Author: mara.ahmed

My workouts

wanted to give a shout-out to my trainer Julie Zobel. with all the changes in my life – leaving a community that’s home to me, trying to settle in long island in the midst of a pandemic, being in a small space with all the books/objects that provide continuity, familiarity stored elsewhere, getting used to a different rhythm, pace, place, people and accent (!!!) – the one thing i’ve counted on are my workouts. we do them in a smallish space in my bedroom, but they’re still challenging, designed for me specifically, and never boring. all i use is a mat.

i trained with julie at a gym for a long time, and the transition to virtual workouts has been seamless.

it’s safer to exercise at home. message Julie Zobel to get more info.

The Injured Body: Liz Nicolas

Transcribing interviews for my new doc ‘The Injured Body’

Anti-racism consultant, yoga instructor, and attorney Liz Nicolas (owner of Black Amethyst) speaks about ‘prophetic imagination’:

‘I think that we’ve been socialized to make sure that white people are okay. So that we can be okay. And that is a sad, violent way to exist. I’m not interested in doing that anymore. So I’ve been trying to take steps in the other direction. I’m still not sure what that world can fully look like… It feels like something that’s so different than what my experience has been. And it feels like there’s this way in which I’m just waking up to it, being aware of it, seeing it, and trying to figure out how can I exist differently? How can I breathe differently? How can I be differently? How can I be different than what’s been happening – the ways in which I get squished out, or the ways in which I have to almost lop off parts of myself in order to fit into some white, patriarchal structure. Not interested in that anymore.’

microaggressions #racism #patriarchy #feminism #womenofcolor #film #documentary #theinjuredbody #neelumfilms #rochesterny #microaggressionsareracism #microaggressionsarereal

My vote

I wrote this weeks ago. I will be voting for Biden. It was hard for me to write this, but I’ve been transparent about my political thinking, so here goes. I have absolutely no faith in Biden and I will not be holding my breath for him/Harris to fix the catastrophe that is America. We must do so ourselves.

I will vote for Biden as a f–k you to Trump Nazis – to all the white people with ‘Trump 2020’ stickers on their cars and ‘Make American Great Again’ signs outside their homes. The RNC had KKK vibes, the MAGA procession I saw yesterday was so full of itself – white supremacy must be disrupted, even if it’s with something as wedded to the system as Biden (I know this is what the Dems are depending on, but who cares). People of color make up 40% of this country. Let’s make them feel it.

Let’s not delude ourselves. Dems count on their privilege just as much as Republicans. They will never overhaul a system that codifies that entitlement. How can any decent human being oppose Medicare for All in the midst of a pandemic? It’s beyond belief.

Also, representation doesn’t go very far when it’s only a symbol of individual success. Unless POCs in power challenge existing systems and try to make life better for the marginalized, their ‘diversity’ is just about optics.

Finally, Democrats love war. If they win (and that’s a big if), they will be jonesing for more bloodshed abroad. Just remember that imperialism IS racism. If they kill Black and Brown people over there, they will also murder them locally. Probably with the same military equipment, and by appealing to similar fears. So don’t buy any War on Terror bs or get all nostalgic about Obama, the drone president.

Vote for Biden to get Trump supporters out of our faces. They don’t even wear masks.

Trump rally

we decided to go to a car wash on jericho turnpike today and got stuck in the middle of a huge trump 2020 rally. 100s of trucks, jeeps and cars, all fitted with flags, honking aggressively, white people sitting in the back of pickup trucks shouting and waving banners, women screaming ‘four more years’ from their car windows, cheerleaders in full trump regalia cheering them on at major intersections. the procession was never-ending. went on for almost an hour as i stood by the side of the road taking pictures. what was more unsettling than the rally itself were other drivers honking to show their support and brandishing their fists in the air. a veritable nazi spectacle.

Nothing we do is unplaced

Whatever is true for space and time, this much is true for place: we are immersed in it and could not do without it. To be at all—to exist in any way— is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place. Place is as requisite as the air we breathe, the ground on which we stand, the bodies we have. We are surrounded by places. We walk over and through them. We live in places, relate to others in them, die in them. Nothing we do is unplaced.

Howard Zinn: Don’t Despair about the Supreme Court

Howard Zinn: Let us not be disconsolate over the increasing control of the court system by the right wing.

The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, “Equal Justice Before the Law,” have always been a sham.

No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence–an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–be fulfilled. More here.

violence on women’s bodies

whether violence is related to the state and its need to control/suppress, capitalism and the policing of racial and caste hierarchies, or patriarchal iterations of societies and religions, somehow it always ends up being inscribed intimately on the bodies of women.

from the gang rape in pakistan where a woman was dragged from her car and assaulted in front of her children, to the story of an 86-year old grandmother raped and brutalized in india, from the sterilization of women via large numbers of unexplained hysterectomies in american concentration camps run by ICE, to the use of tear gas and other chemical weapons on protestors when they disrupt women’s menstrual cycles and are linked to higher rates of miscarriage and stillbirth, the spectacle of sadist transgressions against women’s bodies and minds continues. it’s hard to take.

Aur Woh Rapist Ho Tum – Chile Anthem in Pakistan

Members of Aurat March in Karachi perform ‘Un Violador en Tu Camino,’ the Chilean protest song about rape culture and victim shaming that’s become an international feminist anthem. They say:
Lend your voice in solidarity with survivors. Lend your voice in anger to say, “Never Again”. We know who the rapists are. We will not allow rape to go unpunished. We will not tolerate a culture that enables rapists. We are not victims. We are not helpless. United, our power is enough.

The Injured Body: Lauren Jimerson

Transcribing interviews for my new doc ‘The Injured Body’

Lauren Jimerson, art therapist and fine artist, originally from the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, near Buffalo, shares the story of a recent micro-aggression:

And she’s like, ‘Where do I know you from?’ and, I said, ‘I don’t know’, like I go a lot of places… I said, ‘Well, I’m affiliated with Ganondagan, have you ever been there?’ And she said no. And then she made a comment about how she thought, or she knew (I feel like she might have said she knew) I had to be Asian, or Oriental, or she said something like that. And, I personally took offense to it.

And it’s not the thought of being Asian. It’s connected to this idea that Native Americans look a certain way. You know, due to images that are out there, in mainstream media, and there’s also the concept of like, all the Indians are dead, you know, like they don’t exist anymore. And even though I mentioned Ganondagan and at one point I said something about being Native American, she still was like, I was Asian.
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microaggressions #racism #womenofcolor #film #documentary #theinjuredbody #neelumfilms #rochesterny #microaggressionsareracism #microaggressionsarereal