on the ethics of intimacy

UBUNTU writes!  and it sounds like butterflies… 

 

Weighted sacrifice

 

I am seducing you through fears and abandonment

Playing hidden under-sleeved card hands in a delicately mastered game

Queen of Hearts

Fatal drippings of  slow medieval bloodlettings,

We are dead long before the lacerations reveal

 an absence of poison we were sure created unworthy

 Lifeless our pain lines streets indisputably free the disease of contempt

We are forfeit

Bearing souls while holding familiar infliction

Clenching just enough

Enough, self-induced disdain for the “unprincipled” opportunist

We are blurred by benefit

drunk with sour tasting submission.

I mean what else can you do… but pity me with love?

And the tiny voice whispers

Stop

            Wait

                        Come

Dance between flames unconditional
Where hints of light show brown flickers in your eyes
In your eyes…
Where I see all of me
Us eternally twined balancing laughter to tear

Come

            Here

                        WITH Me

 Enter pathways laced in warm

Where sweet chocolate fudge melts in truth teller palates wet with anticipation…speaking forgiveness

And we play

Fusing intricate our puzzles

and like childhood connect the dots, glide pencils easy  along a page

1…2 to 3…4 to 5…

an exquisite butterfly breathing life into blank space

We are convolute 

Shedding super-shero’s capes soaked red in oppressor blood

Healing through naked creation

 

 We be Free now

We be new

And the tiny voice whispers

Know

            Me

                        Engage

                                    We

In safe… In home

Women’s Fightback Conference

Saturday, November 4th
201 E. Hargett St. Downtown Raleigh
Conference: 10am-5pm
Night-time cultural event: 7pm-10pm

For Fliers and to Register please visit http://raleighaction.org/conference

Whether you work in social services, unions, victim advocacy, or anti-war,you community activists are the foot soldiers in the struggle for a just society. Oppression based on class and nationality are often highlighted in our movements, yet without a clear program of identifying and fighting gender oppression the efficacy of this precious work is greatly diminished.

This conference is for those seeking a better world – whatever your gender or background may be. This conference is open to all! Please reach out to members in your organization or church to participate in this important event. While primarily for Triangle Area Residents, we are honored to have strong women advocates and activists from San Diego, Atlanta, Richmond, New York, and Asheville joining us to help lead discussions and speak about their work.

Workshops Include: Women and the Environmental Justice Movement; Addressing Gender Dynamics in Language and Meetings; Women in the Workplace and Labor Movement; Imperialism, Women, and War; Men Confronting Male Privilege; Feminism, and Feminist Movements; Sexual Assault – Community Responses, Domestic Violence – What Can Be Done?, Breaking the Myth of the Gender Binary.

Sponsors and Participants Include: Southerners for Economic Justice,F.I.S.T. (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together), UNC-CH Feminist Students United, NC Fair Share, NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault, NCSU Sociology Grad Students, MARC (Men Against Rape Culture), Atlanta/Richmond International Action Center, Black Workers for Justice-Women’s Commission, Raleigh Charter High School Feminist Club, and more!

Register on line today at http://raleighaction.org/conference

For Questions
email womensfightbackconference@gmail.com or call Elena at (919) 413-1276

UBUNTU local: – Silent Protest and Candlelight Vigil – tonight 6:30 pm!

Remembering the Victims
Silent Protest & Candlelight Vigil 2006
Thursday October 19, 2006
6:30p-8p
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Monica Daye, director of S.U.S.O and local spoken word artist, is leading the charge to bring attention to the impact of domestic abuse in the Durham and surrounding community.
 
On Thursday, October 19, Daye and other advocates will meet at the Bivins Building on Duke East Campus in what will be the beginning of a peaceful reflection on the consequences of domestic violence and sexual assault. Daye and Tim Jackson, another spoken word artist, host the Shari’s Radio Show on WXDU. The vigil will begin across from WXDU (directions: going north on Broad Street, turn right on Markham. First driveway on the right). From the WXDU radio site, participants will march silently to 610 N. Buchanan Street, the site of the alleged Duke Lacrosse rape. 
 
