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I say, it's reparations...
Gotta give mad respect for damali, who chooses to panhandle for them. I am referring to a recent article in the washington post, that talks about the African American community's confusion about Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's choice to have a fundraising campaign hosted by Floyd Brown's Citizens United Political Victory Fund--this the same folk who produced the Willie Horton ad in the 80s which pushed Daddy Bush's right wing agenda into the White House. This of course, simultaneously fueled the pyre that targets Black men as rapists and murderers. Maybe it's my 90's hip hop influenced "get money" attitude but I am strattling on this issue. The truth is money is dirty no matter whos hands its coming from. Greenbacks have colored folks blood splattered all over it so there is no need to make pretenses. My only concern is that Steele is a conservative, and what exactly have conservatives been doing for colored people lateley? How about marginalized people at large? (Oooooooh NOTHING!) And while I'm always about funding the revolution B.A.M.N., I am not about the slogan M.O.B. (Money Over Black folk). Meanwhile, I will sit here, see what Steele does and says. It's all about how you spend it. But back to reparations. Maybe he could fund screenings of this: ...just a suggestion.
uttered by a black girl at 9:38 AM. | 0 comments
From the fluid movement of break-dance to the thought-provoking lyrics of urban life, hip-hop has transformed artistic expression for more than 30 years. This display of newly acquired hip-hop objects touches on the four main elements that make up hip-hop: DJ-ing, MC-ing, graffiti art, and break-dancing. This display features:
I have no judgement call on it yet. But new museum aquisitions always make me nervous. Museum projects have a tendency to make me wonder, because museums narrate our lives to us. They threaten to misname us in or unname us out of our own histories. There are for aquisitions here (more or less) which tell an often told story of hip hop: Break Dancing as the monolithic dance movement. Women as private (read in the home) participants of hip hop. And hip hop culture overall relegated to one decade, the 80s. Which is cute I guess, things can only be curatized (yeah made that one up) when they are in the past. Things can be seen as a glorious pastime when they are in the past. This way, our lives may be easily depoliticized. Along side these artifacts... and numer of others... lets tack on the century old history. The call and response. Little girl games. Preacher sermons. The great depression. The Black Arts movement. Reganomics and the myth of the Welfare Queen. The assasination of King, Malcom, and Huey. The Prison Industrial Complex... and your occasional just for the fun of it booty shakin house party. Doesn't quite press neatly under that glass. Full Announcement Here uttered by a black girl at 12:38 PM. | 1 comments
 This morning I woke up feeling very rich and royal. Friday evening, after a long afternoon of rest and self-rejuvination, I took a ritual bath in the petals of the rose handed to us at the retreat. I soaked in my tub, cleaned away the grime from my body. Inhaled the clouds of frankincense that loomed from the burner and rested my head in the words and songs and moments of the past week. I didn't have the heart to remove the petals so every time I take a shower these past two days my feet are covered in the essence. I don't know if it is related. I think it is, and thinking is a particular way of knowing that is not often trusted so let me rephrase, I know it is related... These past two nights I have been dreaming that my belly was large and pregnant. The fruit of my womb glowing in reds, golds, and purples. I was adorned in the same colors and jewels. I walked this earth making love, uninhibitedly swooping up new sisters into my arms and creating our world. I radiated the power of earth and heaven, love, and sacrifice. Something is happening. And I know I have been waiting for it all of my life. uttered by a black girl at 10:33 PM. | 2 comments
uttered by a black girl at 9:58 PM. | 2 comments
I felt full and nourished. Mothered, nurtured, grown up, all of the things I’d been longing for. Other sisters offered me goodness and I was able to pull my own gifts from myself and wrap them around someone else. This is how change happens: When we allow ourselves to be fully human. uttered by a black girl at 8:26 PM. | 1 comments
