I guess you had to be there.

(Before you read this, please read my friend Joseph’s powerful recollection of that day and all that has happened around it since. It’s really just amazing.)

New York City, November 16, 2001. I was walking from the Astor Place stop on the 6 train, on my way to dinner with  one of my oldest friends from Florida and her serious boyfriend – whom, she’d confided, she was positive was THE One. The gift bag I held swung enthusiastically from the crook of my elbow as I walked. In it, one of my most prized possessions: an exquisite mask, purchased three years earlier at the Artisan’s Market in Dakar, Senegal. I loved the mask, but it made a wonderful gift,  and it was small sacrifice for a friend I hadn’t seen in years.

The freezing air that stung my bare face and hands carried the surprising but unmistakable bite of winter. I shivered and pulled my stylishly useless military coat’s flaps closer to my chest, thankful that I’d at least had the sense to wear a turtleneck. The sound of my own heels hitting the pavement bounced off the walls eerily, unmuffled by traffic and street noise. On a Friday night in a neighborhood packed with bars, clubs, restaurants and shops, the streets were deserted. I looked behind me towards Union Square, where I could see the lights of the theater where I’d had my very first New York kiss.  And further south on Lafayette, the body art and piercing shop where I’d gotten my tattoo, and the coffee shop where my friends had toasted my courage with a cup of chai right after. I knew this place, had walked its streets in every season, at every hour, and in every degree and brand of inebriation. I even knew the restaurant she’d chosen, a popular Texican with forgettable food, weak drinks and insulting price tags.  The giant neon sombrero lured them in, I thought.

I knew this quarter. Before It Happened, this chunk of Manhattan had been my weekend stomping ground. Before It Happened, on a weekend night I couldn’t hear myself think over the background noise: blaring car horns, buses ambling clumsily past, women like myself in groups clad all in black and laughing, angry and joyous shouting, the inevitable crying baby. The silence hanging around me was funerary in its weight, not merely the absence of sound, but its erasure, like a muted scream.  Like the dust that rained down when It Happened, that awful September snow, the silence  covered everything, cloaking all it touched in sorrow.  The stunned hush that followed that sudden obliteration. I could feel my city grieving as she held Herself, and struggled to hold Herself together. No, I decided, sighing deeply as I passed a third lone  individual at the restaurant entrance. No, it was too much. I would not ask Her to smile for me.

My friend and her guy were waiting for me at the bar when I arrived. In a flurry of high-pitched hellos, tight hugs, and exchanged gifts, we reconnected while her boyfriend found someone to seat us all. At the table, we  sipped flyweight margaritas and caught superficially up.  Why yes, I did like my new job and apartment, living and working in the Bronx was kinda cool.  Well, they’d been together for eleven months and weren’t sick of each other yet. No, it didn’t work out with that guy from work. No, they were going to spend Christmas with his family this year. Yes, I missed Florida sometimes. Yes, they were having a wonderful time here.  The cadence of our banter fell into its familiar, girlhood rhythms. A comfortable glow had shaken my months of melancholy loose.

“So,” I asked them, smiling at their entwined hands on the table’s top, “what did you guys do today?”

“Well,” she replied, her smile mirroring my own, “we went to see the towers.”  I blinked, nonplussed. I didn’t know what to say.  Surely, this wasn’t my friend, who had lived through the devastation wrought by hurricanes her whole life and hated tourists who came to gawk at the horror and return to the safety of their own lives. Surely this wasn’t the compassionate woman who in high school had argued brilliantly and relentlessly with more than one misguided teenaged conservative about social justice.  This woman, easily one of the finest people I know, whose mother is like my own, who my mother loves like her own, and who has known me since before I had breasts, had not done that. The icy beginnings of dread and outrage materializing in my guts confirmed grimly that I had, indeed, heard her right. 

“You…I…you guys went…what? Why?…”  I stammered. She nodded, still smiling. Her boyfriend piped up: “Yeah, and you wouldn’t believe the lines!”

“No, I don’t guess that I would,” I murmured,  lifting my glass to my lips and draining it. The dread turned to disgust and mingled with the outrage. I made a study of studying the menu. On the other side of the table, in an exceptional display of coupled oblivion, the two of them chattered merrily away, giving me details I never needed.

“It was a good thing we bundled up, it was freezing down there. You know, it’s right near the water, so there’s all that wind. It’s just so odd because it’s never this cold here in November!”  my friend said.

“Yes, it has been an extraordinary year,” I replied, dazed.

Her boyfriend nodded, and held out his hands for my inspection. I peered down at his chapped, red knuckles. ”I don’t like gloves, and we were in line for like, three hours, so I was dying!”  You were dying? I thought nastily. Please. You earned those knuckles. My eyes shifted to the festive bag with the mask sitting in an empty chair. I very much wanted it back.

My friend leaned in, whispering, “It’s still burning, you know. The rubble? Some of it’s still on fire. Did you know that?” Yes, I knew that.  One of my roommate’s siblings, a paramedic who’d assisted with rescue eff0rts, had sadly verified this.  Another friend who worked within walking distance of the site directed tourists looking for it thusly: “The Trade Center? Oh, you mean ‘the smoking hole of death’? Follow your nose. Yeah.” Our server came. I placed my order woodenly, praying that the server hadn’t overheard this discussion and was planning to spit in our food.  Sipping my second margarita, I desperately tried to think of polite ways out of this excruciating conversation.

“Have you been down there?” the boyfriend asked me.  Sweet, merciful God. I took a long, slow swallow of my drink before I answered.

“No,” I replied flatly. “I have not been down there. This is as far downtown as I’ve been since It Happened.   I have absolutely no desire to go down there. But I guess you had to be here to get that”  And you weren’t, I thought, but didn’t say. The sentiment hung in the air just the same. Suddenly, they were the ones with more information than they’d ever needed. It made them uncomfortable, I noted, smiling darkly to myself.

But they needed to be. Why shouldn’t they be? Their touristy lack of sensitivity was salt in a deep and constantly worried wound. Fear and stress, already a part of an urban dweller’s life, had increased a hundredfold when It Happened.  After It Happened,  I avoided the trains, tensing up whenever I had to ride south into Manhattan,  unsettled at seeing my anxiety mirrored in the faces of fellow riders. After It Happened, I stopped bringing my Discman on the train with me, lest I miss important announcements or instructions. After It Happened, I didn’t see the laughing face of the Syrian coffee vendor I visited every morning again until that December. After It Happened, I’d watched with mute helplessness as a woman sitting across from me on the D train panicked when we stopped in the tunnel, weeping because she said she felt like It was Happening again every single day.

