Places of Healing.

 

I wish my experiences with health care were not lived through the parameters of race, class and gender, but they are. I cannot conceive of hospitals and medicine without thinking about the thousands of African slaves brought to this country and worked to their bones. I cannot conceive of hospitals and medicine without thinking about the thousands of Black womyn who were involuntarily sterilized in this country. I cannot conceive of hospitals or medicine without seeing my grandfather – in his winter – lying on the couch, exhausted and in pain from chemotherapy. I cannot conceive of medicine or hospitals without noticing that the majority of HIV/Aids deaths (and infections) in this country are usually poor people of color who have little to no access to the medicine and precious knowledge that would save our lives. These experiences stay with me. They are apart of my very being and breathe as real as I do.

A few months ago when I was diagnosed with having the HIV virus (something I will formerly address on this blog later- but it is part of the reason why post have been so scattered), I immediately found that having to come into more direct contact with Western medicine was going to be a rehashing and analysis of trauma. Part of the mission of this blog is to express and explore the human experience from the perspective of a Queer, Black, Male bodied, Communist and that still holds true. I am excited to start a new chapter in the life of this blog- starting with this post. I hope it makes up for my long absence.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

“That’s a lot of trauma.”

The White doctor uttered as I sat in the chair giving him a rundown of my childhood. I suppose that I can be summed up in that manner: trauma. I also suppose that most of the people I grew up with can be assessed the same . . . But our lives are not merely death marches. People of color in this country have had to make beauty from the torn shards or poverty and destruction. And so it naturally follows that we would not solely view our lives as that. I may have grown up materially poor and dealt with the ills of drug abuse and domestic violence but I also knew about “love” and the movings of things not understood by White folks. In this case – as is most times the case when White folks seek to analyze experiences they have never had- cynicism is a White thing. Because that Doctor, in all of his knowledge and wisdom didn’t understand what Nikki Giovanni put so well in a poem: “Black love, is Black wealth.” Because of their privilege and materialistic socialization of Western thought, I would argue that White people have a harder time understanding the meaning of that quote because they see narratives of color as a doomed work of fiction- where there is little hope because of the poverty and inability of the people to move out of their social condition. (Never mind racist capitalism and the absurdity of pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps) I understand the trauma of my youth and the joy. I see them as the ongoing dialectic that has created me. I understand and love those experiences in order to make peace with them, so that when life’s great storms return I can better deal with them. I left the office horribly upset. It wasn’t until later that day, once I could process with a friend, that I realized how important race was in that situation. The doctor’s inability to connect with me on that spiritual point was an issue for me. With the HIV population growing in communities of color, there is also a rising need to have care providers that are of the communities they serve. I do not need to be under that White gaze while I am trying to figure out what is wrong with my body.

This is true of healthcare in general. People of color often have distrust for medicine in this county because of the historic underpinnings of the interactions had in the hospital. Black folks, in particular, have been the subject of experiments with drug vaccines, disease, eugenics, forced breeding, and other genetic manipulation. When you combine that with the fact that most people in this country cannot afford health care decent enough to see a doctor whenever necessary and the additional fact that the institutions of high education that give out credentials, to become licensed, are mostly White- then you have a pretty strong material reasoning to avoid/ distrust hospitals. Western medicine has given us little hope, despite the immense promise it holds when combined with a more holistic realm of thought.

Part of my communism, is believing in an alternative health system. The advancements of technology under capitalism are wondrous. The beauty of humanity is that we have become able to envision and see a world much larger than the one that currently exist- this applies to medicine and the science that is constantly pushing it forward.  The tragedy of capitalism and the mind/body dichotomy of the West is that we cannot see the full potential of our work because of the nature of the system. Capitalism is a system of waste and profit: it wastes our energy and planet in order the gain profit for the wealthy. Because the goal of these industries is capital then it makes no sense to cure disease or make medicine free because fully healthy workers could not be as easily exploited due to the fact that our minds and bodies would be stronger. We would be more able to struggle against our conditions. Western thought, in medicine, has led us to view our bodies as battlefields. Most medicine is designed to destroy the problem at all cost- meaning you might end with a more severe problem than you started with. One has to look no further that the barbarism of chemotherapy to see my point. I believe that this is because the West has never understood that treating the body requires spiritual health (by this I mean things like: being at ease with a doctor who understands you, having a peaceful home life, having meaningful relations with other humans) and a connection with nature. More and more research is finding that the biggest part of fighting the diseases we face is no more than changing our diet and pursing bliss. [that was overly simple but still truthful.]

And so, in my journey and in the service of communism, I see it as an important part of the project to share my narrative and examine the intersections of these life events as they (and I) evolve.It is important to reclaim the older knowledge from our ancestors as we move forward. Solutions to our problems will come from the combining of old wisdom and new thought. I apologize for my absence from this blog and promise to be more active. Here is to a new and powerful 2012, filled with health, life, and revolution! Luta continua!

. . .getting up a little slower and alot more deadly.

I know that I have been absent for a minute but I plan on being back very soon. This graduation thing got in the way. In the meantime, while I look for inspiration here’s some food for thought from Assata.

Assata, and her tale are so special to me because they represent many of my aspirations. Following her throughout the pages of her autobiography felt like a pulling together of strings and a mirror to hold up against my face. The quotes I chose below are random and all hold a special part of me because they reflect a lot of my internal debates and struggles. Enjoy.

