Vajinda

Greasin' It Up

2006-04-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

White People Tanning: All the benefits of darkness without pesky racism

Spring has sprung.

2006-04-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

Wonder why

2006-04-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

Some vegetarians smoke cigarettes. PETA members supporting Big Tobacco.
Yoga enthusiasts who drink to get drunk. Inner peace Jim Beam.
I just wonder why.
But then I know
We're all inconsistent, including yours truly.

2006-04-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

'I think it was their bad conscience which made the local whites hate us so much. Bill Kunstler, the movement lawyer who defended us in a number of trials, once said: "You hate those most whom you have injured most." '
Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

Hung Up

2006-04-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

Q: Why is Madonna's "Hung Up" video saturated with brown and black people?
A: Rhythmic, dark, sexual background

Question

2006-04-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Why do white people dig up other people's graves and put the remains in their museums?

Something New

2006-02-08T18:08:00.000-08:00

My Thoughts On "Something New"
this movie was something I've been waiting to see for a long time. An honest, funny, multidimensional portrayal of an interracial relationship, involving a complex and successful woman of colour. I really relate to Sanaa Lathan's character, and totally felt the hand of intelligent and socially conscious artists in the screenplay, direction and cinematography. The whole cast was marvelous, and I have to say that I cheered in the theatre; literally stood up and applauded. This movie has a reservation in my DVD collection, and I can only hope that more movies like this follow.

One fine morning when this life is over, I will fly away home

2005-12-04T19:53:00.000-08:00

When my last day in this life comes, I want to see God at the Gates of Heaven. And as I pass, I want God to say "You really fought like hell for Love this time around. Well done, my child."

I Love You

2005-12-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

I want to scream for you. I already cry for you. I weep because I am afraid that you will grow up being ashamed of your name or your skin. I want to hold you so tight, and look you in the eye and say very quietly, very firmly: "Beautiful child, love yourself." Please, love yourself. Love everything that you are, love your face. Love your curly hair, your brown skin, love your brown eyes. Love your Africanness. LOVE in the face of this society that would push you to doubt your worth, this society that at its worst chews up mixed children and makes them covet the bluest eye.
By every drop of blood in my veins, I will fight for you to love who you are, what you look like and where you are going. You are the most beautiful children on this earth to me. I can only pray that you will, even once in your life, look in the mirror and see Africa and Europe dancing over your face like lovers. With my every heartbeat, I become more determined to stand so strong for you. That you may see me and know that you are okay. I dedicate myself to reflecting the beauty you are. I will do everything I know how to do to keep you from the beast of self-hatred. Every I can do shall be done. We're going through this together, on my soul, God stand as my witness. I love you.

Mabo

2005-11-30T20:36:00.000-08:00

It comes down to land. From the land comes the perpetuation of people, their culture, history and future. The space to be born, to raise families, to live and dream. To die, with the security of being interred in the land of your ancestors.
Edward Koiki Mabo's life has moved me to another plane of emotion tonight. At once, I am overcome with fury, pride, indignation, sadness and indescribable drive to keep fighting. While so much is sacrificed in using up one's life for the sake of the future, all I have is this one life to be a spear against injustice. All I have is this life to keep standing up for truth and equality. And to stand up for those who may have no legs.
I am so proud tonight to be a descendant of survivors. For all the unrecorded trials they weathered, and for all the determination they mustered to see another day, I am grateful. I am happy tonight that the lives of others, family near and far, push me to keep going. To keep being the quiet storm of change on this earth.

2005-11-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

I Met You Here

2005-11-29T20:49:00.000-08:00

Playing in the sky. Never mind that plume is pollution right? makes a good picture.

This much is true

2005-11-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

I love how a man looks holding his child in his arms

Furthermore

2005-11-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

All that you see is not all that I am. I contain multitudes.
All that I see is not all that you are. What do you contain?
Your turn. The spotlight is on you. I've gotten too hot and too blinded
Underneath it.
Your turn. What are you?

