AS LOVELY AS APHRODITE – AS WISE AS ATHENA – WITH THE SPEED OF MERCURY AND THE STRENGTH OF HERCULES – SHE IS KNOWN ONLY AS WONDER WOMAN.

Dear privileged Hollywood women,

We need you. It’s time. You can no longer remain silent. You must act. You must step up. White men alone cannot decide the fate of the Wonder Woman movie.

As I write this, I understand the sad truth that many people (ie too many of our young) today do not know Wonder Woman: her power, strength, ideals or her significance to women’s empowerment and history. So, strap up. I’m about to blow you away with some knowledge.

In 1941, a psychologist named William Moulton Marston began writing comic books under a pseudonym.  Marston, a respected Harvard-trained lawyer and Ph.D. was one of the few men of his era that believed in the untapped potential of comic books to teach children right from wrong and elicit positive change. He asked, “If children will read comics, why isn’t it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read?”[i] Marston, known as a flamboyant opportunist/marketing guru, also had very controversial beliefs about human psychology and was utterly obsessed with the ability to determine when a subject was not telling the truth. He was convinced that one could test for deception by studying subject’s physiological reactions (primarily changes in blood pressure) and is credited with the invention of one of the first lie detector tests.

Along with this obsession for the truth, Marston loved Greek mythology and believed in women’s overall higher moral compass. He alleged that women were innately “less susceptible than men to the negative traits of aggression and acquisitiveness, and could come to control the comparatively unruly male sex by alluring them.”[ii] This controversial ‘girls run the world’ prediction was very much ahead of his time. In a 1937 interview with The New York Times he claimed –

“The next one hundred years will see the beginning of an American matriarchy–a nation of Amazons in the psychological rather than physical sense,” adding that, “women would take over the rule of the country, politically and economically.”[iii]

Marston, a complicated man, was very much interested in bondage and the relationship between dominance and submission. He believed that the fairer sex would basically be able to control men through sexual governance. In his wildly sexist and heterosexist worldview, the world would be a better place if women ran it — mostly through the use of their sexuality of course. Sexually satisfied men would then happily submit to women’s power and we would all live in peace. [Side note, I don’t really hang with many white men, but this one definitely would have been invited to some of my parties. Did I mention he was poly? In 1941?].

Marston’s vision ultimately led him to work for DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman. He is credited with the invention of Wonder Woman – In Marston’s words:

Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world. There isn’t love enough in the male organism to run this planet peacefully. Woman’s body contains twice as many love generating organs and endocrine mechanisms as the male. What woman lacks is the dominance or self-assertive power to put over and enforce her love desires.

I have given Wonder Woman this dominant force but have kept her loving, tender, maternal, feminine in every way. Her bracelets, with which she repels bullets and other murderous weapons, represent the Amazon Princess’ submission to Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty. Her magic lasso, which compels anyone bound by it to obey Wonder Woman and which was given to her by Aphrodite herself, represent’s woman’s love charm and allure by which she compels men and women to do her bidding.[iv]

And, that my friends, is the origin story of Wonder Woman. [Side note: Marston somehow still failed to see that none of those qualities (dominant/tender) are mutually exclusive. He just didn't get that memo.] Wonder Woman’s story line debuted in the #8 All Star Comics (December 1941 – January 1942) issue. She was even given an invisible plane to assist her on her many fantastic journeys. Throughout the years, (and especially after Marston’s death) her adventures, agenda, love interests and wardrobe have undergone many unique transformations. At one point, she even had an uber popular TV series in the 70s [I Heart you Linda Carter]. Filmmaker Kristy Geuvara-Falanagan’s Wonder Women! -The Untold Story of American Superheroines is a wonderfully fun and informative documentary that chronicles Wonder Woman’s unique history; her resurrection during the women’s movement of the 60s & 70s; and the ultimate tragic fate of other super heroines. Please watch it. You won’t regret it.

I’m sorry, I got excited. You see, the more I learn about Wonder Woman, the more I want to know and the more I feel the need to share her story. Lets get back to the whole point of this post. Starlets of Hollywood, we desperately need a Wonder Woman movie. Frankly, as much as I love the 100^th incarnation of the Superman, Batman, Spider Man and Iron Man movies, I’m extremely worried about our young girls and boys. If boys know that they can be heroes, then girls need to learn that they can be too. [Side eye to Marvel comics. I see you.]

I’m not calling for a Marston style matriarchy where women rule men only with their feminine wiles. Though that would be intriguing, I’m a lesbian and ultimately am not interested. I’m also a feminist and deeply invested in gender equity. What I am interested in, however, is a film with an awesome plot, X-men awesome. An action packed, empowering film with a multi-racial and multi-ethnic cast of women represented as intelligent, physically powerful, resourceful, capable, strong, independent, complicated, vulnerable, flawed, compassionate and beautiful. You know, human.

I want the only gratuitous onscreen shots of pectorals, thighs, abs, and gluteal muscles to represent the extraordinary physical strength of these female protagonists. During the publicity tour, I want for the actresses starring in the film to be asked about their physical transformations and the amazing training that they received from Jeannette Jenkins. I want them to brag about their 300 style training; how hard they worked out, how difficult it was, and how much protein they had to include in their diets. I want them to boast about the amazing and powerful community they felt on set: how they all got along; their shared vision of the amazing things that happen when you portray women as full human beings; how they brought their sons, daughters, nieces and nephews to the set; and how amazing it felt to be inspired and in the presence of women from all over the world.

