Newsletter #39

Take Off Your Shoes Before Entering: A User Guide on How Best To Move Around this Black Feminist Offering/Digital Living Room   

Theory + Practice = Praxis is not just a newsletter but a manifestation of my digital Black feminist work. The internet and social media serve as both sites of my Black feminist work and the subject of my work. I grew up wanting to be a hip-hop journalist. I wanted to be dream Hampton, a writer who I was positively obsessed with back in the day, or like Queen Latifah’s fictional character Khadijah James from Living Single, who was the editor-in-chief of Flava magazine. The internet cannibalized magazines, and temporarily, they were replaced with blogs. I have the great fortune of participating in the glory days of the blogosphere. Consider this digital Black feminist offering an ode to the analog days of print media that blends my love and devotion to the internet's old blog days that are responsible for so much of who I am today. Whether you read this newsletter on your desktop or phone (the analytics tell me that most of you use your desktop), you can scroll vertically or flip through like a magazine horizontally. The vibe and intention of this digital offering are that of the Sunday New York Times print edition. If you'd like, you can read it in one sitting, savor it, or return to it whenever you need a break from doom scrolling. I hope this newsletter finds a space in your busy life and that it is something you look forward to appearing in your cluttered inbox. May the writings and the various media shared within these pages animate your thinking, inspire you to think differently and more critically, and encourage you to fall in love more with social justice. As always, I welcome your feedback and questions. You can email me @ lutze@lutzesegu.com, and if you like the newsletter, freely share it with your network. Thank you for visiting my section of the internet.

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Newsletter #38

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

A Radical Black Feminist Humanist Plea 

“Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.” -Audre Lorde

Part I. Introduction

COVID-19 and climate change continue to echo the teachings of history that our fates as Earthlings on this floating rock are inextricably linked. What happens in Wuhan, China will impact every citizen. Western empires’ decisions that allowed them to become “first-world economies” and the consumer habits of the citizens in those countries have material effects on the flora, fauna, and all people across the globe. We are global citizens; therefore, we cannot look away from the facts of the horrors and atrocities we are collectively witnessing. Therefore, regarding The Middle East, we cannot continue excusing our inaction by perpetuating the idea that we do not know enough to speak up. Being human is a group project. As such, we must participate–we must care, and we must talk about Israel and Palestine. 

In this essay, my goals as a feminist public scholar are the following: 

1. To meaningfully apply my scholarship and my writing in service to my activism, which includes helping people who would be described as being on the political Left in the United States to read more carefully through this moment and to think more critically and capaciously about justice issues. My intent is for us to address the severe fractures and ideological fissures that can make us lose sight of one another’s humanities, which in turn can result in threatening our already tenuous coalitions. 

2. To remind us all that anti-racism and feminism require that we be transnational and that we must have a critique of settler colonialism, oppression, and domination both at home and abroad. 

3. To remind us all that Black feminism teaches us that systems of oppression and domination are interlocking. A world that co-signs without impunity the killing of Arabs,  Palestinians, Jewish, and Christian people in this region is not a world that can be trusted to truly keep Jewish people across the diaspora or any other people who are not white Anglo, Saxon, and Protestant safe, secure, and alive!

4. To emphasize that if we genuinely want liberation for the Palestinian people and want to help prolong their lives and secure their survival, then that requires that we stay in critical dialogue with one another. A more peaceful, just, and equitable world requires that individuals, groups, societies, and nation-states become more adept at conflict resolution, dialogue, and collective problem-solving. Peace in this region of the world will require us in the United States as The State of Israel's biggest financial backer to become better at holding multiple truths and narratives while expanding our moral compass to all those impacted by this protracted struggle.

5. Finally, to invite us all to resist the impulse to fall into extremism in our politics. We should have values and ethics that are non-negotiable, including that all human beings, by virtue of being alive, are worthy and valuable. In the words of the prison abolitionist and Geographer Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “where life is precious, life is precious.”  I want to caution us to refuse to become like our oppressors. We owe it to ourselves and the people who are our co-strugglers to resist the master’s tools, ideologies, and logic. We owe it to ourselves and others to embrace a radical Black feminist, humanist perspective, which promises and delivers liberation for all.

Intellectual Guideposts:

Disclosures and what will be informing my sociopolitical choices, framing, and language: 

I stand for the liberation of the Palestinian people and believe in their right to self-determination. I have for over a decade. I arrived at this through Black feminist thinkers such as Angela Y. Davis and through being in a community with Jewish Leftists. I want, and I am calling for, a cease-fire that is attached to political strategies that will broker peace talks and move toward a solution that codifies the equality of both Palestine and Israel. And the return of the Israeli hostages, as well as the release of Palestinian prisoners, especially the children. If our goal is to prolong Palestinian life and end this ethnic cleansing and mass displacement, a humanitarian cease-fire is not enough. 

As a practitioner of social justice, for as long as I have been sociopolitically aware, I have been unapologetic in my support of Jewish people, and I have been doing the necessary work as a non-Jewish person to be vigilant of anti-semitism within myself, those around me, and the world at large. And I am putting in that same work as it concerns anti-Arab hate and Islamophobia. I do make the distinction between The Israeli State and the citizens of Israel and The Israeli State with the Jewish identity, which you will note in this essay. It is possible to critique the Israeli state without trafficking and colluding in anti-Semitism. In fact, it is necessary.

I am also against all (theocratic) ethno-nationalist projects, no matter the actor’s race, ethnicity, religion, or land mass. This includes Hindu nationalism found in India being weaponized against their Muslim population, Burma’s mistreatment of Rohingya people, The Dominican Republic’s tactics against the Haitian people both within their borders and in Haiti, and the enduring ethnic conflicts in Congo and elsewhere.

I also make the distinction between Palestinians and Hamas. I do condemn the actions of Hamas fighters that have contributed to an extreme escalation of the premature death of Palestinian civilians. All 2.3 million Gazans are not part of the Hamas armed militia group and should not be treated as such. The actions on October 7th, 2023, have put Palestinians at risk of prolonged international state-sanctioned violence by Israel, which is co-signed by its allies. At the time of this writing, over 15,500 Palestinians have died. I also condemn the collective punishment and bombings that the State of Israel is inflicting against Palestinian civilians that are further dispossessing and displacing the Palestinian people. No government should have the right to purposely endanger its citizens or the citizens of its perceived enemy and turn citizens into political pawns and urban squares into military playgrounds. That kind of strategy is dangerous, and civilians, more so than soldiers on either side, lose in these high-stakes political bets. 

The Palestinian people have tried everything. The actions of Hamas have a context and should be talked about and understood within that context. The state of Israel has killed peaceful protestors in Palestine and has criminalized boycott divestment movements around the globe. Contextualizing does not excuse or justify their actions, but it does explain why this resistance group exists and provides insight into why Hamas took the actions they did on October 7th, 2023. Terrorism and terrorist acts are not like dandelions; they are not organically and naturally found in an ecosystem. Terrorism is created and stoked from an ecosystem where peace has not been made possible or cultivated. Occupation, statelessness, militarism, racism, and anti-Arab sentiments engender violence.

People who are domain experts in Israel and Palestine have described the actions that Israel is taking against the Gazans as ethnic cleansing and war crimes. In this essay, I will also refer to Israel as an apartheid state as it has been deemed so by Amnesty International. 


Part II. Online Performances and The Politics of The Digitized Self 

As someone who thinks deeply about language and the cultural strategies needed to raise consciousness and make meaningful societal interventions, how and where one makes statements matters. These are dystopian times that are starting to resemble McCarthyism. One can go on the platform X, formerly Twitter, and make a pro-Israel post, but there is a high likelihood that said post might appear alongside misinformation and disinformation about the current war, and it would be sandwiched in between other posts that are hate speech against Jewish people. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, the site no longer has a security team, no one is moderating, and it has been allowing anti-Semitism to run rampant. As much as I love and believe in online activism, public statements, and social justice manifestos, there are limits to what is possible on these sites owned and ruled by people who do not share a love for democracy or social justice.

For me, this moment in the Middle East is not an infographic moment, IG carousel moment, or text-based response constrained by the arbitrary word limit set by the technocrat who owns whichever social media platform you are on. Nor did I want to go on TikTok and make a commentary video to satisfy the rapacious digital need that now feels obligatory to feed that demands we all say something quickly and publicly as proof we are safe people. But humans as a species are not safe.

We are a species that commits genocide against each other, drops nuclear bombs on each other, enslaves each other, thingify and marginalizes each other, and creates open-air prisons for each other, all based on superficial differences rooted in eugenics. It doesn’t matter how much you read the right books, go to therapy, or meditate; there is nothing any human can do that will forever neutralize or remove the threat that lives inside of us all that makes us capable of committing heinous acts against each other or makes us remain silent and rationalize the heinous acts we see others committing. Humans are not safe, not to ourselves, each other, animals, or the planet, and that is a truth we must acknowledge and fight against this impulse and seek not to feed this impulse. 

Part III. Civic Spiritual Practice 

The white fathers told us: I think therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us – the poet – whispers in our dreams; I feel, therefore, I can be free. -Audre Lorde

Black feminism, as I have come to define my engagement with it, is my civic spiritual practice. Black feminism informs how I do citizenship and show up in the public square as a global citizen with a transnational, anti-racist, and decolonial lens.

Feminism teaches us that the personal is political, and building upon this idea, Black feminism has taught me that the spiritual is also political. And spiritual is not a title only designated to that which is only found in religion. My engagement with social justice, anti-racism, gender liberation, abolition, and transformative justice is rooted in a deep-abiding sociopolitical love for justice and all globally oppressed people. My Black feminist practice undergirds that love, which is spiritual to me. Theory can be healing and life-affirming to the Black psyche and body what better news is there than to engage with a theory that confirms what your soul already knows, which is that there is nothing wrong with being Black. The issue is white supremacy, settler colonialism, and neocolonialism, which are pathological nihilistic projects that seek to subjugate all who fall out of the narrow confines of what whiteness considers to be human and a proper rational subject. This sociopolitical love was first ignited in me when I was introduced to the Palestinian Jew Jesus as a little girl in my Baptist Church. 

As a recovering theist who does not attend church anymore and who has given up religion for something much more non-binary, like spirituality, there are four tenets that I have identified as central to Black feminism being my civic spiritual practice:

1. Reclaiming theory of the flesh - There is genius, wisdom, and advanced technologies and modes of knowing found at the margins among Black women and Black gender-expansive people informed by our lived experiences.

2. Refusal and fugitivity - It is divine, holy, and spiritually necessary for one to steal themselves back from anti-Blackness, the afterlife of slavery,  and ongoing colonialism. We must refuse our own psychic and physical deaths by any means. 

3. The spiritual is political, and the political is spiritual - It takes far more than pure brute strength, intelligence, or money to survive anti-Blackness. Theory can be healing. Working towards one’s individual and collective liberation can be life-affirming and sustaining. Survival is the goal. Only when our healing is grounded in a sociopolitical context and, conversely, when we stop engaging our politics coldly and clinically does it have the potential not just to change us but also transform us and our relationships so that we transform the world around us.

4. Honoring differences - As Lordeians, we must never forget that Audre Lorde urges us not to make new hierarchies out of our differences. To make, grow, and cultivate our  solidarities, we must respect our differences while abolishing and transcending the mythical borders erected when we believe more in our differences than the radical potential for comradeship between and among us. We must resist the urge to hierarchize and further concretize supremacist culture and modes of being. 

(I write more about my theory in my dissertation)
 

Part IV. It’s Complicated 

Whenever Palestine and Israel are mentioned among the political Left (centrist, Liberals, Progressives, Leftists, Democratic Socialists), the immediate rhetorical response that follows is, “It’s too complicated.” This response keeps people in their bubbles of misinformation silos of supremacist thinking and keeps them parroting imperialist talking points that do not properly historicize the situation. These talking points are also often filled with inaccuracies that do not properly contextualize Israel and its ongoing role in the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people. Saying it is “too complicated” is also an interesting strain of anti-intellectualism that I observe as happening among the political Left. Undoubtedly, we who vote with the Democratic Party are known as the party with a high concentration of college-educated people and intellectuals, both informal and formal. However, when we mention Israel and Palestine, many people resign themselves to not knowing enough, implying, therefore, they cannot take an ideological stance. I think this is an implicit form of anti-intellectualism disguising itself as erudite. It’s a form of high-level, covert resistance to exposing yourself to an idea that may threaten to undo your worldview or being afraid to defend your ideas, a rhetorical device the Right employs often. Meanwhile, Arab Americans and Palestinian Americans are part of our coalitions and our communities. We are ignoring them by refusing even intellectually to engage in this crisis from a point of view that does not privilege the dominant narrative.

In this critical moment that feels this dire, when all of the infrastructure in Gaza is collapsing, we can no longer get away with being Progressive on all things except Palestine.

Did our ability to Google or read books suddenly escape us? In the same way, you were not expected to be a scholar of race or Black Studies to get curious about why the police keep killing unarmed Black people during the start of #BLM or the summer of 2020. As people living in the United States who are not Israeli and who are not Palestinian, we must be a little curious about why there has yet to be a solution to peace as it concerns Palestine and Israel. But there have always been periodic bombings and airstrikes. Surely, we do not think Israel’s tactic of “mowing the grass” and indiscriminately bombing Gaza is a long-term sustainable solution that will bring forth long-term safety for Israeli citizens.

So, let’s begin with a list of things that are not complicated:

• Dehumanizing and discriminating against people based on the color of their skin, ethnicity, and religion. 

• Living in an apartheid state. 

• Being the government that imposes an apartheid state. 

• Occupying a group of people and making them refugees within their homelands. 

• Being the only “democracy” in the Middle East yet refusing to embrace pluralism and moving increasingly towards right-wing politics and embracing religious conservatism while rejecting Liberalism and using any means necessary to establish and maintain a theocratic ethno-state.

• Weaponizing social justice language, ideology, and aspects of one’s oppressed identity and status to construct rhetorical verbal, moral, and intellectual booby traps w which makes it impossible for others outside of your oppressed group to be critical of your actions for fear of being labeled a bigot, punished, or worse.

• The very conception of the nation-state and its borders is an inherently violent construction rooted in a settler colonialistic impulse, exclusion, and othering. Borders are violent. Borders are unnatural. Borders are disruptive. Nation-states will engage in any level of depraved acts of violence to secure their borders and maintain sovereignty. To be clear, all nation-states act and move in this way.

What is complicated? (not an exhaustive list):

• The historical ancestral trauma that Jewish people, who are only 0.2% of the population, carry in their DNA from the Holocaust and the visceral somatic fear that Jewish people live with that tells them at any moment, the world will turn on them again try to eradicate them, and they will be without allies or home to run to keep safe from a second Holocaust.

• Perhaps because of this deeply ingrained trauma, many Jewish people are unwilling to distinguish any legitimate critique of Israel and filter all critiques of Israel as being inherently anti-Semitic. The Israeli State believes it should be allowed to engage in settler colonial practices of ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and settler violence to build up its nation-state like all other countries in the imperial core had the chance and were successful in doing.

• The historical trauma that the Palestinian people have from the Nakba that happened in 1948 led to over 15,000 killed and 750,000 Palestinians being displaced from Palestine, what is now known as Israel. And the fear that the Western world will forget them and support the Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of them because, for the past 75 years, we have normalized their statelessness and their living conditions in Gaza and The West Bank.

• After many failed attempts at peace talks, scores of civilian casualties, and deep reasonable mistrust and disdain on both sides, now more than ever, we are very far away from a two-state or one-state solution or any talks of peace. 

• Some Organizers and activists who are unequivocal in their support of Palestinian liberation have used this moment to collude with white supremacy and anti-Semitism. In the early hours of the attacks in Israel, some of the comments among a small group on the Left were ugly and even downright despicable. Being ghoulish is not going to help Palestine, nor is it going to allow us to engage in principled struggle with our Jewish co-strugglers.

• China, Russia, and other countries may benefit from this war and use it to their advantage. Still, we must find a way to discuss these countries and the credible threats they present without engaging in jingoism, Orientalism, and Sinophobia.  

• Human beings need hope and a horizon of possibility to make life worth living. Without hope, humans fall into despair and will engage and join extremist groups and perhaps engage in extremist behavior that some may call terrorism and others will call armed resistance. Palestinians are committed to their survival and land, and that impulse cannot be extinguished; if it could, it would have been extinguished long ago.

Part V. Teaching To Transgress

Everyone based on the axis of power and domination that their nation-sate is situated in has either an inner colonizer, supremacist, or settler that needs to be managed no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, religious background, sexual orientation, oppression, or marginalized identity. We have all been socialized to see and understand the world through fear, anxiety, and scarcity. White supremacy and ableism have informed us who is worthy of love, care, witnessing, rights, liberation, protection, and prolonged life. White supremacy is rooted in sectarianism. White supremacy is obsessed with sorting the world in an “us versus them” binaristic understanding. Social justice, anti-colonialism, and anti-racism are the antidote.

Social justice requires that we dissolve the borders within our consciousness, hearts, behaviors, language, policy, and imagination so that we can dissolve them in the material world and our world-making endeavors.

I won't give you any answers, but I will offer some questions to encourage people of conscience to engage. I am a Black feminist making a radical humanist plea to my coalition to do the hard work of sitting with the complexities of this moment and to resist flattening the issues and the people engaging in this issue from their worldview. This essay is an offering to those who are struggling to understand why so many people whom you may know, respect, like, or even love are pro-Palestine, and that is causing you lots of intellectual and even physical discomfort and activating in you an ancestral somatic trauma response.

1. Our choices are not binary, and compassion and empathy are not finite resources - From an international perspective, overwhelmingly, Jewish pain and suffering have been at the center. When people have attempted to bring the full breadth and scope of Palestinian pain and suffering into this moment, some Jewish people and their allies have viewed this as a threat or a sign they do not matter.  There must be space in our hearts and minds for Palestinian context, suffering, pain, and the war crimes being committed against them. There is enough empathy, compassion, and care to offer to both sides. Reject the false binary and pressure campaign that says you must choose between these two groups. That is a false choice.

2. Hard on the governments but soft on the people - Israelis and Palestinians have BOTH been made vulnerable by the actions of their governments. We can have a scathing critique of their governments and see the people ruled by these governments as victims for different reasons. I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016, but I had to live under his presidency and all that came with it. I live in Florida and did not vote for Desantis, but I must live under his decisions as governor. We must distinguish between what governments do and who pays the fatal price. It is also important to note that Palestine has not had an election since 2006, and Hamas is not a government in the ways we understand the Israeli State to be.

3. Ukrainian liberation vs. Palestinian liberation - If Ukraine has the right to fight against being occupied and colonized by Russia and has the right to do so by any means necessary, why is the political math different in the Middle East? If Ukrainians have the right to self-determination, why do Palestinians not have the same right? What is it in your politics that justifies one and not the other? What is the cause of this disconnect? What role do race, racism, geography, and religion play in your political calculus?

4. Racism and settler colonialism - For those of you who reckoned the summer of 2020 and came to consciousness or deepened your anti-racist efforts due to the public lynching of George Floyd: Many of you read books, attended workshops, and joined groups to challenge your belief and understanding of race, racism, and how it functions in The United States. How does your anti-racist practice inform your critique of settler colonialism? Or does it? Is it possible to critique white supremacy and attempt to undermine and destroy it while also supporting the occupation of Palestinians?

5. Black Lives Matter and global solidarity - If you are not Black and believe wholeheartedly that Black Lives Matter, and you believe Black people are human and are full members of the human species, is it also possible to dehumanize Palestinians by tacitly supporting the collective punishment of the Palestinian people while affirming the full humanity of Black people? Black and Palestinian people have a long history of solidarity with each other because each group sees their shared suffering and status in each other. How can one stand in solidarity with Black people at home and not link those solidarity efforts to the Palestinian and Arab world and not see Palestinians as worthy and deserving subjects of solidarity and life? Does your anti-racism compel you to have an internationalist perspective on race, racism, oppression, and domination? How does anti-racism affect how you see yourself as a global citizen in The West?

6. All solidarity ain't good solidarity - The Religious Right is 100% pro-Isreal, and I would caution my Jewish kin to be very skeptical of this solidarity. The Evangelical Right, which is rooted in white supremacy and Christian nationalism, is also profoundly anti-semitic. They are obsessed with their doomsday fantasy of the end times. And while they valiantly support Israel as a nation-state and as a colonial project, they still 100% believe that Jewish people are going to “hell” and traffic in anti-Jewish conspiracies. Because white national Christian evangelicals are only loyal to the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant subject, yes, they will occasionally practice multiculturalism and fake interfaith solidarity as long as it will advance their apocalyptic wet dreams. White nationalist Christian Evangelicals have a history of supporting ethnic minorities’ desire to have an ethno-state because their ultimate white supremacist dream is to have a white ethno-state that is Jewish-free and Black people-free. We should never be uncritical of our ideas and actions, primarily when they produce and attract solidarity with fascist white supremacists. 

7. Everyone who is anti-Black is not necessarily anti-Semitic, but everyone who is anti-semitic is always already anti-Black - Put another way, the people who want to kill you also will kill me! Every Black person who critiques Israel is not anti-Semitic or is calling for the end of Jewish people. I want to affirm that in the chorus of pro-Palestinian support, there is probably some anti-Semitism mixed in. Black people, especially those of us who are descended from enslaved people whose ancestors fought in revolutions against their enslavers and won, who planned slave rebellions, and Black people who survived The Jim Crow apartheid South, are capable of being critical without not engaging in anti-Semitism.  And Black people who are not descendants of enslaved peoples but whose countries recently abolished apartheid and recently engaged in revolutionary struggles, you must consider for a moment that these Black people bring a level of subject matter expertise to this conversation and can see some issues that perhaps you struggle to see. Black people who have a decolonial, anti-racist, and social justice liberation mindset are not coming to the subject of Israel and Palestine lightly and, therefore, cannot be easily dismissed or erased by anti-semitic claims; we actually must go deeper in our conversations and critique of each other because some Black people are Jewish and they also want a cease-fire and want a free Palestine. Because the United States is a settler colonial nation-state built on racism, Black people and Jewish people have a long history of solidarity. We have a history of having hard conversations and being in political solidarity. I don’t think that muscle and skill are as dormant as we would like to think. Anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeinity are the fulcrum on which all other forms of racism and Othering rest in the United States. It isn’t strategic for Black people with social justice politics to be anti-Semitic. We must stop talking past each other and make our way back to talking to each other. There is precedence among us for this kind of coalition work.

8. How does your feminism inform your reading of power dynamics? If you are someone who espouses a feminist politic, does the feminism you practice have a critique of power? 

For more context, let us consider the following: 

• Israel is the settler colony occupying Palestine.

• Israel is regarded as a nation-state by all major nations, and Palestine is not. 

• Israel has an army and nuclear weapons. Palestine does not have a military or nuclear weapons.

• The entire Western world supports the Israeli State.

• Israel has rendered Palestinians stateless and has pushed them into the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places in the world. In The West Bank, they are subjected to checkpoints and do not have freedom of movement. Israel has also created a two-tier system of living where Palestinians are separate but not equal to Israeli citizens, a practice known as apartheid.

• Israel controlled Palestine’s electricity, water, and internet before October 7th. 

• The Israeli State also has a long history of racism against Ethiopian Jews and Iraqi Jews. 

Does your feminism have a critique for this asymmetry of power? 
As a Black feminist, Black feminism teaches me about the interlocking nature of systems of oppression and domination. The most popular name for this theory is intersectionality. Therefore, as a Black feminist using a social justice lens and intersectionality as a heuristic analytic tool to read through this context, I do not see how it is possible to create a world free of anti-Semitism while actively oppressing and dominating a group by using racism, militarism, and Othering as tools. How can Israeli citizens truly enjoy uninterrupted safety, security, and life in Israel with Gaza being on the other side while engaging in human rights violations, stripping Palestinians of hope, and relegating Palestinians to an open-air prison where they have been condemned perpetually to for the sole crime of being born Palestinian in Palestine? Occupation breeds contempt and hatred of the occupier and puts soldiers and all civilians at fatal risk. If the Middle East is unsafe for Palestinians, then that means it is always already unsafe for Jewish people in Israel.

Is your feminist politic anti-war, or is your feminist politic pro-war?
My Black feminism informs my transnational solidarity with primarily women, children, men, and gender-expansive people across the globe, and it forces me to take seriously what it means to be a woman and feminist in a Western country. And to consider deeply all the atrocities and human rights violations that are being done in my name and are said to be deemed necessary by the nation-state in which I reside in order for me to have a false sense of safety? What does your feminism have to say about the slaughtering of children, whole families being wiped out, and the lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies? There is an entire generation of amputees and disabled people who will now need a more accessible and disability-friendly world. How will they get that in a war zone? Or an occupied territory? What does your feminism have to say about disability justice in an apartheid state that is under siege?

9. The social media problem / the democratization of knowledge problem - Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman coined the term “manufacturing consent.”  Which is defined as "effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion" by means of the propaganda model of communication. 

Put differently, mainstream media, an institution obsessed with the idea and performance of objectivity, a concept that only serves those who are part of the dominant culture and dominant power structures, is, in fact, not objective or unbiased and does overtly coerce us not to contend for power or think outside of the parameters they choose to present to the public. I would never call it fake news, but it is news made by and for those with zero interest in averting their gaze from the center of power or transforming the world’s conditions toward social justice. The democratization of knowledge happening primarily on TikTok and Instagram makes it so that the single story that privileges the Israeli State is no longer the only story. There are now many points of entry into this discourse. Hearing from Gazans and seeing the devastation firsthand of parents holding the lifeless bodies of their children has a chilling effect and a radicalizing effect, too. These scenes of war that we all must be careful not to turn these scenes into spectacles that desensitize us if this war goes on for months and years, but engaging several narratives and points of view from people living in Israel and Palestine is shifting the narrative. For the first time, regular everyday people in The West are now asking themselves, but what about the Palestinians? And it is that question of humans taking the time to consider a group they have never been encouraged to consider that is sparking a global mass of interfaith, multiracial, multiethnic people to organize protests calling for a cease-fire. Now that mainstream media is not the only source of many people’s news, people are coming in contact with more nuanced views. Social media and the democratization of knowledge make it harder to stick to one pervasive narrative. So, for those who are rigid and refuse to consider another way to engage this conflict? What next? For those who value Palestinian life less than that of Israeli citizens, what is your plan to navigate this new compassionate intellectual terrain? And for those of us who are pro-Palestine and do not struggle to hold the humanity of Palestinian civilians and Israeli citizens, how will we skillfully, strategically, and in some cases lovingly engage our comrades who are stuck in a single story of The Middle East? How can we help them expand their empathy, compassion, and political thinking? How will we navigate this moment without cannibalizing and canceling each other? How will we practice holding simultaneity in our body, discourse, and coalitions? 
 

10. People of The Global Majority and Palestinian solidarity

• Shirley Chisolm 

• Toni Morrison 

• Audre Lorde 

• Angela Y. Davis 

• bell hooks 

• June Jordan 

• Ntozake Shange 

The following countries and cities have had Pro-Palestine marches and protests (not an exhaustive list)

• Mexico City 

• Chile 

• Tunisia 

• Turkey 

• Dublin, Ireland

• Amsterdam 

• New York 

• Seoul, South Korea

• Malaysia 

• Morocco 

• LA

• Cairo, Egypt

• Nigeria

• Switzerland 

• Lebanon

• Philippines 

• India 

• Greece

• Pakistan 

• Germany 

• Spain

• Chicago 

• Brussels 

Geopolitically, people who are part of the Global Majority and countries across The Global South are overwhelmingly pro-Palestine. For those in the West who find this perplexing, I truly urge you to tap into your curiosity and ask yourself to consider all that could be informing this geopolitical breakdown. 
 

11. What about politically Progressive Jews? -  Since October 7th, my for you page (FYP), which is one’s tailormade algorithmic feed on TikTok, has been filled with politically Progressive Jewish people across the diaspora who are boldly proclaiming that Palestinians must be liberated. They are in radical solidarity with this project. I have seen Hasidic Jewish people, Rabbis, secular Jewish people, atheist Jewish people, Black Jewish people, biracial Jewish people, transgender, non-binary, queer Jewish people, Jewish people who are members of the silent generation, Gen X, Gen Z, and of course millennials all valiantly proclaiming the full humanity of Palestinians and critiquing the Israeli state and using their platform to educate their fellow Jewish kin on why they have defected from the single narrative of Israel. And their comment sections have been a hellscape. I have seen Jewish people calling politically Progressive Jews “pick-me Jews” and wishing death upon them. And the constant refrain from Jewish people who are not politically progressive on this issue keeps accusing politically Progressive Jews of being “self-hating Jews.” 

Internalized oppression is a real thing, and when it is not resolved or managed, it does cause the person to betray themselves and their group. With that said, I refuse to believe Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Sara Schulman, Norman Finkelstein, Gabor Mate, and all politically Progressive and Leftist  Jewish intellectuals whom I respect and read and who refuse the emaciated and dishonest premise that being a survivor of genocide means the state of Israel has the right to do what it wants in Palestine and to Palestinians is not an impulse that comes from self-hatred. That is an impulse that comes from a deep abiding love and understanding that we should not become those who tried to eradicate us in hopes of prolonging and preserving Jewish life. 
 

12. Jewish consciousness-raising and education worked! - The work that the Jewish diaspora has done in educating us non-Jewish people on the atrocities of the Holocaust and the insidious ways anti-Semitism is shaped and propagated within society has been exceptional and a success. As a child learning about the Holocaust, I remember my kid brain being unable to understand why the adults in charge, aka the world, watched while Hitler carried out his genocidal project that was inspired by The United States mistreatment and dehumanization of Black people through chattel slavery and Jim Crow. 

When I heard the phrase “never again,” I took that to mean never again should humans and nation-states allow genocides to happen. But since the Holocaust, there have been many other genocides against all sorts of people for various and similar reasons. 

It is knowing about the Holocaust that makes many people unable to co-sign the collective punishment and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by the Israeli State. It was you, our Jewish kin, comrades, and friends, who gave many people literacy and understanding of what to look for as pretexts before a genocide. The Geneva Conventions were created to remedy the cowardice of the international community's idly watching. At the same time, the Holocaust took place, and all of these nation-states refused to take in Jewish people. You gave the world the language and the education and expanded our humanity and understanding of Jewish pain and suffering. You helped us non-Jewish people to get better at naming and making anti-Semitism foundational to our social justice praxis. A great deal of our analysis and solidarity with Palestinians is borne from this educational labor. 

13. “We can do hard things” word to Glennon Doyle - In what ways do our political discourse and ideological infighting mirror intellectually and verbally the extreme acts of violence taking place in the Middle East right now? How are we enacting and re-enacting this war in our language and praxis? And how do these kinds of cruel and acrimonious politics and actions affect the lives of Palestinians? We are not going to coerce and shame people into more liberatory politics. In the same way, Israel cannot bomb its way into peace. We must organize people into better politics. Organizing requires staying connected and conversing with people; actual organizing only happens in relationships. And it requires that we not flatten people but engage in relationship-building strategies. Now is not the time for us to make enemies among ourselves, especially those of us who are not Palestinian. If we want to prolong Palestinian life and use our collective power to get our nation-states to pressure Israel into peace talks and strategies, we must engage within our coalition with the same peace talk strategies! 

14. Silence = violence - All-or-nothing thinking is rigid and binaristic. If one is not careful, it will start to collude with extremism and authoritarianism and very quickly can begin to look and feel like a cult. Abolition and transformative justice cautions us to remain sensitive, curious, and aware of how the logic of the police state and prison system gets absorbed into our relating with one another.  Online activism is a powerful tool for both the Right and the Left, and we see people getting red or blue-pilled through effective online activism. I think the comment “silence = violence”  made sense in the 2010s during that iteration of the internet when being on it incessantly and on social media was no longer a thing only nerds proudly engaged in. Suddenly, all the kids were sitting together at the digital cafeteria table on the social media platforms. 

This is the time of #TrayvonMartin #OccupyWallStreet #BLM #metoo #GirlsLikeUs, to name a few. That was a different internet with different terrains and governance rules, and we also were different people who had not yet lived through a global pandemic. But as we get deeper into this second decade with app-based social media, that phrase no longer makes sense and borders on the absurd because of the ways it is so readily overused and applied. 

Silence sometimes = I am anxious, depressed, and crying every day. I am still clocking into work and managing my life while actively consuming first-hand accounts of everyday citizens and journalists out of Gaza. And remaining politically engaged in ways that do not right now need to include the online version of myself. In a content economy rooted in performing and branding a  digitized version of the self, we should make a habit of asking ourselves why I am choosing to telegraph this right now. Am I virtue signaling? Who does this serve? Etc? 

Silence sometimes = silence. Not weaponized manipulative silence. Not a silence that is trying to co-sign an ethnic cleansing tacitly. Not a silence that is secretly applauding Israeli suffering. We live in a world where people become millionaires and billionaires, creating apps that capture our attention and keep us addicted to our phones. We are surrounded by noise and notifications. U.S. culture is not a culture that has grief literacy. It is a culture that numbs and distracts, and sometimes, to engage in intentionally focused silence in which we truly observe and exist with the hard, complicated individual and collective grief that is permeating the culture is to stave off being on auto-pilot and becoming desensitized. 

