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iba yeye mi
With mine, I will but at that size, baby girl will be on my hip not back.
AWWWWW
Lucille Clifton Sunday ShapeShifter Rebirth Broadcast: Birthday Edition from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.
This series of broadcasts is part of the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School:
In honor of the great poet Lucille Clifton, who was also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a mother, an artist and self-identified Amazon warrior through her poetry, the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School is especially designed for families that are committed to ending childhood sexual abuse and all forms of gendered violence. Informed by Generation 5 and the regional plan of the Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative, the ShapeShifter Survival School is part of a holistic process of ending child sexual abuse by creating healing community.
for more details on the 4 components of the ShapeShifter Survival School look here: http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/survival-school/
And finally…no one delivers this poem better than Ms. Lucille herself.
http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/survival-school/
In honor of the great poet Lucille Clifton, who was also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a mother, an artist and self-identified Amazon warrior through her poetry, the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School is especially designed for families that are committed to ending childhood sexual abuse and all forms of gendered violence. Informed by Generation 5 and the regional plan of the Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative, the ShapeShifter Survival School is part of a holistic process of ending child sexual abuse by creating healing community.
The ShapeShifter Survival School has 4 components:
Lucille Clifton Sunday Rebirth Broadcasts: Every Sunday starting on Lucille Clifton's birthday (June 27th) and going until November 7th Lex will video broadcast a poem by Lucille Clifton and a survival reflection/activity.
ShapeShifter Poetry Intensive for Parents (Saturday August 21st 10am-5pm) CHILDCARE AND MEALS PROVIDED (email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to do childcare or donate food or photocopies!)
For all parents and caregivers and survivors of sexual violence who are committed to ending child sexual abuse this poetry intensive will allow participants to reflect on Lucille Clifton's ShapeShifter series and other poems that deal directly with her experience as a survivor of child sexual abuse and to write and share their own poetry of healing and transformation.
Suggested donation: $25-100 (monetary and in-kind donations welcome at any point in the process...we encourage asking for donations from your families of origin and communities as a way to share your vision with them of creating a world free from child sexual abuse)
On Tuesday August 24th participants and allies will reconvene over tea to check-in in a loving affirming space and to make handmade ShapeShifter booklets as a fundraiser for the continued work of the ShapeShifter Survival School .
On Wednesday September 15th we will have another check-in about the process of sharing this work and bringing up the topic of child sexual abuse in our communities.
Everett Anderson Storytime Week! (Monday September 20-Wednesday September 22) (ALL AGES INCLUSIVE DONATIONS WELCOME!)
Lucille Clifton wrote a series of books called the "Everett Anderson Books" for her children and other children that discuss difficult issues, including the loss of a loved one, internalized racism and sexism and witnessing abuse as child. With dinner and cookies and milk we will read these stories together and do a series of activities designed to help us create ways of sharing difficult and important stories across generations in our communities. We believe that sharing stories, truthtelling, is a key practice towards ending child sexual abuse and all cycles of violence in our communities.
All Souls ShapeShifter Story Making Day (Sunday Oct 31st 11am-6pm) (ALL AGES INCLUSIVE...SWEET DONATIONS WELCOME!)
Replete with costumes, candy and storymaking stations this will be a chance for us to make our own collaborative illustrated community story about transformation, facing what scares us and creating a world free from child sexual abuse and all gendered violence. Our beautiful story and our beautiful process of creating together will be a resource for us and for superheroes everywhere.
Applications for the poetry intensive coming soon! Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to express interest in participating, donating a scholarship or donating food, money, photocopies, DV tapes and other forms of love!!!!!
*Note: We are thrilled to be practicing intergenerational love and we are learning from the best. This piece is a beautiful reflection by MobileHomeComing Interviewee Angela Denise Davis about FINDING her mother's garden.
I know there is a poem in this somewhere. It almost got lost this evening when my mother did a final spray over her garden and did not notice that my laptop was on the patio table.
My mother’s back yard is full of flavor: an old kitchen, ceiling fan turned sideways on a patio column, a black mailbox that peeks from the grapevines, an umbrella on the deck that leans to kiss the umbrella on the patio, and a striped snake whose presence is the reason for a container of mothballs on the table. I wish I had a camera.
Her back yard is her sanctuary. I find shelter in a chair that is snuggled by a palm plant and a family of pots – terra cotta, green plastic, clay, metal, and those invented out of found objects.
She is out there in the morning and in the late evening when the sun is less brutal than at mid-day.
I watched this evening as she cut down wandering vines and swept the patio clean. My father will have work to do tomorrow. I ask if I should put the cut greenery in the garden trash can.
