Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Power

Power by Audre Lorde The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds and a dead child dragging his shattered black face off the edge of my sleep blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders is the only liquid for miles and my…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Consumed by Hate

Imagine being so consumed with racial hatred that you travel all the way from Maryland specifically on a mission to kill black people. This is what seems to have happened last Monday night when Timothy Caughman suffered a brutal sword attack from a complete stranger apparently intent on targeting black men in New York City. Caughman, who was 66 and lived…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Are you racist? Why ‘No’ is not a good enough answer

Marlon James is author of the 2015 Man Booker prize-winning novel  Brief History of Seven Killings. In this short video via The Guardian he makes the case that being non-racist may allow us a clear conscience about our personal conduct but it’s really not good enough. Letting things that are racist in the world just be – supporting that status quo…

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