Post the Seventy-Forth or I Refuse to be Silent

The other day, one of my white facebook friends posted on my wall saying that being “hateful” against white people is “racist” and that its just as bad as what white people do to people of color. This lead to an over 150 comment thread with multiple people weighing in. She insisted that we were being racist. Apparently for her, holding white supremacy accountable for its crimes means that we hated white people and that we were racist. Needless to say, we are no longer friends.

What I want to talk about here was a specific comment that was made from another person that we will call Georgia. Georgia (who is a white lady), at first, used one of MLK Jr. quotes saying something to the effect that love is good and we should all love each other. My friend’s bullshit detector went off and quickly supplied her with many, many, many other quotes from MLK that backed us up. She then replied that “negativity will only spread negativity” and that “we all bleed red”. This was after over 100 comments where we clearly disproved this. So, I flippantly replied, “Where is your reading comprehension? Want me to help you find it?”

At this point, the original post had been taken down and all of the subsequent comments with it.

But.

This white lady messages me something to the effect of, “Don’t make fun of me. You are a meany and the biggest racist I’ve ever met. White people suffer too. I’m not responsible for genocide or your oppression. I know myself but you seem pretty lost. It’s a shame that your powerful voice is wasted because you are so angry.”

This made me so angry. Like, the kind of anger that gets you thrown in jail for trying to choke someone out. The kind of anger that makes most people want to run in the opposite direction. The kind of anger that gets me into trouble. Thankfully, I was at home with no fragile and expensive objects within reach. Well, except for my laptop but I need that.

The reason why this made me so apoplectic is because this white lady, who insisted that she had suffered SO much, was deciding for me that it is pointless to speak on my experience because I was so angry. Her message was so condescending, paternalistic and steeped in privilege. She thought herself the Supreme Arbiter of Effectiveness, apparently, which somehow gave her the authority to say that what I was doing was a waste of time. Being angry about white supremacy, calling out people on their racism, saying it unapologetically and refusing to placate white people’s ego is, according to her, a waste of time. This because they won’t “hear” me because my anger and resentment has clouded my voice.

This is symptomatic of the attitude that “well-intentioned” white liberals have. They support you as long as you make them comfortable and don’t challenge their authority. They think that they have the “objective” and “logical” stand point and often refuse to see the privileges that white supremacy gives them. It is astounding how seemingly smart individuals suddenly throw all critical thinking skills out of the window when it comes to matters of race. Like a slippery eel, their minds just cannot seem to grasp the concept that white people have power over people of color. I’m starting to think that they are just willfully ignorant.

Further, since my voice does not “conform” to her vision of “love” she can suddenly decide that nothing I have to say is worth listening too. The underlying assumption here is that she has a right to dictate to me the form in which my voice manifests. She has a right to tell me what to do with my voice. Since whiteness is the pinnacle of “logic”, “reason” and “validity”, anything that strays from that is wasteful. Since I am not white and my anger is in total opposition to whiteness, that means that I have nothing good to say. She assumes that she has ownership over my voice and my body.

And if I would just be nice to her, and by extension all white people, they would just listen to me and relinquish their power and privilege. If I ask politely, massa will give me my rights.

But this totally misses the point, doesn’t it? Because this analysis of racism assumes that racism, and other forms of oppression, are just psychological processes that need to be eradicated through reform and education. Its an interpersonal, individual problem that needs to be fixed with polite discussion where the oppressed educate the oppressor. But this completely erases that institutional and systemic causes of racism. It erases the very real, very desperate, very lethal forms of racism that exist. It puts the onus on the oppressed to fix it and washes the oppressor of any responsibility to do anything. There is no need to protest or be angry or revolt because once we educate white people they will learn the error of their ways and everything will be fine! And you can’t say anything mean or angry because thats just reverse racism and it means everything you have to say is wrong.

But fuck all of that bullshit. I am the only one with the right to my body. I am the only who can decide what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate for the use of MY OWN VOICE. I have a right to my anger and goddamn it I’m going to feel it. I am going to express it. I am going to shout it from every single rooftop and post it all over my Facebook and write every single blog entry about it that I want. I am going to keep talking about until I don’t want to anymore and anyone that has a problem with that can go kick rocks. White folks have colonized my land, committed genocide against my people and continues to consume my culture and I’ll be damned if they have anything else of mine. They will not have my anger. They will not have any other parts of me.

I refuse to be silenced.

