So we pretty much experienced the time of our lives today...coming from Baltimore, i'd never up close and personally experienced confronting the people that are most against me, and that fuel my activist fire, until today. This pro-life, right-wing, ultra-Christian, anti-gay, anti-abortion anti-(fill-in-the-blank-with-your-oppression-here) group Operation Save America came to Atlanta to spread the good ol' backwoods news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, topped off with a cherry of "Jesus is the standard." They'll be here for all of next week, July 12-19, in their attempt to "save" us from the evils that, I'm assuming, they're saved from themselves. I'm not too certain what Jesus they praise, or partner with in their personal (and private) lives, but I doubt he'd wail around posters with dead fetuses on them to rub in people's faces. Really, it's all so sensational.
I, along with five other beautiful ladies from and affiliated with SPARK (Mia, Paris, Ally, Erin, and Darlene), wanted to make our presence MORE than known to them in their comfy abodes at the Best Western Hotel. We started out at an intersection in front of a Denny's, draped in our fabulous pro-choice sweat and pink blankets of "WELCOME TO REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE SUMMER, OSA", in addition to other "Honk for Reproductive Justice" and "Sex/Justice is the Standard" signs. After near fainting, we realized we should relocate across the street from the hotel in the shade, where our impact would not only be seen, but heard. We didn't even give them a chance to wrap their cold, heartless bodies in the hotel towels for a quick post-travel shower without them hearing our chants from the megaphone across the streets of "SAY YES TO JUSTICE!!! SAY NO TO OSA!!!!" and "SAVE US FROM POVERTY!!! SAVE US FROM IGNORANCE!" and the like.
It wasn't before long we gained the attention of one kind fellow named John from OSA, who continued to reiterate his Puerto-Rican heritage to us, so as to demonstrate how much he loathed racists and racism. Nevertheless, we reiterated to him numerous times that his organization, despite HE not being racist, was avidly racist in its approach. We also all detected a big queer stamp on his forehead after hearing his tale of not having his first kiss until the altar at 34, which we respected...but, like many right-wingers don't tend to do, we looked beyond the surface of this issue, and more than likely, there's some repression in that thar soul.
There's a thin line between being nice and coming to speak, and trying to distract us from our agenda at hand, which is to protest the presence of ignorance, oppression, and control on our bodies and our city. So, Mia kept her finger on the megaphone button, and continued to shout through to the balconies of the hotel.
Soonafter, we drew quite the numerous crowd of zealots--all donning their electric red "Jesus is the Standard" t-shirts, and overwhelmingly white, middle-aged, and male. The one female carried the gold-paged, coffee-table Bible in her hands, as an armour against us demonic folks. Many of them didn't say much, but they liken their presence to be intimidating at the least, which...just doesn't work for six loud-mouthed, passionate queer women (sorry!). One came over to me, and began to interrogate about my presence here, as well as my stance being pro-choice...he loved when i broke down the terminology and described fetus as a "latin" term, stating that "baby" was more appropriate. Though diplomatic, the conversation continued on, he reiterating that "the rights of the poor, innocent baby had no right to be thwarted", my "the rights of the poor, oppressed woman had no right to be thwarted". At some point, I felt severely surrounded, but nevertheless spoke loudly and explicitly that i'm SICK of people telling me what to do with my body. Then, I look over to the left and there's Flip, the classic religious NUT who's been in OSA since jump (who doesn't mind getting arrested), telling us how "pathetic" we were that it was only six of us in attendance. Fortunately, I wasn't around to hear much of the verbal holy diarrhea he had to spew, with the other ladies catching the bulk of it. Ally took quite the in-your-face sex approach, asking them if there were two gays doin' it in the middle of the streets, would that be seen as sinful...Erin later pointed out no one commented on her "Sex is the Standard" sign...to break it down, they all just need one good freaky ass night. With each other. And their lives can be muuuuuch happier, and they can get out of our pants and uteruses.
