<![CDATA[Magdalena Gómez - Blog]]>Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:49:18 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[History and Sexual Education:              #MeToo, The Sequel]]>Sat, 23 Feb 2019 15:28:30 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/history-and-sexual-education-metoo-the-sequelThe abuse of women and girls did not begin with the advent of social or any media, but with imperialism; colonialism; xenophobia; racism; unquestioned traditions; patriarchal religion and rule where women were, and still are, treated as “instrumenti diaboli.” Celibacy, for example, was not introduced into the Roman Catholic Church until A.D.4th Century. Despite the “spiritual” narrative of “purity” (as also practiced by religions older than Catholicism) the choice was rooted in economics; unmarried priests would not burden the coffers of the Church with the added expense of supporting wives and children. Women are still denied priesthood. The last two decades have begun to reveal how all of that sexual repression and misogyny has played out.

Deep in the marrow of intransigent patriarchy women are still considered the property of empires and men. This is also true of vulnerable men and boys, though perhaps fewer in number and under-reported. Boys or men who are raped by women are considered “lucky” and desirably “manly.” If they have been raped by men, then homophobia, both internalized and societal, create an exile of silence. Numbers are lower among males, but the rape of one man, woman or child, is one too many.The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are catalysts of long overdue change and public discourse and both need to expand the narratives into their historical contexts.

The abuses against those of us who grew up with full and curvaceous bodies at a young age do not need data to tell you that it was often assumed that we were inherently “loose.” The targeting of our bodies as sexual objects was normalized and excused with the presupposition that the “little hussies are asking for it.” Large breasts and hips signaled that we were somehow promiscuous and ready for some back seat action. This perception is heightened when the melanin of the female body falls within a Black Pan-African spectrum.

Manhood is still equated with hyper-heterosexuality (real or imagined) swagger and conquest, sexual or otherwise. A prematurely large penis signals that the boy will be a “stud” or “ladies man.”  When such a distorted narrative is applied to a Black man or boy and seen through a lens of white supremacy, it denotes the “Black guy with the big dick” as a danger to white women. He is a potential rapist, but only when it comes to white women; anyone else is fair game, since many of us were born “asking for it”.  Endowed White Man: a sexy stud. A good catch; since of course all women are heterosexual man chasers with baited hooks. The Black Man:  The savage. The King Kong who seduces the dainty blonde; the Mighty Joe Young to be kept in chains.  

As better informed conversations emerge, we can see some progress, but they are more parallel than intersectional and amputated from the histories that created and bestowed imprimatur on white supremacist patriarchal abuses in the first place. One of the most aberrant outcomes of these gendered expectations and normalized narratives is currently on global view, wildly pacing the Oval Office, Big Mac in hand, as he contemplates his next narcissistic bullying and coercive conquest, whether grabbing a pussy or raping the Constitution, in full view of sycophants, self-serving bystanders, and thanks all that is holy, a growing resistance.

Child rearing practices that exclude healthy and age appropriate training in sexual wholeness and understanding, inadvertently collude with violence, sexual or otherwise. Shaming, secrecy and guilt are inferred by children early on when they are instructed to name their genitals. When a penis becomes a “pee-pee” or a vagina becomes a “chi-chi” the genitals can then be personified and as a result possibly detached and “othered” from the rest of the body.  The coded message inherent in this implies that if our genitals are not really part of the rest of us, then perhaps we are not accountable for their actions.

Explicit violence and genitally targeted violence against women in media certainly does exacerbate and normalize what is abhorrent, but it is a symptom, albeit systemic, and not the root cause.

The lack of holistic, informed and comprehensive sexual health education in our  schools reinforce sex and sexuality as something that should be kept hidden.  How ironic that we are fighting for the end to secrecy in what has already happened to those of us who have been assaulted, raped or worse, but changes in sexual health education are sluggish at best.

I suggest that the kind of education that is needed is one that makes clear connections between sexual violence and all that contributes to its continued surge: religious hetero-normative dogma that espouses white heterosexual male supremacy; the histories of colonial and imperial oppression over the human body; despotism displacing democracy; and the corporate and media takeover of how the human body continues to be desecrated and insulted to sell products.  

