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.

African American Policy Forum: Breaking the Silence

I thought I was going to post these various things in some kind of rational order, but after watching this video from the website of the African American Policy Forum, I see it's not going to be that kind of party. There is truly beautiful, truly important, truly well conducted work that is being done around the world every moment that we breathe. We each have our place in that world. My place, apparently, is to sometimes speak and sometimes listen; sometimes be on the stage and sometimes be in the audience or even providing the stage.

Watch this film. Then watch it again. And keep on watching it until you have no more tears left, until your sadness is overtaken by rage and your rage burns off like alcohol, leaving only the raw power with which we are all born, power that has been waiting all this time for us to understand from the depths of our souls that we do not need anyone's permission to feel it.

It's Not Just Too Short, Y'all. It's Too Little.

I've been posting on this blog for more than six years now and, as best I can remember, I've never taken on the topic of woman hating as it's been mastered by some Black rappers. But every dawg has his day, they say. And I guess it's about time I should go on record.

I'm not even sure why I didn't do it before, especially since I've been teaching courses on the sociology of gender and sexuality every semester for the past several years. I mean, I always knew women got screwed out of their power somewhere along the line. I was born one and I definitely got the memo. But once I started teaching the topic and realized how cold-blooded and mean-spirited male dominance -- as a system -- is, it would seem that I would have wanted to have my say. Besides, I was never a big fan of the genre to begin with, I guess, though I tried to reserve judgement for a number of reasons.

How I Feel

Just in case you're unclear about it..

Bein' Bold, Bein' Red

This is a few of the nearly fifty students that wore red today on our campus in solidarity with women of color in their fight against violence. Good bunch, huh?

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.

Don't Forget: Wear Red Tomorrow

I gave you a heads-up last week about the Be Bold! Be Red! campaign that kicked off a year ago and will be observed again tomorrow. Its point: to stop violence against women of color and to support women of color as they stand up for their basic human rights.

So read up on the campaign and tomorrow, please wear red.

And as a way to get us geared up for tomorrow's activities, I'm posting a video in two parts about the Gulabi Gang, a group of women in India who have donned bright pink saris (since pink is the color that celebrates life in India). The members of this ferocious group of women move among their fellow citizens like real live super-heroes, addressing wrongs and defending the rights of themselves and their sisters in a nation where women have been traditionally seen and treated as second-class citizens. The sociology club I advise have gotten all excited of late about these women and what they do as an example of what it looks like and what happens when people organize in their own best interests.

It works for me.

"The Gulabi Gang" (Part 1)

"The Gulabi Gang (Part 2)

Be Bold! Be Red! on October 30th

Thanks to The Unapologetic Mexican, I was reminded this week that a year ago (and it hardly seems possible that it could have been that long already), the Be Bold! Be Red! campaign called on men and women from coast to coast to organize to fight violence against women of color. Since that time, we have seen publicized multiple cases of such violence, a ridiculous number of them involving women in Iraq, such as Pvt. LaVena Johnson, brutally beaten before being murdered and disfigured in an attempt to hide the identity of the perpetrator(s). The official ruling on the case from the Army? Suicide.

And so it goes.

So we will return. We will blog, we will gather, we will sing, we will wear red, and we will talk about why. Last year, one of my Latino students who had spoken with me about her own difficulties only a couple of days before, came walking into my classroom on Be Bold! Be Red! Day wearing red and I almost wept right there in front of God and everybody.

Last week, when the sociology club I advise chose to co-sponsor a Discussion Forum on violence against women (in one of the busiest locations on campus), a beautiful young African-American woman who had admitted to me only days before that she has been beaten by her husband for years, chose to step up and tell her story to the group. With tears running down her face, she talked of how the fear of leaving involved not just fear for her safety, but fear of what her friends and family would think of her for allowing this abuse to go on for so long. She told of how talking to me had given her the courage to tell her family and how, in spite of the fact that she still bears the marks of her latest attack, she is now -- finally -- living alone and going to therapy and doing so with the support of those who love her. I'll wear red for and with her on October 30th. And in memory of LaVena Johnson who did not commit suicide, no matter what the records say. And for the victims who will be suffering even as we wear red and gather and blog.

Please go to Document the Silence and then consider what you might do to commemorate the struggle of women of color to be free of the idea that they don't matter, the idea that they should remain silent, and the idea that we won't stand with them.

The Rape and Murder of Pvt. LaVena Johnson

I've tried to bring myself to post on this ever since another blogger sent me a notice about the petition calling for a full investigation into the death of 19-year-old Pvt. LaVena Johnson in Iraq in July of 2005. But everytime I think about writing on it, I feel so sad inside, I can hardly lift my fingers off the keyboard.

