#and it takes him a long time to find abram again where he’s like. absently throwing knives into a tree somewhere

[emry-stars-art]

Okay so the hurt/comfort is like exactly my favourite things all in one post but the image got me thinking, because of the scars on Abram's back looking like lashing scars and I imagine that nevermore used that technique again when Abram is forced back there, so I wonder if Abram has issues around riding horses due to the sound of riding crops and if a lot of the language of riding sits in that tool/animal dynamic that it makes travel difficult.

Just some thoughts the post made me think, feel free to ignore :)

Oh my goddddd that works so perfectly 😭

Yes they are lashing scars!! I think it was an “urge him to continue” thing on top of the punishments so Abram is just. Covered in them and yes I’m technically the one responsible here and yes it still hurts both things can be true lmao. YEAH hearing a whip or crop would Not be good for his health I think you’re so right… I don’t have a read in my head on how the language would work or play into it but that is absolutely a possibility, there’s got to be like at least one thing that really gets to him and it’s terrible for travel. But it’s another one of those necessary evils so when they really have to, Day and/or Andrew would just have to let Abram dissociate for a while and no one feels good about it but how else are they gonna get around

Thank you so much for your thoughts, together we can make this the angstiest it can possibly be 💪🥲 glad you’re enjoying it!

[donttxtathebeach]

Forever & a Day| chapter 13 : packing it up

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It was one of those rare nights where everything felt still. The kind of quiet that only comes when the world is moving around you, but you’re tucked away in a world of your own, in the safe, familiar embrace of someone you love.

Y/N had just finished a whirlwind fashion shoot. The cameras had captured her from every angle, but tonight, there were no lenses on her—only Drew.

She stood in front of the full-length mirror in her apartment, fixing her hair, her thoughts drifting between the busy day and her quiet night ahead. The room was softly lit by the golden hue of the sunset peeking through the glass, and her makeup had a natural glow to it, the remnants of her day just enough to make her feel alive, but never too much. She wasn’t trying to impress anyone tonight.

Just him.

Her fingers brushed over the delicate fabric of the silk robe she had thrown on, letting the weight of the day melt away as she let out a breath. Drew had been away filming, and she hadn't seen him for a few weeks. Tonight, he was home. And although the world around them had seen their relationship, there was always something sacred about the moments they had just for themselves—when it was just about the two of them, no pretenses, no masks, no performances.

The doorbell rings; the quiet chime at the door pulls her from her thoughts. She glances at the clock—almost 9:30 p.m. Drew was home.

She opens the door with a soft smile on her lips, but her heart does a little flip when she sees him standing there. He’s in a worn-out tee and jeans, his usual look. His hair is tousled, and there’s a glimmer of exhaustion in his eyes—something she’d seen in him countless times, but it made her ache every time.

"Hey," Drew says softly, his voice a little hoarse from the long day.

"Hey," she responds, unable to hide the smile tugging at her lips. Her eyes meet his, and there’s an unspoken connection in that simple glance. He looks like he’s been through a battle, but in her presence, he’s finally home.

"Did you miss me?" he teases lightly, stepping inside, letting the door fall shut behind him.

Y/N chuckles softly, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Of course I did." But the truth is, her heart skipped a beat the second she saw him.

"Good," Drew says, pulling her into a gentle embrace. His hand finds the small of her back, pulling her closer, his body fitting into hers like it always did. "You looked beautiful today, you know that?"

Y/N laughs again, but it’s the soft, bashful kind. Drew had always been the one to make her feel special in ways that words could never express. He wasn’t the grand gestures kind of guy, but the little things he did—like noticing how she’d curled her hair a little differently or how she would lose herself in a song in the car—those were the moments that meant the most.

After a long, tender kiss, they separate, and Drew takes a step back, scanning her with a playful smirk. "I brought dinner," he says, pulling a bag of takeout from behind his back.

Y/N raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest. "Take-out? You’re the one who always insists on cooking."

Drew shrugs, his smirk widening. "I thought I’d give you the night off. Besides, I wanted to bring you something that felt like… home. Like we’re doing normal things for once. It’s been a while since we’ve just... had a quiet night, huh?"

"Yeah," Y/N agrees, her voice softening as she takes the bag from him. "I’ve missed this. Just you and me."

Later, they’re curled up on the couch together. Drew is leaning back against the armrest, his feet on the coffee table, while Y/N rests her head on his chest, absently scrolling through her phone. She’s simply there with him, savoring the peace of the moment.

Drew runs a hand through her hair, his fingers gentle. "I’m glad we can have nights like this. It’s… easy with you."

"Yeah," she murmurs, smiling up at him. "It’s like when I was younger—when everything felt simple. Before everything got complicated."

His eyes meet hers, and for a moment, there’s a flicker of something deeper in his gaze. It’s the same look he had that day they first met, years ago. That quiet understanding that ran deeper than words.

"You’ve always been good at making everything simple," he says, his voice lower now, almost tender. "You know that, right?"

Y/N chuckles, but there’s a softness in her eyes. "You’re not so bad at it either."

They both laugh, but the silence that follows isn’t awkward. It’s comfortable. Easy. The kind of silence that comes when you’re with someone you know so well that you don’t need to fill every moment with words. There’s a deep sense of love in those moments, the ones where no one has to say anything, but the connection is undeniable.

As the night winds down, the conversation turns quieter, the energy slower. Drew pulls her closer, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. The warmth of his embrace surrounds her as she exhales a content sigh, letting herself relax into him.

"Y/N," he says softly, pulling back just enough to look at her. "Do you ever think about... what happens next for us?"

Y/N nods slowly, her fingers tracing small patterns on his chest. "Yeah. I do. But honestly? Right now, I’m just taking it one day at a time. I’m happy with you. Just like this."

Drew smiles down at her, his hand resting on her cheek. "Yeah, me too. Just us. That’s enough."

And for that moment, it really is. With him by her side, the world feels simpler. And though the world outside might be full of noise, in this small corner of their lives, there’s only the quiet hum of love and the soft promise of everything that comes after.

[tisfan]

Lost Boys and Girls

Square: T5 - lost their powers Warning: fairies, magic, alternate history, dad!Tony Pairing: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange Summary: The queen of the fairies wants to meet Iron Man. Why does this sound like a really bad idea? Word Count: 1690 Link: A03 For the @tonystarkbingo

A/n I’m totally blaming @monobuu for this...

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Uh, no?” Stephen rubbed absently at his wrist, like his fingers were aching.

“You want me, me, Iron Man, me,” Tony said, thumping his chest a few times to make his point better known, “to, and I quote, strip down all tech, and walk unarmed into what, exactly, did you say?”

“A court of faeries,” Stephen repeated. “It’s the summer court, if that helps any.”

“It does not help any, how does it help any, you do know that the arc reactor is the thing keeping a buttload of shrapnel from reaching my heart, right?”

“The Summer Queen has promised you safe passage,” Stephen said.

“Does she understand that I will die if--”

“The land of the Fey will keep you alive, until you return,” Stephen said. “I have it on good authority.”

“Whose, exactly?”

“Titania’s,” Stephen said. “She’s the queen of the summerlands, and more powerful than you can comprehend. Offending her, under these circumstances…”

“I want to know exactly how these circumstances ended up with my having to walk naked through fairyland. That sounds like a bad porno, Stephen. I don’t like that it sounds like a bad porno, I want good quality porn, with active consent and --”

“I don’t know the circumstances,” Stephen said. “That’s why we have to go to Titania’s court in the first place. To find out.”

“I love how you’re the one who has a magical fairy dust curse put on you, and I’m the one who has to go bargain on your behalf, with a magical fairy dust princess--”

“--queen--”

“Princess,” Tony said again, loftily, “to get it removed. How did that happen, Stephen, tell me that part, if you can’t explain the rest of it.”

(more below the cut)

“Part of the etiquette of the fairy court is stating your important connections,” Stephen said. “Name-dropping, if you will, to impress on the fairy you’re dealing with that you are, in fact, a person worth speaking with. If I didn’t have enough connections to impress, then I wouldn’t get a hearing at all.”

“I have a reputation, even in the fairy lands?” Tony wondered, scratching absently at his beard.

“Tony,” Stephen said, gently, “you wielded the infinity gauntlet and brought half the universe back from oblivion. Including Titania’s husband, Oberon. You’re quite literally the best known person alive in the universe. In any multitude of universes.”