There are new tactics  being played out in marketing, that mimic “inclusion and diversity.” We have been seeing more curvaceous women and women of color in advertising, but let’s not fool ourselves that the move is altruistic. This supposed awakening of consciousness is tied to the bottom line.  The average woman in the U.S. is a size 14 and women of color and women who do not otherwise fit the mold of white Euro-centric somatic perfectionism, have in recent years been “discovered” in the new world of untapped markets. Give us your freckled, your short, your tall, your round, your curly, your straight, your diversity of melanin, your gender Queer, and we will embrace them with our products, services and strategic welcome.

The message is being shifted from products to improve your looks, to products that support you being all of you. A strategic marketing pitch and one of supremacy and manipulation. You still need the products to “become” to “be” to embrace the fullness of you. Now that we have decided there’s nothing really wrong with you, let us sell you a thousand dollar tee-shirt that tells the world how you feel about yourself. Or we can sell you a really cheap one. No matter; someone you will never meet is stitching together the message of YOU for pennies an hour.

The corporate takeover of public education is robbing our young people of the ability to think critically.  Not only are they denied a holistic sexual health education, if they have any at all, they are robbed of the ability to think creatively in ways that allow societies to flourish and progress in non-destructive ways. The distilled, assimilationist lowest common denominator sprinkling of “diversity and inclusion” remains in the category of tokenism, with the systematic hiring of those who go along to get along, who have not moved beyond the 101 diversity training by which they themselves have been colonized. Our children are deprived of their true histories and pride of ancestry; their souls bleached into submission to the authority and inferred “empirical truths” of whiteness. To decolonize curriculums, we must also decolonize the human body. We need sexual health curriculums that address the origins of self-loathing, shame, secrecy, heterosexism, sexual violence by the authentic intersectional study of revisionist and exclusionary histories and their roles in the entanglement of sex and violence, body image, and how these have evolved into oppressive and rigid narratives on gender and orientation.

I grew up hating gym class where innate athleticism and lean bodies were rewarded and anything less in males or females was ridiculed. Those of us with large breasts held them as we ran, ashamed of their bounce. The were “boobs” and by inference, we were too. Big tits, dumb broad. Athleticism in the U.S. was, and still is, associated with competition, celebrity, sexuality and nationalism. I’ve been “taking a knee” since I was eleven; we need more Colin Kaepernicks on the field, in board rooms, and in the halls of education.

Underperformance of schools is the result of gerrymandering by standardized testing systems that reward rote learning and discourage the intuitive imagination, that birthright foundation that builds a love of learning and inquiry. Compliance by fatigue of a developing workforce and new leaders provides a long-term benefit to corrupt politicians and corporations, who profit in money and power from an easily controlled and manipulated populace. We already know that uniform “White/Male/Stale” testing does not allow for individual intelligences, vision and intuitive abilities to flourish. We shove the mind and the body into “one size fits all.”  As the “data” is gathered to “prove” that our teachers and students are “underperforming” to standards that are culturally incompetent, do not look at the full economic and social conditions of the students, allowing the “Master” to take over forcing schools onto the auction block for the highest privatized corporate bidder.  Our children learn at an early age that what they think doesn’t matter, that questions unrelated to the tests are irrelevant and intrusive, and that all that is required of them is to follow rules and swallow the cud that dulls their senses, and numbs their passions as they are stealthily amputated from their legacies and logic. They are still obediently pledging allegiance before they even know what the words mean.

Within this corporatized paradigm of an intentionally manipulated education, is the loss humanity and of healthy interactions among genders.  Not only do we urgently need age appropriate sexual health education that begins in primary school, but we need it to be a comprehensive, inclusive, non-heterosexist, celebratory and holistic. It must begin a dismantling of the Eden story, a revisit to Matriarchal societies, and an understanding of how imperial, religious, racist and colonial rule that have brought us to the time of #MeToo. #TimesUp on a bleached, bland and biased educational system and curriculums.

