blackbynature proudbychoice

I want to disappear.

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:45:48 -0400

I want to disappear.

Africa

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:41:14 -0400

my comments on the articles below to come…but I encourage you to read them and conjure up your own thoughts, critiques and feelings.

goodnight

the man with the ipad

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:39:51 -0400

the man with the ipad

somalia: without a #tag

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 03:36:01 -0400

somalia: without a #tag

New racist anti-choice billboard campaign to target Latinas...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:28:39 -0400

New racist anti-choice billboard campaign to target Latinas (via New racist anti-choice billboard campaign to target Latinas)

no….the most dangerous place for a latino is in the hands of white ppl

There’s one for Blak children too the Too Many Aborted Campaign.

They have billboards claiming the most dangerous place for a Black child is in a Black mother’s womb, with a picture of a little Black girl. The little appropriated girl’s mother had no idea, and happened to see the billboard, horrified to see her daughter’s image used for such a purpose.

1,000,000 Black men are under the surveillance of the criminal system, in jail, prison or...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:25:31 -0400

1,000,000

Black men are under the surveillance of the criminal system, in jail, prison or parole.

African-American babies are

twice

as likely to die as white infants.

The unemployment rate for African-Americans now soars at an astonishing

15.8 percent

the highest it has been in years. African-Americans also have an unemployment rate that is

twice

as much as whites (7.7 percent)

African-American babies are

twice

as likely to die as white infants.

"I see her shape and his hand in the vast networking of our society, and in the evils and oversights..."

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:37:32 -0400

“I see her shape and his hand in the vast networking of our society, and in the evils and oversights that plague our lives and laws … [in] the habit of his power and the absence of her choice. I look for her shape and his hand.”

Fnann, I think this is BOMB. Get it lol Since it looks like you’re exploring some...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:29:54 -0400

Fnann, I think this is BOMB. Get it lol

Since it looks like you’re exploring some ‘opposing’ arguments for your project, I wanted to offer one that came to mind when I was reading the post about “the most dangerous place for a black child by the aclu” (I might have mixed up some words, but it’s one of the longer posts). Anyway, the thought is the following: Is it possible that the folks behind these billboards feel that they are targeting the only aspect of “danger” that they feel people can “choose” as an individual? What I mean by that is abortion is, for the most part, seen as a direct choice, whereas these other spaces such as being in school etc seem more as something that ‘just happens’ or are uncontrollably occurring…spaces that are perceived as systems where the individual doesn’t have much say in (at least for the use of this campaign). If that is the case, then by choosing to target the least ominous party in the ‘danger to black children,’ ie the individual, they are affecting the most change.

I would offer my own opinion about this, but I feel like it is up for you to interpret first. Good luck on your project and I look forward to seeing it when you finish! much love :)

Hey love I too did some research on the Black Anti-Abortion campaign when the creator of...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:22:26 -0400

Hey love I too did some research on the Black Anti-Abortion campaign when the creator of “toomanyaborted.com” first started broadcasting his message in ATL & I must say you are doing a wonderful job:) Love the message and the presentation! Let us continue to spread the word and help every woman be empowered to do what’s best for her life:)

proud by choice

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:22:21 -0400

An abortion means that basically you have to end the process of life that has began. It is natural growing and will become a fetus, a baby, a kid, and eventually an adult. If this life ends at anytime, it is because it dies (killed), weather it’s a car accident as teenager or drowning as a child, or being shaken to death by a parent as a baby. Abortion is like war in a third world country, just cause the faces are unknown doesn’t mean the life had no value. Life was created at conception, it might be something we can’t recognize but if allowed to grow it would be a person. How can we cut that life out and say it was not yet alive. Who has the right to end that life is another issue but let it be called what it is, the termination of “life”.

A blog dedicated to the memories of the enslaved Black womyn of the US whose social conditions...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:22:04 -0400

A blog dedicated to the memories of the enslaved Black womyn of the US whose social conditions forced them in desperation to take the lives of their fetuses. These lives were taken unjustly, but to be blamed not on the individual but to be used to interrogate and critique the conditions to which created this desperation then and is doing the same in the present for Black working/poor class womyn of the “ghettos” and inner city. This blog is dedicated to these women and their families who are fighting to have their experiences and perspective to not be in vain.

