Reclaiming Our Names
“When will we seize the world around us with our freedom?”
-June Jordan in “Nicaragua: Why I Had to Go There”
Last night hundreds of Durham residents gathered in City Hall and aligned and sang in peace and unity our urgent desire for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. “Ceasefire” a song by beloved sister adrienne maree brown held the multitude as mothers, children, and community members of all generations found peace within and made it audible and visible holding roses, demanding a more loving world and a ceasefire resolution now.
Image and song by adrienne maree brown
Many of those gathered were the same people who came together 15 years in response to sexual violence lift up June Jordan’s words in “Poem About My Rights” that WRONG IS NOT MY NAME. In "Poem About My Rights” June Jordan teaches us that sexual violence and colonialist violence are devastatingly interconnected and that our responses must be as well. The violence of occupation impacts our very breathing which is why the intentional measured practice of singing together helps us to bring our highest intention for peace, regulating the trauma responses within us when we know this violence is related to every form of violence we have survived. You can read the poetry zine that some of us created 15 years ago here to reclaim our names here.
Earlier yesterday evening 50 folks of all ages from around the world also gathered online in June Jordan’s name to support each other in being as brave as June Jordan was when she connected the imperialist violence she was witnessing in the world to the oppression she learned at home. In “and before that it was my father”: reclaiming our names we looked at the fears that have been passed on through generations of embodied trauma and committed to what June Jordan calls “daily and nightly self-determination” also known as the practices through which we can embody a different reality. In “Poem About My Rights” Jordan moves from embodying fear to embodying a self-love that makes her dangerous to colonialism. The beautiful thing is that, like Jordan’s poem, our love and transformation is non-linear. The very same night that we addressed our intergenerational fears committed to embodying courageous love, so many parents in my community brought their children to witness a different embodiment, teaching the next generation that in the face of genocide we sing, we love each other deeper, we remember how powerful we are together.
The answer to June Jordan’s question “When will we seize the world around us with our freedom?” is NOW.
In honor of this reality we created a group poem in honor of our new and reclaimed names. Can you sing this poem?
P.S. If you want to write into a new embodiment the recording of last night’s workshop is available here.
daily and nightly self-determination
by the participants in Reclaiming Our Names in honor of June Jordan
My name is song.
My name is breath.
My name is a portal, a catchment, a window.
My name is carnival.
My name is beautiful and none of your damn business.
My name is unavailable to anyone besides me.
My name is unapologetic.
My name is for myself.
My name is primordial.
My name is memory.
My name is a journey with no end in sight.
My name is bold.
My name is restoration.
My name is water.
My name is water carves rock.
My name is created from the songs carried on the wind.
My name is homecoming.
My name is one of endless containers with which to hold (parts of) my being.
My name is gratitude.
My name is patience-in-real-time.
My name is infinite opulence.
My name is yes.
My name is love.
My name is love.
My name is courage.
My name is peace.