We didn’t have a word for our, as you guys call, gay/lesbian people. So we coined that word as an umbrella for all our tribes. We never said, “Well, you’re transgender. You’re bisexual. You’re lesbian.” We never knew those terms. Those are all from Western culture, you know, LGBTQ and all that. So on some level, it’s about getting rid of labels. Those terms were forced upon us.
Afro-Colombians, Ortiz points out, are covered by “perhaps the most progressive legislation” in the region. The 1991 Constitution declares Colombia an inherently “multicultural” and “multi-ethnic” society and recognizes Afro rights to territorial autonomy and designated political representation, among other forms of affirmative action. (Indigenous peoples, many of whom coinhabit rural areas alongside Afro populations, are afforded similar, and more extensive, privileges.)
Reality, however, bears little in common with the encouraging legal framework. While no equivalent to segregation has ever been codified, the central government in Bogota has historically neglected Afro regions along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. The resulting state of abandon has inspired a mass migration to the major urban areas, where Afro-Colombians face labordiscrimination, acute poverty, the cycles of gang recruitment and violence familiar to inner cities in the United States, and other, more naked manifestations of racism. In what has become something of an absurdist parablefor the chronic under-representation of Afro-Colombians in public office and government, the two seats in Congress set aside for Afro candidates are currently occupied by non-black mestizos.
How wild is it that every version of you probably exists still, somewhere, in someone’s memory? The messy you, crying on the floor exists still in your mind. The happy, sun-soaked you, exists in your best friend’s memory. No part of you has died, all parts of us exist always, simultaneously and hidden.
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“I came to theory because I was hurting—the pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living. I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend-to grasp what was happening around and within me. Most importantly, I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing.” —Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks
FEMMES ARE LEADERS IN TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS/
DEFENDING OUR QUEER AND TRANS PEOPLE OF COLOUR COMMUNITIES.
WE USED OUR STILETTOS AS WEAPONS AT STONEWALL.
WE WERE THE TRANSWOMEN WHO FOUGHT BACK AT THE
COMPTON CAFETERIA.
WE’RE THE GIRLS WHO STARE DOWN ASSHOLES STARING AT OUR
LOVERS AND FRIENDS ON THE SUBWAY.
WE WALK EACH OTHER HOME,
ACT CRAZY ON THE BUS TO GET ASSHOLES TO MOVE AWAY,
AND WE KNOW HOW TO BREAK SOMEONE’S LEGS.
WE SHARE WHAT WE KNOW.
“FEMME SHARK MANIFESTO!” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan E. Coyote and Zena Sharman (reviewed at The Lesbrary).
So why do we invite young scholars to spend an average of ten years grading papers, teaching classes, writing dissertations and training for jobs that don’t actually exist? They do this because graduate students are the most important element of the academy’s polarized labor market. They confer departmental prestige. They justify the continuation of tenure lines, and they guarantee a labor surplus that provides the cheap, flexible labor that universities want…If you are a tenured (or tenure-track) faculty member teaching in a humanities department with Ph.D. candidates, you are both the instrument and the direct beneficiary of exploitation. Your roles as teacher, adviser and committee member generate, cultivate and exploit young people’s devotion to literature. This is the great shame of our profession. We tell our students to study literature because it will make them better human beings, that in our classrooms they will learn empathy and wisdom, thoughtfulness and understanding. And yet the institutions supporting literary criticism are callous and morally incoherent.
Fifteen years ago, Glenda Yañez put on the clothes of her ancestors.She had always admired how her grandmother dressed—her wide, layered skirt; a thick embroidered shawl; and a top hat leaning just so, two long and dark braids coming down her back. Yañez, who grew up in the bustling city of La Paz, Bolivia, had come of age in jeans and T-shirts.
That’s because her grandmother’s indigenous dress — known as the chola style — had for centuries been a target of acute discrimination. For most of Bolivia’s history, a Spanish-descended, white minority lorded over the country’s native majority in a system akin to apartheid. The chola wardrobe is a fashion distinctive to Bolivia’s second largest indigenous group, the Aymara people. And it’s one that has endured since the 1700s, even though it has brought with it heightened segregation.
MORE
The photos accompanying this article are SO wonderful.
