Issue 12: The Dream Issue by Yes, Ma'am

Issue 12

The

Issue

Welcome to Yes, Ma’am Issue 12: The Dream Issue Here you will find critique, reflection, emotion, and empowerment revolving around themes of immigration, freedom, decolonization, human rights, and much more. Immigration is a feminist issue. We must uplift all who struggle. We are in this together. None of us can afford to be single issue activists. Migration is beautiful. No human being is illegal.

We are blown away by the magic that occurs when people use their voice to discuss important topics like immigration. There is so much power in this zine and we’re happy to share it with you.

<3 Yes, Ma’am 2

Isuue 12 Contributors: Cover Art by Mary Agnes Rodriguez Calisho....................................................4 Hannah Jeremiah......................................5 Alex Sodari..............................................6 Monica E. Saldana...............................7, 44 Danielle James......................................8-9 Lauren Stroh..........................................10 Anonymous............................................11 Rachel Duff.......................................12-13 Anonymous............................................14 Linda Arredondo.....................................15 Joyous Windrider JimĂŠnez...................16-17 Eunsoo Jeong....................................18-19 Sara Rastegarpouyani..............................20 yon hui bell......................................21, 43 Zoe Shulman.....................................22-23 Claire Watt........................................24-25 Michael Menchaca...................................26 Sophie Betts...........................................27 Cat Orman........................................28-29 Priscilla............................................30, 42 Tamara Wyndham...................................31 Alexis Bielinksi........................................32 Kory Russell...........................................33 Katrina Majkut...................................34,35 Ana Varela.........................................36-37 Berlin....................................................38 Diane Lucha Benavides............................39 Anonymous............................................40 Janette Schafer.......................................41 Bam.....................................................43 *Anonymous contributions are by students at Westview Middle School in Pflugerville ISD

scratching my nails against my skin I can see their history traced in trails of blood left behind tell me again how I am placed by some old rhythm, entwined in the esoteric thread deep inside natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impulse to paint me in this way shouts - a honey colored body a warm toned eye to match my hair the protruding lines of my face- a muddy story longs to be told bare do not dare to pause, explain or dilute it history draws me old and bent yet a newborn gaze stares back laid heavy on top of purple bags work hard, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t break like crack my mother tells me as life drags like a limp leg that forgot to stand straight the blood races, pounds, beat for seed who will I bring new to this world -if any! ancient desires beckon for a new start I land on American-throwned stints without a penny hustling and my baby slowly crying, restartmy baby slowly dying. But blood not only stains the past, it pervades the future, resilient as my mother dreaming of rivers, earth and independence as my brother, weary of success, opportunity, and vengeance as me, a blood drip that probably survived by coincidence.

-Calisho 4

En Masse: Thoughts on the 2016 Women’s March Danielle James Pussies lined the horizon. They touched the clouds and scraped against Manhattan’s office buildings. Tampons clotted with blood were tucked into envelopes and dropped into mailboxes. Donations to Planned Parenthood were made under Mike Pence’s name. Some contained words of support and were aimed at fellow women, many were laden with sharpness and flung at the conservative white men who are in the position to make decisions that affect all of us. In a nation divided by the election of a government that led with hubris rather than thought, women collectively worked together to reclaim their rights after being disregarded. As a woman, I was proud to see the turnout of women, children, and men at the Women’s March in NYC. As a Black woman, I wondered what it meant that this march was so well attended by protesters yet sparsely guarded by police officers compared to the other marches I’d participated. The ones where we protested the poisoning of clean drinking water. Police brutality. The killing of innocent Black women, children, and men. The attempts to justify their murders. Was I to feel excited that the multiple groups I belong to due to my multifaceted identity had a common opponent to battle against? Or was I justified in being bothered that “Black Lives Matter” was the only chant that got stuck in marchers’ throats and refused to spread like the others? As I marched, friends and allies by my side, I felt both a sense of collectiveness and it’s opposite. Yes, the people around me were my allies, but where they my allies in every sense of the word? Or did they only serve as allies (and I to them) when it came to the mutual causes we cared about? Many of the people walking the City’s avenues had only recently felt the jolt of attack on their identities. Had just begun to discover the pain and frustration of being discriminated against because of their essence, something they could not possibly ever change, even if they wished to do so. I craved from my fellow marchers the realization that just because something may not affect a person directly, it is still worth fighting for, advocating for, and protesting against. As my friend and I pasted glitter slogans on colorful cardboard, we felt energized. Throughout the day, we noticed how few other signs matched the sentiments ours shared: the value of Black lives and that of sex workers. Yet, I remained hopeful that the feelings that propelled our fellow marchers to come out and publicly protest could be the starting point of their curtains being opened. While some white

