Mississippi Goddamn...

There are some occurences in our country that are so outrageous you almost can't believe that they could actually have happened. For example, what does one make of the fact that two Black men (admittedly, uber-conservatives) were behind several different attempts to delegitimize the presidential victory of President-elect Barack Obama by arguing that he is not actually a citizen.

I wish I were making this up.

Alan Keyes, the former House Negro of the GOP and now just another disaffected Black conservative, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas both were scheming to advance this dastardly scheme. Keyes filed a lawsuit against Obama, a thinly veiled vinidictive attack since Obama whupped him in the 2004 Illinois Senate race; and Thomas, who simply seems to finds his purpose in life by fucking over Black people whenever he can (slapping down affirmative action, deriding mythical, Cadillac-driving, steak-eating welfare queens -- including his own sister -- and sexually harassing his Black female colleagues) and cheesing up to white folks passed along this case, brought by retired attorney Leo C. Donofrio, for consideration to the Supreme Court. The justices collectively refused to hear the case bringing an end to at least part of the conspiracy theory around Obama's birth and citizenship.

But it seems like folks all over America are pissed about Barack being president. Just check out what's happening in Mississippi.

Two Black male students were thrown off a bus in Mississippi after stating that "Obama is our president." The bus driver told them not to make this statement. When the boys pointed out that this was not whimsy or even disrespectful, but merely a historical fact she threw them off the bus.

I couldn't make this shit up if tried.

At the same middle school that the boys attended a gym teacher warned students that if they mentioned Obama's name they would be suspended from school.

You would think that after 300 years of white privilege allowing white people to always be the winner, they wouldn't be begrudge people of color this one president without a fuss. But it turns out that white people are, in fact, sore losers.

During the Civil Rights Movement, of all the places that young activists, Black and White, traveled to down South to help Black folks living under Jim Crow, Mississippi was by far the state that was the most feared for its brtual repression and the commitment of white folks there to maintain white supremacy in the face of social change. More than 40 year after this movement and those that followed it made it possible for Barack Obama to be president of this country, these events make you wonder how much has changed. For some people, not much. And if they have they way it never will.

I leave you now with the words of that great Black performer and visionary, Miss Nina Simone.
Alabama's got me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
But everybody knows about Mississippi
GODDAMN!

The Wonderful (Art) World of Renee Cox

(Yo Mama's Last Supper)

Who is Renee Cox, you ask? Simply put, Renee Cox is one of the fiercest, smartest, engaging, and disruptive photographers/visual artists doing her thing in the art world today. And I won't deny that it tickles me that she is a Black woman who has consistently defied boundaries and unapolegetically done her thing as an artist. She is perhaps best well known for using her own naked body in her work as a way of tackling questions around race, gender, sexuality, desire, and power and not being afraid to use humor to make her point visually. Personally, I have been deeply moved by her attempt to reclaim and celebrate the black female body in a cultural landscape that only ever sees black women's bodies as sites of exploitation, degradation, or base sexuality. Cox puts her naked body out there and restores Black women's full humanity -- our bodies are given full expression. Her images range from the sacred to the perverse and that is truly the beauty of her work -- there is no sugarcoating or flattening Black women's experiences in these images. Black women are madonnas holding on to their dying sons; they are Caribbean national heroes defending their communities and resisting slavery; and they're freaks who pour their bodies into latex and masturbate in front of the camera.

In short Black women don't need to be put on pedestals, we just want to be treated like human beings who experience the feel range of emotions and desires as anyone else on this planet. And that is why I love Renee Cox. She's creating space and challenging convention and wants everybody else to do the same. She's putting her body on display but not to fulfill someone else's desires, but to articulate her own. In the wonderful (art) world of Renee Cox, it is a fucking party and everyone is invited. But you gotta play by Renee's rules.

peace.

Tim'm presents The Front Porch at Dallas Southern Pride, Oct. 3rd

Come hang out with family on the front porch, ya'll! My homegirl, Samiya Bashir, a phenomenal poet and gorgeous human being will be reading.

open flesh

they're bleaching in india.
jamaica, too.
in ghana, nigeria, and just about everywhere on
the continent.
transform warm, mud bodies
into jaundiced,
paper flesh.
the strands so thin and worn
the skin will not hold.
this is flesh
made transparent
these bodies keep no secrets.
the veins loudly tell
all that they know.
me,
i'll keep my secrets.
these arms, breasts, legs, torso, ears, and buttocks
no one will extract my stories from my skin
this trauma of race.
i will not underwrite my own death
i will not erase myself.

For those I've lost

I feel as if I've been saying goodbye to people I admire for a long time. There the father of one of my dearest friends, who died only days after celebrating his daughter's marriage. He was a great admirer of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, a lawyer who never forgot who the law was supposed to protect.
I miss him.
An uncle with a nasty mouth and sweet ways who taught me to take everything and everybody with a grain of salt and if they don't like it, well, fuck 'em, cause I don't have to nothing I don't want to do just because a whole heap of fools are doing it.
The son who followed him to the other side a year later after pulling dozens of men, women, and children out of the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina. His heart stopped in the middle of the night and I like to think it was because his big old heart just couldn't stand the horror of what he'd seen in a drowning city.
A young poet who drowns before the world has the opportunity to really experience and understand her power. Her words inspire me to say everything that I want to say while I am alive.
And then there are the celebrities. People that you never met but that influence you all the same. The make you laugh, you sing along to songs that they made famous and somehow they become a part of you as though you had known them all of their lives.
And then they're gone.
For all the people I've lost:
Luis Moreno
Aubrey Brinsley Brandon
Elbert Brandon, Jr.
Raul Salinas
Michael Patrick
Shannon Leigh
Heath Ledger
Bernie Mac
Isaac Hayes
And if my mourning them makes sense to no one but me, all I can say is that somehow they touched something deep inside of me that affirmed for me what it means to be human. And for that they deserve my respect and my tears.
peace.

It's true...a Black woman's booty makes everything more interesting

As you may have noticed, I generally tend to blog whenever I come across something so crazy, so completely flabbergasting that I have no choice but to complain about it in cyberspace. After 7 years of living in Austin, I think it is safe to consider myself a naturalized Austinite; as a Black woman this is not always an easy existence but generally speaking I am more happy with Austin than I am dissatisfied. Like other Austinites, a week rarely goes by when I don't read The Austin Chronicle, the capitol city's version of The Village Voice. With artwork and articles that cover local news, art, and events with a satirical, tongue-in-cheek manner, The Austin Chronicle provides a smart, welcome contrast to our city's less interesting, more stodgy daily The Austin-American Statesman.

Well, usually.

Sometimes, edgy and tongue-in-cheek can go too far. Or, hell, I'll just say it -- when it comes to racial, gendered, and sexual politics, there's a fine line between edgy and problematic. And this Thursday The Chronicle totally crossed it.