Never in the history of the world has an election destroyed a system of oppression.
korolevcross
tfw you’re so damn americocentric that you just straight up forget about apartheid
Apartheid was in a state of collapse due to activism inside and outside the country, boycotting, sanctions, and overextending itself militarily in an attempt to subjugate the whole of Southern Africa into a ‘co-prosperity sphere’ which well over a million died as a result of. That election you’re talking about did not destroy a system of oppression it only happened as it did because of everything outside of the election allowing it to happen as it did. The enfranchisement, the promises to a fair election… the behind closed doors negotiations for the white minority to keep privileges and safe, the international agreements to get rid of nukes so that they won’t fall into the hands of ‘lesser races’ in exchange again for privileges, etc. tfw you’re so damn americocentric you believe the horseshit story that Apartheid ended because people were nice and saw the error of their ways and wasn’t Mandela such a nice old man that even the whites adored him. It ended because of some crosses on some ballots. Very simple. Apartheid was over the vote was the assuring it happened in a certain manner. If the vote hadn’t happened it would be over. It was a spent force. Because of all the work against it. Away from the ballot box. That was often illegal. And condemned.
This is what I was getting at. We should look at elections as signifiers of change, not its causes. Elections are merely notaries of all the resistance that has happened before them. The active nonviolence, the armed resistance, the boycotts, the sit-ins, the marches, all the methods of direct action, these are the tactics of social movements that have been responsible for generating change, not politicians. To attribute the end of slavery to Abraham Lincoln’s election, or the end of South African apartheid to Mandela’s, or the end of Pinochet’s terror, to elections is to erase and invisible the millions of people who did the grassroots movement building that made an election feasible. The more sinister thing happening when we romanticize elected officials and elections is it makes us believe that ordinary people like you and I are passive bystanders only capable of marking ballots rather than being the actual change-agents of history. It also has the effect of making us believe elections were the ultimate goals of resistance when the goal was liberation.
In the wake of hundreds of people protesting a couple weeks ago, Energy transfer Partners, the company attempting to construct the Dakota Access Pipeline, voluntarily stopped work at the building site just North of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
The number of protesters is now over 4000 as many Indigenous nations have united to protect the land and water from contamination.
KFYRTV reports, “The Army Corps of Engineers has confirmed that the company doesn’t have a written easement from the agency to build on Corps property. A corps spokesperson says that Energy transfer has filed the paperwork for the easement but it’s still under review.”
“That’s true they don’t have the easement that’s required to install the segment that’s across the Oahe project,” said Larry Janis, Army Corps Of Engineers.
Janis says there is no timetable on when the easement will be granted, but the agency has issued a permission that allows the easement to be written.
Not only is there no written easement for the company to do the proposed work, but also there is a court case awaiting judgement to try to stop the construction that violates Native American treaties.
The U.S. government has a long history of purposely ignoring these treaties.
At least mainstream media is finally unable to ignore the protesters that are fighting to protect the water and land for millions of Americans.
- DONATE and BOOST to the Sacred Stone Camp.
- SUPPLIES list of necessary things for the camp.
- LEGAL DEFENSE FUND for Sacred Stone Camp.
I read somewhere in India there are priests who can will their heart to stop beating. I wanted to will my blood to stop, my heart to quit it’s pumping. I wanted to be dead, to turn into the rain, my eyes melt into the ground like two black snails.
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (via mythvology)
10 TIPS FOR MY NON-BLACK AND LIGHT-SKINNED OR WHITE-PASSING LATINO AND ASIAN BRETHREN
I am a light-skinned person with a light-skinned/passing Latina mother and a brown-skinned Pinoy father. I do not pass as white. However, I am often seen as mixed Asian by other people, which means I am afforded the many privileges that come with that perception. It means, for instance, that white gentrifiers trying to move into my neighborhood in North Oakland have stopped me on the street as I walked by and asked me if the neighborhood is “safe.” It means that when I get pulled over or questioned by police I don’t fear my imminent death. All this social location stuff to say that I’m about to get into some shit that is based on my personal experiences. I have done all of the things listed below. I have seen many people I love and care about do them. And lots of people I don’t love or care about.
I also want to say that I respect self-identification unless proven otherwise. If you tell me you are a person of color, I believe you. However, there are people in our communities that have ZERO people of color lineage anywhere in their immediate ancestry (Cherokee princess great great grandmother does not count EVER) who actively have lied and told people they were people of color. Those people need to get called out. There are also crazy ass white people who feel they are “transracial” and try to call themselves another race. Those motherfuckers need to be given a stern talking to or something (by other white people, not POC). Preferably on an isolated island away from POC for the next 25 years.
