the violence in communities where these diamonds are found. If the desire for diamonds were to vanish, these conflicts would lose exactly what fuels them.

I don't write this post to make people with diamonds on their fingers feel bad. I shop for bargain goods that I know are made in sweatshops. When I purchase produce, I know that it was grown and picked by laborers whose rights are violated. I try to make ethical choices, all while knowing that I am complicit in a world economy that is rooted in human rights violations.

This is the beautiful thing about symbols, they can be changed. They have only as much power as we give them. We can actually stop much, if not all, of the violence that is a result of the demand for diamonds. They way that our cultural attitudes about buying fur have changed within a generation, so can our cultural attitudes about diamonds, I propose. It's not really going to be easy, they are a beautiful and powerful symbol of wealth and status. Increasingly, I hear many politically conscious people say they want a "vintage" diamond. This is clearly an effort towards detangling oneself from the trade of conflict diamonds. My point here, though, is about the cultural cache of diamonds. While purchasing a vintage one might not support the blood diamond industry directly, it certainly does nothing to challenge the value that diamonds have in our society.

All that being said, I think we can indeed move the needle.

"Diamonds are forever" it is often said. But lives are not. We must spare people the ordeal of war, mutilations and death for the sake of conflict diamonds." – Martin Chungong Ayafor, Chairman of the Sierra Leone Panel of Experts

However, eventually, I think we can change the way we think about diamonds. If we know more, and if we are challenged to face the truth about the havoc they wreak, we might make different choices. We might not choose diamonds after all. They have nothing to do with love, as it turns out.

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whirlwind for the warrior healers

2011-11-17T11:09:00.001-08:00

to the warrior healers organizing trust

notes from post-tornado Durham

with Audre Lorde in transition

after Gwendolyn Brooks

“You have enabled yourself to prove of incalculable aid to many, many women—not just today’s women, but women down the ages...I am have been and always will be proud of you.”

Gwendolyn Brooks to Audre Lorde

“This is the urgency: Live!

and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.”

-Gwendolyn Brooks “Second Sermon on the Warpland”

brook open stream woke

this is how we conduct our blooming

brash and gentle at kitchen tables

falling apart

on living room floors

noise and whip and head turned around

did you just say…

something scattered here

(our several dreams)

played into particles

stepped and stepped over it

trip and trip over

trip over

over

done

something flew apart

arrival is in the instant of yes

glitter your hands with the grace of grief

knot your hair with knowing

never meant to hold money

never meant to braid it into noose

never knew another way was

blooming

ii.

warrior healer be we

who know

how to go there

and when

warrior healer be we

who wont be who we are

until we are

warrior healer be

we who don’t know what

to say

until we say

who speak

when voice shake

better be

say this

warrior healer be

yes

just be

warrior healer be

iii.

salvation salvaged

medication defined

stylized splendor

for Bessie and we

iv.

warrior poet be watching

smiling sometime

laughing

warrior mother poet be

looking down

picking up

wind

love,

lex

'Indigo Was the Folks': Afterschool Brilliance

2011-11-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

"There wasn't enough for Indigo in the world she'd been born to, so she made up what she needed. What she thought the black people needed.

Access to the moon.
The power to heal.
Daily visits with the spirits."

-Ntozake Shange on little sister Indigo in her first novel Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo

We are in my car with the top down dodging the falling leaves when Assata drops knowledge on the subject of grades, a new clarity gained during this first term of 6th grade: "Grades are bullying the alphabet." The girls find out that their hands can bend in ways they never knew. They read outloud parts of the books they are reading. They punch each other very lightly at the sight of a volkswagen bug. And this is just the car ride.

The Indigo Afterschool Program was an idea that 11 year old Alex Lockhart shared with her mother, using the words: "I want to go to an afterschool program at Alexis's house." Inspired by Ntozake Shange's character "Indigo" from her first novel Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo, the Indigo Afterschool TeaParty is a place to share dreams, make art, blow bubbles and investigate Indigo's practices of healing, self-love, dream interpretation, doll-making, compassion and full self-expression! Girls from 3 Durham middle schools participate!

We check in over tea and snacks letting a deep breath out at the end of our check-ins by blowing a real or imaginary bubble. We make dolls that listen, healing remedies for emotional emergencies, books for our dreams, collages for our visions, love notes for each other in the name of Indigo who used all these things to create the world she needed when she was right in the arena of the menstrual transformation.

It is an honor to participate in the building of community and sisterhood among these brilliant young women, and as the Crunk Feminist Collective reminded us with their development of a women's studies 101 workshop for high school students (http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/feminism-101-or-why-womens-studies-cant-wait-a-workshop-for-girls/)
the intentional support and nourishment of the love, transformation and brilliance that is already living and growing and possible in young people can never start to early.

Indigo Afterschool uses the model of Indigo...just one of many audacious, inventive, complex, community accountable and wise young Black characters created by Black feminist writers to give young folks a chance to love each other and explore their own magical skills, a space to critique the norms they are noticing at school, and a validation of the practices of breathing, creating and listening.

As people around the country reclaim space in their communities to activate their visions I am proud that the space that these 11 year olds (who have just proposed an expansion of the program to bi-weekly sessions) have decided to takeover my living room with their dreams.

(Here is what Alex left on the chalkboard)

Indigo Style Remedies:

Yesterday we read some of Indigo's remedies that she creates after difficult experience and share with her community of dolls so that her growth can also benefit them. Oh Indigo!!!

Rock in the manner of a quiet sea. Hum softly from your heart. Repeat the victim’s name with love. Offer a brew of red sunflower to cleanse the victims blood and spirit. Fasting & silence for a time refurbish the victim’s awareness of her capacity to nourish & heal herself.

-from "Emergency Care For Wounds That Cannot Be Seen" in Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo

The Indigo After School crew also wrote their own remedies yesterday (they also wrote a healing recipe for popcorn, getting past writers block and "boredness").

Here is some of their advice...that I recommend keeping on hand or enacting right now for your own healing:

Emergency Care for the "the funk"
by Bailey
(i.e. like on Glee, when they were in a funk because they were afraid their singing group wasn't good enough)

Surround oneself with loved ones, then go on top of a tall object and scream to hearts content all of ones deepest feelings. If this does not work, go in private room and listen to songs that mention only of happy things, then write down all of ones problems and think of a way to turn them around.