The names of persons who lost their life due to domestic violence over the previous year will be called out at 610 N. Buchanan Street. 49 victims have lost their lives as a result of domestic abuse in North Carolina so far this year and a total of 70 last year.
              
Dasan Ahanu of Men Attacking Rape Culture (MARC) Kenya Fairly with the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, and many more will speak at the Bivins building tomorrow night. Along with Survivors of domestic abuse will be on hand to share their story.
 
The vigil at Bivins will begin at 6:30 p.m. The silent march to 610 N. Buchanan Street will follow the vigil. The candlelight vigil is sponsored by a number of agencies that provide services to victims of domestic abuse.
 
F.M.I
Contact
919-672-1701
info@monicadaye.com
monica@standupspeakout-nc.org
 
 

Jah Choosen,
Monica Daye
www.monicadaye.com
www.standupspeakout-nc.org
919-672-1701

UBUNTU local: – Traveled Bodies – Friday 6pm

Traveled Bodies: Policing Blackness and the Technology of State Violence (A HERstorical Improvisation)
 
We are not gravel roads.  We are not target practice bull’s eye.  We are not husky muted flesh.  We are living ligament and beating heart.  We are not rope juice.  We are not field seasoning.  We are not sharpeners for dry molars.  We are bright travelers, swollen moon and beauty that chants down our birth right. 

-e. golden
 
Traveled Bodies: Policing Blackness and the Technology of State Violence (A HERstorical Improvisation) is a multimedia meditation on the pervasive tapestry of police brutality as it progresses from slavery to now. The artists pay homage to the revolutionary women arts movement, our resilient bodies who continue to create under this haunting violence, and our sisters and brothers locked up in modern day plantations here and abroad.
 
a luta continua!        
THIS FRIDAY!
Don’t miss

*EVIDENCE: An Art Show About Police Brutality*
6-10pm
Transom Gallery
upstairs at 305 E. Chapel Hill St.
Durham NC

“Evidence”, a community-based participatory art/performance show honoring lives taken and threatened by police brutality.
(Stay tuned for Greensboro opening on Friday November 10th, 6pm-10pm)

With powerful testimonies from family members of those killed by police brutality:
Mr. Butch Stewart, father of Gil Barber
and Ms. Brenda Howerton, mother of Daryl and Charles Howerton

Featuring sizzling-hot performances starting at 8pm from:
*the Artistic Response Crew of Ubuntu!, Durham’s women-of-color and survivor-led coalition against sexual assault
*Kaze, hip-hop artist-producer, Soul Dojo Records, co-founder of UNC’s Hip-Hop Nation
*Omari Fox, spoken-wordsmith from South Carolina
*Solomon Burnette, Durham emcee

And incredible artwork:
*Sculpture: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
*Painting: Cornelio Campos
*Posters: DRL Toons
*Prints: Malcolm Goff, Manju Rajendran, Mark Dixon
*Film: Markos Chapa-Gonzales
*Drawings: JB, Omari Fox
*Collage: Isabell Moore
*Sound collage of police radio traffic: Fiona Barnett and Tennessee Watson

And photographs of loved ones, writings, or other offerings you want to make to the Stolen Lives/Healing Altar.

