#i mean the very musical that was like about poverty and systemic discrimination

[maounteighn]

it will never stop being funny how out of aaalll musicals out there available in the 80s the one Patrick Bateman chose to put on his wall was fricking LES MISERABLES.

[strwbrymoonchild]

How Residue Illuminates The Complexities of Survivor’s Guilt and Gentrification

Written and directed by Merawi Gerima, Residue tells the story of Jay, a screenwriter who returns from California to create a movie about his old neighborhood on Q street in Eckington, Washington, D.C. The film has a semi-autobiographical feel that offers an impressionist yet raw look at gentrification in Northeast D.C.  35mm shots of kids playing, and the unforgettable sounds of cicadas, windchimes, go-go music, and police sirens guide us through Jay’s childhood memories and provide a sense of nostalgia. Fireworks—which could easily be mistaken for gunshots in his neighborhood—stands out as a significant recurring motif. Flashbacks to the Fourth of July foreground themes of liberation or lack thereof, and the hypocrisy of celebrating Independence Day when Black people are still struggling for freedom. To highlight this, Gerima jarringly intersperses documentary-style footage of protests and police brutality in the neighborhood throughout the film. 

Gerima’s unique take on survivor’s guilt shows us that you don’t have to be white to have a savior complex. In the opening scene we hear Jay’s inner monologue: “Did you really think a script would save us?” Art and storytelling are key parts of Black survival and liberation because they allow us to archive and spotlight our experiences, to amplify causes we care about, and to construct better worlds where freedom is possible. Nevertheless, this film offers honest and reflective commentary on the limits of storytelling. Yes, making art is part of the work. But so much of the work remains off the page. Poet and activist Nikki Giovanni said it best when she wrote For Saundra in 1968 after Nixon was elected: “it occurred to me/maybe i shouldn't write/at all/but clean my gun/and check my kerosene supply/perhaps these are not poetic/times/at all”

Jay’s savior complex is further exposed when he runs into an old neighbor named Delonte while in search of his childhood best friend Demetrius. Jay explains to Delonte that he wants to make this movie to give a “voice to the voiceless.” Offended, Delonte quickly pushes back asking, “nigga who’s voiceless?” Later Delonte retorts, “you only care about yourself and your motherfucking movie.” This perspective on what it looks like to have an old friend swoop back into your gentrified neighborhood to try to save the day after years away is imbued with not only raw honesty and resentment but also a sense of accountability and understandable distrust of Jay’s potential ulterior motives.

“Those experiencing survivor’s guilt are paying the very real price of upward mobility, which often means moving into isolating predominantly white spaces, adapting to the social norms of those spaces on a steep learning curve, losing connection with one's sense of self and culture, and struggling to maintain support networks of friends and family”

Does Jay only care about telling his community’s story to launch his filmmaking career? Is he exploiting the lived trauma of his friends or does he genuinely care about raising awareness of police brutality and gentrification? Perhaps both. At the same time, those experiencing survivor’s guilt are paying the very real price of upward mobility, which often means moving into isolating predominantly white spaces, adapting to the social norms of those spaces on a steep learning curve, losing connection with one's sense of self and culture, and struggling to maintain support networks of friends and family. This can be extremely taxing on one's mental health and self-esteem. Jay may be going through his struggles that remain unseen in the film, nevertheless, we can’t help but sympathize with Delonte for distrusting Jay’s intentions. 

This theme of distrust towards law enforcement persists, during a subtle moment in the middle of a conversation between Delonte and Jay, sirens blare and the two stop talking to look around anxiously for cops in the area. The unsettlingly long silence between them is almost as loud as the sirens and it speaks to the constant fear Black people have of being surveilled and targeted at any moment. The scene escalates further when a Black police officer interrupts the conversation between Jay and Delonte to sniff around for intel on gunshots that have just gone off in the neighborhood. Delonte lies and says it wasn’t him and Jay refuses to dignify the officer with a response. Interestingly, the cop knew that Jay wouldn’t trust him and decided to leave him alone instead of pressing further, driving home the point that not all skin folk are kinfolk. Instead of producing tired Black copaganda like other socially conscious films such as Queen and Slim, Residue subtly yet intentionally reinforces the notion that all cops are bastards—even Black ones— and that any individual part of this system is not trustworthy because the system affords them the power to enact brutal violence on civilians and shrouds them in the privilege of turning a blind eye to such violence even if they don’t participate—which ultimately amounts to complicity in the corrupt policing system. 

In addition to commenting on larger systemic issues, Gerima surgically zooms in on the microaggressions that litter everyday interactions in his rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. In one scene, a white girl walks her dog and it poops on Jay’s mother’s lawn. The dog-walker doesn’t see it as a big deal because she plans to pick it up, but Jay’s mother, Lavonne, insists that the droppings will “leave residue” a nod to the film’s title and an allusion to the literal filth that dog-walking D.C. gentrifiers leave in their wake. Jay is poised to put the white girl’s boyfriend in his place after he calls Lavonne a bitch, but his mother promptly reminds him that the system is just waiting for Jay to slip up and produce an excuse to lock him up. She coaxes him away saying, “Look you can’t fall for that shit! He’s a decoy, Jay, those are the decoys!” This poignant line illustrates the surreal video game/simulation-like nature of living through systemic racism as a Black person. Within this system, Black people are not seen as humans, but are instead sweepingly reduced to existential threats against whiteness and portrayed as supervillains or superpredators  with “no conscience [and] no empathy.”

“It’s maddening to acknowledge that at almost every turn, many Black folks are just one small misstep away from poverty, or incarceration, or death. Watching all of these isolated incidents back to back leaves the viewer gasping for some sort of respite from racism.”

Throughout the film, Gerima continues to show that there are so many landmines Black people living in gentrified cities must tip-toe around: the cheap cash offers of predatory white real-estate investors; the righteous indignation towards white boys making a killing selling weed instead of serving prison sentences (like Jay’s friends)— you can’t even defend your own girlfriend against Black catcallers spewing misogynoir lest onlookers not only call the police but begin to cry, “Black on Black crime.” It’s maddening to acknowledge that at almost every turn, many Black folks are just one small misstep away from poverty, or incarceration, or death. Watching all of these isolated incidents back to back leaves the viewer gasping for some sort of respite from racism. Throughout all of these encounters, Gerima makes the conscious choice not to show the faces of white people committing microaggressions. In interviews, Gerima has shared that this was partly a logistical choice because he couldn’t find white actors for the film. But more than that, this visual effect makes white people seem less like people and more like the artificial decoys Lavonne described. Even the white person who tries to be neighborly to Jay does not get face time with the camera. If these people remain faceless, the viewer can’t normalize or humanize them as his neighbors or his friends. Instead, we’re visually forced to see them as faceless outsiders who are inserting themselves into the neighborhood. They behave as though they are passive, laidback fixtures in the landscape who are entitled to space when in reality they’re invasive gentrifiers choosing to displace Black people from their neighborhoods. 

Perhaps the most spellbinding part of the film is the way Gerima weaves elements of magical realism into the story as both a sinister hex and a palliative balm. Jarring footage of blood running in the streets due to stop and frisk laws in D.C. transitions into the camera angle flipping upside down to reveal a shot of gentrifiers at brunch, oblivious to the bloodshed on the streets they’re occupying. This juxtaposition drives home that there are two Americas; and that this stark, depressing state of duality will only become more violent as the repercussions of redlining and housing discrimination in Washington D.C persist. The indifference and indulgence of these privileged brunch-goers enable Gerima to make the statement that these people have blood on their hands, and at their feet. 

Later on, after years of ignoring his friend Dion’s letters, Jay works up the courage to visit him in prison. Rather than taking place within the prison walls, the majority of the conversation occurs in a sunny lush green forest that the two freedom-dream together. In this scene, magical realism is used as an enchanting portal into an imagined version of Black liberation. Dion and Jay trade sweet anecdotes and childhood memories. At the end of the visit, Jay apologizes profusely for failing to respond to Dion’s letters. Dion brushes off Jay’s contrition and says, “fuck them letters,” proving that it's never too late to reach out and that while we live under this oppressive racist system, the thing that keeps us human and sane is our connection to each other. This breathtaking scene asserts that Black people are not just residue to be wiped away through a social cleansing strategy of systematic displacement, purported public order maintenance, and violent erasure— but vibrant, resilient souls who will never stop caring for one another and will never stop telling our own stories to each other and the rest of the world. 

Otito Greg-Obi is a poet and aspiring screenwriter based in Washington D.C. Her poetry appears in "small poems for the masses," a quarterly zine by Post Ghost Press. She is a former member of The Excelano Project, a poetry collective in Philadelphia. When she’s not writing you can find her slow-mo milly rocking in the pouring rain to MorMor, baking sourdough bread, over/underwatering succulents, or knitting something cozy. Her favorite color is mint green, and she’s obsessed with pop culture and with television (particularly dramedies and dystopian sci-fi). You can find her on Twitter at @otweetoh

[icosmohunters]

chapter ten : home

chapter ten of cosmo hunters!

word count : 7.5k words

synopsis : there’s no place like home. and after quinn’s injury, hope plans to return to earth for a visit just before easter. allowing the pirate’s to see her the happy aspects of her life, hope also allows them to see the part aspect that makes her . . . uneasy.

there are few sights in the universe that are capable of inciting tears from the eyes of this starstruck bounty hunter. the suffering of others often causes the windows to the soul to leak, a picture of her family, the view of a starlit sky. these things are able to make her tear up.

but nothing can be quite the same as seeing her planet in the distance, approaching it slowly to take in the size of this minute planet holding the smartest beings to ever exist. it was strange to think that people came from here and spread out, scattering their qualities into the galaxy like pollen. or as others might say a plague.

planet earth hadn’t changed. global temperatures had been restored, there were frequent threats of war but the improvement of the space colonization process was what brought a sense of unity between everyone. every nationality had managed to fly out into space, normal human beings of all backgrounds. voyage had accomplished on maintaining a sense of peace in the world.

so, threats of war was no longer a thing. poverty had very much vanished from many countries as machines took over and global wealth skyrocketed, economies booming with the manufacture and it seemed like almost every country in the world was rich. especially now with voyage bringing in new resources from planets far away, energy to sustain human life not only on their home planet but across the solar system.

it was a prosperous time of peace on earth. and it was a good time to fly back.

the nebula had begun to ascend into the earth’s atmosphere, hope slowed her down as to notice the pale blue sky that she soon found herself flying through. puffy, white clouds and a blue sky, oh she felt like she could cry.

“ hope, i’ve sensed a sudden increase in your blood pressure. ”

a.j had spoken and hope laughed, “ it’s the excitement, a.j! i haven’t been home in ages, and there’s nothing like being home. ”

now, instead of pausing at the closest airport, hope had to travel. she had come through the pacific and now she was flying over a dense, but pristine blue sea just below her, she held back a squeal of excitement and proceeded towards what could only be described as the home she regretted leaving.

coming through the west coast of the united states, the nebula flew faster than it’s ever flown before whilst entering an atmosphere. hope saw many ships but the majority were planes which she indicated to as to avoid any accidents. and the nebula flew all the way to the south of the country to where the music was loudest and the colors the brightest.

new orleans, louisiana.

you’d think it would change from how it used to be but it was untouched. the stacked buildings and bars and nightlife were as feverous and as vibrant as always, the fever for music still burning and the people still coming and going with tales of a beautiful city with a charming background in every sense.

the nearest parking space for ships was not too far away from the french quarter, which was where the house that hope had grown up was stationed. the field was wide and many ships had already landed, and thank goodness there was one space available for nebula to lay at rest for at least a couple of days.

as soon as nebula touched down, hope removed her seatbelts and excitedly went down the elevator. to be fair, it was hard going around the ship without having a slight skip in her step, especially with how eager she was.

