but fences are not always honest.  
]]> http://pdotberry.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/sneak-peak-of-the-book/feed/ 0 patrice http://pdotberry.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/i-dare-you-a-work-in-progress/ http://pdotberry.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/i-dare-you-a-work-in-progress/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:35:10 +0000 patrice berry http://pdotberry.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/i-dare-you-a-work-in-progress/ ]]> This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

i mean,

i could write your gospel better than your heart could spell your name.

(artwork by paul goodnight)

i believe that change is hard. and everyday i think it is impossible. and everyday i believe we’re almost there. i believe that learning is for everybody. school is not. and i believe that for most of us, while some of us are better at it than others, our approach to schooling is not working. i believe that we should start all over. blow up and make strange all the things we take for granted and assume to be just what they are. that students of the same age should be in the same classrooms. that the best way to assess what whole populations know is by having a piece of paper ask questions, and allowing test takers to guess the best response from three, four or five options. that textbooks are the best way to carry mass amounts of information. and that classrooms require teachers. that teachers require classrooms. i believe that within this rote and archaic structure, and that at this pace, we are losing. all of us.

every other arm in america has evolved with the changes that have emerged over time. industry. technology. music. art. people. but at least two things have not changed apart from switching seats around the same small circle – our politics, and our system of education. and the two are related. i believe that more than history and racism, the hate we learn, and the ignorance we inherit, people are attached to power. and power is attached to money. and it is power’s attachment to money, and itself, that has maintained a system of systems wherein people are perpetually without basic things they have rights to. a system that teaches its constituents to (unknowingly) endorse it, and fight against one another – a battle which ultimately sustains it.

i believe that changing how people think will be the only thing that changes what people do. and the one thing that is capable of changing how people think is the hardest thing to accomplish. experiences with diverse populations – experiences, that is, that nurture understanding and empathy, and sincere connection to humanity. one can raise awareness, by occupying wallstreet for example, or lighting up watts. but until awareness breeds spaces where people are talking to one another and not against each other, and it includes the poor and black and brown among us, awareness will always fall short of influencing action.

and it is at the point of action, which after people have aha moments, and revelations, and begin to see the world differently, that change occurs.

i believe that change is slow. and there are lives among us who do not have time for it. and so we grasp at what we want and need, and steal small, subversive victories for ourselves in other ways. and sometimes these victories manifest in little defeats. sometimes talking back at a teacher gets us suspended. and sometimes one suspension makes it easier for the next, and the next, and then expulsion, and the life thereafter. sometimes if we don’t meet someone along the way who we believe in, and who we trust believes in us, we lose the point of it all – which was saving ourselves.

(artwork by paul goodnight.)

i swear i heard the moon cry
i swear the air started to twist and turn.
and i swear i saw the pacific
float across the sky
and the street lights cave in on us.
and though the cars around us were sprinting,
we kept time.
and i swear,
i swear
i saw one moment worth
of everything.
my heart traveled the world
and met the deepest part of it.
like where gravity rests
and hides for peace of mind
holding us up,
and letting the world fall.
i swear i moved somewhere else
like, everywhere.

i want to fall in love forever.

(artwork by paul goodnight.)

i remember my elementary school summers, and waking up to sounds that hugged me like long, grandmother squeezes. familiar, comforting, but maddening interruptions to my deep-sleep, sweet dreams.  the sound of you pulling our past from our cabinets, and closets, and throwing what we had forgotten in big trash bags, sitting on the kitchen floor.  saturday morning funerals for the memories you called junk.   you always called this cleaning, but it was always one big mess to me.

i remember our summer afternoons spent in libraries.  my adventures in the corners between book shelves and pages, hiding in my head for hours  everyday.  i remember your “stone soup” and “three billy goats gruff” storybook voices, and how you took us on long walks down your childhood, up southern dirt roads, past tennessee farms and wild white horses, all the way to the honeysuckle you helped us find in our own backyard.

i have been carrying gifts, traveling my entire life with butterfly cocoons in my pockets full of tomorrow and collections of you.  thank you for your stories.  for your guitar playing and piano pounding, and the church ballads you wrote, and made me sing.  for the fake summer, schoolwork assignments i begged for, and the paperdolls you made us.  i thank you for your love.  and your selflessness.  i wear your sacrifices like award medals around my neck, and i am proud to know you as mother.  i am blessed to have you as friend.

