I Need to Write

"First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice."

Octavia E. Butler. “Furor Scribendi.” In Bloodchild and Other Stories, 137-144. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005. (emphasis mine)

Manifest (A 24-Hour Post)

manifest 1 |ˈmanəˌfest|

adjective
clear or obvious to the eye or mind.

verb [ trans. ]
display or show (a quality or feeling) by one's acts or appearance; demonstrate.

~*~*~*~

"For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will."
~1 Corinthians 12:8-11

~*~*~*~

Photo Credit: Damon Winter/New York Times

"They do not measure themselves against black people or white people; if anything, they learn to walk and talk in the presence of DuBois, Hurston, Hughes, Toomer, Attaway, Wright, and others--when they bite their pillows at night these spirits comfort them."

~Alice Walker, on the correctness of the "incorrect," 1973

Am I using women to embody a man? Perhaps...but woman-spirits speak to me. It is the only experience I know. And it is apt, no? They remind me that there is power in the borderlands. "Only he could have, only now...."

MIchelle Obama @ DNC08

I heart Michelle Obama. If there was a bumper sticker that said that, I'd buy it.

Blog Break Open Thread

I am still on hiatus.

But I am also pondering all sorts of online projects. Inspired, as always, by Firewalking Women and Radical Women of Color such as Lex, Johonna and BFP.

Some of those include e-zines, blog reading/study groups, twitter writing groups, organization webcams, media literacy workshops using YouTube....The possibilities are endless.

What kinds of projects do you imagine? What do you dream technology can do for you as an afrofuturist, artist, activist, researcher, or regular Jane? What should I jump into next (and will you jump with me!)?

Open thread. Until I get back.

Let's inspire each other.

Andrea Hairston's Mindscape

X-Posted @ Firewalkers

"We still yearn for a Metatheory, a God who never lies, whose simple, absolute truth will guide us from nothing to everything without once falling down. Unfortunately truths are false and lies are true. Anything we are absolutely certain of doesn't matter and everything that truly matters is uncertain."
~~Vera Xa Lalafia

Finished. Really, really liked it. And since I am still stuck in the Lull and am apparently incapable of constructing a coherent paragraph much less a review essay, here are the bullet points. (Never fear--no spoilers ahead). Mindscape:

• Confirms for me that the best hard sci-fi is the kind that openly lusts for magical realism and leaps of fantasy.
  
• Confirms that science fiction looks very different when it takes takes seriously 1) that a hero can be female and still sexy, violent, flawed, vulnerable and triumphant 2) a female hero of color can be all of these without being junglefied or mammied 3) people of color can play roles that aren't just witty, "ethnic throwback" sidekicks or helplessly tormented victims.
  
  
• POC humanity can be fundamental parts of the plot without the story collapsing into racial polemics, masochistic Afrocentricity, ambiguous mestizaje, or a melting pot of Latinidad. Translation? The history, culture, politics, and, hell, the people-dom of people of African, Latina/o and Native American descent should not only be a part of the story that is told but that people-dom should be critiqued and created with the same rigor as majority (Anglo or European) societies. That means asking what is it that poc nickname God? Was it the color of their skin only? Was the rhythm of the drums/beat/scratch? Was it the distribution of political and social power between men and women, elders and age-grades? Was it the lyric and spiritual? The curve of clay forms? Was it a kind of prayer or a way of speaking? And where do you then place histories of slavery and genocide, how do your characters feel that as spectre even as they walk in worlds three, four or five thousand years ahead of today?
  
  
• You don't have to say your characters are any color for them to be that color. (Proof again that putting the humanity of people of color into sci-fi is more than just taking a brown crayon to your cookie-cutter hero or heroine)
  
  
• Just because you don't give your characters a color doesn't make them "everyman" or "everywoman" (Proof again....)
  
