What I’m Reading: September 21, 2019. Equinox Edition.

Ethnobotany. My Grandma Hill sang church hymns to her houseplants and veggie garden, so they were definitely listening to her right back. Louis Bury, “Listening to Plants,” Hyperallergic, September 14, 2019. Nigel Chaffey, “Plants that get their own back on animals,”Botany One, September 6, 2019. Entheogens give us our own back: Rosalind Watts, Sam Gandy, and Alex Evans, “The Whole-planet View,” Aeon, September 17, 2019.

It’s all about the environment, and I was happy to join Potsdam students in walking out of class on Friday in support of the Climate Strike. Environmentally speaking, this is a worthwhile conversation to read between Franzen’s comments and Marvel’s response. Jonathan Franzen, “What if we Stopped Pretending?” The New Yorker, September 8, 2019. Franzen says: “In times of increasing chaos, people seek protection in tribalism and armed force, rather than in the rule of law, and our best defense against this kind of dystopia is to maintain functioning democracies, functioning legal systems, functioning communities. In this respect, any movement toward a more just and civil society can now be considered a meaningful climate action. Securing fair elections is a climate action. Combatting extreme wealth inequality is a climate action. Shutting down the hate machines on social media is a climate action. Instituting humane immigration policy, advocating for racial and gender equality, promoting respect for laws and their enforcement, supporting a free and independent press, ridding the country of assault weapons – these are all meaningful climate actions. To survive rising temperatures, every system, whether of the natural world or of the human world, will need to be as strong and healthy as we can make it.”Kate Marvel, “Shut Up Franzen!” Scientific American, September 11, 2019.

I’m still trying to understand. An undergraduate student shared that they thought, and were disappointed, that the Environmental Studies course should be “fun and easy.” I was left speechless with how to respond to that. I appreciate the feedback, but it also occurs to me that the comment is a teachable moment. I’m just not sure how to say what I want to say; so stay tuned as I formulate a response….There is nothing fun about the devastation of the Bahamas. Then the US had to go and make things altogether worse. Rosa Flores and Catherine E. Soichet, “A twelve-year-old fled the Bahamas with her grandmother….” CNN, September 11, 2019.

Joëlle Gergis, “I never thought I’d see the Australian rainforest burning. What will it take for us to wake up to the climate crisis?” The Guardian, September 10, 2019. Mark Kinver, “World losing battle against deforestation,” BBC, September 12, 2019. The Economist also has, The Climate Issue, September 19, 2019. Liesl Gerntholtz, “For communities in South Africa, climate change is now.” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 17, 2019. The Economist, “Why Russia is ambivalent about climate change,” Moscow and Yakutsk, September 15, 2019. Anderson, et. al. “Trees are key to fighting urban heat.” NPR, September 4, 2019. Alun Salt, “What does plants, people, planet mean?” Botany One, September 4, 2019. Eric Roston, “The massive cost of not adapting to climate change,” Bloomberg, September 9, 2019. The Guardian, Geneva, “Climate crisis is greatest ever threat to human rights, UN warns,” The Guardian, September 9, 2019. Damian Carrington, “World gravely unprepared for effects of climate crisis,” The Guardian, September 9, 2019. Jeff Sparrow, “This isn’t extinction, it’s extermination: the people killing nature know what they’re doing,” The Guardian, September 20, 2019. Climate barbarism: Naomi Klein, “How climate change fuels the rise of white supremacy,” In These Times, September 16, 2019.

I know better than to think casual reading can help me figure out what’s going on in the Middle East, but its critically important to the overall safety of our world, and I at least have to try. The Economist, “The attack on Saudi oil facilities raises the risk of war,” Middle East and Africa, September 16, 2019.

On the social justice front: Perhaps only in South Africa can a segment of the Jewish population come out against Zionism and make it worthwhile for me to try to understand the nuances of being anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic. I’m not about to explain this when the writers from their own community do such a credible job of explanation: “We need to understand the colonisation of Palestine through Zionism in these terms…as if demanding an end to the colonisation of Palestinian land is beyond the pale, as if the fact that we are a minority of the Jewish community makes us illegitimate and not worth listening to. Let us not forget that the majority of Germans supported the Nazis, the majority of white South Africans supported apartheid, and the majority of white Americans support Donald Trump. Although we are a minority, we will remain a vocal and proudly Jewish one, on the right side of history. What gives me the chutzpah to assert this? Certainly not the kind of arrogance of claiming to speak on behalf of a diverse religion of varying political views. Instead, it is a recognition that we are all human, all fallible, and that when we get into positions of power over other people, we assert that illegitimate authority and derive ideologies that seek to justify our actions.” Jared Sacks, “Jewish resistance to Zionism is on the right side of history,” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 21, 2019. Elsewhere on the continent: Jonathan Fisher, “New walls in cyberspace: Internet shutdowns and authoritarianism in Africa,” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 18, 2019. I’m fascinated with Robert Mugabe, whose reign defined much of my time in southern/eastern Africa. “The recent spate of obituaries on the late former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, have wrestled with efforts to balance the apparent discrepancy between his contributions to the country’s liberation struggle versus his betrayal of human rights and justice while head of Zimbabwe for nearly four decades.” Brooks Marmon, “The making of Mugabe’s intolerance,” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 16, 2019.

Let’s see, what was I doing in 2005 that I missed this divine piece of satire? Oh, yes! I was living in Kruger Park (Wits Rural Facility) with a very disruptive, energetic four-year-old, working with the community and with Wits and UVA students. This is a classic, along with a 2019 response. Binyavanga Wainaina, “How to Write About Africa,” Granta 92, 2005. Abdou Rahim Lema, “Many Africa experts still don’t get the need for African voices and perspectives,” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 16, 2019.

