resistance is
fertile
Vol.
1 Iss. 4
Aug
2017
The Talent Arif Ahmad
14
Heath Brougher
8
Adam Brown
6-7
BT Hathaway
4
Frederick Pollack
3
Adam Snavely
5
Chris Talbot-Heindl
10-12, 13
Jose Varghese
9
Frederick Pollack | Captain Cutter | poetry
The family was wealthy. By 1920, as much had been done as possible for his face: celluloid, plaster, wires. By ’21, he could put it on himself, and usually wore it, whether or not he had visitors. After a few more years he could move unaided from his bed to a chair overlooking the grounds. That was his great accomplishment of the decade, unless one counts crises involving fevers, feeding, waste, that were arduously overcome. He still never spoke, however, though urged to use his reconstructed palate. With the Thirties came setbacks, infections, stays in hospital that evidently distressed him. Returned to his chair, he listened, much of the day, to radio. Survivors of his regiment brought books, reminisced about absent friends, and smoked and drank alone. His nurse, though devoted to him, left to be married; her replacement was equally efficient and kind. When war came, it appeared a ministry would seize the house and relocate him (where?), but that didn’t happen. Two bombs fell on the village. Perhaps as a result of these shocks, the Captain seemed to be failing, but one night he spoke to the nurse. He told her not to fear; that from all this a better world would come, where people would be as good as she, and take care of one another. The nurse wept. She was deeply moved by the fact that he had spoken, though she hadn’t understood what he said. 3
BT Hathaway | undertow | poetry
i sense the undertow of history licking at my ankles, looking for an unsteady moment to pull me down and out to sea with the waves the pangs of not wanting to hear any more of the hollowings and bereftments of leaders throughout america’s government underway, and the unsettling awareness this country has died, all in a matter of months all momentums of world leadership undone! never to retrieve not in my lifetime or others–if ever and any sense of outrage drowns as it would on a windy day at the beach, dragged under by dread, and the knowing i must defend what little i have against the greedy, now free to prowl, free to pillage, free to kill, under rule of the law
Adam Snavely | On My Birthday | Poetry
I keep thinking of fevers and how the body waves gently at death as it tries to kill off what ails it. I keep thinking of the Earth and how it’s doing the same thing. I try sending up smoke signals to let it know that I am one of the good ones.
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Adam Brown | Bigotry: As American as Apple Pie | poetry Beautiful hand of justice clenching the ripened fruit that is marriage equality Best hurry to eat that fruit before restriction after restriction hits the political tornado When the judge of our love comes in the form of picket signs and angry mouths There is but one thing to do Offer them the spoiled apples to make Red-blooded American Pie and hope that at least one of the seeds of love blossoms inside of them Their hatred changed by a piece of apple pie? It would be banned Can you imagine the political uproar of Apple Pie being banned from state to state? The calamitous upheaval of the pie industry at the hands of the far right! Can you imagine? You see, some people would give everything to smash equal rights
They would give anything to crush those sweetened apples to a pulp, only to hoard the cider for themselves Pseudo-superiority is drinking apple cider on the back deck of a mini-mansion somewhere out in the country While we trudge to get the basic right to not be discriminated against at work While we deal with business owners who refuse us service While we fight for the right to adopt a child These All-American apples are growing rotten and the supremacists are still hungry even after they’ve had more than enough Perhaps it’s time that we wrestled for our seat at the dinner table and demanded something else to eat
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Heath Brougher | Trump Was Right | poetry
Trump did not win the Presidential Election. It was hatred that won the Presidential Election. All those bigots running deep into the valleys of America where the hills have eyes finally received their spokesperson. They could finally unleash all that latent racism and homophobia and Xenophobia that lay quiet as a landmine just waiting for detonation. These vicious voices were finally given a platform and they ate it right up like swine from a trough. Trump was right. He could have stood in the street and shot someone without losing a single vote because it was never about that. For it was hatred that won the election.
Jose Varghese | End of Fear | poetry Long time back, had all the kids in the world run in fear, away from the whirring metal birds in the sky? Had grown-ups intervened, weaving fear-melting stories, reminding them of the homecoming of a father/mother from across the ocean, of bowing to the kindness of nations which drop food packets from above, of praising Science which turns crops to gold with the pesticide-showers, of falling in love with their own future-flying, to capture visions of the little blue globe the way an eagle does... inane stories that try in vain to fight primal fears?
