It is no easy demon to face who has dressed you and your entire context as “fine.”
Tag: i was just thinking
50 Books I’ve Loved (in no particular order)
1. Browngirl, Brownstones – Paule Marshall 2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith 3. Segu – Maryse Conde 4. The Secret of Gumbo Grove – Eleanora Tate 5. No Easy Place To Be – Steven Corbin 6. Long Distance Life – Marita Golden 7. Sweet Whispers Brother Rush – Virginia Hamilton 8. Assata [...]
[vintage UtR] Between the Lines
Trust me, I am not hiding anything in my art, my writing most specifically, any more than when it was layered in imagery. It is all there. Pause in the white space and you’ll see that you get it after all. Okay so maybe I would rather people not pause because that art is my heart and soul on Front Street
Black Rage and the Invisible Black Body
I am here to talk about silence. And the violence of it. How it traumatizes the body that practices it as well as the bodies it is imposed upon. I want to talk about how it (silence, I mean)—and I made up this word—invisibilizes. And how that act—to render someone, a body, invisible is violence. [...]
You Made It Out Alive: On the Murder of Janese Talton-Jackson
He took sex instead of your life; maybe the glass bottle he threw at you missed; you were named “bitch” and any other list of monikers that do not appear on your birth certificate; the old woman turned on the porch light and startled him and his pistol away; he left you in the street alone and lost in a city that was not your own. You made it out alive. None of those were missteps of the fragile male ego or drunkenness. They were not about how you lead him on or were rude or rash when you refused to comply to his demand for your attention. They were about the agency you have over your life and how you live it and being denied that agency so often
About My “About Me” Profile
I enjoy sharing my work--writing, art, pedagogy but I do not like the public performance of it. (Artists be insular as a mug y'all; don't like you ain't know)! So I sometimes correct people when they call me "shy." I'm reticent; quiet; and nope, public presentation is not an activity I particularly enjoy. But I don't think "shy" is precise enough.
The Woman With the Shit Eating Smile
Look, we all perform ourselves; the version of ourselves we choose to present to the world is a performance. Hers seemed a performance of the worst kind—poorly played (she ain’t e’en have her script straight) and manipulative; the kind that seeks gain for itself at the expense of others.
#notonedime, or Nah?
I just read that African-American buying 'power' is a myth. And I don't wanna be leading y'all astray or shaming working class folks just trying to catch a break on their kids' holiday shopping. 'Cause you know I was posting about boycotting the shopping season and what not on my Facebook page. My bad I guess. I think I understand.
People Not Like Us
I don't typically celebrate these kinds of anniversaries. But I do know that I have need to say that they existed more than that they died. Just like we exist and will cease to. I hope we are all remembered by the lives we lead and that the way life leaves does not supercede that part.
I *am* a miracle. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it).
I don’t think I’m particularly remarkable though. We are all the product of various circumstances that have felled lesser wo/men. Everyone is their own miracle.