“No,” she says.
“Mama, dad ain’t gonna like seeing this stuff on his fresh cut lawn,” I tell her.
She just replies with a chuckle that he needs to see all the work he should have done. She said he would never recognize her work if she didn’t leave the pile in the yard. She is right, of course. My father says she works too hard, but he enjoys the creation of vines structure and spirit as much as she does.
I listen as the water from the faucet trickles into a bucket she has slid under the attached hose.
“I don’t like to waste water,” she informs me and I take the bucket into her garden. The Marigolds did not get rain last night. They will thrive in their homes made of the holes in the cement blocks that line her rows of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and okra.
There is always work to do in this space my mother has created. This evening she wants to place hooks on the beams of her patio roof.
“Who does this when I am not here, Mama?” I ask with the answer already in my head.
“Oh, your dad,” she says. I know that she does not always have the patience to wait for him, though. Tonight, I make sure that she does not over exert herself and reach for the drill in her hand.
I step on the small, metal stool and place the drill over my head, reaching as high as I can. Three hooks later, we place the ferns and other potted plants just beneath the lattice covered with wild vines. She tells me that anyone from Alabama or Mississippi would know the name of the mass of greenery that hangs from the patio roof like a blanket of leaves. I tell her that I will ask Mary Anne about the vine which my mother thinks may be named Ms. Astor.
The night was closing fast around us, but I would not go in the house until my mother was trailing behind me. I knew that she could always find more work to do before calling it quits. She will be 70 years-old next January. She has more work in this life than she will ever finish.
“We’ll get the rest in the morning,” I tell her.
This week has been full of heart work. We have grieved the loss of her niece, my cousin. It has been a loss that has made our distance more regretful. Here, in her green world we seem to be finding our way back home to each other. We are two women working on reconciliation. Perhaps, we are planting new ways of being mother and daughter. I hope so, but do not invest too much time in expecting what the harvest of these days will bring. I am simply satisfied with the knowledge that we have planted something new between us here in her back yard even though there is more work for tomorrow.
On June 16, two Black, female, Seattle teenagers were arrested and detained for jaywalking.
Marilyn Levias, the 19 year-old perpetrator, unwisely chose to resist arrest. When her friend, 17 year-old Andrea Rosenthal, intervened on her behalf, the arresting officer, Ian Walsh, punched Rosenthal in the face. She was charged with third degree assault; after apologizing later that day, she was still forced to endure a lecture from the officer about keeping her hands to herself.
Many folks in the blogosphere and news outlets have debated the rights and wrongs of this issue. Certain things are clear. It is never wise to resist arrest, even when being arrested for something ludicrous, like jaywalking. It is never okay to put hands on an officer who has taken an oath "to protect and serve," even if he is more invested in protecting his power and serving his interest than taking care of your well-being.
No, Andrea and Marilyn did not make the wisest of choices. Prevailing wisdom says that lack of wisdom is a hallmark of late adolescence. And unlike Officer Walsh, these girls are not getting paid to protect the public trust. Their job is to be happy-go-lucky, carefree teenage girls. His job, I reiterate, is to protect and serve.
In our national conscience, however, Black girls are always servants, never served, always villains, never victims. Do you think two carefree, adolescent white women cruising the streets of Seattle would have been subject to this officer's harassment? Could he have so easily sucker punched a blonde, blue-eyed, co-ed?
The ease with which this officer responded to these girls as enemies, instinctually punching Rosenthal as though she had surprised him in a sneak attack, can only be explained by the pervasive operation of a white supremacist discourse that sees Black bodies as threatening and dangerous, and therefore worthy of excessive force.
When I watch the video of this incident, the only person I see attempting to diffuse the situation is a young Black man, who grabs Rosenthal away from the officer and from her friend. He is the one who de-escalates the situation. It goes virtually unnoticed, since Black men are visible in cases like this only when they are being criminal.
We will continue to see unjust, unchecked, excessive forms of violence against Black and Brown folks in this country until we rethink our methods of policing. I am reminded of the summer after I graduated from college, when an officer threatened to club me in a Wal-Mart parking lot because my friend and I parked briefly in a no parking zone, with the permission of store security, to retrieve a package that she had inadvertently left behind.
For that officer and many others, these encounters cease quickly to be about rationality. They become a power-struggle, which the officer can win because he has a state-issued gun and billyclub. If you choose to ask questions or insist an explanation be provided, more often than not, you are met with a threat.
While I recognize police officers risk their lives, everyday, for little fanfare and even less pay, I think they, too, are victims of a policing ideology demanding they "kick butt first and take names later." Force before thought equals needless carnage, pain and death. But that's taking a rational approach.
