Another Celebrity Savior...

Lindsay Lohan`s new role: Saving sex-trafficked kids in India

Nu Pop Movement (new watch line) launch party at Kitson, West Hollywood, California. - Russ Einhorn / Splash News

By Graeme Massie Dec 10, 2009, 22:31 GMT

Lindsay Lohan is thrilled to be doing humanitarian work in India and has posted a message on her Twitter blog calling it one of her “lifelong dreams”.

The Mean Girls actress travelled to New Delhi with a British documentary crew to work with women and children affected by sex-trafficking in India.

She tweeted: 'Going to make one of my lifelong dreams on my list of things to do in this lifetime! Wish me luck!

'Over 40 children saved… Within one day's work… Doing this is a life worth living! Oh and I'm talking about being in India.

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Seriously... why must we glorify celebrities for "humanitarian" work. And why do they have to make a public display of it? She tweeted it... seriously....

Reading that activates...

my heart and womynhood

http://traffickingproject.blogspot.com/

Phenomenal Woman

by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Womyn with a Why?

Lately I have been processing the idea of "woman" and a man's place in her being.

woman


Why should a man's presence in her existence presumably throw her off balance


wo/man


Consume so much of her time, her energy and love that she appears diminished


wo<man


She looks as if she would not be complete without him...

wo


She is left without...


w/o


My thoughts are with the woman who needs a man to feel complete


and my heart is with the woman who has the agency to question WHY?


womyn

autumn trees

today the trees gave me sweet gentle love
with kisses on my face of falling leaves
and strokes of my hair carried by subtle wisps of wind
warm colors rain on me
and tickle the brown of my skin
as I strolled down on concrete sidewalks
my feet are flooded with the remnants of love making that
the city has felt from these givers of life

On the subject "People of Color"

This post was in response to a debate on the exclusivity of the term "People of Color" to people who, as quoted by the student I responded to here, feel like a "Person of None" he stated:

"If I am not a "Person of Color" -- and by the accepted definition, I am not -- then what am I?

Am I clear?

Or am I invisible?

When I hold a piece of white paper up to my skin, it is obvious to me that I am not white. Just as black is not black. Red is not red. Yellow is not yellow.

So, again, I ask you, What am I?

I cannot ask what "colour" I am because, as the definition stands, I am a "Non-Person of Colour."

A Non-Person of No-Colour.

I do not exist.

And if I do not exist, I cannot participate in the Revolution."

My response was as follows
--------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------
I am sentimental to your thoughts.

When looking into Freire's teachings and thinking about the thought of us all being bound by the same liberation(s), I question how this is possible when each individual has multiple oppressions in their lives, ones that are made by a single person, or by a group or even oppressions that are made onto themselves by themselves. How can we in this way, be truly bound to the same liberation?

I must confess, there was a period in my own life, where by the circumstances of my reality, and also with learning about the oppressions of the Filipino people in the United States and how my parents and my grandparents were affected and continue to be affected, while doing everything in their power to keep us from being similarly affected, I found myself fueling an anger in my heart for the struggles of "my people," my family, my Kababayan.

And the term "People of Color" was an identifier for myself of these struggles and became the recognition of the similar oppressions shared with those of "ethnic", immigrant backgrounds, who suffered the effects of racism and hatred, creating in myself the "Us/ Them" mentality that can often be carried with this term. So I confess for myself, that the term "People of Color" has historically created a divide, and in reflection continues to create a divide today. I recognize the anger that I may have felt and I confess that in my mind I may have thought in initial reaction that a white person could NEVER understand what it means to be a "Person of Color" in this context.

But now in this moment and after building this community beside you, as we work to learn from each other, I know that we can try to make each other understand. And we can begin to build movements toward creating new terminologies or rethinking past terminologies to find identification with together, as I see you attempting to do by your words.

Even within the scheme of those who identified as "People of Color" in past histories there has been hate and racism, for instance the LA riots can be a very great example of this, Asian and Black communities who identified similarly turned against one another and divided themselves up into smaller groupings. Asian and Black communities creating "Us/ Them" mentalities, and in my home town of Stockton ,CA, I saw that within the Asian communities I saw as Khmer and Pinoy gangs were killing one another on the streets. The divides continue up to two individuals against one another and can result with a single person who is in a struggle with themselves.

For myself, from having dialogue in this class room, and from seeking to work toward creating less hate amongst our communities, our brothers and sisters, our friends, and less hate amongst each other as mere human beings, I seek to understand the structures of these oppressions and what we must do to allow for some who was once a "Them" in our mentality become apart of the "Us". It just is not easy.

