I love the energy right now of women around the world breaking the chains of patriarchy and supporting other women without question.
Whether it’s one of my favorite online agitators and writers/editors Ayesha Siddiqi – seriously do yourself a favor and follow her on Twitter as @PushingHoops – of The New Inquiry telling the Guardian, “Seek out and support, at all costs, women of color and put their testimony above all else,” to my own circle of women getting focused to shake the daily dehumanization of our current culture and forming new ones together…clearly a momentum of libertad is brewing, eh hem, bruja-ing.
Meet Diosa Vida. Who they are: “Diosa Vida is an artist collective, lifestyle and a movement established by two emcees Ji La Zand and Jazzminah. Meaning ‘Goddess Life’ in Spanish, these two have set out to build a community of chingonas – enter Diosa Tribe – who recognize their sacredness and collective power through artistic expression.”
I am part of the Diosa Tribe. Through magnetic forces of brujidad and magic, we have come together in the last 6 months, committed to undoubtedly seeing each other. Growing each other. Sharing with each other. This is a very powerful thing to (wo)manifest amongst a group of women in a world which pits us against each other, sets wild expectations for who we are supposed to be as women, and violently erases our experience as women of color.
Throughout the years, whether it was my naivete or innocence, I have been showing love to women in an open way using social networks and in my industry when it was deemed “uncool” or “dick riding”…ironic, ain’t that?
“I do it for the goddess, just to keep it equal.” – Queens D Light
Call me an ovaries rider, then. We have to forgive those pasts and those people because this is an evolutionary swell which is unraveling. The young girls and boys of the future need this foundation…
And we are not alone. There is a groundswell out there. From the fierce women of Twitter alliances (like @bad_dominicana who is helping organize a Twitter blackout right now, read her important personal statement on current affairs online here from new space, “This Tweet Called My Back“) @aurabogado, @chiefelk, @karynthia – follow the Twitter list I curated, #subvHERsive) to Sexy Note To Self to Malidoma, Colectiva Cósmica to Latina Rebels to Browntourage to maathership to Maracuyeah to Azucar to Momma’s Hip-Hop Kitchen to Misfit Media to the ladies of Culture Fix, to the all-female drum publication Tom Tom Magazine, online platforms emerging like WAM & Jezebel, my favorite DJ/doula/teacher and mid-wife Chula Doula (read her latest update delivering babies at the border) or to pro-womanist artists ranging from newbies Kaliuchis, Princess Nokia, (tune into her “Smart Girl Club” radio show), Nitty Scott MC, Nani Castle or Chippy Nonstop & Kreayshawn‘s Lost In Thot podcast to globalistas like Ana Tijoux, Xenia Rubinos & Zuzuka Poderosa to the Queen Erykah Badu, or veteran journalists, storytellers & writers like Maria Hinojosa, Raquel Cepeda and Julianne Escobedo Shepard (@Jawnita on Twitter), academics here and coming like Arlene Davila, digital entrepreneurs with courage & flare like Nilofer Merchant and hip-hop activist/academics like Rosa Clemente & Martha Diaz, organizations repping transnational feminism like AF3IRMand super OG cunt-positive 1970s activist Betty Dodson – and so many more to this list this is just off top. And just think about the next generation coming who have been influenced by these women. There’s also the everyday men who support their families and respect the balance. YES!
There’s the ancestors and shoulders of diosas we stand on, too. Our mothers. Their mothers. The queens. The workers. The everyday. All of US. We have to see it in US. And I believe that to be in process more collectively right now…
We are just the now seeds of courage, loving ourselves and therefore each other. Evolved kings must also grow from the ashes of this suffocatingly oppressive & suppressive patriarchy which we as women are also learning to overcome. Reversing the social engineering will be a process — one to be faced as individuals and together with empathy and discipline. Locally and globally. It will be unstoppable and unraveling as we find each other more in clear purpose to rebalance the world.
I wanted to share this incredible video project from Diosa Vida celebrating their founders’ Mexican, Persian and Kurdish roots through the searingly mystical potential of the audio/visual and THE INTERNET. About the video in their own words:
“Rosewater” by Diosa Vida is a visual taste into the many moods of a first generation West Coast woman of Middle Eastern and Mexican origins. Directed by Ji la Zand and starring Jazzminah, both artists are caught in between rich cultural heritage and societal expectations. Everyday is a search for balance between piety and obscenity. “Rosewater” is intended to honor the internal revolution that a modern-day mixed American experiences as they break the binary and evolve into a holistic culture. “Rosewater” is about facing oneself and representing all shades of your complexity and contradiction.
After I saw the video, I commented to Jazz: “I laughed out loud in a combination of pride and total knowing of that ‘fuck you’ and ‘beso’ combination.” Watch this space for more ovary riding, diosas. #DiosaTribe
