Hey critters,
I could easily make this Crit completely out of touch with the happenings in the world or I could make it completely about them. Instead, I want to introduce a theme with this newsletter: Juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is defined as ‘the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.” I think juxtaposition is a powerful tool in creative arts, but it also plays a huge role in how I make sense of the world. Everything is made of juxtaposition when you look for it. Sometimes it’s easy to spot, like talking about yummy baked goods one second and then switching to deeply impassioned and intense political issues the next. No spoilers. But it’s also more nuanced at times and takes careful and creative perspectives. I can’t remember when I started looking for it everywhere I went, but now I can’t unsee it.
This is stuff I haven’t talked about on social media because simply I don’t want to. But this is my newsletter, and I’ll rant if I want to!
Critical Thought
… There’s obviously a lot I could say in this section this week. I could make a big statement, I could repost Instagram slides, or quote some articles I read. But I won’t beca- actually, you know what, no, here’s what’s been pissing me off. Americans are so quick to say that lives must be lost for a greater cause, but it’s only when it’s brown and black people. Immigrants at the border, unhoused folks on the street, incarcerated folks stripped of basic rights, Palestinian families, Indigenous and Native Americans: So many people in this country would rather see them dead than listen to their cries for help. This country is constantly on the wrong side of human rights and liberation struggles. American news outlets and media are so bloated with propaganda that people don’t even realize how bloodthirsty they sound when they speak. All over my Instagram, I’m seeing bullshit about ‘you can hold space for both sides’ — Tell me, why are we holding space for a settler colonial project whose purpose is to destroy space for the other side? Destroy space is a nice way of saying it. How about genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid? Also, how about you don’t have to say shit if you don’t know what you’re talking about? Verrrryyy tired of seeing random ass people who’ve never posted about any kind of liberation struggle or decolonization or colonial system resistance pipe up on Instagram with some bullshit infographic they probably got from a former Bachelor contestant saying ‘you can hold space for both …’ It’s fucking exhausting. Palestinian liberation is not inherently anti-semitic because Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. I hesitate to even call this a war because it’s never an even battle with a US-military-backed colonizer on one side. ‘The humanitarian approach is to consider both’ I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was humanitarian to consider genocide as a viable response. It’s easy to talk about how ‘violence isn’t the answer’ or ‘both sides’ when you sit comfortably with complete and total access to running water, electricity, air conditioning, a grotesquely overflowing grocery store down the street, and no one’s on TV news talking about how you’re basically an invasive animal that needs to be exterminated so people can keep partying at a music festival. Violence is always acceptable when white people do it, it’s called backing the blue or supporting the troops or whatever.
It’s despicable that lives are being shed like this, that we end up in a situation where people are so pitted against one another, but let’s remember what’s causing it — the US’s three favorite qualities in a government: A century of Western colonization, dehumanization, and violent, militant enforcement of the idea that some people’s comfort is worth more than another’s entire life. Scarcity, property, borders, individualism — Tenets of Western civilization whose imposition does nothing but warp and rot the soul of those it touches. Every day I’m bombarded with how evil this world can be, but also reminded that it wasn’t always that way and doesn’t have to be. We can resist the warp and rot.
Critiques
Books
I hit my reading goal! I wrote about this earlier this week, you can read it if you haven’t already. I’ve definitely slowed down after hitting my goal because it’s basically a go-ahead card for playing more Animal Crossing. But I’ll still be slowly making my way through my TBR.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: This book has been on my list for ages. I’m not done with it yet, but I already know it’s going to be hugely influential for me. If you haven’t heard of it, the subtitle of the book is “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.” I timed the start of this book well because Monday was Indigenous People’s Day (IPD). My university doesn’t officially recognize IPD, instead, it labels the day “fall break” in the calendar and students and faculty get the day off. Subtext: Administrators and staff are still expected to work that day. This is particularly disgusting because the university made a huge deal about using land acknowledgments — And then they won’t even recognize IPD or properly close the university. Pathetic. More on that later. Anyway, Braiding Sweetgrass is beautiful in both its concepts and writing. To say everyone should read it would be too easy; we should be embracing it and reckoning with the ways it challenges capitalist and settler colonial mindsets. The resistance proposed in the book is subtle, and built on love, abundance, and trust. If you want to know more about what I mean in my last sentence of the Critical Thought section, Braiding Sweetgrass is a great place to start.
