Leverage: the zine vol. 3.1 by Leverage: the zine

“It’s not just about wantin’ it. Where ya vision?? Whatchu see for yourself and those around you? I know what I want. And I know what I don’t want. And I know everyone has desires but, I’m creatin’ my own world. I reside in a realm of my oooowwwn (haha). But I still know how to co-exists amongst the many others. I look at all the successful people in the world feelin’ more sure of myself than ever. Nothing is impossible to me! There was a thin line between bein’ blessed and success. Now that shit is a blur!”

Leverage: the zine

- from Dear Diary by Junglepussy

Volume 3 Issue 1 Fall 2015

Leverage: the zine FAQ Dear Reader, Thank you for picking up this issue of Leverage: the zine! Within these pages you will find art, poetry, photography, and essays created by students of color in the Tri-Co.

Leverage: the power to act : influence or power to achieve a desired result : the increase in force gained by using a lever About Us

We hope you take the time to read and reflect upon these pieces, particularly our centerspread: the List of Demands drafted by the BMC Coalition. The BMC Coalition has been successful in creating conversations about race and inclusion on campus this semester. It is important to continually underscore the importance of this document, as it speaks to the challenges faced by people of color on Bryn Mawr’s campus.

Leverage is a small self-published zine and blog platform dedicated to documenting and highlighting the voices of people of color on the Bryn Mawr College campus and within the Tri-Co.

We hope you enjoy this issue and that you are encouraged to submit your art so we can continue to showcase the voices of people of color on campus.

Our goal is to hold candid and informal, but informative discussions about the issues that impact our lives.

Gratefully yours, Rochelle Waite ’16, Medoza Ameen ’16, Claudia Delaplace ’16

Submission & Eligibility

INSERT ART HERE

We feel that calling this work Leverage is representative of the power inherent in our identity as people of color.

Leverage only accepts work by individuals who identify as a ‘person of color.’ POC is an umbrella term that we use not to disregard the ways we each may benefit from various racial structures. Instead we look to the term ‘person of color’ as one of solidarity, with Leverage being a space to ‘unpack’ and problematize those racial structures. We accept art, poetry, prose, and other creative works that will be compiled and published as a bi-semester anthology, with opportunities for multimedia & performance based submissions to be published on the blog. There is no word limit for submissions to the blog. For longer works please provide an excerpted version of 500 words (or less) for inclusion in Leverage’s printed volume.

Contents An Essay by Crystal Des Ogugua ’17________________ 1 Two F Words by Sanam Sheriff ’18 ________________3 Grumpy Me by Alexandria Wang ‘16 ______________ 5 A Sculpture by Stephanie Marrie ‘16_______________ 6 List of Demands by the BMC Coalition___________________7

Family Dynamic by amaka eze ‘19_________________9

Connie Chan

Excerpt from Crystal Zine by amaka eze ’19 _________10

Fuck Doodle by amaka eze ’19 __________________11 Irrepressable by Rhea Manglani ‘16_______________12 I like you by Rhea Manglani ‘16 __________________13 A Drawing by Connie Chan '19 ___________________14

Today a white man did not acknowledge me… Although unsettling, this lack of acknowledgment is nothing new in my experience as a Black Woman. My identity is comprised of the total sum of all things unvalued and unconsidered in this white world. I am Black, dark in complexion, and a woman excluded from the myth of femininity. I have been consistently overlooked by the white gaze throughout my whole life. So much so, I thought I was numb to it…But for some reason, today’s encounter (or non-encounter) really struck a cord. **This was most likely triggered by the onslaught of slave narratives I have drowned myself in over the past couple years… In this revival of the past, I often find myself more present and critical of my encounters in “Post-Slavery” america** Today a white man chose not acknowledge me... I say “chose” because of the decisiveness inherent in his decision not to address me. I stood in silence, in the peripheral of his conversation, uncomfortably waiting for that humanizing glance of acknowledgment to bring me into existence. I patiently and optimistically waited in silence, only to find that this wait was in vain. For a brief moment, our eyes met… and with his eyes, he looked at me, only to look past me and decide I was a Black object unworthy of his acknowledgement.

