there's a lot going on in this post: on mlk and blackness and wanting

jalylah over at hello, babar/she real cool is always teaching me shit. this morning is no exception. her post commemorating dr. king and discussing her own body politic is insightful and feels painfully familiar. the way black women's bodies are simultaneously hyper- and in-visible is one of the most painful aspects of my personal struggle against oppression- sometimes it just feels impossible to change the way people (can't) see you.
anyway, beyond providing an incredible chance for reflection, jb's post also sent me to this link on the kerner report by bill moyers. it's worth a watch. structural racism lives on.
***
on another note, i want to say something about the theorizing blackness conference put on by the africana studies group at the cuny graduate center yesterday. finding the words, though, is the hard part.

i'll start by saying that the 12 pages of notes i wrote speak to the absolute profundity of many of the presentations yesterday. mark anthony neal is amazing. there were two concepts that stand out amongst the many quotes of his that i scribbled during his keynote, and i'll share them here:

1) we need to, when we think about "blackness" in 21st century USA and in the diaspora, think about the distinction between african-american and black.

we cannot continue to assume a shared history around the civil rights movement in the US if we hope to truly galvanize movement toward dismantling structural oppression. our blacknesses are distinct though connected and we have to learn to be comfortable with learning the topography of our differences, not just those between our race and others.

this idea leads to the second i can't really let go of:

2) "unity is a myth. solidarity is a strategy." ~m.a.n.

i think this is so deep. deep! and obvious. and true. but it is also something i think we often forget. standing in solidarity with one another has always been the strategy of successful civil rights movement. there was nothing unified about the american black community in the 50's- there has always been and always will be class/color/location stratification. we never have been and never will be a monolithic, homogeneous group. we have to choose to stand up with one another to make change. solidarity, though, begins with knowledge of one another and ourselves. you have to know who the other is in order to trust her.

as i try to wrap up this post i find myself at a loss. i want to talk about the paper on lauryn hill and madness, the one about transnational translation of black feminism in english, the one minstrelsy and madea, the one on something new and cheryl dunye, the one on racial uplift in the 21st century. i want to talk about bill cosby and oprah winfrey and how they are irrevocably human and how they are rich and how they've been rich for a really long time and how that means they don't know much about the reality of the lived experience of poor black people in the 21st century at all. i want to talk about the ways that tokenism (and the inability for wealthy black people to remember how difficult finding success can really be) works to make solidarity across class lines in the black community almost impossible.

i also want to talk about black women's literature and the importance of our voices. i want to talk about the cute boy i met who i also saw at the black feminism conference. i want to talk about my own ignorance that led me to question the "blackness" of a black man who didn't strike me as being "black enough" at first glance.

i want to talk. to you. and to my former students. and to my family. i want to hear what blackness means to us, and start a conversation about its power.

i want to start a school where visiting scholars come and speak to young students of color about these issues. i want to build the ties between and among black people so we can then start talking with our other allies with confidence.

iwantiwantiwantithinkiwantiheariwantihopeiwant.

that was my day off :).


**funny last note- i google image-searched for "black enough?" and the first twenty images were all barack obama (dr. nassey-brown of hunter college had some awesome things to say about barry at the closing plenary yesterday, btw. keep your eye out for the journal of af-am studies, because some of the papers from the conference will be published there?)! oh wait, you're not surprised :).

mlk 40

the root is doing amazing things today to commemorate dr. king.

check out dana cook's remembrance series (there are a bunch of articles, i can't link to them all). sam fulwood III's piece on the black middle class is worth a glance too, as is melissa harris-lacewell(academic crush alert!)'s piece on the women so often depicted behind the men. and so is everything else.


let's not forget how much we owe, and to how many.

two quick things-

1) corcoran's representation of interracial bliss
this corcoran ad is interesting to me. what do y'all think? is this the new wealthy manhattanite story? black men are completely written out of the script? also interesting to me, beyond the white dude-black woman thing, is the four kids. really? and she still looks like that? i'd love to hear what y'all think on this.

