Wear Red Today!

This is a reminder to wear red this last day of April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

From Fal's Document the Silence blog, How Do You Keep a Social Movement Alive?

More Signs of the Apocalypse: Arizona Moves to Strike Down Student of Color Organizations and Academic Freedom

This just in from Professor Black Woman:

An amendment to a bill in Arizona's House of Representatives has been issued from the Homeland Security advisory council to prevent public schools from using tax dollars that support the teaching of and any organizing based on values "that denigrate or overtly encourage dissent from the values of American democracy and Western civilization" (See legislative document).

Sounds like any curricula or student organization that would criticize capitalism, globalization, anti-immigration, Christian fundamentalism, and - oh yes! - white supremacy, is in trouble.

What makes this legislation deeply insidious is that it looks like it's an issue of "homeland security," completely dismissing our right to public education while also hoodwinking the general public into not recognizing how its very language is a violation of our First Amendment rights! This doesn't support our democracy; it strikes at the core of it!

Fortunately, Arizona citizens are working hard to prevent this amendment from passing. Please lend them your support by signing this petition.

If we let this slide in Arizona, I can only imagine the horrendous repercussions if it leads to a domino effect.

This, my friends, is the fallout when feminists and other progressives don't band together (because racism continues to divide us) and when Democrats don't get their act together. How many of us are even sure that a Democrat will be in the White House next year? The fact that we're not even sure about this means that we're in trouble, for only when that happens will this neoconservative trend, which fuels racism, xenophobia, fascism, and the worst forms of rampant corporatized consumer culture (which as I've stated yesterday will lead to the destruction of us all), start to reverse.

And when all the progressive professors (myself included) are legally silenced, and all our students (many of whom are in debt - which is a contemporary way of saying ENSLAVED) are prevented from radically organizing, there's no mistaking the handwriting on the wall.

Act now!

Food is a Feminist Issue: Keeping the Third Horseman At Bay

And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand... And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. - Revelations 6: 5, 6.

Perhaps this is something of a Sunday Sermon, but it's more a reaction to our latest news about the world's rice shortage and impending wheat crisis. Current events that are starting to mimic biblical prophesy in ways that those of us who are both academic and spiritual don't always like to acknowledge.

Now, I'm not a the*logian (but know enough to use this gender-neutral spelling to challenge male-dominated language and imagery to describe the divine), so I won't even pretend to understand the symbolism used by St. John of Patmos, the attributed author of this mysterious scripture, which I suspect had far more to do with writing a letter in secret code (seeing that he was a prisoner at the time, who probably was not at all free to write openly with guards looking over his shoulder) than it does with predicting future events, let alone events pertaining to us in the 21st century.

Of course, it is my own spiritual and intellectual belief that great literature stands the test of time, precisely because of the timelessness of power, privilege, oppression, and the resistance of those who are marginalized. The Book of Revelations is relevant to our own time because its author, St. John of Patmos, like many other marginalized and decolonized freedom fighters (fighting the imperialism of ancient Rome during his time while we fight against the global white corporate imperialism in our own time), was divinely inspired to call on oppressed people to rise above the material power of imperialism and place their faith in a higher power based on social justice and a new earth - a lovely vision that this frighteningly dark book ends with, out of the darkness and horror is a perpetual light shining and an endless supply of running water to replenish the earth and all the earth's living creatures.

But, before we even get to this New Earth, we first encounter some frighteningly mysterious "four horsemen," each representing some devastation: First Horseman = pestilence; Second Horseman = war; Third Horseman = famine; and Fourth Horseman = death.

We've witnessed our fair share of pestilence and warfare, but is the world really ready for worldwide famine? Really?

What seemed like some apocalyptic vision that only Christian fundamentalists could dream of is now becoming all too real. Here I'm reading reports from science magazines, the BBC News, and the New York Times warning us that, thanks to corporate greed and scientific ignorance, we are now facing a severe food crisis with the increase in pesticides that have destroyed crops and with the reduction of biodiversity through the patenting of seeds (htp Vandana Shiva's important work on this issue - see her books, Earth Democracy and Biopiracy - both published by a great feminist press, South End Press) and the deforestation of our last rainforests, from the Amazon to the Congo - where I've already called your attention to the horrific rape epidemic occurring there at present - we're now in trouble.

Had there not been so much ridiculous racism among feminists in the blogosphere (thanks Seal Press and Amanda Marcotte, who by the way, from what I understand, have had that controversial book cover since August 2007 but only took this past weekend to apologize for it) and even more sexism (or what Gina over on WAOD calls "foolishness") with our black communities and popular culture, I might have done a more thorough analysis that links the Congolese war and sexual violence to this larger global context of our food supply and how this all connects back to our rampant greed in this corporatized consumer culture.

I'm not saying that it was wrong of me to focus on the problematic issues of plagiarism, appropriation, and dismissal of women of color among bloggers and publishers, but we really do need to ask the question: what does it mean for feminism and women's studies to take the lead in addressing these severe worldwide problems, especially with regards to food?

And let's be clear, ladies and gentlemen. While publishers like Seal Press (against which I'm still supporting the Girlcott) would have us believe that women's issues are all about sex and body image, where is the attention to the access and politics of food? Both the production of it and its consumption? After all, for centuries, indeed millennia, food production was "woman's work" and "woman's domain." As is the purchasing of food. Whether I'm at my grocery store, a farmer's market, or at the market square in the Caribbean, or even when traveling in other countries, women are still primarily buying and preparing food. Before corporations took over food production, we were the ones in charge of growing, gathering, and planting. This isn't to minimize men's roles in farming, but to seriously remind us that food is very much part of women's lives and, therefore, a feminist issue.

And when corporations rape the land (while raping our bodies in the process), they appropriate all of our knowledge and our labor, and render us impoverished...leaving many in the dust to starve.

Those of us on the receiving end of the food imbalance - you know, us over here in developed nations, who are consuming a good deal more than we should without paying attention to what's genetically produced or what's organic - are certainly not doing ourselves any favors. Our culture has created a terribly unhealthy relationship to food while also blinding us to a much larger crisis on our hands.

For if the wheat supply (which is largely imported to us from other countries, like Australia, where their wheat has been infected by a rare bacteria - thanks to seed patents and lack of biodiversity) is wiped out, we'll be going without bread for a long, long time. And I'd like everyone to imagine, for a moment, what life could possibly be like without bread on the table.

Well, my mom has already calmed my anxious self down and told me to go to the grocery store this weekend and start stocking up on bags of rice and flour. At least, those don't spoil over the years. But perhaps now is the time to start growing our own vegetables (including potatoes) - whether you live in the countryside or the city. A radical colleague of mine is a strong advocate of guerrilla gardening. Even though a good friend of mine has already warned that few seeds are available that have not already been genetically altered.

We can argue till the cows come home what the verse "see thou hurt not the oil and wine" really means, but in light of our oil wars, has everything else been sacrificed? More importantly, can we begin to change our way of living to reverse the values we've placed on modernity?

We must sustain our environments to sustain ourselves!

Sometimes Words Fail, Sometimes Words Aren't Necessary

Kudos to Professor Black Woman for cautioning us not to call off our Girlcott against Seal Press, and also to the blog, Dear White Feminists, for showcasing choice illustrations from a recent book, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments (courtesy of author Amanda Marcotte and Seal Press):



At least Seal Press released a public apology yesterday for this offensive book cover. But since I don't really want to deconstruct this apology, I will direct you to Curvature's analysis instead.

It's bad enough that the author is allegedly behind the controversy surrounding Brownfemipower's exit from the blogosphere and that the publishers were also instrumental in Black Amazon's disappearance.

But what new silences does this illustration, as well as the public outcry and subsequent apology foster about "feminism" and "survival in politically inhospitable environments"? If Ms. Marcotte has not addressed this in her survival guide, please allow me to make a suggestion:

END THE RACISM - CONSCIOUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS!

Hearts of darkness...indeed!

Not Guilty! So What Else is New?

I'm on my way out for the day, but just wanted to provide this quick update, as the news has left me speechless - YET AGAIN!

Three New York City plainclothed detectives - Detectives Gescard F. Isnora, Michael Oliver and Marc Cooper - were just acquitted for the murder of Sean Bell (pictured), who was gunned down in a hail of 50 bullets just outside a strip club in Jamaica, Queens on November 25, 2006, hours before he was to be married to his fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell (also pictured).

Not Guilty...again...as NYPD were found Not Guilty in the murder of Amadou Diallo (himself killed in a hail of 41 bullets in 1999), like the LAPD were found Not Guilty in the brutal beating of Rodney King in 1992.

See News Source.

As an aside, let me warn you now: do not read the ignorant comments from readers because they will make you angrier than you normally would be just learning of yet another police acquittal.

I for one want to know why is it that, the fact that Sean Bell and his buddies decided to go to a strip club for his bachelor's party (what a demented, insane, and criminal-minded idea this is, y'all!) is even being discussed! As if this action now makes the victim in this case (Sean Bell) sound like he is to be blamed for his own death!

Last time I checked, the hiring of strippers by a wealthy, elite athletic team at a prestigious southern university certainly didn't taint their characters! Why the hell is this fact something that is being raised to taint the innocence of this murder victim?!

Advocacy on Behalf of Students of Color

Yesterday, I almost made a graduate student of mine cry. She's this sharp sister, holding an undergraduate degree from one of our top HBCUs and liberal arts colleges. Girlfriend's got it all together and has what I think is a kick-ass thesis prospectus, so I'm actually excited about chairing her project. She also has ambitions to continue work in Women's Studies and plans on applying to a few PhD programs next year.

This was great news to me because I learned from a colleague, who attended an important academic meeting over the weekend, that one of the PhD programs where I think she will fit in the best is desperate to find U.S. women of color students since their incoming class has none. So, I decided to check out her academic record to see how competitive she will be (I'm a graduate director so I have access to all their records). Imagine my shock and horror to learn that in her first semester, she earned a B in another colleague's class.

A "B"!! Which, if you don't know, a B in graduate class is like earning a "D", okay?

So, I confronted my student.

"What do you mean by getting a 'B' in one of your classes? You cannot have ambitions to do PhD work with those kinds of grades!"

