Anise and Caraway

What? Seriously, folks. Or something.

[wanderingaffect]

notes from rehearsal, 7.19 (snug harbor)

meli + kiera working on developing phrase material derived from the photography of francesca woodman.

[sisterresister]

[lesbianspaceprincess]

Straight historians constantly amaze me with their ability to look at love letters between two ladies or two gentlemen and just go “LOOK AT THE FRIENDSHIP! FRIENDS!”

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

“Just Ye Olde Gals being Ye Olde Pals”

[ginger-ailment]

I read something about how water signs perceive reality in a distorted way. It said that we find it especially difficult to see ourselves the ways other people are seeing us. I am feeling this really hard lately, in my bursts of energy, in my palpitations, in my shakes and twitches, in the way my hair smells when I come back inside after being out in the sun, in the spaces between conversations. It makes me dizzy to think about how our senses of self dance with other people's senses of us partnered with their senses of themselves and their senses of our senses of selves and how they all interact with the material thingness of our bodies in space and their pains and affective pulls and pulses. When the season changes I don't know what I'm feeling but I know that I'm feeling. The air is caffeinated. The bench I'm sitting on in Union Square smells like shit.

[d7ux]

[criterioncollection]

2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER, dir. Jean-Luc Godard (1967).

[ginger-ailment]

I am drinking green tea again and thinking about Ireland/Éire. I can tell that it's warmer out because there are cars drag racing and my solar plexus is being pulled in several different directions--mostly southeast toward where I'm from and east toward where my ancestors are from--and my muscles are sore but in that raw sexy way that makes me want to get them even more sore. Angelina and I are working on a piece that is thinking about companion planting and I remembered something my high school dance teacher said: "Imagine that your hips are a bowl of fruit; don't spill the fruit." I am spilling the fruit.

[notveryraven]

a better use of your political energy would be determining where all the polling places are in your area and putting up a sign that says “THE MASTER’S TOOLS WILL NEVER DISABLE THE MASTER’S HOUSE” at each one

[ginger-ailment]

It's "dismantle," not "disable." Can't tell if you meant to misquote her for some greater purpose, though.

[gayasscommie-deactivated2017090]

The idea that 19th century scientific racism was just the product of some idiots fucking up the scientific process is a fundamentally wrong one which splits science off from society and assumes that any oppressive conclusions made in the realm of ‘science’ are purely isolated conclusions.

In reality the ideas of scientific racism (that some people are, a priori, better, due to their blood or their skull shape or their genes) were simply the transmission of ancient ideas about hierarchy into a new scientific language.  The power of the blood and the existence of several difference species of human was a long standing concept, meaning that in a new period of scientific advancement the defenders of these ideas weren’t accidentally replicating oppressive ideas, they were influenced by their oppressive ideas and created an oppressive science.

This conclusion means that we aren’t able to simply separate ourselves from the bigoted science of the past, created by clearly mistaken analysis and bad science.  We need to realize that oppressive attitutdes are always going to bias supposedly ‘pure’ research, leading to people moving to racist, sexist, or homophobic conclusions, and leading to these conclusions not being criticized as they are seen as ‘apolitical’.

[mockssblog-deactivated20170103]

Looking Again at James Baldwin

[atelier-populaire]

+ Mother to my all

[projectqueer]

The 'Black, Queer, Feminist' Legal Trailblazer You've Never Heard Of

Pauli Murray championed the fight for gender equality, achieved sainthood and helped desegregate schools, all while pushing against Mad Men-era social norms.

Dr. Pauli Murray is hardly the household name that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, but a recent profile in Salon argues she should be. As Salon’s Brittney Cooper explains, Murray, who graduated from the Howard University School of Law in 1944, was one of the first lawyers to argue that the Equal Protection Clause’s approach to racial discrimination should apply equally to gender-based discrimination. Ginsburg credits Murray’s work as the inspiration for her 1971 brief in Reed v. Reed, which ruled that women could not be excluded as administrators of personal estates based on their gender. The Supreme Court case marked the first time that the Equal Protection Clause was applied to sex discrimination, and has served as precedent for many arguments in the decades since then. Ginsburg found Murray’s prior arguments so important to her own that she elected to put Murray down as an honorary co-author on the milestone brief.

CLICK THE HEADER LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.

