Announcing: Fikira’s Return!
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
sheepfilms
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i don't do bad sauce passes
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@fikirablog
Announcing: Fikira’s Return!
Fikira Will Be Closed Until May 2017
Dear community,
With a heavy heart, I must officially announce Fikira will be closed for the next six months.
Orders and interest can be directed to partner foodmaker, foodeveryonedeserves (fed), and cooperative kitchen, WinWin (W/N W/N) Coffee Bar. Our fundraising efforts will continue for Standing Rock (and beyond) in the form of events. Check out fed’s powerhouse community dinner THIS SATURDAY. Folks are coming together like never before—be a part of this moment, and show up as best you can. Thank you always for your support.
Meanwhile, I’m on sick leave. I will be printing copies of Fikira’s Food Stories Zine, offering logistical support to fed & W/N W/N, stocking my apothecary, and sending love to all of you. Read Dirty River. Read Exile and Pride. Recommend books to me on GoodReads. We gon’ survive.
In love and struggle,
Ailbhe Pascal
Photography from Philly theater artist, grant writer, teaching artist, and photographer Madeline Charne will be featured in our Bread Share Stories Zine! The zine will be published October 21st, debuting at our Community Dinner and delivered for the last share on October 22nd.
Pictured here: A plate of ginger candies as offerings for blessings at our Community Dinner Spring 2016.
Excited to post all the blessings from our community this past year at the next dinner. Excited to share this zine with you all! Facebook event link here.
Come out for a five-course meal this Sunday! Five seats still open--call to RSVP and to get exact address (opening up my home to y'all!). Share widely! #Phillyevent #dindin #free #community #seasonalfood #fancyfood #FikiraBakery
HEY! Stop offering the trope of indigenous distrust as a righteous argument. (Tricky, suspicious, and untrusting go hand-in-hand.) How about attacked and aware? Thanksgiving does NOT celebrate the truthfulness of indigenous perception, it romanticizes murder and robs entire cultures of their agency. How about you listen to First Nation narratives? And HEY! Violent settler-colonialists turned away from their homelands (by poverty, lack of clean water, religious discrimination...) are STILL violent settler-colonialists!! Stop calling white colonizers filled with racist hate historical "refugees". They were not seeking refuge. They intentionally stole and killed. They were tools in the project of white supremacy. Making comparisons between this first wave of white colonists and peoples who have been displaced by white colonization is gross and ahistorical. -----/----- Meme text (written over an image of John Oliver, so presumably a bit from his show): "Let's be honest here. Every generation has had its own ugly reactions to refugees, whether they are the Irish, the Vietnamese, the Cubans or the Haitians, and those fears have been broadly unfounded. In fact there was only one time in American history when the fear of refugees wiping everyone out did actually come true, and we'll be sitting around a table celebrating it on Thursday."
On International Solidarity
Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon... Black lives are being lost to Boko Haram violence by the thousands. Are you thinking about these lives? Are you mourning these losses as you talk about solidarity with Syria, Lebanon, etc.?
First, a recap: In the past week I have been tracking down friends of mine in Beirut, loving them and offering support. It was an important moment to call out racism in the media. For example, Facebook created a French flag filter and a “Safety Check” option for French folk, but made no similar solidarity effort for folks in Lebanon. The hashtag #PrayForParis blew up while the candles lit for other places surviving attacks were dim. The so-called USA is now in the heat of debate: How do we welcome (or turn away) Syrian refugees? What retaliation should we aim at ISIS (the militant group accused for the Paris bombings, though they are unrelated)? How Islamophobic should we get? Liberal folks have been picketing against war, have been inviting refugees to their Thanksgiving dinners, have been changing their profile pictures to the Lebanese flag, and more.
These are good ways to act in a cultural debate. Yet I still see the need to push that solidarity. The State focuses on ISIS because of imperialist resource interests, which ISIS directly threatens. Media is an agent of those interests. As it dehumanizes, it says Arab people are not important, but Arab resources are. We must react to this anti-Brown sentiment to uplift the humanity of *all* our people, but it smacks of irony that we then don’t share our mourning, energy and focus with the places in Africa also suffering attacks. If we play into this lens, we participate in international anti-Blackness.