(artwork by keith mallett)

(artwork by chidi okoye)

There was a time when celebrating Women’s History Month was an uncomfortable experience. Celebrating my “womanhood” meant also accepting a host of other things I didn’t necessarily want to. Most of it was my fear of being called a “feminist” – that ‘ugly’ perverted stink of a name. I resisted the identification, wanting little to do with the leg hair growing, angry people who constantly beat up on men.  Or so it had been presented to me.  Claiming it, the name and the association, actually made me feel less “feminine.” Aggressive and hard, “too strong” I think. And I hated it.

Because I was affected by popular (mis)representations of Feminism and femininity, I wasn’t able to imagine a woman as both intensely ‘political’ and gracefully beautiful. As being simultaneously bold and without unnecessary offense.  I wanted to be both Harriet and Billie. But I had to pick a box – check one. I chose the ‘prettier’ girl. She generated less trouble, more friends, and it was easier that way.  But of course, this particular compromise was expensive, and cost me a very significant part of my identity. I’ve had strong opinions since birth, but people – teachers especially, have always chastised me to silence and stillness, mold making me into some more suitable version of myself. (And I willingly obliged.)  If I had a voice, it had to look a certain way.  I got, “don’t be so loud” far more than anyone ever helped me in shaping thoughts and developing ideas.

I believe the first time I was told to channel my energy in some form outside of dance and song was when I met a complete stranger during my senior year in college.  Lisa Delpit.  Our conversation was probably no longer than an hour, yet she left me with more than I had accepted from most people at that time:  “You have to write.”  For my grade school teachers, I had been too sassy, too assertive and consequently, I started wearing the face of a femininity that never belonged to me. And while that face is probably true for someone, I resent that it was presented as being without any desirable alternative, and maybe also that I was so preoccupied with becoming whatever would make me more tolerable.

It took me until 2007 to finally understand, that Feminism and I (despite our flaws) stand for many of the same things. The root of which is humanity – people. God forbid. And… I’ve decided, feminists aren’t ugly. Oppression is.  In mind and spirit, and in politics.  Patriarchy is ugly.  Sexism, domestic violence – ugly.  Male chauvinism, sexual abuse, entitlement, unrestrained and ignorant male privilege.  Those are ugly. I think I must have quietly participated in each of those evils all those years I was ducking the designation. I still loathe boxes though.

So here I am.  Grateful that experience has afforded me this wisdom: trying to make people understand you by masking who you are will not help them see you. Nor will it help you see yourself, or them. If anything, it cultivates greater misunderstanding. I get that now. In an effort to become agreeable enough to occupy enough time and space to express an opinion, I suppressed my ideas.  Running from one name, forced me into another and neither of them belong to me.  I lost myself altogether.  I am truly glad to have recognized that being me is inherently political. And even more inspired to have identified purpose in helping myself and others develop language to describe ourselves and our experiences, and mark a space from which we can declare them.  So for now at least, my current status remains: “Working Title.” Though let me be clear, Feminist or some variant is in the mix.

My whole point has really been this…  March is Women’s History Month. And I’m celebrating, as a Lover/Supporter/Defender of women and people everywhere.  (Feminist does not sting as much when it stands next to its definition.)

Thank you to all the women in my life, and in this world, who understand human value and self-worth, and have had the courage to invade silence to aggressively protect their names. To those who seek to learn themselves, but search more than their own faces. And to those who are after more than Self.

love.

and now you get it.

but without relief.
for what you had not seen
weakened what was
trust
to her.

yet,
remarkably
she still prays.
but mostly
that time
can align
eyes,
as well
as it heals
hearts.

i wonder if
they have considered
that they hurt us
when they do not first,
know how to love.

also see: http://pdotberry.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/i-have-a-confession/

i would’ve spent
the last six months
writing about it.

but once again,
words are just words.

and we
were never that.

(artwork by chidi okoye)

if i knew i couldn’t fail
i would live deep inside myself
where the people chant in dances
and in wails,
loud with bass and drum.
where tears scream though scats
and the people speak in tongues.
where love pours through guitar scales
and loss becomes flat notes
in the perfect pitch.
my heart would be
a legitimate instrument
and i would skip notes and miss beats
and not care.
my arched-back would
move with hip circles and
flailed arms
and wouldn’t care how they looked.
i would move sideways,
and every other way,
forget balance,
and realize that i am rhythm
my body would own itself.
i would live deep inside myself
so close to God
my voice would sound like His.
if i knew i couldn’t fail
i would lose “myself,”
rediscover her,
and claim a new name.
maybe something like,
“free.”

