The Cannibal’s Canción by Gloria Anzaldúa, from Borderlands, 1987.
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I've seen a bunch of great posts about Gorgug, identity, multiclassing, and the way Porter and Henry are handling Gorgug's artificer goals.
To me (and a lot of others), it seems like Gorgug wants to multiclass for identity reasons. His adoptive parents are tinkerers, and artificing is a great way to connect with them. And Gorgug's original class of barbarian is associated with half orcs, so that's a way to connect to his birth parents.
Both Porter and Henry say that artificer and barbarian don't really make sense together. Poor Gorgug. I wish we could throw some Anzaldúa and Borderlands at him. [who knows, maybe Jawbone will!]
Henry also says that just because artificing doesn't come naturally to Gorgug doesn't mean he can't do it. Henry says he'd bet on the people who are working every day to be good at something, not the folks who have natural talent. Whereas Porter says Gorgug has natural abilities as a barbarian, but Porter still doesn't think Gorgug gets what rage is. So neither Porter nor Henry think natural ability is the only way to be a class. Porter doesn't think that Gorgug is a good enough barbarian in spite of Gorgug's natural abilities in the class. (Not to mention that Porter thinks Fig really gets being a barbarian, when she doesn't even have a level in the class lol.) Whereas Henry thinks that Gorgug can become a great artificer regardless of any natural talent. And Henry tells Gorgug that Gorgug can do artifacing outside of the structures of school.
How damning is it when the STEM-coded character has more open ideas about identity than you Porter?!?!?! Be better!
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"excerpts from the cannibal's canción"
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"Your feminism has to be for EVERY woman, even the ones who..."
Haha nice try, Stacy. I see you trying to to cross this bridge called my back.
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The Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy... Borders are set up to define the spaces that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (1987, Preface and 3)
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Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera
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Because I, a mestiza,
continually walk out of one culture
and into another,
because I am in all cultures at the same time,
alma entre dos mundos, tres, cuatro,
me zumba la cabeza con lo contradictorio,
Estoy norteada por todas las voces que me hablan
simultaneamente
— Gloria Anzaldúa, "La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a new consciousness."
Follow Diary of A Philosopher for more quotes!
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on touching ghosts
Once I accidentally ran my arm
through her body
felt heat on one side of my face.
She wasn’t solid.
The shock pushed me against the wall.
A torrent of days swept past me
before I tried to “see” her again.
She had never wanted to be flesh she told me
until she met me.
-- Gloria Anzaldúa, from Interface (for Frances Doughty)
When I wake, I am sure Petra has gone for a run, before I realize that my hand has sunk into the luminous cavern of her chest.
I tip into her completely, choke like I'm being waterboarded. She wakes up and screams as I flail around inside her.
After a minute, we calm down. She moves away from me, to the edge of the bed. We wait. Seven minutes go by. Ten. Half an hour.
"Is this it?" I ask her. "Is this it?"
-- Carmen Maria Machado, “Real Women Have Bodies”
What I write is a great marvel. It is said that a certain woman laid hold of a ghost and carried him on her back into a certain house in presence of some men, one of whom reported that he saw the hands of the woman sink deeply into the flesh of the ghost as though the flesh were rotten and not solid but phantom flesh.
-- from “Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories” of Byland Abbey, transcribed by M.R. James and translated by A.J. Grant
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BORDERLANDS
by Gloria Anzaldua
To live in the borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra espanola
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps
while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;
To live in the Borderlands means knowing that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
the mexicanas call you rajetas, that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;
Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, the wind steals your voice,
you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat,
forerunner of a new race,
half and half-both woman and man, neither-a new gender;
To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht,
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border checkpoints;
Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixir beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;
In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have scattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;
To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;
To survive the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.
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Though we 'understand' the root causes of male hatred and fear, and the subsequent wounding of women, we do not excuse, we do not condone, and we will no longer put up with it. From the men of our race, we demand the admission, acknowledgement, disclosure, testimony that they wound us, violate us, are afraid of us and of our power. We need them to say they will begin to eliminate their hurtful put-down ways. But more than the words, we demand acts. We say to them: we will develop equal power with you and those who have shamed us.
Gloria Anzaldua, “La concencia de la mestiza”
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As a mestiza I have no country, my homeland cast me out, yet all countries are mine because I am every woman's sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but lam all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultureless because, as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural and religious male-derived beliefs of Indo-Hispanics and Anglos; yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture, a new story to explain the world and our participation in it, a new value system with images and symbols that connect us to each other and the planet. Soy un amasamiento, I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of ligght, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands
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