The multiplicity of me © rejj original

The multiplicity of me
I am more
than the sum of my identities,
more than my gender,
class, or ethnicity
more than my height,
age, weight, my nationality.
I am more
than my political affiliations,
more than my religion,
my salary, the title of my occupation,
more than the degrees or even experiences that constitute my education,
I am more
than my sexual orientation,
more than fits into the boundaries of your expectations.
I am more
than can be detailed by the check boxes on your census
What I am is divinity and humanity come to consensus
an agreement of time and space
and flesh and blood
of history, present, and future
from below and above
I am both a product of the journey
and the journey's end
I am what many have lost their lives to win
I am the freedom so long denied
the shooting star, a phoenix setting fire to night sky,
I am with you and yet so far removed
And amidst all my contradictions
everything I am is true
I am more than the cross sections of identity
more than a bi-product of this culture, this society,
And I would attempt to explain my multiplicity,
but all you really need to know
is that I'm me.

Belt in hand: A bittersweet journey

On Monday evening, I received my black belt in taekwondo in a small private ceremony. It was the culmination of nearly 3 years of hard work and skill building. Ms. P removed my red belt and as I held it in my left hand and she tied on the black belt with my name embroidered on it, she spoke to me of the significance of the moment. In many ways it was just like getting any other belt, except for instead of doing it in public out on the dojang's main floor, she took us upstairs to the office, because now we had entered a special community, a community of black belts. She explained that even if we moved away and continued to study taekwondo elsewhere that we would always be connected to JHK because this would always be our first house, our point of entry into the world of martial arts.

This made me really think about what this experience has meant to me. I started taekwondo on a whim. I just walked into the dojang one day out of curiosity, and that's when I met Ms. P. She is a high pressure sales person, so by the time I was walking out, I had already made a commitment to try it. The first private lessons were awkward. I didn't know how to block and I had to unlearn the punches I'd used for boxing. My stances were weak and everything was so new. Slowly I began to figure it out. My kicks became more powerful. My blocks and punches seemed more natural. And then I was getting my first color belts and learning about forms and starting to spar.

There were times when I was sick of it. There were times when I was tired and lethargic and only wanted to go home, but still I had made this commitment and I wanted to see it through. And there were other times when I couldn't wait to train because I had figured out how to do take downs or I had landed a turning side kick during sparring and I wanted to see if I could do it consistently. And then there were times when I got upset, like the time I sparred a person several belts higher than me and he kicked me so hard he literally knocked the wind out of me. Or the time a black belt punched me in the face during light sparring (which should be no contact to the head). But good or bad, I stuck with it.

Then there was the waiting. I moved pretty quickly through my first belts, so it was frustrating when I got higher up and needed to spend more time working on my techniques before testing. And then almost a year ago Ms. P told me I would soon be ready to test for my black belt. I was so excited. I started working even harder, but there was only one other person ready to test, and tests take place in groups, so we had to wait and wait and wait until other people were ready.

So I waited. And after several months, there were finally 5 other people ready to test. We were supposed to form our community, but it didn't really feel that way to me,I guess partly because many of the people I began taekwondo with had either quit, already tested for their black belts or wouldn't be ready to test until the next round. Some people had work out buddies, but mostly I felt like I was on my own.

The test was scheduled right after my 30th birthday, which I spent in Ghana, so I had to practice my forms while I was there. And I spent that last 2 weeks before my test training on my own. The day of the test arrived and I was jet lagged and felt like shit. But I was there and I did the best I could. The test was video taped and sent to Grand Master K in Korea. Then came the real waiting period. No one ever really talks about the waiting. Ms. P had mentioned that there was an extent of time between the test and receiving a belt during which time we would receive feedback and have the opportunity to polish our skills. And this is what I did. I came in at least 4 times a week sometimes more and worked on my wheel kick, full range sparring, and my turning side kick. But not everyone in my group came in and as a result two months came and went and still we had heard nothing about our belts.

I knew I wasn't supposed to ask, but it seemed like such a long time. I finally did ask and my suspicions were confirmed, the belts were waiting on us because not all of us were ready. We had tested as a group and we would pass as a group when we were all ready. Living in Japan for two years has given me some perspective on what it means to be a part of a group, but being an American has given me a lifetime of pre-conditioning to be an individual and to expect that my accomplishments will be based on my individual actions and performance.

There are several tenants are important at my school. Improvement of Mind and Body, Ethical Self Conduct, and Commitment to Community. When you first walk in you will notice there are words hung next to the Korean flag...they say Courtesy, Community, Perseverance, Indomitable Spirit, and Ethical Self Conduct. During the final steps of my journey, I lost sight of community and ethical self conduct. When Ms. P asked me to talk to some of my fellow group members to encourage them to put the work in,. I did, but I didn't say what she expected me to. I didn't tell them I missed working out with them, or that they should maybe come in, I told them they were holding up my belt process and that it wasn't fair to me. Which is true...though, admittedly not the nicest way I could have approached it. As you can imagine, this message was poorly received. And I got called in for another difficult conversation with Ms. P about community and being a part of group. In the end, I chose to apologize, not for what I said (because it was true), but for how I said it, and I returned to my waiting period with a renewed vow to improve my wheel kick and to practice patience.

Not all of my group mates chose to come in, but I realized that I didn't have any control over their actions, only my own and the best thing I could do was to work on the feedback grandmaster K had given me. So I did and I was at the dojang almost everyday. Then last Friday, I was invited to a halloween party with the girl I mentor. I would still be able to get to the dojang in time for full range sparring, but I would miss my forms class (Friday nights I like to do 2 hours). I didn't think anything of it until I got a call from my friend asking me where I was. She seemed upset when I answered and I didn't understand why. That's when she explained that this was the night I was supposed to be awarded my black belt. No one had told me.

Apparently an email had been sent out, but I never got it and even though I was there everyday, no one mentioned it to me. I arrived an hour later for sparring, just like I had planned, and saw three of the people in my group wearing their black belts. I congratulated them of course, because I was happy for them, but I was beyond pissed to have been excluded from my own ceremony. Ironic huh? That my belt would have been delayed for months because of community, and yet "the community" couldn't wait the hour it would have taken me to get to the dojang, in order for us to receive our belts at the same time. I was so disappointed. Ms. P apologized, but it wasn't a real apology. She said it wouldn't have been fair to make the others wait, when they had taken off work or arranged for their families to be there. But from my perspective it wasn't fair to make me wait for months to test and then months more after the test and then not give me the opportunity to be present at my own ceremony. Everything felt tainted.

Then I realized that one of my group members was still wearing a red belt, even though she had clearly been there in time to take part in the ceremony. It turns out, she did not pass her test. It was the first time at our school that someone had tested for black belt and not gotten it...you aren't asked to test unless they think you are ready and I realized that this was what the extra waiting was all about. Ms. P was trying to give her the opportunity to make the improvements necessary to receive her belt with the rest of us... then I felt so selfish. It's not any easy thing to test for a belt. It's nerve wracking, but harder still is the idea of not receiving it. It hadn't even occurred to me that anything like this would happen. If I had known, I would have been willing to wait longer, to spare her some embarrassment, but I didn't know. And it made me think about communication and empathy and all the things it takes to really create a community. It's not just enough to be in the same space with one another, you have to get to know one another. This isn't always something that occurs organically, but community is teachable. I spent a week this summer at a responsive classroom conference designed to teach teachers how to create communities out of their classrooms. And what I've realized is that some things are easier to explain than to live.

All weekend I really had to think hard about my next steps. Would I stay with my dojang even though I had felt supremely disrespected? How would it feel to get my belt when I still wanted to punch Ms. P in the face? Would it even be worth it to even go? I thought about not going to the ceremony intentionally this time, but then I realized, it's not about Ms. P or the dojang community. I worked for that belt. I put in a lot of time and money into it because I love it. I love training and fighting and feeling like as a black woman in an often hostile world, I have an arsenal of skills with which to defend myself. And despite my negative feelings towards Ms. P and her inability to take responsibility for her actions, I still recognize her as a good teacher, not just of taekwondo, but of many others things I've needed to learn in my life. I'm not ready to give up my school yet. And when I got my belt and we were escorted out into the dojang, there was an entire community of people waiting to congratulate and welcome me. It wasn't how I thought it would be, but it was still really amazing.