Emergency for Sadness
by Assata

1. go to the bathroom and turn on hot water. let it steam.
2. get your favorite incense and burn it
3. get a robe and put it on
4. put the incense in the bathroom
5. put a stool in the bathroom
6. write all the things you are sad about on a piece of paper
7. write on the steamed mirror all the things that are peaceful
8. sit in the bathroom and be peaceful with the steaming and the incense

Forged by Fire (for hard experiences that change you forever):
by Alex

Bathe in a tub of warm water without bubbles. Slowly lie down and let all the bad energy out. When you get out, don't dry off, instead go to a silent room and let the peaceful air dry you off. Next rub your skin with soothing lavender oil. Now go outside and let the sun wrap its loving rays around you.

Amazing! Priceless and here is how you can support this space!

1. Of course donating to the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind one time

or becoming a monthly sustainer helps infinitely to sustain this free program for superhero youth.

2. This community of readers is the best thing ever. Want to send as a winter break gift 1 or 3 copies of your favorite young adult book from when you were around 11? The Indigo afterschoolers are self-identified "cool nerds" and will need a lot of reading material when school lets out next month to keep their brains engaged! Email alexispauline@gmail.com for the address.

3. Or contribute to the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Library that surrounds and uplifts the participants and their parents and grandparents and younger siblings and friends by donating a book from the Eternal Summer amazon wishlist!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/9JXRNX84Z3R9

Keeping it quirky, eternal and off the hook!
Love,
lex

The Immediate Need For Emotional Justice

2011-11-16T06:19:00.001-08:00

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The Immediate Need For Emotional Justice

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by moyazb on 11/16/11

The Immediate Need For Emotional Justice
Guest Post by Yolo Akili

Oppression is trauma. Every form of inequity has a traumatic impact on the psychology, emotionality and spirituality of the oppressed. The impact of oppressive trauma creates cultural and individual wounding. This wounding produces what many have called a "pain body", a psychic energy that is not tangible but can be sensed, that becomes an impediment to the individual and collective's ability to transform and negotiate their conditions.

Emotional justice is about working with this wounding. It is about inviting us into our feelings and our bodies, and finding ways to transform our collective and individual pains into power. Emotional justice requires that we find the feeling behind the theories. It calls on us to not just speak to why something is problematic, but to speak to the emotional texture of how it impact us; how it hurts, or how it brings us joy or nourishment. Emotional Justice is very difficult for many activists, because historically most activist spaces have privileged the intellect and logic over feeling and intuition. This is directly connected to sexism and misogyny, because feeling and intuition are culturally and psychologically linked to the construct of "woman", a construct that we have all been taught to invalidate and silence. So by extension we invalidate and silence the parts that we link to "woman" in ourselves: our feelings, our intuition, and our irrationality.

This disdain leads to many things: a dismissal or minimization of our own and other's feelings, a fear of revealing oneself as "emotional" (instead of as sternly logical) and a culture of "just suck up your feelings" or shrug them off. All of these responses to our emotions have consequences that contribute to a range of emotional and spiritual stressors which impact our lives. In this article I am going to focus exclusively on the reasons I believe activist communities struggle with emotional justice and why the integration of our emotional selves into our activist work can't wait.

Reasons I believe activist communities struggle with emotional justice

1. Activist Organizations Are Often Over-capacity
Many grass roots organizations and non-profits operate with a small staff that is expected to complete herculean tasks. This expectation leads to fatigue, stress and emotional imbalance. Asking to add emotional justice discourse(s) to the workplace/organizing is seen as a waste of time when organizations are trying to survive and fulfill grant/monetary obligations with limited resources. Yet it is an emotional discourse that could offer many movements opportunities for self-evaluation, especially as it relates to perpetuating models of capitalist productivity that they are often seeking to end. Regular guided dialogues and retreats must become a priority and should be led by outside consult. They can help build connections, clarify the mission(s) and re-invigorate the collective.

2. Emotional Justice Has No Succinct Time Line
There simply is no timeline that can be put on someone else's healing. Within an emotional justice framework, someone is able to bring up their pain as they feel the need. Our patriarchal emotional discourses will push back against this, however, and will instead encourage us to deny, dismiss, and move on as quickly as possible from difficult emotions. Engaging emotional justice requires us to check this attitude within ourselves and develop ongoing strategies that allow us to express our concerns and feelings.

3. Emotions are Used as a Tool for those with Privilege to Avoid, Minimize or Escape Accountability
In an experience working with a group of queers on a racism project, a white identified cis gendered woman in the group would constantly break into tears whenever someone challenged her on the choices she was making that perpetuated racist themes. Her crying, which happened in several sessions, led to the entire group, especially the women of color, to comfort and assure her that she wasn't a "bad person."
Yet in the midst of attending to her emotional expressions, she continued to evade accountability and perpetuated the same dynamics. When she was challenged on her use of crying, she was able to come to an understanding that as a child crying had been a tactic she had used within her family to avoid being held responsible. This awareness led to her participate in the space in a much more accountable manner.
Stories like these happen all the time. Unfortunately in most spaces there are not always individuals with the skills to compassionately address these kind of emotional dynamics. This lack of skill prevents many from engaging emotional justice for fear they will get lost in these issues. This another reason seeking the support of healing justice/emotional justice educators is necessary.

4. Very Little Knowledge of the Emotional Body or Emotional Language
What is a feeling? What are the lessons they offer us? How can they invite us into ourselves? These are the questions that emotional justice guides us toward. Emotional justice can help many begin to work with their feelings in constructive ways that can help the movement as a whole.
An example: If someone asks many activists, what do you feel? The response may be something like,
"I feel like we just need to hurry up and make this thing happen because they keep on trying. yaddda yadda."
But that was not a feeling. That was a thought. A feeling is one word. The feeling for this statement could be: "I am anxious, or I am frustrated". Aiming directly for the feeling, as opposed to the thought around it, can help save time and address deeper issues. If feelings are continually confused as thoughts, then the intellectual debate process kicks in, and before you know it, we are battling for philosophical dominance instead of saying that we are hurt.

5. Lack of Self-Awareness into how our own unique Psychological Frameworks, Trauma and Social locations inform our Interpretation of Reality
Journeying into our own narratives and seeing how they inform our current understandings of others around us can be invaluable in times of challenge. There are many tools for this; one in which I find very effective is Psychological Astrology; as it invites us to explore, whether we believe in Astrology or not, what our motivations are, what we need to feel emotionally satisfied, the root of our personality conflicts with others, and how we express our aggression. This exploration can help us recognize an area of difference that is predicated on the ways in which we psychologically experience the world around us, a recognition that can help us understand and hear each other better in conflict situations.

