writings on my wall.

this body--remembering.

2007-11-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

My mother says I never remember anything. She says this because every time she introduces me to someone, a friend or one of her many acquaintances who had formerly met me, perhaps pinched a cheek of mine or doted over me as a child, I make it particularly clear that I don't recognize them. She gets upset, annoyed at my inability and slight refusal to pretend to know the many strangers who have made insignificant appearances in my life. In response to my mother's frustration I always say the same thing: "I do remember things, just not people who aren't important to me." In return, she always rolls her eyes. "Whatever." She says. Whatever. That's her favorite word to use to blow me off. Whatever, I think. I do remember more than you know.

I remember random things and random people, situations that in the moment were seemingly insignificant but in retrospect hold some kind of meaning. I remember how quiet growing up was, how silent my homes were because my mother was either at work or always sleeping. She slept a lot during the day, when she wasn't working. I used to crawl into bed with her and shake her. She'd groan and I'd ask why she was always sleeping. Sleeping was her favorite hobby, she assured me. I figured she was just tired. Looking back, I realize her depression superseded her exhaustion and sleeping was the only way to remove herself from life as she knew it. I remember childhood moments with my closest cousin Laurie, who is one year older than me, and stands in replacement of the sibling I never had.

I remember her teaching me how to write my L's in cursive as we sat in the backseat of her father's smoke-filled car. I remember that one time she scared away my next door neighbor by screaming "We don't talk to strangers!" at him when he was only trying to give me a toy his daughter didn't want. I remember looking at her, teary eyed and eventually crying. She always bosses me around, I remember thinking. I remember the promise we made to one another at ten and eleven years old: "No matter what, we will never be like them." They were the women in our family. I remember wanting to grow up to be a woman but wanting to live my childhood as a boy.

I was a little girl wanting to be a boy. A little girl with "girly" features that couldn't escape me: long eye lashes that curled and made wearing my plastic purple-framed eye glasses impossible for me to handle, long thick dark hair that girls at school could not stop touching, full lips which I discovered in high school were "to die for" by some white girl who did my makeup for a play. None of this bothered me tremendously because I wasn't as preoccupied with not looking like a girl as I was as just living like a boy, living in the realm of masculinity that was so appealing to me. My tiny body swam in oversized blue jeans and a hot pink "BUM Electric" sweatshirt that I wore on a regular basis, with my light up LA Gear sneakers, of course. I was comfortable in these clothes but more than anything I was comfortable with the membership they allowed. I got to play with the boys at school and beat them at their own games. "Man, you suck!" they'd whine, "You can't play with us anymore." I'd move on to the next group of boys and instead of competing with them, we'd role play, mostly Power Rangers. They always tried to make me the pink ranger and I'd protest. "I hate pink. Why do I have to be the pink power ranger, just because I'm a girl?" I remember them nodding. I wanted so much to be a boy because they got to do all the things that everyone told me girls couldn't. Boys had all the fun.

In spite of this, I still imagined myself to grow up and be a woman, particularly a mother, and my tomboyish ways were balanced with my fascination with babies and children. I hated Barbie dolls but I loved baby dolls. I loved pretending to be a mother. I bought cradles, clothing, and food for my babies, my children. I fed them at scheduled times, took them out with me, put them down to nap whenever they were "cranky" and even made play dates with Laurie's baby dolls. And of course, because I could do everything, I cured them when they were sick. I was their doctor too. This was something, I remember believing, that boys and men certainly could not do. They could not be mothers. I had no ideas of what fathers could do. I didn't have one.

I have been remembering all of this lately because the questions of what it means to be a mother and a boy, a young Black boy in particular, have been racing through my mind. I remember thinking motherhood to be simple and boyhood to be whimsical and freeing. I did not and still do not know what it means to be either but as watch my mother's sister struggle through one of the most trying moments in her motherhood and her twelve year old son grow into his young manhood, I wonder how much each of them will remember.