I want Paradise Island to portray a land where women of all races, ethnicities, abilities, ages and sizes are valued and contribute to their society in meaningful ways. I want for Linda Carter, Angela Davis, Rita Moreno, Michelle Yeoh, Gloria Steinem, Pam Grier, Sonia Braga, S. Epatha Merkerson, Betty White, Whoopi Goldberg and Jane Fonda – to serve as the elder council that advises and deliberates on the ultimate fate of Princess Diana. I want Lucy Lawless, Linda Hamilton, Sophie Okonedo, and Angela Bassett to be the physical trainers of the Paradise Island Amazon army.

I want them to scour the globe for Wonder Woman: the talented and newly discovered actress that will carry the franchise, and it will be a franchise. I want them to show scenes of this young Amazon training for battle with her comrades: Michele Rodriguez, Adepero Oduye, Emma Stone, Jessica Alba, Zhang Ziyi, Zoe Kravitz, Dakota Fanning, Selena Gomez, Blake Lively, Gabrielle Union, America Ferrera, Naya Rivera, Raven Simone, Emma Watson, Freida Pinto, Harmony Santana, Ellen Page, Camille Winbush, Aubrey Plaza, Keke Palmer, Jessica Biel, Melonie Diaz, Mya, Sarah Shahi, Dania Ramirez and Hayden Panettiere – all engaging in intense competition for the Wonder Woman title and chance to return Steve Trevor to the “Patriarch’s world.”

I want Wonder Woman to experience an amazing adventure that forces the audience to really consider and critique all of the oppressive ways in which women and men experience their lives within the patriarchy. I want her to Holla Back! at the fools who try to cat call at her on the street; teaching them a lesson they will not soon forget. I want her to come to the defense of a woman who is being abused by her partner and make them pay. I want for WW to inspire confidence in all of the women she interacts with throughout the film; and for all her enemies to be in awe of her, considering her a formidable opponent. I want it to be an action packed thriller of a film. During the epic and final battle when the audience is at the edge of their seats and believes that Wonder Woman is about to be finished, I want all the Amazons of her land to appear out of the sky to support their sister and wreck shit, because the evil dwellers messed with the wrong Amazon. I want little girls and women of all ages to come out of the movie theaters thinking, “I am Wonder Woman.” I want little boys to ask their parents to buy them Wonder Woman costumes for Halloween.

I want for Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Hillary Swank, Reese Witherspoon, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Susan Sarandon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Sandra Bullock, Reneé Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Rachel Wiesz, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Chastain, Diane Lane, Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart, Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore, Clair Danes, Diane Keaton, Drew Barrymore, Demi Moore, Annette Benning, Jodie Foster, Jennifer Anniston, Mila Kunis, Cameron Diaz, Michelle Williams, Katherine Heigl, Tina Fey, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jennifer Garner, Scarlett Johansson – and all the other established/prominent (lets us not forget white & privileged) Hollywood women who have been critically acclaimed for their talents; received numerous awards; and/or leads in commercially successful movies to step back and financially fund this project. Make sure that it is an empowering film. Please do not let the white man fuck it up.

Use that privilege and let other women shine.

I want Kerry Washington, Sofia Vergara, Gabourey Sidibe, Neha Dupia, Rosie Perez, Quevenzhané Wallis, Jennifer Lopez, Jaclyn Smith, Halley Berry, Eva Mendes, Amy Poehler, Viola Davis, Sara Ramirez, Sigourney Weaver, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Geena Davis, Sanaa Lathan, Lucy Lui, Sheetal Sheth, Aisha Tyler, Judy Reyes, Nia Long, Sandra Oh, Penelope Cruz, Melissa McCarthy, Zoey Deschanel, Taraji P. Henson, Miriam Colon, Hannah Simone, Queen Latifah, Rosario Dawson, Loretta Devine, Lauren Velez, Eva Longoria, Aishwarya Rai, and Amandla Stenberg to make cameo appearances as Amazons, goddesses (J. Lo you will always be my Aphrodite), political figures, lawyers, doctors, law enforcement, emergency responders, techies, surgeons, chief executive officers, journalists, reporters, scientists, teachers, engineers, illustrators, stay-at-home moms, professors, damsels in distress, cooks, painters and even villains.

I want M.I.A., Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, Adele, Azalea Banks, Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Tina Turner, Janelle Monae, Nicki Minaj, Ani DiFranco, Jennifer Hudson, Peaches, Tracy Chapman, Jill Scott, Lady Gaga, and Janet Jackson and to put out a kickass soundtrack.

Shonda Rhimes, Gail Simone, and Jodi Picoult I need you to write the screenplay. Dee Rees and Kathryn Bigelow please team up and direct this. Salma Hayek, you made Frida happen, go on ahead and produce this one.

Please and thank you,

Crunkista

CF Jalylah’s Aunt Pearl and mother, Julie                    Photographed by Cynthia Burrell

call it our craziness even,

call it anything.

it is the life thing in us

that will not let us die.

