The Blessing of the Least/God on the 1 Train
Madre de dios
Your hijo in one arm
a sign of the times in the other
MOTHER. LOST MY JOB. HUNGRY.
HELP ME. FEED MY CHILD
of God whispers una bendición
I can't hear
through my headphones
Avicii spinning
as the blessing of the least
settles on my skin
resurrecting goosebumps
I have never received a truer bendiction
Gracias a Dios
que me bendiga
Feed us all.
Amen.
-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-April 12, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Upcoming Event: This Is How We Do It featuring Grace Lee Boggs, Andrea Smith, and Nelson Johnson...moderated by Amy Goodman!
THIS IS HOW WE DO IT
A Festival of Dialogues
about another world ///
/// under construction
April 20-22 @ Cooper Union
TICKETS: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/230479
Friday, April 20 at 7p in The Great Hall
GRACE LEE BOGGS in conversation with ANDREA SMITH and NELSON JOHNSON
moderated by AMY GOODMAN
Saturday & Sunday Afternoons in The Rose Auditorium
Show-and-Tell presentations from SOUTH AFRICA, ARGENTINA, BRAZIL and throughout the US
There are people and communities all across the world who are no longer waiting for the systems around them to change, who are engaged in alternative practices right now -- in the workplace, in politics, in public safety initiatives, in media and communications, in new economic systems and more. This year Foundry Dialogues will feature the practices and experiences -- the how -- of some of these remarkable innovators.
In our lifetimes, in these times, how do we realize a more just, democratic, sustainable way of life? This is how we do it.
TICKETS & SCHEDULE at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/230479
PS My beloved lovely RJ Maccani asked me to share with you all that this will also be live streaming!
A Festival of Dialogues
about another world ///
/// under construction
April 20-22 @ Cooper Union
TICKETS: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/230479
Friday, April 20 at 7p in The Great Hall
GRACE LEE BOGGS in conversation with ANDREA SMITH and NELSON JOHNSON
moderated by AMY GOODMAN
Saturday & Sunday Afternoons in The Rose Auditorium
Show-and-Tell presentations from SOUTH AFRICA, ARGENTINA, BRAZIL and throughout the US
There are people and communities all across the world who are no longer waiting for the systems around them to change, who are engaged in alternative practices right now -- in the workplace, in politics, in public safety initiatives, in media and communications, in new economic systems and more. This year Foundry Dialogues will feature the practices and experiences -- the how -- of some of these remarkable innovators.
In our lifetimes, in these times, how do we realize a more just, democratic, sustainable way of life? This is how we do it.
TICKETS & SCHEDULE at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/230479
PS My beloved lovely RJ Maccani asked me to share with you all that this will also be live streaming!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Reproductive Justice and HIV: Comments at the 26th Annual CLPP Conference From Abortion Rights to Social Justice
Let me begin by saying that being a bio boy that grew up with a penis and male privilege, that I have one and only comment to make about abortion: as a man, I fully respect the autonomy and sovereignty of women over their own bodies and my only legitimate opinion on abortion is that I am required, by the privilege of being male, to use that privilege to protect in anyway and every way possible the right of a woman to choose.
Any bio male that says otherwise is entitled to have his opinion validated just as soon as he figures out how to give birth through his penis.
But this amazing and brilliant conference, From Abortion Rights to Social Justice is centered in a reproductive justice framework, and you can't talk about reproductive justice without talking about sex, and you sure as hell can't talk about sex without talking about HIV, prevention justice, and justice for people living and thriving with HIV and AIDS.
And I am hella qualified to talk about HIV....and sex. Considering I have both.
Yesterday, I was blessed, and I mean truly blessed to sit on a panel moderated by Alice Welbourn, and with Sonia Rastogi, and Jennifer Marshall. If you don't know these women, let me be emphatic in saying that you should. You should know them. You should know their work. And you should know why they are critical to truly creating a reproductive justice movement that is inclusive of folks living with HIV as well as HIV prevention: these women are working and sometimes living at the intersections of HIV and reproductive justice, and whether or not you have been personally touched by this virus YOU as members of the reproductive justice movement have an obligation to live at this particular intersection as well.
The right to live full, happy, sexy lives without or WITH families is the right of every person living with HIV. The right to have mind blowing, wild, out of pocket, hang from the rafters, and clap your hands sex is the RIGHT of every person living and thriving with HIV. And incorporating sex positive, desire uplifting, radical and righteous analysis and messages about sex, love, and HIV are critical and core to any movement for justice and even more so for a movement on reproductive justice.
In a conference with 1,000 attendees, it was telling that there were less than 10 conference goers sitting in that workshop yesterday with Alice, Sonia, and Jennifer. That can not and must not happen again at this conference. Ever.
Let me be clear. HIV isn't over. It is relevant to your work. It is relevant to your lives. It is not just a disease that affects white gay men. It isn't a disease that impacts only men of color on the down low, in fact, it isn't a disease that impacts only men. Women, and specifically women of color, and even more specifically African-American and Latina women are the fastest growing population of people living with HIV, and with 300,000 women living with HIV in the United States and women representing more than 50% of HIV cases around the world, you can not in justice or in faith remove issues of HIV from reproductive justice.
I challenge each and every one of you as allies, as conference attendees, and as conference organizers to make HIV more than a side note at this conference and in the places you center your work. Ain't nobody coming to lift the burden and stigma from HIV from us, and doing work around HIV is about so much more than handing out condoms and old, tired, worn out ineffective admonishments and moralizing that haven't done shit but make a lot of old white men at Pharmaceutical companies over the last 30 years very very very rich.
It's about creating and building a world that strips the stigma out of HIV, that strips the stigma out of just and healthy choices about reproductive health, and it is about loving, uplifting, and holding high every person that has had to make a difficult choice about her body or had to hear the words, “your test came back positive.”
Thank you for sharing this space with me and giving me the honor to share some thoughts with you today.
Any bio male that says otherwise is entitled to have his opinion validated just as soon as he figures out how to give birth through his penis.
But this amazing and brilliant conference, From Abortion Rights to Social Justice is centered in a reproductive justice framework, and you can't talk about reproductive justice without talking about sex, and you sure as hell can't talk about sex without talking about HIV, prevention justice, and justice for people living and thriving with HIV and AIDS.
And I am hella qualified to talk about HIV....and sex. Considering I have both.
Yesterday, I was blessed, and I mean truly blessed to sit on a panel moderated by Alice Welbourn, and with Sonia Rastogi, and Jennifer Marshall. If you don't know these women, let me be emphatic in saying that you should. You should know them. You should know their work. And you should know why they are critical to truly creating a reproductive justice movement that is inclusive of folks living with HIV as well as HIV prevention: these women are working and sometimes living at the intersections of HIV and reproductive justice, and whether or not you have been personally touched by this virus YOU as members of the reproductive justice movement have an obligation to live at this particular intersection as well.
The right to live full, happy, sexy lives without or WITH families is the right of every person living with HIV. The right to have mind blowing, wild, out of pocket, hang from the rafters, and clap your hands sex is the RIGHT of every person living and thriving with HIV. And incorporating sex positive, desire uplifting, radical and righteous analysis and messages about sex, love, and HIV are critical and core to any movement for justice and even more so for a movement on reproductive justice.
In a conference with 1,000 attendees, it was telling that there were less than 10 conference goers sitting in that workshop yesterday with Alice, Sonia, and Jennifer. That can not and must not happen again at this conference. Ever.
Let me be clear. HIV isn't over. It is relevant to your work. It is relevant to your lives. It is not just a disease that affects white gay men. It isn't a disease that impacts only men of color on the down low, in fact, it isn't a disease that impacts only men. Women, and specifically women of color, and even more specifically African-American and Latina women are the fastest growing population of people living with HIV, and with 300,000 women living with HIV in the United States and women representing more than 50% of HIV cases around the world, you can not in justice or in faith remove issues of HIV from reproductive justice.
I challenge each and every one of you as allies, as conference attendees, and as conference organizers to make HIV more than a side note at this conference and in the places you center your work. Ain't nobody coming to lift the burden and stigma from HIV from us, and doing work around HIV is about so much more than handing out condoms and old, tired, worn out ineffective admonishments and moralizing that haven't done shit but make a lot of old white men at Pharmaceutical companies over the last 30 years very very very rich.
It's about creating and building a world that strips the stigma out of HIV, that strips the stigma out of just and healthy choices about reproductive health, and it is about loving, uplifting, and holding high every person that has had to make a difficult choice about her body or had to hear the words, “your test came back positive.”
Thank you for sharing this space with me and giving me the honor to share some thoughts with you today.
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Best Book Review Ever for It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt
I received an email today from a beloved educator and friend from back home in Minneapolis letting me know that he is including my book as part of the book list for his class next fall.
He also shared with me why and sent me the opening paragraph from one of his students, a conservative Chinese woman that had lots of questions about mixed race folks, queer folks, and politics. This woman teaches Chinese and translated some of of lines in the book into Chinese to help her understand better.
This is why I write. And this will keep me writing until I jump into the dirt for that long nap. You can purchase a copy here.
IT AIN’T TRUTH IF IT DOESN’T HURT
I was shocked, surprised and excited when I read Brandon Lacy Campos’s poem “It ain’t truth if it doesn’t hurt.” I read once, twice, checked my English – Chinese dictionary, read it a third and fourth time. I was shocked by Brandon’s straight forward thinking, he bravely writes: “I don’t believe in America, I don’t believe in the Constitution…” If this was in China, he could be put in jail for that statement. But thanks to the freedom of this great nation, Brandon is not in jail, his book was published and distributed. I admire Brandon’s courage to stand up for his point of view, regardless of how others may possibly criticize. I admire his spiritual freedom and plenitude sentiments towards the people he loves. I was surprised to read a very different style of poems, they have lots of graphic descriptions, long and short, they are parallelism, but not strict on rhyme, and are strong and powerful. I was excited to read his poetry, its raw without any shyness, and I felt his rage and anxiety. I saw the death and blood, and smelled the rosebud and paint. I fell in love with the writing… And as a conservative Chinese woman, felt the excitement of holding Brandon’s collection as if holding a banned book.
He also shared with me why and sent me the opening paragraph from one of his students, a conservative Chinese woman that had lots of questions about mixed race folks, queer folks, and politics. This woman teaches Chinese and translated some of of lines in the book into Chinese to help her understand better.
This is why I write. And this will keep me writing until I jump into the dirt for that long nap. You can purchase a copy here.
IT AIN’T TRUTH IF IT DOESN’T HURT
I was shocked, surprised and excited when I read Brandon Lacy Campos’s poem “It ain’t truth if it doesn’t hurt.” I read once, twice, checked my English – Chinese dictionary, read it a third and fourth time. I was shocked by Brandon’s straight forward thinking, he bravely writes: “I don’t believe in America, I don’t believe in the Constitution…” If this was in China, he could be put in jail for that statement. But thanks to the freedom of this great nation, Brandon is not in jail, his book was published and distributed. I admire Brandon’s courage to stand up for his point of view, regardless of how others may possibly criticize. I admire his spiritual freedom and plenitude sentiments towards the people he loves. I was surprised to read a very different style of poems, they have lots of graphic descriptions, long and short, they are parallelism, but not strict on rhyme, and are strong and powerful. I was excited to read his poetry, its raw without any shyness, and I felt his rage and anxiety. I saw the death and blood, and smelled the rosebud and paint. I fell in love with the writing… And as a conservative Chinese woman, felt the excitement of holding Brandon’s collection as if holding a banned book.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Guest Blogger, Kamal Fizazi: A Letter to Friend About Hope and Survival
New York, NY
1 April 2012
Habibi,
I found out today that a friend killed himself a few days ago.
His death makes me sad and makes me think how sad I would be if I lost you and felt I had not done as much as I possibly could to help you.
I love you and I hope you are ok.
Over the years, especially recently, you have spoken to me about your severe anxiety, depression, PTSD and other issues, and about wanting—at times—to kill yourself.
I have tried to be a good friend, to listen and, when you asked for it, give you names of therapists and other resources that could help you address these issues.
We haven’t spoken in a few weeks, so maybe you are feeling great these days and I am worried for nothing. If this is the case, I am very happy for you.
After losing my friend Tony, I can’t be silent. I have to ask: Have you followed up and sought help for the issues bringing you such pain?
If not, I beg you, call one of those therapists whose names I shared with you a few weeks back (after your request to me), or to seek help in other ways.
Even if you are feeling good these days—especially if you are feeling good—now is the time to do something about all this, while it is easier to take steps that connect you to support that will help you survive the times when you are not feeling so happy.
If you are feeling down these days, I still urge you to seek help. I know how hard it can be to seek help when we are down, you know I know this, but I still hope you will try. It could save your life. Just as importantly, it could help turn it around.
I keep learning and still have to keep reminding myself that nothing in life is permanent. Not joy and not pain. LIFE is not permanent! But it does not have to be painful. We may have to do some hard work to make things better, but things can get better.
As you know, I use Surat al-Asr as my mantra in times of loss, pain, confusion, and fear. This Qur’anic prayer tells me: Time itself is a witness, all humanity experiences loss and pain, except for those who have faith, do good works (or are of service), and live as an example of honesty and as an example of patience (and forbearance).
I’ve shared this with you before, and this painful reminder is impetus to share it with you again.
My friend Tony is dead, and I am still here.
I do not know why, but I do know this has been one of the resources that got me through those terrifyingly bleak times when I considered doing what Tony did.