“Revolutionaries in Africa understood that the question of African liberation was not just a question of race, that even if they managed to get rid of the white colonialist, if they didn’t rid themselves of the capitalistic structure, the white colonialist would simply be replaced by Black neocolonialist. There was no a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the world that was fighting for capitalism. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t the working people collectively own the wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and conrol their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it.”

“As long as you have a system with a top and a bottom, Black people are always going to be at the bottom, because we are the easiest to discriminate against. That’s why I couldn’t see fighting within the system. Both the democratic and republican parties are controlled by millionaires. They are interested in holding on to their own power, while I was interested in taking it away.”

“A few thought that they had a monopoly on Marx and acted like the only experts in the world on socialism came from Europe. In many instances they downgraded the theoretical and practical contributions made by Third World revolutionaries like Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Augustino Neto, and other liberation movements in the Third World.” – Assata on Whiet Leftisits.

“It opened up my horizons a hell of a lot. I didn’t relate to them as the great white fathers or like some kind of gods, like some of the white revolutionaries did. As far as I was concerned, they were two dudes who had made contributions to revolutionary struggle too great to be ignored.” – Assata on Marx and Lenin

“They were reading Mao’s Red Book but didn’t know who Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, and Nat Turner were. They talked about intercommunalism but still really believed that the Civil War freed the slaves. . . To a lot of Panthers, however, struggle consisted of two aspects: picking up the gun and serving the people.”- on BPP rank and file

” Part of the problem was that the Party had grown so fast that there wasn’t a lot of time to come up with the step by step approaches to things. The other part of the problem was that almost from it’s inception, the BPP was under attack from the u.s. government.”

” Just because you believe in self defense dos not mean you let yourself be sucked into defending yourself on the enemy’s terms.”

” It had never occured to these fools that Lolita was more revolutionary than they could ever be, and that her religionhad helped her remain strong and committed all those years.” – on Lolita Lebron (Puerto Rican revolutionary) and her faith being under attack by other leftists.

“Arrogance was one of the key factors that kept the white left so fractionalized. I felt that instead of fighting together against a common enemy, they wasted time quarrelling about who had the right line.”

” I felt, and still feel, that it is necessary for Black revolutionaries to come together, analyze our history, our present condition, and to define ourselves and our struggle.”

“The first thing the enemy tries to do is to isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people.”

“. . . without support of the people, no movement for liberation can exist, no matter how correct it’s analysis of the situation is.”

“Big business proposed the expansion of capitalism and industry into other parts of the country and this is where the Northern capitalist clashed with the Southern slave owners.”

” A whole generation of Black women are hiding under dead white women’s hair.”

Affirmation

I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum
of Beta days and Gamma people.
I believe in sunshine
in windmills and waterfalls,
tricycles and rocking chairs.
And I believe that seeds grow into sprouts,
And sprouts grow into trees.
I believe in the magic of the hands.
And in the wisdom of the eyes.
I believe in rain and tears.
And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.
And I have seen the death parade
march through the torso of the earth,
sculpting mud bodies in its path.
I have seen the destruction of the daylight,
and seen the bloodthirsty maggots
prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind
and the blind become the bind
in one easy lesson.
I have walked on cut glass.
I have eaten crow and blunder bread
and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.
Handcuffed by the haters.
Gagged by the greedy.
And, if I know anything at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.

I believe in living.
I believe in birth.
I believe in the sweat of love
and in the fire of truth.

And I believe that a lost ship,
steered by tired, seasick sailors,
can still be guided home
to port.

-Assata Shakur

Spears & Flowers: Reflections on Queer Alienation

I have been very introspective recently. The beauty of radical queer politics, and the benefit it holds for all political tendencies and struggles, is it’s unflinching quest to challenge all aspects of the culture, including ourselves. radical queer politics questioned the family, feminism, patriarchy and other aspects of society through a look at their workings within human beings and our interpersonal relationships. In a recent meeting of a radical queer space that I love and am connected to, I was inspired to write this piece.

I often catch glimpses of who I want to be staring at me in the mirror, waving. I see a lot of what I am and more of someone I wish I was from time to time. But the purpose of all of this is to come closer to loving my reflection for what it is, when I see it. It is becoming more evident to me that self-improvement and self-love are not mutually exclusive. As I stand I see thousands of contradictions and things I despise about myself, but I also know that many of these are a result of being out in the world. They are not essential components of my character and I can change them. It also is important to look at that image, in the mirror, and love it fiercely. To embrace it for what it is at that moment: not who it was, could or should be. It is only when we strive towards a place of love for ourselves that we can truly work to combat the negative traits we despise.

P.S. I wrote somewhat dry because I wanted to get the thoughts out as clearly as possible without too much colorful language possibly getting in the way.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

In my younger years I sought to craft a master heterosexual disguise. This desire came from the fact that I knew that the boldness exemplified by some of my “out” peers was something that was not tolerable, something that was often met with violence. The most disgusting incident of this manifested with the murder of someone who lived on the same street as I did. The young man, who often cross dressed and defied the code of conduct by talking back to his hecklers, was found stabbed to death with shards of glass in his anus. Daily, I knew of boys who were raped or beat in school. The general attitude around these attacks was silence from the administration and larger community. Because of this, I learned, very early, that my survival was dependant on my ability to make myself invisible. Part of this pact with oppressive patriarchy, meant also that I had to often partake in the demonizing of my queer brothers and sisters. Eventually this meant that I began to absorb the rhetoric, let it run through my blood, and define myself with those same horizontal lines.

