WWW.MAMASDAY.ORG

The unique relationships we have with our mothers are not exemplified on corporate greeting cards (reads: you’re not doing it for us, Hallmark). This year share a card with your mom or a mom you know that genuinely reflects the differentiating relationships and experiences we have with mother identified folks.

#MamasDay 

Check out the blog carnival Strong Families is putting together. We are expecting well over 20 posts on a wide range of mama issues…from abortion to shackling to queer mamahood to so much more!

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with all of the awesome Mama’s Day Activities.

Strong Families organizations Forward Together and California Latinas for Reproductive Justice are co-sponsoring Calls for Kids (AB 2015 – Mitchell).  This important bill would give California parents who are being taken into custody for immigration or other issues the ability to make arrangements for their child. Join us in letting our lawmakers know that this simple fix not only saves money by keeping kids out of foster care, it also keeps our families strong.

Shout out: Calls from home

Media Literacy Project, Strong Families, and Thousand Kites need your help to produce Calls from Home: Mama’s Day Special, a radio project that connects incarcerated mothers to their families, friends, and communities. With your support we’ll send voices through barbed-wire to our millions of neighbors behind bars this Mama’s Day.

Sing a song, read a prayer, speak from the heart and let our mamas behind bars in our nation’s prisons know you’re thinking about them. Call to our toll-free 24/7 answering machine now at 877-410-4863 to leave a recording we’ll play over the air.

Rally at 3PM—Fruitvale BART plaza!
March to San Antonio Park—Music, Speeches, and Children’s programming
March to Oscar Grant Plaza

Marcha a San Antonio Park y Plaza de Oscar Grant

*Mass Mobilization*
Tod@s a las Calles! To the Streets!
Please invite your friends, family, and co-workers. 

On May 1st, we will display our collective strength and unity. We will march in peace. We welcome the participation of families with children. 

For more info.: http://mayday2012.blogspot.com/2012/04/march-for-dignity-and-resistance-marcha_16.html
E-mail: MayDayBayArea@gmail.com

Children’s Village will set up at San Antonio Park:
https://www.facebook.com/events/205264822909328/?context=create

Join Drumming for Dignity & Resistance:
https://www.facebook.com/events/365968160100141

Last weekend I attended the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) conference at Hampshire College. This conference provides a space for reproductive justice activists and activists in sectors that intersect with reproductive justice to engage in dialogue about how to meaningfully move our work forward. I’d been to CLPP before. I knew there would be a diverse group of presenters who brought with them years of experience working in reproductive health. I was prepared for the abortion speak-out where people told both empowering and disempowering stories of abortion and abortion access. I expected some healthy debate around language, accessibility and cultural appropriation. What I wasn’t prepared for was the response I would get when I told dozens of our allies, supporters, friends and family that we were no longer Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. Effective immediately we’d be known as Forward Together.

There were activists at this conference who knew our organization in its humble beginnings as Asian Pacific Islanders for Choice and who supported us through our transition as we became Asian Pacific Islanders for Reproductive Health. As our work evolved and the intersections of class and race revealed themselves as ever present, we emerged as Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, an organization who supports and develops the leadership of Asian youth and leverages the voices of the Asian communities, who often go unheard – and there we stayed for over a decade. Our allies and friends knew all of this about us. They supported and trusted us as a steadfast leader in reproductive justice and movement building. We worked together, learned together and grew together and here I was, at this conference, asking them to support us once more as we revamped ourselves and chose a name that reinforced the multiracial and cross-sector work we are so loyally committed to.

As I introduced us as Forward Together, formerly ACRJ, I scoured the room for reception. I wanted so badly for our people to be as excited about this name change as I was – to pump their first high in the sky in accidence and acceptance. I hoped, through osmosis, I was transferring all of my knowledge and enthusiasm about what an important change this was for us and how our new name was a better fit for what we were doing. I was met with a few cracked smiles, some inquisitive, searching eyes and deafening silence. Fuck! I thought. They hate it! Going back to the drawing board wasn’t an option so I quickly searched for ways to sell them on our new name, until I remembered – we’d been here before. Our previous name changes predate my work here but I detected in myself nostalgia for the embracing reception we’d been granted before and I breathed a sigh of relief. I continued to share about the importance of being outwardly authentic about how we are engaging in community to transform policy and culture in ways that support individuals, families, and communities in reaching our full potential. Resonance grew, smiles appeared and I could breath again.

