EPISODE NO. 3 (WHERE I’M FROM…)
A group of queer people of color discuss how “queer” or homosexuality is viewed within their individual cultures.
Huge THANKS to all our lovely participants!To all our viewers - Thanks for your well wishes concerning our electrical fire scare @ HQ and for your patience…
We’re getting it together.
Promise.
Anyway, read on because we’ve made some changes boo faces
*NOTE: TPK HAS BEEN REVAMPED! WE HAVE DECIDED (AFTER MUCH DELIBERATION) TO SEPARATE OUR “SPOTLIGHT” AND “OUR NEWS - BROUGHT TO YOU BY ELIXHER” SEGMENTS. THESE “.5” EPISODES WILL ALSO INCLUDE EXTRAS AND BEHIND THE SCENES FOOTAGE FROM TPK EPISODES… SO YOU CAN GET TO KNOW THE CAST A LITTLE BETTER.
With Mad Love,
TPKfucking rad. and there are TWO filipin@s in this episode! one of them is me!
Hello friends, followers, and people I have never met in real life or on the internet,
For the past four years, I’ve bounced around the world of post-secondary education, starting off at a public four year university and now finishing up my time at a community college. With the end of spring term and summer fast approaching, I am reaching a crossroads in my life - do I embark on another two years of higher education or do I take some time to explore the big, scary real world? So far I’ve been pushing forward with both of these options. I’ve applied to Portland State University to finish up my degree while searching for and applying to social justice organizing fellowships and jobs in California. There’s not much more for me to do on the education front but there’s so much more I could be doing in my job search. And that’s why I have come to you tumblr! I have seen what you can do to help people realize their dreams and I’m hoping you may be able to help me realize mine by passing around my bio and resume or pointing me towards opportunities you know about.
I appreciate you all (yes, even those of you I don’t know). Thank you!
I don’t know what my future holds but I have my sunglasses on because it has to be bright.
Sh*t Mixed People Get
OH HELLO RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS.
— Bayard Rustin
(Source: autostraddle, via kcdanger)
On Friday, January 27, 2012 at the Creating Change Conference Baltimore, FIERCE delivers a message to the LGBT Liaison to the White House, the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development at “The Obama Administration and LGBT Community”…
“Clearly the roots of racism and heterosexism are not independent, but rather intimately connected.” -Queers of Color Manifesto, posted by Challie
(via loveyourchaos)
“This is why QPOC only space is so important. Because it allows a healing that is not possible when white, straight, cisgender people are present. This is because even if they are the staunchest of allies, even if they are the most amazing of anti-racists, the history oppression and colonization that they hold in their skin, a history that cannot be erased or forgotten, is made apparent in many, many subconscious and subtle ways. Because we have been socialized since birth to place white people first, whether it be the first helpings of a meal or the most space in a conversation, we do not even know that we are doing it (and at times neither do they). And this subconscious knee-jerk reaction makes it impossible to put down the armor and baggage and allow for growth and expansion.”
Today concluded the 11th Annual Oregon Students of Color Conference.
This was my third year in attendance and the second year a good friend and I presented a workshop we developed that focuses on the experiences of being multiracial.
We’ve presented the workshop at four different conferences over the past year. It’s amazing to see how much the workshop has grown and transformed but even more amazing is the fact that every one has been different. I guess that’s to be expected when the question of the hour is “What are you?”
For the first time, people challenged us for asking that question. As people of color and as multiracial individuals, we are no strangers to questions that dehumanize our existence and turn our identities into to objects of curiosity, as if who we are is entirely dependent on what plus what made you?
But still we asked people to tell us, each other, and themselves, “what are you?” And they took a stand. Why would we intentionally ask a question that has been used to oppress people of color and multiracial folks? It’s not easy to justify or explain but I think we ask this question simply because we want to reclaim our identities. We want to ask and be asked that question without its intent being “how do you identify racially, ethnically, culturally?”
In a space created to be a safe environment for us to talk freely with a mutliracial perspective, I take the question “what are you?” as an opportunity to identify myself as more than just multiracial. The first time I answered this question in our workshop I wrote, “I am a queer woman of color, happily partnered with a woman who gets it. I am a daughter and a sister who doesn’t call my family as often as I should but love them with all my heart.” My identities shape the way I view the world and the kind of relationships I am able to have with those around me but who I am [or “what I am”] includes those relationships.
Evey single day we are told how we should view ourselves based on our race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and presentation, ability, class, documentation status, and every other identity that is attached to privilege and lack thereof. So when asked “what are you?” I think an important thing to remember and/or say [either out loud or to yourself] is, “I am not an other”.
