wanderlust

Someterán a quimioterapia a "Amalia" · ElNuevoDiario.com.ni

2010-02-26T17:17:00.001-06:00

Someterán a quimioterapia a "Amalia" · ElNuevoDiario.com.ni

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112-year-old Sacramento woman plans to give a performance for the ages - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

2010-02-17T20:23:00.001-06:00

112-year-old Sacramento woman plans to give a performance for the ages - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

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Congolese Soldiers Have a New Strategy -- Raping Men

2009-08-04T22:08:00.006-05:00

Soldiers are raping men in the Congo. I really do not know what to say. On one hand, I am troubled that we live in a patriarchal culture that sanctions sexual violence against women but when men are subjected to the same kinds of patriarchal violence it’s front page news, in The New York Times, no less. On the other hand, I know very well, how isolating this experience must be for the men who were assaulted. In the end it demonstrates that rape and sexual violence are considered to be legitimate weapons of war and that the state, in this case the Congolese Army, will not hesitate to use them when they think necessary.

Tragically, these men who have been raped find that their experiences mirror those of women who were the victims of the same violence. Rather than help them, people in their communities deride them, calling them “bush wives.” One survivor stated “The people in my village say: ‘You’re no longer a man. Those men in the bush made you their wife.’” Of course, that is precisely the point, the soldiers are raping men, in their efforts to weaken the resolve of Congolese rebels and “humiliate and demoralize Congolese communities into submission.” And their stories are horrific -- one man was raped by five soldiers, another thrown on the ground in his casava patch and raped by three soldiers. Another was raped along with his wife and daughter. What are these men to do when no one takes their victimization seriously? I am not suggesting that the violence done against them is worse than what happens to women, but because of patriarchy and how sexual violence against women is normalized there are at least spaces to name that violence. Patriarchy denies men those spaces and I think part of the work of gender justice is also learning to understand how patriarchy hurts both men and women.

This story just made me sick to my stomach and I didn’t know what to say. The article in the New York Times included photographs of some of the survivors (see above), men who were brave enough to come forward and publicly name their experiences. Their faces stay with me, I cannot get them out of my mind. When will this end, when will human beings stop enacting such brutal violence against each other?

I wish I knew the answer.

New York Times
Latest Tragic Symbol of an Unhealed Congo: Male Rape Victims
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
August 4, 2009

GOMA, Congo — It was around 11 p.m. when armed men burst into Kazungu Ziwa’s hut, put a machete to his throat and yanked down his pants. Mr. Ziwa is a tiny man, about four feet, six inches tall. He tried to fight back, but said he was quickly beaten down.

“Then they raped me,” he said. “It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me.”

For years, the thickly forested hills and clear, deep lakes of eastern Congo have been a reservoir of atrocities. Now, it seems, there is another growing problem: men raping men.

According to Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, United Nations officials and several Congolese aid organizations, the number of men who have been raped has risen sharply in recent months, a consequence of joint Congo-Rwanda military operations against rebels that have uncapped an appalling level of violence against civilians.

Aid workers struggle to explain the sudden spike in male rape cases. The best answer, they say, is that the sexual violence against men is yet another way for armed groups to humiliate and demoralize Congolese communities into submission.

The United Nations already considers eastern Congo the rape capital of the world, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to hear from survivors on her visit to the country next week. Hundreds of thousands of women have been sexually assaulted by the various warring militias haunting these hills, and right now this area is going through one of its bloodiest periods in years.

The joint military operations that began in January between Rwanda and Congo, David and Goliath neighbors who were recently bitter enemies, were supposed to end the murderous rebel problem along the border and usher in a new epoch of cooperation and peace. Hopes soared after the quick capture of a renegade general who had routed government troops and threatened to march across the country.

But aid organizations say that the military maneuvers have provoked horrific revenge attacks, with more than 500,000 people driven from their homes, dozens of villages burned and hundreds of villagers massacred, including toddlers thrown into open fires. And it is not just the rebels being blamed.

According to human rights groups, soldiers from the Congolese Army are executing civilians, raping women and conscripting villagers to lug their food, ammunition and gear into the jungle. It is often a death march through one of Africa’s lushest, most stunning tropical landscapes, which has also been the scene of a devastatingly complicated war for more than a decade.

“From a humanitarian and human rights perspective, the joint operations are disastrous,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The male rape cases span several hundred miles and possibly include hundreds of victims. The American Bar Association, which runs a sexual violence legal clinic in Goma, said that more than 10 percent of its cases in June were men.

Brandi Walker, an aid worker at Panzi hospital in nearby Bukavu, said, “Everywhere we go, people say men are getting raped, too.” But nobody knows the exact number. Men here, like anywhere, are reluctant to come forward. Several who did said they instantly became castaways in their villages, lonely, ridiculed figures, derisively referred to as “bush wives.”

Since being raped several weeks ago, Mr. Ziwa, 53, has not shown much interest in practicing animal medicine, his trade for years. He limps around (his left leg was crushed in the attack) in a soiled white lab coat with “veterinaire” printed on it in red pen, carrying a few biscuit-size pills for dogs and sheep.

“Just thinking about what happened to me makes me tired,” he said. The same is true for Tupapo Mukuli, who said he was pinned down on his stomach and gang-raped in his cassava patch seven months ago. Mr. Mukuli is now the lone man in the rape ward at Panzi hospital, which is filled with hundreds of women recovering from rape-related injuries. Many knit clothes and weave baskets to make a little money while their bodies heal. But Mr. Mukuli is left out.

“I don’t know how to make baskets,” he said. So he spends his days sitting on a bench, by himself.

The male rape cases are still just a fraction of those against women. But for the men involved, aid workers say, it is even harder to bounce back.

“Men’s identity is so connected to power and control,” Ms. Walker said. And in a place where homosexuality is so taboo, the rapes carry an extra dose of shame. “I’m laughed at,” Mr. Mukuli said. “The people in my village say: ‘You’re no longer a man. Those men in the bush made you their wife.’ ”

Aid workers here say the humiliation is often so severe that male rape victims come forward only if they have urgent health problems, like stomach swelling or continuous bleeding. Sometimes even that is not enough. Ms. Van Woudenberg said that two men whose penises were cinched with rope died a few days later because they were too embarrassed to seek help. Castrations also seem to be increasing, with more butchered men showing up at major hospitals.

Last year, Congo’s rape epidemic appeared to be easing a bit, with fewer cases reported and some rapists jailed. But today, it seems like that thin veneer of law and order has been stripped away. The way villagers describe it, it is open season on civilians.

Muhindo Mwamurabagiro, a tall, graceful woman with long, strong arms, explained how she was walking to the market with friends when they were suddenly surrounded by a group of naked men.

“They grabbed us by the throat and threw us down and raped us,” she said. Worse, she said, one of the rapists was from her village. “I yelled, ‘Father of Kondo, I know you, how can you do this?’”

One mother said a United Nations peacekeeper raped her 12-year-old boy. A United Nations spokesman said that he had not heard that specific case but that there were indeed a number of new sexual abuse allegations against peacekeepers in Congo and that a team was sent in late July to investigate.

Congolese health professionals are becoming exasperated. Many argue for a political solution, not a military one, and say Western powers should put more pressure on Rwanda, which is widely accused of preserving its own stability by keeping the violence on the other side of the border.

“I understand the world feels guilty about what happened in Rwanda in 1994,” said Denis Mukwege, the lead doctor at Panzi Hospital, referring to Rwanda’s genocide. “But shouldn’t the world feel guilty about what’s happening in Congo today?”

Assiya Rafiq: Fighting Sexual Violence in Pakistan

2009-07-26T13:49:00.002-05:00

I sat down and just wrote a letter to the President of Pakistan. If he's anything like ours he probably won't ever read it but that's not the point. I was deeply moved by the story of Assiya Rafiq, a very brave young Pakistani woman who is demanding the prosecution of the two criminals and four police officers who raped and brutalized her . I think her story is compelling not only for exposing the sexual violence that rural Pakistani women are often subjected to but because of the way it reveals how processes of patriarchy, state corruption, and gender violence intersect. If you can, please write a letter to the Pakistani government in support of Miss Rafiq. There is a growing grassroots movement led by women to end sexual violence, particularly in rural communities and we should all try to support as much as possible. Working here in Bluefields, Nicaragua, I have been confronted with how pervasive sexual violence against women is here and how the silence of both the state and civil society reproduces the conditions that facilitate such violence. I don't think American feminists (of any color) should impose political projects on women in the Global South. But when those women are building an organic, grassroots movement for gender justice we'd be absolutely remiss not to follow their lead.

Here's a copy of my letter to President Asif Ali Zardari. It took me 10 minutes to write it. I think we can all spare 10 minutes for this, don't you? You can fax your letters to: President Asif Ali Zardari, President’s Avenue, Islamabad, Pakistan, fax: +92-51-9203297 or Mr. Mumtaz Gillani, Federal Minister for Human Rights, fax: +92-51-9244542. For more on Miss Rafiq's story check out this article in the New York Times.

Peace and blessings to all,
c.

July 26, 2009
Re: The case of Miss Assiya Rafiq

Dear President Asif Ali Zardari:

I am writing you to tell you how devastated I am to hear about the case of Assiya Rafiq, a young woman who was sold to two men, subjected to a year of rape and beating, and after being handed over to the police was brutally raped by four police officers over a period of two weeks. It is horrible enough that she had to endure a year of such brutality but to be doubly victimized by those who are supposed to protect her is simply unconscionable.

Unlike many women who simply hide the shame of being raped, Miss Rafiq has taken a stand and is refusing to remain silent. She is demanding justice for the violence that was done against her and that the criminals and police who raped her be prosecuted and brought to justice. As a result she and her family are facing threats from the police, the criminals who raped and abused her, her brothers and sisters have had to leave school, and her family has lost its livelihood. Women will never be able to fight against rape and sexual violence in their communities while the state allows this kind of intimidation to continue. I urge you President Zardari to come out in support of Miss Rafiq and to assist in the prosecution of these perpetrators. Sexual violence against women is a global epidemic and we must all unite to stop it. However, nothing will ever change if governments do not come out and explicitly condemn these acts of violence against women. I believe that Pakistan can play a crucial role in changing global attitudes about sexual violence against women and taking a stand against this brutal act.

Women should not be shamed for violence that is done against them. Rape is not about lust or desire, it is about power and subordinating women. The government of Pakistan simply cannot allow women to continue to face ongoing violence when they refuse to be silent about rape and sexual abuse.

I urge you to take a clear stand on this matter and support not only Assiya Rafiq but all of the women and girls who have been subjected to this brutality. The two police officers whom betrayed her trust and raped her again and again instead of helping must be brought to justice. Don't turn your back on the women of Pakistan like so many others have. I know that you will follow your heart and do what is right to ensure that all of Pakistan's citizens enjoy a life free of violence and despair.

Respectfully,

Courtney Morris
Bluefields, Nicaragua

"Inquisitive"

2009-03-17T18:40:00.010-05:00

"Inquisitive" by Courtney Desiree Morris, Bluefields, Nicaragua, Mar. 2009

"View from the Veranda"

2009-03-17T18:40:00.008-05:00

"View fro the Veranda" by Courtney Desiree Morris, Bluefields, Nicaragua, Mar. 2009.

Essential

2009-03-17T18:40:00.006-05:00

"Essential" by Courtney Desiree Morris, Bluefields, Nicaragua Mar. 2009

Abandonada

2009-03-03T16:20:00.006-06:00

"Abandonada" by Courtney Desiree Morris, Bluefields, Nicaragua, Feb. 2009.

The Sweet Music of Justice and Forgiveness

2009-02-08T18:59:00.005-06:00

In 1957, Barbara Conrad was an undergraduate music student at the University of Texas at Austin. One of a small number of Black undergrads on campus at the time, she was determined to build a career as an opera singer despite the very real barriers that Jim Crow segregation and racism presented to her dream. In spite of the odds, the talented mezzo-soprano was cast that year to play the lead female role in the opera "Dido and Aeneas" opposite a white male lead. It should have been a cause for celebration. But this young opera singer became the center of a racial controversy that made its way all the up to the highest levels of state government, the Texas Legislature.

Shortly after the news spread that she had received the role all hell broke loose. According to the Austin American Statesman, Conrad began to receive threatening phone calls in her dormitory and one evening she was assaulted by two young white men as she made her way home. Still, she refused to give up the role. Black East Austinites began to get involved offering to provide transportation for Conrad and other Black students traveling to and from campus and keeping a watch over the women's dormitory on E. 12th Street. But, as the Statesman notes:

"That didn't stop the threats. Anonymous calls came into the office of UT fine arts Dean William Doty. And by April 1957, opposition to Conrad's pending May performance mounted in the Texas Legislature. Rep. Joe Chapman of Sulphur Springs, a leader of the House segregation bloc, warned UT officials that it would be a very bad move for the university's public relations. Though Chapman would deny that he threatened then-UT President Logan Wilson, the university's appropriations were about to come up before the Legislature.

Another state lawmaker was less evasive. Rep. Jerry Sadler, also a segregationist, denounced the university and told the Houston Post in an article about Conrad, "I mentioned appropriations and as a matter of fact voted against those for the university because they have Negro undergraduates."

Shortly thereafter, Conrad was removed from the role. The decision crushed Conrad, who, rather than choosing to leave the University (despite a rather tempting offer by Harry Belafonte, who offered to pay her tuition and fees at the school of her choosing if she wanted to leave Texas) she decided to stay and support the struggle to fully integrate the University. It seemed at the time that the segregationists had won.

But in 2009, Ms. Conrad is getting the last laugh. This past week, the Texas Legislature, the same body that had called for her removal more than fifty years ago, paid homage to the opera diva and passed a resolution in her honor. She also returned to the University of Texas at Austin to celebrate the re-opening of Bass Concert Hall, where she shared the stage with opera greats Frederica Von Stade and Samuel Ramey.

In a recent interview with the Austin American Statesman, Ms. Conrad spoke about her journey since 1957 and her genuine desire that this country begin to do the meaningful work of mending the damage that racial violence (of all kinds) has done to people. She stated,

"I've learned that if you have a gift, you have to share it. And this is a time when we need a lot of inspiration and healing. When you go through (what I did), you really want to transform it into something more positive. It's not just about my journey, it's a very big journey, for people of all races."

I had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Conrad finally perform and receive the recognition that she deserved at the University of Texas at Austin. If things have changed to such a degree at the University that we have the luxury of forgetting what Black people experienced and lived through in order to attend the state's flagship university, Ms. Conrad's story should remind us that we should never forget. Afterward I was able to meet her in person and she is divine. Personally, I was so struck by this women's dignity and grace in the face of so much bigotry and violence. In spite of living in a world that told her she would never be an opera singer for no other reason than being a Black woman, she defied them all and dared to create beauty when confronted with the ugliness of racial discrimination. She may not have been taking it to the streets but in her own way she fought to create a place in this world for Black women committed to the work of creating beauty. I think that's something to be proud of.

Thank you Ms. Conrad, you're amazing.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Beyond Vietname -- A Time to Break Silence

2009-01-19T13:09:00.002-06:00

Given everything that is happening in the Middle East right now (and all of the hidden wars that the American media never reports on) this speech felt particularly relevant and prescient today. I encourage all of you to honor the memory of Dr. King by continuing to engage his radical legacy and rejecting the sanitized, distorted, and flattened version that has become common sense in American political culture. Dr. King rejected imperialism and U.S. wars of aggression; he rejected a culture of capitalism built on the values of gluttonous consumption and total disregard for human life; he rejected a corporate culture that could treat the needs of human beings as mere "externalities" in the drive for ever greater profits. He believed in the fundamental dignity of all people and their right to the basic necessities of life -- he believed in a radical vision of racial and economic justice that affirmed human life. That's what I have taken from Dr. King and in these troubled times I urge all of us to reflect on how to make these radical ideals a fundamental part of our political and daily practice. Peace. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delivered April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen:

I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, and some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit.

I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: "A time comes when silence is betrayal." And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say. "Aren't you hurting the cause of your people," they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.

In the light of such tragic misunderstanding, I deem it of signal importance to try to state clearly, and I trust concisely, why I believe that the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate -- leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight.

I come to this platform tonight to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation. This speech is not addressed to Hanoi or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Neither is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in the successful resolution of the problem. While they both may have justifiable reasons to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States, life and history give eloquent testimony to the fact that conflicts are never resolved without trustful give and take on both sides.

Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans.

Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.

For those who ask the question, "Aren't you a civil rights leader?" and thereby mean to exclude me from the movement for peace, I have this further answer. In 1957 when a group of us formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, we chose as our motto: "To save the soul of America." We were convinced that we could not limit our vision to certain rights for black people, but instead affirmed the conviction that America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear. In a way we were agreeing with Langston Hughes, that black bard of Harlem, who had written earlier:

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath --
America will be!

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1954¹; and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man." This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men -- for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?

And finally, as I try to explain for you and for myself the road that leads from Montgomery to this place I would have offered all that was most valid if I simply said that I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be a son of the living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood, and because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned especially for his suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come tonight to speak for them.

This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.

And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side, not of the ideologies of the Liberation Front, not of the junta in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.

They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1954 -- in 1945 rather -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony. Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long. With that tragic decision we rejected a revolutionary government seeking self-determination and a government that had been established not by China -- for whom the Vietnamese have no great love -- but by clearly indigenous forces that included some communists. For the peasants this new government meant real land reform, one of the most important needs in their lives.

For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam. Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not. We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem. The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States' influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of -- in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.

Now there is little left to build on, save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call "fortified hamlets." The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these. Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These, too, are our brothers.

Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call "VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts.

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part? They ask how we can speak of free elections when the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta. And they are surely right to wonder what kind of new government we plan to help form without them, the only party in real touch with the peasants. They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?

Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.

So, too, with Hanoi. In the North, where our bombs now pummel the land, and our mines endanger the waterways, we are met by a deep but understandable mistrust. To speak for them is to explain this lack of confidence in Western words, and especially their distrust of American intentions now. In Hanoi are the men who led the nation to independence against the Japanese and the French, the men who sought membership in the French Commonwealth and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the colonial armies. It was they who led a second struggle against French domination at tremendous costs, and then were persuaded to give up the land they controlled between the thirteenth and seventeenth parallel as a temporary measure at Geneva. After 1954 they watched us conspire with Diem to prevent elections which could have surely brought Ho Chi Minh to power over a united Vietnam, and they realized they had been betrayed again. When we ask why they do not leap to negotiate, these things must be remembered.

Also, it must be clear that the leaders of Hanoi considered the presence of American troops in support of the Diem regime to have been the initial military breach of the Geneva Agreement concerning foreign troops. They remind us that they did not begin to send troops in large numbers and even supplies into the South until American forces had moved into the tens of thousands.

Hanoi remembers how our leaders refused to tell us the truth about the earlier North Vietnamese overtures for peace, how the president claimed that none existed when they had clearly been made. Ho Chi Minh has watched as America has spoken of peace and built up its forces, and now he has surely heard the increasing international rumors of American plans for an invasion of the North. He knows the bombing and shelling and mining we are doing are part of traditional pre-invasion strategy. Perhaps only his sense of humor and of irony can save him when he hears the most powerful nation of the world speaking of aggression as it drops thousands of bombs on a poor, weak nation more than eight hundred -- rather, eight thousand miles away from its shores.

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called "enemy," I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words, and I quote:

Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism (unquote).

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war.

I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately to begin the long and difficult process of extricating ourselves from this nightmarish conflict:

Number one: End all bombing in North and South Vietnam.

Number two: Declare a unilateral cease-fire in the hope that such action will create the atmosphere for negotiation.

Three: Take immediate steps to prevent other battlegrounds in Southeast Asia by curtailing our military buildup in Thailand and our interference in Laos.

Four: Realistically accept the fact that the National Liberation Front has substantial support in South Vietnam and must thereby play a role in any meaningful negotiations and any future Vietnam government.

Five: Set a date that we will remove all foreign troops from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Agreement.

Part of our ongoing -- Part of our ongoing commitment might well express itself in an offer to grant asylum to any Vietnamese who fears for his life under a new regime which included the Liberation Front. Then we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country, if necessary. Meanwhile -- Meanwhile, we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices and our lives if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative method of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service, we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is a path now chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover, I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

Now there is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter that struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing.

The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing "clergy and laymen concerned" committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

And so, such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and, through their misguided passions, urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not engage in a negative anticommunism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice, which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.

It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: "Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word" (unquote).

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood -- it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on."

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message -- of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

As that noble bard of yesterday, James Russell Lowell, eloquently stated:

Once to every man and nation comes a moment to decide,

In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet 'tis truth alone is strong

Though her portions be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace.

If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

A Prayer for Gaza

2009-01-17T01:13:00.005-06:00

I'll be short. It has become clear (as though we needed clarifying) that the state of Israel is devoted to nothing less than a project of genocide against the people of Gaza. Since Israel intensified the occupation in December 2008, the violence has escalated beyond what many of us could have imagined. Israel has rained down phosphorus bombs on UN facilities, approximately 1,000 people have been murdered in this war, nearly a third of them children.

Our tax dollars fund these atrocities yet our government says nothing. The brutality that is being unleashed on these people is immoral and unconscionable. But the fact is, I have felt powerless to do anything about it other than giving money, complaining loudly about it to anyone who will listen, and participating in solidarity demos.

