Naming the feeling through Adrienne Rich

Audre Lorde, Meridel Lesueur and Adrienne Rich - fierce feminists

By Nina Jacinto

Before I could articulate why my body wasn't just a body, wasn't just my body, there was only a feeling. That feeling came from observing the world around me. I had noticed that my body's color mattered, that my vagina mattered, and that everyone from my Teen Magazine to my extended family to the government had something to say about how my body should look, how it should be taken care of, and what it's supposed to be used for.

My love letter to Adrienne

Dear Adrienne,

I just read about your death on Facebook and I want to write you a love letter. I’ll be honest, I no longer have your books on my shelf and I’ve never been an avid reader of poetry. But you were a beacon in my life at a very important moment – you helped to shape who I am and gave me a sense of hope that there was a direction I could head that would feel right and real. When I read that you had died I was flooded with memories of that time and of how grateful I am to you for what you gave me.

I want to share with you two memories. . .

I was sitting in a women’s poetry class in the late 80’s at a college that had virtually no feminist studies. We were reading a poem where you described your lover’s hands. My professor commented that you didn’t write about the erotic. I was dumbstruck, moved as I was by the language that seemed to capture my sexuality at that very moment. I felt as if I knew a secret that my professor didn’t know. I thank you for that secret and how I was able to keep it close to my heart as my queerness had no real place at my school or my family. I needed that secret to stay strong through the hard years of rejection.

My second memory is less specific but extends over a period of years as I tried to figure out what it means to be a white woman in this country. There were no white adults in my early years that could help me understand anything about racism except that it is not okay. But as I came to understand the depth of racial bigotry, the impact of structural racism, and the privilege of whiteness I knew I couldn’t just acknowledge this truth. I needed to do something more for the survival of my own dignity. Adrienne, you didn’t give me the road map to being a good person, and I still don’t know everything it means for me to be white, but your conversations with Audre Lourde gave me the permission to explore. Reading your conversations about poetry, racism and finding your voices kept me from getting stuck in that passive place that plagues so many white people.

Your words and actions came to me in moments that helped me be able to love myself and push myself to grow.

I love you,

Moira

Reading While Brown: Hunger Games

by Tavae Samuelu

I blame my roommate. She started reading them. I had never seen her read a book before—at least not so quickly. I mocked her endlessly, reminded her that it was intended for people half her age, scoffed at her tears when her favorite character died, and then I read it. I read the second book, too, and the third one after that. I was hooked. My name is Tavae, and I am a Hunger Games fanatic #TeamGale.

I’m one of those nerds who says pretentious things like, “I read that book before it was a movie.” In this time of Twilight, where the Harry Potter generation has a void to fill, a Hunger Games movie franchise was inevitable. When the casting came out, I wasn’t surprised. I know better than to expect Hollywood to recreate the brilliance that occurs in my head when I read a book. I make a point of reading about people of color. Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins didn’t name race, so I named it for her. I imagined lead characters who were brown and being oppressed by garish rich white men who were channeling Oompa Loompas.

There has been an influx of (social) media coverage this week on the HG fans that tweeted their overtly racist complaints about the casting. I highly doubt any of those people are from Oakland, and they definitely weren’t watching the movie with me at Jack London Square on Sunday. The film was good, but the audience was better. Like most Sundays that I spend at the movies, I was surrounded by people of color. Sunday is a special day at the Regal Jack London Stadium 9. It’s the day when the astronomical ticket prices are reduced to $5. As I watched the movie with a theater full of strangers who appreciate discounts as much as I do, I noted their distinctly marked reaction to the fates of the black characters. *spoiler alert* When the adorable young Black girl named Rue was killed and then covered in flowers during a makeshift funeral, there was a deep collective sniffle. When Thresh, a Black man, was murdered, there was a thunderous communal groan. At the risk of stating the obvious, there are people (i.e., decent human beings) who feel truly sad and outraged about the violent deaths of Black characters and Black people.

Collins wrote about a dystopia that is set hundreds of years in the future in a post apocalyptic world. However, for many low-income people of color, this dystopia is their present reality. Being poor and hungry and dying too soon is a nonfiction story for too many people. To be able to call this science fiction or fantasy is a privilege.