Anna-Lisa Cox, “When anti-immigration meant keeping out black pioneers,” The New York Times, September 20, 2019. Ramsi Rouighi, “Race on the Mind,” Aeon, September 18, 2019. Not an easy read at all. Hannah Natanson, “They were once America’s cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?” The Washington Post, September 14, 2019.

Discomfort is a state of grace. I say this humbly, as someone who has experienced more than their allotted share of discomfort; unease that is physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. Trauma, my own and vicarious. The grace of discomfort is the moment in which it awakens in us a seed of empathy to the suffering of others. Specifically, white supremacy and patriarchy have and continue to be fed on the cruel gruel of no empathy and no compassion. Discomfort, especially for the privileged, is a state of grace. Here is a must read for how to move forward through all of the above crises. Rebecca Solnit, “How Change Happens,” LitHub, September 3, 2019.

Now from the world of gender justice there is this horrid statistic on forced first sexual encounters for American women and girls – difficult, but not surprising, to fathom: “A total of 13,310 women between the ages of 18 and 44 years were included in the study. After survey weights were applied, 6.5% (865 women) of respondents reported experiencing forced sexual initiation, equivalent to 3,351,733 women in this age group nationwide. (me!!!!!) Age at forced sexual initiation averaged 15.6 years vs 17.4 years for voluntary sexual initiation.” Wait! What? 3.35 million American women report forced sexual initiation? WTF. Am I the only mama in America who taught her sons that “no means no” and consent is the most important part of foreplay? I know I’m not, but really now – can we teach men not to rape instead of having to teach women not to be raped? Laura Hawks, et. al., “Association Between Forced Sexual Initiation and Health Outcomes Among US Women,” JAMA Internal Medicine, September 16, 2019. Lukola Mnguni reminds us to be vigilant, “Declare war on the subjugation of women,” Mail and Guardian South Africa, September 9, 2019.I agree with Arwa Mahdawi, for this we need “resting rage face.” Melkorka Licea, “Women are flocking to plastic surgeons to fix resting bitch face,” New York Post, September 16, 2019. “People gravitate to women who they perceive as happy.” Hmm. Absolutely fabulous photos: Lee-Ann Olwage and Sasha Ingber, “Drag queens in South Africa embrace queerness and tradition,” NPR, September 20, 2019.

I’m crying. Lauren Strapagiel, BuzzFeed, September 19, 2019. This use of the internet my generation definitely missed out on.

The arts! “In its 136-year history the Metropolitan Opera has never staged an opera by a black composer.” Ugh. James Baldwin reminds us that Porgy & Bess, remains,” a white man’s vision of Negro life.” Michael Cooper, “The Complex History and Uneasy Present of ‘Porgy and Bess.’” The New York Times, September 19, 2019. Seth Colter Walls, “Operas by back composer have long been ignored. Explore 8.” The New York Times, September 19, 2019. Including one called The Mother of Three Sons!”  I would love to have the privilege to hear these voices at The Met. Wesley Morris, “No wonder everybody is always stealing it,” New York Times, August 14, 2019. Eva Amsen, “This Bolivian tribe does not hear pitch the same way most people do,” Forbes, September 21, 2019. Kyla McMillan, “Marc Jacob’s tone deaf appropriation of dreadlocks,” Hyperallergic, September 19, 2019. Edward Hellmore helps to clap back, “Black America saddles up to own its cowboy heritage,” The Guardian, September 21, 2019. I will let Paul Kingsnorth have the last word, “The Language of the Master,” Emergence Magazine, September 2019.

Dr. Clyde W. Ford, THINK BLACK: Book Release

Dr. Clyde W. Ford, Think Black: A memoir about my father, the first black software engineer in America, Amistad/HarperCollins, release date September 15, 2019!

Jon Talton, “At Big Blue, America’s first black software engineer blazed a trail but paid a heavy price,” The Seattle Times, July 26, 2019. Yes. A memoir about our father written by my (only) brother. I am very proud of his achievements.

What I’m Reading (and Watching) These Past Two Weeks: September 6, 2019

I’m back.

First, a gift: Néry & Gautier, “One Breath Around the World,” Aeon mini-doc (12:40). Such a beautiful short film, absolutely dazzling to watch.

I took a much-needed break to get the semester off to a good start in a new job at a new university. I’m teaching Introduction to Environmental Studies with undergraduates. Monday, first day of school, first day of college for the first year students. It is a privilege to be on this journey with them. In the meantime, so much has been happening, much of it in the environmental field, but world politics, gender, agricultural justice, ethnobotany, fine arts, and my beloved physics are not far behind.

ENVIRONMENT

Following Greta Thunberg and the young people who are schooling us adults by skipping school is both inspiring and sad. Our children and grandchildren are furious with us, and well they should be:  Linda Givetash, “How teen Greta Thunberg shifted the world’s gaze to climate change,” NBC News, August 17, 2019. Fiona Sturges, “Ignore the sneering, young people’s rage is an age old sign of failed politics,” The Guardian, August 20, 2019. The US, we have our own Greta in the form of Isra Hirsi: “Ilhan Omar’s 16 year old daughter is co-leading the youth climate strike,” Grist, March 13, 2019. Fernands, Hirsi, Coleman, and Villaeñor,”Adults won’t take climate change seriously, so we the youth are forced to strike,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 7, 2019.

And the Amazon burns due to capitalism ramped up on heteronormative patriarchy. But women are not having it: “Thousands of women rally against Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies,” DW News Robinson Meyer, “The Amazon cannot be recovered once it is gone,” The Atlantic, August 24, 2019. Alexandre Antonelli, “The Amazon is burning, will the world just watch?” Kew, August 23, 2019.

