Changing Lunapaw

Come Winter Rewrite

2011-11-03T19:25:00.001-07:00

It’s very cold

The endless Winter surrounds her as her moth bitten ash coat keeps her clothed, but never warm. The key to her survival lies within her frozen entirety: the icicles driven through her heart. These bloodless sacrifices keep her from needing warmth because the chill is already within her. There’s no defeat for there is no pain, only numbness
She walks from home to home to beg, absorbing those few sporadic bursts of warmth. She feels treated with human compassion just as rarely. Doors open for short period until they see what has come. One short blast of body warming heat later and they shut the door
It’s ok though. Empathy is not something that she expected, but those memories of the fleeting warmth cling to her. They intrigue her, embrace her, and give her reasons to keep walking forward.
Every once in awhile, someone wavers on indecision and their door remains open for longer than expected. In those bittersweet times, heat surrounds her being, letting her imagine what being completely warm might feel like. At those times, the icicles within her reveal their curse as they begin to thaw.
Pain suddenly pierces through her enjoyment of the freeing warmth and her numbness begins to drains away.
But it’s ok. She doesn’t expect friendliness for too long. She never hopes for her heart to truly heal by finding a safe and permanent place that would give her time to fully thaw completely. She doesn’t believe in the outside help that would be needed to stitch the fully thawed ripping remains of what froze her. Her faith is as cold as the rest of her
So she fed on the fleeting heat, never believing that she could want for more.
One night she knocked on a door. It was a door that wasn’t different from any of the others she’s knocked on. When he eased the door open, wondering who could bear to be in this bitter environment, he looked upon her and stared in shock and horror. Although she was used to horror at her image, she had never seen a compassionate expression like this be for her ice covered and thoroughly chilled self. She stared at him, dazed by his sympathy. She stumbled with shock when he ushered her inside his home. She stood in the hall awkwardly and he guided her to his fireplace, gathering blankets around her.

She warned him that her cold went deep and her pain once thawed would need a great amount of attention and care. That she could die if his warmth unfroze too much of her only to be kicked back into the cold.
They talked as she began to reveal her inner scars and he wasn’t frightened away. Even though he never said the words, he seemed to indicate that he would sing her into sleep and patch her scars. So, she fell asleep to his voice filled with promise.
She thawed. Her numbness gave way as the deep scars within her chest opened fresh and bleeding from the warmth around her. At first, he tended to her while she was sleeping but the scars were deep and so much more serious than he could ever have expected. The pain that should have awakened her was blocked by her belief that she had found somewhere safe and that she was going to be ok. She bled.
She woke from her slumber with bone quaking shivers and searing hot pains coming from within her. She realized she was outside again, the winter now even colder because her wounds suffered the agony of being open to the air.
She tried to move on like she had previously, home to home but never staying long. However, her heart wouldn’t heal and the blood kept the icicles that would have given her familiar relief from forming again. More and more she bled as she tried to keep going. She wasn’t ok anymore
Finally, she collapsed into the snow. Strangers walked by promising that eventually she would get help but she only lay dying, regretful of the false hope that had gotten her here. As she sunk further into the snow, she was filled with a dread that told her

“You’ll never be ok again”

Fight Agony Fighting

2011-10-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

My chest is heaving painfully
Dry air bellows from my super sensitive lungs as I run
And run
There’s pain behind me
A indistinct rising mass
So I fight to run
And run
But my legs are so weak
They shake and spasm from exhaustion
But I still force myself to run
Except now i only crawl
Finally something whispers in my head
“what happens if you stop fighting”
the whisper trips me and I go down
I stay down
And the pain washes through me sharp
But as I am whisked away
My poor body is relieved

White Room with a 24-hour Sitter

2011-09-15T19:10:00.001-07:00

Your lips possessed a fire pressed lightly
Gentle and warm, with no room to fight myself
I was the anemone,
something fragile.
Some of my swaying fronds discolored or frayed.
I revealed to you, my friend, a sweet smelling and slightly sweating hand
With which you used to pull me closer, with a touch of excitement.
But I misunderstood your purpose or you misunderstood your malice
I thought you held peace within your embrace but I was strung and laced with oiled string
That burned grooves into my collarbone
And something thrilling, with the fear I had tried to overlook and bury
Unearthed itself little by little
Anxiety building,
growing so tall that I had to force myself to let go
But it wasn’t soon enough
I hit the ground. I shattered. My anger died and was reborn into a monster that I had hoped would consume us both
But it’s only me that stares out of this white room, sitting on this white medical bed,
Looking out at a world that I wont rejoin
Until I piece back together what I thought was mine.

Formed Poetry

2011-04-18T05:36:00.000-07:00

Coffee
The cup rises
To my lips haltingly
The closer it came the more my heart
crumbled

New Things

2011-04-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

Coffee Break

Her hand tipped the coffee haltingly towards her mouth
As if the closer she lifted the cup
The more her heart crumbled

Her Frigid Heart (short story)

2011-03-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

It’s very cold

The endless Winter surrounds her

Her moth bitten ash coat keeps her alive

But not warm

But she is kept alive

In her frozen entirety

By the icicles driven through her heart

Bloodless sacrifices keep her from needing warmth

The chill is already within her

And it’s not a defeat

For there is no pain

Only numbness

She walks

Home to home to beg

For the few sporadic bursts of warmth

Sporadic as human compassion

Doors open for short period until they see what has come

One short blast of body warming heat later and they shut the door

It’s ok

Empathy is not something that was expected

But the memories of the fleeting warmth cling to her

And sustain her

Sometimes, wavering on indecision

The door stay open for longer than expected

In those bittersweet times, heat surrounds her being

Letting her imagine what it would be like to be

Submerged in heat for more than quick moments

But as the fires thaw her body, they thaw the icicles in her heart

Pain pierces her relief as her numbness becomes slightly undone

But it’s ok

She doesn’t expect friendliness for too long

She never hopes for her heart to truly heal

By the way of thawing the cold within her

And the stitches that would be needed for her heart if finally it could escape the cold

Because the scars in her heart caused by the ripping remains of what froze her

Would need an outsider’s aid to keep her alive

And her faith in human compassion is as cold as the rest of her

It’s ok

She was used to the fleeting heat

And the endless cold that followed her

Until one night

She knocked on a door

A door that wasn’t different from any of the others she’s knocked on

But when he opened the door

He stared at her in shock and horror

Not the horror she expected though

It was horror at the cold within her

The ice that had encased her

She felt dazed by his compassion and sympathy

Especially when he ushered her in

Still in shock

She stood in the hall awkwardly

He guided her to his fireplace

Gathered blankets around her

She warned him

That her cold went deep

That her pain once freed would need

A great amount of attention

And that she could die if his warmth unfroze too much of her

Only to be kicked back into the cold

They talked

She revealed her inner scars

And he wasn’t frightened away

Even though he never said the words

He seemed to indicate that he would sing her into sleep

patch her scars

and she fell asleep to his voice filled with promise

So she thawed

Her numbness gave way as the deep scars within her chest

Opened fresh and bleeding from the warmth around her

At first he tended to her while she was sleeping

But the scars were deep

So much more serious than he could ever have expected

And the pain that should have awaken her

Was blocked by her belief that she had found somewhere safe

That she was going to be ok

So she bled

She woke from her slumber with bone quaking shivers

And searing hot pains coming from within her

She realized she was outside again

Then winter just as cold as before

In fact

It was colder because her open wounds no longer possessed numbness

Only the pain of being open to the air

She tried to move on like she had previously

Home to home but not staying long

But her heart wouldn’t heal

The blood kept the icicles that would provide her numbness

From forming again

More and more she bled as she tried to keep going

She wasn’t ok anymore

Finally she collapsed into the snow

Strangers walked by promising that eventually she would get help

But she only lay dying in the snow

Regretful of the hope that had gotten her here

And haunted by the dread the filled her

A dread that told her

You’ll never be ok again

Poems from a Sick Mind

2011-02-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

Letting My Light Shine

I believed I possessed my own light. Maybe it wouldnt be seen by everyone, but it would be seen. I displayed this light proudly, sure to be recognized by someone... but the years passed. Any notice that my shine garnered were either scathing looks or temporary interest. And so im left wondering, did i ever have a light at all? was it just something I made up in my head as a defensive shield to blind me of the fact that i possess no light and i am worth nothing. I mean how can a light be there, if no one notices?

Black Sheep

I used to believe that I was just special and unique... but I am passed by, and shut out. In a flock im not the black sheep... in fact, im not a sheep at all. im just a worthless mess shitted out and left behind.

Podcasts and Craziness

2011-01-28T16:38:00.001-08:00

I let my crazy run free for a few hours and the Blacking It Up Podcast has proof lol. yes twitter-flirting is awesome

First Draft of My New Short Story

2011-01-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

READY

DRAFT 1

“Lee?”
“Mmh?”
“I think I’m finally ready”
I focused on Lee’s face as his expression went from relaxed to shocked.
“… You mean ready for…”
I exhaled deeply, gazing into his coal black eyes.
“Yes”
I leaned back into Lee’s extended muscular arm as he was silent for a few moments. His stunned look hadn’t completely gone away but it was fading into what looked like intrigue.
Yes, I was finally ready. Besides the fact that being a 25-year-old virgin is no picnic, I had fulfilled my two requirements in being ready to make love for the first time. I both loved him and we had been in a relationship for more than six months.
Being in love with Lee is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Reading romance books had lead me to believe that it was like being hit with a brick in the face… but I found out that, for me, it was more like being enveloped in to waves that get progressively bigger as the relationship gets deeper. That comforted me since it wasn’t something alarming, just kind of perfect in the way it came.
Lee grazed his lips by my earlobe while whispering, “Do you want to start now?”
My brows furrowed as I thought about it.
“Hmm” I replied. “Maybe if I had some convincing”
A smile snaked onto his face as he leaned in to skim my neck with a kiss that didn’t end until he reached my lips. I sighed softly, letting the caress take over my thought process.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.
Lee looked up with his eyes narrowed and mouth tight as he was thrown off his groove. Then he glanced back down to me and, forgetting about the knock, leaned in to continue.
Another knock sounded the door only this one was much louder and was accompanied by a voice.
“Ay Lee, compañero, let me in!!”
Lee’s whole body jerked in the direction of the voice as a look of recognition and apprehensiveness took over. He hastily scrambled up from the couch and went to open the door as I protested the interruption.
“Baby, can’t we just ignore them until they go away?”
I received no answer as he clicked the last lock out of its place. In strutted a medium-skinned and tall man with extremely raised cheekbones and straight black hair styled into a faux-hawk. Also instead of having Lee’s muscular but lean body type, the stranger came into looking like a boxer. One that plays dirty.
One look at each other and the two embraced closely.
“Ah, te extraño mi cariño.” Tenderly whispered the stranger.
I saw Lee react instinctively, hugging the stranger even closer. At this I hastily rose off the couch.
“Um, Lee? Who the hell is this?”
Before he can answer, the stranger barks out
“Hey Lee, is this her? The one we need?”
Lee quickly glanced my way than replied to him “You couldn’t have come at the worse time. You were supposed to wait until I called you.”
“Hell Lee, it’s been 7 months since I’ve seen you.”
The stranger then grinned widely
“Plus I had a feeling that you might be getting something started without me and it looks like I was right…”
He started to leer in my direction.
“Is she ready yet to take the both of us?”

At this I stormed up to the stranger and jammed my finger into his chest, although he barely noticed the impact.
“I don’t know who the hell you are but I am not some cheap sex toy. Even if I was up to this, which by the way, I AM NOT, the very least you could do is ask me. I have no damn keeper and if you’ve got something to say about me, say it to my face!”
Instead of the surprised or defensive attitude I was expecting, he had the nerve to laugh.
“Lee I like her already, she’s definitely a feisty one!”
Anger flooded my cheeks. I¬¬n an effort to calm down, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
“Lee, baby”
“Yes”, replied Lee who made a point of not looking into my face.
“We should talk.”
With my legs slightly shaking with unused adrenaline, I walked through Lee’s door to his room and sat down on the bed.
I heard Lee muttering to the stranger and I caught the words “not yet” and “wait”.
What the hell does he mean by wait? Does he truly think I would ever be caught up in some sordid threesome? Then a fresh wave of hurt washed into my heart. I knew that the stranger and Lee were obviously lovers if not more. Bisexuality was not something that Lee had told me about but that was beside the point. The stranger didn’t act like a past fling but a intense present partner. Was he cheating on me? I could have never expected it because he is not a show off-y playboy like the ones I have met in my lifetime. He acts extremely devoted and modest… or maybe that was an act. Maybe I’m not as good a judge of people as I thought.
In a midst of my mental panic, Lee walks into the room and sits heavily on the bed.
We sit in silence for a few moments, him waiting for me to explode at him, me waiting to hear an explanation.
“Kexa, I-“
“Lee, what the-“
We stutter to a stop and looked into each other’s eyes. Unwilling to see the emotion behind them, I stared down at the ugly-ass rug that I told Lee he needed to replace. I slightly smiled at the memory but the darkness of what is going on now surrounds me. I wait for him to start again.
“Kexa, it’s not what you… God this sounds so cliché… but truly, it’s not what you think.”
I glance at him again.
“What is it that you think I think?”
Suddenly he grasps my hand pulling the front of my torso to face him. At my refusal to look into his face he uses his other hand to cup my face and lift until our eyes are level.
“You think that I never told you about me being bi, that I cheated on you with Aric, and that I’m a huge fakery of a first love for you.”
My eyebrows a drawn to the center as my anger flares.
“And what about that is false?” I ask, wrenching my face from his hand.
He breathed in deeply like a diver taking one last breath before a plunge.
“Baby, I haven’t told you everything about me. Yes, I am bisexual, No I have not been with Aric since we started our relationship, and no, nothing about my feelings for you are fake.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if you don’t believe this, you are never going to believe what I have to say to you next.”
“ Which is?”
“That Aric and I are vampires”

An incredulous look comes over my face. Of all the excuses he could’ve come up with, him being a vampire is the best one? What the hell, this isn’t Twilight.

I sigh and say “Look if you’re in love with someone else, just say so. You don’t have to joke about outlandish mess in order to get me to leave.”

“Baby I’m not joking. It’s like this, Aric and I both lived in San Diego. Not only did we fall in love but we’ve become soul brothers, which is basically like being married in the vampire world. However in order to reproduce and complete our relationship, we need a soul sister.”

I rolled my eyes.
“So now you’re telling me that you want a threesome. What part of ‘I am a virgin’ don’t you get? I mean how could you expect any of this? Not even to say that I believe this vampire mess but even in a general three person relationship, the last thing I’m going to be is a spare in a relationship.”

“But you wouldn’t be a spare, I love you as well.”

I released a high false laugh.

“Please, I know that you both are together. I could see it when you recognized his voice and saw his face. I would never want to get in between that, especially not to be you guy’s sex plaything and barefoot pregnant wife, or soul sister, or whatever while you guys make goo goo eyes at each other. I just can’t believe that you faked being in love with me just to get into my pants. Other guys yes, but not you.”
Before I could finish my diatribe, he was shaking his head vigorously.

“Kexa, I will prove to you that I am not lying”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really? And how are you going to do that?”

“ Look down.”
Glancing down I realized that we have floated 3 feet off the bed. My eyes widen as I clung desperately to him, hoping that I haven’t gone completely insane.
“No you haven’t gone insane”
“What did you say-“
“I said you aren’t going insane. For months we have been getting closer and for a vampire, that means that I mentally also get closer to you.”
“You mean you can read my thoughts? And can we PLEASE get down?”
“Oh” Lee looks down as if he just noticed that we are flying. “Sure”
We slowly floated back down on the bed as the aftershock of what just happened rushes through my body.
“It’s not exactly reading thoughts. It’s more like receiving a taste of the flavor of your mood. I could feel you turning inward and questioning yourself.”
“How long have you been able to… you know… read my mind?

“For about two months. At first it was a little weak but now I get rushes of it all the time. I love it too, it makes me feel like you and I are really connected.”

