Sunday Night Common Sense

Here I share with you what the definition of "Crunk Feminism" is from The Crunk Feminist Collective's Mission Statement. Never heard of it? Now you have!

Crunk Feminism is the animating principle of our collective work together and derives from our commitment to feminist principles and politics, and also from our unapologetic embrace of those new cultural resources, which provide or offer the potential for resistance. Crunk(ness) is our mode of resistance that finds its particular expression in the rhetorical, cultural, and intellectual practices of a contemporary generation.

Beat-driven and bass-laden, Crunk music blends Hip Hop culture and Southern Black culture in ways that are sometimes seamless, but more often dissonant. Its location as part of Southern Black culture references the South both as the location that brought many of us together and as the place where many of us still do vibrant and important intellectual and political work. The term “Crunk” was initially coined from a contraction of “crazy” or “chronic” (weed) and “drunk” and was used to describe a state of uber-intoxication, where a person is “crazy drunk,” out of their right mind, and under the influence. But where merely getting crunk signaled that you were out of your mind, a crunk feminist mode of resistance will help you get your mind right, as they say in the South. As part of a larger women-of-color feminist politic, crunkness, in its insistence on the primacy of the beat, contains a notion of movement, timing, and of meaning making through sound, that is especially productive for our work together. Percussion by definition refers to “the sound, vibration or shock caused by the striking together of two bodies.” Combining terms like Crunk and Feminism, and the cultural, gendered, and racial histories signified in each, is a percussive moment, one that signals the kind of productive dissonance that occurs as we work at the edges of disciplines, on the margins of social life, and in the vexed spaces between academic and non-academic communities. Our relationship to feminism and our world is bound up with a proclivity for the percussive, as we divorce ourselves from “correct” or hegemonic ways of being in favor of following the rhythm of our own heartbeats. In other words, what others may call audacious and crazy, we call CRUNK because we are drunk off the heady theory of feminism that proclaims that another world is possible. We resist others’ attempts to stifle our voices, acting belligerent when necessary and getting buck when we have to. Crunk feminists don’t take no mess from nobody!

Have a question? Contact us at crunkfeminists@gmail.com

Sunday Night Common Sense

It's National Poetry Month and in solidarity of all the poetas in my life I want to share some of the words that inspire them or that they have written. Today comes from my homegirl Meagan La Mamita Mala Ortiz, who posted this Gloria Anzaldua poem for day 2 here.

The Cannibal’s Cancion

It is our custom
to consume
the person we love.
Taboo flesh: swollen
genitalia nipples
the scrotum the vulva
the soles of the feet
the palms of the hand
heart and liver taste best.
Cannibalism is blessed.

I’ll wear your jawbone
round my neck
listen to your vertebrae
bone rapping bone in my wrists.
I’ll string your fingers round my waist–
what a rigorous embrace.
Over my heart I’ll wear
a brooch with a lock of your hair.
Nights I’ll sleep cradling
your skull sharpening
my teeth on your toothless grin.

Sundays there’s mass and communion
and I’ll put your relics to rest.

Sunday Night Common Sense

by Paulo Coelho ( “The Witch of Portobello” )

I’m going in search of the adventure of being alive.And it’s complicated: why am I not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing?

Why am i going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?After all, what is happiness?

Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness.

On the contrary, its a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; its sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstacy and agony.All right then, peace.

Peace? If we look at the Mother, she’s never at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and d moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who’s afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.

Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop work. But then they’re more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that’s true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money wont necessarily bring happiness.I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness, now what i want is joy.

Joy is like sex – it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contended, but happiness? I no longer fall into that trap.

Sunday Night Common Sense

Comes from one of my favorite homegirls/bloggers/professors: ProfSusurro who tweeted this week (in 3 parts):

always advocate for yourself & take nothing for granted, but never let anyone tell you oppression isn't real some times u can b the best advocate in the world & the wall of bigotry will still come up & smack ur arse; real miracle is getting back up

Sunday Night Common Sense

Peace

Sunday Night Common Sense

From former Surgeon General of the US: Dr. Joycelyn Elders on abstinence-only education:

I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse....Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.

I wholeheartedly agree with her!

