Activism

A Tale of Two Activists: A Feminist Writer of Color and an “Occupier”

Published on by Lisa

It began with two poems.*

I had written “Rip Up the Streets” after weeks of agitation; agitation caused by the Occupation and directed toward the Occupation. His poem, “Wait,” was written in response to critiques of the Occupation, doubt, frustration, pain.

For a month I had been watching, observing, listless and not entirely certain why. I identified as an activist for twelve years and had my share of street activism. Sign holding, marches, chanting, crossing the line, civil disobedience, mind games by police and law enforcement, letter writing, petition signing, globe trotting, conference presenting-attending, proposal writing, grant pleading.

The Occupation, though, was annoying me. I could not precisely say why.

****** Two Weeks Earlier*******

A white woman holds up a sign, “Women is the Nigger of the World” during SlutWalk, a grassroots campaign geared toward raising consciousness about gendered violence. If you want to know more, read up.

I didn’t join the fray. I’d had my fair share of “feminist” movements and moments that proved unsafe, negligent, and downright unjust toward women of color, GLBTQI, transexual, transgender, and non-conforming folks all done in the name of “movement” and “liberal” and “freedom” and “justice.” Most of these acts, however, were White-identified mainstream swimming feminists. Distrust grows with each incident and “What would you have me do?” retorts/excuses.

It was just another brick to add to the wall I had been building about kyriarchal, heteronormative, “liberal” movements that ignore the stratification of power and privilege within the 99%. Moving beyond oppression Olympics, true liberation is about understanding the dynamic of hierarchal powers and its impact in movement building so we can identify, strategize, and create a movement that does not perpetrate the oppression we claim to fight against.

In liberation, there is no “most.” There is only “all.” The responsibility includes critical analyses of existing paradigms and pedagogies of oppression AND how we participate in those models. It is not enough to analyze the interlocking oppressions against marginalized communities, but to be awakened to the ways in which we have accepted and inhabited these practices of hierarchal control and mentalities. The effects of oppression are not just about the oppression of the 1% against the 99%, it’s about the social norms we have adopted within our own communities in effort to gain or secure ourselves at the expense of another person.

There is very little redemption for a movement that would condone using a sign with the very word that means structural, institutional, sinful, systematic oppression. What’s more disturbing is the fallout of that sign. The excuses, the “it’s only one person,” the “we can’t be responsible for every sign” only solidified my belief that many feminists *still* lack comprehensive education around oppression. They don’t get why you don’t use the n-word in a sign. I don’t care if that phrase was coined by Yoko Ono and later used by John Lennon. It’s a fatal literary wound.

If you don’t know why or how race – among many other facets of social stratification and identity – is still an issue today, you’re probably not the best person to publicly hold a sign about who or what women are today. Put your hand down. Don’t volunteer.

******* Present Day**********

I swear there’s something about young White women who feel compelled to dress like it’s the dead of summer and hold up political signs.

“Occupy.”

It should be “DeColonize.”

Why?

Well, read up for yourself on why language is the house of being and it’s more than just picking at semantics.

So, I have a dream about race, feminism, organizing and when I wake up, I write “Rip Up the Streets.” I put it out there for a few activist friends and one of them is in the Occupation. An “occupier.”

He writes me. He’s devastated by my poem. He’s emotionally spent, fatigued, and hurt.

He writes a poem and sends it to me.

We agree to do things the old fashioned way: talk in person.
We meet at my house the next day to hash this out face to face.

I read up before our meeting, trying to put my head in the write space and realize, how much I have grown and changed in my own political identity. 12 years of activism and I know who I trust: my own experiences.

I run Isaiah around in the hours before the meeting, hoping to tire him out and guarantee an afternoon nap. The stove is warming a big pot of nilaga, a Filipino soup/stew with lots of sabao. Knowing those soup bones are in my kitchen, something from my culture, something from me, comforts me.

I stir it gently. I know what I’m about.

Although I’m not sure what H* is going to say, or how he’s going to be, I know that our friendship and mutual respect can frame and contain our differences, however profound they may be.

In my reading, I see that Naomi Wolf is arrested. *eyeroll*
My distrust of the Occupation strengthens. Naomi Wolf.

H* arrives and thus begins the near 3 hour meeting in my living room.

