Here I am, blogging and apologizing. Saying, I'm sorry I haven't been blogging more often. Here I am falling back on the excuse that I've been busy. Busy, busy, busy. Here I am claiming that being busy keeps me connected, keeps me aware, makes me feel like I'm contributing to life around me and weaving a thread between my own heartbeat and the drumming that makes the world go 'round. 

And here I am admitting that it's not (always) true. That sometimes, it's quite the opposite – staying busy helps me disconnect, helps me keep moving without pausing to consider how I'm moving, or why. It helps me feel productive, which can seem fulfilling when I convince myself that I value productivity more than being in touch with the fullness of my reality, including any uncomfortable feelings I'd rather avoid. 

For me, working and creating with dignity means being mindful about the work I'm doing, and being aware of all of my needs, even those I might be neglecting in any given moment by staying so busy. I'm thinking about what bell hooks wrote in Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery: "[t]he practice of 'right livelihood' invites us to become more fully aware of our reality, of the labor we do and the way we do it." 

So here I am, pausing. Practicing "right livelihood" by taking a moment to think about how I can align my busy life with my dignity. 

We all deserve to work with dignity, which is one of the reasons I'll be marching tomorrow for May Day, also known as International Workers' Day. It's a day for uniting in solidarity with immigrant workers, to stand up for human rights and say no to criminalization. CUAV's contingent will be part of San Francisco's march, walking together as LGBTQ survivors and our allies. Join us, or find May Day events in your area. 

What does working with dignity mean to you? 

I'm realizing I spend a lot of time trying to shake off the good things that come my way. I dismiss compliments to my work as exaggerations of my talent, shaking my head rather than letting the words stick. If I read the poem and the audience applauds, I try to let the sound fly off me like a dog shimmying water off its coat, instead of letting the praise sink in. And recently, upon reading a particularly glowing review of my poetry, I seriously considered the possibility that the reviewer was uncharacteristically drunk when she read my work. But I guess that's not likely. 

Can anybody relate? Why do we do this? I guess I can see why people of color, or women, or queer people get used to the idea that we're not good enough, not deserving of good things, so it's easier to attribute our successes to other sources than to believe that we're really the ones who created something of value. After surviving abuse and oppression, I can understand why someone like me would have a hard time accepting that she's worthy of praise. 

Today's practice is not one in humility. Today, I'm practicing saying something new - "I deserve this." 

Recently, I've read my work as part of some truly magnificent events, and poems of mine have been published in some compelling journals. It feels both humbling and empowering to share my work among such talent, and instead of asking, "What the hell am I doing here?" I'm taking a breath and sitting with the feeling. And I'm saying, "I deserve this." 

Try it out when good things come your way. Let me know how it goes. 

And for one of those compelling journals in which I'm honored to have my work published, check out last December's issue of Blackberry: A Magazine. 

I’m finally back to blogging! Sorry for the extended break, and thanks for sticking with me. What have I been doing during all this time off, you ask? Keeping busy. Here are a few highlights – more on the resulting insights later.

• I made a big move, crossing the Bay to move from San Francisco to Oakland. It feels a little like hooking up (and shacking up) with the person I’ve been crushing on for a long time, and it’s been really good for me so far.
  
  
• I attended my second-to-last residency for my MFA program at Pacific University. Spent most of my time there feeling floored by the fact that the time has passed so quickly, but I had a great time. One of the big high points – Kaffir Boy author Mark Mathabane as a guest speaker, calling us to be a “courageous, humanitarian generation of writers” who write with the spirit of Ubuntu, that which makes us human.
  
  
• On the school note, I’m now in my final semester of my MFA program, which means I’m putting together my thesis, a manuscript of poems. It’s an exhilarating, excruciating process that feels a little like killing my darlings and giving birth to new ones every day. So exhausting and so rewarding, to say the least.
  
  
• I’ve been booking reading gigs, and I’ll have details on those soon!
  
  
• And I’ve been taking good care of myself, which totally counts as a thing to include among this list of life achievements. Because it’s necessary. It’s revolutionary. It’s love.

But okay, I would be lying if I pretended I’ve been only triumphant in my time away. I’ve also been feeling the pressure of what Jay Smooth calls “the little hater,” which said that when I finally got back to blogging, my return would have to be GLORIOUS. Well, this is my return, and it might not be so glorious, but the important thing is that I’m back.

