Grace At The Root
March 11, 2025
Chris Mason is one of my favorite Youtubers and I love this short:
"What is the least amount of work you can commit to and still maintain consistency?"
Gonna try it out and see if scaling back to seven or five points helps me feel less daunted by these.
This introduction note has a content warning for mention of black trans murder1
1. Black Life on Film Letterboxd List
Am I including this because it's the first list where I've seen 9/10 of the first ten movies on the list? Kinda. I'm also including it because I think it's very important to archive black life while we're still living it. Not only out of fear that we don't know when we'll no longer be here (the loom of death feeling like it casts it's shadow over us and our lives moreso than other groups) but also in celebration and boredom and rage and queerness and sadness and all the other emotions we have but are often denied. I don't believe I'd ever be able to get through this list, and I'm happy for that. I don't want to the end of any archive of my people within my lifetime--I always want to feel like our stories are so vast we'll never know the full extent of them.
A few movies from the list I'm looking forward to watching for the first time (not including super recent releases because who going to the movies):
- Night of the Living Dead (I know! But I want to watch all of them and school is like, nah bro)
- The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
- To Sleep With Anger
- Mr. Crocket
- Daughters
- FEMME
- Sing Sing
- Imaginary
- The Fire Inside
- All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
- The Boy Behind the Door
- *Anything Possible
- Mars One
- Neptune Frost
shout out to my grandparents for having me watch Roots in eighth grade so I never have to watch it again but slight un-shout out because the title for The Black Church has "This is our story. This is our song." and I was immediately sent back to vacation bible school and I'm entitled to financial compensation for this experience.
Okay honestly, now I'm just skimming because these are giving me too many memories all at once and I need a snack.
Back to say, this list can be pretty triggering so watch out for use of the n-word and racist imagery.
2. Intelligame Weekly
The first episode of Intelligame's new series on Youtube went up and Kwame Ture's "Okay, so what are you doing today?" has been on my mind on repeat. It's getting me to think more about how I want to work within organizations not necessarily mobilizations (though, similiar to Josh, I have to do more research before I can say with my full chest that this is my stance). I usually end up feeling more hopeful (mostly because I feel seen) after going to Intelligame streams so recommending this!
3. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
It's taken me a year to finish this book and ninety-nine percent of why I finished the last one hundred and twenty pages five days ago is because I have a heater that let's me fall asleep at night instead of having asthma attacks and I had a shit ton of energy. I knew this book would carve itself into my heart, but good grief, I was not ready for a lot of it. There are parts where I remember that I clearly lean towards young adult fiction because there were twists that I'd expected to end chapters and it wouldn't even change paragraphs. Like time-stopping things just happen and you keep going and if that's not being an adult, I don't know what is.
Martyr! follows a couple of people but the central character is Cyrus Shams who is a recovering addict working on a book called Book of Martyrs. He decides to travel to New York to meet with an artist who is living her last days inside an art museum as part of her final work. Truthfully, I'd follow Kaveh into many a literary world, so I had my backpack sealed up and ready to go for this trip, even though I had to pause quite a bit to let so much sink in. There are so many underlines, asterisks, and hard pressed reminders in my copy but what I'll share is this:
"What distinguishes grace from everything else? Grace is unearned. If you've moved through the world in such a way as to feel you've earned cosmic compensation, then what you've earned is something more like justice, like propriety. Not grace. Propriety is correct. Justice is just. There's an inescapable transactional quality: perform x good, receive y reward. Grace doesn't work that way. It begins with the reward. Goodness never enters the equation."
4. Trans Joy Game Jam Entries
I mentioned it in the note, but Sam Nordquist's murder has me really fucked up. As someone whose queer community is 98% online and living with people who aren't queer (as far as I know), it's tough to ask for the space to grieve because first, I'd have to explain why I need to grieve. Something similar happened after Tinu Abayomi-Paul died.
"I hope my story humanizes the experience of having COVID for people,” she wrote in an essay following her hospitalization. “Those of us at high risk aren’t abstract people you’ve never met. We’re people you know and love, and we might die because you won’t wear a mask." ~quoted in an article about Tinu in The Sick Times
I was filled with grief and I didn't know where to put it because there are very few covid believing people in my vicinity (despite them being disabled) and it's more work asking for space and explaining why I need that space than just lying and dealing with the fallout later. I don't feel like lying but sometimes it's best (I know six and eight and twelve and fourteen and sixteen year old mes are tired. What happened to things changing?).