He tells me about the Occupation. What’s happening on the ground.

I tell him about Poor. I share my skepticism based on years of observing, exposure, and a lifetime of unraveling what happens when people get rowdy over personal loss vs. communal love. (e.g. Being motivated because you don’t have a job vs. transforming life habits out of knowledge that poverty exists and and its entirely humanmade)

We share.

I talk about my skepticism about the Madison protests. The media coverage. The precious feelings of the middle-class who may or may not be concerned with anyone or anything else except their own economic security. Or, as better stated:

“Let’s be real. The economic crisis did not begin with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008. Indeed, people of color and poor people have been in a state of crisis since the founding of this country, and for indigenous communities, since before the founding of the nation. We have long known that capitalism serves only the interests of a tiny, mostly white, minority.

Black and brown folks have long known that whenever economic troubles ‘necessitate’ austerity measures and the people are asked to tighten their belts, we are the first to lose our jobs, our children’s schools are the first to lose funding, and our bodies are the first to be brutalized and caged. Only we can speak this truth to power. We must not miss the chance to put the needs of people of color—upon whose backs this country was built—at the forefront of this struggle.”

I talk about Grace Lee Boggs and her message of sustainability.

Grace Lee Boggs' message to Occupy Wall Street - 10/9/11 from American Revolutionary on Vimeo.

He tells me about the education going on among the leaders, the need for diverse voices but the all the faces are White.

He asks what his role is as a hetero White male.

I shrug inside. Sometimes I don’t know what my role is as a privileged woman of color. “Lead by listening,” I tell him. “Respect communities of color enough to support them to solve their problems, tell their stories, and use your privilege with grace and generosity. If you want to know more about a person, be in relationship. If you want to know about their culture, go read a book. Lead by listening. Be a man of strength: show your vulnerability and how hard it is to live against the grain. Endure this.”

He thinks for a minute, “And I know that when I enter a room, I am a symbol of that oppression. And I know it’s not your responsibility or anyone’s responsibility to educate me.”

Right.

Welcome to the cruelty of white supremacy. See, for a long time, White people thought that it’s only people of color who cry racism when something’s wrong or when they want to even out the playing field. Not true. The effects of a system and nation dependent upon White supremacy runs deep in all of us. It not only feeds the legislation that criminalizes and kills the poor and marginalized, it feeds inferiority complexes and thwarts the human dignity of ALL. It robs us ALL of the gifts of people of color, and it dilutes and compromises the potentially rich relationship that can exist between people of difference. It’s not just about White people get everything, give me some. Racism is about loss. Deep, unretrievable loss. Loss of relationship, and its place, an illusion of sameness and control kept alive by unjust legislation and corrupt institutional powers.

We go deeper.

We talk about power, power dynamics within activist circles, gendered violence, the midwest and its (un)fruitful garden of support for alternative living. H* shares his career plans to go into community health, to go to medical school and use health as his foundation to encompass his passion for social justice.

He rubs his eyes and suddenly I am overwhelmed by the world, brought in through my front door on a blustery fall day. “What about you?” he asks.

I want to laugh, “Yes, what about me…”

“I can’t fly around the globe anymore, nor do I want to. I don’t want to go sleep on a sidewalk because I don’t believe that, at this point, that’s the best use of my purpose and presence. My concept of activism has changed, radically, as a mother, and I have yet to see the life of activism modeled for those of us who are not single or child-less. A family of activists is still a novel concept. We’re bound to each other and the Occupation keeps encouraging us to get out there and take space. Believe me, I am taking more space as a writer and minister than I can as an occupier.”

We dig deeper.

We talk about isolation, mental health, families of origin, nation-state, and what the United States may look like in two generations.

As we head past the second hour, my stomach growls, yet I don’t feel hungry. It felt appropriate on so many levels, like our hunger and thirst for justice took on a physiological state.

We never got to the nilaga. Just embraces and “you’re good for me” words muffled into each others’ shoulders.

Perhaps this is the face of change, of activism spurred by difference and led by openness. Hours in a living room, talking fervently in hushed voices so not to wake my sleeping child.

