Struggle

I've been struggling, as I know we all do struggle.

I enrolled in training this fall to become a local rape crisis volunteer. I'm glad I'm doing this work, and look forward to making a difference in women's lives by offering emotional and informational support when they're in crisis. I'm more than glad, I'm pretty thrilled to have this chance to grow and give at the same time.

The training has been unexpectedly triggering to me--since I've never been raped.

But I, and many of my female family members and friends, have survived abuse in one form or another.

I as a mother have to confront the fact that a man I dated between my marriage's end and when I stopped dating men--that this man was/is a child predator. He groomed us. I was still colonized at that time, and also naive. I still don't know to what extent he abused my older daughter. She says not at all. But I am confronting what I know and knew.

Believe me when I say it's torture.

Nobel "peace"

This is the way to look at the Nobel committee's choice. Thank you, Cindy Sheehan. You're my hero.

Chris Hedges: War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves

I participated in this Philadelphia action yesterday. We DID close down the Army Experience Center, for the afternoon, anyway. And the Army announced that there will be no new AEC's built. They blame it on the economy, but that doesn't make any sense.

I cannot embed this video, but it's accessible here
http://vodpod.com/watch/2186542-chris-hedges-war-exposes-the-lies-we-tell-ourselves-about-ourselves
hat tip to Dandelion Salad.

The visit

I took this shot on my phone, it's a little creek in the mountains outside Denver. I went out that way to see my folks--my mother and sister in Wyoming, and my father in Colorado. I got back a month ago already. I'm long overdue in writing about the visit.

I brought up the subject of white privilege and systemic racism to my father and his wife, and they were curious and engaged. It's no surprise that they needed the concept explained to them; most white people are oblivious about this, as I was, myself, until about 3 years ago.

Once they understood the concept, though, they agreed it exists. Then they pretty much asked me, "but what can be done?" I answered that the thing to do is to talk about it, just as we then were talking about it, and to keep it in mind, advocating against systemic racism, and to vote ethically with this concept in mind.

My beloved father said to me, "Well, I'm not going to be talking about this to my friends and neighbors."

I told him that if that's true, he's acknowledging that he's knowingly supporting racism, that he is knowingly racist. He nodded.

My father nodded to me, that yes, he knows what racism is, and he is one.

I was told recently by a black woman at an anti-racims class to confront my family, to love them, to not turn away. If this were a so-called friend, however, the friendship would be over. I can't be friends with admitted racists. I am not friends with admitted racists.

Sigh. The patriarch is 84 and getting weak. I can't turn away from him, but neither can I stay silent in the face of this. I'll go see him again in the spring.

Night thoughts

I'm pulling an all-nighter tonight, which is unusual.

I think it's a combination of home and work stress, and Mutti, who--and I do not exaggerate--has gotten up at least 11 times since she went to bed at 9:45 last night. I don't know why, but she does this only when her daughter--my ex--isn't here. Or is it that when my ex is here, I just don't hear her? That could be, because there is that phenomenon called "mothers' ears," when you know you're it, and you hear everything, and you wake up. But when someone else is more responsible than you, you sleep soundly through it.

Another thing is that I've found a good blog speaking up about Mary Jo Kopechne. I wanted to read something feminist about Ted Kennedy, but everyone from Ms Magazine on down who said anything at all were just singing his praises. So it soothes me greatly to know Daisy's out there blogging.

So anyway, as I have been lying there, NOT sleeping, my thoughts turned to the mother and daughter, and granddaughters, out west, who've been in the news in the past 24 hours--the eleven year-old girl who was kidnapped in 1991, and who has just yesterday--at age 29--gotten away from the rapist, who made her have at least 2 babies, at age 14 and 18 or so. Who kept her and her daughters hidden out in the backyard for 18 years. Who prevented her from seeing anyone else since she was 11 years old. Who probably was also raping the girls.

And furthermore, I'm comparing the coverage of this set of crimes to a similar one in Austria, last year. And I'm remembering that the Austrian young woman was taken to a hospital, along with her children, and then to some sort of therapy house, out in the country, I think, where they could all start to come back, to be assisted and taught by caring professionals, and protected from the voyeurs called the public who pay for photos which spawns abusers called paparazzi.

And I notice that the California women, the 29 year-old who is in some ways still 11, but also is, in some ways, 90, and her mother, and the 2 children, are in a MOTEL, a crummy motel in California, by the roadside, having their heartbreaking reunion. With no planned, coordinated suggestions from an understanding female rape crisis counselor. There may be some sort of social worker around, who has no budget for a hospital, or a therapy house in the country, no protection, no support.

That's our country, right? No national care, and the women themselves probably even have to spring for the motel bill.

This is evil. I'm worrying about this family of suffering women. I wish I could offer them comfort, food, analysis, a house in the country or on a beach somewhere, protection.


So that's what's on my mind at 3:30 a.m. And it's occuring to me only now (because of my short-sightedness and my racism) that this was precisely the experience of countless middle passage women, over centuries, except that they had to work in the fields, and they had to watch their children of rape be sold away. They had to bear the children against their will, and they had to lose them against their will, and there was no motel even, and no reunion with their long-lost mothers. There was lifelong work, and hunger, and rape, and then more pain.

This crone runs.

OK, I don't run, exactly. Not yet, anyway. I speedwalk.

This crone was recently told she has osteopenia, high cholesterol, and a funny heart. My heart actually checked out okay, after a nuclear stress test (injecting radioactivity into my blood, then photographing my heart while I walked on a treadmill.)

I really enjoyed the treadmill--it was my first time trying one.

So ... I've joined a gym, and I'm working on cardio fitness and strength training. For this sedentary librarian-crone, it's a big life change. I've been keeping it up for over a month, so it looks like I'm probably on a roll.

I never did this before because I always felt like my non-work time belonged wholly to my children. How misguided is that? Well, it feels more than great to be taking care of my body.

NARAL armbands: "Trust women."

I gave a donation, and received several blue rubber armbands, which are embossed with "Trust Women 5.31.09" I'm wearing one, and I'd like to give the rest of these armbands to women who will wear them.

They honor the memory of Dr. Tiller, who was assassinated in church on May 31 of this year. Dr. Tiller had been a fearless abortion provider for decades, and he often wore a white button that simply read, "Trust Women."

If you would like an armband, let me know where to send it, and I will. Or, just go to the NARAL site.

On going back

I was reading Dark Daughta's latest post about her discomfort while rubbing elbows with a big crowd of fellow Caribbean immigrants at Toronto Caribana festival a couple nights ago.

Dark Daughta also can't bring herself to visit her grandmother and other extended family who are still in Barbados, where she lived until she was, I think, about seven years old.

According to Dark Daughta, at Caribana, and in the environs of her relatives in Barbados, there's a stifling, christianity-based, heterosexualist, judgemental fog that envelopes that community. Dark Daughta analyzes it as the colonised, as a historical survival tactic, taking on the hierarchical, exploitative values of their oppressors, and it's so intolerable that she can hardly stand engaging with it.

In a few days I'm going to Colorado and Wyoming to see my folks again.



I was there in April for a week, but for reasons having nothing to do with my family of origin, that visit didn't work very well. So since my father's health seems to be quickly worsening, and since my first trip back there in nearly 4 years didn't really work, I've decided to make a repeat trip, now.

But why was I not there for the past four years? And why, 4 years ago, was I only there for 3 days?

Because of my family of origin's heterosexism, their religiosity, their libertarianism, their catholicism, their classicism, their blind white arrogance. All of which were mine, to a greater or lesser extent, before I moved away fom there almost 30 years ago, and after that, too. Well, I certainly have kicked the heterosexism and the religiosity (including catholicism), and the libertarianism, but I'm still workin' on the rest of that list.

A woman recently said to me that she commonly hears from white folks that they've turned their backs on their families, because of all their isms. She emphasized how warped that is, to remove yourself from the people you love. She said, "Go back there and engage with them. Running away does nobody any good at all."

That's what I'm doing now. It's hard, but it can also be wonderful. Now that I'm back, I'm changing those rules, since I'm obviously still a part of my family.

Dear Dark Daughta, I wish that could become possible for you, too. I wish there were a way you could re-enter or at least visit the community that in so many ways you love, and thereby sow the seeds of change there.

I don't know your issues, of course, but I'm sorry to know that you're apart from your people.

Well, I'm leaving in a matter of days. I'm steeling myself, out of necessity, but I'm hopeful.

Dark Daughta, please send me your good wishes. I'll let you know how it goes this time.

Love, Secondwaver

July 30 always gives me pause

At the end of July in 1989, my whole life swerved. I thought it was disastrous, and, of course, it was, in many ways. That was when my then-husband took me and my 3 small kids as his captive, in our car. I feared for our lives. I had to fight him. I did fight him, fearfully, fiercely, desperately. Successfully.

He was psychotic and manipulative: when I fought him, in the car where he was holding us prisoner, he told our children, ages 6, 4 and 1, "Mommy is trying to kill Daddy." They were truly terrified. I have never forgiven him for that. That's not the only thing I haven't forgiven him for, but it's the first thing. This was exactly 20 years ago, today.

Today I had a really packed day at the library. It's my last working day before my vacation, which starts tomorrow. On my lunch hour, I remembered the 20 year anniversary, and started reviewing my past July 30ths, a decade at a time.

Here's what I'm remembering today.

July 1959

I was 6, just finished with kindergarten. I loved my teacher, and was mourning the loss of her daily presence in my life. I hoped I would see her again in the fall, but that didn't happen. What gave me much joy was that my teacher asked me, and me alone, for a goodbye kiss after school on the last day. She loved me, just as I loved her! This was a magical gift to me that I still marvel at, after 50 years.

July 1969

I was 16, roman catholic, republican, conservative, totally patriarchal. Judged myself and other women entirely by how "cute" or how "funny" we were, how attractive to men and boys, as I was trained to do. And I believed I was hideous, fat, unacceptable.

July 1979

I was 26. I was less than a year from making the biggest mistake of my life. I was engaged to be married, which would cause me so much grief. In 1979 I was finishing my library degree, and starting my first librarian job. But I was shaped by patriarchy through and through, hoping to be able to quit as soon as possible and start having babies. I wanted 4. I didn't give a thought to having to take care of them should the marriage go sour, should the husband stop working, permanently. I was like a lamb going to slaughter, believing the fairy tale. If only I used my eyes and brain, I could have acted differently. But the reasons I pursued the dream of the white picket fence were many and effective. By the way, those are wedding presents in the background. I may look fierce here, and my inner fierceness was flashing through, but I was 100% compliant, in actuality. I was colonized.

July 1989

This is when I realized the fairy tale wasn't mine. I was 36 and I one day I had to find strength in myself that I never knew was there.

July 1999

At age 46, I was in my sixth year of single parenting, my sixth year of being so broke, so time-strapped, so absolutely stressed, that I some days didn't know what I was doing. I tried--so hard--to be all that my children needed. I had gone, I think, at the age of 46, four years without dating anyone. My days and nights were spoken for, kids, job, house, kids. Kids, kids, kids. Two years after this, when I was 48, I allowed myself to come out to myself as lesbian.

July 2009

Now I'm 56. I am at the end of a 3 year monogamous relationship. We're still together, but it's the end. We both know it. Although 2 of my 3 children still live under my roof, they don't need anything from me. When we spend time together (pretty rare), it's because we desire to spend time together. We enjoy being together, when we are. I work a lot, often more than full-time. My ex-partner and I share the care of her old mother, who has serious dementia. I enjoy caring for her, even if I yearn for my independence. I'm glad to be able to give her comfort after her very hard life. I know she won't be with me very much longer.

Being with this nonogenarian woman makes me feel so young and able. And with my youth and energy, and my still new-found consciousness, I am becoming the woman and the activist I should have always been, but couldn't.

In July, 1989, my life swerved suddenly, unexpectedly, and violently. I certanily can't wish it hadn't happened, since that would have robbed me of what I know, now.

This is the best July 30th I've spent so far. I am 56. I hope and expect July 30, 2010 to be better than today, because next year I'll be even more myself.

Note to self: Take some good pictures of myself already!

Gratefulness meme

Awoke this morming to find that my good pal CJ has tagged me (thank you!), and I have to list 3 things for which I'm grateful, and then tag 3 others.

CJ, you know that's a toughie for a depressive! But I can rise to the job.

1. That many animal species are still thriving in spite of our own species' exploitation

2. That in our time, taking religion for granted is negotiable, and

3. The gigantic creativity and huge hope of many folks, and particularly radical activist blogging women--many of whom have already been tagged, and particularly for these 3 (whom I'm tagging now) ...

Fire Witch,

Amy, and

Cindy Sheehan!

I really love you!

Jon Stewart calling Dick Cheney out

Please pass this on, widely ...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Dick (Uncut)
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Economic Crisis

Starfish! it's so great to hear your words

Starfish's comment on my last post deserves its own post. I am leaving (we are leaving) to see my parents, out west. I haven't seen them for over 3 years.

My partner is still my partner, and we haven't finalized any decisions about where she and her mother will live. Things may (or may not) be warming up here among everyone.

Anyway ... here's Starfish's comment. Starfish, thank you for coming by--I've missed you a lot. I won't be able to blog, probably, until May.

Starfish commented:

I'm sorry to learn that your life has not moved (to a 'next stage', perhaps) as it had seemed it might. I was excited for you. I hope I am not overstepping by saying that if I were you, I imagine I would be feeling, at least in part, righteously rankled by this turn of events, no matter how it all came about. (Just in case you might need or find it useful to hear that it's okay to be angry, as well as...sad, regretful, disappointed, hurt?)

"I thought we would be a collective--a house of women."

Had you and your partner discussed this thought together?

Because, unless you and your partner had explicitly stated that male persons were not to cross the threshold for recreational/relational purposes then... well, why would the majority of womenfolk even consider such a thing - that men would be generally excluded from your (collective) home?

If all it took for your partner to be comfortable staying on with her mother, was to ask your daughters not to bring men into the house, would you, could you do that?

Or is it more along other lines that difficulties have arisen; that your partner does not get that most women who have birthed and raised children are either never able to, do not wish to, or wish (at least a little bit) to but do not feel free to reposition themselves as not, or no longer, Mothers? From a couple of other things you've mentioned about your partner and your children, I gather she's more in the authoritarian/'tough love' vein when it comes to children, and you, not so much?

Perhaps, rather than only those contemplating raising children together talking about, checking for compatibility in "parenting style", maybe those couples/collectives who do or will have adult children (and potentially, grandchildren-type human beings and their attendant co-parents/carers) in their lives also need to have that discussion?

Difficult to find the time and space to do when partners/couples are already busy and stretched by the ramifications (those variously perceived good and worthy, as well as otherwise) of the caring-relationship roles and other responsibilities outside of the personal, intimate relationship that is two alone...

Which has brought me in my (theoretical) thoughts, to the point of throwing up my hands about coupleism, nuclear and extended-by-blood-and-yet-more neverending-bloody-coupleism families, and how life as we know it is socioeconomically constructed altogether, and blargh! on and on, BLARGH! The saying of most of which, above, does absolutely nothing useful for you, I know. Pardon my rant.

If we knew each other in real life and were speaking about this face to face, I would doubtless feel the urge to give you at least one big hug, so if you would be okay with that, here 'tis.
{{{{{SW}}}}}}

starfish - still on hiatus from blogland, but reading more again lately.

12:19 AM

Fledgling collective ... bites the dust

So I didn't move. I welcomed a new roommate to share expenses with. My partner's mother moved in with me over the winter holidays. She is a nonogenarian, a refugee. She survived somehow, in precarious circumstances, and has lived alone in a trailer for the past 30 years.

Moving here proved to be difficult for her, predictably, I guess. Just imagine giving up your independence, whether or not it's necessary.

She has started sliding into serious dementia. My partner has been here almost constantly, since moving her mother here.

Enter my younger daughter, 2 months ago. She is consigned to the basement, coming and going through a basement door.

Enter my older daughter, a few days ago. She's in a bedroom, with kitchen/bathroom privileges.

Enter my older daughter's romantic interest (male).

Call me idealistic. I thought we would be a collective--a house of women.

But it's not to be. My partner feels crowded here, with the boyfriend hanging out with Older Daughter. So she's taking her mother and moving on.

What happens to our relationship, hers and mine, remains to be seen.

Renata Hill needs our help NOW

This just in, via Carolyn Gage ...



On August 18, 2006, seven young African American lesbians traveled to New York City from their homes in Newark for a regular night out. When walking down the street, a man sexually propositioned one of the women. After refusing to take no for an answer, he assaulted them. The women tried to defend themselves, and a fight broke out. The women were charged with Gang Assault in the 2nd degree, a Class C Felony with a mandatory minimum of 3.5 years. Patreese Johnson was additionally charged with 1st Degree Assault. Three of the women accepted plea offers. On June 14th, 2007 Venice Brown (19), Terrain Dandridge (20), Patreese Johnson (20), and Renata Hill (24) received sentences ranging from 3½ to 11 years in prison.

The Current Action:

ON MARCH 2 THERE WAS A PROTEST IN FRONT OF THE D.A.'S OFFICE. THIS LETTER IS THE FOLLOW-UP TO THAT PROTEST:

We're asking that if folks live in the NYC/NJ area, or if they know someone who does, then please forward this letter template to everyone you know. People are also encouraged use the letter template to draft their own version to provide a local community perspective of how the NJ4 case directly impacts them.

