Nicaraguan guerrinna sister breast feeding her baby during the Contra War. Orlando Valenzuela’s photography captures the femininity of revolutionary Sandinista women so beautifully.
“I have learned that a woman can be a fighter, a freedom fighter, a political activist, and that she can fall in love and be loved. She can be married, have children, be a mother. Revolution must mean life also; every aspect of life.” Leila Khaled
i mean—i love this picture. i really do. it calls to mind the other picture of a woman breast feeding her baby talking to hugo chavez. but…i’ve seen it reblogged so so so many times these past few days—and some poeple have a legitimate right to, as they are latina and this is their history or they’re women of color and i trust that they reblog this critically or aware of context— and other people …i don’t know. this picture coupled with the other pictures of women (mostly women from the global south or carribean islands that i’ve seen) in soldadera gear with guns and in formations…
i’ve been thinking a lot about this poem and wondering in what world we think that being a mami during war time is beautiful or inspiring. :
By Jo Carrillo
Our white sisters
radical friends
love to own pictures of us
sitting at a factory machine
wielding a machete
in our bright bandanas
holding brown yellow black red children
reading books from literacy campaigns
holding machine guns bayonets bombs knives
Our white sisters
radical friends
should think
again.Our white sisters
radical friends
love to own pictures of us
walking to the fields in the hot sun
with straw hat on head if brown
bandana if black
in bright embroidered shirts
holding brown yellow black red children
reading books from literacy campaigns
smiling.
Our white sisters
should think again.
No one smiles
at the beginning of a day spent
digging for souvenir chunks of uranium
of cleaning up after
our white sisters
radical friends.And when our white sisters
radical friends see us
in the flesh
not as a picture they own,
they are not quite sure
if
they like us as much.
We’re not as happy as we look
on
their
wall.“And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You,” published in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 2nd ed., 1983
“And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures With You” is one of my favorite poems from This Bridge Called My Back
photos from exhibition entitled Body Politics, Maori Tattoo Today:
This exhibition features moko, the Maori art of facial or body tattooing, and includes stunning images by Dutch-born photographer Hans Neleman. Maori moko are distinguished by their expressions of identity—personal, social and tribal. Dating back hundreds of years, the art form is undergoing a resurgence as New Zealand’s Maori reassert their cultural tradition.
One of the things I find so troubling about prenatal testing is this idea that you can protect yourself against having a disabled child — as though we’re not all one illness or injury away from disability. It’s a symptom of our culture’s full-scale denial that difficulty and fragility are the hallmarks of life, not its pitiful exceptions.
And then when we get mad, y’all got the nerve to ask us if we hate you or why, like we aren’t justified if we do.
Y’all come into our spaces dropping crumbs of cracker foolishness all over the damn place
Or you troll us with racism, and then when we tell you off, you go…
