I am beyond words witnessing what is going on in Palestine. Not true, not beyond words. I’m screaming in texts to my friends, ranting, wailing, questioning how the fuck we are to just carry on?? So it’s hard to write beautiful essays but it’s not hard to love-scream to women who hold you up. It’s not hard for me to breeze out a 500 words multi-text thread on the ridiculous notion of multiple work disappointments at the hands of institutions that have exposed themselves as being hand in hand with this very settler colonizer state we stand on. It’s not hard for me to scream in texts about how insane education spaces feel to me from elementary schools to grad programs. Me as a person who has seriously venerated the potential and power of the written word is heartbroken by the failure of the words at this moment. The so-called heroes we all look up to who write words paid for by these institutions that are just one cloaked degree away from the actual Biden government’s war department. They are the same. The de-programming I and many others like me are in right now is intense. Especially if you’re looking for work at places that can hold you. You send off brilliant essays to programs and jobs. These essays say the damn truth clearer than you could have ever written those words in your life, because it’s just not worth it to every choice you have made to become free to write any differently now. Why would you do that now? Then you get a rejection letter from an institution that is “venerated”, “of the lineage of great old worthy institutions” and you fucking cry. Because it’s not that you believe anymore that your essay wasn’t good. It was the thing of dreams written between parenting and grieving. But you cry because you know if you live your truth, then under capitalism it’s very hard to find honest work1. We will keep trying because what the hell else are we going to do? Give up?
Seems the only way for me is to build my own thing. Build a world that can hold me. And you. And all of us. It was always up to us to build the thing. Not wait for existing structures to bestow upon us their approval.
A note on some of these institutions…
Yes renowned Palestinian- American thinker, Edward Said spent 40 years at Columbia and also today Columbia has suspended the SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) and JVP (Jewish Voices for Peace) chapters of its university and is enforcing a “no dorm decor” policy to repress students who place pro-Palestine banners on their doors or windows.
I mean I can’t even do a yes, but about the New York Times, we hopefully have all been knowing about this paper but Yes we get receipes and some cultural write-ups that hit the mark, but actual news news? As a New Yorker, the Times has been mostly terrible around local politics and education (mostly because of who it predominately platforms as journalists - young, white 20-somethings with connections) but on global politics it’s always been clear that the NYT is interested in upholding the desires of the ruling class unquestionably .
This is the part that is fucking wild to me. Anat Schwartz, who was assigned to work on this story had NO PRIOR REPORTING EXPERIENCE. These are the high standards of the paper of fucking record.
The fear among Times staffers who have been critical of the paper’s Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity toward Palestinians, lack the experience with investigative journalism, and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter, but Schwartz did not commission herself and Sella to report one of the most consequential stories of the war. Senior leadership at the New York Times did.
Schwartz said as much in an interview with Israeli Army Radio on December 31. “The New York Times said, ‘Let’s do an investigation into sexual violence’ — it was more a case of them having to convince me,” she said. Her host cut her off: “It was a proposal of The New York Times, the entire thing?”
“Unequivocally. Unequivocally. Obviously. Of course,” she said. “The paper stood behind us 200 percent and gave us the time, the investment, the resources to go in-depth with this investigation as much as needed.”
Don’t ever get it twisted. This was senior leadership at the Times, not a weird one-off mistake hiring a completely rookie reporter to cover one of the most consequential allegations of an American-funded genocide. How do you fix something that’s rotted from the entire structure?
Even my former employers, Legal Aid Society, tried to block public defenders/ attorneys from voting on a Gaza statement. A court overruled this.
(One upside to writing/researching this piece is realizing all the people I love involved with standing up for justice at Columbia and Legal Aid Society also have trash NY Post articles written about them. (See my previous post about how my education work has also landed us there) The NYPost is still terrible and contributes to actual safety concerns for the people named in these trash pieces, but in this moment, it sort of feels like a weird badge of honor to be named as offensive by the NYPost.)
What does this all mean practically? That some of our brightest big-hearted minds are wasting precious energy and resources fighting off attacks from inside their own institutions. What does that means for the writing we demand? What does that do to the solutions we need dreamed up? It means anyone writing from within these institutions that are either stifling pro-Palestinian speech or actively creating the narratives necessary for countries to commit genocide, will have necessarily spent the last few precious months fighting for their lives, fighting off death threats that their employer will not protect them from, fighting to say the bare minimum of “ceasefire”, fighting to not be fired or get their fired co-worker hired again.
We have to look outside of the places we were taught to look sometimes. Like unlearning patriarchy, unlearning white colonial supremacy means we have to unlearn the places, institutions, people and types of art that we have vaulted to be the gold standard. We have to accept, heal, and unlearn the way our heart breaks a little when we show up in our truth and integrity, applications in hand, and those places reject us.
I love this post by artist Yumi Sakugawa on the Role of the Artist as being one to fill in the gaps that institutions and power structures of dominant culture overlook or deliberately avoid. Especially living in the heart of the empire (yes that’s where we live in America), the voice of artists outside of these power structures is more important than ever. Find them, support their work, uplift them, protect them.
This moment is meant for us to define. I’m looking to the fearless experimental weirdos who love big honestly.
I’m trying to keep on believing I’m doing good, and you’re doing good, just do something and you’re doing good. Try something new, work through your fear.
One of my favorite artist death doulas, Brianna Hernández, has been sharing pieces on Hyperallergic that have been written curations of artists at the intersection of deathwork. I’m so honored to have some of my semi-recent art and offerings around deathwork featured.
Hyperallergic: How Artists Reimagine Our Relationship With Death (Features Intergenerational Home) - the performance art piece that featured my mother Sheela Mantri, my dead dad’s photo slides, some tea and strangers.
Hyperallergic: The Importance of Art in a “Good Death” (Features The Art of Endings and Holding Spaces)
And finally, please enjoy a sampling of my communications with free women to get you through:
Please consider joining this freedom project of mine as a paid subscriber, it would mean a lot.
And for those who have taken the leap already, more communications with free women to get you through:
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