Renata's legal team has observed that the protest, which had a turnout of 25-30 people despite the worst blizzard in Manhattan in 4 years, did appear to make a difference. Renata Hill was due in to make a decision on whether to retrial or accept a year in prison that Wednesday March 4, but was given another date on the 17. It was expected that some sort of a decision would be reached before then, which is why a lot of letters need to get out real soon!

The goal is to get at least 450 letters to the D.A.'s office before the 17th. Again, please be sure to forward this letter to other folks in the NYC/NJ area!

Thanks!

ACTION YOU CAN TAKE RIGHT NOW .......

Copy and paste the letter below:

[Your Name]
[Your address]

Robert M. Morgenthau
District Attorney
New York County
1 Hogan Place
New York, NY 10013

[Date]

Re: People vs. Renata Hill

Dear Mr. Morgenthau:

I am writing concerning the case of Renata Hill, who is scheduled to appear in court on March 17, 2009 for a potential retrial. Ms. Hill's original trial was stemming from an incident in August 2006. Her conviction for Gang Assault was recently overturned on appeal. Your office is about to make a decision on offering Ms. Hill either a retrial or a plea bargain where she would serve a year in prison.

Whatever Ms. Hill's role on that night, she shouldn't have to go back to prison. Ms. Hill has already served two years. While she was incarcerated, she was separated from her young son. She also suffered the death of her mother, whose memorial she was unable to attend. I want to encourage you to stop further prosecution in this case, and to release Ms. Hill so that she may get on with her life.

I am writing as a person who identifies with the queer and trans communities. What happened during the incident involving Ms. Hill on August 2006 was terribly unfortunate. I believe that none of the defendants who were changed actually went out there that night with the intention of criminal activity. Life is difficult for queer and trans people, and we ask that your office recognize the constant threat of danger we live with.

Ms. Hill has been punished enough for her role in the event - both by actual imprisonment, and in the impact that imprisonment has had upon her life. I appreciate any assistance you can provide in preventing any further injustice.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Click here to read more about the Jersey Four and what is being done to win justice for them...

What I'm asking myself at age 56

How is it that I say I'm a radical feminist, yet I have difficult relationships with my sister, my mother, and my younger daughter? Why do I easily blame them, and not myself?

Why am I researching in newspaper archives and libraries for details of the life and death of my great-grandmother, yet I currently devote so little energy to my living female relatives, those women who are alive NOW, and with whom I find it so difficult to get along?

Why do I bristle when someone close to me hints that I am accountable for the troubles of my younger daughter? And hints come my way subtly, from my partner (I didn't discipline her enough), from my mother (I didn't baptise her), from my older daughter (I'm too hard on her), and from my own self (I had a life of my own in addition to motherhood).

What good comes from blaming, anyway?

What happened to all the love, effort, love, time, love, attention, love, help, love, creativity, love, work, love, tears and LOVE that I lavished on her--throughout her 21 years of life? Is it now just as if I never gave her any of that? Was it wasted energy, start to finish?

It seems so.

At the National Archive Bldg in DC today

Right Now: Veterans Climb Government Building, Call for Arrest of Bush and Cheney Impeachment movement challenges Bush at every turn.

Right now, five military veterans -- from Veterans for Peace -- are occupying a 35-foot high ledge at the National Archive Building and have raised a 22x8-foot banner reading, "DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION. ARREST BUSH AND CHENEY: WAR CRIMINALS!" The veterans currently risking arrest have declared their intention to stay on the ledge, fasting for 24 hours "in remembrance of those who have perished and those still suffering from the crimes of the Bush administration," according to a written statement. On the ledge, the veterans have brought with them a portable PA system, and they are broadcasting recorded statements from prominent Americans for the impeachment and/or arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. Other impeachment activists are at the entrance of the National Archives distributing "Citizens Arrest Warrants" to those waiting in line. This is the type of boldness that activists have displayed across the country to bring much-needed attention to this movement.

Every week and month, the Bush administration seems to add to its long list of impeachable crimes. This month's crime: the handing over of $700 billion of tax-payer dollars to his buddies on Wall Street. ImpeachBush.org has launched a nationwide initiative called VoteNoBailout to stop Bush's bailout legislation. Since yesterday, over 56,000 letters have been sent to Congress saying the White House has no right to transfer the people's money to the richest people in the country. The impeachment movement is exposing these crimes on every front, raising the questions the corporate media won't, and taking dramatic action when needed. From the Bush administration's unspeakable war crimes to the recent bankers' coup d'etat, the impeachment movement has been at the forefront of the fight back. The impeachment movement is in fourth gear, and moving full-steam ahead. Please give a much-needed donation right now so that we can continue to take on the Bush administration's many crimes. This is an enormous grassroots movement -- with no corporate sponsors -- so your help makes all the difference.

Shutting down for a while ..

.. while I move. It will be a months-long ordeal. And I'm working full-time, as always.

This is the first time in 25 years I haven't had any of my kids living with me. I can't afford to stay here, I'm in deeply debt from raising them, and the child support from their father has stopped. I don't mind leaving. I don't like the suburbs.

The clearing out is physically and emotionally wrenching.

I've given up my internet connection for the time being, and am having some trouble keeping up with the blogs I love. But since I plan to come back when I'm settled, I'm leaving this blog up.

Sending love to my favorite bloggers, you know who you are. -- sw

Carolyn Gage about Sarah Palin

Carolyn Gage started a new blog for her Lesbian Tent Revival series. Her first blog-sermon is a fab critique of Sarah Palin's politics, and how we need to pay attention, now more than ever.

I'm very much looking forward to watching Sister Carolyn's blog--go read!

Femininity undercuts liberation

Andrea Dworkin didn't say it any better than Twisty does in her latest post reminding us of the connection of our "lifestyle choices" to the worst woman-hating (the recent shooting and burying alive of three teenage girls, defended as "tribal custom" in Pakistan).

Fire Witch Rising in Denver

How great that Fire Witch Rising has been on the ground in Denver, documenting reality. Look at her awesome photo montage here.

Get to New Orleans, Barack Obama.

I wish I got the name of the man who was interviewed this morning on WBAI. He called out to Barack Obama to leave Denver and come to New Orleans. "Your people need you here, and I'm not talking about race," he said.

Those facing Hurricane Gustav have no hope that we who left them to die--those who drew guns on them at the time of their greatest need--have no hope that we will save them, their children, their parents.

Presidential Candidate McKinney grills Rumsfeld--2006 YouTube

Green party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinneys questioning of rummy is so satisfying to watch. But the moderator's insistence on calling her "the young lady" is way out of line.

Imagine President McKinney!

Time for Barbara MacDonald, NOLA Radfem!

NOLA Radfem, I love ya, but NOT your your birthday post that celebrates "looking young."

I don't want to know that your grandma and your mother and you are often taken for being younger than you are. What does that tell ME, if I've always looked OLDER than I was?

Resist the elevation of youth and beauty. It's so hard not to, I know ... but may I suggest that you get Barbara MacDonald's radical feminist analysis of aging, Look Me in the Eye. Amy posted about it six months ago.

Oh -- and a very happy belated birthday, NOLA Radfem! ;)

Warm thoughts to JW

Sending supportive, warm energy this morning out to Justice Walks. Justice, I'd send you real flowers, and yummy soup, and decent magazines, if I could.

Cynthia McKinney-from protest to Resistance

Cynthia McKinney, who is running for president on the Green Party ticket, says we should be thinking in terms of Resistance, rather than protest--same as The Peace Tree, whose good post I found via Dark Daughta

... I've been protesting for 5 years, on the street, monthly, in front of a military "career center" near my home, thinking that our efforts matter.

I really like the word Resistance as compared to protest. The Poetry Man prods those of us who see the evil in our midst to act, courageously.

Feminist Reprise practices war tax resistance. She obviously decided to be a courageous resistor, years ago.

I am finding my courage - courage to resist - Resistance to save Humanity - and Resistance to save my own humanity.

Suburbanscape vs. Resistance

I keep thinking about The Peace Tree's weekend meditation on underground resistance. And I keep asking myself what I'm going to do to practice resistance against this arrogant, evil country. Although I participate regularly in street protests against the war, I'm on the ground floor of a new white anti-racism group, and I drive around an anti-war billboard on wheels, it's clear that protest is not resistance, and that these paltry gestures are not enough to make any difference whatsoever. I drive my car all over the state. I never see any others wearing their views on their vehicles, unless it's a "Support Our Troops" sticker. Folks around the job, or around the community don't talk about the travesty of it all. Of course, my friends do, but mostly, I don't get to associate with my friends during the work week. The everyday suburban citizens keep their mouths shut and go about their business of consumption. They avoid controversy. They are ... patriotic.

It's evening, and I just came in from walking the dog through the darkening neighborhood. There was a fiery red sky, and hardly any cars about--very unusual. (New Jersey is the most densely populous state in the usa). While I appreciated the dark and suddenly quiet streets, I was bothered by how VERY empty the space all around me was. I wasn't afraid of anyone, but it felt wrong that there wasn't a soul outside, this beautiful evening.

I know the sidewalks and porches are empty because the televisions and computers are on, and the people in my suburban neighborhood, and in suburbs across the nation, are relaxing and listening and watching. They're not talking to one another, they're not reading, they're absorbing the fucking corporate message.

I've gotta get out of the complacent burbs, and do more for P.O.P..

Practical Patriotism, ca. 2008

Dear Dark Daughta,

I really like your definitions project, inviting your readers to truthfully define some commonly-used words that are being misused in the mass media. I'll work on some, and here's my start.

“patriotism”

1. Justification of quiet complicity in one's government's immoral deeds (mass murder, mayhem, torture, theft), for the purpose of maintaining or increasing one's wealth.

2. Blind, unquestioning belief in the superiority of one’s own country.

3. Militant devotion to and glorification of one’s country, chauvinism.

Street Harassment Spectator survey

In Bangalore, India, a group of young women got totally fed up with street harassment (in India it's called "Eve-Teasing") and started an activist group called Blank Noise; their blog is here.

Some of Blank Noise's actions consist of creating street art showing the nondescript, everyday outfits that targets of harassment were wearing when they were targeted. This raises consciousness among women, and men, too, that, contrary to the prevailing notion, women do not bring on harassment to ourselves by our clothing, actions or demeanor--that we don't "ask for it." It's spreading to other parts of India, too, and I've been excited to follow what these women are doing.

Until August 15, Blank Noise is doing a survey of women who have witnessed another woman being harassed on the street. They are asking what "spectators" have done, or not done, in response, and how it felt. I hope you'll consider taking part.

I'm remembering all too well times I was harassed on the street when I was young. It brings back memories of feeling so alone and vulnerable--naturally, since perps don't harass with witnesses, mostly.

For sure, I would love to be able to step forward and stop harassment, any time, if the circumstances allowed me to feel safe enough. I have blogged about how I stopped an aggressive voyeur in the library where I work, and the latest with him is that he came back this summer. So I walked up close to him, looked him dead in the eyeballs, and said, loudly, "Hello. How are you?" I wasn't smiling. I think he was startled to see me again, and I'm so happy that we haven't seen him since.

I've also written here about how I stopped the exhibitionist next door. Last year I followed up with a letter (exposing the exposer!) to several of his clergy-colleagues, but received no response. However, now they know. Yep, they certainly do.

On the street, I once hit a man on the head with my umbrella, but he was groping me, not another woman.

As to how I felt by taking action, on behalf of others, or of myself, it was a mixture of anger and joy. Along with hyper-vigilance, scanning the whole scene each time to make sure I felt safe enough to proceed, and to continue. So it's a good feeling, but very stressful. For that I hate the perps. For what they make us go through, no matter how it goes down.

And ... of course, the painful truth is that for each instance I remember fighting back somehow, there were about 100 times where I did nothing ... because I didn't know how to find the strength, the knowledge, the sense of self-worth, the certainty of my blamelessness, that I would have needed. And that's what Blank Noise is giving our sisters in India, especially the young sisters.

Blank Noise women? You have my respect and admiration for what you're doing. Sending heartfelt hugs around the world to you! I'm looking forward to reading the results of your survey.

Why the hell can't I get into Alternet?

Why are they blocking Alternet? I'm trying from an unfiltered computer. WTF??

This is what it's doing now:


Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat) Server at www.alternet.org Port 80

Fluoride

I remember in 1985 I was supposed to be giving my breast-fed son fluoride drops every day. I was unconvinced, and mostly did not do it ... though I sometimes did. He did develop "nursing bottle syndrome" which is tooth decay from lots of breastfeeding through the night (he was a big baby and nursed a lot). I haven't thought of this in years, until this ...



... and now this.

Terrain Dandridge, of the Newark Lesbian 4, to be freed

Terrain Dandridge, one of the New Jersey 4, is being released as early as today, after being imprisoned for the past two years. Her first day free will be spent meeting with Angela Davis and the Queer Community in San Francisco. Here's the great news, via Amy

Incite! New Orleans needs books by WOC authors ...

Please help spread the word far and wide ...

The New Orleans Women of Color Resource and Organizing Center is seeking books by Women of Color authors for a Radical Women of Color Lending Library Project.

This new Resource & Organizing Center will serve as a resource and organizing hub to nurture grassroots organizing and activism to end violence against women of color, linking struggles against the violence of poverty, incarceration, environmental racism, housing discrimination, economic exploitation, and medical experimentation and forced sterilization. The Center will provide a host of movement building and leadership development programs, activities, and resources to end violence against women of color; the Center will also house a radical women of color lending library, a cluster of computers for community use, meeting space, and a comfortable environment for women and girls to hang out.

The Center is establishing a radical women of color lending library. We are seeking donations of books by women of color authors across genres, topics, interests, and subjects including but not limited to:

Activism-Organizing
African Social Movements
Anti-Oppression
Arab Feminist Organizing
Arab Social Movements
Art and Culture
Asian Feminist Organizing
Asian Social Movements
Autonomous Movements
Black/African Feminist Organizing
Caribbean Social Movements
Chicana Feminist Organizing
Civil/Human Rights
Colonization
Community Accountability
Re-Constructing Masculinity
Disability Organizing/Rights
Disasters and Vulnerabilities
Diaspora Organizing/Identity
Domestic Workers Organizing
Economic Justice
Education/Radical Teaching
Environment / Ecological Justice
Erotic Autonomy
Feminism
Gender Theory and Identity
Gender Justice
Gender-based Violence
Genocide
Globalization
Healthcare (Access Disparities)
Health Justice
Health and Alternative Therapies
HIV/AIDS Organizing / Prevention Justice
Housing and Community Development
Human Rights
Human Trafficking
Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Imperialism
Intersex Identity and Organizing
Just Sustainabilities and Development
Juvenile Justice
Labor Organizing
Latina Feminist Organizing
Latin American Social Movements
Media Justice
Mental Health and Wellness
Middle East Organizing/Solidarity/Justice
Militarism
Music
Native American Feminist Organizing
Native American Social Movements
Neoliberalism
Palestine Organizing/Right of Return
Pan-Asian Organizing
Policing / Law Enforcement Violence
Population and Development
Poverty/Welfare Rights
Prison Industrial Complex
Prison Abolition and Prisoners' Rights
Queer Theory/Identity
Racial Justice
Radical Parenting
Radical Women of Color Organizing
Refugee/Internally Displaced Persons
Reproductive Health and Justice
Sex Work Organizing /Street Economies
Sexual Health
Slavery
Sovereignty and Self-Determination
Spirituality/Healing
Spoken Word/Performance Poetry
Trans Justice
Transnational Organizing
U.S. Black Social Movements
War
War on Drugs/Racial Profiling
Welfare Reform/Policies
Women and War
Women's Health and Healing
Workers' Rights
Youth Organizing

All books are welcome—fiction, non-fiction, poetry, zines, articles, resource books, anthologies, photodocumentaries, etc. Videos, documentaries, and music are also welcomed. We are specifically interested in books by African, Arab, Asian, Black, Caribbean, Chicana, Indigenous, Native, and Latina authors. Donations should be mailed to the:

New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic
c/o WHJI
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116
USA

For more information, please contact us at whji_info "at" yahoo.com or by phone at 504-524-8626.

Dana Tiger, artist

This is a painting by Dana Tiger, a very neat feminist Cherokee artist. Several of her paintings and prints are on her website.

Dana Tiger gave me permission to post this image.

They put her in jail ... for 10 days.

She is allowed no contact with anyone "on the outside" until Thursday, and will be getting out some time this weekend.

My partner is supporting me by talking about tough love, and about facing reality. Two other good friends are supporting me by checking in, and by listening.

I'm keeping these words from Dark Daughta close to my heart and mind.

NOLA radfem's thanking Dark Daughta, too

NOLA radfem has left a new comment on your post "Thanks for the comments":

Dark Daughta,

This was useful for me too, especially the part about how to be real with my daughter about my relationship with my husband (maybe ultimately to be my ex?) and my resulting depression vs. possibly poisoning the father/daughter relationship.

This is huge for me. I still don't know how I will deal with it, but I appreciate your delving into it - appreciate it very much.