My husband felt the same and decided to make his small contribution by writing a song about these horrors and expressing his solidarity with the people of Gaza. It's called "A Prayer for Gaza" and I am honored to have been able to participate by providing the vocals for the track. By tomorrow I'll have a slide show up with the song for your listening/viewing pleasure. Check out the song and let us know what you think. In the meantime, you can see the lyrics here. If you live in the Austin area please be sure to come out to the "Solidarity with Gaza" rally being held on Saturday at the Capitol on 11th and Congress, January 17, 2:00-5:00pm. There'll be speakers, poets, and live performers at this gathering to support the people of Gaza and take a collective stand against the genocidal, apartheid policies of the state of Israel. For more information on how you can get involved in local organizing efforts check out www.solidaritywithgaza.org.

---------------------------------------------
A Prayer for Gaza

Gaza, so far away
Blood spills as bombs rain
Over Gaza
Gaza, they don't explain
The crimes of history
And why you feel that way
Oh, Gaza
I pray for you
Gaza

Oh say, can you see, an alliance, so unholy
Oh say, can you see, an alliance, so unholy
As King David's drones
Vaporize the homes
And they send in tanks
To fight kids with stones
And the trees and grass
Have all burned to ash
Cause the stars and stripes
Ponied up the cash
As they gasp for breath
Or they starve to death
While the army kills
And the world stands still

Gaza, soon come the day
When you see justice
And you can heal your pain
Oh Gaza,
I pray for you
Gaza,
What can we do
Gaza,
No time to lose
Gaza,
It's up to you
Gaza

What I Must Say About Ana Sisnett

2009-01-16T20:09:00.002-06:00

Goodbye Ana.

Carole has called and I have just placed the phone back in its cradle. I tried to see her and I didn't. I called her and told her I was coming to see her. Went to bed that night and dreamt that I went to visit her, arrived at her door and was already too late and she had gone before I could hold her one more time.

I'm finally learning to trust my dreams, to trust when my ancestors are preparing me for what must come.

I could say that I wished I had called sooner (and I do), dialed her number when I thought of her instead of giving myself over to the work piled in front of me. But the truth is, I didn't. I know that if Ana didn't tolerate that sort of shoulda-coulda-woulda foolishness in life, she damn sure wouldn't stand for it now.

She was my sistren, my Caribbean woman-sister, that lover, that mother, that dream builder, that community organizer, that poeta with hips como una sirena. We were always in love with each other.

And now Ana is gone.

What I do wish: that I could have read her selections from the chapbook that I've been working on. That I could have sung for her one more time because she loved to hear me sing. That I could hug her, wrap her up in my arms. That I could have talked to her about how much I miss my grandmother who passed in October. I suppose that, in a way, her dying doesn't change a thing. I can still sing for her, read her poems, talk to her about my grandmother. She is eternal now and present everywhere. I will whisper my secrets to her in the quiet shade of trees, listen for her laughter in the wind. I will carry her with me in my ears, in my mouth, in my heart.

Ana always made me feel like I had a right to believe in myself. She named me a writer before I had the courage to give myself the name. She believed in my ability to create, to tap into my grandmother's magic, to become the woman that I was born to be. She liked me just the way I was doing exactly what I was made to do. Ana believed in me.

I pray that her family be comforted. I wish her partner rest -- it's been a long and, too often, lonely road and now it's time for her to heal. I pray for Ana's children -- there comes a day when we all must say goodbye (for now) to the woman who brought us into the world and it never stops hurting like hell. My wish for them tonight is that one day it just doesn't hurt so bad. And for the friends -- the poets, the girl friends, the organizers, the artists, the colored girls, the sister lesbos, the wild ones, the feminists, the ones who didn't make it, the ones who are still trying, and the ones that will never forget her -- send her your love as she crosses over and know that she is sending hers back to you.

Goodbye Ana. I miss you.

Ana Sisnett 1952-2009

2009-01-16T13:19:00.002-06:00

Celebrated author, artist and activist Sisnett dies after battle with cancer.

By Joshunda Sanders
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 15, 2009

From the children lulled to sleep by her writing to the underprivileged people she helped connect to the World Wide Web, the passing of Ana Sisnett leaves a void in the Austin arts and advocacy communities, friends say.

The celebrated local author, artist, poet and social activist died Tuesday afternoon at her home after a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 56.

"Ana was involved in the arts community at a grass-roots level, and she connected the arts, social justice work and technology," Lisa Byrd, a longtime friend and executive director of ProArts Collective, said Wednesday. "She had a good life, and she smiled at that. She really had an international impact with her activism. I will miss her deeply."

Sisnett was executive director of Austin Free-Net, which seeks to make the Internet accessible to everyone. She spoke internationally about community technology training and online access, policies and issues. Free-Net put words into action in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by giving evacuees access to online resources and message boards.

Sisnett received several awards for her community activism, among them the City of Austin's 2001 Susan G. Hadden Telecommunity Award.

Her partner, Priscilla Hale, said Sisnett had "an amazing passion for human rights service and work, which is reflected in every aspect of her life."

Her best-known published work is "Grannie Jus' Come!" — a children's book inspired by her childhood memories of her grandmother — but her writings were also included in several anthologies.

Sisnett was born in Panama; she moved to Los Angeles when she was 13. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Spanish and communications from the University of California, San Diego, said Hale, who knew Sisnett for about 11 years. After moving to Austin with her then-husband in 1983, Sisnett took courses in Latin American studies at the University of Texas.

Jon Lebkowsky, one of the principals at Social Web Strategies, a social media networking company, said he met Sisnett shortly after her arrival in Austin.

She was "passionate and powerful in her support of people who are traditionally underserved online," he said.

"Some people just want to make the system work the way that it should. She was one of those people," Lebkowsky said.

Sisnett worked for several years at the now-defunct nonprofit Foundation for a Compassionate Society and at the Peace House, both of which promoted community activism. Sisnett became executive director of Austin Free-Net in 1998.

She was a volunteer and organizer for ALLGO, formerly known as Austin Latino Lesbian Gay Organization. Sisnett was also a volunteer with Alma de Mujer, a retreat center near Lake Travis for indigenous women.

"She was always willing to teach anyone all that she knows," said Sisnett's daughter, Meredith Sisnett. "She was an international teacher of love."

Sisnett enjoyed writing poetry, but she wrote less in recent years because she didn't want to write about her illness. Instead, Byrd said, Sisnett preferred creating visual art. In the last years of her life, her grandchildren provided her with consistent comfort, Hale said.

Sisnett is survived by Hale; two children, Meredith Sisnett, 36, and Ghamal Webb, 31; and two grandchildren. Funeral services are pending.

Byrd described Sisnett as a woman with a regal demeanor who also loved to salsa dance.

"She expected to be treated like a queen — especially the older she got — because she had contributed to her community so greatly," Byrd said.

The Damage an Informant Can Do

2009-01-08T20:26:00.000-06:00

About a week ago, I learned from a friend that activists in Austin had just found out that one of their own, an activist named Brandon Darby, had publicly acknowledged that he had actively infiltrated RNC protest groups as an FBI informant. According to Democracy Now! "Darby has admitted to wearing recording devices at planning meetings and wearing a transmitter embedded in his belt during the convention. He is expected to testify on behalf of the government later this month in the trial of two Texas activists who were arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails." The two young men are facing up to 15 years in prison for these charges. What is most sickening however, is that, Darby may not only have spied on these activists, but evidence suggests that he also goaded them into engaging in these acts. This would make Darby not just an informant, but a provacateur which means that these young men are the victims of entrapment and may go to prison not for any real crime but for trusting someone that they thought was an ally. According to the Texas Chronicle "The Molotov cocktails were among the items seized in a raid that led to felony indictments of McCay and Crowder, now known as the “Texas Two.” They were charged with possession of unregistered firearms (the cocktails). Information gathered by Darby may have contributed to broader charges against eight others from around the country for conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to damage property in the furtherance of terrorism."

I was shocked but not altogether surprised by this news. I found out during my first year of undergrad at the University of Texas at Austin that the campus police department routinely placed plainclothes police officers in the meetings of radical student groups on campus -- you know, just to keep an eye on them. That was in the fall of 2001, we saw the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, watched a cowboy president wage war on terror, and in the middle of it all tried to figure out what we could do to challenge the fascist state transformations taking place before our very eyes. At the time, however, it seemed silly that there were cops in our meetings -- we weren't the Panthers or the Brown Berets or even some of rowdier direction action anti-globalization activists (although we admired them all), we were just young people who didn't believe war was the best response to the 9-11 attacks. But it wasn't silly, the FBI does not tend to dismiss political work, be it large or small, any organization can provoke the scrutiny of the state; perhaps your organization poses a large threat, or maybe you're small now but one day you'll grow up and be too big to reign in. The FBI and the state usually opt to kill the movement before it grows.

But if the FBI says "Kill them before they grow," informants are the hired gunmen. Government agencies pick people that no one will notice. Oftentimes it's impossible to prove that their informants because they have insulated themselves in the community by appearing to be completely dedicated to the cause of social justice. They establish intimate relationships with people, becoming friends and lovers, often serving in leadership roles in our organizations. A cursory reading of the literature on social movements and organizations in the 1960s and 1970s reveals this fact. The leadership of the American Indian Movement was rife with informants; it is suspected that informants are also largely responsible for the downfall of the Black Panther Party and the same can be surmised about the anti-war movement as well. In addition to all of the other harmful and disruptive tactics that the FBI developed to destabilize movements, informants are the best tool in their arsenal. Why? Because in the end the short-term damage that informants do is secondary to the larger, more dangerous implications of their work.

This morning I listened to Malik Raheem, the founder of Common Ground in New Orleans, talk about how devastated he was by this betrayal and it just made me feel crushed. Several times during his interview with Amy Goodman he said that he felt as though his heart had been broken upon learning what Darby had done. Moreover, he felt guilty and responsible for all of the activists, particularly young women, who had left the organization because of Darby. Others have pointed out how Darby created conflict in all of the organizations that he worked with, yet people were hesitant to hold him accountable because of his history and reputation as an organizer and his "dedication" to "the work." This made me wonder how many times informants will create deliberately create conflict in organizations with the specific goal of dismantling or neutralizing organizations and discouraging other organizers. Some people leave these organizations and reject political organizing altogehter. They leave and never come back, but the informant stays around to wreak further havoc -- mission accomplished. Maybe if we as organizers made collective accountability a more central part of our organizing practices we could neutralize people who are working on behalf of the state to undermine our struggles. I'm not talking about witch hunts; I'm talking about organizing in such a way that we nip a potential Brandon Darby in the bud before he can go somewhere else and hurt more people. The truth is informants are hard to spot, but my guess is that where there is smoke there's fire and someone who creates chaos wherever they go is one of two things: 1) an informant or 2) an irresponsible, unaccountable time bomb who can be unintentionally just as effective at undermining social justice organizing as an informant.

Another more troubling turn in this tale is the way in which Darby has publicly acknowledged his role as an informant, yet insists that this was for the greater good of the movement and reflects his commitment to social justice work. Calling the actions of the two Texas activists, who are currently in federal detention, "dangerous" he states,

I strongly believe that people innocent of an act should stand up for themselves and that those who choose to engage in an act should accept responsibility and explain the reasoning for their choices.

It is very dangerous when a few individuals engage in or act on a belief system in which they feel they know the real truth and that all others are ignorant and therefore have no right to meet and express their political views.

Additionally, when people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it's damaging to the efforts of those who do give of themselves to better this world. Many people become activists as a result of discovering that others have distorted history and made heroes and assigned intentions to people who really didn't act to better the world. The practice of placing noble intentions after the fact on actions which did not have noble motivations has no place in a movement for social justice.

The fact that Darby had no sense of irony writing this open letter, quite frankly, confounds me. The statement "When people act out of anger and hatred, and then claim that their actions were part of a movement or somehow tied into the struggle for social justice only after being caught, it's damaging to the efforst of those who do give of themselves to better this world," is so absurd as to be laughable. But ain't a damn thing funny. Darby wants us to believe that he agreed to serve as an informant to prevent two people from committing a violent act that would hurt the movement. He wants us to believe his intentions were pure and noble. But he's making that claim after the fact, after he got caught. So in a sense he's right -- his actions are quite damaging to those of us "who do give of themselve to better this world." People like him make a mockery of that struggle. It's disingenuous of him to present himself as the lone voice of reason -- if he were so concerned why didn't he bring his concerns to other organizers, confront the people that he disagreed with -- how did working for the state become the best option? Or perhaps that was merely another high road he felt he had to walk alone -- I will burn this village, in order to save it. Click here to read the full version of his open letter on Austin Indymedia.

Luckily, in the aftermath of Darby's revelation, Austin activists have come together to denounce Darby and call him out for what he is -- a rat. The Austin Informant Working Group has released a statement that takes Darby to task for his actions and has refused to let him represent himself as a guy trying to do the right thing. Click here to read The Austin Informant Working Group's response to Darby.

I never met Brandon Darby, never organized with him, yet I know so many people who were connected to him and are reeling between grief and rage. The truth is that even if the two young men that Darby helped to entrap don't go to prison, the damage to our activist communities is done. Since Darby revealed that he has been serving as an informant, I have listened to several people talk about how his actions have shaken them, made them feel like fools for not recognizing the informant in their midst. This sort of self-doubt is particularly troubling because that is exactly what the state wants. This should be a lesson to all of us, because Brandon Darby is really only the tip of the iceberg. COINTELPRO has never stopped; the U.S. government has been engaged in an ongoing campaign to target and punish dissenters, activists, and community organizers since World War I. And who knows what skeletons will fall out of the closet after the Bush administration comes to an end or years later when the FBI begins declassifying documents from the first 10 years of the 21st century? What happened with Brandon Darby can and will happen again -- the question is are we going to choose a different strategy and prepare ourselves so that the work can continue or are we going to allow ourselves to be immobilized every time a mole turns up in our communities?

This is what informants do to us and our movements. They make us look at each other sideways, doubt our ability to discern people's character, make us reticent to trust one another as we struggle to create a better world. As far as the state is concerned, it doesn't matter how many people go to jail, stop doing the work after getting burned one too many times, or even how many people die. All of that is just gravy for the real work -- crushing people's faith in the possibility that we can collectively create something better, that collective struggle can yield results that change our lives. Informants are hired to make us stop believing in ourselves and our collective power. That's what they do.

To the FBI and Brandon Darby: I will not let you rob me of my faith in our capacity to change this world. I will assume that every meeting and organization that I walk into has already been infiltrated. I will make it my business to demonstrate in my political practice that the work I do is better than what he/she is being paid to do. I will fight to make him/her believe that his/her small axe matters and that his/her labor would be better spent creating a world that has no use for informants. I will kill him/her with kindness and my love for justice. I will challenge him/her to reclaim their power and get themselves on the right side of history. I will work creatively with others to develop a model of what social justice organizing rooted in a love ethic looks like. I hope that one day s/he will understand and want to struggle with me instead of against me. Because that's what organizers do.

Mississippi Goddamn...

2008-12-09T21:41:00.000-06:00

There are some occurences in our country that are so outrageous you almost can't believe that they could actually have happened. For example, what does one make of the fact that two Black men (admittedly, uber-conservatives) were behind several different attempts to delegitimize the presidential victory of President-elect Barack Obama by arguing that he is not actually a citizen.

I wish I were making this up.

Alan Keyes, the former House Negro of the GOP and now just another disaffected Black conservative, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas both were scheming to advance this dastardly scheme. Keyes filed a lawsuit against Obama, a thinly veiled vinidictive attack since Obama whupped him in the 2004 Illinois Senate race; and Thomas, who simply seems to finds his purpose in life by fucking over Black people whenever he can (slapping down affirmative action, deriding mythical, Cadillac-driving, steak-eating welfare queens -- including his own sister -- and sexually harassing his Black female colleagues) and cheesing up to white folks passed along this case, brought by retired attorney Leo C. Donofrio, for consideration to the Supreme Court. The justices collectively refused to hear the case bringing an end to at least part of the conspiracy theory around Obama's birth and citizenship.

But it seems like folks all over America are pissed about Barack being president. Just check out what's happening in Mississippi.

Two Black male students were thrown off a bus in Mississippi after stating that "Obama is our president." The bus driver told them not to make this statement. When the boys pointed out that this was not whimsy or even disrespectful, but merely a historical fact she threw them off the bus.

I couldn't make this shit up if tried.

At the same middle school that the boys attended a gym teacher warned students that if they mentioned Obama's name they would be suspended from school.

You would think that after 300 years of white privilege allowing white people to always be the winner, they wouldn't be begrudge people of color this one president without a fuss. But it turns out that white people are, in fact, sore losers.

During the Civil Rights Movement, of all the places that young activists, Black and White, traveled to down South to help Black folks living under Jim Crow, Mississippi was by far the state that was the most feared for its brtual repression and the commitment of white folks there to maintain white supremacy in the face of social change. More than 40 year after this movement and those that followed it made it possible for Barack Obama to be president of this country, these events make you wonder how much has changed. For some people, not much. And if they have they way it never will.

I leave you now with the words of that great Black performer and visionary, Miss Nina Simone.
Alabama's got me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
But everybody knows about Mississippi
GODDAMN!

The Wonderful (Art) World of Renee Cox

2008-10-30T11:59:00.001-05:00

(Yo Mama's Last Supper)

Who is Renee Cox, you ask? Simply put, Renee Cox is one of the fiercest, smartest, engaging, and disruptive photographers/visual artists doing her thing in the art world today. And I won't deny that it tickles me that she is a Black woman who has consistently defied boundaries and unapolegetically done her thing as an artist. She is perhaps best well known for using her own naked body in her work as a way of tackling questions around race, gender, sexuality, desire, and power and not being afraid to use humor to make her point visually. Personally, I have been deeply moved by her attempt to reclaim and celebrate the black female body in a cultural landscape that only ever sees black women's bodies as sites of exploitation, degradation, or base sexuality. Cox puts her naked body out there and restores Black women's full humanity -- our bodies are given full expression. Her images range from the sacred to the perverse and that is truly the beauty of her work -- there is no sugarcoating or flattening Black women's experiences in these images. Black women are madonnas holding on to their dying sons; they are Caribbean national heroes defending their communities and resisting slavery; and they're freaks who pour their bodies into latex and masturbate in front of the camera.

In short Black women don't need to be put on pedestals, we just want to be treated like human beings who experience the feel range of emotions and desires as anyone else on this planet. And that is why I love Renee Cox. She's creating space and challenging convention and wants everybody else to do the same. She's putting her body on display but not to fulfill someone else's desires, but to articulate her own. In the wonderful (art) world of Renee Cox, it is a fucking party and everyone is invited. But you gotta play by Renee's rules.

peace.

Tim'm presents The Front Porch at Dallas Southern Pride, Oct. 3rd

2008-09-19T09:12:00.001-05:00

Come hang out with family on the front porch, ya'll! My homegirl, Samiya Bashir, a phenomenal poet and gorgeous human being will be reading.

open flesh

2008-09-19T09:12:00.000-05:00

they're bleaching in india.
jamaica, too.
in ghana, nigeria, and just about everywhere on
the continent.
transform warm, mud bodies
into jaundiced,
paper flesh.
the strands so thin and worn
the skin will not hold.
this is flesh
made transparent
these bodies keep no secrets.
the veins loudly tell
all that they know.
me,
i'll keep my secrets.
these arms, breasts, legs, torso, ears, and buttocks
no one will extract my stories from my skin
this trauma of race.
i will not underwrite my own death
i will not erase myself.

For those I've lost

2008-08-13T23:36:00.000-05:00

I feel as if I've been saying goodbye to people I admire for a long time. There the father of one of my dearest friends, who died only days after celebrating his daughter's marriage. He was a great admirer of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, a lawyer who never forgot who the law was supposed to protect.
I miss him.
An uncle with a nasty mouth and sweet ways who taught me to take everything and everybody with a grain of salt and if they don't like it, well, fuck 'em, cause I don't have to nothing I don't want to do just because a whole heap of fools are doing it.
The son who followed him to the other side a year later after pulling dozens of men, women, and children out of the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina. His heart stopped in the middle of the night and I like to think it was because his big old heart just couldn't stand the horror of what he'd seen in a drowning city.
A young poet who drowns before the world has the opportunity to really experience and understand her power. Her words inspire me to say everything that I want to say while I am alive.
And then there are the celebrities. People that you never met but that influence you all the same. The make you laugh, you sing along to songs that they made famous and somehow they become a part of you as though you had known them all of their lives.
And then they're gone.
For all the people I've lost:
Luis Moreno
Aubrey Brinsley Brandon
Elbert Brandon, Jr.
Raul Salinas
Michael Patrick
Shannon Leigh
Heath Ledger
Bernie Mac
Isaac Hayes
And if my mourning them makes sense to no one but me, all I can say is that somehow they touched something deep inside of me that affirmed for me what it means to be human. And for that they deserve my respect and my tears.
peace.

It's true...a Black woman's booty makes everything more interesting

2008-07-31T23:44:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed, I generally tend to blog whenever I come across something so crazy, so completely flabbergasting that I have no choice but to complain about it in cyberspace. After 7 years of living in Austin, I think it is safe to consider myself a naturalized Austinite; as a Black woman this is not always an easy existence but generally speaking I am more happy with Austin than I am dissatisfied. Like other Austinites, a week rarely goes by when I don't read The Austin Chronicle, the capitol city's version of The Village Voice. With artwork and articles that cover local news, art, and events with a satirical, tongue-in-cheek manner, The Austin Chronicle provides a smart, welcome contrast to our city's less interesting, more stodgy daily The Austin-American Statesman.

Well, usually.

Sometimes, edgy and tongue-in-cheek can go too far. Or, hell, I'll just say it -- when it comes to racial, gendered, and sexual politics, there's a fine line between edgy and problematic. And this Thursday The Chronicle totally crossed it.