When I first saw the cover I paused and then grimaced. Why, one might wonder, would The Chronicle have a photo of a Black woman holding an avocado placed suggestively just below her ass on the cover of the paper as the art for a story that has nothing to do with Black women, nudity, or art? Follow that up with the fact that the teaser for the article stated "The Avocado: A Backstory," with extra emphasis on the "back". Now I know racism and sexism when I see it and given the American fascination with Black women's booties (just look at the pop culture empire Beyoncé has built on hers) it's hard not to read racism into things. First of all, I would be offended if the model had not been black -- why are women's bodies always being appropriated to advertise or sell things that have nothing to do with the item (or in this case, article) that is being hawked. Having said that, I don't think it is a coincidence that the photo focuses on her ass and the avocado placed teasingly beneath it.

Images of Black women's asses have been a part of American popular culture since the 19th century; during slavery it was argued that Black women's exaggerated womanly endowments actually proved scientifically that we had a greater proclivity for sexual intercourse than white woman and were biologically insatiable (a convenient explanation for all the white slave masters who couldn't resist tipping out to the slave quarters). The Black woman's behind taps into an entire repository of collective cultural memory and meaning that we may not consciously think about in our daily lives but that shapes our perceptions of the Other on a daily basis. From Sarah Baartman to Josephine Baker to JLo, White America still just can't get enough of dat ass.

Still, not wanting to believe the worst (my homegirl Juli teases me constantly about my relentess optimism and willingness to give folks the benefit of the doubt), I didn't pick up the paper, but walked away and said to myself, "Damn, I really hope this story justifies the cover."

Well, it doesn't.

It's a story about avocados -- that's it. The article is about the avocado, the whole avocado, and nothing but the avocado. It explores the untold story of the avocado from its history as a wonderous fruit that fascinated the Spanish conquistadores to its contemporary prodution and widespread popularity all the way down to how much of it is consumed around the world (not surprisingly, Mexico wins handsdown -- 20 lbs. of avocado per person each year -- !Que Viva!) So why this Black woman's ass? What in the hell was The Chronicle thinking?

Well, apparently someone else must have been thinking the same thing, because by the time I got home to blog my grievance, the picture was not on the site. Gone was the visually arresting, but deeply problematic image of a Black woman's derriere, and in its place was a much more suitable, if less interesting image of workers in a Dole factory, presumably stocking avocados.

Does this mean that a reader pulled The Chronicle's coattails before I could or did someone in the newsroom have the sense to call this photo out for what it was: a cheap play on tired ass stereotypes to push an uninteresting story on readers who would not have given it the time of day had they not hoped to see more of this woman's booty (and it is a pretty pleasing ass...but I digress).

My advice to The Chronicle: stick to smart news coverage and politically edgy and intelligent art. Don't stoop. There's really no need to reproduce racism and sexism in your pages when the work you usually do sells it self. Don't use me or my sisters to reach out to or enhance your readership, just do good work. There's no need to exploit our bodies, leave that to wack music videos and King Magazine, don't bring it into the news. I don't want to feel assaulted reading the local weekly when all I came to do was get my news fix.

R. Kelly Acquitted...An Update on the Criminal (In)Justice System

I was in Mexico on a work trip that also doubled as my honeymoon when R. Kelly was totally acquitted of 14 counts of child pornography and pedophilia. The victim and her family denied that she was the young woman in the sex tape that showed Kelley having sex with and urinating on a young Black woman that prosecutors said looked as young as 13 years old. Since I was out of the country and basically completely incommunicado I had not heard about the acquittal. The truth is I don't really know what to think or to do. If you can't get the majority of Black people in this country to care about the violence that is enacted against Black women or girls why should anybody else? I was deeply disturbed to see the number of Black women who jumped to his defense and attacked the victim; apparently they too have bought into the logic that all Black women are fundamentally "unrape-able" and in sexual terms are fair game for anyone after the age of 13.

For those who are confused let me spell it out for you: When a grown man has sex with a minor it is rape. Even if she said yes it was rape. If it was midnight and her mother is trifling and didn't know where her daughter was or escorted her to the hotel at it was rape. If she asked for it, it was rape. I am not trying to say that there is no place for personal accountability, we all need that in our lives and I belive it is a vital part of social justice and transformation. But let's not confuse apples and oranges. Even if the girl made a poor decision, that does NOT excuse R. Kelly for sexually assaulting her -- and yes it was sexual assault. If you leave your house unlocked and I walk in and steal all of your belongings, would your neighbors say you deserved to be robbed? Absolutely not. But when it comes to Black women and other women of color, society treats our bodies as if they are public property that can be defaced and devalued at will.

Let me assure you, we and our bodies are not public property.

The day is coming, and soon, where Amerika is going to have to answer for its dehumanizing violence against Black women. Wake up, the chickens are coming home to roost real soon.

Here is a link to an article from The Chicago Tribune covering the acquittal. All I can say is that for the Black women who defended R. Kelly, who sold out the victim, and who celebrated his acquittal, think long and hard about who you will call when you find out that a 35 year old man has just sexually assaulted your son or daughter. I believe with all of my heart that the metaphysical structure of this universe is a circle and the consequences of all the choices that we make individually and collectively find their way back to each of us in the end. But don't worry, the kindness of this universe is infinite, and when you come looking for justice, those of us who still believe in it will be here to help you fight for it.

Two or Three or Four or Several Hundred Heads Are Better than One

So I was riding the bus this morning. I love being on the bus despite the amount of time it takes to get where I want to go because of the interaction I am able to have with people I would otherwise never come into contact with. Of course, sometimes you meet people you would have been totally happy to never meet or speak to but often there are small, wonderous little moments that affirm your faith in people and reveal our quirkiness as a species.

So I'm sitting on the bus and two gentlemen board and take their seats. One asks the bus driver "Do you know where the Social Security Office is? It's downtown, right?" The bus driver tells him that she has no idea where the Social Security Office is located. Then two of the passengers, both Black women, tell him at almost the exact same time that the Office is located on Cameron Road, not downtown. Then the conversation turns to how they can get to the office riding the bus. As the passengers begin to talk about it, I think to myself, "I've never even needed to go the Social Security Office in my car, let alone the bus, guess I can't help these guys, oh well."

Then I hear one woman say, "Well you can take the 320."

The other woman responds, "Yeah, but then they'll have to walk a little ways before they get to the office. The 339 will drop them off right in front of it."

She then turns to one of the men and says, "You can take the 339, but you got to get to the mall, the Highland Mall."