Silence sometimes = I have been on social media long enough and know that when these geopolitical moments happen, it is not wise to process my feelings, inarticulate thoughts, or undercooked, lukewarm “hot takes” on the World Wide Web. I am in solidarity, and I am grieving deeply; it is also not about me. I need to be human with actual people and stay connected and informed about what is happening but not process it publicly. There is wisdom in letting time pass while you gather offline with your community and people. 

Silence sometimes = I am radically bearing witness to and forcing myself not to look away from Gaza. I am calling the Arab and Palestinian people I know and holding space for them. I am calling and touching base with the politically Progressive Jewish people I know and holding space for them. I am reaching out to people who are directly impacted.

Silence sometimes = I am too busy taking action offline!  I am going to protests, donating money, amplifying credible sources online/offline, and bringing the critical social justice talking points that I am gathering from social media, articles I am reading, and podcasts I am consuming to the job that I work, which is rooted in my social justice politics. This job is part of my activism and gives me access to many people and entry points to organize and sow seeds of consciousness-raising. 

Silence sometimes = WTF - “I am not sure what happened, but overnight, I no longer agree with people I always agree with online. I am pro-Isaeral, and I don’t see the harm in this stance, but the corner of the internet I reside in is very divided. I don’t want to be attacked or jeopardize my bag, so I will be quiet and post as usual. I am not trying to co-sign genocide, and I don’t want to co-sign violence, either. I am genuinely confused. What do people know that I don’t?”

Silence sometimes = I do not have delusions of grandeur. I am not an activist or an organizer who has been organizing for/with Palestinians before October 7, 2023. I am not a  head of state or an elected official; I am not a journalist; I am not an academic or a white-collar professional with domain expertise in the Middle East. I do not run a business that is impacted directly by this crisis, I am not a brand that is directly impacted, and I do not do communications, PR, or strategy for a brand or organization that is based on the nature of their business and their clientele they are obligated to issue a timely statement.Put differently, in the early days of a geopolitical crisis, we must give room to experts; it’s not the time to hear from generalists. We all do not need to wade in, and it’s wise to take a beat and asses and gather your thoughts. And say something when you actually can. The issue is dire. It is not our online commentary that will help bring about a solution to Israel and Palestine. 
 

Silence sometimes = my activism, my social justice practice, and my radical support of Palestinian liberation don’t get affirmed, validated, and credentialed on social media. 
 

Silence sometimes = I know the role I play in the movement(s) for social change. Some people’s role during these moments is to agitate online, educate, and use their grief as a political tool so they process their thoughts in real-time online. That is not everyone’s ministry. Being a practitioner of social justice and social change agents requires knowing your gifts, strengths, and where/when you are most effective and needed. Palestinian liberation will require a bevy of interventions, strategies, and skills. It is going to be required for the long haul! 

15. Divest from the concept of super citizens, and now is not the time to be entangled in your parasocial relationships. Weeks ago, someone whose content I like was tagging Beyonce, Rihanna, and other celebrities on IG and trying to get them to say something about the crises. People have been asking where Drake and DJ Khalid are on the matter. People have been upset and obsessively watching which celebs signed which letter. Once again, this is a holdover from the last decade that feels retrograde today.
 
I want to encourage us all to divest from what celebrities say on these geopolitical issues. If your favorite celebrity agrees with you, who cares, and if your favorite celebrity doesn’t, who cares if they are silent? Perhaps that is a good thing! What celebrities think and feel on this matter will not prolong the lives of Palestinians. The obsession with celebrities during these moments is still an act of centering. More importantly, we all complain that lobbyists and big money play too much of an outsized role in our politics and elections. Let's use that analysis toward celebrities. I do not want to concretize the idea of there being super citizens who can influence world leaders to do things because that can get very scary and nefarious rather quickly. Being rich and famous does not engender a politic. Being rich and famous does not make one smarter than those without influence and money. Many celebrities are critically under-read and grossly misinformed about the world, living in an artificial bubble that encourages their lack of knowledge. Plus, many celebrities take meticulous measures to appear apolitical. We should let them be. 

Drake and DJ Khalid are a perfect example of two celebrities whose brands are notoriously apolitical. DJ Khalid, his entire career, has profited from Black culture and uses the n-word liberally, but was eerily quiet during the summer of 2020, which we can agree the stakes were not this socially high for him, and he said nothing then. 

As one of the most famous Palestinian Americans, I doubt he will say something now. Honestly, based on what is happening to Bella and Gigi Hadid and their family and how Israel is attacking them, it is not unwise for him to remain silent. We might not like it, but he is operating within a context. 

Let’s take the famous biracial Jewish Canadian Drake, who recently signed the open letter calling for a cease-fire. I want us all to consider two critical things: his longtime collaborator and the architect of his sound, his producer, whose stage name is “40,” Noah James Shebib, is Palestinian. I assumed Drake would have a worldview and politic that would more likely than not honor his relationship with 40 and his upbringing in Toronto. Secondly, Drake signed the cease-fire letter, and he is also, as of late, making a personality and profiting off of hating and publicly berating Black women. He is a good example that you can be politically right on one issue while being morally bankrupt and not understand how other systems of oppression work. One can be a purveyor of violence while calling for peace and the end of violence. Humans are truly baffling! I do not advocate for purity in our politics or coalitions, but we must be grounded in sound frameworks and ideologies to strive for consistency in our politics. 

Our over-investment in celebrity culture is what gave us Trump! Secondly, I must bring up TikTok again, a site where traditional celebrities flounder and fail epically at mastering. TikTok has ushered in the rapid decline of celebrity culture as we know it. TikTok has devalued the concept of celebrity status. Instagram valorized it, and TikTok is now undermining it. We live in a new reality where regular everyday people are far more interesting and better at entertaining than celebrities.
Their stock as a group is going down. We will always be curious about them, but I predict not in the same way in the future. Forcing celebrities into conversations that are out of their depth and range is why we have so many bad hottakes flooding social media. Celebrities have the right to their opinions no matter what they are and should be able to share them, but whether their views align with our worldview or not, why do we care so much? They are not elected officials, organizers, or heads of state. What are your politics? What do your values call for you to do at this moment? We must fight for a world in which celebrities do not become super citizens who have the power to sway political discourse and decisions. It is okay for us to keep them in the realm of entertainment. The art and entertainment we consume are not required to be radical or revolutionary in order for us to justify finding joy and value in it. Very few celebrities are adept at using their celebrity in a social justice way, and even then, I caution us not to be so overly invested in that either. I do not want us to be overly invested in anyone: politicians, influencers, and whomever we follow online because that only leads to heartbreak, quickly becoming idol worship. This is why we must join grassroots groups, participate in mutual aid, and find a group to throw down with politically. Liberation comes from social movements, not from a singular "special" figure. 

Somatically engaging a collective “we” in real life and getting clear about our North Stars will make celebs less central in our minds. There are lots of Palestine reading and teach-in groups. Join one, read, and study! Decenter celebrity culture. Celebrity culture was not created to do all we want it to do politically. Prolonging the lives of Palestinians while also attending to the visceral fear and concerns of the Jewish diaspora and contending with all of the propaganda about this conflict is too important of a political project to put in the hands of celebrities. Respectfully, now is not the time. 

 
16. “Everyone who disagrees with me does not want to kill me or my allies.”- I do not believe that everyone who is pro-Israel is calling for the genocide of the Palestinian people. In the same way, I do not believe that people who want Palestinians to be liberated are calling for the end of Jewish people. There are so many things in between advocating for peace and social justice and calling for the genocide of a group. At this moment, I am doing my best not to flatten people and label them as monsters. In the West, we have been socialized not to have a global lens and to only care about our allies abroad to an extent. We have been trained to be pro-war and to believe in militarism, and we have been socialized to fear Arabs and Muslims. It makes sense why so many people are critically ill-informed about what life is truly like for Palestinians in Gaza. 

Being uninformed or stuck in a particular worldview does not mean one is malicious and murderous. Only through engaging each other in good faith can we determine if one has genocidal desires.
 

I want a free Palestine. I also want the citizens of Israel to experience actual safety that does not require them to occupy and erect an apartheid state. I support and call for diplomatic efforts that will bring about this end. What is happening in the Middle East is already having impacts on us here in the imperial core. Our fragile coalitions are being tested, and I am urging us all to not allow them to be destroyed. I am calling for those of us, especially those who are not Palestinian or Jewish, to get strategic and be willing to engage in good-faith arguments and principled debates with those willing to engage with us. Now is not the time to unfriend, mute, block, and dispose of people. We must organize each other and seek the entry point of political possibility. We must be willing to show people how we arrived at being pro-Palestine and why it is politically vital we are in solidarity with them, especially now. Now is not the time to be lording our politics over people and being insufferable. We must call out tacit and overt anti-Semitism that is found among Left coalitions. Now is the time to get clear, clean up our language, and be willing to stay in the argument or conversation with each other. Our collective pressure is working. Now is the time that we must ask ourselves before taking any action: does this action I am about to take help to prolong Palestinian life, or does it hinder this project?

We cannot afford to destroy further our anti-racist coalitions; our fragile democracy cannot and will not weather it. There is no futurity in white supremacy and settler colonialism for any group! But there are many worldmaking possibilities in decolonial and anti-racist futures. 

 #FreePalestine 

#FreeHaiti

#FreeHawaii 

Statehood for Puerto Rico, AND the District of Columbia!
 

More importantly, may we all get free from our lack of imagination and fear of the perceived Other, and may we never forget, as Angela Davis teaches us, that “freedom is a constant struggle.”

Credit: random pic taken in Brooklyn, December 2023

About Me:
Lutze (loot-see) is an emerging interdisciplinary public Black feminist scholar and doctoral candidate who studies Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at The University of British Colombia, and their focus area is Critical + Creative Social Justice Studies. Her creative intellectual work is an embodiment of her Black feminist politics and practice. Lutze is currently writing her dissertation about her Black feminist practice and how it shapes her work as The Social Justice Doula, and she is exploring in her writing the concept of Black feminism being her civic spiritual practice. Lutze’s critical, creative intellectual work is also rooted in her past work as a former youth social worker and gender justice organizer. As The Social Justice Doula, her work takes on various shapes as an anti-racist consultant/coach, writer, public speaker, and content creator.  Lutze is also a Digital Black Feminist who loves the internet! She is chronically online and thinks about the internet, technology, and its impacts on social justice. The internet is an important site for Lutze’s Black feminist work. She is both a superuser and ethnographer of social media. Although she does not code, she thinks about codes, patterns, algorithms, how messages get oxygen and get amplified online, how people create, curate, and perform digitized versions of themselves, and how people telegraph that online version. Lutze theorizes about social media’s impacts on our sociopolitical discourse, interiority, and online/offline thinking and modes of being.

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Newsletter #37

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“America’s Favorite Big Girl is in Trouble: What the Lawsuit against Lizzo tells us about Ourselves and the Nature of Work”

America’s favorite body-positive, sex-positive, confident, fat Black woman is in trouble. Lizzo is being sued by three former dancers, Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis, and Noelle Rodriguez, for a bevy of work-related issues, and what is being alleged is nothing to scoff at or quickly dismiss. The crux of the allegations is that these dancers believe Lizzo and her company, Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc. (BGBT), created a hostile work environment that was a breeding ground for all manner of harm. 

Here are the nine charges that have been brought against Lizzo and her company:

1.    Hostile work environment and Sexual Harassment (all defendants)

2.    Failure to prevent or remedy hostile work environment / sexual harassment (all defendants) 

3.    Failure to Prevent/Remedy Religious Harassment (Shirlene Quigley and Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc)

4.    Failure to prevent or remedy religious harassment

5.    Racial Harassment (Plaintiff Williams and Davis against Big Grrrl Touring, Inc)

6.    Disability Discrimination Plaintiffs Davis against Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc and  Lizzo)

7.    Intentional interference with Prospective Economic Advantages all Plaintiffs against Big Grrl Touring Inc

8.    Assault Plaintiffs Rodriguez and Davis against defendant Lizzo

9.    False Imprisonment Plaintiff Davis defendant Big Grrl Big Touring, Inc. 

In my work as The Social Justice Doula, I predominately coach women across race, age, industry, and geography. I also consult with organizations on ways to operationalize anti-racism at work and imbue their leadership with anti-racism. I do this because I sincerely believe if you do not clearly define your leadership and what it is not and state the values and sociopolitical ideas that animate your leadership or organization, you are at great risk of recreating oppression and domination whether you mean to or not. For many of us, the only kind of leadership we know well is patriarchal, harmful, and exploitative. In my capacity as The Social Justice Doula, I have worked with all kinds of organizations all-white organizations, racially diverse organizations, all-women organizations, predominately Black organizations, intergenerational teams, teams that were solely comprised of Zoomers and millennials, teams that were made up of all queer, transgender, and gender expansive people and the conclusion I have come to is that being the founder, Executive Director, CEO, the boss does not bring out the best in most people. Wherever you are insecure, the places within yourself you struggle to confront, where you lack ethics and discipline will all be poked at, highlighted, and put on display if you do not have systems of accountability in place and clearly articulated values that undergird your leadership and strategies for how you will protect your organization and your direct reports from yourself. In fact, it's much easier to be a harmful, ineffective boss than it is to be an effective, inspiring leader because these kinds of leaders are in abundance. There are many reasons for this; I propose that because work is not an inherently egalitarian or anti-racist place, and because most workers are not in unions and there are no real checks and balances on corporations, it allows for harm to be easily fostered and get concretized within a work culture. 

So, when I heard about the allegations against Lizzo, I wasn’t shocked. Not because I think Lizzo is a bad person but because leadership is hard, and leaders are not often set up for success by their boards or the systems that are in place. Many Executive Directors and CEOs should be grateful that the people who work for them do not have the means to sue them because it would be disastrous if they did. Although I think most people are not effective bosses, I do not think most of these bosses are malicious and are being mean and abusive on purpose. These leaders are merely miming the content and the context they know best and staying true to their socialization, which is white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, word to bell hooks. The logic of these systems influences, informs and dictates how we show up, and because workplaces are sites of struggle racial, economic, gender, religious, struggle, etc., workplaces become the Petri dishes and the practice spaces in which the truth of who we are, what we believe, and what we practice is made evident. Put another way, if you do not have a plan for how you will manage your inner colonizer, your inner colonizer will manage you! 

We can glean many teachable moments from this Lizzo lawsuit that can hopefully help us be more effective leaders who are serious about creating less harmful workplaces.

1.    Misogyny for women leaders is enemy #1! - This will sound very harsh, but few people like having women as bosses, and even fewer people truly respect women’s leadership fairly and unbiasedly. And this includes other women.  And if you are a Black woman, a woman of color, or a fat woman leader, disabled, middle age, etc., the disdain for you and your leadership and the unfair, unkind, exaggerated critiques of you will be fierce. Sexism has trained us to think that only certain kinds of identities and bodies are “natural born leaders” or are “good leaders,” and many people are not consciously aware of their sexism or internalized misogyny. You hear it in the ways people critique women leaders.’ People often struggle to give substantive critiques but will frame their critiques of women in very personal ways, expecting that women leaders should make everyone feel good and be their mom or mammy figure at work and if you are Black and live in a larger body the demand for you to be maternal will be great. 

This unrealistic sexist and gendered expectation of women often forces many women in leadership into fashioning themselves after men and operating in a patriarchal way, which inevitably further triggers the misogyny of everyone, and it opens the door for power to be abused because the woman in power may start to feel as if her power and authority is being usurped. ignored, questioned, or dismissed. So, this kind of dynamic sets in motion a negative feedback loop. The women leader hates that she is being bogged down by sexism and misogyny, and if she is Black or a non-Black person of color, she is also fighting racism. This sparks her fight response, so she devises a plan to be taken more seriously at work, which, if done wrong, will come off harmful AF. Her leadership is now starting to look and feel emotionally based because good leadership cannot come from an anxious and fearful place. But sexism and racism impact us on the level of our dignity and self-worth, and nothing is more personal than these kinds of attacks. Women in leadership should not be expected to be everyone's work mom, nor should they feel compelled to become the work patriarch either. What is the middle way that honors what this woman brings to work while not having to wield power in a negative way? Internalized misogyny is real, and therefore, women leaders must be careful and methodical in ways that their male counterparts do not have to be, especially when they are new to leadership. Because of sexism and bio-essentialism, people expect more and better from women even though women are not inherently better human beings and can enact all kinds of harm and abuse. Therefore, if you are a woman leader who professes social justice, anti-racism, and feminist values, you must create the systems and structures around you that are rooted in your values. People have little grace, compassion, or forgiveness for women who behave badly at work, and as women leaders, we should expect this and, therefore, build work cultures that do not foster and give way to hostile work environments. You are not a man, boo. Put differently, you are not a white man; therefore, govern yourself accordingly. Have a plan for how you will manage people’s misogyny and unrealistic expectations. 

2.    Women in leadership should beware of having a misaligned Executive/management team – One of the complaints against Lizzo’s management is about racial harassment. In the court documents, they allege,
“Specifically, BGBT management treated the black members of the dance team differently than other members. BGBT’s management team consisted almost entirely of white Europeans who often accused the black members of the dance team of being lazy, unprofessional, and having bad attitudes. Not only do these words ring familiar as tropes used to disparage and discourage black women from advocating for themselves, but the same accusations were not levied against dancers who are not black.”

I do not understand why women with a particular feminist and social justice point of view management teams are comprised of all men. When I see a woman surrounded by an all-male management and executive team, I see a woman who is vulnerable because I am unsure if an all-male management team knows how to properly protect you while helping you execute your vision.  And the same considerations apply when thinking about the racial aspects. Can an all-white male management team properly protect a Black woman without not putting her at risk of a racial harassment complaint? The answer, at least in this case, is no. You see this when a Black person takes over as the Executive Director for an organization with an all-white board. Black leaders usually last no more than two years because they are criminally unprotected and unsupported. When hiring for executive and management positions, we must ensure that these people align with the values important to our company or non-profit. I know when we are looking to fill positions, if there are 50 bullets of skills, we are looking for someone with all 50 of the hard technical skills, but what about the “soft skills,” which, in the era we are in, is anything but soft, these are critical skills.

3.    Young leaders MUST stop trying to befriend and party with your direct reports - This is a major problem I see all the time among mainly millennials and younger Gen-Xers. These leaders are often obsessed with being read as cool and likable by their direct reports, which leads to poor boundaries and sticky situations. You can be a kind and cool boss while having good boundaries and not obfuscating the lines of power. On two occasions, Lizzo took her team to nude bars; everyone on her dance team was not down with that. Some people felt pressure to hang out with Lizzo. In the court documents, they write that some of the dancers felt they had to “endear Lizzo.” The assumption that the people who report to us will always have the courage and the language to tell us no and advocate for themselves is fantasy thinking. We must get better at having more insight into our behavior and the environments we create and get better at not putting people in awkward or inappropriate situations. I think it is a good gesture that every now and then, leaders share a meal with their team but do not party with them, do not do drugs with them, or hang out with direct reports. This kind of behavior also speaks to a larger issue we must investigate: our obsession with looking for and wanting to be friends with people at work. We can be kind, ethical, and good team players without not blurring the lines of work relationships and platonic intimacy. I am not saying we cannot find real friends at work, but we must stop trying to force these kinds of intimacies because in doing so, issues of misusing power and control will inevitably show up. 

4.    In a post #MeToo era, what are the lessons that women and gender-expansive people have ALSO learned - The sexual harassment that is being alleged in the complaint is mainly due to the dance captain Shirlene Quigley who was having inappropriate conversations about sex with the dancers, in which she shared her fantasy about having ten penises in her face and would disclose when she masturbated. I have noticed that in predominantly women and queer spaces, some will treat these spaces as slumber parties and not work. Please stop forgetting that you are at work! They will use these spaces where there is an overarching shared gender sameness to have raunchy conversations at work, and because everyone is a woman/queer and because there are no cisgender heterosexual men around, people think there is no issue with this kind of “locker room” talk that is taking place on the pink/lavender/rainbow side. Again, we must fight the bio-essentialist thinking that teaches us that women are always the victims and men are always the victimizers. This binary thinking does not allow us to see how women can participate in creating sexual harassment at work against other women and against queer and gender-expansive people in ways that may not be so obvious. And I know we are in a moment where we are challenging what professionalism even means and the white supremacy tenets of what defines professionalism, but beloveds, let’s not lose the plot and descend into debauchery at our workplaces. This is work, and people will sue you or make a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

5.    Check the Christian supremacy at work - I have written about this before. Christian supremacy is a serious issue in the workplace. Evangelicals across race think it is okay to proselytize at work, and it’s not. However, this nation is rooted in Christian values, and because The United States is on the brink of falling into Christian fascism, many do not see the issue. The dance captain, Shirlene Quigley, kept using her Christianity as a tool to terrorize the dancers. First and foremost, she showed an unhealthy interest in the virginity of Arianna Davis and kept using every opportunity to preach and was trying to force one of the dancers to lead prayer even though the dancer kept declining. If a Muslim, Hindi, Atheist, or a person who practices Santeria or Vodou was doing this kind of recruitment and sermonizing at work, everyone would clearly see the problem. 

6.    It’s time to break up with authenticity at work unless you have a lawyer on retainer, and if that’s the case, carry on, boo - Your work colleagues and direct reports should not have to be subjected to your inner monologue and private self. Who I am with my partner, friends, family, and with my therapist has no place at work. When reading the many accounts of the legal document, it was clear that the line between private and public self did not exist, and that became problematic. Do we not have a public self that we can bring to work that has good boundaries and is not weird with colleagues? In the court documents, while at one of the nude bars, Lizzo and her man were getting hella inappropriate in front of the dancers. And was seen going to the club's backroom with her man and her homegirl. Now, at the risk of sounding like a Boomer, that was wild and way too much at work if that happened! I think it’s amazing that Lizzo is in full possession of her sexuality and body, and if the allegations are true, just because you are sex-positive, that does not mean your direct reports need to be a witness to it. And based on her IG response to this lawsuit, it appears that Lizzo may be conflating some things. 

“I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.”

It’s okay for us not to be super open at work. I promise less is more sometimes. Once again, I know we are in a place where we are dissecting the meaning of “professionalism,” but this kind of casualness and openness doesn’t fit this kind of job. We are taking “keep it real” and being your authentic self to an extreme authoritarian limit. If you are sex-positive, is there no space for others to be sex-negative or even prudish? Must everyone around you be on your wavelength? And how and why is it meaningful to my job fulfillment that I know the sexual politics of the people at work when we do not work in the Adult Film Industry? Work is not the place for your unapologetic self. This kind of rhetoric is giving petulant, misbehaving white men at work who have no filter and are always grossly inappropriate in every way in almost every space.
Perhaps we should be seeking to have well-articulated values and ethics that we deploy consistently throughout all areas of our lives. Perhaps let’s seek to be the kind of leaders and workers who can be trusted to do the right thing no matter the circumstances or contexts. However, in lieu of this, people think they must invest in over-sharing about themselves, telling everyone at work their trauma story, or when any discomfort at work arises must alert everyone, which forces your colleagues and people who report to you into helping you manage your emotions, your dysregulated nervous system, and disappointments all in the name of you being your authentic. This doesn’t feel like authenticity; it feels like lording yourself over others and forcing them to comply with your every whim. It’s giving big Elon Musk energy.

In regard to the allegations, I actually do not blame Lizzo. This is her first time being famous, running a multinational company, and being a brand. Lizzo is an artist! I blame her management team, who has been in the business longer than her, for not advising her well and not protecting her fiercely. To become an effective, inspiring leader who manages people well is a skill that takes time to develop.  Lizzo is young, and she will bounce back from this, I think, but I am worried she hired the lawyer Marty Singer, who represented Bill Cosby and Johnny Depp, which is evidence she is not about to play nice, and I wonder what that will do to her reputation. And I was not a fan of her IG post discussing this lawsuit, nor was I of the recent picture of her drinking champagne at the Chanel store. That is not the narrative and tone I would have advised her to be pushing right now.  

The public is not forgiving of women who are growing in public, especially a fat Black woman whom people find her refusal to perform self-hatred infuriating and perplexing. The people who hated Lizzo will continue to do so, and the people who expect perfection from celebrities, especially Black women, will turn on her because they have no politics or praxis of their own. I never saw Lizzo as my savior, and I do not expect celebrities to be paragons of social justice and feminism. Therefore, I am going to leave space for Lizzo to grow or even be transformed by this moment. I talk to women, trans and non-binary leaders, middle managers, and creatives all day who truly do not want to be harmful at work or in their leadership but who often feel that the center of gravity at work is often in direct conflict with their values. This causes them to struggle to create an alternative space at work that does not collude with harm. 

Black people, especially Black women, are worthy of my compassion and grace. No one is above critique, but disposing of a fat Black woman is never on my bingo card. Lizzo has shown in the past that she has the capacity to change, own up to her mistakes, and change course, and I hope she will learn from this and come back better. 

Hot Girl Feminist Summer

I think we can aptly dub summer 2023, at least in The United States, as the summer of “the feminist economy” or the summer that women saved the U.S. economy, Jerome Powell, who? Between the Barbie movie, Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, and Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour, there is no denying that the gworls, girlies, the gays, and the theys have been carrying the economy together on our backs while the Federal Reserves n’em try to figure out what they are going to do about this inflation and quasi recession. At least the price of eggs is back to normal. 

And Just Like That, The Whole World is Striking!

The children are striking! The writers are on strike, and so are the actors. The viewing public has not been asked to stop watching movies or using streaming platforms. I am ready to be in solidarity and do what needs to be done when instructions are shared, but I doubt this ask will be made of us. 

However, in the meantime, I have been reflecting on the subscription model of the world that we are in and how it is not sustainable. It’s great for the customer that you pay a nominal fee to the platform, and you have access to a vast library of entertainment, but for writers and actors who are not A-list celebs and Hollywood moguls, this model does not work for them.As a customer, learning that people can write and act on hit TV shows and still live in economic precarity feels like a truth that is both absurd and too much to process at the same time.For more context, read the article fromThe New Yorkerall aboutOrange Is The New Black (OITNB), in which actresses discussed being unable to leave their second jobs in hospitality while juggling becoming increasingly recognizable to fans of the show.  Not to mention, OITNB is what put Netflix in serious play as a company. 

Maybe it’s just me, but seeing the sheer number of writers and actors discussing their economic anxiety made me sad and even increased my anxiety about the future. These people have acquired entry into their dream profession and, in some cases, have achieved success but still can’t pay their rent. What does this say about the American Dream? The United States’ whole brand strategy is rooted in being a place where dreams can come true. My life was made possible by this marketing and branding. The more this dream ceases to exist, the more life in the United States will become increasingly precarious and dangerous for us all, no matter what city we live in, because it's these United States, After all, what ails one part will impact the 99%. 

The writers' and the actors' striking underscores why I no longer believe in the concept of a dream job, especially when a dream job may not be enough to pay your bills, and the strike renews my commitment to why I will always lovingly encourage us all to put work in its proper place and context in our lives because work will never love you back! It can’t. The capitalist model and payment structure will not allow such folly.

The Hollywood strikes, the persistent talk and almost strikes happening across other industries, and the threat of AI to white-collar workers should be a sobering reminder for us all never to forget that we are workers and seek to have a worker solidarity ethic rooted in a worker-first identity. We have more in common with factory workers in Amazon fulfillment centers than we would like to admit. None of us bristled when self-checkout machines appeared everywhere and cashiers started disappearing. Well, that same anti-worker sentiment that invested and created such technology is NOW coming for every kind of “high-skilled” worker through AI. 

No worker is safe; we all have a technological nemesis seeking to undermine and make our various professions obsolete. As consumers of various streaming platforms, we all must take seriously that things being cheap do come at a harmful cost to our collective economy. The U.S. is rapidly turning into a nation of gig workers. As consumers, we were sold a lie; we were told to cut the cord and leave cable to save money, but now we are more tethered than ever to various dispersed streaming platforms, but this time, the cord is invisible, and Netflix has the nerve to introduce commercials into its lowest paid tiers, and it is now anti-password sharing can you be more authoritarian? Turns out the cable model made more sense for most parties involved, and Blockbuster was not actively waging war against your favorite show writer room and trying to keep them in poverty. #BringBlockbusterback

Chronically Online Observations

101: Intro to Black/Queer/Gender/Trans Studies 

To my non-Black readers, the discourse in this section may read very intra-community and niche.

If you are Black and queer, the internet streets this summer have been particularly heinous to your queer Black soul, and the harm doers have been other Black people. Every day, as I peruse the internet, I see so many “cis” Black women fake beefing with Black trans women and blaming Black trans women for trying to erase them. All Trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs), no matter their race, have the same tired white supremacist talking points. However, looking at the tweet pictured (I am still calling them tweets) about Michelle Obama is a good example of how Black women who are transphobic are being daft and low-key appear to be delusional about the way gender and race function in this here racist ass nation-state. Black feminine expression, especially dark-skinned Black women’s gender expression, is always already on shaky hollow grounds and seen as unreal because, in the United States, the gender binary was created to keep Black people out so that OUR subjugation, enslavement, and rape could be justified. As Black people, our perceived cisness is always up for debate and can always be questioned because we cannot be cis in the ways white people are cis because we are not white, and in an anti-Black society, personage or the default human experience is white, heterosexual, able-bodied and male.

That is one of the reasons why, when talking about Black women, I sometimes use cis in quotes because I do not think that Black people are proper cis subjects under these conditions and anti-Black context. And reading Black feminist scholars across academic disciplines such as Black Studies, Trans Studies, and Gender Studies helped me to arrive at this idea.

And it is precisely because of this knowing and theorizing that I no longer give a whole lot of thought, energy, or fucks about pronouns because, firstly and most importantly, pronouns are NOT gender, and I will no longer be acting like or colluding tacitly with this idea. Secondly, as a Black person who understands herself to be definitely not cis and also fat, my gender will NEVER be legible using the current colonial understanding of gender and fatness.

Black scholars like Roderick Ferguson have theorized that even when Black people engage in heterosexual behavior, the state still sees them as failed heterosexuals (e.g., Black motherhood is often criminalized see: Moynihan Report and Black families are heavily surveilled by Child Protective Services, which results in Black children being removed from their homes at an alarming rate). This does not mean that I am saying all Black people are transgender. I believe Black people have agency and the right to self-determination. 

One of the ways we operationalize this self-determination as Black people is by choosing to take on gender or reject gender, but I am saying that Blackness disrupts and destabilizes whatever it modifies. And this is why I know people who, although they identify as non-binary, reject woman as a category and identity but still politically and socially align with the language and category of Black woman because once you put Black in front of woman, it becomes queer AF even if the subject isn’t! This is one of the ways Black genders operate. The way Black people are gendered and ungendered within anti-Blackness is so deeply tied to white supremacy queerphobia and transphobia, and even the most politically unconscious Black person among us senses this gender anxiety and unease. 

You hear it online all the time among Black heterosexuals and cisgender people incessantly talking about how “masculine” and “in their male energy” certain kinds of Black women are, which has given rise to Black femininity coaching and coaches, or you see it in the ways some Black people police the gender expression of Black men and boys. 

Gender policing is something many Black people reflexively and obsessively engage in because many of us do not feel settled or fully seen and understood in our gender expression, and you don’t have to be trans or non-binary to be intimate with this kind of gender malaise. For example, it’s almost impossible to find a Black woman who has not experienced being misgendered. Even famous Black women can't escape this kind of gender policing and transphobia. Famous Black women like Serena Williams, Joseline Hernandez, Wendy Williams, Ciara, Megan Thee Stallion, and now we can add Sexxy Red to this list, have had transphobic insults hurled at them or have been accused of looking manly. Why is the go-to insult transphobia? There is something that we all know and understand acutely about Black womanhood on a cellular level without the need for any fancy degrees or jargon. 

The fact that so many Black women, cis and trans, have the same experience of being misgendered by people both inside/outside of our community, no matter how we choose to express or signal our gender, should make us all curious about the relationship writ large, between Blackness and gender. The problem is always gonna be white supremacy, anti-Blackness, misogynoir, and queer antagonism, not other Black people who happen to be queer, trans, or non-binary. Remember, my fellow Black people, we also need an anti-racist gender liberation politic like everybody else!

For further readings on this mode of thinking: 

• “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammer Book” by Hortense Spillers. This is a foundational text. This article has inspired all the academics and academic books I have read on the subject of Black genders. This is not easy, but if you read it and get it, life will never be the same. 

• Black on Both Sides: A Racial History on Trans Identity is a book written by the Black trans scholar C. Riley Snorton, who talks about the relationship between Blackness and transness. Word on the street is that there is a PDF of this book on the internet. 

• “My Gender is Black” by Hari Ziyad: A must-nuanced, accessible read! 

• “You Could Never Misgender Me” by Hunter Ashleigh Shackleford; just read it and let this get into your bones. 

• Belly of The Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness- written by Da’Shaun L. Harrison, this book explains how the intersection of fatness and Blackness impacts and shapes gender.

The Television Corner 

I watched Survival of the Thickest by my fellow Haitian Michelle Bateau, and it was a perfect show. The number of episodes, the length, and the straight people having queer and trans people in their lives in a meaningful way was perfect, and it felt good to watch. The show prominently featured Black people in relationships with each other. It’s a must-watch, especially for the over-35 crowd. 

