Sunday, January 13, 2008

Passin' It On

I'm tired from reading for the new semester and for the paper on bloggers I'm working on. I'm crabby because I'm back in the office tomorrow morning and, despite the fact that I love what I do as a teacher, it eats me alive. I mean, how am I going to accomplish all the things I want to be doing, if I'm spending fifty hours a week on the campus (the way I usually do)?

Anyway, I made my blog rounds today as I always try to do on Sundays and came across more than a few things I really should pass on. Here are the ones at the top of the list:

For starters, Sokari over at Black Looks turned me onto a film that's in the making. It's called "The Naked Option" and tells the story of a small group of African women who brought Chevron to its knees. I can hardly wait to see it in its entirety, but in the meantime, the trailer alone is electrifying.

Secondly, both Sylvia at Problem Chylde and Kai at Zuky tipped us to to the fact that former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, another extraordinarily strong woman of color, has announced that she is not going to run for President on the Green Party ticket after all and for reasons of which we need to be aware.

Maxjulian, The Free Slave, is giving us yet another election issue to re-consider, since it seems we've put it on the back burner now that campaigns are heating up on the front of the stove.

And Professor Zero has issued a Chiapas Alert related to apparent governmental threats to the people of that region in Mexico. I understand that duties on U.S. agri-products were dropped as of January 1st, so I was expecting some backlash from indigenous people with their already poverty-stricken backs pushed even harder to the wall. It seems the government has similar expectations and is preparing to respond to them as they usually do.

Finally, Theriomorph at Creek Running North initiated a truly excellent thread on being an ally to people of color, especially to women of color. It will likely inspire me to write another in my series on How To Be An Ally (see the top of the link list to the right), but until that happens, you'll have plenty to read. Because even when I'm tired and crabby, when it comes to my faithful readers, love is spoken here.
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The poster above is a product of the highly respected Syracuse Cultural Workers.

3 comments:

Dark Daughta said...

Hey there...
I've been in conversation with Julian at free slave, but I am curious to see the post over at Creek Running North as I'm fairly certain that most people don't actually know what it means to ally with wimmin of color beyond doing popularity and charismatic leader cult of personality stuff. Sometimes alliance is a lot less glamorous, more mundane and messy. Definitely will go take a look. :)

changeseeker said...

Hey, dark daughta, good to "see" you. I totally agree with you that "alliance is a lot less glamorous, more mundane and messy" [than most folks realize or want to know]. For one thing, it actually means an on-going process of being open to learn, which flies slap in the face (pun intended) of what most "White" people have been socialized to do.

Dark Daughta said...

But then how does the messy work end up being pushed more to the fore? I've actually found it to be quite exhilarating, once I learned to cuss less. :) It's been touching and has really started to humanize a lot of people for me that I would just have formerly thought of as allies. I'm glad for the opportunities blogging has been bringing my way.