Results matching “Lateefah Simon”

Remember the amazing Lateefah Simon we wrote about when we were at the Omega Institute? Well she has been nominated by a friend for Glamour's Woman of Your Year. Voting ends tonight, so go over and voice your support and show the Glamour world that we support feminist women of color that do on the ground work and make profound differences in our communities!

Isabel Allende

Omega Co-Founder Elizabeth Lesser (who I was thrilled to meet last night) moderates this next panel with novelist Isabel Allende, author Loung Ung, Co-Director of Development at Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) Andrea Lee, Executive Director of the Isabel Allende Foundation Lori Barra, and the fabulous Lateefah Simon we have been gushing about.

Speaking of gushing, Loung Ung introduces Isabel by talking about the first time she read her book about her late daughter Paula, and how it made Loung feel connected to her late mother. In short, she become a crazy huge fan and determined to meet her, which she did and a great friendship was formed.

This was a touching discussion between Loung and Isabel (who has a ridiculous potty mouth, by the way - and I love it) because they don't just talk about using writing as outlet for pain, but how readers can connect with it and use it alleviate their own. It was also about how friendships can be formed through these connections and the story-sharing involved - stories about family, loss and survival, and how activism through writing can not only help ourselves work through our own lives, but trigger a domino effect with others.

As Loung said, "Some of us do it all, and some us do it with writing."

Andrea Lee talks about her work at MUA, which was a good discussion to follow after Loung and Isabel - she talks about the ways that while the Latina immigrants who find the organization have their own story to tell, connecting with other Latina immigrants, hearing their stories and how they parallel allows them to feel connected and fuels their activism together to make their stories visible.

My favorite part of the panel was when Allende said towards the end, "Death is a terrible inconvenience, but not an obstruction," an obstruction to connecting with people, to love and working towards change.

Yes, this is a gushy post. Eat it up.

Check out Lateefah Simon - who has us all in awe of her. More video of the conference to come.

I am currently watching a panel discussion with three young leaders and each are so inspiring that I find myself repeatedly holding back tears. Jensine Larsen, Alberta Nells and Lateefah Simon have in common deep roots in community based organizing efforts and a deep connection with a spiritual force that is moving them to action.

First up, Jensine Larsen founded World Pulse an interactive media center that projects the stories of women around the world and analysis of international issues through their eyes. She believes that "pulse" symbolizes the electricity of women's voices rising around the earth. She says, "the creative human potential of women and girls is the greatest untapped resource on the earth and we can use technology and communications to connect and empower these voices." To add she says,"When women control the communications channels, they control their destiny."

There are countless examples of women having even a tiny bit of access utilizing it to share their voices, be it one computer, text, one blog or the strategic use of web 2.0 technology, she tells us. Often women don't have time to be online to blog, their husbands sitting next to the computer disallowing them from using it. She concludes with an example of a woman in Kenya that had been dying of AIDs but managed to retrieve retroviral drugs for herself and 17 other women in her village. Through the use of World Pulse and web 2.0 technology, they were able to bring her story to life and is now flown all over the world to tell her story and train other rural women in how to organize their communities. "How can I go to sleep when my country is burning and Pulse-Wire is my light?"

Up next, Alberta Nells, a young leader/organizer, Navajo organizer. Southwest organizer, her work is focused on protecting indigenous rights to land. When she found they would use recycled waste water as snow on sacred land, that is when she knew she had to speak out, "I can't allow this to happen to my people, to the teachings of my people." She speaks tenderly of her relationship with her grandmother and the power of teachings from a previous generation on how to move our people. She speaks to the power of song to organize and uplift and specifically the teachings of women. When asked about Navajo relationship with feminism, she says she doesn't understand the question as they believe in the balance between the feminine and masculine energy, or recognition of two-spirit in all of us. And concludes, "each one of us is indigenous to a different place and we must tap into that energy."

Finally, Lateefah Simon, 32 feels old as we carry the weight of our grandmothers and came to this work because of our grandmothers and mothers. Lateefah became an organizer by giving out condoms she got in her girls group in high school. It was her informal realization that this is what organizing is. She worked deeply with communities that people wouldn't touch, drug addicts, sex workers and holding them and giving them support. She understood at a young age how to raise money and build resources, "if we could battle pimps on the street, it was easy." When she realized that there was a choice to parent, she embraced the power of that choice and decided to become a radical choice organizer for the African American community. In talking about the prison industrial complex and re-entry programs she says, "human and civil rights issues are women's issues" and concludes, "of all that we have learned in our work how to do we move that power and use it in a man's world?"

I don't think this live-blog can even start to do justice to how powerful this session was. We took some video so we will be posting that as well.

Lateefah Simon (who is amazing, btw) introduced Gloria Steinem who is one of the great speakers kicking off the conference tonight.

Steinem says that while "difference is the source of learning" and that "difference is a gift," we should focus on our shared humanity. Also, she is hilarious: apparently back in the day "studies" said that only women should type because we had the necessary motor skills to do so. Then computers came long. (Ha!)

I'm also glad that she's talking about forced sterilization as its related to reproductive justice and that racism and sexism are "intertwined and cannot be uprooted separately." Also, she mentioned the prison industrial complex - as Miriam said in her conference tweet: Rock.

My favorite line of the night: "The stereotype about young women is that they're ungrateful and inactive - this is utter bullshit."

Also: "More young women identify as feminists than older women, yet we're led to believe that the opposite is the case." Sweet.

And scary: "If only white women had voted, John McCain would be president."

And... "Is the women's movement racist? Yes, the country is racist."

And more amazing: Older women ask her if she's surprised about the way young women and dress and she responds, "well I wore miniskirts and a button that said 'cunt power,' so..."