Bryan Walsh, “Why Your Brain Can’t Process Climate Change,” Time, August 14, 2019. Dan McDougall, “Greenland residents traumatized by climate emergency,” The Guardian, August 12, 2019. Sigal Samuel, “This country gave all its rivers their own legal rights,” Vox, August 18, 2019. Greg Jericho, “Accepting anecdotes more readily than climate science is willful ignorance,” The Guardian, August 17, 2019.

This is scary. The children are right to be angry:  Angelique Chrisafis, “It can kill you in seconds; the deadly algae on Brittany’s beaches,” The Guardian, September 8, 2019.

WORLD POLITICS

If I say “rest in peace” I mean that perhaps Zimbabwe can finally get some rest & peace from Uncle Bobby. I remember making many many road trips from Lusaka to Johannesburg in the late 1990s with my 11 year old son and his friends. It was always a good time, even when our Jeep broke down in the middle of nowhere Zimbabwe. Harare was not full of tourists, and incredible soapstone sculptures were being sold on every corner. We always stopped at the Kariba Dam (with its difficult colonial era history) and went swimming at the Caribbea Bay Resort. One trip we made it over to Great Zimbabwe, a five century long Shona Empire, the abode of The Queen of Sheba, the African proof positive that the “structures of civilization” in the form of complex societies and built environments did not stop in Rome and Greece, or even Egypt, and complex contributions to society have absolutely nothing to do with race. (WTF that I even have to say that, but this is 2019 and we know the nonsense some folks espouse.) Jacques Leslie, “One of Africa’s Biggest Dams is Falling Apart,” The New Yorker, February 2, 2016. Then comes the poster child for African-Dictator-Power-Corrupts-Absolute-Power-Corrupts-Absolutely, Mugabe, who kills the Ndebele citizens of his own country, marries Grace the poster child run amok Secretary-turned-African-Gold-Digger, and Ugh. The amazing people of Zimbabwe have been put into a special kind of hell from which they will spend generations digging out. Just as we are going to spend generations digging out from under the hell of the current moment in US politics, but more on that later. University of California, “How Power Makes People Selfish,” video (2:03). Simon Alison, “Robert Gabriel Mugabe, 1924-2019: A tragedy in three acts,” Mail & Guardian South Africa, September 6, 2019. “Robert Mugabe’s descent from nationalist hero to tyrant,” The Economist, September 6, 2019. David B. Moore, “The many failures and betrayals of Robert Mugabe to his people.” Quartz Africa, September 7, 2019.

Really? This is preposterous. Kevin Fitzpatrick, “Let Trump decide the weather, NOAA reportedly told staff before hurricane Dorian,” Vanity Fair, September 8, 2019.

Lest we need a reminder: Katie Fitzpatrick, “Change the world not yourself, or how Arendt called out Thoreau,” Aeon, August 22, 2018.

GENDER

Tender and beautiful. Ryan Maxey, “I Live with a Girl Papa,”mini-doc(16:12)

Arwa Mahdawi, “The misogyny Steve King embodies is very much in the DNA of the Republican party.” The Guardian, August 17, 2019.

SOCIAL AND AGRICULTURAL JUSTICE

If you missed this, then don’t miss this. The New York Times Magazine 1619 Project, and then read this op-ed by my brother, Dr. Clyde W. Ford, “Servants or Slaves?  How Africans First Came to America Matters,” Seattle Times, August 29, 2019. Stay woke folks.

Howard Blume and Nina Agrawal, “The Language of Ethnic Studies,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2019. Another critical special issue on the dispossession of African Americans from land and wealth. Vann R. Newkirk II, “The Great Land Robbery,” The Atlantic, September 2019. Amy Spitalnick, “Charlottesville’s white supremacists are being targeted by a law that took down the KKK,” Think, August 12, 2019. I want to read this book by Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist. Kalefa Sanneh, “The Right to Redefine Racism,” The New Yorker, August 12, 2019. This article caused quite a stir on some ag listservs: Jack Healy,” Amid the Kale and Corn Fears of White Supremacy at the Farmer’s Market,” The New York Times, August 18, 2019.

Ugh. Just ugh. Aleaziz, Mac, and Singer-Vine, “Federal Agencies Have Been Sending Employees Articles From White Nationalist And Conspiracy Websites For Months,” BuzzFeed News, August 24, 2019.

FINE ARTS

Always more Toni Morrison. Syreeda McFadden, “What Toni Morrison Knew About Trump,” The Atlantic, August 13, 2019. Emily Lordi, “Toni Morrison and Nina Simone, United in Soul,” The New Yorker, August 12, 2019.

Weird story, but, yes, I do care. Zachary Small, “The Fine Art Handler Who Saved the Emancipation Proclamation from Drowning in Mountain Dew, Hyperallergic, September 6, 2019.

PHYSICS

Maybe if we just looked at the world in a completely different way….Lee Smolin, “Quantum weirdness isn’t real: We’ve just got space and time all wrong,” New Scientist, August 21, 2019. Paul M. Sutter, “Meet the Quarks.” You are Made of Them,” Forbes, August 21, 2019. Nevin Climenhaga, “The concept of probability is not as simple as you think,” Aeon, February 26, 2019.

Finale? “Strap in” indeed! Conner Griffith, “Auto,” Aeon video (6:13), September 3, 2019. The digital art I did not know I needed until I delighted in this.

What I’m Reading (and Listening to) This Week: August 16, 2019

I’m posting a day early because: I’m totally inundated with interesting things to read, and I’m totally putting last minute changes on a new syllabus. So here goes; some of this follows old threads:

The Always Awesome Amikaeyla Gaston, I see you boo. Watch/listen to this transformative TED Talk (18:27).

