Headed to the guv!

Fast on the heels of my excitement over New York's marriage equality (June brides? How 'bout June PRIDE?) comes something I've been coveting for quite a while.

I think that sending me back to the state coalition in Springfield is a "capital" idea! I'm so stoked to serve my center and the crisis cause by working with the statewide organization. Best of all, it doesn't conflict with my classes (who says you can't have it all?) and I can learn from the delegates coming from the other crisis centers. I really love the networking and learning all about the sister centers all over the state (and then bringing it on home), so this is going to be one terrific opportunity.

This is going to be an awesome fiscal year....

Happy Pride Month!

Well, this is surely a wonderful piece of news...

On the 42nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots* that got the whole gay liberation movement started off, marriage equality is finally the law in New York! (Which is the same place the riots occurred and got the ball rolling.)

This is the biggest state where this has happened, and I'm super-excited for my sisters and brothers in the Big Apple. Let's hope ALL the other states follow soon, or better yet, that DOMA is finally repealed so we all can enjoy equal marriage rights!!

You got to dance with them what brung you

Dear Molly*,

We might have been without you for 4 years, but I miss you and your incisive commentary still.

I just wonder what you would say about all the crazy political and social happenings that have been going on in the four years since you left us. Wherever you are, I hope that you are at peace and that your influence lives on.

Peace be with you, sister.

In solidarity,

Revel

*Molly Ivins (1932-2007), political columnist, journalist, and progressive extraordinaire. I would read her column religiously from 2000-2007 and own all of her books.

The Bridge Poem

The Bridge Poem
By Donna Kate Rushin

I've had enough
I'm sick of seeing and touching
Both sides of things

Sick of being the damn bridge for everybody

Nobody
Can talk to anybody
Without me Right?

I explain my mother to my father my father to my little sister
My little sister to my brother my brother to the white feminists
The white feminists to the Black church folks the Black church folks
To the Ex-hippies the ex-hippies to the Black separatists the
Black separatists to the artists the artists to my friends' parents...

Then
I've got the explain myself
To everybody

I do more translating
Than the Gawdamn U.N.

Forget it
I'm sick of it

I'm sick of filling in your gaps

Sick of being your insurance against
The isolation of your self-imposed limitations
Sick of being the crazy at your holiday dinners
Sick of being the odd one at your Sunday Brunches
Sick of being the sole Black friend to 34 individual white people

Find another connection to the rest of the world
Find something else to make you legitimate
Find some other way to be political and hip

I will not be the bridge to your womanhood
Your manhood
Your human-ness

I'm sick of reminding you not to
Close off too tight for too long

I'm sick of mediating with your worst self
On behalf you your better selves

I am sick
Of having to remind you
To breathe
Before you suffocate
Your own fool self

Forget it
Stretch or drown
Evolve or die

The bridge I must be
Is the bridge to my own power
I must translate
My own fears
Mediate
My own weaknesses

I must be the bridge to nowhere
But my true self
And then
I will be useful

--This is one of my favorite poems! It opens up the feminist classic, This Bridge Called My Back, by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, and it sounds even better when you read it out loud! Any self-respecting feminist or anti-racist activist really should read it, since it really drives the point home. I read it in my first graduate class, and I loved it so much I've had everybody I know read it too. So now that I've crossposted it, perhaps more will know it as well!

Shame on You

My friends, they wash the windows.
They shine in the sun.
They say, "Wake up early in the morning sometime.
See what a beautiful job we've done."
Let's go down to Chicano city park and do a little all day.
Go to the riverside, take off your shoes, and wash your blues away,

And the river said, la la la la la shame on you.
The river said, la la la la la shame on you.

I go down to Chicano city park cause it makes me feel so fine.
When the leaves are down, you can see up close in the dead of the wintertime.
But when the springtime's come, everything's in bloom,
And you wouldn't know it's there.
And all of the white folks like to pretend it's not, but their music's in the air.

And you can hear 'em singing la la la la la shame on you.
See 'em dancing la la la la la shame on you.

My friend Tanner says, "You know me and Jesus,
We're of the same heart,
The only thing that keeps us distant is I keep f**king up."
Let's go down to Chicano city park and wash your blues away.
All the beautiful ladies walk right by.
You know, I never know what to say.

And you can hear 'em singing ooh la la la la shame on you.
See 'em dancing ooh la la la la shame on you.

Let's go road block tripping in the middle of the night
Up in Gainesville town,
There'll be blue lights flashing when the cops pull up.
When they ask us to step out,
They'll say, "We're looking for illegal immigrants!
May we check your car?"
I say, "You know, that's funny, I think we were on the same boat back in 1694!"

And you can hear 'em singing la la la la la shame on you.
Hear 'em saying la la la la la shame on you.
Shame on you.

