I wrote this poem several weeks ago. I am willfully burying myself in books about feminism, social justice, and what we can do while we live on this planet.

Activism
identify yourself
stop apologizing
stop giving pre-ambles
say if you’re wrong,
only when and if you truly are
be open to being dismissed
spend a significant amount of time
in a developing country
know when to drop pebbles
so you know when to drop boulders

picture found on amazon.

For those of you unfamiliar with new media and the intersection with feminism, there is a large explosion of women bloggers, feminist bloggers, and women of color bloggers. What’s the difference, you might ask. Good question. And good questions often spit out complex answers.

There are women who blog about random things – work, business, gardening, family sorts of things. There are feminist bloggers who take on women and gender issues. Then, there are also women of color bloggers, who tackle issues of gender and women, but take an even more cerebral and, brave, I might add, step in publishing their CRITICAL thoughts of the world, especially the feminist world.

Jessica Valenti is the executive director and founder of Feministing.com (I won’t provide a link, google it if you want), which is a high traffic area for feminists, activists, academics, and journalists. I emailed Jessica several months ago and she was kind in dispersing advice about writing, academia, and connection. She and I are the same age and I couldn’t help but begin to devour blogs shortly after I found Feministing.

Joining the ranks of Jen Baumgardener and Amy Richards, authors of Manifesta,, Valenti/Feministing and mainstream feminism is skyrocketing with its cultural punktified articles and seething sarcasm targeted at patriarchal practices and governing politics.

However, shortly after familiarizing myself with Feministing, I tripped and discovered the Women of Color Blog, Brownfemipower, and her axis of progressive persons of color; activists, academics, and writers, my favorite folks, who exercise and advise caution with mainstream feminism. The featured cover is Jessica’s book that is coming out this spring. And I once again, notice the white skin tone of a book with FULL FRONTAL FEMINISM as its cover.

Sigh.

Oh, how many more white women writers with such certified feminist dexterity, empower their books with such titles and then dare to put a white woman’s body on the cover? How many MORE books will do this? How many mainstream feminists will once AGAIN put a face (or hip) on the cover of a supposedly feminist book?

STOP EXCLUDIG WOMEN OF COLOR. STOP BEING NARROW AND STOP SHORT CHANGING FEMINISM. STOP THINKING YOU’VE GOT THE ANSWERS FOR ALL OF WOMEN. PLEASE BEGIN TO PUBLICIZE YOUR BOOKS CORRECTLY, WITH THE TARGET AUDIENCE IN MIND.

For individuals who think that a white naked hip is an appropriate cover for a book dealing with Third Wave feminism. For ultra-hip cool folks, who prefer high fiving other hands that agree with Whitestream feminism.

If you want to know me, you have to want to know what is in my blood
Where the lines extend from, where my blood trails from
You have to know where I come from and what ancestry flows in my body
and through my eyes

If you want to love me, you must know what I most detest
The hunger, dying, poverty of children
The rape and denial of women
The savage punishment of feeling men

If you need me, you need to know I am needed elsewhere, too
to beg for the collapsed,
to defile the know-how,
to find arms that are ready to give
and provide relief

You must also understand that I do not understand myself
yet
That I was born a non-negotiable complexity,
an unfolding idea,
a slow-motion birth to completeness

I am pushed forward by something Divine,
a circulating Wind that moves the clouds
a Voice that stills the trees
and a Breath that moves the grain

It’s amazing what you can see
if you pull back,
even just a little,
and focus again.

When I was six or seven, my mom still did my hair for me.

She’d try to draw an even line through my scalp, one beige outline on my raven head, for pigtails.

They were always lopsided, with one red, one yellow hair tie. Never matching.

Sometimes we’d be running late for school and she said she’d do my hair in the car.

My siblings would run out the door but I’d stay in the car with my mom, while she hastily drew the comb line on my head. Sometimes she pulled too hard and I winced.

I’d panic, not wanting to be late for morning prayer, and hate walking in when everyone looks at you. Wondering why you’re late, why your misaligned pigtails don’t match.

But my Mom always did my hair, wanting it to look right. She always wanted the best for me.

She called me this morning, wanting to know how my class was going, if I like teaching.

She asked if someone will bring me an apple to be teacher’s pet. She softly cackled to herself.

She wanted to know if I was the kind of teacher that forgave lateness.

I suspect my students will be tardy, but I doubt the reason will be to collect anxious minutes in the car with their mom,

lining up pigtails

and glances in the rearview mirrow.

I am becoming
the flourisher I said I would be
My body,
tempered by early mornings,
yawning, stretching arms and legs
of yoga
and quiet scripting

Words that
claim
state
and end with . and !,
not ?
flow from my bedrock

Fear, always lingering
dammit
crouches
awaiting pity parties, drama,
and dilemma

! But

Simplicity, humanity, and
courage stand ready, with
sheathed swords and
an opened-inch glint
at their sides

With an architect’s score,
my life, with its scaffolding
and hard hat areas,
continues to be built

I now use heavier woods,
thicker steel,
and vintage purple glass

My life is breathable
It sits open
for love
criticism
and curiosity,
waiting for engagement

It sits
perfectly incomplete
at 27
gaped
unfinished spaces
that let the wind –
pull the wind –
not around it,
but through it

You’re like me, Tulip.

Origin is the Asias of the world,
but can flourish global.
How we’ve found ourselves here,
dumbfounded.
You’re common red.
Well, I’m brown, but
same family, Tulip.
You need warmth, but
grow in extreme cold.
Winters root you.
Winters root me.
If change happens too quick, splitting peril.
My personality, too.
We suffer when we’re overflown.
You flower daughters in the spring
and I hope the same.
Our stems break in abrupt
cold treatments (indifference)
and
rising, unapologetic heat (ignorance).
Bull-nosing is your disorder,
when you fail to expand.
I don’t have a name
when I fail to expand.

Stand stern, Tulip,
and give me a name
if I fail you,
if I fail to expand.