Here’s why we gotta speak out:
Gil Barber, a 22-year old naked and unarmed black man from High Point, NC, was gunned down by the police on May 18, 2001.  His car had crashed earlier that night and Deputy Thomas Gordy was summoned by a 911 call in response to Gil’s attempts to get help – Gil was naked in the middle of the street waving his arms and shouting at passing motorists.   Gil’s teeth and a lot of his blood were found inside a nearby church behind broken glass doors. The Sheriff and DA refuse to reveal details about what may have happened to Gil before Gordy’s arrival, and the area near the church was bulldozed before Gil’s parents were able to conclude anything about the time between the crash and their son’s death.  Since then, Gil’s parents, Butch Stewart and Jessie  Barber have worked endless hours to get a grasp on the whole story of his death, but their civil case was denied a hearing in court. June 29th, 2006, Federal District Judge James A. Beaty dismissed the suit against Deputy Thomas Gordy and Sheriff BJ Barnes.  In his official opinion, Judge Beaty stated, “it is abundantly clear that Deputy Gordy acted in a reasonable manner under the circumstances.”  It is in no way clear to many residents of the community that justice was served. “Evidence” is an art show addressing police brutality and the humanity of its victims and survivors. Our exhibit begins at the point where the court averts its eyes. We will be sharing personal stories, spoken word, groundbreaking artwork in various media, and actual courtroom evidence.

We are consciously following a powerful civil rights tradition. On September 3, 1955, Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett Till, had an open casket funeral for her son, to show how badly Emmett Till’s body had been mutilated, allowing tens of thousands of people to witness what the court ignored. After the murder of 21-year old Fred Hampton in December 1969 by the FBI and Chicago Police, the Black Panther Party tore away police tape at the site of the crime. A line of Chicago residents streamed many blocks to view in person the blood-soaked bed where Chicago police had pumped bullets into Hampton’s body while his pregnant fiancee watched in horror (before she was dragged into the street and beaten). When the courts fail to hear the evidence or make unjust racist/ classist/ sexist/ heterosexist decisions, we have to bring the truth to light by our own means.

The show will run October 20th-November 6th, 2006 at Transom Gallery, and will open in Greensboro November 10th.

Contact:
evidence4change@gmail.com
919.618.0442 or 336.209.4641

Become our myspace friend! www.myspace.com/evidenceartshow

Read more about:
Gil Barber and the NC chapter of October 22 Coalition (http://ncoct22.org/Gil-s-Story.html )
Daryl and Charles Howerton ( http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A15238)
Ubuntu! (iambecauseweare.wordpress.com )
Transom Gallery (www.thetransomgallery.com )
Kaze + Soul Dojo records (www.souldojo.com) Don’t miss Kaze when he opens for Method Man on October 29th at Cat’s Cradle and opens for Dead Prez in Greensboro on November 6th.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs (http://brokenbeautifulpress.blogspot.com/)
DRL Toons ( http://www.drltoons.com/)
Malcolm Goff (http://www.glancegallery.com/artists/goff.html ) Ride over to Glance in Raleigh for his opening, same night!
Carlene Spirit Roberts, performing at Greensboro show (www.myspace.com/thediversitypoeteducators)
 

CORRECTION ABOVE! UBUNTU local: Candlelight Vigil October 19th, 6:30pm – 8pm

CORRECTION ABOVE!

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE STARTING LOCATION HAS CHANGED!

SEE YOU THERE! 

 

 

In recognition of Domestic Violence Month

Thursday October 19, 2006
Remembering The Victims Candlelight Vigil 6:30p-8pm The vigil will begin on the campus of Duke University across from the student radio station WXDU (location info and directions below) and will end @ 610 N. Buchanan Blvd.

S.U.S.O. is a community outreach program whose mission is to break the mind set and rehabilitate the abused and the abuser. We believe in order to end domestic violence and sexual assault we must first get to the ultimate root of the problem by not only servicing the victim but the victimizer. Visit us online @ http://www.standupspeakout-nc.org

Directions

WXDU is located in the Duke University Union which is located at 101-2 Bryan Center, across from the Brown Art Gallery, in the section where the student offices (BSA, GPSC, etc…) are located. Office hours are 9am to 5pm. Call us at (919) 684-2911 or fax us at (919) 684-8395 if you have any questions.