I don’t know what it is like to be a light-skinned or white passing person with black, middle eastern, polynesian, native american and quite a few other ancestries. So I’m not gonna try to tell you what to do. There might be parallels between your experience and mine, though, so take what you will.
If you call yourself POC and are not lying or crazy (go ahead and call my crazy ass ableist for using this term; dare you) then I’m down for your right to call yourself that. Don’t trip. But if you act a fool, I will let you know. Here’s some tips for not acting a fool.
- Stop saying that other people of color are policing or excluding you from POC-ness. There is no such thing as reverse racism NOR reverse colorism. If this makes no sense to you, see #2 - #10.
- Colorism refers to the ways in which material and social gain is systematically given to people who meet or uphold white supremacist notions of beauty. NOT ONE POC who is light-skinned or white passing is being denied jobs or housing or being targeted for violence in a SYSTEMIC way because of their light or white skin. Please don’t tell us about how somebody called you “white bitch” because they were jealous of how white you looked and that this was a form of violence. This is not an example of historical systemic oppression. It’s mean, it’s bullying, it’s misogynist, but it’s not colorism. Note: violence or outright insult, harassment or bullying is never okay no matter who does it.
- Never tell a darker-skinned or non-passing person of color that their behavior is upholding internalized oppression. Never ever. Especially when it’s cuz you feel like they did something to you for being light-skinned or white passing. Just shut up about it. You telling a person with less societal power than you about their internalized oppression is really just you using your privilege to silence them and avoid your feelings of guilt and alienation for being a light-skinned or passing person. Especially if you do it in a public forum. (And no it still isn’t okay even if you “beat” them on some other front, like you are poor and they have money or you have a chronic illness and they seem healthy or you think they have gender privilege over you). Note again: violence or outright insult, harassment or bullying is never okay no matter who does it. If you are being physically or emotionally abused by someone, please seek support.
- That being said, deal with your feelings of alienation and guilt around being light-skinned or white-passing. Like really, really fucking deal with them, historically, emotionally, ancestrally, spiritually, but especially MATERIALLY. I can’t tell you exactly what this looks like without writing a whole other essay. It is still in constant process for myself. But chances are if you are doing any of the problematic shit listed here, you are having a hard time with dealing. Start with checking your defensiveness. If you are thinking about writing me a tirade about how racist I am or how I didn’t say it the right way to get anyone to listen because I’m being mean, or how I am being divisive to POC unity, or how I am ignoring the fact that you are really pale right now because it’s winter, take a moment to pause. Those arguments are so tired and a symptom of your need for self-reflection.
- Build communities of accountability with other light-skinned and white-passing people of color. Communities of accountability are groups of peers who lovingly push one another towards growth, transformation, and active rejection and dismantlement of colorism and white supremacy. For instance, when you feel bad about something related to #1 - #4 but manage to keep it to yourself in the moment, take care of yourself by talking about your feelings with these light-skinned or white passing peers. If you did say or do something fucked up and have realized that you made a mistake, let your peers support you as you take accountability. If all these peers do is validate your experience and tell you were right or that it’s okay because we all make mistakes, they are not holding you accountable. They are handing you a warm bottle of baby formula, a teddy bear, and a singing you a lullaby. They are keeping you asleep. Nitey nite.
- If you gather with other light-skinned or white-passing people, but you all never talk about and TAKE ACTION around your privilege, then your association with them is just the white/light POC equivalent of an “old boys’ club.” It is not a community of accountability; it is just a franchise for white supremacy.
- When you notice you are someplace where there are only light-skinned or white-passing people, talk about it. Especially if it is an environment that is touted as a people of color space. Do not allow yourself to be the token or amongst a small minority of people of color in a space that is claiming to be POC-inclusive without at least saying something. Verbal acknowledgement holds power. Interrupt spaces that uphold white supremacy by speaking up and naming the elephant in the room. Unless your basic needs or physical safety being met is at stake, take action by stepping down from tokenizing roles where you and other light-skinned white-passing POC are the only members. Demand that darker-skinned and/or black folks with more experience than you replace you. Actively make sure this happens. Actually I take that back. DO NOT send other POC of any skin tone into an environment where tokenization is happening. Put in the work to shut that shit down or actively warn people against getting involved in tokening projects and organizations.