So, while I do not excuse the behavior of these young women, I sympathize with them. They reacted to this officer as though he were an enemy, because for so many people of color, police officers are public enemy #1. And, if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then the enemy of my friend is my enemy. Andrea rolled hard for her girl. As do I. I commend her sentiment even though I vigorously reject her approach, desiring she remain in the land of the living.
If this had been two young Black men we would have been outraged, and rightfully so. Police brutalize Black girls, too. RIP Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Black girls, too, are worthy of our rage.
To see the original post and other good reads on race, visit Race-Talk.
In the name of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, June Jordan's anti-imperialist collection of poems Living Room, and Barbara Smith's priceless anthology Home Girls I am called to remind myself and you. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is to stay your ass at home.
(Public sphere/private sphere dichotomies be vanquished.)
This piece of Black Feminist Herstory that I am about to share is not so old. Last year before a superstar Black Feminist Panel that we planned to present at the National Women's Studies Association meeting in Atlanta...sista revolutionary mentor comrade (y'all might know her as the creator of NO! the documentary about Black women and rape) Aishah Shahidah Simmons let us know that she would be staying home. As much as she wanted to come be with us and praise the name of Toni Cade Bambara at our We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For panel...the real lesson the Toni Cade was bringing was a radical self-care, stay your ass at home, this is a marathon movement for transformation not a mad dash, reminder.
So Aishah stayed home.
Now when the universe collaborates to keep my stubborn behind at home, despite my ferocious will to be EVERYWHERE, I know it is Toni Cade making her lessons known. Asking again and again. Do you really want to be. Well?
Toni Cade has been active these past couple of weeks. Everyone I know has been experiencing changes in travel plans, from oil leaks, to passport issues, to being sent back across the Atlantic because of technicalities around documents, to being hit by a car while riding a bike, to identity theft, to oversleeping...and in my case to a robbery and accident that have caused the beloved Revolutionary MobileHomeComing Vehicle to be laid up in the shop with a huge hospital bill.
Despite all of this we remain shaky movers, unstoppable road warriors, dare I say...STRONG BLACK WOMEN. But today I am aware of my warrior ancestors working in subtle and complicated ways. Toni Cade especially, weaving the message, you don't have to be everywhere, home is a place, sustain your body and spirit for the long haul...in the form of all my money heading to a mechanic in Atlanta for this RV repair and my frantic plans for a MobileHomeComing presence at Harlem Pride and the Dyke March in NYC squashed. I am a stubborn student. It takes all kinds of malfunctions for me to get the message.
Stay home. Regroup. Regenerate. Remember that summer is eternal. Sigh.
So I'm getting it. And as soon as I reached out to folks about my decision to cancel this trip to NYC (did I mention I'll be missing Afro Punk!!!!) donations started streaming in for the RV and I got a message from Sallie Mae that my next payment on my student loans isn't due until 2018. Okay ancestor warrior divas. I'm learning to listen. I promise it won't take so much drama next time.
So this is what I want to share with you, honor yourself, your passionate and motivated self, by listening for when the universe is asking you to rest up for the long journey of total transformation. Be still know that the energy of the universe is working through us even while we sleep. Be still and say NO to the nagging compulsion that whatever we do is never never enough. Be still and say YES to the knowledge that as the Combahee River Collective taught us "Black women are inherently valuable" which means that our value to each other and to our movement is not based on how many things we do, how many places we can be, and how frantically we run this planet.
Be still and YES.
What is the universe telling you? What is available for you to say YES to when you are still?
As QBG's we are in a place of celebration...check out QBG' Moya's excellent pictures from the Gemini Jam in Atlanta
http://picasaweb.google.com/
Some pics from the first leg of the MobileHomeComing tour to amplify the genius of queer black intergenerational community:
Painting the RV: http://www.facebook.com/album.
Kick off in Atlanta: http://www.facebook.com/album.
MobileHomeComing in Detroit: http://www.facebook.com/album.
How you can donate to Sojourner the Revolutionary Vehicle's hospital bill: Make a donation to the A Black Queer Mobile Homecoming - An
Yes yes yes. We are beautiful. Black Women are inherently valuable. I'm being very still because I know that. Be still and yes.
If you need me these next couple of days...you know where to find me.
Love always,
QBG Lex
Visit Quirky Black Girls at: http://quirkyblackgirls.ning.
