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Jun 16, 2013
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Me: how ya doin father?
Dad:I’ll be fine when you get your masters
Me: what are you doing?
Dad: waiting for you to get your masters
Me: okay well bye
Dad: you better be leaving to get your masters
Jun 15, 2013
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Jun 8, 2013
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one dayNikki Giovanni “Seduction” (via jonubian)
you gonna walk in this house
and i’m gonna have a long African
gown
you’ll sit down and say “The Black…”
and i’m gonna take one arm out
then you-not noticing me at all- will say “What about this brother…”
and i’m going to be slipping it over my head
and you’ll rap on about “The revolution…”
while i rest your hand against my stomach
you’ll go on-as you always do- saying
“I just can’t dig…”
while i’m moving your hand up and down
and i’ll be taking your dashiki off
then you’ll say “What we really need…”
and taking your shorts off
the you’ll notice
your state of undress
and knowing you you’ll just say
“Nikki/
isn’t this counterrevolutionary…
(via ibaoshun)
Jun 8, 2013
45,420 notes
45,420 notes
(Source: youtube-personalities, via thechocolatebrigade)
Jun 7, 2013
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(Source: littlemisssoul, via abstrackafricana)
Jun 7, 2013
2,273 notes
2,273 notes
The Sidis are a small community of Indians of African descent.
Photographer Ketaki Sheth has documented their lives for a new book, A Certain Grace: The Sidi - Indians of African Descent, published by Delhi-based gallery Photoink.
It is estimated that 60,000 to 75,000 Sidis live in the western state of Gujarat and the southern state of Karnataka. Fewer numbers live in the state of Goa and in the cities of Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Their ancestors, say historians, were slaves, soldiers, traders, pearl divers and Muslim pilgrims who arrived in India over centuries. A large number of them, they say, also arrived in India as free citizens.
Historian Mahmood Mamdani says the ordinary Sidi were descendants of slaves brought by Portuguese down the coast of East Africa, mainly from Mozambique. “The big difference with Atlantic slavery was that hardly any slaves were brought to India to provide cheap labour… Their main attraction was not their cheapness, but their loyalty”, he says.
Ketaki Sheth says the Sidis have lived in India for over half a century. “Except for one or two people I photographed, no-one has visited Africa. The older generation too feel rooted in India,” she says.
“Except for their dance (called Goma, from the Swahili word, ngoma, meaning both drum and dance) and some exorcism rituals which have roots in Africa, they are Indian in language, customs, dress, food and temperament,” says Ms Sheth. The Sidis of Gujarat, for example, speak Gujarati as their mother tongue.
The Sidis are “poor for the most part”, Ms Sheth says. They get some affirmative action benefits from the government as they are classified as “scheduled tribes”, one of India’s most disadvantaged groups.
Mahmood Mamdani says a Sidi elder told him that a girl marrying outside the caste or community is usually thrown out. He said the prohibition on marriage outside the community is more because of “interest than identity”. Outsiders, the Sidis fear, will take advantage of the affirmative action benefits.
“Whenever I asked a Sidi person I met whether they thought of themselves as African or Indian, I inevitably got a quizzical look. What, they seemed to think, was wrong with me: they were of course, Indians,” says Mahmood Mamdani.
(via black-culture)
Jun 7, 2013
555 notes
555 notes
FLORAL LIQUEUR
- 4 cups vodka or brandy
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 – 2 cups flowers
Place lightly bruised petals in a jar with vodka or brandy and steep for 2 days (you can also substitute an dry white wine, if you prefer). Then, add sugar and steep for 2 weeks, shaking vigorously once or twice a day to let sugar dissolve. Strain and filter into a clean decanter. Some garden combinations we think would work well for this recipe are:
-Rose, carnation, lavender and mint
-Orange zest and mint
-Ginger and pear
-Peaches and lemon verbena
-Raspberry and lemon balm
-Chamomile and cucumber
(via zoezoloft)
Jun 7, 2013
867 notes
867 notes
I am often questioning myself what I further want to do, who I further wish to be; which parts of me, exactly, are still functioning properly. No answers, darling. At all.