Mad Men Recap: Race meets gender

Photo credit Michael Yarish/AMC

by Nina Jacinto

I’m a Mad Men fan, and over the years I’ve patiently waited for race and racism to play a bigger role in the popular AMC show, which is set in 1960s America and revolves around the personal and professional lives of an advertising agency staff. I’ve been able to understand why race (and people of color) has been left in the proverbial margins—after all, this is a story about white characters living in a predominantly white world where their only interaction with black men and women is when they take the elevator or are firing their maids. There is no cognizance of the wide political world around them—the immensity of civil rights is treated as a throwaway luxury and personal anxieties and dramas outweigh the emerging movement. Of course, I like to think the creators of Mad Men have exposed this lack of awareness with intention —after all, it remains ever present today, when everyone from newscasters to politicians turn a blind eye to the violence and injustice perpetrated against black men and women in America.

But at long last, after four seasons of drama, we’re seeing race (and racism) at the forefront of Mad Men. We’re enjoying talking about it almost as much as watching it on television—and there are some amazing and insightful things being said, especially around sex and the sexuality of women. Yet in the midst of conversations, I’m wondering why no one seems to be taking note that Mad Men characters (and viewers) are being confronted with the racial political climate through the introduction of black women.

Season 5, which premiered on Sunday night, began with two young white men throwing paper bags filled with ice water from their building window onto the heads of black men and women protesting for the enforcement of the Economic Opportunity Act.

A group of female protestors, one pulling on the arm of her young son (drenched in water), show up at the office to report the act, where a white female secretary tells them that their accusations are ridiculous, that no one in their office would do something like that. The presence of a child in the scene reminds viewers that these women are protestors and also mothers and that black women in the movement having to juggle multiple roles simultaneously. When the young boys barge through the doors, paper bags in hand, the camera turns to the protestors. “And they call us savages,” one of the women remarks. It’s a powerful and significant moment in which all of the hypocrisies and injustices of white privilege are consolidated into a poignant phrase. It’s powerful because it’s true and because it’s real and because this attitude creates repercussions in our culture even today.

The black women showing up at the water-bomber’s office results in negative publicity for the guilty Y&R agency. When executives at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce take out an ad in the paper to jab at their competitors, claiming to be “equal opportunity executives,” they don’t expect it to be taken seriously. But at the end of the episode, their lobby is flooded with young black men and women looking to apply for jobs.

It forces the SCDP execs to make a critical decision—while they don’t have the money to hire and they don’t actually care about black people getting jobs, they’ll be damned if they get shown up by a competitor. Pride takes its toll and we see Lane greet the group of applicants, telling them that they’ll only be hiring secretaries, so all the men are “free to leave”—a phrase that he stutters to correct as soon as he says it. We’re left with a group of young black women, any one of them a possible new hire at the agency and a new character on the show. Here it is black women, not black men, who have the potential for employment, for economic mobility, and for access to that coveted Madison Avenue. Here it is black women who are reminding audiences that while one of the Mad Men protagonists is struggling with postpartum depression and unsure if family leave will protect her job, there are others who are struggling to be employed in the first place, to overcome institutional oppression, to shift culture so it can catch up with the law.

Here’s hoping that we see this plotline grow and stay central.

Are you a Mad Men fan? Follow @msninaricha on Twitter.

Remixing, Reclaiming: Why changing up the story matters

Flickr photo courtesy of jepoirrier

by Nina Jacinto

I'm a big Mad Men fan. My partner and I religiously watch the show and are completely invested in its themes of sexism, power struggle and broken expectations. So I was thrilled to discover Elisa Kreisenger's latest remixed video. Entitled "QueerMen: Don Loves Roger Mad Men Remix," the video weaves together clips of Mad Men footage, telling a story of two of the main male characters falling in love.

Kreisenger's remixed videos (which include a queering of Sex and the City that I highly recommend) shows us the value of being able to tell one kind of story in another way. In doing so, we can reframe the conversation, can turn heterosexuality or patriarchy or masculinity on its head. Remixing the videos helps to remix the story, lifting up another perspective that may be ignored or pushed down.

Take the hilarious and masterfully edited "Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up?" Using Eminem's popular song and phrases from Mitt Romney's own mouth, a new kind of story is being told about Romney. One that stresses his terrifying politics, his attitudes about immigration, poverty, jobs and contraception. By remixing content that is already out there, we can move from reading between the lines to retelling the story.

I'm always drawn to a good story. As a child who could curl up for hours reading book after book, nothing has comforted me more than hearing a story that compelled me to laughter or tears, or maybe a bit of both. I grew up on stories with white characters, white boys and girls who solved mysteries and went on adventures and learned about love. I had to retell the story for myself, so that I could truly relate. The first book I ever read with a South Asian American protagonist was Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. I was in college. It was the first time I hadn't had to remix a story in my head, hadn't had to turn it or twist it in my imagination so that I could identify with the characters even more. Instead I cried as I read about a family that seemed more like my family, with a character that struggled with his South Asian American identity in ways that I understood.

