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(Trigger warning.) In 2003, 21 year-old Ramona Moore - a student at Hunter College in New York - told her mother she was going to Burger King down the street and would be right back. She never came home.

Moore was held in a basement a few blocks away where she was raped and tortured for four days before her captors beat her to death. The police, who Moore's mother begged for help, did nothing to find her.

Sean Gardiner at The Village Voice has a huge piece not only on the police's mishandling of Moore's disappearance - but also how it has sparked a historic racial bias case against the city.

Moore's mother Elle Carmichael is bringing forward a a civil-rights lawsuit claiming that the NYPD has a "practice of not making a prompt investigation of missing-persons claims of African-Americans, while making a prompt investigation for white individuals."

Not exactly shocking news, of course, but the case would be the first of its kind.

To prove racial bias, Carmichael's team would have to "show it's happened in a pattern of instances," says NYU law professor Paul Chevigny. And the only way Chevigny can think of to do so would be to take a large sample of missing-persons cases, identify the race of the people involved, and then determine whether there really is a pattern.

Carmichael's lawyer, Robert Barsch, is apparently attempting to do just that. He tells the Voice that he has heard from a number of black people who have also had their attempts to have police open up missing-persons investigations ignored. And he plans to point to the [Svetlana] Aronov case as a prime example of the flip side of that coin. After all, the NYPD tried harder to find Aronov's dog than they did Romona Moore. (Link added)

Tried harder to find a dog. "If this was a white kid, they would never had done this," Carmichael told Gardiner.

"I had to say to the detectives one day: 'You know, I feel the same emotions and pain as a white person.' "

Read more about Moore and the case against the NYPD at What About Our Daughters? and The Feminist Underground.

A Reuters article titled, "Sexy rap videos suspected to be damaging to young girls" says:

Watching rap music videos that are overly sexy and violent can lead to alcohol abuse and promiscuity among young black girls, according to a study into sexual stereotypes in rap music footage.

Firstly, putting "sexy" and "violent" within the same category is a bit disconcerting. (Not to mention "promiscuity" and "alcohol abuse.") The actual study was even more so:

The research was based on a survey of 522 African-American girls aged 14 to 18 who were asked how often they watched rap videos, questioned about their sex lives and asked to provide a urine sample for a marijuana screening.

While obviously the media and pop culture (which does include the misogyny that exists in many rap videos) has a huge impact on girls' lives, why not focus more on their self esteem and confidence rather than their sexual activity and pot smoking? (The research method itself is pretty problematic to me as well, but that's a whole other discussion.)

Thoughts?

Today in Salon, Debra Dickerson has a great piece about Michelle Obama, the politics of being First Lady, and what it means that she's the first woman of color to potentially fill that role. Some highlights below the jump...

We have some great women on this panel, which is discussing ways to reach out to and communicate with young women of color. Mary Mahoney from the Pro-Choice Public Education Project is moderating, with Nicole Clark from Helping Our Teen Girls in Real Life Situations (HOTGIRLS) and Candace Webb from the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families as presenters.

One resource they gave that I really want to check out is this study, “Representin’ in Cyberspace: Sexual Scripts, Self-Definition, and Hip Hop Culture in Black American Adolescent Girls’ Home Pages” that was released this month in the international journal Culture, Health and Sexuality and led by Dr. Carla Stokes, the founding Executive Director of HOTGIRLS. While the study challenges the generalization that black teen girls aren’t tech-savvy and shows ways that they use the internet and hip hop to express themselves in creative ways, it also showed that much of the time, they actually choose to emulate the hypersexual, negative stereotypes of black women that are depicted in the media. All the more reason to have more online activism and outreach to these young women.

Oh gawd, they just put on “A Girl Like Me.” Great film, but I so do not need to be crying today.

Some of the women who run Casa Atabex Ache.

Daynara Marte has been executive director of the “House of Womyn Power” Casa Atabex Ache in the South Bronx of New York for four years. She came to Casa in 1999 as an intern and has stayed and moved up in the organization ever since.

"Casa" in Spanish means house. "Atabex" is one of the many names for the Taino goddess or earth mother of Puerto Rico. Taino are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, and other islands in the Caribbean. "Ache" means power in Yoruba, the language of a West African ethnic group.

Between 30 to 65 young women learn about self empowerment through cultural and indigenous rituals, spirituality, and social justice at Casa Atabex Ache at any given time. Currently, Dayanara is working on outreaching to the large Mexican immigrant community living in the South Bronx. Many fear entering community establishments and being asked for their immigration papers.

Here’s Dayanara…

Casa Atabex Ache provides programs for both young and adult women?
Our herstory is that originally we had two programs: a young women’s program and then an adult women’s program. But right now, which is an accomplishment for us, we’re putting together an alternative health and healing empowerment cooperative. It’s an alternative health center that provides holistic, cultural, natural, mind/body/spirit healthcare to the community.

What are some examples of the types of services this center provides?
This has become an intergenerational space, so we still do work with young women. We have people come in and do trainings or workshops with them on body image, healthy eating, reiki, acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga, different alternative fitness classes, natural medicines—so they learn how to prepare their own medicines at home. In addition, they learn what is political about doing self healing and emotional relief work to cure different diseases that women of color go through because of internalized oppression and different forms of violence they experience in their community and in their personal life.

It’s not about just giving a service to the community but really having a dialogue about why a space like this needs to exist. What is really happening to immigrant, poor, working women of color in our communities that has many of us dying from cervical cancer, breast cancer, having depression, trauma, high incidents of infant mortality rates—not to mention our reproductive healthcare system sucks. We just have a tremendous amount of disease in our bodies and a lot of that comes from what is happening externally and the lack of resources that we have access to. So, we combine all of those components to then provide a space where women can do work on different traumas, make relief and action plans, use their own experiences for healing work, and use their cultura [culture] to start reclaiming their bodies, their minds, their spirits, their cultures, to be able to do the work that they need to do in this space.

How do the young women respond to these types of alternative healthcare and messages?
Well, at first, they’re like, “What the hell is this? You all are crazy. We’re not witches.” Because we do a lot of altar work—we do earth-based spirituality, goddities, Chinese Five Element Theory, aromatherapy, and other things like that. So, at first, they are resistant to it. But our work is to show them that another world is possible and to reclaim what our indigenous ancestors used to live and to be one with the earth. There’s also the “I’m not doing it attitude.” Or, “I don’t need it. I don’t have any problem. I never experienced racism or sexism. My life is fine the way that it is.” But eventually without them even noticing it, they do start going through intensive training that’s very experiential. They learn how to instead of smoking weed or having unsafe sex, they learn how to start going home and taking wonderful baths and creating affirmations for themselves and building their own altars in their homes and living their lives with serious intent.