Over the next couple of days I received a lot of questions about why we changed our name, how it affected our work with Asian communities and how it tied to our Strong Families initiative. It felt good, warm to be able to tell people face-to-face about our process and to share how important it is to us that we represent our intersectional work meaningfully and with as much direction as possible. It reminded me that a name is just a name until the work attached to it makes it more – that with time comes equity and knowing firsthand the level of commitment of the staff at Forward Together, there is no doubt in my mind that the connection will soon be made.

SIGN THE PETITION

The deaths of Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant and Trayvon Martin counter the narrative that all human life is valuable.

 Follow me @freedom_writer

Sex is great! So is having access to birth control to protect yourself from pregnancy. What’s not great is having to explain to your employer why you need it. It is only March and so far this year there have been over 430 attempts made by policy makers to cut access to reproductive health services.

Recently a new controversial bill regarding birth control has been advanced in Arizona which would allow employers to fire women who take the pill to prevent pregnancy, rather than for health purposes, based on religious and moral beliefs. WTF?!?!

What can you do?!  Visit this TUMBLR and speak your truth about why you love sex and access to birth control and tell the government to get the fuck off your body!

@xxslants

]]> http://sugarforyoursoul.com/2012/03/16/sex-is-great-so-is-birth-control/feed/ 0 ShanelleMatthews 419271_10101178611075985_158868406_n tumblr_m100nkSv4L1rrkkfoo1_500 http://sugarforyoursoul.com/2012/03/08/if-sandra-fluke-were-black/ http://sugarforyoursoul.com/2012/03/08/if-sandra-fluke-were-black/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:11:59 +0000 Shanelle Matthews http://sugarforyoursoul.com/?p=1814 ]]> Rush Limbaugh’s hateful comments toward Georgetown law student, Sandra Fluke, and the ensuing digital shitstorm that resulted in over twelve advertisers and two radio stations pulling their support has proven many things. One of which is that women are using the internet to combat sexism and intolerance– and we’re winning.

Fluke, who was barred from giving her testimony at the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform on the ObamaCare contraception mandate and its implications for religious liberty, has dealt diplomatically with both the good and the bad press she’s received. But there are underlying issues that are being dangerously overlooked, one of which is the fact that Sandra Fluke is White.

When a white woman gets called a slut, America is up in arms, tearing through their closets for their shiniest white knight armor and suiting up for a battle to reclaim her dignity. But the living and breathing stereotype about Black women’s sexual prowess and the lascivious nature by which we supposedly live our lives is as pervasive as ever. No one is suiting up to fight for us, no armies of people are showing up on our behalf making threats for us, and no one is fighting to reclaim our dignity.

 I can’t help but think that if Sandra Fluke were Black, the outrage toward Rush Limbaugh would be only a sliver of what it is now and would mostly be championed by other Black women with little support from others. This isn’t a jab at Ms. Fluke or an attempt to minimize her experiences. Her courage to defend a woman’s right to access to contraception in the midst of a political war on women’s rights can’t be denied. But we must acknowledge the privilege of her Whiteness and consider the consequences of what this might look like if she were a woman of color.

 The capricious and sexually implicit name-calling at Black women is not new – especially by White men. Our narrative in this country has been widely politicized for decades. Written off as hypersexual in nature, we’ve been relegated and homogenized into a primitive subculture of people who have no control over our sexual appetite and therefore are not worthy of being supported in an effort to salvage our poise.

When issues concerning the well-being of women in this country go viral, Black women are never at the center because if we were, it would mean that our needs are being prioritized, and they are not. When the Komen debacle peaked, very few people, if any, offered a racial analysis about the importance of prioritizing the women most in need of Planned Parenthood’s services – low-income women of color. In the broader fight for reproductive health care services, the faces of women of color are often blurred, hidden behind a thick wall of red tape because talking about our intersectional and unique set of circumstances dilutes what mainstream media and most of America considers a more substantial and relevant conversation.

