For Caster Semenya

This is an outpouring of love for Caster Semenya. Wrong is not her name. What is wrong is the way she has been treated in global media. As three queer women, we have struggled with our own relationship to the feminine as it has been constructed in mainstream society. As a black woman set adrift in a sea of whiteness, it was hard to see myself as beautiful. My curves and skin color made me unattractive in my world. As a white, feminine woman who is also intersex, I have struggled hard to come to peace with my body. Doctors and the world around me have told me I am defective or have denied my existence entirely. As a disabled Korean adoptee, I grew up as an outsider, rarely seeing people who moved like me or reflected me in my community or in the media. I was constantly told that my body was something that needed to be "fixed;" that it was "wrong;" and that it, that I, was "undesirable." We engage with each other as comrades, three queer women uniquely shaped by our lived identities and experiences. We were the odd ones out, queered by our bodies, but later we claimed our queerness with fierce intention and pride. Now we choose our difference, embrace what sets us a part from a constrictive mainstream. It is for these reasons that we feel a deep kinship with Caster Semneya. Her story unfolded internationally without her consent and knowledge. We write to right wrongs done to someone whose only crime was daring to be all that she is.

More Here

F*ck Taylor Swift

yeah I said it, admittedly in the somewhat safety of my apartment and through my computer. But my friend and hater supreme says go hard or go home (note: I am writing this from home but this is like a metaphor or something) so I figured I'd say something inflammatory. I digress...

So Ye was rude. And?

Are we surprised? doesn't he do this all the time? and at the VMA's in particular?

Many of the black folk I know hadn't even heard of Taylor "I just sing country music" Swift before this. If your music makes you popular enough to win and is played in the regular rotation doesn't that make it...

Anyhoo, Taylor has millions of dollars; Ye has millions of dollars. Who cares that she didn't get to deliver her speech at the VMA's?! Its not like she was being heckled while trying to give an important address to the nation, or something. Squabbles between millionaires do not amount to human rights violations. Well, at least not in this instance.

And can I just go there and say she didn't deserve to win? Her video has been done before both as a video and in film. Why the props? But I guess since homely tweens run the world (or at least the VMA world) the outcast getting the jock is a more appealing treatment than a bob fosse meets j-setting choreo hybrid that supports an anthom for single ladies (notice both have something borrowed but B's the one with something new).

And here we are discussing tweet spikes and off the record comments instead of health care. Folks are comparing the President to Hitler and saying he's gonna bring about white slavery and he can't even call a spade a racist! He's not even able to acknowledge the virulent racism in this country and folks are more upset about Swift's treatment at the VMA's than they are about their own health. We'd rather hear him chastise another black man about taking a mic out of little white girl's hand. He gave it back!

And if people say "classy" one more time I'm gonna scream. If you use the word "classy" or "class" chances are you have none. But at the risk of invalidating my own claim, let me give a short list of things that are not classy:

1. Acting en(whi)titled when Beyonce's is gracious enough to call you out on stage so you can give your whack ass speech (which you got through most of) again. So unnecessary I guess B scored some good public relations points with that but I don't appreciate her joining the ranks of Ving Rhames and black women who step aside for the sake of a white girl's feelings.
2. Not letting Swift finish after being interrupted and cutting to commercial (that was your bad MTV, not Ye)
3. Talking about this bullsh*t on CNN when you should be talking about real events that are happening to people who don't go to award shows.

This was not animal cruelty; this was not the worst thing that ever happened. If it was planned, Kanye you really took one for the team for telling the truth.

All this over some white girl not being able to finish her speech for a damn moon man statue? Rhianna gets beat the f*ck up and there's a wave of fan support for Chris Brown. A black woman is physically attacked and no one f*cking helps her?! Taylor's whiteness to Ye's blackness is the reason we are even having this discussion. Disrespect of and actual violence towards black women doesn't warrant the same public outcry. I'm sorry Taylor but I really don't care. It's like she's the cheerleader in her own video. Wait a second...

