Kitchen Sink Omelet

I sometimes feel like the English language is some exclusive boys club, with the sig posted, "No Girlz Allowed!!!" And the design specs of the English language seem to be drafted to favor a portion of our population who are white-skinned, prefer to mate with the opposite gender, and for that purpose have a dangling proboscis that seems to serve as the nexus of this language's design. Imagine language as an automobile, and I'm lifting up the hood to find it's not an engine of syntax and tenses, but instead a 12-year old boy is glaring up at me, and he's angry that I'm interrupting his enjoyment of a porn magazine.   One thing I learned in college is language can be so much more than a male fraternity pledge hazing: with language we can both explore our world, and also create one at the same time.

SPELL TO BE SAID AGAINST HATRED by Jane Hirshfield via brainpickings Until each breath refuses  they, those, them . Until the  Dramatis Personae  of the book’s first page says, “Each one is you.” Until hope bows to its hopelessness only as one self bows to another. Until cruelty bends to its work and sees suddenly:  I . Until anger and insult know themselves burnable legs of a useless table. Until the unsurprised unbidden knees find themselves bending. Until fear bows to its object as a bird’s shadow bows to its bird. Until the ache of the solitude inside the hands, the ribs, the ankles. Until the sound the mouse makes inside the mouth of the cat. Until the inaudible acids bathing the coral. Until what feels no one’s weighing is no longer weightless. Until what feels no one’s earning is no longer taken. Until grief, pity, confusion, laughter, longing know themselves mirrors. Until by  we  we mean I, them, you, the muskrat, the tiger, the hunger. Until by...

We've had the ways and means to effectively address racism and its causes for (at least) the past 60 years. The fact we haven't been able to do so means racism is deeply interwoven into the very fabric of our society and culture, and if it is addressed, the very people who consider themselves the gatekeepers of fashion, society and culture feel threatened. Any efforts to actively confront racism and its root causes triggers legal and political violence, to shock and overawe those activists who seek to bring meaningful progressive change. If we try to make the USA a better place, we will be beaten, teargassed, and arrested—or even killed, slaughtered in the streets by agents of the state, without mercy. The ruling elite desperately—savagely—defends and embraces racism as if those in power cannot survive without it. We see now racism is not just endemic, but a necessary tool of oppression. The ultimate irony—enough to make angels weep—is racism solves nothing. Not a damn thin...