How does this simple yet powerful prayer work for me? As any mantra, repeating it means I change the tape in my head from whatever terrible tape to this pre-recorded, familiar, repetition. In that way it functions like any prayer or ritual in which we can seek refuge.
But this prayer is pragmatic in other ways too.
It comforts me by reminding me that my pain and suffering is not something I alone endure—“The Ages witness: all humanity experiences suffering”—and it gives me practical steps I can take, solutions to my pain, loss, and confusion:
Faith (Imaan)
The prayer directs me to have faith. To me this means making a choice to believe things can get better, even that a specific someone or Something loves us. Sometimes I have had to simply trust that this was true even when I doubted it deeply or didn’t feel it. But then, that is why it is called "faith." :) Sometimes it has been faith in, belief in, someone other than myself, someone who told me things do get better. At those moments, again, I did not believe it was true, but I could believe my friend believed it, and, ”borrow” her faith. At times it has meant a faith in a Divinity, Most Merciful and Most Compassionate, Greater than any trouble I might face, an Everlasting (internal) Resource any one of us can tap into, in times of loss or not.
Service (Saalihaat)
The prayer suggests that I do good works, that I be of service. I take this to mean reach out and help a friend or volunteer in an effort to improve my community. Doing something good for others gets my focus off my problems. When I do this, I shift the focus from the running commentary and obsessive concern with my own problems to the world outside my head. This liberates me from the not-so-merry-go-round of nasty thoughts *in* my head (that nasty committee that never has anything nice to say to me about me). There is always someone can use our help, so why not shift the focus from our complaints to gratitude and to service? Let us improve the world we find ourselves in! It sorely needs it. And we end up feeling better about ourselves because we are doing something positive in the world, rather than feeling stuck in, or focused on, our pain, fear, and confusion.
Honesty (Al-Haq)
The prayer suggests that I live as an example of honesty and truth. What this means to me is that I am supposed to walk through my fears and be rigorously honest with myself and others about my fears and the reality (or falseness) of them. Living as an example of honesty means letting go of my fantasies or the narratives I spin about how things are. When I am truly honest, I can see what I can change and what really needs to change. I also see what is not in my power and how, if I have no power over it, it makes no sense to spend time worrying about it. You know what I mean: If I have a role to play or choices that could be different, I can do that, if I can’t, well, then I can’t. Talk about freedom! Living a life of honesty and truth also means unburdening myself with someone I trust about what I have done or am doing, or what I am feeling, all of which helps me not live in shame, secrecy, or fear. This frees me from carrying the burden of my troubles all by myself. Living honestly and in truth also means removing that awkward, painful, conflict and stress that arises when I say one thing (to be polite or because I am avoiding a confrontation), but I really mean or want to say another. This type of honesty also can be daunting, but it too sets me free.
Patience (Sabr)
Lastly, the prayer says I am to try to live as an example of patience and forbearance (while facing all my troubles). This to me means, “Don't give up.” Ever. It is a reminder that things get better. Things change. The hard work we can do (therapy or whatever path we choose) takes time. We didn't get into our mess and messed up way of thinking overnight. We won't get out of them overnight. We have to give time time. I know the despair can be all-encompassing, I have felt it. But I also have learned—as I am sure you have too—that I am strong in patience. No matter what troubles that befall me, even when despair feels like a reality convincing me to my bones, something that I feel as if I KNOW will always be my reality, I can be patient. I can wait the pain out. It too will pass.
Trust me. Things do get better, if we do our work and we are willing to wait.
Things have gotten better for me, and I promise they can get better for you too.
Love, Light, & Peace,
Kamal
P.S. I would add one more thing to all my fabulous (& unsolicited) advice above (): Music. I know you love music. And that’s great, because music moves us, changes our mood, reminds us things get better (and have been better). Here are some of my favorites that have so far worked to get me through some pretty tough times:
“I Look to You” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYFfmFeFGZg&feature=related as sung by Whitney Houston (RIP) or the GLEE version with Amber Riley, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQgO5TtBF6g
A soft strumming song I just recently discovered, by City and Colour, “O’ Sister” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-crVagUok&feature=youtu.be
“It’s a Beautiful Day [don’t let it get away]” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o by U2
“Feeling Good” by Michael Bublé, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edwsf-8F3sI&ob=av2e, or the Nina Simone version, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHs98TEYecM
“I Am Changing” by Jennifer Hudson, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYuFvu2gdFU
P.P.S. What are your favorite songs to get you through tough times?
Bio: Kamal Fizazi is a writer, activist, lawyer, policy wonk, strategic planning and program consultant, and all-around good guy who spends his time thinking about and working on issues of human rights and equality, diversity and inclusion, democracy and social justice, equity, gender, sexuality, public health, HIV/AIDS, addiction, mental health, recovery, faith-based anti-oppression efforts and interfaith organizing, and Lord only knows what else.
You can follow Kamal on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamalfizazi or on twitter: @kamalfizazi. You can also read his blogs on http://izazif.wordpress.com and http://wholooksinsideawakens.blogspot.com.
Additional notes and links:
Suicide claims 36,500 lives yearly in the USA; close to one million attempt it each year.
Suicide Prevention & Support:
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/Default.aspx
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/
http://veteranscrisisline.net/
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
http://www.samaritansnyc.org/
http://www.afsp.org/
Solidarity & Fundraising:
http://www.outofthedarkness.org/
1 April 2012
Habibi,
I found out today that a friend killed himself a few days ago.
His death makes me sad and makes me think how sad I would be if I lost you and felt I had not done as much as I possibly could to help you.
I love you and I hope you are ok.
Over the years, especially recently, you have spoken to me about your severe anxiety, depression, PTSD and other issues, and about wanting—at times—to kill yourself.
I have tried to be a good friend, to listen and, when you asked for it, give you names of therapists and other resources that could help you address these issues.
We haven’t spoken in a few weeks, so maybe you are feeling great these days and I am worried for nothing. If this is the case, I am very happy for you.
After losing my friend Tony, I can’t be silent. I have to ask: Have you followed up and sought help for the issues bringing you such pain?
If not, I beg you, call one of those therapists whose names I shared with you a few weeks back (after your request to me), or to seek help in other ways.
Even if you are feeling good these days—especially if you are feeling good—now is the time to do something about all this, while it is easier to take steps that connect you to support that will help you survive the times when you are not feeling so happy.
If you are feeling down these days, I still urge you to seek help. I know how hard it can be to seek help when we are down, you know I know this, but I still hope you will try. It could save your life. Just as importantly, it could help turn it around.
I keep learning and still have to keep reminding myself that nothing in life is permanent. Not joy and not pain. LIFE is not permanent! But it does not have to be painful. We may have to do some hard work to make things better, but things can get better.
As you know, I use Surat al-Asr as my mantra in times of loss, pain, confusion, and fear. This Qur’anic prayer tells me: Time itself is a witness, all humanity experiences loss and pain, except for those who have faith, do good works (or are of service), and live as an example of honesty and as an example of patience (and forbearance).
I’ve shared this with you before, and this painful reminder is impetus to share it with you again.
My friend Tony is dead, and I am still here.
I do not know why, but I do know this has been one of the resources that got me through those terrifyingly bleak times when I considered doing what Tony did.
How does this simple yet powerful prayer work for me? As any mantra, repeating it means I change the tape in my head from whatever terrible tape to this pre-recorded, familiar, repetition. In that way it functions like any prayer or ritual in which we can seek refuge.
But this prayer is pragmatic in other ways too.
It comforts me by reminding me that my pain and suffering is not something I alone endure—“The Ages witness: all humanity experiences suffering”—and it gives me practical steps I can take, solutions to my pain, loss, and confusion:
Faith (Imaan)
The prayer directs me to have faith. To me this means making a choice to believe things can get better, even that a specific someone or Something loves us. Sometimes I have had to simply trust that this was true even when I doubted it deeply or didn’t feel it. But then, that is why it is called "faith." :) Sometimes it has been faith in, belief in, someone other than myself, someone who told me things do get better. At those moments, again, I did not believe it was true, but I could believe my friend believed it, and, ”borrow” her faith. At times it has meant a faith in a Divinity, Most Merciful and Most Compassionate, Greater than any trouble I might face, an Everlasting (internal) Resource any one of us can tap into, in times of loss or not.
Service (Saalihaat)
The prayer suggests that I do good works, that I be of service. I take this to mean reach out and help a friend or volunteer in an effort to improve my community. Doing something good for others gets my focus off my problems. When I do this, I shift the focus from the running commentary and obsessive concern with my own problems to the world outside my head. This liberates me from the not-so-merry-go-round of nasty thoughts *in* my head (that nasty committee that never has anything nice to say to me about me). There is always someone can use our help, so why not shift the focus from our complaints to gratitude and to service? Let us improve the world we find ourselves in! It sorely needs it. And we end up feeling better about ourselves because we are doing something positive in the world, rather than feeling stuck in, or focused on, our pain, fear, and confusion.
Honesty (Al-Haq)
The prayer suggests that I live as an example of honesty and truth. What this means to me is that I am supposed to walk through my fears and be rigorously honest with myself and others about my fears and the reality (or falseness) of them. Living as an example of honesty means letting go of my fantasies or the narratives I spin about how things are. When I am truly honest, I can see what I can change and what really needs to change. I also see what is not in my power and how, if I have no power over it, it makes no sense to spend time worrying about it. You know what I mean: If I have a role to play or choices that could be different, I can do that, if I can’t, well, then I can’t. Talk about freedom! Living a life of honesty and truth also means unburdening myself with someone I trust about what I have done or am doing, or what I am feeling, all of which helps me not live in shame, secrecy, or fear. This frees me from carrying the burden of my troubles all by myself. Living honestly and in truth also means removing that awkward, painful, conflict and stress that arises when I say one thing (to be polite or because I am avoiding a confrontation), but I really mean or want to say another. This type of honesty also can be daunting, but it too sets me free.
Patience (Sabr)
Lastly, the prayer says I am to try to live as an example of patience and forbearance (while facing all my troubles). This to me means, “Don't give up.” Ever. It is a reminder that things get better. Things change. The hard work we can do (therapy or whatever path we choose) takes time. We didn't get into our mess and messed up way of thinking overnight. We won't get out of them overnight. We have to give time time. I know the despair can be all-encompassing, I have felt it. But I also have learned—as I am sure you have too—that I am strong in patience. No matter what troubles that befall me, even when despair feels like a reality convincing me to my bones, something that I feel as if I KNOW will always be my reality, I can be patient. I can wait the pain out. It too will pass.
Trust me. Things do get better, if we do our work and we are willing to wait.
Things have gotten better for me, and I promise they can get better for you too.
Love, Light, & Peace,
Kamal
P.S. I would add one more thing to all my fabulous (& unsolicited) advice above (): Music. I know you love music. And that’s great, because music moves us, changes our mood, reminds us things get better (and have been better). Here are some of my favorites that have so far worked to get me through some pretty tough times:
“I Look to You” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYFfmFeFGZg&feature=related as sung by Whitney Houston (RIP) or the GLEE version with Amber Riley, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQgO5TtBF6g
A soft strumming song I just recently discovered, by City and Colour, “O’ Sister” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi-crVagUok&feature=youtu.be
“It’s a Beautiful Day [don’t let it get away]” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6WMzDOh1o by U2
“Feeling Good” by Michael Bublé, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edwsf-8F3sI&ob=av2e, or the Nina Simone version, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHs98TEYecM
“I Am Changing” by Jennifer Hudson, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYuFvu2gdFU
P.P.S. What are your favorite songs to get you through tough times?
Bio: Kamal Fizazi is a writer, activist, lawyer, policy wonk, strategic planning and program consultant, and all-around good guy who spends his time thinking about and working on issues of human rights and equality, diversity and inclusion, democracy and social justice, equity, gender, sexuality, public health, HIV/AIDS, addiction, mental health, recovery, faith-based anti-oppression efforts and interfaith organizing, and Lord only knows what else.
You can follow Kamal on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamalfizazi or on twitter: @kamalfizazi. You can also read his blogs on http://izazif.wordpress.com and http://wholooksinsideawakens.blogspot.com.
Additional notes and links:
Suicide claims 36,500 lives yearly in the USA; close to one million attempt it each year.
Suicide Prevention & Support:
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/Default.aspx
http://www.thetrevorproject.org/
http://veteranscrisisline.net/
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
http://www.samaritansnyc.org/
http://www.afsp.org/
Solidarity & Fundraising:
http://www.outofthedarkness.org/
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry 2011 Winner: Roberto F. Santiago
To begin, Shut. Up. I know we are a quarter of the way into 2012, but due to the recession and personal poverty, I decided to postpone the announcement of the 2011 Carey Prize until I could actually afford to pay the winner the prize amount.
For months, I have been sitting on the knowledge of the winner of the prize. On Christmas Day 2011, I emailed Roberto F. Santiago (actually, to be fair, I responded to an email from him), letting him know that he had been selected as the second recipient, after inaugural winner Saymoukda Vongsay, of the Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word poetry.
I established this prize in 2010 as a way to honor and remember my amazing grandfather. My grandfather was a working class mixed race man from Northern Minnesota, a father of eight, and a loving husband. When the universe handed him an even more mixed race, "theatrical," eventually queer grandson....the man didn't blink...he opened up his heart that much wider and loved me fiercely. My grandpa left this world 15 years ago, almost to the day, and it is with so much pleasure that I share with you the winning poem of this year's Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry.
What Is Left When a Prayer is Answered
The ritual. Waking
in the middle of the night.
Sheets soaked.
The half empty matchbox.
