In Detroit there is one grocery store, one bakery, and one health foods store that is a hole-in-the-wall. There are sections of the city where you can walk a few miles and not run into any shops, retail, billboards or advertising. In Detroit there are ghosts, there is a haunting over giant phantasmagoric factories, behemoths ushered in on a wave of industry, now just busted windows, crumbling brick, broken teeth. There are houses covered in weathered stuffed animals, three-foot rabbits stapled to the siding, blanketing the steps and the front porch, like parasites, like barnacles, and you dare not touch or cuddle them, they just want you to leave and mind your own business. In Detroit the empty lots are blooming--weeds, or community gardens, flowers straight up through the concrete. The sidewalks are more grass than pavement because there is no public money to maintain them, and yet the lawns of each house are always freshly mowed and made beautiful: pride.
In Detroit there are no good or bad parts of town. Capitalism has given up on it all. And people are living here, still living here, and striving, and struggling, and with more hope and levelheadedness than you might expect, when you stop and think about it. They are learning to embrace the uncertainty of the future; they are swinging their feet and thinking ahead, managing despair, working something new, thinking, thinking ahead; and they are finding that loving each other is more than just a notion.*
*Tip to Baldwin, this language is echoed in If Beale Street Could Talk.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
speaking of Minnesota Nice
This is really brilliant, from No Snow Here:
And I mean brilliant on a few levels, as this has to do with all the little (I mean very big and indefatigable) ways that oppression intersects with our art, our craft, the words we speak, how you must always demand your dignity and humanity in what you write and must always bring it the fuck on when someone attacks your dignity/humanity/life in the guise of attacking what you've written, that shit is the worst.
But also brilliant because of this commentary:
OK, so this piggybacked from the original brilliant post, but still worth consideration.
This is brilliant because it offers another take on what I've already mused on in a few posts, namely what the fuck is going on in all these workshops, how they seem to lurch from absolute full-on annoying civility to being very uncivil but in disrespectful and degrading ways to the participants (my latest take on the 'agitation'), and that's it in terms of possibility, no spectrum, no range of how to talk things out, just Workshop A or Workshop B, pick your poison, it's the same loss either way.
I think this is also brilliant because this is unfortunately reflective of how we are raised to discount the full reality of our lives and until we learn otherwise, or are taught otherwise, how to know and express and examine ourselves, until this happens, we will only know how to count ourselves out.
But really this is brilliant because it reminds me of another brilliant writer. (Side note: it is quite possibly one of the unique joys of a craft, especially this craft, where in the reading of one person's wonderful words you immediate think of another person's wonderful words. This does not imply imitation or flattery, mostly praise, but perhaps most of all, power.)
That brilliant writer is June Jordan, who wrote Some of Us Did NOT Die and Civil Wars, among other amazing works she completed before her death in the last decade. In the opening to Civil Wars, she recounts a common experience: a man and woman are reeling from the shocking violence that has killed their child. A news reporter asks them to speak about it. And they learn to say--they learn to say!--"Well, we're still in shock, we're devastated." Never mind that if they were actually in shock they wouldn't be able to speak, let alone form coherent sentences! Never mind that if they were actually devastated they'd be on the ground, or pitched up off the earth contorted, wailing, screaming, stone-cold and shut-down, swearing, getting violent, getting irrational, getting difficult to follow, getting hard to watch. There is something in this forced, unnatural 'civility' that makes the couple speak, and quietly, and correctly, and in doing so we watch and take it in and we think it's going to be OK, they're going to be OK, we learn that if people are still civil they're going to be OK (read: not allowed to be) and so we can move on, as if our knowledge and history is disposable, as if terror can be stifled. And June Jordan isn't arguing that we need to get rid of politeness and civility; she is arguing that the cultural pervasiveness of civility is not helping us one iota; and she is questioning how we got to this place, given the torridness of what we've seen and where we've been; and she is saying that if folks really want to build movements for change in our lives, out of our lives, out of the realities as we live them, then we better fucken learn how to be uncivil--that is, how to let go and be a bit more true.
Right on June and right on to everyone else and their brilliance.
