The Mission Statement: It is my sincere belief that true love between human to human, woman to man, black to white, cannot exist without freedom, and freedom cannot exist where there are power hierarchies of domination set up which by their very nature and purpose are defined and based upon creating and sustaining inequality. Love and freedom therefore require a commitment to refuse to subjugate or limit any human in the name of "power" or "domination" in the tradition of patriarchy.
Towards this end, this blog attempts to stimulate thought about and create a space for an analysis that asks the question: how do the images, audio, and written media that are produced in our world impact and effect the most vulnerable among us, those with the least amount of voice and political power. And what if any responsibility do we all have to try to make the world more empowering of all people and less dangerously threatening to the virtues and basic principles of balance, freedom, and fairness to all.
The reason for this blog is to stimulate a dialogue that seeks to first translate, name and identify the content that is consumed in our culture. Often times what is seen, is not what is there. Collectively, in exchanging ideas about how we see this content, we can attempt to name and identify what it is that is actually being produced. Next, we can have a healthy discussion about how what is being produced is in line with or in conflict with the interests of truth, freedom, peace, and love.
The objective is to then figure out how to introduce into the same space, a resistance to the content that attempts to undermine our aspirations to establish truth, freedom, peace, and love.
Finally, after naming what is in our world, choosing to analyze whether or not what is there obstructs our attempts at our goals (freedom and love), we need to organize collectively towards actionable resistance to these ideologies. This involves political and organizational movement, but also and what I want to focus on here is social movement and social sanctions that govern the space that we live in and demand that the space not be hostile to the freedom and humanity of any person or persons. Women need to demand that the space they live in is not threatening to their humanity and their very lives. Women are literally being discriminated against to death (as Nicolas Kristoff and his wife describe in their assessment of the state of girls particularly those overseas). An example is how you don't hear the word nigger on television from a non-minority in a derogatory way. This is not because it is illegal. Freedom of speech protects the right of anyone to use this word privately and publicly, but no one in popular culture does it? That is because the social sanctions in place are high. Society as a whole has developed a consensus that in this collective public space, that is not acceptable conduct. Women have not yet done this. In fact all forms of misogynistic content and hate, derogatory language, and terribly damaging imagery is produced in our faces, and largely due to failure to organize and systematic marginalization goes unpunished. We sit in our homes and watch shows silently with our families that degrade women, without comment.
The space that we live in, should not be hostile and threatening to your humanity. We all deserve that.
Further reaching, once women in this country start to vocalize their right to humanity, they will be more active in assisting our sisters overseas many of whom live like cattle.
The most vulnerable among us are the poor, the minority races, and those who are discriminated against for their sex and sexual preferences - women and those who do not fit into heterosexual normative culture. All of these converge in the experience of the black American woman. So this will often be a focal point, but certainly not the only one.
This is the intention
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