I push away the hope and affection that his statement made me feel.
Then, as if he could feel that too, he gets on the bed and embraces me from behind, a move that he knows is my weakness.
Tears burn my eyes as I’m torn between what I feel is the bullshit of it all and the fact that him holding me still gives me goose bumps. Damn, now his hands are running across my stomach. Damn, damn, damn. I muster all the will I can and try to pull his hands off of me but he ends up only holder tighter. This breaks my limit as my pain spills out of my eyes and a loud sob escapes my mouth.
Lee leans in and softly whispers into my ear
“Just listen for two minutes to what I have to say.”
Feeling my head nodding and he begins.
“When vampires are initially born or made, it takes thirty years for them to fully mature into an adult. Until then, they can have sex but cannot reproduce or sustain a three-person relationship that is needed to reproduce. In the vampire world, because vampires don’t really change, female vampires do not produce the eggs needed and also, one male’s genetic attributes aren’t enough to make a child. Vampires have tried two person partnerships before but there either was no baby produced or the baby that was born was born extremely deformed and missing key parts of their brain code or anatomy. Plus the sexual and mental demands of a vampire exceed the capacity for one person to fulfill.”
“As for our diet, we can graze on humans but we get the most fulfillment when we feed from the other souls in our relationship as we have sex.”
“That still sound like an awfully archaic way of controlling and restricting a woman that is supposed to be your ‘soul sister’. Anyway what does this have to do with me?” I ask.
“ Well Aric and I have been together since we’ve reached maturity 20 years ago but we only recently have been thinking of finding a soul sister to complete our partnership and one day, to reproduce. We split up to find a human woman who could love the both of us-“

“And you think I’m that woman? What makes you think that someone like me who has not even had sex before can live up to you guys’ sordid expectations?”
“Because of the way you are. I have a feeling that it wasn’t because you didn’t want to have sex that you have waited so long. Plus I already know about how you get yourself off when you are alone”
Humiliation flooded my cheeks.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You have some extensive sexual needs that I think match ours.”
“But there’s just one problem. I’m not in love with Aric.”
“But are you attracted to him?”
I thought about it as I remembered not only the anger that flowed through me but also fear as the intensity of his aura flooded the room. Was it that he intimidates me sexually? Most likely. He looked like a guy who not only has had plenty but also is completely confident in knowing how to please. He also looked like sex to him was just one big ride, not something that meant anything to him.
“I feel the emotions you are going through, the intense attraction coupled with fear and even a slight distaste. I assure you though, he is not as heartless as he appears otherwise I would not love him so much myself.”

I finally pulled away from his embrace and stood to gather my thoughts. Then I said,
“Ok even if I did believe all of this and believed that you think that I could be some kind of soul sister which to me seems like little more than a blow up doll that you can also drink blood from and produce kids with. I still don’t think I can do this. If you guys do things as I’m sure you do and want to do, I’m just not ready. I still don’t love Aric and also I am so far from being experienced or ready enough to do a threesome that it’s almost laughable. I mean I have yet to lose my virginity and I’m not even sure how that will go.”
He stood up and held my hands firmly, drawing me closer.
“Kexa, this isn’t supposed to be something that you jump into. That’s why I told Aric to wait. I planned on making love to you and then in later months introduce you to Aric so that you two could become acquainted without telling you our intent until I felt that you really cared about the both of us. It was going to be a slower process but Aric unfortunately is not a patient person, something you two have in common. I know he comes off brash and rude and insensitive but I have a feeling if you get to know him, you two will hit it off.”
I sigh, running my fingers through my short black hair. “What do you expect me to do”?

“I was wondering if you would mind spending time with him tomorrow afternoon. You two are both fans of coffee and that small coffee shop on 45th is perfect. The table are all in out of sight areas and extremely private.”

“You want me to go on a date with him?”

“Yes. We will take this as slow as we need to and do this a step at a time.”

“And what if we don’t get along. Are you just going to stop seeing me?”

“Yes but not in the way that you think. I am able to make your feelings for me disappear as if I was just a jerk who just wasn’t your type. It’s how vampires release people who might have fallen in love with them… but only of course with your consent… So, will you?”

“I guess so” I sighed.

The next morning after Lee woke up from his self inflicted torture of sleeping on his couch, he drove me to the coffee shop. As we sat in front of the shop, he caressed my face and said: “Give him a chance baby but if you don’t get along, I will be here for you whatever you decide. I love you.”
I leaned in as his cologne overpowered my senses. We kissed shortly but intensely and I walk into the coffee shop.

When I walked in, I realized that Aric was there in all his intimidating sexy glory except this time, he had a scowl on his face. I realized with a jolt that he had seen Lee and I’s little exchange from the window. Without a word he turned around, heading to a table. After a moment’s hesitation, I follow.

We sit down across from each other in a booth toward the back of the café. Still scowling at me, he suddenly throws out “So, aren’t you too young to be dating Lee. You’re like, what, 18? Have you even given up any yet?”
My brows furrow as my head tips back in a classic who-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-talking-to kind of way.
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about but if this is conversation we’re going to be having, then I see no need to stay.”
I get up to leave and then he grabs my arm.
“Wait.”
I cock an eyebrow.
“For what?”
Aric runs his hand through his hair roughly and stares at the table.
Suddenly I put two and two together.
“Wait, you aren’t treating me like shit because you’re jealous of me and Lee are you.”
Aric’s eyes flash and somehow he looks bigger and meaner than before.
“Oyeme negrita, whatever Lee feels for you is his business but don’t flatter yourself.”
“ I don’t appreciate being called negrita, jackass. Tienes una problema con me?”
Aric looked stunned.
“Hables español?”
I raise my eyebrow again and respond with “Sí”
“ You don’t look Latina.”
“Nope, actually I’m Indian and black. The answer to your question on why my Spanish is good enough to the point I don’t sound like a gringo, the answer is that I’ve been learning since I was 5 when my mom’s best friend was a woman from Mexico who she would bring her hija to play with me.”
I sighed and glanced at the time.
“Excuse me, Aric, pero yo ir a compro café.”
I grab my wallet and head for the cashier to buy a espresso. As I was walking back to the booth with coffee in my hand, Aric was just getting off the phone. I sat down and, sipping my coffee, waited for him to say something.
“Kexa, to answer your question from before, yes, I am jealous of you and Lee. Lee and I have been exclusive for 20 years so perdóname if I get jealous when all of the sudden, he starts telling me how he is in love with both me and someone else.”
I exhaled deeply and replied.
“Yeah, I can imagine how you feel. Apparently though, in this freaky bloodsucker mess, we’re supposed to all fall in love with one another and live happily ever after. However I get how being in love sucks when you believe that another person cant love you as much because their splitting their love with someone else.”
Aric leaned slightly forward.
“I actually have seen it work. I have met others whose relationships were completely peaceful and full of love. Apparently once we hit that age, our room for love grows. I can’t help feeling jealous anyway. I mean, Lee is hoping that we got some sparks between us but what if we don’t?”
I see fear in his dark brown eyes.
“No, he wont leave you. If anyone should be worried, it’s me. He offered to erase my feelings for him if things didn’t work out… which basically means he can do without me in his life, but you’re permanent.”
Before I even finished that sentence, Aric was shaking is head.
“ No Lee told me that he would do the same with me and things between you and me didn’t work out… after 20 years, he’s willing to give me up just because he says that he cant live without you… and I’m starting to see why”
In mutual pain and understanding, Aric reaches for my hand and I accept it. I feel as though I’m looking at myself (except completely gorgeous, muscular, and abrupt.)
I smile slightly and say, “You know, Lee asked me if I was attracted to you.”
The devilish grin is back on Aric’s face as he responds, “Oh really. What’d you say?”
His smile suddenly makes me extremely self conscious and nervous, something I haven’t felt since the first time I went out with Lee.
“U-um, I s-said that I w-was. And I a-am. But y-you really intimidate m-me.”
Aric slide out of the booth and stood up. He then came to my side and helped me stand.
“Well I am definitely attracted to you as well. So maybe there’s some hope for us… C’mon, let’s go for a walk back to Lee’s place.”
My eyes widen and I stammered out “O-ok”
Back outside the air is ripe with the smells of autumn. Trying to keep my eyes off of Aric, I look at all the trees in their stages of shutting down. I have always thought that trees go out every year in a blaze of glory. A glance in Aric’s direction tells me that he is also appreciating the chorus of red, pink, yellow, and gold.
My eyes still on the trees, I calm myself down and attempt to make conversation.
“ So Lee said that you guys are from San Diego. I’m guessing that the trees don’t change much there”
“Nope, that’s why I’m glad I ended up here. This is the first time I have ever seen fall in a place where the leaves change and I really dig it. But I miss San Diego. No offense but y’alls Mexican food sucks.”
I chuckled. “Have you ever been to the West side?”
“I don’t think so”
“Well that’s your problem! See Lee lives on the North Side where there are mostly white folks. The West side is where most of the Latino population resides. There are a couple of good places in the North but you have to search real hard for them.”

From there, the conversation flowed easily. We talked until we reached Lee’s house about an hour and a half later. Lee buzzed us in and we all sat on the couch with Aric and I still laughing about an experience he had with a man that couldn’t drive.

With a lighthearted expression Lee declared, “I guess you guys hit it off after all.”
We all laughed and Aric replied, “She’s aight. Kind of crazy though.”
“I am not! I exclaimed, “you’re the one who decided that the way here wasn’t long enough so you double us back twice just so you could pass by the maple trees again!”
Lee cleared his throat amidst our laughter. “So I wanted to talk to you two. Are you guys willing to give all of us a chance?”
“I guess” Aric and I replied at the same time and burst out laughing again.
Suddenly I thought of something that immediately sobered me up. “But Lee, there are two problems. One, why did you tell us both that you would erase our feelings for you if this didn’t work. Two, the fact remains that I’m still a virgin. I mean I really like Aric but I still am not ready to try to handle the both of you.”
Lee sat back and breathed heavily through his nose. “Well as for the first question, I said that so you both would have some incentive to at least give each other a chance. The answer to the second question is what I said before. We don’t have to try to make this all come together right now. You and I can continue our relationship and you can begin yours with Aric. Sometimes we will all hang out but we wont pressure you to do anything until you are ready.”
Then Aric chimed in. “I know I was a little negative before but I would like to see where this goes. Also I do feel Lee’s love for you and my love for Lee tells me that I need to trust you. So, as for me, I’m all in. That’s why for tonight even though I almost wish that it would be me who were to take your virginity, I will let Lee go on with his plans and hope that one day we can have our own time together.”
Aric and Lee rose off of the couch and embraced each other closely.
“I’ve missed you, cariño. I’ll come back another time. See you soon.”
Lee leaned forward; molding his lips to Aric’s face two, three times.
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
After one last kiss, Aric closed the door behind him.

After such a long day I tipped my head back to rest on the couch, trying to process what had happened in the past 24 hours. Lee dropped to my side and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, kissing my forehead.
“Long day?”
“You have no idea”
“Actually I do, remember?”
I snorted and laughed “Oh yeah, right.”
“So, yesterday you mentioned something about being ready…”

New Year, New Beginning, New Day

2011-01-06T06:42:00.000-08:00

2010 can go jump off a bridge... seriously... but just like the song Your Ex-Lover is Dead, I just need to "live through this, and you wont look back". So I'm taking another semester off and staying home... but that doesnt mean that I'm going to be inside all the time. As a matter of fact, I'm taking some community college courses (REALLY excited about that... I miss school SO much. Because I'm weird :D )... I'm also going to continue my volunteer job with my elementary school library. I am planning on doing a modern dance class at my local Ballet studio as well... not to mention the parties, jazz clubs, and shennanigans I'm going to get into once I've turned 21. For this semester, I hope I can get to the point that I'm not crying about the fact that my entire life has been messed up by this depression. I want to be able to see this as a new beginning and not just an abrupt ending. So hold on to your hat 2011, we're starting fresh!

I Cant Pray Anymore

2010-11-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

I cant pray anymore
the light has left my body
and instead, I am filled with a hollowed and
oppressive darkness that wont lift

I cant pray anymore
my cries to the sky fall upon the clouds
and seem too weak to rise any higher

I cant pray anymore
The words of the book seem emptied of their
significance and promise and I am left with
only words

I cant pray anymore
I only cry out, lost and alone, choked with
my own sorrow and without any aid
to save me

I cant pray anymore
dhut out of a house that I called home
told to open doors that one locked and bolted
and here's me, without a key
I keep waiting hoping something will change
but I'm locked out and freezing in the cold
crying slowly
dying slowly

People say Amen
and my reply is "Whatever"
Because I get no answers
I am hurt instead of helped

I cant pray anymore
I can sing anymore
I cant love anymore
My faith has been broken and dissapated
I know if I could hear something or someone call to me, things would be ok again...
but I cant

Mirror, mirror

2010-11-03T19:53:00.001-07:00

I have an addiction that’s more like an affliction because I’m sick of my reflection, staring back at me glaring at my body, finding fault with every heartbeat that escapes me

Weird SciFi Dream

2010-10-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

So I was on this huge ship/planet with the rest of humanity. we were paired with aliens trying to genetically mix with humans. We had to adjust to the aliens being there so we put in wider doors and fewer walls because these aliens had a large centipede like body with a centaur like head. It looks as if they were made out of glass. So we're all transformed into human-alien hybrids which made us have to adjust more to new room arrangements(there was a carnival for some odd reason)

Then some of the aliens wanted humans to turn fully alien and get rid of human individuality. They tried to force our bodies to become all alien by eliminated human invention and human requirements in buildings. but other aliens and humans didnt want that including myself so we stopped the aliens and put back human individuality and evolved into better forms than human or alien.

i've been reading too much octavia butlers, obviously lol

Homegoing

2010-10-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

This semester I returned to a semi-known status, one that was boosted with my false confidence. I say false because I didn’t know how much had change. I didn’t know that my previous snugly fit position had turned on me, effectively shutting me out of the well-oiled machine that is college life. Without my place, my reserved throne, I was tossed from remembrance by my peers and left wondering where else could I go?

8 Real Reasons That I Date Outside My Race

2010-09-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

1. The more open my mind is in general, the more likely that my expectations wont crowd out potential matches.
2. Percentage wise, there would be more people that will compliment my personality than if you just stick with one race
3. I start to see how privilege works when not just applied to whiteness.
4. Different exposure to how folks unlike my usual normal work and live.
5. In the pool of potential dating opportunities that I have in my community, the kind of guy I'm looking for is more about maturity and open-mindedness than about finding "a man".
6. I see how inter-racism works and how more than just blacks are negatively affected by it
7. So many more hot guys lol.
8. It's always been about who compliments me on the inside, not on the outside. race does matter but so does compatibility.

Similes

2010-09-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

i really love Lupe Fiasco and N.E.R.D... they were the mango smoothie to my kool-aid, the baked catfish to my fried chicken.

Shadows

2010-09-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

As I dream I feel the whispers of shadows creeping along my body. My phsycality rejoices at this alien concept of touch and caresses. My mind, however, looks on sadly, knowing that these shadows would shrink in the candlelight of actual memories and i possess no memories. As a result, my body's sensitivity has heightened to a painful degree, one that these shadows can even excite.

To Spanish or not to Spanish?

