El Clasismo y La Gringa

Though we had not much, we still had much more.
On special days I dined at the finest of
restaurants, and shopped at the nicest of
shops. Holidays were spent traveling
the longitudinal beauties of the
slender country, seeing much more than the
very children who were born under the
great Andes. I flew over the Andes,
snowboarded on the Andes, horseback rode on
the Andes. I seized the Andes.

On the metro and bus curious eyes
glanced at my fair, distinctive skin, thinking
not that I was American but a
light-skinned Chilena whose fairness reeked of
privilege, whose mestizo blood contained more
of Europe’s bullion, whose pampered body
dwelt on a large house on a hill, whose mind
was educated at institutions of great
prestige. And in the silence of
public transportation it matters not
if such things are actually true. Such is
my image—the apple of the beastly
classist eye. I cringe. Such is my life.*


With a fool's hope,
Bethany Lauren Grigsby


*Poem originally written in fall of 2007

mailbox ponderings

My student mailbox is located right across from the Door of Discussion. I like this because it helps me keep an eye on the things that get posted there (though there hasn't been much at all this year.) It also allows me to inconspicuously eavesdrop on how people react to the Door. Tonight as I was peeping in my box, several boys walked by and I heard the following jovial conversation.

"What is on the door now?"

"I don't know. Dude, why do you read that stuff?"

"Naw, man. I always read what is on here. People say the stupidest things! Like ohhhh I'm gay . . . but like God still loves me."

"Ohh shoot, that's retarded!"

"Yeah, dude!"

As the group walked loudly laughing, I stood staring after them in furious bewilderment.

I am floored by the opinions students voice here. Just when I start to have hope that at least people are open to the conversation, open to the consideration that love can be a reality, I realize that hope is based on my experience with senior sociology majors. Not mainstream APU population. Not the culture of masculinity. Not youth groups or Bible studies. Not anything remotely resembling the forces that will shape my little brothers' understanding of the world. Just those folks who are finally starting to be able to apply the information that has been harpooned at them for the past four years.

I understand that the above dialogue isn't representative of the general consensus on ways to speak of such things. But it is revealing about the kind of environment we allow to flourish. An environment where an otherwise vaugely mismatched group of kids can find easy acceptance and assumed commonality in hatred and marginalization. Why do we just let it happen? Why doesn't anyone care? The senior sociology majors know how to talk in their classes, almost. Why don't they speak when it matters?

I think I need to walk around with a sign on my back at all times that reads "It's not funny." I have no idea in my little head how to convey to people the gravity of their words. No matter how reasonably I argue or how relatable my stories, it can all be blown off and invalidated with the fatal words, "I was just kidding." The discourses of hegemony that permeate our world here at APU (and at home in youth group) must be exposed for what they are. Until we figure out a way to do this, deadly closets will continue to exist and suck in the lives of beautiful community members.

Do you all have any ideas about discourse that reveals the levity of "humor?"

Thank you jazz

This is a thank you letter
to all those who created and supported
the jazz movement.

Thank you for challenging the acceptable status quo.
For crossing musical borders in pursuit of melodic liberation;
For breaking the classical rules to usher in a brighter, freer future.

Thank you for filling the dark alleys with your songs.
Reverberating off the brick walls.
A saxophone weeping in the purest of tones.
Originating in your soul.
Finding expression through your mouth
Bring translated through that saxophone
Filling the poorest of cities with your sounds.

Thank you for giving us the words to speak
When hate had beaten our bodies to the ground.
Your melodies stitched our bleeding hearts.
Your lyrics brought strength to our bones.
And whether on a cell block floor
Or marching for our freedom in the cold
Your songs always guided us home.

Thank you for building the musical foundation
Upon which our songs were born.
Your courage was the elemental root
Upon which we have built the harmonies that now support our souls
Our actions are the overtones of your chords
Our voices are the voices harmonizing yours.

In each of our songs you can hear your cries.
Each of our words pays tribute to your rhymes
Rhymes with such might
That they can break the grip of whoever holds us down

Rhymes with which we challenge the racial
Framework that has been the slave masters disguise.
With you we strike the glass ceiling
That is invisible to the untrained eye.

Thank for giving us the eyes to see.
The sounds to scream.
The lyrics that freed.

Thank you for giving us the words to speak
The courage to stand
The hope of dreams.

Together we live in resistance
Transcending the restriction of time.
Tomorrow we celebrate our freedom
But until then, we will strive.




-mateo

Dear oppressor

Dear oppressor,

Please stand still while I have my way with you
Hold that posture
As I sculpt you into granite
And create for you a frozen stone planet that only you and your kind could inhabit

Don’t even blink
Lest I remember that you are flesh and blood
And not barbed wire woven into a clockwork system
With an automatic timer set to mangle its victims

Don’t smile or cry
Do not look me in the eye
Or I might recall that once you were a child so weak
And that your beauty left your mother void of speech

Don’t let your body speak
Do not let your stomach growl
Or I’ll start to think that from this earth you and I both eat
And that you are not just a robot or a slab of concrete beneath my own very human feet

Don’t even breathe
I forbid any display of being weak
For I might recognize your precarious life
Or consider that you have a story and are a sister, a son, a father, and wife

Dear oppressor,
As I protest for human rights
And raise my fist so high
Let me forget that we are fashioned of the same clay
Let me strip you of your humanity
Hating you is so much easier this way


With a fool's hope,

Bethany Lauren Grigsby

libre.

This spoken word or song or poem, whatever it may be is dedicated to all of those seeking freedom. They told us it was here, they told us what enslaved us was Satan, I’ve found that he is not the perpetrator anymore.
I’m sorry if you don’t understand it because its in Spanish. Id be happy to talk to you about it if you would like to know more.

