Abolitionist Gangsta

It goes without saying that Binarism, cissexism, identity policing and gender privilege is prevalent in both feminist/lgbtq and heterosexist, patriarchal communities. This is all fine and dandy as a muthafucka but how in the hell do we combat the enabling of oppression without undermining and demonizing those with personal oppositions?

Has EVERY SINGLE aspect of life become cissexist, binarist, sexist and privileged? Or are we taking the piss here? Are we making mountains out of molehills?

The identification of privilege, in my opinion, is both helpful and obsolete. Helpful, because it helps individuals identify their upper hand that come with various identities (abled, CISgendered, educated, American, etc) and obsolete because the identification of certain privileges do not necessarily undermine struggle. Its almost as if intelligent radicals/progressives have jumped aboard the oppression seesaw to silence the personal struggle of others. “Oh, you’re a Black lesbian/gay man? Whatever, you don’t understand pain. Try being a transgendered Native-American disabled bisexual polyamorous kinky war veteran with a five foot tail!”

Come on.

I remember engaging in a debate with someone about ableism and how it relates to New York’s sudden obsession with ‘Linsanity’. I’m not kidding, muthafuckas. She said, and I quote,

“The frequent use of the term ‘Lin-sanity’ is not only insensitive to those that are mentally challenged/disabled but is also offensive to Asian-Americans that hope to be successful in an often mono-racial, predominantly African-American sport”

… … …

Really?!

In reality, everyone’s goin’ through somethin’. One individual’s experience may differ from the other. Many of us have opinions that clash. This does NOT warrant anyone the right to dehumanize anyone’s struggles. No one has the right to silence anyone that’s a part of a larger movement that caters to reform. We’re supposed to stick together!

I am BEGGING radicals and progressive queers to learn how to (and I know this is difficult because many of them get off on rooting for the underdog) engage in a conversation about comparative struggles WITHOUT undermining another person’s experience. Let’s compare struggle to inform one another about how society’s impositions have affected us. From there, we can learn HOW to combat these impositions and, I don’t know, come the fuck together!

Just a thought lol.

Walking hearts

We just came from a random late night stroll. Who the fuck decides to take an hour stroll, in Harlem, at 10:30 at night? We do. Its love. :)

A Lover, Sleeping.

A poem I wrote, for her, for you...


"A lover, sleeping,
I am listening, observing, 
Your quiescent music of slumber
Be still,
My heart won't.
It beats brown.
You're snoring,
my fears open their astounded eyes
Silence. Blink. Fear. Blink blink.
Love is blinding,
Your synchronized wheezing overpowers my intangible thoughts.
Fear?
Is my heart strong enough to love you for a lifetime,
To invest in such a decision?
Does my youth define my naïvete?
I am distracted now, your beauty,
You are tantalizing,
Beautiful,
I am an animal, tempestuous,
Wanderlust,
And you have tamed me.
To love you is to breathe involuntarily,
My head, your shoulder,
Protection,
You sleep, I inhale temerity, exhale apprehension.
Your head is turned,
My heart yearns...
Can you hear me, beautiful?
Are you dreaming of my lips?
My Blackberry lips on yours, fucshia?
Are you dreaming of us, levitating?
I often wonder what you think of when your body is defenseless, 
uninhibited,
Unregrettably consumed...by you,
Is our love pulchritudinous enough or is its beauty
Ephemeral?
You're snoring again,
It is my everything,
Your sleepy abyss, completely consumed by your fatigue,
So beautiful when you sleep,
Lascivious, even, I'm so tempted
I'm closing my eyes and opening them.
Watching you raise up with every breath
And die when the air escapes you,
That same air instills life within me.
My lungs and heart are surrounded with fire,
This red-yellow passion consumes me,
My mind shivers every second that I assume that you've gone,
Watching you exhale is watching you die,
And every little moment you die, I gasp,
Only to be reassured by your next breath.
Shivering at the mere thought of no you,
Penniless, I'd be,
For if my love dies, there are no riches
Your heart beats, irregular pacing
Three booms...and then a pause.
You've died again.
I wish your heart would stop behaving like this
But like you, it is rebellious.
I remember when you held my hand in Paris,
We skipped from the Louvre to the Jardin Les Tuileries,
72 degrees in September, we laughed at passersby
You kissed me in front of the River Seine
I wish my eyes had hands of their own
To illustrate the masterpiece that was your face
And feature it in the Musée D'Orsay for all to admire
My pupils, paintbrushes,
Capturing that very moment when I was convinced that you were the one...
And then you made love to me on Gloucester Road when midnight struck
you promised me innumerable constellations,
Now we are home and I am watching you sleep.
Stroking your back, you feel nothing
But I feel everything,
But I feel your heart...
My lover, sleeping.
Oh, when you dream, my love, 
I hope that you'll fall as madly in love with me in your second world 
as you do in this first one.
Make room for me, tonight
I shall join you in these little deaths.
Sleep, my love."

