George Bush does not own religion

When I was 15 years old I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I love Jesus with all my heart and soul, my faith is my life. I am not about religion I'm about relationship, I believe in having a relationship with God. My faith saved my life, my faith defines me, and I am a stronger person because of my faith not despite it. I want the world to know that Gerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and George W. Bush are not what Christianity is about.
When did being liberal and Christian become an oxymoron? When did loving Jesus mean hating everyone else? It's time for liberals to stop assuming every evangelical Christian is like Pat Robertson, and it's time for conservatives to stop imprisoning religion!!!
Jesus is love.

Longing for Bliss

I am so sickened by so many things in this world. I try to watch TV, but it's disgusting. I turn to CNN and hear them talk about the brutal rapes of women in the Congo and it sickens me because no one cares. Today at work I had to listen to a conversation about how women who dressed skimpily are "asking to be raped". They go on to say not to excuse this behavior, but what do they expect. What was most sickening is that it was a woman saying this, and what disgusted me even more is my silence. I said nothing, I wanted to yell, scream, and curse them out for their insensitivity. I had so many emotions going through me all at once, I hate that I sat there in silence. Then as I'm watching TV tonight, I see Bill Bellamy talking about how glad he was the Coby Bryant got off, he joked about how he was in a hotel and he would not let a beautiful service person in because he didn't want her to accuse him of rape. It's overwhelming; I don't know how to deal with all of this new anger. I don't know how to live in this world aware. I don't know how to deal with this anger I feel constantly.
I just feel helpless, at work I hear the kids constantly use homophobic language, and I am the only one that speaks up. Their staff just sits there, and sometimes they cosign on what's being said. I guess today was just one of the worst days. Besides the girls are asking to be raped, when discussing our mayor possibly running for governor the woman says "that undercover faggot". I was stunned she said it with such force and hate; I just sat there saying nothing. This is not the first time I’ve heard such things, but I don’t know how much more I can take. I heard a 13 year old girl call a 5 year old girl a “lesbo pervert” because she accidentally hit her butt while swimming in the pool. What does their staff do? They call the 13 yr old once, and when she doesn’t answer they drop it. What message did that 5 yr old just get? She will internalize that message of hate and carry it her whole life. I just want to go one day with out being struck by an ism.
Days like today make me believe in the phrase Ignorance is Bliss. I always joke with my professor that she’s the reason that I’m angry about everything, because she opened my eyes to oppressions other than racism. It’s true there is a difference now in me; I can see clearly now and sometimes I wish that I couldn’t. I worked at my job prior to first meeting my professor and I enjoyed my time there, now I get sick each time I go there. I agree with Nubian that racism is here to stay, and every other ism for that matter.

more violence

Today while sitting in my room watching TV I hear 6 gun shots on my block. I'm just tired of it. Tonight I was scared, because my room is in the front of the house and I realized that a bullet could have come through my window. I guess things were different when I was younger maybe I didn't realize the danger, but I'm tired. I feel torn, because on one hand I understand that the problem with inner city neighborhoods is that those who can help leave, and they take their money with them. However, I don't know if I can continue to live in a neighborhood where I have to worry about guns and my house getting broken in to. I love the culture and sense of community in my neighborhood, but I can't handle the violence. I can't worry that my 13 year old daughter will be killed while sitting on her front porch. What am I supposed to do? I feel stuck, I don't want to leave but I don't want to stay. I just want the violence to stop. What outsiders fail to realize is that it isn't the whole neighborhood that's violent, but just a few. These few decide to terrorize our community with violence and drugs. My neighborhood is a community; there are people who genuinely care about each other. Some may say why don't you just call the cops, but it's not that simple. The drug dealer on the corner has a family and his son comes to play at your house. The crack head across the street used to be a good handy man. So it's hard to call the cops when the child first steals the bike, because you have his mother pleading with you, and you know the cops will not help at all. There is humanity behind the eyes of our young g’s, but as much as we love them the violence has just got to stop.