Poet Lucille Clifton’s language for lineage was cherished. “roots,” a poem from her  1974 collection An Ordinary Woman named it light and I choose to liken it to mothering.

it is the light in us

it is the light of us

it is the light, call it

whatever you have to,

call it anything

I call it mom. I call it a practice of unconditional love that this weekend calls us to celebrate. To all who mother, thank you. Such living is love.

the light of us: a mother’s day mix

“My Mother, My Father, and Love” Duke Ellington
“Mother’s Theme (Mama)” Willie Hutch
“Mother’s Prayer” The Dynamic Gospel Flames Of Griffin, Georgia
“Aja’s Mom” Kindred The Family Soul
“Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call)” Stevie Wonder/ “Always There are the Children” Nikki Giovanni
“Mother’s Song” Gregory Porter
“A Mother’s Love” Aretha Franklin
“Thinking About My Mother” Little Richard
“For Mama” Linda Lewis
“Synopsis Two Mother’s Day” 24 Carat Black/ “Mother To Son” Langston Hughes
“Mama’s Soul” Gary Bartz NTU Troop
“Give Thanks” Sizzla
“Universal Mother” Don Cherry

[STREAM/DOWNLOAD]

*Last year’s inaugural CFC mother’s day mix, a praise song for mamas, is still available here.

But can I be real with y’all? Sometimes being the one to wave the red flag is tiring as hell. I’m down for the struggle. I got serious Black Girl Freedom Dreams, like most of the sisters I know.

But sometimes you just need to twerk!

So now that I’ve done the requisite acknowledgements, I’m ready to get a little ratchet and hip you to three new songs that have me feeling optimistic about what Black girl pleasure can look like.

First, there’s the homie K. Michelle of Love and Hip Hop ATL fame:

Check this lyric: “Cuz I just wanna fuck and not fall in love/I’m over all the pain that love can bring/tonite I want sex that doesn’t mean a thing/ that don’t make me no slut/A woman has her needs”

Now despite what you may think of the actual song, two things are true: 1st, the chick has an amazing set of pipes. She can seriously blow. 2nd, these lyrics are powerful, and kind of ironic in a song that sounds like it’s going to be a love ballad.

Oh yeah, and all I’ll say about her love interest is I guess she figured if she was gonna put out a video objectifying a dude she might as well flip the script entirely.

Anyway, this song is a statement of Black female sex positivity, and as I’ve called it elsewhere “Ratchet Feminism” that we shouldn’t overlook.

(So stop clutching your pearls.)

*****

Second, there’s post-Destiny’s child Kelly Rowland. She’s found her niche, making sexy, grown Black girl music like “Motivation,” “Ice,” and this newest joint “Kisses Down Low.”

Some of my homegirls are mad that she has limited herself to putting out sexy songs. And that’s a legitimate critique. But I’m more interested in the unapologetic nature of the music she’s putting out, and her willingness to ask for what she needs.

Check this lyric: “I like my kisses down low/makes me arch back/when you give it to me slow/baby, just like that”

Then an autotuned masculine voice (maybe Bey from I Been On — J/K!) repeats the lyrics as if to make sure he has the instructions just right.

All Black feminists need to know how to give instructions! And you need a partner who can follow directions!

As someone who definitely likes her kisses down low, I ain’t #hatin.

*******

Last, but Best, is the new Janelle Monae’ joint! Now y’all this is pure fiyah! It exemplifies what Renina Jarmon is talking about when she says #blackgirlsarefromthefuture.

“Is it peculiar that I twerk in the mirror?” is an existential question of the highest order in my estimation. And it’s a question you should ask while you twerk.

“Testify: The Booty don’t lie.” This line bespeaks another truth that Black girls need to tell: the radical truth that Black girl’s asses are not merely archives of pain, but active sites of pleasure. Because of the ways Black girl booty has been treated at least since the days of Sarah Baartman, we’ve engaged in a collective, respectable kind of denial about these other truths that Black girl ass can tell. But here’s the point: they tell the truths that are true for us, to us, when we twerk in the front of the mirror, by ourselves or with other Black girls.

What I love is that while we can acknowledge that the mirrors (and hands and policies) of others have been quite brutal to us, we can also tell a different story about what the mirrors in our own lives say to us. But my mirrors are not only stationary pieces of decor. I also have human mirrors, in the form of other Brown girls who reflect my truths back to me, often when my own view has been distorted.

Sometimes that distorted view keeps me from reveling in Black girl joy. But I’m so glad that Janelle Monae’ won’t be denied!

And for those of you who are mad that I would put Kelly and K. Michelle in the same stratosphere as a talent like Janelle Monae’, I say simply to quote my homegirl Kaila Story, “there is no singularity of Black girl truths.”

And quoting my damn self: “there is no justice without pleasure.”

So enjoy, Crunk Family!

And feel free to weigh in:

Do you think we need a pleasure politics in Black feminism?

Are these songs examples of what feminist Black female pleasure might look like?

For more on Black Feminist Pleasure Politics, check out this latest work from Joan Morgan, yours truly, and the Pleasure Ninjas.

Sonia Sanchez and CF Jalylah at the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center

But we knew. And
our knowing was like a sister’s embrace.

