Speak

Intention and Interdependence: Eternal Summer 2011

2010-11-04T08:58:00.001-07:00

Loved ones!

This week's emphasis on vision and purpose (see the Combahee Survival activity here: http://combaheesurvival.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/1-vision-and-purpose/) has me very inspired. After some crucial and helpful conversations with participants in the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind process and some wisdom from elders who are part of the MobileHomecoming Project (especially Barbara Smith, Imani Rashid, Nadya Lawson and Cessie Alfonso) I am excited to share a vision for Eternal Summer in 2011 that will celebrate and amplify the way that BLACK FEMINISM LIVES in our community as an intention and as a catalyst for us to honor our interdependence.

: Thanks Barbara!!!

As many of you already know, the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind happens locally and portably through in person gatherings in Durham, North Carolina, workshops around the countries and internet engagement around the world. Those levels of participation have been very symbiotic or helpful to each other. All the different people who have supported the project and interact with the educational materials in different ways have been spreading the good news (that BLACK FEMINISM LIVES!) fortifying their own revolutionary spirits, and creating inspiration in the different and overlapping communities that they love. The work that happens at the Inspiration Station in Durham gets uploaded as Inspiration to people elsewhere. Folks as far as Berlin make donations to receive publications and help pay the energy bill at the Inspiration Station. And this is only one energy cycle. More importantly everyone is participating in an energy field where we get more and more excited and inspired, more grassroots, low-overhead projects are popping off in Durham, queer Yoga, free healing clinics, community supported food justice sources and every day I am inspired by the initiatives that women of color are creating online (the Revolutionary Petunias Reading Group, the Crunk Feminist Collective, the Divine Survivors free online reiki clinic) and in person gatherings where folks draw on creative genius from within their communities and the communities they politically align with are sprouting up too as organizations like the Detroit Summer mural tour, the amazing Pachamama Skillshare and more sustainable beautiful spiritual, ritualized, intellectual and politicized initiatives to align our movements with the transformative messages of the universe. Eternal Summer is part of this energetic field and shift, all of this is interconnected and interdependent. We are benefiting from a shared ecology where inspiration, as a process, is circulating. I love it.

There have also been some lessons learned in terms of intentionality this past year that have clarified what it takes to continue abundantly participating in the flow. One major lesson was that while it is important to document and share the brilliance and inspiration that happens here in Durham with our wider community, and our local community who just didn't have time to stop by....it does not work to facilitate the same curriculum simultaneously in person and online. There are major benefits to letting the very jazz influenced, improvisatory and spiritually transformative work we do in person inform the development of shareable curriculum. Doing it at the same time seems scattered and rushes both processes. So in the name of INTENTIONALITY and to support the continued interdependence between the local and planetary impact of Eternal Summer it has been important to be very PRESENT to the local programming and the amazing energy that people bring as a major life source that everyone benefits from more when there is less pressure to produce a "product" for wider consumption immediately. In other words the clarity is that keeping the in person project somewhat blurry is good! Look at these beautiful blurry people.

Similarly the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind ecology acknowledges that while Black Feminism centers the role of black women and black queer folks in transforming the world, the transformation that we are participating and the critiques and practices created in that process are necessary for all who would live holistically in a loving world. This is why the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind has and will continue to create spaces specifically inspired by and focused on the brilliance of black women and black queer people that are open as a space of study and worship for everyone who is ready to be inspired and transformed. I am especially excited about the merging of two favorite activities...the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist mind monthly potlucks and the Black Girls Rock series. In the first six months of the new year every monthly potluck will be a listening party and discussion about the brilliance of artists from Abbey Lincoln to Lauryn Hill. Also as a contination of the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School there will be biweekly poetic activities specifically for survivors of child abuse and parents intending to break cycles of violence in their families. The work of Nadya Lawson with Holding Our Own an initiative that is intentionally 60 percent women of color and 60 percent queer reflects my vision for diverse participation in the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind.

In addition to these ongoing programs that acknowledge the pricelessness of a Black Feminist approach for all people, there will be at least two programs that honor the intentionality and value of space that is more specifically and intentionally aligned. Based on the belief and the historical reality that spaces where black women and gender-defiant folks engage each other deeply and specifically open a space for radical healing and invite a powerful spirit of transformation into our communities. The historical example of the Black Feminist Retreats, which we learned more about last week from Barbara Smith and Cessie Alfonso and the contemporary brilliance of the Gumbo Yaya 12 week session on Sistering, Mothering and Daughtering here in Durham are more than proof of the value of intentional loving spaces for Black women as a gift for our whole communities. In that spirit I am excited to announce, far in advance Indigo Days a week of healing, building and visioning for black women (trans and cis) and genderqueer black healers to share their magic and affirm each other which will take place May 20-26th here in Durham. All of our diverse allies here in Durham are exuberantly invited to offer food, childcare and housing to make this event happen!

Another specific priority of Black feminism historically and need for our communities in the contemporary moment is space for diverse women and genderqueer people of color to build relationships with each other across shared oppression and important differences. This was the energy behind last year's Love Harder session and is part of the reason that this January's MotherOurselves Bootcamp (January 7-9), based on Audre Lorde's theory of learning to mother ourselves by addressing internalized oppression as it impacts our own spiritual expression and our relationships to other oppressed people, will be specifically for women (trans and cis) and genderqueer people of color. Again we will need and want the support of our diverse community in making sure we can have accessible space, food, childcare and housing so that all the women and genderqueer people of color who want to participate will be able to feel fully supported to attend.

And of course you are ALWAYS ALWAYS welcome to donate towards these experiences being free and freedom-producing for everyone!

Donate one time:

or become an Eternal Summerian by donating monthly!

I am so excited about the coming year and the ongoing ETERNAL energy of transformation that we get to participate in together in this little piece of the world we want to see.

Infinite love and inspiration,

Lex

p.s. so this is my clarified vision...what's yours? Participate in the activity here: http://combaheesurvival.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/1-vision-and-purpose/

Keeping it Hot! Little Black Feminist Book Series Vol. 2 (FIRE)

2010-10-27T12:49:00.001-07:00

Eternal Summer means keeping it hot...This beautiful black booklet joins the legacy of Harlem Renaissance firebrands and the brilliant youth of SPARK reproductive justice (see fire@sparkrj.org). It includes lust poems and polemics to/for/about black queer community and an essay on FLAMBOYANCE dedicated to Alexis DeVeaux and Gwendolyn Hardwick of the Flamboyant Ladies!

I know you want your very own! So paypal 15 bucks to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com and include your current address. Thanks for keeping the Eternal Summer ETERNAL!

or just this link if it is easier: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3VHV86GHPK56J

Love,

Lex

p.s. oh and there's a matching podcast!

http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/the-proud-podcast-the-visionary-heat-of-black-queer-community/

Love letters to looters

2010-01-27T12:42:00.001-08:00

Dear Me/We/You/Us

Under strict loving soft encouragement from the QBG I am writing us a love letter. And the things I love about ourselves and myself and weselves and multiple selves on multiple plains/planes.

The first part of y/our love letter of course is a love letter to our inability to do the assignment , any assignment as it is asked.

When I started this letter I had as I usually do grand plans of combining it with a stinging commentary on Haiti/an admonishment to American progressive laziness/ response to stupid stupid lady who knows nothing about black new media feminism/and a love letter to all of you I carry with me .

I think I started with the idea of combining them because of of something Delux wrote that I the idea that our very exisistance is multi tasked . While hers is of course based on the Dubois talented tenth Not just inter sectional as in existing , but that every breath or motion exists in our bodies and lives at multiple sometimes oppositional ends.

and that attempts to sustain this existence in any form are transgressive always or confrontational or violent where they are none.

One of the things I love about me is my appearance to be anywhere BUT my own country it seems.

I am Senegalese/Creole/Dominican/Brazilian/Carolina Geechee/ DEFINITELY west indian but NOT Guyanese

and Haitian

I may say it's the french but it's often before I open my mouth.

And it is often well lets be realistic most of the time that my radical self screams and chafes and just rages at the idea of being categorized without my permission , my ever awkward self demanding that peopel recognize teh one thing I often feel I have to call my own

but my nun /self the self that is always trying to be open and good and present

that self sees people looking for home for familiarity for knowledge in you in unfamiliar places.

From kids from your hood in the museum

foreigners well damn near everywhere

people find home in you even when you can't find it in yourself

i love that you fixate on words on ideas on concepts . That this letter is called a love letter to looting because you jsut can;t satnd that it's being used to describe people trying not to die.

Because you feel it in the pit of your stomach that it's what we have been called all our lives.

