#ismatu gwendolyn

[soracities]

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings, on Substack [ID'd]

[dovesndecay]

The reason you hate reading is because the ruling class benefits from illiteracy. Not total illiteracy, mind you. That’s bad for business. The ruling class (law and policy makers, oligarch businessmen, celebrity, hedge fund managers buying up single-family housing, etc.) want you literate enough to be able to work for them, but not so literate that you realize how badly the working class gets fucked over in this world-making. Read enough to be able to consume and to execute, not to consider critically, certainly not enough to create. Because then what? A mass of people realizing we can create and recreate everything we see and touch to something kinder for us? Ghastly. Absolutely not.

Please go read or listen to Ismatu Gwendolyn's essay.

[houseofpurplestars]

the role of the artist is to load the gun.

[besarelcielo]

[baldhedanxiety]

"You’re about to read about a lot of death and dying. Here’s a thread of hope to hang onto. The sun rises with no sense of obligation despite the desperation of her constituents in the frigid night. Her shameless patience keeps our peace. We write and we read, we love and we grieve, conspiring to become like her– like the sun, to soar and to die. To defy gravity. To become something beyond what this timespace can currently withstand. A world comes after this one we all shiver under. One day we too will rise, a new sun." -Ismatu Gwendolyn, Drugs of Denial 2024

[neverquiteeden]

I am caught in this constant process of becoming. I don’t have to like the look of my molted skin for me to find value in that moment. I don’t know that I have to strive to like or love or cherish or whatever myself; I think for me, those are secondhand items that come from approaching myself in sincerity. The only thing I work towards actively is peace with all the selves I am accountable to. I find peace and I breathe deep, and sometimes I am happy.

—Ismatu Gwendolyn

[nuttyavenueyouth]

i’m such a “i want your attention” but “won’t bother you” kinda person…(Read More)

[sazzyartist]

[soracities]

"As an educator, I don’t just want you to feel what I feel. I don’t want you to consider me correct because I said it beautifully. I want to sharpen your critical thinking skills and your world-making capacities. I absolutely do not leave emotion out of that! Emotions are as central as the written, verbal, numeric, social, ecological knowledges we are able to gain to navigate this world and the next. I am just… extra cognizant of how much I can lead viewers to feel with me without further thought. The videos of mine that go most viral are ones where I show the most emotion, whatever that emotion is: hopeful, cheery, despondent, grieved, furious, combative. We love emotion. We live such isolated, stifled lives.

The challenge of reading is to navigate the narrative without the overtures of overt feelings. There is no face to latch onto, no music that sways you. Words on a page especially cannot compete with screen-time. They’re not meant to. The boredom opens up space in your mindscape to your own thoughts, opinions, and feelings."

—Ismatu Gwendolyn, "you've been traumatized into hating reading (and it makes you easier to oppress)", from Threadings on Substack

[dovesndecay]

So much shame hides out in pacifiers and you don’t even realize how incongruent it feels in your body to shame yourself for comfort until you acknowledge it. Write it down and be honest. Be honest with yourself about where your needs aren’t met. I promise you’ll sleep a bit better.

Once again, I am asking people to read/listen to Ismatu Gwendolyn's work.

[houseofpurplestars]

A world that belongs to us hinges on how quickly we can come to believe, in mass, that we can care for one another.

Rebuilding Lives

USD 200,000 will provide a three year basic income for all of the 156 Ebola survivors registered by the Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors in Kenema.

[angelnumbers]

[osama-alqrinawi]

I am Osama Abdel Salam Al-Qarnawi from the Gaza Strip, the area that was devastated by the recent war. We appeal to sympathetic individuals and organizations around the world to extend a helping hand. Your contributions will help us not only in restoring our homes but also in restoring our livelihoods, which is embodied in rebuilding our grocery store. Please enter and participate within my page 🌹🇵🇸🇵🇸😭😭🙏 https://gofund.me/f52ba133 https://gofund.me/0d2a8481

[mindlessfandomindulgence]

"I also just in my own person have like a, a delusional amount of confidence that everything will go my way, such that it doesn't really occur to me to think that anything could go wrong in the first place, but like truly, I mean, that becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy because… since when do things go wrong?" - Isamtu Gwendolyn

https://substack.com/@ismatu

[soperton]

The colonial school is colonial, as in: the main difference between the Global North and the Global South is the ability to hide the stink and stench of mass death.

- Ismatu Gwendolyn