Culture and Race

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.

89 Infants Recovered from Kidnapping Reveals More than Just Male Preference

Published on by Lisa

The question always comes with good intention, “Why are you a feminist when women have already accomplished so much?”

Meaning, women in certain cases have achieved similar ambitions in life as their male counterparts, so why raise ruckus when women are doing so gosh darn well?

Well, for one thing, things like this are still pretty horrific in the world when you read a headline like, “89 Kidnapped Infants Rescued” At first glance, it may seem unrelated to women’s rights – just a terribly disturbing story – but when you take a close look, you’ll get why nearly all social problems stem from a kyriarchal problem.

In certain parts of the world where males are favored, it has disparaging effects on females. These effects ripple and grow in ways that most people don’t want to acknowledge. Gender preference, for instance, is no more prominent than in the birth and children industry. How many times do you see fathers’ congratulated when their first child is a son? And how many mothers do you see congratulated when their first child is a daughter? Answer: The former happens ALL THE TIME. And that’s just a mild US-centric example.

Look at China, where there is not only a warm glow placed on males, but combined with a strict one child birth restriction, forces women and children into human trafficking. According to the article, “The report said that police have uncovered 39,194 cases of human trafficking in China since April 2009, the majority of the cases involving women or children.”

It’s not just about preference. When it comes to kyriarchy – where boys born in a privileged family with resources in a country without birthing restrictions – the line is drawn and girls are left in unknown conditions of life. Human trafficking is modern day slavery where girls and women are made to be either domestic slaves, abused entertainers, exploited caretakers, or at the beating end of violence.

So no matter how many glass ceilings are broken by white-identified, privileged, economically advantaged US citizen-ed women, as long as 10 day year old girls are being born in secret to be sold into slavery around the globe, there is no true liberation taking place for anyone.

That’s why I identify as a feminist. I measure liberation by the freedom of the least visible.

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.

40 Days of Writing, Day 5: The Education of White Folks

Published on by Lisa

As a person of color in the United States, the issue of white supremacy – and its infiltration in every kind of  institution and system – remains quite clear to me.  The issues can be complex, certainly, but sometimes, incidents of racism occur and reveal simple and forgotten points about the danger people of color face when in predominantly white environments.

Like this story that happened in my home state of Ohio where an elementary school teacher thought there was nothing wrong with asking one of her two black students to pose as a slave during a mock slave auction and had the white students poke and prod as if buying him, even going as so far as inspecting the inside of his mouth and testing his muscle strength.

This, in my mental filing system, is categorized under Nightmare, The Ultimate.

This treacherous and psychologically twisted act of a youth educator brings back some not so pleasant memories of my own.

While much less damaging or stunning, I can remember handfuls of incidents growing up in predominantly white classrooms and being asked my opinion because I was not white. “So, Lisa, tell us what is it like to be in interracial dating relationships,” my sociology teacher asked, assuming all kinds of notions that if I were in a relationship that it automatically would be someone who was White or someone of a race other than Filipino. And also assuming that my life is open for discussion for the intellectual advancement of others.

It irked me when well-intentioned white friends would complain that the person of color in their class was socially reserved and wouldn’t share his or her experiences from Nicaragua, China, Mexico, or Africa, “I just really want to learn from them.  Why are they so quiet?” Mhm, I don’t know.  Maybe that person is just like any other person in class — bored to tears perhaps, or an introverted soul, or maybe s/he doesn”t like to talk in class, or maybe s/he doesn’t like you.

Even in professional conferences about dismantling racism in institutions of higher education, even during plenary break out sessions after the speaker just finished a talk about how women of color are often tokenized in mainstream feminist circles and asked to speak simply because of their non-white skin color, someone at my table still asked me, “What’s wrong?  Don’t you have anything to say on this matter? You’re not white and haven’t spoken yet.  I’d love to hear what you’re thinking.”

To which I replied, “I mean, other than the fact that you’re forcing me to speak when the whole presentation was about NOT doing that, I feel fine.” That and I remember thinking, I just don’t feel like talking. It’s early.  I need coffee. Nothing fancy.

