Part 2,
Midnight: Mrs Simelane - The True Definition Of An Intersectional Feminist.
Where is the
South African Intersectional Feminist Movement?
The South
African Feminist landscape in general and the
LGBTI/QUEER landscape in particular
is not just peppered but littered with supremely gifted individuals.
They are in
all areas of society, in all industries, across all spheres of government,
politics, business, civil society movements, media, academia, religion,
tradition, art and culture, justice system, NGO’s… Queer people are everywhere.
Why is it
then that black queer bodies continue to be battle sites for fragile and toxic
masculinities to take out its feeling of lack, less than, no confidence, pure
old envy against black queer bodies in general and especially black lesbians
bodies in the townships?
How is this
so called community of influential, smart, gifted, creative, hard working,
loving, in many ways priviledged group of people has not flexed its muscles
hard enough to stop the scourge of the senseless and brutal killings and rape
of black queer bodies in the townships? Is it because they are black? Is it
because they are women. Is it because they are queer/? Is it because they are
poor?
Intersectionality
tells us that is because of all of the above.
Black Feminism’s ideology, which is the ideology of our times, tells us
that since oppressions intersect, it is on those bodies on which a myriad of
knots of oppressions are tied together, that the most pain is felt.
She says she
cried when she heard me recite poetry. I wasn’t aware, it had been one of those
recitals where the Spirit takes over and one is left temporarily in a trance.
What I do know is that I noticed her as She entered the room, the oldest
Activist in our presence. I noted her style and liked it, it reminded me of the
Mshozas of yesterday, as the word was originally meant, basically the female
pantsulas of their era. At first I thought she was wearing a long skirt then
noticed upon closer inspection that they were slacks. On her feet she has on
takkies, worn not for their style but their need as the kind of shoes that
accompany the elderly activist everywhere she goes as she fights for social
justice in all areas of her society where she encounters injustice and in
particular homophobia, especially among the LGBTI youth in her community. Mme
fights for LGBTI students to be treated with fairness and respect, in schools
she fights for them in police stations too and courts when the so called
justice system attempts to victimize them a 2nd time and worsen their traumas.
Mme is there in churches too and fights for us, God's Queer Children, right in
the heart of Religious Traditional Patriarchy which hurts us as acutely as
White Supremacist Heteropatriarchy. Mme stands for these bodies that are battle
ground and upon whom the most points of intersecting struggles, are found.
A
heterosexual older black woman married to her life partner, Eudy's father and
her husband, her love and cause and passion and activism towards bettering and
indeed liberating many with her heart and Spirit work, remains in my books the
grandest living example of what an Instersectional Black Feminist should look
like, in as far as the works of her hands, her body, her mind, heart spirit and
feet, those feet that have walked and continue to walk into hospitals,
churches, schools, police stations, homes, to fight for us.
"You
know Jacqui, I feel like im fighting Eudy's fight, this is Eudy's fight im
continuing, she makes me do this. She doesn’t let me rest that one." - she
says later to me after we had formally met and agreed to be each other's
second chance at being mother and daughter, since we both lost our own…
Mrs Mally Simelane, the late Eudy Simelane's mother, spoke with a clarity and a
consciousness I had not heard before from people of her generation, our mothers
and grandmothers... in as far as fighting for their Queer children is conerned. Her child having suffered, brutalized and murdered so
violently in Kwa Thema where the Simelane's live, Eudy's mother told the story
of her only child, from the time they were born until their senseless spine
chilling brutal killing. One of the many souls and bodies lost senselessly and
often with extreme violence and brutality for being a Black Lesbian in the
townships! I don’t think there was dry eye in that room of seasoned activists
as Mme somehow managed to tell hers and Eudy's painful story until the end.
Mme Simelane
was to go on.
She was to go
on to talk about her activism as a Black feminist, even though she did not call
it that. In retrospect I and the others
were listening to an embodiment of an Intersectional Feminist, in its
ideal. But it was when mme prayed for
us, "isitabane saka Thixo" as she put it, asking God to guide our
feet and protect us in our Activisms and the works we do that I was deeply
moved and inspired to do all I can to create a space for the Spirit that is of
God embodied in Queer bodies to have a place to worship without prejudice.
No comments:
Post a Comment