The movement continues. Jess Solomon of the ground-breaking and love-making Saartje Project & Emerson Zora Hamsa, of Planet Mixtape, Shifting Vantage Point and a Come Correct #blackfeministsex rabble-rouser, are hosting Rainbow Reclamations DC, a series of discussions, workshops and rituals for queerky girls of color:
With infinite love, Emerson Zora Hamsa and Jessica T. Solomon will host a seven-month creative, collaborative effort called Rainbow Reclamations DC!
With slut walks, slut shaming, #KanazawaScience and Beyonce running the world , this may be a Most Complicated Week Ever for #blackfeministsex. Whew!
So why not kick off Thursday Readin’ with a few final reflections on Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s novel Wench?
The Cool Kidz Book Club (@fortyoneacres & @Mdotwrites) started and finished this book last year. And I won’t even pretend I read slow. I don’t. But I do read with careful attention to violence and danger. And since I research women & slavery all day, everyday in the Flesh, I need to watch how I enter that space when I am reading for pleasure.
Lucky for me, Valdez got me in and out safely. She pushed me but she didn’t burn me up and she didn’t leave me with the happies. She left me just where I should be after a book about enslaved women negotiating for their lives–disturbed, invigorated and ready for battle.
Reading Wench Part 3 & 4 after the jump….
Things have been pretty quiet lately. But spring is here and everyone is waking up. Ms. Walker‘s in the kitchen, making dinner. Pretty Magnolia is with her, washing the greens and watching her own reflection silver through the running water. The Sable Fan Gyrl is walking barefoot outside, waiting for the sun set. And I’m writing to you.
I’ve got updates.
Actually the whole crew is. The WOC Survival Kit, theSable Fan Gyrl, Zora Walker and Pretty Magnolia will be there & in full effect. If we can raise the funds.
Allied Media Conference is an annual gathering of journalists, writers, bloggers, artists, organizers, mamis, youth, pets–folks who are really interested in participatory media & social justice:
Kismet Nuñez, the WOC Survival Kit and the rest of the iwannalive crew is going to be at the Allied Media Conference this year! And we are sharin’ our skillz with other fierce folks from across the interwebs. But to get us all to Detroit, shawties gotta fundraise:
Hello Interwebs!
It’s about that time again for the best conference ever! Yes The Allied Media Conference will be happening June 23-26 in Detroit and we want to be there!
Who are we?
We are the Skillsharers of the 3rd Annual INCITE! Shawty Got Skillz workshop! We are cis women, trans* and genderqueer people of color making media that directly mingles our personal lives with the political issues we care about. We believe, as Audre Lorde did, that “it is better to speak, knowing we were never meant to survive.” We are all pushing the boundaries of what media is capable of and sharing the lessons of that experience with each other, and would love for you to help us get to Detroit this June to do just that!
Skillsharers include but aren’t limited to:
who will be presenting topics that range from: Nihilism for Negroes, What Up Doe! Detroit Hustle & Resistance, Sex Worker Saftey, How to Tumbl & Tweet for Social Justice, and so much more!
YOU can help us get there by:
- Reposting! – Tell folks that we are trying to get to the AMC! Tweet, Tumbl, Facebook, Myspace (I mean, there are still some folks on there) telling folks about what skills we are sharing and ask them to support us getting to the conference! Should you feel so inclined to blog or tumbl about it we can put your post on our site!
- Pre-Buying our ‘Zine! – We know a lot of folks aren’t going to make it to the AMC and we also know that what we share there is going to be amazing! We will document all the fabulousness of the skills shared with a zine, dropbox folder, and cd that encompasses digital versions of the skills we shared all housed online in a dropbox or via a CD or zine we could mail to you. For just $7 (the price of a fancy cup of coffee) you can live or relive the dream that was this years Skillshare!
We need to raise $6 G’s to get all 15 of us to the AMC (a low estimate)! YOU can donate Here! We so appreciate what ever you can give! A reblog and a tweet make us so happy!!!
http://quirkblackgirls.chipin.com/shawty-got-skillz-skillsharers
xoxo,
Shawty Got Skillz Skillshare Crew
Help us get there! Kismet’s been daydreaming about being at AMC–where black girls are queerky, mamis are radical and activism is sexy–since she first began a little ole blog named Waiting 2 Speak. YOU can help her make it happen! Let’s go! Fifty dollars or fifty cents (no really; she’ll take it…..)