The Real Housewives of New York - Only RHONY could get me back into the Bravo cinematic universe, and I am happy to be back. I am only watching for Jenna Lyons; her style and closet are the kind of aspirational content I live for. 

Barbie Movie Review 

The Barbie Movie has crossed the Billion-dollar revenue line; with that said, spoilers are ahead in this review for the five of you who have not seen the movie yet. 

1.    My biggest takeaway from the film is that in the final scene, when we see Stereotypical Barbie dressed down, with no arch, feet flat, and wearing Birkenstocks, I am left with the feeling that it appears Stereotypical Barbie has awakened to herself being a lesbian. Barbie not only shows zero interest in Ken or any of the Ken’s, but the audience is also made aware by Barbie herself how every night was girls’ night, and we can even argue that Stereotypical Barbie was not even picking up on the romantic cues that Ken was dropping. And when Weird Barbie, who is clearly lesbian coded, offers Stereotypical Barbie a choice that spurs her journey, the Birkenstock is introduced. Birkenstocks, which are now very mainstream and for everybody, initially belonged to lesbians and are part of lesbian history and culture. Plus, she is the Stereotypical Barbie who is at the top of white feminine beauty ideals but does not make the stereotypical choice to choose Ken. That, to me, feels very radical and is giving big lesbian energy. Furthermore, the song playing while Barbie is on her hero’s journey is The Indigo Girls “Closer To Fine.” There are too many lesbian smoke signals for there not to be fire! When Stereotypical Barbie decides to permanently leave Barbieland, she first goes to a gynecologist. I assume Barbie is getting ready to take her new vagina out for a spin which is a beautiful, low-key way to make a nod to sex positivity and women’s reproductive rights. I see you, Greta.

2.    I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was smart and funny, but it was not revolutionary to me as some corners of the internet proclaimed it to be. The one reason the movie was not great to me is that the film failed to give us a good and believable reason why Barbie chose to leave her dream house and a feminist utopia to become human. Barbie is coming from a reality where women are fully actualized human beings who do not live under the tyranny of patriarchy, and she leaves that to come to a world filled with misogyny, sexism, and gender-based violence, where women, who make up half of the population, are treated like a special interest group and minority, and that is supposed to be a happy ending, nah! In the scene when Barbie and Ken are at the beach and, for the first time, Barbie is experiencing the male gaze and is being objectified, she has an unpleasant somatic response to being seen and made human in this way, and she looks visibly distressed, and this is the same place she willingly chooses to come back to. Stop it! I am not buying this conceit. 

3.    In a world full of Ken’s, be an Allen! Allen is a great representation of how men can/should be traitors to the patriarchy. There is lots of discourse online saying that Allen was queer-coded, and that is why he was always with the Barbies, and that is why he was helping them. I am unsure if I believe this or if it even matters because quite a few visibly queer-looking Ken’s went along with the incel insurrection that the main Ken orchestrated. The movie was brilliant at showing and reminding the audience that all men, no matter their perceived sexual orientation or how they arrive at masculinity, can be drafted to become soldiers for the patriarchal army.  

4.    Ken was an incel and became radicalized because the object of his affection was not interested in him. What a tragically common story. So much patriarchal gender-based violence happens because a man feels entitled to a woman’s time, affection, body, and love. Ken told himself a one-sided story and made Stereotypical Barbie the villain and the source of his pain. Ken was surrounded by other available amazing, beautiful Barbies but refused to see them. It feels like Greta wrote the main Ken character from composites of actual incels. 

5.    Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were perfectly cast, the film was beautifully shot, and the soundtrack was very enjoyable. I love how the music was used to bring more depth to the movie and move it along while speaking to things that could not be captured in the movie dialogue or action because it was made by a major corporation and did not have the liberties of an indie film. 

6.    The song and dance sequence “I’m Just Ken” was to me when the movie was at its best and even genius. In many ways, Ken is the only character I feel truly gets a proper narrative arc in a movie that is supposed to be woman-centered. The male character being the only one who gets fully fleshed out and whose interiority is shown to us in a movie about Barbie, is muy complicado! The song and Ryan Gosling’s performance of the unremarkable cisgender, heterosexual, white guy who isn’t creepy per se but whose “sensitivity” and seeming rejection of toxic masculinity reeks of being fake and performative was sublime. What makes “I’m Just Ken” a great song/scene is that it narrates the anxiety of cis/het/white dudes that many of us know so well because these men have tried to draft us into helping them manage this anxiety for them. Many of us have had the experience of being in a classroom, hanging out, or in a meeting that is ideologically progressive of center and ideas are being shared, and a white guy who is not problematic and who usually makes decent contributions to the group will start to speak, but before he makes his comment, he has to preface or punctuate his comment with the disclaimer, “I’m just a cis het white dude” or “As a cis het white dude” aka “I’m Just Ken!'', I will never be able not to hear this song in my head whenever I hear this phrase anxiously come out of a white guy’s mouth again. Regarding how Ken was written, Greta and her husband nailed this character and archetype of this kind of man.

7. Barbie does a stellar job of illustrating the hetero pessimism haunting heterosexuals regarding their dating and mating woes. 

As much as I enjoyed the movie, it does seem that many writers and creatives struggle to bring a social justice feminist point of view to their art and their character’s dialogue and can’t seem to resist the urge and the trap to descend into America Ferrara’s Twitter rant/monologue that happens in the film. We are all still meaningfully learning how to signal/center social justice in our world-making. Barbie was a commercial hit, and the marketing behind Barbie was genius. It felt good to have a monoculture moment in which we all were doing the same thing and talking about the same thing. As a feminist content creator, Barbie proved something that I have known for a while: that there is a thirst for smart feminist content, and I hope the success of this very white feminist film makes room for even smarter, more nuanced feminist content from other feminist spheres.  

Bonus Content - I watched and reviewed the Netflix show The Ultimatum Queer Love. You can read it here.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Dear Erica Mena, You Can’t Co-opt Black Culture & Hate Black Women - The amazing Dash Harris aka @diasporadash on IG wrote this timely piece about an anti-Black incident that happened on Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta and how is stems from anti-Blackness in the Latine community. 

Neo-Nazi Prevention and Dog Whistling- Phrases and symbols we should all familiarize ourselves with to keep ourselves safe from Nazis or inadvertently cavorting with Nazis. 

The Digital Misogynoir Report: Ending the dehumanising of Black Women on social media - A report from Glitch in the UK. A great resource for building digital literacy around the topic of Black women and what they face online on social media. 
  

LISTENING:

Financial Feminist Podcast - Can Feminism Exist in Capitalism? With Rebecca Walker - Rebecca Walker has a new book about women and money. Rarely do we hear feminists discuss money like this publically. 

The Waves Podcast- How Drake Betrayed Megan Thee Stallion- This episode takes a very niche-focused lens on Drake and Torey Lanez, who are both men from Toronto, Canada, and the episode tries to explain the flavor of misogyny that Toronto produces and gets imported to the United States. 

Today Explained Podcast- Woke, woke, woke, woke, woke - An episode about the Black ideological lineages of the term woke and its present-day co-option by the Right. 

Upstream Podcast -  Capitalist Realism - For the super nerds, this is a two-hour podcast on Capitalist Realism, so if you like philosophy, talks of capitalism, and movies, this is for you.

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

Check out the interview I did with Canvas Rebel where we talked about anti-racist feminist leadership, controlled burns, and how I became the Social Justice Doula.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Juan C

• Chauncey N

• Zachary M

• Marissa A

• John M

• Joy L

• April

• Felicia

• Elena G

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• Camila B

• Tracy S

Newsletter #36

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

Etiquette

In February, The Cut published The Modern Etiquette rules of social engagement after COVID. The 194 new rules are exactly the kind of rules you would expect from white liberal elites who live in New York and who occasionally hang out with celebrities, and they are good friends with New York Times bestselling authors. It was an interesting anthropological read of how New Yorkers think the United States and North America are clearly hyper-local spaces dictated by their whims and social location. The list was kinda useful as long as you did not read it with a race, class, or power analysis.

Social norms are a thing, and I, for one, do not think we talk enough about the veiled rules that hold up our society and create caste systems and hierarchies. If you are neuro-spicy or you are attempting to enter a class bracket higher than the one you were born into, then you know that social norms and rules can be both very silent and loud and be tools used to ostracize and stratify people negatively. And there are many social rules, although we are not usually told what they are. For instance, no one ever told me it is rude to listen to your music or podcast without headphones in public. We act like that is a universal rule, but the more I go outside, the more I am realizing that rule is now becoming more of a suggestion because lots of people no longer care to adhere to it. 

Most of the social norms in the United States are based on vibes anyways. They are not concrete material things that can be pointed to, and that was illuminated during the transfer of power between Trump and Biden. There were many things Trump refused to do in the days leading up to his having to vacate The White House, and many of us, including myself, were shocked by how much political rules are just political theater. They are simply norms that have not been codified. Returning to The New Yorkers list that launched many TikTok videos, tweets, and response articles, the list is also an indictment of middle and upper-middle-income people. The list, I think, will only matter for those of us who are middle-income or hustling hard to become or remain middle-income and if you are white or live adjacent to white people. The homies in the hood don’t give a fuck if you talk to your dog with your private voice in the presence of another human being which is rule #11. A thing I unpacked with my actual white friend who agrees with this rule and is not too far from being a minted Ph.D. in Anthropology.  

Inspired by the list, Buzzfeed published its version for the terminally online, a list I found more useful as a social scientist critically obsessed with our online worlds. 

Inspired by both lists, I present the Social Justice Doula’s Rules for Social Justice Living, rooted in an anti-racist Black feminist framework. As a Black feminist, I am obsessed with how we people together and help each other evolve into more ethical and accountable citizens when the basis of our society is rooted in oppression and domination. 
 

These “rules” will matter to you if you are someone who is seeking to espouse an anti-racist feminist ethic, believe in personal development, and if you are someone who likes to play in the sandbox of nuance. Take what makes sense and leave the rest. My hope is that you will read this and be in conversation with the ideas and share it with your friends and discuss it with others. Let’s all get clear on the rules, guidelines, and principles that make up our interpersonal and sociopolitical lives.

1. If you are white and in conversation with an older Black person, please resist the urge to be overly familiar by using their first names without them inviting you to do so. That act of being too familiar is rooted in racism. There is a long racist history of white people debasing Black elders by not treating them with respect by stripping them of titles and honorifics, calling them boy or girl, and being inappropriately too familiar with them. I know our society is becoming far more casual, but everyone doesn’t play like that, especially when there are racial power differences present. And this also goes for Black people with a Ph.D. Assume you are to call them Dr.______ and let them tell you differently. TLDR; put a handle on that thang.

2. When rating your professors of color, women, visibly queer, visibly disabled, people who are members of a religious minority, transgender and non-binary profs, ask yourself, “Would I give a white cisgender tenured male professor the same critique?”  We have all been socialized to believe and expect that professors are white, male, and heterosexual. This image of the professor often stops students from fully seeing and respecting professors who do not fit this mold. Please ask yourself how is racism, sexism, transphobia, xenophobia, and all the other obias and isms, playing into your expectations of your professor. From my own personal experience of being in university classrooms, yes, it is often hard to get departments to be racially diverse in their hiring practices, AND students, more specifically white students, also play a major role in making Black and non-Black adjuncts and faculty of color feel profoundly unwelcomed.

3. If you dislike your partner’s closest friend(s), say it once and let it tf go! It is okay for your partner to do friendship differently from you and to derive pleasure from a friend dynamic that you loathe. Resist the urge to be a benevolent, controlling partner. It’s possible for your partner to love you and also have alliances that you find questionable. Now, if the friends are Nazis, forget what I said and run for the hills, babes. 

4. In a friend group that is majority queer, your friend’s same-gender or non-binary partner(s) is probably going to be welcomed before your cisgender hetero-male partner will ever be. Please ask if your cis male partner is welcome before bringing him, and if you get to the hang and all the queers are with their partners, it’s cool. As a heterosexual or bi person in a heterosexual arrangement, it’s okay if your universally socially sanctioned SAFE partnership is not always catered to.

5. If you are Black or a non-Black person of color and your friend group is primarily Black, or POC and your partner(s) are white, consider not bringing them to every hang. White partners of Black and non-Black people of color should also consider how their presence will alter the vibe of a majority Black or non-Black POC space. **When hanging out with our closest friends, think before bringing your partner(s). This is not a commandment, but a thing we all should be sensitive to. Friend time is precious time, and therefore let’s all work together to protect it. 

6. Sending people TikToks, tweets, or articles is a neuro-spicy and nerdy person's love language. Prioritize watching them, and you will learn more about a friend than you ever expected. Of course, you don’t have to watch it all on the same day, but please know that a form of intimacy is being built with you and a different way of knowing your friend is being presented to you don’t miss the emotional bid!  

7. If you are a Criticanista meaning you are the kind of person who always has notes, feedback, or critiques for others and you share them liberally. Please also make sure with the same precision and energy that you freely give criticism that, you also freely share praise and your love. And consider turning down the volume on your critiques.

8. When in public and you have to use the bathroom, assume someone is in it and knock on the door first before violently pulling the door handle. You’re not at home, boo you live in a society. Please act like it. 

9. Learn the art of Shiva - Our Jewish kin have perfected the art of sitting with people during profound moments of grief. This is a skill that church and other religious folks also have. As the U.S. becomes more secular and more and more people become unchurched, I am noticing many millennials do not know how to grieve with others or give proper emotional human support. Hell, many of us crumble at the hint of any conflict and discomfort. I fear that our cultural obsession with comfort is going to make growing older and going through the hardships of life devastatingly painful and isolating for many of us. We are getting older every day, which means we will all be touched by moments of great pain and suffering. We will lose our parents, fall into deep mental health holes, develop a maladaptive relationship with substances, self-harm, have miscarriages, bury children, lose a breast or a limb, get divorced, be publically taken down on the internet, and the list goes on. Simply texting people the generic “If you want company or help, let me know” is not going to cut it. Risk being embarrassed and making it awkward for everyone by showing up. Dare to be intrusive and even pushy! Every adult must build up their resilience and the muscles to bear witness to another person’s grief. We will all get a turn on the merry-go-round of pain and suffering; it’s inevitable.

10. Closure is a myth - The social scientist Pauline Boss has studied ambiguous loss and has found loss and ambiguous loss is a phenomena all humans will experience, and loss is a key features of life. Therefore, set yourself free and let go of the concept of closure. No one outside of you can give you closure. People can recognize, take responsibility, take accountability, people can pay restitution, but closure is an inside job that cannot be manufactured externally. You can listen to her discuss it here, and she has a book on the matter. Free yourself from the tyranny of closure. 

11. Sharing a video with your audience that you have not watched or an article you have not read on social media is not a good social media hygiene practice. Re-sharing things does not necessarily mean you are co-signing it, but it is reasonable for the reader to conclude that if you are sharing it that you, the original poster, engaged with the text. Sharing things without looking at them or reading them is a dangerous habit to form. In the age of mis/disinformation, we all must cite our sources and share responsibly.

12. Make sure that in bringing attention to a problematic or toxic post or creator, you are not inadvertently giving oxygen to dangerous people and ideas through amplification. Resource: The Oxygen of Amplification.

13.  If your IRL friends, who you have a bevy of mutuals with, have stopped liking your posts, sharing your content, are no longer coming to your events, and have stopped interacting with your posts, but you see they are active on social media and like and comment on other peoples post trust what you are seeing and sensing which is, “they don’t fuck with you anymore.” And for whatever reason, THEY would rather communicate this in the digital realm instead of in the material world. This is a rejection of you, and rejection is part of being alive. Try not to take it personally. It happens to the best of us, including yours truly. Make the necessary emotional adjustments and consider muting or hiding this friend or hitting them with an unfollow or soft block. Friendship in the age of social media is weird, painful, and often feels humiliating, and changes tend to come abruptly. And most people do not possess the skills, to be honest, or engage in ethical conflict and let’s be honest, many of us are too fragile and defensive to hear why people who used to fuck with us don’t fuck with us anymore. Let us not forget that closure is a myth, and people don’t owe us explanations. And even with all that being said, boo, we must learn to be meteorologists and learn how to read the changing weather patterns in our relationships. Friendships in the digital age will mean that people may not ever unfollow or block us, but they are, in fact, no longer our friends. 

14. If you are the kind of person that does not value friendships please don’t offer friendship as a consolation prize if someone shoots their shot with you romantically. Reject them on a friend level as well. You know you are not a good friend, so don’t set people up. I said what I said! 

15. If they did not mention your name or @ you in the post, then THEY are not talking to you, beloved. As the country folks say, “A hit dog will holla.” If you read something that sounds like a subtweet of you, first of all, OUCH, that hurts, and I am sorry. Secondly, when you are not emotionally so tender, ask yourself if there is any truth to what is being said about you and if any of it can be used as compost in your life. Even your greatest hater and enemy have medicine for us hard medicine, but medicine nonetheless. Remember, boo, people have the right to process the impacts of our behavior on them however, they see fit. Even if we loathe the medium that they are using to do so. 

16. Do your best to remain teachable and correctable. Demanding that the truth you need to hear about yourself needs to always be delivered softly, civilly, and nicely guarantees you will never grow, you will remain ignorant, and above all, risk becoming the town monster. 

17. Do not lose your ability to experience awe and be pleasantly surprised by life while practicing discernment and healthy skepticism. 

18. If you live in a community plagued by opioid addictions and overdose, consider becoming trained in Narcan and having them ready to go in case of emergencies. 

19. Try your best to have cash to bless our houseless kin.

20. All healthy, mutually reciprocal relationships take deliberate and intentional work on our part, aka L A B O R. Every human interaction is not transactional, some are deeply interdependent and rooted in mutual exchange. Stop allowing the logic of the free market to dictate your human relationships. Worthwhile friendships will feel more like a socialist experiment than a capitalistic endeavor. 

21. Stop using your non-profit job and the “noble” work you do for wages as moral licensing to be unaccountable and unethical in other areas of your life. Your cool non-profit job or the awesome work you do in the community doesn't make you above reproach. It is possible to be an emotional terrorist and good at your social justice job at the same damn time. 

22. When online and you see intracommunity dialogues happening, take notes but mind your biz. You will learn more by not weighing in.  

23. I am a recovering Baptist, but from time to time, I like to revisit some scriptures there are many bible verses that still really hit for me. Like Matthew 6:3-4 which reads, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” It is gross and unethical to film your giving to houseless people. This is not entertaining, nor is it feel-good content. It’s an indictment of our deep inequalities. Stop using houseless people for clout and content. It is giving big colonizer and savior energy no matter the race, gender, and ethnicity of the people doing it. 

24. If we believe children are people and therefore have agency and autonomy, I do not see how we can be ethically and morally okay with filming children becoming themselves and over-exposing them online. There is nothing gentle about your parenting if you are using your child as content and as a teachable moment. World-renowned child psychologists do not film their parenting. Children have a right to privacy, and that includes digital privacy. We live in a society where children are harmed at a disportionate rate. As adults, whether we have children or not, protecting children is our collective responsibility. The internet, as much as I love it and think about it critically, is not a safe space for the images of children to be so freely accessible. Our digital hygiene must include seeing children less online. 

25. In all human interactions, power is present. The person who is usually not attuned to this is usually the person with more power in the situation, And with that said, power does not only flow from the top to the bottom. For example, there are many white men, white women, Black men, and non-Black people of color who begrudge and downright despise having a Black woman as a director or manager and who therefore take deliberate steps to undermine this person from the bottom up. Moral of the story: be aware and try your best to responsibly manage the various power dynamics that are always already present in any situation. 

26. Anti-Blackness is the fulcrum upon which all other racism, biases, and isms rest. Asian hate, sexism, racism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, etc., cannot and will not be eradicated until anti-Blackness is addressed. 

27. White supremacy needs patriarchy in order for it to function well. You cannot undo white supremacy and keep patriarchy intact. A gender liberation politic, aka feminism, is needed in order to secure social justice. 

28. The term woman is a sociopolitical term and classification, not a biological home. The term woman is capacious enough to hold many cultures, nationalities, races, classes, and permutations of womanhood. People are either socialized, read, violently disciplined into, or sometimes opt into womanhood. And when we say women, we always already mean transgender women!

29. Pronouns are not gender! Sorry, cis people. You should use the gender pronouns that people demand and take seriously that until there is gender liberation, pronoun usage will never be enough.   

30. Only queer women are FEMMES that is not an everybody term.

31. Identities are not sacred, nor are identities a politic. Someone’s race, class, and gender are not proof of their goodness or badness. Pathologizing people based on their race and deifying people using race is to traffic in pseudo-race science. 

32. Learn how to give an ethical apology. Resource: The Four Parts of Accountability & How To Give A Genuine Apology. 

33. I know the social justice girlies and theys deeply dislike hearing the phrase, “How can you love someone else if you can’t learn to love yourself?” Comrades, I think it’s time to see the truth in this cliche edict. We are our first community, comrade, lover, and bestie. If I have a consistent and habitual practice of not liking, advocating, and loving myself, I find it hard to believe that this will not limit or greatly impact my ability to give and receive love. Self-love is critical to our social justice politics, and when I use self-love, I mean it in the way bell hooks evokes it in her germinal work All About Love. 

34. The world is changing, and what was permissible even a decade ago will get you severely socially sanctioned today, and that’s a good thing! We are in a period of over-correction, and we are collectively drawing new social norms and lines as more people engage with social justice ideas, feminist ideas, etc. Many of us will become victims of the social justice overcorrection mob, and others of us will be properly taken down and stripped of power by these new rules of engagement, and that is simply the price of being a member of society and being alive and not living as carefully and mindfully as one should. Public humiliation and callouts are not inevitable. Choose your words wisely, and think before you post. Learn the difference between things that should: live in your private thoughts never to be uttered, a group text, blog post, op-ed, journal entry, private conversation among trusted friends, therapy, and what should be public. Assume that everyone has screenshots and that one day you will be dragged before Congress to testify and that your emails will be read aloud to you by AOC. And if all that fails to curb your behavior and you still get caught up, please learn how to take public L’s with grace and compassion, and never let go of your dignity. Being called out publicly is not proof of your unworthiness, it's simply proof you have things to address. And know that, eventually, you will be let back into society. Society is changing; keep up, beloved. 

35. If you are a person with actual influence in the IRL and online world, do not make a habit of dating your fans or becoming besties with your fans. The number one way to protect yourself from a public takedown is to remain grounded. You must be intimately surrounded by people who love you and are also not afraid to tell you when you are wrong if you are serious about remaining grounded. Stan culture dictatestells fans to never question their fav and that their fav is never wrong. With the rise of social media and influencing, some everyday people are internet famous who have groupies, fans, and stans, and boo, that is NOT the waters one should go fishing in for friendship or love.

36. The movement for social justice is bigger than your heartbreak, babes. The work towards social justice should not be stymied because you got got by a social justice f-boi. SJ f-bois talk a good social justice game and are sometimes amazing organizers and visionaries. These same people are also emotional terrorists and should not be entrusted with the care of your body and feelings. These same amazing social justice cuties have no issue leaving a trail of pain and destruction in every organizing space they find themselves in. People are complicated and deeply unprincipled, that is true, and the movement should not be destroyed because you are hurt. The people we purport to fight for and with deserve more principled comrades. Movement spaces are not always the most ethical or safe spaces to play in romantically. It’s okay for us to date people who are outside of our movements and who are also very amenable to our politics. Perhaps consider not turning your sociopolitical home into Tinder. 

37. Whether you're white and autistic, white and immigrant, white and transgender, white and queer, white and non-binary, white and fat, or white and disabled, you will always have to contend with Whiteness. Pointing only to your oppression will not make your whiteness invisible. We can still see it, babes.  

38. It's possible to have a very public online life and a very private and sacred offline life. There is an art to this delicate dance, and so many of your favs have mastered this, and you can too. If you love the internet and are chronically online, there is a way to honor this love while still being an active, mindful participant in your offline life. 

39. Comrades are not automatically friends, and friends are not automatically comrades. Consider yourself lucky when you find the intersection of friendship and comradeship in one person. 

40. There is no such thing as being too smart or self-aware for talk therapy. Consider for a moment that you are perhaps a person addicted to intellectualizing (I also suffer from this disease). Therapy is not a panacea, and therapy perhaps is not for everyone, but you're not an X-Men who can't find value in therapy because you're so special and evolved. 

41. If you sent a friend an email or text and they haven't responded, but they are posting on socials, don't be a cop and call them out on this. Surveillance and policing are not a love language. The energy it takes to answer an email or certain texts is not the same as posting on social media. Let’s extend each other some grace. 

42. If you have ever been tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion, if you have given an ethical apology, taken responsibility, entered into an accountability process, and have made real efforts to make amends, pay restitution, and repair the harm you have caused, please know for some people that will never be enough. Don’t despair, remain steadfast in your transformation, and surround yourself with people who love and support your transformation. People are not entitled to forgive or exonerate us just because we have changed. And you also do not need to live inside another person’s prison. We live in a prison culture which means there are people who are committed to jailing you for the rest of your life and the thought of people being transformed is not one that they will ever consider. 

43. 41. Sometimes, what the situation calls for is a quick phone call. I know many of you are against impromptu phone calls and view that as a fatal act of transgression, but this rigid no-phone call rule is creating email and text purgatory and epic confusion. A phone call for many of us is an access need, and it helps preserve relationships. Let's find ways to minimize disagreements and misunderstandings, not concretize them. *** I know many of you are scared of phone calls because you don't know how to end a phone call properly. I think this is a beautiful opportunity and invitation to practice this skill. Pro-tip: At the beginning of the call, clearly state how long you intend the call to be and honor it. It will get easier with practice. 

44. Unless you use Signal 100% of the time, every correspondence does not need to be in SMS messages or emails. And every meeting does not need to be recorded on Zoom. We have witnessed enough hearings about people’s emails and messages. Move like the feds are always watching. 

45. The most loving thing you can do for yourself is not to conflate that you benefiting from a pure random series of luck as evidence of your genius and that you are G-ds favorite. Just because your lies, secrets, addictions, and maladaptive coping skills have not yet outed you, it does not mean that this will always be the case. Assume that eventually, if you do not change your ways that the ultimate grand jury called life will eventually indict you, and all of your secrets will be unsealed. Check your hubris, boo, and get out of the game while you can. 

46. A commitment to social justice and liberation requires that we all embrace a politic of anti-fragility, individually and collectively. How can we build up our conflict resolution skills so that we can learn to remain in conflict longer and in ways that do not destroy our relationships? *Inspired by Kai-Cheng Thom*

47. From The Notorious BIG song  “The Ten Crack Commandments” commandment #4 is “Never get high off your own supply.” There are levels to this one. Be confident, don’t perform fake humility, resist being self-deprecating, take compliments graciously, and NEVER EVER buy into other people’s positive perceptions of you. Focus on what you think of yourself with a sober mind, what the people you love and respect think of you, and the values and ethics that govern your life and behavior.

48. In the song “Devil In A New Dress” by Kanye, he says,. ‘Don’t leave while your hot that’s how Mase screwed up.” I want to take this critically important rap line (you had to be there) and add some nuance to it. Yes, don’t leave at the height and don’t overstay your welcome either, and compromise the collective by pulling a Ruth Bader Ginsberg or worse, become a Barney Frank. Frank has gone from hero to villain right before Silicon Valley Bank failed, Barney Frank sat on it as a Board member and used that position to help undo legislation that bared his name that would have ensured that SVB would not have failed if he had not helped weaken it. Two lessons: Firstly, stop letting the enemy recruit you after you made a career combating them. Secondly, RBG and Barney Frank colluded in the undoing of their own legacy.

49. Every now and then, perhaps give some thought to what kind of ancestor you will be or want to be. 

50. Older parents who come on the internet crying and confessing that they have no idea why their adult children went no contact with them are only providing compelling evidence as to why their adult children went no contact with them. How derelict in your relationship with your children and absentee as a parent were you to say with assuredness and in earnest that you have no idea why your children do not speak to you. In that case, it proves that you were an ineffective and neglectful parent who may be reaping the profound lovelessness that you sowed. 

51. Resist the ableist and white supremacist impulse to label everyone who has harmed you or whom you have a conflict with as having a personality disorder, the most popular one being a narcissist. There are words in the English language that still exist that do an excellent job of describing unhealthy relationships, such as problematic, toxic, dysfunctional, cantankerous, irreconcilable, mercurial, etc.  When people casually drop narcissism in a conversation with me, I struggle to remain engaged. Because at that moment, I feel like the speaker is foreclosing on the harm doer’s dignity and humanity, and I am being coerced into doing the same. We can talk critically and scathingly about the impacts of people’s behavior on us and not have to play armchair therapist. And I am deeply sad and concerned for people who think and perhaps on some level know that they can only elicit care and concern from their friends or the public by using these keywords such as narcissism. 

52. Bothside-ism and playing devil’s advocate ain’t a politic, nor is it a sign of a thinker who should be taken seriously. 

53. Intelligence may have its limits, but wisdom does not. Seek both.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Kids Deserve s New Gender Paradigm - This article is written by Kai Cheng Thom, a trans woman who is a writer, performer and cultural worker. The article is about a very dicey conversation and it is about trans people detransitioning. I think Kai Cheng does an excellent job detailing the nuances of this subject with lots of love and curiosity.

Dismantling The Cycle  of Romance - This a talk (video) Dean Spade gave for The Fireweed Collective which is about the myth of romance and I appreciate Dean Space grounding us in how we can practice uprooting white supremacy from our relationships.

The Black Culture Platforms That Push Right-Wing Extremism - There is something very dangerous happening among Black people online and this very blog is attempting to warn us all about the right-wing extremism that has infiltrated Digital Black culture. 

The Kent Test - If you are familiar with The Bechdel Test, which seeks to help audiences notice sexism in media through its portrayal of women, then you will appreciate The Kent Test made by Clarkisha Kent. It seeks to measure how Black women and women of color are portrayed in the media. It seeks to help the audience build their media literacy. 

Jen Angel Wanted to Abolish Prisons. She Wouldn’t Want Her Death to Be Used to Incarcerate Anyone. - This article is about an activist and abolitionist, Jen Angel, who was tragically killed in a crime, and how her community is demanding justice and repair outside of the criminal punishment system. Jen Angel sounds like she was principled AF and was surrounded by principled comrades. I was deeply moved by this article. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger has a powerful message for those who have gone down the path of hate - This a 12-minute video of Arnold, now an elder statesman trying to encourage people, mainly white men, to stop embracing anti-Semitism and Nazism and speaks briefly about his father, who was a Nazi. It is well done and worth the watch. 

How To Find Joy In Your Sisyphean Existence - For those who dance with despair Arthur C. Brooks offers a much-needed reframe. 

Black Crossword - A free mini crossword for the culture 

The New Black Film Canon - A list of the 75 best Black films 

Killer Whale Moms forgo having kids to look after grown sons - *sighs deeply in feminist* a very interesting short read about Killer whales and their self-sacrificing decisions that they make to accommodate their sons. It is hard not to make comparisons.

Black Teen Girls Are The Curators of Culture - I love the internet and it is no secret that the best parts of the internet comes from Black U.S. culture. Teen Black girls are the invisible tastemakers who power our lives and this article does a good job of highlighting this fact.

LISTENING:

Today Explained 7,300 days - Is all about marking the twenty years of the Iraq war. I found the way the story is told to be very beautiful and it is told in a very millennial kind of way. 

Bullsh*t Jobs: Nonprofits Edition w/ Dean Spade - This is a short podcast episode where Dean Spade talks about the backlash he experienced for his talk titled, “Should Nonprofit Work Be Paid.” It was fascinating to hear him talk about how lost in wage labor sauce many of us are and that even thinking about our nonprofit wage labor job differently is unsettling to many. 

Louder Than A Riot: Megan’s Rule Being exceptional doesn’t make you the exception - This podcast series is about misogynoir in hip hop and it starts off strong discussing Megan Thee Stallion and the trial against Tory Lanez who shot Megan. 

Come As You Are: “Consent and Enthusiastic Maybe”- This radically deepened my understanding of what I thought I knew about consent and confirmed some ideas that were swirling around in my head about the nuances that are embedded into consent conversations. If you love nuance like me you will appreciate this reframe.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Save the date: Feminist Manifesto!

On May 13 from 11-2pm EST, I will be hosting another iteration of “Feminist Manifesto.” Our last offering in March sold out pretty quickly and we had rave reviews and happy tears. Be on the lookout for when tickets drop in a couple of weeks to join our next session, boo.

Get Free: Black Feminist Futures Homecoming

Are you a Black woman or Black gender expansive person and are you a feminist? Then please join me at Get Free: Black Feminist Futures Homecoming. Here is a link for more information and to secure a ticket.

I am a proud Board Member and dues paying member of BFF and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out.

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Sonia S

• Elizabeth F

• Alexandra

• Karen W

Newsletter #35

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

This month, the Social Justice Doula is sharing the recording of the "Anti-racist Check in" instead of the traditional essay. It is available on Youtube until February 14th so be sure to check it out while it's free. Otherwise, patrons have lifetime access to the recording.

Additionally, I wanted to also share an excerpt from my "Be a Revolutionary like Coretta" talk I did at Mount Holyoke College last week on Coretta Scott King.

