Sharing Knowledge about Caribbean Sexualities

As part of my work with the Caribbean Region of the IRN (International Resource Network), I have organized events and been working on several projects that bring together activists, artists, scholars, and writers who engage with the lives and concerns of sexual minorities in the region and in its diaspora. I have had the great opportunity to build with and support the amazing organizing happening in the region. And I have had the honor to help bring awareness to the complexity of our lives at home and abroad. I have the pleasure of being on the board of the Caribbean IRN since 2008, and I co-chair with my friend and colleague Rosamond King - and we are on the board with Colin Robinson and Natalie Bennett - and our coordination consultant is Vidyaratha Kissoon. This has been some of the most rewarding community work I have been a part of -- work that challenges the divide between academia and community, work that consistently challenges us in the diaspora to ground ourselves in the local/regional, work that reminds us of the common and different struggles we face as sexual minorities -- lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, questioning, queer, and all the names/unnames we give ourselves.

I wanted to spend some time on conscious vibration sharing two of the exciting projects we are in the process of building and bringing to fruition.

1) Open Source (free access) Digital Archive Collection with Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) - in the past two years of collecting resources and sharing information among our networks, the Caribbean IRN has been building a general collection of information, reports, resources, data, creative, and scholarly work on issues related to diverse genders and sexualities in the Caribbean. We are also digitizing and preserving a beautiful collection of materials from the Gay Freedom Movement (GFM) in Jamaica (active from 1974-1983). The general collection is up and available for review on our page on the dLOC website. And the GFM Collection will be available sometime late June. We are also hosting an event to launch the GFM collection on July 21st that will be hosted in Brooklyn and also broadcast on the web with hubs in the region. I will post more details on this important event soon! In the meantime, PLEASE check out and spread the news about these important collections we are building on dLOC.

2) Theorizing Homophobia(s) in the Caribbean Project - articles, essays, non-fiction, fiction, stories, poetry, activist reports, visual art, music, interviews, and other works that will reflect on the complexities of homophobia(s) in the Caribbean and to expand awareness about Caribbean LGBT lives, experiences, and activism in the region and its diaspora. (Deadline for proposals is April 30th!!! - an abstract/description and a bio - see details below.)

Background for this project: During the first Caribbean Sexualities Gathering in Kingston, Jamaica sponsored by the Caribbean IRN in June 2009, we brought together over 30 activists, scholars, and community workers from inside and outside the region. One of the issues raised during our workshop meeting was the need for a defining and re-defining of homophobia in the Caribbean from a variety of perspectives, and more specifically, the need for theorizing about the different kinds of homophobia(s) across the region. A year later, the Caribbean IRN facilitated a workshop on Strategies to Confront Homophobia at the annual Caribbean Studies Association conference. We expanded upon this issue by highlighting the realities of sexual minority organizing, offering possible sites and contexts for exploring this issue, and creating space for scholars, artists, writers, and activists to exchange.

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Call for Submissions

The Caribbean Region of the International Resource Network (IRN) seeks to connect academic and community-based researchers, artists, and activists around the Caribbean and in the diaspora in areas related to diverse sexualities and genders. The IRN is housed at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York, funded through the Ford Foundation, and located on the web at http://www.irnweb.org.

Homophobia in the Caribbean has received a lot of given international attention recently. Certain Caribbean countries have been targeted by international organizations because of publicized violence committed against LGBT people and the apparent absence of public condemnation. However, the public and international human rights discourse that describes Caribbean homophobia rarely includes the larger contexts of poverty, structural adjustment, neocolonialism, and violence in general within the region. It has been accepted that homophobia in the Caribbean has its roots in laws, religion, and social perceptions of gendered identity. But LGBT activists and others living in the Caribbean have also recognised that there is a complex range of viewpoints and attitudes that must be accounted for in our defining of homophobia. Some scholars and activists have argued that what we need is a new set of theories, writings, and understandings of the kinds of homophobia(s) that exist across the region, and clear distinctions among Caribbean island-nations in terms of the work being done on the ground and the various cultural landscapes and shifts regarding LGBT identities. These theories, writings, and understandings should necessarily include discussions about gender performance, hetero-sexism, and transphobia that encompass homophobia(s), as well as the economic and social contexts mentioned above.

Questions we hope to address in this project include: How is homophobia perpetrated and experienced in different Caribbean communities? What have been the strategies for organizing against homophobia and homophobic violence? What are the successes and challenges in this work? What new strategies do we need? How is the Caribbean shifting in terms of tolerance and acceptance of diverse genders and sexualities? And why? How do we bridge the gap between theory and practice, home and abroad/diaspora, policies/law and cultural norms?

To that end, we propose a collection of articles, essays, non-fiction, fiction, stories, poetry, activist reports, visual art, music, interviews, and other works that will reflect on the complexities of homophobia(s) in the Caribbean and to expand awareness about Caribbean LGBT lives, experiences, and activism in the region and its diaspora. We seek to disrupt the divide between academia and community, while locating theories and knowledge in multiple sites and discourses.