From the beginning I had thought that the belt would be the ending of something, a goal met, a graduation of sorts, but what I have learned it that this specific belt is a beginning. While we are taught to think of the black belt as a sign of mastery, the true symbolism of this belt is that I have mastered the basics. It is just like the white belt of black belts and now I set my sights on second dan...the yellow belt of black belts. I'm not sure whether or not I will achieve second dan at my current school, but I have decided to do want to continue, that I will pursue this goal.

Too much thinking on a rainy day...

My feet are wet and cold and there are only sad songs on the radio, endlessly whiny guitar ballads with 80s synthesizers. The Zoka's in Tangletown is filled with white people with mac notebooks and everyone is wearing jeans and flannel or fleece and wool hats and I'm second guessing my love of Seattle because for God's sake, could at least one person in here be original!? Not some green, uber trendy, nerd with a gray messenger bag and a membership to REI.

I digress. It's one of those rainy fall days, where the sky is a void of gray and white and all the streets are soggy rivulets decoupaged with dead leaves. And I know I am on the verge of some cosmic quantum leap. I have all the pieces of what I need to know to figure this thing out, but nothing is fitting together, and there is no manual for how to become a better person or how to live in your highest good. But I keep getting distracted by this everyday reality.

And when I look around, I know that every single person here has a soul, and a dream, and a purpose and that we are all at various stages of our journey, but I can't seem to feel a compassion for them. I can't seem to keep from conceptualizing them as "them", and I'm not quite sure if it's because I've grown up learning how to be in opposition, knowing that I would be "othered" and beating "them" to the punk by at least defining my own "othering". I have learned to be proud of my individuality, of the components that help me define or more accurately, describe this person I am in the here and now, but I don't know how to claim myself in unity. If millions of Buddhist or even Muslims or Christians, or anyone set of people who have ever claimed a concept of God, aren't wrong, and there is this all encompassing divinity that fills the universe....and it's true that I am a part of it, a product of it, a being made from the substance of this thing most easily titled Spirit....then why is it so hard to put aside my identity and embrace all people (even the ones I really don't like) as one, as a part of this whole.

And if I wake up one day and am suddenly able to do this monumental thing, then what? Will everything change? Will I? Will my greatest good be achieved? Will yours?

For the family of our dear departed one

History is a story we tell ourselves
after the fact
to give shape and control
to the things that just happened
and what can I tell you
about what happened
but that it was both an ending
and a beginning
a decision
an action
a choice
that broke so many hearts
and in one moment
freed a soul of its tethers
to concrete
and pain
and the push and pull
of this painted illusion
freed a soul to soar
peacefully to whatever comes next
finally and with finality
what could I tell you
about the broken hearts
left in your wake
but that they loved you
and will love you
to the best of their ability
broken or whole
and though not likely to immediately
reglue themselves
in picture perfect arrangements
these hearts will slowly
knit crooked seams
and bloom healed scars
more beautiful for having
known you,
and stronger still
for having learned
to let you fly.

A Bad Week

What do you do when everything turns sour? I'm still trying to figure out what exactly happened, but systematically, in almost every area of my life last week, things went wrong. And of course, not one to be half-assed about anything, things went wrong in a big way. Work didn't go well, my boss and I had some serious disagreements that had to be mediated. I got into a fight with my taekwondo instructor. I had a falling out with a friend. And everything was gray and rainy. I didn't want to get up in the morning and I just felt bad...like really bad, like when your feet get cold and you can't get warm and your body just gets sore and over tired.

So what happens when it all fall apart? When you can't cheer up. When all the things you want to change are completely our of your control and all you can do is try not to step on people in your attempt to stand up. Sometimes I wish I weren't an adult. As a kid I didn't like feeling like I didn't have control, but I accepted it, because that is the nature of being a kid. You don't get to choose. Adults say "because I said so" and that is all there is to it. It's frustrating and annoying, but finite, whereas adulthood is a continuous burden of knowing you are at choice and feeling terrified that you might choose wrong. And then what? It's all your fault. No one to blame. No one to come in a fix everything.

So I spent a great deal of time sulking and sleeping. Coco and I went to Portland for a weekend of Happy Hours with my Dad and then I came back and did what big girls do...I went to work and talked to my bosses. We worked out our issues and they apologized, and I feel a little better, but it is a good reminder for me that I am meant for other things. I went to taekwondo and worked out hard and resolved my issues with my instructor. I told my friend the truth of what I had been feeling, but never known how to articulate, and I'm not sure where we stand, but I feel better for having been honest and done my best to do right by myself and everyone else. This week is better. Nothing is quite fixed or perfect or even over, but I realize like everything, this was an opportunity for me to practice being a better person. It's easy to be a good person when everything goes your way, when everything is light and easy. It's not so easy, when life is real and complicated. But here I am anyway, doing the best I can with what I've got as who I am.

Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Women's Studies

My mom is an academic rock star. I have known this for several years. It was one of our shared mentors...a famous historian...who once tried to explain something to me about my mom's scholarship. She said "your mom doesn't publish tons of work, but that's because when she does publish, the kinds of work she produces pushes and redefines her field." And so it is fitting that when Nellie McKay (brilliant scholar, friend, mentor, and editor of the Norton Anthology on African American literature) passed away, she left behind a request that my mom, and two other amazing women continue the work that she had begun....and produce an updated version of the Black Women's Studies cannon "All the Women are White, All the Men are Black, but Some of us are Brave". The new edition is titled "Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Women's Studies" and it is available for purchase at a bookstore near you. Below is the blurb:

We are not goddesses or matriarchs or edifices of divine forgiveness; we are not fiery fingers of judgment or instruments of flagellation; we are women forced back always upon our woman's power. We have learned to use anger as we have learned to use the dead flesh of animals, and bruised, battered, and changing, we have survived and grown and . . . we are moving on.—Audre Lorde

Cheryl Clarke, Angela Davis, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker—from the pioneers of black women's studies comes Still Brave, the definitive collection of race and gender writings today. Including Alice Walker's groundbreaking elucidation of the term "womanist," discussions of women's rights as human rights, and a piece on the Obama factor, the collection speaks to the ways that feminism has evolved and how black women have confronted racism within it.

Frances Smith Foster is a professor of English and women's studies, the former director of the Emory Institute for Women's Studies, and current chair of the English Department at Emory University.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is president of the National Women's Studies Association, the founding director of the Women's Research and Resource Center, and a professor of women's studies at Spelman College.

Stanlie James is director of the African and African American Studies Program at Arizona State University, where she holds a joint appointment with the Women's and Gender Studies Program.

This is an amazing accomplishment. Congrats ladies! I know Nellie would be so proud of you and proud of this book. And the reviews are in and it's awesome, but don't just take my word for it. Here is what others are saying:

“Still Brave is a monumental book that reminds us of the centrality of Black Womanist genius and talent grounded in courage and struggle. We can never understand what it means to be modern, new world, or African without this precious volume.”

—Cornel West, university professor, Princeton University the evolution of black women’s studies

“To hold Still Brave in your hands is to hold a courageous, beautiful history of global importance. Black feminism and Black Women’s Studies are monumental achievements. Still Brave shows why.”

—Catharine R. Stimpson, university professor and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University

“ Faculty and students at all levels of higher education; community activists; policymakers; and those just plain curious to read the very best scholarship on race and gender will welcome the publication of this volume. James, Foster, and Guy-Sheftall have put together a political, creative, truly interdisciplinary anthology. They have crafted a narrative of Black Women’s Studies over the past twenty-five years that will sustain the field in the twenty-first century. They are to be congratulated.”

—Claire G. Moses, editorial director of Feminist Studies and professor of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland

“ Radiant with intellectual energy, this sequel to But Some of Us Are Brave will be as indispensable to Women’s Studies scholars of every race, age, ethnicity, and theoretical orientation as its precursor was. The writers whose classic and contemporary essays are collected here address an exhilarating range of multidisciplinary and multicultural issues, from religion to sexuality to the history of Black feminist criticism—including a closing riff on the Obama daughters and Pecola Breedlove—with verve, wit, passion, and sophistication.

—Sandra M. Gilbert, Distinguished Professor of English Emerita, University of California, Davis

“ First Lady Michelle Obama embodies both the dearest hopes and deepest fears of so many African American women. Her fierce advocacy for her children, the power of her embodied self, her broad appeal to Americans of all races and classes suggest the realization of a Black feminist dream. But the essays in Still Brave remind us of the fraught terrain on which First Lady Obama stands. They demonstrate how Black women must remain “nice girls” or risk being swiftly punished by an American public with little familiarity with or respect for the diverse, authentic realities of Black women. The authors of Still Brave allow us to glimpse this stunning diversity of Black women’s lives across differences of age, color, class, sexual orientation, and religious belief. They illuminate the social and political context, meanings, and burdens that frame Black women’s lives. They open space for politically meaningful anger, push back against rigid norms of respectability, and map the contributions of African American women’s unique and varied perspectives. In short the book is courageous, necessary, and exquisitely edited. It is a true testament to the scholar to whom it is dedicated.

—Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of Politics and African American Studies, Princeton University

U2 at Soldier Field

Three awesome things happened the year I turned 17: I graduated from high school, I got accepted to the college I'd been wanting to go to, and on that same day, I got tickets to see U2. Unfortunately, for reasons I won't go into, I never did make it to that show. In fact, I didn't end up getting to see U2 until several years later in the Tacoma Dome. It was the Elevation tour, with PJ Harvey...who I adore...and they were well worth the wait.

I love U2. I'm not a crazy stalker. I would probably never spend the night on the sidewalk to stand in the front row, but their music touches me, and moreover I'm always even more impressed by their philanthropy and how they've chosen to use their celebrity in service of social justice. So when one of best friends called me up and said she was doing it up big for her 30th birthday and had gotten me a ticket to see U2 on opening night for their first concert in the US on the 360 degrees tour, I promptly booked my ticket to Chicago.

I arrived around midnight the day before. Shoshana picked me up from the airport and we headed to our friend Chica's house. There was chocolate cake, candles and singing, lots of girl talk and laughter. It was the first time I had met Chica's husband and seen her new digs. And the whole thing had me feeling older...not in a bad way. Being back in the Midwest is always a marker of time. I can't help, but think; when's the last time I was in Chicago? Who was I then? What was I doing? Who am I now?

The weekend itself was a fun celebration. I got to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen in ages and then there was the concert. We arrived later than we had planned, but it was perfect. We breezed through light traffic, paid half the cost of a ticket to park beneath Soldier field, then walked down to the entrance where we knew the band would be coming in. It wasn't very crowded. There were other fans waiting to get a glimpse, but it wasn't a mob scene. Everyone was friendly. I sat on the grass writing silly messages on the dry erase sign we'd purchased at the Party Store. The Edge and Adam arrived, but they just drove through with a wave. Then after about 20 minutes, Bono showed up. He got out of the car, walked around and greeted everyone. Then we walked into Soldier Field...no lines, breezed through security, grabbed some dinner and found our friend who was holding a spot for us about 6 rows back from the outer walk way of the stage.

The stage itself was kind of like a space ship, round and with two bridges connecting it to a circular runway. The first 3,000 people to arrive, crowded into the ring between the stage and the outer circle...though it didn't seem like there were that many people. Suspended above the stage was this massive cylindrical screen that turned out to be lots of screens that expanded and contracted, sometimes reflecting the show, sometimes showing distorted images, and at one point displaying a message from Desmond Tutu.

And I could tell you more about seeing Snow Patrol,the opening act, or give you a play list of all the songs they played, but really what was interesting to me was being a part of something bigger. I stood in a stadium full of people and felt connected to them because of the music. And there was something important about it that I haven't quite figured out how to articulate.

When they played the song "One" which is so well known, even you don't know U2 by name, if you heard it you would probably intuitively know the words, and we all sang and it was so loud that I couldn't really hear my own voice, but rather just the collective I felt hopeful, optimistic that if we could do this one silly thing...sing a song together at Soldier field...that we might be able to do something important together.

Connecting seems to be the reoccurring theme of this fall for me. Connecting and finding purpose and meaning in everything I do...and also realizing that I can be or do whatever I want. I could wake up tomorrow and decide to start my own band and have millions of people make me into a rock star, or I can wake up and decide to be the best fourth and fifth grade Spanish teacher in the state of Washington....or whatever, the point is, I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I can wake up and choose. I am at choice and I believe that whatever I do, I will be supported. Getting to see U2 was just an added bonus to an already sweet revelation.

Another Poem...rejj ©

Written yesterday on the 43 from Capitol Hill to the U-District, post fabulous massage.

I am collection
of hand me down flaws
dry heels
toes that overlap
asymmetrical eyes and breasts
teeth and hips that are spreading with time
a too loud laugh, a too soft voice
and so much anger,
cycling through me like the seasons
tornados of longing
monsoons of wanting more
quiet snow falls of desperation
that blanket the lava of dreams deferred,
deterred,
and these too are hand me downs
stiched tight into the double helix of my DNA,
a whole world history
quilted on a seedling
scattered on the winds of the diaspora
Do you know my name?
Have you seen my face,
on a milk carton,
in the mirror,
on TV
looking back at you
from the pillow next to yours,
when you wake and when you sleep
And when you dream,
do you know my heart?
Can you piece me back together
so that it all make sense?
unknot the jumbled thread
unwind me and weave together
something beautiful,
something perfect
and simple and right
And if I can’t be perfect,
Can I at least be right
and simple
and beautiful?
If I can’t be perfect
then let each imperfection
be something worth loving
and let me love you
with my entire crooked heart
without comparisons,
without reservations,
without losing a single part of me,
just let me love you as I am
and try to love me for me.

I will have lived...REJJ ©

Written over the course of a few nights after last week's Black Girl Writers' Crew meeting....

I don’t want to be King,
don’t want to be elected president.
Don’t stress about constructing monuments,
to the legacy of my glory.
I don’t need to be Queen,
I’m not the leader of your revolution,
I’m not offering any big solutions,
to the failed economy.
I’ll be no one of consequence
someone easily missed
in your sweep of the crowd,
you might not even learn my name,
and most likely
no sonnets will sing my fame,
but I will have lived.
I will have laughed until my stomach hurt,
and skinned my knees.
I will have lived.
I will have eaten cake and icecream for breakfast,
gotten lost on seven continents,
learned new swear words from the children of foreign streets.
I will have lived.
I will have tasted the salt of oceans
and the honey of mountain sunrises.
I will have danced to set my soul on fire
and known the beauty of solitude.
I will have understood someone perfectly
and lived to be perfectly understood,
if only for a moment.
I will have lived.
I will have loved and lost,
and loved and won,
and loved and live to love again
and again
unceasingly,
belligerently,
joyously.
I will have lived
and that will be my legacy.

Written on the first day of school...

I love summer and find myself grieving its loss. Its not that I don't like fall. The air is crisp, the leaves change, and I sleep like a rock. But there is nothing like summer, the heat, the beach, the time to just chill with friends or have adventures. I've been living on a school calendar since I can remember, and even when I'm not a student, I'm a teacher, and with the death of summer is the birth of a new year. New possibilities. New chances to get everything just right.

Yesterday we had our all school potluck. My coworkers, students, and their families all gathered around on the back lawn, loading our plates from the U shaped cluster of plastic tables heavy laden with every kind of noodle, salad, and chicken in existence. There was no singing or dancing, just a lot of chatter and kids zipping around and swinging from the trees they know they aren't supposed to climb.

It's a new beginning, and yet, it doesn't feel very new at all. I feel like I've lived this dejavou on loop. There is a part of me that is comfortable and even excited to see my kids again and yet another part of me that is striving to wake up. What if this weren't my life? What if I just packed up one day and got on a boat to Bali? I could do it you know....just go. I think I'm just missing summer. It hurts to let this one go. Linear time is evil.

Patience

It's 4:30AM, I can't sleep and I'm thinking about something one of my professors at that hippie granola grad school told me once about patience. At the time I'm sure I was displaying my impatience, as he was notorious for not returning emails and or any form of communication in a timely manner.I don't remember what I was harrassing him about, just that he was, as always, kind of laughing at me. He made this snide remark about my generation always wanting to rush. And in my head, I kept thinking duh! At that time I viewed my impatience as a virtue, something that served me far better than procratinating. It was constantly pushing me on to the next thing and moving felt better than standing still. Acting make me feel like I was getting somewhere.

But now that I am standing still, I think I finally got what he was trying to say to me. He wasn't trying to put down my ability to move, but rather trying to explain that systemic change takes a lot of time and that if you move at a pace like mine and try to pull everyone along in your momentum, you're going to break. It's like hitching a horse up to a skyscraper and saying "pull". There are iron roots in place, entire structures that would need to be dissolved before you could really move a building like that.

