Know that my love and smiles, and laughs, and bubbliness is one cohesive existence inside this fiery, brown, ever changing body that lives for truth like air. I will never apologize for the truth I seek and share with the world. One love -Gracie
For those of you who are familiar with the songs of Bob Dylan, he immortalized this ugly event in his opening lyrics of Desolation Row:
They’re selling postcards of the hanging
They’re painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
The Twin Ports is a predominantly white community (89%). In a recent report by the Knight Foundation entitled Soul of the Community, the results of a three-year study reports: The [Duluth area] community significantly under-performs against the comparison group overall in four of the seven individual openness measures. […] Fewer residents than in other comparable communities say it is a good place for racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, young adults without children, and talented college graduates looking for work.
People of color experience incidents of racism every day, and they have long asked “when will white people in our community stand up and speak out about racism?” This campaign is part of a response to that question. Racial justice will never be achieved until we as white people address white privilege and work to change it.
Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/05/1061724/-Posters-billboards-and-white-privilege#
Matika Wilber, a 28-year-old Swinomish/Tulalip woman who gathers the 21st century images of Native Americans and shares their glory and grist with a contemporary, dynamic eye and audience; to expose the astonishing variety of the Indian presence and reality; as she puts it, to “build cultural bridges, abandon stereotypes, and renew and inspire our national legacy”; and to reveal the enduring richness, complex variety and tenacity of Native America. Read more: http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/01/15/photographer-matika-wilburs-three-year-562-tribe-adventure-146982
M
tika
First Nations Elders Gathering 2013. For the past twenty-six years the Sunray community has hosted the Native American Elders Gathering in Lincoln, VT. The Sunray Peace Village is located at the base of Odali Utugi, Hope Mountain, in Lincoln, Vermont. The Peace Village land has been consecrated as a sanctuary for spiritual renewal and planetary healing. It is inspired by the traditional Tsalagi (Cherokee) Peace Villages, places of healing and sanctuary, where communities lived in a ceremonial way. Read more:
http://sunraypeacevillage.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
Me and my boy Lenny like, Phuck you mean it’s Spring?! Keepin’ warm and cozy til the sun come knockin’ lol! Thanks to thee crochet queen Gracious for getting my joint up and running again. 
“The phrase ‘big girls need love’ to can go die in a fire! Fucking me does not require an asterisk. Loving me is not a fetish. Finding me beautiful is not a novelty. I am not a novelty. -In the brave words of my fellow cast mate The Hu-MAN Up showcase is going to be AMAAAAAZINGNUSK
“Everyone has talent. What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.”
― Erica Jong
# 3. Have sex only to celebrate and commemorate. Never to forget and never to avoid doing something you need to do to fulfill your chosen purpose. -Nzinga Sibongile
Nzingha was born Nzinga Sibongile Job to Trinidadian parents in Nairobi, Kenya. She currently works as a full-time music and theatre arts teacher in Tobago. Nzingha has been acting, singing and dancing since the age of five and wrote her first screenplay at ten. Although she attributes “taking singing seriously” to the release of the Bryan Adams song “For You”, she, like most artists, lives on the edge of society – watching, observing, interpreting and translating life’s complexities into various forms of expression. Nzinga, is a poet, songwriter, educator, social observer, and actor. She is an artist.
In the breakfast line at the hotel minding my own got damn business when it happened. Check it: brown broad, sitting at a table, resembling the last supper, surrounded by beautiful brown children. Brown broad bullies the brown children into waiting on her hand and foot. While yelling in mid sentence, “girl get me some more of that bac’-said, “What this bitch got Hee Ya’ll on her pants?” Like the screeching sound a record makes when stopped abruptly. Brown broads audacity turned heads quicker than Lupita Nyongo. And all of the peace I stood to protect spirit-possessed some elderly mans coffee mug in front of me, sending it crashing into pieces onto the concrete floor. My peace sought refuge with no forgiveness. I replied with no forgiveness like the vengeance of a backhand smack across the face, “It’s Hee Haw! Hee Haw lady! If you must insult my words read them right. And a four legged dog miss? My mother birthed a whole human as you can see.” She made that face one makes, having been assaulted by halitosis as 4 feet more like a mile stood in between us. She stopped talking to me and returned to bullying her children, aggressively demanding more bacon, more boiled eggs! Her teenage daughter whispered, “Lady I think you look fly. I would wear those.” Other patrons chimed in to show their support. My visual poem told the story of vintage-1960’s Hee Haw Television Show-Liberty overalls-Made in the USA, leopard sports tank, flowing locs and dangling earrings. The moment was most challenging for me, yet a brilliant opportunity to never be silent about my pain. And despite giving myself permission to look as I pleased I gave myself permission to stand up for me and all of those who’d ever experienced the same. In the spirit of things I picked up the remnants of my peace that had crashed, violently to the floor, and sent it prayerfully into spirit of that very combative brown broad and her beautiful brown children. -Gracie
Truth thrusts us wildly about the earth, into the air, against the galaxy. Creatures that phuck with truth, phuck with us. Thank you to those!-GracieBerry
GirlrillaVintage the Blog 