Some couponing info: Some of my neighbors know me well enough to just hand me their coupons if we meet at the mailbox. I'll also get extras from the post office that people throw on the table or on top of the recycle bin. Yes, these are typically more than I can use, but here are some things I've done lately:
1) My kids like the Dole Aguas Frescas. A 64 oz carton is $2. I cut out about 15 $1 off coupons and buy 3 at a time. They've been drinking them and making popsicles with them.
2) Leave the extras by the product in the store. For example, I cut out some $2 off L'oreal True Match face product coupons. There aren't many people of my complexion on this side of town, ahem, so the foundation and powder colors that match me like cappucino and nut brown were on clearance at HEB for under $6 (regularly $8-12). The pressed powders happened to be packaged with a free blush. So I got 2 liquid foundations, 2 powders, and 2 blushes for about $16 and left the rest of the coupons on the shelf.
3) Rose Art has a coupon for $1 off 3 or more of their products. Right now, you can get their glue and crayons and stuff for under 40 cents. The crayons are a quarter so I'm thinking I can get four packs free. The glue is 34 cents, so I can get 3 of them for 2 cents. Even if you don't have school age children, you can donate the stuff (that's my plan because I've collected SEVERAL of those).
4) Check for stores that are moving or going out of business or having clearance sales--I cleaned up at a Michael's out here last weekend. Lots of stuff deeply discounted, plus they had a 25% off your total purchase coupon. And when they have those 40 or 50% off one item coupons, I give everyone money and we all buy something, even four-year-old Deuce! Also, I got 4 collage picture frames, a butterfly for my wall, 3 potential centerpieces, numerous candles and other odds and ends at Kirkland's last weekend--my regular total would've been about $230. With clearance and a $25 off $75 coupon, I spent $54.17 with tax.
Yes coupons can be time consuming and can make you buy stuff you wouldn't ordinarily (I fall into that trap sometimes, I will admit), but they can also add up to big savings!
**Ooh, two of my biggest finds right now: 50 cents off Suave Deodorant and 50 cents off carefree, stayfree, and ob products. So you can get the small pack of carefree liners and the small container of Suave deodorant for under 50 cents.
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Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motherhood. Show all posts
Friday, July 27, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Horror!
Today, so far:
7:00 AM Mama is moving around, preparing for Sunday school. I wake up and try, vainly, to go back to sleep
7:15-7:30 AM Mama and I talk and sip coffee. The big boys are all away and Deuce is sleep. I love quiet moments, even when it is MORNING.
7:31-7:45 AM I realize no sleep is forthcoming so I might as well get the day started. I take down meat to thaw for dinner, do some surface-level straightening up, and sort laundry.
7:46 AM As mentioned, the boys are not here. I have decided that my first load of laundry will be towels. I realize that I must bravely approach the area of their greatest science experiment: their bathroom. (Suspenseful music plays in the background. Largely in my head, but you get the drift).
7:47-7:54 AM I don my makeshift haz-mat suit which consists of a scarf to protect my hair from odors, a large towel to cover my mouth and nose, Mama’s reading glasses for my eyes, my black house shoes because they can be washed, a straightened wire hanger to lift anything that should not be touched by human hands, elbow-length gloves and the sense of steely determination that has gotten mothers through thousands of years of messy children. I take a deep breath—I dare not breathe once I venture beyond this innocuous looking door. I look back at my mother, a bit of fear slowing my steps. She nods encouragement, clasps her hands together and waits. I pull down my towel long enough to tell her I love her and I couldn’t have asked for a better mom. I want her to know that before I venture into the bowels of hell. Slowly I turn the knob.
7:54:32 AM As a good social scientist, I make quick observations to later record in this journal. The first was the scent for which neither my towel nor the artfully placed wallflower was any match. I am horrified to realize I didn’t even hold my breath 30 seconds. Note to social scientist self: work on stamina, girl. My eyes water beneath the glasses, but they still manage to take in carelessly tossed toothbrushes, four tubes of toothpaste, some purloined from my bathroom, the fiends! They squeeze them in the middle and then take more long before their tube has run out.
7:54:48 AM I ease past mounds of clothes toward the item which is the heart of their science experiment and the greatest source of my fear: their toilet. I look on in horror. I believe that, once, the linoleum surrounding it was the shame shade of white as that in my bathroom. It has taken on a strangely golden hue. I turn my head quickly, almost dive toward the tub and any towels.
7:55:01 AM The tub is strangely white compared to the rest of the once-white room. It’s almost as if… as if it is barely used! Imagine that!
7:55:05 AM I see towels. On the towel rack. On the side of the tub. Balled up into a corner that I dare not stretch to reach in case I slip and land on their almost-bronze floor. “Be brave!” I tell myself. I extend my hanger. After a few fruitless tries, I hook them. One by one, I fling them into the hallway.
7:56:15 AM I dash drunkenly from the bathroom, almost overcome… but… alas… I am safe! My mama sighs her relief--I hold up my hands as she approaches me. I dare not let her touch me. “Oh, daughter,” she says, tears shining in her eyes, “I have never been more proud of you than I am at this moment!” I know that is what she said, but muffled by the towel, it sounded a lot like, “Girl, pick them towels up and take them in the laundry room!”
8:00-8:05 AM I deposit the towels in the washer, add a bottle of detergent, a half-gallon of bleach, some baking soda and pine oil. I turn the water to hot. I run to my bathroom, carefully strip out of my protective gear, and put it in a plastic bag to de-contaminate later. I turn the shower on as hot as my skin can stand. I wash with Dial, with Nivea, with vinegar, then Dial again. Finally, I emerge, checking myself for any symptoms.
8:20 AM I direct Mama to watch me carefully for the next 24-hours for any signs that I have contracted a dread disease. She does not seem to understand the seriousness. She kisses me and leaves for Sunday school. I must now monitor myself… Hopefully, Journal, this will NOT be my last entry.
Stay tuned.
7:00 AM Mama is moving around, preparing for Sunday school. I wake up and try, vainly, to go back to sleep
7:15-7:30 AM Mama and I talk and sip coffee. The big boys are all away and Deuce is sleep. I love quiet moments, even when it is MORNING.
7:31-7:45 AM I realize no sleep is forthcoming so I might as well get the day started. I take down meat to thaw for dinner, do some surface-level straightening up, and sort laundry.
7:46 AM As mentioned, the boys are not here. I have decided that my first load of laundry will be towels. I realize that I must bravely approach the area of their greatest science experiment: their bathroom. (Suspenseful music plays in the background. Largely in my head, but you get the drift).
7:47-7:54 AM I don my makeshift haz-mat suit which consists of a scarf to protect my hair from odors, a large towel to cover my mouth and nose, Mama’s reading glasses for my eyes, my black house shoes because they can be washed, a straightened wire hanger to lift anything that should not be touched by human hands, elbow-length gloves and the sense of steely determination that has gotten mothers through thousands of years of messy children. I take a deep breath—I dare not breathe once I venture beyond this innocuous looking door. I look back at my mother, a bit of fear slowing my steps. She nods encouragement, clasps her hands together and waits. I pull down my towel long enough to tell her I love her and I couldn’t have asked for a better mom. I want her to know that before I venture into the bowels of hell. Slowly I turn the knob.
7:54:32 AM As a good social scientist, I make quick observations to later record in this journal. The first was the scent for which neither my towel nor the artfully placed wallflower was any match. I am horrified to realize I didn’t even hold my breath 30 seconds. Note to social scientist self: work on stamina, girl. My eyes water beneath the glasses, but they still manage to take in carelessly tossed toothbrushes, four tubes of toothpaste, some purloined from my bathroom, the fiends! They squeeze them in the middle and then take more long before their tube has run out.
7:54:48 AM I ease past mounds of clothes toward the item which is the heart of their science experiment and the greatest source of my fear: their toilet. I look on in horror. I believe that, once, the linoleum surrounding it was the shame shade of white as that in my bathroom. It has taken on a strangely golden hue. I turn my head quickly, almost dive toward the tub and any towels.
7:55:01 AM The tub is strangely white compared to the rest of the once-white room. It’s almost as if… as if it is barely used! Imagine that!
7:55:05 AM I see towels. On the towel rack. On the side of the tub. Balled up into a corner that I dare not stretch to reach in case I slip and land on their almost-bronze floor. “Be brave!” I tell myself. I extend my hanger. After a few fruitless tries, I hook them. One by one, I fling them into the hallway.
7:56:15 AM I dash drunkenly from the bathroom, almost overcome… but… alas… I am safe! My mama sighs her relief--I hold up my hands as she approaches me. I dare not let her touch me. “Oh, daughter,” she says, tears shining in her eyes, “I have never been more proud of you than I am at this moment!” I know that is what she said, but muffled by the towel, it sounded a lot like, “Girl, pick them towels up and take them in the laundry room!”
