On the Heals of MJ racism at the pool

For the last week I have been seeing the great picture of the Jackson-five with their big Afro’s, as a child i remember all the young men and women I grew up with that had large beautiful Afro’s. One of my favorite memories is that of the pool at Santa Monica college down the street from my house, it was the late 60′s and early 70′s a collective of all the kids ethnically mix, mostly poor and lower,middle class. I was telling a story a week or so ago about this pool and my memories of swimming all summer. Though MJ was who I wanted to marry in 3rd grade, Danny Randel was my crush, and he was fine, brown skin, big afro, and when he would go off the diving board and come out of the pool and shake the water out of his hair, well you get the picture, my childhood was spent surrounded by both the good and then the reality of racism. today I read an article about a group of black kids at a private pool and how when they got in, the white kids got out, now I am not surprised by this blatant and on going racism. It just clashes with my wonderful childhood memories at the public swimming pool. I watch the whole memorial yesterday and was moved more than once to tears, MJ’s music was the soundtrack to my life. I am not foolish enough to think that racism is any less a reality than yesterday……… just a bit sad

here is a link to the article: WWW.NBCPHILADELPHIA.COM/news/local/pool-boots-kids-who-might-change-the-complexion.html

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Rebels, Radicals and such………

So in the last four days I have had two people Die, for different reasons one from Liver failure one from suicide. The common tread is our journey from rebels and radicals in the 80′s to our current incarnation. I was not in a sorority or fraternity at a college, but I was in both in the 80′s. We were strippers, and leather folk, bikers, and stoners, we live LOUD and PROUD, some of us died, from drugs (Kathy & Kite), many from Aids, Many like me started sobriety. We were the Rat back, brat back, the Femme Fatals, Sex workers, hard workers, building community, fighting for Sex positive venues, safe sex, health care, LGBTQ rights before we had a alphabet as our name, some of us were so broken when we met , we lived and loved all over each other, hurt pain, joy, we took lovers, drank coffee to come down, drank more to stay sober, we laugh and cried as one friend after another died from aids, breast cancer, or because they were done, no more fight, hopeless against all those things that make us REBELS and RADICALS. We now all live all over the globe our small tribe has grown children, grandchildren, loves, some of us got married, some of us our in school, some of us are still powerful Sex Workers, In this moment of grief forge many years ago in those clubs and smokey AA and NA meetings, I wish to say this, We are Amazing and I am grateful to all of you REBELS and RADICALS that came before me, stood next to me, and continue to Live our truths, That WE MATTER and our connection and stories MATTER

Random

Took the bike in for brakes, fluids, etc. finally saved enough it is going to be about 800.00 to get it done, but I had enough work over the break that it is taken care of,I am provided for. Preparing to go down again till the first week in june for classes again, re-working a paper to submit and maybe present at a conference. I am starting to get the swing of things here in grad school, I hear from many friends who have been through the riggers it is isolating. I also realized this week that I might have to move in two years for a PhD program. Which gave me a complete new appreciation for my life here in Alameda, I love my cottage, it sits between three redwoods, my land lords keep the yard amazing, orange tree, fig tree, lemon tree, well you get the point. today I sat and had my breakfast and coffee in my little patio in the warm morning sun. It is a great place to heal and study.
I am starting a new kind of therapy next week, EMDR and lifespan integration, they have been recommended to help with trauma triggers, I talk with a x partner who has been a counselor and knows my history and thinks it will help, considering all the work and healing I have done with talk therapy. Healing is my number 1 goal in this life, and keeping my heart open, the childhood stuff has been unpack, worked on, and I have only a few places I still get triggered around worthiness, and yes school is one. Grad school is not so much about how smart you are, but how to not get triggered and stay on track with your work and goals. So I am excited to see if I can add more tools to my tool chest.
I find myself enjoying life more than not and look forward to the road ahead which has not been the case for a while. I am hooking up with many old friends over on facebook or face crack as my friend Glo calls it.
Off to shower and head out with friends to a birthday party
ps, I love my Dog, she just makes me feel needed and loved and who does not need that on a daily bases…..