When I first saw the cover I paused and then grimaced. Why, one might wonder, would The Chronicle have a photo of a Black woman holding an avocado placed suggestively just below her ass on the cover of the paper as the art for a story that has nothing to do with Black women, nudity, or art? Follow that up with the fact that the teaser for the article stated "The Avocado: A Backstory," with extra emphasis on the "back". Now I know racism and sexism when I see it and given the American fascination with Black women's booties (just look at the pop culture empire Beyoncé has built on hers) it's hard not to read racism into things. First of all, I would be offended if the model had not been black -- why are women's bodies always being appropriated to advertise or sell things that have nothing to do with the item (or in this case, article) that is being hawked. Having said that, I don't think it is a coincidence that the photo focuses on her ass and the avocado placed teasingly beneath it.

Images of Black women's asses have been a part of American popular culture since the 19th century; during slavery it was argued that Black women's exaggerated womanly endowments actually proved scientifically that we had a greater proclivity for sexual intercourse than white woman and were biologically insatiable (a convenient explanation for all the white slave masters who couldn't resist tipping out to the slave quarters). The Black woman's behind taps into an entire repository of collective cultural memory and meaning that we may not consciously think about in our daily lives but that shapes our perceptions of the Other on a daily basis. From Sarah Baartman to Josephine Baker to JLo, White America still just can't get enough of dat ass.

Still, not wanting to believe the worst (my homegirl Juli teases me constantly about my relentess optimism and willingness to give folks the benefit of the doubt), I didn't pick up the paper, but walked away and said to myself, "Damn, I really hope this story justifies the cover."

Well, it doesn't.

It's a story about avocados -- that's it. The article is about the avocado, the whole avocado, and nothing but the avocado. It explores the untold story of the avocado from its history as a wonderous fruit that fascinated the Spanish conquistadores to its contemporary prodution and widespread popularity all the way down to how much of it is consumed around the world (not surprisingly, Mexico wins handsdown -- 20 lbs. of avocado per person each year -- !Que Viva!) So why this Black woman's ass? What in the hell was The Chronicle thinking?

Well, apparently someone else must have been thinking the same thing, because by the time I got home to blog my grievance, the picture was not on the site. Gone was the visually arresting, but deeply problematic image of a Black woman's derriere, and in its place was a much more suitable, if less interesting image of workers in a Dole factory, presumably stocking avocados.

Does this mean that a reader pulled The Chronicle's coattails before I could or did someone in the newsroom have the sense to call this photo out for what it was: a cheap play on tired ass stereotypes to push an uninteresting story on readers who would not have given it the time of day had they not hoped to see more of this woman's booty (and it is a pretty pleasing ass...but I digress).

My advice to The Chronicle: stick to smart news coverage and politically edgy and intelligent art. Don't stoop. There's really no need to reproduce racism and sexism in your pages when the work you usually do sells it self. Don't use me or my sisters to reach out to or enhance your readership, just do good work. There's no need to exploit our bodies, leave that to wack music videos and King Magazine, don't bring it into the news. I don't want to feel assaulted reading the local weekly when all I came to do was get my news fix.

R. Kelly Acquitted...An Update on the Criminal (In)Justice System

2008-07-31T17:17:00.000-05:00

I was in Mexico on a work trip that also doubled as my honeymoon when R. Kelly was totally acquitted of 14 counts of child pornography and pedophilia. The victim and her family denied that she was the young woman in the sex tape that showed Kelley having sex with and urinating on a young Black woman that prosecutors said looked as young as 13 years old. Since I was out of the country and basically completely incommunicado I had not heard about the acquittal. The truth is I don't really know what to think or to do. If you can't get the majority of Black people in this country to care about the violence that is enacted against Black women or girls why should anybody else? I was deeply disturbed to see the number of Black women who jumped to his defense and attacked the victim; apparently they too have bought into the logic that all Black women are fundamentally "unrape-able" and in sexual terms are fair game for anyone after the age of 13.

For those who are confused let me spell it out for you: When a grown man has sex with a minor it is rape. Even if she said yes it was rape. If it was midnight and her mother is trifling and didn't know where her daughter was or escorted her to the hotel at it was rape. If she asked for it, it was rape. I am not trying to say that there is no place for personal accountability, we all need that in our lives and I belive it is a vital part of social justice and transformation. But let's not confuse apples and oranges. Even if the girl made a poor decision, that does NOT excuse R. Kelly for sexually assaulting her -- and yes it was sexual assault. If you leave your house unlocked and I walk in and steal all of your belongings, would your neighbors say you deserved to be robbed? Absolutely not. But when it comes to Black women and other women of color, society treats our bodies as if they are public property that can be defaced and devalued at will.

Let me assure you, we and our bodies are not public property.

The day is coming, and soon, where Amerika is going to have to answer for its dehumanizing violence against Black women. Wake up, the chickens are coming home to roost real soon.

Here is a link to an article from The Chicago Tribune covering the acquittal. All I can say is that for the Black women who defended R. Kelly, who sold out the victim, and who celebrated his acquittal, think long and hard about who you will call when you find out that a 35 year old man has just sexually assaulted your son or daughter. I believe with all of my heart that the metaphysical structure of this universe is a circle and the consequences of all the choices that we make individually and collectively find their way back to each of us in the end. But don't worry, the kindness of this universe is infinite, and when you come looking for justice, those of us who still believe in it will be here to help you fight for it.

Two or Three or Four or Several Hundred Heads Are Better than One

2008-07-29T16:22:00.001-05:00

So I was riding the bus this morning. I love being on the bus despite the amount of time it takes to get where I want to go because of the interaction I am able to have with people I would otherwise never come into contact with. Of course, sometimes you meet people you would have been totally happy to never meet or speak to but often there are small, wonderous little moments that affirm your faith in people and reveal our quirkiness as a species.

So I'm sitting on the bus and two gentlemen board and take their seats. One asks the bus driver "Do you know where the Social Security Office is? It's downtown, right?" The bus driver tells him that she has no idea where the Social Security Office is located. Then two of the passengers, both Black women, tell him at almost the exact same time that the Office is located on Cameron Road, not downtown. Then the conversation turns to how they can get to the office riding the bus. As the passengers begin to talk about it, I think to myself, "I've never even needed to go the Social Security Office in my car, let alone the bus, guess I can't help these guys, oh well."

Then I hear one woman say, "Well you can take the 320."

The other woman responds, "Yeah, but then they'll have to walk a little ways before they get to the office. The 339 will drop them off right in front of it."

She then turns to one of the men and says, "You can take the 339, but you got to get to the mall, the Highland Mall."

Suddenly, before I can think about it I hear myself say, "Well, the 15 stops downtown and that'll take you right to the transfer station at the Highland Mall." I had forgotten I even knew that and suddenly I was a part of the conversation, the building of this new knowledge that all of us, a woman in nursing scrubs, three black women, and two scruffy looking white guys had created by pooling our collective wisdom. Silly as it sounds, I actually felt really good having been a part of the process.

Interestingly enough, this ragtag group of bus riders had just demonstrated the scientific/social phenomenon of "emergence." According to one of my favorite podcasts, Radio Lab and Wikipedia, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. An example would be looking at how ants or bees, relatively simple creatures with unsophisticated forms of communication, are able to build architecturally complex structures like their colonies (see the termite "cathedral" produced by a termite colony pictured above for a perfect example of emergence in the natural world). In a recent book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, author James Surowiecki discusses the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. According to Radio Lab, what separates us from the ants is that as human beings we are aware of our ability to do this and often do this for advantage as a species.

I was totally bowled over by this theory of emergence, not just because it demonstrates that the practice of cooperation is a central part of the structure of the natural world, but because the science of emergence demonstrates how the world "organizes itself into being without a plan...or a leader." The logic of capitalism and dictatorships or even the need for leadership or the state is actually sort of antithetical to how much of the natural world and human beings as a part of the natural world operate. Much of what we do from giving bus directions to building cities and communities is done without the need for a master plan or a leader telling us what to do. We cooperate on our own because it helps to survive and because as social beings we need each other in both a practical and emotional sense.

So it turns out that when it comes to the best form of governance for human beings, Mother Nature seems to support anarchism.

Awesome.

For Shannon (Sept. 15, 1987 - June 30, 2008)

2008-07-25T21:40:00.000-05:00

If we had run into each other on the street, we might not have remembered that we had met briefly, several times at poetry readings, slam competitions, local gatherings for emerging poets and young performers in Austin, TX.
If you had known her, you might be surprised that such a small woman, such a young woman could write with the intensity, beauty, and wisdom of someone who had known this planet many times. You might flinch when you heard her curse, spitting venom and sugar with equal parts grace and fearlessness. You'd be surprised to run into her again, randomly, on the street; later on you'd think to yourself, "Somehow, I remembered her being taller."
I did not know Shannon Leigh well. I just loved her work and admired her strength and her willingness as an artist to push up against the limits of what the world would have allowed her. A white girl spitting hip hop lyrics simply for the love of it; a tiny woman with a throaty, voice who refused to mutter in a world that rewards women for muttering in inarticulate, Minnie Mouse tones.
Her words moved me and now after hearing about her death, and the work that she has left behind, I am deeply grieved. How to end this post, when it feels there are not enough of the right words to honor this woman who built her life on words. When I heard Shannon read, when she shouted with no shame "Fuck me like my skin" in a crowded theater of slam fans, I thought to myself, "Now that's a woman who will say and write whatever the fuck she wants to, feelings and consequences be damned." I know that I have not always done this for myself; many of us don't. We long to write, feel it in our blood, and yet, when it comes time to put pen to page, whether it's a blank computer screen or our journals, we balk. I can't write that! I shouldn't even have thought it. Maybe I can soften it up. My mom's feelings would be so hurt...and so it goes.
I want to live my life, write, and move in this world however I want to, feelings and consequences be damned. There is no time to wait, for a better time, to avoid hurting feelings, for the sake of being nice. The world deserves all that we have to give, our most true and honest selves, while we are on this planet. I believe with all of my heart that Shannon Leigh walked this earth as her truest self, perhaps not perfect, but honest in all of her flaws and beauty. For that I thank her and wish her love and blessings as she crosses over to the other side. She's eternal now and making the heavens shake with her fierceness. Peace, Shannon. Thank you for everything.

Too sweet for words...

2008-07-13T22:53:00.001-05:00

So follow the link because I can't type about it without getting a little bit verklept...my homegirl, Juli wrote about our wedding/relationship on her blog, Sentimos/We feels it, and it's really just very moving in its simplicity. Click on the image to check it out and see her awesome blog (w/ amazing graphic design, all done by her) for more of her pithy reflections on the nature of life, love, and the pursuit of liberation. If you love it, give her a shout, artists need to know their work is valued.
Love and blessings to all,
c.

Growing Up Army

2008-05-30T18:33:00.000-05:00

I am an Army brat.

I have lived in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, California, and Germany, courtesy of Uncle Sam. By the time I was nine I had lived in and visited more places and flown in more airplanes than some of the members of my family. Watching soldiers pack up to travel to different places far away from their families with no indication of when they might return never struck me as particularly odd. People came down with "PCS" (Permanent Change of Station) orders on a regular basis. We moved often.

I lived in Killeen, TX located next to Fort Hood, one of the largest standing military bases in the world, when the Gulf War began in 1990. I knew very little about the conflict, only that Sadaam Hussein (my Generation's version of Hitler -- a homicidal, anti-democratic megalomaniac that we could hate with fierce American pride) was a bad guy that had to be punished by the U.S. I watched Killeen, empty, as embattled wives left the city, returning to their parents to await the return of their husbands. We lived in a ghost town and prayed for a quick ending. We wrapped yellow ribbons around our arms at school, tiny chests swelling with pride. We would win this battle, we were tiny child soldiers with no clue as to what all the fighting was about, only that we should be proud. We were Americans.

My chest no longer swells with pride at being American. I could feel the hateful eyes on me when I attended my baby brother's high school graduation and refused to stand and sing the National Anthem. I could only imagine the thoughts running through the minds of the other audience members. No doubt they guessed (rightfully) that I am anti-war and assumed (wrongly) that I hate soldiers and this country. I am the daughter of infantry division soldiers -- the people who often see the most action, are the most exposed and vulnerable, and most likely to die in combat. I don't hate this country and I don't hate the men and women in uniform who serve it. But I am working to change this country and helping to create a world in which the sons and daughters of poor and working-class folks, especially Black and Brown folks, won't be sacrificed for Christmas bonuses, nepotism, and the Good Ol' Boys Club that passes for our government these days. I can't be proud until I live in a world that is not dominated by the U.S.

These days going home, I am ambivalent. I am deeply opposed to this war, but mourn the loss of so many young men and women, 4,083 to be exact. You sat next to me at graduation, it wasn't supposed to be this way. You sigh with relief, as the high school sweetheart you left behind, writes you to say that he is okay, is doing well, and is finally ready to let you go. She has been holding her breath, praying a small prayer of thanks. You have come home. You were lucky.

They are all special and we cannot lose another one.

When we talk about the cost of war we do not talk about what it means for families to be separated for months at a time. The constant worry that a missed phone call date means that your partner is lying dead in the desert on the other side of the planet. Heartbreak is a part of war's collateral damage. All over Killeen, you see cars with bumper stickers stating "Half my heart is in Iraq." I walk into the grocery store wearing a black t-shirt with George Bush sitting in between Hitler and Mussolini. At a glance I am worlds apart from wives mourning the absence of their husbands. But I know that this assessment is only skin-deep. The bumper sticker reveals as little about them as my t-shirt does. My t-shirt doesn't reveal that my first love was a West Pointer, that both my parents served in the military, think it was one of the best choices either of them made, but explicitly forbid my brother and I to join the military urging us to choose college instead. Nothing wrong with serving your country but some of these rich white kids should have a chance to do it at least once instead of sending their servants' sons and daughters to do this country's dirty work. And the bumper sticker doesn't reveal all of the wives who curse George Bush's name every morning and are hoping that the next president will put his or her exit strategy into action as soon as they enter the Oval Office. The bumper sticker doesn't tell how much some of these folks long for peace.

I am opposed to this war and that will never change. But I recognize that for any kind of peace to be meaningful we must all begin to look at each other with new eyes that affirm our collective humanity and our need for sanity on this deeply troubled planet. We can begin this work when we can look at each other, across our differences and realize that anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, pro-woman Army brat can see the humanity of a soldier and an Army wife waiting for his return and they can recognize hers. Can we do this work? Absolutely. Will we do it? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I continue to pray for an end to this war and welcome the day when the Armed Forces will no longer need to exist. A utopian goal to be sure, but they are the only ones worth having.

Chasing Miss Scarlett...

2008-05-30T08:46:00.001-05:00

It is by now no secret to anyone, lest of all you, dear reader, that race is always directly in the center of all my analysis, all twisted up and intersecting with sexuality, class, gender, and nation as I struggle to make sense of the world. There was a time in my life, specifically when I became truly politicized, that it seemed incomprehensible to me that other people could go through life not being obsessed about these things. As I grew, however, and began to think more deeply about these things I recognized that ultimately we are all different people with different paths on this planet -- mine is paved in critical social theory and justice work.

However, I never ceased to be amazed by how ignorant people can be about the reality of social inequality and the ongoing effects of white supremacy in the 21st century.

And by "people" I mean white folks.

I recently had to travel to Houston, TX for the final fitting of my wedding gown. My mother had agreed to come with me to learn how to fasten the dress and arrange the bustle for me (it sounds simple enough but trust me it takes an army of two to get this thing on and looking right). We, of course, were not the only customers being served. As we awaited instructions from the seamstress I observed a young Latina preparing for her quinceñera and a young white woman in an enormous white dress surrounded by three of her friends and her mother. We were all talking excitedly as the seamstress began to give my mom and the young white woman's mother instructions on how to fasten the backs of our dresses. Although our dresses were quite different, they both had corset backs that had to be tied in a particular way in order to look right and to secure the enclosures. And so the lesson began.

It was all very fun and innocent until one of the young woman's friends made one of the most off-the-wall statements I'd heard in a while. As she tied her friend's corset and watched the silhouette of the dress take shape she stated, "Oh my God! You look just like Scarlett O'Hara!"

Scarlett?

O'Hara?

As in Gone With the Wind (1939) Scarlett O'Hara? As in "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies Miz Scarlett!" As in "With God as my witness I will never go hungry again!" The problems with this great heroine of the South are too numerous to lay out but I'll try. The character of Scarlett O'Hara reveals the extent to which race and gender interacted and created the social, cultural, and political landscape of the antebellum U.S. South. She is the quintessential southern belle, pampered and spoiled, a beautiful young woman who uses her charm and beauty to entrap young men and get what she wants out of life. In this sense some have looked to her as a pre-feminist model who recognizes the gendered power dynamics of her environment and attempts to flip the script on stupid men to have her own way. On the other hand, she also fully relies on men to protect her, provide for her and take care of her throughout the film. From her father to Rhett Butler to the enslaved Black men who serve her family (before and after Emancipation), men are central to her life and survival.

Second, the figure of Scarlett O'Hara as the essential Southern belle is rooted in a history of plantation violence that is erased in the romantic and nostalgic representations of the antebellum South. Some (white) women might like to look to Scarlett as a feminist foremother because of her fortitude and strength in the face of adversity, the fall of the South, and the Yankee invasion, but there are some of us who are the daughters of the women who nursed her, raised her, served her. And although Scarlett might not have known it, we are the daughters of those dark women who were sexually abused and raped by the white men that she looked to for protection. Those same white men who felt her white beauty and pure femininity were so valuable that she must be protected from Black men, our fathers, who posed a threat to her virtue. We are the daughters of Black men, swinging from Southern trees, that strange fruit Billie Holiday sang about, sacrificed on the altar of the Great Southern Dream. We remember the plantation, too, and our memories are quite different. In order to embrace Scarlett O'Hara, we must forget all that we know about the antebellum and postbellum South. White people may have the luxury of amnesia but for Black folks and other people of color that sort of memory loss is suicide.

Is this what young white women in the 21st century aspire to become? Do they still want to be Miss Scarlett? What does it mean that the ultimate standard of white beauty and femininity continues to be that of the Southern belle, living in the lap of plantation luxury, oblivious to the violence that makes her pampered existence possible while simultaneously entrapping her in a world of white patriarchal control? It seems to me that white women if they are to become truly a part of the struggle for justice (be it gender, racial, economic, or environmental justice) must begin to find and embrace new models.

A short detour, however, back to our original story. When I heard the young woman's friend tell her that she looked like Scarlett O'Hara, I nearly stopped breathing. In my mind, if this conversation followed its logical conclusion there was only one place it could go. And it did.

Laughing, another friend responded "Yeah, but she had servants," followed by more laughter. Finally, the mother states, "Yeah, except they were slaves, but, well, you know..." she began to trail off uncomfortably, as the three friend twittered and giggled nervously. Perhaps they looked over to the right and noticed the two dark-skinned Black women, my mother and myself, standing there, the descendants of enslaved Africans and suddenly became aware of their own whiteness. That's my optimistic reading, it's more likely that they saw our black bodies and just didn't want to make a scene. The paradox of the post-Civil Rights Era, since outright bigotry is beyond the pale now, white folks don't stop being racist, they just become more polite about it. Another fine example of good ol' fashioned Southern Hospitality.

This incident reminded me how exhausting patriarchy and white supremacy are for me. I don't wake up in the morning looking for this stuff, mostly I'd just like to live and enjoy my life like every other human being on this planet wants to. As I stood there in my wedding gown, I should have been thinking about how excited I was to be jumping the broom with my partner, a radical man that I adore. Instead I was churning critical analysis as the seamstress showed my mom how to handle the bustle. Feeling like Black folks and women of color are the only people who ever have to work about race or gender is exhausting. The burden of memory is heavy and if we are ever to set this world right, it is time for others to take up their own cross and understand the memory of racial terror, sexual violence, slavery, and white supremacy that provides the foundation for the cultural fantasies that they hold dear. For white folks who don't understand why Black people are still so pissed about race or Black women can never seem to shake the effects of patriarchal white supremacy, ask Scarlett. I suspect she knows quite a bit more about it than she ever really let on.

Postscript: And since my wedding dress was the source for this blog, I have to wonder why is it that so many tired and messed up cultural scripts get reproduced in the wedding/bridal industry. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that I would look and feel like a queen or princess on my wedding day, I'd be suffocated by all the newly acquired cash. Why do these wedding businesses capitalize on the most racist and patriarchal fantasies -- I can assure every little girl does not want to be a princess, a Southern belle or anything else on their wedding day. I had not spent my whole life dreaming about getting married or getting to dress up like a princess...but that reflection is for another blog...maybe.

On Love & Terror in Scotland

2007-08-11T11:53:00.000-05:00

My father has always traveled for a living. It is a small irony that my work now requires me to do the same. It is the only family tradition that we have – taking occupations that require us to be away from those we love more often and for longer than we’d like – and we are three generations deep into it. It was, I suppose, the arrogance of my own youth that made me believe that becoming an anthropologist was so different or worse, an improvement, from my father’s work as an aviation mechanic or my grandfather’s truck driving. Traveling these days, however, is precarious whether one does it for business or leisure.

When my father had to go out of town it was a huge affair for our family. My mother cooked everything he liked in the days leading to his departure, my brother and I attempted to behave like model children, and on d-day we, of course, accompanied him to the airport. It was the early 90s, very few people outside of Texas knew or cared about a young man named George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security did not exist and as long as you passed a security clearance (which did not consider water or contact solution as weapons of terrorism) you could accompany a traveler to his or her departure gate. And we did, more times than I can remember. We stood silent, plastered to the floor to ceiling windows, tears rolling down our faces. He was gone again; doing what he knew best which required him to leave again to provide for us from somewhere else.