I hated effeminate men. They were something unforgivable to me, something disgusting. I would lash out at my friends, and police them when we hung out. I despised the fact that I possessed those same qualities and wanted to exorcise them, from myself, through verbal assaults on other effeminate men.  Often times, in oppressed communities, the qualities that are picked upon by the dominant culture are those that are most harshly policed. It’s the same as problem I sometimes see occur in Black communities around “loudness”, “Black English”, and “dress”. Because we live in a society that is dominated by the straight white male lens, we must all act accordingly in order to move about with the least amount of trouble. Albeit, oppression and trouble are mainstays regardless of how much people desire to assimilate to the prescribed aesthetic. So we come to a place where we, as the various oppressed peoples, see ourselves through dual lenses and we posses what Dubois coined as “double consciousness”

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

-        W.E.B. Dubois

Recently, I have been challenging the way this internal hatred manifest in a different way: by looking at the men I lust for. I’ve always been attracted to a specific kind of man. My day dreams and night fantasies were dominated by very hard, masculine men. My dealings, in real life, have been the same. Regardless of the tragic amounts of repression within them and the dysfunction that it brings to the relationship, I wanted a “MAN”. I remember having a conversation with an ex, while we were dating, where he forbid me to be around other queer black men. This was also the same man who refused to engage with the option of versatility in the bed, who refused to acknowledge me sexually. And none of this is said with the intention of demonizing him. Quite the contrary, he represents the psychic dissonance formed within us in this society, where oppressed folk cannot fully come to a place of reconciliation with themselves and develop into semi-formed humans. The same thing goes for myself and my attraction to men like him.

In a recent video, the poet Yolo Akili, challenged the culture, specifically of Queer Black men, when he asked the question: “Are You The Kind of Boy You Want?” The video, which features a range of men, focuses on the fact that often times we pursue partners, and friends, out of a longing to negate certain qualities within ourselves. It highlights the lack of self-love we have. Personally, I know that my desire to be with stereotypical images of Black men or damaged men, who would ultimately lead to hurt, came from a disgust I had for myself. I outright rejected the notion that I would be in a relationship with effeminate men, with larger men etc . . . Looking back, I see a lot of my attitudes towards potential partners as reflective of a kind of alliance with White supremacy and patriarchy. I projected this prescribed image of Black manhood onto these men, dehumanizing them. At the same time, this image was something I desperately wanted to be because of my learned hatred of the effeminate parts of myself.

The nature of life in this society teaches us many things; among them is an intense self-loathing. From birth we are told that we are lacking and taught to consume in order to fill in for, or cover up our flaws. Combine this basic rule of Capitalism with White Supremacy and Patriarchy and we have generations of oppressed people consuming an ideology that is slowly killing them. And for that we both desire and loathe societal poison. The society hates womyn and defines “male” by what the former is not. And so it follows that men embodying traits relegated to womyn are seen as pariahs, or backwards. The tragic error in this confusion is that it continues that dissonance we spoke of by ignoring the full range of human expression and the material fact that nothing is essentially “male” or “female”.

In my search to come to a deeper love for myself, and therefore coming closer to a greater capacity to honestly love another person, I have come to some very hard truths. And it is difficult to approach a place of self-love after years of taught hatred but it is a healing we need. Many constructions of relationships between beings fall between the pillars of co-dependence and co modification. Our alienation brings us to seek an unhealthy validation in romantic partners. We disguise this often as “love”, all the while afraid to see our tolerance of abuse and longing for what they really are: reactions to the fact that we have not been told enough that we are loved or deserving of love. We commodify one another: looking at the value we acquire through virtue of being involved with another. I believe that this comes from the lack of self-love that comes with life under White supremacist, patriarchal capitalism. That’s why “love” is something radical, something golden, something revolutionary: because it is something diametrically opposed to the progress of the society which oppresses and exploits us. If we as militants, as revolutionaries, as any people who hope to bring joy to the world and ourselves, cannot deal with the love most essential to the revolutionary project then we have lost.

I look out, as I try to free myself, and see rooms filled with Black men like me. Sitting underneath the horror of that ceiling and knowing, each day, that its existence is becoming more and more real – the air a little more thin.

I also see that, like all things, this doesn’t have to be the permanent definition of our existence. I draw inspiration from healing spaces, from spaces of challenge and love. It is easy to become overwhelmed and see it all as insurmountable. But that is the exact the opposite of reality: our individual projects of self-help and improvement lead us to a greater love for ourselves and for humanity. This has a material effect on our conditions because it brings to the surface a counter ideology that will move with us through physical struggle. The scars of the racist and sexist capitalist system are seen beyond economic oppression, they are apart of our spiritual fabric. Our oppressions intersect and harm on multiple levels. That is why this work and kind of analysis was crucial to the Queer liberation movement and Feminist theory. That is why revolutionary self-reflection is crucial to me.

I want to end with a quote, and some commentary:

“I believe that many of the destructive lessons taught in our childhood homes is the result of the desperation of our parents. They were children once and learned those same lessons. I don’t know how we begin to unlearn that behavior.” –Essex Hemphill

I believe that many of the destructive lessons learned in this society are the result of the desperation of our parents and the ailments of our society. As children we are torn asunder learning these lessons. The beginning of the unlearning, of the reconciliation of our torn selves lies in our ability to grasp warmly, hold up and affirm one another. Our power lies in our ability to recognize and reconcile with our own humanity: to take our scarred inner children and embrace them, allow them to cry and finally, to speak. Much of Western culture is a about running away from ourselves, being terrified of what makes us human and repressing it. It is my sincere intention to do away with this within myself. I want to see every raw bit and say “I appreciate you.”

