As we approach the new year, I find myself engaging in a personal “year in review”: looking back on 2017, questioning what I’ve learned, and setting intentions for the year to come. This review prompts reflection on my first year of blogging, which has been both improvisational and planned, both reaching beyond and helping me set better boundaries. Blogging, for me, has meant speaking up and starting something new and scary that represents larger changes rippling ... Read more ...
Everyday Feminism
Feminism is not only an orientation toward the world but also a way of living aligned with the values of justice, equity, and anti-sexism. As a white woman, I explore internalized sexism and its relationship with white supremacy and other forms of oppression.
Expect Miracles
Of the many lessons I’m still learning, an important one is to trust life as it unfolds. I struggle with trust because I struggle with letting go of perfectionism and perceived control. Despite these struggles, whenever I soften attachments to my preferred timing and open instead to possibilities, miracles occur. And the more I open to miracles, the more I find HOPE, which is so greatly needed on the long haul toward justice. Recently, I’ve had an important reminder to ... Read more ...
A Few of My Favorite Things
December. It’s a hard time for folks walking on wires to please others. It’s a hard time for folks finishing semesters when running on fumes. It’s a hard time for folks grieving family hurts or losses. It’s a hard time for processing what comes up in contemplative moments and social interactions alike. This December is especially hard because it punctuates a year of great injustice, dehumanization, and the increasing visibility of wrongdoings. Now, as so many of us ... Read more ...
Revealing the Cultural Patterns of Rape Culture
It’s been a few weeks since the #metoo hashtag prompted discussion about the widespread and systemic nature of sexual violence. As I’ve shared stories and listened to others’, I’ve been struck by frequent questioning: “Does ______ really count as sexual harassment or assault?” And that question has led me to consider the many moments of sexual intimidation that aren’t harassment or assault per se, but constitute violence and are part of rape culture nonetheless. Here ... Read more ...
Speaking Up by Speaking Aloud Embodied Responses
Several times in recent weeks I’ve found myself in conversations in which things were going wrong. White folks were talking over folks of color. Men were taking up far too much space. White, cis-gender, able-bodied women were sharing their experiences as though they were universal truths. In each of these occasions, I found my stomach churning, my heart hurting, my chest tight, and my mouth dry. And in each of these occasions, I found myself entering conversation simply ... Read more ...
Me Too: Standing Against Sexual Violence
I didn’t learn to drive in drivers ed. In fact, I never drove the car that whole semester because the teacher was a creep. When girls would drive, he’d start off complimenting perfume or jewelry or clothing. Then he’d lean into the driver to observe them better (the perfume or jewelry or clothing). From there, he’d put his hand on the girl’s leg, sometimes leaving it there and sometimes moving it higher along the thigh. All of this with two additional students in the ... Read more ...
Reclaiming Childhood Power with Coloring Books
There’s a story that I’ve told for years, a story that represents my early disappointment and dislike of school. In kindergarten, I was assigned to color a bird brown, but I thought brown was too typical. I’d been reading Zoo Books and learning about parakeets, toucans, and other birds at home. I knew birds could be practically any color or any combination of colors. I decided, therefore, to use my creativity, knowledge, and the tools (crayons) available to me to create ... Read more ...
What I’ve Learned in the Week Since Charlottesville: Five Lessons for White Folks Who Care about Racism and Racial Justice
This week has been INTENSE. As a writer, educator, and person committed to racial justice and the work of healing internalized white supremacy, I’ve been following and affected by the dysfunction, injury, and trauma on display. I’ve been confronting my own shadow, while watching collective shadows in the United States come into light. And these shadows ask us to reckon with legacies of colonialism and slavery, institutionalized racism, and deep dehumanization. These ... Read more ...
Sieving Life: Keeping What Nourishes and Releasing the Rest
In the past week, I moved—just three blocks away, still in Milwaukee and still downtown. Yet, the move feels significant for the opportunity to reassess, re-arrange, and re-imagine. The physical move has allowed for downsizing, letting go of possessions, and deciding what to keep. And why. This physical sorting has also invited filtering of my past, as I’m posing questions like: Which narratives about myself, my life, my communities, and my commitments are still ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Ecofeminism
I’ve been holding myself up, preventing myself from writing about why I’m vegan and how central food is to my understanding of justice. I’ve been holding myself up because this writing feels especially important, like it needs to be good, and, therefore, is triggering my need to counter perfectionism. I’ve also been holding myself up because it’s so damn hard to write about being vegan without re-inscribing notions of whiteness and privilege. Especially from my ... Read more ...