Yesterday, Bernice Johnson Reagon gave a talk. It was fabulous, and when I went to ask her how she knew her art would be powerful, I remeinded her of another moment when I was in her presence: in glee club practice at Spelman. When the time came where we had to clsoe out the session in a song Ruby Sales demanded that I start off the music... that Dr. Reagon couldn't always do that. So I did... with the song Dr. Reagon taught us back in the Spring of 2003--Jordan River... (Teresa I know you remember!) I spoke to her again and we hugged. She said she remembered my voice and recommended where to do research for a music project I am working on (on the low). She also advised me to do a dissertation that I could stand doing, but not to push the envelope. The PhD is just a tool... not my life's work. This is something to ponder. Meeting and sharing (not just listening!) to all of these seasoned activists is an amaxing thing. Although there is some generational stuff to be worked out, overall its amazing. And sisters SPEEEELLLLLLLLLMAN is very represented not only was Spelman sister Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon there (Her daughter Toshi is coming tonight.) but other scholars, visitors and speakers are also Spelman women. OH we are off the CHAIN! There are also some fabulous queer women here too. It will be so great to network with them. All of them are doing such fabulous work in the community whether it be through the arts or whatever. *sigh* I must go back now... hopefully no more metal upon metal... uttered by a black girl at 2:30 PM. | 5 comments
 Friday was the first day of the NWSA Conference, and was also my last. I am on my way to another conference. I have to say that on one hand, I am not exited because I am sad about the fact that I will not be able to stay and explore the Bay Area a little more. I've met wonderful people, but I know that I am in store for even more beautiful things at this next conference. The roundtable discussion I was involved in went great. Although I was experiencing much trepidation and confusion coming in--the result was anti-climatic. A lot of people seemed interested in my project. I am exited about that. Right now, I am in Charolottsville, NC in the middle of a four hour lay-over wait. So far, this is my favorite Airport, (with the exception of Hartsfield-Jackson) not only because it has cute white rocking chairs in the corridors where people can relax, but because it has free wireless internet access. Right now I am just tired, and I know I should be hungry but I am not. I just force-fed myself a stale pretzel and I'm feeling a little queasy. It's strange that although this feeling is common for me on long trips like this, I never get the feeling that I hate traveling. But traveling is such a strange thing. Last night I went to the Oakland Airport via the BART. I found out that my flight wouldn't be until six saturday morning and so I quite hastily BARTed my way back to the hotel. While on the Platform at Colosseum station a man who was trying to hustle AOL Internet Access CDs (yes... I did not stutter) felt the need to harass me. He saw that I was talking to this very muscular white man from Australia and assumed that he was my boyfriend. I let him believe it for a while so that he would leave me alone. I was quiet looked desperately into the darkness for the train and attempted to stifle my laughter. He was really trying to hustle these internet access CDs which are often shoved into my mailbox for free, weekly. I told him that his hustle was quite hilarious, and he assured me that buying his product was worth my while. I said I was cool and turned away from him. He continued to follow me and asked about my "boyfriend" a little more. He wondered why my boyfriend wasn't coming over to protect me since a stranger was hollering at me... that sort of thing. I didn't feel the need to give him a mini lecture about heteronormativity and how I didn't "need" to be protected even if this dude was my boyfriend. Instead, I admitted that I didn't know him, that he was simply asking me for directions. AOL man saw this as an opportunity to sneak his way into my little heart and asked me if i smoked. I said no, and he asked why I had dreads then... I said that I didn't. Somehow he realized his mistake and said... oh then why do you have locks? I said that it was a personal choice and had nothing to do with herb. He asked me for my number. I said no thanks. He asked if he could give me his number, and I said that there was no point. He then proceeded to comment on my thickness and at this point I am begging the train to come the fuck on. He decided that because I wasn't interested that I must be gay. Reluctantly I confirmed... only because he kept using this Black Nationalist rhetoric... calling me Black Queen and such. As soon as I confirmed my sexuality to him a wave of sadness hit his free AOL disk hustling face. Of course at this point, I am being told about how he could cure that. About how all he needed to do was "lay it on me" once and I would be running back trying to get him to marry me. I said I would take his word for it and by the grace of the goddess my train came. That incident aside I like the bay area, and will surely return... uttered by a black girl at 12:33 AM. | 3 comments
