Lingering thoughts

Thinking through this day.

A. (another coworker of mine whom I have referenced in this blog), who is alone in the US, with 7 kids and his wife in distant Ethiopia, who infamously works 100 hours a week in 2 jobs, started crying in the break room today. Last week, his friend had died in a car accident unexpectedly, and I think E.G's death today hit him in the way that sometimes deaths around you make you wonder about your own life and its significance.

S., another coworker whom I also respect hella, was being all cynical about it.
"You are sad cos she wasn't a maxi lift," she said half-jokingly. "She went because this was the reason why she came."
Because EG was able to stand, she didnt require the laborious maxi lift everytime we needed to toilet her.

I know S. wasnt completely serious. I know that a part of it is to think of our residents in this way of, how much work do they require from us, because it's the easier way to think about being surrounded by people who are dying, and us needing to be detached.

But it also struck me that it was an objectifying way of thinking about our residents. I have thought of our residents like this too. But in grieving for this person who just passed, so much came out in how we process death, process our work and our emotions on a daily basis.

When the morgue came to take her body, many of us lined up to sing "Amazing Grace." It's my workplace's standard farewell practice.

But except for me, none of the people sending her away were CNAs. They were all office administrators who had very clearly been called out to stand in procession. My other coworkers were busy with their work, not having been told of this procession, this farewell.

It is so ironic. That us, who felt the closest to this person because we had toiletted her, bathed her, fed her, in the intimate ways one can support another living being, were, whether intentionally or not, excluded form her farewell and instead, those administrators, who had devalued this person's life by cutting our labor, dismissing our work, hurrying us, stood today to bid farewell.

I know this is not very articulate. Maybe at another time I can express this sentiment better. But I felt sad and trapped. That even in death, our work goes unacknowledged, our emotions, unrecognized and undervalued, struggling to compete with objectification.

R.I.P

One of my favorite residents passed away today.
E.G, Rest In Peace.

I have so many memories of E. from the past year of being her CNA. E. was super talkative, and was a "farmer's daughter from Ashland Wisconsin," as she would say, which explains why she loves drinking milk.

I remember my most recent memory of her was when my coworker and I were talking in anticipation of the weekend, saying

me: It's my Friday today!
N (my coworker): It's my Thursday, one more day to go!
E (whose wheelchair I am pushing): It's my Tuesday today!
(and then she cracks up, knowing full well that she was clueless about what was going on)

We were cracking up so much cos she was so funny, so adorable, and so friendly.

She could never get over the pull-up diapers and called them the "fancy panties" that she'd buy for herself when she moved "back home to Seattle." I dont know if she knew where she was.

I don't know what it is, but with E., so many of us had grown attached to her jokes and her demeanor. Always waiting for her kids to come (and they did come, just not as often as she thought they did, or wanted them to!), always talking about her hometown in Wisconsin, always talking about how her mom taught her to wash her hands after the bathroom, and how she felt wasteful for using more than 1 paper towel to wipe her hands till she saw me using 3 and didn't feel so bad after that, how she just always had that grin on her face when she saw us cos she knew she was the popular kid in the lunchroom. How dementia didnt yet take away that naughty gleam in her eyes.

Perhaps more importantly for me, as my mind often drifted into dwelling on the sadness and sense of loss that I have felt in the past year, E.'s voice breaking the monotone of my thoughts, asking me for this, or that, to go to the bathroom, or to get ice cream, or what, always brought me back to the present. Brought me back to the silent, humbling joy I felt for being able to do something for someone who needs it, in a very bare bones sort of way, in a very concrete and unpretentious sort of way, to be useful, as one life supporting another.

Till the past week, as she began to lose her alertness and her face sagged, unable to hold together her grin, mouth drooping, and her health declining, and she started to whimper "Mama, mama" every few minutes with her eyes barely open, me feeding her between her sporadic waking moments...It all happened very fast.

Maybe I needed her presence in my life, more than she knew, and more than I knew.

R.I.P
E.G

"it's like being dead before you die"

Ab., one of my favorite coworkers, said this today of our former resident, O.C, who passed last night.

R.I.P

In the past month, we had a series of deaths among the residents. Old age, illness, they move on. One of the bitter jokes we say, is that, in the absence of extra workers to help relieve the workload, at least their deaths make our daily work easier -- less residents to take care of.

O.C died last night, but before she died, none of her family members had come to see her. In the past year that I have been at this job, working around this unit, I have never met her family. Save for some cards dated years ago that are pinned up on the bulletin board in her room, there are no memories, no signs of a life that was once lived.

So when Ab. said, sometimes, our residents are dead before they come here to die of dementia and illness, in our little sad deathfarm, they already have lost many things.

What do we have to show, for lives once lived, for passions once bursting, for ideas that were moments of breakthroughs, for the daily slog of life, for the many personal rebellions, for walking our own paths along the road less taken?

There is definitely something to be said for, the only thing you can do is to be a good person any and everytime you can. There is never a guarantee of reciprocity. We are lucky if we have loved ones around us.

I am afraid I will be one of those family members who forget about their parents. I think about my parents and their distance, their expensive, costly separations from me, and their cultural distance from this new place I call home. I dont know what to do.

I feel sadness too, that those whom I had built with for 5 years are now barely on speaking terms with me. Friendships broken and only shock, and some bittersweet memories left.

I am so emo!! Blame it on the ENFJ personality type!!!

I like listening to Sarah McLachan's Angel, and also Better than Ice Cream. Both songs encompass my mood right now, so here they are!

Venus Boyz!

I just watched Venus Boyz, a documentary film on drag kings in NY and beyond --- who all gather in NY for an extravaganza.

