What does never again really mean? Does it truly mean never again?
—Ta-Nehisi Coates
I used to wake up with coffee and cigarettes, the most patriotic drug there is. When I first moved to Austin I smoked hand-rolleds in the dark dawn before heading down Airport Boulevard for my warehouse job. I probably smoked two on the way, 2 on the 15s and another on the ride home. It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Waking in the revolution is different. Shit’s got me sick, so I get the jump on it. I drink more water than coffee these days and if I smoke more than 2 cigarettes I’m prostrate with a migraine by 2PM.
I’m compelled to curate a life of spirit. It belongs to us. We are spirit. All my life I have yearned to be free. Always running for the money and the flesh, I had foregone the life of spirit for pay. After a life of work, it suddenly seems so crucial we should pray. “Something must remain of us…,” and the idea of soul survive.
It’s autumn in America. There’s a war on our bodies. Bodies ravaged and seized. Bodies locked in line and cleared off, hand over hand and into the bloody fray. Of all the things I do and don’t do these revolutionary mornings, the most crucial will be if I pray. So I do. For me and for you but mostly for you.
This Monday on IN THE CITY, New York Hardcore pioneer, activist, poet and patriot Jason O’Toole joins us to talk about fighting nazis and the hypocritical mind, voting, the crucial importance of allyship and to help us come up with a better word than cancel culture.
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