This collection will be edited by the Caribbean IRN coordination consultant Vidyaratha Kissoon and its board members Natalie Bennett, Rosamond King, Angelique Nixon, and Colin Robinson.

Themes that may be addressed in the collection include:

• Caribbean Sexual Minorities, Citizenship and the State (Island-Nation)
• Religion and LGBT citizens in the Caribbean: Condemning the Sin or the Sinner
• Contextualizing Caribbean Homophobia: Religion, Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Poverty, and/or Structural Violence
• The Impact of Global LGBTQ Movements on Homophobia and LGBT activism in the Caribbean
• The Language of Homophobia: Caribbean Nuances, Silences, & Stigmas
• Politics of “coming out” and being publicly LGBT: concerning safety and visibility inside the Caribbean and its diaspora (Can we be safe and visible?)
• Symptoms of Homophobia: violence within institutions and popular culture (ex. music specifically Dancehall as scapegoat, often seen as cause of violence itself, without nuance or discussion of other aspects of Caribbean culture, particularly outside the region - i.e. “murder music” campaign)
• Costs of homophobia in the region: violence, gender-based violence, hyper-masculinity, heterosexism, transphobia, bi-phobia, lesbophobia, etc.
• Caribbean LGBT anti-violence work, community organizing, and human rights discourse
• Migration and Diaspora: Politics of Asylum Discourse inside and outside the Caribbean
• Intersectional Analysis of Caribbean LGBT Violence (relationships among various kinds of violence - patriarchal violence, youth violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, LGBT violence, bullying, etc.)
• (Emerging) Queer Caribbean Diaspora(s) and its relationship to home
• Imported Homophobia: how non-Caribbean movements against homophobia are targeting the region

Works can be accepted in digital text format, digital audio (mp3 or OGG format), digital image format or digital video. Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be submitted in MS Word or Open Document Format by April 30th with a short bio of the authors/producers. For those submitting creative work (visual, literary, audio, etc,), please send a short description of the creative piece(s) you plan to submit along with a bio. If you have completed pieces, feel free to submit those on April 30th. Please submit proposals via email to caribbeanirn@gmail.com. If accepted for detailed review, the completed work will be due by July 1st and it will be shared/published through our Internet platform in the Fall 2011. Eventually, we plan to approach a journal and/or publisher for a print publication.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We would like to represent as much of the region as possible. We acknowledge the limitations in asking for proposals in English, yet we seek to be inclusive and representative. While the primary language for the collection will be English, we plan to translate the collection into Spanish, Dutch, and French. And we are specifically looking not only for pieces that engage the English speaking Caribbean, but also the Spanish, Dutch, and French speaking. To that end, we are accepting proposal is these languages. Also, we are working on translating this call for submissions into Spanish, French, and Dutch, and we are looking for translators for the final submissions.

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Please share & spread the word! 

with peace, light & conscious vibes!

-Angelique

Defining Earth Democracy & Rights of Mother Earth

Blessings & Healing Vibrations for Earth Day! While so many of us celebrate the earth everyday and live our lives in ways that are sustainable and green, this day should still serve as a collective reminder of how much work there is to do. Given the urgency of this struggle to save the planet (quite literally) from human-made destruction, we must do whatever we can to spread awareness, raise consciousness, and hold leaders accountable. People of color around the world and countries most affected from environmental degradation in the Global South have already taken the lead in these movements for environmental justice.

Democracy Now took time today to reflect on these very issues:

As the world celebrates Earth Day, Bolivia is about to pass the world’s first law that grants nature equal rights with humans. The Bolivian delegation to the United Nations urged the global body to adopt a similar law during this week’s Harmony with Nature conference. This week also marks the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill; next week, the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Radiation levels around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan remain high. As these disasters multiply, Latin American countries such as Bolivia have taken the lead in adopting measures to protect the environment. Ecuador has also adopted a resolution protecting nature.

We speak with two renowned environmental justice activists: Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva. Maude Barlow is the head of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization. Barlow is also co-founder of the Blue Planet Project and chair of the board of Food and Water Watch. Vandana Shiva, world-renowned environmental leader, feminist and thinker from India, is the author of many books, including Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development.

Earth Day Special: Vandana Shiva and Maude Barlow on the Rights of Mother Earth

Let's take time to reflect on the work of these amazing women - and honor them and the earth. Let us think about what it means to define the rights of the Earth and what it would really mean to protect these rights or what we can call Earth Democracy. In this interview, Amy Goodman asks Vandana Shiva what "earth democracy" means, and she defines it this way:

For me, earth democracy means, first, recognizing the fundamental fact that we are part of nature, that human rights and nature’s rights are not separate, because we are just one strand in this amazing mystery and miracle that the earth has created in terms of life. But earth democracy also means democracy in the everyday life of people, exercised daily by ordinary people, not the once in a five-year or four-year election, because everywhere around the world, we are seeing, you can bring someone to power, and they don’t represent your will anymore.