Consider the possibility that people of color, especially in predominantly white spheres are neither inspired or scared to talk.  I can’t speak to the minds of what other people are doing or thinking.  I can only speak to my experiences in dealing with people wrapped in the binds of white privilege in education centered environments and how often I was targeted to speak on behalf of my race.  Cultural awareness is not putting someone’s culture and race in the spotlight, nor is is about ignoring it in efforts of sameness and equality.  It’s somewhere in between.

If you are uncomfortable with white supremacy, or history of slavery, or want to learn or teach about it further, consider this point:

People of color/I do not exist to be subject material for enlightenment.  They/I exist because they/we are humans with unique feelings, stories, and ideas.  So, if you’re interested to know about the practices, rituals, and beliefs of a specific culture or race, read a book.  If you’re interested in a person, form a relationship.

And remember that people of color and our lives are not responsible for white people’s education.

40 Days of Writing, Day 2: Feminist Perspective on Lent

Published on by Lisa

I’ve been a catholic for 32 years.  Every classroom that I ever received a degree from came with crucifixes on the wall and grace before meals.  My parents are from the Philippines, the last country that still does not legally recognize or condone divorce.  In grade school, I wrote essays on wanting to be a nun or a missionary in El Salvador and follow the footsteps of Archbishop Oscar Romero.  My husband earned one of his masters degrees while attending seminary to be a catholic priest.  I love fish fry’s and believe in the power of building community over donuts.

I’m a catholic alright.

I’ve identified as a feminist for about seven years, believed in its core values for 32 years.  I performed in the Vagina Monologues, taught a course in gender, race, and difference, and worked in a university women’s center for three years.  I write and edit with a grassroots and independent feminist magazine and speak at conferences about media justice, revolutionary practices of storytelling, and US feminists of color.  My marriage is built on values like ever-negotiating degrees of communication, respect, compromise, and radical love.  I support men and women, transgender women, transgender men, transexual wom/en, and non-identifying and non-conforming persons.  My first book project is an anthology of edited works by survivors of sexual violence written and created for other survivors of sexual violence.  My mother and I argue about Fox news and politics and then laugh over coffee ice cream while exchanging stories about my 14 mo old son’s latest antics.  I counsel and educate, advocate and vote.

Catholic while Feminist.

Catholic and Feminist.

A Catholic Feminist.

A Feminist Catholic.

There’s no better time to reflect on the two identities (although I pretty much reject the notion of “multiple identities” and just see them as ME) than during Lent.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning a Lent, the holiest time of year for Catholics, as it marks the 40 days before Easter.  No matter what is said or taught about Lent, it is a time for nothing else but absolute renewal.  Renewal of relationship, renewal of energy, renewal of spirit.  This “renewal” thing, though, is usually overshadowed by things in the media like the McDonald fish sandwich deals and Steven Colbert’s humorous mocking of catholicism and Ash Wednesday during last night’s The Colbert Report.

It’s hard to focus on the deeper meaning of Lent when you’re gnawing on fried fish sandwiches and dabbing your lips with a napkin to dry up the grease.

Few feminists I know and study provide in-depth reflections on Lent.  If there are some who do write on it, they are usually ivy-clad academics in feminist theology who talk in jargon that few lay people would understand.  So I feel obligated to self-educate and self-define this holy time of year for myself.  I feel one of feminism’s great tools that I have embraced is a wonderful gushing spigot of questions.  Many feminists are obsessed with answers and legislation and public policy and conference plenaries and blog posts and articles and book deals and marches.  Those things are all fine and serve great purpose because, let’s face it, spirited dialogue needs these things.  But, in my head, none of those things really matter if you don’t have the right questions.  Questions situate.  They point the telescope at just the right angle when you seek clarity.  Questions, more than anything, direct your gaze and concentration.