Before #MeToo stops “trending”, we need the sequel that endures, the sequel of a new educational system; not re-formed, but revolutionized and entrusted to educators, administrators, artists and visionaries of conscience, passion and integrity. We must take back our bodies and minds to help our children do so as well.

The understanding that sexuality is not genital, but a part of our whole humanity and interactions, is essential to our learning and healthy mental and physical development. When the teaching of human sexuality is either avoided or rendered devoid of intimacy, tenderness, celebration and personal accountability, what outcomes can we possibly expect?

I am a survivor of sexual assault. I have dedicated my life’s work as a teaching artist to the interruption and dismantling of all violence at it’s roots.  It is challenging work. There are no easy or canned responses.  Every class, every workshop, every talk, although well prepared, must be ready to shift to the needs of those who show up. Presence to the moment is mandatory for honest interaction. Together we find our questions and together we seek the answers. We are each the experts of our own experiences and we bring them with us everywhere we go.  

We can all be educators, every day of the week; if we are willing to learn.  When the systems fail, We the People must rise.


Magdalena Gómez, Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.


]]><![CDATA[On contemplating the meaning of Arts and Humanities]]>Wed, 09 May 2018 23:54:36 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/on-contemplating-the-meaning-of-arts-and-humanitiesWritten and presented for the 10th Anniversary of the New England Public Radio Arts and Humanities Award.  Written in honor of NEPR, my co-award recipients, all independent media and those who create and struggle for justice.


Grace is solace on horseback 
riding a first born note
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts 
suspended on longing’s 
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder 
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace

Brackish waters rise
We stand together
the feet of the New Colossus
her torch grows dim
a child’s torn dress gathers dust
in the place where her dreams had been

grieving, turbulent skies 
tear open peek holes for 
God’s eyes 
who by all appearances 
has been on vacation
I suspect he’s been profiled
I suspect death by paranoia
I suspect he’s been wrongfully incarcerated
by the solitary confinement of our selfie narcissism

preoccupied less with who we are
than how we appear

I fear that God has decided to wait us out 
make his absence felt
as if he was never there to begin with 
as if he was she 
or non-binary 
unnameable too big to conceive
we conspire to contrive what we want to believe
let there be something with or without name 
greater than you or me

Reprieve, redemption, revolution
and isn’t a revolution 360 degrees?
a new way to see?

Grace is solace on horseback 
riding a first born note 
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts 
suspended on longing’s 
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder 
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace
where clear water touches
the lips of our empathy. 
the desiccated fingers 
of a bewildered boy
pull up mud
somewhere in a place
with a name we can’t pronounce

the conductor’s baton rises
first born note
morsel of moist bread reaching across the world

we stand together on betrayed earth
exploited for her beauty
she has lost her sense of worth

when pages of books turn
we miss her, seek and court her
beg to heal her sorrows
before she’s too far gone

we follow farmers and bees
keepers of our destiny
we who are not alone
must find those who are

words were knots 
in my mother’s eyes
there are many who know so much
with little chance to realize
but here you are,
one word, one page at a time
undoing knots with patient hands
so history might rise 
pulling blade from sheath
gently coaxing clean blood from sealed wounds
where sighs of knowing link one word to the next
forming sentences
that will interrupt the sentencing

that will stay executions
with or without Governors

society’s betrayed set themselves free
ink is the blood that teaches peace

we stand together against depravity’s walls
pocked by hatred’s stones
where ignorance crushes its own soul
keeping strangers with cures
far from our disease

doors lock from the outside
there is a Golem’s greed to please
demons transfuse their secret despair
our fatigued eyes see monsters
when only we are there
here you are to open doors
confound the abyss by building a floor
not a place on which to fall
but a place on which to land
when suspicion makes a fist
you build trust with open hands

We stand together in the rubble
of the untold
truth, constantly in trouble
rebellious in nature
refusing to conform
demands venue
and here you are
giving truth the floor
The ones who kneel 
the ones who stand
the ones who tip
our garbage cans

from the hells of J-Block 
to Syria
to Yemen
to Gaza
to Gitmo
to Honduras
to Sudan
to Iraq
to Iran
to the Bronx
to the very streets
where you’ve 
planted your feet
you who fight
to keep truth relevant
you who know and tell
the secrets of a human made hell