Sonia Sanchez, “A Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King,” homegirls and handgrenades (1984)

I first sat at the feet of Sonia Sanchez at Spelman College where I was assiduously loved and educated. Sanchez was invited by the Women’s Resource and Research Center to help train us up as scholar-activists in the Toni Cade Bambara way. She sipped water green with liquid chlorophyll while she spoke with us. It became my habit soon after.

Sonia Sanchez and Spelman College’s Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activists

Last winter when she was welcomed by the good folk in Yale’s Department of African American Studies, I nipped at her heels. I was seated at the back of a minibus of Black Studies-waymakers and sprinted after her when she politely beckoned the driver to stop so she could offer greetings to nearby Occupy New Haven activists. Later that night she retraced her footsteps as a founder of the field of study and not without critical reflection. She ended the evening by calling all assembled into a hand-clasped circle of gratitude.

Sonia Sanchez at Occupy New Haven December 9, 2011  (Photographed by Jennifer Leath)

Just yesterday I recovered a portion of my sense at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. I went there to finish reading an out-of-print anthology of short stories by black writers that I had begun at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. I had been working through anthologies of African American literature when I was interrupted by a major depressive episode. Three weeks into a successful medication regimen and in the thick of therapy, I am now returning to the privilege of this work. We Be Word Sorcerers, published in 1974, witnessed Sonia Sanchez assembling writings from the seas of black genius. Her careful curation said that the river has always been turning to paraphrase a poet I will always be carrying.

“My people, black and black, revile the River.
Say that the River turns, and turn the River.”

Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Sermon on the Warpland,” In the Mecca (1968)

By introduction Sanchez wrote, “The stories in this book are about us during our long journey to tomorrow.” The songs on this mix approach that arc that Black Studies enables, that Black Feminisms always extends. A distiller of language, Sanchez did not belabor the task. A page later she punctuated her introduction with these words:

We Be Word Sorcerers. Indeed. For we are the disenchanters of the gospel of inferiority, the exorcists of hatred of self, the enchanters of our renewed circle of Blackness where the love of self and each other has no Beginning or End.

Sonia Sanchez, “Introduction,” We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans  (1974)

This is for the word sorcerers, chiefly my mother Julie.

always arriving: a black scholar’s mixtape

“Frederick Douglass Afro Sheen Commercial” (for geneva)
“Cloud 9” Donnie (for moya)
“A Different World Season 6 Theme” Boyz II Men 
“Breakthrough” Tia Fuller/ ”Black Studies” Sonia Sanchez (for spelman)
“Black Scholars” James Williams (for joe, kyra, daphne and ferentz)
“Abbeylude” Les Nubians
“Caged Bird” Abbey Lincoln
“Crow Dance” Zora Neale Hurston (for dr. gayles)
“Work To Do” Carl Allen and Rodney Whitaker/“Whoo” Sonia Sanchez (for elizabeth) 
“No Time To Play” Guru feat. Ronny Jordan, Dee C. Lee and Big Shug
“Work” Barrington Levy
“The American Promise” RAMP
“Bicentennial Prayer” Richard Pryor (for my dad)
“Ever” Zora Neale Hurston
“Women’s Love Rights” Laura Lee (for all my black feminist kin)
“Sweet Sister Funk” Ramon Morris (for the cfc)
“Black Enough” Galt Mac Dermot and Melba Moore
“Prelude Welcome” Francisco Mora Catlett/”Poem for July 4, 1995″ Sonia Sanchez (for yale afam)

[STREAM/DOWNLOAD]

If you ask me who held up the light, I could write a book. From Lakeside to Li Po Chun to Spelman Lane to Washington Square to 81 Wall Street but today on my radio program There Ought To Be More Dancing  I will call many of their names. Tune in from 4-5 pm EST on WYBC Yale radio.

There are some places where people are warned never to go, known for violence, drug traffic, and poverty.  For those who have not grown up in these environments we are taught to fear and/or condemn people who live there.  This is not true of everyone.  There are some s/heroes who “see the faces at the bottom of the well,” and offer a rope AND a bucket of food and water.  Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition (AHRC) is the rescue organization where prevention is key and care is unconditional.  This week the CFC will spotlight AHRC because they need our support to keep their doors open.

Atlanta Harm Reduction offers the only consistent syringe exchange program in the southeast region.  According to Mona Phillips, a founding member, their early advocacy work began with people living with HIV/AIDS.  During direct action campaigns to raise awareness about Atlantans needing access to affordable pharmaceutical drugs in 1996 they started seeing syringes on the ground.  Recognizing this marker to mean resurgence in heroin use they literally followed the syringes and the word on the street to English Avenue and set up shop there.

AHR has been in English Avenue since 1998 providing: FREE HIV testing, counseling, and connection with additional resources; FREE meals and hot showers a few days a week; FREE access computers and internet; FREE clothes closet access; FREE counseling for people with addictions; FREE Hepatitis A and B vaccines; FREE drug paraphernalia to stop the spread of AIDS, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C; FREE condoms and counseling for sex workers everyday. The syringe exchange program, assumed to target people who use recreational drugs only, is also important for people with diabetes to inject insulin as well as transgender people for hormone injections.

Where others choose to avoid the basic needs of so many people in this area because they don’t approve of their choices…Atlanta Harm Reduction rushed in.

While there have been articles, essays, videos, book chapters published about Atlanta Harm Reduction, state and county budget cuts make “FREE” hard to maintain and they are on the verge of having to close their doors.