Now, when the grown-ups are scared of the sound of firecrackers or even buzzing mosquitoes, the children have their revenge. “Here comes a missile! Was that a bomb just swishing past?” they chirrup, clowning around for those who stay locked up in fear. One day, when they couldn’t stand the deadly silence any more, they return from school in the form of coloured masses scattered within coffins. Let some sounds come back to our homes at least this way, they must have thought, let it be the end, of all fear.
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Chris Talbot-Heindl | A Reaction to Charlottesville | Essay I’ve been shouting into the void about the disenfranchised in our society for decades. Partly selfishly, since I identify as non-binary, pansexual, and I am half-person-of-color. But I wasn’t afraid of white supremacists – not in the way you’re traditionally scared of groupings of people with thoughts to exterminate you – until last weekend. My fear had been reserved for the people in my life who I knew. The people who continued to post racist memes blaming immigrants and people of color for their problems; who condemned me for participating in protests against Trump; and who weren’t deterred by Trump’s bigotry when they cast their vote. And my fear was of isolation, not of actual violence. I pass as white, I pass as female, I pass as straight – I have that privilege. But then, a white supremacist mowed over people, tossing the bodies of protestors around. A group of white men beat a black man with metal pipes. A neo-Nazi sucker punched a woman in the face after verbally terrorizing her. A VICE video showed us just how much hatred and conviction these white supremacists and Nazis have and informed us that they have been organizing and collecting caches of weapons for such an event. Now I’m scared for those in my community who don’t have the same ability to pass as I do. The reason they claimed to be there, in press conferences after the fact, and the excuse that “good white” people on my Facebook gave for their gathering, was to use their First Amendment right to protest the removal of Confederate statues that they consider part of their “heritage” and “culture.” Thanks to the Internet age, journalists easily found old calls-to-action and realize this was one of many planned shows of force. But let’s pretend for a minute it was about statues and flags, just to dismantle it. First off, Robert E. Lee would roll in his grave. In 1869, he denounced the building of Confederate monuments as he believed it would prevent the country from healing. In that, he seems to be right. 152 years after the Civil War ended, we still have some white folk who believe that their “way of life” was irrevocably stolen from them and they need to “take arms” to recover it. These pillars to the thwarted treasonous leaders and to the Confederacy itself weren’t erected until after Plessy vs. Ferguson, as the NAACP was being founded, and right before the Klan reinstated itself in our cultural fabric in 1915. These monstrosities were purposely placed in public areas like at schools, parks, and government buildlings, where those who considered themselves superior could lord them over the people of color. They were placed to let black people know which pigmentation was in charge. Confederate flags never rose to prominence until the Civil Rights era. So, it would seem that if there was an historical context of these abominable symbols, the context would be intimidation and control. Trump’s slippery slope argument and whataboutisms – inventing the term “alt-left,” conflating the
traitors of the Confederacy with our (very flawed) founding fathers, and stating that the left was just as responsible for the violence as the right – continues to stoke the fire after the fact and embolden the white nationalist movement. Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white nationalist Richard Spence (of the Nazi-punch fame) made sure to thank him for his support. We’ve been told that the president is quite pleased with himself. Sure, there were Antifa in Charlottesville on Saturday. But as the Tweet states:
The moral false equivalency is staggering and the sheer number of people shouting it all over social media is infuriating. The Antifa and the black bloc participate in all protests and engage in civil disobedience and property damage at most protests. On Saturday, they caused or joined some skirmishes, but they do not commit terrorism. The white supremacists were there, calling for the murder of brown, black, LGBTIQ, Muslim, and Jewish Americans. They killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more using a vehicle as a deadly weapon and savagely beat Deandre Harris with metal poles. Saturday in Charlottesville was a surprise for most “good white” Americans in my social media feeds. But for those of us who are brown, black, LGBTIQ, Muslim, and/or Jewish, it was a vindication of all the times we shouted it out and were subsequently silenced by “good white” people saying we were being reactionary or to “wait and see.” We saw this coming a mile away. Although I was appalled and devastated, I was not surprised. Maybe a little surprised. I can’t count all the times I was asked by “good white” friends and family why I always make it about race, or sexual orientation, or gender identity, or faith. I’ve internalized the rebuke more than a couple of times, wondering if I was overreacting or if I was interpreting intentions incorrectly. Charlottesville proved that I never overreacted. If anything, I underreacted and was not prepared even though I had ample time and early signs. And now, those same “good white” friends and family are condemning the Antifa, calling for non-violent vigils exclusively, telling us to pray and be colorblind, using hashtags like “#ThisIsNotUs,” co-opting hashtags like “#SayHerName,” encouraging people to stop the “hate on both sides,” and telling people to