Post the Seventy-Third or For Fierce Brown Mamas

Conflict minerals

As if

The diamonds that encrusted

Her neck

Were not paid for in blood

As if

Someone just argued over them

As if

They weren’t clawed out of the Mother’s belly

By fingers filthy with the gore of greed and madness

As if

There wasn’t a reason why

Our lands and our bodies continue

To be pillaged

-

She holds her baby tight to her bosom

Hoping

That the toxic fumes of colonialism

And industrialization

Won’t kill her child

Or

Transfigure it beyond

Recognition

-

This is for all the

Fierce Brown Mamas

Who hold it down

Who work two jobs

And raise three kids

Who risk deportation

And rape

Who push against

Images

Of the Welfare Queen

Or The Neverending Strength of

Black Women

This is for those Mamas

Who give

And give

And give

So that her future generations will

Thrive

Who fight

And fight

And fight

For their family’s

Survival

-

This is for those Mamas who never had kids

-

This is for all of us

Whose insides

Will never match our outsides

For those of us

That are pursued

By hearts filled with

Avarice and fear

For those of us

Whose glory is unmatched

Saved by the Sun

-

This is for those of us

Who refuse to have our

Stories and Herstories

Erased or rewritten

For convenience

For those of us

Who refuse to be silenced

For those of us who

Stand and Fight

With glitter, fake eyelash and

High Heel

Against the pollution of our

Spirits

-

Justice

Is never simple

But it is

Clean

Post the Seventy-Second or The Sun still Rises

She tells me

“I am an old thing

Full of creaks, cracks and wood worn smooth

Full of recuerdos y canciones

Full of life but filled with the memories of the dead”

I ask her

What do you remember?

She tells me

“I remember

falling from my mother’s arm

and slowly poking my way up

through the brown soil

I remember

Growing tall

And reaching deep

I remember

Feeling the glory of the dawn each morning

And the restfulness of the dusk each evening

But I also remember

White men coming to my island

Needlessly felling my sisters

And uprooting the land for their consumption

I remember

The people that I used to shelter under my majestic boughs

Needlessly cut down by sword and disease

Families uprooted and enslaved for their profit

I remember

Weeping

When they brought people of black skin

From over the sea

To work in fields that ruined the land I so loved

Ruined the spirits of those who were so far from their own trees

I remember

A country fighting for independence

Only to be recolonized”

I remember-

Stop! I say

It is too much

I ask

How do you hold so much pain and not go insane?

She replies

“Insanity is the only appropriate response to genocide

But the Sun still Rises.”

Post the Seventy-First or On Rewriting Narratives

This week is Boston’s LGBT Film Festival. Held over many days and in many different theaters, the festival screens films that celebrate and shed light on the queer experience. And while most of the films are centered around white queers, there were a number of films that featured QPOC only cast. Yesterday, I saw one of those films. It’s called Leave It On the Floor. The program billed it as a black gay musical inspired by the groundbreaking documentary Paris is Burning. There were gorgeous boys and sickening queens, voguing and lots of singing. And, for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the perfect mix of campy realness and torrid love affair drama.

About half way into the movie, however, one of the characters dies. I’m sure you can guess what her identities were. She was a poor, black, trans woman. And this really, really bothered me. And while she wasn’t murdered, she died in a car crash, it still frustrated me. She was also the only character in the movie to die. Why is it that many, if not most, portrayals of black and brown trans women in the media have them dead? Without fail, when a trans woman of color is introduced into a film or TV show they are dead before the end of the movie. Even in the news, we never hear about the victories or successes of trans women of color. We only hear about their murders, if we hear of them at all.

On top of that, the protagonist of the movie was kicked out of his home for being gay by his mother. Her character was completely one dimensional. She was callous, completely unremorseful that she was sending her kid to the streets.  She verbally assaulted and insulted the protagonist for being gay. She was written in such a way that her only defining characteristic was her hatred for her son.

The reason for this is because that is the narrative that society has given to us. The script, if you will, that is given to all trans women of color. We come out, we get kicked out of our homes and we are killed. Since PoC, apparently, have the patent on homophobia and transphobia, there is no other result to our coming out. What is particularly egregious about this instance is that the writer and director of the film were both gay white men. These two men were not only operating from two of the worst of QPoC narratives but they were also doing so with complete lack of analysis as to why they are problematic. It is an extremely sneaky form of racism because for all the audience knows, this film was a production for black queer and trans* folk for black queer and trans* folk. The cast was entirely black. And this makes it easy for the audience to miss the implicit racist stereotypes.

We need to be rewriting this narrative. We need to take our stories into our own hands and rewrite it to reflect our own lives. We need to be telling our own stories for ourselves, for others like us. We need to stop blindly accepting the messages that white supremacy, heteropatriarchy and capitalism would have us consume. We need to start telling stories that demonstrate our lived lives. We need to write poems, short stories, plays, screen plays that celebrate our identities, that reflect our experience has survivors. We need to make art and space that is meaningful for us. That accurately represents us. I’m not saying that we should erase the hardship that surrounds our lives because that would be just as bad. What I am saying is that we need to be talking about our victories, our loves, our hopes, our accomplishments.

