Calling out people is important but if you trigger the shit out of an abuse victim or someone with an anxiety or panic disorder in the process, you’re being a bigoted shitbucket yourself.Always be ready to change your methods so you don’t act bigoted yourself.

although it might’ve started some place else. The following is what I responded to it:

the question is: where is there *any* room in the social justice swarm style calling out to respect “triggers”? When the very justification of social justice swarm style is the swarm has been triggered? also, admitting to being triggered requires you to be fairly vulnerable—something I’m not very inclined to do in front of people telling me to fuck off and accusing me of triggering just because I exist (just happened recently). I did say I’m triggered, and for whatever reason, the group backed off—but it about killed me to admit it. my natural inclination was to start swinging—and I did at first. I calmed myself down—but 2 years ago….I just have a gut feeling that “calling out” especially in the context of “within a community that are more often than not survivors,” it should just be *assumed* that that the person(s) being called out is a survivor, and may have had to deal with any number of (potentially) violent situations under the guise of being “held responsible” and should be “confronted” (or called out) in a way that is respectful of that. there is a difference between being “held responsible” and “being accountable,” I think—I was held responsible for the entirety of [abusive persons] life, including the fact that this person was abused. I didn’t have a choice in it. when this person was “triggered,” my entire life came to a halt, because I was the person responsible for managing this person’s triggers.

Being accountable I think, implies a relationship. All people within the relationship have reasons to be there, want and desire to be there, have the choice and choose to be respectful of the history within the community, the future of the community, and the needs within the community. I think it is also understood that if somebody is not being “accountable” to the community (remember, that means there is choice in it, and everybody has agreed this is what “accountable” means and everybody has agreed “this” is the way to hold people within the community accountable), people have the right to either move the person out of the community or leave them community themselves.

Now—of course, all of that brings up and exposes lots of questions and things that need to be discussed—like what is accountable and how is power negotiated and who/what is community and how do we invite people into community etc etc etc—and i think that these answers aren’t easily answered—and I really really question if it’s something that even be done on the internet at all. which is why i tend to lean more toward: i will not treat you in anyway that i would not want to be treated—which is based more on personal ethics, and of course, is abstract and can’t be translated into a “rule” or a “strategy” or “theory” that communities can use.

but yeah….I’ve been thinking a lot about this, I have no answers, and I am feeling more and more like there’s just no way to figure this shit out online.

And Mai’a commented some interesting stuff too, as did gender bitch. I don’t think anybody (including and especially me) has The Answer–but it was nice to see some conversation. At least the subject is open for discussion, something it wasn’t and hasn’t been for a really long time. Also, see here for some really good conversation as well.

ETA: I’ve been following links, and nixwilliams has some really great thoughts, as does amandaw. I’ll continue to think about all of it some more–and again, I’m so glad that people are talking about it–I think that this is the *hardest* kind of work of any movement, is uncovering how ambiguous and gray and *integrated* power is within a particular space. that is–power is NOT One Ring to Rule Them All–power is a spider web that weaves in and out and around and over things–and actually *supports* the very necessary spider (i.e. power can be good, and power as good can easily cloak how unnecessarily huge the spider web has gotten and some times the problem is how to deal with the spider web rather than how to deal with the spider…)….i’ll be interested to hear what everybody has to say in comments….

grandma, we are poets: lucille clifton rebirth broadcast #10 from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.

Take home message: ableism denies and perpetuates trauma. In this poem Lucille Clifton breaks down traditional definitions of autism and reminds us that every way we experience the world is poetic, and necessary for the end of oppression…i.e. the transformation we deserve.