“ you’re looking excited ”, enzo pointed out when hope entered the lounge. and that’s when the realization settled in. “ h-holy crap, we’re back home. ”

hope was bursting with energy, she inhaled deeply as to keep herself composed. “ we’re in new orleans, my hometown. i know you might not want to leave quinn alone but i have an idea ”, she inquired and then paused. “ i just have to go ahead first. ”

“ new orleans? ”, the captain gasped and threw his arms up high in the air. “ oh, i’m going to love easter for the first time. go on, but hurry up! i wanna go out and explore the city of jazz. ”

hope didn’t need to be told twice. before she could even think about leaving the nebula, however, she got changed into something more . . . homelike. it was odd putting clothes that weren’t going to serve in hunting a criminal down, or clothes that belonged to the company she informally worked for.

it was about time hope threw on some normal clothes, though. so she slipped on a pink shirt beneath some denim dungarees and some converse shoes, deciding to let her hair be. no luggage was required for her to bring back since her room remained untouched when she was gone, and her mother washed her clothes even though she never uses them.

now hope was rushing, out of her room and out of the nebula. touching down on the earthly ground for the first time in nearly a year.

even being able to breathe without a mask or a helmet was a relief. the sun was hot as ever, but she could withstand it. grinning to herself, she moved out of the spaceship parking spaces and after paying her parking fee, despite being a citizen, hope then carried onto the streets she missed to dearly.

even from far away, before stepping out into a clear opening, she could hear the melodious clarinets and the shrieking of trumpets and some flirtatious hums from saxophones and the tip-taps of the hit-hats on a drum set. the smell of gumbos being made and served, the tropical heat and the sight of palm trees, oh it felt wonderful to be home.

her senses were all alive, but her ears were particularly blessed with the music native to this wonderful town, this diverse and creative town. in the years that it has remained alive, it saw many periods of discrimination but it persevered, this town down the south of the u.s survived.

seeing all the people made a difference, though. hope saw the various bars that had remained open, families and friends spilling out into the streets for a quick meal down by the native restaurant to have their taste buds satisfied by african-american delicacies. sighing softly, hope could have stood there for a long time, watching them.

but she carried on moving towards bienvelle street, where she saw a potent creole townhouse painted in turquoise with white details on the balcony bars in front of the long windows. that was her home, the home she grew up in and was never unhappy with.

“ hope! ”, cried an elderly voice not too far ahead of her. it was hortense, her very kind next-door neighbor. she had remained stunning despite the age that was catching up to her, her melanin still rich and her dark eyes as docile as ever. she carried a heavy louisiana accent that always made hope smile when she heard it, and she smelt like cinnamon with a mixture of coconuts, a lovely and nostalgic combination. “ is that you, hun? ”.

the girl grinned from ear to ear and opened her arms wide to greet the woman, cooing softly whilst embracing her smaller body. “ i’m home now! ”, she announced happily and after letting the hug linger, she cupped the woman’s cheeks softly. “ looking stunning, as per usual. ”

“ oh i didn’t think you’d notice ”, the woman laughed, her chortle throaty and welcoming. “ i’ve just been exfoliating. ”

hope rose her eyebrows and couldn’t help but wiggle them, “ trying to impress the man at home, huh? ”. and then laughed at the small smack on the shoulder she received. “ how is he? is he better? still working? ”.

“ still working ”, hortense replied with a nod. “ although, he has been at home very often to spend time with me. i don’t know if i’ll ever get used to it properly. when you get married, you’ll know. ”

hope tilted her head and smiled adoringly at the lady, she has always spoken so well of her marriage of nearly fifty years with her husband. in this modern world, romance wasn’t exactly too popular. people had recognized love as a chemical reaction rather than a spiritual bond, and yet, older generations managed to remain romantic. it was hope’s who was a little cold to the topic.

but she never excused the idea of marriage. her parents married at a very young age and their relationship was intact, perhaps maybe more now than before. it would be nice to find someone but hope didn’t think it would be anytime soon, she was only twenty-two and she hadn’t explored all she wanted to see just yet.

“ i’m sure i will ”, hope said softly before looking back at her house. “ okay, i’m going to pop in very quickly to see the family. i’ll be back soon before tea, i promise! i bought some . . . colleagues over! ”.

hortense gasped, and then smirked with a laugh. “ my girl’s already growing up, since when are you the type to bring colleagues, huh? i mean it, you never bring friends over unless if you want them to impress your parents. there has to be a boy involved. ”

laughing, hope waved to the lady and watched her head back into her home, her door was open and she could hear some classic jazz playing through the sound of what sounded like the woman scolding her husband. chuckling, hope then went into her own house.

you’d think new orleans would be impacted by the technology but people only evolved their way of living if it was necessary. hope’s family had to because her father was a bit of a lunatic when it came to science, but it had remained relatively twenty-first century based, in that they hadn’t changed many things.

unlocking the front door, she heard music from inside almost immediately. it was most likely her mother, who was fond of nearly every genre of music around the world except for country, she couldn’t stand it. today, she had seemed to stick to some art farmer, a beloved trumpeter that even hope held dear to her heart.

the house was separated in two floors; the bottom floor being the garage, the first floor being the kitchen and living room and workspaces, and the top floor being the bedrooms and at the very top, hope’s father set up his astronomy roof, as he liked to call it.

going up the stairs to the first floor, the music grew louder and upon reaching the top, hope spotted some movement from the living room, and then the movement came into view, her darling mother dancing, swaying, whistling and humming. youthful and fun as always, stunning as if age did not impact her beauty at all.

she looked almost identical to her daughter except for the hair which she’d dyed into a reddish-brown of some sort. regardless, it suited her. out of all the people hope knew in the world, her mother was the definition of effervescent.

effervescent and at times aloof. the woman was enjoying her music so much that it took her a hot minute to notice her daughter all the way down the hall. the woman gasped and froze, her hands covering her open mouth and her eyes wide, even from here, hope could see them tear up.

“ hi, mom. ”

“ oh, hope, you’re home ”, she sighed and rushed to give the girl a hug, a tight one that nearly crushed hope and her innocent bones but the girl just grinned and tucked her chin on the woman’s shoulder, letting the hug linger. “ oh, goodness, you should have told me, i would have dressed up better or done something about my hair— ”.

hope laughed and tightened the hug, “ you look stunning, mom. you don’t have to dress up for me, i wanted to surprise you guys. ” the girl lifted her head slightly from her shoulder and smiled at her properly. “ oh, look at you. ”

her mother grinned and kissed her cheek tenderly, then taking a step back and holding her index finger to her lips. “ your brother’s in his room, i think he’ll be happy to see you ”, she informed the girl.

“ where’s dad? ”.

“ went shopping, now go! ”.

hope’s heart stammered in her chest with excitement. her baby brother was someone she was dying to see, perhaps the one she most wanted to see. taking the flight of stairs up to the bedrooms, she stepped onto the birch plank floors and tried not to make her steps echo even though her mother was playing music downstairs.

connor’s room was the door across from hers, so when he was a baby who managed to walk, he would often burst into her room in the morning to wake her up. after that, it was mostly her who woke him up. it was noon, though, so he couldn’t possibly be still in bed.

hearing music from within his own room, hope pressed her hand to the doorknob and turned it slowly, before peeking her head in. the place hadn’t changed a bit, his bedsheets were the same and his action figurines were still stacked up on his shelves, along with scientific books and comics.

her mother was like her in that he loved some scientific stuff. the first time introduced him to doctor who, he binged watched two seasons within the span of a couple of nights during his school holidays. and when he got into marvel, she couldn’t stop him from buying almost anything iron man related. the boy loved iron man.

the kid was sat at his desk, but there was no chair sight. hope frowned slightly but tried to smile all the same. his wheelchair had changed, perhaps they had gotten him a new model that made it faster and easier for a kid his age to move. either way, it saddened her.

not because of the wheelchair, but because he was on a wheelchair.

resting against his doorframe, hope watched her ten-year-old brother for a moment. he hadn’t changed at all, his hair remained dark and his shirts were always colorful, he mostly wore summer-clothes as to avoid getting too hot. he couldn’t really swim anymore, so clothes like these kept him cool.

they seemed to have gotten rid of his glasses, though, and that’s when she recalled the message her father had sent her that connor’s eye surgery had worked out and his vision was perfect.

he hadn’t seemed to have taken notice of her until he turned on his wheelchair with something in hand. a letter, an envelope. her eyes widened for a moment when she realized it was lilac. every time he used a lilac envelope, it was meant to be for her. whatever the message was, it was always meant for her.

connor’s eyes went from his desk and towards his sister who was at the door still, completely frozen still. hope saw his legs, saw that he was no longer paralyzed from the ankles down, but now it seemed to have affected just below his knees. and the tears soon rose to her eyes once again.

“ h-hope . . . ”.

“ h-hi, kid. ”

inhaling through the pain in her chest, she rushed over and picked him up, sweeping him off the wheelchair and holding him like he was still a baby. in her eyes, he hadn’t aged at all. he was ten years old and with an illness that could potentially kill him soon if no one did anything.

she felt those fragile arms around her neck and his tearful face against her neck which muffled the sound of his sobs. the last time she saw her brother crying was roughly five years ago, when he was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, which affected the course of his life, and it still does.

hope stood there, holding the crying boy in her arms and securing his legs around her waist. he wasn’t heavy at all, she could carry him around like this for hours. and she wanted to. to make up for the lack of presence she showed in his life, a life that was partially miserable. she saw him express his sadness to his mother one night, about being teased school, about being unable to be a normal boy.

sighing softly, she ran a hand through his jet black hair and kissed his cheek softly. “ hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to hide your face from me, kiddo ”, she told him, caressing his cheek gently to get a glance at his gentle features.

when he rose his head, hope smiled tenderly. his full cheeks seemed to have gone, and his eyes seemed sadder, there wasn’t that glitter of innocence in them anymore. his illness completely took that away from him. but she always believed that even when you’re sick, you deserve a normal life. but people around you are always going to make it difficult.

hope’s father became severely depressed after the news, it was only her and her mother who managed to fight through it and try to make connor’s life as normal as possible. he knew of his illness and she wondered what the pain was of having to go through a day knowing that this might kill you one day.

it was why hope had gone to join voyage. the pay was good, and her father also spoke well of it. so perhaps with enough funds, they could afford the surgery. now they didn’t have the funds to either cure the boy’s illness nor give her father an artificial arm.

but she fought through it, she wanted to heal them both.

“ how are you, hm? did you pick up piano like mom said you would? ”, she questioned. the jazz was pleasant, so she pretended to dance with him, only to invoke a little giggle that brought a wave of serotonin to hope’s mind. “ our very own chopin. ”

connor grinned, “ i started two months ago. i like it a lot. dad was going to teach me to play guitar but that was . . . before the accident. ” he appeared saddened for a moment until he pressed his cheek against his sister’s. “ but that’s okay! i prefer piano anyway. ”

“ piano’s classier, you’ll have fun learning it. you better invite me to your school concert, i’ll fight to be there ”, hope said and connor nodded eagerly. smiling softly, she heard the music on the boy’s speaker change. she recognized it to be some rolling stones. she gasped. “ you little sneak, you took the album from my room! ”.

“ i also took some plushies! ”.

“ hm, fair enough. ”

hope sighed softly and put the boy back down onto his wheelchair, making sure he was secured before smiling. “ right, well, uh what happened to the old wheelchair you had? did mom throw it away? ”, she asked.

connor shook his head, “ it’s in the garage, dad fixed it but we like this one. in case it breaks, though, we can always go back to the old one. ” hope nodded slowly and looked off into the distance. “ why? ”.

“ i’m gonna need it. ”

time skip  ﹏

“ oh, you’re back! ”.

indeed she was. she didn’t exactly ask permission from her parents, but she took the old wheelchair her brother used to the ship. there was a small control stick on the left armrest to make it easier for the patient to move. and the reason she’d bought it was because there was someone who needed it. quinn. and she didn’t want the kid tucked inside the ship for the two days they would be there.

she had brought the chair into the ship and had taken it into the bedroom, quinn seemed to have woken up and he looked much better than yesterday. what he needed was not to be tucked inside a bedroom when there was sunlight and food and people outside.

“ w-what’s that for? ”, the boy asked, visibly alarmed when the chair came into view. “ is that for me? ”.

hope managed a meek smile and brought the chair closer to him. “ you’re injured, still. but you can sit up, you can sit and eat and this chair is the best thing you’re going to get if you’re coming outside. it’s warm, and there’s food and music, you’re not staying cooped up here ”, she said and turned to vivienne. “ you can help him get into cooler clothes? ”.

vivienne smiled, “ of course! but uh, may i ask, how did you find it? ”.

hope paused and inhaled deeply. “ it’s my brother’s old chair ”, she said. after making a swift leave from the bedroom, she waited outside patiently for everything to be done and the doors slid open in around six or seven minutes, quinn had handled the controls of the wheelchair quite easily. hope chuckled as he moved himself out into the hall and gave a little spin in the chair. “ how does it feel? ”.

“ better than being in bed ”, he stated and then offered her a hint of a smile, she wondered just what it looked like in its full form. “ thank you for this, i’ll find a way to pay you back somehow. ”

hope shook her head, “ just enjoy yourself whilst you’re here. that’s all i ask from you. ”

it took some time but soon the pirates had gotten themselves dressed into some proper attire. hope had to lend dawn some hair clips from her closet as it would be a nice detail to the summer dress she had picked. not to mention the adorable flats on her feet. if she wore anything cuter, she would reduce her age to at least a teenager’s appearance.

the streets were more likely nearly the afternoon, most neighbors would be up and would bring meals to each other’s homes, having a lovely lunch together. the bars were all open, the children were spilling onto the streets with skipping ropes and footballs. you’d think that children’s upbringing would be different, but parents kept traditions alive so they could be young for a little longer.