I encourage you to watch this video, and to beat your own little hater by getting back to doing something you love. Let me know how it goes. *Shout out to Sugarcane, the LGBTQ of color writing workshop that brought this video into my life and helped me beat my little hater*

Today is my birthday! And I'm not asking for much. The older I get, the more I just want simple things. You know, a quiet night with my sweetie, laughter shared with a few friends, and an end to all hate violence. Is that too much to ask? I like to think it's not too far out of reach.

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, so my birthday wish is to take time to remember all of the precious lives of transgender folks lost too soon. Too many suffered through hate, and so many were people of color. But none were disposable, and we'll never forget them. That's what Transgender Day of Remembrance is all about.

You can visit the Transgender Day of Remembrance page to learn more about everyone whose memories we're honoring today. With transgender murders on the rise, there are many lost lives to remember. Gwendolyn Ann Smith has written a great piece on why we remember.

San Francisco is observing Transgender Day of Remembrance with a rally, a march and a service, which all starts at City Hall at 5 pm. Learn more details about events happening worldwide here.

Let's keep honoring each other, and building a safer world together.

Want to change the world? Join a non-profit agency! At an organization full of compassionate visionaries dedicated to making the world a better place, nothing could possibly go wrong – right?

Okay, so nobody’s perfect, and no non-profit is the perfect agent for change. As you may know, some aspects of non-profits can be stressful, challenging, and even counter-productive to the ultimate goals of social change work. And that can be hard for me to hold, knowing that even people with the best intentions can contribute to creating obstacles in the way of true liberation.

Luckily, we now have some courageous folks to help us name what goes on in the wacky world of non-profits, through a new activist-artist group called Peacock Rebellion. And they’re doing it all with fun and sass, as well as a deep sense of hope in the power of true activism.

Peacock Rebellion is centered around queer and trans people of color, and the artists craft their work through lenses of intersectionality, interconnection, interdependence and transnationalism. These artists aren’t afraid to speak the truth about the dangers of a non-profit industrial complex that upholds problematic patterns and stifles activists' dreams.

The truth is, we don’t have to accept the problems of the non-profit world, even with the best intentions. As Peacock Rebellion founder Manish Vaidya says, “we can dream bigger.”

Our big dreams take center stage at Agen(c)y: Nonprofit Dreams + Disaster, Peacock Rebellion’s first cabaret. Twelve queer and trans people of color use comedy, film, burlesque and more to critique the current state of social change, and to share their freedom dreams. The tremendously talented performers include Lambda Literary Award winner Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Deep Dickollective founder Juba Kalamka, and Mia McKenzie, of the revolutionary blog Black Girl Dangerous. In addition to the all-star performers and curators (Maya Chapina and Manish Vaidya), there’s an all-star line up of sponsors: INCITE, Mangos with Chili, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, Queer Rebels, and QWOCMAP. In other words, a whole lot of fierceness has gone into this show.

Agen(c)y: Nonprofit Dreams + Disaster premiered last night to a packed house at La Peña Cultural Center, and tonight’s show is nearly sold out, so it may be too late to see it on this run. But don’t worry! We’ll be seeing much more of Peacock Rebellion’s amazing work. To find out more, you can visit their website or their Facebook page, and to offer your support, visit the Indiegogo page.

During a moving Wellness Wednesday group at CUAV yesterday, we wrote poems about finding love and the skills to survive within our own bodies. Here's Jane Springer's poem, "Mules," which inspired our work.

Mules by Jane Springer

When they told us Don’t speak until spoken to, we grew
ears the size of corn.  

When they forced us to eat everything we swallowed
their hurt whole. 

When they hit us for drawing on the wall we painted
doors that opened behind curtains.  

For generations they lived like this. Wanting badly to
save us—not knowing how.  

& all the while we found love in unlikely places: In
the ravaged church of our bodies & our faces,  

refracted in their long faces.

Today is National Coming Out Day! For some of my perspective on coming out, you can read "Thank You For the Ice That's Melting," my account of coming out to my mom, as well as a couple of posts from my old blog, on identifying as a queer writer and on what it means to me to be "out" as a queer writer.