And apparently white men's disrespect of white women doesn't warrant comment either if he's from across the pond. Host Russel Brand's cruel joke about putting his hat on Lady Gaga's "hermaphrodite" genitals wasn't just in poor taste; it was despicable and yet no public flagellation for him. Who says hermaphrodite in 2009?! He talked about raping having sex with half the women at the VMA's. He definitely proved his own point, that a British accent absolves all sins, not that I didn't love his jab at the Jonas Brothers and the US health care system. Blatant sexism, innuendo and dehumanization in the name of comedy illicit no reaction but taking a mic out of the hand of a little white girl, that's a problem.



Shouts to @fecundmellow, @superfree, and @misslocs on twitter for helping me think through this.

I want to be well.

I'm hungry. It seems a little bit absurd not to be eating when I have a refrigerator full of my favorite foods and a debit card and a car that can take me anywhere i want to eat.

I'm fasting. I'm fasting from food in the hopes that I can make myself well again. I've been sick for too long and I know it's because I haven't been taking enough time for myself or doing what I need for me.

It's day 2, this is the hump to get over. If I can make it today I can make it I think. I really think I can. I'll do a gradual return to food. Slowly surely.

Black is the color . . .

on (dis)ableism

So I've been reading the blogs for Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009 and I'm overwhelmed with the daily violences enacted through ableism. So much of ableism seems to be connected to a capitalistic understanding of the body, i.e. the body is a tool for generating capital in the world as constructed by temporarily able bodied people. There's no understanding or room for folks who challenge the very structure of our social structure with the ways they move (or don't) through the world.

I've been trying to imagine a different world, one in which "work" was not assumed to be a requirement for anyone. Instead of thinking in terms of what people can do, it would be about how people care for one another and the earth. How can we each do a bit to care for each other and help sustain each other and help sustain the things that help sustain us (plants, animals, ecosystems, etc.)? A radical decentering of humans is necessary, and even how we understand humanity has to shift too right?

Critiques of temporarily able bodied or nondisabled bodied folks fears of disability, particularly drugs and disability, really reached me. I wonder about my own problematic beliefs about drugs and my desire not to use them, my own belief in an evil consumerist big pharma selling sickness to the world. And I wonder if this might be a both/and. That I am both ableist in my thinking that I'm a wimp for needing tylenol for cramps every month but biomedical interests need some serious critique for testing in Africa, patenting plant compounds that indegenous communities have been using for centuries, and over medicating the world. Isn't some disability the by product of oppressive capitalism and other isms, like racism, sexism, and ageism?

As today was also May Day, Labor Day, International Workers' Rights Day, I was thinking about the connections between the two and how these blog communities seem so segregated. Race is rarely mentioned in these disability blogs. Class, gender, and even sexuality come through more clearly than race. Yet if we investigate, we see that most of these bloggers are white. Most of these bloggers live in the US and UK. Race matters. This always makes me wonder.

I have a lot of people in my family with disabilities, though none of them would consider themselves disabled. In talking with another radical woman of color, it seems that disability is so the "norm" in our communities, it's often not marked as an identity unto itself. I often wonder about what a release it might be for women of color to see disability as a framework that intersects with race and gender, to not always feel the need to keep fighting, even when it hurts, to let go of the ways that we as cis and trans women of color in particular, have taken up ableism in ways that reproduce harm to ourselves and the communities we "work" so hard and care for. Why does disability mostly look white?

And while it seems so necessary, to bring these movements and experiences together, to use an intersectional lens, I think it's so important that we don't flatten out difference when we look for similarities. I think we are so use to ticking off that ever expanding list of race, sex, class, gender, sexuality, age, dis/ability, indigeniety, etc. we forget that intersection does not necessarily mean equal or parallel. While there may be no hierarchy of oppression, I think that there are ways in which our tendency to compare racism to ableism to sexism to homophobia can make us miss the nuances and the unique ways each of those plays out in the unique constellation of individual lives.

This is why I'm so excited to be a part of this blog community. I think this is proving to be a space where we all see the situatedness of our analysis and yet we still reach for each other and understand the value of each others' standpoint. I'm ever hopeful these days and I thank you all for contributing to my optimism.

more on whiteness

deep!

