Today I did a couple of searches I wasn't expecting: Tyvek suits and portaloos. I found these jazzy numbers, but they're not Tyvek, which is a Dupont brand and used all over as PPE. #tyvektogether is a thing now.
Tyvek is excellent. I'm not sure what its original purpose was, but it's a paper-like, super strong and waterproof material. Often used as a waterproof layer around house insulation, it's made into suits for people who work in industrial or hazardous situations. I'm surprised it's not used more in fashion, but there you go. It's going to be very hot this week, apparently even up to 30'C, so I'm hoping to get out and about in it, but want to be safe. And I expect most of my other fellow citizens will be trying to do the same thing. Isn't it funny how whether or not you can go to the loo is now a keystone for any kind of adventuring?
Meanwhile, research continued today as I watched I am not your Negro, a film built up around a script/story written by James Baldwin about America and its normalised entrenched racism. It's all fucking bad news, and it's no wonder Black people are all so, so tired of living it. Baldwin gets more astonishing the more I learn about him. I feel like I'm beginning to get a small hold on the scale of the beast and the depth of it all. Maybe more in the USA than UK though, which is something to work on. I'll pick up Reni Eddo-Lodge's podcast, About Racism with Reni Eddo-Lodge. I was sorry to read today that she's conflicted about becoming the first Black British author at the top of the book sales charts here at this moment: 'The debate on racism is a game to some and I don't want to play'. I've been connected with a remarkable document called White Supremacy Culture, from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork. It was published in 2001. It's online under the domain of the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop in San Francisco - I didn't come across this organisation during the nine years I lived there. I'm finding this document hard to consume. It points to some facets of many of our workplaces and explains carefully why they promote white supremacy. Things like perfectionism, paternalism, and either/or thinking. It suggests antidotes. One of the things I heard from Angela Davis in her 2006 lecture (linked yesterday) was that diversity is not a visual effect. From the CWSD:
One of the purposes of listing characteristics of white supremacy culture is to point out how organizations which unconsciously use these characteristics as their norms and standards make it difficult, if not impossible, to open the door to other cultural norms and standards. As a result, many of our organizations, while saying we want to be multicultural, really only allow other people and cultures to come in if they adapt or conform to already existing cultural norms. Being able to identify and name the cultural norms and standards you want is a first step to making room for a truly multi-cultural organization.
I was glad to read the news that Mumbling Cheeto Fascist Whatshisname's Tulsa appearance was a giant flop, allegedly thanks to thousands of teens on TikTok and K-Pop networks who fake-booked all the seats and then didn't show up. I think that's absolutely brilliant. I enjoyed how all the photojournalists made sure there were lots of empty seats in the background in all the photographs. I didn't see any articles that reported on what he actually said. #tyvektogether indeed.
Happy Father's Day, darling Dad. xo