Yes, I was yelling at her (sometimes I don't think those of us who are faculty of color realize that we immediately take on parental or auntie roles - or godmother roles at best! - when advising and mentoring our students of color).

"Why did you get a 'B' in that class?" I asked my wayward student (yes, she fell from grace in my eyes instantly!).

"I don't really know! I did everything I was supposed to. I guess it wasn't enough."

"So, let me get this straight," I interjected. "You got a B in this class, and you didn't even bother to find out from your professor why she gave you a 'B'? If you don't really know how you got a B, why didn't you ask?"

Silence. For whatever reason, it didn't dawn on this sharp and confident student of color that she really could confront her white professor about such things.

I continued, "Do you know if I gave any of my white students a 'B,' one of the first things they do is make an appointment with me to find out why if they don't already know?"

Her eyes opened wide, now realizing her crucial mistake.

She gulped and asked, "So, does that mean I shouldn't apply to any PhD programs?"

So, I replied, "Oh, you're going to apply to PhD programs, and I'm going to write a very strong letter for you, and you're going to ask __________ [a prominent scholar in the field with whom she worked as an undergraduate] to also write you a very strong letter. The 'B' on your graduate transcript is not ideal, but we can still work towards building a strong application. Just keep in mind two things: 1) You will not be getting anything less than an 'A' in your classes from now on, and 2) If you're not receiving the 'A' I think you're capable of earning, you will find out from your professors why you're not receiving that grade. Okay?"

She nodded, looked as if she were about to cry, and left my office.

So, you know the next course of action was to confront that white professor of hers to find out why a student who is beyond capable of doing 'A' work received a 'B' in her class. Which is what I did during a lunch break.

Now, you know I had to do this in the most diplomatic and polite way imaginable because any hint of racial disparity (like assigning a lower grade for your one student of color when the other white students in the same class received an 'A' - I checked all of their records, and, yes, as it turns out, this happens to be the case) would reduce my white colleagues into a tizzy of profuse apologies and disclaimers of "white guilt."

My colleague is a fairly confident person, but does that mean she's above feeling "guilty" when confronted about her treatment of a student of color? Of course not. As I anticipated, I got the profuse apologies and various proclamations of how said student is truly "stellar" and "amazing" and how she would be happy to write her a "glowing letter of recommendation" for doctoral studies.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes in response to this and said, "Doesn't sound like someone who was doing 'B' work. If she is a stellar student, what happened?"

"Well, I mean, her paper was good at the end, but I base my grades on your work throughout the whole semester, and based on her earlier drafts, I didn't see significant improvement."

"Well, I guess my concern is that, if she applies to PhD programs, most graduate schools are going to interpret her 'B' as a failing grade."

"It's not a failing grade at all! She's a great student! Trust me, I gave lots of C's in that class, and I base my grades on an A through C scale!"

"Oh, I understand, but most schools base their grades on an A through B scale. Of course, I'm sure when ________ is ready to apply to doctoral programs, your 'glowing' letter will come in handy and provide a counter-balance to her grade."

More uncomfortable gulping, and we're done with our conversation.

I'm sharing this anecdote because I'm realizing how advocacy on behalf of students of color means sometimes speaking up and speaking out, especially when said students - whatever their reasons - don't feel empowered to do so.

I'm amazed how many students of color behave passively when grades are passed out. Unlike their white student cohorts, they rarely show up to professors' office hours, and they don't confront us about the grades they receive. They have not behaved with the same level of "entitlement." Sometimes this is a good thing (respect for their elders and the knowledge with which we operate) and sometimes this is self-destructive (case in point: my student, who just might find herself competing with other applicants whose GPAs are higher than hers, and her failure to get to the bottom of her 'B' grade last semester might affect this).

Fortunately, she has me advocating for her, and I'm not sure how many students of color in other programs have the same level of advocacy. And let me clarify: I'm not advocating for her just because she's black. I'm advocating for her because she's smart and brilliant, and I think she' s qualified, and because she's a student of color trying to acculturate and find her way in graduate school and not always knowing the right approaches in surviving and thriving.

I have supported smart students of color in graduate school, and I've also argued against accepting students of color if I truly felt they would not be capable of completing graduate school successfully (which happened once, when I was adamant that a student with a 2.5 GPA not be admitted to our program, but the week I was overseas at a conference, my colleagues accepted her behind my back - and wouldn't you know, when she arrived here and was having trouble finishing, just as I predicted, those same colleagues abandoned her and were content with letting her flunk out, so I decided to work with the same student just to finish her up?)

Yes, advocacy on behalf of students of color means pushing them to success or recognizing their failings and guiding them elsewhere. Advocacy of students of color means ensuring that they get treated FAIRLY (not overly punished or overly rewarded, just treated fairly).

Now, I'm sure that my white colleague is probably going to be super vigilant about how she treats any more students of color in her class from now on - just because of our conversation yesterday - but I would hate this to translate to being afraid to give a student of color a bad grade. But, can we recognize intelligence and potential in all of our students? And to work towards all of their successes, especially in recognizing how racial disparities might actually affect the way students perform once they're in graduate school? I've mentored all kinds of students (white, black, Asian, Latina, Arab, etc.) so I know what it is to be invested in their success, regardless of color. However, I also recognize how racial differences might affect different students differently, which then means developing certain nuances in how one advocates for a student.

In the end, I think my graduate student is going to be fine. At least, our conversation yesterday has opened her own eyes to realize how she must learn to be her own advocate. My teaching philosophy is starting to mirror that of Morpheus in The Matrix, who told his pupil, Neo: "I can only point you to the door. It is you who has to walk through it."

Earth Day Messages

Who says Earth Day is just for West Coast tree huggers? Here are some sharp sisters raising our environmental consciousness and making the direct links between environmental justice and antiracist/feminist justice.

The first is Majora Carter delivering a talk at the 2006 TED Conference called "Greening the Ghetto":




Majora Carter is the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, a community organization exploring holistic approaches to community development and sustainable environments.

The second is filmmaker and artist Ayoka Chenzira, who produced with her students a "tangible interactive digital media installation on surviving broken levees and Katrina," called SURVIVAL MODE. This installation is now on exhibit at Spelman College until May 23, 2008.



Let's hope this installation will be part of a traveling exhibition in future! :)

Finally, here's my shout out to two other sharp sister bloggers, Professor Black Woman, who reminds us this Earth Day to Save the Congo Rainforest (also suffering from mass rapes, like her daughters in the region), and Lisa over at Black Women Blow the Trumpet, who has expanded the list of corporate rapists in Mother Africa.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Flattery or Theft?

Yesterday, I received two important messages from friends. One was a spiritual message meant to inspire (see my Amazing Grace post), the other was meant to warn me that my intellectual property was in danger of theft (see my Giving Credit Where Credit is Due post).

I cannot tell you how enraged I am by a commenter who told me to "calm down a bit" over what I perceived as the lack of citation from Bitch magazine blog, which borrowed my ideas about the Congo corporate rapists, because "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." That's right: calm down a bit! I was so mad, I had to go back to my Amazing Grace You Tube video to really "calm down a bit..."

Until I read the You Tube comments and saw what was an ongoing debate about whether or not Wintley Phipps could indeed be "telling the truth" about whether or not the slave trader, John Newton, who wrote the lyrics to "Amazing Grace," was in fact influenced by a melody he may have heard coming from the underbelly of his slave ship - seeing that the melody mirrors the same pentatonic scale that many if not all of our slave spirituals are based on, or "the black keys" on the piano.

Naturally, because those benighted souls on You Tube missed the overarching spiritual theme of the video, they got bogged down in "historical facts" and decided that, since Wintley Phipps is the only person they've ever heard trying to link the Amazing Grace melody back to slaves from Newton's slave ship, when "everybody knows" the melody is from a Scottish folk melody (seeing that bagpipes are based on the same pentatonic scale), just like that, Phipps' revisionist musical history (and the power with which he interpreted the hymn from that history) gets dismissed!

Because, don't you know, isn't it easier to dismiss the knowledge base of some African captive aboard a slave ship than to believe there might be a kernel of truth in Phipps' message, not unlike the ways we in the 21st century could dismiss that women of color, say those who have experiences in an immigrant community, might - just might - have influenced an article by a white "feminist" who is writing on the same subject, even though said white "feminist" writer provided no citation? Or, telling a black blogger to "calm down a bit" because a nationally renowned feminist magazine parroted her words on the subject of the Congo rape epidemic without linking back to her blog! (It doesn't matter a different author did, the fact is, a post was made without any citation.)

White privilege is such that when a white person says something, no one assumes they have stolen ideas; indeed, when a white person speaks, s/he speaks with the authority of her/his skin color. Such privilege also dismisses the knowledge base of someone who does not have white skin, so when intellectual or cultural theft of our ideas and expressions occur, we have hell and the devil proving it!

Well, my blog is still here, and it is protected by a Creative Commons license. If someone is violating my blog by failing to link or cite it, I preserve the right to name the guilty party until they apologize or correct the situation. (And that' s my first, "graceful" and polite course of action before I get really ugly about it.)

I'm not "flattered" by such theft. If someone is that moved and inspired by my ideas, where is the invitation to write for their journal/magazine? Anything less than this is not "flattery" - just cite me is all I'm asking.

Like many other women of color bloggers, I'm done with "slave ship status." We are not some "mysterious Sphinx" awaiting our colonial discovery by European imperialists (a la Napoleon). We refuse to be footnoted in the history books as some "mysterious other" or "unknown source." I love the grace with which Wintley Phipps delivers this message: "When I get to heaven, I want to meet that slave called Unknown!"

For me, grace flies out the window in the Here and Now, on Planet Earth, in our high-speed information age because IT IS NOT HARD TO TRACE INFORMATION! Please credit me when credit is due! Do not placate me with the pretense of "flattery"!

Note: I appreciate Lisa Jervis over on Bitch blog for linking back to me; I'd like for all their authors to follow in this common practice of all published authors.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

A friend of mine read these words from Bitch magazine's blog:

"A destabilized Congo cannot stand up to the smugglers who steal over a million
dollars of its mineral wealth each day. (In addition to gold and diamonds, Congo
has over 80% of the world reserves of a mineral that makes cell phones and
laptops work, begging the question of how integrated this gang-rape system is in
the business plans of certain American corporations like Motorola, Dell and
Apple.)"