Just today another Boko Haram attack killed people in Nigue, Cameroon. Every day, more Black lives are stolen by imperialist ignorance and violence. It is most easily called a racist lens when the lives of our students are endangered, for example, (#StudentBlackOut), in places we know or recognize (#Mizzou). But when we look abroad, do we feel connected to Africa? Do we think of the lives or stories there? If African nations (all 54+) are not on your radar, you are participating in anti-Blackness. When entering a debate saying Syrian refugees are welcome here, we need to also say Nigerian refugees are also welcome here. One should not supersede, nor overshadow, the other--just as the focus on Paris should not have superseded the focus on Beirut. If we can call out anti-Brown sentiment in our cultural debates, we can, and should, call out anti-Black sentiment. Yes, we should welcome in Syrian (Iraqi, et al.) refugees. (Ya saadiqi, a7lan bik!) Yes, we should reject terror sensationalism. Yes, we should reject all imperialist projects of the State.
Meanwhile, can we please keep Boko Haram in the front of our minds? We should welcome in Nigerian (Cameroonian, et al.) refugees. We should uplift the stories of the individual. We should participate in international accountability.
Last reblog for a while, I promise! I just think this is absolutely an amazing use of often unused public space, and, with a nod to Kayla, makes me want to review my own bucket list. Would love to hear what some things on your lists might be! ;)
WOAH! Just realized this is the same chalkboard mural at 21st, just north of Market Street in Philadelphia (under the overpass, past Trader Joes). Wuuuut!
I'm telling you stories. Trust me.
Jeanette Winterson, The Passion.
Sudoku as a board game is making my weekend so much better. Check it out! It even has tiny pieces to help you narrow down answers as you go. :)
Join @blackquantumfuturism at #timexchange studios on 4/25 for a mini writing retreat for the far out and gone. RSVP by 4/17 at blackquantumfuturism@gmail (at @NeighborhoodTimeExchange Studios)
What an amazing opportunity for writers in Philly. I certainly hope to learn and let it flow. Have to figure out scheduling by tomorrow for the RSVP!
Souad's voice is so deep on this track. The guitar makes me want to go for a walk. "KHALAS!"
Akua Naru.
Inspiration always. Listening to "Tales of (Wo)Men" this week, transported by the power of Akua's poetry. Thought to see what images of her were on Tumblr, and this Huey Newton tribute made me swoon. The mic is a gun. Just looking at this makes me want to write a poem... Bless.
And since I just mentioned Sexual Assault Awareness Month, here is this awesome blog started by he NSVRC. Worth the follow!
Thoughts on Spring & Greco-Roman Paganism
Thanks to some pumped up Christians asking my roommate, while she served them, if she believed in Christ this Easter, I pulled out my old pentagram and set aside my goth best for brunch tomorrow. That’s right, I’m crashing my roommate’s restaurant job to make all the obnoxious Church-goers uncomfortable. :)
My pentacles and pentagrams are throwbacks to days when I was incredibly reactive to the Catholic Church. Seeing one again reminded me of this song I used to sing called “The Goddess and the Weaver,” by Spiral Dance. I listened to it right around the same time I was translating Ovid for Latin in school.
If I am to embrace my Kabyle roots, I am to embrace my Etruscan-Roman roots. It is with great privilege I have access to these heritage stories since they were part of my liberal arts education, and are part of a dominant European cultural narrative.
“Read more” will take you to some of my positive feminist interpretations of Greco-Roman Springtime myths. To be clear, this is me practicing storytelling and sharing some alternative narrative to the season, not getting down with one religion over another. (Thoughts on organized religion and patriarchy shelved for now.)
Trigger warnings for abduction, sexual violence, patriarchy, institutions of privilege, spiders, survivor mentioning being triggered, women hating women, motherhood as institution.
In short, to the ancient Greeks and Romans (I will use Greek names because they are the original and more commonly known), this is a time when the goddess of Spring gets to pop out of the Underworld for a couple of months. This is considered rebirth, since Spring has to overcome the land of the dead to return to us every year. (*Ahem, that Bible steals everybody’s myths.*)
For those of you who don’t know the myth of Persephone and Hades, Persephone (Spring’s fertility goddess) was the beautiful young woman Hades (god of War and Hell) abducted and forcibly made his wife. She is tricked and trapped with him, only allowed to live her free, fruitful life under the sun when she is needed. (Because the Earth needs Spring to happen, it just does.) Her joy becomes labor, and she becomes another victim of motherhood as institution. Ugh.