Libre
Dios me ha hecho libre
Tu me encadenaste
No fue Satanas

Libre
Tu me encadenaste
Pero yo tengo la llave
Y eso a ti te duele

Mi voz
Sera la que tiembla al cantar
Pero mi voz
Sera la que oyes al pensar y decir…

Libre
Ellos ya son libres
yo los encadeno
y digo que los amo

libre
date cuenta, soy libre
por mas que no me quieras
aqui me quedare

libre
si lo que quieres
es que huya
no te tengo miedo
y no te tengo piedad

libre
mi voz tiene la llave
desato las cadenas
de tu opresion

libre
no tu no eres libre
tienes tus cadenas
de oro y de mentiras
de diamantes y de odio
de riquezas e ignorancia

libre
tu no eres libre
a tu lado sufre gente
de tu mismo color

libre
tu eres el titere
de todos los que te aman
por pensar tal como ellos

liberate
encuentra en las tinieblas
la luz de color negra
que resiste la opresion

Te duele
Verme resistir a gritos
Con canto y con palabras
Con poemas del Corazon

Te digo que escribo porque quiero
Que ya tus dias de victima
Han llegado a su final

Me dices
Que uso solo mi emocion
Que grito y que lloro
Que mas quieres
Si me desgarras el alma
Destruyes mi sentido de ser
Y oprimes a la gente
Que solo mi Cristo supo amar

Cristo, Cristo Jesus
Identificate con nosotros
Señor, Señor mi Dios
Identificate con nosotros
Cristo, cristo Jesus
Solidarizate
No con la voz mas fuerte
Sino con la mia que quieren silenciar
Con la voz de mi gente, mi pueblo que arde
Por la libertad

dorenyse ariana diaz

Dear White-jesus/god,

There will come a time when the people will no longer sit on their hands
and kneal at your idols
they will look past your god and see their own
and in this true light of liberation
they will stand together
the ones you have labeled colors
will rise together

what will you do then when the people are tired
what will you do when survival will no longer lie in putting food on the table
but in the demands of their Freedom

will they still remain invisible to you?
how long will it take for you to acknowledge them
let me know how far will we have to go until you give us what is rightfully ours?

listen now we will speak louder so you can hear us
but we will no longer demand our freedom
we will take what you have denied us...

-Peace be with you.



Freedom♥

my trinkets and beads

I unzip the bag of pictures. Decorations for my room. Memories from my past; inspirations for my future. Here and there, there and here…nowhere and everywhere, everywhere and nowhere.

Trinkets and Beads. A movie that can’t help but disgust the human soul. Exploitation is the theme. Here and there, there and here…nowhere and everywhere, everywhere and nowhere.

Beads cover my wrists from here and there, there and here. Pictures are my trinkets of nowhere and everywhere, everywhere and nowhere. Exploitation is my practice here and there, there and here…nowhere and everywhere, everywhere and nowhere.

I need frames to display my trinkets. My beaded hands instigate the $18 transaction. The wooden shapes are placed into plastic bags. Gas is consumed, lungs blackened, all to escort my idea of art back to the white walls that protect me from the elements.

I sift through ink painted paper. Which faces, which stories, which adventures are frame worthy? Eh, this person was pretty important to me, but the picture just doesn’t look quite “artsy” enough for the wall? Oh, this one is great! A little boy whose name I don’t remember, who knows if I ever actually took the time to get the pronunciation right, is placed behind glass. The glass is cleaned.

My fingers hold the nail against the wall as I begin to hammer. They’re a path back to the beads. Back to the memories. Forward to the future.

The nail is secure, the frame is placed, my feet take a few steps back, my eyes are pleased, the walls are covered…my heart aches. The camera has captured this boys smile amidst a war. A life of killing and rehabilitation. Rejected by his village and desired by my lens. Trapped behind glass he hangs as I prepare for my future.

peace and love

a night walk

My time in India was approaching the end. For weeks I had been surrounded by women with terror stories to share about their male counterparts in society. Dowry, domestic abuse, female infanticide, rape, child sexual abuse, lack of education, assault in politics and beatings by joint family members were the common themes weaving together the lives of women throughout India. From the moment I stepped off the plane in Mumbai I was told a list of precautions to take and rules to follow, the most important being never walk alone at night.

While I had yet to have any particularly negative encounters with men in India I was growing to dislike many of them. I have always considered myself a generally open minded person, a person who didn’t judge a person based on his/her appearance, yet I found myself staring and questioning the character of the men I walked by solely because they were male and Indian. This is far from one of the proudest things I could ever admit, but my academic research (the effect of the 73rd amendment on the treatment of women in rural communities and thus the overall development of these communities), my internship (working at a women’s documentation and research center interviewing men and women about the rights of women in Pune as well as researching various abuses to women throughout Maharastra), and the stories my thirty female roommates shared with me about their lives and treatment by men left me very overwhelmed and frustrated with the male population in India. How could all of these abuses persist? How could they be so integrated to the religious, political, and societal trends throughout Indian history and contemporary life?

I knew that I didn’t want to judge every Indian man on the basis of our anatomical differences, and I was fully aware that I was becoming more judgmental than I ever want to be, so I worked on destroying any judgments or negative thoughts that may pass through my mind. I knew that I had met many kind Indian men and it was wrong to categorize all people of a particular group as having the same negative characteristics. I, after all, didn’t want to be deemed and obnoxious, ignorant, loud American before someone spoke to me, so it would be wrong of me to do the same to another group of people.

As I said before it was one of my last weeks in Pune. It was dark and I was walking home alone. As I approached Sinhgad road I could hear loud speakers and men shouting in what seemed to my ears no discernable rhythmic pattern. As soon as I turned on the road I could see traffic was at a standstill and stages were set up on both sides of the road with music blaring so loud the entire street and three-story high slum structures were shaking. Groups of men were huddled around the stages and seemed to be celebrating something as entire street reeked of cheap alcohol. Mobs, as it appeared to me, of men were jumping and shouting to the music while punching the night sky and waving tattered flags, which added some sort of organized flow to this image of chaos.

From this point it was about a thirteen-minute walk to my hostel on a normal (non-celebration) day. I knew looking at the scene before me that this would be a much longer walk, and I knew at that moment that it would probably be a slightly more interesting, for lack of a better word, walk than normal especially because there were no other women in sight. The thought of hailing a rickshaw passed through my mind, but traffic was at a halt as people were dancing on their parked vehicles and trucks were stopped with their doors wide open allowing the contribution of the drivers’ taste of music to the thunder of noise already consuming the street. It also appeared that most rickshaws were abandoned on the side of the street while their drivers made up a portion of the moshing men ahead of me.

