we talked about rape in class today. i didn't expect to be affected but my eyes welled w/ tears twice and once i thought i'd have to get up and leave.
and its been 4 yrs since.
i hate the word rape. and rapist. and especially the phrase "my rapist." i dont wanna hafta claim any of that shit, particularly b/c the phrase "my rapist" makes a victim out of the speaker.
that's the term i loathe more than anything.
i've so many thoughts threatening to drive me mad right now, i dont know where to begin.
so yeah, we talked bout rape in human sexuality today. as much as i didn't want to i saw myself in the statistics my professor scrawled on the board. i cld feel how big my eyes were & how nervously they darted about & i was ashamed of myself. not ashamed, but embarrassed.
everyother word was 'victim.'
im not a victim. that's why i rarely tell anyone about my experience as it stands.
u say rape & automatically there's a victim somewhere in the mix. u say 'i was raped' and bam.. u just let evrybody know that you ARE that victim.
but im not a victim of anything other than my own silence.
i was 17 & so was he. high school, senior yr. he was the prototype, man. evrysingle girl in the entire class, blk & white, wanted him. 6 ft 3, bright brown flawless skin, "good hair." basketball player. killer thighs. & he wanted quiet, cute lil tracy since freshman yr.
my mama told me no boyfriends til 16 & i listened to her.
he took me to prom. it was a week before my 18th birthday.
we never were boyfriend & girlfriend.
even now it's hard to think about how it all went down, detail for detail, b/c it still hurts, just the crassness of it all. the carelessness. the selfishness. a tacky ass, fake red leather couch in a cluttered room in the suburbs. what a way for a girl to lose her virginity, huh?
if i cld have willed myself to run, i wldn't have known where to go b/c i was out of my element. the burbs. the fuck do i know about the burbs? i cldn't just leave b/c i needed him to get home.
& i didn't wanna leave
or rather, i didn't know that i wanted to leave b/c i didn't know what was happening. i damn sure didn't recognize it as rape, cause get this-
it wasn't violent.
not at all. i wasn't held down, at least not by his hands... i wasn't hit, kicked, spit on, slapped, scratched, cussed at, verbally belittled, nunna that. and that's what rape was to me. it was two big dirty hands pinning your shoulders down, forcing your legs open and ripping into you while snaking obscenities into your ear.
the motherfucker had the nerve to hold me afterwards.
i was naive enough to let him.
my professor said today that so many cases of rape aren't reported b/c so many women who are raped dont know that they've even been raped, nor do the rapists know that they've committed an act of rape.
my case is one of the 75% not reported each yr.
46% of rapes are committed by a woman's love interest.
i saw my name in the space where he wrote those statistics.
i never even told my mama. i'm not yet strong enough to do so.
i found a letter once hidden away in a big folder that my mama keeps all me & my brother's old grade school awards in. i used to love looking thru that folder at how disheveled our handwriting was, counting up my awards & comparing them with his. in that folder, when i was around 10 or 12 or so, i found a letter written in my mother's hand to my father. in it she mentioned being raped. after that she mentioned my brother being a product of that rape.
i cried.
and i never told her i found the letter & read it & cried about it.
i remember asking my mother once before i found that letter whether my brother's father was as big a jerk as he is (me & my brother had had a fight.. he was always pickin on me. to my knowledge, he's never met his father). she got a far away look in her eyes that sorta scared me.
'no,' she said. 'actually he wasn't'
i bet my mama's story lives somewhere in that 46% too, prolly close to mine.
i still cannot say with certainty that she and i will sit and tell our stories to each other and think about them and talk about them and cry about them the way im trying not to cry now.
the first person i told was teddy. dear darling down-for-me-thru-whatever teddy. the second was sean. the third was dave. (<-- all men. remember that. its important)
telling teddy was the scariest thing ive ever done, not because i was ashamed of having been taken advantage of, but because i didn't want him to see me as a victim. rape victims never recover. victims fall & can't get up, don't even try. rape victims have huge therapy bills and hate men and can't enjoy sex and sometimes become lesbians b/c they can't trust men and are ashamed of themselves and their bodies and are meek and soft-spoken and afraid of everything.
