I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.
“
| — |
Margaret Cho — warrior heroine beautiful goddess truth-speaker (in love)
|
Dogs are my favorite role models. I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon. I want to love like a dog, with unabashed devotion and complete lack of concern about what people do for a living, how much money they have, or how much they weigh.
“
| — |
- Oprah Winfrey I have this same thought every day. When people say they don’t like dogs I always think they have some kind of deep bitterness and coldness in their hearts. How can you not adore a creature who only wants to love and be loved? |
Connections (a poem by letta neely)
There are connections between us
between the lines we’ve needed or been forced to draw with our
blood
across
time space words wounds
On these new york streets i’ve seen cracks in the sidewalk and
grass spurting through like revolution holding fast
to one creed only: “keep going, baby, keep going.”
The crabgrass makes me things about where we, you and i
are going
it’s a hard day when i realized i don’t know any of my enemies
personally
It’s my friends i’m speaking to
somehow we keep fighting the same battles over and over again
and arguing over
who’s got it worst who’s on the bottom of the totem pole
and i don’t mean to
proselytize
but we’re killing each other
and
the totem pole is still standing
and
we’re still using it
not knowing it’s an ethnic slur
Me, i feel trapped in the middle of all this whirlpool
i feel like i’m on top of three mountains
shooting at myself
I went to the march on washington and saw a lot of white men
together
talking about we will no longer sit on the back of the bus and
somebody had the nerve to say:
“there are a million rosa parks’ here”
and i thought
it’s not about white guilt or even gay pride
but make sure the
truth
is being told
Cuz the rosas couldn’t make it to the march and
as for the back of the bus
whoever thought it up probably
flew
first class
So, i’m not talking about not aligning with the struggles of my
Blk peoples cuz i understand the connections all too well
just remember to take Emmit Till, Atlanta child murders,
Smallpox blankets, Stonewall, the treatment of
Chinese railroaders, and Apple pie
all together
Every day in harlem i face a different kind a fear
other Blk peoples screaming at me with their eyes
cuz i’m in love with the way a womon is
One time a man said to my friend, he stood next to her and said,
“I love you cuz you blk and you my sistah, but i think all faggots and dykes
should die.”
One time a “friend” said to my sister in the presence of enemies,
“you’re not natural”
and then wanted to know
why she felt
unsafe
I want to know does anyone fully comprehend this pastry
does anyone know how to sew all this together without mixing
histories or
trading truth for slogans.
We are not all hanging from trees
standing in welfare lines
neck deep in sand getting out heads kicked
off into the sunset
(these things are being done as we speak)
We are not all getting beat down at Stonewall
We are not all being dragged from our homes by our hair
being raped by husbands
or friends
or lovers
We are not all dying the same way.
But we are all fighting to breathe
fighting to breathe
Just got home and heard about MCA. The Beastie Boys have been like this constant background music in my life, and are a soundtrack to many memories. This is one of my favorite songs, and reminds me of driving around with my girls bumping this beat, singing out the window, drinking 40s, and eating cheesy Sonic tater tots.
I believe that … the more outward-looking, changing-the-world focused transgender and queer movements of the 1990s are shifting into a more insular and exclusionary queer/trans community, one that favors only a select group of queers and trans folks, rather than all people who fall under those umbrella terms. Indeed, unlike our predecessors in the groups Queer Nation (who held public “kiss-ins” in suburban malls) and Transexual Menace (who staged protests in small Midwestern towns where trans people were murdered), many in the queer/trans community these days often seem more content celebrating our fabulous queer selves or enjoying the safety of our own organizations and events. While there is nothing inherently wrong with creating our own queer/trans spaces and culture, what troubles me is that we are clearly sacrificing diversity in the process.
“
| — |
Julia Serano, “Whipping Girl” I have been particularly troubled by this in the past couple years as I watch queer college students moving away from activism and inclusion to self-congratulatory displays of their own “fabulousness” and superiority. In the past year this has been particularly striking. I have heard queer campus leaders deriding others who they had deemed not “really queer or not queer “enough”. I had one queer student tell me she didn’t even want to use the word queer anymore if “just anyone” could label themselves as such (in other words - setting herself up as the standard of the “real” and “legitimate” version of queerness). I have heard queer students say, on multiple occasions, that they are “better than” and “superior to” non-queer folks — thereby setting up a new hierarchy rather than trying to dismantle systems of oppression. And in the midst of all this “holier than thou” bullshit, not doing a damn thing to actually move the political or cultural landscape through activism of any kind. I recognize that I am generalizing, and that there are a great deal of young people still politicized and raising hell (through more than their latest H&M fashion), particularly queer-feminists. Yet this movement of queer youth space being a place for ego-stroking, condescension, and judgy-bitchiness is incredibly disheartening. It makes me want to scream. Stop being so damn worried about who meets your queer-quota. Cut the Rupaul Heather bullshit. We are being murdered every day. We are committing suicide because of bullying and self-loathing. We are being denied housing and jobs and children and hospital visitation and social security benefits and on and on and on. Rather than sitting around in your little click reading people, be in solidarity with people. Want to be radical? Then show love, compassion, and acceptance. |
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
...i am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding offering me intricate patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven't seen
