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theresabookforthat · 4 years ago

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Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Young Readers

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and this week—May 3 to May 9 —is also Children’s Book Week with the motto “Every Child a Reader.” Therefore, we are celebrating the following glorious stories, for children and adults to share, that honor the rich cultural history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders:

THE MAGIC FISH by Trung Le Nguyen

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by the New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist • Publishers Weekly

This beautifully illustrated YA graphic novel follows a young boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales. Tiến still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It’s hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiến, he doesn’t even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he’s going through? Is there a way to tell them he’s gay?

ANY DAY WITH YOU by Mae Respicio

Kaia and her family live near the beach in California, where the fun of moviemaking is all around them. This summer, Kaia and her friends are part of a creative arts camp, where they’re working on a short movie to enter in a contest. The movie is inspired by the Filipino folktales that her beloved Tatang, her great-grandfather, tells. Kaia hopes that by winning a filmmaking contest, she’ll convince her great-grandfather not to move back home to the Philippines.

PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING by Randy Ribay

A powerful coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin’s murder.

THEY CALLED US ENEMY by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, Harmony Becker

A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon—and America itself—in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love. Available in a Spanish edition here.

THE UGLY VEGETABLES written and illustrated by Grace Lin

In this charming story about celebrating differences a Chinese-American girl wishes for a garden of bright flowers instead of one full of bumpy, ugly, vegetables. The neighbors’ gardens look so much prettier and so much more inviting to the young gardener than the garden of “black-purple-green vines, fuzzy wrinkled leaves, prickly stems, and a few little yellow flowers” that she and her mother grow. Nevertheless, mother assures her that “these are better than flowers.” Come harvest time, everyone agrees as those ugly Chinese vegetables become the tastiest, most aromatic soup they have ever known. As the neighborhood comes together to share flowers and ugly vegetable soup, the young gardener learns that regardless of appearances, everything has its own beauty and purpose. THE UGLY VEGETABLES springs forth with the bright and cheerful colors of blooming flowers and lumpy vegetables. Grace Lin’s playful illustrations pour forth with abundant treasures. Complete with a guide to the Chinese pronunciation of the vegetables and the recipe for ugly vegetable soup! Try it…you’ll love it, too!

WATERCRESS by Andrea Wang; Illustrated by Jason Chin

Driving through Ohio in an old Pontiac, a young girl’s parents stop suddenly when they spot watercress growing wild in a ditch by the side of the road. Grabbing an old paper bag and some rusty scissors, the whole family wades into the muck to collect as much of the muddy, snail covered watercress as they can. At first, she’s embarrassed. Why can’t her family get food from the grocery store? But when her mother shares a story of her family’s time in China, the girl learns to appreciate the fresh food they foraged. Together, they make a new memory of watercress.

The book is illustrated by award winning author and artist Jason Chin, in an entirely new style, inspired by Chinese painting techniques. An author’s note in the back shares Andrea’s childhood experience with her parents.

LAXMI’S MOOCH by Shelly Anand, Illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

A joyful, body-positive picture book about a young Indian American girl’s journey to accept her body hair and celebrate her heritage after being teased about her mustache.

WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER by Tae Keller

WINNER OF THE 2021 NEWBERY MEDAL

WINNER OF THE ASIAN/PACIFIC AMERICAN AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal—return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni’s health—Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice…and the courage to face a tiger.

DANBI LEADS THE SCHOOL PARADE by Anna Kim

An Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book

Danbi is thrilled to start her new school in America. But a bit nervous too, for when she walks into the classroom, everything goes quiet. Everyone stares. Danbi wants to join in the dances and the games, but she doesn’t know the rules and just can’t get anything right. Luckily, she isn’t one to give up. With a spark of imagination, she makes up a new game and leads her classmates on a parade to remember! Danbi Leads the School Parade introduces readers to an irresistible new character. In this first story, she learns to navigate her two cultures and realizes that when you open your world to others, their world opens up to you.

FATIMA’S GREAT OUTDOORS by Ambreen Tariq; Illustrated by Stevie Lewis

An immigrant family embarks on their first camping trip in the Midwest in this lively picture book by Ambreen Tariq, outdoors activist and founder of @BrownPeopleCamping. This picture book debut, with cheerful illustrations by Stevie Lewis, is a rollicking family adventure, a love letter to the outdoors, and a reminder that public land belongs to all of us.

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL by Stacey Lee

By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society’s ills, but she’s not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.

FRANKLY IN LOVE by David Yoon

An Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Book

Frank Li has two names. There’s Frank Li, his American name. Then there’s Sung-Min Li, his Korean name. No one uses his Korean name, not even his parents. Frank barely speaks any Korean. He was born and raised in Southern California. Even so, his parents still expect him to end up with a nice Korean girl—which is a problem, since Frank is finally dating the girl of his dreams: Brit Means. Brit, who is funny and nerdy just like him. Brit, who makes him laugh like no one else. Brit…who is white. Desperate to be with Brit without his parents finding out, Frank turns to family friend Joy Song, who is in a similar bind. Together, they come up with a plan to help each other and keep their parents off their backs. Frank thinks he’s found the solution to all his problems, but when life throws him a curveball, he’s left wondering whether he ever really knew anything about love—or himself—at all.

For more on these and related titles (for kids and adults) visit the collection Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

#AAPi #penguinrandomhouse #there'sabookforthat #asianamerican

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idreamofplaid · 5 years ago

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Brave

Square Filled: Sleeping Under the Stars

Characters: Sam x Stacey; Dean, Cas, and Jack mentioned

Rating: Mature

Summary: Sam has something important to say, and he’s found a special place to say it.

Word Count: 2193

A/N: I’m very thankful for my friends these days. One of those wonderful people is @princessmisery666 . This is for you Stacey. Thanks for being your sweet, kind, extraordinary self. I hope you like it.

Created for @spnfluffbingo

It’s hard to say when I fell in love with you. There’s so many moments it could have happened. It might have been the first time I kissed you. I definitely felt something then. My life shifted when I saw the way you looked at me after I broke that kiss, and nothing’s been the same since.

Most of the time, I’m still a little bit shocked by it. No, shock isn’t quite the right word. Disbelief is probably better. You had every reason to run as fast and far as you could from me, but you didn’t. You’ve seen me beaten, bruised, and bleeding. You should be scared, but you’re not. You just wash my cuts, bandage me up, and let me hold you until the world seems like a good place again.

You’re kind and beautiful, not just the surface kind of beautiful, the kind that goes all the way to your heart. I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with you, but that’s why I love you. You’re my Stacey.

I’ve seen how thoughtful you are. You always remember to get the little cookie shaped cereal for Dean that he claims to eat just because Jack likes it, but you know he loves it too. And when it comes to Jack, you’re patient and nurturing with him. I know he tells you things he doesn’t tell Cas, Dean, or me.

It’s the little things like that. Maybe the most amazing thing about you is how brave you are. I’m not easy to love. I come with a lot of trauma attached. Some of that is better now that you’re in my life. I used to wake up crying sometimes. That’s something I haven’t told you yet, but I will. Eventually, you’ll know about everything in my life that haunts me, everything that thrills me, and everything that makes me feel hope again.

One day, after I’ve told you everything and you still want me, I’m going to ask you to marry me. I have to be sure you know exactly what you’ll be getting. There’s something in me, a calm kind of certainty, that knows you’ll still be here even after you know my every fault and weakness. That’s just who you are. I love you, Stacey, and that’s why tonight had to be special. I need to show you that I know it’s you; it’s going to be you I spend the rest of my life with.

I spent several days scouting the vicinity around the bunker looking for the perfect spot. It had to match what I had in my mind. Most of my life, I haven’t done too much dreaming or thought about making something memorable. Most of what happened to me, I just want to forget. This place is exactly what I wanted for your surprise.

It’s secluded with plenty of trees to make it intimate, but not so many that we can’t see the stars when we climb into the big sleeping bag I laid out under the night sky for us. I want to make love to you beneath those stars then hold you in my arms after and listen to you breathe. Tonight there’s a world here just for us with the trees, the stars, and the soft wind that’s blowing.

I park the car far enough away that you can’t see what I’ve done as soon as we drive up. We walk down a little path through the oaks and sycamores holding hands. When we are almost there, I stop and turn to you. Your eyes are even prettier now than they were the first time I kissed you. The moon is nearly full overhead, and its light is shining in your eyes. I reach out to hold your face in my hand, and brush my thumb over your cheek. I whisper “I love you” and lean in to touch my lips to yours, softly for now. There’ll be more kisses later.