"I like you!" Rhea Manglani Like vomit the words projectile out of my mouth Leaving my body shaken, sore, and dehydrated. It's clumsy, strong, and messy. Just like me. But you don't hear these words. All you see is a possible sickness. A disease that can spread. Something that came out of nowhere Something that someone else will clean up.

“white boys never really see Black girls. History never required them to. Unless they can purchase us, unless we are inflatable, unless they can fuck us, and fashion it into its own kind of puppetry” -Victoria Ford, Sally Speaks to Tom about Their Daughter Beyonce

Again, not being seen has been a haunting reoccurring theme in my life. But I had always considered myself unfazed by the subtle dehumanizing effects of white supremacy. Yet, today, when this white man did not acknowledge me, I could not deny the attack on my humanity made in that encounter.

Irrepressible. Rhea Manglani You used to say your favorite things about me were all the things I hated about myself because I couldn't stop doing them. You loved my honesty because I always talked too much with my whole heart. You loved my laugh How can I say I know what love because it was too loud and too giving. You loved my thoughts feels like because I'd always bend them for you. when the only love I know of feels You likened me to a robot like because you knew I was programmed to sacrifice. love I paint images of you and I'd love so much too much you’d say with my own blood. because it was all I knew to do. Weave scarves for you To you, I was fascinating to watch with my hair. like an experiment or science project I would bend my bones something exploitable for the purpose of intelligence gathering. to resemble the most beautiful Something that was someone else’s women. I would bathe in buttermilk to trick you into thinking my skin was lighter. I would carve flesh out to make myself smaller so you could hold me tighter. I would give all sanity and give in to every insecurity to do these things to me because I just want to be the girl you like. I only know love if it tires to bury me. I only know love if it makes my sorrows grow. I only know love if you'll never look at me 12 once it's over.

In that very moment, I became every Black Woman rendered inanimate by the normative gaze of white society. Bodies deemed useless, unless put to use. From slave to “help", reluctantly waiting at the flanks of their masters or superiors, in anticipation of their next command. “Gentlemen of the jury, look at him-look at him- look at this. Do you see a man sitting here? Do you see a man sitting here? I ask you, I implore, look carefully- do you see a man sitting here?… What you see here is a thing that acts on command. A thing to hold the handle of a plow, a thing to load your bales of cotton, a thing to dig your ditches, to chop your wood, to pull your corn. That is what you see here…” -Ernest Gains, A Lesson Before Dying

I wonder what this white man saw when he looked at me? Today a white man purposefully did not acknowledge me… And to reconcile with my sad thoughts of shame and invalidity, I reminded myself of the fragility and subjectivity of white reality and existence. In a warning letter to his nephew about the pervasiveness of white supremacy, James Baldwin tells him “…they have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that Black men are inferior to white men.” and if our society was to dismantle this self-actualized superiority it would subsequently result in “the loss of their identity” and “sense of [their] own reality”. Just as Baldwin reminds his nephew, I remind myself not to let these subversive acts “testify to [my] inferiority, but to their inhumanity and fear” I remind myself that my existence is the total sum of all things considered a threat to the patriarchal social order of white supremacy. And that I, Black Woman, am forever visible in the eyes of truth. ∎

Crystal Des-Ogugua

Two F Words Sanam Sheriff We grew up treating fat and fuck you the same way two f words that you’d rather not say, rather be ashamed. until you’re teenaged and ready to spit fire from your lips those three letters jutting uncomfortably into your skin like the buttons of the jeans you grew out of, like the letting go of the arms that don’t want you anymore Love does not fit in the same sentence as your name you take up too much space Nobody’s hands will make their way around your entire waist You are not hourglass enough to be worth his time You are convinced the perfect body is a passport into the terrains of You are beautiful and I love you You are chiseling your own flesh until you forget that your body is a part of you And you are not a part of it. Silly girl The first time you are fat is the first day you learn what skinny is. The first time you become another silly girl Churned out of this washing machine society As cloth that went in pure, and came out coloured With every other unwanted opinion of who you’re supposed to be Is when you begin to believe that thin and beautiful are synonyms For that hourglass shaped girl with spaces between her thighs and Flat plains beneath her ribs that you only find in the pages of magazines and imaginations of teenage testosterone boys.