It's all over the blogosphere, I try telling myself. Nobody really needs me to post on it, too, right? Readers can go here and here and here, for example, and there's WAY more than that.

But I can't walk away. I want to. Some things are just too horrible to think about. The situation of Dr. Siddiqui and her children, for example, has been haunting me all week already. I don't want to focus too closely on the images that are conjured up by LaVena Johnson's broken and wounded body screaming out from the grave that her last night alive was a nightmare.

She had cuts, bruises, scratches, scrapes and teeth marks all over her body. She was hit in the face with a blunt object (possibly a rifle butt), that pushed her teeth in backwards. Her elbow or shoulder were dislocated. She was set on fire. Her genitals had acid poured on them (to destroy DNA evidence?). And she was shot in the left temple by a M-16 (a 40" automatic weapon). See what I'm saying about the images? Imagine how she must have tried to fight off her assailant to wind up in that condition. And she was barely more than five feet tall.

But two things are making me sit down this morning to write. One is that the Army still claims LaVena Johnson committed "suicide." Uh-huh!

And the second is that this petition calling for a Congressional investigation has only 3000 signatures so far. I don't know which fact makes me feel sicker.

I guess it's old news that military leaders lie, especially about sexual assault in the military. And if you pay attention even a little bit, you know that multiple rapidfire tours of combat in Iraq, the lowering of military recruitment standards, and the addition of thousands of highly-paid and historically out-of-control mercenaries with no supervision has escalated violence of all kinds against women -- both in Iraq and after folks come home.

But even though the mainstream media has done almost nothing to publicize the Johnson case, I cannot begin to understand why only 3000 people nationally have stepped forward to demand, if not justice, at least some more believable answers.

The blogosphere is huge. Amy Goodman's on board. So what's going on? Have we become comfortably (or uncomfortably) numb? Are we just overwhelmed with the continuous barrage of garish blood-letting that increasingly surrounds us? Are we scared? Do we just not give a shit? What's the deal?

If Johnson was my daughter, I would hope more than 3000 people in this whole country would care enough to sign a petition. It takes considerably less time to do so than it took to kill LaVena Johnson.

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NOTE: Color of Change is also organizing an effort here. Please support all efforts that keep this case alive until LaVena Johnson's death is no longer a mystery.

Be Bold/Be Red Today!

Today is the day women of color document the silence. Today is the day they get to talk about the violence that is so much a part of their lives. Violence without apology. Violence without repercussions for the perpetrators. Violence without recourse for the victims.

And to make sure people listen, they will be wearing red. To make people sit up and pay attention, they will be flaunting their redness. To make people notice. And so will I. "Listen to my sisters," I will demand. Listen to my sisters who have been silent for too long. I will stand beside them while they document their silence. I will make my own broken body a wall for my sisters so that no one can rise against them wherever we are together.

We will cry with one voice, my sisters and I. We will sing together and croon our nightmares to sleep. We will grant no space to ignorance, no space to fear. We will link arms and stride into a new day. Like long-legged horses, we will run over hills that hold up a sky full of crimson clouds full of tears of joy that women of color will be silent no more.

At 8:00 p.m. (CST), women of color and their allies all over the United States will read the following litany aloud. Feel free to don red and join us and report to the organizers of this national action that you have done so here. And then, whatever else you decide to do, you might choose to watch the film above about Samburu women in Kenya who created a village named Umoja (Unity) after they were cast out of their families because they had been raped. Maybe you would like to share it with others who would appreciate knowing that this is really not just a national movement, but is the dawning of a new sun. Around the world. And it is red.

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

Remember To Wear Red Tomorrow

This is a reminder that many women of color and their allies will be wearing red tomorrow. Lipstick, cherry, candy apple, knock-your-eyes-out, hope-ya-don't-like-it (or hope-ya-do), menstrual blood red. No more silence. Let those who suffer and have suffered cry, scream, holler, shriek, and moan as they choose. Let the violence be over. Let the dancing begin. In beautiful red dresses. And never stop.

Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Red October 31st

A few weeks ago, I got involved with something that deserves waaaaaay more attention than I have been able to give it. It's a campaign to bring attention to the fact that in a society full of madness, where violence has become a language of its own, women of color as a group, as the most vulnerable among us, have become scapegoats for every kind of frustration.

Women and girls in general are attacked so routinely in the United States as to make it a national tragedy, but women of color are a disproportionate and disproportionately unprotected body within that reality.