(artwork by monica stewart)

read/listen: Jasmine Mans Explains “The Mis-Education of a Barbie Doll”

i have several responses to this poem, several of which are certainly praise. the two, however, i would like to address here can be summed up by the following points: 1. nicki minaj’s “barbie” only constitutes one image she projects through her music, and 2. even if, barbie were nicki’s only image, why can’t barbie be an acceptable way of being? and with that, why does barbie inherently mean all that jasmine suggests it means in her poem?

nicki minaj has several “alternative personalities” she invites us to see in her music, each of whom have actual names and histories – barbie is one of them. to focus exclusively on one misses the point. and this is one of the reasons why i dig her – nicki (the artist) is fully human, complicated, and not one-dimensional. she does not have to say anything new or profound for that to be refreshing and meaningful to me. i do not know which of these egos are “real” to the artist, if any of them are, but i do not find it fascinating (and refreshing) that nicki can talk about enjoying sex, without actually be involved in actively pursuing it – if she were saying anything with her sexy image, it is that one can enjoy being sexy without having sex. and for all of you who believe young people can’t hear the quiet profession of her chastity – you’re probably wrong, that is if the youtube views of her interviews are any indication of to what parts of nicki minaj’s voice people are listening.

my second point has probably emerged from my growing frustration with so many of the voices within the social justice, critical media literacy circuit reprimanding artists because they do not widely promote more responsible (read: their) perspectives. these channels (of which i am admittedly a part) are preoccupied with identifying in what ways artists like nicki minaj do not meet the “phenomenal woman” criteria. and i believe in doing so, we neglect something else. primarily, that it is also important (and maybe even more critical) to invigorate efforts to help readers of texts and addicted pop culture consumers be more thoughtful. in other words, instead of silencing artists and limiting any creative movement (an idea that frightens me), i am an advocate of empowering a movement that helps individuals become stronger critical consumers and thinkers.

to be sure, it is daunting to think about the ways the original barbie and her predecessors, in all of their varied forms, contribute to some of the most destructive behaviors among women and young girls. esteem issues, the hypersexualization of our bodies, irresponsible sex, misinformed understandings of heterosexual and same sex relationships – the list, of course, goes on and jasmine mans has certainly implicated nicki minaj as part of the problem.

i think jasmine is wrong about nicki minaj. but i am not writing in defense of nicki minaj, but in defense of womanhood. and jasmine seems to believe there is a legitimate or “better” way to be female. i am not against discovering our best as women – i certainly want us to know that there exists more than our objectifications. still, i am fervently against constraining each of our varied forms to fit some narrow, pristinely righteous vision. we would all have to agree on that single vision, which i am not certain is even possible, nor desirable. each of our ways of being may not promote the sort of virtue and goodness and socially conscious political projects that challenge our racist/homophobic/sexist existence (past and present). we are all wrapped up in the mess of it. but the answer is not for each of us to become or to identify with the same voice. but to develop a language that can includes us, while simultaneously challenging and complicating our perspectives.

no, nicki is not lauryn hill or assata shakur, as jasmine points out in her explanation of the poem. and while i personally revere both lauryn and assata, they are not the only [valid] ways of being female, conscious, and fully human in this world. i value nicki and her barbie too. hell, i need nicki and her barbie – there are parts of me who i identify with them as well.

i appreciate that jasmine has her eyes and ears open, and is fearless in openly holding artists accountable for their artistic choices. but i dare jasmine mans to answer my question. why is barbie something I should not want to be? it might seem obvious or even laughable, but i promise i am not being facetious. anything so obvious concerns me, anyway. if we ever get a chance to talk for a while, i’d also like to ask, why must pretty also mean broken, and hypersexual? more, given the savvy business woman that nicki minaj is (even if we were to oversimplify her marketing strategy to selling sex), why project the dichotomy of powerful and chaste, versus oversexual and ignorant?

used to sewing my
own tears, hemming my own pants -
but these new clothes fit

perfectly.
just like you do.

I.
this is familiar.
even the weakest knives
can burn
through the ropes
that bind
fragile
friendships.
why pretend
to tie knots?

II.
air is more intense
than your love for me now.
just forget me then.

(artwork by hale woodruff)

i want to be
more of me.
i want to hear
more
of me…

i get high
to get close
to myself.
i used to talk to God.