African Fractals

One of my past students-turned friends, Rory, posted this video and it's rocking my world! Rory quotes the presenter Ron Eglash:

When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn't even discovered yet.

(VIDEO) F&*% You AIDS

Cross posted from my RH Reality Check blog

My homegirl Nilki shared on Twitter a link to the latest HIV prevention advertisement that Spain has produced. I immediately checked out the 50-second video and was instantly just as impressed as she was. Our quick admiration for the ad was shared by the Summit International Awards which awarded this ad “Best of Show Multi-Channel Campaign.” I learned about the award and the organization that created and produced the advertisement, Coordinadora Gai Lesbiana de Catalunya (CGL), Nilki's link to the post by blogger Blabbeando.

As I watched the video a few things came to mind: use of slang and language used commonly by the community, code-switching, representing the community, and having an action-oriented message. These were all a part of my wish list for Latin@ teens during Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.

Watch the advertisement below. There is profanity that is used so the video may not be safe to view at work.



Blabbeando has shared a translation of the advertisement in English, which reads:

To you, who has fucked us during so many years, who CRUSH us all, young people, older people, women, men, heterosexuals and homosexuals. To you, ABOMINABLE being... we say...

I wanted to share this with readers here because this is what I would consider an example of an effective marketing campaign that is not only targeting youth but is intergenerational. It is not often that marketing and prevention efforts around and about HIV and AIDS in the media are so accessible and as powerful as this one. I've also noticed that many people in the US do not know the history of how the media was/is used to discuss HIV and AIDS especially in the 80s. I find this especially true with the youth I work with today.

What thoughts came up for you as you watched this video? Do you see an opportunity to use this with the community you work with? If so, in what ways do you see utilizing this video to promote discussions? How can we use anger and frustration as motivational and encouraging emotions towards preventing infection of HIV?

Teaching Abstinence

Cross posted from my Media Justice column

It’s not often that I have conversations about abstinence that are completely in-depth and devoted just to that topic. Often, the conversation is introduced in a larger conversation about choices, healing, sexual assault, contraception, and communication. As I prepare to teach a sexuality course at the private Catholic college I work at, I realize that I need to have a good selection of media (specifically songs) that discuss this reality.

Thus, I started to ask my friends about songs that discuss abstinence but that are also accessible and non-corny. When I do have conversations about abstinence I usually ask the youth I’m working with what type of sex they think people can have. I break down “sex” to include at the very least: vaginal penetration, anal penetration, and oral sex. We talk about how there are various body parts that people can do different things with by themselves or with a partner. I then share with them how some people think abstinence means maintaining their “virginity,” which is defined as a hymen. This means that some people may engage in oral or anal sex to remain a “virgin” and consider themselves abstinent. I share how it’s important for them to define how they want to define abstinence for themselves because potential partners may define it differently. It’s important to know what boundaries you have prior to someone asking to cross over them.

I’ve just fallen in love all over again with some classic songs I’ve been reminded of recently. As I prepare to teach a new summer course on sociology and sexuality these are some jams I’m thinking of teaching.

Janet Jackson’s “Let’s Wait Awhile” which features Taimak for those of you who are old enough to remember the fantabulous film “The Last Dragon.” Her lines “Let’s wait awhile, before we go too far. I didn’t really know to let all my feelings who. To save some for later, so our love could be greater” are amazing teaching tools that help promote discussions about assertive and passive communication.



Jermaine Stewart’s song that was suggested by my homegirl Sofia Quintero, who I’ve mentioned before. Now, there are a lot of possible reasons why Stewart sang this song and as one of my homeboys on twitter stated “of course he didn’t want to take his clothes off. He was gay!” At the same time there is something to be said that this is one of the only songs sung by a man that I can think of or have my homies think of as well about abstinence. He sings in his song “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off”: “we don’t have to take our clothes off, to have a good time. We could dance and party all night and drink some cherry wine….so come on baby show some class. Why you want to move so fast?” This song offers amazing opportunities to discuss and deconstruct what the terms “dance” and “party” mean to youth today and how they think he was defining them. It also welcomes a conversation about the use of various substances (i.e. cherry wine) and the law, which I’ve encouraged people to be aware of their Constitutional rights. Finally, the line about “class” is always interesting to hear how that is defined and presented by young people today in comparison to how it is presented in the video.



Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam had (and Lisa Lisa still has) an amazing musical history in my opinion. Their song “Take You Home” brings up so many topics I’ve used when working with high school students. Aside from talking about what one wants to do with a partner, what will the post-activities result in? How will the relationship end? But even more importantly for some youth, what does it mean to have a home to take someone to? What is a safe home?



Ciara’s “Goodies” came out at a time when I was pretty critical of some messages. I thought her message in her song “Goodies” was contradicted in her performance of Black femininity through her costuming in her video. Today I think there is still room for such a critique, but I’m on a different tip with the critique today. For example, in what ways does this song help us get a good understanding of how powerful this message was during the time it was released? Ciara sings: “I bet you want the goodies.Bet you thought about it. Got you all hot and bothered. Mad cause I talk around it. Looking for the goodies. Keep on lookin' cuz they stay in the jar.” I remember hearing young girls of Color I worked with at a public charter school in Washington, DC singing this hook in the hallways of the school. How was this song an important coping mechanism for remaining abstinent, for affirming their choices at a time when they were getting conflicting messages in other ways?