I pull away slowly and watch you smile at me. Thank you for being in my life. It’s so easy to smile back at you and trust that everything is going to be okay when we’re together. “Close your eyes.”

You just do it and don’t even question why. I feel my heart go all soft in my chest, and then it starts to beat just a little faster. I’m excited about tonight and a little nervous too. It’s always been so easy to talk to you, but I’ve never said anything as important as what I’m going to tell you tonight. You’re the only woman for me, and it’s past time that I make sure you know that.

I lead you down the path through the woods to the clearing where your surprise is waiting. My heart is speeding up, anticipating your reaction. “Keep your eyes closed.”

I could hear the smile in your voice when you answered me. “They’re closed. Where are you taking me?”

Your face is radiating joy. It is pure, genuine, and simple. You are completely in this moment with me, trusting that whatever it is; it will be a wonderful thing. Knowing that, my heart swells a little and is filled with satisfaction and contentment. You trust me completely.

In the middle of the tiny clearing, I’ve set up a card table and some folding chairs I found in one of the bunker storage rooms. They are pretty unremarkable and would be downright plain if I hadn’t gone to one of those party stores and bought a white tablecloth and some blue paper plates for the cake. I ordered it from the grocery store bakery in town with as many frosting flowers in your favorite color as I could get.

I position you in front of the table and tell you, “Wait for a second” to give me time to take the lighter from my pocket and light the candles on the table. There’s plenty of moonlight tonight, but the candles add atmosphere. When I’m satisfied with how everything looks, I say, “Open your eyes.”

Your mouth falls open, and your eyes scan the table. You take a step forward and reach out so your fingers can graze the bottle of wine I have chilling in a bucket there. “Sam, what is all this? It isn’t my birthday.”

I step around you and pull out your chair. “It’s for you. Just because.”

You take a seat in the chair I offered you, and I’m quick to sit down across from you. I want to see your face again. I’ll never be able to give you enough moments like this, but I’ll try to give you the happiness you should always have. You’re excited now; I can tell because you almost bounce when you grab the bottle of wine. “Let’s have some.” You extend the bottle toward me. “Will you open it?”

I pop the cork and pour you a glass. The plates might be paper, but the glasses are real. When my glass is filled too, you look at me hopefully like I would say no to anything you want. “Can we make a toast?”

You’re doing it to me again; I’m totally wrapped up in you, watching your every move and every expression. After Jess, I never thought I’d feel anything like this again, and it’s more. It’s even better. “Sam?”

I give my head a shake. “Yeah. Yeah, of course we can.” I hold my glass up, and you raise yours next to it. There’s so many things I could say, but for now I keep it simple. “To more nights like this.” We touch our glasses together, and they clink. You lift yours to your lips and take a sip. Now, you’re distracting me.

I think about how soft your lips are when I kiss them and how they feel on my skin. The thought of it is enough to arouse me, and I feel myself stir in my jeans. I swallow my wine and put my glass down. I’ve got to reign myself back in and focus. There are some things I want to tell you before my body takes over.

I reach across the table and take your hand. Your eyes are beautiful; the way you look at me is beautiful. I look down at your hand. It’s so small in mine, but your hand is strong; and your touch is healing. That’s what tonight is about. It’s about how I fell in love with you and me telling you how that happened. I want you to know what you mean to me, what you’ll always mean to me.

When I first start to talk, I’m still looking at your hand. “You probably don’t remember or know what today is, but I do.” I raise my eyes to look at you, and I can see you’re running through your memory trying to find what it is I’m talking about.

You finally shake your head. “I don’t, Sam.”

Your eyes are questioning me, waiting for me to explain. “It’s an anniversary.” I can still remember that night so clearly. It might have been my last one. If that shifter’s knife had gone into my chest, it probably would have been the end of me. All I could think about was protecting you. I couldn’t let him get to you. You were still new to hunting then. “Today was the first time you stitched me up after a hunt. That shapeshifter in Tucson put a pretty nasty gash in my shoulder. Dean was helping Garth with that ghoul case in Boise, but you said you’d seen him do it enough times that you could close me up.”

Your eyes get a far away look, and I can tell you’re going back there in your mind. “You remember that?”

“I remember all of it, mostly I remember thinking about how incredible you are and how lucky I was to have you taking care of me. You did what had to be done, but you were gentle about it.” I stop talking for a minute and look back down at our hands joined together.

“What is it, Sam?” You tighten your fingers around mine just the slightest bit, and it reassures me just like you wanted.

“I don’t know how to say everything I felt that night. This is going to sound weird, but those stitches didn’t hurt as much as all the ones I’d had before. It was different because it was you and because I had hope. You gave me hope. I wasn’t thinking about being doomed to die at the hands of some monster or a pissed off angel without ever getting the chance to do so many of the things I wanted to do before I gave up on them.”

I brushed my thumb across the back of your hand once to feel the soft smoothness of your skin, to ground myself, to remind me this is all real. “All those wants and dreams were alive in me again. You brought them back. I wanted them with you, and I knew that you could handle being with me. You could deal with all the ugliness that comes with hunting. You’re strong, and you’re brave.” The words aren’t coming out right, but I can feel everything that’s inside me bubbling up, ready to spill out. “ You’re beautiful.”

I take a deep breath. This is the most important part. “I knew that night that I was forever in love with you. I want you in my life always, Stacey. I need you. There will never be anyone else for me.”

Your voice is gentle when you speak, and your eyes are even softer. “Sam, can we have the cake for breakfast?” I nod silently, wanting the same thing you do. You lead me over to the sleeping bag and take your clothes off. My breath catches when I see you standing naked in the moonlight. I pull you to me and kiss you, taking my time to taste every bit of your sweetness. My hand slips below your waist to feel the curve of your hips, and you whisper against my lips, “Take your clothes off for me, Sam.”

I do, and we kiss again before we get into the sleeping bag. You give yourself to me completely, and you’re everything I could want. I carry your name inside me. It’s the word that comes to my mind most easily. I don’t have to think about it; it’s just there. It falls from my lips just as easily when you touch me, when you give me exactly what I need. “Stace.”

Several minutes later, I’m holding you close and trying to catch my breath. I close my eyes and bury my nose into your hair. The scratches you left on my back are stinging a little. You left your mark on me, and that’s just the way I want it. Your voice breaks through my thoughts. “Sam, I love you forever too.” I nuzzle my face deeper into your hair. We hold each other and sleep beneath the stars.

Everything Forever: @gambitwinchester @princessmisery666 @onethirstyunicorn @peridottea91 @logical-princey @emilyshurley @beenlovingromansincedayoneish @fangirlxwritesx67 @waywardbaby @atc74 @ledzeppelinsbonzo @shaniquacynthia @mariekoukie6661 @tumbler-tidbits @67-chevy-baby @fandom-princess-forevermore @terrarium-jpeg @emoryhemsworth @crashdevlin @heycasbutt @jules-1999 @mrsdeannafuckingwinchester @cosicas-cuquis @sammyimpala-67 @queenoftheunderdark @dean-winchesters-bacon @mrs-meghan-winchester @timelordy-fangirl2 @sweetness47 @hobby27 @awesomesusiebstuff @kickingitwithkirk @gh0stgurl @becs-bunker @sandlee44 @supernaturalgrandma @lonewolf471 @sea040561 @dawnie1988 @maddiepants @volleyballer519 @outcastedangel @wendibird @kdfrqqg @lizette50 @daisymoder72 @sorenmarie87 @oldfreakything @triiitoo

Sam/Jared: @girl-next-door-writes @stunudo @feelmyroarrrr @sammit-janet @winchesterxfamilybusiness @idabbleincrazy @evansrogerskitten @focusonspn @i-joined-social-media-finally @wingledsam @autumninavonlea @spnxbsessed @durinsbride @deansyahtzee @fantasy-shadows @team-free-will-you-idjiot @waywardnerd67 @neii3n @fullmooner @supernatural-took-me-over @julesthequirky

#spnfluffbingo #sam fluff #sam oneshot

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dailyaudiobiblechronological · 4 years ago

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6/15/21 DAB Chronological Transcription

Psalm 134, Psalm 146 - 150

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological. I'm Jill, it's the 15th day of June. And if this is not your first day around here, you know that we have turned the page together and we are looking, listening, opening and centering ourselves around God's word to hear what he might speak to us, to open our eyes and our ears to what he might say, to open our heart, to receive all that he would want to do within us as we hear the word of God read fresh today and look into the pages of our own story, our own lives, to see what we can find relatable. We are in the Old Testament and we're reading today in Psalm and we're in Psalm 134, and then we're going to jump over and read Psalm 146 - 150. And today we're reading in the New Living Translation. Psalm 134.