Redefining the Transracial Adoption Controversy by Ruth-Arlene W. Howe

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:42:53 -0400

Race and color continue to be unresolved issues in our society-inextricably tied and merged with issues of power, status, and inequality-that mock American claims of being a democratic land of equal opportunity. Race and color profoundly influence the lives of all within our society, governing the choices one makes and the choices one believes she has. Issues of race and poverty in American society directly contribute to the disproportionate numbers of Black children remaining in the foster care system for longer periods of time than other children, due to a shortage of approved Black adoptive homes.

I believe that race cannot be ignored. The key to successful living as a minority person in a discriminating, denigrating society is to have positive affiliations with others like oneself, from whom one can gain support and affirmation, and can learn coping skills. Most individuals are not “colorblind”; skin color and perceptions of racial difference trigger within the beholder unconscious stereotypical expectations and assumptions which then often govern any ensuing social interactions. Thus, to promote and protect a child’s “best interests,” race is an important factor to be considered when evaluating the appropriateness of prospective adoptive parents. Does the person have the awareness, capacity, and sensitivity to prepare the nonwhite child to handle the challenges that will be encountered because of the child’s racial appearance? Advocates for transracial adoption who naively espouse a “Love conquers all” philosophy may represent an assault on the Black family and Black community …

Is the transracial adoption debate about the needs of Black children or “the right of white people to parent whichever children they choose?” About adults seeking to establish a right to parent that about meeting the needs of Black children.

Perry offers scholars a useful framework for understanding differing positions and views about transracial adoption. Her conceptual paradigm posits two distinctly different perspectives-liberal colorblind individualism and color and community consciousness. “These two perspectives go far beyond transracial adoption; they represent different approaches to the basic analysis of race and racism in America” Perry argues that aspects of the perspective of liberal colorblind individualism, “however well-intentioned, …may actually reinforce the subordination of Black people in general and Black children in particular …Moreover, the discourse of colorblind individualism, ostensibly about individual rights and interests, often reflects the exercise of power by whites as a dominant group.”

Language can be powerful; it can evoke negative images and stereotypes that harm those who are discussed. Perry strongly chides scholars “from the colorblind perspective [who] advocate the adoption of Black children by whites but do not argue that white children should be dispersed and isolated in Black families, schools, or other institutions in Black communities in order to further the goal of integration.” Perry draws an interesting comparison between the colorblind liberal perspective on transracial adoption and the school desegregation process of the 1950s and 1960s; “in both situations, Black children are removed from Black communities and placed into white communities allegedly to benefit both the individual children and the society.” Clearly, de jure segregation-an official wrong predicated on a belief in Black inferiority-affronted “the dignity and humanity of Black people…however desegregation of the public schools has yet to lead to racial equality.” Some scholars have recognized the school desegregation resulted in losses and negative side effects for Black children and the Black community.

She states that “the emphasis on placing Black children in white homes raises the concern that less emphasis is being places on strengthening Black homes…The key to changing the conditions of Black people lies in strengthening Black communities and families, as opposed to token desegregation into the white world”.

If only such energy could be spent improving the material circumstances that so profoundly affect the welfare of the vast majority of Black children who will continue to be raised in Black families in Black communities. This raises the question of whether the transracial adoption debate is really about the interests of Black children at all, or is it instead about the right of white people to parent whichever children they choose.”

Redefining the Transracial Adoption Controversy by Ruth-Arlene W. Howe

"threat of nihilism. Nihilism: “lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying..."

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:41:12 -0400

“

threat of nihilism.

Nihilism: “lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness” (277).

African Americans are threatened by the lack of hope and the “absence of meaning” (277) in their lives.

”

- Cornel West (Race Matters)

Racism May Affect Infant Mortality Rates by Halimah Abdullah

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 18:31:00 -0400

WASHINGTON - For decades, health experts have tried to determine why African-American babies are twice as likely to die as white infants.

A new series of studies from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Health Policy Institute, along with a small but growing number of neonatalogists nationwide, suggests that the stressful effects of racism play a role.

“That’s the elephant in the room,” said Michael Lu, an obstetrician-gynecologist and professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who studies disparities in infant health. “When we’re studying racial disparities, for decades people have looked at stress and infant mortality without looking at the reasons for the stress.”

