blooming community zine!

The MSPA PoCC's digital zine Blooming Community is a collection of resources for student organizers of color to use as they decompress from a busy school year.

It centers reflection, rest, and visioning in its collection of films, movies, and activities for students to partake in either individually or as a group. We encourage readers to share this resource with their friends and communities and to think about how care & rest may serve as forces of radical community building. We urge you to take your time with this guide — thumb through it in your free time and turn to it when u need a good book or a silly movie. And when you’re ready, perhaps pick up a pen or a pencil and answer the following question: What do rest & care mean to you? Linger in your answer for a bit.

About MSPA People of Color Caucus The Michigan Student Power Alliance People of Color Caucus is a hybrid virtual/in-person space for organizers of color across the state of Michigan. Each month, we facilitate gatherings on collective strategizing, visioning, healing, rest, collaboration, and knowledge sharing as practices of liberation. Our guiding texts and materials aim to identify interlocking systems of oppression, prioritize restorative work for marginalized people, and solidify points of unity among non-white people within a white supremacist society. We are mindful of the disproportionate labor placed upon organizers and students of color in justice work, and are dedicated to creating a nurturing space in which participants may connect, rejuvenate, and build consciousness together.

We are a Radical Black and Brown, Queer and Trans Affirming, AntiColonial collective of students and young people organized for PoC by PoC. Through practices of rest, reflection, and dialogue, we are dedicated to creating an accessible organizing space dedicated to the cultivation of non-hierarchical fellowship that uplifts and empowers its participants to partake in radical self-care and transformation. We unabashedly reject subscription to any and all forms of oppression, whether conscious or unconscious. As a result, we are committed to examining and holding one another accountable for internalized and intersecting oppressions. The PoC Caucus prioritizes restorative work for marginalized people by developing a space that explicitly aims to be life-giving rather than draining to those who engage with it, and asks organizers of color what their needs and dreams are within and for the space. The PoC Caucus actively responds to the continuously shifting needs and dreams of its participants and the organizers of color, which in turn form the function of the group.

Land Acknowledgement We begin this zine by acknowledging the origins of the state in which organize, Michigan, as the traditional and contemporary home to the Anishinaabe people of the Three Fires Confederacy — the Odawa (Ottawa), the Ojibwe (Chippewa), and the Potawatomi (Bodewadmi) — and the Wyandotte (Wyandot). We would like to uplift that this land was obtained through unconscionable means. This harm was created in large part by major educational institutions such as the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Grand Valley State University and many others who continue to perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities and created a legacy of mockery, erasure, and violence against indigenous people and indigenous land that is still ongoing today.

If you are not in the state of Michigan, we encourage you to look into the history of your Native community by scanning the QR Code

Further, we invite each of you to consider your relationship to the land currently reside on and your understanding of the history associated with it. We recognize that land acknowledgments have often been co-opted and institutionalized by major educational institutions in place of a meaningful practice of decolonization that centers Indigenous voices and the need for land back. We asl that you consider how this may be perpetuated in your own organizing spaces and continue take the time to reflect on this as you move forward in your work.

Table of Contents 1

PoC Joy Watch List

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Restful Reads! Written by PoC Authors

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Love Letter to Yourself ...

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Self-Love Meditation Script

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Paper Arts! Zine & Notebook making

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Journaling Prompts

PoC Joy Watch List — Movies & TV shows made by and featuring by PoC creatives and artists!

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The Watermelon Woman (1996)

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An aspiring Black lesbian filmmaker researches an obscure 1940s black actress billed as the Watermelon Woman.

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Reservation Dogs (2021)

A shy, straight-A ChineseAmerican student helps the school jock woo a girl whom, secretly, they are both crushing on. They find themselves connecting and learn about the nature of love.

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Following the exploits of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma who steal, rob, and save in order to get to the exotic, mysterious and faraway land of California in this Hulu series.

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Heartbreak High (2022) Amerie, along with her news friends Quinni and Darren, must navigate love, sex and heartbreak at Hartley High; TV series set in Australia.