AHRC sees 40-60 people each of the four days they are open, most come on Tuesday and Thursday because it will likely be their first shower or their last shower of the week.  While they receive support from the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Panera Bread, they still had to lay off staff and cut their days of service to four days.  They rely on volunteers and the good will of people, but many are uncomfortable with the fact that AHRC encourages people with addictions to get rehabilitation but refuses to criminalize them.  Marshall Rancifer says he has been effective getting more than 350 people successfully into rehab because AHRC is there when people are ready—no judgment.

I have had the privilege of spending time with Marshall Rancifer, Mona Bennett, and Verna Gaines, and a long-time student volunteer, Danielle Sharpe, and what I know is by supporting their work I am supporting communities in great need.  I admire the work Atlanta Harm Reduction is doing to stop the spread of HIV and I deeply respect that they do not turn anyone away.

So we are asking our CFC community to consider a one-time or monthly tax deductible donation of $5, $25, $100 or to volunteer your time.  This Friday come out to their Open House Fundraiser from 10am-4pm at AHRC where they will be providing tours of the facility.  Atlanta needs Harm Reduction and AHRC needs your support.  Donate, volunteer, spread the word!!! Do what you do best.

Thank You,

Crunk Feminist Collective

In that piece, over two years ago, I argued:

via Clutch Magazine

I know from that experience that I touched a real nerve. That’s why it’s been two full years since I have returned to this conversation. Take a look at the comments section (but only if you are brave, prayed up, and have some sage at the house.)

What I saw in those comments was fear. Fear of offending God and bringing God’s wrath. In fact, I spent a whole weekend on Crunkadelic’s couch trying to make sense of the backlash (turns out Church folks can be really vicious, especially when they think they are doing it for God).  But mostly I was disappointed at this unhealthy relationship that Black women have to our theology.

How have we come to think our desires have no place in the Kingdom of God? If that is true, how is the Kingdom of God any different than say, American Slavery, which taught us that we were first and foremost the property of someone else, to be used for their pleasure, our sexual needs and desires totally both subordinate to and in service of someone else’s needs and wishes.

I absolutely understand the conservative evangelical church’s teaching about being in total submission to God’s will, trying to conform our desires to God’s desires, and trusting that God’s plan is better than ours. Yet, God is a relational God to me,  not a dictator who sits on high meting out rules and punishments.

No, I don’t have all these deep theological and philosophical questions figured out.  I am not a theologian. What I am is a person who deeply loves God and who God has been to me. What I know is that that God has invited me to ask my questions, to get honest, and to struggle in the community of faith over what it means to be a fully grown Black woman.

As a Black feminist, I know that as we attempt to create a new politics of pleasure in Black feminism, we must address the role of religion and spirit in that process. The politics of respectability is so deeply bound up with Christian theology, that “de-tangling” these interconnected strands will be a freeing project for us all, even those who don’t identify as Christian.

So this post is the prelude to getting that conversation started.

Tomorrow night, Friday, March 15, 2013, at 9:05 pm, we are going to host a live Google Hangout on this topic.

I’ll be chatting with three fierce, progressive, feminist ministering women who can give some critical perspective on these issues.

Rev. Theresa Thames

Theresa serves as an Associate Pastor at a progressive and reconciling United Methodist Church in Washington, DC. Growing up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast gave her an appreciation for music, art, culture, and theology. Theresa attended Howard University and continued her studies at Duke Divinity School. Theresa’s areas of interest are intersections of theology, sociology, and organizational systems.

DC oftentimes feels too busy and noisy, so in order to feel at home, Theresa spends her time connecting with people through music and storytelling. When she’s not teaching a class or thinking about organizational systems and development, Theresa enjoys listening to music (she has close to 5,000 songs on her iPod) dancing, listening to podcasts and reading. However, her most important and most fulfilling role is being AuntieMommie to her 10 year old nephew.

Rev. Arabella Littlepage

 

Rev. Arabella Littlepage was born and raised in Huntsville, AL and now resides in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.  She earned a B.A. in Political Science from Howard University in 2003.  She was ordained a Baptist Minister in 2010 after earning a Master’s of Theological Studies from Wesley Theological Seminary in May of that year.  She currently serves as an Associate Minister at a local Baptist Church in the DC metro area.  Her ministry interests include equipping people to think constructively about one’s life with God in community, studying and teaching contemplative spiritual practices, and facilitating retreats.  In addition to her work in ministry, Arabella is an avid knitter and scrapbooker.

 

 

Dr. Candi Dugas

Dr. Candi Dugas is an award-winning writer and practical theologian whose progressive insights challenge how we think about faith, freedom, and justice. Author of two published books and more than 20 regionally produced stageplays and skits, Candi’s latest projects include her most recent book, Who Told You That You Were Naked? Black Women Reclaiming Sexual and Spiritual Goodness and her first screenplay, Desire’s Kiss, which celebrates feminine sexuality in the context of faith.

A graduate of Columbia Theological Seminary (Decatur, GA) with a D.Min. in Christian Spirituality, Candi also holds a M.Div. in Homiletics/Worship and Hebrew Bible from Gammon Seminary/ Interdenominational Theological Center (Atlanta, GA) and a B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) – GO GATORS! She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Working Title Playwrights, Atlanta Screenwriters Group, the Church Within A Church Movement, and the Interfaith Community Initiatives.

