slightly-improve-your-life

Miami-Dade library.

56 Call an old friend out of the blue.

59 Always have dessert.

67 Sing!

70 Skinny-dip with friends.

79 Ignore the algorithm – listen to music outside your usual taste.

87 Learn how to breathe deeply: in through the nose, out through the mouth, making the exhale longer than the inhale.

94 Give compliments widely and freely.

100 For instant cheer, wear yellow. ?

Lauren Berlant

An appreciation in newyorker (2019). Supervalent Thought (their blog).

The Hundreds, co-written with Kathleen Stewart. (Form and Explanation by
Jonathan Kramnick and Anahid Nersessian is referenced.)

Duke U Press obit.

Critical Inquiry.

On Citizenship And Optimism: Lauren Berlant, interviewed by David Seitz (2013).

Without Exception: On the Ordinariness of Violence by Brad Evans (2018).

Artforum (2014).

Cruel Optimism (2011) introduction; excerpt.

Genre Flailing (2018).

in the land of NOPE

NOPE (a manifesto) by E. Jane

I am not an identity artist just because I am a Black artist with multiple selves.

I am not grappling with notions of identity and representation in my art. I’m grappling with safety and futurity. We are beyond asking should we be in the room. We are in the room. We are also dying at a rapid pace and need a sustainable future. 

We need more people, we need better environments, we need places to hide, we need Utopian demands, we need culture that loves us. 

I am not asking who I am. I’m a Black woman and expansive in my Blackness and my queerness as Blackness and queerness are always already expansive. None of this is as simple as “identity and representation” outside of the colonial gaze. I reject the colonial gaze as the primary gaze. I am outside of it in the land of NOPE.

via Glitch Feminism, A Manifesto by Legacy Russell.

Defund Toolkit

Concrete steps toward divestment from policing and investment in community safety via Interrupting Criminalization

Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action is an initiative at the BCRW Social Justice Institute led by researchers Andrea J. Ritchie, Mariame Kaba, and Woods Ervin. The project aims to interrupt and end the the growing criminalization and incarceration of women and LGBTQ people of color for criminalized acts related to public order, poverty, child welfare, drug use, survival and self-defense, including criminalization and incarceration of survivors of violence.

#DefundPolice is a demand to cut funding and resources from police departments and other law enforcement and invest in things that actually make our communities safer: quality, affordable, and accessible housing, universal quality health care, including community-based mental health services, income support to stay safe during the pandemic, safe living wage employment, education, and youth programming. It is rooted in a larger Invest/Divest framework articulated in the Movement for Black LivesVision for Black Lives


Related : Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Plan.

We Want Freedom. We Want Power To Determine The Destiny Of Our Black Community.

We Want Full Employment For Our People.

We Want An End To The Robbery By The Capitalists Of Our Black Community.

We Want Decent Housing Fit For The Shelter Of Human Beings.

We Want Education For Our People That Exposes The True Nature Of This Decadent American Society. We Want Education That Teaches Us Our True History And Our Role In The Present-Day Society.

We Want An Immediate End To Police Brutality And Murder Of Black People.

We Want Freedom For All Black Men Held In Federal, State, County And City Prisons And Jails.

We Want Land, Bread, Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice And Peace.