“ so, this is where you grew up ”, enzo mumbled to her, he was walking alongside her, taking in the sights as if he was walking through a museum. “ it’s so colorful, and that music’s amazing! i wanna move here when i retire. ”

hope looked about for a little longer. the french quarter was a lovely place to live, and the food was better here than anywhere else in town. “ yeah, it’s a wonderful place. the best place for bringing up artistic people. my brother’s taste in music is already superior since he grew up here as opposed to a kid in california ”, the girl voiced with a small smirk.

enzo snorted, “ that’s something to be proud of. ”

needless to say, it was pleasant taking a walk around the french quarter. hope would have shown them more but lunchtime was coming around and she didn’t want them to be too hungry. so she stopped by her favorite restaurant, brennan’s. they served perhaps the best food in the entire city.

upon requesting a table, hope waited in line and took a quick look around. the walls were still painted green and the floor still checker-patterned. and the food smelled magnificent, as it always did.

they managed to get a big table by the window and hope helped quinn settle into a secure space before taking her seat in between vivienne and enzo, dominic and dawn sitting beside each other. hope’s never taken notice of it but they seemed to be close. even peeking at them at times, she sensed an amorous feeling from them, proximity. like her proximity to connor.

it was . . . cute.

when the time came to order, hope ordered a plate of gumbo with prawns and rice, and for the first time in a while, she settled with some water to drink on the side. whilst everyone else ordered and waited for the food, vivienne sprouted some conversation to fill the silence in.

“ so . . . you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to ”, the girl began and hope turned her attention to her. “ you spoke of your brother yesterday, but not the fact that he . . . has a disability. ”

hope hummed and looked down, “ i don’t see why it’s relevant. my brother’s been sick with muscular dystrophy since he was four. first, it started with his feet and over time it rose up to his legs. it’s just below his knee now. it just means he can’t walk, hence why he’s in a wheelchair. hence why i was able to get that one for quinn until he gets better. ” she motioned to where quinn sat with a slight smile.

“ c-can he not get treatment? ”, dawn raised, appearing concerned when there really wasn’t any reason to be. connor had been sick for a while and the alarm that hope used to feel had been blocked from her senses, she can’t spend some years of her life just waiting for her brother to do. she prefers to do something about it first.

“ he’s been getting treatment. but ever since my dad’s accident, no one’s been working and there’s not enough to pay for it. it’s . . . kind of the reason why i joined voyage. to raise funds. i don’t want connor to go at such a young age, it’s best to treat it before the loss of muscle power reaches vital organs ”, she stated and shook her head. “ there’s nothing i wouldn’t for him. ”

enzo’s hand met the girl’s back, feeling a gently pat on it. “ that’s admirable, hope. really admirable. and i think that with your hard work, within given time, both your father and your brother will be healing ”, he said and hope returned the smile he offered, it was good to be encouraged at times.

because sometimes she felt like she was fighting this battle all alone and that people thought it was meaningless, that everyone had lost faith in her. but to be smiled at and encouraged really brought some warmth to her.

she appreciated it. wholeheartedly.

when the food came, it was compliments all around to the chef, and the bounty hunter couldn’t blame them. they appeared famished to an extent, but the quality of the food really made a difference. vivienne even offered to ask the chef for the recipe in case she wanted to serve this meal on the go.

the dish really brought that sense of nostalgia in a ripple effect, her senses tingling once more with the richness of the food that incited memories of her childhood; going out to the bayou for a boat ride, playing hopscotch in the veranda, riding her bike around the neighborhood. it almost drew tears to her eyes.

she noticed she had tuned out and tuned back in whilst the pirates were talking amongst themselves. hope has never really sat to watch and notice them individually, and the way they spoke to each other, conversations jumping and attention shifting and bursts of laughter and groans of dread at bad jokes, it was like sitting in a family dinner.

hope remained quiet as she didn’t want to disturb them, just because she was there didn’t mean that they couldn’t have their bonding moments. besides, when was the last time they got to be out in the open like this? she stood up, excusing herself to go pay for the meals.

it wasn’t expensive and the waitress gave her a discount as she’d known hope for years. it’s magical, being a frequent customer. as she was tapping her card on the reader, hope’s gaze wandered to the door when it opened, and her food, which had settled so well, began to brew into a cyclone of dread within her.

it was like the sweetness and saltiness had become pure sourness and the food was beginning to rise, the water she’d drank couldn’t calm down the raging way her blood was running. it was fear, it was dread, it was a cluster of emotions that left her speechless and immobile for a moment.

when those bleak, black eyes met hers, she really felt like she was going to faint and she would have turned away and walked back to the table but it was too late now, he’d seen her, and his eyes looked like they would pop from their sockets.

“ hope, is that you? ”.

“ h-hi, malakai. ”

the said male scoffed and approached and pulled her into a tight hug that she felt like she was going to burn from. it was like her heart was about to shoot out from her throat, she was so nervous. and not the good kind of nervous, the worst kind of nervous.

he pulled back quickly and took a good look at her. he way taller than her, it felt like she was being stared down at like some sort of animal, an ant, one that could easily be stepped on by the intimidated aura of this particular young man.

malakai worked for voyage. he had joined at the same time as hope and they trained in the same squad for a while until he got moved to communications where he worked as a messanger in between colonies, carrying important messages from leader to leader.

aside from being relatively smart, malakai also harnessed the looks that brought quite the attention. those luminous ebony eyes, the tanned skin and dark hair, the pretty nose and soft details, he was quite frankly the epitome of perfection in terms of visuals, he never failed to leave hope stunned at times but his beauty at times . . . startled her.

“ it’s been a long time, wow! ”, he commented. it has been a while, it’s nearly been four, going onto five years since she’s seen him. “ you’ve changed. still short, though. ”

hope laughed slightly, “ don’t get rude now. i didn’t think you’d come to celebrate easter, i thought perhaps you’d be with your folks in portugal. ”

malakai quickly shook his head, “ nah, portugal gets boring. lisbon never changes so sometimes i stay in new orleans for special events. besides, i have family friends here so i’m not exactly alone. ” hope nodded and looked down at her hands. “ are you here alone? ”.

quickly shaking her head, hope nodded towards the table in the corner. and for a second, she saw enzo rise up in his seat slightly. like he was observing, or perhaps about to smash someone’s face in, she couldn’t tell the difference. “ lunch with some . . . uh, friends. they’re staying with us for easter so you’ll meet them eventually ”, she uttered softly.

looking back at malakai, his gaze remained on the pirates and hope couldn’t describe at his expression was. because he had just been smiling and now it looked like . . . nothing. plain, a colorful canvas splashed with white, monotone and blank.

but then it changed into a soft gaze as he looked back at her, “ i hope so. ” rolling her eyes yet again, hope chose to keep her gaze on the ground. he suddenly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and then finally took a step back. “ anyways, i’m just here to pick up a delivery. i’ll see you around, then. ”

“ o-of course ”.

malakai nodded and upon collecting his food, blew the bounty hunter a kiss and then left. just like that. hope walked back slowly to the table, trying to recover from the revolting feeling she sensed when he had entered. it always happened, like a reflex action.

“ who was that? ”, quinn questioned. “ friend? ”.

“ boyfriend? ”, dom inquired. enzo’s eye seemed to twitch.

hope quickly shook her head, “ n-no, he’s a friend. we grew up not too far from each other, went to high-school together. he was my prom date but then we were always friends. he’s also in voyage. ”

vivienne’s eyes lit up, “ you looked close, he was standing quite close to you. look at you, you’re a bit red. ” eyes widening, hope covered her cheeks with her hands. “ i think he likes you. ”

hope smiles shyly and took her seat once again. the chatter sprung up again and she zoned out because she was startled after seeing malakai after so many years. he was always nice to her, especially back in high-school, and he was a rather lovely prom date considering no one else had asked her to go. vivienne wasn’t the first person who proposed the idea of him fancying her, she’s heard it before.

but she doesn’t really see it. he is just an amorous person by nature, affectionate, and fond of physical contact, nothing more. he’s never really made a move on her, never spoke about romance near her. so she believed it was the trick of the eye when others said he liked her. people simply taking his kindness as something else.

after the long meal, hope decided that the pirates could stay at her place. they could very much stay in the ship but that wasn’t exactly polite, especially since her mother was welcoming of people hope introduced. which was rare, hence why she persisted in letting them stay.

there was plenty of room around the house, mostly because there was a spare bedroom for guests. usually, hope’s grandmother would stay there, but the woman had formally moved to new york and she hasn’t visited in a while. there was a double bed for at least two or three people, some sleeping bags in the attic, and room on the couch. if connor wanted to sleep on hope’s bed, there would be space in his room as well.

it was an odd feeling, allowing people she previously had a distaste towards in her house. but it was better than letting them stay on the ship. for some reason, she wanted to show them what she was . . . actually like. they probably took her for an arrogant, cold and lonely girl. but she had a family, a family she loved very much and one that might be welcoming to them.

when hope introduced them, it was like connor bonded with them immediately. to her family, they were still voyage members. yet they seemed to have given up on the fake names. before they could, though, hope ran a search through many pirate databases on voyage in search of their names.

and there weren’t any names, nor many obvious pictures, only descriptions on their appearances. they still had bounties but it was unlikely her father was in the right frame of mind to be hunting or arresting anyone.

when they came in, she heard he was on the roof, getting ready for another night of star-gazing as he wanted to see some new constellations moving in. it was always his dream to adventure out of the solar system to somewhere new, he was an ambitious man.

hope walked onto the roof with her hands behind her back and saw her old man there already. he had a work station on the roof, a little seat for him to relax on and his equipment which was somewhat scattered around. usually, when it rained, he would pull up a field to shield it. he’d paid quite a lot for it.

it is a strange feeling, seeing your father who changed whilst you were away. his right arm was nearly completely gone, only some bits of his forearm remained which he seemingly hid behind a leather jacket. he remained handsome despite it all, he’d lost weight and he was growing a neat beard that suited him well. there wasn’t a single strand of white hair on his head, he always took care of his appearance.

but there was something on the man that puzzled the girl, and it was the lack of that party-animal personality he had. he should’ve been dancing around, playing music, singing whilst working, perhaps calling for his wife to come up to see something.

that was gone. he was silent as he adjusted his telescope. his most prized possession, his only look into the stars now that flying was out of bounds to him. the tears came flying to her eyes again, hope stared so helplessly at the man she admired so much and how he was coping. if he was coping at all.

he had his back to her, but he turned when laughter was heard from downstairs. and then his eyes settled on his daughter. similar to connor, he seemed to freeze and then begin to tear up, hope rushed to him before he could call her name.

and threw her arms around him tightly, securing them around his neck and hiding her face within the crook of his neck, feeling his only remaining arm wrap itself around her. he still wore the leather jacket her and connor got him for his birthday, he still wore the same perfume his mother gave him on their anniversary, he was still the same man in body but perhaps not the same in his mind.

not a single word was spoken for a good minute as she tightened the hug, letting her eyes close for a brief moment to appreciate the peace that being home brought her. it was a relief seeing her father well. she thought he would have changed completely, shut her out for having taken too long or refused her embrace. but he didn’t.

then, he spoke. “ i thought i wouldn’t be seeing you until connor’s birthday ”, he mumbled softly, his voice also hadn’t changed. at all. oh, god one cannot explain how happy that made her.

“ i wanted to be here sooner. i’m sorry i took too long ”, she uttered with a frown, not looking to pull away any time soon. “ i missed you, dad. ”

her father chuckled and then hummed. “ i missed you more, hope. i can’t even express how worried i was. about you and how you were handling yourself out there . . . ”, was what he continued with. “ but you’re brave, you always pull through in the end. and you always come home. ”

her eyes opened and her expression remained empty for a moment until one pristine tear fell from her eye and spilled down the bridge of her nose, running all the way down the tip before it fell onto the ground. a single tear. she’s never given herself the freedom to cry over anyone or anything, crying was always a waste of time and energy.

but this time, she couldn’t help it. this was her father. she knew many people out there didn’t have one as amazing as this one, or a father at all. she knew many didn’t have mothers, brothers. she knew she was incredibly fortunate to having something like a family to go back to when she had to retreat from the world.

she had a home. and she never took that for granted.

her father gave her another gentle squeeze before moving back slightly and taking a good look at her face, wiping the remaining tears away and patting her cheek softly. “ don’t cry because of me, hope. you don’t want me to tell you the magical tear story again, do you? ”, he laughed at the face she pulled and then let her sniffle and wipe her face. “ did you bring friends over? ”.

“ y-yeah ”, she breathed through her sniffle, and then settled with her hands in the pockets of her dungarees. “ comrades. workmates. they’re newbies so they don’t know much about what happens. they don’t have a place to stay for easter. ”

he smiled, “ that’s fine, we can open some space for them. and i wonder if they prefer hotdogs or hamburgers for the barbeque tomorrow . . . are any of them vegetarian? ”.