Thanks for the comments

Thanks to the anonymous commenter who reminded me that it was NOT a good idea to post my daughter's photo ... and thanks to NOLA Radfem and Debs, and Maia, your caring/concern for me touched me ... and thanks to Amy and CJ for your observations, your reminder that young adults need to distance themselves from their mothers, that it can be a sign of health.

Dark Daughta, thank you for telling me what you know, I appreciate this so much. If I can, in fact, do this major excavation work, it's going to be so hard, soooooo hard, so different from the way I've ever operated. I will, of course, let you know how I'm doing, how it's going.

Dark Daughta has left a new comment on your post "My daughter":

Hee, hee!
You know me...
I've gotta be contrary. :)

This is from DD's advice, copied from her blog:

I read your post about your daughter. It explained some more. Gave another layer. Will you be traveling deeper? There are things there, that flesh out what has happened temporally, but not so much emotionally.

I felt sad when I read about the distance between the two of you. I felt it. I understand it. You know I understand it...from the other side, enh?

sigh...

I'm just wondering...how much of what has happened for her do you understand, really get? How much of what she's doing in terms of driving herself majorly off course lines up...or doesn't line up with what happened in your relationship with your husband?

Were you able to talk about the relationship with her? Were you scared of what she'd understand or misunderstand that might hurt you or hurt your feelings?

I hear you about what it means for the wimmin to be taken to task about the well being and goings on in the family. I remember Ophelia saying similar things when Papi and I have had difficult conversations with her about what went on inside Papi's family.

My response, you know, will be feminism layered with emotion with mess...

Wimmin are definitely patriarchally oppressed.
Mothers definitely patriarchally oppressed.
Wives definitely patriarchally oppressed.
Wimmin who become wives and mothers are oppressed.
But nonetheless they make choices.
No matter how clueless, how uncomfortable, how scared, how coerced they are or may feel, they make choices.

Sometimes they choose crazy men. :)
Sometimes they choose stupid men. :)
Sometimes they choose dangerous men. :)
Sometimes they choose men who just aren't there emotionally or psychologically.

How do I say this?

Sometimes their choices of male partners fits well with the fact that they are patriarchally oppressed and don't feel powerful, or are not seeing particularly clearly at the time or even for years afterwards...maybe they never see clear enough to escape or to revision their choices.

Sometimes as they choose (in however impaired a fashion they do), their children witness their choices and use what they've witnessed as the basis for choices of their own.

This is how heterosexual nuclear patriarchal families are constructed. The men come with their uncritiqued insanity and the wimmin teach it to the children who use it to "help" them make their way out into the world, to "help" them (mis)understand the world.

I hear your anger over being the one who is present enough to be held accountable. Papi and I had a massive argument with Ophelia saying similar things when Papi and I have had difficult conversations with her about what went on inside Papi's family, not his father who is not capable of reckoning...with much.

My understanding says that when a woman who is smart or who becomes smart, or who is conscious or who becomes conscious is in a relationship with a man who really isn't there, who could never really be present, who while occupying a place of being completely unconscious if not downright dangerous, causes massive harm, or subtle harm to the family, or who limits the possibilities of the family by just being...asleep...then she ends up being the only one who can be held accountable.

Of course the children will turn to the one with sense for justice. Of course the children will turn to the one with words and emotions and fire and a sense of responsibility for some sort of accounting of all what has gone wrong.

The children deserve an accounting from whoever can offer it if they are not to be doomed to going down through the ages howling in sheer frustration, confusion and pain triggering pain triggering pain right up to their death beds.

Who would want to bequeath that existence to a child they loved?

Fuck the idiot men who didn't have any sense, who weren't good partners, who weren't solid allies, who took things apart with their bare hands, who ripped wimmin partners apart with their idiotic ways of doing relationship.

That's for the two exes to sort out or not.

Sadly, somewhere in all of this us children wander in limbo, in purgatory. Adult children who aren't offered release. who don't necessarily understand divorce as closure, as balm need more. I think that it's understandable that we would expect more.

I understand what you wrote about how drained you were after and probably during the relationship with your husband and about how you didn't have anything extra in the way of engagement to offer your children.

You understand of course that I believe that wimmin have too much placed on their plates in relationships with men, in the context of nuclear patriarchal family.

I get it.

I rebel against it and set it on fire on the daily. Right now Papi and I are talking about what life might be like if we were to just have separate homes. One he could trash and undermine and one that I could build and make strong. :)

sigh...

I think that part of the problem is that there is a way that wimmin who have shifted their relationships or who have left their relationships and come into consciousness of who they are as wimmin under patriarchy, come into feminism can confuse their children with an experience of having been coerced into childrearing.

I think there is a way that, when confronted by their children, with questions about what exactly happened, when forced to deal with the emotions of their children, that the wimmin, these coerced mothers, can step back from being accountable by offering a feminist critique of coerced motherhood.

I think this is easy and misplaced analysis even as I understand that this is about these wimmin feeling so forced on so many different levels by their male partners but also by the society.

I think that there's a kind of conflation that happens.

I don't think that many wimmin know how to complain about the society that has forced them to heap their plates so full of oppressing gendered responsibility as wives and mothers. I think that this kind of "accountability" which is really about men being sheltered from the reality of their choices, should be resisted against all costs and discussed at dinner tables all over the world on the regular while men are forced to participate in the new world order of polite dinner conversation.

But as a feminist who can recognize this kind of coercion, I don't think that rebellion often takes this form.

I think that it's hard for a woman who has been coerced, who knows she's been coerced to step back and do a kind of criticism, internal self talking that makes space for her child or children when they come full of pain and confusion wanting her not her emotionally vacant, stupid, dangerous, in denial or physically absent husband or ex husband to explain and claim what went on inside the crazy family she was only partially responsible for creating.

I think that children turned adults can feel dismissed or deflected when the wimmin who carried them...under duress...now conscious of that duress, ask their children, not their husbands, not their ex husbands, not themselves, not the society, not the extended family: "Why are us wimmin always left holding the bag? Why are the mothers always taken to task? Why are we the ones who must deal with the mess and the wreckage after the marriage is over, after the shit has hit the fan, after the children are grown?"

sigh...

I think that the children always come to their mothers and we do come in different ways not always sane ways, not always politely discussing ways, perhaps instead tantruming ways, shop lifting and running away ways, cussing ways, won't wear deodorant or bathe for days ways, refuse to sit down with family and friends to eat ways...

We do come speaking (tears) as best as we can...

I think that when we come and ask there is space for a woman who has been forced to be a wife and mother to speak her truths fully or to have already been working these into conversation if she knows how, and can commit to the discomfort of doing this kind of work on herself, with herself...there is hope for closure, for healing, for mutual understanding...for children to see their mothers as emotionally damaged fallible human beings and for mothers to see their children as products of this fallibility, as oppressed under patriarchy, but also as emotionally damaged human beings, too. Though I've only witnessed this fleetingly in the conversations I've supported and been a part of between Ophelia and Papi, I think there is huge space for communion and reconciliation.

Second Waver...

Children will come to the "mothers" and as mother who is making her way and prepping for my own time when the children come back to roost with all sorts of uncomfortable crazy making questions...who am I kidding, Stinkapee is already fully there and she's just six...

But also as an abandonee who has the residue of my parent's relationship and the impact it had on me and the pain of feeling completely, utterly abandoned by them both...

I think the children do deserve the whole truth, not partial truths, not obscured truths, not uncritiqued, unexplored truths...

My mother seems to believe that it's okay to not offer truths. I think she's been silenced by that old rule about wimmin who leave their husbands avoiding discussing the relationship with the children so that their children can have an opportunity to have a relationship with their fathers. I think there is a way that wimmin make themselves and their concerns and their intuitions really small in that mothering model. I think that they do themselves but also their children a disservice. I think they enter into a pact with various devils, agreeing to not point out the obvious in the hopes that this will mean their children don't experience the parts of their husbands that they did.

I'm remembering my mother pretty much saying that she let me come to live with my father because she told herself he wouldn't do what he'd done to her to me. He'd be nicer to me. And he was...sometimes...in between...when he wasn't pretending I wasn't there...when he wasn't giving love conditionally for adult behaviours like saving money for groceries...when he wasn't expecting me to behave like more of a dominated teenager soon to become a woman.

I remember trying to subtly, she seems shaky when she talks to me, as if she could splinter into a million pieces ... I remember trying to point out that living with him had been varying degrees of awful. Her response? She hadn't realized it would be. Then she sort of made a quick note to self. On her next visit to church she'd ask her husband's white catholic patriarchal gawd...not me her daughter...for forgiveness.
hmmm...

My mother doesn't have a Black feminist analysis. She has smarts and survival tools. She survived my father. She got away from him. She got out of that relationship. I just don't think she had the space or the access to any sort of Black feminist analysis to make useful choices about what happened in the next few years. I have it, though. I definitely have enough analysis for her and for me.

Second Waver,

I think that mothers who do have feminist consciousness are in a unique bind yes, but also in a unique place where we can hold that knowledge of what wimmin are expected to bear up under, what we are expected to support and take responsibility for...

Consciously feminist mamas can hold that knowledge and still make intentional, intelligent, emotionally grounded space to be there for the little people (those little people mama used to know and snuggle and kiss and squeeze and breasfeed) inside those raving, wild eyed, cold to the touch, tantruming almost adult, fully adult children who did not ask to be utilized by the patriarchy, who did not ask to be cloistered inside nuclear families, who did not ask to be caught in the midst of a battle, who just want to be released from the battle, fully set free by being offered as much knowledge and analysis of the battle as we can hold and carry away...

I think it's possible for a feminist woman who has walked away from "motherhood" and from "wifehood" to still be a loving, present, caring, accountable, human, responsible parent to a fellow human being who needs answers to questions they may not be able to form into words.

I'm sitting with the teenager and the little girl. The beast child is still howling in the dungeon...but for a moment there we had peace. I felt it, felt the truth of what I had typed and we were silent. The voices were silent. They felt loved and understood...by me, at least.

Second Waver?

I know you'll understand what I'm saying and what you can do with all this. Can you do an inventory of what you have available in terms of emotional space, consciousness, indulgence, support that you can offer to your daughter? And after having done that can you gird your loins and walk into your daughter's fray?
Gird your loins, mama.

Please step up in intelligent, intentional, politically conscious, self supporting ways.

I don't think you'll be able to save your daughter or heal her. I don't think you need to wipe her ass or hold her hand every step of the way. But I do think that there may be ways you have absented yourself, not because of her growing up, but because you couldn't stand to be emotionally close to anyone.

You can't be mama to a little breastfeeding cutey again. But I do think you may be able to...offer her little inner girl something you didn't have, probably many of us didn't have growing up and entering adulthood. As you step up for her...even if she doesn't want it right now...perhaps you can earmark some support for her that she can accept at some future time...

As you find a way to parent without being coerced into motherhood, I think you'll realize, however painfully, that you may soothe some of what ails you, too and perhaps have more space to step up for yourself, too.

My tears are drying. The voices are starting to rumble again. They always do. Thanks for this. It was healing for me. I hope this was useful for you, too.

My daughter

When I nursed my daughter, she would stroke the skin on my elbow. After she started talking, she would say that my elbow skin was the softest thing in the world. I will never forget the sweet touch of her fingers there, which went on for years.

She has an amazing sense of direction--my own is abysmal. I've joked that I'd never need a GPS as long as she was in the car with me, and it was mostly true.

From age 8 to 13, she and I were in a mother-daughter book discussion group. Four mothers and our four daughters met monthly for five years, discussing a book each time. I would read each book to her, or we would read them aloud to each other, alternating chapters, before she went to sleep. For five years. Often I would fall asleep in her bed, and would wake up a couple hours later, and move to my own bed.

This picture above was taken nearly two years ago, right before her high school graduation. She's 20 now. She has a sense of style, has always been hip--actually, the only hip one in our family. She is keenly observant, and has a quirky, off-beat sense of humor. She and I are both extroverts--the only extroverts in the family.

As I said in a comment to Dark Daughta, I abandoned her, in effect, when she was 17. I was overwhelmed from years as a single mother of three, I had become ground down and used up. I had ushered first my oldest child, a daughter, safely into adulthood, then (I thought) my second, a son was on his way. But then he came back to live at home, after 2 years away at school.

I couldn't cope with having him back again, not helping me in any way, just taking my energy, my time, my life. I had been a mommy-machine for too many years, alone, and I just sort of checked out. It wasn't a choice. I worked, earned money and paid the bills to keep the household going, but stopped cooking their meals, doing the housework; I stopped making a home. I stayed in my room, reading, or I went out. I grasped at a life apart from motherhood.

My son (then age 20) was none the worse for it, I think, but my 17 year old daughter must have suffered. She started spending most of her time at her friend's house, whose mother treated my daughter like family. She was a SAHM, and I let it happen. I justified it because I had, myself, in earlier, easier times, extended a nurturing hand to others' children.

What I know is this: single motherhood just about did me in. It nearly crushed me. The worst of it is that I let go of her.

She will not do any help or cleaning in the house. She hardly speaks to me. And when she does speak to me, I don't know if she's lying or not. She has lied to me big time, more than once. She was caught shoplifting, and has not performed her court-ordered community service. I don't know what they'll do to her.

Okay, so I have guilt. I know I let her down. Does her father feel guilty? Not that I can tell. His conscience seems clear. It's always the mother--the mother's fault--in society's eyes, in her eyes, and in mine. The drudgery, the stress, the financial hardship, the guilt, it has all been mine.

She's a certified lifeguard, and a hardworking waitress. She's been a camp counsellor at a girls' camp for the past several summers. She developed a quite close relationship with a young woman there, another counsellor, which lasted a long time. I was happy about that. They're not as close as they used to be, however.

She is safe. My dearest hope is that I'll keep her safe until she's able keep herself safe. But who knows? She's still so vulnerable.

She's safe, but we hardly speak.

The First Carnival of White Noise is up!

It's about Black history. Come on over!

Cynthia McKinney for President

Former US Congresswoman from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney, holds up food packet and cluster bomb, both of which were being dropped on Afghanistan by the American military in late 2001.

Cynthia McKinney is running on the Green Party ticket. McKinney has shown true courage in taking on Bush/Cheney on Capitol Hill, in fact has among the bravest of all the members of the House of Representatives.

She declared her candidacy in December 2007, and has the endorsements of Angela Davis and Cindy Sheehan.

Check out her website, which links to issues, a youtube video clip, and more. You'll notice that her site and youtube are not slick--this woman is the real thing.

Total lunar eclipse tonight

Hoping the weather will cooperate!

Introducing: white noise

Will leave this at the top for a while .......

Maia and I are rolling out a new blog together: white noise.

It's a new, safe (heavily moderated) discussion space for white feminists confronting and exploring our white privilege, and the harsh implications of said privilige.

ALL feminists/womanists of good will, wishing to inquire and explore, are warmly invited (olive branch extended, sisters).

(Women of color are more than welcome to join in, and even to beat us over the head when we need it, but gently, please ... we are trying to have open, unguarded, self-examining hearts in this space.)

Crock of love

Just returned from several days supporting my partner as she deals with her mom's fall and her travels through the u.s. health care "system," in actuality a health care nightmare. Televisions are ubiquitous, so as we suffered, we got to watch a report about how Denmark cares for its people, cradle to grave, with high quality subsidized health care, day care, education, elder care, etc.

Mutti's roommate had this television show blaring while we were there Saturday night. The show is basically set up to pit young, sexualized women against each other in a no-holds-barred competition for a date with a jerk. It just got worse and worse, I knew things were bad in pop culture, but I had no idea just how degraded young women (hence, all women) are on mainstream american TV.

Why are so many GROWN women wearing bright RED today?

... and none of the men are? I'm not talking about kids, but adults at work.

It feels like the women are sacrificing dignity, prioritizing love and romantic relationships, while the men, above it all, carry on with their normal lives. Ugh.

I was one of the women wearing red on Valentine's Day, for many years. It seemed congenial, fun. Now I recognize the way it comes across to men, in patriarchy--as emblems of our degradation.

It's everyday bits like this that show me how much I've changed, in only two years' time--since I started becoming a radical feminist.

Free the New Jersey Black Lesbian 4!

There's a new website dedicated to the New Jersey 4 where you'll find ways we can help the four imprisoned young women. There's also a moderated discussion board, so you can share your opinions, ideas, experiences, announcements, and any actions you plan to take on behalf of the NJ4. They'll be adding more to the site soon, including:

* additional ways to help the 4 and their families
* upcoming events in support of the 4
* more information about the case, including the media coverage
* updates about the young women and their legal appeal
* personal messages from members of the 4 and family members

Please check in from time to time, and also, please help spread the word about our sisters! (Thanks, Amy, for pointing there.)

Dear Robin Morgan,

Robin, I love you. I'm not surprised that you would endorse Hillary. Your calling out of the sexism she is going through during this campaign is excellent.

But did you have to discount the experience of american Black women in the process? That's just divisive; it has slammed the door in the faces of so many Black feminists, locating white radical feminism even farther away than before from Black feminists' experience. The great divide is now even wider.

Your essay is a call to women to support Hillary Clinton over Obama, on the grounds that sex oppression trumps race oppression around the world, and through history. In fact, you go so far as to say:

--------------------------------------------------
"I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote—until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they're being called 'race traitors.'