Black infant mortality is a complicated puzzle that includes poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate prenatal care, teen pregnancy, heredity, high blood pressure, stress, obesity, low birth weights and prematurity. However, some neonatologists and child health advocates have pushed for more research to get behind the social reasons why these factors seem to take a higher toll on African-American infants than they do on other babies.

For the 600 black women in Atlanta who participated in a related study on the effects of racial discrimination on health, the reasons for their higher stress levels ranged from hearing white teachers comment on “those kids” to working extra long hours to win acceptance from white colleagues.

“The pregnancy scares the life out of me because I am pregnant with a baby boy, and I know how black boys are treated in this society,” one study participant told researchers from Spelman College and Emory University in Atlanta.

In his research, Lu and his colleagues found that the disproportionately higher number of fast-food restaurants and liquor stores, lower number of grocery stores and the higher cost of fresh produce in many urban, predominately black communities caused poorer pregnant black women to make stressful choices about what to eat and where to live. So did the higher crime rates in these communities and worries about sending children to poorly equipped, understaffed schools.

Lu and other researchers see these factors as part of a trend of racial inequality that’s stressful to some poorer black expectant mothers.

“We know that one of the leading causes of infant mortality among African-Americans is preterm birth,” Lu said. “We know that stress is an important risk factor, and it initiates the release of stress hormones leading to preterm birth and increase susceptibility for infection. The question is, do we think racial discrimination and racism is stressful?”

Over the past few years, several researchers have published studies in the American Journal of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine that examine this issue. The researchers found that whether rich or poor, well-educated or barely literate, African-American women were still more likely than white women, first-generation, poor Hispanic immigrant women and foreign-born black women to have premature and low birth-weight babies. In his research, Lu also found that when foreign-born black women had been in the United States for a generation they showed the same infant mortality rates as American-born black women.

“For many years, the operating theory in the health community has been that the high incidence of infant deaths among African-Americans is attributed to higher teen pregnancy rates, single motherhood, lower education levels, poverty and, most recently, genetic causes,” said Ronald David, a physician, professor and co-author of the Joint Centers’ recent research on infant mortality. “However, we found that infant mortality for blacks remained high even when all these factors were controlled.”

Though the infant mortality rate for all races has decreased over the past two decades, the United States still has one of the highest rates among developed nations. In this country, the infant mortality rate for black babies is 13.5 per 1,000 live births, compared with roughly 5.7 for whites and Hispanics, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The problem is especially acute in rural areas such as Mississippi’s Delta region along U.S. 61, and urban centers such as Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tenn. - which has a zip code where the infant mortality rate is higher than those of many Third World nations.

Organizations such as the Joint Center and the Black Women’s Agenda, which focuses on issues of importance to African-American women, hope that additional research on the connection between racism and infant mortality might spark change. A PBS documentary, “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick,” slated to air next year, explores the disparity in infant mortality and other ways in which racial and social inequality may affect health care.

Ask an Abortion-provider

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:51:45 -0400

Hello! I am a person who is training to become an abortion provider. As you can imagine, it is really fucking weird to be one of me, especially lately! I think maybe you have some questions?

1st question: Why?

I can pretty safely assume you have not socially encountered one of us before. No, not because I think you’re not cool enough! Let me explain. I went into healthcare in general because of a bunch of shitty gynecologists growing up who told me, for instance, that “when you” (me) “have sex with so many people” (I, like, halved the real number) “so young” (18) that “none of them care about you” (me). I figured the most direct way to ensure that there wasn’t a total asshole at the bottom of the table was to do it myself.

But why abortion, then? State-of-abortion fact storm forecasted for this paragraph. How many providers do you think there are in this country? Like, total. 30,000? 10,000? Nope, fewer than 2,000. Here’s a quote I read today: “Now only 2 percent of ob-gyns perform half of all abortions. Many are approaching retirement. Others are weary of stigma, threats and violence. The number of providers has declined by 37 percent since 1982.” Fewer providers in practice mean fewer people to train from. And other factors — like how only 12% of ob/gyn residency programs require training in abortion — also contribute to our dwindling numbers. So, this time, it was seeing that the most direct way to ensure that anyone — anyone!! — was at the bottom of the table was to do it myself.