On the way out, after announcing we're headed to a Dyke, Dick, and Drag Derby in the Park, with Paris giving them DETAILED directions of how to get there just in case they wanted to shake up some funnnnnn, one of the old white guys shouted we needed to save our souls, yadda yadda yadda...my response being "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Now why did i say that...you say one scripture, they have 100 coming back at you. He even questioned my Jesus, assuming it was some other Jesus I worshipped...honestly, it must be.
Then...the cops came. And we weren't the ones they were after. You should've seen 'em scatter across the streets! No conversation, just movement...the disturbingly alarming dead fetus photo even crawled across, at the hands of the woman holding it.
I just honestly can't believe people like this exist. They'll be around all next week, protesting clinics like a swarm of locusts, holding daily Bible studies, as if they need to remind themselves ANYmore of the same 24 verses they'll throw at us, and most of all, disguising their oppressive behavior as "rescue". Well, we're woman enough for 'em. They might've gotten away with murder (ah! murder!) twenty years ago when they came to Atl, but this go 'round, it's not that easy. We, women of color, queers, pro-choice, women who go to those clinics, any and everybody else who's down with standing up for our bodies...are a force to be fucked with. Come check us at the press conferences on black women and abortion (Monday @ 9am), film festivals, and of course, in the streets. With signs and church fans. Holluh.
this is the christenin. ppl, i hope ya listenin.
so, welcome to my bloggggg!!!! this goes out 2 all those folks that said i should start one. i'm a ridiculous, scatterbrained sagittarius, ascendant in gemini, moon in pisces (yep, took it there...shit is real). but i got dreams, man.
but--there are ground rules. i'm not big on capital letters, unless for emphasis, like THIS. that's minimal tho.
more importantly, for all those that kno me and those that don't, kno that i'm one of the most passionate ppl u could ever encounter when it comes to my views and writing...but this doesn't mean i'm closed to any new ideas. i love a good intellectual jerkoff just as much as the next book-beat college student. what i hold dear to my heart, tho, so nunnayall get it twisted, is my body. and no, not sexually (well, when the time is right), but my body, meaning the personal IS political. meaning whatever affects black people, women, the poor, the queers, the gays, the lezzies, the trans...affects me, too. my life is dedicated to breaking the silence surrounding our bodies and our liberation, and putting us one step closer to our self-determination and the telling of our OWN stories. whether this be through me writing about it, organizing, collaborating with others that think alike...we're gonna get closer. don't be fooled by the scapegoating. hell, we ARE closer. kno that.
annnnd, with all that being said, i wanted to share witchall this op-ed article i wrote a few weeks ago for The Atlanta Voice for my pheNOMenal internship with SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta this summer...right now. it was in response to an article by Judie Brown from American Life League who was ECSTATIC about their spreading awareness around how the birth control pill is not a contraceptive, but an abortive...ah, it speaks for itself. read on.
On reading Judie Brown’s “Revisiting ‘The Pill Kills’ Day!”, I must say it astonishes me how visibly upset and defensive pro-lifers become when they discuss such sensitive and necessary topics as birth control and abortion. Truthfully speaking, I should be more astonished, as a young black woman who must live and breathe in the same country as the members of the American Life League who, in reality, couldn’t care less if my child was aborted or alive.
The “Protest the Pill Day” is a movement that intends to tug at the moral heartstrings of many Americans, coercing them to believe that birth control is not at all a contraceptive, but an abortive that shatters the life of an egg inside of a woman’s uterus. Pro-lifers such as Judie Brown, in her attempt to expose “the ugly underbelly of the culture of death” surrounding abortion in this country, fail to locate themselves in this fight, namely their race, class, and gender positionalities. Of course, in their cases of extreme privilege, one would not expect them to see or even acknowledge the people who live in conditions that do not mirror their comfortable, autonomous lives. However, due to my positionality as a black woman, I am forced to not only be fully aware of my present and my history, but also that of my oppressors’. Because of this, I can only use my history as a reference point to the necessity of birth control for black women.