women may never fully understand what it’s like to live as a Black man in America, perhaps experiencing the discomfort and outrage at statements made during the 2016 election cycle, is enough to start generating more empathy. It is this emotion that caused members of groups who were not being persecuted to band together with those who were. Our government is made up of men who think women should be forced to have children they do not want. Who think that people brought to the United States as children should be sent back to countries they were born in but cannot remember. Who think women cannot marry other women, men cannot marry other men. Who refuse to consider sex and gender as anything but binary. Who think whichever religion they practice should be taken into account when making laws that apply to people with vastly different beliefs. Who think refugees from war-torn countries are not entitled to a safe place to live. Who think the color of one’s skin determines the value of their life. As a result, I’m concerned. I’m concerned about my friends who’ve lived in the United States longer than I have but are considered less American than me. Only because I happened to be born in a hospital in Manhattan. I’m a first-generation American who grew up abroad, they’re first-generation Americans who are forcefully excluded from becoming citizens. I’m concerned about my brothers, who can at any time, for any reason, by any police officer, get shot and killed. I’m concerned about my sisters, who, much too frequently, are victims of sexual violence and denied the care they seek. I’m concerned. And angry. Angry at the people in government who do not care about the full breadth of the population of this country, and only choose to serve those who are most like them. Angry at lawmakers who think women are responsible for bearing and raising the child of the man who raped them. Angry at the juries who continue to accept the overused discourses of guns that were mistaken for tasers, children being labeled as thugs, and the constant justification for killing Black women, children, and men who “appeared to be a threat,” yet turned out to be harmless, a fact uncovered only after their bodies had been punctured by multiple rounds of bullets. Angry at marchers who were appalled by statements of molestation due to one’s perceived gender but felt comfortable with murder due to one’s perceived race. As I trekked through the City, wearing my Black Lives Matter shirt, waving my double-sided pussy-slogan signage, I thought of the historic moment that was unfolding. The warning this occasion signaled to the conservative white men in power who decided to ignore, ridicule, and force their decisions on us. I thought of a Carole Maso quote I’d read years ago, “If through… what we make we refuse to accept our limitations, if we are wild and unruly and unswerving in our conviction and irreverence, will those who try to contain us get it finally?” They might not get us, the fragmented groups in society whose oppression sometimes do and sometimes don’t intersect, but together, we’ll make sure they cannot ignore us.

Mothers Rachel Duff Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve spent my entire life around mothers I was born into a circle of boricua women my abuela, my mamĂĄ, my tĂas Spanish their first language, chisme their second They raised me between coffee and guayaba I learned quickly from their rapid bocas and jangling hands how to pluck my eyebrows and how to defend against machismo my first heartbreak or nightmares in the dead of night it was always one of their manicured hands running through my hair the scent of gardenias lingering on their skin my first job was at a homeless shelter I started the position knowing I would work with children but at the end, it was the mothers I would always remember the pride they would swallow to show up at the door, babies in tow waiting for a bed to be open more times than not due to the heavy fist of a hollow man I was young and had so much to learn women will always teach you, whether you are their child or not so I would sit on the curb and wait with them cigarette smoke permeating the space between us in that silence, a softening of the perceived gap distancing us I watched as mothers existed for each other without asking or acknowledging changing her baby watching her kids holding her hand wiping her tear 12

today I am an ESOL teacher my students arriving from places near and far all learning the tongue of this country all navigating an often unwelcoming territory this time I knew I would be working with children I would see them every day but, still mothers are always present the mother sitting in my classroom baby attached to breast tears rolling down her cheeks she tells me why she had to leave Honduras and why she is scared to leave her house now because if they find her and send her family back she fears her daughter may not make it the mother making me tea touching my hand while she tells me about Syria the beauty she remembers the horror she has seen the quiet mother who waits on the road every day to take her child by the hand and walk him safely to their home the loud mother who shows up to advocate for her child with the little English she knows the hurting mother whose smile is never absent, an unseen comfort to her family when I close my eyes and imagine warriors I see them the mothers