that's not me.
i am not a victim.
i love myself just as much as i love men and love men almost as much as i love myself. sex is a beautiful thing to be shared with a beautiful man who thinks and makes me feel that im beautiful and i still know that these men are out there. i'm not the archetypal weak, timid woman who relinquished her entire life to a man in allowing him to make her world collapse. i am not afraid to love & as a matter of fact the better part of my time is now being spent loving a man harder than any pristine woman who's never had a negative male experience cld ever love. i am not frail and dont wanna be treated as such. im happy. he has not taken away my ability to have happy healthy friendships & relationships w/ men. if anything, dealing with such a self-centered inconsiderate reckless disgrace of a man has trained my eye to recognize good men when i meet them and cherish them all the more.
he has not ruined my life.
i wld never give him that much power over me.
i tried to tell teddy all this as i spoke to him about it on the phone that night, but my tongue failed me. i sputtered and stuttered and spat out all the wrong words. it was the most frustrating thing i'd ever tried to do.
he told me 'dont worry. i know u. don't worry about me thinking that about u.'
that was the most relieving thing i'd ever heard.
telling sean & dave was a bit easier. it's still no easy task, let me tell you. i dont even wanna re-read what ive written so far.
i want my rapist to see this.
i wanna write him a letter, first telling me that yes, he did rape me, even though there was no blood drawn or violent words exchanged. i want him to know that that mushy ass letter i wrote him a couple weeks afterwards talkin about how much i liked him was just me trying to rationalize what happened so that it wouldn't become a case of rape in my mind. he needs to know that i regret lying to ppl who asked me about it to save my own reputation when telling them the truth wld have made him look like the asshole he is to all the yes-men surrounding him he probably bragged to. he has to know that im not as naive as he thinks i am or thought i was then and that even though i hated myself for a yr after evrything went down i spent the other three hating him. then i wanna tell him i quit hating him, not because i forgave him, but because such negative energy was fuckin up my chi & i got a life to live that wont allow me to sit around wasting time crying over some pretty ass coward & what he did to me.
i wanna tell him i still think about him & ask myself why the fuck anyone wld treat another human being so carelessly. then i wanna tell him that directly after that i proceed to curse the very egg and sperm cell that spawned him & i take an inventory of the men i am blessed to have in my life and thank god that he is an exception to the greatness that men are intended to become.
yeah, motherfucker, i know the difference.
u ain't every man, no matter how much u prolly wanna believe u are.
in conclusion i'll tell him that im a better person b/c of what happened to me, but i'll beseech him not to get cocky & think that HE is the reason im so fuckin fabulous now.
standing back up was difficult, but i did it.
& u know what? i'm only 5 ft 3, but im a lot taller than him & others like him cld ever dream of being.
if there is a victim in this situation, it's him, not me.
before i move outta ky, i will have written him just such a letter & just IMAGINE the size of my smile on the way to the post office.
so many dope things happent. let's start w/ the dopest, shall we?
10:45 am. im fresh outta class. i'd went to check my mail after hrs the night before, so i knew i had a package. i go get the lil slip from my mailbox, take it to the office window & get my stuff. it's a medium sized brown envelope w/ a book inside (i knew it was a book cause it felt like a book & 'book' was written on the front of the envelope).
walkin back to my room, im tryna figure out what book it cld be & who it was from & why they sendin me a book in the first place. at first i thought it was finna be this dude sendin me the book he insisted on sendin me as a gift (bless his darlin lil heart), but the return address said 'barbara smith' from albany, ny.
?
i dont know no barbara smith
and i dont know nobody from no albany, ny
i didn't remember ordering any books from anybody, so im completely confuzzled and confroosed. i get to my room, open the package and find this book...edited by Barbara Smith. as in world famous feminist Barbara Smith. as in 'i started the first official publishing company for black women in my freaking garage because no other companies were publishing the works of people like me' Barbara Smith.
what
the
hell.
at that moment, brittany knocked on my door for somethin & i shoved the package at her.
