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Me Quiero, Me Cuido

7.7.10 | 3 Comments »

Being the quintessential Gemini that I am, I have been at odds with a lot of what is happening right now in my life while trying to figure out what my line really is. I’ve been involved with THE LINE Campaign since January of this year, starting the new year fresh with fem-fucking-power, and it has taken up a permanent spot in my heart, mind and soul. Not only does it re-awaken my feminist spirit every single day, but I have become part of the bigger movement and that has given me the courage to speak out.

A good friend of mine recently told me that I should watch what I say. Although I do admit that I don’t (always) think before I leap, I just can’t keep my mouth shut when I don’t agree with something(or somebody). He told me this after I posted a public note on the door of his building shouting out the sexist, violent asshole on the sixth floor that catcalls womyn from the stoop and thinks that hog-tying his beautiful german shepherd is “funny”. I felt that he needs to be publicly embarrassed and all the womyn living in the same building as him need to be aware of this creep. An hour later, another note appeared in the same place as the prior one stating “I know it was you, you bitch, you fucking cunt.” Obviously he couldn’t think of anything to say except to respond with vulgarities.

I don’t think that I say enough sometimes.

But back to what I was saying..

I’ve been in the city for over a week now, after traveling around New Orleans, then to Detroit for the US Social Forum. I’ve had some time now to organize and sift through my thoughts and feelings, however I am all-over-the-place and can’t seem to do much gathering. I’ve been thinking about where I stand in love and relationships frequently recently because I am seeing someone exclusively, but I’ve realized that I never reach satisfaction in any relationship because I always feel like there is something missing. For the last three years, I’ve succumbed to the fusion of another human being’s life with my own and haven’t had any time on my own.

Shit, I want to be selfish right now. I want to not worry about anyone else’s need besides my own. Fuck male domination, fuck societal paternal pressure of fucking your partner out of pity and fuck men colonizing womyn of color into relationships to obtain control over our lives. I see/hear/feel it with myself and whomever I talk to. Despite whatever madness (or realty) I may afflict, I haven’t felt this rounded and comfortable with myself– ever.

I steal the title of this post from the COLORR (Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights) girls who I met at USSF at their sexual health ‘zine-makin’ workshop. We ended the workshop in a circle holding-hands reciting Assata Shakur “to my people”, then placing our hands over our hearts and pussies (or cocks) while saying “me quiero, me cuido”. Translation: I love myself, then I’ll take care of myself.

All Oppression is Connected, You Dick!

6.14.10 | No Comments »

Food justice
These past few weeks have been a sticky whirlpool of emotions, ideas and improvements. I left New York City a few weeks for New Orleans to work on a youth-led consensus-based food justice project, and to (finally) get out of the city. I lived and worked at Our School at Blair Grocery, an urban farm/school, in the lower ninth ward. I was in the second brigade of the summer, and the first co-ed group (the first group were all womyn, power to them!). The idea behind Food Justice Summer, was to learn first-hand about sustainability and the injustices of food in our society, while incorporating organizing methods and empowering our voices as youth.

To even begin to explain all that went wrong is the all-too-familiar prejudices based on what’s between our legs and the color of our skin. Understanding power dynamics amongst ourselves within the circle was crucial in order to function as a powerful group but we never achieved that altogether. To get an idea of what exactly was going down, let me explain what Staceyann Chin’s hair had to do with all this: A fellow organizer and I created a curriculum to open up a conversation on gender by showing powerful videos of Marjora Carter (Green the Ghetto) and Staceyann Chin (A Question of Impeachment). During the go-around after the showings, the entire half of the group, majority white and male, were uncomfortable by Chin’s free-flowing ‘fro and didn’t understand who would pay money to be yelled at.

Those comments began to ignite sparks among the other half of the group, majority womyn of color, to rain down on the ignorance and privilege that was prevalent among the white males. A young black womyn branded one of the white males a ‘slavemaster’ and that his comments were like ‘whippings on her back’. Then, going against our structure of consensus and facilitation, the white male started talking above everybody else and out of turn. The argument escalated with two womyn calling each other ‘dumb bitches’ and our model for a safe space obliterated.