Stevie F. Baby (pleasesaythebaby): theriotmag: Warning: I am a feminist and ahead lies a long, angry...

Autumn in New York

Listening to jazz and dreaming.

Oh, how I love my city.

It is fall. I want to take a stroll in Central Park in my electric blue jacket. I want her hand in my hand. I want to be buzzed off of wine, laughing uncontrollably, making fun of the passersby. I am not a fan of chilly temperatures but I love it when my city is orange, yellow, orange, yellow, like the flames of our loves.

“Autumn in New York, it lifts you up when you are down…”

I want to sit on the bench and go back in time, about seventy years. I want to be in my knee-length, Black satin dress and peep toe, patent leather shoes. My lipstick red, my hair in a tight bun. I want her in a three-piece tuxedo. I want us to feel what we feel today. I want to kiss her in my little Black dress while the leaves fall on the both of us. Right on a bench on 79th and Central Park west, escaping it all.

“Littering crowds and shimmering clouds and canyons of steel…they’re making me feel, I’m home…”

I am so in love with my city. I really am.

BLACK MALE PRIVILEGE.

“Black male privilege? That’s an oxymoron. There is no such thing! those two ideas contrast! There you go with your dehumanizing, typical, male-bashing feminist ideals. You feminists, unceasingly obsessed with subverting the patriarchy! After all of the ________________________ that Black men have been through, after 500 years of the MAN putting us down,how could you possibly gather that there is something like Black male privilege? This is the problem; Black women never want to be by the Black man’s side. don’t nobody support us, b!”

Oh, how hard it is to expose privilege to the PRIVILEGED.

After careful, extensive research and many a intelligent discourse with open-minded, honest and educated Black men, I’ve come to the conclusion that Black male privilege, or BMP, REALLY DOES EXIST.

 My Afro-centricity and Black loyalty played a part in my denial of BMP; I didn’t want to be that woman that didn’t believe in her brother. I didn’t want to vocalize my disgust for the Black man. It was the fear of scrutiny, the fear of losing the support of my brother that kept me from parting my lips. In addition to the loyalty there was the instilled concept that I must keep OUR problems on the hush-hush, for if I spoke of them, I was a traitor. On the contrary, my feminist, lesbian side  was growing weary of the bullshit. Tired of the closed mouth. The insults, the public groping, the ogling, the brazen disregard for my sex, being followed on the street, living in a rape culture, the glorification of misogyny and prostitution, the silencing of the sexual assault…enough was ENOUGH.

As much as I am aware that all male privilege transcends that of a specific race, I can no longer deny the blatant existence of BMP. I will not go as far as to say that BMP is the cause for all inequality between the Black man and the Black woman; I will, however, say that it does play a significant part. BMP exists in every aspect regarding race relations, romantic relationships, beauty, sex/sexuality, pop culture, ideology, attitudes, sports, cultural diaspora and churches. Black men can go through life without ever having to acknowledge their upper hand in societal relations between black men and women! Black men can go through life without ever having to learn about the history of Black women. Black men can have two, three or four girlfriends and have it be “expected” of him. Black men can go through life without having to conform to the standards of European beauty. 

