I don't use the B word. I don't like it. I was trying to replace it with another epithet but I couldn't come up with any that didn't ultimately implicate a woman in some way. Bastard, Mother F*cker, cocksucker (misogyny and homophobia?), etc. I got nothin' . . .

Part of being in graduate school is complaining about the inordinate number of papers and pages you have to write. It's part of the culture and it's the social acceptable thing to do, like offering someone something to drink when they come over. It's a must. I'm pretty good at it but I need to hone my skills of completion as it relates to the papers themselves. Oh what a world!

stuff

Rasheeda is my new favorite artists that I shouldn't like.
Check out my interview in Callaloo, i'm not that happy with it but it's my first scholarly publication.
I don't like Jim Jones.
My stomach is uneasy today, probably because i turned in the ford application today. I'm not that confident.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about intentional community and what kind of a friend I am and what kind of friends I have. I've been thinking about how when people hurt me I cut them off, something i've been on the receiving end of as well. It seems like that's not the best way to go, everyone makes mistakes right? but what about when mistakes turn into patterns of behavior, or when unspoken tension develops? How do you address these? And what if your the only one who wants to address? What if you don't? How do you deal with friends that your friends with that aren't friends with each other? What are those best practices?

Tearing Down the walls of convention, with the wrecking ball of creativity

Why is andre 3000's Class of 3000 the hottest cartoon since . . . I don't even know! Please make time to catch it, it's one for your kids' kids' kids!

Motivation

Why am I up at 3:40 AM, you ask? When I have to be in class in 5 hours?

Because of this:

" Wow! Moya- This is an exemplary paper: eloquent and perceptive and economical. A pleasure! Bravo!" 100

So of course I've got to deliver on this one too, right? It's been a while since my all nighter days . . .

That paper was the one on Kathleen Butler Hathaway that I mentioned in another post. I think my love for the book wouldn't let me short change it.

I saw Catch a Fire tonight too. The Director (guy who did Rabbit Proof Fence), Derek Luke, Patrick (the real guy on which Luke's charater is based), bonnie the lead actress (watch for her), and the screen writer were all there for question and answer. It was amazing! We really need to go see this movie opening weekend!!!!

That's all folks.

stuff

So I'm at this conference, which is great! expanding my thinking and now i feel like i have a real project. i'm not just saying things anymore not only that but i'm saying things that are adding something new to the conversation! But i really want to know when we (so called progressives) are really going to be about the real redistribution of wealth. I can't say I'm tired of talking about it, or that I'm ready to give up my privelege, but i do know that the process needs to be expedited.

And now for something completely different, i'd really like to talk with someone who has heard b'day, specifically upgrade you and irreplaceable and i can't find any black people who have heard it! Please can't I find someone to deconstruct B with me? Am i only one that finds her lyrical (p)ro(e)gression awe inducing? Bills to Independent women to cater 2 u to upgrade you to irreplaceable? The choice of the tracks (why is she coming so hard on upgrade you and irreplaceable sounds like - at the end kind of looks like- an athem in the vain of we are the world/heal the world)? The gradual erasure of her black features, personality, and size juxtaposed against her increasingly over the top, erractic, behavior in videos? Is her non-existant personality and act of resistance that protects her privacy? Are her lyrics just words or do they reveal things about her and jigga's relationship? Does it even matter that she has no personality in "real" life?

Pop Culture, my obsession!

Affirmation

turn out was low but spirits were high. It gave me hope for Morehouse. Gave me hope for what is possible.

MAN is a genius! As were all the other panelists. BGS's fearlessness is a sight to be hold. There's a comfortableness that comes with being a seasoned activist and scholar, so very different from the fervent. Combustible, sometimes erratic energy of the young activist. I am growing!

I love that space where I am affirmed. It makes the mission and my direction clear. The goal is imaginable though its not yet in my sights. it's real magic! Real inexplicable connection that feels ethereal.