Currently, I’m staying with a friend of mine who is going through personal matters involving the ‘white male syndrome’ (as I like to call it). As an organizer and as a womyn, how do we work around these issues without losing the bigger picture and breaking unity? How can a youth-led movement grow if we are met with internal barriers that butt heads with our beliefs? How can we break the molds of race, sex, class and everything else that separates us in order to work together without falling into the same perils like prior youth movements? How, what, when, who and why’s swirl around in the air around my mind every single day and minute, questioning my motives as a young organizer. Why is that our voices are only heard after we become the victim?

These are just a few scattered thoughts brought up in conversations after that night. However, before some professor of Sociology at a big-name school or the director of a prestigious social justice organization begins to write out answers to these questions, stop. Leave these (and all the others) to be answered and figured out by us, the youth, without any biased-adult interferences. Thank you for your academic texts and hefty lectures, but your politics is old and boring as fuck.

Make way for the new minds and souls to recreate what a revolution truly looks like. Now.

Ain't No Ball & Chain Holding ME Down!

4.30.10 | 2 Comments »

500_makingsurehesafeminist

For the past year, I’ve been having an internal battle with myself that I tried to avoid for the most part, never wanting to admit what was going on. I regretted my past actions and as a result, was starting to hate myself. Not a moment passed by that I didn’t remember all my mistakes. I hated the person who I became, an awkward and quiet girl. Where was the womyn I claimed to be? Where was my passion and my fire?

My anxiety heightened and I stopped living in the present. I just dreamed of the future. Of a better time than right now, when I would be a better person, more happy with myself. I was a stranger in my own skin, and for a majority of the past year, just kept to myself because no one else would understand.

There is nothing wrong with a little depression.  It is a reasonable response to this fucked up world and you don’t need to hide or deny it.

(Doris #15, Cindy Crabb)

Here’s the deal: More than a year of my life was wasted in a relationship that I HATED. It’s embarrassing to even admit I was with THIS person for so long, we were nothing alike. He didn’t understand my passion for social justice, and was embarrassed to admit to his family that I was a cunt-lovin’ feminist. Why didn’t I leave earlier? My friends didn’t like him, or if they did it was mostly respect on the part that I was dating him. I was scared to let go, to be on my own. For years growing up, I never had anybody around to listen to what I really wanted to say. I was always the “single friend”, but I didn’t care because I didn’t want to be tied down to somebody just to not be single.

I was raised by a supportive, tight family and had two male role models — my father and my older brother. For the most part, my dad was my best friend up until the gray area when I got my period and teen angst set in. My older brother was a second father to me, he told me that boys were a waste of time and they were all the same. But this is a guy I chose for myself. Why?

He made me feel as if nothing was possible. He didn’t go after his dreams, or work hard enough in school to accomplish a degree. I lost motivation and inspiration by being with him, falling into a hopeless slump. He always wanted to know where I was and who I was with; if it was a male he would get jealous and guilt-trip me into leaving so I could talk to him. I stopped having sex with him in the middle of our relationship. I just wasn’t attracted to him anymore, but couldn’t say it to his face. I gave in at times. Who was I?

He wasn’t a bad person, in fact he was very kind and people-friendly To put it in the words of a friend of mine, “he was good to you, but he’s not good for you.” Once I finally left him, I told myself that I would not be with anyone for a while. I needed time and space for myself, and did not want to accommodate anyone else’s needs.

I started college this past fall upstate, and I was more than excited to get away from the city and to be around new faces. But when I met new people, I felt like nothing I said would remotely interest them, so I kept to myself. I had friends but I still felt alone. I needed time for myself, and realized that before I started opening myself to more people, I need to feel confident in my own skin.

This past winter was the roughest season of my life, but by reading feminist anthologies, working with fierce womyn and spending my time around the most positive, beautiful person I’ve ever met, I made it through. Although, there are still days when I feel like shit and want to crawl into a ball, I remind myself that I am in control of my life. I hated this unfamiliar place, but now I love it.

