<![CDATA[brownstargirl.org - blog]]>Fri, 18 May 2012 21:49:26 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Fragrance Free Femme of Colour Realness Draft 1.5]]>Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:44:47 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2012/03/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-realness-draft-15.htmlHey y'all. Here it finally is - a working draft of my fragrance free femme of colour realness doc! I kept being like "it's not done yet" but I wanted to post what I had so far. I am really open to feedback or product additions- please leave in the comments box. thank you for reading! 

(ps:many of the tips and product recs found within work for white folks and non femme folks, too.)

cripsharkpocfemmeheart

leah lakshmi

Fragrance free femme of colour realness

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

brownstargirl@gmail.com

Dedicated to all my fierce femme of colour disabled and chronically ill warrior fam.

When I think about access, I think about love. I think that crip (disabled and chronically ill) solidarity, and solidarity between disabled folks and non(yet) disabled folks is a powerful act of love and I-got-your-back. It’s in big things, but it’s also in the little things we do moment by moment to ensure that we all- in all our individual bodies- get to be present fiercely as we make change.

Embedded in this is a giant paradigm shift,. Our disabled and sick bodies aren’t seen as liabilities, something that limits us and brings pity or something to nobly transcend. Our crip bodies are gifts, brilliant, fierce, skilled, valuable. Assets that teach us things that are relevant and vital to ourselves, our communities, our movements, the whole god damn planet.

If I’m having a pain day and need you to use accessible language cause I’m having a hard time language processing and you do, that’s love. And that’s solidarity. If I’m not a wheelchair user and I make sure I work with the non-disabled bottomliner for the workshop to ensure that the pathways through the workshop chairs are at least three feet wide, that is love and solidarity. This is how we build past and away from bitterness and disappointment at movements that have not cared about or valued us.

I know that love is not a simple word. For those of us who are

disabled and chronically ill, "love" is sometimes a word used to control us. We have to be loved and liked to get access- access that should be a fundamental right. Our biological families might tell us they love us when they are controlling our movements and freedoms and choices.

However, the kind of love I'm talking about is something different. . I'm talking about a kind of love that is fierce and revolutionary enough to ensure that no one is left out of our fam. That sick and disabled QTPOC bodies aren't abandonned by non disabled/temporarily able bodied QTPOC. That we shift our communities so that we do the work to understand how it is impossible to defeat the WSCCAP (white surpemacist capitalist colonialist ableist patriarchy) without going hard on defeating ableism.

This love is a place where we practice and continue to practice access intimacy. You can read MIa Mingus' beginning thoughts about access intimacy here: http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/access-intimacy-the-missing-link/, but a basic definition she offers is:

"Access intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs.  The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on a purely access level.  Sometimes it can happen with complete strangers, disabled or not, or sometimes it can be built over years.  It could also be the way your body relaxes and opens up with someone when all your access needs are being met."

One small (and huge) thing you can do to ensure access is to work towards  being scent/fragrance free. Folks who have chemical disabilities need  to be able to participate in the worlds outside our bedrooms- in our parties, queer/trans of color cultural events, the subway, the grocery store, etc. It’s easy to get inexpensive scent/fragrance free products at Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, Whole Foods (they suck, but they make $3 scent-free shampoo, conditioner and lotion), independent health food stores and co-ops, and you can also just get some cocoa butter, coconut oil or shea butter in the raw and make your own products, which is cheap and fun. Cutting out scents may seem like a pain in the ass, but it means that awesome, ass-kicking community members you love can attend events you're at and make out with you without having seizures, throwing up or otherwise getting really sick.

Are you curious about going scent-free but totally overwhelmed by the prospect of having to replace your whole product line of fiercely researched POC body care products? You're not the only one. Fear not! When I started performing with Sins Invalid in 2009 and had to give up my Carol's Daughter Hair Milk addiction in order not to give co-performers seizures, I started a multi-year process of exhaustively researching every god damn fragrance free hair, skin and facial care product I could find, with a focus on looking at POC products. A brown mixed curly girl who grew up with white mama hair damage, I was determined that my curls were going to continue to look good. I am here to bring all my Taurus chronically ill femme of colour skills to your product line!

Many POC hair and products are scented like what. Why? Maybe we like pretty scents. Maybe we've got some damage from being told by racist ass white people when we were growing up that we smell funny/strong/like curry/ like fish, etc. Maybe we've got some more baggage from parents who raised us to never, ever, smell or be dirty. And while some of us grow up with great bodycare products that work for us, some of us have some serious hair and skin trauma from going without, and don't find products that make us feel beautiful until adulthood. Many of us struggle to go fragrance free because it might've taken us a looooong time to find products that worked for our hair and skin, and we don't want to give them up.

But why do I care about this? Isn't that just something a few (whiney, annoying) white hippies care about?

More and more people are coming out about having chemical sensitivities, or what some folks refer to as chemical injury. There are many of your friends who have asthma, have MCS, have been through chemo, etc, who don't mention it cause they don't feel entitled or want to get in a fight, but if you cut down on scents, they will be really happy. A lot of people are chemically injured through doing industrial labor- cleaning houses, using or being exposed to pesticides as farmworkers, and growing up in neighborhoods with a lot of industrial pollution. Chemical sensitivity is a POC issue.

Folks who have everything from asthma to chemo to rheumatoid arthritis have noticed that cigarettes, perfume (which legally can have stuff like arsenic in it and the makers don't have to declare it), scented personal care products, pesticides, and car exhaust make them really sick. I have friends who throw up for a couple days sometimes after a chemical exposure. I got motivated to go fragrance free when I had friends and lovers who literally couldn't go out without getting really sick because of all the smoke/fumes/ chemicals/perfume. I don't have MCS,but I do have fibromyalgia, and after a while, I realized that I was feeling a lot better when I wasn't around a ton of fragrance. I also have born witness to my friend family of beautiful, brilliant ones who lose days and weeks of their lives due to getting sick from toxic exposures- friends who have everything from cancer to rheumatoid arthritis to MCS and beyond.

Going fragrance free is a process. At first, I'm not gonna lie, I mourned being able to choose from 30 kinds of conditioners in the store to, like, three. I felt bored. I missed being able to use Nubian Heritage lotion, Carol's Daughter hair product and other POC brands of more-natural hair and skin care that I had a lot of cultural ties and sweet memories to. Brownness had smelled like Honey and Black Seed lotion to me, and it took a while for that to fade. After a while, though, my perspective shifted. It actually felt really cool to be less brand oriented. I was saving money because I was using pure oils for a lot of things (hair, skin, etc) and could just throw a bottle of coconut oil in my bag when I was travelling.

Basics: Look at the ingredient list. If it says, “perfume” or “parfum” or “essential oil” or “fragrance” or “natural fragrance”... guess what? It's scented.

If it's say, a stick of cocoa butter, and the ingredients just say 'cocoa butter' and you smell it and it doesn't smell inert, but there is no big COCONUT or LAVENDER or other smell... you're good. Fruits, flowers, oil, etc, all have scents – that's fine. The problem comes with chemical, 'natural' (which basically means nothing on a label nowadays) or essential oil scents. Essential oils have been heavily marketed as natural. Unfortunately, while they are based on natural substances, they are produced in a factory and are super concentrated and can cause reactions in lots of folks.

If you get your nails done (or when you do your nails) let them off gas a few days before you hang out with your chemically injured friends. 8 hours to a day is good for basic nails; if you get acrylics or silk tips, allow more time. All nail polish has toxic shit in it. You can go for the super-natural kinds of nail polishes; if you go to salons, look for ones that are “3 Free” (or free of formaldyhyde, toelene and something else bad.) This is good for your nails and good for the workers who have to breathe that shit in otherwise, all day every day. Some cities also have super natural nail salons that are might be a little more expensive then the $20 manipedi (like, $30) but are a lot less fumey.