2005-11-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

everything that has my back

I Am

2005-08-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

I am...
Loved, A Daughter, A Sister, A Friend, A Granddaughter, Curly-Haired, Helpful, Hopeful, A Child of the Creator, A Niece, Creative, A World Citizen, Loyal, Flawed, Alive, Beautiful, Grateful, Blessed, Growing, Happy, An Ally, Funny, Simple, Complex, Intelligent, Scottish, Shona, English, German, Irish, Dutch, French, Multicultural, Spiritual, Worthy, Imperfect, Learning, Zimbabwean, American, Unique, Normal, A Poet, Human, Equal, A Woman, Open, Tattooed, Curious, Musical, 5'3", 34A, Caring, Fortunate, Passionate, Forgiven, Travelling, Colourful, Unconventional, Freckled, A Mentor, A Mentee, Healthy, A Rebel, Loving, Changing, The Future, Capable, Mighty, A Witness...
ALL OF THE ABOVE

FlyFar.LaughHard.
HopeAlways.ListenPurely.
LoveFully.GiveTruly.
SaySorry.HugDeeply.
ThinkClearly.TalkSoftly.
FindPurpose.CryFreely.
RememberHome.TryAgain.
LivePeace.GrowHappy

Friday the 13th

2005-05-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

i wonder what a retrospective of this period in my life - a period with no start or end - will look like. What emotions will a backward glance feel like? Sitting here in a place that you often haunt I don't know what to think of my present, the gift of time with you. Having spent hours with you I can't get over how good I feel with you. And how much I would like to see you tomorrow or have you call me and you embrace my mind once again.
Maybe you were kidding, but maybe you did see that I am a good person. I am. And I'm easy to love. And I would share my everything with you. Even my carrots and celery. I would do that which my higher self is learning to do. My impulsive side wants to ask you if I may be more to you than an acquaintance. I ask God if this is right for me. From my soul I believe that I am worthy of a great love that shapes my future, my family and my purpose. This love will take me to a place of self-lessness where it shall become more our future, our family and our purpose. To invoke the great Alana Davis once more in my life, I say maybe you've got the time. Maybe you'll share yourself with me. I don't need to call you mine because just like you I need to be free and just like you I need to be me. Just like you I would be so easy to love.

On

2005-04-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

He's on and his voice is a revolution. Given the time, he's taken the stage and rules it. And his message is so much bigger than this drunken mess that is here for basslines. His mission needs no permission from the inebriated to call for a fire to burn all this chaff away. Why did he come up to me on the floor? I felt like we both wanted to say something more. I had no words to speak of the emotional and creative intensity I felt him unleash. How would I say the sincerest things that swirl around my heart? How do I tell him that I am mesmerized by him without sacrificing some closely-guarded coolness? I can't say any of this and make it feel real on a blurry loud dancefloor. I can't yell it to him over the next band.
So you sought me out, and I'm so good with that. I'll seek you out too and hopefully be able to tell you that you're beautiful when you're on.

Understand

2005-04-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

Understand that humans are flawed
Understand that I am flawed
Understand that dreamers have a place in society because without them there is no hope
Understand that art can be the way you live your life
Understand that the playing field is not a playing field and life isn't a game
Understand that great wealth is often created by great suffering of the poor
Understand that God is within you and you are within God
Understand that Native Americans are the only ones in America who have a right to complain about immigration
Understand that racism is a lie that props up hate, inequality and separation of the human family
Understand that I am one generation away from a society that subjected my father to apartheid in Rhodesia
Understand that in 45 years half of America's residents will be of multiethnic, Latino, African or Asian descent
Understand that "exotic" as a label for a human being is a slur against their humanity
Understand that everyone is mixed
Understand that Creation is not ours to exploit and desecrate
Understand that life is short
Understand that tomorrow may never come
Understand that thought is radiance and we should let our thoughts shine for the world to see
Understand that peace cannot be enforced, only lived by the masses
Understand that money in excess is greed
Understand that there is more to a situation than just right and wrong
Understand that words can hurt
Understand that words can heal
Understand that there is more to Black people than slavery, Martin Luther King Jr., BET, soul food and rap
Understand that we live on stolen land
Understand that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
Understand that sexuality is not a choice
Understand that children are our reason to make it better
Understand that love is within our reach
Understand that we are all one family
Understand that to educate is to bless
Understand that there is more to me than meets the eye
Understand.