_____________________________________________________________________

*Rip Up These Streets

This land was not discovered,
it was TAKEN –
and in the taking of land
there was taking of lives, of women’s bodies
blood
was taken
to drink in the name of Christopher,
for who we
so ignorantly rejoice
and give favor
for murder, rape, and theft.

A hol(y)-day
of all things
we give to him.

A hol(y)-day
to do nothing,
to rest from labor and disturbance.

A day rooted
in the most evil disturbance
imaginable.

This SOIL. This LAND.
Is. Not. Ours.
And it’s not ours to claim to occupy –
or RE-Occupy.

Rip up these streets

The word Occupy is being used to
“instigate”
“agitate”
“educate”
but these roads were in need of cleansing
long before a “movement” of the 99%

We
of all people
who live on stolen ground
should know better than to cry
OCCUPY!
in the name of justice

Rip up these streets

OccupyNothing

OR

Occupy your mind
– listen –
to the lives
of the preyed and eaten,
not the lion’s tale –
the victor’s tale.

OccupyNothing
because it’ll take more than occupation
to transform a culture
a society
a nation
a life

Rip up these streets

and remake these pathways
with grass more livable
than concrete

with a plan more sustainable
than agitation

Rip up the streets in our hearts
that seek to fight the powers
because we want more
power for ourselves

MORE
MORE
MORE

Rip up the streets in our minds
which seek “fair and just”
for many
but ignore
those even more marginalized
and push them further out
to the isles of oppression

There is something more true than
Occupy

Rip up these streets

and DeColonize.
Your Self.

_______________________________________________________________________
H*’s poem which was written in response.

Wait

WAIT
Wait, they say.

Wait until the powerful willingly give up their power.
Wait until the time is right.
Wait, they say, until I finish my thesis,
in which I craft the perfect theory
of the perfect movement.

Wait.

Until then, they say, be silent.
Be silent about the pains you have felt.
Be silent about the suffering you have seen.
Be silent, they say, about all that is hurting in this world.
Be silent, they say,
and wait.

Do nothing, they say, until all is perfect.
Do not speak to your neighbors about the injustice you have seen and felt.
Do not have conversations about oppression and hierarchy.
Do not express your discontent with the status quo, they say, until all is perfect.
Until all is perfect, they say,
be silent and wait.

WAIT, THEY SAY.
Wait, they say, while prisons fill.
Wait, they say, while schools empty.
Wait, they say, while our minds and hearts and souls are corrupted by the oppressive structures of our society.

BE SILENT, THEY SAY.
Be silent, they say, while inequality grows.
Be silent, they say, while the powerful consolidate their power.
Be silent, they say, while everything we love and cherish and value is thrown into the fire.

DO NOTHING, THEY SAY.
Do nothing, they say, while the very earth groans beneath our feet.
Do nothing, they say, while hopelessness consumes those you love.
Do nothing, they say, while the future is lost.

This, my sisters and brothers, is how the oppressor turns us against one another.
This, my sisters and brothers, is how we tear each other down.
This, my sisters and brothers, is how those precious embers of hope that glow faintly in our hearts, those embers that allow us to believe, if only briefly, that a better world is possible, those embers that are at the very core of our humanity.

This is how those embers are snuffed.

40 Days of Writing, Day 20: Memoir as an Act of Self-Destruction

Published on by Lisa

…memoir is the ultimate act of self-destruction… writes Dave Eggers.  That’s how he sees memoir writing — it should be something like the “shedding a skin.”

This Pulitzer nominee describes memoir as an act of self-destruction.  “Shedding of skin.”

This sounds familiar.

ECDYSIS:  the shedding of an outer lay or integument.  Molting.

It’s a sign, I think.  I’m on the right path.

I’m going to see Eggers speak tomorrow.  I don’t know why.  I have a quarter of a million things I need to be working on, but instead, I’m going to go see the author who sees memoir exactly as I do.

Memoir.

I’ve always written memoir.  Since I was, I don’t know, seven years old.  I thought there was rich potential in writing my life out at the end of the day and thinking about what I could share with others.  It never came a from self aggrandizing, quite the opposite.  My life was superbly ordinary in many ways.  I just happened to have a keen eye for detail, a heart created for writing.  But I was embarrassed by it, embarrassed by my desire to write about life, my observations, events that shaped my perspective.  To do so, in my opinion, was self aggrandizing.  And, I figured, someone probably said it before and said it much better than I ever could.