Now, I am coming to terms with who I am as a womyn.

Dead her or deal?

3.22.10 | 6 Comments »

500_Nella

After a disastrous evening with malt liquor, I spent the following day at my good friend Nella’s house in Queens. I’ve been friends with her for ten years, making her my oldest friend, and she lives in the neighborhood I spent my childhood. A little bit about Nella pictured above: she’s obsessed with the E! network, she loved “Party Monster“, takes photos of herself as a burlesque girl, and Sid Vicious is one of her idols. We haven’t hung out in a few months, but recently she texted me asking what to do regarding a certain situation with our mutual friend, B. Her text read:

If you woke up next to a naked girl in your bed and she was clothed before you went to sleep, and she left a pair of boots behind to see you again, would you? No, I didn’t have sex with her.

Didn’t think much of it, I mean, it was a text. I told her it wasn’t a big deal, just give the girl her boots. I blew it off and minimized it, because I didn’t know all the details. Nella left out a huge part of the story; that she woke up to B masturbating naked next to her the next morning! I’m all for masturbation and/or sleeping naked, but it’s really uncomfortable to wake up to strange moans and a not-so-familiar ass in your face. I don’t want to compare this to a rape – and although B didn’t touch Nella – it’s totally a violation.

At first I thought it was a violation of privacy but its more than that – it’s a violation of trust and boundaries! It’s really out of line. Its one thing if B had a crush on Nella and told her directly, that’s not a big deal, but to get naked and sexual next to her while she was sleeping? I thought maybe she had a problem controlling herself, but the way she acted afterward seems like she did it on purpose.

The night I stayed over, after splitting a joint with her parents and doing some serious catching-up, the doorbell started ringing. And it rang and rang and rang. B was at the door, with a box of chocolates to give to Nella. She wanted to go upstairs to “apologize”, but Nella’s brother Mikey wouldn’t let her. He returned her boots and closed the door. Now here’s where B crossed the line between redeeming herself and being a stalker: she forced her way back into the apartment!

B has been calling Nella non-stop for days, and leaving voice mails calling her a bitch and a bad friend for not talking to her. Because of all of this, Nella deactivated her Facebook account, took down all of her burlesque photos, and started a new account. I completely understand that Nella just wants to forget the entire situation and dead her, she doesn’t want to deal with B at all, but the other part of her wants it to end, and wants her to go away. I know they’re going to run into each other at some point and there needs to be some sort of closure or understanding. I think it sucks that Nella had to change her behavior because of B, but we’re not sure what to do.

Is this a “stalker” situation? How can she safely resolve this? Any tips?

Relax, I'm not a "ho"

2.17.10 | 21 Comments »

500_Ingrid HO1

Sunday was the premiere of MTV’s Sexting in America special, but I didn’t get to catch it until this morning due to not having cable, homework galore and a 24 hour stomach virus that snuck up on me yesterday.

While the special was interesting, well-made and featured a bevy of professional folk (an internet lawyer, anyone?), I was disappointed in MTV for not embracing teenagers and their emerging sexuality. I feel that adults are not comfortable with acknowledging the growing curiosity with sex amongst young people. That’s one of the biggest issues here, adults want to ignore – the fact that we are experimenting with sex. They assume that they know everything and want to protect us from irresponsibility, but they don’t realize that if they just spoke to us on a ‘real’ level, we would be more comfortable with what we did with our own bodies. And by adults, I mean ALL adults, not just your parents. Just like what Jaclyn Friedman says in her article, “When Sex is Normal, Normal People Will Talk About Sex“, instead of changing our persona “to conform to cultural norms,” we changed “the norms to conform” to our reality.

