Sending TRA love your way!

TTR- Yeah – something happend and the entire 1st stanza of the poem “Mulatto Story” is missing. Its a pretty important framing of the poem, so I’m not sure what else to do but put the poem online the way it should be. I’ll probably put it on myspace. but I’ll figure it out. Next time I’ll take an audio piece from a show I have recorded with an audience.

Man Julia and Sandy ripped it UP!!! I’m honored to be on the show with them! I think their way of thinking about and presenting the concerns of the book were really great. I appreciated most the continued emphasis on the support of families in crisis and the larger connections of globalization and imperialism.

Loved what Julia Chinyere Oparah and Sandy White Hawk had to say as well. These issues are so important, and you all represented yourselves and TRA Nation so well. Three powerful TRA voices in one show! Rock on.

One essay, “Love is Colorblind: Reflections of a Mixed Girl” by Jeni C. Wright reminded me of the part of your solo performance when you are getting ready to sing in church. Your portrayal of yourself as a young girl conveyed such exuberance and zest for life. Then, when repeated applications of Johnson’s no more tangles doesn’t tame your hair and your curls are cut… Oh, it was so painful to sit in that audience at Pact camp.

Jeni Wright recalls returning home from college to find her little sister with matted dreadlocks that needed to be cut off. “I assumed the victory was mine when Mary’s afro was long enough to be put into ponytails. Then I went away to school and left my mother to carry the torch. She dropped it without knowing what it was.”

There is a difference between Jeni’s mother and me. I dropped the torch knowingly. I was educated in foster/adoptive parenting classes that hair care is important in the African American community. Nevertheless, I put my eldest son thru a succession of bad hair days by shaving his head myself. It took me far too long to take my son to a black owned barbershop. I now realize that carrying the torch that TRAs have lit for APs is less effort than trying to stumble around without a guiding light. I also realize that torches can be passed, the light can spread until the words of TRAs illuminate and transform our local communities and the world.