Opening

i’d begin at the beginning if i knew when that was.

maybe it’s the earthy scent of the first pot of coffee brewing, but once it cries it’s last droplet you’ve already poured it out to the back-of-house who got in an hour before you did to do prep work. before they got in and began decapitating broccoli and peeling onions to nothing there is the kitchen manager who, despite his early-bird mentality, has yet to decide on the specials by 11AM opening. he is sweating over it with the owner who is stressing over sales from last night since he got in with the morning deliveries. by that time the pastry chef was just finishing up having baked, breaded, drizzled and sauteed since dawn.

that being said, the beginning is certainly not when i put out the hanging flowers, straighten each table, sweep the floors and adorn the doorstep with a welcome mat. then i make another round of the tables, tap each one gently on each corner and wait for it to wobble in the slightest. a few will sway, unsure of what they have to offer diners, and i prop these ones up with a wedge under the stunted leg. most will hang firm. ready itself for the first customer. it’s always preferable to call them people who patronize you with their orders “guests”.

what the “guests” need to understand, what we all need to know, is that there is always a beginning before you arrived. even if you are the first customer of the day, even if you are the pastry lady, even if you are the dawn. the sun doesn’t have the luxury or the hubris to deny it’s role in a machine, a system.

the sun presides over our universe, but there is always a solar system that encompasses that which is beyond her, and the restaurant is something different entirely. it rises and falls with the ring of the cash register and the pen scratches of tabs added up, delivered ambitiously to a business lunch, trucker pit stop, hungover college co-eds. some days it is a gasping for air, some days it is a sigh of relief, but every day there is a breath – a rise and a fall – and one before, and one after, and again until… then came me, an apron and a fresh pot of coffee brewed after the one poured already and a smile that speaks through clenched teeth and deception, “may i take your order?”

Phyrecracker

Haibun for a stalker

The daylight saves me an hour today so i spent it in sleep, sheltered from the too-pretty outside, between the sheets. hiding from a lover/aggressor the only place he knew to look. sending out messages slivered split on the serpent tongue of text messages and phone conversations: “it’s not safe here”/”come to bed”.

He knows where i live.

“What you gonna do?”
A warm autumn breeze tells lies,
“He is full of shit.”

 

Remnants

Here’s a poem found by my cousin, written by my nana in urdu for my nanni while he was away at war:

Tusi aar kahrey
Assi paar kahrey
Gabeh pen diyan kuman kayreaan ne
Goree yaad aveh
Dul jandiyan aakiyan meriyah ne

Translation:

Your standing there
And I’m standing here
There’s problems between our paths that are keeping us apart
I’m thinking about you
And my eyes are tearing

For love of conflict

the dusty upset of detroit wildfires settled
simmering come autumn summer proves a lie
this year as much as any other

not the only mistake i made confronting the heat
honestly, refusing lethargic impulse packing
the dirt path tight under the impact of my heel
barefoot,

i’ve nothing left to dress my blisters
but for the friction accruing
propelling my next move
surviving the mournful bitter of motown winter

Phyrecracker

Stop the toronto bid for the 2015 Pan-American games

There are always those trying to pour concrete over the places that poor people call home. In toronto, where a fallace and a scrotum serve as monuments, this is especially true. There is seldom any dignity in architecture and other such conveyors of hearth and heart. Ask the residents of  Tent City, who erected a community of the hapless, evicted by Home Depot thugs and apathy. They’ll tell you: no land on Turtle Island is safe from thieves who steal as a mode of governance. Keep fighting, keep struggling against a tide that recedes condos and box stores, developments. And then there’s the stadiums.

Where i grew up there was always a reason to run, especially to run away. Away from cops, the bitch in school promising she would cut you, everything that the kids said about you behind your back. Away from fathers, ranting and brandishing homegrown weapons like bats, brooms and kitchen knives. What have you.

It wasn’t until i got to the University of Toronto that i realized rich white bitches didn’t have this. They had functional families, the cops didn’t harass. They didn’t have any reason to run except for the sport. So they constructed reasons, wound powder stained rivers of dirt through the campus, erected hurdles. But they never want to forget that it isn’t real. This is where the stadiums come in, just about.