The way you speak of the term "People of Color" and how you wish to identify with it, is in my mind completely valid, however I hope you also understand why it has been and may continue to be difficult to compromise this identifier because of the history and the significance that it holds. So, although I know you will never understand the term "People of Color" in the way it has empowered and allowed me to know and be proud of not only myself, but also of my Mother and Father, my Grandparents and the brothers and sisters of my Filipino Heritage here in the US, how this term has helped me to know where I have come from and thus where I am going. I understand the way you see the term "People of Color" and I realize your struggle to remove the "Us/Them" mentality that can be associated to it.

I recognize the color of your skin, yes, but its is not merely a notion of the color of our skin and you are not transparent, but it is not merely the color of our skin that has been associated to this term, it is the color of our struggle.

I thank you for trying to create progression and attempting to find a way of connection through identifying yourself with "People of Color", but please understand why it is a difficult process that I confess for myself is not something that I am personally able to fully let go of and create new meaning for at this time.

In much respect, I just wanted to let you know my feelings toward this.

----------------------------------------------------
Everyday I am rediscovering in myself, the way I see the world and how I will play the role of a teacher in it. I now, more than ever know that, that is what I will give my life to.

The other day someone asked that is there anything in your life that you are willing to die for. My response to that is, "No, but I am willing to GIVE MY LIFE fully, my heart, my soul, my existence to working toward spreading the education, awareness and love for human beings."

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of the world would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest responsibility anyone could have."
- Lee Iacocca

Liberating

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."- Augusto Boal

The quote above is one by Augusto Boal, the writer and creator of the methods of Theatre of the Oppressed. What I have chosen for myself after learning and becoming enthralled in his work is that I want to be a practitioner of what he has blessed not only the educator community or to the theatre community with, but what he has given to the world. His work has become in my mind the link to my two separate lives that I had been living in Irvine. One being the life of an artist, who had a love of performance and of the way theatre breaths life into any person who chooses it to be their means of expression. And the other being a Pinay woman, who had pride and love for her culture and history after spending 3 years working with other organizers to educate and grow as a community.

I feel my self after learning the ways and teachings of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, that my life can never be what it once was.

I have been constantly pulling my self apart and figuring out how to make myself whole again, how to make myself fully human and open to the constant transformations that can bring me to that place of completion. And in result of this, I have never felt more vulnerable in my life.

There are so many things I now question of myself, of the work that I have done in the past and how, if I had this knowledge I might have made a better teacher and leader when working with all of you. I miss our community, I miss the solidarity and camaraderie that we had built as Kababayan and I have found myself stifled by my own oppression on myself, because of my doubt and my inability to fully trust when I feel so open and vulnerable with the rest of my cohort, the community that I enter into here.

The work is amazing, the readings, the materials and resources, everything I am being exposed to in New York and the University have slowly been liberating me, I just have to let it happen.

I felt so blessed when I walked into my first class and saw a room that was so diverse and that was filled with so many faces and people of color. But for the first time in a long time, I have found myself to be the only Filipino in the room. And now I move from being in a place where I felt most comfortable, knowledgeable and influential, to a place where I am reluctant to speak, unsure of my thoughts and checking myself at every moment before I talk, before I move, before an action is taken, when I felt before I could make a choice and follow it in an instance.

I'm telling you all this not because I feel bad about it, or because I feel I cannot be moved from it, but because I feel so blessed from it.

I am in a place in my life where I can progress and make myself a better person, a stronger, more open minded and willing human being. I am ready to become someone who can come back home to the work we did together and feel fully invested in the liberation that binds us together as brothers and sisters.

To UnKa, SB and FML, I know now how we could have been better to one another and how our liberation was always linked and I am thankful for everything that we had failed and accomplished in together and also for the humanity that you have brought into my life.

And to the future of Kaba, take care of one another and the liberation that binds all of you with us. Good luck to you all and may this new year teach you all to be fuller human beings.

I love you.

