Burn Something Zine | Oct 2015 | Issue 4: Survival

Burn Something Zine is a submission-based, queer-inclusive alternative media space focused on amplfying the voices of women of color and creating physical and non-physical space for connection and community building.

Burn Something Zine only publishes work by women of color and is run by the Burn Something Collective in Minneapolis, MN. We are a group of women of color that hosts events, writing circles, workshops, etc.

If you are interested in becoming a part of the collective, please email us.

Calls for submissions are annouced periodically.

Please send your questions and written or visual submissions to burnsomethingzine@gmail.com.

How/what/why have you survived? What does survival taste like? What do you do with it?

Send us your survival tips, strategies, diagrams, descriptions, lists, photos, thoughts, exclamations, dreams, tools, etc.

The Survuval Issue of Burn Something Zine is dedicated to Andrew Thomas.

“Whenever we are building power and building community we are fulfilling Andrew’s wishes.”

Untitled // Margo Terc

so blk, so blu (sad blk girl ft. rosemarie auberson) // Mary Lodu

Rabbits Running in the Dark // Bri Lopez Donovan There's an overwhelming helplessness in watching history repeat itself Three generations now and it's still a broken record here.

I can only hope this time we won't sleep with scissors under our pillows Casting glances over our shoulders, Cringing at every raised voice, or sudden movement.

We live like rabbits running in the dark, Constantly in search, frantic for cover Every cracking twig a threat.

Even when we leave the warren, move on to greener pastures and safer spaces, the feeling never goes away.

Quick glances from the corner of your eye, startled breath, a clenched ďŹ st, and those god damned scissors under your pillow.

These things never really leave us. We never breath the same. We will always ache for some sense of normalcy.

So we run, rabbits in the dark, rapid hearts, digging new warrens by nightfall, in hopes that this time, things will be different.

#034 (Manic Mondays) // Nancy Musinguzi

#011 (The Potential Legacy of Donald Trump) // Nancy Musinguzi

The Streets is Hot // Adrienne Doyle Social media and my blackness have allowed the walls of my personal life to grow thin. Minneapolis is home and white and suffocating, and the microaggressions are real. Progressive thinkpieces and cellphone video recordings of black and brown people being harassed, assaulted, and murdered by police coat my Facebook and Tumblr newsfeeds. Streets and struggles much further than the ones just outside my door are much more accessible to my daily life.

Within the past couple of years, social media has become the primary tool for disseminating information about instances of black death at the hands of police, and inciting involvement in actions and campaigns for police accountability, prisoners’ rights, and the dismantling of structural racism.

Traditional news outlets have always been racist and untrustworthy, and the people are documenting their stories of grief and rebellion for themselves.

Right now, Baltimore is rising. Police said Freddie Gray severed his own spine while he was in their custody, and the people who peacefully protested his death were met with riot police, racial epithets, and flying bricks. Now they’re breaking shit. Twitter and Tumblr are being used to share information in real time and the news channels stay valuing property over black lives and narratives. Black people are tired, and the streets is HOT. XXX

I’ve never written about my experience in Ferguson before. I road tripped there with four other black and brown community members to be in physical solidarity with Ferguson protesters and to grieve and to love during the mass mobilization effort, Ferguson October. It was the first protest I’d ever been to. I experienced a lot of things I don’t know how to talk about, felt a lot of emotions that I still haven’t processed, and found truths about myself that I still don’t want to admit to. We met Ferguson residents who had been organizing and protesting there since August 9th, 2014.

We visited Michael Brown's and Vonderitt Myers’ vigils, and we were shoved out of the way by reporters hungry for the best camera angle. We witnessed young local organizers and residents demand and obtain the mic at a talk featuring Cornel West that felt more like a sensationalized sermon from various religious leaders.

XXX

On the Monday night that the non-indictment for Darren Wilson was announced, my house was filled with black women. We talked about black womanhood and white mothers and queerness, and once the announcement was made, we sat on my kitchen floor and wept and held each other. That night, some of us went to Neighborhoods Organizing for Change in North Minneapolis and watched slanted news coverage of fires and riots and black pain in Ferguson, MO. XXX

I called into work this morning because I couldn’t get out of bed. My spirit had no reason to. I had planned to go to the march that my roommate helped organize in response to the non-indictment announcement for the Eric Garner case. I ended up not going to that either. Social media can help you stay informed, but it’s not great for holding people accountable for showing up IRL. Instead, I laid in bed scrolling through Tumblr and happened upon the cellphone video that documented eleven minutes of what happened after police used an illegal chokehold on Garner. He was on the ground, handcuffed. The police kept trying to wake him up. I heard helicopters from outside my window and saw on Facebook that the march had shut down the 35W highway.

XXX I’m not able to offer a larger truth as an answer to the prompt. I’m caught up in some type of fake/real complacency, still wrestling my desire for any type of peace of mind and environment against my need to show up for my community and our right to live without imposed criminality. My grief and my hope are unsteadily bound together and I feel dizzy. I need some grass to lie in.

XXX