There wasn’t much I could do at this point. I needed to get home, and I was trying to view the Indian man in a more positive light, so I was praying this walk would prove to me there was no need to worry or judge population of India who possess a penis. No need to give into the recently forming stereotypes I had of Indian men.

Within a couple yards of my walk I was approaching a small stage with about thirty jumping, shouting, dancing men, surrounding it. I was trying to think, “wow it’s really nice that they can come together and celebrate tonight,” rather than, “wow, I wonder where their wives are. Blast, I really hate the behavior of drunken men.” Within no time at all a man grabbed me and flung me into the center of the crowd.

Everything happened rather quickly. I mean in retrospect it did, but at the time it felt I would be stuck in that circle for the rest of my life, which I really wasn’t too overjoyed thinking about. I was trying to figure out what to do. I had been in semi-similar situations in other countries at various times, but this situation was different than those experiences. For one, in all the other situations I could speak the same language as the people complicating my life, so on a couple occasions a witty comment in another language would startle a person or two, as I don’t look like I should know how to speak Lingala or Isizulu. In this situation I didn’t speak Marathi and even if I could no one would be able to hear me. Another thing, this was the first time such a large group was interfering with my day. I had done enough work and research to know that if I tried to fight free, or punch one of the men, the other ones would literally kill me without hesitation. I’m just one girl, and they are thirty or so men. I knew that the only way I would be able to get out of this situation would be through the intervention of a person other than myself, which I was beginning to doubt would happen considering I was in the middle of this group and not a single one of them seemed slightly concerned about my well-being.

While I prayed and waited for someone to help me, my body was being thrashed around. Men were on all sides of me, pulling me in every direction, squeezing everything they could grab a hold of. I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening because all I could see were hands reaching for me and mouths aimed for my face. My hair was being pulled, my limbs being stretched, and some men were trying to rip my cloths off while others were trying to kiss me. Anytime I would try to turn my head away or wiggle out of the awkward positions and places I was, someone would hit my head or slap me in an attempt to get me to stay in place.

While all this was happening I was beginning to get pretty hopeless and quite disgusted by Indian men. I didn’t understand why not one of the men there was opposing this behavior and why no one was coming to help. At this point my body hurt and I had no idea what would happen next. Suddenly a man was walking by and somehow saw me unable to defend myself consumed by this crowd of men. He walked in and grabbed one of my arms trying to pull me out. His attempt was failed as there were so many men on the opposite arm resisting his efforts, so he resorted to punching a couple of them, then picked me up and put me on the street. He shouted towards me to run and made sure none of the men came after me. Here was a miracle. An Indian man who came to my rescue and risked his well being to help out my stupid self after I had made the mistake of ignoring the numerous warnings not to walk home alone, especially at dark.

I made it a couple more meters down the street when I was suddenly flung to the ground. A man had grabbed my purse from behind me and pulled it back so forcefully that my entire body gave into his yank, and I found myself struggling to get up from the dirty road. He started to choke me then grabbed my arm and pulled me toward him, squeezing my face so hard it felt he may puncture a hole through my cheek. He was trying to force his tongue down my throat and for a couple seconds I was able to resist, but when he finally succeeded he tasted the same as the other men. They all tasted like alcohol, the same cheap liquor that also contributed to the anger that led to abuse for so many Indian women. One of his hands began to go up my shirt while the other kept a grip on my face and I began to feel a connection to so many of the women I had listened to. Not that this experience was even a fraction of what those women live with for years on end, but this was a woman’s husband. This man would go home and do the same thing to his wife, possibly a girl even younger than me. If I was scared right now, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live with this on a daily basis. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in a cycle of abuse and oppression by such a man.

Again too weak to get out of this situation, all I could do was pray and wait for someone to help me. By this point I was farther down the road than I had begun, obviously, which meant there weren’t many people around because most of the people on the street were near the stages. Luckily, before things got too out of control, another man came and punched this guy so that he let go of me. I began to wander down the street completely dazed and confused, but grateful for the man who had just appeared, when the man that had flung me to the ground came sprinting after me and grabbed me again,. This resulted in yet another series of sloppy undesired kisses. Thankfully the man who had punched him saw this and ran after him, holding him away from me long enough for me to get a safe distance away. Again an Indian man had come to my aid when I was in this negative situation because of my own choice to walk home alone at dark. A completely innocent man risked his safety to help me break free from a terrible predicament.

As I was walking another man came to me and held onto my arm. His grasp was much different than the other ones I’d encountered earlier on my walk. It was a gentle one, one offering protection, yet I pulled my arm free and moved away from this man. Despite the fact two men had already helped me that night, I was still deterred from being too close to any Indian man because of my encounters with the more violent men that night. This man was trying to ask me where I was going, and I knew enough Marathi to respond, so I did, but I kept my distance. I was skeptical, even though there was something about him I felt was safe. My mind wasn’t strong enough to get over my hesitation of Indian men at this moment. He noticed I remained a safe distance from him and he didn’t try to break that distance. He walked several feet to the left of me the whole way back home, watching out for me to ensure I’d be okay. He did all this, and yet I was still timid around him because he was male and Indian. What a terrible thing I did to him. I categorized him as one of them. One of the men who had hurt me. One of the men that hurt their wives and daughters. How wrong of me.

I didn’t tell anyone about this because I didn’t want it to be a big deal. I knew I shouldn’t have been walking alone and I knew me telling someone would just cause a lot of ruckus when there was nothing that could be done. I suppose had I known who the men were I would be able to press charges and have them arrested, but beyond the fact I would never be able to recognize all the faces of the men who had attacked me, I wouldn’t want to do this. So many women face the same treatment and worse daily, yet because they are Indian women, and not white women like myself, police officers never reprimand their abusers. Also, I had learned enough about the prison system to know that had I been able to identify one of the men and decided to have him arrested he would have been severely beat up by the police who arrested him and he would have been prohibited from working in whatever sector he was currently working. This would mean his family would have no source of income considering it is significantly more difficult for women to get jobs and many men don’t allow their wives to work. If I were to arrest him, his entire family would suffer. His children who couldn’t choose to be born, and his wife who most likely didn’t choose to marry him. I couldn’t do that to her, to the woman I never would meet.

