(Susannah Dickinson)
On Saturday night of the Netroots Nation conference, a big crowd of us (because of Sara's brilliant idea) went to Threadgill's to eat and then attend the Austin Lounge Lizards concert in the beer garden outside the front door. We had an EXTREMELY good time, no holds barred.
Afterward, rather than have me (with my Chair Whisperer Lower Manhattanite) try to negotiate the obstacle-strewn streets of downtown Austin back to the Hilton in my power chair, Sara urged us to find out if the local cab service offered a van that would transport a big chair like mine. Yellow Cab said they had two in service, both of them currently in use but we were put in their queue. We then had a long wait outside the front door at Threadgill's, during which time an earnest young man on their staff checked in on our cab's status no less than three times and came to give us updates. Austin friendly...
The minivan, when it arrived, loaded my chair via a ramp into a lowered back well, a single slot with more protection and belting than I've experienced being transported in a chair. My four companions claimed seats in front of me. I was exhausted beyond speech, and facing another cab ride home, walking into my house unassisted, and retracing those steps in the morning after, at best, five hours' sleep. Even so, my mind was racing.
We got stuck in a construction zone for a while on 4th Street next to Brush Square, and directly outside my window was a historical marker indicating in the tree-filled park beyond was the home of Susanna Dickinson. I was flooded with emotion. I wanted to share this with my companions, but, first of all, the layout of the wheelchair van meant I'd have to shout forward to be heard. Second, if you are not a Texan of a certain age, how to explain the significance of Susanna Dickinson?
Susanna was inside the Alamo. She had gone inside the soon-to-be-surrounded mission with her husband Almeron Dickinson, who had joined a group of volunteers fighting for Texan independence from Mexico. She and her baby daughter were the only white survivors, and they were saved only by the direct intervention of General Juan Almonte. Other survivors include Enrique Esparza, eight-year-old son of Alamo defender Gregorio Esparza, and Joe (no other name known), slave of Colonel William Barrett Travis. The eyewitness accounts of Susanna, Joe and Enrique, the first two of whom were illiterate, gave us most of what we know about what happened inside the Alamo. For a complete list of survivors and accounts, see Survivors of the Alamo.
Susana hid in the chapel, where she was discovered by Almonte. As he escorted her to an audience with General Santa Anna, she was shot in the leg by a soldier because final mop-up was still going on. She was questioned extensively by Santa Anna, who offered to adopt her baby. I can only imagine her terror and confusion. Eventually, she was released with a note written by Santa Anna to be delivered to San Houston. Dickinson and a few companions retreated to Gonzales, where the families of other Alamo defenders were awaiting news. Dickinson was who had to inform them everyone else was dead, their bodies burned in a mass funeral pyre. With Santa Anna's army headed their way, Gonzales and its environs had to flee in what is known at the Runaway Scrape. It appears that Dickinson was not emotionally stable during this time, likely not able to process what she had just lived through, not to mention the loss of her husband whom she had genuinely loved.
Joe's last name seems to exist in no record. Most accounts seem to indicate he escaped to freedom, and presumably he was reluctant after that to draw attention to himself by asserting his claim as an Alamo survivor. But it is of course racism that also contributes to his lesser-known status as an Alamo informant. As a child growing up, I never heard reference to Joe, or to little Enrique Esparza. To admit that Mexican citizens fought alongside the "heroes" of the Alamo would have contradicted the white vs. brown association of the battle.
Susanna Dickinson was revered all her life as the Alamo Widow. However, she was repeatedly denied any sort of compensation or benefits by the Republic and later the State of Texas, with claims of financial hardship on the part of the Republic and the argument that if they gave her assistance, they'd have to help everyone else who suffered losses during the war. This might hold water if I did not have in my possession a grant of handsome reimbursement to my ancestor Brinkley Davis, a large landowner in Limestone County, Texas during the Texas revolution, for his contribution of "beeves" to the army. Brinkley needed the money far less than Susanna did.