Please Sign!

To: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

This petition has been launched to object to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' announcement that it will give Jerry Lewis its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscar Awards ceremony on February 22, 2009.

During his decades of hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry Lewis has helped to perpetuate negative, stereotypical attitudes toward people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. Jerry Lewis and the Telethon actively promote pity as a fundraising strategy. Disabled people want RESPECT and RIGHTS, not pity and charity.

In 1990, Lewis wrote that if he had muscular dystrophy and had to use a wheelchair, he would "just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person." During the 1992 Telethon, he said that people with MD, whom he always insists on calling "my kids," "cannot go into the workplace. There's nothing they can do." Comments like these have led disability activists and our allies to protest against Jerry Lewis. We've argued that he uses the Telethon to promote pity, a counterproductive emotion which undermines our social equality. Here's how Lewis responded to the Telethon protesters during a 2001 television interview: "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"

Jerry Lewis has also made derogatory comments about women and gay men. His outdated attitudes and crude remarks are dehumanizing, not humanitarian.

Therefore, we the undersigned support the actions and arguments of the coalition group The Trouble with Jerry. We protest the Academy's characterization of Jerry Lewis as a "humanitarian." And we ask that the Academy cancel its plans to give Lewis the Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures

Home for the holidays

 

it's always a strange thing to come home; this year in particular was particularly trying but I'm the stronger for it. I feel better than i did before i came. I've been getting good sleep and eating better than i have in a long while. It's nice to take care of myself a little bit.

I can't believe i've had a quarter century on this planet and i've been through some changes. I'm looking forward to what else is in store.

Buster's School of Magic Tricks

I love the Message!

WTF?!

Capitalism kills!

This is your nation on white privilege by Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”


White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while if you're black and believe in reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), you're a dangerous and mushy liberal who isn't fit to safeguard American institutions.


White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.


White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto is “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.


White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and the fact that she lives near Russia, you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.


White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”


White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.


White privilege is when you can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP, while if you're a black candidate for president and you let your children be interviewed for a few seconds on TV, you're irresponsibly exploiting them.

White privilege is being able to give a 36-minute speech in which you talk about lipstick and make fun of your opponent, while laying out no substantive policy positions on any issue at all, and still manage to be considered a legitimate candidate, while a black person who gives an hour speech the week before, in which he lays out specific policy proposals on several issues, is still criticized for being too vague about what he would do if elected.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.


White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.


White privilege is being able to go to a prestigious prep school, then to Yale and Harvard Business School (George W. Bush), and still be seen as an "average guy," while being black, going to a prestigious prep school, then Occidental College, then Columbia, and then Harvard Law, makes you "uppity" and a snob who probably looks down on regular folks.

White privilege is being able to graduate near the bottom of your college class (McCain), or graduate with a C average from Yale (W.), and that's OK, and you're still cut out to be president, but if you're black and you graduate near the top of your class from Harvard Law, you can't be trusted to make good decisions in office.

White privilege is being able to dump your first wife after she's disfigured in a car crash so you can take up with a multi-millionaire beauty queen (who you then go on to call the c-word in public) and still be thought of as a man of strong family values, while if you're black and married for nearly 20 years to the same woman, your family is viewed as un-American and your gestures of affection for each other are called "terrorist fist bumps."

White privilege is when you can develop a pain-killer addiction, having obtained your drug of choice illegally like Cindy McCain, go on to beat that addiction, and everyone praises you for being so strong, while being a black guy who smoked pot a few times in college and never became an addict means people will wonder if perhaps you still get high, and even ask whether or not you may have sold drugs at some point.

White privilege is being able to sing a song about bombing Iran and still be viewed as a sober and rational statesman, with the maturity to be president, while being black and suggesting that the U.S. should speak with other nations, even when we have disagreements with them, makes you dangerously naive and immature.

White privilege is being able to say that you hate "gooks" and "will always hate them," and yet, you aren't a racist because, ya know, you were a POW, so you're entitled to your hatred, while being black and noting that black anger about racism is understandable, given the history of your country, makes you a dangerous bigot.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism and an absent father is apparently among the "lesser adversities" faced by other politicians, as Sarah Palin explained in her convention speech.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…


White privilege is, in short, the problem.