So, democracy under corporate control has mutated from "of the people, by the people, for the people" into "of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations." In this country, I watched how Wisconsin suddenly became a playground for destruction of democracy and destruction of the fundamental rights of collective bargaining and public services and public domain, only because there is this corporate pressure on privatizing everything and preventing people from exercising their democratic rights.

So, it’s the democratic rights of the people and the earth versus the fictitious corporate rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, and now they’re costing the earth and people too much. They’re bringing nothing in return. It used to be the case that when General Motors put out a car, it gave employment. It even gave salaries so people could buy that car. Today, the corporations give nothing back to society. They just take from nature, take from society, and want to rubbish this planet and rubbish our lives. And I think people are getting fed up. The entire rising in the Arabic world is part of that fed-upness.

"after winter... must come spring"

My heart is heavy as I write on my blog for the first time in months... I've been on a blog hiatus... overwhelmed with teaching, writing, deadlines, community work, and everything in between. Since December, it has has been ridiculously hectic for me - and the time has flown by, as it does...  and we are now deep into the double ones (yes that's 2011 :) and there is so much to say... so much to share... and even more importantly so much to do.

(I started writing this on April 1st...  and just finished it today...)

I've been immersed in the news of revolutions and resistance across North Africa and the Middle East since December. I've been devastated over the tsunami and earthquake in Japan... and the nuclear fallout...  So much so that I haven't been able to write about it... only posting news articles on facebook. As I continue to send prayers and healing thoughts to the people of Japan, I am astonished at what is happening... and how quickly this disaster has faded from mainstream news. I consider the differences between Japan and Haiti: clearly there are major differences - they are after all on completely opposite ends of the political and economic spectrum. Nevertheless, both places have been suffered unspeakable loss and pain... yet they are discussed and represented differently. We should ask ourselves why. Why do we use differences to place value and moral judgments? What is at the root of these differing representations and why?

I am thinking about the number of news/opinion pieces on "Why the Japanese don't loot" with comparisons to Haiti and New Orleans. I am thinking about the paternalistic attention / relationship to Haiti in the United States. Perhaps it is what Elizabeth Alexander discusses as "the Black body in pain" being a symbol of both racial conflict and American unity. One could argue that U.S. media is obsessed with the Black body in pain - as it is captivated with the "morality" and culture of Japan. These dichotomies are nevertheless grounded in new forms of racism that still serve white supremacy. 

I feel and hear the pain and loss of our Japanese brothers and sisters... entire communities of people who have lost everything... who churned through dust, rubble, and radiated air to find loved ones... who must be trying to make sense of all this loss and the fears of another nuclear catastrophe...  who wait to identify bodies...  who must fear the mass graves just as our Haitian brothers and sisters did and continue to suffer through the anguish of not being able to properly honor their dead.

I don't want to have a conversation about why Japanese people aren't looting... so that mass media can perpetuate racial stereotypes of model minorities versus looting Black folks...  I don't want to hear the blame conveniently placed on Japanese plants who were somehow supposed to be prepared for a massive earthquake of deadly proportions.  I don't...  and I can't...  (Indeed, there are cultural differences which can account for different responses to disaster, but these exist within larger structural and economic forces and frameworks.)  

divide and conquer still

proliferation of war at the expense of life in the guise of peace

the earth speaking and we turn our backs on her
ignore her, pretend that these catastrophes are natural or unrelated
as she tells us through tremors and waves, heat and ice, 
dead dolphins on beaches, birds falling from the sky,
radiation spilling into air, water, and living cells,
that she is tired

She speaks through our bodies and the land on which we live
She tells us to listen and rise up with the movements & struggles
coursing through her deserts, hills, cities, and oceans

How will we live through these changes?
How can we create a better, livable future?
How do we build community with less and less resources?
How do we take back our lives from corporate interests and war machines?

These are the questions that occupy my consciousness as I keep my ears and heart to the ground. I honor those deep in the struggle and fighting for their very lives. I am humbled to be a witness & warrior.

Revolutions & Uprisings
     Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, Iran
Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Cote d'Ivoire

Labor Protests & Attacks on Workers Rights & Women's Rights
     United States - Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Kansas
(Un)natural disasters in Haiti, Chile, Japan

I hold space
prayers, blessings, light
in these dark troubling times

"change will come eventually"

(I'm back from my hiatus... more reflections soon come on conscious vibration...)

HAITI IN:SIGHT - A Soulful Benefit for Healing in Haiti - Dec 11th NYC

Here is what I've been up to: hard at work on co-producing and co-organizing a beautiful benefit for healing work in Haiti. I'm blessed to be working with some of the most amazing people on this project and planning the benefit. For all my NY peeps - get your tickets ASAP here: https://www.wepay.com/tickets/view/1298. We have an extraordinary evening planned - multimedia performances, live music, spoken word, live art, silent auction of our featured visual artists, and dancing - while bringing our awareness and attention back to Haiti in time for the January anniversary of the earthquake. We will also be highlighting the work of our partners on the ground in Haiti with recorded audio and visual updates. I will also be featuring a prose poem about my time in Haiti giving some context for this unnatural disaster and what has happened post-quake.  I am so thankful for my main partners in the planning of this event - especially Donna, Naima, and Beatrice - grateful for them and our growth in this process.