Doesn't this sound familiar? I believe I said this on my own blog! Hmmmm... Where is the link to this blog? Where is the citation?

Amazing Grace

It's been a beautiful day, and it's still going lovely. And obviously, I'm taking time in between my activities to visit my blog. A good friend also emailed me this powerful video today, and I just had to post here!

Brought tears to my eyes! :)

You Know You're Getting Old...

When your mom calls you to wish you a happy birthday while also profusely apologizing because she forgot to send out a birthday card, seeing that she didn't remember it was coming up.

And her "rationale" for forgetting?

"Well, how can you expect me to remember something that happened so long ago?"

Yep, feeling better already! :)

Well, I'm heading to church for a birthday blessing and later on heading out to a special birthday dinner with friends today. So, not sure if I'll be back here today.

Here's Mary J. Blige to serenade us on this special day...

Domestic Terrorism Anniversaries

Updated

Just quickly wanted to remind everyone that today is the 13th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing (htp Professor Black Woman).

Tomorrow will be the 9th Anniversary of the Columbine School Shootings, the deadliest high school shootings and the second deadliest in overall school shootings, now second to the Virginia Tech shootings, which recently held its first year anniversary this past Wednesday.

If tomorrow weren't my birthday, I too would find April to be a pretty depressing month.

(I do realize that, unfortunately, I share a birthday with one of the most infamous men in history, and because of this, I have not lost sight of how certain militia groups and white supremists continue to pick a date around this time to carry out their dastardly deeds. So, please keep vigilant! It can be a sad month, but it's also a time of spring and renewal.)

Connecting the Dots Feminist Style

I did promise to do a "connect the dots" post on the Congo rape epidemic and the Juarez killings, and then connect it all back to women here in the U.S. So, here are my thoughts.

This weekend I decided to treat myself to a special birthday gift. Since my windows xp desktop died months back, what kept me from immediately replacing it were 1.) the new Vistas, which were the ONLY product on the market, and I absolutely hated this version; 2.) my laptop, from which I've been blogging, and 3.) friends and colleagues telling me it was now time to "upgrade" to a Mac.

Well, the Corporate Rapists list convinced me to go the route of purchasing a new MAC, since they have yet to be named as a company doing business with corporations specializing in trading in conflict materials like coltan from the Congo. So, I hope this purchase represents a new commitment in being a political consumer.

As bourgeois as such a purchase makes me, I must say there is something to be said about the privilege of fully participating in our 21st-century digital information age, which includes blogging, planning to teach an online course this summer, establishing a You Tube account (believe it or not, I created it to start showcasing my students' video projects, so soon I will have to create my own, and now that I mentioned over at Black Women Vote! that I want to launch a rigorous hip-hop-is-unsexy campaign, I'm hoping the multimedia-based mac that I now own will help in the process), and equipping ourselves with the digital tools to spread knowledge and organize around pressing social issues.

So, what does it mean to connect the dots with regards to women's positions in the global information age?

1. MAQUILADORAS IN JUAREZ - Not long ago, I read a profound essay by Coco Fusco (digital and performance artist - visit her Virtual Laboratory), "At Your Service: Latin Women in the Global Information Network," included in her book, The Bodies That Were Not Ours (2001). In this essay, she urged that we not get caught up in the optimistic and ecstatic rhetoric extolling the virtues of our fast-paced, hi-tech digital world. For, with all the wonders and excitement of new media toys like powerbooks, wii, blackberrys, the latest cell phone models, etc., somewhere in this hi-tech industry is an underbelly where some subaltern group was being silenced and erased from participating in this hi-tech world of ours. She made a direct connection (like other digital artists, including Praba Pilar and Prema Murthy) between our digitized world and the assembly lines where our computers and TV sets were being assembled in factories like maquiladoras, located in places like Juarez, Mexico's border city, which is a stone's throw away from El Paso, Texas. Juarez is now a city soaked in the blood of young women and girls - many of whom worked in the maquiladoras, many of whom probably did assemble parts of the computers from which we're either writing or reading blogs. Earlier this year, reports still emerged about young girls disappearing from the streets of Juarez, and we are now, I'm sure, beyond the 400 estimated as either having disappeared or found murdered. Many of the girls, who were found, appeared to have been raped and mutilated (many of their nipples bitten off or their vaginas completely torn apart).

2. COLTAN IN THE CONGO - Recently, I've been reminded of coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and how it's one of the many raw materials in this fertile part of the African continent that has fueled a brutal and horrific scene of war and genocide in the region, not least of which is the rape epidemic. I would like us to think of our hi-tech age, and how the demand for the coolest gadgets rely on such raw materials, and how our global economy has created this chaos in the process. What does it mean that, not unlike the brutal mass rapes that have occurred in border cities like Juarez, where U.S.-owned tech factories, which mostly hire women to generate "cheap labor" - with sexual violence as the offshoot of this globalization - we find similar scenarios of mass rapes, again placed at the "epicenter" of our hi-tech global economy with the current conflict in the Congo? If we connected the Congo rape epidemic with the Juarez femicide, what do these situations tell us about women in the global information age?

3. PORNOGRAPHY GENERATES DEMAND FOR TECHNOLOGY - How many articles have I read, which have made direct ties between technology and pornography? How many have actually argued that, it's not the porn industry that has benefited from new technologies, but that it's the tech industry that has benefited from pornography, that as the increasing pornification of our culture creates a demand for female sexuality to be broadcast EVERYWHERE there is media space, the tech industries have to keep up to proliferate porn images and to do so in more accessible and cooler ways. Now that the Internet has generated more porn, which is now more accessible than in any other era of humanity (I'm sure I can make this claim), what does it mean that this entire economy has relied on female bodies (on screen or behind the scenes in maquiladoras or in war-ravaged countries) to shore itself up? What does it mean that the misogynistic ways that Juarez and Congo rapists have been mutilating women is not unlike the symbolic ways that this is done in porn?

And what will 21st-century feminists do to fight this complex, multinational corporate tech porn culture? Does it mean participating in the tech economy through blogging and the like, or should we start taking Audre Lorde seriously when she says, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house"?

This is what I mean when I say women of the Global North and South have got to join together if we're going to fight what Khadija over on Black Women Vote! once called "Patriarchy 2.0" (don't remember the exact link). And if patriarchy has upgraded, we certainly need new models of a Feminism 2.0 to begin to even chip away at its foundation.

Some Quick Updates

Thanks to my usual procrastination, I was swamped in all kinds of backed-up work, so did not get to post yesterday. I'm still finishing things up, so I only have time for some quick updates.

1. Yesterday was the first year anniversary of the Virginia Tech tragedy. In memory, I direct you to Nikki Giovanni's moving speech last year, We Are Virginia Tech.

2. While news continue to unfold on the Texas polygamist compound (see this New York Times article), I do want to give a shout out to the anonymous 16-year-old girl, who set the ball rolling once she broke the silence about her sexual assault on the compound. I also want to commend the mothers - no matter how deluded, brainwashed, or complicit they might turn out to be - for daring to assert their rights to their children (yes, I have not overlooked the way that the spectacle of these old-fashioned appearing white women have become the focal point of the abuse allegations in this fundamentalist sect - with nary a man in sight - so really, pray tell: how is our mainstream society in any way different from any religious fundamentalist sect when it comes to vilifying women?).

3. I am joining Professor Black Woman in promoting a Girlcott of Seal Press books. Their dismissal of the importance of women of color, not to mention their emphasis on white women as the normative face of feminism, necessitates this action. Please join us by refusing to buy, read, or teach any of their books in future.

4. Brownfemipower has returned to the blogosphere! (Maybe temporarily, maybe not). In response to the controversy surrounding her, as well as to all of us WOC bloggers who weighed in on the issue, BFP had this to say. (htp PBW, elle, and an e-mail from plain(s)feminist).

5. WEAR RED! In solidarity with the Queers for Economic Justice, who will be rallying in New York City today for economic justice, national healthcare, an end to gentrification, and an end to the abuses of LGBTQ people (especially those in poverty). (htp PBW)

Why I Will Not Disavow the "Feminist" Label

I am simply tired of the hypocrisy of the outside world that wants to make African war crimes like rape as unique only to Africans. This kind of stereotyping needs to be checked and we shouldn't let ignorance prevail. This is obviously not a justification of rape, but for all those in the struggle for justice it is important not to be persuaded that this is a problem that is unique to Africans. This kind of thinking would not help much with your cause since from the onset one may assume that they are dealing with a problem that is race specific yet its not. Who knew that in this day and age we would have Abu Ghraib courtesy of US forces including women as the perpetrators of the abuse? - Grata from The Village.

I see now that feminism is nothing more than erasure. A conversation between white women and men. A commitment to the safety and well being of people who are never women of color.But all the while–even as there is a studied avoidance of the women of color in the room, the women of color are there nonetheless. They are working and agitating and moving and changing the world–and they are doing all this without money, without support, without mainstream media, without jobs, without praise and admiration. And to me, it’s a sin and disgrace to force such an unworthy label on them–they who wouldn’t steal food from a neighbor if they haven’t eaten all day.“The road to hell is paved with feminists” - Brownfemipower's last post in the blogosphere.

The sentiments expressed by both Grata (htp Miriam from Black Fire, White Fire) and Brownfemipower have really given me reason to pause. As one of the bloggers who has been given credit for starting the blogswarm on the Congo rape epidemic, and as someone who has always, always questioned the way Africa has been portrayed as this "netherworld" of our worst nightmares or our most victimized victims (see Africa: This Year's Entertainment and Decolonizing Feminism posts), I take these concerns very seriously. Grata urges us to think globally and not get caught up in a "convenient" stereotype of "African savagery" (which I've already seen occurring in some of the blog comments, especially among African American women). Fortunately, we have so many conscious sisters, the issue of racial stereotypes have already been addressed because no one let those problematic comments go unchecked.

But the other piece to Grata's critique is an immediate distrust of those of us who have not done enough critical self-reflection on our own privileged positions (whether as white feminists or as U.S. citizens) and how this position colors our view of what she calls "Africa's First World War." In short, I have to say: point well taken.