One thing that catholics and feminists do have in common is that some of the most ardent and vocal people in either sector are often the least educated or in touch with the everyday lives of women.  Neither the leaders of catholicism nor the leaders of mainstream feminism reflect who I am.  Those leaders are often white, have never spent much time building relationships with people and countries outside of the United States, without dependents of any kind, and favor sweeping generalizations in their speeches and homilies as if they speak the truth for everyone.   They tend to make polarizing statements in the name of everyone else and the TRUTH.  They also talk to me like I’m just like them.

So the question is: Why stay?

Answer: it’s better to crack the walls from the inside than the outside.

It’s better to stay and fight then leave and complain.

It’s better to claim what is rightfully yours – church, identity, spirituality – than to walk away.

It’s better to write your narrative than to ignore your voice.

It’s better to admit you disagree than pretend you don’t care.

It’s better to breathe in the gray than suffocate in black and white.

And, for me, I just don’t walk away.  I get the oppression.  I get the pissed off feelings.  I get it.  I’ve had three decades of jaw dropping statements and humiliation and “I can’t believe the Vatican _______ ” kinds of moments. But, giving up catholicism is like giving up my skin color.  It’s like giving up my family.  It’s like renouncing my mother or shunning my siblings or ignoring the voice of my father.  It’s like writing, “I’m giving up being Filipino!”  And like many Latin@ theologians argue — simply walking away isn’t what our people do.  We stay in the friction.  We make movement.  We work toward resolution, not abandon the problems.

If I leave, who will ask the questions?

Lent is a time of renewal and you can’t have renewal without coming to grips with what you want to leave behind.  That kind of discernment, that kind of active, mindful reflection must be intentional.  It must be framed with question.

What do you want to leave behind?

Last night, I participated in Ash Wednesday service and was asked to help distribute ashes.  I love participating in any aspect of the liturgy and, smiled, when Nick was asked to distribute ashes beside me.  Serving others together as a married couple is one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.

The action is simple.  I dip my right thumb into a small bowl of dark ashes and place a cross on the forehead of the person standing one foot from me and proclaim, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

Eigh —

In terms of rhetoric, I wasn’t impressed by these words.  Hardly poetic. Not really moving and I have such complex issues with what defines “sin,” “faithful,” and certainly “gospel.” I told myself,

Get over it.  Now isn’t the time for theological argument.

There were over 500 people in the church and my line was overflowing.  I was unsteady, thrown by the massive crowd pushing toward me.  For the first ten people or so, I couldn’t look them in the eye.  The whole thing suddenly unnerved me.  Truly, it’s an intimate act to place your hand on someone’s forehead.  Try it.  Gather faces in your hands and tell me you’re not moved.  Let yourself be in a position where people come to you seeking something much greater than you; their eyes opening into yours.  Faces of all ages, colors, sizes, texture, ability.  Each one extraordinary.  Each one indispensable.

The nervousness trembled and then an unexplainable stillness rested over me.  My vision narrowed and I just saw faces.  Like a human conveyor belt, their faces came one after the other.  Hopeful, searching, distracted, downcast, excited, curious, detached, grieved.  I saw them.  I saw their faces and thought,

People are so beautiful.  And good.  And they try so damn hard to do their best.

Over the organ and choir, I kept repeating the phrase over and over – maybe 200 times with little pause in between each one – Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

I was saying the words, but I had no feeling behind them.  Then I heard a translation. My own voice in my head.

Stop making destructive decisions.

Go. Live!

Come out  of your sadness.

Choose to love.

You are not alone.

Find yourself.

I’m here.

I have no flipping idea where those words came from, but they popped in my head like subtitles at a french cinema.  Were these commandments for me or for them, I wondered.  I wasn’t sure and then I was sure it didn’t matter.

I felt their spirits.

The experience took me back to my own wedding ceremony when Nick and distributed eucharist and, again, I was overwhelmed by the faces appearing in and out of my eyeline.  At my wedding, the faces were all known, all beloved.  I compared that day to heaven – a gathering of those we do not want to live without.

