A rainy day at the shop with Marlon and tacos.
Everyone’s gonna have to wait a little longer for that follow-up to …Seven Killings. Marlon’s napping again.
Many of us here in MPLS are a little shaken, but not at all surprised, after the verdict – not guilty on all counts – for Jeronimo Yanez, the St. Anthony, MN cop who murdered Philando Castile. How to move forward, how to act, how to relate and continue to coexist with one another here in a state that speaks so highly of itself, yet knows full well that it must come to terms with both its past and present and future wrong-doings. The first step, as always, is to begin to unpack the nature of it all: how we see it, how we feel it, how our attitudes become formed into our institutions.
Earlier today, frequent squatter at the shop (and dear friend and conversation partner), Marlon James wrote a piece about his experiences being the “big, black guy” here in Minneapolis. Please take a moment to read it in full, and consider how, while this post-verdict moment may feel singular, that moment accumulated becomes the totality of public life for black American men and women.
You can change a system, an institution, a standard of measure, but until you work to change yourself, this shit’s gonna keep going down, and the experiences and daily dread Marlon describes will never go away. Our institutions our us, they do not change on their own.
Almost here… the first edition of Publics and Publication Nº1; Emory Douglas. Rumor has it that our neighbor, Marlon James, is going to write the forward to it as well!
Here’s a bit of a primer to Emory’s genius.
Are you racist? 'No' isn't a good enough answerAre you racist? 'No' isn't a good enough answer.We can pull off being non-racist by being asleep in bed while black men are killed by police. We need to stop being non-racist, and start being anti-racist
Posted by The Guardian on Wednesday, January 13, 2016
I’m really impressed with the clarity amidst the complexity of Marlon‘s argument here. While cutting and to the point, its logic opens up a door for each encounter, each action, we take through a precise lens. In regard to so many aspects of power and acquiescence which we encounter daily, it’s exactly the type of question we should be asking of ourselves.
Marlon lives in the building above Beyond Repair, so considering I know he’s watching… MPLS folks, what do you have in mind? How can an expanded view of publication (as in The Act of Public-Making) strengthen anti-racist action and consciousness in the 9th Ward and further? Give it some thought. Have some ideas? Come down to the shop and let’s figure out what we can do to implement it.