'barbara smith? THEE barbara smith? 'home girls' barbara smith that we studied in class?? get outta here!!'
that's when it all hit me, man. like how famous she was & stuff.. i was a lil slow to let it all register.
she autographed the book "To: Tracy Clayton, In Black Sisterhood and Struggle, Barbara Smith, 11-8-03"
wow.
she also included a post card w/ her picture on the front (do u know how famous u gotta be to send somebody a post card w/ YOUR picture on the front?!?). on the back of it was written:
"Dear Tracy Clayton:
I Just read your article in the Third Wave newsletter. Your college experience reminds me in many ways of my own when I went to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusettes in 1965. You are making a difference where you are and doing so with great courage. Congratulations on your scholarship award.
Sincerely, Barbara Smith"
wow. freaking wow. i called my women's history professor straight away and britt & i took it over to show her. she was floored. i called my mommy and she demanded that i make copies of everything--the post card, the newsletter, the autograph. i told her the book was only 400 pages & i cld copy that too, if she liked. she's ecstatic for me. and so am i. i felt high the whole day & i think im still feelin it.
so that was great thing #1.
great thing #2: i FIIIIIIIIIIIINALLY got an A on a paper! first friggin A all semester! Dr. Vital gave it to me. i was shocked. that was dope.
great thing #3: they ran my article in the paper yessaday, on how diversity is a women's issue. i aint know how long it was (even though i cut out the 1,000 words) til i seen it in print. they hadda make the pages of the whole paper wider to get it all on one page (they did it cause another girl had a really long article too, who had also written a/b a feminist issue). that evening at around 5:00 i got an email from that girl, Catherine Greene, who is white, about how much she liked the article, how much she agreed w/ the things i said & how to improve on the situation here. that was dope. my mission had already started to be accomplished.
this morning i got another pretty lengthy email from Kelly Ball, also white (who happens to be a student co-ordinator of our diversity action council) about how much she loved the article too, and how much she can relate as a lesbian to my angst as a black woman.
*record scratch*
kelly's gay?! i had no idea!
so i got over the shock and wrote her on some ideas on how we can maybe get a dialogue going on the intertwining of oppressions for women's or black history month. this is a pretty crude synopsis of the emails. i saved them all, including my responses if anyone wants to see them or the article itself.
great thing #4: i sat myself down inthe computer lab last night & wrote a 9 page paper in 3.5 hr. dude, u cldn't tell me i wasn't the shit. then i found out that the paper's not due today, as i had thought, but tuesday. now that i got it outta the way, there's gonna be a whooooooooole lot less stress in the days to come.
so yesterday was great. im gonna write to ms. smith and thank her today.
like evrynight, the day only got sweeter when i laid down w/ my darlin, talkin about evrything & nuthin at all. his voice is like, the perfect lullaby. we playfought for like a million hrs.. lol. after we talked last night tho, i realized somethin-
im actually pretty scared of this whole feminism thing.
in our verbal sparring, he jokingly called me a man-hater & even though i knew he was joking i was pretty quick to take offense. i didnt even realize i had gotten offended til a few minutes later, after he'd apologized & sounded so extremely distressed & distraught that id felt insulted. my heart was finna break, i swear. i started thinkin that it was my fault for bein so sensitive, and i still sorta feel that way.
i dunno, man. there's such a big stigma that comes w/ proclaiming yourself a feminist/womanist/whatever. i know he was jokin, but dont wanna be seen as man-hater just cause im tryna do sumthin a/b the crazy unfair ways women are still treated today, u know? i mean hell, im a woman. why shldn't i care? i dont wanna be mistreated & i dont want anybody else mistreating me or other women, the same way blk folk didn't wanna be mistreated by white folk. other ppl are quick to judge me that way, tho (not ppl who really know me, but others who hear me or read my words in passing. ppl who really know & care about me know better (..i hope)) which is ridiculously ironic b/c i LOVE men. i mean damn, if anything, that's the reason im down w/ this whole feminism shit. i love men and i want them to love me unequivically (sp?). especially blk men.. if u can recognize how my struggle as a black woman is so similar to yours as a blk man, we can only grow closer & love harder, u know? feminists/womanists get such a bad rap. ive always been quick to defend myself to those who buy into the negative hype, & i guess that's what happent in the face of our joking last night.
