on breaking borders

this lil paragraph makes me want to get a facial piercing again…

Things like the fact that when I lived in Canada, I reveled in my “ethnicity,” wore my Indian-ness with unapologetic joy. But the minute I crossed the border I shrunk from everything that made me appear “too” ethnic. I was hassled at the border several times when I visited home and tried to return. My partner at the time begged me to remove my nose ring and to dress more “corporate” so that I would get across. And the time that I followed that advice, the crossing was smooth and uneventful. I understood, then, on a much deeper level, why that push for assimilation was so strong south of the border.

swine flu and pork farms

cross posted from Raven’s Eye

h/t Angry Black Woman

excerpted from The Guardian

Early today the US owner of an industrial pig production facility around 12 miles from La Gloria said it had found no clinical signs or symptoms of swine flu in its herd or Mexican employees. The world’s biggest pig meat producer, Virginia-based Smithfield, said it is co-operating with the Mexican authorities’ attempts to locate the possible source of the outbreak and will submit samples from its herds at its Granjas Carroll subsidiary to the University of Mexico for tests.

“Based on available recent information, Smithfield has no reason to believe that the virus is in any way connected to its operations in Mexico,” it said in a statement. “The company also noted that its joint ventures in Mexico routinely administer influenza virus vaccination to their swine herds and conduct monthly tests for the presence of swine influenza.”

The statement came after Mexico’s national public health authority, the Mexican social security institute, raised concerns that waste from the Granjas Carrol facility may be responsible for the outbreak of illness, according to local media.

“According to state agents of the Mexican social security institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement,” reported Mexico City newspaper La Jornada. Swine flu can be caught through contact with infected animals, but it is unclear if contact with flies or excrement has the same effect.

oh say what? Maybe just maybe this swine flu is due to factory farming? From a US factory farming company? A US company that regularly gives flu vaccines to pigs? So maybe swine flu is so potent because its a mutated viral form that evolved able to survive the flu vaccine administered to the herd? But of course the Guardian article does not show us a picture of the CEO of Smithfield but of a lil Mexican boy from Veracruz. Sigh.

survival is a spiritual discipline revisited

from black amazon

That all of this bundeled me toward womanism , toward this radical loves love auntie. That if the Idea that we don’t concentrate on getting in or getting out but comeing to get each other to get that thing that hurts that if nothing

else we will be the people who think of each other as human first

That is what I think of as media , that is what I imagine it is to bring justice OR reform .

That when we say radical love , it’s a joke its an in crowd thing. It is pie in the sky because we believe that the end point is not validation but sight , that i see you that i hold you that i let you be

and I will travel to do so

I come get you.

That when I reach out you reach out that we stand in the face of everything and we say what we mean.

That coming to get you isn’t about ME

It’s about being there for you seeing you loving you is about making sure that you get be you teh you you are teh you you wnat to be

safe and loved and free

that si the radical , teh loyalty .

That is teh tears the pain teh circatrice the blood

that is teh after ALL OF this teh get up again.

i am tired of not being seen as human.  or as human as another.  it is wearing on me.  having tears just hang in the eyes.  so tired.

i want to be seen.

i live in this world.  too.  but in the world in which i live, it is assumed that i have a personality problem.  thats the way it has been my whole life.  always.  always.  not as charming. smart. cordial. entertaining. popular. as another. as the person sitting right next to me. and because my personality doesnt fit.  i dont deserve to be treated like a human being.

its always too.  too much.  too little.

so today i make an official declaration…i give up.

i give up trying to be not intimidating, non-threatening, or non-violent.  i give up trying to make others feel comfortable with what i say or how i say it.  i give up. and i accept that that means that i am responsible for the impact of my behaviour.  and the impact of my behaviour is: others may feel threatened.

i take full responsible for that.

attention

today.  i was working on the computer.  and aza came up and started pushing the lil power button.  and i am saying no aza dont touch.  and she looks at me and touches it again.  and i move her hands off the power buttion.  i got to work.  and she keeps trying to push the power button.  and i keep moving her hands.  and then she says: ow! no! and tries to touch the power button so i say ow! when she touches the button. and back and forth.