The boyfriend shifted in his chair, splotchy color staining his face and neck. At some point it had sunken in that he wasn’t making the best impression on someone’s whose opinion mattered. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “It can’t be easy, living here now.” My friend smiled at him reassuringly, then looked at me.  I sighed inwardly, and took the proffered olive branch.

“Well, a hard city just got harder. But feel free to inject some money into the local economy!” I said, stretching my lips back and showing my teeth and hoping it passed as a smile. It did: the two of them laughed and visibly relaxed in that way that people who didn’t live in New York in November 2001 could. With the conversation ball in my court, I asked if they’d caught any shows this time around, and the awkwardness was waved away.

On the way home that evening, I thought deep and long about spectator’s grief. The September 11th attacks were acts of terror. They had worked. I was terrified. Everyone I knew and loved was terrified. My whole city was fucking terrified. My friend, her boyfriend, and the rest of the world, on the other hand, were entertained. My own September 11th story, blessedly uneventful and comparatively drama-free, has drawn looks of disappointment from people outside of the city. I’m just glad that I’m here to tell it.

For many, the horror of that day was never quite three-dimensional, so the reluctance on the part of some of us to relive it in even the smallest of ways is baffling.  Five years after It Happened, I got a job on Wall Street, where I was stopped at least once a month by someone asking for directions to Ground Zero. (I’d put on a big friendly smile and point them in the direction of South Street Seaport.) The morning before It Happened, I’d sat down with my roommate for our morning coffee, singing out, “Who doesn’t want to go to work todaaaaay?” We’d both raised our hands, classroom-style, giggling. I never uttered that sentence aloud again. The outfit I was going to wear that day was removed, washed, folded, put away in a bag for charity. I knew I’d never wear it again. The saddest part about all of this is that it only sounds neurotic and superstitious if you weren’t there, in that nightmare of a day that we couldn’t wake up from, when It Happened.

The orgy of politicized grieving around September 11th is something that I naively never thought would come to pass. I am too disgusted at this point to really comment about it, but it seems to me that the people who have the most to say about it all didn’t lose a GOTdambed thing when It Happened. I see a lot of people coming in to protest the “Ground Zero Mosque,”  on buses and motorcoaches reeking of Tea Party politicking.  I see skyrocketing rates of violence aimed at South Asians, Arabs, Muslims or people who look like they might be any of those things. I see my country becoming hopelessly racist, xenophobic and reactionary,  commandeered by fearmongerers who claim that “taking America back”  means taking America backwards.

And once again, I don’t know what to say.

Big Brother is watching. And he’s posting AIPAC ads on your blog.

According to friend and friend of the blog Joseph, yesterday a Google-sponsored ad for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) showed up on this post. After some enlightening (albeit upsetting) discussion with him about hasbara and new media, I discovered that WordPress does sometimes place ads related to a post’s content on a page.  WordPress is a free service; this is how they sometimes pay the bills:

Note: To support the service (and keep free features free), we also sometimes run advertisements. We’ve tested a lot of different ad providers and currently use Google AdSense and Skimlinks. We try hard to make the ads discreet and effective and only run them in limited places. If you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade.

 I guess I can’t really finger-point. I’ve done things I’m ashamed of for money, too. Now, those things typically involved flirting and some nudity as opposed to, say, compromising my ethics and personal integrity…but okay. 

Who knows? Maybe I’m being unfair, judging AIPAC this way.  I wouldn’t necessarily write off a kind and brilliant person with crippling body odor, and by the same token, I shouldn’t necessarily dismiss this organization because of a little surface stench. Really, there’s got to be more to AIPAC than its decades of relentless obfuscation and creepy air of menace, right?

Or not. o_O

The Talk.

I’ve been staring at a  title and a blinking cursor for almost three whole weeks now. It’s time to write. I know it’s time to write. Hell, it’s been time to write. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it sounds. Even now as I type, the ever-more-pressing importance of what I’m about to relay here grows, spurring on something that feels like courage and rage and a whole bunch of stuff that I can’t quite name yet all mixed up.  I’m literally forcing deep, steady inhalations just long enough for me to get this shit out.   I’ve gotten up to pace about a hundred million times in the last couple of hours. My hands, thankfully, stopped trembling about ten minutes or so ago.  (You don’t even wanna KNOW what my stomach’s doing.  Let’s just say it’s…musical. And athletic.)

Alright, here it is. For almost two years now, I’ve been actively engaged in healing as an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse.  This healing has taken many forms, from hearing stories of other survivors who have spoken up, to lending an ear and a shoulder to survivors who have come to me,  to one-on-one and group counseling.  For years, out of necessity, I had actively suppressed memories of my abuse.  The traumatic physical disconnect and sexual aversion dysfunction that many survivors of abuse experience was starkly evident in much of my very early adolescent behavior. I didn’t become truly comfortable with my sexuality until I was about seventeen, ten whole years after the abuse started.  The man who abused me, a relative 19 years my senior who is now a father, has been out of my life for nearly two decades. It’s not as good as him being dead, but it helps.

So. We’ve established that I had a shittier childhood than a lot of people, and like every other adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse on the planet, I am now tasked with the monumentally unfair burden of repairing damage to my spirit that I did nothing to incur. It’s a sad and tragically common story. Since I’m not particularly interested in throwing myself a pity party, recounting it here doesn’t undo the mess, so what’s the point? Glad you asked.  According to my favorite survivor-founded online resource and help center, April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  And the man who hurt me has direct proximal access to at least two little girls in our family. 

Though she doesn’t know it yet, I have enlisted one of my relatives-by-marriage, the mother of one of the little girls, as an ally. As you can imagine, this has been tricky. For the past couple of weeks, she and I have been exchanging emails. I have invited her to my home, asked her out for lunch, the whole nine. While my relative-by-marriage likes me well enough, we’re not “hang out and chat” comfortable, so my low-key but frequent urging to talk with her about “something really, really important that absolutely should not wait” is probably annoying at best and creepy at not-best. (I can’t really say “worst” because, to me, worst would be my doing nothing and standing by as history repeats itself. I’m also struggling to put aside my own frustration at her evasiveness; I hate when people put me off when I need to discuss something important, knowing that if it wasn’t important, then I wouldn’t fucking bother.) There’s also the matter of her husband, who, because of his relationship to my abuser (an immediate relative of his), would need to be lied to minimally informed about this exchange. I am not sure who knows what happened beyond myself, the man who abused me, and my mother.