We long to relate, to identify and see ourselves in the stories being told out there in the world. It's why disrupting the narrative feels so important, so necessary. In part so that those who are ignored in the margins are uplifted and have their voices heard. But it's something deeper. We want to matter. We want our stories to matter. And if the world tells us that they don't matter, we start to believe it too. It can't just be one story, either. As Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie so poetically discusses in her TedTalk, there is danger in telling a singular story. “The single story creates stereotypes," she says, "and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

And so we have to uplift many stories, tell our tales in many different ways - through the written word and through music and art and now, in the golden age of internet, through youtube videos and mashups. Together, we can disrupt the dominant conversation, rebuild a new framework with the stuff that's already swirling all around us. And by doing so, we can share with the world just how and why our voices matter.

You can follow Nina on Twitter @msninaricha

‘We Belong Together’ Goes to Alabama!

By Miriam Yeung

This blog is reposted from MomsRising where you can read the rest of the posts. Links below this blog.

As I was preparing to write this post about the upcoming We Belong Together delegation to Birmingham, Alabama, I came across a horrifying and upsetting story from Wyoming about a mother who killed herself and her daughter after being targeted in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid. “Friends say that after the ICE agents came, [Erica] Delgado was terrified she would be separated from her daughter, and equally frightened she might be found by her abuser.”

The sad truth is, Erica and her 11-year-old daughter with the same name as me, Miriam, most likely would have been separated and their worst nightmares come true. Thousands of immigrant parents have been forcibly separated from their U.S.-born children, and after their children are placed in child protective services, these parents find their parental rights terminated and their children lost to foster homes forever. Moreover, we’ve learned that survivors of domestic violence are treated no better, with mothers being forced to leave their children with abusive partners because they get deported.

This is happening in communities and states across America. Immigrant women are being terrorized by inhumane anti-immigrant enforcement laws that lay siege to every aspect of their life. In Alabama, HB 56 is one such policy of inhospitality and the reports of extreme human and civil rights abuses are mind-boggling in their total lack of regard for another human being. There were immediate stories of homes having their water and electricity cut off, landlords kicking families out of their homes, of teachers targeting Latino students in public primary schools to ask about their family’s immigration status, of American children being denied food stamps. And through all these reports, we know that women bear the heaviest burdens. When you lift the veil of sexism, racism and xenophobia, it is clear to see that when people are being denied shelter, food, education and other basic human needs, this is a humanitarian crisis and an extreme human rights concern.

That is why the We Belong Together Women’s Human Rights Delegation is such an important event. On March 21st and 22nd, women leaders from around the country will come to Birmingham, Alabama to bear witness to the lived experiences of immigrant women and children trying to build a life for themselves in a place with the one of the harshest and most draconian immigration laws in effect. The We Belong Together Delegation will hear, and then share, the stories of women and children affected by Alabama’s anti-immigrant bill, HB 56, in order to bring national attention and awareness to the plight of women living in the state.

The women represented in the delegation include leaders from the National Council of Jewish Women, South East Asian Resource and Action Center, National Employment Law Center, United Methodist Women, Coalition on Human Needs, Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative, and ZERO TO THREE, a children’s advocacy organization, among others. The We Belong Together delegation is an opportunity for this impressive array of women leaders from these diverse and varied backgrounds and movements, to work together to see that, in fact, we all belong together. It is an opportunity to experience that by working together, by embracing our humanity together, and it is by speaking out, with one voice, together, that we can push back against the spirit that would separate us.

That is why I am going to Alabama. Because We Belong Together. Please follow us on Twitter at #womentogether.

Criminal Moms, Tiffany Williams, advocacy director for Break the Chain campaign at Institute for Policy Studies

* * * * *

Miriam Yeung is the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum

 

Alabama Bound, Sammy Moshenberg, director of Washington operations for the National Council of Jewish Women

United Women Leaders in Alabama, Monica Hernandez, regional organizer for Southeast Immigrant Rights Network

We Belong Together, From Georgia to Alabama, Betty G. Robinson, author and community organizer

Standing with Women and Children In Alabama, Kelsey Quigley, federal policy analyst for Zero to Three

Why I Am Driving to Birmingham, Ruth Ann Powers, educator and devout member of the United Methodist Church

We Belong Together: Why I’m going to Birmingham, AL, Helly Lee, policy director for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

Why I Am Joining ‘We Belong Together’ in Alabama, Mallika Dutt, president and CEO of Breakthrough

Every Day Resistance, Jacinta Gonzalez, lead organizer for New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice

Help. I’m a Black Woman and I’m Not Married.