An Open Letter to White Progressives and Activists

We write this letter to all those white people concerned with social justice. Who
are you? You are social workers and teachers, and artists and organizers. You work
in multiracial organizations and non-profits, and you work for queer rights, with
incarcerated youth, and with women in domestic violence shelters. You offer medical
aid to migrants crossing the border, media arts programs to high school students, and
legal counsel to housing rights organizations. You're angry about climate change and
environmental devastation – with poor and working class communities the hardest hit.
You're frustrated about longstanding educational inequities. More than this, you are
passionate about change, hopeful for transformation, and open to personal growth
in the work you do. We write you because we feel as white people we have a major
opportunity to change our relationship to the diverse social justice movements to
which we belong.

Barack Obama's candidacy potentially marks a historic turning point for racial justice in
this country. Unprecedented numbers of white voters have been moved by Obama's
message of hope, unity, moving past old divisions, and the push for "change" and
"progress." This outpouring of support and enthusiasm for doing things differently
provides an exciting opportunity for progressives to help shape the public debate on
what "change" really means. Not surprisingly, conservatives have reacted with alarm
and have moved to squash this multi-racial coalition through the Right's old stand-by
tactics of fear, racism and division.

As the Right tries desperately to turn back the clock, momentum is clearly on our
side. Our voice is needed to reject the racist attacks from the Right, and to address
people who wish to gloss-over systemic racism and white privilege in their desire to
embrace Obama as a "post-racial" candidate. We have a strategic opening to advance
conversations about racism in all of its subtleties to the next level, and to capture the
momentum of this time to help build a multiracial grassroots movement for justice.
As progressives and activists, we are committed to creating a more humane and
just world free from racism and all forms of oppression. We recognize that we have
a stake in achieving fairness and equality for all, and as white people the continued
existence of racism and white supremacy puts fear and hatred in the way of our
humanity. We know that racism is not removed from the other issues that we care
deeply about, such as workers rights, the environment, the war in Iraq, and queer
rights, and that racism has been a tool used to divide us. It is in our interest to step-
up our anti-racist efforts during the '08 elections and beyond.

AWARE-LA (Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere, Los Angeles) believes that a
visible anti-racist white presence in social justice movements is key to creating long-
term change:

* Many white people in the U.S. are against racial inequity, but in the mainstream and even in our social change work we are not speaking up as anti-racists. An anti-racist white voice highlights what we can represent – active agents of racial justice.

* Historically, people of color have had to shoulder the burden of speaking out against racism. But we all have a stake in eliminating racism, and it is only fair for us to contribute our share in moving us towards our goal.

* As white folks we know that facing racism can be awkward and scary. But we are ideally situated to talk with other white people about racism and to move our communities to incorporate anti-racist practices into our social change work.

AWARE-LA believes this historical presidential election provides a unique moment for
building anti-racism among white folks. As a beginning to this and, AWARE-LA plans to
take the following actions:

* Document and speak-out out against the Right's racist attacks and innuendos. There have been exciting examples of progressives speaking out against racism in the '08 elections – most notably ColorOfChange.org and MoveOn.org's campaign against Fox News. We plan to join and broaden these efforts. We have set-up a blog called "Double Take" and we encourage you to use this blog as a place to do a double-take on racism in the '08 Presidential Campaign – and to coordinate actions and responses: www.doubletakeblog.wordpress.com

* We are organizing a multi-racial Community Event in Los Angeles on October 25, 2008 to discuss and expose racism in the '08 elections, and to harness the political energy of the elections toward movement building beyond November. We are calling for other concerned white folks to organize similar anti-racist actions in October in towns across the country! Please visit our blog for more details on our event.

Finally, AWARE-LA hopes other white folks will join us in building a racial justice movement beyond the '08 elections. The elimination of white supremacy and racism in the U.S. will not come about from the election of a single individual. We need multi-racial alliances working for racial, social, economic and environmental justice and sustained commitment from white people towards anti-racist goals and practice.