ETSY IS YOUR FRIEND. Some of the best products for folks with curly/kinky/dreaded hair are to be found on Etsy- just do a keyword search. Because the folks there make the products by hand, it can be easy to ask them to make your without adding fragrance.

If you're in Walmart or Target or CVS, look for anything that says "hypoallergenic" or "sensitive skin"- it's likely to be unscented.

If you wear perfume or scented products sometimes (when you're not around your chemically scented friends, once in a while cause you have a hard time letting something go, etc) wash your clothes with some baking soda thrown in, and try to let them air dry outside if you can- it'll help your clothes not hold on to the scent.

If you are working on reducing your scent use, the #1 thing you can do is to use fragrance free detergent and eliminate using fabric softener and dryer sheets (or substitute baking soda or the scent free kind). Fragrance in laundry product is especially "sticky" and is designed to stick forever- which is why you clothes might still smell like Downy even if they've been in storage for a year.

If you want to read more about chemical sensitivity and fragrance free stuff, this website, by an amazing white queer femme writer with severe disabilities http://www.peggymunson.com/mcs/fragrancefree.html, has tons of good info.

From Puerto Rican/Jewish badass writer, artist and performer Aurora Levins Morales: "Re natural fragrances, the issue isn't just chemical processing. I can get sick from 100% pure organic essential oils because my body's become sensitized by the chemicals to other fragrances. For example, organic lavender makes me violently ill. Fresh organic flowers like lilies can give me a headache. Once our bodies get super-reactive, otherwise benign things can be a problem. I sometimes react to coconut products with a strong coconut smell. So don't assume rosewater will be OK for all the people you come in contact with. I find that all floral scents are worse for me than aromatic ones like rosemary and peppermint."  So- reducing fragrance overall is the goal; it's also good to check in with individual friends who have chemical injury about what their particular scent triggers are, and not to assume that a particular lower scent option will work for everyone."

PRODUCTS:

Note: Much of this information is weighted towards products available in North America because that's where I live and where I know about products. I'm happy to add info about products available outside the US and Canada if people send it in.

Hair:

Super basic products:

Aloe vera (the kind in a bottle or squeeze tubs- works beautifully for curls as a gel on its own, and is readily available at both Walgreens and health food stores)

Coconut oil or sweet almond oil or shea butter, Just like that, or as a booster to smooth frizz if you use an aloe based product. Coconut oil is something sold in health food stores, but is also hella accessible (and much cheaper) at desi, Caribbean, APIA, and African grocery stores and big cheap supermarkets in neighborhoods where we live.

Great, inexpensive source of pure shea butters: www.back2africa.com

Products you can buy: (many of which are POC made)

Fierce Bodies (my #1 fave: made by a mixed Arab queer and genderqueer chronically ill badass) - amazing Hair Mud, curl cream, pomade, scalp oil and more, all scent free. www.fiercebodies.com

Beijaflores (on etsy, http://www.etsy.com/people/beijaflores)- great shea butter hair lotions and pomades. You can request that she make it scent free when you order.

Darcy's Botanicals (http://www.etsy.com/people/darcysbotanicals), nice shea based cremes and pomades

Every Man Jack (nice pomades, I can buy them in Walgreens in Cali, health food stores, beauty supply places, online. Has a masculine packaging that may appeal to some.)

Magick Botanicals (super old school gel and hairspray, but its cheap)

Alba Botanicals (available widely, has scent free hair products including gel, spray and curl styling creme- a little chemical/drying feeling for my hair. Can get at many beauty supply places as well as health food stores)

Miss Jessis's Curl (Black owned hair product line; the 'sensitive sniffer' curly creme is unscented. People have wildly different opinions on Miss Jessie's- some love it, some think it's super drying and overrated) http://www.missjessies.com/, and available at Target, Black hair supply places, beauty supply places and some well-stocked Walgreens.

Oyin handmade- really nice Black-owned indie natural/handmade bodycare line. Their body oils, deoderants and Shea Puddings come unscented. www.oyinhandmade.com

Kinky Curly Not no scent, but the Spiral Spritz and Knot Today creams are low-scent- lavender water and aloe. Check with your friends- some folks would be able to deal, some folks have violent reactions to lavender. Reasonably priced and you can buy it at Target and some Walgreens. www.kinky-curly.com

Got a fav local, small Black/Brown hair product maker at your local flea market? I bet s/he's got at least one unscented curl lotion/loc promade, or s/he would make an unscented line if you asked.

I alternate between Fierce Bodies, Beijaflores Curl crème, and Kinky Curly Spiral Spritz, and have started just rolling my hair with aloe vera and coconut oil and called it a day.

Deoderent: You don't have to use the crystal if you don't want to! You can pick up unscented natural hippie deoderent- the crystal, Tom's, Jason's, the one that says it has “all the power of lichen” on the label, etc. It'll work, but you are going to need to carry it around and re-apply every few hours if you sweat like I do. You can also get frag-free or 'sensitive skin' versions of a chemical, commercial deoderent like Dove, Almay or Arm and Hammer. Trader Joe's also has a frag free deoderant. Sniff it first. Dove and Almay have worked for most folks I know. If you want to go super no-product, you can also try using baking soda dusted on your pits, or witch hazel. Oyin makes a super nice frag free product, as well.

Shampoo, conditioner: Jason's conditioner is my favorite- it's the most humectant conditioner I've found, and it's about six-seven bucks. Everyday Shea will give you a huge bottle (a quart), with pump, for $9.99- some folks think the conditioner is a little drying. Whole Foods makes super cheap shampoo, conditioner and lotion (2.99). I'm not a giant fan of the quality and they contain a lot of alcohol and fillers, but if you want basic products and you're broke and they're close to you, they're okay. There's also Desert Essence. I don't use shampoo, so I'm a little out of luck when it comes to recs. ;)

Lotion: There's a bunch of unscented products out there. I am a big fan of raw coconut oil or olive oil as a moisturizer- and I'm over 30, so that works for my face, too. Many folks I know also use cocoa butter or shea butter, which you can find the pure, uncut versions of in many online stores, Black and Brown owned businesses and markets, supermarkets that sell POC products (esp desi, Caribbean and African stores for coconut oil) etc. You can also find many small sellers who have unscented versions of their shea puddings and butters on sale next to the scented one. In the Bay Area, a lot of folks I know buy their shea butter from sellers at the Ashby Flea Market, which is at Ashby BART every weekend and where a lot of small scale POC folks sell stuff. In NYC and Philly, ditto, a lot of folks buy shea butter from Black and Brown folks who sell on the street or in weekend markets. This is a great way of supporting low income, self employed POC.

Some sources:

Queen Helene cocoa butter stick and plain cocoa butters.

Oyin Handmade (the whipped shea butter)

Kiss My Face

Jason's

Desert Essence

Lubriderm

Trader Joes (frag free body/hand lotion, they also do a nice frag free sunblock)

lots of small, made by Black and Brown folks shea butters

Facial cleanser:

Kiehls (lots of frag free options, and they have an unlimited free sample policy- when they're not sold out.)

Burt's Bees Sensitive facial cleanser

Body Shop Aloe line

Use plain oil as a makeup remover

Cetaphil

Aveeno

The rosewater toner or glycerin/oil cleanser recipies at the end.

Soap: Kiss My Face Olive Oil, milk and almond, oatmeal, African Black .. just look for 'fragrance free' and/or no perfume listed on the thing. If you like nice, interesting soap, check Etsy, there's tons. http://www.etsy.com/listing/32969410/no-wavocado, http://www.etsy.com/listing/29502725/no-waloe-vera for two examples. If you're in a walgreens, look for anything that says "hypoallergenic" "sensitive skin" Sappho Hill is a basic, cheap frag free soap line that make unscented oatmeal, clear and honey soaps.