And isn't it plum-awesome that the keeper of that blog, Nadia Abou-Karr, is in Detroit and is one of the organizers for the Allied Media Conference. I'll get to meet her provided I can get in her schedule...I know what the organizer's life is like.
Often women of color writers get critiques that are unfair and do not take our work for it’s own merit but fixate on “tone,” “education,” and “politics.” I put these in quotations because they are coded words.
“Tone” — A reviewer takes issue with “tone” when what they really mean is that they feel implicated in what you have written. You should have broken it to them nicer, and because you didn’t everything you have said is invalid.
“Education” — A reviewer questions your education. In this context, “education” means a degree from a college or university. Obviously you have not had the requisite book learning to speak eloquently on the topic of your choice. This is especially true if the topic of your choice is your own life. How dare you write about your own life when you don’t even have a master’s degree in Arab American studies?
“Politics” — A reviewer thinks you should focus less on your politics and focus more on being a good writer. This is code for, “You colored people need to stop complaining and just get over it!”
Have you got any code words to add?
And I mean brilliant on a few levels, as this has to do with all the little (I mean very big and indefatigable) ways that oppression intersects with our art, our craft, the words we speak, how you must always demand your dignity and humanity in what you write and must always bring it the fuck on when someone attacks your dignity/humanity/life in the guise of attacking what you've written, that shit is the worst.
But also brilliant because of this commentary:
"What is up with this idea that we can have a productive conversation about race, but it’s all supposed to be conducted very politely???"
OK, so this piggybacked from the original brilliant post, but still worth consideration.
This is brilliant because it offers another take on what I've already mused on in a few posts, namely what the fuck is going on in all these workshops, how they seem to lurch from absolute full-on annoying civility to being very uncivil but in disrespectful and degrading ways to the participants (my latest take on the 'agitation'), and that's it in terms of possibility, no spectrum, no range of how to talk things out, just Workshop A or Workshop B, pick your poison, it's the same loss either way.
I think this is also brilliant because this is unfortunately reflective of how we are raised to discount the full reality of our lives and until we learn otherwise, or are taught otherwise, how to know and express and examine ourselves, until this happens, we will only know how to count ourselves out.
But really this is brilliant because it reminds me of another brilliant writer. (Side note: it is quite possibly one of the unique joys of a craft, especially this craft, where in the reading of one person's wonderful words you immediate think of another person's wonderful words. This does not imply imitation or flattery, mostly praise, but perhaps most of all, power.)
That brilliant writer is June Jordan, who wrote Some of Us Did NOT Die and Civil Wars, among other amazing works she completed before her death in the last decade. In the opening to Civil Wars, she recounts a common experience: a man and woman are reeling from the shocking violence that has killed their child. A news reporter asks them to speak about it. And they learn to say--they learn to say!--"Well, we're still in shock, we're devastated." Never mind that if they were actually in shock they wouldn't be able to speak, let alone form coherent sentences! Never mind that if they were actually devastated they'd be on the ground, or pitched up off the earth contorted, wailing, screaming, stone-cold and shut-down, swearing, getting violent, getting irrational, getting difficult to follow, getting hard to watch. There is something in this forced, unnatural 'civility' that makes the couple speak, and quietly, and correctly, and in doing so we watch and take it in and we think it's going to be OK, they're going to be OK, we learn that if people are still civil they're going to be OK (read: not allowed to be) and so we can move on, as if our knowledge and history is disposable, as if terror can be stifled. And June Jordan isn't arguing that we need to get rid of politeness and civility; she is arguing that the cultural pervasiveness of civility is not helping us one iota; and she is questioning how we got to this place, given the torridness of what we've seen and where we've been; and she is saying that if folks really want to build movements for change in our lives, out of our lives, out of the realities as we live them, then we better fucken learn how to be uncivil--that is, how to let go and be a bit more true.
Right on June and right on to everyone else and their brilliance.