Hope Child

2005-04-04T05:43:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem after one of those melancholy days when I find my muses visiting me. My muse this day was a boy in a Chinese restaurant eating with his mom and sister. The child was true life: love and simplicity. His tan face and curly hair was my own childhood looking back at me, and for that child who is nameless to me I dedicate this poem.

Amidst fortune cookies
Red lanterns and fried rice
I saw a child shining
He could've been my brother
Could've been anyone's brother
The child was life personified
Because the child was hope
Engaged with this fleeting vision I hoped for the boy
That he may never be marred by history or the cruelty of ignorance
That his winter tan would never mark him for ridicule or self-hatred.
As all children are, he was innocent
Of the world
Of its unfairness
But I hoped for him
With his mixed badge of courage
His melange of beauty
I hoped that others could see him as I do
A child of the future
A Hope Child

B.M.V.

2005-03-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

Do I look like the B.M.V.? The Bureau of Multicultural Validity? My diversity license will not be sold for the price of a smile hello and goodbye. My brown/woman/otherness will not be appearing in the opening credits of your "Ethnics I Know" Show.
White liberals are such a pain in the ass when they accessorize their lives with people of so-called "colour", adding them like rainbow trinkets on a charm bracelet. I will not be adorning your wrist.

EVER.

You will not bask in the glory of my physical appearance.

I will not be relieving your guilt or satisfying your minority quota or alleviating your fear that white racism is genetic. I will not be your ghetto pass, your "in living colour" experience, your sassy exotic funky soul sistah friend. This masquerade of identity musical chairs gets old real quick and for both our sakes, you need to move along. There really, truly is nothing to see here except another human being.

The Anatomy of Sassy

2005-03-13T18:35:00.000-08:00

The anatomy of sassy was revealed to me tonight by my co-worker. She's 19, from Toledo. I notice that she talks differently to me sometimes, slipping in catchy hip black slang, searching linguistically for some connection to me. Which is funny because I grew up in the 'burbs, so don't ask me about the hood. I've learned plenty from hip hop and movies, I've learned how to pass as an African-American...maybe I've done too good a job. Because today I was called "sassy" by my co-worker. I had my back turned to her, I was writing in my planner. She told me I was "sassy from the back". What?? I had to laugh before I satisfied the stereotype of the 'angry black woman'. Apparently having the type of ass and the type of hair that defy gravity equates to "sass". Having the audacity to stand out is "sassy". I've only heard "sassy" applied to women who make a statement. And if these women look like me, then we're talking about some neck-rolling, finger-snapping, quick tempers, street smarts, attitudes, Foxy Brown Black Mama stereotypical shit. One big juicy bootylicious sistah complex. The anatomy of sassy overlapped on me courtesy of a girl who I try to understand. I tried so hard today to just laugh through it all, and I tried not to get annoyed with a 19 year old from Toledo who has probably never known someone who looks like me. Because she's learning how to become a liberal. I tried not to get annoyed, I promise I did. It didn't work. Because I can't just wear my hair out and wear these jeans today and just be seen as me.

