journeystones: angry intellectuals release!

This Sunday was the second session of The Angry Intellectual: Channeling Rage for Transformation! We are training ourselves to use the energy and insight of our anger to create transformative relationships, not to reproduce domination. Here are some stones on our path.

Journeystones:

After Audre Lorde’s “Journeystones I-X”

a quarry of clarity from the Angry Intellectuals

(or a can of stones to kick)

i can drop my need to be right all the time

i can drop my fear of seeming like a failure

drop my need to be liked

drop my need to fix things for other people

i can drop my tendency to bear it alone....

i can drop the need to always do more...sometimes i have already done (MORE THAN) enough. capitalism kills.

i can drop my fear of being judged

i can stop faking the funk like any revolution has gone smoothly

i can drop the need to fit in completely. i'm different (in some ways) and it's good.

and my shoes are cute :)

i can drop my hard rock need to seem like i can never be hurt

i can drop the fear of never being hurt...and suspecting that the present is simply the past in a new body, time, and person

which also must mean i have to drop a refusal to deal with past hurts

i can drop my expectations of other black women to be the perfect me i wish i was

i can drop my fear of seeming needy

i can drop my fear of being my mother

and me of being my father...

and me of being reactionary

i can drop my need to be right/to focus on just my hurt so that i can see that other’s actions are really out of fear

i can allow compassion, instead of pushing it away.

i can drop my shoulders and release the pent up tension. that's not even a good warrior pose!

i can drop the teacher/academic/professional pose which hinders the possibilities of radical education

i can drop those standards of grace that were not mine/ours to begin with

i can drop those perfectionist tendencies....

i can drop the idea of speaking to anger or emotion as taking up too much space.

i can drop my fear that i'm taking up too much space.

i can drop my fear that my community won't hold me.

i can drop my fast conclusions which foreclose the possibilities of allies

i can drop my fear of my own healing and give others permission to heal

i can drop my need to hide love. I feel deeply and I need to say it often.

i can drop my need to seem rational when I KNOW my feelings hold truth

i can drop my distrust of my body. my body knows the truth!

I Know: Angry Intellectuals Testify

This past Sunday was the first session of the second webinar in the Brilliance Remastered series The Angry Intellectual: Channeling Rage for Transformation and it was a testimony service indeed! As part of our process of acting on Audre Lorde's wisdom that "anger is full of energy and insight."

This group poem highlights some of the wisdom that our anger reminds us to act on!!!

I Know

A Group Poem by the Participants in the Angry Intellectuals Webinar

Channeling Rage for Transformation

I know that there is magic in my rage, and power in its love

I know that every emotion I express is valid

I know transformation is possible possible possible

I know I have the power to create create create from something, from anything from nothing

I know that my work is valuable and matterfact PRICELESS!

I know that the lives of black girls are priceless and sacred everyday. Including Sunday!

I know I'm happy I got to go to black feminist "church" this afternoon :)

I know I am grateful for this space.

I know that we need more of these spaces, for the many more like us out there

I know that state sanctioned, vigilante style, wrongful death--genoicide--is wrong

I know that love is always the answer

I know the power of our knowledge and love is stronger than capitalist ignorance that has those i love captivated.

I know that the revolution begins with the self

I know I have more to learn. I know I must be held accountable.

I know that being present is an uncomfortable lifestyle I must embrace

I know Superiority, Supremacy is not used to having to listen to the invisible.

And, I will not remain invisible.

I know that I am beautiful.

I know that I am more than enough

I know that I am bigger than any institution

I know that we can do this work....

and I know that I am not yet who I desire to be but all things in due time...

I know I am not limited by my physical challenges

I know I have what I need to do the work I am here to do. Actualize!

I know, as a white woman, other white people often don't want me to respond to racism.

and yes I know that wrong is not my name

I know that my ancestors are right here right now.

I know I am not alone. I am surrounded in love.