Body Manifesto: My body is a Compass My body was born a defenseless child Its screams and cries and shakes ignored Called names, slapped, shoved, knocked down, Locked up, measured, labeled, and laughed at. Marched, corraled, groomed, discarded. Forced to eat what it didn’t want, Recite what it did not choose to speak. Hands placed upon it to exorcise demons from it. It was woken in the middle of the night, raped and humiliated. And also in daylight. It’s voice was silenced. lost inside a maze of large rigid structures erected to dehumanize, bend and shape, separate, and place like cogs in a wheel. My body is a refugee. With its own unique story. I will take my place at the dinner table, not at the children’s table, not at the dog’s bowl. I will speak this broken language not my own, loud and bold. I will not whisper in the corners of the house or under the covers while everyone sleeps. I will tell its stories at mealtime. And in the street. I will share them like it was two small fishes and five loaves of bread so that someone else hungry might eat. My body is my motherland. I will take it back. I will return from hovering around its perimeter Shivering and cold, afraid to enter in Afraid to feel the devastation of cruel fire, the prickly sensations of thawing heat. I’ve come to reclaim my home to kick out the ghosts, clear out the slave drivers, the humiliaters, the gaslighters, to repair the broken gates, change the locks on the doors, dress the windows, carpet the floors. I will survey the land, scorched and broken to discover the places that do not ache or scream of trauma Little patches of green land in my body where there remains peace Like in my pinky finger, on the space above my breast, on the skin of my forearm, I will set a hammock there. Spike a tent. Build a cabin there. A true homestead as I reclaim the pillaged and burning.

In my body is a network of caves with buried treasure and pockets of deep flowing grief, stored in my joints, my belly, my shoulders, my vocal muscles like golden sediment in underground streams there are masses of moments I have not yet looked at,

waiting for when I was ready to feel them fully, When it is time, my body will graciously open the treasure box I need next And I will scream the cry, shake the tremble, pound the anger, and release it back to the earth where it came from, freed and transformed. I am ready. My body is a compass. It will show me the way My gut is designed to be trusted. My sympathetic and parasympathetic system is exquisite and sensitive, its instruments tell me what I need to know When my body says, go, we will go. I will say no while my body says no. I’ve forgotten how to live in my body. But the baby remembers. I will look to the baby, like water, holding no tension and feeling fully in the moment. The trees and the plants remember. I will look to mother earth. No matter how others try to subjugate her she moves and dances and thrusts and parries like a free woman. Ultimately, she will win, and ultimately, she will heal. I will befriend my body. My body carries the memory of how to be human And so I will re-orient, Feel my feet on the ground, my toes on the earth. I will learn how to dig. I will learn how to dig. I will learn how to dig My toes, my hands, my intentions back into the earth. Curiosity will be my powerful tool as I follow my impulses and reactions I will validate my experiences Because there really once was a tiger. It was in my grandmother’s eyes, my father’s voice, my uncle’s laugh. Ancient memories programmed into my family’s DNA, And I still startle at the rustle wind blown grass And Yes part of me still paces in its cage. I will slow down and allow my eyes to caress the surfaces of my surroundings. REALLY see it. I will notice my breath. There is no tiger here. Mama, you are safe. For this moment, you are safe. Live in this moment. Breathe in this moment. This is the place where you build your cabin, place your tent, set up your hammock. Just in this moment. This is the home of revolution I will tune in deeply