The title of this talk is “Be A Revolutionary Like Coretta” because Coretta Scott King was a revolutionary - she was that girl! And, of course, she was because it would have to take a giant of a woman to be partnered with Martin Luther King. I will resist pedestals or turning Dr. King into a saint, but a man of his convictions and moral clarity needed a formidable partner, and that is exactly what Dr. King had in Coretta Scott King. Politically she was far more bold, progressive, and revolutionary in her ideas than Dr. King. Coretta Scott King, a Black woman, profoundly understood the interlocking nature of domination and oppression. She truly believed and put into praxis Dr. King’s words, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” While preparing for this talk, I watched old interviews with her on YouTube and read what Black feminist scholars said about her. I found myself crying and being in awe of this woman. Shortly after the death of her partner by a racist, violent state that made her a single mother of four, she was still kind, gracious, and even more committed to her sociopolitical values. Although her partner, lover, and comrade had been taken from her, Coretta Scott King refused to privatize her pain. She understood what the death of her husband meant to the nation and that her grief was a collective one. In her 60 Minute interview with Mike Wallace marking her first Christmas without Dr. King, Coretta Scott King was unwavering in her principles she used her grief as compost and turned it into a form of clean, renewable energy to power her activism and chart her path forward.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Dean Spade: Should Social Justice Work Be Paid? -  “In this talk, Dean Spade will explore a vexing question being discussed in many movement groups: should people be paid to do this work? Should groups should seek funding to create staff positions or stipends for people participating in the work? Is it a matter of racial, economic, gender and disability justice to pay people to be part of movement groups? Does the process of raising money tie groups too closely to philanthropists or governments? Does paying participants limit the potential growth of movements? Is payment the best way to recognize labor in groups? Is paying people a good way to reduce barriers to participation? How does paying people impact the culture of social movement work? Does it institutionalize the work? These questions have immediate practical significance, and also unearth larger themes about what it means to do resistance organizing within capitalism where people are demobilized, isolated, and struggling to meet basic needs.”

Your Stuff is actually worse now -“A better iPhone would be one that I can use for 20 years and keep upgrading,” Bird says. “But that’s not how we define better, right? Nobody wants an iPhone 14 because it will last for 10 years. They want it because it has a fancier camera or whatever.”

Even if you do want to hop off the treadmill of constantly buying and keep what you already have, companies have made that harder too. Your goods probably have a shorter life span than they did years ago, and if you want to repair them — especially tech — you’ll come up against major barriers.

Talking Less Will Get You More - “Once, when I put my foot in my mouth at work, I lost my job and the promise of millions of dollars. Worse, my lack of conversational impulse control led to a separation from my wife, and nearly cost me my marriage. It was then, living alone in a rented house, away from my wife and kids, that I conducted what members of Alcoholics Anonymous call a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself, and acknowledged that in ways big and small, overtalking was interfering with my life. This sent me on a search to find the answers to two questions: Why are some people compulsive talkers? And how can we fix it? Early on in my process, I discovered there’s a word for my problem: talkaholism, a term coined by a pair of communication-studies scholars to describe a form of extreme overtalking. They created a self-scored questionnaire to identify people who suffer from the condition.”
 

When Did We All Become Pop Culture Detectives- “Really, an Easter egg enthusiast is often just a conspiracy theorist with popcorn. Toeing the line between fandom and fanaticism, peering safely down the rabbit hole into the QAnonification of mainstream culture, can be thrilling. That is, until it’s not: A few days after her holiday post, Spears had seemingly had enough of the speculation, choosing to disable the comments on her Instagram account. Fans immediately took to other outlets like Reddit to weigh in on the decision, where a long scroll of supporters largely endorsed the idea. “Good,” wrote one of them. “Enough with the BAnon conspiracies.” Over on Twitter, though, not everyone was convinced. “Wasn’t her,” insisted a truther. “Was ‘her husband.”
 

She was a popular yoga guru. Then she embraced QAnon conspiracy theories - "Remski, the host of Conspirituality, noticed a number of yoga teachers flirting with QAnon during the early months of the pandemic. At first, he suspected it was a marketing ploy. With yoga studios around the country suddenly closed, teachers were forced to compete for the same online audience. But as the pandemic progressed, some teachers, like Guru Jagat, did not walk back their rhetoric.”
 

How a ‘Grass Is Greener’ Mentality Ruined My First Queer Relationship - “Looking back, I now realize that this was a classic case of “grass is greener” thinking, a documented psychological state of experiencing an unrelenting feeling that there is something better for you outside of your current situation. Much of the feeling boils down to fear: of being trapped in commitment, of boredom, of losing one’s individuality. As a result, those stuck in this state believe that pursuing something new or different will allow us to have all that we crave, want, and value.”

LISTENING:

Gender Reveal: Dean Spade -Tuck speaks with organizer and educator Dean Spade (he/him). Topics include: 

• Why civil rights laws won’t save us

• Common mutual aid struggles: money, security culture, etc.

• Why does burnout convince us that we can’t take a break?

• Reflections 20 years after founding the Sylvia Rivera Law Project

• Plus: dinosaur gender, x markers, and talking people out of law school

If Books Could Kill: Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” - “In "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell posited that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in something. Mike and Peter proved him wrong by mastering his dumb book over the span of about 50 minutes.”

Why Is This Happening - The Debate Inside Progressive Politics With Maurice Mitchell - “My argument is because [right wing authoritarianism] is the central struggle of the day, we need the most effective, principled and impactful progressive organizations that are seeking to challenge that,” says Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. Mitchell is also an activist and co-founder of Blackbird, an organization that has provided infrastructure support for the Black Lives Matter movement and other groups around the country. The social movement strategist wrote a 6,000-word article for The Forge called “Building Resilient Organizations,” in which he described and shared potential solutions for overcoming some of the biggest problems within progressive spaces. He joins WITHpod to discuss the piece, roots of the longstanding political and social tensions within movements on the left and strategies for resetting.”

Land of the Giants Dating Games - “When Tinder launched in 2012, it changed dating culture and our expectations around dating forever by leveraging the iPhone and gamifying the dating experience. But did the rise of dating apps make finding romance easier or harder, and what are the consequences of playing a game that never ends?”

Imperfect Paradise Season 4: Queen of Conspiracy Theories - “Before her sudden death in 2021, Guru Jagat had become a famous Kundalini yoga teacher based in Los Angeles. But as the global pandemic grew, she started talking like a far-right coronavirus conspiracy theorist. What does her journey down the rabbit hole tell us about the appeal of conspiracies in the yoga and wellness community? This 3-episode season explores Guru Jagat's rise to fame and follows along as she responds not just to the pandemic, but to a #metoo movement scandal that rocked the Kundalini yoga world in early 2020. It also explores themes of misinformation, how a healthy distrust in government and medicine can turn dark, the "relativism around truth" in the wellness industry and the influence of social media on radicalization.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

There are still tickets available for our VIRTUAL Platonic Love Mixer, Galentine's edition. Join us on February 13th from 7-8:30 pm et via zoom. Grab a tiered-price ticket while you still can and  come find your new bestie!

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Andrea R

• Mia H

• Justin B

Newsletter #34

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“This holiday season, leave the condescension off the menu.”

The year is ending, which also means that we are squarely in the holiday season, and tis’ the season to travel and be with our biological family, in-laws, various forms of family constellations, and friends. The holiday season is also a supremely stressful, anxiety-inducing, and even triggering time for some. Traveling via plane, train, or bus during a global pandemic without mask mandates is challenging for those still moving through the world with a public health ethic. Driving cross country has its own economic and safety challenges to be mindful of. Economically in the United States, we are feeling the squeeze. Food prices are causing many of us across income levels to fret about loading up the shopping cart too much and reevaluating what is necessary. 

Not to mention talks of unionization in hostile work environments such as Starbucks and Amazon are finally gaining traction, as well, as major layoffs across the tech sector have inundated our newsfeeds. Pivot podcast co-host Professor Scott Galloway dubbed this white-collar recession the “Patagonia vest recession.” Winter is here for people who work in tech, the knowledge economy, or the consultant arena! 

It is not a strong fourth quarter for the United States. Our one major good news is that there was no “Red wave” this midterm election. 

The state of the world means that there will be lots of commentary at the dinner table over the holidays. This time of year, people who identify politically as Progressives or Leftists struggle to be with their centrist and conservative family members. I want to remind everyone that Black Progressives and Leftists must also navigate conservative Black family members, homophobic family members, and family members who pledge allegiance to respectability politics. White people are not the only people with problematic family members. 

The bullshit is universal, fam. 

This holiday season, I am urging you not to be the asshole. Not to be condescending and resist acting like an all-knowing Progressive cable news show pundit at the holiday gatherings. 

However, you define family or whomever you consider family, the family unit is a complicated space for many, and it can be a space of immense possibility. Gathering with our family can be a time and space for many of us to practice our abolition politics, the tools we learned in therapy, and practice being more tolerant and accepting. Family gatherings can be a space for deep consciousness-raising work and organizing. This holiday season, try entering conversations with your loved ones rooted in a radical love ethic. Seek to see their humanity and speak to them in ways that keep their dignity intact. Making people feel like perpetual failures and unintelligent will not make them abandon their cults, conspiracy theories, and classist and racist worldviews. 

Do not abandon your boundaries or collude tacitly with white supremacy to maintain fake family peace but seek to be more strategic rather than lording your politics over your family. 
It's many people's day off; people have traveled far, some have spent lots of money to go home, people have been cooking and cleaning all day, and others have been prepping for weeks, even months, with their therapist for this visit home. There is so much in the air. Attune yourself to everything, informing the background noise and soundtrack of your family gatherings. Let us never forget that these holiday gatherings are happening on stolen colonized lands. Lands built by stolen and colonized people. All of this and more is informing our time together. Plus, with all the weird family dynamics in the air, ask yourself, what is possible among this fraught, complex group of people today? And sometimes, what is possible is that we genuinely laugh with our family members, remember those we have lost, watch the kids play, and be merry, and for a little while, we are present with the complicated joy. 

We must stop using these family gatherings as an excuse to discharge our valid anger by weaponizing social justice values against our family. Are you truly that incensed by your family's racism, xenophobia, and other problematic views? Are you that shocked, boo?  Or do you have deep shame about your family and all the ways it is unwilling to unpack and heal collectively, and their problematic views on the world are just another sin to add to the list? 

A family unit that thrives on secrecy, shifting blame, toxicity, gossip as a form of intimacy, bullying, and requires unquestioned loyalty is not a family system yet ready to deal with the world's social ills and engage in a conversation about how white supremacy shows up in the family. 

As part of my dissertation, I will theorize and write about how Black feminism is my spiritual and civic practice. I genuinely believe our social justice and anti-racist politics should transform us and make us more loving, ethical people and, therefore, better citizens. This will allow us to engage in the challenging work of organizing people into the movement and get better at making solidarity with one another. 

While perusing social media, there is no shortage of mainly white therapists or mental health influencers encouraging you to go no contact with your family. I am not against going no contact with family members (I have done it myself), but I am against how casually that is mentioned and deployed. I am also increasingly uncomfortable with the number of white people who claim to be anti-racist and who rely so heavily on this tool.  There is also no shortage of people telling you that it is not your job to educate others, and there is some truth to it, but I do believe that if I am on speaking terms with my family, then yes, it is my job to educate and try to organize them, but I can only do this once I have cultivated a real relationship with my family members. Blood relation, adoption, or fictive kinship ties does not equate automatically to intimacy and trust. We must earn the right to be in a deep philosophical dialogue with our people. 

I applaud us all across the age spectrum for wanting to heal from our childhood and family trauma. I am so proud of us for cultivating emotional intelligence and seeking to be different from our family of origin. And I applaud us all for being the catalyst of change in our family, and I think we can do this by not shaming our family members and being so acrimonious. If browbeating and shaming our loved ones worked, no Leftist or Progressive would have an anti-vaxxer, climate denier, Republican, etc., in our family units. 

In the words of Kai Cheng Thom, “I hope we choose love.”

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

LISTENING:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

For this newsletter, we compiled and highlighted all the resources made available throughout the year. Please subscribe to the newsletter to access it.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Anti-racist Check-in

Join me for a free one-hour Anti-Racist Check-in session where I will share some insights to help support our collective practice this year. This is open to people who have taken my courses in the past and to those of you who have not. This is a community offering that is grounded in a Black feminist love ethic. The check-in will be recorded and made available to subscribers of my Patreon. 

If you are able, and the recession and inflation isn't causing you much economic harm, please consider paying at the sustainer level.

Time: Thursday, January 19th from 1-2 PM EST // 12-1PM CST// 11-12PM MST// 10-11AM PST

—

Black Feminist Sunday

Let's gather together virtually and close out the year intentionally. The space is open to all who are practitioners of anti-racism. The event is free, but you must register here.

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Evan W.

• Lara D.

Newsletter #33

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

So, what if we’re each other’s project? The question is, what are we building and destroying together in the name of love?

proj·ect
noun

/ˈpräˌjekt/

1. an individual or collaborative enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim. "A research project."


To me, love is a political project. How we love, whom we choose to love, and whom we choose to withhold love from, the content, context, and contours of our love have been shaped by not just our family but our nation-state(s). White supremacy, anti-fatness, ableism, xenophobia, colonialism, anti-Indigeneity, imperialism, and all other systems of oppression and domination play a role in how we love.

I also consider loving a political commitment because to love within these conditions is challenging. In the enduring book, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, he defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Love and growth are inextricably tied, but we must get curious about what we are building and growing between us. Are we building a garden filled with flowers, veggies, and fruits that will have the ability to nourish us? Or are we building a nuclear mushroom cloud that will subsume and destroy us? Being human is a group project, and there is no more challenging group project than love. We help each other become more loving and more human. Because systems of oppression and domination have captured us, only a principled kind of love will save us and transform us into more loving beings. 

Therefore, when I endeavor to enter a loving space with others, be it familial, platonic, romantic, or undefined, I must have a clear intention, strategy, and goal. I have a choice(s) to make. I can either choose to enter that love space fully on autopilot and allow unchecked and unmanaged bias, oppression, and domination to reign supreme, or I can choose to enter that love space clothed in radical presence as a sociopolitical being who is choosing to have their love animated by anti-racism, Black joy, Black liberation theology, care, tenderness, etc. I view this choice as a political one because my politics rests, rules, and abides in love. 

Loving Black people is my supreme political commitment. And I will also add that non-Black people of color and white people who endeavor to be anti-racist and seek to engage with decolonization are also part of my political love commitments. For example, being friends with white women as a Black femme is a radical faith walk, and I consensually enter these relationships for the sole purpose of one day learning how to love beyond identities and white supremacy. The only successful interracial friendships I have had are with white women who understand and can articulate their political commitments to loving Black people through a deep commitment to anti-racism because love alone is not enough! 

Many Black women bristle when I tell them that learning how to love in healthy, mutually beneficial relationships with complicated Black women is part of my political project. Therefore, I will engage in a principled struggle to achieve this end. And the constant refrain I hear is, “I don’t want to be treated like a project.” And after much thought and talking to the homie Micha, I have finally perfected my answer. To this, I say, so what if we are each other's project? If we have chosen to enter a consensual healthy, loving relationship where spiritual growth, healing, and transformation are possible, what is harmful about us labeling this a project? Many of the Black women, femme, and gender-expansive people I know are survivors of child sexual abuse, gender-based violence, parental abuse, or neglect, colorism, texturism, have been harmed by the carceral system, and above all, have been fed a steady diet of anti-Blackness, anti-fatness, and ableism.  All these systems I have listed are white supremacist projects. These various systems of harm levied against us have made it a struggle for us to give and receive love. It being hard to give and receive love is not an issue unique to Black people. Black people are not pathological.

 We have been shaped and socialized by anti-Blackness, indigenous dispossession, colonialism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, classism, etc. these systems are in us; therefore, we enact them, which means although our worthiness is never in question, I want to be clear we are all worthy of love. These very things also make us not easy to love. Both things are true. 

The word project in relation to love and relationships of various kinds gets a bad reputation, and I think it is because it is so often linked to heterosexual couples. The picture that is immediately conjured up in our minds is of a woman attempting to raise a man who is deeply committed to never leaving Never Never Land. But to me, that is not an example of love being a political project. It is an example of a woman being exploited by patriarchy. Patriarchy tells men that they are complete and finished subjects by virtue of their biology. Heterosexual relationships devoid of a gender liberation ethic do not exist to benefit and nurture women’s growth. And it is the women and the children who must change in order to maintain the man’s presence and support. Patriarchy requires keeping men happy and feeling important as a societal project for the sake of our collective and interpersonal safety. 

However, if there is a patriarchal project, there must be a feminist, anti-racist social justice project and approach to love and relationships. 

When I speak of love as being a project and US being each other's greatest gifts, I am talking about a consensual relationship in which each person who enters in is honest about their flaws, baggage, trauma, and their willingness to confront themselves in the presence of another. As a sociopolitical being who espouses a Black feminist ethic, I believe that the highest expression of love is the willingness to be transformed by love. 

I think that the marker of healthy mutual life-affirming love encourages us to interrogate our motives and get curious about our behaviors that undermine love and our ability to be loving. 

And to me, that is a project I find worthy of committing myself to.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Abled-Bodied Leftists Cannot Abandon Disabled Solidarity to “Move On From COVID - I used to be really clear about the ethics of movement and participation in the early stages of the pandemic. Now that this pandemic is becoming enduring, the ethical lines are becoming harder to identify. This article is the indictment and the call-in we need. Life in the United States is always already risky, especially for Black people and anti-Blackness is disabling. I don’t have the answers, but I am sitting with my complicated feelings. 

“I have this book coming out. It’s about the disabled future, about how most of the world will be disabled soon, and how disabled people kept each other and other people alive during COVID. I have tour dates. They’re all online. Because COVID. Because COVID is still here. Because every week, 90 percent of the country is in high or substantial uncontrolled community transmission — the whole country is blood red on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) map. Because 400-500 people a day are still dying of COVID in the U.S., and long COVID is the third-most common neurological disorder. For all of these reasons, having in-person events would feel like inviting my disabled fan base to a slaughterhouse. I have every booster that exists, and I’m still immunocompromised and not hopping on 19 planes in a row.”

I Changed Everything. Now What? “In two months, I’ll turn 43. It’s still tempting to use my birthday wish for another radical shift in my personal life. But I won’t. I’ve yet to fully celebrate my last wish coming true. But through it, I’ve learned a little something about remaking a life. Perhaps most important: It’s possible. Change will always be both noun and verb; it is a thing that happens to us and also a thing we make happen. Stability is less of a reasonable expectation than an ideal or illusion. There is no limit on the number of times we can course-correct. Even if moving around doesn’t yield the results we anticipate, it’s bound to feel better than being unable to see the point of moving at all.”

Women of America! It’s time to reject ‘magical’ curses peddled by Kourtney and Gwenyth, argues Rina Raphael in a blistering expose of the predatory, pseudoscientific wellness industry - The wellness industry is in trouble as more North Americans reclaim their critical thinking skills and rebuke pseudoscience. I am curious to see what will come of Goop as a brand. 

“Many women have a bathroom cabinet filled to the brim with sham tinctures, creams and supplements. And after one too many hopeful purchases, they have become more discerning shoppers. Fool me once, shame on Gwyneth. Fool me twice, shame on me. Increasingly, people aren't as easily duped by the exaggerated claims of 'gut-healthy tonics or 'stress relief' pills. Fad ingredients like 'activated charcoal' and CBD have taken a beating. Peloton owners rush to offload their bulky clothes hangers on the resale market (with many opting for more social gyms). Science-based influencers like Food Science Babe garner millions of social media fans. This past fall, Goop hosted a cruise trip. No one showed up.”

The Mixed Metaphor Why does the half-Asian half-white protagonist make us so anxious? - “Here is the better question: Do we want to be Asian Americans? I don’t mean this in a voluntaristic, do-you-believe-in-fairies sort of way, but as a real, honest question: Do people of Asian ancestry in this country want to be Asian Americans? The question is not why a mixed-race person should “get” to qualify as Asian despite, for instance, never having been bullied at school or attacked by a stranger; the question is why we cannot imagine any other way to be Asian. And if there is one conclusion to be reached from the mixed Asian experience, it is this: People want race. They want race to win them something, to tell them everything they were never told; they want friendship from it, or sex, or even love; and sometimes, they just want to be something or to have something to be. I do not mean that Asian America will suddenly appear on the horizon tomorrow if enough of us choose it tonight. What I mean is that many people across the country, including many of us who are mixed, are already choosing it, and it is enough for now to ask why. There is, after all, a reason that people sit together: They don’t want to be alone.”

UnfollowYourInfluncers.com - This webpage exists to expose charlatan influencers, and their first case study is everyone’s fave, The Holistic Psychologist. The anti-racist, anti-oppression math was not adding up for me, and I have since unfollowed this influencer. Check out the website and make your calculations.

‘The Netflix Effect’: Why So Many Western Women are heading to South Korea in search of love - White women are engaging in predatory sexual tourism, and Korean men are the objects of prey. 
“Hit Korean television shows like "Crash Landing on You" and "Goblin," were selling more than men with beautiful faces and chiseled bodies like their stars Hyun Bin and Gong Yoo. They were offering a glimpse into a world where men were romantic and patient, an antithesis to what the women saw as the sex-obsessed dating culture of their home countries.”
 

The supper rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse - This article is wild. Instead of the rich trying to save the world that they are actively destroying, they are all in a mad rush to perfect the best apocalyptic plan and trying to use the knowledge of academics to do so. 

“That’s because it wasn’t their actual bunker strategies I had been brought out to evaluate so much as the philosophy and mathematics they were using to justify their commitment to escape. They were working out what I’ve come to call the insulation equation: could they earn enough money to insulate themselves from the reality they were creating by earning money in this way? Was there any valid justification for striving to be so successful that they could simply leave the rest of us behind –apocalypse or not?”

I’m a psychologist—and I believe we’ve been told devastating lies about mental health - I am a huge advocate of therapy, but therapy that is not rooted in anti-oppression is always already dangerous and in service to white supremacy. 

 “None of this is to dismiss the value of one-on-one therapy (that’s part of my job, after all). But therapy must be a place where oppression is examined, where the focus isn’t to simply reduce distress, but to see it as a survival response to an oppressive world. And ultimately, I’d like to see a world where we need fewer therapists. A culture that reclaims and embraces each other’s madness. Where we take the courageous (and sometimes skin-crawling) risk of turning to each other in our understandable, messy pain.”
 

Should You Delete Your Period-Tracking App To Protect Your Privacy - Surveillance capitalism is a real and present danger, and your digital footprint can and will be used against you in a patriarchal court of law. TLDR; I would delete them! 

 “The data collected on period-tracking apps—along with your search history and text messages—could potentially be used by law enforcement to penalize individuals who received an abortion, as well as people who performed or helped someone else get an abortion in some states.”

On Heteropessimissm - Since learning of the term hetereopessism it has been living rent free in my mind. Heterosexual culture is failing straight people and as a Black femininst I am not shocked, but I am very worried. If hetereopessimism is not resolved we who are women, femmes, and gender expansive people will be made more vulnerable to gender based violence. TLDR; femininsts be knowing!

“Heteropessimism consists of performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality, usually expressed in the form of regret, embarrassment, or hopelessness about straight experience. Heteropessimism generally has a heavy focus on men as the root of the problem. That these disaffiliations are “performative” does not mean that they are insincere but rather that they are rarely accompanied by the actual abandonment of heterosexuality.”

A decade of sore winners - Is there a more absurdist creature than the underdog who has become the overlord, but still sees themselves as an outsider? We all know someone who has everything they have ever wanted and still has a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas. 

“Call the 2010s the decade of the sore winner: the underdogs that are top dogs, the upstarts who are establishment. It’s Taylor Swift’s decade as much thanks to her affect as her music. But it’s not just Taylor. Donald Trump is a sore winner. So is Brett Kavanaugh. Every Washington figure who blames “Washington” for their failure to deliver on their promises is a sore winner. Hillary Clinton is not a sore winner — she’d have to win — but she has, it must be said, the vibe. (Recall, for instance, her reaction to being referred to as a member of the establishment.) New York Times columnists and billionaires who think their critics are symptomatic of a second Holocaust? Sore winners. Conservative pundits who, flush with Trump’s favorable court appointments, indulge in ever-escalating paranoia over drag queen story hours are sore winners. Directors of Marvel films who were angry at Martin Scorsese for not loving their work are sore winners. The police are sore winners. Authors of young adult and “chick” lit who feel the need to compare criticism of their work to Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of young girls are sore winners. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is crawling with sore winners. Women who choose to conform to feminine expectations around weight, grooming, and makeup while penning long defenses of high heels, shaving, and lipstick are sore winners (though they are also, in their way and on a higher level, losers). Adult gifted children are sore winners. And so on.”

Social Movement Investing - A guide to capital strategies for community power. 

Antivaxx to Provaxx Resources & My Story- “I’ve been very honest on social media about how 2020 changed me. One of the bigger changes that didn’t come till 2021 was my stance on vaccines. Prior to 2021 I was actually an anti-vaxxer. Yes you read that word right I was an anti-vaxxer. No I was not vaccine hesitant I was completely 100% antivaxx. I wasn’t one of those trolls that would tell people they’re killing their baby by vaccinating them, but I definitely shared my fair amount of anti-VAX propaganda on my social media platforms.”

LISTENING:

Your everyday rituals do impact your life — just no how you expect - From wearing a lucky pair of socks, to following family traditions, rituals are embedded in our everyday lives.

Conspirtuality 118:Detoxing from Wellness with Kerri Kelly

Pop Pantheon - Beyonce’s Renaissance (with The New Yorkers Doreen St. Felix) 

Vibe Check - This is my new favorite podcast that I am subscribed to. Vibe check is hosted by Sam Sanders formerly of NPR, the critically acclaimed poet, and essayist Saeed Jones, and Zach Stafford three gay Black men and friends, The show sounds like a smart group chat that you have been allowed to witness. 

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

To Be Us: To Work: In 2019, I narrated a documentary about the anti-Black racism that Black people experience at work, and you can watch it on Amazon Prime! The documentary is titled To Be Us: To Work; the pandemic made the original rollout impossible. The film hit the film festival circuit and won some awards. I tried to have a screening in Miami, but the many COVID variants would not let us be great. I am happy to report that this documentary is on Amazon, and you can rent it and watch it now. And because I was asked to narrate this film by my good friend T. I now have an IMDB credit, and it will not be my last!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Shay

• Kat O.

• Katie M.

• Wilmide W.

Newsletter #32

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

The tactic transphobia of Progressives

The Southern Poverty Law Center recently put out a poll that I find fascinating, damning, and a serious warning of what is to come in the United States. It states that 7 out of 10 Republicans believe in the white supremicst theory which is known as “The Replacement Theory.” This theory states that Liberals are trying to replace conservative white people through immigration policies. This theory was once fringe, but it is now mainstream. As horrifying and ridiculous as this fact is, it is not a shock. The United States is a nation-state founded on chattel slavery, genocide, and legalized rape therefore this a counry whose soil I believe is ripe for change and possibility it is also ripe for neo-Nazi extremenist ideas fomenting themselves deeper into our national psyche.

The SPLC’s poll also highlighted that Progressives actually harbor lots of animus and retrograde ideas about gender a thing that I, as a Black feminist, had a growing suspicion was a thing. The survey reports that 27% of younger Democratic women and 42% of Democratic men believe transgender people are a threat to childen. And 23% of  younger Democratic women and 46% of younger Democratic men believe that feminism has done more harm than good. 

It appears that Democratic men over 50 are more progressive and feminist in their politics. Youth is not a prerequisite for one being Progressive. 

As a Black feminist here’s what I know for sure in order for white suremacist idealogy to remain supreme it needs patriarchy and patriarchy is rooted in misogyny and it needs to adhere to a rigid understanding of the gender binary. In other words, racism requires a body hierarchy in which men are on top and only cisgender people exist and preferably those cisgender people are white, able-bodied, and open to reproducing preferably with other white people. The presence of Black people, Indigenous people, disabled people, fat people, non-Black people, transgender and gender expansive people threatens the homogenous white ethno-state that white supremacy is ultimately working towards. 

This what makes transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people sacred, beautiful, and necessary to our evolution and survival and also utterly magical. Gender expansive people show us all what is possible when you dare to enact the Audre Lorde ethic of defining yourself for yourself. Gender expansive people show us that there are very few immutable truths.

What the SPLC makes clear is that people across the political spectrum hold extremist views about gender. Earlier this year, I posted a long-from essay video that explored the question Does the Left also have an incel problem? In that video I concluded that the answer was yes. I believe that there are many progressive men whose gravitational pull towards Progressivism is rooted completely in them ensuring that they have suitable sexual choices. I think there are many men with Progressive ideals whose politics ain’t all that deep, but they know if they go full on red pill they will be like their sexless counterparts whose sexism and misogyny have locked them out of love, care, and community with women. 

But men, as the poll suggests, are not the only culprits. Progressive women are really letting their transphobia hang out and I have been noticing this more since The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Many women who believe in abortion as a human right and see abortion as healthcare are also struggling to operationalize a gender liberation ethic and lens to this issue. Many women are enraged by the language of “birthing people” “people with uteri” and all other language that makes it clear that cisgender women are not the only people who get pregnant and have babies. These are women who are okay with transgender and non-binary people to an extent. In the minds of these women transgender and gender expansive people can only exist if women remain on top of the white supremacist body heirarchy and are able monopolize and own all experiences that is tied to feminity. The women who even idenify as feminist see womanhood through a biological essentialist lens, meaning having certain body parts and the ability to get pregant “naturally” are the prerequisite of womanhood. This is a dangerous and reductionist understanding of womanhood. Many cisgender women cannot get pregnant or have chidren without medical intervention. Are these women not real? What about women like me who happily and freely chose not to have children? Am I not real?

Womanhood is not an identity rooted in biology unless you think it is. ‘Woman’ is a sociopolitical identity and designation. Reducing womanhood to biology is to commit to advancing the white supremacist idealogy that is the gender binary. 

If you politically align with Progressivism my question to you is this: what are you progressing towards? What kind of a world are you fighting for? 

If you are a person who is attempting to practice anti-racism, the question I want to ask you is: How can we achieve racial and social justice without gender liberation? 

A gender liberation ethic is critical to creating a society that protects and prolongs life. When was the last time you interrogated your inner colonizers transphobia and misogyny? 

Consider asking yourself the following questions:

• How can your allyship towards transgender and gender expansive people go deeper?

• What is it about the gender binary being destroyed that scares you? 

• Do you think you can benefit at all from the gender binary being destroyed?

• In what ways do you feel oppressed, stuck, or uncomfortable in your body and gender?

• What about destroying cissupremacy scares you? 

• If you are cis: What makes you cisgender? How would you define your gender and your relationship to it?

• When was the last time you rejected a norm that is associated with your gender? What informed this choice?

• If you are cis: What privileges and power does cissupremacy afford you that you refuse to part with?

• If you are cis: What is it about transgender children socially transitioning scare you?

• Did lockdown change your relationship to your body or gender expression if so how?

Liberals, Progressives, Independents, Democratic Socialist and people who politically identify with Leftist politics are not X-Men. We are not special. We struggle with the same racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, ableism etc as our fellow humans who identify with the hard Right. An anti-racist ethic that is devoid of gender liberation is just diet white supremacy. 

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

My Aunties (video) - “Stefan Lynch was raised by gay parents in the early eighties. He was cared for and loved by a group of adults, largely gay men, who he called his “aunties.” Stefan remembers the succession of AIDS-related illnesses in his family, including the death of his father in ‘91.” 

I Don’t Google Anymore. I Tik Tok. - “Just like the advent of YouTube, the school of TikTok has provided a platform for academics, healthcare professionals, lawyers, construction workers, and more to lift the veil on their professions and, in doing so, share a wealth of knowledge that has been previously gatekept or isn’t always easily accessible. Today, #tiktoktaughtme has 6.6 billion views. Under the hashtag lies a plethora of video examples of hacks and advice that, for some, have been transformative, whether that’s learning sign language, or how to deep-clean a bathroom, or why you cough when a drink goes down the wrong hole.”

The Racist Roots of Work Requirements - “Work requirements not only deny families much-needed assistance, but they also discount much of their labor, ignoring the caregiving work that people provide to their loved ones, and pushing them into low-paid, insecure jobs that make it impossible to make ends meet. In order to redress these systemic failings that disproportionately harm Black families and create public policies that meaningfully support all families and the work they do, we need to understand how we got here.”

Be warned: for influencers, social justice is no more than a branding device - “Moon looks like just one example of the cynical and deeply unserious way that social justice operates among influencers: as a branding device. Melodramatic language (phrases like “taking a stand”) disguises the fact that what counts as activism on social media is inherently low-effort and low-cost. Even under these conditions, influencers are spineless. They frantically espouse support for causes that have mainstream buy-in and ignore controversial ones. The anti-racism black square in 2020, for example, was ubiquitous. Expressing views on Palestine is rare.”

The Rise of sides: how Grindr finally recognizes gay men who aren’t tops or bottoms - “Grindr added a position called side, a designation that upends the binary that has historically dominated gay male culture. Sides are men who find fulfillment in every kind of sexual act except anal penetration. Instead, a broad range of oral, manual and frictional body techniques provide a release that’s rich in emotional, physical and psychological rewards. Some adherents refer to these activities as “outercourse”.