Katherin Butler Haraway wrote a memoir called The Little Locksmith. It was strange to read my thoughts and emotions generated by a woman's experiences 70+ years before I was born. I saw aspects of my "self" produced and explicated by someone's life that was apparently very different from mine. It struck me very deeply and I almost didn't know how to write about it for class. I felt affirmed in her story and it's similarity with other women's stories I know was intersting as well.

Conference and things

Breaking Bread at Spelman

TOWN HALL MEETING: Anti-Rape Forum
(CALLING ALL WOMEN AND MEN WHO ARE AGAINST VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN)

In the aftermath of the alleged rapes of Spelman students over the past two weeks and the backlash against the organizers of the anti-rape student protest spearheaded by FMLA, there will be a town hall meeting on Friday, October 6 in Cosby Auditorium @ 7pm (place could change) to engage in dialogue about how we can stop violence against women in the AUC and around the globe. This is forum for a consciousness raising and a call to action.

Panelists will include: Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University professor/wrirter/critic), Beverly Guy Sheftall (Women's Center), Sulaiman Nuriddin (Men Stopping Violence), Patricia McFadden (Cosby Chair in the Humanities) and will be moderated by M. Bahati Kuumba (Spelman, scholar/activist).

NWSA Student Pre-Conference

Thursday, June 28, 2007

The National Women's Studies Association Student Pre-Conference will offer time to explore the unique concerns of the undergraduate and graduate student constituency of the NWSA.

This half-day pre-conference is intended to strengthen student involvement within the organization as part of NWSA’s 30^th anniversary celebration and in conjunction with the General Conference theme, “Past Debates, Present Possibilities, Future Feminisms: A Women’s and Gender Studies Conference Celebrating 30 Years of NWSA.”

The NWSA Student Pre-Conference aims to:

• Engage students in cross-disciplinary discussion
• Promote and increase activism among NWSA student participants
• Increase membership in NWSA among undergraduate and graduate students
• Promote mentoring for undergraduates considering women’s studies training in graduate and professional settings
• Offer professionalization sessions for graduate students

The NWSA Student Pre-Conference invites proposals, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• The role and voice of students within NWSA
• Transitioning from undergraduate to graduate school
• Feminist activism as undergraduate vs. graduate students
• How to create a feminist campus community
• Fostering feminist sustainability
• Surviving and thriving in graduate school
• Navigating the academic job market: from job search to job offer
• Feminist organizing across racial/ethnic lines
• Careers and internship opportunities for women’s and gender studies minors/majors/MAs/PhDs
• Merging scholarship with activism
• History and the current existence/activity feminist organizations by and for women of color
• Non-women studies students doing women studies work in their respective disciplines/mainstreaming women studies

Proposals from current students that address both undergraduate and graduate student concerns are especially encouraged. All proposals must be submitted online at www.nwsaconference.org by November 1, 2006.

Lame and other things

So i'm in this feminist disabilities class and i'm learning so much. I'm learning how uncomfortable temporarily abled people (TAP) are with impairment. One of the major ways this has come out is through the language us TAP's use without even realizing that it's hurtful. In particular "lame" is a word that has lots of currency in a lot of settings and because it's lost it's referent i.e. people don't use it to mean someone who has difficulty walking/is unable to walk, it's bandied about without much regard for the populations that find it offensive. Other words that fall in this category include:

retarded
crazy
psycho
handicapped
rides the short bus
dumb
freak
schizo
stupid
lunatic
etc.
gyped (I didn't know this came from gypsy)

What's interesting is that the groups that are most affected by these words and phrases are made so invisible by society that the effects of these words are often never checked, and when they are it's not in a way that most people hear. Just think about how surprised the Black Eyed Peas were when they're was an immediate response from disability groups after the release of "Let's get Retarded" which was subsequently changed to "Let's get it Started." Hyphy music hasn't come under fire yet (I think) because not that many people have heard it.

