Programs: BlackBox

Dependency, a Helluva’ Drug

You understand that obligation doesn’t actually exist. It’s not real. It’s merely a place where you won’t take responsibility for what you want.

Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Food Desert

As much as we complained about the gentrification, I had to admit where I was a gentrifier myself. And that with it came some healthy food options and access for those who could afford it. And something to move towards for those who couldn’t.

Underneath the Hood of Race Relations

[T]he complexity of who we are actually includes multichromatic lineages: both dominant and marginalized cultures from all over the world, as well as ancestors who have probably been both oppressor and the oppressed.

Segregated Minds

In my mind I had quickly slipped into the “Because I’m black trance.” We thanked her and carried on to find food elsewhere. This was a test of my practice, of not assuming I’m being oppressed. Not assuming I’m being discriminated against because I’m black.

4th of July in Chi town

I sat on the couch of our 17th floor apartment, staring out the floor to ceiling windows and seeing a sea of fireworks that stretched across the city of Chicago. A city I had never seen before, where my first memory of it is glowing and lit up with vibrant color. 4th of July has […]

Black Joy & Genius Tour 6.29.22

Next stop NC. I stepped off train, and was greeted by my parents. No sooner than I got to their house, did I test positive for the Rona. After all this time living in my redwood cloaked, clean California bubble, I figured it was only a matter of time before la covida loca got me. […]

Black Joy & Genius Tour 6.20.22

Sitting in Union Station, in awe and digesting my DC experience, I drifted off and missed my train to NC. I rebooked on a later train, but the only seating available would be in a sleeper car. I interpreted sleeper car as a kind of luxury. Maybe I’d have that first class experience I wrote […]

Black Joy & Genius Tour 6.16.22

After being in NY for 11 yrs, my move to the redwood forests of Northern California was an extreme switch. After NY, I couldn’t just go to an in-between suburban bardo. I turned in my Dockers and desk for MUCK boots, thirty chickens, two cows, six goats, a mini donkey and a gang of friends […]

Booorn to be Wiiiild

It looks like acknowledging the genius in people who have done things that we hate. It looks like respecting the decision of a homeless person who has chosen a life in the wild over the trappings of a mortgage and a nine to five.