Throughout the history of the U.S. there are countless examples of white folks standing shoulder to shoulder with people of color to fight for civil and human rights, from white abolitionists to the Freedom Riders. It is important that contemporary white progressives and activists follow the example set by our anti-racist ancestors and join with our brothers and sisters of color in actively creating a more humane world
for everyone – which ultimately is the change and progress most of us are hoping for.

In Struggle,
AWARE-L.A.

Endorsements:

Catalyst Project, www.collectiveliberation.org, San Francisco CA Community Coalition, www.cocosouthla.org, Los Angeles CA Jeff Hitchcock, white anti-racist activist and author, NJ Paul Kivel, educator, activist, writer, Oakland CA Center for the Study of White American Culture, Roselle NJ
Labor/Community Strategy Center, www.thestrategycenter.org, Los Angeles CA
Sharon Martinas, Challenging White Supremacy, San Francisco CA
White Anti-Racist Community Action Network, www.wacan.org, on-line project
Tim Wise, author and educator, Nashville TN
Y-Step: Youth Step Towards Addressing Racism, www.ystep.org, Bay Area CA

AWARE-LA is an alliance of white antiracist people working together to combat racism
within ourselves, our communities, and the world. To learn more visit: www.awarela.org

Done! ... (I hope!)

Finished the chapter (i think). what a weird (read: completely standard) sitch to be in as a grad student. I really am worried about how I am (not) managing my time. I'd rather do qbg stuff all day and night than things that actually support me making the money that allows me to do qbg all day and night. Sigh. I've got to get it together really; no rest for the weary. I need like a procrastinator boot camp or like adderall or whatever the 'ville kids used to take to study. j/k drugs are bad!

Miso’ Soup: On the liquid misogyny the media feeds us

So I’ve got something new that I’m heated about. Tommy Lee and Ludacris have an ad on television promoting the new Planet Green TV Network. In it, they verbally spar over which of them is more “green” with Ludacris brandishing a chain purportedly made from recycle rims and Lee pointing to a tattoo of his etched with soy ink. Luda then says, “ . . . you remember the hot tub right? I filled it up with all women instead of water, saved 150 gallons.”
WTF?!
This pisses me off for several reasons.
1. Women < 150 gallons of water. I don’t think I can find a better example of men seeing women as objects rather than human beings. Women are used to replace water! They are in fact less valuable than water and therefore an acceptable, supposedly humorous substitute. I think there are a host of legitimately inanimate objects that could be used to replace water but what’s cleverer than having a rapper known for his problematic depictions of women delivering said phrase?
2. People green lighted this shit. Lots of folks saw this before it appeared on my television screen and apparently thought it was funny. This is really scary. This is yet another drop (or maybe splash) into the bucket of women’s degradation in the public sphere.
3. Male celebrities telling us how to be green, through a glorified pissing contest. I don’t really understand the green movement as being about one-upsmanship, particularly not among the wealthy who are the biggest users/abusers of resources in this country that uses/abuses more than any other. What about them setting some real goals that would make a difference like no more plastic bottles on tour, energy efficient stage lighting, or heaven forbid, no more private jet setting? The commercial sets up the green movement to be about reducing one’s individual impact instead of generating collective strategies for changing how we live and consume as a whole.
4. Why is there no public outcry? Even as I’ve mentioned it to friends I don’t get the level of outrage I’m expecting. Have we become so desensitized that even blatant woman hatred elicits no reaction? When did misogyny become so innocuous that it could be used to support social justice causes? This commercial maybe isn’t anything new in that regard; just think of PETA. But what does it say that our movements are so disparate that one will sell out the other for its own ends?

If you’re pissed please email Bryan Hughes, VP of Communications for Planet Green at Bryan_Hughes@discovery.com.

so interesting

Hiding in Hip Hop looks pretty interesting, no? Or maybe I'm just juiced because he gave Spelman a shout out.

So . . .

I held Erykah's hand and sang into the mic!!!! In front of the whole concert!!!