finally i look at her and say: do you want attention?  and she says: attention.  and i pull her into my lap. and she curls in my arms and drinks her juice. and five minutes later she is asleep.

heat

heat swims in a pool of cars

the taxi driver sucks his tongue at me

kissing his index finger

jerking from first to second gear

creaking a couple of feet

he turns off the radio

the crank hustles the transmission

through clouds of burning trash

nicotine

carbon monoxide from

dust covered tail pipies

and evaporating cars

the difference between first

and second gear

between second and third

is not in speed or acceleration

it is between the number of days

of hunger

and the heat of a hollow belly

churning toward another cold night

in my dream this morning

i talked to my father

about not talking to him

we camped in between cotton couches

underneath a small chandelier swinging

surrounded by white tile

cheap nicotine

unwashed black skin

afterwards

i climbed the stairs to my bedroom

and slept

tonight the wind blows

striped curtains across the cracked dirt

in plastic pots

my eyes startle awake

every 37 seconds

looking for a title

to this moment passing by

but moments dont get titles

or returned phone calls

or a fortune forcast

no most moments slip

like an engine bouncing

against the red cars frame

sputtering

and at the last minute/second/moment

zooms passed stop lights

into the horizon of crowded streets

full of babies and beggar old men

like my father walking

hunchbacked wary

his brain knotted in fists

knots that dont untie

no matter how many moments

pass by

out of the door

carrying an army duffel bag

looking back at a dream

thats already passed me

this poem didnt have to be written

i did write it

while i suckled black mists

over open flames

burning this body green and yello

burning this body black and blue

burning it inside of a corpse of itself

burning myself through you

burning sweet like sage brush

caught on the breeze

i who found a reason for living

passed mercy

i caught last wiff of freedom

inhaled it

so we all could breathe

you know this poem didnt need

to be written

maybe should never have been

but written it is

here on this page

almost over

never done

somebody say – hallelujah

the goddess has risen

from the death bed

oh death you almost won

but i kept santa muerte

stacked on top of my ribcage

like a bar code

cause i will never check out

give all the money you want

you cant buy this body

this poem

this sun rising

from my mouth

survival is a spirtual discipline

this was written back in 1994.  i know that andy smith has also written passionately about the co-optation and appropriation of native spirituality by white feminists…

anyways, i found this article as well and thought that it was powerful.

It should be a given—undisputed—that Native communities are the authorities on their own religions / cultures. If they challenge Andrews’ exposition of their culture, it means something—whether or not it is customary in the United States to consider Indian people’s feelings or opinions. In last month’s article, the writer worried that criticism of Andrews “may be hurtful to her and may be depleting to her creative energy.” It may well be that Andrews feels hurt, but what about the injury expressed by so many Indian people? Does she respond, or does she dismiss them? What about the depletion of their energy, as they are forced to explain over and over to white people why we are not entitled to appropriate their culture?

splash!

wow.  Brave Star just graced me with a splash award!

The Splash Award is given to alluring, amusing, bewitching, impressive and inspiring blogs

1) Put the logo on your blog/post.
2) Nominate up to 9 blogs which allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you.
3) Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4) Let them know that they have been splashed by commenting on their blog.
5) Remember to link to the person from whom your received your Splash award.

i love brave star’s blog.  she has incredible taste in art, music, poetry, and a gifted multimedia artist.

okay and now for my nominations:

favianna–great art

fabmexicana gorgeous writing

imperfect patient syndrome incredible explorations of eating disorder, race, mental health system, gender, class

no snow here diva media justice organizer

poetic propaganda beautiful poet

flip flopping joy –breaking ground on the intersections of persona, political, blogging, and movement

jaded hippy some of the best of personal and intersectional resources

my ecdysis great writer

rebecca walker inspires me to speak my truth

broken borders

am thinking about the connections between national borders and psychological health

how life can be seen as a series of borders broached, approached, broken and backed away from

the ways that national borders shift and move and the shifting of national borders also shifts our own sense of belonging, psychological integrity, identity, dislocation.  how are personal borders are pushed.  how borders are maintained through violence.  and how we are shaped by this violence.

and how do we integrate all of these broken borders?  who are we in the midst of these borders.  what does it mean to have ourselves, our personal, social, communal boundaries broken? how do we cope?