Lady Kona, Nubian Imp & Tormentrix

This racial shit? It’s not in my mind

Contentious was the word used.

I found it curious. No had called me that before. I had to look it up to ensure that I knew what it meant:

1.tending to argument or strife; quarrelsome: a contentious crew.
2.causing, involving, or characterized by argument or controversy: contentious issues.
3.disputatious, argumentative.
4. Given to contention; quarrelsome. See Synonyms at argumentative, belligerent

I sighed and said Oh… do you mean that I am Uppity? And the person replied no. That they knew that identity politics were important to me and that I could be assertive…. etc…. Perhaps I was manifesting by focussing on this… etc…

HUH.

And I responded with “Welcome to my World.” Examples to follow from the last 7 days – if you think you can stomache it. A definite CHOICE I don’t have as I move through the world.

[uncomfortable examples from last week]

This past week in a meeting where my two work colleagues and I were interviewing a potential contractor for a MAJOR piece of work… well… I was making the contractors feel welcome and relaxed… there was laughter in the room. I made a remark, they responded I said that an answer “might make me blush” (or something like that) and the contractor responded by pumping his arm at his side and declaring “YES! She likes White Guys!” Laughter. Some joking including “She like more than just her kind!” from the same person. I was the only person of colour in that room. And I was part of the HIRING committee.

Two days later I’m on the bus back from Pecha Kucha (GO! IT’S FABULOUS AND INSPIRATIONAL!!!!) and standing behind me on the 99 from MacDonald to Clark was a guy LOUDLY declaring how there were “too many blacks” and blah blah blah about “niggers” and how even that one who ran for mayor failed and now there was a “fucking cripple ruining [his] city…” and blah blah blah “fucking Asians”… No one said a word including my colleague. And I said “No one wants to hear what you have to say sir.” and “Sir, no one is interested in your view.” I repeated it like a mantra to save my fucking sanity. But everyone was silent and no one was backing my words and he got more and more verbally abusive and I felt smaller and smaller and more and more humiliated and embarrassed and powerless, and… it seeped in through to my core and by the time I was about to burst into tears a tall slender, older white man turned around and said “That’s enough!” By then we were nearly at Clark. The guy got off spewing abuse at the “traitor to [his] race” as he went. My colleague said he had to get off and would I be OK. First words spoken during that horrific trip. I raved about how silence was complicity and lack of action signalled group approval whether those things were true or not. And I thanked that man who spoke up in voice that carried and spoke directly to the how grateful I was to have his voice so that I didn’t feel alone in my abuse. And this older woman spoke about how “we” were “waiting for it to get bad enough.” Right. “How bad must it get?” I responded. “Did he have to turn on YOU? Did he have to physically attack me?” I got off the bus at the stop following and a tall young man in his early 20′s came up and apologised and wanted to know if I was OK. And I said “No. I’m not” and he was surprised. Stopped him in his tracks. I kept moving, noticed he wasn’t with me and took a few steps back towards him. Apparently I had said the wrong thing? And I told him that while I appreciated his concern I woudl have prefered his voice in the moment. That the next time he came across something like that he could SPEAK THE FUCK UP regardless of what his friends might think or that his lover might disapprove or whatever. That he would strive to be the kind of man that would help.” He looked thoughtful and said he would do his best. I thanked him.

[/uncomfortable examples from last week]

As I said to my colleague when he got off the bus… “There’s a reason I’m like this you know.”

And my added punishment for being uppity and contentious is that some those who purport to call me friend or acquaintance or say they like/enjoy/respect etc. Exclude me. Or diminish my experiences. Or call me ANGRY. Which I am. But not in the way that I hear the world used. But hey… wouldn’t you be?

These things live in bones in ways I do not like and change my vibration in ways I do not like. Ways that require support rather than avoidance. And can I say that private words of support when I am not present, that are not TO me, that do not get relayed identifiably TO me, or that are delivered out of range of those who might witness the support… well… I’ll take ‘em… but… WOW people. We can march in the streets as dykes and kinksters or activists and artists and this is the best that can happen one-on-one with people we are willing to eat across from and who we hug in public, etc?

As a group we speak when the disabled appear to be excluded and consider how to alter that. And we speak OUT on their behalf. We have that politic down. And there are others. But now I’m raving and in danger of having another label added. Probably one about inappropriate use of space. Racialization of sex-positive space.

Yes. I have been silent here for a loooooong time. People in my private life have commented.

I want/need to bring my FULL self to the table. The bastards and idiots of the world can and still be regarded well. Why not me too? It one thing for the WORLD to show me how it lives. It is another to be with friends, associates or colleagues and experience censure/avoidance of a similar flavour.

I need this to shift so it doesn’t live in quite the same way inside my body. And as my mind shifts more and more towards my health (No D/s Dinner/salons until Mama has full, reliable, truthful energy), I need to know that I can close my eyes and focus and that my sleep will be guarded by those I can trust.