2) my coworker hd sent me this link to a write-up on eboo patel's memoir. if you don't eboo patel, you should google the man and find out. he's definitely up and coming. read his blog at the washington post, if nothing else.

reading the feministing post made me think, madly, this: obama-patel 2008. no, obama's not a muslim, but eboo is! that would get our republican friends' riled up, no? too bad eboo isn't crazy enough to be a politician :(.

blogs about me?

hmmm.

double hmmm.

latoya over at racialicious did some numbers on herself to figure out how she shapes up based on all of these "identity" sites. i kinda want to, but as you all know, i already have issues with my blackness. ;)

check it allllllll out.

amazing woman

okay, first of all, i'm not sure what's going on with my template. i'm going to work on that.

also, went to this conference on black feminism yesterday. i'm feeling rejuvenated and refocused; i've relocated those goalposts and re-oriented myself. i wrote this yesterday during a presentation on lucille clifton and sonia sanchez, and just the sight of all of these amazing women's names in one place still puts a smile on my face and a lift in my heart. i am so thankful to have had the opportunity.

amazing women
nzadi keita
nicole watson
sherie randolph
rose afriyie
sala cyril
ashley lewis
toccara
robyn spencer
adrienne kennedy
lucille clifton
safiya bandele
assata
barbara omolade
nadine
sonia sanchez
women panthers

i'm sad i missed this

on tuesday. did anyone catch it? if so, please tell me how it was...

Harlem Renaissance Revisited
With John Keene, Mendi + Keith Obadake, and Evie Shockley

Tribeca Performing Arts Center
Borough of Manhattan Community College
199 Chambers Street
New York, New York

Four poetic innovators explore representations of race, sexual identity and class in the revolutionary literature of the Harlem Renaissance poets — including Sterling Brown, Langston Hughes, Anne Spencer and Richard Bruce Nugent — and later generations of writers inspired by their work.

asian american/african american poetry reading on thurs

co-spo'd by cave canem and the asian american writer's workshop. details after the jump. are you as excited as i am?

Thursday, March 6, 7:30 pm
Third Annual Asian American/African American Poetry Reading
Curated by Tracy K. Smith and Tina Chang
Cosponsored by Cave Canem

The Asian American and African American communities gather for a night of brilliant poetry. Readings by Meena Alexander, Jeffery Renard Allen, Regie Cabico, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, R. Erica Doyle and Bakar Wilson.

Meena Alexander's poetry includes Illiterate Heart, winner of a 2002 PEN Open Book Award, Raw Silk (2004), and Quickly Changing River (2008) all published by TriQuarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press. She is the editor of Indian Love Poems (Everyman's Library/ Knopf, 2005) and author of the memoir Fault Lines (Feminist Press 1993/ 2003) She is Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Jeffery Renard Allen is the author of two collections of poetry, Stellar Places (Moyer Bell 2007) and Harbors and Spirits (Moyer Bell 1999), and a novel, Rails Under My Back (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000), which won The Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction. Born in Chicago, he holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently an Associate Professor of English at The City University of New York and teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School. He is the Founding Director of the Pan African Literary Forum. Allen's book of short stories, Bread and the Land, will be published in 2008. He is presently at work on Talking Talk, a book of interviews and conversations with fiction writers of African descent from around the world, and the novel Song of the Shank, based on the life of Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth century African American piano virtuoso and composer who performed under the stage name Blind Tom.

Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam & has appeared on two seasons of HBO's Def Poetry Jam. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He is the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, The Barnes & Nobles Writers for Writers Award, A Larry Neal Prize for Poetry and a 2008 DC Commission for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. He is the artistic director of Sol & Soul, an arts and activist organization & co-sponsor of Split This Rock's Poetry Festival: a celebration of Poetry of Provocation & Witness in Washington, DC March 20-23 2008.

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs was born in Won Ju Si, South Korea. Her debut collection of poetry, Paper Pavilion (White Pine Prees 2007), is the winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in 5 AM, Crazyhorse, Cimarron Review, MiPOesias, Poetry NZ, among others and have been anthologized in Echoes Upon Echoes (The Asian American Writers' Workshop, 2003) and Language For A New Century (W. W. Norton 2008). She is a fellow at the University of Southern California and founding director of the USC SummerTIME Writing Program. Currently, she lives in New York City.