In desperation, she went through a series of three marriages, to men who beat her and her daughter, were alcoholics, and divorced her when she became associated with a house of ill repute. Her fifth and final marriage turned out to be stable and happy. However, her daughter Angelina, another idolized Alamo survivor who was likewise denied financial assistance, died young from hemorrhage of the uterus while working as a prostitute.
This story reminds me of how George W. Bush consistently withholds meaningful aid to the institutions and groups to whom he pays the most patriotic lip-service. Indeed, his trashing of the National Guard and veterans in general is nothing short of pathological. In the Right's world, active duty and honor is for those too dumb and poor to know better. Survivors are not as admirable as those who die for the cause. And the families left behind are not our concern. I swear to god, I want this brought up every single time any talking head refers to the Republicans as the party of family values.
There we were, progressives and revolutionaries meeting for four days within hollering distance of the home of Susanna Dickinson. She could have told us worlds about the consequences of eliminationist rhetoric, about the reality of immigrants who steal territory from sovereign nations (which Texas did perpetrate upon Mexico, hence our projection and paranoia), about the status as property or shadow beings accorded women, children, and people of color.
A recent series on PBS has been The War of the World by Niall Ferguson. In the last episode, concerning the period after World War II when superpowers engaged in so-called Cold War, he pointed out that 20 million people died in battles during the Cold War which were not considered a real war. Overwhelmingly, these have been ethnic assaults, genocide in the name of nation-building, occurring at the edges of empire: A perfect description of Iraq now. And it applies equally well to Texas in the 1830s.
Sara Robinson and I, in a later discussion, agreed that we have to abandon the linearity of Left, Right, and Center. We need to completely reframe not just our/their rhetoric, but also the ways in which our brains envision what we are about, we here in this great electronic conversation about hope and change. Consider it as a spiral, a cochlear unwinding (or tightening) which we travel, always very close to one another no matter much we claim disagreement, and likewise separated from all the lessons of time by only a thin membrane. There is power and confidence in such a stance.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
NETROOTS NATION NEXT DOOR TO SUSANNA DICKINSON
Saturday, July 19, 2008
THE CHAIR WHISPERER
I'm a little sunburned. I've been a vampire for two years, and now the skin on my forearms and at the base of my neck is medium pinkish. Vitamin D: it does a body good.
This Netroots Nation post will be observations and personal bits'n'bobs, not scintillating political analysis. Except, of course, the personal is political and I can't help myself.
Getting to the hotel where Jesse and Lower Manhattanite (from here on out known as LM) was a story in itself, and will likely be my first Group News Blog post. Yes, kids, I am now a part of the GNB family, with my name on the masthead over there any minute now. We here at the Hundred Acre Wood are still drinking in this status change.
Jesse and LM went to their room to pack for a transfer to the Hilton, directly across from the Netroots Nation site. I sat at Jo's Coffeehouse for the first time in years, eating a Mango Mania muffin (they had run out of breakfast tacos), a big glass of milk, Coke in a glass bottle, and feeding birds with crumbs. It was indescribably glorious to be Outside, under a tree (even if it was a hackberry), feeling light and air on my skin, communing with boidies. Grackles swaggered around, interlopers whose iridescent blue-black feathers are definitely outshone by their electronic screeches and buzzes. Small sparrows, clever but not humble, darted around grabbing the best morsels for themselves while I cheered them on and did my best to subvert the dominant grackle paradigm. There was one father sparrow being shadowed by a fledgeling who looked every millimeter as large as the adult, sometimes even bigger when junior fluffed her feathers. Junior kept her mouth open, a red maw that Dad tried non-stop to satisfy. A red-eyed albino boxer on a tight leash nearby watched avidly, longing to create birdie mayhew, it was obvious.
I was having some difficulty finessing the single joystick control of the power chair, not at all helped by the crappy condition of the paved surfaces. LM volunteered to escort me to the Convention Center conference headquarters, some 10-12 blocks away, and I gratefully accepted. LM had on a stunning royal blue silk shirt which was wicking moisture away from his Lower Manhattanine frame having to deal with Austin blastfurnace (it hit 101 yesterday). On his head was a navy baseball cap embroidered with bright white "Writer" in typewriter script -- extremely cool hat. His pants were dungarees whose back right pocket had been studded with a silver peace symbol. He was a symphony of blue and style; I knew right away Ginny would have wanted to paint him.
