International Women's Day: End Violence Against Women. And Please Sign Petition To President Obama.

(picture courtesy of http://www.unicefusa.org/hidden/women-of-drc.html Roger LeMoyne. Photo of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo awaiting emergency medical treatment at the overwhelmed Panzi Hospital)

A week ago, a female friend shared an experience that left me unable to sleep that night. My friend (who I’ll refer to as K) was awoken in her hotel room by the weight of a man on top of her, and a hand covering her mouth. K survived this rape attempt by screaming and alerting people, and by kicking him off. This happened a couple months ago, and K is thankful that the assault did not progress into an even more invasive nightmare. Understandably, K is still actively recovering from this trauma, the trauma of being assaulted when safety was assumed and she was most vulnerable. She has only recently gotten to place where the wind blowing a curtain in her house does not send somatic alerts through her body. And she is clear that she kicked ass. When she shares this story with women, she is usually met with empathy and support. And everytime... K receives another story of survival.

I too am thankful that the assault was not worse. As a part of my spiritual practice, I always ask for protection of my loved ones, family and community, and also more specifically for protection of female bodied people who i am connected to. I will never know the fear that is a part of growing up female around possibly being raped. I know that boys and men can be raped too, and that many male bodied people are carrying scars of sexual abuse. I also know that the numbers of boys and men who are survivors are significantly smaller than survivors who are girls and women- and for the most part, we don’t go through life with the ever looming spectre of possibly being sexually assaulted.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day. The main theme for this year is “Women and and men united to end violence against women and girls.” What can men do? We can model for other boys and men what a mature, non-oppressive man is like. We can support institutions and support healthy, feminist masculinities, and not support institutions that support more oppressive masculinities. There are also organizations like Men Can Stop Rape and Men Against Sexual Violence that do good work. Supporting organizations like San Francisco Women Against Rape, and other support services for rape survivors is another thing that anyone can do.

Those are some ideas for the local level (please add more!). As for the global level, that is something we are all going to have to brainstorm and pool resources over.

My sleepless night replaying K’s experience over and over again sent me into a downwards spiral, agonizing over the larger picture of the global reality of violence against women. Recently another female friend of mine sent me the link for a New York Times article entitled The Invisible War. I thought it was an aptly named phrase for the violence against women here at home, where the battlefields are usually secluded away from the public eye, and court systems do not make things easy for survivors. But this article was referring to the shockingly underreported state of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (yet another elucidating article labels the relative media and activist silence a “Grotesque Indifference”). In the DRC, rape has become the main weapon of war. Rape of hundreds of thousands of girls and women. Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds daily. Control over the mining of tin, coltan, and other materials fuel this war, as the DRC is the largest producer of most of these materials. These ores are responsible for making our cellphones, laptops, and other electronic gadgets, which no one needs to be informed has an incredible global demand. Militias fight to gain control of the mines, and use rape as a way to psychologically, spiritually, culturally- violently traumatize and dysfunctionalize whole communities. It is staggering to the soul to read the accounts.

I am going to place a boundary for protocol here regarding discussion of this painful subject. Understandably, this is horrific and enraging. However, i must emphasize that any comment which uses the words “savage” “animal” or “barbarian” to describe the marauding soldiers will be deleted. This is not in defense of the soldiers. These words are steeped in a historically racist lens. Yes, the acts are monstrous, horrible, sick, unspeakable, effed up, wrong, hateful, a sin, crimes against humanity and tons of other descriptors. If we could stick to this type of languaging, I would appreciate it. Because the news does not report the Israel army as being savage barbaric animals for burning civilians with phosphorous, or even the soldiers who were in the Serbian rape camps as such. But most articles around the crisis in the DRC use the word “savage” in the first paragraph. Including NPR.

In Aaronette M. White’s book “Ain’t I A Feminist” (reviewed on my blog here), White refers to Sojourner Truth as a pioneer of Black Feminism (and a role model for Black Feminist men), because she was able to have an “intersectional outlook on race and gender” (pg. 13) and she refused to prioritize the advancement of Black men at the exclusion of Black women. I am hoping that the readers of this blog can also hold an intersectional perspective where we can speak of the rights of women without devolving into racist dialogue. I am hoping we can all move together, and not make one form of oppression more acceptable than the other.

So what can we do about women in the Congo? As we all know, President Barack Obama has a full plate, but a part of his platform is to Fight Gender Violence Abroad. Let us remind him of this pledge, and SIGN THIS PETITION. We can also do our part by not caving in to buy every single new permutation of the cell phone. We live in a time where new models of phones are showcased and given names like new models of cars. Me, i have a BlackBerry. I think that’s fancy enough. Adopting a green stance and a culture of re-use also helps. Some of us have a couple of cell phones lying around. Those can be recycled, and materials can go back into the industry without depending on “blood ores”. Click here for electronic recycle depots near you. And click the link for Green For All clips, focusing on green job initiatives that are creating new opportunities for fighting poverty, environmental racism, and by association, the very issues being discussed here. It becomes clearer to me that Green Jobs can be anti-oppression.

These are all strategies within the context of living under capitalism. Clearly, the horrible crisis in the DRC is one of the ugliest symptoms of capitalism. I contribute to capitalism and I am in it, but i am also aware that capitalism is rooted in causing harm to oppressed people. In the case of DRC, war, patriarchy and capitalism come together to create a living hell for women.

I pray for human evolution, humanity and healing. It is my hope that whoever you are, whatever faith you belong to, you can still send prayers, light and love to the DRC. And also send some to women and girls that you know, if only in the spirit of International Women’s Day. Much gratitude, respect and love to all the women and girls in my life who contributed to me being the man i am today.