Head over to the Shawty Got Skillz Tumblr to donate, browse our projects, read our bios, and hear more. And please support!!!!
ATL Shawties got skillz too! We are traveling from all over!
“Can you be a good feminist if you have intimate engagements with partners who have diametrically opposed gender politics?
On March 31st, 2011, crunktastic of the Crunk Feminist Collective wrote this post on the politics of black feminist sex:
“How do we change this thinking in our communities that a woman’s behavior is responsible for pushing a man over the edge? That she can ever do something to deserve to be beaten to a pulp? That a man has a right to a violent response simply because he doesn’t like the way he’s being talked to or treated? That violence is a legitimate response to being mistreated? That any policy other than non-violence (on all sides) is good for relationships? That men are out-of-control beings around whom we must tread on eggshells?
And if I ask my students to question their assumptions and to demand better treatment in their relationships, then what kinds of things must I demand in mine? And does that standard apply to all relationships, romantic and platonic?
Can you be a good feminist if you have intimate engagements with partners who have diametrically opposed gender politics?”
She was concerned about what she believed might be the questionable politics of a lover/homie/friend who supported Chris Brown’s outrageous, unconscionable and violent behavior on the set of Good Morning America [I refuse to feed this man’s ego by linking to it here. You know where Google is]:
“In a post last year, I lamented the fact that I was meeting men who were rarely physically interested in me and who were always and only intrigued by my mind. Now I’ve met someone worthy of genuine interest, and my brain and my politics are getting in the way again. But while last time, I was concerned that my brain occupied too much space in my romantic encounters, this time around I’m afraid to check it at the door…
I mean should I withhold sex from dudes with sexist attitudes as an act of solidarity with my sisters?…
There was something corrupted about her. Some days she’d joke and laugh, rubbing shoulders with others in the crowd, batting social cues left and right. But at any point she might turn and stare into space, a smile stretching her lips into a thin corkscrew, a dark humor flushing her cheeks.
The moment would pass. She would become human again.
But when she drank it returned and the predatory gleam of violence re-infused her face, some malevolence that soiled her eyes, marked her every movement with a curious, rancid energy.
I would step back from her then, unnerved. She’d be fine in the morning but at night I watched as pretense drained away, as she became a being who walked a language-restrained, whose voice, to everyone so smooth and sweet, was the voice of a woman in bondage, whose painful, silent, unconscious battle re-emerged in charmless, hollowed out encounters against the very people she loved and needed most. It made the tiny hairs on my neck recoil in alarm.
That the world existed to destroy her–well, there was no question. But that a swollen cheek or tear-stained chin became orgasmic was the other part of the story–and not the most interesting part besides.
~Kismet Nuñez, Untitled/Unfinished Book Project, September 2010
Some of the hardest battles we fight are the battles over own souls. Our sanity. It is real work to keep our love unsoiled by the pressures of a world that wants to deny our existence–that, at times, is mobilized in a concerted effort to exterminate us. A world that does not acknowledge that we are human, that we are women, that our blackness & brownness has meaning in our lives and therefore is relevant and real and beautiful, that our right to passion and to the fullness of our being is a right we deserve to fight for and kill for unto the end of our days.
It is a battle that isn’t won once. It is labor we do over and over, from the moment we wake up in the morning. Our inability to love ourselves fully is insidious and sneaky and before we know it, the damage is done. We open our eyes and the sun is shining but our love is a twisted, dark and dangerous thing, a weapon we deploy against others–often women as brown and black as we are–to keep them in line. A whip against those who are struggling and deserve our support, our help, but whose road to brilliance is a light that illuminates the self hatred in our lives.
Before we know it, we are on the way to making ourselves better by manifesting the breadth and depth of a toxic inhumanity and justifying the same with the long arm of Church, State & Politics.
It is what happens when black girls are forced into closets.
It is what happens when brown girls are told by mothers and fathers and priests that the God they love is judging them by criteria ranging from the color of their hair to the color of their hymen.
