#do you have any knowledge on what place batman and robin hold in queer history. do you have. an inkling why their relationship

[heather-chandlers-weirder-cousin]

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[spaceboitakesflight-blog]

Imagination as Respiration, as Regiment for Pain. Imagination as Fuck it. Imagination as Fire.

Note: This article is much more helpful if you click the links. They range in types of content (articles, research, data, organizations to support) and have a lot of useful information! The majority of bold sections are lyrics from Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (1998). 

I trust, I hope Philando Castile’s spirit finds rest and justice in the fires lit for him.

Police are pigs, and should be treated as such.

The state arrested 18 protesters in Minnesota after the verdict came out.

The jury was more over 50% middle aged whites.

Bill Cosby rape case ended in mistrial.\ Could be 365 days til re-trail, but they're "pushing it along"... \ And how many white rapists will they let go low-profile in the span of that time? 

Charleena Lyles.

Say: Her name 

How many more cops will go free after committing murder? 

“Every year $9 billion dollars are wasted incarcerating people who've not been convicted of a crime, and insurance companies, who have taken over our bail system, go to the bank.”  

2.3 million people incarcerated. And if you are aware of anything in this country, you already know the racial breakdown.   The state will inflict fear in whatever ways it can. How physically, how psychologically difficult will they make it for any person of color to [fill in the blank].    

How many immigrants detained? How many people (”terrorists”) held in Guantanamo? How many survivors of domestic violence unjustly convicted? How many queer folks, how many trans women of color locked up or killed for existing? 

“Same song, just remixed, different arrangement Put you on a yacht but they won't call it a slave ship Strangeness, you don't control this, you barely hold this Screaming "brand new", when they just sanitized the old shit Suppose it's, just another clever Jedi mind trick”  

Why the fuck should anyone wait for these racist patriarchal systems to magically change, when we could burn it down and start again? How much longer will white people continue to lie to themselves? How much time can be bought, to “hide like thieves in the night from life”?  

This year I worked for a college access organization that serves first generation college students. After one of our weekly tutoring sessions, a visiting tutor asked “how we could have possibly ended up here”--”here” meaning, high school students not being able to pass basic math courses. I said there’s no question, the system is designed for these students to fail... In too many ways to count.   

Colorism: an intentional set of lethal mindgames.

“The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.” -James Baldwin

Enter the need for critical consciousness.  

amerikkka creates its own twisted history. Writes a false narrative of motion. Spits it down our throats with pat on the back after every swallow. amerikkka stores archives of criminal evidence in its basement. Inconvenient, for gentrification, for the colonization agenda. Perfect for a culture of gas-lighting. Where violence hides behind the innocence of an opinion.  

“Because white men can’t/ police their imagination/ black men are dying.” - Claudia Rankine 

Imagination is deadly. Hence the state’s thirst to monitor and control the ways we think, the concepts we imagine. 

“A lot of people don't understand the true criteria of things Can't just accept the appearance, have to get the true essence”

amerikkka chooses to stay mentally and emotionally disturbed, caught in an abyss of disgusting history, frantically running through the same corporate racist cycles that are killing every good thing on this earth.   

amerikka will do anything to fuck with your head. Will force you to accept shit that is slowly killing you, or quickly killing the people around you, just to make it through another day. It will do anything to brainwash, to separate you from your own body, to wrap you in isolation until the fear of explosion is so great, dying doesn’t seem like a bad option. Suicide among people of color then, is not counted as murder by the state? 

Enter the truth.

“This life is temporary but the soul is eternal Separate the real from the lie, let me learn you”

Put in the work your mind deserves to undo the lies it has been soaked in.

“Yo, I'm sure that everybody out listening agree That everything you see ain't really how it be A lot of jokers out running in place, chasing the style Be a lot going on beneath the empty smile Most cats in my area be loving the hysteria Synthesized surface conceals the interior America, land of opportunity, mirages and camouflages”

I don’t think any of us will see a day of reconciliation and justice in this life. But the idea of freedom fuels revolution. “Freedom” can exist in our minds. It is the act of imagining that makes freedom more readily available in the mind than it can exist among these physical systems of oppression. 

“At exactly which point do you start to realize That (life without knowledge is death in disguise?) That's why, knowledge of self is like life after death”

"I will continue to say murder because where in this planet do you tell the truth and you be honest and you still be murdered by the police of Minnesota?" Valerie Castile asked. 

Every time I see an american flag, i burn it in my imagination. I kill trump in my imagination. shoot him, chop his head off. i feel  nothing but satisfaction. kathy griffith did it, for fake. a photoshoot. a stunt./ they took it for real life/ no fucks about the death toll in his name/

“So much on my mind that I can't recline Blastin' holes in the night 'til she bled sunshine Breathe in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine Breathe out, weed smoke retrace the skyline Heard the bass ride out like an ancient mating call I can't take it, y'all, I can feel the city breathing Chest heaving, against the flesh of the evening Sigh before we die like the last train leaving” 

A lot of us are just trying to hold on. Not “go crazy”. Pay bills. Navigate relationships. Survive pain, hurt, trauma, loss. How can we move past survival? 

“Life or death, if I'm choosing with every breath I'm enhancing” 

Taking care of your mental health is important in order to use your mind to your advantage, to build structures of resilience and resistance. Understand what resources you need in order to do the work. Make steps to start the organization you have always dreamed of forming. Write your business plan. Pull the bars of music hiding beneath your chest. Write those poems simmering in your belly. Tag that building or train with your art. Be the teacher, mentor, parent you imagine yourself to be. Be the role model Philando was, and should have had more time to be. 

Free yourself to take productive risks in your efforts to self-sustain. 

Because for real, lets start our own healthcare networks. POC run history archives. POC art galleries. POC therapy centers. Our own economies, our own ways to exchange food and skills. 

Collective revolt calls for collective imagination. No justice, no peace. Do the healing to find your peace. Allow yourself to form community, and ride for that community/chosen family “Who are knowledge, truth, and peace seekers”.

Fight for your imagination and the wonders it feeds you. Preserve your energy. Direct it in places of healing. Talk to your ancestors. Allow yourself days to feel sad and tired. Allow yourself days to feel strong and motivated. Keep trying. 

They will never know where your inspiration comes from. Where your fire originates. They will not understand your ability to keep breathing. to hold the fire in your chest and not burn. to drink water then spit bombs on cop cars. to grieve so hard your body thrashes salt against the walls, then still grow so soft, so centered.

Imagine: create: like your life depends on it.