Voxival II

You guys have been busy, and I’ve been too busy to keep up. This is kind of more fun than the plain old link roundups, though. Maybe I’ll keep it up. The power has gone to my head!

Carnivals
The second Carnival of Creative Writing is up at Truly Outrageous. I’m pretty sure that’s a picture of croci over there. I’m feeling betrayed.

Team Rainbow is hosting the Carnival of Feminists. There is some really awesome stuff from some really awesome people this time, too.

Erase Racism Carnival 13 is up at The Angry Black Woman’s blog.

Fire Fly and Sylvia are organizing the first Carnival of Radical Action, originally conceived by BFP and Fire Fly. It will be held on the 29th of May at The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum, and will undoubtedly be awesome.

Oh, and I think this is a blogswarm and not a carnival, but Blog for Domestic Workers Day is June 5th.

Moving on …

Verses
Let’s start off with some poetry.

Rage writes about invisible histories.

BFP talks about violence and organizing in the face of it.

Sylvia reposts Ginsburg, by Julia Vinograd, a seriously powerful poem against war.

Getting our voices heard
Nezua discusses the failures of progressives when it comes to social justice, immigration, and other human rights issues in The True Front of Progressivism. Thin Black Duke nods, and adds that Stories Are Our Truths.

In White POC & Other Ruminations On Self Serving Asshats, Donna talks about folks who sell out other people of color to get honorary whiteness, or at least to be labelled one of the exceptions. Think like Michelle Malkin and Thomas Sowell.

Black Amazon talks about the distorted focuses of feminism and liberalism in Don’t include me; so does Petit Poussin in What it is. Listen to these women, they’re so right.

AWE continues this thread with The Ignorance, The Hate, saying what we’re all thinking: Inclusion is not enough.

A series of excellent posts by Magniloquence: Dynamics of oppression, Who gets to have an opinion?, “Here we go again.” and Because it really is a good idea …. (Actually, pretty much everything Magniloquence writes is genius.)

Activism and community-building
In Bus Conversations: Drugs, Sexual Abuse, and Mental Health Awareness, Sylvia wants to know what we can do to combat these problems.

How do we address these factors with an eye to rehabilitation and providing affordable ways for people to kick the habits, learn useful information about the hazards of drug use, and help them establish themselves financially? What initiatives can we create as a community to respond to these issues?

In Anti-Racism: O’RLY?, Luisa talks about working with white anti-racist activists.

Ms. Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes talks about schools as communities, and upholding schools to standards, in Mission: Impossible?

Immigration
Immigrant Dreams and Nightmares in the White Supremacist Cauldron is Kai’s amazing post about the history of Chinese immigration to the U.S., and the racism that Chinese Americans faced.

What happens when a town makes it clear that immigrants aren’t welcome? Well, The Nation Should Take a Lesson from Farmers Branch, Texas, says Marisa at Latina Lista.

AWE posts about her parents’ Immigration experiences, showing that even when immigrants are “welcomed” into the U.S., they really aren’t.

Miscellaneous
BlackAmazon has so many wonderful posts over the past few weeks that you should really read her whole blog at Having Read the Fine Print … That said, if you have to start somewhere, start with these two: Charachter Bio The Venus Hottentot- A meditation on so many things and Don’t include me.

The Angry Black Woman talks about race in Dr. Who at ABW’s TV Corner.

AWE shares a film about Lola Dolor, Survivor of Japanese WWII Rape Camp.

AradhanaD discusses the cultural appropriation of Bollywood and Tantra in Cultural Fetishism, Neoliberalism, “sex positivity” and appropriation.

And last, but certainly not least, Jenn gives an answer to all of those people who whine “But Imus/Opie and Anthony/J.V. and Elvis/whoever have free speech!” with Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom from Consequences. I ought to print this out and carry it around to pass out every time I hear someone excusing idiocy as free speech.

There have been so many excellent posts recently, but I want to post this, so first I’m posting, then I’m beginning work on Voxival III. Because this really is easier than doing a link roundup every other night.

