#its that it should be up lead by the indigenous voices as to the future of taiwan and thats not the direction I'm seeing

[zhuhongs]

i think i need to do a bit more digging into chthonics music before i make judgements abt their politics bc all the translated articles i see saw they mostly deal with stories of the indigenous people of tw. also theyre anti kmt. so cool, but like the enemy or my enemy is necessarily my friend yk

[theculturedmarxist]

The more I look into "landback" shit the more it seems like a grift. The landback website has nothing substantial on it, and so far I haven't found any definitions or explanations for what "landback" means in concrete terms. It's usually nonsense like:

What is the LandBack movement really asking for? The land. Back.

NDN Collectives "Manifesto" is just a bunch of corpo-gibberish bullet points:

It is a relationship with Mother Earth that is symbiotic and just, where we have reclaimed stewardship. It is bringing our People with us as we move towards liberation and embodied sovereignty through an organizing, political and narrative framework. It is a long legacy of warriors and leaders who sacrificed freedom and life. It is a catalyst for current generation organizers and centers the voices of those who represent our future. It is recognizing that our struggle is interconnected with the struggles of all oppressed Peoples. It is a future where Black reparations and Indigenous LANDBACK co-exist. Where BIPOC collective liberation is at the core. It is acknowledging that only when Mother Earth is well, can we, her children, be well. It is our belonging to the land – because – we are the land. We are LANDBACK!

LANDBACK Organizing Principles

Don’t burn bridges: even when there is conflict between groups or organizers remember that we are fighting for all of our peoples and we will continue to be in community even after this battle

Don’t defend our ways

Organize to win

Move from abundance – We come from a space of scarcity. We must work from a place of abundance

We bring our people with us

Deep relationships by attraction, not promotion

Divest/invest

We value our warriors

Room for grace—be able to be human

We cannot let our oppressors inhumanity take away from ours

Strategy includes guidance

Realness: Sometimes the truth hurts

Unapologetic but keep it classy

How about an explanation in concrete terms what "sovereignty" is supposed to mean? Or how they're planning to administer the land in relation to the other people that they share it with? If this land is supposed to be Indians' private property, there should be some kind of theoretical explanation for how this real estate transaction is supposed to lead to "the abolition of the United States’ concept of real estate altogether."

Then there's the NDN Collective itself. Generally, my rule of thumb is that if NGO money is going to something, then it's probably not radical or revolutionary, and that probability goes up the more money it gets. Black Lives Matter was radical and revolutionary, then its radical members "mysteriously turned up dead," and then it got hundreds of millions of dollars from the Ford Foundation.

NDN Collective in late 2021 was named a recipient of a Bush Foundation grant of $50 million. The organization has announced plans to redistribute these funds to indigenous individuals in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota[15] Through other funding, including grants from the MacArthur and Skoll Foundations, NDN redistributes capital through two loan pools. The Social Enterprise & Economic Development for Indigenous Growth (SEEDING) program offers loans of $500,000 or more, while the Relief & Resilience program provides small business loans to Indigenous entrepreneurs.[16] Prominent donors to NDN Collective include Mackenzie Scott [ex-wife of Jeff Bezos], in 2021, due to her concerns about wealth inequality, discrimination, and the need for investment in education,[17] and the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund, which in 2020 donated $12 million for their work against climate change.[18] NDN Collective was also funded by the Target Foundation in 2022, as one of its "Ecosystem" grant recipients.[19]

So the "collective" is itself an NGO worth tens of millions of dollars. It plans to "redistribute" that money in the form of grants and loans with the explicit aim of "wealth building." According to NDN, it defines wealth as

“Indigenous wealth is a quality of life and mindset that encircles family and community well-being and the care of relationships (self, family, extended family, community, land, environment), and a spirit of generosity. Money is a tool to support basic needs (safety, food, shelter, education) and bring financial security and self-determination so that one can live a “good life,” abundant in social and cultural sharing.

Which isn't really a definition at all. I don't know how "a quality of life and mindset that encircles family and community well-being" is supposed to pay back a half a million dollar loan. I'd be more forgiving I think if there was some explanation about what this money was intended to do, but the Collective Abundance Fund Report doesn't offer much in that what. The grant application does elaborate on what the money can be used for though, including purchasing or expanding a home, paying for higher education, business development, and land purchases.

The anti-Capitalist, pro-communcal stance just seems like posturing to me when instead of distributing this money to the community level for the development of community projects, the money is being distributed on the individual/family level, for the development of private property. This doesn't seem like a fund for all, but one specifically to cultivate a Native middle class along bourgeois lines and provide a return on investment.

To return back to the HCN article, it mentions in one paragraph:

While some private landholders may resist, others, including mainline conservation groups and even art galleries, have already taken it upon themselves to donate property to tribes or Native organizations. These acts are a positive and inspiring step, even if still largely symbolic.

The "mainline conservation group" it mentions is called Save The Redwoods, which seems to have a sketchy past.

During the 2010s UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library began organizing and curating a particularly revealing trove of primary documents that would allow me to unmask Save the Redwoods League as the first, the largest, and the longest-lasting example of an inward political and economic phenomenon that today we call “greenwashing”— that is, rhetorical support for environmental protection by an institution actually working on behalf of destructive corporations. These were the League’s own records, dating back to 1917, some 200,000 pages of eye-popping revelations that would keep me in thrall for years.

Through deep examination of the League’s papers (I would eventually copy 10,000 pages) and many other sources, I learned that in 1917 a small coterie of powerful industrialists had gathered at the secluded Bohemian Grove, in Sonoma County, during the annual encampment of the exclusive San Francisco Bohemian Club. The industrialists included some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the nation, and the world, virtually all of whose businesses relied on redwood lumber to undergird the swiftest and most forceful expansion of industry and wealth in human history. They created Save the Redwoods League not to save redwoods as parks, but as standing inventories for use by industry. 

STR is also a massive NGO with a yearly revenue of $20 million and an endowment of over $100 million. It's president Samuel Hodder was a guest on a podcast called Climate One, which is a product of the The Commonwealth Club of California, which is another massive NGO with ties to the highest levels of government and big business.

And on the subject of the highest levels of government, again from the HCN article:

The federal government has slowly and selectively begun to engage with the idea since the appointment of Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) as secretary of the Interior, and of Chuck Sams (Umatilla) as director of the National Park Service, the first Native people to hold either office. The United States is currently piloting tribal co-management of certain federal lands, a step in the direction of LandBack.

If you're getting tens of millions of dollars and aid from NGOs, major universities are putting out papers in your favor, and you're getting help from the federal government, then yeah, I think at the very least there's something deeply suspicious going on.

[furmity]

Indigenous Voice to Parliament

I saw a Youtube ad which really bothered me. You may know that later this year Australia will have a referendum on whether there should be an Indigenous Voice to Parliament written into the constitution. This ad was authorised by Advance Australia and featured an Indigenous woman with her Scottish husband saying they didn’t want their family to be divided by race. It’s treating the Voice as though it will be some kind of apartheid.

I now know her to be Jacinta Price, a centre- right senator. I now know what Advance Australia is, and that it’s members have an average age of 50, with 60% men. The number of times the word “woke” appears on their website! Ban trans girls and women from sport! oppose climate hysteria! defend ANZAC and Australia Days! muscle up the army for the Chinese and Islamist threats! anti- lockdown (when did we last have one?!)! and something which doesn’t say in as many words but appears to be anti- vaxx. It’s all FREEEEDOM!! Aussie Aussie Aussie! Down with the woke left! They’re brainwashing our kids!

The Voice originates from the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, forwarded by Indigenous leaders to address inequalities in Australia and promote self determination for the First Nations. By every convention of international law, Australia was invaded. Sovereignty was never ceded. Native Title is the weakest form of property right in the common law.

The Voice will not be appointed by the executive, but elected by Indigenous communities themselves. They will be watched for corruption and misconduct in the same way as any government body (probably closer if we’re fucking honest...), and won’t deliver programs on its own. It’s a Voice, not a veto.

The proposal does not include removing the Constitutional sections which were flagged by the Expert Panel on the Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in 2012. Section 25 allows for people of “any race” to be disqualified from voting, though it’s called a dead letter (like s 41, don’t get me STARTED on that). Section 51 (xxvi) is the “race power”, which is not dead as you will know if you are at all familiar with the Hindmarsh Bridge affair. Keeping these sections is worrying, and would have been the wiser change to begin with. How these will interact with a new s 129 remains to be seen, but gives fuel for a “don’t divide us by race” fire.

My hope in the Voice is that it will be the first inching step towards a treaty, led by Indigenous people in Canberra. I hope the Voice gets more Indigenous people into politics, full stop. I hope the Voice leads us to a republic. I hope that the Voice speaks of conservation and land management. I hope the Voice streamlines the processes of the various commissions and committees sent out to remote communities, which don’t ultimately change anything.

Australia has a pretty poor record on referendums. We’ve tended to not have enough information on how changes will work, and of course most people will only agree if it perfectly reflects their views. I think the openness of the statement we are being asked to say yes/ no to is vital. I doubt the Voice will be particularly effective immediately, there’s a lot of sorting out to do. I do think, though, that Constitutional change is for the far future and what a country that could be.

A Voice is literally the least you could allow, the least the representatives at Uluru could have asked for.

[whilereadingandwalking]

The youth are our future, and Teen Vogue is helping to lead the charge—through education, coverage, and amplification of marginalized voices. In No Planet B, edited by Lucy Diavolo and published by Haymarket Books, a community of climate activists speak up in a way that is accessible, educational, and inspirational. 

No Planet B taught me quite a bit I didn't know. I was most impressed by its coverage of the plastics crisis. For example, the need to shift to a 'reuse' approach and not depend on recycling to save us. Corporations are using recycling as a distraction while ramping up the fossil fuel and fracking–heavy production of plastics. I learned from these pieces that the US sends much of its recycled and disposable waste abroad—for a long time, to China, but now to Southeast Asia. While many Western "green" programs and corporations lean on the top five countries responsible for marine plastics to fix up their act and stop "mismanaging" their natural resources, these same countries—China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka—are where Western countries are sending their trash. 

The essays cover the young climate activists fighting for change at high levels and in their communities—whether they're sleeping outside McConnell's office in protest, advocating for the Green New Deal, or standing with Greta Thunberg in global climate strikes. The essays also cover intersectional climate justice, discussing and highlighting how climate change disproportionately impacts people of color, Indigenous groups, people living in poverty, and young women around the world. They amplify those voices and stress that climate justice is not only an environmental but a social and political issue. 

All around, this collection is easy to read but full of crucial, important truths. It highlights how our youth are making a difference, and how we should learn from their actions, invest in their movements, and join the fight.

[destieldailynews]

John’s Journal, Indian Missions and the Lesbian Nuns

January 16th, 2021

By @lateral-org​

Our staff had a lot of conversations about how to frame this topic. None of us are Native American so we wanted to make sure we didn’t spread any misinformation while still using our platform. Our compromise was to try to speak using sources for information rather than personal opinions.

TL:DR

It is our responsibility to educate ourselves on Native American history. Even moreso as Supernatural fans, since so much of the show’s mythology is derived from Native American beliefs. Native Americans are still forced to live under oppressive laws constructed by the people responsible for the deaths of millions of their forefathers. Raising awareness is the first step to combatting this injustice. Links to more resources and places to donate are at the end of this post. 

We’ve gotten a few confused asks about how this post relates to John’s Journal entry. In the post it makes some remarks connecting the journal entry to children being tortured. The aim of this article is to provide the missing context linking the two together and why it matters. 

Here’s the quote from John’s Journal:

January 24: Dean turns seventeen today. We went shooting. Then I sent him out on his first hunt. I’ve let him take the lead before, but I’ve always been there to back him up. This time he’s on his own. Partly it’s a test, and partly I wanted some time with Sammy. Should be no problem for Dean. Ghosts of two nuns haunting St. Stephen’s Indian Mission in Riverton, Wyoming. Simple salt-and-burn mission. Nuns in love with each other, then discovered. Killed themselves. We scoped the situation out, figured that something must be left behind that’s now a focus for the haunting. Bible, rosary beads, some small article that’s hidden somewhere in their room. I figured Dean would take care of it no problem, but I still stayed close by with Sammy... [Sam wants a normal life] … Dean took care of the nuns just like I thought he would, but I don’t think I’m going to be sending him on any more solos soon. That one was a little tense.

And that’s all she wrote. So why does this matter? It doesn’t talk about killing kids, just about lesbian nuns who were part of an indian mission. What’s the problem? Well, let’s start with the basics. 

What is an Indian mission?

Basically, an Indian mission is a reeducation camp for Native Americans. 

From an article published on History.com about indian missions in California:

The main goal of the California missions was to convert Native Americans into devoted Christians and Spanish citizens.

Spain used mission work to influence the natives with cultural and religious instruction.

Another motivation for the missions was to ensure that rival countries, such as Russia and Great Britain, didn’t try to occupy the California region first.

Why is that so bad? 

Indian missions contributed to the loss of hundreds of thousands of Native American lives. 

From the same article:

The mission era influenced culture, religion, architecture, art, language and economy in the region.

But, the missions also impacted California Indian cultures in negative ways. Europeans forced the natives to change their civilization to match the modern world. In the process, local traditions, cultures and customs were lost.

Some critics have charged that the Spanish mission system forced Native Americans into slavery and prostitution, comparing the missions to “concentration camps.”

Additionally, Spanish missionaries brought diseases with them that killed untold thousands of natives.

Prior to the California missions, there were about 300,000 Native Californians. By 1834, scholars believe there were only about 20,000 remaining.

Now back to the post that spawned this question: 

When OP (@fettcockfriday) says, 

spend some time thinking about why you latched onto “lesbian nuns” over “children being tortured and murdered.” did you not know what an indian mission was? did you think it was less interesting, or less important? sit with that for a while. 

To someone who doesn’t know the history of Indian Missions and wasn’t paying close attention to the journal entry, this feels like it's coming out of nowhere. With context, though, you can understand where this comes from. 

In the journal entry, the Indian mission only has the weight of any other convent nuns could reside in. This is a problem rooted in the american habit of erasing the ugly parts of its history. I highly doubt that Alex Irvine thought twice about the relevance of indian missions when he wrote that into the diary entry, which is the problem. 

From IllumiNative: 

American students learn some of the most damaging misconceptions and biases toward Native Americans in grades K-12. In fact, 87 percent of history books in the U.S. portray Native Americans as a population existing before 1900, according to a 2014 study on academic standards. For many Americans, we no longer exist.

With minimal mention of contemporary issues and ongoing conflicts over land and water rights or tribal sovereignty, Native Americans have become invisible and it can be argued that it makes it easier for non-Natives to take the lead on creating their own narratives about us. Our invisibility makes it easier to create and support racist mascots or over sexualize caricatures of Native women in everything from fashion to Halloween costumes.

