May 1, 2016
from CJ
morning cuties, happy May Day! I hope you are all uniting with your fellow workers or taking care of yourselves and each other, or maybe even both! In personal news: GUTS editor Natalie and I have been teaming up to build a hen house for some chickens we’re going to care for this summer. It’s a bit of a challenge but also rewarding and now I can’t look at any shed/barn/outhouse without thinking, could we build that? PERHAPS. Maybe next time we’ll have some chickens in the coop and if we do I’ll share a pic I promise.
LEMONADE dropped last weekend and we’ve been happily re-watching it all week. I would follow Bey anywhere and (unsurprisingly) I’ve been reading the think pieces and the personal responses, saying things like “this is the most important thing to happen in pop culture this year” (along with everyone else!). SO I’ll tell you what I’m going to do: I’ll start with a section dedicated to entirely to L, followed by other links beyond (but tbh still relevant to) the Lemonade project. ty, ur welcome, pls add what I’ve missed, etc.
- “I was not expecting to be cracked wide open by this project. I was not expecting to shed a lifetime of tears. But I did” Ijeoma Oluo on how Lemonade is about so much more than Jay’s infidelity.
- Dominique Matti on why Lemonade, though centred on men’s misdeads, is for black women.
- “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman,’ Malcolm X says…Was he talking about structural injustice there, or about interpersonal love? Lemonade confirms they are inseparable, and it is a relief.” Doreen St. Felix on a love profane
- Hilton Als on Prince, Cecil Taylor, and Beyoncé (as well as Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison).
- “I often dream about what “happily ever after” looks like for the black girl and woman. We have rarely been offered fairy tales that center us, or stories that center our quests for love and self and happiness and wholeness.” Janet Mock on Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Bey’s L.
- “‘I know what I deserve, I know that god lives in me, I am a divine being and that I deserve all the respect and all the care’ … that’s what the accountability piece is, that you will care for me in the way I deserve to be cared for.” A conversation about Lemonade.
- When the lemonade aint made for fat black women and femmes
- Warsan Shire speaking about self care, Somalia, love, being lost, and more. Also see: The life and writing of a young, prolific poet
- What I would give
- Instagram alert: meet the stylists
- Fan fiction alert: meet the Lemons
- And if you’re looking for more: post-Lemonade required (re)reading and a list of important pieces published post-Lemonade.
- I once lived in Edmonton where an MRA group’s hateful posters and vehicles frequently went unquestioned by local authorities so I am disappointed but not surprised at all by the cops’ tolerance of this image.
- In the wake of the recent deaths of four young black men in Halifax, El Jones gives us “I know what you see.”
- “When I talk about colonialism, extractive industry, and climate change as having direct impacts on the bodies of Indigenous women, I don’t mean any of it as a metaphor.” Please read Erica Lee on Paris, heavy metal, and chasing freedom.
- Congrats to Christi Belcourt, winner of the Governor General’s award for innovation! Belcourt gave a powerful statement of acceptance, where she called out our colonial nation state for 150 years of dispossession. Read it here.
- In a time when most labourers are selling emotional not physical labour, the way we treat our feminized robots matters.
- k cool, I’m a bodyhacker too
- Reminder: This Mothers’ Day, Sunday May 8, there is a stroller rally in defence of maternity leave. Gilary Massa needs your help as she stands up to her bosses and defends everyone’s right to maternity leave. Read more here. You can also show your support this May Day by clicking the red buttons at the bottom of this post.
- “Young people could be saying that there are problems with capitalism, contradictions…I certainly don’t know what’s going through their heads.” –Dude reacting to millennials rejecting capitalism.
- “How many other stories of sexual assault are heard by the administration in this school and swept under the rug?” Paniz Khosroshahy on McGill’s handling of sexual assault disclosures and how the university’s lacking policy is feeding a cycle of sexual violence.
- Meanwhile in Nova Scotia: Liberals are blocking proposed legislation that would require the province’s universities to address higher rates of sexual and gender-based violence on campus.
- “There’s value in these accounts of the body, of the political story. But sometimes it feels impossible to refuse to engage in this storytelling. When we don’t provide a story, one will likely just be produced for us. What were you wearing? How do you even have sex?” Melissa Gira Grant on how popular media is prioritizing bodies over political agency in the conversation about victimization
- Such a huge and important question: “what would it mean not to have to hide at all … but also not to be seen?” Nina Power on the purloined gender.
- One pole dancer’s shares her secrets to self-confidence: a visual lesson plan
- CALLING ALL FEMMES: Autostraddle wants to know about your fashion feels and style coverage desires!
- “I’m fusho a time traveler but most certainly an earthling indigenous to Turtle Island.” Queer Indigenous rapper Dio Gandhi talks about new native narratives in Mask
- My mom used to sell Melaleuca products to all my friends’ moms and my music teachers and I’ve always wondered 1) whether I should get into that sometime and 2) what’s up with self-care personal network marketization nowadays. Needless to say I really appreciated this comic by the always brilliant Jillian Tamaki.
okay that’s all I just had my 2nd coffee and am going to fly like this lawnmower all the way to lunch. l8a bbs
IMAGE: via Tumblr, found at When Kids Were Kings