Meet the Covid super-dodgers - “There are no winners in a pandemic. That said, if you’ve made it to the summer of 2022 without yet testing positive for the coronavirus, you might feel entitled to some bragging rights. Who’s still in the game at this point? Not Anthony S. Fauci. Not President Biden, who tested positive this week. Not Denzel Washington, Camila Cabello or Lionel Messi. Not your friend who’s even more cautious than you but who finally caught it last week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that nearly 60 percent of Americans had contracted the virus at some point — and that was as of the end of February, before the extremely contagious BA.4 and BA.5 variants became rampant.”

SLPC Poll Finds Substantial Support For ‘Great Replacement Theory’ and Other Hard Right Ideas - “In late April, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tulchin Research conducted a poll of 1,500 Americans to examine the extent to which the extremist beliefs and narratives that mobilize the hard right have been absorbed by the wider American public.”

From Kim to Hot Cheetos girl : white people are ‘retiring’ from Blackness - “To be white, or not to be white? That is the question. Since the 2010s, conversations about cultural appropriation have dominated online spaces, from reminders about the importance of non-offensive Halloween costumes to articles about the Kardashians wearing cornrows and the problematic way in which people, particularly white people, dress at Coachella. For years, white people have consistently used the cultures of people of colour as costumes for play.”

LISTENING:

Conspirituality Podcast - Conspirituality is a weekly study of converging right-wing conspiracy theories and faux-progressive wellness utopianism.

The Higher Practice “The Quaking of America” Resmaa Menakem - “In today’s episode, we are joined by New York Times bestselling author Resmaa Menakem. Resmaa is returning to the podcast to discuss his new book “The Quaking of America”, where he takes a deeper dive into structural racism and its roots in American politics and the political landscape today. We discuss the January 6th insurrection and the path forward during heightened times in such a divided nation.”

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

1. It's so Hard to Make Friends in Miami:

Check out this IG live I did for the @miamiherald, moderated by Lauren Constantino: 

“Miami, as lively a city as it is, can be a difficult place to make lasting friendships.  Even before the pandemic, many of us have struggled to make in-person connections, which are imperative for our sense of belonging — and even for our mental health. At all stages of life, there are times when we need to break out of our comfort zone and meet new people. Whether it’s starting over in a new job, getting over a break-up or losing a loved one, community is important — and in the age of social media, person-to-person connections can be difficult to navigate. But, making friends can be hard in a place like Miami — where ego and clout are king. We talked to Miami locals and transplants about their experience navigating friendships and finding community in Miami. Watch as our guests offer advice on making friends, discuss how they’re creating alternative social spaces and open up about their own personal struggles finding platonic love in Miami.”

2. Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause podcast episode-- Light and Shadow: The Politics of Body Liberation:

I was the guest for July’s “Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause” podcast episode. We talked about:

• Anti-racist feminist frameworks and who controls the narrative about menopause and aging

• Why it’s important to engage in narrative and culture shift work with Black people that disrupts white supremacy, patriarchy, misogyny, and heteronormativity related to menopause

• How people can better advocate for themselves related to menopause and/or its onset with their health provider, employers, family members, etc.
  

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Platonic Love Mixer #2 was on August 27th, summer edition

Platonic Love Mixer #2 happened on Saturday, August 27th at a private location in Miramar. Check out this IG reel about it!

Patreon Shoutouts: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Obed C.

• Elyse R.

Newsletter #31

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

Roe v. Wade has been overturned. We now have a rogue Supreme Court who is aligned with a minority tyrannical party that has craven fascist views and aspirations. There is no longer any pretense of the separation of church and state and people who believed the conspiracy theories and the attempted coup orchestrated by our 45th President are running and winning seats and positions that will ensure that they oversee our next elections.

Life as we know it in the United States is in peril. With that being said, I no longer think that things are worse off now. As a Black femme, I cannot really recall a time that I learned or read about when this settler-colonial nation state was good to people who are not white, male, able-bodied, and land owning.

There have always been apocalyptic conditions for Black and Indigenous peoples. So yes, although our society is rapidly declining and a looming recession threatens to make our lives even harder, life in the U.S. has always been hard for low- income and working class people. However, that pain and suffering is no longer localized like it used to be; now more and more people who have racial privilege are seeing their class protections from harm diminish and they are also feeling Othered.

There is no one coming to save us. Canada is not going to send its army into the United States to defend the rights of people with uteri having bodily autonomy or to ensure that Black and non-Black people of color votes are not suppressed. No one is coming to save the United Statesians. We must save ourselves and we save ourselves by organizing!

Below I will share some thoughts and suggestions and for many of you who have been reading and following me for a while you might find what I have to say is repetitive. The truth is there are no hacks when it comes to disrupting oppression and fighting for your freedom and the freedom of your comrades.

I humbly offer these ideas and suggestions please take what makes sense to you and leave what does not.

1. What do you believe in and how deep are your convictions? - Are you a reformist, are you an abolitionist, are you an anarchist or are you somewhere on the spectrum? It is important in these times to get clear about your political stances because that will inform your political strategies. Be clear about the sociopolitical ideologies that undergirds and informs your politics. For example Black Feminist Thought is the main sociopolitical framework that governs and informs my life and my politics. Yes, lived experiences have deep merit, but we must have an intellectual foundation that will undergird our social justice values and strategies. Theory alone is not enough. Practice alone is not enough. It’s theory + practice = praxis.

2. Who are your people and who do you organize with? - Where does your sociopolitical work live and with whom do you organize with? Many of our fights are local which means we have to get involved locally. Join your local social justice movement orgs. Having a political home will ground you, help you sharpen your analysis, and above all give you a space to practice your politics and open you up to transformation. In the process you may make friends, but that is not a given, but you will have comrades and co-strugglers in this liberation fight.

3. Let go of the notion that our freedoms and our rights are immutable - Angela Davis teaches us that “freedom is a constant struggle.” Anything that is possible in other smaller, more developing nation-states is possible here. The dehumanization of one group within our borders will eventually visit other groups. Our rights until they are enshrined by Congress or we birth a new world rooted in social justice our humanity will always be up for debate and States rights fodder. We must organize and fight like hell for the things that we want and we must remain forever prepared to defend and expand those rights.

4. “The United States is not Blue or Red it’s purple like a bruise” these are the words of the writer, scholar, and podcaster Sarah Kendzior. There is no such thing as a liberal bastion that cannot be usurped by the GOP. Our political strategies and freedom dreams must include all of the republic. Now is the time to really listen and pay attention to the innate wisdom of Southern organizers and organizations who have always had to organize within the most oppressive and racist conditions.

   Just because abortions are legal in your state now it does not mean its safe. P.S. If you live in Canada fascism is on the rise there as well. There is no safe hiding place from white supremacy!

5. Make art, make love, build communities, and rest - Being vigilant and an ethical citizen who is deeply committed to social change does not mean we do not make time for joy and pleasure. Life is still beautiful and filled with immense possibilities. Do not forget to flirt with those possibilities.

6. Steal back your attention and engage your imagination - Our smartphones may be our biggest enemies. Big tech has declared war on our attention. It is much harder to finish a book, to read captions on Instagram, or pretty much anything that requires deep focus. Everything in our society will attempt to distract and seduce us into numbing please do not fall for it. Also, imagination is a powerful revolutionary tool. To get a different world we have to be able to try and do different things. Without engaging our imagination our organizing efforts will always be lacking. Do not let white supremacy put a cap on your imagination and convince you of what is possible.

7. Social Justice is not a cult - If you are deeply committed to social justice and social change then you must resist the urge to turn politicians, activists, organizers, or social media educators into gurus or superstars. Stop pedestalizing people and above all stop outsourcing your critical thinking. Social justice requires us to think critically, question everything, try on new ideas, and above all be transformed by our work and by our study. Resist the urge to turn the smartest, most charismatic, or most attractive people in the room into demigods. Because the minute those people fall from grace many of you lose your center and your focus. Stop it with the idol worship and get more curious about yourself, your motives, your ethics, and your reason for doing what you do. It is okay to be inspired by people, but we are not here to worship them. Just say no to the cult of personality.

8. The stakes are simply too high for us to get distracted and enamored by personalities, looks, and hookups. We are in the era of decentralized leadership. Let's keep it that way. Abolish the savior industrial complex in all forms!

9. “Hope doesn’t preclude feeling sadness or frustration or anger or any other emotion that makes total sense. Hope isn’t an emotion, you know? Hope is not optimism. Hope is a discipline... we have to practice every single day.” — Mariame Kaba
   
   
   

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Interrupting Criminalization - “A collection of resources to aid in evaluation and reflection compiled by Interrupting Criminalization, Project Nia & Critical Resistance.This binder is full of excerpts from resources that we frequently use as jumping-off points when thinking strategically about abolitionist organizing. The excerpts included highlight tools that we’ve found helpful when getting into the nitty-gritty of strategizing and evaluating next-steps: questions to ask, lists to consider, steps to take, and charts to consult.”

Processes of Decolonization by Poke Laenui - This article lays out five critical steps that one needs to undergo in order to do the hard necessary work of decolonization.

CostPlus - This is the website created by the billionaire Mark Cuban where you can buy prescription drugs at a reasonable price. One of the rare occasions when the free market is actually pro the everyday person.

Digital Defense Fund - “We are Digital Defense Fund, and we do digital security for the abortion access movement.”

Euki - A period app that does NOT store or farm your personal data.

Vol 16: Rachel Greenspan: Fake Authenticity, Meme Fatigue +Reply Guys by Matt Klein “But the paradoxical truth is that there’s nothing casual about intentionally telegraphing casualness for the sake of looking cool.I only shared the nasal spray, originally taken to tell my best friend what to get for her cold, because I knew it would telegraph that I understand what’s now cool.”

The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship by Julie Beck - “When this project launched, I wrote, “People are at their most generous, their funniest, and their most fascinating when talking with and about their friends.” The interviews that followed only reinforced that belief. I could continue this for the rest of my life and only scratch the surface of the infinite ways friendship shapes our lives, but I’ve done my best to pull out the recurring themes I’ve observed from these 100 conversations. Though every bond evolves in its own way, I have come to believe that there are six forces that help form friendships and maintain them through the years: accumulation, attention, intention, ritual, imagination, and grace”

What is ‘white gay privilege’? by Natalie Morris - “White gay privilege does not mean that white LGBTQ+ people cannot experience discrimination themselves. Rather, it means they do not have the additional experience of being racialised and treated differently because of the color of their skin.”

A Star is Born Raffi-Gessen Goulds Examined Life by Piper French “Like TikTok toddlers and baby YouTubers, the Raffi essays raise fascinating and thorny questions about children’s rights to digital privacy, and how the internet has influenced our willingness to accept levels of access into people’s lives we would have once found unthinkable and likely grotesque. What happens when the first generation of internet writers, who made their careers documenting their lives and the lives of others in blog posts and magazine essays and even, half-disguised, in novels, grow up and have children of their own?”

Run The Dishwasher Twice: A lesson on throwing out the rule book and saving yourself by Kate Scott “Now that I’m in a much healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and place them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry. But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson: There are no rules. Run the dishwasher twice.”

The Key To Retaining Young Workers? Better Onboarding by Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Reyna Orellana - “How can employers do a better job hiring and keeping young workers? New research from interviews with workforce development specialists focusing on young workers (particularly young workers of color) filling core production tasks in factories, health care, and administrative service firms sheds light on the social aspects of onboarding that can make or break a young worker’s experience. The authors offer ten ways employers can improve young workers’ onboarding experiences to sustain a mutually beneficial relationship: 1) Create career jobs, 2) Communicate opportunities for career progression, 3) Build positive relationships prior to hiring, 4) Ensure a positive first day reception, 5) Assign new hires a mentor, 6) Communicate and explain expectations clearly, 7) Create a culture where young workers can ask questions, 8) Understand their non-work lives, 9) Foster a climate of respect and dignity for everyone, and 10) Create a racially equitable workplace.”

A Safe at Home Abortion is Here - “Plan C provides up-to-date information on how people in the U.S. are accessing at-home abortion pill options online.”

Abortion Funds In Every State

Read, Watch, Listen, Do: An Abolitionist Media Guide - “Copaganda is tired and played. Far too often journalists rely on police, sheriffs, prison officials, and prosecutors as credible sources without scrutiny or even a basic fact-check. These uncritical and unprofessional behaviors lead to an overwhelming amount of traditional news that simply spreads biased police propaganda and stirs up unfounded fears, stifling the public imagination to see beyond the blue.”

The Death of the Social Media Influencer - “The truth is no one knows. Relatability is back in style, a new breed of influencer has evolved: the genuinfluencer. Genuinfluencers are sort of like influencers, but their motivations tend to revolve around education, as opposed to engagement.”

LISTENING:

Hags- Feminism is for Everyone - “We are joined by April Lexi Lee, a Singaporean writer and creative producer based in Los Angeles who takes special interest in exploring and destigmatizing the unconventional and taboo. Today we discuss platonic life partnerships, addressing taboo subject matter on film, where sex therapy fits into our everyday lives, and how to break from tradition to create a future that serves you.”

On Being with Krista Tippett adrienne maree brown - “We are in a time of new suns” - “What a time to be alive,” adrienne maree brown has written. “Right now we are in a fast river together — every day there are changes that seemed unimaginable until they occurred.” adrienne maree brown and others use many words and phrases to describe what she does, and who she is: A student of complexity. A student of change and of how groups change together. A “scholar of belonging.” A “scholar of magic.” She grew up loving science fiction, and thought we’d be driving flying cars by now; and yet, has found in speculative fiction the transformative force of vision and imagination that might in fact save us. Our younger listeners have asked to hear adrienne maree brown’s voice on On Being, and here she is, as we enter our own time of evolution. This conversation shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking: working with the complex fullness of reality, and cultivating old and new ways of seeing, to move towards a transformative wholeness of living.

Critical Theory Treva B. Lindsey, “America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Sruggle for Justice” - Echoing the energy of Nina Simone's searing protest song that inspired the title, this book is a call to action in our collective journey toward just futures.

America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice (U California Press, 2022) explores the combined force of anti-Blackness, misogyny, patriarchy, and capitalism in the lives of Black women and girls in the United States today.

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

1. Black Girl's Guide to Surviving Menopause IG live:

I was a part of the June “What’s Up Doc?” conversation where we discussed anti-racist feminist frameworks and who controls the narrative about menopause and aging, why it’s important to engage in narrative and culture shift work with Black people that disrupts white supremacy, patriarchy, misogyny, and heteronormativity related to menopause, and how people can better advocate for themselves related to menopause and/or its onset with their health provider, employers, family members, etc.

2. For Real, For Real - It's An Emergency:

Your favs are back to discuss the recent attacks on bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom in the US. Krystina and Lutze lay down some frameworks and calls to action now that they have processed recent events.
As always, trust and listen to Black womxn and non-binary folks.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Platonic Love Mixer #2

COMING VERY SOON! More details to come later.

Patreon Shoutout: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Priscila GJ

• Denise A

• Mia L

• Claire OP

Newsletter #30

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

How susceptible to propaganda and myths are you?

How susceptible to propaganda are you? How easy is it for you to fall for a scam? If a cult was courting you, would you be able to recognize the signs?

The ability of most of us to honestly and effectively answer this question will determine how long the United States will remain a liberal democracy. The number one enemy of our republic is rooted in the inability of most citizens to recognize propaganda and to resist being seduced by cults and myths. 

Propaganda is defined as information that is biased or misleading and used to promote or publicize a particular point of view.

On May 14th, 2022, an eighteen-year-old young man drove over 200 miles to Buffalo, New York, and committed a mass shooting, and his target was Black people. Ten Black people, mainly women, were killed, and the shooter was motivated by hate, yes, but the thing that compelled him to make that drive and to choose a grocery store in a Black neighborhood was his belief in a racist conspiratorial theory that has become mainstream with the help of Tucker Carlson of FOX News. 

A recent poll shows that one in three United Stateians believe that there is a concerted effort to replace “Native-born Americans'' and the strategy being used is immigration. The Great Replacement theory puts forth the idea that white voters in the West are being “replaced” by non-whites through immigration. And although African-Americans are not immigrants white people who practice white supremacy see Black people as the perpetual Other. Never mind that Black people were stolen and trafficked to this country by settlers, dehumanized, turned into chattel, and forced to work stolen lands - we are still not seen as humans, let alone full citizens of these United States. And we are being punished for daring to survive.

Ain’t that some shit?

As a digital Black feminist thinker and scholar, I love the internet and love what is available and possible on the internet. I have come across so much life-affirming information on the internet. This newsletter is, in fact, a testament to my love of the internet and how you can  use it as a tool to help keep you politically sharp and savvy. The media tends to hyperfocus on the people who fall into incel traps and Q-anon holes on the internet, aka the people who get red-pilled, but people also get blue-pilled on the internet. People are becoming politicized in lots of directions and lots of biases are also being confirmed on the internet as well. 

So how do you know if you are not falling for the propaganda trap? 

No one group of people has a monopoly on conspiracy thinking. All the people I know who believe in a weird conspiracy theory vote Democrat, make good money, are well educated, and do not watch FOX News. But it is very hard in our society not to bump into or collude with conspiratorial thinking. Recently, a report highlighted that many teens were unable to decipher between a fake news story and a credible one.  And teens are not the only ones who suffer from this; many adults also do not have the media literacy needed to combat U.S.-based propaganda. Sure many of us do not believe in “the big lie” we accept and affirm that President Joe Biden won the last election. We do not believe in Q, but that does not mean we do not flirt with other kinds of lies that have also become mainstreamed or benign. Below I have compiled a list of conspiracy theories and myths that I have bumped into on my journey.

What conspiratorial ideas or myths do you flirt with not so secretly?

• Do you believe Dr. Sebi cured AIDS?

• Do you believe Tupac is alive?

• Do you believe your G-d and your religion has supreme authority over all the earth and, therefore, should be proselytized to ensure new converts?

• Do you believe in the healing powers of detoxing, teas, and alkaline water?

• Do you believe Jay-Z and Beyonce are part of The Illuminati?

• Do you believe the United States did not send a man to the moon?

• Do you believe that Bill Gates or the government is harming its citizens through COVID-19 vaccinations? 

• Do you believe that trans women are trying to co-opt and destroy the category of woman?

• Do you believe that President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney told us the truth about the Iraq war?

• Have you ever gotten into a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme and tried to convince others to join?

• Do you believe in and promote the patriarchal and misogynistic thoughts and ideas that Kevin Samuels, Umar Johnson, etc. have popularized?

• Do you believe that Jewish people are a powerful minority amassing secret power and calling all the shots globally?

• Do you believe Sinbad was in a movie called Shazam?

• Do you believe that Ed McMahon traveled around the United States delivering Publishers House Clearing Checks?

• Do you believe that the concept for the movie The Matrix was conceptualized and stolen from a Black woman?

• Do you believe Black people are the real Israelites?

• Do you believe systemic and structural racism is no match for the law of attraction?

• Do you believe autism is caused by vaccines or gut health? Or that significant mental health conditions can be solved by diet and gut health?

• Do you believe the Earth is flat like Kyrie Irving once did?

• Do you believe that Black men are the most “endangered” subjects within the Black community?

• Do you believe that feminism is destroying the Black community?

• Do you believe gender is binary? And that there are fundamental differences between men and women that can be answered through biology?

• Do you believe that there is a gay agenda to make children queer and transgender, and media is its most powerful tool?

• Do you believe that for children sexually assaulted and who grow up to identify as queer, transgender, or non-binary that their sexual and gender identity stems from their childhood sexual abuse?
  

This is not an exhaustive list, but which ideas have you flirted with in the past, or which ones still have you in a vice grip now? The ideas on this list are all conspiratorial ideas and myths that can be disproven through research on the internet. However, if you are deeply committed to these lies, you will also find lots of “evidence” on the internet to support your claim. Do you have the tools to be able to tell the difference between confirmation bias and facts?

Not all conspiracy thinking will lead to a racist mass shooting, but our republic is being harmed deeply due to many of its citizen’s inability to separate fact from fiction. 

So again, I ask how susceptible to propaganda are you and what is your plan to safeguard yourself from falling into a propaganda hole, however deep or shallow the hole?

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Tedcore: the self-help books that have changed the way we live, think and speak by Steven Phillips Horst - “These books peddle feel-good Marvel movie versions of philosophy that don’t challenge our conceptions, but validate our feelings, often backing up their circular logic with dubious 'research' and 'experts'. They cajole and condescend, opening neural pathways that lead directly to the author’s paywalled Substack. Tedcore doesn’t attempt to decode what others are thinking, instead turning the gaze to our navels, pathologizing our every thought I call this genre 'Tedcore'. Most of these authors have given Ted talks, and much like the popular conference series, these books are accessible yet vaguely highbrow, prone to presenting the mundane as revelatory. With every new trite slogan she drops, the Ted speaker doesn’t just imply, 'Aren’t I amazing?' – she says, 'Aren’t we amazing?!' Everyone gets to leave feeling smarter and more special. Unlike its pluckier predecessors (Men are From Mars, Women are Venus or How to Win Friends and Influence People), Tedcore doesn’t attempt to decode what others are thinking, instead turning the gaze to our navels, pathologizing our every thought.”

Your Favorite Artists Are Rapping About Therapy by Jordan Rose - “Going to therapy, specifically, is a topic that many artists have shied away from in their music—until recently. One of the most visible examples of a superstar rapper addressing therapy on an album was Jay-Z on 4:44, where he faced his infidelity, familial trauma, and ego head-on. “My therapist said I relapsed,” Hov raps on “Smile,” a song about his mother discovering her sexuality. Now, nearly five years later, two of rap’s biggest stars have openly rapped about the benefits of going to therapy (Drake in his verse on Jack Harlow’s “Churchill Downs” and Kendrick throughout his new album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers) during Mental Health Awareness Month. This represents a big step forward when it comes to breaking down the stigmas surrounding mental health.”

Recent surge in U.S. drug overdoese has hit Black men the hardest by John Gramlich - “While overdose death rates have increased in every major demographic group in recent years, no group has seen a bigger increase than Black men. As a result, Black men have overtaken White men and are now on par with American Indian or Alaska Native men as the demographic groups most likely to die from overdoses.”
 

Inequality Kills: The unparalled actions needed to combat unprecendeted inequality in the wake of COVID-19 OXFAM Report - “The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. This causes direct harm to us all, and to the poorest people, women and girls, and racialized groups most. Inequality contributes to the death of at least one person every four seconds. But we can radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality. We can claw back extreme wealth through progressive taxation; invest in powerful, proven inequality-busting public measures; and boldly shift power in the economy and society. If we are courageous, and listen to the movements demanding change, we can create an economy in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.”

Why Is It So Hard for Black Creators to Get Their Due? by Moises Mendez II - “Nearly a year after the dance strike — in which a group of creators very openly refused to participate in viral dances — Black creators on TikTok still face challenges when it comes to getting their due. In response to the complaints, TikTok took a series of steps to show support for Black creators. This included a page titled “Crediting Creators,” which outlined how to properly acknowledge originators of a trend, a TikTok for Black creators incubator program, an initiative to #SupportBlackBusinesses, and a partnership with MACRO to award $50,000 grants to 10 creators.”

What’s Your Rate of Inflation -”Inflation is at the highest level in four decades. But how you experience it can vary greatly depending on what you eat, how much you travel and your other spending habits. Answer seven questions to estimate your personal inflation rate.”
 

Matching With The Enemy by Amanda Florian - “When it comes to injustices in the world, a lot of young people, like Nora, feel inclined to get involved, utilize their resources, and try their best to help out. In fact, Nora is just one of the myriad individuals who’ve begun using apps like Hinge, Badoo, and Tinder to share news about the Russia-Ukraine war. Though she doesn’t speak Russian herself, her parents and friends do, which is how she was able to get her initial message translated into Russian in the first place.”

Brittney Griner’s Wife Doesn’t Think the WNBA Player’s Release Is a ‘Top Priority for Bidenby Emily Leibert “Cherelle later spoke with ESPN’s Angela Rye, retelling the story of the last time she spoke to Griner: “She was so exhausted from always having to go overseas. We talked about it, and I was like, well, you know what babe? Let’s make this your last season overseas. I was like, you don’t have to go back anymore. We’ll figure something else out when it comes to pay.”

Interior Department Realeses Indian Boarding School Report by Jenna Kunze - “The 106-page report—penned by Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland—details for the first time that the federal government operated or supported 408 boarding schools across 37 states, including Alaska and Hawai’i, between 1819 and 1969. About half of the boarding schools were staffed or paid for by a religious institution. The investigation identified marked and unmarked burial sites at 53 of those schools, though the DOI expects to find the number of children buried at boarding schools across the nation to be in the “thousands or tens of thousands,” as the investigation continues.”

I Won’t Stop Intellectualizing the Kardashians by MJ Corey - “These deep dives demonstrate one method by which we can make meaning of the Kardashians’ cultural magnitude: a prompt for deeper inquiry about topics that ultimately transcend the Kardashians as people and instead position them as representations. Representations of the complexity of racial mutability in America, the entrenched tradition of white consumption of Black culture and the wave of social media-perpetuated performative activism that we’re all increasingly grappling with. And that seemingly silly content analysis? When done well, it can offer insight into the power of narrative, which we tend to take for granted despite the fact that narrative is a driving force behind all publicity and politics.”

Why Every Leader Needs To Worry About Toxic Culture by Donad Sull, Charles Sull, William Cipolli, and Caio Brighenti- “Toxic culture, as we reported in a recent article, was the single best predictor of attrition during the first six months of the Great Resignation — 10 times more powerful than how employees viewed their compensation in predicting employee turnover.1 The link between toxicity and attrition is not new: By one estimate, employee turnover triggered by a toxic culture cost U.S. employers nearly $50 billion per year before the Great Resignation began.”

‘Buy now, pay later,’is sending the TikTok generation spiraling into debt, popularize by San Francisco tech firms -by Joshua Bote - Most buy now, pay later services operate as a sort of hybrid between traditional credit cards and layaway. They provide short-term financing on anything from a Gucci handbag to an American Airlines flight, splitting the payment into four chunks, with the first payment due at the time of purchase. The rest is usually paid off either monthly or every two weeks. “These buy now, pay later programs incentivize people to spend above their means, because they're like, ‘Oh, well, it's only this amount over four months,’” Celesta, a Bay Area fashion influencer on TikTok who posts as @itscelesta, told SFGATE. (She declined to give her last name.) “People almost like brag or joke that ‘oh, it was only 24 payments of $20’ or ‘I got it with Afterpay, so it's technically free.’” 

Trends are dead by Terry Nguyen - “These submarkets are not entirely void of politics. Instead, they often promote a sort of political anesthetization. The digital embodiment of a certain aesthetic or attitude (i.e., “reactionary chic”) takes precedence over genuine political resistance. Recuperation, at least on TikTok, isn’t always a process of depoliticization. It’s an attempt at repackaging ideas, attitudes, and aesthetics into identifiable trends — something that can be capitalized on for attention or profit, comprehended, and widely consumed by a mass audience.”

Western Architectture Making India’s Hetwave Worse by Ciara Nugent - “Benny Kuriakose remembers when his father built the first house in his village in the southern Indian state of Kerala with a concrete roof. It was 1968, and the family was proud to use the material, he says, which was becoming a “status symbol” among villagers: the new home resembled the modern buildings cropping up in Indian cities, which in turn resembled those in images of Western cities. 

But inside, the house was sweltering. The solid concrete absorbed heat throughout the dayand radiated it inside at night. Meanwhile, neighboring thatch-roofed houses stayed cool: the air trapped between gaps in the thatch was a poor conductor of heat.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Platonic Love Mixer:

Calling all the gworls, girlies, and theys: let’s be friends boo!

Making friends as an adult is hard, especially in Miami and I want to help you. 

The Social Justice Doula would like to cordially invite you to the Platonic Love Mixer, a space to find friendship and community. It’s happening on Friday, June 17th from 5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m @ 400 NW 26th Street. 

This Platonic Love Mixer is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-gendered, intergenerational space for women, femmes, and non-binary people who want to make new friends across race and gender and who also want to find your people within your community. This means it does not matter if you are a member of Gen-Z, Millennial, Geriatric Millennial, Xennial, Gen-X, or Boomer. People from all walks of life are encouraged to please come out and let’s platonically mingle together! 

This is a queer-centric femme space. What does that mean? Great question bestie, it means the space will center on Black and non-Black transgender women, femmes, and themmes. However, all other people who also identify as women, femmes, and non-binary are welcome to come. 

Bring your bestie with you and come with the spirit of making a new potential friend. There will be lite bites and non-alcoholic drinks available. Broward folks, this is so worth you crossing the county line ;) 

This is a ticketed event. 

Women Authors Across Cultures, Where Are We Going?" Recording: Here is the link to watch the panel I was a part of last month!

Social Justice Doula Youtube Channel Launch: My Youtube page officially launched. Check it out here!

Patreon Shoutout: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Andy

Newsletter #29

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

There is no SJD essay this month

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Jerrod  Carmicheal Monologue - SNL - First-time SNL host Jerrod Carmichael talks about what happened with Will Smith at the Oscars and coming out on his HBO special.

Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome- “The impact of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases was categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed. Many groups were excluded from the study, namely women of color and people of various income levels, genders, and professional backgrounds. Even as we know it today, imposter syndrome puts the blame on individuals, without accounting for the historical and cultural contexts that are foundational to how it manifests in both women of color and white women. Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”

Living With an Invisble Disability- “This brings me back to a point that I make in one way or another over and over again. We fail the people in our midst when we only think of them categorically—and also when we refuse to think of the categories that define them. It is important to attend to both how a person is “read” and how they are “misread.” And most important of all, to listen—or, better yet, to not rely on that vexing sensory metaphor to pay attention (we misread voices too).”

We are Latinx: Why some Latinos have embraced a gender-nuetral identity - To Edgar Gomez,hearing "Latinx" for the first time felt like discovering the movie "Selena," the biopic celebrated by many people who grew up torn between their Latin American heritage and their American identity: Gomez felt seen.

"Like that feeling of being represented accurately for the first time," said Gomez, who is nonbinary and uses the pronouns he, she or they. "That’s how I felt when I discovered the word Latinx. Like, 'Oh, finally someone found a way to reflect me.'"


Losing My Ambition - “There’s an illusion with work that everything you give up now, all the stolen time commuting, working overtime, checking your email and Slack notifications after hours, will somehow earn you freedom and capital in your later years. But the farce of “work hard now, play later” has been exposed for millennials and Gen-Zers; most of us will be working until we die. It’s hard to maintain your ambition in the face of that reality.”

The Legacy of ‘America’s Top Model’ Is Anything But Fierce - “In many ways, Banks’ approach to ANTM and the models feels in line with what people might deem a “girlboss,” a term once meant to signify a woman who made it on her own in a male-dominated workforce but has, in recent years, become a blistering insult. Sophia Amoruso, founder of the retailer Nasty Gal, coined the term. And when her company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, reports of the toxic work environment came to light. I genuinely believe Banks probably thought she could bring fashion into the future by being more inclusive, but along the way she unfortunately reinforced harmful stereotypes that ultimately rewarded a single type of beauty — one that was often thin with Eurocentric physical features. As my colleague Scaachi Koul wrote about the series during its last season in 2018, “It’s impossible for the show to be rooted in wokeness while still engaged in an industry that will never adapt fast enough.”

From Dependence to Indepednence: The Rise Of The Independent Creator -  “Theese are the results of the largest independent, open market study of creators ever done.1Our goal was to better understand what motivated creators, their current challenges and what a more sustainable and successful future would look like for them and the followers who love them.”

Buzz Cuts on African Models: Unpacking the  High Fashion Trend-  “Moreover, the fashion industry’s discreet practice denies black models the freedom to be versatile. A bit of fetishism is at play here. When it comes to the normalising of “bare looks” and the stereotypical notion of “savage beauty.” Ever so present in these industries through this choice of buzz-cuts.”

How We Work Withut Meetings At Levels - “Everyone on our team works whenever and wherever is most conducive for them. Designing this culture creates many benefits for our team members and partners, but requires effort to maintain.”

LISTENING

The Cult Age” The Interview with Cult Expert Dr. Janja Lalich- “Countries undergoing extreme instability – like, say, a violent insurrectionist coup, a deadly plague, climate change catastrophes, and domestic and foreign information warfare – tend to breed cults, and America is no exception! 

Why Podcast Ownership Matters with Brittany Luse adn Eric Eddings of “For Colored Nerds” - “A lot of creators talk about owning their intellectual property and distribution, but co-hosts of the For Colored Nerds podcast — Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse — actually went and made it happen, by any means necessary. The two left the Spotify-owned Gimlet Media network in 2020, leaving behind The Nod show (and its IP) which they had built up since 2017. As “free agents”, the duo made ownership a mandate in its next podcast deal.”

Why Is This Happening?: The Future of Friendships with Anne Frieddman and Amintou Sow-“BFF connections have transformed rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. FaceTime calls, Zoom happy hours, voice memos, group chats and virtual game nights, in many cases, have reworked our in-person interactions of the past. What does the future of friendship look like? Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow have been friends for over a decade, twelve years to be exact. Living on opposite coasts for years now, they had a head start on managing a long-distance friendship. Ann, a journalist, essayist and media entrepreneur and Aminatou, a writer, interviewer and cultural commentator, co-wrote “Big Friendship,” a book all about maintaining their close bond. They join for an inspiring conversation about the future of friendship and what it takes to stay connected for the long haul.”

