I'm mad/ and help me put the words back/ baby got back/ throwback

There is so much to say this time, and I have so few words. 

I wanted this to be a post about youth censorship, a trend towards policing the bodies and sexualities and expression.  The inspiration? The discovery that if you Google Image Search "high school grinding," you find the most precious grind line of some homies from my graduating high school class. This is the image right before kim kardashian grinding into reggie bush, 
with khloe watching in the background... good ol' fashioned ass in crotch rhythmic rubbing.  No exchange of fluids, just good energy (and if I remember, baby got back was the song of choice (and if there was some post-event exchange of fluids, our sexual health awareness group had that safe-sex shit on LOCK(with the support of Planned Parenthood()))). 

I'm not pictured, I think I'm in the front or something...

The context for this picture? 2006 was the year that grinding at school dances was banned by our school administration-- this is, mind you, a laboratory school of 300 high-achieving students in a liberal environment. Aka, we weren't used to being censored.
In one of our last dances, we protested through this massive grind line. 


can't stop won't stop....
maybe not exactly a revolution but definitely some community generated resistance, dig it. 

I think I want to connect the experiences of youth in suburban areas in regards to sexual policing through anti-grinding policies, and the deep and institutionally racist struggle experienced by youth (of color) in low-income communities.  Policing the movement and legitimized conduct of youth bodies. Movement and conduct of youth are bound by definitions of white expression, limiting what our youth can be, do, feel, communicate. Gang injunctions and lovely gang database lists where youth are registered as criminals for associating or being associated with "anything gang related" in the increasingly limited public spaces. Privatized public spaces that do more work to assign those who spend time there youth of color, homeless folks, vulnerable people looking for a place to kick it when no space is available able for them to own #capitalismisabitch as deviant, criminal, OBVIOUSLY up to no good.  Did you know that in LA, benches are designed to be dangerous to sleep on rest on relax on evenmuthafuckin sit on?  Studies show this type of database policing does less to actually protect victims of violence in communities, and more to funnel youth of color into a saturated prison system. I mean, if they can't even STAND like us, or DRESS like us, or DRAW like us, or DANCE like us, why should they be in OUR steets/hallways/schoolsystem/office? #sarcasticshit. This all endorses a culture where interaction with youth is based on reactionary negative reprimanding rather than developing genuine relationships of education and mentorship. Youth to GROW. not behave. 

Spaces where youth can simply be, just be, as in just EXIST are monitored, public spaces are deemed unsafe, community centers are shutting down, funding for accessible health centers is halted. DAMN. Youth don't need to be told not to grind. They need their reproductive resources, they need schools with RESOURCES, they need places to go when they can recognize unhealthiness in their lives.  They need the opportunity to recognize unhealthiness in their lives. And celebrate the health.

Ending wit another of my poems. herrrrr it goes.

Small Talk

This always happens

When you come at me like

“Where you from, can I have your number?”

Or “Hey girl, is that your real hair?”

Or “mami, eres muy guapa queee”

Or “like you’re cute for an Indian girl”

Expecting me to participate in a discussion to see

How dumb-pretty I can be

And when I release my views

My smart-ugly comes on through

Smart-ugly, Combahee Collective

As in when I sound smart,

I am ugly

So

I present an impassive self-assertion

Unparticipating in your

Black stares empty compliments cuz fool

I can tell you only know my name

When I’m deemed

Sexually desirable

I reject—

Spitting lines

Of what’s on my mind

What’s in my heart cuz see

I never been to good at small talk

never understood that small talk

Should reduce the limits of my mind

To the limits of your sex drive

And I

reject—

Cuz they say that

Polite conversation doesn’t include

Politics, money or religions

So like

Any combination of the decisions

That even seem worth talking about to me

Reason to waste any word-driven energy

Like did you know

Knowledge is constructed by

The precious representations we project

And consume

And that

I wanna empower my voice and the voices

Of those whom we

Relegate to

Zoos, tombs and rooms in

Warehouse prisons and warehouse schools

Actively deactivating the

Critical minds of our youth

Visibly hiding the

Tangible experiences of our people

Historically removing from the agenda

human rights of our communities.

And so when you

Try to get at me like the

Dumb-pretty girl you see me to be

I look you with my

“Exotic” lashes,

Deep dark eyes

And raise my fist and organize

Incorporating my

Critical analysis

Into our mental paralysis

Interventions of intersections of

Gender and race, sexuality and class

that are on my body beyond

you lookin at my ass

And we think that there’re no connections

Between our politics and our erections

Between our transit networks and our social networks

And when I spit this shit

You call me intense

You call me too much

You call me scary—

Scary

Scary?  Really.

Let me break this down for you

The shit that’s scaring me shitless

Is the depoliticization of our people

The deactivation of our country

The denial of the contradiction between

What we’re supposed to know

And what we really see and feel

So access to education, mobility

Transit and social

Are secondary

Is that intense enough for you?
And justice starts with heart

Backing up the mind

Making heard our priorities that

Serve our needs our futures

Our lives our growth

Our people ourselves

And

We need to get off on justice

And we are demanding justice

And we demand justice now

~~~

LOVE