I’ve been really bad about reading the blog lately, but I figured I’d send along a little something for you and whoever else you want to share it with. My teacher for “Bang on drums and talk about feelings” class (also known as my class on Latino Cultural Activism which is getting to be pretty fabulous) e-mailed this to us along with our other readings for the week.<\/p>\n
Also, I just saw some kid riding his bike outside holding another bike on his shoulder. That’s kind of normal here.<\/p>\n
It’s around a million degrees outside. I’m in the Science Library since it’s TOO DAMN HOT out to get any work done. But I’ll go outside really soon to toss a frisbee around, I’d bet. You can’t just sit around inside when it’s so beauitufl outside since it’s normally, ya know, snowing.<\/p>\n
Much love you! I miss you tons! I’d love a little update!<\/p>\n
Hilary<\/p>\n
(PS: I didn’t change any of the punctuation\/line endings\/etc)<\/p>\n
Poem about My Rights<\/p>\n
by June Jordan<\/p>\n
Even tonight and I need to take a walk and clear
\nmy head about this poem about why I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t
\ngo out without changing my clothes my shoes
\nmy body posture my gender identity my age
\nmy status as a woman alone in the evening\/
\nalone on the streets\/alone not being the point\/
\nthe point being that I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do what I want
\nto do with my own body because I am the wrong
\nsex the wrong age the wrong skin and
\nsuppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach\/
\nor far into the woods and I wanted to go
\nthere by myself thinking about God\/or thinking
\nabout children or thinking about the world\/all of it
\ndisclosed by the stars and the silence:
\nI could not go and I could not think and I could not
\nstay there
\nalone
\nas I need to be
\nalone because I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do what I want to do with my own
\nbody and
\nwho in the hell set things up
\nlike this
\nand in France they say if the guy penetrates
\nbut does not ejaculate then he did not rape me
\nand if after stabbing him if after screams if
\nafter begging the bastard and if even after smashing
\na hammer to his head if even after that if he
\nand his buddies fuck me after that
\nthen I consented and there was
\nno rape because finally you understand finally
\nthey fucked me over because I was wrong I was
\nwrong again to be me being me where I was\/wrong
\nto be who I am
\nwhich is exactly like South Africa
\npenetrating into Namibia penetrating into
\nAngola and does that mean I mean how do you know if
\nPretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the
\nproof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on Blackland
\nand if
\nafter Namibia and if after Angola and if after Zimbabwe
\nand if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to
\nself-immolation of the villages and if after that
\nwe lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they
\nclaim my consent:
\nDo You Follow Me: We are the wrong people of
\nthe wrong skin on the wrong continent and what
\nin the hell is everybody being reasonable about
\nand according to the Times this week
\nback in 1966 the C.I.A. decided that they had this problem
\nand the problem was a man named Nkrumah so they
\nkilled him and before that it was Patrice Lumumba
\nand before that it was my father on the campus
\nof my Ivy League school and my father afraid
\nto walk into the cafeteria because he said he
\nwas wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong
\ngender identity and he was paying my tuition and
\nbefore that
\nit was my father saying I was wrong saying that
\nI should have been a boy because he wanted one\/a
\nboy and that I should have been lighter skinned and
\nthat I should have had straighter hair and that
\nI should not be so boy crazy but instead I should
\njust be one\/a boy and before that
\nit was my mother pleading plastic surgery for
\nmy nose and braces for my teeth and telling me
\nto let the books loose to let them loose in other
\nwords
\nI am very familiar with the problems of the C.I.A.
\nand the problems of South Africa and the problems
\nof Exxon Corporation and the problems of white
\nAmerica in general and the problems of the teachers
\nand the preachers and the F.B.I. and the social
\nworkers and my particular Mom and Dad\/I am very
\nfamiliar with the problems because the problems
\nturn out to be
\nme
\nI am the history of rape
\nI am the history of the rejection of who I am
\nI am the history of the terrorized incarceration of
\nmyself
\nI am the history of battery assault and limitless
\narmies against whatever I want to do with my mind
\nand my body and my soul and
\nwhether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about walking out at night
\nor whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the love that I feel or
\nwhether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the sanctity of my vagina or
\nthe sanctity of my national boundaries
\nor the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity
\nof each and every desire
\nthat I know from my personal and idiosyncratic
\nand indisputably single and singular heart
\nI have been raped
\nbe-
\ncause I have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age
\nthe wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the
\nwrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic
\nthe wrong sartorial I
\nI have been the meaning of rape
\nI have been the problem everyone seeks to
\neliminate by forced
\npenetration with or without the evidence of slime and\/
\nbut let this be unmistakable this poem
\nis not consent I do not consent
\nto my mother to my father to the teachers to
\nthe F.B.I. to South Africa to Bedford-Stuy
\nto Park Avenue to American Airlines to the hardon
\nidlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in
\ncars
\nI am not wrong: Wrong is not my name
\nMy name is my own my own my own
\nand I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you who the hell set things up like this
\nbut I can tell you that from now on my resistance
\nmy simple and daily and nightly self-determination
\nmay very well cost you your life<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been really bad about reading the blog lately, but I figured I’d send along a little something for you and whoever else you want to share it with. My teacher for “Bang on drums and talk about feelings” class … Continue reading