By Akasha Orr

I recently read an article in the current Ms. Magazine called “Singled Out” that truly pissed me off. The article was calling out the media’s obsession with the faltering marriage rate of Black women and primarily focused on a new film called Think like A Man, based on Steve Harvey’s best-selling book, entitled: Act Like a Lady; Think Like a Man.

Now, I’ve seen the trailer for this movie, and as a movie-buff to the extreme I was ready to buy my ticket! It looked entertaining and hosted a cast straight out of a "who’s who in Black film today" manual, completing the formulaic cast with one sort-of-known White guy who inevitably becomes the focus of a Black woman who has given up on finding a good, Black man to marry her.

I wanted to see this movie until I read this article. My first thought was why is it that only one Black-interest film comes out per year and it almost ALWAYS has a marriage or church-y theme? Is this all that Black folks are concerned about-- getting married and getting right with God? While I don’t see anything wrong with those two things conceptually, I hold that there are other things that Black people are not only interested in (I’m talking to filmmakers here…) but are dealing with as realities in our lives. And while the movie-going experience is meant to be an escape from reality, it can also be the playing out of reality for the purpose of catharsis, greater knowledge and awareness, and overall growth.

My issues with Black filmmaking aside, what really bothered me about this article (please note, the author-Tamara Winfrey Harris’ opinions and mine are in total agreement) was the actual purport in Steve Harvey’s book that Black women can’t get married due to some common missteps. Mr. Harvey’s advice includes: “Ladies are those who let men take the lead in picking a dinner spot. They don’t ask a date in for a nightcap until he has earned “the cookie” (i.e. sex) after a 90-day probation period. Ladies do not fix household items or mow the lawn. But don’t be afraid to make a meal or two-the kitchen is both your and his friend.”

Wow… I was growling the whole time I read that ridiculous advice and seething as I just retyped it! Did Mr. Harvey miss the Feminist Revolution, all 3 waves of it, altogether? If I don’t have a husband, boyfriend, eager-beaver man-friend waiting for me to get desperate enough to give him “the cookie,” am I just supposed to have a household full of broken-down shit and an overgrown lawn? How attractive would that be to some dude who comes over to date me?

I’m not even going to get into the kitchen being my friend bullshit because I don’t think this blog could really contain the language I would need to use to properly put Mr. Harvey in his ignorant, misogynistic, backward-thinking, holy-rolling “married” place. And just so every hard-headed man gets it into his skull, my “cookie” is mine to give to who I see fit, when I feel fit, and in whatever way I want. Back off! Don’t tell me with whom and when I can have sex. And let’s do away with this “cookie” talk while we’re at it. Terms like that diminish a woman’s sexuality to cutesiness and removes the power she has as birthright to.

First of all, what qualifies you, Mr. Harvey, to give Black women advice on getting and staying married at all? Do we have any evidence that your wife is happy, besides the fact that she’s enjoying the luxury of spending your celebrity money?

Secondly, how many Black women have you actually talked to that have simply chosen to focus on other matters in their lives and are not interested in marriage? I know, it sounds so unbelievable to you, Mr. Harvey, but that creature does exist! And what about the lack of Black men (if that is the only race of men you see fit for us to marry) who are our equals in career goals/achievements, family desires, education, political, and social views? If we don’t find men who we feel we are well-matched with, Mr. Harvey, is that our own fault for having the gall to desire such? Are we supposed to marry any man that would mow our lawn, fix our shit and eat whatever we shovel together, no doubt while pregnant, dressed to the hilts and topped off with stilettos in our impeccably clean kitchens? Fuck you.

Walk a day in these breasts, counter every patriarchal assumption and assertion thrown your way, refuse to take whatever you're given, ignore street harassment, and dare to demand what you are worth-- then you can write that book, you self-righteous, indignant, ignorance pusher. You are filling young (and mature) Black women’s minds with falsehoods and 50’s thinking that will threaten the next era of emerging feminists. How dare you.

Let me address the most anger-inducing part of this book/movie: It makes no mention, at all, of the existence of queer women! Women who can’t get married because of another anger-inducing fact in this country-- y’all are afraid of gay people! Some Black women are unmarried, because they are gay/queer and have chosen not to live within right-wing society’s confines and biases. I am one of those Black women. I am unmarried for several reasons, one being that I am a lesbian. I can only imagine Mr. Harvey’s follow-up book being called something like: Act like A Straight; Date like A Gay. Or would he even venture to address this missing issue with his backward thinking advice or simply assert that we queer Black women don’t count because we’re outside of “God’s Plan”?

