#breaking borders

[sweet-soul-sister]

Tetris Techno Remix by DaCaV5    see what some people don't realize is that you can't stereotype my group as a hip hop group, ‘cause we do it all

Day 9: A song that if someone said they liked it, you would like them a little bit more    because that amount of hype is nearly unreachable and far too few people know this song.

[freeqthamighty]

My First Night in South Africa

after crossing waters where my kin still stand, unable to find eternal rest on ocean beds, i find myself floating in a sea of Black faces from every current that licks the coast of this continent.

i am lost at see. i am emerging in every face my eyes behold between blinks. i hear myself in every turn of the tongue regardless of the language that confines it.

i have floated so far from for the shores of reality when my suitcase grazes lightly, like a full gazelle, against another woman’s bag.

i return from the paradise my mind has vacationed my sense of space to. i begin to pluck an apology like sweet fruit from beneath my tongue,

when this woman, when this white woman, when this white woman in South Africa

raises her voice at me like I am a child whose careless hands have come too close to spilling the rainbow stew that sits in this nation’s melting pot.

this woman. she says to me, GO AROUND!

entitlement filling the deep valleys disbelief has created on her face. in that moment, i am sure she has packed all of the white mans burdens in her suitcases.

she speaks, and her every word becomes shovel to unearth the ghosts of apartheid, now, we are toe to toe in this haunted hallway

and she continues,

YOU NEED TO GO AROUND! THIS LAND IS OCCUPIED!

she says this, and she traces her finger through the air as if the act of drawing borders is her inheritance.

it is not lost on me i am here for a summit to ‘break down borders’, and this relic, she reminds me how many borders exist beyond the maps they’ve drawn on our lands,

how to them, our very beings are borders, able to be crossed with no consequence.

this woman. she is the prodigal daughter of colonization, returned to her father’s gluttonous feast on our land.

i wonder if her ancestors told her to speak down to me like mine compelled me to stand up to her?

THIS LAND, she says, IS OCCUPIED!

…as if I did not already know this.

as if i too do not come from a land where whites have taken and taken and taken to the point that they and even we believe it is theirs to hold in their hands, their soft hands that have never worked this land, only overseen our bent or broken bodies.

i open my mouth, and decades of displacement fill the hotel lobby. the bellboy’s mouth,

it falls agape at my audacity, my spirit, it shatters at his silence.

this woman. she tells me, THIS LAND IS OCCUPIED, and my brother’s eyes begs me to wear quiet like a coat in this South African winter.

i consider his request…

…in my mind, but my body,

my body remembers and refuses to go back to a silence colonization once forced down my grandmother’s throat, the same silence that sits too comfortably in too many of my cousin’s stomachs.

from the corner of my eye, i see my South African sister shift, i realize her body remembers too, I watch her mouth transform from body part to sword and tell this woman so sharply,

shut up! who are you? let’s go Mwende, this is not worth the time

we disengage from that which only means to take and take.

her body remembers it belongs here, was birthed here, was not beckoned by false burdens and gods whose only path to kingdom is conquer

my sister, she reclaims this ‘occupied’ land, and makes a way for both of us to pass.

later, she whispers to me that maybe sons|daughters should be made to pay the price their fathers put on our heads, that maybe then, they’d understand this land was never theirs to begin with.

i respond with a throat full of thanks, i tell her how in my mind, i took the woman’s bags and threw them across the lobby, how i imagined her clothes becoming a flock of birds taking flight,

as we picture this scene of paradise in our minds, our mouths burst open like ripe coconuts knocked down in the winds of change.

we are a lineage of laughter|survival, the recognition that sometimes they be both and the same,

that sometimes,

our joy is our being and our being is a reminder we are still being here, that still being here is enough of an act of resistance, enough of a reminder, that though the project of colonization is ongoing,

it is an ongoing failure.

let our every breath be reminder.

we are still here,

we are still here,

we have always been here,

we will always be here.

-Mwende “FreeQuency” Katwiwa, May 26th, 2017

Interview in South Africa for the #BreakingDownBorders African Youth Summit

[perfectsongs123]

I’ve always kept my head down to avoid the sky Some darkness in my deep mind like the endless gloomy night Yeah I couldn’t extend my wings In the limited world that chained me like a cage Even I am tired out For you who always follow my step I will sing for you I extend my wings like my own dream Towards the purely blue sky Shining sparkly My closed and cold heart It beats lively again As high as the sky I’ve dreamed to chase that star The anxiety I feel is always the only thing that’s left on the door side I know I have to beat against the pain so that I could fly freely I extend my wings like my own dream Towards the purely blue sky Shining sparkly My closed and cold heart It beats lively again As high as the sky I’ve dreamed to chase that star Those bitter words that are engraved profoundly on my mind It hurts but I have to put it through I know I’m gonna heal and i’m always looking up Even if it’s dark in front of my eyes, I can find the light I’ll be laughing, I’ll keep laughing I’m a fighter, I’m never giving up I’ll keep flying Fly, fly more Flying far for my dream Rewinding my appearance Imma just be me Yeah only me Imma just be me yeah yeah Being afraid of nothing so that I can fly higher Even though trapped in the dark No matter how hurt it is It’s just incomparably beautiful to me I’m just happy I’m happy to be myself I’m happy to be myself

Beautiful - Amber

[blanketforcas]

“Breaking Borders is a documentary that portraits the life of Ibrahim Mokdad (30), one of the many LGBT refugees that fled to Europe to find a new home.

But the story of Ibrahim is not one of many. When Ibrahim fled Lebanon, he fled with a goal. Not only did he want to find a safe place for himself, but also for the hundreds of other LGBT people who can't be themselves. Ibrahim now fills his days fighting societies labels and being a voice for other refugees while still dealing with the scars from his past. Ibrahim tells a story about seeking freedom and the struggles of dealing with that freedom.”

If you can, please donate here

(It’s in Dutch, but you should be able to pay from outside The Netherlands)

[cokeandpopcorntv-blog]

[teks-thighs]

If God was going to give the world an enema, this is where he'd stick the tube

Breaking Borders, Dying for the American Dream

[neiceenice]

I want to see this new show Breaking Borders on the Travel channel.

[simplywonderful]

POM Breaking Borders 

Have you checked out journalist Mariana Van Zeller and acclaimed chef Michael Voltaggio in the new #TravelChannel show #BreakingBorders? It’s pretty great, and we’re not just saying that because the “Top Chef” was using pomegranates in episode one.