I don't know what even is left to say.

C’mon, Karl, help a bro out.

No top reads of February, alas. But: I’m spending my spring break listening to Chappell Roan, wearing red lipsticks and reading about geology, shoals, alchemy, settlers, blackness and Scotland and finally, finally banging out this article in a form (relatively) suitable for editorial/peer review.

I will never get tired of students responding to the ending of Andrea Levy’s Small Island 🤣❤️

This brief message serves as my official withdrawal of Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression & the Long Attica Revolt from consideration for the Pauli Murray Book Prize offered by The African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). I arrive at this decision in full political alignment with the movement to free Palestine from settler colonial oppression, and with the critiques expressed in "An Open Letter to the Leadership of AAIHS." Published in the Fall 2024 issue of Hammer & Hope, the letter offers a sharp critique of the AAIHS's generalized silence on the US-backed, Israeli-led genocide of Palestinians. Its authors rightfully lambast the organization for "invoking a tradition rooted in anti-imperialism, international solidarity, and protest to project an image of radical politics and thought, while simultaneously remaining silent or even accommodating the brutal siege of Gaza and all of occupied Palestine." If the AAIHS truly believes that Tip of the Spear is one of the year's "best books) concerning Black intellectual history," as the prize selection criteria indicates, then the officers of the organization should engage with this intellectual history and the politics it reflects. Doing so in an ethical manner would require the AAIHS to, at minimum, enact the demands set forth in the Open Letter, which calls upon the organization to "(1) issue a statement against the Israeli state project of Palestinian annihilation and in favor of peace and freedom for Palestinians in the Middle East, and (2) issue a statement of transparency, assuring readers and potential contributors that the AAIHS's annual conference, new journal, and general activities are not being funded by the Dan David Prize." I do not want to be recognized by an academic association that is unable to positively respond to this modest call for solidarity, transparency, accountability, and humanity and it is for these reasons that I reject your nomination.

Much respect to Orisanmi Burton for rejecting his book, Tip of the Spear's nomination for the AAIHS Pauli Murray Book Prize. From twitter, "in full political alignment with the Palestinian Liberation movement and this Open Letter" hammerandhope.org/article/pale...

Newest books from Vroman’s ❤️ I borrow books through my public libraries, see which ones I can’t stop thinking about and then buy them when I can.

Two of these were in my top ten fiction reads last year; one of these got five 🌟from me this year.

Reading can be, at its best, such a gift, a balm.

I'm spending this week thinking about horror as a genre and reading Black feminist writers who push us to understand horror as space and surround.

I LOVE this book. I read it in 2020 (which, in retrospect, was maybe not the smarted thing to do) and it completely devastated me then. I haven't stopped thinking about it.

❤️

Last night I had a dream where a polar bear was trying to attack me but then it stopped and ran off with my cheese???

So that’s how week one of Vegan February is going 😂

I wanted it to be longer (which is not how I always feel about non-novels)!

Here are my top five books read of January 2025 ✌🏼

Stop fucking saying he blamed “DEI,” which is some abstract, non-tangible idea. He is blaming people of color having jobs he thinks they aren’t qualified for. He’s blaming race. He’s being racist every time he says it. Journalists need to get fucking backbones, my word.

January is almost over and I have read 25 new books.

That tells you something about the clusterfuck we are living in and through.

Every time I watch this is the best time.

My friends and I are in a Capital bookclub and this meme is 100% accurate.

(FWIW, I would never begrudge a Taurus their need to discuss fabrics.)

“But, beyond knowing much more than you believe or respect, you can, and I hope you will insist that your studies shall become Life Studies: Black Studies. Urban Studies. Environmental Studies.”

June Jordan, Life Studies

Yes, this!

The semester has literally just started and I feel like I’ve aged seventy years.

I live in Los Angeles and am close to one of the two big fires. Everyone please, please mask.

Note to SCal friends: mask up, the air is poison

“Squidward-ass” is making me howl.

If you're interested in the history of international solidarity with Palestine, many sources can be found in my list of radical online (and open access) archives. Over 500 collections from around the world are listed.

hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/radical-onli...

Truly, I hate grading so fucking much.

I. Am. HOWLING.

‘The Wrong Person to Ask’, by Marjorie Lotfi - The Bottle Imp The last time I wrote a review for The Bottle Imp, the world had not yet experienced the public health crisis we now know as Covid-19; according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ‘[a]lthough...

It has been difficult to write for a while now.

But if you’d like to read my reflection on someone else’s meaningful writing, here is my review of Marjorie Lotfi’s collection of poems, The Wrong Person to Ask, published in the most recent issue of The Bottle Imp.

Lololol I CANNOT.

I mean — not much has changed.