And such is the intricate web of how things happen at my school. Today was our first all staff meeting of the new school year and it was blessedly short, though followed by our administrative team meeting which for me was an exercise in frustration. The agenda is always deceptively simple, but as we know, even innocuous topics like recess can be a minefield of two hours of crying and screaming.So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised when the topic of birthdays and food spiralled into a 45 minute discussion, after which we concluded that we would conduct the celebration of staff birthdays in the exact same way we have for the last year and that we won't have insane amounts of food at the staff meeting. You might think these things are unimportant, but I have come to realize that at my school issues like this are critical. It makes me wonder what it will be like to have my own business. What can I do to create a culture where the small stuff isn't such a big damn deal? Or is that even possible.

I think about the retreat I went on with the Black Girl Crew, where the issue of alcohol was raised. Is it okay to drink at our meetings? A simple question and yet, several meetings later this still hasn't been resolved. My instinct is to gloss over it and move on to more important stuff, but Dr. M (one of our advisors) encouraged us to step right into it and get to the meet of things. "You glide over too many things," she told us. And maybe we do, but how do you pick and choose what's worth it? Sometimes it seems insane, these long winding discussions about lice checks or who brings food for staff meetings. What are we gaining by dragging everything out? Yes, everyone gets to speak and everyone is heard, but then decisions are made and inevitably somebody is annoyed. I don't know if this is just some higher test of my ability to remain zen. Lord knows I've flunk that one several times. But maybe this year I'll try to have a little more patience for the process. Who knows, I might just learn something.

The Ghost of Ex-Boyfriend's Past

I never thought this would happen to me. Truly, I am disturbed and surprised on multiple levels, but for the last week, my biological clock has started ticking. There is this foreign little voice in my head that is saying MATE FOR LIFE, look at that baby, what are you doing, you could be making little people , whereas before it was more like have another mojito and get on a plane to Brazil, date, but don't get trapped, that guy is cute, but gotta keep it moving. Imagine my dismay.

So in the midst of this life altering randomness, I have been visited by the ghost of ex-boyfriends past. What is it about dating someone new that inspires the old to come out of the woodwork? Whenever I meet a cute boy, suddenly all my exes start popping up. It's like vampires at a coffin convention...and me without garlic and a stake.

My first visit came on facebook from a dude I'd neither seen or heard from since 2003... "Hi, I miss you. What have you been up to?" Really? Then when I returned from Ghana, as soon as I turned my phone back on I had a text message from the crazy Gemini...who doesn't exactly count as a boyfriend, but don't tell him that, he seems to think otherwise. And then the icing on the cake, was a message I received from the Big Round headed Loser. He asked his other ex girlfriend (who is actually a good friend of mine....we didn't meet until we were both exes) to wish me a Happy B-day. I repeat, my ex asked his ex to deliver a message to me...which is just so wrong in so many ways. Yes, I know he doesn't have my number or know where I live...so arguably it would be difficult for him to get in contact with me...but that was the point. Right. My last words to this dude were "I hate you. I regret ever knowing you. I am erasing your number right now and I will never talk to you again. Don't call me." Was I unclear?

Okay, so I am taking these events as a sign, a test of sorts. It is clear to me that at some point I would like to get married and have kids, and that this side of 30, that might be a sooner than later type of thing, so perhaps these exes are popping up as an experiential lesson in forgiveness, what not to do again, and letting go.

Step one forgive. The first two exes on the list...well I had almost forgotten that we even dated, so that in of itself says we're good on forgiveness, but the Big Round Headed Loser....that's another story. I did some forgiveness work around the time when we broke up. I started by burning his picture, then Mz. Blu and I broke a lot of glass bottles (which I recommend, it's very healing). And then I moved into prayer. I meditated. I blessed him. I wished him well, then I let it go....okay, I thought I let it go, but whenever he pops up I still get annoyed, which to me says maybe there is more left to do.

But how do you get rid of someone you've already gotten rid of? Me and the Big Round headed Loser don't talk. I don't see him around. We never did really run in the same circles. So I decided to go visit my local reike healer. And apparently there were still a lot of energetic chords binding us together. This is all new to me. Energy work and chords and whatnot weren't covered in the curriculum in Madison West High, nor subsequently in college or grad school. Once I learned about our connecting chords, my instinct was the sever them immediately, but my healer suggested we work first on trying to diminish them and so we did this mediation where we shrunk the chords and as they got smaller, even as I was thinking to myself...what the hell is a chord, I mean what is it made of, do I even believe in this....I found myself suddenly sobbing. All the feelings I thought I'd left behind, the sadness, the missing our friendship, the grief of what could have been came flooding back to me and I was overwhelmed.

I loved this person. I loved him and he loved me and we still couldn't make it work. And that's okay. We were friends and now I avoid him because every time I look at him I remember one more missed opportunity. I don't want him back, but I don't hate him either. I just want to move on. And now I think I might be able to...

A Poem I Wrote At Cape Coast...

RETURN

I thought I saw my mother,
my own face passed me on the street.
I turned to follow,
retracing the unpaved alley of red clay
between the houses and clothes lines,
children playing in the scrub grass
each step littered with broken things
bottles, shells, and forgotten letters
I followed her
to the river's fork
waded into the muddy water
that didn't wash me clean
of this wondering what if...
of this who I could have been
would have been,
if the butterfly had stood still.
But even the tiniest of breezes,
the soft whisper of money
from hand to hand,
are the bricks and mortar of
my irrevocable present.

Still, I thought I saw my father
so I followed him
down the narrow blade of sea,
past the boats and village
through the buying and selling
the selling and buying
chaotic chatter of the market,
to the fresh painted white walls
the backdrop of my nightmares and waking dreams.

I know this place.
I've been here before.
The fortress walls
are only seashells
housing the echos of infinite sorrow
coated in the resin of salty tears,
blood,
life fluids,
stolen.

I thought I saw my mother,
my father,
my cousin,
my brother,
my lover,
my friend...
I thought I saw my sister,
but then I remember,
I am an only child,
a lonely child
sailing on the one way arrow
of linear time
where there are some places
you can travel back to,
but you can never
really
return.

Returning

When I was 16,my mother and I spent a month in Senegal. During our trip, we visited Goree Island, home to a fortress that held tens of thousands of captives before they were shipped across the Atlantic to become slaves. I had never been to a slave castle before. I knew about them, that there were fortresses all up and down the west coast of Africa, the major ports of the slave trade, where my ancestors were imprisoned until shipped to the Caribbean and traded for rum or to the US for field work.

I remember the chill in the air. Senegal in July is sticky hot and most of the places we went didn't have any air conditioning, so you would think I would have felt relieved to be inside the cool concrete walls, but I wasn't. It was haunted. I could feel the sadness steeped in every wall of the fortress, with every breath of wind from the sea, I could hear someone crying, but there was no one there. I held the chains and shackles, I stared out at the ocean through the Door of No Return and I mentally decided not to return to another slave castle.

So there I was in lobby of the Alisa Hotel on my third day in Ghana deciding whether or not to visit Cape Coast. We had just missed Panafest (or the Pan African Festival), which is a biennial celebration where people from all parts of the African Diaspora return to Ghana to celebrate survival and to be freed through a ritual cleansing of all the psychological wounds of losing our roots. In the end, I decided to go, mostly because I didn't know when I'd have the chance to go back. The bus ride was close to 3 hours from Accra, though it didn't feel that long. I spent my time catching up on my journal when it wasn't too bumpy or just looking out the window.

Ghana is so beautiful and green with it's rich red soil. The day was overcast and the gray reminded me of Seattle in that it only served to highlight how lush and green the land was. As we passed through the city out towards the country there were rows and rows of stores selling everything from shoes to wicker furniture, all outside on the side of the road. We passed bed frames and kebab vendors and hair salons and laughed at the business names that seemed so long. Christianity is very popular so there were signs like "God, my strength and my redeemer shoe store" or "He is able Barber shop". I had chosen to embark on the journey with several other conference participants, four professors and a librarian, all of us Black and from North America (there was one Canadian and the rest of us were from the US). We chatted along the way. Some of us took naps, but I noticed that as we got closer, the energy began to shift. People were getting nervous. I remembered how much I really didn't want to do this and wondered why I had chosen to go.