![Since waking this morning, I've been trying to find a response to the terrorist attack -- the white supremacist terrorist attack -- in New Zealand: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/15/shootings-reported-mosques-christchurch-new-zealand/?utm_term=.8bbff8125c7c ... [Link and post shared through my Facebook page, Heart Head Hands: Everyday Living for Justice.]
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From the article:
"The 74-page manifesto left behind after the attack was littered with conspiracy theories about white birthrates and 'white genocide,' is the latest sign that a lethal vision of white nationalism has spread internationally. Its title, 'The Great Replacement,' echoes the rallying cry of, among others, the torch-bearing protesters who marched in Charlottesville in 2017."
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I'm already reading pieces about how this report credits Donald Trump and Dylann Roof (white man who murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015).
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What I can say is that my stomach is churning and my heart aches, even as my shoulders are back as though ready for a fight. My whole nervous system feels kicked up and worn thin.
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I read the news after talking with a friend this morning about the ethical imperative to recognize racism and dehumanization in transnationalism (that is, to see what's circulating and who's being hurt). So, I think of transnationalism: the wide circulation of white supremacy and the extreme restriction of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (whose movement is blocked through policy, imprisonment, walls, and death).
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As I share this post, I'm continuing to process, to feel, to write ... I'll linger with the experience of grieving, asking what grief has to teach me, because I know that acting as though everything is ok will just cut me off from myself, from humanity, and from the pain of injustice ...
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I ask and invite you to ask, too:
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Heart: What are you feeling today?
Head: What are you thinking today?
Hands: What are you doing (or planning to do) today?
.
.
.
#christchurchmosqueattack #newzealandmosqueshooting #antiracism #antioppression #racialjustice #socialjustice #grief #rage #committed #committedtojustice #everyday #everydaywork #longhaul #heartache](http://scontent-lga3-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/07e205c16ec32df5f60f68c3ec8e70cc/5D2FC31C/t51.2885-15/sh0.08/e35/c0.37.655.655/s640x640/53518297_300283887315784_5991437917511412752_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.cdninstagram.com "Since waking this morning, I've been trying to find a response to the terrorist attack -- the white supremacist terrorist attack -- in New Zealand: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/15/shootings-reported-mosques-christchurch-new-zealand/?utm_term=.8bbff8125c7c ... [Link and post shared through my Facebook page, Heart Head Hands: Everyday Living for Justice.]
.
From the article:
\"The 74-page manifesto left behind after the attack was littered with conspiracy theories about white birthrates and 'white genocide,' is the latest sign that a lethal vision of white nationalism has spread internationally. Its title, 'The Great Replacement,' echoes the rallying cry of, among others, the torch-bearing protesters who marched in Charlottesville in 2017.\"
.
I'm already reading pieces about how this report credits Donald Trump and Dylann Roof (white man who murdered nine Black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015).
.
What I can say is that my stomach is churning and my heart aches, even as my shoulders are back as though ready for a fight. My whole nervous system feels kicked up and worn thin.
.
I read the news after talking with a friend this morning about the ethical imperative to recognize racism and dehumanization in transnationalism (that is, to see what's circulating and who's being hurt). So, I think of transnationalism: the wide circulation of white supremacy and the extreme restriction of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (whose movement is blocked through policy, imprisonment, walls, and death).
.
As I share this post, I'm continuing to process, to feel, to write ... I'll linger with the experience of grieving, asking what grief has to teach me, because I know that acting as though everything is ok will just cut me off from myself, from humanity, and from the pain of injustice ...
.
I ask and invite you to ask, too:
.
Heart: What are you feeling today?
Head: What are you thinking today?
Hands: What are you doing (or planning to do) today?
.
.
.
#christchurchmosqueattack #newzealandmosqueshooting #antiracism #antioppression #racialjustice #socialjustice #grief #rage #committed #committedtojustice #everyday #everydaywork #longhaul #heartache")