So i'm trying to be more conscious of the words I use and it's hard. And this is of course is why feminists are regarded as uptight language police that destroy everything fun and playful within slang and vernacular (Isn't a "beater" more interesting than A-line tee or tank top?).

Disordered eating and other things

I got up this morning and went to this conference I wasn't sure I wanted to go to. But I went and it was great. Not because of what I learned for my project but what I learned for my self. I went thinking that the conference was going to be about challenging media's constructions of body image, and it was only to those presenting, body image was tied to weight and attractiveness. not race so much or ability or class or sexuality, not all those other interlocking systems that I think are crucial for any good feminist to include in her research.

so I managed to silence this inner critic long enough to learn something about myself. In a session with clinicians talking about "disordered eating" I learned that these episodes of disordered eatings have triggers. Common ones include stress, anxiety, childhood sexual trauma, parents divorcing, etc. Another one was saying yes when you really want to say no.

now that gave me pause. It made me think of the full and ever filling google calendar of mine and as well as the ever tightening waistband of my pants. Are these connected?

and so I was inspired/ reinspired to make time for me although I'm still unsure of what that means and how that looks and whether I'm really ready for it. Returning to the blog is one part of it. The writing helps me think and helps me process. And I always feel good getting things out in cyber space.

so aha, do call it a come back :)

Recharged

I'm feeling good again! Like i've got some work to do and it's managable. I'm feeling recommitted and motivated. I watched Afro-Punk and Dogtown and Z-boys for the first time and I'm feeling very much on my DIY! I'm feeling like I can do things and make things happen and I don't have to wait on others to be there too! I'm feeling good!

light bulbs

i've had a flurry of ideas lately. i've thought of all these little schemes to make money, but i don't have the resources to make them happen. or the time. I just want to hand these babies over to people who will make it happen, and get a cut as the idea person. I'm wondering if this is really a sign i don't want to be where i am right now.

Knowledge from K. Kookie

Have you ever heard a song, but never really heard the song until something happens and then you understand it on a whole another level? Do you think that's possible with Jazz?

when keeping it real goes . . . right?

I've been telling people in my life to check me. I want people in my life to call me out when I'm not on my work like I should be. I want to be in community with people who want to be checked too. not hostilely or cruelly but from a place of clarity and a genuine desire to offer assistance when you know someone is potentially hurting themselves or others. So i've asked people to sign up and some have and it's been humbling. It can be painful to hear others speak on things you thought you'd concealed quite nicely or things you claim but don't necessarily practice.

it's got me thinking about the work of the world again and that old ass phrase that i've yet to internalize that the revolution begins with self. Been feeling like that girl in t-leg's poem that's out in the street instead of doing the work she needs to do at home.

i'm on the brink of breakthrough, just need a little nudge over the edge.

I'm on my nicole richie

you know it's really bad when you start using words that aren't in your vocabulary.

i digress . . .

i had sooo much fun in the bay. I enjoyed NWSA! All the folks of color I had talked to previously said it was not a place for us. I think it was different this year thanks in large part to Pat and Tricia! I feel so inspired.

Here's a listing of highlights:

1. rebecca took her mom to task, it was weird
2. angel and her friends can cook!
3. the panel went well
4. Fallon danced in a drummer's circle!
5. Met some cool people
6. had great thai food
7. saw some great presentations.

I am the quintessential workaholic but i think i may be even passed my mark, especially since it's the summer time. Something has to give.