There was a fire session on mentoring and mentorship. It made me think of the amazing women that have taken the time to mentor me whether they knew it or not. It also made me think of the very real process of trying to discern who is an advisor and who is a mentor. The key is that all of these relationships need to be initiated by me--the mentee. But then I got to thinking about how I could be a mentor to someone. That was a part of the discussion too--about how we must own our own knowledge and our own expertise. The model for mentor and mentee relationships left room for this train of thought because she considered her setup to be a "constellation" where "we are all stars" and the positioning of these stars are relational but never fixed, and never dichotomous. I like this format for a mentoring relationship. It had me writing down who I wanted to mentor me right then. Mel and I decided that we wanted to start an artist caucus or task force for NWSA. It's amazing how there is no such sub-organization or ad-hoc group available. But the revolution gotta start somewhere. It's amazing being able to recognize myself as an artist and scholar simultaneously and be recognized for it in return. That is the beauty of these things--people are so amazed and open to other people's work and activism that there is no time (but plenty of room) for skepticism. Speaking of being open, Rebecca Walker's speech was lackluster. I was only able to attend the question and answer, and it seemed obvious that she divided the room and defended herself by her already poor argument introduced in her speech. She talked about openness in the academy, the importance of family extended and biological, and the project of holding academics accountable for their personal lives. It was clear Ms. Walker was talking about her well known mother. Plenty of white girls were really upset. I was so lost I was just sick of feeling the negative energy and left to get some complementary dessert in the lobby. I was late because I was able to see some old friends from high school (Jenny, aka peanut head and Lanice). They were so beautiful and I got some lovely hugs. It is so wonderful the re-aquaint yourself with folks who radiate love to you. It felt good and I began to radiate love from the meeting. It was the nurturing I'd been craving for a while, but receiving it only made me want to take more. Seeing them made me sad that I would have to return so soon to Maryland for this other conference. I have to remind myself that this next conference promises to be equally nurturing, and from what I understand a good tail to the NWSA conference because of the sordid history between Ruby Sales and the NWSA. Although I had plans to get a tattoo, they did not come through. Indeed, I got a $1.00 book, a $10 sterling silver ring, a $12 ebony bracelet, and a $10 pair of earrings. I didn't have time to get a tattoo so these little items did the job for me. I will have the memories to warm me forever--no need for a monumental tattoo. Maybe I will get the tattoo at a moment where there is no other monument but that tattoo. Too much is wonderful in my life right now... I have so much more clarity about my self worth. (L, thank you for our talk tuesday night.) The bay area is nice. It's a different Cali that I think would have been better for me growing up although it is still very Cali. I plan to eat some Mexican tomorrow--and I also plan to get some Thrifty's ice cream. I am way too exited about that. I could never live here though. It is certainly not a darker shade of brown enough for me. I love Black women entirely too much for this. This evening Angel and her friends provided Fallon, Moya, and myself with some really good food, wine, and dessert. I almost cried it was so yummy. But things are good. I've been radiating love and receiving it, but I really don't know if it is the chicken or the egg. The Walker speech was certainly a moment of dodging a buzz bullet, but I am happy for the time I spent with old friends. I am honored to meet the wonderful people I've met, and to know the lovely people I know. I am peace in this moment. Calmness, and contentment. uttered by a black girl at 9:14 AM. | 0 comments
Colored women and lost babies, or lost mothers is something that is on the minds of everyone. Particulalrly white folk. Racism does not work if we humanize folk enough for them to be decent mothers. -mammy -welfare queen -crack babies... So goes another aspect of power--the process of dehumanization, to rip away the liberatory tool of mothering, of nurturing. Don't get me wrong. I do not presume we (particularly women) need to feel any kind of maternal instinct. That is not what I would like to convey here. I am only talking about the power of mothering, and the power of nurturing. The two are linked, but not inextricably... or maybe... Besides nurturing/mothering children... how do we nurture/mother ourselves? Each other? So I got to thinking about mothering and colored women. Two