For all my peeps not in New York, you can still support this work by making an offering on our donation page through wepay:  https://www.wepay.com/public/view/15171. And for more info about the project itself, check out the Ayiti Resurrect website.

Here are all the details (flier designed by Naima Penniman):

Brief Description of the Work: Ayiti Resurrect and Ayiti Cherie Healing Project have a shared vision to facilitate  psychological & spiritual healing for Haiti's quake-survivors based on principles  of solidarity, creativity, and collective resilience. Recognizing mental heath as a  human right, we are organizing to travel to Haiti as a grassroots delegation of visionary  artists, community builders, mental health specialists, and holistic healers with  bloodlines in the Caribbean and African Diaspora. In collaboration with  local organizations and individuals, Ayiti Resurrect and Ayiti Cherie  delegates will create a sanctuary in Leogane for trauma recovery through cultural  activities and creative expression, grassroots organizing and community building,  skill-sharing and trainings, and mental wellness and stress relief workshops.

"never again"

This is the first poem I wrote about my mother... a year after she passed away (in 1996)...  it took me years to finish it...  and it marks for me the beginning of my journey as a poet...  It was accepted for publication by WomanSpeak (Caribbean Women's Journal of Writing & Art published in The Bahamas) - and the issue has finally been published after years of hard work!!!  Congrats to WomanSpeak Issue 5 2010 and the editor Lynn Sweeting for a beautiful journal!!! I just got my copy and wanted to share this now published piece on conscious vibration.

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never again

Angelique V. Nixon

once I felt ashamed of being my mother’s daughter

but I am not her, and what I have from her is all I needed.

I let all the other things about her I dare not say,

go far away, as her spirit seeks rest and hunts for peace.

once I felt ashamed of being a woman,

because I saw the woman my mother was,

she was all that I did not want to be,

I ran from her and the person she revealed to me.

so ashamed

living over da hill, filling empty stomachs with stories on walks to the well,

draping worn sheets over broken windows,

growing into the teenager who lied about these things.

so scared

the boyfriend who beat our windows and her,

mood swings tested my faith in her words and god,

rat bat nights into endless rows making gramma vex.

so angry

leaving me long before

she died, hiding the bruises,

her distance grew wider with each inch I grew taller.

resentment soaks through the girl child who has seen too much,

distrust settles hearing another broken promise,

the walls grow wet and porous

like sand castles at dusk, in between knowing and fear.

watching my mother waste away, tore at my walls,

the last time I saw her—recognition meandered in her vacant eyes

and the wonder if she really knew it was me, hung in the air,

this puzzle sticks like a hungry potcake following me home.

memories remain opaque, held in vaults of shame,

locked away, until I broke through,

outside the perceived, in troubled shadows,

I found place, a space to breathe.

now, I feel myself (me) being a woman,

being the woman my mother wanted me to be,

strong like saltwater, defiant like moon tides,

independent like the sun, cool like summer rain.

    and now, no matter my wish to save her,

    I am never ashamed.

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Haiti, the earthquake, & environmental justice

I've taken a long break from my blog...  too long... since my last posting, I've had a whirlwind of fall deadlines and intense teaching and community work. I also went to Haiti in August - doing groundwork and building for a healing project (Ayiti Resurrect) that I am helping to organize with a team of artists, healers, and community workers. As soon as I got back, my fall semester of teaching and other commitments began. The months have flown by and it seems there is less and less time for my creative writing. Nevertheless I remain dedicated to my craft even as I spend most of my writing time in an academic / teaching / focusing on scholarly book project space. But I bring my creative into the academic.  

I was invited to speak at a symposium on Black Environmental Thought and the Future of African American Studies at Indiana University Bloomington in October - specifically because of my work in the Caribbean and to bring a Diasporic perspective into the conversation. And as I prepared for that in September, I decided to focus on Haiti for my presentation - titled "Exiles in Paradise: Towards a Green Caribbean Future" - particularly because of my trip and the fact that Haiti has severe environmental degradation created and exacerbated through neocolonialism. I wanted to compare this to the tourism destinations of the region like Jamaica - to discuss how the environment suffers in the name of so-called development at each end of the paradise spectrum (i.e. represented from 'heavenly' to 'dangerous'). I wrote bits and pieces of poetry and prose while I was in Haiti and I ended up using that to begin my reflections.

I decided to share this today on my blog as I read reports about Hurricane Tomas bringing rain into Leogone and the fears that flooding will make the recent cholera epidemic worse...  all this on top of the catastrophe still happening post earthquake...  all this within the same context of human-made disaster(s).