-Joyous Windrider Jiménez

Where are you from? i. The question so frequent it feels part name, part of this white-washed identity i never questioned until the day my mirror, mirror on the wall did not answer. ii. The stranger peers inquisitively at our cheekbones, our brown skin the long black hair center parted Geronimo overlooking a cliff roots my husband cultivates like maiz the indigenous an inner dignity no mojado no brown invasion vato it’s the white invasion we’re still fighting. iii. The mother asks hands languid while my mother’s clench her round blue eyes flickering with the anger she didn’t always contain when asked: which ones are yours? yon hui bell 21

Leave

Claire Watt Sit, in pallid sunshine In the dusk before the dawn. Fiery leaves play parachute Torpedo en eye-holes. The pause in the sonata The breath before the Word The, “Is it over?” - “Can we clap yet?” - “Wait! -” Emancipation Nerves. Winter air on porous skin Hop-scotches in, a round; A kind hand cups your cheek A smile A balmy palm A while.

It will get better, won’t it, mama? The cat has gone to sleep. He’s curled up like a croissant There There, dunk your head back Breathe. 24

The blanket of warm water welcomes You with open arms. A safety-pin of liquid And the buoying brush of wind. Sit under this tent-skin with me The fabric shelters bones Long and loving covering Mother’s arms never grow old. The clouds are leather in the moon White cotton, dipped and smeared. And the light lies low in tortoise shell Mahogany, and seared With the images of migrants Sipping tea and lighting fires.

The landscape’s bound with bodies And it’s not clear who’s alive.

But, still, sit here, and drink with me Sing out your warbling moan. Hot smog of vodka Sticks in chest And hums around your bones.

an ode to the baseball bat weapon of bone and rage. bitch gifted with sharp claws and a mouth filled with no . you, both shield and sword, finding your way into the palms of the broken and making a home out of closed fist. you are bared teeth and shriek and fury. you stare forgiveness down and spit in its face. I am thankful for the way you never learned to back down, only knowing how to be tightgripraggedbreathmeangirl. you, both student and teacher, listening intently and unlocking your voice only when it is ready to scream. protector of the beat down and bitter. red-eyed warrior, tongue that hisses and flicks thank you for refusing to wave the white flag, for being the bed I crawl into every night, the whisper that curls up in my head and reminds me: we will fight again tomorrow, the fucker doesn’t stand a chance. -Sophie Betts Some background on what the symbol of the baseball means to us here at Mount Allison University, as explained by my Women’s and Gender Studies professor: “The baseball bat rose out of a shared frustration about sexual violence on campus, widespread white supremacy and racism, the mainstreaming of the conservative right wing, and cuts to WGST programs. There are a lot of systems we need to smash.” -Tasia Alexopoulos

On Edginess: Cormac McCarthy and the “Real World” Cat Orman

“What the boy had seen,” I read aloud in the dim light of my English classroom, “was a charred human infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit.” We had been reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and morale was low. That crime against literature was selected in accordance with our theme, understanding human nature. In this chapter, Mr. McCarthy informed us that human nature may drive a person to cook and eat a newborn baby. All pretense of classroom boredom was dropped. As most students ripped into the chapter, one usually sullen football player—we’ll call him Roger—leapt to McCarthy’s defense. Roger pointed out with great enthusiasm the difficulties of surviving in the barren hellscape. I responded that more calories are expended during gestation than can be gained by eating a baby. He rolled his eyes. Dr. Harbold chimed in that Cormac McCarthy was known for gratuitous violence. The room settled. For the moment, the edgelord was defeated. Falling short on oratory power, Roger deployed the cheapest warhead in the teenage rhetorical arsenal. He locked his arms behind his head, leaned back in his chair, looked directly at Dr. Harbold and proclaimed with smirking authority that baby-eating was “just how it is in the real world.” The implication was clear: I, a sheltered white male attending private school, play football, so I know much more about apocalyptic violence than do you, silly woman with a doctorate degree. This back-and-forth was trivial, but it reflects more about adult discourse than I initially understood. In the weeks I spent brooding over this incident, I created a kind of theory around the “real world” and what it represents in modern conversation. Who lives in this mythical landscape of horrors, where only bad things are allowed in? I now see the “real world” less as a rhetorical tool and more as a social one--used to promote cynicism and aggression. What first disturbed me about the McCarthy conversation was the efficacy of pessimism itself. In teenage argument, it provides a trump card that says “I have more experience than you. I’m tough enough to confront the worst, and you aren’t. I know about the real world.” To lay claim to the “real world”, one won’t need harrowing anecdotes or disturbing statistics, but would be wise to have a Y chromosome. That’s because Roger’s cynicism appealed to notions of men as inherently jaded. It’s so attractive because it wins social capital as well as arguments--the audience infers that the surliest thinker is the most intelligent, the most worldly, and the most masculine. Everything in the “real world” is bad and getting worse, which is why its inhabitants can only meet it with more violence. Inclinations towards cooperation or optimism are fruitless here, and reflect a lack of experience with the “real world”--a feminine domesticity. Writers who embrace its foulness are lauded for their manly bravery. Novelist Benjamin Percy, for instance, praised Blood Meridian as “unafraid to stare into the abyss.”

