Decolonization

I’m reflecting on last night, where again I have found myself the only non-White person at a party. Something in me urges to write about this experience, I’m trying to be nonplussed about it, but it’s hard. It’s always hard.  I realized today that I’m sick of letting myself be co-opted for whiteboyworld’s entertainment. I know I live in Portland, where it’s 85% Caucasian, but I’m still breathing, still a part of that other percentage that all the White activists ignore when they rail about classism.

Back to the party…I remember when me and two other of my companions sneak our way back up the stairs on a mission masquerading as a smoke break to really clear our heads. Some of the partygoers leak out after us and strike a conversation in the driveway. We all introduce ourselves. Predictably there is an audible silence after me and the quintessential nicewhitegirl says how she likes my name, how it’s a cool name. Oh yay, the tokenism has begun. At least they didn’t ask me where I was from. I just smile awkwardly and that’s the last time I speak directly to anyone I don’t previously know at this shindig. I realize it’s time to go when some newcomers have a side conversation about what’s the PC term for a Native American while one of them is wearing some Urban Outfitters shit with a “Navajo” design fluttering above her tiny midriff.

I can’t stand this world. I feel like more analogously Caucasian faces and thought-patterns are slowly blotting me out.  I’m tired of being the only coloured person at the party, the only Latino in the “Hispanic” food section of Fred Meyers, the only guy on my block who rocks a skullcap. I’m not a token, I’m not going to be colonized for someone else’s mental well being because they have a friend that is queer/of colour/Jewish etc. I’m not going to teach you a pithy lesson from my homeland; I’m not going to teach you Spanish.

Yes, I am going to be offended by your racist good intentions. I’m going to talk back; I’m going to correct your perceptions. I’m going to make you mad, I’m going to dismantle your co-options, and I’m going to throw your world for a loop. I’m not going to sit here and let you blot me out for this anti-septic, White, bourgeois vision of what you think your community should be. Fuck that noise.

I’m decolonizing that shit.

himitsu

"Do you know what people did in the old days when they had secrets they didn't want to share? They'd climb a moutain, find a tree, carve a hole in it, whisper the secret into the hole and cover it up with mud. That way, nobody else would ever learn the secret..." -Tak, 2046

This is my tree with its hole carved sitting on top of a mountain. 

I'm an asshole. That's my secret. I am misanthropic, I hate everyone. The kicker is that secretly I hate myself.

Today was not a good day. Not a shining moment for me. I sped over to my car dealership at the last minute to see if they could figure out what was wrong with my nav system...this place has the most obscene parking lot in the universe. On top of that, I accidentally parked in the handicapped parking spot so I had to move my car twice. The second time I was stuck behind people in a car, while waiting for this woman to get out...I didn't know what they were doing at first, just seemed like they were sitting there in the parking lot...in the way. I honked lightly, not too much. I honked twice though. Then the old lady comes up to me and trys to talk to me threw the window but I'm shaking my head and mouthing at her to leave me alone and go away. I can't deal with it.

Later she comes in to the garage, calling me sir and stuff, telling me about how she's on chemotherapy and she doesn't move very quickly and she was stuck in between two kids trying to get out of the car. It's all I can do not to scream. I just want to die, right there. I'm still not clear on why she was even there in the first place. It's like the universe is teaching me a lesson...this whole month has been full of lessons. Maybe I should just kill myself and get it over with.

M. has been telling me that I need to let go of my anger. I don't even know how. I feel like my anger protects me from harm, until things like this happen. Then I am just humiliated and I want to disappear. I wish the ground would just open up and swallow me forever. 

So there it is, I'm an asshole.

Gay is NOT the "New Black"

Although the hubbub has died down around the catchphrase that so-called GLBTQ activists coined, “Gay is the new Black”, I feel like now I can coherently address the issues around it from my perspective as a queer-identified person of colour. 

The problem with this phrase, other than the obvious denigration of the Black experience, centres on choice. No, not the choice that the rabid Christian right is always squawking about…I am not talking about the choice to be GLBTQ, because as any educated person would know…it’s biological. I am talking about the choice to come out and identify oneself in the public sphere as GLBTQ.  This is key.

People of colour do not choose to identify as people of colour, we don’t “come out of the closet” so to speak about being Black, Latino, Asian etc. It is easily identifiable by our skin, our hair or our speech patterns among other things. It is written upon us for all to see. This is the difference between being a person of colour and being GLBTQ. Arguably you cannot “see” GLBTQ.

Identity politics aside, being identified as person of colour is not a choice. (White) GLBTQ people have a choice and the privilege to come out and be identified as GLBTQ. Those of us who are not White, and regardless of our sexuality, do not have that privilege. Therein lies the difference and should point out the issue in claiming that “gay is the new Black.” Black is still Black and the last time I checked, the civil rights struggle for racial equality was far from over.

Dead on the Vine

This whole new years shite isn't really working out for me. I thought it would be differently. The second week of unemployment I got two interviews but both of the turned out to be busts. I've applied to over thirty jobs in the past few weeks. 


I feel thinly spread, like I'm a tablespoon of butter over too many pieces of toast. Or maybe I'm the toast? I got sick too, mostly throat crap with some lovely feverish things. I think it's probably because I'm drinking too much. On the day of the interviews I holed up in a bar and got drunk on one-to-many martinis. It probably doesn't help that I started smoking again. I can smell the desperation on myself. It disgusts me. I'm fading away like smoke on a funeral pyre. 


I'm angry too. So angry. My old coworker has been ignoring my text messages and I'm frustrated by her passive jab at my dignity. Bitch. At least tell me you don't want to be friends any more. I yell at the smallest things. I just want to crawl into a hole and die.

Bad Seed

Esta noche

We gonna make art

Dicen que "Eres la mala semilla"

The Bad Seed.

I am the seed.

The seed that grows

Grows into victory

Get outta my way

I gotta grow into Beauty

We live this Art

It’s the only thing we got

Tu no me jodas

Those cold rain of words

Can’t drown me now

Flourish and expanding

Into newness

This newness

Beauty, art.

Esta semilla no es mala.

Recap.

It's been a difficult year.
Today is December 26th, 2011. I am well into finishing up Hannukah, my resignation is looming and the New Year is only a few days away. Honestly, I can't wait. This last year did provide me with a choice few wonderful things but in the end it is time to say goodbye. I wait in anticipation to be able to leave behind all the bad decisions, people and memories of 2011. They say we are living in the end times and that the world might end next year. All I know is that, it might not be so bad. Let's see what 2012 is going to throw my way. I'm ready.


And thanks for all the learning experiences. 

Curses

We use them like curses

Cut away the gauze

Make you Think

Scream at

Your face

Shatter that facade

Don't smile at me

With your plastic eyes

Glazed

Your bubblegum countenance

Is like dried cum stains

You say nothing

Despite incessant chatter

Driving Us mad

Like the buzzing of flies

We use our Words

To break your System

Hack this

Our curses fly

Straight arrows

Bleed you dry