I sometimes say my aunt is my second mother, a substitution for my father and often times a filler for my mother. She lived with my mother and I until I was about seven years old and took tremendous care of me up until then and continuing after. We had always been extremely close up until about a year ago. When I was seven my aunt moved out of the three bedroom apartment that she, my mother and I lived in and moved in with her boyfriend who would soon be the father of her first child, a son, who is now twelve, later be her husband, and eventually the father of her second child, a daughter who is almost six. When their son was four years old they moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Southern Florida and bought a house in a gated community. Fast forward some years and after secretly (but not so secretly) dealing with her husbands physical and verbal abuse, my aunt is now talking about leaving, finally. My mother and I wonder if it's going to happen. We've heard the conversations before but years pass and no action is ever taken. She spoke to her kids about it and her son, who is the most recent victim of his father's cowardliness and rage, seems to have no qualms about moving. My mother told me she could still hear the hesitance in her sister's voice. Maybe in a couple of years, she told my mother, when she's done with nursing school. "Thing is," my mother told me, "in a couple of years she might be six feet under." This sends chills through me and it turns my stomach, not only at the thought of losing her but at what this situation is doing to her son and eventually her daughter.

"A man doesn't do what your father did," I told my cousin over the phone. "I know," he told me. A man doesn't ... a man doesn't ... I remember beginning most of my sentences with declarations of what a man does and does not do. But I'm not a man nor am I a twelve year old Black boy. Who am I, I remember thinking afterwards, to tell him what a man does and does not do? I remember when my cousin was 10, when his mother started noticing how he refused to look at her in the eyes. I remember standing in the public library with him, talking to him about how important it is for him to read, subjecting him to one of my educational diatribes. He wouldn't look up at me. I gently asked him to look at me in the eyes. "Don't look down," I said. "I'm your cousin. I'm your family. You should be able to look up at me. Why won't you look at me?" He started to shake a little, tremble and he sputtered, "B-b-because."

"Because what?"

He finally looked up and broke down crying right there in the middle of the young reader's fiction section.

I tried to understand that moment so many times after it happened. I am still trying. I long to know what was going on in his mind those few years when he would look away or only look at my feet when I spoke directly to him. I remember seeing then how painful boyhood can be. And in his mother, I'm seeing how conflicting motherhood is.

I sincerely love my cousin. I am not his mother yet everything in me wants to protect him as honestly as if he came from my belly, my womb. Sometimes I look at the part of my tummy that's a little rounder than the rest, the pouch--that place that drives women to spend hundreds of dollars on gym memberships over--and hold it. I look in the mirror and I hold it wondering if at 21 my aunt ever held her pouch like me and knew that the fight of motherhood is founded in not only the passion and will to protect her child but also in the power to protect her self.

I can't stop thinking about my aunt and my cousin and the littlest one in the family, almost six years old and the epitome of what I would've loved to be as a young girl. If I was anything like her, had a friend like her, I would've embraced my girlness. There is nothing she can not do, despite being a girl. Through this though, if leaving takes longer than expected or if my aunt never leaves, I wonder what littlest one will see as manhood and subsequently motherhood.

I have so much running through my head right now, so many things that I remember that I haven't the capacity to make sense of at this moment. Forgive me for my rambling, I'm just trying to make meaning of the bits that I do remember.

littlest big things.

2007-10-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

The last time I heard from my father was March 23, 2007. He wrote me an e-mail, this after not contacting me for 2 years and prior to that not contacting me for 5 years and yeah, the more I go back in time, the more I realize how estranged we are from one another. I wrote him back and told him that if we were to truly start a relationship, he would first have to know who I am and not the child he never really new but only remembers. At one point I wrote, "I'm a lesbian. I'm an educator. I'm sensitive. I'm passive. I'm passionate. I'm logical. I'm sarcastic. I used to be really insecure. I am getting to understand my self-worth. I'm in love. I'm motivated. I'm living life as positively as possible." I was honest. I don't know what I expected, if I thought that things would've been different this time, but I thought there'd be more beyond that point.

He never wrote back.

I don't know why I'm writing about this, or vaguely writing random thoughts about this, but it just came into my head. For the longest time I tried to convince myself that his absence meant nothing to me, that it had no significance--but it does and there are moments, times like this, when he passes through my mind and I wonder what it is about him, about me, that makes our relationship impossible. I'm sure I'll never come close to conquering my inquiry but I figure it's progress that at least I'm acknowledging that perhaps, I've been missing something.

--

on a better note:
I'm going to Chicago on November 3! I'm being flown out, all expenses paid, to this National Student Leadership Campaign for Public Service meeting. I'm not sure what they want my role to be but it's along the lines of bringing this movement back to New School. I wasn't sure I'd take up the offer but last night as I was reading an e-mail from the coordinator, "B" enthusiastically said, "Do it!" So I'm taking her advice, taking her faith in me and making magic happen. I'm making moves and it's thrilling. My personal and academic career is really lifting off and I find myself being rewarded beautifully. Next stop after this? Presenting on a panel at the Popular Culture Conference in March in San Francisco, CA! Yay me.

say, girl ...