BMP allows Black men to believe that it is OKAY to dehumanize and demean women, so long as they understand that it is the ‘right’ of a man. They see no harm in disrespecting the Black woman. They have the right to define Black women as ‘women with nasty attitudes’ without having to reference said attitude. They have the right to define Black women’s beauty by European standards without having to do the same in return.

If I mention this to Black men they are easily offended; “How could I, the underdog,have any kind of privilege?” Black men feel as if their history of pain and suffering excuses their current behavior. They do not have to adhere to the same ideals that Black women do. They do not understand that. The pained will never believed that they can CAUSE pain.

I am sick of the bullying. I am sick of being referred to as a ‘bitch’. I am sick of Black men thinking that it is okay to expect a Black woman to maintain the condescending role as a ‘piece’. I am sick of Black accepting the Black woman as a ‘thing’. Sick of the calls on the street. Sick of my sisters crying at the fists of the bother. Sick of the rape. I am sick of brothers not fighting for OUR rights because they don’t believe that we have any hurdles to overcome. Sick of the woman being the second to man in the church. Sick of ‘wifebeaters’ being an acceptable colloquialism. Sick of Black men expecting their women to be pure, virginal objects while they can screw any woman of their choice. Sick of them DENYING MY HOMOSEXUALITY. Sick of them thinking that their genitalia is the cure for my sexuality. I am sick of hip hop continually sanctifying the idea of man’s sexual domination over women. Sick of them thinking that this is acceptable.

Black men will never rise if they continue to think that their behavior is acceptable. The problem lies in their acceptance. They believe that it is OKAY to act this way. Why?

Because we, the Black woman, allow them to.

The fight must begin NOW.

Water.

It is pouring.
the rain, torrential…

Streets are flooded like my thoughts. For five minutes, Harlem is The Amazon. This ordinary Harlem block has transformed into an urban rainforest. Not a person in sight. Just the sounds of this rain.

The weather is switching up my senses. I can smell the texture of nature’s bath. I can hear the scent of the water. I can taste how it feels. Abounding rain tastes like quiescence.

Whatever comes to mind is seeping through my fingers. The raindrops are infuriating my cat. He’s incessantly twitching his head. He is pissed. He has no idea of what rain is, he just knows that he doesn’t like it. I love watching animals react to nature. Its almost as if they see something that we do not see. The droplets have an adverse effect on him. I welcome the water and he is repulsed by it. I’ve no idea why I’m intrigued by that.

The rain is a wonderful tool.

My fire escape is wet. My windowsill is soaked.

Why does rain make you fall deeper in love? Can someone answer this?

Sunlight has returned. Nature’s behavior is so prodigious. I love how the earth does whatever it wants, whenever it wants. It will rain again in a couple of hours.

I am in love with water.

I love water; however, I am deathly afraid of large bodies of water because of the power that they hold. Oceans have watched the earth evolve-that is frightening.  

I revere rivers. I respect oceans. Within those bodies of water lies history, death, life, pain, accidents, remnants of lovemaking, trash from the beginning of time…The waters stand still. Think about it. The same waters that carried my people to this country are the same waters that I dip my feet into at the beach. Sense, I am not making.

Water falls on us during a storm. Water flows from our tear ducts. Water fuels us. Water is within me. Water is in you. Water protects us in the womb. It is in my orgasm, your drugs, my mind.

If I did believe in a God it would be water. Water is really what lives within us. It is the one thing that is omnipresent. It never stops moving. it never stops BEING.

The five minutes of rain inspired my lethargic little fingers to type.

I may have an orgasm the next time I drink a bottle of Poland Spring.

There are times in which lust can be the most nefarious conqueror. Lust can find a way to demolish an empire that you’ve assumed to be impenetrable. It can establish a new set of rules and regulations. Lust, in all of its prurience,can brainwash you and your entire empire; It can bring forth anarchy. It is up to you to train your army of love and assure that that force of love is victorious. Love cannot conquer all with just a simple, poetic arrangement of words. Love must be altered in its physicality; love must have the most ammunition and shoot through the weak armor of lust. Here’s a tip; You should only go to war with lust only if you believe your empire and your troops will support you and fight back. If you are sure of this…fight for love, for lust’s position is ephemeral.

Fight for love. Fight for love. Fight for love.