JULY Newsletter
Hello Gentle Readers,
I invite you into our July collection to ponder the nature of independence.
This month, I learned that two-thirds of all sharecroppers* were white. Which means the ruling class made whiteness so attractive that even poor white people suffering from this predatory practice would rather cling to white supremacy than join forces for true liberation.
Race is an instrument of class war.
The white supremacist belief that any life is more valuable than another betrays the true nature of our planet. We are social creatures. We are dependent on one another. Further, what we do to others, we do to ourselves.
As this nation “celebrates” 250 years of terror, I wonder if we will find the courage to rely on one another. Dominance, dissonance, and rugged individualism will never equal liberation. As long as this country bullies others, under the guise of freedom, it will remain afraid that a bigger bully is coming around the bend to take us. This distortion of “freedom” has entrapped us in an endless cycle of violence.
What is freedom to a population addicted to consumption from the age of 6? What is freedom to the insatiable tremble of superiority? What is freedom to a country locked in an endless conquest of the future?
There is only one way out.
A culture shift that troubles every notion of freedom as the power to dominate.
We need interdependence. You belong to me, I belong to you, and we belong to each other.
That care starts here.
I’m sharing media that awakened me to where we are and helped me dream of where we can go, together.
Let’s dream up a whole new world.
“Anything made by humans can be remade by you”
*Sharecropping is a predatory extension of slavery, where landowners paid farmers in a percentage of their crops called “shares”. With no liquid assets, most sharecroppers were stuck in an endless cycle of debt to landowners.
READ
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House by Audre Lorde
If I could time travel, it would be to 1979. I would watch Audre Lorde set the New York University Institute for the Humanities conference ablaze. If you love drama, especially of the academic variety, this may be the messiest 1,284-word transcript on earth. Lorde takes “question everything” to new heights. She was invited to speak about her lived experience as a Black lesbian feminist as if she had no other academic pursuits. Confronting the dehumanization of exclusion head-on, she troubles the conference’s very foundation. Juicy!
Thank you to Keldon Clegg, my IB History: Nations and Nationalism teacher. At my most vulnerable, Clegg recommended this to me, and it grounded me. I felt connected to the greater movement for liberation for the first time. Relief washed over me. Others could see how truly afflicted our world is. And in the acknowledgment of how lost we are, somehow, I knew there was a path out.
WATCH
Changing the World | Interview w/ Barbara Smith (Combahee River Collective)
The Combahee River Collective Statement elevated my political analysis. I began untangling all systems of power and domination, not simply those I directly experienced. In this interview, co-founder and author Barbara Smith discusses how Raising Consciousness groups empowered women to see daily discrimination as a part of a culture of domination. Smith got my wheels turning about how to grow our collective consciousness at the micro level.
Do you have a space to connect heart to heart about the world’s happenings?
Maybe we all need one.
LISTEN
Mississippi Goddam - Nina Simone
Nonviolent Communication teaches us that anger is a signal that we care deeply about something. An enraged Nina Simone wrote Mississippi Goddamn after four Black girls were brutally murdered during a white supremacist attack. Simone recounts the grief, “At first I tried to make myself a gun. I gathered some materials. I was going to take one of them out, and I didn’t care who it was.” This surge of fury is familiar to me, too. Ultimately, Simone sat down to write and, in a one-hour flurry, channeled her rage into "Mississippi Goddam."
What do you do with your rage?
Like Simone, I create.
“You died.
I cried.
And kept on getting up.
A little slower.
And a lot more deadly.”
- Assata Shakur
FOLLOW
@TUHKYJUHSLIFE
Smiling Black woman wearing a black shirt and sporting a twist out hairstyle.
Tuhkyjuh(@tuhkyjuhslife) is an aspiring archivist covering all things Black. Her recommendations span all genres. Expand your reading list and grow your consciousness! Use your library card, or shop local to pick up a new read :)
You can follow her on TikTok and IG.
PRACTICE
How to apply an anti-racist lens: FREE Skill Builder August 6th 3-4pm PT | 6-7pm ET.
To help us get free, I’m offering a community skill builder.
Are you ready to go beyond the anti-racist reading list repost? This session will set you on the path. Learn to apply an anti-racist lens to real-world scenarios in just 55 minutes.
“If you’re free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else”
- Toni Morrison
In Solidarity,
KM
I invite you to share this collection.
