Crunching for Finals suck...Part 1...

Finals weekend... trying to get 9 weeks of reading in 2-3 days suck.

But here it goes...

Article: The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood ~ Patricia Hill Collins

When i read this article it makes me think about the similarity with other women of color womanhood because our bodies are sites of so many complexities. Women of color bodies are the site of culture, sex, power,etc. etc... so there is always this catch 22, double-edge sword added to whatever we do.

Two points that stood out to me in this article, one was when she said, " At the heart of both racism and sexism are notions of biological determinism..." There is this hegemonic ideal that women and men not only gender wise but racially we are born innately a certain way. Thus, we can exploit this feature or characteristic, so, it is okay to treat people unfairly in order to uphold particular groups of people's priviledges. The idea that people today still believe that slavery is over and the civil rights movement already occured, thus, people of color are just complaining too much and too angry. People have become too comfortable of what people in the past has done for us and the revolution for fairness and equality is occuring as we speak. When we teach events such as struggles as only history we begin to forget all the struggles of the past. But how do we balance scientific reasoning for racism and sexism and maintain our sanity?

2nd point that I found was interesting was the "treatment of Black women in the nineteenth century was how their bodies are on display." I agree with this 100% because we can see this in music videos. How everybody just seem so comfortable with using and exploiting women of color bodies espeically black women or women who are multi-ethnic with obvious intermixing with African descent. I think it is important to link this type of exploitation of black women's bodies on display back to slavery times as well as why is it black men who are participating in such displays also?

There is so much anger and saddness that runs down me as i read these articles...sometimes I think is Igorance a bliss?

Significance...and hella shit...

Significance of Archives/ bibliography to womyn of color...?

~ I used to hate doing archives and bibliographies because I thought they were just so time consuming and tedious work professors just make you do to look "professional". But today, I realized that these are resources where people fight and die to have in other places. I find that I am living in a time and place where there is so much possiblities because we have these sources at our fingers and can get them in mere seconds. Yet, often times, we do not understand why we may have them and cease to spend the time to really appreciate the work that is done before us.


Strategies should media activism take...what/how to create these spaces...?
Politically/Conservative moment in U.S. what is at stake with art/media for self expression for Womyn of Color... What does it mean to represent yourself fully? Possiblities/ Challenges... What does it mean for women to see themselves as directors/ media producers. ...Negation of WOC artist for our theory and representation... in media... what are the implications of black feminist multimedia. Why is art important? Why look at photographs of media. Representation, why is it important.



~One of the most important part of media and activism in relation to the self expression for Womyn of Color with art/ media is documenting their work. I remember this quote that Mao Zedoung said, "Women hold up half the sky", but we all know women carry so much more than what the sky can handle. It is detrimental for women/women of color to document and appreciate other women and ourselves, who are doing activism work as well as women who just work. Sometimes we forget that when we are documenting women. the women we really forget is the women who are cleaning the bathrooms and sewing our clothes. Because sometimes we forget they even exists because we are given the leisure time to think and read about oppression at their exspense. Documentation is so important because you can tell someone this is what women do, this is so important because women do so much...But it becomes "real" when people see it. One thing that is sad of the some people especially in the United States is that we cannot believe or relate to something until we see it. Although, seeing is believing, many people still cease to believes things like racism, sexism, and homophobia, etc., exists. But I think one of the great things about books, art, media is that when we see something and is able to feel the "REAL-NESS" of it, to feel real emotion is something we should never forget. Because We live in a society where we are told to numb ourselves to genocide and injustice that when we will still deny the fact that there are people dying everyday because of diarahhea or lack of clean water.

~It is important that Womyn of color do document all they have done and the women before them because it is important to not only appreciate but to give credit to people who have done so much for us to be here. It is important to see female producers and directors who do the work of trying to represent people who are consistently marginalized.


What Alliances should happen with white women....(inability to deal with race or white skin priviledges)?

~I think that it is important to make alliances with other ethinic groups, genders, and sexualities, but it seems that often times we are still trying to make white people comfortable and educate them so they feel more comfortable with themselves at the exspense of People of color. At the exspense of tokenizing people of color where there is this cycle of emotional strain, fustration and insecurity. I wonder about these conferences I attend such as the Womyn of Color Conference and the Student of Color Conference, and I see that although, there are spaces to educate on what is happening around the world, to women to poor people, to people of color. Never, never, have I once saw something about what are we to do now, to heal ourselves from these "wounds" of dealing with carrying all this weight of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. etc...... Because we do carry so much weight and burden from our experience that we are never able to express in a healthy way and some type of healing process needs to happen, so, that we do not just participate in this cycle of emotional strain, fustration, and alienation.

~Because a friend said once, "the revolution/movement have been happening...it is just happening at different times and places, but it is happening and will continually happen..."

~I really agreed with this statement because it is true...it is easy to sum a struggle such as the civil rights and call it history in order to say yes...we are racially equal now even though we are not....

~Assanta (former Black Panther)- "We have a common struggle but we got real differences"... other man said, " women are the pulse of the struggle(s)"~ Alliances must be made but I doubt we can ever unite becasue we have real differences and it is important that different people focus on different aspects but it is also important to show solidarity whenever we can. Because only through supporting each other can we survive in this world. Where there is so much dispair and pain but so so much HOPE and POSSIBILITIES.

1st Week of School

The fun never stops when you're trying to crash class in your 4th year and walking around with soggy shoes because of the rain. What is this? Noah's Ark!