tiana reid

“The Door of No Return is on my mind. I am crossing the place which holds it; the place which...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:57:21 -0400

“The Door of No Return is on my mind. I am crossing the place which holds it; the place which holds the before of history. It is a return, but aptly it is in the air and it is a glancing pass at the Door of No Return. The door is not ont his map. The door is on my retina.” Coming home, reading Dionne Brand.

If you’re an elementary teacher in Toronto, come through...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:22:00 -0400

If you’re an elementary teacher in Toronto, come through to Continuing Dialogues: An Equity Conference for Elementary Teachers, put on by the ETT’s (Elementary Teachers of Toronto) Anti-Racism, Equity, and Social Justice Committee, on May 4, 2013. I’ll be presenting, and simultaneously trying to listen in on the other workshops.

Read my new stuff, which I actually wrote yeaaaars ago (in February). Or...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 11:06:00 -0400

Read my new stuff, which I actually wrote yeaaaars ago (in February). Or don’t.

thestateae:

For this series, I’m interested in the way we talk and don’t talk—about mixing, hybridity and amalgamation—and how crossings are represented and circulated. Sometimes, are they even mixtures at all? In light of the “post-racial” myth (a nightmare, really—a ghost that embodies dispossession and folly), visions of the future are often articulated in terms of a “new minority,” that is to say, on the basis of an exalting color-blindness. An all-Brown world! (via crossings: undone presents, pyrrhic futures | THE STATE)

dependencies

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:11:00 -0400

“Another myth that is firmly upheld is that disabled people are dependent and non-disabled people are independent. No one is actually independent. This is a myth perpetuated by disablism and driven by capitalism - we are all actually interdependent. Chances are, disabled or not, you don’t grow all of your food. Chances are, you didn’t build the car, bike, wheelchair, subway, shoes, or bus that transports you. Chances are you didn’t construct your home. Chances are you didn’t sew your clothing (or make the fabric and thread used to sew it). The difference between the needs that many disabled people have and the needs of people who are not labelled as disabled is that non-disabled people have had their dependencies normalized. The world has been built to accommodate certain needs and call the people who need those things independent, while other needs are considered exceptional. Each of us relies on others every day. We all rely on one another for support, resources, and to meet our needs. We are all interdependent. This interdependence is not weakness; rather, it is a part of our humanity.”

This is from Disability Politics and Theory by Toronto organizer A.J. Withers, which I need (/want) to read. I like to stay away from words like humanity and weakness but I *am* thinking. The quote was posted on one of my favorite people’s Facebook wall (I’m not sure he knows that). We spent a summer in a feminist reading group together in Toronto before I applied to grad school and every week we met my mind went all druggy.

Charles Bukowski, Post Office Isn’t it always eat all of...

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 06:02:00 -0400

Charles Bukowski, Post Office

Isn’t it always eat all of the french fries or none at all? Do all of the work or none at all? Love all of the person or none at all? Hate all of myself or none at all?

Excerpt from “Acholi Love” by Okot p’Bitek in...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:05:00 -0400

Excerpt from “Acholi Love” by Okot p’Bitek in Transition, no. 17 (1964)

"I would rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions. I would say storm. I..."

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:54:00 -0500

““I would rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions. I would say storm. I would say river. I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree. I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews. I would roll like frenetic blood on the slow current of the eye of words turned into mad horses into fresh children into clots into curfew into vestiges of temples into precious stones remote enough to discourage miners. Whoever would not understand me would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger.””

- Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

My legs by Whitney Mallett

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:52:00 -0500

My legs by Whitney Mallett

From 'Like Crazy'

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 18:58:29 -0500

I thought I understood it,

that I could grasp it,

but I didn’t, not really.

Only the smudgeness of it;

the pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious eagerness of it.

I didn’t realize it would sometimes be more than whole,

that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea.

Because it’s the halves that halve you in half.

I didn’t know,

don’t know, about the in-between bits;

the gory bits of you, and the gory bits of me.

When someone says today is a post-racial era

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 18:14:17 -0500

phdstress:

YUCK… RIGHT, KLO?

Tracey Emin, I stand by it.

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:12:00 -0500

Tracey Emin, I stand by it.

Photo

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:35:56 -0500

"Two of her lovers were priests, but even grooms and vagabonds, whom she would select on dim, gloomy..."

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 00:10:24 -0500

“Two of her lovers were priests, but even grooms and vagabonds, whom she would select on dim, gloomy nights, as she rode, masked and hooded through the dusty streets, followed by silent retainers, would serve a night’s passion.”

- Scherzo of Hearts, an unpublished manuscript by Philippa Schuyler (Schomburg Center, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division)

"We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes."

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 15:48:15 -0500

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, / It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.”

- Paul Laurence Dunbar

One word: lol. Or is that three?

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 22:14:02 -0500

One word: lol. Or is that three?

"Are you telling me I get to pick, but I only get to pick out of two people? I can only pick a Nike..."

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:05:33 -0500

“Are you telling me I get to pick, but I only get to pick out of two people? I can only pick a Nike or Adidas? My first pick was Reebok, my second pick was Puma. So now I’m left with Adidas and Nike?”

- Imani from Pharcyde on the two-party system (Vibe magazine, November 2008)

"I knew that we were sharing something with our eyes, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know if it..."

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:36:59 -0400

“I knew that we were sharing something with our eyes, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know if it mattered.”

- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

OH SNAP. - from a book I’m reading and writing a critical...

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 10:57:00 -0400

OH SNAP.
- from a book I’m reading and writing a critical review on (Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S. by H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman)

"Still, the speakers had an air of utter dedication, and the people looked toward them with a kind of..."

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 17:04:17 -0400

“Still, the speakers had an air of utter dedication, and the people looked toward them with a kind of intelligence of hope on their faces—not as though they were being consoled or drugged but as though they were being jolted.”

- James Baldwin, “Down At The Cross — Letter from a Region of My Mind” in The Fire Next Time

"I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so..."

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 11:33:11 -0400

“I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few.”

- Katie Kacvinsky (via cultofsaints)