Putting Out the Gaslight

[NOTE: Last spring, I jumped momentarily down the rabbit hole to comment in a way that wasn't the kind of post I typically write. This post is the second in that "series."]

The other day, I had a conversation with someone who is recognized as being at the top of his game in terms of political analysis. Maybe he is. I wouldn’t know because we’ve been up to our asses in alligators in the U.S. for a long time and I had to quit staying up all night talking theory decades ago. Instead, I spent thirty years paying bills, raising kids (and more than a little hell), going to school, living through a ton of trauma -- including the murder of my son and the suicides of my father and a man who had threatened to kill me, as well -- and then spent twelve years teaching college full-time which allowed me to spend literally thousands of hours focusing on what’s to be known about power relations: race, class, gender, and sexuality, while applying what I was learning to better understand myself and the struggle we're all in.

America, the Beautiful...or Not

All this needs today is "America, the Beautiful" playing in the background while Porsha O. gives it to us from her perspective.

When the Choir Preaches Back

"I don't want to be told
what to write
I can excavate my own content
I want to be pushed into
digging deep wells
in unheard of lands.
I want you to give me eyes
in the back of my head.
Be a thunder clap
and rouse me.
Be an earthquake
make me tremble
Be a river raging rampant
in my veins.
Shock me shitless."
~ Gloria Anzaldua (1974)*

If you find Gloria Anzaldua quoted in the Foreward to a book you just began reading (as I did when I began reading the one this post is about), you should probably pause to buckle the seat belt of your psyche or you might find yourself suddenly flying into the air and free-falling down whatever personal mountain you're currently on. Gloria Anzaldua is no one to play with. And Deborah Santana, author/editor/film producer and philanthropist, who believes that people of gentleness and faith can change the world, is no one to play with either. The latest proof of this is a hugely important new anthology of short essays by Women of Color representing a range of ages, ethnicities, backgrounds, and experiences.

Launched in January of this year, All the Women in My Family Sing: Women Write the World ~ Essays on Equality, Justice, and Freedom, edited by Santana, hit the ground running, its cover and first few pages decorated with blurbs from the likes of Isabel Allende, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Alfre Woodard, among others. Invited to speak with Santana myself(!) before adding my review to such dignitaries' comments would have been daunting indeed had I not already been shocked shitless by the essays and very excited by the opportunity.

Staceyann Chin: "All Oppression Is Connected"

SpectraSpeaks: "Straight Allies, White Anti-Racists, Male Feminists (and Other Labels That Mean Nothing to Me)"

I'm taking a risk here. I very much want to follow up yesterday's re-post of Shenita Ann McLean's essay on "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness" with this piece by Spectra of SpectraSpeaks.com. But I haven't yet been able to reach her. So I'm going to do it anyway. If Spectra comes forward and is unhappy, I will apologize and replace this with a link to the original post on her blog. In fact, I think what Spectra has to say here is so important on several levels (and with a nod to intersectionality) related to several forms of oppression, that I'm going to link to this post on her blog as part of "Some Basics" on the right.

The term "ally" is not new, of course. As a general concept, it's been around since the formation of the English language, I guess. But since the 1960's and 1970's (ahhhh, I remember them fondly and well), the word has developed into such an amorphous concept that almost anyone with vaguely good intentions can wear it like a t-shirt bought off a rack at Goodwill. They don't have to have any real consciousness. They don't have to actually do anything to make change. They don't have to take any serious risks. And when challenged, they can get all huffy and wounded and claim that as an excuse to continue being disengaged from the process for social change that begins with and absolutely requires personal change.

Consequently, I give you Spectra, with delight. She's about to explain it to you.

Shenita Ann McLean: "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness"

After focusing on the plight and struggle of Black men this past week, I'm going to spend the next few days focusing on Black women. This is not a topic I've addressed specifically on this blog as much. It's not because I don't think about and teach about it. I'm aware that Black women -- and women of color, in general -- have two burdens: White Supremacy and the patriarchy (the system that puts men in the dominant power position in the world on the premise that men deserve it). I teach entire separate courses in gender and sexuality, as well as race. And in doing that, I often bounce back and forth to demonstrate that oppression is oppression.

But the intersectionality that will ever bind race, class, gender, sexuality and all other forms of oppression makes the situation of women of color so painful and so nuanced and so close to my woman's heart that I haven't felt confident to present it as fully as it deserves to be presented. I have to change this and the way to do so is to give women of color and Black women, in particular, more regular and specific attention on this blog. The only way I feel able to adequately do this is by taking the opportunity to give Black women the space to make their own voices heard. This has been too long in coming and for that I apologize.

For starters, I'm re-posting (with permission) Shenita Ann McLean's essay entitled, "Politics of Black Superwoman Otherness." It was originally posted on January 1, 2014, at RedSociology.com. Buckle up. This one's gonna take you for a ride.