God has a twisted sense of humor

I'm not one for prayer but occasionally, I talk to the universe. Sometimes I say what I'm working on or some things I am hopeful for and 9 times out of 10 there's a response. And it's usually exactly what I said I wanted. It reminds me a lot of tv plot lines where someone gets a hold of a magic lamp and they wish for things and they get a very literal translation of what they asked for that isn't quite what they imagined. That happens to me only there's no lamp and I can't undo it once it's been done, not that I necessarily want it undone either. it's funny though in that same way. after a fleeting thought of "why is this happening to me?!" i remember "oh yeah I asked for this" and I find myself laughing too.

i didn't do as well as i should have this semester. i'm pissed because i can't blame anyone but myself. it make me remember all the things that happened to our people who were trying to make it in this country and i go and squander the opportunity.

i got to get on top of things and not just be mediocre in the middle some where, i got to get on it and stay on it. Procrastination is something i need to work on. i need to have that mandela attributed quote they put in akeelah and the bee tattooed on my forehead.

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

--Nelson Mandela, 1994 South African Presidential Inaugural Speech, quoting spiritual leader Marianne Williamson of the Church of Today in Detroit.

Bees, braces, and birthdays

we have- had thanks to the fimne work of Dr. Jim Pickett and David Cheeks- a bee colony in the wall of my house. My parents noticed bees coming into our house on saturday but the other day my mom and i spotted the hole they were flying into. My dad went into full protector mode and went and got cans of insecticide. some were killed but not that many. it also forced more of them inside. then he decide to call pest control and they came out and said that they were honey bees and protected and that he couldn't kill them. this morning i suggested we call animal control and so Jim and david came to the rescue! The bees had been there for at least two years and so they had to cut a huge section of the wall of our house to get to them. They estimate that there were more than 40,000 of them!!! They let me taste the honey and it was good. I took a picture of them ( the bees and the dynamic duo). Not only did they extract the bees, they didn't charge us!!! This is what they do for fun! They like the challenge they say. so we are going to donate to their church building fund.

during the bee drama i had to go to get my braces adjusted. he says i should get them off in august. i hope that's true


so i'm two days late and a dollar short for L's Birthday. Happy Birthday L!! Truth be told, I wanted an excuse to use that phrase.

please check with alii about other birthdays and birthday parties on the way. JUNE is a wonderful month!

Back in the A. . . R

so i'm home back at 334 and hanging out with the folks. i got my DL renewed today. it's got yellow on it now which means i'm 21 or older.

I saw this girl that I forgot existed today. she was working at lady footlocker. how appropriate. the plan is to go to tulsa tomorrow.

it's cool to be home and not have anything. some rest and relaxation before a busy summer!

Angry black women

so the media pisses me off so i made a blog where i can vent. where you can vent! check out

F*cked up $hit which features some people very near and dear to me.

back in black

so it's been a while but i've been busy. i'm taking a break so i decided to enter back into the blog world. I'm gonna do lists b/c i can't seem to be coherent for more than a sentence these days. my brain is filled with popcorn thoughts that take me in too many directions.

1. Pam- thanks again for doing my hair for the 125; it was wonderful
2. I went to Rutgers for this conference. it was really dope
3. i want to write children's books
4. i want to buy a green house
5. i want to write and article on black family's
6. i want to have a conversation with Michael Eric Dyson (thanks for the link jah)
7. i want to finish all my papers this weekend
8. i want to get this tcp thing this summer
9. I want to hang out with people!
10. I want to play!
11. I want to work on this website!

a random conversation

so i am supposed to be doing grad school work but i had this vision of restructuring new student orientation at Spelman. I was telling Alii about this and this is what followed.

Alii: well you can come over here for lunch
moya: ha ha i can't i got work to do
Alii: you aint doin work- you planning feminist hazing
moya: ha ha ha ha! that's going on the blog!
Alii: lol
what does feminist hazing look like
?
moya: ha ha ha, you have to name all the women mentioned in "words of fire" in less than a min