Paying attention to the latest climate change report out of the IPCC. Miyo McGinn, “The U.N. report calls for better farming. Which 2020 candidates have a plan for that?” Grist, August 12, 2019. Robin McKie, “We have to transform food production to take on climate change, leaked UN report says,” Grist, August 6, 2019. David R. Montgomery, “Could restoring soil help halt climate change?” The Daily Beast, August 15, 2019.

The physics obsession: Ethan Siegel, “Can we test gravitational waves for wave-particle duality?” Forbes, August 15, 2019.

More art as activism. This is making me want to fly to London: Naomi Polonsky, Faith Ringgold’s painted and sewn survey of United States history,” Hyperallergic, August 5, 2019.  The show is up until September 8. Such an important figure in the African American art world; “John T. Riddle, Jr. was born in 1933 to a family with deep roots in Los Angeles. His father, John Riddle, Sr. helped design and build homes alongside the architect Paul Revere Williams, whose private residential architecture still dot the city’s historic neighborhoods. Helen Wheeler, his mother, was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Southern California Law School.” Abe Ahn, “The LA artists who advanced black stories through art-making,” Hyperallergic, August 6, 2019.

And then there is this anti-wokeness in the art world. Ugh. Privilege is defined by a lack of vigilance, by not having to think about the consequences and repercussions of one’s actions. But this still remains shocking. Hakim Bishara, “Patrons wore blackface and colonial era costumes to party at AfricaMuseum (Tervuren, Belguim),” Hyperallergic, August 9, 2019. Just ugh.

A welcome argument to take back face to face activism and the power of research and deep thinking; “Narcissism, forever seeking but never really finding its own proverbial echo, will fall into the mythical water, and drown. I say that may be so, but in the meantime it is time to devote ourselves again to re-embrace the offline — that leveling reality when we meet face to face with no stage in between, and realise that we can’t let our egos cast their shadows so far. We need to cite again, to read at depth again, and to critique again — not as territorial defense but as a commitment to the rigor that our visions and practices of freedom absolutely require.” Jessica Horn, “The Age of the Feminist Influencer,” Mail & Guardian (South Africa), August 12, 2019.

The Black Female Nature Enthusiast; there, are a number of intersections to cross: “The outdoors do not always feel like a great place for a woman of color because of the other people who occupy, and in most cases have ownership of that space. The same people who claim there is no barrier are often the ones building the fence while denying they’re holding a hammer and nails.” Leah Keinama Hasse, “How to Deal with Racism in the Outdoors,” Melanin Base Camp, June 23, 2018.

While we are at it, shout out to Danielle Williams for the website and project Melanin Basecamp, because yes, we do extreme sports also. Try these gems from the blog: David Rozul, “Live Climb, Respect Indigenous Land,” MBC Blog, July 21, 2019. Danielle Williams, “The Melanin Basecamp Guide to Outdoor Allyship,” MBC Blog, July 7, 2019. Danielle Williams, “7 Reasons Why Your Outdoor Friends Are Not Good Allies,” MBC Blog, May 9, 2019. Nadia Mercado, “Shut Up and Climb!” MBC Blog, July 13, 2018. Danielle Williams, “The Miseducation of Leave No Trace – Policing Black and Brown Bodies in the Outdoors,” MBC Blog, March 26, 2019.

We braided seeds in our hair before being forced on The Middle Passage. The video (6:12) makes it so real and so beautiful – a gift.

This historical piece on African American’s serving in the Navy in the early 20^thcentury is similarly real, and important to see the beauty in the midst of the trauma. Joshua Fitzwater, “All Hands On Deck,” Southern Grit, May 9, 2018.

The Russians used technology against the US in the 2016 election. They specifically targeted African Americans. Wake up, folks. Not only do the Russians not give a fig about BIPOC, they are astutely aware that racism, the history of racism, and white denial of that history, is the weakest spot in the American fabric. They stoked the (our) weaknesses with believable, but not entirely true, narratives about how we were being played and who was playing us. We got played this time. By the Russian government. Pay attention to technology and its many uses besides your social media feed:

N. Jamiyla Chisholm, “AI Used to Curb Hate on Twitter Actually Punishes Black People,” Colorlines, August 12, 2019.

This blatant discrimination against Caster Semenya and the stubbornness of the heteronormative patriarchy’s binary view of gender, ugh, it frustrates me. In her own words: Michelle Gumede, “I’m targeted because I’m undefeated – Caster,” Mail & Guardian, South Africa, August 15, 2019.

I’m paying attention and trying to understand. “From silence to terrorism – Beijing’s evolving rhetoric on Hong Kong,” Mail & Guardian, South Africa, August 14, 2019.

Of course they did. Paola Rosa-Aquino, “Nearly 100 percent of Trump funds designed to help farmers went to white farmers,” Grist, August 1, 2019.

Janelle Ross and Suzanne Gamboa, “El Paso, racism, and rhetoric: The growing toll of bigotry in America,” NBC News, August 15, 2019.

What I’m Reading (and Listening to) This Week: August 8, 2019.

Todrick!? Haus Party! How did I even miss this fabulousness? Binge watching. “I don’t dance I work! Where’s my sash and crown? Make it rain on me! Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels!” Oh yes yes yes.