8:00-8:05 AM I deposit the towels in the washer, add a bottle of detergent, a half-gallon of bleach, some baking soda and pine oil. I turn the water to hot. I run to my bathroom, carefully strip out of my protective gear, and put it in a plastic bag to de-contaminate later. I turn the shower on as hot as my skin can stand. I wash with Dial, with Nivea, with vinegar, then Dial again. Finally, I emerge, checking myself for any symptoms.
8:20 AM I direct Mama to watch me carefully for the next 24-hours for any signs that I have contracted a dread disease. She does not seem to understand the seriousness. She kisses me and leaves for Sunday school. I must now monitor myself… Hopefully, Journal, this will NOT be my last entry.
Stay tuned.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Foodie in the Making!
The kid and I were watching Paula Deen and one of her sons talking about their years running "The Bag Lady." He was inspired. First, he told me he'd take my food and sell it door-to-door or at businesses. Aware of his own charm, he said, "I'd get ridiculous prices for it, too." Then he said, "We should get a van and drive it around the city and cook."
"Like a food truck?" I asked.
"Yeah!"
"You know the health department is all over those. We have to work hard and keep it super clean!"
I figured that would change his mind, he-of-the-science-project-on-growing-random-things-bedroom. But who I am to discourage my child's entrepreneurship/ideas? Maybe he'll really do it one day!
"Like a food truck?" I asked.
"Yeah!"
"You know the health department is all over those. We have to work hard and keep it super clean!"
I figured that would change his mind, he-of-the-science-project-on-growing-random-things-bedroom. But who I am to discourage my child's entrepreneurship/ideas? Maybe he'll really do it one day!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Homework
So, tonight, I have to proofread my son's book report on The Hunger Games. I have not had time to read it (I try to read along with them, but I am playing catch-up from my absolutely ridiculous laziness over the break). Description? Thesis? Trying to read about it online while skimming his copy, but I'm starting to give it the side-eye.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
My Child, Son of a Sistorian
Yesterday, on our way to basketball practice, my son and I were treated to the delightful sound of Rihanna... umm... "singing" S & M.
"I hate this stupid ass song," I said.
"Mama," he countered, in that tone that lets me know a dig is probably about to be made about my age or total lack of coolness, "this is a good song!"
"Boy, please."
"It is! The only part that's bad is when she says 'chains and whips excite me.'"
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, half afraid to ask why he thought that particular line was bad. I just knew he was going to reveal some knowledge about bondage or sex that I wasn't ready for him to have, much less discuss with his fragile-flower mama. But, of course I asked, "Why that line?"
"Mama! Chains and whips excite me? How she gone say that? She needs to think about her history. I bet they didn't excite her ancestors!"
"I hate this stupid ass song," I said.
"Mama," he countered, in that tone that lets me know a dig is probably about to be made about my age or total lack of coolness, "this is a good song!"
"Boy, please."
"It is! The only part that's bad is when she says 'chains and whips excite me.'"
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, half afraid to ask why he thought that particular line was bad. I just knew he was going to reveal some knowledge about bondage or sex that I wasn't ready for him to have, much less discuss with his fragile-flower mama. But, of course I asked, "Why that line?"
"Mama! Chains and whips excite me? How she gone say that? She needs to think about her history. I bet they didn't excite her ancestors!"
Friday, April 30, 2010
Fomenting the Mommy Wars
Or maybe the mommy/non-mommy wars, as for some people, motherhood seems to be the only reference for women's identity.
So, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa wrote an article entitled "Childless by Choice," in which she discusses her decision not to have children or get married, how she enjoys her life, and how she's felt distance grow between her married, "child-filled" friends and herself. In other words, she's describing her life.
I didn't like the blanket statement here:
Which should be just fine, right?
Wrong! The AOL lede/link to the story is "Woman's Column May Anger Moms."* Because all moms decide other women's lives must be read through and judged by moms' experiences and because we get blazingly angry that all women don't make the same choices.
Or something.
_______________________
*Sorry, y'all, wanted to provide a screen capture, but my en-virus laptop is not cooperating. As of right now you can go here, and click to page 5 of 9 in the little lead stories box to see the link.
So, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa wrote an article entitled "Childless by Choice," in which she discusses her decision not to have children or get married, how she enjoys her life, and how she's felt distance grow between her married, "child-filled" friends and herself. In other words, she's describing her life.
I didn't like the blanket statement here:
Take women with children, especially with young children. They get together -- at the park, at the grocery, at play dates – and can talk about nothing else but their beautiful, brilliant, amazing children.When I did manage to get with my girlfriends when my kid was small, the last thing we wanted to talk about was the kids. We wanted mixed drinks and a break. I didn't like the generalization, but I don't doubt for a minute that might be her experience and again, she's describing her life.
Which should be just fine, right?
Wrong! The AOL lede/link to the story is "Woman's Column May Anger Moms."* Because all moms decide other women's lives must be read through and judged by moms' experiences and because we get blazingly angry that all women don't make the same choices.
Or something.
_______________________
*Sorry, y'all, wanted to provide a screen capture, but my en-virus laptop is not cooperating. As of right now you can go here, and click to page 5 of 9 in the little lead stories box to see the link.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Music Lessons
I'm researching 60s music for my parents' anniversary. My child, who thinks he is a music connoisseur, has been helping me. We got into a discussion of records (actual vinyl LPs) my parents owned. I asked him if he knew what I meant by records.
"Uh-huh," he said.
"Describe them."
He sighed and said, "Records, Mama! They're the CDs that DJs use!"
"Uh-huh," he said.
"Describe them."
He sighed and said, "Records, Mama! They're the CDs that DJs use!"
Thursday, January 28, 2010
I Fully Recognize that Women Are Neither Men's Nor Our Children's Property...
But this still makes me laugh because recent discussions have revealed that my son is against the thought-of-mama-dating:
Though, I think Doritos might owe Ronnie Jordan a little change or credit or something:
"I ain't got no candies for you... no cookies for you..."
Though, I think Doritos might owe Ronnie Jordan a little change or credit or something:
"I ain't got no candies for you... no cookies for you..."
Friday, January 22, 2010
Mama Moment...
If you know me, you know my short term memory is shot. Well, I am feeling all loving mami right now because I realized, my son has started trying to help me out on his own. For the last few months, my bedroom, books, backpack, etc, have been dotted with post-its to remind me of stuff he hears me say or where he puts my things. Things I have stumbled across lately:
On my backpack
What it said
On the bedroom mirror
What it said
Sweetest of all is that he sometimes slips in while I'm still sleep in the mornings and leaves notes on my bathroom mirror to remind me of my to-do list for the day.
This motherhood thing is okay sometimes.
Sweetest of all is that he sometimes slips in while I'm still sleep in the mornings and leaves notes on my bathroom mirror to remind me of my to-do list for the day.
This motherhood thing is okay sometimes.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Saturday Cuteness
So, my son, his best friend (our neighbor), and I just got home. While in the car, I noticed a Bed, Bath, & Beyond Coupon on the seat and said, "Oh, good. I need a grill!"
My sour little kid said, "Why? We don't have enough friends to grill for."
To which I said, "Ummm... I have friends. You might not be invited out, but I am."
His reply was, "But y'all go to happy hours. I can't go, unless..."
"Unless what?"
"We do like the cartoons, and I get on top and [the neighbor kid] is on bottom under a trenchcoat so we look tall."
So, I saw the best friend look at him in the mirror. Then, the best friend said, "Dude that would NOT work."
I thought he was going to say because my son's face would still look young or it would be so obvious what was going on.
Instead, he said, "How you gone explain Mexican legs with a black person on top?"
They fell out laughing, then my son tried to think up explanations. "I could say I'm biracial."
And the best friend nixed that one, "You wouldn't be half-and-half like that!"
More laughter.
"They did it on Scooby-Doo all the time!"
"They were all the same color!"
"No, it'd be Scooby on the bottom."
"They only fooled ghosts and monsters."
"Ghosts and monsters could see!"
"You need to think before you talk, dude. Scooby-Doo is ridiculous and so are you."
At that point, they were laughing so hard they couldn't sit up. I was wondering what was so funny, but smiling.
I cannot figure out what makes these kids tick! :-p
My sour little kid said, "Why? We don't have enough friends to grill for."
To which I said, "Ummm... I have friends. You might not be invited out, but I am."
His reply was, "But y'all go to happy hours. I can't go, unless..."
"Unless what?"
"We do like the cartoons, and I get on top and [the neighbor kid] is on bottom under a trenchcoat so we look tall."
So, I saw the best friend look at him in the mirror. Then, the best friend said, "Dude that would NOT work."
I thought he was going to say because my son's face would still look young or it would be so obvious what was going on.
Instead, he said, "How you gone explain Mexican legs with a black person on top?"