The next morning I walked, again alone but in daylight, to meet a friend for breakfast. The restaurant was on the same street where the previous nights’ encounters happened. As I walked by the places where I had met those men I felt sick. At one point I was afraid I was going to collapse, and my whole body still ached. With a scarf around my neck and long sleeves and pants to cover any marks I made it to the restaurant. I sat down and listened to the conversation two of my friends were having. My mind couldn’t focus on their words. I was sitting with my face directed towards the street. I was watching a man emaciated by a system of caste and class oppression as he smashed rocks. Sweat was dripping into his eyes, and my eyes were cemented on him. He pulled a dirty cloth from his pants to wipe his eyes and his glance met my stare. He was one of them. One of the men from the night before.

This man was a poor slave to the system, desperate for liberation. He was helpless and my heart broke. Everything in me began to ache, not from the bruises and scratches, but from a deep feeling of sadness. This man was not a bad man, he was a man who didn’t know how to live because his days didn’t make a life of growth and development, rather they made a series of redundant battles that kept him trapped into this hell of poverty, disease, corruption, hard labor, forced marriage, absence of education, and a cycle of oppression his children will also face as they have the same last name as him, and are born into the same backward caste. The only time his voice is heard is when he uses it to lash out against his wife. He has no power, no authority, over any other being than her. Standing atop a pile of rocks that needed to be broken apart stood a robust man in a suit, puffing on a cigar, glaring down at him. The man in the suit directed some harsh sounding statement to the man with the sweat filled eyes, and as his head lowered so he could again begin to pick under the blazing sun he spoke to me with his eyes, and at that moment I realized maybe it wasn’t sweat in his eyes, maybe they were tears. He was working for his children, working for food, working for something he didn’t understand and he was desperate for something he may never taste…freedom and hope.

He remedied my heart and my issues of stereotyping and hating Indian men. I remembered all people are good; it’s just a matter of revealing this in the world around us.

peace and love

New Additions to Nuestras Voces

Hey everyone!

It is my privilege to welcome three new writers to Nuestras Voces: Ahmad Demery, Bethany Grigsby, and Kaitlin McGarvey. We are very excited to be challenged and encouraged by their contributions as we continue to walk hand in hand in this process.

Para la liberación,

mateo

Naked Words.

and what if i dragged them away from my words
kickin' and screamin'
and left my words without emotion
alone
able to speak on their own
so the "average" person
can get WHY

FUCK

so my FUCKing Professor can get WHY
Him "teaching" this BullSHIT isn't teaching me shit
only making the problems worst
because after class I face blue eyes trying to explain to them
that MY people didn't lay down and take shit from no one
we all fought back
and that our dumbass Professor got that shit wrong

and to prove that
after class I have to find and
FUCKing dig and search for some truth
and then come back to class and
explain it to YOU
without tears
without yells
and without

FUCK

without anything
inorder for YOU not shut me out
as another kid who has lost my way

BUT

if I was left without the emotional baggage
that ties me to what I scream for
i feel as if I will be left empty
there would be no reason to fight
there would no reason to tell them

FUCK

What we have to say matters
WE are real
WE are real
WE are FUCKing real
WE matter
and I worry sometimes that my
tears silents my words
and it gives the pass for people to shut me out
but god do they make them so much more real
and when I cry between words
of struggle, of anger,
for FREEDOM
I do so NOT because
I am weak
but
because
this shit is real
its real
not something i picked up in my FUCKing global studies class
not something that I experienced on LA term
or on Bridges or on a FUCKING missions trip to the whole FUCKing continent of AFRICA
not something that "god has put on my precious FUCKing heart"
but real like
when I go home I stare at an empty fridge real
like in my face
i see the tears of my mom real like
not sleeping because the streets never do real
real like this is my life real
that the revolution is for me and my people real
like when WE become liberated
we will not SHIT on you like you have continually have done to us
real (and thank Paulo for that)

so FUCK you!

and when I'm trying to explain myself
why this SHIT smells like FUCKed up people who have too much power
and I cry
ignore my words at that moment and look at my tears
because that emotion explains it all
it explains it all

FUCK.

FREEDOM first FUCK grace!

Some random thoughts on Conquest, Missions, and Salvation

It seems to me that our understanding of learning is drenched in a mentality of conquest. More often then not people see learning a subject such as multiplication as ‘conquering’ the subject. I am even guilty of telling people that they should 'own' a subject before a test. The cross application of this mentality to learning another culture brings with it some obvious problems. In order to avoid falling into paternalistic patterns of thoughts and action we need a new way of looking at the process of learning.

Instead of seeing knowledge as this outside source that we conquer as a means of adding it to our collection of thoughts, like animal heads on a hunter’s wall, what if we saw knowledge as persons? Like subjects, we often dehumanize culture, i.e., we take the human out of the reality to make dealing with it easier. Once either is separated from its humanity it becomes very easy for someone in the 21st century to think of it in terms of conquest. Knowledge as well as culture are not things outside of us that we seek to conquer, but instead the thoughts of human beings that we should strive to befriend and get to know like we would any neighbor.

Along side this idea of befriending, it is very important to keep in mind some important aspects of friendship. First, friendship cannot be forced upon a person; friendship must be a mutual decision made by two independent individuals. Secondly, friends respect each other. This includes their religion and culture. They believe that each has something valuable to say and encourage each other to speak by fostering a healthy environment.

Considering these two criterions of friendship I do not see how a missionary can be a friend. Missionaries more often then not force themselves upon a people. This of course applies to pre-colonized areas. Once the first missionary has come in it is often the case that the colonized individuals become dependent on the presence of a missionary there after. Secondly, I think that missionaries come in thinking that they have the truth while the persons they are going to meet lack it, or even worse hold false beliefs. This relationship is not mutual, it is one sided. The mentality of the missionary is not one of an adult going to befriend other adults, but that of an adult going to educate a child. This has been the mentality of European conquest as the civilized ‘adults’ go to the world and pull up the primitive ‘children’ of the non-European world.