“ lucas everhart, you are truly a complex man ”, hope commented, seeing how his eyes softened with a sense of innocence. “ i’m glad you’re here, dad. ” he moved in and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.

“ i am rather complex. now go, make your friends feel comfortable ”, he told her and ushered her away, she stood there for a moment, watching him go about his work. she wanted to speak more time with him, but she still had the whole of easter to enjoy his company.

heading down the stairs, she found connor in the living room with dawn and quinn, he seemed to be quizzing them about planets and whatnot and hope didn’t mind it so long as they avoided making it obvious that they weren’t a part of voyage.

in the kitchen, it seemed like vivienne and hope’s mother had started to get along. showing off recipes was always one of her mother’s favorite things to do, especially when feeding a large group of people.

she didn’t see enzo nor dom, however. she looked about but didn’t catch sight of them. “ they went out to the store, hope, they’ll be back soon ”, vivienne told her. the girl nodded and then went into the living room.

“ hey tyke, come here, give your sister some cuddles ”, hope said to the baby brother who immediately rose his arms to be picked up. when taking him into her arms, she was always gentle. looking at his face, they shared a sweet smile before she sat down on the couch, giving him space on her lap to relax. “ what are you guys talking about? ”.

dawn grinned, “ space-dust. he’s really smart, you know, he was telling me about the new goldilock planet they found in the milky way. ”

connor looked at hope and smiled eagerly. “ it’s really cool, but it’s too hard to explain it and i’m tired ”, he mumbled before resting his head against her chest. “ cuddles. ”

“ cuddles ”, hope repeated and looked down towards his small figure and the way his eyes closed, he did look rather tired and he smelt a bit like chlorine. “ did you go swimming? ”. connor hummed and nodded. “ see, i’m going to start crying if you keep things to yourself. tell me what you’re doing, connor, i wanna spend time with you. ”

he rose his head slightly and looked at her thought sleepy eyes, “ m’kay, i’m, uh . . . yawn, doing some swimming . . . a-and piano . . . an— ”.

“ okay, no, nevermind, shh, sleep ”, hope cut in and put his head back against her chest, smiling at the giggles that came from both him and dawn.

it was peaceful, the rest of the evening was composed primarily of introducing her family to the pirates. connor was fast asleep on her lap, worn out from the swimming and the excitement of today, he looked like he was going to burn with energy tomorrow so hope let him sleep.

her father wasn’t as curious about the pirates as she thought he’d be, and perhaps it may be because the topic of voyage may upset him. so they mostly talked about sports, music, art, things that anyone can join into. hope never stopped holding the sleeping connor in her arms, though, he looked too peaceful and too safe there.

the feeling of being home cannot be compared to anything else. being out in space is one thing but it’ll never replace the sensation of being in the walls you grew up in and being among the people you hold dearest to your heart. she made the most of it now, because things might change in a couple of years’ time.

in the midst of the silence, she rested her cheek gently against her brother’s head and closed her eyes. blocking out the sounds around her and only focusing on now, not tomorrow or the day after that, not yesterday or the week she had. now.

now, she was home. safe and sound.

[science-fiction-is-real]

In which i talk about joseph stalin for a long time and also about intersectionality

You know who i’ve been reading a lot about recently?

Joseph Stalin.

And I’ve been reading, and while i’m at work all day, working mostly alone, no music or distractions, i’ve been thinking about everything i’ve been reading.

and this fucker who died before my parents were even born has been on my mind, because i just don’t fucking get it.

This idiot was a revolutionary.  a god damn REVOLUTIONARY.  Did hard time in siberia as a political prisoner.  (I mean, probably also a prisoner for all the organized crime he was doing---to fund the REVOLUTION)  That’s not the sort of thing a grifter, who is only interested in power, gets into.  It’s an absolutely terrible grift.  It’s a lot of risk to take if you aren’t a true believer.

And in between all the bank robberies and what not, he edited a newspaper and did a lot of writing.  There’s a database online where you can read pretty much everything Stalin ever wrote (Along with pretty much every thing pretty much every other famous Marxist ever wrote).  I can’t really bring myself to read too much of his stuff.  Eww.  Why would I want to.  Gross.  But also I feel like i should in the name of fact checking, and understanding what I’m talking about before I talk about it.

But the stuff i did read, was...... not terrible....? Some of it was replying to other socialist writing (because what do lefties enjoy more than arguing with other lefties, amiright???), a lot of it was old fashioned marxist stuff talking about working class vs capitalists, and a lot of it was describing legitimate complaints about the Czarist government.  Expressing anger at the pogroms and the suppression of ethnic minorities and hunger and poverty.  Sounds like a good reason to have a revolution to me.

Of course, those were all the same sorts of atrocities he himself would go on to do.  again.  eww.

But, after all of this, it’s pretty clear to me that pre-revolutionary Stalin was a true fuckin believer.

And that kept me up at night.  Because how come that would change when he himself came into power?

Is it because once you’re handed power, the temptation to abuse it is just far too great?  Is it because when the revolution is over, and the complexities of the ‘’Real World,’’ are obvious, and it’s all to easy to abandon idealism in order to get things done?  Are all post-revolutionary periods destined to be violent and oppressive, because the new government wants to assert its power?  How much blame does he get personally, and how much goes to the other founders of the revolutionary movement--Lenin and Trotsky and the like-- who laid the groundwork for how things would function?  IS socialism itself just cursed to fail like my republican grandma told me?

Or is this just a classical example of the other thing our republican grandmas warned us about, radical idealists turning cranky and cruel and conservative in old age just like they did? I mean what sort of things did stalin do while in power?  A lot of pretty republican things.  LMAO.  Banning the gays and abortion, enforcing strict gender norms, getting TOUGH ON CRIME!  Beefing up the military on money that should be used to provide for people’s basic needs....

If the right gets to try and pass off Hitler as a socialist, the left gets to say that Stalin was a moderate republican.  (Not full republican.  I mean, he did actually react appropriately when he found out there were Nazis in his country.  Just moderate republican.)  LMAO!

But then i thought about it a little more.

No.  He was not a right winger.  No one who spends the first half of his adult life trying to overthrow a government that had been ruling for 300 years is a god damn fucking right winger.  He was left wing.  But.....  Old timy left wing.

Because he did make good on a lot of the socialist ideas while in office.  I’m pretty sure he set up a fairly solid welfare state, free housing and education and healthcare and whatnot.  That was pretty new and revolutionary for the time.

But... Old timy left wing.

and if you think about old timy left-wingers.  most of them are only left wing in SOME areas.  The right absolutely LOVES to point this out.  ‘’Sure Margaret Sanger was a radical feminist, but she was also a racist!’’  ‘’This person was a racist, this person was homophobic!  All your icons are fake frauds!’’  I mean, they probably were all racist and homophobic and whatnot, but that doesn’t actually deminish the radicality of the stuff they were ‘’woke’’ on.

And that’s true for the pre-marxist left too.  We can hate on Thomas Jefferson all day long for being a creepy rapy slave owner and rich asshole who should have been tarred and feathered and  (sorry, i brought up thomas jefferson, i have to go take 5 and cool down before i punch something)  But he still was..... left.  To say ‘’all men are created equal,’’ even if you just mean straight white men, was still kind of radical in the 18th century, when the world was still divided up between the gentry and the common men, and people were presumed to have class status that was bred into them and was part of their very inner nature.  The idea that you could just throw out the idea of a nobility ruling class, or the monarchy, and initiate some sort of meritocracy based system, was out of this fucking world at that point.

And you can say the say the same thing about the russian revolutionaries.  You can criticize them up and down and left and right for being undemocratic, but the idea that wealth should be something everyone has guaranteed access to, that no one should hold economic power over you, that working people deserve some sort of dignified recognition for what they do, that was--AND STILL IS--radical.

Lenin, who lived in monarchical empire, saw the western countries move away from monarchies and embrace our versions of Western Capitalist Democracy (TM).  He decided his revolution would go in a different direction, one of economic instead of political democracy.  The western style of revolution had been tried, and now it was time to try out an eastern style of revolution.

I think he would have said something like ‘’look, ya’ll in france and england can vote, and i’ve been to france and england.  Those places suck ass.  You’re poor and hungry and miserable and working 10 hours a day for shit pay and going home to your crammed tenement apartments before dying of cholera at the age of 12.  Hell of a lot a good DeMoCrAcY does.  We need ECONOMIC democracy instead.’’  

I do remember a quote from lenin, that said something along the lines of ‘’Yes, my system isn’t ‘democratic’ but if you think about it, it’s a hell of a lot more democratic than anything they’re doing in capitalist countries.’’

Of course, we modern folk who fancy ourselves so enlightened by hindsight will point out that you need BOTH economic and political democracy.  A democratic government being run alongside an undemocratic economy is oppression. Anyone who lives in the United States and has read more than three books in their life can see this.  It SUCKS.  Likewise.  An egalitarian economy being run by an undemocratic government is also oppression, because the government can do whatever it wants to the economy, like, say.... sell all the country’s food on the international market to fund various different 5-year-plan projects.  Had Stalin been subjected to democratic processes, he never would have been allowed to do that.

In the early 20th century, there wasn’t really much of a concept of INTERSECTIONALITY.  in the modern left, we pretty much agree that if you want to have freedom and equality in one sphere of life, you also need to pursue freedom and equality in other spheres.  Oppression is contagious.  If you allow discrimination against Gays for example, this leads to discrimination against the sexes because people are going to be forced into stricter and stricter gender norms.  And of course, if you want political equality under the law, you also need racial equality so that one group of people isn’t disenfranchised from voting or fair treatment by the courts.

Just like how political democracy has to happen alongside economic democracy.

So yeah, I guess after the end of all this long ranting and shit.  I think it makes sense why a serious revolutionary true believer like Stalin can grow into a tyrant.  Because Old timy left-wing politics was underdeveloped and had lots of blind spots.  People didn’t realize that it was important for movements to be led by people who were seriously committed to intersectional emancipation.  Young Stalin when he would go hang out with all of his socialist dude-bro friends, planning their bank heists, wearing their newsboys hats, trying not to die of cholera,  he probably wasn’t being called out on sexism or racism.  They were just an economic-left movement that didn’t care much about the other stuff.

But there isn’t really a whole lot to gain by doing a character analysis on some ass wipe who kicked the bucket before color television was even invented.  All the terrible things he did and all the good intentions, sincere or not, that he had, that is between him and whatever God is governing this bitch of a universe. We on the left know better than to look at individuals to answer important questions, we know to look at systems.  And gather lessons so that we can build better movements in the future.

Yeah, whatever, intersectionality.

Sorry this was so long and poorly written.  I shall cite no sources and do no editing.  Fuck you.  Thanks for reading.

[padawan-historian]

WOW Analysis: White Male Schools of Thoughts

This week we will break down several white male arguments that are circulating across the media. The first school of thought is the Individual Identity Academy.

Some of their mottos include:

Just because I am a straight white guy does not mean I oppress people!

White men are the most discriminated group in the United States.

Why am I being held responsible for things that I have no control over?

The problem with these phrases is that, unfortunately, many of the students reciting these words are miseducated and lack context – especially about identity.

•

We each have a personal identity – a recipe that is uniquely made by us. But, outside of ourselves, we have in-and-out group identities. “Ingroup identities are beliefs about a group held by its own members . . . According to self-categorization theory, people’s ingroup identities (i.e., beliefs about the qualities that characterize their ingroups) exert a powerful influence on their personal identities” (Bosson and Michniewicz 425-426). However, unlike most marginalized and minority groups in the United States, white (heterosexual) men have rarely been labeled in groups outside of extracurricular or social activities.

•

When phrases like white privilege are utilized in discussions, young white men attending the Individual Identity Academy tend to think that they are being criticized. They are. White privilege is a broad term that is used to highlight white individuals who lack a certain amount of awareness in relation to race issues. They think that since, in their lives, they do not receive any forms of special treatment face-to-face that means white privilege isn’t really a thing. They fail to recognize the context behind the conversation – that there are systemic forces at work that have created avenues for white men to be successful while everyone else must overcome additional obstacles and parameters in order to have a chance at succeeding. Even though some individuals have overcome institutional barriers, that does not excuse the inequities that were put in place in the hopes that they would fail (there is a larger conversation we should have about poverty and the role of capitalism, but I will save that chat for another day).  

•

While some white Americans may experience prejudice based on their race (or be members of ethnic minorities who, historically, faced persecution in the United States – including Italians and Irish immigrants), black and brown Americans have endured a chain of unbroken discrimination and dehumanization that has left their communities with multigenerational trauma and little to no economic mobility. Along with these inequities, many people of color experience varying levels of double consciousness, an internalized sensation that WEB DuBois describes as “the sense of looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness” (DeBois 12). He notes that since American blacks have lived in a society that has historically repressed and devalued them, these black and brown people have difficulty unifying their black identity with their American identity.