Performative Utopia

This is a new term that I have come to feel a very large connection to "performative utopia." It was a term that I learned at a workshop I participated in at the Hip Hop Preemptive Ed conference I went to this past weekend. I wanted to share something that I wrote on my class blackboard about it:

This was a free write that I did at one of the workshops at the preemptive ed conference this past weekend, I wanted to share it here because it is a true reflection of how my thoughts have been reshaped and confirmed by the Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The prompt simply was, what is your Utopia:

"To walk into a room and see the colors on the inside of brothers and sisters,
bursting through their skin that is imprisoning,
confining,
dividing
If we could read the struggles of each person we passed on their backs
because it is behind them,
on their legs,
because it has helped them to stand stronger, when the world,
blusters and quakes and floods our homes,
and our hearts
if hopes could be seen on their fingertips,
because it has pushed them to reach higher,
and we could see their joys in the depths of their eyes,
seeing those joys in yesterday, today and tomorrow,
if we could feel the rushes of power the compassion in their hearts,
with each beat that booms through their chest,
translucent are the wears and the tears of their being,
only love,
can be seen and what of hearing
an endless listening exercise, exchanging our lives and
hearing the stories that have painted, and molded and sculpted the masterpiece that is our existence,
my utopia is a world,
where the image of youth holding hands in a ring is around
the universe"


and that was how far I got in the few minutes we had to write.

but what it reminds me of, is that when I was reading The Pedagogy of the Oppressed how I would parallel the ideas to my own life. I read it in a way that examined the choices I make, and the way I live my day to day.

Paulo Freire's utopia was a place where we would be liberated of our oppressions and where the oppressors would be willing to bring themselves to be reborn into human beings who were bound by the same liberation. My idea is that in order to truly be freed from our oppressions, and reach a place of utopia, we must find a way to be strengthened by them, and to be moved by hope and realization of a better tomorrow. I feel that we must all experience a "rebirth" in a sense, where the oppressed must also remove themselves from their places of struggle and places of pity to become fully human again. This has been a constant for me, to move from the oppression and into an empowering state.

Its a strange thought, but sometimes, I feel that without my oppressions, I just would not be as strong as I am and I don't know that I would want to be any other way. Not to say I enjoy the struggles, and the hardships, but what I enjoy, is rising above them.

Is it a strange thought for me to say, that oppressions are important to our development into becoming full human beings?

----------------------
Blackboard is something we have to do for our classes here, we have to be fully engaged in discussion boards on topics and event reflections and class comments, it can be tiring, but also very good for just getting your words out without having to in class.

Today when I was walking from school to the A train I read this on a church posting
"Its better to struggle to live in Utopia than consent to live in Hell."

All I have to say to that is... "Word."

Liberating

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

What I have chosen for myself after learning and becoming enthralled in his work is that I want to be a practitioner of what he has blessed not only the educator community or to the theatre community with, but what he has given to the world. His work has become in my mind the link to my two separate lives that I had been living in Irvine. One being the life of an artist, who had a love of performance and of the way theatre breaths life into any person who chooses it to be their means of expression. And the other being a Pinay woman, who had pride and love for her culture and history after spending 3 years working with other organizers to educate and grow as a community.

I feel my self after learning the ways and teachings of Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal, that my life can never be what it once was.

I have been constantly pulling my self apart and figuring out how to make myself whole again, how to make myself fully human and open to the constant transformations that can bring me to that place of completion. And in result of this, I have never felt more vulnerable in my life.

There are so many things I now question of myself, of the work that I have done in the past and how, if I had this knowledge I might have made a better teacher and leader when working with all of you. I miss our community, I miss the solidarity and camaraderie that we had built as Kababayan and I have found myself stifled by my own oppression on myself, because of my doubt and my inability to fully trust when I feel so open and vulnerable with the rest of my cohort, the community that I enter into here.

The work is amazing, the readings, the materials and resources, everything I am being exposed to in New York and the University have slowly been liberating me, I just have to let it happen.

I felt so blessed when I walked into my first class and saw a room that was so diverse and that was filled with so many faces and people of color. But for the first time in a long time, I have found myself to be the only Filipino in the room. And now I move from being in a place where I felt most comfortable, knowledgeable and influential, to a place where I am reluctant to speak, unsure of my thoughts and checking myself at every moment before I talk, before I move, before an action is taken, when I felt before I could make a choice and follow it in an instance.

I'm telling you all this not because I feel bad about it, or because I feel I cannot be moved from it, but because I feel so blessed from it.

I am in a place in my life where I can progress and make myself a better person, a stronger, more open minded and willing human being. I am ready to become someone who can come back home to the work we did together and feel fully invested in the liberation that binds us together as brothers and sisters.

To UnKa, SB and FML, I know now how we could have been better to one another and how our liberation was always linked and I am thankful for everything that we had failed and accomplished in together and also for the humanity that you have brought into my life.

And to the future of Kaba, take care of one another and the liberation that binds all of you with us. Good luck to you all and may this new year teach you all to be fuller human beings.

I love you.

Some days I love the subway...

...today was one of them.