R. Erica Doyle was born in Brooklyn, NY to Trinidadian parents. Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Ploughshares, Ms. Magazine, Black Issues Book Review, Blithe House Quarterly, Utne Reader, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire and Sinister Wisdom and has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2001, Voices Rising, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Gumbo: Short Fiction by Black Writers, Gathering Ground, Best Black Women's Erotica 2, and Role Call is forthcoming in Bloom, Our Antilles: Queer Writing from the Caribbean and Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets. She is the recipient of various grants and awards, including a Fellowship in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund Award in Poetry and a Hurston/Wright Award in Fiction. She received her MFA in Poetry from The New School and works as a teacher and literacy coach at Vanguard High. Her manuscript, proxy, was selected by Claudia Rankine as a finalist for the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Bakar Wilson's work has appeared in the Vanderbilt Review, the Lumberyard, and three Cave Canem anthologies. He is a native of Tennessee and currently teaches at Medgar Evers College.

@ The Workshop
16 West 32nd Street, 10th Floor
(btwn Broadway & 5th Avenue)

$5 suggested donation

not sure what to write

as i have the equivalent of three different posts in my head right now, all competing for space. i'm also busy at work right now trying to figure some things out, so i think i'm just going to share some random thoughts after the jump.

one.
there's a pushcart across the street from my job. your usual halal affair, with chicken and onions sputtering on the grill. i stopped for a moment today on my walk by because it seemed the cart was unmanned. then i saw the owner of the cart praying. his own moment of devotion, on the corner of 31st street and 8th avenue. it was beautiful.

two.
i've been reading a lot about rebecca walker's post on huffpo re: feminism(s) lately, and i am attending a women's history conference on black feminism at sarah lawrence this weekend, and both of those things have me thinking about redefining my politics. i feel that as i have distanced myself from the academy i have lost sight of my goalposts, you know? those things that are absolutely necessary for my sanity, those things i'm supposed to be working towards. i hope this weekend will be a moment that will allow me to recenter and refocus on those posts, waaaay at the other end of the field.

three.
i talked and laughed so much this weekend that my throat is an eensy-weensy bit hoarse. that's not a bad thing.

until next time, or until my life slows down a bit...

the academy fails us again

and denies an incredible scholar and activist, who happens to be a woman of color, tenure. the women's studies @ univ. of michigan is the offending party here. if you know of prof. andrea smith's work and are interested in supporting her with your words, find information after the link.

why is education in this country so treacherous?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2008
Statement of University of Michigan Students and Faculty in Support of Andrea Smith’s Tenure Case
CONTACT: TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

On February 22nd, 2008, University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) issued a negative tenure recommendation for Assistant Professor Andrea Lee Smith. Jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies, Dr. Smith’s body of scholarship exemplifies scholarly excellence with widely circulated articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous books in both university and independent presses including Native Americans and the Christian Right published this year by Duke University Press. Dr. Smith is one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith has an outstanding academic and community record of service that is internationally and nationally recognized. She is a dedicated professor and mentor and she is an integral member of the University of Michigan (UM) intellectual community. Her reputation and pedagogical practices draw undergraduate and graduate students from all over campus and the nation.

Dr. Smith received the news about her tenure case while participating in the United States’ hearings before the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ironically, during those very same hearings, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that restricted affirmative action policies at UM specifically were cited as violations of international law. At the same time, there is an undeniable link between the Department of Women’s Studies and LSA’s current tenure recommendations and the long history of institutional restrictions against faculty of color. In 2008, students of color are coming together to protest the way UM’s administration has fostered an environment wherein faculty of color are few and far between, Ethnic Studies course offerings have little financial and institutional support, and student services for students of color are decreasing each year.

To Support Professor Andrea Smith: The Provost must hear our responses! Write letters in support of Andrea Smith’s tenure case. Address email letters to ALL of the following:

* Teresa Sullivan, Provost and Executive VP for Academic Affairs, LSA, tsull@umich.edu
* Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, LSA, lmonts@umich.edu
* Mary Sue Coleman, President, PresOff@umich.edu
* TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

Voice your ideas on the web forum at http://www.woclockdown.org/

To Support Women of Color at Michigan and the Crisis of Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies:

Attend the student organized March 15th Conference at UM!!!!

Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex is free and open to the public.

Speakers include renowned activists and scholars Piya Chatterjee, Angela Davis, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Ruthie Gilmore, Fred Moten, Clarissa Rojas, and Haunani-Kay Trask. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.woclockdown.org/.

TALKING POINTS YOU CAN USE IN YOUR SUPPORT LETTER:
• Smith is author of the following books:
o Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
o Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely
Alliances
o Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites
• Smith is editor and/or co-editor of the following anthologies:
o Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
o The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex
o Native Feminisms Without Apology
o Forthcoming on theorizing Indigenous Studies
• She has published 15 peer reviewed articles in widely circulated academic journals
including American Quarterly, Feminist Studies, National Women’s Studies
Association Journal, Hypatia, Meridians, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion
• Smith is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards from organizations such as the Lannan Foundation, University of Illinois, Gustavus Myers Foundation, Ford
Foundation
• Smith was cited in the U.S. Non-Governmental Organization Consolidated Shadow
Report to the United Nations
• A co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the Chicago chapter
of Women of All Red Nations, she has been a key thinker behind large-scale national
and international efforts to develop remedies for ending violence against women
beyond the criminal justice system. As a result of her work, scholars, social service
providers, and community-based organizations throughout the United States have
shifted from state-focused efforts to more systemic approaches for addressing
violence against women. In recognition of her contributions, Smith was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
• As of June 2007, Professor Smith’s book, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American
Indian Genocide (2005) had sold over 8,000 copies. Three-fourths of these sales
have gone to college and university courses. In addition, the leading Native studies
organization, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association organized a
special panel about this book at their last annual conference (2007). The international impact of Conquest is evidenced by its reprinting in Sami (Sweden) and in Maori Institutions in New Zealand; by Professor Smith’s invitation to participate in an academic workshop in Germany based on the book; and by the book’s frequent use in Native Studies classrooms in Canada.
• She has also played a key role in contributing social-justice based research, teaching, and community building at the University of Michigan.
• Under Andrea Smith’s mentorship, a large number of undergraduate and graduate
students have grown as intellectual members of the UM’s campus community.

FACTS FOR DR. ANDREA SMITH’S TENURE CASE
• Her intellectual work contributes to the fields of Native American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and American Studies.
• Smith is jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies at Michigan.
• The Program in American Culture gave a positive recommendation for Smith’s tenure, while the Department of Women’s Studies gave a negative recommendation. After the tenure recommendations were released from the two departments, the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts reviewed the tenure file and also gave a negative tenure recommendation.
• She is currently the Director of Native American Studies at Michigan.

letter and info courtesy of la chola.

"diversity training"- what's the point?

so part of my job involves training educators in the use of the curricula created by my org. i travel all over the five boroughs, visiting different afterschool programs that use our stuff. the trainings usually involve some combination of icebreakers, "identity" activities, a pedagogical mini-lesson, and an overview of the structure of the actual curriculum. we call our work "diversity" education, and because we deal with issues of identity, participants generally react to our work as "diversity training."

most of the time, these trainings are not hard. the icebreaker does in fact break the ice; participants have "moments of understanding" around the identity activities, thinking about ways in which they are privileged or not; everyone gets the pedagogy and the structure of the curriculum.

and then there are the other times, when things don't go so well.

how do i judge whether something is a success? to be honest? i only think a training is a success if i have what i feel is evidence of the participants having confronted their privilege.

