#padawan historian
I went to a high school where I was one of three black kids in my whole graduating class. On a regular basis, I experienced antiblack (+ antiqueer) violence in the hallways, in the bathroom, in the lunchroom, and sometimes even in my “safe space” that was theater.
I still hear the matronizing misogynoir of the white teachers who instructed me to cover myself up with jackets because my budding hips and breasts made my clothes “too tight” which “violated the dress code.”
I still feel the hands that grabbed at my hair, poked, touched, and reduced my black body to a spectacle of curiosity and cruelty.
I still catch a certain tightness in my throat when I remember the upperclassmen who asked if I had a “thug side” or why I didn’t talk ghetto “like other black girls.”
Though I did not know who Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, or bell hooks were at the time, my parents, aunties, godmothers, and elders taught me the resistance work of Sidney Poitier, the ancestral healing of Maya Angelou, the self-determination of Malcolm X, and the love language of Martin Luther King Jr.
In this time of heightened segregationist violence, antiqueer legislation, and imperialist politics and proxy wars, we are all in search of moving castles that bring us peace and a sense of belonging. While the waterways of decolonization are filled with growing pains, sorrow, healing, and wrath there are also rivers that overflow with a love that celebrates our existence.
There is no perfect solution to combating violence in any form, but in an ecosystem of white supremacy, we would be fools to reduce Protect Black Women to a battle cry and not recognize it as a declaration of love.
Referring to oneself as Blackis done out ofself-love and a desire to remember the extinguished stars and rolling seas of our ancestral selves / to uncover and reimagine the roots and routes of our own becomings.
Referring to oneself as Whiteis done out of self-preservation and a desperation to belong to an artificial reality, a biomythology of half-truths and empire-dreams chained to a pedestal left behind to erode in the darkwaters of the rising oceans.
from my Instagram @rosecolored_scholar
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what’s so different about the victorian era and today’s world? humans are still destroying the planet, corporations are still enforcing unsafe work environments, racists still arguing that “not all slave owners were bad,” the british royal family is still problematic af, reproductive rights are still determined by rich, white men and folks still fuck with that dark academia aesthetic
The biggest issue with Joanne’s understanding of racism is that she reinforces a [racist] assimilationist system of reality that one’s worth is contingent on their intellect, skill level, or “output.” If you are “contributing” to the society or assimilate into the existing framework, then you are worthy … you are, in a historical sense, an “Extraordinary Negro” or a “model minority.”
Would Hermione still be valued if she wasn’t the smartest student in her year? Would Lily be celebrated if she wasn’t a skilled witch who married a Potter?
While the segregationist racism of the Malfoys and the Wizarding government is overtly violent, assimilationist racism is the more dangerous because masquerades imperialism and settler-colonialism behind liberal politucs and social justice (both which are rooted in white saviorism and imperialism).
Rowling gave an endorsement to liberal, assimilationist racism (without any criticism or resolution) because she herself is an assimilationist.
A group of elementary schoolers came to the Zora Neale Hurston Museum today, blending the lessons on slavery, folklore, and afrofuturism with their own dreams and great big thinks about black superheroes, traveling to faraway places (and galaxies), and which ninja moves from Naruto were the coolest.
Several hours later, 18 children and 3 educators are killed not by a “a lone wolf” or a “monster” but by an ecosystem constructed by agents of empire who commodify the lives of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our communities for profit …
These agents will turn their eyes away from the Black, brown, and beige people murdered in Buffalo, Dallas, Uvalde and all the places that didn’t make the news. They will mutter “thoughts and prayers” and tweet quotes about healing and peace as they continue to build their wealth on imperial systems that erase history lessons, silence our ancestral identities, erode accessible (and sustainable) mental health services, and stripped away reproductive and social services for communities across color and class lines.
What is happening will keep happening unless we upRoot our miseducated understanding about this Lovecraft country of ours, and start cultivating politics and day-to-day practices that move beyond these poisoned (hu)manmade ecosystems.
