A few of us are getting together to create an collaborative blog for talented people like you! We are just getting started, currently working on launching the website and finding members to post their creations! Submissions can be anything artistic. If you paint, sculpt, craft, take artsy photos,…
Friends, Fam, Folks,
Daltonism is the scientific term for color blindness. Though it now only refers to a particular kind of color blindness, the condition was originally named after John Dalton, an English chemist who wrote the first scientific paper on the subject.
As many of you know, racial tensions are literally boiling right now in our country. With the deaths of Trayvon Martin (17 year old black boy gunned down in his neighborhood carrying skittles and iced tea), Shaima Al Awadi ( Iraqi mother beaten with a tire iron within her home in El Cajon California), Stephon Watts (15 year old black autistic teenager shot in the head in his home by Chicago police) and Anna Brown (29 year old black women dragged out of a hospital and put in jail where she later died) all happening within weeks of each other, we see the damage that dormant racist, xenophobic, ablist, and classist sentiments can exact on our nation. These scars which have long been left unacknowledged or have been willfully ignored are starting to fester and rot.
Young boys are being murdered in their own neighborhoods and their stalkers/attackers are left to roam free. Mothers are being beaten to death in their homes. Children with autisism who cannot always process social cues are shot in front of their parents. The ailing and ill are being dragged from hospitals and left to die on the floor of a jail cell. If we had any reason to believe that the election of a single White-African American man to the presidency marked the birth of America’s post-racial identity, those reasons no longer hold water.
I do not send you this message to scare you or to guilt trip you. I tell you this to rally you. I am asking you guys to take a stance and for most of you this will not mean any adjustments to your daily lives. All I am asking you to do is create. Beginning April 1st, I am asking you to create a piece of art every day for 30 days. I am asking you to create in honor of the lives that have been stolen. I am asking that everyday you email me a poem, a song, a story, a picture, a design, a painting, a sculpture, a dance, a critique. Here is the catch, all of the pieces should explore your sentiments about race. If you do not think about race everyday, here is an opportunity for you to stand with the millions of Americans and people around the world who are forced to.
This is our opportunity to say, we are not color blind. We are not Dalton’s kids. We see clearly what is going on in our countries, in our neighborhoods, even in our own hearts, and as artists we won’t stand for it.
Please, beginning April 1st take this stance with me. Send all your submissions to notdaltonskids@gmail.com AND CC notdaltonskids@yahoo.com. If you do not CC both addresses it will not get read and posted. The pieces will be anonymously posted to a blog site called Not Dalton’s Kids. If you would like to be publically credited please indicate so in the email. Additionally, if you do not wish your piece to be shared publically, please indicate this in the email as well. However, I encourage you all to allow the pieces to be posted as this is a collective effort to add constructive conversations to the discussion and acknowledgment of race and racism. Please share this with as many people as possible. Much love to all of you. Rest in safety and in power. -alysia harris
(via ashleighnichole)
is the only athlete at Bayside High. He doesn’t even have football teammate looking extras. He’s the football team. lol.
He is also the only wrestler. lol
a grappling hook
shot out my chest—
a ball out of
a cannon—
wrapped around
your heart and locked
as i climb my
way up
to you.
last night
we were seahorses
domesticated for
the world to see
in a tank
on a school campus
being fed
fish flakes
by stubby grubby
hands of
human chidren
but we
didn’t seem
to mind it much..
and our mouths met
again and again
and our tails
grounded us to
fake seaweed
and multicolored fish
surrounded us
and we just seemed happy.
there is a
sea deep
sink hole
in my heart
that i
filled with love
and i
passed you a
straw &
said,
“Drink Up,”
NOT
“Drink Me Dry.”
but
you drank me
all up
and you
dried me all
out
and since—
they been
fillin my sink hole
with water
but
water don’t
necessarily last,
water dries
all up
& everyone is
so thirsty
all the time
for love but
they only
know how
to swallow
water.
Today, I learned a lesson in forgiveness.
You see, there is a reason that God
casts repented sin into a fire-y river
of forgetfulness.
It’s to burn the pages
of the fucked-up book
you decided to write,
much to His chagrin
and against His
better judgement.
It’s to never be
reminded of
the bullshit you
put each other through,
one hurting more than the other
until there are only losers.
Today, I learned a lesson
in apologizing.
That apologies spew from mouths
like water from a fountain,
and are abundant like
coins on the bottom—
reach in to grab one,
pull out a handful..
after a while they get heavy,
then you realize they
were just pennies anyway.
Get on your knees and repent,
punish yourself for your behavior
wear a bag over your head and
ash on your face for weeks
HUMBLE YOURSELF
before the one
You wronged for unknown reasons.
That’s how it always was.
But not today.
because today,
no one is granted that kind of service.
No one, purportedly
deserves that kind of treatment.
Not even God.
Not anymore.
well I wanted to braid my hair
bathe and bedeck my
self so fine
so fully aforethought for
your pleasure
see:
I wanted to travel and read
and runaround fantastic
into war and peace:
I wanted to
surf
dive
fly
climb
conquer
and be conquered
THEN
I wanted to pickup the phone
and find you asking me
…
(Source: soular-eclipse)
the squirrel runs
around itself,
scurrying to
find shelter,
and I
must deal
with the
lonely drips
of rain
making home
on my lenses.
and we are all alone.
yet
we are all together.
under a shade
of clouds
you pretend
not to
hear the
cries of
the weak.
they are begging
to give in.
please moon,
shed your
mercy, we
are weak and
tired
of carrying
such a heavy
load as this.
Yet, every
cry
he seems
to
deny.