Anne Sexton (via erraticintrovert)
This.
(via brooklyntobaltimore)
(Source: hellanne, via fallinforparis)
Jun 6, 2013
23 notes
23 notes
Ground Ivy Magic: how to have a good relationship with your food
Go here and read a lovely article on how to have a good relationship with your food!
http://avivaromm.com/women-and-food-5-mindfulness-tips-for-healing-the-relationshipArticle excerpt:
- Learn to identify hunger: Eat only when you are hungry. A lot of feelings masquerade as hunger:…
Jun 6, 2013
5,628 notes
![le-kif-kif:
The truth in Kanye’s anti-prison rap
The backdrop to Kanye West’s “Saturday Night Live” performance was a lie. Projected behind the rapper, as he let loose with two rage-filled and politically fueled tracks, were the words “Not For Sale.”
Yeezy wouldn’t have graced the set if he wasn’t hawking a soon-to-be released LP. But his incendiary performance was peppered with damning truths: Angry and pointed condemnations of institutional racism and the prison industrial complex, which disproportionately jails young men of color to fill state budget holes and enrich private corporations.
In the final verse of “New Slaves,” a track released Friday with the coordinated projection of a video on 66 buildings worldwide, and the second performance in his “SNL” set, West raps:
Meanwhile the DEATeamed up with the CCAThey tryn’a lock niggas upThey tryn’a make new slavesSee that’s that private owned prisonGet your piece today
Condensed and reduced to flow in rhyming verse, West’s lyrics smack of the conspiratorial. But he is correct: The War on Drugs, abetted by and fueling the private prison industry, currently serves to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of black men in the United States, who provide dirt-cheap labor. Various industries — from call centers to weapons manufacturers to retail companies — rely on prison labor. Private prisons pay inmate workers as little as 25 cents an hour; prisoners who refuse to work are regularly held in isolation. These are the de facto “new slaves” of the prison industrial complex. The CCA (the Corrections Corp of America) is one of two major private prison corporations (along with the GEO Group) that share in a market worth $70 billion.
And West’s implication that the CCA and the DEA are “tryn’a” lock up black people, leaving racist intentionality aside, is supported by troubling statistics. While the entire U.S. population is only 13.6 percent black, 40 percent of its vast prison population (over 2.5 million) is black. In 2010, black males were incarcerated at the rate of 4,347 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender, compared to 678 inmates per 100,000 for white males. The disparities are striking, especially when the majority of those held in U.S. prisons are guilty of minor drug offenses. This brings us to Kanye’s reference to the DEA.
As attorney and author John W. Whitehead pointed out in a HuffPo comment piece last year, states specifically opted to make sentencing laws for minor drug offenses harsh in order to fill private prisons — prisons which promised to fill gaping holes in state budgets:
[W]ith an eye toward increasing its bottom line, CCA has floated a proposal to prison officials in 48 states offering to buy and manage public prisons at a substantial cost savings to the states. In exchange, and here’s the kicker, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have agree to maintain a 90 percent occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. The problem with this scenario, as Roger Werholtz, former Kansas secretary of corrections, recognizes is that while states may be tempted by the quick infusion of cash, they “would be obligated to maintain these (occupancy) rates and subtle pressure would be applied to make sentencing laws more severe with a clear intent to drive up the population.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what has happened. Among the laws aimed at increasing the prison population and growing the profit margins of special interest corporations like CCA are three-strike laws (mandating sentences of 25 years to life for multiple felony convictions) and “truth-in-sentencing” legislation (mandating that those sentenced to prison serve most or all of their time).
