cripchick's blog

for queer disabled people of color craving community with each other:

the azolla is a southeast asian plant used in growing rice. azolla plants carry the ability to grow quickly, suppress weeds, and give nutrients to other plants in a symbiotic fashion. the azolla has millions of small, overlapping leaves and lives on the surface of water with its roots hanging under the surface.

we, as disabled queer people of color, are the azolla. we are everywhere. we have the power to grow and build community (the azolla can double its biomass in 2 days!) we are beautiful. we give nutrient to those around us but either are invisible or called weeds. although we sustain community, the focus is never on us. we are working on creating a space, the Azolla Story, that changes this.

we want this online home to be a space where we can connect with each other; build knowledge and community; share stories and histories; reflect, support and transform our love for and with each other. we are a part of many communities and seek to build a community where we can claim our whole selves. we recognize that queerness, gender expression and identity, trans politics and sexuality are an important part of our lives because of the many ways that queer disabled people of color’s gender, sexuality and relationships are policed, deamonized, ignored, exterminated and exploited.

we hope you will grow with us and join us in the telling of our transformation(s). this is the azolla story.

if you are interested in joining the azolla story online community, pls leave a comment and i will send you a link.

“intersectionality” is not
the sprinkling of
my people
into your analysis

it swallows you
like water folding over rock
and those pretty smooth pebbles you like to collect?
those are all pieces of my life

–
i have a growing inability to take people who throw around the word “intersectionality” seriously. it is becoming a problem: we’ll be in a meeting and the future of feminism, disability rights or what have you will pop up and soon someone is dropping the word intersectionality and looking at me as a woman of color for back up

but, you do not know what intersectionality is. intersectionality is something so expansive so broad so deeply rooted in my existence that i cannot sum it up into a single word and then toss it around like a ball.

“intersectionality” is not simply the meeting place of single issue politics. it is something where pieces of our experiences are so intertwined and so entangled together that they cannot be pulled apart into strands.

the way you treat intersectionality is like asking me to look up in the sky and pinpoint where the clouds begin and end.

–
had this in the drafts folder and posted it after reading my friend mia’s blog post titled: “intersectionality is a big fancy word for my life”. go read.

(this post begins with a poem that may be triggering.) Read the rest of this entry »