For more info about the Lucille Clifton Shape Shifter Survival School of End Cycles of Child Sexual Abuse see:
blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/survival-school

water sign woman: lucille clifton rebirth broadcast #9 from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.

remember what you know.

to see all of the Rebirth Broadcasts to go blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/category/shapeshifting.

and to find out more about the upcoming activities of the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School visit
blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/survival-school

Feel free to leave an affirmation of what you know here as a comment!

love,

lex

Legacies of Radical Mothering

“We can learn to mother ourselves.” Audre Lorde, 1983

All mothers have the potential to be revolutionary. Some mothers stand on the shoreline, are born and reborn here, inside the flux of time and space, overcoming the traumatic repetition of oppression. Our very existence is disobedience to the powers that be.
At times, in moments, we as mothers choose to stand in a zone of claimed risk and fierce transformation, the frontline. In infinite ways, both practiced and yet to be imagined,  we put our bodies between the violent repetition of the norm and the future we already deserve, exactly because our children deserve it too.  We make this choice for many reasons and in different contexts, but at the core we have this in common: we refuse to obey. We refuse to give into fear. We insist on joy no matter what and by every means necessary and possible.
In this anthology we are exploring how we are informed by and participating with those mothers, especially radical women of color, who have sought for decades, if not centuries, to create relationships to each other, transformative relationships to feminism and a transnational anti-imperialist literary, cultural and everyday practice.

“We don’t want a space where kids feel that only adults can imagine ways to strengthen our communities and protect ourselves against the Architects of Despair,” Sora said, “and we don’t want adults to feel that either. We want to create a space where all of our imaginations help each other grow; but we realize that kids might get bored from sitting still the way that adults tend to do, so we set up the play room with toys and games.”  Regeneracion Childcare Collective 2007

Sometimes for radical mamas, our mothering in radical community makes visible the huge gulfs between communities, between parents and non-parents, in class and other privileges AND most importantly the wide gulf between what we say in activist communities and what we actually do. Radical mothering is the imperative to build bridges that allow us to relate across these very real barriers. For and by radical mother of color, but also inclusive of other working class, marginalized, low income, no income radical mothers.

“Parenting and being a role model to kids in your community is important because they will be the activists of tomorrow.  And they will be our gardeners and mothers and bakers. They will question our generation, they’ll write their own history, create new forms of art and media.” -Noemi Martinez 2009

We find the idea of the “bridge” useful because we believe that  the radical practice of mothering is at once a practical and visionary relationship to the future IN the PRESENT, a bridge within time that can inspire us to relate to each other intentionally across generation and space.   We also acknowledge the not-so-radical default bridge function of marginalized mother in society.  How our children in particular get walked all over in terms of public policy that criminalizes our mothering and movement spaces that claim to be creating a transformed future without being fully accountable to parents or kids.

“I came into the Third World Women’s Caucus when it was well under way.  The women there were discussing the caucus resolution to be presented to the general conference.  There were Asian women, Latin women, Native Women and Afro-American women.  The discussion when I came in was around the controversial issue of motherhood and how the wording of the resolution could best reflect the feelings of those present.  It was especially heartening to hear other women affirm that not only should lesbian mothers be supported but that all third world women lesbians share in the responsibility for the care and nurturing of the children of individual lesbians of color…Another woman reminded us of the commitment we must take to each other when she said ‘All children (of lesbians) are ours.” -Doc in Off Our Backs 1979

We see this book as a continuation of the accountability invoking movement midwifing work of the 1981 anthology This Bridge Called My Back in that it:
a. is the work of writers who see their writing as part of a mothering practice, as not career, but calling and who believe that their writing, and their every creative practice has a strategic role in transforming the possible world.
b. contextualizes contemporary radical mama practices in relationship to socialist and lesbian mothering practices experimented with and practiced in the 1970’s by writers including Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Adrienne Rich, Third World Lesbians conference, Salsa Soul Sisters, Sisterhood of Black Single Mothers
c. seeks to speak to those who participated in that earlier practice and who have been informed by it as a primary audience, and to connect those who have not have access to that work to it

We invite submissions including but not limited to the following possibilities:

*Manifestas, group poems, letters, mission statements from your crew of radical mamas or an amazing group from history
*Letters, poems, transcribed phone calls between radical mamas supporting each other

*Accounts of your experience as a radical mama

*Your experience raising children as a trans mother or parent
*Raising children in a transphobic world
*Your experiences as a single mother
*Raising genderfree babies

*Stories of resilience and oppression as welfare warriors

*Reflections on enacting radical mamacity at different ages
*Motivations for/obstacles in your practice of radical mothering
*Conversations with your kids
*Rants and rages via the eloquence of a mother-wronged
*Your experience of radical grandmothering

* Parenting children through radically queer and loving modes of support, community, belonging and resilience