Totally different feel from Paris is Burning -- about queens in NY, which discussed more the culture of balls and houses.

Have a feeling that culture isnt as great in the drag king scene, and maybe thats cos there isnt an entertainment industry around drag kings as much. Maybe female parody/camp is funnier than male parody. Dont know what it is, but dressing drag king seems like it would take more skill and entertainment for it to be amusing to lots of people outside of the queer scene particularly cos, dressing and playing man funny, might not seem all that funny to many!

Been thinking alot about how my debating culture/aggressive behavior has been perceived as an extension of my personality vs. how my male comrades aggressive behavior were instead respected. I tried to get at this a little in my previous post. But here are 2 exchanges from the documentary that really struck me.

Damn, maybe next time I should try going drag and less genderqueer or visibly female-bodied at some of these political meetings, and see how people treat me. It would be, to say the least, a very politically enlightening experience in male privilege.

From Venus Boyz, in a scene where drag kings are chillin' together, some in costume and not.

Mo B Dick: "Its much easier to be a powerful woman behind the mask of a man, and it's much more socially acceptable to express anger when you're a man, and aggressive behavior, as a man. 

As a woman, people go, "Urgh, Bitch! What's the matter with you?!"

Transman: 

"That's exactly true, cos people now...I was always punished as in a female form cos I was too aggressive. Now, I have permission. People say, you know well they just see me...I dont perceive myself as a man, or a woman for that matter, but people perceive me as a man. I can be invisible as a man, whereas for some reason as a female, I never was.

No, what it is is the subliminal absence of hostility. Men relate to me as a man, and they are not guarding themselves. Men, look after men, I'm telling you."

in a later scene, the transman in the scene above says, while working out in a gym,

"I feel like I'm less aggressive now than I was before I started using testosterone, because I no longer have to be as aggressive to get what I want. Because people perceive me as a man, they are more likely to give me what I want, without a fight.
It was only when people started seeing me as a guy that I realized how much of a man's world it really is.  Because, yeah, I am treated with more respect. And it's amazing how friends of mine, who I'm sure are not aware of it but my friends who have known me before, I dont know if they realize it, but women are totally trained and socialized to look after men. And I'm telling you, it's so amazing how they do it.
And men talk to each other different than they talk to women. I mean, we all know these things, but I actually experiencing it can be really sad. "

But contrast this white transman, from what a black drag king says of her experience when she is in costume. [I can't find the scene right now] But she talks about how she has to wait 1 hour for a cab ride in NYC after her shows let out cos no one wants to give a black man a cab ride.

Can the Lenin-figure ever be a woman?

 Lenin statue in Fremont, Seattle, in drag during Pride

In processing my past experiences in the group I used to be a part of, one thing that stood out to me was the differential treatment I got as an outspoken woman leader, as opposed to the other outspoken male leaders.

I speak of 2 male comrades whom I love dearly and respect immensely, but the different treatment they received from their aggressive interventions in the organization, was vastly different from what I received.

For them, they were Lenin figures -- professional, perceptive, sharp, willing to make the necessary sharp interventions/breaks at their own personal expenses.
People may not LIKE their interventions, but they respected the directness, the firmness and engaged in the ideas and debated organization and politics.

When I had made those same interventions, what was read into it was instead was that the forthrightness and firmness I exhibited, was simply an extension of my personality. That I just wanted things a *certain* way. I was always up for debate -- I love it! But people read my desire to debate out the ideas as me wanting to bully them with my personality (note: not with my knowledge, but with my personality.)

Myself and the male comrades I reference, we were all part of an organization that did have an aggressive culture, for good and for bad. I do think some aspects of it ARE important! It was very empowering for me to learn how to debate firmly and strongly, but there were certain aspects of this culture that did also shut others down. We needed a re-evaluation of this culture, but what happened instead, was that I, my personality, was targeted, rather than a systematic, professional conversation about organizational culture.

I feel another layer of betrayal because the kind of woman political person I was when I first joined the organization, was not seen as empowering, was not seen as "leadership" material (explicitly I was told this) but in my desire for revolutionary politics, rather than leaving, I stuck it out to develop, to push myself to speak up, to push harder, to be louder, to study, to read, to practice public speaking etc etc. At times I got frustrated w this process and debated with other comrades how Malcolm X was not the only model of leadership, and we needed others! But I feel resentment now, because I was practising what us as an organization believed in, and in the absence of other woman revolutionaries in our organization in Seattle, I pushed myself super hard and now, am blamed for it. My individual personality was instead targetted.

These are the nuances of the patriarchy that I feel like women leaders have to go through. No, I dont hate my male comrades (in case some people are trying to box me into that male-hating feminist category to discredit my words). I love my male comrades dearly but this pain, this dilemma, this struggle, is mine to bear. They didnt have to experience this, maybe they did but I am sure not to the same extent.

How the fuck did woman militants like Lucy Parsons, Rosa Luxemburg, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn  etc etc, deal with this?

I want to move forward from this. To heal and to think more deeply about, what is feminist practice in revolutionary organization that is rooted in libertarian marxist principles and values -- celebrating creativity, joy, passion (also in the form of debate!!!:) )

Last note is, I want to be humble and vulnerable and open to critiques. But I cant help noticing this double standard, which then makes it hard for me to know where the critiques are coming from!!! It is very confusing!!

The 2 faces of a healthcare worker

 A friend had just sent me this article, At State-Run Homes, Abuse and Impunity

It is a recent report by New York Times on the state of nursing homes/state institutions in NY State.