For black women, birth control is not just representative of the right to choose nor the right to privacy, but to self-determination, and liberation from the history of someone else deciding what we do with our bodies for us. In slavery, our bodies were mere vessels for us to produce, for the benefit of the masters, and the economy in terms of production. Though slavery was legally outlawed in 1865, the racist beliefs pervaded in the 20th century through public policies, with the black woman’s response being that of protecting her body by any and all means.
Since abortions were illegal, many women, regardless of race, went to desperate lengths to perform abortions, many of them self-induced. As stated by Loretta Ross in “Black Abortions,” Between 1965 and 1967, in Georgia alone, the black maternal death rate was fourteen times that of white women due to illegal abortions. The breakthrough was, indeed, the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling in 1965 of a woman’s right to sexual privacy, as well as Roe v. Wade in 1973.
While pro-lifers such as American Life League tend to entrench themselves in the rights of the fetus, I believe this deters attention away from the true issue at hand, which is a woman’s right to self-determination. When Judie Brown outlandishly uses such phrases as “culture of death” to describe what abortion ultimately leads to, this prevents a thorough analysis of the culture of death that occurs everyday in cities of concentrated poverty, due to structural and institutionalized racism. The schools in these cities are the best example of such institutionalized racism and sexism.
With schools that have federally-funded “abstinence-only” health programs, it is impossible for young black women to accurately understand themselves sexually, or the engendered power dynamics behind sex, which prevent them from ever becoming sexually autonomous. Judie Brown so eloquently describes sex as “belonging exclusively to the domain of marriage,” but these beliefs are not at all steeped in the reality of this country, and the health classes should mirror our realities, not our insurmountable hopes.
It is in any woman’s best interest, but particularly women of color, to have access to birth control as a sexual human right. For far too long, someone else’s story has clouded our own, that of whites, that of our husband’s, that of the Right believing they are speaking for us. For far too long, black women have had to walk thin lines, such as controlling their fertility against their boyfriend’s permission, while still believing in the same moral fabric as many Right-wingers who proclaim it is a sin to abort a fetus.
In the struggle against racism, sexism, and classism, black women and other women of color exist in a multi-layered world of oppression. Consequently, if this right to birth control is evident of our right to self-determination, it will certainly impact all women in the US as well. Once we have solidified our sexual autonomy, access to proper health care and information, proper and extensive education surrounding healthy sexuality, basic needs such as stable employment, income, food, and shelter, and for women on welfare, assistance with child care and welfare to work training, then and only then can we concern ourselves with what constitutes a “culture of death” in our society. The urgency of these needs in an already failing economy is no longer just a matter of choice, but a matter of survival.
but--there are ground rules. i'm not big on capital letters, unless for emphasis, like THIS. that's minimal tho.
more importantly, for all those that kno me and those that don't, kno that i'm one of the most passionate ppl u could ever encounter when it comes to my views and writing...but this doesn't mean i'm closed to any new ideas. i love a good intellectual jerkoff just as much as the next book-beat college student. what i hold dear to my heart, tho, so nunnayall get it twisted, is my body. and no, not sexually (well, when the time is right), but my body, meaning the personal IS political. meaning whatever affects black people, women, the poor, the queers, the gays, the lezzies, the trans...affects me, too. my life is dedicated to breaking the silence surrounding our bodies and our liberation, and putting us one step closer to our self-determination and the telling of our OWN stories. whether this be through me writing about it, organizing, collaborating with others that think alike...we're gonna get closer. don't be fooled by the scapegoating. hell, we ARE closer. kno that.
annnnd, with all that being said, i wanted to share witchall this op-ed article i wrote a few weeks ago for The Atlanta Voice for my pheNOMenal internship with SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective in Atlanta this summer...right now. it was in response to an article by Judie Brown from American Life League who was ECSTATIC about their spreading awareness around how the birth control pill is not a contraceptive, but an abortive...ah, it speaks for itself. read on.
