Kampire

When women took over Rat press in 1970 Robin Morgan sat down to write an editorial that would resonate way beyond that time. In it she took on and dispatched quickly with "female chauvinist pigs" and hypocrtical men who called themselves revolutionaries.

"Goodbye to all that shit that sets women apart from women; shit that covers the face of any Weatherwoman which is the face of any Manson Slave which is the face of Sharon Tate which is the face of Mary Jo Kopechne which is the face of Beulah Saunders, which is the face of me which is the face of Pat Nixon which is the face of Pat Swinton."

“Actually, Buju Banton* used to be a rapist, I believe”

The hippy said to us, pouring the mixture through the strainer.

Good reggae vibrations floated toward me as I pondered,

“What does it mean to have once been a rapist?

Is it something you can shed like a torn coat, or a snake skin, a piece of baggage you can just set down?

An old Nazi uniform you can just take off, “he used to gas Jews but he’s cool now.”

Bathed in the blood of Jesus or the word of Jah,

Saved

Redeemed

Born Anew

Hallelujah!

How convenient for you, to move through these rigid identities.

I too used to be.

I used to be a victim but I finally managed to shrug off that heavy bloodstained dress, though no white man washed me clean.

Now I wear a survivor badge, heavy like iron over my heart.

I used to be

I used to be free

You took that away from me.

Marine runs away to Mexico

Maria condemned, unbelieved, gets a shallow grave.

She was 20, like me.

I open my mouth to ask the guys

What does it mean to “used to be a Rapist”?

And why don’t the raped get that luxury?

of used to be

But they are already talking about something else

Mother, wife, teacher, friend, mom is gone.

It has been several months and still I have no words to describe the gaping black hole in my life that has been created by her absence.

No words but there are questions. So many questions. Who will answer the questions I never got to ask her;
When you were my age, did you feel this lost?
This silenced?
At gatherings did the men talk over your head while a thousand unspoken comebacks raced through it?

The questions I have yet to even think of. Who is going to teach me how to mother my own babies?

What do I do mama now that my foundation has been ripped from beneath me? Where do I find the confidence to build a life?

At a time when every female singer is an actress and every actress is a vapid, vagina flashing, coke snorting, attention whore, people like me can only shake their heads. I really don’t want to talk about the recent spate of celebutante arrests. In fact, every time I see Hilton, Lohan or Richie on a media outlet I put my hands over my ears and shout out things that I care more about than how much these brats weigh and how drunk they were when their luxury SUVs got pulled over:

WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY!
A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE!
GLOBAL WARMING!
AM I GOING TO RUN OUT OF TOILET PAPER BEFORE MY NEXT TRIP TO THE STORE?!!

It’s funny but considering how much time I’ve spent in rural and farming areas in Africa, this was the first time I had spent any time traversing rural Ohio. Of course it is easier to happen upon real rural locations in Africa, but for all I have heard and said about Ohio being a farming state I had managed to remain removed from it. Rural Ohio spoke to me only of cornfields and ignorant, racist hicks and I had had little reason to go and find out if I was wrong.

As we drove by the thousand and eleventh isolated farmhouse we noticed an older man sitting on a piece of building material. He was catching for a girl, a daughter or sister, a typical clean-cut Ohioan, clad only in a sports bra and athletic shorts.

Immigrant Detention is the Fastest-Growing Form of incarceration in the United States. As it stands now, over 27,000 immigrants are detained on any given day in close to 200 prison-like facilities across the country. Immigrant detention is called “detention” because detainees are not being held for criminal charges. Immigrants are the only group of people in the United States that are routinely held in jail for civil offenses. On the other hand, while immigrant detainees are held for lesser offenses, they can be held indefinitely, and lack the legal protections as people being charged with crimes enjoy, such as the right to free legal counsel.

I love Summer. I love the heat and sweat of it, I love being able to wear less clothes. What I don’t love is the fact that people think that they can comment about my body as though it’s theirs. Just because I am black and curvy and stand out in your typical small-town Ohio crowd does not give anyone permission to comment about my body or choice of clothing.

A few days ago I went to the nearby quarry with a friend to get some sun and swim. I sat on a picnic table in a blue bikini near a popular diving point. I looked around at the people spread across the 2 mile beach; families playing in the shallows, high school graduates tanning, not a single other black person. Awesome. For me that is a big cue that I am going to be treated differently from everyone else.