Can I just say how fucking annoying it is that healthcare workers are just depicted in this unbelievable simplistic dichotomy that is also so horrifically and annoyingly gendered??

That either you are the SAINT -- Florence Nightingale figure who would pour your heart and soul out to your patients with no sense of self and probably also be the world's biggest snitch on all your coworkers and be the Super CNA/LPN/RN etc etc ,

OR

You are the lazy, incorrigible, immoral, violent, reprehensible ex-paedophile/rapist/porn-addict???

How about giving us more humane faces? That, maybe most of us happen to be like every other person in the world who is trying to do the right thing but fails sometimes, either cos of moral shortcomings in stressful situations, accidents, or...an awfully stressful and overworked job where you are told to SUCK IT UP, ALWAYS!

I am too tired now to write a whole polished essay and response to the article above so I am just gonna jot down some quick points

1) Stench of union-busting -- blame the workers and their unions for all the tribulatins that happen at work -- maybe, privatized institutions/nursing homes, would do a better job at preventing abuses if the unions didnt get in the way??

2) Please -- there is a difference between healthcare workers who RAPE vulnerable residents, and healthcare workers who are too overworked, too underpaid, to change the soiled briefs of their residents every 2 hours. Please acknowledge the difference in severity!!!! 

Also NOTE the hyperbole: I bet you that what the article meant by "leaving the residents in their feces" was a hyperbolic way of saying that the briefs werent changed every 2 hours. But the conjured image is...terribly different!!!

3) I never got any training at work for dealing with residents who are racist, sexist, violent etc. I know its not right to ever hit someone who is more vulnerable than you, but, really, trust me, there is also a time for self defense at work when you are working with some residents who have severe mental illness, who sometimes have outbursts of anger and violence!!! I am not excusing gratuitious violence, but 

---> recognize healthcare workers' need for self defense

----> we need training for how to work with the people we work with!! I didnt even learn any techniques for de-escalation at work. If I didnt have a supportive network of co workers, I would just be swallowing the insulting shit that some of the residents hurl at us, and! if someone snaps cos of everyday exposure to that, I honestly can understand it!!!

But,this is a labor condition, a working condition. It's not just whether we are good/moral or immoral/evil people. Stop individualizing society's trauma on healthcare workers!!!!

Sorry for such a rant. Too tired to edit :P

More random notes on Abolish Nursing Home

1) My work in itself, is not what I find most degrading. I understand that every society needs people to care for the elderly and people with disabilities, and in a different world, this could be a valued and much appreciated job. As strange as this sounds, poop cleaning doesnt disturb me very much -- I have seen many different brownie explosions and it doesnt surprise me as it did the first day at work, where I stood, frozen, thinking "I can't believe I am seeing this!" 

2) What is degrading is that we are rushed doing this work. That you can be cleaning up the messiest brownie explosion and then having the nurse breathe down your neck and wonder why you are taking such a long time.

3) I often think about my residents well beings and even though it creates extra work for me which I could get away with not doing, I do it cos I like knowing that my residents arent soaked in soiled underwear etc etc.

4) That said, I hate it when the bosses try to tell me this is the way to think. All my coworkers and I hate it when the charge nurse tries to drum the need to care for our residents, into us. It's not just cause they lie -- ie if they cared for the residents so much then they'd actually hire more people to do the work, but because we have no self determination in owning and carrying out the values.

5) "You always have a choice," is what the bosses also tell us. This is an idealist application of our self determination. 

 For the workers, our self determination: ie. our ability to enact and practice our values, is both an expression of humanity, as well as something that is determined by our material conditions, ie being short on time

I am writing this to get at the question:

are nursing homes reformable if they were ran by non-ableist workers self management? would that make practicing good, humane care, more achievable?

or, are these institutions just...bad bad bad!! inevitably!!!

notes on Abolish Nursing Homes

Lack of self determination can cause you your life.

I learn this by watching the residents. And am put in that position as someone who has to impose restraint and deprive people of their self determination, in the name of safety. 

And, because we are short staffed and overworked.

You objectify people when you no longer are able to see them in a human light.

When your working conditions force you to move from one person to another like they are poop-oozing robots, not living human beings.

This is very scary.

Autonomy, or safety?

Everyone who works at a nursing home says: I would rather die than live in one of these death farms when I am old.

Because institutionalization is awful and it can never be really reformed. At least not under capitalist standards, not under the demand for profit and cost-cutting measures.

The state tries to reform nursing homes, when they know that it is impossible to do it. And they try to enforce/make themselves look better by doing sporadic checks. But as my boss says: You (CNAs) better work well in front of the State, cos you know, the shit always rolls down."

Grieving.

An acknowledgement of all the pain, all the suffering, that our peoples are experiencing now.

Everything that is now individualized, personalized into our own psyches, into dilemmas among relationships, into tensions among friends, into vicious self judgement.

The crises permeate into us

like knives, chopping 

hearts from muscles, pain, from love, from

one another.

Mortality is on many of our minds.

What is a good life, worth living?

How to imagine a nuclear explosion?

Who,

would I save, can save, will die regardless of me and

How

will I, they, we all, die?

I smelled the coffee in the house today and memories of past jobs swarmed my mind

Borders Bistro Singapore, Coffee Exchange Providence, Faculty Club Providence, Royal Grill Detroit, Starbucks Seattle

This was the earth where my feet have scurried upon

In case I forget, or you forget

and death, erases those traces

and memories of lives once struggled, once lived, once survived

The 50 workers in the Fukushiima Daichii nuclear plant facilities 

I cannot begin to imagine how hard it must have been to make the choice

to stay in the crumbling deadly entrapment that will definitely

inevitably, assuredly, take your life/kill you/ruin your life hereafter if you do not die.