God's work

2005-03-07T10:14:00.000-08:00

I got written up at a job for the very first time in my 5 years of being an employee. I closed down the ticket office an hour early. It was a Sunday afternoon. My version of the full story goes as follows. Early last week I agreed to cover a 1pm to 6pm shift for my co-worker, his boyfriend was coming to town and I was willing to do it because he doesn't have much in his life that gives him joy. His boyfriend gives him joy. And in anticipation of the good/balanced karma that this act would give me, I agreed. What else do I really do on a Sunday afternoon anyway? And I'd be getting a sweet check for that pay period...then I get an email. The mother of my favourite two children in this world asks me to babysit for her Saturday night, she's a single over-worked underappreciated woman, hardly gets time away from her kids to just be an adult, I think hey why not, as long as I'm back in time for work Sunday avo, I'm alright.

Didn't sleep too well Saturday on the floor of the kids' bedroom. I didn't sleep in the bed with them because as much as they know I love them, they snore. I'm not having that. My whiplash was a beast too, biting me awake more than a few times in that 6 hours of half-sleep. Sunday began with a 7am wake-up for church. I don't like mornings and I don't like church. And I sucked it all up. Church didn't suck as much as I thought because I volunteered my child-wrangling abilities in the Sunday school. Which was great, really it was. Get back to campus at 11, try to do some yoga to calm down and center myself. My sister calls, an angel talking to me. I had to cut that convo short because I had to go eat because I had to go to work and ALL this time the fucking monkey that is my OWN procrastination is reminding me that an as-yet untyped 15 page paper is due Monday. What could be better?

So I'm at work, it's 5 hours to go. I'm sleepy, irritated at myself for shooting myself in the foot once again. 5 o'clock sidles in, and I've had it. With sleep deprivation, with fuckers who want tickets to the fucking ballet in two days, with everything. A purple note taped to the desk proclaimed my apologies for bailing early. At 5pm on a Sunday afternoon. Apparently some fuck called in the 60 minutes between 5 and 6 and languished in the voicemail system and was so frustrated that they called back. A higher up heard all about it this fabulous Monday morning. I got my call of chastisement this morning. 6 pages into my 15 page paper due today. Lovely. So me being the uncontrollably sensitive and emotional volcano that I am proceed to cry from my soul once my sins had been read to me. I got my supervisor in trouble. He's a great guy and totally doesn't deserve that. And I don't like getting in trouble, but I was at fault. An apology letter's headed his way, and it will be hard to suck it up when I know and feel this full story.

Doing what I think is God's work is not simple or easy and will be accompanied by my mistakes and my tears.