6. Ideological Violence
"We were often poised and ready for attack, and not always in the most effective places. When we disagreed with one another, we were far more vicious to each other than the common originators of our problem. " -Audre Lorde

It is apparent from Audre Lorde's words that ideological violence was a big problem for her generation. Many years later it continues to be, as unproductive ego wars rage amidst our movement spaces.
These ego wars (or as many of my friends say, "intellectual dick fights") are for many apart of the academic environmental training that encourages us to battle for philosophical dominance. While debate in itself is healthy and can be empowering, the challenge here is that this "training" is colored with patriarchy and a "power over others" construct. Tactics such as Interrupting, yelling, belittling each other, and personal attacks, are dynamics of patriarchal communication and must be seen as the acts of emotional violence that they are.* As this is acknowledged, steps must be taken to train and understand assertive communication and the myriad of cultural communication styles that allow us to express our hurt, rage and frustration in ways that minimize harm.

Emotional Justice is not anything new to our movements. It is already being enacted in many spaces and in organizations all across the country. My hope in writing this is that this work is expanded, illuminated and raised to a level of importance on par with our intellectual critiques. It is my hope that we realize that just as we must construct new systems and institutions, we must also develop new ways of relating with each other and to our emotional selves. These models of relating will call on us to develope skills and to work with our feelings, our trauma and our pain. It calls on us to recognize that emotional justice is an immediate need, not only for our movements, but for the world at large.

Yolo Akili is an Emotions Educator, Performance Artist, Practicing Astrologer, Yoga Teacher and long time activist. He can be reached at Yolo@yoloakili.com

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Lex on Black Issues Forum! Watch the Full Episode here!!!!

2011-11-13T06:47:00.001-08:00

Watch Empowering Force of Feminist Teaching on PBS. See more from BLACK ISSUES FORUM.

PARIAH - Screening and Q&A Invite - 11.16.11

2011-11-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

I have attached the flyer for a special Q&A screening of PARIAH on Wednesday, November 16. PARIAH (synopsis below) will be released in Atlanta on January 13, 2012.

Immediately following the screening, we will have a Q&A with the film's stars Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans, as well as the film's writer/director Dee Rees and producer Nekisa Cooper. We would love to extend an invitation for your friends, family and group members to attend this exciting event.

Wednesday, November 16 at 7:00PM

Landmark Midtown

Feel free to forward this invite to anyone interested in attending. Just remind everyone to RSVP to PariahATL@gmail.com by Monday, November 14 if they plan to attend.

Thank you again for your continued interest in our film!

Best,
Matt

pariah (puh-rahy-uh) – noun;

a person without status. a rejected member of society. an outcast.

A world premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the contemporary drama Pariah is the feature-length expansion of writer/director Dee Rees' award-winning 2007 short film Pariah. Spike Lee is among the feature's executive producers. At Sundance, cinematographer Bradford Young was honored with the [U.S. Dramatic Competition] Excellence in Cinematography Award.

Adepero Oduye, who had earlier starred in the short film, portrays Alike (pronounced ah-lee-kay), a 17-year-old African-American woman who lives with her parents Audrey and Arthur (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell) and younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood. She has a flair for poetry, and is a good student at her local high school.

Alike is quietly but firmly embracing her identity as a lesbian. With the sometimes boisterous support of her best friend, out lesbian Laura (Pernell Walker), Alike is especially eager to find a girlfriend. At home, her parents' marriage is strained and there is further tension in the household whenever Alike's development becomes a topic of discussion. Pressed by her mother into making the acquaintance of a colleague's daughter, Bina (Aasha Davis), Alike finds Bina to be unexpectedly refreshing to socialize with.

Wondering how much she can confide in her family, Alike strives to get through adolescence with grace, humor, and tenacity – sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, but always moving forward.A Focus Features, Northstar Pictures, and Sundial Pictures presentation in association with aid+abet, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and MBK Entertainment. A Dee Rees Film. Pariah. Adepero Oduye, Pernell Walker, Aasha Davis, Charles Parnell, Sahra Mellesse, and Kim Wayans. Casting, Eyde Belasco, CSA. Edited by Mako Kamitsuna. Production Design by Inbal Weinberg. Cinematography by Bradford Young. Produced by Nekisa Cooper. Written and Directed by Dee Rees. A Focus Features Release.

check us out in the 1st episode of SIGNIFIED, by Anna...

2011-11-10T11:09:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

check us out in the 1st episode of SIGNIFIED, by Anna...

via bklyn boihood on 11/10/11

check us out in the 1st episode of SIGNIFIED, by Anna Barsan.

for more peep, www.thisissignified.com

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How Talking to Your Homegirls Can ‘Liberate’ Your Sex Life

2011-11-09T07:53:00.001-08:00

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

How Talking to Your Homegirls Can ‘Liberate’ Your Sex Life

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by crunktastic on 11/9/11

Over the summer, while I was visiting Crunkadelic, she and I ended up brainstorming methods for positioning oneself at an optimum angle for penetration in the missionary position. Yes, that means what you think it means. #selfcareisnotagame

For professional Black and Latino women (source) who are often dogged by long periods of forced celibacy, "getting it in" cannot be merely a declaration. Sometimes there needs to be a pragmatic conversation about how to, um, get it in and keep it in.

At some point, we thought that perhaps a pillow under the bottom could provide that extra lift, and since nothing is new under the sun, we figured that some sex guru had already invented such a pillow.

A Google search confirmed our suspicions.

So I thank/blame Crunkadelic for putting me on to the Liberator wedge and ramp and all the other goodies that they boast at their website.

You can imagine then that it was a pleasant surprise to discover via my FB newsfeed (which is how I find out most things worth knowing these days) that three of the cast members of the Real Housewives of Atlanta visited the newly opened Liberator Store in Atlanta on the premiere episode.

Now I was busy watching #BlackGirlsRock, on BET.

And we do rock, in case anyone was wondering. S/N: I was pleasantly surprised to see the embedded layers of social critique within the program—discussion of the prison industrial complex (from the venerable Angela Davis), discussions of sex trafficking of Black girls and women, and of course, a range of challenges to the paucity of representations of Black female subjectivity in media.