Arwa Mahdawi has an on-point weekly gender newsletter, The Week in Patriarchy, through The Guardian. Her piece on the ICE terrorism was really perfect: Arwa Mahdawi, “Strange how some anti-abortion activists are happy to separate kids from parents,” The Guardian, August 10, 2019. This is indeed terrifying: “The hypocrisy of anti-abortion lawmakers gloating about taking hundreds of kids away from their parents should infuriate us all. What happened this week in Mississippi should also chill us to the bone. America’s immigration system was deeply unfair long before Trump took office – but the systematic cruelty and dehumanization we are witnessing now is terrifying. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is state-sponsored terrorism: their job isn’t to make Americans safe, it is to strike fear into non-white Americans. As Reeves’s statement makes very clear, not everyone in America is considered an American, or even fully human. If you’re not white then you’re an alien, a criminal, a threat.”

Zachary Small, “Joseph Pierce (Cherokee) on Why Academics Must Decolonize Queerness,” Hyperallergic, August 9, 2019; listen to podcast. Language Keepers: The Struggle for Indigenous Language Survival in California, see Julie Girado Turner, “Nuwä” means “the People,” Emergence Magazine, August 2019.

Art IS Activism! If you are in Rockland, Maine, please go see this exhibit: “Dan Mills: Human Topography,” at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art until October 13. Dan Little, “An Artist’s Maps of Imperialism and Greed,” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2019. Hakim Bishara, “Maps of Gerrymandered Districts are Turned into a Typeface,” Hyperallergic, August 8, 2019. Robert Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell The Truth, awesome portrait gallery here. Max L. Feldman, “Milena Büsch’s Large Paintings Parody Consumer Culture,” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2019. I did not know that Herriman was a mixed-race black artist. David Carrier, “Is George Herriman the Greatest American Visual Artist?” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2019. Steve Locke, “Why I withdrew my proposed slave memorial at Faneuil Hall,” Boston Globe, August 4, 2019.  A documentary on the escaped slaves of Suriname: Wendy Ide, “Stones Have Laws, Review: An Escape Back to Nature,” The Guardian, August 11, 2019. Forensic artist Lois Gibson: Rosie Hopegood, “I was raped and left for dead – my anger has put 1200 criminals behind bars,” UK Mirror, August 11, 2019.

It appears to be Claudia’s week for new words and their concepts.

ILLEISM? Illeism is speaking about yourself in the third person. Claudia never heard that term before. But after reading these articles Claudia sees some potential benefits for emotional self-regulation and enhancing, “the various elements of thinking long-considered crucial to wisdom, including: intellectual humility; taking the perspective of others; recognising uncertainty; and having the capacity to search for a compromise.” Thank you, David Robson, “Why speaking to yourself in the third person makes you wiser,” Aeon, August 9, 2019.

HYPERSANITY? “Both psychosis and hypersanity place us outside society, making us seem ‘mad’ to the mainstream. Both states attract a heady mixture of fear and fascination. But whereas mental disorder is distressing and disabling, hypersanity is liberating and empowering.” Neel Burton, “The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look,” Aeon, August 9, 2019.

My secret love of physics. Uh oh. I’m fascinated by topics like special relativity, particle/wave duality, and time distortion. This video does a great job of simplifying complex equations. Minute Physics, “Extremely small and incredibly fast, muons offer amazing proof of special relativity,” Aeon, August 9, 2019.

Now that my physics fascination is no longer a secret. Corey S. Powell, “The master plan of the universe revealed in new galaxy maps,” NBC News Mach, August 11, 2019. Natalie Wolchover, “Fractal patterns offer clues to the universe’s origin,” Wired, August 11, 2019. Indigenous folks have been doing fractals forever, so, yes.

Climate Change and Land: There is a new UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) REPORT out. We should know what it says about global warming and food security; follow the link for the full report and summaries.

Articles about the report: Matt Simon, “We’re Eating This Planet to Death,” Wired, August 8, 2019, and “New IPCC Report Shows how our Abuse of Land Drives Climate Change,” Wired, August 8, 2019. Seth Borenstein and Jamey Keaten, “UN Climate Report: Change land use to avoid a hungry future,” Chicago Tribune, August 8, 2019. “Human-caused climate change is dramatically degrading the Earth’s land and the way people use the land is making global warming worse, a new United Nations scientific report says. That creates a vicious cycle which is already making food more expensive, scarcer and less nutritious. “The cycle is accelerating,” said NASA climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, a co-author of the report. “The threat of climate change affecting people’s food on their dinner table is increasing.” 

And what do we do now that we are paying attention to land use and climate change? “Many natural systems regenerate over time, but right now, much of our extraction outpaces this regeneration.” Umair Irfan, “4 ways to be smarter about land use to fight climate change,” Vox, August 9, 2019. Robinson Meyer, “This Land is the Only Land There Is,” The Atlantic, August 8, 2019.

Some good news for ethnobotanists, Helen Briggs, “The Secret Life of Plants: Ten New Species Found This Year,” BBC Science & Environment, December 21, 2018.

For me, understanding the issue of white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, and the patriarchy, from as many perspectives as possible, in addition to my lived experiences, is crucial. University of Michigan Professor Alexandra Minna Stern, “It’s Come to This: White Nationalism is Inciting Mass Murder in America,” Newsweek, August 5, 2019. Author of Proud Boys and the White Ethnostate says, “The Cielo Vista massacre demonstrates that white nationalism has become a killing machine that shows no sign of abating. Just as we need to tackle gun control seriously and systematically, we also need to tackle and dismantle white nationalist ideas, for the sake of democracy and human decency.”

What would Baldwin say about this moment in US race relations? “Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?’ From William F Buckley’s highly stylised posturing and pointing, to James Baldwin’s melodious rhetorical flourishes and memorable scowls, what’s become known as the ‘Baldwin-Buckley Debate’ now stands as one of the archetypal articulations of the dividing line between US progressives and conservatives on questions of race, justice and history.” This debate is well worth the time (an hour) to listen to. The Cambridge Union, University of Cambridge, 1965. “James Baldwin debates William F Buckley,” Aeon, August 8, 2019.

