🚨Next Saturday! Pull up to Shades of Discourse: May 23rd, 4PM at The People’s Forum
We’ll kick things off with a community mixer: connect, vibe, and let’s get into it 📺
What does radical media look like? Hear directly from community orgs and cultural workers making media that reimagines culture and society.
Good people. Real talk. Come thru.
Participating orgs/creatives include:
@thaaaliyaheffect@iansamag@hoodweardiaries@youthdesigncenter@8ballcommunity@blackmenbuildnyc
Wit sounds by @psychomobdj 🔊
🗓️ May 23rd | 4–9 PM | @peoplesforumnyc (Mixer starts at 4: don’t be late) 🏃🏾🏃🏾♀️🏃🏽♂️
@shadesofdiscourse has me thinking about house parties again. i truly think house parties could fill the gaps with so many of the complaints we hear over and over about organizing, community building, dating, etc. i could write a dissertation abt it. maybe one day i will.
pictured: W(ITH) was such a fun, all ages (at a certain point) gathering. music, zine-making, painting, fellowship. organizers need to dance, party girls need an outlet to talk about the political socioeconomic state of the world. we all need to do more arts and crafts. we need to connect offline.
call to action: have a party.
📸: thank you sm @sam.lee.life
resisting the urge to be self deprecating about the fact that i’ve been underemployed since graduating. my new answer to what have you been doing is just gonna be: trying. recovering. existing. searching. idk. if anyone has any ideas that can help me survive late stage capitalism tho lmk
my fancy piece of paper came in the mail. i’ve been struggling to fully celebrate myself in this moment. my mission is intertwined with liberation movements, my degree is in service to knowledge for the sake of greater global freedom. it has made me better, not bc of the accolade but bc it gave language to so much that i already knew through my lived experience. it gave me time to let my brain expand again. i can more confidently speak on issues I have been yelling about since i was 15. it was really hard, especially as i confronted seeking an adhd diagnosis at 25 and going back to school and not knowing how to engage with theory and big words for the first 6 months. i stand by the promises i wrote in my thesis to not let the knowledge remain only among those with access. moving past creative blocks and fear to do so, but moving.
two years ago i was in line with my friend charlie getting credentials to work electric forest when i found out i needed to move to new york in a month. i wasn’t expecting to go to nyu, to be in this program, to create something bigger than myself for my thesis. i was only trying to escape my job, escape heartbreak. im grateful higher forces had bigger plans.
it is so important to acknowledge my extreme disgust with this school as an institution complicit in genocide. removing students and holding their degrees for speaking truth to power. you turned the campus into a police state to threaten dissenters. you built a wall around stern and then painted it purple and came up with some fake “construction” as a cover for the site of protest the building became for the first encampment on campus so new students weren’t aware of what happened last spring. you had students and professors beaten, terrorized and arrested after you sic’d nypd on them. im not proud of the institution but im grateful and appreciative of all the people i met because of it.
we must stop imagining apocalypse/genocide + we must imagine liberation (2024) by Demian Diné Yazhi’
the most impactful work of art i saw this year. words that have stayed with me since i got the chance to see this at the whitney biennial this spring.
i hope in 2025 you use your imagination for liberation
sometimes when i feel lost (emotionally, geographically) i remember if i walk toward the water from my apartment i can see faith ringgold’s favorite bridge.
