#1901: Re: #1895:Re: #1891: ? a reply from Ulysse

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Gina Ulysse <gulysse@abacus.bates.edu>

How can one not be moved by the raw expression of dissapointment, anger,
pain and frustration. I read Emmanuelle's message and reread it again. I
found myself asking just which part of me was reading it by the third
time? the dyas with the longing, the poet who believes that in our
vulnerablity we are strongest or the anthropologist who is quietly
hollering for more self-reflexivity.  I say all of this in part to
reiterate comments made by and to add a few of my own. 

I found it very hard to occupy a space of desperate quietness when there
is so much talking that needs to be done. While many of us are so
frustrated that we would we have talked enough and we need to act. I am of
the school that believes that we have yet to dialogue until we talk about
the things that makes us most uncomfortable. The things that would force
us to admit that no matter how much we care we are NOT all the same. No
matter how much we are frustrated, we do NOT have the same goal. No matter
how much we dream, we will never be the same because there is no WE.  Like
any other group of people there are deep fractions among us. All of us, in
our own ways, strive to live to maintain and recreate our comfort. We have
always had different interests and different needs. Just revisit the bases
of the alliances formed during that successful revolution. Sadly, in the
eyes of the world and in our own eyes we certainly do not have the same
worth. That is precisely why some losts are more outrageous than others. 
That is precisely why the lost of certain lives can actually lead total
disaster. Indeed some lives are worth more than others. Some lives have
always been worth more than others.

I just want to share with you a couple lines from a poem 
titled "I make love like that..."

I was born like that in 1804
i was supposed to be free but i was forced  to bow
to greater white powers that refused to respect my sovereignty
i was forced to bow to the creoles with their colonized minds
i was forced to bow to men and women like myself
who treated me cruelly as the whites who had brought me to this country
because in our eyes i was savage
after over 200 years i was still too african 
too strong too spirited too spiritual
not white enough    not white enough
never really french enough
i make love like that  because
i was born black in haiti and on my knees....

 
It's very hard for me to not think aboute the absolute outrage in this
country over those recent shootings by young white boys and the silences
over too large a number of black lives that have been and continue to be
lost in inner cities. But then they are just uneducated beasts who don't
know to live with each other like humans. 

NONE OF OUR HANDS ARE CLEAN WE ARE ALL TO BLAME
 with peace, love and a lot of respect
gu

^//^**^//^**^/^^**^//^**^//^**^/^~
Gina Ulysse Ph.D.			
Asst Prof African-American Studies 
Bates College Lewiston, Maine 04240  
(207) 786-6436 FX (207) 786-8338
gulysse@bates.edu 
*/*^^*///*^^*//*^^*/*^^*//*^^*///*
					
						We like trashing on the weak 
					 	because too often 
						we don't have the courage 
						to confront the powerful
                 						---Cornel West