making art

i managed despite his best efforts at an intervention

the cat has a different idea

a gold henna marigold with traditional line work on a small brown envelope sitting on top of a green cutting mat #art the gold is raised from the paper

tonight's art project

gold embossing a stamp i designed onto small zine envelopes 🏵️

very relatable lol

at least i posted a picture but these aren't the kind i grew up with, there are not as many Pakistani samosa available and i have to be in a special mood to make them myself 🏵️

i can't believe i haven't talked about samosas on here yet, a perfect food

How many cities helped this along by closing public schools, and allowing charter schools to expand and fold?

♥️♥️

I sincerely hope you are not teaching what happened in Chicago the way you are writing about it on here.

Hello: Scores of community organizations are opposed to military contractor GardaWorld tent encampments. The UN warns that tent encampments are an unending temporary and research supports this. We also know the average length of stay in a shelter is much longer than 60 days. On October 26, 2023, Neighbors for Environmental Justice sent a letter to the Regional Director of the EPA, Debra Shore, requesting involvement in the environmental testing assessments and remediation process. On November 22, 2023, the SunTimes reported that "Heavy metal contamination has been found at the site of a proposed migrant tent camp in Brighton Park." Specifically, the heavy metal contamination is mercury. As the Governor noted last week, it matters how we treat our asylum seekers. We should not build large tent encampments that concentrate and contain asylum-seekers in a Sanctuary state. We should not practice family separation in Chicago via DCFS. We should not chill enrollment to schools via a 60-day shelter eviction policy. The City of Chicago plans to allow GardaWorld access to the land at 38th and California on Monday to set-up a tent for asylum seekers without finding brick and mortar housing and without communicating the results of the environmental testing to the community. Did the City follow appropriate steps in environmental testing and remediation? It is wholly unacceptable to increase the precarity of our newest residents in Chicago.

and you can find us in the archive pushing the State of Illinois and JB Pritzker about this

we documented to the Governor's office directly before he pulled the plug, he wasn't some benevolent actor

Yes. And I’ve encountered everyone thinking their town or city is some exception but as we know “the system is working as designed”

And maybe there are “convenings” or “articles” or “toolkits” or something but it seems SO OBVIOUSLY PATTERNED

This is true in so many cities and states. Massachusetts has a very similar story. The Sheriffs being publicly exposed things there but the Boston Mayors (there have been a bunch) and Governors have this neo-liberal playbook that is the pre-quel of the authoritarian playbook

yes, and it's often women doing the work on the ground who are dismissed in the historical analysis

i am tired of that way of looking at events and power, it's patronizing

whisper networks are important and it's also important when we pop up and say hey, those with formal power wanted to do this

i think that analysis that Abbott had all this power to split interests in Chicago releases responsibility of city officials who *wanted* to split interests

the Black and brown divide was operated in Chicago because those in power in Chicago wanted to operate it

and we made a timeline

the city of chicago built the permission for what we are experiencing now and a lot of people had no problem with that

i have written about this before and we made a timeline, in historical analysis we need to be careful to not to erase the women who did the work

there was a group of women who not only pushed the administration and alders but also the left to live up to its desired reputation, most failed

no one has to believe me though, we indexed a lot of the research that went into pushing against the municipal politics of white supremacy and foreclosure

it wasn't just the right wing politicos, it was the progressives also who did not stand for humanizing people

mayor johnson took up the politics of white supremacy, many of us who worked against GardaWorld and the State violence shelter system hold the archive

we worked to materially support people who were living the conditions the City made

formal power in Chicago worked for what Trump is doing now

some of the biggest opposition to providing services and provisions came from the formal power — from the Johnson administration and they engaged in retaliatory tactics when we pulled from the left — similarly they are not about to work safety now

Print featuring three stylised black birds with long necks and beaks, grouped together on the right, against a brown background

Shima Tamami (1937-1999), an influential Japanese printmaker who joined a Women's Print Association in her country, mid 20th century, at a time when women in the arts struggled to receive the same resources and promotion as their male equivalents #ReframingWomensPrintmakers

*they call themselves leftists, i don't

i know there are chicago leftists who have platform power online who yell and complain about surveillance but have ring cameras on their doors

remove them

I don't have a Ring camera & avoid doors that have them. twice we were doorstepped by community police officers "offering" us a "free" Ring through a London Met/Amazon partnership. The 2nd time we said no, they said they wouldn't investigate any crimes at our property if we didn't take one.

Raised $1 BILLION for Silk Press In Chief and that fucking flop of a campaign but wont even use this protest tomorrow to maybe raise some money for the families of ICE detainees or the people FURLOUGHED by the government.

You know? Like the REAL protests yall cosplaying did

i am particularly well positioned to locate the revolution in chicago

my cat is named louis and there are often protests near my apartment with bourgeoisie wearing pussy hats larping the revolution of the working class

liberalism deserves a severe critique

it's not about tax refunds, funding streams or levels of government, systems are not real but for what we make them, administrative functions of the State exist to serve the use of force

what's at stake is who has dignity and who gets to survive

calling it no kings reminds me of the people who can't call it a vagina either

not naming things directly makes way for violence

democracy is doing this, it's not time to differentiate yet

they wouldn't want to admit their complicity

I know folks want to spotlight hopeful stories of people helping each other right now but it's important to recognize that can actively work against the goal of safety