My students get extra credit today for wearing red. The sociology club I advise will wear red. And the grad student I mentor (a male) intends to wear a t-shirt with a big red circle and the words "this is what a feminist looks like" inside it. Me? I'm wearing a long red coat and a red striped sweater and red underwear (just in case I decide to throw down for real).
Come join us, Universe. And may the many of us who have been wounded stand together with women and girls of color this day in great joy because our blood will NEVER signify defeat and our hearts will EVER sing our solidarity.
Out of the Silence, We Come: A Litany
Out of the silence, we come
In the name of nuestras abuelas,
In honor of our mamas
In the spirit of our petit fils,
In tribute to ourselves
We come crying out
Documenting the torture
We come wailing
Reporting the rape
We come singing
Testifying to the abuse
We come knowing
Knowing that the silence has not protected us from
the racism
the sexism
the homophobia
the physical pain
the emotional shame
the auction block
Once immobilized by silence
We come now, mobilized by collective voice
Dancing in harmonious move-ment to the thick drumbeat of la lucha, the struggle
We come indicting those who claim to love us, but violate us
We come prosecuting those who are paid to protect us, but harass us
We come sentencing those who say they represent us, but render
us invisible
Out of the Silence, we come
Naming ourselves
Telling our stories
Fighting for our lives
Refusing to accept that we were never meant to survive
_____________________________________________________
NOTE: The women in the photo above are Nepalese women Maoists, the vanguard of change in that violence beleaguered country.
5 comments:
I have my Red sari on!
and I am shouting it
shaking it
whispering it
and embracing it!
Got my red on!
Thanks, Sorrow and SjP. I got nearly fifty students to wear red today. I just posted a photo of a few of them. Yay, Us!!
...and red underwear (just in case I decide to throw down for real).
Oh my god.
Scary thought, Ed? ;^)
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