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May 4 - June 8, 2019
Mobile is the place where the last ship containing newly enslaved Africans landed.
Creating Black superheroes with the word “Black” in their names was a way for America to once again normalize whiteness. It wasn’t “White Superman” or “White Batman” or “White Green Lantern.” Because “white” is normal. White doesn’t need to be mentioned.
This is about representation. For some reason, white people in America are perfectly comfortable with the idea of people of color just contorting their imaginations such that we can imagine ourselves as white heroes, but white people generally aren’t OK with imagining themselves as Black heroes.
(I didn’t realize that I was confusing “confidence” with “bravado.” A mistake all men make more than once in our lives.)
America’s favorite pastime isn’t baseball. It’s telling Black people to behave . . . even when we aren’t doing anything wrong.
“Thursday is Baby Friday.”
People don’t realize that without the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the state of California is Texas.
Finding humor in these situations is what I have learned to do. I can’t imagine being able to take all this horrible in without processing it with jokes. The jokes don’t always come right away, but they come. It’s an extreme coping mechanism. I have to cope because so many times these stories involve people who are like me.
McCain sounded like a dangerous choice to us back then. He seems so tame now.
When Democrats say they’re going to ignore Trump’s white supremacy, xenophobia, Islamophobia, ableism, and racism because they’re going to find common ground, they’re letting him dictate what the ground is.
When politics is treated like a game, then this country elects a game-show host.
Being able to say no is the most power you can ever have. It is either a luxury when you can afford to leave, or it is necessary for survival when the cost to stay is waaaaay too high.