They fell out laughing, then my son tried to think up explanations. "I could say I'm biracial."
And the best friend nixed that one, "You wouldn't be half-and-half like that!"
More laughter.
"They did it on Scooby-Doo all the time!"
"They were all the same color!"
"No, it'd be Scooby on the bottom."
"They only fooled ghosts and monsters."
"Ghosts and monsters could see!"
"You need to think before you talk, dude. Scooby-Doo is ridiculous and so are you."
At that point, they were laughing so hard they couldn't sit up. I was wondering what was so funny, but smiling.
I cannot figure out what makes these kids tick! :-p
Monday, August 10, 2009
I Don't Think that Word Means What You Think It Means...
Yesterday, my son asked me, "Mama, what would you say if I told you I was going Gothic?"
Me: "I'd ask you what does Gothic mean."
The Kid: "It's when you dress all in black and sit under trees and read big books. I mean, bigger than the Harry Potter books! And you frown so nobody bothers you."
Me: "Well, as long as you know what's required..."
Me: "I'd ask you what does Gothic mean."
The Kid: "It's when you dress all in black and sit under trees and read big books. I mean, bigger than the Harry Potter books! And you frown so nobody bothers you."
Me: "Well, as long as you know what's required..."
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Demand MS Reunite Mother & Baby Daughter!
Via BfP, this Request for Action from the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA):
Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to her baby girl in November of 2008 at Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, MS. She speaks very little Spanish and no English, as her native language is Chatino, an Indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico that is spoken by some 50,000 people.This made me so angry and reminded me about this article I'd seen some time ago--different circumstances, same disregard for/devaluing of immigrant women's mothering.
The hospital provided her with an “interpreter” who is from Puerto Rico and does not speak Chatino, the language of the mother. Because of the language barrier and the misunderstanding by the hospital’s interpreter who only spoke Spanish and English, a social worker was called in.
The hospital’s social worker reported “evidence” of abuse and neglect based on the following:
* The “baby was born to an illegal [sic] immigrant;”
* The “mother had not purchased a crib, clothes, food or formula.” (Most Latina mothers breast feed their babies).
* “She does not speak English which puts baby in danger.”
Ms. Baltazar Cruz’s baby was snatched from her after birth at the hospital and given to an affluent attorney couple from the posh Ocean Springs who cannot have children.
The authorities made no effort to locate an interpreter in her native tongue. MIRA located an interpreter who is fluent in Chatino in Los Angeles CA and has interviewed the mother extensively with the interpreters help. The mother has been accused of being poor and not being able to provide for this child. No one has asked the mother to provide evidence of support. She owns a home in Mexico and a store which provides both secure shelter and financial support, not counting the nurturing of a loving family of two other siblings, a grandmother, aunts, uncles and other extended family.
Meanwhile, there is word in the Gulf Coast community that the “parents to be,” have already had a baby shower celebrating the “blessed arrival” of this STOLEN child!
PLEASE MAKE CALLS & WRITE LETTERS DEMANDING THE SAFE RETURN OF BABY & REUNITE WITH HER MOTHER
If you believe this is unjust and outrageous and goes against all moral and religious beliefs and values, please call or write to the presiding Judge and the MS Department of Human Services to STOP this ILLEGAL ADOPTION! Stealing US born babies from immigrant parents is a growing epidemic in the United States. Many Latino parents have lost their children this way!
Honorable Judge Sharon Sigalas
Youth Justice Court of Jackson County
4903 Telephone Rd.
Pascagoula, MS 39567
(228)762-7370
Children’s Justice Act Program
MS Dept. of Human Services
750 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39202
Call (601)359-4499 and ask for Barbara Proctor
For more information please call MIRA at: (601) 968-5182
MIRA Organizing Coordinator
Victoria Cintra at (228) 234-1697 or Organizer Socorro Leos at(228) 731-0831
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Why Your Community Ain't Like Mine
Subtitle: And How You Make Sure I Know That I'm Not Welcome. A recent look around the blogosphere and mental cataloguing of episodes of epic fail prompted me to think about community, and lack of community, and "exclusion" right now. These are some of my (incomplete, choppy, certainly not perfectly worded) reflections.
Part One: Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before… Realize that parents can be activists, but they are also parents. -Noemi
when you have a child
no one finds it tragic.
no map records it as an instance of blight. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label... Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me. -Gloria Anzaldúa
I’m teaching a class this summer in black women’s history. The other night, I previewed a film about Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Commonly described as “unflinching” and “uncompromising, she was active in anti-lynching and civil rights agitation. She was also a suffragist. One of her friends was Susan B. Anthony. The relationship between the two women hit a rocky patch in the 1890s, when Wells married and began to have children.
Wells-Barnett noticed that Anthony’s attitude toward her changed. In the film, Paula Giddings, one of Wells-Barnett’s biographers, noted that Anthony began to “bite out” Wells-Barnett’s married name.
Eventually, Wells-Barnett felt it necessary to call Anthony out about it:
Anthony was questioning Wells-Barnett’s dedication, her supposed prioritization. She had her own perception of what Wells-Barnett’s activism should’ve looked like and resented the change. What she didn’t understand, according to Wells-Barnett, was that “I had been unable… to get the support which was necessary to carry on my work [and] had become discouraged in the effort to carry on alone.”
I thought about this question Noemi asked wrt community-building:
What does it mean when what you believed to be community abandons you?
I also thought about Kevin. He has, to put it lightly, been disturbed by the attacks on First Lady Michelle Obama by feminists who question her “feminist creds” and deride her dedication to family. “This shit goes way back, Kev,” I wanted to say after watching that documentary.
What I had said to him when he noted all the “Stepford Wife” comparisons, was “WoC are never supposed to prioritize our children and families.” Defined as laborers, our work is always presumed to better serve someone else's needs or goals. That other women think they can tell us how to be feminists is no surprise.
But my answer had it shortcomings. It’s not so much a matter of priorities. One thing I’ve learned by studying early black feminists is that some of those divisions are false—their activism was shaped to improve the lives of women, their families, and their communities. There was not necessarily a sense of "divided duty." Activism is not always easily divisible into neat categories. That's why those black clubwomen believed "a race can rise no higher than its women." That's why Anna Julia Cooper wrote
Susan Anthony's distress and the more spiteful critiques of Michelle Obama fail to take into account this interconnectedness. But these critiques prompt me to think also of Little Light's words, about how threatening our love and our attempts to define our lives and our activism for ourselves can be perceived:
Part Two: To build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can’t attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies). ... [D]on’t you want the next generation to care about the same things you care about? When will this happen? -Noemi
[F]eminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with. -BfP
If feminism is supposed to work to improve the lives of all women, if it about forging connections and building communities for women, period, then I don’t understand this either. Oh, not so much the OP, though I think it does make some false divisions.
But the comments. At the very least, feminists should respect other women’s choices to have or not have children. But outside and within some feminist communities, childfree women are under excessive pressure to conform to what is considered normative. Those who choose not to have children are regarded as suspect, strange, threatening. Their choices are dismissed as temporary or mean. Those who don’t have children, but for reasons other than choosing not to, are pitied, regarded as incomplete and barren--which has to be one of the coldest words I’ve ever heard used to describe a human being.
As the mother of one child I get only a tiny bit of that, and it is wearying. I am routinely asked, “You really don’t want any more? What if you get married? What if a, b, or c happens?” Often, the implication is that I am selfish, both for not wanting to invest the enormous amount of time and effort required to parent a baby and because my son will be “alone” or “lonely.”
You know what my response to that is not? Attacking other women. I don’t think I have had some magical experience that childfree women are sorely lacking and will forever be deprived because of. I can honestly say that many days, I only survive motherhood. I don’t master it, I don’t excel at it.
But how do you nurture and create community when things like this stand? When women are called “moos,” “breeders,” and “placenta-brains” and their children “widdle pweshuses” and “broods?”^^ When you cast your community as one in which women who have children and women who are childfree are diametrically (perhaps, diabolically) opposed and that mothers (gasp) are taking over the movement and leaving slack that others have to catch up? When it becomes clear that some of us are not welcome into your community? When your remarks indicate that you are, in fact, chillingly “independent of community?” I borrowed that phrase from BfP and the moment she said it, my mind began clicking.
All kinds of feminists can nod when I write about the lie that is the capitalistic ideal of “rugged individualism.” They can see the cruelty and efforts at social control when I talk about the attacks on poor mothers that begin and end with “Why are you having kids and who do you expect to take care of them?” They can see the patriarchy at work in the divide and conquer strategy that is the “mommy wars.”
But they can’t see the damaging individualism inherent in their feminism. Of course, I don’t mean in choosing not to have children—familial and community obligations are commonly fulfilled by all of us, not just mothers. I mean the sentiment revealed in expressing aversion and revulsion towards women who do have children. As Noemi asks,
They can’t see the analogy between conservatives saying, “Who do you expect to take care of them?” and some feminists “roll[ing] their eyes when someone brings up childcare.” They can’t see the divide and conquer so apparent in “women with children v. childfree women.”