When i came to the UofT i was a troubled kid with a lot on her mind and a lot weighing down on the shoulders. i was in a no good marriage that amounted to indentured servitude, i was estranged from abusive parents and, worst of all, i had bigfuckingmouth syndrome. It was madness. i was too smart and brown to get a political science degree without a target on my back. Amerikkka invaded Iraq, gentrification invaded Regeant Park then Parkdale, i was in no mood to sit on my hands and watch.

The good news is that there were others. The bad news is that they never stopped trying to pave us over, erase us, with their stadiums and the dusted tracks used to demarcate us and them. Us = Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students (APUS) – overwhelmingly poor, colored and woman. Starting with the Athletics Center, then the Varsity, there was a never a stadium that didnt belong where we were trying to exist. Again and again, here came the stadiums, now come the Pan-American Games.

You may have heard that many torontonians coming together to say no to the Pan-American Games in toronto. You might join them because we are on stolen land to begin with or because the whole world is watching Vancouver torn apart by the 2010 Olympics. You may join them because because you’re like i was, looking for something to belong to, you might find it with these people or you might not. You may join them because twice torontonians have successfully prevente the games from coming (1996 and 2008), because it’s the right thing to do, because you want to be a part of something that staves off the cold concrete of stadiums on the backs of poor people until the next time comes around.

Afraid of dark

Poppa
Please stop
Breathing heavy
On the door frame

As if momma can’t hear
As if you afraid of dark
Afraid what you use it to do

You make me afraid too.

Phyrecracker

When Auntie Visits

[found this on my computer and think it's cute]

When Auntie came to visit, it wasn’t any more unpleasant than what I imagine passing a kidney stone would feel like. She created an upset grossly disproportionate to her size and stature. She demanded accommodation and the right to express herself in her distinctively loud and abrasive way.

She arrived wearing a shade of crimson peculiar for regular day-time wear. It was of uneven in tone, in some places tinged a ghastly black-blue and in others a drab and distasteful brown, resembling what I would imagine fabric would look like if it came directly from my deepest, darkest insides. It was a color that she deemed inappropriate for an unmarried woman such as myself. I told her that I had no desire to wear that color, or any of the other reds that were reserved for those South Asian women who were so ambitious as to only aspire to marry. I said I had no desire to marry. Auntie rebuffed, how else would I have children then? I knew I wasn’t ready to have this argument, just wanted her to go already.

She poked at my mid-section, implying I was fat when I was really just bloated. She poked it hard enough that it hurt in a lasting way, constant and throbbing, invading my thoughts. She was impossible to ignore. Too brash for polite company. And so insistent! She had me cancel all my plans and ignore my friends to accommodate her. She said calmly and confidently, “Beti, if they are your real friends then they will still be there when you are through sorting through things and making space here.” Begrudgingly, I acknowledged the truth in this.

Just when the nausea associated with her continued presence made it seem I would never eat again, she exclaimed that we would now tend to this body of mine that, according to her, I was so neglectful of. She said we would eat now, and none of the junk that was my regular form of comfort, even more so since her arrival, but a good home-cooked meal. The only kind of meal that I could stomach right then. Even though it looked disgusting, all chunky and mysterious in texture, I knew that it was filled with that which would nourish me, and a child in me too should I choose to will it into existence. There was enough in here for both of us.

While we ate we talked. Just us – me and this body outside myself but also a part of me. We had all the conversations I should have had with my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. She told me about them and made clear that all these generations of women resided in me, whether I liked it or not. I listened even when it was difficult, because my dislike was outweighed by and not unrelated to our mutual respect.

She made me look at myself. She asked questions directly, in a way that prevented me from lying to her like: “Between us ladies, what is with all these boys that you let up in there?” When she said “in there” she placed her hands on my heart unexpectedly, using physical gesture to communicate that which eluded her words but required mention. And then, as quick as a flash, she was back to making me cry. Miserably doubled over in her painful so-called teachings.

Finally came her languid departure. Overstaying a welcome that was never extended to her. When she left regular life resumed, because there was no longer an excuse, and I began to await her return next month expectantly knowing that it will come even before I can develop a proper sense of nostalgia.

Phyrecracker

How many SEIU, CNA and Labor Notes people does it take to kill a Black Detroiter?