Suddenly, before I can think about it I hear myself say, "Well, the 15 stops downtown and that'll take you right to the transfer station at the Highland Mall." I had forgotten I even knew that and suddenly I was a part of the conversation, the building of this new knowledge that all of us, a woman in nursing scrubs, three black women, and two scruffy looking white guys had created by pooling our collective wisdom. Silly as it sounds, I actually felt really good having been a part of the process.

Interestingly enough, this ragtag group of bus riders had just demonstrated the scientific/social phenomenon of "emergence." According to one of my favorite podcasts, Radio Lab and Wikipedia, emergence refers to the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. An example would be looking at how ants or bees, relatively simple creatures with unsophisticated forms of communication, are able to build architecturally complex structures like their colonies (see the termite "cathedral" produced by a termite colony pictured above for a perfect example of emergence in the natural world). In a recent book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, author James Surowiecki discusses the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. According to Radio Lab, what separates us from the ants is that as human beings we are aware of our ability to do this and often do this for advantage as a species.

I was totally bowled over by this theory of emergence, not just because it demonstrates that the practice of cooperation is a central part of the structure of the natural world, but because the science of emergence demonstrates how the world "organizes itself into being without a plan...or a leader." The logic of capitalism and dictatorships or even the need for leadership or the state is actually sort of antithetical to how much of the natural world and human beings as a part of the natural world operate. Much of what we do from giving bus directions to building cities and communities is done without the need for a master plan or a leader telling us what to do. We cooperate on our own because it helps to survive and because as social beings we need each other in both a practical and emotional sense.

So it turns out that when it comes to the best form of governance for human beings, Mother Nature seems to support anarchism.

Awesome.

For Shannon (Sept. 15, 1987 - June 30, 2008)

If we had run into each other on the street, we might not have remembered that we had met briefly, several times at poetry readings, slam competitions, local gatherings for emerging poets and young performers in Austin, TX.
If you had known her, you might be surprised that such a small woman, such a young woman could write with the intensity, beauty, and wisdom of someone who had known this planet many times. You might flinch when you heard her curse, spitting venom and sugar with equal parts grace and fearlessness. You'd be surprised to run into her again, randomly, on the street; later on you'd think to yourself, "Somehow, I remembered her being taller."
I did not know Shannon Leigh well. I just loved her work and admired her strength and her willingness as an artist to push up against the limits of what the world would have allowed her. A white girl spitting hip hop lyrics simply for the love of it; a tiny woman with a throaty, voice who refused to mutter in a world that rewards women for muttering in inarticulate, Minnie Mouse tones.
Her words moved me and now after hearing about her death, and the work that she has left behind, I am deeply grieved. How to end this post, when it feels there are not enough of the right words to honor this woman who built her life on words. When I heard Shannon read, when she shouted with no shame "Fuck me like my skin" in a crowded theater of slam fans, I thought to myself, "Now that's a woman who will say and write whatever the fuck she wants to, feelings and consequences be damned." I know that I have not always done this for myself; many of us don't. We long to write, feel it in our blood, and yet, when it comes time to put pen to page, whether it's a blank computer screen or our journals, we balk. I can't write that! I shouldn't even have thought it. Maybe I can soften it up. My mom's feelings would be so hurt...and so it goes.
I want to live my life, write, and move in this world however I want to, feelings and consequences be damned. There is no time to wait, for a better time, to avoid hurting feelings, for the sake of being nice. The world deserves all that we have to give, our most true and honest selves, while we are on this planet. I believe with all of my heart that Shannon Leigh walked this earth as her truest self, perhaps not perfect, but honest in all of her flaws and beauty. For that I thank her and wish her love and blessings as she crosses over to the other side. She's eternal now and making the heavens shake with her fierceness. Peace, Shannon. Thank you for everything.

Too sweet for words...

So follow the link because I can't type about it without getting a little bit verklept...my homegirl, Juli wrote about our wedding/relationship on her blog, Sentimos/We feels it, and it's really just very moving in its simplicity. Click on the image to check it out and see her awesome blog (w/ amazing graphic design, all done by her) for more of her pithy reflections on the nature of life, love, and the pursuit of liberation. If you love it, give her a shout, artists need to know their work is valued.
Love and blessings to all,
c.

Growing Up Army

I am an Army brat.

I have lived in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, California, and Germany, courtesy of Uncle Sam. By the time I was nine I had lived in and visited more places and flown in more airplanes than some of the members of my family. Watching soldiers pack up to travel to different places far away from their families with no indication of when they might return never struck me as particularly odd. People came down with "PCS" (Permanent Change of Station) orders on a regular basis. We moved often.

I lived in Killeen, TX located next to Fort Hood, one of the largest standing military bases in the world, when the Gulf War began in 1990. I knew very little about the conflict, only that Sadaam Hussein (my Generation's version of Hitler -- a homicidal, anti-democratic megalomaniac that we could hate with fierce American pride) was a bad guy that had to be punished by the U.S. I watched Killeen, empty, as embattled wives left the city, returning to their parents to await the return of their husbands. We lived in a ghost town and prayed for a quick ending. We wrapped yellow ribbons around our arms at school, tiny chests swelling with pride. We would win this battle, we were tiny child soldiers with no clue as to what all the fighting was about, only that we should be proud. We were Americans.

My chest no longer swells with pride at being American. I could feel the hateful eyes on me when I attended my baby brother's high school graduation and refused to stand and sing the National Anthem. I could only imagine the thoughts running through the minds of the other audience members. No doubt they guessed (rightfully) that I am anti-war and assumed (wrongly) that I hate soldiers and this country. I am the daughter of infantry division soldiers -- the people who often see the most action, are the most exposed and vulnerable, and most likely to die in combat. I don't hate this country and I don't hate the men and women in uniform who serve it. But I am working to change this country and helping to create a world in which the sons and daughters of poor and working-class folks, especially Black and Brown folks, won't be sacrificed for Christmas bonuses, nepotism, and the Good Ol' Boys Club that passes for our government these days. I can't be proud until I live in a world that is not dominated by the U.S.

These days going home, I am ambivalent. I am deeply opposed to this war, but mourn the loss of so many young men and women, 4,083 to be exact. You sat next to me at graduation, it wasn't supposed to be this way. You sigh with relief, as the high school sweetheart you left behind, writes you to say that he is okay, is doing well, and is finally ready to let you go. She has been holding her breath, praying a small prayer of thanks. You have come home. You were lucky.

They are all special and we cannot lose another one.