If feminism is about meeting “our” needs and some of “us” are mothers, why is it seen as a hostile takeover if I ask about childcare? If I express concern about keeping a roof over our heads or clothes on my child’s back? If I write about how my feminist consciousness is often raised by my experiences as a mother? If that is what your feminist community is about, then to quote Noemi again, “This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.”
Part Three: What new skills and influences will single parents give their children if the community doesn’t think it’s important for them to be involved? -Noemi
you have chosen to be...
in a community
that knows that you are priceless
that would never sacrifice your spirit
that knows it needs your brilliance to be whole -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
I struggled for a few days trying to find the words to say what I wanted to say about my community of WoC, why I feel it as community, why I think other women feel it as community. Should I use the words mutuality, reciprocity? Should I use the word vulnerable--because in the loving and trusting, in refusing to hold ourselves "independent of community," we do make ourselves vulnerable, but we also make ourselves strong. "Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be," wrote Audre Lorde, "not in order to be used, but in order to be creative."
I don't know the exact words for an accurate description. I do know that I don't feel that I have to compartmentalize. I don't have to spend a lot of time developing a defense of why this or that is a "feminist issue" with clearly, neatly defined parameters. I don't feel that there are parts of who I am that I cannot discuss or bring into the community.
I do not feel the false divisions. Why?
Because if I had to choose one word to describe Alexis Pauline Gumbs, it'd be love and I am humbled by how it infuses her words and actions.
Because cripchick expresses pride in our kids as they journey to become revolutionaries. Also, I'm convinced the sun shines out of her.
Because Fabi, Noemi, Lex, Mai’a, and Maegan and others write about revolutionary motherhood.
Because I find myself wanting to take that machete out of BA’s hands and go off on people who make her feel “gunshy" and I know Donna does, too.
Because women cheer when Baby BFP speaks.
Because Sylvia virtually cheered me through that PhD and I smile each time I think about writing her name-comma-Esq.
Because Lisa writes letters to her Veronica.
Because BfP invites us to take our own journeys and come together to share the discoveries.
Because Adele always hears me. Always.
Because Kameelah writes of creating community with her students, centering their art and the way they see the world, and she invites us in.
Because Anjali answers my questions about caring for our communities on macro and micro levels.
Because BA agonizes when she wonders what La Mapu learned about the importance of WoC voices when she witnessed an event in which those voices were, once again ignored.
These are just a few reasons, a few examples of the sense of accountability, to each other, to our children, to our work on- and off-line (and thank you, Aaminah, for helping me to understand that). Maybe this isn't unique to my community. But as WoC, a community that finds us and our work and our involvement "priceless" is not common. What WoC do commonly discover in feminist communities are
But back to that accountability, that rejection of "independent of community." I finally found words that reflect some of what I feel. And me being me, of course I found them in a book. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes,
Part Four: We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump. … [N]o one could understand what it was like… to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness" is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences, because someone is always eager to take your place -BlackAmazon
[I]f feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing... well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement. -BfP
I mentioned the example of BA and La Mapu last so that I could roughly segue into this. I’ll begin by saying that inclusion is rarely worth a damn--it is used as a substitute for "bona fide substantive change."** It’s arrogant to think it’s up to you to “include” us in feminism. We’ve been there, part of the foundation, existing as "the bodies on which feminist theories are created."
And you know what? People who think they have the power to include also often exclude.
Yes, in a specific sense, I’m talking about the Brooklyn listening party. I hurt for Mala, especially when I read this:
I hurt for BA and La Mapu and Ms. Poroto and all of us.
And, yes, I was angry, too, about the listening party, about the general reception of the SPEAK! CD, about how it is reflective of how the voices and efforts of WoC are regarded.
From the moment BA wrote this
I wondered, how is it made, this decision about which feminists are important enough to support? Why do I read about this book, and that appearance, and this podcast, and yay, yay, yay when it comes to white feminists…
But everything is eerily silent when it comes to the work of WoC?
The vows of support,
the “oh, yes, ‘your issues’ are important!”, ***
the “I totally recognize how very necessary your voice and your experiences are to feminism,” it all melts away, words belied by (in)action.
Not just this time.
I am left thinking of the name of Donna’s blog and the quote from which it is derived:
I am left wondering, like Noemi, why are we a luxury?
Expendable and interchangeable--important enough to be invited, too insignificant for anyone to develop a real idea or plan for how we are to get there.
Flighty and abstract, with all that focus on love. Or, as Nadia says,
In/Ex-cluded.
Part 5: For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. -Audre Lorde
[T]hose tools [of patriarchy] are used by women... against each other. -Audre Lorde
Things I fully expect to happen in the aftermath of this post and this one and so many others: WoC themselves will continue to be ignored, while their words and theories are appropriated, depoliticized, made more "palatable."
There will still be attempts to define how our work, our activism, our "priorities" should look--and justifications for why our failure to adhere means we can't be part of certain of communities.
People will continue to scream "get off your ass and do it yourself, stop bitching, stop complaining, stop crying racism, stop stop stop, pull yourselves up by your boot straps and just DO IT!" while simultaneously ignoring that we have been "just doing it" forever with no need for outside motivation and admonishment.
I will from time to time, get angry, feel isolated, say, "Fuck this! What is wrong with you?!"
Then I will sigh, and take comfort in the fact that "there’s us.
it’s the best thing about being us."
I will take comfort in the fact that we know
our words are not a luxury
our love is not a luxury
we are not a luxury. We know that... and quite often, that is enough.
__________________________________
*Toni Morrison read this part of her memoirs in the film, but you can find it and the quote I mention a few lines later, here.
^^ETA: Clicking links led me to this critique by mzbitzca
**PHC, Black Feminist Thought, 6.
*** Wherein "our issues" are always about our victimization, never about our activism and agency--that's objectification, too.
Part One: Realize that parents are people. Realize that parents are the same people you knew before… Realize that parents can be activists, but they are also parents. -Noemi
when you have a child
no one finds it tragic.
no map records it as an instance of blight. -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
They would chop me up into little fragments and tag each piece with a label... Who, me confused? Ambivalent? Not so. Only your labels split me. -Gloria Anzaldúa
I’m teaching a class this summer in black women’s history. The other night, I previewed a film about Mrs. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Commonly described as “unflinching” and “uncompromising, she was active in anti-lynching and civil rights agitation. She was also a suffragist. One of her friends was Susan B. Anthony. The relationship between the two women hit a rocky patch in the 1890s, when Wells married and began to have children.
Wells-Barnett noticed that Anthony’s attitude toward her changed. In the film, Paula Giddings, one of Wells-Barnett’s biographers, noted that Anthony began to “bite out” Wells-Barnett’s married name.
Eventually, Wells-Barnett felt it necessary to call Anthony out about it:
Finally, I said to her, “Miss Anthony, don’t you believe in women getting married?” She said, “Oh, yes, but not women like you who had a special call for special work. I too might have married but it would have meant dropping the work to which I had set my hand. She said, “I know of no one better fitted to do the work you had in hand than yourself. Since you have gotten married, agitation seems practically to have ceased. Besides, you have a divided duty. You are here trying to help in the formation of [the Afro-American] League and your eleven month old baby needs your attention at home. You are distracted over the thought that maybe he is not being looked after as he would if you were there, and that makes for divided duty.”*
Anthony was questioning Wells-Barnett’s dedication, her supposed prioritization. She had her own perception of what Wells-Barnett’s activism should’ve looked like and resented the change. What she didn’t understand, according to Wells-Barnett, was that “I had been unable… to get the support which was necessary to carry on my work [and] had become discouraged in the effort to carry on alone.”
I thought about this question Noemi asked wrt community-building:
[E]ver think why parents stop being involved in community events and meetings?
What does it mean when what you believed to be community abandons you?
I also thought about Kevin. He has, to put it lightly, been disturbed by the attacks on First Lady Michelle Obama by feminists who question her “feminist creds” and deride her dedication to family. “This shit goes way back, Kev,” I wanted to say after watching that documentary.
What I had said to him when he noted all the “Stepford Wife” comparisons, was “WoC are never supposed to prioritize our children and families.” Defined as laborers, our work is always presumed to better serve someone else's needs or goals. That other women think they can tell us how to be feminists is no surprise.
But my answer had it shortcomings. It’s not so much a matter of priorities. One thing I’ve learned by studying early black feminists is that some of those divisions are false—their activism was shaped to improve the lives of women, their families, and their communities. There was not necessarily a sense of "divided duty." Activism is not always easily divisible into neat categories. That's why those black clubwomen believed "a race can rise no higher than its women." That's why Anna Julia Cooper wrote
Only the BLACK WOMAN can say "when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me."