Years from now, I know my children will not believe me when I tell them this story. Being able to accompany or even meet a loved one at the gate. There was a time when Al-Qaeda, security, or the realities of global terrorism had no real meaning for most Americans. Those days of insulation, naivete, “it couldn’t happen here,” are gone, irrevocably behind us. As I drink and celebrate with friends in Fortingall, Scotland, a tiny village hidden in the Scottish countryside, I know this to be true.

II.

Two men attempt to attack the Glasgow International Airport by driving a jeep into the departures terminal before setting it and the driver on fire. No one is injured, the perpetrators are caught, and the United Kingdom breathes a sigh of relief. In the past 36 hours security officials have foiled three attempted terrorist attacks. Scotland gets a visit because the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, is Scottish.

There is a moment of silence. When the country slows down bracing itself for more violence, when spaces for contemplation open and people wonder if there are better solutions to ending terrorism. But before we can collectively engage these questions, the spin doctors take over:

“BUNGLED TERROR OF AMATEURS”

“DOCTORS OF DEATH”

“CAR BOMBERS ARE BRITISH DOCTORS”

“TERROR COPS SEIZE DOCTOR AND WIFE!”

“BOMBS: TWO DOCTORS HELD”

The space closes, and we are back to business as usual. The papers report at least 15 racially motivated crimes against Scottish Muslims in the week following the attacks. Brits respond with equal violence, dropping the mask of liberal multicultural tolerance:

Should have let the miserable radical bastard burn a bit longer, then pour salt in his burning flesh! I am fed up with Muslims excusing themselves as peaceful when they are obviously not! Islam is a dangerous religion and should be banned from all Western nations, in and out of EU period!

I had an appointment with my G.P. today to lance a boil on my backside. I think I will phone Dr.Hassan and cancel until I have converted to Islam. Be Safe ….Be Scared…..Be Muslim….or else. Sleep Tight

I breathe heavy, turn the page, search the paper for subjects and people (Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and psuedoliberal white Europeans) who do not frighten me.

III.

The world has changed for me. It is an ugly place where I do not feel safe. As a Black woman of deep political conviction, I am opposed to the policies and actions of my government. And, yes, it is mine even when it ignores me, disrespects me, and enacts terror and domination around the globe in my name and without my consent. I struggle for justice and peace recognizing the grievances and wrongs done to peoples in the Middle East while rejecting the senseless bloodlust of sectarian, fundamentalist terrorist organizations. And I know we have our own fundamentalists to battle at home.

But when I grab my passport, check my bags, pass through security checkpoints, and board an airplane, I take my life into my own hands. I am not protected. Not my politics, not my blackness, my identity as the daughter of an immigrant and the children of enslaved Africans, my genuine desire for peace, or my conviction that the U.S. needs to get the fuck out of the Middle East and spend our money on research into biofuels and gasoline alternatives. None of this protects me. I am coming to terms with my own small human vulnerability. This body will not live forever, and forces outside of myself can take it from me before I am ready to let it go.

When they tell us what has happened in Glasgow, my thoughts fly home. In this moment I want to bury my face in my father’s shoulders; wrap my arms around my mother’s waist and curl myself around her like I did as a child; place my hands, palms flat on my beloved’s face and create our own sanctuary where I can pledge my life and love to him for as long as we both live on this Earth. In that moment, thousands of miles from those who matter most to me, the only thing that can quell my fear is love.

I used to believe that suicide bombers were freedom fighters protesting the injustices done them by placing their lives and bodies on the line. 20th century versions of Nat Turner or Touissant L'Overture -- individuals driven to revolutionary violence by oppressive, genocidal colonial states. I thought, given similar circumstances someone like me, could someday feel compelled to do the same thing.

I no longer believe that.

I now know that life is too precious for man to carelessly give or take away.

IV.

We are all standing on shifting sand; the world is changing and I have no idea where it is going or what the future might bring.

I hope for clarity, compassion, and forgiveness.

I pray for peace and reconciliation.

But, like a proper realist, I steel myself for the worst.

Passengers can no longer be dropped off at the departure terminal at the Glasgow International Airport. The news shows long lines of people hauling their luggage for miles towards the airport, like first world refugees.

Our children will never know what it was to live the way we did, a semblance of freedom that came in the form of ignorance of fear. Naïve of the terror that has afflicted the rest of the world for the last sixty years. It is almost impossible for those of us who lived it to recall those days and believe it.

I have to get home to my family and I must get on a plane to do it and trust that today is not my day, right now is not my time. I can outrun the fear and the violence just one more time and let love help me to find my way home.

DL Hughley ATTACKS Rutgers Women

2007-08-09T13:17:00.001-05:00

Not sure what to say. Comedian DL Hughley goes on national television and affirms that Don Imus did in fact, get it mostly right. According to him, the Rutgers University women's basketball team are indeed a bunch of nappy-headed women and ugly to boot. The sheer intensity of his internalized racism and overt sexism is just too much. Regardless of whether some people think he's just being funny or not, the fact is that the women of the Rutger's University women's basketball team have done nothing, nothing, NOTHING to deserve this level of disrespect. We should all take it upon ourselves to take a stand and say "Enough." Because this stuff is truly degrading and unacceptable.

Caribbean Coast Reflections

2007-03-21T18:54:00.000-05:00

I remember going to an underground hip hop show in San Antonio some years ago. I stood mashed in a crowd of other sweaty, colored bodies, nodding my head as a young Latino MC ripped it onstage. And I remember standing mesmerized, as he repeated over and over again, "The world is a sad and beautiful place. The world is a sad and beautiful place..."
The truth of his words have stayed with me over the years as my travels have led me to different parts of the world. To a holiday house in Scotland and dancing traditional Irish dances with new friends to hauling a gringo pack under the burning heat of a Honduran sun to slipping 10 dollars to a homeless man in front of Vulcan Video in Austin. In Bluefields, Nicaragua I wonder what to think when I am walking back to my hotel room and see a Black man, half-kneeling on the ground, half-slumped against a building, passed out and oblivious to the world around. Leave some change under his hand, and slip into my hotel. I don't want to embarass him.
I've spent the last week here on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. It is the first time I have spent a substantial amount of time outside of Bluefields. I traveled to the Pearl Lagoon Basin, located north of Bluefields.
The beauty of this place is sometimes overwhelming. Like standing on a bar made of large boulders that separates the Bluefields Bay from the Caribbean Sea/Atlantic Ocean. You feel the smallness and the wonder of your own existence. I stood there, wrapped in a bright pink sarong, savoring the heat of the sun on my shoulders, wondering how many others had experienced this, felt this before me. What a miracle to live here and be this close to the water everyday. And then I thought of my own life, back home, how rarely I make it a point to get close to the water in Austin, how beautiful the state parks, rivers, lakes, and forests are. The privilege I rarely exercise, of being able to drive to these places whenever I wish.
It is a miracle to live in this place, but also a struggle. There are too few who are able to enjoy the beauty of the Caribbean Coast. Too many people struggling to survive, making money stretch, exchanging their dreams for rum and crack cocaine.
The world is a sad and beautiful place.
Random ruminations ya'll...trying to make sense of how life can simultaneously be horrible and beautiful.

Iranian Activists Arrested Ahead of International Women’s Day

2007-03-06T11:58:00.000-06:00

More than 30 Iranian women have been arrested in Tehran for
protesting against government pressure being put on women's rights
activists.

The women had gathered outside a court in Tehran on March 4 to show
their support for four women's rights activists who went on trial
that day for organizing a protest last summer against discriminatory
laws. Reports say many of the protesters and the activists are now in
jail.

The arrests are the culmination of a year of increasing pressure on
women's rights activists, who have been arrested, summoned to court,
threatened, and harassed. Their protests have also been disrupted --
in some cases violently -- and their websites have been blocked.

Trying To Silence Activists

Some observers believe the arrests are aimed at intimidating
activists who were planning to hold a gathering on March 8 to mark
International Women's Day and to protest injustice against women.

The move is also seen as an attempt to silence activists who have
been fighting for equal rights.

Many of those who had called for holding a protest in front of the
parliament on March 8 are now in jail.

Iranian rights groups report that between 30 and 34 women who were
arrested are being held in Tehran's Evin Prison. Among them are four
top women's movement leaders: Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin
Ardalan, Sussan Tahmassebi, and Shahla Entesari.

Right To Freely Assemble

They went on trial on March 4 in connection with a June gathering
against laws that they consider discriminatory against women. Charges
against them include acting against Iran's national interests and
participating in an illegal gathering.

The four leaders were arrested after they left the court and joined
other women who had gathered outside Tehran's revolutionary court.
They were reportedly holding banners that said: "Holding peaceful
gatherings is our absolute right."

Activists say the Iranian Constitution ensures the right to holding a
peaceful gathering. Yet police forces disrupted the activists on
March 4 and drove the women away in minibuses.

Peyman Aref, a student activist in Tehran, told Radio Farda that
police used force against demonstrators.

"They were threatened and they were also beaten up," Aref said. "The
crowd -- [which] included more than 50 people -- tried to resist by
sitting on the ground and not reacting to the beatings. Finally,
around 10:00, female police came and the activists were arrested."

Reaction To Activists' Campaigns?

During the June demonstration, which was also violently dispersed by
police, some 70 people were arrested. All of them have since been
released.

An Iranian rights group, the Student Committee of the Human Rights
Reporters, said today that the families of some of those arrested on
March 4 gathered in front of Evin Prison and called for their
release. Authorities have said they are investigating the case.

Azadeh Kian, a lecturer in political science and an Iran researcher
at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), believes
women's rights advocates are being targeted in connection with two
campaigns they have launched in recent months.

One campaign aims to end the practice of stoning to death convicted
adulterers. Authorities, however, deny that stoning sentences are
being carried out.

Another campaign aims to gather the signatures of one million
Iranians who are in favor of changing discriminatory laws and to
present these signatures to the parliament. Islamic laws as applied
in Iran deny women equal rights in divorce, child custody,
inheritance, and other areas.

Kian tells RFE/RL that the campaigns have been well received, leading
to concern among Iranian leaders.

'Intolerance For Human Rights'

"The goal of women's rights activists is to gain the support of women
from different classes who are in favor of changing the laws but have
so far not joined the women's movement," Kian said. "This leads to
concern among some of those in power in Iran about the implications
of these actions. I see the arrests of activists [on March 4] in this
relation; it shows that more and more women want changes in laws and
also that women's issues are in fact becoming more and more political."

Human rights groups have expressed concern over the pressure and
persecution of women's rights advocates, including those who are
calling for reform legislation.

Kian says that by arresting peaceful activists, Iranian leaders are
demonstrating their intolerance and lack of respect for human rights.

"It shows once more that under the Islamic establishment, especially
under the current government, there is no respect for human rights
principles," Kian said. "These women were arrested even though they
had not committed any violent or armed action against the
establishment. None of the demands of these women are against Islam.
This shows that the current government is not ready to accept even
the slightest opposition."

The Center of Human Rights Defenders, cofounded by Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Shirin Ebadi, today described the March 4 arrests as
"illegal" and called on authorities to release all of those arrested.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Freedom University Book Club in March!

2007-02-28T11:20:00.000-06:00

This month we will be reading Erzulie's Skirt by Ana-Maurine Lara.
The book was published by Red Bone Press, an independent press dedicated to publishing the work of queer Black writers. Set in the age of urbanization in the Dominican Republic over the course of several lifetimes, Erzulie’s Skirt is a tale of how women and their families struggle with love, tragedy and destiny. Told from the perspectives of three women, Erzulie’s Skirt takes us from rural villages and sugar cane plantations to the poor neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, and through the journey by yola across the sea between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It is a compelling love story that unearths our deep ancestral connections to land, ritual and memory.
Erzulie's Skirt has recently been nominated for two Lambda Literary awards for in the categories of Best Lesbian Fiction and Lesbian Debut Fiction. A local artist doing amazing things and producing beautiful art. Ana is a wonderful writer and dear friend and we are blessed to have her right here in Austin.
So do these four things:
1) Buy Ana's book. It can be found at Book Woman, Resistencia Books, or online.
2)Read the book.
3) Come to the Freedom University Book Club at the Carver Library on Thursday, Mar. 8 at 6pm. We meet every 2nd Thursday of each month. The Carver is located at 1161 Angelina Street.
4)Buy Assata: An Autobiography cos' that's what we're reading next month and I think you'll dig it. You can probably find a nice copy at any Half-Priced Books, Resistencia, Book Woman or Book People.
Peace to all...

Sun is Shining...

2007-02-21T20:52:00.000-06:00

Hello WanderLust lovelies...
The Capitol City was lovely today. Nothing but pure sunshine and life-giving warmth. I wore a skirt for the first time in months and I'm feeling incredibly refreshed by the weather.
This may not mean much to many of ya'll but since the middle of November we have been experiencing some uncharacteristically cold weather here in Austin. Hippies all over town have been forced to put on socks and closed-toed shoes. Fraternity girls and pint-sized hoochies from West Campus to Rosewood have been compelled to put on pants and leggings instead of their preferred uniforms of mini-pleated skirts and pierced-navel baring baby-tees.
It has been a truly dark time.
In other developments I have learned that ugly weather and weeks of solar deprivation make me and my partner real bitchy. If the sun hadn't come back last week, I might have killed him, but then I would have felt bad.
Even still, it was hard to feel motivated to get up, get dressed and go to work when the weather was so forbidding. It is in moments like this that I realize, no matter how divorced many of us may be from the earth, she has a way of making you pay attention. We are people of this planet, and we need to feel its beauty in our lives, or else we become distant, disgruntled and unhappy.
As a proper graduate student I went to class when what I really wanted to do was mosey on over to Barton Springs and kick back. But I took every chance I could to get outside and enjoy the sunshine...they say the weather is going to hold up. Let's all take some time to spend our lives in the sunshine.

Sun is shining...the weather is sweet, yeah...make me wanna move....my dancing feet....

Take care family... c

On Becoming a Pundit

2007-02-19T11:52:00.000-06:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have officially become a pundit. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a pundit is described as "1) a learned person; 2) a teacher; 3) or an authority, critic." As many of you know, I have been giving out my opinion for years without recognition or compensation. In fact, I think more people would have paid me to shut the hell up. Still, for better or worse, I am a talker and have no problem telling people what I think about the world in general.
As it turns out, other people have decided that this is a good thing.
I recently participated in a panel of activists, cultural producers, and scholars discussing the impact of sexism in hip hop for Houston PBS. Specifically, we were discussing Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary by filmmaker Byron Hurt that engages issues of machismo, masculinity, gender, misogyny and homphobia in hip hop. Hands down this was one of the best documentaries I have seen in a very long time. The film follows Hurt, a former college quarterback who became a gender violence prevention educator. After beginning this work as an educator, Hurt began to critically evaluate his own relationship to hip-hop and the music and images that reinforce ideals of heteropatriachal masculinity and straight up hatred of women. Far beyond offering his own commentary, Hurt goes to the very heart of the matter interviewing everyone from cultural critics to record executives about their thoughts on sexism in hip-hop.
My partner and I went to watch an early screening of the film in Austin, TX in January. It was truly a community event with youth and elders, a multiracial, multigenerational audience, and artists, activists and intellectuals in attendance. It was remarkable to see how people in the crowd responded to the things that artists and industry people such as Busta Rhymes, Clipse, Jadakiss, Russell Simmons, and others had to say on issues ranging from homophobia in hip hop to the implications of Nelly sliding a credit card down a black woman's ass in his music video "Tipdrill." I, along with many audience members, was apalled when Hurt asked Simmons what he thought of the video, and Simmons responded that "I heard about that. I tried his Pimp Juice, I thought it was very good."
We're talking about sexist, misogynist representations of women in hip hop and all you can say is that the Pimp Juice was good?
Pathetic.
So back to the original point about how I became a pundit. In February I was asked to give a presentation on women in hip hop for a friend/mentor's class that she is teaching at UT-Austin. I was honored to be asked and set out to make the best presentation that I could put together. Shortly after that, I received an email from a friend of mine in Houston who works with the Houston Hip Hop Group (Check out his work at HipHopPolitics.org). He asked me if I would be interested in coming to Houston to share my thoughts on the film and talk about the work that I do with Cimarron: Youth Building Community, a community organization that I co-founded here in Austin. After a few weeks of phone tage, emailing, and phone interviews, I was officially invited to participate. So I dragged my squeeze into driving me to Houston and we headed to the PBS studios for the taping.
I had a great time doing it. Following the taping we kicked it around Houston and had a lovely time hanging out with my friend Akil and talking politics over coffee. On the ride back home I received a phone call from a friend KC who works for the ACLU's Hip Hop Against Police Brutality project. He invited me to participate in a discussion on gender and hip hop on his radio show Concrete Skoolyard which airs on KOOP radio. I had a fantastic time doing it and was pleased to be invited.
It's a little strange to reach a point in your life where all of sudden things you say are being taken very seriously. On one hand it's a vindication of sorts, and on another, you begin to realize and understand that your life will never quite be the same -- you've made the leap from people who talk about ideas to those people whose ideas carry weight.
Now, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, what I say still may not carry as much weight in the real world as say Nancy Pelosi or Gore Vidal (a true man of letters, to be sure). However, things are a little different when people look to you to be an authority, a teacher, or a learned person who can speak knowledgably on a particular set of issues. It's gratifying and terrifying at the same time to be that person.
The other strange thing that I have been thinking about is what I like to call the "punditry ghetto," that is, the place that is reserved for pundits who are only qualified to talk about certain things. I am concerned that should I continue to do this work, I will become billed as the hip hop, gender girl, not that I mind, but the world generally tends to think that Black intellectuals can only ever speak authoritatively on race, or maybe gender if you're a woman or queer, but not on anything else.
For example, I wonder when I'll get that phone call to participate in a panel on the contradictions of Iran's nuclear enrichment programs as it relates to criticizing U.S. foreign policies of imperialism and military aggression.
You wouldn't think it to look at me, but I have lots to say about the Middle East.
Or what my thoughts are on existentialism, the work of the late Octavia Butler, Dorothy Parker's poetry, or the politics of interracial dating and revolutionary love.
I'd like to think that I am a multi-dimensional person and I don't have any desire to live (intellectually speaking) in a ghetto of any kind. I love to talk race and gender, but I see those issues as informing the larger world in which we live in significant and important ways. Maybe the gods that choose emerging pundits will figure that out.

p.s. In any case be sure to check out Beyond Beats and Rhymes which will be airing Tuesday, Feb. 20 on PBS. You can check your local listings for specifics. And if you want to check me out on PBS blowing up a spot visit www.houstonpbs.org/hiphop/index.htm to see me talking trash about Nelly and misogyny in mainstream hip hop.

2007-01-16T13:50:00.000-06:00

Routes & Exile

By the rivers of Babylon

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remember Zion

For the wicked carry us away to captivity

Require from us a song

But how can we sing King Alpha’s song in a strange land

My life is now a series of comings and goings, packing and unpacking my world, transporting myself to strange places and calling them home.

All my life I have been fascinated with the idea of exile. Perhaps because my family moved around so much when I was a kid. Or perhaps I knew early on that my family’s roots were fragile. Both of my grandfathers were men whose work compelled them to travel. One, my maternal grandfather, Rev. Gene Freeman (known from here on as Pappau), worked as truck driver for over 30 years, crossing the continental U.S. more times than he can remember. Before my paternal grandfather, Rennick Carlton Morris, Sr., decided to transplant his family to the U.S. permanently he moved back and forth between Jamaica and the States on a regular basis.

This is my legacy.

We have never fled our homes for fear of political upheaval. No major revolutions have displaced us.

And yet we are in exile.

----------------------------

Sulphur, Louisiana.

The last time I was in this town, devastated by an economy gasping its last breaths and the cancer-causing toxins that have consumed many of its resident, the last time I was here, I felt my heart break.

Weeds covered the foundation of what was my grandparents’ home. An unexplained fire, a victimless-crime robbed me of one of the few places on earth that I truly believed might last forever.

I sit in the car and let the tears stream down my face until my chest is so tight I can barely breathe.

We can never go back.

This house, its memories, its secrets, are lost to me.

Listened to grown-up conversations that I was too young to enter – fast, smart-mouth little girls need to stay out of grown-folks business.

Watched time, neglect, and sweltering Louisiana summers decay my grandparents’ home.

Watched teenaged cousins get pregnant, one after the other – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…grandchildren bearing great-grandchildren.

Everything changes without my consent and in the midst of weeds and what appears to be the last vestiges of the porch where I danced for my grandfather, I know that we can never go back.

We are exiles in the land where our roots go deepest.

But the soil does not support our survival.

Mammau and Pappau live in Beaumont now.

---------------------

They do not speak of the stories that they know.

They do not speak of the secrets they carry beneath their tongues

Or the shame that burns hot in their chests, smoldering coals that remind them of where they come from

As a child I hid in the citrus trees of my grandmother’s front yard. We were uprooted island people, replicating the old ways we knew in a place at once distant and familiar. South Bay, Florida was the closest we could come to home. And we convinced ourselves that we had forgotten what home was like so we could continue to do without it. My grandparents would travel to Jamaica each year. When Pop crossed over to the other side in 1987, Kat stopped going. She will not tell us anything about Jamaica anymore. She brings us there only with the smell of beef patties, pudding, mint tea heavy with condensed milk, and curry.