More and more I hear talk of adopting an incarnation model for missions. This model, as it was explained to me, begins with committing to a life-long or at least long-term ministry. Using the story of Jesus as an example the proponents of incarnation ministry advocate for becoming a part of a foreign community, a putting on of the flesh if you will as a means for sharing Christianity. The underlying assumption that goes unchallenged is that those from Europe and the United States represent the divine God while those in other lands represent sinful humanity. If a missionary represents God and the other represents humanity then a missionary is infallible, omniscient, and all-powerful while the other represents vice ridden, lost, weak sheep that are blind to the truth. There is no respect of friendship in this.

In recent years a move has been made to rely less on missionaries from Europe and the U.S. and more heavily on ‘local’ leaders. I put local in quotes because most of those who are selected to lead have more often then not abandoned practically every element of their person that made them local. As Schreiter notes in “The Study of Culture” those who are selected as local leaders are selected because of how successful they were in ‘rising up’ to mimic the divine, i.e., Europeans/American. They have been chosen because they were the most successfully “alienated from the roots of their own culture [and] socialized into the invading culture.” In short they were the most successful converts, the products of conquest.

Though many Christians today see the growing number of Evangelical churches in Latin America as proof to the success of missions, after spending some time there studying the ‘workings of the spirit’ I think that it is more accurate to say that this growth is another indicator of the success of the European/U.S. conquest. People all over are abandoning their traditional songs, rejecting the words of their sages, spiting upon their history and going to the church to be saved from the ‘foolishness’ of their culture.

This is the current state of the colonized because of the colonizers decision to see Latin Americans not as possible friends, but as a mission field, a place to sow and reap. I hope humanity will learn from its history and re-humanize our methodology.

-Mateo

Land of the free white Protestant heterosexual males

“Land of the free.”

“Leader of the free world.”

Realistically looking to the past and present I do not see how individuals can continue to believe these sayings to be true. Just yesterday the lower house of Uruguay’s Congress passed a bill to allow same-sex couples to adopt children and the approval of their Senate is practically guaranteed. The passing of this bill will lead the way for other Latin American countries to do the same.

Adoption by same-sex couples is legal in Guam, Andorra, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Germany, Finland, Greenland, and now almost Uruguay. Yet 36 states if the US continue to bar same-sex couples from participating in adoption. Moreover, only a handful of states have agreed to recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry.

These unequal policies are nothing new in US history. As many of us know this country was built on the backs of slavery from the bounty of imperialism. The only group that has a long history of freedom in this country is white Protestant heterosexual males. Considering the fact that they have historically been the only individuals allowed to write government documents I guess these sayings should come as no surprise. But for the sake being accurate I contend that we edit the following sayings to fall within reality, past and present.

“Land of the free” to “Land of the free white Protestant heterosexual males.”

“Leader of the free world” to “Leader of the arms race.”


-mateo

the heaviness of argument

Hours and hours into the night

Circles and circles

As the pale moonlight

Shines in through the windows

That need to be cleaned

Like the windows of my car

That also have seen

Pained conversations

and strained tones of voices.

Trails streak the grime on the windshield

Like tears of despair

That anything can be healed.

The wounds are too deep

The differences too vast

To keep losing sleep; we may as well cast

these worries away.

The world is busted, what else can one say?

There's so much hatred and injustice, it's painfully true,

but it all hurts too much to know what to do.

The leaders of the world are the blind leading the blind

yet not enough see it, so our hands remain tied.

Words without actions are worthless,

they say

though often words still seem superfluous

when we may

stop for a moment for a moment to listen and learn

about how to love and to live - the things after which we should yearn.

But for as long as the moon has circled the earth

We’ve been running in circles

Trying to prove our own worth

By proving our point – like therefore, you’re wrong –

and like gravity ensures the moon keeps going around

the world and it problems ensure our arguments abound.

but the moon never touches the planet it belongs to

like our talk is just talk and in lieu

of real action, we never grab onto the things

that actually might matter

we are planets, we pass each other with no possible way

of making real contact with what each tries to say

and we all just circle around what really goes on

and now we’ve been talking and talking so long that its dawn

and the moonlight no longer illuminates the dust

on the windows in my room that really, really must

get cleaned someday, along with my car

and my laundry and my life, and now I’ve wandered so far

away from my point, that now what’s the point

in finishing our talk, that never meant anything

yet we've talked til the moonlight was gone, so

we must have accomplished something . . .

what if we weren’t so concerned with coming full orbit?

what if each gave up their philosophical perch on their planet

to touch each other, and really listen to the problems

and get messy with the stuff of the earth

the mud and the weight and the width and the girth

that is far far too big for our silly conversations

but we’ll never realize it until we let go of our elaborate augmentations

and hold each others hands

and walk each others shoes

and be humble enough to just wonder

about the moon.







-abbie

We walk on

*This poem is dedicated to Joe Snell, you will be remembered.

Though the journey is long, with no guarantees
And nothing awaits us but struggle
We walk on.

Though winter’s storm is at our door
And we may never again see spring
We walk on.

Though our loved ones leave us to struggle alone
And our hearts are weighed down by the pain
We walk on.

We walk on for those who have walked before
In the shadows of plantations on the rail the railroad to the north.

We walk on for those who were dragged through the streets,
Buried in the sea, and hung from trees.

We walk on for those who suffer today
Crossing borders to live another day.

This is our life.
This is our struggle.
With arms locked tight,
Let’s take on tomorrow.

Para la liberación,

Mateo

Intersex Theology

Anywhere between 1-1.5% of humans are born with ambiguous biological, sexual parts. Somewhere around .1 or .2% of births are so sexually ambiguous that they receive medical attention and often surgery. This does not seem like a huge number, but taking into account the millions of births each year, humanity is taking in thousands upon thousands of people who are intersex, often known as hermaphrodites (though true hermaphroditism is only known in the non-human animal kingdom). The parents of an intersexual person truly face a difficult decision. They may be encouraged to have the newbor undergo surgery in which they choose the sex of the child and raise her/him as that gender. Some may choose to allow that child to grow up and choose on their own which gender they will choose to live as. Either way, this is an incredibly difficult decision. It is not uncommon for a child whose sex was chosen for them by their parents to grow up and be raised as that gender, yet later struggle immensely with their sexual identity, possibly identifying with the other gender. If the parents choose to allow the child to grow up as intersex, the child is very likely to face severe ostracism from the world around them.

