cripchick's blog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SPEAK! WOMEN OF COLOR MEDIA COLLECTIVE RELEASING SELF-TITLED DEBUT CD
UNITED STATES — March 7, 2009– SPEAK! Women of Color Media Collective, a netroots coalition of women of color bloggers and media-makers, is debuting March 7, 2009 with a performance art CD, accompanied by a collaborative zine and classroom curriculum for educators.

handful of Speak! members at the Liquid Words studio

Compiled and arranged by Liquid Words Productions, the spoken word CD weaves together the stories, poetry, music, and writings of women of color from across the United States. The 20 tracks, ranging from the explosive “Why Do You Speak?” to the reverent “For Those of Us,” grant a unique perspective into the minds of single mothers, arrested queer and trans activists, excited children, borderland dwellers, and exploring dreamers, among many others. 

“We want other women of color to know they are not alone in their experiences,” said writer and educator Alexis Pauline Gumbs of Broken Beautiful Press, one of the contributors to the CD. “We want them to know that this CD will give sound, voice and space to the often silenced struggles and dreams of women of color.”

The Speak! collective received grant assistance from the Allied Media Conference coordinators to release a zine complementing the works featured on the CD, as well as a teaching curriculum for educators to incorporate its tracks into the classroom environment.

“Speak! is a testament of struggle, hope, and love,” said blogger Lisa Factora-Borchers of A Woman’s Ecdysis. “Many of the contributors are in the Radical Women of Color blogosphere and will be familiar names… I can guarantee you will have the same reaction as to when I heard them speak, I was mesmerized.”

To promote the initiative, the Speak! collective is coordinating listening parties in communities across United States, creating short YouTube promotions illustrating the CD creation process, and collaborating with organizers and activists online and offline.

The CD is available for online ordering at http://speakmediacollective.com on a sliding scale beginning at $12. All inquiries for review copies should be directed to us at speakcd@gmail.com. Proceeds of this album will go toward funding for mothers and/or financially restricted activists attending the 11th Annual Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI from July 16-19.

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Please spread the word on your blogs and websites!

you do know that everything i write, i dream, i breathe is nothing but an ode to your being, your beauty? the way you move, the way you ask me what audre would say, the way you can be so brilliant all the time, the way you speak to my experiences when we’ve just met, the way you bring warmth and openness into a room, the way you were there for me when i was embarrassed and felt like a burden, the way you connect things together, the way you make people feel like there is no other option but to be real, the way you dream, the way you have changed worlds without even realizing it 

you do know that i do nothing but paste your poems, your pictures, your postcards on my wall right? that i save your words in away messages, dream jars, tweets and more journals than i can count? that every time you publish something, i scramble to find a copy for myself? or that i jump at any invitation you send because it means spending time with you? even those of you i haven’t met in person, you do know this, right?  Read the rest of this entry »

last week i was determined to write. and i did, to the point that the journal was talking back to me. Read the rest of this entry »

dedicated to the SPEAK! fam, inspired by keith boykin’s “a poem for the millennium march” (must read) and “why do you speak?” by adele (coming out to you soon)

i speak because
overgeneralizing analogies
silence my people
used by folks promoting their struggle
our lives
our histories
are reduced to lines in keynote speeches
our bodies to checkmarks on your discriminatory policies
our votes taken for granted and forgotten in your campaign
and we should be thankful?
where are you getting this from?

this week another young black man was shot in the back by a cop
they called him k-roc
kenmara davis was supposed to graduate in may
be a teacher
now he’s dead
this is in *our* town
i didn’t see you at the vigil…

i don’t believe a person of color sitting on tv reading the news is a victory
how am i going to celebrate them when the stories they are telling
criminalize us
divide us
allow us to be killed
and then laughed at
or hated?
hell no

i speak because
i am more than that
we are more than that

i speak because eli says we are still wandering the streets, caps in hand
& alice assures me that if we mapped the web of friendship,
this is how we’d find each other

i speak because sydette is asking how i stay tethered to community
& mia says it is through a multi-issue politic that does not require us to sell ourselves short

i speak because nadia is speaking
naomi is speaking
adele is speaking
hillary is speaking
lex is speaking
moya is speaking
mike is speaking
ryan is speaking…

our leaders will always claim
to speak for us
while ignoring us
and we know
the only way
we will be heard
is by typing into our speechboards
signing fiercely
opening our lips
liberating our tongues
speaking

speaking…