She has a stroke. Body betrays her. Tongue refuses to respond. Her confident voice is replaced with a defiant stutter that reduces her accent, her mothertongue to jibberish. My Kat…she does not tell us stories anymore.

So I am forced to make my own.

--------------------

I let the porridge burn the insides of my cheeks, tracing its heat as it descends down my throat and into my belly. I do not question Kat when she tells me to eat plenty because ‘porridge will keep you warm.’ How, I want to know, how will porridge keep me warm from the inside out? But I keep my disbelief to myself, as it is my grandmother has all she can do to keep this cheeky, womanish child in hand. So I swallow my porridge piping hot and when Kat hugs me on my way out the door, I wrap my arms around her bony hips and sigh into her belly. I savor her smell, a blend of kitchen, yams, Avon’s Skin-So-Soft, and mothballs. I carry her scent with me into the world, her old island woman smell, all I know.

------------------

When I am 9, I have a recurring dream. There is a large hill in our town, and each night I fly high above it, crossing bright blue waters that carry me home – home to the island of my father’s birth. I skit across the water, toes caressing waves, half-flying, half-dancing my way back to where I belong.

For most of my life Jamaica was song and symbol to me. Found in the funky smelling dishes my father fed us – when we were the only kids we knew who ate goat and thought it strange that our none of our neighbors enjoyed ox-tail cooked in lima beans.

Jamaica was Marcus Garvey hanging from my father’s rearview mirror. Barrington Levy and dancehall reggae. 90 percent proof white rum and rastas named Smitty, whose occasional visits to our working-class suburban home would turn my father from an Americanized, blue-collar mechanic chasing the good life into a patois-speaking yard boy. I would practice my patois rolling the accent around my tongue wanting desperately to sound just like my father. Jamaica lay somewhere on the tip of my tongue – I only had to find it.

As an adult, people have a hard time figuring out where I am from.

I have a hard time telling them.

It’s simple enough really.

I was born in California.

Lived in Germany, twice.

Spent most of my childhood in Texas.

Regularly shuffled back and forth between Texas and Louisiana visiting cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Occasionally in Florida so as not to forget my father’s half of the family.

Lived in South Bay, Florida with my paternal grandmother for slightly less than a year.

Have spent a total of nearly 5 months living in Nicaragua.

Flirt quite a bit with the U.S. Mexico border.

Still, the question “Where are you from?” makes me uncomfortable.

I am one part yard girl to one part Southern girl with a dash of Latin Americanidad thrown in for good measure. I slide in and out of accents some of which I grew up with and others that I have borrowed. But they all feel good to me.

I’m not so sure where home is or where I belong and wonder if there is more joy to be found in the searching than the knowing.

-----------------------

It is hard to explain how estranged I feel from Jamaica. Those moments when I am asked where I am from and I see people’s eyes light up with the response. My family is from the Caribbean. Sometimes I try to pretend I don’t notice the transformation that I make before their eyes from a mundane, run-of-the-mill, touchy-about-race African American into an exotic, interesting West Indian island woman. It makes me angry, can feel the rage seething through my skin, when wealthy white people ask me, Have you ever been to Jamaica?

I tell them, No.

What I don’t say is Well, it was hard to plan that trip to the island when my father was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door. I don’t say that when we were young we were too break as a family to go together. I do not tell them that my father left the island when he was 11 and didn’t go back until he was 42 years old.

Nor do I speak of the stranglehold the U.S. places the entire world under, squeezing the life out of gasping banana republics until they are compelled to choose between home and survival. I do not speak of how the U.S. forces us out of our homes and once we have left keeps us from returning.

There are some things we do not want to speak of.

For the wicked

Carry us away to capitivity

Require from us a song

But how can we sing King Alpha’s Song

In a strange land?

2007-01-16T13:31:00.000-06:00

It is 2007! And I have to say that it is a blessing to be here. After attending two funerals in less than two weeks I have had several opportunities to reflect on the value of life, relationships, and the fragility of our lives. Time is short on this earth and it is so important that each of us do the work to discover what our path is in life and commit to walking it day by day. This year, I have committed to doing just that in my own life and would appreciate all of you, as people who I consider to be my community, to help me in that work.
Towards that end I have made a commitment to blogging at least once a week. I grew up believing that I would be a writer. It never has occured to me that I wouldn't write. However, with the stress and pressure of juggling responsibilities and becoming a grown-up, I have often neglected what I feel to be my calling: writing. So this blog is going to be a crucial part of my work to develop my craft as a writer.
Now don't worry, not all my entries will be this intense and reflective. There will still be plenty of posts with me ranting, raving, or just being silly (I know you all enjoyed the post about dildos in Texas). But I think the practice of writing on a regular basis is important. So that's what you all will be getting. And the writing is getting pretty serious ya'll. In December I was asked to participate in a gathering of Caribbean writers at the Rhizome Collective. I shared my perspectives on what it means to be a Black woman of U.S. and Jamaican descent along with authors and poets from Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. It was an amazing and beautiful experience in which we shared words and food with each other and the audience. I was deeply humbled to see that a number of people in the audience were moved by my work and realized that I have to get my shit together and get serious about the work. I will publish that piece on the blog so you can all have a chance to see what I've been doing...and please feel free to offer feedback...it is always important to have critical readings of your ideas.
Additionally, a piece that I produced during my time with The Austin Project is being published in a collection about this project. I have been editing and re-editing and am just beginning to understand what it means to take the work of writing seriously. I'm learning and growing a lot and looking forward to what this year will bring. It's going to be a truly exciting time.
Happy New Year to all of you. I wish you love, peace of mind, and happiness everyday.

2006-12-26T15:56:00.000-06:00

Honoring the Godfather of Soul

James Brown, 73, passed away on Christmas Day. Let's take a moment to honor his passing...and then LET'S GET DOWN!
I think that's how he would have wanted it.

2006-11-27T22:42:00.000-06:00

Writing from the final stretch of the semester...
So since I haven't been blogging regularly, I decided that I would show all of you what I have been doing...academic work.
Good times, ya'll. But seriously, here are some book reviews that I have written in the last month or so. One about youth culture in Iran, the other on processes of genocide and sexual violence on Native communities. Check them out and let me know what you think...
peace,
c

2006-11-27T22:34:00.000-06:00

Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, Cambridge: South End Press, 2005, 244 pg.

In this powerful work, Cherokee scholar and activist Andrea Smith provides a complex, richly layered analysis of the intertwined processes of sexual violence and genocidal state practices on Native communities. Drawing from her experiences as an activist within Native political struggles, Smith explores ongoing genocidal practices against and within Native communities using an intersectional analysis that demonstrates the ways in which gender, sexual, and racial violence are deeply imbricated in one another. Smith argues that it is critical to understand that “gender violence is not simply a tool of patriarchal control, but also serves as a tool of racism and colonialism. That is, colonial relationships are themselves gendered and sexualized (1).” Smith uses the trope of sexual violence not merely as a metaphor for the colonial and contemporary genocide of Native peoples but as the modality through which these processes take place. She explores how discourses of Native bodies, particularly those of Native women, dehumanize them by representing them as dirty, polluting, violent, inherently rapable, and ultimately as expendable. While sexual violence may be readily apparent in the history of rape and forced sterilization of Native women, Smith reveals the multiple ways in which sexual violence plays a role in the ongoing genocide of Native peoples. By exploring the patterns of medical testing without informed consent, internment at boarding schools, environmental degradation of Native lands and the persistent usurpation of Native lands and the dismissal of the sovereignty of Native communities, Smith challenges us to rethink our understanding of the criminalization and erasure of Native peoples.

Smith skillfully outlines the violence that Native communities confront. However, the most innovative aspect of this work is found in the ways that she squarely locates political activism in her analytical work, particularly in Chapter 7 “Anticolonial Responses to Gender Violence.” The central question in her analysis of gendered violence is not how to create more effective models (i.e. “culturally relevant,” preventive, etc) for treating sexual or domestic violence but rather, “What would it take to end violence against women of color (153)?” To that end, Smith presents various models culled from her experiences as a political organizer for how we might combat genocidal practices of sexual violence. She offers examples of activism and community justice by referencing the work of numerous organizations across the country such as the Brooklyn-based group, Sista II Sista/ Hermana a Hermana, that works with young women of color; Communities Against Race and Abuse (CARA), which organizes against police abuse and promotes the abolition of the prison industrial complex; and Friends Are Reaching Out (FAR Out), a Seattle organization that which works with queer and LGBT communities of color. Many of these organizations are committed to working with those communities that are marginalized by the mainstream antiviolence movement: queer people, sex workers, women of color, young women, incarcerated women and men, and immigrants. By providing these models, Smith demonstrates how activists and scholars alike might work to adopt antiviolence strategies that are mindful of the larger structures of violence that shape the world in which we live (151).” In other words, fighting against violence solely from a gender perspective is not enough if it doesn’t speak to the entire complex of oppressions that engender sexual violence.

Conquest is a stunning example of the possibilities that emerge from socially engaged and theoretically rigorous scholarship. It is clear that Smith, who is an active member of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, has produced a work that is steeped in radical tradition of U.S. women of color feminisms. It is hardly surprising that Conquest mirrors similar work on the antiviolence movement and the intersections of race and gender in the prison industrial complex being done by Incite! activists and scholars such as Beth Ritchie and Julia Sudbury. Smith’s commitment to utilizing women of color feminist practice and theory is reflected in her ability to describe the particularity of Native women’s experiences of racial, gender, and sexual injustice and place it in dialogue with the experiences of other women of color, particularly Latinas and women of African descent. In other words, while Smith is clear about the particularity of Native women’s experiences of sexualized genocidal violence she locates it within a larger framework of what bell hooks refers to as “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” that diminishes the lives of non-white communities, and non-white women in particular, across the globe. As her work demonstrates, the survival of communities of color depends on how well we can incorporate these insights into our activist work. Conquest as both critique and activist model, presents a vision of how we might struggle for holistic, intersectional justice in our communities.

2006-11-27T22:29:00.000-06:00

Roxanne Varzi. Warring Souls: Youth, Media and Martyrdom in Post-Revolution Iran. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006, 290p.

In this innovative ethnography, Roxanne Varzi explores the themes of nation-building, citizenship formation, and subjectivity in the lives of the generation of young men and women who have come of age in the period following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Immediately after the revolution, Iran became embroiled in a war with Iraq (1980-1988) that was used by the Islamic government as a means of consolidating support for the revolution and initiating a project of crafting the national identity to reflect the emergence of the ideal Islamic citizen/subject. Varzi outlines the ways in which education, as well as popular culture and the media, become critical means of fulfilling this mandate, which is fraught with contradiction. She specifically focuses on the effects of this project on Iranian youth whose sense of self is fundamentally characterized by the incongruent relationship between their internal moral values and those imposed on them by the state. Varzi is particularly interested in determining the extent to which (enforced) public practice of Islam results in genuine belief. Describing the conflict that youth confront in their daily lives she questions the extent to which state-produced Islamic reality, permeates and/or constructs an individual’s inner reality and faith. Warring Souls is an analytically sophisticated work that prompts us to think more critically about the way in which state practices are lived in the bodies of its citizens, particularly the ways that the Islamic Republic of Iran regulates the appearance, autonomy, and experiences of its citizens.

State practices to consolidate a national Islamic identity are exemplified in the use of education to socialize Iranian youth. Varzi describes the insertion of Islam into quotidian daily practice and the ways in which young people navigate the contradictions between the Islamic public sphere and the less than ideal Islamic realities of their families and private lives. She observes, “The government propagates Islamic ideology in every possible daily ritual and rule – for example, in elementary school physical education where students are instructed to shout out numbers followed by ‘Allah’ after each move: a side bend, ‘one Allah,’ touch toes, ‘two Allah (138).’” At school, children are shown empty alcohol bottles and asked if they have ever seen them before in their homes; although they may know that alcohol consumption is a criminalized activity, they will not report parents who may be engaging in such behaviors and actually contradicting the validity of such policies (141). From an early age, children learn the value of dissemblance, that is the ability to publicly perform an Islamic identity while also flouting the expectations of the state in their private lives (142). There are however, tangible consequences for those who occupy this space of perpetual dissemblance.

Conducting research with university students living in Tehran as well as her own family from 1991-2000, Varzi attempted to make sense of the ways in which young people develop a sense of self that conforms to societal expectations while simultaneously maintaining a personal sense of integrity. She argues in her work that the project of producing ideal Islamic citizens has led to a split within Iranian youth between baten, the inner-self, “individual senses of reality” and the zaher, the outer-self that performs citizenship (7). Despite the state’s attempts to propagate a highly moralistic Islamic identity to the post-Revolution generation, Varzi suggests that the results of this project have not resulted in the creation of the ideal Islamic citizen, but rather has “further secularized Iranian youth and precipitated a crisis in identity between baten/zaher (173).” Despite the government’s critique of the moral decadence of the West, Iranian youth are increasingly afflicted with rising rates of HIV/AIDS infection, drug use/abuse, suicide/depression, etc (173). The inner/outer split and the inability of many Iranian youth to reconcile the divergent aspects of identity have led to an increased tension between what Varzi refers to as “bi-khodi,” the process of self-annihilation, and “khod-shenasi,” the process of self-construction or self-help (7). If the demands of citizenship require the annihilation of the self in order to maintain the nation, what are the means by which Iranian youth can sustain their will to construct their own self-identities?

Despite the encroachments of the state, Iranian youth have proven to be adept in developing alternate realities for themselves in the midst of an intense Islamification process – this is particularly evident in the ways that youth transform public and religious spaces and even their own bodies into sites of self-fulfillment – young women who wrap themselves modestly in chadors while discreetly applying makeup or young men who decrease the threat of being stopped by the komiteh by “adorning their cars with quotations from the Quran. Throughout Warring Souls, Varzi demonstrates the ways in which “people occupy the same strict ideological space and yet live in completely different realities (12).” That is, how people challenge imposed social scripts and create alternative ways of being and doing that speak to their inner-selves. She notes that, “In the end, we are not only mediators of our own worlds where we see what we want to see, but we also create that world as it creates us in a simultaneous act of revealing and concealing (5).” Her personal stake in this ethnography is reflected in the creative and imaginative ways in which she represents the experiences of Iranian youth. Varzi draws from the rich cultural traditions of Islamic mysticism, particularly Sufism, and Persian folklore in her reading of contemporary dilemmas within Iran. Warring Souls is a polyrhythmic text that weaves academic analysis, journal entries, personal reflections, and ethnographic field notes to create a lens through which readers can enter the multiple realities of youth living in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Given popular discourses of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, Warring Souls provides an analytically rich ethnographic counternarrative that explores the Islamic Revolution and its discontents while skillfully avoiding pathologizing Iranians or Iranian culture. In this work, Islam is not the culprit, since as Varzi points out many Iranians were self-identified Muslims prior to the revolution, rather it is the way in which state practices aimed at producing Islamic citizens has resulted in a problematic inner/outer spilt in the identity formation of Iranian youth. This book is useful tool for helping us to evaluate the role of the state in the development of identity and the need for locating this process within larger processes of socialization and nation-building.

2006-11-01T22:58:00.000-06:00

What Was So Great About Apartheid Anyway?

PW Botha, the man who upheld and defended state-sanctioned white supremacy (also known as apartheid) in South Africa at the height of the anti-apartheid rebellion, has passed away. While I never celebrate death, even of white supremacist clowns, I certainly have a difficult time finding anything positive to say to commemorate this man's passing. While in office, he allowed the slaughter of thousands of Black South Africans protesting apartheid; rigidly upheld the apartheid laws which separated South Africa's population into Afrikaaner, Black, and Colored; and, despite international pressure, refused to release Nelson Mandela from prison (Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his work with the ANC).
So you can imagine my surprise when newspapers from around the world are citing Mandela honoring Botha.
According to Al Jazeera, Mandela said in a statement on Wednesday:
"While to many Mr. Botha will remain a symbol of apartheid, we also remember him for the steps he took to pave the way towards the eventual peacefully negotiated settlement of our country."
Does it matter that he took those steps kicking and screaming? So much so that he was overthrown by his own party and it was his successor, FW de Klerk who transitioned the country into post-apartheid?
Mandela continued stating that Botha's death should be a reminder of "how South Africans from all persuasions ultimately came together to save our country from self-destruction."
I understand respecting the dead. But it seems to me that if the positions you took in life didn't make you a hero then dying shouldn't make you one by default.
It is unclear to me whether Mandela, the consummate diplomat, is simply trying to embody in his actions the principles of reconciliation that the post-apartheid government has attempted to use. Or does he simply not want to ruffle feathers by pointing out the obvious: Botha was at the bottom of it all a terrible human being who died believing in the fundamental superiority of the white race. Don't believe me? Following the end of apartheid, Botha refused to participate in the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to address the crimes against humanity committed by the Afrikaaner-led South African state in its brutal repression of the anti-apartheid movement. He was quoted as stating:
"Take me to court if you want to charge me! I will not appear in circuses!"
And he never apologized or recanted his views on apartheid.
Ever.
And the son-of-a-bitch lived to be 90 years old.
I guess what the old folks say is true.
Some folks really are just too evil to die.
Nelson Mandela, as much as I admire him, in this instance, does not speak for me. I can't say that I am grieved by Botha's passing. If hell exists, I am sure that there is a special spot reserved just for him. And if there is any justice in this universe he'll be forced to wait on non-white folks for the rest of eternity...alright, maybe I went a little too far.
But out of respect for the thousands of South African men and women who were unlawfully detained, tortured, incarcerated, maimed, violated, and murdered under his tenure as the head of state, I will not celebrate a man in death that I despised while he lived.

To read the complete article check out: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E84E6ACE-5404-4E19-BD2B-3023E204262E.htm.

2006-10-30T09:55:00.000-06:00

Not sure what to say...

I have been following the news of the violence taking place in Oaxaca, Mexico. Perhaps not as closely as I should still as a place where I once protested and slept under the arches of the Governor's Palace with dozens of angry campesinos denouncing unfair detentions, it is a place that is near to my heart.
That is why the recent violence has left me unsure of what to say about the situation. According to Mexico Week in Review, the federal goverment has deployed military forces into the area to combat the violence, but this "help" comes weeks, months, even after the original attacks begun. MWR states, "The pretext for the deployment of federal police to Oaxaca was an outbreak of violence on Oct. 27 in which at least three people were killed and more than 23 wounded; one of the wounded died that night, according to some reports. In the morning of Oct. 27 APPO supporters stepped up their protests by blocking Oaxaca city's access to the highway to Mexico City and the road to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. By 10am state police backed by PRI supporters had started violent attacks on protesters. A gang of hooded men tried to attack Radio Universidad, a pro-strike radio station at the local university, while there was shooting on the El Rosario bridge. Five simultaneous attacks on APPO barricades started at about 5 pm. In Santa Lucia del Camino, a municipality a few miles outside Oaxaca city, people began firing on the barricade from inside a house. APPO supporters backed a truck into the house to break down the door, but a group of men, many in red shirts, began firing on them. Oswaldo Ramirez, a photographer for the Mexico City daily Milenio, was grazed on the knee by a bullet while he was covering the incident; the armed men also fired on Raul Estrella, a photographer from the Mexico City daily El Universal but missed him. Brad Will, a freelance journalist and photographer who worked with the Indymedia Center in New York City, was hit twice in the abdomen as he videotaped the shooting. Strikers rushed him to a Red Cross hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival."
It is at the end where I pause, an American journalist killed?
I, like most of the people I know, live in the cyberworld. Knowing he will be interested and appalled I send this information to my partner who is out of the country. He replies at 2am Monday morning. Not only did he know this man from various political collaborations and activist circles in NYC, but I knew this young man.
And then it comes back to me, the baseball cap pushed down over red, unkempt hair. Skinny, tall, laughing over a plate of vegan friendly thai food...and I sit at my desk and cry.
I don't mean to suggest that the life of this man, by virtue of being a citizen of the most powerful country in the world, is more valuable than the many Mexican women and men who have lost their lives or live under the constant threat of death and violence.
All I am saying is that the violence is now at my front door. In my bedroom.
The question is what am I going to do about it?

2006-10-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

Why I Love Bob Jensen (he's the one on the left!)

Life at the University of Texas can be hard for students of color. As if attending a predominantly white university with an irrefutably racist past wasn't enough-- until the 1950s all of the major buildings on campus were built facing south and statues honoring Confederate heroes grace the main mall-- it can be overwhelming dealing with students and faculty alike who refuse to actively confront racism at this University.
One need only look to the law school to prove my point.
About a week ago, about 20 first-year law students threw a "ghetto fabulous party" in which participants dressed in outfits stereotypically associated with poor, working-class Black and Latinos and flaunted what they considered to be ghetto names such as Jose and LaTonya. Some wore gaudy "bling" jewelry while others thought it'd be cute to don gold grills for the evening.
While this is clearly problematic, the truly disturbing part of this whole story is the response of the law school to the event. The dean of the law school responded by reprimanding the students for being "insensitive" and warned that these thoughtless actions might have negative repercussions for their future careers.
Their careers? What about the fact that this party was racist?
This is where my love for Bob Jensen comes in.
In an editorial in the Daily Texan, Jensen made a point to call the party out for what it was. A demonstration of the reality of white supremacy at this institution. Rather than engage in discussions of cultural sensitivity, which seem to dominate any discourse of diversity in institutions of higher education, Jensen redirected the focus to thinking critically about the institutional and personal practices that reinscribe white supremacy as a normal part of American life.
His article is worth quoting at length as he discusses the real problems with this "ghetto" party:

"But whatever the case, should we be stressing to students that the reason they should not be white supremacists is that it might hurt their careers? What does such a message convey to sudents and to the community?