Puerto Rico
where a storm proclaimed María
takes the blame 
for the rape of a nation
robbed of its very name, Borikén
by a hundred year old hurricane
you pull back the curtain
on this ethnic cleanse
you amplify the sound
of muffled blame

atrocities are born
to parents with names
you are the roll call
of their shameless shame
their not so secret crimes
in these most brutal
avariciously consumptive times

Grace is solace on horseback 
riding a first born note
the conductor’s baton rises
restarts our hearts 
suspended on longing’s 
long held breath
resurrecting our wonder 
from unannounced death
back into memory’s embrace.

The New Colossus
sends no child,
no dream away.
You, who live and create for justice
are a revolution of human grace.


​___________

Copyright, Magdalena Gómez, 2018.  May not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the author. 















]]><![CDATA[Ayiti]]>Wed, 07 Feb 2018 17:37:15 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/ayitiI wrote this immediately following the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. It was one in a series.  

​
Ayiti

I am here to ask forgiveness of the earth
on behalf of those who blame her 
for the debt imperialism owes

Ayiti, first free black nation
used by France, Spain and the United States
as their own rape and go plantation

Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
the first description of Ayiti
heard by school children
the way February congeals history:
only the top layer sticks
like boiled milk, la nata
like chicken fat, la grasa
in the pot of cooking it quick

Dr. King and Rosa Parks
a song or two from marches
a spiritual from the fields
cookies and juice afterwards
as the ghosts of millions
walk forgotten
down empty corridors
of half-baked knowledge simmering
in the cheap ass pleasure
of the good deed done

as another mother mourns
the unjust death on her only son

​1804, Ayiti, first free black nation
defeating French invasion

​U.S. does not recognize this
for 62 years
conflict of interest
with their own plantation

Spain
France
USA
genocide
invasion
​occupation
environmental devastation
to benefit our
corporations
Woodrow Wilson
never named
Marines take Haiti 
customs houses 
under siege
Master has the guns
so Master holds the keys

February will never be enough.

]]><![CDATA[Unnatural Occurences]]>Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:26:28 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/unnatural-occurencesHere is the link for my December cover story in AfAmPOV
Unnatural Occurrences: Unwrapping the Holy Days

​www.afampointofview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/POV_December_1_2017_web.pdf]]><![CDATA[Raped: Puerto Rican Diary]]>Mon, 16 Oct 2017 12:54:34 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/raped-puerto-rican-diaryYears ago I was asked by a university history professor, a very dear friend of mine, to speak with his class on the internment (incarceration) of Japanese Americans that began in March of 1942, by way of Executive Order 9066, signed in February of that year by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fellow American citizens permitted it, just as  we continue to permit the egregious Jones Act. Not all internments come with barbed wire. 

I showed students an old cartoon that was watched by children in 1942; one of many released that espoused hatred of the Japanese people.  In it, the character of Popeye the Sailor sang an excerpt from the popular Carson Robison song:  “We’re Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap.” The students were stunned. This history had been previously unknown to them.

Like it or not, the political is personal, and reverberates through all of our lives. A legacy of patriarchal white supremacist entitlement condoned and encouraged an individual to brutally violate me. That same entitlement on a broader scale, contributes to the unchecked violation of our civil liberties and human rights by an increasingly despotic government. No “leader of the free world” has ever acted entirely on his own. In 1939, 20,000 U.S. Nazi’s gathered in hatred’s full regalia at Madison Square Garden, in New York City. I’ve attached the link to the footage below.

When I was twenty-three years old, I was held by an acquaintance against my will, raped and tortured for eighteen gruesome hours.  The man who did this to me lacked empathy, compassion or any ability to see me as a human being. He was privileged, always well dressed in suits and ties, studying medicine and law. He made sure I knew that women, “even the little old ladies” found him irresistible and that any woman who did not welcome his sexual advances must surely be a “lizzie”, his southern drawl slang for lesbian. When I tried to get away he put a gun to my head and told me “Darlin’ who’s going to take the word of a spic washing dishes for a living over a man like me? I could kill you right here, leave you in the stairwell and everyone in this building will blame it on a junkie. You’re in my apartment, that makes you just another Puerto Rican whore.”

