My Ecdysis: June 2007

Saturday, June 30, 2007

NWSA

Here are some shots of the crowd and panel for the Bridge tribute. The marvelous of the evening could not be caputured, accurately.

Tribute panel to "This Bridge Called My Back"

Daisy Hernandez

AnaLouise Keating

Maria del Carmen Ochoa

veronica precious bohanan, left
camil willliams, right

Tonight held the session I had been waiting for with curiosity. A Tribute Panel, Bridge Inscriptions: Radical Women of Color Envision - Pasts, Presents, Futures.

Basically, it was a worship session for This Bridge Called My Back.

The panelists were all invited to speak on how this book affected their lives. And while I walked in with no expectations, I left with a similar sensation in my bones as when I left Detroit: spirited, energized, and in community.

There's just something about when women of color get together. I swear, it's something in the air.

The panel was comprised of Aquamoon, a two women artistic team, camill williams and veronica precious bohanan; Daisy Hernandez from colorlines magazines (also co-editor of Colonize This!); AnaLouise Keating from Texas Woman's University; and Maria del Carmen Ochoa from San Jose State University.

What can I say? It was had the most diverse crowd, moving words, and spirited audience. (Don't you love when the panel is speaking about the different oppressed populations and a moved audience member yells, "And don't forget the mother of Jesus!" Ahh, the laughter)

As they paid tribute, I jotted a few of their gems:

Moderator began with this statement, "Our poetry, prose, and theory...for women of color, it is all the same."

Gems from Daisy Hernandez
I found the stories that you never read in school, you meet women on the page.
I once thought that feminism was making poetry out of shame.
Cherrie Moraga said, 'In my dreams, I am met at the river,' and it is because of you I am always at the river.
The 'bridge' may not be the most suitable metaphor anymore. We don't cross the bridge to meet all these different people because they all already met on iChat.
We're not a bridge, but a crossroads, a place where two roads meet and multiply. A place of ritual, sacrifice, choice, conflict. Racism looks different here, we hold imposing powers.

Gems from AnaLouise Keating
Feminism is not a white thing. We. Are. Feminists.
Spiritual Activism is not religion, it is a holistic approach to plitics and transformation. It is the belief that there is more to existence than the embodied world and the spirit infuses it. We are all connected and are accountable for the people down the street, across the border, across the seas.
It is not based on sameness, not about walking in a straight line.
Feminism must stretch to an unseen place.

Gems from Maria del Carmen Ochoa
We must revisit Bridge because of its ability to subvert. From this book we learned how to learn from both critical and creative works.
It is a writing from the lungs. The heart is what usually recieves the metaphorical attention, but the lungs is what takes in air. And we must not forget what the other word is for inhale: inspiration.
Writing=Breathing=Living
We are the changer and the changed.
From Toni Morrison, 'The function of freedom is to free someone else.'

There are no selective gems from AquaMoon. I can only describe it as one of the most transparent illustrations of talent and brilliance I have ever seen in person. They embrace hip-hop, "will never leave it," and use it to analyze, poeticize, and create a space for discourse. They rap, sing, make melody out of works. They are human song. They are shine. My only regret in watching the room stand for them is the rest of the world just missed the sky turn gold. In the presence of true artists, individuals who polish their craft, nothing brings me closer to Spirit, than true artists and their work.

The umbilical cord connecting Cisneros to this session was the outcry against a failing healthcare system. Gloria Anzaldua died from diabetes, a dangerous and complicated, but treatable disease. What Cisneros said the previous night about taking care of writers while they are ALIVE is bitter. Had Anzaldua lived, we know she would have been there that night. And it was mentioned again on the panel.

We invoked Anzaldua and all the pioneering women of color who laid down their bodies as the Bridge, no les olvides!

NWSA

The 2007 NWSA keynote speaker was Sandra Cisneros, a Chicana writer who bases her writing in her life, personal relationships, and Latin@ culture. Her poetry seductive, her prose inquisitive into family secrecy, Cisneros spoke for nearly three and a half hours.