  
• Gender is as much a myth as race and should be interrogated and respected just as is explained above. Sexuality is the same deal. And the absolute best sci-fi out right now is flipping both of those way on their head and them thrusting them into another dimension before bringing them back and commiting them to paper.
  
  
• Ooooooh on the way that really, really good sci-fi can take things that are absolutely normal today, magnify them, and make them absolutely otherworldly and yet frighteningly prescient. (I can't say more without spoiling...but ooooohhhhhh!)
  
  
• Ooooooh on the way that afrofuturism deplores the happy ending. After all: "Anything we are absolutely certain of doesn't matter and everything that truly matters is uncertain."
  
  

That is all, at least until I am a real writer again. If you have free time, read the book. If I had free time I would start a TechnoAfroCats Book Collective or distro (yay, I just learned what that is!) or something.

Hmm. Actually, interesting thought. I might have to consider that....

Yes! For Colored Girls on Broadway!

Oprah brought The Color Purple, Whoopi brings back FCG.

Oprah brought The Color Purple, Whoopi brings back FCG.

Spread the News! Official Press Release (from TwoMindsFull via Tayari)

http://forcoloredgirlsbway.com/

For Immediate Release, Please ~ June 25, 2008

* * PERFORMANCES BEGIN TUESDAY, AUGUST 19 * *

WHOOPI GOLDBERG

PRESENTS

TWO-TIME GRAMMY AWARD WINNER

INDIA.ARIE

IN A NEW, RE-ENVISIONED BROADWAY PRODUCTION OF THE

GROUNDBREAKING WORK FROM CELEBRATED PLAYWRIGHT

NTOZAKE SHANGE

CHOREOGRAPHED BY

THREE-TIME TONY AWARD WINNER

HINTON BATTLE

DIRECTED BY

SHIRLEY JO FINNEY

OPENS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2008
AT BROADWAY'S CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE THEATRE

http://forcoloredgirlsbway.com/

Whoopi Goldberg and DreamTeam Entertainment Group are pleased to announce that two-time Grammy Award winner India.Arie will make her Broadway stage debut this fall in a new, re-envisioned production of Ntozake Shange's acclaimed play, FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF.

Directed by Shirley Jo Finney and choreographed by three-time Tony Award winner Hinton Battle, FOR COLORED GIRLS... begins preview performances on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 at Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre (1633 Broadway at 50th Street). Opening Night is Monday, September 8 at 6:45 p.m.

Performed by a cast of seven, FOR COLORED GIRLS... is a stunning and explosive series of prose poems and stories illuminating the identity of black women in America, as they reveal themselves, their lives, triumphs, hardships and ultimately their discovery of inner strength and love.

This re-envisioned production of FOR COLORED GIRLS... will feature new and updated material from Ms. Shange. Complete casting will be announced soon.

FOR COLORED GIRLS... originally began Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in May 1976, before transferring to Broadway on September 10, 1976. That production played the Booth Theatre for 876 performances and became the top-grossing dramatic play on Broadway that season.

Praised by The New York Times as "a play that should be seen, savored and treasured," the original Off-Broadway production and Broadway transfer was honored with an Obie Award and an Outer Critics Circle Award, as well Tony and Grammy Award nominations. Following the success of that production, FOR COLORED GIRLS... went on to tour throughout the U.S. for two years.

* * *

Ntozake Shange (en-toe-ZAH-kee SHANG-gay) is an acclaimed poet, playwright, novelist and performer who first garnered national attention with FOR COLORED GIRLS... . Since then, she has written a number of celebrated works, including three novels, four volumes of poetry, several screenplays, essays and numerous stage plays. Among her many awards and citations, Ms. Shange has been honored with the Columbia Medal of Excellence, The Los Angeles Times Award for Poetry and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

India.Arie, the highly acclaimed singer songwriter who impacted music in the new millennium with her unique acoustic soul sound and profound lyrics, has won numerous awards including two Grammy Awards, 16 Grammy nominations and three NAACP Image Awards among others. She is currently working on her fourth studio album, Testimony: Vol. II, Love & Politics.