So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the U.S. and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women."
--------------------------------------------------

Oh, Robin, you and I can not authoritatively declare that sex oppression is the worse oppression, since we're not Black women. Neither of us is qualified to make this brash, sweeping announcement; only Black women are experts on both.

White feminists NEED to listen when our Black feminist sisters tell us that often, here in the usa, it's their Blackness that causes them more harm than their sex. In fact, to discount their words is (as I am starting to learn) white supremacist.

If the women say it, let's really listen. I am trying to listen, to
Justicewalks, to Other Stories, to Marjorie Valbrun, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Angry Black Bitch, and to Justicewalks again.

This cartoon by , referring to Gloria Steinem's similar recent endoresement, sums it up:
by B. Deutsch, posted over at Alas, a blog.

Dark Daughter asks: Who do they hunt, who do they kill?

I appreciate Dark Daughta's comment, which is pasted here:

Dark Daughta has left a new comment on your post "Lisa Bufano, artist":

I saw that photo this morning as I searched. It's gorgeous. I liked the video of her dancing, too. So much stuff for us to reorg our minds around as we do the work of understanding who is actually wonderful, worthwhile and beautiful human beings deserving of care and access to resources. I'm having a flash of all those able bodied music video dancers and all the dance competition shows so predicated on assumptions of what it means to be "normal", "perfect", "valid" physically. I think that this is one of the reasons why I get so impatient about the ways people get stuck when asked to examine stuff like patriarchal privilege, white privilege, gender privilege...settler privilege...what it means to live in north amerikkka...

Yes...
We have all that on our plates in terms of systemic power to unpack. But as we struggle with ourselves and with each other, we're missing the point that the domination of the able bodied and the oppression of those understood as not functioning within acceptable emotional and psychological parameters continues and traverses all cultures, races, classes, genders, age groupings...all of it.

I don't know any people who are able to bring intelligent, radical, messy ableism critiques along with critiques of white domination, classism, patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, ageism...and whatever else I've left out because my privilege allows me to forget or to erase...

I think that the single issue approach to consciousness raising that privileges any one type of oppression just isn't enough.

I think that's why I look at power, domination and control. It usually steers me pretty clear. Who do the dominant peoples hate? Which kinds of sex do they abhor? What kinds of dress do they abhor? What kinds of speech do they abhor? What exactly do they position themselves against? Who do they hunt? Who do they kill?

A lot of people fall inside these parameters for a lot of different reasons.

My analysis and world view are made messy and uncomfortable in this way, but I'm also enriched and allowed more clarity, too.

Phew!
Thanks for this.

Dark Daughta, I'm richer, see more clearly, have become aware of my need to change, from reading you. I thank YOU.

Autism in six children, mother is blamed

Just watched this news story about a religious couple with six children who have "autistism spectrum" diagnoses. The medical expert says this has happened due to both chance and environmental factors--code for "blame the mother."

The woman bears the brunt, natch, since she is the one home with them, trying hard to cope, 24/7, while the man gets to get out to go to work. In the clip, it shows the man doing a lot of caretaking, but I think it's skewed. The woman's "collapse" from the strain and overwork resulted in the state taking them away, presumably into substandard foster "homes." Two weeks later, the 6 kids were all her responsibility, again.

Why is this couple on their own? Why don't the people in this country want to help their own people? What about some respite care, what about special teachers, how about some help??

I wonder what kinds of help other countries offer families with autistic children.

Lisa Bufano, artist

I'm interested in Lisa Bufano, but have never seen her perform.

From her site:

Lisa Bufano is an interdisciplinary artist and a dancer who often uses prosthetics in her work ... Lisa was a competitive gymnast as a kid and a go-go dancer in college. After a bacteria infection led to the amputation of both her feet and fingers when she was 21, Lisa pursued animation and sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In Fall, 2006, Boston presenter Jeremy Alliger introduced her to NY choreographer Heidi Latsky and she began new work in modern dance.

Here's a photo of her, dancing.

and a video of her dancing ...

Beautiful whales

For the past few years, I've had a really hard time listening/watching to radio/television news reports. It gets me too upset, and often. So, I've been relying on the internet for all my news.

Yeah, I do miss a lot--but that's ok. This morning, however, I wondered if, now that the murderous Bush regime is on its way out, maybe I could handle audio news again. Wrong! This report made me cry. I know that, in this report, Bush did not get his way, he was temporarily stopped from torturing to death beautiful whales, dolphins, and other gorgeous sea animals. But what we, our violent country, have done to them is so hard to hear.

So I've stopped listening, again, but I'm still reading ... it's not as excruciating to take in.

Helpful words from reSISTERance ...

reSISTERance stopped by while I was away, with my partner, helping her mother, where there was no internet access available. reSISTERance, thank you for your valuable comment. My partner was making some of the same points to me, too (she is a long-time radical feminist who does not read blogs. I'll write more about her at some point, with her permission).

Thanks to reSISTERance and to the others who wrote or commented, constructively and supportively, over the last few days. I do plan to continue to look hard at what's been going on, and at my language, and want to write this weekend, again.

Here's what reSISTERance had to say:

v has left a new comment on your post "For the revolution to happen ...":

sw -

I think youre being unfair insinuating people who dont get involved have no stomach or no spine. Not everyone has the time or ability right now to do exactly what youre doing. I have a lot of respect for you, but on this point I think youre being unfair. Everyone has to find the time and ability to 'fight the system' in their own way and i dont think its good to insult people who choose different paths but are broadly going in the same direction. Like - in feminism i think there needs to be those working on birth as well as those working on prostitution as well as those working on older women as well as those etc. Do you know what I mean? None is the right or wrong way to womens ultimate liberation, just different ways.

I went to the new place and I really like what Maia has written. I understand the point of what you and Amy have been writing, but I have been feeling alienated and confused by some of it. White privilege exists for sure, no arguments from me. I have it for sure, and I need to work at ways of resisting white supremacy. I want to do that. But how my white privilege is constructed and how it benefits me is different, as a low class* brit woman with a mental health issue, to how it benefits the standard "middle class white american liberal woman" i see so much of in blog posts.

Ive been reluctant to discuss racism because of accusations that get slung around, but i do want to do it. I know i fuck up and i want to deal with that.

The main problem for me is that sometimes american anti racist rhetoric comes over a bit like just another flavour of cultural imperialism. Its hard to get involved in the discussion when I dont recognise anything. I read through the white privilege checklist and honestly, if youre low class - and i dont mean saltoftheearth working class but noone even wants to acknowledge you exist low class - a lot of these privileges dont exist. And saying that isnt saying I want them or I'm bitter about not having them, its me expressing confusion because i dont see how anyone can have missed that?

I really need to be seeing the whole system of oppressions - white supremacy, class, sex, and the rest - as interlinked, in some ways fluid (marrying "up"; getting into higher education; becoming a single mother; becoming disabled; moving to a new country - these things to some extent change our placement in the system). Im nervous that too much is being assumed static and universal when its not.

Sorry if this was badly put or caused offence or upset. Im not sure I have the sensitivity required to have this discussion.

ps *I use low class these days because working class is not what I mean. I sometimes say underclass. There doesnt seem to be a standard word for it, mostly everyone has their own local terms for this group of people. I wrote a post some time ago on one of ours, chavs - here

Justicewalks spoke ...

... and I hope everyone has read it..

Now, I've really got to get to bed.

For the revolution to happen ...

I was pretty sad to read this, especially the part where the angry and insulting radical feminists told me to stick it. Really??

Anyway, I stand by my previous post at white noise. I will say again that we are sisters and this huge divide between white feminists and black feminists needs to come down. How can we make the revolution happen when we are separate and we won't look at why that is?

If we don't start this work, it will never get done, and we will stay divided. I'm starting, with those sisters who have the stomach, the spine, to do the work. It's not about any individuals. It's about the system, and our role. If we glimpse the problem, and if we back away from it, we are complicit.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A ray of hope here is that you said something about "if I come over to your blog," which I'm very glad to read. Not that I feel safe enough to come over there now, but at least you have left the door open for future interaction.

Which is not the way I was treated elsewhere, with talk of blacklisting, and removing my blog from her sidebar within a few minutes of my honest and not at all abusive questioning and digging into these tough questions posed by Justicewalks and Amy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll say it again: I'm starting, with any and all sisters who have the stomach, the spine, to do the work.

Lesbian Feminist Tent Revival: Carolyn Gage's, not Dolly Parton's

2008 is the year for Carolyn Gage's wonderful lesbian-feminist Tent Revivals, which she is putting together now to record, and to take on the road. Gage held several "beta" versions last summer at MichFest, and she'll bring updated ones there this summer, she said. I'm looking forward to them.

Gage's tent revivals are the polar opposite of Dolly Parton's Tent Revival online video, wherein she chides women to snap out of our dissatisfaction, become "more forgiving," "get to living," "get down on our knees and pray" in order to improve our lives, despite all our female woes, such as being "overweight, underpaid, under-appreciated." Ugh.

It's about standing up and telling the truth

On "Super Tuesday," February 5, I will cast my primary ballot for Kucinich, even though he has withdrawn, in order to tell Obama and Clinton that we are out here, we who see the truth, we who will continue to press for the truth, against corruption and greed, and for peace and social justice.

Kucinich withdraws from the presidential race

Theriomorph's white ally post

Great white ally thread, though comments have closed. Thanks, Amy, for pointing there.

Speaking of class, globally

This report, and others like it, are good to keep bringing back to mind as we're talking about class, privilege, oppression, suffering, desperation. Juxtaposed against our privileged, mostly thoughtless, spoiled rotten way of life.

Beautiful image; beautiful post, Maia

This is full of hope, sorely needed.

Just, wow.

Maia has left a new comment on your post "Some wisdom":

White privileged woman here, travelling too quietly along the same road.

Anyway, I have a burning question:

We know white people react badly to "accusations" of racism. Those of us trying to address our own attitudes and behaviour maybe can at least try to control those defensive reactions, but there are many more white people who have not even got as far as this yet. So how can we (white people trying to speak up) speak to them (white people who aren't even on the same page yet) effectively?

e.g. if you know that the reaction you are going to get is "what are you on about, I'm not racist, you're just weirdly hypersensitive" it's very easy to think - what's the point? The person isn't going to listen or change, and it's going to be socially awkward for me, to no purpose. This is especially the case when you are in say a work or family situation (especially one where you are yourself disempowered) and you can't just say that you don't care about offending the other person because you still have to deal with them afterwards.

Is there a less alienating, more positive way to draw attention to racist statements / assumptions / actions? A way that helps the other person to listen instead of dismissing? A way that makes it less daunting for a person who wants to speak out but worries about the consequences of causing offence?

So, I asked Maia: "A crucial question, Maia. Would you mind if I posted your comment as its own post, here? Women who might have insight may not see it in comments. Thank you. -- sw"

Maia said,
Of course i don't mind
xx

Telling the truth

Everyone hates racism ... in other people. It's really a leap for white feminists to ask ourselves if we, in any way, support white, male domination, which goes against what we have always thought of as our anti-racism. Spotted Elephant wrote these words (in her blogspot site, before she migrated to wordpress) in 2006 (she's currently on blogging-hiatus):

"As a White American, I cannot say that I'm NOT a racist--my privilege prevents that from being the truth." (caps mine)

There were 5 or 6 comments to spotted elephant's post, and the interesting thing is, that they run the gamut, from the blogger who OWNS racism within herself
-- "no one is racism free, no one"
to bloggers who mention other white people's racism, but don't address Spotted Elephant's assertion that our white privilege means we, whites, are all, in some way, racists.
-- "the bigotry some of my white students"
-- "my own encounters with racism"
-- "my first experience with racism"
-- "my town is racist"

Soooo ..... I think it's time for me to just bite this bitter bullet, and say this:

"I am 55 years old; I was brought up to be a racist, I've been a racist, and I still am. I am. I'm working to lessen my racism, and I need to speed it up. I'm sorry it's taken me 55 years to know it. I probably still have time left to work harder for justice."

Ok, onward. (That wasn't nearly as hard to say as I expected it to be.)

We have lotsa work ...

Darkdaughta wrote, encouragingly ...

If there are any white wimmin struggling with their own racism...

Second Waver and CJ are having a conversation about racism and white privilege they want to invite other white wimmin to join. If you're reading this please go visit them. Something wonky has happened with the white feminists and I think it would be really easy for them to step away from doing the work of unpacking, more deeply, their own racism.

It would block a lot of the agendas the wimmin of color in blogland and real time have quite effectively.

I think that the kerfuffle isn't a time where they should draw themselves up indignantly about being called racists.

They are.

I think this time is a challenge where they can choose to delve deep and feel and let the feelings guide them to really understanding who they are.

Times a wastin'. There is no time for them to be wondering around bouncing off each other aimlessly and bashing into each other. There are challenges people of color have posed, wimmin of color have posed that directly relate to political moves that need to be made, political ground that needs to be covered.

Asking themselves whether they're racist or not is not useful.

Getting angry with wimmin of color who point out that they're racist is not useful.

There's concrete substantial work supporting the agendas of people of color that needs to be done. There's work here that needs doing.

Get back to work. Get back to your work.

I'll take a random item from that list ...

(list being from my post just now)

3. Have I spent some time recently looking at my own attitudes and behaviors as an adult to determine how I am contributing to or combating racism?

This is something my partner and I were discussing last night. I live in a middle-class suburb which calls itself integrated, but when you walk through the schools, it's clear that while the elementary schools are pretty well integrated, the middle and high school are only integrated "in name." The advanced classes are almost entirely white. I moved here when I became single (when my kids were young) because I could afford to live here--just barely, but I squeaked in. I wanted the kids to be in as good a school district as I could manage. Unfortunately, that means white. Our racist, immoral education "system" in the usa dictates that local municipalities fund most of their own school districts' budgets. So, white towns have much better schools. My admitting this shameful fact about my participation in the system now--now that they are older--doesn't help anyone. I can't say 100% that I would choose differently, if I had it to do over. I hope I would, but I really don't know. But I did move here then. So I have some deep changes to make, now, in how I live, what I do, etc.

White, privileged women, please feel free to plunge in with your thoughts, any time! The water is brisk.

Some wisdom

Thanks to the women who wrote me; I appreciate your words.

I'm happy to reread this post from last April at Amy's:

April 26th, 2007
Combating Racism: Moving from Concern to Action
(A Personal Inventory for White People)
(This is adapted by Andrea Ayvazian from the work of James Edler and Judy H. Katz, and was passed to Amy by Kate)

1. Have I intentionally and aggressively sought to educate myself further on issues of racism (by talking with others, viewing films, finding reading material, attending lectures, joining a study group, etc.)?

2. Have I spent some time reflecting on my own childhood/upbringing and analyzing where/how/when I was receiving racist messages?

3. Have I spent some time recently looking at my own attitudes and behaviors as an adult to determine how I am contributing to or combating racism?

4. Have I evaluated my use of language, light and dark imagery and other terms or phrases that might be degrading or hurtful to others?

5. Have I openly disagreed with a racist comment, joke, reference, or action among those around me?

6. Have I made a clear promise to myself that I will interrupt racist comments, actions, etc. that occur around me–even when this involves some personal risk?

7. Have I grown in my awareness of racism in TV programs, advertising, and news coverage?

8. Have I objected [to racism in the media] to those in charge?

9. Have I admitted publically (in any setting) that I acknowledge my own racism and am actively striving to be an effective white ally?

10. Have I taken steps to organize discussion groups or workshops aimed at unlearning racism with friends, family members, colleagues?

11. Have I probed political candidates–at all levels–to determine their stance and commitment to work against racism?

12. Have I contributed financially to an agency, fund, or program that actively confronts the problems of racism?

13. Have I contributed my time to an agency, fund, or program that actively confronts the problems of racism?

14. Do my personal buying habits support stores and companies that demonstrate some awareness about and sensitivity to the issues of racism?

15. Have I investigated the curricula of local schools in terms of their treatment of the issue of racism (textbooks, films, assemblies, faculty, staff, administration)?

16. Have I made an inventory of the images (decorations, posters, signs, etc.) with which I surround myself at home, work, school?

17. Do I see myself as a resource person for referrals–directing white people to agencies, individuals, and groups who assist others in dismantling racism?

18. Have I sought out and seen any films focusing on racism and/or civil rights?

19. Do I view myself as a role model–a white ally who questions the white power structure and actively models this for others?

20. Have I reviewed the stages of white identity development and reflected upon how my life pattern does or does not fit into those stages?

21. Have I made a contract with myself to keep paying attention to the issue of racism over weeks, months, and years?

Also, I found this older post from Alas, a Blog hugely helpful; it's new to me, anyway:

How Not To Be Insane When Accused Of Racism
(A Guide For White People)
Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2005

It's true ... a lot of white people, hell, most white people turn ten different shades of pissed off and shoot steam out their ears if someone suggests they've said something racist. And if you make a point of talking about race and racism, sooner or later someone will accuse you of being racist, fairly or unfairly.

Frankly, I think we whites ... especially, we whites who think of ourselves as against racism ... have to get over it. So here it is, in honor of "blog against racism day" (okay, it's now the morning after blog against racism day, so I'm slow):

Amp's Guide to Not Being an Insane-O White Person When Accused of Racism.

