21 Search results for "productivity"

“Almost There”
by Desmond King On Thursday I found myself with a bleeding tongue Warm water washed over my soapy hands, blood filling my mouth I did not speak when he said “We’re almost there” My tongue is used to being bit open, to keep the peace To keep secrets What does “Friday’s Eve” even mean? Constantly […]
Professionalism is a lie, sheltering in place is no exception
Whether we want to admit it or not, there’s a superficial boundary between professionalism and unprofessionalism that undergirds constant productivity, capital and unhealthy notions of self worth. This boundary exists to reinforce white supremacy, carcerality, punishment, policing and surveillance. The structures that legitimize this faux boundary do so in service of themselves always. All the […]
The work must be intergenerational
“Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place–the picture of it–stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. […]
Reminders and affirmations to help you through quarantine
We are in the midst of a global disaster and it’s taking its toll on everyone in a multitude of ways. While it’s true that Black people have weathered the storms of global anti-Blackness, incremental genocide, and continued discrimination, we are not unaffected by the current crisis. It’s true that “back to normal” for us […]
Crisis makes clear who can afford to survive (and who cannot)
“That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.” – Octavia E. Butler While on a hike today, I spoke with two folks about how our bodies are shaped by the […]
Capitalism makes us think that having our basic needs met is revolutionary. It’s a lie.
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only the oppressors’ tactics, the oppressors’ relationships. -Audre Lorde I check my bank account every day, regardless of whether or not […]
Steve McQueen’s ‘Western Deep’ is a counter memory for Black miners during South African Apartheid
by Donnie Moreland Steve McQueen’s Western Deep is a horror film. Though McQueen’s 2002 dual video installation (presented with Carib’s Leap) is, in form, video art, I feel it is possible to understand Western Deep as genre cinema. An exploration into the TauTona Mine Shaft No.3 of South Africa—also known as Western Deep—it is a […]
‘Set It Off’ and the Black feminist lessons it still holds for us
This essay contains spoilers for Set It Off, and discusses sexual exploitation and state violence “Women respond to racism. My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life. Once I […]
From John Henry to James Evans: Black men married to hard labor in the white American imagination
by Donnie MoreIand I find myself humming the theme of Good Times, quite a bit. It’s calming, in the way only Black Baptist Church Choirs can be calming. In fact, I find all of it pretty calming—Good Times, that is—because it’s so unequivocally Black, that it feels a part of my cultural genome. Now, I […]
I have a chronic illness, and I’m doing dope stuff at my own pace
by Jamila Mitchell “God, I finally vacuumed.” If you ever experienced an almost orgasmic sigh of relief after doing something seemingly small but necessary, then you are like me. The common necessities to life, like vacuuming, going to the grocery store, or even picking up the phone to text someone, are incredible accomplishments for the […]
Sanders’ Stop BEZOS Act would penalizes companies like Amazon for government benefits, but would it help workers?
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders continued his feud with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by taking aim at the company’s business practices this week. Sanders introduced a bill called Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act, a reference to Amazon’s CEO. The bill is intended to force companies with 500 or more workers to pay […]
95 bodies—how sanitizing slavery keeps America’s hands clean
The remains of ninety-five Black people were recently found buried at a construction site in Sugar Land, Texas. The vast majority of reports about this discovery neglect to call these dead Black people what they really were: enslaved. This essay contains discussions of racialized state violence, slavery, and lynching. “African-American forced laborers” have […]