A few months ago, I got into a conversation with my mother about my future plans and how I fully and happily anticipated becoming a mother in the future. My mother, love me though she does, responded with something like, "I just assumed you weren’t going to do that…that you’d chosen to live a different kind of life." I respectfully informed her that gay/queer people do and want all the same things that hetero people do and want, we just have no intention of settling for your version of it.

That’s the same thing I’d tell Mr. Harvey if we ever came face to face. That ‘marriage’ is an archaic concept that was created by men, to continue their bloodline and add to their property one (or more depending upon the society) chosen woman by her father, sold off like cattle, and has continued to be an exchange of goods for services, which serves men more than it serves women. Personally, I am not against gay or straight marriage, I simply am for a rethinking of it.

I fully intend to establish a life-long committed, monogamous relationship with a woman/queer person whose values and life goals connect with mine. I would suggest Mr. Harvey, and Robin Thicke, who apparently has earned the right to comment on the Black marriage crisis due to his marriage to one of us, do their homework if they really want to understand why some Black women are married and some are not. I’m simply tired of men weighing in on women’s issues…period. Maybe they should mind their own business.  That would actually be my best advice.

Welcome to #nerdland

By Tavae Samuelu

This love affair is pretty new. I mean I liked her when she was Melissa Harris-Lacewell repping for Obama and (re)defining democracy, but now I love her. It started when I saw a video of her speaking about her book Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. She effortlessly and eloquently wove together academic rhetoric and her own personal narrative. My inner and sometimes shamelessly outer Ethnic Studies nerd exploded with glee.

I have to confess something. It’s the kind of thing I would commit 140 characters to and shout from the proverbial Facebook mountain tops. I am truly, madly, deeply in love with Melissa Harris-Perry. It’s the love that would make me go all groupie and embarrass myself the way I would have for N’ Sync when I was twelve...okay, maybe fifteen.

And then there’s her show.

AMAZING! The MHP Show, as fans affectionately call it, is the stuff of my womanist wet dreams. On a Saturday morning when contemporary cartoons just weren’t cutting it, I flipped passed MSNBC. With a panel of hip hop scholars including Joan Morgan, another feminist of color that I respect and admire, Perry memorialized the late Notorious B.I.G. on the fifteenth anniversary of his death. At a time when hip hop and rap artists are being blamed for damn near everything wrong with my generation, it felt so good to hear someone who has been regarded as accomplished, intelligent, and politically conscious quote, wait for it...”Mo Money Mo Problems” and that’s only after referencing the “Ten Crack Commandments.”

My dear Melissa took me back to the good old days when I would sit on the school bus in kindergarten with Devin Hagens singing “Gin and Juice” completely clueless about the meaning of the lyrics. I know about the sexism that is reproduced in hip hop and the way that many artists contradict my values, but the first metaphors I heard weren’t from Dr. Seuss; they were from Dr. Dre. For a womyn like me who graduated to academia and social justice but grew up in the Long Beach that Snoop Dogg raps about, Perry’s segments serve as validation. Loving Melissa Harris-Perry feels like an act of self-love because when she tells her story, it sounds like mine.

More recently, she told the story of Trayvon Martin with the simple request that we all remember his name. Of the top five reasons to love Melissa, this poignant segment is reasons one through three. She uses her show as a platform to highlight injustice and calls for an evaluation of the lack of significance we place on the lives of young Black men. Watch and don’t forget.

The devaluation of Black life

The deaths of Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin counter the narrative that all human life is valuable.

by Shanelle Matthews, Communications Manager

As the news of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin’s murder floods the airwaves I sit, familiarly reflective and saddened by the loss of yet another Black life at the hands of a sanctimonious racist. But like many of you, I know that this experience is not an isolated one. Largely, the lives of young Black men have never held great value in this country. From birth to untimely death, they’ve been treated as mules for labor, obvious scapegoats, easy targets and disposable – at no consequence to the disposer. We’ve watched as the media and policy makers have heavily overlooked the outright assassinations of countless Black boys and men with little to no significance placed on the value of their lives or the racial implications of why they were murdered.

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It’s enraging when I think of how capriciously Americans shrug their shoulders and turn the other cheek when considering the value of Black life in this country. Institutional and interpersonal racism has left Black America in a very precarious place; just leaving our homes puts us at risk for being assassinated by any self-righteous, gun-yielding neighborhood watchman who deems us suspicious.