central figures popped up in my mind. Margaret Garner (the real life woman who inspire Toni Morrison's novel Beloved), and La Llorona. I thought about these both because they are both women who lost children by their own hands. These women also have ties to their race that narrate a specific history of European dominance over the wombs of women of color. Margaret Garner kills her children, but does not succeed in killing them all, she is caught, arrested, and put on trial for killing her children during an escape attempt. Her story becomes a trope for abolitionist agendas (I do not say this in an entirely derogatory way...) and her case is dismissed. She is sent back to her owner to work for the rest of her life. the lost baby poem* the time i dropped yout almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage to the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned Although La Llorona has many stories attached to her legend, what seems to remain constant is that she is in some ways, an indigenous woman, more tied to Xicana/o people than the Colonizers. Her loss of children, in many legends represent a greater loss for the race, which makes her story a cautionary tale. La Llorona** Si porque te quiero quieres llorona que yo, la muerte reciba si porque te quiero quieres llorona que yo, la muerte reciba que se haga tu voluntad ay llorona por suerte de Dios no viva que se haga tu voluntad ay llorona por suerte de Dios no viva Me. I used to have a series of dead baby dreams. One in which I narrate the dream in multiple voices, but always myself. I am a child, a teenager and a mother all in one. I tell how "my mother" (who is also myself) and I go to the clinic for her/me to get an abortion. At one point in the dream everything is illustrated, as if a child drew it. There was, of course, a crowd of anti-abortion protesters who blocked out path, but we continued on... To Solomon*** They say there are consequences for love in this day and age where a man can tell me what to do with my body that i am beautiful and rubber takes out all the feeling and feeling takes out all the poison and here's two-hundred to cover up my mistake The clinic was built like an outdoor school in southern california, where classes are held in a series of connected bungalows. On the doors of each room had an outline of a foot on its door. These feet were different shades of brown, I guess to designate the color of the child aborted. Me and myself enter a room that does not quite match the baby I would have. you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car we would have made the thin walk over genese hill into the canada wind to watch you slip like ice into strangers' hands you would have fallen nacked as snow into winter if you were here i could tell you these and some other things The baby is produced full term. It cries, it's head is poked in by some mechanical device and it dies immediately painlessly. I am now only the mother, blood between my legs. I look up at the doctor in horror... I feel regret. She says, "You have reached parity." I wake up. (side note on this dream, I never before this dream knew that parity is actually a medical term used to describe the number of live births a woman has... trippy.) Ay de mi llorona llorona, de ayer y hoy ay de mi llorona llorona de ayer y hoy salias del templo un dia llorona cuando al pasar yo de vi salias del templo un dia llorona cuando al pasar yo de vi The second dream: I have a baby. How? I do not know? I only know it is mine. It is a sudden pregnancy and birth because I am not prepared for it. I have not purchased a crib. I remember the story of solomon and the two mothers, and wish not to smother my own child, so I lay it on the ground. I forget that it is lying there. I go about my business for the next few days, forgetting that I am a mother. There is a foul and sour stench in my bedroom. It is my rotting baby under piles of clothes and paper. my babies have closed thier eyes and slept in my womb with trust and when they left me I swear I hear their souls ask why chain themselves in my womb and cry to haunt me in my sleep when i am awake and when i will make love they howl in pain no, my brothers and sister's stay with me and they will stay I am angry it did not cry to remind me that it was there. I wake up. if i am ever less than a mountain for your definite brothers and sisers let the rivers our over my head let the sea take me for a spiller of seas let black men call me stranger always for your never named sake I have always interpreted these dreams as warnings for the preservation of my creative self... my babies. And this is true. My creative self was faultering But now, I am beginning to see that these dreams may also be telling me of myself. I do birth myself constantly, but do I nurture myself? Isn't that imperative to a Black woman's revolution? No, hell, the revolution for women of color everywhere, who are often sold