Great African Black soap based on shea butter: www.back2africa.com/personal-care-body-care/category22_88/product3345/pure-african-shea-butter-soap/

Also:

  • Clearly Natural Unscented Glycerin Soap
  • Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castille Unscented Baby Mild Soap
  • Green Mountain Soap Co. Soap
  • Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Bar Soap
  • Magick Botanicals Simmons Special Unscented Soap
  • Nature Clean Face and Body Bar Soap
  • Neutrogena Original Unscented
  • Pangea Organics Pure & Scentless 
  • Tom’s Unscented Natural Moisturizing or Deodorant Body Bar
Laundry: The number one thing you can do to be more chem safe is to de-scent your laundry. if you live near one, just go to Trader Joe's and get their big, cheap, lovely frag-free laundry powder- 64 loads for $7.99. You can get hippie stuff too- Seventh Generation Free and Clear, bulk stuff from a co-op or natural food place, etc. Just look for the 'free and clear' or 'no added fragrance' one, not the Lavender and Chamomile one. On the commercial tip, try Arm and Hammer. Be cautious about the many "free and clear" Tide, Cheer, etc, clones- often they say they are free of fragrance, but are actually using fragrance and then using 'fragrance masking' chemicals to cover up the smell. Tricky! Smell them. Do you smell a lot of chemical weirdness? Look elsewhere.

FABRIC SOFTENER: THE DEVIL. Fabric softener is from hell. It causes the most reactions in chemically injured people I know. Why? Because it basically a hell of a lot of perfume designed to stick forever- so your clothes will still smell like Bounce a month later. If you have clothes you've washe din fabric softener/dryer sheets a lot, try washing them in unscented detergent with a cup of baking soda added, more than once if you need to. Air drying is also good.

You don't need fabric softener. I dunno, I guess I feel like I don't- I haven't used it for a long time and my clothes don't feel, well, hard. Seventh Generation makes Free and Clear dryer sheets if you feel really wedded to fabric softener, and baking soda works too.

Home cleaning products: Dr Bronner's unscented castille soap is an awesome product you can use for liquid hand soap, regular body soap, and soap you can use to clean your floors and counters and stuff. Baking soda and vinegar work for a lot of stuff. Bon Ami is a good scrub that doesn't smell harsh or have too much weird shit in it. I believe in bleach (the safer kind, that's oxygen based not chlorine based) for some shit that is really gross. The Make Your Space booklet, in the resources, has a lot of good homemade recipes for homemade cleansers.

Recipes:

Facial cleanser:

1/2 cup Rosewater (buy at Arab/desi grocery or make your own by soaking rose petels in water)

2 T Honey

1/2 cup Water

Shake, put in jar, use. Excellent toner and cleanser

Makeup remover: Just use coconut or olive oil! Seriously, this will have you wondering why you ever paid money for a big product in a tube. Just put a little on a washcloth or cotton pad. So easy, works the best

Homemade hair gel (also works as homemade lube ;)): from Ana María Agüero Jahannes: 1/4 cup flax seeds to 2 cups water ratio, boil it and then strain out the seeds. super easy. the longer you let it boil, the thicker.

here's a video where you can learn how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWaH8GIbLrM

KY Jelly: one femme of colour suggested that this works awesome on curls. for reals!

More sweet homemade beauty product recipies focused on POC hair and skin (but could be good for all.) Just leave out the essential oils when they're called for!

http://www.longlocks.com/hair-care-recipes-cookbook.htm#cond1

http://www.naturallycurly.com/recipes

http://motowngirl.com/index.php/homemade-hair-recipes.html

http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/diy-natural-beauty-products-recipes-461108#fbIndex1

Resources:

If you want more info about how to be fully scent/fragrance free, see http://www.peggymunson.com/mcs/fragrancefree.html

Partial list of products: http://takebacktheair.com/pdf/FragranceFreeProducts.pdf

Really, really great list of products, including people of color specific ones, from the East Bay Mediation Center, and tons of info abut MCS and creating accessible communities: http://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/scentfree.html

Lots of info about MCS, links between it and Gulf War Syndrome and disabilities faced by millitary folks and folks who are being invaded, global list of MCS groups including Africa, Middle East and Central and South America: http://www.princesstigerlily.com/mcs/mcs_by_area.html

Great doc by Yashna about working towards making her yoga practice frag-free, with lots of info and resources about MCS: http://yogamaya.wordpress.com/about/classes/fragrance-free/

Make Your Space- cute little booklet with lots of homemade recipies for cleansers and body/skin/hair care products that are easy to make frag free :http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/2333/

MCS accessibility basics (really great article by Billie Rain) http://dualpowerproductions.com/2011/05/01/mcs-accessibility-basics

More fierce crip of colour resources:

cripchick.com

leavingevidence.wordpress.com

sinsinvalid.org

creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com

"Communities of Care, Organizations for Liberation" by Yashna Maya Padamsee http://nayamaya.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/communities-of-care-organizations-for-liberation/

billierain.com- amazing queer Arab disabled writer, has great MCS resources including

3 Steps to Organizing a Fragrance Free Event:

http://billierain.com/2011/05/01/3-steps-to-organizing-a-fragrance-free-event/

Skin Deep cosmetic database (rates all kinds of products and tells you what toxins are or aren't in them) http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

]]><![CDATA[Spring Leah Lakshmi events in progress]]>Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:49:00 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2012/02/spring-leah-lakshmi-events-in-progress.htmlhey fam,

totally not done/ final confirmed/ the like, but here's some places you can find me in the next few months. watch this space for more updates.

Friday, February 17, 2012: Sex and disability keynote, "Desire and decolonial dreams: A crip sex valentine," at UC Davis' Sex Week. 3 PM, Multipurpose room, SCC, https://www.facebook.com/events/330861486957046/

March 5-7: Revolution Starts At Home workshop and Grown Woman Show performance at Mills College, Oakland CA

Friday, March 16, 2012: Sins Invalid workshop on disability justice at U of T, time and location TBC

Saturday, March 17, 2012: Sins Invalid performance at the AGO, cosponored by the Univrsity of Toronto

March 19-20, 2010, Revolution Starts At Home talk and workshop with Ching-In Chen at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB. Sponsored by APIRG

Friday, April 6: Mangos With Chili: Behind the Music. La Pena, Berkeley. Like Behind the Music but better, this evening offers a first hand glimpse into the making, growth and evolution of Mangos With Chili. This event will be part talk show featuring facilitated Q&A, video diaries, and teasers from our upcoming Spring season, including our 5 year retrospective show and National Queer Arts Festival production in June. 

Saturday, April 7: Minneapolis, MN,  EQ at The Loft. Featuring with Tara Betts

Monday, April 9: Artist talk at U of Minnesota, TBC

Tuesday, April 10: Keynote speech at Take Back the Night, Humboldt State University

Wednesday April 11: Workshops at HSU

April 25-26: Workshops and performance at Evergreen State College, Olympia WA (tbc)

May 5-6, 2012: Mangos With Chili: Resurrection, location and details TBC

]]><![CDATA[how it happens]]>Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:28:38 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/10/how-it-happens.htmlbecause in new york
people just look both ways when it's a red light
and if nothing's coming, they cross the street anyways;

because I look up and I can see so easily how everything could crumble,
how this street could look so different in an instant

because you push and push and meet and organize and conference call
and publish and travel and take busses and stay up late and go to bed early
and the front of you hair goes white and the 90s were twenty years ago

and one day, three thousand of your friends sit in a bowl of light
in front of the big limestone building government
and decide to all stop working and going to school next week

and you are living in the Starhawk dream of your teenagerhood
but so much less fucked up: your backyard full of chickens and greens,
house falling down pretty, bursting with busy housemates,

sweeping your hand up the falling-down stairs you will fix
yourself

]]><![CDATA[Herbal and other strategies for tear gas resilience:]]>Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:13:29 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/10/herbal-and-other-strategies-for-tear-gas-resilience.htmlPlease share and distribute!