They also start really getting informed about their bodies. We take trips to the GYN. They start learning about different types of self mutilation, how to own [this self abuse] and use this space as their journey to basic self awareness.

We talk about how to break down guilt and fear, gossip and drama, and going against each other on the street—where all that comes from and how to start letting them go and gaining other tools to deal with life other than the violence.

Would you say that violence is the top issue that a lot of the young women in the area face?
Yeah, most definitely. We just started a campaign—a couple of young women who have been with me since I got here eight years ago and have grown up with me—finished a documentary on the impact of child abuse and different forms of child abuse in their lives and then being resorted to having to go to five or six foster homes where they experienced rape and sexual assault and different forms of sexual violence that they otherwise had not experienced in their [birth parents’] home. We have a lot of young women with that particular story.

We also have a lot of adult women who walk through our space who have that story but now are realizing the impact that that trauma and violence has had on their lives as adults and the choices they made because of it. For example, they’re still in very destructive, unhealthy, violent relationships. They’ve self mutilating themselves, whether they’re drinking or not achieving their highest potential. At the end of the day, at the core of the work, whether it’s young or adult women, there definitely is the issue of the impact of child abuse in all its forms.

What are some of your most memorable moments at Casa Atabex Ache?
With the young women, I think the most memorable moments are always when a young woman walks into this space and is just like, “There’s something in my underwears! What is it? What do I need to do? We need to go to the GYN!” It’s something that she otherwise would not have had any awareness of unless she was in our program.

We’ve also sent a lot of our young women to college and definitely saw them go from the space where—“I can’t dream. Somebody took my voice away. Somebody took my ability to dream a long time ago”—to, “I’m going to college. I’m going to do this for myself.” Whether they follow through or not, I think it’s a big success for us.

And definitely young women who have had children in this space and were going to call their child “Alize” or some other type of liquor or rum or car—seeing them go from wanting to do that to calling their children “Precious,” or finding a really intent-filled, beautiful name for their children.

With the adult women, we’ve had adult women here who are 30 and have never looked at their vaginas. This is the space where that moment gets to happen. It’s like, “Oh, my God, I wash it. It’s there! I’m sexually intimate with people, but I don’t want to look at it. I’ve never seen it.” So, to have sisters take a mirror up to their vaginas and apologize to it for whatever reason, or to reclaim it and actually see it, is a big success for us.

We do a lot of retreats in the space. We teach women for three days, outside of their environments, to really do intensive healing work. To see sisters together in a space where they’re not hiding or gossiping, and they’re really learning how to take care of each other and themselves. Seeing sisters be able to come back [to their lives] and be new, be a wonderful mom or a wonderful partner, be better at their jobs with more strength, or learn different ways of taking care of their bodies or how to let go of different addictions. That’s definitely a success in this space.

We’ve had sisters come here to volunteer. Or participants who end up becoming volunteers of this space or becoming staff. Or end up taking another role in another organization and doing very similar work. Or who are now reiki practitioners and are doing alternative things in their homes. Those are all wonderful successes for us.

What are some issues you think are pertinent to young and adult women’s lives that presidential candidates should keep in mind and consider while on the campaign trail?
One of the impacts that we’re feeling is the reduction of the budget and the decrease of resources in an already decreased-resourced community. [Laughs] Communities that do not have [many resources], and didn’t have, now have less. In particular, the women in this community. We definitely have a big influx of teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and asthma because we have four incinerators that are around this community. We also have about four youth jails surrounding the community; it’s really ridiculous the way our children are being brought up right now. And all these different laws coming up around child abuse; all different types of ways to criminalize our communities. But definitely, I would say, more monies into our communities, especially for reproductive healthcare for the women and safe spaces for the youth.

What do you personally hope the young women get out of the work that you do with them?
Continuance healing and possibility. To be able to integrate the politics so that it’s not that you’re going crazy, or that you’re going through this by yourself. The war that is happening abroad still has a very big impact on our lives right here, right now. We internalize that war. We don’t need presidents and judicial systems any more to punish us. We do that to ourselves in our own way. We need to start healing from internalized oppression.

So, I’m hoping to create a space where as the world changes and we continue there is a space for young and adult women to heal. Heal in the midst of all the violence and to dream big that anything is possible. But first you need to really look into yourself and put yourself into a context that is not individualized from everything else that is happening.

Is there anything you would like to add?
Just for people to know that we exist. Sometimes we think that a space like this doesn’t exist. [Laughs] But it does. And it will only sustain if women need it. We do not plan to be here for a hundred years because our hope is that at some point we will stop needing spaces like this because the world is going to be just fine. But in the meantime, we need women power to sustain this space. We need spaces, and we actually need to create them ourselves. Nobody is going to do that for us.

And I hope women take part and enjoy the journey of creating safe spaces for ourselves. I think the stand that Casa has taken is that there has just been too much energy exerted into fighting the system and so we want to start creating our own. This year we’re going to start creating our own healthcare system and stop fighting all of these other institutions. That’s just way too much energy that occupies us. What’s wrong with the education system? Well, let’s create our own. And that is what I think we do with the young women’s program. These are the things you’re not learning in school. These are things we think are important in understanding that you’re Latina or that you’re African American or that you’re South Asian. This is what we think you need to know in order to survive this world. We make it happen in the programs. Whatever they don’t learn in school, we make sure that they learn it here. And that they’re informed. So, I think we’re just taking a stance to stop fighting against institutions and to start really creating liberated autonomous zones where community has control, power and governance over itself.

As someone who runs a Equity in Health and Fitness Program at a nonprofit in Central Brooklyn, I thought it was necessary to spread the word on this one.

Check out more on Opportunity Agenda. It looks like they're doing some great stuff.

Photo by Kaya Nati

Hanifah Walidah is a hip hop artist, playwright, actor, music video maker, and filmmaker. Her list of accomplishments goes on and on, literally. Here are just a few of them: Her first LP, “A Headnadda’s Journey to Adidi-Skizm” was released in 1994 under the name Sha-Key. In the early 90s she was co-founder of two poet/performance collectives, The Vibe Khamelons and The Boom Poetic, both recognized as groundbreaking for fusing a hip hop approach to traditional beatnik rhythm. In 2002 she wrote and performed her one-woman show “Straight Black Folks Guide to Black Folks.” In 2006 she was the musical director of “What It Iz,” a hip hop/spoken word adaptation of “The Wiz.”