Shirley Jo Finney has directed in theatres throughout the country including the McCarter Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Goodman Theater, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse and The Mark Taper Forum, among others. She has been honored with an NAACP Image Award and an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for her West Coast production of Yellow Man at the Fountain Theatre. FOR COLORED GIRLS... marks Ms. Finney's Broadway directorial debut.

Celebrated choreographer and Broadway veteran Hinton Battle is a three-time Tony winner for his performances in Sophisticated Ladies, Miss Saigon and The Tap Dance Kid. A recipient of the NAACP Image Award and The Fred Astaire Award, his choreography can be seen in the recent films Idlewild, Bolden and The Great Observer, and on ABC-TV's "Dancing with the Stars."

With musical direction by seven-time Tony-nominated orchestrator Harold Wheeler (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hairspray, The Full Monty), the new Broadway production of FOR COLORED GIRLS... features set design by Tony Award nominee Scott Bradley (Seven Guitars), costume design by Tony Award nominee Paul Tazewell (In the Heights, The Color Purple), lighting design by Victor Tan (As You Like It, Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet on Broadway) and sound design by Mitch Greenhill.

Visit for http://forcoloredgirlsbway.com/ more information and updates.
*********************************
TICKETING AND PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
*********************************
FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF will play on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre (1633 Broadway at 50th St.).

Beginning Tuesday, August 19, the regular performance schedule is as follows:
Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m.
Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m.
Wednesday and Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.
Sunday matinees at 3 p.m.
Tickets are $98.50 (all ticket prices include a $1.50 facility fee) and are available by calling Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200 beginning Saturday, July 19.
Tickets may also be purchased in-person at the Circle in the Square Theatre Box Office beginning Monday, August 4. Regular Box Office hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.
**********************
PRODUCTION BIOGRAPHIES
**********************
INDIA.ARIE (Performer). The world renowned award winning singer/ songwriter India.Arie makes her Broadway debut with this production of For Colored Girls... . Coming onto the national music scene in 2001 with her Universal Records debut Acoustic Soul, she followed up in 2002 with her sophomore CD Voyage to India and in 2006 released her third album, the more personally expressive Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship. All three releases have received critical acclaim nationwide and made her a respectable and noted artist in a very short amount of time. She has sold over eight million copies worldwide and has received numerous awards and nominations including 16 Grammy nominations, two Grammy Awards and three NAACP Image Awards, along with awards from BET, Billboard Music, Radio Music, MTV, VH1, Vogue Fashion, Essence Magazine and others. She has received critical acclaim from USA Today to VIBE Magazine, and has graced the cover of Entertainment Weekly, Jet and Ebony to name a few. A voice initially heard by women around the world with her song "Video" has developed into a voice heard by people around the world with her song "There's Hope." The New York Times says "Ms. Arie's music only further enhances her reputation as an artist of substance; centering on her acoustic guitar and confident but restrained vocals, it recalls such soul masters as Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack." In between touring and writing music, India.Arie finds the time to help promote things close to her heart. As a U.S. Ambassador for UNICEF she has traveled to Africa several times addressing the AIDS crisis there. She has met with Nelson Mandela and was featured in the VH1 documentary "Tracking The Monster: Ashley Judd & India.Arie Confront AIDS in Africa." She has played alongside Stevie Wonder, Sting, Elton John, Bette Midler, Michael McDonald and others. She has written with Stevie Wonder ("A Time for Love," the title track of his last album) and has been featured on various songs including John Mellencamp's Grammy winning "Peaceful World." She has performed on such prestigious TV specials as "The Kennedy Center Honors," "The NAACP Awards" and "The Grammy Awards." An animated India.Arie has even appeared on "Blues Clues' BluesStock" and she has danced with Elmo on "Sesame Street's" home DVD Healthy Happy Monsters. She has had several songs featured in motion pictures, including "Good Man" in A Soldier's Story, "Get it Together" in A Shark's Tale, "Eyes of The Heart (Radio's Song)" from the motion picture Radio, "Purify Me" from Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and most recently "Heart of the Matter" on the Sex and the City soundtrack and trailer. Just this year she started her own music imprint called Soulbird Music and between appearances has been working on her fourth album, Testimony: Vol. II, Love & Politics scheduled for release in early 2009 on Universal Republic Records.