In the span of over three hours, she spanned topics of women of color writing, the writing process, and then shared some of her temporarily unpublished work. Her unmistakable reverence for Gloria Anzaldua was hard to miss, often commenting, "Had we taken better care of her, had a better health care system, Gloria would be here instead of me. She was better with words, theory, and vision. She should be here, not me."

Here are some of her beautiful fireworks that lasted for hours:

We need to take care of writers who suffer from depression and self-destruction.
Some audience members, non-writers I assume, laugh at this, thinking she is joking. She replies:

No, I'm serious. Writers, women of color writers aren't seen as real writers...[we have] all the times we doubted ourselves.

But Gloria, she believed in women of color.

Racism seeps into our psyche and we ourselves begin to believe it.

Depression is about walking to the sea and not drawing attention to yourself. I had to go through the darkness and hang on, hang on. Sometimes you just have to hang on by a thread.

Sometimes you need to leave home to reinvent yourself, especially if home is intolerant of your kind.

There are some questions a daughter can never ask her father.

I thought my novel would force my family to finally sit down and talk, normally. Where only one person talks and the other listens. I'm a bit of an idealist.

I am against Mexiphobia which hides under the guise of homeland security.

I saw a man wearing a tshirt that read, 'If you deport me, who will build the wall?'

I'm a writer, I think for a living. I live my life facing backward.

My brother asked me, 'how do you remember those things?' I said, 'How do you forget?'

There is no "in sum" for Cisneros. Her voice, girl like in delivery, was light but flexible. Sometimes she spoke imitating her characters, pushing them alive. Cisneros loved word, opening depression, and sex. Unashamed, she bares. This was the last note I had scribbled in my notes about listening to this gifted storyteller:

She spoke. If you close your eyes or lose your gaze into the floor, her voice could have been the one in your own head or tuning in to her ponderings aloud, lifted. Like a cloud, her thoughts thickening around me.

Friday, June 29, 2007

NWSA

I only took notes for the first 10 minutes of this session. I have much to write about these particular hours, which I will post in a separate piece.

Creating Conversations to Dismantle Racism and White Privilege in Our Women’s Centers and the
NWSA Women’s Centers Committee

Utilizing vignettes from The Way Home, taping of conversations about counsels of women; indigenous groups: AA, Euro, multi, asian, arab, latino, jewish

Importance of getting to our personal edges
Engaging looks different if you are a white woman or a woman of color
Hold the space that the experience is different
Even though it is time limited; it is imperative to continue the conversation, emphasizing the word “continuing”

How do we balance talking with “doing” with being an anti-racist women’s center community?

Ground rules/Ways that we want to be with one another
Do not get lost in critiquing the video or someone else’s experience

Just because you understand racism and sexism in one part, doesn’t mean you understand it in all parts

Own your privilege; how does it serve alliances

Resisting the desire to interrupt and bringing it back to yourself
Building on the stories on one other person’s stories
Acknowledge what has been said before you

NWSA

These are my notes, at times hard to follow, from my first session. My style for this session was to record the comments of both the panelists and participants and letting my mind (read in bold) go where it felt called. So my thoughts unspoken are in bold and the rest are the discussion points.

Session One: Feminist Leadership in Student Affairs:
A Critical Look at Scholarship and Practice

Definition of Feminism
Intersection of Race, Class, and Gender

It's about not bemoaning that we’re not where we want to be, but action toward building toward where we want to be.

Common language:

What is your definition of feminism?
Radical inclusion that works toward the empowerment of all individuals and the dismantling of all personal and systematic oppression.

How does it play out in your leadership style in the Women’s Center on your campus?
I challenge, speak out, seek mentoring and being a mentor in every situation that I am involved.

