some days, the shaping of young minds really does feel impossible. makes me feel like all the badness in the world could be witnessed upon them and they'd still go on. doing their things. as if the rights of others--their own rights--never mattered a god effing damn. i live my life according to fairly simple ideas.

People pay for what they do,
and still more for what they have
allowed themselves to become.
And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
--James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

and if you believe in something, you better believe in it fully and well.

how are they missing the point, upon point, upon restless murderous vengeful point, that we are all part of one big story. that the perpetuation of hate begets more hate. and that the same is true of love. that walking thin lines and begging unconsciousness only braids weak ropes bound of excuses. some days, i cannot understand the world. or any mind living in it that can ignore the legacy and daily relevance in the American life of genocide--of the displacement and destruction of an entire culture--of slavery, of gross unjust acts of war meant to scatter the seeds of violence and oppression as far as they can go--so that they can thanklessly sit their asses in plastic seats probably mass produced in some sweat shop by children and believe that they have the right and the privilege to anything. to what they foolishly think is their education.