There was also a personal reason. On the way to providing abortions (president!) I became a person who has had one (also a member!). In December 2006, at age 20, some wayward jizz from a guy who was still a virgin put me up the stick. That’s right — CONTACT PREGNANT — the statistic, 1 in 1000? Whatever. Let’s just say I took one for the team. Hearing those sighs of relief, first 999 of you reading this! Everyone else: you are at risk. The whole thing went well with no complications and a lot of support from the people around me. The only hitch in the procedure was when I told the doctor about my long-range dream to become a gynecologist and how I had wanted to volunteer there and now, ha-ha, I was a patient. She listened with all of her heart minus the part that governs word choice and then told me that she was proud of my aspiration. What oh. Aspiration like goal! My goal. Of becoming a provider. Not aspiration like an abortion! An aspiration abortion. The kind I was getting.

I was able to move on quickly. The dude forgave me for my method of breaking it to him, which was asking “So, do you want to see what a positive pregnancy test looks like?” and stuck with me. We got engaged this past November. I finished college, got into a grad program to become a nurse practitioner, and four years to the very day of my own abortion I assisted for the first time on another person’s. I have no regrets, and although I’ll never know what could have been PSYCH I do know what could have been! The dude and I would have broken up and I would have not finished college let alone grad school, and I would have been a fucking disaster of a mother, because even now the best I can promise to a child is to be convincing enough that they can’t tell I secretly wish they were an adult instead.

I speak of my abortion as a positive experience, not to secure the “most awesome abortion” prize (hello judges…?) but to save a seat for the possibility that this doesn’t have to be the worst thing that ever happened to you in your whole life. I don’t want it to in any way represent anyone else’s experience or make them feel disavowed of their own. So let me say: this is my personal experience with abortion! It was positive in every respect. It made me want to help other people also have as positive an experience as possible, so I went into the business. If you think that’s a bullshit line, or it makes you uncomfortable to think about abortion as something that could possibly be positive for a person, think of why you’re a person who doesn’t want someone to do the best that they can under the circumstances they’re in.

2nd question: What’s it like?

Abortion training in this country is basically done by “apprenticeship” — if you’re an MD/DO, you’re supposed to learn in residency, but as we saw that doesn’t happen so often, so there are organizations like Medical Students for Choice to connect people to training or fellowships like the Ryan that you can take on in your own time. As a nurse practitioner (or a PA, or a midwife) what we’re allowed to do depends on where and when we’re practicing. We can provide medication abortion (mifepristone and misoprostol) in 15+ states but surgical abortion in far fewer, even though the actual procedure is exactly the same as other ones (like completing a failed miscarriage) that are solidly within our scope of practice almost everywhere. This is basically because the world is a vampire, sent to jail. The actual hands-on training is straightforward, because first-trimester surgical abortion is a very technically simple procedure. Completing 100 to 300 procedures is considered achieving competency, and the reason it takes that many procedures is because complications (like infection) happen so infrequently that it takes that many to see even a single one.

When I started I knew intellectually that half the country wished I hadn’t gone to work that day and a smaller percentage probably wished I hadn’t even woken up, but pro-life was never part of my life until I actually took on the job. The idea of “sin” had eroded out of my parents’ Catholicism so that the only part they passed on was the punishment style (“I want to let you know that if you have sex you can get a yeast infection in your eyes and you would deserve it”). I am lucky to be training in a liberal Northeastern state: the biggest impact of “antis” on my training is that I have to bring my lunch every day because it’s not really a good idea to go outside more than you have to. The protesters only figured out that I was a clinician-in-training and not a nightmarishly fertile young woman by my 3rd or 4th visit, and when they called me “babykiller” I was like “No way, I’m still working on ultrasound technique!” A couple weeks later I finally got my shit together to look directly at them and I saw that they were (a) a scraggly group of five or so and (b) all old white dudes, historically the least likely demographic to spiritually or morally lead me. Relief!

I had spent most of my life thinking that “following politics” was like being the sports fan who makes sure to watch every game her team plays and always wears the jersey on gameday. Yeah, I want us to win too, duh, but you know, does it really matter if I’m sitting there? I’ll check it out if they get to the playoffs or whatever. But now that the news is me I understand the value of a stupid tie with team colors. I saw that South Dakota bill and I cried. I wanted to call up my friends and say, “Hello! So, at least a couple people in South Dakota want to make it so that it kind of wouldn’t be illegal to kill an abortion provider. Like, me, your friend who does abortions. I’m an abortion provider and I’m your friend. So it would become legal for someone to kill me, your abortion-providing friend. So please, please, please help me do something about this.”