We pulled up to Elmina and were instantly bombarded with high pressure sales. Buy this bracelet. Come to my shop. Here, don't you like Ghanaian kente cloth. It's handmade. We squeezed past the throngs and crossed the narrow wooden drawbridge and suddenly I felt like I was in that movie Sankofa, where the main character goes back in time. The walls are so white, eerily freshly painted. I had to use the restroom, which was down a long walkway, when I came back everyone was gone and I had this momentary panic of not wanting to be caught alone. I crossed over through the castle gates and bought a ticket, which seemed strange...like paying at the beginning and the end of a 400 year bus ride. Inside the walls, but away from the main castle was a restaurant...which really brought home the commercialism to me. Even when we're not being sold, we are still a commodity. The fortresses that were the last point of contact between our ancestors and their homes are now still places of business and somehow that makes me queasy.

We did not eat at the restaurant...all of us finding the idea abhorrent...but we paused there for a moment before going on the tour. The first thing I noticed was that our tour guide was sporting a red Coca Cola t-shirt with his name and UNESCO on it...as those are the two major sponsors of the tour. We worked from the bottom to the top passing through each room as our guide told us about the psychological warfare tactics employed on the prisoners of Elmina.

Elmina was first built by the Portuguese in 1482 as a trading post. The Dutch took over the fort in 1637 (and subsequently the gold coast in 1642), followed by the British in 1871. In the 1990s it was turned into a "World Heritage" site by UNESCO and refurbished.

Inside the Castle, where a chapel used to be, there is a small museum depicting the history of the people who have lived near the castle for years, as well as those who were caught and held captive until pushed through the "Door of No Return" and onto the ships that were the primary agents of creating the Diaspora.

Many of the people who were captured were from the interior regions and had never even seen the ocean let alone heard it's roar. They were imprisoned in dark cells with very little light or space and no bathrooms, meaning they were literally sitting in one another's refuse, listening to the sound of the ocean for days and nights. There was no bathing...except for when the governor chose a woman to rape, then she was stripped and bathed in the courtyard in front of everyone and led to his room. If she fought or refused, she was chained to a post and left outside, naked for days as punishment. As we ascended to the higher rooms of the castle...the places where slave traffickers stayed, there were windows and open space, large rooms and separate bathrooms. These people did not live like their captives. There were no bars on their windows. It's deplorable. I can't think of words strong enough to express how evil and soulless those people had to be to do that to other people. Slaves were treated worse than criminals, worse than animals.






During our time at Elmina, a few White tourists came in to tour. None of us wanted to look at them or talk to them at all. Some of the professors I was with remarked on how it seemed somehow unfair that we should even have to share space with them during such an emotional journey...but surprisingly, I was more upset by our Ghanaian guide. He took us to the Door of No Return, which we each passed through without discussing...as though this was the entire purpose of the trip. To return. Then our guide talked about re-christening the room that we were in "the room of Return". And in that moment I felt such a disconnect with him and with Ghana and with all the people around me. From the windows of the castle you could see the sea on one side and then rows and rows of boats and a thriving market place. All I could think of is that someone...some African person sold my ancestors into slavery. And I felt so hurt and so betrayed. I wasn't prepared to feel this way.

After growing up in America, I've (unfortunately) gained a certain amount of comfort with the low level animosity I feel towards White people in general (not so much on an individual level, but as a group)....this tends to spike when I experience racism...which is (also unfortunately) not all that uncommon. On my trip to Goree, I remember hating White people for what they had done, but I didn't think much about the Africans that had been left behind, other than that they too had lost so much, how their families and lives had been forever altered.

This was my first time coming to grips with the fact that my people had been sold by my people. There are arguments that slavery was so radically different and much more humane in African societies that the slave traders didn't know how brutal and soul crushing American slavery would be...but then there were those who knew, those who smelled the stench of the fortresses and saw people being brutally mistreated and still took the money, and still sold out. And here I was feeling like all these Africans just got to go on with their lives. Their families were torn apart, but they got to keep their land, their traditions, their identities. They continued on, whereas we were destroyed and recreated... phoenixes with nothing more than vague history and genetic predispositions to tell us who we were. I had never really thought about it like that before. It hurt.

Up until this point in the trip, I had felt such a unity among the diaspora. I felt more comfortable in Ghana than in Senegal...which could have been partly because we were at the VIP hotel, plus there were less language barriers and also I've had a whole decade of travel experiences since then and really learned how to travel. I remember my first impressions of Africa. I felt so excited to be in a nation of Black people, and yet I had never felt so foreign, so American in my life. I had a good trip, but I wouldn't say that I felt particularly unified or even particularly African, whereas in Ghana, I was surprised to feel at home. It was for me, as my mother had described it 20 years earlier, a place where I saw myself around every corner.

But Elmina was painful. We took a long time on the tour. There were tears and prayers. We hadn't brought any offerings, though there were wreaths and flowers from many groups who had visited during Panafest, including a plaque that was unveiled while the Obamas were visiting. We made our way to Cape Coast, the other big castle. This one had many more cannons and a much more intense museum. It was even bigger. There were more people visiting and none of us could bring ourselves to go on another group tour, so we split up and wandered on our own, thinking our own thoughts, grieving in private, save for those annoying people trying to sell us stuff. Sister, come to the gift shop. Do you need a tour guide? No. I don't want to buy anything. No I don't want to sell anything. I don't want to be bought or sold, I don't want to barter, I don't want to be here, I don't want to remember, I don't want any of this to have been true. But it is.

I didn't sleep well that night. The following day, I managed to get up and attend the conference. I went to a session of North Africa that was really cool and then I settled down to watch a film by a young African American film maker named Juanita Brown, called Traces of the Trade. If I had known what it was about, I never would have watched it, especially not when I was still raw from Cape Coast, but I'm glad I did.

The film Chronicles the journey of the DeWolf family. Katrina Browne had always known that she had come from a family that owned slaves, but no one had ever really talked about it. During her investigation into her family history, she discovers that her ancestors were not simply slave owners, but that she came from a family of the "largest slave trading dynasty in US history". After 1808 when the slave trade became illegal in the US, the DeWolfs continued by shipping slaves to Cuba. Katrina (who is White) and 9 of her White relatives embark on a journey to Rhode Island then to Cape Coast, Ghana then to Santiago, Cuba, retracing their routes and learning more about their families role in the slave trade. Juanita Brown accompanied them on their journey.

I can honestly say that I would not have had it in me to voluntarily accompany 10 ultra-privileged, ivy league educated (but in many ways very ignorant),White people on a trip to discover their roots as slave traffickers. And then to be responsible for helping them process their feelings around it?! I haven't reached that state of zen, and I commend Juanita, knowing it took her several years before Katrina could convince her to join her on the trip. Yet in watching this very powerful film, I found myself feeling really kind of excited. Here were White people really doing some work and trying to understand their place in the world. Yes, they went through that annoying guilty stage...which oh so many of my hippie, granola, grad school colleagues seemed to be stuck in....but then they really moved through to grapple with the now what question. At the time the film was made, Katrina was in seminary, studying to be an Episcopal church...which brought up an entire other discussion about the ways in which Christianity and churches were complicit in the slave trade and in general in preserving and protecting the White supremacist patriarchy.

I come from a family of Episcopalians, and while I am now a member of the Center for Spiritual Living, there is a part of me that will always see the Episcopal church as my home. This film reminded me of why. Katrina and a few of her other Episcopalian family members decided that for their part of making amends they would petition the church for reparations. They went to the Episcopal National Convention (an annual affair that many of my family members have attended) and spoke about what they had learned and why the felt the church had a duty to do what they could to make it right. Katrina also went back to Rhode Island, to the Episcopal church one of the DeWolfs had built (with slave trade money), to talk about her trip and about going to Ghana during Panafest and being a witness to many Africans of the diaspora returning to blessed and healed of their scars. Some of her family had asked if they could be blessed and the African American priest had agreed to do it, but also suggested that maybe they ask their own elders for blessings. Well, not only did the Episcopal Church pass the resolutions for reparations, but after Katrina gave her sermon, the priest at that church offered a special blessing for any who were willing to accept it...and everyone did.

I cried so hard. I cried because I felt hopeful that if these people could made amends are really do some hard work on understanding what happened and how the past has created the future, that maybe there weren't so many differences between us...or that maybe we could find some common ground. It is a strange juxtaposition to be a Black woman in White America, especially to have grown up in predominantly White middle class spaces. When DuBois wrote about double consciousness in the Souls of Black Folk, I understood immediately what he was talking about, though I would argue that there are more than two consciousnesses at work in my daily life as an African American, a woman, a feminist, a straight queer activist, and all the other ways in which I identify and am identified. And there are times, even within my most intimate friendships where I feel a sense of separation, as though the pieces of my past and present that come together to make up who I am, are still in conflict with those same parts and pieces of other people. I have felt this with my friends who happen to be White and also sometimes with my friends who are Black, but who had a different upbringing than me.