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Work in Progress: "Exiles in Paradise"

I made a promise to the stars

under a night sky in Ayiti

That I would remember

what it looks like to be an exile in your own country

what it must feel like to be excised from citizenship

what struggle sounds like

what survival is

and the cost of producing/being paradise for everyone but yourself

in this land of revolutionary dreams and broken results

I made a promise to bear witness

Under an August full moon after dusk, I walked through the largest tent camp in Croix De Bouquet and made this promise (where over 10,000 people are living - displaced because of the earthquake – relocated from other tent camps in Port Au Prince damaged by rain and wind, from one set of temporary housing to another). Over 1 million people in Haiti remain displaced and living in temporary shelters or tents – nine months later.

I was humbled by the strength and resilience of my Haitian sisters and brothers – who have created living spaces out of tents, gravel, sheets, tarp, wood, and metal. All across Port Au Prince into Leogone (the hardest hit area), I saw Haitian people making do with what they could – bringing depth and new meanings to the tenants of environmentalism – reduce, reuse, and recycle.

I traveled to Haiti as part of a grassroots collective and organizing team in order to initiate a healing project that we plan to facilitate with Haitian partners on the ground. We went there to learn, ask questions, and build relationships with specific communities through the principles of solidarity, creativity, and collective resilience.

Post-earthquake... everything has changed – I heard this over and over again... in the context of this “natural disaster”... But there is nothing natural about what happened in Haiti after the earthquake. A country already devastated socially, politically, economically, and environmentally through slavery, colonialism, debt for so-called independence, new imperial powers enacted through occupations, guns, free trade zones, medical testing, transnational manufacturing and textile plants, and the devastation and inequities produced by globalization.

There is nothing natural about poverty and unemployment produced under the choking hold of neocolonialism, IMF and World Bank debt, and structural adjustment.

There is nothing natural about “peace-keeping troops” that occupy military style... preventing growth while supporting the elite, dictatorships, and coups.

There is nothing natural about mass deforestation... and the soil erosion and land degradation that happens after forests are stripped because people have so few choices – forced to sell and use natural resources faster than the land can handle...  nothing natural about the lack of trees and roots to suck up water in the rainy and hurricane seasons that bring mudslides and massive flooding.

Nothing natural about small farmers moving from the countryside into crowded cities because there is no room for their crops in market places where they are cut out… in so called free trade.

Nothing natural about families who cannot feed their children...  nothing natural about the accumulation of debt at the expense of life… in a global economy that values profit over human need.

There is nothing natural about lack of infrastructure and poorly constructed buildings put up too quickly in the name of progress and modernization.

There is nothing natural about the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti - mass graves, bodies still under rubble, tent cities with no protection for women and children – who are the most vulnerable in these moments of crisis – and the lack of social services in a country whose government depended on too many NGOs to provide for its people...

And so people will do what they must in order to survive... what I saw in Haiti was resilience and resourcefulness.  I saw an entirely new level of what it means to Recycle Out of Need...  re-cycling through re-using what you have, creating new things out of old.  This is a part of life in the Global South – especially for poor and working class people.  Recycling, re-using and reducing are part of the daily fabric of living.  This is a different relationship with one's environment.  The Global South is currently demonized for its pollution production and lack of environmental policies, but rarely do we consider how the Global South has been toxic waste dump for the Global North while also finding new and innovative ways to recycle and reuse what is thrown out in the Global North and by upper-class and elite located in the Global South. And Haiti – along with other countries in the Caribbean have long endured the environmental degradation and injustices created through unsustainable development.

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prayers and blessings for Ayiti

Restorying & Imagining in The Bahamas

31 July 2010 || Nassau, The Bahamas

I spent most of July at home in The Bahamas teaching for BWSI's second year (Bahamas Writers Summer Institute) - which is a Caribbean-centered creative writing program - founded by Bahamian writers Marion Bethel and Helen Klonaris. I have been honored to be a part of the BWSI faculty for the past two years. It was an incredibly rich and moving experience to teach, read, and reason with fellow Bahamian writers. I taught a course on Caribbean Literature titled The Caribbean Literary Imagination. We delved into Caribbean history and culture, the intersections among race, gender, class, and sexuality, and how we define the Bahamian literary imagination within the larger Caribbean. The theme this year was "Restorying the Bahamian Imaginal Landscape" - and in addition to seminars and workshops for participants, BWSI also hosted the Writers in Community Series which included readings and panel discussions open to the public.