Let them never say that workers are useless, replaceable, greedy

I am thinking of you, and crying for you that 

their insatiable greed, their inhumanity, their uselessness, has forced you and your families

to make this painful life-losing/changing decision.

Thank You, and your families, so so so much.

You, are joined, in our memories, as martyrs alongside those of the Egyptian, Bahrainian, Libyan, Tunisian revolutions

And I for one, will never forget.

 .

Mortality is on our minds.

May we find also the serenity, to channel

this frustration and pain and ever exploding crises

into resolution, into unity, into humility, into courage,

to change the things that we can

together,

with what we have left,

of one another.

 

Thoughts on feminist practice in organization: work in progress!

It's International Women's Day, and I am surrounded by hella powerful and inspiring women militants young and old, near and far. Knowing you all exist and support me has been so important for me in the recent months. I just read a post by a respected friend and comrade Julia Wallace, on Women in Crisis under capitalism. Also another by ChakaZ here commemorating this day and honoring women's struggles. I also just discussed Algeria Unveiled by Frantz Fanon with a young, super charismatic and awesome woman militant. Trying to navigate the very powerful and strong anti-colonialism in Fanon's writing, while discarding his patriarchal and objectifying attitudes toward women under the framework of nationalism, was very challenging and also emotionally charged because it's something I have had to painfully navigate in my real life too. I have been meaning to work on this piece for a while, and been drafting up notes. Julia, Rae, Francis, Ariel and Jennifer, through their presence, conversations and kind words, motivated me to move on with this piece, as problematic as it will be, as unfinished and incomplete as it is, as a way to dialogue about working class feminist practice and revolutionary organization building. Bottomline is, I wanna build revolutionary organizations that have hella dope feminist class struggle politics AND practice. Here's some thoughts and a work in progress.

Throw in your thoughts too so we can make this REAL and not individualize all the stress and drama that this set of conversation often come along with. If you have questions, dont make assumptions. Ask me and you can help me clarify/flush out my thoughts, or we can agree to disagree. Please, no passive aggressiveness. I already live in the Northwest. (ok Seattle, just j/k :P!)

Where am I coming from with this? In my own reading of feminist politics and practice, I often hesitate to be vulnerable to people/texts that I read even if aspects of them resonate with me, cos I need to know first where the author is coming from politically. This is honest, and its telling too -- because intense gender experiences have been used by politically conservative and politically degenerate forces (include social democrats and identity politicos in this) to JUSTIFY a certain form of class and race politics. Gender has ALWAYS been used as a lynchpin for the left, the right and the nutties. Think abortion, or the veil and how it becomes a site of proxy war for rival political factions who, honestly don't give a shit about women's liberation to begin with. But gender is not just a set of politics, it is actually a set of daily emotional and bodily experiences and real fuckin' feelings. My hesitation comes from the need to protect my emotions, my feelings, my experiences of survival. I got burned with how my personal experiences and struggles as a queer woman of color, survivor of domestic violence, have been used to justify whack identity and separatist politics so now, I am defensive. So to whoever's reading this, if you agree or disagree with me, know that whatever I am putting out there is toward developing a practice for a certain kind of politics. I would still love to dialogue with you even if we disagree politically, but it helps me to know whether tension emerges from a fundamental disagreement with my POLITICAL VISION, or with my specific analyses and proposals to develop PRACTICE for a SHARED political vision. Let's not confuse the two! To put it out there for folks who dont know me, here's what I am for:

- MULTIGENDER ORGANIZATION

I see this as as fundamental to queer politics. Patriarchy should not be gendered male. I describe this more below.

That said, any multigender organization needs to develop PRACTICE to navigate the different set of experiences that oppressed people bring into the group and acknowledge that some groups experience more trauma than others, be it race or class or gender or sexuality. HOW? is what I am trying to figure out here.

- CLASS STRUGGLE POLITICS

Working class women's liberation is class struggle. I experience my oppression as both as a woman and gender non-conforming person acutely at my fucking job. The job conditions suck cos it's seen as traditionally "woman's work" -- caring work. And to the extent that that work is undervalued in this society as a product of the division of labor, as a product of capitalism and commodification of human bodies and the essentialization (and thus unpaid) of labor that involves love, care and such, I feel oppression. Most tangibly, my bosses -- yeah the assholes who yell and scream at me like they own me -- they are racist and patriarchal women. I hate them, I wanna fight them and I dont feel solidarity around gender with them in the same way they don't with me.

- ANTI-IMPERIALISM

No White Man or White Woman's burden.

Obvious, but worth stating. No invading and patronizing oppressed communities and nations under the pretext of wanting to save women from themselves. No patience for that shit.

- CHALLENGING PATRIARCHY, HETEROSEXISM AND TRANSPHOBIA OUR POLITICAL COMMUNITIES

So none of that "slide the dirty shit under the rug while we confront the enemy" bullshit.

I go mad when I encounter patriarchy/homophobia and transphobia in what is supposed to be my trusted community.

Don't tell me that getting mad about patriarchal behavior means there's something wrong with me. I dont fight for revolution to be treated badly as a woman of color. If we want constructiveness, then lets work out a PROCESS or a PRACTICE that can help us navigate this shit in our own communities. Dont individualize or personalize the failings of our communities to develop anti-patriarchal practice by BLAMING it on those who raise the issue.

- ANTI-STATIST. ANTI-CAPITALIST MARXIST ANALYSIS AND ORGANIZATION

I am a developing marxist whose political framework and understanding has been clarified by the marxist method.