One of the few Atlanta natives left, Candi enjoys hanging out with friends and family, especially her daughter, Jordan — along with mountain vacations, dancing, and driving sports cars. She dreams of opening retreat houses that create physically safe spaces for possibilities, peace, rest, revelation, thought, truth, healing, and wholeness.

 

Time: 9:05-10:05 pm EST

Place: The conversation will stream live at  http://www.youtube.com/user/CrunkFeminists

Date: Friday, March 15, 2013 — Be there!

Tweet us: @crunkfeminists

Post questions:  Facebook, here in the comments section, or on Youtube during the convo.

Update, March 15, 2013 — Click here for the permanent link for the Single, Saved, and Sexin Conversation.

 

 

CF’s Moya and Jalylah at The March for Women’s Lives on April 25, 2004 in Washington, D.C..

“You are magnificent.” So read the final line of an email I received from the CFC’s Moya Bailey the first Friday of 2012. The subject line was, “Love for you in the new year!” It recalled the summer we became friends and its consequence on her journey. She offered thanks and called me by a name I still shrink from.

We met ten Junes earlier in Harlem. We both were attending Kevin Powell’s HipHop Speaks! event at Riverside Church. She wrote I said hello. I remember that being the first of many summer days we sat together. Wee hours talking on the steps of Union Square are what I mostly remember and dancing to Donnie at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s R&B Festival at MetroTech. She insisted on the genius of his debut, The Colored Section. I remembered the roar of Atlanta’s Yin Yang Café when he sang and underage-I checked IDs at the door but I was dismissive. I have always preferred pretend aloofness to exclusion.

We both had our dragons to slay. A few remain at my neck and, to their fiery breath, I will attribute my recent hair loss. To Moya, I will attribute unconditional love. Ever open to people and process, she has modeled courage. Ever-embracing, she has made me feel like enough even when I was a mess. It is good to know Moya and I call her name in celebration of sisterhood. I call her name because she constantly calls me and you to justice whether in her blessed company, in her brilliant classes, in this crucial collective, in her activism, in her writing or her epic good-time making.

This is how I celebrate Women’s History Month. I call magnificent the women who have worked miracles in my life from Mom to Moya, Geneva to Aisha, L’Erin to Kristel, Iquo to Simone, Sunanda to Courtney, Brooke to Amy, Devin to Marcia, Kimerie to Maxine, Gabby to Xenia, Jane to Velma, April to Kristen, Frances to Lynn, Nzingha to Elizabeth, Ebony to Malika, Alysia to Teresa, Evans to Jamila, Camara to Kandia, Ruby to Roberta, Sister Bisi to Tarshia, Kyra to Lyneka, Taneya to Tiona, Sabrina to Laylah, Ana to Adom, Gwendolyn to Georgia, Spelman College to Imani House and the gratitude goes on. The full can never be told but I will not stop trying and I invite you to do the same in the comment section, in an email, a blog post, a Tweet, a Facebook status or even an old-fashioned phone call. Spread love, it’s the feminist way.

thank you: a women’s history month mix

“Miss Celie’s Blues” Tata Vega
“Giving Something Up” Amel Larrieux
“Lag Time” Ani DiFranco/ “Crutches” Nikki Giovanni
“My Crew” Jean Grae
“Apple Tree” Erykah Badu/ “Apple Tree” [Live at Black Girls Rock] Erykah Badu
“Bad Girls (Switch Remix)” M.I.A. feat. Missy Elliott and Rye Rye
“Run The World (Girls)” Beyonce
“Estragen” Apani B-Fly Emcee feat. Ayana, Helixx, Heroine, Lyric, Pri The Honey Dark, What? What? & Yejide Apani B-Fly Emcee
“Grandmother And Mother’s Legacy” Radmilla Cody
“Black Mona Lisa” Lamya
“Star” Janelle Monáe
“Cinderella” The Cheetah Girls
“Making Friends: Episode 1” Chelsea Peretti
“You’ve Got A Friend” LaBelle
“Kind & Generous” Natalie Merchant

[STREAM/DOWNLOAD]

*Special thanks to Eesha Pandit. It was after receiving her International Women’s Day tweet of gratitude to members of this collective that I decided to make this mix.

Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else. We can give ourselves the unconditional love that is the grounding for sustained acceptance and affirmation. When we give this precious gift to ourselves, we are able to reach out to others from a place of fulfillment and not from a place of lack.

~ bell hooks

“Commitment: Let Love Be Love in Me” in  All About Love (p. 67)

I ate the yam. I ate the yam between a pair of greasy chicken-fried colored legs and well-worn hands that carved hair plots for my budding locks beneath the buzz of blackgirl talk and a florescent flicker. For some of my stay-woke hip hop sistren, our return to feminist roots was all (about) the rage. I believed my minute meditation, speed journaling, and my manicured Badu hairdo were the seeds to recovering my Black self. (Commercial break makeovers were fashionable in the 90s.) So, when I changed my (out)look and my worldview with her four words (read: white supremacist capitalist patriarchy), this candied yam-fed feminist felt personally betrayed by bell hooks who now seemed hell-bent on some love kick. What’s self-love gotta do with it? I ate her yam—brushed over her book. But, how was a series of self-help survival guides gonna save me?

