August 30, 2002 - 10:18 am

people worry when i talk about politics. as a liberal woman of color i have a tendency to get very passionate and spit out random facts, theories and beliefs that span from marxism, russian history, literacy rates in cuba, Leon Trotsky, Malcolm X and Che Guevara.

don't be afraid.

"At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." - Ernesto Che Guevara

it's about love, people.

it's always been about love.

last year, on september 11th, after being sent home from work, i wrote a letter to my future children.

i'm debating on posting this letter in my diary this year. i have lots of american readers whose sentiments i don't know, so be forewarned it may not be what you want to hear.

although, i'm human and may not always follow through with what i say, i will never look upon another person as a burden or in the way. if a homeless man asks me for money and i have some, i will willingly give it to him.

why?

because it's my fucking responsibility that's why. i believe in taking care of your fellow man or woman.

i don't do it to be nice. i don't do it to earn my spot in heaven. i don't do it to make myself feel good. i do it because i think i should take care of other people, regardless of whether or not i know them.

and maybe they are going to go spend my money on liquor or drugs. whatever. honestly who gives a fuck? my concern is that he remains alive, but i can't judge if or how he chooses to do that. he can do what he wants, i did my part, i helped him out.

around october last year i found a screen saver of lenin's head. although i had no intention of keeping it on my computer, i had it on for about 5 minutes while i was away from my desk. when i came back, the human resources manager and the Information technology director were standing at my desk. they told me to take it down. that we weren't allowed to download anything from the internet onto company computers.

i come to find out later that our I.T. person was in the air force and had been offended at my screen saver.

and this pisses me off.

do you even fucking know anything about Lenin? no, i mean really.

i felt unbelievably cheated when i started learning about him. all i had been educated with my whole life were the opinions of biased upper middle class white men. that had been my education, the opinions of others who decided what they wanted me to know and who were nothing like me.

the facts remain that lenin was a fucking genius, anyway you look at it.

he was a lawyer who had grown up in a family that was aware and concerned about class struggles.

his older brother had been convicted and hanged for attempting to assasinate Alexander III.

he even had a wife people. (a slightly estranged one, but a wife no less).

look, maybe this isn't stuff people really want to know. maybe it's not important. but my goal isn't to talk about important historical facts about Lenin here. do your own research. i'm just trying to get one thing across.

Lenin was a human being, just like you and me.

see, i hadn't thought about this. why? well, because you kind of assume that if it's in a book, it's real. American history books pinpoint anyone who was or is a threat to our way of capitalism and the first goal is to de-humanize.

to make this person seem more like a fictionaly monster.

we've done it since the birth of this nation.

just look at the american propaganda from the war era's. we're the happy clean, blonde haired blue-eyed folks and the japanese look like this.

the fact that people took something like this seriously, really disappoints me.

what's even worse is the fact that this could still happen nowadays due to the nature of the media and how often we're surrounded by it, that totally scares me.

Friday Bingo - Pigeons in the Park