And thankfully, Hanifah is at it again. Hanifah’s new album, “Once Upon It Is” debuted this month. Check out her new song and music video, “Make a Move” on her website. Or better yet, vote to make it #1 on LOGO’s [LGBT-focused channel] “Click List.” It’s the first video that depicts gay women of color in a positive and celebratory light.

Hanifah will also be releasing an accompanying documentary to the video, U People, this June for Pride. The documentary features behind the scenes discussions on the video and a closer look at the women who make up the video. It will be debuting on LOGO.

You can also catch Hanifah on a European tour this spring. Here’s Hanifah…

Wow, you’ve been really busy. You’ve done a lot of great work over the years.
Yeah, I can only do this. You know what I mean? [Laughs] I figured out early on, “OK, well, I don’t know about a construction worker job.” [Laughs]

It’s a risky business working for yourself.
Yeah, but you have to take the risk factor out of it. People get kind of hung up on the security and the successes and the lack there of. But no one is secure, not in this country anyway. So, I’d rather work for something that I love to do rather than give to someone else who may or may not keep me around. [Laughs]

That’s right. Can you talk about your “Make a Move” music video and how it ties in with your documentary U People?
The music video came about last spring. I decided to make one because there are now venues to air it—LOGO is here. I said, “OK, let me do this.” Then I started thinking of different ideas of what I could do with the music video.

Once I was at a house party here in Brooklyn. That’s what we do, we have house parties. [Laughs] I was at a house party, sitting back, talking to a friend and I said that I much prefer to go to house parties than to clubs. And she said, “You know, we have a long history of this in Brooklyn.” And I said, “You know what, you’re right.” And then the light bulb just kind of went off as far as the visual of the long legacy of house parties, not just within the women’s community, but within the black community in general.

I then kind of went into my artist’s zone and started walking around like a fly on the wall, and really started listening in on conversations and tried to get that as food for thought as far as piecing together a script. Usually when I create a body of work I immediately go into story mode. I have to tell a story, I can’t help myself. I’m a story teller and I use the art to tell the story. I listened to the conversations and eventually made them into a script.

The next step was to find an actual house for the house party. A good friend of mine—who’s not gay, who’s a straight woman, but she’s a part of another community of mine as a musician—she has a huge brownstone that was handed down to her from her grandmother who was the first black woman to own a brownstone in Bedstuy [Bedford-Stuyvesant; Brooklyn neighborhood]. [Her grandmother] was cleaning floors at that. She uses the space as a musician hub where we jam out. I thought it was beautiful because it was now a project where gay women and straight women could work together for something.

I held auditions. Some people I knew were beautiful and could act. Some of the people—like the hair stylists and makeup artists—I met through my community on Myspace. Anyhow, I got the crew and the actors together, and when I looked around, they were all women—black women at that. I really didn’t go into this with that idea, but that’s what winded up happening.

I just didn’t burn any bridges over time and I was able to pull in my resources and find a way to finance it for next to nothing, really. Between discounts, and this and that, and people willing to work for free, it was beautiful.

So, I basically spent two days in this brownstone in BedStuy. I had two of my friends have two separate cameras and roam around and capture what was happening those two days. I really didn’t direct them. I just gave them these general guidelines and let them sort of direct themselves. And I just stopped thinking about it and focused on directing the video. The footage that they got was amazing because just the chemistry in the house was amazing. All these women together. Even the straight women who are part of the theater, they’re so used to working with men, just to have the opportunity to work in an all-women environment—they were as happy as all could get out. [Laughs] They adapted. And they were affirmed in a way that they’re not normally affirmed because they’re not used to being in a women’s community.

There were a lot of candid conversations; really emotional conversations about everything from politics to mother-daughter relationships to race relationships. And there were many aspects of the house where people could just find little cubby holes and find mini-worlds within the larger world of the brownstone.

After watching this footage I knew people had to see this. People have to know that this exists. It’s not like some of this reality TV where they can set people up to say things and it’s kind of fake. We censor each other around each other all the time. When we’re in an environment where we don’t feel completely safe we’re going to censor ourselves. If you’re white, you’re not going to hear everything that black people say. If you’re a trans person or a gay person, you’re not going to hear everything that straight people say. So, a lot of that; all those walls just came tumbling down. That’s what I wanted to show.

So, what I decided to do is instead of showing this raw footage [as a documentary], I wanted people to be introduced to some of the women in the video and then introduced within the context of the brownstone. The footage that we’re shooting now is a lot of separate interviews to bring these stories alive. For instance, there’s one sista, Deepa Soul, who’s really prominent throughout the documentary, but she has a really sensitive part where she goes into a tirade about her mother. She’s from New Orleans and she has a really bad relationship with her mother. She just went on it and everyone got really silent—you don’t talk about your mother in the black community. [Laughs] So, it was a really awkward and uncomfortable moment. She said, “At the end of the day, my mother, when she can’t take care of herself, I’m the only sibling that’s going to be able to do it.” Her mother was stuck in the house for like five days during the hurricane. So, she went into this tirade. But I didn’t want people to only focus on this tirade. She also lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, one of the most homophobic neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and she is so well respected in her neighborhood. She’s a maternal figure. She’s a no-joke figure. She works with at-risk youth, these five young men who are working on becoming rappers. She welcomes them into her home and really guides them through the process of the music industry, and they just look up to her. And of course she’s out to them. These are young black straight men that are like, “You are our God.”

People need to know that. Even within the gay community. They need to know that it’s not about only staying in our own little shelter, our own little bubble. That’s not better than middle class white folks in Middle America. That’s what they do. They stay in their own little bubble. That’s not how to change things, now is it?

[I think this documentary] is going to be a beautiful thing. And I think it’s going to be something that people have never seen before unless they’ve been in these circles.

What particular messages, if any, do you hope to get across in "Make a Move" and U People?
One message is that black lesbians are very, very sexy. I think it’s an old myth that we’re ugly and we have no sense of style. [Laughs] Maybe it was gay men that pushed that stereotype but it’s a real stereotype. [Laughs]

Also, I want the issue of race to come up. Sometimes there’s this idea of this utopian existence when it comes to race issues. Either it is not as discussed, it’s refuted, or it’s explained away. It seems like it should be a secondary thing and that’s not true. We still bring our baggage from being raised in this country into our “utopian existence.” And race is a very real thing.