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Chris Talbot-Heindl | A Reaction to Charlottesville (continued)
stop talking politics and instead flood Facebook with messages of positivity and love. No. These platitudes are useless and insulting. This is most certainly “us” and has been since our nation’s founding. Our whole society is built on the normalization of cishet white Christians and the “otherization” of everyone else. Those considered “normal” are born with all the rights this nation has built into their identity from birth; the “others” have to fight for their rights piecemeal. And as history has most definitely shown, sometimes fights for those rights require actual fighting. Where would the LGBTIQ community be if a black transwoman hadn’t thrown the first brick? All these empty phrases do is allow “good white” people to distance themselves from the white supremacists and call their work done. “I’m not one of them, I’m one of the good ones.” Your brown, black, LGBTIQ, Muslim, and Jewish friends and family don’t need to be told how good you are right now. This time in history is not about you. It’s not about your feelings. It’s not about if you want to react to this thought-piece with “not me!” or “not all white people!” when you read it. This is about brown, black, LGBTIQ, Muslim, and Jewish people’s safety and security. And it’s about an organized, heavily-armed, and very threatening community of white supremacists and Nazis that has decided that they want to exterminate the “others” – a group that has the backing of the President of the United States and the protection of the police force. If you want to be an ally, as opposed to a “good white” person, do the work. Combat your racial biases. Every. Damn. Day. It’s not enough to not use racial slurs, not make racist jokes, not commit hate crimes personally, or not be a Nazi. That’s not enough to be considered “not a racist.” Racism isn’t a binary thing. Accept that you are racist – we all are. We all have preconceived notions of other people based on the communities they hail from that have been ingrained and taught to us since birth. Your first reaction to a person you’ve never spoken to is evidence of that. What you do next is what makes you an ally or not. Combat your prejudices, challenge the prejudices of people around you, and battle systemic prejudices whenever and wherever you can. And for the love of all that is holy, don’t answer this piece with “not all white people!” That is lazy, mediocre, and not at all what an ally would do. Do more. Because in all honesty, I’m tired. I’m downright exhausted. I’ve been shouting into the void for decades. And for decades, my “good white” friends and family have been responding, “Oh, Chris! You’ve got such an imagination. And you know, we’re not all like that.”
*reading about Charlottesville*
*Representatives emailed*
*Internetting Intensifies*
*donations made*
*offers phone call to someone in spoonie group struggling*
“What are you doing?”
THIS PIECE ISN’T FUNNY. THERE’S NO JOKE. WE ALL NEED TO DO WHAT WE CAN with the spoons we have EVERY DAMN DAY TO MAKE SURE THAT WE STOP THE TIDE OF HATRED, BIGOTRY, AND VIOLENCE THAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. DO WHAT YOU NEED TO FOR SELF CARE, BUT ALSO DO WHAT YOU CAN. “WHAT I CAN WITH THE SPOONS I HAVE.”
Chris Talbot-Heindl | Spoons of Justice | Digital Comic 13
Arif Ahmad | Pink | Poetry
People pitched against People For the right of passage Action and reaction, equal and opposite My two hands Left and right Fight Turn it over to the Women On a journey between a male chauvinist and a feminist Pink it Clap with one hand and with the other erase legacy I to mine and you play to your gallery Decency What decency Abstract honesty Pink is the new me Not white, black, brown, yellow There is simply one Of love, friendship, kindness The shade we are born in Pink is us
Resistance is Fertile The Talbot-Heindls, on top of being creative types, are also political animals who love the creativity and strength of the resistance movement. And we know that people have a lot to say about the current political climate. That’s why we created the compzine project Resistance is Fertile. Resistance is Fertile is a compzine for artists, poets, prose writers, or anyone else who has something to say about the current political resistance - fact or fiction.
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