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All Aboard
Jan. 20th, 2009 07:40 pm"The amazing voyage of the of the Failboat Armada."
Only two things have heartened me this past week: Willow’s composure and those allies that finally, painfully get it. My own hand was missing, hesitant, and cowardly in this confrontation. My indignation burned but not enough for me to take on this issue again so soon in the face of some much deliberate ignorance.
How many times must we PoC steel ourselves and wade into arguments that were made over one hundred years ago by the likes of Sojourner Truth. How many times must we be asked to coddle, comfort, and be compassionate to ears that refuse to hear, mouths that speak a racist lie, and eyes which see best only in blindness?
It’s an issue that wears a great stone to mere pebbles that lie in a multitude like gains of sand on the beach. The waves will not stop their assault until everything is ground to dust.
Every single time we speak up there is someone to tell us to shut the hell up. Every time we burn with indignation against the same old shit there is someone there with a fire hose, deranged in their attempt to shut us down. To smolder our passion and erase our justified anger with empty words and rhetoric.
The tools of academia are futile. They are the tools that once argued that folk of justice and honor were one step up from apes. An academia that displayed their body parts in museums next to beasts. An academia that downplays and dismisses the work, the art, and yes, the criticism of cultures from around the world.
PoC still fight for just the right to speak; we haven’t even come close to having a simple discussion.
Only two things have heartened me this past week: Willow’s composure and those allies that finally, painfully get it. My own hand was missing, hesitant, and cowardly in this confrontation. My indignation burned but not enough for me to take on this issue again so soon in the face of some much deliberate ignorance.
How many times must we PoC steel ourselves and wade into arguments that were made over one hundred years ago by the likes of Sojourner Truth. How many times must we be asked to coddle, comfort, and be compassionate to ears that refuse to hear, mouths that speak a racist lie, and eyes which see best only in blindness?
It’s an issue that wears a great stone to mere pebbles that lie in a multitude like gains of sand on the beach. The waves will not stop their assault until everything is ground to dust.
Every single time we speak up there is someone to tell us to shut the hell up. Every time we burn with indignation against the same old shit there is someone there with a fire hose, deranged in their attempt to shut us down. To smolder our passion and erase our justified anger with empty words and rhetoric.
The tools of academia are futile. They are the tools that once argued that folk of justice and honor were one step up from apes. An academia that displayed their body parts in museums next to beasts. An academia that downplays and dismisses the work, the art, and yes, the criticism of cultures from around the world.
PoC still fight for just the right to speak; we haven’t even come close to having a simple discussion.