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.

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“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!

Some Lust.

Here at the mercy of the sun,some lust lingered. Something thick -like imagination- moved. He’s dime – let me try him. He spoke into life and matter: “Nice lips. Id let you suck on me all day long.” and I let that sit. “I got to keep movin, pa. Maybe when I come back from my girl’s house.”

“I remember the sounds of bombs. . .”

 

The following post is short and sweet. The Black Power Mixtapes stands as an important piece of film because of its revealing of precious revolutionary history. Angela Davis speaks in this clip about what violence is and how Black militants view the subject. She makes the essential point that we must understand what the term truly means. Is property destruction (breaking a Footlocker window) during political rebellions violence? Is fighting back against the fascist police violence? Is stealing from a corporate store violence? Davis answers “no”. These acts, which are usually so quickly pointed out by the liberals and conservatives as acts of deviance and destruction are reactions to a systemic injustice. They are reactions to the true violence of the society.

Black folk have been the subject of Capitalism’s dehumanizing violence from our initial encounters with the West. Violence is the ghetto, the slave trade, the police state, inadequate schools, the prison system, the courts, welfare, patriarchy, capitalism, racism, homophobia, unhealthy foods, a lack of nature in your surroundings, the demeaning and degrading of all that your culture admires, being trapped behind cement walls and green shades. Those things are violent acts. So when we talk about what violence is, it is important to remind ourselves of the entire picture. The entire scope.

 

[New Poem: Lost Shape.]

 

My body,

growing slender like lost shapes

and paradigms

dirtied slacks, rusted basons, and worn tools.

It’s left the old parts on the hillside to lay amongst the mocking eyes.

Watching.

They are an audience -conspiracy- and I am a leper on display.

My body,

growing cold- empty like shells.

Allowing fingers to trace itself in an infinite darkness.

Stretching out snatches of skin.

Crying.

This body,

growing old like dust tracks.

Was once a not so sacred shack.

Opened like lips before trembling. Abused. Unloved.

Touched frequently and turned over in soiled hands.

My body,

left alone like an awful chill.

Singing to itself, trying to rouse warmth from the ebony shrouds.

“It’s necessary to constantly remind ourselves that we are not an abomination.”

 

Happy Birthday Marlon. Rest In Power.

Wings

Mama’s smile has wings

and her arms- warmth.

She’d make sure our water always had sugar and that the stench of poverty never sat on our clothes too unevenly.

She tried to build us with blocks of her own making-

Trust and confidence,

love and faith,

endurance,

strength,

pride and self worth.

Mama sat hiding crack pipes and upturned bottles

Throwing all the nasty bits behind the couch where she thought we didn’t see them.

Sending us floating on smiles.

Mama’s love set foreign standards on our project block

She meant it to carry on . . .

But you can’t make love real for another’s heart.

No more than you can stop the passing sands

And mama’s love can over carry over only so much into the world without her.

There comes a time where us got to find our own.

And grow in it for ourselves.

And you should never mistake the intimacy that comes at the start.

The feelings moving about between moist flesh

and the thoughts dancing about like wonder

The quiet on his face.

Id wish to reshape it-

the space, touch his face and rest.

But sometimes smiles can mean other thangs

and a kiss can be empty.

Love like there is in this world misleads.

Misinforms.

And mistreats.

Leaves you alone and believin’ friends to be lovers and lovers to be eternal

and so on and so on.

I found my love in my wash bason.

Clinging to dirt, reaching for me.

I took a rag and wrapped it.

Whispered to it.

Held it.

Read it for what it was and placed it down.

Talked it off the ledge it was on, in my room.

Amongst all the misfortune and patriarchy.

In my heart theres a space for hope to land.

Dig roots and lead.

And theres a place for my love to breathe.

Move past the manipulation and define itself for itself.

Something like a resolution came about as I went to sleep.

A promise to do better with ourselves.

To teach others how to treat us through how we treat ourselves.

To be able to stand to them and say:

“I am the somebody I want to love”

An Involuntary Recognition of Life

Some calm . . .

setting like sun done come upon me

as I find pieces of myself that were kept away for birthdays, family gatherings, and first dates.

They lie tucked under the bath house bed.

My palm, pressed to skin, feels like solace and I feel still

Laying transfixed, still. . .

My eyes find some man being fucked, violently

His head bent low.

and I saw you laying parallel.

Playing majorette with a couple of torn heart-strings.

Twirling about with some other man’s ruined symphony.

You blew smoke- thick like illusion – and sang of worlds where we weren’t prey for White men eager to waste salt on our endings.

Some part of me sat with you back when food was homemade and basons were bath tubs and we laughed at uncle Floyd’s missing teeth

and dirt roads that no one can drive on

and night’s out and even crack pipes

and we laughed.

And thought on how ghetto life seemed easy compared to this numb terror.

Still . . .

Barely understood thoughts: gold bands and dark skin

Sarah Bartman

melon patches

mule bone

Hurston and Hughes.

gin joints

spades tables

grandma’s hands

reconstruction

a month of Sundays

Loretta

pale skin and Betty Gene

South Carolina

insertion and pain

bleeding at the start

black balls

white dolls

and minstrel shows

money shots, towels and still . . .

we all lay under some White man’s gaze.