Challenge: Is there anyone I should be reading who I’m not?

The imperative of my life

Warning: Self-centered angst ahead. But Fire Fly tagged me, and not doing it would feel like chickening out, so.

When I first started this blog, I envisioned it as a current events/social justice sort of blog, a political blog, but also somewhere that I could be naked (no, emotionally). Instead, I’ve been keeping a hard-copy journal for that, and this has been almost entirely a current events/commentary blog, and that’s fine by me. I’m not ready, and not sure if I ever will be, to put myself out there like that.

… Which is why I’m putting myself out there like that right now.

A while ago, a few years ago, I stopped reading the newspaper and I stopped watching the news. I still read specialized papers — the student paper, arts reviews, travel and publishing — but current events? I cut myself off. I couldn’t even change my own life — I’d moved 2,800 miles away and started over fresh, and I still hated myself. Why make myself feel worse?

I stopped writing fiction. My grandmother was dying; my sister was arrested after being missing for four years. I was homesick for the first time since I’d moved. My personal life hit me hard, and because I was hiding and had been since high school, anyway, it just seemed easier to retreat even more.

I was retreating until very recently. I’d started reaching out, touching my toes in the water, but I’ve been poised to run.

I’ve run away from everything my whole life, one of the few things I got from my bio-dad. So much of this has to do with him; for someone I’ve never met face-to-face or even seen a photo of — we’ve only “spoken” a few times, through letters — he’s had a huge effect on my life. Even though I blocked him out for 15 years, trying to convince myself that my real dad was my biological father. I spent over ten years dying my hair lighter, dressing like my sisters, experimenting with their makeup and wondering why it never looked right (um, duh), staying out of the sun as much as possible, trying not to feel like the odd one out in my family. I hid at high school, in the academics of it, in drama club (learning how to act like a real person). I spent college locked in the past (not mine, but around the 14th to 17th century), which was very easy as a history major. After college, I floated.

Then, a couple of years ago, I glanced in the mirror and instead of looking away, I looked at myself for the first time. I started picking out how I looked like my mother, and, through absence, the ways I looked like him. And while I was really physically seeing myself for the first time, I was really seeing who I was inside, too. That sounds superficial, but I don’t know how else to explain it. I started seeing that I’d been hiding, even from myself, how I’d made up this false history and wrapped myself up in it. And it hurt, a lot, to recognize how much I’ve lied to myself most of my life.

I started unwrapping. The person I found was flawed, and weak, and hollow, but at the same time, she maybe had some potential. I started working on her — that was my imperative at that point. I remade contact with the bio-dad, and reaffirmed my relationship with my real dad and my family. I moved home, and began seriously weighing what I wanted to do with my life instead of just running to whatever seemed easy and safe.

I’ve grown. I’m still working on myself. I’m still flawed, and weak, but I feel a little stronger, and I don’t feel so hollow anymore. I’ve been filling myself up (okay, mostly with pizza, but still). I’ve found my voice (even if it is just a small one, and among many others). I’ve grown a lot, and I’m starting to finally feel comfortable in my skin.

So with that explanation: My imperative is, and has been for a while now, to stop running, to stop avoiding confrontation, and to stick around and fight. Whether that means confronting myself or someone or something I think isn’t right, whether I can or can’t actually change anything, and whether I’m so far back I’ll never catch back up. I’ve had enough to excuses and weakness and constantly falling back and making up ways that it’s okay. Poorly expressed as it is, that’s my imperative.

And that’s why I’m actually going to post this instead of just deleting it (pep talk!). Apologies for the rambling and run-on sentences.

Most of you all have been tagged already. Hmm. Tagging Nadia, Rachel K., Divine Purpose and … I don’t think anyone else I’d like to see actually reads my blog, so if you stumble on this entry, you haven’t answered, and your blog is listed in my blogroll, I want to know! What is the imperative of your life?