Once Twice a Con lets move on.

I support black people of all genders and classes getting together to celebrate our beauty and to develop political platforms but the million man march is a joke. It’s political grand standing and theatre at best. Anyone who would follow that slimy shady, sexist, classist, homophobic, megalomaniac, Louis Farrakhan is a fool. I just have to say it. He has done so much damage his hands are stained with Malcom’s blood. With All the resources he has built through his temple and followers in Chicago their impact on the south side should be 10x what it is. He’s just an old time hustling ass preacher who found a nice con in pushing Islam and claiming to continue Elijah Muhammad’s Legacy. It’s really sad and disappointing to see black folks so thirsty for political attention that we would follow that man for another symbolic March.After all the political activity this past year where is the event to build alliances between recently politically active young people and previous generations? We don’t have to agree on everything but can we agree to stop following snakes who continue to degrade women and poor people for starters? Can we agree to put a pause on useless marchers until we build some strategic alliances amongst ourselves that will have a direct impact on the violence of poverty they are using to keep our people in economic and psychological choke holds? Can we try to do this without people trying to build brands, get rich in the process, or trying to become the next mayor/president. Surely we have realized after multiple million men marches and countless black mayors,senators,and even a president that our strengths and solutions ly somewhere else amongst ourselves outside the trappings of respectability, capitalism, and the american political system.

More Than Justice

Black Liberation Strategies for the Masses?

Been trying to get my thoughts together about my frustrations with some recent protests and black progressives in general. Really don’t see a place for me on the Left, with liberals or progressives. Doesn’t mean we don’t agree on somethings or that you won’t see me trying to build with people who identify as such. However I must get better at not assuming our definitions of black liberation and methods for living it are aligned just because we share common language and love for the people. Nor will I shrink back from criticizing current trends, personalities, and groups whose tactics and politics I think distract from the many paths to liberation for the masses. This ain’t no preaching from the sidelines or social media activism. As a person who has been surviving in the heart of the Amerikkan Beast while trying to live my politics of love, resistance, and black liberation for half of my 3 short decades, I am very excited for the recent surge in political activism. I stand with everyone screaming we will not let you continue you to kill us without consequence. It fans my flames of love and resistance to see black people stand up and fight. The question is what are we fighting for and how are current tactics serving the masses of black people?

Black liberation will never come through the right Amerikkkan legislation. Fighting for progressive policy is harm reduction at best. A frustrating yet necessary survival tactic turned distraction and meal ticket for too many. Its often saps the energy of amazing minds and spirits who are needed to create something thats designed for our well being. We need something independent of capitalism and the myth of white supremacy. If we would just leave the American Dream and the trappings of this consumerist fame worshipping culture alone and believe in our capacity to build something beautiful together then we might begin to see some glimpses of liberation. There is so much freedom in our creativity our global impact on the arts and spirituality speaks to that. Could we turn that creative energy towards a livable black liberation politic for the masses?

This is where I want to begin my conversations about social change and freedom for black people in particular. Tired of reformist, lefty, progressive attempts at reforming and scrapping for pieces of these corrupt systems maintained by the blood of all types of people and the abuse of mother earth. Why are people so excited to create actions to disrupt american politics or to “challenge” whiteness? Are we so frustrated and ignorant of history that we have fallen into the traps of political theatre for white audiences. Just like its easy for white people to run to be active in POC neighborhoods away from the accountability with their white family members holding up and benefiting from racism. It’s also easier for people of color black people in this case to run to white spaces to hold protests instead of building bases of resistance and political education in the heart of our communities feeling the brunt of capitalism and the myth of white supremacy.

Activism and egos often go hand and hand. We get turnt up feeling that rush of protest and speaking truth to power then strategy gets lost in the commotion. Next thing we know we are running from protest to protest shouting at police and racism in these general ways that feel good in the moment but rarely lead to actual change in the conditions of the masses of our people. We run to case after case of murder, lynching, and people outraged that the system came to their door. We turn victims and grieving families into celebrities empathizing with their feelings of shock at how state violence has taken their loved ones. Often fear of feeling the direct impact of living under this state of war black people have been in since some of us were dragged her in chains is what drives our activism. So we seek to make the system a lil better, a lil more accountable, and we push for progress in hopes that it won’t come down on us too hard one day. In the mean time we work for a lil piece of this sour pie.

So tired of reformist, lefty, progressive attempts at reforming and scrapping for pieces of these corrupt systems maintained by the tears of our mothers. Why are people so excited to create actions to disrupt american politics or to “challenge” whiteness? Is it tied to long term strategies for practicing freedom together outside of the white gaze and the overlapping systems of oppression that feed global capitalistic domination thats also killing the planet? Or are we just trying to make things a lil better for the next generation while we enjoy our shot at fame, SUVs, sneakers, cars, addicting food like products and smartphones. If we would just leave the American Dream and the trappings of this consumerist fame worshipping culture alone and believe in our capacity to build something beautiful together then we might begin to see some glimpses of liberation. There is so much freedom in our creativity our global impact on the arts and spirituality speaks to that. Could we turn that creative energy towards a livable black liberation politic for the masses? This is where I want to begin my conversations about black liberation.