[h-e-r-s-t-o-r-y]

NOBODY KNOWS I’M A LESBIAN. 2003. #NYPL Picture Collection, #homosexuality folder #Herstory #lesbian #nobodyknows #blacklesbian #qpoc #teeshirt #lezstyle #2003

[rawringthroughthetwenties]

Kill Everything

I love the fact that here in Ireland we have loads of places called Kill because in Irish the word Cill means church. Unfortunately lots of tourists wouldn’t know that and I always imagine them staring in horror, mouths wide open when they see signs like these:

[oglaighnaheireann]

Cathal Brugha’s funeral. Cumann na mBan women hold hands for crowd control. Caitlin Brugha and Muriel MacSwiney are pictured in the centre. Mary MacSwiney is on the far right.

1922

[gotmelookingsocrazyrightnow]

BEYONCE - FORMATION

[ikonicgif]

Uzo Aduba poses backstage with her awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series for her role in “Orange is the New Black” during the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles, California January 30, 2016.

[projectqueer]

This black lesbian activist declined a prestigious honor from The Queen of England. Here’s why.

“I’m honored and grateful, but I have to say no thank you.”

Last week, Queen Elizabeth II said she thought that gay marriage was absolutely “wonderful.” Meanwhile, Phyll Opoku-Gyimah — an LGBT activist in the U.K. best known for founding U.K. Black Pride — was one of 1,200 artists, activists, and other notables listed in the Queens New Year’s Honors List.

Opoku-Gyimah, who also served as a Rainbow List judge and Stonewall Trustee, was happy to be noticed. But it’s complicated.

As she told the U.K.’s Diva magazine:

“If you’re a member of a minority – or multiple minorities – it’s important to be visible as a role model for others [and] for your successes to be seen. An honor is a very public statement that the establishment has decided that you, and what you do, are valued by the wider society. You’ve worked hard, and they’ve actually noticed.”

However, inclusion on the list comes with an MBE, which makes her known as a Member of the British Empire. And she has a problem with that:

“…Member of the British Empire? I don’t believe in empire. I don’t believe in, and actively resist, colonialism and its toxic and enduring legacy in the Commonwealth, where – among many other injustices – LGBTQI people are still being persecuted, tortured and even killed because of sodomy laws, including in Ghana, where I am from, that were put in place by British imperialists. I’m honored and grateful, but I have to say no thank you.”

[brendan-j-harkin-deactivated201]

Why Suicide Rates Have Skyrocketed for Northern Ireland's 'Ceasefire Babies'

In the years following the Troubles, a period of intense violence in the region, young people have been killing themselves in alarming numbers.

[caca-millis]

This article is what has been in the back of my mind for awhile but put into words.

Most of my classmates were born just a few years before the Good Friday Agreement so everyone seemed to assume “oh this generation will be fine”. 

But I remember talking to class mates and friends of the same age group about how we all oddly seemed to be “scarred” by the troubles.  How do I mean by that, I don’t know, but its a hangover from it. 

However I always feel ashamed when I say that because older people will slam down on you like “you were not even alive during the troubles”.  And maybe I am right to feel guilty about even questioning how lucky we have all had it - but I can’t put my finger on it, but something has been passed down culturally and seems to be effecting the young people who barely seen any touch of violence. 

I can’t be the only Derry one to feel like this.

[northern-irish-lefty-deactivate]

Yeah, I was born a year after Good Friday. Though there is something… Our experiences aren’t the same as others in the West, bomb scares are still normal. I’ve been in at least 3, none of my English friends or any other friends outside of N.I have been in one. We still live with the effects and the violence, just it’s not as bad as it was.

Not to mention that it still lives on, I mean, the violence is still bad in Belfast and most people at my school (Unionist area) have stories from the Troubles and some people have relatives who were in the UVF or UDA. Or know people who still are.

[caca-millis]

Yes there is “something”.  Bomb scares are very normal, its like a fallen tree blocking a road, an inconvenience.  This was on my foundation class notice board (it was beside that police station that keeps getting bombed and the odd rocket launcher turfed at it). 

The Troubles are over - but there is a mild legacy.  There are stories in my family that are barely spoken of, my mother was shot in the head with a gas canister and nearly died and my dad was in the army barracks when a bomb went off (he was arrested for no reason and was there at the wrong time eh?) There is a lot of “protection money” shite going on in Derry, and those punishment shootings by the RAAD is a bit of a problem.  No matter how many cross community centres they open its still very segregated. The fact a cross community worker was almost beaten to death for being in the wrong area is not going to help things locally either.  I met my first unionist aged 18 when I went to art school.  Not through any fault of our own. Derry has the bloody river separating it, different schools, different pubs, different areas to live. 

I think Belfast has the tension a lot worse than Derry. We have some marches - but Belfast has the biggest issues with “Queens Highway” and the “Fleg” debates. 

Its just like people are pretending the GFA and such worked and ignore the low level trouble thats going on still. Bombs and kneecappings should not be “normal” but it is.