File spoon-archives/sa-cyborgs.archive/sa-cyborgs_1997/97-02-22.183, message 124


Date: Mon, 4 Nov 1996 07:33:41 -0500 (EST)
From: "Cyberdiva (a.k.a \"Radhika Gajjala\")" <rxgst6+-AT-pitt.edu>
Subject: backstage and aside - moving centre stage now and then


On this Cyber-Theatre, then we

"Third World Diva Girls"

and friends

are waiting for this drama to

unfold

		We shall Perform

We are the Audience

	As we wait  

we here the rustle of paper

backstage

	on the other side of the the 

dark screen

		there is life

the ??? of the questioning minds

the emotion be
cause

we have so much invested

	in studying this

"topic"

		"non-western" feminism

located in some form of privilege

we try to connect with our 
lacks

and try to understand the other
s
lacks

as well

		Carrying various 
		guilts

		In my case - centuries

		of brahmin guilt

		ambiguously

 	ashamed and proud 

	all at the same time


I am not Dalit.

I am not (white, aristocratic) British

either.

	Tracing my "location"

	my "feminism"

	to the personal

my mother with no
sense
of "class"
or

anglified
education

		my mother 
the daughter of a farmer.

who

	is happiest when her

arms are elbow-deep

in manure (cow dung!)

	and she does not need to worry about
who 
sees her cracked bare feet

		my mother in her sloppy

ly
	draped sari

and lack of makeup

	and the airs and graces of the
	educated

woman

				who

always felt she
did
not deserve  
		everything good

that ever happened to
her

			
	her silences,

the mother who knew 
not
clearly
		(Yet very clearly, she knew, she understood)
why her daughters and sons

were
sometimes embarrassed

when she came to

their schools

		(which was rare enough)

she with her hawai slippers and
turmeric smeared saris

	smelling like the earth
		smelling like the kitchen

yet she had her share of guilt
too

		centuries of guilt

where we contribute
d
(still do)

to the oppression
		of other castes.
 



I am still backstage - then, browsing through possibilities in my head

Browsing through Adrienne Rich

On the Politics of Location

through bell hooks

about

Third world diva girls


			but let us make it heard

too 


		this backstage activity

every once in  a while.

???


********************************************************
homepage::  http://www.pitt.edu/~rxgst6/jabberwocky.html

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