I am the descendent of Pogrom and Holocaust survivors, Jews who came to this country as refugees from a Europe torn up by xenophobic dictators. When people on my father’s side arrived at Ellis Island, the United States was their safe space, their beacon, their golden land of opportunities. Until this week, I’d never shed their optimism no matter how much others legitimately complained about America. I knew that many people of color and indigent people never had that glow about this nation. I knew their ancestors did not arrive here with the same triumph. They were dragged here in chains, or already had been here, only to be robbed, tortured, serially murdered. My mother’s people said Sioux Nation members in our line had experienced such horrors. I knew all too well that this country was as founded on blood as it was on hope. Continue Reading →
Yesterday I sat shiva for our country. I cried, ate shitty carbs, was sick to my stomach. I sat on a hard box and even covered my mirrors. That night, I went to the protest in Union Square and then saw Party People, Liesl Tommy’s powerfully resonant musical about the Black Panthers at the Public Theater. Being unified with others in beautiful resistance was all I could bear. Many times during the play I and other audience members–even the actors–broke out in tears. Afterward, we all talked seriously and hugged each other, even people who did not know each other. We sobbed as hard as we do at funerals. I was broken-hearted but so grateful for the solidarity, for the sense that we cousin outsiders still belong to some aspect of U.S. history–the part that has its roots in social justice rather than manifest destiny. Continue Reading →
I can’t sleep because it is illogical to sleep when the dystopia has begun. It occurred to me as I was tossing and turning tonight that in the twentieth century, science fiction mostly concerned itself with then-inconceivable gadgetry like videophones and pocket devices that could connect you to the whole world –all of which is now real except for time travel and personal spaceships. In the last fifteen years, sci-fi has become dystopian, full of ravaged planets and people. This also is now real. Continue Reading →
I am the descendent of Pogrom and Holocaust survivors, Jews who came to this country as refugees from a Europe torn up by xenophobic dictators. When people on my father’s side arrived at Ellis Island, the United States was their safe space, their beacon, their golden land of opportunities. Until this week, I’d never shed their optimism no matter how much others legitimately complained about America. I knew that many people of color and indigent people never had that glow about this nation. I knew their ancestors did not arrive here with the same triumph. They were dragged here in chains, or already had been here, only to be robbed, tortured, serially murdered. My mother’s people said Sioux Nation members in our line had experienced such horrors. I knew all too well that this country was as founded on blood as it was on hope. Continue Reading →
Yesterday I sat shiva for our country. I cried, ate shitty carbs, was sick to my stomach. I sat on a hard box and even covered my mirrors. That night, I went to the protest in Union Square and then saw Party People, Liesl Tommy’s powerfully resonant musical about the Black Panthers at the Public Theater. Being unified with others in beautiful resistance was all I could bear. Many times during the play I and other audience members–even the actors–broke out in tears. Afterward, we all talked seriously and hugged each other, even people who did not know each other. We sobbed as hard as we do at funerals. I was broken-hearted but so grateful for the solidarity, for the sense that we cousin outsiders still belong to some aspect of U.S. history–the part that has its roots in social justice rather than manifest destiny. Continue Reading →
I can’t sleep because it is illogical to sleep when the dystopia has begun. It occurred to me as I was tossing and turning tonight that in the twentieth century, science fiction mostly concerned itself with then-inconceivable gadgetry like videophones and pocket devices that could connect you to the whole world –all of which is now real except for time travel and personal spaceships. In the last fifteen years, sci-fi has become dystopian, full of ravaged planets and people. This also is now real. Continue Reading →