like, literally malformed

are you defending (in this instance) Irish Catholics as a proxy to give yourself grace, to lump yourself in with "the good ones?"

what you're actually doing is absolving yourself of action and self-reflection. that discomfort you feel about white people perpetrating racism is asking you to do something to bring your actions into alignment with your values. instead, you're discarding this feeling by doing some feel-good mental gymnastics to ensure that there is a narrative that gives you an escape hatch, an assurance that there are good white people in the world (ones with whom you identify).

instead, let your discomfort guide you to do something real because if you're not actively standing up against fascism and its children, you're laying down to get stepped on. here are some real things to do:

donate to support the people who have been attacked, displaced and traumatized in racist attacks in Belfast:

don't have money to spare? find local organizers, join them, triage immediate needs in your community, then play the long game to move the Overton Window towards inclusive values. i do not want to hear any wailing about how nothing you do matters, no one will do anything, etcetera, etcetera; these are more mental gymnastics that allow you to give yourself permission to to do nothing

don't have time, money, or energy to spare? go to your local library and pick up a book to educate yourself and build empathy:

no access to a library? do the internal work and pick apart your own internal biases about race (i'll give a starter question for reflection: why did you feel compelled to respond to a post about violence against Black people and immigrant communities by centering white people?)

oh wow the glass-tower office buildings we constructed when we thought air conditioning and central heating would never have downsides...have downsides?

and we're still building them?

while the Victorian house museum where I work, with thick walls and small windows and big wooden shutters stays ~10 degrees above (winter) or below (summer) the outside temperature for days on end with no help at all?

uh. okay then

Since I saw you talk about Black Canadians, I thought I’d share one of my fave Black Canadian creator LT the Monk! He’s on insta and tiktok where he talks about antiblackness in Canada. He’s also releasing a book on July 1st about Black Canadian history that I’m super excited to read!

Here’s his link tree: https://linktr.ee/ltthemonk?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=583c78e0-bbca-4503-9bc2-3d07ea4350fb

The link to pre order his book is also in the link tree if anyone interested

As always, thank you so much for all you do 💖

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

we went back and forth for 30 seconds and it got awkward really fast because it turns out all my other roommates thought i just had a compulsive need or some sort of desire to deep clean the kitchen every sunday and they just left me to it.

when in reality i was meal prepping for the entire week every sunday and when i finished i cleaned up after myself obviously—wiped the counters down, scraped gunk off the stove, scrubbed the sink, and swept the floor.

took me 10 minutes but always left it looking great.

then i didn't use the kitchen the whole rest of the week because i'd just grab my prepped meals in the morning and go out for all-day fieldwork.

but apparently nobody else ever cleaned up after themselves at all when they cooked. like they'd just leave food on the stove and counters and drop shit on the floor etc. and not clean it up so they thought every monday morning the kitchen was "deep cleaned" simply bc there wasn't old food on every surface.

i was like, "...........i've noticed the kitchen is always messy when i use it on sundays but i've always figured someone just used it and didn't get around to cleaning it up yet and i didn't mind because i'm always about to make a mess anyway............y'all just use the kitchen like that all week?"

You can read about it here: https://minds-africa.org/fabric-map-of-africa-the-art-of-storytelling/