Commentary

So maybe last week, a week ago, I can't really remember off the top of my head. Oh, we talked about guarding our heart, the importance of guarding our heart. And it's always so refreshing and so interesting to me that as adults we do not know the message of our heart. We don't know the importance of our heart. And I don't say that with any shame or condemnation because I learned it as an adult and nobody taught it better to me than the Ministry of Ransomed Heart. Our friends John and Stacey Eldridge at Ransom Heart, formerly ransomed heart ministry, now Wild at Heart Ministries. So that being said, we touched on this a little bit of a reference point for it. But then the scripture today, one of the most important things that God does for us that I think can really easily get tossed aside or overlooked or sort of shoved down at the bottom as far as a matter of priority is in today's reading, it's in Psalm 147:3 he heals the broken hearted and bandages their wounds. There is a place and there is an importance and there is a relevance to all of the things that we can make a matter of priority that that we say matters to God, matters to Jesus. Oh, you've got to find your spiritual gifts. You've got to you've got to find your prophetic voice. You've got to you've got to pray that you can lay hands on the sick and heal them. And I believe all of those things we're going to learn so much in the New Testament about the life of Jesus and the things that he said and and that he tells the disciples before he leaves that greater things will we do. And we're not there yet. So I got to slow my roll. But we make those things so much more high priority, so much more important. We give them a place, we give them a stance and a number and and a position, in alignment of importance. I go so far as to say, because I see it all the time, we question someone's salvation based on the works that they are performing. What I love is this little hidden gem, this little hidden treasure in Psalm 147:3 today, the reminder that he heals the broken hearted and bandages their wounds. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God that parted the Red Sea and let them walk through the waters on dry ground. I mean, let's just sit with miracle after miracle after supernatural after extraordinary thing that he's done thus far in our reading that we have sat and listened to and witnessed with our own ears. Whether we believe it or not, that's entirely up to you. I happen to be one that believes and I believe it to be true. And it's not to discount any of the things that I just mentioned or that we have already read. It's to say, let's not discount the healing of our broken heartedness. We can't discount it when we understand the importance of our hearts, when we understand that all source of life flows from the heart. Then we understand the importance of God healing our broken heart and binding up bandaging our wounds. Our wounds matter to God, it matters that they get healed, because when we don't broken, people walk around and break people wounded, people walk around unintentionally wounding people. It is a vicious cycle. It is what we sometimes call generational curses, curses that we blame some spiritual being that just came and inflicted, possessed or infused its presence that's caused us to do these terrible things, live this terrible way. So many times when I have sat with it and got to the core, I've realized these are generational wounds unhealed, untreated, unaware. And let me go a step further and say sometimes un willing, it is hard to go back and return to the pain, return to the memories, return to all of the emotions evoked within us. But let me just say, God cannot fix what we are not willing to face. It's really, really important that we get our broken hearts healed. It's really, really important that we do hard work. And I know, like I get it, nobody wants to voluntarily sign up for. Yeah, sign me up for that hurt. Sign me up for that pain. Yeah. Let's walk right back into all of that mess. Chaos, clutter, trauma, but let me remind us that that place, that past is not our residence. It is not where we reside. It is a reference point of our story. And the more healing you get, the more healing of that brokenness, the more bandaging of those wounds, the easier it is to look back. And you don't even have to go back there. You don't even have to enter the premises any longer. You simply can look back and it not hurt, sting and ache as much as it once did, and I've had women argue with me, that's just not possible. I cannot look back and never not feel the pain. And I'm not trying to argue, not trying to diminish. But I promise you, the more healing, the further you get down the road of healing, the easier it is to look back and not have the same effect on you. It no longer has its claws of venom gripping, just holding on to you. You can totally be free. You can actually be free. From the things I tried to break you, you can actually be whole. When you allow God to heal your broken heart and to bind your wounds.

Prayer

So, Father, once again, we thank you for this hidden treasure of truth. We thank you for this reminder that is so simple, just two sentences. That you heal our broken heartedness and you bandage our wounds, and my guess is that we put this off and we make this less glamorous because we don't get a lot of attention like we do when we lay hands on people and when we prophesy over people and when we use our spiritual gifts. It's such a different place when we are the ones giving and pouring ourselves out. It is such a different view for us to be sitting in our brokenness. Allowing you to heal us, allowing the process where it sometimes get worse before it gets better. And we're exposed and we're vulnerable. That's very scary, it's very risky or some it's very unsafe for some people, too. But we thank you, God, that your presence is safe. I think that your healing is the safest place in the entire universe. The presence of God is where we can be our truest, our most vulnerable, our most unashamed selves. So, Father, here we are once again so far this year. Handing over to you our brokenness, handing over the things that we have refused to even take inventory of the things that we have swept under the rug, we have shoved into the closet, and the door is bulging and the pile is stacked so high because we have avoided the hard things of allowing you to come and tell us from the inside out. So we give you that brokenness. Give you that pain, we give you that rejection, we give you that abuse, we give you our abandonment, we give you the things that we self-inflicted, the choices that we made to cause the damage that we have deemed irreparable. Only you alone. God can come and heal, restore, renew, redeem again and again and again. But we will never change without giving you access to come and do what only you can do. And you have the power to heal us, to set us free, to change the course, the direction, the future of generations to come, that we don't have to live under the curse. We don't have to live under a false diagnosis of generational curses that are just untreated hurts and traumas and aches and pains that we are too prideful to allow you to come and heal. So with everything in me, I ask you to come even in the next minutes as we just grant you permission to come.To come to come even closer, to come into areas that we thought we may have dealt with, to come into areas that we have sealed off, locked up, thrown away the key. Holy Spirit, come and do only that, which you can do. Heal us, heal us from the inside out. Once again, I ask father, son, and Holy Spirit,amen.

I think once again, I'm not going to do announcements, I'm not going to play calls, I think maybe it could just have a few moments of silence, just imitation. Just intentional pause of quiet, surrendering, giving, allowing, granting permission access. Just as the Lord would bring up anything, anywhere that hurts, we go to the doctor and we tell him what hurts and we give them this threshold of pain on a scale from one to 10. You're healer is here and present. Maybe just sit with a question, where does that hurt? Maybe just tell them where it hurts today. I promise you he can handle it. Let him do what only he can do. Thank you, Father, for being here and present with us in these moments. Father, son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

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richincolor · 5 years ago

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Crystal’s 2019 Favorites

Truly this is the most difficult post of the year for me. There were so many excellent books published this year, but I finally narrowed it down to the following seven titles:

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza Beacon Press || Crystal’s Review

Going beyond the story of America as a country “discovered” by a few brave men in the “New World,” Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.

The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian Balzer + Bray || Crystal’s Review

It’s 1989 in New York City, and for three teens, the world is changing.

Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS.

Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Judy has never imagined finding romance…until she falls for Reza and they start dating.

Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen. He’ll never be who his conservative parents want him to be, so he rebels by documenting the AIDS crisis through his photographs.

As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won’t break Judy’s heart–and destroy the most meaningful friendship he’s ever known.

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo HarperTeen || Group Discussion

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain �� and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.

Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali Salaam Reads || Crystal’s Review

A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes—because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together.

An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how “bad” Muslims are.

But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry.

When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break.

Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a newer, “nicer” version of herself in a place where no one knows her.

Then her path crosses with Adam’s.

Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister.

Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father.

Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals.

Until a marvel and an oddity occurs…

Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting.

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee G.P. Putnam’s Sons || Crystal’s Review

Atlanta, 1890: By day, seventeen-year-old Jo Kuan works as a lady’s maid for the cruel daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta. But by night, Jo moonlights as the pseudonymous author of a newspaper advice column for the genteel Southern lady, “Dear Miss Sweetie.” When her column becomes wildly popular, she uses the power of the pen to address some of society’s ills, but she’s not prepared for the backlash that follows when her column challenges fixed ideas about race and gender.