Up until recently I’d come out of any closet I found myself in — queer, non-monogamous, I fucking love Tool still, whatever — not that I live to hear the drink-choking sound, but because, to me, coming out was just one of the ways I could pay back the privileges that had been arbitrarily bestowed upon me (educated! white-appearing! “normal!”). My responsibility to normalize as much as I could. But training as an abortion provider is the first thing in my life that I hold back on spilling about. At the core of it, there’s a huge gap between saying “I had one” and saying “I do them.” I don’t want to alienate people. And nothing else I’ve ever done or been has felt like a direct invitation to a motivated someone out there to kill me and get away with it.

3rd question: What about the patients? Like, who are they?

I can confidently say that not a single one of my patients wants to be there. If we somehow removed the emotional content and just looked at everything else, abortion is an experience that is at least a little physically painful, and expensive both financially and in time investment. The process of obtaining one is full of bullshit even under the best of circumstances. Please see hilarious Onion articles “I’m Totally Psyched About this Abortion!” and “New Law Requires Women to Name Baby, Paint Nursery Before Getting Abortion.”

Nobody wants a fucking abortion or at any point in their lives thought, “Oh, who cares, I’ll just take care of it.” Not even the woman on her tenth who said to me when I came in the room, “Hm, I haven’t seen you before! You must be new.” I am going to tell you that having 10 abortions is extremely rare, but I am also going to tell you without even starting another sentence that it doesn’t matter how rare it is because there should be no hierarchy of abortion. On demand, without apology? Great, I’m glad we all agree. It all breaks down to this: no one is immune to mistakes, whether it’s a mistake of their own making or (more likely) an end effect of the system, especially our fucked-up broken medical system I hate representing. (Sorry, system! Had to say it.) If you think I am making too many excuses for my patients, I will let you know that I am often one of the first people to make excuses for them in their lives and am happy to do so for no fee whatsoever. I would juggle speculums if they asked. I have not yet been asked to do this.

Additionally, the women who come to terminate their pregnancies at my clinic and in general are disproportionately poor. Is this because poor people are disproportionately stupid and can’t use a condom or don’t believe it works or whatever? Nope! It’s because poor people are disproportionately fucked by the system. I could tell you things that would make you SO MAD but I won’t. OK fine, I will, just one thing.

If a patient who has just gotten an abortion wants an IUD — the most effective form of birth control, little chance for user error, good for five or 10 years depending on which kind you get — they have to come back for it, not because there’s any clinical reason to wait, but because Medicaid doesn’t cover two procedures in one day. Most of the time the way this ends up breaking down is they come back for their follow-up appointment, then again for a pap smear/pelvic exam to “clear” them for the IUD, then one more time for the insertion. All to make sure it gets covered. And also please don’t get pregnant at any point in that month-long process where you don’t have your preferred method of contraception because then the process repeats. Man, are they ever stupid not to pay for it themselves with the five hundred dollars they allotted that year specifically for that purpose! I wonder what else they’re dumb at.

But “the remorseful patient” is the only patient whom your nice-but-then-surprisingly-conservative aunt is going to be like, “Well, I mean, I don’t believe in it, but if she was really sorry. And if she was married and it was crazy how it happened.” If you need help recruiting your aunt and others who are not quite on board with us no-hierarchy-of-abortion people yet, try my favorite fact for this situation: 65% of women who get abortions in this country are already moms! Smile, there’s a 65% chance your mother chose abortion because she wanted to make sure she could take care of her already-existing children, i.e., you. If that doesn’t work, take the “trend” angle and say how more evidence is showing that contraceptive sabotage is part of domestic violence. And just as no one is immune to contraception just straight up not working, no one is immune to those probably-apocryphal “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” stories, so encourage their recounting and then bring it on home. Should these women be forced to have a baby, too? I’ll be seeing both of you at the potluck next week!

4th question: What is the craziest thing you’ve encountered?

