“I wear Spiritual Awakening Pants, because I look good in them and sometimes I crave that feeling. I feel guilty while I do it, like I’m legitimising the remnants of colonialism that I see in the patterns of elephants.”
“We don’t talk about our roots as they relate to the heaviness of humid air recycled through our generations on swampy plantations. My family has never talked about it with me, at least. It feels like a small betrayal, choosing to go south when we were given a new chance in the West.”
“At the start of migration season the ruby-throated hummingbird has only one goal in mind – she has to almost double her body weight, in order to survive a treacherous trip across the gulf of Mexico. At the start of migration season, the black-haired filmmaker has but one goal in mind: build a strong enough case to survive the gauntlet of work-visa processing.”
It was the end of my innocence when I realized that being Black or being Queer in this country could get you killed. This was the time before Hurricane Katrina, before 9/11, before Ferguson. Before. Before. Before.
He shouted “Repent” since the sign was not sufficient, I guess. I found myself going up to him while topless Amazons danced in his face. I found myself going up to him to say this: “I love you. I have nothing but love for you.” I couldn’t help myself.
“The morning after the horrific shooting, and the days that followed, I understood part of my father’s fear. Animosity towards LGBTQ people has not gone the way of black and white T.V. sets, phone booths, or travel by horse and carriage. It was and is very much alive.”
“Sidetrack is a show largely about my life and my experiences, because after years of watching so much television that erased me, I just wanted to write myself in.”
“Dating broken white women became a way to reprise a powerlessness that years of sexual abuse and generations of blackphobia had tricked me into believing in. I drowned this feeling of powerlessness in weed and seeking out relationships in which I could engage in yet remain completely hidden from view.”
So maybe my pregnancy path isn’t as simple and straightforward as baby books would have you believe it should be because I’m a poor QPoC with anxiety, but it has been an interesting worthwhile journey so far. I can’t wait until I can take the next step.
“But unlike the missing 43 from Ayotzinapa, I was going home. And it’s what I store in my memory each time I read an article or update about the disappeared. I am home. They are not.”
“When I was thirteen years old I began starving myself. I did so, in short, because I wanted so desperately to be thin. And by thin, I mainly meant white.”
Asian stereotypes are everywhere. Let’s talk about them, yell about them and do something about them.