Back on FaceBook, one of my male friends remarked on the alleged contradiction of having Black Girls Rock on at the same time as RHOA. In my estimation it was a failed analogy, unless, the argument is that Black women should only be center stage on one channel at a time, or that we can't be both fabulously fly and outrageously over-the-top at the same time. Now I agree that if there is a such thing as authentic representation, it is probably somewhere in between the hyper-positivity of BGR and the hyper-negativity of RHOA.

And while I stopped watching RHOA for all the obvious reasons after season 1, I found Sheree, Kandi's, and Phaedra's trip to the sex store important for a couple of reasons.

1.) Black women are pro-sex, notwithstanding the bad reps we get as denizens of respectability. And as others have said, since Black feminist sex is the best sex ever, I need Kandi to make it happen with her sex toy line. Every grown woman needs sex toys.

2.) If you want to have better sex, you should discuss it with your homegirls. I'm serious! Frankly, I would venture to say that the good sex I have had is as much a result of "consultations" with my homegirls as it is a result of the skills sets of my chosen partners. It is my girls who have encouraged me to be bold in asking for what I want and to try new things, disabused me of my investment in being a good girl in the bedroom, helped me to know what is "normal" (namely anything that I and my partner willingly desire and consent to do) and what is not acceptable (e.g. being used as a partner's masturbation machine, being pressured, and being in pain [BDSM isn't my thing]).

Me and my girls routinely have intense conversations about our intimate lives, what it looks like to have the kind of sex we want to be having in our 20s, 30s, and 40s, and the nuts and bolts of the acts, when necessary. I have helped homegirls plan whole seduction schemes from the lingerie to the breakfast menu, and they have reciprocated. When it comes to getting it in, my motto is be intentional.

So of course, I was slightly offended when one of my FB friends had the nerve to question why anyone would need a pillow during sex. It reminded me that in a culture which privileges smaller body types, it rarely enters into the purview of the slim (and the able-bodied), that all bodies can't and don't and don't want to have sex in the same ways. Because fat people aren't seen as sexy, most folks think that fat people aren't having sex, or at least not good sex. Lie Number One. Truth: The Overweight Lovers are in the house! (Much love and RIP to the Original Overweight Lover Heavy D.)

And Lie Number Two comes from big girls who are fronting and faking like sex happens for us in the same ways as our skinny counterparts. Yes, there are some big girls who are flexible and acrobatic, and they are my sheroes. But it's not a leap to recognize that physical acts work differently on bodies that are 120 or 150 pounds versus bodies that are 250 or 300 pounds. Can we be real about that? Extra weight requires extra creativity about most things, from fashion to sex. And ain't no shame in admitting that.

So if the Liberator pillow (or any other similar product or strategy) can offer support for F.A.T. (fabulous and thick) girls or people with disabilities who may be less flexible or need additional support for the elbows or the posterior, then I say get free! Trust I will be getting free as soon as freedom is in the budget. This weekend when I head to Atlanta for NWSA, I got two words for y'all: field trip!

And let me say it one more time: #blackgirlsrock!

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Hip Hop for Palestine feat. DAM & Invincible, Tomorrow, Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 9pm

2011-11-08T07:38:00.001-08:00

Hip Hop for Palestine is unifying Atlanta's hip hop community in support of Palestine's biggest hip hop crew, Da Arabic MCs (DAM) and their message of resistance.

For over 10 years, DAM (Suhell, Tamer and Mahmoud) have told their stories of Palestine's plight. DAM's music is a unique fusion of east and west, combining Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, and urban hip hop. One of the first groups to rap in Arabic, DAM's song "Min Irhabi" ("Who's the Terrorist") became the anthem for Palestinian resistance both within and beyond their borders.

With resounding support from the hip hop community, Hip Hop for Palestine welcomes Detroit's Invincible, an MC on the forefront of the Palestinian cause & Khaki Mustafa, a socially conscious Palestinian-American hip-hop artist, plus addresses from prominent local activists and appearances by local MCs such as J-Live, Rasheeda Ali, Sa-Roc/Sol Messiah, Ras Kofi, Methuzulah and Khalila Ali.

Find out more about DAM at www.damrap.com.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Loft @ Center Stage - Atlanta

1374 West Peachtree Street

Atlanta, GA 30309

Doors at 8 pm, Show at 9 pm
Tickets $15

Tickets available online at http://www.ticketalternative.com/Events/16261.aspx

(More) Sad Black Girls

2011-11-07T07:11:00.001-08:00

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(More) Sad Black Girls

via Black Youth Project by Summer M. on 11/7/11

Last week, this site featured a trailer for the documentary, Dear Daddy, about young black women who grew up without fathers. In these last few months, it seems to me that documentaries about black women and their relationships to men and their relationship to the standards and mores of larger society have been of interest [...]

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Next generationFIVE 3-Day Training: Dec 9 - 11, Bay Area

2011-11-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

generationFIVE 3-Day Introductory Training

generationFIVE is a national organization whose mission is to end child sexual abuse within five generations. Through survivor leadership, bystander involvement, community organizing, and public action, generationFIVE works to interrupt and mend the intergenerational impact of child sexual abuse on individuals, families, and communities. Rather than perpetuate the isolation of this issue, we integrate child sexual abuse prevention and response into social justice movements and community organizing targeting family violence, economic and racial oppression, and gender and age-based discrimination. It is our belief that meaningful community response is the key to effective prevention.

generationFIVE (gen5) invites you to participate in our next 3-Day Introductory Training on December 9 – 11, 2011 in the Bay Area.

During the gen5 3-Day we will:

Explore the intersections between child sexual abuse, other forms of violence, and social justice organizing.
Introduce the impact of trauma on individuals, communities and movements and relevant ways to integrate our understanding of trauma into organizing and activism.
Introduce participants to Somatic tools for working with and around trauma.
Intersect child sexual abuse respond and prevention organizing and other community work and social justice movements.
Introduce and develop organizing and agency practices that integrate personal, community and political transformation.
Support individual and community resiliency-based work as key to social change.
Introduce participants to the principles of Transformative Justice and responses to incidences of child sexual abuse and other forms of intimate violence that prevent future abuse and intimate, community and state violence.
Introduce and invite specific ways to integrate child sexual abuse and prevention and response and the work of gen5 and our collaborative partners.

This training will be lead by Micah Frazier and Mia Mingus.