When we talk about the cost of war we do not talk about what it means for families to be separated for months at a time. The constant worry that a missed phone call date means that your partner is lying dead in the desert on the other side of the planet. Heartbreak is a part of war's collateral damage. All over Killeen, you see cars with bumper stickers stating "Half my heart is in Iraq." I walk into the grocery store wearing a black t-shirt with George Bush sitting in between Hitler and Mussolini. At a glance I am worlds apart from wives mourning the absence of their husbands. But I know that this assessment is only skin-deep. The bumper sticker reveals as little about them as my t-shirt does. My t-shirt doesn't reveal that my first love was a West Pointer, that both my parents served in the military, think it was one of the best choices either of them made, but explicitly forbid my brother and I to join the military urging us to choose college instead. Nothing wrong with serving your country but some of these rich white kids should have a chance to do it at least once instead of sending their servants' sons and daughters to do this country's dirty work. And the bumper sticker doesn't reveal all of the wives who curse George Bush's name every morning and are hoping that the next president will put his or her exit strategy into action as soon as they enter the Oval Office. The bumper sticker doesn't tell how much some of these folks long for peace.

I am opposed to this war and that will never change. But I recognize that for any kind of peace to be meaningful we must all begin to look at each other with new eyes that affirm our collective humanity and our need for sanity on this deeply troubled planet. We can begin this work when we can look at each other, across our differences and realize that anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, pro-woman Army brat can see the humanity of a soldier and an Army wife waiting for his return and they can recognize hers. Can we do this work? Absolutely. Will we do it? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I continue to pray for an end to this war and welcome the day when the Armed Forces will no longer need to exist. A utopian goal to be sure, but they are the only ones worth having.

Chasing Miss Scarlett...

It is by now no secret to anyone, lest of all you, dear reader, that race is always directly in the center of all my analysis, all twisted up and intersecting with sexuality, class, gender, and nation as I struggle to make sense of the world. There was a time in my life, specifically when I became truly politicized, that it seemed incomprehensible to me that other people could go through life not being obsessed about these things. As I grew, however, and began to think more deeply about these things I recognized that ultimately we are all different people with different paths on this planet -- mine is paved in critical social theory and justice work.

However, I never ceased to be amazed by how ignorant people can be about the reality of social inequality and the ongoing effects of white supremacy in the 21st century.

And by "people" I mean white folks.

I recently had to travel to Houston, TX for the final fitting of my wedding gown. My mother had agreed to come with me to learn how to fasten the dress and arrange the bustle for me (it sounds simple enough but trust me it takes an army of two to get this thing on and looking right). We, of course, were not the only customers being served. As we awaited instructions from the seamstress I observed a young Latina preparing for her quinceñera and a young white woman in an enormous white dress surrounded by three of her friends and her mother. We were all talking excitedly as the seamstress began to give my mom and the young white woman's mother instructions on how to fasten the backs of our dresses. Although our dresses were quite different, they both had corset backs that had to be tied in a particular way in order to look right and to secure the enclosures. And so the lesson began.

It was all very fun and innocent until one of the young woman's friends made one of the most off-the-wall statements I'd heard in a while. As she tied her friend's corset and watched the silhouette of the dress take shape she stated, "Oh my God! You look just like Scarlett O'Hara!"

Scarlett?

O'Hara?

As in Gone With the Wind (1939) Scarlett O'Hara? As in "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies Miz Scarlett!" As in "With God as my witness I will never go hungry again!" The problems with this great heroine of the South are too numerous to lay out but I'll try. The character of Scarlett O'Hara reveals the extent to which race and gender interacted and created the social, cultural, and political landscape of the antebellum U.S. South. She is the quintessential southern belle, pampered and spoiled, a beautiful young woman who uses her charm and beauty to entrap young men and get what she wants out of life. In this sense some have looked to her as a pre-feminist model who recognizes the gendered power dynamics of her environment and attempts to flip the script on stupid men to have her own way. On the other hand, she also fully relies on men to protect her, provide for her and take care of her throughout the film. From her father to Rhett Butler to the enslaved Black men who serve her family (before and after Emancipation), men are central to her life and survival.

Second, the figure of Scarlett O'Hara as the essential Southern belle is rooted in a history of plantation violence that is erased in the romantic and nostalgic representations of the antebellum South. Some (white) women might like to look to Scarlett as a feminist foremother because of her fortitude and strength in the face of adversity, the fall of the South, and the Yankee invasion, but there are some of us who are the daughters of the women who nursed her, raised her, served her. And although Scarlett might not have known it, we are the daughters of those dark women who were sexually abused and raped by the white men that she looked to for protection. Those same white men who felt her white beauty and pure femininity were so valuable that she must be protected from Black men, our fathers, who posed a threat to her virtue. We are the daughters of Black men, swinging from Southern trees, that strange fruit Billie Holiday sang about, sacrificed on the altar of the Great Southern Dream. We remember the plantation, too, and our memories are quite different. In order to embrace Scarlett O'Hara, we must forget all that we know about the antebellum and postbellum South. White people may have the luxury of amnesia but for Black folks and other people of color that sort of memory loss is suicide.

Is this what young white women in the 21st century aspire to become? Do they still want to be Miss Scarlett? What does it mean that the ultimate standard of white beauty and femininity continues to be that of the Southern belle, living in the lap of plantation luxury, oblivious to the violence that makes her pampered existence possible while simultaneously entrapping her in a world of white patriarchal control? It seems to me that white women if they are to become truly a part of the struggle for justice (be it gender, racial, economic, or environmental justice) must begin to find and embrace new models.

A short detour, however, back to our original story. When I heard the young woman's friend tell her that she looked like Scarlett O'Hara, I nearly stopped breathing. In my mind, if this conversation followed its logical conclusion there was only one place it could go. And it did.

Laughing, another friend responded "Yeah, but she had servants," followed by more laughter. Finally, the mother states, "Yeah, except they were slaves, but, well, you know..." she began to trail off uncomfortably, as the three friend twittered and giggled nervously. Perhaps they looked over to the right and noticed the two dark-skinned Black women, my mother and myself, standing there, the descendants of enslaved Africans and suddenly became aware of their own whiteness. That's my optimistic reading, it's more likely that they saw our black bodies and just didn't want to make a scene. The paradox of the post-Civil Rights Era, since outright bigotry is beyond the pale now, white folks don't stop being racist, they just become more polite about it. Another fine example of good ol' fashioned Southern Hospitality.

This incident reminded me how exhausting patriarchy and white supremacy are for me. I don't wake up in the morning looking for this stuff, mostly I'd just like to live and enjoy my life like every other human being on this planet wants to. As I stood there in my wedding gown, I should have been thinking about how excited I was to be jumping the broom with my partner, a radical man that I adore. Instead I was churning critical analysis as the seamstress showed my mom how to handle the bustle. Feeling like Black folks and women of color are the only people who ever have to work about race or gender is exhausting. The burden of memory is heavy and if we are ever to set this world right, it is time for others to take up their own cross and understand the memory of racial terror, sexual violence, slavery, and white supremacy that provides the foundation for the cultural fantasies that they hold dear. For white folks who don't understand why Black people are still so pissed about race or Black women can never seem to shake the effects of patriarchal white supremacy, ask Scarlett. I suspect she knows quite a bit more about it than she ever really let on.