"okay, so what?" you say. you're shrugging your shoulders right now, i know.

but the "so what" is that i think there's something to be unpacked there. like, why is it that i think forcing people to confront privilege is so necessary in the role that i play? and is that my job? is that my place, to go around asking people to recognize the privilege in their race or class or gender expression? is my need for the validation of their exploration about me or them?

i'm working on a lesson on race for a project right now, and it got me thinking. when we talk about identity, and try to shed a light on the structural nature of social identity, what is our goal? i know that consciousness is the first step towards acting for social change, but somehow i don't think that my job, as described by my boss, is to bring about social change in the lives of afterschool educators. i don't know that the two hours i spend with said educators is really even a viable place or time to undertake such a task. i don't know if i'm even really sufficiently trained to do that.

a few days ago i trained in brooklyn. the student population of the afterschool program is predominantly asian and eastern european. i, the black woman with a big afro, stood in front of a room of 6 white people (one a fairly recent immigrant from italy), and listened while they danced around the identity activity i placed in front of them. when i asked for reactions to the exercise, three of the six people stated that they were annoyed by the exercise, because "none of these things {race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, ability, first language, biological sex, the list goes on...} really matter. i'm just a person. if anything, i see myself as american."

two of the other people stated that it was interesting, because the only thing on there that they ever thought about was age. one, the italian immigrant, said first language was important to her, because she only recently became comfortable with english and is "really glad it is now her first language." this came after a few of her peers spoke about the fact that they never think about first language, because english is so easy! it just rolls off the tongue!

so i tried to unpack, to push. i really did. but no one wanted to go anywhere. anytime i started to talk about privilege, eyes started to wander and doodling commenced. it was really frustrating.

and that, i guess, is why i wonder if it's my place to struggle against all of this at all. if i want to keep my job, at least. because at the end of the day, if the evaluations aren't great, i hear about it. if people feel bullied, or bad about themselves, at the end of the time they spend with me, i haven't "done my job."

it makes me wonder about the role of diversity training, and the end goal. sometimes it seems that making people feel better about themselves while giving them a chance to feel better about the "strange" people around them, is the only real goal.

argh. this is so not my thing.

what will NCLB mean in 2008?

i dunno, and after a long debate last night, i'm not sure i'm ready to start to even think about it. my pal r. l'heureux lewis, though, ruminates upon the subject over at the root. check it out: "Please Leave it Behind."

a few thoughts on cuba (kinda)

i grew up in miami, florida in a section of town called carol city. carol city was mostly black. some caribbean, but lots of african-americans too. carol city sat right next to opa-locka and hialeah. opa-locka was mostly black as well, while hialeah was known to be largely latino (i didn't know the term latino at the time, and the assumption, at least in my family, was that most, if not all, latinos were cuban, so we said hialeah was cuban. i have no idea if that is actually true.)

i went to school in two major areas, neither of which was my own neighborhood. i went to school first in aventura, a section of north miami beach about 20 minutes from my house. the school i attended had a gifted program. in order to get permission to attend the school, i took an i.q. test at the age of four and then had to go in for a one-on-one interview. i had to prove my worth to a very kind woman named ms. hagan, who told me i was very bright and helpful, and buzzed around like a little bee. that interview sealed my fate. if i had not impressed ms. hagan, i don't think i would be where i am today.

i then went on to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school in 6th grade. throughout my middle school and high school years, i was surrounded by the cuban privileged, people who chanted "castro no, cuba si!" in p.e. i heard stories of houses seized and midnight flights to new york city from havana, tales of jewels left behind.

it wasn't until i was in college that i realized that cubans could be black, too. this was not from a lack of understanding of the caribbean, mind you. but there was something about the way that cuban rafters were always allowed to stay, and haitian rafters were always sent back, that suggested to me that cubans were always lighter and "righter" than people like me. my family was lucky-- our relatives lived in the bahamas, and coming to america always seemed easy enough, as long as they went back to nassau eventually and only spent their time here scrubbing floors/laying concrete/curling hair. my cousins would come through for year or two, sleep in an extra room, on the couch, convert the garage, while they made some money, and then they would head back, never to really be seen again.

i went to college in california. it was there that i learned that all latinos are not cuban or brasilian or ecuadorian or puerto rican or colombian. not all latinos ate black beans and white rice and danced samba and merengue and hicieron lechones in the backyard. it was in california that i ate my first tortilla and had homemade salsa for the first time. these were not things "we" did. it was in california that i got the crazy (according to my family and friends back home) idea to study abroad in cuba. i decided to see if things were really as bad as everyone said they were.