If you are hit with tear gas, remember: "once you have gotten away and removed yourself from direct exposure, it will continue as a residue on your skin and clothes. Remove, isolate, and wash your clothing ASAP, by itself, to keep the residue from spreading. Flush mucus membranes with water or LAW (half liquid antacid, half water) solution and shower, as soon as you can, in COLD water. Hot water will open your pores up and create further chemical exposure. In the aftermath, take it easy and stay hydrated to help your body flush the toxins out."- Elena Rose.

Use baking soda to cleanse- oily soaps will help the tear gas bond to your skin, and baking soda is an excellent cleanser/detoxifier.

DON'T RUB YOUR EYES! Open wide and pour in water or chamomile tea or LAW solution, but hard as it is not to, rubbing will make it worse.

Day(s) after: Soak at will in baths with Epsom salts and sea salts (don't scrimp- you can use up to one cup of each), which will help your body cleanse itself of its toxin exposure. If you are dealing with trauma from being in a police riot, this is a great time to do ritual and calm and care for your body.

For lungs that are raw and sore from tear gas inhalation: Try doing a steam with mullein and marshmallow root (2 T of each in 3-4 inches hot water in a large pot: bring to boil and inhale steam.) Drinking mullein tea is an excellent reparative to help lungs heal from toxin exposure. Put 2 T of dried herb in a quart mason jar, fill with boiling water, cap and let sit for 4 hours (less if need is urgent.) Strain and drink 2-4 cups a day, hot or cold.

For eyes, chamommile tea washes soothe- soak a clean cloth or paper towel in chamomile tea and apply to eyes for 10-15 minutes 2-4 times a day, or use a medicine dropper to drop the tea directly in. So do a wash or a compress of chickweed and eyebright- make a medicinal tea as above, and soak a cloth with warm tea and apply to closed eyes for 10-15 minutes at a time. Use a fresh cloth every time. You can aslo take the herb from the tea, fold it in a cloth and place cloth on eyes for 10-15 minutes. You can also get aloe pulp and apply it to the eyes, on its own or in a clean cloth. After using, soak cloths in baking soda if you feel there is tear gas residue soaked out of your eyes. Anything that goes in your eyes should be lukewarm or cool.

If you menstruate, tear gas exposure plus the trauma of facing murderous assholes may make you have a heavier menstrual period or throw off your period. Try acupuncture, red raspberry tea and licorice tea (2-4 cups a day) plus daily seaweed intake to reballance.

Diet: Drink lots of water to help your body flush. Try eating miso soup with burdock, daikon, seaweed and shitake to help your body shed toxins. Seaweed is great in salad or snacks to help all mucous membranes heal, to regulate your hormones if you have a uterus and menstruate, and to help your body shed toxins.

For overall detox: Take dandelion and burdock tinctures together, 25-75 drops a day- these are excellent liver detoxifers and will help your body heal. You can buy them at herbal stores or health food stores (they are also easy to make by soaking the root and leaf in vodka for 6 weeks, but you may not have that time right now- take note for the future!.) You can also eat dandelion leaves and burdock/gobo root (you can find burdock/gobo at Chinese, Asian and health food groceries, it's good raw or cooked.) Make and drink nettle tea, 2-4 cups a day, using the medicinal tea method described above- excellent detoxifier and nourisher. Rest. Give yourself a place to cry or get angry or 'shake out' your trauma/fear/ anger.

Acupuncture: is always a great idea to help repair trauma, help lungs/ eyes heal, reballance menstruation and help the body ballance and detox. It can also help with anxiety and post traumatic stress easing. In the Bay, check out Sarana Community Acupuncture, the Berkeley Acupuncture Project, Oakland Acupuncture Project and more.http://www.oaklandacupunctureproject.com/  http://www.saranacommunityacupuncture.org  They all charge $15-$20 per appointment.

Here is a map of all the community acupuncture clinics in North America: http://www.communityacupuncturenetwork.org/clinics

If you have anxiety or a hard time sleeping try flower essences, skullcap, motherwort (good for everyday anxiety too), oatstraw tea (2-4 cups a day) and eating a turkey burger with cheese before bed before you hit the benzos.

If you have chemical injury, chronic illness or a weakened immune system, take extra care to detox. Use your sick/crip strategies and step them up a bit. Rest as much as you need to and lean on your detoxing, supportive herbs, acupuncture and other strategies to mind your body. Ask for help! Bank your energy as your bodymind heals! Remember that there are many fierce ways of resisting that center our sick and crip bodies.

Watch out for signs of chemical injury. In the weeks that follow, do you notice yourself feeling sick, dizzy, disoriented or nauseous when you smell perfume, gasoline, scented detergent/fabric softener, pesticides or essential oils? You may have the beginnings of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. This is a great chance to de-scent and detox the products you use. Talk to your sicko friends for advice about how we live with MCS.

Rest, love each other, talk about it, give each other hugs and get enough sleep!

]]><![CDATA[giant October tour doc and a poem]]>Wed, 21 Sep 2011 11:10:30 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/09/giant-october-tour-doc-and-a-poem.htmlok, it's also up at "upcoming", but just for the hell of it, here's all where I'll be in October/November. Look for November appearances in the Bay and at Scripps U, too.

but first, here's a new poem I'm very proud of:

this is what I did with my broken heart

-  for all my loved and longing ones

this morning, heartbreak farmer's market splurge of dahlias on the dining room table, a girlsister choosing her new name after ecstatic silence, my heart opened in a beloved's poem. colors and cosmos cupped in a cleavage exploding heart, all our names spoken perfect and kissed on black and brown butterfly lips.

some days sistergirl brings you the tallest bouquet of flowers, tips brushing the ceiling. she won't tell you where they come from, it is her secret to pamper you. cook kale and basil and grill that tofu. paint the kitchen cabinets an intense teal that's been on the shelf for six months. some days I crawl in bed and lick my heart with whiskey and a fantasy novel I'm embarrassed to check out of the library, that still medicates. an infinity of sickbed text messages, you slept through the food stamp appointment again, so did I. the sun sets and rises again, that bumpy lemonade yellow east bay sun brushing the morning wet of uncut grass garden I walk through, 36 years old to a kitchen's coffee. some mornings make me cry at my kitchen table morning coffee why don't you/ bless me with exploding flowers in cleavage and all our names spoken.

love is waiting for me. fighting to stay alive so I can walk towards her. find her in the fort she created for us. grown over with wild ivy that could uproot this house, cover the plum tree. love is waiting for me to walk towards her. as I have walked and limped towards her so many times before. 

overdraw the bank account, paycheck made out to the wrong name in my pocket. practice breathing and runwalk to chase, slip in check just in time for pending debits and credits. remember that this crazy broken poor is why I poet. is checks and ballances on the account sheet of my life.

love is waiting for you. why do you want to keep her waiting? she is waiting for you to walk towards her, stumble over her, fall on your face and smash it open into the biggest grin. get up and your teeth are just fine. your next love is waiting for you. she might be yourself. why would you keep her waiting? love is waiting for you, a country of wild vines, figs droping into my hand that I have never seen, that I would recognize anywhere. her  skin under my fingers, the curves of her nose and cheek. where falling open into oya is brushed with kitten feather softness. where I will never break my face again.  


and now, the tour doc:

So, as you may have gathered, I'm going on this ginormous tour of life and death this October and November in the Northeast to launch Love Cake, my new book of poetry, and to do some workshops along the way.  I'm still confirming some times and locations, but since October is soon, here is the giant document of life and death:

With Gay Genius Ontario Tour:
October 6: Brock University, St Catherine's, ON
October 14th, George Brown College, Toronto, ON
October 15, Gay Genius launch, Unit 2, Toronto, ON


October 16, LOVE CAKE TORONTO LAUNCH, Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. West, Toronto ON
7:30 doors, 8:00 show.  music, sweet video of QTPOC talking about what love sex and healing is to us, opening performers, three kinds of love cake, me performing, book signing, dancing, drinks, free, fully wheelchair accessible including bathrooms, free childcare, all ages rest of access tbc by Friday.  FB invite here: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250546331654653
October 24-25 Hampshire College, Amherst MA.
Monday October 24 performance, 7 PM, location TBA
Tuesday, October 25th,  transformative justice workshop

October 26, NYU, 8 PM, location TBC: I'm performing representing Sins Invalid, and will be performing pieces from the 2009 and 2011 SIns shows within a medly of work by Leroy Moore, Aurora Levins Morales, Loree Erickson and more! it's gonna amaze. FREE, open to everyone not just NYU students

October 28, New York  launch, Love Cake, as part of RUCKUS, a queer and trans people of color reading series. Bluestockings Books, 172 Allan St, NY NY 10003.  free, 7 PM to 9 PM, magical opening acts TBC

October 30-21, Swathmore College, Swathmore, PA
November 3, UConn, talk about Revolution Starts at Home with Ching-In Chen
November 4-5, Wesleyan University, Middletown CT.  Nov 4th performance, November 5 workshop
November 6-7, reading and workshop, Brattleboro VT, Everybody's Books.