This way of thinking is an example of a broader societal philosophy that literally begins at conception of a Black life. Black mothers, often considered hyper-sexual in nature, are frequently treated with little to no dignity by doctors who dismiss their pregnancies as accidental or inconsequential. With a maternal and fetal mortality rate higher than any other race (often caused by stress brought on by racial burdens), Black mothers often experience traumatic birthing experiences that include forced cesareans, trivializing attitudes by medical professionals, and contemptuous care that has led to death or serious injury. If they survive this, Black children are given the least resources, have the least access to healthcare, endure some the most toxic and contaminated environments, and deal with structural and interpersonal racism throughout adolescence and into adulthood, where they risk the chance of being shot to death by people like George Zimmerman.

It is disheartening how people have desensitized themselves to the plight of communities just because they don’t look like their own or how the lives of Black children are so undervalued, not because of something they’ve done but simply – just because. I can’t reconcile how some people have positioned themselves to make ethical decisions about who is and who isn’t deserving of safety, security, and justice and how those decisions magnify and shift culture, leaving entire communities on the fringes and moving targets for the Zimmermans of the world.

Sites like Black and Missing have been erected because those with the power to reach the masses refuse to prioritize anyone who isn’t white, hetero or wealthy. Black and brown children who go missing in this country or are raped, beaten or murdered rarely ever make primetime news so communities of color are forced to find their own channels of distribution to get justice for their loved ones.

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Trayvon’s death, and the subsequent lack of swift justice, is one more example the little importance placed on the lives and deaths of young Black boys. When will the media and policy makers start raising consciousness and awareness about the marginalization of Black families? Where are all of the folks who rallied behind Caylee Anthony, a child is a child and none of them deserve to die so why no vast humanitarian effort to convict Trayvon’s killer? This worry-less behavior is unearthing some Jim Crow-like vigilante energy, and I am genuinely afraid for Black and Brown youth. This country has vilified young men of color so heavily that just existing makes them dangerous and threatening. Some say you can't put value on life, but the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Emmett Till and so many other innocent young men of color says otherwise.

Take a minute and sign this petition calling for the arrest and conviction of Trayvon Martin's killer who is still safe in his home and share it widely. We should all feel personally charged to acknowledge the racial politics involved in his murder and to spread awareness about it.

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If you believe in yourself!

By mai doan, SAFIRE organizer

So, many of you have probably seen the youtube video that went viral of a little kid’s post-first bike-ride speech. If not, you’re missing out and luckily can catch it here. (Oh, and the “Songified” remix version, which is almost better than the original, as long as you watch the original first.)

I watch these videos at least once a day. Not only because when I like something, I tend to listen / watch / wear it on repeat for days on end, but because there is something amazingly powerful about this child’s message and the energy through which he brings it to life.

"Everybody! If you believe in yourself, you will know how to ride a bike!"

Prior to catching wind of this video, I had been thinking a lot about “believing in yourself.” It’s a phrase I had gotten used to shying away from because it was a cliché and because it is typically used in relation to an idea of succeeding that affirms competition and the oppressive hierarchy I have been trying to dismantle since I was a small child. But, as I’ve moved into adulthood and my own process of finding my voice and power after years of actively not believing in myself, I have been reclaiming this phrase.

Connecting with the young women of SAFIRE, I am constantly reminded of my own journey of building self-confidence against a world of systems and people that carry those systems which serve to tell us we are wrong, that our thoughts are stupid, that we are ugly, that we can’t, and that everyone else is better than us. These systems talk us out of believing our own inner voice, our own feelings our own dreams, our own love for ourselves and those around us. Every single young person that has come through SAFIRE has talked extensively about the struggle of finding their self-confidence. This is always hard to hear and work through because as an older person, on the other side of a few major life experiences and hurdles, I want so badly for them to just believe in their brilliant, radical, dreaming selves.

The power of truly believing in yourself is not a medal or an A+, but a deep and full love of oneself. When we love ourselves, we are more able to get our needs met, we are more able to say no AND yes, we are more able to stand up against the injustices that continuously attack us and others on all levels. When we believe in ourselves, we love ourselves, and when we love ourselves, we become deeply convinced that we deserve a life absent of isolation, alienation, oppression, violence, abuse, scarcity. But the first step is unplugging; unplugging from a frequency that affirms that these things are inevitable and unchangeable. This unplugging is the underpinning of the work we do in SAFIRE.

If you believe in yourself, you can learn how to ride a bike. And smash patriarchy, racism, and capitalism, too.

An open letter to friends and family--Kony2012

By Karen Dolan
Dear Friends and Family,

Like you, I was captivated by the heart-wrenching stories of the Ugandan children who have been abducted, tortured, murdered and forced to do unspeakable things by Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony in the Invisible Children's viral video, Kony2012.

Like you, I felt compelled to act, to get others to act with me-- for the tortured children, for my own children, for the beguiling innocence of children as represented by Jason Russell's young son, Gavin.