NTOZAKE SHANGE (Playwright). For her acclaimed play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Ntozake Shange received an Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award, as well as Tony and Grammy Award nominations. The subsequent PBS teleplay adaptation was nominated for an Emmy Award. Since then, Ms. Shange has gone on to write a number of celebrated works: three novels, four volumes of poetry, screenplays, essays, and numerous plays including Spell #7, A Photograph; Lovers in Motion, Boogie Woogie Landscapes and The Love Space Demands: A Continuing Saga. Ms. Shange's novels include Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo (for which she was nominated for a Pen-Faulkner First Novel Award), Betsy Brown and Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter all received with critical acclaim. Her other stage works include A Daughter's Geography and an adaptation of Mother Courage & Her Children, for which she received an Obie Award. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards and honors, including the Columbia Medal of Excellence, The Los Angeles Times Award for Poetry and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A "performing poet," Ms. Shange gives public readings of her work and directs performances of her choreopoems. Other published works include an anthology she edited, titled The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative Writing by Woman and Men of All Colors, and an essay in the collection The Playwright's Voice. Ms. Shange has also published If I Can Cook/You Know God Can (Beacon), I Live in Music (Stewart, Tobori & Chang), Float Like A Butterfly: The Muhammed Ali Story (Hyperion Books) and Daddy Says (Simon & Schuster). She is currently working on stage adaptations of the film Sparkle for Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia, her novel Liliane for Rites & Reasons Theatre in Providence Rhode Island, and The Lulu Plays for the Public Theatre in New York. With photographer Kris Kristofferson, Ms. Shange is completing Midnight Cowboy: Black Rodeo Now as well as collaborating with the Karnoinge collective of photographers on The Sweet Embrace. She is working on a novel with Ifa Bayeza titled Some Sing, Some Cry, an intergenerational history of black music. Ms. Shange is a professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

SHIRLEY JO FINNEY (Director). An award-winning director and actress, Shirley Jo Finney has directed in theatres throughout the country including the McCarter Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Goodman Theater, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Crossroads Theater Company, Actors' Theater of Louisville Humana Festival, The Mark Taper Forum, The American College Theatre Festival and The Sundance Theatre Workshop. In 2005, Ms. Finney premiered a new play based on Whoopi Goldberg's hit children's book "Alice" at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., which subsequently toured the country. She received a Los Angeles Theater Ovation Award nomination, the NAACP Image Award, L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award, Backstage West Award and L.A. Weekly Award for Best Director, all for her production of Yellow Man. Other directing awards include three Drama-Logue Awards and Chicago's Jefferson Award. Ms. Finney has directed several episodes of the UPN series "Moesha" and has received the International Black Filmmakers Award for the short film Remember Me. She has also directed for the Naked TV Project for Fox Television. Ms. Finney was featured in Infiniti in Black, a national ad campaign for Infiniti. She is an alumna of the American Film Institute's Director Workshop for Women and holds an MFA from UCLA. She is also a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, The Director's Guild and the Screen Actors Guild. She has been an Artist in Residence at Columbia College in Chicago, and a guest director and lecturer at USC and UCLA.