Others Sharing:
Egalitarian, so student focused.
Examining power and privilege in individual schools (what percentage of the student body is women)

I feel an acute sense of individualism, high intellectual streamlined thinking where people want to self-talk talk talk, than collaborate and share. Community is about supporting and laughing, not just working together.

Piercing eyes, not the most welcoming of leaders.

Why is there power and privilege and assigned worth in every thing?
“We’re as smart as the faculty,” say staff.
“We’re as smart as the psychologists,” say social workers.

“They think the women dress like whores.” – audience participant, on introducing a dress code and someone’s thought on how it would apply on women

I have serious issues with the word whore. What is a 'whore?' A women who has a lot of sex? A woman who will sleep with anyone? A woman who charges or takes money in exchange for sexual activity? What is a whore? Regardless, there is an incredibly unjust label, a pejorative label, to assign any individual. Never mind there is no equivalent for the male gender, but there's something about the word WHORE, as if it's something we strive to NOT be, be afraid of. If it is a woman who is hypersexually active, there is usually a much detailed backstory that necessitates privacy and/or understanding that women, especially, are so slow to give one another.

From a perspecive of clinical pedagogy, experiential learning:
“If you don’t name it, you’re not doing it.” – law studenton practices that are feminist, but not labeled as such; if you don’t use it as a critique of the hierarchal approach, it’s not enough for me

Are we more obsessed with things being labeled feminist than just the reality that things are in practice without being labeled as such?

“I was first aware of my whiteness than before my gender.” – far more committed to issues of social justice; talking about how few student affairs administrators identify as feminists; identifying in an academe that is NOT feminist and pointing out contradictions

A researcher compares experience of academic feminists and the experience of immigrants in the 1920s and 30s….

That last comment is a bit of a stretch. Sounds a bit too Friedanian for me. Like when the Betster compared stay at home middle white class women to the torture of the refugees in Nazi camps.

I first thought of myself as a black person, then as a women. WOC are always asked to choose. I began struggling with what it meant to be woman, looking at womanism. Moving to a women’s center, I felt a personal mission to talk about race, social and economic class in the context of feminist work, which I found was often left out.

Good stuff. Nothing new. I think the
lack of new thoughts has more to do with the academe than the speaker. Academe might be the slowest place to catch up with the trends. It’s more about the venue of distributing one’s knowledge than it is a place for change.

Feminist leadership: not many resources. Good number on women and leadership; gender and leadership, but not feminist leadership; organizational development and transformational leadership – they’re feminist principles! But now it’s called *** and *** and now it’s ok for men to claim it. Feminism caused a split between woc feminism and mainstream feminism; conversations are different, especially with men; split between communities; relegated to issues; it’s opened my perspective but has constrained my work –doctoral candidate for educational leadership

Finally.

Dated a man who was gay and came out after a long time – I’m going to support him or be angry. Obviously, she took the caretaker road.

Hello. Most women usually take the "caretaker" road. I think the majority of women in this situation would take the supportive role in the sense of "Staying friends, being there for him." I can only speak for myself, but in my history of being in a relationship where the other person at the time is not certain of who s/he is, and what their identity is, it ALWAYS turns unjust for the other. Always. It's so imbalanced that it's impossible for mutually healthy relationship to flourish. I think there are ways to end relationships out of self-respect. I take, "I love you, but go figure your shit out and quit screwing me over," road. I don't think "support" always necessitates standing by one's side presence and enduring emotional daggers to the soul.

I came to social justice in this relationship experience, first time to think about these issues. Began another “turning point” after working in a dv/sa position. Women with multiple identities are often forced to choose communities. In all white women communities, I didn’t find a mentor or anyone who broke down race, class, gender. We need to hold our partners accountable as partners because once you talk about women in student affairs we immediately talk about balancing family; also getting men involved in the movement; bring men into the conversation in constructive ways that do not take away from the work that women have been doing for ht past several decades; hold them to higher standards; do not exclude women who choose not to have children and respect that they have the need for balance as well.

Yes.

