Make Mediocrity your Greatest Enemy!

ANTI-CAPITALIST AFFIRMATIONS

i am allowed to spend my time creating things, even if they are not beautiful.

there is no such thing as a "real job." all forms of work are real and valid.

there is nothing that i need to accomplish to be worthy. i am already worthy.

doing nothing is good for my soul.

i am not defined by what i produce.

my worth cannot be measured by my paycheck, my job title, or a list of professional or academic achievements.

i do not need to monetize my hobbies, it is enough to spend time doing something i love.

Just hearing this kind of thinking is deems critical thinking "nonessential", throwing it into the trash bin.

Shonda Buchanan: Who is Afraid of Black Indians?

Shonda Buchanan of Choctaw, Coharie, Cherokee & African Heritage is an Award-winning Poet and Fiction Writer.

Shonda was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan where she spent much of her adolescence curled up in libraries, bathtubs, and on her front porch, reading. Her book “Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?” is a difficult yet beautiful collection of poetry that peeks into one American family’s cultural window.

“Trust the first drum, your heart, for all your answers. The ancestors will follow…” ~Shonda Buchanan

Wanting to forget the past, this chapbook of poetry explores the journey Shonda’s ancestors took from North Carolina to Tennessee, to Indiana and finally Michigan, and the flight and fight to escape racial persecution and racial classification.

Yet it is also a book about the recovery of an identity–the intersection of Blacks and Native American Indians in this country. Shonda and her family, like so many other “bi-racial” Native American Indians, suffered from not knowing their full roots, and the ills of assimilation, all the while and enduring society’s ever-evolving definition of them. This book will hopefully help other Black American Indians, as well as bi-racial and tri-racial peoples, research, reclaim and celebrate their multifaceted heritage.

Buy her book for kindle 

This young girl, her name is Brenda Banks, okay? I’m doing Wizards, she comes in off the street […] she comes in and says, “I want to animate.” Just like that.

[I asked her] “Why’d you come here?” “I like your movies,” [she said]. “Did you ever animate?” “No.” “Did anyone ever let you animate?” “No.” “Why do you think you can animate?” “I want to animate.”

[I asked her] “Where you’re from” [and she replied] “Georgia, somewhere.” “How’d you get here?” “Walked. Train.”

I sat her at a desk, thinking she was going to fail miserably. One of the most hysterical, funniest animators that ever walked into Bakshi Productions. - Ralph Bakshi, animator/filmmaker

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The beginning career of the first female African American animator, Brenda Banks. I found out about her today after watching the documentary on Bakshi’s Wizards. 

This young girl, her name is Brenda Banks, okay? I’m doing Wizards, she comes in off the street […] she comes in and says, “I want to animate.” Just like that.

[I asked her] “Why’d you come here?” “I like your movies,” [she said]. “Did you ever animate?” “No.” “Did anyone ever let you animate?” “No.” “Why do you think you can animate?” “I want to animate.”

[I asked her] “Where you’re from” [and she replied] “Georgia, somewhere.” “How’d you get here?” “Walked. Train.”

I sat her at a desk, thinking she was going to fail miserably. One of the most hysterical, funniest animators that ever walked into Bakshi Productions. - Ralph Bakshi, animator/filmmaker

————————————————

The beginning career of the first female African American animator, Brenda Banks. I found out about her today after watching the documentary on Bakshi’s Wizards. 

And here is a link to his account where you will find his cashapp and linktree in his bio:

Photos and final product for Mq. & Mrs.’s amazing lgbtq coloring book for kids.

queer:

bi:

transgender:

gay/lesbian:

We should reblog this so hearing people can communicate and understand LGBT+ language in ASL.

I don’t think I worded that right. But the point is that not teaching hearing people LGBT+ language in ASL is the equivalent of hiding the queer deaf and HOH people in a closet and hiding them away.

#intersectionality #normalizing LGBT+ deaf and HOH people

September 25, 1952 - December 15th, 2021

“In our small-town segregated world, we lived in communities of resistance, where even the small everyday gesture of porch sitting was linked to humanization. Racist white folks often felt extreme ire when observing a group of black folks gathered on a porch. They used derogatory phases like “porch monkey” both to express contempt and to once again conjure up racist iconography linking blackness to nature, to animals in the wild. As a revolutionary threshold between home and street, the porch as liminal space could also then be a place of antiracist resistance. While white folk could interpret at will the actions of a black person on the street, the black person or persons gathered on a porch defied such interpretation. The racist eye could only watch, yet never truly know, what was taking place on the porches among black folk.” 

Here are a couple snippets from this article that I think will answer your question (as a general overview, of course):