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today I want to quote one of my favorite people in the entire world. My homegirl Barbara is a Black South African writer, mother, partner, scholar. We met in a PhD program in Women's Studies. I had asked her what her thoughts were regarding the film District 9 because all of the reviews were from a very US-centric space. She finally watched the film and agreed that I could share with you all her thoughts here:

I know I'm really late but finally saw District 9 after holding out on giving that fool my hard-earned money because I heard it was problematic.

It is an appalling piece of trash which appropriates South Africa's recent traumatic past and current social problems to serve up as entertainment. The forced removals, the discourse about the aliens not really understanding property ownership - all of these come from very recent white supremacist actions against and discourse about black south Africans. Word for word almost, these were the same things said about us. Even the armored vehicles used in the army invasion scenes were the very same vehicles used to terrorize us and shoot at us when I was growing up in a township in the 80s.

The camp in which the aliens live is a replica of similar camps which exist today, in which the SA government cordons off immigrants from elsewhere in Africa, supposedly for their own safety. Plus, millions of black South Africans live in conditioins just like those depicted in the alien settlement - I find it very disturbing that the film unproblematically displays these appaling housing conditions as part of a sci-fi dystopia, while millions of real people actually live like that. and of course, this is not to mention how cheap the sets must have been to create (just move a few black families out of their homes) in comparison to the profits this film has raked in.

The film trades in the worst stereotypes of African people (corrupt Nigerians; cannibalism, aliens stealing your shoes, setting alight cars and trains for entertainment - really? really?) - just another example of cultural violence inflicted upon African people. Within the first five minutes of starting to watch this, i could not believe that this film was allowed to be made or see the light of day! I can really not believe that someone would turn all these painful past events and steroetypes into fodder for white entertainment around the globe, and reinforce racist views of Africans as violent barbarians. I found it incredibly offensive.


Thanks Bianca for feeling my pain and helping me process it. Sure you can quote me on your blog. There's one thing I want to add, if you will allow me:

The title District 9 plays on the events of a settlement called District 6, which was a very vibrant part of urban Cape Town during the first part of the 20th century. It was racially mixed, cosmopolitan, and by most accounts a progressive, transgressive space. During the 60s-80s, the apartheid government systematically destroyed the community by forcibly removing the poeple who lived there and dumping them in ghettoes created on the outskirts of the city (my grandfather grew up there). They did this through extreme violence, by ripping people out of their homes, then buldozing the entire space, flattening it so that there were not even remnants of the people and place. They destroyed the community, and it is a really painful part of the indigenous people's history in Cape Town. The area is still a gaping hole and blight on the landscape where District 6 once stood - they never redeveloped it or did anything with it, just moved everyone out and destroyed the vibrancy of community.

So when i first heard the title of this movie, it was obvious that the filmmaker was referencing this space, and I assumed that he would be making some commentary on the injustice of its destruction, and the ongoing travesty of the urban space still standing empty whent there is a housing crisis in Cape Town that leaves many families homeless. At the very least, I expected that the memory of this place, which to me and many others borders on sacred, would be treated respectfully. But no, the memory was appropriated and exploited, embellished with these disgusting racist stereotypes of black people as violent savages, and served as entertainment.

OK, I think my rant is over - thanks again for listening! much love, B

DISCLAIMER: I only saw the first 1/2 hour

Sunday Night Common Sense

I love this quote about Bajan students and language in the classroom:

...in order for students to feel comfortable and assert themselves within their learning environment, a classroom culture that represents their society should be evoked.
Dr. Richard Allsopp

Read the full story here.

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today I am going to pull a quote that I shared from the amazing scholar, writer, activist and LatiNegra: Mayra Santos-Febres who I featured earlier this month. From her erotic story "Faith In Disguise" which was featured in the anthology Juicy Mangos:

"...I was ashamed that I couldn't hold it; that I came so easily without even having penetrated her once. I was the penetrated, the one who came first." p. 66

So many layers and challenges of the rigid gendered performances when it comes to what we find erotic, sensual, passionate.

Sunday Night Common Sense

I know I've been slacking on the SNCS, pero I've taken on a lot (School of Our Lorde, Jiggly Boo Dance Crew, Another writing gig), teaching is back in full effect and then I got sick!