That’s the joke. Also known as: Rose Ann DeMoro, Sal Rosselli and Andrew Stern walk into a  – shit some Black dude just died. Why is it that more than a year after David Smith’s death at the 2008 Labor Notes conference there is still no one laughing?

The Setup

The Sevice Employees International Union (SEIU) butts heads with the California Nurses Association (CNA) in a power grab for members. SEIU accuses CNA of union-busting. CNA accuses SEIU collaborating to undermine patient care. Both sides accuse each other of violence and dirty tactics.

The United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) local head up by Sal Rosselli sides with CNA resulting in his ousting and trusteeship of the local. Sal Rosselli and Rose Ann DeMoro (Executive Director of the CNA) are slotted as keynote speakers at the 2009 Labor Notes conference and as the situation escalates conference registrations soar to record levels. Sal Rosselli cancels the engagement due to legal issues. In the midst of violence against CNA in Ohio Rose Ann DeMoro also cancels the speaking engagement instead opting to send a video taped message.

Meanwhile, one of the vendors setting up in the lobby of the banquet hall casually informs me that for a conference that’s so tight on security the huge unsupervised lobby doors that give direct access to the banquet hall from the outside sure did seem a risk. i informed conference organizer and co-executive director Marsha Neijemer of the situation who blew it off as a non-issue.

Execution

SEIU “purple shirts” disrupt the entire health care track of workshops, flyer the conference hotel with propaganda and by Saturday Co-Directors Mark Brenner and Marsha Neijemer decide to ban them from the conference. There are rumors of a large disruption set to occur with bus loads of SEIU protesters. By the mid-afternoon there is an emergency staff meeting to announce the decision to introduce Dearborn police – notorious for their inefficacy, brutality and racism – to the mix during the evening keynote. In addition to the police presence Mark and Marsha identify in-house “security” prepared to act in case of disturbance and to remove banned SEIU protestors. Another element of their ingenious plan is to post Mischa Gaus – co-editor and healthcare track organizer – at the hotel entrance to the banquet hall lobby and cull the undesirables sight-on-seen from the over 1000 conference participants. Accordingly they post Mischa, “security” and police at this entrance, inside the building, rather than the entrance that leads outside. By the time people begin streaming into the banquet hall for the keynote there are confirmed reports of several buses of SEIU people in the mall parking lot adjacent to the hotel.

Shortly before the intended start time of the evening keynote the ill-fated plan collapses resulting in a nightmare scenario. One of the SEIU protesters slips past the watchful eye of Mischa and opens the door to hundreds of SEIU protesters who swarm the banquet hall lobby unhindered by the lack of security or police coverage at the crucial entrance.  Many of the protesters are women and children smattered with a few SEIU thugs, large white men that had the obvious intention of turning the situation into a physical altercation, who clash with Labor Notes “security”. The doors to the banquet hall are shut trapping some 700 people, many of them undocumented workers who, combined with the police presence, are terrified of an ICE raid. In the lobby a group of primarily white Labor Notes staff and allies (including myself and another POC – then intern now assistant editor – Paul Abowd) form a human chain linking arms to block entry to the banquet hall from the largely Black and local crowd of SEIU protesters. This image, of white lined up against Black in Detroit, is one that has lasted with me as a metaphor for the city, the conference and the labor movement organizing here.

Some of the subsequent interaction is caught on video, where police are also captured doing shit all to improve the situation. Beside me Dianne Feeley, an elderly Labor Notes founder, is pushed in the mileu and on her way down she hits a vendor table that splits her head open. The person who knocked her over asks her if she’s alright and Dianne replies that no, she is not. One of the nurses ushers her aside and tends to her wound. Chris Kutalik – former editor – exclaims for the first time of several, almost in tears, “They hurt Dianne!” Everything happens quickly, there is more pushing and many of the people i have tumultuously worked alongside for the past months are assaulted, including Mischa who is punched in they eye. A Black woman wearing a purple shirt calls me a bitch. i say: “sis’ how can you say that?” She says: “you ain’t my sister.”

The punch-line

There is a soon-to-be dead man collapsed on the concrete outside. His name is David Smith and he had the unfortunate luck of being unionized with SEIU. He also had the unfortunate luck of attending a conference organized by people so intersted in concentrating power that they lacked the good sense to prevent, in the most basic and obvious ways, the events that led to his death. Like so many Black Detroiters he had the unfortunate luck of serving as an afterthought in his own city.