Susan Anthony's distress and the more spiteful critiques of Michelle Obama fail to take into account this interconnectedness. But these critiques prompt me to think also of Little Light's words, about how threatening our love and our attempts to define our lives and our activism for ourselves can be perceived:
It is time for us to acknowledge that our love is an act of war.
It seems distasteful to say. It feels wrong. Our love, our lives, our nurtured gardens and families, we say, these are not weapons. These are not acts of violence. To us, they are not.
Nonetheless, there are those who insist breathlessly, endlessly, that they are...
The very act of not getting to define everything for the rest of us is the end, for them.
Part Two: To build a community, parents and children should be welcome and not feel they can’t attend a meeting/event because of their baby(ies). ... [D]on’t you want the next generation to care about the same things you care about? When will this happen? -Noemi
[F]eminists have a choice in deciding what community they belong to. And they are implicitly choosing to stay away from and otherwise distance themselves from communities that make them uncomfortable or worried for any reason. This has consequences for the communities that they refuse to work with. Most importantly, it has consequences because WOMEN belong to those communities that they refuse to work with. -BfP
If feminism is supposed to work to improve the lives of all women, if it about forging connections and building communities for women, period, then I don’t understand this either. Oh, not so much the OP, though I think it does make some false divisions.
But the comments. At the very least, feminists should respect other women’s choices to have or not have children. But outside and within some feminist communities, childfree women are under excessive pressure to conform to what is considered normative. Those who choose not to have children are regarded as suspect, strange, threatening. Their choices are dismissed as temporary or mean. Those who don’t have children, but for reasons other than choosing not to, are pitied, regarded as incomplete and barren--which has to be one of the coldest words I’ve ever heard used to describe a human being.
As the mother of one child I get only a tiny bit of that, and it is wearying. I am routinely asked, “You really don’t want any more? What if you get married? What if a, b, or c happens?” Often, the implication is that I am selfish, both for not wanting to invest the enormous amount of time and effort required to parent a baby and because my son will be “alone” or “lonely.”
You know what my response to that is not? Attacking other women. I don’t think I have had some magical experience that childfree women are sorely lacking and will forever be deprived because of. I can honestly say that many days, I only survive motherhood. I don’t master it, I don’t excel at it.
But how do you nurture and create community when things like this stand? When women are called “moos,” “breeders,” and “placenta-brains” and their children “widdle pweshuses” and “broods?”^^ When you cast your community as one in which women who have children and women who are childfree are diametrically (perhaps, diabolically) opposed and that mothers (gasp) are taking over the movement and leaving slack that others have to catch up? When it becomes clear that some of us are not welcome into your community? When your remarks indicate that you are, in fact, chillingly “independent of community?” I borrowed that phrase from BfP and the moment she said it, my mind began clicking.
All kinds of feminists can nod when I write about the lie that is the capitalistic ideal of “rugged individualism.” They can see the cruelty and efforts at social control when I talk about the attacks on poor mothers that begin and end with “Why are you having kids and who do you expect to take care of them?” They can see the patriarchy at work in the divide and conquer strategy that is the “mommy wars.”
But they can’t see the damaging individualism inherent in their feminism. Of course, I don’t mean in choosing not to have children—familial and community obligations are commonly fulfilled by all of us, not just mothers. I mean the sentiment revealed in expressing aversion and revulsion towards women who do have children. As Noemi asks,
why is motherhood and heavens forbid, single parenthood a step back in the eyes of activists and feminists? If the choice to terminate a pregnancy is radical, why isn’t the choice in being a mother radical?I mean feeling that it's okay to demean and dehumanize whole groups of people because they made a choice you would not or because of their age, and repudiating any suggestion that said groups can be an important part of your community.
They can’t see the analogy between conservatives saying, “Who do you expect to take care of them?” and some feminists “roll[ing] their eyes when someone brings up childcare.” They can’t see the divide and conquer so apparent in “women with children v. childfree women.”
If feminism is about meeting “our” needs and some of “us” are mothers, why is it seen as a hostile takeover if I ask about childcare? If I express concern about keeping a roof over our heads or clothes on my child’s back? If I write about how my feminist consciousness is often raised by my experiences as a mother? If that is what your feminist community is about, then to quote Noemi again, “This is not community. This is not a welcomed community.”
Part Three: What new skills and influences will single parents give their children if the community doesn’t think it’s important for them to be involved? -Noemi
you have chosen to be...
in a community
that knows that you are priceless
that would never sacrifice your spirit
that knows it needs your brilliance to be whole -Alexis Pauline Gumbs
I struggled for a few days trying to find the words to say what I wanted to say about my community of WoC, why I feel it as community, why I think other women feel it as community. Should I use the words mutuality, reciprocity? Should I use the word vulnerable--because in the loving and trusting, in refusing to hold ourselves "independent of community," we do make ourselves vulnerable, but we also make ourselves strong. "Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be," wrote Audre Lorde, "not in order to be used, but in order to be creative."
I don't know the exact words for an accurate description. I do know that I don't feel that I have to compartmentalize. I don't have to spend a lot of time developing a defense of why this or that is a "feminist issue" with clearly, neatly defined parameters. I don't feel that there are parts of who I am that I cannot discuss or bring into the community.
I do not feel the false divisions. Why?
Because if I had to choose one word to describe Alexis Pauline Gumbs, it'd be love and I am humbled by how it infuses her words and actions.
Because cripchick expresses pride in our kids as they journey to become revolutionaries. Also, I'm convinced the sun shines out of her.
Because Fabi, Noemi, Lex, Mai’a, and Maegan and others write about revolutionary motherhood.
Because I find myself wanting to take that machete out of BA’s hands and go off on people who make her feel “gunshy" and I know Donna does, too.
Because women cheer when Baby BFP speaks.
Because Sylvia virtually cheered me through that PhD and I smile each time I think about writing her name-comma-Esq.
Because Lisa writes letters to her Veronica.
Because BfP invites us to take our own journeys and come together to share the discoveries.
Because Adele always hears me. Always.
Because Kameelah writes of creating community with her students, centering their art and the way they see the world, and she invites us in.
Because Anjali answers my questions about caring for our communities on macro and micro levels.
Because BA agonizes when she wonders what La Mapu learned about the importance of WoC voices when she witnessed an event in which those voices were, once again ignored.
These are just a few reasons, a few examples of the sense of accountability, to each other, to our children, to our work on- and off-line (and thank you, Aaminah, for helping me to understand that). Maybe this isn't unique to my community. But as WoC, a community that finds us and our work and our involvement "priceless" is not common. What WoC do commonly discover in feminist communities are
real experiences of having hard work devalued – many members of a supposed community literally saying, your work is worthless, you’re haters, critique sliding off like teflon.
But back to that accountability, that rejection of "independent of community." I finally found words that reflect some of what I feel. And me being me, of course I found them in a book. In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins writes,
[T]he conceptualization of self that has been part of Black women's self-definition is distinctive. Self is not defined as the increased autonomy gained by separating oneself from others. [S]elf is found in the context of family and community--as Paule Marshall describes it, "the ability to recognize one's continuity with the larger community." By being accountable to others, African American women develop more fully human, less objectified selves. Rather than defining self in opposition to others, the connectedness among individuals provides Black women deeper, more meaningful self-definitions.
Part Four: We are sistas with brown skin we knew that from jump. … [N]o one could understand what it was like… to wonder if this silence this ignoring this "forgetfulness" is planned or just the final realization that while talking about you is sufficient, privilege and entitlement means you can be ignored pretty fully and suffer no consequences, because someone is always eager to take your place -BlackAmazon
[I]f feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing... well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement. -BfP
I mentioned the example of BA and La Mapu last so that I could roughly segue into this. I’ll begin by saying that inclusion is rarely worth a damn--it is used as a substitute for "bona fide substantive change."** It’s arrogant to think it’s up to you to “include” us in feminism. We’ve been there, part of the foundation, existing as "the bodies on which feminist theories are created."
And you know what? People who think they have the power to include also often exclude.
Yes, in a specific sense, I’m talking about the Brooklyn listening party. I hurt for Mala, especially when I read this:
Pero it’s not real enough for people who said they would come to a listening party to support something that means alot to me and other hermanas that I love. It’s not real enough for them to visualize my carrying a stroller with a 30 poundish toddler up and down subway stairs, walking miles not for exercise pero so that I don’t have to buy subway fare and can afford milk, walking to change a bag of pennies, thinking of pawning some earrings. It’s real enough for me to go talk to young people about identity, media, gender and race, pero it’s not real enough for people to think it’s important to support what we do beyond a cursory pat on the head for a job well done little spic girl who we can’t even be bothered to name. I have been invited to two national conferences this summer, pero there is no money to get me there and of course the orgs who want my face, my race and my gender can’t be bothered to actually spend money. They will find another woman of color, mami of color, Latino blogger to take my place, one who they deem more worthy because they can pay their own way or because they play the game well, etc etc.