And there is perhaps the most poisonous legacy of this brand of silencing.  When and if a survivor does find the courage to tell their story, it’s like a dam breaking.  It all comes rushing out. I’m wary of face-to-face discussions about this with anyone who isn’t a survivor themselves.  Victim-blaming happens all the time with child sexual abuse; for adult survivors like myself, this can be incredibly triggering. Although protocols and suggestions from resources abound for this topic, I confess that I really don’t know what to tell, and what to keep to myself.  My abuse, like that of so many children, was covered up.  By the one person in my child universe who I knew for certain I could trust to make everything alright.  Like a lot of children, I didn’t  know right away that what my abuser was doing was bad, but I suspected that it was wrong because it was a secret, it only happened when we were alone, and it made me ashamed.  Before I was even in double digits, I knew what so many adults actively force themselves to forget: that the line between a secret and a lie is finer than peach fuzz and just as hard to see sometimes.  So one day I gathered every scrap of courage in my little body and told my mother.  And she said, “That’s not the truth.”  And she said, “I don’t believe you.” And how that night she didn’t tuck me in, kiss me, or even look at me. And how that night I lay wide awake in my bed, watching dry-eyed and numb,  as my world with the giant crack splintering the center shattered.

I don’t think I can tell her that. I think that I’ll save for my therapist. But you might need it one day, so take it with you. What to say? I can tell her how my visits home were infrequent after college.  All the reasons I hated being in my mother’s house. The slumbering rage that had a source I vaguely recalled but couldn’t quite name.  Eh. Maybe not. I can tell her how the “Fiqah’s soooo strange”  narrative that this side of my family created and insisted on clinging to served to heighten my loneliness and isolation and make me vulnerable to the abuse.  How I was lavished with gifts and attention by my abuser.  How it felt like love.  How I craved love because my little brother’s special needs ate up my mother’s energy and left me emotionally untended to a lot. How I missed my daddy so, so much. How my abuser, an amateur photographer, had a 100-page photo album of just me.  How someone, SOMEONE should have been just a little bit fucking suspicious that a 26-year-old man was devoting THAT much time and attention to a 7-year-old girl.  How my family decided for themselves that my natural brightness and curiosity about the world around me made me strange and possibly ”fast.”  How I despised them for aiding and abetting the murder of something bright and good in me and, in what has to be one of life’s most painful ironies, calling that shit “raising” me. Already I’m biting my tongue here. I’ll save that for Oprah. It’s a lot to dump on someone carry.

I can tell her how my mother’s denial of my abuse calcified through the years.  How my she never ceased contact with my abuser, who she’s known his whole life and who she - and I quote – loves “like a son.” How just a few months ago she called him to wish him a happy birthday while I was in the room. How she mentions him in passing like  it never even happened. I can tell her how this admission, made in the sterile quiet of a hospital waiting room while my mother comforted my abuser’s mother as he was undergoing an organ transplant, made my tweenaged heart ache, then go cold in a way that I would come to recognize as my fury manifesting itself. How when I go cold this way I’m capable of  causing extreme emotional pain to others without remorse or regret.  Maybe not. Okay. Well, I can tell her how I would quietly sneak away to the hospital’s chapel, and (standing next to people fresh from the ER and shaken) pray fervently for God to please, please kill my abuser.  How I would visualize air bubbles traveling up through his IV tube, or a scalpel slipping, or a heavy-handed anesthesiologist, just in case God needed suggestions and He didn’t want to dispatch my abuser in a suspicious manner.  Surely the life of the four-year-old who had wandered into traffic, and whose mother and father sat sobbing in the pew behind me, was worth more than his.  Apparently, God thought so too, but then possibly in a fit of Old Testament capriciousness changed His mind – my abuser had several dangerous complications around the surgery and almost didn’t make it. Although I felt bad for his mother, the prospect of attending his funeral filled me with a dark, satisfying joy, and I was very disappointed when he pulled through. No, no. Probably best to leave that out. I had and have every right to feel this way, but every time I’ve talked about it, some asshole well-intentioned but misguided assholey assHOLE person tells me that I shouldn’t, and that I should forgive my abuser, conveniently forgetting that my own mother was the first person to introduce me to the underside of that bus my healing does not necessarily center around forgiveness. Or maybe they just don’t know.

I could say all that. I know that I won’t relay a fraction of it.  I’ll tell her exactly what she needs to know: that my abuser must be constantly monitored if he’s around any child, including his own.  That she should watch and be aware of certain patterns and behavior. That it’s almost never a stranger who hurts a child.  That she shouldn’t trust anyone around her little one.  That she is her first line of defense. That I will never forgive my mother for dropping the ball on this, and that now, all these years later, she can never forgive herself.   That all it takes to prevent child sexual abuse and all the horror it comes with is a word from an adult.  That prevention is so much easier than healing.  That being a survivor is a life sentence for a crime committed against a child.   That damaged children become damaged adults like me. That it is okay to do or say things that are socially awkward or uncomfortable if  those actions insure the safety of a child. Any child. EVERY child. And there is no real protocol for that, because the only way to talk about this shit is to talk about this shit.  That’s a lot to carry, but a child you love  might need it one day. So take it with you.

(Special thanks to friend and friend of the blog Joseph Shahadi, whose courage has been more of an inspiration to me than he knew. Well, until just now. Warm hugs of thanks as well to my dearling, Mizz Awesomesauce herself, dopegirlfresh. )

 

Yup. THIS.

Excerpted from here.

If you’ve caused someone offense or hurt them in some way, and you didn’t mean to, do you know what you can do? Apologize!

Apologies exist! They are a very handy way of saying, sometimes verbatim, “I’m really sorry I said/did that. That was screwed up and I didn’t mean it that way.”

And then maybe the people you’ve offended or hurt will feel better instead of writing you off as a jackass and avoiding you!

That’s…that’s basically it.  It’s like a step-by-step on how to…not be a flaming asshole. (Apparently, some fokes need detailed instructions…prolly best to avoid them in general.)