Lit white glass cased candles
with ash lipped rims
and melted Santa Barbara stickers on the side.
The daily baths.
Agua Florida and cheap white
flowers that stick to your skin. The red string
of yarn tied around your waist
The wishes tied to your wrist.
The masses.
Tying laughter down
inside your cardigan.
But it’s always too late.
Your best friend started to laugh
and every myrrh scented second
becomes unbearably funny.
This is gonna cost whoever caused
the ruckus at least 20 Hail Mary's.
Sr. Theresa’s ruler raps the pew.
Or is it more like the time
you and your boyfriend
tried hard to hide
hardons in the centerfold
of your Daily Missal
in the front pew
while Father McIntye watches.
Or the visits to your grandfather’s friend.
The Santero would roll
a white shelled egg
over your naked
interrupting
can't say no
C R A C K
With surgical precision he splits
the egg in the middle
of his hand
where the yolk runs
black. And he suggests a second egg.
You consent.
Or the visits from your friend’s teenage grandson.
His bright red underwear
your b l o o d i s r u s h i n g
Underneath
loose, faded, blue overalls
Soft hairs
interrupting
softer. CK Be.
Flavored skin.
An obelisk
of inexperience
pairs best with
the over-easy cracked in your hand.
The second egg,
more eager than the first.
Or the Sunday Morning visits to La Botanica.
The Rainmaker would sing into a woman’s rounded
belly about the dozen before
she collected, carried, tripped over and dropped.
Yolk and hope poured over
black candles.
shaped like a man
and a woman.
without sound.
Or the nights before anniversaries
you spent conjuring
excuses not to visit tombstones,
dead grass and wet mud.
You don't have boots. You don't have time.
Roberto F. Santiago
Roberto F. Santiago writes placing pen to paper and fingertips to QWERTY all as an act of translation. Within poetry, he has discovered a booming collective of voices and a rickety soapbox whereupon he can shout obscenities and prayers at the same time. Roberto received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College and is weeks away from receiving his MFA from Rutgers University. Currently, he is teaching English Composition to impressionable college freshman. Travel has also greatly influenced Roberto as a poet. Be it sitting on the grass at and staring into the sun at Dachau or the smell of rain in rural Québec, he has begun to rewrite his own passport. Roberto also writes and produces music, and has been known to dance until he rips his pants. His poetry has been published in such anthologies as Me No Habla With Acento El Museo/Rebel Satori Press (2011), -gape-seed- Uphook Press (2011). The Best of Panic: En Vivo From the East Village Rebel Satori Press (2010). Roberto lives in New York City with a Pomapoo and feminist Penguino.
For months, I have been sitting on the knowledge of the winner of the prize. On Christmas Day 2011, I emailed Roberto F. Santiago (actually, to be fair, I responded to an email from him), letting him know that he had been selected as the second recipient, after inaugural winner Saymoukda Vongsay, of the Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word poetry.
I established this prize in 2010 as a way to honor and remember my amazing grandfather. My grandfather was a working class mixed race man from Northern Minnesota, a father of eight, and a loving husband. When the universe handed him an even more mixed race, "theatrical," eventually queer grandson....the man didn't blink...he opened up his heart that much wider and loved me fiercely. My grandpa left this world 15 years ago, almost to the day, and it is with so much pleasure that I share with you the winning poem of this year's Alfred C. Carey Prize in Spoken Word Poetry.
What Is Left When a Prayer is Answered
The ritual. Waking
in the middle of the night.
Sheets soaked.
The half empty matchbox.
Lit white glass cased candles
with ash lipped rims
and melted Santa Barbara stickers on the side.
The daily baths.
Agua Florida and cheap white
flowers that stick to your skin. The red string
of yarn tied around your waist
The wishes tied to your wrist.
The masses.
Tying laughter down
inside your cardigan.
But it’s always too late.
Your best friend started to laugh
and every myrrh scented second
becomes unbearably funny.
This is gonna cost whoever caused
the ruckus at least 20 Hail Mary's.
Sr. Theresa’s ruler raps the pew.
Or is it more like the time
you and your boyfriend
tried hard to hide
hardons in the centerfold
of your Daily Missal
in the front pew
while Father McIntye watches.
Or the visits to your grandfather’s friend.
The Santero would roll
a white shelled egg
over your naked
interrupting
can't say no
C R A C K
With surgical precision he splits
the egg in the middle
of his hand
where the yolk runs
black. And he suggests a second egg.
You consent.
Or the visits from your friend’s teenage grandson.
His bright red underwear
your b l o o d i s r u s h i n g
Underneath
loose, faded, blue overalls
Soft hairs
interrupting
softer. CK Be.
Flavored skin.
An obelisk
of inexperience
pairs best with
the over-easy cracked in your hand.
The second egg,
more eager than the first.
Or the Sunday Morning visits to La Botanica.
The Rainmaker would sing into a woman’s rounded
belly about the dozen before
she collected, carried, tripped over and dropped.
Yolk and hope poured over
black candles.
shaped like a man
and a woman.
without sound.
Or the nights before anniversaries
you spent conjuring
excuses not to visit tombstones,
dead grass and wet mud.
You don't have boots. You don't have time.
Roberto F. Santiago
Roberto F. Santiago writes placing pen to paper and fingertips to QWERTY all as an act of translation. Within poetry, he has discovered a booming collective of voices and a rickety soapbox whereupon he can shout obscenities and prayers at the same time. Roberto received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College and is weeks away from receiving his MFA from Rutgers University. Currently, he is teaching English Composition to impressionable college freshman. Travel has also greatly influenced Roberto as a poet. Be it sitting on the grass at and staring into the sun at Dachau or the smell of rain in rural Québec, he has begun to rewrite his own passport. Roberto also writes and produces music, and has been known to dance until he rips his pants. His poetry has been published in such anthologies as Me No Habla With Acento El Museo/Rebel Satori Press (2011), -gape-seed- Uphook Press (2011). The Best of Panic: En Vivo From the East Village Rebel Satori Press (2010). Roberto lives in New York City with a Pomapoo and feminist Penguino.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Queers for Economic Justice Announces New Co- Executive Directors Amber Hollibaugh and W. Brandon Lacy Campos
New York City, March 26, 2012: The board of directors of Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) is pleased to announce the selection of Amber Hollibaugh and W. Brandon Lacy Campos as co-executive directors of QEJ. The board chose the two as their leading candidates after a rigorous six month search.
Hollibaugh and Campos both have long histories with QEJ, including most recently having served as the interim executive director and development director respectively. Amber is a founding member and former board member of QEJ, and Brandon has worked with various QEJ initiatives for a number of years before joining the staff.
At the end of 2010, hard hit by the recession, QEJ faced the very real prospect of closing its doors. Amber agreed to step down from the board to serve as Interim Executive Director and in doing so brought a fresh vision and energy to QEJ along with economic stability. . Through her leadership and with the support of QEJ's first ever professional development staff person, Brandon, QEJ ended the year with an operating surplus, surpassing fundraising benchmarks for 2011. QEJ also strengthened and expanded the Shelter Program work led by Jay Toole, and laid the foundation for a new framework for radical queer and trans organizing: The Queer Survival Economies Initiative.
“This is an extraordinary moment to be at QEJ”, said new co-director, Amber Hollibaugh. “ I helped found QEJ and have been with it in one way or another through its entire history. To now be a part of the team placing QEJ’s voice at the center of the economic crisis facing LGBTQ people at this moment in history, is an honor. To do this work with Brandon Lacy Campos as my partner, is a gift”.
“ Amber carries a profound and transformative vision of the world, of bringing ourselves as full and flawed human beings to the work of justice and believing that every person is deserving of liberation and love. It is this abiding passion drawn from a life deeply lived that made me fall in love with Amber and her work. To have the opportunity to work with such an amazing organizer and visionary is a true gift. Now, during QEJ’s 10th anniversary year, I am honored to work with Amber to lead QEJ into its next phase,” enthused newly minted co-director, Brandon Lacy Campos.
Board co-chairs, Terry Boggis and Amanda Lugg, were elated about the appointment and said, “"We are tremendously excited. Amber and Brandon have robust activist histories in queer liberation work, unswerving commitment to QEJ's values and ideals, and achievable, cutting-edge ideas about what QEJ can and should become. They both understand movement intersections, and will ensure QEJ's work remains focused there. They are the ultimate queer left power couple, and we welcome them into this shared role."
Over the next year, QEJ will continue to expand it's shelter work, and launch its Resident Action Group project, a part of QEJ's Shelter Safety Campaign. In the Fall of 2012, QEJ is poised to roll out a bold initiative: Queer Survival Economies in broad community partnership with local labor, HIV organizers, immigrant groups, queer and trans people of color allied organizations, working poor, queer elder coalitions.
Amber Hollibaugh brings more than 40 years of organizing experience to her role at QEJ, and Brandon Lacy Campos has worked in the queer movement, beginning as a youth organizer, for 19 years. It is anticipated that with this new team of co-directors QEJ will emerge in the second decade of the 21st century, stable, productive and an innovative presence and voice in the LGBTQ movement.
About QEJ
Queers for Economic Justice is a progressive non-profit organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. Our goal is to challenge and change the systems that create poverty and economic injustice in our communities, and to promote an economic system that embraces sexual and gender diversity. We are committed to the principle that access to social and economic resources is a fundamental right, and we work to create social and economic equity through grassroots organizing, public education, advocacy and research. We do this work because although poor queers have always been a part of both the gay rights and economic justice movements, they have been, and continue to be, largely invisible in both movements. This work will always be informed by the lived experiences and expressed needs of queer people in poverty. For more information: www.QEJ.org; 212564.3606
Hollibaugh and Campos both have long histories with QEJ, including most recently having served as the interim executive director and development director respectively. Amber is a founding member and former board member of QEJ, and Brandon has worked with various QEJ initiatives for a number of years before joining the staff.
At the end of 2010, hard hit by the recession, QEJ faced the very real prospect of closing its doors. Amber agreed to step down from the board to serve as Interim Executive Director and in doing so brought a fresh vision and energy to QEJ along with economic stability. . Through her leadership and with the support of QEJ's first ever professional development staff person, Brandon, QEJ ended the year with an operating surplus, surpassing fundraising benchmarks for 2011. QEJ also strengthened and expanded the Shelter Program work led by Jay Toole, and laid the foundation for a new framework for radical queer and trans organizing: The Queer Survival Economies Initiative.
“This is an extraordinary moment to be at QEJ”, said new co-director, Amber Hollibaugh. “ I helped found QEJ and have been with it in one way or another through its entire history. To now be a part of the team placing QEJ’s voice at the center of the economic crisis facing LGBTQ people at this moment in history, is an honor. To do this work with Brandon Lacy Campos as my partner, is a gift”.
“ Amber carries a profound and transformative vision of the world, of bringing ourselves as full and flawed human beings to the work of justice and believing that every person is deserving of liberation and love. It is this abiding passion drawn from a life deeply lived that made me fall in love with Amber and her work. To have the opportunity to work with such an amazing organizer and visionary is a true gift. Now, during QEJ’s 10th anniversary year, I am honored to work with Amber to lead QEJ into its next phase,” enthused newly minted co-director, Brandon Lacy Campos.
Board co-chairs, Terry Boggis and Amanda Lugg, were elated about the appointment and said, “"We are tremendously excited. Amber and Brandon have robust activist histories in queer liberation work, unswerving commitment to QEJ's values and ideals, and achievable, cutting-edge ideas about what QEJ can and should become. They both understand movement intersections, and will ensure QEJ's work remains focused there. They are the ultimate queer left power couple, and we welcome them into this shared role."
Over the next year, QEJ will continue to expand it's shelter work, and launch its Resident Action Group project, a part of QEJ's Shelter Safety Campaign. In the Fall of 2012, QEJ is poised to roll out a bold initiative: Queer Survival Economies in broad community partnership with local labor, HIV organizers, immigrant groups, queer and trans people of color allied organizations, working poor, queer elder coalitions.
Amber Hollibaugh brings more than 40 years of organizing experience to her role at QEJ, and Brandon Lacy Campos has worked in the queer movement, beginning as a youth organizer, for 19 years. It is anticipated that with this new team of co-directors QEJ will emerge in the second decade of the 21st century, stable, productive and an innovative presence and voice in the LGBTQ movement.
About QEJ
Queers for Economic Justice is a progressive non-profit organization committed to promoting economic justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation. Our goal is to challenge and change the systems that create poverty and economic injustice in our communities, and to promote an economic system that embraces sexual and gender diversity. We are committed to the principle that access to social and economic resources is a fundamental right, and we work to create social and economic equity through grassroots organizing, public education, advocacy and research. We do this work because although poor queers have always been a part of both the gay rights and economic justice movements, they have been, and continue to be, largely invisible in both movements. This work will always be informed by the lived experiences and expressed needs of queer people in poverty. For more information: www.QEJ.org; 212564.3606
Sunday, March 25, 2012
The Other Side of the Mirror
I have written about life as I experienced it growing up in a number of entries in this blog. For those that missed them, a short recap: I grew up loved, but also surrounded by intense and nearly constant physical abuse for a decade or more, watched my Mom go through a series of extremely physically and emotionally abusive relationships, grew up in intense poverty (near but never homeless at times), on public assistance, experienced chemical addiction at home (and have struggled with it myself), and also the joy of being queer and brown in a largely white rural family in Minnesota. I am saying this for a very specific point.