Digital Media
Moving: Scott received a recommendation from his hand therapist (lol) to watch this Korean drama about people with super-abilities (powers?) and it’s been well worth the hype. It’s the kind of show that has it all: Action, romance, mystery, humor, etc… It’s on Hulu, y’all should watch it.
Foods
Apples: Sorry, that change of topic didn’t work and I’m not done bitching. You can surmise that I’m the kind of person to find apple-picking absolutely revolutionary — And you’re right. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had in a while. I’ve never seen abundance like that nor felt such a distinct freedom from scarcity. I went with my work team on Indigenous People’s Day ft I brought up how disturbing it is that the university doesn’t recognize the day and expects us to work. This is especially potent for us because we work in the History department, have numerous faculty who work on Indigenous and Native rights, and house the only official degree program in Native and Indigenous studies at the university. In response, we agreed to close our office and go apple-picking. No one identifies as Indigenous on our team and a commercial apple orchard isn’t exactly a ‘living off the land’ experience, but it still felt like one of the better ways we could pay homage to the day and practice our own slice of decolonization. I’m not from an environment where apples are grown: Apples have always appeared to me in a grocery store, sterilized from their birthplace, taken for granted, and low-hanging on fruit rankings. A is for Apple, so generic. But to pluck an apple off the tree with my own hand, shine it on my shirt, and then take a juicy bite of it as the sun shines into my eyes – Yeah, it was kind of magical. It made me giddy. I regularly dream of owning a garden of my own and constantly think about how tending to a garden is one of the most recommended ways to heal one’s relationship with food and the land. We Americans almost never think of how our food reaches us, where it comes from, and the costs associated with it. I won’t get into it right now. But growing your own food can be an act of resistance and an act of decolonization. Indigenous People’s Day is meant to acknowledge and honor a population that was intentionally wiped out (and continues to be systematically targeted) to make room for another. Not acknowledging IPD, silencing Indigenous voices, and summing them up in an empty land acknowledgment, is an example of a larger ethnic cleansing in progress.
Biscuits and Yubu: Let’s try again. Scott’s been baking these delicious biscuits. I also finally tried Yubu, which is a Korean cafe that serves yubuchobap, little pockets of tofu skin stuffed with rice and a topping like mushrooms, chicken, salmon, etc.
Other crap
If you couldn’t see it already, my point is that as Americans, it is so easy for us to believe the façade of peace that’s put before us and spoon-fed to us by the news and education system since we’re children. What seems like peace in our country is a thin veil of placation of millions of oppressed people and a long history of standing on the wrong side of humanity. I can go pick apples off Lenape people’s land on my chosen day off of capitalist-contrived labor when I’ve never even met a Lenape person who has done the same. I can go pick apples in upstate New York, as a second-generation Mexican-American, while knowing that my ancestors picked food in fields with pure racism beating on their backs. I can flash my American passport and get into any country I want, while immigrants who look like me will be caught and drowned in barbed wire in the very same river I grew up crossing for tacos and margaritas. Every time I go out and do something fun with my friends in NYC, we walk past countless unhoused, mostly Black and brown people on the brink of death. I can open Instagram and view a friend’s story of them cheers-ing champagne at the club followed by a screenshot of a statement written by an unnamed person that talks about how heavy their heart is to see conflict. From this country’s inception, white folks in power have made it their duty to exterminate anyone who isn’t like them and support other white folks in the same project. The violence of scarcity mindset, of capitalism, of colonialism, is that it necessitates these contrasts as vital when they aren’t. There is violence in the passive indoctrination that we are not in communion with one another or the land: Everything is to be extracted for profit with blood. We’re taught that peace is achieved by the sufferings of others and that another’s freedom is at our expense. The power of juxtaposition is that we can use it to fuel hatred and fear or we can use it to build a better world. We can keep the veil on, or we can learn the power of juxtaposition. We can mindlessly grab apples from the grocery store, or we can step outside and pick fruit off the branch.
Crit Pic
National Parks are also part of the colonial project, but I’m done for now. This adventure bun makes me happy.
That’s it for this Crit Corner! In a shocking move to all, I am really done. Like, share, restack, whatever if you feel so inclined.