a list

1. BGS said she'd be on my committee!!!!!! 1 down 2 to go.
2. I was jammin' yesterday to some Robin S on my way to Spelman. I was bumpin' it hella hard but I turned it down when I got in the west end. I felt self-conscious about my early 90's dance classic. Oh quirky black girl get your life right.
3. TCB is over!!! Word on the street is this is the best one yet! I'm gonna take a bow on that b/c I gave the conference 110%. but that 110% came at a price. I wasn't "there" for the conference. I had checked out emotionally and somewhat mentally too. hopefully I have learned my lesson.
3 1/2. I worked really hard on the conference CD for opening night trying to find music by women that was danceable, and not about some man, or if it was, it had some agency in it. this was surprizingly really difficult! the majority of songs by the women we love are breakup and love songs, and very few are danceable, let alone give the women any kind of agency in the situation. please, let me know if i am wrong on this but i had a hard time.
4. the weather is beautiful and all i want to do now is play.
5. I have SO much work to do.
6. I'm creating a production company called Quirky Black Girl Productions
7. I love ya'll!

California!

So I went to Berkeley this weekend because sisters on the sojourn was screened at the women of color filmfestival. Seeing the bay, eating with friends, and catching up was more fun than the festival!





Us hanging out at christine's sisters house



















Elaine's Doppleganger

This just in . . .

Yay Jennifer!!

More later . . .

Oh Please Please Please submit your Oscar commentary to some news outlet. I love you all and as I didn't see it I think it wouldn't be right to speak on it. You all have said amazing things on your blogs please spread the word on the racism/sexism/ etc. that was present in the nominations, films themselves etc.!!

More on Audre

My mom said that i had to do really well in graduate school so I can be a formative scholar/activist "like Audre Lorde."

I don't think I quite know how to process that coming from my mom. I haven' to like really revel in what that means because it hasn't quite registered yet. That's huge!!

Cuba Goodhair is gone. I miss her already. Who's going to teach me about Islam, without solicitation? Who's gonna tell me about meeting a Panamanian Jew married to a Pakistani suffi? Who's gonna clean my house?!

hmm i think that's all for now.

More on Porn and Audre Lorde

this was the title of the question I posed to the class after being assigned to read the Uses of the Erotic by our dearly departed friend Audre. We had discussed porn the week or so before and could not even agree that child porn was off limits. And I was at a loss for rebuttal because I didn't quite like MacKinnon's argument on porn either but today, we can talk about the Erotic and I hope that will help.

We are reading bridge today as well. Isn't it interesting how all the woman of color are lumped into a day in a fem theory class? While that's obvious to me and I'm sure to the other black folks around the table will we speak it?

I have been so spoiled by the diasporic vision of spelman women's studies, I forget that for others it is an after thought, add bridge then stir. Are we less radical now? I am so excited that BGS is coming next week. I think I could cry I am so happy.

it's not easy being in this eurocentric place everyday, where it is so clear that racism is so alive and well, even among those who are supposed to be invested in this bridging.

Separate but equal, does have a wonderful ring L. I long for that space again, which will happen at TCB no doubt.

there's a revolution burning in me and i feel it is on it's way out.

Just to get by . . .

I've been a little off these last couple of days. I am wondering about the world and how I will exist in it. I want to be more purposeful, less self flagellating, more hopeful.

The serial optimist is fading. I miss her, that part of myself that thought I could change the world. Will I just be the nelly girl until people forget?

Here's something i wrote one time. i don't know how true it is any more . . .

I am teetering dangerously on a fulcrum of my own construction. We have “sell out” on the right and “all-out activist” on the left. I have a hard time believing in that thing called balance so I feel I must either forge boldly ahead on the road to revolutionary martyrdom or acquiesce into middle class mediocrity.

As I ponder life after Spelman, I wonder how my politics will work in the real world. Is it not hypocritical to call myself a socialist if I’m actively participating in a capitalist economy? If I’m a vegetarian but I can’t afford to buy my vegetables where I know people were paid fairly for their labor, does it really matter? Can I really be down for “the revolution” if I’ve got a 9-5?

