Please closes your eyes, make yourself comfortable and reflect on these words. Forget any misgivings or preconceptions you may have about meditation. As my friend Marybeth says, it’s not that serious. Just make yourself comfortable. Relax and reflect upon my words: Honor all of your emotions in this space. And let your thoughts flow to … Continue reading Meditation for White People Fighting White Supremacy
Social Justice
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 pt2
I have such powerful dreams and imaginings. I have things that exist in the beautiful intersections of my intellectual genius, my fantastical imaginings of other possible worlds and my deeply held feelings of belief. Over time I have realized how internalized lies of capitalism and cis hetero white supremacist patriarchy have kept me from pulling gems out of those intersections.
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?
Preliminary Materials on Collective Liberation and the New Material Reality
Some nights, after I force myself disconnect and I try to sleep, I am struck with the after images of all the disparate thoughts and emotions and data points of the day. Images of Black Lives Matter protestors, refugees from Syria, bombs in Beirut, body bags in Paris and the occasional loving messages and words of support. As a Black Lives matter organizer and artist, I am constantly concerned with state of “the movement.” At the same time, I see and empathize with my Muslim comrades who feel a similar, but perhaps even more omnipresent and ill defined, uneasiness. Flashes of protests, mass arrests, unlawful detainments and police states constantly mix with shared stories, laughter and organizing pot luck’s in my mind’s eye.
The Unbearable Whiteness of Advocacy
To be Black in America, is to be the victim of an unending horror story with a multi-cultural peanut gallery more concerned with why you chose to run upstairs than the fact that an unkill-able white man is stalking you.
Am I A Nigger?
ASK YOURSELF! Am I A Nigger? Am I A Nigger? Am I A Nigger? And if the answer is yes? Don't be afraid to show it! Cause it's the Nigger in you that makes you BLACK! ...Once you learn to hate it... An acoustic dialogue on respectability politics, the diversity of Black self … Continue reading Am I A Nigger?
New Meditation for #BlackJoySundays
Black Joy is a transformative force. It is a visceral, deeply embodied reminder of the precious euphoria of our humanity. It is the source of Black resilience which is itself the wellspring of Black Liberation. #BlackJoySundays are a supportive place we can be affirmed in our Blackness, fellowship with other gorgeous Black people and discuss some of the racial stress we experience. Yet above all, it is space where we cultivate a shared sense of Black joy. This is a space for Black people, which means ALL Black people.
The Well Examined Life 