I like the idea of people getting a peek into our world. In other words, anyone who watches the video will see different things. People have stereotypes of lesbians and people within the gay community. Gay people have stereotypes of black people. And gay white people have stereotypes of gay black people. [Laughs] Gay black women specifically. You get a peak into our world that makes us very human and very beautiful. I wanted to show a world that I know exists. I want to show that and give that to other people.

What more specifically do you think are the particular challenges many gay and trans women of color come across in their everyday lives?
It’s kind of a conflicted world because on one end you have to deal with being black, period. Which is something that came up in the documentary. It’s hard enough being a woman and being black, why do you have to add something else onto it? But then it’s not like we’re a la carte. Where you can just add and subtract. [Laughs]

But then we don’t have to only deal with black racism in general by white people. Within the black community there’s homophobia. There’s a part of us that is raised around, “This is the community I’m comfortable with. I was raised around it.” But a lot of folks don’t have interest in that. So, how to make my life the way that I want it to be? Where is my niche without closing myself off from the world?

So, you’re in between a rock and a hard place a lot of the time. But, just within your own niche—for me around other black women—I think this is the best community. [Laughs] Everybody wants to be like us. [Whispers] [Laughs] They won’t admit it! [Laughs]

Was it hard for you to come out as a gay woman?
It was harder to come out gay with a woman. [Laughs] I eventually told my mother when I was newly coming out. I was kind of harsh and abrasive. Like just accept it, and not considerate of where she was coming from. She’s come a long way.

With my father I began to understand that it’s not really someone else’s reaction that you’re worried about. You’re really worried about how you’re portraying yourself to yourself, which is what the other person sees. When I came out to my father, I was a lot more relaxed. I was Buddha-like. I was very sure of myself as a person and as a gay woman. In telling him, I was able to give off that kind of energy. And him receiving that, although he might have disagreed with it, he couldn’t fly off the handle because I wasn’t flying off the handle. He’s wasn’t insecure about it because I wasn’t insecure about it. But ultimately, he’s going to have to deal with it on his own terms.

As far as a visceral reaction, or how we imagine the people we love or how our parents are going to react—that’s not going to happen. You’re going to manifest what you want to happen by what you’re putting out there. A lot of people really need to understand that when they attempt to come out. But a lot of it has to deal with fear, I know. [Laughs]

Are your parents supportive of your work now?
My mother is supportive of my work. My father, we still go at it every now and then. He did come to my one-woman play called “Straight Black Folks Guide to Black Folks”; it’s about homophobia within the black community. He loved it. I think what he appreciated about it was my acting and the writing. He really didn’t discuss the content, but I think he was proud to see me on stage. That’s the conflict between him and being a parent and the faith he chose.

Was it difficult for you to come out to male friends?
I’ve always had male friends. When I was in the closet, I had a lot of male friends. When I came out of the closet, I lost some of them. But some of the oldest friends I have are male and they’re from that time, too. I also think it has to do with the kind of woman that I am. One, I’m very comfortable around men, and also attract the type of men that will be comfortable around me. End of story. [Laughs] I have relationships with my male friends, both gay and straight.

Do you ever worry when you’re walking in front of men you don’t know by yourself?
No. I’ve had a few instances with men on the street. I’ve had one in particular that actually gave birth to a really great song. Again, everything lies in my part. Some things come at you that you may attract unwittingly, or some randomness, but how you process it is really the determining factor of the effect of it. You can have someone really fuck up your day, or you can have someone give birth to a new song. It still lies in your lap. Regardless of what comes at you, it’s still yours to own.

That’s reality. That doesn’t negate the fact that I may be fearful at times. Or weary. Or sometimes it does really fuck up my day. At the end of the day, I have to figure out a way to process that so that something beautiful comes out of it or it’s a waste of everyone’s time in life.

What kind of feedback have you received from the video?
Overwhelmingly amazing feedback from across the board. Most of them are from gay women of color. But also from gay men, too, and straight folks. A lot of straight folks are saying this is a good video, and they’re not saying, “Oh, there’s all these lesbians in it.” I think on the black side of things, they were feeling it and the energy it was giving off. They liked the whole script aspect of it. As far as gay women, overwhelming. I get emails every day about how the video inspires. About how people are inspired by my career, period. The way I am as a person. I get emails from places like down South: “How can I escape? How can I get out of here? Can you give me some words of encouragement to get me through the day?” So, I’m online a lot, writing a lot of emails.

The video did what I hoped it would do. I knew that there were no images of us and the song is witty and its appreciative and it doesn’t exotify. Nobody focuses on grown women—late 20s, early 30s—who are pretty clear about what they want to do in life, or are already doing it and having a different outlook on the world.

Noemi Martinez makes her Hermana Resist zine out of her South Texas home, usually when her son and daughter are sleeping. By day, she’s the human trafficking outreach coordinator at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.

She says, “Between 800,000 to 900,000 people are trafficked in the world every year, with an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 of those in the US. A trafficked person doesn't have to cross international lines, and it can happen to a US citizen not only to undocumented persons.”

I spoke with Noemi over phone and email about her zines. I plan to talk about her anti-trafficking work in an interview to come. Here’s Noemi…

When did you start making zines?
In 2000. I am 30 now, so I was probably 22 or 23.

In Hermana Resist 6: In My Defense On Being you talk about creating zines to fill the void you feel is present in many of the zines you read. You talk about not feeling represented. Can you talk more about this?
I had not seen zines written by Latinas, or by single moms [until I made my own]. It was like “the norm,” which is still true right now. Zines are mainly written by white people, with privilege money-wise.

What are some issues that you talk about that many zines do not?
Off the bat: racism, sexism. There are zines who cover those issues, but from a white perspective, which is really different from a woman of color who writes zines talking about racism. It’s kind of odd reading it from a white person.

I noticed your zines are very personal and political. Do you think about what kinds of messages you want to give out before writing your zines? Or do you just go with the flow?
It’s really hard to separate one from the other because my personal happens because of the political, and vice a versa. If I am talking about an instance of racism in my personal life, first I have to talk about what happened, then why it happened. So, it goes from the personal and then it expands bigger and bigger to the political.

