Starting over

listen children
keep this in the place
you have for keeping
always
keep it all ways

we have never hated black

listen
we have been ashamed
hopeless tired mad
but always
all ways
we loved us

we have always loved each other
children all ways

pass it on

****

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding the other; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

-Both poems by Lucille Clifton

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This woman was a genius; truly gifted with the use of language. I think her work calls me to awareness in two ways- first, there is an internal pull that reawakens deep, personal knowing; second, there is a call to remember the stories that make up my past (the woman stories, black stories, travel stories, queer stories, Jamaican stories, etc).

Dating a white man makes me want to revisit these facets of my identity to maintain clarity and balance. Our connection is fulfilling, but it does throw into stark relief all the identities that I have actively and passively claimed. What does it mean for me to be queer-identified, to work in an LGBT community, to be visible in that way and to be partnered with a man? What does it mean for me as a black woman who is invested in black liberation/unity to be dating a white person? What does it mean for me as a womanist and feminist to be dating a nonfeminist man? As an immigrant woman, do I represent, to him, an exotic other for consumption? Can he, as a white US citizen, really see me and be with me on equal terms?

So far we haven't had any problems interpersonally, but I have had to- and still do- grapple with these questions. It helps that he is actively antiracist. It helps that he is totally enamored of me and my brain. It helps that he is not a homophobe, but is an LGBT ally.

I don't believe that I have to surrender any of these identities because of who I partner with, but I do think it requires examination so that I can avoid compromising or undermining myself. It's helpful to have read some of lucille clifton's work because of its effect on me; because it pushes me to investigate self and history. It stands to reason that I would have to see to my foundations so that I am able to fully meet and be with my partner. I'm sure neither of us would be very happy with an alexia that has lost her grounding.

Here's a quote from Michel Foucault that really fits this little post, "The critical ontology of ourselves... has to be conceived as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophic life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them."

This relationship is definitely an exploration beyond my historical and personal limits. Thank goodness it's sexy and fun!