I know that I am surrounded in and filled with transformative LOVE!

I know that letting go and not holding on is healing. Pack light

I know that we have strength in community. Not alone at all.

I know that my emotional clarity and expression will not only heal myself, but my community

I know when we come together to give others the space to express themselves

we give ourselves permission to be who we are

I know that my knowing is growing by the day.

I know that I know that I know that I know that I KNOW!

I know “they” betta act like they know

I know we betta act like we know!

(I know that I don't want this to end just yet :-)

Grooves to Get Thru Grad School!: The Remastered Tools 101 Podcast

This audio goodness comes from the newest educational program of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind which is Brilliance Remastered (alexispauline.com/brillianceremastered) especially for community accountable scholars and visionary under-represented graduate students based on the ever blooming brilliance of Audre Lorde!
This podcast is inspired by the brilliance of the participants in the first webinar Remastered Tools 101! It includes group poems and definitions that we came up with during the webinar sessions and some of my favorite music from NC and the rest of the world! (Nneena Freelon, Bradford Marsalis, Pierce Freelon, Apple Juice Kid, Fantasia, Frou Frou, Fela Kuti, Stevie Wonder, Suheir Hammad, Goapele, Phillis Hyman and Res!)

At first I had planned for this podcast to be only for the webinar participants and our pre-existing monthly sustainers, but it is just TOO good not to share more widely! So anyone who makes a donation to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind or becomes a monthly sustainer in APRIL will get a link to the podcast to groove to yourself or to share with a visonary under-represented graduate student/emerging community accountable scholar who you LOVE!

Daily Truth: Mantras for Remastering the Day

In the middle of the fourth and final session (it's so hard to say goodbye) of the Remastered Tools 101 Webinar, we affirmed the fact that daily truth is a crucial tool for empowered community accountable intellectual work. In order to stay in each other's lives every day beyond the webinar we shared the daily mantras that remind us WHAT IT REALLY IS! We will be putting these affirmations in our homes, pockets, bags, offices so that we can see them everyday and we invite you to do the same!

Remastered Tools 101: Daily Mantras:

"you here to remind people of free" -marvin k white

“I am who I am doing what I came to do.” –Audre Lorde

“Being open to receiving and giving blessings will keep you in touch with your passion, the passion you need to make it to the finish line. Get excited about your work and know that when you change the way you look at things, things you look at change. Go get em’ girl. I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your being.” –Melissa’s Auntie

“Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water, yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible nothing can surpass it.” –Tao Te Ching

“I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love.” Lorraine Hansberry

“Salt water can heal anything.” Lex’s Pop-pop

“Go on and be what we couldn’t.” Mississippi Damned

“We can learn to mother ourselves.” Audre Lorde

“How you treat yourself if how you treat God. You are the representation of God in your life.”

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” Lao Tzu

“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well.” Minnie Ransom from Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters

“Consistency is manifestation.“ Queen Hollins

“There is an invisible red threat that connects all human beings and though it may stretch or tangle it will never break.” Chinese Proverb

“Love is lifeforce.” June Jordan

“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.” –Zora Neale Hurston

“There is a close connection between sexual repression and extreme aggression.”

“This is my granddaughter the poet.” Lex’s Grandma

“Caminante, no hay puentes, se hace puentes, se hace puentes al andar./ Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.” –Gloria Anzaldua

“Listen to each person as if she is your great teacher uttering her last words.”-Hafiz

“Safety is always necessarily an illusion.” –James Baldwin

“The work is the diva.” Zakia

“The best way to do it is to do it!” Toni Cade Bambara

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.” Rumi

“Movement is medicine.” Brown Femi Power

“Relationships not resumes.” –Thaura Distro

“Wrong is not my name. My name is my own my own my own my own.” –June Jordan

“We have the opportunity and the responsibility to become fifty times greater than we thought we could be.” Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs

