Quirky Black Girls: Interlude: Zora Walker Presents…

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Interlude: Zora Walker Presents…

via Nuñez Daughter by Kismet Nuñez on 9/10/11

Micah, Founder of the Living Room Project and blogger at boidoula.wordpress.com

Toward Home: Building The Living Room Project

support accessible healing, creative, and political home!

dear family, friends and comrades,

as many of you know our dear friend, micah aka "hobbes" frazier, has been on an incredibly transformative journey toward expanding his consulting practice, and building a somatic healing and doula practice. now micah is looking for a live/work space where he can create the "living room project", an accessible healing, creative, and political home for himself and his work, and queer/trans people of color (qtpoc) communities.

micah has been dreaming of the "living room project" for many years since having to leave his space at the oakland noodle factory, a legendary live/work warehouse community in west Oakland, CA. there micah began his journey of creating space for qtpoc community by hosting events, including a monthly qtpoc party called "the living room". it was in this space that he also held the first camp n.o.o.d.l.e (neighborhoods in Oakland offering dynamic leadership education), a summer camp for low-income kids in the neighborhood surrounding the oakland noodle factory. after the building was bought by a landtrust and he was forced to leave, micah began dreaming of another space that could house him, his work, and his communities.

micah needs our help in manifesting this dream! it is still a very new practice for him to ask for help instead of giving help, and we think the same is true for many folks of color, especially queer/trans folks. we're used to just working on our own to make things happen. however, we believe in building interdependent communitiesand breaking the culture of individualism through resource sharing, and thus are pulling collective resources together to help micah. we invite you to join us in this exciting process!

micah needs $7,000 to start bringing this dream into reality. the money will go to rent on a new live/work space (first, last, and any security deposits), buying things he needs to set up the space (ie: a massage table), and toward paying back some the friends/family that have supported him through a very hard financial time over the last year. we believe that we are our own solutions, and that anything that one of us needs is something that our community can provide. we believe in sharing and redistributing resources for our resiliency and our resistance. we believe in accessible home and belonging for queer and trans people of color. most of all, we believe in micah!

if you don't know micah aka hobbes, here is more info about him below. you can also check out his blog, making magic, at http://www.boidoula.com/

Micah is a QTPOC trainer/facilitator who brings over 20 years of direct service and organizing experience in the harm reduction movement, working to end the drug war and the criminalization of our communities.

Micah is a well-known DJ (Dj Trinity) who uses his skills and passion for music to intentionally create space for QTPOC to come together, dance, celebrate, and build community. He is a resident at "Good Times", a QTPOC weekly in Oakland, CA, and has DJed events all around the country.

Over the last five years, Micah has been an instrumental part of growing the transformative justice movement through his work with generationFIVE, an organization working to end child sexual abuse within five generations. he is committed to supporting communities in addressing incidences of child sexual abuse and transforming the conditions that create intimate and community violence.

Most recently, Micah has trained to become a somatic doula and healer and is a commitment to using his magic to help break the cycles of trauma and violence in our communities. he is one of few queer, gender non-conforming doulas of color working to create safe space for QTPOC families to birth in ways that are healing, resilient, and loving.

We hope you will join us in supporting Micah in this incredible journey toward building the "living room project". we have been sitting with both how deeply we are taught not to ask for what we need or share our most precious dreams, especially as people of color, and how powerful it is when we do. All those who give will receive a personal note and thank you from Micah and a token of appreciation.

In home, in hope,

Creating Collective Access – Bay Area (CCA Bay)

CCA Bay is a group of disabled queer& trans people of color working to build interdependent care networks with each other. Members include Ryan Li Dahlstrom, Micah Frazier, Vanessa Huang, Leah Lakshmi, Stacey Milbern, Mia Mingus, and Acca Warren.

We don't discuss access enuf here at Nuñez Daughter. But since I live in slavery, and since the commodification of and violence-erasure of disabled bodies ties right into limbs lost to black women working in sugar mills right into the petty burns, slaps, and knife scars plantation mistresses left in the arms, legs and faces of the mixed-race children of their husbands' right into issues of healing, of repercussion, of loving our whole selves….yeah. This be a worthy cause right here.

Support if you can! And if money doesn't work, contact Micah about other ways to support (are you in the area and can donate something?) by visiting http://boidoula.wordpress.com.

Rousing the Rabble,