There is a reason why the CFC is a people-of-color collective. Our sheroes come in all shades of brown: Barbara Smith and Gloria Anzaldua, Chandra Mohanty and Patricia Hill Collins, Cherrie Moraga and bell hooks. Many a feminist therapy session has been devoted to healing the divide between Black and White feminists. It remains a necessary conversation, but the future of feminism is all about us brown-hued girls. And I, for one, am much more interested in stitching a dream coat of many colors in a global community of sun-kissed sisters, than I am in rehashing tired debates about whether white women will ever get it. Many will. Most won't. I'm so trying to be over it.
Besides, squabbling about who owns feminism is so 1980s. In the wise words of Jay-Z, "We off that."
Given our commitment here @ the CFC to Brown-skinned girls everywhere, I was absolutely appalled when my colleague shared a link this week to a clip of Prophetess Juanita Bynum remixing her famous "No More Sheets" sermon series for a group of Latina churchgoers. In the early 1990s, Bynum, a protégé of T.D. Jakes, burst on the scene calling women to let go of their unfulfilling, soul-wrenching, and sinful sexual relationships. There were to be "No More Sheets" she declared. And for any woman who's ever lain down desperate and awoken disappointed and disillusioned, perhaps that message is encouraging.
I, for one, am ambivalent about the (unhealthy) discourse of sexuality that goes on in Christian churches today—a discourse that often traffics in guilt, compels loneliness, and demands a woman's disavowal of her sexual desire in service of being holy. But as a Christian, I'm inclined to give people of faith the benefit of the doubt, since the Church has done me much more good than harm. SN: Dr. Susan Newman's Oh God: A Black Woman's Guide to Sex and Spirituality has been a wonderful resource in my journey to have a healthy integration of sexuality and spirituality.
But alas, this post really isn't about that. It's about the kinds of silences we participate in in the name of female empowerment. It's about the need to be vulnerable, open, and honest about our shortcomings and our f*ckups, if we are ever gonna grow and be transformed in genuine community.
So when I listened to Pastor Bynum, I found myself a.) hoping that that Sister is seeing a counselor other than Jesus about her years as a victim and survivor of domestic violence b.) disappointed that she has not capitalized on a pivotal opportunity to have a real conversation about the connections between patriarchy, the Bible, antiquated gender roles, and dv; and c.) appalled that when she chose to bring her message of healing and empowerment to another group of women of color, she reduced them to the food they cooked. "No more enchiladas!" she screamed. "No more tacos." Really! Anyone named Juanita should know better. But then I couldn't be as judgmental as I was poised to be because I remembered:
In one of the very gatherings out of which the CFC was born, about six years ago, I, too, was the perpetrator of such ignorance. Dominican CFs Susana and Crunkista used to throw amazing dinner parties for the grad students of color. I remember distinctly attending one of my first parties, and seeing the great spread of food, and announcing with classic Sagittarian tactlessness, "I love Mexican food." Then I noticed the look of chagrin on Susana's face. Uh-Oh, I thought. That wasn't too bright. These chicks aren't Mexican. You fool. At the time, the extent of my exposure to Latino culture had been my brief sojourn to Cuba and my enduring love for Tex-Mex food.
Now Tex-Mex is as American as Hip Hop. It's fast and flashy and it has flavor, but lacks character. Authentic shit takes time. #Hip Hop Ain't Dead, but It's On Life Support. Having just returned from Germany where the food was awesome, I declare that time is out for Tex-Mex approaches to food, life, spirituality, AND feminism. So as an ex-offender, I call out Sister Bynum to do better. Her words were delivered in the spirit of connection and I can get with that. But like good sex, effective activism, and lasting community, connection takes time, intentionality, and accountability. And the process is oftentimes messy. Loving patience –like that shown to me by Susana and Crunkista when they chose not to get crunk even though I deserved it—is required.
And as for televangelism, commercial Hip Hop, and Tex-Mex Feminism, I tell you like my mama told me: everything that looks good to you ain't good for you. Period.
i am a queer woman of color. in a world that tells me that i am not normal. i am a non-monogamous woman in a world that says "impossible." for many reasons, my relationships often fall outside of societal norms of acceptability, "normality" or hegemony. i like it that way. this is not a political rant, about being anti-capitalist, although i believe that concepts of ownership and consumption are deeply rooted in capitalism and often mirror our views on romantic relationships, (the political is personal) but no. this is about love. that's it. a whole bunch of love. and maybe a little bit about my resentment towards that uhaul lesbian in the picture with the mullet. but mostly love.