“That’s… unhealthy for my ego,” Tony said. “I prefer just being the guy who did what needed to be done. And I don’t have the gauntlet anymore, I destroyed it.” He had wanted to destroy the stones, too, but they were too powerful for that. The best he could have done in those circumstances, he did. Returning them to vastly well-protected hiding places.

Even now, years later, he could feel the one in Stephen’s necklace, the time stone, and the way it called to him.

He couldn’t be trusted with that power. Not for long, and he knew it.

“She wants to thank you, and in exchange for your notice, she’s agreed to aid me with my… issue.”

“Your issue where your skin changes colors with the season and I might add, you’re growing leaves out of your hair.”

“More than likely, I accidentally annoyed a dryad, but as I cannot cure myself, I need to know to whom I owe amends. Will you please assist?”

“If the alternative is that my boyfriend turns into a tree, yes, I’ll help. I just don’t like these conditions.”

“I know,” Stephen said. “But I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“I’m comforted,” Tony said, as dryly as he could manage. Even if it was true, he didn’t need to scrape his face raw and present his sincerity to the world.

Tony pressed his hand over the arc reactor, feeling the dull ache where his sternum used to be. “All right, open up,” Tony told the suit. He slid his shirt up, twisted the reactor and removed it from its casing.

The pain was… well, he’d had worse. But not lots worse. His heart stuttered and slammed around in his ribcage like it was trying to escape. He gave the reactor core over to the suit and let it close up, sealing itself around the precious device.

“Come on--” Stephen held out his hand. Tony took it, and they stepped over the circle of mushrooms, from reality, to somewhere else.

It was cold, for somewhere called the Summer Lands. Like the day after an ice storm. Everything was bright and sunny, even if he couldn’t see the sun, but also frozen.

Flowers in bloom were encased in ice. Fruits were perfect glass globes. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground, and the crust of ice didn’t break beneath their feet.

Tony took a deep breath, and then another, before he realized that he wasn’t in pain. That nothing hurt, at all. He stared.

“We’re frozen in time,” Stephen said. “Like everything else here. The shrapnel won’t reach your heart, because no time at all will actually pass.”

“Magic sucks,” Tony said.

“That’s not what you said last night,” Stephen joked.

“Great one,” a voice said, and Tony had to turn all the way around before he saw the speck of light that addressed them.

If a lense flare could come to life, that was what Tony was looking at. A tiny little… person that existed inside a ball of light. That flew. And talked, apparently.

“If you’ll come this way, the Queen awaits.”

“After you,” Tony said, waving dramatically.

“At the same time as me,” the JJ Abrams special effects critter said. “Or you’ll be left behind.”

“Right,” Tony said. He wiggled his eyebrows, trying to express exasperation without actually expressing it.

He expected to be lead to a castle. An ice palace might have been nifty, and in keeping with the setting.

Instead, the little creature -- Tony couldn’t tell if it was a boy, or a girl, or even if it mattered at all -- lead them to what appeared to be a grove in the woods. Inside, the air was warm, the grass was green, and the trees were moving in the slight breeze. A girl sat there, in the grass, with red hair and a smart, watchful expression. She was playing with a puzzle, a dozen moving parts, and she changed it from a ball to a cage to a jacob’s ladder with seeming ease.

A woman, barely older than the girl, stood at their arrival.

She was beautiful. And deadly.

“Iron Man,” she said, and her voice was like singing crystal. “Welcome to the Summer lands.”

“A bit cold for that, but thanks,” Tony said.

“Ixnay on the arcasm-say,” Stephen muttered.

“And the good doctor, welcome.”

“I’m honored, your Majesty.”

“Quite the lover’s bond between you,” she said, and she reached out one long fingered hand -- Tony thought she had an extra joint in each finger, but she still looked graceful, perfect. Like his hand was the one deficient -- to touch something. Tony couldn’t see what she touched, but it played havoc with his feelings. He remembered everything, from that first moment when Stephen appeared, to the moment where Stephen promised the Time Stone in exchange for Tony. To the moment when Stephen returned and fell, weeping, into Tony’s embrace. And all the moments after, and the ones in between.

He looked at his lover with fresh eyes, seeing everything, everything between them, as the Queen must be seeing it, in that exact instant.

“You truly love him,” she murmured. “And he truly loves you.”

“It’s a chance not one in a thousand couples get, no matter what the storybooks say,” Tony said, unable to stop his mouth before it smarted off again.

“I like you, Tony Stark,” the Queen said.

“That’s good, I think,” Tony said.

“For the moment,” she said. “But I’ll warn you, I collect the things I like.. Falter in your devotion, and I may take it upon myself to claim you.”

“Not a chance, lady. You’re beautiful, and all that, but, Stephen is all I’m ever going to need,” Tony responded.

“Here, perhaps,” she said. “And now. In this world. But there are infinite worlds, as you well know. So, I will give you a gift.”

“I was told it was unwise to accept gifts, without something of equal value to exchange,” Tony said.

“Perhaps,” the Queen said. “But this is not mine to give you. She was entrusted to me in a universe that died. A last minute plea, from another Tony Stark, in another where, another when, who loved someone else. Morgan, darling?”

The woman held out her hand and the girl got up and came to her. “Yes, your Majesty?” She had a soft, reedy voice, and her eyes were deep brown and full of intelligence.

“This is Tony Stark,” the Queen said. “Tony Stark, this is the child of your counterpart, in a universe that no longer exists. She has no family, no friends, even the very molecules that formed her solar system are gone. She is truly, one of the orphans. And in that universe, the person that Tony Stark loved the most… was Pepper Potts. Morgan is their child.”

Tony looked down into a pair of eyes that were almost identical to his own.

“I cannot repay the Tony Stark of that universe for the favor he did me,” the Queen said, “but I can protect his child, and I can let her go into the hands of those that will love her, and cherish her. If you will accept this burden, I will consult with the good Doctor on the nature of the curse he is under.”

Morgan let go of the fairy queen’s hand and held out those tiny fingers to him. “Are you my daddy?”

Tony dropped to one knee, studying the child. In his world, Pepper had married Happy Hogan, had suffered through several miscarriages, and finally ended up adopting. She’d dated Tony briefly, but it hadn’t worked out.

Tony had never considered being a father.

But he saw that child, that little soul…

“I am now.”

[adotblog]

Brave Part 13

Part 13?? What is even wrong with me at this point?

Pairing: LMM x Reader

Warnings: cursing, smut (be over 18, please!), alcohol, rpf.

Words: 2413

——————————————————

“I may never move again.”

Lin laughs softly. He squeezes your hand under the water. “This is pretty idyllic.”, he says. “And that lady was right about there being no-one here-I mean thank goodness, cos I’m hella naked right now.”. You laugh. “You know, if you ever wanted proof how happy I am…”, you begin. Lin turns to look at you, intrigued as to what you’ll say next. “I forgot we hadn’t eaten dinner. I missed a meal for you. ME.” you shake your head incredulously as Lin chuckles. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before.” you say as you fight giggles. “Well, we did have the marshmallows.” Lin offers. “Please, that’s barely an appetiser.”, you joke. “I can make you food” he returns. “Nah, I’m just kidding, I’m fine. I’m too chilled out to think about activity of any kind”, you say as you close your eyes and lean your head back against the tub edge.

“We should probably get out soon-I’m starting to get that prune look.” Lin says, then laughs as you groan your disagreement. “What if I get out first and get the fire going in the living room?”, he suggests. You raise your head. “I’m gonna take it from your human-heart-eyes-emoji face that that’s a ‘yes’”, he laughs. Lin springs up, and dashes for a towel. You sigh at the sight of him naked. He trots out of the room and you relax back into the water. You stare out at the sea, your thoughts, for once, calm. When Lin comes back, he’s wearing a Kings College tshirt and pyjama bottoms, holding out a huge fluffy towel between his outstretched arms.

With a last look at the ocean, you climb out and rush into his towelly embrace. You stay there for a minute or so, with him rubbing your back and kissing your temple. Eventually he steps away from you. “The house is lovely and warm now”, Lin says as he fetches your robe and holds it open for you. You slip gratefully into it, and laugh as Lin jokingly tries to prevent you from tying it by slipping his hands under it and moving them over your wet skin, stroking your sides and kissing you.

