#your silence will not protect you

[lola-theshowgrl]

My favourite reads of 2024 📚 💛 “Piranesi” by Susanna Clarke 💛 “Your Silence Will Not Protect You” by Audre Lorde 💛 “To Wield The Darkest Night” by Beau Van Dalen 💛 “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell (not pictured) 💛 “Girl, Serpent, Thorn” by Melissa Bashardoust (not pictured) 💛 “Exquisite Corpse” by Poppy Z Brite 💛 “For The Wolf” by Hannah Whitten 💛 “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” by Patrick Rothfuss 💛 “The Penelopiad” by Margaret Atwood 💛 “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt

[seaswells]

[funkpunkandpunkfunk]

The Beatnigs - Television (live)

from the Your Silence Will Not Protect You compilation tape, originally uploaded to archive.org as part of the NOISE_ARCH tape collection

[cynicalclassicist]

Fine stuff from Alan Cumming!

alancummingreally I wore this suit to the Met gala centuries ago in protest at being told to shut up and keep out of politics during the Iraq war, but I think today its message is even more prescient and vital.

The quote is by the great Audre Lord and the suit was designed by Stephen Cirona.

[brooklyndadshow]

Source of inspiration

One of my goals for the last of my year has to been read more. I was unpacking my book bag and looking at my journal and books in progress and that I was about to start.

I'm feeling like I've successfully landed this goal.

It's always interesting to balance consuming content and creating content. You must find inspiration and be able to channel it into your own work. Especially in a world saturated with content new and old, curating your consumption feels more important and challenging than ever.

Here is what's next on the list.

I first heard of "What it Means When A Man Falls from the Sky" in a Levar Burton Reads Podcast. Everything Levar Burton and his podcast is just inspiring. He always lifts up speculative fiction by people of color and women. If you haven't listened yet, go do it now. Also see in theater or if you can find it streaming the documentary about Reading Rainbow - "Butterfly In The Sky" .

If you're looking for an amazing powerful story listen to this from his podcast series:

I think afterwards you'll know why this short story is in the queue:

The titular story broke me a little bit when I first listened to Levar Burton read it. From his comments you can see it also lit a fire of inspiration for Levar Burton. Inspiring Levar Burton is absolutely a life goal of mine. To inspire the people that have inspired me- my new creative words to live by?

[purplemattrrr]

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the masters’s house as their only source of support.

— Audre Lorde, The Master’s Tools 1979

[moodymeangirl]

"For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital", Audre Lorde's Your Silence Will Not Protect You.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I guess this might be why the UK seemed to go so antisemitic so quickly

I'm researching the 1947 pogroms in the UK. (Actually, I'm researching all the pogroms and massacres of Jews in the past 200 years. Which today led me to discover that there were pogroms in the UK in 1947.)

From an article on "The Postwar Revival of British Fascism," all emphasis mine:

Given the rising antisemitism and widespread ignorance about Zionism [in the UK in 1947], fascists were easily able to conflate Zionist paramilitary attacks with Judaism in their speeches, meaning British Jews came to be seen as complicit in violence in Palestine.

Bertrand Duke Pile, a key member of Hamm’s League, informed a cheering crowd that “the Jews have no right to Palestine and the Jews have no right to the power which they hold in this country of ours.” Denouncing Zionism as a way to introduce a wider domestic antisemitic stance was common to many speakers at fascist events and rallies. Fascists hid their ideology and ideological antisemitism behind the rhetorical facade of preaching against paramilitary violence in Palestine.

One of the league’s speakers called for retribution against “the Jews” for the death of British soldiers in Palestine. This was, he told his audience, hardly an antisemitic expression. “Is it antisemitism to denounce the murderers of your own flesh and blood in Palestine?” he asked his audience. Many audience members, fascist or not, may well have felt the speaker had a point. ...[The photo of two British sergeants hanged by the Irgun in retaliation for the Brits hanging three of their members] promptly made numerous appearances at fascist meetings, often attached to the speaker’s platform. In at least one meeting, several British soldiers on leave from serving in Palestine attended Hamm’s speech, giving further legitimacy to his remarks. And with soldiers and policemen in Palestine showing increasing signs of overt antisemitism as a result of their experiences, the director of public prosecutions warned that the fascists might receive a steady stream of new recruits.

MI5, the U.K. domestic security service, noted with some alarm that “as a general rule, the crowd is now sympathetic and even spontaneously enthusiastic.” Opposition, it was noted in the same Home Office Bulletin of 1947, “is only met when there is an organized group of Jews or Communists in the audience.”