I’m putting this shit on a poster.

THIS dude.

BWAAAAHAHAHAHA! Ahhhh, it’s funny ’cause it’s true.

UPDATE: 28 Days Without the N-Bomb, Day Five

N-Bomb Chronicles, Entry Two:  I have reconciled myself to the fact that using the n-word in my dream is (probably) beyond my control and (mostly) not my fault. I have never been able to completely master lucid dreaming techniques; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that whole dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream thing happen, à la Waking Life.  Still…something about it, feels vaguely like cheating. Silly maybe, but I feel how I feel.  (I may not always know what to do or what course of action to take, but I always know EXACTLY how I feel. Can YOU say that? I hadn’t thought so.)

Soooo many interesting discussions have sprung up from this project/experiment. Partner-in-crime,  friend and friend-of-the-blog Dopegirlfresh (she’s over here and here) and I have discussed how extraordinarily tempting it is to use that word.  It’s the ultimate trump word.  You whip it out and you basically win the game (whatever the game is). As is her wont, my buddy summed up the Word That Wouldn’t Die succinctly and brilliantly: “I been thinking about it, and what I realized it that when call someone an n-bomb, you’re basically saying  ’fuck your life.’ ” And she’s right. The n-bomb is more than just a fighting word –  although that alone would be plenty.  It’s a killing word. It is designed to murder one’s soul. And, as someone who has been on the receiving end of it more times than I care to recall, lemme tell ya, it’s pretty damned effective.

Anyway, dopegirlfresh had the awesome idea of substituting the n-bomb with…wait for it…Wocka Flocka Flame. Now, the name is so absurd that it immediately diffuses the rage that inspired the n-word to leap to mind in the first place, and it’s creative and awesome. Drawback? Most people hear “Wocka Flocka Flame” and think of this:

While I hear it, and think of this:

"Wocka wocka flocka!"

It’s gonna be an interesting month.

UPDATE: 28 Days Without the N-Bomb, Day Three

N-Bomb Chronicles, Entry One: I am pleased to report that my four-week fast from the n-bomb has been quite successful thus far. It has even inspired some fokes in my social circle to follow suit. And here’s the thing we have all agreed on less than 72 hours in.

Not saying that word? It’s hard. HARD.  Even for those of us who only use it selectively, like, I don’t know, less than 15 times a week,  it is reeeeealy difficult to find a substitute that satisfies in conversation. This has, of course, led to some creative solutions.  I’m employing words I used from my childhood when I wanted to insult someone, but couldn’t cuss because adults were nearby, just looking for a reason to make me go and get my switch. I’ll be the first to admit that no other word seems to have the same evil energy – which is why soooo many slurs, ethnic and otherwise, use the n-bomb and a hyphen. (Think about it.) The n-bomb definitely has a gratifying crunch to it…until you realize that what you’re actually chewing is broken glass.  Yeah. That’s not good.

SIGH. Sorry, Huey. I guess I'll see you in March.

I’m also embarrased to report that in spite of eliminating all the obvious sources of the n-bomb (Films set in barbershops, beauty salons or at barbecues; ANY movies by Quentin Tarantino; The Boondocks, etc.) in my daily environment,  The Word That Would Not Die has seeped into my sub/unconscious mind.  That’s right, I said the n-word in my dream. A lot. And for no clear reason! In the dream I was having a heated discussion with a friend about why it is that White people like RUN DMC so damn much.(I know, I know, my dreams are fucking weird.) My theory in the dream was that the frequent employment of guitar riffs in the more popular songs was comfortably familiar to White people, who might otherwise be alarmed.  Highlights from this discussion: “[N-bomb], how YOU gone tell me? That [n-bomb] Dave Chappelle basically proved this shit in that skit he did with that [n-bomb] John Mayer!”  I dropped the n-bomb like it was going out of style in my dream, and when I woke up, I felt guilty! I don’t even know what to make of all that.

I KNOW I can do this. I’m going to stay on the righteous path and let the Mooney guide me. Ohhh-OHMMMMdon’twannasaythenword…Ohhh-OHMMMMitshamestheancestors….Ohhh-OHMMMM…

2010 Black History Month Challenge: 28 Days Without The N-Bomb

As some of you are aware, I don’t use The Word That Wouldn’t Die in my written work. I explained it all in a previous post that featured a list of life lessons  that I’ll excerpt here:

It is NOT okay for ANYONE to use the “N-word.”  As late as 2004, when I tried vainly to make the argument that the kids in my predominantly Latino neighborhood used it with an impunity that was just unacceptable.  The person I was talking to, a biracial man who self-identifies as Black, argued back that the word, which could never be reclaimed, was viral and out of control, and that Black people using it amongst ourselves had made that possible.  I’ll never forget that discussion, where I defended my use of the Word That Would Not Die with the usual lame-ass* rationale.  Of course, I have made it a point to try and not use it ever since; it’s hard.

Do you see that? All that blah blah blah and here am I talking about how I’m giving up the n-bomb for the month of February like it’s some kinda grand Lentine sacrifice.  I freely admit that this is one of those places in my life where I am a hypocrite.  I drop the n-bomb exclusively in the presence of other African-American women. Not Black, specifically African-AMERICAN, and only women. (These categories frequently overlap, but not always.) Why? As my buddy and co-warrior (REVOLUTION! And…whatnot)  dopegirlfresh put it during one of our looooong conversations, “Black women say it in a way that captures our frustration with damn TKON!”  She’s right. Patriarchy within communities of color is, of course, systemic, but like all systems of oppression, takes shape in the hands of participating individuals. All that is to say that a lotta what we call “whorish” and/or “triflin’ shit” is actually SEXIST shit. And sometimes, a well-placed “THIS [insert word I hate here]…” in a discussion captures the disgust and fed-up-ness (<- real word, shut up) that a whole lot of us feel towards TKON.

Now, like I said before, I know that setting “preconditions” for using the n-bomb that read like growing instructions for a particularly temperamental species of orchid still doesn’t make it okay. I know that I can’t make anyone stop using this word, and many people argue that making its usage a social taboo has only served to enhance its appeal.  I kinda think that’s a bullshit argument, and if you read Jabari Asim’s The N-Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, And Why, you’ll understand my reasons. ( By the way, someone needs to send Junot Diaz a copy like, already ago. I’m just sayin’…)

I welcome all of my readers to join me in my 28-day-long ban of the n-bomb. I’d love to hear feedback here or at one of my other virtual hangouts (no links – if you know, you know, and you know why). It’ll be harder for some of us than others, but if Paul Mooney can do it, then damn it, so can we!  