so yeah, its scary. sometimes i wonder what im gettin myself in to. but i mean, i feel just as passionately about women's rights as blk men's rights. & i want other ppl--white folk, blk men, evrybody--to care about them too.
im rambling.
but yeah... yesterday was a pretty damn good day.
im off to the shower. peash!
'i will not know you til i have watched you sleep' - regie gibson
'good morning'
the new day came soft upon us.
the stillness in his voice competed w/ that of the cold slivers of sun snaking thru the blinds. i was still asleep. i was curled in a little ball, sleeping on my side. i always sleep on my side. i tried not to once after reading an article written by some guy who said that not being able to sleep on one's back is a sign of insecurity.
i thought about that then. i didn't care. whatever security of self lacked, i found in him.
what time is it?
'7:30'
so early.
we'd spent the entire night together, just talking. i told him how nice it was to wake to the sound of his voice. he said nothing, but i heard his smile.
he soon drifted off again. i, unable to fall, laid in silence, listening to him dream. i became his voyeur, watching w/ closed lids as he snored contentedly in my ear. it embarasses him, so i seldom mention it, but i adore it. i have made a religion of him, and in my worship it is easy to forget that though he is in my mind's eye larger than life, he is just the right fit for my bed and arms and world and dreams. his sweet little snores color him just as ordinary as me, though more often than not the end result is me lauding even more. it is beautiful that he thinks enough of me to let me bear witness to his human side.
i lay for an hour or so, listening and watching him sleep. just as i began to drift again, i was drawn back to consciousness by a series of his low moans, growing gradually higher in pitch & wrapped soft in his quickening breaths. i thought once to wake him & delve into whatever dirty little thoughts may have moved him to such song, but i instead quieted my own breathing, closed my eyes & floated away with him to wherever he was.
and so there we were in the middle of nowhere, he led by his subconscious & i led by him. we'd found our way back home by the time he woke again.
'good mornin, baby'
waking to a new sun morning after morning is a wondrous experience,
but id gladly trade it for that phrase dressed in the cool tones of his voice.
it's only sun. i cld learn to live without it.
it pales in comparison to our yr-round summer anyway.
it was 8:30. we layed talking to each other about miles and miles of nothingness. by 9:30 he was moaning again in my left ear and this time i joined him, singing in quieted whispers in his right. i had an orgasm of emotion each time i heard him say he loved me b/t his hurried breaths.
'sex on a sunday,' he laughed as we lay once the composition had ended. blasphemous. i didn't care. hell w/ him wld be no short of heaven.
the morning found us soft and crept slowly away as we fell asleep again together after sayin goodnight in the light of day. i felt him so warm in the small of my back
until we blew kisses
and hung up our phones.
...i am learning to sleep on my back in his absence.
man
this week went by sooooooo quick
praise moses nem for that
my shakespeare teacher informed us that there's only 5 more classes til the end of the semester (we meet twice'st a week). unbefreakinlievable. and only 41 days til crimmus!!
this is dope.
and speakin of crimmus, nate bought me some nipple clamps. woo!
gonna go see Chuck D speak tonite. im friggin ecstatic. me, britt & candis, just like we used to roll. i anticipate it bein an awkward occassion. it's just weird w/ me & britt now, & most of it comes from my behalf. im just not so quick to be buddy-buddy like that no more. keepin my distance, i guess. *shrugs* but we'll have fun.