He leads you back to the living room, where the only light is from the open fire. You sit in front of it, legs straight in front of you, fanning your toes out to warm them in front of the flames. Lin is pottering around in the kitchen, phone in hand. Suddenly there’s music, instrumental, soft, unobtrusive-just a gentle hum around the room. Lin places his phone in the speaker dock on the kitchen counter and adjusts the volume. He sways back and forth absent-mindedly as he pours a drink.

When Lin comes back to your side he’s carrying two short glasses. “Honey whiskey?”, he offers as he sits beside you, both of you leaning back against an ottoman. You accept and clink your glass with his before taking a sip. It is smooth and sweet, deliciously comforting as it warms your throat. “Oh boy, that is so good”, you marvel as you swirl the amber liquid around your glass. “Goes down too easy, I’ll be tipsy before you know it.”, Lin says with a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t take advantage of you”, you promise as you nudge his shoulder. Lin smirks and kisses your cheek.

The music skips to the next track.“Lin, are you playing me your own music right now?”, you ask, cocking your head to the side to listen and confirm that yes, this was an instrumental of “Breathe”. “Huh! I guess so, is that weird?”, he half-cringes. “No, no-I do listen to your music you know”, you tease “I’m kind of a big fan”. You close your eyes, leaning your head back on the ottoman and singing along to the counter-melody. When you open your eyes to take a sip of your drink, Lin is staring it you fondly and it unexpectedly makes you blush. “I like hearing you sing in Spanish.”, he says before taking another sip of his whiskey. “Ha, well don’t get too used to it-I’m much better at reading it than understanding it when it’s spoken and responding well”, you laugh. He looks excited “then you just need more exposure to songs sung in Spanish-I have a LOT of those. OOH! I’ll make you a mix”, he says. “Nice.”, you reply.

You both stare at the fire for a long while, shoulder to shoulder, occasionally sipping your drinks. It is so peaceful. “I can’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed”, you sigh. Lin puts his arm around your shoulders and kisses the top of your head. “No work, no city, no commitments. Nothing exists for the next two days.”, he says. You sigh.

After he pours the second whiskey, Lin suggests a game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It all starts out pretty well but after the third whiskey you keep forgetting who you’re supposed to be connecting to. You’re cross-legged on the floor, facing each other and keep doubling over to laugh. Then you get the giggles when Lin threatens to call JJ Abrams to back up one of his connection claims.

Eventually, when you have lost the plot entirely, Lin declares himself the winner and steals a kiss when you vehemently disagree. The game is immediately forgotten once his lips are on yours. There’s honestly no place you’d rather be. You throw your arms around his neck, kissing him long and hard, pushing your tongue into his mouth, tasting honey. He leans into you, gently pushing you down to a lying position. The whiskey has you a little giggly and feeling slightly fuzzy.

He hovers over you, placing a kiss at your throat. Then another where your neck meets your shoulder, and another just below your ear. He knows this drives you crazy and smiles when you give a quiet whine. Kneeling above you, Lin’s hands go to the half knot in your robe. He spreads the robe back onto the floor, exposing your naked body. “Mmm, you are so beautiful”, he says as he lies beside you. He holds himself up on one arm and runs his eyes the full length of your body.

You’re still not altogether comfortable with that kind of scrutiny, years of low self-esteem and body confidence cannot be instantly erased, even by Lin. Your instinct is still to cover up, to scrunch your body up to cover the places that are too wobbly, too imperfect. But with the warm glow of alcohol and Lin’s gentle, almost reverent touch, you feel ok to remain exposed.

As he kisses you again, Lin’s hand rests on your ribcage, occasionally stroking down to your waist. Your hand cups the side of his face as his mouth moves against yours-slow, lingering kisses that nonetheless leave you breathless.

You turn onto your side to move closer to Lin as his hand finds your breast. He strokes his thumb across your nipple as he moves his kisses to your cheek then neck. You bite your lip as his fingers trace your curves, sending a shudder down your spine and causing you to arch your back. He rolls your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, leaving it raised and hard.

Lin pulls away from your neck to look you in the eye. “You feeling ok?”, he checks-aware you’ve both had a couple of drinks. “So very ok”, you reply breathily. He smiles at that then moves his hand between your legs, to run a finger along your wetness. He presses his hand onto your hip to roll you onto your back and spread your legs. You give a little moan as he pushes two fingers into you, slowly moving them in and out of you as he captures your mouth once more.

You break away from his kiss when he begins to rub gentle circles over your clit. You need all the breath you have to groan as each stroke adds to a growing tension within you. As the sensations fizz more closely together and you feel yourself getting closer, you can’t help but rock against his hand as he presses on that little bundle of nerves.

When you feel the first swell you press your face into the crook of his neck as your whole body curls into his tender yet frenzied touch. He gasps quietly when your voice breaks with your climax. He starts to slow his movements as you squeal and curse at the surges of ecstasy you’re feeling. As you finally come undone, bucking wildly against his hand, he murmurs “Yes, Y/N, yes!��� into your hair.

When your gasps turn to contented sighs he removes his hand and pulls you onto your side to face him again. He wraps both arms around you, pulling your chest to his in a full-body hug. “You’re pretty good at that.”, you say with a laugh. “You turn me on so much, I love making you cum”, he says “seeing you like that always makes me…Mmph.”, he sighs. His hardness pressing into your hip definitely confirms that.

“I know the whole doing-it-in-front-of-the-fire thing would, in theory, be romantic…but this floor is super uncomfortable”, you admit. “Yeah, you’re not wrong”, Lin laughs as he releases you from his arms and looks down at you. “You want to go to sleep?”, he asks as he kisses your cheek. “Not yet”, you grin. He raises an eyebrow as you spring to your feet and make a run for the bedroom with your robe clutched to you. You hear Lin following you.

The bed is high enough that you have to jump a little to get on it and when Lin walks in the room you’re kneeling on it, waiting. He undresses quickly. “C’mere”, you beckon. He walks over to stand in front of you, at the very edge of the bed. It puts you about equal in height for once. “It would be criminal”, you whisper as you take him in your hand, “to not show a four poster bed some action.”. He bites his lip as you slowly stroke him. You keep a steady rhythm and soon his eyes are closed, head falling back as he quietly curses. His hand comes up to cup your face as he kisses you urgently until he stops to whisper your name. “Ahh! if we keep going I’m gonna…” he says stilling your hand with a touch to your arm.

You hold out your hand to invite Lin up onto the bed and he hops up and positions himself behind you. He pulls your body into his, his chest against your back. His mouth is on your neck as his arms wrap around you and he cups your breasts. The combination of him tweaking your nipples and lightly brushing kisses up and down your neck has you whimpering. You arch your back and let your head fall backwards onto his shoulder.

Lin’s hands move down your body, caressing your stomach and hips. All the while, his lips are moving against your neck and shoulders. You reach back to pull his hips into yours, his hardness pressing into your backside. “Lin…”, you whisper, indicating that you need him inside you now.

Lin runs his hands down your arms, guiding them upwards to the bedpost just in front of you. His hands cover yours to place them around the post. “Hold on tight”, he says in your ear, a wicked smile playing on his lips. You spread your legs a little and tilt your ass up to give him access. He murmurs appreciatively at the sight of you waiting for him like this and gives your ass a squeeze. Lining his cock up with your entrance, he uses one hand to guide himself in, the other moving to your hip.

You sigh as he slides in, marvelling again at how perfect a fit you seem to be for each other. You adjust your position slightly so that you’re at the right height for him to bury all of himself inside you. He uses both hands to pull your hips back to his and begin thrusting in and out of you.

You move in time together, at this angle you’re almost riding him-bouncing backwards into him. You’re barely holding onto the post, the pace isn’t too fast just yet and you have your back arched so you can look back over your shoulder at your lover. Lin grunts as he helps to rock you back and forth on his cock, his eyes fixed on where your bodies meet.

Your gasp when he hits a sweet spot brings Lin’s gaze to your face. He shifts slightly to hit that spot again, and seeing you gasp again, he leans into you and says against your cheek “I told you to hold on tight”. You grip the post with both hands as he picks up the pace, driving the head of his cock into that spot over and over. He sees the goosebumps you get, he hears your breathing become ragged. Your head falls forward as you feel a climax approaching and you cry out his name, almost a sob, as the first wave hits you. You contract around him, as your knees weaken and he grips your hips tighter to keep you from collapse. Or maybe it’s to steady himself, because as the last ripple of pleasure passes through you and your cries dampen to moans, his hips stutter. He groans and his thrusts become sloppy as his peak chases yours. He shudders against you as he cums.

