Burning my bridges... and feeling reborn for doing it.

"When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.”
-Dylan Thomas quotes (Welsh Poet, short-story Writer and Playwright, 1914-1953)

“A man with a talent does what is expected of him, makes his way, constructs, is an engineer, a composer, a builder of bridges. It's the natural order of things that he construct objects outside himself and his family. The woman who does so is aberrant. We have to expiate for this cursed talent someone handed out to us, by mistake, in the black mystery of genetics.”
-May Sarton quotes

"When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up. When we dig roots,
we make little holes. When we build houses, we make little holes.
When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don't ruin things.
We shake down acorns and pine nuts. We don't chop down the trees.
We only use dead wood. But the white people plow up the
ground, pull down the trees, kill everything. ...
the White people pay no attention. ...
How can the spirit of the earth like the White man? ...
everywhere the White man has touched it, it is sore."
Wintu Woman, 19th Century

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So I read Black Amazon's 1st response to the article mentioned in my below tow posts. It was by far the most powerful blog post that I have ever read. Raw Emotion. Definitely stripped of all the grammatical correctness bullshit that I have really come to detest, I must admit. I don't desire to ever speak like a colonized House Negro and the fact that I know there are white people who would read my blog more because they would discriminate against my way of speaking.... makes me want to not speak properly all the more.

That fact that there are feminist groups blogs who would not invite me to blog because on my typos is so stupid I can't even think of it.

After reading her post..... I carried on with my life for a couple hours...kind of like someone does when they step out of car accident and they walk around dazed and just go through the motions.

Then I realize why it hit me so hard... because I know that pain. I have felt that pain. I have been attacked like Black Amazon, betrayed...and much like her, I stand and survive. Here she states:

"But outside of the emotional violence , the unaccountability, the self indulgent navel gazing the assinine behavior that is not even directed at full misogynists( they will at very least name teh misogynists when responding. Many neigh most of these blogs while calling me essentiallya hating demon for two years DO NOT LINK ME)"

Then I turned off the computer and as I was about to go to bed, it hit me: I truly need to burn my bridges to a whole lot of people who really just don't give a flying Fuck about me as a human being...and certainly not as a Black, male Feminist. It is almost as if I feel warm in the dead of winter in front of the comfy fire that is that bridge burning.

I then went back and read Black Amazon's second and third response. Yup, even more revealing. Revealing about myself.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one making three blog responses in a row towards this issue.

Bullshit. My overall feeling about the article is that it was great.

Just now I got the clear image in my mind that if I were on a plane, there would be progressive feminist activists that would parachute out of the plane to get away from me so great is their desire not to be told about their racist, biased behavior by a Black, Male feminist. It was a very clear visual image in my mind.

I feel like I was able to share it with you now that I'm burning my bridges. The smell of smoke is inviting like a campfire with friends at night watching the campfire send up dancing sparks at night.

I'm not going around visiting blogs like I once did. That is bullshit. The more blogs I visit, the more I realize how very, very badly people will discriminate against a Black, Male Feminist in the feminist and progressive blogosphere. Lots of clubs and carnivals you can't join in the feminist blogosphere if you're a male, lots of inner circles you can't get in to if you're an outspoken Black person, and most of all, lots of people who ignore you if you happen to be both, a Black, Male, feminist... in addition to someone who speaks out against capitalism.

It is fascinating that BlackAmazon has endured people for two years who 'do not link' to her blog.

I'm actually feeling so good I might take me a beauty rest. MMMmmmmMMmmmmm.

One of those sleeps that you take when you're feeling perfectly centered.

I love you all,

Expect good things from me... if your definition of good is more realness than ever before.


I might turn this blog into a library and focus more on the podcast and online radio show at www.blackmanfluff.org

Love for the people,
-T