Postscript: And since my wedding dress was the source for this blog, I have to wonder why is it that so many tired and messed up cultural scripts get reproduced in the wedding/bridal industry. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that I would look and feel like a queen or princess on my wedding day, I'd be suffocated by all the newly acquired cash. Why do these wedding businesses capitalize on the most racist and patriarchal fantasies -- I can assure every little girl does not want to be a princess, a Southern belle or anything else on their wedding day. I had not spent my whole life dreaming about getting married or getting to dress up like a princess...but that reflection is for another blog...maybe.

On Love & Terror in Scotland

I.

My father has always traveled for a living. It is a small irony that my work now requires me to do the same. It is the only family tradition that we have – taking occupations that require us to be away from those we love more often and for longer than we’d like – and we are three generations deep into it. It was, I suppose, the arrogance of my own youth that made me believe that becoming an anthropologist was so different or worse, an improvement, from my father’s work as an aviation mechanic or my grandfather’s truck driving. Traveling these days, however, is precarious whether one does it for business or leisure.

When my father had to go out of town it was a huge affair for our family. My mother cooked everything he liked in the days leading to his departure, my brother and I attempted to behave like model children, and on d-day we, of course, accompanied him to the airport. It was the early 90s, very few people outside of Texas knew or cared about a young man named George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security did not exist and as long as you passed a security clearance (which did not consider water or contact solution as weapons of terrorism) you could accompany a traveler to his or her departure gate. And we did, more times than I can remember. We stood silent, plastered to the floor to ceiling windows, tears rolling down our faces. He was gone again; doing what he knew best which required him to leave again to provide for us from somewhere else.

Years from now, I know my children will not believe me when I tell them this story. Being able to accompany or even meet a loved one at the gate. There was a time when Al-Qaeda, security, or the realities of global terrorism had no real meaning for most Americans. Those days of insulation, naivete, “it couldn’t happen here,” are gone, irrevocably behind us. As I drink and celebrate with friends in Fortingall, Scotland, a tiny village hidden in the Scottish countryside, I know this to be true.

II.

Two men attempt to attack the Glasgow International Airport by driving a jeep into the departures terminal before setting it and the driver on fire. No one is injured, the perpetrators are caught, and the United Kingdom breathes a sigh of relief. In the past 36 hours security officials have foiled three attempted terrorist attacks. Scotland gets a visit because the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, is Scottish.

There is a moment of silence. When the country slows down bracing itself for more violence, when spaces for contemplation open and people wonder if there are better solutions to ending terrorism. But before we can collectively engage these questions, the spin doctors take over:

“BUNGLED TERROR OF AMATEURS”

“DOCTORS OF DEATH”

“CAR BOMBERS ARE BRITISH DOCTORS”

“TERROR COPS SEIZE DOCTOR AND WIFE!”

“BOMBS: TWO DOCTORS HELD”

The space closes, and we are back to business as usual. The papers report at least 15 racially motivated crimes against Scottish Muslims in the week following the attacks. Brits respond with equal violence, dropping the mask of liberal multicultural tolerance:

Should have let the miserable radical bastard burn a bit longer, then pour salt in his burning flesh! I am fed up with Muslims excusing themselves as peaceful when they are obviously not! Islam is a dangerous religion and should be banned from all Western nations, in and out of EU period!

I had an appointment with my G.P. today to lance a boil on my backside. I think I will phone Dr.Hassan and cancel until I have converted to Islam. Be Safe ….Be Scared…..Be Muslim….or else. Sleep Tight

I breathe heavy, turn the page, search the paper for subjects and people (Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and psuedoliberal white Europeans) who do not frighten me.

III.

The world has changed for me. It is an ugly place where I do not feel safe. As a Black woman of deep political conviction, I am opposed to the policies and actions of my government. And, yes, it is mine even when it ignores me, disrespects me, and enacts terror and domination around the globe in my name and without my consent. I struggle for justice and peace recognizing the grievances and wrongs done to peoples in the Middle East while rejecting the senseless bloodlust of sectarian, fundamentalist terrorist organizations. And I know we have our own fundamentalists to battle at home.

But when I grab my passport, check my bags, pass through security checkpoints, and board an airplane, I take my life into my own hands. I am not protected. Not my politics, not my blackness, my identity as the daughter of an immigrant and the children of enslaved Africans, my genuine desire for peace, or my conviction that the U.S. needs to get the fuck out of the Middle East and spend our money on research into biofuels and gasoline alternatives. None of this protects me. I am coming to terms with my own small human vulnerability. This body will not live forever, and forces outside of myself can take it from me before I am ready to let it go.

When they tell us what has happened in Glasgow, my thoughts fly home. In this moment I want to bury my face in my father’s shoulders; wrap my arms around my mother’s waist and curl myself around her like I did as a child; place my hands, palms flat on my beloved’s face and create our own sanctuary where I can pledge my life and love to him for as long as we both live on this Earth. In that moment, thousands of miles from those who matter most to me, the only thing that can quell my fear is love.

I used to believe that suicide bombers were freedom fighters protesting the injustices done them by placing their lives and bodies on the line. 20th century versions of Nat Turner or Touissant L'Overture -- individuals driven to revolutionary violence by oppressive, genocidal colonial states. I thought, given similar circumstances someone like me, could someday feel compelled to do the same thing.

I no longer believe that.

I now know that life is too precious for man to carelessly give or take away.

IV.

We are all standing on shifting sand; the world is changing and I have no idea where it is going or what the future might bring.

I hope for clarity, compassion, and forgiveness.

I pray for peace and reconciliation.

But, like a proper realist, I steel myself for the worst.

Passengers can no longer be dropped off at the departure terminal at the Glasgow International Airport. The news shows long lines of people hauling their luggage for miles towards the airport, like first world refugees.

Our children will never know what it was to live the way we did, a semblance of freedom that came in the form of ignorance of fear. Naïve of the terror that has afflicted the rest of the world for the last sixty years. It is almost impossible for those of us who lived it to recall those days and believe it.

I have to get home to my family and I must get on a plane to do it and trust that today is not my day, right now is not my time. I can outrun the fear and the violence just one more time and let love help me to find my way home.

DL Hughley ATTACKS Rutgers Women

Not sure what to say. Comedian DL Hughley goes on national television and affirms that Don Imus did in fact, get it mostly right. According to him, the Rutgers University women's basketball team are indeed a bunch of nappy-headed women and ugly to boot. The sheer intensity of his internalized racism and overt sexism is just too much. Regardless of whether some people think he's just being funny or not, the fact is that the women of the Rutger's University women's basketball team have done nothing, nothing, NOTHING to deserve this level of disrespect. We should all take it upon ourselves to take a stand and say "Enough." Because this stuff is truly degrading and unacceptable.

