bridging blogs

Click here for a link to my "other blog," where I will be posting from now on...
(and to read an explanation as to why)...

so what are these bridges we keep talking about building?

"Bridges are thresholds to other realities, archetypal, primal symbols of shifting consciousness. They are passageways, conduits, and connectors that connote transitioning, crossing borders, and changing perspectives." -- Gloria Anzaldua, in her preface to "this bridge we call home"

Prior to the organizing I'm doing currently around KGIA, I never thought much about bridges.
I occasionally thought about how I prefer them to tunnels (which kind of scare me) or why it was worth raising the tolls to cross them if it meant lowering the price of public transportation...i think that was a proposition in CA a few years back.
I didn't think of them in a "political" way (except I guess that last point was about a proposition, so that's kind of political).
When I thought about building links between people and/or communities I thought about "movement building." When I thought about shifting consciousness I thought about "breaking through barriers" or "tearing down walls." But with the work around KGIA came these repeated descriptions of Debbie (the school's founding principal) as a "bridge builder."

At first, I rebelled against the term. At one point, when trying to organize other Jews to support KGIA, I literally couldn't get the words out of my mouth. Every time I tried to say that Debbie was "building bridges" I said "brilding bidges" or "bridging build...wait." It was comical. People laughed at me. I laughed at me. I just thought it sounded like one of those terms that takes all the politics out of an issue that's actually really important - sort of like "multiculturalism" or "diversity" - ideas that are actually really great, but when we hear them, we cringe in anticipation of the liberal, meaningless banter that we know is coming next. Oh yeah, and the lack of a power analysis...we cringe at that too.

But recently, I've been thinking about what it really means to "build bridges." I picked up "this bridge we call home" (for those who don't know, it's a book that follows and continues the dialogue of the anthology "This Bridge Called My Back") at Bluestockings bookstore, mostly because the "women's studies" section where the book was happens to be directly across from the table at which I was sitting to drink my coffee and attempt to write a poem that ended with a call for boycott-divestment-sanctions (I've recently been thinking about what it would look like if activist poetry actually incorporated concrete calls to action...thoughts?) Since I picked it up (and bought it, and brought it home, and stayed up late reading it...and continue to spend nights staying up late reading it...) I've been thinking a lot about Anzaldua's definition of bridges.
"shifting consciousness"
"connectors"
"transitioning"
"crossing borders"
"changing perspectives"
how much better - and how much more essential to social change- can you get?

I started to think about the people I love working with, politically. Always, they are the people who not only see the links between issues in a theoretical sense, but who want to ACT on those connections. Sometimes I think that's why I'm drawn to poetry - it allows us to make those connections- build those bridges- without having to spell out all the links - because really, isn't it obvious? Do we really need to know that it's the same company (Elbit, an israeli company, look it up) building the wall in Palestine and the wall in/ontheborderof Mexico? Isn't it enough to just recognize that in both places, communities and families are being torn apart by these walls? On land that's stolen/colonized in the first place?
...How did I end up talking about walls? I was talking about bridges...
but that's just it!
It's all connected!
And no, this abundance of exclamation points is not because I have any illusions that I'm saying anything that hasn't already been said a million times before...I'm just really enthusiastic about it right now!

Of course, Anzaldua also says "A bridge...is not just about one set of people crossing to the other side; it's also about those on the other side crossing to this side." This, I think, encompasses why I was uncomfortable with the idea of "building bridges" in the first place. So often, "building bridges" means "compromise" and so often "compromise" means the people with the power set the standards and take half a step from the position they were at in the first place, while the people without the power have to take ten giant leaps. In other words, the people without the power get stuck doing most of the building- or the compromising. And then the people with the power take most of the credit and try to portray themselves as romantically self-sacrificial. I know you know what I'm talking about.

So that, is my reflection on bridges.
Then again, if we're going to go with the metaphor...what IS so great about bridges? And why is it better to build a bridge than just swim across the ocean? Thoughts...?

we will not be silent

For Communities in Support of KGIA, and for the performers, speakers, volunteers, and guests, "Seeking Justice, Speaking Truth" was an evening of inspiration, hope, and movement building. It was educational as well as inspirational, as people heard for the first time about what's going on inside the school- a message that speakers repeatedly tied - - overtly and specifically - - to the cause of these problems: a lack of DOE support for the school, and, more specifically, the forced resignation of founding principal Debbie Almontaser, the school's visionary. As teachers spoke out, members of the audience literally slid to the edges of their seats, waiting in anticipation for the details about to be revealed. We listened to teachers speak about the DOE's refusal to provide needed resources to the school- everything from walls to special education services to adequate leadership- but even more powerfully, we listened to stories about fear. Anyone can be targetted, simply for speaking, defining, or explaining a word in Arabic. In the wide-open eyes of the audience, I watched a conflict of emotion: the reality was painful but the vision was beautiful. Finally, we were truly living up to the theme of the evening: "We will not be silent." And what is better for overcoming fear, than raising our voices and truly "speaking truth"? Together, through poetry, speeches, action, and simply being together, we were recalling the original vision of KGIA and manifesting that vision together. We were talking about how to move forward, we were building community, and we were celebrating culture. Ultimately, I watched the collective joy overpower the collective pain, the sparkle of tears turn to that of inspiration and hope. Pain, after all, cannot be overcome by turning away from the reality that needs to change. That reality needs to be faced, spoken, challenged, and, ultimately, transformed. Unfortunately, the media doesn't like complex or positive messages. The only piece of the evening that made it outside of the Park Slope United Methodist Church (the location of the event) was that about the negative realities inside KGIA - the lack of resources (illogically blamed by the media on the school's Arabic-language and culture focus, rather than on those who are supposed to be responsible for providing resources to new schools- New Visions and the Department of Education!), and the word "chaotic" (without context). Perhaps our next event should be one in which we attempt to manifest a media that tells the whole story; a media that sees the power of bringing together groups as diverse as El Puente, Desis Rising Up & Moving, Urban Word and all of the CISKGIA sponsoring organizations; and a media that understands that putting one word in quotation marks and then putting it in a context completely different from the one it was in originally is not honest journalism or accurate reporting. In spite of their efforts, however, I know we won't let the right-wing pundits take control of our message. Their voices may be amplified by the media, but ours are amplified louder, by our commitment to the cause, our dedication to the movement, and our drive to see our shared vision become a reality. We will not be silent. Apparently neither will they. So we're just going to have to speak louder, more powerfully, more beautifully, and drown their messages of racism, hate, and destruction in our own messages of hope, community, culture, and justice. Exactly like we did last night.