We live in an incredible gender dualistic world. It is important to note that there are some societies where intersex people are not only accepted, but honored, namely in societies where sexually ambiguous or intersex deities are revered and worshipped. In the western world, however, intersex people are often thrown into the sexually deviant (and misunderstood) realm, along with homosexual and transgendered people. Though this gender and sex dualistic view is supported by many, many segments of society, religious or not, I would like to focus specifically on the mainstream Christian theology surrounding intersex people. Western Christianity, in particular evangelicalism, along with conservative Catholicism, is obsessed with gender. In the American context, books like Wild at Heart and Captivated, gender specific Bible studies, male bonding, girl's nights out, and a obsession with dating and marriage are incredibly common and form much of the thread of American Christianity. In American Christianity, there is no room for sexual ambiguity- there are men and there are women. God created it this way. It is part of God''s order.

A person who is intersex is born intersex. It is not a disease or a handicap. It can be considered a birth disorder, but most would agree that is a very loaded term. Intersexuality is a natural thing, as being born with a mental or physical disability is natural (I compare intersexuality to mental and physical handicaps because handicaps are ony handicaps because they are not the norm- if everyone was born without legs or with Down's syndrome, being born without legs or with Down's syndrome would not be a handicap. A handicap is a handicap because that person cannot thrive in a world where their condition is the exception, not the rule). It seems as if American Christianity has moved past ascribing handicaps or most birth abnormalities to some presence of sin in the world. It is not uncommon to even hear language such as "gifts" and "blessings" when speaking of people who hold physical or biological characteristics that are not the norm, in particular people with mental disabilities. Yet it seems as if American Christianity has not come to the point where a person who is born with an ambiguous sexual identity is considered beautiful, or even a gift. Why is that? It is highly likely, in my opinion, that this is because "these people" do not fit into the American Christian worldview, propogated by prominent Christian leaders and groups, of a gender and sexual dualistic world, where men are men, and women are women- anything that challenges this "natural order" is only met with confusion at best, ignoring as common, and ostracism and labelling as-a-result-of-sin-in-the-world at worst.

Intersexuality is natural in the same way that autism, Down's syndrome, and physical deformation are natural. They are only handicaps and disorders because they are different.* Yet if an intersexual person were to enter into mainstream American Christian circles, my guess is that they would eventully begin to pick up hints that they were somehow a violation of God's established order. But how could they be if they were born this way? Another part of God's order that seems to be pushed is the idea that humans should, for example, work and play and talk. How then, could a person who is born in a vegetative state be part of that order? The simple answer is that people tweak that so that that person can be included- as a "gift", as a "blessing", though maybe "in disguise".

Jesus came from and dwelt in the margins of society- where the sick, poor, handicapped, and otherwise God's-order-violating lived. Because this is where Jesus, who is the Gospel, came, this is where theology must come from. Theology, to be Christian theology, cannot be born in the established, whole, powerful segment of creation. Those who are intersexual are at the margins of most societies today, with American Christianity certainly being no exception. They are the exception, not the rule. If mainstream American Christianity has no room for the intersexual person, whether they have chosen a gender or not, and whether they fit into that gender's societal "role" or not, then the theology of American Christianity is not a Christian theology at all. A gospel that only has good news for the healthy, whole, and otherwise "normal" is not good news at all. Let those good news continue to be that we are all created in the image of God, exactly as we are.

by: Rod


*My intent here is not necessarily to critique the concept of a handicap, and at the same time it is not to advocate the sociological designation of people as handicapped- that is an entirely different discussion, and one worth going into, I might add. For this discussion, I am going with the mainstream perceptions of people as disordered and handicapped, though I am certainly not ascribing any negative connotations to these words.

It Is Time To Re-Evaluate the Systems.

Sometimes we forget

Get caught up in the words

And stop ourselves from allowing us to see the commonality in our goals

And other times we stop ourselves

From voicing our opinion

And standing up for what pulls at our hearts

And for others, what just makes sense

In those times that we stray from the path

We somehow are reminded

Before we get lost

That while we are here

Our present does not guarantee our future

In fact it threatens it

So dive into the cliché

Of living life for today in mind of tomorrow

Knowing that the latter is affected by the first

We are not promised anything

Nor are we owed anything

Therefore function in a way that will benefit the people

And that will leave none stuck under your thumb

Function in a way that will respect the ideas of the free thinkers

In order to encourage others to think freely without the fear of

Persecution or condemnation

And finally always remember that

We will continue to function in the ways that we do

Until we question why we do…

And in that dialogue…in those questions

We will begin our journey to Freedom♥.

A better place.

I say B,
You hear C.
You leave mad,
I stand confused.

You say D,
I hear C.
I leave sad,
You stand confused.

Hurt would be avoided
If we took the time to listen;
Took the time to see life
From each other’s shoes.

Love would be attained
If we took the time to listen;
Took to time to see life
From each other’s shoes.

Before we speak,
Let’s swap views.
Let’s take the time to see life
From each other’s shoes.

Listen!

While I am in Camden most of my posts will be about the conditions here... mainly because my mind seldom wonders away from the things that I see here...always trying to connect the dots to what I have read or seen before...and also trying to map out new dots based these experiences and those past experiences....here is something that has been on my mind for the last few days

One thing that has bothered me for some time now is this notion of what "Correct English" is...

Some of the people that I volunteer with make fun of the way most of our students speak here...or they will blatantly correct them while they are saying something. And man does it frustrate me. While, I understand that there is a majority socially accepted way to how one should express their selves in a "business setting", I fail to see how that became the "correct" or "proper" way to speak.

And just because my students choose not to communicate in that way why is it okay to correct them or make fun of them?

And I know this is not the only place where this occurs because I have been corrected on and made fun of because of how I may pronounce certain words which is in large part due to growing up in a family where American "English" was not always used.

In my class I let my students speak and express their selves in ways that make them feel comfortable. But I let them know that "yes" when they go for job interviews or something like that they will have to speak in the way that has been deemed "socially acceptable" but how they speak and express their selves is not incorrect or wrong it is just different and other people are too ignorant to realize that...

