portals and holes

its a very cold winter. unexpectedly so. winters always hit me hard, emotionally and physically. i just dont sync well with the cold in any respect, and i hate being cold with all of my life, and winters have always been depressing. any other time of the year, i go through life pretty mellow and non-chalant, but around this time of the year, i find myself down a lot. ive been having a lot of nightmares lately too, which is unusual for me. i always have strange dreams, but theyre never really straight up frightening, wake me up out of my sleep type of stuff. oh, and i had that sleep paralysis thing again, this time home alone. and ive been waking up out of my sleep every night, around 5am. this sucks. something is on my mind that im not facing, or something. i dont know. i contrast that to a few months ago, when it was still warm ago, back in november, and i was complaining about global warming, but i was still happy, mellow, warmer, a little more optimistic then i am right now. its the weather, the atmosphere. its like my body and my mood are guided by the sun and the moon. truly mind-blowing and at the same time, probably perfectly, basically, naturally "human" (whatever that means). it has nothing to do with time, but with cycle. women, as creators on this plane, are naturally more in tune with it, our bodies are and our worldviews and emotions and notions of time are different than those of men, who run on lines, are guided by lines, numbers, quantification. Ann C. Scales says in an article entitled Feminists in the Field of Time (oh the irony for me): "...the history of time is really about the consolidation of male power. Women's bodies, for example, are on a twenty-eight day lunar cycle, yet 'civilization as we know it' runs on a solar calendar. Though practical reasons for the solar calendar exist, in terms of planting and harvesting cycles, the solar calendar also reflects the subjectivity of male patriarchy. For example, in the first century BC, Julius Ceasar commissioned a calendar that would decisively reject lunar measurement. July named after the commissioner, had thirty-one days. August, named after Augustus Ceasar, had only thirty days. Augustus refused to have fewer days than Julius; August, therefore, now has thirty-one days. The extra day was taken from February, which was already limping along on twenty-nine out of thirty days three out of four years."
Thats that male ego bull, penis envy mentality, but thats how they think, how they perceive time. Women are different and I havent quite figured out why, in the grand scheme of things, I mean, when i think back to why we're on this earth in the first place. why are we, specifically, these feminine bodies, why are they more in tune with the earth and universe and nature, by nature? what does that mean to me, to my existence, to why i was placed in this body or why i chose this vessel or however it happened. i dunno.

collectively accepted systems of belief

The physical aspect of reality is pervasively skewed, for physical is based upon the perception that the individual body projects of onto others, coupled with that other's own subjective perception. these perceptions, these perspectives are self-limiting, by definition - all we have is our own eyes to look through, our own experiences to draw from, those things that happen directly to us to form our views. As open-minded as one can say he or she is, that phrase is misnamed - true open minds can never be achieved, not in the literal sense of the term, because your mind simply cannot be opened, and even in the figurative sense, one's own views garnered from their experience input will always infinitely influence one's own views and their perception output. Minds cannot be traded, accessed. You can only guess, and, based upon what we believe are standard forms, falsely replicate what one sees or feels. That principle goes from the largest of things to the smallest of things. We have generalities for certain sensations, feelings, observations.
For example, We all assume that chocolate tastes the same, and that everyone knows what chocolate tastes like. But how do we all know that we are really tasting the same exact thing? I could never have your taste buds and you could never have mine to really know that we are in fact tasting the same thing. How do I know that what you see as the color blue is the same color that I see? We don’t have the same eyes.

But Aren't You a Woman?

I hate this month. Its pretty obvious why, especially if you received my text message and/or youve been my friend for the past two years whenever i write a blog on the travesty that is "Black History" Month. I've never taken too well to handouts, and I dont give a hell if it was Black progressives who requested this month (thats the rumor Ive heard). They were on some BS, too. Not only is it 28 days long, but there are two presidents who we share this month with, one of which owned slaves (Lincoln owned some too, no?). 28 days. Black history, huh? We need a special set aside of because our history is just not important enough to be included, subsumed within the rest of American or World History? So I refuse to celebrate and pay homage, because I think about Black people everyday and the contributions that they have made to my life and to the life of others, and I spend my days trying to uplift us and return us to greatness.

