the discipline of hope
i am slowly reading and processing Mariame Kaba's We Do This Till We Free Us and am leaning heavily into her principle "Hope is a discipline" on this monday morning / mourning.
cw: police murder, black death (scroll to first divider to avoid)
it's not my place to speak extensively on the unspeakable loss of Daunte Wright. i have a picture of him and Jr. placed next to a candle and i will be sending money.
My God. America, how do we sleep when this is our reality. 20 yrs old!
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) April 12, 2021
Another precious life lost to racist police brutality. No justice, no peace.
#DaunteWright pic.twitter.com/hUAps4CCJh
i haven't been able to find a way to donate specifically to Daunte's family and Daunte Jr., but as community members take to the streets to resist our lethal police system, you can donate to Minnesota Freedom Fund to help those who will inevitably be criminalized as a result.
"Hope is a discipline." This monday good newsletter is part of this discipline for me and I hope it becomes the same for you. There has always been evil and there have always been people fighting it and winning.
in milwaukee, a whole slate of democratic socialists won primaries this spring.
though each candidate lost in the spring election, Darrin Madison got 49.63% of the vote and lost by less than 1%. each election, we get closer to winning and coalitions get built.
This race is important, because the county is in the best position right now to put things in place to move us in a bold direction which can fuel long-term development for all the municipalities in its jurisdiction. We are in a $80 million deficit. I’m trying to ensure that the decisions [made in response to that deficit] still support our seniors, youth, working-class families, and our parks. Right now, we don’t have strong leaders willing to fight for working-class people in this city who continue to suffer the most.
-- Darrin Madison
Alex Brower
GMO corn is banned in mexico
there's a reason that corn is the symbol for the zapatistas and other indigenous mexican revolutionary groups. corn is sacred to many indigenous people in central america. since the signing of NAFTA in the 90s, a flood of cheap GMO corn not native to mexico has flooded into central america making tons of money for u.s. companies and weakening indigenous land ownership movements. this is a big win and hopefully the start of a movement towards indigenous food production based on traditional sustainable methods.
"The government published a decree Thursday that stated that biosecurity authorities would “revoke and refrain from granting permits for the release of genetically modified corn seeds into the environment.” The objective of the decision is to “contribute to food security and sovereignty” and protect “native corn, cornfields, bio-cultural wealth, farming communities, gastronomic heritage and the health of Mexicans,” the decree said. The government also mandated the phasing out of GMO corn imports for use in the food industry by January 2024 and decreed the elimination of glyphosate, a controversial herbicide, by the same date."
i'm learning all the things.
Ida Yalzadeh runs a newsletter and teaches a course called "Transnational Asian American Activism." recently she posted zines created by her students and they are FIRE. take the time to read at least one this week at the link below.
"Throughout the quarter, we explored different spaces and themes of Asian/American activism: early resistance to anti-imperialism, student activism, digital activism, etc etc. I was absolutely blown away by my students' passion for this subject and in their own interest around these themes and issues. It therefore goes without saying that the final projects that they submitted—a zine on a subject matter of their own choice—astounded me in their specificity, detail and contents."
Ida Yalzadeh
thank you for being here. as always, i hope this is useful.
with hope,
katie wills evans