Caribbean Coast Reflections

I remember going to an underground hip hop show in San Antonio some years ago. I stood mashed in a crowd of other sweaty, colored bodies, nodding my head as a young Latino MC ripped it onstage. And I remember standing mesmerized, as he repeated over and over again, "The world is a sad and beautiful place. The world is a sad and beautiful place..."
The truth of his words have stayed with me over the years as my travels have led me to different parts of the world. To a holiday house in Scotland and dancing traditional Irish dances with new friends to hauling a gringo pack under the burning heat of a Honduran sun to slipping 10 dollars to a homeless man in front of Vulcan Video in Austin. In Bluefields, Nicaragua I wonder what to think when I am walking back to my hotel room and see a Black man, half-kneeling on the ground, half-slumped against a building, passed out and oblivious to the world around. Leave some change under his hand, and slip into my hotel. I don't want to embarass him.
I've spent the last week here on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. It is the first time I have spent a substantial amount of time outside of Bluefields. I traveled to the Pearl Lagoon Basin, located north of Bluefields.
The beauty of this place is sometimes overwhelming. Like standing on a bar made of large boulders that separates the Bluefields Bay from the Caribbean Sea/Atlantic Ocean. You feel the smallness and the wonder of your own existence. I stood there, wrapped in a bright pink sarong, savoring the heat of the sun on my shoulders, wondering how many others had experienced this, felt this before me. What a miracle to live here and be this close to the water everyday. And then I thought of my own life, back home, how rarely I make it a point to get close to the water in Austin, how beautiful the state parks, rivers, lakes, and forests are. The privilege I rarely exercise, of being able to drive to these places whenever I wish.
It is a miracle to live in this place, but also a struggle. There are too few who are able to enjoy the beauty of the Caribbean Coast. Too many people struggling to survive, making money stretch, exchanging their dreams for rum and crack cocaine.
The world is a sad and beautiful place.
Random ruminations ya'll...trying to make sense of how life can simultaneously be horrible and beautiful.

Iranian Activists Arrested Ahead of International Women’s Day

More than 30 Iranian women have been arrested in Tehran for
protesting against government pressure being put on women's rights
activists.

The women had gathered outside a court in Tehran on March 4 to show
their support for four women's rights activists who went on trial
that day for organizing a protest last summer against discriminatory
laws. Reports say many of the protesters and the activists are now in
jail.

The arrests are the culmination of a year of increasing pressure on
women's rights activists, who have been arrested, summoned to court,
threatened, and harassed. Their protests have also been disrupted --
in some cases violently -- and their websites have been blocked.

Trying To Silence Activists

Some observers believe the arrests are aimed at intimidating
activists who were planning to hold a gathering on March 8 to mark
International Women's Day and to protest injustice against women.

The move is also seen as an attempt to silence activists who have
been fighting for equal rights.

Many of those who had called for holding a protest in front of the
parliament on March 8 are now in jail.

Iranian rights groups report that between 30 and 34 women who were
arrested are being held in Tehran's Evin Prison. Among them are four
top women's movement leaders: Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, Parvin
Ardalan, Sussan Tahmassebi, and Shahla Entesari.

Right To Freely Assemble

They went on trial on March 4 in connection with a June gathering
against laws that they consider discriminatory against women. Charges
against them include acting against Iran's national interests and
participating in an illegal gathering.

The four leaders were arrested after they left the court and joined
other women who had gathered outside Tehran's revolutionary court.
They were reportedly holding banners that said: "Holding peaceful
gatherings is our absolute right."

Activists say the Iranian Constitution ensures the right to holding a
peaceful gathering. Yet police forces disrupted the activists on
March 4 and drove the women away in minibuses.

Peyman Aref, a student activist in Tehran, told Radio Farda that
police used force against demonstrators.

"They were threatened and they were also beaten up," Aref said. "The
crowd -- [which] included more than 50 people -- tried to resist by
sitting on the ground and not reacting to the beatings. Finally,
around 10:00, female police came and the activists were arrested."

Reaction To Activists' Campaigns?

During the June demonstration, which was also violently dispersed by
police, some 70 people were arrested. All of them have since been
released.

An Iranian rights group, the Student Committee of the Human Rights
Reporters, said today that the families of some of those arrested on
March 4 gathered in front of Evin Prison and called for their
release. Authorities have said they are investigating the case.

Azadeh Kian, a lecturer in political science and an Iran researcher
at France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), believes
women's rights advocates are being targeted in connection with two
campaigns they have launched in recent months.

One campaign aims to end the practice of stoning to death convicted
adulterers. Authorities, however, deny that stoning sentences are
being carried out.

Another campaign aims to gather the signatures of one million
Iranians who are in favor of changing discriminatory laws and to
present these signatures to the parliament. Islamic laws as applied
in Iran deny women equal rights in divorce, child custody,
inheritance, and other areas.

Kian tells RFE/RL that the campaigns have been well received, leading
to concern among Iranian leaders.

'Intolerance For Human Rights'

"The goal of women's rights activists is to gain the support of women
from different classes who are in favor of changing the laws but have
so far not joined the women's movement," Kian said. "This leads to
concern among some of those in power in Iran about the implications
of these actions. I see the arrests of activists [on March 4] in this
relation; it shows that more and more women want changes in laws and
also that women's issues are in fact becoming more and more political."

Human rights groups have expressed concern over the pressure and
persecution of women's rights advocates, including those who are
calling for reform legislation.

Kian says that by arresting peaceful activists, Iranian leaders are
demonstrating their intolerance and lack of respect for human rights.

"It shows once more that under the Islamic establishment, especially
under the current government, there is no respect for human rights
principles," Kian said. "These women were arrested even though they
had not committed any violent or armed action against the
establishment. None of the demands of these women are against Islam.
This shows that the current government is not ready to accept even
the slightest opposition."

The Center of Human Rights Defenders, cofounded by Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Shirin Ebadi, today described the March 4 arrests as
"illegal" and called on authorities to release all of those arrested.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Freedom University Book Club in March!