For the well-being of Native peoples and future generations, these false narratives, the invisibility and erasure of Native peoples must end.

Native Americans are still disenfranchised, suffering under oppressive laws constructed by the people responsible for the deaths of millions of their forefathers. Attempts to reeducate native children are still happening to this day. The only way to move forward is to face the past and listen to the voices who have been kept quiet for so long. 

Resources:

Links for educating yourself:

The Traumatic Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools-The Atlantic

The Erasure Of Native America

History of Residential Schools- Indigenous People’s Atlas of Canada

We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee-TikTok

How this affects white Americans: 

Whose Land Are You On?

Did You Know... All These States Have Native Names!

UNIST'OT'EN | Background of the Campaign

Thanksgiving - Tumblr

Knowledge Center- First Nations 

Ways to Donate:

#settlersaturday, gofundmes for native people

Ways to Give- First Nations

Support Us - Native American Rights Fund

Support the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs!

17 Organizations Providing Emergency Food Relief to Native Communities During COVID-19

Support Native American businesses: 

Birch Bark Coffee Company

Indigenous Cosmetics

Red Planet Books and Comics - Unleash Your Indigenous Imagination

Orenda Tribe Clothing

20+ Native American-Owned Businesses to Shop

Please tag, submit, or link any other accounts or resources related to this topic to us @destieldailynews​, we will reblog as much as we can.

[dweemeister]

NOTE: This is the third film released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic that I am reviewing – I saw Raya and the Last Dragon at the Regency Theatres Directors Cut Cinema’s drive-in operation in Laguna Niguel, California. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

As Raya and the Last Dragon, directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada and written by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim, made its theatrical and streaming bow, the United States was grappling with a wave of highly-publicized hate incidents towards Asian-Americans in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike in racially-motivated verbal abuse, assaults, and homicides began with the pandemic and, frustratingly, had only been receiving national attention in these last few weeks. Despite the nation’s racist origins entwined with chattel slavery of black people and its continued unequal treatment of minorities including Asian-Americans, I am not qualified to say if the U.S. is “more” or “less racist” than other countries. But I can hardly think of any other people that interrogate racial inequality and oppression as much (and as publicly) as Americans – an undeniable strength. There was no way Raya and the Last Dragon’s cast and crew could have anticipated the film’s fraught timing, but the film provides a much-needed, positive, and heavily flawed, action-adventure romp drawn from Southeast Asian cultures.

The very notion that Walt Disney Animation Studios was attempting to craft a film using an amalgam of Southeast Asian cultures stoked my excitement and dread. Southeast Asian cultures – including, but not limited to, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam – are often lumped into those of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan), which dominate Asian-American depictions or Asian-influenced media in the United States. What gave me pause is that Disney’s track record in films featuring non-European-inspired characters and places inspired by non-European cultures is mixed. Aladdin (1992) and Pocahontas (1995) are aggregations of (and indulge in stereotypes towards) Arabs and indigenous Americans alike, especially in their presentations of “savagery” (Pocahontas in particular is guilty of false equivalences).

Cultural aggregations in fictional settings are not insensitive, per se. Yet, Disney’s stated intentions on this film are undermined by a voice cast ensemble almost entirely composed of actors of Chinese and Korean descent – you can bring up Adele Lim’s response to the voice casting controversy all you want, but her response contradicts the film’s promotion. Amid its gorgeous production and character design, Raya manages to avoid the worst mistakes of its Disney Renaissance predecessors. But its hero’s journey is too cluttered and too littered with the anachronistic and metatextual jokes plaguing the last decade’s Disney animated features.

Five centuries before the events of Raya and the Last Dragon, the land of Kumandra saw its people live in harmony with dragons. That relationship, however, would be devastated by the appearance of the Druun – a swirling, purple vortex that turns living beings into stone. In the conflict against the Druun, the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), makes a fateful sacrifice to save Kumandra by concentrating the dragons’ collective power into a magical orb. Soon after, Kumandra’s five tribes – Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon (named after parts of a dragon) – fight amongst each other for control of the orb (Heart eventually gains possession of it), effectively partitioning the land. In the present day, the Heart tribe’s Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) proposes and hosts a feast-summit to discuss and heal Kumandra’s divisions. Benja has taught his daughter, Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), the ways of a warrior and the necessity for Kumandra’s tribes to realize their oneness. At the feast-summit, Raya befriends Namaari (Gemma Chan; Jona Xiao as young Namaari), the daughter of Fang Chief Virana (Sandra Oh). Predictably, Namaari betrays her new friend in an orchestrated ploy to pilfer the dragons’ orb for Fang. Just as the Druun make a surprise invasion of Heart, the botched heist sees the orb break into five, and each of the tribes makes off with part of the orb. It will be up to Raya to recover the other four pieces of the orb, lest Kumandra succumb to the Druun.

The film’s screenplay is, charitably, a mess. Though Qui Nguyen (primarily a playwright) and Adele Lim (2018’s Crazy Rich Asians) are the credited screenwriters, Raya’s phalanx of story credits (mostly full-time, white employees at the Disney studios) suggest studio interference. Raya seems as if it is trying to cleanly differentiate certain tribes as based on a certain Southeast Asian nation. Instead, it comes off as a brew of mish-mashed parts (this problem extends to the otherwise stunning animation). With the exception of those from the militant Fang, the bit characters from the various tribes do not behave any differently from the members of other tribes. The partition of Kumandra, five hundred years before the events of Raya, feels like as if it had never existed for lengthy stretches in this film.

After Kelly Marie Tran, as Raya, narrates the mythology and history of Kumandra in the opening minutes, the film’s structure tethers itself predictably to the monomyth. The fracturing of the dragon’s orb into five parts sends Raya onto a tedious adventure: the physical travel to a new part of Kumandra, introduction of a sidekick (all of them are comic reliefs), an action setpiece involving a necessary assist from new sidekick, and the integration of that sidekick into Raya’s ever-growing party. Lather, rinse, repeat. To squeeze the four other tribes into the film’s 107-minute runtime and set up a climax and resolving actions results in a frantically-paced movie. Almost all of the film’s dialogue is subservient to its structure, the hero’s journey. This disallows the viewer to learn more about our lead and her fellow adventurers. In arguably the most important example in how the dedication to story structure undermines the characters, take Raya’s repeated mentions to her newfound confidants that she has difficulty trusting others. Six years have passed since the day of Namaari’s betrayal and Raya’s discovery of Sisu. How has Raya’s sense of distrust evolved over time, and how does it manifest towards those of other tribes? Does it appear in moments without consequence to her quest, in gusts of casual cruelty? In terms of characterization, Raya is showing too little and telling just the basics – a dynamic that also applies to the film’s most important supporting characters.

Ever since Tangled (2010), the films of the Disney animated canon have increased their use of metatextual and anachronistic humor (e.g. Kristoff’s comment about Anna’s engagement to a person she just met in 2013’s Frozen and Maui’s Twitter joke in 2016’s Moana that still makes me gnash my teeth when I think about it). Invariably, the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has seen its brand of pathos-destroying humor bleed into the Disney animated canon and Star Wars. Like so many films in the Disney animated canon, Raya takes place in a fantastical location in a never-time far removed from the present. From the moment Raya meets Sisu, the circa-2020s humor is ceaseless. For Disney animated movies set in fantastical worlds, this sort of humor suits films that are principally comedies, such as The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) – a work that owes more to Looney Tunes than anything Disney has created. Instead, Raya’s comedy will suit viewers who frequent certain corners of the Internet, “for the memes.” Do Disney’s animation filmmakers believe the adults and children viewing their films so impatient and unintelligent about human emotions? That they will not accept a scene that deals honestly with betrayal, disappointment, heartbreak, or loss unless there is a snide remark or visual gag inserted within said scene or shortly afterward?

Raya seems like a film set to portray its scenarios with the gravity they require. But overusing Awkwafina’s Awkwafina-esque jokes and a DreamWorks- or Illumination Entertainment-inspired infant causing meaningless havoc will subvert whatever emotions Nguyen and Lim are attempting to evoke. These statements are not arguing that Raya and Disney’s animated films should be humorless, that Disney should stop casting an Awkwafina or an Eddie Murphy as comic relief. Instead, Raya is another case study in how Disney’s brand of ultramodern humor is overtaking their films’ integral dramatics. Raya is noisy, clamorous – no different than anything Disney has released in the last decade, save Winnie the Pooh (2011).

Production designers Helen Mingjue Chen, Paul A. Felix, and Cory Loftis have worked on films like Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), or Zootopia (2016). Each of these films feature glamorous, near-future metropolises or sleek digital worlds. Where the tribespeople of Kumandra might not be behaviorally-differentiated, the color coding, lighting, and biomes of each of the five lands comprising Kumandra ably distinguishes Fang, Heart, Spine, Tail, and Talon from each other. As if taking cues from the production designs of Big Hero 6’s San Fransokyo and, to some extent, The King and I (1956), it is difficult to pin down specific influences on the clashing architectural styles within the lands, in addition to the unusually empty and cavernous palaces and temples and varying costumes. As picturesque as some of these lands are, the art direction does not help to empower the characteristic of the tribes and their native lands. Nor does James Newton Howard’s thickly-synthesized grind of an action score, which prefers to accompany the film’s excellent combat scenes rather than stake a clearer thematic identity for its own. Howard uses East and Southeast Asian instrumentations and influences in his music, but, disappointingly, they are heavily processed through synthetic elements and are played underneath the film’s sound mix.

Character art directors Shiyoon Kim (Tangled, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Ami Thompson (2017’s MFKZ, 2018’s Ralph Breaks the Internet) embrace the (generally) darker and varying skin complexions of Southeast Asian peoples. The skin textures are among the best ever produced in a Disney CGI-animated feature, and the variety of face shapes – although still paling in comparison to the best hand-drawn features – is a pleasure to witness.

The number of films starring actors/voice actors of Asian descent (all-Asian or majority-Asian), animated or otherwise, and released by a major Hollywood studio makes for a brief list. Raya and the Last Dragon joins an exclusive club that includes the likes of The Dragon Painter (1919), Go for Broke! (1951), Flower Drum Song (1961), The Joy Luck Club (1993), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018). Among those movies, Raya is the only entry specifically influenced by Southeast Asian cultures. Its cast may be headlined by Kelly Marie Tran (whose skill as a voice actor is one of the film’s most pleasant surprises), but most of the roles went to those of Chinese or Korean descent. No disrespect intended towards Gemma Chan, Sandra Oh, or veteran actress Lucille Soong, but the majority East Asian cast only serves to further monolithize Asians – as the amalgamated story, plot details, and production design have already done. I will not second-guess any fellow person of Southeast Asian descent if they feel “seen” through Raya. What a compliment that would be for this film. How empowering for that person. But the life experiences of those of East Asian and Southeast Asian descent are markedly different. Disney’s casting decisions in Raya – all in the wake of the disastrous Western and Eastern reception of the live-action Mulan (2020) – have revealed a fundamental lack of effort or understanding about the possibilities of a sincere attempt at representation.

To this classic film buff, the discourse surrounding Raya strikes historical chords. When Flower Drum Song was released to theaters, the film was labeled by the American mainstream as the definitive Asian-American movie. Opening during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement, the film (and the musical it adapts) looked like nothing released by Hollywood (and on Broadway) at that time. In that midcentury era of rising racial consciousness and the lack of opportunities for Asian-Americans in Hollywood, the marking of Flower Drum Song as the absolute pan-Asian celebration was bound to happen – however unfair the distinction. Even though Rodgers and Hammerstein (two white Jewish men who made well-meaning, problematic attempts to craft musicals decrying racial prejudice and social injustices) composed the musical and zero Asian people worked behind the camera, those labels remained. With some differences in who wrote the source material, The Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians have followed Flower Drum Song’s fate in their categorizations. Will Raya? Time will be the judge, the only judge.

Before time passes judgment, we have some present-day hints. Though not released by major studios, the quick succession of The Farewell (2019) and Minari (2020) point to an experiential specificity that Raya attempts, but never comes close to achieving. Whether through aggregation or specificity, Hollywood benefits from the perspectives of underrepresented groups. Widespread claims that Raya too closely copies Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) reflect that dearth of East Asian and Southeast Asian representation in American media. For too many, ATLA is the Asian fantasy. These simplistic observations and bad-faith criticisms (one could rebuke Disney’s vaguely-European princess films on the same principles, but I find this as lazy as the bad-faith ATLA criticisms) also suggest a lack of understanding that Asian-inspired stories are drawing from similar tropes codified by Asian folklore and narratives centuries old. If one reads through this reviewer’s write-ups, you will find an abiding faith in the major Hollywood studios – past, present, and future – to be artistically daring and to genuinely represent long-excluded persons. Many might see this faith as misplaced. But even in the major studios’ flawed attempts to depict underrepresented groups, like Raya, they concoct astonishing sights and form moving links to the cinematic past.

Assuming you have not skipped to this paragraph, the write-up that you have read may seem scathing to your eyes. Raya is no Disney classic – there has not been one for some time. However, I thoroughly enjoyed my first viewing of Raya. After a few weeks’ worth of keeping my agony private over the recent uproar over attacks on persons of Asian descent in America, it was a surreal experience to see even an amalgamated celebration of Southeast Asian culture. Over this last year, we have lost people and things that emboldened us and ennobled us. In this season of unbelonging and otherizing feelings for Asians in America, Raya’s timing is fortuitous. It is emboldening and ennobling.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[sylver-drawer]

A prompt in class had made me realize something deep within me—my hate for physical books.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate books because they’re physical. I’d actually love it, but rather what I despise…

Is what is contained within those books.

Where I live, physical books you can only get when visiting libraries or book stores unless specially ordered online. Yet I am never satisfied with what is offered to me, simply because, I’m tired of it.

I am so absolutely tired of seeing the same exact things over and over again.

To give an example, my tastes aren’t that condensed nor diverse. I love thriller, I love Mystery, but what I find the most interest in, is Fantasy Romance.

And saying that should already tell you exactly what I’m talking about.

I am so tired of seeing the exact same tropes over and over again. This is a problem in all stories, physical or online, in general—however, it appears to me that published and physical books are almost always having these qualities. When searching online, I can always somehow find at least a handful of stories that is different from the others and gives at least a fraction of what I need. But in libraries? Book stores? I can’t do that, because they all follow the same pattern one way or another because those tropes are what people only ever seem to want, which is why a lot of authors who stray from those tropes aren’t as well known.

Frankly, I’m tired of everything being reused or rebranded.

I wouldn’t mind the wizards and demons, the werewolves and vampires, if ONLY they weren’t just there to be there.