Homecoming

When I speak of affirmation I am talking about a homecoming.

People often ask me about liberation and revolution and that’s because the words in the streets will soon be liberation and revolution. The ruling class have grossly misused the power they accumulated through blood and exploitation and we are now in a situation where we could see huge up springs of revolutionary action from the masses of people within the next ten years, given that we get out, organize and help to create a peoples army with the people. I speak on Black queer struggle because I am most familiar with that as a Black queer. And because of this I am often asked questions about Black queer struggle in relation to the Black community, if that mythical group indeed exists, and the entire working class. Usually, and very proudly, I am the first to say that I am not the correct person to be asked because I don’t know nearly as much as people project onto me but I wish to speak right now, if for even for a very brief moment, about two things; a homecoming, and a fire. I wish to speak, if even for the slightest of moments, about Black queer affirmation.

It is important for Black queers to know that the changing of our conditions will not come with our acceptance into the violence that created the very need for us to run away from home. That violence, which was born out of the evils of a rising bourgeoisie in Europe and strengthened through the rape of Africa, is something all consuming and all damning. It is important to recognize the dangers in basing the queer revolution on assimilation, especially for Black queers. The ability of our more privileged brothers and sisters to get married and so on will not result in decent housing for all, or an end to the system of profit over people. It can only result in the fortifying of the that violent system, the capitalist system, which has needs and desires diametrically opposed to our own as a people seeking liberation from oppression. That is because oppression against people of color, queers, and womyn are the very necessary preconditions for a successful capitalist society; the most oppressed and marginalized will become the most exploited.

Black queer folk occupy a very unique and key position in this country and system because of their caste positioning. We are an intersection of many disparate groups. Many of us have left the “Black community” because of the culture of patriarchal oppression against queers that, while prevalent in the dominant society, has a particularly damaging character in the Black community. It is often shouted that Blacks are the most homophobic of all peoples, which I reject most simply because Blacks cannot in-act state violence against gays in the same manner that the mostly white state can and does.

Essex Hemphill, that bold and often forgotten poet, once said:

“The return I call for is so we can do the work that no one else can do for us. The white lesbian and gay community can’t come in and interrogate our black churches about the homophobia. We have to do that. We’re already singing in the choirs, we’re already on the usher boards, but then to accept homophobic diatribes from the podium … I’m not expecting the white community to interrogate black intellectuals, writers and cultural activists about their homophobia. We have to do that first, and the only way we’re going to do that is to really consider and understand how important that home space is for us.”

I believe that it is absolutely necessary for the Black Queers to struggle within the Black community for the redemption of the race. Problems, such as homophobia, within the Black community are two fold. They are problems that cannot be solved without the larger culture making a shift and they must be addressed in order for the larger culture to make a shift. By this I mean that problems that Black folk face in their interactions with one another are often mirrored by the social ills at large; for example patriarchy is not exclusive to the Black community but sometimes has a particular character when we speak about the oppression of Black womyn under Black male patriarchy. So I contend that Black Queers must struggle within the Black community to attack the twin beast of patriarchy and homophobia.

BYE GIRL! Moving beyond Capitalism & Gay Rights towards liberation.

Over here at “. . . or does it explode?”,  we take much inspiration from the radical queer militants and organizations of the past and seek to begin to expand upon the discourse around what queer liberation means in the context of the larger class struggle. As movement against the ills and oppressive regimes of White supremacist patriarchal capitalism picks up it is important to look at the contributions to people’s liberation made by those whose voices are often rendered silent by history: the womyn and the homosexual. It is in the spirit of Audre Lorde, The Combahee River Collective, Gay Shame, and James Baldwin that we submit the following post.

In light of the disheartening amount of queer teen suicides, it has become very apparent that organization of queer youth, in particular womyn and those of color, must be re-conceptualized.  The two groups previously mentioned were given special attention because they often find themselves directly under the heels of a society dominated by the many-headed beast known as capitalism. The gay rights movement has found itself completely out of touch and sync with the issues facing queers, especially queer youth. In fact, we would go so far as to say that due to the direction and composition of the leadership, the objectives of the gay rights movement are almost diametrically opposed to bringing about true liberation for queers under white supremacist, patriarchal capitalism. If it is true that the capitalist system is beyond reform then it must also follow that a movement that places the markers of its revolution, of its homecoming, at assimilation, cannot possibly succeed in the liberation of its people. It is thus the job of queer militants to bring into being a new proposition for queers and other oppressed people who are increasingly finding that rainbow flags and bumper stickers, made in third world sweat shops, proclaiming love and advocating for equal rights aren’t enough.

In the beginning stages of organizing amongst oppressed people it often becomes necessary to create safe spaces. These are areas that people can congregate away from the stress of daily harassment and degradation. Though they do not serve as a permanent solution they provide comfort and a temporary oasis. It is absolutely necessary that these safe spaces exist in order to create militants that are able to create revolutionary change. After all, if one doesn’t have some degree of self-confidence and support then it is near impossible for them to begin to take on the historic task assigned to us all: the revolutionary overthrow of the oppressive capitalist system. The Black Panther party often spoke of self-determination. It was a common theme in their rhetoric. This idea becomes increasingly important when we speak of those who under white supremacist patriarchal capitalism that face multiple forms of oppression, not only as the mules of the ruling class but also as the inhabitants of the lower stratus of the caste system: queers, womyn, & non whites. In these cases the oppression faced under capitalism is felt, often times, disproportionately harder and the level of struggle involves more than merely overthrowing wage slavery. For example: Black Liberation activist saw the need to battle not only capitalism but also devastating effects of white supremacy. This meant affirming the self and the race through pride and a re-establishment of the Black womyn and man as people with a history and legacy that went well beyond the Maafa. They saw the need to instill a sense of agency in the people who had known almost nothing but rape, murder and forced subservience (spiritual, physical, and mental) to whites. Their oppression was not just as workers, but also as “other’d” humans. In their affirmation statement The Combahee River Collective expressed the following:

The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources and power that groups who possess anyone of these types of privilege have.