For those of you who are reggaetonfans, you already know who Ivy Queen, one of, if not THE, first lady of reggaeton. I used this song in a class I co-taught back in 2005 with my homegirl Ryan because she’s talking about dancing and her motivations. The song is “Quiero Bailar” which translates into “I Want To Dance.” For non-Spanish speakers the loose translation of the hook is “I want to dance, you want to sweat, if I say yeas you can lead me that doesn’t mean that I’m going to bed with you.” Now I’d like to say this is an anthem for the dancefloor, but I really can’t confirm or deny that. I know that for my homegirls who I dance with it is an important song for us to cut a rug to. It’s like it’s the “ladies choice in dance partner” selection, where a majority of the women choose to dance on their own, a free dance if you will. Or maybe that’s my fantasy dancehall situation….



In a more classically “you haven’t earned my love” is En Vogue’s “Never Gonna Get It.” In addition to being an amazing all-woman band (that may of my homies and I are still nostalgic for) this song is one of those songs that have also become a verb. My homegirls and I have said “it’s about to get so never gonna get it up in here” so many times and we knew exactly what the other meant! Although used at times as a “diss” I can see some important messaging in this song especially about agency and self-determination.



What abstinence-centric songs do you have to suggest? I’ll totally give you citation credit for putting me onto your suggestions!

Goodbye To The Only Midwife on TV

cross posted from my blog at RH Reality Check

Spoiler Alert

I want to fully disclose that I cannot afford cable so I don’t have it and this post is about public television. I’m one of those people that still uses their rabbit ear antenna for their television. I have no shame in still living an analog life where my polariod camera gets more use than my digital one. So you can understand, I’ve only seen one midwife on television this year and that is Dell on ABCs Private Practice.

A spinoff of ABCs Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice piqued my interest with having a Black heterosexual couple who opened their own wellness center, called Oceanside, that has a holistic approach to health and well-being and cast a great group of actors to perform each character. This first season had me intrigued when the writers included storylines about relationships among older adults, gay and lesbian topics on fertility, and challenges in the child welfare system and storylines on intersex children. The third season has been interesting regarding the commentary on sexuality with people who have disabilities, teenage pregnancy, mental health topics and parenting, and a range of beliefs among the characters regarding abortion.

One of the many things I also appreciate about the show is that the physicians and people who work at Oceanside are interesting models of how to work with and among various patients and clients. I always find it interesting as a viewer to see how physicians talk to and engage their patients, especially youth. Dell Parker (performed by Chris Lowell), a young white man who has a child and a history of drug recovery, is also the only midwife on the television show.

We watched as Dell was trained under the care of various OBGYNs and other medical staff to help create and build on his own contributions to the center. His work in midwifery not only challenged some perceptions on masculinity when it comes to who can and is a midwife and what makes a good midwife (do “good” midwives have to have had a child? Need a uterus? Experienced menstruation?). His character also provides complementary care to Westernized thoughts regarding pregnancy and childbirth.

It saddened me to a level I can’t even really express to know that this last episode of Private Practice, "The End Of A Beautiful Friendship" the writers chose to kill Dell’s character off via a brain injury. I was shocked to say the least. This was one of the only representations I’ve seen on mainstream public television of midwifery. As an abortion doula with The Doula Project (we are currently accepting applications for doulas in NYC click here for more information) I found it extremely devastating to the storyline and will admit I think it is a poor choice.

Having midwives represented in mainstream media is important. Dell was one of the only representations I can think of in non-cable mainstream public television that may be accessible to a wider audience. There is now a void on representations of midwives, but there is also a larger void in how the care midwives give is just as vital to wellness centers and childbearing. Who remains to challenge the Westernized models of pregnancy and birthing options on the show as Dell did (I don’t think Pete will be as passionate or on point as Dell was)? Have you thought about how his character was an opportunity to establish and further conversations on midwifery and doulas? I know I’d mentioned his character in my teaching on human sexuality, and now I worry that none of my students will even know of his characters existence or was important.

Are there other non-cable mainstream television shows you’ve seen or known of (in any language or country) that feature midwives and doulas? I’d love to know of other resources that are accessible.

(repost) Call for Submissions!!! Women of Color & Sexuality

There is STILL time to submit!

I've partnered with an amazing media maker and radical educator: SuperHussy to help her find, edit, and publish an anthology focusing on women of Color, sex and sexuality! Here's the Call for Submissions:

Alright ya’ll, it’s time to expand the reach of Super Hussy Media. You know there;s the blog, and the film projects in the works, but wait, here it comes…our first call for submissions for our annual publication, The Compendium.