How many copies of each zine do you print?
I do several print runs of zines. In the beginning it was maybe 50 each run. Now I start off with a 100. People still ask for them, but I get tired of copying them. Sometimes I understand that people still want them because there are very little zines like it out there. Like Hermana Resist 3, I continued putting it out because it deals with depression and pregnancy and being a person of color. There aren’t a lot of things out there that deal with that. Even though it was a very painful zine to write and it was hard to reread it, someone out there might have benefited from reading it. That’s why I continue to make copies and have it available.

Do you give your zines out for free?
No. Usually I charge $1 or $2.

How do you distribute your zines?
Mostly mail. It’s weird because only till recently where I live, did people start asking about zines or wanted to know more about them. In the beginning it was just people in the city.

What is the social demographic of most of your readers?
I would have to say, race: white. I don’t think zines are so accessible right now to people who would like to get them. The populations who benefit most from zines don’t know about zines. For example, me, I was this little Chicana from South Texas who didn’t know anything. There’s someone out there who’s going through the same thing as me who would benefit but has no way of finding out about zines. Also, if you don’t have internet access you’re not going to hear about zines either.

So, you think zines are helpful in dealing with issues in your everyday life?
Totally, totally. If it weren’t for zines, I wouldn’t be the person I am right now. I’m an activist who works on violence against women.

Do you have a lot of female readers?
The majority are women. I do get letters and emails from guys, but I would have to say 90 percent are women.

As a mother, it’s so hard to have the time to be a mother and to write and make zines; to be a mother and to work. I wear so many hats, so I know the attraction from mothers is not as strong. I would say for mothers, it’s 20 to 30 percent.

How do you make zines while holding down a full-time job and being a single mom?
At night, and on the weekend. It’s hard. Usually during the summer or winter vacation is when I get a good chunk of writing done. I’m also involved in my community. I do a lot of events. It is hard, but I love zines, and that’s what I do.

How many different zines do you publish?
In the beginning, when I only had my son, it was maybe two or three a year. Now that I have my daughter, I’m doing one a year.

What do your family and friends think about your zines?
They read them. It’s weird because they’re painful to read. They’re personal. But every time I want to put one out they want to read them. They really like them and can relate to them.

My sister wants to put out a zine. She has a different perspective than me. She’s a lesbian, and she’s not a mom.

[But my family], they’re open and receptive. I’ve heard of a lot of families get really angry at zines.

How hard is it to make and put a zine together?
I like the process. The collating, the copying, the pasting, the taping, the cutting—it’s fun. My son, when he was five, he put a little comic strip together.

Once you get the hang of the format, it’s simple, and it’s fun. I would encourage other people to try to put something out.

You pretty much hand-do each one? Staple each one?
Yup.

That’s a lot of work. What tips do you have for readers who are interested in starting their own zine?
Get a couple of them. I’ve heard a lot from kids who want to start their own zines but they’ve never actually had one in their hands. I think it’s important to get a couple of different kinds of zines and not only look at the writing, but how they’re put together and how they look inside.

If you don’t know what to write, don’t start the zine until you know what you want to write about.

Have you gotten a lot of publicity for your zines?
No, not really. A bookstore in California knows about my zine but people here don’t really know about it.

So, it’s frustrating living in South Texas?
Very. People use the word “Hispanic,” which I don’t use. They don’t like the word “Chicano.” They don’t like the word “feminist.” I don’t want to say they’re all like that because I’ve met some really cool, progressive activists.

But for example, when I did my first event in 2002, nobody wanted to help out because it was for women-only performers. People were like, “Why? Why can’t guys do it?” It’s hard to say to people that generally everything else is with and about guys. When you go to a concert, there are generally guys in the band. When you go to shows, there will be guys. It’s the norm. But when you say it’s only women, people get angry.

Rosalie Little Thunder is a long-time Native community and environmental activist. Of the Sicangu band of the Lakota Nation in South Dakota, Rosalie has been on the frontlines to save the wild herd of bison that roams Yellowstone National Park.

I spoke with Rosalie over the phone yesterday about her activism for the new year. There’s a deep trail between her home and Yellowstone. Here’s Rosalie…

Can you talk about your work as a Native community activist? And is it your full-time job or do you have a separate job(s) that pays the bills?
Activists don’t get paid. [Laughs]

I know. It was wishful thinking.
Yeah, [Laughs] wishful thinking. [Laughs]

So, what’s your average day like?
A lot of times activism is usually not by choice. I would say natural leadership is very reluctant leadership. It’s usually some kind of injustice that has been there for a while and sometimes it will peak and come to a head. And when everybody steps back, you find yourself out front because you didn’t step back. [Laughs] Not always, but that’s been my experience.

As a Native American most challenges are about everyday things like your rights. One issue that is emerging and has been emerging over a number of years is the prison population. We are about 6 to 7 percent of the general population and our prison population is about 70 percent. That is huge. I personally, being Native American and being in a Native community, can’t buy the stereotype that most folks have that we are flawed. I’m not buying that.

Sometimes the prison populations are complicated by the poverty that Native people live in. Local leadership, whether it be state legislatures or city councils or local school boards, whatever, have this attitude that poverty is a choice. People treat it like a choice. “Well, those people. Those people.” Poverty to me is very deliberate. It’s imposed. It’s by design. Our reservations are the poorest counties in the nation. And right across the border in Nebraska is the wealthiest county in the nation. Something is very deliberate about that.

A foundation called me one time for a gathering, “We’re trying to figure out the root causes of poverty, and to develop programs to address the root causes of poverty.” I told him, “You don’t have to spend a lot of money to bring me in to help you figure that out. The root cause of poverty is wealth. What can you do about that?” The disparity between wealth and poverty is pretty obvious.

Are you still working to preserve wild bison in Yellowstone?
Yes. Very little has changed. I thought we could change this bad policy in two or three years. Well, two or three years passed by. Now I’m thinking five or ten, but it could be a lifetime. You have to at least anticipate that you’re not going to make changes for all the effort that you expand. That’s the reality. You might not make changes, but you brought attention to it. You made noise about it in front of people saying, “OK, look, this is an injustice that we shouldn’t forget.”