I hurt for BA and La Mapu and Ms. Poroto and all of us.
And, yes, I was angry, too, about the listening party, about the general reception of the SPEAK! CD, about how it is reflective of how the voices and efforts of WoC are regarded.
From the moment BA wrote this
ONCE AGAIN
with people this time being extended the olive branch and courtesy of the voices of my sisters and the hospitality of my BEST FRIEND
have not tried to help contact or even SPEAK one iota
and did not have the COMMON FUCKING DECENCY to return contact on PERSONAL INVITATIONS.
I wondered, how is it made, this decision about which feminists are important enough to support? Why do I read about this book, and that appearance, and this podcast, and yay, yay, yay when it comes to white feminists…
But everything is eerily silent when it comes to the work of WoC?
The vows of support,
the “oh, yes, ‘your issues’ are important!”, ***
the “I totally recognize how very necessary your voice and your experiences are to feminism,” it all melts away, words belied by (in)action.
Not just this time.
I am left thinking of the name of Donna’s blog and the quote from which it is derived:
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
I am left wondering, like Noemi, why are we a luxury?
Expendable and interchangeable--important enough to be invited, too insignificant for anyone to develop a real idea or plan for how we are to get there.
Flighty and abstract, with all that focus on love. Or, as Nadia says,
our solutions are disregarded as being…
-too imaginative, not practical
-amatuer, short sighted
-not real organizing / change-making / “movement building”
In/Ex-cluded.
Part 5: For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. -Audre Lorde
[T]hose tools [of patriarchy] are used by women... against each other. -Audre Lorde
Things I fully expect to happen in the aftermath of this post and this one and so many others: WoC themselves will continue to be ignored, while their words and theories are appropriated, depoliticized, made more "palatable."
There will still be attempts to define how our work, our activism, our "priorities" should look--and justifications for why our failure to adhere means we can't be part of certain of communities.
People will continue to scream "get off your ass and do it yourself, stop bitching, stop complaining, stop crying racism, stop stop stop, pull yourselves up by your boot straps and just DO IT!" while simultaneously ignoring that we have been "just doing it" forever with no need for outside motivation and admonishment.
I will from time to time, get angry, feel isolated, say, "Fuck this! What is wrong with you?!"
Then I will sigh, and take comfort in the fact that "there’s us.
it’s the best thing about being us."
I will take comfort in the fact that we know
our words are not a luxury
our love is not a luxury
we are not a luxury. We know that... and quite often, that is enough.
__________________________________
*Toni Morrison read this part of her memoirs in the film, but you can find it and the quote I mention a few lines later, here.
^^ETA: Clicking links led me to this critique by mzbitzca
**PHC, Black Feminist Thought, 6.
*** Wherein "our issues" are always about our victimization, never about our activism and agency--that's objectification, too.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
SPEAK! CD
*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:*
*March 7, 2009*
*SPEAK! WOMEN OF COLOR MEDIA COLLECTIVE** RELEASING SELF-TITLED DEBUT CD*
*UNITED STATES *
SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, a netroots coalition of women of color bloggers and media-makers, is debuting March 7, 2009 with a performance art CD, accompanied by a collaborative zine and classroom curriculum for educators.
Compiled and arranged by Liquid Words Productions, the spoken word CD weaves together the stories, poetry, music, and writings of women of color
from across the United States. The 20 tracks, ranging from the explosive
"Why Do You Speak?" to the reverent "For Those of Us," grant a unique
perspective into the minds of single mothers, arrested queer and trans activists, excited children, borderland dwellers, and exploring dreamers, among
many others.
"We want other women of color to know they are not alone in their
experiences," said writer and educator Alexis Pauline Gumbs, one of
the contributors to the CD. "We want them to know that this CD will
give sound, voice and space to the often silenced struggles and dreams of
womenof color."
The Speak! collective received grant assistance from the Allied Media
Conference coordinators to release a zine complementing the works featured
on the CD, as well as a teaching curriculum for educators to incorporate its
tracks into the classroom environment.
"*Speak!* is a testament of struggle, hope, and love," said blogger
Lisa Factora-Borchers of A Woman's Ecdysis. "Many of the contributors are
in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names... I
can guarantee you will have the same reaction as to when I heard them
speak, I was mesmerized."
To promote the initiative, the Speak! collective is coordinating
listening parties in communities across America, creating short YouTube
promotions illustrating the CD creation process, and collaborating with organizers and activists online and offline.
The CD is available for online ordering at the SPEAK! Media Collective site on a sliding scale, beginning at $12.
All inquiries for review copies should be directed to us at speakcd@gmail.com. Proceeds of this album will go toward funding for mothers
and/or financially restricted activists attending the 11th Annual
*Allied Media Conference* in Detroit, MI from July 16-19.
*March 7, 2009*
*SPEAK! WOMEN OF COLOR MEDIA COLLECTIVE** RELEASING SELF-TITLED DEBUT CD*
*UNITED STATES *
SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, a netroots coalition of women of color bloggers and media-makers, is debuting March 7, 2009 with a performance art CD, accompanied by a collaborative zine and classroom curriculum for educators.
Compiled and arranged by Liquid Words Productions, the spoken word CD weaves together the stories, poetry, music, and writings of women of color
from across the United States. The 20 tracks, ranging from the explosive
"Why Do You Speak?" to the reverent "For Those of Us," grant a unique
perspective into the minds of single mothers, arrested queer and trans activists, excited children, borderland dwellers, and exploring dreamers, among
many others.
"We want other women of color to know they are not alone in their
experiences," said writer and educator Alexis Pauline Gumbs, one of
the contributors to the CD. "We want them to know that this CD will
give sound, voice and space to the often silenced struggles and dreams of
womenof color."
The Speak! collective received grant assistance from the Allied Media
Conference coordinators to release a zine complementing the works featured
on the CD, as well as a teaching curriculum for educators to incorporate its
tracks into the classroom environment.
"*Speak!* is a testament of struggle, hope, and love," said blogger
Lisa Factora-Borchers of A Woman's Ecdysis. "Many of the contributors are
in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names... I
can guarantee you will have the same reaction as to when I heard them
speak, I was mesmerized."
To promote the initiative, the Speak! collective is coordinating
listening parties in communities across America, creating short YouTube
promotions illustrating the CD creation process, and collaborating with organizers and activists online and offline.
The CD is available for online ordering at the SPEAK! Media Collective site on a sliding scale, beginning at $12.
All inquiries for review copies should be directed to us at speakcd@gmail.com. Proceeds of this album will go toward funding for mothers
and/or financially restricted activists attending the 11th Annual
*Allied Media Conference* in Detroit, MI from July 16-19.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Too Cute to Correct
Tonight my son asked me, "If you had to choose another career, what would you do?"
"Probably be an event planner. I don't know," I said, then didn't think anymore about it.
A little while ago, I fixed a snack--we wanted chocolate, but, alas, our cupboards are bare of that particular treat. So, I decided to put a thin layer of peanut butter on shortbread cookies. He loved it.
When he said good night, he reminded me once again how much he liked our "new" snack:
"No wonder you want to be an invent planner," he said, "You invent the best stuff!"
"Probably be an event planner. I don't know," I said, then didn't think anymore about it.
A little while ago, I fixed a snack--we wanted chocolate, but, alas, our cupboards are bare of that particular treat. So, I decided to put a thin layer of peanut butter on shortbread cookies. He loved it.
When he said good night, he reminded me once again how much he liked our "new" snack:
"No wonder you want to be an invent planner," he said, "You invent the best stuff!"
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Things Seen 12
Procured by mrs. o during her countryside travels:
A few incomplete musings (I should probably duck and cover):
1) The pro-choice position is not about demanding the termination of any and every pregnancy.
2) As mrs. o appended to her e-mail, these are not the times of Mary and Joseph, for many of us. Part of being pro-choice is about working towards and respecting women's autonomy. What autonomy did Mary have? She is primarily revered for having been a "vessel."
Her worth was tied up in her virginity--if her unmarried pregnancy had been found out she could have been killed; she was no longer a desirable marriage prospect.
Even carrying a pregnancy that, in the words of Sojourner Truth, man had nothing to do with, Mary found her baby's ancestry traced through her husband and her husband named the baby.
3) One of the things that people who are pro-choice advocate is strong support systems for pregnant women so that a full range of CHOICES are open to women. A literal interpretation of the story of Mary's pregnancy reveals that she, as a girl described as humble and devout, had the support that she would've considered most important--that of her God. Plus, Mary had internal insulation from the slut-shaming that complicates many teenagers' pregnancies.