Lin rests his forehead against your shoulder as you lean against the post for support. He kisses your back as he pulls away from you and sits back onto the bed. He holds out a hand for you to steady yourself as you turn around and then flop down to sit next to him, your breathing still not normal. He smiles at you “Was that good enough action for the bed?”, he asks cheekily. You shrug “Ehh”, you joke. Lin pulls you into his lap, takes your face in his hands and gives you a peck on the lips. “You’re insufferable”, he says with a sigh. “I know.”, you laugh as you wrap your arms around him and rest your forehead against his. “I love you”, you say. “I know”, he responds.

���MIRANDA.”

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #161 - Star Trek Beyond

(GIF originally posted by @forquicksilver)

Spoilers Below

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: Yes.

Was it a movie I saw since August 22nd, 2009: Yes. #440

Format: Blu-ray

1) The preproduction for this film was slightly troubled. JJ Abrams was committed to Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens so co-writer of the first two films Robert Orci signed on as director. He ended up leaving production though, taking his cinematographer with him, and it was a little while before Justin Lin (Fast and the Furious 3 - 6) was hired to replace him. Writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung reportedly wrote the script in a bit of a hurry as they still had a release date to meet. But at the end the film turned out really well, so everything worked out in the end.

2) This film was released during the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise.

Having said that, the work done by writers Pegg and Jung as well as Lin’s direction I think help to make the film feel like a balance between old Trek and new Trek. I’ll get into more details on that as I go along.

3) The opening scene.

The opening has an incredible sense of fun and humor to it (with the aliens Kirk is trying to break peace with seemingly gigantic and ending up being the size of a chihuahua) and honestly feels like it could be the concept of an episode for the original “Star Trek” TV show (says the guy who’s never seen an episode of the original series). It establishes some of the lighter/funner tone this film will feature compared to the titular darkness of Into Darkness as well as Kirk’s initial conflict in the film. It is a wonderful beginning.

4) Kirk’s tiredness.

Kirk is three years into his five year mission in space (which, in a not-so-coincidental-way, is how long the original series got before cancellation) and it is starting to weigh on him.

Kirk [in his captain’s log]: “As for me things have started to feel a little...episodic.”

There’s no direction in space, it is just infinite and that is starting to weigh on Kirk. It has him questioning the point of it all. It has him questioning who he is.

Kirk [after commenting he’s now a year older on his birthday]: “A year older than [my father] got to be. He joined Starfleet because he believed in it. I joined on a dare.”

Bones: “You joined to see if you could live up to him. [Mentions how Kirk has spent all this time trying to be like his dad.] Now you’re wondering what it means to be Jim.”

And it is through the fire of conflict in this film that Kirk will reclaim his identity and who exactly he is.

5) The release of this film was given an unexpected dose of sorrow as actor Anton Yelchin tragically passed away about a month before the film’s release.

There is a scene early in the film where Bones and Kirk drink some Scotch they found in Chekov’s locker. They pour three glasses, the third one being for “absent friends” (as in those we’ve lost who could not be here now). The absent friend I believe was meant to be Kirk’s later father, who the pair are talking about. But in the wake of Anton Yelchin’s passing the scene takes on a much more somber meaning and feels more like a tribute to him. After the film’s release I read on IMDb that the scene was included to pay tribute to Yelchin, but I can no longer find that piece of trivia suggesting it may have been false. Either way, it is impossible to divorce Chekov from that scene or the unintended tribute it pays to the late actor. I’m going to miss seeing you in the movie, Anton.

6) Yorktown.

Yorktown is quite possibly the stand out new element introduced into the film. The space station/outpost/colony/whatever is visually outstanding. Most space stations in film are defined by rigid edges and sharp boundaries but Yorktown is circular. It’s fluid, it’s organic, it moves into and through each other like a planet. Some of the camera tricks and technical aspects used to show off this new location is great. It also has an incredible atmosphere to it which ties directly into the sense of hope this franchise is all about. The air is clean, the sky is bright, multiple alien species are working in unity, and Giacchino’s again excellent score just lifts up the sense of optimism that bleeds through this place. It is a wonderful addition to not only this film but Trek lore as a whole.

7) This film introduces what I believe is Star Trek’s first canon gay character by revealing that John Cho’s Hikaru Sulu is in a partnership with another man.

(GIF originally posted by @maclexa-bane​)

However, this decision had one person surprisingly against it. Original Sulu actor and LGBT activist George Takei himself. Here is an excerpt from an article covering this in the Hollywood Reporter.

"I’m delighted that there’s a gay character," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate."

Takei would take to social media a week later to clarify - but not disavow - his statement.

“I hoped instead that [Star Trek creator] Gene Roddenberry’s original characters and their backgrounds would be respected. How exciting it would be instead if a new hero might be created, whose story could be fleshed out from scratch, rather than reinvented. To me, this would have been even more impactful.”

I personally disagree with Takei. As a film student I can say that there seems to be this strange devotion to the “vision” of something. A decision will or won’t be made based on its support of the “original vision”. The original vision of something is almost totally irrelevant to what something actually is, however. Takei’s statements seem to be largely out of his respect for original creator Gene Rodenberry, which I can understand. But imagine some gay kid today LOVES the Star Trek movies and its characters. That kid is not going to care about Gene Rodenberry’s original vision, he is going to care about what Star Trek is today. I think seeing an already established (and incredibly important character) like Sulu express his sexuality in an open and accepted way is very much in line with what Star Trek is today (and will also have more of an impact on that kid than introducing a new character who they have no emotional investment in, but that's just my personal belief).

The franchise has transcended Rodenberry or any one person involved. It is about unity (a major theme in this film), diversity, tolerance, and hope. And as long as it respects these core beliefs which make Star Trek what it is than I think it does more than respect Rodenberry’s original vision. It respects Star Trek.

8) I am going to talk about Spock and Uhura’s breakup and Spock Prime’s death, I promise. Just later.

9) Even though JJ Abrams did NOT direct this film, Greg Grunberg is still featured in it!

Grunberg is JJ Abrams’ lucky charm, appearing in almost all his films (notably absent from Star Trek into Darkness) in one form or another. And even though Abrams serves only as producer on this flick Grunberg still gets a part. Yay!

10) I like that Commodore Paris (one of the Starfleet higher ups at Yorktown) takes the time to say this to Kirk:

Commodore Paris: “It isn’t uncommon you know, even for a captain. To want to leave.”

It’s a common problem people have in life, the loss of identity. And of course it makes sense that it happens to Starfleet officers. Nothing is defined in space. It’s just space.

11) The skirmish between Kraal’s crew and the Enterprise is great.

As a way of introducing the primary plot into the film, it shows a clear lack of preparedness on the part of the Enterprise crew which is a great place to start the conflict and move forward. A, “started from the bottom,” type way. The film opening with such a heavy thrashing and the destruction of the Enterprise leaves a strong impact on the audience. You know these bad guys are people you do not want to mess with, you don’t even want to be in the same room as them. They just took down one of the best starships ever in a matter of minutes. The scene features great action, nice surprises, and is incredibly well paced. As the first major action set piece for the film, it is truly great.

12)

Kirk: “Abandon ship, Mr. Sulu.”

There is literally NO question from Sulu and only a the hesitation needed to process that request. He doesn’t even say, “Sir?” There’s no doubt in his mind. That is how much he trusts his captain and that is how well he knows his ship to admit when it’s done.

13) Idris Elba as Krall.

I will forever be upset that Suicide Squad won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling when this film is PACKED with some of the most amazing practical creatures and aliens I have seen in years. You don’t have to look any further than Krall to see that. Idris Elba is not giving an animated performance, he’s not motion capture (not to knock motion capture actors, they’re some of the most under appreciated geniuses in Hollywood). That’s him. He is able to deliver a menacing and powerful performance through strong physicality. Elba does not play Krall as human and he shouldn’t. A huge factor for the character is that he’s lost his humanity. He is a beastly shade of his former self, motivated only by madness. I think Krall may be the best villain of this new trilogy (although it’s hard for me to be objective because Nero is still my favorite). Honestly, Elba freaking kills it as Krall and I don’t think they could have cast anyone to do a better job.

From a writing standpoint, Krall just gets more and more interesting as the film goes on.

Krall [after Uhura claims he has made an act of war against the federation]: “Federation act of war!”

But more on this later.