Also took a picture with scar.

Oh and jill was a special surprise guest

and i saw puma!

What a night

i can't wait!!!!

i'm coming back . . . to myself

Just enjoy a little nina in the interim

Birds flyin' high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel
Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
yeah, its a new dawn its a new day its a new life for me ooooooooh
AND I'M FEELING GOOD

Fish in the sea, you know how I feel
River runnin' free you know how I feel
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
And I'm feelin good

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what i mean dont you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleepin' peace when day is done that's what I mean
And this old world is a new world and a bold world for me

Stars when you shine you know how I feel
Scent of the crime you know how I feel
Your freedom is mine, and I know how I feel
Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
(Free styling)
OH I'M FEELING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

it's ok in the day . . .

I don't really know how to get angry and stay angry. I think it's an important emotion though. I think it can be a source of power, especially the righteously indignant kind.

family reunion

my mama's family reunion was this weekend. It was bittersweet. I feel so disconnected from my family sometimes, like I'm on the outside looking in.

That's me, always on the periphery.

I don't know if I do that actively or if that's just how it goes. i wasn't feeling well which didn't help the situation. I did meet some cool cousins though.

Janelle Monae is the truth!

so I finally made it to see Janelle perform live. Me and my motley crew of text and myspace solicited friends arrived to the funky bougie AUC alumni peppered venue at about 10:30. It was hot but there were free drinks and food. After performances by other folks (slick and rose and phoenix), it was time for Janelle!

She ran on stage and started to rock it out! People were crunk! But then . . . the po po's turned off her mic!! Apparently there had been complaints about noise from the residential area surrounding the venue. Why did she keep on performing with no mic?!!! She was phenomenal!!!

I can't say enough about Ms. Monae. What a great night!

happy birthday to me

it's my birthday and i'm not sure how I feel. I had this great build up for a terrific night but the timing was off so it didn't come through. sigh . . .

i miss the good ol' days of undergrad where you never wanted for a party companion and parental resources helped ease those exorbitant club covers. sigh . . .

close but no concert was my night last night. but it's a new dawn it's a new day and I'm 24! life is quite the interesting ride is it not?

More More More

I want more in my life right now. More sunshine, more peace, more down time, more everything.
But my life is pretty full, pretty good, I shouldn't be complaining. You can't always get what you want when you want it and then of course there's that issue of what to do when you get it.

I've never been good with the free time I claim to want. I don't know what to do when I'm not supposed to be something. I need to work on that. I need to work on putting myself first.

I need to go to a meeting : )

liminal and interstitial spaces

I'm in between things right now. It's a weird place to be. Grad school has me doing all kinds of theoretical gymnastics instead of acting right now. I'm again wondering if this is the right space for me. Academia can be stagnating. I'm in love with words today. Got some things i need to work on:

1. the proliferation of stripper culture everywhere! (essence- check the comments, King of Queens, the art of attraction - see paragraph 2 of fair and balanced, the (white) rapper show)
2. The new black man in movies and the negative portrayal of women in the process (Daddy's little girls, Reign Over Me, Norbit, Black Snake Moan, I think I love my Wife)
3. Beyonce, Tyra, et. al
4. a fellowship application
5. an exam committee
6. My Project
7. My Life!

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!

New Year's Resolutions

1. get those sit ups right
2. volunteer again
3. read one non school book a month
4. blog at least once a week (oh and please link me again!!)
5. write everyday
6. work on a website

i always feel like somebody's watching me

so i've never read octavia before and i read all of parable of the sower today. couple with that the "server error" message i'm getting when i sign into gmail, the google aol time warner deal, my computer speakers' tendancy to broadcast people talking even when they are off, the three scheduled weekly tests that have interrupted my television watching in the last two days, and the talk of this wiretap business being impeachable, has me more paranoid than rockwell.

this is simply a note to say if anything happens . . . ya'll know who's responsible

Nobody had better . . .

Rain on my parade!!!




I'm done!!!!

