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.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
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.
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.
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