I’m not comfortable
talking about racial differences,
Or even racial
or sensual similarities.
I know what you mean
or maybe I do.
Something intimate and personal
about melanin
and hair qualities
and what lies red-blooded
under shared and segregated skin.
I remember when long hair quantity
was an anti-patriarchal political statement,
maybe even economic;
But not qualities
like “good” hair
or “black” hair
or “kinky” hair
or “Aryan” blond hair
or “much too blond” hair.
I’m uncomfortable
talking about kinky sex, too.
I’m hearing something about mixing
personal and political.
I know, right?
Like, when did the decision to have a baby
or not,
because of emergent climate pathologies,
impending drought
and hunger
Pandemics
Floods
Fierce and frightening windstorms
Failure of insurance
and financial
and healthy-democratic v fake-populist government systems
become more than merely personal?
I don’t know.
I’m starting to see reality of power-centers
the eco-Other way around.
Meaning…
That personal climates
and characteristics
are also politically empowering
and/or disempowering,
often with economic
investment and/or divestment
implications;
Not partisan, especially,
but essentially political,
like positive and negative cultural power.
When was the last time
someone told you,
“It’s not personal,
I’m just not ready to commit”
Or
“It’s not personal,
it’s just a time and money budget problem”
Or
“an administrative decision”
“come down from corporate”
“change in [impersonal, generic, general] policy”
“a decision [choice] made upstairs”
about a group of individuals
of which you, unfortunately,
are a now unwanted part.
As if,
because it’s political
or economic policy,
it can’t become legitimately felt as personal
disempowerment
or even familial empowerment;
like capitalistic corporately learned responses
to cultures of melanin
and kinkiness.
My favorite
is when people ask me
not to confuse religion
with politics
and economics.
I know, right?
Like most of Earth’s human population
could
or would place their faith
in politically impoverished
or economically disempowered
counter-cultural
communitarian cooperative communication
and spiritual and sensory education
and ecofeminist formation failing systems
Like ecologically failing subclimates
and theologically monoculturing racism
and sexism
and straight white patriarchal privileged
left-brain dominant systems.
Personal systems.
And political.
And economic.
And social-psychological
Multiculturally transmitted
Whether by democratic constitutions
or divinely inspired scriptures
or patriarchal lines of spiritual masters
teachers with diverse levels of aboriginal melanin,
and good or kinky hair,
and those upper eyelid folds
I’m not sure I Western trust…
gdill52 