Let me explain. Witches and Wizards tend to follow the same pattern. People who use magic, which is simple enough. But the problem is, is that it ends with just that. In most stories I come across, wizards are included in a very weak magic system in which they can use magic to do basically anything they want. Something fell and broke? Use magic to fix it. There’s a fire? Summon water to put it out.

It’s simple. But that repeated simplicity is what makes me tired.

There is never any depth. There is no expansion or lore that explains the nitty gritty details, nor makes it important. Magic in fantasy stories, is most commonly, cause and effect. Problem, and fix. Something bad, changed to good. Hurt, then to heal.

In fantasy, magic is simply one layer—magic people can use magic to do anything. There’s no limit, there’s no depth, there’s nothing that makes it unique. Magic in fantasy, all falls under the broad topic of just ‘magic’. Shooting fireballs, summoning a river, causing a storm to drive away your enemies, lightning bolts to fend them off—all can fall under just magic. Using this, it might be controversial to say, but Harry Potter is an extremely soft magic system. Wizards can cast magic through words, yes, but it’s exactly that. They can cast ‘magic’, and that magic is an umbrella term that essentially means, “With enough training, they can look up the words in a magic dictionary and use whatever magic they want to do anything they want”.

There is no depth. There is no extra layer, it’s simply ‘magic’.

And I’m not even done rambling. I haven’t even touched magical races in fantasy, which I’ll actually transition right into.

I am tired of race conflict in fantasy. Not because its bad, but because they’re more often than not, poorly written. Let’s take Twilight as an example.

Werewolves hate vampires. Vampires hate werewolves. Why? Because werewolves bad, and vampires bad. That’s literally it. No deeper meaning, no actual societal issues, just “ew, icky vampire/werewolf”. In fact, in twilight it doesn’t even appear they hate eachother. If Bella didn’t even exist, what would Edward and Jacob fight about? If you notice, they only use eachother’s race to appeal to Bella and put down the other rival. “Bella, you can’t love him because he’s a dirty vampire”, or, “Bella, you can’t love him because he’s a mangy wolf pup”. Setting aside the obvious racist undertones that’s never important nor addressed critically within the story, the only time dislike about the others’ race is talked about, is only ever addressed not because they hate that specific race, but as a petty remark to bad talk their love rival.

So, in theory, the two races aren’t even… against eachother. Thinking back, all the times it was vampire vs werewolf in twilight, it was all because of Bella wasn’t it. And not because of general dislike of the others’ race, but over a human girl…

I’ve trailed off from my original point, but basically, race vs race within fantasy plots aren’t actually because of the race. I think the only fantasy series I’ve seen that remotely does racial societal conflict well is Lord of the Rings. Elves hate dwarves because they’re greedy, crude, and brutish. Dwarves hate elves because they view them as selfish and always seemingly on their high horse. They stereotype one another, and when they look beyond those stereotypes is when they start bonding and actually forming friendships. They then realize that those stereotypes didn’t matter and were harmful.

That’s an example I would love to see more in fantasy in general. Make the magical races dislike and judge eachother because of their race, and then overcome it while addressing it. Don’t add in races that hate eachother when they’re all literally just the exact same. And also, make the races different! Even humans practice different cultures, and that’s what makes us diverse. In the LOTR franchise, racial bias and hate isn’t simply because, “they’re x race”. It’s because they stereotype people within that race, a stereotype that’s just an exaggerated version of qualities they all just happened to have. In Twilight, I’d argue that there isn’t anything that sets the werewolves and vampires apart other than their superhuman abilities. In LOTR, taking their races away the qualities the characters had were still eminent. Legolas was a bit proud and calm demeanor ed under pressure because he was naturally like that, as well as how he was raised as an elven prince. Gimley fights violently with an axe, and puts his whole body into his fighting style. His words also come off as rough and unfiltered, while Legolas’ voice is smoother and speech well spoken due to his background. The traits they found in eachother due to racial stereotypes still linger and remain. While yes, werewolves were heavily based off of indigenous people, there wasn’t any clear examples of them practicing it that was essential to the conflict and characters other than reminding the audience every once and a while. If Jacob were the only werewolf shown, the Jacob-Bella-Edward conflict could easily just be seen as two roleplaying white boys fighting over a girl. That’s how important their racial identities of vampire and werewolf mattered.

(And please!!! Remember lore. Generations and generations of racism impacts people who grew up with it. Some people change and break away from that stigma of unadultered hate, some can only partly break away even while educated with unconscious internal bias, and some continue to nurture themselves in it and even spread it. Not every person under one umbrella ends up the same, and that applies to characters too. Taking inspiration from real life, look at the time we live in now. Hundreds of years gone by, and while things are certainly better, the dark stains haven’t even gone away and most likely won’t even in the distant future. The past two years are proof of that.)

There’s no point in writing racial conflict in your story if there’s nothing that sets them apart from one another (I’m not saying people need a reason for real life racism because there are so many people who hate certain races just because they’re that race, but story wise, it’s easier to show what’s commonly hate due to stereotypes and stigma that people make for that race). It’s like the spider man pointing meme. How are you supposed to be antagonistic with someone who’s literally the same as you? “I guess you’re not like other spider men” coming from a spider man???

Prefacing, I’m not saying racism is good. I’m saying including race conflict for the sake of race conflict is very empty and purposeless, which is what I often find in fantasy or romance-fantasy. Racial conflict apparently doesn’t matter until the main character is directly involved, in which only then does it affect them that it’s brought up and only because it affects them. A similar example is including LGBTQ+ characters just for the sake of sexual diversity, in which—

That actually leads into my next topic.

Romance.

How many. How many published books must there be of romance that completely overrides the plot as well as the characters’ other relationships? How many stories must be made in which the fantasy aspect is completely pushed aside and no longer included in the plot because the story wants to entirely focus on the romance drama between the main character, love interest, and best friend? Or not even best friend, miscommunication in general!

How hard, is it to write a story where the couple is healthy, and love and don’t doubt eachother, who trust eachother entirely? Like really.

And! And!

The moment when romance is introduced, everything else doesn’t. seem. to. matter! At that point, it’s not even fantasy even more. It’s just a rom com, because watching the couple fight over nothing is hilarious because they’re in the middle of a war. And the other characters don’t seem to matter anymore either. I am so tired of plots being thrown away to focus on the drama between the two leads, and for once just want a fantasy boom of stories depicting healthy relationships with actually unique magic systems and logical well written conflicts.

And diversity! In Relationships! I am so tired of only ever seeing poorly written drama filled heterosexual relationships in romances. In fantasy romances. Give me my wlw wizards who explore their war torn world and have to defend the people they love with intricate, costly, magic systems.

Can we just have. A literary revolution, in which a rise of stories where characters can have relationships—non romantic relationships—with other characters. Can male and female characters finally love eachother to the ends of the world without romance. It’s so easy to write. Love is so easy to write between any gender or sex. So why does it seem to be there can only be one kind predominantly in media? In published media?

Occasionally I can find diverse stories like this on the internet, but never can I find these in libraries.

Like it’s. It’s so, so easy to write love and companionship between characters of diverse identities and cultures. Even in heterosexual fantasy romance stories, I want to be able to see relationships outside the romance being as strong as the main romance. Between the girls, between the boys, and those in between. Men can be in love with men, women in love with women, and men in love with women without needing to force their loves against eachother. A man and woman can be written to love eachother dearly without any romance ever between them, because that’s how it’s like in real life as well. So often do main characters in fantasy stories have some sort of dark past that rid them of any familial love, which in turn ruins them for the capacity of platonic love, which makes people believe the only way for them to find love is romantically. Even in children’s books, there’s always the princess abandoned or overly protected by her parents who eventually finds solace in the pressence of a dry, brooding knight or charming prince. They fall in love, and that’s the only thing that’s ever positively shown. The love between the main character and the love interest. Because to society, romance is seen as the strongest form of affection.

But, it isn’t.

People are different, and to a lot of people who do and don’t have romance in their lives, it doesn’t mean they can’t love anyone else. In society, the only love that seems to exist is romance. It’s the only thing people tend to promote, and yet, people forget what love is. It’s care, it’s worry. Love is painful and happy. It’s sometimes angry and frustrating, but sometimes its something you need. Love is stubborn, yet so easily broken. Love was never just romance, and it feels like the world forgets that.

It’s frustrating, because it feels like anything published at your local library follows the opposite pattern. Because it’s what people believe the public wants, and what the public will only ever accept. Sometimes, it’s all people only know how to write. Sometimes, its all editors and publishers will ever approve of. And sometimes, its all people ever look for. Because either they’re afraid, stigmatize and despise it, or just don’t care for it.

At some point, this had turned from a ramble about how physical books lack diversity, to how media in general lacks diversity.

I do believe that one day in the future, media will change. Literary media will change. But as of now? The majority of published and physical books haven’t diverted from that pattern, and most likely won’t for a long time. I know so many stories are beginning to change online now that the new generation has informed themselves and become interested in new ideas and topics, but as far as physical publication goes? The world won’t accept these changes, not for a long time.

[revlyncox]

Origin Stories 2020

The stories we tell about our past affect the way we view the present and orient toward the future. This is true about the myth of Thanksgiving, stories we tell about  Ethical Culture's past, stories we tell about our individual journeys, and more. When we recognize the impact of origin stories, we can be intentional about how we tell them in the future and how they guide us to bring out the best. 

This Platform Address was written for the Washington Ethical Society by Lyn Cox, November 29, 2020. 

Has anyone seen the movie, Captain Marvel? You know I did. Back when going to movie theatres was a safe thing to do, I saw it in the theater. The nostalgia for the music of the mid-1990’s alone was enough to catch my interest. I don’t want to spoil it for those who are waiting for a quiet evening to watch it at home, so I’ll try to speak in general terms.

The movie opens with an interstellar super soldier named Vers, who is having trouble with memory, but nevertheless goes out on a mission with her team, part of the Kree empire. Throughout the movie, she learns more about where she comes from, and more about the origins of the conflict with the people she thought were her enemies. Once she has come around to a different understanding of who her people are, the personal qualities she has been criticized for are reframed, and she can draw from them as strengths. This revised worldview moves her to an entirely different sense of her mission in life, as well as a different sense of connecting and belonging.

The paradigm shift that the main character goes through in Captain Marvel reminds me of the power of origin stories. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves--as individuals, communities, and countries--affect how we reach out to others and what we think we’re capable of. As we reflect on this holiday weekend, we’re confronted with one version of the origin story of the United States, the one some of us were presented with as children at this time of year. That version of the story is infused with myths and half-truths, and depends on the erasure of the historical and contemporary perspectives of Native Americans, among other groups of people. Whether we are dismantling the settler-colonial narrative, incorporating new insights into our understanding of ourselves as a community, or finding personal empowerment in reframing our individual origin stories, returning to the stories about beginnings or turning points with open minds can help us reshape our future.

Whether we are speaking individually or collectively, origin stories matter. Events get baked into information we regard as fact, or perhaps legend. Left unexamined, these stories can divide people who need not be divided and disempower people who could be living fruitful, generous lives. It matters how we tell those stories. The inclusion of truths or half-truths, and which facts are emphasized or glossed over has an impact. In communal stories, whose perspective is centered makes a difference.The way we understand the narrative structure of the story is also a choice. The good news is that stories can be reframed, even within the bounds of verifiable facts. Origins are not destinies. We can rearrange the emphasis, lift up silenced voices, and find strengths that had previously been minimized. That’s what we’re talking about today. With regard to both individual and collective narratives, (1) Origin stories matter, (2) the way we tell origins stories matters, and (3) stories can be reframed.

Origin Stories Matter

Earlier, we heard an excerpt from a talk by Emily Esfahani Smith. She has done interviews and followed studies in positive psychology, first asking the question about what makes people happy, then shifting to the question of what helps people live meaningful lives. She said, “Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you.”

In her review of the available research (excerpt from her book on the TED talk website), she found that the stories people tell about the pivotal events of their lives can affect how they feel about themselves, their level of confidence or anxiety, and what behaviors they choose in the future as they subconsciously live by their stories. I’d like to add a caveat that not everything in our personal narratives is about perspective or attitude; sometimes a person’s anxiety or adaptive behaviors are shaped by oppression, trauma, or other circumstances. Even so, examining our lives for the agency and resilience that we do have gives us some extra tools and is worth a try.

When you add humans together to tell a collective story about the turning points of a community or a movement or a country, origin stories can have an even wider impact. Last month, I drew from An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz when we discussed Christopher Columbus. In the introduction to her book, in reference to Thanksgiving, Dunbar-Ortiz wrote:

Origin narratives form the vital core of a people’s unifying identity and of the values that guide them. In the United States, the founding and development of the Anglo-American settler-state involves a narrative about Puritan settlers who had a covenant with God to take the land.

Then, in chapter three, Dunbar-Oritz picks up this thread again:

The United States is not unique among nations in forging an origin myth, but most of its citizens believe it to be exceptional among nation-states, and this exceptionalist ideology has been used to justify appropriation of the continent and then domination of the rest of the world.

In other words, Dunbar-Ortiz credits the mythological version of the Thanksgiving story, a particular version of the origin story of the United States, with fueling some of the worst behaviors of the United States and many of its citizens. A story that was framed to make heroes out of the Pilgrims and inspire patriotism has also inspired exploitation, theft, and violence.

Dunbar-Ortiz is not alone in this observation. James W. Loewen, in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American history Textbook Got Wrong, also unpacks the Thanksgiving story as an origin myth with devastating consequences.

Loewen says that, in the cases where the Thanksgiving holiday is observed without examination or critique, “the civil ritual” marginalizes Native Americans. That marginalization comes not only from perspective or emphasis, but from actual falsehoods that are re-told in mythic versions of the story. These false myths serve to reinforce what Loewen calls white “ethnocentrism.” He says that when textbooks promote this version of the story, they diminish the capacity of students to understand the culture they are in or how to relate to each other.

At the time of his original writing, the term white supremacy culture was not as widely in use as it is now, but it is apt in this case. The outdated version of the Thanksgiving story idolized the colonizers and erased the humanity of the Indigenous people they encountered. This is both a manifestation of and fuel for white supremacy culture.

We’re finding that, just as our personal origin stories can lead us to make choices so that we live by those stories, national origin stories guide our future behavior. Origin stories matter.

How We Tell Origin Stories Matters

Now that we’ve established that personal and collective origin stories can have an impact on our self-concept and our future choices, let’s talk about how we tell those stories. We have choices in the perspectives and events we emphasize, and in the shape of the narrative arc.

Earlier, we heard a passage from A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present by Howard Zinn, in which he draws an analogy between historians and mapmakers. Zinn is more generous toward mapmakers or cartographers than I would be, saying that the choices about what projections to use or what details to include in a map are mainly technical. I think maps are much more political than he implies in this comparison, but the point stands that both historians and cartographers have to make choices in conveying information. It is incumbent upon us to examine our purpose in making those choices, and to think about the impact of those choices. How we tell the story matters.