While her opponents clamor to uncover the secret identity of Miss Sweetie, a mysterious letter sets Jo off on a search for her own past and the parents who abandoned her as a baby. But when her efforts put her in the crosshairs of Atlanta’s most notorious criminal, Jo must decide whether she, a girl used to living in the shadows, is ready to step into the light. With prose that is witty, insightful, and at times heartbreaking, Stacey Lee masterfully crafts an extraordinary social drama set in the New South.

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf Salaam Reads || Crystal’s Review

A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

*** CONTENT WARNINGS: Racism, on-page death, graphic violence, OCD and anxiety triggers. If you are affected by any of these things, please do consider setting the book aside until you feel more able to take them on. ***

Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett Audrey’s Review

In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love—and lust—for the first time. Powerful and uplifting, Full Disclosure will speak to fans of Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She’s making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she’s HIV-positive, because last time . . . well, last time things got ugly.

Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start going out for real—shy kisses escalating into much more—she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she’s positive, especially if sex is a possibility, but she’s terrified of how he’ll react! And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until Thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles. Or everyone else will know too.

Simone’s first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs, but as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on…

#2019 Favorites #YALit

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phroyd · 5 years ago

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DEKE PIERCE WAS wearing civilian clothes as he took to the lectern in a narrow press room inside the Texas Capitol in Austin last month, but it was still obvious that he was a cop. He stood with his feet wide and his arms slightly away from his body, a stance molded by years in a uniform encumbered by heavy gear. He was there to make an extraordinary announcement: He and 12 other members of law enforcement with more than 250 years of combined experience had filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of a Texas death row prisoner named Rodney Reed, slated for execution on November 20.

“We each care deeply about the criminal justice system and the rule of law. While that often means holding wrongdoers accountable, it is the equally important goal of the criminal justice system to avoid punishing the innocent,” Pierce told a group of reporters. “Not only would moving forward with Mr. Reed’s execution be cruel and immoral, it would also undermine the rule of law and the legitimacy of the very system we as law enforcement officers swore to uphold.”

Their brief argues that Reed’s conviction was tainted by common problems in law enforcement — forensic errors, “weak facts,” tunnel vision, and “community pressure that can distort an investigation.” The officers argue that in this case there is “uniquely compelling” evidence that Reed is innocent.

Pierce and his fellow officers join an increasing number of high-profile voices calling for a stay of execution and a thorough review of Reed’s case as a stream of new witnesses continue to come forward with revelations that cast doubt on Reed’s conviction; there is one who now says another suspect confessed to the crime that put Reed on death row. Reed’s lawyers, including his long-time attorney Bryce Benjet of the Innocence Project, have asked various courts to intervene, among them the U.S. Supreme Court. Those actions remain pending as the clock ticks down toward the execution date.

While Pierce and his colleagues understand “as well as anyone the need for finality in criminal cases,” they wrote, where “there is a significant risk of executing an innocent man, that need for finality must yield to the needs of justice.”

18 Years on the Case

Rodney Reed was convicted and sentenced to die in 1998 for the rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites two years earlier. On April 23, 1996, Stites was found dead, her body dumped on the side of a country road outside of Bastrop, a small town roughly a half-hour east of Austin. She was partially clothed and lying face up, her arms above her head. Marks on her neck led investigators to conclude that she’d been strangled with a length of braided leather belt, a piece of which was left nearby. Sperm was collected from inside her.

The murder went unsolved for nearly a year before law enforcement officers, apparently acting on a hunch, tested the recovered DNA against 29-year-old Reed. It matched and formed the basis of the prosecution’s case. No other evidence tied Reed to the murder. The DNA was the “Cinderella’s slipper,” prosecutors argued at trial.

When he was initially questioned by police, Reed denied knowing Stites, but soon admitted to having an affair with her, which would explain the presence of his DNA; the two had sex just days before Stites was found dead, he said.

It’s hardly surprising that Reed wasn’t immediately forthcoming. The relationship would have been a risky one in small-town Texas, even in the mid-1990s: Reed is black, and Stites was white and engaged to a man named Jimmy Fennell, a white cop in a neighboring town.

At trial, Reed had various witnesses lined up who could testify to the relationship, but most weren’t called, seemingly because they were related to Reed. Those who did testify weren’t particularly effective: One woman referred to Stites as “Stephanie” when recounting meeting her at the Reed family’s Bastrop home. Among the witnesses who weren’t called were at least two who said they knew about the affair and that Fennell had found out about it and threatened Reed.

Over the last 18 years, I’ve written dozens of times about Reed’s case. It was clear early on that it had serious problems and that Reed’s conviction left open a number of questions about what happened to Stites and why. As the years have passed, the case has become even more disturbing. There is medical and forensic evidence that has been debunked. There are witnesses — including within Stites’s family — who have come forward to say they were aware of the relationship. And then there’s Fennell. There’s been a lot of troubling information about him, too, including from law enforcement officers disturbed by his behavior both before and after Stites’s murder. Some of that information should have been made available to defense lawyers before Reed’s trial but wasn’t.

And then there are the courts, crucially including Texas’s Court of Criminal Appeals, which has repeatedly demonstrated a results-oriented willful ignorance in the face of mounting evidence challenging the conviction.

A Suspicious Timeline

From the beginning, the state’s theory of Stites’s murder was a problem. On the day she died, Stites was slated to work at 3:30 a.m. at a Bastrop grocery store. She was living in the nearby town of Giddings, about 30 minutes northeast of Bastrop, in an apartment she shared with Fennell, who was a cop there. She never made it to work. Several hours later, Fennell’s pickup truck, which Stites allegedly drove to work that morning, was found in the parking lot of Bastrop High School. Her body was found that afternoon, several miles out of town.

Based on this set of facts, the state came up with a theory of her death that hinged on Reed’s DNA being the result of a stranger encounter: Stites left the apartment sometime around 3 a.m., driving toward Bastrop. Along the way, Reed, on foot, somehow stopped her and attacked her. He raped and strangled her and dumped her body before driving into town where he parked Fennell’s truck at the school before walking away.

As a practical matter, this never made much sense to me. How would a man on foot overcome a woman driving along a highway? Even if she were to come to a stoplight, it’s not as though she couldn’t drive through it — after all, it was 3 a.m. And if there was traffic at that hour, it would seem even less likely that he could pull off such a feat.

The timeline underpinning the state’s theory was provided by Fennell. He wasn’t awake when Stites got up for work, he said, but she would have left around 3 a.m. or so. He said that he and Stites had been home alone all evening. Yet the police never sought to search their Giddings apartment, even though it was the last place she was seen alive.

Despite that inexplicable oversight, reading the police reports and notes related to the case, you can see that early on, Fennell was a suspect — members of Stites’s family even penned a list of concerns about his behavior at the time. He was interrogated several times by police, exchanges that he characterized in trial testimony as abusive “from day one.”

That Fennell was originally a suspect is important because investigators knew that he hadn’t contributed the DNA evidence. In other words, at least early on, the DNA wasn’t considered the lynchpin of the case. Nonetheless, once they matched the DNA to Reed, they dropped Fennell as a suspect. And that’s a problem, Pierce and the other law enforcement officers say. It suggests that detectives suffered from tunnel vision, “to which all law enforcement officers are susceptible,” they wrote in their brief to the Supreme Court. “This phenomenon does not depend on any bad faith or incompetence of the officers involved. Rather, it is a result of ordinary cognitive bias, that can make even experienced, well-intentioned officers fixate on a theory of the case that, from an objective perspective, does not hold up.”

“In particular, the pretrial investigation shows that police did not believe the forensic evidence exonerated Mr. Fennell until after Mr. Reed became a suspect,” they continued. “Only after Mr. Reed was identified as the source of an intimate sample did police consider the forensic evidence dispositive of guilt.”

In fact, additional forensic evidence pointed toward Fennell. Fingerprints lifted from his pickup truck — the one Reed supposedly drove after hijacking Stites — matched only Stites and Fennell. It’s hard to imagine that Reed would have tried to hide his identity by wiping his prints from the truck while leaving his DNA inside Stites.

As it turned out, there was also a problem with that DNA sample — not with its identification of Reed, but with what the state said it meant about Stites’s time of death. According to state witnesses, the fact that three intact spermatozoa were recovered from Stites meant that she’d had sex no more than about 24 hours prior to death.