The Monday after the conference Ken Paff, a Labor Notes insider, writes a wry account of what is termed by Labor Notes staff as “the invasion” making no mention of David Smith. In an incredible show of patronizing post-mortem humiliation SEIU produces an obituary for David Smith centering largely around his literacy issues. The SEIU’s National AFRAM Caucus condemns the exploitation of African American women and children to no response or acknowledgment. Despite the loss of life the Labor Notes website lauds the conference as an unprecedented success.

The incident serves as a catalyst to issues of internal racism that result in my dismissal from the organization shortly thereafter. When asked why he felt i was “threatening”, Mischa Gaus tells me, “because you say things like ‘i refuse to be silenced’.” It took me over a year to prove him right.

POSTSCRIPT: On March 19 of this year, less than a month from the one-year anniversary of David Smith’s death, SEIU and the CNA announced a historic agreement to divy up hospital workers. Neither organization has taken responsibility for the wrongful death of David Smith. Labor Notes has yet to report on his death or the issues raised by AFRAM in any comprehensive way.

Phyrecracker

10 Reasons to Hate Invincible

At the 2009 Allied Media Conference i tweeted a criticism about white emcees in Detroit that Ilana “Invincible” Weaver took personally. She responded by verbally accosting me in the auditorium post-ceremony exclaiming that if i had something disrespectful to say i should say it to her face. i was subsequently twitter stalked by Adrienne Maree Brown – Ilana’s partner  famed facilitator extradonairre and Executive Director of the Rukus Society – and became a subject of scrutiny leading me to withdraw significantly from the event due to a very real sense of alienation.

Both myself and my detractors attempted to use new social media tools to engage discussion, incite and confront. So how was what i did any different or better than what she did? The distinction was very clear in my mind that while i used these media tools to subvert the dominant narrative, Ilana and her cohorts were reinforcing existing power dynamics that silences my racial critique by equating it to a personal attack.

What Ilana doesn’t understand is that as a rad womyn of color i use new media to confront systems of oppression in a way that was never possible prior to their popularization. The combination of anonymity, distance and physical space, amongst other factors, are what allow me to figuratively speak my criticisms in the face of people like Ilana even though it is often literally impossible.  This is what the AMC is all about and this is also what my blog is really about, speaking truth to power, so in the interest of clarity i have prepared the following lists:

