Bring on the noise: T.J. Bryan's Tenacious R/evolution, by Nikko Snyder

(Originally published in good girl magazine No. 4, Winter 2003)

A couple of weeks after I relocated to Montreal this summer, an email landed in my inbox that made me wonder if I'd made the right decision. R/evolution: Women and Trans People read, view, write and talk anti-oppression with T.J. Bryan, a.k.a. Tenacious, made me consider re-packing my boxes and heading straight back to Toronto.

The once-a-month-for-six-months course captivated my imagination with its promises of NOT being academic and NOT expecting participants to "dazzle those around you with flowery, long-winded words and phrases" or "hide what you don't know or understand." That in addition to R/evolution's reading/viewing list, which was nothing less than awesome in its comprehensiveness, made me instantly curious about the person that had taken it upon herself to organize such an event. Who was this enigma, brazenly spreading hardcore alternative learning outside the hallowed halls of the academy?

I didn't move back to Toronto for R/evolution, but I did the next best thing: I contacted T.J. Bryan, a.k.a. Tenacious herself to see if she'd share some of her radical wisdom on anti-oppression and activism in this isms issue of good girl. The Toronto artist, author, activist and educator graciously agreed to put down on paper some of her no-holds-barred ideas on R/evolution and isms in an email interview.

good girl: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

tenacious: I am a 34-year-old, Black conscious, queer, working class, immigrant, creatrix and grass roots educator who has written and published extensively on women's/queer/people of colour/working class struggle, oppression, identity and desire. I am a past editorial collective member of the feminist journal Fireweed, a co-founder of the now-defunct Black Lesbian production house De Poonani Posse and the editrix of FIERCELY online - a darkly queer webworld. I'm presently working on a collection of creative non-fiction called In Tha Makin'.

gg: Where does "tenacious" come from?

t: As I have learned and grown, I can look back and recognize periods where my life shifted so radically that I in effect became a new being. Mostly I've marked these moments with tattoos, piercings or name changes. I became "Tenacious" when I survived one of these life changing moments and came more fully into an understanding of myself, my will to survive and my power.

gg: How did you come to be doing what you are doing?

t: About sixteen years ago I left home (Toronto) and went away to school when I was eighteen. Politically speaking, I didn't have anything more than a vague belief in the equality of men and women, pro-choice sentiments and a really strong belief in myself. I was in the Visual Arts program at Ottawa University when I realized that something was very, very wrong. Things that I was learning didn't add up with the realities of my existence. The more I spoke about the art I was creating, the more I asked questions of the other students and of my professors, the more they became uncomfortable. I was asking questions mostly about whiteness and about the difference between me, a black woman, and them, white people. I came into the realization that it was decadent and self-serving to do art for art's sake, art reflecting art history, or art about abstractness when there was so much going on in the world that I could be commenting on. Around this time I met Black, South African educator and writer Rozena Maart, who was doing a course called “Racism and Feminism” that allowed me to find names and words for what I was thinking and feeling. She offered up the idea of various struggles for change being linked. But she also made some connections that I haven't seen anyone else be ballzy enough to say in public or put in their writings. She shared a lot of information about writing and really encouraged me to be steadfast and merciless in the service of struggles for change. She's someone I've seen choose the work of defying forms of domination over being famous or being considered acceptable, time and time again. I think it is her example I mostly follow when I do anti-oppression work. No backing down. No wussing out. Bring on the noise.

gg: How did R/evolution begin?

t: I began to envision R/evolution after my baby daughter Tigana Phenomenal-Gift Sankofa Azania was born. All the work I had to do to prepare my communities for her, to struggle against misguided people whose political understanding didn't allow them to envision a world that could welcome a Barbadian, immigrant, urban, out queer, going out with straight man ten years her junior, sexually radical mama and her child, got me to thinking about change right across the board. I realized that I would literally have to take on the task of changing the world one person at a time to counteract all the isms that were coming at my baby and me daily. So, I continued writing and publishing. But I've also started doing workshops like R/evolution so I can take part in bringing about the birth of a better world for my child.

gg: How has your activism changed since becoming a mama?

t: I have become even more intensely interested in social change than I have ever been before.The future of my daughter and her peers is at stake. So I've been doing a lot of Conscious Mama outreach in the hopes of making ties with other mamas doing political work. I've started a Toronto-based group called Militant Mamas that is for mamas who want to create an anti-oppression community of pregnant women, and for mamas and children under two years of age.

gg: What does activism mean to you?

t: Activism was something that I thought of as the domain of people working in non-profit organizations, academics that attended demos, etc. A few years back as I came to grips with how much hell I was encountering from people in many different communities for doing work that questioned class, conservatism, erotophobia (sex negativity), power and alliances between the most conservative factions inside different communities of resistance, I realized that I was exposing links of domination, power and privilege that no one really wanted to examine. I was doing some really dangerous, career stunting, front line activist work. As an artist and writer, I was envisioning change, demanding it and fighting for it through my words and images. So I came out as an activist.

gg: What about revolution?