As has been well-documented, young black men are disproportionately targeted by police for marijuana arrests. In New York City, for example, nearly 90 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession are blacks and Latinos. The logic is simple: If states rely on minor drug arrests to fill privately run prisons, and young black men are targeted in minor drug arrests, then states rely on young black men to fill private prisons.
Or, as Yeezy put it: “See that’s that private owned prison/Get your piece today.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/3c5c92537f018465222bd28b3e30f4a1/tumblr_mn65fyrU1i1qkr8vco1_500.jpg)
5,628 notes
The truth in Kanye’s anti-prison rap
The backdrop to Kanye West’s “Saturday Night Live” performance was a lie. Projected behind the rapper, as he let loose with two rage-filled and politically fueled tracks, were the words “Not For Sale.”Yeezy wouldn’t have graced the set if he wasn’t hawking a soon-to-be released LP. But his incendiary performance was peppered with damning truths: Angry and pointed condemnations of institutional racism and the prison industrial complex, which disproportionately jails young men of color to fill state budget holes and enrich private corporations.
In the final verse of “New Slaves,” a track released Friday with the coordinated projection of a video on 66 buildings worldwide, and the second performance in his “SNL” set, West raps:
Meanwhile the DEA
Teamed up with the CCA
They tryn’a lock niggas up
They tryn’a make new slaves
See that’s that private owned prison
Get your piece todayCondensed and reduced to flow in rhyming verse, West’s lyrics smack of the conspiratorial. But he is correct: The War on Drugs, abetted by and fueling the private prison industry, currently serves to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of black men in the United States, who provide dirt-cheap labor. Various industries — from call centers to weapons manufacturers to retail companies — rely on prison labor. Private prisons pay inmate workers as little as 25 cents an hour; prisoners who refuse to work are regularly held in isolation. These are the de facto “new slaves” of the prison industrial complex. The CCA (the Corrections Corp of America) is one of two major private prison corporations (along with the GEO Group) that share in a market worth $70 billion.
And West’s implication that the CCA and the DEA are “tryn’a” lock up black people, leaving racist intentionality aside, is supported by troubling statistics. While the entire U.S. population is only 13.6 percent black, 40 percent of its vast prison population (over 2.5 million) is black. In 2010, black males were incarcerated at the rate of 4,347 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender, compared to 678 inmates per 100,000 for white males. The disparities are striking, especially when the majority of those held in U.S. prisons are guilty of minor drug offenses. This brings us to Kanye’s reference to the DEA.
As attorney and author John W. Whitehead pointed out in a HuffPo comment piece last year, states specifically opted to make sentencing laws for minor drug offenses harsh in order to fill private prisons — prisons which promised to fill gaping holes in state budgets:
[W]ith an eye toward increasing its bottom line, CCA has floated a proposal to prison officials in 48 states offering to buy and manage public prisons at a substantial cost savings to the states. In exchange, and here’s the kicker, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have agree to maintain a 90 percent occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years. The problem with this scenario, as Roger Werholtz, former Kansas secretary of corrections, recognizes is that while states may be tempted by the quick infusion of cash, they “would be obligated to maintain these (occupancy) rates and subtle pressure would be applied to make sentencing laws more severe with a clear intent to drive up the population.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what has happened. Among the laws aimed at increasing the prison population and growing the profit margins of special interest corporations like CCA are three-strike laws (mandating sentences of 25 years to life for multiple felony convictions) and “truth-in-sentencing” legislation (mandating that those sentenced to prison serve most or all of their time).
As has been well-documented, young black men are disproportionately targeted by police for marijuana arrests. In New York City, for example, nearly 90 percent of the people arrested for marijuana possession are blacks and Latinos. The logic is simple: If states rely on minor drug arrests to fill privately run prisons, and young black men are targeted in minor drug arrests, then states rely on young black men to fill private prisons.
Or, as Yeezy put it: “See that’s that private owned prison/Get your piece today.”
(Source: bare-life, via flavia-anna-louise-fontaine)
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