Procrastination

I don't know what to do. it's worse than it's ever been. i can't focus and i have an enormous paper to write that needs to be good. i've done the research. i just have to type it. i know what i want to say but the words aren't flowing. I did good for the first page and a half but then i realized i needed to make dinner, change my e-mail address on amazon and numerous other cites i frequent. these books keep staring at me. i only have one light on in my house, the light in my office but i keep finding excuses to go to the bathroom or the kitchen. i can't go through grad school like this i need to go to a study skills seminar, desperately. but i can't do that tonight. Any thoughts on how to push through this?

3 G's

There are a lot, a lot of people in this country with 3 g's to spare. I am one of them. I have 3 g's in savings and she won't take it. There are people, unlike me, who have more than 3 g's to spare and it is really crazy to me that people can't even ask for fear of not being timely with the pay back. but for some 3g's won't be missed, wouldn't need to be paid back. I just refuse to give up but I can't fight when someone's already resigned. I think parents are ridiculous! I think this post is incoherent but that's how i'm feeling.

Random 1

So this is my new show! Add it to your line up. It makes the world seem not so evil! Oh, and ya'll can link me, just not as my name please!

I think the Prof. read the blog. That's the only way I can explain such a chilly reception in class last week. So to preserve my ability to tell as much as I want, I moved!

i said burr . . .

It's cold down here! On the one hand, I like it cause I like fall and winter clothes more than summer clothes. On the other hand, it's cold!

I imagine it's going to get much colder this weekend. :(

But I can't be too down cuz the dynamic duo are coming to town! Yeah!

Run's House

it's the best reality tv show i've ever seen!!

Manic depressive

I was on this music induced high as I walked out the door of my apartment to catch the 3:45 shuttle to emory to make my 4 o’ clock class. I had even put on my Michael Jackson button (a picture from when he was still black) and ya’ll know I don’t do accessories. I was feeling really good and I was on time to meet the shuttle. As the driver open the door. there was a man slowly making his way down the steps of the shuttle to the side walk. I was annoyed because I didn’t want to keep the driver waiting and I impatiently looked at the man. He had on flimsy, almost cellophane sun glasses and I realized that he was blind. As he was trying to reach the side walk with his foot, he stepped out, only to barely catch the edge of the curb and he ended up falling flat on his face.

I saw it happen. I saw it happen in slow motion. I saw his foot tentatively search for a landing place and I just stood back and watched it all. I could see it happening and I did not move paralyzed by societal forces that tell us not to touch not to help that we are all fucking autonomous. I tried to help him up. Well, I reached out to him and crouched asking if he was ok. He said he was fine. The driver got off and helped the man to his feet. His “glasses” were askew and I could see thick whitish scar tissue on his eyes. He knew him. The driver asked Clint where he was going. Clint said he was going to mcdonald’s to get something to eat and then he only had to walk a block. The driver said ok but be sure to use the cross walk. And Clint said ok. He walked off and the driver got back on the shuttle. I got on the shuttle and I noticed that everyone on the shuttle was sitting in their seat. they acknowledge me with a weird stare and I’m sure they saw the whole thing transpire. I sat down and I started crying.

I don’t think I can convey correctly how deeply this upset me. I talk about race but damn. Clint, a 40 something working class (I’m assuming based on his attire) black man has to ride the shuttle, has to fucking walk the streets of Atlanta with it’s anti pedestrian sidewalks and fall flat on his face because I was too scared, dumb, insensitive, rude, individualistic, to actually help him. Disability is something we tack on to our interlocking oppression spiel. But falling down because society assumes that everyone should see is no different from any of the other problematic assumptions society makes that we privilege in our discussions of oppression. I cried all the way home on the walk back from class. I cried for Clint and the fact that there is no one to be with him as he moves through this hostile city. I cried because there shouldn’t have to be anyone with him because society should understand that some people can’t see and that it is imperative that provisions be made. I cried because we are so invested in our own little spheres that we forget our fellow citizens. I cried because I’m in a women’s studies program supposedly looking at disability and I wasn’t anymore sensitive that someone else might have been.