I am not for building any vanguard party. I am for building revolutionary organizations that consist of working class people, engaged in struggles in the community, schools, workplaces and like. I believe that we need to train and develop ourselves and as many people as possible around us, to be empowered with skills and knowledge that help us struggle for our freedom and liberation from oppression: capitalism, patriarchy, heterosexism and the like. Rome wasnt built in a day so it wont be torn down in a day.

I devote my energies and aspirations to this project. I want this shit to be sustainable and even though I know organization building is not a magic pill, it is an important component for developing revolutionaries.

*

SOME OBSERVATIONS....

Why does gender and revolutionary organization always feel like such a tense relationship? Deliberate or not, there often is this walking on eggshells energy, even among comrades I trust. Here, I try to identify where the sources of this "walking on eggshells" energy comes from.

1) We dont have a framework for talking about patriarchy in a way that is non-essentializing, that is targetting BEHAVIOR and INSTITUTIONS , not INNATE HUMANITY.

The best of queer politics takes us there.

In queer politics, patriarchy is not innately gendered MASCULINE. In the most liberating aspects of queer politics, patriarchy is understood as a form of power and control, an institutionalized system that privileges and values cisgendered men and their presumed attributes, over non-cis males, women-identified or gender non-conforming folks.

Saying that patriarchy is not inherently masculine or gendered male, is really important for trans identity and politics, and a marked departure from 2nd wave feminism and its transphobia. 2nd wave feminism saw trans men as self-hating women who wanted to "assimilate" into patriarchy, who had internalized patriarchy. They also saw trans women as men who were "pretending" to be women, who wanted to "infiltrate" into women-only spaces. It's a rough history and we have a lot of trans elders to thank for sticking it out in those hard times and leaving us with a legacy of tenacity and survival in the face of political attacks, especially painful because they came from those who should be allies. It is this same framework of gendering patriarchy as masculine, that has led to certain lesbian scenes disdaining the butch/femme queer culture, which is also a very working class form of lesbian culture. By gendering patriarchy masculine, these 2nd wave and middle class feminists could only look at trans men, or left of center butch women, as sell-outs to the feminist movement. Coincidentally, under this framework, femme identity was also presented as oppressive because it apparently presented women as weak and feminine. Ironically, in the strong insistence of feminist liberation, the 2nd wave feminists and middle class feminists rejected femininity as a source of strength, and only further inherited the notion of femininity as a sign of weakness.

The liberating aspects of queer politics is that gender expression (masculinity, femininity and all its continuum), can be distinct from the perpetuation of patriarchal relations. This distinction of masculinity from patriarchy requires deliberate reflection, effort, conscious decision making, especially in this society we live in which normalizes patriarchy. What this means to me, is that yes, cis male privilege IS real and in this society, many men are socialized and taught to be patriarchal. The wages of patriarchy, like the wages of whiteness, are however only a temporary reprieve for men because the divisions it causes end up also hurting men. Instinctively, many men rebel against patriarchy and its institutionalized, socialized treatment of those whom they may love, be it queers and/or women. However, this instinctive rebellion needs to move beyond the realm of mere individualized actions, and rather, need to be generalized, to take form, take shape, develop strength and structure, and be a fighting force as well for it to be a real challenge to institutionalized patriarchy. It needs to be a continual reflecting, dialogical shared practice.

Violence against women, against transmen, transwomen, femme women, taking the most extreme form of rape and the psychological fears and trauma that come along w that, is a real phenomenon that many non-cis men experience. Yet, it is also a system of patriarchy, a historical phenomenon, that creates this privileging. Many who identify as men in this society are taught that being a legit man means that they have to exhibit patriarchy, just like we are taught that being female means you need to be subservient. We need to reject that whole packaging. Patriarchy is not inherently rooted  in masculine gender expression. Which leaves open the possibility for people to choose masculine gender identity and traits while rejecting patriarchy.

*

WHERE DOES THIS TAKE US?

In my previous organizational experiences, there was a dichotomy:

Either that the way to overthrow patriarchy is the duty of individual men and thus an excessive focus on individual, personal relationships as a way to overthrow patriarchy. This was predominant in liberal and progressive circles

OR

That patriarchy is an INSTITUTION that needs to be fought and that we shouldnt focus on personal relationship dynamics. Instead we should wholeheartedly believe that if revolutionary men have anti-patriarchal activist resumes earned through fighting against patriarchal institutions, then they cannot possibly be patriarchal in their behavior or relationships.

An important method of Marxism is that the class transforms itself through struggle and in doing so, achieves its self emancipation.

The premise is that the class does not bear the best traits of humanity's liberation in the present. it is through struggle that the class learns HOW to extricate itself from the most demeaning and negative aspects of capitalism.

The external struggle against patriarchy, through fighting institutions etc, is important.

So is the internal struggle against patriarchal relationships, patriarchal behavior.

The two go hand in hand. Any external struggle against institutionalized power that doesnt also lead to a change in social relations is suspect, and any struggle that focuses only on social relations separate from challenging institutionalized powers that maintain it, is missing the point.

The separation between private and public, internal and external struggle, is a construction of capitalism. It is this same capitalism that makes us shut down our humanity right at the moment we clock in, to become labor-producing machines, lifeless commodities that need to simply dutifully complete our paid tasks, suspend our human emotions till we clock out. And then, for many of us, easily fall into the understandable even though extremely wrongful explosion of our daily repressed anger, sorrow and helplessness, onto those whom we are closest to, be it our children, lovers, friends, because they are our easiest targets.