& ill ask chuck d to marry me.
after that it's a buncha parties happenin in the immediate & not-so-immediate urrea. might roll w/ candis to one or two.
yo
im cute today.
i actually combed my hair. jeans, simple shirt & timbs. it's dope to feel so sexy in such common, evryday threads.
new homie in the links. go to his page & read all them baldheaded lies he's tellin bout drivin around w/ cassandra wilson & kickin it w/ quincy jones. my hatin ass refuses to believe.
i have no food.
im down to a pop tart, a bag of apples, half a tub of caramel dip, 4 bottles of watter, a million gallons of salsa (w/ no chips, mind u) and a packet of that powdered easy mac cheese. i needa do sumn bout that.
ive been on the verge of humpin inanimate objects for the past 3 weeks now. i need to be spayed.
sleepin nekkid is so liberating. thank god my heat's on all the time so i can stay chillin w/ no clothes.
um..
that's about it. im finna go read cause after Chuck tonite, i aint dern a piece of homework for the rest of the evenin.
& maybe that i'm outta the funk i was in last time i updated.
i just reread it & noticed that anybody readin that stuff may be led to believe that im like, clinicly depressed or some shit.
but im not.
just got a lil disthymic (sp?)
we all get like that sometimes.
the moon is full.
it's gorgeous.
a full moon is a wildly pregnant phenomenon for me. wanna know why?
i'd tell u, but good christian ladies aren't posed to say 'horny.'
know what?
i got evry reason to be stressed out rite now w/ so much on my plate & no appetite.
but im not. that worries me sometimes.. like if i aint worryin bout it all, im not gonna apply myself to gettin it done. which is prolly true.
but id much rather be sittin & smillin in light of the moon & all its implications rather than pullin my hair out over some bullshit.
i am gonna work at gettin stuff done tho.
just wanted to shout out whoever looks @ this thing regularly.
keesh, i see u.
dave, too. & nay nay.
ishan, if u readin.. *waves hi*
NILLA! my nigga. ima get'chu in them links.
& nate
fix ur freakin comment box.
if it happens to be anybody else that deserves a shout, hollerate.
and on a random note- sports bras make me look so freakin athletic in spite of the fact that i aint been athletic in months. they're great.
im finna go write my first angry blk woman article of the yr for the newspaper.
the sky is perfect for it. gray, cold. wet & unfriendly. i personally think evrybody shld wallow in self pity at least one day out of the month, & i hereby declare today my day. im gonna sleep where i can and frown when im awake. my lungs shall stay filled with long, deep, woe-is-me sighs & i shall exude one approx. evry 3 breaths. im gonna stare at the ground & drag my feet whenever i walk. i'm limiting myself to 3 smiles today. i've already used one of em.
those are the rules.
u all tucked in?
heeeeeeeeeeere we go...
i basically feel like a failure. for lots of reasons that i shall list below in a very self-depreciatin fashion in keeping with the theme of today:
i said i was gonna come here & blind evrybody w/ my academic prowess. i was gonna kick this semester's ass, right? wrong. im overwhelmed. i have a paper due tomorrow, a test monday, a paper due tuesday, a book to read this weekend, MLK shit to plan, a 10-fucking 15 page paper due in like a week & a half & i'm not confident that i'll get good grades on any of that shit. i can't seem to push myself. my grades aren't what they should be. not even what they could be.
i also said i was gonna come here & dedicate myself & get back in some sorta healthy shape. i was gonna run a mile a day, right? wrong. it worked for 2 weeks then i quit. i just quit. granted i cldn't devote the time i wanted to b/c of my schoolwork but still. i cld've made it work. but i didn't. failure #2.
for the past 3 yrs i had like the best best friend in the world. i love boys but trusty female companionship is somethin that ive missed out on since like, 2nd grade. it's gone again. it was nice while it lasted.
this fucking step show was my idea. i volunteered to get it together & i can't do it. looks like it's not gonna happen. evrybody was really looking forward to it, but i can't make it happen. failure #4.
i've been pretending to be someone's girlfriend for about the past 2 yrs. i've refused to look @ the situation w/ anything less than 100,000,000 megawatts of optimism & fantasy, sing-songin along in my own lil happy world not giving the needed consideration to how the other party is faring in such unfair conditions. i've been tellin him we'd be okay. promising even. first i was scared to love him & now im scared to stop. & still im scared to make that ultimate move, to just close my eyes & dive in headfirst. dreaming is a beautiful thing but i think i do it too fucking much. i feel like i've failed us. #5.