But I never met anyone who thought like me, or could say it like me, or write it in the exact same why I did.  It wasn’t that I thought my way was the best, but I never agreed with what I was reading.  Eventually, I grew listless for waiting for someone to write my thoughts.

Maybe someone has written it before, but no one has or ever will express something to the depths and character that you will express it.  Because no one is you, an old therapist told me when I confessed my desire to write but my fear surrounding the egotistical assumption that what I would write would be useful to the world.  No one is you.  No one can be.

The best way I describe things is through the filter of my life.  I explain through the ecdysis of my life, through the impact upon my mind, the shattering of my expectation, the displacement of my comfort, the movement of my borders.  I write to explain it to myself.  What comes out is what I offer the reader.

Which is the only way I can describe the experience I had at the A/PIA Movement Building conference in Ann Arbor this past weekend.  It breathed new ideas and vocabulary into my system.  It surprised me how easily my head shifted from Mommyhood to activist thinker and writing philosopher.  I took it as a good sign that the side of me that so loves to engage with the activist, academic, fighting, high fists in the air world is just quietly waiting inside me, ready whenever I am to immerse myself back into the trenches.

A/PIA.  Asian Pacific Island Americans.  Us, building a movement.  I had no idea what I was in for during this conference, but walked away with a pride and certainty that my skin is not a curse, not a gift, but an unfolding story in the history of country still unfamiliar with how to reconcile difference.  I learned how community activism is about a life of love, and joy! and that fighting for equality is not always about policy and infrastructure, but fighting for others to have the right to enjoy simple pleasures that are we all seek in our daily survival.  Bike rides, warm blankets, a clean water cup, decent education, an anti-colonial, anti-imperialistic existence.

At 32, I learned when I met Grace Lee Boggs at 96, I may have a long ride ahead of me.  And, I was excited.  I was excited to live long and envision myself talking to a 32 year old young Pinay mother when I am old and gray and still scribbling in my sketchpads because I still hate lined paper.

I envisioned myself at 96 years old, too young to give up, and surrounded by the energy of young hopeful activists determined to see a better world still in front of them.

I saw myself telling them that I lived through the election of the first black and black-identified president and how it was such a big deal back then.

I smiled at my dream – Isaiah wheeling me in to attend an movement building A/PIA conference, and Nick eating a sandwich in the front row with me.

My whole life, at that point, will be memoir-ed.  Ecdysis-ed.  It will all have been lived out, and written about, and processed.  Even at 96 years old, I’ll still be jotting down my ideas to radically love my community, how to improve as a person, and hopefully encourage the young people before me that 64 years ago I sat in their place, with hopeful eyes and restless hearts and the best thing I ever did was write about it.

Gendered Pain: A Free Write on Birth, Partnership and the Woman’s Body

Published on by Lisa

There’s nothing sexy about pain.  There’s nothing even remotely redeeming, glorified, cute, or remarkable about pain.

I came into this realization quite quickly Sunday morning when I was dressing Isaiah for mass. I began lowering him to the floor, felt a horribly familiar pop! in my lower back and I immediately recognized that telling radiating heat that spread throughout my lumbar region as I fell on one knee. Isaiah screamed in my ear as he harmlessly wobbled back from me so he peer into my face to see what was wrong.  All he could see was my face going paler by the second and my breath quicken in short spurts and outbursts, trying to control the pain.

No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.

Not again.  Not again.  Not again.  NOT AGAIN.

I just got back to the gym this week.  I just started getting back on the treadmill, back in the zumba studio, back for my first swim in the pool.  I just …

I just got over my back injury from last month.

Remembering my phone was in the inner pocket of my purse, I slowly walked to my purse on the ground and gently leaned forward.  I reached and immediately fell and screamed in pain.

I somehow got my phone, I don’t remember how.  (A friend told me that when her back went out, she blacked out from the pain.)  I remember feeling calmed by the smooth surface of my phone, thanking God it was charged and relieved that Nick was only 5 minutes into his day, ahead of me, and on his way to work.  I whispered frantically to Isaiah that everything was fine and threw him a toy as I winced in pain.  He hobbled away, whimpering at the site of his mother in such disarray and distraction.