I raise this not to moralize, but rather to say that revolutionaries, builders of revolutionary organizations who take gender liberation and anti-patriarchy seriously, we need to have spaces and structures and vocabularies, that help us maintain that consistency between our external struggles against institutionalized patriarchy, and our everyday relationships with comrades and loved ones. It is the search for this consistency that will keep us humbled as revolutionaries, keep us remembering that none of this is easy or automatic for anyone, that men/women/queers/former DV survivors and all, we are all susceptible to patriarchal behavior if we dont constantly remind ourselves to reflect, to practice.

The dumbass liberals and social dems have robbed us of the vocab of compassion, patience and love. So much so that so many revolutionaries I know are impatient when we talk about internal transformation. We need to fight for a revolutionary kind of compassion. Where patience, compassion and love can thrive, because it comes with JUSTICE.

2) Transferring language about class to patriarchy

I think many times there is such a defensiveness around talking about patriarchy because in revolutionary leftist circles, we apply the way we talk about class, to gender.

To the extent that there are many contradictions, inclarity with the ways that we talk about class struggle, the way we talk about patriarchy also becomes confusing.

In our conversations about class, we determinately and non-hesitantly say: ABOLISH THE RULING CLASS.

How does this look like in practice?

:

We take out our class struggle politics in a targeting of immediate class oppressors: The bosses, the landlords, the police etc etc.

The loosey goosey watering down politics of liberals and social dems that say: Look! That police officer who murdered JT Williams or Oscar Grant is human too and we should not target him for his mistakes.

These political factions conveniently put aside the institutionalized oppressions that the capitalist system perpetuates by humanizing an individual cop, an individual boss, individual oppressor. They make a mockery of justice. We as leftists hold up the banner of justice in a reeking unjust world. We say: These class oppressors and their lackeys need to be abolished.

But do we mean their institutions need to be abolished, or that their humanity needs to be abolished?

This triggers a whole debate on strategy, tactics, values, right to self defense, violence of the oppressed be equated to violence of the oppressor, moralism vs. political resistance...Many of us are political people and the debates are familiar, necessary and important.

However, I think our lack of clarity and vocab around the above stuff, flows into our conversations around patriarchy.

There IS a logical fallacy. If we say class struggle = abolish the ruling class = abolish the perpetuators of the ruling class, then why can't we also say anti-patriarchal struggle = abolish patriarchy = abolish the perpetuators of patriarchy?

Unlike the ruling class, which consists of a minority of the world's population, those who perpetuate patriarchy in their daily lives, constitute more than a minority. If in our experiences, many of those who perpetuate domestic violence are our loved ones, are predominantly men, then, are we saying that we want to eliminate those whom we have loved and shared with, as well as half of the working class?

This is not to say boundaries, distance, rehabilitation and punitive actions against those who commit patriarchy are not important. But for many of us who have either experienced domestic violence or done advocacy work around domestic violence, we know that simply casting an abuser as such and negating the emotions that the survivor feels for their abuser, is not likely to win us the trust of the survivor. Immigrant women and many women of color don't call the state to intervene in situations of domestic violence precisely because they fear that the state will abolish and eliminate their abuser. Survivors want the abusers to stop, to leave, and change, but dont want them to become victims of a racist and unjust criminal justice system.

In the same way, if we can't develop a feminist practice of talking about patriarchy, pinpointing patriarchal behavior without an automatic abolishment and elimination of the perpetuator, then either people don't raise the issues, or that those who are targetted become immediately defensive out of fear. Others feel like they have to immediately choose sides rather than take the time to hear out the issues, mistrust develops and the disintegration of organizations as a product of patriarchy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In developing our practice around anti-patriarchy, we need to understand this. That what might work for our language against class oppression, might not be easily applicable to that against intimate/interpersonal patriarchal oppression. 

 With patriarchal behavior, there is a range of it. Some require more intense and sometimes, even violent responses. Others can be transformed. Often times,  patriarchal BEHAVIOR within the class, is also product of the contradictions of capitalism.

In our organizations, we need to have a systematic way of figuring out what are the basic acceptable norms of behavior, and having a response to patriarchy that isn't a one-size-fit-all response.  

The distinction between patriarchal institutions and patriarchal behavior is crucial.

There is no doubt that patriarchal institutions need to be overthrown. Those who are in the lead of it need to be either convert their allegiances and get out of the way, or face some kind of punitive action for their perpetuation of mass-scale injustice.

It is weird how parts of the left piss all day on patriarchal institutions in the flyers, slogans and speeches, and yet are so afraid to talk about/is so defensive about discussing what is patriarchal behavior

3) Talking about anti-patriarchal and gender politics in an organization means that our own personal sex lives and intimate relationships become exposed to the org life.

People feel protective about their personal relationships and dont want the organization to intrude and make harsh judgements.

Worst case scenario is that it could be that people have fucked up patriarchal intimate relationships, but it could also be that organizations do not have the vocab to differentiate patriarchal relationships from unhealthy relationships or moments of tension and challenges in otherwise healthy relationships.

Many political spaces I have been in, dont have the precision in their language in discussing patriarchal relationships that exhibit power and control, both in hetero and queer relationships.

Part of this is because we dont even have the vocab to talk about what good, healthy relationships are.

In our response against imperialist feminism, or the state's attacks on our culture as a pretext to demean, denigrate and provide justification for its attacks on communities of color, many leftists have responded with some sort of cultural relativism and hesitancy to talk about the good, the desirable, in a normative way.

