Love letters to looters

Dear Me/We/You/Us

Under strict loving soft encouragement from the QBG I am writing us a love letter. And the things I love about ourselves and myself and weselves and multiple selves on multiple plains/planes.

The first part of y/our love letter of course is a love letter to our inability to do the assignment , any assignment as it is asked.

When I started this letter I had as I usually do grand plans of combining it with a stinging commentary on Haiti/an admonishment to American progressive laziness/ response to stupid stupid lady who knows nothing about black new media feminism/and a love letter to all of you I carry with me .

I think I started with the idea of combining them because of of something Delux wrote that I the idea that our very exisistance is multi tasked . While hers is of course based on the Dubois talented tenth Not just inter sectional as in existing , but that every breath or motion exists in our bodies and lives at multiple sometimes oppositional ends.

and that attempts to sustain this existence in any form are transgressive always or confrontational or violent where they are none.

One of the things I love about me is my appearance to be anywhere BUT my own country it seems.

I am Senegalese/Creole/Dominican/Brazilian/Carolina Geechee/ DEFINITELY west indian but NOT Guyanese

and Haitian

I may say it's the french but it's often before I open my mouth.

And it is often well lets be realistic most of the time that my radical self screams and chafes and just rages at the idea of being categorized without my permission , my ever awkward self demanding that peopel recognize teh one thing I often feel I have to call my own

but my nun /self the self that is always trying to be open and good and present

that self sees people looking for home for familiarity for knowledge in you in unfamiliar places.

From kids from your hood in the museum

foreigners well damn near everywhere

people find home in you even when you can't find it in yourself

i love that you fixate on words on ideas on concepts . That this letter is called a love letter to looting because you jsut can;t satnd that it's being used to describe people trying not to die.

Because you feel it in the pit of your stomach that it's what we have been called all our lives.

Looting someones "spot" by daring to be brighter
Looting someones comfort by daring to be hurt at a slight
Looting someone's success by daring to point out flaws
Looting the movement by daring to not work for free.
Looting your own future by daring to survive instead of " trying to do something better with your life"

Because in the end no one pays your bills feeds your family hears your cry makes your Damoclean choices

and because most off you just know it's looking looking for a way to organize a world that does not believe in you for your proper existence. That we understand that often being incomprehensible is a nice way of being dismissible

I think That is what I thought of when I read Lex's email and facebook post. That at the crux of it most of the problem isn;t actually ignorance, or meanness but shear incomprehensibility.

That we write create our media and push our lives in ways that are deemed " small"

because none of those women can imagine having to constantly reclaim your life your humanity every generation every new birth .

That sometimes yelling at Rupert Murdoch , or snarling at each other about whose incharge

can never mean as much as turning to saying .

"I see you , I hear you , and there is no wrong in your existence"

Even as you try to make yourself understand that.

I love that you even dare to try.

I love that you greet things and developments that match your Cassandra like propensity for prediction with equal measure of curse and hug. That you enjoy being right without relishing it,

I love that you erased that last sentence , You're learning!

I truly love your relish in being wrong . Because you wish to learn, you are open, you are fearfilled and that gives you courage.

I love you not because you are perfect or a specimen or a goddess but because you are you

love

Me and You and All of you

Love letters to looters

Dear Me/We/You/Us

Under strict loving soft encouragement from the QBG I am writing us a love letter. And the things I love about ourselves and myself and weselves and multiple selves on multiple plains/planes.

The first part of y/our love letter of course is a love letter to our inability to do the assignment , any assignment as it is asked.

When I started this letter I had as I usually do grand plans of combining it with a stinging commentary on Haiti/an admonishment to American progressive laziness/ response to stupid stupid lady who knows nothing about black new media feminism/and a love letter to all of you I carry with me .

I think I started with the idea of combining them because of of something Delux wrote that I the idea that our very exisistance is multi tasked . While hers is of course based on the Dubois talented tenth Not just inter sectional as in existing , but that every breath or motion exists in our bodies and lives at multiple sometimes oppositional ends.

and that attempts to sustain this existence in any form are transgressive always or confrontational or violent where they are none.