But I would like to hear from you, the reader....what do you think about "improper" and "proper" English? By saying that one way is correct and the other is not are we not silencing those whose voices are already at a whisper?

Grace&Freedom♥

Spiritual Warfare

Sunny summer day.

Air conditioned pizza place.

Pop music playing in the background, its waves joining the waves of artificial cold.

Young guy enters.

Sunglasses, flip flops flip flopping.

Orders the two slices of pepperoni and a drink combo.

Takes his cup, fills it with ice- whoops, a little too much, pours some out.

Some orange soda sounds good. Fills it with orange soda, puts the lid on, sticks the straw in.

Sits down.

“Two slices of pepperoni!”

Gets up, takes his plate.

Sits down again.

Bows his head to pray.

It’s a long prayer.

No lips moving, no expression.

There is no way of knowing for sure, but he may be thanking God for the pizza.

For the hands that prepared it.

For his family.

For his friends.

For his country.

For the freedom to pray in public.

In Jesus’ name, amen!

Okay, stop. Let’s dissect for a second.

This is a battlefield.

A spiritual war zone.

Bad words in these circles?

We have all heard it-

The person just back from their trip to “love on” the third world.

Proudly displaying their tans and “ethnic” purses.

“People in other countries are so open to the spiritual world!”

“There was just this feeling of darkness as I was walking through those streets.”

Soon, they might find themselves in the pizza place.

At the mall.

At Disneyland.

Eating, drinking, shopping, playing, consuming.

“It’s just relaxing!”

“God blesses us with so much!”

“This reminds me of my childhood!”

The roots of what they are buying, eating, drinking, taking pictures of-

They are non-existent.

All that exists is the finished product, the final show.

Long, unpaid hours.

Backbreaking labor.

Children deprived of a childhood.

Exploitation?

Landfills spilling over.

Fumes drowning our lungs.

Pigs squealing in agony as they are harvested for their fruits: pepperoni, hot dogs, chorizo.

Century-old trees being chopped away to make chairs and to make room for our burgers, steaks, tacos.

Clean water flushed away everytime we need to piss out our soda, or we put too much ice in our cup.

The raping of the Earth?

None of these things exist.

The truth is deep fried and wrapped to preserve the continuation of luxury, of convenience, of great taste, and of fun.

The truth is drowned out by the lights, by the fireworks, by the good memories.

The truth is covered by a plastic lid so that we won’t spill on our leather seats.

The truth is on the clearance rack, hidden by a bright red tag.

Young guy takes his last bite, throws his trash away into the trash can, bound for the landfill, and drives

home.

Unaware of the war around him.

-the war waged where the other side has no chance of defending itself.

Prayer directed to the “spiritual war” in far off regions.

Failing to see the violence in his own choices.

Blinded by comfort, success, convenience, luxury, “blessing”.

by: Rod

Who will stay?

INTRODUCITON

The situations in which my students live in are ridiculous, yet I am aware of those who live in worst. However, when I see what has been given to them to create this so called “American Dream,” I think to myself the government might as well come to Camden and spit in all of their faces…

PART I

I look at my students and sometimes I get so frustrated with them. Because I believe that we are a people who have survived many things and many things have been fought for in order to secure the liberties (no matter how few) we have today. And even though many of us grow up in conditions that are far from what America has promised I still believe that we have no excuses because worst has been done to those who have come before us. So when I ask my students what they want to be in the future and they say basketball players, football players, or going into the army… or when I hear them say that there is only the league or the Army after they graduate high school…I get so frustrated with them because I think of those who risked there lives to teach each other to read in the dirt…I think of those whose parents have traveled to America in order to better our lives….but I have not figured out a way to show them that there is more out there….that they have more options than what the world is showing them…

And I say to myself what should I tell them… “Do better in school”….”Pay attention in class”… “Make sure you get good grades”….how can I tell them that after I hear the stories of how their schools treat them like inmates, how the teachers suck, and the school board couldn’t care less if the students were learning because test scores get you money not free thinkers…not critical thinkers…not independent thinkers…but students who can bubble in “right” answers…

PART II

Myself and one other girl are the only two black American interns here at this program…

PART III

On Saturday I had the pleasure of going to DC to meet an uncle who I have not seen since I was six years old. Later that day I was introduced to a cousin who I have never met before. After speaking with my cousin for a while he invited me to a Bar-B-Que.

I believe in Los Angeles and maybe even the entire west coast in itself lacks something that I saw a lot in NYC and DC. It was this sense of community within the Middle and Upper Middle Class Black Americans.

The Bar-B-Que was filled with people my cousin had went to grad school with at Cornell and people he attended Morehouse with and people who worked on the Capitol Hill and people who have accomplished receiving their Masters and Doctorial Degrees and people who worked with him…in a nutshell they represented most of the up and coming prominent African-Americans, 1^st,2^nd,3^rd,4^th, and 5^th generation Black Americans in DC and the surrounding area.

It was something that I had never experienced before and felt truly empowered by it…

The city of Camden is predominantly made up of Black Americans with descendents from Haiti and other Caribbean countries along with those whose ancestors were slaves in America…

PART IV

After I left the Bar-B-Que….I sat for a very long time…I picked up the book Pedagogy of the Oppressed that same day. I read the Introduction to the Anniversary Edition written by Donaldo Macedo and he writes about a conversation he had with a personal friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 60s. The man who is identified as African American confesses to not going back to the ‘community’ in over twenty years. Donaldo writes something that I have been thinking about for a while now…He writes “having achieved great personal success and having moved to a middle-class reality, this African American gentleman began to experience a distance from other African Americans who remain abandoned in the ghettos.”

When I read that I thought of what I experienced at the Bar-B-Que…and then I thought about Camden….and how many of the volunteers are not Black…all of the churches we have gone to in order to raise money have been predominately white churches…

And I am not one to draw conclusions…I know there are many factors being who Urban Promise reaches out to that may affect who volunteers and who donates….but say the least I wonder how many of those who I met at the Bar-B-Que would be willing to move back…to help those neighborhoods that some of them left behind in order to move into Suburbia….