We hit major difficulty at the end of the very first block, where the "cut-out" was at an uneven pitch, blistered with the brick-colored bubbles created to tell blinds folks "You are now at a curb" (but a mobility problem for many others, pitting crips against crips, sigh), and the final ease into the street was cracked crazily. I decided to back down it. We had already discovered the power chair had a disturbing tendency to pitch forward if it was moving at a good clip and let off acceleration suddenly. The possibility of tipping over frontward was physically nagging at every downward incline. Hence, reverse into it.
But the combination of pavement bubbles, my lack of skill, and the port-ward list of the incline turned one of my rear wheels perpendicular and locked it. I was unable to move in any direction. I got out of my chair and leaned on a nearby metal adult newspaper kiosk while LM set down the second hat he was carrying and had a go at coaxing the chair into safe motion.
About this second hat: It was a beauty, the kind of hat men wore during the summer months in cities back when men wore hats as a matter of course. It was a dark straw wave, with a green-print grosgrain ribbon and an abbreviated, jaunty rim -- a hat that bespoke of style and sport at once. It had belonged to LM's father, whom LM lost far too young. It was too hot to be wearing at the moment, as sweat would have soaked it. Every time LM had to stop to assist me, which was every minute or so, he would need to find a safe place to stash the hat, away from the feet of a giantess who walks like a chimpanista and also the wheels of a several-hundred-pound apparatus under inadequate control. There were three of us making our way to the Convention Center -- me, LM, and his father's hat.
LM did not actually get in the chair to remove it from its precarious position because that would have been foolhardy. Instead, he leaned in from the side to maneuver the joystick, trying to stay out of its epileptic way. We drew a few entertained bystanders at that point. Finally he got it down the incline and into the street, and helped me down the incline as well, where I resumed the Captain's Chair. (Declaiming "Make it so!" did not help a bit, but it was infinitely amusing to me and LM.) LM reunited with The Hat and we progressed onward.
After that, it was necessary for LM and I both to "read terrain" with accumulating expertise and confer on how to deal with the constant challenges. LM is the oldest of many siblings, and for him, being a big brother is second nature -- but a GOOD big brother, nothing like the Orwellian version or my own childhood nemesis. He was encouraging, gentle, hilarious, and powerful when called upon, literally holding down the back of my chair. I still clenched up -- my brain would not listen to my body's reaction to the sensation of gravity gone awry, and I am deeply sore in certain muscles today that is the result of this clenching. But my brain did come to trust and count on LM's intelligent patience, profoundly. At one point I called him "The Chair Whisperer", which is more apt than funny.
In particular, at times his wide kind hand rested reassuringly on the back of my neck. I feel tears welling in my eyes as I write this. Above and beyond, this man is...
All the while, in between "There's a lip, go to the right" and "See the dip there, I'm zigging here, LM", we were talking a blue streak. Turns out, we have People In Common. Sharon Bridgforth, Shia Shabazz, Deisi Perez-Perez -- he was for a time a reader at Nuyorican poetry events. One of his elementary school teachers was Sonia Sanchez, and I bet some of you out there are screaming just as loudly as I did when I found that out.
We passed the massive grounds of the Texas State School for the Deaf on our left, and had an extended conversation about the need for such brutal institutions in the past, the experience of my Uncle Joseph who went to that very school. Past the main campus was a long stretch of overgrown greenery, blocks of it, tree-chocked undeveloped land within view of the State Capitol dome. Between us on the sidewalk and this jungle was a sturdy metal fence, but still we could see when the landscape became a verdant ravine, plunging down 20 or 30 feet into what looked like a trickle of creek at the bottom. I can't say the vegetation gave an impression of coolness -- nothing is cool outside in Texas July -- but the oxygen content shifted.