what i learned in cuba changed my way of seeing. i don't agree with everything fidel castro has done, or, even, the length of his rule. there is also something to be said about the people that remain in a country that has been neglected by the rest of the world for so long as a result of our american bullying. there was structural inequity in the capitalist cuban state that, as a matter of course, transferred into the revolutionary state in certain ways. there was no mistake about who was left behind to suffer at the hands of a capitalist, cold-war usa. i will only say that more current cuban nationals look like me than did any of the kids i knew back in miami.

i wrote my grandma a postcard from havana. it pictured three cuban girls in school uniforms. i told my grandma that i couldn't believe what i saw.

"cuba could be our country, grandma," i said. "i see you and me all around."

cuba could my country. and for that reason more than any other, i hope this transfer of power is simple and sound. i hope my friend yordis is released from prison, and that the embargo is lifted. i hope that the capitalist world will not take advantage of a country of young people that are so naive in so many ways. i hope those people who could be my people survive.

si se puede?

the practice

what does it mean to do "good work"? when is our work just what it is? when can we be satisfied with our practice as educators?

these are questions that i ask myself constantly, trying my best to chart the right path. i'm smack dab in the middle of my twenties and i am still unsure of direction. sometimes i think things are taking shape, but then i lose focus and things blur. it's hard.

i have a funky idea knocking about in my head. i'm just wrapping the hip-hop curriculum now, and i'm thinking that i'd like to start my own project next. maybe something to do with bringing black (or third world/us?) feminist literature/work/artistry to the K-12 classroom? ways to bring all the great literature and ideas to which we are so often not exposed until college into middle school and high school? not sure what it would look like, but i'm kind of obsessed with the idea. maybe a collection of reflections of teachers (male and female, of-color and not) who have tried to push students to confront white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the classroom using the work of women of color, a la rethinking schools?

dunno, dunno, dunno. but if you read this and think you might be interested, holler back.

a quote from michelle obama (god, she's smart):

“I realized that gnawing sense of self doubt that lies within all of us is within our own heads. The truth is we are more ready and more prepared than we even know. My own life is proof of that.”

unlikely suspects

i'm sifting through old files tonight, feeling a little crazed and a lot stressed, and i found this poem i wrote almost three years ago (!) about my boys. i think this file found me because it knew i needed some sustenance. i don't know if i'd write the same way today as i did back then in '05, but i believe in honoring the past so i'll share it with you (again, if you're an old-school reader from back in the lj days):

unlikely suspects

no one thought they would want to be cheerleaders.

they surprised us all

smiling their beautiful smiles,
backflipping as easy as they walk,
giggling as they are caught unawares actually enjoying themselves,
they treat the girls, their friends and sisters and cousins, with a respect that is catching:
they are my little and not-so-little gentlemen.

laughing and playing,
silly they are

at once like (in the comradery) and unlike (in the self-hatred) the
gun-toting
curse-throwing
hypnotiq-drinking
destroyers
that they will be
in so many a mind’s eye
sooner than i would like to think

simply,
happy.

little black boys see the world as their oyster.
they see the world as
jamaica
and the bronx
and DR,
as kingston and santo domingo,
as EBAFF and room 213.
as they grow, so will the world, and it will change them.
if only they knew to be careful
if only they knew to stay happy

i don’t ever want to forget you,
little black boys.

i don’t ever want to forget you,
just like this.

i need a man, part 1

so do you remember this blast from the past? p. diddy and usher sharing a laundry list of the things their "girl"s needed to be in order to make them happy? well i think it's time we ladies made a laundry list of our own.
i had two somewhat disturbing conversations this weekend with female friends who have decided that much of the abhorrent behavior displayed by men is "to be expected." you know, things like lying and cheating, using women for their bodies, being arrogant and selfish, needing the women in their lives to pretend to be weak in order to highlight their "manliness." i have trouble with that notion. i don't know why i would be interested in settling for a partner (for life or for a week) who isn't interested in doing the sort of self-maintenance (mentally and emotionally) that i do. i don't expect anything from a man that i don't also expect from myself. so this morning, i've decided to make my "i need a man" list.
(funnily enough, my dad told me to make a list like this a long time ago and i thought the idea was crazy. silly me. dave is no fool.)