Taken at face value, along with Fennell’s insistence that he was home with Stites the night before she was murdered, it would seem that the only conclusion was that Stites had sex just before she was killed. “We know, from the credible evidence, that [sperm] doesn’t hang around for days on end. We know from the credible evidence that that tells you that that sperm got in that girl’s body within 24 hours” of when the evidence was collected, prosecutors told the jury at Reed’s trial. “Which is when? On her way to work.”

I always found this suspicious because it was so oddly specific. Even back then, it sounded like junk science. Reed’s trial lawyers failed to call their own experts, so in 2002, I asked a Texas medical examiner unconnected to the case to review the evidence. He was uncomfortable with the state basing the timeline on sperm evidence, which, he told me, is “never very precise.”

In the intervening years, a number of noted forensic pathologists have agreed that the state’s conclusion lacked scientific support. Even the medical examiner who conducted Stites’s autopsy and had agreed with the state’s truncated timeline at Reed’s trial recanted his testimony. In 2018, both a state crime lab and a private DNA lab walked back the testimony of their employees who had been witnesses at Reed’s trial, noting that their assertions that the sperm had to be deposited close to Stites’s time of death were not supported and were in “error.”

There is another glaring issue for the medical experts who have reviewed the case: The state’s timeline for Stites’s murder was off — by hours. According to the pathologists, changes to Stites’s body at the time it was found demonstrated that she’d been killed before midnight and then dumped in the woods the following morning, meaning, by Fennell’s own account, Stites died while she was at home alone with him.

After death, blood no longer circulates and gravity causes it to pool under the skin in the lowest parts of the body, leading to dark patches that resemble bruising, known as post-mortem lividity. When Stites’s body was found, she was lying face up, yet the front of her body showed clear signs of lividity — on her face, right arm and hand, and chest. Since lividity takes at least four hours to set, the pathologists have agreed that this meant that Stites was killed and left in a position where she was slumped forward, one arm outstretched, for at least four hours before her body was dumped.

Phroyd

#texas #death row

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devianbooks · 2 years ago

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[Read Online] Stacey's Remarkable Books BY : Stacey Abrams

(Download) in PDF Stacey's Remarkable Books By Stacey Abrams

Ebook PDF Stacey's Remarkable Books | EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD If you want to download free Ebook, you are in the right place to download Ebook. Ebook/PDF Stacey's Remarkable Books DOWNLOAD in English is available for free here, Click on the download LINK below to download Ebook After You 2020 PDF Download in English by Jojo Moyes (Author).

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Description

The companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller and NAACP Image Award winner Stacey's Extraordinary Words, from political leader Stacey Abrams and artist Kitt Thomas.Stacey's favorite day of the week is Thursday, when the whole class goes to the library and she gets to lose herself in her beloved books.On one of these special days, Stacey discovers that a new student named Julie has trouble reading in English, so they begin sharing books and stories to practice. Soon, more students start to join them.Books take the group on magical adventures and reveal other worlds and cultures--but best of all, they bring them together as friends.This is another inspiring tale, based on a true story from Stacey Abrams's childhood, about the life-changing power of books.

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wumpusandzandii · 6 years ago

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Tagged: Chapter One

TMNT Human!AU storyline for Michelangelo x Zandii

Chapter One

After clocking out of the club, making sure to let the others know she was out before the evening shift, Zandii quickly made her escape before her boss could say otherwise. Even after being there for months - or was it years? she lost count - he was still determined to treat her like bar staff and his lackey. There was only so much she could do and she wasn't prepared to work three jobs while getting paid for one.

Grabbing her rucksack and skateboard, she snuck out the service entrance into the alley and was pleasantly surprised by the sun. Running a hand through her messy pink hair, tucking it beneath her SnapBack cap, she sighed. Stepping on to her board and rolling off with a lazy kick, she headed out. Avoiding the main streets, taking any and all shortcuts and tracks away from those too-important-people who didn't want to move an inch over, she made her way to her favourite spot. An old run-down concrete skatepark beneath an overpass. It wasn't much but it was enough to feel freedom for a few.

Greeted by the usual scruffy teens, Zan leapt up on to a ramp and surveyed her small grey kingdom. "Might wanna watch it today gurl, cops been circlin' today..." Kenny mumbled nonchalantly, filter between his lips as he rolled a cigarette.

"That wouldn't have anything to do with you dealing would it?" she asked, sniggering a little as he threw her a look.

"Never."

Rolling her eyes, she reached into her bag and brought out a spray can, checking it was the right colour before shaking it through. "Well, if you're stayin' keep an eye out...kinda wanted to continue with that mural I started..."

It was that that made him pause and look up at her fully, a thick brow raised beneath his dark hair. "You really need to quit that, it's gonna get you in shit..."

What she had started had been found and painted over multiple times by either cops of local gangs, a mural for the vigilante of the city. She changed her design for it often but now she was sure she had it, after studying those damn symbols for so long...

With a confident smile on her studded lips she kicked off on her board again, gliding around Kenny as he continued to ramble at her. "If you're gonna be a pussy, fine, I'll go by myself," she grinned, his exasperated sigh only making her chuckle. She was determined to spread the tag, almost as her small way to get back at the Foot clan, and it was also an excuse to practice her graffiti lines.

Snatching up her bag that held the rest of the colour sprays, she set off - not without a few tricks along the rails - weaving in and out of the other skaters. It wasn't far, just a little too far for Kenny and his friends to want to follow. His heavy bagged eyes watched her go and he blew his hair out of his eyes with a shake of his head. "Crazy bitch..."

***

Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.

His Master's words kept rolling through his head, along with the sentiment that a ninja's true challenge was to hide in plain sight. Blending in. He held to it to a certain point, but he always ended up connecting with people. It was just who he was. He could always blend into a group of people, but inevitably, he always wound up drawing too much attention. It was why his brothers always wound up using him as a distraction, if they needed it.

He couldn't be mad, though. He loved getting to know people, interacting with them. Out of all of them, he was the only "social butterfly," which often left him feeling alone and like something was missing. Especially on that day. Raph was off spending time with Stacey and Sera, as hard as it still was for him to wrap his mind around that fact that his brother was a father. They were good for him, he couldn't deny it, and oh, that little girl was adorable. It was still a bit weird, though.

Leo was either off meditating or something else honorable, no doubt. All he knew is that he wasn't in his face and demanding yet another training session, so he had slipped away while he had the good fortune to. Donnie was in his lab, because that's where Donnie always was when there weren't any training or patrols. Working on something brilliant that they'd all come to depend on, he had no doubt. He felt a pang of guilt as he kicked his normal skateboard into his hand, that he wasn't using the rocket-powered one he had designed specially for him... but he wanted to blend in that day. Just be one of the normal kids for a little while.

Well, maybe not so normal that he didn't get in some parkour on the way to his skatepark of choice for that day. It was a lot more fun when Leo wasn't along, correcting every tiny detail so he could really push it. He had a few local haunts, and he decided to hit one of the smaller, more real skateparks. Run down and almost hidden, some of the sweetest shit he had ever seen went down there. Also some of the sketchiest, but sometimes he took care of that after hours.

He made his way around the rails, taking it easy for the most part, and observing. Chatting with a few people here and there, giving some young kids a few pointers and brightening their day as he cheered them on. It was the little things, and you never knew just what kind of difference it might make to someone. Their smiles were all it took to keep him doing it. On the far side, he rolled up to his favorite part of that particular park. Someone with some killer skills had been keeping up a mural... with their symbol. His tag. Family.

It was always getting defaced one way or another, but it was always fixed eventually, and improved on. He never got lucky enough to figure out who was doing it, in his mind it was some young kid, an admirer. So when he rolled up a ways away and saw a girl at the wall, he assumed it was one of the people defacing it and his heart sank. Working his way closer slowly, still blending in, he snuck looks over until he tripped up on the halfpipe.

It was him. Her. The person. The artist. Whatever.

Pink hair peeking out of her hat, hand on her hip and a can shaking in the other, he could see the fresh paint on the symbol in front of her. She was fixing it. SHE. A girl! Did that mean that his admirer was a girl? Or maybe she just liked the tag. No. She came back too often and put too much care into it for it to be just that. But why? What did she think? What was her name?

A million questions bounced excitedly off the insides of his head until someone shouted at him to get off the ramp, and he realized that he had simply sat where he had fallen to contemplate it... and her. He had to know more.