This year, I've been thinking about coming out in community. It's amazing to see how one person's individual choice to come out as queer can grow from personal to political. The act of saying just a few words to a loved one can mean adding one's voice to a whole chorus of people. And through risk, and possibly loss, one can find transformation and communities of folks who have all taken great risks to reject the idea that we should be ashamed of who we are or how we love.

Tonight is a special Darling Nikki queer dance party, and I can't think of a better way to celebrate the courage and power of being visibly out and proud. Proceeds from tonight's event benefit CUAV, my own beloved organization that works to fight violence within and against queer and trans communities.

A chance to shake my booty (to mostly old school hip-hop and rap, no less) and support safety for queer folks? I'm so in. Are you? Details are below - also, check out Darling Nikki on Facebook for more information about their monthly queer dance parties and the community organizations they benefit.

Darling Nikki - October 11, 2012
and every 2nd Thursday of each month!
8pm onwards!
SLATE BAR (Formerly Som-Bar).
2925 16th Street in between South Van Ness and Mission Street

This month’s theme is “Around the Way Girl” - we’ll be playing more old-school rap and hip-hop than usual, and we want you dressed accordingly! Bust out your Fendi bag and bamboo earrings!

This month’s guest dj is DeeJay Andre from Faded, 13 Licks and Fix Yr Hair, and we'll have our fantastic resident dj's Dr. Sleep and Justin Credible. We've also just added DJ Campbell to the lineup and she will be tagging with Dr. Sleep during the last set of the night.

As usual, we’ll have drink specials for all budgets and a fabulous photo booth by Cody Williams with art by the fantastic Katie Bush- check out her work at destroyevil.com and katiebushart.com

We’re also a benefit! This month’s organization is CUAV (Community United Against Violence).

$5 to get in.

This is a strange edition of Friday Friends. Usually, I use these posts to highlight a blog I like, or a literary hero of mine, or an organization doing important work. Today's Friday Friend is Nina Simone - not a particular interpretation or recreation of Nina Simone's work, but Nina Simone herself. Because some stories just need to speak for themselves.

As a singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist, Nina Simone made an unforgettable impact on the world. Personally, I have her to thank for helping me feel permission to love me for me. Her incredible sense of self-respect was nothing less than a fiercely radical act of courage, when she faced racism that said she wasn't good enough, and colorism that would call her anything but beautiful. Like me, Nina Simone looked in the mirror to see dark skin and big features, so like me, she had to see past the messages that attach the word "ugly" to such features. Hers is a story that can teach us about true beauty, the kind that emanates from a spirit of self-love.

Now, Nina Simone's life is being adapted into a story as told by Hollywood, the source of so many of our messages about beauty. In Hollywood, beauty means lighter skin and smaller features, so in order for our Nina to be a Hollywood hero, she will be played by Zoe Saldana. She will be a romantic lead, because no leading lady is complete without the company of a leading man - never mind that the man in this story, her assistant Clifford Henderson, was, in fact, gay. And she will give us hope, with an altered happy ending - isn't it inspiring to know that every dark-skinned woman could someday be immortalized onscreen as a light-skinned woman? Perhaps there's hope for beauty after all.

Don't get me wrong - I do think Zoe Saldana is a beautiful woman, and for all I know, she could pull off the role very well, as far as the acting goes. And I'm not one to try to challenge someone's Black Card - her more mainstream features don't make her any less black than Nina Simone. So why does it matter if her skin is the right shade for the role? Because, unfortunately, choosing someone whose experience of blackness is so far from the challenges Nina faced follows a predictable Hollywood pattern reinforcing hurtful messages about what it means to be beautiful.

It's very rare to see this happen in reverse - a dark-skinned actress picked to portray someone who was much lighter. Instead, those who don't fit Hollywood standards of beauty must be replaced. And why? Will audiences relate more to someone who is thinner and more conventionally gorgeous than the average woman? Will we learn not to let history repeat itself, to avoid underestimating the power of a dark-skinned woman, when we see her depicted as a light-skinned woman?

Nina Simone's daughter has spoken up about the movie plans, sharing that the project is unauthorized, and giving clarification about her mother's platonic relationship with the film's "romantic" lead. She also speaks about her mother's unseen beauty, her intelligence, and her revolutionary spirit. All of which could have an indelible impact if it were captured on the big screen.