Watching this film and taking the trip to Cape Coast accomplished two major things: one is that my trip showed me an area of forgiveness that I need to do a lot of work on and two, the film gave me the gift of watching someone else's journey of making amends. I want reparations. I don't need 40 acres and mule, but an apology and acknowledgment from the government wouldn't hurt....considering that it's standard protocol. After the internment, the US government apologized and made amends with Japanese Americans. After the trail of tears and the systematic genocide of Native Americans across tribes, there was an admission of wrong doing and several tribes received land and casinos.

But more than reparations on the big scale, I would like to make amends on a personal level. At this point in my life I am not at all interested in educating White people about privilege and power. I do think it should be done...just that I don't have to be responsible for it. What I would like to do is work with other people of color, specifically people within the African diaspora to bring unity among our very separate communities. As the DeWolf family had their own conversations and helped one another to process how their history has impacted their present, I would like to have conversations with not just my family, but other Black people about our identities and where we can go from here. There is no way to go back in history, but there must be a way to return to peace and to compassion so that these types on inhumane atrocities don't take place again.

Presidential Akwaaba

So much happens everyday, it feels like I've been here for a month. Since I arrived I have been taken with all the Obama Akwaaba posters. Akwaaba means welcome. And Both Barack and Michelle were thoroughly welcome on their trip to Ghana last month, the evidence if everywhere from the US flags with Obama's face superimposed on them that wave from many taxi dashboards and the Obama dashikis and t-shirts in the market. I too feel like I've gotten the presidential welcome. This is a totally VIP trip. On our second night in Ghana, my mother and I went to dinner at the home of her friend and colleauge Abena Busia. I was still a kid when they published their book together (Theorizing Black Feminism) so I guess I never really knew the Abi was the daughter of a former president of Ghana. My mom recounts the story of her first time in Ghana. She was a student at Spelman University and here at the University of Ghana at Legon for a 6 week study abroad. She says at that time Abi's father's picture was on a lot of billboards because he was running for president. It was the first time she had ever had the realization that in other countries Black men were presidents.

Flashing forward, Abi's father was elected and subsequently deposed by a military cue. The family was sent into exile, so Abi grew up in England, Holland, Mexico, and the States. Recently the new government has been trying to make reparations. When they were forced into exile, they had to leave their home and it was turned into a military barrack. Now the home has been returned to them and restored. At first I thought we were pulling up to a hotel, it was so big and grand and beautiful. Dinner was fabulous.

The next day we went to the Kwame Nkruma memorial park where he and his Egyptian wife are buried. Nkruma was the first president of Ghana. The Ghanaian National Symphony Orchestra played while we had a laying of wreaths and the opening ceremony for the ASWAD Conference. We were joined by his daughter Samia Nkruma who is now a senator. She gave a great speech, but she was late to the ceremony, so I had time to go check out the Kwame Nkruma National Museum, which was filled with beautiful black and white photos that told the story a very interesting man. After the ceremony, during which representatives from the world wide Africa Diaspora laid down wreaths, we went to the University of Ghana at Legon for the first panel of the conference, lunch, a tour, and the plenary address which was given by the Vice President of Ghana...who I got to meet. Now I must go to the market. I have pictures of everything and more and more to say. It's been amazing.

Accra, Ghana: First Impressions

When I was in the second grade, I went to live with my Dad while my mom went to live in Ghana for her studies. I remember being so envious. She sent me postcards and coins, my first purse, and lots of stories about this country I couldn't really quite picture. I mean living in predominantly White communities doesn't lend itself to imagining a world that is all Black, on all class levels in every area. My mom has traveled all over Africa, east, west, south, and north and has come to conclusion that our ancestors were probably Ghanaian. There is no evidence of course, as we can only trace our roots back to Iowa, but she did say there was something special about it, and those childhood memories have always stuck with me. Perhaps that's why Ghana was on my top 3 countries to go to next. I wanted to finally see it for myself.

So here I am, having blown all my savings on this 30th b-day trip for myself and I can already say it is money well spent. In another few hours my mother will arrive. She is presenting at a conference on the Black Diaspora, some of which I will be attending. I have already met several of the other presenters and it sounds like it's going to very interesting. My mom will be talking about Madame President (refer to Feb blog post), the conference she held with the women of color who have become presidents of their learned societies. I've also met people who plan on discussion gender roles in the Diaspora and the psychology of race.

I just arrived this morning, after a brief layover in New York and a very long flight where my Ghanaian seatmate woke up just in time to ask me for my number. Sorry folks, I'm not Stella and I don't have a visa for you...just putting it out there. As the plane cut through the clouds and I got my first glimpse of Accra, I was reminded a little bit of Japan. It was the the green landscape and the colorful roofs. Then as we got closer, you could see how red the ground looked, just like Georgia, but flat and with palm trees. It's funny how every place leaves it's impression. The more I travel, the more similarities I see between landscapes.

I managed to get my luggage and navigate customs with ease. It helps that everyone speaks English. This is already turning out to be a much different trip that my last time in Africa...which was my trip to Senegal when I was 16 (my French is not great and my Oulof really sucks, so communication was not very fluid). I was relieved to meet up with people from the Hotel where the conference is being hosted. The drove me on a magical mystery tour to find an ATM that takes visa. NOTE: Do not bring a non-visa ATM card, every ATM here is all about visa. Would have been nice to know before hand. We found a bank that takes mastercard and then I met some other people from the conference and had lunch, worked out, and discovered the hotel pool (which has its own bar with a happy hour with live music :) )

So far everything is lovely. It's cloudy and humid, with very little sun today, but 30 degrees cooler than Portland yesterday. The land is very flat and the buildings are walled and have a Caribbean feel. There are palm trees and traffic is kind of insane. I am totally afraid to cross the street. Now I'm going to go crash a private party at the pool (saw some cuties) and then I'm going to check out a jazz club. I met this woman named Toni who is a US ex-pat who has lived here since 97 and runs a jazz club and a spoken word open mike night (which I might be rocking later this week). Yup, I could probably live here. Can't wait to see my mom and meet up with her friends.

Post-racial society my ass!

Okay, I'm not foaming at the mouth today. Meditation, rum, and some pool time totally helped that, but I am still pretty pissed. I wrote a poem about it, but before I get to that I just have to share something I witnessed today. Today is my last day in the States before my big trip to Ghana, so Dad I ran some errands (after the pool) and decided to have lunch in the park.

This park is one of several parks in downtown Portland. As we drove by you could see it was packed with a mixed crowd, lots of street kids, but also families and tourists all making the most of the sun and water. We parked and took some Sandwiches to sit on the hill over looking the fountains. As we are actually experiencing a real summer for the first time in Portland and it is close to 100 degrees outside, everyone was in various states of undress sunning and splashing in the fountains, which are a collections of pools terraced in a waterfall formation in the center of the park. It smelled like sun screen and it was just one of those chill summer moments.

Then my attention was drawn by these two White street kids. I'm guessing they're street kids because no one else would be wearing that much clothing and carrying backpacks. It's too hot for that. Plus they seemed to be a part of the collective of teenagers hanging out on that side of the hill. They started to wrestle. At first it seemed aggressive but playful, but then it looked like things were escalating. A few punches were thrown and then they were on the ground.

"Where are the cops now?" I asked my Dad. "They can arrest a Black man in his own home, for doing nothing, but no friendly neighbors are calling to break up this damn fight."

Their friends pulled them apart, but as I watched the scene unfold I began to notice a subtle drama playing out in body language. There was this White girl in their group and she was crying and these other two girls were talking to her, then this Black guy with a mohawk came on the scene. They all seemed to know each other. At no point did I see him touch her, but I heard her clearly when she told her friend "That Nigger Hit me." To which he responded "Nigger, I'll show you Nigger!" He got in her face...though once again, he didn't actually touch her, and then the two White guys who just got done fighting each other jumped on him. Then they were all three fighting while she repeated several times "That nigger hit me." And miraculously the cops materialized. Amazing what happens when you see a Black face involved in an altercation. Suddenly it's no longer something harmless, but an issue of security. One of the kids signaled that the cops were coming and everyone quickly disengaged and walked away in different directions.