"Dude! Seriously...it ain't a fuckin' bench..." Shaking his head with the faint chuckling and jeering behind him, Kenny huffed heavily as the blonde eventually looked up. A foot on his board, ready to drop in, he raised his brows expectantly and groaned when he eventually scrambled to his feet. "Idiot..." he sneered as he obnoxiously sped past, close enough to knock him down if he really wanted to.

Oblivious to what was going on, Zandii continued to spray, angling the can to get a thicker lines and colour larger areas. Every new mark created a new piece, making the mural once again expand and evolve over the blank wall. It's vibrant colours of orange, pink and yellow stood out almost like a beacon in the sun. It lifted her spirits, a nice change from the repetitive red light district vibe she had at work.

Placing the can down, wiping the paint leaked that leak from the nozzle on to her scruffy skinny jeans, she huffed as her mop of long hair was starting to escape her cap. Removing it, she decided now was time to fully tame it, looping it up into a messy bun to keep it out of her face. Stepping back as she did so she could admire her work so far, she smiled to herself and tilted her head. "So far good..." she mumbled to herself, picking up the next can - a black for the outlines - shimmying as she began to shake it up again.

Mikey was aware of how close the taunting skater was as he rushed past, years of reflex training saw to that. He simply couldn't be bothered to move away any faster, his attention was elsewhere. Dropping his skateboard to the ground once he was off the ramp, he forced himself to continue blending in, but never losing tabs on her as he weaved her direction.

Slowing down as he neared, he skipped off the board and openly gawked. The bright colors of the mural struck a chord in him, but still paled in comparison to finally seeing the person he had been curious about for so long. Mesmerized, he watched as she took off her hat and messily pulled it back... only to start doing a content little dance as she shook her next can up.

It was too much. He couldn't blend any more. His curiosity and interest got the better of him and he decided he had to talk to her. But what to say? Compliment her? Because hell, she was hot. Ask her about the work? But how could he go about it without seeming to directly interested in the symbol and not her as well?

Taking off his own hat, he ran a hand through his messy mop of blonde hair (he could almost hear Leo in his head telling him to get a haircut) and strolled over with his skateboard over his shoulder. A grin stretched across his face as he got closer, he couldn't help it. He was so excited to finally meet the artist and see her at work.

"Hey there," he said coming up behind her, his voice friendly and as exuberant as he felt. "Damn, that is sick as hell, girl!"

Before she could press down on the nozzle to spray again, she paused and listen to the voice behind her. For a split second she thought it was some undercover cop, someone who had slipped passed Kenny and others without them realising, as his voice wasn't familiar. Glancing over her shoulder, she was surprised to meet a pair of blue eyes gazing at her. And they were blue, insanely so, in fact she thought they had to be contacts or something.

Beaming a wide grin happily, she stepped back so she could face him and bit her lip, trying to tame her prideful expression a little. "Thanks man, it's been an ongoing thing...been fuckin' painted over enough times, heh..." A little awkward, having never been directly spoken to about it, always having 'awesome' and 'sweet' thrown her way as people skated by. "..I'm determined to get it done today though." Preferably before work, but that was wishful thinking.

Glancing up at him again, she took the time to adjust her messy hair again, forever playing with it as its neon pink curls never seemed to be tamed. Flipping it over one shoulder she braided it into a loose but tidy fishtail, avoiding the strings of her strap crop top. Tilting her head with a giggle, she followed his gaze to wall, having lost him to the colours and patterns again. "Uh....hello?"

He was overwhelmed in the best way. It wasn't often that he was rendered speechless, as a matter of fact he was certain his brothers would say it was was downright impossible. The excitement of meeting the person who was spreading their tag paled in comparison to her work, and well... her. He had been staring at her until her green eyes flickered up to him, contrasted starkly with the pink hair she was arranging, and had quickly let his attention get drawn back to the wall. It wouldn't do well to look like a creeper, and it was easy enough to get wholly distracted in the intricate designs and colors.

Her giggle drew his attention back to her, and the way she tilted her head and looked at him caused him to blush slightly. Giving her a lopsided grin and a laugh, he dropped his board against the wall out of the way and put his hands on his hips. "Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on it. I noticed people kept fuckin' with it. Damn shame, really," he said, meaning every word of it. He ruffled a hand through his hair again before plopping his hat back on backwards. "If you're set on gettin' it done today, maybe I could give you a hand? I mean, you know, if you want. I dunno if I'm as good as you, but I follow orders."

Clicking his heels together and raising a hand to his forehead in an exaggerated salute, he grinned and gave her a wink.

Licking a lip as she thought, looking back to the mural with squinted eyes of determination, she let out a hum as she pondered. Having help would get it done sooner, but she was curious to see what skills he had. Handing over a spray can, the cap being as neon as her eyes, she rested her other hand on a jutted hip.

"Alright, sure a hand would be good, but...show me what you got first?" Pointing to the scruffy looking patch of wall next to her own mural, she couldn't help but smirk a little with slightly flushed cheeks. She wasn't about to let his charm and gorgeous smile throw her, otherwise she'd be poor at her job. However it was difficult, that smile of his made her stomach fill with butterflies and she couldn't bring herself to stare him out that long.

She had no idea at that moment she was speaking to one of the original tag artists of the city, in fact, the very one she was doing it for. The possibility it could be him hadn't even crossed her mind, in all honesty. Part of her though was expecting him to be some arrogant tool who prided himself on showing off. She was used to it. Men throwing around their "talent" trying to get it for free. Caught in her own thoughts and memories, she absentmindedly rolled her eyes a little, hopefully he didn't notice....

As he took the can and shook it, she stepped over to the wall with him then rested against back against one of the large overpass pillars, folded arms across her arms as she waited to see what he had to offer. "Show me what you got, cutie."

Mikey wasn't stupid, he knew what guys could be like a lot of the time, especially in that kind of environment. Lots of testosterone, lots of showing off, plenty of challenging. To have an obviously talented girl come into the field would only push the insecure douchewads of the group into being an obvious, showy dick. He didn't take it personally when he noted her brief eye roll, it just set it in him to prove to her that they weren't all like that.

Crouching in front of the wall, he brushed the outside of his forearm across it, knocking off the obvious bits of dirt and debris. Contemplating the space, and brushing at it absently with his calloused hand, he wondered at what he should do. Part of him wanted to do something specifically for her, as she had been doing unknowingly for him. But the other part of him wanted to add that tag. Maybe he could do both...

"You mind?" he asked, keeping his kneeling position but stretching back across to her to snag her bag, lifting an eyebrow with a small grin as she looked down at him and shrugged. Pulling out pink, orange and black to go with the green she had tossed him, he set to work quickly. Green tendrils curving up from the ground, he set the layered base before moving onto mixing the pink and orange like he was blending oil paint on a canvas.

Quite appropriately, the design grew quickly, and before too long, he had successfully painted out a stylized lotus, green surrounding pink and orange petals, with the main petal of the center designed into his tag, family . He was wholly into it and couldn't peel his eyes off as he chewed his lip, moving onto the black for contrasting outlines, expertly placed. Everything about it just felt right, the flower growing out of the dirty wall, just like the actual one grew out of the muck. Just like she shined in the dim, concrete background that surrounded her. As well as the peace his family tried to bring to the darkest parts of the city. Sitting back on his haunches, he pulled his cap back off and buried his hand in his hair, looking over it with pride.

Remembering that she was watching, he looked up with hopeful eyes, tossing the black can back up at her.

With each stroke of colour, she followed his hand, every curl leading to another beautiful wave. She couldn't peel her eyes away the whole time he was working and it was enchanting almost to see someone so full of wonderful talent and creativity. The way he just began working and pulled the design out of thin air made her heart flutter a little. It was such an amazing change from the same repetitive shit she saw at work.

As the fiery orange blended against the pink, carefully controlled by the black lines, her eyes lit up as she stood back to get the full image in one hit. It was so vibrant and flowed perfectly along the wall as if it was almost plastered just for that to be painted there. If it wasn't for the double take she would have missed the can, but luckily she grabbed it after nearly failing miserably.