* Your take on reproductive justice

* Parenting from inside prison

* Extended family (both biological and chosen)

* Life as a disabled parent

* Gender socialization and Parenting

* Raising Biracial children

* Raising First World children

*Self-interviews, interviews with other mamis

*Birthing experiences
*Ending child sexual abuse
*Mothering as survivors (survival and mothering)
*Mothering with and without models
*Mothering and domination
*Mama to-do lists
*Mama/kid collaborations…
*Radical fathering
*Overcoming shame and silence in the practice of radical mothering

*Ambivalence, paradox, emotions, vulnerability

*Experiences of state violence/CPS

*Balancing daily survival

*Everything we haven’t thought of yet! Take a deep breath and WRITE!!!!

This anthology will center the writing of mothers of color, low income mothers and marginalized mothers. If you have any further questions, feedback, suggestions feel free to contact us as well.

Please send submissions via email to:
alexispauline@gmail.com
maiamedicine@gmail.com
and china410@hotmail.com
or via snail mail to
P.O. Box 4803 Baltimore Maryland 21211
by April 1, 2011.

Word Count: 6,000 words or under

Please also send your bio (a short paragraph or whatever size you like) with the understanding you can update it if your piece is accepted in Jun

School’s In (Beware) from Alexis Gumbs

Happy to be here.

love,

lex

VIDEO: The following is a video that shows unemployment by US geography–specifically by county. The darker colors show higher unemployment, with black being over 10% (if I read that teeny tiny writing correctly), and the lighter colors (yellow, white, etc) show lower unemployment areas.

This is interesting to me, because basically, it seems that the rest of the US is revolting against being Michigan.

The first is the awe inspiring Alexis Pauline Gumbs! Radically loving, queer, black, and feminist, Alexis is using social media in revolutionary ways to create a movement that celebrates, honors, loves, respects by studying and drawing on historical strategies of love in the black feminist movement.

The second is fiercely radically sexual mama, La Bianca! Claiming and naming Latin@ sexuality and movement, La Bianca has been one of the many driving forces in helping me to learn to celebrate being a fat brown jiggly boo dancer. AND she helped me, Butchy Mc Butchster That Hates Shopping at All Times But Especially For Femme Girl Stuff–find some really good and inexpensive christmas presents for the many Femme Mc Femmester women in my life! Practical, honest, and *dancing* is what I love the most–and I’m SO glad to have La Bianca here! (oh, ps. Bianca is also AfroLatin@ and Puerto Rican!)

Please say hello and welcome each woman–I am so honored to have them both here!!

thanks.

ps for some history about revolutionary media from the radically loving revolutionary, Alexis Pauline Gumbs:

So You Know from Alexis Gumbs on Vimeo.

Connect with us!!
Creative Interventions, the Revolution Starts at Home Collective, the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project, and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project are seeking to connect with groups who are working to reduce and eliminate violence in our communities without relying on policing and state systems.

We are hoping to build a broader network of organizations so that we can intentionally share successes, strategies and lessons learned. We are particularly interested in hearing from and connecting with other groups led by Women, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans, and Gender Non-Conforming People and People of Color.

Please fill out our survey by August 9th 13th 2010 http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C8JT6KB

This survey is confidential and all responses will only be viewed by Creative Interventions, the Revolution Starts at Home Collective, the Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project, and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project.

If you have any questions, please email imcknight@alp.org

Thank you for helping to build safer communities,

Creative Interventions
Revolution Starts at Home Collective
The Safe OUTside the System Collective of the Audre Lorde Project
The Young Women’s Empowerment Project

i don’t think feminists have any clue how to interpret violence within a framework of class. and that’s been distressing to find out, because I always thought class was something feminists “had.” They couldn’t figure out race worth a fuck, but they had class–because class is something they “see.”

I’ve been having a major Shirley Sherrod moment here. Where I’m looking at how workingclass/poor white women are being treated and thought about in the context of the eminem/rihanna video–and seeing that “their own people” aren’t helping them. Are imposing massive fucking stereotypes and agendas on their lives.