Thoughts

So, I am not feeling very political today, in fact very reflective about heartbreak and life. I got some Blood work done recently and my hormones are fine and my cholesterol is perfect, but my liver levels are not good, In fact they have taken a huge jump. I have Hep c and though I have not been sick, have not had a drink or drug in 24 years, it seems my liver might be acting up. So I have been of Testosterone now for 1 year 3 months. The blood work two years ago was right in the middle of being on “T” for 1 1/2 years and my levels were low, so I am going to get my Liver biopsy results from 3 years ago and probably take another to see if my scaring is increasing. I am a 7 year cancer survivor, having had a tumor removed from my lip and I check myself and new spots all the time, but we think my being so tiered all the time might be related to the Liver activity. Yuck!!!

Hannity and Kissing at the oscars

Watermelon Patch not a joke

What is it? Does post racial when added to water bring out all the racist fools and their defenders? Following the New York Post cartoon is it open season, hate crimes are on the rise, and Having been recently verbally assaulted with a friend when leaving a movie, it is personnel. The Christian language spewed at us was not the first or last time I will hear the words about being Gay is a sin and that interracial dating is wrong . It seems the more post racial , pro-gay we get the higher the level of hate and violence. Anyway, I still believe we can together change the racial paradigm in the world, by shinning light on it and having honest hard conversations that lead to healing. Please shine your light on racial and homophobic hate when and where you can…

 

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11777282

Service for Blackwell, another victim of police brutality

 <a href=”http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/02/georgia-on-my-mind-now-that-police-have.html“>I was reading over at Womanist Musing this morning about another incident of the police beating a black man so badly he was blinded. here is the address

 

I had a rant here yesterday, but as always a good night sleep is helpful, I am angry about the escalation in violence, that is not being hidden so well these days. I am praying for him and his family as well as myself and the world

“Not A Joke” New York Post!

http://colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1897-354182

Please click on the link and Let the New York Post Racism is unacceptable in any form!

Welcome to my Blog

Welcome and I hope if you drop by you leave a note I am going to attempt to have a place for me to find my voice in relation to my lived experiences. I am currently seeking my Master Degree In Sociology at CSUEB, I was the the first college graduate in my immediate family when I received my B.A . in Ethnic Studies from Mills College 07′. My undergraduate thesis was called a Gender Terrorist in search of anti-racist work:The Lack of  a Critical White Studies Analysis of Queer Theory. My passion and graduate work is looking at the intersections of whiteness and masculinity in the Butch and transgender communities. How are we recreating white privilege and  if we do not recognizes our white privilege what does that say about our demand to be seen in our many gender performances or locations of masculinity? 

The other thing that is on my mind  is peri-menopausal symptoms and being butch? Wow, yes that was my outside voice!!!! Oh shit now what, I date Femmes and they seem to have conversations about hot-flashes, Butch and hot-flash in the same sentence seems odd, Butch masculinity, well I will come back often to this topic. 

I am off to sleep

white speak is what is meant by “main street”