Which is why I thought to link Grata's concerns with the last post entered by Brownfemipower, who, sadly, exited the blogosphere last week over plagiarism and lack of acknowledgment by a white blogger who parroted many of her ideas in a mainstream online site. Apart from the fact of her disappearance is what I can only read as her final "disavowal" of the "Feminist" label. For that, I'm really sad to see, because, unlike BFP, I do not now nor will ever believe that feminism belongs to white women. They did not start it, and even though it looks like they're "running things," that's simply not true. It's because I'm fully aware of the women's rights movement history why I will not disavow feminism, I will not find alternative "names" like womanist to define me, nor will I decide - whenever white feminists or Global North feminists (of which I'm one of them) or any other privileged woman does something heinous to another woman - to leave feminist movements. Instead, I will declare the guilty party to NOT be the feminist one, I will ask those culprits to "please turn in their membership card," and to get in line and treat each other with respect and equality, or get the hell out and don't let the door hit you.

No more of this disavowal. Because, if many of our ideas and theories have been stolen through intellectual theft, then you better believe that our practices and social movements were also stolen and given the label "feminism." Women of color have been made to feel like this is some "bourgeois white women's movement," for which we have to join and assimilate to their concerns, and then have to either pretend we don't do gender analysis or feminist oriented work, lest we become associated with the bad behavior of bourgeois white "feminists" (by bad behavior, I'm talking racism and imperialism, not "bad girl" behavior) or to rely on some segregationist movement to address our cause, which only manages to marginalize us further. Meanwhile, the reason why women the world over are in such a sorry state is because women of color and white women haven't come together to fight sexism. There is no other way to defeat intersectional oppression.

When I say our social practices and movements, as women of color, have been appropriated, here's what I'm talking about (see also my Black Feminist Legacies post):

1. Did you know, according to Paula Gunn Allen in her 1984 essay, "Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism," that the impetus for theorizing on "natural rights" and "liberties" had a great deal to do with Europeans' encounter with indigenous American societies, which were often egalitarian and in which women held important leadership positions? Sure, Eurocentrists would rather trace their liberation theory back to King John of England's 1297 Magna Carta, but such "democratic rights" were decreed by a monarch. How much did the encounter with Native Americans (and women's roles within the culture) generate the philosophies of Enlightenment, the point that many Western feminists often trace as the origin of feminist theory with Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Woman?

2. How many of you ever heard of the name Maria Stewart (1803-1879)? Well, she was a black woman who happened to be the first woman ever in U.S. history to speak in public about women's rights. Influenced by David Walker's militant 1829 appeal, she drew on the discourse of black liberation to address feminism. She started in 1831 and would be followed more than five years later with white women abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimke, who were loudly criticized by their male counterparts for daring to speak in public as women, as was Maria Stewart. It was this gender discrimination in the anti-slavery community that prompted the formation of a women's movement to begin with, until woman suffrage became the point (and became the point precisely because so many white women were pissed that black men got the right to vote before them - sound familiar?). Makes me wonder why anti-racist white women allow their white supremacist counterparts to take over (as Susan B. Anthony had allowed in the suffrage movement). Worse, such actions lull them into thinking that white privilege will protect them as women, in which the vast majority of women (who happen not to be white) can be sacrificed for a few gains that they gain, not as women, but as whites!

3. In the women's liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, it was another black woman, Florynce Kennedy, who founded the Feminist Party in 1971 and nominated Shirley Chisholm for president of the United States. So, even here, it was black women who politicized the term Feminism to begin with!

And yet, I'm offering this history because I keep hearing women of color, time and again, echoing words like what Brownfemipower expressed. I'm just reminding everyone that the "Feminist" label belongs to us, as women of color. We laid the foundations for feminist theory and practice. We are the bodies on which feminist theories are created. We are the "comparative" variable and the case study for why "life sucks for women." It's because of the combined effects of sexism, racism, imperialism, heterosexism, etc. why we've got it bad. And it's because we "bleed at the intersections" why we, more than any other group of women, need feminist movement.

When I was asked to speak at a Latina sorority last month, invited by a student who is in my class, to talk about the Juarez situation, I said yes, because I believe in supporting my students but I wondered why this student, who majored in Latin American Studies, didn't ask one of her LAS faculty to speak and to speak with more knowledge than I would.

Imagine my surprise that, in a room full of 120 students, many of who were LAS majors, this was the first time they had heard of the mass killings and rapes of women in that U.S./Mexico border city, and the killings have begun since 1993! (At some point, I will offer a connect-the-dots post to show how the coltane stolen from the Congo is then processed in various factories and later assembled by such women in Juarez to give us our lovely computers and TV sets, which are then used to recycle the most demeaning images of women - tell me this cyclical pattern isn't affecting all women everywhere.)

I offer this anecdote to say that Women's Studies and feminism are important because, sadly, our Ethnic Studies programs still don't center women and gender. And there is no excuse for feminism or Women's Studies to not place women of color at its center when we have laid the foundations.

We are the feminist movement, and it exists in the blogosphere, in the streets, in households, in community shelters, in classrooms, and everywhere there is a woman fighting for her right to just be.

I will not disavow the "feminist" label because I didn't get it coming through the back door.

Blogswarms: Congo Rape Epidemic and Global Day for Darfur

Updated

Here are the meaningful posts from Sunday, April 13, covering the rape epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo and going the extra distance to offer suggestions on how we can act to stop the violence (thanks for alerting me, katie and sokari):

Abyss2Hope
Anxious Black Woman
Black Looks
Black Fire, White Fire
The Curvature
Elaine Vigneault
Elle, PhD
Feminist Bloggers Network
Feministe
Haagar's Daughters
Hell on Hairy Legs
The Hyperborean
KitKat's Critique
Noli Irritare Leones
Off Our Pedestals
Pizza Diavola
Professor Black Woman
Season of the Bitch
Shakesville
The Sowing Circle
Spectrum Blue
Texas in Africa
The Village

And for the blogswarm on the Global Day of Solidarity with Darfur (no confusion here - Darfur and Congo reflect the same exact problem, so I'm glad to see a blogswarm on both issues):

All About Race
Black and Missing But Not Forgotten
Black Women Blow the Trumpet
Black Women Vote!
Black Perspective
CEO MUM
Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth
Electronic Village
The Jose Vilson
Modern Musings
Mrs. Grapevine
Musings of the Night
Opinionated Black Woman
A Political Reason
Regina's Family Reasons
Slant Truth
Ultraviolet Underground
The Unapologetic Mexican
Vanessa Unplugged
What About Our Daughters

First, there's Awareness, then there's Action. So, thanks to everyone for participating in these two blogswarms! (If I'm missing anyone, please let me know, and I will update the list.)

Musings on the Global Culture of Rape: History and the Congo

I want to thank Shecodes of Black Women Vote! and Danielle Vyas of Modern Musings, both of whom encouraged bloggers to post today, April 13, about the Congo rape epidemic and who have also raised awareness that today is a global day of solidarity to stop the genocide in Darfur. And, as I always draw inspiration from Professor Black Woman, I want to thank her for reminding me of last week's 14th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide and of the recent attacks over there on the Rwanda Memorial.

Last but not least, I want to thank filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson for shaking me to my very core last week with her brave and unflinching documentary film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, and for modeling the kind of feminist solidarity so desperately needed between white women and black women, between women of the Global North and South, especially in light of less than exemplary behavior of some white bloggers and publishers of late.

I remember, in debriefing with a friend, after watching the program, about how unfathomable it was to think of the horrendous suffering of women in war - in particular African women, whose voices are often ignored and whose bodies are perpetually objectified - we started wondering if there was anything really new about the gruesome forms of sexual violence in the Congo. I'm not talking in the sense of, yes, such behavior is also mirrored in the present conflict in Darfur or in Iraq or in Afghanistan, but that such torturous, militarized sexual violence had also taken place during the Nicaraguan War in the 1980s, during the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Indeed, as Andrea Smith has documented in her book on Native American women's history, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, America was founded on the mutilated vaginas of indigenous women. So was Australia, and do I even need to mention Africa again?

When I think of the Congolese woman, whose rectum was burned out of her, I also think of those Carib, Arawak, Aztec, Mayan, Creek, Cherokee, Iroquois, Inuit, Kanaka Maoli, Warai, and Jingili women whose genitalia were routinely cut out of them and placed on sticks, spears, and hats for proud exhibition. I think of the Khoisan woman from South Africa, Saartjie Baartman, whose genitalia was also placed on proud exhibition - not on a spear, but in a scientific bell jar. I think of imperialism and racism, and how both ideologies depended upon the institution of misogyny to maintain supremacy. I think of this long, long, awfully long history of women in general - and women of color especially - who are often targeted for the most brutal forms of violence and then enveloped in silence so that we dare not dwell on the traumatic memories or, worse, on the traumatic future that is surely set for our daughters.

I think about all this when I reflect on the rape epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo because, like my friend asked me: why the hell are we, as women, still dealing with this atrocity when it is the year 2008? When is this going to stop? Why should we, as the daughters, the descendants of "those who chose to survive" (to quote from Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust), those who went through an unimaginable hell called the Middle Passage - where, on top of that Holocaustic journey, our ancestral mothers had to add rape to their experience - and still the hell wasn't over, why are we still bearing the same scars?

If there is anything to take away from the film, from knowing about this horrific and inexcusable outrage, it's that the women who told their stories survived. Those women broke their silence. Like our ancestral mothers before them, they found a song or they have created "a way out of no way." They are rebuilding their lives and coming together as women, not unlike what women have done in Rwanda, not unlike what we need to do here.

Celie from Alice Walker's The Color Purple said it best when she proclaims, "Dear God, I'm here! I'm here!"

Don't ever, for one second, doubt the tremendous victory it is when we survive because our enemies will not stop until they have completely annihilated us all. When, after such atrocities, we are here and "left to tell the tale," we have won.

Perhaps the important piece about my conversation with my friend is not so much why so many women are still suffering in the 21st century - despite all the so-called gains of the feminist movement - but what does it mean that for the first time in our long history we can loudly TALK about our rape experiences today and have language for it, to call the act what it is, without whispering or suppressing it. Indeed, we can loudly say "this happened to me!" in a film and have that media travel the world over.