PART V

On Mondays’ and Fridays’ we have “Bible Buddies”. During this time we just hang out with a group of kids. One of my Bible Buddies is Lenny he is a Black Puerto Rican. Lenny is about to go to the 8^th grade and is probably the most respectful person I have ever met. So we were talking about what he wanted to do…he quickly answered with “Anything that will get me out of Camden, this city is wack.” I asked him why wouldn’t he stay to help change it. Lenny said what I think a lot of people in the ghettos believe…or would also say…and was actually my response for a very long time… “it isn’t my problem…I’m leaving…someone else can fix it”….

So I say all of that to say that it will be very interesting to see as the Black middle class continues to grow if they will turn back to help those who are still in the ghettos…It will be very interesting to see if they will rebuild there neighborhoods or escape them…

And then again are they suppose to?….why should they sacrifice and stay “behind”? Isn’t the goal of growing up in the “inner city” is to get out of it?

CONCLUSION

But if they leave…who will fight for those who couldn’t leave?

Grace&Freedom♥

Weddings, Virginity, and Patriarchy

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be a part of my good friends wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony filled with even more beautiful people. However, though I was trying my hardest to be happy for my two friends, I was disgusted by just how patriarchal this tradition is.

Though most of you reading this have probably already experienced similar moments of epiphany, I will cite two common examples of how the traditional wedding ceremony perpetuates patriarchy.

1. The pastor asks, “Who gives this woman, to be married to this man?” The bride’s father responds, “Her mother and I.”

2. After the bride and groom kiss the pastor declares, “I now present to you Mr. & Mrs. (Groom’s first and last name).”

Both of these traditional components of a marriage ceremony support the idea that woman are property that is traded between households. No one gives the man to be married, nor does a bride ever brand her husband with the name of her mother.

As I was standing at this wedding, reflecting on all the weddings I have attended I thought to myself, would my wedding be any different? YES! If I truly believe that patriarchy is oppressive, I cannot consciously act in a way that perpetuates it.

So if I marry, this is what my wedding will look like.

1. I refuse to brand the person I marry with my last name.

2. I will not keep friends from my side of the wedding court just because they have a vagina. Traditionally, grooms select groom’s men to represent their ability to protect their bride to be. In contrast, brides select bride’s mates to compliment their beauty. This is an archaic tradition founded in a patriarchal ideology that I cannot support. My side of the court will be the friends and family that I wish to be there to publicly support me in the ceremony.

3. Neither of our families will give us away. If I marry, it will be because another person and I, as autonomous individuals, decided to commit to each other. Not because our families found our union economically, politically, or socially advantageous.

4. In wedding ceremonies, as well as in art, women are commonly portrayed as passive objects of beauty and men as the able actors. One of the clearest manifestations of this is the common phrase, “You may kiss the bride.” Since the man is the actor it therefore falls upon him to complete the necessary action. At my wedding, we will kiss each other.

5. Either both of us wear white or neither of us wears white. Traditionally, the bride’s white dress symbolizes her purity. However, neither purity nor a symbol of purity is required of the groom. Though the reason for this double standard is clear few ever take a moment to think about it. Traditionally a bride’s value is dependent on her beauty. If her virginity has been compromised then it is held that her beauty is as well. Since a groom’s value has been traditionally placed on his strength, his virginity is not a major concern (though more often then not a man’s experienced in sex is held with greater stature) and therefore must not be symbolized in the ceremony. Virginity is a social construct that has been used to oppress women and has no inherent value outside of that which we place on it; there is no physical state of virginity.

6. Any suggestions?


Para la liberación,
Mateo

what it means to "love"

love is all you need.

love is the answer.

god is love.

love god, love people.

love is greater than hate.

love is patient, love is kind . . .

love conquers all.


there are so many little maxims and expressions about love. most people will accept that love is the ultimate goal, that love leads to the right actions and decisions. okay, maybe not most people. but Christians tend to be pretty fond of the concept, and a good majority of the people i run into fit this qualification. and this sort of surprises me, because so many of those people have radically different views than i do. we both start with this abstract ideal of "love" and end up in totally different places.

for example, someone very close to me believes that all people deserve respect. when kids make jokes about undesireable things being "gay" or "fag" jokes, it makes her angry because the kids are not being respectful towards people, people who happen to be gay. she thinks it is very important to view people as people before anything else, and then that all sin is equal, etc. etc. but she voted yes on Prop 8. this whole situation confuses me so much because i constantly am thinking "if only we can get the christians to see the LGBT community as people just like them, things will change, they will understand. only someone who sees the gays as the gathering storm would vote yes on Prop 8." but i'm totally wrong. this woman who believes so strongly in similar ideals as i do - respect for everyone, love towards all - believes that love means not supporting something that is harmful. she thinks homosexuality is harmful. so she feels that out of love, she cannot support validating something that harms people. the same way she would never support legalizing heroine - it is harmful to those who use it.

and all i can do it cry. and pull out my hair. and beg and plead with her to think about what she is saying, think about how much she knows all people deserve love and respect. things that seem to be gaping contradictions to me flow perfectly together for her. there is no arguing, there will be no persuading. she must love people, nothing can change that. and all i can do is cry.

sometimes i think our cause is so valiant. here we are marching for dignity, equality, and respect, waving the banner of love and acceptance for all people. but perception is everything. apparently that is exactly how the other side sees themselves.

in the end, rhetoric is worthless. perhaps experience really is everything. we are not drawn together by being convinced we are wrong, by being told we are hateful. we are drawn together by common experience, and by common humanity. sometimes the horizon seems to bleak.

i cry for the blood of children spilled because of the "love" their parents showed them. i cry, and then cry more because i have never shed tears alone in the dark because no one knows who i am and if they did they would hate me. i cry because i don't know if i even have the capacity to love someone forever, and meanwhile those who have loved and been faithful to each other for decades cannot hold up their lives and teach the young how to love. they cannot show children who grow up in a world of individualism and selfishness and faithlessness what it means to work for something worth working for. rather we hold up examples of celebrities, pop stars, and divorced christian parents, and say good luck kids.

i do not know what it means to really love. but ill spend my whole life trying to find out. sometimes, i think it means just sitting with each other and crying. and i'll be crying my whole life, too.


-abbie cirelli