2007-10-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't have written it this way. Brown on White, penis and breasts on one body holding flesh that once held and released me, carried and comforted me; heavy man hands wrapped around a 12 year old neck--his own son. I wouldn't have written it this way because I didn't think it would be like this. Familiar and unfamiliar colliding and morphing, creating thick confusion that consumes me. I'm being consumed by my life right now and how it orbits around the ones I love. It's happening so quickly that I don't know what to do or really how to feel. I find myself panning out, distancing myself and glimpsing in on my own world and wondering, how did all of this happen?

My uncle called me the other night and asked what I would say if he decided to change his name. I wanted to know where it was coming from and what name he wanted to change. "All of it," he told me, and then proceeded to explain how much baggage our last name carries and how he doesn't really know why my grandparents named him what they did. I told him to go for it. After all, it's his name and he's going to have to live with it. To be honest, a name isn't always really indicative of who you are because you didn't name yourself. Sometimes though, you grow into it. I feel that way about my name. I wasn't Cleopatra to most people for the first 18 years of my life (minus first grade and a classmate in high school who called me Cleo) and when I moved to New York it spoke to me as a young woman growing into herself. I've grown so much these past few years and as I struggle each day I realize it's an active part of growth. I'm thinking that this will be good for him, to take a hold of his identity competely and be addressed as who he feels he really is. Of course, my family is going to hate the idea and I'm sure they'll be utterly offended and confused, but I say (and I say this with the best intentions)--screw them. They hold us on short leashes only to be yanked back when you fall outside of their parameters of tolerance and to be honest, I do not want to be tolerated or held on a leash. And again, this is the process of growth ... cutting ties, recreating family and reconceptualizing my socialized understandings of what family and love mean. In understanding the necessity to do these things, I have come to understand my mother better.

When I was 13 my mother started to openly share her life experiences and relationship within our family. Of course I take note of the various interpretations of events and drama, but I pay close attention to the impact everything has had on her. I never understood what she was doing when she actively chose not to attend family functions or to move far away from our blood relatives but now I see. She was simply trying to grow. Everyday I think about my mother and I know that woman to be the epitome of strength. I know many women, and many Black women at that, struggle the way she did to keep our lights on, our water running, food on the table and a roof above our heads. And through that she sought to love herself and fought to understand how to love others, many times ending up disappointed and trampled. But now, almost 43, I see her happier than she has ever been. Fuck the diabetes, the asthma, the breast cancer, the money troubles--she loves. She loves in the most unfamiliar way to me and probably to many others and simultaneously loves someone who is everything the rest of the world fails to understand, let alone my family. On one end, I don't fully understand it yet either, and on the other, I just want her to be happy because it's what she has deserved for so long. It reaffirms that happiness, above all else, is what matters. Fuck settling.

And this is my fight, the fight to clearly see what allows me to attain happiness and what I am settling for and trying to transform and mask as happiness. I was talking to a great friend and love of mine yesterday afternoon. Standing on the street corner, trying to catch up on life that has passed us because of our hectic schedules, I talked to her about this very thing. "I feel like sometimes I catch myself saying things out loud just to make them real," I told her. I say things to make myself believe them and hope that they become true. I hold on to people even though they disappoint me. I claim love even though it's lust. I say I'm fine when I'm not. I settle. And it's hard not to. Why fight for something better when somewhere in between hell and heaven is sitting on your lap? I'd kiss mediocre before greatness and I'm trying so hard not to, interpersonally that is. Career wise and academically I settle for nothing less than greatness. Artistically so it's the same way. But personally, I struggle against settling. And I know it's because this is what I've seen growing up. I've watched all the women in my family settle because it's easier not to go seek happiness. But it always fails.

It brings bruises, black and blue on brown and beating hearts; it brings gaping holes in hope and creates loneliness. It brings me wanting to be anything but them and everything about them at the same time. I love them because I'm part of their legacy but I hate them for what they go through, what they allow for themselves because they are worth so much more. I know they don't understand me. I don't understand them either. But I wish for them. I pray for them and yearn for an answer as to how all of this happened. How did strength melt into despair? How did the women who taught me how to be a woman revert back to hopeless, little girls?

let's take this for another spin.