amaka eze 3

Silly girl, How could you believe that less of you somehow meant more? Started to feel like the rest of you could be left on the floor Cut away like cloth that began to cling too tight to skin, each extra inch a sin, each meal dipped in guiltSilly girl, don’t run Don’t run when they say ‘It’s such a shame, she has a pretty face.’ Don’t sit with your arms draped across your belly Don’t smile with your breath sucked in, Don’t stand by the mirror and believe in love dependent on sightin love dependent on size, I know you feel like not enough And too much at the same time, Silly girl, With a heart no weighing scale knows how to calculate The way you hold a pen and laugh into your palms Like they’re collecting a sunny day, How can I map you on a measuring tape? Beautiful, bellowing, brimming girl come however you are how much ever you are Your story is not your body, Please read the next sentence with care: You don’t have to disappear to prove you were there.

“Grumpy Me” by Alexandria Wang 5

from Crystal Zine by amaka eze

A guardian lion sculptures that I made and painted during my trip to Okinawa while visiting my grandparents and traveling with them in Japan – Stephanie Marrie

FAMILY'DYNAMIC' amaka'eze' ' ALABASTER'MOTHER'MARY,'I'LOVE'YOU.' GAVE'ME'MILKBONES,'WHILE'FATHER'SMOOTHED'MY'JAW.' HOW'DID'IT'FEEL'CARRYING'CARBON'IN'YOUR'GUT?' SHUT'UP'COMBUSTION,'BASE'CROWNED—' ARE'WE'DIAMONDS'NOW?' ' HEAVENLY'FATHER,'TESTIMONY'TO'BLACKNESS' FUCK%YOU'FOR'DIPPING'ME'BLUE' BECAUSE'I'AM'YELLOW'LIKE'SONS,'AND'YOU’VE'LEFT'YOURS.' ' BROTHER'JOHN,'POURED'RESIN'IN'MY'EYES.' THOUGHT'IT'BEST'TO'KEEP'ME'SEEING'SEPIA,' THOUGH'EVENTUALLY'MY'MARBELS'CRACKED.' ' FLESH'AND'BLOOD,'A'LIMBO'OF'BELONGING.' MADE'OF'MISERY'AND'MILK,' LIKE'SALT'AND'SEA,' I'LOVE'YOU.'

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IV. Miscellaneous A. There should be equal enforcement of school policies. B. Dining and Housekeeping staff should have better working conditions and money allocated to raising their pay. In addition, the Staff Appreciation Dinner in the summer should be catered.

III. Funding A. Stipends, for example the Mellon Mays Stipend, should not detract from Bryn Mawr Grants.

III. Diversity A. There should be ongoing mandatory diversity training for all staff and faculty. B. Community Day of Learning workshops should be co-facilitated by trained students and faculty facilitators. C. A diversity and cultural competency class needs to be instituted as a graduation requirement. D. There should be student representation on the Diversity Leadership Group E. An annual report of the Bias Response Team’s findings must be made public.

II. Faculty A. New faculty and staff searches should be made public and accessible to all students. B. The college should create a position of a Dean of Diversity and Inclusion.

I. Campus Safety A. The Campus Safety policies need to be accessible and transparent. Students need to be able to offer input into revisions. Policies need to be on the website, in hardcopy and available in dorms (“Rights as a Bryn Mawr Student” through DLT). B. Diversity trainings for campus safety officers need to be monthly and should include a case study or prompt co-led by representatives from CDA and staff on specific issues related to policing and protecting diverse communities. C. Students should get a copy of the reports they file against Public Safety officers.

The Bryn Mawr College Coalition puts forth the following list of demands, to be completed as part of the ten-year plan for Bryn Mawr College:

The mission of The Bryn Mawr College Coalition is to empower students to create longlasting institutional change through collaborative partnerships and accountability among administration, faculty, staff and students. We are a coalition of students whose aim is to make Bryn Mawr and its resources adequate and accessible for all students.