So many times in my life, folks have said to me to my face in a variety of circumstances: "I doubt YOU know what it is like to go without," or "you don't seem to have had to struggle much in your life," or "what do you know about poverty/violence/fear/etc," and on and on ad nauseum. The first time this was said point blank was when a former roommate of mine moved out of our apartment and stole a number of pieces of furniture that had come with the apartment. She'd left no forwarding address, and so the landlord came after me, believing I'd taken the items, and railing against me and the work he was doing to support low income people (and the flipside...I...a privileged boy should know better).
That was the first time I can remember having to use my history, rather awkwardly, as a very embarrassing shield. Yet, at the same time, it is MY history. I do not take some sort of noble poverty pride in it but neither am I ashamed of it. But, I also, as I have gotten older, had not been prepared for the level of legitimacy that history gives me in certain circumstances, except when it is taken away by someone that perceives me as distinct from or unable to have come from that particular historical narrative.
Let me be clear, because I am educated, because when I am in professional mode I tend to use rather impeccable upper-Midwest English, and because God at some point decided the fat kid from high school that couldn't get a date to save his life should have some sort of reprieve, day to day folks (read largely white folks) perceive that education/good English/confidence/achievement is anathema to poverty/violence/homelessness/mental health issues/welfare babies etc....EXCEPT...EXCEPT for those rare "exceptions" to the rule that still seem to carry a hint of the ghetto with them into their achievement or success....but since I carry no whiff of West Broadway and Lyndale in North Minneapolis, I must have a different story and come from a different more benevolent place...in Minnesota...we call that place Edina.
I beat up kids from Edina for shits and giggles.
But here's a part of the story folks don't know. My Mom busted her ass to make sure we lived in neighborhoods with good schools. We often lived in the smallest apartment in the neighborhood, my brother and I shared a bed for a year in high school, or I had a two hour bus ride to school in the morning to get me to the school that afforded me the best options. I was surrounded in school by amazing teachers that, from the gate, in pre-school, saw something in me that they took pains to nurture. Even though I never thought of myself as anything extraordinary, my teachers pushed, pulled, and sometimes shoved me into roles and places that opened up my natural abilities and talents, and as a result I was surrounded by a community of caring adults that wanted and demanded that I succeed. Hell, the advisor to the Minneapolis Citywide Student Government, Pam Olson, on one day's notice, drove me from Minnesota to North Carolina when my Father was unable to do so in order to get me to college on time. THAT'S the type of love and support that I had to counterbalance the violence and poverty. And if there is one thing that I learned and learned young...take every fucking opportunity offered. If you don't like it...you can always walk away from it, but if someone opens a door for you, walk through and see what's on the other side.
Now, though, and I swear to God I am not complaining, I have been experiencing a whole new level of prejudgment, along the same lines as before...but this connected directly to my body.
I wrote a blog not too long ago about an instance where an older gentleman made a comment about my biceps being bigger than my brain. Since then, as I have gotten closer to having the body that I have always wanted, a new phenomena has occurred. Now I have had folks assuming that 1) I have always looked like this (they tend to give me side eye when I tell them that these abs weren't here at the end of December), and 2) that having always looked like this I am used to getting what I want, am self centered, have no concern for others, and expect that everything will revolve around me because I happen to look the way I do.
Now, on a couple of occasions, I have had the opportunity to fully explain my Sexy Positive Bodies project, roll out all the pictures from the last year, and show, clearly, that not only is this body new but it was intentional and connected to fighting my own body dysmorphism. In fact, I was hanging out with someone recently, and I mentioned that this body was new. I received a curious text message some hours later asking me to explain. I did. He was astounded and admitted that he had made a number of assumptions based solely on my physical appearance.
While I am not complaining, I think it is curious that I am not taken less seriously on first viewing by strangers because of my body than I would have otherwise. I have been called Chelsea Boy, Gym Rat, Gym Bunny, and all other sorts of exercise rodents. I can't argue with the rodents, but I do take exception at the Chelsea Boy thing....that is just wrong.
In the end, folks are hard wired to make assumptions based on their past experiences and what they perceive in an individual based on outward markers. This body may be gone six months from now. My history, from this moment backwards, is what it is, but I can be cognizant about the assumptions and first impression judgments I make of others, particularly as I have this new heightened awareness of the way my appearance creates/or inhibits others from seeing me.
So many times in my life, folks have said to me to my face in a variety of circumstances: "I doubt YOU know what it is like to go without," or "you don't seem to have had to struggle much in your life," or "what do you know about poverty/violence/fear/etc," and on and on ad nauseum. The first time this was said point blank was when a former roommate of mine moved out of our apartment and stole a number of pieces of furniture that had come with the apartment. She'd left no forwarding address, and so the landlord came after me, believing I'd taken the items, and railing against me and the work he was doing to support low income people (and the flipside...I...a privileged boy should know better).
That was the first time I can remember having to use my history, rather awkwardly, as a very embarrassing shield. Yet, at the same time, it is MY history. I do not take some sort of noble poverty pride in it but neither am I ashamed of it. But, I also, as I have gotten older, had not been prepared for the level of legitimacy that history gives me in certain circumstances, except when it is taken away by someone that perceives me as distinct from or unable to have come from that particular historical narrative.
Let me be clear, because I am educated, because when I am in professional mode I tend to use rather impeccable upper-Midwest English, and because God at some point decided the fat kid from high school that couldn't get a date to save his life should have some sort of reprieve, day to day folks (read largely white folks) perceive that education/good English/confidence/achievement is anathema to poverty/violence/homelessness/mental health issues/welfare babies etc....EXCEPT...EXCEPT for those rare "exceptions" to the rule that still seem to carry a hint of the ghetto with them into their achievement or success....but since I carry no whiff of West Broadway and Lyndale in North Minneapolis, I must have a different story and come from a different more benevolent place...in Minnesota...we call that place Edina.
I beat up kids from Edina for shits and giggles.
But here's a part of the story folks don't know. My Mom busted her ass to make sure we lived in neighborhoods with good schools. We often lived in the smallest apartment in the neighborhood, my brother and I shared a bed for a year in high school, or I had a two hour bus ride to school in the morning to get me to the school that afforded me the best options. I was surrounded in school by amazing teachers that, from the gate, in pre-school, saw something in me that they took pains to nurture. Even though I never thought of myself as anything extraordinary, my teachers pushed, pulled, and sometimes shoved me into roles and places that opened up my natural abilities and talents, and as a result I was surrounded by a community of caring adults that wanted and demanded that I succeed. Hell, the advisor to the Minneapolis Citywide Student Government, Pam Olson, on one day's notice, drove me from Minnesota to North Carolina when my Father was unable to do so in order to get me to college on time. THAT'S the type of love and support that I had to counterbalance the violence and poverty. And if there is one thing that I learned and learned young...take every fucking opportunity offered. If you don't like it...you can always walk away from it, but if someone opens a door for you, walk through and see what's on the other side.
Now, though, and I swear to God I am not complaining, I have been experiencing a whole new level of prejudgment, along the same lines as before...but this connected directly to my body.
I wrote a blog not too long ago about an instance where an older gentleman made a comment about my biceps being bigger than my brain. Since then, as I have gotten closer to having the body that I have always wanted, a new phenomena has occurred. Now I have had folks assuming that 1) I have always looked like this (they tend to give me side eye when I tell them that these abs weren't here at the end of December), and 2) that having always looked like this I am used to getting what I want, am self centered, have no concern for others, and expect that everything will revolve around me because I happen to look the way I do.
Now, on a couple of occasions, I have had the opportunity to fully explain my Sexy Positive Bodies project, roll out all the pictures from the last year, and show, clearly, that not only is this body new but it was intentional and connected to fighting my own body dysmorphism. In fact, I was hanging out with someone recently, and I mentioned that this body was new. I received a curious text message some hours later asking me to explain. I did. He was astounded and admitted that he had made a number of assumptions based solely on my physical appearance.
While I am not complaining, I think it is curious that I am not taken less seriously on first viewing by strangers because of my body than I would have otherwise. I have been called Chelsea Boy, Gym Rat, Gym Bunny, and all other sorts of exercise rodents. I can't argue with the rodents, but I do take exception at the Chelsea Boy thing....that is just wrong.
In the end, folks are hard wired to make assumptions based on their past experiences and what they perceive in an individual based on outward markers. This body may be gone six months from now. My history, from this moment backwards, is what it is, but I can be cognizant about the assumptions and first impression judgments I make of others, particularly as I have this new heightened awareness of the way my appearance creates/or inhibits others from seeing me.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Hunter College Research Study Needs LGBT Immigrants!
Researchers from Hunter College School of Social Work are conducting a research study examining the social service needs and community supports of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Gender Non-conforming (LGBTQGNC) immigrants. The purpose of this research study is to explore the experiences of LGBTQGNC immigrants in order to better understand how their sexuality/gender-identity and immigrant identities impact their experiences with social service agencies. Information this study gathers will begin to provide data necessary to better address professional training needs, as well as to help begin establish a deeper understanding of the role of social work with LGTBQGNC immigrant communities.
Anyone who identifies as a LGBTQGNC immigrant and who has had some interaction with a social service provider, whether formal or informal, is welcome to participate in the study. The study includes a 30 minute face-to-face interview. Anyone who participates will not be compensated for their time, nor will participants receive any direct benefit from the study. However, it is the hope of the research team that social service providers will be better equipped to address the needs of LGBTQGNC immigrants as a result of this study.
If you or anyone you know would like to participate in this study please contact JT Mikulka at 845.544.0227 or jmikulka@hunter.cuny.edu, or Jill Nawrocki at 917.370.7330 or jill.nawrocki@gmail.com.
You can also address questions to Dr. Marina Lalayants, faculty advisor at Hunter College School of Social Work, at 212.369.7550 or mlalayan@hunter.cuny.edu.
Anyone who identifies as a LGBTQGNC immigrant and who has had some interaction with a social service provider, whether formal or informal, is welcome to participate in the study. The study includes a 30 minute face-to-face interview. Anyone who participates will not be compensated for their time, nor will participants receive any direct benefit from the study. However, it is the hope of the research team that social service providers will be better equipped to address the needs of LGBTQGNC immigrants as a result of this study.
If you or anyone you know would like to participate in this study please contact JT Mikulka at 845.544.0227 or jmikulka@hunter.cuny.edu, or Jill Nawrocki at 917.370.7330 or jill.nawrocki@gmail.com.
You can also address questions to Dr. Marina Lalayants, faculty advisor at Hunter College School of Social Work, at 212.369.7550 or mlalayan@hunter.cuny.edu.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The 99% Spring: A Skeptic Speaks
You know, I am just learning about the 99% Spring....and I am having some mixed feelings. I know a number of the letter signers, and I trust them (for example, Sarita Gupta--Jobs with Justice--and I were student organizers involved with USSA together in the mid-90s, and Rashad Robinson and I go way back). I do, however, have some issues with how organized labor centric the push is considered how few folks are actually part of organized labor at this point. Now, I believe that organized labor should be a central component of any organizing related to economic justice, but immediately, on looking at the signers and the labor focus, my first instinct was to say...this isn't about me....which is deep on a number of levels, right...both on the level of why don't I see myself as an inheritor of the right to organized labor but also it has clearly to do with the racism, homophobia, and lack of ability of organized labor to speak to me and my experience as a nonprofit worker. Aka...those of us that have spent the bulk of our lives agitating for change have largely done so within the non-profit industrial complex, which organized labor has ignored or been unable to crack (I am being clear that there have been widely divergent reasons and what is true on the national stage regarding energy and willingness does not often match up with local labor organizing).
Now...the prominent role of organized labor in calling for the 99% Spring is NOT why I am skeptical. I want to be clear. I am a lover of organized labor...but I do feel it necessary to call out that it did make me feel uncomfortable and made me question who was calling this week long event and if/did/didn't they do their work to make sure that the signers/callers were broad and deep enough to not elicit such a reaction. If I am having this reaction and I KNOW some of the folks calling for the action, I am clear that folks that have no direct connection to the list of folks behind the call will have even less impetus to connect this work to their own lives.
But on another level...my gut...after thoroughly reading the 99% Spring website has an even bigger, more troublesome question: SO WHAT?
So what we have a week of actions/trainings/teach-ins...that will, if successful, raise visibility...but to what end? What happens on April 16th? What will the 100,000 folks be doing on April 17th? How will the energy be sustained? What are the next step goals? What are m the outcomes that this is helping to push forward? What's the next strategy to reach an end goal or benchmark and how does this push us there? How does this build infrastructure? How does this build movement instead of continuing our silo-ed, largely uncoordinated/and sometimes at odds work? How does this create a broader and deeper more unified political understanding of the moment and the long term politic in effect? How does this change the dialogue? Who gets to participate in these direct actions? Who does this leave out? Specifically what does this mean for the formally incarcerated? Immigrants, documented or otherwise, and those that can't afford to miss work to participate in actions that could have them facing jail time? What else is there that can be done that is more sustainable, achieves the same visibility goals, and allows disenfranchised folks to continue to advocate on their own behalf without putting themselves at undue risk of incarceration, deportation, or further economic marginalization?
I actually believe that folks in their communities already KNOW the tactics that are going to lead to their own victories in narrow ways. Farm workers organizing in the Upper Midwest have the example of farm workers in the Southwest to draw on. What I want is to know and strategize with those farm workers and connect their liberation directly to mine as I do economic justice work with queer/trans/elderly/HIV positive/people of color/homeless folks in New York City. I want to build a coherent framework that connects our liberation struggles into a real movement and not a bifurcated exercise that still fails to address the inherent oppressions at play in the Occupy movement that this 99% Spring, as imagined, seems to be on the verge of replicating.