--Amy Ray

This is my favorite of the Indigo Girls songs! I swear, I still marvel over the fact that it was written in 1997 and unfortunately could've been written yesterday. I first heard it when I was in grade school and fell in love with the chorus and the snarky attitude, but now that I am older and wiser and far more radical I can appreciate it for what it is.

An Open Letter to US Clothing Manufacturers

Dear US Clothing Manufacturers,

I get it. You've got clothes to sell, profit margins to meet, trends to set. You all are really busy people. But how about you take a little break from the sewing machine and the clothing patterns to read a little letter from a friendly feminist fashionista?

I have but one suggestion for you when you are making women's clothes. Can you please start sizing them by actual body measurements (like waist, hips, inseam, bust, etc.) as opposed to some totally random and completely un-standardized sizes like even or odd numbers? You know, like the way men's clothes are sized? I mean, I am really finding it difficult to find or order things that fit because I am a different size in just about every brand out there! At Kohl's I am a medium. At JCPenney I am a medium to large. Most laughably, at Target, I am an extra-small (and anyone who knows what I look like is probably rolling their eyes at that!). I don't even know my own dress size because it's different depending on the brand.

You know, when I was in high school, we had this awful dress code with uniforms. And I mean, it was really awful--boxy old polo shirts and the choice of flimsy pleated skirt or these dress pants that were ordered from a company. I didn't like the skirt so I wore the uniform pants. Since I couldn't try on the uniforms (they were ordered), I did what most girls didn't. I just sent the company my measurements and wore men's clothes through high school because it was much easier to get something that fit my measurements! (And again, anyone who's seen me knows that my presentation is as hyperfeminine as it gets! However, I was not going to shell out my cash on clothes and wait for them to arrive...only to find they didn't fit.)

Take it from me, dear clothing manufacturers. It really is no fun to constantly be confused. So please find some way to standardize your sizing so that I can finally figure out what size I am. Preferably, I would like it to be simple measurements like the men's clothes are sized.

Thank you much. For this I may even go back to primarily buying my clothes new and from "normal" stores.

Love,

Revel

An Open Letter to Rich Santos

Yep, Revel's in letter-writing mode this month! I'm having fun letting 'em have it!!

Yo Richey!

As a disclaimer, I don't often read Marie Claire unless I'm in the waiting room at Super Cuts or my dentist's office. But since your recent article about "innocent girls" versus "bad girls" has gotten a thorough kicking around by everyone in the feminist/pro-feminist community, I figured, why not belatedly join in the fun? I am not going to link to your puerile article since it doesn't need any more traffic than it already is getting.

I noticed you pointed out that "guys like innocent girls." Uhm, Richey, I would sincerely hope that since you are considered an adult in the eyes of the law, you and your dudes would be more interested in women than girls. I also sincerely hope that the main time you care about somebody's "innocence" would be when you are doing jury duty. Otherwise, you sound like the perfect candidate for How To Catch a Predator. I'm not sure that's the kind of notoriety you're after.

Another thing, Rich. Do you know how utterly asinine you sound when you say a partner's inexperience is like "white fresh snow versus the snow that's turning black on the side of the road in under the haze of car exhaust"? Women are people, not snow! And besides, what does that make you? The car exhaust? Well, at least we're something natural and not the carcinogenic environmental pollutant! Although if you must classify us females into weather conditions, I'll have you know, Richey, that I am a big scary tornado that mows down anything in her path.

I also noticed, Rich, that you really seem to think that all women fit into two little tiny categories and never the twain shall meet: either inexperienced, wholesome "girls" or women who are bad to the bone. Well, I have yet to meet an adult woman who fits perfectly into either category. Considering that my friends are 65-70% female, that's saying quite a lot. Do you know why this is, Rich? This is because we are HUMAN! People are much more nuanced and much more complex than two tiny categories are. All you are doing is setting up another false binary...and setting yourself up for disappointment when you find that no one outside your imagination fits it. I find it interesting that you opine, "We hate to admit it, we usually like to be in control. A bad girl is tough to control — we never know what she's going to do next." Well, by your standards, every woman is "bad" since we all have free will and our own decisions and the ability to control them.

And another thing, Rich. Not every woman wants a man, and for those of us who do, we know to steer clear of you and your ilk who are so superficial and judgmental. So perhaps, as odious as your article and your other pieces are, they serve as the perfect signs and red flags of what to steer clear of in a man.

So thanks for this primer about what to AVOID when looking for a man.

No love,

Revel

PS Rich, I noticed your column is called "Sex and the Single Guy." If you're wondering why you're still a single guy and why all the ladies are headed for the hills when you're around, you might just want to re-read your odious columns.