Truth Be Told with Tonya Mosley 34.Honesty - “They say honesty is the best policy, but what does it really take to be radically honest with ourselves for the benefit of our relationships? This week we're joined by sex educator Ericka Hart and her partner and manager Ebony P. Donnley, as they share how a relationship founded on honesty can be a pathway to our collective liberation. From open relationships to body image, nothing is off the table in this conversation!”

Getting Even with Anita Hill : Reimagining 1991: An Unheard Testimony- “Georgetown Law professor Susan Deller Ross was the only member of Anita Hill’s 1991 legal team who had experience in sexual harassment litigation. Hill and Ross discuss the climate around sexual harassment at the time and reveal new information about the hearing.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

SAVE THE DATE: I am hosting a Platonic Love Mixer in Miami on June 17th! Save the date if you're in Miami (or book your flight ;)) for this happy hour where you will have the opportunity to find other baddies to build community with.

edit: TICKETS ARE NOW LIVE! GET YOURS BEFORE THEY SELL OUT.

Become a Patron: I want to shout out my Patreon again and remind you all that no matter what contribution level you choose, you get the same content!

Patreon Shoutout: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Ali E

• charlene g

• Chris R

• Sammie

• Amy
  Lori

• Lisa E

• Rosie Y

• Neha T

• Sara B

• Deb B

• Susan V

• isa b

• Andrea N

Newsletter #28

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

"Are You the Leader for this Moment?"

Throughout the pandemic, work as we know it has been undergoing a major makeover. It started with The Great Resignation. The Great Resignation was mainly made up of front-line essential workers and low wage workers who concluded that the work they were doing was no longer worth being exposed to premature death. Some people quit their jobs due to suppressed wages and simply changed their minds and wanted to do something different. Secondly, we had what Kara Swisher, a tech journalist and co-host of the podcast Pivot calls The Great Reassessment, which speaks to how people are reassessing how they work and their relationship to work. For example, many people who never worked from home realized that they liked it and wanted to be able to work remotely permanently or have a hybrid model in which they spend some time at the office but not a significant amount of time. And now, we have entered the phase called Quiet Quitting, a term that many white-collar workers are truly embodying. Quiet quitting is the phenomenon in which mainly white-collar workers are no longer leaning in and overextending themselves at work people are making the deliberate choice to care less. 

Last year one of the most popular essays I wrote and heard the most about was the essay in which I talked about work not being your sociopolitical home. This essay came out of the many restorative justice circles I held for many non-profits last year. As a facilitator, I noticed that people were bringing too much of their desires and radical freedom dreams into the workspace, causing them great heartbreak when they realized that their job could not satisfy and fill such a sacred space. I witness people expecting more justice from their jobs with a 501(c)(3) tax designation than their government. I still stand behind this thesis. Many people whose opinion I care too much about weren't feeling my analysis. Although it pains me, I still stand behind my initial thoughts.

The essay centered on non-profit workers whose sociopolitical ideologies are precisely the thing that led them to work at a non-profit. I think you can do good principled work in line with your values at work and still not need to make or require that your job be your sociopolitical home. You can and should be able to grow your consciousness at work, do work that you are proud of, but your job that you work and that exists because under capitalism, everyone must work and because non-profit jobs exist because there is no justice in the world, I think it's dangerous to link your sociopolitical fate to a non-profit job. Non-profits cannot bring about justice; they can only ameliorate and help manage injustices. Non-profits are not equipped to solve major issues, but do you know what the institution is equipped? The government.

So many of us are not wealthy, which means we must work somewhere, and although non-profits and for profits with a social good mission will not liberate us, I do believe people should work at a place and report to people who do not abuse them and at very least are serious about operationalizing their mission and values.

When people quit, they are usually breaking up with their direct supervisor, CEO, or Executive Director. This means these are the people who need to be doing the most self-reflection, taking the most responsibility and accountability. We are rapidly approaching the three-year mark since we have been living inside a global pandemic that has fundamentally changed our planet and us as a species. In the United States alone, we are dangerously close to hitting a million deaths from COVID. I talk to leaders all the time, and I am astonished by how many leaders have refused to be transformed by this moment and let it reshape them. Many leaders across races, ethnicity, cities, and ages are still using a leadership model that only works in a pre-COVID world. 

The world we had before COVID is never coming back. How people think about work and define work will never be the same, yet many leaders struggle to redefine their leadership to meet this unique moment and time, causing unnecessary suffering for themselves and the people who report to them. 

If you are a CEO, ED, or middle manager, when was the last time you assessed your leadership and fitness? In other words, when was the last time you asked yourself, "am I the leader for this moment?" "Do I have what it takes to lead a team during a time of great uncertainty and during a period when work is being redefined in real-time?"

Below are some questions I think leaders and middle managers should be asking themselves as it concerns work: 

1. How are you managing COVID fatigue - COVID fatigue is real and has real material consequences. How are you helping the people and teams you lead to account for COVID fatigue? How have you recalibrated your metrics of success to account for COVID? It's not enough to have a COVID safety protocol that only accounts for physical space and people's bodies. What about the psychological and emotional needs of your team? What are the COVID learnings that will guide your team? How are you helping your team gain back the many skills that COVID has robbed them of? COVID has deskilled us. Therefore, how will you help your team regain the skills that will allow them to be emergent and work within a hybrid model?

2. Checking your empathy gas tank - Is your empathy tank full or empty? It's dangerous to have too much empathy, and so is not having enough empathy. The leaders who will lead successful teams and organizations understand that they must bring the same softness, curiosity, generosity, and a clearly defined love ethic to their leadership as they would into their romantic relationships, parenting, and platonic realm. This does not mean we are attempting to get into inappropriate entanglements or enmeshment with the people who report to us. The intervention here is how do we attempt to truly see the humanity of our colleagues and attend to their humanity with precision and care. Any effective parent will tell you if you have more than one child, you cannot parent them all the same. Therefore, how can you have a  one-size fits all model of management? Leadership is not only found in vision it's also found in the details.

3. Psychological safety - Is it safe to think and experiment in your organization? How are you fostering a culture where people can be creative, think outside the box, fail quickly, and pivot? Leading a team during a global pandemic requires more emergence and a commitment to being flexible and adaptable. Check out the book Emergent Strategy for more on this topic. How are you fostering psychological safety that will lead to more emergence in your teams? 

4. Redefining work - Work on a societal level is being remixed and redefined. How are you inviting your teams to redefine their work plans and schedules? Is it safe for people to express a new vision of work for themselves, which involves only doing the job they were hired to do? Are you open to adopting a generous work from home policy/? 35-hour workweek? Unionization? What needs to change at work to keep your most loyal and hardworking employee happy, and what conditions need to be created to call in more talented team members? Leaders who refuse to break with the model and ethos of work that they inherited from Boomers will not survive in this new era. Work as we know it has changed. Have you?

5. Is your leadership infused with an anti-racist feminist ethic?- What sociopolitical ideas undergird your leadership? After the racial reckoning of 2020, does your leadership thinking, strategy, and behavior rooted in an anti-racist feminist ethic? We cannot redefine work without looking at power and how domination and oppression shape how people enact power at work. I believe that only through an anti-racist feminist ethic can we seek to build a less harmful and violent workplace. Under capitalism, a workplace will never be unproblematic. With that said, it does not mean an organization must be a flat power structure. I don't believe that hierarchical leadership is always bad. I do not think everything should be a meeting or put up to a vote. It's okay to designate a leader to handle things and report back to the group, but ethical oversight must be in place. Each leader should be engaged in the principled struggle when defining how anti-racism and feminism will shape the culture of work. An anti-racist feminist ethic is something that all organizations should deeply consider practicing, no matter their racial makeup.

Leaders must be more clear, compassionate, and forgiving during this epoch. Workers are undergoing a major identity shift and political awakening that is informing their new work demands. Being a leader is not easy, and it is often lonely. If you are too angry, burned out, and cynical to surrender to the transformational energy of this moment, then step down from leadership. If what millennials and Gen-Z bring to work culture offends you RESIGN boo. There is no shame in leaving a CEO or Executive Director position and going back to a less stressful position with less power. Leaders who refuse to adapt will be pushed out by their staff or board. People want more from work. I implore us all to get curious and listen to what we are being told.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

west elm caleb and the feminist panoptican - “here’s a reflection question: imagine the person in this world that hates you the most. maybe it’s someone from high school, a boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, a friend you hurt when you were at your lowest — if they had a platform of millions to tell their version of the worst thing you’ve ever done in the least flattering light possible, who would you be to the internet? what would you now deserve?”

The Pandemic Tried To Break Me, but I Know My Black Disabled Life is Worthy - “If I learned anything about myself during these unprecedented times, it’s that self-love is an ongoing, nonlinear practice. I’m never going to reach a point at which self-love simply exists, especially when my personhood is held up against racial, mental, bodily, and desirability standards I will scarcely ever be able to meet. But I no longer feel guilt about what I am not. Instead, I choose to accept and celebrate what I am, however fragile that acceptance might be. For Black disabled people, self-love is not simply an aesthetic or a trend but a fundamental lifeline we tap into through unapologetic advocacy work and collective support and remembering. As our ancestors have taught us, we are all we have.”

iWTNS.com - iWTNS connects drivers with live legal representation during an encounter with law enforcement after being pulled over in a traffic stop.

Africans in Ukraine: Stories of War, Anti-Blackness and White Supremacy - “In The Devil and the Good Lord, Jean-Paul Sartre said “When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.” Ukraine is fully within their rights to protect their sovereignty from Putin’s invasion, and the global community is welcome to stand beside them. The failure to not only embrace the Black diaspora within Ukraine, but to silence them in service of warfare as they fight to survive, reflects an astonishing level of cruelty in a time when every moment matters. No matter how many iterations of ‘racial reckonings’ we contend with, Blackness is continuously assessed on a subhuman level, denied the basic dignities afforded to the ruling class. Russian information doesn’t need to foment that simple truth; white supremacy perpetuates it on its own accord.”

Tennis Does Not Want Naomi Osaka Around - “There’s no other sport on Earth that actively demeans their stars as tennis does. Ironically enough, between the dominance of the Williams sisters and Osaka’s transcendence, tennis is the only global sport that’s been ruled by Black women for the last three decades and counting. The irony is even more infuriating when you realize what happened to Osaka was just days after International Women’s Day, which takes place during Women’s History Month, and she was heckled by… a woman.”

Race, Anti-Blackness, and the Cherokee Nation: A Reading List - “In the past week in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we’ve watched as cities, towns, and villages have risen up, marched against police brutality, and demanded that Black Lives Matter. If the Instagram stories and twitter threads are any indication, many are waking up to issues of racism and inequality for the first time, and it’s simultaneously frustrating and beautiful to watch. While many white folks have a lot of learning and un-learning ahead, we in Indian country do as well, especially in my own tribe.

We in the Cherokee Nation have work to do.”

Citing Indigenous Scholars and Knowledge Keepers - “For decades, Indigenous scholars have called for better ways of acknowledging Indigenous voices in academia. Many of our structures within the academic world today are rooted in Eurocentric systems that have always placed a higher value on Western knowledge rather than Indigenous oral traditions and ways of knowing. Citation is undoubtedly one of these structures.”  

LISTENING:

FANTI 110. Fatphobic (ft. Amber J. Philips & Da’Shaun  L. Harrison- “This week, jh and Tre’vell invite filmmaker Amber J. Phillips, and author Da’Shaun L. Harrison (Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness) to the show for a conversation about fatphobia (read: jh’s fatphobia). Regular listeners may recall jh’s response to an email calling him out for expressing satisfaction that his beard hid his “double chin”. The critique was that “double chin” was code for fat, and that jh’s fatphobia was showing. Amber and Da’Shaun were both given permission to drag jh, so that he, and FANTI listeners, can confront their own fatphobia, which is Anti-Black as well. Strap in!”

Inner Hoe Uprisings- I found a new podcast to listen to. It’s all about sex, it’s raunchy, and I am kind of hear for it. It is hosted by four Black 20-somethings in NYC. 

All My Relations: Black Native History with Dr. Tiya Miles -”Back in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd and during the Black Lives Matter uprisings that followed, All My Relations started a journey to support the Black community and Afro Indigenous relatives through having conversations on police brutality, anti-blackness, Indian Country’s connection to chattel slavery, and Afro-Indigenous history. This first episode in the series features an interview with Harvard professor Tiya Miles. Professor Miles is a scholar, historian, and writer whose work explores the intersections of African American, Native American and women’s histories. With Dr. Miles, we focus specifically on the history and structure of Black and Native interconnection. Through the lens of early Cherokee interactions with Black people, we talk about Black and Indigenous peoples first relationships that were shaped in a settler colonial landscape. We talk about how some southeastern Tribes like the Cherokee bent to colonial standards and acted in ways antithetical to Indigenous values by owning enslaved Africans, and how this legacy of pain and abuse has effects today for the descendants of those who were enslaved, and our communities as a whole. We touch on current conversations around the recognition of Freedmen Descendants by the Five Tribes.”

Movement Memos- Harsha Walia: “To Become Ungovernable Is Central” - Organizers Kelly Hayes and Harsha Walia talk about “how we remake the world.”

New Books Network - Myisha Cherry “The Case For Rage” - “According to a broad consensus among philosophers across the ages, anger is regrettable, counterproductive, and bad. It is something to be overcome or suppressed, something that involves an immoral drive for revenge or a naïve commitment to cosmic justice. Anger is said to involve a corruption of the person – it “eats away” at them, or plunges them into madness.

Maybe anger has been under-appreciated. Perhaps we have failed to make the right distinctions between different varieties of anger – thereby overlooking kinds that are productive and appropriate. In The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle (Oxford University Press 2021), Myisha Cherry argues that we need to give anger a chance. After identifying distinct forms of anger, she defends a kind of anger she calls Lordean Rage, which she argues is central to antiracist social progress.”

Intersectionality Matters with Kimberlie Crenshaw: Drag at the Intersection - “In this episode, Kimberlé is joined by Bob the Drag Queen for a conversation full of critique and celebration of all things drag. Having once existed at the margins of legality and social acceptability, drag has now moved into the mainstream with the popular success of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, Dragula and We’re Here. Even with this moment in the limelight, drag’s inherent subversiveness, fearlessness and resilience shine through, posing fundamental questions like: What is gender and how it is performed? How does race interact with the performance of gender? What are the transformative possibilities and the limitations of this as an art form? And ultimately, what can drag do to contend with and push back against social injustice?Through laughter and honest reflection, Kimberlé and Bob answer these questions and more as they explore drag's ability to be a tool for intersectional activism, their favorite figures in Black and queer history, what it was like being a child of the South, and the vital need to protect Black stories.”

Under The Influence : Where’s My Village - “It’s no secret that all of us are in the midst of a mental health crisis. And women, especially mothers, have been hit the hardest. But what is an entire generation of mothers to do when they live in a country where any kind of health care, especially mental health care, is largely inaccessible and unaffordable? A lot of moms turn to Instagram. Mental health creators have been around for a while, but should they be trusted as a source for psychological well being? Do these creators really help or just make people who are already broken more vulnerable? Maybe both can be true at once. This is part one of two episodes. Today we explore why we turn to social platforms for comfort in the first place and discover that looking for answers to our mental health and self care quandaries in the media isn’t exactly a new thing at all.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Politics of Disposability: On Cancel Culture and Accountability ~ A Teach-in on April 26, 12 PM EST:
In collaboration with the Association for Size Diversity and Health, I will be doing a teach-in on how to become more ethical and not throw each other away. This will be a virtual class and offers a CEU credit. Here is the link to register.

"Women Authors Across Cultures: Where Are We Going 2022" ~ Panel on May 1st, 2 PM EST in the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center:
The world has been turned upside down by the pandemic, climate change, gender inequality, political upheavals, racial unrest, and even threats to democracy. So where do we go from here? Join us as four acclaimed women authors offer their unique visions for the future.

Patreon Shoutout: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

• Carrie F

• Sophie D

• Lyndy

• Rosario C

• Marisa

• ML

Newsletter #27

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“What the film The Devil Wears Prada can teach us about our socialization"

One of my favorite movies is the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada which stars the G.O.A.T. Meryl Streep, whose character Miranda Priestly is said to be loosely based on Anna Wintour. In the wake of the Black fashion icon Andre Leon Talley's passing from the NPR show, It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders, I recently learned that the Stanley Stucci character Nigel was actually based on Andre Leon Talley. Imagine having your painful story of being maligned, looked over, and exploited by your famous white woman boss enshrined in film history, is painful enough. And then to be portrayed by a white man in the film. The erasure! (I genuinely hope my queer kin and now ancestor finds peace, love, and adoration that was stolen from him in life).

The Devil Wears Prada is an iconic pop-culture film that has one of the most recognizable iconic scenes. You know the scene I am talking about: it is the one that is all about the color cerulean. If you have not watched this scene in a while, please do yourself and me a favor and watch Meryl Streep give a masterclass in acting. This scene is one of my favorite movie scenes of all time that lives in my head rent-free because there are many ways to read and interpret it if you give the text a close reading.

I think the scene is a damning indictment of how we have all been captured and shaped by socialization. It does a beautiful job of reminding us that socialization is far deeper and more pernicious than we want to admit. In the scene, Andy, played by Anne Hathaway, is scoffing at all the commotion and the gravitas that Miranda and everyone else who works at this Vogue-esque fictional world is giving to fashion. And of course, Andy thinks that because she does not put lots of thought into her attire, she is above the fray and, therefore, a more serious and better person because she is not as vapid as her colleagues. Of course, the climax of this moment is when Miranda points out that even Andy's frumpy ugly (my sentiments) sweater that she gave no thought to when she purchased was a decision already made for her by the fashion industry that she was mocking. Anne Hathaway's character is a beautiful example of how many of us who espouse social justice and anti-racist feminist politic think we are above our socialization. Or that we have mastered our socialization and therefore have seen all that there is to see in regards to its depth and hold on us.

What we deem beautiful, what turns us on sexually, what turns us off sexually, our fears, anxiety, and joys, what we are attracted to is not as innate and intrinsic to our being as we would like to imagine. 

Marketing, advertising executives, heads of Hollywood studios, big tech, Anna Wintour and her ilk, porn, media, etc., have all conspired against us and have crafted our desires for us. There is no such thing as making a decision outside of this reality. The reality is that we live inside of this racial capitalistic apparatus. The best we can do is get curious about ourselves to ensure we see the new and sinister ways our socialization controls and dominates us. The cerulean scene is an example of our unconscious bias. Andy thinks her cerulean sweater exists outside of the ugliness and shallowness of the fashion industry, but it does not. And the gag is Miranda is the more informed one because she is fully aware that her desires can be manufactured and manipulated. 

Not a month goes by in which I am not humbled, aka brought to my psychological knees by my socialization. I visit often with my anti-Blackness and other problematic thoughts. Because I am the Social Justice Doula, a doctoral candidate who studies gender, race, sexuality, and social justice, and because I am BlaQ does not mean I have outsmarted my socialization. There is no way to deny that I was born and reared in an anti-Black, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-poor, anti-trans, anti-Muslim, and anti-queer society. These systems of oppression and domination inform my desire to purchase the cerulean sweater that appears to be an apolitical decision on the surface. I often tell my coaching clients that as your sociopolitical consciousness grows, your socialization's ability to trick you and evade your watchful eye does as well.

I engage in principled struggle with my socialization by continually reminding myself that my socialization is older and knows me better than I know myself. It has no shame when exploiting my ego and desires against me. It is only when I humble myself and accept this fact that I can put proper safety measures to protect myself and others from my socialization steeped in white supremacy.

Are you tracking how your socialization comes up and threatens to arrest your development? Are you honest about where your lack of awareness is when it comes to having a nuanced understanding of your power and where you have unearned benefits and privileges in your life? Get curious about the things that inform you and how you have arrived at your desires, opinions, and beliefs. Lastly, don't take it personally when you see evidence of your socialization in your thoughts, behaviors, desires. It's your socialization, and there are tools to keep it in check. But you only can check that which you are conscious of.

This is why and how the term stay woke was birthed. You have to be awake and paying attention to check yourself.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

TikTok has an original scripted LGBTQ+ drama called Hidden Canyons that can be viewed on TikTok. I am loving this moment we are in and how niche tv is becoming and how people are playing with mediums and forms. I just recently found it and I am loving it thus far. 

Vaccines & Freedom | Philosophy Tube - “As part of a research project with the Royal Institution, we spoke to real people who have declined the covid vaccine to learn how they might be persuaded!”

Inside Voices - This website which is still in beta is an online site where Black and non-Black workers of color can anonymously share and rate how racist and inclusive their workplaces are. Although, I think it’s impossible to work in a workplace that is devoid of racism, some companies are more harmful than others. Perhaps this website can be part of your next job decision-making. 

The myth of bringing your full self to work - This is a TED Talk by Jodi-Ann Burey that I implore everyone who is striving to create more inclusive workspaces to deeply reconsider the notion of authenticity at work when we are talking about Black people. 

My Platonic Life Partnership Went Viral On TikTok & People Have A Lot of Questions - “We had both a deep platonic love and commitment to each other, and also engaged in level-headed discourse about major life decisions to make sure they aligned. While I’m not familiar with how romantic couples decide to get married, I imagine it’s similar to our decision to be in a platonic life partnership. When someone consistently helps you become the best version of yourself, and your future feels brighter and bolder with them, why would you not want them by your side forever?”

What to the Black Jew is Passover? - "Passover is the week when I deal with what it means to be simultaneously Black and Jewish in America. I organize a seder; I invite people I care deeply about into my home. I create and print a custom Haggadah each year. We get wasted drinking two sizable grape dranks on empty stomachs (wine, gin/vodka/soju and concord grape juice, take your pick). We laugh our way through whatever play-version of the Maggid my spouse has picked out that year. We also make sure to talk about Black and Palestinian experiences around the world. It is through this joyous experience that I reconcile being Black and Jewish at the same time, getting to craft an environment where my identity is whole. I know that everyone there understands this is a time when I honor my ancestors, biological and spiritual, who toiled under the Pharaoh of white-supremacist capitalism and colonialism. Passover is the part of the year when I bring my community together and call on us to lift up Black history, Black joy and bountiful Black futures.”

Am I a Lesbian? - “If you’re questioning if you’re a lesbian, it's way more important to ask yourself if you can be truthfully happy with a man than if you’re attracted to them. Ask yourself if you can have healthy fulfilling relationships with men and actually wanna be with them. You can be attracted to men or not know if you are because of compulsory heterosexuality and it doesn't mean you want to be with them. Attraction is supposed to feel good. If being in relationships with men isn’t appealing to you, if you can’t truly see yourself ending up happy in relationships with men, or if your attraction to men makes you uncomfortable, you may be a lesbian. Lesbian isn’t a dirty word and being a lesbian is beautiful. Many lesbians STILL struggle with compulsory heterosexuality even when they know they don’t want men.”

LISTENING:

Today, Explained : Is Everything Trauma now? - "Psychologists are worried that 'trauma' is losing its meaning. A trauma survivor says they shouldn't be.”

Going Through It: The World is Bigger Than the Bad with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein - “Being a leader in a field is hard. Being a leader in theoretical physics as a Black woman is a unique battle. When the weight of being one of the first became too heavy, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein turned to her mom for perspective.”

Truth Be Told: 30. Obligation - “Black men have it hard in America. 

And by and large, Black women have felt an obligation to show up, love, and support them. Is it too much to ask that they show up for us?

That’s the topic we’re taking on this week with writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux. She recently wrote a piece for Vanity Fair where she coined the term 'the Black Ass Lie,' pointing out the harm that comes from the ongoing narrative that straight Black men have it the worst in our society. She believes this lie is to the detriment of Black women, queer and trans people. In this raw and unfiltered conversation, Jamilah unpacks the layers of obligation Black women have to Black men with writer and professor Kiese Laymon. We explore the use of the b-word used to rhetorically destroy Black women — and what holding Black cishet men accountable actually looks like.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

The Politics of Disposability: On Cancel Culture and Accountability ~ A Teach-in on April 26, 12 PM EST:
In collaboration with the Association for Size Diversity and Health, I will be doing a teach-in on how to become more ethical and not throw each other away. This will be a virtual class and offers a CEU credit. Here is the link to register.

"Women Authors Across Cultures: Where Are We Going 2022" ~ Panel on May 1st, 2 PM EST in the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center:
The world has been turned upside down by the pandemic, climate change, gender inequality, political upheavals, racial unrest, and even threats to democracy. So where do we go from here? Join us as four acclaimed women authors offer their unique visions for the future.

Patreon Shoutout: We want to give a special shoutout to our patrons who pledged this month!

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Newsletter #26

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

Dear bell hooks,

Dear bell hooks,

I hope that you are in the arms of your ancestors and that you had a safe and pleasant voyage to the other side. I was convinced that you and I would meet before you became an ancestor: like I would have bet the farm on it. I was sure that I would get to bow before you and thank you for saving my life many times and for paving the road for me. I am not sure if I would be the current version of who I am if I never engaged with your scholarship. My life is currently fashioned after the blueprint you provided us.

You are the OG Black feminist public scholar. Like you, I espouse a Black feminist politic. Like you, I majored in English, and like you, I am an aspiring cultural critic who is pursuing a doctoral degree. And because of the freedom path, you charted for yourself I have decided to reject the academy and its trappings before it kicks me out or kills me prematurely. You are the reason that I can be so audacious in my ambitious pursuits. You gave birth to me, you shaped me, and you taught me much of what I know about theory and praxis. When I read your book Feminism is for Everybody I felt the tectonic shift within me. My life can be easily marked in the following ways: the Lutze that existed before I read bell hooks and the Lutze that exists after reading bell hooks.

You taught me that I can be a serious feminist thinker and be an avid reader of self-help literature. You gave me the courage to no longer be ashamed or hide the fact that I am a consumer of self-help. Through reading and listening, you also demonstrated to me how one can be a serious feminist thinker and bring that into your spirituality and recovery journey. You made M. Jacqui Alexander's words ring true, “the spiritual is also political.” You read Louis Hayes and were deep into the woo-woo and it meant the world to me that someone as sociopolitically sharp and rigorous as you could have diverse spiritual teachers.

I am so profoundly sad that you are gone at sixty-nine years of age. That feels entirely too young of an age to lose someone like you. You are the same age as my mom and aunt and you are the same age Linda (Pamela’s mom) was when she died. So many women I know both Black and non-Black and non-binary folks were deeply affected by your passing. I hope that you were able to feel a glimpse of our love and reverence for you when you were alive.

I invoke your name often and thought about you frequently. I often wondered if you ever found love again. I remember you gave a talk somewhere and you said if you knew after leaving that man you would be single for twenty years you are not sure if you would still leave him. It is comments like this that made me love and revere you so much. You were not afraid to speak publicly about love, loss, and how you yearned for romantic love. One of my biggest fears is that my being a Black feminist will make love hard for me to find and if I am being truthful being a serious sociopolitical subject has indeed made the pursuit of romantic love very difficult. This is why I love your book All About Love so much. You always encouraged us to take love seriously and to prepare ourselves for love and its transformative power. Thank you so much for writing about love and always bringing love up. We needed it. In that book, you made it clear how the personal is political and that love requires our attention. It is by reading All About Love I found the book The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck which also fundamentally changed my life. I am currently rereading Sisters of the Yam, the copy I have been borrowing from the library for almost a decade now and it makes me miss you even more.

You were always ahead of your time and even when it was profoundly unpopular. I remember when Black Twitter was mad with you for your comments over Beyonce and wanted to cancel you. I vehemently disagreed. Thank you for being a complicated human being and teaching us that not even our beloved faves are above critique and that which we hold sacred should also be interrogated. The world is a scary place for smart Black women with strong unpopular opinions. Thank you for showing us how to do critique with a Black feminist care ethic.

Thank you for loving Black people as much as you did. It is because of you that I make sure to imbue my politics with a radical love ethic. I wonder if you ever watched us Black feminnist thinkers on Instagram, YouTube. Or read our tweets and thought to yourself, “look at what I have created?” Were you pleased with your creations? You are the blueprint bell. You taught us how to do cultural criticism through a Black feminist lens and everyobdy is eating it up abd trying to copy it . Thank you for taking yourself, your ideas, and your purpose in life seriously. Thank you so much for showing us another way. 

The same way that I relentlessly invoke Audre Lorde and Harriet Tubman I will make sure to invoke your name with the same fervor. I am working hard to spread the gospel of Black feminism and to make sure everyone knows that feminism is for everybody. May you find the rest, the healing, the love, and the community in the realms of the ancestors that may have evaded you in life.

I love you and I am going to miss your brilliant hot takes.

Love, Lutze

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

“Dave Chappelle and “the Black Ass Lie” That Keeps Us Down” by Jamilah Lemieux -Black America’s version of “the big lie”—“the Black ass lie”—is that Black men have it worse than any other group of Black people. In her best-selling Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower, scholar and Crunk Feminist Collective cofounder Brittney Cooper writes, “Black men grow up believing and moving through the world politically as though they have it the toughest, as though their pain matters most, as though Black women cannot possibly be feeling anything similar to the dehumanization and disrespect they have felt.” There is little to no consideration of what those of us who are harmed by misogyny, and maybe hurt even worse, might endure. “That it might, in many cases, be worse for us,” laments Cooper, “seems to many men a preposterous supposition.”

Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard by Katharine Smyth- “Looking out the airplane window at the great blue sky, I thought about how making friends in midlife, while challenging, might also be a gift, a chance to enlarge one’s world and one’s self. It sometimes feels at 40 as if our lives have assumed their final shape, entrenched as we so often are in our careers and cities and relationships. But to meet new people like Steph—who has already taught me about the Mountain West and what it’s like to grow up in a Mormon community, and who sees me as I am right now, not as who I used to be—is to acknowledge the growth that we all have left to do. When I imagine my life in another 40 years’ time—full of old friends, yes, but also friends that I have yet to meet—it looks like a sketch of heaven indeed.”

“NPR is losing some of its Black and Latino hosts. Colleagues see a larger crisis” by Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi – “But Garcia-Navarro pointedly disputed this in her tweet. “People leave jobs for other opportunities if they are unhappy with the opportunities they have and the way they have been treated,” she wrote.

Despite giving unprecedented opportunities to women since its founding in 1970, NPR has struggled for many years to diversify its audience and provide alternative perspectives. It hired its first African American host of “All Things Considered,” Michele Norris, in 2002 (Norris is now a columnist for The Post). It launched but canceled programs aimed at minority audiences, such as “News and Notes,” and “Tell Me More,” the latter hosted by Michel Martin, who went on to become the weekend host of “All Things Considered.”

Latino groups want to do away with “Latinx” by Russell Contreras – “Elected officials, a major newspaper and the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. have all spoken out strongly in recent weeks against the continued use of "Latinx," the gender-neutral term promoted by progressives to describe people of Spanish-speaking origin.”  

Jim Crow Debt: How Black Borrowers Experience Student Loan Debt created by The Education Trust- This report shows how cancelling student loan debt is indeed a racial and economic issue. As someone who has six figures worth of student loan debt that often makes me deeply anxious I appreciated knowing this report exists and centers Black borrowers who are MORE likely to have six figures worth of debt. Just sayin!

Dear Saweetie, It’s Not Giving Sis- In this YouTube video King of Reads talks about how Saweetie the rapper who is a lackluster and often mediocre performer is still given the opportunities due to colorism. Messy disclosure: I really like Saweetie and it's probably informed by attraction and with that said I would never pay real money to see her perform. We all have our things and we are all touched by socialization!

Meet America’s First Drag Queen for President by Whitney Skauge – This is a 10-minute documentary entitled The Beauty President which is beautiful and must watch and you can also read the article at the L.A. Times about the short film. 

How Tumblr Became Popular For Being Obsolete by Kyle Chayka – “In the hyper-pressurized environment of social media circa 2022, it’s rare to encounter a past digital self, unless it is being dug up to defame you. What makes Tumblr obsolete, for the moment, are the same things that lend it an enduring appeal. The fact that it maintains a following should remind us that we use social-media services by choice; no platform or feature is an inevitability. As Karina Tipismana, the student, told me, “People say stuff like, ‘I wish we could still use Tumblr.’ It’s there, it’s there!”

The Relentless Reality of Anti-Fatness in Fitness by Kelsey Miller -  “In the grand scheme of things, these are still small steps. For fitness to be truly inclusive, it will require many more practical changes: redesigned machines, much more visibility and opportunity for plus-size fitness models, multiple activewear brands selling 7X clothing. Beyond that, it will require a fundamental shift in our understanding of fitness, health, and weight. “Most of us have been taught to believe that the only reason to exercise is for weight loss,” Dr. Meadows explains. “And we’ve been taught that in order to exercise for weight loss, it has to look like Jillian Michaels screaming at some poor fat woman crying her eyes out and puking over the side of a treadmill on The Biggest Loser. Otherwise, it’s not real exercise; it’s not worth it.”