My generation is the technology generation; when I was thirteen, I registered for my first MySpace account. Everybody had one and altered their page to represent who they are (or who they wanted to be) through layouts, graphics, music, photos, etc. Your e-world revolved around comments, friend requests and number of hits your page received. You knew you had a hot photo when you received 10+ comments on it, and for a young teen, it was definitely a confidence booster. Showing off your abs, flexing your muscles or flaunting your curves was virtually accepted, and if people had a problem with it, then they were considered haters.

Of course, it’s not a smart decision to send a provocative photo of yourself to anyone, particularly an ex-boyfriend (you’re not going out with him for a reason), because it can end up being seen by e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. However, we shouldn’t start victim-blaming; with each sexting case I come across, the problem starts with the person receiving the text who ends up forwarding it to all his contacts. Then she gets blamed, and the entire school calls her a “slut”, “whore” and “ho.” Here is where the issue of GENDER ROLES come into play. If a guy showed his junk to the entire school, people wouldn’t be calling him a “ho” or a “slut”. They would mostly likely give him props and all the girls would be trying to get with him. But when Ally’s topless photo circulated around the school, she was getting bashed by everyone. One of the name-callers even appeared on the special, claiming that she wanted to fight her because Ally’s boobs appeared on her man’s phone and she was jealous. Girl, don’t you think you man has a collection of playboys under his bed that he peeps every so often?

Not being in high school makes everyone forget how important your reputation meant to you, but once you graduate you realize how pointless all that bullshit was. We should think about why we call a girl a “ho” and “slut” for doing exactly what everyone else is doing. That’s natural… its the shaming that isn’t.

Send us Your Line!

"I wasn't raped" – what?

2.9.10 | 13 Comments »

500_BANDITQUEEN

I lost my virginity junior year of High School, and compared to my friend’s first times, I was pretty late. When I would ask them about their first times, they would smile and proceed to tell me all the juicy details. I’ve always been a curious girl; I used to lie in bed when I was younger and touch myself, becoming acquainted with my pussy. Around fifth grade I discovered romance novels, via Danielle Steel, and reread steamy sex scenes and let them play out in my head. So naturally, I was very anxious to have sex. I ‘lost’ it to a guy five years older than my sixteen year-old self, but it was consensual and I was more than ready to get it over with. ‘Lost’ is a funny word to use since I didn’t lose it. I know where it went.

Fast-forward two years and a couple of months, and I’m lying on my bed in my dorm that I share with my roommate Vanessa (whose name I changed to protect her identity). Vanessa and I instantly became friends; we both have boyfriends, we’re both Latina, and we both love to eat. I don’t know if it was my array of women’s studies books or my reproductive system bandana hanging from my wall, but she felt comfortable talking to me about sex. Our conversation evolved from which positions we like best to what our first times were like. But instead of laughing it up, I started getting really pissed throughout her first time story. Vanessa couldn’t tell if her first time was consensual or if it was rape. She justified it, since at the time, he was her boyfriend.

Vanessa’s story goes like this: She met Jose (not his name) when she was seventeen through friends, and the first time they hung out, it was her first time getting really drunk. They started making out, which led to dry-humping, which led to them moving into a bedroom. He started to finger her and she told him to stop so he stopped, and told her he wanted to respect her since he grew up with women and his dad was always in jail. After that, they started going out, and after a month he told her he loved her. A month after that, she snuck out of her house (which was becoming routine) and went to Jose’s. They were drinking, and Vanessa felt drunk off a few beers. He drank the same amount as she did, said he was drunk too. They started making out on a couch in his living room. Vanessa realized later that he was faking drunk, since it normally took him about six times the amount he drank that night. He turned the couch into a bed and without her knowing, he got up to get a condom. He got naked, got on top of her and asked, “Are you sure?” All she could do was nod her head. She told me that she felt pressured into having sex, and once they started doing it, she couldn’t wait for him to get off cause it hurt so much. Afterward, he left her there crying so he could go to sleep in his room.

Months later, she started questioning him about that night, he would angrily ask her “what are you implying?” so she dropped it. When she asked her friends about it, they told her to not worry, because it’s “just sex”. But it’s not just sex. Sex doesn’t make you replay every action in your head, finding all the ways to blame yourself.  Even if he was your boyfriend and you wanted to please him; if he really loved you then he would respect you.