We knew each other from school. He invited me over for lunch. We lived a few blocks apart. I knew my neighbors; those were days of daily face to face interactions with the people we made it our business to know. Cooking meals together, talking politics, remembering birthdays and celebrating significant milestones was an organic part of our lives. 

In all of my previous interactions with this man, which were public, he had always behaved like a “gentleman.” He held a well-paying job as a phlebotomist, aspired to a career where he could combine his interests in law and medicine, and was the “all American (white) boy”. In my naiveté, I perceived no threat, felt no sexual attraction,  and simply  believed I would be spending a quiet afternoon enjoying intelligent conversation with someone raised in a world very different from mine, who promised to make his specialty of Biryani rice.

It was the 1970’s, and rape was still seen as the victim’s fault, especially one who went to a man’s home. I would have been considered a “hot blooded Latin” who most certainly must have “asked for it.”  I had male and female friends I visited all of the time. In fact, most of my friends at that time were men, and several of them are still in my life as dear and loyal friends. No matter; I was then and to many still am, considered a spic. 

The rapist was right; he could kill me and get away with it. I was a nobody in the eyes of a society where religion had cursed women as “instumenti diaboli” and Puerto Ricans were represented in media as junkies, dealers, whores, welfare cheats and in general a worthless criminal element. Our globally relevant achievements in all fields, our vast literary contributions, inventions, arts, and s/heroes were denied, erased or buried and the very mention of “Puerto Ricans” in films, conversation, in the news, was nearly always tinged with the underscore of a disgusted sneer or filthy joke. It was a time when we had the lowest per capita income of any “hispanic” group, but scarce public dialogue about the predatory colonial relationship forced by the United States that caused it. 

To date, even among the so-called “educated” in the U.S. we are referred to as immigrants. A recent New York Times article revealed recent polling results that only 54% of “Americans” know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. In terms of mass public perception and sneering attitudes towards Puerto Ricans, little has changed. Our global celebrities, in particular those who are politically safe and lighter on the melanin scale, are doing very well.  My thanks to those who are giving from their abundance. My respect to those for whom their giving is an act of love and sacrifice.

The rapist viewed the totality of my life as a soulless, meaningless body easy to dismiss, to brutally violate and just as easy to kill. Now, Puerto Rico gets the same treatment, with special abuse and neglect in locations where Afro-Boricuas, the poor and elderly reside. Puerto Rico has been raped since 1898, its just now in wider public view and the rapist comes with supporters who are looking the other way, silent, except for forcing on us their “Merry Christmas”, two words that disguise a deep disdain and disregard for difference; two words coined to obscure Pagan beliefs and that have evolved into commercial expedience. There is no Christ in Christmas; there never was. 

Puerto Rico, Rich Port. Port for the Rich. The rapist changed my name too. He called me Madeline. This Magdalena is Borikua. The island of my mother’s birth is Borikén.

​We are not in debt. We are owed everything, beginning with our name.

https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/

]]><![CDATA[Death by Omission]]>Mon, 09 Oct 2017 20:49:46 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/death-by-omissionThe United States is an icon driven culture.  On the side of angels, we have the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose name and image are invoked as the emblems of the Civil Rights Movement. It was a long and deep struggle before another icon, Rosa Parks took her seat on the bus. Millions of school children have been deprived of the real history of the interminable sacrifices made for Civil Rights, as well as the true history of the United States.  Those children have grown to become uninformed adults.


