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The Vision Radical women of color in various cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Durham, Brooklyn, Angela Hayden's "6 Six Women of Color" Oakland hearing, seeing and feeling the organizing work of folks all over the country, sharing their visions and strategies with a growing, creative women of color led movement and infusing programs for youth of color in various North American cities with the central message that the work they do to transform their local communities resonates with and impacts the whole world. As cyberquilters, we believe that what we need is bigger than our individual calendars and our possible days. What we need is bridging of movements. Whole, ready and connected. Where we can see, hear and feel each other. Where we know how to help meet each others’ needs. Where we can unite at important political moments and make a difference. Where we remember, with every heartbeat, that our work does not start and begin in our individual bodies. Where we realize that our work is expansive because it resonates in the working blood of women of color organized, mobilizing everywhere in tune. As cyberquilter Adele Nieves points out: “The Cyberquilting Experiment has created a truly safe space, something many of us rarely experience, and has provided the opportunity for collaboration on real strategies and solutions to bring back into our own communities. As cyberquilter Moya Bailey emphasizes: “Creating truth about enzyte an accessible archive of radical movement building is so necessary so that even when the news won’t report it, we are aware of what each other are doing.” Imagine this, The Sex Worker Organizing Project chapter in San Francisco shares organizing strategies with the Young Women’s Empowerment Project in Chicago as they revamp their street outreach initiative. Or women of color survivor led coalition UBUNTU in Durham uploads flyers, talking points and a step by step plan they used for their National Day of Truthtelling with high school students organizing their own community speak out against sexual violence in Chicago. These stories of virtual support, help, and engagement keep the practical on the ground inspiration flowing. Picture the inspiration people receive from knowing through the Cyberquilting’s website that, Afrekete, Spelman College’s Gay Straight Alliance, just uploaded their letter to the president demanding a LBT center on campus or Independent Chicago-based filmmaker Kortney Ryan Zigler uploaded her latest project on black transgender liberation as a free teaching tool. The Cyberquilting Experiment is creative, energetic, and experimental, It is fueled by the way visionary artists and organizers inspire each other and shift the limits of what is possible in a movement for progressive social change. How Will You Know Cyberquilting is a Success?
The 2008 Allied Media Conference, Cyberquilting Caucus Our measures of success are how many groups and individuals use Cyberquilting as a way to share their own visionary work and to connect to the work of other groups and individuals. We will consider Cyberquilting a success when groups all over the country respond to local events of violence against women of color with activities that share an analysis and purpose while reflecting the specific needs and brilliance of each community. We will consider Cyberquilting a success when groups organizing for educational transformation or communities free from gendered violence see themselves as part of a movement of connected initiatives across the country and the world. We will consider Cyberquilting a success when our world is intentionally connected in loving and affirming ways that contribute to our shared growth beyond survival so deeply, that no one has to specifically promote that process. We will consider Cyberquilting a success when no one sees the need for such a thing because we see, hear and feel each other all the time, already. Comments feed for this article October 13, 2008 at 6:51 pm Ariel Dougherty Cyber-Quilting is a great concept! I love it! I want to write more about this, and what is happening via this process. Look forward to keeping in touch and learning more. October 19, 2008 at 2:41 am James Nice idea. I wonder if we can swap patches to aid the quilt?. Peace October 25, 2008 at 12:39 pm prin this sounds like a very interesting project. i have to ask though, are you excluding white women survivors of domestic abuse? i am a survivor and i have started the promotion process for cyberquilting on my site even though i’m not considered a “woman of color” by those who don’t know me well. i have a patch made but it is in openoffice.org and i can’t figure out how to load it onto my blogger site. if anyone could tell me how i will load it onto the page. or if you wish for me to not be involved in this project then i will take it down. i have already passed the idea along to all my sisters in the blogging world, so they should be able to take the cause up for me. thanks. October 31, 2008 at 2:10 am Ali Please check out my site http://www.herfamilyjewels.com I donate back to causes that help women and would love it if someone would contact me. I love the whole idea of cyberquilting. Ali October 31, 2008 at 4:21 pm alexis Great question Prin, |