One of the things I love about me is my appearance to be anywhere BUT my own country it seems.

I am Senegalese/Creole/Dominican/Brazilian/Carolina Geechee/ DEFINITELY west indian but NOT Guyanese

and Haitian

I may say it's the french but it's often before I open my mouth.

And it is often well lets be realistic most of the time that my radical self screams and chafes and just rages at the idea of being categorized without my permission , my ever awkward self demanding that peopel recognize teh one thing I often feel I have to call my own

but my nun /self the self that is always trying to be open and good and present

that self sees people looking for home for familiarity for knowledge in you in unfamiliar places.

From kids from your hood in the museum

foreigners well damn near everywhere

people find home in you even when you can't find it in yourself

i love that you fixate on words on ideas on concepts . That this letter is called a love letter to looting because you jsut can;t satnd that it's being used to describe people trying not to die.

Because you feel it in the pit of your stomach that it's what we have been called all our lives.

Looting someones "spot" by daring to be brighter
Looting someones comfort by daring to be hurt at a slight
Looting someone's success by daring to point out flaws
Looting the movement by daring to not work for free.
Looting your own future by daring to survive instead of " trying to do something better with your life"

Because in the end no one pays your bills feeds your family hears your cry makes your Damoclean choices

and because most off you just know it's looking looking for a way to organize a world that does not believe in you for your proper existence. That we understand that often being incomprehensible is a nice way of being dismissible

I think That is what I thought of when I read Lex's email and facebook post. That at the crux of it most of the problem isn;t actually ignorance, or meanness but shear incomprehensibility.

That we write create our media and push our lives in ways that are deemed " small"

because none of those women can imagine having to constantly reclaim your life your humanity every generation every new birth .

That sometimes yelling at Rupert Murdoch , or snarling at each other about whose incharge

can never mean as much as turning to saying .

"I see you , I hear you , and there is no wrong in your existence"

Even as you try to make yourself understand that.

I love that you even dare to try.

I love that you greet things and developments that match your Cassandra like propensity for prediction with equal measure of curse and hug. That you enjoy being right without relishing it,

I love that you erased that last sentence , You're learning!

I truly love your relish in being wrong . Because you wish to learn, you are open, you are fearfilled and that gives you courage.

I love you not because you are perfect or a specimen or a goddess but because you are you

love

Me and You and All of you

Anger is Useful! New Podcast and Introducing the Little Black (Feminist) Book Series

Who's afraid of the Angry Black Woman? Well BE AFRAID because Angry Black Woman are speaking our minds and transforming the world in the service of our vision. Oppression beware the well-directed rage of Black feminism!

This week for your listening and reading pleasure we have the ANGRY BLACK WOMAN edition of the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Podcast Series! As always, we start with the brilliance of our ancestors...meditating on the poetic of rage in June Jordan's angry letters to racist editors and including reflections from Nia Wilson, Mai'a Williams, Moya Bailey, Daria Bannerman and the young visionaries at New Horizon's Alternative School...plus as always music that rocks (including a track from the genuis Jon Anonymous project by Durham's own Shirlette Ammons!)

http://brokenbeautiful.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/final-angry-black-woman-podcast.mp3

And while you're at it...download or subscribe to the podcasts on itunes (search "brokenbeautiful press" in podcasts and we'll be all up in your eardrum!)

And just because my anger about racism, and sexism and gendered violence is based in my deep deep love for YOU and the world we deserve...BrokenBeautiful Press is happy to present The Little Black (Feminist) Book Series Volume 1: RAGE. Including that essay on June Jordan's Angry Letters and 4 other classic angry blogposts from the thatlittleblackbook.blogspot.com. It's pocket-sized in case you need to hand it to someone who clearly doesn't get it. Get one on deck with a donation of 15 bucks or more all proceeds go to the Community Sustained Educational programming from Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!

Go to paypal.com and send your donation to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with RAGE in product line and your correct mailing address. (Or just holler at me if you have the divine insight to live in Durham.) There are only 20 so get yours soon :)

Apply for the School of Our Lorde Poetics Unit by January 25th!: Available in Durham and the Diaspora!