Let the wisdom of Negrodamus be your guide and inspiration.

(*I also don’t use “lame” anymore. I left it in because taking it out of the passage would have been disingenous.)

Letter to my 8-year-old self.

Dear Bébé Fiqah:   

I know right now that things seem bad. And I’ll be straight with you – they seem that way because they are. You’re doing a tremendous amount of self-parenting at the moment. It’s temporary, but I know it’s all very confusing. With that in mind, I’m gonna help you out with a few of the stickier bits of this “growing up” thing.   

THINGS FOR YOU TO REMEMBER   

1. Grown-ups don’t know everything. They’re just in control of everything. That is not the same.   

2. Sometimes you can do everything right, and have it all go wrong, like when the first cake you ever made for Girl Scouts fell.  Try again.   

3. You are right to be suspicious when your otherwise well-meaning White second-grade and music teachers insist that they are ”color-blind”, and that you and your classmates are and/or should be.  There’s a reason it feels like a lie. Continue to tune “color-blindness” out, and if they prod you about it, parrot what they wanna hear so they go away.   

4. Don’t call your little brother stupid. He has a learning disability, and the whole world is telling him now and will tell him later that he is stupid because he is a Black male. Knock it off.   

5. You aren’t like anyone else. Everyone knows you’re not like anyone else. One day, you’ll see just how special that truly is. And it’ll be sooner than you think. I promise. In the meantime, don’t try and be anything but you. Don’t pretend you read as slowly as everyone else in class. Don’t be ashamed to know the answer. Don’t hold yourself back – there’s a whole world out there that will try to do that for you. Not too worry. Very soon, NOTHING will be able to hold you back.   

6. Hate to break it to ya, but tying your shoes is something you won’t be able to master until damn near middle school. Sorry, but no amount of poems and songs about rabbits and trees and holes and shit is gonna help you though this one, kiddo. It’s a big, shameful deal now, but its import will lessen as you get older. Besides, someone who started teaching herself to read at the age of three doesn’t owe anybody any explanations for unusual cognitive gaps. To quote King Jaffe-Joffar of Zamunda: “I tied my own shoes once. It is an over-rated experience!”  Just keep balling your laces up and tucking ‘em in your shoes like you been doin’, you’re GOOD.   

Thank the Lord for velcro.

   

7. Keep writing. Your stories are wonderful, and your talent is beautiful. It will lead you to places most folks from your neck of the woods never even dream of.   

8. Speaking of beautiful: brace yourself. You’re a year away from the traumatic start of a seven-year-long pubescent stage. You are gonna look really, REALLY funny during this time. Almost all your crushes during this period will be unrequited. Worst than that, you’ll still be smart, and in spite of their protestations to the contrary, cis boys and men really DON’T like smart cis women and girls. I am very, very sorry to report that for the most part, they don’t ever grow out of it.  It will be a painful and scarring period.  But, about a decade from now, when you (yes, YOU!)  literally – and I mean  lit-rah-LEE – stop traffic in the streets of Amsterdam, Dakar and Paris, it’ll all be worth it.   

9. Your long-held suspicion that the secret of escaping from a life of unfulfilled potential and abject misery in the swamp lies within the pages of a book is correct. Keep reading.   

10. Clean the house. It’ll help take a lotta stress of your mother. And she’ll be quiet. So you can read in peace.   

11. That sound you heard when you climbed all the way to the top of that tree, beneath all the noise of the neighborhood?  There’s a word for it. Buddhists call it Om. And it is the sound of God, being.    

12. Aunt L____ is a bitch. She is. It’s not your imagination, and it’s not just you who thinks it, either. You can tune her out, too.   

13. Your mother is not doing the best that she can. No parent, no matter how loving, EVER does “the best that they can.” This would render them too exhausted to breathe. But. She is doing the best that she knows how. And that is the absolute most that it is realistic to expect of a parent. Give her a break.   

14. You’re gonna get the big sister you always wanted in six years. And she’ll be your real big sister, too. Hang in there.   

15. Your family DOES treat your brother better. That’s not your imagination, either. That’s called “patriarchy within communities of color.” It’s a very common problem. Once again, NOT your fault. You’ll understand it in about ten years. Until then, continue to not engage with them.   

16. You are right. There IS something profoundly wrong with people who don’t like cats.   

17. And speaking of cats: next year, you’ll come home from school and discover that your cat Snowball is missing. Your mom’s gonna say she ran away. Snowball didn’t run away. Your mother’s gonna take her to a no-kill shelter to be adopted. Yes. YOUR cat. If you want to cut your eyes at her behind her back for the rest of your life for it, you are free to.   

18. That girl who used to pinch you and pull your hair in class until Mizz Moore changed her seat?  It’s because her mother hates her beautiful cocoa skin and thick, short curls…so she does, too. You see, while both of you are pretty li’l girls, only you are told on a regular basis by grown-ups that you are. And that is not fair. This is neither of your faults, and it’s so much bigger than either of you. BUT, understand this: neither of you is worse or better than the other. Period. That’s a grown-up lie, like Santa Claus. Don’t you believe it.   

19. You are gonna change your mind about so many things. You won’t always want to get married and have future taxpayers  babies, but you’ll always love buttercream wedding cake! want to be a writer. Remember that it is your destiny to bear witness to your own life. That’s hard, often lonely, and definitely not for everybody. But you know well by now that being in a group of fools where no one understands you is much more lonely than being by yourself with a good book. One day you’ll be surrounded by people as impressive as you are. Until then, continue to cultivate your inner wealth in solitude.   

20. You’re amazing. I promise to be the best grown up version of you that I can. And I promise that you have an abundantly blessed life to look forward to. But you are never gonna get that pony, kid.   

Love,   

Grown-Up Fiqah   

P.S. — Shoelaces don’t add up to diddly squat in the grand scheme of things. They really, really don’t.

I LOVE this chick!