I was here from the beginning. It was easy to come to before.
I was the first to join the hockey team. There are still more firsts to be had. There is still more work to be done. - audience

Talking about the .76 to a man’s dollar. "I’m not satisfied with that."

Why do we always hold this as one of the mainstays? Like, always.

Practical ways; being intentional about the library; south end press utilization; it is NOT feminist practice to give so much money to other “big” speakers and privilege that over smaller, grassortts activism, like using the money to really expand the resources (what movies, documentaries do we need? What else can we support?)

Activism should be focused on broadening the definition of feminism
Hiring practices – search committees – should work on shifting the language “I’m looking for an activist,” not a student affairs professional. Look at the students who are working in your office.

I realize it is a privilege to talk about gender all day. At NASPA, we had a session on feminist leadership, we had a room this size and it was full and women CRIED.

Sweet.

I’ve had grievances filed against me for hiring practice, but you have to have the courage to do it and hopefully you lay the ground for someone else to do the same. These are various forms of activism, but you have to find other people who do it. You find yourself talking to yourself a lot.

What does your activism look like?

Be transparent with students
There was an immediate gag rule
I can’t talk about this or do it, but you can. What can I do to help you? We can’t support you because some things are too institutionalized. It sucks and I hate it, but I can personally support you. – says Duke Women’s Center employee

Be sure there is sustainability in your feminist activism.
How do you get people jazzed about sexual assault preventative education?

I think getting men jazzed about it is more important.

We work well together because we all identify as feminists. We all have women-centerd principles. Feminism is a wonderful foundation for social justice work – you can call it what you want – just adopt it and use it.

Get feminism into the headlines and titles into topics, dissertations, conferences, national boards, literature

Of course Women Writing for a Change in Cincinnati came up – feminist leadership academy – Mary Pierce Brosmer

It’s more important to be more collective.

Word. Why’d that come at the end?

NWSA

Not that I am one to complain, but in Detroit, I was in a singular bedroom dorm, suite style, with NO comforts of home. Hey, I enjoyed it and I loved the accessibility it gave me to Blackamazon next door and Fabi a few floors away, among other awesome WOC. But, here in St. Charles, I've got a few luxuries, to say the least.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

We Are the Daughters

I wrote this poem for myself, and for all the transforming women of color I met this weekend in Detroit. Mabuhay.