Limbaugh’s slut shaming rhetoric is an experience Black women suffer through every day that never receives attention. Most recently, the late Whitney Houston was called a “crack ho” by conservative talk show hosts, John & Ken, at L.A.’s KFI AM 640. While they were both suspended by the station, the country did not rush to salvage the dignity or reputation of one of America’s most valued Black singers, there wasn’t a nationwide call to pull advertising, or a national petition with nearly 100K signatures to have John and Ken fired. It is a great day in America when people are passionately pushing back against mainstream conservative shock jocks in support of women’s agency but as usual, all women are not equal when it comes to America’s decision to rally support and if we’re being completely transparent here, folks don’t always like to admit when they have it easier, this would imply there is some level of inequity and people would be expected to act.

Every woman, no matter her race, should be supported in her decisions about sexual freedom, access to contraception, and reproductive health care. Sandra Fluke has the privilege of both being white and having access to law school education, but those should not be requirements for having the buttressing support of America’s outrage in times of need.

The Black Feminist Working Group [Iresha Picot, Kimberly Murray, Tiamba Wilkerson, Nuala Cabral, Darasia Selby, & Ladi’Sasha Jones] created this phenomenally poignant platform in an effort to identify the importance of the unique needs of Black women within the struggle for liberation of the Black community. It highlights a need for Black women to be free of reproductive oppression and  sexual violence to have access essential human dignities like affordable housing and healthcare.

Take a minute to read this, digest it and share it.

“I am a Black Feminist. I mean I recognize that my power as well as my primary oppressions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable.”

-Audre Lorde

Black Feminist Twelve Point Plan

We are a collective of black feminists/womanists activists who are committed to the liberation of the black community. As black women the conditions of our lives are created by interlocking systems of oppression. As a collective we oppose all forms of oppression and are continuously working to develop our analysis to be effective allies with other marginalized communities. We created this platform to address the misconceptions about what black feminists/womanists believe, where our allegiances lie and what we want for the black community. We recognize that the problems that exists within the black community are connected to larger systems of oppression and domination.  However, this document addresses those issues that disportionately affect the black community because this is the community that we as black feminists identify as our homebase and foundation. We developed this statement from a place of love and not divisiveness, as we struggle along with our brothas and black people of all genders for the safety, security, and liberation of our community. We believe that the liberation of black women is necessary and integral to the liberation of the black community and not separate from it.      

1.WE WANT FREEDOM. 

We believe that freedom is only possible through individual and community self-determination. In order for the black community to achieve self-determination all systems of oppression must be dismantled.

2. We want a reformation of the criminal justice system, the abolition of the prison industrial complex and the implementation of community based models of justice and accountability.

This system has routinely targeted Black folks in the form of police brutality and covert corruption in the penal system that has led to the mass incarceration of Black people. The prison system violates human rights, causes the separation of families and capitalizes off the neo-slave labor of Black and Brown bodies that has been the basis of a profitable prison industrial complex.

3. We want control over our reproductive health and believe it is essential to building and maintaining strong black communities.

The United States government has, from its inception, consistently attempted to regulate, scapegoat and profit from the reproductive capabilities of black people. The denial of reproductive justice and autonomy began during slavery and continues today in the form of sterilization abuses, purposeful prescription of harmful contraceptives, and the targeting of black women as eugenicists for demanding access to safe and legal abortions. We demand an end to the pathology and criminalization of black motherhood and families the right to affordable and safe reproductive health care for all.

4. We want an end to all forms of physical, emotional, and sexual violence against black children.

We oppose the continued removal of black children from their homes by state agencies and see it as a part of a continued assault on black families and a form of cultural genocide. Children in general, and black children in particular, are seen as less than human which makes them easy targets in a system where dependence is seen as weakness and vulnerability. Therefore we recognize that dismantling systems of oppressions that promote hierarchies of dehumanization are in the best interest of black children. Specifically we want to break the cycles of violence that exist in our communities.