To Apply to the 3-Day Training:
To express interest in and apply to the 3-Day Introductory Training, download an application/interest form from our website. Applications are due Wednesday, November 9th, 2011. We will follow up with confirmation and specific information about location, and times. Please note that due to the large number of interested participants, filling out this form does not automatically guarantee space in the training.

Please contact mmingus@generationfive.org or (510) 251-8552 with any questions.

Making Majority: Majority Consciouness and Black Feminist Protest Poems (Fo...

2011-11-04T08:57:00.001-07:00

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Making Majority: Majority Consciouness and Black Feminist Protest Poems (For the Raleigh Reclaimers)

via littleblackbook by lex on 11/4/11

Making Majority: Majority Consciouness and BlackFeminist Protest Poems

For the RaleighReclaimers

Nov. 3 2011

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Let's make somenoise to stay warm out here!!! Make some noise if you are part of that 99% they keep talking about onthe news! Make some noise if youlove how our people in Oakland took over the highway and closed down a majorport in their general strike yesterday! Make some noise if you grew up working class. Make some noise if you are queer. Make some noise if you are in collegenow or if you have a college degree. Take a deep breath and make some noise if you are ablack feminist!!!!!!! Andmake some noise if you are a white person…

Yeah. Majority is complicated. And it can be exhilarating. And it can be facist. And it can tell the truth. And it can lie to our faces. The truth is that we areprofoundly interconnected. We arebigger than ourselves. We aresharing something that we don't know how to describe, right this second withall the people who live now and all the people who have ever lived. We are sharing something right now withevery energetically linked piece of matter on the planet. We are huge. We are more than 99% we are cosmiceternal quantum dust crashing into itself. The vibration we just made from shouting is more thanwe can know it is.

Atthe same time, majority is complicated. I live in Durham, North Carolina. A majority people of color city with a majority white occupymovement. Majority is complicated. Because the tricky statistics ofmajority has been used as a tool of white supremacy to create norms for a longtime, it is not merely a coincidence that one of the largest, most compelling,media-effective and participatory convergences of direct action that I havewitnessed uses the colonizing military language of occupation. This is where white descendentsof settler colonialists get off calling themselves native North Carolinians,for example. And this is animportant question, not just of terminology, but also of mathematicalunderstanding, because it is not merely a coincidence that the most marketabledirect action we are participating in right now coincides with many actualimperialist occupations by the US around the world and the ongoing occupationof this land that something now called the United States stole throughgenocide. I'm a blackfeminist nerd, I teach about blackfeminist poetry and when it comes to our power, when it comes to our revolutionI care a lot about what words we choose and what numerical reality weimply. But I don't want to throwthe baby out with the bathwater. It matters to me that what makes folks love this movement of reclaimingour lives and protesting against the violence of capitalism is a deep andgrounded energy, tapped into a planetary connection which is actually not thesame thing as whatever energy has caused white people to believe that they arenormal, straight people to believe that they are normal, middle class people tobelieve that they are entitled to whatever the abject poverty of women of coloraround the world and finger breaking work of working class people in this country invisibly buys us. These two things, the majorly transformativepower of interconnected struggle and love and the majorly status quo affirmingreproduction of normalcy, in my mathematical opinion , are not equal. They are not equally powerful. The first one just might get us theunimaginable world we deserve, and the other one will at best case get us backto the messed up place we were 5 years ago.

Itis the statistically significant difference between saying. "Hey! Iam part of the 99%. Everyone elseis just like me and I am just like everyone else and I deserve the job andeducation I always thought I was entitled and damn the 1% fat cats for stillbeing able to maintain what I always thought I deserved and could get if Iworked hard enough and was smart enough and white enough and straight enoughfor long enough." It is thedifference between saying that and saying "I am part of this planet and I am interconnected with all life. I refuse to continue to contribute myenergy to a system that is killing all of us. I refuse to consent to the fragmentation of capitalism and Icommit to building power creatively with everyone and everything that isdifferent to me towards our common survival which could also be calledlove. I am interconnectedwith everything and I am promising with my body to reclaim the truth. I am connected to you from a deeperpalce than I can see and I am doing my best to act accordingly."

Y'allsee how these are not the same things? And I care about this movement. And so I am bringing what I love most into this conversation, that whichhas brought me most clarity and refined my actions. Also known as the longstanding intersectional super stars ofkeepin' it complicated all days in all ways…I am bringing Black Feminist Poetsinto the mix, towards the movement we deserve. Drawing on a very different tradition of MajorityConsciousness coming out of the anti-colonial movements in the Caribbean and inAfrica and in Asia, Black Feminist in the United States were part of the thirdworld consciousness raising movement, affirming the reality that the majorityof the people in the world are people of color, the majority of the people inthe world are women, and yet, the most consistently oppressed category ofalmost person on the planet is this same powerful group: women of color. So as you think aboutthis, think about your interface with the movement of the 99% not so poeticallycalled "occupy" and think about what the role of women of color has been in thesegment of this movement that you have seen. Think about whether and how the absence, presence,form of labor, forms of leadership, interventions of women of color have beenreceived by the false majority and whether that honors the majority of peoplein the world. On NewYear's day 1989 thinking about the prospect of a black presidential candidateto the White House (named Jesse Jackson), Black feminist lesbian warrior mother poet icon Audre Lorde feltcompelled to bring out fractions. About how the US and USSR (at the time the main interlocuters in thedebate about the destiny of the planet) were only 1/8 of the population,actually. And that African peoplewere also 1/8 of the population and that ½ of the people in the world wereAsian. Lorde breaks it down,slowing to the methodical tempo of white supremacy and then speeding up :

"So most people in this world/

are Yellow, Black , Brown, Poor,Female

Non-Christian

And do not speak English."

Most of you, probably all of you,know this intellectually. It goeswithout saying. So whydoes Audre Lorde bother to bring the math into it, in a poem, in English. The language I am using now,which as she points out most people on the planet do not speak. Because the question of majorityis always at stake. This is whythe "I am the 99% campaign" has been so important as a way of actually talkingabout the experiences of most of the people when television and the songs ofthe radio seem to come from the experiences of only the super-rich in order toencourage consumerism. If I wereto believe the "I am the 99%" posts that I have seen on the internet it wouldseem that the majority of the people in the world have massive studentloans. And while I certainlyworked my way through college and took on major student loans in the processand I think it is very important to unpack meritocracy and throw off the shamethat is associated with debt. We also have to remember privilege. It is not that the majority of people in the world areoppressed by student loans. Themajority of the people in the world are oppressed by capitalism such thatcollege is not an option. Themajority of this generation of college students may have student loans, butthese two things are not the same.