2007-10-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

My nights and days have blended into one another. The lack of sleep lately does that, I suppose. I decided that since I'll be up at random hours of the day, I may as well use this as an outlet and break for the hell of undergrad senior year. And so I'm embarking upon this blog thing again. Forgive me if it lacks excitement or upkeep for that matter. I'm really awful with technology and although I'd like this to be a space where I can share everything I'm feeling and thinking, I still realize it's a public realm and that puts breaks on a lot of things. I'm real but not that real. This isn't an inside into my life, but rather me trying to find an entrance into myself. So yeah, you can peek in and out if you wish, when you wish... it's all up to you.

As for updates...
-I'm no longer in New Orleans but my soul remains there and as I work on my senior work project, which revolves around New Orleans and hip-hop pedagogy, my experiences remain very present.
-School and work are kicking my ass.
-My family is ... family.
-My spirit is good.
-My friend came back. I didn't realize how much I had missed her.

oh yeah, and I had a good night tonight. thanks Liz.

a ramble.

2007-08-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

originally written on: 6/29/07.

--

there was a point when i didn't know who i was or what i wanted. i thrived on giving bits and pieces of myself in hopes that someone would put me together. i wandered from the realities of my situation desiring that someone would steer me back to my world. i knew nothing beyond want/hope/desire. i kept wishing. i kept wanting. i kept hoping that one day i'd find what i was looking for.

there was a moment when i expected it to be love. when i expected exchanges to fulfill me in a way that i hadn't expected. there was another point when i thought academia would do the trick. i figured out quickly neither of these things would allow me to truly see myself wholly and fully.

i never expected this but being here in New Orleans has opened me up to so many different avenues of thinking and feeling. i've realized what i want my life's work to entail. i've realized that i can survive outside of my comfort zone, outside of a world that is 100% welcoming to me as a queer, black woman.

being an educator is ridiculously hard when you're essentially denied an identity as a teacher. being a queer educator has been an interesting/devastating/uncomfortable experience for me. working in harlem with the younger ones i realized that homophobia runs deep and working with high school students i got a variety of emotions. but working here with middle schoolers in a catholic city has been extremely challenging. students trust me and the world assumes my heterosexually. i find myself answering questions about my "boyfriend" just to avoid further conversation. students blatantly tell me about how they saw two girls kissing and how disgusting they thought it was. they spit the word fag as if it's just another breath and it pains me not to be able to just say this is who i am.

but i know because of this challenge, among many, that this is what i'm meant to do. i'm meant to educate. to learn from students and to learn with them. to have youth be a vessel in my life. to have youth inspire me and my art. to have youth be the core of everything that i do.

to be young, black and in the public education system is a trauma in itself. fuck hurricanes. we've been dealing with the natural disasters of continuous miseducation of black and brown children since the beginning of european's so-called “beginning of civilization.” i'm learning how to unlearn and how to teach unlearning. it's going to be a hard process but i have all faith. always.

2007-06-25T19:40:00.001-07:00

i wanted them to tell me their stories, share their stories with one another and with themselves.
i ask L why it's important that people know his story. he says, "because it means something to me." plain. simple. beautiful. fuck the rest of the world.

2007-06-24T21:07:00.001-07:00

What's wrong with silence?

Sometimes not everything needs to be said ...

write later, eventually. i'm on an mental hiatus.

Happy Birthday to me.

2007-06-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

I turn 21 today. Joy!

I began my celebration last night here in New Orleans at the tastiest restaurant I've been to in a long time.

Thanks to Melody, Alanna, Molly, Britt, Emily and Julia (the cutest, kindest, fiestiest, most generous and loving Leo) for a wonderful 21st birthday dinner. I've never had people fight over who is going to pay for the check or had so much love over a meal, ever.

i am so blessed.

FEMAmerica...

2007-06-11T19:10:00.000-07:00

I got a taste of America today. Iron and dirt. The taste of blood on the hands of our failing politicians and blindfolded government.

A few of us traveled south of New Orleans to Plaquemines Parish, a rural country community, to do grassroots youth outreach in Phoenix and Davant, LA. As as I stood on Swann Road beside the twelve, black US mail postboxes, I stared down Montana Road at FEMA trailer after FEMA trailer after FEMA trailer. A sea of white, sardine cans side by side, row by row, starting on Newsom Road continuing to Landry Road, filled the trailer park. Elders waved at us as we stopped to ask if they had children they wanted to send to summer camp, teenage boys walked around with dreadlocks hitting their faces as their bare-chested bodies beat underneath the 100 degree sun. "I ain't going to no fucking camp." I heard one say. As I continued to walk I tried to look into the back windows of the trailers to see if anyone was home. A white paper saying "FEMA Unit" was posted on every back window. In one trailer someone removed the sign and put up a "Merry Christmas" sign. I wondered what Christmas was like in this part of neglected America. As young children sprayed each other with hoses between trailers and others splashed in blow-up plastic wading pools, I wondered what Christmas was like for them these days. Somehow I envisioned everyone in that FEMA trailer park being a hell of lot more grateful than I am.