And isn't it plum-awesome that the keeper of that blog, Nadia Abou-Karr, is in Detroit and is one of the organizers for the Allied Media Conference. I'll get to meet her provided I can get in her schedule...I know what the organizer's life is like.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
a quick note about writing
You know how you want to write in something, say a blog, every day, but you know you haven't gotten into the habit of it yet and so every time you sit down at a computer to write something, your mind draws a blank (unless you urgently need to get something down) and you get kind of shamefaced about this commitment you said you were gonna make but obviously haven't, and so you find all manner of means for procrastination (playing computer games, checking email endlessly for nothing in particular, browsing Wikipedia), and then you get up and figure what you need is some water, or coffee, or a bathroom break, or just read something first, and then after a few hours you steal out of the room and leave your intention of writing alone and dead in the water, to be revived (in vain, once again) for another day?
Well, if you don't know about this, consider yourself right-on. As for me, I just need to get on. I gotta live on. You know what I'm sayin'. This shit gets very infectious and I don't know how to throw it off me. Sis might have some answers but she isn't speaking about them yet--actually she just got back from Venezuela for a wedding so I'm giving her a pass for now. But seriously. Gotta get on.
And you better believe that I have a very good reason to get on, very soon.
Well, if you don't know about this, consider yourself right-on. As for me, I just need to get on. I gotta live on. You know what I'm sayin'. This shit gets very infectious and I don't know how to throw it off me. Sis might have some answers but she isn't speaking about them yet--actually she just got back from Venezuela for a wedding so I'm giving her a pass for now. But seriously. Gotta get on.
And you better believe that I have a very good reason to get on, very soon.
Monday, July 6, 2009
flashback
The man leaves his girlfriend for a moment and walks down the aisle to a crouched figure. He says something inaudible under the rumble of the bus. He grins, a bit uneasily, clutching his cup in one hand, then shrugs a bit and moves back to his seat. Everyone is stealing a glance at this figure, this woman whose head is bowed low, she may not be able to stand up straight and she almost fools us, until we reach Lowry Avenue and slowly, slowly, she raises her head, and it is bits of shock, one right after the other--the red streak down her forehead past her eyes--the splatter on her shirt--the crusted trembling lips--the gash, a gash, the back of her head, bleeding, and pooling, and staring right at me that gash--and as the bus slows to a stop she makes for the back door, she's weaving, she's halting, and there's a cry goes up, Hey, HEY, HEY--and we rush to stop her, but she's already fallen, and in a moment I am beside her, and I'm forgetting everything I learned at the clinic, and the driver is yelling and someone is laughing "She drunk!" and she is not even there, and I am not even there, I am somewhere else, the bus roars off and I am sitting next to her, and she is not here and I am not here I am somewhere else, this terror, this terror I know like I know my lungs, like my clenched fist, like the blood I smell in the air.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
slaking weather
Drought weather here. You can tell because the chalkings in the paths of Loring Park--HENNA, FREE CONDOMS, AIDS TESTING--are still plain as day, a week after Pride. But the air was heavy today at the Fantastic Fourth in the Walker Sculpture Garden, and now the skies have opened up, and it feels wonderful, all them drops on the skin. Release. And I sure could use it today, still mourning and unfocused and very much alone, even with family and friends around.
It looks like it's already letting up; I hope it doesn't. I hope we get rain all day and all night and into the morning. Fireworks be damned.
It looks like it's already letting up; I hope it doesn't. I hope we get rain all day and all night and into the morning. Fireworks be damned.
Friday, July 3, 2009
a mother's love, a queer boy's pride
Mother's day today--birthday that is.
This is her, in one of my very favorite photos on earth. With twin sis in tow.
Went this afternoon to Stillwater for a lunch at Dock Cafe, with a view of the St. Croix. The nieces had way too much energy and we tried burning it off with walks to the marina and to Teddy Bear Park. I haven't been to downtown Stillwater in ages but it somehow felt familiar. Back home for more chillin', making stuffed peppers and a simple cake. The real celebration is tomorrow after all, but it seems that whenever the kids are involved, all of us are much more interested in relaxation than excitement. It rubs off on me too; no matter how much I know I have to get done on a weekend, errands, writing or otherwise, when I'm in Shoreview with the parents and the Hodges all those plans go kaput and I laze like nobody's business. And despite the failure of discipline, I have no qualms.
