yeloson: (Default)
This is getting linked a lot by my friends and with damn good reason - Ephemere's No Country for Strangers:

Instead I will say: this is no country for strangers. This is not a people that can be known by observation alone, without the risk of actual engagement. This is no land where you can set yourself apart and then delude yourself with claims that comprehension naturally comes with high-minded goals and noble intentions to enlighten a system whose only fundamental flaw is ignorance of your ways. This is not a place that needs more foreigners coming in to visit, then taking away with them their misconceptions and their privileged judgments -- because we have been misrepresented enough, not just in the international community but also amongst ourselves, and false categorizations and claims about who we are and where we came from and where we should go are unneeded and shouldn't be welcomed.

There's a lot of real stuff about the issues of the Philippines and colonization and media in that post, very much worth reading.
yeloson: (Default)
I really have to appreciate that this guy was clear to explain Africa is not a singular country, and that the causes of epidemic are not singular causes.

I'm a little sad he didn't have time to get into S. Africa's disasterous policy "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" and "Treat it with diet", especially since it sits so conspicuously on his chart.

Sometimes

May. 21st, 2009 07:14 am
yeloson: (Folding Chair)
Womanist Musings brings the truth - anytime you demand equality, anytime you help someone get the foot off their neck, you're fighting the kyriarchy:

Being activist is not really a choice when you exist as a stigmatized body. Simply leading your life in a world that believes in hierarchies and devaluing others to maintain the privileges of a small percentage of the population means that your very existence is counter to the desired norm. One need not take on the negative labels and assume a position of helplessness if you decide that your everyday actions are for the purpose of change. It matters not if it as simple as a conversation or as active as blogging or purchasing responsible products. Each time you demand the right to take up space, you disturb our dissonance in worth in value. I matter, you matter, we all matter, we just have to believe it.
yeloson: (Default)
Flashback: Seattle, late 90's. I think one of the homey's was performing, which is how I learned about Isanghamal Arts Kollective, on 7th & Jackson, carefully hidden in the heart of Chinatown. Once a month, we'd gather, poets, mcs, musicians, diasporados, Nth generation kids, to exorcise our devils, decolonize our minds, subvert cultural genocide, and learn the power of words.

Words. Words of our miseducation - his-stories that matter, our-stories that didn't exist. Redefined as people always in need- need of being corrected, civilized, corralled, conquested, conscripted, convicted, condemned. Cleansed. If words were tools to bind us, then they could be tools to free us.

It's all about whose words, whose stories. And they're mighty uncomfortable when we, not they, are the ones who step forward to speak about all stories as our stories in a greater humanity sense. The fact that for all the claims of colorblindness, we know the truth is not seen in blindness, but rather seeing with honesty. Being unafraid to say how the political is personal, mythologies of all types matter, and spirit is thicker than blood.

Words matter. But their place is not shackles to the spirit. Who we are matters more, so we'll take those words back, set them free and not to slavery and we'll keep speaking.

Say that!

Apr. 5th, 2009 08:55 am
yeloson: (I'll cut you)
The Asian Women Blog Carnival is up and running! Go read.
yeloson: (Magical Feeling)
Via Skyward:

popelizbet's Alternate Timeline of Racefail 09 accurately sums up all the positive stuff done, not "as a result of" but in the face of Racefail. Of course, none of this is really mentioned either by the folks running around saying, "Oh they're all negative" or by the ones saying, "But look at what I learned at your cost, KTHXBAI!"

The fact is, and remains: you can't have productive work and cookies for oppressors in the same basket.

And only to the white supremacists does the latter seem like the former.
yeloson: (Words to die by)
Verb Noire has just put up their submission guidelines.

We are looking for original works of genre fiction (science fiction/fantasy/mystery/romance) that feature a person of color and/or LGBT as the central character....We are also accepting poems in traditional and experimental styles with a maximum of 10 pages. The same formatting rules will apply.

So all my poetry & writer friends? This is your chance. Go check it out.

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