Every day I have gone into the clinic I cannot help but feel I’m working with the heavy shit — high drama. Not just the threat of violence and the content of the work but the fact that the news has a way of showing up in your waiting room pretty much daily. I shall call this place that is so dense with significance “Nightmare Town.” Which includes pro-life patients! Yes! They too get abortions! I will tell you the story of the one who was my patient.

I was with the doctor I train with doing the initial steps of an intake — an ultrasound to date the pregnancy and a full history.The patient says to the doctor, “I should not be here today. I agree with the people out there.” Gestures out window to street. The people at the bus stop???? “The people who are protesting. I think what you are doing is wrong. I think you should be killed.” Oh. Whoaaaa!

Dr. S does a clinical version of “Werewolf-ing Yourself” which consists of extensively documenting this woman’s ambivalence in the chart, alerting the counseling staff to a patient who would require a lot of support and quickly peacing out of the room before she voiced any of the many justifiable but possibly hurtful words that could come in response to someone looking you in the eye and telling you that you should die for what you do. The only thing that she did say before closing the door was to me, and it was “Your turn!” This is because my secret healthcare superpower is invulnerability to other people’s cognitive dissonance, no matter how profound.

So I told my patient what I truly believe, which is: “I’m so sorry that you feel that way because feeling that way has got to make this an even harder decision than it already is. I imagine it must really feel awful to think that you have to do something that goes against your own beliefs.” (Secret inspiration: my own feelings about the situation!) “I know there is no way you’re going to go home feeling you did the absolute right thing no matter what happens today. We are not going to do any procedure until you are absolutely certain that this is what you want. I do not want you to have an abortion. The only that I want you to do is the thing that is most right for you, whether it’s continuing this pregnancy and becoming a parent, or adoption, or abortion.” Then we brought her with her boyfriend to the counselor who talked with them for hours about the spectrum of resources available for not just abortion but adoption and parenting. At my clinic, we joke that we turn away more patients than the protestors do. And although she did end up terminating the pregnancy, the procedure went well, there were no complications, and she told the staff we had been the “most supportive!” I personally thanked her and told her it was an honor to be there for her and still get teary when I think about it. Ice burn, Lila Rose!

Another visit to Nightmare Town. One week, on a Monday, I read about the Burris Amendment, which was an amendment to the defense bill that would have let soldiers have abortions in military facilities overseas. I read “Current law bans abortions in most cases at military facilities, even if women pay themselves, meaning they must go outside to private hospitals and clinics — an impossibility for many of the estimated 100,000 American servicewomen in foreign countries, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.” It was struck down. Couple days later one of our patients was a soldier from Afghanistan. Hey, I was just reading about you guys.

No contraception around (she was stationed pretty far out) meant that she got pregnant. “Regulations require that a woman be flown home within two weeks of the time she finds out she’s pregnant, a particular stigma for unmarried women that ends any future career advancement.” Ends any future career advancement. For my patient, that meant that she had to figure out how to make it back to the states on her own. Even if she had chosen to “go straight,” it wouldn’tve been much better: “Servicewomen who make the decision to have an abortion must first seek approval from their commanding officer to take leave from their military duty and return to the United States or a country where abortion is legal.” (Guttmacher.) Ask your boss if you can please take off a while for your abortion. And no matter what, she had to pay for it all herself. So even though she knew she was pregnant almost immediately, it took eight weeks to make arrangements, travel plans and raise all the money. That means by the time she walked in our door, she was beginning her second trimester, which is a way more expensive and invasive procedure. She also had to spend eight more weeks than she had to miserably pregnant. In Afghanistan.

Her procedure went well with no complications (notice trend) and before she left, Dr. S took her hand and said, “Thank you for saving us out there.” She responded, “Hey, thanks for saving me over here today.” As I watched them the thought that someone somewhere had to be scripting this appeared and then immediately burst. Here’s the policy that you can get pissed about, and now here’s the person you were pissed for. I see a lot of people get frustrated and huffy about stuff, and you can, but then you have to promise to actually do something about it. I have the privilege to be reminded that this is someone’s life, not the New York Times Most Emailed Article. And it is an honor to be reminded. It makes me work harder. Being an abortion provider has meant that I drive home from work knowing I did something, actually everything in my power, to support people who needed it. It’s a privilege and it’s fucking awesome.

