I am so excited to share The Brooklyn Players Reading Society’s new music with you! Come back tomorrow to hear One Day, our new EP, and follow along all week as we share a little story about each song every day.
Bandcamp: The BPRS
Facebook: @TheBPRS
Instagram: @beckyfinefiresheets and @mimewars
YouTube: The Brooklyn Players Reading Society
One Day, an EP by The Brooklyn Players Reading Society, is coming December 15, 2020! Stay tuned to thebprs.com.
Follow and like us?
Bandcamp: The BPRS
Facebook: @TheBPRS
Instagram: @beckyfinefiresheets and @mimewars
YouTube: The Brooklyn Players Reading Society
Casey Goodson Jr should still be alive.
This has to change. Cops have to stop murdering black people. It’s not a cop’s job to kill anyone, period. It just isn’t. These bullshit excuses they give are atrocious. It’s simple: STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE.
What will it take for white people to wake up, to get over themselves enough to see the terror our black neighbors live in, to accept that it is our job as white people to do something to change this?
I am so fed up. I don’t know what to do. I’ll keep diving into my own antiracism work, and I’ll keep sharing ways for you to do the work, too, but sometimes it feels like I’m yelling into a void while black people keep dying. How much yelling will it take?
Please consider making a donation to Casey’s family: www.gofundme.com/justiceforcaseygoodson.
I am thrilled to announce that in just two short weeks, my musical duo The Brooklyn Players Reading Society will be releasing One Day, a new EP recorded with Salmak Khaledi over at Magnetic Pink Studios. Be sure to follow The BPRS on all the socials and stay tuned to thebprs.com to be the first to hear our new tunes!
Bandcamp: The BPRS
Facebook: @TheBPRS
Instagram: @beckyfinefiresheets
YouTube: The Brooklyn Players Reading Society
Website: thebprs.com
This month marks 18 years living in the Northeast, 13 of them in Brooklyn. Before that I spent 18 years in KY. And now, in the same month in which I crossed this personal threshold of an equal number of years here as there, I find myself packing up my apartment and moving back to Middle America because Dave and I can no longer afford the rent.
Covid did the unthinkable: it shut down New York City’s entertainment and nightlife industry. Dave, like so many others, is out of work indefinitely. It’s a huge loss, not just of income but of a whole community.
But get this – my sister, Kelly, bought the house next door to my sibling, Max, then invited us to spend the upcoming year in one big Covid family compound. Four adults (aka my three moms and a Dave), four kids, two dogs, and one cat, doing our best to make it through this pandemic, this curse/gift of remote school and virtual offices, this country’s blatant racism, this frightening election season, this even more frightening climate crisis, together.
When I first left for college in Boston, I never would have guessed that I would fall in love with the Northeast, that I would come to identify myself as a New Yorker, as a part of the city, the city a part of me. It is hard to leave; there is sadness to be felt. But I am also very excited. Covid has pushed me into a place I never would have imagined. It’s scary and beautiful and full of magic. I am so grateful to have landed like this.
Will we return to a life in Brooklyn? I hope so. But these days, who knows what the future will bring. I’m still setting goals and dreaming dreams, but I’m not committing myself to any of them. Truth is, we never knew – and will never know – what the future holds for us. We humans built a society and made plans that gave us a false sense of control, of power, of certainty. We trusted it would continue despite how shaky, broken, and inherently oppressive it all is. Covid has changed me. It has changed us all. I would never choose any of this, but now that it’s here, I want to be changed by it.
I might not know where I’ll be living, what I’ll be doing, or what our country will even look like in a year from now, but what I do know is that I will never stop trying to bring a little more peace, justice, and joy into this existence. Too many people, especially people of color and immigrants, are not landing like my family is. Instead they are being murdered by police. They are being beaten and thrown into cages by ICE. They are being told that their lives don’t matter as much as the walls of their neighbors’ houses. They are being harassed by landlords, forcing them to choose between paying for food or paying for rent. There is no going back. And why would we? Our country was founded upon genocide and built upon slavery. All of its systems are rooted in white supremacy and the exploitation of labor. Our entire world is burning, literally and metaphorically.
