Be Bold! Be Red! This and Every Day!

Be Bold! Be Red! is one year old today. Let us dance in our red dresses. Let us dip and sway to our own internal music. For every woman of color who was ever raped or spit upon or struck or taught not to believe in herself or told she was ugly. For every girl child or woman of color who was disregarded as worthless. For every girl child or woman of color anywhere in the world today who is suffering for no other reason than that she was born female, let us rise and rise and shout.

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

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NOTE: The women in the photo above are Nepalese women Maoists, the vanguard of change in that violence beleaguered country.