14) This film benefits from unique groupings for a good part of the film. Bones/Spock are the most prominent, but it’s not often you get to see Kirk and Chekov interact one-on-one or Uhura and Sulu. But for now, let’s talk about Bones & Spock.

I don’t think Bones and Spock get as much one on one time as they do in this film and I am so grateful for that. It provides a unique examination of their usually humorously tense interactions which was touched upon in The Search for Spock. I’ll discuss this more as I go (in one scene in particular), but they are able to be vulnerable around each other. Let their guards down, be totally honest, and make their friendship even stronger.

15) Sofia Boutella as Jaylah.

I fucking love Jaylah. So much. I want more Jaylah.

To start, her design is incredibly unique and memorable. It helps her standout from not only the rest of the Enterprise crew but the rest of the inhabitants on the planet as well. And from the strong visual you are able to build into a living, breathing, unique character. She fits into the crew dynamics (particularly through her relationship with Scotty) wonderfully well and she is a kick ass queen. She is a technical genius with no training or teaching, able to set up a number of booby traps/cloak the Franklin/keep auxiliary power going. She has this deep pain that is in direct relation to Kirk’s. Her father - her entire family - died trying to save her, just as Kirk’s did. She has fears, she has strengths, she loves punk music! Jaylah on paper is amazing and actress Sofia Boutella is incredible in the part. Boutella is able to portray all of Jaylah’s wonderful layers - her badass exterior, her painful past, her growth and dealing with her fears - beautifully. Boutella is a star on the rise in Hollywood (already having starred in Kingsman and appearing as the title character in the new Mummy film coming out soon) and to date this is - I think - her best performance. She is just SO good.

A quick final note: it has been said by the filmmakers that they will not be recasting Chekov after Anton Yelchin’s death. I want Jaylah to take his place on the bridge. Because I fucking love Jaylah.

16) The relationship Jaylah and Scotty forge is so fun and heartfelt. Jaylah is able to constantly surprise Scotty and show that she’s his equal in a lot of ways, but when it comes to the pain of her past Scotty is able to help her deal with that. It’s one of my favorite relationships explored in the film and I hope to see it continue in the future.

17) The relationship with Kirk and Chekov is explored a little more subtly than say Bones and Spock but it is still there. The fact that Kirk is able to signal Chekov to help him trap the traitor amongst their midsts, and then of course this wonderful piece of dialogue.

(GIFs originally posted by @alecc-bane​)

Seeing any two characters have this back and forth suggests they’ve done it before. There’s a comfort there that Chekov is able to talk to Kirk so honestly about his doubts and...I’m sorry, I’m just laughing thinking about this scene. I love the exchange between the pair.

18) So it later turns out that Krall is a captain named Edison from VERY early in the Federation’s life span.

Krall: “Federation has taught you that conflict should not exist.”

Krall [MUCH later]: “We knew pain, we knew terror. Struggle made us strong. Not peace, not unity.”

He is an outdated relic, an ancient ideology in a progressive time who thinks HIS way of life was right. And he’s willing to commit mass genocide because of his outdated and hateful ways. There’s also a lose of identity there, as he tells Kirk in the climax, “I’ve missed being me.” That lose of identity in the face of infinite space is exactly what Kirk is at risk of going through, so there’s a connection there between the two that ties back in to Kirk’s main conflict (something that I love). All in all, Krall’s pain is utterly unique in the Star Trek films I’ve seen and I am impressed with the elegance they were able to write it.

19) Spock and Bones having a heart-to-heart about where Spock is in life is one of the best scenes in the film.

It is in this moment when Spock is at his most vulnerable, and it’s with Bones. He speaks as to how being one of the last Vulcan’s effects him, how it was that and the death of Spock-Prime which upset him so deeply he even broke up with Uhura because he thought he had to. He’s planning on leaving Starfleet. But Bones is an excellent friend in this scenes, listening to Spock and offering some kind non-judgmental words. He even gets Spock to laugh! It’s a great moment between these two characters who have been around for 50 years and I think one of the best character moments in all of Trek.

20) Did I mention I love Jaylah?

Jaylah [about her punk music]: “I like the beats and shouting!”

21) If I haven’t made it clear before, this film has some very well done humor. I think this is largely a result of Simon Pegg’s work on the script, but it wouldn’t have worked if cowriter Doug Jung hadn’t worked with him on it. Some examples...

Scotty: “I have an idea sir, but I’ll need your permission.”

Kirk: “Why would you need my permission?”

Scotty: “Because if I mess it up I don’t want it to be just my fault.”

22) So 2009′s Star Trek was about Kirk and Spock moving past their conflict to form a respect and kinship with each other. Star Trek Into Darkness had them solidifying their friendship. And now we’ve reached this point:

Spock [while severely injured]: “We will do what we’ve always done, Jim: find hope in the impossible.”

23) I think something the filmmakers really use to their advantage is taking problems and solving them in a creative way through the sci-fi genre (where aliens are a norm and we have artificial gravity and such). A brilliant example of this:

(GIFs originally posted by @trek-daily)

Also this is all practical makeup. Did I mention this film lost the makeup and hairstyling award to Suicide Squad? I’m bitter.

24) The funniest freaking part of the entire movie!

25) I know I mentioned this before, but Jaylah’s past trauma with her family is incredibly strong for me.

Jaylah [talking about Krall’s hostage camp; refusing to take Kirk and company to their crew]: “Everyone who goes there he kills!”

And it is just another great example of the relationship Scotty and Jaylah have made.

Kirk [after Jaylah leaves & Scotty moves to go after her]: “Let her go.”

Scotty: “She’s lost people too, Captain.”

The fact that Scotty is able to help Jaylah through her grief in a respectful but pressing way speaks a lot to me. And Kirk overhears this, specifically that Jaylah’s dad sacrificed himself for her. Hmm, why does that sound familiar?

The entire scene is great for me for those key reasons: it develops Jaylah, it strengths her relationship with Scotty, and it ties into Kirk’s conflict in the film.

26) The entire diversion/rescue scene on the motorcycle is awesome and one of the strongest set pieces in the entire film. It is brilliantly and intelligently choreographed, keeping the audience and Krall on their toes through the use of decoy projections. It also features a fight between Jaylah and Mannix which ties directly into her arc as he is the man who killed her father. And Kirk - who said to, “Let her go,” about ten minutes earlier - risks himself to save her. She’s a part of his crew now and I love that.

27) Remember how in the 2009 Star Trek Sulu messed up the take off of the Enterprise the first time? Well, I think the phrase, “started from the bottom now we’re here,” applies perfectly to this moment.

(GIF originally posted by @toakenshire)

30) I just love Jaylah’s face when she sees Krall’s planet drift away in the distance. That place was her hell. Her family was murdered there. She never thought she’d be able to escape. And now...

31) Ladies & gentlemen: the most badass moment in Star Trek’s 50 year history.

Some highlights:

Kirk saying, “That’s a good choice,” tying directly into Young Kirk rocking out to this song in the 2009 film.

Bones: “Is that classical music?”

Chekov toe tapping.

Just how f***ing awesome that moment is. It gets you pumped!

I don’t know who had the initial idea to put this scene in the film, but I love them and I want to give them an award or something. This is glorious.

32) The climactic fist fight between Kirk and Krall is a lot of fun. Similar to Syl’s alien head hiding an important piece of technology, the filmmakers are able to use the concept of artificial gravity in a space station to their advantage by choreographing a unique and fun fight scene.

33) And with this Kirk resolves his conflict of identity in relation to his father.

Kirk: “Better to die saving lives than to live taking them. That’s what I was born into.”

34) I love that Kirk says this but for a weird personal reason. It’s something I learned as a film student and something I wish other directing students (and a lot of professional directors) would learn.

Kirk [after Commodore Paris says he saved the lives of everyone in Yorktown]: “It wasn’t just me. It never is.”

35) Holy shit, I honestly cannot believe I forgot that Spock found this in Spock Prime’s belongings:

Not only is this a wonderful thing to include in the 50th anniversary of Star Trek but also it is something Spock REALLY needed to see. He wanted to live the life Spock Prime did and he thought that meant continuing the work on new Vulcan. But then he sees that Spock Prime was with the Enterprise crew DECADES into a future. He had a family for life. And so does Spock.

36) It’s hard for your eyes not to fall on Anton Yelchin when Kirk makes a toast, “To the Enterprise and to absent friends.”

