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Red skies erupt as the sun escapes prying eyes. Glass lake surface distorts the shape of the canoes upon them from top down views. Vagina shaped vessels pulsing between the pressures of the lake and sky. Fish glance jump to spot who are the stewards of the birchbark cloud in their midst. Black fur covered land loving bullfrog? Oh yes. It’s a rez dog, knows her way around a canoe because the manoomin is ready to harvest. Customary knocking sticks in paw. Nothing unusual on this dreamy day to her at all – let them deny the possibility that she…

Translated by Carmela Zigoni1 I. When I provoke a debate about colonization, the quilombos2, their manners and their meanings, I do not want to position myself as a thinker. Instead, I am positioning myself as a translator. My elders formed me first through orality, but they put me in school to learn through written language so that I could translate the contracts3 we were forced to make. I went to the school of written language at the age of nine but since I started to speak, I have also been trained by ‘craft masters’ in our community activities. When I…

On 4 June, 2020, our department chair informed graduate students that two of the officers charged in George Floyd’s murder “appear to have ties to our department, college, and university.” After expressing sadness and outrage, we were asked to “direct any media inquiries to CLA, UMN (College of Liberal Arts).” As graduate students in the department, we feel disbelief, anger, and disappointment at the handling and communication of this news and believe that it is our responsibility to address this conversation ourselves.  The murder of George Floyd has brought to light our department’s complicity in systemic racism and anti-Blackness. An…

unité de temps And the students saidin their surreal utopian worldthere will be no currencyno one will be put to work to live andcontaining students between walls toturn them into docile citizens will be punishedthere will be a reorder of genderwalls and lands andthe young will choose their learning in alignment with their calling in alignment with their vision in alignment with community needs andthere will be no prisonsno demokrasi pépéonly witches and mad womento govern the cityall times made equal Covid dix-neuf pourl’an deux mille vingtschools’ doors are closedno one goes to workgrocery shelves are down andmy neighbor knock…

In February, three organizations — MADRE, Women Cross DMZ, and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance — convened a group of 23 women and gender nonconforming people from across the United States in order to engage in a cross-movement dialogue on our collective work against militarism and war in order to examine, challenge, and reimagine US foreign policy. While our convening occurred before the coronavirus became a global pandemic, this public health crisis has only amplified the need to redistribute resources, restructure society, and create long-term solutions that prioritize the true needs of all people. The following statement represents the beginning of a larger conversation to…

When did the breath of life start to kill? As Quechua people, we are taught about the power of one’s breath. The fresh Andean air that we take in is a gift that we have been given to live in this world. Each breath is a reminder that we are alive and most importantly, that with our aliveness comes a responsibility to do good with each thought and each physical movement fueled by this breath. Our breath is powerful because it holds the ability to offer thanks, express reverence and awe, to transfer strength and healing, and to carry the…

This is an urgent call for global action. For the last three days, large violent mobs of right-wing Hindu nationalists have unleashed a spate of violent attacks in Delhi which have led to at least twenty three deaths recorded so far and injured more than 100. Vehicles and commercial establishments owned by members of the Muslim community have been specifically targeted and burned or vandalized. Mobs have been threatening women and children with physical violence and rape, and Northeast Delhi is burning. In the meantime, the Delhi police has played a silent spectator, and other times has actively aided the…

Malice against children is emblematic of evil in the Abrahamic religious tradition. The Old Testament tells the story of how the Pharaoh ordered the murder of every male Hebrew child born in Egypt to protect himself against the Messiah—Moses (es)—that the shamans had foretold would destroy him. Ironically, he ended up raising Moses (es) in his own house, and was destroyed by him anyway. One can read the story literally or allegorically, but in either case the intent of the Egyptian empire was to destroy the Hebrew, either through a campaign of genocide or through acculturation. Pharaoh tried both—by attempting…

The Gulmohar and I are losing a companion. May 5th, 2016 Until yesterday, if you looked outside where we work, you would find a beautiful mango tree on the plot next to us. In the respectful form of Tamil or Kannada, my mother tongue and the language that is spoken around me right now, pronouns and sentence conjugations are agender; like English’s plural pronoun. Perhaps this is why using they, them, theirs as pronouns to refer to my friend, this Mango tree, feels the most appropriate while communicating in English. Just taller than our two story building, they were reaching…