•

With the advancement of technology, black and brown Americans, along with other marginalized groups, have the opportunity to share their narratives and realities to a larger audience across social. Members of the African Diaspora (the millions of African descendants across the globe) can affirm our shared history, celebrate our ancestry and promote self-love and personal healing in the face of a world where many of us, still face economic and social barriers based on racial divisions.

•

From a very young age, I knew that I was black and that some people would not like me because my skin color was different than their own. In high school, this feeling manifested into one of profound anxiety and isolation as I stood alone as the only black girl in my year. Educator and author of Why Are All of the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum notes that “If you think about classrooms or workspaces or conferences, wherever we are, we go into these spaces and we look for ourselves. You want to see yourself represented. In that sense, when young people walk into a classroom, they want to see someone who they identify with, maybe because they’re the same race. It doesn't always have to be racial identification. [A student] can identify with a teacher because she likes music [or] identify with [educators] because they are into sports. But to the extent that kids of color walk into classrooms and rarely see someone who looks like themselves in that environment, that’s a missing link” (Anderson). It took me years to realize that, during that time, in my desperation to fit in, I was, in fact, unable to form truly meaningful connections with many of my classmates. I was profoundly lonely.

•

This sense of loneliness is often interpreted as being misunderstood. Everyone makes jokes about teen angst and broodiness, but we rarely discuss that behind that often lies a sense of alienation and loneliness. Those who are misunderstood want to find a place to belong and want to form connections with people, but a mixture of self-preservation, insecurity and anxiety often prevent them from taking those steps. Instead they remain isolated and defensive – trapped between systems.

•

Like many young people, young white men exist in an undefined state. Cultural anthropologists refer to this period in life as liminality – "a traditional phase of a rite of passage during a time where the individual is experiencing a lack of defined social status" (Understanding Spirited Away: Consumption and Identity). This stage is often best depicted during adolescence when young people begin shedding their old roles as children and begin taking on the social responsibilities as young adults. 

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Pupils of the Individual Identity Academy see themselves as individuals, but exist in a world filled with ingroup identities. Black feminists. LGBTQ allies. Animal rights activists. Social reformers . . . or social justice warriors. The increased visibility of these groups - especially in spaces that were historically dominated by young white men, including video games and comics - is perceived as an attack on their sense of self. In their quest to find a place to belong, they have encased themselves in these small communities declaring that any changes that move towards inclusion and equity is, in fact, a form of oppression. They imagine a world where white men are vilified and denied opportunities because of their race when, in reality,

•

White privilege is the freedom from recognizing the societal and institutional policies that have denied (or limited) black and brown Americans’ access to professional services, economic equity and educational opportunities. When people call you out because “your white privilege” is showing, instead of thinking “Why am I being held responsible for something that, I feel, has nothing to do with me?” take a breath and try a few alternatives.

• Affirm Your Privilege: Dear students, having white privilege doesn’t make you the villain in the story. Laugh and say “I still have some work to do,” because WE ALL DO. I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with two highly-educated (heterosexual) parents. My exposure to systemic racism and inequity is relatively low in comparison to black and brown (and white) Americans who are in lower economic brackets. I am physically able and while I do have ADHD, my parents had the economic means to connect me to specialists and counselors throughout middle and high school (THAT 👏🏿 is 👏🏽 privilege👏🏾).

• Find Your Identity: We celebrate our American blackness because there is a shared history and cultural language through our music, food, clothing, magic, spirituality and dancing. Connect with your heritage through art, music, food, folk costumes and jewelry . . . not through secessionist flags and arguing about old statues.  

• Use Your Tools: Inheriting privilege means that you have, within you, the power to help others. "The function of freedom is to free someone else," (Toni Morrison) and, in order to free others, we must first have the right tools. Education is one of the most powerful tools in our world. 📚 Educate yourself through reading, listening to lectures (not just YouTubers and bloggers) and limiting your Twitter intake 🧘‍♀️

• Complacency is Just As Dangerous as Ignorance: There is a noticeable difference between white men's (and women's) brand of oppression and the oppression black and brown people experience. White individuals tend to focus on themselves. Black and brown individuals focus on their ancestors and their descendants. We aspire to change discriminatory policies, strengthen legal protections and reform public education. White people . . . want people to stop criticizing them online. They are not trying to engage in conversations, they are seeking validation and acceptance based on misinformation.

• Its Not Always About You: Believe it or not, there are systems in place that create inequalities and inequities within our society (CAPITALISM flashes across the screen). Racism is a weapon of social engineering built upon constructs that are meant to segregate and control people. Unless I'm addressing you directly when I say "white people" to refer to social inequities, chances are I am not talking about you, Charlie.

Catch up with me on Instagram ☀️ +🍷

[impracticaldemon]

Tagged ~ 10 Tough Questions

@kurokiorya​ challenged me with these a long time ago - here goes

I just don’t feel right to tag people I don’t know well to my awful questions :) See for yourself:  

I’ve put my answers under the cut, since many of the questions really aren’t easy, or of interest to everyone.

1. Are you an easy-going person? Is it hard for you to make friends in a new company?

I’m not exactly an easy-going person, but I play one on TV.  I’m good at empathy, and I really listen to people; however, I hold myself to too high a standard to relax easily. Sometimes my standards for myself make those around me uneasy.  I’m rarely completely at ease with people (including people I’ve known for years).  

2. Do you think that countries with historically-entrenched autocracy (eg Russia or Qatar) will benefit from establishing a western-type liberal democracy? 

I think people underestimate how long it takes for meaningful social change.  Every generation thinks that it has the right standards, and is “the end product”; consequently, every generation is both a force for change and - eventually - reactionary.  In the biggest sense, there is improvement with every generation in terms of moving from a self- or family- based focus to one that considers the well-being of the whole (and even that kind of progress can be nullified because of disasters, including war etc.). 

Also, liberal democracy in the west varies widely.  My own belief is that the US, for example, has been a plutocracy since it was founded; it is easing its way very slowly, and with a lot of mis-steps, towards something akin to “true” democracy (complete enfranchisement), but the wealthy have far too much power right now for the shift to be anything but slow and painful.  Every western country has issues with race and poverty (and sexism, homophobia, and much more), which means that full enfranchisement is still a long way off.  

So... I think your question is too complicated for me to answer, because true democracy has never existed - those who invented it disenfranchised women, immigrants / people of the “wrong” race, the poor, and the uneducated.  That said, I do think that a shift away from autocracy is eventually necessary to the social evolution of a nation’s people and the world as a whole.  In the short term, it’s painful, ineffective, and inefficient.

Are you interested in fashion? Do you consider your clothes and make-up a way to express yourself? No (despite having a clear sense of colour and aesthetics).  I resent spending time and energy on clothes and make-up (especially in a world that has such wildly different standards for men and women).  Clothes and make-up are a massive source of stress for me; I’d rather be able to wear a loose dress, or PJs, or yoga pants, and not be judged. 

Are you ready to move to another city or country in search of a better employment? I’ve done it before.  Right now, I’m happy where I am.

What do you think about adultery? Do you condemn such people? I think adultery is wrong because it means breaking a promise to be faithful (whether or not marriage is involved).  Problem is, from my moral standpoint, adultery requires a freely-given promise, and the right of every person to retract that promise.  Where those conditions are met, a person should have to take the appropriate steps to retract their promise before infidelity occurs.  And yes, that may cause them discomfort, embarrassment, and the loss of certain advantages.  If they’d rather break their promise than openly face the person to whom the promise was made, then I tend to condemn.  (Argh, why so complicated, Kuro???!!)

Do you have an experience of being prejudiced or discriminated (against)? Yes (specific instances and in general).  It will take a lot longer than people think for women (especially young women) to be valued equally as a matter of course and not as some kind of “virtue”.  This is the problem with systemic inequality - those who have benefited from the system are both consciously and unconsciously blind to the prejudice (and very defensive about it).

Have you ever hurt or harmed someone (albeit unwillingly) and then regretted it? Yes.

What do you think about traditional gender differences being less and less distinctive in modern society (well, in the most modern part of it)? Do you fell like it’s an opportunity to live a more interesting life or are you afraid that the world is going in some wrong direction?

I think that the (very, very gradual) dissolution of traditional gender differences (both in terms of roles and in terms of relevance) is a complicating and unsettling facet of modern society.  It’s not wrong (the reverse); but it is scary, even for those who will benefit.  Humans have often chosen oppression over trying to change something “known”.  So it can be both interesting and scary.  Either way, it’s necessary.

Do you have any ambitions to do something big and important in your life?  I think I may have, once.  Now I’m not so sure it’s what I really want.  Setting aside being prime minister, or being on the supreme court, I still have a quiet, flickering ambition to be a good and popular writer.

How do you usually deal with depression or bad mood (if you have any)? Poorly.  At the moment, I lack the resilience to do what I need to do to deal more appropriately / effectively.  Okay... um... Listening to music; singing; being left alone; writing.  I dislike sunshine, so that’s a problem.  Chocolate (not good, but not the worst strategy).  Completing one single, specific task.  Oh, and well-written games or books that aren’t afraid to poke fun at themselves and the world.

Ah, I guess some questions are a bit… heavy. But I really tried to think of something I want to know. Feel free to skip the ones you don’t like to answer (or just ignore the whole thing).

[maternityeveningdresses65]

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[blogsofftheblock-blog]

Hybrid Identity

            One thing you’ll notice about my collage is that I’m more of a globalized person than a localized one. All but one photo in the collage symbolizes something that is not exactly local, which already indicates that, like many of my fellow Gen Z-ers, I’m a “global citizen”, who is in touch more with systems that aren’t exactly local.

             I believe that the biggest influence to the kind of person that I am today is represented in the top left pic: travel. As I’ve said in my previous blog post, I’ve been truly fortunate to be able to travel across the world. Getting out of one’s comfort zone and going off to see the far corners of the world can teach a man so much about himself, and about others. While it means different things to different people, travel taught me to be open-minded, and it helped me realize that I’m just a pebble in the wide beautiful world.

             Directly beneath it represents my music taste: hip-hop. While the genre has had a bit of stigma surrounding it for the longest time, it has recently exploded to become the most popular genre of music today. Many naysayers will claim that this success is merely off the back of brainless, repetitive, and downright offensive lyricism, or lack thereof. However, the rise of hip-hop can also be attributed to the fact that no other form of music can match its social impact. Marginalized individuals all across the world use it to express themselves freely, and it is a tool with which to criticize and publicize the issues that plague their respective societies, as well as the world as a whole. Hip-hop taught me the importance of genuine creativity and expression, as well as the fact that the world, as beautiful as it is, also has problems that need to be addressed.

             Next up, there’s the topic of video games. Like hip-hop, video games are very much maligned by an unfortunately large number of people, particularly the older generations. As far as I know, most older people see video games as a waste of time, or even a complete and utter detriment to the well being of a child. However, we need to realize that anything, even studying, is detrimental to a child in excess. But if managed properly, video games are a fascinating testament to how far we humans have come. Video games aren’t just games: they are the premier example of interactive fiction. No other medium has its consumer assume so much freedom over a good. But more than that, video games taught me to think critically: to solve problems and interact with the world around me in ways that no teacher could ever dream of teaching.

             This leads me to my next point: technology. Our world has never been smaller, and that’s because of the tech boom that humanity has gone through in the past six decades. This tech boom has made technological devices no longer a fantasy, but a reality. Then, we took it a step further, and made large computers fit within the size of our hand. And now, with the world at my fingertips, I now have access to a new world of possibilities, not all of which good. The internet is a sea, and there are maelstroms and rough waves, but technology has helped me navigate it in a way that minimizes negative effects on me. And I’m a more discerning and critical individual because of it.

             Coming close to the end, there’s a strange oddity in the collage: a picture of food. One might wonder: “what does food have to do with mixed identities?” Well, aside from my slight gluttony, the beauty of food is that it is one of the truly universal aspects in the lives of every single human that has ever lived; and yet, the differences in food can clue us in on the culture and lifestyle of a people. Arabs eat completely differently from Swedes, who eat completely differently from us. There’s a reason why the adage “You are what you eat,” persists to this day: it’s true.

             Finally, we have the one aspect of my identity that is wholly local. My heritage as a Maranao is not something that I hold on to with pride. I do so because my family has faced much adversity to let me be the person that I am today. I wouldn’t love all the things that I loved if it wasn’t for my family, who put me in a position to pursue my dreams and interests. And they did so under the most difficult of circumstances: suffering through poverty, discrimination, and a crowded living space. And yet, they succeeded. I think it’s from that side of the family where I got my sense of pride and self-confidence. Despite my exposure to all these globalized media, I haven’t forgotten my roots.

[thesparkjournal]

CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM & WOMEN

By Jeanne McGuire | International Women’s Day 2017

[Detail from “Emancipated Women Build Socialism!” (1920) | Strakhov. (Public Domain)]

The struggle for a new world will be stunted and debilitated if women are not part of the struggle to build it.