The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. There is a very low value placed upon Black women’s psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist.

The same can be said of queer folk, who are also oppressed not just as workers, but also as people perceived to be the lepers of the bourgeois family. Sexuality was something that was immediately policed in several societies by the European colonizer. One of the simplest explanations for this is because the act is not conducive to reproducing the workforce. In order for capitalism to develop it took not only a violent assault on the bodies and autonomy of womyn but also the rape of the African continent. Racism and patriarchy are at the very foundation of capitalism.

Queer safe spaces serve to create the community that queer folk (gay, Trans, etc. . .) are often violently forced out of. The binaries of gender expression and interpretation are laws written in blood. The society acts on these aberrations of the bourgeois nuclear family often with resounding violence and disdain. One has to look no further than the case of Duanna Johnson (the Black Trans womyn who became a national figure initially because she was viciously beat by police, with their hands wrapped with hand cuffs. After filing suit, she was found gunned down in the streets. Her murder is still unsolved.) to see a manifestation of the aforementioned point. Often times, people in more privileged positions in caste society, see these spaces as separatist and incongruous with creating change. While it is true that there is a huge potential for these spaces to devolve into reactionary separatism, which we will discuss a little later, it does not hold true that these spaces are in incongruous with the revolutionary project. They are in fact necessary parts of the blueprint.

Something that queer organizers, and others, should be conscious of, however, is the development of these spaces. For if they never progress beyond creating a space outside of the tyranny of white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, then they have in many, if not all, ways failed in their revolutionary task and have indeed become reactionary separatist spaces. If the coming revolution is truly about an organic coming together of those oppressed by the bourgeoisie then organizations whose end goal is separatist are indeed counter-revolutionary.

It must be made perfectly clear to queers and the larger class struggle is that they are in unity with one another. Does this mean that queers should fully immerse themselves into class struggle, giving up the politics of their radical queer roots? Hell No! These politics, which are in many instances grounded in feminist theory, are so desperately needed in the political Left at the current moment. It is, however an understandable fear by many that entering into the class struggle, as narrowly as it is currently defined, often means class reductionism. One of the reasons that the Left currently finds itself drowning in the muck is because the issues of race, sexuality  and gender have not been fully dealt with in a way that is respectful of both and the self-determination needed by people in those particular caste. Until these things are addressed then the Left is certainly doomed. Let us return to another part of the River Collective’s Statement:

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation. We have arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relationships that takes into account the specific class position of Black women who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white-collar and professional levels. We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. Although we are in essential agreement with Marx’s theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that his analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as Black women.

If this is agreed upon and true, then we cannot merely spend our time fighting a class war under the loose banner of “unite and fight” we need to be in constant struggle with one another against the vestiges of the poisonous system that exist within ourselves and manifest in our organizing. It is through the lens of these politics that we may accurately see the role of the queer militant not as one that advocates for the inclusion of queers into broader activist spaces to argue for the inclusion of “queer rights” but expanding upon what queer rights and liberation mean overall.

In the beginning of this piece I accused the mainstream gay rights movement of being assimilationist in character and I would like to bring the article to a close by elaborating on this point. Firstly I use the term “gay rights” instead of saying queer liberation because the current movement at best promotes an image of bourgeois gays as happy capitalists desperately begging for their seat in the imperialist coliseum. Secondly, I wish to re-label the mainstream movement as a bourgeois white supremacist patriarchal movement that prioritizes the politics of assimilation over true liberation. In the gay community pictured here we see no people of color, no Trans-folk, no poor people and scarcely lesbians (never mind lesbians with any of the other aforementioned categories attached). These people are only seen when the need arises to show false diversity, play on old stereotypes for scare tactics, make  sexual objects of, or add more validity to the existing claim of oppression. What we see constantly is middle class white men proclaiming their love for one another and for a system that in reality would rather them choke to death while going down on one another than be present in society. The unity and inclusion featured and promoted through the false images of international love and otherwise are just that: false! Gay Shame poses the following question on their website:

Where are the gay marriage “activists” when the INS is actively raiding and deporting whole families ?(such as it is currently doing just blocks away from the Castro in San Francisco’s Mission District).

Other struggle against oppression is only used in the service of strengthening the reformist dogma of “EQUALITY NOW!” It is also in this erasure of all things not white, privileged and male that we find the rhetoric of assimilation. It is shouted from the mountain tops. “WE’RE HERE WE’RE QUEER! “ “LET US MARRY!” “LET US FIGHT” “LET US ADOPT!” The ability to adopt, join the military and marry is treated as the final indicators of the “Great Gay Arrival” into American society. The problem with this line of thought is that it treats queer struggle as a.) something outside of the problems of the rest of society and b.) Begs for inclusion into the destructive culture that, at this moment, moves to annihilate the Middle East in its quest for profit and control, actively places disproportionately large amounts of Black and Brown bodies into the prison industrial complex, and seeks to privatize higher education. And these are just a few things. Are issues such as housing, healthcare, education, war, and the prison industrial complex not queer issues? Are they regulated to other sections of the population? THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE but cannot be discussed under the context of this bourgeois gay rights hokum.