Looting someones "spot" by daring to be brighter
Looting someones comfort by daring to be hurt at a slight
Looting someone's success by daring to point out flaws
Looting the movement by daring to not work for free.
Looting your own future by daring to survive instead of " trying to do something better with your life"

Because in the end no one pays your bills feeds your family hears your cry makes your Damoclean choices

and because most off you just know it's looking looking for a way to organize a world that does not believe in you for your proper existence. That we understand that often being incomprehensible is a nice way of being dismissible

I think That is what I thought of when I read Lex's email and facebook post. That at the crux of it most of the problem isn;t actually ignorance, or meanness but shear incomprehensibility.

That we write create our media and push our lives in ways that are deemed " small"

because none of those women can imagine having to constantly reclaim your life your humanity every generation every new birth .

That sometimes yelling at Rupert Murdoch , or snarling at each other about whose incharge

can never mean as much as turning to saying .

"I see you , I hear you , and there is no wrong in your existence"

Even as you try to make yourself understand that.

I love that you even dare to try.

I love that you greet things and developments that match your Cassandra like propensity for prediction with equal measure of curse and hug. That you enjoy being right without relishing it,

I love that you erased that last sentence , You're learning!

I truly love your relish in being wrong . Because you wish to learn, you are open, you are fearfilled and that gives you courage.

I love you not because you are perfect or a specimen or a goddess but because you are you

love

Me and You and All of you

Love letters to looters

2010-01-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

Anger is Useful! New Podcast and Introducing the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series

2010-01-26T09:42:00.001-08:00

Who's afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Woman are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!

This week for your listening and reading pleasure we have the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors...meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan's angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai'a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon's Alternative School...plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham's own Shirlette Ammons!)

http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/final-angry-black-woman-podcast.mp3

And while you're at it...download or subscribe to the podcasts on itunes (search "brokenbeautiful press" in podcasts and we'll be all up in your eardrum!)

And just because my anger about racism, and sexism and gendered violence is based in my deep deep love for YOU and the world we deserve...BrokenBeautiful Press is happy to present The Little Black (Feminist) Book Series Volume 1: RAGE. Including that essay on June Jordan's Angry Letters and 4 other classic angry blogposts from the thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com. It's pocket-sized in case you need to hand it to someone who clearly doesn't get it. Get one on deck with a donation of 15 bucks or more all proceeds go to the Community Sustained Educational programming from Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!

Go to paypal.com and send your donation to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with RAGE in product line and your correct mailing address. (Or just holler at me if you have the divine insight to live in Durham.) There are only 20 so get yours soon :)

Apply for the School of Our Lorde Poetics Unit by January 25th!: Available in Durham and the Diaspora!

2010-01-05T08:56:00.001-08:00

The School of Our Lorde is comprised of 4 units of Thursday evening sessions that allow participants to deeply engage and build on the work of Audre Lorde as transmitted through the committed (obsessive) research of Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the poetics, teaching practices, political implications and publishing interventions of Audre Lorde’s work (and to enjoy delicious local desserts together) on Thursday evenings. Participants will also get coursepacks with some exclusive and unpublished materials on/by Lorde. Participants can choose to participate in one 3 week semester or the entire 4 month process. Engaging, interactive poetic childcare will be provided at every session with amazing activities imagined with and implemented by Beth Bruch!!!! No one who completes an application and can attend will be turned away.

February 2010: Poetics ****Applications Due January 25th 2010****

Poetics: Audre Lorde is best known as a warrior poet. In February, School of Our Lorde participants will get a change to deeply engage Lorde’s poetry (with the benefit of Lex’s archival research on her revisions) and write their own poetry. We will meet over dessert on Thursday February 4th, 11th and 18th (Audre’s b-day!!!!) and the poets will perform their own new or transformed work at a community reading on Saturday February 20th.

Apply for the poetics course here: School of Our Lorde Poetics Application (pdf version)

School of Our Lorde Poetics Application

email applications to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com or drop them off at the Inspiration Station (email for directions)

Distance Learning

For those of you who are not lucky enough to live in Durham, NC right now...don't worry. Audre Lorde and I both believe in long-distance love.

You can participate in the School of Our Lorde long-distance in 3 ways:

Host Your Own Satellite Campus!:

Why not have School of Our Lorde at your organization or in YOUR living room!? If you can gather 5 or more people to participate in any unit you can get a course packet with the course readings and worksheets to guide you through each session. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Our vision is that each Satellite Campus will be able to make a sliding scale contribution of $75-200 per unit. No group will be turned away.

To become a host, email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with what session you'd like to host and your vision!

Independent Study:

Let us know how the School of Our Lorde poetics, pedagogy, politics of publishing process can support something you are working on with/for your community. You will get a course packet and worksheets. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Fill out the application for the appropriate unit here: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/registration/

and get 7 people to financially support your participation. Our hope is that each independent student will raise between $50-150 to contribute to the School of Our Lorde. No one will be turned away!

Lorde as Our Witness:

You can participate in the School of our Lorde through this blog. There will be weekly video blog updates and reflections from the local participants and you can always post comments and questions here and I'll respond. Feel free to spread the good news in your community so one day you can host a School of Our Lorde institute where you live!

Best Gift Ever: Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind DVDs.

2009-11-27T15:06:00.001-08:00

Watch, share, enjoy, repost! If you'd like to order a DVD with these videos and more to use in your classroom (and to support the MobileHomeComing Community Documentation and Education Project) make a donation of $15 or more to the MobileHomeComing Project!

1) Click DONATE.
2) Enter an Amount and note that you are ordering the DVD.
3) Click Continue.
(or login to your paypal account).
4) Follow instructions to finish your transaction. You're Done!

For a copy of our budget or any more information please email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com

Here is the listing!

And to watch some previews check out: http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/eternal-summer-of-the-black-feminist-mind-educational-videos/!

love,
lex

Be Bold Be Re(a)d: The Podcast

2009-10-29T20:52:00.001-07:00

3 years ago women of color came together and transformed what it meant to transform terror on Halloween, declaring October 31st Be Bold Be Red Day, a day for women of color and allies to speak out against violence against women. And 30 years ago women of color came together to respond to violence in the same critical and poetic spirit.

Towards the world the we all deserve, fully transformed from the misogyny and internalized racism we face in popular music to the frightening expendability of the lives and bodies of women of color this podcast places the brave voices of women telling the truth about gendered violence over the remixed sounds of Miles Davis. This year we take every sound back, starting with our own voices and the background that seeks to silence them.

Listen with your community, your class, your friends, your study group, your church, your crew, pass the link on or listen by yourself and see, hear and wear red.

listen here

[audio http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3]

or download here: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3

Lex Available for Lectures and Workshops!

2009-08-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

This year Alexis is using her best developed and most cherished skill-the art of the life-changing workshop-to raise funds to support her decision to spend the next year doing the MobileHomeComing an immersive intergenerational community documentation and education project based on her lust for back queer community! (It's weird that somehow I have to be consistent with a choice to talk about myself in the third person here, but I want to interject in the first person to say that your support means everything to me and it is evidence of the fact that it is possible to be a community supported, community accountable scholar in the 21st Century. :)

Bring Alexis to your campus, community center, to speak, or do a workshop that you will never forget!

at the Furious Flower Poetry Center!

Lectures:

Alexis is available to speak on a variety of topics and has tons of experiences speaking to audiences at elementary schools, college campuses, community centers, rallies, conferences and workshops. Click on the links for examples of public talks she has given in the past. She might particularly be a great person to complement your community or campus programming during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Love Your Body Week, Celebration of Black Womanhood Week, Black Heritage Month, Women's History Month, National Coming Out Day, Mother's Day or throw tokenism to the wind and bring Alexis to speak and make any old day of the year a day filled with hope and magic!

Alexis's Academic CV

Workshops:

(Most workshops are available either as a one time session, a day-long intensive or a series within the NC Triangle or Triad areas. Get in touch about what works best for your community. Below are workshops that I have facilitated many times before. I can also design workshops specifically for your needs :)

Movement

Pressed for Knowledge: Alexis has facilitated this miraculous zine making workshop all over the United States in communities, on college campuses and at conferences. In this workshop participants (whether they are part of an existing group or are meeting for the first time on the day of the workshop) use the resources of urgency, homegrown brilliance and whatever's around to create their own publication in less than 2 hours. Alexis leads participants in a process of choosing an audience, a theme that connects their passions and a work structure and a group evaluation process for their own urgent publication! (NEW!!! Pressed for Knowledge is now available in a video version...where participants create and edit their own video in an amazingly short period of time!)

Grassroots Literary Production: Due to her experience leading the Pressed for Knowledge workshop and facilitating students at Duke University, UNC-Greensboro and the SpiritHouse Choosing Sides program in the creation of their own online and print collaborative publications, Alexis can train teachers, faculty and community cultural workers to make publication a part of their programming.