No one could accuse Cormac McCarthy of being afraid to stare into the abyss. But how deep is this abyss, anyway? According to Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, it’s not so bad-- and getting better all the time. In his 2011 bestseller Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker argued that humans are not irredeemably violent because the frequency and acceptability of bloodshed is nearly always the mildest it has ever been. Citing thousands of years of declines in measures as diverse as unnatural death, judicial torture, enslavement, child abuse and autocracy, Pinker dispels the notion that the 20th century was history’s worst. “OK”, say the McCarthyites. “The world isn’t so bad. But the parts that are bad have to be confronted, and empathy and cooperation will never accomplish that. We must attack this ever-receding real world. We’ll never get there by being emotional.” It’s true that rational thinking is crucial to confront chaos--just ask Matt Ridley--but it’s worth examining what exactly the McCarthyites mean by “emotional”. Isn’t aggression “emotional”? Novels are not Ikea manuals, and even abominations like The Road must contain a certain degree of feeling. So how do the cynics decide which emotions are “real”? Is it possible that “real” really means “masculine”? In my weeks of watching, reading and stewing, I noticed a double standard in the way “emotional” is applied to displays of emotion. Power-crazed men who compulsively commit atrocities are not “emotional”-- they may be insane, but bloodlust is never “emotional”. Conversely, women who express sentimentality or show mercy are almost always “emotional”, even when their actions make sense. The implication here is that masculine-coded emotions are immutable, that they must be taken seriously as dominant forces in the “real world”. Conversely, feminine-coded emotions must be “irrational” because they are impotent. They are not compatible with the “real world” because their influence in it is entirely absent. Wrong again! Let’s hold up the “real world” against reality. Steven Pinker cites empathy as the first of four “better angels” against war in human history, and moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt specifically credits females as child-rearers with the evolution of empathy itself. Pinker also cites feminization, the increase in female influence over the society, as the third of five historical forces driving the rise of peace. I’d like to imagine that one day, every curmudgeon in my graduating class will suddenly realize that cynicism just isn’t that deep, and never make another bitter comment. However, the realistic way to steer our discourse towards a more well-rounded understanding of the human condition is to empower women to use their voices in the classroom and beyond. That involves examining our disassociation between femininity and rational thinking. When I wrote this essay, it struck me that the McCarthy complex is only one of what must be dozens of unexpected ways the bizarre Western premium on masculinity distorts our collective worldview. It’s up to my generation of smart, engaged, and rational young women to make the change.

6 Human Needs (Poem) Priscilla i had a nightmare about a mass shooting and found out my moms school was on lockdown then i woke up living in Amerikkka from the womb of lady liberty to the tomb of another victim on tv Las Vegas, May you Rest In Peace humanity is born numb ice cold, like the chills down my skin when he reached for the gun and sent souls into kingdom if hell exists, i hope you relive this sin because it’s not safe there is no place that i can call home I am terrified everywhere I go blame my mental health maybe that’ll get me a free pass out of jail however, only if I’m white becausex if I’m brown then I’ll be divided by a wall if I’m Muslim then I’ll be sure to kill us all we are prisoners to the system and relive the nightmare until the day drips blood we must free our mind demand more protection, more policy and co-create our peaceful realities in hope that every victim rises from our nation’s shortfalls 30