It is what happens when academic institutions construct esoteric parameters for tenure that, in their very structure, deny the legitimacy of research & writing specific to bodies of color.
It is what happens when we drink the water and let settle, deep inside us, the silt and muddy wetness of a hatred that knows no bounds, that is deadly serious, that would see us destroyed to justify itself, so that instead of waiting for the dark to come we do the work of execution all on our own.
“I’m talking to you, Brownfield,” said Grange, “and most of what I’m saying is you got to hold tight a place in you where they can’t come.” ~Alice Walker, Third Life of Grange Copeland, 1970
This morning I finished The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker (courtesy of @booksfree). And I spent last night fielding a series of crisis calls from friends in need, sistren grappling with the reality of their lives, yearning to love themselves against institutions with paradigms that deny them even a language to understand their world.
After each conversation, I forced myself to focus, because in their words I also heard myself; fighting for life, fighting not to drown under the weight of rules and regulations that do not fit the actuality of our lives. My struggle was their struggle, is my sister’s struggle, my mother’s struggle, my abuela’s….
…and it is more than just breathing. It is a daily battle to breathe and stay human, to avoid becoming as twisted and gnarled and wrong as they’d like us to, as they imagine we are, because that is what they see when they look at their own reflection.
But how the hell do you give birth to yourself–and keep that self alive?
That is part of the excitement over Willow Smith’s video. And the general hub-bub over the Sesame Street “I Love My Hair” video (and the mash-up). And the importance of wearing purple on Oct. 20th and advocating against homophobia on a daily basis.
Because this is a little girl not only breathing but manifesting every innocent and fabulous part of herself, sharing it with the world, demanding that we be “warriorettes” and “warriors” right along with her.
Because little girls are here and around the world are going to watch Willow, are going to watch the “I Love My Hair” muppet (who Puff is right–needs a name) and dance, unconsciously or consciously mapping new terrain in the way they are allowed/able/affirmed/admonished to understand themselves. And growing up in a world of social media, they may even be able to start making their own language to understand themselves, troubling the edges of what we all believe to be true or untrue, appropriate or inappropriate, manifesting a love that isn’t wrong or right but at least free–and therefore all their own.
Because if we do not find ways to fight against the terrain of hatred that we’ve sown, willingly or unwillingly, in our lives and in our society, what we can expect is many more little girls, little boys, and children who fall somewhere in between, hurting themselves, killing themselves, or killing others because they are doing with their bodies and their hands what society is doing to them.
Be a Warrioriette/Warrior
One dark and stormy night, @Latinegro founded the 30 Day Latino Blog Challenge. He scheduled it to coincide with Latino/a and Latin American Heritage Month (I hate the word Hispanic) which began today and ends October 15th. And, hospitable fellow that he is, he’s invited any Latino blogger to join in.
Since I can count on one hand the number of fellow Afrolatina bloggers I know, I think I’ll take the plunge. After all, I haven’t written a post specific to Latina or Afrolatina issues for awhile now. For 30 days and nights, I owe the interwebs at least two paragraphs on the topic o’ the day. To follow along (or backtrack) click the tag “latina/o heritiage month.” Today’s topic(s): What I learned in the last 30 days
Well family–all caught up. I even got some decent two paragraph responses in.
I’d like to thank @Latinegro for setting up the blog challenge. This man is the kind of consistent and thoughtful blogger I aspire to be. I look forward to engaging in the afro-latino/Latinegr@ blogosphere he is damn near single-handedly creating. Giving brown people a voice on the internet is difficult for a number reasons but we need to make sure our voices are heard. The debate is going to continue with or without us and not for our benefit. #leggo
Back to the prompt:
The last thirty days have been something else. In the real world and the digitalone. This blog is about autobiography, archive and insurgency but I don’t even know where to start. Short answer is easiest.
First, I’ve learned that I love blogging. I love writing. New media is a fun and exciting place for me. And I need to go with those feelings. This blog, joining the @FreshXpress blog network, finding a “Kismet” voice, splicing black girl identity and making new connections–all of this gives me life. And more foolishness is in store.