On reading Judie Brown’s “Revisiting ‘The Pill Kills’ Day!”, I must say it astonishes me how visibly upset and defensive pro-lifers become when they discuss such sensitive and necessary topics as birth control and abortion. Truthfully speaking, I should be more astonished, as a young black woman who must live and breathe in the same country as the members of the American Life League who, in reality, couldn’t care less if my child was aborted or alive.
The “Protest the Pill Day” is a movement that intends to tug at the moral heartstrings of many Americans, coercing them to believe that birth control is not at all a contraceptive, but an abortive that shatters the life of an egg inside of a woman’s uterus. Pro-lifers such as Judie Brown, in her attempt to expose “the ugly underbelly of the culture of death” surrounding abortion in this country, fail to locate themselves in this fight, namely their race, class, and gender positionalities. Of course, in their cases of extreme privilege, one would not expect them to see or even acknowledge the people who live in conditions that do not mirror their comfortable, autonomous lives. However, due to my positionality as a black woman, I am forced to not only be fully aware of my present and my history, but also that of my oppressors’. Because of this, I can only use my history as a reference point to the necessity of birth control for black women.
For black women, birth control is not just representative of the right to choose nor the right to privacy, but to self-determination, and liberation from the history of someone else deciding what we do with our bodies for us. In slavery, our bodies were mere vessels for us to produce, for the benefit of the masters, and the economy in terms of production. Though slavery was legally outlawed in 1865, the racist beliefs pervaded in the 20th century through public policies, with the black woman’s response being that of protecting her body by any and all means.
Since abortions were illegal, many women, regardless of race, went to desperate lengths to perform abortions, many of them self-induced. As stated by Loretta Ross in “Black Abortions,” Between 1965 and 1967, in Georgia alone, the black maternal death rate was fourteen times that of white women due to illegal abortions. The breakthrough was, indeed, the Griswold v. Connecticut ruling in 1965 of a woman’s right to sexual privacy, as well as Roe v. Wade in 1973.
While pro-lifers such as American Life League tend to entrench themselves in the rights of the fetus, I believe this deters attention away from the true issue at hand, which is a woman’s right to self-determination. When Judie Brown outlandishly uses such phrases as “culture of death” to describe what abortion ultimately leads to, this prevents a thorough analysis of the culture of death that occurs everyday in cities of concentrated poverty, due to structural and institutionalized racism. The schools in these cities are the best example of such institutionalized racism and sexism.
With schools that have federally-funded “abstinence-only” health programs, it is impossible for young black women to accurately understand themselves sexually, or the engendered power dynamics behind sex, which prevent them from ever becoming sexually autonomous. Judie Brown so eloquently describes sex as “belonging exclusively to the domain of marriage,” but these beliefs are not at all steeped in the reality of this country, and the health classes should mirror our realities, not our insurmountable hopes.
It is in any woman’s best interest, but particularly women of color, to have access to birth control as a sexual human right. For far too long, someone else’s story has clouded our own, that of whites, that of our husband’s, that of the Right believing they are speaking for us. For far too long, black women have had to walk thin lines, such as controlling their fertility against their boyfriend’s permission, while still believing in the same moral fabric as many Right-wingers who proclaim it is a sin to abort a fetus.
In the struggle against racism, sexism, and classism, black women and other women of color exist in a multi-layered world of oppression. Consequently, if this right to birth control is evident of our right to self-determination, it will certainly impact all women in the US as well. Once we have solidified our sexual autonomy, access to proper health care and information, proper and extensive education surrounding healthy sexuality, basic needs such as stable employment, income, food, and shelter, and for women on welfare, assistance with child care and welfare to work training, then and only then can we concern ourselves with what constitutes a “culture of death” in our society. The urgency of these needs in an already failing economy is no longer just a matter of choice, but a matter of survival.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