I was on the panel titled "Writing from Away" with Helen Klonaris, Ian Strachan, Maria Govan, and Nakia Pearson moderated by Marion Bethel. We each read some of our work and then had a conversation about writing abroad. It was an intense and heated discussion about the politics of home and feelings of exile while having and sustaining a deep commitment to home. Each of us defined home and what it meant to leave and return - some of us on the panel are still away and some have returned - and what it means to write both at home and away. I have been long fascinated with how Caribbean writers engage with home while being abroad. There are so many variant degrees of longing and desire for home represented in the works of our most beloved and famous writers across the region. How we imagine and define home helps us to define ourselves no matter how long we have lived away or whether we return or not. And through the various and at times difficult relations to home (from George Lamming in Pleasures of Exile to Michelle Cliff in If I Could Write This In Fire), it is clear - home is always in our blood, in our pens, and in our hearts & minds. I struggle with this often - my relationship to home... but no matter the years that go by... I remain a migrant soul deeply connected to home in all ways... I continue to define and make home(s) & homespaces wherever I live... but yet & still - home for me is always The Bahamas. I take my roots with me and lay them down through my words, my work, my light.

I believe that we must build and nurture community wherever we live. And as a writer and community worker, I also believe in sustaining rootedness to/through/in home. For me, this has meant returning home to visit and spend time as often as possible. It has also meant for me - writing about home, keeping connected and finding ways to do work on the ground in spite of the distance. This is why BWSI has been such an important experience for me. And I look forward to many more years and being a part of all the growth that will surely happen with BWSI.

We ended the BWSI's Writers in Community Series with a conversation about "The Shape of Things to Come" and it was an important way to wrap up the series. I moderated this panel which included Marion Bethel, Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming, Obediah Smith, Philip Armbrister, Thea Rutherford, and Travolta Cooper. I asked each of the writers in their introductions to say briefly what they saw as "the shape of things to come" - and each offered provocative and insightful comments about the future of Bahamian writing. We discussed at length the state of Bahamian literature and culture, the potential and rise of Bahamian film in terms of culture, and how to fuel and sustain the Bahamian imagination. Manoo-Rahming said that we must think about "the thing we are going to shape" - that is the question - "what is the thing?" - and we all exhaled and pondered her deep question. Rutherford said that since so many of us don't learn about our Bahamian cultural producers, we must start there --educating ourselves and the youth about all that we did not know about ourselves and our history.

Caribbean writers and intellectuals have long said this in many different ways--from Marcus Garvey's famous quote about roots to Erna Brodber's re-writing of history to understand the present in order to create a better future. These all resonate with the West African Adinkra symbol - Sankofa - which means in order to move forward you must know your past. M. Nourbese Philip says that since as we have lost our history and our word that we must take control of creating our own images and words. Therefore, our writing must not only be decolonized but also create annd re-create our histories/herstories. We must be in a constant battle to take back our imaginations and use them to inspire and sustain our subjectivity. Searching, defining, building... the thing.

In the meantime, I'm working on restorying and imagining from far far away... still dreaming of home--summer fruit, the ocean, moonlight nights, sunsets, and time with my people.

"Libation"

Here is a poem I wrote & worked on in the spring time... and now I'm ready to share on conscious vibration. This poem is inspired by one of the hottest dance parties in NYC - Libation at The Sullivan Room - along with the magic of affirming a growing relationship. As it so happens in writing poetry - the poem took on a life of its own - led by the moon and the goddess Erzuli (loa of beauty & love, sometimes described as the female energy of Legba in the Vodoun Pantheon, and understood to be of Dahomean in origin, although some scholars trace her contemporary description/worship securely in the Caribbean). 

I begin with a quote from Audre Lorde - one of her last interviews - where she defines Blackness as an approach - "a way of taking in the world" - this has long been on my mind...  really thinking about what this means. And so I decided to use this as the epigraph of my poem after I wrote & revised it because it captures the essence of what I wanted to conjure.

I would love to get feedback and comments! 

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Libation

by Angelique V. Nixon

“Blackness is an approach, a way of taking in the world”
 ~Audre Lorde

Cocoa butter sweat on my neck

enraptured fingertips carry spirits

tracing ice water down your lower back

I see extraordinary pathways

radiant hues of gold & green light float between us

bursting flames like healing aloe plants rise

I am flying with

tendrils of charged air

soaring under me.

I remember you conjuring with an island moon

she is heavy with earth’s magic & revival

a new year’s promise

to catch this freak rhythm

grown sexy intellectual vibe

just in time

for libation.

Cocoa butter sweat on my fingertips

led by the soul drum & pull of the bass line

I take your hands in mine

we rise to an explosive rain

current of memory

I trace each movement in your thighs

succulent heat spilling from pores

ice cubes & water vapor dance

between our lips.

I am flying with spirits of warrior women

they glide around my hips

moving me into your fyah

each kiss feels like saltwater healing

the goddess Erzuli whispers to me

it is time & she is grace

make an offering.

Tongues ablaze in tune with mystic

sacred shoulders rock beats in circles
exquisite female energies of color

who speak through a canopy of touch

dancing bodies worship & let go

I feel time as it slows

pulses beneath skin

a groove in rebellious sync

with this afro-beat & house love of soul.

I surrender to you

with intention

for balance & goodness

sweet like sapodilla in summer

nourishing like callaloo & rum

refreshing as a sea bath under the full moon

here in this fyah

we can be reborn

we rise.