I burst into tears and could barely get the words out to Nick, “My back…w-w-went ou-ou-out a-a-a-gain…”

It was at that moment that I retreated from the world, the pain was overwhelming, almost blinding.

A co-worker told me later she saw Nick walking on the street when he was talking to me, all dressed up for work, briefcase in hand, but in an unusual walking speed, “a near run” she told me.  So she stopped and offered him a ride to wherever he was rushing to.  “Home,” he said, “Leese threw her back out again.”

It’s hormones, my chiropractor told me yesterday.  All the hormones and chemicals that loosen the pelvis and back, readying the body to deliver a baby, are still in your body and, likely, the lumbar region isn’t as tight as it was before and isn’t as strong.  Doing household chores and lifting things can sprain, strain, and injure the lower back, says the doc.

All of this from hormones?  Still?  It’s been 14 months.

Hormones and chemicals can linger in your body, doc says.

A number of friends – all who have given birth in the past two years – have confided of their recent and surprising chronic lower back pain, some so severe that it prevents mobility.  Few have found comfort.  All have tried natural healing, gym trainers, chiropractors, physical therapists. This strange community of back pain mothers comforts me.

I toss two pills of Alleve in my mouth and tried to smile at Isaiah in the kitchen.  He put his chubby arms up for me to carry him and starts grabbing my clothes for leverage, like trying to climb a tree.  Nick immediately scooped him up and tries to cheer him up with a jolly, overly boisterous voice.  The shriek out of Isaiah’s mouth was one I could interpret instantly, “What’s the matter with you?  Why won’t you pick me up?”  He’s taken away from me and, out of nowhere, I have an image of him being taken away from me the moment he was born when all I wanted to do was hold him.  I shake my head, and gently stir the boiling orzo.

Is this what birthing mothers deal with, I asked my head as I stare at the back of Nick’s body.  His is so strong, so solid.  Simply clad in jeans and a white tshirt, Nick’s body looked beautiful to me; his wide and capable back seemed fearless.  His stride was fluid, like a complicated piece of piano music keyed effortlessly.  I look down at my body.  A staccato mess of surgeries, stretch marks, and my skin’s opinion of the pregnancy weight gain and loss.   I see my scarred belly from three surgeries with another scheduled in the summer to fix an umbilical hernia.  My inner eye sees an exhausted and red lumbar region, a weakened lower back throbbing with stubborn stiffness.  It strikes me, with almost a pin needle acuteness, that Nick’s body hadn’t changed at all since we had Isaiah.  Nick’s body remained intact, with no incisions, no stretches, no torn anything.

I pause in that realization.

His tongue had never mistaken water for metallic liquid.  His nose never became so sensitive as to be able to detect the cleaning fluid on the floor of a grocer.  His heart ventricles never widened to allow more blood flow.  His calves and feet never swelled with unbearable water retention.  His chest never billowed with heart burn.  His mind never clouded with postpartum depression.  His nipples never cracked with pain so deep that his shoulders shuddered.  His skin never broke out in rashes.  He never vomited from anesthesia or used his foreman to protect a 6 inch abdominal incision against a winter chill.  He never had a catheter put in at the same time as a suppository while compressors pumped blood away from his legs.  He never had an abrasion in the back of his eye because the surgeons forgot to completely close and protect his eyes before surgery.  He never had to take pills to stop, prompt, or control a menstrual cycle.  He never felt a flutter of life in his belly or feel the hiccup of a new being inside his womb.

Because he doesn’t have a womb.

Nick did and does everything a parent could possibly do.  He transformed his emotions, his life, his commitments, and reformed his schedule to accommodate me and every little thing I needed throughout my pregnancy and birthing experience.  He respects anything I tell him or request.  Nick continuously and gladly lays in a metaphorical railroad track for me and our son.  If that’s what needs to happen, that’s what I will do, he says.

But in the confines of my bed, nursing this near paralysis, when I hear Isaiah’s laughter and Nick’s efforts to keep him occupied, I realize, with ringing clarity something that I could not have known or respected prior to going through it myself: our bodies are entirely different and our needs are entirely different.  My body endured all of this and my body cried differently than his. I knew this beforehand, but I never really Knew It beforehand.  Maybe my body never really cried until I became a mother.