This semester, I moved to a different dorm and one of my roommates told me a similar story about her first time. He wasn’t her boyfriend, but he was a guy at school that she had a crush on.  She also couldn’t tell if it was rape, or if being forced the  first time was normal. Why were my friends scared to admit that it was rape, because their friends were telling them not to worry about it?

If we call these experiences what they are – rape, would that even be helpful? I think that it would be. Let’s not forget the definition of the word. By being silent, you are being violent towards yourself. You are denying yourself the right to speak up and be heard. It’s up to you if want to Phoolan-Devi-it or whatnot, but by letting those assholes off the hook, we all let them know that they can get away with anything. And we, as listeners, need to not minimize these stories when we hear them.

Vanessa is in a great relationship right now, with a man who loves and respects her. Everyone deserves both, or at least respect, especially for their first time.

Send us Your Line!

Corporation:FAIL! Teens, Sex & Violence

1.14.10 | 8 Comments »

500_albuquerque det new-1

I am not an avid TV watcher, but I keep up to date with what’s going on in pop culture through the status updates on my Facebook news feed. After MTV aired the episode of Jersey Shore where Snooki, one of the guidettes,  gets punched by a guy at the bar, I read Facebook statuses of friends like “damn that bitch got smacked” and “that’s so crazy, pumped for next week’s episode”. I was interested in how MTV would deal with the violence, so I sat at home and caught a re-run of that episode. After the show, MTV stated they did not condone violence and if you are in a situation where you are being abused, please contact a hotline and seek help. It felt like they were clearing their name, airing a 60-second PSA on dating violence, after glorifying violence against women. I doubt the millions of viewers who drank in Jersey Shore sat around afterward discussing gender violence, or how fucked up it was on MTV’s part to promote the episode using that clip. Most people were excited to catch next week’s episode and hoped it was as juicy.

February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and I’ve been watching an influx of shows, PSAs and segments created by the mainstream media in order to combat this “rising epidemic” of teen dating violence and “sexting”. MTV has launched their own campaign against ‘digital drama’ and ‘sexting’, A Thin Line, with a website full of expensive-looking videos, quizzes and stories targeted towards teens. As a young womyn of color and a product of this generation, I couldn’t help but notice how much money MTV executives were spending to create a website for teens with hired teen actors and a $10k challenge. Is this what MTV is presenting to my peer group? A handful of badly-written scripts, supposedly “for us” with some edgy graphics?

Katie Couric’s featured video was on teen dating violence, and was basically “A Thin Line” for mothers. The video did offer heartfelt stories, alarming statistics and voices of real victims of violence, but what I got out of the thirty-minute segment is terror that clueless mothers across America are jotting down mental notes listening to Couric & Co.’s advice. Couric suggests that parents should ban their child from using his/her phone at night and keep the computers outside the bedrooms. If my mother banned me from my phone after 9 p.m. to keep me safe from violence, I would have told her to stop paying attention to novelas! Follow Couric’s advice if you want your daughter/son hating you; adolescence is hectic as it is, no need for more tension in the household.

As a young feminist-activista growing up in Bushwick, I was aware of violence; I would hear couples arguing in the streets at night, witnessed husbands raising their hands at wives, and know girls who think when a guy gets crazy jealous its because he loves her. Going to high school in the Lower East Side, I became more involved with the activist scene and declared myself a feminist. After the murder of a seventeen year-old Tina Negron at a local supermarket by her boyfriend, a neighborhood coalition formed called The Power of Peace. POP wants to put an end to violence and promote peace through organizing marches, events and community projects. Through empowering young people to make change, we can create environments and give them the knowledge to make smarter decisions. I doubt my friends have seen the Couric special or heard of “A Thin Line”, and they probably wouldn’t show much interest in it, since we’re not represented. Corporate media, we’re smarter than you think we are, so give us respect and show an interest in what we actually have to say!

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