- If other people of color (even ones who you consider “as” light-skinned or white-passing as you) ask you about your race or don’t accept you right away, don’t get all hurt. Just be straight up. Let your acts and how you show up in the future speak for itself and build trust. Do you trust every POC you meet just because they’re POC? I certainly don’t. Yes, it might hurt you to feel rejected or be met with suspicion by a community you want to call your own, but truth is you have access to all sorts of communities and privileges that others in your group don’t get because of your skin privilege. Also, protecting ourselves from whiteness is a REAL safety issue. People of color want to know who is white so they know who to not to turn their back on. This is healthy self-preservation, especially for people perceived as black, who face regular threat to their very lives by the state and other upholders of white supremacy. The closer you are perceived to be to blackness, the closer you are to physical, economic, and psychological violence committed by white supremacy and its agents.
- Remember that privilege is not just an idea or a thought or a conversation. It is also an experience of embodiment that can be observed by others. Remember that the hive mind of human consciousness is so adept that we can all state, without doubt, which races are at the top and which are on the bottom. White is on top. Black is on the bottom. If you cannot admit that and let yourself feel the way the consciousness of white supremacy lives within your flesh, then there is no hope of ever exorcising that hierarchy from the hive mind. Pretending our whiteness isn’t there just gives it more power and prevents the healing that needs to occur between people of color in general.
- 10. Be able to name your light-skinned or passing privilege without stuttering. And don’t expect a parade with glitter and a marching band when you do. You can imagine one in your head if you like. That’s okay.
- I lied. I have one more because I’m generous like that. If your darker-skinned or non-passing POC homies agree with you when you tell them how fucked up this article is and assure you that you are really awesome, they might be reassuring you because they are scared of what they might lose if they disagree. Don’t put them in the position of reassuring you. THAT’S fucked up.
None of these ideas are new. In fact, there are almost no new ideas under the sun. Thank you to those around me and who have come before me who have been formulating and enacting these ideas for longer than I’ve been alive.
If you find this post offensive, that is good. Hopefully it will push you towards transformation. Nothing you say can hurt me. I am open to dialogue and critique, however, and will think deeply and respectfully about thoughtful and respectful responses. If you act a fool in general, I will treat you like a fool.
If you got something out of this post, support my future writing with a $2 - $2000 contribution!
CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE
Portable glass bottle shrines with women icons (at Zinnia Folk Arts, LLC)
catrinachaos-deactivated2017121
Know Your Rights
Alert! U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are starting up. Report them to United We Dream at 1-844-343-1623. Know your rights, and share this info! We’ve got to fight back against mass deportation. Xo
Theres going to be raids throughout May and June 2016. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0Y32J1
Source: unitedwedream.org
Chicanxs have cultivated entire careers that have not only allowed them opportunity but have secured prosperity by standing on the backs of undocumented folks and especially by applying threatening rhetoric that aims to shame other latinoamericanxs into prioritizing their own selfish needs. The “don’t go against us, we’re the majority” is a layered abusive tactic often masked in solidarity. Yet nothing is done to help the rest of us, we’re left behind while their platform continues to rest on a struggle that is unfamiliar to them. But I’ll be damned if they expect me to sit here while they continue to endorse the neoliberalist politics of HRC (or even bernie for that matter) hoping that these frauds throw me a bone.
dating other femmes is wild bc who tf makes the first move, not me b*tch
postingwhileblack
28 Queens Of Black History Who Deserve Much More Glory
Let’s not forget about these trailblazing women this Black History Month.
Shirley Chisolm (1924–2005)
Chisolm broke major barriers when she became the first black congresswoman in 1968. She continued on her political track when she ran for president four years later, making her the first major-party black candidate to run.
Claudette Colvin (1939-)
Several months before Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus, Colvin was the FIRST person arrested for resisting bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, at the age of 15.
Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987)
Clark was an educator and civil rights activist who established citizenship schools that helped many African Americans register to vote. Regarded as a pioneer in grassroots citizenship education, she was active with the NAACP in getting more black teachers hired in the South.
Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954)
This women’s suffrage activist and journalist was the first president of the National Association of Colored Women and a charter member of the NAACP. She was also one of the first African American women to be awarded a college degree.
Angela Davis (1944-)
Davis is an American revolutionary and educator. The former Black Panther has fought for race, class and gender equality over the years.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
Wells helped bring international attention to the horrors of lynching in the South with her investigative journalism. She was also elected as the Secretary of the Colored Press Association in 1889.