(GIF originally posted by @soundsofmyuniverse)

37) The fact that the entire main crew of the Enterprise gives the ending monologue for the first time speaks greatly to themes of unity present in the film and Kirk’s giving them credit.

38) And now I’m sad again.

39) “Sledgehammer��� by Rihanna.

It’s not often that I talk about an end credits song for a film, but I felt I should make an exception this case. Rihanna is a major Star Trek fan, saying:

"This is something that's been a part of me since my childhood, it's never left me, I love Star Trek. It was automatic. I would do anything in terms of music. It's such a big deal not only as a fan, as a musician... because Star Trek is such a big deal across the globe."

You can feel the love for Trek come across in the song. Not necessarily a radio pop hit, I love this song nonetheless. I find it moving and it’s themes of fighting back after you get knocked down very much tie into the hope and resilience which is Star Trek. I think it is a wonderful composition and a great addition to the Star Trek musical library.

I love Star Trek Beyond. Although the 2009 film introduced me to the franchise, this film has the potential overtime to claim its place as my favorite Trek film. It is an absolutely perfect balance of old and new Trek, featuring standout writing, amazing effects, new ideas, a vibrant visual design, and a standout cast (with special mention to Sofia Boutella as Jaylah). It is a totally wonderful that taps into the hope and sense of adventure that the series has always been about. If you were disappointed with Star Trek Into Darkness or are looking to reclaim some love for the series - or even if you’re watching for the first time - give this film a viewing. You won’t regret it.

[atlaswriting]

If Abram wants a fight, I’ll give him a war.

Fighting was all I knew—I clawed my way out of my mother ( my very first grave ) and there wasn’t a day she let me forget it. I clawed like hell to endure in this prison that my body has created, bones that turned to iron and caged me in. I scraped myself out until my fingers nails were caked with all my lives I’ve destroyed to survive. I clawed my way through to a heart that still struggles to beat—but has never gave up on me.  

The scars on my body may not be pretty but they’re proof that I’m alive—and if Abram wants to see who can tolerate more pain, who can dig the knife in deeper, he’ll want to reconsider.

I am soft like a loaded gun.

( like a bomb )

And there’s a ticking in my chest I’m in no rush to quiet.

♡ ♡ ♡

You had sex with someone else?

Like you didn’t?

I may have kissed people—but I never screwed someone else.

Lol. You know, I knew you made your little “drunk mistake” but it stops being a “mistake” when you repeat it over and over again.

This is really getting old.

I’m about to block you.

Good. Do it.

I have never hated anyone as much as I hated you.

I thought I couldn’t hate anyone more than I hated my dad.

♡ ♡ ♡

I knew it was my voice on the recording, but images of Abram touching Sophie in ways he touched me makes me want to fling myself into the sun. I can hardly focus on the English exam, the words moving around the page, pulling nausea out of my throat so quick I can barely choke it down.

Sophie leans over in her seat, eyeing the teacher before tapping the eraser of her pencil on my arm. “You didn’t tell me how big Abram was. I don’t know how you could take all of him—I barely could.”

I clench my jaw, pressing the lead against the paper so hard that on the last answer it rips straight through. I flip the packet closed and rise from my seat, slapping the exam on the teacher’s desk, I rush out of the classroom.

“Elise?” I look up at Abram who walks toward me slowly, “Are you okay?”

I am leaning against a row of lockers, bag half falling off my shoulder when I look up at him and shut my eyes. Anger pulses through me at an alarming rate, my heart rate quickens and I reach up to press my hand to my chest, a flashback to the hospital plays like a horror movie inside my shut lids and I only open them when Abram’s hands are around my shoulders, pulling me straight up.

“Elise—oh my god, are you okay?” His hands cup my face, forcing me to look at him—but I can hardly breathe, I don’t need to add drowning to my problems right now.

Gaining composure, I shove him away from me though it does more to send my body backwards than him and I realize, in the reflection of a window how distraught I truly looked. Brushing my hair out of my eyes I fix the bag on my shoulder.

“Stay away from me, Abram Kempe,” I warn. He steps forward again and I jump back, my feet don’t stop until I’m half way down the hall and still I don’t trust myself enough not to turn back and run into his waiting arms, “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

♡ ♡ ♡

Every poem I write is going to be the same.

You. You. You.

I hate you. God. I hate you for making me love you.

For giving me no choice in it.

If there was a reset button—I would press it.

What I’m trying to say is…

I wish I had never met you.

♡ ♡ ♡

I wasn’t completely honest with Abram—Kai—but it wasn’t a complete lie, either. He unzipped my vulnerability like a heavy coat and without it I’m all self-loathing and mistakes.

“Do you come to all of Kai’s games?” Ellie asks me as we find our seats. Brody’s face is painted with the team colors and he’s wearing one of Abram’s old jerseys from Boston—I don’t know why he has one, or where he got it, but I know better than to ask.

My fingers absently twist and untwist the water cap in my hands and I look at her, “I come for my boyfriend.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ellie asks, arching an eyebrow too high for it to be just an innocent question.

Biting the inside of my cheek, it’s all I can do to keep from swallowing myself whole.

“And who is this?” Ellie watches as Sophie sits in the vacant seat next to me.

“Ellie stop we’re not here to make friends.” Brody groans, she glances up at him—still standing and waiting patiently for warm ups to begin.

Rolling her eyes, Ellie presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth then shakes her head, “Just because you can’t make friends, doesn’t mean we all are crabby introverts. Now, who are you?”

“A friend of Abram’s,” Sophie introduces herself, tongue lingering on the word friend for too long to be comfortable, “and Elise’s best friend.”

Ellie considers her for a moment before her lip curls up and she leans back in the seat, crossing her arms over her chest, “You’re not Kai’s type.”

If Ellie and I were becoming the type of friends that hugged—this would be a moment in which I hugged her. But we weren’t, so I don’t.

“What do you know about Abram’s type?” Sophie asks, leaning forward, “Are you a jealous ex or something?”

Both Ellie and I laugh.

“No. Brody and Abram are one condom short of being butt buddies and Ellie is Brody’s girlfriend—she’s also one of Abram’s closest friends,” I answer for her as her cheeks are turn red from frustration. “I’d be careful with her,” I lean toward Sophie, “She makes a habit of destroying people’s lives and with your situation not as clean as you’d like, I would hold your tongue.”

Sophie glances again at Ellie, deciding against whatever it was she wanted to say and rolling her eyes back toward the ice. “Whatever. She isn’t worth my time anyway.”

Brody is the loudest when Abram steps onto the ice—also the loudest to criticize our goalie which gives him a few questionable looks from the parents around us.

“Brody,” Ellie chastises softly, “Stop. You’re here to support Brody, not critique their technique—but I guess if we’re being honest—hey goalie,” Ellie shouts, standing from her seat, “What are you doing!? The puck could be a parked car and you still couldn’t stop it!”

“Hey! Put a muzzle on your woman,” shouts a man in opposing team colors at Brody. He turns toward Ellie and steps back, allowing her room to maneuver toward the man but I reach out and grab her hand.

“They’re a third period team, relax.” I tell her and she glares at the man before sitting down next to me.

♡ ♡ ♡

“You won.”

Jason slips a still-sweaty arm around my shoulders and I lift my cup to my mouth to silence all the words bubbling up my throat.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Ellie,” Abram rolls his eyes brushes his hair back with his hand. He sits on a chair and a heavy weight hunches his shoulder forward. There’s a crease in the middle of his forehead and I know he wasn’t happy with tonight’s playing.

Brody comes up from behind him, wrapping his arms around Abram’s torso and hugging him tightly. “I never had any doubt in you, dude,” he says, pulling him into a standing position. Abram turns around; he and Brody leave little room for Jesus in their hug and Jason shifts uncomfortable at my side. I look up to see his eyebrows crease and I wonder if this is what makes Jason jealous.

Not the tension between his girlfriend and another man.

But someone else being closer to his brother than he is.

I grin into the lid of my cup, considering how cute that was before the sadness comes through like a bitter aftertaste. Of course Jason would want to be the strongest male bond in Abram’s life—because neither one has really had any.

Turning Jason’s cheek toward me I kiss him slow, deep—forcing every bit as much passion that flows so freely with Abram.

“What was that for?” Jason asks as he pulls away, resting his forehead against mine.

“Can’t a girl just kiss her boyfriend?”

