dream hampton
Sun in Virgo, Blue Moon in Pisces
August 2012
83 posts
NPR Fresh Air: Victor LaValle Loves Monsters, Especially Godzilla →
nprfreshair.tumblr.com
What’s beautiful about Godzilla is, of course, it’s in every way a symbol of Japan dealing with the aftermath of the atomic bombs being dropped on them, and their ideas of how they’re affected by it. But rather than make a movie where they sit around and say, ‘Man, that was really rough,…
Remembering Katrina the storm, the breech, the displacement, the neglect in rebuilding or even cleaning up, but mostly, the Nawlin natives still dispersed but acting as ambassadors of one of the world’s great cultural cities.
Sent to me by Kiese Laymon, last week, when it read like a balm
You don’t need to hear this, I’m sure. But you taught a lot of us how to write. You taught a lot of us that the colorful, loud, strange, stylized, noisiness in our heads could be organized on the page. You taught us. You don’t know me from Jack but you taught me. And like a lot of folks, I’m thankful for your tenacity, your genius, your messiness. Some niggas just don’t know what to do with teachers. Folks been talking shit about you as long as I’ve been reading magazines. That tells me that you’re living right, living passionately. Anyway, thank you for inspiring us. We are writers. We disturb the peace. Please find ways to carve out space for your soul to breathe and scream and pray. Writers need peace, too. Thanks, for real. —Kiese Laymon
“
Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.
And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.
” —Audre Lorde (via beermethatquote)
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it”
—Zora Neale Hurston
“
Be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Take the contradictions
Of your life
And wrap around
You like a shawl,
To parry stones
To keep you warm.
Watch the people succumb
To madness
With ample cheer;
Let them look askance at you
And you askance reply.
Be an outcast;
Be pleased to walk alone
(Uncool)
Or line the crowded
River beds
With other impetuous
Fools.
Make a merry gathering
On the bank
Where thousands perished
For brave hurt words
They said.
But be nobody’s darling;
Be an outcast.
Qualified to live
Among your dead.
Play
Solitary confinement: Torture chambers for black revolutionaries - Opinion - Al Jazeera English →
aljazeera.com
Get informed and get involved!
From the Article: Russell “Maroon” Shoats has been kept in solitary confinement in the state of Pennsylvania for 30 years after being elected president of the prison-approved Lifers’ Association. He was initially convicted for his alleged role in an attack authorities claim was carried out by militant black activists on the Fairmont Park Police Station in Philadelphia that left a park sergeant dead.
Despite not having violated prison rules in more than two decades, state prison officials refuse to release him into the general prison population.
Russell’s family and supporters claim that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) has unlawfully altered the consequences of his criminal conviction, sentencing him to die in solitary confinement - a death imposed by decades of no-touch torture. …………………….
