The press is so powerful in its image-making role
Internal monologue, Sunday.
There are two options when you are moving: give everything away before you attempt to move, or move and then give everything away.
It’s easy to not be attached to things when you have the means to replace them.
If there is something you might be able to do today that could change someone’s life for the better, however big or small, what’s stopping you?
How is it possible that you have so many books? Are you going to read all those books? Are you at least going to read the books you have before you buy any more?
Is this tea weather or port weather?
If you don’t know what that cable is for, throw it away.
What I’ve Been Reading
“Few have paid a higher price for the city’s refusal to take police abuse seriously than the family of Eric Garner.” - Mara Gay on (in)justice
“And in 1976, this woman — who as child had been slung over her mother’s shoulder in a sack before she learned to pick cotton herself, who had for years never dared look a white person in the eye, whose parents could not read or write, whose grandfather had been shot in cold blood by his white plantation boss — became the first black woman to be elected a mayor in Mississippi.” - RIP Unita Blackwell
On abortion.
“When Malcolm looked at black life in America, he saw wasted potential; he saw unrealized aims. This kind of prophetic witness can never be crushed. There was no one like him in terms of having the courage to risk life and limb to speak such painful truths about America. It is impossible to think about the black prophetic tradition without Malcolm X, regardless of what the mainstream thought then, thinks now or will think in the future.
It is a beautiful thing to be on fire for justice.” - Cornel West on Malcolm X
“As local newspapers disappear, citizens increasingly rely on national sources of political information, which emphasizes competition and conflict between the parties. Local newspapers, by contrast, serve as a central source of shared information, setting a common agenda. Readers of local newspapers feel more attached to their communities.” - What percentage of your news diet consists of local media?
Attribution:
“The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.
If you aren't careful, because I've seen some of you caught in that bag, you run away hating yourself and loving the man — while you're catching hell from the man. You let the man maneuver you into thinking that it's wrong to fight him when he's fighting you. He's fighting you in the morning, fighting you in the noon, fighting you at night and fighting you all in between, and you still think it's wrong to fight him back.
Why? The press. The newspapers make you look wrong.” - Malcolm X in a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem // 13 December 1964
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