I’m thinking about beginning to frame these Links & Politics posts to focus on the ways that people are using language in the service of social justice.
I have also started making a running list of the resistance anthologies that have been published since the November 2016 election. There will be a blog post to come, eventually, with this list. (Contact me if you know of anthologies to add to the list.)
I am wondering if these anthologies number in the hundreds. Consider a sample size of one micropublisher: we are publishing a resistance chapbook out of our living room (open submissions ends tomorrow: July 15th, 2018).
Consider all of the ways that people use language to protest.
Consider the statement that Yale law students and alumni have published regarding Yale’s celebration of the Supreme Court nomination of their reproductive-justice-hating, prayer-during-public-school-time-loving cohort, Brett Kavanaugh. I think that this statement is a great example of how we can take a stand within institutions and on behalf of groups we are a part of.
Consider Heavy Feather Review’s use of the hashtag #NoMorePresidents and the explanation they give of the evolution of #NotMyPresident to a new hashtag:
This moves us away from only reactions to the precocious leader of white supremacy and allows our readers and writers to more wholly detail the systematic oppressions of every phase of capitalist life. We still want to find the most challenging, innovative work and address a lack of inclusivity in the literary community with the hashtag.
Consider Queen Mob’s Teahouse’s call for submissions for a special issue: Where are the children?
Consider the baby blimp in London as a visual text.
Consider what it means when 45 says, in London,
Allowing millions and millions to come to Europe is very, very sad…They better watch themselves because you are changing the culture.
Our president is openly racist.
Our responses are necessary. Our language is resistance, is reaction, is self-preservation, is protection.
Our language is the language of before, during, and after we use our bodies and our power to stop what is truly vile.
Freesia McKee 