Dad and I decided it was time to head home, but as we passed we watched the cops talking to the Black kid and one of the White kids who had jumped on him (the other one had walked the other way and was long gone). It didn't end as badly as it could have, but I noticed that no one was saying shit to that girl who had called the guy a Nigger. I guess if you are a White woman and you're angry and run off at the mouth, it's not a police matter. But they say we live in a post-racial society. Right?

This poem is called:
To the White Supremacist Patriarchy...you are not absolved.

I don't care if Colin Powell says it's okay,
IT'S NOT OKAY.
You are NOT the good neighbor,
NOT the good citizen,
NOT the liberal, the friend,
the good Christian
you say you are
if you still can't see me
through your fears
if you can't come to me
without pretenses,
without the lie of separation,
if you can't look into my eyes
and see the pain, the betrayal, the anger,
and accept your part in it.
If you choose to let your guilt
blind you to my truth,
if you can't look into my eyes
and see your own reflection,
then we are both lost.

Angry Black People

I have been that Angry Black Girl, that one that says the thing that makes everyone uncomfortable, the one who demands space to speak the truth of what it is like to be Black in America. It's nothing new, it's nothing rare. If you are Black and grow up in this country and don't live in a bubble, something has probably happened at some point in time to really piss you off. That something might be just a realization of how f%$#ed up our history has been, how many Black missing people were found buried in Mississippi in the summer of 1965 alone, or it might be something like racial profiling, not getting that job because you have nappy hair, or being called Nigger by that crazy person on the bus. Black people are twice as likely to get heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes. On average we live about 5 years less than White people and is there any wonder why? It is stressful living here, but what's even more crazy making is that because angry Black people are seen as scary or threatening to White people, we are often told that our anger is inappropriate. We are told that in order for them to hear us, we must speak in a calm voice. We must suppress our feelings to be palatable,because heaven forbid you say something true and some guilty feeling White person gets upset about it. Well, I'm sick of it. SICK! And to hear it coming from Colin Powell, just pisses me off even more.

Back tracking. I am in Portland visiting my Dad. We've got the TV tuned to CNN and we are watching Larry King live with special guest Colin Powell. Larry's first questions for Powell were in regards to the recent arrest of Dr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates JR.

For those of you who don't know Skip Gates, he is one of the most notable Black public intellectuals in the US. Gates was one of the co-editors of the Norton Anthology on African American Literature and among other things put together a PBS mini series on African American Lives. He is currently a professor at Harvard. Recently, he was arrested for "breaking into" his own home. This is another example of things that could possibly inspire someone to feel what bell hooks terms a "killing rage". Gates' key got stuck in his front door. He was eventually able to get in, but in the meanwhile his White neighbors called the police to report a possible burglary. The police showed up, words were exchanged and then Gates was arrested for "disorderly conduct", though I maintain that Gates was really arrested for being an angry Black man.

Gates is about 58, a little shorter than me, and walks with a cane, so clearly he is not very physically imposing. As he had managed to get into his house by the time the police arrived, and had access to his identification which clearly illustrated that he was indeed in his own damn home, I can only conclude that his only real crime was possibly running off at the mouth because he was angry. And while you theoretically can't be arrested for "reckless eyeballing" anymore, apparently you can still be charged with the crime of being an angry Black person.

In recounting these events, Powell stated that he thought the neighbors who called the police were just being good citizens and that the police were correct to respond the way they did. Then he all but said that Gates deserved what he got for not being "cooperative". What kind of bullshit is that? While I usually respect Colin Powell as being a very intelligent, well thought out person, I feel like he has just lent validity to a notion I would spend my life working to invalidate: that Black people must still be trained to "cooperate" and that we should curb our feelings to make White people comfortable.

It's 2009. When does this end? SO slavery is over, Jim Crow laws have been abolished and yet still there has to be some way for White America to get keep us in our place. A few weekends ago, I was at the Hidmo performing at Tamika's Tanzania fundraiser when I looked out the window and saw a group of young Black men. They weren't doing anything. They weren't talking too loud. They weren't committing any crime. They didn't look suspicious to me at all. They just looked like some people walking home. Suddenly there were sirens and they were surrounded by the police. A group of us went outside to take pictures and bear witness. As I watched, it was clear to me that this was not the first time this had happened to these young Black men. They knew exactly what to do. They lowered their eyes and kept their hands in front of them. The cops told them to assume the position, so the all slowly and quietly put their hands on the hood of the cop car and spread their legs so that they could be more easily frisked. Several more cop cars descended upon the area and at no point in time did I see any evidence of ANY criminal activity. I guess it was just another WWB, Walking While Black incident. The cops glanced back at us from time to time and then eventually left the boys to go on their way, but what was that all about? What if one of them had gotten angry? Would he have been arrested? I've seen angry White people before and none of them got arrested. Why the double standard?

When do we get to feel what we feel? When do we get access to these so called "equal" rights that we've been promised under the law? Let me just say this, because someone needs to say it, those people who called the cops on a man entering his own home were not being good citizens or even good neighbors. Had they been good neighbors they would know their neighbor by sight. I know mine. Also, the police officer who arrested Skip Gates, was not just doing his job. The job of the police is to protect and serve. He did not accomplish that by arresting someone who clearly had committed NO crime. I have to agree with Obama's initial reaction. The actions of the police were STUPID, but more to the point they were deplorable and should be illegal. And lastly...I don't care what Gates said, or what tone he used to say it, no one should be arrested in their own home for NO DAMN REASON. And that it happened was totally racist, wrong, and I am totally pissed about it. But moreover I'm pissed at Colin Powell for legitimizing and placating the guilty white response. It isn't okay.

Black Girl Crew

About 6 months ago, I got an email from a friend inviting me to a discussion on health and reproductive issues. She had this project that required her to host an educational forum in the community of her defining, and she chose to define her community as 20-40 year old black, professional women who live in Seattle. The discussion sounded interesting and also I was excited to meet other black women, so I went and it was fantastic. We stayed for hours and ate and talked. I met a lot of new people and I felt like I had walked right into something I had been searching for over the course of many years. I wasn't the only one to feel this way. We decided we wanted to get together again and thus the Black Girl Crew was formed and we have been meeting monthly since then.

My ex-roommate, L Boogie, is a Morehouse man. He once described going to a Historically Black College as being like a four year breath of fresh air. He explained as how being in an all black space was like taking a break from all the daily white black interactions that we have grown so accustomed to... and how refreshing it was not to have to deal with it. My mom also talks about her first trip to Africa and what it was like to be a black girl from Iowa seeing black people on billboards and knowing she was in a country where everyone was black from the street sweepers to the president and how amazing it was to, for once, not be in the minority.

Growing up in Wisconsin as a black middle class kid in a white middle class neighborhood, going to school with a bunch of people of all colors who lived to take chunks from my self esteem meant the only all black space I had that was comfortable and affirming was at home or with my extended family in Iowa. I didn't experience what it was like to have a group of loving and supportive black peers until I moved to Japan. There I met some wonderful people who also happened to be teachers and who I had a lot in common with, including a love of travel and learning. It was wonderful to come together in community, but kind of bittersweet that I had to go so far to find what I had been missing and that our time together was temporary.

Since then I have tried to recreate this kind of community. During grad school, at my stint on the Green Mountain, my friend DD and I created the Black Diaspora which ostensibly would have been a group of black people coming together to support one another during a difficult time. Unfortunately, this turned into a highly politicized venture with all kinds of unforeseen issues. First there was the question of how to define black at an International school. The international students who happened to be black had such a radically different culture and upbringing that they were often confused or disbelieving of the experiences of their US counterparts. And then there were some white students who were highly offended by being excluded from the group, which made some black students uncomfortable with taking part in it. It was complicated, rich, interesting, worth doing, but also uncomfortable and in many ways it missed the mark for me in terms of feeling like I was a part of a supportive community.

There have been other groups, formal and informal, but nothing quite like the Black Girl Crew. My girls are fierce. We are a community of young black women. Some of us are students, some are teachers, AIDS educators, insurance adjuster, social workers, business women, or film makers. We are poets, writers, singers, artists, story tellers, comedians, dancers, and activists. We are straight, gay, and bi-sexual and run the political spectrum from conservative to radical. We are all different shapes and sizes. Some of us have traveled, some haven't, some speak other languages, some don't. Some of us have children, some of us will never ever have children. Not all of us are from here, but we all live in the Seattle area and have our different versions of what that means. We come together in community. We share our lives, the good and bad, we support one another on our journeys. We don't always get along. The conversations are spirited. We talk loud, laugh long, and sometimes cry, bitch or get annoyed. But in this space I can take that breath. I see myself in the faces of these women, hear my voice in their stories, and for a few hours once a month, I am able to take that part of me that always feels "different" and put it aside, knowing that in this one place, I can be the "same". And even more importantly, I can be myself in my entirety without reservation, without being afraid that my light will shine too bright or that I'll make someone uncomfortable or that I won't be understood.