Boiling Point

2005-02-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Another rant is boiling under my skin. Let's start there. My skin. A marker and a blessing. A badge of inclusion and exclusion. The Honorable Senator from Illinois has skin like mine because of parents like mine and I could not be more happy for him. Barack Obama is my president and my light of human hope. He doesn't know it but I'm going to watch him. He's going to be a guide on How To Manage Amerikkkan Poly-Ticks as a half-African, half-American global humanist. He's got my vote, I'm just waiting for him to run.
Once again, the temptation to flee this 50 states bites me in the brain because like all people I want to be free of pain. Well, this is pain right now. Sitting here on knife blades as I hear swirling speculations of four more years and I want to be in Canada so bad, I want to run. And I need to find a reason to stay. To stay. Why the fuck should I stay? Why in God's good name should I stay? I'm a consumer by necessity because I have the will and means to live. So I suckle too from this dragon-headed pig and suffer the capitalist glut and constipation of too muchness. This house of cards shall too fall, this corporate slime oozing from the pores of politicians. Their lies belched out in fetid staleness, polluting my air, my hair, my space. What about the millions who don't even have my luxury and my privilege of being merely disgusted and disillusioned? What about people who die every day because of the way that this country works. Like a tarantula, no not even that. At least a tarantula knows when to stop killing. More like a cancer spreading malignancy of so-called American Values Inc. and sending out metastacizing offshoots of puppet governments, corporate dependence and colonizing armies of cultural norms all corn syrup sweetness, brightly lit up, clad in jeans, basking in the neon glow of fakery and handbags made by people who can't afford them. Bombarding messages of hyperconsumerism. The high praises of egregious waste of misspent money that could immunized children so they see their fifth birthday.
And what I'm mad about is that people don't see who far they've been brainwashed by the need for greed. And what I'm mad about is the lie that personal worth is measured in dollar signs. And what I'm mad about is the whoredom of the poor who must sell themselves just to get by, just to get by. Well dammit one glad morning this world is going to wake up and turn around to see all the backs we've been standing on to get where we are. The revolution will not trash everything and violently impose. Dat nuh betta dan dah shit we bin gwan tru. Fuckin' replacing hate with hate? I don't hate. I don't participate in hate. I participate in change, because change is the stage to deal with my rage. And nobody but nobody can touch my conviction that my life is my one chance to blaze a newness of difference for people who have been ground down to the ground. And I'm going to get tired and I'm going to get sick but nobody's going to do it for me on this earth, nobody's going to hold my hand all the way. That's something I have got to understand. People that hold my hand have already gone before me. I hold their torches and I'm carrying on to pass it on. And what do I do this for? Honestly I feel like I chose this for myself like I can't even try to look away from it. There are too many people suffering needlessly who have a hunger that no food can satisfy, who carry burdens so large that it is all I can do to take something off their backs, take one piece of worry from their heart, one block out of their way. Building a bridge, letting people in the door. And I'm going to say that it's for my soul too. I long to be free of this circle of struggle yet I know that the struggle makes me more. And I burn for the need to live up to my higher ideals then to take the task of lifting others to the higher life too.
We can't afford not to become more of the God within us. And I can't keep looking the other way and I need to keep losing my fear, and I need to keep prayer first and people first. My inspiration walks on two legs and is a child of hope that trusts what I do and loves to be with me as I try to be a better person. And I do it for the children because we've borrowed this world from our descendants. I want my descendants to be proud of me and to know that they come from a woman who fought like hell to touch the world.

Thoughts on Inequality

2005-02-14T17:49:00.000-08:00

I suppose what troubles me very often is that I see people who are afraid to change. I can only speak from what I have seen, heard and learned, and in no way do I assume to know more about life or change than anyone else. I only know myself and I only see through my eyes. Guessing about other people's lives, emotions, motives and goals is a treacherous endeavour without asking them directly. So I try to just observe and put 2 and 2 together. And life makes me confused sometimes because I see so much that must be changed for more than just the "good of all people". There are things that must be changed because they bring out the worst in people. There is this little quirk about society called inequality. Let's take American society. Let's talk about American inequality. Roots of this inequality are embedded so deep in this nation's past I seldom know how to explain it or how to sift out the truth. From my perspective shit started to hit the fan once force came into the picture. Thanksgiving was a sham, a whitewash that the powers-that-be used to reinforce an amicable, mythical past with the true citizens of this land. So we're all on stolen land if we're not Native peoples? Premise 1 of American inequality. What to do with a nation of squatters? Time creeps on to see the rot of capitalism force African people to cross the African ocean (why call an ocean after a long-drowned continent when Africa still exists and has the longest coastline to kiss this water?) Millions of souls treated as livestock to raise this country from stolen land to world power. 400 years of unpaid labour, psychological rape, physical torture and 4th class non-citizenship. Ghettoes all around this country still the homes of traumatized African children. So too are the descendants of the Native people corralled on reservations, muted into dependency as far as the majority can see. So who has gained from the stolen land with this stolen labour? For me, the answer is people who run the government, and who have done so for the past 400 years. Wealthy Anglo-Saxon, mostly Protestant, white men. This is premise 2 for inequality. They are wealthy because their forebears ensured their educational, political, social and economic privilege. They are Anglo-Saxon because the oldest "leadership" of this country comes from England, and the English did a damn fine job of deciding who was white. Irish were next to Black in subhumanity for a long time, lest we forget. They are Protestant because most Protestants have this thing called the Protestant ethic that attests everyone is equally able to succeed if they just work hard all their lives. Going by this logic, their positions are just a product of their own sweat. And that's bullshit. Black people worked really hard for 400 years and haven't got the power in these United States. Or at least they think they don't. And finally, and maybe most significantly, these men are white. They are no other race, colour, or ethnicity than white. Whiteness is a myth in case you didn't know. So is every other racial categorization...like Black, like Asian, like Multiracial, like Latino. Race is a myth, a pseudo-scientific lie which when told enough becomes a sick sort of reality. Being White tells me nothing about a white american. The label just reifies a non-specific, inanimate, cultureless identity that captures as many of Europe's sons and daughters as is politically convenient. So what's important about the white race myth? Well, in America, it conveys a certain amount of privilege. Of course it always helps to have money and be white too, poor and white might as well equal non-white. But even after social segregation was sent on its way, and 'multiculturalism' lept to the fore as the panacea for historical rape and pillage, being white still remains at a higher value. See this in the way darker people masochistically follow the white image. Twisted caricatures of brown and black people brainwashed to believe that white is right; think white, be white and I'll be alright. They forgot a long time that they are beautiful just the way they are. And at the same time some of their equally twisted European kin are nuking their skins on beaches, getting collagen pumped into their lips, getting ass implants...isn't that just more bullshit?So there are the wealthy white men, there is their power. Guaranteed because of their ancestors' definitions of who belongs and who doesn't. Who matters and who doesn't. They have control over the money, the guns, the law and do what they want when they want to. It's about more than just this war, it's about a group of people socialized to believe that their manifest right is to control. And it's not just in America. It happened in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Australia too. There's a lot to be said about history and I don't know a lot about it but I can see who doesn't have all the control over their lives. That will always bother me until equality comes. Till then, sing the rebel song because the louder you sing the more the Most High will hear the children of the revolution, and LIBERATION will come, may be with fire, or like the softness of a summer morning. I hope for that day when we don't have to fight again.