Now that we're breaking the silence, will our daughters and our sons follow a different path, or will it still be the same old same old? What goals will we set for ourselves so that militarized rape does not have to pass down from generation to generation like DNA (don't let those evolutionary scientists fool you, boys and men! You can prevent sexual violence!)?

Right now, we will not be silenced. We will call out our perpetrators by their names (see my corporate rapists post), and we will say NO! to oppression and YES! to resistance and solidarity.

I end this post with a great musical piece by Zap Mama, founded by "Afropean" Congolese vocalist Marie Daulne, called "Abadou," based on an African story of a young woman trying to escape her fate. May we all succeed!

Some Very Important Famous Last Words

Thanks to The SmackDog Chronicles for providing a Google link to Brownfemipower's last entry before she shut down her blog (This final entry was posted on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008). The words in this post are so critical and so urgently needed that I will post here significant chunks from it, lest they disappear and links become dead.

The title: "On Intellectual Integrity" - BFP wrote:

Giving credit for a job done is pretty much what makes academic careers. Whole theories are built around the work of a single scholar (see Frued, Marx, Foucoult, Spivak etc). There are literally thousands of theorists world-wide who would not have jobs if it weren’t for the fact that they became expert translators of a major theorist. Similarly, there are thousands of scholars who would not have jobs if it weren’t for the fact that the translators of major theorists hadn’t done their jobs. Scholars need and are dependent upon each other, even as they fight for their independence and name recognition. Careers literally wouldn’t exist if names and work aren’t cited. For example, if all queer theorists used Judith Butler’s ideas, but didn’t cite her work, she would have long since been shoved out of academia–at the best, she’d be teaching at a community college some where.

As a result, academic scholarship is some of the most fiercely protected stuff out there. Proper citation is taught to all first year writing students. If ANY student is caught not citing sources, they can be kicked out of school. MLK has had his academic titles challenged because a small section of his work wasn’t cited, Norman Finkelstein obliterated Alan Dershowitz’s credibility simply by exposing his plagiarism, Ward Churchill was not protected by his tenure when he made controversial statements after it was discovered he plagiarized.

Citing work, it is said, is important because of intellectual honesty, openness, etc. I say, yeah, that’s great, but let’s be real. If a person isn’t cited–and then is repeatedly not cited over and over again–it wouldn’t matter how fabulous his or her work is–that person’s relevance within the academy would be non-existent. Specifically, the academy would no longer need that person–and that person will be out a job...

BFP continues:

So what this all wraps up to mean is that when when the work of RWOC is not used in any context of academia, they are not necessary, their work is not necessary, and their careers are non-existent– which hurts women of color– and students do not learn about the full scope of their field, making them illegitimate scholars, unprepared citizens, and shoddy activists–which hurts everybody.

Furthermore, it also means that women of color gain a reputation outside of academia as being considered “unpublishable.” Seal Press recently had an exchange with another woman of color blogger at which it was finally disclosed that women of color authors don’t sell, but it would be fabulous to publish them! (It appears that several of the comments on this exchange were taken down–pay attention to “bah”’s comments for proof that these things were said.)

So women of color are the first on the chopping block when there are economic downturns because we aren’t financially reliable for companies–and yet–we aren’t financially reliable for companies because our work isn’t used by other academics in the classroom or cited in texts...

Finally, to excerpt a huge portion to its eloquent conclusion, BFP wrote:

Now. I want to take this discussion and use it to inform my life in the blog world and my life as a writer.

I am not now, nor will I ever be a mainstream type publishable author. I started my blog because I knew this. Although people seem to think that many of us women of color bloggers are doing nothing but complaining when we mention the fact that we are not mainstream type publishable–I would argue that indeed, we are doing far more than “complaining”. We are self-publishing authors on the internet.

I have made peace with the fact that I will never be mainstream-y publishable–but I have NOT made peace with the fact that the words and theories of women of color are stolen and not attributed or cited. I will never make a living off of blogging, I will never get a book deal off of blogging, I will never be on CNN or invited to be a part of a political campaign or have articles written calling me the new leader of the feminist movement–and I am ok with that. I am NOT ok with people who ARE posting on big blogs, getting book deals, doing interviews on CNN, being invited to work political campaigns, being called new leaders of the feminist movement etc–taking my ideas and using my ideas to continue the unexamined and unchallenged goal of getting book deals, doing interviews….

There’s a lot of women of color (and men of color!) who have talked about immigration. There’s a lot of women of color and men of color who have examined how sexualized violence has been the foremost result of the “strengthening” of borders. There’s been a lot of us who have insisted for a long time now that immigration is a feminist issue, goddamn it, get your head out of your ass.
I even wrote a whole speech about it.

Which is why it was startling to read a recent article about how sexualized violence against immigrant women is directly linked to using dehumanizing terminology like “illegal alien” without one attribute to any blogger of color, male or female, in the entire essay. There is even an earnest declaration about how paperwork is the true problem of immigration (bureaucracy of paperwork anybody?) coupled with a declaration that immigration is a feminist issue.
I do not accept that the author of this article made a mistake in not publishing any links to the work already being done by pro-immigration bloggers, nor do I accept that the author came up with these ideas all on her own.

What I *DO* believe is that I made a massive and horrible mistake in emphasizing that immigration is a feminist issue. In comments, a Chicano blogger said very politely, thank you for talking about this Ms. Feminist, but this has been going on for a long time.

I don’t give a shit about being published, I don’t give a shit about the interviews or the jobs or the fame–I DO give a shit that a Chicano is reading a white feminist talking about immigration and politely distancing himself from a gendered analysis of immigration because the author exhibits no historical or contextual awareness of women of color led feminist interventions into immigration.

I give a shit about that because not only does this erase the work that women of color are doing within racist white dominant structures, but it erases the work we are doing within our own communities. It makes it ok for men of color to dismiss the need for feminist interventions into our communities–AND it makes it ok for white women to continue beating up women of color with the idea that showing any concern for what happens to men in our communities is ridiculous, because, see, they don’t approve of feminism!

Poof! Just like that, feminists of color are made invisible even as we are the ones laying our bodies down for the foundation of the communication between men of color and white women.
I had thought at one time that feminism was about justice for women. I had thought it was about centering the needs of women, and creating action in the name of, by and for women. I had thought that feminism has its problems but it’s worth fighting for, worth sacrificing and sweating and crying and breaking down for.

It was all worth it to me, because it meant that I existed and my daughter existed and the women I love existed and we had the right to demand the violence committed against us ends.
I see now that feminism is nothing more than erasure. A conversation between white women and men. A commitment to the safety and well being of people who are never women of color.
But all the while–even as there is a studied avoidance of the women of color in the room, the women of color are there nonetheless. They are working and agitating and moving and changing the world–and they are doing all this without money, without support, without mainstream media, without jobs, without praise and admiration. And to me, it’s a sin and disgrace to force such an unworthy label on them–they who wouldn’t steal food from a neighbor if they haven’t eaten all day.

“The road to hell is paved with feminists”

I can only thank god my soul has been saved.

Viva La Mujerista!

Preach it!

Blog About Congo Rape Epidemic Today!

I just wanted to remind everyone that today is an important day for bloggers to post about the rape epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I will be doing so later today, but first thing this morning I wanted to put out that quick reminder.

However, my next post will be a continuation of some important blogging issues that transpired last week.

Let me also spread the word on what Professor Black Woman has called for a "girlcott" of Seal Press books: Please read this important post!

Blog Wars and the Silencing of Women of Color

I'm really late to the party with this news! I discovered today, while reading Black Looks, that Brownfemipower, that truly inspirational and poetic voice of Women of Color Blog, has shut down her blog. There's no telling when or if she will be returning to the blogosphere.

Before I get into the back story, let me first direct you "to the left, to the left," as Beyonce would say, and check out my sidebar, which details that this blog is licensed through Creative Commons. This means that, as long as you link to and cite from my blog while giving me full credit for any ideas expressed here, we're good. And, if you plan to use said ideas in an article, book, or even student paper, then this is the proper citation for listing this blog in your references:

Anxious Black Woman. "Title of Individual Post" (Date of Entry). Diary of an Anxious Black Woman. Blogger Pages. http://diaryofananxiousblackwoman.blogspot.com. Date Accessed.

In the context of this blog, I am writing as an alias, and "Anxious Black Woman" is my licensed pseudonym, until I choose to write under a different name or even under my real name.

Now that we've clarified this important issue (since too many people on the web think that what we write and upload is a free for all - let's be clear: blogs, websites, You Tube videos, etc., are all PUBLISHED materials), it's time to talk about what seems to be the reason for BFP's flight from the blogosphere.

Good old-fashioned plagiarism. I had to follow a variety of links, since this story has developed over the week. After reading Black Looks, which then led me to Devious Diva, who expressed a great deal of outrage and who also hinted that this plagiarism may have coupled with other drama involving Seal Press representatives making offensive remarks about women of color over on Blackamazon to break the camel's back, while providing a link to Problem Chylde, who gave a blow-by-blow comparison between BFP's posts (which, sadly, are no longer available and therefore could not be used to provide the solid evidence needed) and the accused, Amanda Marcotte of the Pandagon blog, who wrote an article for Alternet on "Sexual Abuse Fueled by Abusive Immigration Language," it now appears that Amanda has stolen her ideas for this article from BFP's own posts about immigrant women's struggles with sexual violence. While I haven't been a reader of Pandagon, I did take some time today to look it over, and since I am a reader of BFP's blog (except this week, which is why I had to find out about her shut down today), and if this issue came before a court of law (hint, hint, BFP, wherever you are: please hold onto your blogging evidence), I as a juror would have reasonable doubt about the Alternet author's innocence (she has rarely blogged on the subject - which should make everyone healthily skeptical about why Alternet had chosen Ms. Marcotte to write on this topic in the first place, or why the author would sell herself as an expert on the subject, especially looking through Pandagon and not finding any sound evidence that she is capable of doing the intersectional analysis bloggers like BFP bring to their own writing). There are some other interesting posts by other outraged bloggers, who have been supportive of BFP's work (see High on Rebellion and Belledame222) and who have addressed the problem of racism, white privilege, and the continuous problem of white women using "this bridge called my back" of women of color to cross over into "progressive" and "feminist" credibility.