Because another important thing about Lorde's poem isthat she maintains difference. Sheis not arguing that everyone on the planet is the same, she is giving us thefractions. There is actually somuch difference on the planet that is completely left out of theconversation. So the liberatoryquestion is not how can we all lump together as the same thing, the realquestion is the one Audre Lorde asked in her essay on the creative power ofdifference, and which, incidentally Angela Davis, black feminist freedomfighter raised at the Wall Street encampment a few days ago:

"Howcan we come together in a unity that is complex and emancipatory? Differencesmust not be merely tolerated but seen as a fund of necessary polarities betweenwhich poles creativity can spark like a dialectic."

And indeed, as many people before mehave said the most important and exciting thing about this whole movement thatwe are participating in is that it truly has brought different people who arenot generally in the same spaces and not generally speaking to each other,together in powerful ways, and asked all of us to be creative in our listeningthrough the demands of direct democracy. It inspired Angela Davis to say last weekend that "Theold majorities are the new majorities," that there is something, awakened,referenced, remembered by this contemporary movement that precedes it, that themajority that we invoke is not simply the breakdown of American wealth amongthe living, but actually includes our collective ancestral power, including thepower and resilience of the indigenous inhabitants of this land and includingthe power of the enslaved people who build and bled into this structure andloved anyway, and including all of those movement warriors who have burnt out,gotten sick and died, been killed via hate violence or by police. It means when we invoke majority we arealso saying, we are all here, our mandate for changing the world is certainlybigger than those of us who have the time to be here physically and is biggereven than the combined bodies of those of us who have survived this system tothis point. Our mandate to changethe world is old and it honors our ancestors and it calls up their energy.

NikkiFinney, a black feminist lesbian poet from South Carolina believes that thereis such as thing as ancestral rage. That oppression in the present not only disrespects and dishonors thoseof us living through it, but it also disrespects the work and truth andbrilliance of those who came before us, who deserved better than what theyexperiences and who expect more from us than this. In her first collection of poems On Wings Made of Guaze, Finney has a protest poems that speaksout against the Atlanta Child murders, a rash of murders and disappearances ofBlack children in Atlanta, the city where I grew up, and where Finney lived atthe time of the murders which began in 1979, the same year that closer to home in Greensboro, the KKKopened fire on economic and racial justice organizers at a rally in the middleof the day. Which is alsothe same year that in Boston 12 black women were found dead day after day in 3short months. In each case thepolice did not respond to the murders as murders. In the case of the Greensboro massacre the people who wereattacked were the ones brought up on charges. What does one do in a year like 1979 where the lives ofblack women, black children and black activists are so clearly devalued by thestate, and how is it related to what we do this year, when Troy Davis issacrificed to the right of police officers to threaten people to get falsetestimonies and to fulfill their so-called justice agenda by choosing anoppressed person to prosecute for any crime that happens? When those who are having to face themusic about the low value of their lives are more and more of the population that used to feel safe and worthyall the time.

NikkiFinney invokes a majority constructed of time and the natural world to dosomething related to what we are doing here today and in the next couple ofdays when we move whatever little money we have out of the big banks and intothe community credit unions, asking for a new set of accounts. In a poem that she dedicates to "thechildren of Atlanta, the children we claim who died, who are dying because theyare Black….for the children whose lives we claim and whose deaths now claimus" Finney calls on a higher senseof balance and justice than what the world bank would use to classify debt andwho is a drain on the system. Forthose, who like me, were not born yet in 1979, we have to remember that 1979 isthe same year that Ronald Reagan won the presidential election with a campaignthat centered on the characiture of the welfare queen and the untrue projectionthat the majority of people on welfare were black women who were cheats, thatthe primary beneficiaries were black children who were a drain on the nationalbudget and didn't deserve anything. It is a major year for the growth of what we now understand as globalneoliberal capitalism, a system of debt-making in the name of restructuring onthe planet. 1979 is also the yearthat the major institution that laid the groundwork for what we know of as theRadical Right was created, calledthe Moral Majority. See whatI mean. Majority is complicated,and everyone invokes it when they feel like it So what kind of Major are we?

Nikki Finney calls on the world towitness the violence against Black children saying:

world

don't ever come to us again

heart in hand

hoof in mouth

ancient eyes in full bloom

don't even look this way

asking to replenished

to be restocked

we are paid in full

for this

and for the next millenniums

incensed enough we are

until this world ends

and something else begins

paid up we are

tell your hands world

sign it out to your fingers

insist that your eyes remember

how this time

we have overpaid you

we owe nothing

no more

pass this word on

to the rivers behind you

for the next one thousand years

we are paid in full

In the economic frame of 1979, thisis a big deal. In fact in thecurrent economic frame where most of us are in debt, and those of use who don'thave the credit to get any more debt are positioned to conceptually owesomething to the society that profits off our lack of choices this poem is veryrevolutionary. Look at theviolence we are experiencing, Finney's poem says, what kind of balance is this? What kind of accountability. Forget it. We do not owe anything. Not only because our lives havebeen unjustly sacrificed in many ways, not only in honor of those ancestors whowere forcibly removed from this very places, or those other ancestors who wereforcibly brought to the place and built it for free without freedom, but alsobecause we are beyond the economic calculations that make up our lives. We are more than a market. And as Finney's poetics reveal,we persist beyond that which would crunch us into numbers as debt. The "We are" of the poem moves out thenormal position within a sentence. In the second to last stanza of the poem she offers "incensed enough weare, paid up we are" instead of we are incensed enough, weare paid up. The "we are" thestubborn miracle of our existence, is still there, yoda like, after thedescriptive action. And actually,the original construction that she starts with "we are paid" leaves poeticambiguity about who we are actually , the first line "in full we are paid" is an archaic construction that leavesquestions about what is the subject of the sentence. We, paid. Is paid an action, an adjective. Is full a place to be. Looking at Finney's poem about reckoning accounts makes me wonder aboutthe economic arguments we have been making from a poetic standpoint. We have been affirming thatwe are the 99%. Individualizing: "I am the99%" Now is the time to lookcritically 99% percent we are. To truly examine what we are part of beyond the desperate gratitude ofbeing part of something is the task before us. What is truly major about this, and how does it impactwhat we do. To use Nikki Finney'slanguage who claims us, where is the accountability that transcends howdisgruntled we are about our bank accounts? Who do we honor with these actions?