2010-09-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

so i was in one of my "moods" when i happened to think up this phrase "mi corazón siente hinchado pero vacío"... it made me wonder if i should start writing poetry in spanish as well... or a weird hybrid of spanglish... i dunno but a poem about how i ended up so immersed in Latino (most mexican and puetro rican) issues and language might make an interesting poem... we'll see.

plus it will be a welcome break from writing about how depressed and lonely i am

Underfed

2010-09-02T10:17:00.001-07:00

Starving for non-obligated touch, something like a brazenly unashamed caress. Something that shows me Im wanted, but in my life, dreams remain where they are. Waking up to the rain is what I have to look forward to

Finally I'm Admitting That I Love Him

2010-08-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

when i tentatively said to myself, "i think i love him" it felt like that was right. Not right as in right with the world or good, just right as in "correct". i never expected my first "love" to be such a dull ache that spans years rather than a sharp pain that lasts very shortly. (i guess, i kno i havent felt anything as strong and lasting as this and it sure as hell contributes to my depression and misery.)... i had always hoped for it to be with someone that loves me back but nope. and it's been a years long process and it ends the same. im not who he wants. and i will probably cry later. again. shit, after so many rejections and unreturned feelings, you'd think i get better or at least less affected by this. FUCK i dont need this

Maybe I should rename my blog Diary of a Frequently Forgotten and Lonely Black Girl

2010-08-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

i didnt realize it till now but i am starting to think that joining a sorority was my downfall. let's look at the facts. pre-sorority, i was confident in myself, enjoyed my own company, self-reliant, and didnt depend on other people to be happy and complete.

when i was on line however all that change. i did it for all the "noble" reasons. i wanted to trust people and friend more and learn to be a part of something other than my own laziness. cuz here was a organization that stated it's values as the same values as i proclaim: academics, helping the community, fighting cultural ignorance, being posed and confident women, and being able to interact with different people. but in order to get that, i compromised so much. and im starting to wonder if any of that is even real.

i was no longer in charge of my own schedule, i had girls tell me how worthless and disappointed in me they were at all times. i didnt have myself and the control to rule my own life. and slowly i crumbled more and more. maybe this whole sorority business has damaged me more than i thought. because now i feel weak, starved for attention, the need to feel truly wanted instead of just tolerated. and i want to impress people. there were times when they kicked me (verbally) while i was down and yeah they would apologize but would do it again and then try to heal the wounds that i never had until they walked in. i have never been on edge so much in my life. it makes me wonder, was i wrong in continuing, in joining, and now, in staying?

before the process i was confident and self assured... and now im the opposite. is it really because of my pledging or is it something else?

i would give all this up in a second if it meant i could go back to how i used to be

Tired of Well Meaning People: Positive Intent doesnt equal Positive Outcome

2010-08-26T14:22:00.000-07:00

these are the times when my slow destruction has clouded out hope of seeing any light of rebirth
i dont know if i will be here still to see myself rise again

It's like...

flying in a cold sky and all of the sudden, a blizzard hits... I cant fight it, I can only land and hide
but as I hide,
I freeze,
I start to die.
No matter that I'm told that it will end soon, or that I will survive.
I cant deny that I'm still dying. It gets colder and colder and I hope that I can hold out until the blizzard ends.

Being alone hurts more than ever because there's no heat other than my own fading warmth. Sometimes there are others who stay for a bit and attempt to warm me with shallow promises and a dissipating presence...
but they leave me so quickly (because obligation and fleeting concern "eventually" flies away) and I end up colder than before and dying that much faster.
Dont tell me there will be relief "eventually" as Im fading NOW. I need something concrete now to hold on to. Making it past this hour is my focus
Dont fucking ever tell me "Eventually" because you know what?
Eventually you'll leave me,
eventually the cold will freeze me.
and the only thing that the "eventual" blizzard's end will do is thaw my dead body so it can finally start rotting

Heated Chains

2010-08-19T14:02:00.001-07:00

Heated Chains: Part 1

I wake up again, panting, wishing for this to be over with already. Shackles of my own loneliness and lust hold me up as I listen for the inevitable footfalls on the stair, which come only when I cease to (hallucinate) again. As I attempt to unlock myself from this self-inflicted pit that I have fallen into, they finally appear. As they walk into the room, my eyes watch with anger at my weakness and embarrassment at the fact that, deep down, I wish be bound like this because I have nowhere else to go. However, each arousal blinds me for longer until the line between what I want and what I have is irrevocably blurred. I stare into the face as it comes closer and closer, kissing me until I fall again into sweet-tasting indulgence and insanity.

These dreams are always the same, my independence and believed inner-strength spat upon as the visions contain my deepest desires. Wishing to be loved for all of me, as my waist and ego are caressed. In this moment, I dont care that this isnt real because this fantasy, this unreality, is the only one that I can claim for myself. There is no guessing, no uncertainty, and no reason to not continue. My life within “reality” has left me little to give up so staying here is too easy.

Again, I fall into a non-sleep that arouses feelings that I always proclaimed that I never had and the heat takes me once more.

Part II: Heated Depths

Within the Dream State
My body is the victim of my thoughts and my thoughts are the night’s prey to my physical cravings. Each intertwine the other in a ongoing circle that keeps me trapped within caresses and chains, wondering if I’ll ever see the light of my self control again

What My Dreams Are Made Of
I dream in emotions where visuals and imagery are secondary. I’m more than just raw, I’m singular and all consuming with the power of what I feel. I wake up with the aftertaste in my mouth and heart and it takes hours to reach any sort of reality again but the heat of my fire stays with me.

Part III: Tentative Cooling

The chains that once burned so fiercely have turned cold on me. After one last effort that blazed into dissipating presence, whatever was holding me here has disappeared. Exhausted and aching I look up at the basement door. I am not sure but I think it's finally unlocked. The only question is if I attempt to escape, will I only be pulled back in. As I walk towards the door though, so far, it seems not

She saw him at the bus stop: a short story

2010-08-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

She saw him at the bus stop, probably waiting for the same bus as her. She eyed him, assessing his black spiky hair, coal-black eyes and rounded pink lips. In all honesty, she thought, he is pretty attractive. She guessed from his laptop bag and obvious Chinese descent that he was a student from the college campus that she lived on with her family. The community that she lived in was pretty mixed but there weren’t a lot of Asian men, save for the ones who were going to the college or members of the community who were already married and rarely seen without their wives.
She glanced at him again, a little hesitant to approach. Her experiences (and the experiences of friends like her) told her that most Chinese guys were even less into black women than white guys. White guys had their fantasies of booty shaking girls while Chinese men, it seemed, just ignored the presence of any womanly essence or personal relativity encased in black skin. However, it’s not like she had anything to lose. Her batting average at a continuing acquaintance after a short-lived meeting was so low that she wasn’t too invested in feeling hurt after a more-than-likely rejection.
She moved closer to him, trying to get his slight attention since his headphones would block out anything she said and the words would fall on the ears of the people around her without any reception. Hey, she said, and waited as he took of his headphones, glancing at her.
“I like your laptop bag. Where did you get it?”
He replied with a glimmer of personal connection, “Oh, I actually got it as a gift”
There the conversation started, the easier task for her since starting things were her forte. It was continuing them, preserving them that seemed to be the problem. True to form, the conversation carried as far as the arriving bus. Still attempting to keep the conversation alive, she talked with him about her need for a laptop in her major as they got in line to pay the bus fare. Unfortunately when the fare was paid and she sat down, he nodded in her direction, passed the open seat next to her, and continued to a seat in the back of the bus.
She sighed, put on her headphones, and used the music to drown out the feedback of her latest rejection.

(Let me know what you think!!)

Current Mood: The Urge To Scream "FUCK!!!"

2010-07-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

So I visited my college campus to say good-bye to my friends who are going to Rome for study abroad. i love those two girls to death, it's going to be hard without them. We acted crazy and stuff for 4 days and it really did me some good. It reminded me of the good friends and life i have back there to look forward to.
However there was a downside to the visit. Two of my friends who "Werent looking for a relationship" or "didnt want commitment" are now officially in a relationship... wtf? now in my 14+ group of friend it is me and one other girl who isnt in a relationship and the other girl just got out of one so it kinda doesnt count.

hence the urge to scream "fuck"

i mean, it got to the point where i google searched "20 yrs old, never been kissed" to see if i was a freak or not. because no matter what my parents and neighbors say, most people i know have been in at least one relationship if not more. usually more by my age. and when i looked online, the kind of people in the same boat were mostly jesus freaks... yeah, that didnt make me feel any better. fuck, what's so wrong with me?

FUCK

A Letter To Mr. Cutie At the Bus Stop

2010-07-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Attractive Chinese-American U of C Student at the Bus Stop,
When I asked you about your laptop bag, I wasnt actually interested in where you got it. I was trying to start a conversation. and eventually flirt. better luck next time, sexy.

Love,
A Attractive Black Female Iowa State Student

Today was a good day

2010-07-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

Man, it seems like my lows are finally not outnumbering my highs so much. and my neutrals are increasing. today was definitely a high though.

Day started out with a food extravaganza, lol. tomato mozarella, out-of-the-box muffins, and a little smoothie, much more than i usually have for breakfast.
At around 12 me, my neighbors, their kids, and my sister all went out to see Toy Story 3. It's funny because my neighbors are white and black and the kids are half white half indian. and then me and my sister are black. my neighbors though are in general, super cool. anyway, Toy Story 3 was great, best movie i've seen this year. after, we went to Little Italy and had Thai food ironically. We also bought Italian ices at the lemonade stand.

When we got home, i got a call from a guy that i know from my old soccer team. i had seen him the day before and he talked about us hanging out, something that i didnt mid doing. so we walked around a nearby park and talked for a bit. unfortunately i was kind of bored and i made up an excuse to go home. he talked about how we should go to a movie or something and at first i was thinking no but i talked to a neighbor who helped me see that not everything has to be about a new relationship or whatever. just going out with a friend and seeing a movie should be chill. now all i have to do is not obssess over it and i will be golden. overthinking stuff is my specialty unfortunately.

so now, im just going to try and take it a day at a time

Starting with this

2010-06-29T15:48:00.001-07:00

"I must learn to love the fool in me, the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries."- Theodore Isaac Rubin

What Will Destroy Me

2010-06-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

What will destroy me is this silence. right here. a silence that smells of this bed that i unconsciously made myself. It's filled with mothballs of my imagination and a chained fence to keep me away from the unimaginable, the unattainable things that i cant cope with.
but it's not my fault, i never knew another way. but im still stranded.
what can i do honestly now that i've seen that there is no way out and the habits i thought were just habits are actually buried deep inside the bone so that i can never escape them or be saved from them.

why do i cringe, why do i run, why cant i just stop and chill for one second. why do i always feel like staying will destroy me when running is helping no better.

So This Is Where I'm At

2010-05-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

To start off, I love Bassey Ipki. I almost feel like she's a mirror at times of what I look like from the outside (behavior wise anyway). What she seems and what she tweets and talks about are also juxtaposed in a way that I find very familiar. People tell me about my beauty, my self-awareness, my consciousness, and my "strength" which I always laugh at. And then they see my twitter or catch me when I'm on the outs and they are always so surprised at the inner workings of my mind.

On twitter, Basseyworld and another woman, museofinsanity were talking about BP2 and how their minds operate. As I read (sorry, I'm nosy) I kept thinking "exactly! that's exactly what I do". I'm not saying i have BP2 but a lot of things resonated with me like:

1. over-analysis and suspicion bordering on paranoia.

I overthink everything. especially relationships and what exactly they do for both other people and for me. Also I am suspicious about EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. When i do that, i almost feel safe, like, if i always keep in mind that anything can happen, i will never be shocked or too hurt when they do. If i analyze this and prepare for any consequence, i can deal better.

When i meet people and hit it off with them, i always keep in mind, "they might be this" or they might be that. i remember when i was younger and learned about how some men abuse their younger female relatives, i made myself, not necessarily believe that mine would, but tried to prepare myself so that i would know what to do if they did. I wanted to be able to sever a connection or love just in case i was betrayed. and it's always like that.

and then i over analyze myself, trying to find what is wrong with me so i can fix it. i compartmentalize, over analyze and try to diagnose EVERYTHING that i do because if i know what it is, then i may know better how to fix it. even this whole post is me trying to figure out what's going on with me and then be able to at least deal better.

2. Always thinking about how others see me and how I expose myself

Even acts that are natural to me are thought about. i think "if i do this, their reaction will be this and if they react like this, i can do or say this. and it's exhausting. i dont even know if it about caring what people think or about trying to be hurt or angry as little as possible

I always want to be low key. Sometimes i feel like i am not a good friend because I dont call sometimes as much as I feel a real friend would. Or that I dont do enough for people as their friend. Foe example i feel like im not a good sorority sister because i dont always want to do things with the sorority or i dont call all of the sisters enough. As for calling people in general, i dont really like talking on the phone because my mind gets distracted a lot since I dont have the visual. I prefer talking with people face to face. I remember i was listening to Blacking It Up while working on a project when Bassey was like "It's hard for me to pay attention to you guys when you jump from topic to topic. i get confused" "I have nothing to look at" (Sorry Bassey for outing you but I was like "Damn I'm not the only one who does that huh? The last thing I want to do is make you feel like I'm making fun of you because that is my last intention.) But I feel like I make a really crappy friend.

3. Seeing how whenever I move on to a different mindset in my life, I lose the previous set of friends.

As for the friends part, usually, but not on purpose, i change my mindset or way of life and they never chase after me anyway so I never trust them to after awhile. It was really hard when i was pledging. I would break down often but not tell anyone because I didnt want them to annoy me. especially because I broke down a lot. and over stuff that i wasnt sure they would understand, sometimes things i didnt even understand. i didnt want them to see how my mind worked because people have always thought im weird anyway and thats just from what i let show.

4. thinking that people are mad at me or stop caring about me because i did something

I remember that when i was younger i would always be like "my name is karen, if you ever have a problem with me, let's talk about it face to face. let me know and we will deal with it. and this was when i was like 13. i wanna deal with issues and trust that people will raise them instead of them being mad at me to the point where i lose them because of something i didnt know i did. i blame so much on myself because if i did something, then i might be able to fix it. and then i try doing so

there are other similarities and things that those two talked about that i found in myself. And if I tried talking about the issues I have with men and dating, I would be here for like a month. But as a quick overview, i am 20 years old and never have been kissed, been in a relationship, and I have never found a guy where there was a mutual and equal amount of wanting. For the most part it was always them never liking me
(whether enough or at all).
im kind of tired so i will leave this here for now but here are some of the poems i have written about these things.

Passing Me By
let me carve a place of loneliness for myself, where I'll sit and watch life pass. I'll wave occasionally of course. i will even convince ppl im about to get up. but i never will, will i?

Let go, let go
Let go of your investments in the time, space, and feelings you shared with them. I tried to warn you before didn’t I? I told you that as good as it was then, they would eventually drop you at a time where you’re the most vulnerable. See that’s why it’s been just you and me. Which in essence is you and you. Just let go of the laughter inside of the inside jokes and let go of the hugs, the kisses on the cheek, let go of finally being part of something other than your own pity party cause you weren’t even invited to that. Its not that they don’t like you, its just that they didn’t care, something that you always suspected, something that I always told you. But you decided that since you never trusted before, you should probably start. You’ve always been left out, remember?
No matter how long the time, whether weeks, months, or years, they eventually tell you what you knew already. That you just not part of them, can never be part of them and so good luck on your search elsewhere.
What? You don’t want to let go? Please baby, what are you going to do? Even if they do pick you up again, for how long will they keep you? They’ll take what you give them and give you fool’s gold of self-worth and confidence back cause hey, you never mastered the whole “achieving self-contentment” thing alone, did you? Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. So let go of the mess, let go of them, because I will always be here in the back of your mind telling you and reminding you that you aren’t worth the time. You aren’t worth their time.
Now go ahead. Sit in the corner. Make sure to get some tissue

My blog post on 12/2/09 called "So, I have a dilemma" explains a lot of this and me.

What Am I Hiding?
Tucked away behind my stares and looks of…well I guess I’d call it superiority or maybe even ego. The thing is that yes, my ego is inflated but with what? Ego filled with nothing substantial or real that can combat the miles of insecurities and questions that I battle with while trying to do simple things like ordering a Peppermint Hot Chocolate. I would get a mocha but I really don’t like coffee all that much, I just get it for the chance at having something warm to hold on to, something warm to consume and make me feel content for even just a second. In reality I get a decaf, because I cant really handle the coffee itself. I love the chocolate though because chocolate, even in it’s unadulterated forms, still gives me its richness and flavor without making me deal with any unexpected side effects that I cant handle.
So, what am I hiding?

Untitled for Now
My mind lines up my failures one by one in an attempt to reiterate the fact that I may be me but that doesnt mean he has to like it. In fact, they rarely do. No girl power chants and declarations to be myself will comfort me when I'm staring at all the faces and names in my mind of those who just didnt care enough. Or just didnt care.
Doesnt matter how smart i am, how pretty they tell me I am, how loving, caring and kind they perceived me to be. Because they dont want what I can give. So I stand alone at a place where I can no longer comfort myself with the notion of Someday, because it has been too many days, too many failures, and too many instances of me watching them disappear with the continous looping thought of "Why didnt he want me?"