We Are the Daughters

We are the daughters of the forgotten, the skinned, the given-up in the trenches
by the roadside
We are the daughters once covered in blankets, helpless heaps
without shields
We are the beaten with sticks, paddles, belts, and bricks
We are the daughters of violence
And the violated
Our mothers knew the pain of childbirth without anesthesia
contractions throbbing with wariness
We are the daughters of doubters, the relentlessly uncertain
We are the first documented, freshly counted
The ones who know community by faith, street, and fringe living
Not by gathering, similarity, or food
Our mothers and fathers are the immigrants – the forced travelers – thrown
We are the daughters with honor, without legacy
With riches, without inheritance
Our traditions are storytelling, sharing, remembering
Branding it in our minds because it will not be texted, printed, distributed, categorized, considered
We are the daughters of gates
Passing through with filthy, but functioning feet
We are the ones sacrificed, priced, shamed
We are all of these
We are all of these
Our troubles are less jagged than our mothers
Our survival less in question
Our thriving dependant upon more our will, not chance
We are the daughters of the umpteenth strokes of window washers
And poor wages
We are the daughters of cruel legislature, temporary amnesty, refugee camps, and collision
We are the daughters of grain, cotton, las floras, and sugar cane
We are the divergent behaviors, red with depression, pale with negligence
We are the mules of silence, withholding, and secrecy
Our tongues speak our history, hyphens
Bridging the borders of land and sea
We are speakeasies, the back alley ways
We know the gravel and dirt roads
The railroads sound in our dreams and whistles goodbye
We are the daughters of stopped clocks, crossovers, irreverence, heat
We flip paradoxes on the tips of our lashes, especially within ourselves
We look for madness, familiar
We know the smell of grass cut by machetes
We are the daughters of failed government, tastes of sovereignty, uprising
We are the daughters of broken tsinelas, broken hearts, broken bones
We are the daughters of the vanished, the unforgiven, the debted, the disappeared, the murdered
The long funerals, the lonely guitar, the rambling corner, the panic rooms
We are the daughters of slurs and political graffiti
We are the walkers through fresh basil gardens with our fathers
The orphaned sparrow
We are the sought prize of many, those waiting to kidnap us
To lure us with scholarships and jimmies
To convince us we deserve better, we are better
Than our ancestors who couldn’t read a coke bottle
Forget them, they say
They want us
They want us badly
To be human erasure for a war waged against our blood, our families
To slowly abolish the mass graves,
glossing over them with petals and dowry
Our deliverance eradicates the atrocities, the scratched signatures allowing the rapes
their misnomers, their wide eyed pretense
they want us to bow to the ivory tower, the one granting us degrees
they want us to forget the hours, lives, humanity that was stolen from our people
they want to shave us clean from any bandages, scars, proof of their imperialistic sodomy
they want us to forsake our memories and accept their offertory
our privilege circles our feet, hopscotching our destinies, leading us away
they want us to be grateful, but not mirror our mothers
or drink from the same clay cups, or splinter from the same broom
they want us to be fed, but hungry for more, and therefore compliant
they do not know that we are the daughters of hair, Brown, restless, and fight
they want to brainwash, inculcate us
but they do not remember our mother’s blood is not a drying stain, but a free flowing wound from which we still suckle and warm ourselves
we feed ourselves
we are the daughters of vision
and we are the thieves
stealing, taking, claiming, owning the
land, fish, air we righteously and already own
we take and give back to our foremothers, we kneel before our scrolls of imprisonment
We breathe easier
But we live with memorials and pledges
Mourning
We invoke what we did not live through
We remember our reasons
Our mothers were never bought
And we cannot be sold
We are the daughters of a thousand dreams
we are both the fruition and bearers of completion
We are the daughters of swallowing caves
Erupting ground
cracking trees
and mulberry scents

We are the daughters the world hoped would die in the bellies of our mothers

We are the unlost, thrice self-found
And rejoicing

Grace Lee Boggs

Grace Lee Boggs was everywhere during the AMC conference. Cursing my lack of confidence, I felt too shy to approach her. This is Grace Lee Boggs. GRACE Lee Boogs. Grace Lee BOGGS.Yep, no matter how I said it myself, I was completely overwhelmed by her life's work.

Twice, she caught me staring at her and her 91 year old frame shifted to smile directly into my face and I uttered a very eloquent, "Hello, Grace." It was as if she could read my nervousness and was trying to tell me to calm down; that we're all human.

Similar to when Sarah Weddington approached and thanked me for volunteering at a democratic fundraiser or when I met Rebecca Walker - it was electric.

It's not celebrity-hood, or even that I completely agree with individual politics and activism. It's about being in the presence of someone who has given their life or an enormous chunk of it standing up, defending a cause, raising awareness. That commitment is surreal. That fortitude is immeasureable, their spirit uncontained.

But, Grace. GRACE Lee Boggs.

That was something extraordinary.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Post AMC

Sleep is never overated, especially as a woman of color. I debate, fight, expose, compliment, choose, live...it's an exhausting world and I love the rejuvenating process of closing your eyes while the body recharges.

I am officially recharged after not letting Adonis out of my arms for a second and a restful night's sleep.

If you have not noticed, I have been live blogging, covering the AMC conference. Because I did a lot of uploading and writing at 3am, I was unable to put things in descending order, so to get an accurate chronological depiction, you must scroll down and work your way up.

Read: I was that tired.