What’s missing in this official response is a clear statement that these law students -- many of whom go on to join the ranks of the powerful who run society -- have engaged in behavior that is overtly racist. Whatever their motivations in planning or attending the party, they have demonstrated that they have internalized a white-supremacist ideology. When these students are making future decisions in business, government, and education, how will such white supremacy manifest itself? And who will be hurt by that?

Here’s what we should say to students: The problem with a racist “ghetto fabulous” party isn’t that it offends some people or tarnishes the image of UT or may hurt careers. The problem is that it’s racist, and when you engage in such behavior you are deepening the racism of a white-supremacist culture, and that’s wrong. It violates the moral and political principles that we all say we endorse. It supports and strengthens an unjust social system that hurts people."

You can check out the rest of his editorial at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=30&ItemID=11203

So this is my tribute to one of the few white men on campus who truly keeps it real, with himself and his community. If Bob Jensen is a fountain of undiluted foolishness (as he was once called by former University President Larry Faulkner) may we all be so lucky to be labeled as such and continue to take an unequivocal stand in the fight for racial justice.

(for the record, the photos I am using do not come from the Law School students' party. I did a google image search and found these. I felt that they illustrated the problematic racial politics of these events. As many of you know, these ghetto parties have been happening all over the country at a number of universities in the last 3-5 years.)

2006-10-19T16:22:00.000-05:00

Black Panther Party Turns 40

Hello All:
Just got this link. Here are a number of interviews with members of the Black Panther Party who gathered in Oakland, CA this past weekend to commemorate 40 years of racial justice organizing, black self-determination, and fighting to dismantle white supremacy. It is a reassuring reminder to me that the struggle for justice is a lifelong commitment and the women and men who formed the Black Panther Party are an exemplary model of exactly how we might all do that.
You can check out the interviews yourself at:

http://odeo.com/audio/2180391/view pt 1

http://odeo.com/audio/2180907/view pt 2

http://odeo.com/audio/2181833/view pt 3

Peace and Blessings to you all...

2006-10-16T16:16:00.000-05:00

Wow...have I really not posted in 2 months?
Shit.
Well, I am back now. Sort of and trying to regain my bearings. It's the second year of graduate school ya'll and guess who's getting a Masters' degree in May 2007?
Don't sleep, you knew it was coming. So I've been a bit swamped. This fall has been completely insane. I'm a teaching assistant (TA) at UT so that's been a bit of a rude awakening. Having to come to campus twice a week on days I don't have class is a bit of a drag and keeps me from playing around and procrastinating the way I used to...sigh, I miss the good ol' days of full funding from the University.
In any case, just a note to let you know that I will be blogging again because I have a brand new WanderLust adventure to share with you: Courtney Does Scotland.
That's right Scotland. You thought the fact that there are no Black people in Scotland (except for one of my all-time favorite homegirls) was gonna stop me from blowing it up? Naw man, I went and you know Loch Ness was at the top of my list. Sadly, I didn't see Nessie, but that doesn't matter because Scotland was truly amazing and beautiful and tranquil and wonderful.
So stay tuned, a full on post is on the way.
Peace...

by the way: check out my homegirl's blog, Adventures in Negroshire. If you have any sense of humor at all and can appreciate somebody taking on chance on love and happiness you'll love this.

2006-08-02T03:58:00.000-05:00

This is a piece that will be published in a women of color zine here in Austin. If you have comments feel free to share them. Being in Central America gave me a lot of time to reflect on this past year and the various issues that are important to me. Each day I took 30 min. to an hour to stop and process the day's events and my own thoughts. It felt really good to develop a writing practice/routine and I found that it helped me to make some breakthroughs I'd been trying to make all year.
In short, this trip was good for me, even if it was a little tough.
Enjoy...

---------------------------------
Bodies At War

For Ortralla.

Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear my head about this poem about why I can't go out without changing my clothes my shoes my body posture my gender identity my age my status as a woman alone in the evening/ alone on the streets/alone not being the point/the point being that I can't do what I want to do with my own body because I am the wrong sex the wrong age the wrong skin
“Poem About My Rights,” by June Jordan

20 de julio 2006
I learned again tonight what it means to move in the world inside a black female body. It means not being able to defend yourself or anyone else from unexpected violence. It means being forced to make impossible choices between what is fair and what is safe. It means trying to help others and sometimes having to walk away and leave others to their fate in order to protect your own.
As a righteous Black feminist it has always been a great source of pride for me that I don’t tolerate violence against women of any kind. In March of this year, I helped to create Feminists of Color United (FoCU), to protest the appearance of R. Kelly at the University of Texas at Austin. It seemed unconscionable to us that a man who is currently on trial for 14 counts of child pornography (after he filmed himself urinating on a 14-year-old girl) should be invited to perform at the University.[1] I’ve written about my experiences of sexual abuse and work with young women of color to empower them to recognize relationship violence and develop the confidence to walk away from it. Still, violence, as pervasive as I know it to be, continues to alarm and frighten me when I confront it in my political/intellectual/personal life. As a researcher, I do work with Black women activists participating in various political struggles on the South Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. I’ve been coming here since 2004 and every time that I return it is a reminder that the struggle to protect our bodies and spirits from life-threatening patriarchal violence is a global struggle. And even for a self-identified feminist it is a sobering reality coming to terms with this fact.
Angie, a feminist activist and close friend of mine, was hit in the face tonight at a popular club here in Bluefields, Nicaragua. It wasn’t her fault – the man was a stranger. He was angry with his girlfriend, who was sitting behind us. They were quarrelling and when he reached over the bar to hit her, she ducked, and he ended up popping Angie instead. I quickly tracked down the waiter to ask for the cuenta so we could get out of there. The right side of her face was beginning to swell. We find out later that this man attacked his wife because she had gone out with two women friends who are open lesbians. Afraid that his wife is turning into a tortillera[2], he decides it is time to exercise his phallic power and put her back into her place. My mind is completed stunned at the interplay of gender, sexuality, and power dynamics in this situation.
The woman, a young Mestiza, was petrified, balled up against the wall, breaking down into tears. I ask her, ¿Puede quedar con una amiga esta noche?[3] She replies that she can and before I can begin to suggest that she turn this chump over to the cops she collapses into my arms, sobbing as I console her in frightened, wobbly Spanish. She says that she will stay with a friend tonight and I warn her to take care of herself as Angie and I prepare to leave.
But I am still afraid for her. For all of us.
On our way out of the club, Angie confronts the man who accidentally assaulted her. He apologizes, stating that he had no intention to hurt her. This admission provides little comfort – of course, he didn’t mean to hurt Angie, he doesn’t know her. But this can hardly be considered an accident, since he had every intention of violently beating his wife in the middle of a crowded nightclub. He seems honestly confused by Angie’s anger, and she is violently lashing out, slapping him across the face several times. I have no confusion as to the source of her anger and I feel both ashamed and relieved for breaking them up. He deserved to be slapped, no question about it, but I find myself wondering would this small victory have been worth it if he beat both of us up, or had suddenly pulled out a knife? I hate being compelled to make such choices – survival choices, I call them. During the taxi ride home, I think to myself, it could have been worse.
Small comfort.
We leave the club without the girl’s name, her assailant/husband’s name, or having him removed from the club. The slapping may have made my friend feel better, but it won’t stop him from beating the shit out of his wife when she is finally forced to come home. What will happen to her? Could I have done something to keep her safe, instead of fearing for myself and fleeing the club? My conscience offers little consolation.
At home I prepare water, Motrin IB, and a ziplock bag full of ice. I hope that this will help the lump on the side of my friend’s face from turning into an ugly bruise that she will have to explain to friends, co-workers, and family as though it were her fault. She asks me what she will tell her son. “The truth,” I reply softly.
But who can say with certainty what the hell that means?
At home, we sink wearily into rocking chairs, she presses the ziplock bag to her eye, wincing from the cold and the throbbing sensation in her upper cheek. We watch the news. A man in the U.S., enraged by his wife’s decision to leave him, enters her job carrying a Sprite bottle full of gasoline. He douses her in it, reaches into his pocket for a lighter, and sets her fire in her workplace. CNN shows before and after pictures. She is a beautiful young Black woman, whose only mistake was deciding to leave a violent partner and escape an abusive situation. She survives, but there are only colorless patches where cinnamon flesh, thick hair and eyebrows used to be. She survives, but who among us can say how she is surviving? And what of the psychic wounds, the nightmares, the loss of any sense of security, the perpetual fear of violence – will she survive this?
A lesson, hard learned, on what it means to walk through this world in a body that is rendered vulnerable by its sex/gender, race, age. I think of my politics and how they might help to transform this world into one where we don’t have to struggle to stay alive and whole simply by virtue of being who we are. I recall joking with a male friend, a rather tall and strong male friend, as he fumbled with his keys outside of his apartment late one night that he obviously was not a woman. Eyes blank and not quite understanding, he replies, “What do you mean?” I mean, jumping out of your car after the sun sets and having your house key poised and ready to unlock your apartment because the longer you spend fiddling in your purse looking for keys, the greater chance you stand of being assaulted because you weren’t paying attention and didn’t notice the creep watching you from a few feet away.
I mean, for all the times my grandmother warned me to look under and inside my car before getting in because you never know if someone might be waiting for you.
I mean, for all the times I decided not to take the bus to school, wear a certain dress or pair of shorts, or walk alone in my neighborhood, because catcalls from speeding cars and winos who followed me down Manor Road with sex-starved eyes made me feel vulnerable in my own community.
I mean, for the 21-year-old woman who was found by her parents, in pieces, in a bathtub in West Campus after going out on a “date” with her friend.
I mean, for Ortralla Moseley, 15, whose boyfriend stabbed her to death at 10:30 in the morning during passing period in the middle of a crowded hallway at Reagan High School. Another girlfriend had been forced to transfer schools after this young man’s aggression and jealousy caused her and her parents to fear for her life. Ortralla, citing these same reasons, had broken up with him the day before he murdered her. No one at school, however, seemed to pay much attention to his history of violence.
I mean, for Charlotte Jones, 21, who ran track with me at C.E. Ellison High School and could finish the 100-meter dash in 12 seconds flat. After graduation, she worked at Wal-Mart as a cashier. Her husband, a low-ranking Army soldier, shot her in the face, then shot and murdered their one-year-old daughter, before turning the gun on himself.
I mean, never knowing whether a walk outside, or going out for a quick beer, or checking your mail will mean you can expect to be the victim of sudden violence.
I have no answers, only the clear realization that occupying this body means being in a constant state of war. The only way I can hope to survive is by being prepared, on multiple levels (politically, physically, spiritually, and emotionally) to fight and defend it.

21 de julio 2006
This morning Angie’s right eye is swollen shut. I don’t think either of us will be recovering any time soon.
We clean house, hang wet sheets on clothesline, listen to radio programs. Gingerly press ice onto the ugly bruise. We go on.
We survive.

[1] See WanderLust at www.wanderlustwarrior.blogspot.com for additional information on the R. Kelly protest and the FoCU manifesto written in response to his appearance.
[2] In many Latin American countries, lesbianism is seen as less threatening than male homosexuality because, presumably, there is no penetration involved. It is commonly joked that all women can do is ‘make tortillas,’ that is, rub their vaginas together. I’ve considered disabusing people of the notion that all lesbians do is ‘make tortillas,’ but have not as yet, done so.
[3] Can you stay with a (female) friend tonight?

2006-08-02T03:44:00.000-05:00

Back in the States, ya'll and feeling a little worn out. The South takes a lot out of the girl. Here are a few pics from my travels in Honduras and Nicaragua. Enjoy...

Here's a view of the beach from Cusuna, the largest community in Territorio Garifuna. Not to sound too hokey or silly, but I found it very calming and reassuring to be so close to the water. Being in the communities made me realize more clearly the power of the environment and how critical it is that we protect it.

I decided to experiment with temporary art structures on the beach...what happens to the mind of an anthropologist after a few weeks in the field without receiving some much needed lovin'...

So you thought a colored girl from the U.S. couldn't hang in the Global South? Think again, kids. In the communities of the Territorio Garifuna there is no electricity, running water within people's homes, or the comforts we take for granted at home like washing machines and dryers. So you adjust and find that you can manage just fine without them.

2006-06-07T18:50:00.000-05:00

I’ve only just recently become a fan of nature.
It all began rather unexpectedly last summer, when I discovered a place of indescribable beauty and tranquility in this medium-sized city that I call home, Austin, TX.
I discovered Barton Springs. Now to the uninitiated, Barton Springs may seem like any other swimming hole, but in the stupefying heat of a Central Texas summer it is heaven on earth. A pool fed from a natural spring it maintains a temperature of about 77 degrees year-round. And no matter how crowded it gets on a hot summer day, there is always room for one more weather-weary Austinite.
But this is not about Barton Springs.
It’s about me learning to love and appreciate the great outdoors.
About two weeks ago, my boyfriend convinced me to go camping. He’s an outdoorsy type and I have come to enjoy being outside, working with my hands so I agreed. The plan: drive to Big Bend in his old-school 1982 Chevy Luv pick-up truck. We bring ourselves, a used tent, lots of organic snacks and foodstuffs to munch on, and a lust for Mother Nature.
It was a good plan.
Unfortunately nothing went according to plan.
After a relatively uneventful drive through Austin, San Antonio and Del Rio we arrived on Saturday evening at our first stop, Seminole Canyon.
It was a cool evening and we immediately set up our tent before deciding to explore the area.
It seemed like the responsible thing to do. It was an older tent, slightly used, and after setting it up I noticed that there appeared to be a few small holes in the lining. No biggie, we’d just tape them up in the morning.
Unfortunately, our tent never saw the morning.
The winds of an evening storm grew stronger as the sun went down and before we knew it our fragile tent was engaged in a battle for its life. It lost. My main squeeze and I watched in equal parts horror and amazement as our tent was ripped to shreds before our eyes.
We slept in the truck until the rain from a sudden thunderstorm passed over.
According to one of the (very friendly) Park Rangers, it was the first rain the place had seen since October.
Fabulous…
Before running into the truck for shelter, we noticed that one of the tires on the truck appeared to have a slow leak so we popped on the spare just in case we had to bail in the middle of the night. Eager beavers that we are, we applauded ourselves for our foresight and preparedness.
The next morning, with slightly dampened spirits, we gathered our things, climbed into the truck and prepared ourselves to mosy on back to Del Rio buy a new tent, and head to Big Bend for a weekend of R&R. Within 15 minutes of leaving the park to head to Big Bend, the tire exploded and we had to change it again.
We fixed it.
The water in the water pump began to boil shortly after that.
We agreed to turn around, head back to Del Rio, and drive very slowly.
We were totally fine with this when suddenly we heard a loud “THUNK!” in the engine and water sprayed over the entire front windshield.
After pulling over, and taking a look under the engine, my man’s worst fears were confirmed:
The radiator had blown its top.
Need I remind anyone that we were stranded:
On the highway.
In the desert.
At 2:00pm, arguably the hottest time of the day.
And did I mention it was a Sunday?
It took 2 and 1/2 hours for the tow man to reach us.
Following that the camping adventure became a a non-stop adventure of mechanics, auto parts store, walking into Mexico (Del Rio is right across the border from Ciudad Acuna), eating way too many tacos, swimming, and seedy motels. We settled on Best Western and obtained a rental car and went swimming in Lake Amistad, a man-made lake that is the result of the US and Mexican governments’ agreement to dam up the Rio Grande 40 years ago.
However, I don’t want to make this trip sound like a bust. Far from it. Despite, the camping fiasco I had a fabulous time, got to explore the Texas southwest, drink real margaritas in an amazing border town and snuggle with my man in questionable hotel rooms.
I did want to get in touch with nature in the desert but the fates weren’t having it. In the meantime, I stick to familiar waters, beat the heat at Barton Springs, and continue exploring nature with baby steps.
Peace and blessings to all…

2006-04-04T00:41:00.000-05:00

R. Kelly demo pics --- updates coming soon!

2006-04-04T00:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time, I shouldn'ta left you...

Without a dope blog to vibe to:) I know it's been a minute kids, but on the cool, I have just been incredibly busy and altogether too tired to update the blog. I've been spending the last few weeks struggling to, in the words, of the brilliant performance artist, Laurie Carlos, "hold up my own tits."
And the girls are heavy.
But enough about my mamas, I got to tell you all about Laurie.
Now if you don't know Laurie Carlos, you had better ask somebody. She was one of the original colored girls in Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf as well as one of the founders of the Urban Bush Women.
Yeah, it's that serious.
The girl is bad.
And I get to work with her. Well, me along with 16 other amazing women. She is currently serving as the guest director for a group I am a part of called The Austin Project (TAP). It works to bring together artists, activists and scholars to do the work of healing ourselves so that we can struggle for social justice. After all you can't heal the world if you're running around with a wounded heart. So we write and attempt to work from the places that keep us from walking fully in our path.
And then we mix it all up to share with you folks.
We will be having two performances this month, both this weekend:
April 8 & 9
2pm
Saturday location: Winship Building, 2.180 located on the UT-campus
Sunday location: Off-Centre Theatre located at 2211-A Hidalgo St. (it's right off of E. 7th street)
There's a suggested $2 donation but if you can't swing that (and I know how that is) you certainly won't be turned away.
So if you got some time and want to be moved come check out a bunch of women of color, white women, lesbianas, transgender, young, old, righteous women trying to heal themselves and heal the world with art and activism. It's event that's not to be missed.

In other news:
I will be posting updates on the R. Kelly protest, the future of FoCU, watching Latina/o youth defy the man and cut skool to protest wack immigration policies, my thoughts on the Cynthia McKinney craziness, as well as some musings on the rape of a young black women by three white lacrosse players at Duke last week.
So much things to say ya'll...
Take care of yourselves...

2006-03-10T21:45:00.000-06:00

Rebellion is in Full Swing!

So we are off to a great start with the R. Kelly protest that we've been working on. Today we had an open letter to the University and Performing Arts Center administration published in the newspaper and we have a ton of stuff to work on before next Friday. In any case, the response to all of this has been rapid and a bit overwhelming. But I have to say that it is so encouraging to see so many people support the work that Feminists of Color United (FoCU - yes, the acronym reads like "fuck you") is trying to do.
In any case, I wanted to give you all a chance to check out the open letter we published in the Texan. We will be submitting a hard copy to the PAC so if you or any organizations that you are a part of would like to sign on to this work, leave a comment on this post and I will gladly add you.
Peace and Blessings to All, I'm afraid I'm full of revolutionary love tonight.
------------------------------------------------

To the University of Texas at Austin Administration, UT Performing Arts Center Administration, University students, faculty, staff and the greater Austin community:

We are a coalition of women, men, students, faculty, people of color and white allies. We are taking a stand against the University's decision to allow an accused child pornographer to perform on our campus. We are taking a stand against sexual assault and exploitation of women of color on our campus and in our communities.

We discovered that the UT Performing Arts Center (PAC) invited R&B singer and accused child pornographer R. Kelly to perform at the Bass Concert Hall. We are offended that money generated from student fees to support the arts on campus are being used to sponsor a performance with an individual who has a history of dodging allegations of child pornography, statutory rape and exploiting young women sexually. After speaking with a representative of the PAC we were informed that they invited Kelly to perform despite his background and the fact that he is currently on trial for 14 counts of child pornography. Their reason: Kelly should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Regardless of his guilt or innocence, as women and men of color who attend and work at this University we are appalled at the use of University funds to support such an individual. In order to make our case more clearly perhaps it is necessary to know the background of the Kelly case as well as our political position. In February 2002, a videotape depicting a man who appears to be Kelly engaging in sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl. Kelly was indicted in Chicago in June 2002 with 21 counts for charges of soliciting a minor for child pornography, seven counts for videotaping these acts and seven counts of producing child pornography. Kelly was further indicted in January 2003 on 12 counts of possession of child pornography in Florida. Currently 14 of the 33 charges still stand and, despite his busy touring schedule, Kelly is on trial for these charges.

Although we are specifically targeting Kelly, because he is coming to our campus, we feel that it is critically important not to lose sight of the larger issue in this matter: sexual violence against women of color and sexism in communities of color. The fact that there has been no collective critique of the Kelly case either by prominent black or feminist leaders clearly demonstrates the lack of value that is placed on the lives and general well-being of women of color. While it is necessary to fight against the racism that affects both men and women of color, we feel it is our responsibility to also fight against the sexism within black, Latino, Asian and indigenous communities, as well.

In the tradition of Fredrick Douglas, as a community we must acknowledge and act upon the reality that the structural oppression of racism is both historically and contemporarily informed by gendered violence against black women. We recognize that until men of color deal with this reality they will continue to reproduce terror upon women of color. Sexual assault against women of color in the U.S. is a pervasive social reality that we all must struggle to overcome.

By inviting Kelly to perform, the University and the PAC demonstrate a lack of awareness of the reality of sexual assault against women of color and in so doing, implicitly support the perpetuation of this particular and pervasive form of violence.It is time for those of us who believe in freedom, justice and the right to a safe and healthy life to stand up for ourselves. As women of color (and allies of women of color) who are a part of the University community we are appalled at the University's blatant disregard of sexual violence against women of color.

We are here to stand up in defense of ourselves, our lives and our communities!