HINTON BATTLE (Choreographer). At 16, Hinton Battle starred as The Scarecrow in The Wiz, which launched a very successful career on Broadway starring in Dancin', Dreamgirls and Chicago. Hinton received Tony Awards for his performances in Sophisticated Ladies, Miss Saigon and The Tap Dance Kid. He is also the proud recipient of the NAACP Image Award, The Fred Astaire Award and the Ira Aldridge Award. His film and television credits include These Old Broads, Dreamgirls and the ABC biopic "Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." His director/choreographer credits include Associate Choreographer of the Academy Awards and commissioned works for Baltimore School of the Arts, Washington Reflections Dance Company and Philadanco. His choreography has also been featured in the film Idlewild and on "Dancing with the Stars." On stage, Battle has had three hit productions running simultaneously: the musical adaptation of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead at the Diesel Theater in Toronto and at New York's New World Stages, and Respect - A Musical Journey of Women at the Gem Theatre in Detroit. He just completed choreographing two feature films, Bolden and The Great Observer with original music by Wynton Marsalis. He is the author of That's My Man, a stage comedy with music starring Grammy winner Stephanie Mills, which is slated to tour the African-American theatre market this fall.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG (Producer) is one of a very elite group of artists who have won the Grammy (Whoopi Goldberg, 1985), the Academy Award (Ghost, 1991), the Golden Globe (The Color Purple, 1985; Ghost, 1991), the Emmy (AMC's "Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel," 2002) and a Tony (Thoroughly Modern Millie, 2002). Whoopi has appeared in such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash; Clara's Heart; The Long Walk Home; Soapdish; The Player; Sarafina!; Sister Act; Made in America; Corrina, Corrina; Boys on the Side; Eddie; The Associate; Ghosts of Mississippi; How Stella Got Her Groove Back; Girl, Interrupted; Kingdom Come and Rat Race. Her myriad of television credits include "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (five seasons), "Bagdad Café" "In the Gloaming" (HBO), "The Wonderful World of Disney's Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella," "A Knight in Camelot," "Alice in Wonderland" (miniseries), "Whoopi" (also Exec. Producer), "It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie," "Good Fences" (also Co-Producer), "Whoopi's Littleburg" (Nick Jr., also Producer) and currently appears as moderator on ABC's long-running talk show "The View." Her other producing credits include the acclaimed Lifetime series "Strong Medicine," the Emmy-winning "Hollywood Squares" (1999-2002), the Lifetime movie "What Makes a Family," Showtime's "Ruby's Bucket of Blood" the TNT Original Movie "Call Me Claus" and the Showtime original "Good Fences." Whoopi's Broadway and Off-Broadway producing credits include the hit musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, George C. Wolfe's Harlem Song, her own Whoopi...The 20th Anniversary and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (in which she also starred). In 1997, she garnered rave reviews on Broadway in the revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Whoopi received Emmy Award nominations for hosting the 66th, 68th and 71st Academy Awards telecasts and returned to host the 74th Academy Awards in 2002. She is the author of three books: Alice, Book and Whoopi's Big Book of Manners. Her fourth book, Sugar Plum Ballerinas, will be out this October. This year, Whoopi hosted the Tony Awards for the first time.

DREAMTEAM ENTERTAINMENT GROUP (Producer) is comprised of principal partners Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, Harold Wheeler, Keryl McCord, Ned S. Goldstein, Fredric D. Rosen and Peter B. Knepper. The company was established and incorporated in 2003 to engage in the business of producing live theatrical events, audio and video entertainment productions (including film, television, CD, DVD and webcast) and the creation, manufacture, marketing and selling of products including video games, action figures, digital entertainment devices and other commercial products. By drawing upon the very best technological, artistic and human resources, DreamTeam Entertainment Group is quickly becoming a global force in the entertainment industry. It is achieving this by developing and producing innovative, entertaining, cutting edge properties with the entertainment industry's top national and international artists and producers in film, theatre, television, music, animation and video game technology.

Dedicated to....

...una india Taino de Utuado....

...una mujer boriquena de Nueva York...