Revolutionary Love,
Richard

Ain't I A Feminist? Aaronette M. White's Study Of Black Feminist Masculinities.

Hey everyone, sorry for the lapse in time since my last post, its been a bit hectic! But I wanted to be sure to read enough of this amazing new book (dare I say, my new sacred text??) by Aaronette M. White, "Ain't I A Feminist? African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness and Freedom." (link gives excerpts from book)

In this book, AMW questions whether men can be feminists at all in her chapter "From Healthy Doubt to Critical Acceptance", she documents the role of Black men in feminist movements hundreds of years ago, quoting Fredrick Douglass saying "I am a radical woman suffrage man." She calls Black feminist men the "Sons Of Sojourner Truth" since Truth refused to prioritize issues of race over issues of gender. In the biographical sketches that AMW has collected of Black men who self identify as feminist, profeminist, antisexist or womanist, all of the men interviewed exemplify this intersectional approach to multiple systems of oppression in our communities. These men talk about the events that became the turning points towards this way of being and thinking, and both AMW and these men share visions of fatherhood, romantic and platonic relationships, and a truly holistic movement for Black liberation and healing. I'm telling you, this is THE BOOK!! I would even recommend this for people who aren't black folks... just because templates for dismantling patriarchy in our communities are here.

Allow me to have AMW and the men speak for themselves:

"What can be learned about feminist Black men's definitions and practices of manhood that would challenge institutional inequities, while contributing to the viability of African American communities and the construction of a humane and just society?" -AMW, pg.2

“Black feminism is frequently misunderstood. It may help to note what it is not. Adding the adjective “Black” to the term feminism does not mean that it is White feminism donned in blackface, for Black women only, or Black people only. Rather, there is more than one kind of feminism because culture, class, sexuality and a host of other experiential factors shape feminist perspectives. Thus. Black feminist thought, as used here, does not assume an essence of Blackness; instead it understands “Black” as a construct that reflects the intersection of a variety of institutional power relations. Black feminist thought has historically emphasized the intersection of race, class and gender, highlighting how African American women and other social groups are positioned within unjust power relations.” -AMW, pg.6

“What can feminist Black men’s narratives teach us about how to raise boys? How do we recognize feminist Black masculinities and support the different versions of it when we them, in the interest of broad social change? What are the public policy implications of their feminist activism?” -AMW, pg.11

“Men have to take responsibility to educate their kids and other men about sexism in the same way that White people have to take responsibility to educate their kids and other White people about racism.” - Jake, social justice activist, pg. 24

“When you become antisexist, you are perceived by others as a defector. Men don’t trust you, and a lot of women don’t trust you either.” -Bruce, Co-ordinator of program for men who batter women, pg. 17

“My experiences as a Black gay man have been at the heart of the anti-sexist work i do.... One of the messages that men get growing up is that the worst thing in the world for a man to be is gay, and to be gay is to be interpreted as being like a woman. People think, “Oh you’re gay so you must want to be a woman” or “You’re a fag because you are acting like a woman.” To come to grips with being gay has meant, for me, coming to grips with negative attitudes that men have about women and to realize that there is nothing awful about being a woman! I mean, tell me, what is so awful about a man being like a woman? So, addressing these woman-hating attitudes is at the heart of my work with men.” - Rex, Social Worker, pg. 27

“I grew up in a family where I saw a lot of violence meted out by my father to my mother. I hated how my father treated my mother. But I had to learn that if you’re not actively involved in unlearning behavior that you hate, you may find yourself repeating what you hate. I know what I am talking about because I became a batterer just like my father. I owe a lot to my ex-wife because she showed me pretty dramatically that being a batterer was not the thing for me to be. She shot me. If that doesn’t get your attention, nothing will.” - Soyinka, Labor Unionist, pg. 28

“In traditional Christian patriarchal culture, God is always male; and in traditional Christian White supremacist culture, God is always a white male. So, my struggle has been- over the course of my life- to remove the Whiteness of God’s image, then- over the course of my feminist life- remove the maleness from God’s image.” -Alan, Pentecostal Minister, pg. 34

Black men who are cognizant of the particular predicament of Black women, as persons who experience both racism and sexism, tend to prioritize race issues over gender issues and argue that Black women should do the same (likewise, liberal White feminist women often expect Black women to rank gender issues over race issues when the interests of both collide) -AMW, pg. 43

Men, primarily, teach boys and men to be violent. Regardless of how badly a father treats his child or the child’s mother, he also teaches, by example, a shameless way of being in the world; his actions say to the boy, “You, too, can behave as I do when you become a man.” Too often, “what fathers pass on to their children is their own unacknowledged pain, and in instances of violence, a male sense of entitlement to inflict pain on others.” -AMW, pg. 48

Boys who show the worst psychological development are not always those without fathers but, often, those with abusive or neglectful fathers.... Current research suggests that the key factor in a boy’s healthy relationship to his father is affection, not some essential, yet vague, role modeling of a particular concept of masculinity. - AMW, pg. 53

....when Black men truly see their fate as linked to that of Black women, they move from sympathy to genuine empathy. In this context, empathy is like the African proverb “I am because we are.” -AMW, pg. 39

...And there are so many other insights to be offered, some of which you can read at the link above. My only criticism, which she acknowledges, is that all of the 20 black men featured are middle class and fairly highly educated. I look forward to any updated work she does.

For those of you who celebrate Xmas (and also those who don't), I would suggest getting this book at Powell's or Amazon for a black boy or man in your life.

Thoughts? Bless up!