Dolores P. is most of the way through training as a nurse practitioner. She has probably seen at least 1,000 vaginas. She’s also into reading, driving very fast, and penpals: intrauterinista@gmail.com.

Photo via the Wellcome Library.

Antoine Dodson’s Sister: On Invisibility as Violence

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:50:06 -0400

We are in the midst of Antoine Dodson Mania! For those that don’t know him, he’s the now famous man who fought off the intruder that climbed into his sister’s second story window in the middle of the night and tried to attack her with her daughter present. Remember his reaction? Hilarious right? I mean pissed off that his sister was attacked! LMFAO! So hilarious that now there is this song that has remixed the news clip and turned it into the new summertime hit. It has even made the iTunes Top 20 and we can purchase sexual assualt for $1.99 and jam all day! And the star of all this is of course was Antoine Dodson for his “comedic” reaction to violence and the Gregory Brothers for their creative innovation of putting it to song. Sarcasm aside, I must admit that to remix a news story like that is pretty amazing. But what does it mean to remix violence against black women when our stories are already left behind?

See usually when a black woman is attacked we find some way of making it her fault. We ask questions like what was she wearing? What does she do for a living? How many sexual partners has she had in the past? You know, the typical stuff that removes accountability from her attacker. But in this case, where a black woman minding her damn business awoke to an attacker in her second story apartment, normal victim-blaming would not work. So now what do we do, because we obviously can’t take a black woman’s story of violence seriously? Well, that’s simple. We marginalize the attack and focus the story on her brother, whose anger we can exploit because it fits into stereotypes of queer masculinity that provide comic relief. The producers used the footage to lock Antoine in a frame, to capture him in place, in order to tell a story that fits their truths—black women’s confrontations with sexual violence are either not real or unimportant. Framed under the guise of “news” this masquerades as a story about a woman awaking to an intruder in her bed but is really a story about a funny black man, hilarious in his anger. It was never about her.

I think we have to talk about the power of invisibility. As a child, I participated in the normal debates about what superpowers were the most desirable. For me, invisibility won hands down! To be able to be invisible was the most super of all the powers. See, I was nosey so being invisible would allow me to know exactly what my mother and her sisters talked about when I was shooed out of the room. It would allow me to see what the forbidden boy’s bathroom looked like. And those moments of being in a new place wouldn’t have felt nearly as terrifying if I could turn on the power of invisibility. Invisibility also afforded protection. Remember Violet from The Incredibles? Invisibility not only protects her from being noticed by the young man she has a crush on, it keeps her safe as she travels though the evil lab in search of her father. Or Harry Potter and that banging invisibility cloak. It not only allowed him to freely explore the campus, but also often saved his life.

But as invisibility oscillates between power and protection, the ways in which it can be used as a tool of oppression become, well invisible. For women of color, invisibility is often forced and along with hypervisibility, it is used to as means to discredit and oppress. This is indeed the case with Kelly Dodson, made invisible through the hypervisibility of her brother. Her invisibility is highlighted by the numerous Antoine Dodson for President T-shirts and paraphernalia that exists in the same space that doesn’t even remember Kelly’s name. (In fact, I had to go back and watch the video to even remember her name; a video I found by merely typing in “Antoine Dodson”).

Kelly Dodson’s experience of violence gets reduced to a fragment of the news segment and even further condensed to one line in the song: “I was attacked by some idiot in the projects.” And while Antoine is central, that too is nothing to be celebrated. He is hypervisible as a caricature for public amusement. We all know Antoine’s name thanks to but the “Bed Intruder Song” the Gregory Brothers have taken his voice chopped it up, synthesized it, and put it to a beat so that they are no longer recognizable as his own. He wasn’t looking for fame. He was angry that he had to save his sister from being attacked! Antoine has been hypervisiblized in order to invisibilize Kelly. This is not the invisibility of Harry Potter, free to put it on and take it off, this is an act of erasure.

There is a difference between choosing invisibility and being made invisible. See the choice of being invisible also comes with the recognition that you’re missing. When Harry and the crew would return from their invisible outings people often asked where they were. When you are made invisible through processes of erasure, people don’t even acknowledge that you’re gone. It’s like you never existed. So in a story that begins with the headline “a woman awakes” we don’t even acknowledge that the entire segment focused on a man—her brother. We don’t even acknowledge that the moment she is the most upset and telling us that her young daughter was in the bed with her, the news reporter is talking over her, so this reality exists as background fodder.