I was young.

Yesterday, I ruminated about Love Day. I unearthed hooks again along with other Black feminists writing about self-love as a meaningful political act of resistance and reclamation for Black women who are trained to be the first-responders to other folks, to be the bystanders of our own crisis. Love—rooted in an unique, emotive, empathetic ethic of care—is the hallmark of Black feminist thought. I was reminded that to do the work of feminism is to do the labor of loving ourselves.

Changing my hair has been much easier than changing my heart.

On a day when we are encouraged to shower someone else, I want to turn love inward too. This ain’t ego-trip. For some of us, it is a lifelong journey just imagining what love feels like. To starve my all-consuming rage that used to poison me and those I cared for, I have practiced patience and forgiveness, learned emphathic listening to hear with my spirit, and devoted time to cultivating dreams for my lovers. After another day of guilt-grabbing drive-thru food between on-the-book and off-the-clock meetings, I see myself flopping fully-clothed and head first on the bed falling back out of love with myself because of my inner people-pleaser. Still growing. The outsider-within still needs to nurture love from the inside out.  I do know how to love. Yet, each day I must remind myself to give to myself what I willingly offer others. I gotta love me like I love my lover. We, sisters of the yam, have strong roots. This V-Day, let’s plot and nurture the kind of revolutionary self love that Black feminism has sown.

Revolution begins with the self, in the self. It may be lonely. Certainly painful. It’ll take time. We’ve got time. That of course is an unpopular utterance these days. We’d better take the time to fashion revolutionary selves, revolutionary lives, revolutionary relationships. If your house ain’t in order, you ain’t in order. It is so much easier to be out there than right here. The revolution ain’t out there. Yet. But it is here. 

~ Toni Cade Bambara

“On the Issue of Roles” in The Black Woman Anthology (pp. 133-135)

Love
So many people use your name in vain
Love
Those who have faith in you sometimes go astray
Love
Through all the ups and downs the joys and hurts
Love
For better or worse I still will choose you first

I have been reflecting on the love of my sisters, particularly in feminism.  I have been troubled by the fact that many of my sisters have been struggling for a number of reasons, but there are certain hurts that just should not be.  A few weeks ago I read a blog by my sister-in-scholarship, Tressie Cottom, super-scholar and new friend who lamented on the lack of love demonstrated when a student at the University of Chicago threatened to circulate a mugshot photo of her in an effort criminalize her, attack her character, and denounce her scholarship, simply because he disagreed with her perspective on the importance of grades in graduate school.  REALLY! While for many of you this is old news, I bring this up because I realized that the reason she was even in the Atlanta University Center area near Morehouse College is because she was lost trying to get to me to join my class for a celebration dinner.  But instead of weighing in on the ridiculousness that occurred, both Morehouse police for pulling her over and “booking” her and U of C brotha-student lacking basic decency and manners, I want to focus on how love guides much of the work the feminists in my life do regularly.

Sometime Yes! is a powerful statement.  I teach a Poverty and Social Justice course at Spelman College and I wanted my students to learn to write in ways that encourage them to enter public discussions now.  The five page paper and the research papers have their place, but students should be cultivating their voices as students.  With all their access to the interwebs and simple applications I believe they need to work on a little more production and a lot less consumption, so I called Tressie because she came highly recommended to do a workshop on Opinion Editorials for my class.  She did not know me.  I simply told her what I needed and she said, “Yes!”  In fact, she said, “Yes!” again in the Fall, and again she has said “Yes!” for this Spring.  We finally had lunch as friends last week.

On the night she was pulled over I had invited her to have dinner with my class to thank her for sharing her time and talent with us, but she did not show up.  I assumed something came up, as it often does, and let it be.  I found out through her blog two months later that she was arrested.  So here is where the challenge comes in.  When my sisters need help all too often too many of them do not reach out.  They say, “I did not want to bother anyone” or “It wasn’t that big a deal.” And it would not have been if someone did not decide to look for ways to tear her down.

Love
So many people use your name in vain
Love
Those who have faith in you sometimes go astray
Love
Through all the ups and downs the joys and hurts
Love
For better or worse I still will choose you first

One of the most important commitments of the Crunk Feminist Collective is self-care.  We insist on figuring out ways to care for ourselves and one another.  We send care packages to one another and others as we can and we remind each other to take care of ourselves.  What we realize is that working in the academy and advancing feminist politics in a broken nation/world can be toxic and while we don’t want to be negative one of our goals is to “not die” trying to do this work.  Too many of our feminist foremothers and forefathers have died too soon trying to do this work.  I am thinking of Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and recently Rudolph Byrd.  The way that we move forward and “live” is by caring for one another by saying Yes! and sometimes No!, but also by agreeing to engage one another in love.  To engage one another in love may mean getting crunk when need be, but it also means sending a lifeline (text, email, phone call, lunch) when you know someone needs it.  Instead of getting Crunk online, this time we chose to send life lines to our sister to let her know that while the principles of online engagement are important to figure out, making sure she was okay was our top priority.