Yesterday, though, it was a parade of unrecognizable faces but their beauty was so undeniable I felt embarrassed that I didn’t live more gently with my neighbors.  I felt silly that I was so quick to indulge in gossip and share in news of misfortune.  I didn’t feel short, but I felt ashamed I didn’t choose to stand taller.  In those minutes, I knew there was nothing more important than those faces and coming to that realization of how precious each face was, I knew my face mattered as well.

They matter, therefore, I matter.

In the quiet recess of your mind, do you truly believe in the undeniable sanctity of each person?  Of yourself?  Your body?  Each woman?  What if we honored all the baggage that people show up with as forgivable and common? Or –

how would your life change if you saw what I saw last night:  God.

And this I can report back — God sure ain’t sexy, but It sure is crazy beautiful.

The View Going Downhill

Published on by Lisa

The combination of being pregnant and growing older makes me more attached to being at home. More and more, I take restorative comfort in the familiar couch, the wooden frames of our dining room threshold, the little nooks and crannies that make home HOME.

No matter how exciting the roadtrip, no matter how great the people we are venturing off to see, no matter how climactic the event we attend, these days, the thought of leaving home means two things: it’s going to be a long trip because we have to stop all the time for me to stretch or use the loo, and, if we’re staying overnight, I will lose sleep and be even more tired the next day.

So, you can imagine how excited I was to get through this past weekend which marked the absolute last planned roadtrip for me. On Saturday, I headed to Columbus for a conference I was to present at and have been preparing for diligently for weeks (hence the few blog posts in October).

My plan was to head to the heart of the heartland on Friday when I get an odd text from my buddy Christy whose house I was to be staying at Friday night. In the text she informs me she is sick but I am still welcome to stay.

Clearly, she has not been informed that I am the lead consumer of Purell’s hand sanitizer and the most informed citizen reading the CDC’s website. (Center for Disease Control)

Sick?

How sick, I ask?

“…well, it’s knocked me off my feet this week.”

Christy, my childhood friend who was the first person I met when I moved to Ohio when I was 8 years old, was the lead point guard on our basketball teams. She was an athletic volleyball player and is a general knows no sickness kind of gal. For her to say she was knocked off her feet means for a pregnant, low immunity system waddler like myself these days, there was a 35% of my collapsing Saturday morning from her bug and a 100% chance of my getting SOME sort of viral infection.

It was a no brainer.

So, I had no place to stay in Columbus Friday night and ended up getting up at 5:15am Saturday morning (OOOOUUUUUCCCCCCCHHHHHH) and driving to Buckeyeland for the conference that started at 8am with registration. My presentation wasn’t until 9:40am, but I wanted to get there early and test out my AV equipment and relax.

At 5:15am, I expected to crawl like a cavewoman out of bed, dreading the cold, and trying to leave Nick undisturbed. To my sweet surprise, Nick, the loyal cheerleader he is for all things I try to achieve, pops out of bed when the alarm sounds, turns on all the lights, and starts fist pumping. I was putting on my jewelry and make-up with the speed of a tortoise when he begins blasting Kanye West’s, “Stronger,” (my favorite pump me up song) and starts clapping like it’s game day. I smile.

I make it to Columbus without any problems and my presentation on feminism, race, and politics in the Midwest goes beautifully. I receive countless compliments from professors from all over the country and even an invitation to submit my work into an academic journal. The raving strokes my very tired and dusty ego which hasn’t been activated in a long time. Around 2pm, I duck out when I feel Isaiah happily kicking his excitement and my already low bank of energy begin to go into the red.

I head home to Cleveland.

Nick and I celebrate Saturday night with a dinner date at Anatolia Cafe, a mediterranean restaurant not far from our house and beam like stars at our table. It was wonderful but I was glad that the traveling piece was over. That night, I nearly drowned taking a extra bubbly bubble bath to relax because I nearly fell asleep in the warmth of our new tub. (I guess I’m not used to such luxuries.)