With a wide grin on her face, she nodded and let out a small giggle, not at him, but more with him in excited surprise. "Wow...that's so gorgeous...I'd kill to have that kinda thing in my apartment...." Gazing at him happily, she held out her hand to pull him to his feet then handed the bag full of other paint colours and sprays to him. "Care to lend some of that talent over to me?" Keeping her hands on the bag as well as his own, she raised a brow curiously and bit her lip, her smile still very much present.

Grin stretching from ear to ear as he saw her smile, he held onto her hand as he rose to his feet but didn't put any leverage on her. As she pressed the bag to him, he rested his other on top of hers and gave it a friendly squeeze. There wasn't a chance in the world that he would've turned down her offer, but as she quirked an eyebrow and bit her lip, something inside of him positively melted.

Unlike most, that was Mikey in his element. Where most would get nervous and clam up, his charm and gregarious nature surged forth, and he had never even attempted to stop it. It was just who he was, and he rolled with it. "I would be totally stoked to lend you any of my talents," he offered with a mischievous smile. Before her expression could drop and think he was simply being lewd instead of playful, he continued. "I mean, I play a mean game of checkers, or you got an eating contest to win, I'm your guy. Or you know, defacing of apartment walls."

Hearing him accept so enthusiastically, her smile turned into a cheesy grin, her dimples making it seem just that little wider with her eyes creasing with it a little too. As he began to ramble however, she giggled and shook her head, stepping back to pull him back toward her own mural. "I'm sure I could hire you out for something..." she winked playfully, letting her hand slip from his hand as she turned back to the wall.

Resting her hands on her hips as she looked up, she gestured with her hands what she had thought up while watching him create his own piece of art. Talking with her hands, waving and swaying with the notions of the colours she mentioned, she looked back to him hoping he fully understood what her wild gestures were implying. He seemed to know though. Those bright blue eyes followed her every point, his body almost going with the flow of her movement. It was charming.

"So you got it right? Or...do you have better ideas?" she chirped, raising her pierced brow again, running her hands through her mane of pink waves and curls.

"Better ideas," he scoffed, shouldering the bag and tossing a can at her playfully. "Angelcakes, I don't think it's possible to come up with any better ideas than the ones that come out from under that gorgeous pink hair. You bet I got this."

Giving her a wink, he flipped some hair back over her shoulder, finding himself unable not to touch it. If he was being honest, he was dying to know if it smelled like cotton candy, but he figured dipping his nose in there would be pushing it. She was being playful and he liked that. He really liked that. Rattling his can, he stepped forward and started spraying as she had directed.

It wasn't long before his curiosity got the best of him. He never was the patient sort, no matter what Sensei tried drilling into him. He'd mostly given up the battle, saying that he was pleased that at least if he was going to blurt things, they were honest and rarely harmful. Clearing his throat and glancing at her over his outstretched arm, he just went for it. "So uh, what makes you pick this design, uh... oh gosh, I didn't even introduce myself. This'd be the part where my bro cuffed me across the head," he chuckled, blushing a little at the realization. "I'm Mikey. What kinda gorgeous moniker are you carrying to match yourself?"

Catching the can he had tossed over to her, she admired for a moment how confident and eager he seemed with helping. Genuinely helping. Not trying to worm his way in, in any way that seemed remotely creepy or a quick 'you owe'. Maybe it was because he didn't know her, or what her work was. Too often guys would try and get a freebie.

The slight break of his confidence as he asked for her name made her pierced lips curve into a bright and bashful smile. "Zandii, jus' call me Zan though...or Pinkie is what they call me at work...." It was too adorable, that cheeky grin he adorned was complete with dimples and it made her giddy, and so she but her lip to try and control her smile before she looked a little too smiley for it to be flattering. No use looking like a blushing school girl.

Before she sprayed her first line after the small break, she looked up at the symbol on the wall as she replied, "...and well, I thought I'd try and show my appreciation to the vigilante… or vigilantes, whatever you wanna believe." Shrugging playfully with a small smile, she ran a hand along the orange and red fiery strikes close to the kanji. "Thanks to them I've felt safer when I walk home from work in the morning, and after hearing so much about them from the news and stuff… just felt like it, just hope they see it. It's my thank you, I suppose?"

Being so happily distracted by the bubbly blonde she had just met, she hadn't realised her time was beginning to run short, not only with her break but with how long she could go without being caught. With her lookout at the skatepark gone as well, it was only a matter of minutes. Turning to Mikey after working a little more, she reluctantly asked after flicking her tongue against her lip, "So, have you heard about the vigilantes?"

Allowing himself to bask in her smile, he rolled her name around in his head. Zan. Zandii. It was different. The good kind. Though he wasn't sure about the Pinkie... it just seemed too simple and didn't do her any service. Sure, it described her hair. But she was obviously so much more than that. So much deeper that Pinkie was literally just scratching the surface. He dismissed it and decided he'd use any nickname he could just to make her smile like that again.

Listening as she described the vigilantes... really, what he and his brothers did, and hearing that it made her feel safe and that she appreciated it... he had to focus on spraying for a minute to gather himself. It was generally a thankless job, and contentious at best. They were either touted or ripped apart by the news. Either way, they rarely got to stick around to see the appreciation, if it existed in the first place. It was a lift he didn't even know he needed, and he pinched his lip ring against his teeth to keep himself from just spilling the truth to her right away.

"Who hasn't?" he chuckled, clearing his throat to take the nervous edge out of his tone. He racked his brain to try and think of a response that didn't sound self serving. "That's awesome that they've made you feel safer, near as I can tell they don't get a lot of thanks on the news. Except channel 6 with that O'Neil chick. She's got her head on straight. I bet that if they saw, it they'd really appreciate.... oh shit."

He had finally looked up and caught movement out of the corner of his eye and his reflexes kicked in. Light glinted off the person's chest and it took him mere seconds to determine it was the police and he had little time to react. He knew they were spotted, but at the angle the officer was coming from, only he was visible. It wasn't dark enough for him to make any kind of covert escape, but he had just enough time to get her out of there, and the last thing he wanted was for her to get caught for thanking him. That would be stupid.

Locking the bag of paint onto his shoulder, he reached over, took her can and moved her more out of his angle of view. "Go. You need to go. Now. Cops. They haven't seen you. I got this. Go!"

Startled at first as she hadn't seen the lights and him grabbing and moving her aside, she just stared at him before it clicked together. A heavy groan left her lips and a grimace took hold of her smile. Cursing under her breath, knowing she really didn't need to be caught, especially on her break, even if it was a job she despised. She needed the money and it came it quick.

Keeping as out of view as she could, she grabbed her skateboard and darted around the corner into a small path that lead away from the underpass. Before she leapt into a full sprint she paused, a little torn and her feet weighted with guilt. How could she let this guy take the rap for her? It wasn't fair. Plus, he had her bag...it wasn't important, but still. Biting her lip hard, the sound of the cop car door slamming shut and the officers barking their orders to the blonde pushed her on. She had to get back to work, anyway.

From the skatepark, Kenny and a few of the other skaters had taken cover and watched from out of sight. A few jeered at Mikey and others threw insults toward the so-called 'pigs'. Kenny however, had seen Zandii escape back to street, and after the earlier stand off he couldn't have cared less. However, he knew how much she took pride in her mural, and now that her paint had been taken she'd have less time to work before it was covered over again. Especially now the cops had seen it.

"Hope you've got some good friends..." Tightening the handcuffs roughly on to Mikey's wrists with a scowl, one of the police officers shook their head as they looked down at him, albeit a little surprised at how calm and accepting he was. They were used to chasing down his type through alleys or along the waterfront. Pushing him into the back of the car, both cops glanced at each other, still a little lost, especially when he seemed to shrug it off with a smirk.

#tagged #chapter one #tmnt #tmnt fanfiction #human!au #human!tmnt #human!mikey #michelangelo #zandii #zikey #mikey #fanfiction #oc #wumpusandzandii #wumpusinthetardis #zandiiangelspit

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kimkimberhelen · 6 years ago

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Annell Ponder is one of those fearless black women whose names may not be widely known but whose courage in fighting against voter suppression in Georgia and across the South in the 1960s was nothing short of extraordinary.

After graduating from Atlanta’s Clark College in 1955, Ponder, who was born in McDonough, Ga., worked as a teacher, librarian and part of an on-the-ground force of black women working against voter suppression.

That fight is being waged again in a close race for Georgia governor between Democrat Stacey Abrams, the first African American woman nominated for governor by a major political party, and Republican Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state who oversees Georgia’s election system.

