Exhausted.
Activists, students, lawyers, theorists, thinkers, workers, shit-disturbers…people who give a damn!
What a whirlwind few days. I am absolutely beat. Toast. Fried. Knackered.
The dreams are many, but they live on. We just got to stay strong.
Public Interest Day (“Friday” to the rest of you) was a bit of a shmooze fest. Honestly, as much as I can rock the room; I was in no mood to shmooze. I did chat up some key people who inspire me and may one day hire me! (Oh yeah, you love my poetry.)
I was so lucky to have the perfect end to that long day: some time with some of the best people on the planet. I saw Kiara, Helen, Judy, Nathan and baby Isabelly. I was a bit of a baby hog at Judy’s house, but I think that people forgave me since I hadn’t seen the little one since my birthday party.
Today, I woke up at 7 a.m. and got my groove on. It was going to be a big day.
I was overdressed with my suit jacket (lefties like keeping it casual—who knew? ;P), but I rocked my patent leather red shoes like frickin’ Judy Garland, yo. If you’re going to wear the MAN’s clothes, at least make it fun. A fitted flaming red top and matching shoes are small ways to show that you’re still stickin’ it to the man. 😛
I was worried about my how my panel would, er, pan out, but it went swimmingly. I took issue with it being called “Aboriginal Alternative Justice” because I have to problematize every damn thing in this world. Alternative to WHAT? Alternative is loaded, people! What if the restorative justice practice it is indigenous to the INDIGENOUS community? Huh? Yeah, uh-huh, that’s right. (Great song lyrics, BTW.)
Speaker recruitment was a bitch, but those we got to come did not disappoint. Moderating was easy when everyone was sitting in a circle. We didn’t have a talking stick, but the spirit was there.
You know, but it hurt me deeply to see that there was so few faces of colour at the conference. I just spent several hours ranting about the complexities of that underrepresentation to my parents and Dave. They tend to agree with me; but that’s not changing the fact that my specific demographic doesn’t seem to agree enough to do a damn thing.
The theme for our little conference was, “Resistance: Exploring Strategies for Social Change.” You’d think that folks of colour might have a slight interest in that.
I don’t even want to talk about the dearth of male attendees at the conference. Lots of male speakers, but hardly any other male participants. Not very many straight guys in the latter group either. One of the few straight male attendees quipped at the sandwich table, “Yeah, I’m just here to pick up chicks.”
HA! At least the dudes who came had a wicked sense of humour. You need that when you’re working for social justice. I was joking about the New Age crap earlier this week (don’t worry, Akio!) ; but I’m dead serious needing to have a positive attitude to succeed. I’m stickin’ with that.
It’s time for bed. I take it back. I’m not beat. That sounds like I’m admitting defeat. Heck, no! I just desperately need to recharge my batteries.
red wings Says:
well it sounds like the conference was productive! i miss going to conferences like that, but i was never so tres chic activist like you over there. lol. I was mostly invovled in group dynamic conferencing. But then again, that could be the same? (yeah i don’t know) well sounds like you’re doing well though, whereas i am wallowing in muscus filled tissues and costco sized bottles of ibuprofen. but keep rockin’ it girl. and LOVE the red patent shoes. red and patent leather? you can’t really go wrong. lol.