I am not saying don't do it. Nor will I stand in the way of it. But as it stands, as a co-executive director, I would not push for the involvement of my organization in the 99% Spring (PLEASE NOTE THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION AND IS LIKELY TO NOT BE SHARED BY ALL OF MY COLLEAGUES OR MOST OF MY FRIENDS FOR THAT MATTER). It is beyond time that we grow up as social justice movement(s), and understand the difference between tactics and strategies, and it is super beyond time that we figure out how to define successes and start setting benchmarks that we can reach, together...distinctly and directly investing in each others liberation across the silos in which we find ourselves. My liberation is directly connected to all of yours. It's time to create real strategies that get us to that liberated space....which...we will find....is only a starting point.
Now...the prominent role of organized labor in calling for the 99% Spring is NOT why I am skeptical. I want to be clear. I am a lover of organized labor...but I do feel it necessary to call out that it did make me feel uncomfortable and made me question who was calling this week long event and if/did/didn't they do their work to make sure that the signers/callers were broad and deep enough to not elicit such a reaction. If I am having this reaction and I KNOW some of the folks calling for the action, I am clear that folks that have no direct connection to the list of folks behind the call will have even less impetus to connect this work to their own lives.
But on another level...my gut...after thoroughly reading the 99% Spring website has an even bigger, more troublesome question: SO WHAT?
So what we have a week of actions/trainings/teach-ins...that will, if successful, raise visibility...but to what end? What happens on April 16th? What will the 100,000 folks be doing on April 17th? How will the energy be sustained? What are the next step goals? What are m the outcomes that this is helping to push forward? What's the next strategy to reach an end goal or benchmark and how does this push us there? How does this build infrastructure? How does this build movement instead of continuing our silo-ed, largely uncoordinated/and sometimes at odds work? How does this create a broader and deeper more unified political understanding of the moment and the long term politic in effect? How does this change the dialogue? Who gets to participate in these direct actions? Who does this leave out? Specifically what does this mean for the formally incarcerated? Immigrants, documented or otherwise, and those that can't afford to miss work to participate in actions that could have them facing jail time? What else is there that can be done that is more sustainable, achieves the same visibility goals, and allows disenfranchised folks to continue to advocate on their own behalf without putting themselves at undue risk of incarceration, deportation, or further economic marginalization?
I actually believe that folks in their communities already KNOW the tactics that are going to lead to their own victories in narrow ways. Farm workers organizing in the Upper Midwest have the example of farm workers in the Southwest to draw on. What I want is to know and strategize with those farm workers and connect their liberation directly to mine as I do economic justice work with queer/trans/elderly/HIV positive/people of color/homeless folks in New York City. I want to build a coherent framework that connects our liberation struggles into a real movement and not a bifurcated exercise that still fails to address the inherent oppressions at play in the Occupy movement that this 99% Spring, as imagined, seems to be on the verge of replicating.
I am not saying don't do it. Nor will I stand in the way of it. But as it stands, as a co-executive director, I would not push for the involvement of my organization in the 99% Spring (PLEASE NOTE THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION AND IS LIKELY TO NOT BE SHARED BY ALL OF MY COLLEAGUES OR MOST OF MY FRIENDS FOR THAT MATTER). It is beyond time that we grow up as social justice movement(s), and understand the difference between tactics and strategies, and it is super beyond time that we figure out how to define successes and start setting benchmarks that we can reach, together...distinctly and directly investing in each others liberation across the silos in which we find ourselves. My liberation is directly connected to all of yours. It's time to create real strategies that get us to that liberated space....which...we will find....is only a starting point.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
FOX News Has Lost Its Damn Mind: Racism, Whitney, and Rep. Maxine Waters
Dear FOX News:
Last week the United States lost an icon. Miss Whitney Houston was not only a singular voice and the voice of a generation, she was also emblematic of the problem of U.S. celebrity, the ways in which, particularly people of color performers, are commodified, superhumanized, idolized and then, when the pressure, stress, strain, racism, stardom, use, and abuse gets to be too much, we delight, in an old school Roman Coliseum way, in watching their slow and devastating decline...extracting the last bits of their humanity before they expire and we then memorialize them when it would have been more fitting to cauterize their words and had them still living amongst us. But I digress.
This week was lost an amazing woman, Whitney Houston, and I, and many folks of my generation, mourn her loss. She was responsible for her own actions, but we are responsible for cannibalizing her and her pain.
And then comes along FOX News.
Now....I make it a point to never ever watch FOX News...mostly because I choose not to go to folks in the midst of a permanent psychotic break to get my news. The reality that the folks at FOX News are seeing and the one that the rest of us are living in seemingly have nothing to do with one another. I seem to recall something about the news being objective, or, at the very least, it is supposed to make an attempt to report the facts as they are...now and again FOX gets a date or a location correct, but everything they say after that point seems to come from a badly translated neo-conservative fortune cookie.
The other day, while at the gym, my friend Brian swooped in for a butt grab to catch my attention...seeing as he is easy on the eyes, I didn't mind. But when I removed my headphones he asked me if I'd seen the clip from FOX News concerning Rep. Maxine Waters, a crack pipe and Whitney Houston comment, and the House Banking Committee, and my eyes burst into flames from a sudden bout of FOX News Induced Rage (FNIR).
Whitney Houston hadn't been dead three days, and FOX News had already found a way to use her death in a supremely fucked up and racist way.
By the time I left the gym, Brian had posted the video clip on my Facebook page. In it, Eric Bolling, after rolling a clip of Maxine Waters making a statement about taking back the House, and, when doing so, becoming the chair of the Banking Committee as Rep. Barney Frank is retiring and she is next in line. Her comments went further to say that she would use the powers of the committee to hold big banks accountable for this here recession they put us in. Sounds like common sense to me. Sounds like justice to me. But apparently, to Eric Bolling, it sounded like a perfect moment to speak ill of the dead and make a racist crack head comment about Rep. Maxine Waters.
Specifically, he lost his mind and said:
“What is going on in California? How’s this? Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.” Bolling said about Waters on “Fox and Friends.” “How else do you explain those comments?”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72964.html#ixzz1n7G4JUcR
If a commentator on CSPAN, CNN, MSNBC, or the Home Shopping Network had made a comparable comment, he or she wouldn't have made it to the end of the segment before being fired. But oh no, not FOX News...the last best defender of the 1st amendment freedom of speech and the press. Bolling made a half-assed apology and said he was joking, and he continues on the air...a racist neo-con time bomb just waiting to explode again.
How about this. FUCK YOU ERIC BOLLING YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKER.
Since Obama took office it has been a free for all on Black elected officials. White folks have felt free to say whatever the Hell pops into their minds about the president and other African-American electeds. At this point, I want to start passing out white hoods to half the pundits and all of the GOP. The only thing that is post-racism about the United States is that it is post-time to get real and recognize that racism is alive, well, and taking center stage in a way that it hasn't since before the Civil Rights era. If Eric Bolling had signed off his segment with, "Good night, niggers!" I couldn't have been any more shocked or surprised.
I would suggest a boycott of FOX News, but no one I know watches FOX News, and ain't none of the gays I know about to give up on Glee. So, instead, I am encouraging folks to call FOX News and let them know how you feel about Eric Bolling's comment: 1-888-369-4762.
And I hope if Rep. Waters ever gets that man alone for five minutes she takes off her belt or cuts a switch and beats his ass like his Mama should have.
And Whitney...if you could ask JC to send Eric boils or shingles or Ebola...I would be much obliged.
Last week the United States lost an icon. Miss Whitney Houston was not only a singular voice and the voice of a generation, she was also emblematic of the problem of U.S. celebrity, the ways in which, particularly people of color performers, are commodified, superhumanized, idolized and then, when the pressure, stress, strain, racism, stardom, use, and abuse gets to be too much, we delight, in an old school Roman Coliseum way, in watching their slow and devastating decline...extracting the last bits of their humanity before they expire and we then memorialize them when it would have been more fitting to cauterize their words and had them still living amongst us. But I digress.
This week was lost an amazing woman, Whitney Houston, and I, and many folks of my generation, mourn her loss. She was responsible for her own actions, but we are responsible for cannibalizing her and her pain.
And then comes along FOX News.
Now....I make it a point to never ever watch FOX News...mostly because I choose not to go to folks in the midst of a permanent psychotic break to get my news. The reality that the folks at FOX News are seeing and the one that the rest of us are living in seemingly have nothing to do with one another. I seem to recall something about the news being objective, or, at the very least, it is supposed to make an attempt to report the facts as they are...now and again FOX gets a date or a location correct, but everything they say after that point seems to come from a badly translated neo-conservative fortune cookie.
The other day, while at the gym, my friend Brian swooped in for a butt grab to catch my attention...seeing as he is easy on the eyes, I didn't mind. But when I removed my headphones he asked me if I'd seen the clip from FOX News concerning Rep. Maxine Waters, a crack pipe and Whitney Houston comment, and the House Banking Committee, and my eyes burst into flames from a sudden bout of FOX News Induced Rage (FNIR).
Whitney Houston hadn't been dead three days, and FOX News had already found a way to use her death in a supremely fucked up and racist way.
By the time I left the gym, Brian had posted the video clip on my Facebook page. In it, Eric Bolling, after rolling a clip of Maxine Waters making a statement about taking back the House, and, when doing so, becoming the chair of the Banking Committee as Rep. Barney Frank is retiring and she is next in line. Her comments went further to say that she would use the powers of the committee to hold big banks accountable for this here recession they put us in. Sounds like common sense to me. Sounds like justice to me. But apparently, to Eric Bolling, it sounded like a perfect moment to speak ill of the dead and make a racist crack head comment about Rep. Maxine Waters.
Specifically, he lost his mind and said:
“What is going on in California? How’s this? Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.” Bolling said about Waters on “Fox and Friends.” “How else do you explain those comments?”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72964.html#ixzz1n7G4JUcR
If a commentator on CSPAN, CNN, MSNBC, or the Home Shopping Network had made a comparable comment, he or she wouldn't have made it to the end of the segment before being fired. But oh no, not FOX News...the last best defender of the 1st amendment freedom of speech and the press. Bolling made a half-assed apology and said he was joking, and he continues on the air...a racist neo-con time bomb just waiting to explode again.
How about this. FUCK YOU ERIC BOLLING YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKER.
Since Obama took office it has been a free for all on Black elected officials. White folks have felt free to say whatever the Hell pops into their minds about the president and other African-American electeds. At this point, I want to start passing out white hoods to half the pundits and all of the GOP. The only thing that is post-racism about the United States is that it is post-time to get real and recognize that racism is alive, well, and taking center stage in a way that it hasn't since before the Civil Rights era. If Eric Bolling had signed off his segment with, "Good night, niggers!" I couldn't have been any more shocked or surprised.
I would suggest a boycott of FOX News, but no one I know watches FOX News, and ain't none of the gays I know about to give up on Glee. So, instead, I am encouraging folks to call FOX News and let them know how you feel about Eric Bolling's comment: 1-888-369-4762.
And I hope if Rep. Waters ever gets that man alone for five minutes she takes off her belt or cuts a switch and beats his ass like his Mama should have.
And Whitney...if you could ask JC to send Eric boils or shingles or Ebola...I would be much obliged.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
So Not Perfect
Anyone who has ever read my blog knows, without a doubt, that I am not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. I have made some huge ass mistakes that have hurt folks and I make smaller mistakes on daily basis. I do not claim perfection. I reject perfection. If I am aware of anything it is that I am terribly and tragically flawed.
Lately, several times in the last few days, folks have said to me in real exasperation that I need to stop being perfect. Let me clarify the undertone...both times this was said as if the folks involved had something on me or knew something about my history and because I said please, thank you, and asked permission before using the bathroom or taking a stick of gum, I was somehow putting on a mask to hide my hideously flawed nature.
Nope. I am flawed. I know it. I make mistakes. I know it. And when I have made a mistake, or hurt someone, or broken something...I try to make it better when I can. But sometimes I am petty, and sometimes I am scared, and sometimes I am angry, and sometimes I am not the always happy angel that folks want me to be.
Here's the trick...I gave up on perfection a long time ago...but lots of folks in the world only see me through a certain lens or a snapshot of time or in a certain circumstance or they know about me through my writing or from hearing me perform and so, in the end, get only a portion of my story and fill in the rest of the blanks themselves. And what happens is that I am either vilified or sanctified but either way...if I am your villain and yet do not ooze out evil or your saint and fuck up...what happens is that I no longer get to be human because someone else's world they built up took a hit.
Here's the deal...I wanna be human. I don't want to be a super hero. I don't want to be a savior. I don't want to be brave all the time. I don't want to keep making the same old mistakes. What I want to do is get to be a sometimes gifted, sometimes brilliant, sometimes wonderful, sometimes loving person that strives towards being those things more often than not. And I want to walk in the world alongside other humans that hurt and laugh and fuck and cry and break things and put them back together again. If I piss you off or make you angry or make you happy or make you giggle...I want to know about all those things...so I can address the things that need address and keep doing the things that bring folks in my life joy and peace. I am not superhuman, so reading minds doesn't work, I am not a magical elf from Happy Land, so I can not cast a spell and make all the bad things disappear from the world...but I do believe that by investing in each other's stories...beyond the narrow view that we might see...we will figure out how to see the humanity in so many many more people and in ourselves.
I am not perfect.
Please and thank you.
