I have to admit that, like many Black people, the murder trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin took me out of my groove, broke my productive stride. The anxiety related to the verdict and the trial’s cultural, historical, and global implications notwithstanding, my anxiety was mostly related to seeing the depictions of George… Continue reading Body Stories: Mirror, Falling, Shaking
I remember visiting the state newspaper and discussing the role of the press and media while watching the actual newspaper printing, rolls of paper whirling around conveyors and the “weird” smell. I also recall a New Media segment in a high school freshman English class in which we studied the different types of media messaging and propaganda. My key takeaway from my early media training was twofold: Media is always trying to persuade, and there is always someone doing the persuading, for some reason.
Upon writing this, remnants of my anxiety during the protests are coming forth, the anxiety of being embodied as Black and male, recognizing that there is no place to run and hide from the constant signifying (more on this in the near future). I remember the contempt I felt seeing camouflaged vehicles and authorized children with guns patrolling my neighborhood. I recall how disgusted I was, and am, by the politics fueled by white supremacy and genital supremacy continually destroying our lives, and to a further extent, destroying our planet.
All I really remember at this point is my brother’s carrier sliding towards the truck door, then out of it. How did he start sliding? How did the door come open? Had my mother not closed it properly? Was it faulty? Had I opened the door and pushed my brother out?
I think on some level we suspect/know that this absurdity—of (mis)identifying people by skin color—is technically wrong, weird, and compelling us to perpetuate it. Seemingly, withstanding the overt, subtle, and almost invisible assault by white supremacy (meaning white supremacists, the people) requires such perpetuation because, under such domination, the constant withstanding becomes life.
“We often identify children with what is called creative potential without any reference to the products they have produced or will produce. However, if the creative product is a person’s life, then no concrete thing is necessary—a composition, a poem, a pot, or a theorem.” Understanding Creativity, pg. 33. I was a stutterer. I don’t… Continue reading Your Life As Art
I wrote in the “Welcome to S|F Blog” post that I had been writing a lot in many genres after my sister died and her four and five-year old sons, my mother, and my blind, partially crippled, on dialysis, estranged father came to Minneapolis to live with me. I lived in one unit of a… Continue reading Instant Family as a Source of Independence?
Sōma|Flourish 