How to get to Duke:

From Raleigh and Airport traveling west on Interstate 40 Bear right at Exit 279 onto Durham Freeway North (NC 147); continue into Durham. Take the Trent Drive exit and bear left at the top of the ramp onto Trent Drive. At the stoplight, turn right onto Erwin Road. At the second stoplight, turn left onto Research Drive. At the end of this road, turn right onto Science Drive. The Bryan Center parking lot is on the left at the top of the hill.From Interstate 85 traveling south Exit to the left at Exit 174-B onto “15-501 South By-Pass/Duke University/Chapel Hill.” Proceed approximately two miles and exit onto Hwy 751 – Cameron Blvd. Turn left, stay in the left lane and go about one mile and turn left at the third stoplight onto Science Drive. After passing under a stoplight, the Bryan Center parking lot will be on the right at the top of the hill.From Interstate 85/40 traveling north/east Continue on Interstate 85 north toward Durham. Exit onto Highway 70 East at the sign “To NC 751/Duke University” (Exit 170). Continue on Highway 70 for approximately 1.3 miles to the intersection of 70 and 751. Turn right onto Highway 751 and go about four and a half miles. Turn left at the fourth stoplight onto Science Drive. After passing under a stoplight, the Bryan Center parking lot is on the right at the top of the hill.

Some parking is available in the circular drive in front of the Chapel. During peak visitor times you will be directed to a visitors’ parking lot within walking distance of most West Campus buildings. Please, do not park in decal zones, handicapped spaces, or service vehicle spaces.

Click me for a google map of how to get to the campus

Hats off to a brave warrior!

19-year old sex worker steals police officer’s badge to prove sexual assault. As we know, the risks of reporting sexual assault to police are much greater for sex workers who often are then targets for arrest themselves because of the nature of their work. One can only imagine the absolute power this cop must have thought he had over this young woman – he was wrong!

“this guy has been making me give him [oral sex] whenever he sees me, and I just got sick of it. . . . When his pants were down around his ankles, I just took his badge.”

She took badge to nab Hub officer
Woman says she was forced to have sex

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | September 27, 2006

A 19-year-old prostitute feared that no one would believe her if she said an off-duty Boston police officer kept forcing her to perform sex in his car. So one night, she fled his car with a key piece of evidence: his badge.

It was a bold move, the woman’s lawyer said yesterday. And later, the lawyer said, when Officer Michael LoPriore called the woman to get his badge back, the FBI was listening, too.

LoPriore, 37, of Everett, was charged in federal court yesterday with depriving the woman of her rights by using his position as a police officer to coerce her to perform sex in September 2004.

Roots and Wings: The Combahee River Collective Statement

Lately, we have been reading together the Combahee River Collective Statement. It is for us: a starting point, a vision, an inspiration, a model, and a guide as we here in Durham today grow and stretch into becoming a community that resists and transforms the conditions of sexual oppression. Alexis writes, “This is the founding document for the intersectional analyses of oppression that we develop and deconstruct and redevelop today.” Feel free to stop by and join our conversation about it At the Kitchen Table.

From A Statement About Sex Work, Sex Workers, and Sexual Assault:

The work of the Combahee River Collective, a group of black lesbian feminist activists that met and conducted direct action campaigns for five years in Boston during the 1970’s, provides our newly forming coalition with a framework around which to build a community that stands against sexual oppression on every level.

We see intense parallels between the way women of color and black lesbians mobilized in Boston around the murders of black women in 1979 (although those women were organizing around violence against women beforehand). Just as UBUNTU has begun to do, the Boston response involved the quick release of small publications, organized poetry events, and the engagement of existing community organizations.

---

A Black Feminist Statement
From The Combahee River Collective

“We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974.(1) During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As black women we see black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

 

We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (1) The genesis of contemporary black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing black feminists, including a brief herstory of our collective; and (4) black feminist issues and practice.

Anybody want a Duke lacrosse player’s autograph for your kids?

Anybody want a Duke lacrosse player’s autograph for your kids?  Nothing like providing your kids with great role models…Check this out:

(oh, and if you’re reading this and thinking about going all comment-tastic on me for assuming the guilt of these players, please note that I wouldn’t even have to believe that a rape occured to not think that this particular group of men were the kinds of heroes I would want my kids to emulate – saying things like ‘thank your grandpa for my cotten shirt’, ‘skinning the bitches’, and threatening sex workers with assault by broomstick is enough to make me not a fan.  And, what exactly is it that would make you a fan?)