out to carry the race on our backs and between our legs? Todos me dicen el negro llorona negro pero cariñoso Todos me dicen el negro llorona negro pero cariñoso Yo soy como un chile verde llorona picante pero sabroso Yo soy como un chile verde llorona picante pero sabroso And of course there is the real life aspect of this. While I understand that loosing my ovary is not exactly a death of future babies (especially for the purposes of advocating for certain reproductive rights), I still imagine the eggs that are now gone from my left pelvis as babies. I would like to honor my lost ovary in that way, because if it weren't for the fear attached to Black women having babies, I would have that ovary. If it weren't for the preoccupation of pregnancy and childbirth when it comes to Black women, doctors would have seen that the acute pain in my pelvis was more than cramps, more than a UTI, and something other than a tubal pregnancy that I was "hiding." but i did not mean to lock these giant souls in my body my own is too small to say yes or now to weep for my open tomb to cuddle these babies buried in my womb to silence or suckle these ghost mouths to my breast And so comes the project of nurturing the self. Of mothering me for the sake of that lost left ovary. Caring for the right one and my spirit as well. Women of color die of hypertension, high blood pressure, and other stress related disease more than anything (with the exception of AIDS). Colored women take a ritual bath, read that novel, write that novel, laugh, play, have wild (safe) sex, love your muthafuckin' black, brown, yellow, "tawny" selves!
* Lucille Clifton "the lost baby poem" * Lyrics to La Llorona, a folk song. There are multiple versions, but I present here the versus I feel are pertinant to the post. *** "To Solomon" from Skin Religion a collection of poems self published by yours truly in 2002. (c) baj 2002 uttered by a black girl at 1:19 AM. | 2 comments
 The family of ducks on my path. The lake was busy today. A family of ducks reluctantly greeted me as I entered the gated area that enclosed the lake. I say reluctantly because the older ducks who kept watch over the little ones began to hiss at my like Nia does when I accidentally step on her. (Aw hush, you'd do it to if the kitten was always on your heels.) I saw how the family walked together. I don't know if the two larger ducks were the same sex or not, but that's no matter. They hissed equally and flanked the ten little ones acting as guards on both ends. My first time around the lake I begged their pardon and promised that I wasn't there to hurt them. By my third round about I retorted with "Ya momma" and kept it moving. After a few times around, and I guess after they were tired of taking morsels of bread from other park guests, they decided to wade into the water just as I approached them again. Which makes me think, in life there are times when one has to be on guard, and times where one has to move on, and sometimes moving on is so much better than fronting like one is strong. Strength can lie in movement, not in flight, but in acknowledgment and virtue. Past the ducks there was a man fishing. The lake didn't look quite ripe for fishing but who am I to judge? I asked him if he was catching anything, and he said yes, about five turtles. He points across the asphalt path to show me five turtles large and small rocking on their hard backs in wait, like beached whales. They tucked themselves into their shells, waiting for death I guess. He asked if I wanted one, I said no thanks. I asked if he eats them, he said no, he set them over there so they wouldn't get on his line again, and he would put them back on their stomachs when he was finished. I looked at one of them more closely, touched its reptilian arm. I imagined its eyes winced at my touch from the trauma of it all. It tried to sink deeper into its shell. The California-granola-eco-feminist in me cringed but I couldn't bring myself to do the work he said he would do for him. I needed to trust humanity. By my fourth trip around the lake, the turtles were in fact, on their stomachs, and a few had made it into the somewhat safe waters. I felt better about it. Although my feelings about it where that the lake was too grimy to go fishing in anyway, much less for pulling out the wildlife that was using his bait as fair game, I was comforted by the fact that he stood by his word, and allowed the turtles to find their way home. At the edge of the lake bloomed new flowers. They were purple. The last time I was at the lake they had not bloomed. I don't come to the lake looking for new finds. But it is always a pleasant surprise to see some. Actually, I've come to the lake recently to see old things. My first time around the lake I saw a baby turtle. It had to be no bigger than two inches. It was swimming and I didn't have a camera with me to take its picture. I never saw the baby again... or maybe I did, older