Nov 19, 2025 4 min read

Creative Reflections: Reading, Writing & Resistance

Collage with 4 images (top left to bottom right): James Baldwin with mustache, an abstract cityscape, protest flier, protest sign closeup.

Early to Bed, Early to Write

7 AM WRITING GROUP! That’s right, folks. All this month I have been going to bed early and getting up to sign on at 7 AM at least 3 days per week to share 25 minute writing bursts with a group of Black Writers in a program called ‘First, We Write.’ I found this practice community through a Black-run writing community called Harvest of the Griots. Obviously it’s been awesome, as evidenced by me getting up this early for multiple weeks. Showing up (still in bed, often with my bonnet on) is helping me keep my morning pages flowing and with my blog work. Our facilitator Khadijah also challenged us to compose artist statements, to encourage the group to stay ready as we move toward various efforts to publish our work. The space nurtures and promotes discipline in a caring, collective way. I love my people.

Another thing these writing circuits have done is stimulate idea production for writing and more. I have so many ideas about doing liberation movement work and education for resistance! I see possibilities growing from the composting manure dropped by Bovino and his herd of feral pigs. I hope to support capacity building for new activists and skill-ups for our experienced folks. I want to create opportunities to gather and grieve and heal together. And even after losing my job there’s still not enough time! So many cool ideas and so little time.

When AT&T Signs ICE Contracts, What Do We Do…? RISE UP FIGHT BACK!

Hey, did you know that AT&T has telecom contracts with ICE that enable their operations to terrorize communities? On Sunday I joined members of our church to protest the nearest AT&T store, chanting and sharing info with passers by. We got lots of supportive honks from passing drivers. Even though border patrol has left town for now, the evil carries on, apace. We can’t afford to keep trying to revert “back to normal” whenever flashpoints cool down; if the tyranny keeps going, so do we!

So please find an alternative to AT&T for your Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

Picture of a flier for a protest reads: AT&T ❤️ ICE; AT&T: STOP CONTRACTING WITH ICE; Sunday, Nov. 16th 2PM - 3PM Outside the AT&T store…

Photo: A. Danner

A crowd of people protest with signs outside an AT&T store; a man in the foreground speaks into a megaphone.

Photo: Joerg Metzner, Evanston Roundtable (link below). Hey, there’s my buddy Steve, protesting ATT’s complicity in state sanctioned terror against our friends, family, and neighbors! Protests happened around the country. Here’s what it looked like in our town: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/11/16/protesters-target-att/

Honestly, you can follow Trump money back to so many corporations who expect us to just accept it and focus on holiday shopping or bear cups or whatever the fuck… please shop local and shop small if you’re doing holiday gifts and celebrations. Donating to family fundraisers, mutual aid and relief efforts are also great ways to send a message to the rich folks profiting off of depravity that is even MORE DEPRAVED than usual. Enough is well beyond enough. Forget Amazon and Bezos and all those fascism enablers licking fascist boots; let’s keep our dollars in our communities. Let’s invest in mutual aid. I want to be able to tell future generations, “Of course we sacrificed deals on electronics to force AT&T to drop their ICE contracts, and so you could have clean water and to push genocidal corporations to change their evil ways! And I’d do it again!”

What I’m Reading: In the Sun, of a Son

Collage of two audiobook cover images: Left, James Baldwin’s ‘Notes of a Native Son’ and right, Lorraine Hansberry’s ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’

I finally listened to a recording of A Raisin in the Sun. It captured me and I listened to the whole thing in one sitting. Reading plays has not usually translated well to me; the performance really pulls it together. The skilled expression of emotion and timing matter more, in my opinion. It is a brilliant work of art - layering so much meaning and depth and tension into such a tight space, literally and figuratively. My interest in Lorraine Hansberry grew out of reading her biography penned by Imani Perry - a brilliant work in its own right which I highly recommend. I decided to engage with the famous play because we had been talking about Richard Wright and James Baldwin in ‘First, We Write.’ One of the writers mentioned that she found a copy of Notes of a Native Son in a bookstore for a good price and I realized this would be a good time for me to read more Baldwin. Then I thought of the friendship between Baldwin, Hansberry and Nina Simone, beautifully described in Perry’s Looking for Lorraine. From here it was easy to decide to read Hansberry alongside Baldwin and let their Black intellectual legacies gather and mingle in my mind. I’m glad I did. Hansberry’s depictions of the multitudes that exist within one microcosm of Blackness is are complex and finely tuned… Baldwin’s intellect is so sharp and his observations of human behavior so relentlessly thoughtful… It is a soothing cocktail of fire and lightning.

Okay, time to wrap this up. I have a course to prep for, but first food to eat and meds to take. Thank you for being here, and take good care of each other!

In solidarity and gratitude,

💖, Atena