My artwork in the series, In Control rejects the stereotypical domestic functionality of samplers. Historically, embroidery prepared women for marriage. Samplers represented domestic skill levels and specific cultural and religious values to potential husbands who sought a woman with the right skills to establish a household – make clothes, darn socks. Cross-stitch was used to advertise and represent womanhood, wifedom and motherhood but bodily functions, autonomy and diverse lifestyles was not part of this textile practice. The “domestic craft” of In Control attempts to directly challenge this by attempting to stitch all products related to women’s health and needs with a fully comprehensive, bipartisan and medically honest approach. As straightforward still lives, the artworks examine their objective commercial packaging against their too-often subjective, weighted political underpinnings. Until the invention of the pill, women were expected to only have children within marriage and a wife’s sole purpose was to bear children and then take care of them in the home. Women needed a way to control their reproductive lives in order to manage their physical and financial health, education and the demands of domestic drudgery. Conversely, the U.S. has historically used birth control in class and race wars particularly as a ploy of eugenics and neo-colonialism. Prior to its release in 1960, pharmaceutical companies tested The Pill on Puerto Rican prisoners and farm laborers. Both abroad in the United States, government and non-government institutions promoted birth control as a method to minimize population booms among the lower classes. Even in the 20th century U.S., it was common for single mothers of color to be sterilized against their consent or knowledge after giving birth. Today, with the constant debate over Roe v. Wade, tightening abortion clinic rules and the attacks on Planned Parenthood funding access and usage is a polarized issue, rendering access to safe abortion and women’s healthcare a service for only the privileged few. The historical use and understanding of birth control and fair access to it has never been evenly distributed between people of different race, class, education and profession. By using art to stitch every modern product, I hope to address how complicated and diverse women’s needs are, to open a safe space where women can share their personal stories and needs and to highlight the impact of institutionalized regulation and control. The contrast between the historical domestic cross-stitch, its implied gender role and women’s actual birth control/health needs lies at the heart of why women’s reproductive rights are still a hot topic issue – reproductive health is still not wholly considered appropriate in such a feminine and domestic sphere. This explains why as writer, Jay Michaelson put it, “Sandra Fluke, was shamed as a slut for defending the right to control her body.” Even the Hobby Lobby US Supreme Court case, shows that even a for-profit business can have more say in a woman’s access to healthcare than the woman herself. Through the cross-stitch of In Control, I want to highlight how social history and practices have eradicated the understanding of women’s medical needs in light of domestic practices, to focus on ideas of what it means to be a modern woman today and to maintain but modernize this historical craft practice.

-Katrina Majkut

The White Man Held My Hand; Una historia de amor by Ana Varela

Habia una vez que the people denied interracial relationships. Hoy, we may be doing much worse. Escuchenme.. We are denying ourselves the opportunity to change history forever today because we are so focused on combating the enemy. As if we are in a civil war, we are separating families and demanding that they choose. Then it was red or blue and today we fight over who to give these labels to. So what do I do when I am split between the two? I am in the gray area, hola soy “white- passing”, nice to meet you. I warn you, that I even sympathize with people with light eyes...I believe that even white men can cry- I don’t know what’s wrong with me, por hay esta enferma la nena... but I see struggles on many sides and I don’t understand why we continue with what we know to be historical lies y seguimos con “Habia otra vez que” the people continued to deny... but we said “No mas” and we said “No more” because we know that skin color no importa mi amor, PERO en vez de amor elegimos ARMOR. We are artists denying ourselves la belleza de la mezcla de colores... Aparentemente... I am dating the enemy. I am am in love with the oppressor. I am victim to the hypnotism of his blonde hair and blue eyes. I live with someone who cannot possibly understand my struggles because of the color of his skin, right?...a donde carajo va con esto y pero cómo puede ser que una chica inteligente esté en esta posición! Identity politics, creo yo- y soy mujer y supuestamente les tiene que importar lo que digo- is pulling at the weakest seams in society, excluding even those who love us most from being able to experi nce empathy that we preach. We demand inclusion while demanding to exclude all of the people from the gray areas into the darkness. Could we be pushing them away because of how they look? Consideremos la pregunta por favor. And who is this they, this other that we are so eager to recreate? White or man or white passing anyone and we have collectively decided to label their existence as lesser than... a donde carajo va con esto y pero cómo puede ser que una chica inteligente tenga ESTA MALDITA posición! Are we so eager to repeat history? Pero que le pasa?? Are we so eager to segregate?