What is Gay Genius? Gay Genius is a comics anthology illuminating the past, present and future of queer history makers. It is a labor of love, a celebration of possibility, an offering to the ancestors. Conceived and edited by Annie Murphy, Gay Genius is a showcase of contemporary radical queer visionaries-to-watch-out-for:
What alternative? Whose underground? We feel that queer comics artists/comics artists of color (and cartoonists of other marginalized groups) have always been relegated to the underground of the underground. This just won't do! This is where Gay Genius comes in. With eighteen contributors whose storytelling is as unique as their artistic style, Gay Genius is not just a much-needed volume celebr ating the work of queer artists, but it's a must-have for contemporary comics lovers as well.

Gay Genius contributors Elisha Lim and Leroi Newbold will be hitting this road in October, reading stories and showing slides of our work, and talking about Gay Genius as a historic first anthology of queer comics, as well as its mandate to include queer intersectional identities, like diverse races, ages and abilities. They will be joined by writer, performer and cultural worker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, who will be presenting work in progress from her collaboration  in progress with Elisha, 100 Femmes.

What is Love Cake?  

In Love Cake, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores how queer people of colour resist and transform violence through love and desire. Refusing to forget the traumas of post 9/11 Islamophobia, and Sri Lanka's civil war, Love Cake documents the persistence of survival and beauty—especially the dangerous beauty found in queer people of colour's lives. Piepzna-Samarasinha maps the complicated, luscious joy of reclaiming the body and sexuality after abuse, examines a family history of violence with compassion, and celebrates the beautiful resistance of queer people of colour in love and home-making.  

Praise for Love Cake:

"Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's Love Cake is a book I want to carry with me when I need to remember my body, to remember our ancestors, to rebuild home. Leah's poems are rebel songs and love songs that bear witness and fight back. Love Cake is as miraculous, as mean, as stunning as every queer brown girl who survives."

–Qwo-Li Driskill, author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems

"Only Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha could concoct the secret recipe for Love Cake. One layer of escaped working class girl from Worcester, MA; one layer of long lost Tamil woman returning to her Sri Lankan roots;  sweet cream of sexy queer femme on top; unexpected bite into her bittersweet love & trouble triumph healing rebellion. No one knows quite how she makes it; just that we can’t get enough." –Aya de Leon, Director June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, UC Berkeley

"Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's Love Cake is a book of poems chronicling the steady kind of love, the grown-up guide to visioning yourself whole with our homemade stories on one arm and our slutty brown femme sister on the other. Love Cake is a necessary book that will heal our communities after heartbreak and push us towards creating our own dreams of liberation."

--Ching-In Chen, author, The Heart's Traffic

Please repost, spread the word, review the books, come out, and support!

for media inquires or booking, email brownstargirl@gmail.com
]]><![CDATA[brownstargirl tarot is open for business]]>Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:56:22 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/07/brownstargirl-tarot-is-open-for-business.html
Picture
Hey family,

As some of you know, one of the things I am famous for are my bomb-ass tarot card and numerology readings. I've read for friends for the past 17 years, and have also read for the public at street fairs, in my home, and, briefly, at a truly weird Toronto psychic hotline. I have many testimonials from folks I've read for about the accuracy, straight upness, and helpfulness of my readings. Recently, I've decided to start offering readings again, as a service to my community.

About my readings:

Tarot is a set of cards that were probably developed by Roma people. The Tarot deck consists of four minor suits and one major suit; the major suit, known as the Major Arcana, traces all the possibilities of a life from conception to revolutionary satisfaction.

My deck: I use the Collective Tarot (http://thecollectivetarot.blogspot.com/) an amazing deck grounded in people of color, queer and gendervariant, disabled and other communities. I also read from Daughters of the Moon deck for many years.

I don't do readings where I tell you, "You're going to meet someone at 7-11 next Tuesday who's going to change your life." I offer is an intuitive reading that can clarify what's going on in your life, how your

past history, legacies and choices are affecting your current decisions, and  what your sources of strength and options are as you move into your future. If you have questions about lovers, healing, money, moving, destiny, work, school, depression, big or little life decisions- or if all hell is breaking loose in your life - tarot can help you figure out what the hell is going on.

As a disabled queer femme of color, I look at how past legacies of trauma, abuse and oppression can affect the options you choose as you work towards freeing yourself and creating your life, as well as how our ancestors, communities and genius individual survival strategies can be resources for you.

I'm in touch with spirit but not woo-woo to the point of annoyance. I'm also sex/poly/kink-positive, queer and trans positive, criptastic, respectful of many choices and live a life centered around QTPOC community, culture and activism.

Numerology: Numerology is a system of divination that's been used by many cultures, from Egyptians to South Asians to the early Christian Gnostics. It's a system that sees a relationship between numbers and reality. In numerology, your birth date is boiled down to a single digit that corresponds to a Tarot card, which then gives insight into your life path, gifts and challenges. It's also possible to figure out the numerology for your current year, which can show you why all of a sudden certain patterns, challenges and gifts are hitting you upside the head.

Services and prices:

One hour tarot card  reading: $30-$60 slidling scale

Numerological reading: soul destiny, personality, current year: $30

Tarot and numerology: $50- $70 sliding scale

Readings take approximately one hour, though I'm open to negotiating a quick and dirty reading. Combination tarot and numerology readings will take closer to 1.5-2 hours. You can visit me in my beautiful Southwest Berkeley home or I can come to you. I'm open to coming to most spots in the East Bay and San Francisco. Locations that are further away  (Marin, South Bay) will necessitate a travel fee to cover gas and tolls. I also do video Skype, phone and g chat readings.

This is a great gift for someone for their birthday, anniversary or graduation. If you or someone you know is having a kid, I'm happy to do their numerology. I'm also open to being booked for parties and events-

please contact me for details.

Please spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

brownstargirl@gmail.com

]]><![CDATA[Call for Submissions: Shark Dating: A Inspirational and Instrutive Manual, aka the Good (femme of colour/ Indigenous femme) zine]]>Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:58:40 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/07/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.html

(proof that my Facebook comments give birth to some of my best ideas)

As queer and trans femmes of color and Indigenous femmes, it's often easy to think, remember and speak on the vast degrees of bullshit we can face when we try and create the love, sex and desire that is our birthright. We face vast amounts of violence, abuse, disrespect, terrible game, femmephobia, sexism, inability of our dates to be honest or emotionally responsible, heart hurtingness and whitecapitalistcolonialist ableistdickapalooza when we try and have awesome, life-affirming, hottt as fuck dates. It's easy to get depressed by stupid moves, abuse, trans misogyny, colonialism, ableism, shadism, fatphobia, classism, racism, the idea of sexual scarcity, femme competition, the effects all of the above has on our communities leading to everyone we love being traumatized, etc.

