cripchick’s weblog

I’m reading The Bridge Called My Back right now and even though I’m only in the first few pages (like always), it amazes me how connected I feel to the writers. When Cherrie Moraga says “My growing consciousness as a woman of color is surely seeming to transform my experience. How could it be that the more I feel with other women of color, the more I feel myself Chicana, the more susceptible I am to racist attack!”, I am nodding, knowing that 20 some odd years later, this is the truth for me as well. When on the next page, she says “I am afraid to get near how deeply I want the love of other Latin women in my life“, I am sitting in the library wanting to cry. Through these words, my heart is so connected to women I’ve never even met before.

Through a sisterhood shared with other women of color, I am learning more than I ever knew about myself. Through this sisterhood, I am learning what community can mean when we put the collective vision we built together over materialistic capitalist gain. Through this sisterhood, we are here without fretting what nondisabled white feminists think of who we are. We are here for our sisters, our mothers, our friends. With the love of these people in my life (both in life and in the blogosphere), I am able for the first time to be truthful and not shy and not ashamed and put my wholeself out there. I’ve never felt so vulnerable and free.

I was recently asked by a friend if blogging had any impact on my life and I did not know where to even start. I still do not believe BFP’s La Chola blog is gone and it makes me realize and reflect on how much blogging and other bloggers of color have impacted my own life. My heart soars when I read their writing, my head nods viciously, my arms want to reach to give them a hug. I believe it was Sydette who said that part of the woc experience was always being *this* close to catastrophe and feeling like you are alone in it. There are so many things constantly wearing down our community at the edges and corners—what will we do to save ourselves and what we have built together? I am not sure but I know we are like the flowers (called weeds by some) that refuse to stop growing through the cracks.

I started blogging after Nubian stopped writing at Blackademic but after browsing through her blog this year, I’ve come back again and again to a poem she wrote. The whole thing is raw and honest and beautiful but this is the part that speaks to me the most:

i blog because:
i have found a community of women
who appreciate what i have to say
who do not question my experiences of racism–
claiming that maybe i am just paranoid,
or it is my own fault that i did not succeed
women who understand
and have shown me respect
through the internet
in the best ways that they can
through email
messages
comments
rings
links
and love

Hello my friends,

Happy New Year, loves. I hope it is one filled with happiness, love, and an effort to get to know ourselves better, as activists, as people, and as brothers and sisters living in a complicated, sometimes ugly sometimes beautiful world. (more…)

You may be curious about the banner at the top and who the people in it actually are. I am on the left and my dear friend/fellow activist/sister TF is on the right. We were wearing these signs while at a reproductive justice conference where we had given a 3-hour preconference “disability 101″ training one day and then the next day, found out that A.) only 1 out of 30 or 40 sessions of a conference that is known to be issue-inclusive were related specifically to disabled people and B.) actually weren’t able to attend any of the sessions because of accessibility issues.

TF is probably the most fiercest, loving, honest, militant person I’ve ever met (as well as the person who coined the term “crip on a stick” a few entries back.) Although this sort of goes against her last entry, I advise you to visit her blog and petition, err I mean encourage, her to bless us more often with her insightful musings via the internet. : ) You’re missing out if she’s not on your feeds list.

Today an old love interest messaged me with her phone number and asked me to contact her.. I had spent a lot of energy trying to get in touch with her earlier this year since A.) I’ve always felt guilty about the way things ended (this is when I was coming out of the closet…and going back in..and coming out…and, well, you get the picture) and B.) the last I had heard, she had *literally* been shipped from a mental institution to some random state and was homeless with her pregnant sister and no PCA (personal care attendant) services.

I was really concerned but apparently I have no reason to be…the girl found Jesus. (more…)