Over at the Gathering Forces blog there was a post entitled: “Beyond Gay Marriage and Queer Separatists–The Call for a Working-Class Queer Movement” that called for a third tendency in the struggle for queer liberation, one that went beyond separatism and reform. We second that motion. When we speak of queer liberation we are speaking of the liberation of the entire working class from the chains of capitalism because in order for queers to be liberated they must confront and overcome the contradictions of allies but also amongst themselves as people who occupy one of the lower caste in society. It is through this revolutionary confrontation and work that the community of which we also speak may begin being built. Imagine a queer group taking on the issue of child care funding and working with mothers to develop a culture of militant resistance, while at the same time making the space into a place where dogma and stereotype may be challenged and done away with. It’s fantastical but very possible. Queer safe spaces (which they almost always must start as) must also go beyond their comfort zones and begin to intervene and dialogue with the rest of the working class. It is only through this work and dialogue can the two sides be made whole.  There must an alternative out there that rejects the push to pacify and young queers bourgeois by telling them to wait on a better life later on. A better life only comes through engaging in struggle that aims at breaking down the walls of this house. Only then will it get better. We have seen that the liberation of queers is dependent on the abolishing of capitalism and thus dependent on working class revolution. We have also seen that the working class cannot move towards liberation, and thus ending its status as a class of exploited laborers under the ruling class, unless it addresses the attitudes prevalent within itself that breed homophobia, racism, patriarchy, etc. This is the challenge that lays at the feet of the new Left in general and queer organizers in particular.

Legends of the Ball XVIII: Marlon Riggs

 

Marlon was our backbone. Strong and eloquent. In my younger years I could have used someone as powerful and as willing to pursue truth. Marlon’s contributions to the culture mostly come as documentaries (“Ethnic Notions, Tongues Untied, and “Black Is Black Ain’t”) Each delving into what it means to be Black in this particular historic time. “Tongues Untied” is a particular stand out in the collection for it is narrated almost entirely by queer Black men’s poetry. Despite the passion and detail he put into the examining of racial issues, Riggs, in large, never recieved the full amount of admiration due to him, largely because of his unwillingness to live as anything but a open queer. We all know, from the common narative of queer life, that this kind of boldness is usually met with hostility.

 

Get into a clip of Tongues Untied:

Legends of The Ball XVII: Yolo Akili

The culture cannot take the bold Black queer. It violently tells us that we ought not love loudly, that we ought not break earth beneath our feet. But it is precisely for that reason that we must. Must stand defiant before the death march that seeks to absorb us.

Hearing the jarring, erotic poetry of Yolo Akili brought those words immediately to the front of my mind. At once the brilliance and boldness of Essex Hemphill came to mind. So rarely do you find Black queer poets gaining exposure for work that is unapologetic and militant. Shine on.

Enjoy.

In My Backyard. . . Poverty in D.C.

The following is an assignment we had to write for class. We were to think about poverty in the neighborhoods that we come from and write a loose three pages on it.

_______________________________________________________________________

The current situation of the Black population in the United States is a dire one. Black people in this country constitute one of the most impoverished and oppressed sections of the society, it has been the story since their inception into this country as exploited labor used to build the foundation of the world power. Over 400 years later the status of Blacks representing a large source of free labor still remains the same. The only difference is that in the present situation the brutal system of slavery has been replaced with the prison industrial complex, of which Black people, men in particular, make up between 43 -50%. Many may assert reasons, such as a “criminal culture”, as to why this staggering statistic is in existence but most fail to satisfy logic. Blacks make up 12% of the United States population, and thus for there to be such a clear disproportionate amount of African Americans behind bars seems unexplainable to most until they take into account the other factors that govern the lives of African Americans, such as their positioning in the society. Blacks, due to a specific historical development which includes tremendous racism supporting capitalist exploitation, make up an overwhelming part of the excess labor in this country. This means that Black Americans find themselves more vulnerable to the repressive arm of the state for a number of factors, including but not limited to participation in the informal economy, and police racism. The governing body’s neglect is also blatant and serves to continue to impoverish and demobilize the Black community of D.C. No where is this more visibly seen than in Washington D.C, which has been deemed by many Black leftists as “A Piece of South Africa on the Potomac”. Washington D.C. is a microcosm of the plight facing Blacks in the inner cities of the United States.

The city of Washington D.C. is plagued with many problems all due to a lack of concern and attention shown by the governing body of the area. This all contributes to the criminalization of Blacks, especially youth and their often oppressive encounters with the state. In order to properly talk about the issue of state violence and imprisonment one must first start with some of the reasons why the African American population come into contact with the courts and police in the first place. This leads us to the education system. In D.C, 51% of the adult Black population holds high school diplomas and 2% of the school age population is truant, which is a high percentage. This may be jarring to those who remember that D.C. spends 11,269$ per pupil, among the highest in the nation.  However, the notoriously lax enforcement of truancy laws, rapid closing of public schools and changes in the personal lives of lower income students, due to various reasons for unstable households, leads to a rather significant truancy rate. We know, based on the research done on “tracking”, those children who are less successful in school on average have the spectre of the prison industrial complex looming in their future. However, school is not the sole factor in the increasing tensions and clashes of the Black population, which makes up 52%, of D.C. and the city’s law enforcement.