Because we were so focused on the vagaries of pavement before us, we saw in the same instant a small message painted on the curb edge of the sidewalk, painted in something like fingernail polish, as LM put it, recreated crudely by me in the image below:
The arrow pointed to an 18 inch gap in the fence, where you could, if you wish, launch yourself into the ravine. We completely lost it. It was unbelievably funny, that small message written in what may well have been utter seriousness: Nature, that way. A couple of feet ahead, on the bushy side of the pavement, was a second comment in the same red script: Satellite Feed Unavailable. Which set us off again.
We continued on, crossing the Colorado River, smelling the urine and guano of one million Mexican free-tailed bats sleeping in concrete niches below us on the Ann Richards Memorial Bridge. We discovered that in downtown Austin, there is sometimes a cut-out on one side of the street which has no matching cut-out on the other side, leaving you in traffic for half a block or more: Think fast, gimps! We kept talking and laughing, our sounds echoing between tall buildings now, until we reached The Promised Land: The vast acreage of the Convention Center, with overzealous air conditioning (no complaint from us) and smooth, smooth open floors. And lots of safe places to set a hat.
More later, I have to leave now and go hear Lawrence Lessig speak. Tonight the bunch of us eat at Threadgill's (which means another trek for me through the streets of Austin with LM as my Don Quixote) followed by a concern of the Austin Lounge Lizards. Yee-haw.
CATURDAY @ NETRUTS NASHUN
First, from another artists who appreciates LOLCats:
Now for a few LOLMaggies:
LOLCats by others after the fold.
Friday, July 18, 2008
NETROOTS NATION: DISPATCH FROM DAY ONE
Jesse is my hero. We went out last night on an Important Errand which involved my underwear and making sure we had enough single dollar bills. I'll say no more.
I am my own hera, too.
The sky east of Austin held a gorgeous full moon last night. Too bad you couldn't see it from where you were.
On arriving home, I carried a large bag of Purina cat show. Dinah has been struggling the last several days to subsist on pricey canned food, which she loathes and abominates. Filling her autofeeder with rackety multicolored kibble meant she actually allowed me to sleep for five hours at a stretch.
I'm soon to be back out there. Voy a decir a usted más tarde.
P.S. The graphics on this are cheesy, but Joan Jett ROCKS (as always), and this is my theme song for today.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
O HAI, IM @ NETRUTS NASHUN, BRB, KTHXBAI
I'm off to Netroots Nation today! I hope to post small bits as I can fit it in, but I won't be officially home and free until Sunday night. In the meantime, no Ginny Bates, either. I've prepared a couple of LOLCats posts which will go up automatically while I'm away from the 'puter, to tide you over. I'll be thinking of you! -- Maggie
First, a few LOLMaggies:
LOLCats by other folks after the fold.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
NETROOTS NATION: FEMINISTS VS. PEOPLE OF COLOR?!!!
Of pressing importance to those of us who identify as feminist and are planning to attend the Netroots Nation event this week here in Austin: The online agenda has the Feminist Caucus placed opposite the Latino and African American Caucuses at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Given how race and sex have been pitted against one another under the patriarchy and particularly in this election, this is either very, very stupid planning or a perpetuation of the attempt to paint all feminists as white middle-class women.
My sisters and brothers, we cannot allow this to keep us apart. Earlier sessions that day include Moms, Youth, and GLBTQ Caucuses at 1:30, and Women's, Dads Caucuses at 3:00, neither of which should compete with Feminists or POC either. Therefore -- I propose we meet as the Feminist Caucus (all genders, races, classes) at the 12:00 lunch session. Let's order sandwiches from Thundercloud Subs (I'll give them a heads-up if I see agreement here) and start the conference off in solidarity.
Please pass the word, to any blog you can. They cannot take away our power if we don't allow them.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
I'M GOING TO NETROOTS NATION!
Good news/bad news. Mostly good.
I did NOT get a Netroots Nation scholarship, despite receiving 45 votes and being somewhere in the top 10-15 votegetters (from a field of 30 scholarships awarded).
However, the support I received from ya'll simply blew me away. The things you said about me, the folks who turned out to stump for me -- it was jolting and made me take another assessment of myself. All in the most positive way.
And: I'm still going to Netroots Nation.