It is clear that the PAC has no intention of retracting their invitation to Kelly or canceling the show. Barring such a response we demand the following:

* That the PAC contact Kelly's publicist/manager and invite him to participate in a dialogue with Feminists of Color United. FoCU will be hosting a Sexual Assault Teach-In at the Center for African and African American Studies, Friday, March 17, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
* That FoCU be given space in the concert program to share our concerns with people attending the event.
* That we be given a brief time slot prior to the show to directly address the audience and present our analysis of this situation.
* That we be granted space to host an informational demonstration outside of the Bass Concert Hall as the audience arrives and be permitted to distribute educational literature.In this manner, we believe that we can truly shed light on the critical issue of sexual violence against women of color while also holding the University responsible for its actions.

If the University administration and the PAC truly believe in making this University a space where all people can thrive and feel safe, these demands should cause little problem.

Regardless, we will be at the Bass Concert Hall on March 17, letting R. Kelly and everyone else know that we are serious in our criticism and our outrage. Sexual assault against women of color and sexism in communities of color must stop. And we know that it will only stop when we stand up for ourselves and say "Enough!"

In Solidarity,
Feminists of Color United
Juli Grigsby
Courtney Desiree Morris
Jacqueline Smith
Sonia dos Santos
Raquel de Souza
Damien Schynder, ally

2006-03-06T15:10:00.000-06:00

Unpacking the Pimp Myth...

Now it may very well be true that it's hard out here for a pimp.
But I'll tell you one thing -- the payoff is a motherfucker.
That, my friends is the lesson that we can learn from the 78th Academy Awards. Last night, the Tennesee-based hip-hop group, Three-6 Mafia, made Oscar history when they become the first African-American hip-hop group to snag a little gold man with their song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." The song was featured on the film, Hustle and Flow, which follows a pimp/drug dealer's (Terence Howard) attempt to break into the hip-hop industry.
As if the song (and its partner film) weren't offensive enough by itself, the performance that accompanied the song only excacerbated the matter. Of course, the fellas from the Three 6 Mafia were there, as was Taraji P. Henson, the actress who sang the catchy and questionable hook to the song in the film:
"You know it’s hard out here for a pimp/When he tryin’ to get this money for the rent/For the Cadillacs and gas money spent/Because a whole lot of b- talkin’ s-"
But no worries, mainstream America -- the good folks at ABC made sure the song was sufficiently edited and sanitized for television. Still, it makes me wonder: Are pimps, hoes and gritty street life fun family viewing provided there are no curse words involved? Does content matter at all? The performance also featured women dressed as "hoes" dancing around, enticing men, stealing their wallets, getting shaken and reprimanded (presumably by their pimps) and then slithering off the stage with their clientele. It concluded with Henson, shimmying down a small set of stairs, taking center stage and belting out in opera divaesque style --
"IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIIIIIMMMMMPPPP!"
Not exactly art, but apparently good enough for the Academy of Arts and Sciences...
In any case, this may absolutely be the last straw. I love hip-hop and I even like some of Three 6 Mafia's tunes (who among us can forget that Dirty South Classic, "Tear Da Club Up" ? Sigh, it brings back such memories). Still, I have to wonder about what kind of message is being sent out when a song that glorifies sexually abusing and exploiting women can be recognized by the Academy as a noteworthy piece of art? In the Academy's (no doubt heartfelt, but misguided) attempt to be broad and "diverse" could it be that they selected the song despite their better judgement? I mean, really, have we forgotten who pimps really are and what they really do? Would the song still be cute, if it was your daughter that was getting pimped? It might be hard out there for a pimp, but I'm sure it's a whole lot harder for those women who are getting pimped.
Alas, all rhetorical questions that no one at the Academy can answer. Still they're worth asking . After last night I'm starting to think that we're all getting pimped and we'd better wake up and stop rewarding people who make their living on all our backs.
We live in a culture that glorifies misogyny, hip-hop is only the most flashy culprit. Is it any surprise that this song was chosen when we consider it a compliment to call someone a pimp? Or where a video with Nelly and the St. Lunatics chasing scantily-clad strippers around a mansion can enjoy the highest circulation on BET? Second-wave feminists used to say that we live in a rape culture -- I'm inclined to disagree, at least in a rape culture we pay some attention to the people who are victimized by rape. In the pimp culture that we call home, only the perpetrators are given attention. In glorifying the pimp we are conveniently able to ignore the issue that is hidden in plain view: the systematic, normalized devaluation of women's bodies and lives. And there is nothing artistic or sexy about that.

2006-03-03T14:29:00.000-06:00

The Lesson for Today:

Even Revolutionary Bad-Asses have to take a break once in a while. And when my body is tired and indicating to me that there is really no more that we can do, that's probably because we are tired and there is really no more that we can do.

2006-03-02T01:10:00.000-06:00

Big Pimpin' and Student Elections on the 40 Acres...

In an attempt to get more work done, I have taken to leaving my house at strange hours in the evening and working at coffeeshops. Historically, I tend to be more productive at coffeeshops, mostly because I don't get distracted as easily or decide to quit reading theory and opt instead to crank up the M.I.A. and dance around my apartment.
But I digress.
As I was in the middle of working at JP's Java, I took a bathroom break and, as I am wont to do, took a copy of the paper, The Daily Texan, with me.
Tonight's lesson for me is that ignorance may indeed, truly be bliss. In reading the paper, I found that there are a great many things that I could stand to go without knowing if for no other reason than that I am infuriated by so many goings-on nowadays.
Exhibit A:
It is revealed that in the elections for Student Government one ticket, Impact, which has by far the strongest likelihood of winning, has spent a whopping $7,000 on campaign expenditures. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised, last year's winning ticket, Connect spent a disgusting $8,500 campaigning -- good job kids. If you're gonna swamp the competition, go for the gold! Now, forget the fact that these SG idiots have spent enough money on t-shirts, stickers, flyers, etc. to put a UT undergrad through three semesters of school. Forget the fact that their closest competition, I-ROC (Independent Renewal of Campus) spent only $650. Let's focus on the fact that they spent all of this fucking money to get elected to a governing body that is effectively a dog that is all bark and no bite. It's not like SG resolutions change the world and the miniscule representation that SG does manage to wrangle in administrative affairs at the University are, at best, milquetoast concessions that allow students to have dummy representatives on influential committees, etc.
Which leads me to my next source of frustration...
Exhibit B:
For years, UT students have lobbied for a student representative on the University of Texas System Board of Regents, the administrative body that decides the fate of every student in the UT System from Austin to El Paso to the Texas Panhandle. Our peer institutions such as the University of California System and the University of Michigan have had student reps for years. Well, after years of strategizing, setbacks, and struggle we finally got one. The Regents relented and agreed to have a student rep.
The compromise? The student regent would serve as a representative with no voting power. This concession, which Student Government acquiesced to, was a slap in the face to all of the students who have advocated for meaningful representation on this powerful Board. Still, in the end, a foot in the door, is a step in the right direction.
So since the student regent can't vote, what does he get? Our current rep, Brian Haley (more on that some other day), is the proud owner of a brand new Blackberry. Now he can use state-of-the-art technologically to schedule dates for all the meetings that he won't be able to vote at -- SWEET! In addition to this slamming consolation prize, Haley also enjoys perks such as a parking pass for every UT system school and free tickets to a number of University events. Evidently these are perks that all of the regents receive because they are not paid for sitting on the board. I could explain why this explanation is a farce but just check out the Board's website at http://www.utsystem.edu/bor/regents.htm and you'll see why. All of these cats are up to their longhorns in wealth.
I can't help feeling that somehow the interests of UT students have been totally pimped out and our right to representation has been quietly tucked away and replaced with a Blackberry and free courtside seats.
In any case, I have officially decided that perhaps in the interests of maintaining my overall mental and emotional well-being, I had better stick to reading the Texas Travesty or Mad Magazine when I'm in the john. At least that way, I'll know the material I'm reading was meant to be a joke.
Peace ya'll...

2006-02-27T20:25:00.000-06:00

In Memoriam...

Opened my email today and discovered that acclaimed science fiction author Octavia Butler passed away on Saturday, Feb. 24 from head injuries she suffered outside of her Seattle home.
As someone who just recently became acquainted with Butler's work I am deeply saddened by the loss of this truly brilliant mind. I have always enjoyed science fiction but to finally come across a Black feminist sci-fi author who crafted beautifully complex, kick-ass black heroines in her work was truly a blessing. I was fortunate enough to have a friend share her work with me and I hope that all of you will do the same and keep the work of this amazing writer alive.
In any case, I wanted to share this with all of you and encourage you all to check out an interview that LiP magazine conducted with Butler in 2004. Amazing.
http://www.lipmagazine.org/

2006-02-21T01:31:00.000-06:00

Cuz' deep down we're all dirty...

Keeping it short because I'm tired and really should be in bed, but I got this from a friend and wanted to encourage all of you to check this out. I know I'm going to try.
The Dildo Diaries is a documentary that explores the laws regulating the sale and distribution of sex toys in Texas and the legal loopholes that those us of committed to getting off have to jump through.
Now for those of you don't know, sex toys are illegal in the state of Texas. Being the bastion of moral righteousness that we are, Texas does not allow the sale of sex toys. Why? Because it's obscene, you pervert!
At least that's what the law says.
I'm not making this up.
Section 43.23 of the Texas Penal code clearly states, "A person commits an offense if he ... possesses with intent to wholesale promote any obscene material or obscene device. A person who possesses six or more obscene devices ... is presumed to possess them with intent to promote the same."
Deep in the heart of the Lone Star state we don't like people using battery-powered, plastic phalluses to get their rocks off.
But we're big on education.
In order to get around this many sex shops, ahem, educational facilities, refer to such items as educational models, instructional materials etc. to avoid being slapped with selling obscene materials and/or devices.
Seems like a lot of hassle to go through to keep adults from getting off.
In an act of defiance against the state, I plan on taking my education into my own hands as often as time, energy and battery power permit. I encourage all of you to do the same...
For additional information about The Dildo Diaries check out the filmmakers' website at http://www.dildodiariesfilm.net/. The film will be screening here in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at 9:45 pm. See you there!

2006-02-20T00:00:00.000-06:00

This is a trial run.
In a former life I was the news editor of my high school newspaper and the Daily Texan News at the University of Texas at Austin.
I love layout.
I do.

And so I have to know if it is possible to sex up this blog with better layout and my eye-catching design.

It's past midnight ya'll. Just humor me.

2006-02-19T19:36:00.000-06:00

More disturbing signs of the times. I saw this after spending an absolutely glorious day at Pedernales Falls. It reads "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier." Nothing like insane U.S. nationalist bumper stickers to remind you of the need to turn off the T.V. and stay plugged into alternative media.

2006-02-19T19:16:00.000-06:00

Beyond Bitching...

In my last entry I ranted about the fact that R. Kelly is coming to UT to perform next month. After posting the blog I proceeded to complain about this fact to every person I know from my very patient and tolerant main squeeze to my friends and colleagues at the university. Basically I forced all the people who loved me to indulge my silliness and listen to me bitching about this outrage (and make no mistake, it is an outrage).
But then after I had exhausted myself whining, I sat down in my office and thought to myself -- "No really somebody should do something about this."
The late, great Black feminist poet, June Jordan, wrote in "A Poem for South African Women" that "We are the ones we have been waiting for."
In short, it's time for colored girls to stop looking to others to save us and get to work saving ourselves.
With that said, I want to let everyone know that we will be hosting a teach-in on sexual assault on women of color and sexism in communities of color and then staging a demonstration at the performance in front of the Bass Concert Hall. I had a ridiculously painless time convincing other women of color graduate students to get on board. In fact, all truth be told, the teach-in belongs to Juli Grigsby, who brought me back to down to the planet after I suggested holding a two-day symposium.
Hey, I like to dream big, if not always rationally.
In any case, as women of color who live in Austin and are connected to the University we don't have to put up with anything that threatens our lives, our bodies, and our communities. Including pedophilic pop/R&B singers.
So tell a friend, drag your boyfriend/girlfriend, daughter/son, or anyone who you think either 1) is already down for the struggle and needs to get involved or 2) should be educated about the reality of sexual violence against women of color. After all, we can all move beyond bitching by educating others to fight against sexism and resist being either a victim or perpetuator/perpetrator of this violence.
With love, solidarity and a healthy dose of optimism...

2006-02-14T19:57:00.000-06:00

That's right folks, I'm not making this stuff up! For more information check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_Kelly.

2006-02-14T15:45:00.000-06:00

Hmm...I feel a protest coming on...

Fiddling around on the Internet this afternoon I came across a most disturbing piece of information.
R. "I like to piss on underaged black girls" Kelly, will be performing at the University of Texas at Austin next month.
While I realize that this news may bring joy to the hearts of many a mindless pop/R&B fan I have to say that I am disgusted and appalled that people are still listening to this fool. It makes me wonder what kind of world we live in when people can turn a blind eye to a celebrity being charged with 21 counts of child pornography and pedophilia, starring in a homemade sex tape that features him urinating on teenage girls, and dubbing himself the "Pied Piper of R&B." Don't sleep on that last one ya'll, do you remember the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin? He played his flute and led all the children away to his secret hideaway -- you never heard what happened to those kids did you?
That's because all of the records have been sealed and they agreed to an out of court settlement.
There is something very wrong with R. Kelly and I have made it my personal mission to call that Negro out every chance I get. I strongly urge each of you to boycott this damn show and tell all your homies to do the same.
Besides, I saw R. Kelly when I was 18. Aside from him prancing around in his underwear and dry humping his dancers on stage, it wasn't much of a show. Save your money.
And for those of you who want to make the argument that I should ease up on the R because he's a musical genius I have two words for you: Stevie Wonder. Now, that is a musical genius. R. Kelly is a semi-literate clown with great production and choir boy vocals. Nothing special at'all.
Of course, I think we all realized that we had been duped by Mr. Kelly when he gave us musical gems such as "I Like the Crotch On You" with 12 Play and "Thoia Thoing." I am Black woman with a degree -- please don't insult my intelligence.
So kids, it is each and every one's responsibility to take a principled stand against 1) mind-numbingly awful R&B music; 2) sexism in the Black community; and 3) Teflon-Don celebrities who do incredibly fucked up things and refuse to take accountability for their actions. It's time for us, The People, to make them accountable. In the meantime, I will be singlehandedly planning the Lockdown the R campaign here in Austin -- feel free to join me in this positively righteous Black feminist holy war. Alright ya'll...I think I feel a protest coming on.

2006-01-20T12:21:00.000-06:00

Kicking it in Bluefields with my favorite coste�a, Angie Martinez.

2006-01-20T12:19:00.000-06:00

Back in the U.S. and feeling fine.
Time to get back to my real life and go back to school...sigh.
But I will post soon.
I promise.
Don't give up on me, I really will have something interesting to say...real soon.

2006-01-10T11:44:00.000-06:00

Speaking in Spanish is hard for me.
I mean it is really, really hard.
When I speak, if at all, I am forced to speak slowly, carefully pronouncing words that don't quite fit in my mouth. I stumble, trying to make my English tongue do things it simply has been accustomed to doing.
I think more about what I really want to say and the words in my ever expanding vocabulary arsenal that will enable me to express myself. What do I really mean, what is that I really want to communicate? This is language stripped naked, down to the bare bones, and sometimes, I can't even manipulate this simple language.
I speak slowly, communicate more with my hands, eyes, my whole body. Lean in closely, devote my full attention on whoever is speaking -- I can't afford to miss anything. When attempting to reply, I stumble, often confusing tenses, pronunciation, and gender.
In short, Spanish makes me humble in a way that I never could be in English. I often don't like who I become in Spanish. A simple girl, quiet, to herself, struggling to communicate even simple things -- I need deodorant and toothpaste, sir. I miss the confident woman that I am in English.
Spanish makes me apologize. Leaves me vulnerable to criticism and correction. Like the friend, who, after reading my blog, gently pointed out to me that since I used ano and not año in one of my entries, I wished all of you a fabulous, happy new anus. Accents can be the line between clarity and confusion in Spanish, one simply cannot afford to forget them.
Sigh...and just when you think you're making progress.
The completely insane thing is that this stumbling with Spanish doesn't inhibit my ability to read the language at all. And I've become a reasonably good Spanish to English translator. Pero, por favor, don't ask me to do this process in reverse.
Coming to Nicaragua is good for me, because it makes me slow down, learn to accept and own my shortcomings, and not be afraid to admit that I am wrong and start over. Good skills to have in an unpredictable world.

2006-01-07T11:59:00.000-06:00

January 5, 2006

I am sitting in a bedroom with Scooby Doo curtains and a spider larger than any I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo. He’s kind of furry and when I took a photo of him, he had red-eye. I think he’s interested in me and wondering who this long-legged, funny-looking creature is. Right now, I’m tired and a bit out of it and too tired to either call for help or attempt to shoo him out. And I don’t want to kill him, somehow that just seems wrong.
I was sitting in a rocking chair this evening watching the news and it occurred to me that watching U.S. news coverage outside of the U.S. is a bit like having an out-of-body experience. Sort of like the feeling you have when you are having a great conversation with a person you just met and are really, really high. The significance of the conversation and this new person you really dig is not lost on you and yet you can’t quite take it seriously. Your head is floating into the ceiling and it’s like you’re watching this experience happen to somebody else who looks just like you.
Ariel Sharon, a man who has made life miserable for so many and in the last year has done a political about face that has confounded even the most cynical political scientists is in an Israeli hospital fighting for his life. It’s difficult to know whether to celebrate or mourn. Funny, I didn’t feel this strangely when Reagan died. That was clearly a time to celebrate.
More than 130 people dead in Iraq in the course of a single day. Suicide bombers strike again. Bush meets with old advisors, a tired Colin Powell attends, and the leader of the free world affirms yet again that the decision to invade, sorry, liberate Iraq, right or wrong, must be defended. We must succeed or the terrorists will. Somehow, I think they already have.
New York City experiences an unseasonably warm day. I wonder if people I love living in Harlem, Queens, and the People’s Republic of Brooklyn went outside to enjoy the weather.
I sit in Nicaragua watching the news and feel unbelievably disconnected. As if distance were an anesthesia that numbs the horror I feel at the direction our planet is going in. There are no words. These body counts, these lives are real and somehow, I can’t seem to force myself to believe that right now in this moment, in this wet, isolated corner of Central America that these events touch me, the lives of people I care about, the names and faces I know so well. My mind has floated off somewhere and I am numbly watching these things happen to people who are just like me.
Incredible.
Continuing in the vein of out-body-experiences…I took the bus from Managua to Bluefields and sometime between 6:30 Wednesday evening and 8:00 Thursday morning I was in Bluefields.
The trip went something like this:

Arrive at bus station at 6:30 pm – the Managua/Rama express is a tricked out school bus that probably took kids in Delaware to school in the 1980s. Still, you can’t knock the hustle, so I chill out, pull out a book, and wait to start loading the luggage. I meet a few Black bluefileñas who pull me into their conversation. Before I can correct them they assume I am a Bluefields daughter come home from the States. You look good, they say, and I can tell they’re trying to guess what family I belong to. Hudson? James? One of the women, who now lives in San Andres, Colombia tells me elaborate tales of bus choques, plane crashes and all manner of traveling devilry. But, she urges me to ask God for safety. Earnestly, she asks, Are you a Christian? Moravian or Baptist? I reply Baptist, my grandfather would be pleased, and shuffle off to see if we can begin loading our luggage. I’m just not mentally prepared for a theology lesson tonight.

6:50 or so -- Load suitcases onto top of tricked out school bus, which is named Beholden, after one of the oldest predominantly Black barrios in Bluefields. Solid.

7:15 – get into bus. Wait for two and a half hours. Tricked out bus is supposed to head out at 9 pm sharp for the El Rama, but…

Depart for the Atlantic Coast at 9:50 pm. Ni modo…

Drive for three hours. Stop to eat and pee in Juigalpa.

Nicaraguan drivers are amazing – we leave Managua nearly an hour late and arrive to our destination nearly an hour early. Increíble…

Wait at the wharf for two hours to board the next panga, that’s a dory with a motor, which won’t leave for another two hours. Fade in and out of consciousness with one leg wrapped around my luggage and the other in the legs of a plastic chair.

Panga arrives and I’m so tired I can’t even fully appreciate the beauty of the Coast. Palm trees, miles and miles of green hills, wooden West Indian style houses that perch over the moist soil on spindly, wooden legs. My God, even in my sleep-deprived delirium I am amazed by the wonder of this place.

Arrive to Bluefields around 8am and am greeted by an ever-reliable and patient homegirl who promptly takes me home and throws me into bed. It’s nice to be loved.