i don't call myself polyamorous often. although, i guess by definition, i may be. i'm not on my "poly is so enlightened" high horse. i know it doesn't work for everyone. for many reasons. it's hard to undo all of the things we have been socialized to believe about what healthy relationships look like- especially when we haven't had models for them. no one ever said "loving two people at the same time in a consensual, honest way is possible." but then again, no one ever said "lil' black girl, you loving women is possible" either. society doesn't usually reinforce queer, non-patriarchal, non-heterocentric relationships. my family assumed from birth, that because i was born with female anatomy, i'd identify as a woman, be attracted to men, one day marry one man, and have a baby or two. there was never any indication that there were other options. the first time i'd even heard of polyamory was maybe on maury povich or something. but the second time. oh, the second time, i knew. i was reading "defining our own sexual liberation" by ignacio [so fine in the face] rivera and yk hong and i remember thinking "it sounds like they are talking to me. about me."
i believe that awesome, queer, non gender conforming, non monogamous relationships can be healthy, and loving, and sustainable. or at least as sustainable as any monogamous relationship i've attempted. not all queer folks are running to our local city halls for marriage licenses. and not all lesbians own keys to an obligatory pink uhaul truck. for me, non monogamy asserts non-possession. and autonomy that i have not been able to experience in monogamous relationships. non-monogamy also overturns this idea that there is a scarcity of love. i resist the idea that, by loving more than one person in a romantic way, each love is diminished, when in fact, i believe that, the more i practice the act of loving [love is an action, never simply a feeling-b.hooks], the more love i am filled with- that's more to share, and more that i can hold. like i said, it doesn't work for everyone. i remember dating someone years ago, who, in a moment of fierce recognition, very early on, said to me "we're not just on different pages, we're in different books. you're in "The Ethical Slut" and I'm in "Monogamy: Mating Strategies and Partnerships in Birds, Humans and Other Mammals." this is important information to know at the beginning, right? monogamy wasn't for me. she knew it. so did i.
for me, non-monogamy is not about having it all [unless by "all" you mean, having all the love and joy your heart can hold] or being malicious. in fact, being poly takes immense honesty- with yourself, and the people you are engaging with. polyamory is not greed. it is not necessarily being "single" and dating around, it is not serial monogamy that changes monthly. and it is certainly not cheating. it's honest. and communicative. maybe more soul searching than i ever had to do in monogamous relationships. for example, i have had to explore issues of jealousy, my own insecurities, fear of abandonment. these are not just emotions that poly folks experience. often, folks who are monogamous experience the same things- i think it's how we choose to deal with them that are different. when monogamous couples experience jealousy, they often try to stop the jealousy by stopping the behavior that caused the jealousy- placing what usually becomes unrealistic expectations on their partners [don't look at other women, it makes me jealous]. when, in fact, what's often behind that jealousy is [i'm so insecure that, i'm worried that you will think she is prettier than me- and maybe you will leave]. that kind of insecurity can be shameful, but being poly helps me own my stuff, and interrogate it openly, and honestly. we all know, that when people are ready to leave, they'll leave anyway. the limitations of monogamy only heighten the pressure. being poly with reminds me that there are so many fabulous reasons that a person is choosing to be with me, instead of dwelling on insecurities or a need to identify as a couple. being poly is a reminder that we can choose partners. we want them. we don't need them.
we choose partners, and we choose how we engage with them. i have found the ability to be incredibly emotionally intimate with numerous friends and partners. after all, i have different friends for different needs. i don't expect one romantic partner to complete me, or to fulfill all of my emotional needs. but being poly is not an escape from emotional intimacy. i have loved very much in open relationships. loved with my whole self, and been absolutely heartbroken. being non-monogamous is not the easy way out of love and heartbreak. it is not emotional distance. but i know that love is not something i can hold. or guarantee. there is not enough paper in the world the guarantee that a person i am with, whom i love, will be with me tomorrow. and still want me in the same way. both of my parents have been married three times. trust me, the best we can do is love right now.
i recognize that every relationship is different; some are purely emotional, some are purely sexual, and some are both. that includes poly ones. what's important is that it works for you. you get what you want, what you need, feel safe, and empowered. i am a survivor- so i am always thinking about consent, trust and safety. and of course safe sex. to ignore those very real needs, logistics and experiences would be ridiculous. being in a relationship means setting some boundaries, but it doesn't have to mean controlling a person's heart. there are so many models of polyamory, so many ways of being. each person has to find what works for them and their partner[s].
"love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love." -gibran
that reminds me to love more. right now. without expectations except that i will always follow my heart and my happiness. and be more present, and not place unrealistic expectations on myself or partners. we are all growing and changing. who are we if we aren't growing? i can't expect the water to look or be the same in the next moment, it is always changing and i can't expect love to be the same. the only way i know how to love is openly, right now, and very hard. and in order to open my heart and hands to love, i have to drop the uhaul keys.