What I am saying is that we need to rewrite the narrative so that we become human and not just corpses.

My story used to end with my early death at the hands of transphobia. I had no doubt that it was a question of when, not if. And that is because I accepted the narrative given to me. I won’t lie to you; I still often worry about that and I know it is a very real possibility. But it’s different today. I know that I am given that narrative so that I give up before the fight has even started. And I know might story might still end up that way, but I am determined to make sure that it isn’t a certainty. I am determined to rewrite the ending so that women that come after me can have hope.

I am determined to rewrite my narrative for myself.

Post the Seventieth or I Want to Live

I used to be gagged by

Fear

My mouth stuffed with

The white cloth of silence

Stifling my screams

Sometimes it felt like I was biting more than I could chew

A constant, overwhelming, emptiness that filled my mouth

Othertimes it felt like my very soul was being pulled out

Inch by agonizing inch

To be consumed and erased by those who say

I’m colorblind. Can’t was just love everyone?

-

And then

I looked up at the night sky

And saw myself written in the stars

I looked down at my feet

And felt the fierce gentleness of my Mother

I looked behind me

And saw the many miles that my ancestors walked

I looked into my lover’s eyes

And saw myself reflected in his love

He reached into my heart

Eased the knot that constricted my spirit

And my voice

Burst out fierce, blisteringly hot, and blazing with a power

That moves to tears

And makes white supremacy uncomfortable

A clarion call for revolution

A challenge that says

I won’t be silent any longer because

Silences equals Death

And I want to live

-

She told me that she supported me

But that I was too angry

And wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you just toned yourself down?

I told her

My anger is a result of my experience

And wouldn’t it be better for everyone

If you just gave back the land that you stole?

Post the Sixty-Ninth or On Why Exotic is NOT a Compliment

The other day I was working at my coffeeshop and this white hippie woman comes in. She had two short braids and a number of necklaces adorning her neck and chest. She orders a double espresso over ice and as I take her money she says, “You are very beautiful.” I smile and thank her for the compliment but she wasn’t done. “Yeah,” she says, “You are so exotic looking. You have a very exotic beauty. Where are you from?”

It was like a record needle screeching to a halt. I blinked twice. How did this “compliment” start off so lovely and end so disastrously? I give her what she is asking for, if only to get rid of her, “My mother is from Colombia,” I say.

She replies, “Oh yeah. Your people are so magical. They really had it figured out. I went to South America to study with some shamans…”

At this point, it’s all I can do from throwing scalding hot coffee in her face and tell her to go fuck herself.

This is just one example of the objectification and commodification of PoC and non-Western cultures for the easy consumption of white folk. By labeling me “exotic” and calling my people “magical” she was otherizing me and my people. I’m a fucking first generation American, not some noble Native princess. In trying to give me a “compliment” she only succeeded in stripping me of my humanity and reduced me to a caricature. She completely erased all of my struggles, fears, triumphs, hopes and dreams and placed me in this tiny little box so that she could feel comfortable with my brownness. My otherness challenges her whiteness and so she erases my personhood to feel comfortable with me.

The reason for this is because being “exotic” means that you are not natural. My brown skin, full lips and wild hair are all aberrations from the norm. I am not white, so I must be from some mystical, far-flung land. I am not strange or unique. And most importantly, my brownness makes me an object to be consumed by my white counterparts.

And she did this to not only me but also to South America and all of its inhabitiants. Because, you know, we are all magical and different countries/nationalities don’t exist when you are magical!

And she can do this because she has the societal power of whiteness.

I am so tired of being a stranger in a land that, in all honesty, I have more of a right to than these white folk whose ancestors colonized mine. And the worst part is that if I called her out on her racist bullshit, she either would have started crying or get defensive or turn and call me racist! And that is one of the most egregious aspects of white supremacy today; if you call bullshit, the white folk deny that they are complicit in it, and they call you a racist for accusing them of racism! It’s so hard to engage with white folk on their racism because they have been taught to not see it. And so when it’s pointed out to them, all they can do is point it back at the victim. Its a fucking catch-22. You grind your teeth and bear it with silence or you call it out and get your experience erased.

Either way, headaches and heartaches will ensue.

