Count my blessings and follow the sun

[yeloson]

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.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Ah reminds me!
Just found out a little while ago they preserved the graffiti poetry from the Chinese emigration camps on Angel Island. Have you seen it, and would you like to go sometime?

http://www.cetel.org/angel_poetry.html

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Have not yet seen it, though any trips will have to wait until late August or later. Things are just hectic for me right now.

Sigh.