Peace

Okay so I just had sort of a surreal moment. I was thinking about my confusion over my sexuality which has definitely turned in to a fight. I have been fighting this every step of the way. As I think back over my life I have come to realize that I have always been fighting my feelings, and for years I did an excellent job at suppressing it. However, I'm done fighting. As I was thinking this I hear a commercial for the series the dead zone come on, and it says "this may not be the life that you have chosen, but this is you destiny”, I know it's pretty cheesy but I'm becoming okay with this. I've been watching a lot of those documentaries on logo, and they've really helped. I don't know how exactly I'm going to define myself, but I do know that I am attracted to women. I don't know what that makes me and I don't really care, all I know is that I am me. I'm not sure when I'll be able to share my new found epiphany with the people close to me, but I feel better knowing that I no longer have to fight with me. I'm learning to find some sort of peace in my life, and that's a very positive turn. I don't know how my life will turn out, but I'm going to follow my heart.

Violence in my community and wonderful WOC

A lot has been going on with me since I last posted. I definitely had that urge to delete it all and just move on with my life, but I'm still here. I've just been going through a range of emotions, I just get so tired of living in this world the way it is. Sometimes I wonder how this world can be so evil. In my town a 13 year old girl died after being shot in front of her house, along with some of her other friends. Like any good black community there was a rally. I'm just so tired of having to have rallies calling for an end to the violence. I'm tired of seeing those R.I.P. pins, I don't know a child in the ghetto who doesn't have at least one. I feel so helpless, I'm just watching as my people are dying every day, every where. A guy at my college died, after being stabbed in the chest during a fight. When will the violence end?
As if all the violence in my neighborhood isn't enough, I turn on the TV and more violence all over the world. I can't get over the barbaric way that the media has proudly displayed Al-Zarqawi's dead body. What type of society does this? Aren't we supposed to be "civilized" ? We focused days and days on the death of Zarqawi, but how much attention has Darfur gotten? It's time for a change!

On a positive note I went to a gathering of women of color feminists, and it was amazing!! I really felt the community I felt at one with these women, it was so encouraging. The discussion was rich and relevant, the women were genuine and uncensored, I felt free to be me. I made a big step, during conversation later, during one of my Nubian inspired, where are the black lesbians? rants, I could tell everyone was questioning my sexuality. I didn't make an effort to say hey I'm straight, because that's not true. So I just let the conversation flow and it felt good. I just want to stay in that environment always, even though I know it's impossible. I'm also becoming more worried about the environment in this new area. Will I be able to find this type of community? I guess everything is an adventure and that's how I'm going to treat it.

Audre

So today I got a chance to hang out with my friends. It was amazing I haven't seen them since graduation a couple of weeks ago. While on the train I was reading Zami a new spelling of my name by Audre Lord. I've wanted to read this book for a while because I heard it was amazing, and I guess I was also looking to the book for guidance. What I’m stopping myself from doing is seeking out other people to judge myself against. I do that a lot, I find the famous quote from the book most applicable (even though I haven't gotten to that part yet)

"If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive"
- Audre Lorde

that’s what I'm trying to due, define myself, but it's hard. What's killing me is that I'm not sure of much, and I don't like it. I always have a plan, it doesn't matter if I change plans a million times, I always know my next step and my confusion of my own sexual identity inserts this uncertainty in to my future that I don't like. That's why I really admire my friend Kay, she's so strong in who she is. She's younger than me but she is always willing to help other LGBT people, she goes out of her way and fights. She gets so much crap at our campus because of her sexual identity, but she never hides who she is, and I love that about her. She knows who she is and she doesn't really care what you think about her. Of course that doesn't mean she doesn't get hurt when people are hurtful, but she stands firm on in the knowledge that she knows who she is. I guess that's what I hope for.