And so, here we are, approaching week 30 of pregnancy, and continuing our efforts to make room for Isaiah and prepare the nursery. As he gains momentum, weight, and strength with each passing week, my appetite and fatigue are skyrocketing. I believe I slept 11 hours straight Saturday night and still felt like I could use a nap in the afternoon. Knowing, though, that I have no plans for the rest of the pregnancy relaxes my body and mind.

Nick I agreed last night that each week of pregnancy feels like you’re counting upward toward 40 weeks. 5 weeks. 10 weeks. 20 weeks. But once you hit 30 weeks, it suddenly feels like you’re counting down. Very similar to New Year’s Eve, we’re just anxiously waiting for the Big Apple (Big Baby) to slowly drop and make his way into the world.

Alligator Skin

Published on by Lisa

I realized last night as I tried to muffle Nick’s snoring that I haven’t written much about culture lately. It’s a topic that surfaces in our household, mhm, twice a day or so. There are usually a lot of questions that rise between Nick and I – how to negotiate certain problems, differences, etc – as they do in all marriages. One of the things that I’ve found quite interesting in our marriage is how the topic of interracial marriage is raised – or not raised – by our peers.

Nick and I trade stories about race, ethnicity, and upbringing all the time. At our core, I think we’re quite similar in values (I mean, I wouldn’t have married someone who believes in porn and killing off polar bears), but our personalities couldn’t be more different. Among those differences is, obviously, race.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m Brown and Nick is White. We celebrate different parts of our identity, sometimes more mine because it is much more difficult to feel a sense of belonging when most pop culture, education, history, media – everything – is not reflective of my identity and sense of self. But we’re learning how to find balance in that as well. It most often comes up when we talk about having children.

One of the most odd and hilarious things that I get when we talk about having a family someday is when folks says, “I can’t wait to see what your kids look like.” Well, I hope they’re dead gorgeous, but I hope they’re a lot of other things first. We know the comments are just taglines to note an interest in bi/multiracial children, but it’s not like we’re a scientific experiment or something. I’m pretty hopeful the kid’s gonna come out with four limbs, a brain, and a soul.

In these current times when race seems to be the hottest button in conversation – from church homilies to CNN – I try to remind folks that understanding difference is a process, one that you should be intentional about pursuing. It is my personal belief that, yes, eventually, “what are you?” is going to be a question of the past and racial features that distinguish cultures and ancestry will be dusty artifacts that only historic pictures will reflect.

As for Nick and I, while we remain supremely confident in the good looks of our future children, we do make it a priority that s/he will understand the Filipino flag as much as the American flag. They’ll eat rice with Philippine cuisine, as they’ll hear stories about small town Russia and their dad being the valedictorian and prom king. Our kids will hear stories about the racism their mom and maternal grandparents endured and how immigration was a messy topic once upon a time. They’ll learn how to build faith in life, as well as death, and learn that kindness and grace begins in the family at home. They’ll be mixed, yes, but they’ll learn it’s a blessing and privilege, not a confusing misfortune that resulted when two Xavier students fell in love in Cincinnati.

So, to answer a question that came up in the car from a good friend, “So, does, like race come up for you guys, since, you know, you’re in, like, an interracial relationship?”

Simply stated, yes.

Celebrating the Irish/Filipino Parts of Us

Published on by Lisa

HAPPY ST. PATTY’S DAY!

Over the weekend, Nick and I had an even distribution of ethnic eating. To celebrate his part Irish, we went to a friend’s place for dinner to celebrate St. Patty’s day. It was the first time that I have ever eaten corned beef cooked with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Very tasty.

To celebrate my Filipino side, we went to a Filipino mass on Sunday that is celebrated in English, but a few songs are sung in Tagalog, the primary dialect of the Philippines. I’m not fluent, but the language is quite familiar to me, since my parents speak it to one another. Afterward, there was a reception with Filipino food, YUM.

We also saw the movie, No Country For Old Men. I think it should be called No Movie for Young Children. We both gave it two thumbs up, but the violence and blood is wayyyy too much for younger kids. So, if you can stand the drama, we give it a high recommendation. Just leave the kiddies at home.