Pinay poet Niki Escobar has a great post about the prevalence of misogyny, and the reckless deployment of such terms as “bitch,” “ho,” “fag,” in the open mic and spoken word scene, which is populated by so many politically astute and supposedly decolonized men of color who we think of as allies.
Niki’s post is resounding; I’m reminded of my undergraduate years, becoming politicized among Pin@ys at UC Berkeley and the local community of activists, artists, and college students from outside of UC Berkeley, and the kind of hypocrisy and double standards I encountered just trying to speak my piece, as I was coming up as a Pinay poet and public speaker.
These days, I experience racially tinged misogyny enacted with so much more finesse (which I find more insidious), in which fellow Pinays tend to be the ones actively policing and enforcing the mainstream’s standards of acceptable behavior. So I am told my fierceness and literary success are necessary, in the same breath as I am chastised or isolated. Similarly, what I find most disappointing in Niki’s post is her attempts to have dialogue with men of color met with defensiveness, and ultimately rejected. And this leads me to search for less abstract, more viable definitions of community. Alas, so much unlearning.
I’m so glad to receive support and your own story B! Truthfully, I must admit my own fears when it comes to speaking up, especially on issues regarding my own homies and important men in my life. I was expecting a lot of hostility because of this post. Instead, more Pinays have shared their stories. Even better, some men…
Here’s a crucial response from Kiwi that adds great perspective to the discussion:
“…it much more easy to remain silent when we feel marginalized in spaces we supposedly belong to; therefore it is extremely crucial for us to dig for that courage to speak out and challenge folks to continue having those discussions. i am certainly guilty of letting things slide for the sake of convenience or not thinking it’s all that serious. i am absolutely at fault for abusing my own privilege at the expense of my sisters, whether it be taking up space at meetings, being manipulative, having poor boundaries, or minimizing sisters’ experiences. as men, the mere acknowledgment of the ways we reinforce male supremacy and heterosexism is just the beginning of an arduous journey we must take to unlearn and unearth all the male shit we’ve been conditioned with, to transform all of this into a new kind of manhood that is radical, liberatory, and revolutionary.
“Men cannot change if there are no blueprints for change. Men cannot love if they are not taught the art of loving.” -bell hooks
that said, i think one thing i’d like to throw into the discussion is the immense challenges that men of color have to go through to reach this level of change. as much as we think we know about how to be male allies, there simply aren’t enough tools out there for us to really, truly make that transformation. the only models that exist have been mostly created by white men (pretty dope white men, but i’m just saying). they don’t reflect the nuances and cultural expectations that say, guys who grew up with filipino immigrant parents, have to live up to. i feel like we’re kinda making these tools up as we go along. and as long as i’ve been doing men’s work, i still fuck up. and not to make any excuses for homies you mentioned in your blog, but again, we don’t have the methods, the language to deal with this in a healthy and equitable way. not yet at least. this is a lifelong process that involves different levels of growth for different men depending on how they’ve been conditioned…. See More
i guess what i want to say is that i hear and acknowledge what you’ve had to endure at all these spaces. it’s fucked up and wrong. we must work harder to ensure that our “community” spaces feel safe and welcoming for everyone. we must create processes to not only have those who are marginalized within our community be participants, but the actual leaders of this work (i definitely want to acknowledge all the women leaders who have continued doing this despite all the shit they’ve had to go through). slowly but surely, there are steps being taken to address this, especially among men in the movement. that i can promise you. and i appreciate you continuing to fearlessly put your voice out there and keeping all of us accountable.”
We’ve had dust ups here in Atlanta at several open mics where the guys (African America and white) have unleashed torrents of misogyny and homophobia. I’ve heard reports (and witnessed a few) crazy Christian right wingers at the mic — and they’ve been mostly booed off stage and told not to return. But sometimes they way they deliver it is sly or put in a humorous way and it’s not until later that you realized you’ve been zinged.
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