No Ana, por supuesto que no! If we demand inclusion why do we work hard to separate, segregate, and acclimate to a world that we don’t really want? A war where we say that we preach but really we are fighting so that women can be anything but a man can only be one thing?! No Ana, por supuesto que no! Don’t we want todos unidos? Don’t we want understanding and amor for this and all of the future generations? Si se puede! Dile a tu novio blanco que si se puede! But they’ve told him he can’t experience racism. Because of the color of my lovers skin he cannot feel hurt when the white man is made to be a bad man and all the while he has been holding my hand...he is told that the white man did this and the white man did that and its as if though no good people can stand up against that without getting attacked... that sounds familiar. That sounds like all of the historical crap that we promised not to repeat and here we are doing the same things. Las mujeres somos fuertes! Pero un hombre fuerte? Hay no que miedo! How can we demand empowerment and do so by usurping power from others. An oppressor should be powerless, but oppression has no color. White supremacy is scary and ignorant, right? So why don’t we understand when they fear words like “Black lives matter”. They fear for their existence and if we face this “them” with more hate, they will fight for their existence in the same historical way. If we don’t sit down and do as we so powerfully teach, we will receive nothing more than more resistance and hate speech. In the meantime don’t assume things about this white man holding my hand... How can we continue to excuse our actions as different from what has already happened in history? This is the people’s fight right? Then all people are invited- yes even the men and even the white because we don’t label based on color and gender, we are for the success of a peaceful life. We are not the systematic oppressorswe are inclusive individuals, the mobilized masses, the far-seeing future. We are the change, the breaking of the chains and cycles. We should not be remembered for arming ourselves with messages of division, highlighted difference, and augmented indifference towards anyone. We say “No mas” and “No more” because we know that skin color no importa mi amor... Habia esa vez que un amor held my hand. Desde ese momento, I could understand.

Hi. I’m a sex worker. I post provocative pictures, I’m very comfortable with my body, and I’m pretty open about my sexuality. I do acrobats on a pole for money. So I guess that makes me pretty slutty. I don’t sleep around, well, unless you count the man who came in to my job the other day and forced himself on me. But it’s fine, I mean, I asked for it right? After all our current president did say “Just grab her right in the pussy.” But regardless, society portrays me as “dirty”. Hi. I’m a sex worker. People say there’s a special place in hell for women like me. “Slut, whore, adulterer.” But John 8:7 says “he who is without sin among you let him first cast a stone on her.” Yet everyday a sex worker is raped or murdered. Hi. I’m a sex worker and I’d never dare to think of wrecking your marriage like the media says we do. Because you see, I am too, just like you and I want to be happy. I’m just trying to make money to pay this university and I want to get my degree in Oncology and hopefully one day, maybe obtain a title “MD” Hi. I’m a sex worker. -Berlin 38

Confession of Privilege Janette Schafer I confess The Carmelite did not know which sins were hers but felt heavy with them, dark cloak envelopes her habit. I confess Murmured prayers float from the rooftops in time with the steady click of rosary beads. I confess A fling of the wrist, bright smell of corn kernels, a sound of rain as they pelt the ground, low coo of happy chickens. I confess that my mind is sharp, that this is not always enough, that my comfort in cloister is decadent beneath the crush of suffering.

Cross Pollination Your you touches my me and we become so varied so bright transported by wind clinging to the wet lips of winged creatures floating on the waters of your rivers and my oceans. Of what use, to us, are borders? yon hui bell

Thanks for reading. Yes, Maâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;am is created by Elle Minter and Suzy GonzĂĄlez

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