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August 11, 2024

Weekend Edition

This is a new section of the newsletter that will offer prompts for self-reflection, a key part of reimagining. Today’s prompt is what brought me to reimagining this newsletter—specifically, how Nikki Giovanni viewed her writing as “about me dancing naked on that floor” and how frustrated I’ve felt fitting my thoughts into the former format of this newsletter. So, I offer a similar prompt to you: How has your approach to your own work evolved, and why?

In an interview in Black Women Writers at Work (published in 1983), Nikki Giovanni and Claudia Tate discuss Giovanni’s legacy of impact and how it’s evolved since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. There, Giovanni highlights the importance of contradiction, and how she hopes her work reflects how the journey of writing has morphed her perspective on the world around her. Read the excerpt here.

We might not all have published works to reflect on to understand how our views have changed, but it doesn’t mean we can’t reflect on how our views have evolved. Here’s an invitation to do so. Spend some time this week reflecting on your own educational journey and how it’s affected how you respond to social justice issues. Here are some prompts to help.

1. How have your sociopolitical views changed over the past year?

2. What has been most helpful for you in staying open to new ideas?

3. What self-limiting stories about your own lived experience are you clinging to? How may they affect how you see yourself? How you see others?

4. Who has helped you evolve your perspective? Include people you don't have a direct relationship with (like cultural commentators or authors) and people you do (your friend, your colleague, etc.).

5. Where do you imagine yourself to be in the next year? Five years? How does that compare to the news, articles, people and perspectives that surround you today?

Give Us Our Land Back

With the concept of “Shamiya Feminism”, Banah Ghadbian highlights the solidarities connecting Syrian and Palestinian earth-based feminist, ecological, and liberatory resistances. This longread is a fantastic way to understand how interconnected the fight for Palestinian liberation. Spectre >

Hip-Hop Hits the Podium: Breaking in Paris 2024 Olympics

Host Kavitha A. Davidson examines the rise of breaking from its roots in the Bronx in the 1970s as a pillar of hip-hop culture to its global spread and eventual acceptance by the International Olympic Committee. This is technically a “recommended listen” not read, but hey! Listen >

Imagine 2200: The 2024 climate fiction collection

We can learn so much about what’s possible from speculative fiction. These twelve short stories offer “vivid, hope-filled, diverse visions of climate progress.” I haven’t read them all but “Gifts We Give to the Sea“ has already gotten me excited! Grist >

In the UK, thousands of anti-racism protesters have rallied in towns and cities across England after a week of anti-immigrant rioting and disorder.

• Big Tech platforms play an active role in fuelling racist violence. Amnesty International >

• Peaceful crowds of anti-racism protesters gather in large numbers amid concerns of new anti-immigration riots. Al Jazeera >

• “London’s massive anti-racism demonstration happened on my doorstep. I’ve never been prouder to live here.” Vogue >

• In this op-ed, British writer Michaela Makusha explains why recent racist riots in the UK are nothing new in Britain. Teen Vogue >

At the Olympics, sheer talent and heroic wins are centerstage, despite a backdrop of racism, transphobia, and misogyny.

• After winning the gold medal, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has filed a formal legal complaint against the toxic transphobic discourse spewed online. JK Rowling has been noticeably quiet since. Reuters >

• U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles must return her bronze medal on a technicality as her family calls out the racist vitriol directed towards Chiles over the past two weeks.

• “For female athletes of color, scrutiny around gender rules and identity is part of a long trend.” AP News >

Pro-Palestinian communities call for acknowledgment and accountability from Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

• I wrote on LinkedIn that holding a presidential candidate accountable through protest should not be conflated as misogynoir merely because the candidate happens to be a Black woman. LinkedIn >

• “The presidential hopeful has had a long career in service of Zionism—a history she is now trying to distance herself from.” Prism >

• South Asian Americans are mobilizing for Harris to change her stance on Palestine. If you identify as South Asian and wish to support, you can join here > 

Racism is why Trump is so popular. Trump’s popularity with his base isn’t the result of economic anxiety, as many claimed in 2016. It’s about race and demographics. The Intercept >

Crow Jim: Project 2025’s obsession with reverse racism. Blueprints for conservative rule can’t get enough of the smear that fighting racism against Black people amounts to racism against white people. The American Prospect >

Squad member Cori Bush loses House primary to Wesley Bell. The two-term House member who represents the St. Louis area was defeated by a local prosecutor supported by millions from AIPAC. 19th News >

How workers unionized and transformed Starbucks. Starbucks workers forced one of the largest corporations in the world to negotiate a union contract. Here’s the story of how they did it. More Perfect Union >

Are gun safety laws helping to reduce violence? An update to a major meta-analysis adds to our understanding of how some common firearm regulations may contribute to public safety. The Trace >

I’d love to hear how this space can be most resonant for you. Take this quick survey and share what topics you’d love to see covered next.

“How have other people dealt with the aftermath of cutting out family members whose values don’t reflect their own?”

This question has been asked a lot (and I’ve appreciated every answer) but I have a slightly different take that I hope you can provide insight on. I bet others are thinking about it, too.

I’m proud to say that, after years spent arguing with my parents about their hateful, racist opinions, I decided to stop speaking to them earlier this year. I gave them an ultimatum and I’m sticking to it because they need to understand how their views affect me and the world. I hope to still change their minds.

This winter will be my first holiday where I likely won’t see them. And I’m already feeling overwhelmed by it. How have other people dealt with the aftermath of cutting out family members whose values don’t reflect their own? I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just curious where others have gone from here.

I can’t speak to this from personal experience, but I bet many of our readers can. So, for those of you with insights, I encourage you to share them in the comments on today’s post. Be sure to review our Community Values before doing so!