Whatthis movement is demonstrating is that where we place our bodies is a questionof accountability, honor and claim. In Philadelphia and other places explicit solidarity with, andleadership by homeless Philadelphians who have been criminalized for claimingspace in the streets has been crucial. What does it mean for people with homes to place their privileged bodiesbetween the action of the police and the right of a homeless person to sleepsomewhere. What does it mean forthe outrage at police acts of repression and violence in several cities to belinked in the news media, in the form of images and focus, on the fact that somany white people are being arrested, so much of the population that the daybefore they became protesters, were inequitably over-served by the violence ofthe police against more traditionally oppressed communities? Tear gas canisters and billyclubs, rubber bullets and the training language among the police that thenon-violent orchestrated protests around the country should be treated asriots? One way the Wall Streetincarnation of this movement responded to some of these questions was to usethe mass of people reclaiming the street create a direct action in Harlem,specifically challenging the violent racist practice of the police stopping andsearching black people on the streets. June Jordan, black feminist poet with intimate andviolent experience with the actions of the New York City police department,again invoked what I call black feminist math, the alchemy of poetry andproportions to look at the meaning of police violence, in one of her mostfamous poems; Poem on PoliceViolence:

On the heels of the acquittal ofpolice officer Thomas O'Shea forthe murder of a 10 year old unarmed black boy named Clifford Glover who wasrunning away from O'Shea. The agreement by a jury that Thomas O'Shea was justified in his actionbecause of how threatening black children are to grown white policeofficers with guns. Thomas O'Shea was recorded saying whilehis police radio was on: "die you little motherfucker" as he shot 10 year oldClifford in the back. In court hedefended himself by saying "I didn't see the size nor nothing else. Only the color."

So June Jordan asks:

"Tell me something

what you think would happen if

everytime they kill a black boy

then will kill a cop…

you think the accident rate wouldlower

subsequently?"

And she goes into the math of it;

"18 cops in order to subdue on man

18 strangled him to death in theensuing scuffle (don't

you idolize the diction of thepowerful: subdue and

scuffleoh my) and that the murder

that the killing of Arthur Milleron a Brooklyn

street was just a "justifiableaccident" again

(again)"

How do we live in a world where ourbodies are not equal. Where thelife of a police officer and the life of a black child are not equal. Where to be honest, the white body of acollege student and that body of color of a college student are not seen thesame as police or school administrators. Where safety means different things for those of uswho have survived sexual violence. Where the bodies of homeless people and the bodies of students, wherethe bodies of students and the bodies of workers do not balance out into anykind of equation. How do we useour privilege? Where do we place our bodies? Who should get arrested? Where should we stand in order tostand up for each other? Who should do what kind of work? 18 to one or one to one? Beyond Jordan's propositions aboutproportions are the places where she falls out of rhythm and reveals thatactually what a life is equal to cannot be quantified. It only be approached by poetry. She says

"sometimes the feeling like amazeme baby

comes back to my mouth and I amquiet"

"sometimes thinking about the 12^thHouse of the Cosmos

or the way your ear ensnares thetip

of my tongue or signs that I havenever seen

like DANGER WOMEN WORKING"

Our bodies are possible futuresthat end when we are sacrificed by the state or by each other. Amazement. Signs that we have never seen. Our bodies are places where lovegets actualized and electrified. That one body that you live in, the body of a personthat you love is not interchangeable with anything on a one to one or eighteento one basis. How do we hold themath and the meaning together in a way that honors everyone here and everyonewho is not here for any reason and everyone we remember and everyone we hope willbe born. Majority is complicated.

Andfinally how do will fill this time, activate our purpose, understand theinterconnected issues that my not be calculable into unpaid bills orpercentages of debt to be decreased, or lost retirement savings or years leftto work? How do we hold the ongoing violence of genocide in mind whileinsisting and benefiting from the language of occupation on stolen land? How do we account for the needs of themajority of us who are survivors or co-survivors of sexual violence and manyother forms of trauma in an anarchist or directly democratic space likethis. The last blackfeminist poem I will bring is Ntozake Shange's With No Immediate Cause.

Where she reminds us what is goingon in our society most of the time:

"every 3 minutes a woman is beaten

every five minutes a woman is raped

every ten minutes a lil girl ismolested"

She goes through her dayencountering the traumatic repetition of system violence, using the statisticsgenerated by the movement to end violence against women to create anothermajority, the perpetual presence of violence, and the perpetual traumaticreawakening of survivors to the trauma they have experienced. As a survivor and a person who ishorrified by any act of gendered violence, she has to wonder if each person sheencounters participated in the routine practice of violence at some minute,three minutes ago or 30 years ago. And when she reads her newspaper outraged that they report:

"there is some concern

that alleged battered women

might start to murder

their husbands & lovers with no

immediate cause"

We should think about those in thismovement of the 99% who dismiss the concerns of survivors of sexual violenceabout what it means to truly create safety, not only from the police, but alsowithin our progressive movement where gendered violence is still an issue as itis within all communities. Weshould think about what it means to dismiss those concerns in favor of more"immediate" priorities, like how to look badass and have an encampment. We should think about those whodespite the critique of the language of occupation brought by indigenousactivists and allies again and again feel like at this point the brand is moreimportant than our outrage. That the immediate issue is the banks and thatsettler colonialism is an issue that is somehow over, when the land is stilloccupied, when genocide is a traumatic violence that we experience right now inthe present through the continued disrespect and refusal to acknowledgeindigenous presence and history all over this continent. And we should learn from Shangewhen in response to the nonsense about no immediate cause, and theadministrative inconvenience that the self-defense of survivors of genderedviolence would cause she says,

"I spit up I vomit I am screaming

we all have immediate cause

every 3 minutes

every 5 minutes

every 10 minutes

every day…"

We have cause to stand up for eachother. Immediately. And ethical majority, meansacknowledging that time is full with reasons to listen to each other, tosupport each other, to transform ourselves towards true solidarity with eachother across so many differences. Thankyou for finding immediate cause to act on what you believe in. Thank you for filling your time withthis experiment of how we can live and for how long together. For asking how solid our solidarity canbe. You are more than 99%. You are the whole future. You are doing this in the sight of ourancestors and the trees that used to be here and the sun that could rise. And history will ask us what was thismostly about, will ask, while making major history, what kind of a majority didwe make together? And whenit adds up and we answer I hope all my black feminist ancestors and elders willbe prouder than a math problem, proud like a poem beating in the middle of yourheart, in the ground and all around. I hope you will be proud of who we were. This complicated majority. All of us.