I know many activists. I serve on the Alston-Bannerman Fellowship for activists of color and I am real honored to know so many activists scattered across this country who take on challenges that very few people are willing. Some people step back because of their personal lives. They have to make a living. There’s not always so many hours in the day—activists have a tendency to really put in long, long hard hours without pay. There’s a lot of activists, but there’s not resources out there to support them. There’s no salaries. A lot of them operate out of their homes. But most people work and do this on the side. That’s been my problem. I have to work two jobs. I’ve been working two jobs for a while so I can support my family and still work on…We’re taking the buffalo issue onto a different level now. The government is hard to move and motivate. The livestock industry dominates and that is in opposition to the existence of the buffalo.

Are the buffalo shot and killed? Or do cattle eat all their grass?
Here’s human thinking: We think we can know how many buffalo Yellowstone can support. So, the government put a cap on how many buffalo can be here, and if they have more than that they’ll kill them. Prior to that we had the brucellosis [disease that can infect livestock and can affect humans if livestock is not vaccinated] scare which didn’t hold any water. Brucellosis was brought by dairy cattle that the army brought in the early 1900s. They were probably transmitted to the buffalo by confining them. Brucellosis is transmitted by [carcasses] or in breeding. But breeding a cow with a buffalo is like breeding a cat and dog. It’s unlikely. The transmission has only happened through experiments.

The first round of killings [because of this disease] was in the mid-1990s. But it didn’t hold any water. Scientists were saying, no, no. My dad is a cattle man and I asked him, “What if I brought a bull from Yellowstone back and put it in your herd?” “Nothing.” He said it’s no threat. “I’ll just vaccinate my cows.” It was really a smoke screen. Right now the killing is still happening. Brucellosis is not the hysteria that it was before. But now human beings are saying Yellowstone can’t sustain the buffalo. We’ve reached 3,000 and we’re going to kill them.

When you spend months and years working on this, it just seems like there’s something more behind it. But the bottom line for me is that the public lands around Yellowstone have very cheap grazing allotments. They lease them out for cattle grazing. But if the buffalo cross the border between national public land and national public forest, they get shot. I was there when they were doing that.

But we’ve been introducing a thought, and we’ll be bringing that campaign soon through the Seventh Generation Fund. We’re initiating a campaign to protect sacred species. That’s a whole different thought; not to Native people. They are sacred to us. They are a sacred species. Scientists will agree with that because they’re keystone species. They’re very key to the ecosystems in which they live. Most sacred species of the indigenous people are keystone species: the buffalo, the bear, the salmon. Different kinds of plant species, like the cedar or redwood [trees].

So, our strategy is to gather indigenous people and get them to say what [species] are sacred to them, and what legends. Then determine the status of those sacred species and strategize a way to protect them. When all the information is collected and gathered, we hope it will be the basis of an international treaty to protect sacred species. It’s a huge ambition but we want to get it started to keep the attention on sacred species. And who would know that but indigenous people? Our culture still has it in its memory. I think all human beings have sacred species but some cultures are more removed from that, more industrialized. We live in houses now and we’re oblivious to where the moon rises or the behavior of the birds. Humanity is becoming more oblivious. We’re trying to say pay attention to the sacred species because those will tell you what’s going on with the planet.

We already know that the natural world is very threatened. Every human being knows that. So, what do we do? Do we keep consuming? We need to raise the alarm. It should have been raised generations ago. It is now coming into the consciousness of most human beings, the condition of the natural world. But I know some ecologists will say that some of the ecosystems are in irreversible decline. But our legends say Mother Earth heals herself. She has that capability of healing herself but she will also cleanse herself.

Are the buffalo in Yellowstone the last wild herd?
There are some herds but they are very small in number. There are some in Canada, the Wood Bison.

There’s a lot of buffalo in this country, but they’re all domesticated now. So, if you turn one of these domesticated buffalo out into the ecosystem, it would probably behave like a cow. Do nothing, not be a part of the natural world. They’re domesticated and their instincts are pretty much bred out of them.

We need to put them back on the land because the land needs them more than we need to eat them. The wild buffalo are a threatened species. The Yellowstone herd, I think there was 23 left when the huge, huge herds were slaughtered—50 to 60 million buffalo—and were almost wiped off the face of the earth. What does that do to the earth, the absence of a keystone species? I’ve always said we probably don’t even realize the damage from that yet. We can’t see it. We’re not sensitive to it. And now they’re saying Yellowstone can only sustain so many. Well, excuse me, that’s nature’s decision how much buffalo can be sustained there. But it’s the only herd from that original 23 that survived that massive slaughter that has been consistently free roaming. Their instincts are still in tact.

I like the Crow herd. The Crow tribe keeps a herd. They keep human beings away from them and they let them roam free. They keep their herd at a 1,000 because they only have so much land. It’s not like Yellowstone with millions of acres. At Yellowstone, tourists are always around taking pictures of the buffalo and the buffalo have not yet developed a fear of humans. They don’t run. While the Crow herd shies away from human beings.

My daughter asked me a question one time, and I keep that thought in my head. She said, “Mom, if there was only one buffalo left on the face of the earth would they kill it?” She was probably 8 or 9; it was a very innocent question. And I said, “Yeah, they would.”

Do you vote regularly?
I didn’t used to. More recently I would say, in the last decade or so. I have run for state legislature. But I live in a gerrymandering district where the Native people’s vote is very diluted. It’s in a J shape, it’s weird. Most voting districts are square or all in one place but we’re not. We’re kind of stretched out around the city. I’m involved in voter registration and getting voters to the polling site. Even if the polling sites move we find them. [Laughs]

Do you have any presidential hopefuls?
That’s still taking shape. I don’t know who’s going to really emerge as a candidate. I don’t have a preference. We’ve had some good years, in terms of different presidents who have held office, but they keep getting assassinated. Kennedy was hopeful for us as Native people. Those were good years. We had hope that we wouldn’t have this steep poverty and all of these injustices. But then he got assassinated. Then our hopes were on his brother. Then he got assassinated. Actually, our best years were Nixon years. We got a lot of our programs funded—some very basic programs—health and education. He was good for Native people. And Ford. But we haven’t had anybody recently.

And we vote. Native people are a deciding factor. All the candidates run around Indian country because we’re the deciding vote. Not that we’re huge in numbers, but when it’s neck and neck, it’s usually our Native vote that determines who’s going to be our next congress[person].

Linda Nieves-Powell is the president and CEO of the multimedia entertainment company, Latino Flavored Productions, Inc. based in New York, which she founded in 1995. As well as a playwright, author, mother, wife, and entrepreneur.