1) Breathe. Stay calm. Stay civil. Don't burn bridges. If someone has just said "I think that sounds a bit racist," don’t mistake it for them saying "you're Klu Klux Klan racist scum" (which is a mistake an amazing number of white people make). For the first ten or twenty seconds any response you make will probably come from your defensiveness, not from your brain, so probably you shouldn't say whatever first comes to your mind.

2) Take the criticism seriously ... do not dismiss it without thinking about it. Especially if the criticism comes from a person of color ... people of color in our society tend by necessity to be more aware of racism than most Whites are, and pick up on things most Whites overlook. (On the other hand, don't put the people of color in the room in the position of being your advocate or judge.)

3) Don't make it about you. Usually the thing to do is apologize for what you said and move on. Especially if you're in a meeting or something, resist your desire to turn the meeting into a seminar on How Against Racism You Are. The subject of the conversation is probably not "your many close Black friends, and your sincere longstanding and deep abhorrence of racism."

Think of it as if someone points out that you need to wipe your nose because you've got a big glob of snot hanging out. The thing to do is say "oh, excuse me," wipe your nose, and move on. Insisting that everyone pat you on the back and reassure you that they realize you don’t always have snot hanging from your nose, before the conversation can be allowed to move forward, is not productive.

4) Let Occasional Unfair Accusations Roll Off Your Back. Sometimes, even after you've given it serious thought, you'll come to the conclusion that a criticism was unfair. Great! Now please let it go. Don't insist that everyone agree with you. Don't enlist the people of color in the room to certify you as Officially Non-Racist. Don't bring it up again and again, weeks or months after everyone else has forgotten about the original discussion. In other words, see point #3.

Shorter Ampersand: Don't make it a whacking huge deal if you say something racist, or something others perceive as racist. Apologize, move on, and consider the criticism seriously so that you can improve your thinking, if need be.

(Secondwaver says, "I just gotta love the big glob o'snot comparison!")

Just a few white feminists talking ... about racism

CJ said, in a comment to me on her blog ... (responding to my suggestion that we talk about racism within white feminist community)

"Secondwaver -

I'd be very interested in having an open, public discussion on the matter...the more open, the more helpful, I think.

Let's just put our junk out there, dissect it, work it over, and get to dismantling it. What say you? Inviting Linda, Heart, and any other white, liberal, progressive, radfem feminists who may read here, too.

Let's do this...together! :)"


Hi CJ, hoping whoever wants to join us, will. but i would be surprised (to put it mildly) if heart came by; she's had hurt and angry feelings from a race conversation that went on, in the past 6 weeks or so, at the blogs below. These are just a sampling, in case you haven't been there much ... heart isn't speaking to me any more ...

Sudy

Justice

Amy

Me

Me again

Heart (whose blog I have dearly loved for 2 years now)

Amy, again

So, anyway, you know what I'd like your take on? Why do we need to call ourselves racists, when what we are is, grossly and hurtfully and unfairly privileged? Doesn't racism imply intention? I believe that you and I work against racism. If I am racist, I want to really know it. Some say I am. Am I racist, by virtue of being white? Does privilege = racism? If so, then we can never dismantle it. So I don't think that's it. What do you think, CJ? More to the point, if the word racist is overstating the thing, and what we should be saying is privileged, and we already know we cannot renounce white privilege any more than men can renounce their male privilege, what are the racist-sayers really asking of us? (And if there are any women reading here who understand all too well that I am, in fact, racist, I apologize to you for having to ask myself this.)

Class privilege memes

About a year ago, my partner and I were talking about class, and she came up with this, which I really like. I've italicized my own responses:

- Do you have all your teeth? no
- Do you use a hairdresser? yes
- Do you do all your own housework? yes, except i do very little
- Who paid for your education? parents, mostly
- Did you have music lessons, dance lessons, art lessons as a child? yes, briefly
- Do you have life insurance? yes, provided by my job
- Do you have long-term care insurance? no
- Do you have investments? no

I saw this meme over at reSISTERance a week or so ago, who rightly pointed out its unfortunate american-centeredness. For some reason, number 33 was missing, so I went looking, and found what may be the orignal here, at Random Acts of Observation.

Class Privilege Meme

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. (If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.)

Bold/italicize whatever applies to you:

1. Father went to college.

2. Father finished college.

3. Mother went to college.

4. Mother finished college.

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.

9. Were read children's books by a parent.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like you are portrayed positively.

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.

15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.

16. Went to a private high school.

17. Went to summer camp. I went for 2 weeks at age 11, it was the highlight of my childhood, begged to go back, but too expensive.

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.

23. You and your family lived in a single family house.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.

25. You had your own room as a child.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18.

27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course.

28. Had your own TV in your room in High School

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College.

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.

31. Went on a cruise with your family.

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Let's stop buying war, already.

I opened an e-mail from CodePink first thing this morning, about tax resistance as an effective strategy open to americans, to stop the evil war. Looking through this site, I see four different war tax resistance strategies, not all of which are illegal.

Amy's been saying this for three years, now.

Makes a lot of sense.

Dark Daughta asks what follows/followed Reagon's talk

Dark Daughta has a question following up on one of the comments to Fire Flye's text of Reagon's talk, in light of what is reported by one of Fire Flye's commenters, namely, that Reagon's talk pertained to a specific racial rupture at a feminist festival.

What happened in the racially divided--no, torn--feminist setting, after Reagon spoke that day? Not only what did happen, but what would have been the best immediate result? What can we do now?

I'll offer a start: we talk and keep talking, about privilege, about -ism's, and about ourselves.

Darkdaughta kindly commented this morning ...

.... even though she's busy with less obvious conversations over her way. Anyway, I want to post her comment as a post here because it's so important to me.

Dark Daughta has left a new comment on your post "Why I blog":

"Hi Second Waver,
Thanks for asking questions of yourself.

I was surprised when I saw your post because I thought I thought we understood how oppression functioned within power based systems that automatically confer privilege regardless of whether those offered it attempt to give it up or not.

You're right, as it is true for men in a patriarchal system, it is true for white people in a system based on white domination. This includes white feminists, white radical feminists, white lesbian feminists. white queer feminists.

I realized this personally when I started to attempt to work on my ableism. I was lost when I thought about ableism and about my socially positioned relationship to people living with disabilities.

I literally had to take Peggy McIntosh and some others who had written on white privilege and change the terms around mentally so that I could see my own ableism.

My own ableism.

I am ableist. I can't get around it. There are a multitude of different ways I access privilege as an ableist woman every day. The society is set up that way.

It is overwhelming to think about it and sometimes I choose not to...because I can. I can take breaks from dealing with my own privilege.

Whether or not I do, I am ableist.

It doesn't traumatize me to say this because of what I've observed with others bearing privilege, the guilt, the shame, the denial, the rage inappropriately directed, the confusion.

Not all racists have horns. Not all racists carry nooses. I guess there are active racists and racists who work hard to unpack their own historical and herstorical legacies of domination.

I remember telling starchildwitch that I wasn't going to spend a lot of time on this topic.

I'm serious. I really am not.

I do expect you to keep digging and to not stay in this place of uncertainty. It's not useful. The work is all out there. It has all been said.

There is stuff happening inside feminist circles, inside white feminist circles, inside white radical feminist circles, inside white radical lesbian separatist circles that incorporates this conversation yet moves beyond it in ways that need to be given attention, that need to be processed, that need to be challenged.

If the object of the work ends up being discovering whether you are a racist or not, then so much work really will not get done.

Your understanding of yourself as a white woman benefiting from racism, a racist, needs to be at a place where you can claim that legacy with ease, without fear, without discomfort so that stuff like challenging Gloria Steinem's article doesn't have to be done by wimmin of color like starchildwitch or myself.

She should be getting mails from her own sisters inviting her to move and to make herself and her privilege of use to people of color, to feminists of color, to radical feminists of all stripes who are working against racism.

Please don't stall your anti-racist work at this place. Please move on through and engage with the issues from a place of courage with much consciousness."

My response to Dark Daughter is: "I will. Thank you."

Bernice Johnson Reagon, on building coalitions

Here's Bernice Johnson Reagon's 1981 talk, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century." Many thanks to Fire Flye for finding it, and posting the full text. Many know of this speech already; I read it today for the first time.

Why I blog

Like Starfish, I've also been trying to talk about IDEAS, most recently about my renewed determination to always name racism whenever and wherever I see it. I've been doing this for the past year or two--before that, for many years, I simply removed myself from associating with racists--including, of course, family. Since I've started really understanding power and privilege, with the advent of my feminist consciousness, I've started calling folks on it.

In my blog, I have never called any radical feminist racist. I understand that, if any radical feminists are, in fact, racist, then I likely am racist, too.

That's why I'm participating in feminist blogging. With feminist bloggers I find a virtual set of real women with whom I can examine power and suffering, justice and privilege, and what we can and should do to change the world. I find real women to whom such examiniation is more important than anything else, since it bears on the children all around us in the world.

I don't know any women, except my partner, in my nonvirtual life who will dig alongside me. It's why I blog.

CJ, Heart, I don't think we're racists. Do we support white domination? I don't know. We probably do. Justice and Darkdaughta say we do. We surely do benefit from white privilege, just as any man in this world benefits from male privilege. And just as we want men to speak to other men to stop supporting male dominance, we white feminists need to continually speak to one other to find ways to stop supporting white dominance. We have our work cut out for us.

So, I'm listening carefully to Justice and to Darkdaughta to see if I can understand what they're trying to communicate. Because I deeply respect them and what they know.

More about drugs and women

In a comment to my post about my ex-husband, reSISTERance said:

" ... in my experience, men who are violent toward their families are not generally considered to be mentally ill. If they were, then we (society) might have to consider how acting out masculinity can make men mentally ill, and dangerous to the people around them. This would imply that we need to lessen cultural pressure on men to act out that way, and if there were a therapy response it would be to de-masculinise them, if you see what i mean. But I think it more likely that it would be explained away in individual men as a 'chemical imbalance' and a medication prescription given."

This is an important comment. It points to the fact that male violence (toward women and children) is pervasive and supports male dominiation and male privilege. It no more leads to the conclusion that male violence is a mental illness, than that white violence toward nonwhite races is a mental illness, treatable (or even curable) with drugs and/or psychotherapy.

All these years, I've thought of my ex-husband, my children's father, as ill. While he may, in fact, be ill, his illness did not cause him to endanger us. He chose to endanger us because he is a man, and he wanted to use his power, selfishly. When I stayed with him (selflessly) for three years afterward, trying to find a way to salvage my marriage, he benefitted. I paid. And when I finally did leave him, it was still not an action based on my consciousness. I had no feminist consciousness yet. My history was selfless toward men, and toward him, as I had been systematically taught to be. And his history was selfish, as he had been systematically taught to be.

I wished then for the right to force-medicate him, but I had no such right. Even if I had, however, it would have only served to prolong that marriage, so hurtful to me.

During that time, I was diagnosed by a couple of different doctors as having extreme anxiety. No shit! I took antianxiety meds, for a while, until I took myself off. The meds did nothing to make me better; the only thing that helped was getting away from the marriage.

Women and girls need to know how to take ourselves seriously, but we are being drugged into silence and compliance. Silence and compliance with being less human than men and boys. With being used. Used up.

Struggling, red-faced

No sooner had I hit "publish post," then I realized that I'm going exactly against my vow last week to stop silencing myself when confronted with ism's in others.

So while I'm not unpacking anyone else, I'm being silent, of course. And in requesting others' silence, and calling critiques "not feminist," I'm buying into more oppression.

Horrors. Shit.

On calling out each other's ism's

Okay -- have been away from the fray, pretty much, as I said. I couldn't keep up with the blogs that I usually do, while I was at the ALA conference. But I see that there are women that I love, who are unpacking their own privileges, and biases, which is good--my hat is off to you, and I want to do it as well as you do.

However ... I see there are also women I love, who are taking shots at other women, and I wish you would just stop. It's not effective, nor feminist, to unpack someone else's burdens. We don't have the knowledge, nor the right, to do that.

That said, I have some unpacking of my own to do, insofar as ability-ism goes.

Right after I go protest the war in -3 degrees Celcius, that is 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Brrrrrr!

Test yourself for hidden bias

This is an online test you can take, privately, to help reveal some hidden (from yourself) biases, insofar as race, sexuality, age, size, ability, among others ..

I've only taken the race one, so far.

ALA Midwinter

I've been away for a week, and have a couple of posts I want to write--there will be time over this long weekend. I was lucky enough to attend the American Library Association midwinter conference in Philadelphia last week, courtesy my employer.

Two highlights, for me: This FBI whistleblower answered our questions about his treatment by the FBI after he spoke up, twice, about civil liberties abuses he witnessed while doing his job. He put not only his career, but also his life, at risk, to try to make the FBI accountable. He spoke publicly, it seems, as a last resort. (AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek)


ALA has a Social Responsibilities Round Table group, which sponsored a White Privilege 101 discussion, to a standing-room-only turnout. Art Munin was the speaker; he's white, and grew up in a white-segregated environment in Chicago. I really liked his presentation, during which, by the way, he related racism to the other "isms;" he even used the word patriarchy. It was great to see so many white librarians attend. I was frankly surprised at the number of Blacks there--to whom, of course, white privilege is not news.

Changing myself, at long last

Came over to Miss Andrea's smart post on white privilege, via Amy, very GLAD to read both! Amy, your post goes hand-in-glove, by the way, with a post by Other Stories. I can't get the link to that post to work tonight, but it's called "fucking feminists."

Right, so, the question is, what do we privileged (read: white OR heterosexual OR able-bodied OR thin OR middle class OR pretty) feminists do now? What do we DO?

Amy has one answer: we stop our silence. No matter who we're with, or where we are, we never again let someone get away with racist talk or attitude in our presence. Period. I will assume anyone privileged (see above) (including myself) is oppressor, whether she admits it or not, unless and until proven otherwise.

As to Miss Andrea's question at the end of her post, is racism inherent in whites? If it is, then there would be no hope for me. Racism must be imprinted culturally (not genetically) on us from infancy. Same as sexism. In other words, racism is not inherent; it can certainly (with consciousness & effort) be discarded--though we cannot discard our white privilege as long as racism exists.

I so want to trash my racism, ablism, classism, sizeism, lookism. Starting today. I thank the women bloggers I've been reading about this. I feel like I'm turning a corner, and instead of hand-wringing about others' racism, and my own privilege, I can push myself and others to lift the white veil, and see it. So thanks to darkdaughta, CJ, My Perspective, v, and of course, Amy, for all your blogging, you're helping me change myself.

Why I'm STILL for Dennis

My state's primary elections are coming up soon, and I'm still for Dennis Kucinich. Here's why.

I hold Clinton and Obama accountable for the destruction they have wrought, and for the votes they chose not to make, in order to be more appetizing to the powers that be.

I am sending the message to whoever will lead us next, that there are voters here, we are here, we who want justice and peace.

Sen. Hillary Clinton voted YES to give Bush the power to use military force against Iraq in October, 2001.
Sen. John Edwards voted YES.
(Sen. Barack Obama was not yet in office then.)
Rep. Kucinich voted NO.

It passed in both houses and was signed into law by Bush.

In addition,

Patriot Act 10/24/01:
Clinton: voted YES
Edwards: voted YES
Kucinich: voted NO
Obama was not in office then.

Iraq Withdrawal Amendment 12/18/07
Clinton: Could vote, but did not vote
Obama: Could vote, but did not vote
was rejected in Senate, so did not go to the House of Rep.

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 12/12/07 (funds the Iraq war)
Kucinich voted NO
Clinton (10/1/07 in Senate) could vote, but did not vote
Obama could vote, but did not vote

CHIP Reauthorization 11/01/07 (children's health insurance)
Clinton: could vote, but did not vote
Obama: Could vote, but did not vote
Kucinich voted YES (10/25/07 in House of Rep.)

Prohibit funds for groups that perform abortions 10/18/07
Clinton: could vote, but did not vote
Obama: could vote, but did not vote

(Source: Project Vote Smart)

Wear orange - January 11 - to shut down Guantánamo!

From UFPJ NY Protest Calendar

WEAR ORANGE ON JANUARY 11TH!

Wherever you are on January 11th, we encourage you to wear orange to raise public awareness and strengthen the movement to demand an end to torture and indefinite detention. Consider wearing one of Witness Against Torture's Orange "Shut Down Guantánamo" T-shirts, an ACLU arm band, or even an orange jump suit.

"Immediately close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and either release its inmates or bring them before an impartial tribunal." United Nations Human Rights Commission

CALL TO ACTION

We declare January 11, 2008, six years after the first prisoners arrived at Guantánamo, an International Day of Action to Shut Down Guantánamo. In Washington, DC we will hold a permitted demonstration at the National Mall followed by an orange jumpsuit procession to the Supreme Court. There will also be solidarity demonstrations in Chicago, Miami, London and Paris, with more being added every day. We invite you to come to Washington and participate, or else join or plan an action in your own community. We also encourage people around the world to wear orange t-shirts, armbands or other orange clothing on January 11th to mark the date.

About drugs and therapy

Have been following the very interesting, thoughtful posts at reSISTERance about therapy and anti-depressive drugs, and resisting patriarchal psychiatry's influences.

