“Do you consider yourself a writer?” I’ve been teaching for almost two decades, and throughout this time, I’ve routinely asked this question on the first and last days of the semester (and often in-between). I’ve found my own strong YES to the question, asserting: “I don’t just study writing. I write. I am a writer.” And I hope that students, colleagues, friends, and family will similarly see themselves as writers, as people who write (who do the embodied act of ... Read more ...
writing
Refueling with Feminists of Color
My last post shared blogs I love—blogs by feminists and womanists of color. I was motivated to write this post while working on a related one for the YWCA Southeast Wisconsin: "Refueling with Feminists of Color” shares books, blogs, and events to refuel the activist fire or to get fired up. Especially at this time of ever-increasing violence (symbolic, cultural, structural, and direct violence), I seek ways to keep commitments alight, to keep visions burning ... Read more ...
Blogs I Love: Reading Suggestions for Women’s History Month
Recently, I’ve been fielding questions about which blogs I read and recommend. This comes during Women’s History Month when I’ve been thinking about how to center the voices, intellectual contributions, and leadership of women of color. So, I’ve begun tracking where I spend my time online and compiling lists of my favorite blogs by feminists and womanists of color. What I’ve created are some initial lists—and I say initial as there are many important blogs. I also ... Read more ...
Attending to Anger
“Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.” —Audre Lorde, “The Uses of Anger” (Sister Outsider) In my first post launching this blog (back in November 2016), I wrote about anger. I found myself sitting at the computer screen, typing “Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!” I felt completely inarticulate, yet full of emotions—called to write, though struggling to find words. Today I’m finding the words ... Read more ...
Microaggressions Matter
Sunday evening, night of the Oscars. I’m not watching TV, but Skyping with my friend and co-author Rasha Diab, as we work on an upcoming presentation and related academic article. The article’s focus? Proposing a rhetorical framework for countering microaggressions, or everyday and seemingly small, yet cumulative and consequential, actions. Among others, psychologist Derald Wing Sue explains that microaggressions communicate denigrating messages to people of ... Read more ...
Countering the Lie of “I’m Not Enough”
I like following the blog Raising Race Conscious Children because it helps me relate with the young people in my life, including my own inner child (my younger self). Among the blog’s resources are examples of scripted conversations and sample statements that align with racial justice. Such language helps me think about the language I use with myself, including language that reinforces an old lie: “I’m not enough.” I’ve been thinking about this message—“I’m not ... Read more ...
Practicing Yoga Through Writing
This fall I returned to Milwaukee after a year in Washington, D.C. The move back home allowed me to re-see familiar spaces, including where I practice yoga-asana and where I write. Though seemingly unrelated, yoga and writing have blended for me, as I’ve constructed a single contemplative-working space. In this week’s post, I ask about the spaces that energetically nourish, revitalize, and activate work for justice. My return to Milwaukee allowed me to feel/sense more ... Read more ...
Today Resistance Looks Like …
How do we work to align feelings, thoughts, and actions (heart, head, hands) with the world we’d like to see? How do we go about our everyday lives for the “ought to be,” for justice? I’m thankful for Jardana Peacock (of the Liberatory Leadership Project) for modeling a contemplative writing practice that I’ve been using to think through these questions. At the end of each day, I’ve been filling in the answer to her prompt: “Today resistance looks like …” I ... Read more ...
Mucking around in the Mess of Inauguration Day
This post wasn’t planned. It wasn’t the “next up” in my drafting schedule to write a new piece weekly in 2017 (#52essays2017). Yet, it’s flowing forth this morning, as I try to make sense of this day before me. An inauguration day? A general strike? A media black-out? A ramp-up to coordinated global demonstrations? What I worry about—and why I feel the need to write—is that I’m experiencing the day as a day like any other. A day that makes complicity possible. A day of ... Read more ...
Re-Reading Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
In preparation for a course I’m teaching this spring (“Writing for Social Justice”), I’m lucky to be re-reading Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. In this powerful YA novel, Alexie describes growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and navigating interactions in the rural, white high school. Alexie’s narrative reveals much about systemic inequities, colonization, marginalization, and disenfranchisement. I hope students will relate to ... Read more ...