***

I WOULD like to begin by discussing ideas – ideas about the other – other race, ethnicity, nationality, class or caste, sometimes religion, and of course gender.

Those others who are designated as less – less intelligent, less capable, less rational, less responsible, less controlled – having less of those qualities adds up to being inferior. Being less able to cope with certain jobs, stresses, and decision making. They are also designated as being more – more emotional, more intuitive, more natural (less civilized), more child-like, more manipulative.  

We all know that these descriptions are false when we hear them applied to other races, ethnicities, etc. But unlike the way it is with most victims of these slurs, there is no country where women are not the other.

However, these descriptions are equally false when applied to women.  I won’t drown you in historical or cross-cultural data to prove my point – you are here, you know it isn’t true.  I’ll refer to one myth – women belong in the home not in the workplace. The reality is that women have always worked – poor women, peasant women, working-class women.  The rice paddies of China were planted by women, the fields of Ukraine were plowed by women who, when the family could not afford horses or oxen, pulled the plow themselves. In the early days of Canadian colonization it was understood that indigenous women were the ones with the necessary stamina and knowledge to be guides over long distances.  All over the world, the houses of the rich, the children of the rich were tended by women – poor women who cooked, cleaned, fed, laundered, and scrubbed for the rich.

“Even being a university graduate doesn’t level the playing field-- the majority of university graduates are in fact women, but they earn almost $30,000 a year less than their male counterparts.”

In Canada today, 82% of women between the ages of 25 and 54 work and women make up 47% of the workforce. In 1953, only 24% of women worked.

But if this idea isn’t based on reality, what is it based on, why is it believed?  As is the case with many ideas, it is based on social structure not on nature. During the age of slavery, most people believed slavery was natural.  When there is a monarchy, most people believe in the rightness of having a king.  If you look at the world and see that women occupy a position of inferiority within society, it is easy to assume that the inferiority is within the woman herself, not a reflection of social structure.

These ideas also reflect the values, behavior, affectations of those who hold power and position in the society, the rich, the owners, the rulers.  The rich always want to distinguish themselves from the masses – whether it is long fingernails in China, or wives who didn’t work.   And their long nails, their non-working wives became the role model for all – even if the reality for poor women was not the same.

How can such useless, counterproductive ideas continue in the face of today’s reality?  Religion, the press, the educational system, movies, and other forms of popular culture like music transmit and reinforce the ideas of a social system.   But ideas take on a life of their own, they have substance and consequence. And they need to be confronted and defeated – they may die on their own, but we cannot wait for that, we must make it happen.

Who loses from the ideas about women’s role in society? The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives issued a report this year – women earn 80% of the male wage packet and they earn less even if they do the same job.

45% of Canadian women work in one of 20 low-paying positions – so, for instance, in 2011 a truck driver, usually male, earned on average $45, 417 and an Early Childhood Educator, usually female, earned $25, 252.  And women make up 47% of the workforce but make up 70% of the part-time workforce.  And despite those differences, less than one-third of the difference in wages is due to differences in education, occupation, years of experience, sector worked or the number of hours worked.  The rest is due to wage discrimination.

Even being a university graduate doesn’t level the playing field – the majority of university graduates are in fact women, but they earn almost $30,000 a year less than their male counterparts.

Who benefits from this discrimination?  Men?  Well, some men – those who reap the super profits from paying women less than they would have had to pay a man.  Those who benefit from the tensions and conflicts within the workforce created by ideas about women’s role and place.  

Do other men benefit?  In some ways; they have higher status, greater self-regard, they are released from much of the petty drudgery done by the females in the household.

BUT they also suffer. Family income is less, so they know greater insecurity, and their children’s future may be restricted as a result.  They suffer a decrease in household income when their mothers, sisters, wives/partners and daughters earn less.

And when these ideas about the inferiority of others combine, when prejudice with respect to women is added to prejudice based on race, class, ethnicity, or religion, the result is truly ugly – violence, sexual abuse, discrimination. Witness the outrageous treatment of immigrant women, women of colour, and women workers in foreign subsidiaries of Canadian companies like Joe Fresh.

One of the most horrendous examples of this coming-together of a number of variables is the situation confronting indigenous women in Canada.   The problem of sexism is multiplied by the issue of racism and again by poverty and isolation.  It is multiplied again by the legacy of colonial occupation and subjugation, in some cases genocide (as in the case of the Beothuk in Newfoundland). It is multiplied again by subsequent government policies of exclusion, followed by policies of assimilation, which included the horrors of the residential school system. The violence and sexual abuse, the prejudice and discrimination that all indigenous peoples in Canada, but particularly indigenous women, face goes beyond shameful. There is no greater stain on Canada’s history than the treatment of its original inhabitants.

And, as to the violence visited on women, let me make this point.  Men in prison live in fear and apprehension of the possibility of physical and sexual violence by other inmates.   Women spend their entire lives in that prison.  They are always aware, they always know, not that they will, but that they can be violated, not that every man is a rapist, but that they are vulnerable should he be.  They spend their entire lives in a prison of apprehension, the prison of awareness of vulnerability.  And we cannot fail to notice that, when there is a war; one of the battlefields always seems to be the bodies of women.

But people have tried to bring about change; women have tried to bring about change.  This year is the 100th anniversary of one such effort to change the future – the October Revolution, the Russian Revolution.

And since the Soviet Union is gone, we need to assess whether that effort to change the world, to make it a better place, was misplaced or foolishly expended.  Did it offer any positive alternative to capitalism?

So I think we should compare. The Soviet Union, as described by its most determined detractors, invaded two countries in its 70 year history, three if you consider its support for the fledgling socialist-oriented regime in Afghanistan an invasion.  

Compare that to the first 70 years of capitalism and the record of invasion by capitalist countries. In fact, capitalism was built on the backs of those it invaded, conquered, enslaved, colonized, stole from. The biggest imperial power of the nineteenth century was of course Britain – and it was rapacious in its reach.  In Canada, by 1857, the Hudson’s Bay Company had extracted 20 million pounds sterling from the fur trade alone.  Timber, grain, meat and other produce, and the sale of land to which they had no right garnered many millions more. And the products they sold to those they had dispossessed and those to whom they had sold the land were priced from 100 to 400 times their cost.

And of course, Canada was nothing compared to the wealth drained from the jewel in the Crown – India.  The estimates of the pillaging differ only in the magnitude of millions plundered. Without question, it exceeded one million pounds sterling per year in direct transfer for which nothing was returned.  If you include the fact that the country had to pay taxes to cover the entire cost of its own subjugation – administrative and military subjugation – the theft of valuables and historical treasure (one ship that sank on the way to Britain and was later found contained 150-million-pounds-sterling-worth of silver); along wih other charges – for the period 1757 to 1815, the estimates range from 15.9 million pounds to 17.2 million pounds per year.  That’s one billion pounds sterling during that period alone.  And it went on for 190 years.  And then you have to calculate what it would mean in today’s dollars – the numbers are mind-numbing and incomprehensible.

“the ideas of the October Revolution when it came to women, broke the mold of the day-- challenged the very foundation of sexist ideas.”

Another feature of early capitalism was the slave trade.  The trans-Atlantic trade alone saw 12.8 million Africans loaded on to boats, at least 1 million of whom died en route.  And once again, the convergence of sex and race produced unconscionable brutality and violence, with rape and torture commonplace.

And we haven’t even touched on the role of France in Canada, the Caribbean, Africa and Indochina; Belgium, which was one of the worst in Africa, the Netherlands in Indonesia.  It is a picture of brutality beyond comprehension – and always against THE OTHER.

And is it different in the modern era?  Let’s look at what has happened since the end of WWII.  No, step back to the end of the war.  In Hiroshima 100,000 were incinerated instantly and 50,000 died from radiation poisoning.  And even if one accepts the doubtful argument that Hiroshima was necessary, Nagasaki – three days later – certainly wasn’t.  Another 70,000 were killed instantly.  The women of Japan died, their children died and continued to die or be born deformed and mutilated by the unnecessary use of a weapon that is truly one of mass destruction.  

And since then, the list of countries where the Western world has intervened is a long one. The West, primarily the US but including Britain, France, Canada and others, have manipulated elections, financed the overthrow of governments, assassinated or tried to assassinate the leaders of many sovereign nations. The author William Blum in his book Rogue State identifies 71 occasions in which the US alone has interfered in one of those ways.  They have meddled in the elections of allies and enemies alike. They have organized or condoned the killing of leaders when they feared their influence – from Patrice Lumumba in the Congo to Salvador Allende in Chile. They have orchestrated the overthrow of governments from Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala and Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, Sukharno in Indonesia, Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, Cheddi Jagan in Guyana, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti, directing and supporting the military coup in Greece, funding the Contras in Nicaragua.  They invaded Cuba, napalmed women and children in Vietnam, used depleted uranium weapons in the first invasion of Iraq, funded the Mujāhidīn in Afghanistan against the only government that had ever offered any rights to women, defeating that government – one million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees – half the total population of that time.  And of course, 10 years later, invading again – this time using the plight of women to bolster their claim to legitimacy – to rescue the women they had put in fundamentalist prison.

And since then – they have invaded Iraq destroying the infrastructure and its cultural heritage, along with hundreds of thousands of its citizens, turned Libya into a wasteland, sent drones to Yemen, unleashed on the people of the Arab world a blight of reactionary fundamentalism – all the while pretending to abhor that fundamentalism, while they attack and destroy every state that was secular, progressive in its attitudes to women, developed in its educational and health policies, protective of its cultural and historical legacy.

Is it different today?   Have they stopped the looting?  In 2012 – the developing world received $1.3 trillion in aid, investment and income from abroad. In that same year the developing world sent $3.3 trillion to the developed world. The bleeding continues.

Compared to the carnage of Western behavior, the foreign policy of the Soviet Union looks like a birthday party with gifts all around.  

It’s International Women’s Day – let us ask who helped the women of Vietnam, the women of Cuba, the women of South Africa, of Angola, of Palestine?  

On the other hand, who described ANC as a terrorist organization and aided the South African regime in its efforts to defeat the aspirations of the majority population?  Who funded Jonas Savimbi and delayed the capacity of the new Angolan Government to address issues of the health and welfare of its people?  Who supported the state of Israel against the Palestinians, condoning Israel’s illegal settlements and occupation of the Golan Heights?

And Canada has been a part of that Western policy, supporting the state of Israel in its war against the Palestinian people, leading in the bombing of Libya, joining the war against Afghanistan, endorsing the overthrow of the elected government of Haiti, of Honduras, of the Ukraine by recognizing the regime which overthrew the democratically elected one.   Even with its new leader, who aspires to be the poster boy for progressive policies and women’s rights, Canada has acceded to these policies – condemning thousands to continued conflict, misery, death and destruction. And in Canada we have not seen any concrete action being taken to alleviate the problems facing indigenous women – the issues of clean water, mercury poisoning, inadequate housing, inferior education, and continued racial and sexual violence.

The people of the world, the women of the world have not been the beneficiaries of US foreign policy, no matter the rhetoric – the oil companies, the mining companies, the manufacturers, the fruit companies – they have benefitted. I remember the slogan of the Chilean Solidarity movement in speaking to the role of Canadian mining companies in Chile – the companies got the copper, Chile got the shaft.  And it is still true today. The poor countries of the world continue to get the shaft.

The Soviet Union did support the attempts by many people to throw off the yoke of colonialism, to improve their lives and living standards.  

And the ideas of the October Revolution, when it came to women, broke the mold of the day – challenged the very foundation of sexist ideas.  

“the degree of the emancipation of women can be used as a standard by which to measure general emancipation”

“The degree of the emancipation of women can be used as a standard by which to measure general emancipation,” wrote Marx and Engels.

In speaking of the demands for women’s rights, Lenin said, 

“We demonstrate thereby that we recognize these needs and are aware of the humiliation of the woman, the privileges of the man.  That we hate, yes hate, everything and we will abolish everything which tortures and oppresses the woman worker, the housewife, the peasant woman, the wife of the petty trader, and yes, in many cases the women of possessing classes”. 

And 

“The proletariat cannot achieve complete freedom unless it achieves complete freedom for women.”

Did they succeed in addressing the shameful humiliation of women?  Certainly there were advances.   And not only did the women in the Soviet Union and in many developing countries benefit from the role of the Soviet Union.  Women in the West used the advances of the women in the Soviet Union to batter down the doors of opposition to women’s rights in Canada and elsewhere.   Maternity leave, daycare, equal pay – if they could have all of that in the Soviet Union, why not here?  

The working class as a whole used the same argument to open the door to publicly funded health care, to compensation for injured workers, to Old Age Security and a government-funded pension plan. If they could have it there, why not here?