I really have no idea how my self esteem ended up in the crapper

2010-04-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

it's been a rough couple of months for my emotional and mental health. even after the stress lessened, i still found myself crying in between classes and at night when im by myself and the days activities are over. even right now it's hard for me to keep writing this and not to just regress back into my mind. at the moment i have no control over my thoughts and they just tortured me until im numb and i sleep to get away from it. im doing my best, talking to different people, taking advice, keeping busy. but i dont know for how long this will continue

Roosting

2010-04-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

my heart practically bursts out my chest for nothing. I'm so ready for things to happen and so clueless as to how to start. there is no easel to paint on, no audience to sing for, no one to receive what it is i have to give. and i leave again, and again, always unfufilled. so i just waste away, sadness rising with every loss. i attempt to be grateful but i just want to fly. im glad for having a safe place to roost but i want to start trying to FLY. otherwise, i will never be strong enough to sustain any flight, any journey.
unfortunately it's night and I have no idea when the sun will finally rise. i dont know if it ever will. shit, as far as my life has gone, i HAVE been waiting forever. i know i can go without the sun, live my life in darkness, knowing my way, repetition after repetition, but is it so wrong to want to see sunrise before i go blind? and my eyesight is already terrible. calling out, signing songs of wistful thinking and lonliness, waiting. and waiting.
and waiting with only hallucinations and daydreams to keep me company

Pain

2010-03-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

Pain, something that I didnt know that I knew about. All I felt was something like a wound. In disbelief I stared at it for awhile, not believing what I was seeing. Finally I poked at it to tell if it was real. Tears, infection, and the pain all flushed out at once and I tried to cradle and protect myself from doing it again. I hugged my arms close around my chest and rocked.
Pain is pretty painful

Unlearn

2010-02-17T15:43:00.001-08:00

Apparently I've been neglecting my blog. i will probably post about recent happenings and thought later but for now, here is a poem i wrote and performed.

Unlearn

Drawing crooked and indistinct lines in the sand between what I’ve known and what I’ve been told. Community, Humor, Family: all of it the romance that I’ve been told that my black skin is supposed to offer. Black survival and my survival are one in the same and yet are two opposing forces that I narrowly walk inbetween, always falling over one side or the other. The elements of this survival are jarring and change it's meaning everytime I think I get closer.

Community: Is it cold spaghetti at a barbeque or block parties with a broken fire hydrant?
Humor: Is humor making something so foul and stifling into a joke, so that it can unravel the bindings holding you prisoner to it?
Family: Is family the people who are the only ones who will defend you from anything and anyone?

The ante-bellum and "old time" stories detailing these attributes weave throughout 5th grade novels and primetime on BET but rarely get to a place where I can recognize them, save for the few that I have experienced first hand.

Instead of drawing from the same stale well of what I’m told that blackness means, I recall and regurgitate how these “givens” of blackness show themselves to me.

Community was exclusive; a club that only the ones who had "made it" could be in to show off our status. It was an isolated bubble of protection from the dangerous darkies that inhabited the outside world and werent fit to dine on the delights that our community consume with the quickness. We comforted ourselves with the insulation of how they weren’t like us anyway, that they needed to get jobs, get lighter, get Jesus, and get “educated” because hey, that’s how we did it.

Humor was a self-righteous exercise as we laughed our way over uncomfortable feelings of the holes we had dug in ourselves to be filled with other people's projections. Humor was a quick pill to ease the constant ache of sitting on people who we were and weren’t a part of.

Family was a badge of honor that we used to flash at people to let them know how much we were worth. Our kids were properly mixed with good hair and even better elocution. We were kids that went to good schools, good programs, and received even better scholarships.

And even as i look at these implications, I feel the love from my family and our commitments to making each other happy. I still feel the good times filled with laughter, I still feel the comforting presence of being within my community. My home.

We are kids that need to unlearn the poison of a double-edge security that has supported us and injured us for so long.

Passin me by

2010-02-01T05:45:00.001-08:00

let me carve a place of loneliness for myself, where I'll sit and watch life pass. I'll wave occasionally of course. i will even convince ppl im about to get up. but i never will, will i?

forgotten post

2010-01-31T15:01:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I look at a guy and think "man he is such a Hyde Park Cutie". you know, the intelligent, slightly pompous, usually light-skinned boys who listen to more punk rock and Jazz than gangsta rap. *sigh* I miss home sometimes.

Bullet Point Summary of 2009

2009-12-31T08:40:00.001-08:00

I am trying to find out whether this year was a good one or not...

-Winter Semester was pretty cool
- Had my own room
- Met my now good friends
- learned Bachata
- NCORE (definitely one of the amazing parts)
- Twittering with awesome ppl
- NCORE (because it was two awesome :D haha im punny...not really)
- Cut my hair
- Got into Graphic Design program
- So far, I've been able to keep my standards when going out
- Summer job at my old elementary school as a camp counselor
- BEAUTIFUL summer period
- picnic with my sister included
- Went to Phantom Ranch and sat in a meadow while reading and watching bumblebees
- roomed with a decent roommate
- failed epically at any attempt to establish a relationship with a man (as per usual). mostly due to a combination of fear and shallowness
- discovered twitter
- resulting from NCORE, started going on blogs and websites one race and pop culture.
- learned for the the first time about Elon James White, TWIB, and iLL-Literacy
- Started to really invest in hip-hop
- got closer to my neosoul roots (lookin at you erykah badu)
- started writing poetry again
- got appendicitis and spent 2 weeks in the hospital
- had stomach pain for the remainder of the year
- VP of Hapkido but only being able to go for the first 3 months
- learned bachata
- learned from my NCORE class and from my awesome teachers
- changed for the better

hold on, my mom says its time to go out so i will finish later

General Going-Ons

2009-12-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

As I wait for the 100th episode of bleach to load and stream on my computer, I guess I can take some time just to write. It's been a little while since i last decided to write something (besides this morning). In all honesty, i miss it. I still have the journals that I used to write in when I was younger. It's always interesting to see where my mind was at 1, 3, 5, even 10 years ago.

Anyways, a lot has been happening. Back in New York with the extended family. It's weird how everything has changed but if I dont think about it, I can transform (only temporarily though) back into the person i was only a few years ago. By that I mean when I hang with my cousins. I can, for a few moments, knock out the awareness that i have been trying to arouse, and enjoy my cousins jokes, silly antics and such. Sometimes it's okay because we really are just silly. however there is always a word or a phrase that wakes me up again like "wait, did she just say that?". before i used to rant, rave, and scream about it but all that got me was silent treatments and a really terrible time in new york. i dont just want to get by though by being silent. i dont do silent. but my cousins are in love with their ignorance. try to tell them that something is wrong, they shut down. there really is no talking to them about stuff that matters. so like a good little uncle tom, I sit and ignore their ignorance because when I try to say something, it only shuts them down. so im not sure what to do about it.

anyways i am having fun. especially when just watching silly videos on youtube.
...
-Oh great, I had been wondering whether my mother could still punish me if im no longer a teenager. i've been arguing with my parents alot more lately. especially my mother. i admit that i have been a lot more self-interested since i got home. being away at college has really spoiled me. no waiting for other people to get stuff done, my schedule being up to me and no one else, not having to put up with habits and bickering from my sister and parents. of course i've missed my family but i never really missed living with them. I've missed my house and cat but i didnt miss being stuck in the house with chores to do that arent things i have done myself. especially doing everbody else's dishes. definitely havent missed that. it's not necessarily that i am just lazy and hate doing work. it's more about the fact that my parents groan about cleaning up after ourselves, yet when messes are made by them, they expect me and my sister, but mostly me, to cleam up, telling us that it is our chore. i ask to have like a specific idea of what they want me too do around the house but it gets changed up so much that times that i thought i was done, they come up with more stuff to do

and i know im ungrateful and spoiled but really mom cant you carry up your own damn suitcase? you are not needy nor weak. groceries i understand, cleaning up the family dishes when i've used my share, fine, but cleaning up a room that i havent seen in 3+ months just because my sister can keep her stuff clean?

and yes, i totally own up to the fact that im a selfish, spoiled brat. but damn, there are some things that i think people should be able to take care of themselves.

right now my mom is mad at me for not answering her when she was calling me. thing is that i had my headphones on at the times so i couldnt hear her (i had turned them up to tune out my little sister. also she is mad at me for not helping move the table when i have been moving it my own damn self for that past 4 days.

so i am choosing to let them go to my cousins house without me because a little space to think is appreciated. and also im kind of tired of relatives at the moment

Yet Another Argument

2009-12-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

So, as I have written before, I have an interesting relationship with my Sociology class and the people who teach it. What happened about two weeks ago was another argument about race and it's place in the perspectives that this class teaches. Unlike last time however, this argument was with the TA, whom I dont talk to all that much since he usually teaches the Supplemental Instruction.

Anyway, many times in the class, the main professor has said repeatedly that classes on race or gender are okay as side ventures but you cant grasp the full perspective of economy, capitalism, and government unless you take a course like his that focuses on class...so modest.

This phrase i have thought about a lot all semester. My opinion about it stays the same, that you cant grasp the full perspective of economy, capitalism, and government without investigating the intersections of race, class, and gender, because that is what the U.S. system is based on.

So, picture this: I am at a study session for the final, which is being taught by the TA I previously mentioned. After the session is over, I chat with the TA, along with a few other students. The topics were about Capitalist systems of government and the effect of alienation on it's citizens to keep capitalist labor running. Students start to leave and there is only me, the TA (white), and another student (also white). As we talk about the Sociology class in general, the TA mentions again the benefit of having this sort of "general" class. I responded with the fact that what was taught in class I had previously started to learn already through the courses and programs on race and it's intersectionality with class, gender, government, etc. He, at first, tried to get me to deny that i had learned such things from a "race class". And then he started talking about how issues of class, capitalism, and government cant be solved through learning about race. Race was more or less, a side business that would get solved later when issues of class were solved...yeah.

I tried to explain to him how my perception of class is one that can not be seperated from race or gender. he didnt get it. Instead he repeated how because of my "preoccupation" with race, I could see the bigger picture. In fact, because I was black, I was in fact, biased. I attempted to point out how neither of us were unbiased in this argument. Him being a white male was just as much a bias. (the student who was listening to this argument wasnt happy with this inference either)

And then he pulled the "I'm part Irish and the Irish werent white" trick. Key term in that phrase "werent". The I basically countered with how Irish and Irish Americans are very different and although Irish isnt white, Irish American certainly is. I tried bringing up the book "How the Irish Became White" but he switched back to the original subject.

He started to focus on specific arguments to prove that class was independent of race. like how is your black, you are not necessarily poor, but if you're poor, your poor... Which basically was his entire argument.

I tried to explain to him again, how i believe in the theory of intersectionality and how a "solution" to class inequality could not come without dealing with race because they are part and parcel of the same big picture. it was this perspective that i dont think he ever grasped. he kept saying how class and race were seperate. (and then accusing me of saying that race was the most important aspect when i say no such thing. I just didnt discount it as some "side accessory" to be dealt with later. which means never)

I even attempted a metaphor because at this point, I wasnt trying to change his opinion. I was just trying to get him to see my point. whether he agreed or not. but he refused to see it. I used Gumbo as a metaphor (i know, i know, but i was really hungry at that point. it was like 8pm and i hadnt had dinner yet.) Basically Gumbo or class, isnt gumbo unless it has all the ingrediants that make it gumbo in the first place. Class isnt just on category, it's a label meant to identify certain experiences and elements that does not exclude race or gender.

but eventually i gave up. he wasnt hearing me.

Poem #3

2009-12-07T12:37:00.000-08:00

Im basically writing a whole bunch of poems so that eventually at least one will be good. hopefully.

Let go, let go
Let go of your investments in the time, space, and feelings you shared with them. I tried to warn you before didn’t I? I told you that as good as it was then, they would eventually drop you at a time where you’re the most vulnerable. See that’s why it’s been just you and me. Which in essence is you and you. Just let go of the laughter inside of the inside jokes and let go of the hugs, the kisses on the cheek, let go of finally being part of something other than your own pity party cause you weren’t even invited to that. Its not that they don’t like you, its just that they didn’t care, something that you always suspected, something that I always told you. But you decided that since you never trusted before, you should probably start. You’ve always been left out, remember?
No matter how long the time, whether weeks, months, or years, they eventually tell you what you knew already. That you just not part of them, can never be part of them and so good luck on your search elsewhere.
What? You don’t want to let go? Please baby, what are you going to do? Even if they do pick you up again, for how long will they keep you? They’ll take what you give them and give you fool’s gold of self-worth and confidence back cause hey, you never mastered the whole “achieving self-contentment” thing alone, did you? Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. So let go of the mess, let go of them, because I will always be here in the back of your mind telling you and reminding you that you aren’t worth the time. You aren’t worth their time.
Now go ahead. Sit in the corner. Make sure to get some tissue
.

So, I have a dilemma

2009-12-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

How do I truly acknowledge and accept who I am? I am strange but I am sick of wearing as some sort of badge on my chest. im tired of only trying to be "different" and not me. and the only reason why i do that is because people point out how weird i am without me trying but i dont know how to defend myself against my doubts and their words. i dont know if im doing this right

UPDATE: So after talking with twitter folks i think im going to insert a subtitle whenever i find "political cerebral answers". and i am not mocking the person who told me that because she's right. i need to stop hiding behind it

(for reference Im a 19-year-old, mid-class, black woman from the Midwest. The people I will be referring to are all female and either Latino or Black, middle class or working class. However I go to a majority white, rural school so finding a group of people who wont ask me if I tan is a little difficult which is why I hang with this group so much)

SUBTITLE: the girls im with are some of the few people of color at this school and i feel comfortable hanging out with since i dont have to brush over topics with them for the sake of "getting along"

For those of you who dont know me, I have very rarely cared about fashion. I also cared little about blending in. However things have been happening very fast so even just writing this out may help.

Recently I have gained a new group of friends. Especially two in particular. People who actually seem to like being around me and when I say strange or weird stuff (which happens often) they dont give me the side eye for it. most of the time they either agree or they laugh. mostly laugh. I have had little experience dealing with people and I dont usually hang with my peers but I have been enjoying their company. However there is this one thing.

I have never grown up to love shopping, to care all that much about style or fashion other than the few occasions that i go dancing (cuz i love dancing). I dont wear makeup and rarely wear anything other than beat up white sneakers or boots. So the girls Im hanging with are trying to change that a little. When I wanted to get a outfit to wear when I went dancing, I let them "kidnap" me to get some clothes. Now though, some want me to completely redo my closet. Mostly because all I wear most days are sneakers, jeans, a one size too big tshirt and a bulky sweatshirt. The thing is, I would hate to start nursing a dependence on mainstream clothing and fashion etiquette, which i have always prided myself on not having.

SUBTITLE: I hate changing the things that I like or am comfortable doing just because other people are doing it and not because I actually want it.

One of other the things keeping me from wanting to buy more clothes, accessories, and shoes is that fact that then I would be buying (literally) into the lifestyle that corporations and society tells me i need to have as a black female: the endless nail polish, jewelry, hats, scarves, makeup etc. and i really dont want that. i dont want to be anymore dependent on a system that i despise any more than i have to be. buying clothes that i dont need has never been a mindset of mine and i want to keep it that way.

SUBTITLE: I always compare myself to my peers and I like separating myself as a sort of defense mechanism because I have always been considered strange and so instead of trying to hide it like I used to, I project it until I seem as if I am fine being different. I very rarely find people that wont laugh at me because i've been laughed at by everyone else and it still pisses me off. So I try to fake like I have embraced it instead. TV and people I have tried to be friends with tell me that I'm too out there.
But it is no lie that I despise the manipulative nature of "mainstream culture" because it puts an emphasis on normality. and people tell me im not normal.

some of the people I am hanging out with are willing to let me go as far as i am willing so maybe its just a matter of me saying "okay, im good now. im done buying clothes". cause when i talk about capitalism, racism, or the inherent system of dependency on material items to gain human interactions like friendship and love, and the the inherent privilege that comes with that, nobody really listens.
SUBTITLE: I am starting to learn about capitalism, classism, racism, ableism, and privilege and whenever i want to talk about what i've learned or theories, im always shut down.

reading this post makes me realize that i sound like a 14-year-old. then again when it comes to people my age that probably is my maturity level.