Lately, several times in the last few days, folks have said to me in real exasperation that I need to stop being perfect. Let me clarify the undertone...both times this was said as if the folks involved had something on me or knew something about my history and because I said please, thank you, and asked permission before using the bathroom or taking a stick of gum, I was somehow putting on a mask to hide my hideously flawed nature.
Nope. I am flawed. I know it. I make mistakes. I know it. And when I have made a mistake, or hurt someone, or broken something...I try to make it better when I can. But sometimes I am petty, and sometimes I am scared, and sometimes I am angry, and sometimes I am not the always happy angel that folks want me to be.
Here's the trick...I gave up on perfection a long time ago...but lots of folks in the world only see me through a certain lens or a snapshot of time or in a certain circumstance or they know about me through my writing or from hearing me perform and so, in the end, get only a portion of my story and fill in the rest of the blanks themselves. And what happens is that I am either vilified or sanctified but either way...if I am your villain and yet do not ooze out evil or your saint and fuck up...what happens is that I no longer get to be human because someone else's world they built up took a hit.
Here's the deal...I wanna be human. I don't want to be a super hero. I don't want to be a savior. I don't want to be brave all the time. I don't want to keep making the same old mistakes. What I want to do is get to be a sometimes gifted, sometimes brilliant, sometimes wonderful, sometimes loving person that strives towards being those things more often than not. And I want to walk in the world alongside other humans that hurt and laugh and fuck and cry and break things and put them back together again. If I piss you off or make you angry or make you happy or make you giggle...I want to know about all those things...so I can address the things that need address and keep doing the things that bring folks in my life joy and peace. I am not superhuman, so reading minds doesn't work, I am not a magical elf from Happy Land, so I can not cast a spell and make all the bad things disappear from the world...but I do believe that by investing in each other's stories...beyond the narrow view that we might see...we will figure out how to see the humanity in so many many more people and in ourselves.
I am not perfect.
Please and thank you.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Everyday Heroes: Wilson Cruz
So, being gay famous and all, I have had the occasion, upon occasion, to meet folks that are actually famous. One of my best friends is Bebe Zahara Benet, I am acquainted with Cheyenne Jackson, though better with his partner (fellow Minnesotan) Monte---you meet the craziest people at our dog park including Michael Urie---, as well as Wilson Heredia (the other Angel from Rent), but there is one person I have come across, that is legitimately famous, that is not only really real and sweet but lives his life, his politics, and gives to his community in a way that goes way beyond cutting a check or posing for a PETA ad.
I first met Wilson Cruz when he was still living in Los Angeles but was in NYC visiting. He was working out at my gym when I met him. Wilson's best friend is one of the most important and most valued people in my life, and so I broke my rule around approaching celebs, and I introduced myself as Russell's friend. We had a brief conversation, he was truly sweet, and then I went on to my work out, and he went on to his.
About a year passed between that moment and when I next saw him, which was this last fall when I stumbled on him and Russell out at Industry for Russell's 40th birthday party. First of all, it was sweet that Wilson remembered who I was after such a brief meeting, but we hung out that night, chatted, and it was cool. At one point in the evening, though, someone loosely affilliated with the crowd of folks out celebrating Russell's birthday was getting flirty with me, we were dancing, and then he asked me if I was HIV positive.
I said yes.
And his response was, "That's a boner killer. Sorry."
Now, I am used to dealing with folks' shit around HIV. It comes with the territory, but generally, when someone asks you that question in a moment like that...they legitimately want to know because either they are also positive or they want to hook up with you but need to know the lay of the land before doing so...and then have at it.
His response was like getting kicked directly in the chest with metal cleats. Wilson was standing near by us, and he saw the look on my face and asked me what happened. I told him.
Before I go on let me teach you the term, "Puerto Rican War." As a Puerto Rican, I engage in this type of warfare often. A Puerto Rican War is when you fuck with a friend of Puerto Rican and the Puerto Rican gets angrier and wilds out more than the aggrieved party.
Wilson's eyes started to glow in the dark, and he grabbed Russel and pointed to said Evil Queen, and stated, "Oh this girl is tripping and has gotten on my last damn nerve. She has got to go. GOT TO GO."
In that moment, the pain/anger/shame/hurt that was building up....went away. I was so very grateful.
I saw Wilson recently. Last week actually. I wanted to thank him for being a friend and an ally in that moment to someone he really didn't know. Our breakfast in Baltimore was not really the place to appreciate him, and so I am appreciating him now...openly and publicly to you my readers. Support this man's work....wherever and whenever he is doing it. Because he lives it. And he gives it back con ganas.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Supporting Our Soldiers
Once upon a time I joined a list serve, founded by Code Pink, that was keeping folks abreast of anti-war organizing taking place around the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Once the invasions took place and the wars in full swing, the focus of the list serve changed to combating the use of unmanned drones that have made some egregious errors costing many civilians their lives. The focus switch of the list serve happened and folks weren't asked to opt in.
For the most part, I never read anything on the list over the last several years. Until this morning when an email caught my eye that said that all soldiers are cowards, followed up by an angry U.S. resident of Afghan descent that, when facing folks pushing back against the statement that all soldiers are cowards, said, "Enough with making excuses for soldiers aka guns-for-hire. ENOUGH!"
That pushed me over the edge. Here is my verbatim response:
I am no fan of the military industrial complex. I do not believe in the United States' hegemonic neocolonialist policies. I despise the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the secret invasions that we stage all the time. But I also know that when my little brother and little sister joined the military it wasn't for some love of having to go to war against people that look like them. Neither did my Father or my Uncle or my Great-Uncle who fought in Korea and WWII. They joined because they felt it was the best option to get them to the place in life they wanted to be and whether from rural Minnesota or rural West Virginia, the options were limited. My great-great Uncle Lieutenant Colonel William Harrison Carey was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt's and rode with him during the colonization of Puerto Rico. Another relative of mine was with General Eisenhower in France and was the mapmaker that laid the literal plans and map of the D-Day invasion. Am I proud that one of my relatives participated in the colonization of Puerto Rico? No. Am I proud that another helped set the stage for the liberation of France and the fall of Hitler. Hell yes.
I support my family. My sister Shannon was named NCO Officer of the Year for the United States Army last year. My little brother has lost handfuls of friends to the war in Afghanistan and struggles with that on a regular basis. These are not mercenaries...these are my family. I may not support the military as an institution, but I support and love these human beings that have been my friends, allies, and loved me through some hard shit. I am proud of my family and the service they have given.
And anyone that calls them a coward to my face is likely to get my foot placed squarely in their ass. Check your fucking privilege...I am so done with arm chair activists hiding behind computer screens making broad declarations about shit they know nothing about.
Get up. Get out. And do the work necessary so that not a single one of our beloved family members and friends ever have to choose between poverty and violence and the risk of going to war in order to live a better life. Dismantle capitalism...erase racism....and abolish poverty....and then come talk to me about folks that join up. Until then. Shut the fuck up.
For the most part, I never read anything on the list over the last several years. Until this morning when an email caught my eye that said that all soldiers are cowards, followed up by an angry U.S. resident of Afghan descent that, when facing folks pushing back against the statement that all soldiers are cowards, said, "Enough with making excuses for soldiers aka guns-for-hire. ENOUGH!"
That pushed me over the edge. Here is my verbatim response:
Message flagged
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:13 AM
Can someone let me know how to remove myself from this list? The straight up ignorance around the poverty draft and other intentionally socially engineered policies that create real situations where many young people of color and rural poor whites see or actually have only the military as an option to escape cyclical poverty, the drug war, or urban violence is really too much. And it smacks of some serious unexamined privilege. Let's talk about the root causes of why the overwhelming majority of recruits join the service. It has nothing to do with privateering and patriotism, it has to do with a paycheck and a way out of wherever they came from. Those aren't excuses those are the reality of this capitalist corporate state. How about this, Fatima, you go into the hoods and counties where these children are drafted and cut them a check, pay for their education, give then a home, and remove them from the violence and poverty of the places you find them in. Support their families as well. Until you can do that while also eradicating the systemic oppression that created their circumstances, you are just as much a part of the problem as they end up being.
To denounce folks for taking what appears to be their only option to have a better life at the risk of their own lives, no matter how misguided the choice may have been, is an act of cowardice. Especially from behind a computer screen.
I am no fan of the military industrial complex. I do not believe in the United States' hegemonic neocolonialist policies. I despise the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the secret invasions that we stage all the time. But I also know that when my little brother and little sister joined the military it wasn't for some love of having to go to war against people that look like them. Neither did my Father or my Uncle or my Great-Uncle who fought in Korea and WWII. They joined because they felt it was the best option to get them to the place in life they wanted to be and whether from rural Minnesota or rural West Virginia, the options were limited. My great-great Uncle Lieutenant Colonel William Harrison Carey was a friend of Teddy Roosevelt's and rode with him during the colonization of Puerto Rico. Another relative of mine was with General Eisenhower in France and was the mapmaker that laid the literal plans and map of the D-Day invasion. Am I proud that one of my relatives participated in the colonization of Puerto Rico? No. Am I proud that another helped set the stage for the liberation of France and the fall of Hitler. Hell yes.
I support my family. My sister Shannon was named NCO Officer of the Year for the United States Army last year. My little brother has lost handfuls of friends to the war in Afghanistan and struggles with that on a regular basis. These are not mercenaries...these are my family. I may not support the military as an institution, but I support and love these human beings that have been my friends, allies, and loved me through some hard shit. I am proud of my family and the service they have given.
And anyone that calls them a coward to my face is likely to get my foot placed squarely in their ass. Check your fucking privilege...I am so done with arm chair activists hiding behind computer screens making broad declarations about shit they know nothing about.
Get up. Get out. And do the work necessary so that not a single one of our beloved family members and friends ever have to choose between poverty and violence and the risk of going to war in order to live a better life. Dismantle capitalism...erase racism....and abolish poverty....and then come talk to me about folks that join up. Until then. Shut the fuck up.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Creating Change 2012 First Entry
At this very moment, I am on an Amtrak train hurtling (or chugging---chooo choooooo) towards Baltimore for what would be my 14th Creating Change since 1998 if I hadn't missed a couple, but is instead my 11th. But still...DAYUM!
I will never forget my first Creating Change...picking up Erik Christensen in Coya Artichoker's car and driving from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh with a brief stop for a very expensive speeding ticket just before hitting P-Burgh.
How very much my life, organizing, and work has changed since 1998.
At the time I was still in college...a junior/senior at the University of Minnesota and wondering what the Hell I was going to do with my life.
Today, I am living in New York, working for Queers for Economic Justice, a published author, HIV positive, a sometimes hot mess, but loving, living, and dreaming big and in ways I never knew possible those 14 years ago.
I am always skeptical when I am heading to Creating Change, but this year it seems that most of my favorite people ever are going to be at the conference. I am re-plugged in to the conference in a different way, and I am filled with a ton of optimism. We shall see what we shall see.
This year I am faculty in both the Economic Justice Institute and the Sex Justice Institute as well as participating in two workshops, one on the future of sexual orientation and the other on reclaiming sexuality for people living with HIV and disabled folks. I get to work with folks like Amber Hollibaugh, Carlos Blanco, Sebastian Margaret, Kenyon Farrow and so many other transformative and amazing human beings.
My life is blessed.
I am definitely looking forward to this conference, reconnecting with so many of my beloved community/family members. 2012 is the year.
Stay Tuned.
I will never forget my first Creating Change...picking up Erik Christensen in Coya Artichoker's car and driving from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh with a brief stop for a very expensive speeding ticket just before hitting P-Burgh.
How very much my life, organizing, and work has changed since 1998.
At the time I was still in college...a junior/senior at the University of Minnesota and wondering what the Hell I was going to do with my life.
Today, I am living in New York, working for Queers for Economic Justice, a published author, HIV positive, a sometimes hot mess, but loving, living, and dreaming big and in ways I never knew possible those 14 years ago.
I am always skeptical when I am heading to Creating Change, but this year it seems that most of my favorite people ever are going to be at the conference. I am re-plugged in to the conference in a different way, and I am filled with a ton of optimism. We shall see what we shall see.
This year I am faculty in both the Economic Justice Institute and the Sex Justice Institute as well as participating in two workshops, one on the future of sexual orientation and the other on reclaiming sexuality for people living with HIV and disabled folks. I get to work with folks like Amber Hollibaugh, Carlos Blanco, Sebastian Margaret, Kenyon Farrow and so many other transformative and amazing human beings.
My life is blessed.
I am definitely looking forward to this conference, reconnecting with so many of my beloved community/family members. 2012 is the year.
Stay Tuned.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
New Year's Intentions
So my friends Damon and Jaime have posted on Facebook, in the last couple of weeks, their intentions for 2012. I was struck by the fact that they framed their overarching personal goals as intentions as opposed to resolutions. Intentions are long term achievements towards which progress can be made even if it takes longer than an arbitrary year's time to realize the place you intend to end up. Intentions also leaves space for learning and growth and for the trajectory of your intentions to change in relationship to yourself as you change.
Resolutions are just that...clear cut commitments, finite (usually) in nature (though they sometimes have long term impacts), and there is no, as Yoda would say, "Try. There is only do or do not," when it comes to New Year's Resolutions. Resolutions require perfection. I will lose 20 pounds. I will write the great American novel this year. I will never drink too much. I won't relapse. I will walk on water.