I've had my share of dealings with the mental health industry. Toward the end of my marriage, my then-husband became terribly paranoid, and psychotic, and took me and my kids (age 1, 4 and 6) hostage for almost 24 hours, in our car, traveling through 3 states, preventing me from buckling myself or the kids into seatbelts/car seats. I found a way to make him stop. I fashioned a weapon from something I found in the car, and I made him stop. It was traumatic for us all. He ended up carted off by the police to a mental hospital for a month. They put him on antipsychotics, which he discontinued as soon as he was discharged. I was afraid to stay with him, since the paranoia and psychosis returned intermittently. I entered therapy myself, to sort through my own mind. I felt society's pressure, very strongly, to stay with him. I tried to "save the marriage," with encouragement from my in-laws, my own parents, my therapist. None of whom were looking at all after my interests, or my children's interests. They were all looking out for the man's. Only. It took me 3 years to open my eyes enough to see this, and leave.

After that, he offered to go back on the drugs, in order to get me back. But by that time, the relationship was severed. And, I believe he would have discontinued the drugs soon, anyway, once he was back with me. I came to see it as a marriage made in hell, anyway, drugs or no drugs.

I used to wish I had the power to force-medicate him. I was always afraid, during those years, that he would show up at the kids' school, take them away, and commit a murder-suicide. I remember leaving detailed instructions to the elementary school principal, telling him what to do if my kids' father asked for the kids to be released to him. (The principal couldn't legally withhold the kids, but I asked him to stall and call me at work.) Of course, our legal system was totally stacked against me and the kids--I was unable to secure a restraining order, because the guy seemed pretty much "normal," though he wasn't. Happily, the worst never happened. You know the Jack Nicholson movie The Shining? That was my fear, I kid you not. He wasn't well enough to earn money, but at least he didn't kill anyone. I count us lucky--just very lucky.

My best friend has 2 teenage daughters, one or both of whom are/have been dangerously depressed, for the past 10 years. Her mothering has been a daily monitoring of both girls, and frequent trips to psychiatrists, therapists, pharmacies, school counselors, alternative high schools, you name it. She has had to pay the price every single day in terms of her own energy, relationships, job possibilities, finances and sanity. She's survived, and so have they, much to her credit. It's still not over. And my friend frequently considers weaning the girls off all drugs. She may still do that. So far, she hasn't. She's doing her level best to decide correctly.

So, I don't know. My own mother was also dangerously depressed, and may have been helped by drugs, if they had existed then. She never got any treatment, and she made life pretty miserable for us kids.

I don't know. I get that it shouldn't be about making others comfortable--but it's about preventing suicides, and preventing murder-suicides.

I took antidepressants myself, for anxiety, from 2003-5. I wish I hadn't taken them. Looking back, it now seems to me as just a racket to charge money for the drugs, the psychiatrist, the therapist. I, myself, would have been better off developing my radical feminist political analysis, but sadly, I didn't start getting there until 2006. A political analysis would have speeded up my departure from the marriage. A political analysis isn't enough to treat my friend's daughters, I don't think.

It's such a fine line, at least to me. I would be quite interested in continuing the conversation with others who hate patriarchy.

Is there such thing as a radical feminist therapy? And how can one tell when to take drugs, and when to resist them as patriarchy's strong arm?

Two more movies to buy

We want to get 2 more good movies, when we can afford them:


Singing Our Stories, which we found on the VisionMaker Video site, via Debbie Reese's blog,

and


Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter, which I saw broadcast on PBS in 1995. It's a documentary by a lesbian filmmaker (Deborah Hoffmann) about her mother's decline into Alzheimer's Disease. I saw it during the interim time, when I was out to myself, but not doing anything about it. The film's portrayal of Hoffmann's loving relationship with her partner, Frances Reid, offered me a model of what a gorgeous lesbian relationship could be--as opposed to the stereotypical, patriarchal view (not good) that had surrounded me for 40 years.

Looking forward this film in 2009

From the film's website:

"Since the passage of Roe vs. Wade in 1973, antichoice forces have been making it their mission to dismantle women's reproductive freedom. They came together, brilliantly strategized, pooled their resources, and slowly but steadily they have been implementing their attack. Their weapons: money, the legal system, the government, the media, the church, the patriarchy, and - this is the scariest of all - you.

Armed with their slogans and their chants and their gigantic bloody posters, they got to you, too. And by 'you' I mean the next generation. They took advantage of the fact that you never lived during a time when abortion was illegal so you had no frame of reference for the plight of desperate women with unintended pregnancies whose only option would be to carry to term or self-abort."

My ongoing role in my country's evil deeds

The Bush Administration is spreading rumors (through the state-controlled mainstream media) that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by Al-Qaeda, which is patently crap. Now, from Bhutto herself, in an email 8 days after the last assisination attempt on her in October, she blames Musharraf. In case you missed it, here's the story. I believe her.

Bush is implicated, of course, because it was he (we) propping Musharraf up since 2001, another in a now-endless string of atrocities inflicted on poor and oppressed people everywhere.

Amy's war tax resistance is so moral; it seems the only moral choice for a thinking woman. The fact that I'm afraid to do it (so far) makes me complicit.

If I resist paying income tax, I will risk homelessness and whatever risks come with homelessness. But if all the outraged americans refused war taxes, it would work.

Amy and others are leading the way. I want to fight alongside them. I don't want to forfeit my beliefs to be physically safe.

If Harriet Tubman were alive now, she would certainly not be paying income taxes!

Mind the Gap's Online Rad Fem Library

Just added to my "On the Rad Fem Bookshelf" sidebar, a great new radfem webliography/archive pulled together by Mind the Gap.

Amy continues to add to her fabulous online radfem archive and booklist, too.

You women rock! These are treasures.

Yeah, I decided to be lesbian.

Right, I chose it, but then, I loved women all along, even before I made the choice.

Hello, Dark Daughta --

We've been talking about choice insofar as sexual orientation goes. I suspect that you and I are in agreement, that it's just a matter of semantics that's tripping us up. But let me try to dissect it, as much as I can understand what you're saying, and how this jives with my take on the question. I can use my coming-out process.

I suppose if I weren't at all politically influenced--either way--(on what planet would this be??)--I would call myself bisexual. By that I mean that if I hadn't been politically, relentlessly shaped to be a heterosexual breeder, I may well have been woman-loving all my life. Likewise, if I hadn't experienced, and been hurt by, and then woken up (in my thirties) to the fact of male dominance, I would still want to love men.

I can only speak for myself, but I like to extrapolate when it makes sense. It does make sense to me that we all are born sexual, meaning bisexual, or pansexual, if you will. I distinctly remember sexual yearnings, as a child (though I didn't identify them as such until I was grown and sexually active), for both females AND males. I bet most, or even all, of us did, whether we are able to remember or not.

In a post in which you are replying to Pomegranate's comment, you say,

"I don't believe that wimmin are innately heterosexual. I think we're trained to be heterosexual. Anything else is a choice.

But although I think all our choices are political, I think that wimmin who choose to be queer or lesbians for political reasons are scary"

OK, hold on, THERE's where I think the semantics breakdown is happening. Do you find a difference between making a choice that's political, and choosing dykedom for political reasons? Is one unconscious, and the other, conscious? Because, if so, then yeah, I agree!

When I say I chose to be a lesbian, it was FIRST an unconscious political choice. Meaning that I got hurt too, too much by males, and, especially, by the male who had been primary in my life. I met a couple of darling heterosexual women, in close succession, and I developed crushes on both. I recognized the first, only vaguely, as a crush, and said to myself, "SecondWaver, you're developing a schoolgirl crush on this woman, be careful not to show it, and geez, you must be so immature to have such a childish feeling toward another woman, because, of course, you're not gay!"

I remember being so very taken with that woman, that I started consciously fantasizing about holding her, kissing her, and once, in a close moment, I spontaneously reached for her. I don't believe it was planned, but when the desire struck, I chose not to resist it. After she jumped back about 10 feet, I lost my physical desire for her, though I still loved her; I never made another overture to her. I still considered myself heterosexual.

The next time I crushed on a woman (a different woman), this one started returning my feelings. With that little bit of encouragement, I basically went into heat. I fell head over heels in love with her, and DESIRED her. That was when I consciously came out to myself as a lesbian. I was 38 and married, and still a right-winger. That woman eventually stepped back from the possibility of an intense relationship with me (she was also married), and so nothing ever happened overtly between us. But it had happened inside me, in my awareness and my in heart and in my libido, and I knew I was lesbian from that day forward. I didn't always live up to what I knew, but I knew. I knew.




I wasn't feminist yet (you probably remember my Anita Hill feminist, liberal epiphany, dd?), so my lesbianism wasn't a feminist decision, but yes, it was political, unconsciously. When I became conscious of my lesbianism, then, of course, I was faced with the conscious, political, choice of whether or not to live as one, or not. Which I did decide to, once my kids were old enough for me to get out some. And for several years I liked, and loved, politically liberal--but not especially feminist--lesbians. It was nearly 2 years ago that I started reading radfem books and blogs (the catalyst was--you guessed it--a sweet, fierce radfem woman I dated very briefly). And now I'm spoiled. I can only love radfems. Spoiled & happy, that is :).

And when I told CJ that lesbianism is a political choice, I was trusting that woman-loving is inside her, too, as I believe it is in all of us (Marilyn Frye via Amy again) if she wants to look for it.

So, now, does that clarify??

And please don't ever think I'm calling you heterosexual. I think I get you, as you've explained yourself--you're feminst, bisexual, woman-loving (aka Queer), man-partnered for pragmatic (among other) reasons.

My hat is off to you for fitting it all together so that it works. Looks like you're still in need of some of the other pieces to the scene, but you're trying, you're working on it. And my 6th sense tells me that once the kids are a little older and you start getting out of the house more regularly--yes--in Toronto--well, you'll move closer toward creating that radical, adventurously erotic, child-filled, poly life for you & yours.

The one bad thing about that--for us out here--is that then you'll stop blogging!

Lakota Freedom! December 19, 2007

In the face of the colonial apartheid conditions imposed on Lakota people, the withdrawal from the U.S. Treaties is necessary. These conditions have been devastating:

Lakota men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.

Lakota death rate is the highest in the United States.

The Lakota infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.

More than half the Reservation's adults battle addiction and disease.

The tuberculosis rate on Lakota reservations is approximately 800% higher than the U.S national average.

Alcoholism affects 8 in 10 families.

Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.

1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage, while 40% lack electricty.

60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.

97% of our Lakota people live below the poverty line.

Unemployment rates on our reservations is 85% or higher.

Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

Our Lakota language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.


After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative. That alternative is to bring freedom back into existence by taking it back - back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway.
Canupa Gluha Mani


Lakota Freedom Delegation

Two films

We watched 2 movies recently that we really loved:

Long Night's Journey into Day: South Africa's Search for Truth & Reconciliation, a decade-old documentary



and also

Whale Rider, which would be perfect for thinking children and adults to see together

I've commented on Dark Daughta's blog ...

... pertaining to 2 of her recent posts--

One Tenacious Baby Mama: Something like my "holy" grail...

and also

One Tenacious Baby Mama: Well, Post-partum means different things to different wimmin....

and she's been answering, in her comments, and then, in a couple of new posts.

Dark Daughta, I agree that lesbianism is not a sure way, nor the only way, to resist patriarchy. I'm not going to say it's always the best way, since your life obviously belies that statement. I will say, however, that being lesbian is PROBABLY the best way for MOST radical feminists to promote women's firm and reliable bonding against male oppression (to quote from Marilyn Frye via Amy).

In fact, if we could spread your consciousness, and Papi's (who I believe allowed himself to be conscientized by you), far and wide, our feminist revolution would be at hand, and there would be no more need for radical lesbian feminists.

I'm impressed by the honesty in your relationship with Papi. It's one thing to be totally honest with one's partner in person, and quite another to blog it. What hits me is that you don't cater to his ego, especially in sexual matters--that's not resistance, woman, that's liberation! Also, you forthrightly blog that you're with Papi because he was the best you could find, given all your requirements, and that you would have preferred to find someone (a woman?) with 100% of the qualities you are seeking. I can see why, since there is probably not one person with 100% of these qualities, you'd hope to find them in a polyamorous group.

I fully agree that polyamory is radical, or can be radical, in much the same way that lesbiansim is, or can be radical. If (big if) any males involved are not privileged, in ANY way, for being male, and also as long as the presence of the male does not imply heterosexuality, thereby garnering heterosexual privilege. (I know that, in your particular case, you do sometimes avail yourselves of this. I don't begrudge you this, not at all; I'm talking here about what would be the most effective in terms of revolution.) This is so revolutionary that it's hard (at least for me) to imagine; that's why I say lesbianism is probably the best solution for most rad fems.

our christian town

Here in NJ, in the USofA, we have separation of church and state--NOT! If you take a little stroll around these parts, this is what you will see:

Red and green santa sleigh in front of the nearest municipal building:



and with stars & stripes in the background:



our town's loverly plastic nativity figures:



to prove that our christian town is "tolerant" of jews, here's our town's equally loverly menorah:



our christian town is not tolerant of Kwanzaa, as there is no symbol thereof whatsoever, on any municipal property. Nor is there any religious symbol of Islam, Hinduism, Wicca, or any spiritual or religious believe system, other than those pictured here.

There is, however, a horribly offensive, shocking "tribute" to christopher columbus on the most visible section of the nearest municipality to ours--this 10-feet tall, white male hand represents the big, imperialist, murdering white male colonial hand which holds the entire globe in its grasp:

Who, me? bitter??

I've been following cj's triumphs & travails over at her blog, Universal Plume. Her post yesterday is prompting my own observations about the sacrifices expected of mothers in our society.

I wasn't strong enough to break through pervasive conditioning that being a mother was the most desired way to spend my life. So I found myself at the end of a marriage that should never have happened, with 3 children for whom I wanted to do my very best. This was the start of my 15 years of being a single mother.

My ex-husband did not agree to any visitation schedule. I was The Default Parent (my own wording). I cannot emphasize enough how this status, Default Parent, hurt me. Courts can force you to give visitation to your child's father. They can not force fathers to visit their children on a regular schedule. They can not force them to visit at all. When you are The Default Parent of one child, 24/7, I believe you can still have a life. When you have 3 ... forget it. I didn't have a life until they were grown.

Default Parent means ...
- you limit your job possibilities to only those offering regular, predictable work hours, and never overtime demands (less pay, less responsibility)
- your life revolves around your full-time job, the kids' emotional and physical well-being, their homework, laundry, grocery shopping, meals (on the cheap, which means mostly preparing everything at home), housekeeping chores and repairs, bill-paying, medical visits of all kinds--this with never a break or any down time, for years and years
- you are always assumed to be the person who does the child care, including sick child care, day or night, working or not
- you do not get much, if any, advance notice that their father will take them out
- you go out with other adults only if you can afford, and find, a sitter
- you can not realistically consider trying to maintain a love life, unless that love life includes the presence of 3 kids who are always there--meaning you can afford sitters--including occasional, regular, overnight sitters
- the other parent gets to conduct his life according to what's best for him and his needs/desires
- you have no life other than as mother

More to come, about the present status.

Debs loves herself, growing older

Just discovered Debs' blog, The Burning Times. She wrote this great post about loving getting older.

More yahoo misogyny

Amy has a couple of posts up on her blog about Yahoo's anti-woman ads, and I want to add this one, which assaulted my eyes and heart yesterday:



It linked to a video--which I did NOT watch, and which is now down. The caption:

Senior calendar girls
These Virginia senior citizens are baring some skin for a holiday calendar. » 'All for a good cause'

Seniors lament stolen Wii
Find tips to stay young

Reminds me of when I went to see Helen Mirren's movie Calendar Girls a few years ago (used to have a crush on her then from Prime Suspect, but I'm so over her now). I told my father about the premise of the movie--thinking that since he's in love with his wife, and finds her beautiful, he wouldn't be repelled by it. However, I was pretty offended when his reply to me was: "Eewwwwwww!" So even loving husbands hate women. I guess this shouldn't be a news flash, right?

Another movie that comes to mind is About Schmidt, with Kathy Bates and Jack Nicholson. There is a scene where fabulous Kathy Bates takes off her clothes and gets into a hot tub. You see a flash of her naked. Unfortunately, I was sitting in a cinema to see this one, and had to endure all the young men in there also reacting aloud with "Eewwwwww!" and I felt the filmmaker had deliberately set that scene up to elicit this misogyny.

Just as, I feel, Yahoo is setting up the above photo for misogyny. I haven't been in too many cinemas since then. I am a big Yahoo user, and am pissed about all these ads.

my internalized ageism

i'm considering my own internalized ageism--toward myself--and, probably, toward other crones. and i thought about dark daughta's phone camera photos of herself, her real, postpartum body, which she posted recently on her blog. i'm going to do that, too, of the part of me--my face--that's viewed as ugly, by society ... because i'm aging.



i see my own grandmother here ... the sagging part under my chin ... i used to look at that on my own grandma, and now, unbelievably, it's on me. i haven't entirely accepted this fact--i don't look in the mirror much these days.

my partner is in her mid-sixties; her mother is in her nineties. i'll turn 55 soon. when the 3 of us go out, i always get the senior citizen rate. a young restaurant worker once gave us a big smile and welcomed "the 3 sisters," which caused mutti to smile oh so broadly--until, of course, she saw my dejected expression. "it's not so good for you, though, is it?" she soothed.

ahhhh, no, not so good for me. well, why not? mutti herself, hates to be in front of a camera.



i love the way she looks--eyes sparkling, showing her wit. i've tried to convince her that she's really lovely--she won't hear any of it. she has her own internalized ageism, deeply ingrained. if i can so easily see her beauty, i may learn to find my own.