The Activist Impulse: Similar to the Pressed for Knowledge Workshop, this workshops leads participants through a process of deciding on, designing and enacting and evaluating a site-specific direct action. Alexis has led this workshop with a class of Duke University Students, at the Ethnic Studies and the Activist Impulse Symposium at Columbia University, the Beyond the Box Conference at Barnard College, the Anarchist People of Color SouthEast Regional Conference and more!

Legacy

(These workshops are grounded in Alexis's years of black feminist research and spiritual practice and are ideal for a community organization, school, department or group of people interested in how the theory, practice, poetry and lessons of black feminist practice apply to their present conditions)

Letters to Audre: developed in a special writing enrichment course that Alexis designed for Africana Women's Studies majors at Bennett College for Women, this workshop or series of workshops introduces participants to key works by black feminist lesbian poet, scholar, activist Audre Lorde. Participants create their own versions of/responses to poems and essays by Audre Lorde including Litany for Survival and The Uses of Anger. Participatns also write their own poetic letters to this literary feminist ancestor. See www.letterstoaudre.wordpress.com for examples. Alexis is also available to lead seminars for faculty, teachers, and community educators on Teaching Audre Lorde.

Letters to June: Along a similar model as the Letters to Audre Workshop, this curriculum was developed for a feminist theory course at UNC-Greensboro. Participants will write their own "Poem About My Rights" and "What's Love Got to Do With It" and also engage some of Jordan's lesser known and unpublished pieces. Alexis is also available to use her privileged access as the first researcher to view June Jordan's archival papers to lead seminars on Teaching June Jordan.

Litany for Survival: The Poetics of Community Building This writing and movement workshop, designed in collaboration with Ebony Golden starts from the grounding point of Audre Lorde's Litany for Survival and leads participants through a process of analyzing the poem for themselves, using theater of the oppressed methodologies to demonstrate what survival means for them and creating their own praise poems towards the survival of their own communities. This workshop was debuted at the Brecht Forum in New York City with an amazing response.

In Your Hands: The Depth of Legacy: based on a spiritual experience that Alexis had of recieving and writing down letters from chosen, (and uninvited!) black feminist ancestors including Fannie Lou Hamer, Nayo Watkins, Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler and her own grandmother (see the letters and the video documentation of the process here) this workshop is designed to facilitate participants in listening for and to the legacies of their own chosen traditions. Alexis will facilitate a disucssion of some of the insights in the letters she recieved and each participant will leave with a plan and a way to make space for their own insights.

Sustainability

(these workshops are designed to keep community members, community organizers, students and teachers ALIVE AND WELL with full access to their love for themselves, each other and their inspired purpose!)

Habit Forming Love: This workshop shares the gifts of a 21 day process in which Alexis sought to learn how to love herself, her partner and her community better and to train herself in online video production and distribution. Available as a one time workshop or a skills building series, this workshop will allow participants to use new media technology to deepen and activate their love for themselves, their chosen family and their communities. Browse Alexis's video project here.

Mother Ourselves: Created in collaboration with Zachari Curtis for the Gumbo Yaya Sister Circle, and inspired by Audre Lorde's essay "Eye to Eye," this workshop provides participants with a safe space to examine their thoughts about the meaning of "mothering," and allows participants to explore what it might mean to nurture, teach and transform themselves. In this workshop we work in partners, listen to our bodies, use mirrors and talk about the affirming and difficult process of reflections linked to our varied experiencs with mothering.

Sustainability for Organizers and Activists: The workshop, designed for (and with) the organizers and visionaries in Critical Resistance, is about ENDING ACTIVIST BURN OUT!!!! Remembering that we, our bodies and our spirits are the most important resources for change, this workshop facilitates organizers in identifying the resources that keep them inspired and practices that can keep/get us well. Every participant leaves with their own visible reminder of their own wellness insights!

Vision

(These workshop are ideal for a community organization/project/coalition at a stage of inception or renewal.)

Dig: Grounding Community Transformation in Local Resources

Based on Alexis's poem dig, this workshop is designed to get community members in touch with the secrets, issues, and resources in their own communities and to build a shared analysis of those resources as a guide for their community projects and alliances. Each community will leave with at the very least, a group poem, new clarity about their resources and projects that connect and align their existing resources. The "dig" exercise has been enacted in Greensboro, Miami, Asheville and Gainesville as part of the Grassroots Media Justice Tour.

Wishful Thinking: Vision and Actualization Based on Alexis's poem in honor of black women and survivors of sexual violence in her community and recorded as a track on the SPEAK! CD this workshop leads participants through a meditation about their desires for their local communities and communities of affinity. Participants will leave with a community wishlist and individual affirmations. To see some of the results of the version of Wishful Thinking facilitated with the Speak Media Collective at the Women and Action in the Media Conference see www.wakeupnew.blogspot.com.

Support the Work:

(all proceeds go towards Alexis's work on the mobilehomecoming project and do not include travel and accomodation. Priority will be given to institutions in Lex's home region of the North Carolina Triangle and Triad areas.)

Lectures:

Colleges and University-$1000 for lecture or poetic performance ($2500 for a lecture or poetic performance, Q&A and an additional classroom visit)

Community Center/Non-profit- $200-300 for lecture ($500 for lecture and workshop)

Autonomous Community Spaces (independent bookstores, churches etc.)- $100 for lecture(with the possibility of just passing the hat if we can also have publications for sale)

Workshops:

( each workshop will result in a publication/poem/major accomplishment for participants to keep and for the sponsor to be proud of!):

Colleges and Universities- $1000 ($3500 for a series)

Community Center/Non-profit- $300-500 (discounts for smaller or rural orgs, talk to me) ($850-1000 for a series)

Living Rooms/Kitchen Tables- $100 or gather your people, pass the hat and have some yummy food on hand and I'm there!!! (maybe I was a travelling black feminist preacher in a past life...)

All suggested prices are really suggested. Get in touch. (brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com)

We can work something out.

********************************************************************************************************************

First Ever Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind PODCAST!!!!

2009-08-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

Check out this FIRST EVER PODCAST as part of the BrokenBeautiful Press educational campaign "Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind." Black Feminism LIVES by every means necessary.

What does it take to survive a year like 1979?

This first podcast is about the year 1979 and how the world, and black feminism began and ended in some crucial ways that year. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the Boston Murders, the Atlanta Child Murders and the Greensboro Massacre all attacking the the lives, minds and spirits of black women 1979 was a crucial year. This podcast focuses on how Audre Lorde, Alexis DeVeaux, June Jordan and Barbara Smith reach(ed) across time and space to transform the meaning of survival. (And there is some good period appropriate and anachronistic music too!)

download here:
http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/08/1979.m4a

Please leave comments here!

p.s. Sorry about the moments of outburst distortion. A sista is clearly super exuberantly excited about black feminism and promises to stay a little further away from the mic on podcast number two! :)

Ideas from the Strategy Session at AMC 2009

2009-07-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

From the ACTIVATING AUDIENCES GROUP
*having meals with movies and conversations! (i.e. www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com)
From the THIS SHIT IS CRITICAL GROUP which talked about responding to stereotypes about women of color (cis and trans) and genderqueer folks of color by building even stronger love we have the brilliant ideas of
*The Kitchen Table reading series (okay i just appropriated that name)
-it's proposed that as folks of color fighting for gender justice across multiple communities of color we would benefit from reading together and working out some of the assumptions and divisions we have between us
-seems that the idea would be to discuss readings in our local communities, possibly have calls to discuss across space and then document our insights together online?
-articles like Andrea Smith's Three Pillars of White Supremacy were suggested...any more suggestions?
-Sydette has also suggested a database that goes along with the readings that documents the process, guidelines for working through deep issues with love and interviews with each other about the readings
-Lex offers that we could use a blog to post readings as pdf's (or links to library locations of books)
*"photo exhibit to create realistic images of what young people of color look like, not what you see on the (mainstream) media" (for example: the Alternative Windows Project by FUFA and http://www.thebeautifulproject.org/)

*How We Do Certification: "make sure we aren't just talking the talk, makes sure our orgs are rigorous and fierce and practicing what they preach, flat pay scale." Guidelines, checklists, curriculum and training for how our groups and events can be truly accessible and live up to our radical values and a space to highlight groups that aredoing this well so we can emualte. Queer Renaissance's Queer of Color and Allied (QOCA) guidelines Safe Outside the System's community summit curriculum, CripChick's accessibility list and Noemi's guide for how and why to include parents are good resources for this. This would also be useful as a standard to certify institutions like healthcare providers, public spaces that aren't necessarily movement orgs...but would help us know where we can find safe affirming space.

From the Renewable WEsources Group:

*Free anticapitalist classified list (like Craig's) - Resources like: space, software, time/volunteers, hardware, skills, etc. within a radical cis and trans women of color and genderqueer folks (only) coalition or framework.
*A network of local Public TV & Radio - a network of Radical women of color that can share content, info and mobilize national when necessary; can cover large media events that are/are not local.
*A Call to Action Network (similar to what Color of Change does...online calls to action...but with an Intersectional Gender Justice analysis)
*Tool lending space that's accessible to radical women of color and allies.

