About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

71 Nat'l Law. Guild Rev. 246 (2014)
#Blacklivesmatter Kitchen Talk

handle is hein.journals/guild71 and id is 260 raw text is: Richael Faithful #BLACKLIVESMATTER KITCHEN TALK Black folk always talk about what some people call the news. We are interested in all kinds of news-who died, who's leaving, who's coming, who's sleeping with whom, who got which job, whose kids are grown and what they're doing. We talk about music, culture, and, of course, politics as we know them. In our kitchen-talk, porch-talk, stoop-talk, shop-talk, we say a lot of things that most white folks rarely hear because in these spaces we can be just a little more free or, at least, we face our own judgments of each other, shaped by our racist ecology, rather than carry the unique heaviness of being Black. There has been a lot of talk since 2012 when Trayvon Martin was mur- dered and his killer was legally exonerated. Murmurs swirling around after Troy Davis' execution in 2011 swelled into shouting after the taped murder of Eric Garner by the NYPD. I have been talking about the news with people whom I trust to share my heartache and resilience, including two friends: Zachari Curtis, a Black gender non-conforming' DC-native land justice activ- ist and farmer, and Aaliya3 a queer Desi community-builder in her first year of high school teaching. Some weeks ago the three of us found ourselves in the kitchen as I prepared fixings. Interestingly, we shared some assump- tions based on our politics and friendships, yet we had divergent reactions, insights and possibilities about the meaning of now. We turned over, chewed, swallowed, and digested each other's sense of what's happening. We had some kitchen-talk. As with any kind of intimate talk, we trusted our motivations, appreci- ated our experiences, assumed nuances, desired openness, and knew that we were just sharing words, not making hard judgments about who we were or could be. Along with a common set of values, we had a shared analysis from which the conversation organically sprung. The topic of #BlackLivesMattet surfaced with our moods as I finished up a meal of tofu scramble and eggless pancakes. It is worth saying that many folks of color do not talk this way with each other, but the people I know do, and some of us are about as frank Richael Faithful, Esq. is a folk healer and creative based in Washington DC. Richael is founder of Conjure! Freedom Collective, a movement of healers and creatives committed to healing the trauma of slavery, end racial caste, and establish a new love politic in the U.S. Richael is also a former Equal Justice Works Fellow and serves as current Executive Editor of the National Lawyers Guild Review. Zachari is a bad-ass justice worker and tinkerer here in DC. To learn more about Zachari's creations, see GOOD SENSE FARM & ApiARY, http://goodsensefann.com (last visited Feb. 18, 2015)

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most