So much is churning in my head and I love the world this morning.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

AMC 2007

I am functioning on minimal amounts of sleep. I can only write in non-elaborative sentences.

So much happened today but I need to travel, go home to love. My first love.

The conference is over.

I am heading home in five minutes.

Leaving, I am amazed by the power of technology, its ways of corruption and the possibilities of revolution.

The women I met this weekend are streamlined, natural, hilarious, beautiful, giving people.

I am heading home. I am ready.

Detroit... out!

AMC Quotes

Here are the top five quotes for Day Two of the 2007 AMC:

5) I charge $2 for my zine, which I think is pretty fair in exchange for part of my soul. - Hermana, Resist

4) There is a plot to keep us from eating and I don't like it. - Moi, after Fabulosa Mujer and I tried to get lunch and discovered the doors of Subway locked; the cashier at the cafeteria informed us carry out boxes were unavailable; Paesano's didn't deliver; the driver from Dominos didn't show up to work; and descending upon a salad sharing moment, found that we had no utensils.

3) Mom, now I know why I am hungry. I don't want to eat this. Do you? - Baby BFP holding up a ROTTING banana to BFP's face to which several radical women of color bloggers advised her to feed her starving children

2) When I got a reply from that organization, not only did they tell me they would not fund me, but they also said a black woman has no place in being in a man's room at two in the morning. - Aishah Shehidah Simmons, retelling the 11 year process it took her to fund, direct, and produce the documentary NO! about sexual assault within the African-American community

1) You had me at Shalom. - AMC participant's tshirt

AMC 2007

I'm sorry to report that we, the radical women of color bloggers, in fact did NOT succeed in fixing all the problems of the world today. Damn. We came soooo close though.

Today felt like I had known these women my whole life. We worked through the whole, "I can't believe I'm finally meeting these people in real life," to endlessly teasing, laughing, and a sharing salad with no utensils (that *actually* happened during the 3pm pizza lunch hour). We dined over fallafel, hommos, pita, lentil soup, mango smoothies (LARGE, not small), with grilled lamb and chicken for dinner. We, literally, closed down the restaurant, only to spend another 15 minutes laughing outside, only to end up talking and laughing until 2am in a study lounge. As bloggers, we do what we do best: grab our laptops, surf the internet, share pictures of our weddings, families, and gawk over the Eddie Murphy impregnated Scary Spice and talk like sisters.

AMC 2007

The Women of Color Zines was a moving presentation, a safe space created for womyn of color to talk about why personal expression is so vital, distribution challenges, and weighing the advantages of sharing your soul with the world.

The Women of Color Blogger's Caucus was held at 12noon. Women of Color may be amazing, but they also need to eat. Many of us jumped from session to session with little in our bellies to absorb every possible available moment. To see and meet so many great women was just downright joyous. The hour sped by and we vowed to continue the conversation over dinner. Besides, it was time for:

Hijacking the Master's Tools, a panel to talk about how online organizing can be used for activism. Another AMAZING group of folks from Ubuntu, Broken Beautiful Press, and A.H. Simmons (NO! Director). At this point of the afternoon, Fabulosa Mujer, Blackamazon, Ubuntu, and BFP had not eaten. It was almost 2pm and our minds had been working in over drive. To say we were ravenous would be an understatement. Let's put it like this: WE HAD PIZZA DELIVERED TO THE DOOR OF THE WORKSHOP. Yep, the pizza delivery person even knocked, and Fabulosa was kind enough to walk back into the room with a gigantic pizza in hand as if we were partying in a frat house and walking into a conference room with pizza was the most natural thing in the world. When WOC need food, NOTHING will stop us.

I then attended Empowering Our Communities Through Oral History, presented by Filipina Emily Lawsin. You know the hour is gonna be pretty sweet when she welcomes late comers with, "Come on in! Find a seat, it's the Pinay hour. You know it!" She is a professor, spoken poet, and centers everything on Filipino/Asian-American culture. Thrilling. Simply thrilling to just be in the know, even if only for a little while, effortlessly.