MOST RECENT UPDATE:Yeah, I make simple things complicated and oversimplify the complicated. my dilemma that i posted earlier was less about my friends and more about my continuing issues with being laugh at by my peers and, as a defense mechanism, projecting my "difference" out with false pride. still not sure how to deal with that

Class Assignment

2009-11-30T14:18:00.000-08:00

In a place where girls dreamed of their great white knight swooping in to save them from the perils of loserdom, lonliness, and self-confidence, I dream of someone, someone’s, somewhere different. In my battle of being black, being a woman, being someone “real” I am stuck between the worlds or my community’s expectations. I have the wonderful choices of being “some ghetto chick”, expected to flash her booty, juke, and whose self worth is worth less than her Timbs but whose inner strength and individuality is buried and silenced. I could be the uber “successful” BLACK WOMAN lawyer/ doctor whose career was life and life was measured on how you “overcame” stereotypes that weren’t made to fit anyway. And then there was the once-in-a-lifetime offer to be someone “deep”. Someone who took their experiences to mold self into a “beautiful strong young sistah” emphasis on the “tah”. I wanna be down And so with a patriarchal society’s words whispering in my ear, I set off to find “somebody”. Somebody who was the difference, the person that I wished to be.

I dreamed of a lyrical knight, no not a knight, a “brotha’”. The funny thing is he doesn’t even hafta be a brotha. Someone “down”, someone who refuses what is pushed on to him, someone who uses words, style, and sentiment to stand strong, stand proud in the face of the forces that try to detain, mutilate, and destroy. Someone who skateboards, someone who plays street soccer, or uses spoken word to release. No, all he has to be is someone who “gets it”. Who understands to some degree the pits that hold us, the files that dull us down until we forget that what made us, forget how to look beyond what is seen and heard, make us forget how to think for ourselves. At the same time he sees his light, he sees his true worth and knows that it is his expectations that matter the most. Someone who can spit, someone who can speak, whether Chinese, Spanish, Tagalong, or English. I dreamed of someone who could dance the dances. Dances that require some kind of alternate thought, skill, and touch, like the step or the bachata moderna. Hell I would’ve taken the oh-so-cool fists up and rockin back and forward step. The men who get my heart beating arent the ones who say “You had me at hello”. No, it would be “I’m really feelin you.”. bump-BUMP . Like other privileged, middle class, light-skinned, conflicted, “TRAGIC” girl-women, I fell in love with hip-hop and the ideals I created from it.

I wish I was deep

2009-11-30T12:46:00.000-08:00

So right now I'm sort of in love with Ill-literacy. It's probably the combination of hip-hop slang and legos that do it. or it could be the style of talk that's so intoxicating. Geez look at me, Im already tryin to spit something as if I am deep.

But really, that's what happens when I try to write poetry. Nowadays songs and people who I think are deep inspire me. My poem Maple Sky? Inspired (and goes a little with the song) White on Rice by Goh Nakamura. and a few poems that I am coming out with right this instant are from feelings that I have for Spoken Words geniuses like Ill-literacy and hip hop in general. So, here the poems are.

Maple Sky
Love’s the high school petty girl
Who uses your heart for a necklace of pearls
And shows off how she has you crippled
Smirking as the smooth surface of my mind ripples

So I'll write a bittersweet poem
about chocolate kisses and ice cold snow in
hopes that you'll never figure out what I mean.
But still it's never as subtle as it seems.

Bigger thoughts float in and out
of my brown head like cirrus clouds
against a large forehead-like backdrop of maple.
Below a forest setting of tight black curls

But it always comes back to me thinking
about how love never rises from the sinking
feeling that’s called melancholy dreaming.

What Am I Hiding?
Tucked away behind my stares and looks of…well I guess I’d call it superiority or maybe even ego. The thing is that yes, my ego is inflated but with what? Ego filled with nothing substantial or real that can combat the miles of insecurities and questions that I battle with while trying to do simple things like ordering a Peppermint Hot Chocolate. I would get a mocha but I really don’t like coffee all that much, I just get it for the chance at having something warm to hold on to, something warm to consume and make me feel content for even just a second. In reality I get a decaf, because I cant really handle the coffee itself. I love the chocolate though because chocolate, even in it’s unadulterated forms, still gives me its richness and flavor without making me deal with any unexpected side effects that I cant handle.
So, what am I hiding?

A Way-To-Being-Less-Ig'nant Reading List

2009-11-26T22:14:00.001-08:00

Basically a list filled with books that both were recommended by NCORE, by my peers, and books that I picked up on my own

Lost and Found: Reclaiming the Japanese American Incarceration by Karen L. Ishizuka.

Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity (Law, Meaning, and Violence)

Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military During World War II, by Brenda L. Moore

The Uses of Haiti- Paul Farmer

Melal: A Novel of the Pacific by Robert Barclay

From a Native Daughter- Haunani Kay Trask

Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity

Pacific Voices Talk Story: Conversations of American Experience (Volume 4)

roll of thunder hear my cry series (mildred taylor)

The Lost History of Christianity

"The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven" - Sherman Alexie

The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What it Means for America

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The Shock Doctrine --Naomi Klein

The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity by Soong-chan Rah

The Motorcycle Diaries: Ché Guevara

A People’s History

Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color Blind Society by Michael K. Brown

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education and a New Social Movement

Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White- Tim Wise

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings- Maya Angelou

Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Because I Know You Don't Read the Newspaper by Aaron McGruder

Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean

Souls of Black Folk W.E.B Dubois

Native Daughter- Haunani Kay Trask

Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity

Pacific Voices Talk Story: Conversations of American Experience (Volume 4)

Melal: A Novel of the Pacific by Robert Barclay

Negro History- Carter G. Woodsen

Sex and Race- J.A. Rogers

The Possessive Investment in Whiteness-George Lipsitz

How Jews became white folks and what that says about race in America By Karen Brodkin

Randall Robinson's The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks

Untold Civil Rights Stories: Asian Americans Speak Out for Justice

The Language of Cultural Racism Speech Outline (Revise)

2009-09-27T16:32:00.000-07:00

Title: The Language of Cultural Racism

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about American cultural racism and its appearance in our language by giving historical context of that language.

Central Idea: American cultural racism is evident in the words we use to casually describe appearances, the words that we use to describe behavior and the statements we use to describe ourselves.

Intro

I. Attention: How many of you have seen advertisements for bar soap like Dove, Zest, etc?

II. Reveal: Soap advertising is an example of how things we use everyday usually have a historical context that we don't notice.

III. Relate to Audience: I am sure that all of us (hopefully) use soap.

IV. Background/Importance: Soap advertising as well as advertising in general is influenced by the audience and therefore society is broadcast’s to such as in the 1800's when Pears Soap was advertised as so powerful that it could wipe even the grimy and filthy dark skin color from an heathen African and keep a White man clean and white.

V. Topic Focus: During my time as a NCORE scholar, I have read and learned about how the images and language that we see in America’s society everyday influences and are influenced by Cultural Racism which reveals itself in many ways such as the language that we use every day to describe appearances, behavior, and ourselves.

VI. Preview: However, many people have always thought that racism is just a personal prejudice and hate towards a group but it is a lot deeper than that.

(Connective: A quick explanation of terms like racism, cultural racism, and systematic racism is needed to explain the impact of racist language.)

Body

I. Understanding Cultural Racism, Racism, and Systematic racism is needed to understand the impact that racist language has as explained in Beverly Daniel Tatum’s book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria.

A. Racism is not necessarily just an individual act of hatred or superiority but also the system of advantage based on race.

B. American Cultural Racism is the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority and humanity of Whites and the assumed inferiority and dehumanization of people of color.

C. Systematic racism is basically the clockwork-like way that people reinforce racism daily, through pictures, television, and also, speech.

D. To summarize, racism is personal prejudice plus the power of society backing you up, cultural racism is the images and messages that uphold racism and systematic racism is the way that these images and messages are repeated.

(Connectives: Some may be wonder “Ok but how does that apply to us and things like pop culture?” and in response I ask you to look at this image.)

II. American cultural racism is apparent in the words we use to casually describe appearances.

A. I was in my Design 102 class preparing my project when I heard a girl talking about a party she went to say, “She was chink-eyed after her 3^rd drink.”

B. Chink eyes is used to describe a person who has their eyes squinted together and who people think look “like a Asian” (Examples: When on is intoxicated, tired, high on drugs etc so much that their eyes are squinted or half closed.)

C. The word chink is a very derogatory term referring to people of Eastern Asian origin and came about during the Yellow Peril hysteria in the U.S. during which Chinese laborers immigrated to the United States and were put through much discrimination including the Chinese Exclusion Act which banned any further Chinese immigration.

D. The description of a person being a "chink" or a person who has their eyes squinted is essentially mocking and a direct attack at people of Asian descent.

E. The imagery itself is depicting the stereotype of people of Chinese descent all having "squinty" eyes.

(Connectives: Now that we’ve seen how cultural racism pops up in how we describe appearances, we can look at how it can appear in how we describe behavior)

III. American cultural racism is apparent in the words we use to describe behavior.

A. When describing others many people use the term "acting black" when engaged in stereotyped behavior such as being skilled physically as in sports or dancing

1. The phrase is historically relevant in the fact that from times of slavery, to segregation, the post civil rights era, and the current age, black people are stereotyped as being physically gifted but extremely unintelligent and ignorant.

2. In the movie Hellzapoppin', black servants are portrayed as simple-minded and child-like but good at dancing as the film shows them lindy hopping. .

B. There was a backlash against the movie Transformers 2 specifically against their portrayal of the Robots Mudflap and Skids who were acting in people mind’s as “black (“ghetto slang, gold teeth, etc) and were portrayed as always joking with each other and good at combat but simple and unintelligent (“We don’t read much”)

(Connectives: Many times when I have talk about issues such as this one with my peers, I am told that there is no need to be so politically correct.)

IV. American cultural racism is how we describe and exonerate ourselves.

A. Cultural racism is historically evident in how we refer to ourselves as not bothering to be "politically correct".

1. When I answered my teacher’s question about what was better to say, black people or African American, he then stated how he saw no need to be so politically correct all the time anyway.

2. Black is more inclusive of the presence of people with African ancestry who are not American or just African American.

B. Politically correct is a term that was first used as civil-rights backlash as explained by Will Hutton of The Observer.

C. “It was actually perceived by many as a right-wing tactic to dismiss—or backlash against—left-leaning social change.”-Will Hutton

D. This expression was used to dismiss the need for human rights and social change in the 1960s and 70s.

E. The phrase” “politically correct tells me that their issues have no importance and do not need to be thought about.

(Connectives: Language, when examined, is one of the marks of our culture and a culture that contains Cultural Racism translates it through language..)

Conclusion

I. Signal the end of the speech: Hopefully, we now have seen how Cultural racism can be more than just an individual’s prejudice and include the historical context and systematic cultural support that continue racism.

II. Reinforce the central idea: As in the case of Pears soap advertising, analyzing the messages that society and the media can help us figure out how our language is influenced by it.

III. Clear closing line: Hopefully this gives people a better background to see in another light the skeletons in these phrases’ closets.

"Are You Saying That IM Being Racist?"

2009-09-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Sooooo...lately I have been pissing off my professors. Im that annoying black girl that wont stop bringing race into the conversation (cause it totally wasnt there before right?)

In my Graphic Design seminar, we are talking about careers in Graphic Design and the movements/principles that back them. We were going over the 20s when I noticed that all 20+ examples of posters were the same white mainstream themed. That kinda made me irritated. So after the class, I approached my teacher about maybe including slides of posters created by people who lived different (i.e. somebody who aint white). His response? "Well I dont have time to put more posters or examples in." which translates in my head to "The narratives of non-white people arent important and dont mean anything, at least not enough to include in a class that is supposed to be preparing us for life outside of school." So then I countered, "Well how about just keeping the themes that you are surrounding and just taking out posters and putting in ones that come from a different viewpoint but the same theme." So as he pondered that, I left for my next class.

So I thought I handled that pretty ok. Then, I had Sociology.

The way my sociology class is taught is very problematic to me. See the class itself is awesome because we are looking at the effects of capitalism on the individual human. However the whiteness of this human is implict if not stated. Oftentimes my teacher compares "Traditional Societies" with "Modern Societies", My problem isnt even necessarily that Modern societies are Western European based or influenced because hey, capitalism and "modern" themselves are (I think) Euro-created. What I have a real problem with though is how my teacher portrays "Traditional societies". When he talks about "traditional societies" that are European, he usually brings up slides of the Medieval times. However with non-western European societies, the same twentieth century depictions of "tribal life" (with loinclothes and spears galore) are always shown. Also we are always taught that those tribes and by extensions those countries who havent bought into "modernity" yet are underdeveloped and all run around chanting "Ai-yi-yi". We are never shown societies that are more "advanced" or at least live in a larger communities like the Mesopotamians or Egyptians. I mean, I dont see European Cavemen when he talks about traditional western european societies.

Also I have a problem with the way he polarized "traditional" and "modern" life because in all reality, there are many aspects of society that would be considered traditional and aspects of thought-to-be "traditional" societies that are "modern". I could talk about the invention of metal (not by Europeans either) or the highly sophisticated water systems developed by societies in West Africa (that Europeans societies copied and now are labeled "modern"). Anyway I raise my hand about these stereotyped and Eurocentric views all the time but usually he talks about how I cant take this personally or culturally or whatever and keeps going

So finally I approached him after class (after being blown off the first time) and asked him why European societies were portrayed this way and non-Western European societies other ways. (and then i accidentally went off on a tangent about how people of color's bodies are considered to be accessible to all via the tribal images but i didnt really mean to bring that up) anyways I got back on track and the breakdown of what he said is that this is what tribal and traditional societies are like and that he is just telling us the differences and such. and then he said how any "modern" qualities that I saw in traditional societies was most likely my wishful thinking. Then he started on the "Are you saying that Im being racist by showing these images?" and i knew at that point that he just wasnt listening. So I just left and ranted with a mentor of mine. But I am not sure what to do.

So Speech Communications has been interesting as well but at least in a good way. I have given 2 speeches so far and am giving on next wednesday. The first one was Self Introduction-themed so I gave my classmates a taste of what it is like being one of the few black females on campus and the questions I get ask and behaviors that are directed towards me. Then I gave a speech about whitewashing (or Racebending in this case) of the Last Airbender movie and the movement that is going on. Now my speech theme is based on Fascinating Issues and Concepts of Communication. My speech is on The Language of Cultural Racism. however my teacher is pretty cool and helps me with my structure and with delivering a speech in which the delivery is just as good as the content. So I like that class.

So those are some of the big issues that I have been dealing with so far this semester. On sunday I am taking a canoe trip so i can get some peace.