This month we will be reading Erzulie's Skirt by Ana-Maurine Lara.
The book was published by Red Bone Press, an independent press dedicated to publishing the work of queer Black writers. Set in the age of urbanization in the Dominican Republic over the course of several lifetimes, Erzulie’s Skirt is a tale of how women and their families struggle with love, tragedy and destiny. Told from the perspectives of three women, Erzulie’s Skirt takes us from rural villages and sugar cane plantations to the poor neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, and through the journey by yola across the sea between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It is a compelling love story that unearths our deep ancestral connections to land, ritual and memory.
Erzulie's Skirt has recently been nominated for two Lambda Literary awards for in the categories of Best Lesbian Fiction and Lesbian Debut Fiction. A local artist doing amazing things and producing beautiful art. Ana is a wonderful writer and dear friend and we are blessed to have her right here in Austin.
So do these four things:
1) Buy Ana's book. It can be found at Book Woman, Resistencia Books, or online.
2)Read the book.
3) Come to the Freedom University Book Club at the Carver Library on Thursday, Mar. 8 at 6pm. We meet every 2nd Thursday of each month. The Carver is located at 1161 Angelina Street.
4)Buy Assata: An Autobiography cos' that's what we're reading next month and I think you'll dig it. You can probably find a nice copy at any Half-Priced Books, Resistencia, Book Woman or Book People.
Peace to all...

Sun is Shining...

Hello WanderLust lovelies...
The Capitol City was lovely today. Nothing but pure sunshine and life-giving warmth. I wore a skirt for the first time in months and I'm feeling incredibly refreshed by the weather.
This may not mean much to many of ya'll but since the middle of November we have been experiencing some uncharacteristically cold weather here in Austin. Hippies all over town have been forced to put on socks and closed-toed shoes. Fraternity girls and pint-sized hoochies from West Campus to Rosewood have been compelled to put on pants and leggings instead of their preferred uniforms of mini-pleated skirts and pierced-navel baring baby-tees.
It has been a truly dark time.
In other developments I have learned that ugly weather and weeks of solar deprivation make me and my partner real bitchy. If the sun hadn't come back last week, I might have killed him, but then I would have felt bad.
Even still, it was hard to feel motivated to get up, get dressed and go to work when the weather was so forbidding. It is in moments like this that I realize, no matter how divorced many of us may be from the earth, she has a way of making you pay attention. We are people of this planet, and we need to feel its beauty in our lives, or else we become distant, disgruntled and unhappy.
As a proper graduate student I went to class when what I really wanted to do was mosey on over to Barton Springs and kick back. But I took every chance I could to get outside and enjoy the sunshine...they say the weather is going to hold up. Let's all take some time to spend our lives in the sunshine.

Sun is shining...the weather is sweet, yeah...make me wanna move....my dancing feet....

Take care family... c

On Becoming a Pundit

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have officially become a pundit. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a pundit is described as "1) a learned person; 2) a teacher; 3) or an authority, critic." As many of you know, I have been giving out my opinion for years without recognition or compensation. In fact, I think more people would have paid me to shut the hell up. Still, for better or worse, I am a talker and have no problem telling people what I think about the world in general.
As it turns out, other people have decided that this is a good thing.
I recently participated in a panel of activists, cultural producers, and scholars discussing the impact of sexism in hip hop for Houston PBS. Specifically, we were discussing Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary by filmmaker Byron Hurt that engages issues of machismo, masculinity, gender, misogyny and homphobia in hip hop. Hands down this was one of the best documentaries I have seen in a very long time. The film follows Hurt, a former college quarterback who became a gender violence prevention educator. After beginning this work as an educator, Hurt began to critically evaluate his own relationship to hip-hop and the music and images that reinforce ideals of heteropatriachal masculinity and straight up hatred of women. Far beyond offering his own commentary, Hurt goes to the very heart of the matter interviewing everyone from cultural critics to record executives about their thoughts on sexism in hip-hop.
My partner and I went to watch an early screening of the film in Austin, TX in January. It was truly a community event with youth and elders, a multiracial, multigenerational audience, and artists, activists and intellectuals in attendance. It was remarkable to see how people in the crowd responded to the things that artists and industry people such as Busta Rhymes, Clipse, Jadakiss, Russell Simmons, and others had to say on issues ranging from homophobia in hip hop to the implications of Nelly sliding a credit card down a black woman's ass in his music video "Tipdrill." I, along with many audience members, was apalled when Hurt asked Simmons what he thought of the video, and Simmons responded that "I heard about that. I tried his Pimp Juice, I thought it was very good."
We're talking about sexist, misogynist representations of women in hip hop and all you can say is that the Pimp Juice was good?
Pathetic.
So back to the original point about how I became a pundit. In February I was asked to give a presentation on women in hip hop for a friend/mentor's class that she is teaching at UT-Austin. I was honored to be asked and set out to make the best presentation that I could put together. Shortly after that, I received an email from a friend of mine in Houston who works with the Houston Hip Hop Group (Check out his work at HipHopPolitics.org). He asked me if I would be interested in coming to Houston to share my thoughts on the film and talk about the work that I do with Cimarron: Youth Building Community, a community organization that I co-founded here in Austin. After a few weeks of phone tage, emailing, and phone interviews, I was officially invited to participate. So I dragged my squeeze into driving me to Houston and we headed to the PBS studios for the taping.
I had a great time doing it. Following the taping we kicked it around Houston and had a lovely time hanging out with my friend Akil and talking politics over coffee. On the ride back home I received a phone call from a friend KC who works for the ACLU's Hip Hop Against Police Brutality project. He invited me to participate in a discussion on gender and hip hop on his radio show Concrete Skoolyard which airs on KOOP radio. I had a fantastic time doing it and was pleased to be invited.
It's a little strange to reach a point in your life where all of sudden things you say are being taken very seriously. On one hand it's a vindication of sorts, and on another, you begin to realize and understand that your life will never quite be the same -- you've made the leap from people who talk about ideas to those people whose ideas carry weight.
Now, I realize that in the grand scheme of things, what I say still may not carry as much weight in the real world as say Nancy Pelosi or Gore Vidal (a true man of letters, to be sure). However, things are a little different when people look to you to be an authority, a teacher, or a learned person who can speak knowledgably on a particular set of issues. It's gratifying and terrifying at the same time to be that person.
The other strange thing that I have been thinking about is what I like to call the "punditry ghetto," that is, the place that is reserved for pundits who are only qualified to talk about certain things. I am concerned that should I continue to do this work, I will become billed as the hip hop, gender girl, not that I mind, but the world generally tends to think that Black intellectuals can only ever speak authoritatively on race, or maybe gender if you're a woman or queer, but not on anything else.
For example, I wonder when I'll get that phone call to participate in a panel on the contradictions of Iran's nuclear enrichment programs as it relates to criticizing U.S. foreign policies of imperialism and military aggression.
You wouldn't think it to look at me, but I have lots to say about the Middle East.
Or what my thoughts are on existentialism, the work of the late Octavia Butler, Dorothy Parker's poetry, or the politics of interracial dating and revolutionary love.
I'd like to think that I am a multi-dimensional person and I don't have any desire to live (intellectually speaking) in a ghetto of any kind. I love to talk race and gender, but I see those issues as informing the larger world in which we live in significant and important ways. Maybe the gods that choose emerging pundits will figure that out.

p.s. In any case be sure to check out Beyond Beats and Rhymes which will be airing Tuesday, Feb. 20 on PBS. You can check your local listings for specifics. And if you want to check me out on PBS blowing up a spot visit www.houstonpbs.org/hiphop/index.htm to see me talking trash about Nelly and misogyny in mainstream hip hop.