t: Revolution for me is about profound social change. No make-up. No one making a big, self-gratifying show of throwing crumbs that the oppressed gratefully accept. No "preaching" to the converted. No lessons in acceptance or tolerance. Instead, Revolution is about arriving at an understanding of power - who's got it; privilege - who benefits from it without ever having to acknowledge it; colonization - whose lands, souls, identities have been stolen, destroyed or occupied; domination - who struggles underneath it without being offered relief; complexity - who walks with power and oppression under their skins? For example, I define as queer, Diasporic African, woman. Even as I speak and write about my oppression and take pride in my identities, I must struggle with the knowing that I am also privileged. African descended peoples,the children of formerly free peoples dragged to the west in chains, presently live on First Nations' land while they (First Nations' people) are disrespected, their populations decimated,their issues marginalized. I am able-bodied in a world full of physical barriers that make passage for the disabled difficult, if not impossible. I am westernized, North Americanized and urban in a world where third world peoples, people of colour in other parts of the earth are exploited so that I can drink white wine in restaurants, shop at Loblaws and buy clothes from Walmart. As a descendant of Africans brought to Barbados, an island colonized by the British,my historical linguistic colonization is a double-edged sword in that I speak a language of domination forced on people the world over. As the daughter of a working poor immigrant, I have the coveted prize - a university education - which is another form of privilege marking me as different from the other working class/poor children I grew up with. Revolution is about being able to use what I know and whatever relative privilege I have in the quest for overall change, as opposed to hoarding my access and privilege for my own personal advancement.

gg: When we read the "syllabus" for R/evolution we thought, "Why don't they make university courses like this?!" Why did you choose a non-academic environment with a course-like format to tackle these issues?

t: I envisioned a relaxed,non-alienating environment where people could have real conversation about anti-oppression as it relates to our day-to-day. I have met tons of people who have read all the right books in academic settings but who don't have the foggiest clue how to take what they've learned and make it manifest in their lives. They can talk the talk but aren't even close to being able to walk the walk. There's no cross over between their actions and their book knowledge. Or then there are those folks who live their lives by the book. Every situation must be referenced in this feminist/academic/political tome or that. Their lives are rigid. I was one of them until the growing grey spaces in my own life threatened to rip me apart. Living life showed me that I had to make some links between my politics and my everyday reality. But these links needed to be fluid and changeable. I developed a politic that stretches and grows even as it allows me to live a whole life that reflects my beliefs. In effect, this is what I want to pass on to people who take my course - some real tools for their very real lives.

gg: What's your philosophy on learning?

t: Never be scared to put your foot in your mouth. When you learn more, you can take i it out. But if you're more interested in looking good and saying the right things, if you never take the risk of speaking and being heard, you'll never learn. You'll always be ignorant.

gg: In your opinion, what is the role of white people in anti-racist work?

t: The role of people of European descent is to learn more about themselves, their privilege, their histories, and their affluent societies/countries founded in the domination of people of colour around the world. This is hard for so many white people as it involves coming out of denial about the fact that this society is steeped in racism, white domination and a centuries' old program of affirmative action for people with white skin. That's upsetting for many white people because they try to distance themselves from recognizing the evidence of their own racism. I need to add here that I'm mostly speaking of queer people when I speak of white folks as they're the European descended people I deal with most often. To be a good ally means opening their eyes and acknowledging what they see around them. It means moving through denial to a place where they are actively dealing with the pain, anger, grief and shame that comes with recognizing that their lives and communities have been built on the suffering of others. It means not getting stuck in guilt, which is the great paralyzer. Nobody wants them to slit their wrists. There's too much work to be done bringing down systems of domination. They need to become allies who share their access and their insider knowledge. They need to cultivate the fine art of humbly following people of colour instead of jockeying for power and trying to be the boss. They will need to recognize that even simple things like sex and desire are racialized and in need of questioning.

gg: What about the role of “straight” people in queer work?

t: Potential het allies can start by recognizing their sexuality as a construct, meaning that it is invented and maintained by them, their friends, their families, the media, religion and the state. Then they can acknowledge heterosexuality as a culture and as a set of right wing values that contribute to the sexual oppression of queers, transgendered people, intersexed people, transsexual people, leatherfolk, polyamorous people and all other peoples pursuing sexually radical ways of being. They can go on from there to recognize that there are links to privilege and power forged between heterosexuality, monogamy, the institution of marriage, nuclear family building, and sexual conservativism. They can name the links between heterosexism, capitalism and class even as they come to grips with the part they play in the murders of trans people, queer alcoholism and drug abuse and queer youth suicide when they decide not to recognize their own privilege. When they ignore our issues or when they marginalize our sexualities or define our sex as too pornographic to be seen in the light of day, they support our oppression. Heteros can learn about themselves and work to bravely counter hetero domination in whatever forms it manifests.

gg: What has the response to R/evolution been like?

t: The response has been overwhelmingly positive. This session of R/evolution has drawn together a group of people so NOT homogeneous in their identities or politics that we can't help but have some interesting conversations.

gg: What are your plans/goals for this project?

t: I'm hoping to have a one-day symposium on anti-oppression sometime in the spring or summer, and I will hopefully be offering R/evolution again next year. I'm also planning to offer a similar course to men about patriarchy, male domination and masculinity. I will also be developing some workshops for mamas in the Toronto area.

gg: In an ideal world,what would successful Revolution look like?

t: A whole heap'a power, access, privilege, food, resources and contentment shared equally and not at the expense of the earth. In short: the world's dispossessed people's rising up, truly joining forces to make mutually beneficial change, and bringing on absolute pandemonium followed by peace and happiness like the world has never known.

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