Since its release, there has been a lot of analysis, critique, Ugandan opposition and criticism, including the revelation that Joseph Kony has not been n Uganda since about 2005 and his LRA army has about 200 soldiers now. He remains at large and dangerous, but the situation seems different from what we may have been led to believe. It seems possible that the Ugandan President Museveni may be the strongest perpetrator of injustice in Uganda presently.

Questions swirl about how the Invisible Children movement has been funded, its connections to extreme religious and political agendas. And now, Jason Russell has been detained for very inappropriate public behavior, fueled either by bad choices or by mental illness.

It is so confusing.

However, what comes out of this experience for me is a feeling of gratefulness that there is so much compassion in all of us and that we can come together for a cause greater than ourselves. Ugandans have powerful voices and are fighting for justice themselves. If Ugandan's global neighbors, like us, also feel inspired to help, this link offers a few ways to do so.

I think this has been a learning opportunity for all of us and next time we will all be more cautious and research, with our kids, issues that are new to us and to weigh whether things are as they appear, compelling as stories may be.

I am grateful for the compassion of my child and the compassion of all of you and I feel encouraged that we can have a new, global orientation to our compassion and work for good whenever we see the opportunity.


Karen Dolan is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think tank based in Washington DC

I have sex and I vote

By Favianna Rodriguez www.favianna.com

By Lisa Russ

[Update...to address the problem of too few sexy stories being part of the conversation, we have put together a tumblr to gather stories. Tell us how birth control keeps your sex life hot and heavy. Thanks in advance!]

You may have seen that there is a bill being considered in Arizona that would give employers discretion about whether or not to pay for their employees contraception. Under these provisions, your boss could actually demand to see a doctors note and so he would know WHY you are taking birth control pills, and if it’s not for purely medical reasons, he could choose not to pay, on the basis of conscience.

This is WTF on so many levels, but let’s try this one, because there is something we can do about it. When reproductive health, rights and justice folks responded to the craziness with the bishops, and the ensuing madness of Sandra Fluke, we were all like, HEY. Many women use these pills for reasons having NOTHING to do with sex.

This is true. Folks have collected thousands of stories that talk about how important the pill is for managing various hormonal and uterine situations. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 58% of women who take the pill use it at least in part for medical reasons.

However, it is also true that lots of people take birth control pills because they are having sex and they don’t want to get pregnant. Guttmacher's data says that 14% of women take the pill ONLY for medical reasons. That leaves 86% of us who take it at least in part because we want to be able to have sex and not get pregnant.

And, we as reproductive health, rights and justice advocates think this is a really good thing. That women have autonomy over their bodies, their sexuality, and access to a full range of good choices about how to manage their fertility.

By taking the argument only on the, “but what about folks with polycystic ovarian syndrome?” front, we ceded the critical point that coverage for birth control (including pills, vasectomies, and more) are essential for people who want to have sex but not to get pregnant.

It isn’t easy for us to claim our right to sex. It’s hard for all women, in this political climate—look how quickly we ceded this ground. But it can be even more dangerous for women of color.

Paris Hatcher, executive director of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now told the Washington Post, “In this country, it’s okay to shame and blame the black woman, to pathologize and criminalize her behavior. Black women become the nannies, the mammies, the Jezebels.”

And as Shanelle Matthews of Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice wrote on the Strong Families blog in her piece, If Sandra Fluke were Black,

When a white woman gets called a slut, America is up in arms, tearing through their closets for their shiniest white knight armor and suiting up for a battle to reclaim her dignity. But the living and breathing stereotype about Black women’s sexual prowess and the lascivious nature by which we supposedly live our lives is as pervasive as ever. No one is suiting up to fight for us, no armies of people are showing up on our behalf making threats for us, and no one is fighting to reclaim our dignity.

It’s complex. And guess what—if we don’t take a stand and own our sexuality, the Right has shown it is ready to own it for us.

In case you missed it: New Study Confirms Need for Comprehensive Sexuality Education

by Nina Jacinto

In case you missed it, a new study was published this month that confirms what many of us already knew – teens who receive formal comprehensive sexuality education are more likely to delay their first sexual experience, and also have healthier behavior regarding intercourse and sexual relationships.

I'm pre-med, pre-job, not-prison!