But of course, being down in college is relatively easy. You stage a few protests, conduct activist meetings, talk about how “problematic” US culture is, and scheme up grandiose plans to attack the “hegemonic interlocking systems of oppression” of capitalism, heterosexism, patriarchy, racism, ageism, ableism, etc. In the real world such talk is not common place, like minded individuals fewer still and the realities of those systems oppress more directly. No wonder most movements start with the students for we aren’t really apart of the system yet. We don’t have a job to loose or a mortgage to pay and we still feel invincible to the slings of the world. Or at least it used to be that way.

When I look at my generation now that’s not really what I see. I think for the most part we’ve bought into what you’ve told us. That what’s most important is an upper middle class lifestyle, a six figure salary, a wife or husband (gender appropriate of course), a kid or two, and a dream house in the ‘burbs. The media has played a huge role in constructing this American dream for us and by making leftist activists appear idyllically naive and fanatically unrealistic.

I’ve also noted a disturbing trend in the media, the co-option of words associated with revolutions and movements for more innocuous commercial commodities. Chevy’s new Cobalt car is “an American Revolution.” Maybeline is also offering a “revolution in color” in their new matte-mouse foundation. In a recent blockbuster ad a protest of late fees is squashed to the jubilation of customers by the unveiling of a sign that suggests that the company had already moved in that direction. People continue to talk about a “hip-hop movement” but in light of the difficulty the “leaders” (P. Diddy, Russell Simmons, etc.) have in articulating what that agenda is, there has been little in the way of social change. The watering down of these words belies their former political usefulness and is making it more difficult for those who believe in such things to be taken seriously. Consequently, revolution does not carry the same force it used to and a protest is little more than a joke. So what other forms of action are left for the Left?

It leaves me pondering my role and the seeming inevitability of the machine further crushing the will of those who dare to stand up to it. At this point it almost seems easier to sell out, to let Time Warner have the other 51% of my soul and get in while the gettingÂ’s good.

But the truth is thatÂ’s not who I am. As much as I would like to think I could become a nihilist, out to get mine, itÂ’s just not in me. Change is slow and apparently not always progressing forward. These set backs are par for the course and itÂ’s easy to forget that there is good in the world as well. If history has taught us nothing it is that every empire falls, and the ever declining dollar suggests this oneÂ’s on the way out. So it seems that I may be able to hold onto my idealism a little longer, that the powers that be may soon become the powers no more and an equitable world may be just around the corner.

What?

I've wasted another weekend. Well, not wasted as much as not been on top of the books the way i should have been. I'm so easily distracted these days.

I really like giving myself permission to direct my energy elsewhere. I realize that i am not the kind of person that let's things slip too far away. Saying "it will get done" is not an empty threat, it's a promise.

yeah . . . that's about it.

Random things

i'm feeling chris brown right now

i wasn't too mad at the boondocks mlk episode

i've read some good books lately.

i'm growing

i'm getting comfortable

i'm happy

Relax, relate, release!

This expert advise from Dr. Langhorne to whitley has been on my mind lately. After recieving my my most recent xmas gift, i think that i've got to put this mantra into practice. It's gonna be the theme of '06.

Congratulations!!!

Your film Sisters on the Sojourn has been selected by our programming committee into our upcoming festival in March of 2006. Competition was very tight - we received 15% more submissions this year than the year before and we were only able to program less than 30% of our total entries this year. We are extremely delighted that your film was chosen to be programmed along with other excellent works by women of color from all over the world.


Our festival dates will be March 2-5th at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and we will close on Saturday, March 11th at the Yerba Buena Gardens theater in San Francisco through Cinematheque. Mark your calendars! If you are able to attend the Q&A discussion at the end of your program, along with other local filmmakers, PLEASE LET US KNOW as soon as you know so that we can jump for joy that you might join us at the festival. You will be given a festival pass to attend all screenings. Your film is currently scheduled to screen on Sunday, March 5th at 1:00pm, PFA theater. Please spread the word to your Bay Area friends and family!