So this difference between Nick and I exists.  It exists as sharp as a paring knife, as real as our love.  That difference – that my body changed while his did not – initially sprouted a rocketing resentment against anything him, society, and anyone else that didn’t Get It.  It = women’s bodies are a terrain that only we ourselves can travel.  It is not for anyone to lay laws upon.  It is not to be conquered, violated, disposed, or mishandled.  Along with the resentment, I also noticed a widening reverence for my body.  From which new life travels, the woman’s body is the canal to existence.  It is from our very bones, the calcium of our teeth, the marrow of our own breath that the woman’s body offers and sustains a new being.  The woman’s body is the epitome of automated self-sacrifice.  It is the ground zero of renewal — if the environment agrees that her life is valuable and the time to recover is respected.  We women, we give birth.  And we are also born into a new identity and a new body.

Give.  Birth.

Give.

Birth.

Are there two more powerful and daunting words in the English language?

But we women are also prone to set back and injury because of what our spines uphold.  Our bellies swell with life and our spines pull back to hold us up and in shape. Sometimes, though, the spine gives way and loses its strength.

Pain, whether it’s the lower back or elbow, or migraine, or menstrual, is a debilitating state of existence.  Not because of the physical pain itself.  It’s debilitating because chronic or severe pain draws our minds inward, incapable of fully giving of ourselves to anything or anyone else.  In pain, I become unlike myself.  I don’t unravel.  I do the opposite, I am mummified.  Most people, but especially me, are social beings.  I feel endorphins from conversation, laughter, and intellectual exchange.  However, in the confines of a bed and four walls, my spirit goes down.  My intellect goes dim and my emotions begin to go dark.  Swathed and cast in my own stillness and short breaths, pain dictates my freedom.  I no longer care about anything.  All that matters is finding a pain-free, mobile existence.  Which is why when I check all my social media outlets – email, Facebook, Twitter, newsfeeds, and listserves – I shake my head that the world is celebrating Mardi Gras and International Women’s Day.  I wish I had the energy to care.  I find all kinds of interesting stuff to read, but before my mind digests in the information, my back spasms again and I nearly drop my laptop in shock.

Pain draws us inward.

So for me, today, the one day (unfortunately) that calls women from all over the world to stand together, I lie in bed, with my eyes closed, waiting for relief.  Luckily, for me, I am certain of two things:

patience and writing can be worked on in bed

and

I do and can stand up for women’s rights and gender justice on a daily basis.  But right now, regaining my spiritual and psychological composure after a back injury and remembering the awesome capacity of a woman’s body seems like my fight for today.

Tomorrow it may be something else.

Here’s my Feministe Question about Radical Childcare

Published on by Lisa

I’ve been a reader of Feministe for a few years now.  It’s pretty much one of the few mainstream-ish blogs/sites that I pop my cyber head in for a check-in for women and gender news and updates.

It’s not just the writers that provide news.  What I find more telling about the temperature of mainstream feminism and how far (or not) we have come, is the comment section. Comments can range from supportive and affirming to downright knee-slapping hilarious for its ridiculousness.

Right now, there is a post that I genuinely support and am eager to read how others are reacting.  As a contributing writer and editor at make/shift magazine, I always feel a thrill when a significant article, like Heather Bowlan’s Power to the Parents, is picked up by another outlet, like Utne.

And then there’s more thrill when it’s mentioned in the feminist blogosphere.

My curiosity set in, though, when NO comments were made in the post.  None.  Not even a “thanks for posting the link,” or “I disagree because collective childcare is _____ ” kind of comment.

No reaction.

Or, is it no interest?

What does that say about feminist readers?  Or is it just Feministe readers?  What does it say that when feminist sites cover news about abortion signs or Planned Parenthood, media goes crazy and the readers respond. But when an article reports of a much needed service in the activist circles, the voices of support or even of mild inquiry are nowhere to be found.  When the subject is redefining the family and broadening inclusion in the “movement,” why is there an echo in the room?  For all of the cries of “liberal” and “progressive” readers, where is the interest in the news when it reports a piece of information that actually DOES something to make a difference in the lives of women?

Is there no reaction to this amazing effort by China Martens and others who work to try and include children in the movement for justice and peace?

