#Afronaut Griot

[padawan-historian]

When Auntie Breya Johnson said "I want the next face of empire not to be a black woman," and Ancestor Zora Neale Hurston mused "All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk," THIS is what they meant. Many of our sisters and self-proclaimed feminists are turning their faces away from the freedom struggle and decolonization efforts of our world to fulfill a false dream of empire built on apartheid and antiblack violence.

[padawan-historian]

Words like "peace" and "law and order" are often color-coded, class based covers to perpetuate state sanctioned violence that legitimizes white intimidation and vigilante terror tactics at the hands of individual segregationists . . . and their drunk cousins.

You don't have to participate in Black rebellion or self-preservation among communities of color, but don't conflate peace with non-violence.

❌️ Peace is often segregated.

🖤 Non-violence does not omit self defense.

❌️ Peace is not rooted in equity or accountability.

🖤 Non-violence does not disregard pained rebellion.

❌️ Peace is often punitive.

🖤 Non-violence does not punish but preserves, redistributes, and restores.

❌️ Without justice there is no true peace.

[padawan-historian]

Let Gaza free you (and your mind) ✨️

[padawan-historian]

when israeli folks start quoting malcom x and james baldin to justify their illegal occupation and genocide. . . of black and brown-skinned people . . .

[padawan-historian]

Gentle reminder that Black people exist everywhere, including in your fantasy shows and space operas ✨️

[padawan-historian]

A group of elementary schoolers came to the Zora Neale Hurston Museum today, blending the lessons on slavery, folklore, and afrofuturism with their own dreams and great big thinks about black superheroes, traveling to faraway places (and galaxies), and which ninja moves from Naruto were the coolest.

Several hours later, 19 children and 2 educators are killed not by a "a lone wolf" or a "monster" but by an ecosystem constructed by agents of empire who commodify the lives of the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our communities for profit . . .

These agents will turn their eyes away from the Black, brown, and beige people murdered in Buffalo, Dallas, Uvalde and all the places that didn't make the news. They will mutter "thoughts and prayers" and tweet quotes about healing and peace as they continue to build their wealth on imperial systems that erase history lessons, silence our ancestral identities, erode accessible (and sustainable) mental health services, and stripped away reproductive and social services for communities across color and class lines.

What is happening will keep happening unless we upRoot our miseducated understanding about this Lovecraft country of ours, and start cultivating politics and day-to-day practices that move beyond these poisoned (hu)manmade ecosystems.

[padawan-historian]

This could seriously be a whole video essay series cause many folks raised in the Global North (Western-oriented countries and communities) will frame all history as a matter of black/white events when, in actuality, history is informed by our indigenous, immigrant, and diaspora pasts and their present day afterlives.

I'll keep my thoughts about executive director Pinkett's spiritual bypassing on private for now, BUT I will say this: Egypt is a part of Africa and Africa belongs in our garden of history cause there are enough miracles, memories, and magic across our African histories and their cultures that we don't have to produce miseducated docuseries that try to pass as Pan-African history pieces or afrofuturist reimagings (when in actuality they are just reinventing bougie versions of well-worn imperial histories).

[padawan-historian]

When you thought you had risen above toxic masculinity and patriarchy only to realize your feminist manifesto was built on the same sexist foundation.

[padawan-historian]

when alice walker said “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance”

[padawan-historian]

A few months ago, I noticed a lot of black and brown community members engaging in discussions about queer athletes, specifically transgender swimmers and runners. At best, many commentators were trying to mask their [transphobic] discomfort behind ugly feminism and gendered separatism . . . at worse, some individuals doubled down on segregationist rhetoric that came right out of the Jim & Jane Crow Handbook 🤦🏾‍♀️

This "public discourse" was NOT about creating safe environments for young folks (folx) to play sports. This "national conversation" was NOT about "respecting" women atheletes. This antiqueer backlash was about reinforcing the rigid, colonized gender norms of imperialism and the ecosystem of white supremacy. While there is a MUCH larger discussion to be held about the intersectional role empire-building and race play in cultivating environmental racism, the commodification of women and wombs, rugged individualism, the spectacule of non-white existence, and ugly feminism, we will save that deep dive for another summer's day. Whether you embrace queerness as an interwoven, intergalactic landscape of identities and lived experiences that transcend the Global North's [predominantly whitecentric and capitalist] LGBTQ+ Movement or you are still working your way through chapter one of "How to be Antiracist," keep in mind that:

Queerness is an ancestral practice that saturated our pre-colonial continents and cultures.

Queerness was a tool of resistance and reclamation against European settler-colonialism and slavery.

Queerness centers our indigenous and diaspora histories, starlore, and memories, using these collected fragments of our multicolored human condition as tools to dismantle the master's house.

The past, the present, and the future is queer!💫

Come join our community garden over on Patreon and begin accessing decolonized resources and lessons!

[padawan-historian]

There's so many programs that are cultivating powerful stories and living histories around reproductive justice . . . about white women.

As they show advocates of color across the generations in fragments of videos and collage photos, the voices and lived experiences of these speakers is whitecentric. In reality, the medical apartheid and exploitation against Black, brown, and indigenous people across gender lines set the tone for the continued erasure of reproductive rights.

This is not about ethics . . . on one side this is about ugly feminism and on the back are the colors of white supremacy.

[padawan-historian]

wrote this months ago and I knew I was saving it for something important. aoc is tap dancing and ilhan is rising (like air, she shall rise with her eyes on the prize)~

happy black history month go read some fanfics

[padawan-historian]

My friend added: “And the fact that we have ted budd on the republican side, like who the fuck names their kid ted budd?“

[padawan-historian]

There is a certain type of white supremacist who only reveals themselves when you start "disrupting" their anglo-saxon biomythology and heritage.

Me: What if the knights templar members were africans?

Them: *SATANIC NOISES*

[padawan-historian]

The only time we collectively denounce imperialism is if the empire operates under a different political pseudonym (like Russia or China) or, more often, if the empire is run by groups of colored peoples (like Iran or Saudi Arabia).

[padawan-historian]

🗣 DIVERSITY IS NOT SAMENESS.