Thank you.

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2011-11-04T07:14:00.001-07:00

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SEWSA POC Caucus Call for Papers - Litanies of Survival from the Ivory Tower...

2011-11-03T16:07:00.001-07:00

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SEWSA POC Caucus Call for Papers - Litanies of Survival from the Ivory Tower and Beyond- Due Nov. 15

via Poly People of Color on 11/3/11

SEWSA POC Caucus Call for Papers - Litanies of Survival from the Ivory Tower and Beyond- Due Nov. 15:

crunkfeministcollective:

SEWSA POC Caucus Call for Papers - Litanies of Survival from the Ivory Tower and Beyond- Due Nov. 15

This year, the former Women of Color Caucus renamed the People of Color (POC) Caucus of SEWSA invites papers, poems, performances, playlists, prescriptions, potions, procedures, and processes of surviving the academic industrial complex. How many women of color professors do you know who died before their 60th birthday? How many Queer POC scholars do you know who were denied advancement because of their politics? How many POC students do you know whose work was unfairly labeled "not rigorous" because it was accessible to those outside the academy? How many of us owe our survival to the women of color staff people who run our departments? We ask because we know that you know countless stories like these and we know that you've had these experiences too. As survivors ourselves, we ask how did we do it? How do we do it again? And how do we do it better? Please share with us your research and personal strategies of survival. "We were never meant to survive," but we do!

Please email moyazb[at]gmail[dot]com with your submissions by Nov. 15 with "SEWSA POC" in the subject line. SEWSA will be held at George Mason University March 29-31, 2012.

We strongly encourage submissions from undergraduates, staff, administrators, and interested community members.

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Black Feminist Love and Amber Cole

2011-11-03T11:03:00.003-07:00

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Black Feminist Love and Amber Cole

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by Reninaj on 11/3/11

The last time I was speechless after seeing images of a young Black woman on the internet was June 2009 when John at The Smoking Section ( a rap blog) posted what were then believed to be nude images of Rihanna Fenty. I contacted him and asked him why he did it, we had a conversation, and he then refused to give me permission to blog about the conversation. To this day, I still find it problematic that he published what is believed to be images of singer Rihanna Fenty. I always ask permission to write about conversations. Consent. Get it?

I was also speechless nearly two weeks ago when I saw the images of Amber Cole. I knew that I was going to write something, but I wanted to sort out my thoughts first because sometimes being quick to speak doesn't do anyone any good. I also took my time to read what other people had written.

In these last week weeks Latoya Peterson has written about how the boys participation in this assault has been framed, and on how boys are taught that treating a woman or girl like a piece of shit, like an object to be used is perfectly legitimate. I would add that part of the reasoning behind this is that this behavior is legitimate and acceptable because implicitly, women are put here to be protected and dominated. There is a thin line between protection and domination.

Mark Anthony Neal has written about how Amber Cole is "his daughter" and the importance of Black communities examining "the politics of respectability that go hand-in-hand with Black collective shame, that often keeps us from having honest discussions about sex and sexuality in our communities—often to the detriment of our children. "

Lastly, Bianca Laureano has written about the politics of naming Amber's name, the history of sexting, and the importance of consent. Consent, get it?

Side bar: Ms. Laureano was very deliberate in not using Amber Coles name in her post because she did not want to add to the plethora of searchable posts and I understand that. I am deliberate about using Ms. Cole's name because I aggressively track and archive how "black feminism" is searched on the internet. By adding "black feminism" to the title I am inserting our Black feminist voices into "The Google" and it's searchable archive.

Now, having read the others work, I want to address three things which are Black women's sexuality, the internet as a gendered and racialized space and the role of patriarchy in the Amber Cole conversations.

Black Women's Sexuality

In doing research on Black women's sexuality I have come across an incredible quote by Mierelle Miller-Young's in her dissertation "A Taste for Brown Sugar: The History of Black Women in American Pornography". Miller-Young quotes a veteran Black woman pornography worker who states,

"You are not suppose to talk about liking sex, because you are already assumed to be a whore."~Jeannie Pepper

This is the quote that came to my mind when I saw the images of Amber Cole on social media sites and the comments left on social media sites, which lectured Cole, admonished Cole and talked about the "general nastiness" of young women.

Gendered, Racial and Sexual Images

The posting of those images of her are racial, sexual and gendered violence. It is also cyberbullying. Because Black women are assumed to already be whores the images of this fourteen year old girl takes on special connotations.

Historically, in the US Black women were raped and Black men were lynched, publicly, as an act of power. I reason that the videotaping of Amber Cole and the posting of images from the video was an act of power as well. I am not saying that these acts are the same. What I am saying is they both constitute an act of power.

Patriarchy

While I can appreciate the sentiment of "Amber Cole is all of our daughters" there is something profoundly patriarchal about this idea. What I am getting at here is, for me the issue is not whether or not Amber Cole is my sister or my daughter, the issue is when will black girls be seen as full human beings?

By being seen as a human being, and not an automatic whore, there is a basic intrinsic level of respect and love that is shown.

#Blackgirlsarefromthefuture.

To say that a person, a girl, is entitled to care because she is related to me creates a system where some women are worth being cared after, and the others….oh well.

If we are only interested in protecting "our daughters" and "our sisters" then does that mean that the women and girls who we don't classify as being "belonging" to us or are "related to us" are shit out of luck?

Black Feminist Love and Amber Cole

What does Black Feminist Love look like in the face of digital, racialized, sexualized violence? I honestly don't know. What I do know is preparing to write this entailed me sittting, listening, think and reading on what I felt. It also meant trying to write something that was meaningful.

I am not sure what can be done in the future if this occurs again. We can involve the state by contacting the FBI regarding child pornography charges? But, how does that shift our culture?

We can decide to teach young people, consistently about cyberbulling.

I am thinking about writing a short weekend curriculum on cyberbullying that addresses race, sex and violence.

There are also a couple of organizations doing work on consent such as The Line Campaign.

Any other thoughts on what we can do, and what Black feminist Love looks like within this context would be appreciated.

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Jean the Jeanius! h/t @superfree

2011-11-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

Quirky Black Girls

The Real Housewives of The Help Go to Africa

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Toure's Northern State of Mind*

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The Zine is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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