This is where the collective storytelling and the personal storytelling intersect. As we are figuring out how to tell our personal stories, we’re also trying to figure out how we fit into the larger picture. When we are not truthful in our collective stories, we make this task of fitting into the larger story much more difficult for everyone, especially those who have been marginalized. If we have the privilege and responsibility of telling a collective story, we should try to ensure that all of the people in that story are reflected as their whole selves. Incorporating multiple perspectives into our stories makes it easier for the community and for individuals to understand ourselves and to find meaning and purpose.  

My colleague Jone Johnson Lewis from the Riverdale Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture has demonstrated this beautifully in her research about the history and historiography of the Reconstruction era. She notes that narratives of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period that were taught in school for decades do not match the evidence. (Here’s her August 2 Platform Address as a guest at the New York Society.)

Starting in the 1920s, professional historians who were collectively known as the Dunning School were training school teachers to talk about the Civil War as a matter of “states rights,” despite the fact that all of the documents about secession referred to slavery, and the founding of the Confederacy did not allow states to have the right to opt out of slavery. This tradition referred to Reconstruction as a disaster, a burden placed on the South (meaning the white landowners of the South) by opportunistic northerners. The Dunning School presented an egregious misrepresentation of the facts of Reconstruction, and was part of perpetuating the idea that African American people were not capable of self-determination. This view lent support to voter suppression tactics such as literacy tests, and fed racist white resentment that is still an active force in politics today.

The deliberate revisions of the Dunning School were partly the work of David Saville Muzzey. Muzzey was not only a professor of history, but also an Ethical Culture leader. Muzzey wrote a history textbook that was heavily in use from 1927 to 1938, and was source material for textbooks for at least another generation. If we’re going to note the successes of Ethical Culturists throughout history in promoting justice, we also have to examine the ways that Ethical Culturists supported white supremacy culture. By learning from the mistakes of our kindred in the past, we can help prevent ourselves and our successors from repeating them.

According to Jone Johnson Lewis, part of Muzzey’s goal was to tell the story of the United States as a gradually unfolding arc of human rights. Acknowledging the initial flowering of human rights and democracy immediately after the Civil War--before the backlash against Reconstruction led to voter suppression, Jim Crow laws, and the great nadir of civil rights--didn’t work for Muzzey. Being honest about the steps forward and then backward did not match the shape of the gradual arc Muzzey was trying to fit history into, and did not comport with Muzzey’s racist views about what African American leaders and thinkers were capable of. He rejected evidence that did not fit his hypothesis, and because of that, generations of students were taught a false history of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

There are a couple of things we can learn here. We can learn that impact matters more than intention. We learn that stories about a community or culture should include the perspectives of all of the groups in that community or culture. Primary sources from the people who are most deeply affected are important in lifting up a complete history. In our local communities, we should be asking whose voices are missing.

As a point relevant to both collective origin stories and personal origin stories, sometimes the truth that is most important to tell does not follow a smooth narrative arc. Neither our individual lives nor our shared history necessarily follows a three-act structure or a linear path. History does not always make narrative sense even if the events follow a logical sequence of cause and effect. Trying to force our personal or shared history to follow a straight line might lead us to cut off important branches of truth.

Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson wrote about how this affects our personal stories in her 1989 book, Composing a Life. (Here’s Bateson in an episode of On Being with Krista Tippett.) She wrote that how we grow and change is less like building a linear brick wall and more like improvisational cooking or quilting, putting a life together with the bits and pieces we have in the time available. Noting that people who have been marginalized don’t have the luxury of being able to hold a singular focus, Bateson said that a non-linear art of living has equal dignity and grace.

How we tell our stories matters. It matters that we include truth. It matters when we include multiple perspectives in a collective story. It matters that we allow our stories to take their natural twists and turns. When it comes to our personal stories, we need not be ashamed when our journeys don’t follow a simple or well-recognized path. Meaning can arise from growth and learning, and we don’t always arrive at growth and learning by the direct route. Realizing that stories need not be linear helps to remind us that it’s not over until it’s over - we are not bound to keep going in what is now the wrong direction. Make some room. How we tell our stories matters.

Stories Can Be Reframed

A corollary to the idea that we can choose how to tell our origin stories is that, at any time, we can choose to reframe those stories. We are not stuck with narratives that are inauthentic. We can emphasize different events and different voices to help us figure out a path for the future.

Taking the myth of Thanksgiving as an example, if we are going to treat it as an origin story for the United States, we can reframe that story by correcting falsehoods and expanding the sources we consult.

In 1970, the Massachusetts Department of Commerce asked the Wampanoag People to select a speaker for a Thanksgiving event to mark the 350th anniversary of the English arrival at Plymouth Rock. Frank James, also known as Wamsutta, had to show the event planners what he had written. The organizers did not allow him to read it, and offered him a different speech, which he refused to read. Instead, Frank James gave his original speech on Cole’s Hill, next to the statue of former Wampanoag leader Ousamequin, to a crowd of supporters. This became the first Day of Mourning, now an annual event of the United American Indians of New England. It was a turning point in the Native American movement in the United States.

James’ speech included this acknowledgement of history:

It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you - celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans.

James goes on from there, addressing more of the history of oppression against Native Americans, the way history was being taught in American schools, and the continued persistence and resilience of the Wampanoag and other Indigenous people.

Remembering that the English colonizers who arrived at Plymouth Rock were not innocent or peaceful, remembering that they committed theft and violence on the original inhabitants of the land both before and after the event that is remembered as the First Thanksgiving, means that we can no longer base a national identity on trying to emulate this origin story. It means we can’t pretend ignorance and wonder where it all went wrong when we look at the atrocities committed in the name of the United States in the intervening 400 years. But it also means we have a choice about what to do differently. We can commit to not repeating the past. We can learn to tell our stories differently. The history of Frank James and the first Day of Mourning is incorporated in materials for the 400th anniversary of the landing at Plymouth Rock. An origin is not a destiny.

Collectively, we are the authors of the future of our communities and our nation. Individually, as Emily Esfahani Smith reminds us, we are the authors of our own stories. As we heard earlier, “Your life isn’t just a list of events. You can edit, interpret, and re-tell your story, even as you are constrained by the facts.”

Just as with the process of updating our collective stories, reframing our personal stories may be hard, even painful. We will have to face uncomfortable truths. Yet out of those truths, we may find an ability to learn and grow, a sense of meaning and purpose, and capacity for acceptance and compassion that comes from whole-hearted experience. By changing the emphasis of our stories, we may find a call to service, or a desire to make amends, or a sense of connection with those who share a similar experience. The power to reframe our stories is in our hands.

Conclusion

The stories of our beginnings as individuals, as communities, and as a nation have power. They can move us toward compassion and connection, or they can move us toward division and disrespect. But that power is not absolute. We can take responsibility for comparing those stories with the available evidence, and for examining the story from a variety of perspectives. We can reframe a story as we learn from both mistakes and successes, seeking purpose amidst the patchwork of love and care that sustains the best in us and in those around us. May it be so for each and all.

[lesbianfeminists]

https://medium.com/@hawaii_78988/what-can-the-womens-movement-do-right-now-to-combat-racism-e92a6d1a1afa

The revolution is at our doorstep. It’s time to answer Audre Lorde’s call for feminists to struggle through racial divisions in sisterhood, or face a future where “women’s blood will congeal upon a dead planet.”

White women are often the most visible face of white supremacy in the daily lives of Black, indigenous, and women of color (BIWOC) in the women’s movement. We are blessed to organize alongside a number of white women who are principled accomplices against white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. However, some white women’s inherently racist behavior is taking a huge toll on us personally and threatens the strength of the women’s movement. While white men benefit off of all of us, it is often white women who act as luna to the plantation boss. Therefore it is important that white women and BIWOC gatekeepers be willing to shake the table and make real structural change beyond talk and optics. Otherwise, it is just performance arts, not activism:

Do not ever say “we don’t have a race problem.”

Acknowledge that many popular white-led solutions to women’s oppression such as crime control, arrests, police, individual rights, inclusion, and work as liberation are not working and are holding back transformative change. A new strategy is needed.

Acknowledge that you do not know the lived experiences and historical trauma of BIWOC. White “expertise” and theory does not trump the lived experiences of BIWOC. There are varied ways of knowing.

No all-white or majority white panels.

Commit to multi-year, highly participatory training on anti-blackness and patriarchy, and the ways its intersection privileges white women uniquely.

Fund organizations projects and research for and led by Black, indigenous and immigrant women without strings and conditions.

Connect to and fund Black and indigenous women leaders and projects that are locally-led and organized.

Leadership change. Be willing to give up your seat. Our issues should be led by our people. The belief that there is no woman of color available or qualified who can do the work, or that it is appropriate for a white person to lead on issues that predominantly affect people of color in a “minority-majority state,” is rooted in the notion of white superiority.

End the strategy of hiding behind BIWOC when you are called out for your behavior. This tokenizes women of color and pits them against each other to justify racism. This is no different than what the what slave master did on the plantation using Black mediators and go betweens, treating them a little better and letting them handle the Black people who complain about ill treatment and wanting to revolt.

Do not weaponize white academics against women of color organizers.

Do not “call the manager” (executive board, supervisor or boss) on BIWOC to complain about their politics, style, or strategies.

Learn to read the room and know when you are taking up too much space.

Practice deferring to BIWOC.

Learn how to not waste BIWOC’s time in meetings, in emails educating you on their issues (which emotionally exhaust us), spoon feeding you analysis just for you to ignore then, their advice and expertise while promoting yourself as knowledgable.

People of color, not the actor or white bystanders, get to define when an act is racist.

Do not take credit for people of color’s work.

Cite Black women and women of color. Often Black women’s intellectual property has been taken or coopted without giving credit to the original source. Many of the thoughts, sayings and quotes used in the movement come from BIWOC yet are spouted out of the mouths of white women who sideline BIWOC in their spaces.

Stop discrediting women of color leaders and stop siding with the “white victim.”

Design meetings to ensure white attendees do not dominate. Ensure white women do not shout down, interrupt or disrespect women of color. Practice revolutionary silence and call for women of color to speak first.

Do not force intimacy or ask women of color to share personal information to justify a political position that they take.

Women of color are often exhaustively vetted while white women are given the benefit of the doubt. Do not ask women of color to show their credentials.

Do not assume the white woman in the room is the authority or expert.

Understand that you can still be part of the problem even if you believe you are doing the work to end the problem. Make sure you are always checking yourself. Be an accomplice to BIWOC at all times.

It is, in fact, a problem when there are no Native Hawaiians, Micronesians, Black and immigrant *working class* women in a space speaking for themselves. The majority of women are working class people of color.

Do not engage in the ways that women of color are attacked in highly personal, sexist ways when they do not agree with someone’s political stance.

Be an ally offline, off social media, when the cameras and mics are off, and beyond the Opeds.

Understand that supporting BIWOC who you are deem are non-threatening to your status quo is tokenizing.

To the BIPOC gatekeepers in our communities who rush in to vouch for white folks, particularly white women: We are hip to the game. Stop this. BIPOC have been used as tools of white supremacy for hundreds of years. This may help you as an individual but it does not get us free. We are all in this together.

To the lone BIPOC at the table: advocate for there to be more than just you. If your organization feels there is no need for more BIPOC voices at the table, then you are being tokenized. Bring an army of BIPOC with you.

[blankslateblog]

Can Cars Become folklore? Exploring the Future of our Streets Post-Coronavirus

It’s 7:30pm on a Monday night in August. We are in the heart of our nation’s capital. Yes, D.C. always clears out around this time of year, and yes, it is raining right now, but this summer night is different. We are on month six (give or take) of the coronavirus pandemic here in the United States, and our streets have undergone a drastic transformation. In the time it took me to write these first few sentences, only 5 cars have driven by my window. This would have been unheard of in the heated rush hours of Before Times. As Taylor Swift languidly reflects in her song, august, “But I can see us lost in the memory / August slipped away into a moment in time.” While maybe Taylor isn’t contemplating automobile ephemera like me, her sentiments about fleeting memories have never seemed more true. Our society has entered a new normal in every facet of our lives, and our streets are no different. Coronavirus has presented us with both extreme challenges and opportunities, leading many to question if we can leverage the positive, interim changes and seeming concessions into permanence.

It seems as if our view on cars being indispensable to the American Way of Life is immutable, however many are hoping to change this. Farhad Manjoo, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, recently published a piece titled, I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing. His thesis: Why do American cities waste so much space on cars? While this idea may be nothing new, Manjoo’s angle of focusing on space came at an apt time as society reckons with isolating in small, urban spaces, quarantining in cities once as dynamic as its transient residents, and transitioning to experiencing our neighborhoods at street level. We are being forced to confront truly living in our immediate surroundings, in a way that we may not have wanted to, or been conscious of, before. I thought I knew my neighborhood like the back of my hand, but my quarantine walks have taught me that I was sorely mistaken. In the past month I have discovered 3 community gardens, 2 cemeteries, and 1 park all within a 30 minute walk of my apartment.1 Greenspaces have become a refuge for me now more than ever. Having worked with the Parks Research Lab at William & Mary and ParkRx America in Washington, D.C., greenspaces have always been a research interest of mine. Pro-tip: If you are yearning for some ecotherapy like me, you can utilize ParkRx America’s database (located on the homepage) to “prescribe” yourself a local greenspace to visit. Now, the idea of space, be it “green” or other, has taken on a whole new meaning during the pandemic. As I type, limited to my small, city apartment, I am reflecting on Manjoo’s visceral appeal for us to optimize how we are using and creating space.

ParkRx America’s mission is to decrease the burden of chronic disease, increase health and happiness, and foster environmental stewardship, by virtue of prescribing Nature during the routine delivery of healthcare by a diverse group of healthcare professionals. Source: ParkRx America Resources

As an environmentalist, I have been celebrating the recent dearth of cars in my own city, and the proliferation of “Open Streets” and “Open Restaurants” movements across the country as the pandemic progresses. Notable examples include: Oakland's Slow Streets, Seattle's Stay Healthy Streets, and Paris' “Corona Cycleways.” Many of these initiatives have been championed by individual communities or tactical urbanists for years, but for the general public these ideas are just now becoming mainstream as we adhere to Stay at Home orders and live more locally. Scenes like Karsten Moran’s photo, below, of Mulberry Street in Manhattan evoke the plaza-culture of cities abroad. Having traveled often outside of the U.S., I always wonder why our streets don’t feel like theirs. Is it a problem of planning? Of people? Of both? Cars seem like an easy culprit, but maybe they are just a scapegoat symbol for the individualism of American society. As public health experts reckon with the threat of American individualism in combating coronavirus, can we instead channel this obstacle into collective action to improve our streets?