Tired of being broke
Fauchée comme le blé
As they say in France
Or as my $100 textbook told me they say in France

I’m tired of eating pasta
And having nothing to do because nothing is the only thing that’s free
I’m tired of having the cashier girl roll her eyes at me when I buy groceries with $30 worth of change.
Tired of being told that I am lacking, lacking, lacking, by Beyoncé and Jay-Z

I am tired of being dependent and being rejected for my neediness.
I hate my neediness
I hate struggling and scraping and being told that I am not doing enough
Tired of being told I need things I never wanted

I grew up in postcolonial Africa, an Africa that has everything and nothing to do with the stereotypes. That means that I grew up in tropical heat, and could drink fresh mango juice or Coca-Cola to cool down. It means that I learnt about African kings and queens in history but only in primary (elementary) school, Secondary (High) school history was spent sleeping through lectures on the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, the First World War. It means that I learned to read from “Peter and Jane” as well as “Mulenga and Jelita” books. It means that the Santa Claus (we called him Father Christmas) who came to our school every year to collect gifts for less fortunate kids was black, but the Jesus on the church wall was always white.

The conversation went something like this:

Some convoluted discussion about, human nature and socialism…

Kampire: Yeah, but the thing with “the system” is…

T: Wait, what do you mean by “the system”? What are we talking about here, are we talking about the government?

Kampire:… you don’t know what I mean, by “the system”? I don’t mean to be rude but I hang out with a lot of dirty Commies [laughter] so it’s been a while since I’ve had to explain this. “The system” is the capitalist patriarchal system that suppresses and co-opts minorities through a belief system that stretches back as far as history does and is wide enough to encompass our attitudes about immigration, sexuality, religion, education, etc, etc. The system means that you and I live in a completely different world because you are white and male.

I really feel like an adult lately. Which is weird, I have never thought of myself as an adult and it has little to do with the fact that I just turned 20. I feel as though life is really, unequivocally happening to me, right now without my consent and that is what being an adult is all about, no? You were right when you were four years old and decided you didn’t want to grow up, because Adult Life is all about the details. The mind-numbing details of dealing with the day-to-day until your mind finally derails, maybe in a nursing home somewhere, or if you’re like me, at 3 10 pm on the bus ride home from class, unable to stop crying unable to explain why you are crying. Those dreadful details of communication and bills and being thousands of miles from your family and winter days that you didn’t sign up for.

“I don’t run a woman government. I run a government of people. Of course, I am the first democratically elected woman president in Africa, and that raises a lot of expectations. Because I represent the aspirations of women all over Africa, I must succeed for them. I must keep the door open for women’s participation in politics at the highest level. That is both humbling and exciting.”

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf beat ex-international football star George Weah in a 2005 election for the Liberian presidency. That was the easy part. Now the world waits to see if ‘Ma’ Sirleaf can bring economic success to a country torn by a history of class divisions and civil war.

The reason why I haven't been able to be as active as I would like around here is that I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff lately.

The past six months have pretty much been a downward spiral financially and emotionally and I need to get my life back.

Reading you ladies' entries and comments on the forums is always a source of inspiration. Every moment that I am here I feel lucky to be part of this community.

I will try to be around as often as I can but I suspect it's going to take a whole lot out of me to get back where I want to be.

Thank you for reading,
Kampire

It’s a familiar story. Every couple weeks I find myself sitting in the living room of my apartment, with my three favorite girls in town, complaining about the men in our life as though we’re in an episode of Sex and The City. Sometimes we even turn on the dvd player and watch Sex and The City.

My friend E is getting married in May, to a guy she’s been dating for less than a year. I have no doubt that they love each other, but they are both depressive, he has been having other health problems and is in the middle of writing his dissertation. They are both trying to plan a wedding, but more importantly, fulfill their commitment to spend the rest of their lives together.

A couple of years ago, if you had asked me how I feel about abortion I would have called myself a fence sitter. Today, on the day before the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I find myself sitting to write down three articles in defense of it. I am pro-choice, let me tell you why.

I am pro-choice because I am a feminist, and I truly believe that women cannot achieve the same status as men in our society until we have full control over our own bodies. In the many countries across the world where this has been acknowledged, abortion is legal. Here in the United States a woman’s right to choose is under constant attack, and all over the world women are forced to undergo illegal abortions because their nation has refused to recognize or protect their rights.