And I think since I spent the time I was in a violent relationship as a white but not quite person (I didn’t comfortably claim “woman of color” or “chicana” until I was in my mid to late twenties), I think the reactions to these videos have hit me especially hard. *This* is what feminists think of me and my friends? We aren’t beautiful? We don’t have hot sex? WE don’t love? The only choice we’re allowed are what THEY would take?

There’s a lot of workingclass/poor posing in that question. A lot of anger. What do you think I am, some sort of pussy? Some sorta push over? I can hold my fucking own bitch, don’t go writing me like I’m some sorta victim. Fuck you.

I liked what somebody said about “abuse-lite.” I never had bruises. I was the one who broke things. And what ended it was his confession that he had tried to commit suicide once before, over a woman. There hadn’t even been any fighting that led up to that confession. He may have just been sharing a bit of himself with me. But as he told me, I felt backed in. Like I couldn’t breathe. And I didn’t have the words. I didn’t have the words. So I ended it. and didn’t really think about the suicide thing until years and years later. Just felt really glad because I didn’t really like him too much anyway, and I loved my space. I got my space back, where I didn’t have to clean every day to impress, didn’t have to dress up.

I have the words now. I felt the attempt to manipulate and control. The threat behind the confession.

I have the words to also say, I had multiple relationships like that. Everybody did. One of my very best friends at the time had a relationship that *did* involve bruises. She, every once in a while, would go off the deep end, and just attack her partner. She was a good foot and a half and a hundred pounds lighter than him, so she didn’t really do too much damage. But she did give a black eye once.

She also woke up more than once with him on top of her. As in, him fucking her. And she told him more than once, a couple of times even in front of me. That she didn’t like it. She didn’t mind fucking. But wake her up and ask her first.

And not once. Not fucking *once*. Did I ever think of what was happening in that relationship as abuse. Or even violence. It’s just what happened. And if that’s what was happening in other people’s relationships–what the fuck was I doing, leaving a man because of some boxed in feeling he gave me?

Workingclass/poor women–*white* workingclass/poor women put such a massive kink in feminist “answers” to abuse. Because the problem of workingclass/poor women is denial of resources. And middle class women seem to think that means: If we fight for equal pay, that will improve the ability of workingclass/poor women to leave and be more empowered.

But. When you don’t even have the *words*. When you’ve been taught about domestic violence through 30 second public service announcements. I think we’re looking at a different type of issue with resources. I read about Kim Mathers. Eminem’s wife/ex. She grew up in foster care. Had a major drug issue. She is the tornado to his volcano.

And feminists have hurled all over that line. That “you as bad as I am” line. Said that it is an abuser justifying his violence. And maybe it is.

But my friend, the one who was being raped in her sleep by her husband? She *was* just as bad as him *in a sense*. She did just randomly go off the deep end and start beating the shit out of him. If nobody knew that he was raping her at night–all they would see is her occassionally getting unreasonably angry at him and for no reason, attacking him, like a fucking viper.

When the guy who told me about his suicide pushed me or got up in my face–I did the same thing to him. I shoved him back. I got up into his face and taunted him.

We never called what he did to her rape. We never even once connected that her random attacks might be related to her mental health issues and her history of abuse and being raped on occasion in her own bed.

We never called what she did abuse.

We never called what I was dealing with violence.

It’s just the way things were. And it was our jobs to live through it. To decide what sacrifices we were willing to make in the name of love.

And in my case, both of us were working at the same job doing the exact same thing. I was making more money than him because I had been there longer. My friend was often the only one in the relationship working, because he worked construction, and construction jobs are seasonal.

so by feminist standards–we were equals.

So I know Eminem and Kim Mathers come from the same place I did. Workingclass/poor. And I know that they are like most of us were–drug addictions, histories of untreated mental health problems, unacknowledged sexual abuse, lack of familial stability (foster homes, street living, etc)–and you get people of all genders who are surrounded by neglect and lack of resources. who didn’t go to preschools where “feelings” and “respecting body circles” were even considered. where economics locked you into relationships more than anything else.

there’s no money to move out. there’s no money to go to the doctor and get meds. there’s no money to go to school and take endless women studies classes. there’s no money to go to therapy. there’s no *reason* to go to therapy or go to the doctor. Because *everybody* has somebody who just randomly goes off the deep end. because *everybody* has had sex the didn’t want to have. Because *everybody* has kids and finds that occassionally waking up with your husband on top of you is not as bad as living in your car with two kids.