The School of Our Lorde is comprised of 4 units of Thursday evening sessions that allow participants to deeply engage and build on the work of Audre Lorde as transmitted through the committed (obsessive) research of Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the poetics, teaching practices, political implications and publishing interventions of Audre Lorde’s work (and to enjoy delicious local desserts together) on Thursday evenings. Participants will also get coursepacks with some exclusive and unpublished materials on/by Lorde. Participants can choose to participate in one 3 week semester or the entire 4 month process. Engaging, interactive poetic childcare will be provided at every session with amazing activities imagined with and implemented by Beth Bruch!!!! No one who completes an application and can attend will be turned away.

February 2010: Poetics ****Applications Due January 25th 2010****

Poetics: Audre Lorde is best known as a warrior poet. In February, School of Our Lorde participants will get a change to deeply engage Lorde’s poetry (with the benefit of Lex’s archival research on her revisions) and write their own poetry. We will meet over dessert on Thursday February 4th, 11th and 18th (Audre’s b-day!!!!) and the poets will perform their own new or transformed work at a community reading on Saturday February 20th.

Apply for the poetics course here: School of Our Lorde Poetics Application (pdf version)

School of Our Lorde Poetics Application

email applications to brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com or drop them off at the Inspiration Station (email for directions)

Distance Learning

For those of you who are not lucky enough to live in Durham, NC right now...don't worry. Audre Lorde and I both believe in long-distance love.

You can participate in the School of Our Lorde long-distance in 3 ways:

Host Your Own Satellite Campus!:

Why not have School of Our Lorde at your organization or in YOUR living room!? If you can gather 5 or more people to participate in any unit you can get a course packet with the course readings and worksheets to guide you through each session. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Our vision is that each Satellite Campus will be able to make a sliding scale contribution of $75-200 per unit. No group will be turned away.

To become a host, email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with what session you'd like to host and your vision!

Independent Study:

Let us know how the School of Our Lorde poetics, pedagogy, politics of publishing process can support something you are working on with/for your community. You will get a course packet and worksheets. You can also participate (along with other satellite campuses) in a monthly interactive BrightTalk session and office hours on LiveStream.

Fill out the application for the appropriate unit here: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/registration/

and get 7 people to financially support your participation. Our hope is that each independent student will raise between $50-150 to contribute to the School of Our Lorde. No one will be turned away!

Lorde as Our Witness:

You can participate in the School of our Lorde through this blog. There will be weekly video blog updates and reflections from the local participants and you can always post comments and questions here and I'll respond. Feel free to spread the good news in your community so one day you can host a School of Our Lorde institute where you live!

Best Gift Ever: Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind DVDs.

Watch, share, enjoy, repost! If you'd like to order a DVD with these videos and more to use in your classroom (and to support the MobileHomeComing Community Documentation and Education Project) make a donation of $15 or more to the MobileHomeComing Project!

1) Click DONATE.
2) Enter an Amount and note that you are ordering the DVD.
3) Click Continue.
(or login to your paypal account).
4) Follow instructions to finish your transaction. You're Done!

For a copy of our budget or any more information please email us at mobilehomecoming@gmail.com

Here is the listing!

And to watch some previews check out: http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/eternal-summer-of-the-black-feminist-mind-educational-videos/!

love,
lex

Be Bold Be Re(a)d: The Podcast

3 years ago women of color came together and transformed what it meant to transform terror on Halloween, declaring October 31st Be Bold Be Red Day, a day for women of color and allies to speak out against violence against women. And 30 years ago women of color came together to respond to violence in the same critical and poetic spirit.

Towards the world the we all deserve, fully transformed from the misogyny and internalized racism we face in popular music to the frightening expendability of the lives and bodies of women of color this podcast places the brave voices of women telling the truth about gendered violence over the remixed sounds of Miles Davis. This year we take every sound back, starting with our own voices and the background that seeks to silence them.

Listen with your community, your class, your friends, your study group, your church, your crew, pass the link on or listen by yourself and see, hear and wear red.

listen here

[audio http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3]

or download here: http://brokenbeautiful.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/real-be-bold-be-red-podcast.mp3

Lex Available for Lectures and Workshops!

