at night
when i close my eyes
surrender to sleep
all conscious control
i lose hold
of myself
fall faintly into
reverie
never completely certain
that i will return
from the depths to
breathe air the
next morning

but when i do
eyes open
on a brand new reality
informed by the past
unencumbered by the
imaginings of dreams
i wonder
how i can relinquish
control so easily
while entombed in slumber
yet fail so spectacularly
upon each successive awakening
to be capable of similar
surrender
when i embrace
the world’s vagaries
during the daylight

the quotidian death of freedom…

Black History Month is over and I have an announcement to make: I have officially become sick of hearing “I’m on the right side of the issue because I’m not a racist!” or one of its many variations.

There is no imperative, or motivation, or urgency, to rouse oneself to participate in combatting racism.

What this (and the person uttering it) is actually saying to me is that they are very tied to the idea of being “not-racist.” When a person is not-racist, it means that they think they don’t participate directly in actions or decisions that lead to discriminatory…

don’t wanna cause no trouble but baby i wanna get a nibble steamin’ hot, you know i gotta sample sugah vittles gimme a little, and it’ll melt me down to the middle make the chocolate flow ’til we wipin’ up the dribble and I don’t fiddle unless I got the proper instrument you bring the ingredients and I’ll buy all the implements playing with your flour helps me grow into significance bowl and wooden spoon got two willing participants guide my hands because you kneadin’ a massage blending together essences beneath the camouflage you’re heating up my bakery and that…

in an age of information ostensibly masquerading and parading the shamelessly craven’s debauched instigations as substitutions for amplification of true knowledge and all that it’s precipitated like Icarus in freefall is endless victimhood revealed as exhibitionist self-flagellation that defies any sensible explanation across the nations digitized electrical impulses undulate unmodulated and under-debated by unsated haters fated to massacre all adherents to a form of civilization destined for dissipation i drip this into your melons for your edification on the stratifications debasing our innovations the nascent reimagination of motivations deceptively and kleptomaniacally for the taking remains unguarded from thieves in the…

On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first U.S. President of African American ancestry. Twelve years later to the day, Kamala Harris was the first woman, first African American and first Asian American inaugurated as U.S. Vice-President.

Meanwhile, north of the border …

Though Canada has had one woman serve as its Prime Minister (Conservative Kim Campbell in 1993, who took up the role in June after Brian Mulroney resigned, then was promptly annihilated by the Jean Chrétien Liberals in the subsequent federal election in October), we have never had a person of colour serve as the leader of the government. …

all i can hear is the astonishment
see the despair and read the admonishment
of the most obvious and dishonest monument
to the cooperative collaborative acknowledgment
of truth that shall ring loudly enough through history
to deafen the most committed of propagandists
who will try (and fail) to convince people of intelligence
that the “American dream” retains symbolic relevance

once the broken glass in the Capitol is swept away and this president’s presence in Pennsylvania (Avenue) is swept away along with this nation’s pride of place shattered along with their legislature defaced by the reality in the prescience of Junior…

Let’s be honest: Your company has probably been accused at some point of doing a poor job managing diversity in the workplace.

Many organizations are not very good at it. Most hadn’t been thinking much about it before this year. And all of them are trying to avoid being dragged by online critics for their reluctance/inability/abject refusal to take the matter seriously. It’s one of the great themes from the Year Of The Coronavirus that we can all agree is taking place (even if we don’t agree with the argument’s basic assumptions).

An approach that focuses on equity in conjunction…