4) The logic behind the question on the marquee is faulty:
a. It is based on the comparison of Mary with other teenaged girls who have
unexpected pregnancies. Yes, Mary was young, with an unplanned pregnancy, and could have faced death. That last factor cannot be overstated. But Mary had a kind of support (see #3) many girls don't. Because the angel appeared to Joseph as well, she also had the protection of being married before her pregnancy was apparent.
b. Emmanuel Baptist Church uses the argument to "rebuke" pro-choicers and claim that EBC is supportive of "life." But it is who they don't rebuke that demonstrates, again, that the pro-life position is one that is not so much centered on "protecting life," but on regulating how women express their sexuality and how they reproduce. If church members care so much about life, why don't they, when using Mary as an example, critique the society in which she lived--one that would have killed her and ended her pregnancy as well? Especially when that is a danger many women still face.
c. It doesn't work as well if you substitute other parents. I shouldn't say it, but I thought it, and according to my mother, it's the same. Seriously, plug in the names of the parents of someone you believe is truly evil.
A few incomplete musings (I should probably duck and cover):
1) The pro-choice position is not about demanding the termination of any and every pregnancy.
2) As mrs. o appended to her e-mail, these are not the times of Mary and Joseph, for many of us. Part of being pro-choice is about working towards and respecting women's autonomy. What autonomy did Mary have? She is primarily revered for having been a "vessel."
Her worth was tied up in her virginity--if her unmarried pregnancy had been found out she could have been killed; she was no longer a desirable marriage prospect.
Even carrying a pregnancy that, in the words of Sojourner Truth, man had nothing to do with, Mary found her baby's ancestry traced through her husband and her husband named the baby.
3) One of the things that people who are pro-choice advocate is strong support systems for pregnant women so that a full range of CHOICES are open to women. A literal interpretation of the story of Mary's pregnancy reveals that she, as a girl described as humble and devout, had the support that she would've considered most important--that of her God. Plus, Mary had internal insulation from the slut-shaming that complicates many teenagers' pregnancies.
4) The logic behind the question on the marquee is faulty:
a. It is based on the comparison of Mary with other teenaged girls who have
unexpected pregnancies. Yes, Mary was young, with an unplanned pregnancy, and could have faced death. That last factor cannot be overstated. But Mary had a kind of support (see #3) many girls don't. Because the angel appeared to Joseph as well, she also had the protection of being married before her pregnancy was apparent.
b. Emmanuel Baptist Church uses the argument to "rebuke" pro-choicers and claim that EBC is supportive of "life." But it is who they don't rebuke that demonstrates, again, that the pro-life position is one that is not so much centered on "protecting life," but on regulating how women express their sexuality and how they reproduce. If church members care so much about life, why don't they, when using Mary as an example, critique the society in which she lived--one that would have killed her and ended her pregnancy as well? Especially when that is a danger many women still face.
c. It doesn't work as well if you substitute other parents. I shouldn't say it, but I thought it, and according to my mother, it's the same. Seriously, plug in the names of the parents of someone you believe is truly evil.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Labor Pains
In 2007, after a very complicated labor and delivery, mrs. o gave birth to a baby boy. There were some issues, however, and he had to be taken to another hospital and placed in NICU.
She was in ICU herself, but when she was finally able to come home, she seemed in good spirits, still preparing their house for the new baby.
Then one day, she broke down. You go through labor and delivery and you expect to come home with your baby*, she explained to me. So one of the emptiest, most hurtful feelings she'd ever had was coming home from giving birth without a baby.
mrs. o could take solace in the fact that her baby would soon be there--a homecoming delayed by two weeks, in the end, but a homecoming nonetheless.
Kalynn Moore of Jersey City has no such comfort. She gave birth to a baby boy who died on 12/21. There would be no homecoming, but she hoped to give him a homegoing.
And now, even that desire may be denied. Christ Hospital, where Moore gave birth to little Bashir, has apparently discarded the baby's body with the trash. From abc.com:
Misplaced.**
My first reaction was that this story, even with no other details, is horrific.
But I am waiting for more details because I think there is a lot more behind this story. I do not know anything about Christ Hospital, but these things stand out to me.
1)Kalynn Moore is black. I think of the historic (mis)treatment of people of color by the medical establishment and, specifically, how reproductive freedom and justice have been denied women of color.
2) Kalynn Moore might be a single mother. Though her son seems to have been named for his father, the articles I've read have said things like, "a son was born to Moore" or "Mom demands answers." There is no mention of the baby's father--when the articles talk of family, they mention Moore's cousin. That is not to say that Bashir's father is not there, but that in a society that constructs married parenthood as the-only-way-to-go, 1) he might be being disappeared as not a "real father" and 2)the validity of their family unit is quietly denied. Similarly, I wonder how the treatment of Kalynn Moore might have been affected?
3) The baby was born on December 21, but the funeral home did not come to pick up his body to January 2. Because the hospital says he was stillborn, there was no autopsy. Even given the holidays, is 13 days a long delay? (It would be where I'm from). I ask, because I wonder if there were financial difficulties--an issue that would have definitely affected how Moore and her baby were prioritized and treated.
____________________________
*Such is the case for most women, though I do not mean to discount the experiences of women who place their babies for adoption or who know, before delivery for various reasons, that their newborn's life will be short.
**This post calls the situation a "bizarre mishap," this one (by one of the authors of the first linked post and with the appalling title, "Dead Baby Trashed"), a "hospital blunder." Euphemisms, gotta love them.
She was in ICU herself, but when she was finally able to come home, she seemed in good spirits, still preparing their house for the new baby.
Then one day, she broke down. You go through labor and delivery and you expect to come home with your baby*, she explained to me. So one of the emptiest, most hurtful feelings she'd ever had was coming home from giving birth without a baby.
mrs. o could take solace in the fact that her baby would soon be there--a homecoming delayed by two weeks, in the end, but a homecoming nonetheless.
Kalynn Moore of Jersey City has no such comfort. She gave birth to a baby boy who died on 12/21. There would be no homecoming, but she hoped to give him a homegoing.
And now, even that desire may be denied. Christ Hospital, where Moore gave birth to little Bashir, has apparently discarded the baby's body with the trash. From abc.com:
The hospital says the baby... was delivered stillborn and was placed in the hospital morgue. When funeral workers came to claim the body Friday the hospital could not locate the body.The article states that Bashir was "misplaced."
Police later informed Moore that her son's remains had been thrown out with the garbage.
Misplaced.**
My first reaction was that this story, even with no other details, is horrific.
But I am waiting for more details because I think there is a lot more behind this story. I do not know anything about Christ Hospital, but these things stand out to me.
1)Kalynn Moore is black. I think of the historic (mis)treatment of people of color by the medical establishment and, specifically, how reproductive freedom and justice have been denied women of color.
2) Kalynn Moore might be a single mother. Though her son seems to have been named for his father, the articles I've read have said things like, "a son was born to Moore" or "Mom demands answers." There is no mention of the baby's father--when the articles talk of family, they mention Moore's cousin. That is not to say that Bashir's father is not there, but that in a society that constructs married parenthood as the-only-way-to-go, 1) he might be being disappeared as not a "real father" and 2)the validity of their family unit is quietly denied. Similarly, I wonder how the treatment of Kalynn Moore might have been affected?
3) The baby was born on December 21, but the funeral home did not come to pick up his body to January 2. Because the hospital says he was stillborn, there was no autopsy. Even given the holidays, is 13 days a long delay? (It would be where I'm from). I ask, because I wonder if there were financial difficulties--an issue that would have definitely affected how Moore and her baby were prioritized and treated.
____________________________
*Such is the case for most women, though I do not mean to discount the experiences of women who place their babies for adoption or who know, before delivery for various reasons, that their newborn's life will be short.
**This post calls the situation a "bizarre mishap," this one (by one of the authors of the first linked post and with the appalling title, "Dead Baby Trashed"), a "hospital blunder." Euphemisms, gotta love them.
Feeling Sort of Meh...
A combination of things:
1) Post-holiday down feeling
2) A touch of homesickness
3) Writing a syllabus and school starts next week!
4) Feeling the upcoming semester already:
---- MWF classes for the first time ever, which takes away my long weekends (during
which, I actually do get work done).
---- Will it be hard to trim down to a 50-minute class?!?!?!
---- Teaching an honor's class, had a special project outlined that now I'm worried about. Thinking of ditching it in favor of a longer paper--but don't want their project to be "just" a paper.
---- My son has after-school extracurriculars out the ass--choir, skippers, Spanish, basketball, and maybe math tutoring. He wants to take guitar lessons--I'm thinking of looking into it because I want to encourage any interest in music. Can any one say frazzled single mom?
5) Presenting at the OAH and I want to seriously re-work that paper.
---- My department will reimburse me for some of the trip expenses, but have I mentioned that I'm not just rolling around in the dough yet?