Every now and then while your waiting for a train to arrive there will be performers and some of them are absolutely incredible, there are singers, break dancers, violinists, bands and so many more. I look around and some people are not amused by the performers, and I think to myself, "was your day so bad that you did not see the beauty in that?"

Today a beautiful voice filled the subway line at 53rd and 5th Ave. An older man with his back leaned against the tiles of the subway wall, with a guitar in his lap and with passion in his face, sang these words:

"I have climbed the highest mountain. I have run through the fields. Only to be with you. I have run. I have crawled. And I have scaled these city walls. Only to be with you. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I have kissed honey lips. Felt the healing in her fingertips. It burned like fire, this burning desire. I have spoke with the tongue of angels. I have held the hand of a devil. It was warm in the night. I was cold as stone. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I believe in the Kingdom Come. There all the colors will bleed into one. But yes I'm still running. You broke the bonds. You loosened the chains. You carried the cross. And my shame. You know I believed it.

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

This was right after I had left church and I just felt so much emotion from it. I think everyone comes to New York City trying to find something, maybe they know exactly what it is, or maybe they thought they knew but eventually realized there is so much more to aspire for.

Lately, I have been thinking about how happy I'll be when my time in New York is over and I can come back home. But I realized I cannot come home without feeling satisfied about the mark that New York City has made on me and that I have made on it.

I want to experience everything that I can while I'm out here, so, lately I've been just exploring the city and discovering the different feels of each borough and observing the people and the surroundings.

Every time I get off that subway I feel like I'm transported into another world, New York has so many environments to uncover and trudge through. $89 a month gives me access to unlimited adventure! And I couldn't be more excited for each day I get my butt up and go on an expedition.

Only thing missing, is all of you to share it with.

Some days I love the subway, and I can't wait until you all visit and we can let it transport us to amazing places and new adventures!

Wanted to be on top

So, not too many people knew about this but for the past few weeks I have been preppin myself for a big audition...

America's Next Top Model.

I know, hella crazy right?

You don't know the half of it, that audition was a crazy trip. And I may not have left it meeting Tyra, but I left it with something else.

Let me run you through this mess of an audition.

First of all, hella girls, HELLA. And all of them just look so different from each other. Anywho, after waiting in line for an hour or two, getting to LA at 630, you are wrist band, stamped and numbered and then you go into a stadium seating and wait for your fate.

You and 50 other girls are then brought into a curtained room, you could not talk, you had to be quiet they stand you on the perimeter of the room and then you say only 3 things, just three things:

1) your name
2) your age
3) your height

and then they look at your profile, your face and then they call out 5 numbers, and then that's it.
You get three instances to speak, a move to the right and a move forward and that is what determines their choice for the next group.

I prepared for this audition day in and out, I looked at myself in and out and thought about what would show them who I was and what I could offer as a person beyone a face. But that wasnt what it was about at all, I didn't know how I felt after, but what I did know was that it wasnt the modeling I wanted, I wanted the opportunity to have a voice. My application turned out to be 26 pages after I poured my heart out for this. I wanted to have the show give me the opportunity to be honest with myself and others about the hardships of life and the lessons learn and how to be strengthened by them

I saw the show as America's Next Top Role Model I guess. Its funny because the important thing to me about any fame, is the opportunity to be heard, and for people to look at you as an influence.

I wanted it, for my own reasons, but this is not the way for me to get my voice out, I think I knew that all along, but I thought what the heck, I can do it, I can make it to the top. And I will, just not the same "top" that a lot of the girls who stood in that line are shooting for.

Aside from this new outlook on what I want, I also get to look back on the past few weeks and recall the support from Wes and my sister and my AMAZING ROOMATES!

New footage from our training sessions; my real life Miss Jay: JS, Mr. Jay: Neil Jon and Paulina: Giselle! Thank you guys for being my motivators and believing in me.

Three Poses with a Bag... and GO!


Poses on a Pull Up Bar



My Runway Improv hahaha (Just an idea of what we did for this, but it involved chalesses full of water, folk. techno and gangsta music, a hula wrap and Giselle's blanket.)



We also did speaking with eyes, which JS is a master at and all this other Jazz. I will never forget how much fun this was! hahaha

I'm keeping my audition application, it was an experience filling it out. And there is 26 pages of my heart in it. I give them props for putting together an application taht allows someone to reflect on their lives.

Next up for me: Preofessional Headshots, a Updated Resume for Performance, And actually auditioning for something that will let me show a little more of me.

10 weeks of school left, still praying for the EAST COAST to take me home!!