But tonight's SNCS comes from someone who commented on the Global Voices article that featured the LatiNegr@s Project. Gregorio writes:

I am black with Latino roots. It made me feel good to see the article about Afro- Latinos. I was exposed to black history when I was a child but nothing ever was mentioned or known about the Afro-Latinos contributions to the richness that permeates blacks in Diaspora. Viva la raza, y viva la humanidad que nos definen.

Viva!

Sunday Night Common Sense

Alright I've been slacking on the SNCS, so here's a quick one I love.

Sex is the servant of art.

Robert Longo

Sunday Night Common Sense

today i'm sharing a quote my homegirl pazenlavida shared from one of her homies:

"If you go home with a person and they don't have any books, don't f*ck them" - John Waters

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today I want to quote one of my favorite people I follow on twitter who is also a scholar and who I would be incredibly honored if she mentored me (it's already surreal the advice she shares and the convos we have on twitter)! She hosts the blog Like A Whisper where our love for popular culture, media, feminisms, intersectionality, and ending oppressions via social justice and change merge:

if your response to someone drawing your attention to intersectionality is to ask "what have you done to effect change" you are the problem

By profsusurro

Sunday Night Common Sense

UPDATE 11/23/2019
Unfortunately this author has believed the lies of white supremacy and has promoted dehumanization of various community members. This post and others will include this update for accountability and archival purposes.

I want to share a quote I provided on the Love Isn't Enough website's Open Thread this week. In response to some resistance regarding the name change from Anti-Racist Parent to Love Isn't Enough, I quoted Kenaz Filan author of Vodou Love Magic (I'm commenter 28):

“Some would have you believe that if you love your partner (or child) long enough and fiercely enough, that person will be healed of old emotional wounds that reach the potential that you saw all along….Nobody claims that love alone is enough to cure cancer. No one writes romance novels about people who were once diabetic, but we can now snack on candy bars thanks to their partner’s undying devotion. And yet we have this odd idea that we can cure alcoholism, mental illness, or other psychological behaviors by love alone. What’s worse, we often blame ourselves when our unrealistic expectations aren’t met! (”If only I were a better partner (or parent), maybe he wouldn’t behave like that.”)…Your love for each other can certainly help, but only if it is combined with deeds and actions, not just words and promises.”

() were my additions.

Sunday Night Common Sense

Comes from Francine Reed who sings "Wild Women Don't Get No Blues"written by Ida Cox in the 1920s!

I hear these women raving 'bout their
monkey men
About their trifling
husbands and their no good friends
These poor women sit around all day and moan
Wondering why their wandering papa's don't come home
But wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues
Now when you've got a man, don't never be on the square
'Cause if you do he'll have a woman everywhere
I never was known to treat no one man right
I keep 'em working hard both day and night
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues
I've got a disposition and a way of my own
When my man starts kicking I let him find another home
I get full of good liquor, walk the streets all night
Go home and put my man out if he don't act right
Wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues
You never get nothing by being an angel child
You better change your ways and get real wild
I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you a lie
Wild women are the only kind that really get by
'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

Sunday Night Common Sense

I went to the opera 2 weeks ago with a friend. We went to see Don Giovanni and it was fabulous! Funny, beautiful, entertaining, and with a touch of magical realism (rumors have it that the show is similar to the tale of "Don Juan." In any event, there was a translation during one of the aria's that read:

"there is so much that we feel that we do not understand."

Ain't that the truth?!

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today's quote comes from the mother of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, Miriam Mercado:

“When my son told me he was gay, I told him, ‘Now, I love you more.’ I want to tell the world that hatred is not born with human beings, it is a seed that is planted by adults and is fostered creating a climate of intolerance and violence. We must change our ways and understand that anyone …could have been my son. And I want everybody to know that Jorge Steven was a very much loved son.”

Sunday Night Common Sense

Read a book.

That is all.

Sunday Night Common Sense

Today's SNCS comes from my time watching films this week. Watching Akeelah and The Bee and being reminded of this Marianne Williamson quote is what I'd like to share with you all today:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

From A Return To Love

Sunday Night Common Sense (On Monday)

I was playing with my homegirls Sparkle and Mamita Mala and we had a sleepover at Casa Mala which is why the Sunday Night Common Sense is coming to you this Monday.

For some this is a holiday, for others it's a farce, and for some it's a reminder of painful rememories. Let's get the story right and not forget about the indigenous communities of which so many of us from the Caribbean are a part.