Dear Los Angeles, I need you to understand that I am not Ariel the little mermaid - I will never give up my voice like she did for the man, and for the palace. I will never give up my fins and my community to live inside your establishment. For years you have tried every trick in the book to make me sign a bogus contract, and I hope that you finally realize that I am not going to be owned like a piece of property. I would rather be homeless on the streets, and I’ve been there, then to live in a castle where I have no freedom. And just because I am a woman with no financial security, and an artist and activist who needs resources to push forward her goals, don’t expect me to go in some cage while you leech off my energy and try to exploit my message. I do not need your assistance, though I do want it. It would be nice to work together, but not at the expense of losing my artistic freedom, and my status as an independent woman. Los Angeles, you have a way of mistreating women who you desire, and I will not put up with your abuse. I knew all along I would have to leave you. Since I was a teenager people told me my heart would not be fully appreciated there, but I didn’t leave. What I learned is that in fact my heart was appreciated there, but greedy and sad forces wanted to put my light in a glass cabinet. I am a human being, not a trophy. I am a writer, not a model. I am ambitious in giving love, not in receiving false riches. I do not believe you when you tell me I have to be a good little girl, shut up, and let this moral less institution mold me to what they think will be most profitable. What you see as profitable, and what I see as rewarding, is as different as gloomy grey and bright yellow. All I physically need are four walls, a roof, and a window to look out. To be honest, I am surprised that I did not take you up on your offer to be produced; most of my girl friends would have jumped at the opportunities. My feelings were confused, and my mind told me it was the logical thing to do. But it was something in my gut that saved me. A voice inside told me to say no to temptation. My mother told me to move smart, not fast. Even when you misled me, and manipulated my feelings, it must have been a guardian angel that protected me from letting you devour me. At my most hopeless point in my stay in LA, it was the grace of God, of Mother Life, that led me to new friends in LA, and that would be the activist communities, the people who were taking action for human being equality, uplifting feminine as strong, when you tried to tell me it was weak. These friends de-brainwashed me, and reminded me that everything I felt as a innocent child was the real truth. After I became engaged in so many movements contrary to your big Hollywood machine’s priorities, my hope came back to me. My dreams became resurrected, but this time, I again believed as when I was a child that they would come true. There is no going back to behaving like your victim LA. There are good parts of you, but I will not let you bully, seduce and scare me into being a prisoner on Mt Olympus, with its brutish rulers who think they are gods. You continually threaten to “blacklist” me in the entertainment industry me if I refuse to be your slave, and you should know your fear tactics no longer work on me. Where there are good intentions, there is a way. Where there is love, there are healthy options. There are people in the industry who have not sold their soul- and they will protect me from disgruntled people who have. The only authority I acknowledge is love, light and laughter.
