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"We are not afraid of radical anarchy. We still believe in love. We know the power of the people unprejudiced. We know the worth, and weight, of the unknown.
...
So, here is my BIG QUESTION:
How to play to x to the nth degree’s strengths, where x is a whole integer representing the number as it approaches infinity of human beings on earth? In other words, How is it possible to play to an exponentially increasing number of people’s collective strengths? My question is about the multitude."
Dream Handshake with Distant Sparks is an essay I wrote in 2015. Just before I founded #FYWOC the facebook group.
This week I wrote an announcement in that group for all the BIPOC in the house. I concluded with this:
"BRIEF Herstory of the group: I started FUCK YEAH WOMXN OF COLOR to have a timeline of links and info that proves beyond doubt from a variety of sources that the oppressive forces of kyriarchy are real and that they hardcore attack and kill the most righteous fighters against it, Black MaGes, like me (but at the time 5 years ago I framed us as "WOC" bc I thought that was more inclusive). I did this bc I thought the proof would encourage more support. Now Im into demanding support. wish me luck Black MaGes and TIA for sharing your non-respectability politics advice."
A bit more loosely organized context around the development and evolution of FYWOC––
2013. I graduate from ZHDK with MFA (Switzerland). My thesis project, called SPACE TAKER + SWEET REBELLION is all about migration and the flow of water, involves occupying a river island in the city of Zurich.
2014. WE CAN'T BREATHE. Eric Garner killed by NYPD. I am spending the last days of my legal status in Europe living in the Greek Isles during "off season."
Complete two films: The Runaway Comeback and Tribute to Eleusis
2015. (see essay) Launch FUCK YEAH WOMXN OF COLOR!
2016. Knocked up | Standing Rock.
Check my Medium essays for a summary of the epic saga. ... Water is life!
2017. 45, travel ban. | I give birth in a bathtub in Jamaica
Continued education: herbal intern for Daphne Singingtree at Eagletree Farms in Oregon. Displaced to Arizona.
2018. Manufactured Crisis at the Border and Children in Cages
The Nansemond, present at the first Thanksgiving, state recognized Indigenous tribe of Virginia since before the US existed, is finally federally recognized.
I take my one year old on Canoe Journey in Washington. I discover through a relative that I am descended from a mixed race tribe called Melungeon in Appalachia. The name comes from an Mbundu (Angola) word meaning basically "canoe."
Continued education: complete Hawthorn Heart Boundaries ecourse AND completely write additional addendum text to correct poplar rose's glaring antiblack omissions of slavery in the segment/chapter on decolonization. Now it's finally published here: https://www.terraincognitamedia.com/features/antiblackness-and-colonization2019
Launch the Radical Care Circle!
2019. Continued education: traditional indigenous birth keeper postpartum doula training and sacred circles.
A white property manager terrorizes my child and me until we are forced to leave our (hard won) home in Santa Cruz, Calif. The way it goes is like this:
a white man calls my 2 year old son a racial slur to my face amid other threats at our home
I complain to his boss and the manager where we live, a white lesbian in the weed industry
she denies and does nothing except proceed to harass me for money I absolutely do not owe her (subsequently proven w lawyers) AND secretly contacts my father to silence me
my father a Black cis man, obviously triggered, tries to silence me and adds intimidation to the threats of the older white man and and woman who are attacking myself and child.
... Misogynoir is real af and it kills. Case filed with CA Dept. of Fair Housing and Employment thanks to Legal Aid, unfortunately unjustly dismissed later amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Selected as Diverse Wisdom Scholar by Hay House.
2020. I trace my maternal ancestry back to the Nansemond tribe and Chief Powhatan. Pocahontas is my great x 13 auntie.
Complete book proposal for Radical Care: the Nature of Sacred Solidarity.
Continued education: ADRSA conference, Wild Women Do As They Please Bone-Throwing course with Hoodoo elder teacher LaKesha Parks-Broom
1619. Margaret Cornish my 13 x great grandmother and direct ancestor, founding mother, matriarch of our family arrives in Tsenacommocah, then known as the colony Virginia on a pirate ship, the White Lion, from Angola, via Mexico. She's probably an adolescent. She is one of the first Africans acknowledged by historians on the North American continent. Some say the first enslaved Africans, however she technically died a free woman, and began her life in America as an indentured servant. She was however kidnapped as a child in N'Dongo (Angola) and then enslaved.
It's been a looooooong 400 years! ... TBC.