Disabled Americans Feel Abandoned by CDC. Now CDC Is Desperate to Make Amends by Marisa Kabas- “Maria Town, President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, remains disheartened by Wallensky’s comments. “[It] highlights the fact that the Director and the CDC view people with disabilities as acceptable losses during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Town tells Rolling Stone. “Her comments, even with the additional context, reveal the systemic and institutional biases against disabled people that determine our lives are inherently worth less.”

Jesus and Hagar : The Form of a Slave by Reverend Wil Gafney Ph.D. – “There are and always will be those who say she didn’t really see God and certainly didn’t see God’s face. Some may not know that the Divine messenger called the “angel of the Lord” in older translations is really God in drag protecting us from the full splendor of their glory so they may interact with humanity without harming us. There will always be those folk who will tell us, womanists and feminists and those who read through rainbow-colored and trans-forming lenses that we haven’t seen the God we have seen, that we don’t know God because He doesn’t look or sound anything like what we bear witness to. Were Hagar’s and Sarah’s understandings of God reconcilable? Were they even the same God? Some of us have been asking that question about white Christianity for 400 years and some of us have been asking that question about conservative Christianity for the last 50 years.”

A Pandemic Romance Post-Mortem by Stacia L. Brown – “It might be foolish to expect that the person who you meet when you think you could die at any moment is the person who’ll suit you best in the long-unfurling years after that imminent threat subsides.”

A People’s History of Black Twitter Part 1 by Jason Parham – “More than a decade later, Black Twitter has become the most dynamic subset not only of Twitter but of the wider social internet. Capable of creating, shaping, and remixing popular culture at light speed, it remains the incubator of nearly every meme (Crying Jordan, This you?), hashtag (#IfTheyGunnedMeDown, #OscarsSoWhite, #YouOKSis), and social justice cause (Me Too, Black Lives Matter) worth knowing about. It is both news and analysis, call and response, judge and jury—a comedy showcase, therapy session, and family cookout all in one. Black Twitter is a multiverse, simultaneously an archive and an all-seeing lens into the future. As Weatherspoon puts it: “Our experience is universal. Our experience is big. Our experience is relevant.”

LISTENING:

For Colored Nerds – My absolute favorite podcast has come back and I am over the moon. If you listened to and loved The Nod podcast then you knew the voices Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings. Two Black people who love Blackness and Black people and it comes through in how they construct their programming. This is definitely FUBU. 

Boys Like Me – Is a podcast series that comes out of Canada CBC.  The series is about a man in Toronto who was a incel and who committed a domestic terrorist attack fueled by his hatred of women. If the intersection of white supremacy, patrichy, and violence is something that you make a habit of keeping tabs on, this podcast series is for you. 

How To Love with bell hooks / The Truth of Romantic Love with Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath – After hearing about the passing of bell hooks my grief led me to an Apple podcast to search if anyone had recently spoken to bell and that search led to this episode. bell hooks is the reason why I consider myself a Christian Buddhist because Buddhism was important to her as it is for me. Buddhism has saved my life many times.  

Back Issue – Is a Blackity Black podcast hosted by Tracy Clayton and Josh Gwynn they take a look at past moments in Black pop- culture history and do an awesome job of bringing its cultural relevance to the present. If you are a millennial or young-ish Gen-Xer this podcast might be for you. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Communal Healing: a discussion of bell hooks' Sisters of the Yam - Lutze was able to be a part of this IG live with Jenn M Jackson, Alexandra Moffett-Beateau and Erika Totten. They discussed bell hooks' Sisters of the Yam and her critical contributions to our self-healing and self-recovery in this political moment. This discussion is a part of the #BlackFeministBookClub. Learn more via the link in my bio or at JennMJackson.com.

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Newsletter #24

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

Living a Public Feminist Life

For the past few weeks I have been asking myself, “I wonder what Angela Davis has to say about love?” or “I wonder how Mariame Kaba is handling her unvaccinated comrades?” I have hit a new and deep pandemic lows and my sadness, anxiety, and overall feeling of extreme vulnerability has me curious about the secret mundane lives of my favorite feminist thinkers. I want to know how they navigate hard sticky love stuff with their comrades, friends, lovers, and colleagues. I want to know if my favorite Black feminist thinkers have someone to rub their feet or run them a warm bath. I want to know the kind of care and ethic these women are receiving because I am currently not receiving the love and care I truly desire.  

I describe Black feminism as my civic spiritual practice. Black feminism helps me to articulate myself as a sociopolitical being. Put differently, Black feminism teaches me that both the personal and the spiritual are political. There is no corner of my life that my politics do not enter. Which means I am always engaging with my Black feminism, anti-racism, and social justice values. 

 Feminism has given us so much language and analyses and has moved the world forward on so many issues, but I feel like when it comes to the mundane and the frivolous feminist have only just entered the chat. For instance when one wants to engage in a feminist liturgy on love the only major book in our canon is All About Love by bell hooks. A book I will never stop reading and I want to know where its companion is? I read widely and listen to all sorts of thinkers and more often than not I find myself listening to famous writers or thinkers who are not trained in gender studies and I am always having to add a class, racial, gender, and social justice lens to whatever the speaker wrote or said. I hate having to go out of my discipline and my civic spiritual practice for guidance. Because to me feminism and more specifically Black feminism is the truth, the light, and the way. 

This is precisely why I named the newsletter ‘theory + practice = praxis’ I wanted to show people who read my work, pay for my online courses, and who hire me to work with them how I am embodying and living a feminist life. I want to make clear how I am bringing and considering social categories such as class, race, gender, ability status, nationality, citizenship status and etc., in my decision-making and the building of my feminist life. This was also the impetus for me rebranding the newsletter and adding more of my personality and myself to the newsletter. I am very interested in making transparent the quotidian practice of what it means to be a feminist in public. I am no longer interested in being just one big brain. I am a whole person who has needs, wants, and desires and I am filtering these needs, wants, and desires in a very feminist way and I want to be honest and show others the filtering process. 

I am complicating our digital relationship by interjecting and insisting on showing my humanity. A key feature of anti-Blackness is the inability to see Black people as members of the human species. Dehumanization happens in many ways, seeing Black women as less than human is the obvious one, but also putting Black women on pedestals and seeing us as superhumans whose sole purpose is to teach, nurture, and fix everything is also dehumanizing. 

I want to be levelly human as The Combahee River Collective wrote in their germinal Black feminist text forty years ago. I want to muse about deep shit, show pictures of my artistic manicure, share my Black joy with you, and talk about love and the ways I am engaging in it. I am a public feminist who is practicing being embodied. Being embodied in our anti-racist feminist practice is what living a feminist life means to me. I don’t have the answers or the blueprint, but I am determined to live publicly and as ethically as I can. My goal through my public digital Black feminist work is to leave evidence, recipes, blueprints, behind for my future feminist descendants so they never have to wonder and be without this critical love and guidance.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Refuge Restrooms - This is a great web based app resource for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people looking for safe bathrooms to use.

We Social Workers Should Remember Our Values and Stop Policing by Caitlin Becker - “The fundamental flaw in our legal and social service systems is not that there aren’t enough social workers—it’s that these systems are rooted in the belief that Black people and their families need surveillance and intervention. Their premise is that actors in the system know best—that Black communities don’t know what they need to be healthy, to stay safe and to care for their children. As social workers, we must stop lending credibility to these damaging assumptions.”

Sarah Silverman Calls Out Hollywood’s ‘Jewface Problem: Representation F**cking Matters’ - “There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish but people whose Jewishness is their whole being,” Silverman said. “One could argue, for instance, that a Gentile [a non-Jew] playing Joan Rivers correctly would be doing what is actually called ‘Jewface.’”

Trans Characters Are In Vogue, But Where are the Thinkpieces? by Eli Cugini - “what if we asked about why cis people are so interested in transness, and what function characters serve in cis novels? What if we admitted that, at least some of the time, trans characters are used as a way for cis authors to talk to other cis people, and asked about the messages they’re sending? What if we looked at the anxieties and prejudices folded into some portrayals of trans people, the genuine interest and desire for connection that come in others, and work backwards towards a trans criticism where cis people might, just might, be allowed to admit that they find us interesting and scary? What if we broke the awkward silence?”

Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? by Judith Butler - “As a fascist trend, the anti-gender movement supports ever strengthening forms of authoritarianism. Its tactics encourage state powers to intervene in university programs, to censor art and television programming, to forbid trans people their legal rights, to ban LGBTQI people from public spaces, to undermine reproductive freedom and the struggle against violence directed at women, children, and LGBTQI people. It threatens violence against those, including migrants, who have become cast as demonic forces and whose suppression or expulsion promises to restore a national order under duress.”

Guide for Reporting on Anti-Trans Medical Bans

Guide for Reporting on Anti-Trans Athletic Bans

16 Guiding Axioms for Abolitionist Organizing

LISTENING:

Gender Reveal: Gender 101, revisited - Cis folks need to listen to this several times it is always a good thing to revisit the the fundamentals 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Black Feminist Sunday is coming back this year. If you are in Miami let’s gather in-person to close out the year. More details to come. 

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Newsletter #23

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

I. Last month was exceptionally hard for those of us who are Haitian, those of us who believe in immigrant justice, and for those of us who call for the abolishing of fake borders on stolen and occupied lands. 

The pictures of the Haitians in Del Rio, Texas, were heart-wrenching and quite frankly shameful. Watching white men on horses use their reigns to whip Black Haitian migrants, seeing the terrorized faces of the Haitian children was devastating. I follow several Haitian media accounts on Instagram, so I heard first-hand accounts from Haitian migrants whose stories were not being mitigated by white US-centric media. For me, it was critically important to listen to Haitian migrants speak en Kreyol and detail the atrocities they are experiencing as they make their sojourn to the United States. These migrants did not start their journey off in Haiti; these sovereign beings are migrating from primarily South America from places such as Brazil and Chile. In one story, I listened to this pregnant woman recounted how she got out of being raped by acting more pregnant than she was and faking like she was sick. This same woman talked about how all migrants, regardless of their gender, are at risk being of being raped by gangs who not only prey on migrants by enacting sexual violence on them but by also robbing them.

One of my childhood besties is a traveling nurse and is currently in a border city in California. She shared that in the children’s detention center, they automatically give all female children ten and over pregnancy tests. My fellow United State-ians WE have a major human rights crisis on our hands at several borders which is also intersecting with gender-based violence and child sexual abuse. And we are not adequately being informed!
 

II. My family is currently impacted by this wave of migration. My father has several family members who left Haiti a long time ago who settled in Brazil. A month ago, they all decided to risk it all to attempt to enter the United States. This trek involves passing through 11 countries, lots of walking, travel on the bus, and lots of fees. There is a whole exploitative burgeoning underground economy that has grown out of this migrant crisis. The last time my dad touched base with these family members, they were in Colombia making final preparations to make their way to the U.S. Through the power and interconnectedness of WhatsApp, my family members and other migrants know what’s going on in Del Rio. However, they still want to try their luck. I told my dad to tell them not to come, and my dad said he couldn’t do that. How does one say to a migrant, refugee, asylee seeker not to try and enter the United States? I immediately saw the error in my comments. 

My father spent weeks deep in sadness when he could not connect with his family while watching the crisis unfold. He was afraid of the worst. However, when he was finally able to communicate with them, my dad was shocked. His cousins were laughing, making plans for the future, and refusing to abandon their dreams of coming to America. Black people’s radical joy practice and will to live is sometimes incomprehensible to even other Black folks. 

I had to remind my dad that their determination is no different from that of my parents, who came to Miami from Haiti on a boat back in the ’80s to follow their freedom dreams,. Their significant risk did not result in death or deportation, and it made my life possible. 

For me, a diasporic Haitian born and raised in Miami who thinks about defecting from the United States every week, this migrant crisis is reminding me of something I heard recently on a podcast, “one person’s dystopia is another person’s utopia.”  Watching the rapid yet slow, meticulous decline of the U.S. empire fills me up with so much daily dread. This place is getting more and more dystopic to me, and it is also simultaneously a place so many people are still risking their lives to get to.
 

III. Watching the national response or lack thereof has also been infuriating and depressing. We were all told by President Joe Biden's supporters and President Joe Biden himself that he would be different and would not govern cruelly. Uncle Joe was supposed to be different, and the first Black woman Vice President was also supposed to be different, but the images from Del Rio, Texas, do not look different from the Trump regime. 

During the Trump regime, Adam Serwer, who is a writer at The Atlantic, wrote an essay which was titled “The Cruelty Is the Point.” The article was published on October 3, 2018; Serwer has recently come out with a book of essays with the same title. 

Serwer used the phrase “the cruelty is the point” to capture how Trump and his zealots bonded over being cruel and how cruelty was a key feature of how Trump and his ilk governed. However, this past month while watching Biden’s immigration policies unfold, I don’t see how the Democratic response is more humane. I thought it was cruel when VP Kamala Harris, who herself is the product of immigrants, went to Central America to tell the people that America’s borders are closed. You can’t help destabilize whole regions of the world and then tell them don’t fight for your survival or come to your borders. When it comes to immigration, both parties are cruel.  Xenophobia is the glue that bonds many United States-ians together, no matter their race or ethnicity. The most respectable immigrants among us "The Dreamers'," can't even be saved by the Democratic Party- that to me is cruel. 

Today it is the Haitians, Central and South Americans migrating, becoming displaced, and overnight becoming refugees and asylee seekers. Tomorrow it might be us. I wonder who would take us in?

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Sex Worker Syllabus And Toolkit for Academics by Heather Berg, Angela Jones, and PJ Patella-Rey 

so you’re ready to choose love, Trauma-Informed Conflict Resolution for Social Justice and Spiritual Growth by Kai Cheng Thom - this is the workbook I mentioned above that I believe is a great addition to your toolbox.
 

What Makes A Black Woman Real? by Hannah Giorgis - “This is a pressure that asks Black women to have a perfect body and to have gotten it the right way. It’s a pressure that is inescapable, especially now that social-media algorithms encourage young people, particularly girls and women, to compare themselves with celebrities, models, and influencers whose looks seem more attainable despite being no less altered. And it’s driven some women to spend their money and risk their lives in pursuit of acquiring value—interpersonal, economic—in a society that has always held up white women as the physical and moral ideal.”

Op-Ed: When Speaking Wrong About Sex Work Goes Right by Josie Pickens - “But one critique of my tweet that I couldn’t ignore was that I punched down on sex workers with that snarky summation of my earlier conversation. We should always be mindful of how we communicate about those who live on the margins of society. Sex workers, because of our messed-up ideas around what is morally, politically and societally correct, face so much violence in the world. They are rarely respected or protected and they are treated as though they are disposable human beings who don’t deserve care. I added to this violent notion of disposability with my tweet. Without intention, I suggested that men who might be toxic and harmful to women be dismissed to sex workers—as if many of those men wouldn’t also be harmful to sex workers. The tweet said, without saying, that certain women deserve certain kind and decent treatment from men and certain women do not. 

I was terribly wrong.”

LISTENING:

The Chauncey DeVega Show- I am a recent subscriber to this podcast and I love it. What bought me to this podcast was the interview with Dr. Aruna Khilanani. 

The Road from 9/11 to Donald Trump - This is the nuance we all who are United State-ians need to listen and sit with. 

Movement Memos Ten Years After Occupy Wall Street, Another World Is Still Possible- This was a smart analysis on Occupy.

A Latto Thought podcast, "kinfolk not skin folk"- This is a podcast created by a mixed race Black man who appears to be going beyond the facile understanding of race and mixedness. It is refreshing. The episode I chose to highlight is all about DNA testing, a thing I think Black people should avoid at all costs, and this podcast makes a good case why these test are predatory and scientifically unsound. Also, please listen to theIn Our Blood Series,it is riveting, beautifully, and methodically lays out how Black and Indigenous people on Turtle Island are inextricably tied.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Great news, everyone! For those of you who missed out on watching Black Feminist Future's Jubilee live, you are in luck and can watch the playback on Youtube here. This is a great resource for those of you who want to deepen and enhance your knowledge of Black feminisms.

Newsletter #22

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

It is Indeed All Political, and Yes It Is Politicized

Every so often, there is an emergence of particular catchphrases or words that get stuck in our public lexicon, words heard everywhere, even across the political aisle. After some time, the terms and phrases start to get misused and lose their shape and meaning. Take, for example, the word intersectionality. Last decade it was the it word, but people struggled to understand and operationalize it as a theory, which led to the term being co-opted, gentrified, and whitewashed. This often purposeful and nefarious misreading of the word was needed if one is going to mount a culture war. Therefore, we can chart a straight line between intersectionality becoming popularized with the current backlash against Critical Race Theory. 

Then there is the flipside of misusing or overusing language, and that is the creation of new vocabulary. The creation of new words gives us more specificity and allows us to name the things ailing us. I am all for new words being coined and deployed to provide understanding to our oppression. For example, the word misogynoir is an excellent example. It is a word coined by Dr. Moya Bailey and made popular by Trudy @thetrudz, and misogynoir is defined as the anti-Black racist misogyny that Black women experience. Black feminism teaches us that race and gender are inseparable and animate each other. Somatically, Black women, femmes, and people read as Black women already knew how misogynoir felt in our bodies but did not have the word until 2008. So yes, to creating more words and popularizing them.

These days, however, a word that is getting a makeover and ringing very hollow in my ears is the word politic/political. In some instances, it is used as if it is a racial slur or some other type of ugly word. You hear it when people say things like, “don’t make this political,” or “x person is politicizing this issue” or some weird variation. And then there is a particular kind of person who goes out of their way to describe themselves as apolitical as if it were a virtue in need of celebration, and this is where I am completely and utterly confused by it all. 
 

As a general rule, I think it is dangerous to build monuments to social categories and turn them into identities. Yes, I am a fat Black queer femme, but honestly, if you do not know me, what does this actually mean? It does not tell you anything about the layers and contours of my humanity or who I am politically. Indeed, the social categories of being fat, Black, and femme inform my politics, but they are not by themselves politics. To be an ethical practitioner of anti-racism, feminism, and social justice, we must go beyond social categories as definitions of the self and really hone in our praxis, aka our politics. Isn’t what we do on repetition and how we live a better measure of who we are? What governs our behavior, how do we vote, who are the people and groups we feel entangled with? How we citizen? What are the politics that we bring into our relating with others and with systems? These questions, although they do not tell me everything it gets me closer to some semblance of a picture and focal point. 

And because I am more interested in what informs people’s race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. I like to think of myself and others as being sociopolitical beings. Our identities are not as fixed as we would like to think. I think they stay in flux throughout our lives and get made and remade over and over again. Yes, my race as a Black person will never change, but the three years I spent in Vancouver, Canada, changed how I understood my Blackness in a North American context forever. I went from being a person who identified as bisexual to now pansexual. I attribute this evolution to my time working with youth who articulated their pansexuality and the rise of Instagram. I realized that as I became more exposed to people across the gender galaxy it became clear that my attractions were not as binaristic as I once thought. Even the way I understand my gender today is different from how I understood it last summer. And for many people, the pandemic has changed your relationship to your body and clothing which has facilitated mini gender revolutions in many of us.
 Because I understand race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ability status, nationality, and citizen status to be co-constitutive and informed by our culture, friends, government, media, etc., I am more interested in what are the conditions that animate the social categorizations and the decisions we make based on these material conditions? Black feminism teaches me that I am a sociopolitical being because how my race, class, and gender get made in this society marks me as a particular kind of subject. I am not having the same lived experience as my white peers because their whiteness marks and stratifies them differently. One big example of this thesis is that I am financially supporting my parents, a thing that is not common for white people my age but very common among the Black women and femmes my age. My white peers have generational wealth that allows them from being their parent's retirement plan or supplementing their parent's retirement. While many middle-income Black people do not have this privilege and the conditions that created this difference are 100% a series of political choices that our nation-state created and enacted. And this is precisely the reason why I think it is impossible to make a decision that is not political. 

If we truly believe that the personal is political as auntie Audre Lorde has taught us then there is never a time where the politics that govern me both externally and internally are not present in my choices or dictates the choices that I can even access. In other words, it’s all political because human interactions and life is a political project, and power is at the center of it all. It all comes back to power-sharing power, hoarding power, wielding power, exploiting the power of others, building power, co-creating power, or transforming power. Power is always already present in all human interactions, which means we are constantly making political choices. 
 

The dictionary defines politics:

Pol·i·tics

/ˈpäləˌtiks/

noun

1.     the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.

I want to draw close attention to how the individual is a crucial part of the definition of politics, and so is the phrase “the achievement of power.” As I stated earlier, power is always already present in all human interactions. There is a power dynamic between parents and children, romantic partners, men and women, white people and people adversely racialized, between cisgender people and transgender and non-binary people. Power resides between North Americans and people who make up the global South. Power resides between bosses and workers. Power is everywhere. Even in our friendship circles, there is someone secretly or not so secretly vying to be the Beyoncé of the crew. So if power is everywhere and at any given moment we are shaping it or relinquishing it why are we lying about life being a series of political projects and political calculations? 

I am of the belief that I am a sociopolitical being because I reside inside of a nation-state. I am situated on lands colonized and stolen lands that were built up by a stolen people. These lands called The United States is a political project created by people who were escaping tyranny and who used genocide, rape, and chattel slavery to build a nation-state that would allow them to exercise their politics. If this is the genesis of the lands on which I live, play, and build my life upon tell me again how all of my choices are not political? How I understand myself as a person with a gender, race, class, citizenship status, ability status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and nationality is all being mediated by my relationship to the state and its relationship to me. If we did not have nation-states, many of the social categories we use to make identities for ourselves would cease to matter as much as they do currently. 

The United States is a messy political group project and its laws, policies, and governance decides who is worthy of life and who will be made vulnerable to premature death, precarity, and exploitation. I think this false binary that we create for ourselves that states only in certain situations one is making a political decision is intellectually dishonest. Instead of being afraid that everything is political or being politicized perhaps we should accept that yes everything is political and therefore being politicized. It may be more beneficial for us to ask ourselves what is my relationship to power and what political choice(s) does my power afford me in this moment and situation? Perhaps we should concern ourselves with how can we make better political calculations that help to either dismantle, disrupt, or divest from white supremacy. In a globalized world, every inane choice made on automatic pilot is a choice that is already mired in the exploitative and extractive geopolitical capitalistic context. It is a luxury and profound privilege to assume that in a globalized world, our individual choices are not inextricably tied to systems and structures. This is the hubris of being a North American.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Black Film Archive by Maya S. Cade - This is an archive of all Black films that are currently streaming the list spans from 1915 to 1979.

Da’Shaun L. Harrison and Kiese Laymon: Belly of the Beast - by Green Apple Books. This is a great conversation between Da’Shaun Harrison and Keise Laymon about Da’Shaun’s new book that tackles anti-fatness as anti-Blackness.

How Amil Cabral shaped Paulo Freire’s pedagogy by Curry Malott - “As a result of his role as a national liberation movement leader for roughly 15 years, Cabral had become a widely influential theorist of decolonisation and non-deterministic, creatively applied re-Africanisation. World-renowned critical educator Paulo Freire, in a 1985 presentation about his experiences in liberated Guinea-Bissau as a sort of militant consultant, concludes that Cabral, along with Ché Guevara, represent 'two of the greatest expressions of the 20th century.' Freire describes Cabral as 'a very good Marxist, who undertook an African reading of Marx.' Cabral, for Freire, 'fully lived the subjectivity of the struggle. For that reason, he theorised 'as he led.'”

Seeing Blackly: Tina Campt’s A Black Gaze by Zoe Samudzi - “The Black gaze feels like an antidote to mainstream orthodoxy. It is a relation to art that seeks to transcend and refuse easy assimilation of Black art into the standard colored paradigm of representation, diversity, and inclusivity. As a writer primarily interested in Black/African/Afro-diasporic art, I have never been able to think about Black art without becoming entangled in my own subjectivity; I cannot write except from an embodied affective position. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel ashamed of this: it feels misplaced, like improper criticism that defies long-existing tropes and conventions of the impartial observer. But Campt’s Black gaze offers holistic modes of criticism, bringing her readers beyond mere detached, 'objective' responses written from a distance. Campt says the book is about how visual artists are changing how we see Blackness, but perhaps more compelling is the slow seeing and sensitive writing about art that she models.”

Friendships Are Breaking Up Over Vaccinest by Paige Skinner - “Even though COVID-19 vaccines are widely available to most American adults, some are still refusing to get a shot even as the highly contagious Delta variant rips across the country. The overwhelming majority of new COVID-19 cases in the US are among the unvaccinated. The same is true for COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths.

But the summer spike has led some parts of the US to reintroduce mask mandateseven for those who’ve had their doses. It's no wonder that fully vaccinated people are fed up.”

How Black Women Have Re-imagined Nature On-Screen by Dr. Chelsea Mikael Frazier - “So what do we make of all this? First, Blackness and femininity sit squarely in the center of the ways we imagine our environments. This centering reminds Black women (and everyone else) that it is normal, appropriate, and bewitching to witness us luxuriate in our environments and that these resources that we call 'nature' are available—not just for our work—but for Black women’s leisure, healing, and living! And, finally, it reminds Black women (and everyone else) that the issues that seem to only affect us most sharply—anti-Blackness, sexism, class oppression—are everyone else’s (ecological) problems, too.”

Inside “The Very Secret History” of The Sunrise Movement by Zahra Hirji and Ryan Brooks - “As the youth-led Sunrise Movement helped catapult racial justice to the center of the national conversation on climate change, many of its members of color repeatedly charged over the last three years that they felt 'tokenized,' 'used,' 'ignored,' and 'dismissed.'"

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

Reading Sula on IG Live for Bookleggers Library - The Little Haiti Cultural Complex partnered with Bookleggers Library and invited me to be a featured guest on "Storytime for Grown-Ups: Little Haiti Edition." I took over Bookleggers' Instagram and read a section from Sula by Toni Morrison.

LISTENING:

The United States of Anxiety: Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Haiti and International Aid- Our very own Miami homegirl guest hosted and talked about the earthquake that Haiti just suffered and this is the nuance that is needed in a time like this. 

Vox Conversations: The news is by—and for—rich, white liberals - This episode does an excellent job of laying out what is wrong with liberal media and what is at stake if it does not change.  

Be Antiracist with Ibram X. Kendi Prison & Police Abolition: Finding True Safety- Ibram X. Kendi interviewed Mariame Kaba about police abolition. I was pleasantly surprised by this pairing. 

Making Gay History Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis -  This was a prescient podcast season to listen to duing a global pandemic. I really enjoyed listening to gay history rooted in survival ans resistance as told by the gay men who survived this epcoch and the AIDS crises. As I was digging through the archive of this show I also found two episodes that include interviews with Sylvia Rivera. Listening to this podcast felt like queer ancestral work. 

Rebel Eaters Club Fatphobia (& foodphobia) is Anti-Blackness with Da’Shaun Harrison- We don’t think about the linkages between fathpbia and anti-Blackness enough. I am currently positively obsessed with Da’Shaun and stumbled upon this podcast episode.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

My fall offerings Eventbrite page is now live to the public. Tell your friends, your family, and all your people, to go get their tickets!

Newsletter #21

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“Why Are You Not Yet Vaccinated?”

Dear co-strugglers,

We have entered a new stage in this pandemic, and this stage is called the Delta variant, and it ain’t playing. I notice that many people who label themselves progressive, leftist, people who have beautiful revolutionary Black politics, and those who espouse a human rights framework are not yet vaccinated. And I am struggling to understand what is informing this political calculation.
 

Because choosing not to get vaccinated when you are not allergic to the contents of the vaccine or have no religious restrictions that stop you from getting a vaccine as a North American is a bold political choice. As people living in the United States, we have the immense and gross privilege of being surrounded by vaccines. At the same time, the rest of the world that is purposefully left underdeveloped is living in a vaccine desert. 

The geographer and abolitionist Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore define racism by stating:

“Racism, specifically, is the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death.” 

The word that captures me the most is premature death. If we call ourselves anti-racist, progressive, and leftist, we must ask ourselves how our politics interrupt the premature death of those made vulnerable by the state? 

The most vulnerable among us as it pertains to this global pandemic are: 

• Children under 12

• The disabled

• The elderly 

• People who are immunocompromised

• People who are experiencing houselessness

If we are the people who truly believe that all people are worthy and valuable no matter their race, ethnicity, class, or ability status, then our political calculations and choices must exhibit this and center the least of these. 

In a democracy, every person must relentlessly engage in the political struggle of weighing individual rights and freedoms against collective rights and freedoms. Being that living in a society and democracy is a messy group project, there are times when I must put my individual rights on the shelf because our interdependence demands nothing less. 
 

What is anti-racist, progressive, or leftist about not doing one’s part during a global pandemic? How can you honor Black August as a Black person with revolutionary ideals and not want to protect other Black people from disease?

It makes sense why many Republicans and Libertarians are refusing to get vaccinated or even wear masks. Their choice aligns perfectly with their world views and politics. 

What is our excuse? 
 

This level of rabid individualism that so many of us are practicing is incongruent with our world views and politics. How can people who overuse the word ‘community’ not think about the community in a time like this?

Make it make sense, fam.
 

Vaccine hesitation is real for those of us who are Black, Indigenous, or non-Black people of color. Our people have been forcibly sterilized, denied medical care, and had their bodies practiced on sometimes without anesthesia for the sake of pushing the medical field forward. Yes, the government is on that bullshit, and it is hard to trust them, but living in a society such as ours requires many daily acts of trust and faith. We do it so much we do not even notice. 
 

For example, we drive on highways and bridges daily, knowing damn well our country's infrastructure ain’t shit. We go into grocery stores every day and buy fruits, veggies, and meats, trusting that they have not been poisoned. We take Uber or use Uber Eats and trust that our driver will not spit in our food or, worse, come back later to murder us. #Moralofthestory we operate daily on an immense diet of trust, hope, and faith. We trust that federal regulation will keep us safe and that when we enter our houses or apartments, we trust that the structure will not collapse on us. We do all of this in a country with no sensible gun laws, which means at any given moment, we can be shot and killed by our fellow citizens, completing any number of boring adult tasks.

To the people who are holding out because of their faith or spiritual beliefs. I am a deeply spiritual person who truly admires and loves the teachings of Jesus. My spirituality does not stop me from also believing in science. Faith or spirituality that doesn’t encourage you to use your brains and take social justice seriously is a tool of white supremacy and a cult. For the past 15 months, I have been drinking my mother’s tea. Various tea recipes are floating around in the Haitian community to help people protect their immune systems. And I still got that jab. 

I am vaccinated, I wear my masks indoors (even while working out at Orange Theory), I pray, I meditate, do affirmations,  get spiritual readings, do spiritual baths, work my altar, pull tarot, do the new moon and full moon rituals, drink my tea, and also believe in science. 

To remix a verse from the bible, all things work together for the good of those who honor the deep knowings that come from their intersections and those who critically engage their mind. 

And fam, it is ableist AF to say that because you are young, vegan, only shop at Trader Joe’s or Whole Food’s and because you workout, you do not need to get the vaccine because you are healthy.

Ableism is foundational to racism and white supremacy. And health in this country is inextricably tied to resources. 

I would be mad AF if one day I logged on to one of my many social media accounts, and I casually found out that one of you reading this died from COVID-19 at this stage of the pandemic. I would be pissed, and the people who love you deeply would be as well. 

I encourage you all to talk to your doctors, leave the conspiracies alone, stop with the hotep shit, check your ableism and do the right thing!

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

Sorry, You Can’t Be “Progressive Except Palestine” by Hadas Their- “The question 'Does Israel have a right to exist?' is therefore not an abstract question of Jewish self-determination. 'The issue is not Jews’ right to constitute a nation, or even to pursue a homeland,' but whether that homeland has the 'right'  to exist on the basis of the dispossession and ongoing denial of democratic rights to Palestinians.”

How Going Home Helped Inspire Leon Bridges—And Saved His Life by Casey Gerald- “Initially he called himself Lost Child. That’s what his mother, Lisa Sawyer, used to say whenever he was overdue for a haircut: 'Boy, you looking like a lost child.' It was Lisa who led him to God. She’d found his Myspace page, seen the language he was using. Something like ‘I’m that nigga,’ Leon tells me, falling away as he laughs. She sat him down and warned that he needed to get his life right. So he did. He threw away all his favorite tunes, wrote 'Conversion' and others in their place. He believes in the songs enough to know he needs a better stage name. People have said he looks like the actor Leon (perhaps best known for playing David Ruffin in the 1998 Temptations miniseries), and 'Leon Bridges' brings up much better Google results than his given name, Todd Bridges.”

Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by David Austin- “As we know from the history of Haiti and Grenada, Caribbean revolutions have historically confronted both immense, seemingly insurmountable, challenges associated with external intervention, and the internal limitations of leadership. The right of the Cuban state to determine its fate must be defended against external aggression. But critique is also an integral part of this process, and the generic left must also be willing to recognize and acknowledge the shortcomings and failures of the Revolution and acknowledge some obvious truths: Cuba is not a utopia nor a society of equals; it is a revolution in motion, a state that aspires to do more than most, but although Cuba has proven to be exceptional in so many ways, it is not an exception to the rule that critique (internal and external) is a crucial and necessary part of building and sustaining a healthy, living and breathing polity.”
 