Our first issue, The Talk, focuses on self-identified women of Color and how they learned about S-E-X. Here are the details:

The Talk: Women of Color On Sex is an exploration of how self-identified women across the Diaspora came to learn about sex and what it meant to have a sexual relationship. Did your mom, aunty or tia sit you down? Were your homegirls or hermanas responsible for giving you the blow by blow? Was Cinemax After Dark, Youtube or a telenovela your sex ed instructor?

Super Hussy Media seeks fresh and daring writers who can coax the reader into an intimate understanding of not only how they learned about sex, but how that knowledge impacted their sexual exploration. We want submissions that are funny, sad, enraging, and transformational.

The Talk is ultimately about our testimonies regarding how we were taught or chose to learn about our sexuality. How we are continuing to learn, lessons we wish we could share with other women of Color, introspective activities of reflection. This is all about us.

Submission Requirements

• Deadline: July 1, 2010

• No more than 2 previously unpublished short stories per submission

• Simultaneous submissions okay, but notify if your work is accepted elsewhere

• 4,000 words or less

• Double spaced

• Poetry and non-English submissions accepted as long as they are accompanied by an English translation

All contributors will receive a copy of the anthology.

Submissions

All submissions must be sent electronically using .doc or .pdf to submissions@superhussy.com.

Title of submission should be placed in the subject line. Please include your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and short bio with your submission.

Superhussy Media publishes work that celebrates girls and women of color everywhere!

We look forward to reading your submissions.

(VIDEO) Vanessa Del Rio: Goddesses, Sinners, and Saviors

If ya'll remember when I was super excited to see and hear Vanessa Del Rio read from her book in NYC that I advertised, then I hope it comes as no surprise that I'm posting this video of her that evening. My apologies to people who attended the reading and asked for me/looked for me and was told by organizers they didn't know who I was or that I was not there.

Why I'm Not Celebrating the Pill

Cross posted from my rh reality check blog post.

I’ve mentioned before that hippie immigrant Puerto Rican parents raised me in the US. One of the messages that was transmitted to me as a young Puerto Rican woman growing up was that the birth control pill kills Puerto Rican women. And it did.

Excuse me if I do not partake in all of the celebration of The 50th Anniversary of The Pill because from my perspective it is still very much a reminder of the exploitation and violation of human rights among Puerto Ricans (and Haitians, and working class women in general) that continues today. Ignoring this reality is easy. Yet, it is a part of my, our history that I can’t simply forget or overlook. If I choose to ignore this history I also choose to ignore the history of activism by members of my community that has helped to create change at an institutional level. Ignoring this reality and history also perpetuates the ideas that historically oppressed communities are not important in the work we do today.

There are some things I’m not ready to ignore or forge and many of those are the power of language. The adjectives used to describe members of my community are horrifying. I don’t care if it was how people spoke “in that time,” they were and remain inappropriate. To describe our homeland as “slums,” “jungles,” and our community as “undesirable,” “genetically inferior,” and “ignorant” is defendable? The ideology “that the poor, uneducated, women of Puerto Rico could follow the Pill regimen, then women anywhere in the world could too” is not condescending to you? Don’t be fooled. There was almost nothing that was “female controlled” or “empowering” about being a part of the trial for many participants, especially after they realized they were taking a medication that they did not know was not approved.

I remember reading the book Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill over a decade ago when I was in graduate school. The conversation we had as a group about the book shocked me. While I was sickened by the overt ethnocentrism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, and racism, other classmates were mostly intrigued by what the history was in the US. It was an extremely painful book for me to discuss with a group of 99 percent White people who viewed the history of my community as less than and Othered as fascinating. When I realized a yam in Mexico was a part of the early production of the pill and how the US obtained it, the inclusion of animal products that included pork and how some communities do not consume this product for various reasons, I was floored. Some classmates rolled their eyes at me as if I was making something out of nothing. To this day I’m surprised those people are now working within my community. I hope they have learned something over these ten years about the ways their thought processes isolated the people in the community they now try to provide services to. Engaging in these conversations continue to hurt.

Often, when I bring up this topic, I have people who say to me “but that was the ‘norm’ back then.” Just because it was/is the “norm” does not automatically make it “right.” Others have said to me “Look at how many people and families the pill as helped.” As if the lives of the women who were injured, died, or experienced some major side effects during the trials makes that ok. Who is thanking them? Who is remembering them? Then there are the “We need more of a biomedical model and not just a social one.” I don’t disagree, I just think that a biomedical model can also recognize how the field is constructed and given value by a society that gives it value (and money). I also think a biomedical model can be one that does not completely ignore a community response. Just because it has more money behind it does not make it better than other models.

On anniversaries such as these, I ask that we all take a moment and think about the people who have been directly impacted negatively during trials, especially when historically discussions are not comprehensive and exclude us. Also think about how pharmaceutical companies are still engaging in some questionable actions and continue to purchase land in Puerto Rico, which does bring jobs to the island, yet those jobs are not always permanent.

All these talks about Puerto Rico and our status, do people really think that big money corporations want to lose the ability to work in a “foreign” country with a completely different approach to taxes? Think about it and consider doing some research on your own.