As women of color, we have long yearned for black women’s experiences with oppression to be paid attention to. Our stories of sexual assault, inside and outside of our communities never make the evening news. And now, when we finally are awarded a few minutes of attention, we are simultaneously erased. We are further erased through the music that has increasingly been used to enslave rather than liberate us. It is the music that has put us in a trance and even we are singing along to a black woman being attacked. Singing along until we agree with her erasure. Until her erasure becomes more of a reality than the attack. Every note we sing erases Kelly Dodson.

I demand a remix to this remix! One who’s beat doesn’t influence your body to sway and your lips to smile as you sing the words. One that instead causes your body to curl over in pain and your eyes to water. One that makes you feel sad, or better yet angry that this happened! Can we remix this remix into a story that centers the black woman who was attacked?

So here is my letter to Kelly Dodson.

Dear Kelly,

We know that in these conversations about this internet sensation, YOU are missing. We know that when they’re jamming to the music they aren’t thinking about YOU. We know that you were never central, not in the original news story, not in the song, and not now. All of this has been about its about trivializing your brother’s anger (characterizing as “emotions running high” instead of emotions running normal for someone whose family member was attacked), the creativity of these white boys (a group who has always profited off the abuse of black women), and the power and creative force of technology. Well the Crunk Feminist Collective says it’s all about you! We are sorry that this happened to you. We are sorry that when you should be at peace in your home you were attacked. We are sorry and angry that your little girl had to be present for that. We are sorry that you no longer feel safe in your own home. We are grateful that you had someone home to help you and we are sorry that this is happening to your story. We want to center you. We want this moment to be used to talk about the realities of our communities as spaces of vulnerability and danger for women of color. We want to remember you as we work to build the communities we want to see, because lets be real, we have learned to make due but for us are neighborhoods are often scary as shit. We live in a state of violence that is so common that people can sing along to it.

We understand that you live in a community like many of us, one that is so far lacking in social safety nets that that you’re brother had to envision mechanism of accountability that would hold up regardless of a response from a police state that more often than not disregards violence done on the bodies of black women. We completely understand the realities that would make your brother tell your attacker “you don’t have to confess we’re looking for you we’re gonna find you” and when he does that he’s “gonna beat his ass and then call the police while I beat his ass because I want you to feel what you made my sister feel.” And we don’t think his or your anger is comedic and we keep his statements in mind as we attempt to build an anti-violence movement that doesn’t combat violence with violence while recognizing the difficulty of doing so.

From this point on when we hear the “Bed Intruder Song” we will force ourselves to center you, and we will think about where we stand in our anti-violence movement. We will dedicate a moment of silence to making a safe world for women and girls like you and your daughter. We want to let you know that this is not okay and we are fed the fuck up! Now Run Tell Dat Homeboy!

http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/antoine-dodsons-sister-on-invisibility-as-violence/

Black representation collision with white supremacy reinforcing...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:17:00 -0400

Black representation collision with white supremacy

reinforcing stereotypes (like propaganda like the “Birth of a Nation”) OR notion we are only good when we are servicing the interest of white folks

Transnational/Inter-racial adoption: you can have a good intention and simultaneously do something disruptive, they dont cancel each other- multiple intentionality

devaluing of education &drugs

examines and challenge addiction of the disintegration of the black community spiritual, physical and material, this is holocaust: slow &invisible

Loretta Ross: The Economic and Racial Dynamics of Abortion -we...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:56:03 -0400

Loretta Ross: The Economic and Racial Dynamics of Abortion
-we cannot decouple womyn from the communities they are apart of

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty"

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:24:46 -0400

““When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty””

A few initial thoughts about the video clip: -i am really tried...

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:20:39 -0400

A few initial thoughts about the video clip:

-i am really tried of seeing Black men being pro-choice/anti-abortion, because i think they seem to be authentic and legitimate representations of Black people for certain people and the videos i have come across have no idea how womyn feel.

-i think in a society that is all caught up in one-sided “history” and statistics/quantitative information we need to challenge the limitations of this one representation and to the limitations of numbers. we need to read for stories, experiences and perspectives.