“A lot of people have confused the rhetoric the president used to get elected with making it okay to express racist ideas again,” Chicago teacher Meghan O’Keefe said. “A lot of people believe they have the right to be racist and that we have to honor that as a legitimate point of view.” In, Linda K. Wertheimer, “The Alt Right Curriculum,” The Atlantic, April 4, 2017.

Molly Jung-Fast, “It’s the Misogyny, Stupid,” The Daily Beast, August 8, 2019. Lois Beckett, “’Blood on their hands’: the intelligence officer whose warning over white supremacy was ignored.” The Guardian, August 8, 2019. Adam Serwer, “The Nationalist’s Delusion,” The Atlantic, November 20, 2017. David A. Graham, “Trump’s White Identity Politics Appeals to Two Different Groups,” The Atlantic, August 8, 2019. Wajahat Ali, “The Death Rattle of White Supremacy,” The Atlantic, August 4, 2019.

The interesting details of epigenetics. June Javelosa, “Memories can be inherited and scientists may just have figured out how,” Futurism, April 13, 2016.

Land acknowledgements are important, but we should know why we are doing them. Just sharing here some useful articles: “Are you planning a land acknowledgement?” (great links) from American Indians in Children’s Literature, March 20, 2019. Hayden King, “I Regret It,” CBC Radio Regret, January 20, 2019. “Whose Land?” There is an App from Canada; Allison Jones, “Native Land” with great links: Why Acknowledge

Erin Blakemore, “White Women Tried to Ban Native American Dances, Jstor Daily, March 15, 2019. See: Margaret D. Jacobs, “Making Savages of Us All: White Women, Pueblo Indians, and the Controversy over Indian Dances in the 1920s,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1996), pp. 178-209, University of Nebraska Press.

Keep these tributes pouring in. I cannot get enough. Janelle Ross, “Toni Morrison refused to frame her work for a white audience. That was revolutionary.” NBC News, August 7, 2019.

Pretty Hot Dame

It is usually posed as a question-cum-statement, “You are into a lot of different things?!” Yes. Its the path of least resistance for the way my mind works. (If you are into astrology, know that I have a Grand Trine in Air.) I am committed to working in environmental studies for many reasons; one of them is the interdisciplinary nature, the interdisciplinary necessity of the field.

Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, Hildegard of Bingen, I take as role models women who could do more than one thing well and combine skills to address the complex needs of their communities. I hold their examples as goals, not as achievements. You can be certain that I am an interdisciplinary thinker, teacher, and scholar – a polymath.

Environmental Studies Professor Adrian Ivakhir of UVM wonderfully describes interdisciplinarity as, “One of the virtues of being trained as an interdisciplinarian is that rather than simply waking up one day and realizing I had fallen off the map of whatever discipline I had started in, interdisciplinary training required developing the skill of working with and understanding the limitations of maps. That is, it made it necessary, for survival’s sake, to learn how to examine disciplinary maps closely, comparing them and working one’s way between them, and exploring the disjunctions between one map and another and between the maps and the territories they ostensibly referred to. My tendency is to play the role of ethnographer and attempt to tease out the cognitive maps at work around me.” From, “The Discipline of Interdiscipline,” RCC Perspectives, No. 2, Minding the Gap: Working Across Disciplines in Environmental Studies (2014), pp. 11-14.

I am playing the role of cartographer, mapping the paths between territories, often un-mowed, little explored, always interesting.

Baldwin spoke of the “uses and hazards of expatriation.” My upcoming memoir is about that, in part. I did not know this African American in Europe story: Adam Shatz, “How does it feel to be a white man? William Gardner Smith’s exile in Paris.” The New Yorker, August 11, 2019.

Agriculture & the Sacred Feminine

Online course through the Biodynamic Association, late Fall 2019

This course will investigate the principles and practices of The Sacred Feminine, and its relationship with agriculture and food systems. The ethical costs and injustices of industrialized agriculture are intolerable, and we are called to make sacred again our concepts of nature and our connection to Earth. We will review the practices and beliefs that have brought communities, individuals, and the environment to the brink of catastrophic change. We will discuss how biodynamic agriculture and other sacred paradigms can help us move away from the edge of these disasters, exploring healthier and more just ways that we can treat land, water, soil, plants, animals, and each other. Through reading and discussing selected writings and lectures of Rudolf Steiner and others, we will deliberate the role of the human on Earth and the development of human consciousness. The course will emphasize the importance and significance of the humanities — stories, the analysis and exchange of ideas, and the creative expression of the arts — for the integration of ecological and social justice with reverence for the Earth.

Hambe Kahle Toni Morrison

I am far from alone in believing that Toni Morrison has been a singular influence on my writing and my love of literature. I have had the fortune to hear her speak and be in her presence. I send her off with such love and admiration, such profound gratitude. Go well. Hambe kahle.

The tributes are deserved and beautiful. Some of my favorites here, and in the weekly reading: David Remnick, “What Toni Morrison Understood About Hate,” The New Yorker, August 19, 2019. Hilton Als, “Toni Morrison’s Truth,” The New Yorker, August 8, 2019.

Bernadine Evaristo, “We Always Knew She Was on Our Side,” The Guardian, August 10, 2019.

Toni Morrison, “Essay from: Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches, Meditations” Published by Chatto & Windus, The Guardian, August 8, 2019.