Media as Healing:
*use Cyberquilting to make local and undervalued (but priceless) work visible...especially COMMUNITY GARDENING and CHILDCARE
*a publication about self-care and well-being FOR US
*a partnership with Kindred: Healing Justice Network (http://kindredhealingjustice.org/)

So holler back to this list if you are ready to get popping on any of these specific ideas

practices from many groups...:

going off the grid for resources

one on one dialogues

spray wash youtube!

better media networking between on the ground workers and online media makers

Renewable Funding Sources - Family, Friends, In-Kind Donations, Sending letters to get support.

Young people's energy, ideas, access to new technology/media.

Writing one another into our grants to have consistent sustainable income.

Share administrative tasks/roles. For example, joint payroll, accounting, grant writing, training, web development, professional services, so on.

Acces university resources (fiscal and otherwise). Like working with campus orgs to have and pay speakers and/or teachers for workshops and lectures.
Accessing university resources via students/faculty/staff for copies, printing, access to labs, etc.

Resisting the university "big business" for change and accountability. Examples given of this happening sucessfullyresulting in jobs, and community benefits.

- University contracts require community benefits within the contract that stipulate a certain amount and/or type of jobs for the community, health care standards, money to community, other stipulated terms.

Anticapitalist (and other radical stances) in fiction films that are/are not centered on that particular stance. People should see many alternatives to the current unsustainable ways of being by accident and on purpose.

Be critical about the media you consume. Try not to consume unhealthy media.

Google maps as away to share info ex. share info about toxic industry locations, safe spaces, radical women of color identified spaces.

Speak - INCITE! - Cyberquilting Chat 6-9-09

2009-06-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

Speak - INCITE! - Cyberquilting Chat 6-9-09

Who was there --

Nadia, Adele, Stacey, Jenny, Alisa, Zachari, Alexis

What we know about the skillshare so far--

3 hours and 20 minutes
Draft description: Shawty got skills2hare! -- join your favorite radical women of color for in depth training with some of the most awesome and often overlooked tools for organizing! Facilitators will guide participants through a 40 minute hands on experience of 4 seasons of activism. We'll sit with you and each technology and help you figure out how best it can be deployed to build the work you want to do in the world! Did you know that hating can end violence against women of color? or that urban foraging creates a bright new day? That a quilt can bring about media justice? We can show you all that and more if you stop through the skillshare workshop!
Time will be divided up into 4 "seasons" of media-making: a "bright new day" visioning season, an ending violence season, a media justice season and a nurturing long distance community season

What we know about the strategy session so far--

15 min framing/Intro creative presentation of the definition of radical women of color media
Roughly 1 hour for strategizing in small groups
We will trust that a lot of great ideas will emerge for break-out topics, but we will also plant a few topics
One planted topic will be: building an online space for all of us to collaborate and supporting / bridging the online spaces that already exist
We need to figure out what the other plants will be, and how many
People will break off into whatever topic they feel called towards
10 min hot potato introductions at the end, potentially: name, where your from/org, favorite superhero
We will pass around a video camera to collect interview introductions throughout the session ("greet your neighbor" style). We will need more than one camera in order for this to be efficient.
Zachari will facilitate the 2 introduction pieces
Alisa will be plan A for facilitating the break-out section
We will end with a strong "Next Steps" piece which Lex may be down to facilitate.

Questions--

What will the 15 minute intro piece include? Presentations from the skillshare? Examples of rwoc using media as part of grassroots organizing, such as NJ7, Be Bold, Be Red? A performance/reading of the statement on the poster? A video inspired by the poster?
How do we want to generate the ideas for topics on the spot? Brainstorm on butcher paper? Give people 5 min to mingle around the room and talk to each other about potential topics, so people can gauge interest in their topic before proposing it?
How much time should we leave for small groups? Should there be reportbacks? How much time should we allow for Next Steps?
Who will facilitate the opening / intro part?
Who will be plan B for facilitating the break-out section?
What will the other plants be? How many "seedlings" do we want to have on deck? How many empty pots do we want to leave for participants to fill on the spot?
What can we call the topics, other than "topics"? "gathering points" ? "seeds"?
Who can draft a description of the strategy session?

INCITE! / Speak / Cyberquilting Strategy Session

2009-05-04T15:54:00.000-07:00

Notes from April 21st 8pm conference call between members of INCITE!, Speak and Cyberquilting on structuring the strategy session to take place at the 2009 Allied Media Conference, July 17-19.

Your feedback is necessary! I know I didn't get everything so if you have more notes or context to add, please do.
--

Check-in

What SPEAK has been up to: Hosted last year's conversation with INCITE! (the first time we were Speak in public). Recorded our CD after the AMC and are now selling it! speak's vision of rwoc hub online intersects with cyberquiltings media justice patch, incites blog, and ravens eye. Listening parties.
What INCITE has been up to: Many chapters and affiliates using media (ywep research zine, creative interventions, mamis of color rising zines). Working on an Incite! blog: should it be for internal comm, resource sharing, or external rwoc organizing convergence point? we knew it must be deeply connected with woc bloggers + existing work, then began thinking of something like indymedia site, with collective posting and editing.
What CYBERQUILTING has been up to: The different patches are media justice, ending violence against woc, building a new day. Be Bold Be Red. Tested out the video-conferenceing technology, learned alot. The visibility of seeing people in real-time was electrifying. Have been experimenting with the technology. Adele and Fallon travelled to SA Assoc of Women's Rights in Development to do a CQ session. practiced saying what u have, what u need, and how we can collaborate to make it --> got 1st grant Using what you have to build what we need collectively. Got a grant to do a CQ training in Chicago. Not about creating new work, but nurturing work that's already happening. Working towards regional trainings in the 5 cities. -love letters sent to all woc orgs we <3 -cyberquilting sessions at home to see what ppl have and need locally-how to connect to incite and speak: media justice component

--

INCITE! - Speak - Cyberquilting - RWOC Community Organizers and Media Makers Strategy Session

Goal this year: strategizing around shared online spaces

> How do we build solid structures of communication?
> How to assess the skills we have in our community - and how to share them.
> How do we create safe spaces to bring up issues within our own "safe spaces" as women of color?
>Generational issues with the Internet and its possibilities
>Not only Can you build community online, but, Can you build community through media?

2 main categories of rwoc online media we're talking about:
-1- the media we as woc organizers use/want to use media to relate to each other
-2- the media we want to put out into the world to represent us

--

3 hour skillshare
90 min strategy session
a later meal-time caucus

--

for the 90 min strategy session:

Begin by presenting the definition of radical women of color media in some creative way

We want to use the definition of radical women of color media from last year as a foundation for the conversation this year. Last year there was about an hour of abstract conversation about why corporate media is fucked up. It's not necessary to dwell on what corporate media does, let's focus on empowering our people as media makers. The small group visioning sessions were much more clear and concise.

Have people give introductions

Breakout where people come up with the topics they want

Small groups

Synthesize

Closing

BrokenBeautiful Blooming!: The Spring Update

2009-05-04T04:24:00.001-07:00

It's Spring!!! That bright, sexy season when we remember the full color of the world and everything becomes possible again! So what better way to celebrate the rebirth of the planet than to break your beautiful spirit out of its shell?

BrokenBeautiful Press (www.brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com) is ready for your reawakening with exciting new projects for you to check out, participate in and support.

On the move:

a queer black mobilehomecoming

BrokenBeautiful Press is partnering with Queer Renaissance to embark on a monumental journey in celebration of the bravery and genuis of the trailblazers of the black queer/lesbian/gender-non-conforming community. Think "black lesbian Eyes on the Prize" y'all! A year from today Alexis and Julia will be getting in an environmentally sustainable RV and hitting the road to learn, document and transmit the legacies of brave black queer warriors who have been transforming the meaning of life since the 1980's or earlier and hosting amazing intergenerational community education events all over the US. To find out more and to offer resources, advice or financial support go to: www.mobilehomecoming.wordpress.com

SPEAK!: Support Radical Mamis of Color!
BrokenBeautiful Press is proud to celebrate the birth of the most radical spoken word CD ever. Think This Bridge Called My Back in audio form! Speak Media Collective, a group of radical women of color transforming the world through new media, has launched a self-titled spoken word CD as a grassroots fundraiser to support the participation of young mothers of color in the Allied Media Conference. Help moms and kids of color travel to this national media gathering and get your mind blown at the same time. The CD includes a zine and a curriculum guide for using the CD in your community and classroom. To get your copy go to www.speakmediacollective.com

Community Education:
Combahee Survival: A Movement Revival:
In 1977 a crew of radical black socialist lesbian feminists wrote a document that changed the landscape of social justice forever. More than 30 years later young black feminists are tracking the survival of the analysis of interlocking oppressions and holistic transformation that the members of the Combahee River Collective stood for in the progressive community at large. The Combahee Survival Project is a dispersed community education project that shines light on and nurtures the seeds of a radical intersectional approach all over our social justice movement. Go to www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com to see poetic activities that draw on the words of the original statement, examples from community organizers who are still wrestling with the issues the collective raised and worksheets to use in your community, and look out for the Survival/Revival activity of the week brought to you by BrokenBeautiful Press all summer long!