But the Soviet Union failed – it exists no longer. And we can ascribe the blame to the fact that it was the first attempt and errors were made, or to the fact that they bore the brunt of Nazi aggression in World War WII, or to the fact that they were forced into an arms race that depleted their coffers and distorted their economy, or to the fact that the West meddled in their affairs just as they meddled in so many others. To whatever we ascribe the blame – we now live in a world where there is no Soviet Union.  

Was it a failure? Only if one thinks that trying to alter the world to make it better is a worthless endeavour.  

Will we try again? The idea of making the world better will not go away.  How can it when we were told this year that eight people now have as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the world’s population.  How can we not try again?

Will we make errors again? We’re human – how can we not make errors?

Will it be better than what we have? Given the ecological disasters, the climate change, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the growing arrogance and power of the corporations, the threat of war, the racism at home and abroad, the sexism, people’s insecurity, the debt, the fear, the cynical use of people’s aspirations to defeat their goals – how can it not be better than what we have?

Will women be equal when we try again to build a world based on different values? We don’t know. What we do know is that the struggle for a new world order will be stunted and debilitated if women are not part of the struggle to build it. We do know that it is not necessary for women to achieve equality before they join the struggle for a new world.  We know also, it is not necessary to wait for the new world in order to struggle for, and to achieve some of the goals in the struggle for, the equality of women – in our workplaces, our homes, our organizations, including the organizations dedicated to changing the world. 

But, as to whether women will be fully equal – know this – it isn’t over until they are!

***

Jeanne McGuire is a progressive educator and past president of the Congress of Canadian Women, living in Toronto.

[Communist Party of Canada contingent marching at International Women’s Day in Toronto, 2017. (Jay Watts)]

[musicistheair-blog]

Polish Rap

Rap - rhyming lyrics to the music.

Rap is the music in the broad concept of hip-hop incorporates breakdance, graffiti and Dj-ing. The terminologies “rap” and “hip-hop” are often used interchangeably both in America as in Poland.

Hip-hop itself was created in the poor neighbourhoods of American cities that were predominantly African-American. It is often referred to as “hip-hop as black music”, related to exclusion, poverty, various pathologies and the values of discriminated groups. In Poland hip-hop was born in 1989 with the transformation of the political system. In the 1990s the first collaborations (rap bands) began to appear. Paktofonika was the most famous group with their album Kinematografia (eng. cinematography). A significant bloom of the Polish hip-hop scene went off after the year 2000, nowadays there are many famous compositions, amongst them: Kaliber 44, Molesta, Peja, HempGru, O.S.T.R., Pezet, Eldo, WWO, DonGuralEsko, and many many more. The native hip-hop has a unique power and importance for Polish culture because it is a phenomenon that is already developing in free Poland, is a child of transformation. The most importantly, it features the freedom of speech. There could be formed a very interesting and reliable description of the country over the course of 20 years basing on rap texts. Within a period between 2005 and 2009 crisis was in the air, that was a stage of cooling. The ones that have always been creating music of a heart stayed in the business. Conjectural performers have ended their hip-hop career. On the other hand, new young rappers like W.E.N.A. or Te-Tris grew up. In 2009 a reborn happened. The artists started to create their own business lines like clothes, gadgets, record labels; what is more, non-native rappers, e.g. Evidence, Jeru The Damaja or Onyx began their interest in Polish music scene. The film about the MC of Paktofonika squad, Magik (eng. magician), called ‘Jesteś Bogiem’ (eng. you are the God) by Leszek Dawid has opened the the public eyes. Hip-hop has earned respect and is now rightly regarded as the strongest and the most important stream in Polish independent culture. It impacts on what is happening in popular culture, fashion, the media and many other areas of life important to young people Rappers are raw talents usually without musical or related to Polish studies education. They have specific sensitivity and ability to observe and translate what they see into rhymes written in a spoken language. In Polish rap there is the freedom of division into verses, regardless of assumptions, guided by the author’s own senses in transcriptions. The songs can be calm, melodious and full of poetic texts, on the other side: rough and heavy street style with strong language, carrying a message full of simple advice. Texts are full of street stories written in the minds of people without an easy childhood, who have had to take care of themselves and their homes. Rappers are people absorbed in the settlement climate and that can perfectly describe the current events and situations in rhymes. WWO, Peja, Firma or HempGru do it more straightforwardly and baldly while Łona, Eldo or Bisz get their verses in shape decorated with a companion or anecdote, playing with convention of rap. Fisz is another one that plays with words, the message is important but the form is the foreground. O.S.T.R. can satisfy both listeners thirsting for strong, simple words calling for rebellion as well as those sensitive readers that expect surprises, breathes and original solutions. Łona reaches out to more global topics, intelligent texts with a very interesting form of expression. In music they reflect themselves, their individuality. Rappers are labelled as contemporary poets.

DJ 600V quarterbacks legendary hip-hop parties, he put on the first rap concerts, which happened in Warsaw. Volt used to set the time for others to have an opportunity to present themselves, he was playing instrumental versions of songs and passing the microphone in circulation among the willings. Some rapped their verses, other improvised.

Hip-hop is a lifestyle. People who listen to this type of music and create it share a certain system of values; the ideas contained in the texts of their works often become the credo of their everyday life. The characteristic thing about Polish hip-hop culture is using only nicknames, the names are little known. The city means local patriotism, identification with it. There are some conflicts between rappers from different cities or even between “boys from the same yard”. The native city has raised hip-hoppers and as says Robert Pawlak (2004), “In such places are written (...) their history, various memories, adventures, parties, moments filled with joy, but also tinged with bitterness. It is always a place to gain valuable experience, to set up friendships”. Their aim is to be aware, they bequeath their world views and openly comment on the reality surrounding them. Rappers are attentive observers of political, social and cultural life. Their texts might be vulgar but they just don’t beat around the bush, they talk straight about what hurts them. What distinguishes rap from other music genres is courage and truth; hip-hop is real and honest, sometimes painfully. The music affects many young people personally. Texts are about problems, mistakes, difficulties of everyday life, and system defects. Hip-hop gives strength, doesn’t allow to surrender, it is a motivation. Unity, loyalty and brotherhood are the main ideals of this culture. Unity, a group is really important. The people teaming it are reliable and will always help each other in need. Sense of community is essential not only for people making music but above all those who listen to it. Music is a great element of identity. Hip-hoppers are hedonists, they seek for pleasure, take the “carpe diem” principle. They like house parties, an inseparable part of them is the marijuana as they often mention it in their texts. There are many references to alcohol as it is legal but raises aggression and activates negative emotions, yet everyone has access to it, while marijuana triggers creativity, frees thoughts and calms, and is forbidden. They stigmatise all other drugs, drink beer, but most of all it’s about meeting friends. The fashion in hip-hop culture characterises loose jeans, hoodies, caps, and labelled sports shoes. It used to be an outfit of poor boy from the blockhouses, nowadays these clothes are better quality and more expensive, especially when their producers are well known Polish rappers, who usually wear the same clothes they offer their fans, so that in the crowd it would be difficult to distinguish them from the average devotee of their music.

These are few hip-hop Polish songs put in chronological order with their short descriptions and attached the translations to some of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eOaYkAV6X4

Kaliber 44 - ‘Plus i Minus’ (1996) ~ The most valuable example of “psycho-rap”; from the textual side the song is an emotional and heavily mannerist rapping explanation of the test for HIV, which in the 1990s was a very socially motivated subject. When adding the madness of the Kaliber 44 in the second half of the 1990s and the tragic, suicide-ending story of Magik - who is the only one rapping in the track - it’s easy to see why ‘Plus i minus’ is still a cult work.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,kaliber_44,plus_i_minus.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuj9CCOh6Tc

DJ 600V x Stereofonia - ‘Dźwięki stereo’ (1998) ~ From DJ 600V’s first record; the song perfectly reflects the non-binding climate of Polish hip-hop, the pleasure of rapping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=578JDgokuas

Kaliber 44 - ‘Film’ (1998) ~ The group put more emphasis on playing with words; the band was recording rhymes for rhymes as some listeners are saying, but there’s no way to deny their extremely interesting rhythmic tours, abstract metaphors, and excellent ear for incidental music that made the perfect background for the great linguistically fun of three very different and well-pieced together rappers.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,kaliber_44,film.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okgvwX2BbPE

Paktofonika - ‘Powierzchnie tnące’ (1998) ~ Among the many unbelievable events on the Polish hip-hop scene, the most remarkable new was that Fokus has written ‘Powierzchnie tnące’ already in 1996; rhymes in sync, the pace with which the individual words go thrown away, their readability with such flow, control over the breath, the backing track with an incisively rising bass and flickering percussion, gaining a disturbing trip-hop space over time. Fokus appeared as he liked to portray himself: as a dragon ready to rise above others to drown them one by one.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,paktofonika,powierzchnie_tnace.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4pREbsRUQE

DJ 600V x Jajonasz x Gano x Grubas - ‘Nie jestem kurwa biznesmenem’ (1999) ~ Jajonasz, Gano and Grubas float like surfers, rapping about what has always been a subject of hip-hop, a matter of money, a life position and a problem whether to stay alone and live modestly or to put on a mask to achieve financial success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOdfAQaW5II

DJ 600V x Tede - ‘Świat zwariował w 23 lata’ (1999) ~ In 1999, there was no more distinctive, cheeky rapper than Tede on the stage. MC openly and loudly talked about his desire for his creativity to get decent money. Not just to live hip-hop but to live well off hip-hop. In the melancholy beats of the DJ 600V, there are glows in the form of the highest flight verses. In the text there’s a description of drug and gambling problems, the answer for people accusing the rapper of selling out, losing his hip-hop ideals and looking too far at the situation over the ocean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMBOAtboN8

Paktofonika - ‘Jestem Bogiem’ (2000) ~ It motivates people to realise their own worth regardless of everything. Magik, the guy - as he raps himself - “brutally honest that transparent”, gives himself on the sliver platter in verses and shows what has decided on his success. It’s a hypersensitivity that the listener may become intoxicated and dependent on it.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,paktofonika,jestem_bogiem.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4VuzzW5uE

Grammatik x Fenomen - ‘Każdy ma chwile’ (2000) ~ This moving song is primarily a confession of faith in God, as well as a testimony of the doubt in the future by people who have their dreams and imagined their way of life but they encounter so many overwhelming problems and worries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=virbucH4Khg

Jajonasz x Fokus x Bas x Dene - ‘Witam na majq’ (2000) ~ “Mix MC’s from Śląsk and Zagłąb. One of the first double rhymes in Poland in the performance of the Jajonasz, the development of Fokus’ style of cutting surfaces and symbolically closing the epoch of the psycho-rap, calling to use your own slang Bas.” - as Brudne Melodie portal summed up the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5-9xZOMZ1c

Łona - ‘Rozmowa’ (2001) ~ Łona gets a call from God and the text presents the conversation between the two of them in a facetious way but in addition to a sense of humour Łona had much more to show in this track - great flow, his brilliance, perceptiveness and besides he winked at the listeners.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,Lona,rozmowa_1.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rUbAcY9_zI

Pezet/Noon - ‘Ukryty w mieście krzyk’ (2001) ~ The beginning of the 21st century brought quite a lot of good debuts. Those who have previously worked in a group decided to take the challenge and face the scene alone. The beat confronts the percussion with nostalgic and deformed samples of instruments. Instead of outtalked refrain, the cut comes in sharply with a piece of text cut out of the verse. And this sad, somewhat apathetic voice, which contrasts so strongly with the emotional charge of the text, has a bitter picture of hypocrisy in it.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,pezet_noon,ukryty_w_miescie_krzyk.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgBkzObiSGw

O.S.T.R. - ‘Kochana Polsko’ (2002) ~ Adam Ostrowski (O.S.T.R.) became an institution. The sharp comment on the social and political situation in Poland in 2002 manifested at the same time the love for homeland and the frustration with the way life looks there everyday.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,o_s_t_r_,kochana_polsko.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-lX5ZOpA-k

WWO x Soundkail x Fu - ‘ Nie bój się zmiany na lepsze’ (2002) ~ The didactic message of the recording is not an empty rhetoric but an accurate and balanced assessment of one’s own mistakes, failures, daily dilemmas that are about to motivate people to change, to rebound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jnaZ940d8

Pezet/Noon - ‘Refleksje’ (2002) ~ Pezet combined a message, style, technique, and flow. Sometimes he was impudent, and self-confident, but often lost, seeking his place in the world, exposing mercilessly the unsteadiness of human views. He certainly stimulated the eponymous reflections.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aIxyUFRNQs

O.S.T.R. - ‘Blok’ (2003) ~ The rapper described the cross-sectional image of the apartment block. As we descend down the elevator, the skin is going numb more and more. Adam Ostrowski lives in the working-class neighbourhood, where life doesn’t write funny scenarios. The journey runs from the eleventh floor - the apartment of a junkie and alcoholic - to the ground floor with an inseparable, pilfering the mail janitor - Lucifer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMFuICQwvfM

52 Dębiec - ‘Pies’ (2003) ~ This recording is hard for many reasons. Mainly because of the carefully, long-erected analogy between taming an animal and a person strips us of humanity, causes discomfort. Dinner tastes less, shopping doesn’t gratify so much. So what if the melody in the voice intrigues, and the flow turns out to be one’s own and fast, since the word is intense, the beat is monotonous. And yet the dog crawls in memory, scratches the conscience, is a Trojan scrub biting the audience, usually out of reach. It’s a well-thought hip-hop of moral anxiety, derived from punk, the one with ambition.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,52_debiec,pies.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwJ-PrWbfK4

Pezet/Noon - ‘Szósty zmysł’ (2004) ~ Poland won with communism, became a free country, we gained theoretically much more opportunities and prospects as people. There was no change in the Poles’ love for alcohol. We drink it at every opportunity. We do not meet to play chess as Pezet noted - we meet to drink. The song is so bitter, sad and overwhelming that just makes a man want to get drunk. In the end, it’s a national tradition, and traditions are said to be something that should be cultivated in particular. Cheers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UcBRHrW8EM

Doniu x Dębiec 52 - ‘Uciekaj’ (2004) ~ This track refers to the 2004 event in Poznań, when police opened the fire towards a car where there were no criminals against the suspicion, only two innocent young men. One of them was killed, the other was crippled, officers were acquitted.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,52_debiec,uciekaj.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7hfWy89FLY

Eldo - ‘Ferajny’ (2007) ~ Cold synth and foot striking alternately with the verb create a tense and strongly articulated soundtrack under the dodgy story. Eldo, theWarsaw admirer and licensed tour guide to it, reaches for the local dialect, quotes from the barnyard orchestra canon, carefully styling his history. In this way, he creates a bridge between the past and the present, street musicians and rappers, urban folk and hip-hop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piEUSYMAOr0

Zeus - ‘W dół’ (2008) ~ The essence of the track is the contrast between 3 calmly drawn stories and an unexpected climax in the chorus, where the vocal strikes hard, and the content is limited to a few very drastic words. And though all the attention is focused on the chorus at first, the dramaturgy of the hit would be gone if the rapper could not fill the shoes of so many characters, and did not signal what might be behind the petty bourgeois comfort, professional performance or fame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgcGjy7mYI8

Łysonżi x Smarki Smark - ‘Moje życie, mój syf’ (2009) ~ There’s a powerful bursting speakers beat by 101 Decybeli, a lot of sense of humour, a distance to oneself, and spectacular allusions and Łysonżi’s charisma, who never aspired to be a rap poet, but described the world as a twenty-five-year-old mid-life reveller. One listens to it splendiferously, especially since this piece resembles live images of many’s own life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCHvGI0-ypA

Małpa - ‘Nie byłem nigdy’ (2009) ~ Most in the song attracts Małpa’s dualism, need for love and faith in it while chasing it. This is not a track directed at the fair sex. The rapper protects himself behind a naturalistic comparison, the cynicism, the wall of empty bottles, perpetually - deliberately or not - signalling his great sensitivity. He’s an idealist paying the bitterness for his beliefs. This type of narrator is always well thought of, because people are not black and white, but paradoxically written, so it’s easy to identify oneself. In addition to the usual master’s extraordinariness, the ear still enjoys a few brazen, hard verses, and above all, the order in them, suggesting that perhaps Małpa's feelings are in disarray but has his head screwed on the right way.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,malpa,nie_bylem_nigdy.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVXIL8sj-HU

Pjus - ‘Nie mówię szeptem’ (2009) ~ After several years of fighting for health, heavy operations, moments of sadness and trembling for the future, Pjus released his solo album Life After Deaf. It was world-renowned, the world’s first human-recorded longplay with completely digital hearing, the implants replaced the natural organs. Minimalist, raw beat of Święty distinguishes powerful drums, distinct bridges, all prepared specifically for struggling with problems during the studio work rapper could easy hear every sound and adjust his own recording to it. This is not the single, in which Pjus has exemplary flow and diction, but the power of word, the emotions of the text, the will to fight for survival and the realization of life's passion are definitely the most important here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaQkjk41TOM

Quiz x Brudne Serca - ‘Słowo dla’ (2009) ~ The charge of honesty is due to the Brudne Serca (Zkibwoy and Smarki Smark) huge, and the producer, though not perfect, can do such beats to multiply this power. Dedicated to the parents and the hometown of rappers song uses the well-known and often used hip-hop sample of Minnie Riperton’s ‘Inside My Love’. There are memories from childhood and adolescence, and above all there’s what has always played a huge role in music - real emotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eBrwVTOtHo

Hades - ‘Duma’ (2011) ~ Hades combines the best traits of an warhorse and a novice: he writes artfully, has some formed flow, and on the other hand his words have freshness and power. When rapping “In an urban swamp doesn’t smell of roses / Stinks of dirty asphalt and bad memories”, we make a face in grimace because we literally feel the stink and pain of experiences. We see the shabby townhouses on Żelazna Street, where Hades was born, and we get his energy and passion for life, which allows us to survive difficult times and deal with obscure estates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mzICdYjBo

Łona i Webber - ‘Kaloryfer’ (2011) ~ It’s more serious than it might seem song about the time that passes inexorably and we can’t accept it. Happily, Łona doesn’t engage in unreadable philosophical discourse. He exposits the subject in his own way. So he reaches for the prosaic element of the environment - a heater, just a few thin ribs, through which the heat flows in colder days. He gives it the power of action, he assigns the role of a severe judge, circling verses around the object, declaiming about elementary things as well as about elapsing. Of course he does it constantly complicating his tongue, to say certain things in an unwonted way, with rare words, literary but gracefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTZiORJ1ST0

Slums Attack x O.S.T.R. x Jeru The Damaja - ‘Oddałbym’ (2011) ~ Peja (from Slums Attack) is from the first generation of Polish MCs, for the decades he rips his throat with enduring passion, he formed street hip-hop. O.S.T.R. helped revolutionise this trend - added his musical ear, diversified flow, tightened up metaphors, and more precisely directed frustration. Scrupulous hip-hop education, apprenticing on local scenes, lots of concerts played across the country and meticulously expanded discographies gave them their fans’ respect, industry awards, and finally the ability to make a living from music. It’s difficult to find someone who worked harder towards it, who has put more effort into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1R1e7h74lc

Buka - ‘Pierwsza miłość’ (2011) ~ Dreamful first single because hardly any is able to keep the listener’s attention to the very end, for the fact that the banal story of a puppy abandoned by the first girl cleverly turns into a hilarious calculation of her flaws and inadequacies. The story carries Eminem beat completed by trumpets in the climates of el mariachi, while Buka himself gets up steam from verse to verse, serving more and more elaborate and featuring an abstract sense of humour descriptions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6HCOgTc5r4

Łona i Webber - ‘To nic nie znaczy’ (2011) ~ The single was exceptional. The promo song video was viewed by a record number of YouTube users, the track also made a furore outside the hip-hop environment. What’s the secret? The persona continually slams into the painful reality: a waiter mistaking the order, talking nineteen to the dozen celebrity, boorish train driver. He may also seem bitter, brutally honest, disappointed with life. Fortunately, the totality is puckish, founded on numerous and deliberately used linguistic mistakes, and ironic parable about that not everything can actually look as bad as we perceive it ourselves, and the effects are often not as terrible as the causes spell it.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,Lona,to_nic_nie_znaczy.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ESR8Hi5-4

Czarny/HiFi x Pezet - ‘Niedopowiedzenia’ (2012) ~ Pezet extremely brainily and graphically described the problems in male-female relations, highlighting the doubts and dilemmas of people who have had a rather unhappy relationship. Czarny provided a harmonious, melodic beat that smoothly coordinates the multitude of details in it. DJ Panda also made a great job by adding the juicy cuts. 100% of thought and reflection provoking but jamming out hip-hop.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,czarny_hifi,niedopowiedzenia__ft__pezet_.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6H9b7GDc

Zeus - ‘Hipotermia’ (2012) ~ The song announcing the album Zeus. Is dead of November 2012, it was the cubed thunder bolt of evil, frustration, depression and apathy. There was no love for Jill Scott, the altar for nice clothes and comfortable shoes but it was a brutal kill from the Olympus to the dungeon stinking of the rapper’s fear for his future, career, and even life. It wasn’t a smiling Zeus, who would rock the concert even in the most shabby club but Kamil Rutkowski struggling with himself. That devoid of inhibitions reckoning one’s own problems and thoughts would have been unthinkable in our rap. MC couldn’t be a weak, resigned, needy to bounce back guy. Along with the development of the scene and its opening up to new means of expression, Zeus found the place for his emotions, bringing in mind the accomplishments of the American Anticon collectivity. Even gods have moments of weakness.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,zeus,hipotermia.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=718vQDPPRoM

Bisz - ‘Wilk chodnikowy’ (2012) ~ Consistent in the overtone, fulfilling the pinned hopes of the manifesto of the generation. The titular track was a credo, at the beginning it imported the recipient to a common emotional nominative. How did that work? The author himself explained that it's because of the subcutaneous feeling of a profound senselessness, an abyss that doesn’t let forget about itself because it lurks a centimetre behind the facade of media reality. Man runs through life working, absorbing pictures, somewhere in the midst feels that if only he had the time to stop and look behind that facade, what he would see behind it, in one second, would take away all the meaning of what he was living and breathing. The track is the deep spine-tingling anthem of the generation stripped off illusions, sense of meaning and cursed with only bad choices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG-OWJB75vs

Bisz - ‘Pollock’ (2012) ~ Bisz works as a rapper, producer and poet. Long waited for it to stop being an underground sensation for the conoscenti and to fully appreciate the whole country. ‘Pollock’ opened the door to artist’s career. Impertinence, formed through the years flow, skilful fiddling with hashtags, street temperament and anger, and besides that close to the poetry readings aesthetics of metaphor, frisky sensitivity. Bisz didn’t come up out from the underground to the earth’s surface but immediately several dozen centimetres above it, showing the veterans the scenes of what freshness is and by young anger pointing out the importance of the years spent in the support area, steady burnishing skills, gathering experience. The effect is impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPhjLXyVZLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnVnsuKjfY

Łona x Webber x The Pimps x Mateusz Czarnowski - ‘Do ciebie, Aniu, szedłem’ (2004/2013) ~ While the verses cacling about the kamikaze - because taken in the slippers - foray to a party in the suburbs is a show of bubbling with humour, as light as a feather rap narration, that in the chorus Webber has sampled Wiesław Gołas’ vocal. Łona and Wiesław gestate different things, they’re in completely different moods, yet they get along as they should.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,Lona,dobranoc__do_ciebie__aniu__szlem.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDbdt3rB3bQ

Tede - ‘Nie banglasz’ (2013) ~ The track redoubled among the listeners and artists. The rapper flows on the beat but many already do it well, he fused himself with the disturbing, containing a smart pinch of psychodelia backing of Sir Mich, he senses it in 100%, naturally elongating the flow where it was necessary giving a genuine, unpractised confidence. Certainly provocative, slightly mocking the trends refrain adds fuel to the fire, raising the temperature on the stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f%5F6UKzZqb5w

Małpa - ‘Skała’ (2013) ~ Małpa presents a bit different colours than before. He’s still very sincere, open towards listeners, but there’s less doubt in him as to his way of life, he’s more confident of the taken steps. His success has given him strength, though might have as well slid him, thrown into the abyss of cheap gloss and drugs, cut off from the roots and child’s set of beliefs. This is a record of the difficult life struggle he's fighting with on a daily basis. Very strong, thought-provoking single in a modern musical convention.

Translation: http://www.tekstowo.pl/piosenka,malpa,skala.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAfGWv4Nobo

Kękę - ‘Wszystko pięknie’ (2013) ~ “What life, such rap” - This Peja’s verse seems to be a basic guideline for Kękę. He just let the rap in, not looked down on it for one moment. The text for the younger audience is like from the book, as if someone rapped to his father. Kękę doesn’t seem to care. He won’t record 100 vocal versions in the studio, he won’t bother to make the rhyme at the end of the verse multiple, accurate, round, he won’t mitigate the views that some will encourage, but others will offend. But when at the end of the verse he repeats: “it’s just a sham I’m alone”, something gets man tied up in knots. Because it’s a rap with a bone and a slab of meat beside it.

“Rap (...) is (...) a popular art that challenges our deepest aesthetic conventions, commonplace not only in modernism as an artistic style and an ideology; (...) it also challenges the philosophical doctrine of modernism and attributable to it sharp distinctions between different cultural zones.” says Robert Shusterman. This is a culture that is still young, developing, unpredictable, lawless and continually looking for new forms of expression.