Why not lock up the 1,800 men and ease up on the 40 women?

This treatment of women prisoners in NJ is inhumane and outrageous. It makes me remember Golda Meier's response, as Prime Minister, to the Israeli cabinet (mostly male) when they wanted to impose a curfew for women in Tel Aviv during an epidemic of raping. Meier changed the focus of the deliberations by remarking, "Why not a curfew for the men? They are the ones doing the raping."

Women call men's jail unbearable
Kept in cells 22 hours
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
BY RICK HEPP
Star-Ledger Staff

The American Civil Liberties Union will file a civil rights lawsuit in state court today on behalf of 40 women held in "lock-down conditions" at New Jersey's maximum-security prison to separate them from the facility's 1,800 male inmates.

The 40 inmates were sent to New Jersey State Prison in Trenton in March to alleviate overcrowding at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Since then, they have been kept in their cells for up to 22 hours a day, according to a copy of the lawsuit provided by the ACLU.

"Even when they are out of their cells, they are still stuck in one unit for the basic fact that they are a small number of women in a men's maximum-security prison," said Ed Barocas, legal director of ACLU New Jersey. "Ultimately, they're treated more strictly than the highest-security men."

As a result, the women do not have access to the prison's law library and school, the lawsuit said. They rarely get sent to the infirmary and instead get medical attention in an open area of their unit as prison guards watch.

In addition, the women are barred from the men's prison yard and must use a smaller area that has only a rusty basketball hoop, a few handballs and a chin-up bar, the lawsuit said. Even then, however, they are subjected to catcalls from male inmates as well as views of prisoners exposing themselves.

"Under these isolated conditions, many women prisoners are suffering anxiety, depression and other forms of emotional distress and their mental and physical health is rapidly deteriorating," the lawsuit noted. "Fights have broken out between women, and multiple suicide attempts have occurred."

Corrections spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheurer declined to discuss the allegations included in the lawsuit, but she denied there have been fights on the unit or that any suicide attempts have been made.

"The women are offered the same level of care that they are at Edna Mahan," she said. "They are trying to replicate all of the programming that is available at Edna Mahan. They have access to the law library. They have access to doctors, nurses and the infirmary. Every inmate has those rights."

The lawsuit, to be filed in state Superior Court in Trenton, seeks to have the conditions declared unconstitutional and remedied by the department. It also names four female inmates but asks that it be classified as a class action.

Helen Ewell and Kathleen Jones, two of the named plaintiffs, said they used to spend at least six hours a day on work detail at Edna Mahan -- Ewell in the upholstery shop and Jones in the optical program. They also lived in units with a kitchen, laundry and showers and could move about the unit and grounds most of the day.

Now, they said in interviews attended by corrections personnel, they are mostly confined to living behind the sliding door of their cells. Each spends about two hours a day preparing a meal for the unit and at least another two hours in group therapy and recreation. It is too isolating, they said.

"I understand the doors need to be locked, but why do I need to be locked behind them?" said Ewell, serving 20 years for aggravated manslaughter. "We're minimum-security inmates but they're treating us as maximum-security inmates."

Jones, serving 15 years for robbery, would like the department to establish a flat rate for phone calls to her family. Those were free at Edna Mahan, but now she pays $13.95 for the first minute and 99 cents for each additional minute.

"They just weren't ready for us," Jones said. "We are women. We are different than men and we just want those things acknowledged."

raised in the bosom of the religious right ....

... where, as in all of society, we girls were imbued with our inferiority. That's not news to any radical feminist. We know it was fed to us all from the get-go, in the toys, schools, tv, books, everywhere we turned.

Sometimes, now, I come across children's books written during my childhood. It's bad now, but it was horrible in a different way, back then. Not saying it was worse, because we are much more pornified and sluttified now. But we were so diminished then.

I was a child of my time, the 1950s, and my mother became a sort of right-wing religious fanantic in the mid-1960s, when I was a pre-teen. She became a born-again, and actually we were born-again. She started switching me around from school to school, various christian schools, public schools, back, forth, so that from age 9 to 15 I switched schools maybe 9 times. Really tough on any kid, but during those awful puberty years which are important for peer relationships--I was odd girl out, always. Always new, always uncertain, always trying to adjust. The result was that in 1968, at the age of 15, when the time would have been perfect for me to start breaking out of the oppressive nuclear religous family, and move toward my peers, toward the world, toward ... life ... I was just isolated, unable to make or keep friends, clinging to the only security I knew, which was my nutty right-wing home. I was certainly out of step with my boomer generation, was taught to be suspicious of all that. I swallowed it all, wished the 60s would turn back to the 50s, in short I was a throwback.

We were white, republican, christian, classist middle-middle class, racist, sexist, homophobes, lookists, you name it, we were it. Women's lib was anathema. I was questioned each morning as to how much i weighed. If i went above 123 lbs it was noticed before i told my weight. Over 125 lbs, i was called names, like chunky, and worse (I'm 5'6"). Almost daily i was subject to talk of boys & men & would they like me if i gained weight. Was told girls aren't good at math & science. Was told i may not need an education because i would, ideally, get married. Never mind that i didn't date at all. Never mind that i wasn't interested in boys, nor they in me. That was viewed as a failure that, hopefully, i'd outgrow, or--horrors--would be an old maid, sad, unhappy and alone, and, especially, stigmatized.

I'm thinking of Mrs Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. Except that I wasn't any Elizabeth Bennett--too bad for me. I was too much under the weight of patriarchal conditioning, and, though I liked school and was interested in literature, I knew my real job was to find a husband who would support me and protect me. And give me babies to love--the surest way to validation and status, for which i was starved. I bought the fairy tale. What i lacked was the man.

Kids are ...

"Kids are mother nature's dirty trick." ... I said it, to my right-wing brother, with conviction, in 1989, when I was going through a lot. He was supportive, but also seemed appalled at my words.

My 3 children were very young then, between the ages of 2 and 7, and I loved them then, as I still love them, this instant, with every cell in my being. I loved them, and love them, as much as any human being can love another.

The full weight of being a woman and mother in patriarchy was starting to dawn on me, then, though I didn't have the analysis; I just knew I was totally fucked, and I believed it was the fault of mother nature: a female's fault, natch!

I have a pile of radical feminist books about motherhood here, in the next room, and I haven't read a one of them. I've been waiting to blog about motherhood until I've had a chance to read them. But I never seem to get to them.

I realize now that I don't need to. I've lived it, and I know--that what I once phrased as that sentence above, and which is, more accurately, "Being a mother in patriarchy is life-sucking, murderous, crushing."

My ex sends me joyous photos of her lovely baby granddaughter. I love seeing them, but I dread the day I might welcome a new grandbaby into my heart. It doesn't look as though I ever will, but who knows?

I'll write more specifically about what motherhood has been like for me, and why. I seem to always be a short poster.

Children's Literature blogging

Came across this wonderful blog, American Indians in Children's Literature, written by Debbie Reese. I'll be reading and using Dr. Reese's blog regularly!

She has pointed me to a couple of books, and a few articles, that address the politics of children's literature. I'm absolutely loving:

Should We Burn Babar? by Herbert Kohl,



and also

Unsettling Narratives: Postcolonial readings of children's literature, by Clare Bradford.



From the intro to Kohl's book:

"All of the essays in this collection are about the power of stories. The first essay, 'Should We Burn Babar?,' centers on the question of what we should do with a children's book that has achieved the status of a classic and yet is patently racist, colonialist, and sexist. It wrestles with the question of censorship which is a tempting, though equally troubling, way to deal with a text whose content is objectionable.

The second essay, 'The Politics of Children's Literature: Rosa Parks and the Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,' is about the misrepresentation of African American struggles for equality in school textbooks. It shows how the story of Rosa Parks, which is also the story of community-based struggle against segregation, has been turned into a tale of individual frustration, thereby defusing its political content.

'In Support of Radical Children's Literature,' the third essay, is an attempt to answer George Orwell's question about the absence of good radical children's literature. It is an attempt to define what radical children's literature might look like, provide some examples of it, and suggest ways in which people might go about creating this genre."

sent!

well, i just clicked "send." i edited it many times over the past month. i took out a lot, just left in a summary of the facts, and then put in what i wanted.

i referenced and quoted my neighbor, including her contact info--with her permission. i also referenced my brother, who is clergy. so they have to contend with, not just one woman, but 2 women (concerted action!), and an ordained priest, too.

here's an excerpt from toward the end of my message:

We want to know that you have received this message, and we also want to know what action(s) you plan to take, now that you have this information.

Church leaders must take responsibility to protect all those who trust them, and in recent years we have learned all too well what can happen when church leaders fail in this responsibility.

Sexual predators must *never* be given a pass; they must always be held accountable for their actions against women and children. It is the women and the children, and not the predators, who deserve our protection. But I trust that you are well aware of this need.

it is nerve-wracking, but it feels really good. thanks to my partner, and to cj and dark daughta for the encouragement i needed to get this done.

"Freedom to harass," for men, but the women are warned against breaking indecent exposure laws

At a pro football game near my home, women were reminded yet again that men hate us. This has been an ongoing scene of harassment for the last several years. From today's nytimes.com:

"The scene played out for 20 minutes Sunday, as about 10 security guards in yellow jackets stood near by. After halftime, a guard said they were instructed to allow this behavior from the men because of freedom of speech laws. Women are warned against breaking indecent exposure laws ....

Yet when a reporter tried to interview two security guards after halftime, he was detained in a holding room, threatened with arrest and asked to hand over his tape recorder."

Radical feminists unite ...

... at Radical Feminists United, a new egroup; saw it over at Feminist Reprise.

Why is mine the only car that looks like this?

Why don't you have bumper stickers on yours, if you drive? Do you think it would make you look crazy?

To me, it's just nuts not to.

Carnival of Radical Feminists!

Lost Clown is hosting this Carnival, which I'm still reading. It's all really good! I almost got scared by that "Conservative Talking Point"--but I trust Lost Clown, so delved, to find it's only parody. Sometimes it takes me a while!

getting ready to send it

It took me a long time to track down my neighbor, even though she lives right next door to me. Finally I saw her, and she is as enthusiastic as I am about sending a letter to the perp's supervisor, who is a high-up dude in a seminary.

I told my right-wing brother also, and he agreed I should send it, though he says the perp might sue me for libel. I know that's true. Having my brother on board will likely be helpful. He is an ordained priest and serves the u.s. military, and, though he never saw the perp expose himself, he does clearly remember my telling him about it--it was over 10 years ago--and also, the perp discussed it with my brother after I confronted him outside. Sooooo, my brother knows he may be called upon to back me up, and he's ok with it. He is about to go to Iraq, and he will not be easily accessible during that time--probably 2 years--but he will have e-mail.

I'm deciding now how many to include in my e-mail--whether to cc to the 2 women faculty members also. I know the women are teaching in this conservative seminary for a reason, and they may well support the dude.

Considering the perp's family

Mulling over what (if anything) I want to do. I don't want to hurt his wife & kids by acting. Though he didn't consider me or my family. But his wife did nothing to hurt me.

the perp

Ten years ago or so, my male next-door neighbor tried unsuccessfully--at least 2 different days--to get the attention of a group of children (including my children) playing outside--by flicking his porch light on and off--during the daytime--hoping they would look and see him standing naked inside his doorway. My female neighbor on the other side saw him, and told me, and I still remember how shaken she was, and that for weeks afterward she had trouble sleeping. I listened sympathetically, and put my guard up about this dude. I started noticing that when I drove my car home after my Monday night late shifts at work, the dude's head would bob around at his 2nd floor window. It creeped me out, and I remember I took to cutting my headlights off when I entered the driveway on Monday nights, trying to get past without him watching me. No such luck. Turns out he was learning my routine, learning my schedule, because one Monday night he exposed himself to me out his 2nd floor window--he was all plastered against the window pane, shining a bright lamp on his body, stark naked.

I was the sleepless one that night. I was in denial that this had occurred. Then, I admitted it happened, but somehow still felt I was to blame--for looking up at his window. It was only when I realized that if I, a woman in my 40s, feel vulnerable & responsible for & ashamed by what he did to me, then what kind of an ordeal would my kids go through if & when he exposed himself to them? They would probably not only feel ashamed, but also would not tell me. My mama anger rose up in full force and I confronted him & told his wife, too. I tried involving the police, but they didn't take it seriously, and told me that if it went to court, I would need to explain why I was looking in his windows. Grrrrrrrr ....

The perp never exposed himself again as long as they lived there, as far as I know. He and his family moved away about 4 years ago, where he--get this--entered a seminary to do graduate work in theology.

But back then I had to inoculate my innocent kids against this pervert, by trying somehow to explain it to them, just in case he tried. And I was afraid, as a single working mom, not knowing if he would ever try to molest one of the kids. And I will never forgive him.

Well, guess who I googled today?

Yup, and he now has even more kids, 2 or 3 graduate theology degrees, and he has a spiffy new job recruiting prospective students for that seminary. Hmmmmm ... so interesting. The perp's photo is up there, and also his wife & the kids' photos .... along with the dean of the seminary, and all the faculty members and their contact info, a couple of whom are women. Looks like there are higher-ups, with their e-mail addresses, too, and well, the pope would like to know this shit, too, don't you think??

I'm composing a draft ... and deciding how many people I'll send it to ... and I can't tell you how very satisfying it feels. I hate that he was able to do that thing, and then go on his merry way. I hate that he has daughters living with him. I want him to suffer for what he did & for what he tried to do. I want him to be less able than before to scare children and women. I want him to be afraid.

The Gendercator, by Catherine Crouch

I finally got to see Catherine Crouch's film, The Gendercator (missed it in Michigan). Catherine also sent me 3 other short films, which I'll talk about in a later post.

If you haven't yet seen it, The Gendercator opens at a women-only pot party in the woods in 1973 (celebrating Billy Jean King's tennis victory). Cute dyke Sally passes out from an overdose, and wakes up, Rip Van Winkle-style, in 2048--having somehow kept her 30 year-old body even though she is now 98. Sally finds herself held, against her will, in a hospital--in which her male doctor is in charge and in power. The female nurse, wearing a femmey nurse's uniform, makeup and high-maintenance hair, has to take disrespectful, condescending orders from the doctor. Sally gets herself together to leave the hospital, having cut her hair into a short, 70s butch style, and wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. When the doctor spots her, he holds her in the hospital against her will, and calls in The Gendercator. The Gendercator is a government official who enforces traditional gender norms that support the evangelical regime that has been in power since the early 2000s. It is decided that since Sally seems dykey, she must be changed into a man, via surgery & hormones. Sweet Sally protests that she likes being a woman and a dyke, and never wanted to be a man, and even pipes up, "sisterhood is powerful!" ... but to no avail.

This film has annoyed some TG folks, who experience its message as unsupportive of their choices. The Gendercator was withdrawn from its scheduled screening at the Frameline International LGBT Film Festival in San Francisco, and Catherine Crouch has been wrongly maligned.

The Gendercator isn't promoting intolerance of TGs, but does certainly question social pressures on us, and on our children, toward binary gender categories. Catherine Crouch, in her film, is mourning the trend in our society toward, and not away from, gender binarism.

Feminists have so few spaces where we can gather without having to attend to men's concerns. Aside from Michigan and a few other women's festivals, all the local events are GLBT, where feminism is absent--it's all about the men. So it's actually not surprising that Frameline declined to screen The Gendercator. GLBT venues are not feminist, and are often, in fact, anti-feminist and pro-patriarchy, pro-binary gender categories & gender roles. Lots of lesbians are anti-feminist, too, and promote, in their own lives (including s/m and porn), the dominator-dominated patriarchal model which is the basis for millenia of women's, children's and poor men's oppression, racial and class oppression, and the ongoing attacks on animals and the planet itself.

It's so good to find Catherine Crouch, born in the sixties, and too young to have been a part of the 20th century women's liberation movement. She really loves women, and I love Catherine! I'll be watching for her upcoming films.

Doris Lessing

photo by Chris Saunders

This just in, another of my favorite authors (the other is Toni Morrison) has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I read The Fifth Child in the early nineties, when my 3 children were, well, still children. It stirred up complicated feelings about motherhood that I hadn't allowed myself to examine, until then. I recommended it to several members of my book group, most of whom absolutely hated it.

I have never forgotten The Fifth Child (though the sequel, Ben, in the World, was pretty forgettable). It widened the crack I was experiencing between conventional expectations of me as a mother, conventions to which I had aspired from early childhood, and what was real.

Powhatan Reservation Hosts Arts Fesitval--on columbus day

Yesterday, Monday, was a national holiday to celebrate christopher columbus' ostensible discovery of the americas. My partner, her mother and I spent the day at the Rankokus American Indian Reservation in south Jersey.

The website of the Powhatan Renape Nation asks visitors not to publish our observations of them without getting permission first, since it would be exploitative. But I will say that I enjoyed most of the day, and will probably return.

The highlight of our day was meeting Dana Tiger, a very neat feminist Cherokee artist. Several of her paintings and prints are on her website. She takes PayPal.