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind
In Durham, North Carolina (aka vanguard city, center of the universe) a growing, diverse and beautiful group of folks have gathered in the name of black feminism. With delicious potlucks to discuss key essays by black feminists, fieldtrips to hear black feminist poetry, and more we are acting on our faith that the radical work of visionaries like Claudia Jones, Angela Davis, June Jordan can inform and transform our city and our lives. And like-minded devotees in Chicago, DC and other cities have joined in. Follow along, find out about upcoming events and download free reading material at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com

Interact!!!!!

Habit Forming Love: The Video Project:
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, so your girl Alexis decided to cultivate the habit of loving herself and her people (you!) fully, bravely, loudly and proudly. What better habit could there be? Experimenting with (and teaching herself) the art of internet video production and sharing she created videos of love for self, love in community and growing love for her sweetheart. Now it's your turn! Go to www.habitforminglove.wordpress.com
to browse Lex's videos and make your own!

In Your Hands: Letters from Ancestors
Alexis started the year with a life-changing, spirit-humbling process of receiving letters from black feminist ancestors who gave loving advice, welcome reminders and sometimes difficult challenges and lessons. Read letters from Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, Lydia May Gumbs (lex's grandma), Toni Cade Bambara and more at www.motherourselves.wordpress.com and add your own letters about your communication with your chosen and familial ancestors.

It's Spring! Anything is possible, even you and the life-changing love that makes your spirit tingle and grow.

Stay fly!
love always,
BrokenBeautiful Press
brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com

Habit Forming Love!

2009-04-13T10:15:00.001-07:00

Introducing Habit Forming Love,

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit…so on March 4th 2009 I embarked on a journey to love myself, my community and my chosen romantic partner intentionally, bravely, loudly and proudly. And now I am ready to share the results with you! In addition to teaching myself how to love, by transmitting my love via internet video I was also teaching myself how to make simple yet effective at home videos using my computer, my phone and very basic editing software and how to make those videos internet accessible.

This experiment has taught me so much. I have emerged less self-conscious about my own face, more confident about the miraculous vitality of love in all of its forms and more adept at using online video as a tool for self-expression, affirmation and community education.

The three focus areas of my project were

Self:

for example:

(Go to www.loveforself.blogspot.com to see the whole 21 day process)

Community

for example…

(Go to www.habitforminglove.blogspot.com for the whole 21 day process)

and Romantic Love

(Sorry loves…the whole process is for Julia’s eyes only wink!)

Browse the “life” “love” and “community” sections of this site to see some of my more detailed reflections on each process and more examples.

One of the most important things that this process taught me is that even an analog girl in a digital world can make compelling, effective video. I don’t have to be perfect to carry the message of love that my ancestors are speaking through me and the video doesn’t have to be perfect to carry it’s message. The magic is in the medium. Try it yourself, and email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to share!

love (is a habit),

lex

In Your Hands

2009-02-10T06:42:00.000-08:00

Introducing In Your Hands: A Letter Receiving Project
Since love is not scarce, our ancestors bathe us in it every moment that we dare to receive.

I have learned that there are sources of nurturing that are older than us and swifter than our bodies. I am noticing that those who are no longer here in physical form are teachers in the wind, showing us how we must relate to each other, if we want to survive longer than our bodies and longer than a system that denies us.

I have been writing urgent letters to my ancestors since before I knew they were watching and on the cusp of this new year they whispered a suggestion to me. “How about for this new year, as a gift to yourself, you receive some letters from us, the spirits of women that love you from eternity?”

As ever, my answer was yes. These daily letters from the most beloved of my known and chosen ancestors on behalf of all of the ancestors who have sent us love with their lives and dreams without us knowing came at exactly the right time. When I was afraid to trust myself, I was not afriad to trust their guidance for me. I re-learned a shifting methodology of loving myself firstly as their vessel and secondly as their recipient

Here is a letter I received from Fannie Lou Hamer:

Child,

And they didn’t want me to have any. I need you to stay awake. This life is not the only one, but you are here for a reason. I feel you holding your chest, pressing down on your heart in fear and memory of how I was taken, how June was taken, how so many were taken, Lord. And I say better, you hear me, better to eat our own bodies than to give our lives over to complacency and submission on their terms. Better to become acrobats than to fit into the narrow box they have for us. But even better baby, would be to live breathing deep and free and living yourself with a healing strength of faith and vision for all of us. Even better to reach out for community so you have what you need to keep yourself whole.

You remember what I said about sick and tired and remember what we sacrificed and why. Remember that we had you in mind and heart. And you aren’t out in any field (except that homemade field of love June talks about) breaking your back all day, and don’t contort yourself into the shape of our pain. Grow and dance into the beauty of our dream for you and all of ours.

There is more love here than anything.

Eat it up while it’s hot.

Fannie Lou

And my ancestors are socialist, so of course they would ask me to share these intimate insights and gifts with you. Of course they would want me to bring their messages to your waiting ears, but more than that I want to share this practice and encourage that you engage it for yourself.

I don’t know what ancestors speak to you or why and when they do, but I have been asked to ask you to listen, lovingly for what the universe wants you to know.

Can you join me? Think of the people who have influenced you, while they were living or through their written, or retold legacies. Just think about them and let your mind relax, let their energy surround and fill you. Create quiet times in your days in case they have something to say.

I encourage you to add your insights here on the “your letters” page if your feel that what you have received could provide healing and wisdom for the rest of us. I encourage you keep your writings for yourself if you feel that they should remain private. The messages of our living dead are sacred. They transcend the norms of intellectual property, and they should be treasured by your best impulse.

My intention here is to share with you an abiding sustaining faith in presence of those who have gone before and their participation in our everyday.

I invite your observance or participation with love.

Always,

alexis

Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!!!

2008-12-28T16:07:00.001-08:00

Due to the huge and affirming response to BrokenBeautiful Press's Summer of Our Lorde we are THRILLED to present the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, a portable progressive series based in Durham North Carolina in partnership with SpiritHouse, Southerners on New Ground, UBUNTU, the Land and Sustainability Working Group, Kindred Healing Justice Collective and more.

In 1977 the Combahee River Collective wrote a key black feminist manifesta groundbreaking in it’s assertion that the “major systems of oppression are interlocking. You are invited to the first session on the groundbreaking black feminist document The Combahee River Collective Statement. Download it at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com
and check out some radical exercises at www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com

In Durham we'll be discussing it on January 7th. Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for details and feel free to read along wherever you are and comment here!

See you (t)here!!!!!

SPEAK!: a CD by Radical Women of Color

2008-12-17T10:38:00.000-08:00

Defining, and Re-Defining, a Woman

2008-12-14T14:55:00.001-08:00

I've just posted my thoughts on the issue of women as individuals being erased from our culture at my Illume magazine blog, but wanted to throw out some more fleshed out thoughts on this issue. The Illume blog is geared towards Muslims, and I wrote about how Islam does not limit the definition of women to their relation to men (contrary to what you may see in many so-called Islamic cultures).

What started this whole line of thinking, as I mention in that post, is that my son asked me if I'd ever noticed how Mrs. Claus is only known as "Mrs. Claus". We don't know who she was prior to marrying Santa, how they met, or what she does besides make cookies, serve Santa, and act as a surrogate mother to the elves. Granted, we are talking about a fictional character, but my initial reaction to my son's questions was that this points to a larger cultural issue.

I suppose I should be clear that I am not advocating that a woman's role as wife and mother is meaningless, shallow, or not a valid expression of herself. In fact, I think they are extremely important roles, and I respect women who take those roles seriously.

What I do want to further explore, however, is what I view as the erasure of women outside of our connection to our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. Certainly I do not think this is a new or Western-only issue. Patriarchy crosses cultural boundaries and has seeped into all cultures to some degree, even those that were once known to be women-centered.

In modern society, it seems that we are forced to choose one or the other reality. We can either be wives and mothers, or we can be professional women. As activists, I think women are demanding that we not be forced to choose between these roles. I know many single mamis who are activists, writers, artists, and also "working mums", and their children are actively engaged in their art and activism as well! Some of those women don't even view themselves as activists and yet I recognize them as such. These are the women I look up to.