College Ready

2009-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

First week of classes has gone by. Here is a rant I did on the subject of education and the US obsession with grades. Sociology 134 is going to be interesting

Ever since I started to learn more about my own identity about myself, grades have become less important to me than the content.
Parents instilled the “a person’s worth is their grades” if you did better it’s because you are better/smarter/more focused etc. even now. However students at my school were more knowledgeable about world issues that I had never given a thought. As those issues became my own, school was less about the grades and more about the content and how it applied in my life and the life of others. I’ve stopped being a drone. However this article revealed to me the parts that are still grade and praised driven. I am still a student and person who loves to get authority approval, recognition and attention. However the face has changed a little. It is still though something I am working on in seeing grades as a way of seeing how hard people work and how worthwhile they are. A good grade though has changed its face fortunately. I now identify more with people with life experience more than a diploma. My parents asked me if I would date someone who had never gone to school or gotten their GED and I replied immediately of course because I know that that person still worked hard because that is what life requires. Especially in a society that values a person more if they have an “education”. How I value a person though is if they have “smarts” like whether they know about and affect the issues in our culture and world that change both. Or are they just a say so person that believes in whatever is taught. So I have a mix of pride in my ability to get myself out of that way of thinking without directly addressing it but by directly address that part of it am I able to change it even more for the better. Part of it was my English class at my high school. Part of my high school’s curriculum was social justice so some teachers were truly interested in content more than memorization. In fact if you just imitated the book and showed no thinking process of your own and how it affected your life, you would fail. My English teacher Mr. McHenry was hated for this, including by me. I was the one who was obsessed with grades and I prized myself higher than the other students. I never really made any good friends in high school as well and I was really lonely. I got the grades though. Mr. McHenry however wanted MY opinion and then to use what I just read to support it. Also I began to admire students who I would before designate as stupid or clowns. I admired one guy named Hector. While he showed no enthusiasm for getting good grades, in fact I think he was constantly barely passing, he seemed to get the highly complex concepts that we were learning. Concepts like Othering in the White mainstream and the paradox of the way public schools teach kids not to think and then do but to do without thinking. (Because this topic isn’t new to me. Sorry but Mr. McHenry got her first)

Unfortunately through all of this talk, mainstream teaching has left its mark on me. However my view of the authority figure has changed. It isn’t “the teacher” who I am trying to impress now with my knowledge of stuff that doesn’t matter to me but the person who I feel really knows a lot more than I do about a typical subject. It’s still an unhealthy habit to constantly try to please an authority figure but it’s starting to balance and I have a feeling time will do it’s job.

The safest way of having no thoughts of one’s own is to take up a book every moment one has nothing else to do. It is this practice, which explains why erudition makes most men more stupid and silly than they are by nature. I both disagree and agree with this statement. While many people I know who feel themselves book learned and knowledgeable are certified idiots, it’s because they aren’t reading the book for content about their own life. Usually I am doing exactly what Schopenhauer says. If I am not doing anything else I pick up a book or read a blog. However even though the habit back in my high school days did make me number to socialization, the habit now helps in growing who I am BECAUSE I know that the experiences go a lot farther than the book itself. It isn’t the books anymore that I think have the most knowledge but the people who wrote them. I mean, this in itself, the text we read, is a book. And as long as one has already thought past what the book says to what the author is communicating about a certain aspect of live, I see no problem with reading. Especially if one knows that reading about an experience can never replace the experience.

This article is definitely not all inclusive and seems to speak more to middle class students with the time and wealth to not only decide to not care about grades but also to take off from school when the reality for some people might be that scholarships are the only way they can get a better education to get a better job to feed themselves. It also looks out a white, privileged, middle class lens predominantly.

Taking the Myers-Briggs Test

2009-08-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

So I have always love taking personality tests because usually im too busy trying to be perfect to see who i actually am. and i get stupid easily. so anyway i thought it would be interesting to go through thoughts in my head as im taking the test.

Do you tend to
let things happen naturally
plan your actions in advance

Well, i tend to imagine how arguments with people about certain issues will go and how i will answer points i think will be brought up. however i get irritated when there is too much planning and not enough doing. i guess the former

In your opinion most people are
unworthy of real trust
worthy of real trust

Well it depends on who "most people" are categorized as. lately most white people and some people of color that i've trusted come up short when talking about things that bother me i.e. institutional racism, american privilege, etc. so i was trusting before but now, not really. and if you are thinking "that stuff doesnt have anything to do with this question, you probably have no business reading this blog.

Do you admire people who are
stable and successful
profound

stable and successful in my world usually means rich and privileged and not thinking about other people. and profoud people are the people who are my role models.

Do you find it
easy to talk about your feelings
difficult to talk about your feelings

easier with people who are thinking along the lines that i am but hard with everyone else since i dont know what to say to get them to understand me.

When confronted with a sudden question do you
wait for someone else to respond first
usually respond first

I like attention, i like answering questions..

When searching for a solution are you more interested in
the process
the solution itself

i think the process is most important but when actually in the process i want the solution NOW!

Do you more often prefer to
know what you are getting yourself into
adapt to new situations

I hate being disappointed. surprised is fine but disappointed not. and my least favorite part of school is adapting in the beginning. sooo...

Are you more interested in
your own thoughts and feelings
what is happening around you

i am always looking for what is happening around me...but usually to make me better at dealing or aiding it...hmmm

Would you say that you have more
penetrating insight
astute observational powers

hmmm, im rather ok at picking up on what is going on by observing but i also see pretty well to the heart of things, only with help though

I just realize that these quizzes are hard because im busy struggling for an ideal me instead of taking the actual me as she is.

Do you tend to
readily help people while asking nothing in return
expect something in return when you help someone

unfortunately, im not there yet.

I like to say im something because i know the good it will lead to. but i havent accepted a lot of things about myself yet.

the result?
ENFP
Extroversion, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceptive
http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html
my ideal me though was an INFJ/INFP

i wish i was a lot less loud and a lot more thinking about the things i say

American

2009-08-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

I want to be something other than American
I want to have been born somewhere else
Be someone else
and not have this weight of the blood and desperation of those who are forced to support my American lifestyle
I've had it easy and it has made me weak
I want to not be used to getting chocolate at any grocery, having so much food SO MUCH FOOD at my disposal
And i want not to feel incredibly privileged and selfish that I wish I didnt have things that people would and do die to have everyday
nobody deserves that and yet my lifestyle directly funds it
and i hate feeling like there is nothing i can do about it while my daily "necessities" bleed and scream.

I dont want to want this privilege because it tastes just as good as it does terrible

Thoughts

2009-08-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I started and finished Confessions of an Economic Hitman this morning. I also at the same time had a dermitologist appointment at a new office (new insurance). As I read, my world started crashing and burning around me. My life and lifestyle is supported by the desperation, starvation, and prostitution of those countries that my country exploit. Something else I realized is that I might start having to be careful about what I say and what I do. Because the censors are on baby and reading every word I say. Some of my thoughts as I was reading:

1. How in the world might I try to fix this when there are people on all sides ready to take protestors out?

2. Why would I try to follow the example of American Revolutionaries when it is their fault for the slaughter of Native Americans ( including my own ancestors) and the enslavement of Africans (and other people of color) and the drainage of resources from any country of color

3. why does this empire building thing increasingly seem like a white thing. it is the countries of color (and few white countries) that are being exploited and white countries that are doing the exploiting

4. what can i, a light skinned, black, middle class, American teen do, especially since my voice is one of the last to be heard including in my own race

5. how big of a role does the racialization of europeans and countries of color play in the "economics"? especially in who is the oppressor.

6. what responsibility as a BLACK middle class teen do I have over these events considering that even selling out is a act of survival and made necessary by the white majority power who made these exploitative decisions in the first place? I know i feel responsibility for my lifestyle and it's not all whitey's fault but just how much do i do?

Hmmm...

2009-08-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Minister Louis Farrakhan: "First, the program starts with number one. That is number four. The first part of that program is that we want freedom, a full and complete freedom. The second is, we want justice. We want equal justice under the law, and we want justice applied equally to all, regardless of race or class or color. And the third is that we want equality. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society. If we can get that within the political, economic, social system of America, there's no need for point number four. But if we cannot get along in peace after giving America 400 years of our service and sweat and labor, then, of course, separation would be the solution to our race problem."

Hmmm....

Final Sermon Draft

2009-08-09T11:11:00.001-07:00

1 Thessalonians Chapter 5: Verses 21-22
Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil

Last July I was baptized. Some of what I remember are how I opted out of the baptismal gown, how quick the dip was, and how members of the church started to sing wade in the water after I was done. But probably the thing I remember the most is how different my life became after that. Once I made a promise to accept Christ I immediately started making the changes I thought I needed to make in my life. Changes like not cursing, not saying God’s name as an expression and reading the Bible everyday. Bigger changes like what exactly I believed and how life works, were just beginning. Unfortunately my understanding of the religion of Christianity and of life in general was (and still is) very limited. Many times being “Christian” means being a person who does good and not just a good and decent person. Decent people still make bad decisions and hurt other people. I have come to realize that the action of doing good is a lot more important. Doing right by others meant I had to focus on doing right myself. So that is what my heart and soul is trying for. But the process of figuring this out was a long and hard one. Especially when trying to figure out what exactly is the right thing to do.
“Doing good” turns out not to be such an abstract concept. In fact, the reality is a lot more familiar. In the beginning of my time as a baptized Christian I was focused on being the “say it loud, say it proud” kind of person, the kind you see on street corner and passing out pamphlets. Church was supposed to be this big celebration cause, hey, even if no one listened to me, I knew I was right and that my sins were done. I had made it. Songs were to celebrate our victory in front of the vague and obvious evils in life like drugs, sex, money, and cable television. Fortunately my social education at Jones in regard to questioning everything taught me to look behind every curtain to find the “why”. In this case, figure out why these evils were labeled evil. Fortunately firsthand experience is not always needed, but an open mind and empathetic heart is. For example, if you know someone got burned by putting his or her hand in the fire, you understand you probably shouldn’t do it. However I wouldn’t stop at just not doing it. I would ask, why’d they stick it in the fire in the first place, how does the flame burn you, what scar does it leave afterward. Certain evils then start to have much more familiar faces.
However, something else that I figured out, is that some evils aren’t as obvious or as general. I can’t designate “acting like a good person” separate from playing video games, or laughing with my friends, or texting on my phone. It’s funny but I found that being good in fact was defined by all the “extra” activities that I did outside Sunday and church. And also I found new ways of thinking and looking at life and how we all live it.
If I bring up the subject of racism, sexism, capitalism or politics, and it’s everyday appearance in my and everybody else way of life, I feel that I am being a good person. Why? I’ve realized that these general and horrible things underline many of the things we do and think. In fact, these issues aren’t as obvious as a slur here and an open insult there. Usually, like in the case of institutionalized racism in daily life, I end up attempting to educate myself on centuries long and extremely complicated fights about issues that seemed really simple. An example? My hair.
My hair use to be permed and in shoulder-length braids. The hair in my braids was mostly extensions. When I went away to college I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, a fantastic book that I recommend that everyone should read at some point in their life. Some things that this book taught me was how ingrained my feeling of inadequacy about my hair was in my outlook. It just seemed normal. Birds flew, bees buzzed, black girls got perms. However a look at why I put perm into my hair was revealing. To sum it up, to have “coarse” and nappy hair is always considered wild, unprofessional, ugly, etc. And that’s because it isn’t straight. In a culture that has taught me that I am not as attractive as the silky haired blondes on TV, I had swallowed hook line and sinker that my hair had to be “tamed”. Even though my daily life, I rarely thought, “Oh I want my hair to look like a white girls, that was my mindset. People including kids from the age of 5 to teens to adults, have told me up front that my hair used to be so pretty and that now I don’t look female. The whole term “good hair” should show everybody what I mean. Good hair usually describes long and straight hair. Some people have said, it’s just a fashion but categorizing good hair and bad hair says something else entirely. Having short and essentially “black” hair is supposed to be ugly. I decided though that any hair on my head was to be appreciated, because it’s me. Some people tell me that my short and kinky hair looks too “black”. But my question is, what’s wrong with being black? Why is being black being ugly? Well, I just decided to be beautiful.
Now this is not an attack on anyone that does or does not have a perm. But my point is that for me, I decided that there was nothing wrong with my hair. There is nothing wrong with having straight or nappy hair. But I wanted to let my hair and therefore myself just be without making it into something else to be beautiful. This is what I mean by questioning everything. Something so seemingly simple as hair can be a lot more complicated and given some serious thought. It is our everyday activities that can reveal how we think of other people and ourselves.
Now this “hair explanation” probably seems a little self centered. But think how many girls are told their hair is ugly because it isn’t long or straight enough. How many teens have been teased because their hair is “too nappy’ or even the reverse, black teens whose hair is straight are attacked for being too white. How many commercials on TV feature long and straight haired girls looking beautiful? How many natural haired black women do you see on music videos, magazines, or commercials? This all helps shape how our young women think of themselves whether black, white, Latino, whatever. And this is also, to me, important in forming my idea of whether I am doing good or not. Am I helping a young black girl be strong in who she is or am I, even silently, reinforcing the stereotype that long straight hair is the only hair that can make her beautiful?
Many subjects that seem small, like hair, can be factors in knowing how to treat people like they are worthwhile human beings and not people who aren’t as pretty, aren’t as American, aren’t as smart, aren’t as rich etc. Looking at what is going on behind the scenes, to me, has been one of the most important things I feel that God has taught me. As kids and teenagers, we have the responsibilities of attempting to figure out both our parents world and our own. We can’t figure out where to go if we don’t know where we’ve been. Fortunately we have help from young adults that went through the same thing. One thing you figure out as you get older is that everything changes and that we inherit the world that our parents lived in. Someone who put that into song is Lauryn Hill. Now since I am getting up there in my years, I am not sure how many of you still remember Lauryn Hill, but I found that she really connected with youth because she was one herself at the time. One of her songs comes into mind called Everything is Everything.
I wrote these words for everyone
Who struggles in their youth
Who wont accept deception
Instead of what is truth
It seems we lose the game,
Before we even start to play
Who made these rules? were so confused
Easily led astray
Let me tell ya that
Everything is everything
Everything is everything
After winter, must come spring
Everything is everything

Sometimes it seems
Well touch that dream
But things come slow or not at all
And the ones on top, wont make it stop
So convinced that they might fall
Lets love ourselves then we cant fail
To make a better situation
Tomorrow, our seeds will grow
All we need is dedication

I remember as a kid, loving that song. But as a teenager, it started to become more of an anthem then just a good song to listen to. I remember her especially saying, let’s love ourselves and we cant fail to make a better situation. Making sure that we ourselves we are being treated as someone worth something can give us a better idea of how much others are worth as well. “Love others as you love thyself.” Meaning, don’t put yourself or anyone else in the gutter. It’s a hard thing to learn within the context of school, friends, significant others, and people we just cant stand. However if you need help, some of the best people you can ask are sitting right here. Even as we question and take steps in this world that we live in, we can still ask for help from people our age or older. Sometimes even kids can give a untouched and raw insight because in their minds are the reflection of our culture. So let’s be the ones who not only can say “I’m a Christian” but someone who God and those who may or may not live within him can proudly say, they’re good people.