No reaction?  Is it that people want to react to more posts about Charlie Sheen’s assholery or popular and well-covered issues such as white privilege?

Or is this more telling about the disinterest the capital *F feministers have when it comes to women who are not white, heterosexual, partnered, and without dependents of any kind?  What does a “no comments” section mean about the vested interest in a truly pro-life (non-political term usage here), pro-women, pro-family effort?

Just observin’.

Just sayin’.

Just questioning.

The Five Inconvenient Truths About Sexual Assault

Published on by Lisa

The recent allegations against former VP, Oscar-winning, Nobel Prize joint holder Al Gore of sexual assault is enough to make anyone – Dem, Indie, or Republican squirm with uneasiness. I mean, it’s not everyday you hear that the former right hand man to the leader of the free world and near leader of the free world in the closest Presidential race in the history of our nation ask a masseuse to release the energy in his second chakra.

The collision of digital media and pop culture has enabled us to receive information about this case – and news in general – faster than at other point in human history. Anywhere, anytime in the world, if a story breaks, if you have access to the internet, you will have reasonable means to find out what happened.

Find out what happened, that is, from the viewpoint of the media. And the staff. And their collective point system to determine if a story is “true” or not. Granted, if I were a paid journalist for a reputable paper, I’d use my own point system of fact-checking. If you gotta report on whether XYZ is a legitimate story, you have to have all the dots connect. That’s understandable.

What’s not understandable and downright wrong is to apply the journalists’ point system of “truth” likelihood to cases of sexual violence, a field where the dots do anything but connect. It is the very nature of violence that the dots are SUPPOSED to not make sense. We’re talking trauma and memory here, not context and accuracy.

The inconvenient truth about sexual assault is that there truly is no way to determine what truly happened, except for the two people who were involved. It’s more often than not, though, that the survivor of sexual assault is a woman, the assailant is a man, and there was indeed a sexual violation. INCONVENIENT TRUTH #1: Rape actually happens. All the time. At an alarming rate that you don’t want to acknowledge or believe. And it is rare that the rapes are ever proven.

Unfortunately, society at large tends to use celebrity and public cases ala Kobe Bryant and Ben Rothlisberge for their field experience and education. People hear about a public allegation of sexual violence and the majority of media consumers jump on the PROVE IT! PROVE IT! PROVE IT! taunting bandwagon, rather than displaying any semblance of sensitive, mature decorum, or, heaven forbid, prudence. It’s disheartening, to say the least. INCONVENIENT TRUTH #2: The public’s response, sensitivity, and knowledge base about sexual violence against women is inexcusably deficient. Is it really any wonder so few women ever come forward? Or why we have such a hard time comprehending any sort of justice outside the legal court system? The public’s venomous need for graphic details and using “guilty” or “not guilty” as the barometer for truth only further darkens the already dark path for survivors of violence.

In a conservative estimate, the FBI reports that only 37% of actual rapes are reported. After working in sexual assault for many years in advocacy and counseling, I believe it’s probably more around the 3.7% not 37%. Many years ago, a colleague who worked as a researcher in criminal justice for the government once told me that the report she submitted for the Department of Justice, which included the data of the number of sexual assaults that occurred that year, was later published with altered data numbers. The actual number of rapes was published LOWER than what her findings suggested. Why, I asked. Because, she told me plainly, no one wants to hear about how many women are raped in this country. And no one wants to tell the truth. INCONVENIENT TRUTH #3 Even the most credible resources for sexual violence estimates are just that: estimates. Ask any person who has worked in the field for more than 1 year who has direct service experience. S/he will tell you what I will tell you: The statistics are wrong. It’s more. Much more.

Anytime I wrote or give a talk about sexual assault, inevitably, someone brings up two magic words that somehow make people, usually disbelievers, feel better about the world: FALSE REPORTS. Yes, false reports exist. Yes, false reports exist. Yes, false reports exist.

There. I wrote it. Three times just to make sure you know they they do exist.

They happen. Of course they happen. Just like how everyday people lie on the trial stand. Just like employees fudge the truth about billing hours. Just like how some people “forget” a number or two when filing their taxes. People give false reports. YES. And, in that vein, I pray that people understand that (INCONVENIENT TRUTH #4) for every false report there are about 1000 truth bearing women who will NEVER say a word because they understand that when it comes to rape, the benefit of the doubt is given to the assailant, not the survivor.