#dirtyartboi #politics #liberation #progressives

Protesting Again

I have been protesting and organizing for over a decade.  I stood up against racism at a mostly white private christian college, traveled the country campaigning against youth recruitment in the Iraq war, supported the people of New Orleans to rebuild their city whose government neglect and institutional racism caused the death of too many in the aftermath of Katrina, and marched in Wisconsin for the labor movement, walked in gay pride parades, blah, blah, blah ect.  I’ve been to D.C. more times and to more rallies I can count but lately I’ve been burnt out on holding signs marching and chanting. After years of struggle its apparent that protests are not the beginning and ending of victory. They usually serve as a cry of desperation or a space for people to vent but rarely do they take the movement where it needs to go… yet they are still vital to the struggle. When I went to Ferguson it was important to me to bring donations and resources to sustain the struggle of the people on the ground. We gathered supplies for protesters and participated in the call to action and march under the direction of Mike Brown’s parents.

 

later with the increase in protests int he aftermath of Ferguson and now the failure to indict Eric Garner’s killers I was once again compelled to hit the streets. The anger, frustration, and pain was weighing in so heavy, the sense of hopelessness and powerlessness was eating at me so much.  I knew it wouldn’t solve things but I had to do something for my own mental and emotional health my words weren’t enough I had to go to Ferguson and March (and I hate marching). Then again when they failed to indict for Eric G. I had to hit the streets here in Chicago.

                

Last night  we walked for 3 hrs,  laid in multiple intersections, and my heart raced as I stood arm to arm with friends and some of my youth from CFS and stared down the CPD in the middle of Lake Shore Drive. Given all that it was difficult for me to march in a crowd of hundreds of white people chanting #‎BlackLivesMatter. Mostly  because I know in their lives they don’t have to. I wanted them to go chant that to their families who help create and profit from these corrupt systems killing us. I know white people can’t free us.WE HAVE TO FREE OURSELVES ultimately but white people have to do more than chant and march without confronting the enemy in their minds and families. Solidarity is a life long journey that reaches beyond Activism. It involves on going selflessness ,risks, and sacrifice I doubt most are ready for. Not wanting to have to deal with naive white people is one of the reasons i’ve avoided protesting for so long.

” (BlackLivesMatter) It’s time to really put the affirmation into real life action. Internally and Externally; we must conduct our lives, and our relationships with each other is such a way that fully embodies and validates the affirmation. We need commit to unrelenting resistance and the full destruction of all Systems and Institutions that seek to exploit, degrade, or deny Black lives any thing less than what is needed to live full and dignified Black lives. We will know real soon if this is a real affirmation, if it is a war cry, or if it’s nothing more than a slogan.”- Diallo Kenyatta

Definitions, Apologies, and the Status Quo

Feminism and Abolition, public lecture by Professor Angela Y. Davis on Friday, May 3 @The University of Chicago

last week I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Angela Davis one of the movements’ master teachers. She touched on so many great topics doing a great job of connecting the FBI’s recent attacks on Assata Shakur to the current struggle against police brutality, increasing incarceration and violence in POC communities. With all that she said it was her queer studies informed reflections on feminism and the prison industrial complex that stirred up so much within me. Her words brought me back to the moment when I first fell in love with the phrase Africana Womanism.

It was amazing to hear this former political prisoner and black panther assert that it was the feminist movement’s challenging of patriarchy, sexism, and oppressive  gender roles which opened the door for trans, gender variant and pansexual identities to be as as visible as they are today. I almost fell out my pew when she said at the vanguard of the prison abolition movement is a critique of the prison system through the eyes of transgender women. Not only are their struggles from within the PIC inherently feminist but they are also effective strategies for social justice.

Her lecture was refreshingly current, relating the same themes she engaged as a young black panther to the struggles of youth today. One of the reasons she has so profoundly been able to make these connections is her ongoing relationship with youth today. It was affirming to hear her passionately speak about the need for elders and adults to listen to youth and be open to learning as much as they think they can teach. Moreover to witness someone of her generation and continued activism connect the trans community to the social justice movement and oppression in general gave me life. Her words reframed my urgency within the struggle for social justice and encouraged me to bring all of me to the front lines in the war on poor people of color. As I struggled to write my reflections in essay form the last few days the piece below bubbled up…

Definitions, Apologies, and the Status Quo

right now they’re calling us transgender

but in another 20 or 40  a 100 years

they will have another name

and hopefully a better appreciation

for who we are and what we bring to the human experience

We are another stroke on the canvass of humanity

walking art

a beautiful body of politic

millions upon millions of differently the same blends of masculine feminine

that many are just not quite ready for

though we’ve always been here

My varied expression of  masculinity

they seek to label deviant

because my reality challenges their truth

it refuses to fit in any either or box

my reality

my variance they take as a challenge

to everything they’ve been taught about what makes them ok

and what makes them better and

deserving of whatever they have told themselves they deserve

because they are not like me

them or any other other you choose,

this is the the slippery slope

of defining yourself in opposition to

in order to control

they take me being me

as an assault on the pedestal they’ve built to maintain their privilege

our varied definitions of She, He, Ze…

our constant redefining of we

defies their definition of self

pierces patriarchy threatening sexism with a fatal blow

defiling the status quo

my queerness is mine to be defined or not

my trans ness is translucent and undefinable

the personal is political

and though I didn’t choose my identity or experience

I do fiercely and with all political intentionality

choose to be true to whatever direction it takes me in

and to never again apologize for not fitting in