in 2009
i will start by bowing to my elders and recognizing my ancestors, my blessings, and 2008. i will eat d’uk gook (rice cake soup) with family to symbolize that we have lived another year. afterwards i will eat black eyed peas and collards with friends, symbolizing my trust that all things will be provided for in the upcoming year.
i will devote myself to local community and not let myself buy into the nonprofit industrial complex by thinking that this work is less important because i am not traveling, shaking hands and staying in fancy hotels. i will remember that “the people” is not some kind of abstract rhetoric but that indeed, the people are here, the ones i love, and the stories they have lived to tell. i will always believe in the potential of what we are creating here, even when the pace is sometimes slower than i like.
i will be more true to myself and my style. i will remember that it’s okay to be someone that is most comfortable caring for people (often called doting and “mothering”) and that these are things that can be brought to an executive position. i will leave the politics for someone else to handle, knowing that my time is limited and to put energy to it is wasteful.
i will be a better ally, particularly to disabled people doing neurodiversity work and radical women of color doing work outside of the united states.
i will listen more and talk less, understanding that there are many things i will never know personally, especially as i do anti-racist work as an api woman working in the south. at the same time i will stay committed to the understanding that racism as a black-white issue erases genocide (as spoken by chrystos) and that anti-racist work that does not acknowledge that is intolerable.
i will pay more attention to my body, knowing that to overwhelm it, ignore it, and push it further than it can go is no longer an option.
i will love freely and in dr. angelou’s words (shared by a friend today) will have the courage to accept the love in return.
for crying out loud, all I’m resolving to do cut way back on the trash-talk/gossiping. You’re making me look bad.
;)
Posted by Rachel on December 31st, 2008.
ha. speaking of which, gchat date soon!! happy new years, darling
Posted by cripchick on December 31st, 2008.
Wow. What Rachel said :).
I like many things about neurodiversity, though it’s narrower than the work I’d like to do. I like shiva’s ideas about biodiversity.
I nominate this for most radical sentence of the year: “i will remember that it’s okay to be someone that is most comfortable caring for people (often called doting and “mothering”) and that these are things that can be brought to an executive position.”
Posted by Tera on January 2nd, 2009.