The major opposition came from the 43 Group, formed by the British-Jewish ex-paratrooper Gerry Flamberg and his friends in September 1946 to fight the fascists using the only language they felt fascists understood — violence. The group disrupted fascist meetings for two purposes: to get them shut down by the police for disorder, and to discourage attendance in the future by doling out beatings with fists and blunt instruments. By the summer of 1947, the group had around 500 active members who took part in such activities. Among these was a young hairdresser by the name of Vidal Sassoon, who would often turn up armed with his hairdressing scissors.

The 43 Group had considerable success with these actions, but public anger was spreading faster than they could counter the hate that accompanied it. The deaths of Martin and Paice had touched a nerve with the populace. On Aug. 1, 1947, the beginning of the bank holiday weekend and two days after the deaths of the sergeants, anti-Jewish rioting began in Liverpool. The violence lasted for five days. Across the country, the scene was repeated: London, Manchester, Hull, Brighton and Glasgow all saw widespread violence. Isolated instances were also recorded in Plymouth, Birmingham, Cardiff, Swansea, Newcastle and Davenport. Elsewhere, antisemitic graffiti and threatening phone calls to Jewish places of worship stood in for physical violence. Jewish-owned shops had their windows smashed, Jewish homes were targeted, an attempt was made to burn down Liverpool Crown Street Synagogue while a wooden synagogue in Glasgow was set alight. In a handful of cases, individuals were personally intimidated or assaulted. A Jewish man was threatened with a pistol in Northampton and an empty mine was placed in a Jewish-owned tailor shop in Davenport.

And an important addendum:

I've read a whole bunch of articles about the pogroms in Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Eccles, Glasgow, etc.

Not one of them has mentioned that the Irgun, though clearly a terrorist group, was formed in response to 18 years of openly antisemitic terrorism, including multiple incredibly violent massacres. Or that it consistently acted in response to the murders of Jewish civilians, not on the offensive. Or that at this point, militant Arab Nationalist groups with volunteers and arms from the Arab League countries had been attacking Jewish and mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods for months.

I just think the "Jewish militants had been attacking the British occupiers" angle is incredibly Anglocentric.

Yeah, they were attacking the British occupiers. But also, that's barely the tip of the iceberg.

Everyone involved hated the Brits at this point. If only al-Husseini and his ilk had hated the Brits more than they hated the Jews, Britain could at least have united them by giving them a common enemy.

[willyhoos]

metamy is insane. like.

what if i was the hero you loved gone wrong. defeated and destroyed. rebuilt as my own greatest enemy. what if i lost everything. what if i had been reprogrammed to despise all i had once fought for. what if i couldn't even remember why i had fought at all.

and what if you were made of roses. what if you represented every beautiful thing i once died trying to protect. what if you wore flowers in your hair and cared for small creatures and had eyes the color of the forests i used to call my home. what if you were everything i once loved.

those memories are just out of my reach. infuriatingly. maddeningly. but if anyone knows who i am (who i used to be) it's you. if anyone can make me feel like who i used to be (who i really am) it's you. i can't speak, i can't breathe, i can't remember anything (but you).

you are the world i have been ordered to burn. i am the weapon you have chosen to resist. i was (am) the hero that you loved.

you are my only memory.

i will do anything to make you believe me.

[intimidatingpuffinstudios]

Straasa comes to stand next to you, fingers gently cradling as he takes your hand in his. He meets Rai's glare steadily, body loose and expression unreadable. His unflinching composure warns Rai to be very careful with what they mean to do next.

[awbjects]

my icebook (ft. pencil) worddump but drawinmgs

[catboynutsack]

wait do people actually think transmisogyny isn't like. A gigantic fucking issue facing our community and the trans women and nonbinary ppl from both inside and out. Like I get that we trans mascs are also under attack but like. What the fuck happened to standing in solidarity with our sisters and siblings. Why are y'all harassing them. Why are y'all talking down to them. Why are y'all dividing our community. Why are you hurting the people we're supposed to help protect because we understand what they're going through more closely than any other marginalized group and we KNOW how hard it is for them. Why are y'all being absolute fucking dicks to these people who just wanna Exist Peacefully. Can't y'all let them exist in one fucking space without being freaks. All the bullying and hate... Actually disgusting. Do better.

[funkpunkandpunkfunk]

Jeannette Armstrong + HMS Dub - World Renewal Song

from the Your Silence Will Not Protect You compilation tape, originally uploaded to archive.org as part of the NOISE_ARCH tape collection.

[chilapis]

if you’ve ever been mean to the sweet little girl that is paimon i will kill you. i pray for public interest that this is common knowledge.

[parchmentknight]

CHARLES SMITH RED DEAD 2 UHHH

charles smith redemption two is just like me fr

[ariesvibe]

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