hi, my baby turns 7 today, sharing a birthday with Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison. He writes, too! Finished his second book this book. He's curious, loving, and made it a tradition to give his brother a gift whenever he gets one, including today. i feel lucky to be that kid's mom
don't tell robin kelley but Geuce is actually my favorite marxist feminist surrealist. he prays for workers at night and thinks organizers are superheroes and capitalists are villains. he gets angry when i dont have cash on hand to spare when someone asks, or when they dont ask
the lockdowns in DC happened last year right before his birthday and we moved and just lost my grandmother, and i had no idea that we would still be under lockdown a year later. But we will bake our cake, beat this minecraft pinata, and sing Stevie Wonder's happy birthday :)
*this week. finished writing his second book this week. This one is about Kaiju.
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Student debt cancellation is not a Harvard, Yale, Penn rich kid problem. It is a racial justice problem.
Per Brookings, "Four years after graduation, black graduates have nearly $25,000 more student loan debt than white graduates: $52,726 on average, compared to $28,006."
The average school debt for black women with a bachelor’s degree is about $25,000, that level of education does not provide the same level of financial security for black women as it does other groups, including white people with less education.
a year ago today, i lost my wonderful grandmother, Virginia Lee, a strong and fierce dancer, poet, tailor, and mother of six who laughed too long at her own jokes. She kept closets full of coats that was my own Narnia and a metal box full of writings that inspired me to write too
She thought my generation was wasteful for discarding clothes with rips and missing buttons, rather than repairing and loving them. I only wear pearl earrings because she loved pearls. She lived most of her life in poverty or at the brink, so her wardrobe was an investment
As she aged, she would say that sugar took from her. her legs. her sight. her health. It was worse than the cancer spreading in her bosom. Sugar wasn't just sugar. it was the cocktail of conditions that lead to premature death. it took a lot from other Black people. It takes.
the united states has convinced do many people that MLK day is a day of service. MLK wasn't interested in "service," he was interested in the redistribution of wealth to render poverty obsolete. Less service, more redistribution
He was called “the most dangerous man in America” by the FBI, not because he was interested in community service, but because he was promoting anti-militarism and anti-capitalism
He was organizing a poor people's campaign to use direct action against the US government for maintaining economic inequality, not to "help out poor people," but to end the idea of poor people
peep this terrible NYT piece on Shirley Chisholm from the 70s:
“... she is not beautiful. Her face is bony and angular, her nose wide and flat, her eyes small almost to beadiness, her neck and limbs scrawny. Her protruding teeth probably account in part for her notice able lisp”
i can’t stop thinking about it. Like wow she was running for president and you said yes to publishing this paragraph
part of the staunch defense of Black women politicians- regardless of their politics- probably comes from having to read nonsense like this about your sheroes all of your life
The United States is a country built on genocide, theft, and slavery. the spectacular and violent maintenance of white supremacy is exactly what america does, and denying that does not make it not true
and emphasis on the spectacular display of violence today. Most of America's violence is mundane and happens on the floor that was taken over by rioters
exactly. also, lots of excitement for black women like Harris and Abrams who perhaps maintain u.s. electoral politics, capitalism and militarism, not as much excitement for the black women who threaten it, like Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush
the liberal negroes are magical, the critical ones are dangerous.
Notice that the Black women who are saying defund the police, medical for all, green new deal, campaign finance reform, and abolish ice are not that magical