10 Reasons to Hate Ilana Invincible Weaver

1. She reps like she’s from the D but she’s not: Raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan a city about an hour outside of Detroit, largely composed of  University of Michigan elites, with a severely segregated underclass POC work-force, Ilana moved to Detroit and lived here for several years before recently switching to primarily residing in the Bay Area with her partner Adrienne Maree Brown.
2. Her Jewish-ass be travelling to Palestine and so be her friends when Palestinian people be waiting for their birthright trip: Ilana has travelled to Palestine supported by Detroit Summer in promoting her “activism”, music and “artistry” while Palestinians that she is supposed to be in solidarity with are denied the right of return.
3. She wants to protect reputations to make sure her and her peoples can go back: In January of 2008 when Mahmoud Shalaabi was unjustly denied a visa to travel to the U.S. and attend the screeining of Sling Shot Hip Hop, a movie that he  is prominently featured in, at the Sundance Film Festival, i drafted a letter on behalf of Detroit Summer in protest. In response to the letter Ilana stated, “…for reasons to protect further YSN youth delegations it is important to keep the organization’s name behind the scenes for now.” While Ilana continues to ally in name with Sling Shot Hip Hop when it came down to it she prioritized Detroit Summer’s good name over the fair treatment of a Palestinian person facing oppression and in need of support.
4. She promotes Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) as if it came from the mouth of the Prophet (PBUH) himself: While many Palestinians support BDS tactics, publicizing them as the best and seemingly only viable response  to Israeli apartheid, as Ilana does, shifts away from a radical agenda, adopts a framework biased in international law that is responsible for the theiving of Palestinian land in the first place, and deligitimizes and silences the voice of a large population of Palestinians who advocate for different tactics including taking up arms in self-defense.
5. She is a Zionist apologist: By often priviliging the “expertise” of Jewish people in telling the story of Palestinian struggle she skews the discourse away from holding Israelis and/or Zionists to full account for their genocide of Palestinians. In the People not Places video she provides a platform for Jewish Palestine activist, daughter of genocidial Zionist and living oxy-moron – Ora Wise – to tell a vomit-worthy story of her mother moved to remorse by her own foray into Palestine. Ora tells what i’m sure is supposed to be a story of redemption but is actually a disgusting recount of her mother’s typical plea of ignorance in the face of systemic violence (check it out if you can stomach it at 9min. 57 sec.)
6. She doesn’t know struggle/Hip Hop: As a white middle class Jewish womyn Ilana can never have sufficient comprehension of the underlying tensions that fuel Hip Hop but as a white middle class Jewish womyn she feels that no revenue stream should be inaccessible to her so she capitalizes on a constructed oppressed identity of a Jewish person standing in opposition to the genocide of Palestinians.
7. She makes music and money off of the struggle of Palestinians: Her and her manager are Jewish people who directly profit off of the suffering of Palestinians by apropriating, packaging and marketing their experience for sale in white capitalist Amerikkka.
8. She makes the music and the money with out the work to back it up: Ilana lists herself as a Detroit Summer Collective member but was so consistently absent in her participation with the organization that she was demoted from the core collective accordingly. Even as she continues to bank off of her affiliation with Detroit Summer and the activist cred that goes along with it she rarely contributes to the ongoing operations of the organization and has alienated many of the people involved. She even goes as far as to list Finale as a member even though he never attended a meeting.
9. She uses colored people as her servants: There is a addage in the community of Detroit activists that if you can work with Ilana then you are the exception not the rule. It is not uncommon for Ilana to ridicule people, act aggressively as she did at the AMC and/or generally exhibit a diva attitude. She can be extremely mean spirited, moody and high-maintenance.
10. She is a star fucker: Ilana is nice to you up until the momment that she finds out you are a nobody, at which point she no longer cares about you, so long as you are not directly useful to her.

*Bonus* 5 Reasons Why i think Ilana Invincible Weaver is Probably Not the Devil Incarnate

1. She cooked and served this great soup for us this one time: It was at a “retreat” (re: day long meeting. It was so healthly and good for us and yummy and perfect and she served it to us so we could continue working. i’m Indian and that’s some dharma ish that i take seriously for real.
2. She provides a platform for artists of colors to gain visibility and income.
3. She provides a platform for people of color to tell their stories.
4. She promotes awareness of Israeli apartheid, indigenous struggles and global and local issues by providing these platforms and, since knowledge is power, this leads to real change.
5. She will destroy herself, by herself, despite herself: By promoting messages like “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” Ilana normalizes questioning and alternative thinking and by supporting a process of connecting dots between communities of color and the issues that affect us she encourages the unity in action that make it possible to collectively resist.

Even in the context of the 2009 AMC, where i was largely displaced from an event that centered around the likes of Ilana and other prominent Jewish “radicals”, the work in inspiring and disseminating media-organizing at the conference became bigger than the cadre of haters and even myself. While i stayed at home imprisoned with self-doubt, fear and anomie, a fiesty group of mammis of color took on my case and confronted the injustice they saw unfolding. At first i took it as a huge compliment that they would act on my behalf but then i realized, this was nothing personal, this was about making things right.

Phyrecracker

Resume of Faults

I
She grated cheese like conversation, until she realized that it was the skin off her knuckles pried from the muscle and bone. The sinews mingled with the food. She had fought too long.

II
When he asked her, “how do you want me to fuck you?” each time she escalating the lewd nature of her response. “your big cock in my wet pussy”, “choke me on your dick and make me drink all your hot cum”, “i’m your fuck slut”. never: “with feeling, please”.

III
Disconcerted by the rustling sound of loved ones in her apartment, constant, just slam the door shut once. final, closed, even if left empty. let me breath.

IV
She cried and she cut. Cut, cut away to reveal something beautiful. Cut, cut, slice hit her clit and among the grey-brown folding lips the shock of blood red is the only thing beautiful.

V
He said: you have faults but you need not add to your resume. She could only assume he was right.