2021.07.09
That night he dreamed of Hettie, and like he often did in the evenings when she was alive, he told her the titles of sermons he planned to preach one day, which usually amused her, since he always had the titles but never the content: "God Bless the Cow," and "I Thank Him for the Corn," and "'Boo!' Said the Chicken."Read in my Antiracism Reading Group. Very Damon Runyon-like energy in the first part: lots of action but told in a third hand kind of way, among a broadly painted community with brilliant nicknames.
At one particularly fraught point there's another bit where the main character, a Black man, talks about how the white man sought to crush minds and assert power over other's minds as well as bodies, but then says “But then again, I can’t rightly say that if a colored man was in a position of power, he wouldn’t be the same.” Now, that alternate universe isn't one we actually live in, and we can't stop fighting racism just because we suspect things might also be bad were the "Guns, Germs, & Steel" type-tables turned.
Boston Pride is disbanding itself.
Pride For The People has been after them with rallying a boycott for a while, a note from them from this past February to a band I help manage that have marched with them said:
"A growing coalition of LGBTQ+ groups, including Trans Resistance, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Urban Pride, the Center for Black Equity, Boston Black Pride, Boston Dyke March, and Pride for the People are calling for a boycott of Boston Pride 2021. We are asking that LGBTQ+ organizations who are committed to taking concrete action to end structural racism and white-centeredness stand in solidarity with us during this historic moment."
Torn as usual. My concerns for representation for all is balanced by a fear of Liberal Circular Firing Squads, where a potential ally becomes an enemy because it's not as strong of an ally on a particular theme as other groups think it could/should be.
It's easier to kick a barn down than to build one up. (not to disparage the thoughtfulness and organization that applied pressure in this case) But we should also celebrate when an entrenched structure is razed. I hope something good rises from it.
Scottish distillery tour guide doesn't give a fuck pic.twitter.com/WpxiuaywBz
— Eleanor Morton (@EleanorMorton) July 6, 2021