He nods leaning in again and kissing me with a hungry need, with a strength I didn’t know he was capable of. Still—my heart doesn’t race and I didn’t feel like I was floating.

“Talk about hot,” Ellie grins as she watches us, glancing toward Abram with a playful grin. She pulls Brody away from him and kisses his cheek, alcohol pumping without restraint through her veins. Suddenly the broken down building Middlebury kids sneak off to on nights like this feels less dingy and more like a haven, possibilities only limited by the amount of alcohol.

Tonight, I feel a little less broken—a little less lonely and I drink until that feeling goes away completely. I drink until Abram’s glaring face is a blur and I focus on Jason—because I should want to, because he deserves it.

“If you’re not careful, Elise, you’re recording might be next.”

“The recording?” Ellie asks, “I thought Abram said it was—,”

“Me.” Sophie cuts in and Ellie gives her a confused look, turning her attention toward Abram, she shuts her mouth tight and Brody laughs into his third round of shitty beer.

“Dude,” he say, “what the hell is up with you rich kids? Do you not have enough money or something?”

My fingers curl around my solo cup and I dump it onto the grime ridden ground, “I need more.” I announce.

“I’ll go with you,” Jason offer.

Ellie is quick to pull him beside her, “No, I want you to tell me what your plans are for college. Abram, would you be a dear and get me some more?” she asks, holding out her cup.

♡ ♡ ♡

Abram’s hand curls around my elbow and he tugs me down a hall, away from the music and the beer and the safety of other people—he tugs me into a room and pushes me in.

“What is wrong with you?” I demand.

He scoffs, “What is wrong with me? What is wrong with you, Elise?” he steps closer, his hands curling into a fist at his sides and the veins in his arms visibly straining, “Are you trying to get under my skin? Rile me up? Hurt me some more?”

I want to ask if he’s mad at me or Sylvia—but I don’t think it matters.

Before I know it my back is pressed against the wall and Abram’s chest is moving up and down quickly.

“I want to make you feel how I feel—every time I see you next to her, or think of you together,” I admit, “I want you to feel the exact same way I do, just as bad, Abram.” He moves forward and presses against me, hands cupping my face and he kisses me, hard—I melt instantly, goosebumps rising on my skin, my nails dig into his shoulders willing him closer. Spite curls around my throat and I push him away suddenly—once, twice, on the third time he catches my wrists in his hands and I stare defiantly up at him. “I want you to hurt like I hurt.” I tell him.

[captainblogger100posts]

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston http://www.nature-business.com/nature-ayanna-pressley-seeks-her-political-moment-in-a-changing-boston/

Nature

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Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye, https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

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Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston https://ift.tt/2NzkKfA

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Image

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://ift.tt/2LI3aEw | https://ift.tt/2fZEUPW, https://ift.tt/2NzkMnI

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

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Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston http://www.nature-business.com/nature-ayanna-pressley-seeks-her-political-moment-in-a-changing-boston/

Nature

Image

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye, https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[blogparadiseisland]

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston http://www.nature-business.com/nature-ayanna-pressley-seeks-her-political-moment-in-a-changing-boston/

Nature

Image

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye, https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

[algarithmblognumber]

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston http://www.nature-business.com/nature-ayanna-pressley-seeks-her-political-moment-in-a-changing-boston/

Nature

Image

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye, https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58

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Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston http://www.nature-business.com/nature-ayanna-pressley-seeks-her-political-moment-in-a-changing-boston/

Nature

Image

Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member, is running against a 10-term incumbent congressman in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts on Tuesday.CreditCreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It’s not a sight you see every day, certainly not around Boston — a black woman mounting a plausible challenge to a 10-term white congressman from her own party, a politician with vast connections who votes the progressive line and opposes everything Trump.

But here was Ayanna Pressley, a Boston City Council member and rising Democratic star, exhorting volunteers in a Cambridge restaurant with an impassioned performance style she learned as a child at her grandfather’s storefront Baptist church in Chicago.

“This is not just about resisting and affronting Trump,” she declared, garbed in a flowing red jumper. “Because the systemic inequalities and disparities that I’m talking about existed long before that man occupied the White House!”

The crowd went wild.

“Change can’t wait!” she shouted, echoing her campaign slogan, her voice raspy as it took on speed and urgency.

Ms. Pressley is herself an emblem of change that can’t wait — and isn’t waiting. She is part of a rising tide of women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon in New York and Stacey Abrams in Georgia, that is challenging historically white male power structures in politics — not only to advance their policy ideas, but also to reflect the changing diversity of their constituents, who have long lacked one of their own in congressional seats or governor’s offices.

Image

A supporter sent Ms. Pressley a gift with her campaign slogan.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

In doing so she is taking on a well-respected Massachusetts Democrat, Representative Michael Capuano, who was expecting to coast once again unchallenged for re-election in the Seventh Congressional District, which includes much of Boston and its suburbs. The primary election on Tuesday is one of the last marquee Democrat vs. Democrat battles of 2018.

Massachusetts is well known for deeply entrenched politics that favor incumbents, from the Kennedy dynasty to long-serving mayors, senators and House members. Mr. Capuano, 66, has widespread establishment backing, including Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, several labor groups, and prominent black leaders like former Gov. Deval Patrick, Representative John Lewis and Representative Maxine Waters. He also has an army of experienced election workers behind him, and a 13-point lead in a poll published in early August.

But Ms. Pressley, 44, may be the rare Boston insurgent whose ambition is in sync with a national political moment that has favored women and underdogs. Last week she achieved an unusual feat for a challenger: Winning endorsements from the city’s major newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. Her supporters are highly energized, and some polling in other recent races has failed to detect strength for minority female candidates. The congressional district is the only one in Massachusetts with more people of color than people who are white. While Mr. Capuano has his advantages, a Pressley win no longer seems far-fetched.

Their race has been hard fought but not particularly negative. The mere fact of Ms. Pressley’s challenge gives the primary its frisson. Mr. Capuano has tried to ignore her and focus instead on his years of experience, his reputation as a progressive and his opposition to President Trump. She has had the harder task of trying not to disparage a fellow progressive while still making a strong enough case for herself.

The puzzle for many voters is why Ms. Pressley is challenging a strong progressive in the first place, one who has brought home millions of dollars for much-needed transit, housing and health care projects. Especially when, as Ms. Pressley and Mr. Capuano agree, they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.

The answer says as much about Ms. Pressley as it does about Boston. For her, voting is where her representation would start, not end. She promises “activist leadership” beyond the votes, whether the Democrats retake the House or not.

“I’m not running to keep things as they are,” Ms. Pressley often says. “I’m running to change them.”

Image

Ms. Pressley was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

As for Boston, it is a city where wide disparities still exist between white and black residents in income, employment, housing and police stops, and where the political hierarchy has rarely welcomed outsiders. And until recently, “outsider” meant not just black people but women.

If Mr. Capuano is the consummate insider — born in the Seventh District, in Somerville, which he went on to lead as mayor before entering Congress — Ms. Pressley has been an outsider in many ways throughout her life. She was a struggling student of color, the daughter of a single mother, at her largely white, affluent, private high school in Chicago. She was a Midwesterner who moved East in 1992 to attend Boston University. And her life experiences are unlike those of many leading politicians: she has long spoken of being sexually abused as a child and raped in college, that her father struggled with drug addiction and spent most of her youth incarcerated.

“What probably makes me an outsider is my story and how I came to this work,” Ms. Pressley said in an interview. “I am probably an outsider because I challenge conventional narratives about who should have a seat at the table.”

Ms. Pressley has also been in the vanguard of a small group of women who have been breaking down barriers in Boston politics. She was the first black woman elected to the City Council and for three elections in a row was the city’s top vote-getter. Today, of the 13 council members, six are women of color.

“She didn’t grow up here, she didn’t have 14 cousins who ran different precincts for her, she didn’t have a mom and dad who went to high school with so and so,” said Jesse Mermell, a close friend, describing advantages of some native Boston politicians.

“There is a shift happening in this city,” she said. “Win or lose on September 4, Ayanna is the face of that shift — generationally, racially and in terms of gender.”

Image

By her senior year in high school, Ms. Pressley was a member of student government, as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined.

Nature Finding her voice in Chicago

Though Ms. Pressley left Chicago more than 25 years ago, her time there was transformative.

She was immersed in public speaking at her grandfather’s church, Rise and Shine Missionary Baptist Church. By age 10, she had volunteered on her first political campaign — for Harold Washington, who became the city’s first black mayor in 1983.