Don’t Normalize Evil

“Latinos make up 18 percent of the population of the United States. Our roots here extend far back before the nation’s founding. We have fought in every American war. Our food, our language, and our culture have shaped every aspect of American life, going back centuries. And yet the headlines in our largest papers and the cable-news chyrons omitted or downplayed the historic nature of the carnage in El Paso. Instead, they gave top billing to calls for unity by a president who has for years used angry rhetoric that dehumanizes and maligns Latinos.” Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “The Media Erased Latinos from the Story,” The Atlantic, August 9, 2019.

It seems like every weekend a barrage of racist tweets and speeches, inciting violence. Every weekend the tragedy of mass death celebrated by the pro-gun lobby with the extreme advice of, “we need more people with more guns.”  I wrote this opinion piece two years ago – August 2017. I have revised it but it does not go out of date, regrettably. (See Race Forward’s response to the violence.)

I have lived through American apartheid and the immediate aftermath of South African apartheid. I have worked, lived, and witnessed^[1]in the midst of the genocidal wars and human rights violations of Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mozambique, and Angola. I have worked first hand with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. While these experiences are some of the reasons I suffer from PTSD, they also motivate my commitment to the environmental and social justice work I do.

Some of us mark the resurgence of white supremacist terrorism that we are enmeshed in with the horrific events of Charlottesville, and the heartrending death of Heather Heyer. I mourn and share the pain of Heather’s death, and I begin by reminding us that this is an evil that has been in our midst for countless generations. Our ancestors had to deal with this illness, and so now do we. This level of hatred is a disease; a disease that is not limited to race, nationality, or religion, but an illness that takes a particularly virulent form in the recurring strains of white nationalism.

Genocide, and the aberrant thinking, speech, and actions that lead up to it, is properly seen as the worst result of a chronic sickness with the deadly trait of virulent social contagion. Social contagion is what we witness when so called “ordinary” adults, youth, and students get caught up in the actions and rhetoric of evil. This malevolence is manipulated by elites and the powerful, and it does NOT resolve through love, compassion, and listening. The media, the society, and our leaders attempt to normalize this extreme and irrational evil. This is not free speech, it is not an alternate political point of view.

The strategy for this disastrous human affliction of irrational hatred is and always has been excision and isolation. All we can do is make it absolutely legally and socially unacceptable to hold this view: “that certain humans are of a different species than other humans, which leads to them being less than, inferior to us real humans, which leads to them being, well, not really humans but beasts, actually insects, well really cockroaches, vermin, closer actually to devils, which makes it possible to exterminate them. When we completely dehumanize them, we can, with impunity, we are in fact held responsible to, herd them up, kill them, gas them, experiment with the skin and organs of their bodies, throw them over cliffs, rape and bayonet their babies, and exercise the final solution.”

This speech is what we understand from an unfortunately extensive history of movements of irrational hatred. This language is exactly what I have heard firsthand in my work on all continents. This is, unerringly, what we currently read, see, and hear from the contemporary white nationalist movement, especially from the movement’s leaders.

We should figure out in our own ways how to eliminate the social contagion of white nationalism amidst friends, family, and immediate social circles. White people, specifically, need to have a sanctuary plan in place for vulnerable members of their extended, diverse communities. Not because you are our saviors, but because complete dehumanization of The Other always happens way faster than we imagine, it seems to catch ordinary folks by surprise, in a flash the vulnerable are herded away and their possessions destroyed or dispossessed. Strategize now for how you will identify the most vulnerable in your community, make a plan with them to get them to safety, give them sanctuary, and inhabit and protect their pets, land, farms, houses, and material goods should the need arise to do so.

Simultaneously, we must work tirelessly to call out these deeds of hatred, prosecuting transgressions of civility and tolerance to the fullest extent; doing whatever we can to make sure these acts are not normalized.

What I have experienced is that we won’t have much time to plan for sanctuary and safety in the midst of chaos and craziness. We may keep in mind that we are one species, and as humans we are gloriously diverse and potentially loving and compassionate manifestations of that Oneness. We must keep in mind that when any group of people is allowed to dehumanize and destroy another group, in addition to the real and present dangers to the marginalized, it is the oppressors and those who actively or passively collude with them who are dehumanized.

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^[1]Witnessing is a technical/legal term for work conducted by official observers of atrocities. See, Benjamin Thorne, “Legal Witnessing and Mass Human Rights Violations: Remembering Atrocities,” JusticeInfo, June 12, 2018.

What I’m Reading (and Listening to) This Week: August 1, 2019

Toni Morrison. I cannot get enough of sitting at the feet of your wisdom and listening. Just drinking it in. These video clips are awesome.

We are reminded of the work of indigenous writer and literary elder, Lee Maracle by Brad Wheeler, “Writer Lee Maracle on her Neustadt nomination, and making room for more Indigenous writers,” The Globe & Mail Books, July 31, 2019.

Professor Eddie Glaude, Princeton – knocks this moment out of the ballpark with real talk, intelligence, passion. “The danger of their ignorance.” So worth listening to him. “Lord help us.” Àṣẹ. Professor Carol Anderson, Emory University has written a fact filled opinion piece in The Guardian, August 6, 2019.

I am wondering how far out of the water I’m going to stay on the upcoming elections. So. Jumping right in with something slightly old, Aaron Ross Coleman, “Black Culture Won’t Save Kamala Harris,” The Nation, January 28, 2019.

Did I say I wouldn’t get into the waters of the upcoming election? Malaika Jabali, “Black women deserve better than Kamala Harris. Don’t take our vote for granted.” The Guardian, August 9, 2019. Hmm. I see I have started by going after Kamala. No worries, I’m coming for you too Cory, and the old guys also.

I am hoping to figure out a way to catch this exhibition (Minneapolis, Nashville, Washington, Tulsa): Prospero, “Hearts of Our People: A blockbuster exhibition of art by Native American women,” The Economist, August 7, 2019.