I don't want to be known as "the Nica's ex-wife" or "X's mom" ONLY. I am tired of being introduced as "A.R.'s sister" as if I do not exist as an individual separate from those roles defined by the men I love.

I don't, however, have the answers to what all this means or how exactly to counteract it.

Taking Control for Myself

2008-11-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

I recently read a theory that women make drastic physical changes when their life is in turmoil. The theory posits that we do this as a means of taking control over the one thing we feel we can control: our own bodies. The theory specifically cited hair cuts as an example; when happy and stable, women prefer their hair long, but when in times of crisis, stress, or difficulty women cut their hair off.

There is some demonstrable truth to the theory. Think of Frida Kahlo’s statement upon learning of yet another of Diego’s affairs… she cut off her waist-length tresses, at home, on her own, into a rather “manly” short cropped cut. Certainly we can all think of instances in our own lives or the lives of women we love who have suddenly cut it all off after a divorce, prolonged illness, death of a family member or other “trauma”. In the same way, we know of women who after having been conservative or simply “stuck” in one style or color for a long time suddenly begin changing color frequently or trying completely new cuts and styles, and we wonder at the seeming schizophrenia of their hair.

There is another truth also that isn’t accounted for in these theories. The theory assumes chaos, trauma, depression, angst – negativity. But what of the positive side of such changes? What is so wrong with a woman taking control of her body and her style and expressing herself as she desires?

Where the theory falls short is that it a) neglects to take into account differing cultural norms, b) fails to recognize that the changes in ones life may be good changes and that the physical changes are marking the transformation, and c) some women have been “forced” into a set way of looking and finally feel free to express themselves through their physical choices.

I have recently made some changes. You could say it is trauma, but I would beg to differ with you. I was divorced more than a year-and-a-half ago and am still wrestling with that emotionally. It has taken me this long to come to terms with the fact that my husband probably really isn’t coming back. Though we remain friends, I can see that he doesn’t want to be a husband, doesn’t want to be the kind of husband I need. I also recently made the decision to start looking for a new husband and very quickly found that I was mistaken that it is what I really want. Perhaps it is that I am still not ready, or perhaps it is that I have become comfortable with my independence and don’t find much that a husband can really offer me that I don’t have on my own. This is a drastic and frightening step for a Muslim woman to take, though I am convinced that I am not the only Muslim woman to feel this way.

As I said, I’ve just recently made a few changes. Initially, I shaved off all my hair for medical reasons. I was having surgery in early July and the prospect of six weeks of semi-bed rest, all alone, in the summer, made me think I wouldn’t have the energy to properly care for my hair. After the surgery, when I healed quite quickly and found that I was able to care for my needs much easier than anticipated, I decided I had better start growing it back out right away. My concern for growing it out, however, was because “that is what a husband is going to expect”. I was planning to begin marriage discussions, and I was embarrassed to think I might get married and be seen for the first time by my husband after the contract was already signed, and he would be shocked by my lack of hair.

It is only after those talks have fallen through, and upon further discussion with my ex-husband and my acceptance that he is not going to change, that I came to the conclusion that I don’t want to do something (or not do something) because of what a potential spouse might think of it. I want to be accepted as I am. I had worn my hair short for years before my son was born, and on various occasions since. It is easier for me to manage and more comfortable for me. My hair is quite heavy when long and difficult to keep inside my hijab scarf. The weight of it contributes to my frequent headaches, and the mess of it makes me crazy. So I’ve decided to keep it very short. And to dye it a color I like. My mother asked me “why dye it if no one ever sees it anyway?” and I said “for me.”

Another change I made, just for me, was to get some new earrings. In high school, I wore five earrings in one ear and two in the other. For years now I haven’t worn an “odd set” of earrings because I wanted to be “pretty” for whichever husband I was with at the time.
Despite not wearing earrings in any of the upper holes in years, they are still open. The first holes, I have worn earrings in but they itch and bother me quickly so though I have a huge and fun earring collection I rarely wear them. Yesterday I purchased two sets of small gold hoops. I now have three earrings in one ear, and one in the other. I considered putting studs into the higher holes, but they would be pressed against by my underscarf and uncomfortable.

Rather than worrying what any potential spouse expects of me, I have decided to just be me. Any potential spouse, if there ever is another potential spouse, isn’t the right one if he can’t accept that. I feel beautiful and comfortable as I am and don’t want to conform to someone else’s ideal. So whereas the theory claims that it is a sign of distress when a woman takes control of her body, and indeed there is some truth to that, I would argue that just as often it is a sign of self-acceptance and freedom for a woman to do so. And I recommend it!

Besides, hair grows back.

Rosa Clemente talks to Adele Nieves on ZNet

2008-10-31T09:57:00.000-07:00

Rosa Clemente is one of the most prominent activists of our generation. She is a nationally renowned speaker, writer, and journalist - one of the most important independent journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - and in 2001 was a youth representative at the United Nations World Conference against Xenophobia, Racism, and Related Intolerance. She continues to organize conferences focused on the empowerment of young people of color, working in colleges, community centers, and prisons. In 2008, she accepted the Green Party nomination for vice-president on the Cynthia McKinney presidential ticket. This is an interview conducted by Adele Nieves in mid-October.

Check it out: http://www.zmag.org/znet

Link:http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/19274

p.s. YAAAAAAAAY Adele!

Thus Saith the Lorde

2008-10-27T16:47:00.001-07:00

I am writing these words as a route map
an artifact for survival...

History is not kind to us
we restitch it with living
past memory forward
into desire
into the panic articulation
of want without having
or even the promise of getting.

And I dream of our coming together
encircled driven
not only by love
but by lust for a working tomorrow
the flights of this journey
mapless uncertain
and necessary as water.

-Audre Lorde
"On My Way Out I Passed Over You
and the Verrazano Bridge"

this is not a poem (about trust)

2008-10-06T18:59:00.000-07:00

trust
to me
is the middle school support group
for kids with divorced parents
we met weekly

speaking in all the ways we can to each other
and to our own selves too - remembering that once we put our shit on the paper we don't have to show anyone/everyone the paper.

trusting myself first

trusting my friends after _____________________
trusting my family _________________ or not _________________ because ___________
trusting myself __________________
trusting myself __________________
trusting myself __________________

getting comfortable with __________________________ because the past is not changing!
getting comfortable with __________________________ because it is life

the electricity of our love
powering cellphones texting digital love letters flooding the radio waves with our songs every tv show glorifies our bodies and intellect we share wisdom with each other in every newspaper article we

never stop writing
for all those girls you know
who can't say it
for yourself--all the times you didn't say it

trust yourself
to
do
it
right.

Combahee Survival Reborn

2008-10-05T09:46:00.001-07:00

Check out the new Combahee Survival Project from BrokenBeautiful Press!

We were never meant to survive. None of us. We were never meant to find each other, love each other, remember the warriors that came before. We were never meant to know these histories. We were never meant to turn our trauma into a map for transformation. We were never meant to survive. But we do it anyway.

Break it down. Sur viv al. Life underneath waiting to embrace all of us. Survival is a poem written in a corner, found waiting in a basement, forgotten. Survival is when the timeliness of your word is more important than the longevity of one body. Survival is spirit connected through and past physical containers. Survival is running for your life and then running for Albany city council without consenting to the State. Survival is shaping change while change shapes you. Survival means refusing to believe the obvious. Survival means remembering the illegal insights censored in the mouths of our mothers. Survival is quilt patterns, garden beds. Survival means growing, learning, working it out. Survival is a formerly enslaved black woman planning and leading a battle that freed 750 slaves from inside an institution called the United States Military. Survival is out black lesbians creating a publishing movement despite an interlocking system of silences. Survival is a group of black women recording their own voices, remembering a river, a battle, a warrior and creating a statement to unlock the world. Survival is like that.

We were never meant to survive. And we can do even more. This booklet moves survival to revival, like grounded growth, where seeds seek sun remembering how the people could fly. We are invoking the Combahee River Collective Statement and asking how it lives in our movement now. And the our and the we are key to this as individual gains mean nothing if others suffer.

We were never meant to survive but we will thrive. We want roundness and wholeness, where everyone eats and has time to be creative has time to just be, What tools does it give that are necessary to our survival? What gaps does it leave us to lean into? Black feminism lives, but the last of the originally organized black feminist organizations in the United States were defunct by 1981.

Here we offer and practice a model of survival that is spiritual and impossible and miraculous and everywhere, sometimes pronounced revival. Like it says on the yellow button that came included in the Kitchen Table Press pamphlet version of The Combahee River Collective Statement in 1986 "Black Feminism LIVES!" And therefore all those who were never meant to survive blaze open into a badass future anyway. Meaning something unpredictable and whole.

We were. Never meant. To Survive. And here we are.

And beyond survival, what of that? In 1977 the Combahee River Collective wrote "As Black women we see Black Feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneuos oppressions that all women of color face." They also said "The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges on the lives of women, Third World and working people." And they concluded: "If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression."

