Like most workers, I don’t wake up in the morning thinking I’m going to get swung at while at my job. I’m a librarian, not a professional boxer or an MMA fighter. But on a Monday afternoon in August, in this glorious year 2020, that’s just what happened. I asked a library visitor to pull […]
It’s All About Me
One of these things is not like the other: a marriage collapses – a global pandemic takes hold. That’s what I tried to tell myself as I nosed at my overturned life like a furtive lizard from the underside. I was reminded of a ‘childhood episode:’ that time I made lightning hit the school. Once […]
“I experienced a lot of violent shit and never once did it cross my mind to call the police”: A conversation with STiCKii and ShaeShae
Having spent the last decade organizing against police violence and for queer youth of color in Springfield, MA, STiCKii and ShaeShae break down their thoughts on the protests against police violence. STiCKii: My dad was black and he passed away when I was 4, leaving me to be raised half the time by his family […]
Am I Allowed to Breathe?
Am I allowed to breathe? Is that a punishable offense? Am I allowed to feel Is that a shot? Are my thoughts read like my letters scanned and stored to be used against me later My dreams dissected and distorted Tearing apart the meanings Digging for something anything Does my firing neuron Have sinister intentions […]
TGIF
When I was a young teenager, the local Catholic parish, The Church of the Holy Trinity, would sponsor what they called a Friday Night Social. This was held at the Norwegian Hall, right across from the Los Angeles Hotel in the Berea neighborhood of Durban, South Africa. A few years later, I became a denizen […]
CoreCivic Responds to Hard Crackers
Well, well, well, imagine our surprise when we received an email message from Ryan Gustin, the Public Affairs Manager of CoreCivic, the outfit that operates the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Tennessee, in response to an interview about the prison that Hard Crackers published on June 4th. Our interview was with the wife of a […]