I did my first talk in person in ages this week, and went in like this. I didn’t ask permission to present with a mask on, I started out my PowerPoint with a picture of me with my mask off for those who feel they need to see a full face, and I just acted like it’s totally normal to have a speaking role while still protecting myself. Whether it’s keeping a mask on to protect yourself during the pandemic, or setting some other boundary that is important to you, let’s normalize just doing what we need to do for ourselves without clearing it with anybody else first. ✌️ [image: Selfie of me with an N95 mask on. I have light purple hair and am wearing a black floral dress.]
Some of our leaders seem dead set on erasing our history (and our present), policing what schools can teach, with a clear focus on excluding people of color and the white ruling class oppression of them from their white-washed view of history. So it’s on us and learn — and to *share* what we learn. (And to vote, of course. But voting is never the only answer.) With that in mind, Mark and I recently visited the historic site at the former Manzanar incarceration camp, one of the camps where American citizens of Japanese descent and other Japanese-Americans were forcibly imprisoned during WWII for the crime of existing. (Notice how German-Americans were never imprisoned despite the U.S. also being at war with Germany. And how this followed not long after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants who built the railroad and made the expansion of the country possible from becoming US citizens. Today’s anti-Asian hate absolutely has roots in our not so distant history.) Though Manzanar has a beautiful backdrop in the Eastern Sierra, the people ripped away from their lives and forced to live there had to deal with harsh weather conditions in uninsulated barracks, no privacy including when going to the bathroom, and were treated like criminals despite doing absolutely nothing wrong. The only reparations that ever came were much too small and decades too late. We must remember, and we must fight like hell to ensure this never happens again. [images: Photos from Manzanar, including the memorial marker in the graveyard, the simple tarpaper barracks, the group toilets, and an aerial shot of the camp showing barracks housing 10,000 people.]