On the side of depraved indifference and pernicious intent, the current “leader of the free world” is not alone in his pursuit and propagation of humanity’s demise. When referring to “our friends on Wall Street” he reveals and reminds us of the legions that by shadow manipulate his flesh. There have always been idiots and despots among the brilliant and the brave. 45 is the distraction from the entrenched evils that hearken back to the romanticized period of our very foundation.  Fourteen of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders; the ambiguity of their legacy never fully shut the door on patriarchal white supremacy as the dominant feature of U.S. politics. What distracts us now from the bigger picture of our original and ongoing infamy is a soulless puppet on whom we can focus our rage while the puppeteers keep shortening the strings.


In a recent ad, Dove Soap felt entitled to scrub a Black woman into whiteness. There is no acceptable apology for this - how was this even possible? What was that "creative team"  thinking? Did anyone say NO? And if they did, where are they now?  In history as in advertising, there are people behind the scenes we never see; the rebellious and the compliant. The dove icon has always been white, as if the black dove did not exist. From Woodstock to peace movements, to representations of the Holy Spirit; even good people fall for the insidious nuances of white supremacy. Take it from me, the perennial black sheep of my family.


Iconic summaries have by omission resulted in a sound bite vocabulary of a generalized   and revisionist history lacking both content and context.  A truncated education, reinforced by corporately controlled media, a popular culture of rabid consumerism and a sentimental patriotism that ignores our maltreatment of veterans and manipulations of the altruistic and the poor, have exponentially inflated the ranks of the blindly obedient. A cracked monocultural lens has by inference, exclusion and erasure, reinforced the counterfeit ideal of white supremacy.


Previous White House administrations got away with murder and now they can make themselves look good by hugging a Puerto Rican or other hurricane victims. Current leadership is such an abomination that even George W. Bush looks good by comparison. Wall Street and Big Banks got away with murder. They are the oil spills that lit the faces of the poor on fire. Murder by intentional negligence and inefficiency are now evident in the federal government’s response to Puerto Rico.


Don’t get distracted. Don’t forget. Thousands of freight containers of urgently needed food, water and medicine sit on the San Juan docks and tarmac - as American citizens die on our watch. Refuse to be a victim or an accomplice.  Widen the lens and shine light where shadows rule.

​Hold all elected officials accountable; its a start.]]><![CDATA[We interrupt this...]]>Sun, 01 Oct 2017 22:47:24 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/we-interrupt-thisWe interrupt this...

María, I don’t blame you.
Your name chosen with malicious intent 
you are the West Side Story girl
default name for all of our women
when bigots drink too much.

You are the twin of José
the mother of El Niño.

María, you are not a hurricane.
María, you are the distraction 
from deeper meanings of destruction;
the history of abuse
and involuntary sterilizations.
Scapegoat of imperialism
and colonial thugs.

Muh-ree-uh.
The use of your name
insidious blame
that we have somehow
done this to ourselves.

The village idiot of the world
defiles you
sees in you a woman
he can “grab by the pussy”
as security detail obediently
avert their eyes.

María.
You have been repeatedly
gang-raped then called a whore
by rapists who hide behind
the village idiot of the world
too stupid to know he’s their fall guy;
the unzipped lout
gurgling with profanities
and primary school adjectives
who abhors the sound of Spanish.

María.
you have been robbed
of your riches
by parasitic thieves 
who call you a deadbeat.

Predatory scavengers
have long been with us,
defecating in once clear waters
bloody talons digging through fertile soil
to grow unnatural things
calculated contaminations mutating
all semblance of justice.

Erosion by malicious negligence
ethnic cleansing 
of we who are called 
cockroaches
by  deviant exterminators
counting their bounty by death
their doughy flesh coddled 
in brass tacked leather
made of skins
peeled from the backs
of the silenced.

Top shelf cocktails swirl
into hurricanes.
Tightly rolled cigars
with names the smokers
mispronounce
burst into aberrant flames.
Ice cubes clink against the Baccarat
flaring up the Richter Scale.

My eyes refuse to close
despite my weary body’s pleading.

There are parts of us 
that cannot be touched
or harmed, or killed
or forced to sleep;
as evil is legion 
so is love.

As greed replicates
so does resistance.

Like the pelican
offering its throat
to feed its young,
like courageous hands 
wielding machetes
to clear impassable roads,
like scarce water shared
in the presence of death
history pours
its waterfall of wisdom
upon the next generation
to take back what is theirs
beginning with their names.