The NW Network, an anti-DV organization for and by queer and trans folk, has a relationship skills class that they offer for free to the public. The space, which I have encountered, is one that in non-judgmental, but also one that does provide vocabulary and concepts for individuals to talk about what healthy relationship skills are: such as communication, establishing boundaries, changing levels of commitment, response to jealousy...etc

They said that they came up with this workshop because they had encountered survivors of domestic violence who talked about how they now knew what bad relationships are, and how to leave them, but what next? How do they acquire the tools to then keep relationships healthy? So many relationships around us are unhealthy, especially for those of us who grew up in families where domestic violence was prevalent. How can we have a positive vision of "breaking out of the cycle of Power and Control?"  

I really like this non-judgemental yet confident discussion on acquiring the tools for healthy relationships. The tools to communicate, to support one anothers' self determination, to set boundaries, to check-in etc.

I think revolutionary organizations need to also have a shared vocabulary for what healthy relationships are and supporting and affirming one another in our varied practice of that. This creates a common vocabulary which we can use to pinpoint patriarchal behavior or unhealthy non-patriarchal behavior in our organizations, in a way that doesnt get us all freaked out because we think that every single relationship that we have ever had is now also being attacked.

I know some people will say, this is a "white" way, or "non-profitish" way of talking about relationships. To those critics, I think many of us already practice this to some degree in our personal lives, but there is no shared vocab around it in organizational life. This structure I am proposing is based on the need for us to have such conversations in our organizational lives, that is not over-exposing, doesnt force people to be excessively vulnerable in organizational space, but yet creates a framework for certain sets of expectations that we can utilize to address and assess patriarchal behavior among comrades.

4)  Tokenization of strong women

I have been in many conversations with revolutionaries where the "woman question" is raised. Why are there disproportionately less women of color revolutionaries in revolutionary organizations, than say, white men?

In some conversations, the discussion lean toward, why can't women of color decide to do revolutionary politics and develop themselves? Where are the strong women of color?

In other conversations, the discussion lean toward, let's look at the patriarchy in our organizational culture. What can we change to bring in more women of color?

As unpopular as this stance may be, where I stand is a combination of these two extremes. On the one hand, in our society right now, doing revolutionary politics has many challenges. Its significance is not recognized in dominant society, you have to deal with people thinking you are a nut case/in a cult, and the financial/family pressures for many of us takes us away from doing revolutionary politics. It does take commitment and personal will to commit to being a revolutionary and I hope more people will take up the tasks and challenges.

On the other hand, the patriarchal, racist cultures of the American left scene is also super alienating for women of color militants. Where people dont find support, they leave. It's usually that simple. The first foot forward should always be an investigation, analysis, and constant reflection of our organizations so we provide a good space for oppressed people.

But somehow, the "strong woman" phenomena always comes up. Like there was an inherently strong woman, who just popped out of nowhere.

The fact that for many of us, our strength emerged through a process of survival of violence, of patriarchy, of racism, is seldom recognized. Our strength, as the process of struggle is forgotten. Instead, many of us become tokenized as THE strong woman, to whom other women need to measure up to. 

A positive vision of honoring and supporting political women and queer folks' strength would be for organizations to discuss the challenges that women face to become leaders and strong militants so that we know the range of experiences and challenges that are out there for women. This can be done through reading militant women's biographies, through discussion about our lives, through taking seriously commemorations such as the Domestic Violence Awareness week, or Transgender Day of Remembrance. These events serve as a way for organizations to continually remind ourselves of the process and challenges that women and queer folks experience.  

We should also affirm different leadership styles because strength and commitment come in different colors, and support/affirm one another, and hold each other accountable to developing our different leadership styles and strength, and also frankly talking about areas where we each feel like we need to grow in. At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I just gotta say, that being unaccountable is not a different "style" and holding people accountable doesnt make you an authoritarian (I have seen people try to pull this off).


For women and queer militants and leaders in organizations, we definitely need to prioritize our own growth, but also see as part of our growth, the development and mentorship of new women and queers in the organization. This is NOT to say that it is our task alone to bring in/develop new women and queer leadership. This should be a joint organizational task!! Mentorship is also something that should be part of the shared culture in any organization. I am saying this here because as women and queer leaders we will, whether we want to or not, in a time/space where there are so few women and queer folks in revolutionary organizations, we will become role models of sorts in our organizations and we need to show new folks coming around that mentorship and sharing leadership is precisely a component of women and queer leadership.  

*

I have more to add...but this piece is already a monster and I'm too exhausted to edit it more. 

I am sure I have not thought through some of this shit as carefully as I need to, so please help me out and let's have this dialogue!! 

Power to the sisters and therefore to the class!

Here's something from June Jordan to top it off:

  I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name

My name is my own my own my own

and I can't tell you who in the hell set things up like this

but I can tell you that from now on my resistance

my simple and daily and nightly self-determination

may very well cost you your life.

June Jordan

Nursing Home workers fight back in Oakland!!

Check this out!!!
Piedmont 38 fight on!
http://thosewhouseit.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/victory-for-the-piedmont-38/

A day with anti-domestic violence non profit scene

There's a lot of organizational experience that I have gone through in the previous months related to gender, leadership, patriarchy, class and the like. A lot of what I am thinking through is related to those experiences, including also the trauma of having the organization's dysfunctionalism be blamed solely on me and my personality, and having many of those involved shirk their own responsibilities by conveniently blaming me. I have much reflection to do, many questions to ask, and many feelings to work through. Yet, I know from my experience that humility can be taken advantage of as a way for others to shift blame. I wont go into much detail but what I am thinking through with regards to gender and organization is related to this past organizational history which I am currently thankfully extricated from.

