My Life as A Radical Whore/Madonna

Well, first off - BELL HOOKS IS AWESOME! OH MY GOD! SO AWESOME!

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see her speak at Northwestern University last Wednesday (thanks, Alicia!), and it was outstanding. I totally needed it, too - an experience to remind me why and how intellectual engagement can be so inspiring without being bourgois at all, a chance to hear someone reaffirm the practical, everyday reasons why feminism is so important, a chance to hear someone articulate so many of the reasons that watching black people on television pisses me off (such as abysmally low standards for media representation so frequently leading to brutal, or at the very least, embarrasing [MAD TV, anyone?] representations of blackness). I’m sure it’s been a bit of a pain in the ass to watch TV with me for the past week, alas. I was moved to tears when she talked about the movie ‘Four Little Girls’ by Spike Lee as a document of post-traumatic stress. I watched ‘Four Little Girls’ when I was still in high school - it is an absolutely heartbreaking movie. It bothers me that most people have never even heard of it. Terrorism against black people is one the biggest elephants in the room in this country. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend seeing ‘Four Little Girls’ at least once.

Anyway - so many other things going on… I had my Pregnancy and Sexuality Workshop. It went quite well. Only one of the people who showed up was my close, personal friend - the rest were honest to goodness attendees. It was a good group and good discussion, and I think what I’m most excited about is that now that I’ve done the workshop once, I can make it even better now. It’ll be even better now, so long as I can find another place to have it. If anyone has any venue ideas, please let me know.

Well - before I was planning to talk about a few other things, but now I can’t remember what. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Until then,

Atena McMemoryloss

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