 One of the great things about being overly contemplative/analytical is having lots and lots and lots of ideas. And one of the great things about being Fiqah is that I attract some pretty amazing people, and we get together and neat things happen, and the world is a li’l bit better than it was before we met. One of my favoritest, funniest, brilliantest (<– hush your mouth, it’s a word) soul warrior buddies - on the internets and out here in real life -  did this awesome write-up that totally lifted my spirits today.   I have excerpted some of it below.  (NYC peeps, PLEASE NOTE THAT PART ABOUT THE BODEGA SANDWICH PICKLES! It’s serious! ) Oh, and if you haven’t linked her blog yet, I don’t know what you are doing with your life. I rilly don’t. ::: Katt Williams disapproving head shake :::

"Go get yo'self summadat Dopegirlfresh Incredible Juju, and stay pimpin', Pimpin'!"

- racism doesn’t need hate in order to function. no form of oppression does. in fact, ignorance is quite the consummate fuckery fuel. think about how many times you have been confronted with information to the contrary of your (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or otherwise oppressive-to-a-group-of-people) opinion or belief & found that information was all you needed to set your lil brain in the right direction? that doesn’t, of course, mean that hate isn’t fuel for oppression.  it means that even without hate, these things exist & still manage to fuck people over.

- love can move mountains. it can also be used to justify the ugliest things humans do/ say.  love doesn’t erase fucked up shit. it can and does exist alongside this fucked up shit. don’t excuse the fucked up shit.

- when talking to a child, imagine that what you’re saying is the last thing you will ever say to that child. especially if that child is your own. what do you want their last thought of you to be? don’t assume shit. (i personally believe that this should be extended to everyone.  you can tell someone about themselves without destroying them or dragging them into a fight.  don’t be that asshole who tries to climb in the fucking casket at your girl’s funeral cuz you weren’t doing right by her before she passed away.)

- either you play the victim role or act as a survivor. you can’t throw up the shield of “i’ve been hurt” and then use that as a reason to treat people like shit. to generalize. to lump folks into the same group because it’s convenient to do so.  this includes jumping to conclusions based on something that’s triggered you instead of simply keeping yourself aware that something triggering just happened. also: if your responses to triggers of all sizes are rarely or never proportionate to said triggers, you’re fucking up. big time. & there may be a lot more healing left undone by you.

- never eat the pickles from a bodega. the pickle jars are older than that bottle of fucking steak sauce in the back of your mama’s fridge. no, really.  eww.

Awwwwww! See? I’m good for stuff! It’s nice to feel lurved.

Unreported.

[NOTE: This post was originally penned back in September. The police officer in question is obviously no longer a threat to my safety. However, because a lot of what I discuss in this post is triggering, it took me a while to get to a place where I felt comfortable posting it.  If you have any bad experiences with police harassment or street/sidewalk harassment, you might want to skip this post altogether.]

 

Today I cried on a stack of lemons at the supermarket. I should note here that crying in public, much less on produce, is atypical Fiqah behavior. Public crying is embarrassing AND unattractive, and as a pretty and vain chronic sinusitis sufferer, I know that Puffy-Sobby-Wetface is NOT my best look.  But today, that’s exactly what I did: stuck my elbows in a stack of sunny yellow lemons, buried my face in my palms, and sobbed.  It was early afternoon, and the produce section was thankfully empty. I don’t know how long I stood there before I was able to collect myself, wipe my obviously-been-crying face, clean my smeary glasses, and make my purchase. I ignored the eyes of the cashier, the concerned and alarmed expression of the man bagging my groceries, and the fiery burning of my beet-red ears as I left the store. You fucking idiot!  I thought as I made my way back home. You forgot he was there!

 I guess now would be a good time to explain myself. 

For the past month or so, I have been the recipient of the unwanted attentions of a cop. This officer, whose beat is at a park in my neighborhood, first approached me when I was coming back from running some morning errands. At the time, I was carrying a few large shopping bags and wearing ear buds blasting M.I.A. I didn’t see him until he was right next to me, grabbing one of the heavier bags right out of my hand and startling me stupid. The cop, a Latino man in his late thirties, purred a too-familiar “hello” and told me that he it looked like I needed some help. All this as he took off his sunglasses and frankly assessed my bosom. A chill had gone through my whole body as I’d smiled and stammered a nervous thank you,  moving my purse around to from my side to my front in an attempt to cover my breasts.

“Where you headed?” he asked, looking down at me as my eyes landed everywhere else: his shoes, a lamppost, a trashcan, a little boy barrelling down the sidewalk on his scooter. As we stopped at a crosswalk, he moved a full step closer to me so that we were separated by no more than a few inches. I  swung the shopping bag hanging from my hand between us, casually, so as to appear non-deliberate. My flitting eyes landed on the gun at his hip. I quickly looked away.

“Oh, not far,” I’d said, calmly, making small talk as my mind screamed angry accusations and panicked instructions. Don’t let him walk you to your building! Stall him! It’s your fault for wearing a V-neck shirt without a minimizer! Tell him you have run to the bodega across the street and pick up something you forgot! Tell him your boyfriend’s waiting for you! You must always remember to wear your wedding ring when you go out or this will happen! This is your fault! Your fault! Don’t tell him your real name! Don’t tell him anything! Keep talking! This is your fault!

“OH!” I said, feigning dismay. “I forgot something! I gotta run into one of these bodegas and grab it.”

“No problem, I’ll walk you there,” he’d said. My stomach turned over.

“Thank you so much, that’s really nice, but I got it.”

“You sure?” he’d asked, handing me my bags.

“Oh, yeah, it’s not a problem. I mean, a little weight-lifting won’t hurt!” I added. He laughed, and gave me one last nauseating up-and-down.

“Don’t get too much exercise, now,” he’d drawled.

I had swallowed my rising bile and forced a smile, thanking him for his help, and hastily crossed the street.  As I stood in the tiny, cramped bodega, the crystal pinpricks I felt along my arms, legs and neck condensed into a sickening film of cool sweat. I was mortified to discover that my normally well-behaved teeth were chattering audibly. The store owner’s cat, dozing on a bag of flour and awakened by the noise, lifted her eyelids to half-mast to investigate.   Finding me boring, she slid them shut and resumed her napping.  Clenching my teeth, I strode quickly  out the door, crossing the street against traffic, and headed up to my apartment.  The elevator ride up those ten flights lasted forever, as I plotted my future daily trajectory.I would have to be more careful. I would have to vary my route. I would have to remember he was there. I must not forget.