How? Because Jesse Wendel and the Robinsons (Sara and Evan) have come forward to pay my way. This includes the conference fee, which was offered a reduced rate by Democracy for America (THANKS, DFA!), rental of a power wheelchair for four days, transportation to and from the conference site, and all my meals. It's a done deal. I'm going.
Which means more than I can ever know, much less express. But I'll try, nonetheless.
When I began my own blog, I became interested on a whole other level in what other bloggers were doing. I became a critical consumer of writing, thinking, and strategy as it is presented on the web. I was looking for people who knew how to express themselves without negativity or denial, who researched and made deep connections, who believed in the goodness of humanity and allowed that to come through even when they were reporting on our worst behavior, and who were capable of addressing multiple (all) issues simultaneously. I wanted to read the thoughts of someone who meant to change the world but not from an ego-driven perspective.
Eventually, I found Orcinus and Sara Robinson. Every time I read one of her essays, I felt bells go off inside my head and I wanted to call all my friends, say "You GOTTA hear this". She invariably took on the fear and distortion present in fundamentalism and this country's Right with calm, intelligent, bold clarity. She wrote and thought better than I did. (I don't suffer from false modesty, just to be frank, here.)
Finally, I wrote her a fan letter. She, in her deliberate way, checked me out and passed on the information to her colleague at Group News Blog, Jesse Wendel, who also began checking me out.
All I can say is, thank g*d I didn't throw up a post about how scared I am of alien abduction or Sasquatch. (Just kidding.) (Kinda.)
At any rate, after a while Jesse came after me. See, Jesse is someone who has put in the time to sort through his male conditioning, deciding what makes sense to retain and what is counter to his best interests. He's figured out that being direct and assuming responsibility are admirable human traits, when scraped clean of self-righteousness, gender myths, and power grabs. It's a relief to be around in any form, male or female.
And I, on my part, have put in the time to sort through my working class conditioning, weeding out my fear of exploitation and distrust of my instincts. So, when he came after me, I said "Sure, let's talk." When a powerful equal approaches you and offers to work in tandem, you have everything to gain by saying yes.
I've had nothing but growth and increasing liking since. Don't underestimate liking; at my age, I think it's the most important outrigger of love, along with respect.
So, these folks are building a bridge from me to who knows what. (In an almost literal since: The route from my apartment to the convention site is almost a straight shot down Congress Avenue across the Ann Richards Bridge, as good a symbol as my poet heart could wish for.)
Please send them your thanks, your energy, your attention. Their writing and works are making an untold difference out there, as well as in my life.
And, heartened by this possibility, this turn of events, I've finally taken the step to add a Pay Pal button to my website. I can now accept donations. I'm not a tax-deductible entity, just needy. If you do make a donation, please tell me who you are and let me thank you directly.
Thanks for reading this far. You'll be hearing a lot more from me about this conference in the coming month. Summer is now officially launched, and so am I.
Love, Maggie
Friday, June 13, 2008
PLEASE SUPPORT MY ATTENDANCE AT NETROOTS NATION!
(Click on image to enlarge and read the graffiti on the railroad trestle)
UPDATE: The number of Netroot Nation scholarships available has been increased from 9 to 20, and the deadline for applying/voting extended to June 13th. I've been deeply moved by the response so far -- more than I can express. But I'm hoping any of you who missed this the first time around will be motivated go here and voice your vote for my getting one of these precious windows to community contact and influence.
------------------------
My readers, I have applied for a scholarship to attend the upcoming Netroots Nation Conference (progressive bloggers from everywhere), which is going to be in Austin on July 17-20. The application is through Democracy for America, and will pay admission (several hundred dollars) and lodging (which I may not need if I can get transportation to and from the site).
The nine scholarships will be awarded to "The applicant with the highest amount of support voiced on their application page by members of the DFA community will earn a scholarship. All other scholarships will be chosen at the discretion of DFA senior staff." Thus, I need your support!
Please go here to read my profile and register your support for me as a candidate. Spread the word, every vote will count. Click on the nomination box at the bottom.
The deadline for the contest is June 10 at 11:59pm Eastern.
Thanks for your help. I'll make great use of attending, you can count on that.
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