Routes & Exile

By the rivers of Babylon

Where we sat down

And there we wept

When we remember Zion

For the wicked carry us away to captivity

Require from us a song

But how can we sing King Alpha’s song in a strange land

My life is now a series of comings and goings, packing and unpacking my world, transporting myself to strange places and calling them home.

All my life I have been fascinated with the idea of exile. Perhaps because my family moved around so much when I was a kid. Or perhaps I knew early on that my family’s roots were fragile. Both of my grandfathers were men whose work compelled them to travel. One, my maternal grandfather, Rev. Gene Freeman (known from here on as Pappau), worked as truck driver for over 30 years, crossing the continental U.S. more times than he can remember. Before my paternal grandfather, Rennick Carlton Morris, Sr., decided to transplant his family to the U.S. permanently he moved back and forth between Jamaica and the States on a regular basis.

This is my legacy.

We have never fled our homes for fear of political upheaval. No major revolutions have displaced us.

And yet we are in exile.

----------------------------

Sulphur, Louisiana.

The last time I was in this town, devastated by an economy gasping its last breaths and the cancer-causing toxins that have consumed many of its resident, the last time I was here, I felt my heart break.

Weeds covered the foundation of what was my grandparents’ home. An unexplained fire, a victimless-crime robbed me of one of the few places on earth that I truly believed might last forever.

I sit in the car and let the tears stream down my face until my chest is so tight I can barely breathe.

We can never go back.

This house, its memories, its secrets, are lost to me.

Listened to grown-up conversations that I was too young to enter – fast, smart-mouth little girls need to stay out of grown-folks business.

Watched time, neglect, and sweltering Louisiana summers decay my grandparents’ home.

Watched teenaged cousins get pregnant, one after the other – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…grandchildren bearing great-grandchildren.

Everything changes without my consent and in the midst of weeds and what appears to be the last vestiges of the porch where I danced for my grandfather, I know that we can never go back.

We are exiles in the land where our roots go deepest.

But the soil does not support our survival.

Mammau and Pappau live in Beaumont now.

---------------------

They do not speak of the stories that they know.

They do not speak of the secrets they carry beneath their tongues

Or the shame that burns hot in their chests, smoldering coals that remind them of where they come from

As a child I hid in the citrus trees of my grandmother’s front yard. We were uprooted island people, replicating the old ways we knew in a place at once distant and familiar. South Bay, Florida was the closest we could come to home. And we convinced ourselves that we had forgotten what home was like so we could continue to do without it. My grandparents would travel to Jamaica each year. When Pop crossed over to the other side in 1987, Kat stopped going. She will not tell us anything about Jamaica anymore. She brings us there only with the smell of beef patties, pudding, mint tea heavy with condensed milk, and curry.

She has a stroke. Body betrays her. Tongue refuses to respond. Her confident voice is replaced with a defiant stutter that reduces her accent, her mothertongue to jibberish. My Kat…she does not tell us stories anymore.

So I am forced to make my own.

--------------------

I let the porridge burn the insides of my cheeks, tracing its heat as it descends down my throat and into my belly. I do not question Kat when she tells me to eat plenty because ‘porridge will keep you warm.’ How, I want to know, how will porridge keep me warm from the inside out? But I keep my disbelief to myself, as it is my grandmother has all she can do to keep this cheeky, womanish child in hand. So I swallow my porridge piping hot and when Kat hugs me on my way out the door, I wrap my arms around her bony hips and sigh into her belly. I savor her smell, a blend of kitchen, yams, Avon’s Skin-So-Soft, and mothballs. I carry her scent with me into the world, her old island woman smell, all I know.

------------------

When I am 9, I have a recurring dream. There is a large hill in our town, and each night I fly high above it, crossing bright blue waters that carry me home – home to the island of my father’s birth. I skit across the water, toes caressing waves, half-flying, half-dancing my way back to where I belong.

For most of my life Jamaica was song and symbol to me. Found in the funky smelling dishes my father fed us – when we were the only kids we knew who ate goat and thought it strange that our none of our neighbors enjoyed ox-tail cooked in lima beans.

Jamaica was Marcus Garvey hanging from my father’s rearview mirror. Barrington Levy and dancehall reggae. 90 percent proof white rum and rastas named Smitty, whose occasional visits to our working-class suburban home would turn my father from an Americanized, blue-collar mechanic chasing the good life into a patois-speaking yard boy. I would practice my patois rolling the accent around my tongue wanting desperately to sound just like my father. Jamaica lay somewhere on the tip of my tongue – I only had to find it.

As an adult, people have a hard time figuring out where I am from.

I have a hard time telling them.

It’s simple enough really.

I was born in California.

Lived in Germany, twice.

Spent most of my childhood in Texas.

Regularly shuffled back and forth between Texas and Louisiana visiting cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

Occasionally in Florida so as not to forget my father’s half of the family.

Lived in South Bay, Florida with my paternal grandmother for slightly less than a year.

Have spent a total of nearly 5 months living in Nicaragua.

Flirt quite a bit with the U.S. Mexico border.

Still, the question “Where are you from?” makes me uncomfortable.

I am one part yard girl to one part Southern girl with a dash of Latin Americanidad thrown in for good measure. I slide in and out of accents some of which I grew up with and others that I have borrowed. But they all feel good to me.

I’m not so sure where home is or where I belong and wonder if there is more joy to be found in the searching than the knowing.

-----------------------

It is hard to explain how estranged I feel from Jamaica. Those moments when I am asked where I am from and I see people’s eyes light up with the response. My family is from the Caribbean. Sometimes I try to pretend I don’t notice the transformation that I make before their eyes from a mundane, run-of-the-mill, touchy-about-race African American into an exotic, interesting West Indian island woman. It makes me angry, can feel the rage seething through my skin, when wealthy white people ask me, Have you ever been to Jamaica?

I tell them, No.

What I don’t say is Well, it was hard to plan that trip to the island when my father was selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door. I don’t say that when we were young we were too break as a family to go together. I do not tell them that my father left the island when he was 11 and didn’t go back until he was 42 years old.

Nor do I speak of the stranglehold the U.S. places the entire world under, squeezing the life out of gasping banana republics until they are compelled to choose between home and survival. I do not speak of how the U.S. forces us out of our homes and once we have left keeps us from returning.

There are some things we do not want to speak of.

For the wicked

Carry us away to capitivity

Require from us a song

But how can we sing King Alpha’s Song

In a strange land?