See...the problem with resolutions are that if they are truly things that are important and impactful to you spiritually, mentally, and physically...then when you fail...when you gain the weight back...when you relapse...when you have a hangover...when you fall into the East River....then not only all that matters is that you failed...it's a resolution...not an intention. An intention (with firm goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes) is a growth tool. It allows you to set for yourself the place that you would like to be but it also allows you the space to celebrate the progress you made EVEN if you ultimately did not reach your end goal within the time frame originally specified aka the year 2012. Maybe I relapsed but only for three days instead of two months as in the previous year? Perhaps I wanted to lose 20 pounds and lost 15 instead, and maybe the water was just being bitchy and jumped out of the way whenever I showed up.
In this life, and in this country, there is this idea that in order to be loved, accepted, worthy, valued (besides being white, male, rich and able bodied) is to be perfect. We are given the image of what a perfect child is and how she behaves, the perfect church goer, the perfect student, the perfect wife, the perfect lover, etc. For those of us that grew up with some level of privation (or lots of it), the one sure way to stand out, without ending up in juvie, was to excel in school/sports/arts. And our school system and the broader society whose values it props up, teaches us that we are only as good as our last A, our last novel, our last game, our last recital, our last whatever. As soon as we slip up or mess up grandly, even when the folks around us remind us constantly that a mistake doesn't discount all of the complicated awesome each person is, the culture of perfectionism dictates that until you are perfect again, despite any progress especially over larger arcs of time, that progress and your value and worthiness are attached and defined only by the next new big wow.
So when we mess up, the majority of us try to hide it, minimize it, or do advanced damage control. Instead of seeing our mistakes, owning them and figuring out a strategy to reach the goals we've set, instead, and I will use an I statement here, I internalize every failure and instead of being able to see, learn, grow and move on...I/we either shut down completely or take our already fevered pitch attempts at perfect to whole new levels of crazy town.
So this year, I have decided to set my intentions. I am sharing them with you, my community, because these intentions are important to me, and I am asking for your active help in providing support in reaching the benchmarks and measure that I set out for this year with each intention. And, also, if we can't model with each other what it looks like to see where we are ( and love it no matter what) and then dream where we need to be (and ask for help getting there) then we all stay stuck....falling off of the treadmill after only three weeks...just when you are able to get through your daily workout without considering having a defibrillator implanted in your chest.
2012 Intentions:
LOVE
I have decided that 2012 is going to be the year of self-love. I love so many people so very deeply. In fact, there are people in this world that I love more than anything else...including myself. I am surrounded by love in so many ways and in so many forms but somehow, somewhere I was taught or learned or accepted that love was not for me....love was something you gave to others but not to yourself. But, in fact, unless you can love yourself openly, honestly, and gently, you will never be able to be open to the massive love that is all around all of us. For me this means:
1. Therapy: I intend to find and engage on a weekly basis an amazing therapist. While I do not believe that therapy is actually doing the work needed to heal, I do believe that therapy is the place where you go to lay out your treatment plan, its the spot where you identify possible complications that might occur along the way, and it's the place you show up to consult with the experts on how to best move forward.
2. Learning to respect, value, and honor the fullness of the body in which I walk including the flaws (BACKFAT!), the disease (HIV!), and the skin color (not-white)..all of which in tandem with the messages we receive day in and out about who/what/how we should be create a foundation for self-loathing that is inimical to self-love.
3. Loving myself enough to expect that I deserve true love in a partner...I intend to write out, fully, what I want from a romantic life partner. If you can dream it, you can have it.
4. Sex!!! Part of loving myself better will be to acknowledge, feel and explore my sex life and embrace, without shame, the things that make me feel good and feel GOOD about feeling good! If this means that I discover that dipping myself in Play-Doh and having unprotected sex with a Muppet on Grants Tomb is my ultimate aphrodisiac then I will welcome it. This also means that I will not engage in sex that is escapism or that devalues me, my body, or my spirit.
5. Friends/Family: I will prioritize spending real time with friends and family and continuing to build meaningful relationships. It is also my intention to be sure that no one in my life that I love ever has to wonder or question my love or their inherent worthiness to be loved. And for those of you (ahem Carter Klenk) that I haven't seen in over a year...be prepared to offer up your husbands butt as my pillow.
6. Exercise: I will continue to exercise, build a strong body, and create a healthy corpus. I will continue to challenge my body, push it, and build the body I want and not the one the media or anyone else says that I should have. My goal here is to compete in the Mr. Fire Island contest this summer.
WRITING
1. I intend to finish revising Eden Lost and getting that to my publisher by the middle of March (March 15th....WARE THE IDES!).
2. I intend to have made significant progress (40,000+ words) written of the second book in the series that begins with Eden Lost by the end of 2012.
3. I intend to write and have published at least three articles for the Huffington Post.
4. I intend to reach out and secure at least one writing contract this year with the Advocate building on my successful November 2011 article.
5. I intend to continue to publish my blogs and look at ways to continue to increase the readership of My Feet Only Walk Forward.
6. I intend to honor my love of writing and the role it has held in my survival.
WORK
To continue to be the best possible staff person at QEJ that I can be and to offer myself in service to the work of social justice in the way that makes the best sense with the greatest impact.
CONCLUSION
I have a lot of intentions this year, but in the end, I want to love more, live better, be healthier, serve my community, and open myself to the real joy that is out there in this universe. My faith in God has always been strong, but now I need to have stronger faith in myself.
Happy 2012!
Resolutions are just that...clear cut commitments, finite (usually) in nature (though they sometimes have long term impacts), and there is no, as Yoda would say, "Try. There is only do or do not," when it comes to New Year's Resolutions. Resolutions require perfection. I will lose 20 pounds. I will write the great American novel this year. I will never drink too much. I won't relapse. I will walk on water.
See...the problem with resolutions are that if they are truly things that are important and impactful to you spiritually, mentally, and physically...then when you fail...when you gain the weight back...when you relapse...when you have a hangover...when you fall into the East River....then not only all that matters is that you failed...it's a resolution...not an intention. An intention (with firm goals, benchmarks, and measurable outcomes) is a growth tool. It allows you to set for yourself the place that you would like to be but it also allows you the space to celebrate the progress you made EVEN if you ultimately did not reach your end goal within the time frame originally specified aka the year 2012. Maybe I relapsed but only for three days instead of two months as in the previous year? Perhaps I wanted to lose 20 pounds and lost 15 instead, and maybe the water was just being bitchy and jumped out of the way whenever I showed up.
In this life, and in this country, there is this idea that in order to be loved, accepted, worthy, valued (besides being white, male, rich and able bodied) is to be perfect. We are given the image of what a perfect child is and how she behaves, the perfect church goer, the perfect student, the perfect wife, the perfect lover, etc. For those of us that grew up with some level of privation (or lots of it), the one sure way to stand out, without ending up in juvie, was to excel in school/sports/arts. And our school system and the broader society whose values it props up, teaches us that we are only as good as our last A, our last novel, our last game, our last recital, our last whatever. As soon as we slip up or mess up grandly, even when the folks around us remind us constantly that a mistake doesn't discount all of the complicated awesome each person is, the culture of perfectionism dictates that until you are perfect again, despite any progress especially over larger arcs of time, that progress and your value and worthiness are attached and defined only by the next new big wow.
So when we mess up, the majority of us try to hide it, minimize it, or do advanced damage control. Instead of seeing our mistakes, owning them and figuring out a strategy to reach the goals we've set, instead, and I will use an I statement here, I internalize every failure and instead of being able to see, learn, grow and move on...I/we either shut down completely or take our already fevered pitch attempts at perfect to whole new levels of crazy town.
So this year, I have decided to set my intentions. I am sharing them with you, my community, because these intentions are important to me, and I am asking for your active help in providing support in reaching the benchmarks and measure that I set out for this year with each intention. And, also, if we can't model with each other what it looks like to see where we are ( and love it no matter what) and then dream where we need to be (and ask for help getting there) then we all stay stuck....falling off of the treadmill after only three weeks...just when you are able to get through your daily workout without considering having a defibrillator implanted in your chest.
2012 Intentions:
LOVE
I have decided that 2012 is going to be the year of self-love. I love so many people so very deeply. In fact, there are people in this world that I love more than anything else...including myself. I am surrounded by love in so many ways and in so many forms but somehow, somewhere I was taught or learned or accepted that love was not for me....love was something you gave to others but not to yourself. But, in fact, unless you can love yourself openly, honestly, and gently, you will never be able to be open to the massive love that is all around all of us. For me this means:
1. Therapy: I intend to find and engage on a weekly basis an amazing therapist. While I do not believe that therapy is actually doing the work needed to heal, I do believe that therapy is the place where you go to lay out your treatment plan, its the spot where you identify possible complications that might occur along the way, and it's the place you show up to consult with the experts on how to best move forward.
2. Learning to respect, value, and honor the fullness of the body in which I walk including the flaws (BACKFAT!), the disease (HIV!), and the skin color (not-white)..all of which in tandem with the messages we receive day in and out about who/what/how we should be create a foundation for self-loathing that is inimical to self-love.
3. Loving myself enough to expect that I deserve true love in a partner...I intend to write out, fully, what I want from a romantic life partner. If you can dream it, you can have it.
4. Sex!!! Part of loving myself better will be to acknowledge, feel and explore my sex life and embrace, without shame, the things that make me feel good and feel GOOD about feeling good! If this means that I discover that dipping myself in Play-Doh and having unprotected sex with a Muppet on Grants Tomb is my ultimate aphrodisiac then I will welcome it. This also means that I will not engage in sex that is escapism or that devalues me, my body, or my spirit.
5. Friends/Family: I will prioritize spending real time with friends and family and continuing to build meaningful relationships. It is also my intention to be sure that no one in my life that I love ever has to wonder or question my love or their inherent worthiness to be loved. And for those of you (ahem Carter Klenk) that I haven't seen in over a year...be prepared to offer up your husbands butt as my pillow.
6. Exercise: I will continue to exercise, build a strong body, and create a healthy corpus. I will continue to challenge my body, push it, and build the body I want and not the one the media or anyone else says that I should have. My goal here is to compete in the Mr. Fire Island contest this summer.
WRITING
1. I intend to finish revising Eden Lost and getting that to my publisher by the middle of March (March 15th....WARE THE IDES!).
2. I intend to have made significant progress (40,000+ words) written of the second book in the series that begins with Eden Lost by the end of 2012.
3. I intend to write and have published at least three articles for the Huffington Post.
4. I intend to reach out and secure at least one writing contract this year with the Advocate building on my successful November 2011 article.
5. I intend to continue to publish my blogs and look at ways to continue to increase the readership of My Feet Only Walk Forward.
6. I intend to honor my love of writing and the role it has held in my survival.
WORK
To continue to be the best possible staff person at QEJ that I can be and to offer myself in service to the work of social justice in the way that makes the best sense with the greatest impact.
CONCLUSION
I have a lot of intentions this year, but in the end, I want to love more, live better, be healthier, serve my community, and open myself to the real joy that is out there in this universe. My faith in God has always been strong, but now I need to have stronger faith in myself.
Happy 2012!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Rage
There was a very long time in my life when I could not get angry. Even the things that should have made me angry, I shrugged off, ignored, or, most often, let pass deep inside of me, where I stuffed down the feelings, bottled them up, and sealed them inside of what I thought was a vault but, instead, turned out to be a pressure cooker.
There was a time when I saw rage and I fundamentally didn't understand it. I had moments when I felt what I thought was rage, and the first, and only time, I experienced intimate partner violence, my partner hit me and it triggered undiagnosed PTSD and I "redded out." The rage came on so explosively and suddenly that I had no memory of the time from when he hit me to when I came back to myself, sitting on top of him and smashing his face into the floor while crying. That was in 1995.
Since then, I have learned to let myself feel anger. In general, I now am able to get angry, address the source of the anger directly and then let it go. I have never held grudges, and I don't understand people that do. If I am in community with you, and you piss me off, then it is an act of love to confront you about your behavior (or be confronted) and then give or be given the opportunity to make amends and change the source of the behavior that triggered the anger.
It's been a long time since I felt rage. But I have been dealing with it, intensely, traumatically, shamefully and hurtfully for over a month now.
This is how it happened.
I was, I don't know what to call it, in some sort of intense friendship with someone that was fast becoming a relationship. To all outsiders, it looked as if we were in a relationship. On the inside, it felt like a relationship. The love was there, and it was intense. There was also a whole lot of hurt from relationships that we each had that had recently ended. We attempted to put on the brakes in a number of ways, but things still progressed. Certain committments were made, and so I moved forward, knowing that hurt was possible but truly believing that what this other had said was true. Until it wasn't true anymore.
Here is where I made my grand mistake. Instead of simply letting myself feel the anger that was obviously present at our break up that wasn't a break up and setting firm boundaries and excising the anger and hurt in a healthy way, I instead stuffed it down, let sadness take over. I knew better. It would have been healthier, right, and just for him and for him if I had just been honest with my anger and walked away then.
Its what the people around me told me I should do. I didn't listen. I was in love, and I didn't want to lose him. I thought it would be temporary. I still believed the things he had said. And I was believing the things he was still saying after the relationship adjustment. Except he wasn't in a place or space to be honest with himself in any way about where he was at in relationship to me or anything else. I am a smart human being and very little escapes my notice...its a survival technique....I kept in allowing myself to be yo-yo-ed. I was fighting him to want me and every time I had to go to war to get him to admit his feelings...a little more anger built up. Every time an I love you left his mouth and yet he pulled further away, a little more anger built up, and yet I kept sticking around. I kept trying to figure out how to be friends, how to console, how to be supportive yet stick to my own truth.