The Mark of a Gentleman

2005-02-14T17:20:00.001-08:00

A pocket square is a piece of material a man folds and inserts in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and thereby marks himself as a gentleman. I learned this on Sunday. The man who said it plays by his rules. He is measured and controlled, detail-oriented and opinionated. He cares about the length of a necktie and stresses the avoidance of high-water dress pants. His hair is meticulous and his sneakers are snowwhite. He criticizes people or actions that he dislikes as being "gay" and doesn't like getting dirty or trying different food. He's in a rut of propriety at the age of 25.

A pocket square is the true mark of a gentleman.

Maybe I wouldn't be mad if I wasn't pathetically flirting with you, hoping the Grammys on your TV would become background music to a make-out session. Maybe if you took my hint and rubbed my back, maybe if you even feigned interest in my story about my dad, maybe if you stepped in a mud puddle on the way to Taco Bell and didn't mind. Maybe if you hugged me goodbye. Maybe if your pocket square marked your heart as your true strength.

You made me sad in a thousand different ways today. Because you chuckled at gigantic airbrushed asses of shake-a-booty hos in whatever the fuck hip-hop magazine that was, while I read an article about 20 000 kidnapped children in Uganda. Because it became a problem for you to consider my suggestion that we go dancing once I told you that I don't get all dressed up to go out. If you're that petty then that's your loss because my clothes don't have a damn thing to do with the phenomenal woman I become when I'm unleashed on the dancefloor.

So if you're wondering where I've gone, I'm back in my messy world happily painting my face with mud and war paint, still waiting for the man that would gladly dance with me even if I was wearing a burlap sack and a Hefty bag hat. I'm tired of "seeing where this goes" with gentlemen like yourself so you can kindly take your fine luxury white silk pocket square and stuff it.

first day of the rest of my life

2005-02-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

the end of procrastination as I know it is nigh. Like many other humans I am a poor self-motivator, so I have a study buddy now to help me through. Grad school's a big state of anomie. Speaking of states, Garden State is a magical movie.