[ed.: This is a belated post from a letter from June 2024]
As Pride Month winds to a close, I wanna give a shout out to my beautiful queers out there, Happy Pride Month! Like I say, for all the government breadcrumbs they give us (us being any marginalized group), it’s a great cause for celebration being open and free, but we’ll never be truly open and free until we all are. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” — MLK Jr. All things are interconnected and interwoven. “There are no separate worlds”.
We celebrate today and this month and always, for it’s a beautiful thing to be loud and proud, but the state is here waging a war on the community, and not us alone. Women are under attack for control over their bodies, kids are still in cages and separated from families. Pigs are still acting with impunity in taking our lives! Not just in the cities, but at our border. We will remember Claudia Gonzalez’s murder at the border in 2018, as well as Tortuguita in Atlanta. Gone but not forgotten.
The penitentiary is still packed and still filled with blacks! The U.S. is the richest nation with the highest homeless population. Our fascist government is cosponsoring genocide with OUR taxes! I could go on, but you get the point, none of our issues exist in a vacuum, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — MLK Jr. again.
So as we remember those lost at the Pulse Nightclub, as we also remember Floyd and Taylor, Garner and Trayvon, as we call for the abolition of prisons, law, pigs, and all systems of oppression and genocide and exploitation of the world’s people, as we call for a return of this stolen land to her original keepers, let’s just remember that their fight is our fight, our fight is their fight! If one of us falls, we all fall. If the state can oppress “them”, then it can and will oppress you!
So celebrate and rejoice, but know our fight ain’t over, freedom is a constant struggle, and those who want freedom can’t rest till it comes. Until all cages are empty, until all pigs are jobless, until people can love and be loved how they want, Uhuru Sasa! Until Freedom! One more prayer for Gazans, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, Inshallah.
Struggle on, beautiful people!
Love, Rage and Solidarity ~ Malik
P.S. Any queer titles you wanna send me? Or authors? I’m open to anything, but would like:
- “This Is How It Always Is” [Frankel]
- “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” [Lo]
- “Bellies” [Dinan]
- “Chain-Gang All-Stars” [Adjei-Brenyah]
- “Sirens & Muses” [Angress]
- “Body Grammar” [Ohman]