this is scorching

real truths. reparations now, in my opinion.

Latifa Echakhch

and on the drive home we own the road

courtesy of dan, from matthew klam’s “let’s get small”:

Eleventh grade: We have busboy jobs at Le Château, a big, corny restaurant run by a mean French family, in a stone mansion overlooking the Hudson Valley. The maître d’ is not so sure about us; neither are the waiters, the captains, the wine guys, or Joseph, who hired us, or his lieutenant, Koos. Individually, we do a capable job of clearing, hauling trays and dish tubs, but as a team we’re incompetent and despised. The grandmother catches us eating food off people’s plates, we’re blamed for breaking the ice machine, and the staff generates a growing list of insulting nicknames for us. But there’s a wonderful smell of baguettes in paper bags, and on the drive home we own the road, dissecting the strangeness of a menacing world.

Nadine Ijewere

for floyd

this got me — “I Nearly Went to Prison for Philando Castile. I Closed My Restaurant for George Floyd” by louis hunter, owner of the minneapolis restaurant trio:

I’ve been thinking about the many other people who have been killed by police. As a Black man, this is something I have witnessed all my life. We have been through this so much. Sometimes we don’t even know what to say because the hurt is so bad. How do you come up with solutions so quickly when you are in pain? That is why it is hard for me to even say where I am going to go from here. I don’t know. All we want is to be treated like humans. We want to live. That is all we want.

to support louis, black-owned businesses, and keep trio going, donate here.

straight truth

Image found via The Conscious Kid, credited to Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, 2005 and adapted by Ellen Tuzzolo, 2016; Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero, 2019. Via the Call Your Girlfriend newsletter.

frizzy

the word frizzy is so good to describe people. from paul ford’s newsletter (i guess i’m hooked):

“There were lots of other people taking constitutionals [at Green-Wood Cemetery], but it was overall very calm and easy to stay distant. Everyone looks frizzy in a special way that New Yorkers get frizzy. I can’t define it. The rougher we get the more defiant we are about it. Eventually people are wearing six T-shirts instead of a winter coat and smoking.”

for when i tried to jump

from paul ford’s very awesome newsletter, “I’m Absolutely Going to Bail on This in a Month”:

Further along the span of the [Manhattan] bridge I saw a bouquet of flowers, left against the railing. Usually these are memorials and I hurry past. Ghost bikes, memorials, plaques, and murals—if you’re not cautious the entire city becomes a graveyard. But then I saw this bouquet had a letter on top, addressed to, “For when I tried to jump.” The air went out of me. But soon joy rushed back in.

Celebrate with me, just a moment, something good and alive that we may never understand, one decision out of seven billion—this stranger leaving the flowers, then walking away from their envelope, hands empty, as light as the wind off the river.

he died for nothing

from the ny times race/related’s story about george floyd, “What Happened in the Chaotic Moments Before George Floyd Died”:

Mr. Floyd’s case began with a report of a counterfeit $20 bill that a storekeeper said he tried to pass to buy cigarettes.

“He died for nothing — something about a fake bill — that was nothing,” said Jason Polk, 53, a city bus driver and one of a number of South Minneapolis residents who have expressed outrage over the case.

resources to help here, and information about the need for reparations.

at school at work at home

ron padgett, “lunch jr.” (2019), via pome