...dos ninas de color de Chicago....

because
our/people were never stolen/we/were never your slaves
just reluctant martyrs

because
we were made to dance like apostles
until miracles fall back to earth

because
we are the ones that birthed it
we are the ones that birthed it
we are the ones that birthed it
and we nicknamed it....



God.



[and thank you to the Firewalker who passed it my way]

"Butt Nekkid With Glitter on You...

...and a beeper."

Why is she an inspiration? Reason # 236 - E. Badu talks about the music business:



(And why is her hair so fabulous? I don't care if it is synthetic.)


Courtesy: Faux Real

On another note: I know that today (Sunday) is blogging against rape in the Congo. But for some reason, I am still waiting 2 speak on it. Or maybe it is so horrific that I'm momentarily silenced, even in this safe space. But these women are braver than me and deserve a read. See elle, phd for a longer list of bloggers breaking the Greatest Silence....

[Updated: Diary of Anxious Black Women has the lineup of the "blogswarm" on Congo and Darfur here]

Untitled

Because finding your space opened up--and continues to open up--new worlds for me. I am not the same person I was before.

Because I never met you--have yet to meet you, may never meet you--but that was okay with you and you still accepted me. And even acknowledged me.

Because through you I found a chorus of voices I never knew existed but have become inspiring and fundamental for me. To wake up everyday and find them there, patient, fierce, and understanding--just to know that they exist--helps me wake up the next day. Helps me write myself into this world. Helps me speak.

Because I am more disturbed by this loss than I probably have a right to be. (And I hope I am misunderstanding, I hope it isn't true...)

Because I have learned so much from you!

Because there is no way outside of overwrought poetics of saying how much I appreciate you....

...I thank you.


Paz y claridad,

Kismet


[Updated: Why ask why?]

Circular WOC PhD Love But...

I had to share. Professor Black Woman link loved elle who link loved me who is now going to bring it full circle by link lovin' Professor Black Woman who has a list of books by academics of color on what their work means to them, what inspires them how they keep going and strategies to beat the social isolation that comes with being NOT whitemaleheteroupperclass in this business.

Click here. Spread some more link love around.

More Oooh. More Inspiration.

The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate field of study late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, Telling Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black women historians at various stages in their careers. Their essays illuminate how--first as graduate students and then as professional historians--they entered and navigated the realm of higher education, a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new scholarly field.

Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents to be "twofers," recount how they have confronted racism, sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the personal and the political intersect in historical research and writing and in the academy. Organized by the years the contributors earned their Ph.D.'s, these essays follow the black women who entered the field of history during and after the civil rights and black power movements, endured the turbulent 1970s, and opened up the field of black women's history in the 1980s. By comparing the experiences of older and younger generations, this collection makes visible the benefits and drawbacks of the institutionalization of African American and African American women's history. Telling Histories captures the voices of these pioneers, intimately and publicly.

Contributors:
Mia Bay, Rutgers University
Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland
Leslie Brown, Washington University, St. Louis
Crystal N. Feimster, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sharon Harley, University of Maryland
Wanda A. Hendricks, University of South Carolina
Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University
Chana Kai Lee, University of Georgia
Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University
Nell Irvin Painter, Newark, New Jersey
Merline Pitre, Texas Southern University
Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago
Julie Saville, University of Chicago
Brenda Elaine Stevenson, University of California, Los Angeles
Ula Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Morgan State University
Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University


About the Author
Deborah Gray White is Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University. Her previous books include Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894-1994 and Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South.

My Twin put me on game. Thanks.

Witches

on the occasion of recent travels from Chicago to D.C.--

us three, we
remake
and rewrite
sisterhood smells. we
journey kinship,
curl fingers over arms,
nod asleep
in whispers. we

brew dust and swear on stones,
talk black earth and cilantro. we
walk miles at night--
the pain will
make us
stronger.

we
mock fantasy
and then, we
write potions that right worlds.



[Update: Revisions 4/2/08]

More Inspiration

To survive,
Know the past.
Let it touch you.
Then let
The past
Go.