I thought about this for a moment as I was walking with a new friend. We had just been discussing out future and I declared that I wasn't planning on raising my children in America. Half an hour later we're standing beside each other on Newsom Road in FEMA central and as I look down the road staring at trailers, I start to cry quietly to myself. "My God, this is America," I say to her. "This is fucking America and this is all they have to give these people. We have billions of dollars that we spend on bullshit and this is all they have to give these people. It's fucking ridiculous." I keep walking, staring at the dirt and she nods. "Yeah, I know," she says. She's a New Orleans native, proud of home and has no intention of leaving ever. She told me earlier that she'll raise her children in the same neighborhood she grew up in. "That's why you have to stay," she says, "so it can get better, so you can make it better." In the moment I wonder how much of an impact I really have and then I remember why the hell I'm down here. If I didn't believe I had any impact on the world I'd have no purpose in doing the work that I do.

Sometimes America saddens me. Sometimes America makes me feel like I need to escape. Sometimes I forget how much America needs me. Sometimes I forget that I am American after all.

The Payne of Poverty

2007-06-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the issue is money, or rather the income gap in America. John Edwards is on the front cover tidy, pressed and clean. One of his political platforms this election year is economic "injustice" and inequity. It's his new War on Poverty campaign remixed, something resembling that of Lyndon B. Johnson's WOP which launched the Economic Opportunity Act and was pushed aside and resulted in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, also known as Welfare Reform. ("The end of welfare as we know it..." Remember that line? Mr. Lewinsky, I mean, Clinton said it.) What's John Edwards' impetus for the issue? New Orleans, of course. Particularly the Lower Ninth Ward, which has been the media focus of the natural disaster and tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Though not the only low-income area of color affected by the hurricane (as I have come to witness first hand while being down here), candidate Edwards has made it his passion to use New Orleans' Lower Ninth as lens for disparities of poverty in America. Read more about it here ...

What caught my attention in this week's issue, however, was Paul Tough's "The Class-Consciousness Raiser" which profiles Ruby Payne, a self-proclaimed "class expert" and lecturer. Admittedly, I approached the piece with some skepticism, unsure of what exactly Ruby Payne has to offer me (and the world) in regards to her take on classism in America. She has books and DVDs about class differences and many working in education go to Ruby in order to understand the situations of the poor communities and students they work with.

It may be that the only people with abiding faith in the power of class divisions in America are the country’s few remaining Marxists and Ruby Payne. And while Payne may not believe in class struggle, per se, she does believe that there is widespread misunderstanding among the classes — and more than ever, she says, the class that bears the cost of that misunderstanding is the poor. In schools, particularly, where poor students often find themselves assigned to middle-class teachers, class cluelessness is rampant.

Your class, Payne says, determines everything: your eating habits, your speech patterns, your family relations. It is possible to move out of the class you were born into, either up or down, she says, but the transition almost always means a great disruption to your sense of self. And you can ascend the class ladder only if you are willing to sacrifice many of your relationships and most of your values — and only if you first devote yourself to careful study of the hidden rules of the class you hope to enter.

This is where I began to cringe and suddenly Ruby Payne is Oscar Lewis all over again, a modern day anthropologist plus some DVDs, books and a lecture circuit, perpetuating this myth of the "culture of poverty." Payne, however, assures that what she is doing is not meant to do such a thing:

Payne’s critics say she is oversimplifying the complexities of poverty in the United States, perpetuating offensive stereotypes of irresponsible, disorganized poor people who play the TV too loud and like to solve disputes with their fists. Payne is quick to caution that her portrait is a general one. She would be “heartsick,” she said on stage, “if anyone used this information to stereotype.”

You know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And Ruby Payne's intentions are genuine. She married outside of her class and fell in love with a man who came from a poor home. Soon she found herself becoming more versed in the complexities of class and language of the poor people, the world where the man she loves came from.

