“What can we do? What can I do? What can anyone do?”
This is the noise in the back of my head right now with the non-indictments of white police officers and deaths of black men and women that just seem to keep coming. I’m trying to stay awake, stay present and conscious in the face of bullshit and horror. I’ve donated to the Ferguson Library because LIBRARY and good people doing good work. Will be donating to the Ferguson Legal Defense Fund. I’m looking for where to donate for local work as well. But it can not stop there.
My health may make getting out on anything like a front line damn near impossible, but — I am a writer. and there is a reasons governments and churches have feared and bribed us for ages because Words. Have. Power. so lets use them.
Heres what I am doing:
Supporting writers of color – read their work, the fiction as well as the nonfiction – because both teach and both effect how we see and think about the world.
Writing characters of color – not just as an after thought, but as real, fulling realized characters who are fully integrated members of the story.
This goes for all of the other-ing we are fighting against.
Reading LGBTQ, fat, and disabled writers and writing LGBTQ, fat, and disabled characters. Write them all as real – flawed, wonderful, interesting and complicated. But fucking write them all.
Its small and its slow, and it doesn’t fix the immediate problem, but it can make a difference in the long run and thats what I want for my kids and my sister and their friends and for all of us.
Words have power. Use them wisely.
Book Lists and Lists of Books
(Have a list to recommend? A book or author you love? Please add them to the comments so we can all love them.)
Authors of Color:
http://bookriot.com/2014/01/16/25-favorite-authors-color/
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/50-books-by-people-of-color-my-reading-challenge-for-2014
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1804087-author-recommendations
http://www.barrelhousemag.com/#!50-or-So-Books-by-Writers-of-Color-Recommended-by-Writers-of-Color/cge1/B5DA5F06-B0C2-4E3B-A10C-531B12FAA781
http://www.ala.org/emiert/coretta-scott-king-book-awards-all-recipients-1970-present
http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/08/16/mindblowing-science-fiction-by-poc/
http://www.autostraddle.com/blacklivesmatter-the-longform-reading-list-265454/
https://www.worldswithoutend.com/mbbs22/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=903
http://chroniclesofharriet.com/2012/11/01/great-black-authors-of-science-fiction-fantasy/
http://www.buzzfeed.com/akpatel462/19-must-read-science-fiction-and-fantasy-novels-by-15qst
http://audiobookaneers.com/2014/12/10/9-science-fiction-and-fantasy-audiobooks-by-women-of-color-you-must-hear/
LGBTQ Authors:
http://bandofthebes.typepad.com/bandofthebes/2012/11/the-best-lgbt-books-of-2012.html
http://www.publishingtriangle.org/100best.asp
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/interviews/09/17/three-umpires-walk-into-a-bar-transgender-authors-and-editors-on-transgender-literature/
http://www.ala.org/glbtrt/award/honored
Disabled Authors:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/jul/11/authors-disability-personal-experience
http://www.ralphmag.org/CH/disability.html
https://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/disabled