By Patrisse Cullors, Community Rights Campaign Organizer at the Bus Riders Union

I grew up in a barrio in Van Nuys (Los Angeles), CA. As a young black woman in a mostly Brown community I was aware of the criminalization/militarization of/in my Van Nuys. My whole life I feared police, and more importantly I feared the disorientation and violence they brought onto my community. “Street Terrorist,” is what my older brother calls them; from the age of 13, he had been consistently harassed, criminalized, and humiliated by the ones who “protect and serve.” My older brother is 3 years older than me. He was my hero, and every violating interaction I witnessed left me filled with anger. That anger would later transform into rage, and that would eventually drive me directly into the larger movement against the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people.

For the last 11 years I have dedicated my life to the larger movement against racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic corporate driven United States policies and institutions. I spent the first half of those years inside of the Bus Riders Union. The ever famous campaign that successfully sued the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Agency) and won a billion dollars for buses on the streets of Los Angeles!

In 2006 I was asked to move my campaign from the Bus Riders Union to the Community Rights Campaign. The Community Rights Campaign's focus is on U.S. racist policies that have resulted in punishing and criminalizing Black and Brown people at such an exponential rate, resulting in the U.S. prison population being in the millions. 2.3 million to be exact. These policies have given birth to the school to prison pipeline. We like to call it the "pre-prisoning" of youth inside public high school settings.

What was once a minor infraction and dealt with by school officials, has now turned into the over use of law enforcement. Law enforcement is seen as the supposed expert in dealing with students who have "non-normative" lives. Each of these students are now vulnerable to a hyper vigilant school environment that comes down on them with an iron clad fist. Over the last 6 years we have been on the front lines, fighting for restorative and transformative justice polices to shape school environments. Below are our demands:

The Community Rights Campaign 5 Demands are:

• Schools, Not Pre-Prisons! Decriminalize tardiness, truancy and all student behavior issues.
• No LAUSD Collaboration w/ Cal Gang database
• Civilian Review Board
• Restrict Use of Force by LASPD/LAPD on school campuses
• Counselors and Resources not Tickets and Handcuffs

These demands have been the back bone of the campaign. The first demand is looking at the role in which LAMC (Los Angeles Municipal Code) 4504, the daytime curfew law affects the lives of over a half a million youth throughout LAUSD ( Los Angeles Unified School District).  We discovered that from years 2004-2009 LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) issued 47,000 tickets to mostly Black and Brown youth. Each of these tickets issued were at least $250 and had the potential, due to court fees, to go up to $1,000. LAUSD students are overwhelmingly poor leaving them to have to make decisions between paying an exorbitant ticket or put food on the table. Often students were so humiliated by their interaction with the police when given these tickets that they didn’t show up to the court dates. This would lead delinquent tickets resulting in a student having a suspended license.

For the past 6 years we have been fighting to amend the day time curfew law and low and behold our movement, the Community Rights Campaign, with its allies Public Counsel and ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) successfully mobilized LASPD, LAPD, City Council, LAUSD, and community members around the amendment of LAMC 4504. Through many meetings, press conferences, 1 on 1 conversations and most importantly mass street organizing, in a matter of 6 years we were able to completely shift the debate, implement two police directives one by LAPD and one by LASPD (these directives were a part of a multi-tier tactic that would eventually lead us to victory.) The final amendment of the law came down on February 22nd, 2012. Los Angeles city council members Tony Cardenas and Bernard Parks succeeded in passing a motion that amended the day time curfew law. In all our efforts to fight and protect Black and Brown students, the city council passed the motion unanimously, 14-0!!! We made history ya”ll.

Keep Your Stigma: Latina/o Youth Need Real Support

 

By Marisol Franco, California Latinos for Reproductive Justice

What comes to mind when the words “pregnancy,” “Latina” and “teen” are used in the same sentence? You may be surprised at how reality differs from current narratives about Latinas/os and adolescent pregnancy and parenting.

Consider Desiree and Angelica, two single Latina moms now in their thirties. Desiree was 17 and pregnant, and contrary to popular belief, her life did not end. Her son is now 12 and she recently received her Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Development. Angelica was 19 and pregnant. Her son is now 18 and receiving acceptance letters to his top choice colleges.

These success stories are rarely heard of, not because they are rare, but because in the last century, societal norms have changed to deem adolescent parenting “bad” and “teen pregnancy” a social problem. If adolescent pregnancy is so “bad,” why are Desiree, Angelica and their children doing well? Are they exceptions or the rule? The truth is many adolescent parents, children, and families do equally well compared to their peers, particularly when provided with strong social and functional support. The myth of the Latina/o “teen pregnancy problem” has buried these stories. Moreover, the dominant frame used in efforts to reduce adolescent pregnancy has, in part, caused these stories to be seen as even more uncommon, as it ascribes support for young families as social and economic “costs” and depicts young parents as social pariahs.

For the full post, please see RH Reality Check.