NYC Open Restaurants’ Siting Criteria has ushered in a new era of ‘tactical urbanism’ founded on quick-fixes, often utilizing the mishmash of materials on hand. Source: NYC DOT 

“New York City’s sidewalks and streets have sprouted oases that evoke destinations from the Greek isles to the New Jersey Turnpike. In Manhattan, Mulberry Street, which was dotted with sidewalk seating before the pandemic, now features in-street dining.” Photo Credit: Karsten Moran; Source: Outdoor Dining Offers Fresh Air and Fantasy to a City That Needs Both

It is critical to explore who we are “improving” our streets for, who these changes will benefit, and who is calling for them. How would open streets impact BIPOC? People living with disabilities? Essential workers? Many urbanist activists are “challenging the practice of quick-build infrastructure projects like Slow Streets that eschew multi-year and multi-stage construction projects in favor of timely progress and rapid feedback.”2 In D.C., Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White effectively banned Slow Streets from his ward, which is over 92% Black according to DC Health Matters, with an amendment to the law permitting them stating, “Many residents in Ward 8 have not supported bike lanes and other measures that appear to force aspects of gentrification and displacement.” Dr. Destiny Thomas, a Black transportation planner and organizer, explores these ideas and more in the article, ‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives. I highly recommend reading her article first, before I outline a few of her ideas here. Dr. Thomas explains that the onslaught of slow streets and bike lanes during the pandemic was a “nightmare” due to their lack of participatory planning. She states, “by design, their ‘quick-build’ nature overrides the public feedback that is necessary for deep community support. Without that genuine engagement, I feared that pandemic-induced pedestrian street redesigns would deepen inequity and mistrust in communities that have been disenfranchised and underserved for generations.”3 If planning is to become anti-racist, it must center and amplify the voices of communities members through inclusive methods such as participatory planning and budgeting, youth engagement, and other targeted outreach efforts. As we know, racial justice and environmental justice are interconnected, and Dr. Thomas goes on to explain how these initiatives “fail to address the environmental factors at the root of these health disparities. Encouraging Black residents to go outside without addressing the environmental crises that lead to COVID-19 complications is a tell-tale sign that Black well-being was a secondary (at best) intention of these projects.”3 Black access to the outdoors has long been limited, as illustrated by national park visitation statistics: although Black Americans represent 13.4% of the U.S. population, a 2018 study, People of Color and Their Constraints to National Parks Visitation, indicates that they represent less than 2% of national park visitors. Keya Chatterjee, a D.C.-based climate activist who organized ad hoc street closures in the first few months of the pandemic, believes projects like Slow Streets can mitigate harm to Black residents, including from air pollution and COVID-19. Chatterjee argues, “I do think that building things quickly, that result in a lower loss of life, in a situation where that loss of life is clearly based on racial injustice, is the only way to move towards justice.”2 Decreasing the number of cars operating in our cities would lead to significant reductions in toxic air pollution which currently disproportionately affects communities of color. However, we must not make these decisions in a vacuum; input from affected populations is indispensable. 

Black visibility in public spaces and streets challenges the racist, ableist, and classist ideas historically underpinning “who should have access to ‘outside’ and how they should be allowed to access it. Without a plan to include and protect Black, Brown, Indigenous, trans, and disabled people, or a plan to address anti-Black vigilantism and police brutality, these open streets are set up to fail.”3 Dr. Thomas outlined seven concrete ways to address racism and inequity in transportation planning specifically: 

Public works and transportation agencies should produce and publish a concrete plan for divestment from police agencies. This includes both fiscal and values-based components: Enforcement should be replaced with accessibility and accountability, and funds to police should be redistributed to community-based organizations, direct service providers and behavioral health specialists that are equipped to uphold dignity and care for everyone within the built environment.

Quick-build projects don’t solve the disparities caused by the legacy of racist planning and disinvestment. In order to be transformative, infrastructure projects should have a comprehensive environmental justice plan as a prerequisite, and basic public works should be up to date prior to implementation. This includes proper drainage and floodplain planning, addressing pavement heat indexes, upgrading underground utilities, reducing toxic industry in the vicinity, accessible curbs and crossing opportunities, adequate shelter and shade, and dignified support for curbside residents.

If you want to ban cars, start by banning racism. Planners should make an intentional effort to address scarcity across all modes of transportation so as to empower freedom of movement and choice in mobility. This should include free assistive devices, bikes and bike accessories, free transit, subsidized rideshare, and economically equitable access to zero-emissions vehicles. Until Black people are no longer being hunted down by vigilantes, white supremacists and rogue police, private vehicles should be accepted as a primary mode of transportation.  

Design low-stress street networks that specifically center the safety of and joy-filled travel by Black people. These routes, networks, wayfinding elements, and reparations-centered policies should derive from a participatory process that includes the voices of Black people, people living with disabilities, trans people, elders and youth.

If your leadership can’t speak to racial equity, you should not be releasing a statement. If your organization, agency, or firm is/has released a racial equity statement in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives, you have an obligation to ensure that your workforce is reflective of those values and the treatment of your Black employees is consistent with these values. Stop asking your one Black employee to write your equity statement overnight.

Employee agreements for transit and transportation agencies need to be modified so that no one is forced to serve the needs of law enforcement. No one should face retribution or punishment for opting out.

Bikeshare operating agreements should include mandatory long-term anti-displacement and equitable distribution plans to ensure bikeshare as a mode choice is equitable across the geographic region.

As a new “student” of planning, I am just beginning my studies into the racist history of planning, however I am eager to share with you new resources I have found as I begin to educate myself and work to amplify BIPOC voices in planning. I recently attended a webinar titled “Design for Everyone: An intro to Urban Planning & Design” hosted by Form Function Studio featuring BlackSpace, a collective of Black urban planners, architects, artists, activists, designers, and leaders working to protect and create Black spaces. The BlackSpace Manifesto consists of 14 guiding principles encouraging us to Celebrate, Catalyze, and Amplify Black Joy, Protect and Strengthen Culture, Seek People at the Margins, Center Lived Experience, Be Humble Learners who Practice Deep Listening, Reckon With the Past to Build the Future, among many others.

BlackSpace created this manifesto to guide their growth as a group and their interactions with partners and communities to work towards a future where Black people, Black spaces, and Black culture matter and thrive. Source: https://www.blackspace.org/manifesto

As we return to the tension between cars and space in our cities, we must investigate who owns these cars, and how car-owners are profiting off this status. In D.C., only about 6 in 10 D.C. residents have a car, and those who do are overwhelmingly wealthy and white compared with those who don’t own one.5 Additionally, the federal government provides subsidies through the tax code for employer-provided and employer-paid automobile parking, transit passes, and other commuter expenses, but it does so inefficiently and inequitably.6 

“Ultimately, the effect of the tax benefit for commuter parking is to subsidize traffic congestion by putting roughly 820,000 more cars on America’s most congested roads in its most congested cities at the most congested times of day. [Beneficiaries] tend to work in areas where parking is most expensive (such as downtown business districts), with those in higher-income tax brackets receiving the greatest benefits. The parking tax benefit represents $7.3 billion in reduced tax revenue that must be made up through cuts in government programs, a higher deficit, or increases in taxes on other Americans.”6 - TransitCenter and Frontier Group

Similar to how the pandemic is helping those who are already ahead to stay ahead, the parking tax benefit merely serves to hurt lower income populations and non-car owners, a demographic with a lot of overlap. 

In I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing, Manjoo is told, “instead of fighting a war on cars urbanists should fight a war on car dependency - on cities that leave residents with few choices other than cars. Alleviating car dependency can improve commutes for everyone in a city.” Focusing on urban scarcity, from accessible, alternative transportation to affordable housing, to inclusive food systems, will force us to question how we are often allocating space in our cities for the benefit of cars (as if they are CarsTM) rather than the people living in them. As Manjoo has outlined, “in most American cities, wherever you look, you will see a landscape constructed primarily for the movement and storage of automobiles.”7 We cannot “continue to justify wasting such enormous tracts of land” on cars as we strive for more equitable and inclusive urban spaces.7 It is also important to acknowledge that this piece comes at a unique time, when city dwellers and suburbanites alike are vying to escape the sprawl, antsy from months of quarantine. Even I have been wishing I owned a car to set out on some, any,  kind of spontaneous adventure. The unknown of life post-coronavirus is daunting, but in the chaos lies a little bit of hope. Perhaps we can channel this sliver of optimism to design for the future we are all hoping for. I know I still want the “old Taylor” back, just not all the cars that came with that era.

But do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said "Get in the car" And then canceled my plans just in case you'd call? Back when I was livin' for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all

Inspired by “august” by Taylor Swift. Stream on Spotify.

Citations:

Washington, D.C. greenspaces discovered during quarantine; Gardens: Columbia Heights Green, Upshur Community Garden, Wangari Gardens; Cemeteries: Rock Creek Cemetery, Glenwood Cemetery; Park: Crispus Attucks Park

Do DC's Slow Streets Benefit Everyone?

‘Safe Streets’ Are Not Safe for Black Lives

People of Color and Their Constraints to National Parks Visitation

Opinion | The high cost of DC's cheap parking

Subsidizing Congestion

Opinion | I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing

[postcards-to-home]

Split Seconds: 2019

Amongst the dozen or so strangers around me I sit nuzzled between rows 6 &8. Philly lies some 10,000 feet below. The engine purrs softly with each flutter my eyes drift effortlessly towards stillness under the perpetuating night sky.

In dreams I see the faces of those I’ve met haphazardly in my travels. The students I bond with over memories of cheap wine and late-night thrills at Manly corso; the elderly who sit and chat with me about their grandchildren and medical procedures; even the uber drivers who share their love affairs found from words with friends. It’s the everything in-between crisscrossing the unconscious mind.

My new life I remind myself is in constant motion and so must I be. Zig-zaging terminals I curse under my breathe, praying to the lord for an on time departure. With my best friend in tow, my dingy gray suitcase, my day is a constant uphill battle of avoiding my ankles and slow-poke people.  A love affair in the constant throws of “F*ck my life,” & “ I have the greatest job of all time,” (said no one ever).

Mentally I was trained for this. Laughably this entire year I have captured a total of 3 weeks combined training from the two firms I have been employed by- and I can say I think I’m doing A-ok. My 1st job out of college I learned its okay to decide if something is or isn’t right for you. Its 100% okay to move on too- and fast, if a better opportunity arises. It also taught me the value of obtaining strong leader figures in the office. Not necessarily how to be a manager but how to observe what works, how to engage with others effectively and ultimately how not too.

Mistakes are inevitable.

On my very 1st business trip to Hunt Valley, Maryland for whatever reason a conversation was provoked among an older gentleman and I and we chatted the entire way. Come to find out this sharp older gentleman was once the CEO of a hospital in the capital district; a professor at USC and was heading south to see family. The value from this conversation will always be intangible. It was  the 1st time in my professional life I was able to speak not only about who I am as a person, But I  had someone engage in a conversation with me for no other reason than pure interest, and in a non- creepy way. We spoke of antiques, my on again/off again ebay career and content of college curriculum. He explained he managed a young Entrepreneurs group on campus and worked with students to gain shareholders in their startups.

Before we departed ways he said , “Thank you for the lovely chat, I feel deeply that you will be successful one day with whatever you choose to do. You should feel really proud of yourself with hat you’ve accomplished.” (Paraphrased)

It was his words that propelled me into an orbit of motion, setting what would be the tone for the year. In that moment I etched realization into my mind that my abilities generate power I never was aware I held. There was my small voice-heard and admired. Channeling it to engage the right audience became possible after that.

I left my 1st job after just 6 months. Without any regrets.  I sincerely miss mid-day banter with some of my co-workers, but thankfully we still stay in touch.

The road leading to my departure was a rocky one. Still living at home, thankful for my parents gratitude and safe haven I couldn’t help but feel left out of the mix from my peers. While they rounded of  their senior years I was strapped to a desk sifting through excel spreadsheets. In no way did I ever want to back track into the college scene, making money is and always will be exciting. But doing what I was doing, well not so much.

I accepted a position as a Regional Manager for the institution I studied abroad at as many of you have recognized. I am sincerely thankful for the support received throughout this half of my journey this year. I travel, I meet with students both future and former, I do paper work sporadically and I idle at my desk when necessary. It has forced me to both think outside of the box as well as use my voice as the ultimate creative outlet and driving force for success. My soundboard-everchanging day to day.

Through my position I’ve managed to make student’s dreams come true a reward I’ll never take lightly. Its become my daily excitement to hear from students their own excitement about their journey ahead, even having the smallest footprint on their pathway to success has become gratifying in its own respects. Then there are my travels, though sporadic they have led me to meet old friends from my own time studying abroad and new friends alike.

The entire essence of meeting people has opened doorways never thought possible. The most delightful part of 2019 has been meeting others and hearing their own words of insight and stories they too long to share. Spending more time than intended on park benches with near strangers discussing their time in an indigenous tribe in brazil is just scratching the surface of my amusement. It’s a small victory for the once shyest little girl ever.

As I write this it has been 1 full year to the day since I have graduated. In that small span of time I celebrated the New Year in Iceland with two of the most important people in my life, Nick & Jay. We managed to survive Iceland in January, watch the fireworks at Hallgrímskirkja church on New Year’s Eve and not throttle each other after every petty argument, including the 20 minute screaming match that included phrases with “fiber one brownies” and “stupid , useless bitches.”

And then there was Australia. After visiting for the first time in a year in a half my heart felt fully mended. The winters chill couldn’t hold me from breakfast by the beach or wearing my heels to dinner with friends. Being reunited with people who changed my sense of self left that full circle feeling. Yes, quite literally I could have floated into the sun. That is until I had to venture home yet again and my whole world felt displaced yet again. I will live here one day I said outloud, despite what my dad whispers to my mom, “that will never happen.”

Even jay, My bestfriend came to Oz and fell in love with my world.Our trip in November couldn’t have been anymore magical. We soaked in the sun on the beaches of Noosa heads, swam in exotic Tea Tree Lake feeling rejuvenated and watched the sunrise at the Sydney Opera House. Skipping through the Royal Botanical gardens smelling flowers I knew life was grand. Nicole Reine was the Queen on the moment, just like my name says. To have jay wander through the castle I lived and Worked in let nothing but utter giddiness in me. Christmas came early and we couldn’t have enjoyed ourselves more. I will live here one day, felt firmer.

Some of my favorite moments were those sitting in the shed with loved ones after their returns from long journeys: Nick, Tommy, Grace and Emily. We all sat and shared stories from far away places as our minds melted to mush, the sun setting lower in the sky and the colors over Willard mountain fizzled from golden hues to cooling colors of the night sky. The small talks lingered near the kitchen table not on or next to but just around, the dogs lied close by, fading to sleep on the hard wood floors mom never could keep quite clean. It’s the comings and going that are hard to keep up with. But those moments always end as quickly as they come.