As for Mom, she is plum-happy with this birthday. I feel I should mention, as one of three children and a twin, just how much respect and love I have for this wonderful woman, not least of all due to the fucken PAIN of moving two babies out of the womb in rapid succession. If a person can give life like that and come out smiling, then I want them on my team. Gratitude to you Mom. You are too amazing.
Other amazingness: the Pride Festival and Parade this last weekend. Major downside: saw next to none of it. Pulled a freaking all-nighter on Saturday night, writing and research if you can believe that, still made it to the parade where there was terrific wind all up and down Hennepin Ave (which of course makes you more tired, more quickly), stayed awake enough to see the procession and my co-worker Reggie marching with the R.T. Rybak contingent, then promptly boarded a bus home, flopped onto my bed, and woke up the next morning for work (16 hours sleep for those of you guessing at home). I'm saddened by how little I saw and was involved in, although Pride is now so overtly commercialized and mainstreamlined (I think I just invented that word), purged of all radical roots and more interested in building the gay white male market than building urgently needed social movements, but still, saddened. It is not often you can walk about and find fellow queers, gays, lesbians, and transgender folks flooding the public arena. Not so much engendering hope or joy or promise, but (forgive me here) rather a whole helluva lot of confidence, love, sassiness, sexiness, style, and flat-out gayness. It's what we're good at.
So it was fun and funny and funky for a while there, the highlight being the block party at Bryant-Lake Bowl with old and new friends, and I trust come next year I'll be stepping all in it, the Trans March, Dyke March, and by stepping I mean doing some for-real participation, ya hear? Can't do shit by moaning about the state of things and how detached I am. Gotta get it on.
As for the July 4th weekend, this and this look attractive.
This is her, in one of my very favorite photos on earth. With twin sis in tow.
Went this afternoon to Stillwater for a lunch at Dock Cafe, with a view of the St. Croix. The nieces had way too much energy and we tried burning it off with walks to the marina and to Teddy Bear Park. I haven't been to downtown Stillwater in ages but it somehow felt familiar. Back home for more chillin', making stuffed peppers and a simple cake. The real celebration is tomorrow after all, but it seems that whenever the kids are involved, all of us are much more interested in relaxation than excitement. It rubs off on me too; no matter how much I know I have to get done on a weekend, errands, writing or otherwise, when I'm in Shoreview with the parents and the Hodges all those plans go kaput and I laze like nobody's business. And despite the failure of discipline, I have no qualms.
As for Mom, she is plum-happy with this birthday. I feel I should mention, as one of three children and a twin, just how much respect and love I have for this wonderful woman, not least of all due to the fucken PAIN of moving two babies out of the womb in rapid succession. If a person can give life like that and come out smiling, then I want them on my team. Gratitude to you Mom. You are too amazing.
Other amazingness: the Pride Festival and Parade this last weekend. Major downside: saw next to none of it. Pulled a freaking all-nighter on Saturday night, writing and research if you can believe that, still made it to the parade where there was terrific wind all up and down Hennepin Ave (which of course makes you more tired, more quickly), stayed awake enough to see the procession and my co-worker Reggie marching with the R.T. Rybak contingent, then promptly boarded a bus home, flopped onto my bed, and woke up the next morning for work (16 hours sleep for those of you guessing at home). I'm saddened by how little I saw and was involved in, although Pride is now so overtly commercialized and mainstreamlined (I think I just invented that word), purged of all radical roots and more interested in building the gay white male market than building urgently needed social movements, but still, saddened. It is not often you can walk about and find fellow queers, gays, lesbians, and transgender folks flooding the public arena. Not so much engendering hope or joy or promise, but (forgive me here) rather a whole helluva lot of confidence, love, sassiness, sexiness, style, and flat-out gayness. It's what we're good at.
So it was fun and funny and funky for a while there, the highlight being the block party at Bryant-Lake Bowl with old and new friends, and I trust come next year I'll be stepping all in it, the Trans March, Dyke March, and by stepping I mean doing some for-real participation, ya hear? Can't do shit by moaning about the state of things and how detached I am. Gotta get it on.
As for the July 4th weekend, this and this look attractive.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
rest in peace Ed Burks
"Some time ago, Edwin Burks came into the clinic to register for Patient Assistance Program. I remember this amiable man well--I was the first person he met at the clinic, back during the front desk days. As usual, he was grateful I could help him, although I conveyed my distrust of PAP to him too. I wanted to make sure this man never got screwed over.
