Boston, you’re my home: part 2

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Copley Square, in happier times.

“I hope you understand, most of all, that you have failed. Because today in Boston there stands a great many people who are not afraid of you, who will go out and live their lives as they always have, and those people will infect others with their confidence, and soon this event will be a terrible memory that reminds us of how strong we are when we work together to rebuild and support one another — and how weak are those who would try to destroy our spirit.”
– Lesley Kinzel, Dear Terrorist: An Open Letter to the Person Who Bombed My City

Go read Lesley’s piece, all of it. It’s powerful and beautiful.

But when she mentions the terrorist’s potential home in Revere, keep in mind something she didn’t know at the time: that the man whose home was searched in Revere was not actually a suspect, but only a Saudi national who happened to be at the Marathon–and who was tackled by a bystander when he ran away from the explosions.

Tackled. For running away from an explosion, like any sane person–aside from first responders–would do. For running away while being Arab.

My Rageasaurus is immensely, immensely angry. It wants to punch racism right in its ugly face.

The rest of me wants you to read the following links:

“As a 20-something Pakistani male with dark stubble (an ode more to my hectic schedule as a resident in the intensive-care unit than to any aesthetic or ideology), would I not fit the bill? I know I look like Hollywood’s favorite post-cold-war movie villain. I’ve had plenty of experience getting intimately frisked at airports. Was it advisable to go back to pick up my friend’s camera that he had forgotten in his child’s stroller in the mall? I remember feeling grateful that I wasn’t wearing a backpack, which I imagined might look suspicious. My mind wandered to when I would be working in the intensive care unit the next day, possibly taking care of victims of the blast. What would I tell them when they asked where I was from (a question I am often posed)? Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell people I was from India or Bangladesh?”
– Haider Javed Warraich, Living Through Terror, in Rawalpindi and Boston

“The likelihood of some good emerging is strongest if we allow ourselves to live in this moment for all that it offers. The likelihood of not taking a wrong collective turn is strongest if we live with the grief long enough, deeply enough, to really feel it. The likelihood of uniting ourselves as members of the same community is strongest if we let that compassion extend to all those who will feel the ripple effects of this attack for long months and years, if we hold in our hearts both the victims and those who will be accused of causing their pain. Our only hope for pulling ourselves back together is to name the cycle and change its pattern.”
– Rinku Sen, How We Can Break the Cycle of Pain From Mass Violence

“As something as horrifying as this afternoon in Boston is literally unfolding, as we are worrying about loved ones who may be affected, we already have to worry about the consequences of backlash violence. We have to worry about the sensationalism in the media. We have to worry about being attacked because of the color of skins, the turbans or hijabs on our heads, the beards on our faces. I pray that people in the United States and beyond have learned something in the last 11 and a half years. I pray that the collective response to today will be drastically different from the knee-jerk racism that pervaded the days, weeks, months, and years after 9/11/01.”
– Brooklynwala, Prayer for Boston and an End to Racist Backlash

Boston, you’re my home.

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I saw this on my way home from work today.

“Boston is where those students like me came of age. It’s where we met our spouses or significant others. It’s where we learned our craft. It’s where we connected with the friends and mentors we would have for the rest of our lives. Even if we can’t say we are “from” Boston we surely confirm when asked that we are “of” Boston. It remains in our blood.”
– Andrew Cohen, You May Leave Boston, But Boston Never Leaves You

“Perhaps it affected me even more than most of the worst stories I deal with for the simple fact that the bombers, whoever they are, hit right at the heart of one of the things that I, as a marathoner, hold most dear in my life, that inchoate jumble of pride, suffering, triumph, exhaustion and exhilaration that comes in the last mile of a marathon.  That place is sacred to me.  It is in that last mile that I have experienced one of the most transformative moments of my life, the moment at which I ceased to see myself as a puddle of a human being, a mess of weakness and flaw, and instead began to regard myself as something much more powerful, as someone who could tackle damn near anything and find a way to come out on top.

Strength, resilience, courage: that’s what the final mile of a marathon means to me.”
– Caitlin of Fit and Feminist, The Spirit of the Marathon Lives On in Boston

“I am a body of fast moving blood
inhaling you
taking you in like a tank.
I will consume your hate.

