Heteronormativity

(thanks to Dayle Takitimu for inspiring me to write this)

Persecuted
Criminalised
Medicalised
Marginlised
Patronised

Yet we embrace them
Want to be like them

Overall clad dykes

Striding the heteronormative streets
Chanting challenging
Every woman can be a lesbian

Straights
Frozen in fear

Radicals demanding liberation

Not equality

Committed to destroying the institution of marriage

Not buying into it.

Master give me permission to breathe

Marriage and Family
Patriarchal prisons

We never wanted equality

We wanted liberation.
We were going to change the world

Conform – Never

Father which art in...

Please give us permission to look up

Conventional

Traditional
Normal

Words diametrically opposed to my dyke identity

State please give me permission to speak

Second class – never

But I quote:

The exclusion of a portion of the population from a major social institution creates a second-class citizenship for that group. This is a humiliating experience, whether as individuals we feel humiliated or not

I have never felt excluded because I was unable to marry

I was excluded because

I am dyke

I am tattooed
I am Butch

I was excluded because

Because I speak out

I have never felt like a second class citizen because I could not marry 

I was made a second class citizen because I would not be like you

Please straight gay people Permission

To live as you

To become you in everything
That is not me

It is not my mantra to beg

It is not my mantra to conform
To just be like everyone else

My mantra

our mantra

revolution

Demanding the right for all straight people

To live as

• Monogamously
• Non-monogamously
• Single
• Celibate
• Child free
• With children
• With cats
• With dogs
• Without pets

As we do

To live as

• Fabulously
• Staunchly
• Politically
• Sportingly
• Spectacularly

As we do

My challenge to all you normalisising homosexuals echoes my Māori sisters challenge

and I quote:

"It is frustrating when those seeking to emancipate themselves seek the approval of those who have assumed the right to enslave them...fundamentally undermining your own inherent mana - shows me you don't really believe in it, cause you won't back it unless the master gives you permission".

Master – god – state - man – heterosexuals –gayley normals

Marriage is an insidious social construct!

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At a system that intentionally camouflages racism beneath a MULTICULTURAL discourse embedded in a neo-liberal mantle that blames the brown victim

for

Continuing to live in towns abandoned to the neo-liberal turns of economic necessity

Then blames the victim for WEARING THE WRONG COLOUR T-SHIRT

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At the veneer that elevates the Left right and centre

Whilst abandoning those whose land form the foundation of our number 8 wire democracy

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

Because nice white folk take benign risks ensuring positionality

Whilst Māori risk life and limb daily in ways nice people will never comprehend

APPARENTLY I AM ANGRY

At us Pākehā who ask what is our commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi at job interviews

But cannot spell Te Tiriti o Waitangi without a Māori dictionary

MOSTLY I AM ANGRY

At playing the white game

Of trying to get ahead and in so doing become something more than I was
But ended up being exactly who I was trying to get away from

MOSTLY I AM ANGRY

At people who say 'get over it'

Yet have no idea what IT is I am meant to get over

I AM STILL ANGRY

With the women I was ready to share my life with but she went straight
For the beating I got and the fact that you never think you need to apologise because it was just me

BUT mostly I am angry

That racism killed your son
That I did not step up and be there for you
That all my shit got in the way of what was needed

I let you down

Apparently I am a lot fucking angrier than I realised I was...

FREEDOM of SPEECH

I am in agreement with Derek Fox. What he has pointed out is bang on. So good on you for saying what people do not wish to hear because racism and colonisation are too hard to deal with.
We have to remember that FREEDOM OF SPEECH inherently ignores colonisation.

Freedom of speech is centre on a small grouping of peoples being able to comment on all other peoples. On their ideas, religion, political hopes and dreams, activism etc. However, if those who are spoken at stand ...up and speak back then punishment will rain upon them through invasion, economic sanctions and it will be done in the name of spreading the freedom of speech and democracy.

Another flaw is the notion that the press is free and independent. It has been proven time and time again that the Western press is neither. It is part and parcel of the political right. And this conglomerate does not present unbiased - independent and free news. instead is upholds racism, drawing heavily on stereotyping, especially on indigenous activism. press stands alongside political party's, mainly the right and vomits out its propaganda without question. If you do not believe me then go read 'Dirty Politics'.

Of course no one should die over a cartoon. But was it merely a cartoon? No it was imperialism at its worst. As Fox so rightly points out

"The editor of the French magazine has paid the price for his assumption of cultural superiority and arrogance, he was the bully believing he could insult other people's culture and with impunity and he believed he would be protected in his racism and bigotry by the French state."
Freedom of Speech comes at a price. For those excluded from speaking it means living in the shadow of words meant to disempower, marginalised and demonise.

For those included in the right to speak - well it is time we thought about the fact that the freedom of speech ignores colonisation.

This possible future of mine

If we want to understand why people take their lives then it is to their words, visions or lack of, spells and incarnations we might look to understand.

A very, very close and extremely loved friend wrote the following piece before taking her life. 

This possible future of mine with no partner and not children, is not the future I envision for myself. It is not what I would choose for myself either. But its seems that it is something I have to accept.

It would be nice if I had the first clue about how to go about that!

I have reached a point where I can see that all over the world all the time people are coming to terms with a life that is not part of the plan, Learning to live with disease, with sudden poverty, with the loss of a child or partner. So I know that this isn't unique to me. which is something. Advance ye soul.

I think that I can accept. I'm not sure that I am ready to make peace. And until I do that I don't know that I will be able to live comfortably. Acceptance only goes so far to create a sense of well-being in ones life. Especially when it's kinda grudging and involves lots of flailing about crying 'why me' and so on. Hokay. Sigh. So for the learning.