I spoke with Linda over the phone in November. Here’s Linda…

What is the short version of how you founded Latino Flavored Productions in 1995?
I was writing seriously for two years; I started in ‘93. I was a little frustrated because I didn’t know how to get any of my stuff out. I would send it out and I really wouldn’t hear much. In ‘95 I decided to try to produce on my own to get my stuff out and that’s how it started.

You started a company!
I did. The funny thing is it all came back to me. When I was 9, I would invite kids to my backyard, give them scripts to read, and we would do these plays. So, when I started to do this, it was so natural for me. I didn’t think twice. I sort of knew instinctively what to do.

I guess when you place that thing out in the universe, you also start meeting people that lean that way—and that’s exactly what happened. I met someone who became my co-producer and produced my first show. We’re still friends, it’s so wild.

So, I started by taking that huge risk. What it eventually grew into I had no idea that that was going to happen.

You state in the mission of Latino Flavored Productions that: “Our productions reflect the desired quality entertainment that speaks to today’s Latino audiences and that will introduce an entirely hip new flavor of entertainment to mainstream.” Can you talk more about this, and what you mean by “desired quality entertainment”?
I take great pride in learning craft. I’ve spent a lot of time studying what I do. I’m self-taught for the most part. I make sure that whatever we do is well written and well acted. That’s what I mean by quality. Not just getting things together and throwing it up there. I really do take care of every detail of the production.

I also never try to be anything that I’m not. The voices you hear, yes, they’re very Latina. But, they’re not alien to everyone else. We try to touch on universal themes that affect all of us. When you walk into my show, you know it’s a Latino thing going on. There’s no doubt. But you never feel isolated or alienated when you’re sitting in the audience and you’re not Latino. That was my intention as an artist. I wanted to create that and I still work on doing that. My first book coming out on Simon & Schuster, [Freestyle Chicas] is with the same intention: create a very Latino product that will speak to many.

What do you mean by Latino product? Are all the characters Latino or Latina?
The product itself being the book or the play, are pretty much all Latino. My world, whenever I write, is always Latino. It’s rare that I’ll write something where there is one Latino character and everybody else is not. I just kind of like that world. [Laughs] I’m so free in that world. When you think about it, when you’re not in that world, it’s sort of hard to be you. You sort of have to change and adapt to every situation, especially if you’re in corporate America.

Do you write all the scripts and plays that you produce?
Yes, for the most part everything under Latino Flavored until now. I actually went and found somebody by the name of Jenny Saldana who wrote two plays and I am going to be producing them. She’s remarkable. I found a kindred spirit. Although she’s Dominican and I’m Puerto Rican, we are like sisters. The voice, the humor. It’s really funny because when we sat and we talked, we screamed out loud like two kids when we found out John Leguizamo was our inspiration. “Yeah, you know, somebody gave me this tape of this guy on HBO and the show was called 'Mambo Mouth.'” And I was like, “Oh my God! That’s the same show that inspired me to write!”

I want to do this more often, actually. [Produce other writers] I would really like to give the opportunity because first of all, writing is a task. It’s hard, and I like to do it well. I would like to give those opportunities to people who have something to say.

Do you consciously try to tackle certain issues through your productions?
Always. I am an activist and an artist. I want to touch upon things in everything that I write. For me, one of the biggest things is racism within our own community. Growing up I had to experience that with my own father saying things.

In Jenny’s piece, she’s 34 years old and is diagnosed with breast cancer and gets a double mastectomy. But her play is so funny. A lot of the stuff that I do is very women-oriented. It’s about women.

I do purposely, even in my novel, as funny as it is, I do talk about race. I talk about stereotypes in the Latino community. But I never do it in a hit-you-over-the-head kind of way. I sneak it in. Nobody wants to be lectured to. The hardest part is to creatively mold what it is that you want to say without taking away from the story. Without being so preachy. That’s my challenge all the time.

What inspired you to write your first novel, Freestyle Chicas?
I have a girlfriend that I knew since I was 12 years old. We grew up together until our late 20s and then we lost touch. She had two kids, I had no kids. I was single, she was married. Our lives were completely different. I was on party mode and she was on mom mode. And we lost touch. After years of not seeing her I get an email one day, and she’s like, “Is this Linda Nieves?” I was like, “Oh, my Lord!” We immediately hooked up and we started IMing each other afterwards.

Our instant messages were so funny. That’s how I started my book. She inspired me and everything that we talked about: “Remember back in the day when we used to do this? And we used to go party?” It became a book about the past, and how to let go. And what it is not to be able to let go of that past. How to move forward. The book is very spiritual. I do that a lot. There’s always a spiritual journey in all of my stuff. But it’s also a lot of fun.

What are some of the projects that Latino Flavored Productions has out now?
“José Can Speak” is a huge hit this season. That was something that I wanted to do because when I would go on these college tours, the guys in the audience would ask me constantly, “Can you do something for guys?” And I would say, “I can’t do that, you guys should do that. I don’t know what you want to talk about.” But one day I decided to try it.

I auditioned guys to see what they had to say about being men. Nobody wanted to step forward, which was no surprise because men don’t talk easily about those feelings. They just don’t come forward that easily. I then started thinking about someone in my past. [“José Can Speak”] is based on a real guy that I knew. I started writing a monologue about him and his issues. It’s women’s take on a man because we play the man. We may be acting as men, but it truly is a burgeoning of both female and male in that one character. Any of the emotion that the man can’t give, we give. But we did not play it as women. We did not cry like crazy. We held back the way a man does, but we said things a man would never say. This is a very popular play now on the college circuit.

I’m just so busy with the novel now. I really want to finish the “Latina Sex Project” that I started a year ago. I interviewed so many women. But the new stuff with Jenny Saldana—“Dancing in the Mirror”—we’re going to sort of incorporate those monologues with some of my monologues to make a new show.

Is “Dancing in the Mirror” about breast cancer?
“Dancing in the Mirror” was her first piece about the Latina experience. She wrote five monologues from very funny, diverse Latinas. I’m using about four of those and using two of mine. All of these characters have one thing in common: to dance in the mirror at certain points in each piece. It’s under the umbrella title, “Soul Latina,” featuring “Dancing in the Mirror.”

“Pink” I’m actually going to workshop at the Nuyorican [Poets Cafe] this spring. That’s what I do now. There’s a new play every year we’re workshopping it at the Nuyorican. And workshopping is just putting it on its feet to see how it goes. Invite the public, get some responses, develop it more, and then take it out to the colleges.