And yet, weeks later, here was I, in the same boat. As I unpacked my groceries, I tried to calm down. Contradictory thoughts echoed in my head. It’s fine. He doesn’t know my name. He hasn’t done anything untoward. I’m  fine.   It’ll be okay.  He doesn’t know which building I live in. He doesn’t have  my number. I’ll be okay. As I put my kettle on the stove for tea, it dawned on me that what this officer hadn’t done didn’t matter one whit to me. Because it was  my knowledge of what he could do that had sent me into the first public crying jag I had had in over a decade. All the things that he could do to me, without questions, without consequences. All the ways that in an instant this man, whose sworn duty is to protect and serve me, could do me harm. Could hurt my body. Could ravage my soul. Could hurt the people I loved. Could ruin my life, or take my life, or both.  And it was that which emboldened him to repeatedly ignore my body language, transgress my personal space – spatial rape -and openly eye my body. The weapon he wielded was menace, and it was backed up by the physical reality of a loaded gun and the legal authority of a badge. Because of the power dynamic imbalance, I would not be able, politely or harshly, to brush this man off. He would not allow it.  My mind pored over the seemingly unending roster of the NYPD dead and wounded, people who had been violated and/or murdered because some asshole racist bastard jackass inferiority complex motherfucking PIG was having a bad day and exercising bad judgment.  It wasn’t fair. It just was not.

As my anger and outrage grew, tears filled my eyes as I tried to recall the last time I had felt truly Safe. It had been such a long time. I am relentlessly mistrustful of authority in general by design, and the Poh-Leese in particular by experience. By the time I was four I knew that there were things in this world that my mother, the most powerful force in my child universe, was unable to protect me from. And by the time I was seven, I knew that the adult world often abused its power, gorging itself with gusto on the innocence of children, aided and abetted in its crimes by willful adult blindness. (I am and have been smart, strong, quick and crafty since I was a kid. Please believe me when I tell you that if I had been Safe, I would not have needed to be any of those things.)  I abandoned the notion of entitlement to safety altogether the first time I was followed by a grown (White) man. It happened at my local mall.  Panicked, I found a  (White) female security guard. And told her what happened.  She didn’t believe me. Or rather, she didn’t believe that I hadn’t done something to make the pervy bastard follow me. Let the record show that I was twelve years old.  As an adult, I know that my positionality as determined by the laws of the Kyriarchy mean that I will very rarely be Safe in any real sense, and will often have to fend for myself even when I obviously need help or am in danger.  Having been blessed with a survivor’s mentality, the mantle of victimhood is something that I rarely wear for very long. So, with that in mind, I blew my nose, washed my face, and got online to see what options for citizens who are subjected to police harassment are.  I was appalled to learn that the Department of Justice, one of the few bodies empowered to “police the police”, offers no preemptive recourse and precious few options to actual victims of non-physical (i.e., property damage, verbal assault) police harassment. Mind you, if you so much as brush the arm of an officer of the law, it’s considered assault, and you can be arrested. Basically, you only have a case if you have been violated, and even then, it may be shot down unless you have solid physical evidence. Your chances of building a case are significantly reduced if you are female and Black.  A short conversation with my lawyer upon the advice of a friend confirmed that, as is so often the case with the law, it wasn’t about what I knew, but what I could prove. My attorney, his voice simultaneously tired and hurried, sighed the truth to me: “I’m sorry, honey. There’s no case here.”

There’s no case here. So,there it was. With the exception of my teary retelling of these incidents – and there were more – with this cop to my friends, this story didn’t happen. It won’t be a nationally-known scathing indictment of the NYPD. It won’t be another chink in the perceived armor of the NYPD’s professional integrity. It will be a drop in the bucket, and water under the bridge. It will fade into silence with nary an echo.

Or. Maybe it won’t.

Tapas. Quilt scraps. Old…soap…slivers.

In other words, things you throw together to create a single cohesive item/experience. It’s been a while since my last post, and months since I put some original content up here. There are a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that Twitter is voraciously consuming my day-to-day sparkly creative brilliance.

Don't let that sweet blue face fool you. This bird's a blog murderer.

If you need your Fiqah fix,  I’m over here, acting up. Please be advised that my tweets are alternately raw, preachy and ridiculous – comme moi. So, yeah, they’re pretty flippin’ awesome. 

I’m currently working on several long-assed, hyper-involved posts, gearing up for NaNoWriMo, and otherwise (re)adjusting to une vie au marais.  In the process, I have discarded several blog post ideas that for whatever reason have not completely panned out. It occurred to me that some of the ideas were pretty good, but not in a stand-alone way. What do you do with something that’s not good enough to use by itself, but is too good to just chuck away? Why, you mash it up, of course!

See, it's like this..but, um, with a post?

That’s not really what I was going for. Hmmm. ::: snaps fingers ::: Got it! This post is like…a bunch of tapas and a lotta really good wine instead of the meatloaf-and-gravy you usually get here.

 

Mmmmm...post-a-liiiiciiiiious...

Ehhhhh? Much better, right? Yup. Aright.

People of color in general and trans and cis women of color in particular are disproportionately under-insured in this country, and if this healthcare crap doesn’t come together soon, we will continue to be disproportionately represented among the dead. That’s not just  empty statistic inflation. For me and millions of others, it is a day-to-day cold, hard fact.  Of the people of color in my immediate social circle (25 or so, all under 44 years of age),  seven of us are uninsured, and five of us Uninsured-erinos are cis women of color. We are staving off  deadly flus, both swine and regular, with vitamins, Echinacea and syncretic faith rituals. (Yes. Really.) Now, some folks might think it’s alright that in a country that stockpiles antibiotics/antivirals/antideath medicines my people are forced to enlist the aid of the spirit world and the dubious healing properties of the coneflower in order to stay healthy. Personally, I think it sucks. I think it sucks big ole hairy donkey balls. So, instead of pitching a fit about it in a post, I decided to learn more about it, and have been quietly agitating my governmental representatives in both states for weeks. I encourage you to do the same.

In a small effort to stop and correct the erasure of trans men and womens’ experiences from various types of dialogue…I am committing myself to using the terms “trans” and “cis.”  It’s part of an ongoing effort to educate myself (and hopefully other like-minded but ignant cis folks) about what it means to truly advocate for real social justice. Privilege has this nasty tendency to be invisible until it is pointed out. (“Progressive” cis women and men are just as guilty of this as not progressive people.) So…point point pointy point point.