HOWEVER, we also know that we are badass geniuses at creating the love and sex we desire. We are so smart at finding our lovers, making love so many different ways. It is important that we share this proof of what is possible, as a reminder to ourselves and each other of what is possible and what we have created, a show and tell of how much queer femmes of colo(u)r and Indigenous femmes are a gift from God to ourselves and our communities and revolutionary magic makers and world changers, and as a recording of our lives in the face of WSCCAP* erasure.

To the end of documenting and recording femme of colo(u)r and Indigenous femme existence and resistance, please share a story of a badass date you have been on. This can be written, drawn, collaged, photographed or in a song. It can be a poem, a journal entry, an experiment. "Date" is also wide open- it doesn't have to be dinner and a movie with a corsage. It could be any moment of sexual, loving and/or romantic badassness that saved your ass, changed your life, rocked your world. It could be with yourself. It could be with any gender of person. The only limit is that you identify as a queer femme of colo(u)r or Indigenous femme.

"Femme" here is defined as a spectrum of gender that looks and feels different on many different kinds of bodies, but, in general, is about the radical, ass-kicking, life-saving power, dignity and beautiful resistance of feminine of center/femme/femme of center ness. Femme is not just about being a girl, and certainly not just about being a ciswoman or cisgirl. It is a queer gender, and that can also look, feel, smell, taste and be many different flavors.

*WSCCAP: The white supremacist capitalist colonialist ableist patriarchy.

Deadline: October 1, 2011. Email brownstargirl@gmail.com. 1000 word limit, please also include contact info and a 100 word bio.

This call for subs is a total rough draft! We will figure out stuff as we go along.

Not femme identified? Help spread the word to your loved ones who are!

]]><![CDATA[summer vacation. sort of. and amazing good fortune.]]>Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:00:08 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/07/summer-vacation-sort-of-and-amazing-good-fortune.htmlHey darlins,

I'm in my hometown, one of them anyway- Toronto. It's one of my favorites. It's July. I'm staying in a famous QTPOC house on Delaware Avenue, a street where every cement sidewalk square has a queer people of color story whispering out of it. There are so many long summer days to see friends, kiss on the stoop, get a tibbs at Bar Nazareth, take the ferry to the gay nude beach, write poems, smell the tiger lilies and wild roses. I'm on my first vacation in years.

Here are some things:

An audio piece I created, Girls Who Pray, was part of the fabulous Elisha Lim's part of Syrus Marcus Ware's Proud City: Propositions for Future LGBTTIQQ2S Activism in Toronto exhibit.  It's still up- if you're in Toronto, go look. I loved all the art, but Natalie Wood's video piece, "Will",  that recasts Pat Parker's poem to her daughter into a complex video tribute to ancient and present and future queer Black women's resistance and love made me cry. Elisha collected audio stories from a whole bunch of queers of color, praying and talking about the spiritualities we were born into and those we've found. You can listen to the MP3 of my piece, below.

Really, really good news:  Allison McCarthy gave Revolution Starts at Home an amazing review in Ms. Magazine. Check it here:http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/07/03/the-revolution-starts-at-home/.  My favorite part? The quote, "Like (This Bridge Called My Back), the editors of The Revolution Starts at Home have provided a landmark resource." No shit. I basically threw up with happiness when I read that.

And we've successfully booked the next two stops in the ongoing Revolution Starts At Home tour-Vancouver and Seattle, July 21 and 23rd. Details are below. After that, I'm going to Fancyland for a short artist residency. A wood fired hot tub, stars and a sleeping platform await.

There's a lot more, including my attempt to recap just how amazing the Allied Media Conference ended up. In the meantime, enjoy this. And walk by some railroad tracks in humid heat, if you can.

Love,
Leah Lakshmi


Vancouver and Seattle launches of Revolution Starts At Home!

Vancouver:

Thursday, July 21, 2011

7-10 PM

FREE

Rhizome Cafe

317 East Broadway

Vancouver, BC
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=186050731448032

Come join us for the long-awaited launch of this beloved book! Co-editors Ching-In Chen and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha will be in attendance to read, talk story, answer questions and sign books.

With opening performance by Cynthia Dewi Oka


ACCESS INFO:

We’d like to acknowledge that this event is taking place on stolen, unceeded Coast Salish territory, and that it is at Indigenous people’s expense that we occupy this land. Community accountability is work that Indigenous communities have been doing outside of and in resistance to systems of state power since before the arrival of colonial settlers and continue to do. We thank the Coast Salish Nation for letting us be on their land.

While the main space is wheelchair accessible throughout, the washrooms are on the same level and only semi-accessible. There are two gender neutral washrooms, and the larger of the two may accommodate some but not all folks who use electric or manual wheelchairs; the door swings inward, there is minimal clearance once inside, and there
is little space between the toilet and the sink to transfer.

We will have scent-free seating and maintain clear laneways for folks who use wheelchairs and other access devices to get into the event.

Please do not take flash photography so that folks with epilepsy don’t have seizures; please do not wear perfumes, colognes or essential oils so that chemically injured community members can attend. We will have scent free soaps in the washrooms.

The event is FREE!!! We’ll have some bus tickets available.

Rhizome has a delicious menu including the”Lentils are Everything” Stew with french green lentils, potatoes, spinach
and sundried tomatoes in a mint and lemon-scented stew. Pay as you feel for this dish (including nada).

Here’s a detailed access audit of the space:
http://buildingradicalacce​ssiblecommunities.blogspot​.com/2011/07/rhizome-cafe-​access-audit.html?zx=47fc3​94773486b8f

Seattle launch, The Revolution Starts At Home: Confronting Intimate Violence in Activist Communities
Saturday, July 23, 2011
7-10 PM
FREE
Location: The Vera Project (on the corner of Warren and Republican in the NW corner Seattle Center, just north of Key Arena, please note we don’t have a numbered street address because we are on Seattle Center) .
 
Co-Sponsored by the Capacity Project and For Crying Out Loud.
Books sold by Left Bank Books (http://www.leftbankbooks.c​om/)
FB event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108244072604465
 


ACCESS INFO:

The main space is wheelchair accessible throughout. There are two gender neutral and wheelchair accessible bathrooms. There is a lift, parking (Mercer Lot, or Street Parking) and the space is close to transit (Bus Lines 1, 2, 8, 13, 15, 18, 20, 45 & monorail).

We will have scent-free seating and maintain clear laneways for folks who use wheelchairs and other access devices to get into the event.

Please do not take flash photography so that folks with epilepsy don’t have seizures; please do not wear perfumes, colognes or essential oils so that chemically injured community members can attend. We will have scent free soaps in the washrooms.

The event is FREE!!!

More info about childcare and other access coming soon.

girlswhopray.mp3
File Size: 2725 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File
]]><![CDATA[ Communities of Care, Organizations for Liberation]]>Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:48:45 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/06/-communities-of-care-organizations-for-liberation.htmlMy sis Yashna wrote this, and it's really, really brilliant and important- read it!

http://nayamaya.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/communities-of-care-organizations-for-liberation/


Communities of Care, Organizations for Liberation
by Yashna Maya Padamsee

Stop talking about Self-Care

In the last 3 years as I talk about the Healing Justice (HJ) work I am involved in I am met with dueling responses of either deep yearning and curiosity about sustainability or a look that says “how sweet” and “call me when you’re ready to do some real work.”

Each response often leads to the introduction conversations that get stuck on the idea that HJ is only about the practice of “self-care.” Self-care is important and essential but lets not get stuck here.

I love the idea of exploring ways to care for ourselves and our sustainability such as- honoring what unions won for us by working an 8 hour day (instead of working 10-14 hour days all the time), or other common self-care options like taking a bubble bath, or eating comfort food.