This is also around the same time of year when Athena confronts Arachne. (The very myth mentioned in “The Goddess and the Weaver.”) Arachne, a simple mortal, knows all the cruel doings of the gods, and wants to expose them. Athena, however, is the goddess of weaving, and won’t have some human use these powers against her.
Athena’s intrigued, because we mortals are just playthings after all. Instead of outright punishing Arachne, Athena offers a challenge, a kind of weaver’s duel. There’s no real way that Arachne can win, because who could be a better judge than the goddess of the loom herself? And why would that goddess vote against herself? Athena adds a snarky “If you know so much, show me how the secrets of the gods.” Another impossible task.
Arachne just goes for the jugular: She weaves the painful, horrible legacy of Zeus as rapist. All of it. Unapologetically. Father God is not her hero, nor ever will be. How dare he. Arachne wants the world to know.
Athena is enflamed, and gives Arachne one chance to take it back. Arachne is too proud of her work–as artist and feminist–and refuses to obey the goddess. Athena promptly turns Arachne into a creature who must always weave: The spider. This is why in Latin-derived languages, spiders are called “arachnids.”
Athena deals with a privileged kind of sexism in the boys’ club of Heaven. You know, she had a place in the clouds and mighty immortal powers (*cough*whiteprivilege*cough*), but she was still surrounded by ugly, egregious frat parties and was hardly respected as a warrior (despite being a warrior goddess, she was still just a woman to her peers). When Arachne spoke truth to power, there should have been solidarity. Athena should have tattooed the tapestry onto Zeus’s face, not defend him.
But you wanna play that? We don’t need gods or privileged folk to help us speak truth to power. Nah, this is the season of the spider. Creeping, constant honesty.
Interestingly, it really is our season. When I came out of assault trauma in college (yikes, was Ovid triggering!), I learned about Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). When reflecting on what it meant to honor the month of the spider in my now atheist way, I asked: What can I take away from these myths morally or practically? And boom, I suddenly made the connection that SAAM is April. April, the month that Persephone breaks free from the shackles of patriarchy and rejuvenates herself. (Surviving to thriving!) April, the time when Arachne insisted on exposing the hurt so many women faced before her, knowing she’d be punished by the system in doing so.
Yes, April, we survivors are here. I choose to understand these myths not as a history of abuse but a herstory of resistance. This season isn’t about some white boy’s pain and how his daddy saved him (Jesus on Easter), this is about folks living with trauma and finding a new leaf for themselves.
I am more likely to be triggered these days because Ive brought some experiences to surface. Hopefully this also means I am more likely to heal. Radical interpretations of trauma past (ancient and personal) helps me get there. What do you hear in these myths? What does this season provide you with?
I am saving up content to crash the Internet with the tag #interseXXY, in the hopes some body-positive intersexed folk will find me and want to share stories. I don't want to keep seeking community in trans* spaces when I know there are other intersexed folk out here. If you want to jump start the conversation, message me! This could also make for an excellent zine, y'all. Anything from the beauty of an ever-changing chest to queer smut. I'd be down to publish it if only there were other people to submit. (Can I do this alone?)
Aaah! How perfect is this??
Thought process:
1) What a great excuse to practice fondant. a) What kind of cake should it be? b) Everyone’s going to make a cake. It’s so easy to shape. c) Is fondant tasty on vegetables?? d) Drop the sugar idea.
2) What a great excuse to translate my poem “For Al-Bayati”. a) I’ve put that off way too long. b) “…بدون اللغة…” c) What would al-Bayati eat a poem off of? d) Screw the worship of male artists.
I guess what I come up with will just be a surprise for you all! ;)
Freedom is a practice. It is a way of thinking in other ways to those we have become accustomed to. To be free is to be able to question the way power is exercised, disputing claims to domination. Such questioning involves our ‘ethos’, our ways of being, or becoming who we are. To be free we must be able to question the ways our own history defines us.”
Gordon Bennett (via culturite)