Today we, a sisterhood of young black feminists, mentored in words and deeds by ancestors, elders, peers and babies, assert that by meditating on the survival and transformation of black feminism we can produce insight, strategy and vision for a holistic movement that includes ALL of us. So while this is a project instigated by self-proclaimed (and reclaimed) black feminists, our intention is that it can be shared and changed by everyone who is interested in freedom.

Check out the exercises, form a study group, and contribute to the Combahee Survival Zine at www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com!

where the magic happens

2008-05-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

margaret mead said something about this
small
committed
thoughtful
change
world

Freedom Dreams: Blog About Palestine Day

2008-05-15T08:28:00.001-07:00

This week thanks to some precious advice from Fallon Wilson I have started remembering and recording my dreams.

This is a scene from a dream I remembered on Monday morning:

"and then i met a dark man with a beard. committed to defending the olive trees to the death. but he told me, unashamed, that he would never harm the woman i named, even if she ate every olive."

This affirms what I already know. A free Palestine is an imperative in my life time. The occupation that outlived June Jordan will not survive us. Period.

I think this dream was probably also influenced by what a learned at a progressive and belated passover sader that I was able to attend a couple of weeks ago...which was some insight into the profound impact of the Isreali uprooting of olive trees in Palestine. A friend explained to me that there is no equivalent that explains how important the olive trees and the olives themselves are to the survival, culture, heritage and well being and sustainability of the Palestinian people. I now understand that the uprooting of these olive trees is a violence against the earth and a deep harm to humanity. I remember that I learned to read in Spanish against the backdrop of Lorca's screams about arboles de aceituna. I remember that olive trees are one of the major metaphors in the bible, a teaching tool about what heritage is, about how our actions impact generations. Maybe I should go back and read those parts.

Maybe I was the dark bearded man in the dream. He was ready to die. I think he was ready to kill too. But I asked him about a particular woman (i don't know or remember who) and he said even she ate every olive he would do no violence.

There is something for me to learn here about the relationship between the fruit and the roots. I am being reminded that there is a difference between the cause and the manifestation of violence. I am being reminded to be radical. I am being reminded to go for the root. I am being reminded that there is a place for forgiveness in militancy. I am being reminded that our sustainability is worth more than our individual lives.

I am being reminded to grow.

I am free when Palestine is

love,
lex

Detroiters Reclaim Foreclosed Home

2008-04-21T10:32:00.001-07:00

Detroit Campaign Against Foreclosures and Evictions Escalates

Community volunteers move foreclosure victim back into home

by Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire

Activist speaking at eviction reversal on April 17, 2008
http://www. flickr. com/photos/53911892@N00/2431643976/

Photo of people moving eviction victim back into home
http://www. flickr. com/photos/53911892@N00/2431630924/

DETROIT, April 21, 2008--A delegation of Detroit activists traveled to
Washington, DC on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 to participate in the
national demonstration called by the Ad Hoc Network to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions.

The action took place outside the Mortgage Bankers
Association Annual Policy Summit held in a hotel just two blocks away from
Capital Hill.

Many of the people who were outside the Washington Court Hotel on April
16 provided firsthand accounts of how their households and communities
have been devastated by the mortgage banking crisis that has rendered
at least 2 million dwellings vacant throughout the country.

Sandra Hines of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War &
Injustice (MECAWI) told the security personnel and bankers standing outside the
hotel where the summit was being held, that "you may think this is
funny but this crisis impacts people everyday in the city of Detroit.

"

Hines, who is a former Detroit Public School Social Worker, ran a
grassroots campaign for a district seat on the local school board and was
subsequently evicted from her childhood home as a result of predatory
lending.

As soon as the MECAWI delegation returned to Detroit on Thursday, April
17, a call went out about a young woman being evicted in the heavily
depressed Linwood Corridor area on the city's west side.

The homeowner
has three children and a 84-year-old mother, whose wheelchair was thrown
out of the home by thugs acting on behalf of the Wayne County baliffs
who enforce the mortgage banker's evictions against hundreds of
families through the region everyday.

It is estimated that approximately
72,000 homes are in foreclosure in southeastern Michigan alone.

Around 50 activists went to the young woman's home and took the
furniture, appliances, clothes, family photos and documents and moved them back into the house. These household items had been drug out of the home and thrown violently into a dumpster parked outside the property.

Furniture and appliances were broken in the eviction process.

Food
bought for the children living at the home was thrown out.

Telephone lines
were ripped out and a bathroom sink was knocked from the wall and
thrown outside in the yard by the agents hired to carry out the bidding of
the mortgage bankers, who incidently are represented by a Wall
Street-based security's firm.

Community meeting to build broad coalition

As a result of the national demonstration in Washington, DC and the
announcement by Michigan State Senator Hasen Clarke that he would
introduce legislation that would impose a two-year moratorium on foreclosures in the state, MECAWI called for a meeting to press for the formation of a broader coalition to push for the passage of the bill.

The meeting was attended by State Senator Hasen Clarke and members of
his staff along with other community activists in the areas of housing,
religion, education and labor. Rev.

Edward Rowe, Pastor of the Central
United Methodist Church, where the meeting was held in downtown
Detroit, pledged office space to house the new coalition which constituted
itself as the Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions.

Coalition committees were established in the areas of eviction
reversals, legal strategies, publicity, outreach and office staffing.

Data is
being accumulated on city councils, county commissions, community
organizations and other institutions throughout the Detroit metropolitan area
and the state.

This data will be utilized in a massive mobilization
campaign to win the moratorium.

Atty.

Jerome Goldberg, who along with another lawyer Vanessa Fluker,
discussed the persistent efforts on the part of the mortgage bankers to
drive thousands from their homes in the region.

"This moratorium will not be won through traditional lobbying but will
be achieved through putting people in the streets throughout the state
and at the capital in Lansing," said David Sole, President of UAW Local
2334.

Sole, who commited himself to work on the outreach committee for
the new coalition, said that seven homes were vacant as a result of
foreclosure on his block alone on the east side of the city.

A follow-up meeting of the Moratorium Now Coalition to Stop
Foreclosures and Evictions will be held on Saturday, May 3 at 3:00pm at Central United Methodist Church. By this time the activist are aiming to have set up the office at the Church with a phone and donated equipment.

The
office will be staffed by a team of volunteers.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Distributed By: THE PAN-AFRICAN RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION CENTER
50 SCB BOX 47, WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
DETROIT, MI 48202-- E MAIL: ac6123@wayne.edu

Nana in the Garden: Taking Care of Ourselves

2008-04-08T16:33:00.001-07:00

Joyce McKenzie, my Nana, can make anything grow. Look at me. First grandchild with the flowering hair, the undisciplinable body, granddaughter of a once undocumented immigrant (my Nana) with a migrant spirit, nomad hands and a disdain for passports. Some people know how to make anything grow. Even the most difficult, unpredictable shoots of hope we have.

This is for Nana. Nana who snuck into my room to end my cough by rubbing white rum on my chest. Nana who made me drink all kinds of things I was afraid of. "Drink it down! While it's hot!" Nana of the lemon and honey. Nana of the best soup EVER. Nana of the cornmeal porridge. Nana of the the cod-liver oil. Nana of the seven seas. Nana who reminds me every month to get a British Passport. Nana who knows why one citizenship is not enough. Nana of the golden seal. Nana who finds sweaters and wool pants in South Florida to mail North "for my little professor". Nana of the box of oranges mailed from Florida to the New York City dorm room twice a winter. Nana of the Valentine's Day cards, the Easter Cards, the it's Wednesday and I love my granddaughter cards. Nana who sent me the microwave and the rice cooker, anything to get that skinny child to eat. Some people know how to nurture even the most threatened and least cooperative green young things.

Nana is from Jamaica. Which means we are from Jamaica. None of us will never get used to frost. And since Nana lives in central Florida she rarely has to. Just last month she called incredulous about a freeze that cut short the life of her hibiscus flowers. Today she told me that she will be planting roses again. I love my hibiscus, but roses are hardy, she said. They know how to survive the winter. Everything Nana says is advice, whether she knows it or not. I need to embroider that somewhere. "They know how to survive the winter." But even though I have a sewing machine in my old school living room, near the mantle that features a picture of me as a little kid between my two grandmothers. Even though my Grandma Lydia Gumbs went to Pratt, sewed the prize winning graduation dress, and made me the most elaborate halloween costumes, my own black raggedy-ann dolls, I haven't learned how to sew yet.