D.C. is also a city, like most in the country, which is undergoing a large amount of gentrification, meaning that a lot of public housing is being removed and the land is being sold to private contractors. In many cases, these spaces are filled by expensive condominiums. This translates to the rapid removal of the vibrant, predominantly Black, working class of D.C. Often times these new settlements of young, mostly middle class whites, professionals come through the collaboration between government and business. Adrian Fenty, recently ousted mayor, approved  100 million dollars in city contracts without the approval of the city council. This was in addition to the Housing Authority making a 6 million dollar deal with Banneker Ventures which is owned by Omar Karim, a fraternity brother of Fenty. This is all relevant when you look at the severe number of Blacks moved out of the city, about 2500 per year by last estimate. This all has an adverse effect on the lives of African Americans in the district, especially youth, whose lives are in a state of chaos. Couple this with the rising unemployment rates, of which Blacks make up 51%, and you have a perfect storm brewing. Alienated and ousted, many Black youth don’t find themselves with the opportunity to be able to fit into the romantic image of the teen with a steady job on their way to becoming a decent citizen.

In large, the Black citizens of D.C. make up a surplus of labor, meaning that many Black people are not working to reproduce profit for the corporations or city and cannot work because they find themselves out of the pool of eligibility, either through qualifications, or racism. This makes them more vulnerable to the one place that can extract profit from them; the prison system. The criminalization of the Black residents of Washington D.C. is something that is constant. One thing that most Black youth in D.C. can count on is the fact that they will encounter the police at least once in their adolescent lives, with the encounter usually being negative. The D.C. police department, which led the nation in the 90’s in murders of residents, has a long history of abuse. Most recently, police chief, Cathy Lanier, led the department on into direct confrontation with the community through the “All Hands on Deck” program. This program had nearly the entire 4,000 person department on the streets serving warrants, questioning residents, and patrolling the streets. To those unfamiliar with the long history of violence done to the Black community at the hands of the police, this may seem like a great idea to curve seemingly random, unreasonable violence. However, the antagonisms between the predominately foreign, in the geographical sense- most of the police serving in the D.C. area are from neighboring states, white officers and the oppressed Black populations have often spilled over into more senseless violence. Recently, the parents of 27yr old Kellen White have filed suit against the DCPD for shooting Kellen 12 times at a traffic stop, parents allege that he was unarmed. This incident highlights the common phenomenon of police brutality. For those who do leave these encounters with their lives, the court system is the next stop.

The court system in Washington D.C., which by default is a federal court system with appointed judges and prosecutors due to D.C.’s lack of statehood, prosecutes hundreds of Black residents a day. Most of these people are here because of non violent drug offenses. Many of these lives fall forfeit to the will of the court which more often than not shows little to no mercy to them. Many Black lives are lost to the prison industrial complex. Once inside the belly of the beast, many Black inmates still find themselves fighting for survival. D.C. inmate deaths usually double the normal average of those in the nation with the national average being 145 deaths per every 100,000 prisoners. D.C. inmate deaths usually average around 315 deaths per every 100,000 prisoners. Even more disturbing is the fact that these inmates mostly die from illnesses such as HIV/Aids. In 2008, Washington D.C. reported to have some 15,120 residents living with the virus and of that number 81% were African American. One can assume this number is so tremendously high because of inadequate education, social stigma around homosexuality and a lack of accessibility of medicine. Thus for many, these prisons also serve as a final stop.

We have seen in epic fashion the failure of non-profit organizations when it comes to organizing serious class resistance in the face of severe state oppression. As crisis deepens and the Black population in D.C, both employed and not, see new levels of exploitation and gentrification, the old workings of the non-profits seem all too irrelevant. This is not to say that the non-profits at work in the District are waste. Quite the contrary, in lieu of strong revolutionary organizations that are capable of supporting the people’s needs, the non-profits do good work for the people. The limitation comes in the funding and theoretical base of the organizations. By their very nature non-profits are instruments of the state because they depend on the state to exist and are thus used by the state in times of crisis to pacify the population and feed children bourgeois dreams. In Oakland California, many have criticized the non profits, in the area, of stagnating youth militancy and criminalizing the elements of the Oakland youth who seek channels of struggle that go beyond one day rallies and speak outs about the very real fact that they are being murdered in the streets by the dogs of the state; the OPD (Oakland Police Dept.). In D.C. the rhetoric of being a “good citizen” is dogmatically applied by the mostly after school program based non-profits. Images of youth Black children with “kept” hair (meaning no afros and if you’re boys no hair at all) in suits permeate every flyer or glossy poster, directly attacking the self worth and value Black youth have in their natural appearance and their neighborhoods. This intersection of race based and class oppression hit home and serves to begin the self-demonization of the Black child.

At first look, the sheer amount of obstacles that stand in the way of the oppressed, in the task of creating for them a better existence, seem to be too much to surmount.  However it is necessary to know and understand your conditions before you can make any attempt to change them. When looking at the issues that plague the Black community of Washington D.C. one thing becomes all too clear; organizing to combat these issues cannot come through the same oppressive state apparatus that oppresses the organizers. It is necessary for the people to build their own independent organizations that are committed to education and action. There are plenty of examples of communities organizing independent of the state in order to affect change. Two shining examples that come to mind are the Young Lords from New York and the Black Panther Party based in Oakland, California. Both groups worked with and in the communities they came from to build dual power structures that could challenge the oppressive politicians and businessmen. In addition to that, not all of the Black population of D.C. is completely removed from the working class. There is still a solid base of Black workers in the city that can effect further change through workplace action. Walk offs and strikes have proven to be amongst the strongest tools in the arsenal of working people.