Environmental Racism & Oil

The BP Oil deep water Rupture/Spill in the Gulf of Mexico has dominated the news media for the past two months - rightfully so... this is an environmental catastrophe that will affect us all for years to come. It's almost too much... thinking about the thousands of barrels of oil gushing out of the ocean... and the ridiculous mess BP has made of their supposed clean-up efforts. It is bewildering to see how much power multi-national oil companies have... to see how difficult it is to hold them accountable.

Democracy Now has done an amazing job as usual to get at the heart of the issue - highlighting the communities who are most affected by this oil spill and spreading awareness about the class and race dynamics at work. The June 7th show on how the oil spill is affecting indigenous communities in Louisiana broke down the similarities between this oil spill and the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska over 22 years ago. The interviewees critiqued the corporate control of resources/land and the poor management and disastrous attempts at clean up. 

A more recent show - June 16th - engaged a roundtable of guests - (Monique Harden, New Orleans attorney and co-director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights; Amory Lovins, co-founder, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado; Michael Brune, executive director of The Sierra Club) - in order to discuss the BP Oil Spill and the future of green energy in the United States. Monique Harden raised important concerns about how often environmental injustice occurs in poor communities of color, with a focus on how African American communities in New Orleans & other communities in the gulf are affected by the oil spill, offshore drilling generally, and toxic production. The major discussion of the roundtable included ways we can work towards a future of green energy.

Meanwhile - across the Atlantic - in the Niger Delta - communities there have been dealing with oil spills, exploitation by multinational oil giants Shell & Chevron, human rights violations, and so much more... for decades.... Democracy Now has also covered these atrocities over the past ten years - check out their page of stories: "The True Cost of Oil" - and just last year, Shell paid out $15.5 million dollars in settlement rather than go to trial for human rights violations in the Niger Delta (The case was brought on behalf of ten plaintiffs who accused Shell of complicity in the 1995 executions of Nigerian writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others.)

Here is the entire show covering the settlement - June 9, 2009:

Also, for more info about the trial - and the documentary "Drilling and Killing: Chevron & Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship" - here is a link to the October 28, 2008 show.

The stories and environmental disasters in the Global South never get the attention they deserve - we know this and we know why. A recent article in The Observer - Guardian UK points out this very disturbing fact and discusses the Niger Delta's many environmental catastrophes - "Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US & Europe ignore it" - by John Vidal - published 30 May 2010.

The most recent news from the Niger Delta as reported in this article:

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast. ...

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution. "If this Gulf accident had happened in Nigeria, neither the government nor the company would have paid much attention," said the writer Ben Ikari, a member of the Ogoni people. "This kind of spill happens all the time in the delta."

This latest spill in the delta happened only two months ago - and it got little to no media attention... sadly this is the state of affairs - everyday for the communities living in the Niger Delta. And since this article, other news reports are surfacing -- as some journalists report on other oil exploitations happening around the world. (Check out the recent article about oil exploration - also published in The Observer, "Anger grows across the world at the real price of 'frontier' oil" on 20 June 2010.)

On May 28th 2010, Democracy Now covered the Chevron Annual Shareholders meeting - where five activists were arrested and barred entry from the meeting. They interviewed Emem Okon, an activist from Nigeria and the founder and executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in the Niger Delta, who explained why she came to the meeting in protest:

I came to tell Chevron that they have oppressed in the Niger Delta region with impunity for the past fifty years, poisoning our waters, devastating our environment, killing the fish we eat, burning poison gas through gas flares in the Niger Delta that has caused cancer, asthma, corroding our roofs. And they have not done anything to alleviate the sufferings of the people as a result of their activities. And what they did on Wednesday was a demonstration of the fact that they are not ready to change their mode of oppression in the Niger Delta region, and they are not ready to recognize and respect the human rights of the people, and they are not ready to change the inhumane way they treat the communities in which they oppress. I am surprised at the attention that the BP oil spill has attracted in the United States, and I expect that the condition in the Niger Delta should attract the same coverage and that the international community should impress it on Chevron and every other oil community to stop their inhuman activity and abuse of human rights in the Niger Delta region. 

Emem Okon's description of the environmental injustice long happening in the Niger Delta resonates so clearly within the silences of neocolonial exploitation - still so prevalent in the Global South - all in the name of "progress" and capitalism. We must unearth these silences. 

And so as we raise awareness about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico... as we think about how to create green energy for the future... as we keep ourselves in the know about cleanup efforts... as we agitate & organize to create change and hold BP accountable... LET US ALSO think about the Niger Delta and all the other communities in the Global South affected by environmental catastrophes and exploitation by multinational corporations who care more about money than people. Let us spread our knowledge and find out about what communities and grassroots organizations are doing to create change (ex. check out the Chevron Campaign led by Global Exchange). Let us all think seriously about a green future and ensure that people of color and communities most affected by climate change and environmental racism and injustice are leading this future.