And even though Nana has grown mangoes, oranges, bananas, hibiscus, roses and more in backyards from Miami to Lakeland, I haven't learned to garden yet either. If it wasn't for my partner even my bamboo would probably have withered long ago. But now...along with the womyn in the SPEAK collective and the remnants of UBUNTU the unruly, ungrounded shake in my hands is meeting the earth. It is time to take care of ourselves. My backyard (or our yard behind the house I rent) is about to become our community garden. Basil, tomatoes, lettuce, goldfish, marigolds, rainbarrels, compost, corn, cucumbers. I know nothing about any of this, but some people know how to make anything grow. Even me.

This morning Nana had surgery. A lumpectomy and for five days she will be having radiation. Yesterday Nana made her famous soup..with the dumplings in it...I'm hungry even thinking about it. My mother is in Florida with Nana doing a raw fruit and vegetable fast (which means she couldn't eat the soup either!). She is confident telling me that she will be okay. And I believe and intend that she will recover quickly. She has already promised to come boss us around here in the garden in Durham. And next month my mother is fulfilling her lifelong goal to become a doula by participating in a doula training specifically for women of color co-sponsored by SisterSong. And Mama Nayo said she'd come back to us as babies or corn. And we are alive and growing. We are taking care of ourselves.

Blessed are the gardeners. We know how to make each other grow. Hold my Nana in your thoughts.

love,
lex

p.s. this is also for Sanesha Stewart's grandmother who I was blessed to hear speak at the beautiful vigil in her honor at the Bronx Community Pride Center this weekend. Outliving our grandmothers is hard. We cannot afford to outlive our granddaughters. Hold in your thoughts a beautiful loving woman who is outliving her granddaughter now because of transphobic violence.

Brainstorming For Speak

2008-03-31T06:16:00.000-07:00

It was wonderful meeting so many of the WOC I have come to know and love at WAM! I was glad we had the time to just sit and decompress on Saturday. I wished we had more time to discuss the Speak project. Don't take that as a criticism, we really didn't have more time and probably need a whole week together!

I know that some of this we already discussed about what our vision is for the site, is it just another blog? Is it a zine? etc and what are our goals? But we probably should start over again in case our ideas have evolved since we first started kicking the idea around.

The one thing I want to discuss is the name of the site, "Speak", I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Maybe "Speak Out" or "We Are Speaking" or "Listen Up You Goddammed White Woman"...ok maybe not that one. The reason why is because Speak makes me think of the dog command.

I like the idea of doing interviews or even full blogs for women without access to computers, like the women in prison project. For me I was thinking of interviewing women from my reservation, especially the older ones like my mother who are afraid of technology! My sister gave her a computer but she refuses to hook it up to the internet, she says she is too busy with other things and isn't interested, but I'm not so sure of that, or if it is more she is afraid that learning to use a computer is too hard. I probably shouldn't second guess her because she is a busy person, but having a computer online would be great if only for email once or twice a day.

I think that goes with the "We Are Speaking" but you can't hear us idea. We can give women who aren't online a voice if the idea is geared towards those without internet access for whatever reason. I also like us as an aggregator for WOC online because many of us have a voice that isn't being heard because our readership is small or we are just starting out. Maybe I shouldn't say "we" in that one because if I'm not being heard it's because I don't update enough, but that's beside the point! Our project could be like advertising for new and little known WOC blogs and websites, with a feature that gives a taste of what is to be found at the site and then link to it and encourage our readers to read more and blogroll these sites.

The last thing I was thinking about is that we should have a section for children and young women where they can feel safe to blog. I was thinking of Bint's daughter here, I think she would enjoy a large readership and she writes some amazing stuff especially when she is on a political tear, but I think that when we host stuff by children and teens it is very important to protect them from the assholes and so their blogs should have mentors who must moderate comments to keep our young writers from being attacked. It's horrible enough the things that full grown adult WOC have had to put up with, children don't need to be exposed to that.

Oh wait, the real last thing. If it wouldn't be too much to ask, I'm hoping that Lex will do the graphics for the site. Broken Beautiful is a gorgeous site and I'd like our website/blog/zine to look alot like that.

I'll Catch Up!

2008-03-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

I am looking looking looking for this book. I will get my hands on it and join in!

These are amazing to read!

XO,
Sudy

colonization and the struggle for women's rights

2008-03-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Bint Al Shamsa writes:

I have yet to see an American school textbook that mentioned women's rights Equal-Pay-No-Way without including the names and accomplishments of at least Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. However, how many of them mention the fact that until Europeans colonized this country, women were already enjoying the rights that Stanton and Anthony fought for plus many more? Can you understand why that's problematic, at the very least?

boarding school abuses and the case for reperations

2008-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

i read chapter two last night: Boarding School Abuses and the Case for Reperations. inspired by sudy's latest femwatch, i wanted to give you all a recap via youtube video with my webcam (thanks mom!) but i keep messing up, getting embarrassed and having to start over! it's all right though, because i will get the hang of it and what better way to learn a skill than through advocating for women of color's feminism?

in the mean time, check out these links:

Stop Mainstream Feminist Racism! Respect Radical Women of Color NOW!
Campus Lockdown
Sign the petition!
Boarding School Healing Project

i'm only in the first chapter of conquest

2008-03-11T22:36:00.001-07:00

but i appreciate dr. smith's style of writing so much.

i'm a little scared of group blogs because that's when the self-conscious part in me comes out to play. am i going to know what the others are talking about? will my writing sound stupid?

the reason i feel really connected to smith's writings is not only because of the subject matter of colonialism and struggle but because she writes in a way that's accessible to people. everyday people you see and know. people you eat with, drink with. people who live at the intersections of many -isms.

so many times with oppressed communities, at least from what i've experienced in the disability community, you have to prove yourself so much to the other people in the classroom, workplace, or organization that the mindset gets to be a competition for who can sound the most intelligent. an organization i work with made intellectual [words, thinking] accessibility a priority last year and it amazed me how controversial this actually was. a lot of members were offended with us revising documents to be on an eight grade level and taking the time to explain what words and acronyms meant. at that moment, i felt like i really understood what internalized oppression meant as people were more worried that they wouldn't be taken seriously as an organization or individuals instead of making their organization more accessible to their own people (and this is a disability organization so it was all people who wanted wheelchair accessible hotel rooms, alternative materials, ASL, but then didn't want to make it intellectually accessible so other people could participate).

i understand that people write for themselves, in fact i do, too. i understand that people love words and language and putting sentences together. me too. i defintely definitely get that. still there is a boundary between the love of writing and using big words to overcome a part of you (i.e. i might have a disability BUT i can talk so eloquently! or so and so might be latino BUT he's soooo damn articulate!). writing (especially and obviously in the academy) inaccessibly can be used just to appropriate a message and use it for individualist capitalist gain. so what is the purpose of writing if it is used this way? i mean how many people do you know, or at least in the academic world, that just love to hear the sound of their writing--- not writing from their heart, a message they believe in, or the ability they believe they have to reach people, but just the sound of big intellectual words?

it infuriates me and scares me that because smith wrote for people and not necessarily for the academy or the "ivory tower" she was denied tenure. what is the purpose of knowledge if it is to stay inside and only be used to discuss the "others"? finally, someone who gets us and is one of us and even writes in a way that includes us and she is disrespected and denied what is hers.

i think i finally understand the importance of tenure and it's breaking my heart to realize that we live in a society that dismisses people who write for people and celebrates the beauty of what often is just intellectual arrogance.

reading conquest

2008-03-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

I finished school over a year ago and I can safely say that I haven't made it through more than five books since then. I have made it through about a million blog posts though. When Mimi Ngyuen described riot girl culture as a feminist "teaching machine," I immedietly thought that this is what women of color blogging are doing; they're working together to run a teaching machine for other women of color. Because even though I've been trying for almost two years to read 'Conquest' and I never made it past the foreward until yesterday, I found that I was familiar with a lot of the concepts and analysis because of reading other women of color blogs.

I thought that now was as good a time as any to read the book because it comes at the intersection of Andrea Smith's fight for tenure, an internal struggle between myself and academia/art (i.e. I'm through with school and don't want to go back but in what other world but grad school can I pursue my passions like research, travel, arab american's digital self-portraiture, comparing riot girl and women of color feminist media making/artistic production, and making self-memorializing art? ), and the coming 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of israel and the massacre & forced displacement of indigenous palestinians (which pushes me to reflect on, among other things, my status as a citizen of the u.s. and the massacre & forced displacement of indigenous people here).

More later...

Read-a-thon for Andrea Smith's Tenure

2008-03-11T19:19:00.000-07:00

To show our support for Dr. Andrea Smith we are reading her book 'Conquest.' Please join us in reading, writing and discussing.

Conquest on google books.
Purchase the book from South End Press.

Delicious and Nutritious?

2008-02-12T04:06:00.000-08:00

If you had to describe everything you want and need in a collaborative blogspace for women of color by talking about food....what would we be eating here?
Looking forward to a feast of fabulousness!

Together!

2008-02-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

The possibilities are endless here...