My friend sent me this video on trans joy and I want to know more about peoples' trans joys. I want to know more about my own. I think going through these games might help. Escapism is where I live, baby! So I'm hoping these will help me do that. 3
5. PUNK BLACK'S BIG ASS P.O.C. ROCK PLAYLIST
After finishing High Desert by James A. Spooner a couple of weeks ago, I remembered that I'm an adult and I can do the shit I wasn't allowed to do as a kid and so it's special interest galore over here! Listening to this playlist by PUNK BLACK for a little over a week. In addition to reading Black Punk Now edited by James A. Spooner and , watching some stuff adding others to my watchlist (feel free to suggest), reading zines and working on making my own (how am I going to get june-trees awesome ass stamps in it??), and lurking in many an internet space--I'm still in the process of unlearning that what makes me me isn't something to hide from/be ashamed of and this playlist is helping. I definitely can't scream where I am (and I know I have years of screaming in me) but the music lets me. I don't think I'm even halfway through but I'm excitedly listening so I can grab who I wanna learn more about and can support them on Bandcamp once I'm through!
Odds & Ends
A place for links I don't have lots of words to attach to (maybe I haven't used/watched/listened yet or I just don't have enough bandwidth to add more) but I still want to share!
- Send a message to your representatives and get Mahmoud Khalil out of ICE!
- Too Good To Go: App where you can get surplus food at a discount throughout the US
- Wanderstop came out today! You should go play!
- To Kill a Dragon: Video Games and Addiction by Joey Schutz: really enjoyed reading this, I was wondering why the flow state doesn't seem as dangerous in reading and it answered my question (books end) and helped me better understand why I don't like long games (I need to see an end in sight).
- Fuck These Fuckin Fascists by The Muslims: great song, but huge trigger warning for body gore/horror in the cover art
- We Live Here by Bob Vylan: just listened to this today and I love it
- Making A Plan Zine: a zine that has really good questions/starting points to figure out where you should put your energy and efforts in the struggle
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Delivering While Black: From the site, "In the U.S., maternal and infant outcomes for Black birthing people are dramatically worse than for White birthing people. Delivering While Black, a short documentary set in Grand Rapids, MI, dives into the harsh reality of Birth Justice and the systemic racism that leads to the loss of Black lives.
The title references the concept of "driving while Black," a term that highlights racial profiling that puts Black lives at risk. Decades of research show similar trends in healthcare, where Black birthing people face the very real fear of being dismissed or ignored, often with deadly consequences.
Thank you for taking the time to listen to the powerful stories and insights from local experts. This documentary aims to raise awareness, spark change, and offer support for those Delivering While Black."
You can rent or buy here.
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Story of Palestine Game Jam: October 7, 2023 - August 31, 2030
From the jam page: "This is more than just a game development event; it's the least we can do for the Palestinians beside praying for them. Together, as game developers, we rally behind the cause to reveal the untold story of Palestine. Join us as we craft games that convey the narrative of Palestine, a story that deserves to be heard by the world.
We've carefully compiled a wealth of resources that serve as a window to the truth behind the Zionist occupation of Palestine, tracing its origins and impact on the Palestinian people."
You can also help out with translations!
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Pakistan Game Jam: March 21-25, 2025
From the jam page: "This Game Jam is strictly for Pakistanis. Your team must have at least one person with a strong connection to Pakistan. That includes everyone living in Pakistan, or Pakistanis living abroad or their kin." Also check out the Pakistani game tag on itch!
Destroy the systems that seek to destroy you!
# Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl (PILOT ANIMATIC)
WATCH IT. LOVE IT. MAKE SURE IT AND INVINCIBLE FIGHT GIRL GET FIVE SEASONS AND A MOVIE.
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A note: I've lowkey gone a little too far with the whole, hey! let's try the healing thing again! by starting up Black.Queer.Southern.Woman. edited by E and Love WITH Accountability: edited by . That plus reading the full article on Sam Nordquist (which I won't link here but it's on NBC News)--a black trans man who was tortured and murdered by his girlfriend and six other people in New York between the end of last year and last month--I've kinda borked it up over here. I'm existing fifteen steps to the left and hoping somehow going through the motions will fix me. I'm sending this mostly because one or two things are timely and I want to get it out there. Donate to and protect and defend and just fucking care for black trans people. Thanks. ↩
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This has more to do with horror movies in general not the above, but I just want to note that I ended up watching The Stepford Wives (1975) and Revenge (2017) back to back for the first time during an anxiety attack and I highly recommend it (the movies not the anxiety attack). ↩
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Trans World Express and Rainbow Railroad are both resources about being trans/queer and escaping the states. ↩