6) Dee's wedding! Two months to go, and it's the little things that are stressing me.
7) Time to finish revisions on what I hope to be my first article. Really, it just is.
8) Feeling pressed for time and unable to keep up with blog-worthy topics at this moment.
9) Just finished "The Wire." Post to come. DRAINING.
10) The month of March--that's wedding, a panel I'm sponsoring, OAH, evaluations time. My spring break that month will be irrelevant.
Making that list made me feel better.
Send/leave me links to things you think I should read!!! I hope to be back up in the next couple of weeks.
1) Post-holiday down feeling
2) A touch of homesickness
3) Writing a syllabus and school starts next week!
4) Feeling the upcoming semester already:
---- MWF classes for the first time ever, which takes away my long weekends (during
which, I actually do get work done).
---- Will it be hard to trim down to a 50-minute class?!?!?!
---- Teaching an honor's class, had a special project outlined that now I'm worried about. Thinking of ditching it in favor of a longer paper--but don't want their project to be "just" a paper.
---- My son has after-school extracurriculars out the ass--choir, skippers, Spanish, basketball, and maybe math tutoring. He wants to take guitar lessons--I'm thinking of looking into it because I want to encourage any interest in music. Can any one say frazzled single mom?
5) Presenting at the OAH and I want to seriously re-work that paper.
---- My department will reimburse me for some of the trip expenses, but have I mentioned that I'm not just rolling around in the dough yet?
6) Dee's wedding! Two months to go, and it's the little things that are stressing me.
7) Time to finish revisions on what I hope to be my first article. Really, it just is.
8) Feeling pressed for time and unable to keep up with blog-worthy topics at this moment.
9) Just finished "The Wire." Post to come. DRAINING.
10) The month of March--that's wedding, a panel I'm sponsoring, OAH, evaluations time. My spring break that month will be irrelevant.
Making that list made me feel better.
Send/leave me links to things you think I should read!!! I hope to be back up in the next couple of weeks.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Fruity Friday
Of all the things my son could have volunteered me to make for his class party, he had to choose a damn fruit tray. Not a $2 bag of chips. Not juices or plates or candy.
A fruit tray, when I'm broke and not done Christmas shopping. And he told me all proud, "Guess what I told Mrs. F you'd bring?"
"What?"
"A fruit tray!"
"Did?!" I looked at him with one raised eyebrow and he went for flattery.
"I told her you do them all the time for weddings and stuff and you do a really good job."
So here is my hasty Friday morning fruit tray:
The fruit awaiting the cream cheese dip:
A close-up. The lopsided-ness is a direct result of the fact that a pint of itty-bitty strawberries was $4+, while grapes were about $1.70 a pound:
The cream cheese awaits a splash of milk, some powdered sugar and a little vanilla flavoring. It really is better to do it by hand with a fork or a whisk because a mixer makes it more like frosting than dip. And yet I mixed. File that under, "I don't know why I do the shit I do sometimes":
Done! (Well okay, after this pic, I went back and added/spruced up the kale).
Ready to go in a festive little bowl:
I'm ready for this winter break, I swear.
A fruit tray, when I'm broke and not done Christmas shopping. And he told me all proud, "Guess what I told Mrs. F you'd bring?"
"What?"
"A fruit tray!"
"Did?!" I looked at him with one raised eyebrow and he went for flattery.
"I told her you do them all the time for weddings and stuff and you do a really good job."
So here is my hasty Friday morning fruit tray:
The fruit awaiting the cream cheese dip:
A close-up. The lopsided-ness is a direct result of the fact that a pint of itty-bitty strawberries was $4+, while grapes were about $1.70 a pound:
The cream cheese awaits a splash of milk, some powdered sugar and a little vanilla flavoring. It really is better to do it by hand with a fork or a whisk because a mixer makes it more like frosting than dip. And yet I mixed. File that under, "I don't know why I do the shit I do sometimes":
Done! (Well okay, after this pic, I went back and added/spruced up the kale).
Ready to go in a festive little bowl:
I'm ready for this winter break, I swear.
Friday, October 24, 2008
What the Election Means
When I was (almost) ten, I was not particularly interested in the presidential election. I remember thinking it was cool about Geraldine Ferraro; I plotted non-bloody situations in which she could become president. I also remember very distinctly my parents' sense of, "That's nice, but oh well." My mom used to talk to her friends about how everyone knew Reagan was going to win again, a pronouncement that was usually met with sympathetic murmurs and a quick change of the subject.
I was a know-it-all, thought-I-was-the-smartest-thing-evah kid, and I had little interest in the larger world. My son, the skateboarding, pop-rock-hip-hop, dancing obsessed ten-year-old has put me to shame.
He loves Barack Obama, has sat through debates, has critiqued John McCain. He's observant of other people's comments and bumper stickers. He walks around the house lamenting the fact that he can't vote. I've had to reassure him a million times that I'm going to take him with me when I do.
The other day, he begged me to break the no-TV-no-recreational-internet-Monday-through-Thursday rule. He wanted to go to Nick.com. "Kids can vote there!" he told me. I told him he helped Senator Obama edge by Senator McCain. You should've seen his smile.
My son identifies with Barack Obama for obvious reasons and this campaign means something to him that even I can't fully understand.
It's on these kids' faces:
All those pictures are copied from Yes We Can (hold babies), btw.
He is so eager, so protective and adoring of Barack Obama, that I've had to call him on two things.
First, a few days ago, I was trying to decide what clips from the The Murder of Emmitt Till I would show in my African American History class. My son saw parts of it and asked for the back story--he knows a bit about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement already, but we've always discussed "And black people could be killed for..." in an abstract sense. But here was the story of a boy, only a few years older than he, who'd been savagely murdered. That troubled him enough.
But when I told him the murderers got away with it, he got visibly angry. "Wait til Obama is president," he said. "Racism-"
"Will still be here," I interrupted him. "Baby, Barack Obama being president will not fix all of the things we've talked about."
He nodded, but I know, in his heart, he thinks an Obama presidency will rectify so much of what is wrong.
Then, he came home Wednesday, sort of pissed, because his friend's mom had a "Nobama" sticker on her car.
He thought aloud about the likelihood of the friendhsip being able to continue. I scolded him for that and told him that not everyone has to agree with him politically. He just looked at me because he's still self-centered enough to think that everyone ought to see things the way he does.
This picture was on Yes We Can (hold babies) yesterday:
The caption beneath read
I was a know-it-all, thought-I-was-the-smartest-thing-evah kid, and I had little interest in the larger world. My son, the skateboarding, pop-rock-hip-hop, dancing obsessed ten-year-old has put me to shame.
He loves Barack Obama, has sat through debates, has critiqued John McCain. He's observant of other people's comments and bumper stickers. He walks around the house lamenting the fact that he can't vote. I've had to reassure him a million times that I'm going to take him with me when I do.
The other day, he begged me to break the no-TV-no-recreational-internet-Monday-through-Thursday rule. He wanted to go to Nick.com. "Kids can vote there!" he told me. I told him he helped Senator Obama edge by Senator McCain. You should've seen his smile.
My son identifies with Barack Obama for obvious reasons and this campaign means something to him that even I can't fully understand.
It's on these kids' faces:
All those pictures are copied from Yes We Can (hold babies), btw.
He is so eager, so protective and adoring of Barack Obama, that I've had to call him on two things.
First, a few days ago, I was trying to decide what clips from the The Murder of Emmitt Till I would show in my African American History class. My son saw parts of it and asked for the back story--he knows a bit about Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement already, but we've always discussed "And black people could be killed for..." in an abstract sense. But here was the story of a boy, only a few years older than he, who'd been savagely murdered. That troubled him enough.
But when I told him the murderers got away with it, he got visibly angry. "Wait til Obama is president," he said. "Racism-"
"Will still be here," I interrupted him. "Baby, Barack Obama being president will not fix all of the things we've talked about."
He nodded, but I know, in his heart, he thinks an Obama presidency will rectify so much of what is wrong.
Then, he came home Wednesday, sort of pissed, because his friend's mom had a "Nobama" sticker on her car.
He thought aloud about the likelihood of the friendhsip being able to continue. I scolded him for that and told him that not everyone has to agree with him politically. He just looked at me because he's still self-centered enough to think that everyone ought to see things the way he does.
This picture was on Yes We Can (hold babies) yesterday:
The caption beneath read
These two boys waited as a long line of adults greeted Senator Obama before a rally on Martin Luther King Day in Columbia, S.C. They never took their eyes off of him. Their grandmother told me, “Our young men have waited a long time to have someone to look up to, to make them believe Dr. King’s words can be true for them.” Jan. 21, 2008.Whatever happens, while I am admittedly intrigued by Obama, as a person, I am deeply appreciative of what Obama, as a symbol, has meant to my child.
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