Mother Nature is still the boss of you, me, and the whole wide world.   My mama raised me to have a dual appreciation of my selves. This means that I was raised to understand just how big (a lovely, kind, talented and bright child of eternal God) I am as well as just how small (powerless in the face of the awesome wrath of nature, a pawn of the Fates, morally flawed, unquestionably mortal, a speck of a speck of a speck’s speckled speck in the Cosmos and prone to the occasional “owie”) I am.  This is the contradictory duality of the human experience. There’s a reason why at the sub-atomic level everything in existence is composed of essentially the same shit, and I firmly believe that part of that reason is to keep mankind appropriately humbled. Nothing drives that point home for me more clearly than hard-core weather and sudden violent seismic activity.* 

Don't just sit there. DO something.

An amazing friend of mine wrote a very touching post about the recent natural disasters in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. He linked this relief organization, and since every little bit really does help, I encourage you to at least look at the services offered and their greatest areas of need.  I say this because I mean it: a better world really does start with you. Yes, it does. Yes, I know, shit is rough, and we are all struggling. But if you flushed your terlet with clean water today, then dammit, you have it pretty good. Not because you deserve to, but because you are lucky. Here’s a quick compassion exercise. The next time you see or read about someone catching hell through no fault of their own, before you judge and distance yourself from their situation and humanity, say this: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” And then, you know, go work on being less of an asshole.

The agony irritation of self-labelling. So someone who has become very dear to me in a series of months did an amazing write-up via Twitter about why calling oneself an “ally” is problematic. In a nutshell, she said, it’s kinda like coming up to someone, declaring that you wanna be their best friend, and INSISTING that they recognize you as such. The concept of an ally, when you put it like that, is…well, it’s obnoxious as hell! I have struggled with the term “feminist” over the years as well, specifically because feminism as it is popularly expressed speaks to, for and about straight cis able-bodied White women (I’m looking at YOU, Jezebel) and often either ignores or silences the experiences of any woman who lives outside of those categories. That’s also obnoxious as hell.  SIGH. Still haven’t quite figured this one out yet, really.

Dear White people: Black people tan. On purpose. (Really.)  This was actually something I mentioned on Teh Twitteh. While relaxing on the GOOAHGEOUS white sand beaches of my home state, I attracted quite a bit of gawking from White people, who seemed to be baffled at what was clearly my intentional sunbathing. One woman in particular stared, openly and rudely, as I happily basked in the golden sunshine and patently ignored her. As fate would have it, we rode the same bus back to my city’s downtown area. I happened to be sitting behind her and was treated to an up-close view of her disgustingly mottled, prematurely aging back.  Now, here’s my question: if you DON’T have eumelanin (and if you freckle in the sun, then you don’t) why the fuck are YOU tanning?

Oh, Lindsey. The sun, much like Paris Hilton, isn't really a "friend" friend...

 Dear White cis women: Stop referring to YOURSELVES as “White girls.”  A recent  email exchange with a White cis woman who strongly identifies as a feminist bugged the shit out of me. Why? Because she referred to herself, in so many words, as a well-meaning, progressive-thinking “White girl” who was just tryna figure it all out. SIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHH. She didn’t mean to work my nerves. But the fact that so many White cis women are hesitant to refer to themselves as adults speaks a LOT to sexism and White gendered privilege.  Self-infantilazation does not help the movement(s), anymore than the fetishization and co-opting of the pain (i.e., “strength” ) of trans and cis women of color helps. This shit is toxic.  For you, and for all of us. Recognize.

 Here’s some stuff you need to know about Black women. Lisa said it better than I could. Yes, indeed.

Steve Harvey’s an asshole.   I feel like that one writes itself. I mean, a thrice-divorced philanderer giving romantic advice? And in THOSE suits? C’mon, now.

Motherfucker, YOU scream.

 This concludes the hash post. OH! One last thing about soap bits – you can make eco-friendly art with them!

 

Oooooo! PURTY!

Read all about the Accumulation project, and don’t let anybody tell you that beauty can’t be crafted from bits, pieces, scraps and…ehr-um…chunklets.

 

*THIS IS NOT TO SUGGEST THAT ANYONE DESERVES TO SUFFER FROM THE DEVESTATING IMPACT OF NATURAL DISASTERS. I wanna make that clear.  One issue I have with Gaea theorists is the idea of the natural disaster as collective punishment for  ”sins” commited against the earth. People in nations with smaller GDPs and less governmental infrastructure are impacted more heavily and for longer by natural disasters than wealthier countries. But the worst ecological offenders – the greediest consumers, the highest per capita polluters – are wealthier, “developed” nations. Soooo until I hear about a hurricane leveling the Hamptons and ALL the Bush family residences, I’m giving Gaea theorists the side-eye.

“Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.”

This post isn’t for me. No, really. It’s about YOU, my offline IRL friends. This one is to thank YOU. You all handle your life challenges with grace, and share your joy without reservation. That’s not easy, but you guys make it look that way. That’s nothing short of a miracle, actually, considering just how hard so many of you have had to fight for the right to simply be.  Hope and sweetness are necessary, but often rare in this ugly world. So thank YOU. Y’all  are just fucking awesome.

Because it’s fall and her music resonates with me most in autumn, I offer you an adorably pregnant Bjork…doing that mystical magical “faerie” thing she does so well. Bjork, patron saint of freaks, inspires me. In a world that destroys anything good and natural as it normalizes pathology and artificiality,  if your ass is a little nuts, you’re doing something right. TRUST. Stay brave, strong, and a wee bit off, my dears. 

“Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.” – Assata Shakur*

(*I wonder if Bill Maher knows who Assata Shakur is yet…)

Yes. THIS.

From here.

last week my mom was on a bus. a foot or so away from her, a man was rubbing his crotch on a woman’s behind. the woman was in deep, visible distress. no one said or did anything. my mom motioned to her and said, “come over here”. the woman went to stand next to my mom for the rest of the ride without further harrassment. fuck everyone on that bus who stood silent. and fuck everyone who has stood silent when i’ve been harrassed and grabbed and followed in cars and on foot by men demanding my number, demanding for me to go out with them, leering at my breasts. fuck everyone who said nothing when a man followed me in his car for a block screaming at me “go back to your fucking country” and “arab bitch”. fuck everyone who witnesses all kinds of sexual and racial harrassment every day and doesn’t even say a damn word.