This year Alexis is using her best developed and most cherished skill-the art of the life-changing workshop-to raise funds to support her decision to spend the next year doing the MobileHomeComing an immersive intergenerational community documentation and education project based on her lust for back queer community! (It's weird that somehow I have to be consistent with a choice to talk about myself in the third person here, but I want to interject in the first person to say that your support means everything to me and it is evidence of the fact that it is possible to be a community supported, community accountable scholar in the 21st Century. :)

Bring Alexis to your campus, community center, to speak, or do a workshop that you will never forget!

at the Furious Flower Poetry Center!

Lectures:

Alexis is available to speak on a variety of topics and has tons of experiences speaking to audiences at elementary schools, college campuses, community centers, rallies, conferences and workshops. Click on the links for examples of public talks she has given in the past. She might particularly be a great person to complement your community or campus programming during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Love Your Body Week, Celebration of Black Womanhood Week, Black Heritage Month, Women's History Month, National Coming Out Day, Mother's Day or throw tokenism to the wind and bring Alexis to speak and make any old day of the year a day filled with hope and magic!

Alexis's Academic CV

Workshops:

(Most workshops are available either as a one time session, a day-long intensive or a series within the NC Triangle or Triad areas. Get in touch about what works best for your community. Below are workshops that I have facilitated many times before. I can also design workshops specifically for your needs :)

Movement

Pressed for Knowledge: Alexis has facilitated this miraculous zine making workshop all over the United States in communities, on college campuses and at conferences. In this workshop participants (whether they are part of an existing group or are meeting for the first time on the day of the workshop) use the resources of urgency, homegrown brilliance and whatever's around to create their own publication in less than 2 hours. Alexis leads participants in a process of choosing an audience, a theme that connects their passions and a work structure and a group evaluation process for their own urgent publication! (NEW!!! Pressed for Knowledge is now available in a video version...where participants create and edit their own video in an amazingly short period of time!)

Grassroots Literary Production: Due to her experience leading the Pressed for Knowledge workshop and facilitating students at Duke University, UNC-Greensboro and the SpiritHouse Choosing Sides program in the creation of their own online and print collaborative publications, Alexis can train teachers, faculty and community cultural workers to make publication a part of their programming.

The Activist Impulse: Similar to the Pressed for Knowledge Workshop, this workshops leads participants through a process of deciding on, designing and enacting and evaluating a site-specific direct action. Alexis has led this workshop with a class of Duke University Students, at the Ethnic Studies and the Activist Impulse Symposium at Columbia University, the Beyond the Box Conference at Barnard College, the Anarchist People of Color SouthEast Regional Conference and more!

Legacy

(These workshops are grounded in Alexis's years of black feminist research and spiritual practice and are ideal for a community organization, school, department or group of people interested in how the theory, practice, poetry and lessons of black feminist practice apply to their present conditions)

Letters to Audre: developed in a special writing enrichment course that Alexis designed for Africana Women's Studies majors at Bennett College for Women, this workshop or series of workshops introduces participants to key works by black feminist lesbian poet, scholar, activist Audre Lorde. Participants create their own versions of/responses to poems and essays by Audre Lorde including Litany for Survival and The Uses of Anger. Participatns also write their own poetic letters to this literary feminist ancestor. See www.letterstoaudre.wordpress.com for examples. Alexis is also available to lead seminars for faculty, teachers, and community educators on Teaching Audre Lorde.

Letters to June: Along a similar model as the Letters to Audre Workshop, this curriculum was developed for a feminist theory course at UNC-Greensboro. Participants will write their own "Poem About My Rights" and "What's Love Got to Do With It" and also engage some of Jordan's lesser known and unpublished pieces. Alexis is also available to use her privileged access as the first researcher to view June Jordan's archival papers to lead seminars on Teaching June Jordan.

Litany for Survival: The Poetics of Community Building This writing and movement workshop, designed in collaboration with Ebony Golden starts from the grounding point of Audre Lorde's Litany for Survival and leads participants through a process of analyzing the poem for themselves, using theater of the oppressed methodologies to demonstrate what survival means for them and creating their own praise poems towards the survival of their own communities. This workshop was debuted at the Brecht Forum in New York City with an amazing response.