As Payne studied her new surroundings, she came to appreciate more subtle nuances of class division. ... Payne wasn’t quite sure what to do with this new knowledge. As her career in education developed, from teacher to principal to administrator, she found that her understanding of class came in handy. Because of her exposure to her husband’s family and neighbors, it seemed, she was better able to communicate with poor students than most other middle-class teachers. Her colleagues began to ask her for help and advice on dealing with their most troubling students, and Payne worked up an informal set of strategies and tips that she would pass along.

See, this saddens me beyond no doubt particularly because I know that while I see what's problematic with this picture, there are people who flock to Payne in order to understand those "poor folk" who are so foreign to them because of their alien ways.

Not only is there the failure to include situations of race and gender when disucssing socioeconomic status but also Ruby Payne is painfully (no pun intended, I swear) patronizing and essentialist ideas about poor, ie - “If you’re from middle class and marry or otherwise move into poverty, understand the need of your spouse/partner to protect you,” she writes. “You are his/her possession. Try to see the positives in this.” This makes my skin crawl and it's not like it's the first time I've been encountered with this sort of thing, but I wonder if Ms. Payne sees the ideologies and discourses that are running through her. Does she acknowledge the privilege that is exerting itself when she prides herself in providing her audience with options? She says, "You can choose whether or not you want to alter your behavior or embrace a different way of doing things. But unless you’re informed, you won’t get the opportunity to decide.” What does it say about her class or perhaps, her White privilege, that she is the one to hand off options and give agency?

Sure she may be speaking among her fellow middle-classers who, in her opinion, are so comfortable that they assume everyone wants to be middle class, but she's also speaking for and those who haven't been given a voice because they're too busy being observed and studied, like Ms. Payne's husband and his low-income family. I haven't read Ms. Payne's books or watched any of her DVDs. True, I know not much about her other than this piece and a brief google search this afternoon but I can't help but be struck by the language was used and as I have come to learn language is a significant indicator of not only where you're from but also where you're at. And that's the thing, no one is ever listening to the language of the poor and oppressed they're just watching from the center out to the margins studying them in their natural habitats.

To read the entire story, go here

--

As I prepare myself to go work with low-income middle schoolers for the next 8 weeks in rural Louisiana and urban New Orleans East, I have to keep in mind where I'm from and where I'm at and remember to acknowledge my limits and privileges. I don't know it all but the first step forward, to being class-conscious, race-conscious and conscious about anything is admitting what I don't know and educating myself.

dark phrases.

2007-06-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

i’m wishin I could say something
but I’m tongue tied
tongue split in two
speaking your truths
yes, i'm talking to you
cuz ain’t ain’t a word
oops, I mean isn’t
it’s may i
versus
can i
and I don’t think I can
because it
just
aint
me
I want to be valued
despite my speech
I want to be valued
For speakin about me
Cuz I aint
Never heard a story
About me
My mom
And only her
Cuz it was just me and her
cuz we were just little girls
playing house
not knowing the rules of the game
and can’t say we were always happy
but maybe happiness is underrated
maybe we caught it in small doses
between our lips
got so used to the taste of our own tears
that we could never tell the difference
between pain and joy
between past and present
between mother and father
she was mother and father
she was loved and hated
maybe she didn’t know
what she was doing
just wishin she could say something
ask if it was supposed be this way
I want to know
if it’s supposed to be this way
but i'm tongue tied
using your words to describe my world
they abuse me
penetrate me
crack open cerebral virginities
and violate me

I had language
Before you taught me how to speak

can you hear me?

I’m afraid I lost my voice
And can’t seem to find it
I’m afraid I’m bound to silence
And can’t escape it
I’ve been hushed
sent to search for identity in
white realities
it’s so violent
the way you murder me
through omission ...
--

I cried today. Twice.

The past couple of days have been emotionally difficult. 30 of us sit, as a part of training, and deconstruct the constructions of everything that's ever been constructed and we beat down the systems and the "isms" and the "archies" and at the end of the day we hope we are learning and growing as individuals and as a team. Yet days like yesterday and especially today make me wonder when I'm ever going to be heard. Yesterday I watched two sisters, one who I came here with and another who I met on this trip. I watched my close friend be attacked, be subject to the things that she is used to experiencing by the world and then I watched her be silenced. She dared to say that she should "just be quiet" and I was so distraught over this and I had to tell her to just keep on keeping on and to never shut up because as women of color we've been silenced for so long that it doesn't matter how much we speak we will never make up for the amount of time that our voices have been hushed. During this, a new sister was in tears because of her lost voice and it's interesting because although her tears were visible, not many could really see her pain. I saw it and I felt it and it's precisely because I've lived it. And today I felt it and I was the one crying.