Locals take part in Duke’s return

By JOE LOMBARDI
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: October 12, 2006)

Duke’s scandal-plagued men’s lacrosse team made its return to the field Saturday, and several Lower Hudson Valley residents were part of the action.

The Blue Devils, who competed in an exhibition fall tournament at the Dean G. Skelos Sports Complex in Rockville Centre, canceled the remainder of the 2006 season on April 5 after three of their players were charged with rape.

Duke, a 2005 national finalist, played three games (against Towson, Hofstra and New York Tech), with the Hofstra game drawing the most interest because newly named Duke coach John Danowski had coached Hofstra for the last 21 years.

Tommy Dooley, a 2005 Yorktown graduate who set a rookie scoring record at Hofstra last year, played under Danowski at Hofstra last season. Danowski recruited freshman Tom Interlicchio, an all-America midfielder also from Yorktown, to play at Hofstra. Pat Watson, a 2005 Yorktown graduate, transferred to Hofstra after playing for Denison last year.

“It was a bit weird seeing Coach Danowski on the other sideline because he was the one to recruit me, and we got to know each other,” said Interlicchio, who has performed well in practices and earned a spot on Hofstra’s first midfield line. “But I just went on with the game and exchanged a friendly handshake with him at the end of the game.

“It was a pretty emotional game for the guys that were on the team last year, but (new Hofstra) Coach (Seth) Tierney kept reminding us that all he wanted to see was all our effort left on the field.”

Hofstra won 10-9 before a large crowd.

“We had like 1,000 people watching,” Interlicchio said. “After the game, we signed autographs for some of the little kids, which was cool, and so much different than high school.”

’60 Minutes’ interviews Duke lacrosse defendants

FYI – 60 Minutes will cover the duke lacrosse rape case on sunday’s show. There will be interviews with Kim Roberts and all three defendants (and none of the defense lawyers!), so it should be interesting to watch. Given the quality of media coverage generally, I’m preparing myself for frustration with the way the case is framed, but will watch anyway.

-J

By John Stevenson, The Herald-Sun
October 10, 2006 8:59 pm
DURHAM — A CBS “60 Minutes” segment on the controversial Duke University lacrosse rape case is expected to air Sunday evening and will include interviews with all three indicted players and Kim Roberts Pittman, the second dancer at the party where the attack allegedly occurred.

update: Duke lacrosse rape case

From the Guardian Unlimited  

 

 

Deep Questions Remain in Duke Rape Case

Saturday October 7, 2006 5:46 PM By ALLEN G. BREED AP National Writer

Saturday October 7, 2006 5:46 PM
By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – There’s not much middle ground in the legal community when it comes to opinions of local prosecutor Mike Nifong’s most famous case.

His law school classmate Patricia McDonald, citing “an utter lack of evidence that a crime even occurred,” wrote to Gov. Mike Easley and urged him to pressure Nifong into stepping aside in the Duke University lacrosse rape case.

“Mr. Nifong has lost his moral compass despite his claim that he is a `committed advocate for the truth,”’ wrote McDonald, a former assistant in the Maryland Attorney General’s office.

That’s not the Durham County district attorney whom John Bourlon knows.

The criminal defense lawyer has faced off against Nifong hundreds of times over the past three decades. He’s seen the prosecutor drop a weak case the day before trial.

Despite the supposed flimsiness of the evidence in the Duke case, Bourlon keeps coming to the same conclusion:

“I’m CONVINCED he has something.”

Untold hours of television air time and countless drums of ink have been spent parsing what the Duke case – with its three white, private-college defendants and the poor, black stripper who accused them – says about race and class in our society.

More recently, the question has been: What does the case say about the fairness of our justice system – and the power of those who run it?