To me, the other part of this white privilege is the simple fact of mainstream media choosing to render our knowledge meaningless, marginal, "too angry," as others have said, and a host of other "problems," while our white counterparts receive the welcome mat and easier access to journals, newspapers, and publishers. For example, why is Stuff White People Like, which I believe just started this year, already getting a book deal (I got this news from Professor Black Woman - can't find the direct link) when the rest of us, who have offered the same critiques of whiteness (although I'll admit that blog is hilarious and could see the mainstream appeal) keep getting editors at publishing houses who say they don't want to "regurgitate" what we've already written on our blog, so any book deal we get had better be "original" and "not yet published"? I do think the publishers have a point, but I'm wondering if the author of SWPL received the same criticism, or is it just the very appeal and "marketability" of white people that gives the author access to publishing? Not to mention that, although the blog critiques whiteness, it is still by its very nature a promotion of said white culture and is therefore more palatable for the white supremacist society that chooses who to promote and who to ignore.

I'm using that one example to suggest that the same sentiment perhaps guided Alternet to publish Amanda Marcotte while ignoring BFP, who not only has kept the issue of immigrant women's rights at the forefront of her blog but has also provided the groundwork for such so-called "progressive whites" to sift through and downright steal from. The very politics of her access to publishing in a mainstream site is problematic, but to then fail to cite and LINK back to BFP is just the worst forms of silencing.

And, as Blackamazon illustrated in her battling with Seal Press (who had the audacity to say on her blog as they display their splendid ignorance: "We WANT more WOC. Not a whole lotta proposals come our way, interestingly. Seems to me it would be more effective to inform us about what you'd like to see rather than hating." I happen to know of at least two WOC writers who submitted book proposals, and both were denied, so I find this statement a little hard to swallow, especially in light of their new offerings of late), even publishers are not exactly scrambling to put out books that highlight our concerns, our lives, and our knowledge.

All this is to say: I can see why the impulse of BFP is to immediately protect her work and to deny the rest of us access; I just started blogging only last year, so who knows how long I can go before burning out. But I find that this shutdown plays right into the hands of our enemies, who would rather we all shut up and go away, or at least shut up and roll over as they screw us while appropriating and stealing our ideas. Will colonialism ever end?

Still, I'm here and enjoying what I see as more "teaching" than "writing." Blogging gives you an immediate audience and in some instances a definable community of like-minded individuals. So long as we always maintain RESPECT for each other (which means giving credit when credit is due), it can be a powerful thing. Part of that power is finding, fine-tuning, and sharing your voice. Let's hope that Brownfemipower (if we all have correctly identified the real reasons for her exit) will not permanently deprive us all of her voice.

Everybody Sing Cumbaya...Shout to the Lord? Sweet Jesus!

I'm having that uncanny, all is not right with my pop culture world when, last night, I heard out of the mouths of American Idol contestants the contemporary Christian song, "Shout to the Lord." My ears were assaulted, my sensibilities offended. So, I can only imagine what the non-Christians felt when they were watching.

Now, you would think, after I had a craptastic day (which ended with my heading to my car and finding a $65 dollar parking violation ticket against the windshield) and arriving home in a piss-poor mood, that as soon as I turn on my TV to hear any inspirational music, my spirits would be uplifted. Pffffft!! It just made me even pissier!

So, here are my issues with this incongruous collision between pop Christianity and reality TV.

First, I'm just going to go on record and say, I particularly hate the song "Shout to the Lord." Haaaaaaate it!! Its sugary earnestness, its pretense at being deep in its "praise," when there's no real heart or soul in its melody, its pretense at knowing something about giving God the glory when the song sounds like it was written by someone who has never known the pain of what it's like to walk through the valley of the shadow of death or the calm of being led beside still waters and knowing one can truly "shout to the Lord" because, whether you falter or stumble, SHE keeps you steady, and that's the reason why you sing and shout and praise. I don't know the songwriter, but this song has always - at least to me - given off the vibe of superficial spirituality and sentimentality, which masks any real feelings of spiritual growth and pain - the kind of spiritual pain one struggles through and then can truly "shout to the Lord" because you don't need blinders on. You can still look at our awful, horrific world with big, plain eyes and still shout Hallelujah! because you're still living, and the earth keeps replenishing itself.

I hear that kind of spiritual depth in hymns like "Amazing Grace," in spirituals like "Fix Me, Jesus," in gospels like "For Every Mountain," even in inspirational songs like "You Raise Me Up."

So, I already have issues with pop Christian songs like "Shout to the Lord," and you know, when teenage and young adult Christians sing such songs, you can at least smile and appreciate the earnestness in which they sing (because they really are being sincere) and give the song some kind of life because they haven't fully lived their lives to develop a truly cynical worldview, so such superficial spirituality works for them...until the pain of growing up demands that they dig deeper for their inspirational music.

Now, when said song is used in the context of American Idol, it's just wrong! I understand that the idol contestants also sang it during their Idol Gives Back charity night (which I didn't tune into because 1. I was out that night and 2. I couldn't watch such drivel of "let's give back to the poor in Africa" after still dealing with the vicarious trauma of watching a film about the Congo rape epidemic - no amount of feel-good-by-feeling-bad crass ploy by a popular reality TV show is going to erase the story I heard of a Congolese woman suffering the horrors of having her rectum burned out of her simply because she's a black woman in a war-torn country fueled by our hi-tech global economy!). I will not buy into our just-call-in-and-write-a-check-while-we-tune-out-on-mindless-entertainment culture. And, unfortunately, utilizing songs like "Shout to the Lord" legitimates such low-brow tools of marketing and ratings by shrouding these methods in religious righteousness. Ooh, we're giving to the poor! Let's sing to Jesus!

So, if they already sang this pop Christian song on Wednesday, why did the show feel to offer a repeat performance last night, especially since last week, they featured guest performer Dolly Parton singing a new song, "Jesus and Gravity," right after a band did a horrendous rendition of "This Little Light of Mine"? Surely, they would anticipate the fallout from non-Christian audiences. Unless...they finally recognized there is one music market their American Idol Empire has not yet tapped into: Contemporary Christian Music.

Now that their frontrunner contestant, David Archuleta, is a professed Mormon and so sweetly innocent he doesn't even appear to be his seventeen years, they must be doing a dry run to see just how popular this "Christian" music is. They may already be planning some unholy marriage between pop music and contemporary Christian music.

How shameless! That's right: just find another way to expand your music empire, AI! First, pop, then R&B and gospel, then country and rock, now this?

I'm not liking the direction this is all headed in, but it does explain why all of a sudden, the show has started calling on the name of Jesus. They see massive dollar signs.

Somehow, I highly doubt Jesus would be pleased at the way his name is being taken in vein.

"Shout to the Lord"? Good Lord!

Corporate Rapists in the Congo

I said I wanted to name names in the conflict in the Congo, which has led to a horrifying rape epidemic, so I want to start with the Corporate Rapists (those corporations who have benefited from the destabilization of the region, as they rape the land of its natural resources, the most profitable mineral at present being coltane which is fueling our hi-tech industries). When these economic and environmental rapists rape and pillage, they rely on actual rapists (the Interhamwe, the Congolese and Ugandan armies, etc.) to enact the most brutal forms of violence to create the necessary chaos that shields their own actions as they rob and steal from Africa blind.

So, thanks to Lisa over at Black Women Blow the Trumpet for starting a list of culpable corporations that have profited directly from the conflict in the Congo (shared in the comment section of Black Women Vote!), which includes the following:

Patrick Prevost
President and CEO
Cabot Corporation
Two Seaport Lane
Suite 1300
Boston, MA 02210

Joseph Scaminace
Chief Executive Officer
OM Group
Cleveland, OH
127 Public Square
Cleveland, OH 44114

Gerald Paul
Vishay Intertechnology
63 Lancaster Avenue
Malvern, PA 19355
*Vishay is #1 in manufacturing coltane worldwide.

John S. Gilbertson
President and CEO
AVX Corporation
801 17th Avenue
SouthBox 867
Myrtle Beach, SC 29578-0687
*Suppliers of coltane

Robert Raun
President
Trinitech International
2069 Midway Drive
Twinsburg, OH 44087
*Converter and distributor of coltane

Robert Raun
Eagle Wings Resources International
2069 Midway Drive
Twinsburg, OH 44087
*a subsidiary of Trinitech, with offices in Rwanda and Burundi.

Per-Olof Loof
Chief Executive Officer
Conrado Hinajosa, SVP, Tantalum Business Group
Kemet Electronics Corporation
2835 Kemet Way
Simpsonville, SC 29681
*world's largest manufacturer of coltane.

I will update this list periodically when other corporations and groups are named, and I invite you to add to this list as well. I'll also keep a sidebar link to this list.

Part of the first step in resistance is being aware. Let's open our eyes to the greed and the horror that has overtaken our planet and that has made all women and children unsafe everywhere.

Of course, the next step is: should we start organizing consumer boycotts, or should we push for CEOs to be charged with international war crimes (not unlike what occurred to radio DJs, for example, who were charged with genocide in Rwanda for inciting hatred, or the propagandists who were charged with genocide during the WWII Holocaust in Nuremberg: the issue I'm raising here is that these culprits didn't commit the actual murders and rapes, but they were still viewed as being indirectly responsible)?

UPDATE!!

Thanks to Tasha over at The Sowing Circle and Cara at The Curvature for going further and providing a list of companies that have done business with the above mentioned corporations.

AMD (gaming, personal computing)
customer.inquiry@amd.com

Best Buy
Corporate Headquarters
P.O. Box 9312 Minneapolis, MN 55440-9312
612-291-1000

Compaq (click for more contact numbers)

Hewlett-Packard Company
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
USAPhone: (650) 857-1501

Dell Computers

Ericcson
NORTH AMERICAN HEADQUARTERS
6300 LEGACY DRIVE
PLANO, TX 75024
USA972 583 00 00

IBM
Corporate officesNew Orchard Road
Armonk, New York
10504
914-499-1900

Intel
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1549
(408) 765-8080

Motorola

Nokia
102 Corporate Park Drive
WHITE PLAINS New York 10604
914 368 0400Sprint PCS
800-927-2199

Verizon Wireless

Walmart (No!!! - heavy sarcasm)

Tasha at Sowing Circle has also generated a Petition.