Meditations on Tourism, Sexuality & Violence

The months are flying by... summer is here :)  May brought me many blessings and travels - which is why I haven't written on my blog... sadly... BUT I'm working this month on getting it together... and so I now report on my goings on - May was hectic with preparing for the Caribbean Studies Association conference - held last week of May in Barbados. The conference was intense, productive, and at times really hard. The theme was on the everyday occurrence of violence in the Caribbean - and given the violence in Jamaica that began at the same time - the panels and discussions had an even more urgent tone. The conversations were heated and important... yet nothing could stop the pain so many of us felt - the helplessness...  all some could do was share news, dispel un-truths/mis-perceptions, and offer another perspective to what was/is happening in Tivoli Gardens.

I appreciated those who spoke up about dispossession and feelings of alienation that many in Tivoli feel - specifically the class dynamics that many want to ignore. This all made me think deeply about class violence and the violence of poverty - and how a community can be so easily excised from citizenship and political representation. And even within the conversations about the Tivoli community - what was/is left out - the silences about everyday class-based racial violence, the violence enacted through language and discourse, and issues of gender and sexuality that are silenced in the name of other fights and causes. I believe even more now in what Franz Fanon told us so many years ago - that the process of decolonization will necessarily be a violent one - because slavery and colonialism were so very violent. We are still in this struggle.

All these conversations about violence made me think about the space on which the conference was hosted - at an all inclusive resort - Almond Beach - which is on the site of a former sugar plantation. This fact is described in the hotel advertisements as something positive. And as we Caribbean academics, writers, scholars, teachers, artists, and activists all descended upon this site, I couldn't help but wonder over and over again throughout the week as the conference progressed - what did this "site" do to us spiritually...  My friend and colleague who I roomed with at the hotel expressed his discomfort and anxiety with the space repeatedly - especially as we walked by the old sugar mill - where (straight) people get married... it was disturbing and yet it was strangely familiar to me because so many hotels across the region are located on such sites or at the very least use colonial images and rhetoric. It was surreal though - the site, the "village" theme of the hotel, and the stoic looks of hotel workers. I am so familiar with such sites, themes, and looks - being from and raised in The Bahamas - and a former worker in the tourist industry - I know all these far too well. Therefore, it was both comfortable and disturbing for me even as I enjoyed my time, the work, and the beach. I was constantly reminded of the history, our history, the price we pay, and our lack of choices within the double bind of tourism. I've been doing scholarly research and writing on tourism for a while and even with all of my critiques and personal experience, it remains very difficult to challenge tourism - because tourism itself is a form of violence. We live, work, eat, smell, and breathe tourism, which is sustained through the violence of slavery and colonialism. And yet and still... it is our livelihood... It is our bread and butter... It is how we live and don't live. It is how we can move and not move... travel and not travel...

I took this picture of the eerie sugar mill - haunted still by the blood and sweat of our ancestors - to remind me of how I felt walking by this sugar mill every morning and evening on the Almond Beach / sugar plantation / hotel resort. Inside there is a wedding arch... the tragic irony of it all... This picture tells a different story though... The moon grew full while I was there - and a huge gray'ish purple circle around the moon emerged on the night of the full moon, a kind of halo... Perhaps the moon spoke through this circle... I was obsessed with the moon and took many pictures with my digital camera - trying to capture my melancholy about the space even as I took in the moon's magic and the ocean's energizing spirit.

The conference was also challenging on another level - within the panels and discussions about sexuality - and the participation by openly LGBTQ / sexual minority Caribbeans. We represented in personal, political, and academic terms. We challenged the hetero-normative and hetero-sexist dynamics of the conference space... but of course there is more work to be done. I co-facilitated a Caribbean IRN workshop on Caribbean Sexualities and strategies to confront homophobia (& we continued our IRN work from the last CSA conference and the first Caribbean Sexualities Gathering in Kingston last June). This year, I presented on some ways to address and theorize about "homophobia(s)" in the region. I also talked about how we need to build coalitions and new languages and praxis. My co-facilitators presented on specific forms of activism and politics inside and outside the region, anti-violence work, current campaigns, and networking. We had excellent conversations and exchange about ideas and future work. We deliberated on the need for language that includes trans-phobia and addresses gender performance. We discussed the work of a Sexualities Working Group within CSA (which is now officially established)- and how to sustain Caribbean Sexuality Studies. We connected and networked about activism in the region. We forged new alliances and possibilities for collaborations. But we were too ambitious with the time we had... so we didn't get to everything... nevertheless it was a good workshop - productive and energetic. And I feel renewed to do the work and keep our projects going. But more on that later.

My meditations on tourism and violence during the conference have pushed me to make stronger and more explicit connections in my work about sexual and cultural identities. I am thinking more and more about my idea of "resisting paradise" and how this resonates deeply with anti-violence work broadly and within sexual minority activism inside & outside the region. I return to Audre Lorde over and over again - and her argument that we can not fight one form of violence without addressing all forms of violence.