Ms. Pressley grew up on Chicago’s North Side in a Lincoln Park mixed-use apartment complex. With her father, Martin Terrell, absent, Ms. Pressley said she felt “a fragility of circumstance.”

“Coming home to an eviction notice on the door,” she said. “Coming home alone. I’m an only child. My mother was raising me alone. We couldn’t afford child care; child care hours didn’t work according to her schedule.”

Her mother, Sandra, a social worker, community organizer and legal secretary, was a ferocious champion for her daughter

“Everything she did was for Ayanna,” said Myrna Smith, a close friend of Sandra Pressley, who died in 2011. She said the elder Ms. Pressley made “personal and financial” sacrifices for her daughter.

Ms. Pressley recalled: “It was me and her versus the rest of the world. Cagney and Lacey. Thelma and Louise.”

Image

Ms. Pressley took a moment to herself after a day of campaigning last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

One of her mother’s achievements was enrolling her daughter in the Francis W. Parker School. Named for the founder of the progressive school movement, it is consistently ranked among Chicago’s best private schools. When Ms. Pressley attended, it was largely inaccessible to lower middle-class black children like her.

Daniel B. Frank, the longtime principal, said the school helped Ms. Pressley “try out another part of herself.”

“She had her own family struggles, but she found at Parker a place that would not only support her, but give her an opportunity to be something other than a kid who had struggles at home,” Mr. Frank said. “Here she could just be, and grow, and develop, and have voice.”

By senior year, Ms. Pressley was much less of an outsider. She was a member of student government as well as a cheerleader, and had developed a reputation for being politically inclined. At graduation she was named both class salutatorian and “most likely to become mayor of Chicago.”

“If nothing else, I am a survivor,” read one of her senior quotes.

“Oh, I do not talk loud, I just get my point across,” read another.

Mr. Terrell, Ms. Pressley’s father, recalled that as he watched her salutatorian speech, he realized his bubbly little girl had become a young woman with powers of public speaking that she could wield in a new, politically astute manner.

“She electrified her classmates,” said Mr. Terrell, who is now an author and retired director for the United Negro College Fund. “And I felt that, although she was a good writer, she was a great public speaker.”

Image

Ms. Pressley has had the difficult task of trying not to disparage her opponent, a fellow progressive, while still making a strong enough case for herself.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Nature A changing Boston. A changing of the guard, too?

Mr. Capuano, a mild-mannered man who speaks in a thick Boston accent, moves with the ease of a seasoned politician, talking knowingly about local issues with a range of leaders he has cultivated for years. He has opted to campaign only on his progressive record, rather than attack or insult Ms. Pressley.

“I don’t compare myself to the councilwoman,” Mr. Capuano said in an interview. “In my mind I’m running on the basis of my record both back in Washington and back here.

“We’re in the fight of our lives with Donald Trump in the White House, and this district — like all districts, but particularly this one — needs the best fighter we can get in Washington, someone who’s experienced.”

In Somerville, his hometown, Mr. Capuano has held nearly every political office of import — alderman, mayor and now congressman — and he uses his campaign stops to gently remind voters that his history of leftist activism could stand next to anyone’s. Mr. Capuano has stressed to voters that, if Democrats retake the House, his seniority and relationships with other lawmakers would make him a prime candidate to sponsor bills and serve on valuable committees that are critical for achieving results. Ms. Pressley would be a freshman.

Ms. Pressley has long been an advocate for girls and women. She volunteered at little-known nonprofits, served as a mentor and Big Sister and has been a regular presence at events like the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center’s annual Walk for Change.

It was this background that led some of Boston’s “kingmakers,” Ms. Pressley said, to suggest in 2009 that she not run for City Council and instead pursue a career with nonprofits.

Ms. Pressley ignored their advice. From her years of working for Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II and former Senator John Kerry, including as Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts political director during his 2004 presidential campaign, she had built an extensive political network of her own. Senator Kerry even knocked on doors for her.

Ms. Pressley won that first race. And in 2011, in her first bid for re-election, she pulled in more votes than anyone else.

If the outsider was now working on the inside, Ms. Pressley still focused her energies on helping marginalized people like those who were incarcerated, homeless or caught up in human trafficking. And while she doesn’t often talk in detail in public about her personal experience with sexual assault — “I’ve just kept going, like millions of people do every day, because life does not allow them to do anything else,” she said in the interview — she said she wanted to be a voice for those who have gone through traumatic events. It has given rise to a central point in her current campaign stump speech: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”

Image

Ms. Pressley with her husband, Conan Harris, during a service at Greater Love Tabernacle Church in Boston last month.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Ms. Pressley, who lives in Dorchester with her husband and stepdaughter, was so plugged in with her community that she was already meeting privately with some of Boston’s female firefighters before the media aired their complaints about sexual harassment and discrimination, said city councilor Michelle Wu. Just 16 of Boston’s 1,500 firefighters are women.

“Ayanna is in rooms that no other elected officials are in,” said Ms. Wu, who in 2013 became the first Asian-American woman elected to council and in 2016 the first woman of color to serve as its president. “Whenever she stands up and speaks on the floor, everybody stops and listens because she speaks with moral authority.”

Boston’s strong mayor form of government generally precludes City Council members from making much of a splash, but Ms. Pressley is credited with at least one major accomplishment: increasing the number of valuable liquor licenses so some could be distributed to help restaurants in disadvantaged neighborhoods become more economically viable.

“For the issues she’s speaking on, she does the work and is prepared,” said Sam Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonprofit research group that monitors council activity. “She has a penchant for coming late,” he added, “but she does come.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s race against Representative Michael Capuano has been hard-fought but not particularly negative. The candidates acknowledge they are likely to vote the same way on most issues.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said there were two different assessments of Ms. Pressley’s standing in the council.

“Some people think she’s a showboat, that she likes to come in and give a speech and isn’t doing the nitty-gritty work,” said Ms. O’Brien. “But in many communities of color, she is viewed as incredibly exciting and voicing issues the council has ignored.” It was the “old guard,” Ms. O’Brien added, that viewed Ms. Pressley as a showboat. But, she said, its power was waning.

“If the old guard were in charge,” she said, “this primary wouldn’t be happening.”

Later, Ms. Pressley nearly erupted at the showboat suggestion. “I’ve not been a decisively re-elected city councilor and top vote-getter three times because I haven’t done the work and because I don’t work hard,” she said.

The old guard may be losing its grip in part because of demographic changes across the Seventh Congressional District. Once represented by John F. Kennedy, the district is now 57 percent people of color and 30 percent foreign born. Single women head nearly 40 percent of the households.

“What has shifted is the willingness of people who come from these backgrounds to step up and run,” Ms. Wu said. “We’ve now set a new narrative for what is possible in Boston politics and in Massachusetts politics.”

Image

Ms. Pressley’s supporters are highly energized.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

Still, Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives. It was not until 2012 that it sent a woman — Elizabeth Warren — to the Senate. Two years later, Maura Healey, a first-time candidate, bucked the party establishment and ran for state attorney general against a fellow Democrat. She prevailed and became the nation’s first openly gay state attorney general. Ms. Pressley was one of the few elected officials to endorse her back then. Ms. Healey, now arguably the most popular Democrat in a state brimming with them, has endorsed Ms. Pressley.

At that rally in Cambridge, Ms. Healey stood by Ms. Pressley’s side and told the crowd that Ms. Pressley had educated her about trauma, sexual violence, domestic violence and gun violence. “Not only did she teach me,” Ms. Healey said, “she helped me come up with solutions and ideas.”

When Ms. Pressley took the stage, she acknowledged the forces arrayed against her.

“They might have you think we’re traitorous to primary a 20-year incumbent,” she said. “But that’s democracy, and choice. And after 20 years, this district deserves one.”

Image

Massachusetts has never sent a black person to the House of Representatives and did not send a woman to the Senate until 2012.CreditKayana Szymczak for The New York Times

A version of this article appears in print on

, on Page

A

1

of the New York edition

with the headline:

An ‘Outsider’ in Boston Pushes Change, Starting in Her Party

. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Read More | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/politics/ayanna-pressley-massachusetts.html | http://www.nytimes.com/by/katharine-q-seelye, https://www.nytimes.com/by/astead-w-herndon

Nature Ayanna Pressley Seeks Her Political Moment in a Changing Boston, in 2018-09-01 13:40:58