Sunday Sermon

2009-08-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hey all. I am giving a sermon at my church for kids day so I was wondering if you could read this and tell me what you think. This isnt directly at only Christians either. So basically tell me if you are confused or if I didnt transition something well or whatever. I would really appreciate some assistance though. (as u probably guessed this is to be read outloud)

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil

Last July I was baptized. Some of what I remember the most are things like how I opted out of the baptismal gown, how quick the dip was, and how members of the church started to sing wade in the water after I was done. But probably the thing I remember the most is how more complicated and different my life became after that. Once I made a promise to accept Christianity I immediately started making the changes I thought needed to make in my life. Lesser changes like not cursing, not saying God’s name as an expressions and reading the Bible everyday. Bigger changes though were just beginning. My idea of what a Christian was supposed to act, think, and be like was (and still is) very shallow. Being “Christian” many times meant being a person who did good and not just a good and decent person. Decent people still make bad decisions and hurt other people. The action of doing good though, I have come to realize is a lot more important. Doing right by others meant I had to focus on doing right myself. So that is what my heart and soul is hinged on. But the process of figuring this out was a long and hard one. Especially when trying to figure out what exactly is the right thing to do?
Doing good turns out not to be such an abstract concept. In fact, the reality is a lot more concrete. In the beginning of my time as a Baptized Christian I was focused on being the say it loud, say it proud kind of person, the kind you see on street corner and protesting in front of abortion clinics. And church was supposed to be this big celebration cause, hey, even if no one listened to me, I knew I was right and that my sins were done. I had made it. Songs were to celebrate our victory in front of the vague and obvious evils in life like drugs, sex, money, and cable television. Fortunately my cynical education at Jones in regard to questioning and “de-constructing” everything taught me to look behind every curtain to find why. In this case, figure out why these evils were so bad. Fortunately firsthand experience is not always needed but an open mind and empathetic heart is. For example, if you know someone got burned by putting his or her hand in the fire, you probably shouldn’t do it. However I wont stop at just not doing it. I would ask, why’d they stick it in the fire in the first place, how does the flame burn you, what scar does it leave afterward. Certain evils then start to have much more defined faces.
However, something else that I figured out though is that some evils aren’t as obvious or as general. Most times being good (or a Christian) does not only fall into a certain action or a certain behavior. I can’t designate acting like a good person separate from playing video games, or laughing with my friends, or texting on my phone. It funny but I found that being good in fact was defined by all the “extra” activities that I did outside Sunday and church. And also I found new ways of thinking and looking at life and how we all live it.
If I bring up the subject of racism, sexism, capitalism or politics, and it’s everyday appearance in my and everybody else way of life, I feel that I am being a good person. Why? Because these issues aren’t as obvious as a slur here and an open insult there. In fact, I’ve realized that these general and horrible things underline many of the things we do and think. Usually, like in the case of institutionalized racism in daily life, I end up attempting to educate myself on centuries long and extremely complicated fights. An example? My hair.
To give you all a brief overview my hair use to be permed and in shoulder-length braids. The hair in my braids was mostly extensions. When I went away to college I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, a fantastic book and one I recommend to everyone sitting here. Some things that this book taught me was how ingrained my feeling of inadequacy about my hair was in my outlook. It just seemed normal. Birds flew, bees buzzed, black girls got perms. However a look at why I put perm into my hair was revealing. To sum it up, to have “coarse” and nappy hair is always considered wild, unprofessional, ugly, etc. And that’s because it isn’t straight. In a society that has taught me that I am not as attractive as the silky haired blondes on TV, I had swallowed hook line and sinker that my hair had to be “tamed”. The whole term “good hair” should show everybody what I mean. Good hair usually describes long and straight hair. Some people have said, it’s just a fashion but categorizing good hair and bad hair says something else entirely. Having short and essentially “black” hair is supposed to be ugly. I decided though that any hair on my head was to be appreciated, because it’s me. Some people tell me that my short and kinky hair looks to “black”. But my question is, what’s wrong with being black? Why is being black being ugly? Well, I just decided to be beautiful by being “ugly”.
Now this is not an attack on anyone that does or does not have a perm. Some of my best friends have perms. But my point is that for me, I decided that there was nothing wrong with my hair. There is nothing wrong with having straight or nappy hair. But I wanted to let my hair and therefore myself just be without making it into something else to be beautiful.
Basically what I am trying to say in this long explanation of my hair is that the subject of why I got rid of my perm took a few minutes to say but in my daily life, I rarely thought “Oh I want my hair to look like a white girls”. And even though I may not have expressly said that, that was my mindset. This is what I mean by questioning everything. Something so seemingly simple as hair can be deconstructed and given some serious thought. It is our everyday activities that can explain how we think of other people and ourselves.
Now this “hair explanation” probably seems a little self centered. But think how many girls are told their hair is ugly because it isn’t long or straight enough. How many commercials on TV feature long and straight haired girls looking beautiful. How many natural haired black women do you see on music videos, magazines, or commercials? This all helps shape how our young women think of themselves whether black, white, Latino, whatever. And this is also, to me, important in forming my idea of whether I am doing good or not. Am I helping a young black girl be strong in who she is or am I, even silently, reinforcing the stereotype that long straight hair is the only hair that can make her beautiful?
Tons of seemingly small subjects like hair can be factors in knowing how to treat people like they are worthwhile human beings and not people who aren’t as pretty, aren’t as American, aren’t as smart, aren’t as rich etc. Looking at what is going on behind the seems to me has been one of the most important things I feel that God has taught me.

**Update** my mom just told me that my sermon is next sunday, not this sunday. wow im kinda slow but that means i can get more input! yay!

My New Do and a few reactions

2009-07-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day with my summer job as a day camp counselor. Saying goodbye to the kids after 6 weeks of fussing, crying, playing, and bathroom breaks was admittedly a tear inducing event. The funny thing about kids is that they are very raw. Joy is felt wholeheartedly, as well as anger, sadness, and jealousy. It's a different kind of purity but one that is able to completely reflects whatever influences that kids have in their life. Kids dont really have a mind screen to make things sound better or worse than they really are. Most of the time, they say or do what is on their mind.
A subject that is strongly reflected in my kids was the subject of my hair. If you are just tuning in, I recently decided to cut off my permed hair and rock a short do. the reasons why is a whole other note that I have written but it involves Malcolm X and my own indifference to looking "good". Anyway people's outward reactions were either along the lines of impressed or angry that a girl like me who had "long good hair" would cut it completely in favor of very short kinky hair. but my resolve to go natural is tested daily by reactions to my hair and how i think people look at me now. people have been less comfortable with my and my social conscious outbursts now that i am a "natural" black young woman. and for first impressions, im looked at with more wariness and caution than before when i was just another light skinned, long haired, girl. whether with long, extension filled braids or my permed hair.
Now the kids at my summer camp reacted in a stronger manner than my peers and other adults. kids still liked me ok (cause im a complete goofball) but i was clearly more intimidating. i was constantly mistaken for a boy or kids would ask me why i didnt look more like a woman. especially the male children. I had one little 6 year old who i had really liked tell me that i should get longer and straighter hair because my short kinky hair looked "nasty" as he slept on my shoulder, i wondered what his parents were like and what kind of people he was surrounded with.
for the first time i didnt feel very pretty. in fact for a few brief seconds, i considered, not getting a permed, but getting extensions again. fortunately that moment passed but i wont forget soon how beauty is looked at and what my going against the grain looks like to other people.

the fact that it only takes me 5 minutes to pick and spray my hair and 10 minutes to wash it though is luxury that i love.

My Head and My Heart are ignoring each other

2009-07-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

So I just had a conversation/debate with my mother that ended with my saying "you're brainwashed!" to which she took a rather large offense to...
*sigh*
What we were talking about was the Gates case with the idiot white cops that were called for a supposed break ins. also my mind is stuffed with the recent racefails of the past two weeks, what with sotomayor's confirmation, the philly pool incident, and now this. and all i have heard white people say is that everybody (meaning black people) are blowing this all out of proportion and just like to play the race card. and i've had it.

and now i hear my mother talking about if Gates had just stayed inside his house and not yelled at the police officers, he wouldnt have been arrested. which ignores the whole inequity of the police being there in the first place what waiting. but after the argument was over, i felt guilt, anger, and irritation at both my mom and myself. my heart doesnt regret what i said, but my mind does.

So what my head knows is that:
1. my mother lived through the 60s and 70s. so even though she is a middle class child through and through, she stills went through much rougher stuff that i have ever. so for me to judge her feels wrong and that even if i truly believe that she is brainwashed (which i do), i owe her much more respect than i gave her
2. mothers desreve more respect
3. good mothers even more so, and my mom is the best.

My heart feels:
1. being middle class has basically placed my mom in the mindset of most middle class blacks, especially considering her attitude towards working class blacks, her prejudices against other people of color groups, her general ignorance of the world outside where we live.
2. i spend most of my time reading up on the stuff going on.

so im torn and irritated that this is a problem period.

Things That I Need, Want to, or Do Understand

2009-06-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

1. I will never understand everything

2. Being Black means something whether one thinks it does or not.

3. I never want to want a cookie for recognizing and/or acting on injustice.

4. My own racist/sexist/homophobic/etc thoughts need to be recognized, owned up to, then eliminated the best I can.

5. It turns out that Yeshua (Jesus) was right. I do have to be willing to give up everything, friends, family, expectations, to do what is right.

6. Punishing and berating myself isnt the same thing as humility

NCORE and San Diego: Friday

2009-06-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

Friday started off with little difficulties as my group had breakfast at the hotel and went to that morning's keynote speaker.

Keynote Speaker: Ron His Horse is Thunder- Mitakuya Oyasin (We are All Related)
Fantastic speaker. I mean, he had so many stories to tell and just his experiences in life completely astound me. Now from what I remember, Mr. Tasunka Wakinyan is the great-great grandson of Sitting Bull. Not only that but his siblings were a mix of Native American, African American, and Latino ethnicities. Not only that but his was one of the Greensboro 4, Joseph McNeil, who staged one of the first sit-ins in the 60's. Mr. Tasunka Wakinyan also grew up in HARLEM, New York. I mean I just found him so amazing to be at the center of so much greatness. Anyways, he was also talking about how Native American colleges need to have more teachers who are Native American and who teach more about how studies in school can apply to being Native American and the experiences that they do and will go through. For example he told us this story about how there was a trial with these people who wanted this land in the mountains however some Native Americans were outraged because the land had belonged to them hundreds of years ago. The opposing side tried to claim that the tribe had not occupied those mountains and the tribe proved them wrong through Astrology. Basically they could recall the position of the stars from that mountaintop hundreds of years ago, which matched the project position that the scientists had come up with.
I could go on and on about this speaker but he was just hands down amazing.

After the Keynote can that morning's sessions. At this point, I am starting to get greedy so I decide that I want to go to TWO sessions and just go back and forth. I went to both Asian Americans as the Model Minority session and Hip-Hop Criticism: Is Everybody Stupid? Both sessions were fantastic.

Asian Americans as the Model Minority:
In the beginning of this session, the speaker projected various Asian and Asian American politicians, sports players, activists, and all around famous or infamous people. I guessed like 4 correct and knew by face about 6 more (thank you 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30) but I hadn’t heard of most of them.
The speaker talks about what each person did while trying to get the audience to guess. While slightly ashamed, I was very happy to be learning all of this. Then I left this session for a bit so I could go peek into the Hip-hop criticism seminar.

Hip-Hop Criticism: Is Everybody Stupid?:
This session was hosted by this awesome rapper/ spoken word artist Ise Lyfe. I mean this guy was the epitome of cool. Even his style of talking was poetic. He showed us a slideshow of various pictures he had taken that illustrated hypocrisy or something ironic or interesting about black culture and hip-hop culture. One of the most memorable slides was that of a quote by a rapper, Soulja Boy I think, who talked about how the slave owners should get some props because without them we wouldn’t be here to get all this ice and crystal...Yeah. But he was serious. What WAS serious though was Ise Lyfe would even gave us a little performance of some of his poetry and rhymes.

Around this time I headed back over to the Model Minority seminar where they were talking about this book that two Asian American women had written talking about how Asian Americans got good grades and advising the audience how to do the same. Then an argument started about whether this was a good this or not. (Totally paraphrasing right now)

after the seminar I approached the speaker about the Avatar Racebending movement and she told me to definitely email her about it since she was on her way out.

After the morning seminars, our Iowa State group (who were all wearing our I State t-shirts. there was yellow EVERYWHERE) went on a different kind of San Diego tour. The tour was called NCORE Communities Experience Tours, Experience I: Socio-ethnic Communities, Districts and Neighborhoods. A lot of this tour was made up of touring different Sand Diego neighborhoods and investigating the links between the ethnic makeup of that area and the socio economic realities and decisions. For example, a lot of highways were built cutting right across communities of color, restricting and crippling the neighborhood. We went to an area called Chicano Park, which our driver told us: "if you're not Chicano, than you shouldn’t be going there." Much of the park was painted in really vivid portraits and surreal paintings. Azteca paintings and portraits of leaders and activists like Che Quevara. I felt at this time like this was a sacred place that I even felt a little funny about riding next to.
Next we toured the Jacobsen community of which I was really impressed. We were taken to this mall like area where shops and stores had a deeper meaning to them than buying and selling. It was kind of amazing how the entire different racial group that made up Jacobsen each had a representative voice in creating this landscape. And I finally bought my first dashiki in one of the stores as well as chowin down on some carne asada with Jose. They had an open square where different huts were representative of the population that built them. One of the things I was most impressed with is how this community basically had a goal to be completely self-sustaining where all the jobs and money flowed within the neighborhood. It made me envious even because my own neighborhood Hyde Park is a self-proclaiming interracial haven. However, the class disparities are very obvious and the watering down of cultures has not skipped over Hyde Park either. In Jacobsen though, it seemed like everyone was not encouraged but demanded to be themselves, whatever culture they were a part of. They gave themselves the individual spaces to represent and keep their cultures alive, well, and most interesting, distinct. Whatever mixing there was, there wasn’t a lost of character or dilution of culture. And I envied that a little. Which made me wonder how it played out from day to day.

Once the bus started rolling through the wealthy white neighborhoods, my eyes started getting heavy, and by the time I opened them, we were back in downtown san Diego on our way to Old Town. As we passed we saw dozens of restaurants and one restaurant in particular where a woman was outside making food. Whatever they were making smelled amazing. So anyway we got back to the hotel at around 4pm.

After a quick rest in the hotel room, we went to the seminar on green living and how white the lens it when it is carried out. The New Color of Green: A Collective Voice of Change. Mostly what was talked about was how most of the time, whenever living green is brought up, most of the people leading and following it are white and why that is. Now I will admit I have forgotten some of the details about the lecture but I do remember how Mr. Jerome Ringo the host talked about how white the green movement is and how to interpret and live it for the rest of the masses. Pretty good lecture, even if a little dry.

After that, we Iowa state students had our daily meeting on what we learned and felt that day. Since I'm doing this about two months later, I can’t remember what was said. Yeah.

Anyway for dinner, some of us felt like going to the gaslamp district so I suggested going to a Thai restaurant. With that, some of us decided to go to Royal Thai while many of the guys chose to watch the NBA playoffs at some sports bar. *Cue eye roll*
so we go and chat while waiting for our food. Mostly we talk about college, dating, and stuff. And me and Liping mooned after the cute waiter :D. after a rather mediocre dinning (and some trouble over tipping) we leave the restaurant. I decided though that I could wait no longer, I HAD to go to Ghirardelli's for some chocolate. No one but Jeff, wanted to come with so we headed over to the chocolate factory. After a mint chocolate Sunday with EXTRA dark chocolate hot fudge we both head back over to the hotel just talking about school and stuff. So we're crossing the street by the hotel when some guy who was speeding down the road actually realized, hey, he actually has to stop for pedestrians (imagine that!). As he instead, weaves around us, he yells something out of his window. Since I’m a trained Chicagoan, I knew that whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good so I basically attempted to ignore him but I did here the word "crossing". I look next to me at Jeff and he looks pretty pissed off but mostly surprised. I asked him what the guy in the car said and Jeff told me that the guy had yelled, "the Mexican crossing is that way". I was mostly really peeved that someone would really be that stupid to say something like that. We started talking about what trouble that guy would have been if he hadn’t have been in a car, then I suggest that we both do the EMT stress technique thing to calm Jeff down. Then I started feeling angry at my self for not doing more and not feeling more angry than what I was actually feeling which was confusion. I wondered what made him pick Jeff to harass and not me. I mean really, I'm just as easy a target. Why not pick the black girl instead of the latino guy? And I was angry that I couldn’t feel more pissed off instead of just really irritated that we had to run into an idiot like that.

Anyway we both went back into the hotel where we met up with the rest of the NCORE people. We had missed the powwow but the dance was just starting. I go back to the room change, chill for a bit, then went back downstairs to see if they were playing any decent music. Unfortunately I was unpleasantly surprise. For a conference that was about issues dealing with race and ethnicity, the music was pretty substandard and one sided. Mostly mainstream rap played by the time I was down there. I attempted to liven things up by playing some oldies like Candy by Cameo and This is How We Do It and it was pretty cool for awhile to get some of the older people involved (electric slide included) but it went back to the rap after awhile. I tried suggesting some samba or salsa but the DJ claimed that they had played that earlier. So I said whatever and went back upstairs to get some sleep

San Diego and NCORE: Thursday

2009-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Thursday started out with bagels and coffee at the hotel with my group as we discussed what sessions we would be going to that day. However we were all required to go to the Keynote Speaker.

Morning:
Keynote Speaker: Haunani-Kay Trask- Militarism and Tourism in the Pacific Islands
To start off, up to a certain point, I actually liked this speaker. She was very blunt about talking about the damage that has been done to Hawaii and who was to blame. Also I was fairly unsurprised at the uses that Hawai'i was put through and the demeaning ways that it has been and is portrayed. I also wasnt put off when she said that the best way for people to help Hawaii is to not visit and therefore not feeding into the tourism trap. I feel like Hawaii is one of the few places that still has enough resources left to support its own people if only it would be left alone. Foreign occupation I feel is definitely a problem.