~Earthseed: The Book of the Living by Lauren Oya Olamina

in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents
by Octavia E. Butler

Gumbs on Zines and Self-Expression

Brownfemipower linked to brokenbeautiful press founder Alexis Pauline Gumbs being interviewed with Jaime Danehey by Frank Stasio on North Carolina Public Radio

More Inspiration

"If we are made in His image/Then call us by our name
Most intellects do not believe in God/But they fear us just the same..."
- e.badu, "On & On"

Finally Found It!

I've been looking for inspiration all morning! Here we go....



In the summer of 2007, the Journal of Women's History (19:2) published a roundtable on "The History of Women and Slavery: Considering the Impact of Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South on the Twentieth Anniversary of Its Publication."

According to the introduction by Jennifer L. Morgan, the roundtable was originally a series of papers presented in June 2005 at the 13th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at Scripps College in Claremont, California. The 7 articles consider Deborah Gray White's landmark work, Ar'n't I A Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (originally published in 1985) and the state of scholarship on women of color during the period of slavery, including strides made by enterprising women in the field. The article received the 2007 Letitia Woods Brown Article Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians.

~.~.~.~

Roundtable: "The History of Women and Slavery: Considering the Impact of Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South on the Twentieth Anniversary of Its Publication."

Jennifer Morgan, "Introduction."

Daina Ramey Berry, "Teaching Ar'n't I a Woman?"

Stephanie M. H. Camp, "Ar'n't I a Woman? in the Vanguard of the History of Race and Sex in the United States."

Leslie M. Harris, "Ar'n't I a Woman?, Gender, and Slavery Studies."

Barbara Krauthamer, " Ar'n't I a Woman? Native Americans, Gender, and Slavery"

Jessica Millward, "More History Than Myth: African American Women's History Since the Publication of Ar'n't I a Woman?"

Deborah Gray White, "Afterword: A Response."

(No links because the articles aren't available online for free. The journal can be found online here at the Johns Hopkins University Press site, but for the articles you will need to frequent your local public or college/university library....)

Uninspired, Inspired?

The last two weeks, I have been struggling with how to get going on my dissertation prospectus/dissertation and get the hell out of graduate school. My main problem has been intersecting my personal interests (creative writing, arts activism, african diaspora politics & culture, social justice, chicago, puerto rico, family, dance) and my academic or professional interests. And of late, higher forces have been sending me examples of how I might do this. One of the most important so far has been a play shown in D.C. recently called In Her Memory. Written and performed by Piper Anderson, a stunning playwright, dancer, writer, singer and activist hailing from New York, and fellow BlackoutDC member, it addresses issues of domestic violence in the black community.

http://www.inhermemoryshow.blogspot.com/

Very simply, the play reminded me that academic work isn't ONLY in the classroom. And the classroom isn't the only, or even the premier, space to bring a new society into existence. It also reminded me that I am an artist, a writer, first and foremost, and need to honor that above all else. It inspired me to continue the STRUGGLE to find ways to navigate my art through the violence of the graduate student process, but also to bring that struggle, literally, back to the streets.

The funny thing about academia is that it can make you think that you are doing SO much for the community while in actuality separating you from everything that ever made you who you are. Your family, your friends, your neighbors and your neighborhood. Your music, your language, your food. It removes you physically from your hometown most of the time, either during the graduate education process or afterward through the mobile-nomad life of the untenured professor. The academy elevates itself beyond politics, beyond systems of oppression, while in reality perpetuating those same hierarchies of race, class, gender, sexuality--even religion, since no post-1970s/Marxist trained academic would ever think of placing real importance on the power of God/Allah/Olorun in people's lives.

Click the link above, explore the play, invite Piper to speak at your "space," whether that is work, school, church, or other institution. There might be somebody in the audience who needs to hear her.

I'll keep working on getting inspired....