now, lying on its back and waiting for death. Some moments you are allowed only once. There were families there too. Lots of beautiful babies running around mimicking the ducks. In excitement, a little one no older than two came bounding down the pathway. He almost bumped into me, I put out my arms to catch him, but with super human peripheral vision he missed me by a few inches and veered off to my right towards the ducks. It was so innocent, and so real. I find myself also caught up in the moments of life... I wonder who I've run over in my hurry. There was a type of dragonfly I've never seen before. It had a white tail, and was very impatient with my cell phone camera so I do not have pictures of it. The thing looked like something out of a 60s pop art painting. It was gorgeous and "mod." It was then that my timer rung for the long walk home. I walked the long way to the park. There are no shortcuts to beauty, only nine months of gestation with a few exceptions. But there is always a shortcut home. I decided not to take it. I walked the asphalt path back to the busy main street and my third eye flashed more than three times (the divinity) a vision of warning. In my third eye I saw a car loosing control and veering onto the sidewalk. It was so vivid that I had to jerk around in a dream/reality reaction. Something was pulling and pushing within me. I wasn't sure whether I needed to hurry or to slow down. I was already waking pretty slow already so I began to hurry. But my thoughts began to take over my movements and I slowed down to ponder all of what I'd seen at the park. Behind me I heard tires screeching. I saw the tire marks before I saw the car--the owner had lost control. The car hit the railing in front of me, bounced off and ended up in the far left lane. I was frozen for this moment, began to walk in concern for the driver, but stopped and collapsed with the realization that I saw it happen before it happened, and had my mind not taken over I would have been a few feet ahead--just at the point where the vehicle hit the rail. Some brothers saw how shook I was and asked if I was okay. I said I was. The man seemed to be fine. His car certainly wasn't.  The railing ahead:my shadow.
And me, I don't know. I am feeling alive, and aware of life and its troubles. I am also aware of death... uttered by a black girl at 6:07 PM. | 1 comments
uttered by a black girl at 2:23 PM. | 3 comments
 Crack your backs ladies, gentlewomen, gentlemen and ladymen, this is a long one and I beg you respond. This evening/morning, my mother and I had a conversation about our gifts of sight. It started out when I told her that I needed to acquire a copy of Toni Cade Bambara's novel These Bones Are Not My Child, because my project deals briefly with the process of mourning Black folks have had to do historically, when there is no wake--no reckoning with the familiar body of their loved one. For those of you not familiar with the novel, These Bones Are Not My Child is a novel that takes place during the series of disappearances in Atlanta, Georgia in the 1980s. During this time dozens of black children went missing, some bodies found in the Chatahoochie river. There were many riots and protests regarding this issue because it seemed as if the police were doing nothing about it because these children were Black children. Although there was a man apprehended, many think this man was a scapegoat for what may have been a racially motivated crime. There is a movie about this. But this blog isn't about bones exactly... it's about sight. My mother said she remembered this time and that she was interested in reading the book herself. I told her how I think it was connected to my research and she said that there was something to it... how Black people must mourn those who are lost. Immediately she began to think about our cousin Chris, who had gone missing years ago. His bones were found in 2004 in a church yard, minus a skull, which was found in the trunk of a man's car. My mother talked about how, years ago, she had a vision that our cousin was lying in a church yard dead. She thought it was strange that he was found in a similar location, and she says she wants to see the location when she comes to Virginia. I shared some of my visions, and we both agreed that it was a scary "gift" to have. Our frustration with it was knowing that we have it for a reason, but not knowing what to do with it because of our own fears. How do you tell someone that you know they, or someone they love is going to die? How do you own up to not knowing if you are found to have the gift of sight... somethings we see, somethings we don't, and others we choose not to. Reminds me of a few novels: Morrison's Song of Solomon and Beloved, and Saramago's Blindness. In Song of Solomon you have a bewitching woman... someone whom you would expect would have the gift of sight, but why she did not know she was carrying her dead father's bones