It’s also imperative that people understand the difference between a false report and a withdrawn statement.
Many, many women I worked with who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, who were beaten black and blue, whose bodies were broken and spirits were crushed withdrew their statements and vanished into thin air. (WHY? Go back and read IC #4.) That’s a withdrawn statement. An actual false report is when the alleged victim admits to lying about giving a false statement. There’s no retracting of anything, just an admittance of lying. However, I must also interject, that there are women who also admit to false reporting out of fear of going forward. Not everything is black and white.

The overwhelming majority of women I work with never report and the ones that do face incredible odds of ever witnessing legal justice. My job, for many years, was to assist women in finding justice in other ways. Justice can be measured in how many hours of sleep you got, how many days were free of alcohol or drugs to numb the pain, entering a new, healthy relationship, communicating freely…Justice, for many survivors, is about reclaiming what was stolen. Rebuilding one’s life in the safety and love of their families and communities is often all one can do. INCONVENIENT TRUTH #5 Survivors often heal on their own, absent of any retribution or affirmation.

Finding out whether cases like Gore, Bryan, or Rothlisberger are true is not my interest. The last thing on my agenda is to convince anyone if someone is a perpetrator or not. What I am most interested in is pressing critical and comprehensive understanding of sexual violence against women; and how powerful and damaging this issue truly is. And if people understood how prevalent this is in their local communities, not as many folks would be interested in the celebrity cases. I guarantee it.

Sexual assault is a the issue with no silver lining. There is no upside or sentence that begins with, “Well, at least…” No. There is no middle ground, safe haven, or pill to make this pain go away. For the survivor, it is a vicious, damning cycle of violence, judgment, disbelief, and a tedious road of recovery. There is no silver lining, but there is hope. There is hope that everyday people, like you and me, can see through the BS of media’s portrayal of sexual assault and, if nothing else, better understand the issue at hand for ourselves. The more people who understand the true facts of violence against women, the more hope we have of preventing it in our own communities and families. And if it does happen, which it likely has and will, we are able to respond with gentleness, understanding, and empathy.

Stop REacting, and Just Start Acting

Published on by Lisa

So you wanna do something. You wanna do something that helps this Movement. So many folks have been asking, “What can I do?”

Here’s a start:
DONATE TO AN INTELLIGENT, INSIGHTFUL, ENERGIZED WOMYN BLOGGER OF COLOR WHO IS TRYING TO GET TO THE ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE!

BFP has organized a list of bloggers who need funding assistance to attend. The more WOC bloggers that can attend this conference which will be full of meeting, connecting, and raising collective feminist and social justice hell.

Wherever you are, if you close your eyes, you’ll be able to hear the noise coming from Detroit.

Get these womyn to the conference. They are needed. Please.

Click on these blogs and sites and look to the top left or right for the icon.

Fabulosa Mujer
Hermana Resist (donations can be made through her pay pal email: csdistro@gmail.com)
Please Professor Black Woman
Black Amazon
The Primary Contradiction

And, BFP is heading to the US Social Forum and, any and all donations are helpful.

Using my f(p)eminist prophetic skills, I will anticipate some questions you might be asking:

Why should I donate?
Well, my friend, conferences are more than just conferences. Particularly ones with a grassroots focus, conferences are the fertile soil to plant ideas, exchange contacts, and share resources with those who have similar visions of equality, voice and restlessness. Sharing your resources is a way to be active and transporting some really great minds to this event.

Why do these bloggers need financial assistance?
Welcome to the world of progressive writers, thinkers, and activists who must travel and make sacrifices. Several of these wonderful people are parents, caretakers, students, and give their time and energy to projects and jobs that don’t pay a whole lot. As much as we remain committed to activism, the role of monied funding cannot and will never be ignored. We can do this. We ALL can do this.

How do I know that the money will go toward this conference and not something else?
It might just be me, but I tend to trust individuals who spend their free time (when not studying, working, taking care of others, and educating) writing and raising awareness about issues concerning womyn, our planet, and the future. Call it a womyn’s intuition, I trust these people, whom I have yet to look in the eye, with more than just my money. I trust their words and agenda.