So I prefer to leave Nina's story as told by Nina, through her music, her soul, and her vision for justice. We don't need to rewrite lives, alter people's appearance and sexualities, and ignore their truths in order to tell their stories. Nina Simone had no shame in who she was. We can respect her enough to know that she doesn't need to live up to Hollywood standards to be beautiful.

I've posted this video a couple of times before, but it's always worth re-posting. Here's Nina Simone singing the words of William Waring Cuney's poem "No Images."

Friends, I've made it - made it to a Youtube video that comes with an "explicit language" warning. It's a dream I never knew I had. I couldn't have done it without you.

You can watch the video below. It's one of the poems I read for last month's Lit Slam. And I'm mostly kidding about the "explicit language" thing - I'm proud of that night's reading for many more reasons than that. If you haven't already, check out what I wrote about it: "What I learned from my first lit slam."

My next reading is coming up tomorrow night in Berkeley. I'll be helping Lyrics & Dirges celebrate their second anniversary by sharing some poems, along with Justin Chin, Javier O. Huerta, Tim Kahl, and one of my favorite local literary heroes, Nic Alea. Lyrics & Dirges is a reading series that aims to "spotlight the diverse literary community" of the Bay Area, so as always, this is a dynamic line-up of readers, and I'm really looking forward to being part of it.

The show is hosted by Sharon Coleman, and it takes place at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley, at 7:30 pm. Wheelchair accessible, refreshments served. Visit the website for more details.

Advertisement over. Now, I sell myself in video form: 

I've just spent a few days in Richmond, Virginia for the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Roundtable. It was quite a trip, and I'm just beginning to get my bearings back.

I've been on staff with Community United Against Violence (CUAV) for a little over six months now, and this job has taken me on many adventures so far. In my work, I'm an advocate for LGBTQ survivors of violence, a support group leader, an organizer for under-resourced communities - in other words, as I like to put it, I'm pretending to be a grown-up. And the rest of the time, I'm a real-life mess of a human being, just trying to keep my shit together. In other words, I'm a poet.

I really appreciate that in my work I can show up as my whole self. The NCAVP Roundtable is a meeting of folks from anti-violence programs working to prevent, respond to and end all forms of violence against and within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and HIV-affected (LGBTQH) communities around the country.

So we're all kinds of people - lawyers, therapists, educators and more. And on one hand, we showed up at the roundtable to get down to the business of our work. On the other hand, our work is made up of stuff that's hard, and messy, and not always easy to fit into business-model workplans and agendas. Many of us are involved in this work as survivors ourselves, or as folks whose friends and family have experienced violence, so there's a part of this work that's deeply troubling and emotional.

We also understand that this work is absolutely vital. The NCAVP compiles data about violence against LGBTQH people. Alone, each individual story matters - these are stories of real people suffering pain and loss, of hate and violence robbing our people of parts of their hope, their humanity, and in some cases, of their lives. Together, these stories show strength in numbers. Through the NCAVP reports, we can see trends, like the recent rise in reported anti-LGBT murders, and the disproportionate rates at which transgender people and people of color fall victim to these crimes. So we can understand that each individual incident is part of a bigger picture, one that shows a need to care for one another and create better conditions in which to survive.

You can visit the NCAVP website for the data and other resources, on everything from supporting LGBT survivors to S&M vs abuse.

At the Roundtable, we talked business - numbers, data, workplans. But we also talked about the stories behind these numbers, and about how we feel about those stories, and about how we plan to make change for those who deserve better.

With hate crimes on my mind, I can't help but see a connection to the recent shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Seven people were killed, and more were injured. Rep. Joseph Crowley has been calling for the FBI to count hate crimes against Sikhs, and I have to believe that he might be right. As much as we can pretend that this was the act of a lone, crazed gunman, the truth is that there is a horrible history of hate crimes against Sikhs in the U.S. And letting this shooting stand alone, treating it as an anomaly, really doesn't do anything to help prevent the next hate crime.

Sometimes, data is more than just numbers. Sometimes, the numbers help us gather our stories, and speak up to resist hate.