in a sack, we don't know. But we do know what it means, or at least we can try to. There is something particular about mourning and sight. Now I don't know what this does for the blind, I haven't thought about this thoroughly... how the blind mourn, but there is something to mourning and sight. The wake is all about seeing the body. And if anyone has gone to a wake or funeral, we all know the body... strangely enough doesn't look like the person you knew in life. While there is something haunting about that, there is something equally comforting if you believe in an afterlife (which I do). The piece of them that rested in that body that you no longer see is not their either. But you know that what you see before you is their vessel--the form in which they walked this earth. It's like seeing a friends belongings so you know they haven't left the party, but you also know they are not there next to you--there is a chance of seeing them again and the proof is in the familiar but simultaneously unfamiliar vessel--the corpse. I think I first realized this feeling at my first funeral. I was five years old and my beloved ma'ma (great-grandmother) passed. I of course, was just learning about death, and wasn't quite sold on its permanence, and the sight of my ma'ma's body solidified that for me. What I saw of her in the casket, was only a vague resemblance--she looked as if she was carved from wood. I poked her and she was hard--I thought she was a doll. In my mind ma'ma would return to my grandparent's three story home in Baltimore, in the room across from the bathroom, eating the graham crackers and milk my grandmother would bring her for a midnight snack. I would sit and talk with her. Her bed sits below pictures I made for her in my earliest years. They still hang in that room, above a bed that I used to sleep in. Sometimes I find myself holding my breath when I enter that room. It belongs to my Uncle Ollie now, but the space is so sacred to me. This is where I spent time with my oldest living mother, my first word, my closest connection to the ancestors, my earliest confidant. For me, she never died until I moved to Los Angeles. Where I began to realize that my life would be changed forever. The fantasy of childhood was over. That the violence of my new home would not end by her wisdom and presence. (Its strange how children learn, early on how the hierarchies of age trump brute strength.) She died then, and I cried--months after I touched her stone cold hand. But seeing her in that casket and touching her is a memory which remains in my third eye. It is there, that I see ma'ma all of the time. (Something that really screwed with me as a child... this seeing my great-grandmother at night.) Floating gracefully above this world. Damn back to Judith Butler again. It is not the loss of her which I ended up mourning. But the loss of myself. The recognition of my immediate reality which had been altered by her absence and by the goings on of life which could not be affected by her earthly presence. It was my weakness that I mourned, not my mortality, but my possible immortality--that I would be stuck in this limbo of existence and powerless non-existence for a long time. This entry isn't about my ma'ma it's about sight. In Beloved you have a moment where sight is the curse. Seeing Beloved is the mourning, and a moment of reckoning--with our own sins, our own desires, our own traumas. Its questionable whether or not Beloved was there at all. Cynics could believe she was an apparition of the mind of the characters... but that could be said of many a novel admitted ghost or not. This brings me to Jose Saramago's Blindness. A story where everyone goes blind, save one woman. But she does not want to bear the burden of seeing because it will make her vulnerable to use and abuse. (How do you tell a dead man you aren't willing to hear how he suffered?) She pretends not to see, but in order to save her and her comrades lives she must see. What she sees is horrible. She sees a woman being raped, she sees people on their hands and knees wading through piles of excrement left behind by those who do not know how to able themselves without sight. She sees the dirt people do in order to survive. She sees herself, a murderess, daily. So what happens when we see too much? This is where my mother and I get stuck. How do we deal with the trauma of seeing? How do we face the things we must face, and admit that we see them? How does one go through life seeing and never wanting to poke out their eyes? (Oedipus would take the dare.) How do we balance our lives between mourning, sight, and action? How can we bear our gifts, use them righteously and maintain our sanity? How do we choose what to see? How does this change what we choose to look at? Have you seen something you wish you hadn't the burden of seeing? uttered by a black girl at 12:48 AM. | 4 comments
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