Thank you to everyone who subscribed last month! It means so much to me. I’ll be donating all of the subscriptions from last month to Undocu-Worker Solidarity Fund. 

This month, I’ll donate all subscription funds to the Movement for Black Lives, which “seeks to reach millions, mobilize hundreds of thousands, and organize tens of thousands, so that Black political power is a force able to influence national and local agendas in the direction of our shared Vision for Black Lives.” They and local affiliated groups have been doing powerful organizing in recent weeks.

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Hello!

This mini audio offering lifts up the work the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black, mostly lesbian, feminists in the 1970s. And it also lifts up projects by two contemporary queer Black feminists who are in conversation with the Collective’s work. Transcript is below.

* More on the Combahee River Collective. The full statement here.

* How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

* Combahee Throughline Immersion, by Mobile Homecoming Trust.

* Excerpt from M Archive: After the End of the World, by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

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Transcript

Hi, everyone, this is Tamiko Beyer. This is an audio offering of Starlight and Strategy, my newsletter, and I'm recording this on June 23 2020.

Yeah, I think I'll just jump right into it.

So last week, I was on a call organized by the Movement for Black Lives with many Asian American organizations on the call. They were talking about how to support the Juneteenth days of action that happened last weekend, and how to help carry on this work going forward of, you know, Black liberation with a focus on their specific demands of defunding the police, investing in black communities and demanding that Trump resign.

So during that call somebody from the Movement for Black Lives, I don't remember who it was, talked about how this work is, you know, part of the work towards collective liberation. And during the Q&A, someone wanted to know a little bit more about what that meant.

And so the person who took the question I believe, was M. Adams, who is the co-executive director at Freedom Inc. And M. talked about how the black feminists of the 1970s really gave us a roadmap for thinking about that. And when they said that I thought of--and I'm imagining that M. was referencing--the Combahee River Collective Statement, which was written in 1977. And for those of you who might not be familiar with it, it was written by a collective of Black feminists and lesbians who actually had roots in Boston. And I know about it...I came across it many years ago because of my obsession with Audre Lorde (as longtime readers of this newsletter know, I’m a big fan of Audre Lorde). And she was part of the Collective at some point.

So after the call, I was just thinking about that and how how true it is that these women thinkers really gave us a roadmap for how we can be thinking about this work today. And really, how they’ve laid the groundwork for black feminist work since the time that they wrote it.

So I went back and I reread the whole thing, and I just wanted to share some of some of it with you all. So the statement...part of the statement...they talk about what it means to organize as Black feminists, and they talk about how Black women psyches are not valued because of racism and sexism. And they say, quote, “We are dispossessed psychologically and on every other level. And yet, we feel the necessity to struggle to change the condition of all black women,” end quote.

And then they go on to quote Michele Wallace who wrote “A Black Feminist Search for Sisterhood.” And she writes, “We exist as women who are Black, who are feminists, each stranded for the moment, working interdependently because there is not yet an environment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle--because being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done: we would have to fight the world.”

So the authors of the Combahee River Statement, or River Collective Statement, they note that Wallace is pessimistic but realistic in her assessment of black feminists' position. And then, here's where they see beyond the limitations of the present moment, kind of where Michelle Wallace ends, and they see beyond it to a liberatory future. And they write, “We might use our position at the bottom, however, to make a clear leap into revolutionary action. If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free, since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all systems of oppression.”

And I believe if they were writing this now, that they would include trans and non binary, gender non-conforming folks within that, so, really the struggle and the work to support and to work towards the freedom of Black trans and gender non conforming folks and women is really the struggle for all of us to be free.

And this revolutionary thinking really has been so important to me in my understanding of intersectionality. And of course to so many other feminist queer thinkers of color. And so I’m not going to go on about it, but I did want to lift up specific works by contemporary, queer Black feminist scholars and writers that directly come from this statement, and I’ll link to them in the transcript below.

So the first one I wanted to lift up is a book, edited by scholar and writer Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. It's called, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.

And then the second one is something called a Combahee Throughline Immersion, which I haven’t signed up for yet, but I plan on it and it’s being offered by the Mobile Homecoming Trust. And here's how they describe it. They say, “This self-guided course is for people who want to access original scholarship and interactive media to engage the history of the Combahee uprising,” (which was orchestrated by Harriet Tubman) “and the Combahee River Collective, and who want to apply the insights of these important examples of collective freedom to their own liberation and the time we're living in now.” So I’m super excited to check it out.

And Alexis Pauline Gumbs (who I think I have referenced in this newsletter before, although not 100% sure),  she’s one of the primary forces behind this project. And to end this little audio session, I wanted to just read an excerpt from her latest book, M Archive: After the End of the World.

And so she says, in introducing this—and I’ll also link to this in the in the transcript—but she says this was inspired by a work of M. Jackie Alexander. And she was inspired, Alexis was inspired, to think about “what would the training space look like, be like, feel like, for the creation of a significantly different world.” So that's kind of the genesis of this piece. And it starts like this:

[read the excerpt here]

Okay, that’s it from me for now. Thank you again, so much for listening.

Oh, and I wanted to say if you want to subscribe to this newsletter, I’m donating everything that I raise from the subscriptions to the Movement for Black Lives.

So if you’ve been thinking about subscribing but haven’t actually gone ahead and done it, this would be a great time to do it. Because, yeah, because we need it. We need the revolution and the Movement for Black Lives is doing really amazing work.

So yeah, that’s it. Thanks for listening for reading the newsletter, for subscribing, for sharing it. You guys are awesome, and I hope you are all staying well and fortified in this time. Bye bye.