If we let ourselves be caught up in the discussion of self-care we are missing the whole point of Healing Justice (HJ) work. Talking only about self-care when talking about HJ is like only talking about recycling and composting when speaking on Environmental Justice. It is a necessary and important individual daily practice- but to truly seek justice for the Environment, or to truly seek Healing for our communities, we need to interrupt and transform systems on a broader level.

We need to move the self-care conversation into community care. We need to move the conversation from individual to collective. From independent to interdependent.

Too often self-care in our organizational cultures gets translated to our individual responsibility to leave work early, go home- alone- and go take a bath, go to the gym, eat some food and go to sleep. So we do all of that “self-care” to return to organizational cultures where we reproduce the systems we are trying to break; where we are continually reminded of our own trauma or exposed and absorb secondary PTSD, and where we then feel guilty or punished for leaving work early the night before to take a bubble bath.

Self-care, as it is framed now, leaves us in danger of being isolated in our struggle and our healing. Isolation of yet another person, another injustice, is a notch in the belt of Oppression. A liberatory care practice is one in which we move beyond self-care into caring for each other.

You shouldn’t have to do this alone.

Why are we seeking Care?

There is a growing rumble of yearning for healing in our movement work. Oppression and trauma do influence our well-being. On-going generational trauma and violence affect our communities, our bodies, our hearts, minds and spirits. Racism, sexism, classism, eats at our very beings. This leads us to seek care. We know this. Our bodies know this. Our friends can read it in our faces even if we have learned to ignore it.

We put our bodies on the line everyday- because we care so deeply about our work- hunger strikes, long marches, long days at the computer or long days organizing on a street corner or a public bus or a congregation. Skip a meal, keep working. Don’t sleep, keep working. Our communities are still suffering, so I must keep going. We risk and test our bodies to go further and we stretch our hearts or close our hearts to keep going- whatever it takes- and ultimately what it takes is a toll on us. This leads us to seek care.

We want to deny it- but abelism still shapes our movement work- “go hard or go home”. In the the Needs Assessment by Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, they state, “Changemakers are dying as a result of spiritual and physical deprivation from trauma, stress and unrest in our movements.”

We are burning out faster and at higher rates- unable to do the work we love. How can we win when our bodies individually and collectively can’t keep up? We are risking not just burn-out, but organizer loss and movement fragmentation. We cannot afford this.

How do we move from Self-care to Community-Care?



In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. King says “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In that same spirit- can we be cognizant of the interrelatedness of our own bodies, of our own well-beings? I cannot sit and read a manifesto for liberation of mind without going deep and healing for liberation of body and spirit. I cannot sit and care for my body without being concerned with what happens to the bodies of my sisters. We are connected.

Can we understand how creating another world will require, or rather, demand our well-being? From small-town collectives and national organizations to strategy and pop-ed sessions to shared meals and parties- it is our responsibility not as individuals, but as communities to create structures in which self-care changes to community care. In which we are cared-for and able to care for others.

Disability Justice is mightily leading the way in showing us that we don’t have to keep doing our work in the same way nor do we need to do it alone. For example, Sins Invalid (“a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities”) rescheduled an entire production due to a members health concerns and performed when it was safe for every-one’s bodies. Or another shining example is Creating Collective Access- creating a “new model of being in our movements …by resisting against the individualization of access” by organizing for collective care at social movement gatherings.

If your liberation is wrapped up with mine- for me that means that it matters how you feel and what you are feeling. Your well-being is our liberation, and I would hope that you would say the same.

We can take the lead from the field notes of many Healing Justice & Disability Justice organizers, collectives, events and organizations, work from visionary poets and examples from national organizing campaigns that center the principle of Care. There are resources out there and treasures that are many generations old. Find them, talk about them, practice them together, honor them.

Organizations for Liberation

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Dr. King (Letter from a Birmingham Jail)

As our conversation develops from the limited idea of self-care to the expansive reality of community care we are able to honor the depth of Healing Justice work and the depths of ourselves. We need to switch our thinking- individually and organizationally- to including well-being in our work for justice. Because when we are able to do that- that means we are cognizant of Dr. King’s “network of mutuality.” Because when we do that we will truly be working towards a liberatory and visionary new world.

So go on and call me when you are ready to do some real work.

…and because I did not do this alone- gratitude for the brilliant concept conversations & feedback-
B. Loewe
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Cynthia Oka

]]><![CDATA[Things to do if you are a hustling class artist or other person with no trust fund or much of an economic safety net]]>Mon, 23 May 2011 18:57:36 -0800http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2011/05/things-to-do-if-you-are-a-hustling-class-artist-or-other-person-with-no-trust-fund-or-much-of-an-economic-safety-net.htmlnotes- this is a work in progress, but after I wrote it on the MegaBus from Philly to Toronto on day 6 of the Revolution Starts At Home kickoff tour and it got 76 comments on Facebook, I thought I might be on to something. I'm posting it here- if you like it and care to kick down a couple bucks for the pleasure and utility of reading it, feel free to paypal me at brownstargirl at gmail. this may well go into a little zine or booklet- watch this space.

more notes: this piece is written from the perspective of a chronically ill girl who grew up working/lower middle class, has been to college and MFA school on a lot of financial aid, and has in her adult life been poor, working class and somewhat more stable, whose income is precarious due to illness, familial estrangement and other things- like, you know, the economy. i recognize that I'm writing from this position, and if you grew up poor and/or have always been poor, some things in this list may work, some skills and strategies and resources and realities are likely to be very different. I feel like most of this will apply to folks who have some mix of economic brokeness and access, who are trying to make it work. I'm open to hearing folks' feedback and ideas. 

if you share this, please credit me and this website and include this headnote.

Thank you!
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, brownstargirl.org

1. Floss. Floss costs $1.99. A root canal costs $2-3,000. If you floss- every day, at least once a day but preferably twice, or as often as you eat- you will cut your chances of biting down one day and having your face lit up with the most nuclear hot nerve pain you have ever experienced- followed by the terror

you face when you realize you don't have $3,000 but you actually could die if your jaw gets infected if you don't take care of the root canal, and anyways you are in so much level 10 pain you can't think or type or do anything. Chewing cloves is not enough, pulling the tooth means your other teeth may start falling in, and you can end up with big, scary, systemic bone infections if you just try and wait it out. Buy a whole bunch of floss. Keep it in your purse, by your bed, in your car, at the dining table, in the bathroom. Floss all the time. Don't fall asleep without flossing. It is very stressful to have a temporary filling in your root canal hole for three years when it was supposed to be in for a month.

2. Find a dental clinic, dental school,  Delta Dental or another affordable dental solution- or tuck away $100, (that's $20 a month for 5 months, or $10 for 10, or $7- something for 12) and get your teeth cleaned at least once a year. Feel free to decline the X Rays (at least mostly) which will bump up the out of pocket costs to $200 at least, but make sure you get 'em scraped. Getting your teeth scraped once a year cuts down on major dental terror that is a clusterfuck and just gets worse if you can't deal with it immediately.

2a. If you have a dental emergency, see if your dentist offers financing or this thing called a Care Credit - it's a weird, GE Money health care credit card, but it's 0% interest for the first year, and it's how I was able to finance part one of my multi-year root canal sitch. They also seem to hand them out to folks with less than awesome credit.

3. Have a minimal, chill and big budgets. Know the minimal amount you can live on-don't try to be there all the time, but know the absolute bare minimum of cash you can survive on and what makes that cheap life feel good (tea? stealing? library books, hot tub/pool at the Y on a low income membership, walks, free adventure dates with friends, happy hour once a week?) Also know the middle ground- where you can buy a coffee or beer without thinking about it, or buy a book on a whim. Also know how to budget your bigger checks if and when they come in. Know how to do that, because if you don't, and you are used to scarcity, it is likely you are going to blow all your money on cabs and Sephora purchases you have not thought out, but just want to make because you don't want to have to think about everything for once, and picking up the check to make up for all the times friends got it- or on taking care of every neglected need for shoes and clothing and things at once without making a plan- and feel horrible after when the cash is gone.

