What is forced upon us
Who dictates the rules? A question I return to almost daily.
But first, I’m trying out something new. Let me know what you think. I’ll share a few things I’ve loved lately.
📖: This essay in The Cut ‘It Doesn’t Matter If We Behave’ by Tembe Denton-Hurst
“I wanted to exist in rooms that felt closed off to me, to wield the power needed to change the hearts and opinions of the people who picked up a magazine. I wanted to see if they had better food up there, if the water tasted good. I wanted to be plucked from the group and made special, able to tell myself that I’d made the right kind of edits while maintaining a core sense of self. My ambition was cloaked as representation, as doing something for the collective good.”
This made the rounds heavy yesterday. What a powerhouse of an essay. I cannot wait to read Tembe’s book.
📺: Apple and Onion on HBO Max
I thoroughly enjoy the quality of animated series there are today. This is one we watched as a family repeatedly (and might start it again) because it was hilarious. It spoke to my Jamaican senses, my U.K. senses. Especially disliking how much of the entertainment my kids consume that is starkly white centered (bc so many of my childhood faves are still a bit too grown up in subject matter and I don’t want them internalizing -isms and equating it to Blackness. I live in a society that is openly colorblind and I’m mindful of that added violence while I’m still teaching.), I appreciate other ways to introduce culture when possible. We quote this show regularly and roll around laughing like Peppa Pig’s family.
📚: LaToya Jordan’s essay, “We Called Ourselves A Movement”, excerpted from her novella TO THE WOMAN IN THE PINK HAT on Raising Mothers
“I get that you probably did the interview to explain another side of the story. But your coming forward didn’t make us feel better about what happened to us. We held our breaths so long waiting for justice that when we came up for air, it was cries and screams.”
With everything going on in the world over the control of women’s reproductive health, the lives and wellbeing of our trans community, this dystopian near future that Jordan brings us into doesn’t feel too far off. Her writing is chef’s kiss. Buy her book!