There were amazing resources everywhere today. Tables, info, pins, bumper stickers, and media of all sorts contributed to the infectious energy.

AMC 2007

Saturday morning began (late for me!) with the Morning Plenary: Breaking Silence Building Movements. On the panel was Mariana Castandeda and Pual Richardson who do amazing work here in Detroit with youth and issues concerning the 70%, yes you read that correctly, 70% dropout rate. Alongside was Aishah Shahidah Simmons, creator of the unparallel documentary NO!, about sexual assault in the African American community. Ora Wise was another amazing panelist doing incredible work with Palestinean Youth Movement, not to mention the object of crush (she's unbelievably fun, friendly, and gorgeous) for both myself and BFP.

Afterward, we viewed a digital story of a 16 year old Palestinean girl speaking out about fear, violence, and war. Can we say POWERFUL?

Saturday, June 23, 2007

AMC Quotes

My top five quotes of the conference thus far have been:

5. "We are going to explain this from the least expensive way possible. Now, who has a MAC laptop?" - Session 2, Workshop on Vlogging

4. "I am predatory and I don't tip well." - BFP

3. "Part of that I did just do for theater effect, but seriously, do you want anything while I am up?" - Blackamazon during lunch in the cafeteria, after dramatically pushing herself away from the table and walking away

2. "We're in the Midwest for this conference, so of course we are going to have a bowling party tonight." - Conference Announcer

1. "'In my former life, I was a woman of color.'" - Ubuntu, retelling a story

AMC 2007

Pretty

freaking

awesome,

huh?

Friday, June 22, 2007

AMC 2007

I couldn't post this picture vertically, but there is definitely no shortage of Bush dissenters.

Neither is there a shortage of amazing conversation...

Or amazing resources...

Or unbridled enthusiasm for promoting ART and POETRY as the most accessible and truthful mediums for social change.

AMC 2007

The first workshop: Popular Media Education

Led by Skott Kurashige, this workshop kicked some serious ass as we deconstructed the marketing strategies of Nike and then shifted into brainstorming how to strengthen community based activism and points of resistance.

Another workshop, Vlogging 101 was giving me some pretty good ideas! Watch for further updates in the future...

We are HARDCORE grassroots, as illustrated below. Yes, that is grass garlend strewn across the bodyware of a bike.

LIVE Blogging from Detroit, the AMC Conference

So I have finally arrived and dined in Detroit, gearing up for a fantabulous weekend with my fellow women of color bloggers. I have already met Blackamazon and No Snow Here and they are a trip - brilliant, easy-going, and so laid back. I think I'm going to like it here. ("Annie" reference, if you didn't catch that)

My suite reminds me of college.

That and how I already had to make a midnight run to CVS for toilet paper, which was not provided.

I've already delved into a three hour conversation about WOC feminism, thrusting myself even further into the stratified layers of this complicated Movement. I listen. I absorb. Then, I reflect.

I don't have much to write just yet, there's much my brain is processing. What I can report is that so many of women I have just met give me a sense of hope. I have hope because they travel, skin and bone, in overheated cars and on rollerblades to discuss topics that we know we cannot fully comprehend or solve. It's pretty incredible to meet the eyes that gave birth to the ideas I have steadily followed over a computer screen for several months.

Tomorrow the conference officially begins.

I feel like I've been here a lot longer than what I have. I mean that in the best way.

Viva Detroit!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Detroit, Here I Come!

I'm heading to the Allied Media Conference to finally meet some of the brilliant WOC bloggers with whom I have found so much inspiration, humor, and poignancy.

Not sure what my capabilities for blogging will be, in terms of time and my laptop deciding to cooperate, but I'll try and live blog for as much as I can!

After that, I'll be back home for two days before I leave for the Nat'l Women Studies Conference in Illinois.

THEN

I'm going on vacation.

THEN

I'll be back.