I will run straight into you
as if you were a finish line of joy,
picking up the fallen along the way
and you will never stop me,
you will never
stop me.”
– Scott Poole, To Run: A Prayer for Boston

“What wearies me is how often I have found myself stunned and silent in recent years. What especially wearies me is having such a finely honed vocabulary for tragedy.”
– Roxane Gay, Stunned Silence

Boston <3

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I don’t have any words about what happened yesterday. It just feels surreal.

I was lucky to be safely at work in Cambridge, and everyone close to me is ok. My heart goes out to those affected. My heart breaks for my city and for everyone suffering. For the 8-year-old boy who died. A fucking 8-year old boy. I don’t know how to process that. I don’t know how to process what just happened in my safe, nothing-ever-happens city.

So here are a few posts I’ve read. Here is an image of New York’s beautiful solidarity.

And, for a break from the heartbreaking carnage, here’s a video of soft, cuddly baby goats.

(updated at 9:13 a.m. to add two links)

OOTD: Fighting climate change in style

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So, I’m usually wary of the whole activism-as-fashion-statement thing. But I make an exception for building outfits around my hot pink 350.org shirt, because it’s just that awesome.

And I know it’s not just a pretty shirt–I’ve been involved with 350 and other climate justice work in real life.

Speaking of which, fellow Bostonians, this Friday there will be a Singing for the Planet benefit concert. If you at all enjoy music and/or living on this planet, and have $20 to give toward the latter, you should check it out.

Top: 350 store, skirt: Deb, leggings: American Apparel, sneakers: Sugar Shoes via eBay a million years ago, cardigan: Old Navy, cupcake hairclip: Sick for Cute, pink bow hairclip: Stone Flower, rose bangle: H&M, pink bangle: Deb, pink rose ring: Kelsea Echo, silver rose ring: Claire’s?, pearl necklace: So Good, earrings: Artifaktori, socks: probably Target, tote bag: Border’s (sigh)

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Style crush: Girl with the Flower

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To be honest, reading the blogs of straight-sized people with outrageous style often makes me sad: they have so many wild/interesting/unusual options available to them that don’t exist, or are extremely rare, in plus sizes.  It’s really frustrating, but there are a few bloggers who I can’t help loving anyway.

Girl with the Flower, who I just discovered, is now one of them.

HOLY SHIT her outfits are amazing, aren’t they? She makes her own flower crowns and accessories–which she sells on Etsy–and shares my fascination with googly eyes.

I hope that someday I can walk into a thrift store and buy anything like the pieces she wears.  But in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the sartorial eye candy.

Friday links, 4/12/13

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A sign of spring 🙂

Fa(t)shion
-The Aussie Curves Sydney meetup sounds like so much fun! I wish we had something like it in Boston.
-Melbournians (Melbournites? Melbournistas?), check out the Hey Fatty & Friends Market.
-I love Shannon’s reflections on clothing and identity.
–This thread has some good suggestions for finding plus size steampunk clothing.
-I have no particular interest in horse races, but the hats that women wear to them are fantastic.
-More amazing hats: the Milliner’s Guild at the National Arts Club.
-Pure kawaii eye candy: 6%DOKIDOKI Mook exclusive photo shoot.
–The outfits and costumes at the New York Easter parade are amazing! Most of the time I’m glad that I don’t live in NYC, but these pictures make me wish I did.

Fat Acceptance
–Girl talk: confessions of a thin-privileged fat activist.
–A letter to the doctor who told me I’d be dead right now because of my fat.
-On a sadly similar note: My doctors are killing me.
-It always makes me happy when I see a fat dancer on my Tumblr dashboard.
–Fat people deserve to eat. So much yes!

Climate Justice and Sustainability
-Bill McKibben has a new piece in Rolling Stone! It’s about the fossil fuel resistance movement, and like everything else he writes, it’s brilliant.
–The Oklahoma grandmother who chained herself to Keystone XL heavy machinery is a total badass.
-I love stories like this: Community thrives along a nearly forgotten slice of an urban river.
–Keystone XL pipeline risks harm to Houston community: “This is obviously environmental racism.”
-A really interesting conversation between James Hansen and Bill McKibben.

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