This article caused me to feel despair and joy in equal measure and at the same time. The photographs are beautiful. Laila Elhaddad, “How to Eat Well While Living Under Siege,” The Economist 1843, Photographer Heidi Levine, August/September, 2019.

Microscopy of herbs?! Totally cool photos including lavender and sage. Rob Dunn & Martin Oeggerli, “Microscopic images reveal how herbs get their flavor,” National Geographic August 1, 2019.

The Movement for Black Lives is putting words to action in a Toolkit for reparations. Contains great historical information, I learned something just reading the Reparations Timeline. M4BL, “Reparations Now Toolkit” August 2019. Primary Authors: Andrea Ritchie, Deirdre Smith, Janetta Johnson, Jumoke Ifetayo, Marbre Stahly-Butts, Mariame Kaba, Montague Simmons, Nkechi Taifa, Rachel Herzing, Richard Wallace, and Taliba Obuya. Primary Editors: Andrea Ritchie, Marbre Stahly-Butts, and Dominique Zenani Barron.

This one is educational and a shout out to my favorite watermelon farmers! “At its core, watermelon represented a pathway to economic freedom for formerly enslaved Africans. While enslaved, they were forced to farm watermelons. But once they were free citizens, watermelons provided a way to reclaim their lives and make money. They grew and harvested them, becoming vendors and selling them on street corners. And of course, that growing business was seen as a threat to white residents in cities across the South during the Jim Crow era.” Nneka M. Okona, “How Watermelon’s Reputation Got Tangled in Racism,” HuffPost, August 2, 2019. William R. Black, “How Watermelons Became a Racist Trope,” The Atlantic, December 8, 2014.

While we are on the vast subject of stereotypes: National Museum of African American History and Culture, “Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans,” The Smithsonian. Accessed August 1, 2019. Anderson, Holland, Heldreth and Johnson, “Revisiting the Jezebel Stereotype: The Impact of Target Racism on Sexual Objectification,” Psychology of Women Quarterly (Sage) 42, no. 4 (2018): 461-476.

Always thinking of our family farmers: Mary Papenfuss, “Largest farms grab lion’s share of Trump trade war aid,” HuffPost, August 2, 2019.

Well, uh, yes. Duh? But thanks Sac Bee. Sacramento Bee Editorial Board, “Despite sunny image, Ronald Reagan’s racism paved the way for Trump’s,” The Sacramento Bee, August 1, 2019. I see you Patti Davis, but in the context of disproportionate impact and consequences I’m going to pause at “forgiveness” and contemplate restorative justice and reparations instead (a link to the Davis editorial is in the article): Zachary Halaschak, “Daughter of Ronald Reagan breaks silence on monkeys remark,” Washington Examiner, August 2, 2019.

The decolonization of the history of techno? I am all ears: Lee DiVito, “Before techno was white and hedonistic, it was black and political.” Detroit Metro Times, February 4, 2015. I am always all ears for classical music – 7 siblings in one family! Awesome. Paul Georgoulis, “In a family filled with musicians a young pianist finds her voice,” NPR, August 7, 2019.

What is decolonization? The collective, Decolonize This Place, reports in Hyperallergic, July 30, 2019, about the successful removal of Warren Kanders from the Witney board of trustees, with an informative summary and a great definition of the project of decolonization, linked to an excellent article by Tuck & Yang: “A decolonial perspective approaches our present political condition by beginning with the occupied land on which we stand. It acknowledges that the settler-colony of the United States was founded on the theft of land, life, and labor over 400 years, and that it operates as an external empire as well. The term insists that colonization is not a period sealed safely in the past, but an ongoing process inherent to the dynamics of contemporary racial capitalism. It also, as a framework, necessitates abolition of prisons and police, borders and bosses, empires and oligarchs.”

Follow the link on racial capitalism to an article about the late UC Santa Barbara Professor, black studies and social justice theorist Dr. Cedric Robinson. Robin D.G. Kelley, in the Boston Review says of Robinson’s research and dissertation process, “Contending that “orthodox Western thought was neither universal nor coherent,” he ultimately arrives at the conclusion that “the political is an historical . . . illusion.”  When he submitted a draft of his dissertation in 1971, the [Stanford] faculty was ill-prepared to sign off on a project that questioned the epistemological foundations of the entire discipline. Since no one could reasonably reject a thesis so sound, elegant, and erudite, some members resigned from his committee citing an inability to understand the work. It took three years and the threat of a lawsuit for his dissertation to be approved, and another six years before it was published as The Terms of Order: Political Science and the Myth of Leadership (1980).”

And Camila Guiza-Chavez writes about settler colonialism, “Accomplice and Art: Indigenous Feminist Activism and Performance,” in The Politic, March 10, 2016.

Monotropa uniflora is a sacred plant, and I have been fortunate to meet this plant in one of its habitats, in the woods of Down East Maine. This article about plants that do not photosynthesize reminded me of the complicated grace of Monotropa uniflora: Alun Salt, “When a plant loses photosynthesis, what else does it lose?” BotanyOne July 31, 2019. Staying on the botany track I was introduced to botanist Janaki Ammal (1897-1984), by, Leila McNeill, “The pioneering female botanist who sweetened a nation and saved a valley,” Smithsonian.com, July 31, 2019. Climate change impacts on Yucca brevifolia, thanks to: Julia Wick, “For the Joshua Trees of Joshua Tree National Park, time may be running out,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2019.

Cryptobiosis is awesome, but. This left me speechless. I actually don’t know how to feel about this. Uneasy, but I can’t pinpoint why. Daniel Oberhaus, “A crashed Israeli lunar lander spilled Tardigrades on the moon,” Wired, August 5, 2019.