Think about the things that cost money that are important to you, if you have them, and the things you can switch up. My friend cuts my hair for free now instead of me going to the fancy curly girl salon (which used to be a luxury I saved for), but I still will pay $20 to get glitter liquid eyeliner from Sephora once or twice a year. If you spend cash on things sometimes, don't try and swear that you'll never spend a dollar on anything  but the bare minimum again, because it's unlikely you'll stick to it.

If you are actually rolling in it for a minute, save at least 15% and buy shit whose value lasts, like cars and housing and adaptive equipment and computer equipment and new eyeglasses and health care.

4. Plan ahead. Make an Excel spreadsheet for your money for six months, or the whole year. Or write it in a notebook. Do you usually get a tax return? Great, put that down for April. Does your two books give you Public Lending Right cash once a year in February? Ditto. Work the film festival in May? Go to Vegas to teach the pelvic exam in January? Awesome, write it down. How much are you getting? Are there expenses you have to pay up front (ie, flying to Vegas?) Likewise, if you have regular big things to budget for (Allied Media Conference travel money in June, whatever) put that in.

5. If you have debts and feel overwhelmed by them a) remember that, as Ariel Gore said, "Many people live perfectly good lives with terrible credit."

However, if bills and nasty phone calls and IMPORTANT MESSAGE READ IMMEDIATELY letters  and robots calling you at 8 AM to tell you you didn't pay Visa this month are stressing you out, you also might want to think about :

1) Making an Excel spreadsheet, listing all your debts, how much the interest rate is (try to pay off the higher rated one first), and the amount you owe on each. Prioritize them if there are a lot and you feel overwhelmed. For example, when I did this, I prioritized paying off shit that was immediately fucking with my life first (the $323 I owed the DMV that was making it impossible for me to register my car, leading to parking tickets of doom and constant scanning for cops and getting pulled over on the highway, the overdue credit card), then once I knocked those out, I paid off a couple small, $100- $200 loans friends who also didn't have a lot had given me when I needed them. I worked my way down to the people who said they could wait. If you do step 6, (below) you can plan more, and have more of a chance of paying the loans off instead of feeling like you don't know where your money went, and at the end of the month you still haven't paid anyone off- this often happens when you have lots of little checks and never feel like you have enough to pay anyone anything.

Just having a plan, even if you have to adjust it multiple times, will likely make you feel less freaked out and more On It.

2) If you're seriously in the hole- like thousands  in debt to credit cards and banks, people who you have less bargaining power with- first, thank and honor your "freeze" or "deny" responses as great survival mechanisms hardwired into your lizard brain that have done a badass job at keeping you alive. Once you've done that, consider:

a) reaching out to a nonprofit credit counseling agency that helps people consolidate their debt and get on a payment plan- they will freeze your interest and roll everything into one payment that you usually do over 5 years. your credit won't be great, but it will stop getting worse. Note: these are not places that have sleazy infomercials or promise miracles, or charge you money; they are nonprofits. A good one in Toronto is Credit Canada, they really helped me.

b) bankruptcy or a "civil proposition", which will ruin your credit for 7 years, but which will write off your debts and make them leave you alone.

c) if you have any desire and the legal and financial ability to move to another country, know that your credit rating does not hop borders. I know folks who  owe TD Canada Trust $20,000 that they are never going to get, and their credit rating in the US is awesome

The NoLo How to Survive Financial Disaster book (it's actually called Solving Your Money Problems) is a great resource if you are dealing with stuff like this- it's probably in your library. (NoLo is a badass collective of radical lawyers who write DIY law books. Their website is nolo.com and their personal finance, will and bankruptcy sections are great)

6. Track your income and expenses. Especially if you live off of freelance/ independent contractor/ university gig money and are often waiting for checks and following up and following up with checks, you need to plan in advance, have a reserve (even if it's a small one- I can't do that "3 months living expenses in the bank" thing Suze Orman talks about- are you kidding?- but my goal is to have $1,000 in the bank when I can, and $500 when that is impossible, and to have a small amount transferred to savings automatically every month. This is not always possible, but by making it a goal, I am shooting to get myself away from having $47 in the bank to the degree that I can control it). Really think about what you value, and make room for the unexpected factor- when your tire blows or all of a sudden you need to get a skin biopsy or whatnot.

7. Cultivate a community where asking for help and being interdependent is not seen as "weak" "being an energy vulture" or otherwise shameful. Develop a care web. Give your friends money when they need it for food or rent - $5 or whatever you have. Develop a community ethic where it is okay to ask for help, and where your folks come through with groceries, small loans and other needed things when needed. I share a car with a friend who bikes to work and doesn't need her car all the time (which means I pay $80 plus about $70 in gas a month to have a fully insured car where we put stuff away for maintenance and annual fees) live in a house where there is almost always a car or a bike to borrow, and share tools, money, veggies and bulk food. I give money to friends who live with chronic illness and poverty, and in turn have been able to get loans when emergencies occur (like my car being booted, or when the giant check I was counting on was late and I had to go on a big work trip and I had $40 to my name). Doing this means doing a lot of work on your own internalized stuff around 'independence' class and ableism.

8. De-monoculture your hustles. Have multiple income streams. Think about all the shit you can do for money, what the physical, emotional, energy and spiritual costs are to you,  what you like about them, what trade offs you're ok with when. For example, maybe there's a year where working for a low hourly rate at the bookstore is worth it to you, to have a steady, small check every two weeks and health insurance. Maybe then you'll be tired from the grind and be willing to take a risk hustling different freelance sums of money. Or you'll take out some student loans (if you have a lot of high interest credit card debt, think about paying them off with this), go back to school and just live off of that for a while.

Have emergency backup plans. I can always read tarot, ask the internet for help or hustle some extra shifts at the store. Maybe you can nanny, do landscaping, have one trick who's easy and a regular, or strip weed or sell things at the flea market.

9. Value yourself. Take yourself seriously. Value your time, your health, your energy, your boundaries, your emotional well being. Say no. Turn your phone off. Forgive yourself when you don't do this. Try again. Feel free not to drop everything to take care of other people's shit right away. Don't let yourself be guilt tripped by people who are pissy you won't go to lunch with them in the middle of your writing day. Your writing day is not an endless slacker vacation; it's work time. Just because you're not leading your mom's life doesn't mean you aren't working hard. Prioritize your art and play time. Take care of yourself. Don't hang out with people who treat your work as anything other than work, or who make fun of your "little hobby." If you need to be alone to work, it's ok to say that. You have 168 hours in a week. Make the most of them.

10. Don't work all the time. Your work is joy, right? You're so much luckier than your mom, right? It's really easy to be always kinda working- promoting your tour on Facebook, or just checking emails for a quick second (that turns into two hours) or whatever. You got nothing to complain about, right? If you drive around on big adventures or get flown somewhere to perform, it's awesome and something not everyone gets to do. However, you need some non work time. Time to just go to the beach and turn the computer off and read your science fiction book in bed or have sexy times or whatever. Remember that.

11. Save your cash. Even $20 a month into a savings account. Your slightly older queer of color artist friends will tell you to do this. They are right.   

12. Make plans. What's your dream? You want a MacArthur Genius Grant? Great, how come, and what do you need to do to make that happen?

13. Dreams take work, and also dreamtime.

14. It's nice to make a simple will and medical power of attorney, and you can do this at home for free with a NoLo kit.

15. Finally, everyone's solution to the issue of how to survive capitalism is going to look different. Right now, I live collectively because it's cheap and I get to live in a beautiful house with shared resources and support when I'm sick- but there were many years when I needed to live alone because of mental and spiritual health stuff, where a lot of my money went to rent, and that was a choice I was making. I value eating at home, community acupuncture, having access to a crip car, and having some flexibility, as well as the ability to buy a dress at Ross once in a while and cheap plane or bus tickets. Your needs and preferences may well look very different.

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