It’s a strange thing to realize the moment you leave your childhood home it will never be exactly how you left it. The stars you won at an arcade in Myrtle beach and hung on your ceiling will eventually come down. The color of your walls once chosen with excitement, will be painted over with fresh shades of cream your mother likes. And the emptiness of what once was but never will be, will swallow you whole. I realized this sad feeling creep up as I lay on my empty bedroom floor with my mom and dad huddled tightly around a pile of buttons. Not justa a pile but a ginormous, 40 pound pile of buttons once held safely in their jug, now shattered sharply amongst us. That’s what happens when you leave. Everything shifts, and somethings just can’t handle that. But I sure am sad about that jug of buttons, it was a lifetime labor of love collecting them.

There’s no jug of Buttons in our house on Center Street and im beginning to feel okay with that. Gramma’s blue oriental rug keeps our living room feeling nice and cozy. A small reminder she would have adored the space Jay and I call home.I can almost picture her now tinkering with my knick-knacks on the shelves, just ever so slightly so we wouldn’t notice. Marissa comes and goes as she pleases and the porch never does stay dirt free. I now see why mom’s kitchen floors never could stay clean. Its not Herrington Road but I’ll take it

[pope-francis-quotes]

1st September >> (@Pontifex) ~ This is the season for letting our prayer be inspired anew by closeness to nature, which spontaneously leads us to give thanks to God the Creator. Message of His Holiness, Pope Francis for the World Day of Prayer For the Care of Creation.

1st September 2019

“And God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:25). God’s gaze, at the beginning of the Bible, rests lovingly on his creation. From habitable land to life-giving waters, from fruit-bearing trees to animals that share our common home, everything is dear in the eyes of God, who offers creation to men and women as a precious gift to be preserved.

Tragically, the human response to this gift has been marked by sin, selfishness and a greedy desire to possess and exploit. Egoism and self-interest have turned creation, a place of encounter and sharing, into an arena of competition and conflict. In this way, the environment itself is endangered: something good in God’s eyes has become something to be exploited in human hands. Deterioration has increased in recent decades: constant pollution, the continued use of fossil fuels, intensive agricultural exploitation and deforestation are causing global temperatures to rise above safe levels. The increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather phenomena and the desertification of the soil are causing immense hardship for the most vulnerable among us. Melting of glaciers, scarcity of water, neglect of water basins and the considerable presence of plastic and microplastics in the oceans are equally troubling, and testify to the urgent need for interventions that can no longer be postponed. We have caused a climate emergency that gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own.

In effect, we have forgotten who we are: creatures made in the image of God (cf. Gen 1:27) and called to dwell as brothers and sisters in a common home. We were created not to be tyrants, but to be at the heart of a network of life made up of millions of species lovingly joined together for us by our Creator. Now is the time to rediscover our vocation as children of God, brothers and sisters, and stewards of creation. Now is the time to repent, to be converted and to return to our roots. We are beloved creatures of God, who in his goodness calls us to love life and live it in communion with the rest of creation.

For this reason, I strongly encourage the faithful to pray in these days that, as the result of a timely ecumenical initiative, are being celebrated as a Season of Creation. This season of increased prayer and effort on behalf of our common home begins today, 1 September, the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, and ends on 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. It is an opportunity to draw closer to our brothers and sisters of the various Christian confessions. I think in particular of the Orthodox faithful, who have celebrated this Day for thirty years. In this ecological crisis affecting everyone, we should also feel close to all other men and women of good will, called to promote stewardship of the network of life of which we are part.

This is the season for letting our prayer be inspired anew by closeness to nature, which spontaneously leads us to give thanks to God the Creator. Saint Bonaventure, that eloquent witness to Franciscan wisdom, said that creation is the first “book” that God opens before our eyes, so that, marvelling at its order, its variety and its beauty, we can come to love and praise its Creator (cf. Breviloquium, II, 5, 11). In this book, every creature becomes for us “a word of God” (cf. Commentarius in Librum Ecclesiastes, I, 2). In the silence of prayer, we can hear the symphony of creation calling us to abandon our self-centredness in order to feel embraced by the tender love of the Father and to share with joy the gifts we have received. We can even say that creation, as a network of life, a place of encounter with the Lord and one another, is “God’s own ‘social network’” (Audience for the Guides and Scouts of Europe, 3 August 2019). Nature inspires us to raise a song of cosmic praise to the Creator in the words of Scripture: “Bless the Lord, all things that grow on the earth, sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever” (Dan 3:76 Vg).

It is also a season to reflect on our lifestyles, and how our daily decisions about food, consumption, transportation, use of water, energy and many other material goods, can often be thoughtless and harmful. Too many of us act like tyrants with regard to creation. Let us make an effort to change and to adopt more simple and respectful lifestyles! Now is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively, towards forms of clean energy and a sustainable and circular economy. Let us also learn to listen to indigenous peoples, whose age-old wisdom can teach us how to live in a better relationship with the environment.

This too is a season for undertaking prophetic actions. Many young people all over the world are making their voices heard and calling for courageous decisions. They feel let down by too many unfulfilled promises, by commitments made and then ignored for selfish interests or out of expediency. The young remind us that the earth is not a possession to be squandered, but an inheritance to be handed down. They remind us that hope for tomorrow is not a noble sentiment, but a task calling for concrete actions here and now. We owe them real answers, not empty words, actions not illusions.

Our prayers and appeals are directed first at raising the awareness of political and civil leaders. I think in particular of those governments that will meet in coming months to renew commitments decisive for directing the planet towards life, not death. The words that Moses proclaimed to the people as a kind of spiritual testament at the threshold of the Promised Land come to mind: “Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” (Dt 3:19). We can apply those prophetic words to ourselves and to the situation of our earth. Let us choose life! Let us say “no” to consumerist greed and to the illusion of omnipotence, for these are the ways of death. Let us inaugurate farsighted processes involving responsible sacrifices today for the sake of sure prospects for life tomorrow. Let us not give in to the perverse logic of quick profit, but look instead to our common future!

In this regard, the forthcoming United Nations Climate Action Summit is of particular importance. There, governments will have the responsibility of showing the political will to take drastic measures to achieve as quickly as possible zero net greenhouse gas emissions and to limit the average increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius with respect to pre-industrial levels, in accordance with the Paris Agreement goals. Next month, in October, the Amazon region, whose integrity is gravely threatened, will be the subject of a Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Let us take up these opportunities to respond to the cry of the poor and of our earth!

Each Christian man and woman, every member of the human family, can act as a thin yet unique and indispensable thread in weaving a network of life that embraces everyone. May we feel challenged to assume, with prayer and commitment, our responsibility for the care of creation. May God, “the lover of life” (Wis 11:26), grant us the courage to do good without waiting for someone else to begin, or until it is too late.

From the Vatican, 1st September 2019

FRANCIS

[leiascully]

Fic:  Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Part 5/5)

Timeline: Season 10 (replaces My Struggle in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tad O’Malley, Sveta (established MSR) Content warning:  canon-typical body horror (mentions of abduction, forced pregnancy, etc.) A/N:  I’m collecting all the related stories that go with Visitor/Resident under the title “All The Choices We’ve Made”, because it felt right at the time.  This story is an alternate My Struggle that reflects M&S’ growth/change in the ATCWM ‘verse. I’m weaving canon dialogue into the stories in an attempt to keep the reframing plausibly in line with canon.  

Part One  |  Part Two  |  Part Three  |  Part Four  |   AO3

It's not a surprise the next day when they emerge from the Hoover Building, where they've been supervising the setup of all of the new computers, to see Tad O'Malley's gleaming black limo.  The door opens.  They get in.  

"Glad we caught you, agents," O'Malley says with a grin.  

"We're not hard to track down," Mulder says.  

"It's the chip in my neck," Scully says dryly, and Mulder isn't sure he's ever heard her joke about it before.  But maybe she's spitting into the wind too, reminded of how whoever is behind all this has tampered with her at a molecular level.  He admits it is easy to direct (or misdirect) that frustration at Tad O'Malley.  

"Hi," Sveta says, waving at them from across the car.  O'Malley hasn't brought out the champagne this time, but she's clutching a bottle of Perrier.  

Mulder leans back against the leather seat.  The car certainly is plush.  The perks of selling out, he imagines.  

"I didn't think you'd come, Agent Scully," O'Malley says.  "After all, your work is so important.  So I took the liberty of coming to you."  He opens a small fridge concealed under the seat.  "Perrier?"

"Thank you," Scully says, accepting a bottle.  "What are you doing here, Mr. O'Malley?"

"Exposing a global conspiracy that's crushing the soul of America," O'Malley declares.  "Agent Mulder knows what I'm talking about."

"You're ready to make a move?" Mulder asks.

"The Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley with a world exclusive," O'Malley tells him.  "The story to end all stories."  

"Why don't you give us a preview?" Scully says, settling into her seat.  

O'Malley leaned forward.  "We begin with a war.  The Civil War.  The United States splits in two.  A new government forms.  They mint their own currency.  They make their own laws."

"They perpetuate the enslavement and genocide of millions of people," Scully murmurs.  

"That enslavement creates the haves and the have-nots.  And the halves begin to believe, to truly believe, that they are above the law.  That they can meddle with the fates and lives of people they start to consider subhuman: black, white, Native American, and everyone else.  An experimental program to create a better person through a variety of methods, including surgical intervention and selective breeding."

Sveta shivers.  Scully looks at her compassionately.  She reaches for Sveta's hand.  

O'Malley doesn't seem to notice their discomfort.  "The shadow government continues to exist after the war.  The genetic engineering of a superior human continues in the shadows of the shadow.  And they have other secrets."

"It all sounds like a ghost story," Scully says in that even voice that immediately sends Mulder into full alert.  "Designed to scare children."

"Children should be afraid," O'Malley tells her.  

"Everyone should," Mulder says, and he sees the shiver in her eyelid that means she's trying not to roll her eyes at him.  "It's a conspiracy bigger and more secret than the Manhattan Project, with tentacles reaching back into the very roots of America."

"The metaphor is mixed," Scully says.

"All the more apt," Mulder tells her.  "The Civil War set the stage and World War I gave us access to new technologies, but it wasn't until victories in Europe and Japan that the drama really ratcheted up for the rest of the world."

"Political and economic conditions became perfect for execution of the larger plan," O'Malley declared.  "The success of the program in the former Confederate states had spread to the re-United States.  Agents of the conspiracy, swearing their allegiance to President Grant, had infiltrated the highest levels of government.  World War I and World War II had weakened the European powers that might have held the US in check.  As it was, they were delighted to accept the offer of help from the United States, and if it came with a price, they were happy to pay it.  Their scientists began working with our scientists.  The project stretched those insidious tentacles to grasp the entire globe."

Mulder grins.  This is his wheelhouse.  Even as much as he's been jerked around and lost his faith, it's still exhilarating to put together the pieces of the puzzle he worked at for half his life.  "Paper Clip.  Experiments in the aftermath of the atomic bombings.  The crash at Roswell leading to cannibalized alien technology and cannibalized alien corpses, all resources that furthered the project."

O'Malley breaks in.  "The bomb was the latest threat of extinction, but not the first.  The energy of the explosions acted as transducers, creating wormholes that drew in alien ships just like the one that crashed at Roswell, ships that ran using electro-gravitic propulsion.  Sacrificing those alien lives with their extraterrestrial biology and their advanced technology delayed our self-immolation on the altar of democracy."

"World leaders signed secret memos directing scientific stuff of alien technology and biochemistry," Mulder puts in.  "All in the name of furthering the project, creating a new species that could survive alien invasion or whatever else might wipe us out.  Classified studies were done at military installations, extracting alien tissue.  S4, Groom Lake, Wright Patterson, and Dulce: all part of a network of black sites where tests were conducted using advanced alien technology recovered from the ships."  He glances at Sveta.  She has one hand over her mouth.  "Tests including human hybridization through gene editing and forced implantation of the resulting embryos in unsuspecting human subjects."  He swallows and tries not to look at Scully, but can't help meeting her eyes.  "Embryos with extraterrestrial DNA."  

Sveta gasps.  "Why do such a thing and lie about it?  Our own government?"

"Aliens aside," Scully says, "the American government has conducted experiments on unsuspecting populations as a matter of policy.  The Tuskegee Syphilis Study lasted for years beyond the point where they could have cured the patients.  The scientists in charge chose not to inform their subjects because they were African-American.  They let them die horrible, preventable deaths, claiming it was all in the name of science.  Genetic material was extracted from a sample of a tumor taken from a black woman named Henrietta Lacks and used without her consent or her family's.  Other people have been sterilized against their will, or stolen from their families.  I doubt we'll ever understand the full extent of the violence done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas."  She exhales loudly.  "While I cannot substantiate all of Agent Mulder's claims, I have found evidence of anomalous genetic material being implanted or otherwise introduced into the DNA of numerous subjects, including myself.  And you."

"What are they trying to do?" Sveta asks.

"That's the missing piece," Mulder tells her.  "We've learned so much, but some part of this eludes us."

"But it's not hard to imagine," O'Malley breaks in.  "A government hiding, no, hoarding alien technology for seventy years, at the potential expense of all human life and the future of the planet.  A government inside the government, secretly preparing for more than a hundred years for the long-awaited event."

"The takeover of America," Mulder says, feeling sick to his stomach.

"And then the world itself," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor.  "By any means necessary, however violent or cruel.  Severe drought brought on by weather wars conducted secretly using aerial contaminants distributed via chemtrails and high-altitude electromagnetic waves.  Perpetual war waged overseas, a drain on our resources and our energy engineered by politicians to create problem-reaction-solution scenarios to distract, enrage, and enslave American citizens at home with tools like the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and pure old-fashioned jingoism, abridging the Constitution and its promised freedoms in the name of national security.  Every dissident, every minority: a terrorist in situ.  Vietnam, but this time they're doing it right."

"Militarize the police forces," Mulder says slowly.  "Martial law.  FEMA building prison camps.  Mercenaries fighting under our flag, but not under our orders."

"The corporate takeover of food and agriculture," O'Malley says smugly.  "It's already begun.  Monsanto.  Dicamba.  They've got pharmaceuticals and healthcare in their pocket too.  An insurrection of men and women with clandestine agendas to dull, sicken, terrify, and control a populace already consumed by consumerism."

Mulder leans over to Scully. ��"I didn't really like Wall-E," he whispers.  She shakes her head at him.

"A government that taps your phone, collects your data, and monitors your whereabouts with impunity," O'Malley says with a flourish.  "A government preparing to use that data against you when it strikes and the final takeover begins."

Mulder nods slowly.  There is a seed of truth in O'Malley's conspiracy-addled rant.  He's been seeking it long enough to know it when he sees it.  The nation is poised on a precipice.  All the rest of it is lies, smoke and mirrors, a way to turn the paranoid and the credulous into easy money.  But somewhere, under eighty mattress-thick layers of right-wing garbage, is a pea-sized truth, and he's the princess shifting uncomfortably.  