Second, back in the real world and over the last year, the stereotypical parts of my Latina have receded a bit–food, music, pop culture. I had a hard time answering those prompts, and not just because I did half of them last minute. My location makes it difficult to remain as close to the community as I’d like to be–although, as a trade off, since I live in an area where multi-racial encounters are fairly common, making my black & Puerto Rican-ness much less “interesting” to the average white person. Or black person.
But part of it is that my political identity is shifting. My Latina has been manifesting in ways that are more Afro-diasporic (Yoruba, slavery research, solidarity with Haiti). And my black has grown more diasporic as well (trips to West Africa, starting to loc my hair). It will be interesting for me to see how I answer this challenge in another year–and with more disciplined commitment.
And that is the final thing I learned, and not just here in my blogging life. Discipline is key. Shall we bring Ralphie back?:
Yuh.
Happy Latina/o and Latin American Heritage Month. Love you. Go forth. Commit (black & brown) politics. Make social justice babies. Come back and visit the Kis.
Bomba is a traditional Puerto Rican dance w/ heavy African influence (Image: Soy Negra Productions)
One dark and stormy night, @Latinegro founded the 30 Day Latino Blog Challenge. He scheduled it to coincide with Latino/a and Latin American Heritage Month (I hate the word Hispanic) which began today and ends October 15th. And, hospitable fellow that he is, he’s invited any Latino blogger to join in.
Since I can count on one hand the number of fellow Afrolatina bloggers I know, I think I’ll take the plunge. After all, I haven’t written a post specific to Latina or Afrolatina issues for awhile now.
For 30 days and nights, I owe the interwebs at least two paragraphs on the topic o’ the day. Todays topic: What I Love Most About Being Latina.
This is easy and it is what brought me to academia in the first place: I love our complicated relationship with race.
When I go home and look in the mirror, I see the face my father (Alabama by way of Chicago, son of Deep South slaves) and my mother (Chicago by way of New York, daughter of Taino and African peasant farmers who were probably also slaves). My father’s African ancestry is obvious, but my mother’s is much less clear. Puerto Ricans still grapple with accepting and internalizing the fact that slavery ended on the island in 1886, years after it did in the United States (1865). And as opposed to a civil war, it was a gradual process, not a civil war, began with the Moret Law of 1870 (freedom for slaves born after 1868, slaves who served in the military, slaves over 60 years old) and ended with abolition of the island’s remaining slaves in 1886. The growing numbers of freedmen and freedomwomen added a complicated dynamic of class and status to a brown-black population already divided by ethnicity (Spanish-descent versus Haitian/French or British transplants from nearby islands), gradations of color (which the Spanish recognized, literally according special privileges lighter skinned people of color), religion, African origin, type of labor and residence (urban versus rural) and chastity (this last for the women, of course. the men were supposed to be philanderers–how far we’ve come).
My grandfather’s surname was Nuñez, a Portuguese name in theory but given the influx of slaveowners to the island as a result of a series of revolutions beginning with the 1791 slave revolt in Saint-Domingue/Haiti, and the gradual emancipation enacted in first the British then Dutch sugar islands in the 1830s and 1840s, it is possible that some Portuguese mainlander or creole-descended slaveowner found his way to the island. It is possible he brought with him his slaves–or purchased some. It is also possible that “Nuñez” drifted into the mix through the Portuguese slave trade which lasted into 1840s…which might mean some of my people are Nigerian or Congo-Angolan….
The result? Though my mother looks, for all intents and purposes, like stereotypical Taina (the island’s original inhabitants were the Tainos, the Caribs and the Arawaks, though the naming process creates artificial boundaries between the groups that may or may not have existed), her sister looks as brown as I am. Because their father, Nuñez Abuelo, looked like…well…my father.
And yet my grandmother does not describe either of her daughters as black.
Acceptance and denial at the same time.
But I respect how complicated the situation is for my family and for our people, the Boricua diaspora sprawled across the United States. Our inability to see race in stark terms of black and white, one drop or none, is part of what I love about our heritage. Unfortunately, our inability to grapple with our own racism is also what I hate most about our heritage. It’s a hard legacy to fight, teach, learn and grow up a black girl in. #reasonfortheseason
Clearly I am doing some summer cleaning.
Hope you enjoy the show. More throwback poems (by myself and my inspirations) to come.