That’s the bare bones of the trip. Next time, I will stick to flying. Still, I’m not entirely sure how I got here (since I floated in and out of consciousness throughout the trip) but here I am in Barrio Pancasan playing with my friend’s son, Ricky and watching Tom y Jerry. It’s funny how I remember some things so well and forgot other things about Bluefields so quickly. The wetness, for example. Bluefields is located on the southern Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and is one of the wettest places on the planet with an annual rainfall that exceeds 2000 to 4000 mm. It rains all of the time, and I do not exaggerate. Technically there aren’t really even seasons per se, the climate is judged by the shift in levels of rainfall. So rainy season v. rainier season.
So it’s no wonder that no matter how much I shower, lounge around in front of fans, or do any manner of little things to keep both cool and dry, I always feel wet. My skin carries a slick shine and my clothing sticks to my skin in damp patches. I have a theory that the damp is good for my skin and hair since they are so moisturized from the climate, I have to do relatively little to either. Still, the damp has its drawbacks. Books, for example, simply can’t survive. You see them in offices or personal libraries, the pages and covers curling around the edges, the spines deteriorating. And technical equipment, like laptops, digital cameras, mini-DV cameras, and that phat iPod your Mama gave you for Christmas are constantly under attack. So I’ve taken to wrapping all of my techno-gear in plastic. I find that the plastic bags you get from the market work just fine.
But I’m back in Bluefields and apart from the wetness, feeling okay. I’m staying with my friend, Angie Martinez, an altogether inspiring and amazing individual (as you can see I make it a point only to surround myself with people who motivate me with their talent and spirit). The first Black woman I ever met in Nicaragua who proudly called herself a feminist, and I’ve been in love ever since. Being the rowdy feminist that she is, she is involved in a number of activities from running the only Black women’s radio show on the Coast to conducting research on the impact of HIV/AIDS on amas de casa to helping run a multiethnic women’s research and studies center at the URACCAN, one of two universities in the Región Autónoma Atlántico Sur (RAAS). That’s right kids, chop off 7 years and the adorable son, and you have found my freaky third world twin in Bluefields, Nicaragua. I suspect that this is why we are such good friends.
In any case, being so busy Angie hardly has the time to do the things that other women here spend much of their day doing – namely, being domestic. Cooking, cleaning, all of that gets done – eventually. So after waking up from my nap, doing a little reading and playing with Ricky while Angie stepped out for dinner with a friend, I decided to give her the gift that I’ve always wanted from others – particularly this semester when I was so consumed with doing well my first semester of graduate school that I cursed having to sacrifice 20 minutes of precious reading and writing time to showering and brushing my teeth in the morning.
I washed a sinkful of dishes.
Good gift, no?
Sending you all love with damp pajamas and dishpan hands…
c

My spider man just left. Perhaps he had another pressing engagement.

2006-01-03T14:02:00.000-06:00

La palabra del dia

PROFUNDIZAR: [pro. fun. di. sár] v. to deepen; to go deep into

Go on ahead and say it. Roll it aroud on your tongue for a bit. You are starting to like how it sounds...profundizar. ¡Muy Bien! Now try to use it at least once in a sentence today.

2006-01-02T16:29:00.000-06:00

A view of Volc�n Mombacho from Granada. That�s right kids, I totally hiked that volcano...sigh.

2006-01-02T16:27:00.000-06:00

Aerosol murals outside of the Universidad CentroAmerica, amazing, huh?

2006-01-01T13:49:00.000-06:00

Jan. 1, 2006

¡Feliz Nuevo Ano! It’s a brand new year and I was able to celebrate the coming of 2006 in Managua with friends and Flor de Caña. I’ve been pretty busy down here and tramping around the Pacific coast, a side of the country with which I’ve only recently become better acquainted. The day after I arrived my friends and I visited Granada, a beautiful old colonial city only an hour away from Managua. We had a glorious time and as proof of my self-proclaimed status as a bad-ass I think you should know something.
I hiked a volcano.
And I’m not talking about no small volcano neither my friends.
I am talking about Volcán Mombacho, an active volcano that looks out over the city of Granada. When you reach the top you can see all of Granada; Lago Nicaragua, one of the largest fresh bodies of water in the Americas, and the Isletas de Granada. At our peak we were more than 1500 km above sea level. We took a guided tour through the volcano and there were two options: an abbreviated tour and a lengthier full tour that was about four kilometers. Being the true adventurers that we are, we, of course, chose the long tour. Three hours of pure jungle and natural beauty. I must admit I’ve never seen anything like it. After the insanity that is Managua, it was really quite wonderful to be enveloped by the silence of nature, hearing only the crunch of the ground underfoot, the songs of congo monkeys climbing through the trees, and the wind rushing through the forest. It was slightly damp as we walked through the jungles that surround the volcano and I was afraid that I would be cold. But by the end of the trip I was so flushed, sweaty and exhausted I couldn’t even think about being cold. I was so overwhelmed being there and blessed by having been able to experience this place with my nose, my hands, my eyes, my ears. Using the camera lent to me by my friend, the brilliant and beautiful filmmaker, Krissy Mahan, I filmed as much as the life of my battery would permit. Perhaps after editing all of this material, I’ll have a mini-screening at my home and folks can check out my journey to Mombacho.
I’ve only recently begun to appreciate how beautiful and necessary the environment is and I realize how important it is to do all that we can to protect it. Nicaragua, it seems, might make an eco-activist of me yet. Imagine that, a radical black ecofeminist. My parents have been quite tolerant of all my political changes over the years. I wonder if they’d ever get their heads around that one. Still, I appreciate their patience and their acceptance of my need to grow and expand my politics as I see and feel necessary. And given my growing love affair with Nicaragua I’m sure they’d understand.
In any case, as it turns out Mombacho is also an area protegida, which means that although there are people who live in the area (admittedly very few) everything that is done from coffee-growing to bathrooms must be environmentally sound and sustainable. The staff of the Mombacho Reserve are doing a fine job, the place is spotless, not a water bottle or cigarette on the ground anywhere. This place, like many other protected areas throughout the world, is constantly under threat and needs the support of people who recognize the importance of biodiversity, sustainable development, and protecting the environment. You can find out more about the Mombacho Reserve at www.mombacho.org.
But alas, like all good things, our time in Granada came to an end and we had to return to Managua. Even the night before we returned people had begun celebrating the coming New Year, shooting off fire crackers one after the other for hours of end. They went off in rapid succession, like gunfire. We returned to Managua to my friend Yamila’s house and scurried our funky selves into the nearest shower to prepare for the New Year’s Eve party her parents host every year. It’s a small gathering of family friends and I felt quite happy to be there.
Yamila’s mother, Doña Sonia and her husband Juan were excellent hosts who saw to it that a sister got straight borracha before the night was over. It was a wonderful party and I spent the night talking, dancing, drinking, and getting chased around the house by a handsome and charming man old enough to be my grandfather. Don’t worry I behaved myself. It was flattering, to be sure, but also a little disconcerting to have a man flirt with me so blatantly in front of his wife, who seemed (or at least pretended) not to notice. She was very nice to me, however, and after giving me a back rub stated that I carry a lot of tension in my back (which is true) and offered to give me a massage/acupuncture session at her clinic here in Managua when I return from the Coast. My septuagenarian suitor was also curious because his wife was clearly significantly younger than him, at least 20 years, perhaps more. So the idea that he was interested in someone as young as me was a bit disturbing. It’s moments like that where I really begin to think about how race and gender (and in this case, age) dynamics come together in how people interact with one another.
This man spent the entire evening talking about how special the Atlantic Coast is and later in the evening used the same word to describe me: “Es una mujer muy especial – y lo sabe.” Perhaps, but I had to wonder. And when he kept asking me to dance, only to sit down sipping his Stoli, and watching me move I realized that perhaps there might be more to this than I had initially imagined. In Nicaragua, like in the U.S., the myth of the black seductress is alive and well. Black women from the Coast are imagined as being hypersexual and available as demonstrated in the inviting way that they move (how they walk and dance). It’s assumed that they are less inhibited in bed than Mestizas and make better lovers because they are sexually aggressive and indiscriminate. These common sense beliefs around black women’s sexuality inform daily interactions and perceptions of our bodies and shapes how people (of all races and genders) engage us. Benign comments then about they way one moves or one’s (sexual) desirability are always already implicitly charged with latent racialized understandings of the black female body.
Was I this man’s costeña fantasy? Perhaps, and the struggle is learning how to navigate the desires and discourses that are projected onto my black female body – a lesson I’ve been struggling to learn since the first time I came to Nicaragua. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Until then, I’ll stick to seducing men closer to my age and politics.
Happy New Year to all, I wish you the very best.
c

2005-12-31T19:17:00.000-06:00

Friday, December 30, 2005

Just arrived in Managua last night and already feeling better about coming. My mother was giving me a bit of a hard time for traveling during the holidays but the ticket had been purchased and it was too late to turn back. Still, it is difficult to leave home knowing that your family is a bit put out with you and your globe-trotting antics. It is my third time coming to Nicaragua and somehow, each time I return it feels a bit like a homecoming – finding the familiar faces I left behind and seeing how much (for the better or worse) they have changed. Children that have somehow outdone me and turned into preadolescents while I was gone. Small additions or transformations to the homes I have slept in. Babies that have made their journey into the world and stare back at me wide-eyed and inquisitive. So much changes and each time I return Nicaragua becomes at once more familiar and more strange than the last time I found myself here.
Coming here yesterday, I was surprised to recognize how familiar this trip has become to me. Even before I had left the U.S. I knew that I was returning back to my Nicaragua.
Boarding my flight, I am walking down the aisle looking for my seat and hear a man mutter to his flight companion “Ay, que morenita preciosa,” and some other appreciative comments about “la morenita” (that would be me) walking past him. For a moment, I am defensive, turning around and preparing to utter a few choice comments of my own – but I relax and smile to myself. Even before takeoff, I am already back in Nicaragua.
Coming out of the plane, I wish the pilot a happy holiday and before I turn the corner I can smell it. The humidity and pungent odor that I have come to associate only with Nicaragua. I pause, breathe deeply, close my eyes. I am back in Nicaragua.
Boarding the plane in Houston, I was surprised to look up and see Daisy Gordon and her daughter Ishan preparing to sit down two rows in front of me. Smiling, I called out, “Hi Daisy” and she smiled back, pleasantly surprised to see me. Daisy is the wife of my advisor and mentor, Edmund T. Gordon, who was waiting patiently in line, five people behind her. I learned later in baggage claim that they had come to Nicaragua to bury Daisy’s grandmother, who had raised her as a child. Ted tells me they will be in Bluefields until Jan. 3. It’s saddening to hear of such a deep loss for their family. I express my sympathies and whisper a prayer in my heart for them. Hopefully, I can see them before they return to the U.S.
In any case, I was enthusiastically greeted at the airport by my friend Geoff, his sister, his girlfriend, Yamila, her father, and her daughter, Ditzi. We make quite a party -- a mixed group of black, mestiza, and biracial (Mexican/White) folks with varying fluency in English and Spanish. I whisper to Ditzi, who has planted herself firmly on my lap that I have brought “dos regalitos para ti,” and she squeals happily. She claims to have missed me but with the confident narcissism that only a child can have she states that she knew I would bring gifts. I suspect this knowledge comprises at least a small part of her happiness to see me.
I am back in Nicaragua.

2005-12-30T15:36:00.000-06:00

What up kids!
So a sista has finally made it make to the land of lakes and volcanoes. I am sweaty and happy in Nicaragua. Right now I'm spending my time paseando through Granada, the oldest colonial city in Latin America.
You believe I am down here living it up and taking plenty of pics to share this experience with ya'll. So be on the lookout for new posts, I'll do them as often as time and money permit (I'm very familiar with Internet cafes down here).
I hope all of you have a wonderful and safe New Year and I'll be in touch.
Abrazos!

2005-12-29T10:59:00.000-06:00

Keep independent thought and action alive! Be sure to check UOR's website and support the necessary work that these fine folks are doing

2005-12-29T10:45:00.000-06:00

So I'm heading off to Nicaragua for 3 weeks but before I bounce I wanted to spotlight a place that is very special to me.
For more than 10 years an amazing couple have worked to bring African American culture, history and political struggle to folks in Killeen, Texas. For those of you who don't know Killeen is truly located in the belly of the beast. A military town if there ever was one, Killeen is home to thousands of soldiers stationed at Fort Hood, one of the largest permanent military installations in the entire world (I do not exaggerate). I know this because after my parents left the army (evidently they decided they had been all that they intended to be) we settled back down in Killeen and I spent the remainder of my childhood there.
Now being staunchly anti-war (although I deeply empathize with the losses and sacrifices of our service women and men) it is always a bit surreal to return home and witness the unquestioned patriotism and loyalty of my hometown.
And then I go to Under One Roof where Babatunde (who shed his slave name years ago) and his wife, the incredible and incomparable Miss Johnnie Mae (also lovingly known as Yetunde). I consider this couple to be my political godparents of sorts and their bookstore has been a space of political growth and development for me since 1999. I love going here because it reminds me that even in the midst of what seems to be overwhelming insanity there are always spaces of resistance where we can go to nurture our rebellious spirits. I thank Under One Roof for being one of many such spaces for me.
As for all you readers, it is critical that in this age of corporate mergers and megabusiness that we all actively support local businesses that strengthen our communities. For more information about Under One Roof check out https://www.underoneroofbookstore.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=BABATUNDE&Category_Code=DIDYOUKNOW. SUPPORT BLACK/BROWN/ASIAN/REBEL BUSINESS! Capitalism might suck but until the revolution comes and we have something better let's not get pushed out of the game we're in.

2005-12-28T23:58:00.000-06:00

December 29, 1953 - December 13, 2005

2005-12-28T23:57:00.000-06:00

Stanley 'Tookie' Williams

2005-12-28T23:54:00.000-06:00

One more thing...
The 1st annual Stanley Tookie Williams Worldwide Redemption Day will be held tomorrow, Thursday, Dec. 29 to honor Williams, who would have turned 52.
Check out http://www.courttv.com/news/2005/1220/williams_ap.html for details and how you can participate wherever you are. I'll be sending my prayers as I travel to Nicaragua.

2005-12-28T23:49:00.000-06:00

Sorry kids, but I have a lot to get off of my chest and just working is making me feel better already.
I was deeply grieved by the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams earlier this month and in attempting to sort through my own emotions I have been encouraged by the refusal to let Tookie's voice die. Numerous groups are working to disseminate his work and message to a larger audience and continue to advocate for the complete abolition of the death penalty, a fundamentally racist and flawed punitive practice. We have suffered a major setback with the assassination of this incredible activist but there is a new struggle to begin.
I encourage everyone to not give up the fight on this great loss and work to keep his legacy and political thought alive. Keep up on the latest actions and events at http://www.savetookie.org/.
The Terminator may have taken Tookie from us, but nothing can silence his truly revolutionary spirit which continues to live in the hearts of those who believe in freedom.
peace,
c

2005-12-28T23:39:00.000-06:00

Late Black Feminist Reflections on the Millions More Movement, Oct. 15, 2005, Washington D.C.

Austin, TX -- I am one absolutely of that generation of activists who believe that any time Black people gather together it is a positive thing. What I haven’t worked out is whether or not that gathering is always productive. We certainly have our examples of mass gatherings of Black (and other progressively minded) groups that have yielded amazing, and occasionally, substantial results. Many scholars of Black political history in the United States cite the 1963 March on Washington as an influential factor in the passage of the 1965 and subsequent 1968 Civil Rights bills. However, it’s been a while since we’ve seen mass gatherings that have significantly influenced public policy – the massive protests that we’ve seen against the war in Iraq, transnational free trade agreements, and the chaos of the Bush administration attest to this sobering fact. Still, there’s nothing like a demonstration to get an activist going.
So I went.
It is now common (Black) knowledge that the original Million Man March in October 1995 inspired the wrath of many a Black feminist by arguing that the salvation of the race lay in Black men’s ability to atone for their weakness and assert strength in their communities. Now I am a firm believer in the necessity of strong Black men in our communities. I was fortunate as a young woman to grow up in a community of such men including my father, my grandfather, local mentors, and, I am proud to say, an amazing little brother who continues to astonish me with his sensitivity and passion. However, the call for strength was not the problem. The problem lay in the assumption that Black men can or should attempt to save the race singlehandedly or that their inability to do so was the fault of overbearing Strong Black Women who do not know their place. It is not and never was unruly Black women who are holding Black men back. Racism, Capitalism, and Sexism (yes, sexism) are the real culprits to blame in our struggle for liberation. As any reading of black social movements in the United States will quickly reveal, Black women have always been involved in fighting for racial and economic justice. This is hardly the time to begin writing us out.
Still, many Black women gave the brothers the space to do what they felt they needed to do and, whether they agreed or disagreed with the politics of the event, held their tongues and waited to see what would happen. Ten years later, Minister Louis Farrakhan agreed to invite women to the Millions More Movement, a gesture that on the surface appeared to be a progressive move on the part of the Nation of Islam. At least, until we realized that we were being invited because the NOI still believes that Black women are just a little too out of hand, and it is Black men’s job to get us back in line.
Three steps forward, two steps back.
So it is clear that I had a number of political, personal, and intellectual reasons for why I should not have been in D.C.
But I went.
I let myself be convinced by a dear homegirl in California to buy my ticket and meet her in D.C. For a self-proclaimed Black feminist this was no small decision. When I announced to friends that I would be attending the march I was immediately questioned by comrades and colleagues alike. Why, they asked, would I attend a march that had not only requested, but instructed women to stay home 10 years earlier while the black man went to Washington to atone? I went, because I had reasons of my own to be there.
The first and most obvious reason is that I simply could not resist the idea of being able to gather together with Black folks from around the country who were coming to this march as hungry and desperate as I was. It never occurred to me that Minister Farrakhan had the answers, but I suspected that I might begin to find what I was looking for in the hundreds of thousands of sisters and brothers who flocked to the Capitol in search of something real. I wasn’t (and am not) the only young Black person in this country in search of a movement.
So I went. And yet, I have to admit that didn’t find everything that I was looking for. In The Final Call, the NOI’s newspaper, the event was declared a success that reflected the “full spectrum of Black thought.” I’m inclined to disagree. I know that a number of Black LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) organizations would disagree, as would many women’s organizations, anti-capitalist groups, etc. Despite the move to an obstensibly more progressive political agenda, the NOI continues to embrace an ethos of capitalist development, patriarchy and rigid intolerance that undermines any attempt to truly bring ALL Black people together.
In truth I was a bit disappointed. Despite the development of a progressive agenda which included fighting against the prison industrial complex, demanding universal (quality) healthcare, and calls for economic justice the Nation of Islam still has precious little to say about the reality of sexism within the Black community. Now I am not talking about being someone’s Black queen – although that is nice – that doesn’t necessarily make one anti-sexist. And when I say sexism I am referring to a form of oppression in which women are denied access to social resources, political power, economic power, sexual freedom, etc. There are many who would argue that sexism in the Black community does not exist but it does.
It exists when the Centers for Disease Control announce that young Black women constitute the highest number of new HIV/AIDS cases annually.
It exists when studies show that Black women’s earnings are substantially lower than white men, white women, and Black men despite the growing numbers of Black women obtaining advanced and professional degrees.
It exists when statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice state the Black women in abusive relationships are most likely to die at the hands of their (often Black) male partners, most likely to experience rape and/or sexual assault in their lifetimes, and most often to be the victims of violent crimes than any other group of women in the United States, excluding indigenous women living on reservations.
Sexism is real.
And so are Black feminists. However, according to Louis Farrakhan we don’t exist and neither do the specific forms of oppresion that affect Black women. Although there were a number of truly inspiring speakers, such as the representatives of Black labor organizers, youth activists, and the women of Mothers In Charge, a group of mothers who have lost children to street violence, I was disappointed to see that there were no representatives of black women activists organizing around issues of gender inequality. And even the women with Mothers In Charge were quickly hurried off stage to welcome popular hip-hop performer Wyclef Jean. Why, was there not more attention given to the issues that affect half of our community? This is not about pitting Black women and men against each other but rather an attempt to begin a discussion on one aspect of the Black community that we are often hesitant to talk about.
I was ambivalent about going to the march. And now some two weeks after the fact, I find that in some ways, I am still ambivalent. I was literally moved to tears that crisp autumn morning in D.C. witnessing the sheer numbers of passionate, committed people who came to the National Mall looking to build a movement. And yet, I left feeling slightly empty – mostly because, I was not and am still not sure what concrete actions or future strategies will emerge from this event. Was it truly about building a movement or merely an opportunity for Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam to posture themselves as the primary Black organization in this country.
After all of this what did I find by going to D.C.? After sitting and listening to the Minister speak for nearly two hours and offer little in the way of truly inspirational and revolutionary political strategies, I realized that I had traveled to D.C. to affirm what I had suspected all along. The day of the one-man show is over and it has become increasingly clear to me that we no longer need a Sharpton, a Jackson, or a Farrakhan to “lead” us. It is time that we begin to look to each other, as Malcolm X said, with new eyes, and begin to view one another as leaders. We need to reach out to each other in our communities, our schools, our workplaces, in the prisons, in our churches. We can lead together, as a community, and fight to build a world that is worth living in. A world that is big enough for all of us – feminists, ministers, gays, children, immigrants, the poor, lesbians, the incarcerated, and all of us who struggle each day to decolonize our minds and liberate ourselves. By leading together and taking our eyes off of heroes we can begin to take the steps necessary to build a movement that has room for us all. This Black feminist certainly hopes there’s room for one more.

2005-12-28T22:12:00.000-06:00

Traveling alone you discover how difficult it is to photograph yourself. Here I am attempting to capture a moment on a small stretch of beach on Corn Island, a small island located off the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua.

2005-12-28T13:41:00.000-06:00

Hello All!
Welcome to Wanderlust! Alas, I swore I wouldn't do it but after being given an iPod for Christmas, I realized that sometimes, following a trend isn't always a bad thing.
In any case, I hope you'll enjoy my blog. As a child I moved around A LOT, thanks to my parents' decision to be all they, poor, colored folks could be. As a result, I developed an acute case of Wanderlust that makes it absoultely impossible for me to be in any one place for too long.
This Wanderlust isn't merely restricted to my need to frequently change my physical environment. It refers to my intellectual and political interests which are varied and carry me in any direction the wind may blow.
Upcoming blogs will include my trips to Nicaragua where I do research on the Atlantic Coast of that country, a possible trip to Guatemala, and my musings on all manner of topics from R. Kelly (who I despise...grrr....) to the war in Iraq to the racial/gender politics of pop culture. If it's out there, I'm thinking about it.
So read on, thanks for stopping by and enjoy!
Peace,
courtney