“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be?” Marianne Williams

“Warrior get up!” Climbing Poetree

“So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.” Audre Lorde

“Black girls are from the future.” Renina Jarmon

Trayvon Martin and Prison Abolition

 

 

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

 

 

Trayvon Martin and Prison Abolition

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by Chanel on 4/2/12

 

 

When I say I'm a prison abolitionist, people think that means I want to tear down the walls of the prison and free everyone today.  But what it really means is that I want to work towards building a society that does not rely on prisons to address all of our injustices.  As a prison abolitionist, I recognize that prisons treat the symptoms and not the root cause of social issues.  I recognize that prisons have history, we did not always have them and we can get to a place where we don't use them (hell, I see evidence of this already with the increasing use of house arrest to monitor people.  Of course this is not better and is in many ways far worse, but it does point to the possibility of a prisonless world).

And while I wholeheartedly believe in the possibility of a world free of prisons, I find myself struggling with this Trayvon Martin situation.  How can I demand a criminal conviction for Zimmerman when I am opposed to prisons?  This kind of struggle between my politics and my real life is not new.  I often go through these "ok, now what do I think" moments when I am forced out of my activists bubbles filled with hope and promise.  But when I walk into my home and my house has been robbed, or I turn on the news and little girl has been raped and murdered, or I log onto Twitter and a young black boy has been killed, that theory shit goes out the window and find my non-prison believing ass saying "lock his ass up!"

So how do I reconcile these things?  I'm not sure yet.  But what I do know is that this really is not about the prison, but about a prison state that targets black and brown bodies in problematic ways.  It's about a system of policing and surveillance, in which some bodies are always under the eye of the state. Be it police constantly circling their blocks, surveillance cameras in the project hallways,  metal detectors in their schools, or overzealous neighborhood watchmen finding them "suspicious" Li'l Kim had it right in saying "police stay on us like tattoos."  #WeAreAllTrayvon not just because we are brown bodied in a state that recognizes us an inferior, but because we all live in a system that sees us as toxic and worthy of elimination—either by locking us up or killing us.   Thus, my call for no prisons is not really about ending the prisons but about ending a system that disciplines us for having the audacity to breathe.

But this does not mean I do not wish to hold Zimmerman accountable.  I world without prisons does not mean less accountable, it means more.  It would mean that Zimmerman would have to be held accountable to the communities he harmed and not just the state.  It would also mean that the world that creates a Zimmerman would also be held accountable for fostering a culture that sees dark bodies as suspicious.  It's about recognizing the structural and cultural conditions that make a Trayvon possible.  So we must talk about policing in conversation with the ways in which Disney participates in this socialization by making all of the evil characters dark (Scar was the darkest lion on, Ursula was a black octopus, and Jafar wore a dark cape). 

So we can and must continue to demand accountability from Zimmerman, but we must also recognize the ways in which Zimmerman is the product of a larger culture.  We must recognize the ways in which our culture breeds individuals that perform such heinous acts and who do we hold accountable for that?

 

 

 

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On Appropriate Victims: More on Trayvon Martin and Other Names You Need to Know

 

 

Sent to you by moya via Google Reader:

 

 

On Appropriate Victims: More on Trayvon Martin and Other Names You Need to Know

via The Crunk Feminist Collective by moyazb on 3/26/12

Part of the reason folks rallied in reaction to Trayvon Martin's murder has to do with ideas about who is an appropriate or worthy victim. He was shot by a vigilante, he wasn't armed, he was a good student, had some class privilege, he was doing something mundane, simply returning from buying Skittles and ice tea. He was "innocent" and killed in cold blood.

We have an idea of who is deserving of support en masse and who is not. And for similar reasons we thought, with 911 tapes, eyewitness testimony, national outrage that it would result in a prosecution in the very least. If anything, the murder of Trayvon Martin shows us once again that there is no such thing as an "appropriate" Black victim.