Similarly, people of color in general are regularly insulted, offended, and attacked by people that look like me, ridiculously often without any kind of repercussions or recourse for the victims. In fact, if the person of color takes issue with the treatment, they are said to be "over-reacting." And within this group, sometimes even at the hands of men of color who may be themselves reacting out of their own frustration, Black and Brown women, in particular, appear far too often to have no hiding place.

A movement to address this terrible whorl of injustice has begun and is marking its first action by calling for women of color and their allies to wear red on October 31st. I was so moved by the language in some of the material I have received on this, that I am featuring it verbatim here. An entire group of women has set this in motion, but I received this from Fallon:

"Recent events in the United States have moved us to action. Violence against women is sadly, not a new phenomenon in our country or in the world, however, in the last year, women of color have experienced brutal forms of violence, torture, rape and injustice which have gone unnoticed, received little to no media coverage, or a limited community response. We are responding to:

*The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia, who was held by six assailants for a month.

*Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida, one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.

*A 13-year-old native American girl who was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling "white power" outside of her home.

*Seven black lesbian girls who attempted to stop an attacker and were later charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11-year prison sentences.

"In A Litany of Survival, Audre Lorde writes, 'When we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.' These words shape our collective organizing to break the silence surrounding women of color's stories of violence. We are asking for community groups, grass-root organizations, college campus students and groups, communities of faith, online communities, and individuals to join us in speaking out against violence against women of color. If we speak, we cannot be invisible.

"On September 20th, I wore black. I wore black, as many Black people did, in solidarity with the Jena 6, who are quickly becoming the 21st century’s Scottsboro Boys. I am wearing black, even though I have the profound urge and desire to wear red, a Maoist, seductive, bold red – on this, the possible new dawn, of what Al Sharpton has begun calling the 'Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century.' I am wearing black, even as I have conflicting thoughts and emotions. I am eager for this moment of solidarity - a chance to acknowledge the injustice of inequitable sentencing. So, for today, it is my lipstick that is crimson.

"But on Wednesday, October 31, 2007, I will be wearing red; that uncomfortably womanish shade of scarlet that suggests a certain looseness, appreciation of blues, likelihood to walk the streets at night, willingness to be loud, dedication to self, and a deep refusal to be rendered invisible. Red, the color so many of us are told to avoid because of its Western association with the marked, fallen woman; red, that rich, rapturous, full, so-bright-it-looks-as-if-it’s-had-a-good-meal ruby color, red so intense, it’s nearly purple. Yes, that color – that’s the one I want to mark my outrage at the rape and torture of Megan Williams, a 20-year-old woman in West Virginia; the sexual assault of a Haitian woman and her son in West Palm Beach, Florida; and the continued violence visited upon women of color.

"Red is the color I choose, because I am not interested in being invisible. I am not interested in being forgotten. I am not interested in being a sidebar conversation. I am not interested, because I will be the womyn who walks into the room wearing the color red, who makes the conversation stop, and gently suggests another topic – the role of violence and abuse in women’s lives perhaps? I am interested in being seen. I am interested in hearing what communities of color, so recently outfitted in black to mark the injustice done to the Jena 6, will do to mark the violence and injustice done to Megan Williams.

"For me, the color red is about boldness. It is a vibrant color that cannot be ignored. Beyond the pink of feminism, and even the purple of womanism, red is a color that says, “stop and see.” On October 31st, we ask women of color and their allies, to break the silence and invisibility surrounding violence against women of color, by choosing to be seen. By choosing to be vocal, to be brave, to be bold and work to stop violence against women.

be bold / be brave / be red / stop the violence

"We are asking organizations and individuals to host rallies and speak outs on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at various monumental sites (i.e. The Lincoln Memorial, Seattle’s Arch, Chicago’s Bean, Atlanta’s MLK memorial, etc.) located in their cities or to host rallies and speak outs at locations that represent the political, economic, and/or social power of their cities such as the local court house, the local chamber of commerce, the local police department, and the local city council. Groups can also consider rallying in sites where specific violence against women of color occurred.

"Hosting a rally dedicated to eradicating violence against women of color at the locations where business is conducted, where laws are made, and where justice is rendered is revolutionary. It demands that laws be written specifically to protect women of color from violence. It demands funding to be made available to women of color organizations who work to end violence against women of color. It demands that justice be served by compelling city leaders to create spaces in the city where women of color are safe."

If you want to get on the band wagon (and of course, you do), you may contact the organizers here.