And we’re supposed to be surprised or outraged because he says her temper is just as bad as his, volcano versus hurricane? I hear that, and I think of my friend and myself and so many other women I know, and I think–this isn’t an unfair or manipulative sentence–this is reality. It is violent resistance to misogyny and violence and even poverty. It’s why I get so angry when feminists are all “But Tiger Wood’s wife hit him with a golf club! That’s violence! She should be in jail for that! No excuses! If men can’t do it to us, then we can’t do it to them!” Because good god fucking damn, when you’ve taken every single fucking IOTA of resources away from women–when the ONLY fucking thing that they have to resist, redirect, deal with, live with, understand, contemplate violence is beating back–what have feminists just done to them? When the only fucking resource a woman has is her fists, what the fuck do feminists DO to them by taking that away?

I am suddenly reminded of a study that Andrea Smith has in her book, Conquest–the effect of the anti-violence legistlation that requires someone in a domestic violence situation to be arrested–has been to imprison more women. To criminalize *fighting back*.

ANd it all suddenly makes sense to me.

And the thing that makes me really enraged? In pointing all this out. In saying, a lack of resources *hits women in a way that is rarely addressed by feminism*. and makes those women inclined to stay and try to figure things out with their abusive partners. this *makes feminists mad*. makes them start up with the “boo hoo cry me a river” line. doesn’t give him the right. No, it doesn’t. but if you don’t listen to what *he* is saying about being in poverty–and you get all “boo hoo” with him–then what makes you think that any workingclass/poor woman is going to trust you? Gonna trust that you aren’t gonna hit her up with the “get a job you lazy bitch” bullshit that she hears every time she goes to the welfare office.

and it makes me even *madder* that feminists and people in the US in general play this fucking game. where they say, oh, everything you just said is all *stereotypes* about being poor. I know lots of workingclass/poor people where it’s not like that! Stereotypes! but then even as they say it’s all stereotypes–they THEN tell us all–you have to fight. You have to fight to get out of it. work harder. BOOT STRAPS! PULL THEM! We don’t want to stereotype the poor, deny them of their agency–but FIGHT MOTHER FUCKER, FIGHT!

Or they pull the game of excuses. You just giving *excuses*. You’re *justifying* the violence.

Is class a structural systematic entity in our nation/state or is it not? We all understand that when you’re a person of color, you’re starting twenty steps behind white folks who start at the line, right? So why do we not get that when you’re *poor*, you’re starting twenty steps behind middle class/wealthy, who start at the line? Why do we not understand that being workingclass/poor is *structural violence* that you have to be extraordinarily fucking ruthlessly strong to work yourself out of?

Do we really think that there’s only one reason (women hating) that Eminem has said such violent, hateful, horrible shit about women in general? About his own mother and ex wife? Is it a possibility–a sliver of a chance–that along with the women hating–there is the complete dehumanization that eminem had to submit himself through to fight his way to where he got? To fight *keep his place*?

Which brings me to survivor. The subject of surviving. I got some shit for calling eminem a survivor. But I did it very very deliberatly. I couldn’t say it clearly then, but I’ve had time to really think it through. And I have to ask. What do we call all the “rags to riches” stories in our popular imagination? What to do we call people like Rocky Balboa or Scarlett O’Hara? We call them survivors. Fighters. We admire how they fight. *I* admire them.

But in doing so, we forget the violence of being hungry and vomiting the tiny bit of food you managed to find.

Workingclass/poor communities have a long historical relationship with the word “survivor.” We have had it used against us, and we’ve had it used as way to “inspire us” and we’ve written the stories ourselves as a way to show others like us, you can get out. Fight. Survive. Don’t give up.

But what are we fighting against? Or for? What are we surviving? The narrative says we’re fighting for a dream. But *I* know–we’re fighting even harder to *never be hungry again*. It may be inspiring to hold on to a dream so hard that you eventually make it. But there’s *real fucking violence* that makes NOT holding on to that dream terrifying.