As he got up and shook my hand, he said, "Thank you for helping me so much. You know, even though they put you in the back, I still think you're the most important person here."
And I am a tissue. The wind is crumpling me, tossing me gently on a current of fine words. I love these people. I love this city."
I wrote these words in a memo pad back in April 2006. This is one of only a few documented memories I now have of Ed Burks, Common Ground Health Clinic client, volunteer and stalwart, a great friend and wonderful, wonderful man, now dead of cancer as of Wednesday, July 1st, 2009.
Ed always, always, always brightened my day whenever I saw him. Incredibly kind and good-natured and quick to a compliment, and always armed with a few stories once you plied him with drinks. He always told my co-workers at the clinic that it was because of me that he decided to pitch in and help out (or rather that I roped him into it). At the time when I wrote that journal entry, I was conducting case management for 150 clients in need of medication assistance. By the time I left New Orleans 8 months later, he was the one in charge of the program. He did it with gumption, moxie and grace.
It was only through some communication over letters and email that I learned how quickly his life had taken a downturn. In the last months of his life he was in pain all the time, bound to a hospice bed, confined to an outlook of misery. And so it's strange to say it, but I'm glad he's no longer in pain and no longer tired of being immobile and useless.
Yet he has passed and I am still here and for whatever reason this seems wrong.
It is not unusual in New Orleans to lose people you love. I was there but 15 months and saw three close friends and neighbors die of color cancer. Another neighbor was shoved into the path of a bus and flattened. Horror. No other word for it. And one of the first things you learn in that city is to hold it close, hold fast. But I moved out and lost touch and so with Ed's passing I feel guilt. I wish I could have told him so much. I wish I could have told him I'm OK, he was always worried about me in a way. I wish mostly I could have let him know that it was a two-way street--I was the one who got him to love the clinic, but he was the one who got me to love the city and its people. I owe him big time for that.
No chance now but what can you do. Just mourn and remember I guess. I love you Ed. I miss you and I thank you, you give me more life. Rest in peace.
As he got up and shook my hand, he said, "Thank you for helping me so much. You know, even though they put you in the back, I still think you're the most important person here."
And I am a tissue. The wind is crumpling me, tossing me gently on a current of fine words. I love these people. I love this city."
I wrote these words in a memo pad back in April 2006. This is one of only a few documented memories I now have of Ed Burks, Common Ground Health Clinic client, volunteer and stalwart, a great friend and wonderful, wonderful man, now dead of cancer as of Wednesday, July 1st, 2009.
Ed always, always, always brightened my day whenever I saw him. Incredibly kind and good-natured and quick to a compliment, and always armed with a few stories once you plied him with drinks. He always told my co-workers at the clinic that it was because of me that he decided to pitch in and help out (or rather that I roped him into it). At the time when I wrote that journal entry, I was conducting case management for 150 clients in need of medication assistance. By the time I left New Orleans 8 months later, he was the one in charge of the program. He did it with gumption, moxie and grace.
It was only through some communication over letters and email that I learned how quickly his life had taken a downturn. In the last months of his life he was in pain all the time, bound to a hospice bed, confined to an outlook of misery. And so it's strange to say it, but I'm glad he's no longer in pain and no longer tired of being immobile and useless.
Yet he has passed and I am still here and for whatever reason this seems wrong.
It is not unusual in New Orleans to lose people you love. I was there but 15 months and saw three close friends and neighbors die of color cancer. Another neighbor was shoved into the path of a bus and flattened. Horror. No other word for it. And one of the first things you learn in that city is to hold it close, hold fast. But I moved out and lost touch and so with Ed's passing I feel guilt. I wish I could have told him so much. I wish I could have told him I'm OK, he was always worried about me in a way. I wish mostly I could have let him know that it was a two-way street--I was the one who got him to love the clinic, but he was the one who got me to love the city and its people. I owe him big time for that.
No chance now but what can you do. Just mourn and remember I guess. I love you Ed. I miss you and I thank you, you give me more life. Rest in peace.
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