Despite all evidence, Geraldo, Gingrich and others have found a way to make Trayvon the guilty party in his own fatal shooting. When brown and black men wear hoodies, they are asking for it. In a moment when it seems undeniable that race is a factor, people are still denying it! They even use victim blaming language.

Last week was International Anti-Street Harassment Week and I was struck with the similarities between the harassment that Black and Latino men experience by the police and the experiences of trans and cis women and gender non-conforming folks on the street. The language used by men of color to describe police harassment, is very similar to the language that those of us marginalized by our genders use to name our realities. Our clothing choices, our right to be where we are, when we want are all called into question.

Stopped, Frisked and Speaking Out from NYT The Local – Ft. Greene on Vimeo.

It seems that this time we can begin to talk across these incidents of violence and see the ways in which societal oppression is killing people. When you wear your hoodie for Trayvon, also think of:

Shaima Alawadi
Rekia Boyd
Deoni Jones
CeCe McDonald

Because these victims were women, Iraqi, trans, they didn't pass the appropriate victim test. News media and popular opinion hasn't prompted folks to take to the streets in the same numbers for them. But people are making the connections. We can be more coordinated with our outrage. We can demand a justice that doesn't rely on the very system that didn't help Trayvon in the first place (will we really be satisfied with the prosecution of Zimmerman? Can't we ask for something else?). We can build solidarity to deal with the xenophobia, transmisogyny, and racism that target our communities in similar ways. In the wake of this tragedy we can start new collaborative initiatives that support survivors and families that are recovering after loss and move our collective response from reaction to revolution!

 

 

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Active Being: Clarity from the Remastered Tools 101 Webinar Participants

Active Beings Speak the Truth!

Last night was our second session of the Remastered Tools 101 Webinar. The brilliance, clarity, faith and bravery of the participants continues to rev my heart!! By the way...if you want to sign up for the next Webinar series get details here. We talked about the difference between being used and being on purpose. Check out these insights about what we believe is required to embody what Lorde calls "active being":

“Interdependency…is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be, not in order to be used, but in order to be creative. This is a difference between the passive be and the active being.”

Audre Lorde “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

Actively being embodies a way of life and living, continuous conscious decision making. And that sometimes means you will fall short but recognize the "uh-oh" moments.

Active being is being okay with making mistakes, having compassion for yourself and others, not being perfectionist, sharing works-in-progress.

Active being means letting go.

Active being is hard when most of my days I’m on autopilot.

I cannot practice humility on auto pilot!

Active being is starting with creativity. Asking what should we do? instead of

looking around at traditional models and saying how do we most quickly reproduce that?

As a disabled person and a survivor, part of my active being is doing enough healing & rest & self care & self-awareness that when I step up into being and doing I can actually sustain it accountably.

Active being is growing roots such that your vision starts unfolding in all ten directions, but the road has become one.

Radical self care is the foundation of active being for me. When I take good care of me, I do good work. Such simple things like drinking enough water, cooking good meals, praying, putting on lotion.

Active being is listening to myself and listening to my community and physically putting my body where it needs to be

Active being is trusting my intuition.

Active being requires creating and seeking spaces which affirm us completely.

Survival is Not: A Group Poem by the Remastered Tools 101 Webinar Crew!

Last night was the first ever Remastered Tools 101 Webinar session for visionary under-represented graduate students and emerging community accountable scholars! It was an amazing cyber love-fest in the name of the Lorde across at least 6 time zones! How awesome to engage the context and challenge of Audre Lorde's "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" with such brilliant love filled computer screen beams! It was a faith-building and clarifying experience for me and I am filled with gratitude for the bravery and clarity of the participants!

Check out one version of the group poem that we made based on Audre Lorde's statement that "Survival is Not an Academic Skill."

Survival is Not

(when academics kill)

“Survival is not an academic skill.” -Audre Lorde “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”

“Capitalism of the mind makes us all stupid.” Anna Torres’s advisor

Based on a group poem activity by the 2012 Remastered Tools 101 crew!