"The takeover of America?" Scully asks.

O'Malley leans forward.  "By a well-oiled and well-armed multinational group of elites that will cull, kill, and subjugate."

"Happening as we sit here in this car," Scully says.

"It's happening all around us," O'Malley tells her.

"It's been happening for years," Mulder murmurs.  "The other shoe waiting to drop."

"It'll probably start on a Friday," O'Malley says.  "The banks will announce a security action necessitating that their computers go offline all weekend."

"Digital money will disappear," he says.

Sveta looks startled.  "They can just steal your money?"  Scully squeezes her hand.

"While the banks are vulnerable,  they'll detonate strategic electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out major grids.  Traffic lights, security systems, everything: gone.  Hospitals will be on backup generators indefinitely.  It will seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia."

"Or a simulated alien invasion featuring alien replica vehicles already in use," Mulder murmurs.  

"An alien invasion of the U.S.?" Scully says.

"The Russians tried it in '47," Mulder reminds her.  "Or they took credit for it, anyway."

"They'll take more than credit this time," O'Malley says.  "This goes worldwide.  Everything that has happened for the past seventy years has been engineered by this global conspiracy, these shadow players.  The structures they've built are designed to crumble, tearing America apart at the seams.  They'll build a new world on the ruins of our current one.  It will happen soon, and it will happen fast."  

Scully shakes her head.  "You can't say these things," she tells O'Malley.

"I'm gonna say them tomorrow," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor in his voice.  

Scully frowns.  "It's fearmongering, isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason.  Saying these things would be incredibly irresponsible."  

"I hate to say this, Scully, but if this is true, it would be irresponsible not to say it," Mulder says reluctantly.  

"If it's the truth," Sveta says, "you have to say it."  

"It's not the truth," Scully says.

O'Malley grins that smarmy grin.  "Agent Scully, with all due respect, I don't think you know what the truth is."

"The only thing I don't know is where you're taking us," Scully says, ice in her voice.  "Except on a wild goose chase."

"It's lunchtime," O'Malley says.  "I thought you might want something to eat."  

It's clear from the look Scully gives him that there is a long, long list of people she would rather have lunch with before she deigned to have lunch with Tad O'Malley.  In fact, it might be approaching seven billion people long.  

"I think what Agent Scully is trying to convey is that we've got to decline your invitation," Mulder says.

"You believe me," O'Malley says to Mulder with certainty.

Mulder looks at Scully.  She looks back at him, her eyes tight just at the corners.  "I might have, back in the day.  My doctor says paranoia is bad for me."  

O'Malley sits back, disappointed.  Scully's shoulders loosen.  She glances at him and there's something between approval and gratitude in her eyes.  He smiles at her.  

There's a pinging noise.  Scully checks her email on her phone.  Her brow creases.  She scrolls through something, then flicks back to the top and reads through it again.  "This is strange."

"What?"  Mulder leans over.  

"Sveta, the lab retested your samples.  A new tech was running the machines, and a number of test results were compromised.  In fact, they retested your samples twice to be sure.  Your DNA shows no anomalies."  Scully looks up.  "Whatever's been done to you, it had nothing to do with this project."

"Nothing?" Sveta and O'Malley ask at the same time.

"That can't be right," O'Malley says.  "Retest her."  

"I don't want to be tested again," Sveta says.  

"You're my evidence," O'Malley tells her angrily.  "You have to."

"She doesn't have to do anything," Scully tells him.  "She's under our protection now."

"We'll see about that," O'Malley says.  He presses a button.  The driver pulls over.  He opens the door.  "Goodbye, agents.  Goodbye, Sveta."

"What will you do?" Sveta asks him as she climbs out of the car.  

"I'll do what I do," O'Malley says.  "I'll tell the truth."

The car door slams shut.

Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley the next day is a runaway hit: high ratings, viral content, memes, gifs, and a media uproar.  "I promised you the truth today, but that truth has come under assault," O'Malley says, looking into the camera, and they roll footage of Sveta confessing to reporters, accusing him of telling lies.

"I am so sorry if I misled anyone," she says tearfully, wringing her hands in front of her.

"They get her?" Mulder asks.

"She should be safe," Scully tells him.  "They'll work on relocating her."

"Material witness?" Mulder asks.  "That's a bit of a stretch."

"It won't be by the time all of this is over," Scully says grimly.  "I went to the hospital to collect the samples and had our labs run them again."

"And?" Mulder says.

"Sveta and I share a lot," Scully says.  "Including anomalous genetic material."

"O'Malley must be furious," Mulder says, propping his hands on his hips as he thinks.

"Rumor is they're going to pull the plug," Scully says.  "No more truth, no more Squad."

"To his followers, that'll feel like a sign," Mulder says.  "A shot fired across their bows."

Scully shrugs.  "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Either we embolden a liar, or we enrage his base."    

"Politics have never been our strong suit," Mulder says.  "You know, there's something called the Venus Syndrome."

"The plant, the planet, or something else I'm afraid to ask about?" Scully asks.

"The planet," Mulder says.  "It's a runaway global warming scenario that leads us to the brink of the Sixth Extinction.  Those with the means will prepare to move off the planet into space, which will have already been weaponized against the poor, huddled masses of humanity that haven't been exterminated by the über-violent fascist elites.  If you believe in that kind of thing."

"Honestly, these days it sounds almost plausible," Scully tells him, leaning on one of the desks.  Whoever has funded the untimely revival of the X-Files has been generous: they have two normal desks and four standing desks scattered around the office.  It's much too flexible a workspace for two people.  

Their phones go off almost in unison.  They both reach for them.

"Skinner," Scully says.

"Skinner," Mulder confirms.  He reads the message:  Situation critical.  Need to see you both ASAP.  

They look at each other.  

"Scully, are you ready for this?" Mulder asks.

"I don't know there's a choice," she says, but she sounds fierce and proud.

There are wheels turning somewhere.  He can almost hear the gears of the world grinding.  They won't get caught in the teeth this time, won't get torn apart.  Whoever is behind everything they've been through will be exposed, finally and totally, brought to light.  They'll have to open the wound to clean it out, but that's all right.  They've finally learned how to heal.  He opens the door for her and they stride toward the elevator together.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Cohcemea Gastelum Interview: State of Connection

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The Dap-Kings were the steady force behind the late, great, impenetrable Sharon Jones, and one of them is ready to break out. On February 22nd, multi-instrumentalist Cochemea Gastelum releases his debut album of jazz, funk, and soul, All My Relations. The record is inspired by his roots; Gastelum has Native American ancestry (Yaqui and Mescalero Apache), and he fully explores and embraces it on Relations. Everything from the rhythms to the names of the tracks references not only specific heritages but exemplifies the idea and importance of heritage and, as Gastelum puts it, the “interconectedness” of everything.

Gastelum came up with the idea for the record during Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings’ final year of touring, and fellow band member Gabe Roth helped make it happen, assembling 10 of New York's finest musicians. Gastelum also made short films inspired by the album’s tracks in collaboration with director Erez Horovitz. It all shows a side of Gastelum you’ve heard for a while but perhaps never fully appreciated until now: band leader and curator.

I spoke to Gastelum last month during our respective polar vortexes. (It was colder in Chicago, but he didn’t have heat in upstate New York, so nobody really won.) He’s planning on touring later this month and doing a record release show in New York on March 22nd. Read the interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: Why are you releasing your debut album under just your first name?

Cochemea Gastelum: Good question. I always played in the past with releasing music with a pseudonym, and we didn’t decide how this would be released. When it came down to it, it just felt right. Without going too deep into it, my name, growing up in the U.S., is not common, and I think that because I was really embracing my roots, it just felt right. It’s something I had been thinking about for a really long time, before even talking about this record. I kind of imagined it. When we started talking about it, it came to be. It was pretty organic.

SILY: What struck me about the album was that the songs are obviously inspired by tradition--and a lot of different traditions--in terms of genre and areas, but it’s inspired a lot by time and place, even some places that don’t exist. Was there anything else that inspired the record as a whole?

CG: Musically, Gabe and I used to listen to a lot of records on the road, and from them, the genesis was making a record based around drums and horns and having a lot of the melody come from the drums and the horns. That was the beginning of the concept, and from there, it took on this whole other life. Once we got the casting of everybody, everybody brought a piece of themselves to it, and as it rode along, it became All My Relations. My background is native, and that’s something we say in prayer, and acknowledging the interconnections of all things and the familial aspect of musicians and what they bring to it.

SILY: The sounds recall a lot of different things. Listening to “Seyewailo”, the first minute, knowing you were from New York, sounded like NYC to me, but you talk about it being inspired by nature. Did you keep things ambiguous, or do you feel like the music you produced is very personal and more definite?

CG: Things have multiple meanings. “Seyewailo” was definitely influenced by where I live now and being in the woods. My culture, Yaqui culture, Seyewailo is The Flower World, an enchanted place, seen through the eyes of the deer, which is sacred. I have deer coming through here, so that’s the imagery that came to mind. I was feeling enchanted when I composed the song.

SILY: The album features a variety of tempos and is incredibly well sequenced in that way. How did you come about with the order of the songs?

CG: Gabe and I came up with the sequence. I kind of wanted to tell a story musically, and it felt like the way things flowed together--a lot of times you make records and you mess with the sequence a lot. This one, we didn’t really mess around with too much. The first one we came up with ended up being the one. It kind of arranged itself, you might say [laughs].

SILY: The first track, “Maso Ye'eme”, starts out entirely in one speaker, and then it pans. Why did you do that?

CG: I kind of wanted to create a sort of psychedelic experience from the beginning. I thought later that it might throw people off, checking their headphones and speakers that the connection wasn’t working. But it was something we decided to go with to make the music move. The title in Yaqui is “deer dancer.” So I imagined a dance of the deer giving its life to the people. That’s the imagery of all the drums--moving across spatially and in the panoramic experience.

SILY: Only a couple tracks include vocals or any sort of voice--the title track and “Asatoma”, a prayer. Did you want the instruments to do most of the talking?

CG: Not necessarily. I don’t know if there was any thought put into the vocals like that. The vocals came when it felt like that was supposed to happen.

SILY: Did you come up with the album title before the title track, or the track first?

CG: We all wrote the music for that one, and one thing led to another. At the end, when we recorded the tune, I suggested we say, “All my relations.” We had this chant going--“ain’t gonna build no wall”--which is still relevant, obviously. When we say, “All my relations,” we’re honoring our ancestors and the interconnections of all things. It felt appropriate. I felt that was expressed in the love and camaraderie of the music-making, but on a more universal level it just made sense. That was it.

SILY: Do you think the album is political or inherently political?

CG: I think so. It could be interpreted that way. Considering the times we’re living in, all this division, fracture, looking around and seeing how we’re treating the earth and the natural world, I wanted to make something that embraces the natural world and calls attention to that and calls attention to the things we have in common. Taking all these strands of everyone and seeing how we’re all one thing.

SILY: The three tracks towards the end--“Sonora”, “Los Muertos”, and “Escalero”--are pretty short. Why did you group them together?

CG: We had recorded these interludes. We did two sessions--the first was 24 hours of collective writing. We had “All My Relations”, which was a longer piece. And then these interludes. As we mixed everything, and certain things made it. Those tunes, “Sonora” had a whole other ending, and you can kind of hear the beginnings of it. But the way it is, it flows into “Los Muertos”. A plaintive existence is being acknowledged. “Sonora” is my ancestors, going into the spirits, going into “Mescalero”--my grandmother was Mescalero Apache. Something in the rhythm reminded me of visiting Mexico when I was a kid. That’s just kind of how it went when we were listening.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the album art?

CG: The inspiration was just kind of just taking it back to the natural world. Being among the trees and acknowledging the worldview that the trees have a spirit just like we do and the air and the mountains and the deer and the four-legged and the two-legged. To be in that natural of a space, it’s an acknowledgement of that concept.

SILY: Do you think live, you’ll be mostly faithful to the record, or will you improvise a lot?

CG: I’m gonna see what happens. The record was its own thing. Depends on who is playing. Most of everyone on the record is gonna be at the release show, but taking it on the road will be different. I’d like to see the music take on its own life.

SILY: What else is next for you?

CG: Right now, I’m just kind of focused on this project. I’m gonna go out on tour in Kevin Morby’s band in the spring. I played on his new record. Other than that, just focused on getting this music out to the world and taking it all over the place.

SILY: Are the Dap-Kings still an entity on their own?

CG: The Dap-Kings are family. It’s just kind of been sort of laying low. If the right thing comes along, we’ll do it, but everyone’s kind of focused on their own stuff. We did some shows with Jon Batiste this year, which were really fun. It was great to be together with everybody again and play some music. Jon’s great. 

Hopefully, there’ll be some other things that come up. There’s talk of doing some recording, but everyone is playful with other things they’re doing, which is good. Everyone is able to stretch out and do their own thing.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

CG: I really love film. I’m always watching movies. I’m really happy Roma is getting all the attention it’s getting. It’s great to see an indigenous woman in the lead role. I end up re-watching a lot of movies I’ve seen before. I’m really into the work of Jodorowsky, and I’ve been watching documentaries on different musicians. In terms of books, I’ve been reading this great book by Vine Deloria, a native activist. I’m always reading something. I’m trying to always read something. I usually have 3 or 4 books I’m trying to read. I should probably narrow it down to 1 [laughs]. 

There’s access to so many things now, which is really cool. I like a lot of old movies. It’s been fun, with this project, I’ve been making really fun short movies with this director. We’ve been playing around with the record, which is a cool way to pair with the music.

SILY: Will you want to do that for music in the future?

CG: Definitely. It’s been a really gratifying experience channeling creatively into different mediums. I’ve always loved film. It’s nice to be able to imagine something and then see it in that medium and have a great collaborator. The director I work with is very talented, and it always helps to have a good partner. A lot of the music is soundtracks to imaginary films. The imagery is closely connected.

[disjusticegrlpwr-blog]

RR #5

Invisible No More tells the stories of women and GNC people of color who have been erased from conversations about state violence and gender violence. This book is both an analytical and historical tool for activists and a source of expression of personal and community trauma for the author.

Women and trans people of color have always been at the forefront of gender equity, anti-violence, and civil rights movements; however, these leaders frequently do not get the recogniion they deserve. The unique issues facing multiply marginalized people have not been adequately addressed by either feminist or civil rights communities. The Black Lives Matter movement has tried to reverse this trend; as founder Alicia Garza says “Black Lives Matter affirms the lves of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. It centers those that have been marginalied within Black liberation movements” (p.2). However, larger conversations about police violence still too often leave these lives out.

