resistance

We are but animals in soft, responsive bodies, and when our habitat is threatened it shows. Tight shoulders, sleepless nights, clenched jaws, shallow breaths, and sudden fight-or-flight spirals are all natural responses. Before we can reimagine the world, we must learn to inhabit ourselves with patience and compassion.

“I know I can’t drive a truck. And I can’t run a bank. And I can’t count. And I can’t lead a movement. But I can fuck up your mind.”

― James Baldwin

I will have a world I hand to my children and say, “look what we made for you. Look what we kept for you.” My daughter will be so proud of me that she will put this world I have made for her on our fridge. This is the cry on my person every morning when I brace myself for the grief and I peel myself out of bed; I am on my knees and I say “Lord God... See more

Dear reader, don’t be bashful about your desires, whether or not they make sense to those around you or fit any established revolutionary paradigm. Confide them to your friends and family as well as to strangers. Shout them from the rooftops and in your school or o∞ce or church. Paint them in bold letters on every wall and on banners for parades.... See more

. Fundamental changes to society require fundamental departures from the systems we have in place, and those changes happen step by step . The steps we take to figure out something new can use the common tools we have available to us for uncommon purposes.

• Claim Erotic Joy: curate joy as ritual. Make a playlist that recharges you. Dance in the living room. Laugh without apology. Adorn yourself as devotion. Guard your delight as a political inheritance.


• Root in Embodied Presence: practice the self-gaze. Photograph yourself for remembrance, not for consumption. Honor your quiet interior life as much

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Joy animates, presence grounds, sensuality expands. Joy without presence risks drifting. Presence without joy risks hardening. Sensuality without either risks severance from memory and spirit.

That distinction matters. Resistance always keeps the oppressor in the frame; refusal shifts the lens. In Hurston’s telling of High John de Conquer — a trickster, a root, a patron saint of laughter and survival — joy is what allows Black people to do what Stewart calls “win within.” Hurston describes John as “hitting a straight lick with a crooked... See more