For many African Americans in Washington D.C. the governing body and police force represent manifestations of oppression and exploitation. The population is rendered politically helpless by the lack of political power within the Black community. Blacks in D.C, like many other places in the United States represent a large part of the population that is excess labor and thus, under capitalism, an obstacle to the functioning of the machine both because of the lack of profit being generated and the time this section has to sit and reflect on their positioning and grow more militantly discontent. This is where the violent arm of the state comes in through incarceration. We exist in a profit driven world where the accumulation of capital comes first and people second. However, there is hope in the fact that people can and will always organize against the oppression they face daily.

Legends of The Ball XIII: Bayard Rustin

A Poem for Bayard Rustin.

Bayard I wish I was there to see you in those closed meetings.

To listen to the truth speakers as they turned their forked tongues on you.

Stabbed you and crucified you just as their Jesus had been.

Was Martin truly your friend, Bayard?

Did he shield you when the others said you had no place?

When they claimed that a Gay Black Communist was too off-putting an image to champion the civil rights movement.

Bayard I wish I had your strength.

I wish I could stand upright like you and demand to be seated at the table.

Demand “I too am Black, bring me a plate!”

It must have been lonely, Bayard.

And even now one questions if it was worth it?

To truly sacrifice self for people.

For family that seeks to menace you just as the crackers do them.

I have only begun to look into the life of Bayard Rustin but it is an inspiration to me. Bayard, who was forced into the closet by the leaders of the Civil Rights movement,  was a key figure, if not the most key, in organizing the March on Washington. He was right hand to King and he was forced to remain silent about both his Marxism and homosexuality by the leadership of the movement. My mind is still boggled by his dedication to the cause of Black liberation that he stuck through a horrific experience with the hopes that “his people” would be free one day. He also worked with A Phillip Randolph, leader of the “Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters”.

Later in life he became a staunch supporter of Gay rights going so far as to declare gays as “the new black”.

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new “niggers” are gays. . . . It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change. . . . The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people

This brother seemed to be truly something else. I look forward to reading and experiencing more of him.

Musings on Art, “Culture”, & Revolution

Nina Simone’s “Young Gifted and Black” a political anthem of affirmation

I want to issue a call out to all artists, revolutionaries, and anyone else who seeks to affiliate themselves with the class struggle. The heading will read: “URGENT!!! Class Struggle Seeks Culture.” Thoughts surrounding the absence of any critical amount of organic art and the lack of any kind of synthesis of the so-called elements of “culture” into the class struggle hae been racing through my mind.

Class struggle is apart of and comes from the cultures of the oppressed but for some reason leftists and ethnocrats have drawn lines in the sand between the two. It has become a tendency in the left to mock cultural events as being non political, when, in my opinion, the expression of culture that differs and establishes its independence under white supremacy is political because it strikes against the very structure that seeks to assimilate it. It’s true, at times strong class struggle politics that seek to organize along more radical, and less “beg the man” lines, are missing and this is a very crucial element. However, the outright absence of the so-called “left” in these spaces does nothing but contribute to this void.

It also follows, that there has become a habit amongst the ethnocrats, and by ethnocrat I mean the large bodies that organize around ethnicity with very dogmatic lines on what is and what isn’t, to ignore more radical class struggle politics. The line of it being a “white man’s thing” in reference to Marxist tradition is often used. And emphasis is placed on finding and creating something of “our own”. The main problem being that if one does not call out and attempt to strike at the nature of capital itself than true liberation cannot happen seeing as though the pillars of capitalism, racism, and sexism all hold up the same house. Striking at one pillar while seeking to preserve the others does not truly serve the cause.This brings us to the core of the empty rhetoric; there is no class consciousness. This comes as a result of lack of exposure to revolutionary text and people or an outright rejection of the contributions to class struggle by Marx and Lenin stemming, in most cases, from a reaction to the vicious racism of the White Capitalist system of the United States. Thus anything “White” is bad. Fred Hampton once stated the following:

people joining the BPP from a background of poverty might not understand the ultimate goal of “a communistic state”. Without political education, those who joined the party because they “wanted something”, would find themselves wanting more. This would lead the revolutionary movement to capitalism, and “before you know it, you’ve got Negro imperialists”.

These two diametric trains of thought provide us with no real path toward people’s liberation because they are missing one another. In the White Supremacist power structure, it is crucial that oppressed people of color reclaim what has been viciously stolen from them, what the system has attempted to beat out of them. Culture informs us, it informs the steps we take and contributes to the creativity and strength of the coming revolution. In the same vein, the contributions to revolutionary thought and action must all be looked at equally and used accordingly. If we are to say that we are about people’s revolution then we cannot lock ourselves into one dogmatic corner of the human experience.

On a similar topic, but maybe not quite, I began talking about the lack of a strong and organic output of art that compliments and a accompanies the movement. I am immediately reminded of Emory Douglas, of the Black Panthers, in the 60′s and 70′s. In an interview Douglas spoke about how the party would make scans of his art and hang them in the streets, on fences and everywhere else as a means of bringing the bourgeois art show concept into the street and of agitation. Music, and image have the power to touch people in a way that not a million words can because they strike at the being of a person, they touch at the “spirit” if you will.

A piece by Douglas

However, looking at the current situation one can see on the horizon a time when this type of renaissance will make a resurgence. If history shows us anything, it is that the majority of the art community becomes political when the conditions intensify to a degree that cannot be ignored.

One of my favorite poems about police brutality.