portrait of a writer i once met

in ,

he was a writer; so, he did lots of writerly things, like read foreign books on the terrace of cafes or on oscar wilde’s grave, teach plebeians about the complexities of the english language and enter into devastating love affairs that inspired his work. from Illinois, he was of the world of cotillions and debutantes but fancied himself an accidental lowlife who valiantly turned the other cheek when he ought to have hated the world.

Read More

People of Color Don’t Have Luxury of Giving Skinheads the Benefit of the Doubt

in ,

Originally appeared on Wear Your Voice on 29 November 2017

Recently, I was involved in a Facebook “discussion” in which there was a majority of people (mostly white but also some white-passing) who were arguing that when people see a skinhead, they shouldn’t automatically assume that they’re a neo-Nazi or even racist. One of the biggest non-white supporters of this theory was a white-passing Indigenous person and a light-skinned Black man. Both had grown up seeped in punk and rudeboy culture and saw the relation between those (mostly) harmless subcultures and the skinhead subculture. But what they all failed to realise was that most people — particularly visibly non-white people like me — don’t have the luxury to give any skinhead the benefit of the doubt.

Read More

An Artistic Epiphany

in

On a whim, I happened to read through some of my older non-fiction work, most of which has me very delicately and romantically describing my depression. But I was actually shocked by how good it was — how lovely and melancholic with perfect similes and metaphors that still so perfectly describe the hell I suffer when the sads come to visit.

Read More

The Myth of "High" and "Low" Culture

in

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “high” and “low” art a lot lately, and the more I think of it, the more it infuriates me. The concept itself as it was conceived doesn’t bother me as much as does the fact that in this day and age there are people who unironically still use the terms to differenciate between “good” and “bad” art — or worse, “worthy” and “unworthy” art. The fact that they fail to acknowledge (or even recognize themselves) that the terms are rooted in classism and continue to widen the gap between classes is infuriating.

Read More