I challenge you as I am challenging myself never to be so callous again. I prayed (another thing I don’t do) for forgiveness for not acting in this situation, for Clint, and for the strength and courage to never be a bystander in that sense again. I’m not sharing this to illicit sympathy but to hope that if any of you encounter a similar situation that you won’t make my mistake.

Dem girls got . . . brains!

so i am so crunk on scholarship today. On rap (not hip hop) too. It's absolutely incredible how music can completely alter your mood and your thinking. A disconnected phone call, words of fire, and dem boys in the hood is a rather invigorating combination!

The scholar/activist is back in full effect!

Can you loan me 20 dollars til I get my check next . . . month?

had a conversation with someone i hadn't talked to in a while. it's weird how things can fall right back in synch. I surprised myself by what i was willing to tell, what ended up being said explicitly and not. On a related note, people's recklessness with other people's emotions and lives is so disheartening. More and more i wonder about relationships and why people seem so invested in them.

oh and i'm broke. like i have $40 to last til the end of october cuz emory messed up my check (it's not just the hbcu's!). so yeah i'm on a serious budget now.

But I still want my vacuum!!!!

Thanks Jah . . .

A hit, a very powerful hit . . .

I had my first blow to my ego yesterday. I was in my med anthro class trying (very inarticulately i might add) to question anthropology and it's goals. I don't know the jargon of the field so my comments were simplistic and wholly disappointing. i felt like their was a masked hostility from some of my classmates toward me and it wasn't cool. It just made me mad that certain anthropology students will go to some part of the world that they know nothing about, not speaking the language, do a study and then for the sake of the ethical standards of anthropology, give the studied population a copy of whatever work they produced, in english no doubt, and with no way to decipher it. I think i inadvertently put my professor on the defensive too which i didn't mean to do. i was just trying to understand.

and that was the beginning of a day filled with little reminders of my newness to this kind of academic environment. Spelman was a womb and to an extent so is my dept but I am rapidly being pushed out and it is cold and bright! I am no longer moya campus activist extrodinaire but one of the many inkblots who make people and institutions feel as if they aren't racist. I was naive to think that this was gonna be a non issue because i had a good first week. One day can do a number on an ego though.

but the struggle continues . . .

feelin' good feelin' great . . .

so things are good! after my first week it is apparent that the women's center has prepared me well for women's studies discourse at the graduate level. i feel like i am so on top of my game having had dr. k and bgs mold me these last couple of years. pc and bgs gave me shout outs at meetings i attended at spelman recently. those meant more than they know and sustain me when i'm back across town in the different different world. I swear if spelman had a grad school i would have never left.

but it's not all fun and games. the reading seems almost insurmountable but i'm doing what i can. I'm plugging away and am so geeked by the scholarship that it doesn't seem like a chore. I love it and I'm trying to suppress my feelings of guilt with the knowledge that this is a temporary pit stop on the road to revolution.

Anger

So i'm really pissed off about this news coverage. It is making me angry to see these newsreporters in the field reporting on the situation and seemingly being of little help to the people there. They show these images of black people looting that they have looped, and shoot crying children and elderly people who are obviously in need of immediate attention. And the rest of the country, myself included, is going on with their day, checking in, becoming disturbed and changing the channel again.

I will say that spelman is taking in students from xavier but i don't think dillard will recover from this. This is just crazy! Crazier still because this could have been avoided.

If the US hadn't colonized this country the way it had, maybe followed the living migrational patterns of the indigenous people who lived in the region maybe it could have been avoided. If slaves hadn't been brought in to work the land, maybe the faces on the tv screen would be a little lighter and maybe people would be more inclined to reach into there pockets to help. If we hadn't upset the natural balance of the world so much, maybe a category 5 hurricane wouldn't have come to be.

and yet and still life goes on. I have to read 200 pages for feminist methods and topics and it's all about how women studies is this different field this field of compassion that puts people first and yet, there's this national crisis going on and we are reading textbooks? Not only that but there are social events, even one that am hosting tomorrow while there are people who haven't had clean water to drink for 3 days, and not even in some part of the world we don't think about but one or two states over. When will wake up out of this collective daze that is the status quo and move to do what we know is right?