This week has been INTENSE. As a writer, educator, and person committed to racial justice and the work of healing internalized white supremacy, I’ve been following and affected by the dysfunction, injury, and trauma on display. I’ve been confronting my own shadow, while watching collective shadows in the United States come into light. And these shadows ask us to reckon with legacies of colonialism and slavery, institutionalized racism, and deep dehumanization. These ... Read more ...
systemic oppression
Trusting the Alarm Behind Supposedly “Alarmist Rhetoric”
There are numerous alarms about how far off the tracks we’ve gotten as a people. While many people are facing insurmountable odds, injury, and even death, many are also desensitized to violence and going about business as usual. Against a background of ever-increasing injustice, I’m still hearing people caution against “alarmist rhetoric,” and I’m wondering: If we’re not alarmed now, then when? I don’t believe the alarm is coming at the wrong time, with the wrong ... Read more ...
Reframing “Independence Day” as a Day for Truth-Telling and Committing to Justice
I really struggle with July 4th. It’s a holiday that presumes to celebrate “freedom,” but freedom for whom? By what means? Under what circumstances? It’s a holiday that celebrates myths like meritocracy and “the American Dream,” while keeping hidden systemic racism and other ongoing oppression. It’s a holiday that normalizes narratives and displays of patriotism, which underlie white nationalism and the logics of “we” versus “them.” The “we” must be “better than” or “the ... Read more ...
Swinging from Sweet to Sour
A roller coaster of emotions. This isn’t a new experience for me, but one that’s becoming an every-day, every-week norm. I swing from moments of real hope and sweetness to moments of real hate and sourness. This roller coaster can motivate resistance, and it can send me back into the cave to confront both personal and collective shadows. Here’s what these swings look like. In the past few days, I’ve witnessed the acquittal of the Minnesota officer who killed Philando ... Read more ...
Why I’m Vegan: Ecofeminism
I’ve been holding myself up, preventing myself from writing about why I’m vegan and how central food is to my understanding of justice. I’ve been holding myself up because this writing feels especially important, like it needs to be good, and, therefore, is triggering my need to counter perfectionism. I’ve also been holding myself up because it’s so damn hard to write about being vegan without re-inscribing notions of whiteness and privilege. Especially from my ... Read more ...
Choosing to Tread Another Path
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently on paths. Established hiking trails and sidewalks, escalators and even rock crawls marked by arrows. And I’ve been especially appreciative for the healing that comes from this time walking—not only hiking, but standing, marching, experiencing the mobility associated with movement, strengthening and using my body, contemplating my embodied existence, and examining the various privileges and positionings associated with this ... Read more ...
Appreciating Rahawa Haile’s “Going It Alone” for the Hiking-Justice Connection
As someone interested in and impacted by the outdoors, hiking, human connection, harmful historical legacies, and ever-present white supremacy, I absolutely love and highly recommend Rahawa Haile’s article “Going It Alone”: Haile shares her experience through-hiking the Appalachian Trail as a queer black woman. Here are a few of my favorite lines: In trying to figure out why this piece so deeply speaks to me, I realize how much I crave stories of hiking ... Read more ...
Wrestling with Whether to Wear Pantyhose
I’m attending a friend’s wedding this weekend, and I wish I could say that I’m experiencing the joy, gratitude, and love associated with celebration. Instead, I’ve been experiencing worry, shame, anger, and grief—so many unresolved emotions and resurfacing memories associated with the trauma of sexism. I’m wrestling with a very real and raw question: Do I wear pantyhose to my friend’s wedding? I’m wrestling with the pit in my stomach that relates not just to ... Read more ...
Blogs I Love: Reading Suggestions for Women’s History Month
Recently, I’ve been fielding questions about which blogs I read and recommend. This comes during Women’s History Month when I’ve been thinking about how to center the voices, intellectual contributions, and leadership of women of color. So, I’ve begun tracking where I spend my time online and compiling lists of my favorite blogs by feminists and womanists of color. What I’ve created are some initial lists—and I say initial as there are many important blogs. I also ... Read more ...
Microaggressions Matter
Sunday evening, night of the Oscars. I’m not watching TV, but Skyping with my friend and co-author Rasha Diab, as we work on an upcoming presentation and related academic article. The article’s focus? Proposing a rhetorical framework for countering microaggressions, or everyday and seemingly small, yet cumulative and consequential, actions. Among others, psychologist Derald Wing Sue explains that microaggressions communicate denigrating messages to people of ... Read more ...