So, basically, as you can see, we're all implicated in this DRC conflict (as an aside, I'd like to say how grateful I am not to see Apple/Mac represented on the list, unless someone else can make the connections to them - but I'm damn disappointed that Verizon Wireless is!). Somehow, as democratic citizens, we must yield our power through our dollars and our votes.

Blog in Solidarity on April 13: Congo Rape Epidemic

This just in from Shecodes over on Black Women Vote! Calling all bloggers, who are concerned about the Congo Rape Epidemic (some of us learning about the details of this conflict through Lisa Jackson's film, The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, which aired on HBO this week), to post about the situation and offer strategies to fight this epidemic on Sunday, April 13, 2008.

Please spread the word. Also, don't forget to WEAR RED on April 30, to raise awareness about violence against women of color. (See Document the Silence)

Shadow Rapists: Connecting the Dots in the Congo

Updated

The morning after watching Lisa F. Jackson's The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, I'm still at a loss for accurate and reflective words to describe the power of her film. So, I will postpone my review until a second viewing, since the documentary will be shown on HBO on Friday a second time.

In the meantime, I want to highlight an important point raised in the film: there are TWO kinds of rapists lurking in the shadows (or boldfacedly emerging to terrorize the nation) of the Congo - the local soldiers and multinational corporations. So, these gang rapists - working in SOLIDARITY, I might add! - are perpetuating the violence in this way:

1.) The local soldiers, who represent an assortment of the Congolese Army, the Interhamwe (Hutu rebels who had fled Rwanda after perpetuating genocide over there back in 1994 - yes, this violence is cyclical), and Uganda soldiers, have been deliberately creating chaos in the country (and the most effective way to create a chaotic community is to target women and children, in short: destroy any possibility for a livable society by enacting the most brutal acts of rape and sexual violence - Genocide indeed!).

2.) This chaos then allows for the easy access and control of the next widespread rape epidemic: the rape of African land by multinational corporations. As I've mentioned on this blog, the Congo is a resource-rich land - uranium, diamonds, ivory, and the digital information-age-dependent-on- coltane (a raw resource used in our cell phones and computers).

Soldiers rape the women, while corporations rape the land.

Kudos to Lisa Jackson for connecting the dots between the local and the global (and between herself and the women of the Congo: our director interweaves her own personal story of having survived a gang rape in Georgetown, Washington D.C.).

At some point, once I locate reliable sources, I'm going to start naming names and using my blog like a virtual bathroom wall in which the names of all rapists (local and multinational) will be listed.

Until then, here are some other useful sites to visit, htp Professor Black Woman, Historiann, and commenters on Black Women Vote!.

• On Corporations Reaping Benefits in the Congo: Democracy Now! (htp commenter on BWV)
• On HBO's follow-up conference call, in response to The Greatest Silence, tonight, 9:30 pm (EST): Enough Project. (htp PBW)
• Senate Committee Hearing on Rape as a Weapon of War: Feminist Majority Foundation. (htp PBW and Historiann)
• UN Action Council Against Sexual Violence in Conflict: Stop Rape Now. (htp PBW)

A Moment of Levity

Thanks to Professor Black Woman, Gina, and some other sister bloggers, who've been anticipating and offering some interesting comments about the documentary film, The Greatest Silence, airing tonight on HBO, I decided - spur of the moment - to call up my cable yesterday and add HBO to my TV channel listings. Why wait for someone else's recording or even months later for the Netflix DVD copy (if they plan to make it available)? I realize I might regret this move when I get next month's cable bill, but oh well (at some point I must post on the ridiculous cable TV packages being offered because - in this day and age of music playlists and My Favorite internet sites - I think I should be able to pick and choose which channels I want added to my cable at a fixed rate - I absolutely hate these pre-packaged deals!).

Nevertheless, I will provide my review once I watch the program tonight (my local listing has it coming on at 10 pm, not 8).

In the meantime, I'm anticipating a heavy, heartbreaking, traumatic viewing, so lest this week becomes mired in somberness, here's my attempts at providing a moment of levity today.

While surfing You Tube, I discovered this lovely gem of the late and great Nina Simone in concert, singing a comic song that also doubles in heavy social criticism with its ironic edge. It's called "Ain't Got No...But I Got Life." Enjoy!

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo

This important documentary film premieres tomorrow on HBO, 8 pm.

Here is the trailer:



If you have HBO, please watch! And please record the program for those of us who don't have it. Thanks!

Here is the Official Site.

Is Women's Studies Being Made Irrelevant?

Funny, I've spent so much time the past few months taking white feminists to task for their myopic criticism of race relations in the Democratic Primary in this year's presidential race. Yet, I'm now wondering why I have not done the same when criticizing Obama supporters. After all, why haven't we paid attention to gender issues? Why haven't the same feminists, who were busy talking about how unfair it is for Obama to advance ahead of Clinton because he's a black man and not a white woman, been challenging his views on pro-choice and gay rights? Why did they think to make racial arguments instead of just calling attention to gender issues?

And do you see how they, including Clinton herself, basically shot themselves in the foot by playing the race card, which managed to both polarize and alienate?

In the meantime, there are real gender issues to address, and because I teach and was trained in Women's Studies, I now worry that our failure to address gender could very well lead to the demise of Women's Studies departments and programs at a time when gender analyses are needed now more than ever. Now more than ever, when we have HIV/AIDS and other STD epidemics to address, as well as the never-ending warfare that rely on perpetuation of masculinities and femininities to expand imperialist agendas, we are in need of gender analysis.

And yet, here I am, reuniting with some of my former Women's Studies students this weekend, all of whom are brilliant, who are realizing that their degrees are leading them into poverty, either because 1) their PhDs are not opening doors into academia, where Women's Studies is marginalized and under-funded and, if such departments/programs have prominence, they are run by faculty who don't seem interested in prioritizing for the hire of scholars trained in their own discipline; or 2) their BAs/MAs only seem to open doors into non-profit and advocacy work, which does not pay well, again due to under-funding of feminist and other community organizations. And when other departments/programs might be able to reap the benefits of graduating alumni, who can donate back serious money, how can we foster interest and grassroots fundraising from alumni who may be struggling their way out of poverty? Not to mention dealing with potential wealthy women (often white) whose interest in donating funds to Women's Studies programs come with problematic strings attached (at present, a local group of privileged white women are willing to donate funds to our program, provided we prioritize a women's history curriculum that traces the traditional learning of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and we BETTER NOT talk about how they used racism to advance the cause of women's suffrage!).

On the flip side of this dominant focus on white women in Women's Studies is the erasure of gender and sexuality altogether in Ethnic Studies programs. I know, when teaching this semester, I was able to use some great videos on race relations, as offered from Ethnic Studies scholarship. Lo and behold, my students got tired of me constantly interrupting film viewing to INSERT (because, yes, that's the kind of professor I am) a gender analysis because, no, they will not leave my class not knowing how to apply intersectional analysis to race, class, and gender. Especially when there seems to be a problem among Ethnic Studies scholars to maintain a gender critique when addressing race and class issues.

Apart from these concerns, it appears that more Women's Studies programs are adding "Gender Studies" to their name, as if to be taken seriously. What a horrendously sexist compromise! Because, when you think about it, the sexism against women and the ability to take women seriously is completely tied to this need to appear "gender neutral" (read: we talk about men too, so please take our scholarship seriously). This name change is going to be a pretty contentious issue when a proposal is put forth at NWSA to change their name to NWGSA, and while I completely understand the arguments made by queer scholars to dismantle compulsory heterosexuality and gender essentialism, I have a feeling I will be siding with the "old guard" (usually very gender essentialist, often homophobic, and definitely transphobic) precisely because I recognize the masculine privilege that is camouflaged in so-called "gender neutral" language.

Just as I recognize how the unmarked category of "woman" often renders the "race neutrality" of woman to read as "white women", so too does the unmarked category of "gender studies" render the focus on "men"; no amount of queering the discourse is going to change the simple fact of male privilege, something few feminists and queer theorists are willing to talk about of late. Just like certain language has fallen out of favor (e.g. "misogyny," for one, as if by not calling hatred of women for what it is would somehow make the problem go away; it hasn't), certain criticisms have also been rendered "passe."

Yet, how many feminist scholars have noticed that, often when Queer Studies is included in the curriculum, all the courses and much of the scholarship is focused on queer MEN? Where are the lesbians?

And, speaking of lesbians, is it just me, or are they starting to disappear? I know I've talked about this with a friend, who is also a Women's Studies scholar, so we must not be alone in noticing. By this "disappearance," I mean: 1.) The hypersexualization of "lipstick lesbians" in popular culture is so pervasive that we find straight girls coopting the behavior of same-sex girl-on-girl action, now that it carries with it a certain cache in the heterosexual male world thanks to the mainstreaming of pornography, thus such same-sex desire is not seen as "lesbian desire" but actually as heterosexual spectacle; and 2.) Quite a number of "butch" lesbians that I've known have transitioned from women to "men" - or at least to transgender men. So, while Gender Studies would have us believe that there is something "subversive" and "transgressive" about gender transitioning because of its disruption of gender and sexual categories, Women's Studies would and should question why the assertion of the phallic (whether in female-to-male gender transitioning or in the performance of femme sexualities for a male gaze) now abounds in same-sex identities. (Somehow, these issues seem bound up in race and class privilege too, for those who can afford the surgery and the therapy sessions that come with this, or for those performing femme sexualities but doing so in certain communities where they won't get assaulted or gang-raped for asserting same-sex desire of any kind.)

If this analysis is completely caught up in a homophobic or transphobic perspective, then I apologize for my shortsightedness. I'm just trying to figure out some stuff, and these changes seem to suggest that patriarchy is reasserting itself and subjugating "woman" once again.

I haven't given up on Women's Studies (no matter how many times I've wanted to) because, as flawed as our discipline tends to be, we are keeping gender analysis alive - often when other disciplines are too quick to dismiss it. Let's hope that we can still keep alive in the midst of this neoconservative and misogynistic climate of late.

Forty Years Later...

On this 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I'm strangely drawn to the infamous "Return of the King" episode from McGruder's Boondocks. Remember this?