However

As soon as she started to talk about how she believes that Al Qeada was right to attack the U.S. and that if there was an opportunity for another 9-11 then the Hawaii tourist airports were it. At that, much of the respect that I had for her diminished and anger took its place. Especially when she claimed that she had an Osama bin Laden poster on her wall. I then no longer clapped, no longer yelled in appreciation of what she said. and there are two reasons why that is:

1. Bin Laden and Al Qeada are pretty much just as hated in Afghanistan as they are here. Their atrocities definitely are not just directed at foreign evils but at home as well. Everybody suffers basically. They remind me of the offshoots of Nation of Islam devotees who took the doctrine of Islam and twisted it to something that didnt recognize anyone's humanity anymore. Now the Nation of Islam itself had good points about why they were forming this group and what it gave to people however, some people within that took it way too far, just like many groups who form from traditions and groups that are based in good. Basically Al Qaeda isnt good for anyone so the fact that she idolized them doesnt exactly make me jump for joy

2. She placed such a lack of value on human life. I mean terrorist attacks signal death for any person. so basically she is targeting anyone that happens to be in that vicinity. for example i feel like i have the capacity to learn and not contribute to a lot of the evils that i have in the past. however if this were say 3 years ago, she would be killing me right along with anyone else who might have the chance to change. and she said herself that we can help from over here however at the time that my family went to Hawaii, i was only 11. so basically I would be part of the tourists that she would target.

basically i find her alarmingly psycho. it's not that she didnt make good points about Hawaii but she took her reaction too far and her insensitivity and lack of compassion frightens and angers me because it means that she has no value for my life included.

So, with thoughts and emotions seriously crashing into my brain, I left that session kid of shattered and traumatized. I went to my next session which was Using the Arts as a Vehicle for Difficult Conversations about Race, Gender, and Class, emotionally raw and unstable. To make matters worse we started the session with Strange Fruit (the song sung by Nina Simone) and a video that portrayed it. So I was also feeling those feelings as well. My brain was suffering from overload and I was starting to cry ( as well as have nervous jitters) so I cut the session short and went to my room to both think and cry. now that I look back, I am not sure why I was crying. I think part of it was because I was thinking of where my life was to go once I really started rolling in my social justice work and life. I was afraid of ending up with the malevolent need for action like Ms. Trask since I am very passionate about everything that I learn, especially injustice (a vague term but it fits for now). So in a way, i could see myself ending up so made that i end up craving my piece of the pie no matters what. here are some poems that i wrote during that time:

KEYNOTE
Is there anything to reach for anymore
Is decency a dream and hatred and bitterness
the actual, the beginning, and the end
Is hate the never-ending cycle

The Art of Song
Here is a strange and bitter crop
spectacle to the farmers who cut the roots and plucked
from the moisten and rich ground to harvest the juices of
pain and bred strength from the skin of this fruit

Without this fruit, the dirt rots and dries with little ability to fight off intruders
-------------------------------------
How deep do these roots go that
glisten with blood red
and intrude on any and my own shelter
God, what do we ask for?
Peace? love? or obliteration?
-----------------------------------

If you keep you lust for my soul under wraps
then the machine that I live in will do its job
and you will probably get it in the ended
-----------------------------------------------

So Im pretty much a basket case at this point and I know I need someone to talk to, someone who I am not too proud to let them see or hear how low I was at that point and who would understand why I was upset. Also someone who would let me sit in my own pity. I ended up calling my Uncle Lorenzo, who not only is my God-father but also he is involved with this kind of work and he's pretty stern about give people only as much boost as they need. after talking to him, he helped me see that I had a choice in what kind of activist I could be. and I decided that I wanted to be one that always hope and held out for humanity but didnt take no stuff.

So crisis averted and I walked over to the restaurant where my group was eating lunch ( Dick's Last Resort) and finally was back to some sort of normality.

Afternoon:
After lunch was my second seminar Pacific Islanders and their Place in Higher Education. Now considering the morning speaker, I was a little wary of any subjects having to do with the Pacific Islands, I admit. However I knew it would probably be different. I was right. I really enjoyed that session because it definitely opened my eyes to problems that I havent heard specifically of (however their predicaments sound awfully similar with key differences) and I found myself kind of wishing that I went to a college that had a bigger population of people of color because there is so much more to learn than just categories of black, Latino/Chicano, Native American, and Asian American. Diversity is such a bigger and more complicated category than I feel people at Iowa State realize.There are troubles and issues within those categories that need to be separated and alerted about. And I ended up getting much more reading material (as well as a new contact on my facebook) as we talked about issues and problems that Pacific Island students have to go through in Higher Ed and the steps that are being taken. It was a fantastic session.

So at this point, all groups from Iowa State meet up for the group discussion and it's obvious that people are still talking about that morning's keynote speaker. Fortunately Michael had invited one of my hero's, Victor Lewis to sit with us for a bit and talk. Now instead of getting into what Ms. Trask had said, he instead introduced us into a stress- releasing activity called EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) where as we tapped on certain parts of our body like under the eyes or under our cheeks while chanting a phrase like "even though I totally disagreed with Ms. Trask, I completely and wholly accept myself". Victor promised us that when we did this at least 3 times (or more if we need it) until our anger and stress was gone, then it never would come back again. I mean, the fact that I can write about what Ms. Trask said without getting angry again since I had to remember and revisit how I was feeling at the time, is very surprising to me. So it was a very relaxing session and all of us had let go of most if not all of our angry and it was very relaxing.

Evening"
So here is where a lot of carefree fun began. Most of the Iowa State groups, including ours, decided that we would go to Little Italy and go to a Italian place for dinner. So we gathered down in the lobby to wait for people to come down. So we gather a sizable group with plans to take the trolley to Little Italy when this shuttle bus playing loud music pulls up next to up and offers us a ride to where ever we were going. (originally for free). so we jump on the shuttle with a disco song playing in the background. we're getting ready to leave the hotel when Josh, Jose, and Deepak call us because we left them and ask if we could pick them up because their lazy behinds were watching a basketball game and wanted us to wait for them so we went back and picked them up. about halfway to Little Italy somebody asks "Where's Paul?" who, is back the hotel. so we go BACK to the hotel and pick him up and finally arrive at little Italy (with some music trouble on the way. (Air Force Ones wasnt so bad but then Eminem started playing and none of us were feeling it at all.)

The first restaurant we went to was really crowded so we went to a place called Spagghettiria who seated all 20 of us in 2 minutes! So we are just joking around having a good time when a lady selling roses walks by and poor Josh reaches (or is given, i cant remember) for a rose and is give 3 and told 10 dollars. He decides then just to pay for them when he takes out a twenty and gives it to the woman, expecting change. The rose-seller then said that's okay and gives him 3 more roses and disappears out of the restaurant before Josh could react. all of us are laughing because Josh just got completely hustled!

so after taking the music playing shuttle (or the Party Bus as we named it) back to the hotel we got back to our rooms for the night. That is except those of us who went swimming at like 9:30pm. we just hopped into the outdoor jacuzzi and heated swimming pool and talked and messed around until two of us were left and it was 11:30. they eventually kicked us out.

NCORE and San Diego: Wednesday

2009-06-03T08:52:00.002-07:00

So to clarify, yes I am doing notes from day to day. Dont like it? dont read it. also all ISCORE students were divided into different group where they would have to go to a certain amount of sessions based on the "race" they were assigned with. For reference, my group was assigned Asian American and Pacific Islander.
Group Members: Sheena (team leader), Jose, Sandra, and I

Morning:
So my group goes out to breakfast at this coffee restaurant in the Gaslight District near our hotel. It was freakin' expensive and it wasnt even that good. $20 on BREAKFAST! So after vowing never to step foot in that place again, Jose left for his first seminar and Sandra (who wasnt feeling well), sheena and I went to this Walgreens-like store and then back to the hotel.

Afternoon:
So the European Cup came on around 11am or something and Jose and I and some of the others wanted to watch it in our hotel room instead of going out to lunch. (GO MESSI! GO BARCA) Sheena fortunately brought us subway about about 15 minutes into the second half we left for the Conference Opening address.

The Arrested Development of Democracy: Cornel West
Above all a FANTASTIC session. besides the fact that Corel West is a GENIUS, his speech was seriously inspiring (as cliche as it sounds) and really was full of quotes and advice that I even wrote down to put on my facebook page. (see facebook profile for details) Basically the session was on how racism and institutionalized racism halts any kind of progress that can be made in democracy. Also just the history of civil rights actions and the actions being made today including by Obama.

So after that speech, I attempted to go to the session Perception Through Images: A Photoethnography of Women Students of Color at a Predominantly White Institution (which I REALLY am mad that I missed) but I and other people were kicked at because the session was full. -_-
So I opted for The Longest Hatred and the College Campus: Anti Semitism and Anti-Israelism in American Higher Ed. Definitely learned alot in that session. Especailly how people cover up Anti-Semitism by claimed to just be against Zionism (but their language and words usage tells the real story). A little dry sometimes but overall, good stuff.

So after the sessions was a Welcoming ceremony, Native Californian Welcome where music and dancing groups of Native northern and southern Cali performed dances and sang songs from their own ceremonial houses and events. The dancers and singers from the Bird Singers of San Diego did a music assortment that I am totally unfamiliar with where it was like pausing a song for times and performing each section separately. really just cool. and I spotted Victor Lewis from Color of Fear in the corner watching which is UBER cool.

Evening:
After the performances was the NCORE Reception and dinner. Hands down the best cooked lamb I have EVER had. also lots of networking was done with people you didnt know and introductions were made. also I finally tracked down Mike who I had been hunting for and who encouraged me to talk to Victor but I gotta say I was incredibly intimidated. Eventually Mike introduced me to him and I was totally hyped. so yeah, after that, went to bed.

NCORE and San Diego: Tuesday

2009-06-03T08:52:00.001-07:00

So I am letting all who read this now know that this is doubling as my Journal that I have to do for ISCORE so yeah.

Afternoon:

So I arrived at the hotel about the same time as everyone else but since I had been out in the city the day before with my mother, I wasnt exploring like most of the other IAstate students were. However I did go to my frist conference which was called Race and Class Matters Part II: Examining and Understanding Internalized Racism and Classism.

I went to this session having had missed the first session. We started by finishing a movie that they had been watching in part I about gentrification, white flight, and how it affect the value and system of areas in the suburbs and city. the movie was fantastic in itself. it really lets people know how even though they claim the opposite, the government and the economy do put a price on skin color. after that we did a few exercises that focused on self experiences with class and race since the two are seen as impossible to separate from the other.

Learned a few things but mostly the session was a revisit of subjects gone over before and how they apply to oneself personally. The second video though was excellent. it was on how inner city african american girls and teens see themselves and the internalized messages they possess and are aware that they possess. The whole perm issue was brought up as well and made me feel extremely happy that I had chosen to cut mine off for the same reasons they mentioned in the movie. (I'll probably create a separate note for exactly why I cut off my hair)

After my session, all the ISCORE students met with our group leader for group discussion. However me and Jeff had to leave with Todd to go to our Scholars ceremony. So we ended up going to this (Jesuit? Catholic? dunno) college about 20 minutes from the hotel. there was a pretty decent buffet and the school mariachi band who was pretty good. it was super cold though so we werent too thrilled about being outside. so ceremony began, we recieved our awards, and as soon as we could, we left (again is was REALLY cold).

We got back to the hotel just in time to see Tim Wise, who I dragged Jeff to see cause he's freakin' brilliant.
Mostly Tim Wise talked about the so called post-racial era and the paradox and contradictions that that phrase contains. Basically it's people who have never had a good grasp on the state of instituational racism telling everyone else that it's all over and done with as if they are a good authority on it. and Tim Wise's advice? Dont listen to white men's opinions on racism, which pretty much everybody laughed at cause, HELLO? I could go on and on but I will stop there.

anyways after it was over, I turned in for the night.

NCORE Daily Outline

2009-05-31T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hey so I am back from the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity. It was even more fantastic and wonderful than I imagined. I wish I could sit and type all about it right now but I have an interview tomorrow so I need to turn in. before I do though, I will give a teaser to what I will write by giving an outline of each day

Monday

Arrived with Mom
Went to the Bay area
Went to the mall
went to dinner at Fillippi's

Tuesday

Got to Conference hotel
Went to Race and Class seminar
ISCORE peeps arrived
Went to the Tim Wise speech
Dinner at Student Scholar Ceremony

Wednesday

Keynote Speaker: Cornell West
Anti Semitism and Anti Israeli seminar
Native Californian welcome

Thursday:

(crazy) Keynote Speaker on Militarism and Tourism in the Pacific Islands
Art and Race seminar
Breakdown and Phone Call
Pacific Islanders and their Place in Higher Ed
Little Italy: Party Bus and Spaghetteria

Friday:

Keynote Speaker: Ron His Horse is Thunger
Model Minority Seminar
Hip-hop: Is Everybody Stupid seminar
San Diego Tour
Going Green
Group Discussion
Gaslamp District: Thai food and Gherardelli's
Incident

Saturday

There's Race in My Movie seminar
Hmong rapper seminar
Keynote Speaker Pedro N's on the post civil rights era
Group discussion (encounters in San Diego
Trip to Old Town
Night chat

Love & Basketball: A Reflection

2009-05-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

So I watched most of Love & Basketball for the first time in about 5 years. Usually I watch only my favorite scenes, like the first scene when they were kids and then when Sidney was in Spain. However I had forgotten most of the sequence of events (but not the plot).

So I watched it, remembering that when I was younger I had loved this movie. However, watching it with my 19 year old mind was a different ball game (haha Im punny)

First off, Mr. Quinton was a jerk hands down. I understand that the audience is supposed to think that in the beginning, but, he is supposed to be redeemed somehow. I didnt feel that way though. Some things that I was irritated about were
*Why the heck is it ok for Q to go on, have a life, and eventually a fiancee, and Sidney is left pinning away for him while not dating, not going out, and even losing her love for basketball? I didnt see Q as heartbroken at all. Mostly I wondered if he even cared because he sure had a funny way of showing it.
*I think Sidney should have had a little more pride than to go after a guy she KNEW was a ladies man. I know they grew up together and that she knew him better than anyone. So my point is that she KNEW just what kind of dog that he was. He had very little respect for any girl he took home and she was eventually treated just the same in the end. I have no idea why she let it go since if that is the way he treated the rest, why the heck would he treat her any different. people like to tell me love but look what he did to her later. and she STILL was going after him. it was totally ok with her the constant disrespect and objectifying way he was treating her.

I felt that Sidney was treated like she was disposable, someone that Q could hook up with when he wanted then shoved to the side when he got all angsty because it didnt matter how he treated her, she would always love and come back to him. i dont feel he deserved and loyalty that he wouldnt show himself.

now i know the arguments that will surface. how it is because she loved him that she could stand the abuse and that it only took him to realize it to be good again. but im not sure if so called "love" is worth the dehuman way that Sidney was treated.

And what about the flight attendant (Tyra Banks)? is she not important just because she isnt the protagonist of the movie. She probably had feelings for Q, obviously enough that she wanted to marry him. And it was completely ok that he just went off with Sidney and broke every promise he made to her. and if he did that so easily to her than who knows what he would do once Sidney and he were married.

in the end the thing that kept me watching was the music

the song "You Made A Fool Of Me" by Me'Shell Ndegeocello was the summation of this movie (and a awesome song anyways!)

Blogspot Decision

2009-05-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

So. I love to rant. In the stage of personal development that I am currently in (ugh fancy-talk) I think it is probably a good idea to write some of this stuff down for later reference. However I hate writing in diaries. I also do a lot of blogging on facebook but sometimes i feel like the people who I want to see my blog are the people who will actually hear what I am saying, even if they dont agree with it. the responses tha I get from people who I dont want to response usually consist of assuming I am some white-people hating revolutionist. the second description I consider a compliment but as for the first, i dont hate anyone (Christian principles and all that.)

so yeah

anyway here is my first blog.