Abrams has accused Kemp of voter suppression by putting more than 53,000 voter-registration applications on hold because they failed the state’s “exact match” rule, which sets aside registrations if there are minor discrepancies, even typos or missing letters, between the form and a voter’s identification. Most of those flagged voter registrations belong to African Americans, which has triggered a legal battle in the days before the election.

Black women in Georgia played significant roles in fighting voter suppression before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, recalled Clarissa Myrick-Harris, president and CEO of OWA Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Georgia that is dedicated to education and socioeconomic empowerment.

"She did a great deal in the field, and for sure she is someone who should be talked about,” Myrick-Harris said of Ponder. “Ponder was beaten and suffered. She is someone who needs to be focused on more.”

“It was black women in the forefront of getting the vote out, generally," said Myrick-Harris, who wrote a chapter in the book, “Southern Black Women in the Modern Civil Rights Movement." Because of a 1946 voter registration campaign led, in large measure by black women, the number of registered black voters in Georgia rose from 30,000 to 125,000, Myrick-Harris said. In Atlanta, registered black voters climbed from 3,000 to 21,000

“Black women were a force to be reckoned with in the mid 20th century and collectively helped to galvanize the limited black voting strength of African-American women and men throughout the state," Myrick-Harris said.

It was dangerous work.

Before and during the civil rights movement, hundreds of black people were fired if they tried to register to vote, and some were shot and killed driving people to register to vote.

The cadre of black women working against voter suppression included hair dressers, members of women’s clubs, auxiliary groups and teachers.

“Teachers were pillars of the community,” Myrick-Harris said. “You listened to the teacher. If the teacher said something, that was gospel.” A famed Atlanta educator named Pearlie Dove often said: “If you can reach the child, you can reach the parent. It was part of the fabric of the community.”

Ponder was one of those teachers. In 1962, after obtaining a master’s degree in social work from Atlanta University, Ponder became a field supervisor for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, joining hundreds of activists traveling the South to register black voters.

In 1963, Ponder was returning from a voter registration training workshop when she and other civil rights workers — including the activist Fannie Lou Hamer — were ordered off a bus in Mississippi.

Ponder, Hamer, June Johnson, Euvester Simpson, James West and Rosemary Freeman were taken to a Montgomery County, Miss., jail, where police began interrogating them about efforts to register black voters in the Deep South.

“When we got there, they started questioning us and one of them said something and I said, ‘Yes,’ or ‘No.’ Then he wanted to know if I had enough respect for him to say, ‘sir,’ when I answered his questions. So, I asked him what he said, and he repeated his question, using the term, ‘n-----’ to refer to me,” Ponder later wrote in an affidavit. “I told him I didn’t know him that well. He looked very angry and confused.”

The officers continued to question Ponder about the voter registration project. Then an officer hit Ponder in the head with his fist.

“They started again insisting I say, ‘sir,’ ” Ponder recalled. “Through all this conversation, they kept hitting me. The police man in a blue uniform at one point took a sort of a blackjack. . . . And from then on he used that in beating me. This went on for about ten minutes, with questioning and my being beaten to the floor and getting up and beaten down again.”

At one point a highway patrolman, Ponder wrote, “hit me in the stomach.”

Ponder, Hamer and the other activists were jailed for three days. Hamer, who suffered severe and permanent physical injuries from the beating, would later testify about the police assault before a Democratic National Committee panel.

“After I was placed in the cell,” Hamer told the DNC credentials committee in 1964. “I began to hear sounds of licks and screams, I could hear the sounds of licks and horrible screams. And I could hear somebody say, ‘Can you say, “Yes, sir,” n-----? Can you say, ‘Yes, sir’?”

Hamer recalled that police called Ponder “horrible names,” Hamer recalled. “She would say, ‘Yes, I can say, “Yes, sir.” ’ ”

“So, well, say it,” the officers ordered.

Ponder refused. “They beat her, I don’t know how long. And after a while she began to pray, and asked God to have mercy on those people.”

When friends went to visit Ponder in the jail, her face was so badly beaten and swollen that she could barely talk.

But Ponder was able to utter one word: “Freedom.”

#annell ponder #georgia #voter suppression #black voters #woc #poc #the democratic party #stacey abrams #voting rights act #voting rights #brian kemp

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thebandcampdiaries · 3 years ago

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Cerissa McQueen presents: Could We Ever Be The Same.

May 2022 - Cerissa McQueen is a singer who makes music that merges a very wide range of influences.

Her nuanced sound is very inspiring and easy to relate to for people from all walks of life. So, what is it that makes her vocals stand out? She combines the sophistication of jazz with the emotion of Soul and R&B! The artist has released a new studio single named "Could We Ever Be The Same." This song captures her talent and ability to sing with a heartfelt vibe. Yet, she is also able to display vocal talent as well as her mesmerizing sound and technique. Earl Thomas Bridgeman actually wrote this particular song. He is a Grammy-nominated songwriter who also happens to be Cerissa's mentor. This is not the first time the two have collaborated. Bridgeman actually had Cerissa join him on tour back in 2016. Then, they performed for audiences across Italy.

To add to the quality of this amazing release, Cerissa also teamed up with an extraordinary producer, Myron McKinley. The latter is especially well known for his work with Earth, Wind & Fire. It also happens to be the second time he collaborated with Cerissa on a project. In addition to producing, McKinley also played the keyboard and organ on this beautiful track. "Could We Ever Be The Same" also features guitarist Morris James O'Connor and bassist Ian Martin. The song also benefits from incredible drums and percussion by Stacey Lamont Sydnor and additional backing vocals by Ronald Holliday. The sheer experience and professionalism of these talented musicians are really felt in this particular recording. The song is tastefully arranged and played in a very dynamic way. This is very important because it enables the music to benefit from the natural ebb and flow of the musicians involved in the song.

As opposed to relying too heavily on studio production trickery, this track leans on the natural chemistry between the musicians, highlighting the human component of this performance. The background music is perfect for Cerissa to unfold her beautiful vocal style. She can belt out like a champ. However, she also knows when to take it down a few notches to enhance the range of the song! This gives the audience a more intimate performance. The song has a charming retro flavor, akin to some of the greatest performers on the scene. The first sound that you hear in the arrangement is a beautiful electric piano. The instrument is a little bit saturated, adding some tasteful grit to the mix. The guitar follows soon after. The sound is extremely tasteful and super diverse, going for a very organic feel. The drumbeat and the vocals kick in pretty much at the same time, immediately allowing the song to take off. The rhythm of the drums is very mellow, gently driving this song.

It brings some electricity to the mix without overpowering the other elements. Cerissa soars above the mix beautifully with her stunning voice. The lyrics represent the romantic feel of this particular song. Her words are easy to connect with because most of us have been through something like this. Cerissa's singing is very expressive, and emotionally powerful. As they say, some of the best music out there allows the listener to form an immediate bond. It is like a connection that runs deep, related to what this song is about. This is definitely what is happening here. Cerissa is very genuine about the way she pours her heart out into her music.

The beautiful background music reflects that. It is almost like an intangible part of the storytelling process. Ultimately, the production of the song is really masterful as well. On the one hand, the natural vibe of the music and the spontaneity of the vocals remind the audience of some of those classic R&B records from the 60s and 70s. On the other, the crisp clarity and the modern balance of the music make for a more contemporary vibe. This song's sound is refreshing and a good change of pace. It seems that these talented musicians and the production crew mastered the art of "less is more.”

"Could We Ever Be The Same" proves that great songs can be simple at their core. It is not about adding 1000 different ornamental parts. It is all about placing the right elements in the right places within the arrangement. Doing so allows the music to flow spontaneously, almost like water going downstream.

The art of keeping it simple is underrated, and it is one of the hardest things that musicians can do. Alas, an understated approach is often more elegant and refined, especially when it comes to soul and R&B music. In this case, the influences creeping in from jazz musicianship are also a vital component in how the track falls so gently yet decisively.

Fans who enjoy the work of classic artists such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, or Stevie Wonders should check this out. They'll surely connect with Cerissa and her beautiful music! However, this song is very smooth and easy to listen to, even for people who may not strictly be familiar with Jazz and R&B. Find out more about Cerissa McQueen, and do not miss out on "Could We Ever Be The Same." This release is currently available on some of the best digital music streaming services on the web today.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cerissa

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_Cerissa1

www.cerissasang.com

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