How Twitter can ruin a life Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next.- by Emily VanDerWerff- “At its core, 'Attack Helicopter' is about the intersection of gender and American hegemony. On that level, it has plenty to say even to cisgender people. After all, if all gender is on some level a performance (and it is), then it can be co-opted and perverted by the state. But if it’s also innate on some level (and it is), then we are powerless against whatever it is that enough people decide gender performance should look like. We are constantly trapped by gender, even when we know we are trapped by it. You can’t truly escape something so all-pervasive; you can only negotiate your own terms with it, and everybody’s terms are different.”
 

Why are so many Black professors not tenured? Texas has made little progress despite promises of change by Kailey Huang and Valeria Olivares- “Providing guidance for students from similar backgrounds is the kind of additional workload that Black faculty frequently take on, unlike other educators, said Yasmiyn Irizarry, a tenure-track professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

'Some faculty will call it a ‘Black tax,' she said.

The 'tax' emerges in various ways, such as when the university seeks out faculty of color for diversity, equity and inclusion work. They step up to serve on search committees or facilitate conversations about race.”
 

‘Burn It All Down Is a Call for Decolonization , Not Arson by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Shiri Pasternak, Audrey Huntley, and Meaghan Daniel- “But the status quo had to be vigorously and relentlessly shouldered out of the way by communities first, to make real change happen. In Canada, it is the status quo that is the enemy, not some hidden secret bogeyman. Colonization is precisely the imposition of colonial institutions and the violence they produce in people’s daily lives. The call for deep structural change at this moment is a call for freedom from this ongoing harm.”

Who is the Stranger here? Reading the Torah through a Decolonized Lens by Rabbi Brant Rosen- “In this context, we would thus do well to ask ourselves, what does it mean for Jews – particularly white Jews – to invoke this Biblical verse as we dwell on land stolen by a settler colonial power from its indigenous population? Or to put it another way, before intoning the commandment to love the stranger, we might first ask ourselves, 'who is the real stranger here?'” 

As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion Is The Problem by Chrissy Stroop- “As many exvangelicals have been trying to get the American mainstream to understand for years now, evangelical subculture is essentially ground zero for America’s other pandemic—disinformation. Conservative, mostly white evangelicalism, which represents a fear-based, authoritarian outlook on a social scale, has constructed a parallel society, mediated through churches, Christian publishing, homeschooling, Christian schools, Christian colleges and universities, and numerous parachurch ministries, in which certain sacrosanct 'truths' are never questioned. When reality contradicts the truths that define group membership, the evangelical community closes ranks and puts the power and influence of its tight institutional network behind the assertion that, in fact, the emperor is wearing clothes, and anyone who says otherwise is a dirty godless liberal intent on persecuting Christians.”
 

I See My Work As Talking Back; How Critical Race Theory Mastermind Kimberle Crenshaw Is Weathering The Storm by Rita Omokha- “Crenshaw breaks it down. 'Critical race theory is based on the premise that race is socially constructed, yet it is real through social constructions.' In other words, ask yourself, what is a 'Black' neighborhood? Why do we call 'the hood' the hood? Labels like these were strategically produced by American policy. Critical race theory says the idea of a Black person—who I am in this country—is a legal concept. 'Our enslavability was a marker of our degradation,' Crenshaw explains. 'And our degradation was a marker of the fact that we could never be part of this country. Our Supreme Court said this'—in the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling of 1857—'and it wasn’t a close decision.'"
 

Grief Belongs In Social Movements. Can We Embrace It? by Malkia Devich-Cyril- “Along my own journey, what surprised me most was the discovery that grief is not an enemy to be avoided. In fact, resisting grief led to my suffering, while becoming intimate with grief led me to the lesson that grief and joy are inextricably linked. Though generations of traumatic loss can become conflated with deformed expectations, standards and culture, grief in all its forms has the potential to bring us closer to the truth of the world, to make us more tender and more filled with delight. It is from this new kind of gratitude, this pandemic joy, that we can rise together in action, in democratic decision-making, in strategic vision. This is one part of liberation.”

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

Lutze's 73 Questions - I did my own version of Vogue's 73 Questions; check it out!

LISTENING:

Fanti- No Cis-sies Allowed ft. Da’Shaun Harrison- This was an excellent podcast episode. It is truly a joy for me to listen to Black non-binary folks destroy the gender binary. I am a huge fan of the writer Da-Shaun and their analysis on gender, anti-Blackness, and fatness. Because of this episode, I will no longer be using the phrase “binary trans people.” This episode helped me understand the faulty logic of this phrase. It is a great episode one that I will be listening to again to ensure I got all of the awesomeness. 

Transforming Misogynoir w/ Mai’a Williams- Dr. Moya Bailey the Black scholar who coined the term ‘misogynoir’ has a podcast. As of right now, there is only one episode and I really enjoyed it. A major part of my coming to consciousness happened online during the time period they are discussing. Dr. Bailey and Mai’a in this episode are musing about a time online that simply no longer exists. I definitely hit subscribe and I am looking forward to the intellectual journey of this podcast. 
 

The Professor Is In : Ep 2:28 Leaving Academia- Interview with Dr. Chris Catarine- I fell into a hole of reading about Ph.D.’s who have left academia and stumbled on this interview. I appreciated that they are normalizing Ph.D.’s leaving and finding success and purpose outside of academia. 
 

Fraudsters- Episode 20: Race Hustlers Part 1- Fraudsters is a podcast exclusively on Spotify and they did a five-part series on race hustlers that I enjoyed. They touched upon David Duke, Dr. Umar Johnson, Rachel Dolezal, and more. 
 

Bughouse Square- This is a podcast all about Studs Terkel who I learned about while listening to Ezra Klein interview the amazing Black woman scholar Dr. Eve Ewing. In Bughouse Square the host Dr. Ewing walks you through an iconic interview that Studs Terkel did with an iconic figure. Episode one starts with  James Baldwin and it is really good.
 

Harm, Punishment, and Abolition- To hear Mariame Kaba (my possibility-role model) be in conversation with Prentis Hemphill was truly good medicine. I will truly never grow tired of listening to Mariame Kaba talk about abolition and how “hope is a discipline.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Our comrades at Black Feminist Future will be hosting a free virtual experience celebrating the legacy, power, and possibilities of Black feminisms on August 28th. We deeply believe that Black liberation is achievable; and to get there we must center Black feminisms, build power, and organize to defend and protect Black women, girls, and gender non-conforming folks. Jubilee will be a space to be reintroduced, reenergized, and renewed in Black Feminisms. 

Register for free at BlackFeministHomecoming.com
 

#Jubilee21

#BlackFeministHomecoming

Newsletter #20

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“A Year Later, Who is Still Reckoning?”

For the past couple of weeks, I have been looking at the white people in my personal and professional life with much more skepticism. The reason for this is because political scientists Jennifer Chudy and Hakeem Jefferson were able to use data to illustrate that the racial reckoning that we spent the last year talking about and dissecting did not happen. Put differently; white people did not reckon at the scale or on the level the media reported. Chudy and Jefferson showed that support of Black Lives Matter among white people is lower now than before the pandemic. Their data shows that less than 20% of white people genuinely care about Black suffering.
 

In other words, when we are talking about building an anti-racist coalition, we are talking about a coalition that will include very few white people because only less than 20% of white people care about Black people and are committed to racial justice. 

Yes, lots of white people opined last year on social media, went out and protested, purchased lots of books, got in shallow fights with their friends and families. Still, none of this has resulted in fundamental changes in their behavior, politic, and ethics. Many white people have retreated further into the comforts and lies of whiteness. 
 

Somatically my body already knew this to be true. I knew that all the well-meaning white people had already packed up and gone back home. This time last year, our country was on fire, and people were mad as hell asking hard questions and finally waking up to the fact that white supremacy is structural and systemic. This summer, many people are vaccinated and back at brunch. 

Denialism, which is a habit and characteristic of white supremacy, is a behavior that all United State-ians have been well-trained to practice.

We deny all manner of things as a way to cope with the incomprehensible. For example, we are collectively galloping towards species suicide through our aggressive denial and inability to address climate disaster(s). There are many ways we as humans practice denialism. However, the ultimate denial is watching white people who think white supremacy will not harm them or, worse, stay committed to this lie. Liberal white folks do not yet feel the terror in their bones, and so they go back to sleep, flirt with Nazis, and believe the lie of white supremacy that tells them they are inherently superior. And they do this all while nursing a perpetual pang in their spirit. A pang that is exploited by mainstream wellness culture trying to sell white people's spirituality and fake comfort is divorced from the realities of oppression, power, and privilege. 

Many white liberals are in a relentless pursuit to live more meaningful, happy lives. However, these same people refuse to understand that a purpose-driven and meaningful life that includes radical love, acceptance, joy, peace, deep connection, and fulfillment can only be ascertained through confronting white supremacy. 

Neoliberalism and big tech exist to exploit our desires and render us numb, distracted, and never satisfied. The antidote to this assault on our humanity is to reclaim our humanity back from the clutches of capitalism, algorithms, and white supremacy. We do this by becoming more present in our daily lives and getting intimate with our inner colonizer(s).

To those of us, irrespective of our race and ethnicity, who are still committed to anti-racism and bringing forth a new world, please do your best to decenter whiteness and the white people who have proven to be fair-weathered comrades. Let’s keep our eyes fixed on freedom and remember the words of Mariame Kaba, “hope is a discipline.”  

Finally, I leave you with a few words from James Baldwin on love & danger. Click the picture below to be sent to the four minute Youtube video.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

‘The Psychopathic Problem of The White Mind’ by Katie Herzog - "This interview essay includes the leaked lecture that Dr. Aruna Khilanani gave at Yale University that has got white liberals SHOOKETH. I am currently positively obsessed with her ideas and I am not a fan of psychoanalysis. I do not think her lecture is as inflammatory as the media is making it seem and she is hitting on things that I get glimmers of in my one-on-one anti-racist coaching sessions. I am adding a link to an interview that Dr. Khilanani gives to Dr. Marc Lamont. It gives more context to why she gave this talk and who her intended audience was for a talk that is titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the white mind.” Unlearning is hard AF. It requires going into parts of the mind and soul that are downright scary, but the only way to get intimate with your inner colonizer is to follow it, hunt it, talk to it, and wrestle with it. Your anti-racist practice should include you relentlessly pursuing and disarming your inner colonizer. “What is the difference between white peoples' suffering and the suffering of people of color? People of color, myself included, suffer from being positioned in the world, psychologically, and the stuff that goes with it: violence, this, that. Now, white people suffer from problems of their own mind. They suffer with trust, they suffer with intimacy, they suffer with closeness, shame, guilt, anxiety. They suffer with their minds. Don’t get me wrong, people of color are also neurotic and have their own stuff and ups and downs. But there is a fundamental issue I think that is very unique to white suffering and I think that’s their own mind.”

Why Bo Burnham, Jenna Marbles, And Shane Logged Off by Scaachi Koul - “Netflix has categorized Bo Burnham’s latest special, Inside, as a ‘comedy,’ which is outrageous because it’s clearly the horror movie of the year. I don’t know whether anything has scared me as much recently as watching all 90 minutes; it felt like peering into my own rotting core, my hand wrapped around a phone with every single social media app open. Inside has been praised as a rare decent piece of pandemic-inspired entertainment, but it’s also a nightmare about the internet, a tool we can’t escape and all seem to hate.”

Pronouns 102: how to stop messing up people’s pronouns by Dr. Kirby Conrod - “Pronouns are hard! There is a reason for that (the reason is… linguistics), but the fact of the matter is, many people find it very difficult to switch pronouns for a person, or to use certain pronouns at all. This post isn’t about getting into the why, but more going about the how to get better.”

The History of the Work Spouse by Katie Heaney - “That we’ve adopted this language for co-workers reflects an over-identification with our workplaces, the result of a culture that recast workaholism as ambition and asked us to lean in and work smarter and stay hungry. Perhaps ‘friend’ felt insufficient for those people we relied on to make such impossible conditions survivable.”

Of Course Cis People Are Being Weird About Elliot Page’s Body by s.e. Smith - “Cis people, especially those in progressive circles, are often keen to prove they’re not transphobic: They’re one of the good ones, they’re down with trans people, and they’re hip to the scene. That nervous behavior is often motivated by a desire to be affirming and supportive. But it can inadvertently reinforce transphobia by making invasive, over the top, and objectifying comments that attempt to illustrate how comfortable the speaker is with the existence of trans and other non-normative bodies.”

The Battle Sigh of the Old Mom by Karen Russo - ‘Being an older mom makes you tired. So fucking tired. You could have no nanny or ten nannies and you’d still be tired,’ my friend Shauna says. This is coming from a woman who has no regrets about having children later in life. A Hollywood film producer for 20 years, she didn’t have time for kids. Now, she does. And she’s exhausted.”

Giving and Getting Some: Reflecting on The Penetration Of My Manhood and Ass by Craig Washington - “In his 1986 masterpiece In The Life, a formative anthology of Black gay men’s writings that inspired successive generations, writer Joseph Beam proclaimed ‘Black men loving Black men’ as ‘the revolutionary act.’ Could bottoming be considered a revolutionary act for self-affirming Black men?”

Know Your Place at the Cookout by Dr. Regina N.Bradley - “Whether you're calling it aBBQ, get-together, or just ‘firing up the grill,’ a cookout is a staple in the South. As a Black girl growing up in the gummy heat of Southwest Georgia,cookoutshappened on a whim and on different levels: a little something with immediate family and a neighbor, "on the yard" in college when fraternity boys needed to sell tickets to a party, the Vacation Bible School church cookout, and the top-tier cookout a.k.a. the family reunion.”

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

Four Black Social Activists Share What Juneteenth Means To Them by Joce Blake - Catch me and three other Black Feminists discuss Juneteenth, what it means to us, and more.

Lutze's 73 Questions - I did my own version of Vogue's 73 Questions; check it out!

LISTENING:

I have “discovered '' aka subscribed to two new podcasts that I want to share with you. I listen to lots of podcasts, but I am very funny about hitting subscribe. The first one is Gender Reveal by Tuck Woodstock. This podcast is all about gender and it radically decenters cis people while doing so. As someone who is deeply obsessed with thinking about gender and how it gets made in the public sphere listening to non-binary folks talk about gender has been liberating and thrilling. As a person who uses a critical race lens to understand and organize the world, this podcast does require me to filter the conversations and do extra work because the race analysis is lacking for me, but overall I am here for what this podcast is contributing to our understanding and discourse on gender. 

The second podcast is Throughline by NPR. Confession: I am low-key a NPR heaux. I am not NPR’s target audience, but I really like NPR. I was doing my best to avoid subscribing to Throughline, but they got me with their miniseries on capitalism, which is a must listen to in this political moment. When NPR is doing a miniseries on capitalism it is safe to say that capitalism is in trouble. The episode that really made me hit subscribe was the one titled, “Who is NPR (For)? They interviewed Michel Martin, and it was beautiful to hear a Black woman be in conversation with her brown colleagues about the shift that is happening at NPR. I clearly cannot deny that I am slowly ensconcing myself within the NPR universe.

Being Seen - Season 2 Episode 12 “Afro-Latinx”- This is a beautiful episode about Black queer men living at the intersection of being Latinx. 

NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour - Keeping Up With The Kardashians - This was a very smart episode about the cultural ramifications and impacts that the Kardashians have had on pop-culture. I listened to three podcast about the ending of the show and this was by far the most insightful and nuanced insight that I came across. Confession: back in the day your girl (me) was a fan of KUWTK and a fan of Kim, but then Black feminism saved me. There is hope for us all ;)

Coffee and Books: Marc Talks With Incarcerted Writer and Journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal - If you know of the political prisoner Mumia you are going to enjoy this episode. Also, it is the first podcast episode that I have ever listened to where the guest was behind bars. It was interesting to hear the prison recording become the background noise of the podcast episode.
 

Untold Stories: Beyond the Binary - This is a four-part podcast episode series ALL about non-binary folks from Entertainment Weekly. It is very well done and necessary listening for those of us who are wanting to go beyond the binary. 
 

The Laverne Cox Show - I am usually NOT a fan of celebrity podcasts, but I am here for Laverne’s show because she is a smart Black woman who has the range. The three outstanding episodes I recommend are as follows: Beauty as Capital with Kimberly Foster, Moving Beyond The Gender Binary with Alok, and Fat phobia and Diet Culture with Virgie Tovar. 

With Friends Like These: Doing what’s in your pleasure- If you have been missing and worried about Andrew Gillum as I have this episode is for you. It is very apparent that Gillum has been working his program and getting to the business of healing. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Our comrades at Black Feminist Future will be hosting a free virtual experience celebrating the legacy, power, and possibilities of Black feminisms on August 28th. We deeply believe that Black liberation is achievable; and to get there we must center Black feminisms, build power, and organize to defend and protect Black women, girls, and gender non-conforming folks. Jubilee will be a space to be reintroduced, reenergized, and renewed in Black Feminisms. 

Register for free at BlackFeministHomecoming.com
 

#Jubilee21

#BlackFeministHomecoming

Newsletter #19

These offerings and musings are currently taking place on the ancestral, traditional, and stolen lands of the Seminole, Miccosukee, and Tequesta First Nations. These lands known as Miami.

These are stolen lands built by stolen people

“Your Job is Not Your Political Home and That is a Good Thing”

Confession: I am an elder millennial and an introvert who once not so secretly hated the idea of co-working spaces. Gasp! Co-working spaces sounded like a feeding ground for vampires, aka extroverts. I could not understand how actual work got done without one having a door, partition, or some kind of barrier that could protect you from all the distractions that are abundant and built into office culture. Co-working spaces sounded like a nightmare for those of us who relish and create in quiet and whose brains are not normative. I no longer feel this way about co-working spaces since visiting a few and realizing that offices still actually exist within them. I now understand their utility and have come to appreciate them (shoutout to CIC in Miami and the site director Maria Dominguez #thehomie). I see all that co-working spaces offer to its largely millennial customer base. And I think these work sites have lots to teach us about the dangers of bringing the co-working space model into our social justice jobs. 

Is there anything more millennial than a co-working space? Co-working spaces are the personification of an industry that many millennials across race and ethnicity can quickly get behind. There is nothing novel about renting office space, but in true millennial fashion, if you add a little tech and pair it with minimalist decor and open-air designs, you officially have a thing. Millennials, as a generational cohort, have more student loan debt than our parents, and less access to wealth and social safety net programs. We are a cohort that is deferring marriage and childbearing due to our economic status—having already survived a recession and currently living through another financial crisis all before the age of forty. All of this and more has allowed work to have outsized meaning in our lives. Millennials will be working for a very long time unless we cancel student loan debts and create other life-saving programs with real economic teeth. Therefore, where work gets done has become crucially important. Office spaces have become almost like places of worship or recreational centers. The physical space has to be cool, purposeful,  and offer a vibe because we will be spending more time at work. (The pandemic will change this, but not as much as we think. Working from home is not for every personality type, brain, job, or team. Many people currently resent having their home taken over by work because anyone who successfully worked from home before the pandemic will tell you your space must be able to accommodate being both a home and an office). And maybe if the office is pretty enough and offers enough bougie snacks we can all be coerced into forgetting about all the ways racial capitalism, the loss of social safety nets, and union-busting is making us more financially precarious. 

Co-working spaces are beautiful and specialize in making things convenient and making it all available so that you can focus on simply producing. Did you forget to eat breakfast before leaving home no worries, there are plenty of free and nutritious food options that you can just grab. You need to impress some folks; book a fancy conference room with a view, and suddenly whatever idea you are pitching looks and sounds better.  It is also a great place to meet people. Many ambitious people who also practice overworking like you are roaming the halls, making finding a mate, a new friend, or engaging in an extramarital tryst more convenient #efficiency.

Work has taken on new meaning and plays a different role in our lives, happiness, sense of self, and personal development. In this work era, we are working more hours while giving and bringing much more of the self to work. Esther Perel talks extensively about this in her scholarship on work. We now expect much more fulfillment and alignment from our jobs because we bring our desires and longing to this space. Spaces once filled up by spirituality, books, philosophy, family, hobbies, and other life pursuits are occupied by work and capitalism.  Therefore, co-working spaces are a physical representation of what the neo-liberal millennial and elder Gen-Z subject expects from work which is now EVERYTHING.

In 2019, I went to San Francisco for a conference, and while I was there, I did a presentation at the We Work offices in the Salesforce building. I was there to facilitate lunch and learn about unconscious bias. Even your anti-racism learning is part of the concierge service. There is nothing revolutionary about leasing office space. However,  if I put everything you potentially need in this space, the office becomes your actual home. Once the office becomes your home, the place where you pay rent, mortgage, or where your dog that you neglect lives ceases being home. Therefore, to assuage this guilt, the workplace now has to be more and mean more. If even your anti-racism can be curated by the landlord who rents office space to your organization, work is not just work. The co-working space model makes sense and fits the reality of our time, but what happens when we start to embody this model?

By now, I am sure many of you must be wondering where am I going with this entire diatribe about co-working spaces? Well, here is my point: I want to invite us all to think about the perils and danger that is present when we approach our social justice non-profit job with a co-working space mentality and model. To put it more plainly,  I do not believe that your job must or should fulfill your every social-emotional needs or where you should house your liberatory political dreams. More importantly, just because you work somewhere that is heavily politically aligned with many of your values does not mean that your job is your political home. I do not think it's possible or wise to make the place where you earn your income to live within this violent capitalist society with a non-profit tax designation your sociopolitical home. 

Here’s why: 

1. I strongly recommend that we have a polyamorous view and approach to our jobs-  Your job cannot be your everything. Sometimes a job is just a job. It allows you to care for yourself, have health insurance, or care for your family. If you are privileged enough to be doing work you are passionate about and it is in line with your purpose, that is great, but that still does not mean your job is your everything. In making our jobs our everything, it skews our expectations of work. A big part of adulting hinges on learning to manage expectations well and practicing non-attachment (thank you, Buddhism). Many people expect a level of happiness, validation, alignment, and purpose with their jobs which ultimately leads to suffering. Our work environment, our bosses, colleagues, and our managers cannot create fulfillment for us. A significant source of job dissatisfaction and team upheaval that I repeatedly see which is also barely visible, involves people demanding that their job nurture them. People are expecting nurturance from their job. A task your manager, supervisor, and Executive Director, should not be trusted to perform or asked to perform such sacred work. We should expect professional development from our workplaces not spiritual or personal development work.  

2. Just because your job is politically aligned with your values, it does not make it your political home-   I do not think that a job, no matter how beautiful the mission and vision, can be the container that can hold our revolutionary and liberatory dreams. Because as INCITE has already taught us, the revolution will not be grant-funded. Our non-profit jobs that exist to ameliorate harm and seek to slow down the killing and marginalizing of our people SHOULD NOT feel like an Amazon fulfillment center. Full stop. The harm and abuse that many of us have or will experience at work must cease. Work as we know it and engage with it must be transformed, and I still do not think it is wise to make your job your political home. If our job becomes our political home, then what? Does this mean that your job will enter into a transformative ethic with you and promise never to fire or stop investing in you? What will be the metrics of success then if this job is now my political home? Can these kinds of conditions exist at work? If my job is my political home, what demands should I be making, and what should my job expect of me? These are questions that cannot be answered in performance reviews, employee handbooks,  or work evaluations. These kinds of political calculations do not seem prudent or strategic. Don’t do it, fam. Don’t play yourself. 

3. It is a privilege to work somewhere that aligns with you politically, and it is not a right. Low-wage workers have revolutionary dreams too, but must work for Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, and pick our foods. It is possible to be a political being and work at a place that is not your exact political match. I will offer a caveat to this statement: Capitalism requires that I work; it does not mean that I will do any job. Jobs that put me in a position to betray my values and ethics are jobs I will not do, and I say this knowing that there is an immense privilege in this statement. In a just world, we would not have to work IMO. As a descendant of enslaved folks, WORK IS OVERRATED. Being that I need money to survive in this society, society does have the duty to ensure that those who can work and must work can find work. I am not sure if society must grant us jobs that are also politically aligned with our values. I do not believe society owes us this right. Society owes us justice which would make non-profits obsolete.  

As I meditate on these words, I am clear that the bulk of how I make money is attempting to help organizations transform work and operationalize their anti-racism values. I want where people work primarily, our social justice jobs, to be sites of creativity, inclusion, innovation, and psychological safety. I do believe that we do not have to be harmed, abused, and exploited at work. I no longer accept this being part of work. With that said, I do not care how fantastic your day job is. I still highly recommend that people organize and join organizations that do the work to undermine their day jobs. Your freedom will not come from work, especially not in a society built on post-genocide, chattel slavery, and racial capitalism. 

I have been thinking about the small minority of folks who are in unique positions. Such as elected officials, and people who work for their political party. To those folks who are indeed drawing their paychecks from their political party, I hope you have an accountability pod and that you are creating a space in your life to nurture your liberatory fire. I make it a point not to conflate my political party with my political home. For example, I am a registered Democrat, but The Democratic Party is NOT my political home. The Democratic party does not have the range to occupy such a space in my psyche or politics; my voting with them is purely strategic. We spend so much time at work, and it makes sense to want more and different from this thing that takes up so much real estate in our lives. I want to caution us not to expose our deepest and most beautiful social justice dreams to our jobs. Protect the most precious parts of you by not bringing them to work. The revolution is not at your job, trust me.

VIEWINGS AND READINGS:

We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba- This book is about the prison-industrial complex and abolition. If you are new to the idea of prison abolition, then read this book, and if you are not new to prison abolition but need to sharpen your analysis read this book. Mariame’s thinking and intellectual clarity, and commitment is what I endeavor to emulate in my life. 

Bevelations Lessons From a Mutha, Auntie, Bestie by Bevy Smith- Part memoir, part self-help. I appreciate reading books written by women who changed their lives well past the age of thirty-five and are still radically committed to choosing again and starting over. 

Misogynoir Transformed Black Women’s Digital Resistance by Moya Bailey [LINK]- Moya is the Black woman scholar who coined the term misogynoir, and she wrote a book about it. You can purchase the forthcoming book and read excerpts in the link above. 

New Money by Tressie McMillian Cottom [LINK]- “The rules of life are passed down to us like the rules for being white or Argentinian or Midwestern or Black or whatever we stake our emotions on and call an identity. I come from people where money is a private matter, even when business is conducted in public. You always count your change in the store because white cashiers would cheat you and then claim you were stealing if you returned later to complain. You folded your money into hidden compartments so men and ne’er-do-wells could not make you for a mark. And, you always kept the money organized so that you knew at all times just how much money you had to spend.”

Anti-Asian Violence and Black Solidarity Today [LINK]- This is a talk given by Tamara Nopper, the editor of Mariame’s book. In this presentation, Nopper lays out the rich history between Black and East Asian folks. She also invites us to think critically about the hashtag #stopAsianhate, a hashtag I have avoided for many of the same reasons Nopper cites in her talk. It is a critically important conversation as we seek to be in solidarity with our Asian kin. How do we not collude with the carceral state?

King of Reads: Responsibility, HIV Stigma, and Disclosure [LINK]- HIV stigma does not keep anyone safe and, this video by a very popular Youtuber talks about this and his HIV status and what is needed to truly break the stigma. I appreciated this commentary. 

Black Femme Genders Panel by Black Feminist Futures [LINK]- This was such a delicious conversation. The word femme is being grossly misused and co-opted by heterosexual women; this conversation is a great reset. Fun nerdy fact: Kai M. Green's work has been pivotal in my theorizing Black genders and sexuality in my doctoral work. Prioritize watching this at least twice. 

Misogynoir Nearly Killed Meghan Markle [LINK]- “What makes Meghan’s near-death by suicide a particularly damning case of misogynoir is the degree of privilege she has as a light-skinned, class-privileged Black woman. In response to my tweet calling out the misogynoir she experienced, some people countered that it wasn’t misogynoir because Meghan has self-identified as mixed race and as a ‘woman of color.’ I emphatically disagree. Whether Meghan calls herself a Black woman is irrelevant, as the animus she experiences has everything to do with her being read as a Black woman.”

Nobody’s Savior, Jay-Z Can’t Be Our Messiah [LINK]- Jay-Z upset Hampton’s family when he rapped ‘I arrived on the day Fred Hampton died/ Uh, real niggas just multiply’ on ‘Murder to Excellence,’ a song from 2011’s Watch the Throne. Apparently, Jay-Z believed that his contributions to the world were as revolutionary as those of the Marxist-Leninist activists. Really, Hampton and Jay-Z are worlds apart in both motivation and action. With a new chance to prove himself the Black messiah on ‘What It Feels Like,’ Jay-Z offers anecdotes about black diamonds, hoarding money, IRS-related anxieties, and acquiring a luxury weed line. ‘You know they hate when you become more than they expect,’ he raps, implying that accumulating wealth as a Black man is as equally revolutionary as organizing rallies, unifying Chicago’s gangs in the name of anti-policing solidarity, creating free meal programs for children and more.”

God Save Us From The “Bad Days’ of White Men by Mona Eltahawy [LINK]- “I guarded my hymen like a good virgin until I was 29 years old. And yet, not once during my sexually-frustrated 20s did my guilt over masturbation drive me to kill anyone. Not once after watching porn, did I commit mass murder. And once I finally began to have sex with someone other than myself, I did not go on a shooting rampage to “eliminate my temptation” or to quell my guilt. I fucked the guilt out of my system--with other consenting adults, of course.”

Decolonizing Politics [LINK]- “Mamdani offers both plentiful evidence of the depth of the problem of permanent minorities and, as a self-described “incorrigible optimist,” an alternative to this state of affairs—namely, ‘decolonizing the political.’ He writes: ‘That distributional choices are made by reference to cultural, ethnic, and racial identities reflects the politicization of these identities. Only when the political system is decolonized—that is, when identities are uncoupled from permanent majority and minority status—will it be able to secure equity.’ In Neither Settler nor Native, Mamdani draws on the details of his case studies to formulate some broad lessons for decolonizing politics today—most importantly, disaggregating the nation from the state and creating more inclusive forms of democratic politics in the wake of identity-based strife.”

In The Direction of Freedom [LINK]- “We Do This ’Til We Free Us reminds me of another stellar set of essays that I recently read, The Black Woman: An Anthology, which was edited by Toni Cade Bambara and first published in 1970. While pondering the prospects of Black revolution, Bambara issues what we might consider a clarion call to abolitionists: ‘Perhaps we need to face the terrifying and overwhelming possibility that there are no models, that we shall have to create from scratch.’ Her instructive insight reveals that the danger is not that we don’t have a map for freedom but that we keep looking for one. By entertaining, as I did, the question of ‘what will we do in the case of [some really awful thing]’ we are seduced into searching for a map instead of following the direction. The direction is freedom, and any map that purports to point us there isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Outkast Was Almost a Casualty of the East Coast - West Coast Rap Battle [LINK]- “Christopher ‘Kid’ Reid and Salt-N-Pepa presented OutKast their award. Upbeat and playful, Kid said, ‘Ladies help me out,’ to announce the winner, but there is a distinctive drop in their enthusiasm when they name OutKast the winner of the category. The inflection in their voices signifies shock and even disappointment, as Kid quickly tries to be diplomatic by shouting out OutKast’s frequent collaborators and label mates Goodie Mob. The negative reaction from the crowd was immediate, sharp, and continuous booing.”

LUTZE SIGHTINGS:

The Nea Onnim Podcast- Episode 7 [LINK]- “For those of us who are serious about social justice, anti-racism, and freedom that far exceeds liberal notions and electoral politics, we already know that we have lots of work. The conditions of our work have changed, but our demands have not.”

LISTENING:

The Professor Is In Podcast: Ep. 2:27 Where Do I Start? Finding Your Map? [LINK] - If you are a grad student, you may appreciate this episode. Two senior scholars are in conversation about how to start academic writing. They do a good job of giving practical advice and teasing out the different stages of idea creation. 

Unlocking Us Podcast: One Drop: Shifting The Lens on Race [LINK]- Brene Brown’s podcast is officially only on Spotify (momma is fancy). In this episode featuring Dr. Yaba Blay, who wrote the book One Drop and this conversation does a great job showing us how Blackness is not monolithic and how corrosive colorism is to Black people.  

Under The Influence Podcast [LINK]- this podcast series is currently the podcast series that I cannot stop thinking about. The thesis of the podcast is about mom influencers. Did you know that the majority of mom influencers are Mormoms or ex mormons? And that the influencer space grew during the global pandemic? I have my issues with some of the narrative arcs, but it is a well done series and I am learning so much about how mothers do the internet, and how women are monetizing motherhood. 

On Being Podcast 930. Alain de Botton, The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships [LINK]- Alain de Botton is a philosopher whose musings on love and relationships I truly appreciate. This episode was taped in 2017 and it is evergreen. I  revisit at least once a year. It is a must-listen if you are in dire need of a more sobering and grounding way to approach love and relationships. 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

I am currently raising money for #BlackGirlsMatterMia, which is a coalition housed at S.O.U.L Sisters Leadership Collective.  I am a founding member, and currently, I am on the advisory board. Please help me raise money for  Black girls, femmes, and gender-expansive young people to ensure they have what they need to live and survive white supremacy. Dig deep folks and let’s give. Here is the link: https://soulsistersleadership.networkforgood.com/projects/125657-lutze-s-black-girls-matter-coalition-fundraiser