This weekend, we ventured out to Shelton for our first retreat which was themed Purpose and Passion. We stayed at the home of an elder, an amazing woman named Dr. M. When you first meet Dr. M, she seems like any other well dressed, Afrocentric, older black woman. Her home is spacious and light, covered in African art and books. It is out in the middle of the woods and overlooks the water. She doesn't believe in using over head lights so there were lamps and candles. We all introduced ourselves and talked and Dr. M really interesting, critical, and totally irreverent. I was in a car that arrived late, so we received a thorough dressing down, which at first seemed really intense. But for all her intensity (and over the course of the retreat she was biting and at times really harsh), Dr. M managed to bring to light a lot of different issues that have been affecting our groups. Though she talked about time and communication and seemingly "little things" she showed us how these so called "little things" that we were letting slide, had begun to build up into bigger issues. This made me reflect on some of the other groups I have been involved with and how, while we were productive or able to work together to accomplish things, we never developed a great deal of trust for one another because of the little things, like people's varying concepts of timeliness, or different styles of communication.

The retreat was really interesting and special. I felt like I had a wonderful opportunity to really connect with the women in the group and also that I learned a lot about what kind of work needs to be done to sustain a community. We had some intense conversations. We also laughed a lot. And after dinner we had an impromptu beat boxing free style poetry and song circle that was as beautiful and meaningful as it was hilarious and random. There are so many writers in the group that we have decided to form an offshoot group with the end of goal of either putting together some shows or possibly an anthology or both. There is something so powerful in simply being together. I'm looking forward to learning more about what it takes to really stand for another.

The Happy Hours of Summer...

After the misery of a ridiculously cold and long winter filled with working and hibernating and trying to stay warm, this summer has been well worth the wait. Not only has the weather been exceptionally gorgeous, but there is this indescribable sense of fun and adventure inherent in each day. The economy in WA sucks.Coco is just one of the most recent people I know to get laid off, but surprisingly she is not terribly upset. Not only does this provide her with the opportunity to really think about what she wants to be doing, but she is allowing herself to take a short vacation. I mean having worked continuously since she was 15, I think the girl is do a little funemployment. And so with the beginning of my fabulous vacation from school, I have had lots of people to hang out with. And we have been hitting the happy hours like nobody's business.My first vacation stop was Portland. Coco and I drove down for a visit with my Dad which mostly turned into more happy hour and hanging out at the pool.

What's great about Happy Hours with Coco, in addition to the free drinks she seems to inspire (just by being hot and a little snobby), is the randomness. On Tuesday we drank our way through West Seattle and totally ran into some crazy people. Yes, Shaheen you are making my wall of shame. In fact we have decided to start a separate blog about our Happy Hour adventures...using our favorite bar aliases Ginger and Alex (short for Alejandra De La Vega...my alter ego).http://hhwithalexandginger.blogspot.com/ On Wednesday I swore never to happy hour with Coco again, but that was short lived. After pedicures and a lovely complimentary lunch at Cedars, we hit up Wann in Belltown for free sake and sashimi. Afterwards I headed to capital hill to get a massage, then I was on my way home when I stumbled across free salsa at Babalus.

For the record Babalus is home of the WORST mojito I have ever had in my life. Followed by the worst rum and coke...and the most expensive glass of Riesling. The last time I was there-maybe a year ago- one of my friends was denied entry for not being "appropriately" dressed. This is Seattle right? The place where even at formal dinners, somebody has on fleece and REI hiking boots. I think jeans and a sweater is actually pretty decent...all things considered. This rudeness, coupled with the cramped space, and bad / expensive drinks meant was more than enough to deter me from ever wanting to go back. Plus, the fengshei is horrible, but lighting is peachy and inviting and Cambalache was playing and it was free. So I just stepped in for a moment and then ran into friends and the next thing I know I was on my way to Casa de Mojito for more drinks and salsa.

Yes, everyday is a magical mystery tour. There is taekwondo and meditation, my only constants, then bike rides, or walks to Greenlake or dancing and happy hours or hula hooping. Yesterday I went to the huge REI downtown for the first time. I felt like I was stepping into a whole other world of things that have nothing at all to do with me. There were kayaks, and stupidly expensive shoes, a whole wardrobe of backpacks, and harnesses and god knows what. It was very overwhelming, but interesting. And then somehow I ended up at the Seamonster bar listening to some very loud acid jazz and sipping on a watery mojito with my girl the Lioness (Leo for short). When it got too loud we walked down 45th to check out Selena's but I was once again sidetracked by the music coming from Babalus. Clearly this is one of those places I love to hate. As we passed by there was an 80s song on...which is the theme music to a whole generation I have come to loath and despise. I wouldn't have even considered going in, except when we looked in the window Babalus was filled with young, good looking black people that I hadn't met yet. Leo was game so we checked it out.

That's right, I accidentally stumbled upon the answer to that ever pressing mystery "where are all the black people in Seattle?"...at Babalus on Thursday night for 30 and up Grown, Black, and Sexy. I shit you not. That's the name of the night and the theme of the movement being staged by a woman named Thai and these two guys whose names I don't remember. And the 80s music...turned out to be good 80s music mixed in with some more contemporary jams. Ladies were dressed to the nines (I was so NOT prepared!), there were some very good lookin' brothas...also dressed like they couldn't possible be from Seattle. People were steppin' and singing and there was good dancing happening and joking. Everyone was friendly and the crowd was 95% black professional people IN my dating age range. What?!? I love this summer. It's the best summer ever. Headed to take a nap before the bonfire this evening.

Sappy Morning Poem

Thing called love-REJJ ©

Tumbling down the sidewalk
of broken love affairs
skinned hearts and bruised egos
Will you be my bandaid?
pick me up and set me right
sooth my wounds
with salve words
and fresh romance?
I need some new skin,
a new street,
a new friend
to walk hand and hand with
on the path to infinite.
I need a new moon,
a new song,
another chance to get it all wrong
or maybe this trip
will be the right fall
the right love
at the right
time and space
the perfect collide
of person, place,
and this thing
I keep avoiding.

Tamika's Tanzanian Expedition Fundraiser

This Saturday, July 18, at 8:00pm and the Hidmo Eritrean Restaurant, Tamika Jackson will be hosting a fundraiser to raise money for her trip to Tanzania. The Hidmo is located on 20th and Jackson. The cover will be a sliding scale between $10-25. Doors open at 7:30pm, but the show begins at 8:00pm. There will be spoken word performance by Peeches and myself, followed by a special musical performance from fabulous punk band NighTrain. After 9:30pm, tunes will be provided by DJ Alternegro....who is amazing. I will also be hosting an art table and Mz. Blu will be selling her jewelry.

Tamika has spent the last two years as a HIV/AIDS educator and tester/counselor serving a community of African American women in Seattle. She was also a Shanti Volunteer.Tamika has also been working diligently to achieve a firm academic foundation in her studies at Seattle Central Community College. Within one year of returning to college she has accepted two scholarships from SCCC and the Greater Seattle Business Association. She has also earned two awards from Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor’s society for two year colleges, accepting one regionally and another internationally.

This is a sister who is really all about helping her community and growing into her power as an educator and a student. Part of her achievement has involved taking part in a class about global health. Through this course, she received an amazing, eye and heart opening experience that taught her more about other countries' health, and health care systems (or lack there of), what part the U.S. plays in maintaining the disparities felt through out the world, and how NGO’s are working to remedy some of the inequality. Now she has an opportunity to learn more through the Global Impact Program through Seattle Central.

The Tanzania visiting team will consists of 15-20 students, faculty, nurses, physicians and community members who will be volunteering in the Maasai Community. They will be working on community building with women, HIV/AIDS prevention, providing labor for community projects and working with orphans. There may also be an opportunity for Tamika to work in a clinic doing triage. This could be amazing experience. As a member of our community, Tamika has worked very hard to help others, now it is our turn to help her out. Please come to her fundraiser party this Saturday and if you can't, but you still feel moved to support her, below is the link to her pay pal account.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6668339