Borikua.
María.
José.

Magdalena Gómez, Copyright, 2017, All Rights Reserved

I began to create this poem with the shorter one I wrote and posted on FB on September 26, 2017 at 9:40 a.m.

I rename this hurricane 45
I rename this hurricane PROMESA
I rename this hurricane Imperialism
I rename this hurricane Colonialism
I rename this hurricane Avarice
I rename this hurricane Wall Street
I rename this hurricane Big Banks
I rename this hurricane Big Pharma
I rename this hurricane Negligent Bigotry
I rename this hurricane Erasure
María is the victim, not the perpetrator.
My name is Magdalena Gómez and I stand with all victims 
of Tyranny and Unnatural Disasters.

Magdalena Gómez, Copyright, 2017, All Rights Reserved  Magdalena Gómez and I stand with all victims 
of Tyranny and Unnatural Disasters.

]]><![CDATA[Tyranny's Twins]]>Thu, 14 Sep 2017 18:32:17 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/tyrannys-twinsThe more we fear debate, the more controlled, self-serving diplomacy administrators use to respond to ANY form of bigotry on a campus, in a school, a business, an organization, a health facility, a place of public service, in government, arts, media or armed forces, the easier it will get for the virus of racial hatred to replicate itself as everyone plays follow the leader.  The rabid instigator spewing malicious, divisively false content and rumor, and the mealy mouthed cowardly witness choosing self-protective politically advantageous politeness over truth are tyranny’s twins.  Righteous anger has its place; it does not equal violence, nor instability, nor deficit of character; it is simply a passionate and honest response to evil. A white President can spew racial hatred and get away with it, punished only in the courts of comedy. Black people who speak with courage, and righteous anger that is not even commensurate with the depth of the offense, are punished with defamation of character, economic censure, or worse.  This isn’t new. This is one reason why I stopped pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag when I was twelve years old. I had a library card. I used it. I learned how to think.  My deepest gratitude to all who speak with courage.
]]><![CDATA[Reciprocity: Make it an expectation.]]>Fri, 01 Sep 2017 18:12:43 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/reciprocity-make-it-an-expectationBelow is a previous post from my FB page, August 30th, 2o15



Beloved Artist: We cannot subvert the dominant paradigm without subverting the dominant parasite. A small way to start: Next time someone says they want to "pick your brain" listen for the intention. If you are going to be mined for your ideas which others will activate for their own personal monetary gain, let them know your hourly consultation rate up front. If you are an artist and are asked to perform/speak/facilitate/consult and the venue doesn't ask your fee by the second conversation, make sure you make it clear what your fee will be. Do not be intimidated, do not back down. Dentists and plumbers get paid, as should artists. Ask for your legitimate market worth. Do Pro Bono work, by all means when there is a legitimate need. Do it with intention, but NEVER by default. Do it with love and generosity, not the fear of retaliation. The word "No" is as important as "Yes". Do not be exploited or manipulated. If money is not available, a reciprocal arrangement is always a possibility. Find the win-win with love and respect. I post this for the young stranger I met in a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. If you looked me up, you know who you are and you know how to reach me. I offer you two free hours of consultation on how to interrupt exploitation in your life, not just once, but for always. I offer you this in memory of Fred Ho.

]]><![CDATA[A Stranger's Visit...]]>Thu, 09 Feb 2017 15:58:02 GMThttp://www.magdalenagomez.com/blog/a-strangers-visit-to-a-new-england-town-hallA Stranger’s Visit to a New England Town Hall
(in memory of Mark Baumer)


Micro-aggressions are like bed bugs and lice; you’ll never find just one. The first time I heard the term. “micro-aggressions” was at an Ivy League university where a Latin@ student had been chastised by intonations of disgust: “Slow down, I don’t understand your English. You talk too fast.” Responses like that usually come from those who think too slowly or not at all. There is no “undoing” of gangrene. I am a double agent in the graveyards of bone and smallpox. My melanin levels disrupt expectations. My name. correctly pronounced incites. Treason. Affront. Act of a Hostility. Aggression. Chip on Shoulder. Micro? Never. Big.
Very Big. Macro. Must Delete.