I cried twice today and for about three different reasons, both times in front of perfect strangers who I'm coming to know as team members. The first time was pure love and appreciation for the friendship that Melody and I are building here. She told me why she knows I'm meant to be in her life because as we go through this process of struggling and growing, as we vent, as discuss our experiences and struggles, as we butt heads, the words I lent her for support were reiterated by her mother. When she said this I didn't know quite what to think but I just felt and gushed. I gushed because I was so honored to have her in my life and really touched by what she noted about me and I know she is meant to be in my life because the universe moves in ways that prove this to be true daily. It is not an accident that Melody, Alanna and I are here together. We were brought together for a reason. Each of us relies on the strength of the other two. I love it. I'm grateful for it and I am blessed.

The second time I cried was strange for me. I could subside to sexist explanations and say that "it's that time" and I'm just being moody but I know it's so much more. My voice was shut down, was said to be an over compensation for my oppression. Mind you this comment wasn't exclusive to me but rather to the women of color who chose to have a voice and apparently silenced other voices that are constantly privileged. This isn't something new to me. I've been hearing the "you're too loud," "sit down and shut up," "we've heard enough of you," and "it's not about you"'s since I was 6 years old. I've heard these phrases so much so that I should just be numb to them by now. And yet, today one comment broke me down. I wasn't affected by the words or the language or the choice of terminology. I was hurt more so at the fact that this isn't the last time I'm going hear one of those phrases. I've heard these phrases since I was 6 and I'll probably hear them until the day I die. I've been told not to speak even when I'm not talking. And I'm so tired of it. I'm so tired and it's draining but I'm not going to stop speaking because my voice needs to be heard. I speak for me, first and foremost, and until I see me represented, until I hear the voices of so many not only mispresented but not represented at all then I STILL won't stop speaking, I'll just take a step back. My life is valuable. My words are valuable. My world is valuable no matter what anyone tells me. And I strive to have my students, all of them, understand themselves as the most precious and valuable beings they know.

This brings me back to the woman who put words to my silence, who expressed what I had been seeking to express since I was a young girl ...

"dark phrases"
by ntozake shange

dark phrases of womanhood
of never havin been a girl
half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
distraught laughter fallin
over a black girl's shoulder
it's funny/ it's hysterical
the melody-less-ness of her dance
don't tell nobody don't tell a soul
she's dancin on beer cans & shingles

this must be the spook house
another song with no singers
lyrics/no voices
& interrupted solos
unseen performances

are we ghouls?
children of horror?
the joke?

don't tell nobody don't tell a soul
are we animals? have we gone crazy?

i can't hear anythin
but maddening screams
& the soft strains of death
& you promised me
you promised me...
somebody/anybody
sing a black girl's song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/struggle/hard times

sing her song of life
she's been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn't know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she's half-notes scattered
without rhythm/no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
the makin of a melody
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly.
- "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf"

if only...

2007-06-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

If only life happened in ways that made sense, if only distance didn't separate loved ones, if only feelings never got hurt, if only love was simple, if only we didn't see our parents within ourselves, if only everyone communicated, if only I knew what I was doing with myself 90% of the time ... I wouldn't know struggle. Struggle makes me stronger.

so ...

2007-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Sitting here listening to Lauryn Hill's "Rebel" and I'm thinking that Lauryn Hill Unplugged is going to pretty much be my album of the summer. Granted that album was my album for a good portion of first and second semester. Oh well. It's just an amazing album and it oozes so much wisdom that it's worth listening to on repeat for, I don't know, months on end. It gives me a soothing feeling of being cleansed. I find that being here provides me with a constant reminder of how blessed I am to have a home and to have people in my life safe, alive and healthy for the general part. I forget these things. I become consumed in my own head, in my petty problems and I forget to just look back and say thank you to the universe. Thank you.

Today in training we went over hurricane season warnings. Typically New Orleans has voluntary evacuation every hurricane season except last year. Hurricane Katrina was I think maybe the only mandatory hurricane alert in years and years apparently. So yeah, talks of what we will do if or when we get the alert is up in the air or rather solidified. 1 bag, go to Alabama, and be prepared to "serve" since I'm working for a federal organization. Scary thoughts. Scary words. We don't talk about such things up north but I guess that's normal procedure for down here.