Which brings me to gender (somehow). This is NOT what a feminist looks like. I realize that any real commitment that I have to my gender only lies in the intersectionality between my Blackness and my femaleness, so that I usually never think of myself as a stand alone female, nor do I have any particular sense of identity with my gender as a whole. My commitment to my gender is grounded in my Blackness, so that when I do think of femaleness, I think of Black femaleness. Beyond that, me being a female is hardly ever a consideration in anything (besides my sexuality, of course). That is not to say that I wish I were a guy or that I identify with the opposite, that I am a gender queer, or anything like that. I don't, I'm not, although I consider my gender to be fluid and subject to change. I'm fine with being a woman, I just don't celebrate being a woman. If a giant magic person came down from the sky tomorrow and said "Im going to change you into a guy, Rasheedah", I'd be okay with that. And I'd be okay if that never happened in life. Its just that, on the hierarchy of personal identifiers, female places next to last for me. Blackness will almost always place first in my experiences (edit: and that, too, is not to say that i dont respect or revere women as powerful creatures, no matter what race. this is just on a personal note). My blackness is immutable, whereas my gender can be as fluid as I want or need it to be, and sex and gender are not correlative, necessarily. Moreover, considerations, decisions about my person from those outside of my race will hinge upon that. Most people, at first glance, will peg me as Black before they peg me as female. When people find or need a reason to discriminate against me, it will likely be because of my Blackness, and until i open my mouth to distinguish myself from their pre-conceived notion of what a Black woman acts and talks like, I am just that, another Black woman, and we all know how loaded "Black" is. Even if they are discriminating because of my gender, the fact that I am Black will always precede that - I will be seen as a Black female - not a female, and not a Female Black. I am doubly oppressed (and I wont even get into sexuality, which adds to it, but the fact that I can hide my sexuality at will usually takes the bark out of that bite), a double minority. Considerations, decisions about my person from those inside of my race will hinge upon my race also. I've noticed this more than ever now that I work with clients. Race plays a factor in trust, especially with my people – "are you one of us, or one of them" type of mentality.
I do not, by any means whatsoever, mean to offend anyone out there when I say this, but feminism, to me and to the experiences of those who are like me, personally, it's a lot of smoke and mirrors. To each her own, of course, and for every man and woman lies a cause, but for me, the feminist movement does not do it. According to some, one of life's great little ironies seems to lie embedded in the fact that while I am both a woman and Queer, I am not, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be, a feminist. There are reasons.

1. Women are different than men. That's just the way it is. On this plane or in this reality or whatever, we are biologically different, emotionally different, have different chromosomes, we are socialized differently, we have different functions (i.e. women can carry babies, men cannot). so when it comes to having equality in everything, with everything, especially in the eyes of the law, its just not going to always work out, nor should we necessarily want it to. I can give examples, but I don't want to dwell on this point in particular. And I know that, not all feminists fight for equality nor is that the only thing that they fight for. But its at least one of the things that some of the feminists fight for, so my point is not moot.

2. We all contribute to gender norms in some way, or perpetuate it. It cant really be defeated. We can question them, break them down, decompose, create new ones, but they are all based on a dichotomy, a this/that dichotomy, or, if you prefer, a this-that dichotomy, but in someone's eyes, one will always precede and prevail. Gender, race, and sexuality, to name a few, are all predicated upon social constructs that most of us cannot live outside of. It is the rare individual who can see beyond all of that stuff. So feminism is about empowerment of a particular group or construct, sure, but it will always be at the expense of another. Which brings me to my third, and biggest point of why feminism, to I, is not a viable social movement for me...

3. Feminism is based upon the experience of the white woman. It started out that way, and it still is that way, and rarely does it encompass the issues or experiences of the Black woman. If it does or if it tries, it is pure, empty rhetoric. Whiteness is always the standard for everything, for the human experience they speak, and womanhood is no different (whereas for other races, one person or their actions can speak for and represent the entire race, especially when it comes to negative actions). Black women's issues, Black people's rights, period, have historically been a stepping stool for the rights of white women and more recently, homosexuals, from slavery on up to now. Black men get to vote, but white women cant? Black people get civil rights, but white male homosexuals get nothing? And those are just a few examples of the many.
Now let us observe this phenomenon with a simple diagram of social hierarchy divided by race:

White Man
White Woman
Black Man
Black Woman

So when it comes to discrimination, (or whatever word you want to use because I believe that word to be too subtle), every category that stands above the Black woman is privileged in some way. Black males are privileged for their maleness, and but for their blackness, they'd be fine. White women are privileged because of their whiteness, and but for their femaleness, they'd be dandy. We already know what's good with the white man. So Black women have two categories to overcome within the hierarchy, rarely can or will feminist theory and practice, in its present form, include our unique experiences, experiences that differ DRAMATICALLY from that of your standard white woman. White privilege alone allows the white woman to reap the benefits of the privilege, and to view black oppression from afar, unaffected by it. But for the Black woman, her femaleness and her blackness are inextricably intertwined.

There is an article out there by Kimberle' Crenshaw that explains it much better than I ever could. Look it up: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Politics. She says this:
"The value of feminist theory to Black women is diminished because it evolves from a white racial context that is seldom acknowledged. Not only are women of color in fact overlooked, but their exclusion is reinforced when white women speak for and as women…When feminist theory attempts to describe women's experiences through analyzing patriarchy, sexuality, or separate-spheres ideology, it often overlooks the role of race. White feminists thus ignore how their own race functions to mitigate some aspects of sexism, and moreover, how it often privileges them over and contributes to the domination of other women."
True, no?

4. I'm all for empowerment of any group that has traditionally been oppressed, but I don't have to label myself just to support it. Not at all. I work with women; most of my work involves women, women who are victims of domestic violence, young mothers, mothers caught up in the child welfare system, etc. Again, it has nothing to do with me feeling committed to my gender in particular, but a commitment to Blackness, by extension, Black females who are, as explained above, on the lowest rung of the social hierarchy, and a general commitment to all of society's oppressed underdogs, no matter their gender, race, sexual orientation, age, nationality, or anything else. But as it so happens, society's oppressed underdogs typically tend to fall within certain racial and gender and economic categories, and those are the people I find myself drawn to, partially because of my own common and intersecting experiences with them.