Before she died I said to her “Sylvia (Rivera), it just drives me crazy when people say to me ‘now was Stonewall a gay rebellion or was it a transgender rebellion’”. And I told her “I just tell them yes”. “Sylvia, what do you say? What would you say if somebody says ‘did you fight back that night because you were gay, because you were a self-identified drag queen, because of police brutality, because you were a sex-worker, you had to turn tricks in order to survive, because you were homeless, because you knew what it meant to go to jail, because you didn’t have a draft card when the demanded to you that night?” And I’ll never forget her answer it was so succinctly eloquent, she said: “we were fighting for our lives”. And the fact is that oppressions overlap in people’s life, as they do in this room. There are people in this room who are carrying heavier burdens of discrimination and oppression. There are people who had more dreams that have been deferred. There are people who have less opportunities, more doors slammed in their face. And that was true at the Stonewall too … But the fact is that when they all came together, shoulder to shoulder, to fight back against a common oppressor that night, they made history. Not in spite of their differences, but because they came to understand the need to fight together against a common enemy. And that was the most important lesson of the Stonewall rebellion for so many of us, that was the power of what we could do when we all came together.
Okay kids today we’re gonna talk about Edmonia Lewis
Edmonia was a sculptor in the 19th century, and was half African-American and half Native American. She was one of the first people of colour from America to earn international fame and success for her artwork. She started sculpting during the civil war and trained under some of the most influential abolitionist sculptors of the time.
Not only was she a successful WOC artist, but she sculpted other people of colour in the neoclassical style:
Forever Free (1867)
Old Arrow-Maker and his Daughter (1866)
The Marriage of Hiawatha (1866)
Do you know how rare it was in the 19th century to have a piece of artwork show black people or Native Americans without them being ‘savages’ or half naked? Let me tell you, it’s pretty damn rare.
She would purposely leave her women more clothed than her male figures to desexualise them, and I probably don’t need to tell you why that was important at this time (if you really want to see how white artists saw black women, look up American Slave and The Virginian Slave).
Unfortunately she was made to make her female figures look more European as she got backlash accusing her of inserting herself into figures BUT they’re still hugely impressive given that most famous sculptors at this time had teams of people working on their work and adding all the details by hand, whereas Edmonia did absolutely everything herself.
Basically I think about Edmonia Lewis a lot and I think more people should know about her.
I posted this YESTERDAY holy shit I’m so happy that so many people are getting to hear about her this is magical
File this under: Things i need for my next Toni Morrison article
I also really love how softly rounded and chubby the lines are.
I guess nobody remembered that I was on FictionPress, too.
So, hi. I’m the girl you all knew as Tara. My FF.net account really was hacked (twice!), once in 2006 and again in 2009. As of 2017, Support still doesn’t answer my requests to regain it, although I can’t say I blame them. They’re probably scared I’ll flood their site with poorly written sex scenes again.
I’m lucky the hackers never migrated to this account, considering it had the exact same login credentials. (They’ve since been changed, don’t worry.)
I’ll let the account’s creation date speak as to whether it’s legitimate or not.
Thank you all so, so much for keeping My Immortal alive over the years. You fill my heart with so much love. (Preppy moment, oops.)
That’s about all I have to say for now.
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Because I’ve received several messages asking this, and predict I may receive more, I’ll answer it here. No, I am not Lani Sarem. Really bad fiction simply tends to read the same. No, I’m not on Facebook. Or Deviantart. Or MySpace. Or Youtube. (Etc.) I am on Tumblr. But I use my real name there, and it’s not Tara.
This is me and my white daughter Rafi-anne Sue. And yes, I pulled her out of that preschool because babygirl would’ve eventually hurt somebody’s feelings.
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