Inner whispers tip toe across the room. 


Elected faces contort in a shivering rage: Porto Rican Whore. Go Back Where You Came From. Bitch. You Passed. You Look Like Us.
You Are Not Us. 


Droning self-importance hunches into microphones.
Imagined power assumes the position.
The naked emperor strikes a pose.


Yes, I can hear you.
You hate my gravy.

We are about to begin the meeting. I’m sorry. I have to ask you to leave.
Manners are everything. You are not sorry. We all know it.
You could have asked: Are you here for the meeting? 
Word choices. 
Panic Room door shuts itself out of embarrassment.
You might have escaped.
Too late.
We all knew. 
Yes. I can see you.
Now.
Still.
Always. You are the broken record.
Your needle worn to the nub
Kills the music
I dance anyway, so you hate me.
I take my place
where I am not wanted.


My name is Magdalena.
 
Oh.
What?
Uh, oh, that’s such a beautiful name.
Can you say it again?
I can’t get it. Ma-duh-leen?
Where are you from?
Nice to meet you, Migdalia.
Do you have a nickname?
Oh, you’re Marga Gomez. I love your work.
I have a Porto Reekin’ friend named José;
you two will like each other.
I thought you were Jewish.
I thought your were Irish.
Are you here on a visa?
Your name is so exotic.
Are both your parents Puerto Rican?
You must come and speak to my class,
we’re studying Puerto Rican poets. Do you write?
I love Puerto Rican food, especially the yellow rice with the pigeon peas.
Your English is so good. 
If you speak very slowly in Spanish I can understand.
Can I practice with you?
May I pick your brain? May I pick your brain? May I pick your brain?
Why would a Puerto Rican, be so interested in the Holocaust? Why do you care?
I love plantains.
Black beans in October celebrate Columbus Day. Black Beans Matter.
What’s a Taíno? Is it fried?
You might say that.
You ask my favored pronoun. Offer no water for my thirst.
The orchid of my mouth withers into silence.
Almost.
The sight of you keeps me from flatlining.
Over my dead body.
Over my dead body.
You who hate out of habit.
You win for a day. 
A King with his coffer of words.
For sale and overpriced.
A blindly obedient Queen
brags of freedom.
Churns butter
that will never form.
Court with eyes
colorblind. Wish us away.
A melting pot bubbles.
Human flesh burns.
Obedience
not knowing for what.
Children give name
to lost humanity.
Three minutes exactly.
Next! 
Exhausted.
Drained.
Sucked Dry.
Politeness causes cancer.
¡Puñeta, carajo! beats chemo.
Smiling migraines 
healed by screams.
My broad culo gets looks.
Abuela’s ass, passed down.
Take it or leave it.
A path cuts itself
away from you.
Running.
Silenced.  Then. 
Loud. Louder.
Choose:
Squirm. Celebrate. 


Doughy lumps on hard chairs dream of Emily Dickinson’s cookies.
Secrets.
Fear.
Egos suck out what remains of breathable air.
Lips twist. Eyes roll. Exaggerated sighs. Levees in a losing fight 
to ancient, brutal storms.


We can still hear you.


Power bites into a sandwich. Tastes nothing.
Blames the sandwich.
Coffee slides down the broken throat
of double talk.
Oh,oh.
Down the wrong hole.
A quiet choking.


Dialogue punched in the face.
Brass knuckles covered in cotton candy.
Some throats tighten.
Others grow wings.
Truth flies freely beyond crazed nets.


A man with dead eyes wonders what I might be like in bed. 
He’s never tasted mango. 
The size of its seed causes terror.
The shape, confusion.
Sunfish nightmares of pussy metaphors.
Pussy. Pussy. Pussy.
Eyes look down.
Sphincters pinch daydreams hard. Choke them
before Langston comes back from the dead.
And he will. 
America that has never been
will be again.


-Magdalena Gómez, February 2017
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