Other than that the day's been pretty uneventful. We got out early and boredom ensued so we've been making the best of it. I've been thinking, of course, about friends old and new, lovers and loved ones and I've just come to the conclusion that I have to focus on the positive, those who embrace me for who I am, those who love me for what I am becoming and genuinely desire to just know me, really know me in intimate ways, ugly and beautiful ways. I miss those people both old and new to my life and I look forward to continuing this building of friendships. I see good souls on this trip. I recognize the beautiful souls I'll be going back to when I return to New York.

I hadn't realize how crucial keeping in touch would be to me since I'm removed. In New York I can typically go days without using my phone or even thinking to call or contact anyone because I love my quiet space but because I know when I want to stop being a recluse I can come out and my friends will be there. Now that I'm not with most of them, the little messages, the texts, the emails and love letters just fill me to no end. I love them and I'm thankful for them and though I've only been gone for a week, I hold them close to me. In the weeks and month coming, I can't imagine how important they will be to me. I love. I just really love.love.love so many, big and small, broadly and specifically, with tenderness and warmth. I just love. And I miss. I have been laughing nonstop since I've been here because new friendships bring beautiful laughter, yet I miss hearing the familiar sound of all of the New York posse's happiness--the potpourri of giggles and chuckles. I don't miss New York City but I miss the love that it holds. The hugs. The kisses. The beauty. The skin. Flesh. Caresses. All of it. The support. I miss the support. I just miss a lot.

I feel like I've been here for months. It's only been a week but life goes by so slowly here. No one is in a rush to do anything and the sky remains so still you hardly notice the clouds moving. It's a good thing I guess because I don't feel stressed in the least bit. Then again, work hasn't officially started. Ask me how I feel in a week and I'll get back to you. But yes, things move at a very different pace and I find myself comparing everything to New York life. I'm starting to be one of those New York people that I used to hate to listen to. You know how that goes: "In New York we do this ..." "In New York it's like that..." Yeah, someone slap me please. I've already been accused of having "bicoastal arrogance" for not recognizing the Midwest as a valid region of the country. Oh well. Still, I won't be going there any time soon.

So lastly, I turn 21 in 10 days. How happy am I? Ridiculously happy. It's going to be glorious and I wish all my loves could be here celebrating with me. But you'll be in my thoughts, as always and I hope I'm always in yours.

arachnophobia.

2007-06-03T20:05:00.001-07:00

I've been in New Orleans, Louisiana for a week now and I'm still figuring out what to make of it. I want to say that being here, close to the remnants of a disaster that previously seemed so far removed, has begun to change me. I want to say that discussing race, class, politics and environmental justice in workshops with 29 other individuals from across the country has broadened my mind and expanded my viewpoints. I want to say that New Orleans is rich in culture and rich in company, that I have never felt so welcomed in any place I've ever visited before, nationally and internationally. I want to say that I can feel myself growing. I want to say a lot of things but I'm not sure what's worth saying and what's not. I don't know where to begin. I don't know where to begin but I know where I'm at: I'm thinking. I'm thinking and it's all that I can do and there's just so much to consume and digest. I'm thinking and I'm proud of myself for getting this far, for coming here, for being here, for feeling here and for beginning to think and understand where I stand globally. I am just one in a body of many. I am just one but I can affect many. I am one but I can learn from many. I am one but I should never just stop there. If I see myself, really see myself for what I am, for what I am not, for what I'm afraid of and for what I dare to confront, I'll truly know myself as one.

Being here observing, absorbing and reflecting has led me to the conclusion that I have arachnophobia and not in the typical sense. We women, we Black women, Brown women, are spiders. We have eight arms to feed and serve the needs of ourselves, our communities, our children, our husbands, our wives, our parents, our lovers and our friends but we are demonized. We're seen as predators, as malicious insects who trap men and spread our poison I know that at one point I internalized a lot of this and perhaps I've still internalized some of these things to a certain degree. This doesn't come out in what I say or even my ideologies but in my socialized thought patterns. I'm afraid of myself, of what the world says is implicit in me. I've been caught in cobwebs of tangled pathologies, of being girl afraid to be woman, of being woman afraid of man, of being man inspite of my womanhood because there are no men to show man how to treat me like a woman. They say I'm the predator, that I'm spinning webs and I believe them. Sometimes I believe them and I'm lonely. I'm sitting lonely and it's hard to admit it but sometimes I believe them. And only I suffer. Just me. Just one.