I recently attended a training hosted by the Northwest Network, a Domestic violence organization for and by queer and trans people. I had heard about this dope training when I was a youth mentor working in the non-profit world, making zines with queer homeless youth. No longer a "service provider," I felt kind of out of place in that setting full of non-profit DV social workers, but nonetheless, something compelled me to attend it. I think I am trying to understand what the new praxis around domestic violence is, both for myself as a survivor who is continually processing how to live in a way that is not bound by or replicating power, control and patriarchal interpersonal relationships, as well as someone who wants to build organizations with good gender practice, which includes understanding domestic/interpersonal violence, an experience that way too many women disproportionately experience.

Many many insights, and many questions too.Not sure if I can clearly formulate the questions in my mind. I usually hate non-profit social dem politics, but I am so thankful for the practice of the NW Network! Their shit comes from real experience of working with queer and trans folk in abusive relationships, where gender cannot be relied on as a marker of the abuser, where patriarchy cannot/should not be gendered masculine. They have developed a method (yeah!) that allows the service provider to assess the *complicated* dynamics bw abuser and survivor in same sex and queer relationships.

What happens, when the abuser is a queer woman, inflicting power and control on another queer woman, in the context of homophobia and patriarchy? Where does this point us to, in our anti-patriarchal practice and analysis?

As I am thinking through the questions and breakthroughs that the workshop has brought about, the best I can do is list out those that are particularly boggling to me, and hopefully over time, understand their significance in my own organization building experience. This is a work in progress.

- Are Patriarchy and Sexism interchangeable terms? Does patriarchy constitute sexism, and more? What is the analytical and organizational framework to approach the two terms?

- Anger vs. Power and Control
Acts of anger need to be understood in their context; Survivors use anger as self defense and anger itself is not a definitive marker of power and control. In fact, power and control in abusive relationships can happen in manipulative ways that are not as expressive as angry outbursts. So, the trainers emphasize needing to understand the CONTEXT in which people respond the ways they do. The worst things that a service provider/advocate can do is to tell the survivor that their actions for self defense against power and control/abusive relationships is in itself abusive. This is not to say we can't talk about how survivor's survival tactics are damaging and unhealthy. But that critique needs to be made in the spirit of encouraging and empowering the survivor the seek strength and renewal, not in the spirit of negating their self defense mechanisms.

I think this is a hella important distinction.

What I dont understand tho, is the relationship to patriarchy.

Granted, power and control patterns need to be distinguished from expressions of anger.
However, can expressions of anger have patriarchal and gendered impacts? Patriarchy includes in its definition, the institutionalized oppression, mental, physical and emotional, of women and various gender expressions that do not fall neatly into the gender binary system. The reality is that patriarchy doesnt take only the form of Domestic Violence aka power and control. It can take other forms too, so the assessment of patriarchy cannot simply rely on the assessment of the DV occurrence.

- How not to take survivor strength for granted?

I guess this is not directly related to the training and is more so related to my organizational experience. The tokenization of survivor strength was very difficult for me to handle. I felt that people I was in organization with tokenized me as a strong woman of color, and yet did not understand that my strength came from a lot of survival. Who I am today is not who I was a few years ago. Surviving DV and finding voice was a very difficult process which I am proud that I went through. Yet when I expressed those vulnerabilities, people either did not believe me, or did not think it was important. How to encourage survivor strength and renewal, but not tokenize that strength, and forget that it came through a process that needs to be honored? How to do this while also being humble and open to critiques, mistakes, learning?

I want to learn more about how to understand survival as a process that is lifelong, and not a "stage" that we went through.

How does that affect group culture? How can acknowledging ourselves as survivors prevent a culture of "walking on eggshells," fear, anxiety for saying the wrong thing? How can we have a culture that respects survivor process and strength, by being affirming, fun, creative with clear shared expectations and understandings? How to do this without making people feel over-exposed and feeling like they have to share all their pasts?

- How to distinguish between support seeking and rumor spreading?
My recent experience with a former friend/organizer was that she talked all about me behind my back under the pretext of seeking support from folks. Maybe this is true, maybe it isnt. I know she was going through a hard time too. But on my end I had tried to respect her confidentiality the best I could and so did not actively seek support from people. So, many people in our community heard her version and sympathized w her, and by the time I found out that people had taken such strong sides, and found out about the need for me to present my version of the story, people had their minds pretty much made already. She, in their minds, was the "victim," and me, with my apparently aggressive personality, was now the aggressor. I felt anything I said would be taken in that pattern/dichotomy. For other reasons as well, I could not trust the members of the community to be impartial, to be fair and I could not bear to put myself through any process with them any longer. The community space had become poisonous.

What to do? How could this other person, and myself, have sought support while respecting confidentiality? How could others have responded?

I dont mean this post to be an attack on anyone. I am trying to process what I have been through, in an organizational manner, in a manner that helps me learn what to do for the future. It's been a lonely and confusing process. To the extent that NW Network's training provided me with a framework to think through stuff, it's made formulating the questions somewhat easier and, less personal/painful.

For now, I can only identify that the dichotomy between the nonprofit world and the knowledge of DV practice, and the revolutionary left's theoretical emphasis on gender and patriarchy, with little/no organizational know-hows that is being passed down, is a cause of a lot of confusion for me.

I hope to engage carefully with the analyses and practice that DV orgs have acquired, through a Marxist feminist perspective. I was excited about the NW Network and their analyses of queer DV because for me, this organization is an institutionalized expression of the most liberating aspects of queer theory. The trainers and material were amazing. For now, here's the LGBTQ power and control wheel, a continual investigation into the dynamics of patriarchy and DV!