be this, or be gone list

1. honest. and by honest i don't mean just when it suits you. i mean respect and love me enough to tell me the truth, even when the truth is not about you being disappointed in me, but rather you being disappointed in yourself.
2. able to admit that you're wrong. this is actually a challenge for me. it's something i work on, and something that most of my friends struggle with as well (ahem, friend-of-mine out there! mark-paul gosselaar??). it's natural to want to be right, but sometimes in a relationship your partner needs to hear that you know what you did was wrong and that you'll work on it.
3. well-groomed. and by that i don't mean that you have to get man manicures. but please wear a decent pair of jeans, a matching shirt, and have a pair of cute shoes. i like a man that looks and smells good. just don't bring the pretty-boy arrogance with you.
4. in possession of a nice smile. there are things i can deal with-- awkward movement, lack of rhythm, slightly effeminate affectations...it's all love. one thing, though, that i'm not down with is a man who doesn't know who their dentist is. figure it out. and halitosis is not a terminal sickness. you can cure that shit.
5. not broke. no need to be uncle scrooge and swimming through cash in your personal safe (did anyone else ever think that looked painful?) , but have enough to be comfortable picking up the bill every once in awhile. i don't require especially expensive restaurants with a dude, and i'm happy to cook at home (with you, not just for you), but when we have a nice night out, don't get stuck trying to tabulate your bank balance in your head, asking if i have any cash for the tip.
6. knowledgeable about the hanging of mirrors. i have a mirror that i've needed hung for about 4 months now. glass makes me nervous, so i haven't wanted to chance it with just my google-knowledge. and, unlike my life in cali, there's no home depot around the corner with do-it-herself classes. i need you, man.

there's more, i'm sure, but i need to get dressed for work. so, like p. diddy, i'll be back with number two and a little ginuwine. :)

i think i'm going to have to do this better justice tomorrow

but tonight i'm going to share with you some of these unformed thoughts that i've scribbled in the margins of this week's new york magazine article on hillary and barack. i saw chimamanda adichie again tonight, and spoke to her (somewhat gushing- and embarrassingly), and i thought i'd be able to focus on something else on the way home but i just couldn't. tomorrow i swear i am going to make this better (and actually coherent), but for now, a few key points...

an open letter to cnadichie:

dear chimamanda,

• the way you graciously ignored my insanity tonight was truly touching. i know i kinda-sorta had tears in my eyes when i tapped you on the shoulder and babbled incomprehensible nonsense about your writing, and that those tear-filled eyes widened perceptibly when you asked my name and complimented my hair, and that all of those things combined must have struck fear into your heart. but this gift you have, this gift of words, is amazing to me. i envy it. and i'm so glad that it is yours, because i think you use it with a wisdom that eludes many in this world to whom is given much power.
• "my american jon," like half of a yellow sun and purple hibiscus before it, scares me because your sentences are my thoughts, my feelings, my heart on paper, expressed more eloquently that i ever could. between you and zadie smith i feel like my deepest feelings, the good, the bad and the ugly, have finally been expressed and restored to me and all of the beautiful women out there like me the power that has been stripped from us by the myriad negative forces out there in our world. you speak back! and your speech is all that i need it to be, and more.
• finally i have to say that i will be back tomorrow to try and make this sound less crazy and more casually admiring. you know, just in case you happen to google yourself tonight and find this. because i know if i were you i'd be googling myself constantly.
  

book learnin'

had my kick-off session of an Inquiry to Action Group (ItAG) with the New York Collective of Radical Educators tonight. i am SO READY to get my brain in gear and engage with other like-minded kid-lovers. so ready to learn and stretch my mind, to stretch my expectations, and to stretch my understandings of myself. ready to make new friends and new connections.

for monday:
freire's letter to north american educators,
chris vine's interview with augusto boals,
and donaldo macedo's intro to "pedagogy of the oppressed"

it doesn't get much better than this.