Kathleen Cleaver (1945-)
Kathleen Cleaver is one of the central figures in Black Panther history. She was the first communications secretary for the organization and is currently a law professor at Emory University. She also helped found the Human Rights Research Fund.
Dr. Dorothy Height (1912-2010)
Dr. Height was regarded by President Barack Obama as “the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement.” She served as the president of the National Council of Negro Women for over two decades and was instrumental in the integration of all YWCA centers in 1946.
Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Wheatley was a former slave who was kidnapped from West Africa and brought to America. She was bought by a Boston family and became their personal servant. With the aid of the family, she learned to read and eventually became one of the first women to publish a book of poetry in 1773.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)
This Caribbean-American writer and activist was a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior and poet.” She empowered her readers with her moving poetry often tackling the injustices of racism, sexism and homophobia. She’s known for her poetry and memoirs such as, From a Land Where Other People Live, The Black Unicorn and A Burst of Light.
Flo Kennedy (1916-2000)
Kennedy was a founding member of the National Organization of Women and one of the first black female lawyers to graduate from Columbia Law School.
Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992)
Johnson was an outspoken and fearless trans woman who was a vital part in the fight for civil rights for the LGBT community in New York. She was known as the patron at Stonewall Inn who initiated resistance on the night the police raided the bar.
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)
Born Isabella Baumfree, she escaped slavery with her infant daughter and changed her name to Sojourner Truth. She’s best known for her speech delivered at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851 titled “Ain’t I A Woman?”
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)
Hamer was a civil rights activist and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Fannie Lou Hamer
Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955)
Dr. Bethune was an educator and civil rights activist who believed education was the key to racial advancement. She served as the president of the National Association of Colored Women and founded the National Council of Negro Women.
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
This poet was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for her 1949 book titled Annie Allen.
Bessie Coleman (1892-1926)
Coleman became the first black woman to earn a pilot’s license and the first black woman to stage a public flight in the United States
Lena Horne (1917-2010)
Horne was a popular actress and singer who was most known for her performances in the films “Stormy Weather” and “The Wiz.” She worked closely with civil rights groups and refused to play roles that stereotyped black women.
Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994)
Nicknamed “the black gazelle,” Rudolph was born premature and was stricken with polio as a child. Though her doctor said she would never be able to walk without her brace, she went on to become a track star. She became the first American woman to win three gold medals at a single Olympics in 1960.
Billie Holiday (1915-1959)
Holiday was an extremely influential jazz vocalist who was known for her “distinctive phrasing and expressive, sometimes melancholy voice.” Two of her most famous songs are “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit,” a heart-wrenching ballad about blacks being lynched in the South.
Diane Nash (1938-)
Nash is a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She was instrumental in organizing the Freedom Rides, which helped desegregate interstate buses in the South.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Hurston was an anthropologist and author during the Harlem Renaissance. Though she didn’t receive much recognition for her work while she was alive, her works of fiction, especially Their Eyes Were Watching God, became staples in American literature.
Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952)
As an actress, McDaniel appeared in more than 300 films and was the first African American to win an Oscar in 1940. She was also the star of the CBS Radio program, “The Beulah Show.”
Ruby Bridges (1954-)
Ruby Bridges was six years old when she became the first black child to integrate an all-white school in the South. She was escorted to class by her mother and U.S. marshals due to violent mobs outside of the Mississippi school.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault (1942-)
Hunter-Gault was the first black woman to enroll at the University of Georgia. She became an award-winning journalist after she graduated and worked for outlets such as the New York Times, PBS and NPR.
Daisy Bates (1914-1999)
As a civil rights activist and journalist, Bates documented the fight to end segregation in Arkansas. Along with her husband, she ran a weekly black newspaper and became the president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP.
Dr. Mae Jemison (1956-)
Dr. Jemison is the first black woman to be admitted into the astronaut training program and fly into space in 1987. Jemison also developed and participated in research projects on the Hepatitis B vaccine and rabies.
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
Baker was the national director for the NAACP. She also worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As one of the leading figures in the civil rights movement, Baker is known for her leadership style which helped develop others’ skills to become leaders in the fight for a better future.
Let’s not forget about these trailblazing women this Black History Month.
“With our brothers and our sisters from many far off lands. There is power in a union.”
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (via booksofcolor2016)