The Main Event, by stacy-marie ishmael

The press is so powerful in its image-making role

May 19, 2019

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...

---

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.

Premium post · May 12, 2019

I’ve been considering putting an out-of-office reply on my personal email. By “personal” I really mean the email address not given to me by my currently...

---

“I did know, though, and I was silenced.”

May 5, 2019

Is there a better feeling than “no more events today”? Every 9-12 months I realize (admit) my life has become an unrelenting paen to being a workaholic and...

---

May you be comforted

April 28, 2019

I think a lot about the responsibilities I have to reduce and prevent harm in the world. Which is sometimes, but not always, similar to using my skills and...

---

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Premium post · April 21, 2019

This weekend I watched Homecoming, a testimony to work and creativity and art and brilliance and blackness. I bought a new bicycle, my very first ebike, and...

---

Your silence will not protect you

Premium post · April 14, 2019

When I am stuck, I read. This week I mostly read Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry and Red Rising by Pierce Brown (both of which I borrowed as e-books using Libby)....

---

I didn’t know and nobody told me

April 7, 2019

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of people to whom resources are not readily given, because those are so often the ones we know should be running the...

---

Decide, or the world will decide for you

Premium post · March 31, 2019

I made time for a yoga practice after work last week, a Jivamukti session with a teacher who always inspires and challenges. It felt like a small victory,...

---

"Hey, what's keeping you busy these days?"

March 24, 2019

“Federal officials at the Mexico border detained a 9-year-old U.S. citizen for 32 hours without her parents in order “to perform due diligence in confirming...

---

And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetry speak of dreams and leaves

Premium post · March 17, 2019

There’s nothing you can say that will bring back people who’ve been murdered by exactly the same kind of person who has murdered exactly the same kind of...

---

Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart

Premium post · March 10, 2019

I buy most of my clothes online, because I have structured my life in a way that makes hitting brick-and-mortar stores difficult. And because I loathe public...

---

The way to grow your power is to give it away

Premium post · March 3, 2019

Over the past few days, thanks to the generosity of colleagues, I attended the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit. I got to hear from Bishop Vashti...

---

They call you black because

Premium post · February 24, 2019

Sometimes words flow out of me, and this newsletter writes itself. Sometimes, like today, I’ve stared at the blinking cursor on the white screen for 45...

---

The dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way.

February 17, 2019

It is easy, these days, to give up. Everywhere you look: horror, tragedy, violence. It is easy to despair. It is human to despair. Have I mentioned the...

---

Self-awareness is not the same thing as peace

Premium post · February 10, 2019

This weekend I got to spend an unusual amount of time in the company of people I love, and the notion of showing up came up over and over again. I am trying...

---

Somehow, blackface wasn’t even the worst of it

February 3, 2019

There are weeks (months, years) when you *gesture broadly at everything* *make glib comments about challenges being great for building character*...

---

Never again is now

Premium post · January 27, 2019

It’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which means I am thinking more than ever today about all the people who died because their neighbours looked...

---

Instructions for living a life

Premium post · January 20, 2019

Every day, every day a reminder that people in your industries, people you know by professional association, are more likely to defend and excuse casual...

---

What is the work that moves you?

Premium post · January 13, 2019

Today I got to talk to someone, let’s call him David, who is both one of the best listeners I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting and one of the most...

---

Imagine everything you ever wanted

Premium post · January 6, 2019

I have on my desk a notepad, a gift from a friend; on each page is the prompt: “imagine everything you ever wanted below”. I have not written anything on the...

---