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snow snow snow!!

snow!!

Fuji

i fell down. that was my first encounter with the blizzard, i fell down some wet steps in washington heights. i looked at the wetness and thought — ooh slippery, be carefuuuuuuuuuuuu-ow! i still have not looked to see how big the bruise is on the right buttocks, just keep avoiding that angle in the mirror.

i love snow, so i couldn’t even stay upset at the outrage and embarrassment of finding myself flat after booty bumping down some steps in front of several children who looked on me with the pity they clearly reserve for adults who can’t maneuver snow.

i also fall a lot, so i couldn’t be surprised.  i fall so much that this past weekend when my sister met a friend of mine, and he commented on the fact that she wears heels and i don’t, she felt the need to point out that i don’t wear heels because i sprain my ankles and fall down all the time. i owe you one sis!

i spent a lot of the weekend developing some thoughts on how i feel about the lambasting of young white activists as a strategy to fight white supremacy. i watched this white boy get skewered a bit at a conference this weekend for trying to do something underthought but fundamentally good, and it occurred to me that we are really focusing attention on the wrong stuff. you know – don’t protest when they call you nigga, protest when they legislate us like we niggers.

white supremacy doesn’t prevail because guilty white kids try to do something to balance out their guilt and messed up legacy on the planet, nor is white supremacy new or evolving…it triumphs in  inertia. but it prevails, really, because people of color have such a deep inferiority complex and sense of self-loathing. justice, i think, requires an internal sense of equality and a consistent external reality of equity. i am not of the belief that the planet is big enough for anyone to escape white supremacy, or shame it out of existence; it’s deeper, more personal work than that. i am thinking of some long point/counterpoint with a white activist and then someone who really believes hating whitey is the answer.

this reminds me of my freshman year in college, my girls were the black girls from our dorm, we rolled everywhere together. but it got to the point where my girls were spending 90% of their time just hating on white folks for everything, and it ended up with me not wanting to kick it with them anymore. and i don’t think it was just cause my momma white…i think its cause i feel hate begets hate and at a certain point, reactionary, justified, whatever, it becomes a poison and an excuse and a wall.

now for full disclosure, i do my share of laughing my ass off at white people – white folks do some funny, backwards, lame, deadly things. history ain’t on the side of white, speaking purely in terms of oppressive legacies, or style.

but we’re all pretty flawed, pretty laughable, pretty pathetic at the end of the day. that’s the common human struggle. in places where white folks aren’t actively getting wicked, we find ways of shooting ourselves in the foot or leading genocidal campaigns against ourselves. (disagree? please send me examples of perfect communities). point is, we all have to evolve. the only white folks i know that seem to truly, deeply get it are those who’ve had intimate familial proximity to people of color.

so will bi/multi-racial folks save the world? is saving the world a pragmatic goal these days? and if it is, shouldn’t the focus be on the planet anyway? the aftermath of katrina is a racial cleansing, but why did katrina even happen? how oppressed is the earth, to sound hella crunchy…aren’t we all kind of active players in that bit of needless destruction?

questions, comments, neck-snapping responses welcome…just thinking with my fingers a lot these days.

here’s a cute picture of my sister april ordering room service breakfast in my most recent emergency hotel room – her face is just fabulous, check that out:

Room_service

saw donnell baird today, who i originally met when he was working for ACT in milwaukee, we’ve just decided to get to know each other. he’s funny, and i can’t recount any of the stories that made me laugh out loud, which is generally a good sign. also saw my boy darien today and he is newly engaged…look at you baby, love and commitment. what a delight!

Darien

ah i’ve left this post open too long and i fear its going on and on – just got a valentine’s day gift from the parents and got myself chapelle season 2, octavia butler’s newest offering, a replacement copy of waking life and anansi boys by neil gaiman. i love the ‘buy used’ option, you can get so much more for so much less!

i did get a hot new blazer from my mom for no real reason, just how mama-love is:

My_hot_new_blazer

ok i will stop now! kisses, amb