Now, while I appreciate the point McGruder was trying to make in this controversial, did-he-really-put-the-N-word-in-King's-mouth? moment in black pop culture, I do think - when you compare the real life persona of Dr. King with the parody offered from the hip-hop generation - that what we should be more concerned about is not whether or not Dr. King would ever utter that word from the pulpit but that Dr. King would never have put the full onus on black people for proliferating the negative images on BET and in hip-hop culture.

Most importantly, he would never give up on us and move to Canada, no matter how ignorant and misguided we were. NEVER!! Think of him and all other movers and shakers who dealt with far more ignorant and downright dangerous folk (think Selma and Birmingham, Alabama). Only a post-Civil Rights privileged black person from the hip-hop "slacker" generation (and I include myself in this group) could be so cynical as to think, "I'm just going to move to Canada."

Although to be fair to my own generation, who are always being measured against the Civil Rights/baby boomer generation and always found wanting in comparison, I would just like to put on record: It's DAMN hard fighting Jim Crow when he's all smooth talking, well-dressed, and totally acting like we're living in a post-racist "colorblind" society, and the previous generation keeps giving us tools that worked against Jim Crow when everyone knew he existed. As Al Sharpton once remarked, we're fighting against "James Crow Jr., Esquire." Of course, my own assessment is that Jim Crow staged his very public death, but while those of us, whom he appears to, know that he's very much alive and causing damage, everyone else thinks we're just crazy because we see "ghosts" that aren't there. But I digress.

Getting back to Dr. King, he is the kind of insightful man who would have awakened from his coma in our present day, slowly observe the "progress" of Black America AND would have been 100 times more outraged that so many black men and women are being imprisoned at a ridiculous rate and THEN put Viacom and all other Big Media on full blast for creating the kind of cultural atmosphere in which we can tolerate such a horrendous incarceration epidemic, thanks in part to the glamorization of thug/street culture, which has done nothing but justify why black men (with their scary-looking "gangsta style") and black women (with their out-of-control, booty-shaking, thunder-clapping bodies) need to be on lockdown.

Seriously. He would also take issue with the present "leadership" and would have immediately started some grassroots organizing on behalf of the incarcerated and the dispossessed in the post-Katrina gulf coast, he would extend his work to address immigration rights, especially in the wake of post-9/11. And if he had the patience to be educated, which I believe he did, he'd also find connections with the feminist and LGBT social movements and loudly criticize his daughter Bernice for her homophobia. He'd also put the black church on full blast for their horrendous move from the social gospel to neoconservative materialistic dreams (T.D. Jakes, I'm looking at you!).

In short, he'd be disturbed by hip-hop culture, but he would NEVER take it more seriously than all the above issues I mentioned. I do realize The Boondocks satire is meant for a black audience, since the directive was leveled against us, but you know, if we're going to try and imagine "what would Dr. King do today?" let's do the man justice, forty years later, by remembering that he was assassinated NOT because he was fighting Racism but BECAUSE he dared to make the link between racial oppression, imperialism overseas (Vietnam War), and class oppression (his work to address poverty in the never-materialized Poor People's March before he was gunned down). As a hip-hop generationer, I urge all of us to look beyond our own ghettos, suburbs, gentrified neighborhoods, etc. and start making similar connections.

If Dr. King's "dream" was about anything, it was about our learning to be accountable towards one another and to "fight injustice anywhere" precisely because it was a threat to "justice everywhere."

On that note, I leave you with an audio of his famous last speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop":

It's Time Once Again to Wear Red! April 30, 2008

In Defense of Ourselves: Be Bold, Be Brave, Wear Red on April 30, 2008

Here's the Video: How Do You Keep a Social Movement Alive: Why We Can't Wait.



For more information, visit Document the Silence.

Native Tourist

So, it's always weird to adjust to work and life after spending a week or more out of the country, and yesterday, I was still in "vacation mode" in my classroom, scaring the bejesus out of my students who totally didn't get the April Fool's joke I played on them when frightening them into believing that I was adding a Final Exam to the list of other final projects they were responsible for at the end of the semester. Even after my big APRIL FOOLS!!!, their anxiety did not dissipate.

Scary Professor Black Woman Indeed!

Sigh. Whatever. I'm still in my sunny mood, thanks to spending time in the Caribbean. My parents are from the islands, and I spent my early childhood there - having started kindergarten and first grade there. So, it's odd, really, to revisit the island of your youth, staying in a hotel no less, and feeling yourself straddling the fence between being a "local" and being that pale-skinned "tourist" (some darker-skinned local told me - me! who was hanging out on the beach trying to get a little darker to rejuvenate my winter-worn complexion - to please get out of the sun so that I could protect my redbone color!).

Yes, I know black people should also take precautions in the sun, but something about his comment made me think, Oi! The color complexion issues of black people the world over have no end!

And granted, I was so wrong to be on the beach high noon when all the locals go in the early hours of the morning or just before sunset because that's when the sun isn't oppressive, but alas, that was the only time my hotel shuttle was running, and since the shuttle service was complimentary, you know I had to use it.

I was going to stay by my great-aunt's home, but since she has suffered a stroke and been inundated with various relatives who have moved into her house (altruism, my cousins would have us believe, self-interest with the prospect of inheriting her house after she passes on is what I say), the hotel route worked well for me.

Anyway, there seems to be a disconnect when the "native goes tourist." It's a role I find highly introspective and one that I think everyone should try to do at some point. Just do the "tourist" thing of your hometown and see if you can appreciate it, or worse, feel the ravages of your destroyed country because of tourism.

For example, whenever I go on the ferry between the two islands of my youth, I get a full view of the completely eroded coastlines - the memory of swaying coconut palms that fully lined the coast has been replaced with an absolutely sickening sight of trees missing their palms! So many chopped down, and the few that remain don't have their crowns! :(

The locals blame Hurricanes Hugo and George. Whatever! (Coconut trees, for those of you who don't know, don't usually get chopped down by hurricanes - they just bend with the winds.) I blame the hotel resorts! Four Seasons, Sandals, and Marriott, I'm looking at you! Because, noooooo, we didn't need to sacrifice nature for some golf courses.

Why do I hate golf, you say? Because, the sport is so oppressive - it forces an unnatural control of the environment that reinforces its exclusionary elitist practices, and now that my coconut grove is lost forever, I will now hate golf courses wherever they exist. Golfers, you big time oppressors, you will surely burn in hell for killing trees! For fun! :P

Anyway, perhaps worse than the killing of my coconut grove is the beach takeover. So, the locals are fond of telling me that there are no private beaches, that the locals are free to use them alongside the tourists, but part of the reason that locals are now reduced to going to the beach at sunrise and sunset isn't just to avoid the harsh rays of sunlight. Those really are the only times now that they can go undisturbed by the influx of tourists, who - on any given season - now outnumber the locals on small islands. Indeed, the first time I took my hotel shuttle to my favorite beach, I was appalled to find it overrun! In my memories, I recall being able to hang out with family or friends on a Sunday afternoon after church, barbecuing and swimming. Sometimes, it might just be our group hanging out, or there might be two or three more families. Not anymore. I was a bit perplexed that there was no privacy anymore. Sure, the beaches aren't closed to locals, but when they're overrun with tourists, does it really matter if they have access?

And, let me just admit it now. I'm a beach snob. Anyone who has ever grown up in the Caribbean is a beach snob. You can't help it. You simply cannot swim in warm, glass-clear, turquoise-colored sea in which you can look down and see your feet beneath the water and then go to, say, an Atlantic coast beach, let's say somewhere in the New York City area, where the water is all freezing cold, murky, brown, and utterly disgusting to look at. I mean, some people do, but for the most part, your snootiness about not touching the water usually comes out. (And I imagine this is not an exclusive attitude among Caribbeanists; I'm sure many Pacific coasters would say the same.)

So, imagine my shock and horror to go to the beach of my youth and find that 1) the water is starting to get murky (Aaaah!!!!), 2) there was trash floating in the sea (Double Aaaaahhh!!!!!), and 3) there were no locals in sight for all the tourists (none of whom were protecting their sunburned skins). The difference between the sunburned and the sunkissed among us (yes, I said there are those of us who are "sunkissed," and you know who we are) is striking, not to mention the obvious effects of global warming and climate change.

Hmmm, I think the only distinction I should make among racial and ethnic groups is between the sunkissed and the sunburned. Maybe this is how we can start nurturing some positive self-love about our dark skins. Teach this view to our children about how the sun smiles, strokes, and kisses their skin and that's why they're black or brown. But I digress (the memory of skin exposed on the beach helped form for me an impression of those who were obviously getting a brutal sun beat down and those who were being caressed by sunlight).

Nevertheless, I say all this because I love my Caribbean islands, but sometimes I feel like I'm witnessing a slow death (not unlike the feeling I had of visiting my great aunt, whose stroke has left her debilitated - having seen this woman who, even at age 86, walked with a straight back and had no lines on her face and who seemed so formidable and larger than life, it broke my heart to see her bedridden and looking so worn down). Visiting my sister-island home of my youth, I feel like I'm witnessing the underbelly of globalization - modernity taking its toll, locals reduced to servitude yet again (like one of the hotel resorts just had to restore a sugar mill for decoration, a symbol of our slave past), and new pirates of the Caribbean (now, a cruise ship docks at the harbor every day of the week) have invaded. My coconut grove, like my great aunt, is soon becoming a thing of the past.

Yet, my mother - unlike me - loves the "progress" and "development." It means that we're not being left behind, she thinks. (Unlike me, my mother's memories of growing up in the Caribbean are about hard work and working the land, so her reality contrasts sharply with my romantic notions. Native Tourist indeed!).

Still, it's hard not to notice the global white imperialism that has reduced predominantly black and brown countries to one of dependency, in an era when their only form of currency is to cater to the whims and fantasies of First World vacationers. What exactly has changed from the "progression" from slavery and colonialism to sugar and bananas to a tourist economy?

But, in case anyone thinks that progress is in store for us with the prospect of a black president, this is what a local rasta man had to say to me when engaging in political talk with him:

"You know de American economy has got to be bad when dey ready to put a black man in de White House! We always got to do de hard work!"

Rasta man, are you prophesying?

Art by Roshini Kempadoo (first image - from the Lapping It Up series; second image: from the Endless Prospects series).