With this conversation, Ritchie hopes to bring to light the issues, history, and impact of multiply marginalized women and GNC people of color. She writes “Invisible No More seeks to undo this erasure; to deepend, broaden, and provde context to the discussion of Black women’s experiences of policing and criminalization; to expand the frame to bring the experiences of Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and AMEMSA women into view; and to illuminate the historic and present-day role of policing of gender and sexuality in the criminalization of communities of color” (p.11).

Ritchie also hopes to demonstrate to readers that women of color play the role not just of victims  but also as community leaders in this movement. Women of color, especially Black trans women, have always been the backbone of civil rights movement as organizers, ledaers, supporters, and barers of trauma. Ritchie writes “this book is ultimately a celebration of the roles that Indigenous women, Black women, and women of color have plaayed in movements to resist racial profiling and police violence against communities of color, and in challenging antiviolence movements’ investment in criminal legal systems to demand safety on our terms” (p.17).

Ritchie was inspired to write this book after hearing the many stories of women of color subject to sexual and physical violence at the hands of police and recogniing that these stories were not getting the attention they deserved. She writes, “In thte end, it was the stories of the women who came forward...that drove what has become a lifelong journey” (p. 8).

Ritchie wrote this as much for herself as for others, writing that she used this as well as a learning experience of her own. No single black woman can speak for all women of color; Ritchie recognizes that she is still learning and that this book cannnot be judged as a comprehensive guide to intersectional anti-violence advocacy. Ritchie writes “My intention in writing this book is to amplify the experiences, voices, work, and perspectives of Indigenous women, Black women, and women of color, not to take the place of or to supplant the voices of my darker-skinned sisters, my trans and gender-nonconforming siblings, the Indigenous peoples whose land I am complicit in settling or immigrants” (p. 5).

Ritchie’s work stands out from other scholarly works about gender and state violence because of its heart; this work means to be a source of healing for the women and GNC oeoioke reading it. Ritchie writes “I write as an act of love, of mourning, of honoring, of commemoration, of liberation” (p.5)

I found the entirety of the book refreshing, informative, and powerful, but if I must pick a favorite it would be chapter 4, which focuses on disability. The mere existence of this chapter caused my heart to soar, as disability is almost always left out of conversations about social issues. Even writers who preach intersectionality leave out disability, focusing solely on gender and race. To non-disabled activists, disability is often not seen as a valid identity or something considered part of diversity. I recall a moment at my old school when the school president pledged to meet with all identity and social justice groups; when we questioned why he did not reach out to the disabled student group, he responded by saying that didn’t count as part of diversity or identity. At a school that prides itself on being “woke,” disability was still erased.

This chapter focuses on how disability, especially psychiatric disability, interact with each other regarding state violence. In the cases discussed in this chapter, the violence against the women can neither be attributed to just racism or ableism, but a specific form of anti-black racism not experience by white PWD or nondisabled POC. This relies on our history of scientific racism and its remnants that still define black women as “imbeciles” and “insane”, two words dripping with ableism.

I learned a lot from this chapter that I feel I should have known. As an advocate for the de-institutionalization movement, I realize I have failed by not viewing institutionalization as a form of just ableist oppression, rather than also a means of racial oppression such as in the case of Insane asylums for Indians. In the future, I will make sure I fully confront my own blind spots as a white disabled person and make more space for the voices of disabled women of color.

50% of people killed by police have a disability, and estimates say that disabled people comprise up to 80% of the incarcerated population. However, police violence is not often discussed in the disability community. I believe this is largely due to racism that many white disabled people still fall victim to; unfortunately, in my experience, disabled people think they are exempt from white privilege, leading to the further erasure and silencing of disabled voices of color. Though disabled people of color are (and always have been) incredibly influential leaders in our community, they still do not get the recognition and visibility they deserve. This chapter helped me recognize my own white privilege within the disabilty community and how the experience of disability is fundamentally different for people of color.

Works Cited

Ritchie, A. (2017). Invisible no more: Police violence against black women and women of color. Boston: Beacon Press.

[shirlleycoyle]

Investors Are Debating Who Should Own the Future of Psychedelics

Since podcast host and author Tim Ferriss, an influential player in the psychedelics space, tweeted his concerns about psychedelic patents earlier this month, there has been public debate among leading voices in the field about the perils and merits of patenting psychedelic compounds and psychedelic-assisted therapies. In the past week, Ferriss and psychedelics investor Christian Angermayer published open letters that dug into the nuts and bolts of whether psychedelics should—or even must—be patented. It's a seemingly arcane debate with something very clear at stake: The future of psychedelic therapies that show real promise in the treatment of conditions from depression to addiction.

Ferriss has been a vocal supporter of psychedelic therapy research on his platforms, and has invested millions of his own money while organizing financial commitments to the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research and Imperial College London. Angermayer helped fund mental health company Compass Pathways and co-founded ATAI Life Sciences, and initially responded to Ferriss' concerns by tweeting, “Tim I am [a] HUGE fan of your work, but on this topic you are incredibly misguided,” along with a statement. 

This prompted Ferriss to respond with a blog post in which he posed several questions to Angermayer about psychedelic IP, making clear that he hopes Compass and ATAI will "succeed in helping many millions of people." One question was: “Would you be willing to allow scientists who have signed deals with Compass or ATAI to share their agreements publicly (i.e., waive confidentiality clauses)? I believe that would quell some of the concerns among psychedelic advocates. If not, why not?”

Another was, “Do you think a monopoly/duopoly of any type (Compass or ATAI or otherwise), patents on basic elements of the psychedelic experience, or patents covering dozens of possible conditions that might be treatable…would be good for the ecosystem, for innovation, or for ensuring affordable pricing?” 

Anyone interested in psychedelics should pay close attention to these questions. Who gets patents and for what will shape what psychedelic medicine looks like in the future— who distributes it, how much it costs, and, therefore, who has access to it. 

It’s an interesting turning point for the psychedelic community. After decades of fighting for its legitimacy, the field is flooded with new companies that want to take part. And while every promising pharmaceutical drug contends with intellectual property, profit, ownership, and patent law, the conflict between the ethos that often accompanies psychedelic experiences (as well as a deep-rooted belief in its ability to help people) and the imperatives of capitalism has produced lengthy deliberations of whether psychedelic medicine can and should operate differently. 

This brings us to Angermayer’s response to Ferriss' blog post, which was posted on LinkedIn yesterday and is wide-ranging and worth reading in full for thoughts on the purpose behind patents and for-profit companies, the complications of bringing psychedelic therapy to market, and his views on why psychedelic therapy IP can co-exist with indigenous or shamanistic psychedelic use. (For example, he wrote that while one common counterargument against psychedelic patents is that shamans have been using them for thousands of years, "this argument from my point of view regularly comes from a place of entitlement and privilege.") Angermayer also points out that this patent debate "does not feature prominently within other areas of medical research."

Who gets patents and for what will shape what psychedelic medicine looks like in the future— who distributes it, how much it costs, and, therefore, who has access to it. 

Though Angermayer addresses the adjacent concern that companies will "come knocking on somebody’s door to confiscate homegrown plants" (they won't), all of the back and forth boils down to this: Is an aggressive patent strategy necessary to bring psychedelics to market, considering that it's the way biotech has always done things? Will or won't such a strategy create meaningful limits on how other companies, scientists, or the general population interact with psychedelic medicine? 

Angermayer wrote, in many different ways, about why he thinks patents are the way forward, and how they won't directly lead to limitations for others. He described how "different companies and players may develop their own versions of the off-patent and/or naturally occurring compounds and their own therapeutic regimens and patent or not patent their innovations as they choose. That’s the nature of free enterprise, free market and free choice." 

In response to Ferriss' question about monopolies, Angermayer wrote, "If a monopoly/duopoly emerged, it suggests that all the other would-be competitors had failed with their own creative and entrepreneurial endeavours. Then it would be a sign of quality and constitutional reward. In that case, you should not blame them, but blame the rest, who then clearly would have not done a good job."

But in an March 8 email shared with Motherboard by a source who wanted to remain anonymous, Angermayer expressed a different sentiment. The email was sent to a group of investors and a select few others in the psychedelic space, and outlined updates on companies Angermayer is involved in. 

In bullet points regarding Compass Pathways, Angermayer wrote: “I also expect a starting differentiation between solid players in the psychedelics space—to be honest I really just see ATAI and Compass—and copycats. Most of these copycats miss one important thing: patents. Many psychedelic companies out there will never be able to bring a product to market, as they will hit the patents of Compass and Atai.” 

Screenshot from Christian Angermayer's March 8 email sent to investors and others in the psychedelic field.

Here, Angermayer explicitly wrote that other companies will "never" be able to bring their products to market because of Compass’ patent strategy. Yet in his public response to Ferriss' question about increasing prices, he wrote that the best way to avoid such increases was competition.

In response to questions about this statement, Angermayer told Motherboard that he does not see a discrepancy between what he wrote on LinkedIn and in the email. "I do not see the contradiction," he said. "I welcome legitimate competition, which is competition that develops their own versions of the off-patent and/or naturally occurring compounds and their own therapeutic regimens. Or does any other novel stuff." 

He also added that, "What I do observe, and this is why I indeed mainly just see ATAI and Compass and very few other legit players at the moment, is many copycats with dubious business plans and no IP strategy. So the word 'copycats' I use in my email from early March directly points to companies not doing their own ways. And if you look at funds raised, the market is actually already casting its (early) vote. And of course if others are not able to find their own novel ways but would merely violate existing patents, my portfolio companies would have to protect their rights." 

The background story here is crucial to understanding why special scrutiny is being placed on this conversation—specifically regarding Compass Pathways' actions and intent. Compass received ire for its transition from a non-profit to for-profit company; in a 2018 article for Quartz, Olivia Goldhill interviewed psychedelics experts who believed that Compass was setting itself up to be a gatekeeper to the psilocybin compound. 

Compass' already-granted patent—for its formulation of synthetic psilocybin—was contentious; it was challenged multiple times by Carey Turnbull, a board member of Usona Institute and the nonprofit Heffter Research Institute. Compass has also had controversial investors, like venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal.

Compass’ current international patent applications have attracted attention for including rudimentary elements of psychedelic-assisted therapy, like eye shades, holding hands, or listening to music. Its international applications also include claims for a wide variety of conditions outside of just depression, like neurocognitive disorders, chronic pain, reducing inflammation, anxiety disorders, like OCD, headache disorders, and eating disorders. 

As patent lawyer Graham Pechenik previously told Motherboard, claims in patent applications are rarely granted as is, but Compass filing so many broad claims has raised eyebrows at what the goal is. Is it to raise revenue to conduct research and bring psychedelics to the public, or to gain ownership over large swaths of the field and prevent others from entering it? While Angermayer’s public response to Ferriss suggests that any "legitimate" competition won't be stifled as a direct result of a company like Compass' patent strategy, his private email to his investors could easily be read otherwise.  

Patent lawyer David Casimir previously told Motherboard that filing broad patent applications is a common tactic—even including claims that companies know aren’t patentable. But it can lead to bad patents, Casimir said. “If the patent office doesn't do a good job, then they'll say, 'Okay, you can have this broad claim.'” 

A broadly granted patent could potentially give a company to have ownership over how a drug is prescribed and used legally. When and if psilocybin is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it could be accompanied by a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS. A REMS outlines therapeutic processes or require doctors prescribing them to have undergone a particular training. If a granted patent echoes elements of the REMS, then anyone wanting to use this therapy would have to license whatever is in the patent from the patent holder. 

And patents can have an effect even if a company with a granted patent doesn’t seek to stop anyone else from using their invention: It can drive investors to pick certain companies over others, and keep competition at bay by the directing of funds into the hands of the organization who holds the most IP. 

Lars Wilde, one of the three co-founders of Compass, told VICE in 2020 that Compass’ patents were not intended to prevent other people from making psilocybin. “The question has been raised many times, whether we would stop researchers from doing research and [the answer is] absolutely not,” Wilde told VICE. 

Angermayer’s email suggests, though, that one of the results of its patents would be to hinder others from bringing a psychedelic product to market. In his response to a request for comment, Angermayer said that's not necessarily the case. "Just to emphasize, there will be more companies than ATAI and Compass, already just because I financed some more, which we will announce soon," he said. "So there are other good companies out there indeed, but most of them in stealth doing exactly what healthy competition is all about: exploring their own ways and niches."

On Monday night, Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), tweeted a lengthy response to Angermayer acknowledging that “easier access to capital is a key advantage of for-profit psychedelic drug development over non-profit drug development reliant on philanthropy,” but disagreeing with the notion that patents are “essential” to moving the field forward. He originally responded to Ferriss’ tweet saying that MAPS was engaging with patent attorneys to strengthen its anti-patent strategy for MDMA. 

Doblin described how the FDA can offer “exclusivity” for the drug development of substances that are not patentable, which is different from patents because it doesn’t block others from marketing the same drug at the same time, on their own dollar. His statement said he thought that new inventions, like molecules similar to known psychedelics, were appropriate to seek patents for—but he pushed back against the notion that there were viable patents to be found in psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. 

“There is prior art regarding psychedelic assisted psychotherapy from the 1950s and 1960s and onwards, so for-profit companies will not be able to patent the core methods of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy,” he wrote. “Attempts to patent therapeutic methods invented by others are doomed to fail, reputationally terrible, and capitalism gone rouge.”

In Angermayer's LinkedIn post, he addressed the common concern about the intersection of psychedelics and capitalism. "Some others use the patent discussion to express their discomfort with capitalism itself," he wrote. "I personally believe that capitalism—though it has its flaws—is by far the best economic system tried to date and that many, especially young people who flirt with socialism at the moment forget the destruction, pain and death socialism has brought for hundreds of millions of people over the years."

Doblin’s response concluded that, “To the extent that ATAI and Compass seek to profit from blocking others through patents on processes or therapeutic methods that they didn’t invent, they will fail and will squander their potential to be a force for healing and profit." 

In Ferriss’ blog post, he wrote that he wasn’t anti-profit—he's an investor himself. Similarly, most if not all psychedelic researchers intimately understand that it takes a lot of money to do quality research, conduct clinical trials, and bring a drug to the masses, let alone train therapists to administer that drug properly. 

This continuing dialogue around patents seems to be more so about what IP is ultimately for: Is it meant to fund the work, or to prevent others from doing the same—and make a profit at the expense of access? Public conversations like these, as well as the granting and consequences of patents in the future, will help to hone in on the answer. 

"Compass and other for-profit companies have the potential to do a ton of good in the world," Ferriss wrote in his blog post. "I also think that the nature and incentives of capitalism can breed strategies that are very bad for innovation, and we need individuals, groups, and third-party organizations to watch for them and mitigate them..In the end, the people who would most suffer as a result of the possible problems I’ve outlined are the millions of people who most need psychedelic medicine." 

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