In Your Hands: The Depth of Legacy: based on a spiritual experience that Alexis had of recieving and writing down letters from chosen, (and uninvited!) black feminist ancestors including Fannie Lou Hamer, Nayo Watkins, Toni Cade Bambara, Octavia Butler and her own grandmother (see the letters and the video documentation of the process here) this workshop is designed to facilitate participants in listening for and to the legacies of their own chosen traditions. Alexis will facilitate a disucssion of some of the insights in the letters she recieved and each participant will leave with a plan and a way to make space for their own insights.

Sustainability

(these workshops are designed to keep community members, community organizers, students and teachers ALIVE AND WELL with full access to their love for themselves, each other and their inspired purpose!)


Habit Forming Love: This workshop shares the gifts of a 21 day process in which Alexis sought to learn how to love herself, her partner and her community better and to train herself in online video production and distribution. Available as a one time workshop or a skills building series, this workshop will allow participants to use new media technology to deepen and activate their love for themselves, their chosen family and their communities. Browse Alexis's video project here.

Mother Ourselves: Created in collaboration with Zachari Curtis for the Gumbo Yaya Sister Circle, and inspired by Audre Lorde's essay "Eye to Eye," this workshop provides participants with a safe space to examine their thoughts about the meaning of "mothering," and allows participants to explore what it might mean to nurture, teach and transform themselves. In this workshop we work in partners, listen to our bodies, use mirrors and talk about the affirming and difficult process of reflections linked to our varied experiencs with mothering.

Sustainability for Organizers and Activists: The workshop, designed for (and with) the organizers and visionaries in Critical Resistance, is about ENDING ACTIVIST BURN OUT!!!! Remembering that we, our bodies and our spirits are the most important resources for change, this workshop facilitates organizers in identifying the resources that keep them inspired and practices that can keep/get us well. Every participant leaves with their own visible reminder of their own wellness insights!

Vision

(These workshop are ideal for a community organization/project/coalition at a stage of inception or renewal.)

Dig: Grounding Community Transformation in Local Resources

Based on Alexis's poem dig, this workshop is designed to get community members in touch with the secrets, issues, and resources in their own communities and to build a shared analysis of those resources as a guide for their community projects and alliances. Each community will leave with at the very least, a group poem, new clarity about their resources and projects that connect and align their existing resources. The "dig" exercise has been enacted in Greensboro, Miami, Asheville and Gainesville as part of the Grassroots Media Justice Tour.

Wishful Thinking: Vision and Actualization Based on Alexis's poem in honor of black women and survivors of sexual violence in her community and recorded as a track on the SPEAK! CD this workshop leads participants through a meditation about their desires for their local communities and communities of affinity. Participants will leave with a community wishlist and individual affirmations. To see some of the results of the version of Wishful Thinking facilitated with the Speak Media Collective at the Women and Action in the Media Conference see www.wakeupnew.blogspot.com.

Support the Work:

(all proceeds go towards Alexis's work on the mobilehomecoming project and do not include travel and accomodation. Priority will be given to institutions in Lex's home region of the North Carolina Triangle and Triad areas.)

Lectures:

Colleges and University-$1000 for lecture or poetic performance ($2500 for a lecture or poetic performance, Q&A and an additional classroom visit)

Community Center/Non-profit- $200-300 for lecture ($500 for lecture and workshop)

Autonomous Community Spaces (independent bookstores, churches etc.)- $100 for lecture(with the possibility of just passing the hat if we can also have publications for sale)

Workshops:

( each workshop will result in a publication/poem/major accomplishment for participants to keep and for the sponsor to be proud of!):

Colleges and Universities- $1000 ($3500 for a series)

Community Center/Non-profit- $300-500 (discounts for smaller or rural orgs, talk to me) ($850-1000 for a series)

Living Rooms/Kitchen Tables- $100 or gather your people, pass the hat and have some yummy food on hand and I'm there!!! (maybe I was a travelling black feminist preacher in a past life...)

All suggested prices are really suggested. Get in touch. (brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com)

We can work something out.

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