Being hungry–*real hunger*–is terrifying. Being raised by an abusive mother with no fucking way to escape (because Eminem’s mother WAS abusive, even if he was a threatening mother fucker in his songs towards her) is terrifying. Having no choices (i.e. resources) is fucking terrifying. Working because your parents can’t pay the bills on their own is terrifying. Trying to explain yourself and not being able to is terrifying. Ignoring feelings because you don’t have the words to explain them is terrifying. Being a small child and wondering where your next meal is going to come is terrifying.

Convincing yourself none of this is terrifying because everybody else is living through the same thing and THEY don’t look scared is horrific violence that *justifies* all the fists through the wall, husbands on top of you, etc.

Being poor is not “having a hard life.” It is structural systematic violence. And if we don’t understand it as such, we will never understand the lengths people are willing to go to get out of it. We will never understand how male privilege interacts with trauma. And we will never understand why having words is so important. Why it’s the one thing I look back and want to give that girl I was. Words. Knowledge. Stop violating my own body by swallowing it all up. Name it. And spit that fucking shit out.

Everybody is mad because the video *should* have shown her leaving. then it would’ve shown that domestic violence is bad. ANd there’s a way to break the cycle. As an artist, my response to that is listen to the whole fucking album. Jesus christ. And especially hit up the song, “i’m not afraid.” And as a litcrit chick? I don’t think her sleeping in his arms is saying that she accepts the violence, I think it’s showing what is behind the “pretty.” We see the opening scene and we think–oh, how pretty. And then we see the ending scene, and we go–Jesus fucking christ. Because the cloak has been removed. And every day, the problem we don’t want to think about–Women living in violent relationships, continues on. Because we believe the public image put forward. No matter how much burning we see.

But as a workingclass/poor woman who has lived through violence? Why do you think that her leaving is any more believable than her staying? Why do we feel that’s a fucking option for every woman? Why do we thump our middle class chests and pat ourselves on the back and believe that leaving is really a fucking choice for a workingclass/poor woman? If that workingclass/poor woman is supposedly based on Kim Mathers–do we really think she has a family to go back to? One raised in foster care? Do we really think she doesn’t have an addiction problem that he acts as caretaker over? Do we really think that a woman with no steady familial ties can emotionally handle losing the one relationship she has where for all it’s fucked up shit–there is love?

Do you know what it’s like to not have at least one unshakable loving person in your life? Where no matter what happens, no matter what you do, no matter how fucked up things get–that person will be there *because they love you*?

Boo-hooing because she doesn’t leave in the end is fucked up because it puts the impetus to end violence against women on the abuse survivor. It is putting into the public consciousness that women always have the choice. That there is no reason for her to stay. And so even though feminists resist this conclusion, it’s a conclusion that makes logical sense–it’s *her fault* for staying. It’s saying that it’s her job to know the words that are systematically denied her, it’s her job to get the resources that are systematically denied her, it’s her job to have no health situations that are systematically imposed on her, it’s her job to not have the kids, it’s her job.

call me fucking crazy former white trash current mexitrash bitch–but i think that’s fucked up. i think it’s *the movements* job to end violence against women. I think the only thing that is going to end violence against women is collective grassroots base building on a world wide fucking scale.

I’m fucking glad eminem didn’t put her leaving at the end of the video. Because it exposes how fucking limited the “feminist movement” is in the US really is. How fucking lacking of imagination it is, how ineffective it is.

A dearly beloved friend wrote this to me:

And of course that eminem rhianna video isnt the most useful thing either, but thats just because they didnt hire you and alexis to script the alternate ending…where the couple decides to have a queer poly relationship and organize against the systems of poverty and violence that defined their love in the first place. and even then they might still decide to have certain consensual, erotic manifestations of violence play out in their new queer poly relationship…lol.

She was writing to tell me she loved me. And dear god how I needed it. For the first time in my life, I have people who I can say, “I need this” to, and they do me the favor. Because of love. ANd I cried when I got her message and laughed a little bit when I read that part. Because she’s an organizer like me, and she’s learned how to find opportunities in the worst of situations. Like me.

Because why NOT what she said? Why do we all just *accept* that the only response to violence against women that can possibly be real or empowered is *leave him*? Why aren’t we all outraged because the female character isn’t shown *joining a fucking movement*?

Is it because we all secretly know that there’s no movement to join?