Essays
THE LEFT CAN'T READ
I run a bookclub that reads multi-cultural political theory. It’s cool. It’s fun. We sit around conversing about performance art within the Aids crisis and how the military industrial complex fuels the climate crisis in Guam. We do post-academia study. We flex our mental muscles to keep our critical thinking skills from atrophying under the crushing wei…
Greta Thunberg Should Have Gotten Blown to Bits
Imagine Greta Thunberg, climate change golden child of the greater Western world’s conscience, blown apart by a missile.
morality is none of my concern
I have no use for morality. I find it exhausting. I find it stifling. I find it useless. Morality has time and time again been weaponized to enforce conformity. It’s used to police behavior and force compliance. To force actions to fit within narrow restrictive boundaries. To keep people in line.
art as blueprint
Every revolutionary moment begins with refusal, refusal to accept oppression, refusal to participate in unjust systems, refusal to believe that the world we have been handed is the only world that can exist. Refusal is a powerful tool, it is the first step from critical consciousness to praxis, but it is not enough. If a revolutionary moment is to …
americans have a self-worth problem
I have a friend, this time I won’t name them. I love them unconditionally; I adore them. They are wise. They are endlessly compassionate. They care about the disenfranchised of the world more than anyone else I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. They’re a fighter, they never back down. Their moral compass is perfectly calibrated. They love those …
love within liberatory violence
My 1993 copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed was a gift, a farewell present from a person who changed the course of my life. Jihye Shin recommended me almost every book I read from age twelve to fifteen. They fed me Elif Shafak, Akwaeke Emezi, Sandra Cisneros, Susan Abulhawa, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, Min Jin Lee, N. K. Jemisin and countless other writer…