5. We want media to reflect the diversity of who we are, to include our voices, value our bodies and our stories.

We believe that the media both mirrors and shapes society. Therefore there is a need to develop a critical eye towards our media consumption, as the media is a system that perpetuates oppression. We believe in a shared responsibility to consume, demand and create the messages and representations that truly reflect our humanity.

6. We want an end to poverty and the development of an economy that benefits and provides for all people.

We believe that capitalism is a destructive system that commodifies people and the planet and promotes oppression. As black feminists and working people, we want jobs with dignity and a wage that is consistent with the real costs of living and ensures all people access to basic human needs. We want an economy that treats all labor as meaningful and valuable to society. Specifically, we want an end to the devaluation of the labor of marginalized people as well as the work that is usually confined to the lowest wage job segments. We want a foreign economic policy based in equity and fair trade.

7. We want education for liberation that includes equitable distribution of funding, culturally relevant curriculum, community control of schools and an end to the school to prison pipeline.

As Black folks we have a history of communally organized educational spaces and understand that education can be used as a tool for liberation or reinforcing systems of oppression. We want an end to curriculum centered on standardized testing and one that prioritizes the development of critical thinking and creativity.

8. We want access to secure, equal, safe, affordable and hazard free housing (public and private), community land rights, residencies of our choice and an end to homelessness.

We demand lease security, stabilized rent control, an end to discriminatory lending practices, poor shelter systems and the continuous displacement of Black and Brown folks from natural disasters and gentrification.

9. We want to live in a society where we can feel safe and protected.

We believe that we must work together to create safe spaces in both our homes and the public spaces our bodies occupy. We reject language that promotes hatred and fear and seek to promote healing and transformation by breaking longstanding cycles of violence in the Black community. Whether verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual, we must break the silence around all violence, and the various ways it encroaches on our daily living.

10. We want an end to invisibility, violence and homophobia towards LGBTQ people in our community.

 We believe that sexual desire and the expression of that desire is normal, healthy , and varied and that people should be free to express their desires without fear of violence.

A diversity of gender identities, body expressions and sexual performances is and has always been apart of the Black Diasporic community. We want protections and resources for our young people around homlessness, bullying and healthcare. We believe that the sexual and gender liberation of women and queer folk are interlocking struggles that cannot be won on a fragmented front.  We believe in gender self -determination and demand an end to violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people.Homophobia and other forms of hatred are the antithesis of the life-affirming communities we desire to create. We want all black people to stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people of African descent for the futures of our young people and the generations to come.

11. We want a world where respect of the Earth’s resources is central to every human society and economic system.

We believe that it is necessary that humanity creates, builds, and operates from the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate or above it.  As women’s reproductive health, the growth and development of our children and the longevity of our elders are all interconnected to the well-being of our environment, we believe in education and action around local sustainable agriculture and food security, safe drinking water, environmental preservation and the reduction of environmental toxins in our communities. We want an end to environmental injustices that deteriorate the health, resources and land of poor Black, Brown and Indigenous communities. We must all take part in resisting the consumerism and materialism of capitalism and instead value sustainable lifestyles and economic systems that honor ecological balance.

12.  We want a black community free of sexism and sexist oppression, where Black Women can be self-determined members of their community. 

We believe that sexism and sexist oppression limit both individual and collective freedom, as an individuals inability to self-actualize hinders the growth of the community .  People of all genders need to address ideas of masculinity, femininity, and sexual normativity that limit potential, and inspire abuse and hatred. We want our Brothas to challenge all negative assumptions and actions against Black Women. We demand for them to look upon us as allies in ending all forms of oppression, regardless of our own political affiliations i.e. Black Feminism. We also want them to see issues pertaining to Black Women as viable issues that the whole community should address, and how it is important that Black Women speak of these issues inside of our community, without retaliation. We demand our right to be recognized as autonomous and complete human beings.

*This twelve point platform was created by the Black Feminist Working Group (BFWG). (Iresha Picot, Kimberly Murray, Tiamba Wilkerson, Nuala Cabral, Darasia Shelby and Ladi’Sasha Jones).

**This document is inspired by the work and legacy of the Combahee River Collective and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Contact BFWG at Blackfeministgroup@gmail.com