On Christmas eve all that ended in an explosion of rage. There had been one other rageful "text message" moment previous to this, but on Christmas eve my rage came out, it came hard, and it was directed at him. I set firm boundaries, to which he agreed. For about a week and a half all that worked out.
Until I had to see him again on a regular basis. And then all the angry and hurful things that I wanted to say...all of the things I wanted to verbally scissor into him so he would at least show some emotion and at best feel as hurt, wounded, and shitty as I feel gorged up in my throat every time I saw him. I couldn't sleep again. I had dreams in which I said all that I needed to say, and more than once on more than one occassion I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote out all of those things in a text message only to set it aside and delete it come morning.
I didn't find a way to excise the rage and so it continued to build, until last night, after copious wine and several cocktails I wrote and sent the text messages. Crueler. Meaner. Harsher. And more destructive than any I had written and deleted.
There was truth in them but it was truth meant to hurt as much as possible. It was ugly. It was rude. It was the dark side of the mirror that exists inside of all of us, and it is not who I am. It is not who I want to be. I have been hurt by words. I had been hurt by people I love, with intention, and I have made a committment to never spout that verbal poison out at someone I love.
And I did it. And it is shameful. I don't feel guilty about it. I feel shame about it. Shame is much much much worse.
Did the truth need to be told...yes...but not to him...to me. My rage and my anger are mine to hold and mine to excise. I did last night what I should have done six weeks ago. I deleted his phone number from my phone. I sent an email apologizing for my behavior. I am taking two weeks off of drinking to evaluate what that means and if it is something I need to look more deeply at (it isn't an excuse for my action only an enabler). But I believe in making amends and not just apologizing, so I am going to look at that. And, truth be told, since the break up that was not a break up...I have been using both alcohol and sex as ways to avoid dealing with how I really feel. Unhealthy combinations of both that have kept me off balance, in crisis, away from my feelings, and damaging in all sorts of combinations. That ends now as well.
I have come to a clear understanding that not only can I not have him as a part of my life, I don't want him, anytime soon, to be a part of it...because of the trust lost but also because I can't have him in my life and have it be healthy in anyway right now. I love him enough to not want to hurt him and I love myself enough to let myself be hurt by him anymore. And because there is still rage, I can't trust myself either to make the best choices. Not until the rage is gone. Not until I figure out how to let it go. Not until I learn how to forgive him and not until I learn how to forgive myself.
There was a time when I saw rage and I fundamentally didn't understand it. I had moments when I felt what I thought was rage, and the first, and only time, I experienced intimate partner violence, my partner hit me and it triggered undiagnosed PTSD and I "redded out." The rage came on so explosively and suddenly that I had no memory of the time from when he hit me to when I came back to myself, sitting on top of him and smashing his face into the floor while crying. That was in 1995.
Since then, I have learned to let myself feel anger. In general, I now am able to get angry, address the source of the anger directly and then let it go. I have never held grudges, and I don't understand people that do. If I am in community with you, and you piss me off, then it is an act of love to confront you about your behavior (or be confronted) and then give or be given the opportunity to make amends and change the source of the behavior that triggered the anger.
It's been a long time since I felt rage. But I have been dealing with it, intensely, traumatically, shamefully and hurtfully for over a month now.
This is how it happened.
I was, I don't know what to call it, in some sort of intense friendship with someone that was fast becoming a relationship. To all outsiders, it looked as if we were in a relationship. On the inside, it felt like a relationship. The love was there, and it was intense. There was also a whole lot of hurt from relationships that we each had that had recently ended. We attempted to put on the brakes in a number of ways, but things still progressed. Certain committments were made, and so I moved forward, knowing that hurt was possible but truly believing that what this other had said was true. Until it wasn't true anymore.
Here is where I made my grand mistake. Instead of simply letting myself feel the anger that was obviously present at our break up that wasn't a break up and setting firm boundaries and excising the anger and hurt in a healthy way, I instead stuffed it down, let sadness take over. I knew better. It would have been healthier, right, and just for him and for him if I had just been honest with my anger and walked away then.
Its what the people around me told me I should do. I didn't listen. I was in love, and I didn't want to lose him. I thought it would be temporary. I still believed the things he had said. And I was believing the things he was still saying after the relationship adjustment. Except he wasn't in a place or space to be honest with himself in any way about where he was at in relationship to me or anything else. I am a smart human being and very little escapes my notice...its a survival technique....I kept in allowing myself to be yo-yo-ed. I was fighting him to want me and every time I had to go to war to get him to admit his feelings...a little more anger built up. Every time an I love you left his mouth and yet he pulled further away, a little more anger built up, and yet I kept sticking around. I kept trying to figure out how to be friends, how to console, how to be supportive yet stick to my own truth.
On Christmas eve all that ended in an explosion of rage. There had been one other rageful "text message" moment previous to this, but on Christmas eve my rage came out, it came hard, and it was directed at him. I set firm boundaries, to which he agreed. For about a week and a half all that worked out.
Until I had to see him again on a regular basis. And then all the angry and hurful things that I wanted to say...all of the things I wanted to verbally scissor into him so he would at least show some emotion and at best feel as hurt, wounded, and shitty as I feel gorged up in my throat every time I saw him. I couldn't sleep again. I had dreams in which I said all that I needed to say, and more than once on more than one occassion I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote out all of those things in a text message only to set it aside and delete it come morning.
I didn't find a way to excise the rage and so it continued to build, until last night, after copious wine and several cocktails I wrote and sent the text messages. Crueler. Meaner. Harsher. And more destructive than any I had written and deleted.
There was truth in them but it was truth meant to hurt as much as possible. It was ugly. It was rude. It was the dark side of the mirror that exists inside of all of us, and it is not who I am. It is not who I want to be. I have been hurt by words. I had been hurt by people I love, with intention, and I have made a committment to never spout that verbal poison out at someone I love.
And I did it. And it is shameful. I don't feel guilty about it. I feel shame about it. Shame is much much much worse.
Did the truth need to be told...yes...but not to him...to me. My rage and my anger are mine to hold and mine to excise. I did last night what I should have done six weeks ago. I deleted his phone number from my phone. I sent an email apologizing for my behavior. I am taking two weeks off of drinking to evaluate what that means and if it is something I need to look more deeply at (it isn't an excuse for my action only an enabler). But I believe in making amends and not just apologizing, so I am going to look at that. And, truth be told, since the break up that was not a break up...I have been using both alcohol and sex as ways to avoid dealing with how I really feel. Unhealthy combinations of both that have kept me off balance, in crisis, away from my feelings, and damaging in all sorts of combinations. That ends now as well.
I have come to a clear understanding that not only can I not have him as a part of my life, I don't want him, anytime soon, to be a part of it...because of the trust lost but also because I can't have him in my life and have it be healthy in anyway right now. I love him enough to not want to hurt him and I love myself enough to let myself be hurt by him anymore. And because there is still rage, I can't trust myself either to make the best choices. Not until the rage is gone. Not until I figure out how to let it go. Not until I learn how to forgive him and not until I learn how to forgive myself.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
POEM: An Angry Love Poem
An Angry Love Poem
for him
I am tired of being beautiful
Ain't no sweetness left
Your mess has consumed
What you presumed was a never ending fountain
Of bullshit cosigned by my heart
Fuck you.
Your white privilege has protected you
And that pretty face
Race is front and center when a grown ass man of color
Chases after a needy toddler
How dare you say that you love me and then walk away
How dare you say you want me
and then leave me
Entitlement and white don't make right
Get it the fuck together, Heather
You have crossed the border from Heaven
And all Hell is about to break loose
Choose
The man that fucked you and left you aching
Except we were makin the foundations of this love
When your ass was his plaything
I am angry
You gone tell me your heart is broken
While breaking the love we were making
Forsaking what you admitted was your chance at having
Everything
For a bad dream, an uptight Indian pining for a virgin bride
Have some motherfucking pride
Fuck him too that broke you.
Took you and left you half assed and hurting
And rampaging through my life
How dare you love me so imperfectly
Loving me so sadly badly gladly
Taking what I offered
Taking away what you proffered
Softened my spirit
Filled it with so much hope
With a single kiss
I hate that I miss you like this
Yes, I said that I wouldn't be hurt
By your doubt but that was a caveat
Not a blank check
I was in it to win it and u
Said u were in it too
I believed you
I BELIEVED YOU
Do you have any clue
What it means
For a brown man to trust a white man
Can you imagine what it took
How much it took
What it cost me
To trust that much
And have it thrust back into me
Like a machete straight through the heart
Do you understand that this man
Put all his chips on the table
Are you able to understand that when you folded
You ended so much more than us
Trust that
Because I can't trust anyone else
What a fucking mess
I guess I did this to myself
I guess it's better to have loved than lost
I guess but I don't know
How to let you go
How not to love you
How to forgive you
How to relinquish these feelings
Remembering the truth of being with you
In you
Can't do this any longer
Wish I was stronger
I wish I were stronger
But I don't believe in wishes any longer
Or happily ever after.
for him
I am tired of being beautiful
Ain't no sweetness left
Your mess has consumed
What you presumed was a never ending fountain
Of bullshit cosigned by my heart
Fuck you.
Your white privilege has protected you
And that pretty face
Race is front and center when a grown ass man of color
Chases after a needy toddler
How dare you say that you love me and then walk away
How dare you say you want me
and then leave me
Entitlement and white don't make right
Get it the fuck together, Heather
You have crossed the border from Heaven
And all Hell is about to break loose
Choose
The man that fucked you and left you aching
Except we were makin the foundations of this love
When your ass was his plaything
I am angry
You gone tell me your heart is broken
While breaking the love we were making
Forsaking what you admitted was your chance at having
Everything
For a bad dream, an uptight Indian pining for a virgin bride
Have some motherfucking pride
Fuck him too that broke you.
Took you and left you half assed and hurting
And rampaging through my life
How dare you love me so imperfectly
Loving me so sadly badly gladly
Taking what I offered
Taking away what you proffered
Softened my spirit
Filled it with so much hope
With a single kiss
I hate that I miss you like this
Yes, I said that I wouldn't be hurt
By your doubt but that was a caveat
Not a blank check
I was in it to win it and u
Said u were in it too
I believed you
I BELIEVED YOU
Do you have any clue
What it means
For a brown man to trust a white man
Can you imagine what it took
How much it took
What it cost me
To trust that much
And have it thrust back into me
Like a machete straight through the heart
Do you understand that this man
Put all his chips on the table
Are you able to understand that when you folded
You ended so much more than us
Trust that
Because I can't trust anyone else
What a fucking mess
I guess I did this to myself
I guess it's better to have loved than lost
I guess but I don't know
How to let you go
How not to love you
How to forgive you
How to relinquish these feelings
Remembering the truth of being with you
In you
Can't do this any longer
Wish I was stronger
I wish I were stronger
But I don't believe in wishes any longer
Or happily ever after.
Monday, January 2, 2012
It's Time to Say I Do to the LGBTQ Giving Challenge
A few weeks ago, an acquaintance of mine, Bill Lyons, contacted me about a bold new initative. A recent report emerged saying that the average LGBTQ individual gives LESS than $35 a year to LGBTQ organizations. With individuals making up the BULK of giving annually, less than 2% of giving goes to LGBT causes. If we are at least 10% of the population, then the numbers just don't add up.
If we don't support our own organizations and work for liberation, then how can we expect anyone us to join us in our fights? If we don't prioritize social change work and giving (at whatever level...from $5-$5,000)....then we also do not have the moral or political ground to stand on to demand justice.
In this Recession, queer families, moreso than their straight counterparts, are struggling to make their ends meet. But we also know that in times of hardship giving from those that makes less than $50,000 a year INCREASES. In fact, most of the money given out in these several states comes from families making less than that amount each year...even in the best most affluentt times. Why? Because poor folks understand the need for critical social and political organizations that are often the only ones focused on the issues that most impact their/our lives.
It is time for LGBTQ indivudals to stand up and give up a month worth of Starbucks, two nights out at the movies, or three cocktails. It's time for those of us whose bills are paid yet we still complain about being broke to rethink our priorities and do something selfless (or, actually extremely self interested) and give and give until it hurts just a little...that level of giving is individual...I watched a homeless woman recently give a 50 cent tip to a worker at Starbucks...for her that 50 cents meant the world....for you it may be $50. But it is important that we support our community and thus ourselves. We are our own best saviors.
An easy way to start your giving is to take the LGBTQ Giving Challenge Pledge. Pledge to give at least $35 to one or more LGBTQ organizations this year. The organization for which I work, Queers for Economic Justice, is one of the organizations set to benefit from this pledge as are GetEqual, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, The Astraea Foundation, Transgender Law Center, and Faith in America. Find out more about each organization, the challenge,the pledge, and to make your committment today.
It's time to say I do to giving.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
One Liner of the Week Award: Kellee Terrell
It has been years since the same person has earned the One Liner of the Week Award twice in a row, but if you knew the crazy ass Negress that is Kellee Terrell, you would know that if anyone was going to do it, it would be her.
The last few weeks have been emotional as Hell for this here queer, and last night I dealt with a not so fun moment that often happens at holiday time with family. At the end of it, I basically ran into the guest bedroom at my ex-partner's house, started playing songs from Sister Act 2 and had myself a good cry.
I posted a status on Facebook that said, "Does anyone else get tired of crying?"
Kellee Terrell replied:
"No cause i dont cry that often...2 to 4 times a year..I do however get tired of cussing mofos out...i do that 2 to 4 times a day...the shit is exhausting....like chronic fatigue syndrome."
Now you can see why I love me some Kellee Terrell, and why that is the One Liner of the Week.
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