PLEASE PASS ON FOR DISCUSSION! Even as I write this, I hear Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi telling the nation that the bail out intends to help middle class and Main street America. But, let me continue with Sarah Palin. I will let her stand as a metaphor for what is wrong with this loaded white message. Last night and today, pundits, politicians and their allies repeat a howling and lock step mantra that Sarah Palin spoke to and connected with the middle class. As an African American, their contentions offend me and make me damn angry- fired up too much to keep silent. I hope you are too. If you are, let Congress and the world know it! Circulate petitions; write editorials and letters to editors. These statements reflect the worst of America’s history and practice of sidelining communities that are poor and colored. The middle class is not monolithic. It is is diverse like America. It experiences racism and sexism! I do not believe that Sarah Palin connects with many of our White friends and allies, especially women and youth. Certainly she fails to connect with middle class people of color. As a matter of fact, Palin makes it clear that she speaks to and represents beer drinking Joe Blows, and soccer station wagon moms. These descriptions conjure up white images and sends coded messages to the White middle class that they are essential to America. Simultaneously, she sends a message that communities of color and poor communities are unessential and collateral damage that places heavy burdens on rich and middle class communities, and on state and national governments. However, she assures Joe Beer drinking Blow that he will be first in line to drink the water that trickles down from the cups of middle class. For communities of color who are poor or middle class, she makes it clear that our communities will drink out of empty cups. Furthermore, her message makes it known that she wants to shore up the status of the White middle class because they hold up the base of white supremacist power and economic domination. This is not a Vice President that aims to represent Americans from colored communities. Nor is she a politician of change. She comes with the same stale and divisive language of racism and classism. Black people should know from our history, struggles and victories that poor people matter! Many of us came from poor families, schools and communities. We represent their best work and deepest commitments. Why then are we silent when the power brokers erase poor people? Why are we silent in the face of coded white supremacist language that generates public policy decisions that assign our community, schools, children and families to the garbage heap of human waste in a technocracy? Will you break this silence and bear witness that all people who are poor and from colored communities matter? Will you stand up and loudly remind the nation that people who are poor and people of color are life lines of America? We pay the highest price in times of war and economic crisis. We make the greatest sacrifices to advance democracy in American. We are heroines and heroes that keep our nation dynamic and save it from a status quo death. Let it be known that we will not let the White power brokers and their allies overlook 37 million Americans who do not live on Main Street. They live on reservations, in urban ghettoes, barrios and rural communities with too many dead end streets and closed doors that shut off economic and social justice and opportunities. Far too many of them are people of color. Two million of them are disconnected youth. 61% of disconnected youth are Black males. The next highest group are Black females. Our country and democracy will never reach their full potential when they do not attend to the least and most vulnerable of its citizens and guests. For too many years Main Street was white and segregated and was the site where Whites economically cheated and exploited as well as terrorized and in some instances lynched or murdered people of color. As a Black youth in the South, I knew that Main Street was a dangerous White line that I dared not cross. I know many whites and their allies of color argue that all of this is over. It belongs the past. We are beyond those days. For those of you who say this, I say that Main Street is still the great racial and economic divide. If Black, Native American and Latino youth are caught on Main Streets in America, they face police brutality, tazzing and public policies that load them into prisons and jails to economically bail out Main Street through the prison industrial complex. White people still control the state and local bureaucracies on Main Street. Shame on these Americans! They do emphasize Main Street when the country calls on young people to die in Wars. Instead they sit quietly while the military machinery send their recruiters to neighborhoods where many young people of color live on dead end streets . where they leave their neighborhood to die in foreign countries rather than starve or languish in prisons in America. To Black politicians and pundits, I remind you that our voices are most powerful when we speak as a national community and when we recognize that we are tied together by our common history and common conditions as Blacks in America. This is an inescapable knot that remains even in the face of classism. For those of us who remember Main Streets America, Main Street language still sends messages of racism and apartheid. We know that Main Street is coded language for Whites and White concerns. It is coded language that reassures the White middle class that politicians will earmark them and their children. Make no mistake earmarks shore up states prerogatives over the welfare of the nation. It is state rights come back again. It mutes and obscures national needs and fragments the nation into competing balkanized states that have the last word over the federal government or communities who are poor and colored and that are blasted by national structural injustices. Palin energizes the base. What base? Be real and say out loud – White base. If Barack Obama played the race card the way she does, America would rip and roar. Yet, pundits let her get away with this shameful exhibition of racism. She proves that America is not beyond race. The media might drown us with this message, but we need not buy it! Ruby Nell Sales