Post the Sixty-Eighth or Forced Silence/Forced Speech

My body is like the land

Lush and wild

Untamed and beautiful

The hairy expanse of my thighs

Mirroring the long rolling hills of forest

The smooth perkiness of my breasts

Reflecting the heartbreaking heights of mountains

The soft brownness of my skin

Matching the fecund loam of the earth.

My body was once untouched by the white man’s Rapaciousness

And then

They came with their guns

And their ships

And their Pox

They came with their Great White God

And their Great White Book

They came with their promise of “civilization” in one hand

The lash in the other

Civilization always seems just out of reach

The lash is always too close

-

 400 hundred years

And 1600 seasons later

She says

I don’t see race!

He replies

Will someone please think of the white Man!

And my head is pounding

 ’Cause My body is still colonized

The land of my foremothers is still being desecrated

And I am still struggling to survive in a world

That hates all things

Trans*/Brown/Queer/Woman

Pushing my way against the swiftly-moving river

Of violence and lack of resources

That somehow has managed to make itself invisible

They say that we’ve come a long way

That so many things have changed

That hope has come at last

But now I’m fighting for recognition of my oppression

On top of the oppression itself

And it’s like trying to scream

When your attacker is already at your throat

Like trying to escape a thousand tiny pinpricks

While your whole body chained to the ground

Like having rocks tied to your feet

Being thrown into the sea to drown

And never dying

-

Say something in Spanish for me

He demanded

As if the language of my people was a

Circus trick

  That I was required to perform at his request

As if my vocal chords were his to command

How’s this

Come mierda y muérete

Colonization is the stuff

Forced Silence/Forced Speech

Is made of.

Post the Sixty-Seventh or Distance

Distance

That place where time and space meet

Which is infinitesimally small

And infinitely large

Boundless possibilities exist

In the distance between two people

The distance between two hearts

It is in that distance that we see ourselves

Reflected

In the other

In that distance

Where we find ourselves

Quite by accident

Unsure of how we got there

Not knowing where to go from here

But aware that this distance

In this moment

Is precious

Unlike anything we have ever experienced

Exhilarating

Like the view of New York City from the Empire State Building

Feeling like one false step could sending you plummeting

And yet knowing that you are safe

Terrifying

Like the first glimpse of the endless expanse of the Pacific

Knowing that you could drown in those dark, unfathomable depths

But feeling like you could float to islands unknown

Where sweet fruits and soft sands await

It is in this distance between you and I, my love,

where I meet myself

And realize that I have always known you

Always loved you

It is in this distance that I

Realize that goddesses could die

Empires could fall

Worlds could crumble

lovers could move on

And I will still be here

Loving you

As hard and as fiercely as the day we met

Regardless if we are fucking or not

Because you are my family

And if we aren’t there for each other

To celebrate our victories

Or

When the distance between hatred

And our bodies close

Than who?

Post the Sixty-Sixth or Why I am a Fierce Bitch

Every morning I paint my face

With three words stuck on repeat

Fierce

Devastating

Sickening

Every day I pound the pavement

With three words stuck on repeat

Tough

Hard

Untouchable

My look is my life

And my walk keeps me safe

Because I know what happens to young brown

Trans women

If we are not being harassed

Beaten

Or killed

Then our voices

And the narratives that we have written for ourselves

Are being ignored

Discounted

Or invalidated

Whether I am at a queer party

Or walking home late at night

I need to be read

And read well

Perhaps that’s why I get so frustrated

When the brush doesn’t do precisely as I demand

I look in the mirror knowing

That to fuck up

Is to take a risk I can’t afford

Perhaps thats why my face

Is carefully sculpted into two expressions

“Don’t fuck with me”

and

“Really don’t fuck with me”

I look into the eyes of others knowing

That to show weakness

Is to invite death

They were surprised

When he told them that I was a sweetheart

He told me

I see you

And I am shocked

That anyone has the eyes

To truly see me

And what a blessing that is.

Every night I lay next to my lover

With three words stuck on repeat

Love

Love

Love

Post the Sixty-Fifth or Love like Hurricane

His love is like a hurricane

All fire and fury

Honest in its intensity

And inexorable in its execution

A hurricane

The roaring gale force winds ripping away all those thoughts

That do me harm

The rising waves washing me clean

With cold salt water and brine

Of those conceits that blind me

From seeing beauty

The torrential pounding rain changing the landscape

Of my skin

So that scars become sublime

And stretch marks become exalted

The crashing flashes of lightning

Lighting

Those dark slumbering places

And I am electrified

My skin tingling in anticipation of his touch

 My body ridged with the thrill of his hand on my thigh

My body aching with white hot fire for his lips upon mine

The calm serenity of the eye

Reflecting me back to myself

And I rejoice

For what I have is legendary

And you would give all of this up?