I have women in my life right now trying to figure out how to be in community with one another and love sometimes feels like it isn’t enough.  I have to believe that “love in struggle” is enough.  I love Tressie because she gives of her time and talent because she loves working with young scholars-of-color to develop their voice through their writing.  I love Tressie because instead of attacking another student she reached out to invite him to participate on a panel to discuss academic engagement and social media.  I love the CFC because in this community I am so much more informed about the people and issues I care about, like Tressie’s situation.  This time she did not call me, but in this community of love I did get the message and was able to respond.

For me the love lessons are many; brotha Soulchild teaches us that sometime folks ain’t gone act right, Tressie teaches us that we can choose to let love guide our engagement both online and off-line.  The love lesson I want to leave you with is this…

Sometimes our folks need our support and love but don’t know how to ask for it or don’t think it is important enough, so we have to tell them regularly that they can call on us.  Sometimes people need invitations to be loved.  After scolding Tressie for not calling on me, I let her know that I love her and that next time she has to give me the opportunity to say, “Yes!.”

In case you missed the first post in our CFC love series by crunktastic check it out.

But church is still the place I go when I need to get my mind and my spirit right, when the work I want to do in the world has me vexed, perplexed and ready to fight!

I am always reminded that there is a bigger picture and it ain’t about me.

 That is as true about my Christianity as it is about my feminism.

 What I know for sure is that the things that I love most about feminism and the things I love most about the church when we are all on our best behavior are deeply connected.

 I want a church where my intellect and my politics don’t have to stay outside the door while my holy hologram worships inside.

This was my show back in the 80s!

Feminism doesn’t need holograms, either. Cyborgs, yes. Holograms we leave to Jem, Jerica and childhood.

 In both spaces, I want to be fully human; fully myself, sinner, saint, struggler, soldier of love. All of it. At the same damn time.

 What my social justice crew and my Christ-loving crew agree on is that the world is broken. But so much better than that, we all believe that a different world is possible, that a world with more justice and more mercy and more love is possible.

 And we believe that the hardest work happens as we transform ourselves openly in community with other people.

So in this month that we here at the CFC begin our third annual Love series, I thought I would kick it off with a brief reflection on a classic passage on love.

Though we are most familiar with verses 4-8, the real challenge of this passage comes in the verses that we often do not quote (1-3).

 We can be eloquent, prophetic, self-sacrificing, generous, movement builders, who move mountains on a daily basis, but if we don’t do it from a space of love, we gain nothing.

Feminist movement work, like the church, is full of eloquent, generous souls, souls that are prophetic in their courageous willingness to call out B.S., folks who ask us to envision a different way of seeing, folks who show up believing that this ish can really change, folks who are powerful enough to move us to a different place.

But it doesn’t matter how gifted, how visionary, how courageous, or how motivated we are if we can’t speak a kind word, if we can’t forgive wrongs, if we reside in the space of (unhealthy, unexpressed, un-righteous) anger, or we refuse to call out evil for what it is.

 Yes, the intellectual in me asks many questions of seemingly “easy” and “black-and-white” passages like this. Because of course, we should stay mad at injustice, and sometimes we forgive wrongs done to us too easily, and sometimes what church folk call “truth” does all manner of evil.

I don’t know how we politically operationalize love in social justice movements.

But I do know love brings us back to the table when we would otherwise walk away.

 Love requires us to step in palms up when we would rather go out guns blazing.

A scholar-pal once mentioned that the other possible title for Toni Morrison’s novel Love was War. If you’ve read the book, you’ll see that both could easily have fit. Sometimes, as Tamar Braxton reminds us, love and war seem indistinguishable.

But. And this is a big but.

Love is life-giving; war is death-dealing. Critical difference.

Hollywood has indeed done us a disservice because it has romanticized all love, making us believe that love is all about fuzzy feelings, clouds and bunnies, and passion and chemistry. If the movements we want to build are ever to grow up, we must grow up. We must put away childish ways of thinking. Our biggest generational challenge will not be how to organize, how to fundraise, or how to sustain ourselves. It will be in the words of Lil Wayne, “how to love.”

How do we love when shit ain’t lovely?

How do we love?

We don’t mate for life.

We aren’t brand loyal.  

We do not spend 30 years at one company.

We believe in our right to have and pursue the next best thing.

How do we build movements in the era of 140 characters?

I don’t know.

But this passage of scripture reminds us, challenges us always to take the long view. In this super information age, we still know “only in part.” We therefore, “prophesy,” (advocate for change, call out injustice), “only in part.”

Feminists academics might call it partial and situated knowledges. That’s the theory.

But the practice: the art of it –the heart of it— is the ability to say, “however right I am or think I am, I don’t know everything.”

Love creates the space for us to acknowledge our limitations, to trust that our acknowledgements will be handled in care, and that the parts we bring can fit together with the parts others bring, to build the world anew.

Skeptics will say, “never say never.”

 How can we say that Love never fails?

Perhaps we should think about it the way that the family of Ana Marquez-Greene, the little brown girl killed in the Newtown shootings has chosen to say it nearly every  day since she died.

Love wins.

Or perhaps rather than expending our energy proving that love does fail, we should spend our time, our life and our activism making sure it doesn’t.

Note:  for the church-loving folks among you, here’s a link to the sermon that inspired today’s reflection. Hat tip to Rev Dr. Leslie D. Callahan and the good folks at St. Paul’s.