Roots

my own heritage is one of many marginalizations; by being the wrong kind of european, by being one of britain’s first colonized, by criminality, by jewishness, by madness, by witchcraft. we have been a chronically ill people. a mentally ill people. an ugly and strange and uncanny people.

by way of survival, by way of greed, these smaller identities tied to place, practice, and spirit, were traded for whiteness. the past three to seven generations are stories of settling, disrupting, cashing in, and ploughing forward. i aim to be the last in my line to carry on this way. i want to build accountability and connection to land, to community, to magic. i will not turn from the harm i carry in my veins, nor the harm we have suffered.

another of my heritages is queerness. queerness as in fuck the sys/cistem. queerness as in queers bash back. queerness as in be gay do crime. i feel a great joy when i am in my queerness fully. when i am with my queers and we are thinking and living with ferocious hope and boundless curiosity. i consider my queer forbears my ancestors as well. Marsha P Johnson and John Radcliffe Hall and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and James Baldwin and Leslie Feinberg and so many others whose lives and battles have made us who we are. may their memories be blessings. may their memories be a battle cry. may their memories beat in the hearts of all whose paths follow.

these heritages, these ancestors, create tethers to responsibilities and hopes for the future. part of unlearning and betraying whiteness is naming these particularities without hoping to avoid accountability. my relationship to tarot is a part of this work.

fuck the police. black lives matter. land back. no one is illegal. free palestine.