Black Women's Silence Has Never Gotten Us Free, Love. All of this talk about Jay-Z has, not surprisingly, made me feel some kind of way. I remember getting a call from my friend a few months ago, a Black woman, who lived in the New York at the time. She had been on my … Continue reading Black Men Are Only Good When We Are Exceptional…Or Dead.
Essays On Identity
A Brief Defense of Identity Politics and Intersectionality
“Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the interest and perspectives of groups with which people identify. Identity politics includes the ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through loosely correlated social organizations. Examples include social organizations based on race, class, religion, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, ideology, nationality, … Continue reading A Brief Defense of Identity Politics and Intersectionality
What Black Queer Feminism Has Taught Me: Intersectionality, Nurturance Culture and Transformative Relationships
To get free we need more power, not less. We need more leaders not enfeebled followers. This idea that white people must give up their power is based on a white middle class and masculine limiting belief in scarcity. It presumes that either power is inherently bad [or at least bad in white people’s hands] or that it is a zero sum game. Intersectional transformative relationships teach us that power works in abundance. Just as standing in solidarity with my Black Trans siblings requires me to stand in my own transformative non-binary masculine power, not abdicate it, so too must non-Black people stand in their own transformative power. Yet in order for them to do it, they must first discover it and re-imagine their identities is a way that accepts my existence and my inherent humanity.
Preliminary Observations on the Analysis of the Movement
As proponents of identity politics we readily admit that often times identity politics adherents dismiss individuals based on the groups they are perceived to be a part of. We see this as a counterproductive strategy that is often the result of unprocessed trauma or immature political awareness. We do not believe that identities determine the inherent worth of people nor the validity of their ideas. Likewise, we reject the identity determinism present in much of current Marxism that has a pre-occupation with the proletariat as the only “legitimate” revolutionary class.
Femminist Reflections on My Spritual Sabbatical pt 3
We, beautifully flawed humans that can neither tolerate a world order that, in thinking we are worthy of its oppression, is beneath us nor wait idly by as it consumes itself, are headed towards the lands filled with the glorious black light of the power contained in the ocean of human imagination. We will not merely content ourselves to observe the effects of its absence.
Feminist Reflections on my Spiritual Sabbatical
How empowering would if feel to Black men to get our sense of human validation from emotionally supporting our families [broadly defined] rather than anxiously trying to game a system founded in our bondage in order to support them financially? Imagine what our communities might look like if we supported Black women and Black gender-non-conforming folx in transforming leadership and the workplace as Black men and gender-non-conforming folx transformed the home?
Call Me in Until You Need to Call Me Out
Reflections On Being A Leader in a Leaderful Movement Rape Culture is real. It is omnipresent. It is destroying all of our movements. I don’t know how to start this essay. I don’t really know what to say or how to say it so I’m going to be real and raw and honest. I … Continue reading Call Me in Until You Need to Call Me Out
Dear Black Women and Trans* People in the Struggle
Dear Black Women and Trans* Activists in the Struggle, I don’t know how to begin this letter. There are so many things I want to say to all the Black women in my life. There are so many things I want to say to uplift, spread and support marginalized voices within this new movement. There … Continue reading Dear Black Women and Trans* People in the Struggle
An Argument for Operating with Love
*If you are looking for the speech I gave at Sixth and I please click here* I was reminded today that there is no cosmic scale weighing the oppression of Blacks in America. There is no ledger listing the wrongs that have been done to us. There is no mystic reckoning that will bring wholeness. … Continue reading An Argument for Operating with Love
The Truth About Gender Based Violence
Elliot Rodger terrifies me. It’s not that I’m afraid that some kid like him will attack me or, worse, someone I love. I don’t think Men’s Rights advocates are going to join with the NRA to declare open season on women. What scares me about Elliot Rodgers -- what makes my whole body clinch into … Continue reading The Truth About Gender Based Violence
The Well Examined Life 