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“Nguyen Thi Hien, 19, head of the militia squad in Yen Vuc in Thanh Hoa Province, survived more than 800 airstrikes and was buried alive four times in B‑52 bomber attacks. 1966. Mai Nam/Patrick Chauvel Foundation” (x)

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Shelley Duvall for the New York Times, April 2024

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i hate being on my corny shit but sometimes mass movements and protest movements can be very beautiful. they bring out the worst and best in humanity. during the arab spring, when people were camped out in tents in tahrir square, there were so many beautiful moments that it convinced a whole nation to believe in a better future. i find it difficult to talk about now but it was the collective sense of community—the feeling of being responsible for everyone, for living on principle instead of self-preservation for once in your life. many people risked their lives for other people during the protests. people died for strangers who were no longer strangers. sometimes it was also small things: funny signs, doctors volunteering medical aid, people giving out food and water, muslims protecting churches, christians protecting muslims while they're praying. things like that. and i've seen a lot of people and countries have protest movements since then and i think everyone feels the same way, when you're within a mass movement, there is a sense of hope and determination that is so much stronger than fear. everyone falls in love with their country, everyone falls in love with their people, suddenly a country you hate is a country you're willing to die for

these kind of protest movements were easy to call beautiful and easy to call powerful bc they were so obviously against a tyrannical force. and yes while the regimes did call the protestors everything from spoiled kids to infiltrators to traitors, the world usually saw it for what it was. and the protestors had a sense of pride about it. the eyes of the world are on us, we matter, we're making a difference

truthfully i think the campus protest movement has escalated so suddenly and is so maligned that nobody is taking a moment to call it what it is. it is very brave and it is very beautiful. in some ways i find it more touching than protest movements for your own country and your own future, because while the protests for palestine are also about what it means to be a citizen of a nation complicit in genocide, many of these protestors are just there because they care about palestinians. some of them are there against their better interests; risking their academic careers, their personal safety, their future. in the case of anti-zionist jews many are risking their communities and their familial relationships. i just saw a video of a USC student in the middle of a literal police riot where her classmates are being brutalized by cops being asked if she's scared and she said "no, i think the children in gaza are more scared than i am." on a human level, this is so moving. it's truly the best and bravest of america there, and it's so sad to me that some people can't see that.

last week speaking out for palestine was risky, but this week it has taken personal and physical bravery to show up, and people (mainly young people of color) have absolutely shown up. this is no small thing. it really isn't. its a historic thing. and i promise you if you think i'm exaggerating by comparing US campus protests to arab spring protests—a lot of arab spring students are on US campuses right now and they see the parallels too. the response to the protests has been american in the way america was in the 60s and 70s, but it is starting to take the shape of a broader and much more global crackdown, where militarized police brutality is the norm. this is familiar to everyone in sudan, in egypt, in palestine. university campuses and students go from safe havens to targets for punishment overnight. things are changing very rapidly right now; a lot of the things said about college campuses last week don't apply as of today.

there is a sense that these protests are full of spoiled and innocent kids and that is transparently not true. these are people (including grad students, faculty, etc) who have also experienced upheaval across the world and in their own communities. the fact that they're receiving the same treatment on university campuses now as protestors did in ferguson, as people have on their streets, means that while US colleges are profit-oriented neoliberal institutions and their administrators are fascists, their student bodies are on the forefront of history once again.

[yesiwillyes]

Shalom Harlow photographed by Victor Alfaro, W Magazine, 1996.

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incredible day at ut today. we crushed it

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ph richard kern, 2024

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HAPPENING NOW: passover seder from our comrades in columbia's liberated zone/gaza solidarity encampment. this encampment is a profoundly religious space. we've seen muslim protesters praying multiple times a day, a christian communion was held, and multiple jewish prayers/celebrations have taken place. solidarity is a beautiful thing, palestine will be free.🖤🇵🇸

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Isabelle Huppert, Albane Navizet

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On April 23, 1968 hundreds of Columbia students seized Hamilton Hall, holding Dean Coleman hostage. Over the following days, five buildings on campus were occupied. The occupiers demanded that Columbia stop a construction project that would contribute to the gentrification of Harlem, an end to a secret research project funded by the CIA, and amnesty for student protesters. The occupations were finally brought to an end on April 29, when the NYPD stormed the occupied buildings, resulting in nearly seven hundred arrests. In response, faculty went on strike and campus was closed for the remainder of the semester. New occupations on campus and in the surrounding neighborhood sprung up in the following weeks. Eventually the Columbia administration gave in to nearly all of the occupiers’ demands.

I. Occupations are effective because they are disruptive. The April 1968 occupations shut down the entire university for over a week. This forced the administration to concede to their demands, even after the movement faced repression.

[...]

VI. Occupations draw strength from the specter of a riot. The April 1968 occupations took place in the immediate aftermath of the “Holy Week” of riots in the surrounding neighborhood and cities across the country after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Campus administrators, city officials, and the police department worried that any attempt to suppress the occupations might lead to unrest in the surrounding neighborhood; Harlem might invade Columbia. An occupation today will be in a stronger position if it is similarly able to build and mobilize support from the surrounding neighborhood.

[...]

XIII. The occupations movement in France the following month showed that, in the right circumstances, struggles within the university can detonate a much wider social explosion.

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Jemima Kirke & Paz de la Huerta

high school circa 2001-2005 / 2013

bonus

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Chloë Sevigny by Martien Mulder, 2002

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Total Eclipse, Annie Dillard

That I have been able to read this for two eclipses makes my life feel long, nourishing, magical

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Coyote in a den By: Jonathan T. Wright From: Wildlife of the Deserts 1980

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Y Tu Mamá También, 2001