Survival is not the death of me.

Survival is not the death of you.

And I wish people would stop making it so complicated.

Love is not an academic skill.

Listening is not an academic skill.

Liberation is not an academic skill.

Compassion is not an academic skill.

Care is not an academic skill.

Comradeship is not an academic skill.

Courage is not an academic skill.

Mindfulness is not an academic skill.

Humility is not an academic skill.

Self-correction is not an academic skill.

Feminism is not an academic skill.

Speaking truth to power is not an academic skill.

Visibility is not an academic skill.

Affirming the beauty of others is not an academic skill.

Honoring one another and our visions are not academic skills.

Ethics are not academic skills.

Trust is not an academic skill.

Trusting intuitive power and hope are not academic skills.

Nurturing spirit is not an academic skill.

Being human is not an academic skill.

Being yourself is not an academic skill.

Creating family is not an academic skill.

What our grandmothers taught us

and what we learn through the body are not academic skills.

Dancing is not an academic skill.

Making love is not an academic skill.

Snap.

Survival is not an optional skill.

Survival is not a game for pay.

Survival is not the illusion of safety.

Survival is not thinking we need to fit into boxes.

Survival is not becoming who you need me to be.

Survival is not holding our breath.

Survival is not made possible by overriding our bodies.

Survival is not possible without rest.

Survival is not scary when we know what we are living for.

Community is everything.

Indigo Night School Session #2: Healing Wounds That Can/Not Be Seen

Friday March 16, 2012

6pm-10pm

At the NEW Inspiration Station

Durham, NC

(email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for directions)

"Rock in the manner of a quiet sea. Hum softly from your heart. Repeat the victim's name with love." -from Indigo's "Emergency Care of Wounds that Cannot be Seen" in Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass Cypress and Indigo.

Inspired by Ntozake Shange's brilliant novel Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo, I present to you INDIGO NIGHT SCHOOL (aka night-time is the right time). We will be convening on the Fridays closest to this season's new moons into Spring for evening long rituals based on the magical remedies, recipies and rituals of the healer-girl sister in the novel, our beloved Indigo. This is a special sacred space for grown black warrior healers who identify as black women and/or black two-spirit, twinspirit, gatekeeper or genderqueer folks.

Please join me in participating in three sessions of luxurious, fragrant, nourishing evening rituals where we can set our intentions, support each other and bask in the brilliance of a Black Feminist literary legacy!!!!

Save the Dates!
Healing (Wounds that can/not be seen) Friday, March 16th, 6pm-10pm

Dreams Coming True Friday, April 20th, 6pm-10pm

Shawty Got Skillz at AMC 2012 email me Monday 3/12!!

It's time for the 4th annual Shawty Got Skillz (#SGSZ)  Session at the Allied Media Conference!!!!

We aim to pull together a skillshare at the AMC for radical trans women, trans*, non-binary, fluid, and genderqueer folks and cis women of color that reminds us that we have the skills we need to thrive!

We need your help! Click here to make Shawty Got Skillz happen this Year!

Ask yourself how your skills, whether they be analog or digital, could be used by folks to:

* sustain their community and themselves!
* create spaces for connection, laughter, and fun in movement work!
* end gendered violence against people of color!
* prepare fellow shawties for future we create now!

On the day of the Skillshare, participants move from station to station learning skills, meeting people and figuring out how the skills connect to the work they are already doing in their communities. We also hope to make a zine of the skills shared and more! We'll document the process as well as creating mechanisms to sustain what's shared after the conference!

We need help with all of that so, if you are down with the get down, send an email to us by Midnight March 12 at shawtygotskillz@gmail.com with your name and skill in the subject line. Call Us at (909) SHA-WTY1 (742-9891)! Climb aboard the starship connection! Join the "we" and help make this manifest!!!!

Love always,

The Shawties
@shawtygtskillz on Twitter