This is our opportunity to transform.
Y’all, I won 2nd place in the Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship! Plus they wrote the most flattering description about my story, 2021, on their blog. I am floating.
It’s organizations like Pen Parentis that keep hope alive in us writerparents, even during these dark and exhausting times. Not only do they provide this fellowship every year, but they also host monthly literary salons, weekly accountability meet-ups, and multiple other community-building events, all centered around inspiring, motivating, and celebrating parents who just want to keep writing but have so much standing between them and their words. Learn more about their work, history, and future events by visiting their website at penparentis.org and/or following them on Instagram: @PenParentis and Twitter: @PenParentis.
And speaking of events, stay tuned for details on a special Zoom salon this fall in which I’ll be reading my prize-winning story!
Image created by Ariel Sinha
It has been four months since Louisville police officers burst into Breonna Taylor’s home and murdered her in her sleep, and you know what? The three police officers who killed her are taking vacations. Eating dinners with their families. Posting pictures of themselves on Instagram. Collecting their paychecks. Living their lives.
You know who isn’t living her life? Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, wife, daughter, friend, and so much more, who was SLEEPING IN HER HOME when she was shot and killed by police.
There was so much negligence surrounding this case and yet there is no justice at all. Two of the officers are even still working! None of them have been charged. Eighty-seven protestors have been charged with felonies, yet these murderers are out there free.
I know you’re tired. I am, too. And I know everything feels hopeless sometimes. But we cannot give into those feelings.
Get involved. Stay involved.
Ways to keep fighting for Breonna:
How many more black people need to be murdered in order for white people to care?
Breonna Taylor, murdered in her sleep by police officers who forced their way intoThis is on us. We as white people have to take action, and we have to constantly engage in our own anti-racism work in order to understand how we benefit from white supremacy, how we contribute to it, and how we can undo the hurtful, dangerous, racial biases that exist inside all of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re “one of the good ones.” Are you white in America? That means you have work to do.
Our country is not safe for people of color. Our entire system is built upon genocide, slavery, and white supremacy, and that didn’t just go away when the Civil War ended. BIPOC have been terrorized by white people since the founding of the U.S.A. and they continue to be hunted down, jailed, and murdered by hateful white people who are encouraged and emboldened by a hateful system and a hateful history. It is on all of our white shoulders to stop this.
George Floyd, pinned to the ground and murdered by a police officer.I am embarrassed. In my last post, I dove deep into my own pain about Covid and described what it has done to NYC, yet I did not at all examine what it has done to communities of color, what our police force and many healthcare providers and our “justice” system have done – and keep doing – to people of color. I threw in a few sentences about recognizing my white privilege and felt like that was enough. It took someone calling me out on Facebook for me to realize it absolutely isn’t enough at all.
Recognizing privilege is not the same as taking action. White people MUST ACT. Where is our outrage? Are we just so used to seeing black bodies pinned under white peoples’ knees, to seeing them dead in the streets, that we don’t feel anything in response?
I’m going to unplug for a bit and dedicate the time I would be spending on blogging and social media toward engaging in anti-racism work instead, both in myself and in my community. Sharing my personal story doesn’t matter right now. Nothing else matters right now.
Get to work.
Resources for Anti-Racism Work
Organizations to Follow
Instagram Accounts to Follow
There’s an inspiring and educational dialogue happening on Instagram about race relations, art, music, gender identity, American history, and how this all intersects. Do not follow these accounts if you have not already started on your own work. It is not okay to go into their spaces and be disrespectful or to center the discussion around yourself. This is a wonderful opportunity to listen to and learn from others. Don’t waste it.
Also, find out what district you live in and which politicians represent you so that you can start making those calls and sending those tweets.
Photo Credits
1. Instagram/@keyanna.guifarro
2. Offices of Ben Crump Law
Becky Fine-Firesheets 