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The Half of It (2020)

Crush (2022) When a young artist is forced to join her high school track team, she uses it as a chance to get closer to her crush. But she finds herself falling for a friend and discovering what real love feels like.

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Abbot Elementary (2021) A group of dedicated, passionate teachers are determined to help their students succeed in life in a Philadelphia public school.

Restful Reads! Written by PoC authors Recommended by our staff, fellows, and alumni

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Be Not Afraid of Love written by Mimi Zhu "Be Not Afraid of Love is a stunning collection of interconnected essays and affirmations that follow Mimi Zhu’s journey toward embodying and re-learning love after a violent relationship.

In their early twenties, queer Chinese-Australian writer and artist Mimi Zhu was a survivor of intimate-partner abuse. This left them broken, in search of ways to heal and find love again. They found that in words. In sharing their own intimate encounters with oppression, healing, joy and community, Mimi invites readers all over the world to reflect deeply on their own experiences, with the intention of acting as a guide to undoing the hurt or uncertainty within them. "

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Brown Girls written by Daphne Palasi Andreades "A blazingly original debut novel told by a chorus of unforgettable voices, Brown Girls illustrates a collective portrait of childhood, adulthood, and beyond, and is a striking exploration of female friendship, a powerful depiction of women of color attempting to forge their place in the world today. For even as the conflicting desires of ambition and loyalty, freedom and commitment, adventure and stability risk dividing them, it is to one another—and to Queens—that the girls ultimately return."

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Like Water for Chocolate written by Laura Esquivel A sumptuous feast of a novel, Like Water for Chocolate relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her, so that Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck, and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.

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Last Night at the Telegraph Club written by Malinda Lo Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

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All About Love by bell hooks ""The word 'love' is most often defined as a noun, yet we would all love better if we used it as a verb," writes bell hooks as she comes out fighting and on fire in All About Love.

Here, at her most provocative and intensely personal, renowned scholar, cultural critic and feminist bell hooks offers a proactive new ethic for a society bereft with lovelessness--not the lack of romance, but the lack of care, compassion, and unity.

People are divided, she declares, by society's failure to provide a model for learning to love."

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Love letter to yourself...

This activity is inspired by an excerpt from "Evidence" by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, in Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, edited by Walidah Imarishi and adrenne maree brown (AK Press, 2015), Read through the excerpt below ...

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After reading the excerpt, take some time to sit with your thoughts.

What feelings does the exceprt evoke for you? Where does your mind wander?

Find a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper. This is a note just for you.

It can be as formal or messy as you would like. It can be handwritten, typed, or maybe even drawn.

Imagine you are living in a post-capitalist society... Write a love letter to yourself. This can be from the same perspective as Alexis — writing to their past self — or it could be from the perspective of the present looking towards a post-capitalist future.

What is the world you want to live in?

How can we make the seemingly imaginary a future?

What is your vision for the future?

Write a vision for yourself...

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Paper Arts! Zine & Notebook making

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Journaling Prompts Feel free to address as much or as little of each prompt. If you aren’t feeling any of the prompts, that is perfectly okay! Do what feels best for you.

Section 1: Take a second to check-in with yourself … How are you feeling today? What is your energy level like? What have you done in the past few days to take care of yourself? Write some affirmations for yourself.

Section 2: Take a second to reflect on the past few months … Where did you begin this semester/late summer & fall? This could be in relation to your physical location but also mentally, physically, and even emotionally. What are some instances in which you wish had done something differently? This can be as an organizer, a friend, etc. How have you reflected on these instances? Where have you seen yourself grow? What have been some of your proudest moments? Write some affirmations for your community.

Section 3: What are you currently putting your energy into? This could be in relation to academics, organizing, hobbies, or whatever comes to mind. What do you hope to invest more energy into?

Are/have there been any barriers or obstacles that have made it more difficult to do so in the past? What are you looking forward to in the coming year? Write some good wishes for your community.

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