March to war on Iran--our silence is our complicity

Today I received this message from my dear friend, Sharleen Leahey:


On Monday, September 24, 2007 I watched Senator Menendez standing on the steps of the United Nations to declare: "All options are on the table." . . . in other words, it was a threat to attack Iran (even, possibly, with nuclear weapons).

These code words may have passed unnoticed by some, but not by all. I called his office immediately and told his staff member that it is shameful for a so-called "progressive anti-war Democrat" to be calling for an attack against a sovereign nation, possibly igniting a new world war.

A couple of days later, both he and Senator Lautenberg both voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment branding Iran a terrorist state.

Isn't it amazing that so many of us in the peace movement worked and voted for these men--and now they are giving Bush a blank check to start yet another pre-emptive war? It's enough to make you want to leave the Democratic Party forever.

I think we should all support Kucinich, Ron Paul and Gravel financially and every other way so they can continue have a voice in the debates and their speeches around the country.

They are the only candidates calling for an end to the empire-building, march to Armageddon nightmare we are being dragged into by madmen (and Hillary too).

Stay strong and take every opportunity to speak truth to power. If we are silent, we are complicit.

If you live in the usa, you need to check here to see how your us senator voted on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. And then--speak up. Do it.

The Newark Black Lesbian 7, keeping them on the front burner ...

Here are some recent blog posts I've found about the Newark 7. First, though, go here and here to see how to support the 4 who are in prison at this moment for self-defense.

BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS's post

Women of Color Blog's post leading to dozens of links to other blog posts about the Newark 7

Ottermatic's post

and, last but never least, and usually unwittingly moving me to make connections & expand my brain (but today it was wittingly),

One Tenacious Baby Mama's post.

Verizon Wireless takes it all back

Verizon Wireless said it would make its mobile network available for a text-message program by Naral Pro-Choice America.

Well, you know what? I'm glad, but I'm still switching over to Working Assets for our mobile phone contract. Who needs this shit? They still did it. Feels good to take some action.

Oops! There goes my Verizon Wireless mobile phone ...

... because Verizon Wireless President & CEO Lowell McAdam decided to stop my--and my 3 kids'--cell phone provider from participating in NARAL Pro-Choice America's text-message alert program.

This, for example, is a recent text message that NARAL texted out to supporters: "End Bush's global gag rule against birth control for world's poorest women! Call Congress. 202-224-3121. Thnx! Naral Text4Choice."

Jeffrey Nelson, spokesperson for VW, suggested that Verizon may be rethinking its position. "As text messaging and multimedia services become more and more mainstream," he said, "we are continuing to review our content standards." The review will be made, he said, "with an eye toward making more information available across ideological and political views."

I just sent an e-mail message to the President & CEO of VW telling him I'm switching to Working Assets Wireless, which donates 1% of their charges to progressive social change organizations, shown on their website. (And they participate in the text-message alert program.)

I don't subscribe to cable tv or internet service at home; our mobile phone bill makes up a sizeable chunk of my monthly expenditures. VW seems to want to attract women customers and employees; they bragged about this on their website. Join me in telling VW executives that banning pro-choice text alerts goes against woment's interests and we will remove our dollars from VW.

Contact Verizon Wireless executives and tell them what you think. My e-mail to McAdam is at the end of this post.

Lowell McAdam, President & CEO
Verizon Wireless
295 North Maple Avenue
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
908-696-2000
lowell.mcadam@verizonwireless.com

Jeffrey Nelson, press spokesperson
Verizon Wireless
295 North Maple Avenue
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
908-559-7519
Jeffrey.Nelson@verizonwireless.com

September 27, 2007
Dear Mr. McAdam,
I have been a loyal customer with 4 phones for the past 5 years. When my contract expires in November, 2007 I am switching to Working Assets for my mobile service.
Your refusal to allow NARAL Pro-Choice America's text message alerts is the reason I am making the switch.
You seem to be pleased about being "pro-woman" in that you publicize the awards that VW has garnered by being supportive of your female employees. However, this action against NARAL is anti-woman and I will not continue as your customer.
Sincerely,
(my name, city, state, and a listing of my 4 VW mobile phone numbers)

Black and missing but not forgotten

Deidra started a heart-rending new blog dedicated to publicizing the non-reported missing Black girls and women in america. She asks, "If the media won't step up, who will?" I try to look through Deidra's blog daily. She adds new women and their stories almost every day.

Deidra created a fund (accessible on her blog) for Megan Williams and her family to help pay for the hospital, court costs, and counseling costs.

Not funny

I was never a Barbie fan -- wait, that's not true. I actually *was* a Barbie fan when they were first marketed, in 1959. Television commercials made sure of that.

Anyway, I haven't been a fan for decades, but still, this is supposed to be funny; it's not--it's woman-hating--and the text of the satire may be triggering. We have living, breathing sisters around the world who are suffering, and not surviving, this violence. It's not ethical fodder for liberal satire.

They have a real misogynist streak over there at the Onion.

It's just sick.

Intercourse, and This Bridge Called My Back

Please join me in reading Andrea Dworkin's book, Intercourse, by October 15, and to discuss it on Twisty's radical feminist forum, I Blame the Patriarchy, in a thread started by B. Dagger Lee. Intercourse is for sale pretty cheap, used, online. Remember, get the 1997 edition, without that pesky, problematic forward by Ariel Levy!

Chapter 7 of Intercourse is online, free, over at the Andrea Dworkin Library.

Can't wait--she's probably still my favorite writer.

And next ... after that, I'm reading This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga. Care to read, or re-read it with me, some time around the middle of November?

Activism (aka Mystery Shopper) opportunity

Planned Parenthood Pill Patrol needs u.s. women to request the morning after pill in certain pharmacies to see if it is provided, and to report back to Planned Parenthood as to whether or not the pill is provided (and at what price), and, if not, whether women are told where it can be purchased nearby. It's important!

Tip of the hat to Ann Bartow over at Feminist Law Professors.

8 not-so-random facts about me

1. I grew up in a household that revered Phyllis Schlafly and George Wallace. Becoming strong enough to think for myself took a long time.

2. I went to France to be an au pair for a year when I was 18.

3. Watching Anita Hill's 1991 persecution in the u.s. senate was my personal life-changing, life-saving, catalyst, kind of a one-woman consciousness-raising session between me and the tv.

4. I came out to myself as lesbian when I was 39. The woman I loved was 53.

5. I became a single mother of 3 on my 40th birthday--they were 5, 7 and 10.

6. My 2 youngest (now young adults) still live with me, but hardly ever talk to me. I wish I could change that.

7. I hope I'll never be a grandmother.

8. My right-wing brother is being deployed to Iraq as a chaplain to the marines.

The horror continues for Elena Mazza & her child

Here is a follow-up to my July 16 post decrying the New Jersey judge's ruling that a woman whose daughter's abusive father is trying to make the u.s. government send the 7 year-old girl to Argentina to become a ward of the state while he tries to gain custody of her.

The original federal judge, William H. Walls, said in his decision that although he accepts that Elena Mazza found evidence of sexual abuse on her daughter after being with her father, that it wasn't proved that it was the father who did the abuse. And, Judge Walls said, although the child's father raped Mazza in front of their daughter, that the father was being "overly possessive" and he "used some force," but that it wasn't all that bad. I guess Judge Walls thinks a man has a right to act possessively toward a woman since after all, women are possessions, but not "overly" possessive, and that, anyway, even if a man does act "overly" possessive, it's not bad enough to stop him from separating a mother and daughter by sending the daughter, a u.s. citizen, to another continent to that country's foster care system.


A small victory in a mom's big battle
Bob Braun, The (Newark, NJ) Star-Ledger

Thursday, August 09, 2007

With just days to spare, a federal appeals court has blocked the deportation of a 7-year-old Elizabeth child, an American citizen who was born, and spent most of her life, in this country.

A federal judge in Newark had ordered Arianna Adan to be put on an Aerolinas Argentina plane this Sunday for the 11-hour flight to Buenos Aires to become what he called a "ward of the state" of the South American country.

The child, scheduled to begin second grade at St. Anthony's School next month, would have remained in foster or institutional care in Argentina while her unmarried parents fought over custody. Arianna now lives with her mother, Elena Avans Mazza, also an American.

"When I heard the news about the stay, I could not stop smiling," says Mazza, whose lawyers won a reprieve from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

The stay gives Mazza's attorneys from the Newark law firm of Patton Boggs time to appeal the decision by Judge William H. Walls to deport Arianna. Walls tried once before -- two years ago -- to deport the child but was blocked then by the appeals court.

After a second trial, Walls came to the same conclusion -- Arianna should be deported to Argentina while Mazza and Arianna's father, Ariel Adan, an Argentinean, go to court.

Mazza, 45, fled Argentina in 2004, because, she says, its courts did not protect her and Arianna from physical and sexual abuse. Adan denied abusing them and invoked an international treaty known as the Hague Convention to have Arianna returned.

In his latest decision, Walls did find that Ariel Adan, an admitted drug user, abused Mazza.

"The court finds that Avans (Mazza) was the subject of domestic abuse from time to time by the Petitioner (Adan) and that what she alleges, in the main, is plausible," he wrote.

One of her allegations was that Adan raped her in front of Arianna.

Walls found that Adan, 46, was "overly possessive and attempted to exercise control over Avans (Mazza)" and "at times, he resorted to using force." Still, he said, Adan's abuse of Arianna's mother was not "chronic and pervasive."

The judge also "accepted" the mother's testimony that she found physical traces of sexual abuse of Arianna on the child's body and that the little girl complained about what her father did to her. He concluded, however, that Mazza did not prove "by clear and convincing evidence that the child was being sexually abused by her father."

Adan's lawyer has called Mazza's allegations "wild" and said only Argentine courts should decide whether it occurred.

Walls neither spoke to Arianna nor, as other federal judges have done in similar circumstances, ordered an independent evaluation of the possibility of abuse.

In New Jersey, officials -- including teachers -- can be prosecuted for failing to report to the state the possibility of sexual abuse of children under their care.

Mazza says she could not persuade the state Division of Youth and Family Services to evaluate Arianna to determine whether she had been abused. Court documents showed the agency declined to become involved on jurisdictional grounds.

Since Walls' decision, however, DYFS has intervened. Mazza reports Arianna was extensively interviewed by a state forensic psychiatrist last week.

"I am so glad someone is finally taking an interest in what happened to Arianna," says Mazza.

Ironically, while DYFS would not initially follow up charges of child abuse against Adan, the state last year did investigate Mazza based on an allegedly "anonymous" complaint against her. The state closed the case and allowed Arianna to stay with her mother.

Adan pleaded guilty twice to violating state restraining orders directing him to stay away from Mazza and Arianna. In one case, a Union County sheriff's officer arrested Adan when, in court to answer a previous charge, he tried to break into a room set aside for witnesses in domestic violence cases to get at Mazza.

The federal case was postponed while Adan served time in Union County jail.

Walls, however, declined to hear evidence about the state case against Adan, or about previous restraining orders brought in California against him, both by a former wife and a girlfriend. He ruled that photocopies of court papers from that state were inadmissible because they failed to carry the proper seals.

Mazza obtained support from her congressman. Albio Sires (D-13th) wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to "intervene and explore all options that would allow Arianna to continue her life and education in her home country."

Under the Hague Convention's terms, the U.S. State Department is responsible for overseeing compliance with the treaty.

Mazza says she hopes the belated DYFS intervention will help keep Arianna here. A child protection agency in Massachusetts successfully intervened on behalf of children ordered deported to Sweden, and a Nebraska state court intervened in a Hague Convention case there. While state courts have no jurisdiction over international treaties, they do have jurisdiction over custody and child protection issues.

"My child is an American citizen and a resident of New Jersey. She should at least be able to expect her state and country to protect her," Mazza says.

Bob Braun's columns appear Monday and Thursday. He may be reached at rbraun@starledger.com. Updates to this and previous Braun columns can be found on line at http://blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/

Copyright 2007 The Star Ledger
Copyright 2007 NJ.com
All Rights Reserved.

Reclaim the Day! A Call to Action by Anita Hill

Professor Anita Hill is one of my heros, and I don't hear about her often enough. Happily, I just stumbled upon her call to action.

Do you have an idea about how to improve women's portrayal in the mass media? If you do, Anita wants to know about it.

(Grrr--I can't make the link to her announcement work from my blog; just click here and then search wmc using "reclaim day anita hill.")

Hunters remain a powerful force in american society

And speaking of the patriarchy, when did hunters start being considered the preservers of wildlife? Read on ...

"Of the 50 state wildlife agencies, most rely on hunting and fishing license fees for the bulk of their revenue, and only a handful receive significant infusions from their state's general fund.

'They're trying to take care of all wildlife and all habitats on a shoestring budget,' said Rachel Brittin of the Washington-based Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies."

What with all the warfare, there's no federal or state money for wildlife conservation. We're reduced to relying on hunting & fishing licence revenues. But even before this criminal war, wilderness preservation was never a priority.

I just want to leave this country for good, more so with each passing day.

2 men's paths & their implications

I like that Darkdaughta posted these two blog essays adjacent to each other:

Seminalson's "I'm A Fragile Being: Touch In My Men's Group"
and
Risa's "You Want Cream In That?"

Seminalson and Risa are taking opposite routes toward the same goal--namely resisting being what society defines as so-called real men. I wish I could understand why going Seminalson's route (determining to become a whole person in spite of society's rigid gender expectations) was harder for Risa than what she chose--transexualism. I have been reading Risa's writings today, and she states clearly, it's not about the clothes (though she clearly enjoys wearing dresses & bras, shaving legs & pits). I believe her. But if it's not about physical presentation, the societal cues, then it must be about permission to be whole, i.e. embracing one's so-called feminine side. Or if not that, then what?

Calling a human quality "feminine" necessarily makes women different, alien, other. Different from the norm, shall we say ... norm obviously being default male. Calling a human quality "feminine" leads to all women's oppression. Oppression is a latinate word, sanitized, standing for degradation, torture, rape, and murder.

Both Risa & Seminalson were brave to break out of their assigned type, and to blog about it. Yes, both are brave and strong, and both are intuitive & empathic & giving & caring. Reading Seminalson's post, I was uncomfortable for him, and felt the pain of his growth, too. Reading Risa's blog, however, made me want to sit with her, look her in the eye, and try to help her see that she could have been whole already, and could always have been whole, as a man. I detest that our sick culture drove Risa to such desperate measures. Taking on a woman's presentation unwittingly supports gender binarism, the basis for woman-hating--woman-hating has been & is where racism & militarism stem from. I want Seminalson & Risa, both, to find peace & fulfillment. Both their choices, and ours, have real ramifications that affect us all, our kids & the planet.

Darkdaughta's hosting "Reloaded"

The past couple of months I've been reading Darkdaughta's blog, One Tenacious Baby Mama, a visually beautiful, radical oeuvre in which she calls out oppressive practices/systems she encounters, while excavating deep into her heart.

In short, DD seeks the truth, whatever the cost. I admire her fire & her brains. I read her because her blog helps me go toward, and live, my truth, too.

Anyway, DD has convened a bloggers' gathering, called Reloaded, and is going to hold one every Sunday for a while.

She included a post by moi. Lest I get a big head about this, DD has taken pains to assert that, even though she posted our writing, she wouldn't necessarily associate with many of us if she saw us on the street. Well, fine--we're a potpourri, for sure, and I'll post about some of them this week. But thanks for including me, anyhow; I'm glad to join you.

Red Jenny's "The Good Life and The Economy"
Mommy On The Floor's "The City On The Hill"
Second Waver's "The Male Gaze, postscript"
Universal Plume's "It's Blog For Loving Yourself Day"
Seminalson's "I'm A Fragile Being: Touch In My Men's Group"
Risa's "You Want Cream In That?"
All About My Vagina's "Please call it 'Sex Safety'"

To which Darkdaughta adds:
"Race, Class and Everyday Shite",
"Western Civilization...A History of Emotional Dysfunction",
"My Daughter Wants A Barbie",
"Mission Not Accomplished...Sort of" and
"Does He Wipe His Track Makin' Ass With Moist Towelettes?"

Reloaded will be happening every Sunday. So, if you or anyone you know has an old post they really liked the first time around, something thick or difficult that they'd like to have circulate through the blogosphere again, just get in contact with darkdaughta.

I hope you enjoy Reloaded

Film shows rape & murder of the Hadji girl

I didn't even consider looking at the online videos of the monstrous attack on 14 year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza last July, I didn't need to see it to know the horror. And I don't think I can bear to watch it at the cinema, either. But a lot of Americans have their heads in the sand, and so I hope that a few will go see this film. Most of my compatriots, of course, will continue their focus on their consumption, of prozac & television & the poor people of the world, without the slightest conscience twinge.

Brian De Palma's new film, Redacted, is a half-documentary, half-fiction treatment of the March 2006 gang rape & murder by American soldiers of Abeer, whose body was then burnt. Then the American soldiers killed both her parents and her younger sister, age six.

In making Redacted, De Palma drew on soldiers' home-made war videos, blogs and journals, and footage posted on YouTube. It shows the actual rape & murder, in an attempt bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people. "The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," De Palma told reporters after a screening at the Venice Film Festival.