my room is freezing and i can't make the fuckers turn on my heat.
all my granny wants is somebody to listen to her, but i cant' cause im scared i'll go crazy. #7.
i always told myself that i wldn't just lay around & feel sorry for myself. ppl who do that shit don't get anything accomplished. that's a coward's way of dealing with things.
im tired as hell & ive done nothin all day.
im crazy lethargic, man. blame my reproductive organs.
had a great weekend this week.
friday i received a hugeamongous package from this lady. dude, kisha (now properly spelled thanks to nate's hatin ass) is the bestest ever. why she send me a big bag fulla candy and a card and some lip gloss aaaand saul williams' new book!!
!!!!!
u definitely lifted my sinkin sunken spirits, ma'am. im namin my kids after u :o) thank u so much!
*dancin*
i went home that evenin, did laundry, faught w/ travis, wrassled w/ tiara
aaaand
on saturday we went & seen the muhfkin
LION KING!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'll pause here & allow a moment of silence for the hating to commence.
.....
....
...
..
now.
yo, it was good. it was really really good. id be lion if i said it wasn't remotely cheesy (ha!! hahaha! lion! u get it? i'd be LION!! like LYIN but LION cause im talkin bout the... u get it. & u laughed, quit frontin.) but on the whole it was excellent. a BEAUTIFUL spectacle, man, lemme tell u. the costumes, the sets... the colors... the half nekkid well oiled pieces of african men prancin round in tights. yessir. yessir i shall see it again as soon as i can. it was grood.
i mean.. good.
and great.
great and good.
i finally feel like this step show thing is finna get movin. i sent out an email over UK's blk student union listserv & was like, aight... all yall motherbastids who are disullusioned enuff to be a member of a blk greek organization needa get off ur do-nuthin asses & help us out & to the negroes that's been givin me the runaround I SEE YALL and i know where yall stay and i will stalk u cause im not too good. holla.
after that the emails & apologies came rollin in. keep ur toes crossed for me. im bustin my ass mayne.
that was very random. but anyway, back to my weekend
the Lion King was the high pt by far. ooooh there was halloween. that was interesting, as usual. i got a couple funny stories, but i dont feel like typin em all out. im tired & i got a MLK Day meetin to prepare for. if u wanna hear em ast me later tho.
talked to my sweetie friday & saturday nite.
we've taken to falling asleep on the phone together, purposefully. it takes a lotta the pain away from havin to say gnite.. we still say gnite but instead of hangin up we just drift off to sleep together. prolly sounds cornier than kansas, but it helps, really.
i dont sleep very well in the time we actually spend before one of us hangs up. and by that i only mean that i dont fall asleep and stay asleep, and i dont really mind that, specially if i dont hafta get up early in the mornin. i keep drifting in & out of sleep, waking just to listen to him breathin on the other end so i know that he's still there. when we sleep in the same bed, i do the same thing.. wake to hear the swelling of his breathing, or to watch the rise & fall of his chest & torso silhouetted beside me. guess i just like knowin that he's near in one form or another.
that first night, i woke & noticed that i cldnt hear him breathing anymore, so i figured the phone had slipped from his ear/mouth/nose/whatever. i called his name softly a couple times to be sure, then slipped a kiss into the receiver & hung up. the second nite my signal faded & my phone cut off (hatin ass phone). i didnt call back cause i aint wanna re-wake him.
but yeah.
fallin asleep w/ him makes my bed not feel so much like the cold, lonely bastard it is.
& it just goes to show u how love makes creative motherfuckers outta us all.
as much as id like to end this entry here, i guess i shld give a short recap of my trip to madison.
madison is way too cold & way too white. the conference was okay, but most of the stuff was way too far over my head & i felt like a big idiot for much of my time there, & bryan (my professor) hung around me a lil too much & that got on my nerves, & angela davis was great & in conclusion i am 99.999999% sure that i wont be goin to madison for grad school.