Art by Favianna Rodriguez. Her organization, The Center for Cultural Power (@culturestrike) partnered Earth Day Network (@earthdaynetwork) to commission art pieces honoring the power of Indigenous communities and communities of color to protect our planet. Image description: Colorful drawing of a femme figure embracing the world, graced by butterflies and the rising sun. The background is shades of pink. Text reads: Apart but connected. 50 Years of Earth Day. April 22, 2020.

To celebrate and commemorate Earth Day today, I’m offering a 5 minute guided meditation on our interdependence, including a short original poem.

Get comfy, click “play,” and feel your roots connect to the earth.

If you’d prefer to read the meditation, the text is below.

The music is “Vegetable Stew,” by Rolando André López Torres. You can follow him on Instagram (@nocolornocontrast, which will be active again soon!) or email him at rolando.andre.lopez@gmail.com.

Please consider subscribing if you aren’t already. You can subscribe for free, or choose a paid subscription. Everyone is getting the same content right now, but any money I raise through paid subscriptions is going to the Domestic Workers Alliance’s Coronavirus Care Fund, providing emergency funds for in-home care workers, nannies, and house cleaners so they can stay home and stay healthy. Thank you!

Earth Day Meditation

April 22, 2020

Sit so that your feet are touching the floor if you can, and so you can straighten your spine. Close your eyes or soften your gaze.

Take a deep breath in. Exhale and let your shoulders relax.

Take another deep inhalation, and a long, slow exhale, softening any part of your body that might be holding tension. 

When you take your next inhale, feel the air in your lungs, bringing life-giving oxygen into your bloodstream. Now exhale, letting go of any part that might still be gripping, including your brain.

Keep breathing. If this is an easy process for you, breathe into gratitude, acknowledging that for millions of people right now, this most essential act of life is a struggle. Breathe into this struggle, breathe in solidarity, breathe with love.  And if breathing is a struggle for you right now, for whatever reason, feel the love and connection in this moment of all of us breathing with you.

As you inhale, remember that the oxygen entering your lungs comes from plants: the trees, the grass, the flowers around you. The carbon dioxide of your exhale is being absorbed by your houseplants or the grass outside, and your inhale is an absorption of the oxygen released by these very same plants. Breathe into that interdependence. 

And here, I offer a small poem I wrote:

A seed is a metaphor 

until it comes 

in a small, white envelope

with hundreds of others, and you press

each one carefully into the damp earth.

Whisper grow to the radish seed, thrive

to the sunflower. Ready a bed

full of dirt and microbes and love. 

Soon, stems and leaves as tender 

as hope will sprout: tiny prayers 

in these strange times.

The Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh often talks about how we all have many seeds within us. Seeds of love, compassion, gratitude--as well as seeds of negativity, anger, fear. Part of the practice of living is watering and nourishing the seeds we want to flourish within us and in the world.

So choose a seed inside of you that you want to nourish and grow--love, peace, compassion--whatever is calling to you. Imagine that seed beginning to sprout, sending the tenderest shoot out. Now imagine it growing, unfurling, climbing up your spine. 

Imagine, too, the roots that this seed sends down. Imagine the roots sinking down, through wood and concrete to burrow into the deep, rich, dark earth. Now let those roots spread out, drawing nourishment from the earth and deep water sources--and nourishing the earth in return. 

Feel how you can be rooted right here where you are, in compassion or love, or whatever aspect you chose, and feel your roots intermingling with the roots of the trees and plants around you. Feel how all of us are reaching our roots out to each other, how we each can be blossoms and fruits of love and compassion, understanding and joy, and more.

Feel into what it means to be interconnected, interdependent with every being on this planet. Then let it go, with trust and gratitude. Slowly open your eyes.

Thank you, please subscribe and share!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with others who might also enjoy it, and hitting that “heart” button. And if you’re not yet subscribed, please sign up below. You can sign up for free, or choose to support this work through a paying subscription. Thank you!

Spring arrives in our garden in the midst of the pandemic. [Image description: A blooming hyacinth with purple-blue, bell-shaped petals and pale green leaves, growing out of mulch.]

I hope you are all staying well and safe and taking good care.

I’ve been writing poems this month as part of Kundiman’s participation in the Poetry Coalition’s project, “I am deliberate / and afraid / of nothing: Poetry & Protest.”

Recently, they’ve been prayers, spells, and hexes for this time. I wanted to share a few with you in this 5-minute audio letter, with hopes they can provide some relief, magic, and fortitude to those of you who need it. (Just a note that there’s one swear word, so if you’ll be offended, you probably don’t want to listen.)

With love,

Tamiko

P.S. I realized after I recorded this that I did publish some of these drafts—on social media, which feels different, somehow. Anyway, if you want to see some of them in written form, you can find them here and here.

Thank you, and please share!

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I’m trying something new!

As an avid podcast listener (and avid radio listener before podcasts were a thing) I’ve always secretly/not-so-secretly wanted to have a podcast. While I’m not launching that dream quite yet, I’ve decided to incorporate some audio into this newsletter. And I’m starting with a recording of The master’s tools, or, is this what democracy looks like?

So if you, like me, prefer to listen to audio versions of long articles and you didn’t read the last newsletter, or you want to revisit it, why not click on the “play” button above?

And let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your ideas!

Building with the tools we have; creating with the structures available to us. Public art in West Philly, photo by Joby Gelbspan. Image description: Several flowers in red and purple knitted or crocheted onto a chain link fence on a bridge above a river. Green trees and a skyline are visible through the fence and the art.