My dilemma

ok as promised I will write about my dilemma.....I don't know why I've named it that, I guess it's just a way to keep it distant from me. I figure if I call it my dilemma and keep it as far away from me as possible then it will go away. Then I will stop being attracted to women, and I will be the good like Black girl and find a nice man to marry. I've tried to have that perspective; I've tried to ignore it. I figured hey I still like men, so why not ignore these feelings I have for women sometimes. You know it's not that big of a deal....I can just choose to only like men. I've come to this resolution several times, but for some reason it never sticks. I say this to myself, but I know I'm lying...I know that what I'm asking of myself is more than I can give. So I'm stuck....I'm stuck in a weird place, I don't really know what to do. It's not like this realization that I like women too is a surprise, I've been trying to suppress these feelings my whole life. Rationalizing my attraction to women as just a healthy admiration (which in some cases it was, but some definitely weren't) I'm just at the point in my life where I'm tired of following the script. I'm tired of playing to people's expectations. This is actually a really hard post for me to write. I'm admitting something to strangers that I've only just begun to admit to myself, and I haven't even told my best friend. There are just so many things going through my mind. I guess if I could pin point one specific feeling it would be fear. I'm afraid of how my best friend will react. I don't want her to begin to question every time we've been alone together, and every compliment I've ever given her as me flirting. I've never thought of her in that way she’s like my sister. We're both really liberal, so I know she'd be accepting overall I suppose, but I don't know I'm still afraid of her reaction.
This year is the first time that I've stopped lying to myself and begun to really examine myself. I guess this realization really came when this girl who was taking the same class as me, but a different section came in to my class. I knew she was a lesbian, because I've seen her around campus and we have some mutual friends, but we don't know each other. We've never even been officially introduced, but I was attracted to her. I found myself wanting to stop and talk to her and this is when I really knew something was up...I wanted to identify myself. I wanted her to know that I liked girls too, but that shocked me. Later she added me on MySpace and I got all excited, I must have looked at her page a million times. When this all happened, I was so confused, my feelings had betrayed me. They had not listened to my command to suppress all feelings for the same sex, and now I couldn't hide anymore.
So now here I am one big ball of confusion.....I'm not really confused because I've admitted it to myself, that there are some girls that I am attracted to and if the right girl ever came around I wouldn't be opposed to seeing where things went. Even writing this just gets me, but that's why I wanted a blog, I felt that I needed to get this out to someone other than myself. Even if no one ever comments, I know someone's reading this and someone out there knows my secret. I am keeping things very private for a reason. I'm just not ready for anyone in my life to know this right now. There are two people in my life that I know that I can talk to about this and would be a great help and comfort too, but I just can’t yet. I find myself sneaking to watch the logo channel, I know it sounds lame, but in my very homophobic family, I have to. They're just not ready....I'm not ready. This is my first step........Here's to first steps!

Beginning

This is the beginning of my blog. I guess I'm going to use this as a place to rant and rave and just let out the way I'm feeling. Anyways I know that I have a lot that I need to work on in my life, and this blog will be my way to document my journey to enlightenment, at the end I hope to be enlightened personally, politically and academically. I am about to move to a new town in a different region to go to grad school. I am really excited about this because I think this move will finally allow me to establish myself as an individual. I hope to really gain some independence and stability. I don't know how to explain myself, my whole entire life I have never truly followed my own desires. I have always felt the need to fit some mold, it's like I've been living by some script. So now I'm 22 years old and I'm sure about very little now a days. In two months I will be starting a masters program and I am scared to death. I'm terrified that I won't be able to do it, I'm afraid that they'll look at me and wonder how I graduated college. I'm terrified that grad school will be a repeat of college. One of the main things that I am confused about is my sexuality, I always find it hard to right. I've been struggling to figure out where I stand for sometime, I haven't told anyone about my dilemma, as I've come to call it. I figured this blog would be a good place to voice what I'm going through to someone other than myself. It's all about baby steps, right? I'll go more in to it later. I guess this is it for my first post.