//eatweeds.rva

beekeeping with friends in new kent, virginia

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:14:08 -0400

beekeeping with friends in new kent, virginia

Herbal Free School by Toi Scott

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:00:34 -0400

Herbal Free School by Toi Scott:

chicken-snack:

askouija:

kwueenshadez:

Free intro herbalism links, articles, and access. Enjoy!!

for later

DUDE.

thisisavisualpoetryblog: “Forsythia” by Mary Ellen Solt

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 01:50:22 -0400

thisisavisualpoetryblog:

“Forsythia” by Mary Ellen Solt

wildcroft hollow, amherst va

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 17:35:48 -0400

wildcroft hollow, amherst va

Gabriel's Conspiracy: Exploring the Richmond Slave Rebellion of 1800

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:00:42 -0500

fanrva:

VCU Libraries will host “Gabriel’s Conspiracy: Exploring the Richmond Slave Rebellion of 1800″ on Wednesday, March 13 at 7 p.m. in the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts, 922 Park Ave.

VIA: Fan of the Fan
http://fanofthefan.com/2013/03/gabriels-conspiracy-exploring-the-richmond-slave-rebellion-of-1800/

A Community Course in African American Studies, Free and Open to the Public

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:21:35 -0500

A Community Course in African American Studies, Free and Open to the Public:

active-rva:

Every Friday, starting today, February 22nd, from 6:30-8:30pm, at the East District Family Resource Center (2405 Jefferson Avenue, Richmond VA), there will be a free, public class on African American Studies.

Here is the class schedule and speakers:

February 22: “Saltwater Fish in a Freshwater Society: Re-imagining Black Love And African (American) Possibility,” Prof. Adisa Ajamu, Atunwa Collective Community Development Think Tank

March 1: “Colorism in the Black Community,” Prof. Morgan Maxwell, VCU

March 8: “Revisiting the Isis Papers and the Psychology of White Supremacy,” Dr. Francis Cress-Welsing, The Isis Papers

March 15: “Negroes with Guns: Why African Americans Must Exercise their Right to Bear Arms,” Rev. Kenn Blanchard, Blanchard Media Group

March 22: “The House I Live In— Documentary Film on the Prison Industrial Complex,” Mr. Jesse Frierson, African American Lecture Series

March 29: “Being Silent When She Should Be Screaming: The Strong Black Woman Phenomena,” Dr. Jasmine Abrams, VCU

April 5: “Post Enslavement Systemic Trauma,” Dr. Kevin Washington, Center for Optimal Life

April 12: “A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X,” Dr. Jared Ball, Morgan State University

April 19: “How Black Men in The Streets Adapt to Structural Violence,” Dr. Yasser Payne, University of Delaware

rameysaurus wrecks you: Seminar: “Real Women Can Have a Prostate: Real Men Can Have a Cervix: Addressing the Needs of Transgender-identified...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:12:03 -0500

rameysaurus wrecks you: Seminar: “Real Women Can Have a Prostate: Real Men Can Have a Cervix: Addressing the Needs of Transgender-identified...:

active-rva:

On Wednesday February 6th, from 12-1pm, at the VCU Medical Center Main Hospital, 1st Floor Learning Center (1200 East Marshall Street Richmond, VA 23298), there will be a brown-bag lunch seminary titled “Real Women Can Have a Prostate: Real Men Can Have A Cervix:…

Honeybee Sanctuary Fundraiser

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:10:40 -0500

Honeybee Sanctuary Fundraiser:

active-rva:

On February 23, from 11:30am-2pm, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (1800 Lakeside Avenue, Richmond, VA 23228) will host a Honeybee Sanctuary Fundraiser to benefit Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary in Floyd, Virginia. Gunther Hauk will be speaking on the solution to the decline of the honeybee population.

The cost of the event is $40, which includes a buffet lunch. You can purchase tickets through the title link.

"Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Conference on Race, Class, Oppurtunity, and School Boundaries in the Richmond Region"

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 23:37:53 -0500

"Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Conference on Race, Class, Oppurtunity, and School Boundaries in the Richmond Region":

active-rva:

On March 13th and 14th, The School of Professional and Continuing Studies and the Center for Leadership in Education at the University of Richmond are collaborating and cohosting a conference with the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education. The conference is titled “Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Conference on Race, Class, Oppurtunity, and School Boundaries in the Richmond Region”. From the event description:

“Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a lower court order to consolidate the school systems of Richmond City, Henrico and Chesterfield counties, a decision that continues to impact regional educational opportunities. Today, thousands of local children attend racially and economically isolated schools at a time when diverse learning environments are more crucial than ever.”

The event is free and open to the public, but registration through the above link is required. Meetings will be hosted at the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. You can see the schedule and locations here

thepeoplesrecord: Going beyond the Western gender binary -...

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:11:15 -0500

thepeoplesrecord:

Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning

In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.

Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.

In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.

I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.

Who cares? Why it matters.

The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.

But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.

In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.

Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:

Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.

Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.

Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.

Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.

Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”

Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way. Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.

The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale binary.

In this particular construction of gender:

Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.

Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.

Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine

Waria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.

Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:

Zachar: male

Nekeveh: female

Androgynos: both male and female

Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender

Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people

Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)

Kathoey
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.

-Robert

EDIT: So let me clearly say that in no way am I intentionally encouraging white people (or anyone else) to appropriate these identities. Rather, I hope that this post and conversations like this will lead to an understanding of cultural diversity and other gender constructions/identities and an understanding that there is no biological reality to gender, and that gender manifests itself in many beautiful ways across many cultures.

I AM encouraging people in colonial society to have a less-binary, more nuanced approach to gender that doesn’t lead to so much domination and exploitation.

I also understand that in order to talk about these things, words like ‘male-bodied’ or male are inherently western concepts. Each of these societies and cultures have other ways of talking about these identities. Although I wasn’t born in the U.S. I have spent most of my life and the entirety of my adult life in the United States. I speak no languages other than English. There are concepts that I can’t understand, that my language limits me from even talking about, and in order to communicate these ideas, I am restricted by the only language I have available to talk about these concepts with. My perspective is etic. I do not belong to the above cultures, so when I talk about these things and use the English language to describe them, I am limited in my options for describing a concept as abstract as gender. The very categories of gender and sexuality belong to the cultural lens through which I view the world and I could not possibly provide a comprehensive emic analysis of the way the things we call ‘gender and sexuality’ actually are understood (if at all) within these cultures. In that way, mine is a very limited perspective. But it is geared toward other people living in Western society and it is aimed at changing this culture, not to appropriate these others but to not be so terrible toward gender and sexual variant people in this culture and to begin to question the implications of how we define gender and sexuality both personally, and as a whole culture.

-Robert

Photo

Sat, 19 Jan 2013 10:53:49 -0500

Photo

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:15:00 -0500

Photo

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 08:10:39 -0500

rip van winkle bridge, just past germantown, ny. hudson river

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:35:38 -0500

rip van winkle bridge, just past germantown, ny. hudson river

rhinecliff, ny train station

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:32:32 -0500

rhinecliff, ny train station

belgrado.bandcamp - discography

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:03:57 -0500

belgrado.bandcamp - discography

http://transreal.org/

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:51:08 -0500

http://transreal.org/

wednesday nov 21 at stranger matter

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:31:24 -0500

wednesday nov 21 at stranger matter

plant medicine and bee medicine

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 10:49:19 -0500

plant medicine and bee medicine:

tuesday nov 13th from 6:30-8pm in sandston va at the Fort Lee Baptist Church, cath and i will be presenting for the evening on holistic approach to bee medicine, including talking about herbs like peppermint and goldenrod! this is just a shout-out to see if any friends are interested in attending. its free to attend and you get to talk Bees!

beehive Nov 5 2012. getting ready for [1st] winter!

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 18:32:30 -0500

beehive Nov 5 2012. getting ready for [1st] winter!