The colleges have been unbelievable. They are so supportive. I get colleges that call me three and four times. I had to tell Rutgers that I didn’t have anything new this year. I had to refer them to someone else I knew. I just don’t have the time to write something new every year.

Do you perform mostly for college audiences?
I didn’t before. And now that I’m doing it, this is all I want to do because I have a built-in audience now. It’s very different when you’re doing a show at the Nuyorican or Off Broadway. It’s very risky. It’s a lot of money. When you go on the college circuit, somebody is paying you to come out and perform your show, and they’re letting you know how they really feel about it. When a show is a hit on the college circuit, everybody finds out about it. All the sorority sisters will call somebody; somebody in Florida will call somebody in Boston. Before you know it, we have a tour going on. That to me is a lot easier and better than waiting for somebody to come along and give you that chance to put your show on.

I never expected to go this route. This is something that opened up. I really do think that the internet had everything to do with the company’s growth and success. Otherwise, no one would have known about us. If this had been ten years ago, it would have been a whole different story.

You posted your work on the web?
Yeah, that’s pretty much how the “Yo Soy Latina!” [“I am Latina!”] show grew because of a monologue I wrote and posted on the internet. Women across the country told me that they were inspired by it. And that’s what inspired the eventual play, “Yo Soy Latina!”

The internet for me has been instrumental. It is the number one tool that’s got me where I am today. I think that goes for a lot of people, especially Latinos. We don’t have it that way.

The money to get publicity.
Exactly.

Have you faced any particular challenges over the years with Latino Flavored Productions?
I’ve been very lucky. The only challenges are that I’m a one-woman production company and sometimes I become very overwhelmed. I have to delegate the work, but it gets harder and harder to maintain all of it.

I remember the first three years, every October I would do inventory. I’d figure out what I’m going to do the following year. I remember one year was get more media. The next year would be to buy some more equipment. Every year I had this plan. This year I wanted to bring in a writer, and I did that. So, I’ve had to really think like a business person and then I have to get into writer creative mode. It gets nuts sometimes. I have a 7-year-old, I’m married, and I have a house that I have to take care of.

How do you feel about stereotypes and the misperceptions of Latinos in the mainstream media?
I hate them. And I’m tired. But I’ll tell you what I hate more though. I hate when my own people do it. I see enough out there that’s being written and I go, “People, let’s just twist it. It takes a little bit of creative energy to put a twist on a stereotype.” It’s really easy to get up there and act like a crack addict. But what’s not easy is to humanize that crack addict.

There was a time when there were a lot of these independent films coming out and they were all about drug dealers. Who was writing them? Latin guys. And I said, “Boy, what is it going to take for these people to see beyond that?”

I like what Salma [Hayek] did with “Ugly Betty.” Somebody asked me at a Columbia University performance, “What do you think about the stereotypes? The women, they’re really sexy.” You know something, when Salma puts her hands on something I tend to trust it because she doesn’t seem to be the person that would do anything like that. I think the reason that there are sexy women [in the show] is because it’s about fashion, and it’s based on a telenovela [Spanish-language soap opera]. I don’t have a problem with that. And Salma is a sexy woman herself. It’s not about that. They created this wonderful character that is beautiful on the inside and is very universal. I like the show, and I like what she’s done with it.

Do you think Latino/as stereotyping Latino/as happens because of money or because the stereotypes are so common?
I don’t think they know. There is a group that is out there now. They put together a comedy troupe. One of the people involved told me to look at their stuff. I looked at about seven skits. Each and every last one of them was stereotypical. And I said [to myself], I could keep my mouth shut and I could call her and say, “Yeah, it’s great. Just keep doing what you do.” Because sometimes when you tell people the truth, they don’t know how to take you. But if I have information that could help somebody out—I’m going to give it. I have a passion for what I do, and why not share that information with someone else?

So, I said to her, “Listen, I’m going to be honest with you. You can take this information and throw it away. Do whatever you want with it. But I want to give you this information. Those characters that you created are all one-dimensional. You need to create a twist. What is your intention?” This is a word that I use all the time with my actresses. Even for myself. What is my intention in a project? When I speak to the actresses, “What is your intention in that role?” I asked that girl, “What are you trying to do? What are you trying to say?”

You know people sit there and write, but they’re writing these superficial, very off the cuff things and I don’t know why they even wrote it. What are your issues? What are your passions? What do you want to talk about? What are your ideas and opinions? Those should be instilled in those characters. That’s what gives a character life. She agreed with me actually. They want to put this on television. It’s absolutely not ready for television.

How do you feel about being named one of the 100 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business Magazine?
I never expected it. It’s really great. When those things come up and you don’t expect them, that’s when it’s even better. I’m happy. I felt a responsibility when that happened to keep doing what I do and making sure that I do the right things by my people. I also don’t live for that, but I know there’s a responsibility. It’s a nice extra. It’s a nice bonus.

How does your family feel about your work? Have they always been supportive of your writing?
No, they haven’t. [Laughs] When I started “Yo Soy Latina!” my mom said I didn’t belong in New York. “Get out of there!” And I was like, “Ma, I don’t know. There’s something about ‘Yo Soy Latina!’” Then I would work on it, and they would say, “Oh, how nice. But when are you going to get a job? When are you going to get a real job?” And I talk about this a lot. They always thought [my writing] was impractical. Now, they can’t believe it. They’re like “Wow!” They’re very excited, very proud. My mother used to send me these cards that would make me cry.

What advice do you have for young Latinas who are trying to make it in the entertainment industry? Or to write like you?
I want them to first of all, live their truth. Whatever that may be at that moment, to live their truth. Too many people I know would change their name thinking they would get more jobs. I think once you compromise yourself, you compromise yourself and then you’re not living your truth. Live your truth. Be proud of who you are. Don’t be afraid of being who you are.

I think most importantly, study. Study the heck out of whatever it is that you’re doing. Study the great people. That is what I love about the masters, like Meryl Streep. Or when you watch a movie that’s done beautifully. Or a book that you read. That is the craft. Just love the craft. It takes a long time before you can perfect it. I’m still learning and I continue to learn. Because a lot of girls think they’re going to make it because of how they look. That could possibly happen. That might put you somewhere. But it’s not going to sustain you. I think if you can master something that no one else can do, then you have a little name that you carved out for yourself.

And state your intention immediately. Your intention can change, but state it. Know your intention.