Sameer Vasta

An admission that comes as no surprise to anyone that knows me well: I cry easily.

I cry when I watch a sad movie, or a happy one; I cry at commercials that tug at the heartstrings; I cry when I hear stories of courage and perseverance and heartbreak. I tear up when I think of the sacrifices my family made to let me become who I am, and I sob when I think of all the hardship of others just to carve out a life of peace and opportunity.

I've been crying more than usual, these days. The tears haven't been effusive, but instead short bursts of emotion, a few drops from the eyes and shudders of the shoulders when I think of this geopolitical tempest surrounding us.

When I am ashamed of my crying, ashamed of my inability to keep all this strife and struggle hidden inside me, I think of the words of Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning:

But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”

(The preceding was an overview of the notes I took while reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning in January 2017. Originally published on inthemargins.ca .)

This book punched me right in the gut. (That same gut that makes me feel miserable about myself every single day.) Ooof. Lots to unpack here—I'll be reeling for a few days.

During the budget debates at London City Council last week, one city councillor—a young Black woman, the only woman of colour on city council—rightfully identified a proposed policy as anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and anti-poverty. She spoke about the policy, and not the people who proposed it, and correctly identified the social ramifications it would have on the most marginalized in society.

For that, I am thankful to Arielle Kayabaga. She showed us all how our elected officials should act: in service of the people they were elected to serve, and committed to ethics and equity and justice. She showed us how to be antiracist.

In response to her (rightful, correct, appropriate, and much-needed) comments on the policy—again, a criticism of the policy and not the people who authored it—four members of city council voted to remove her from the rest of the budget debates. Those four—predictably, white men—felt like their hurt feelings were more important than good debate on policy and the impact their decisions will have on the people they serve. Because of this, they decided to censor and censure a young, Black woman; rather than engaging and deliberating and understanding, they decided to remove and silence diverse voices. This effort to silence a Black woman was, inherently, a racist act.

Following those events, the Medical Officer of Health and Chief Executive Officer of our local public health unit sent out a tweet that started, “I know those four councillors are not racist, but...” He was roundly called out for his comments and since deleted the tweet.The mistake he made was not just in minimizing and diminishing the lived experience of the marginalized—when someone tells you that they are facing racist aggression, believe their experience—but also in the idea of “not racist” as being enough.

This is the point behind Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist: that there is no neutrality in racism. We are either racist or antiracist; “not racist” is a statelessness that does not actually exist.

The opposite of racist isn't ‘not racist.' It is ‘anti-racist.' What's the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.'

How to Be an Antiracist

One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism.

“I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.”

That verse, from Lin-Manuel Miranda's acclaimed opus, Hamilton, feels slightly strange in our current context. It is a verse firmly rooted in its time: death was more visible, more evident during the Revolutionary War than it is now, and Mr. Miranda knows this. In fact, death is something we actively avoid mentioning in contemporary conversation, so much so that when someone mentions “imagining death so much”, we worry about their mental health.

The avoidance of the talk of death — death itself, of course, is unavoidable, for now — may be due to many factors, including our longer lifespans, our improved healthcare systems, reduction in military warfare, and better access to clean water and education. These factors, while good for humanity and its wellbeing, have made it unnecessary to regularly deal with loss, and as such, unnecessary to know how to talk about death and loss.

This propensity to ignore death is changing. A slew of scholarly articles and books have been published in the past few years trying to spur a widespread conversation about dying, and groups like Death Cafés have been instrumental in bringing people together to face the inevitable, long before we once did. Advance planning for death makes the grieving process easier for everyone involved; being able to talk about the end of our lives makes that advance planning possible.

We may not all end up imagining death so much it feels more like a memory, but the less we hide from dying, the more we can make sure we do it well.

. . .

When he was told he had less than a month to live, Ambrose Zephyr pulled out his journal, his A-Z record of aspirations, and began a journey to cross off as many experiences from his alphabetical bucket list as he could.

This is the premise of C.S Richardson's The End of the Alphabet, a debut novel that is less about life and death than it is about the acceptance and realization of our impermanence. After his diagnosis, Ambrose and his wife Zipper (the true protagonist of the tale) set off on a whirlwind world tour to see all the places and do all the things, from Amsterdam to Zanzibar, he wanted to do before his death. Along the way, we learn more about the relationship between Ambrose and Zipper than we do about each individual character, or the journey that they are on.

In the end, The End of the Alphabet is just that: a study of relationships, whether between two lovers, between a man and his impending death, or between a woman and the realization that death comes for all of us, often unexpectedly. Mr. Richardson introduces these relationships on the surface level; a longer novel may have had more room to explore the nuance within each one, and that shallowness is the only failing of the story.

Yet, it is a large failing. Just as we are starting to understand Ambrose's and Zephyr's relationships to death — the book is excellent at helping us understand their relationship to each other — it ends, perhaps abruptly. The ending is indicative of our current social sentiment: it's easy to talk about love, and much harder to come to terms with dying.

. . .

I have never had a bucket list. When asked about what I want to do before I die, I can not rattle off lists of places to visit or adventures to have, but instead the much simpler goal of wanting to live a life where I make someone smile, every day.

This is not a satisfactory answer, for most.

Most of the people I know have a bucket list; I realize now that the notion of the bucket list is the closest we come to talk about our impending deaths without mentioning our transience. It is easy for us to talk about the end of life by imagining what we want to accomplish before the end — essentially, it is easier to talk about dying by instead talking about how we want to be living.

. . .

What would I do if I was told I had one month to live?

Unlike Ambrose Zephyr, I would not take off on a global voyage to pursue dreams that I have never realized. (I do not fault those that would, and in fact, would encourage them to chase those goals with vigor for as long as they can.) Instead, I would engage in reflection, in contemplation. I would want to discover what my life meant to those I have loved, and attempt to make amends with those to whom I have caused pain. I would console those whom I would be leaving behind, and think about the legacy I am leaving them.

In short, I would do all the things I should be doing now, but do not do because I am not forced to face death so clearly, presently.

I have not yet reached the end of my alphabet, but it is not too early to start thinking of what I will want, what my loved ones would want, when I do.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

I was in tears as I read Becoming, the memoirs of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Becoming is a reminder that, for eight years, we had caring, compassionate, and competent people in the White House. Comments on the current administration notwithstanding, it was heartening to remember that for two presidential terms, the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were people who really and truly cared about the people they were there to represent.

More than just a reminder of the goodness we miss, Becoming is a story of adaptation, learning, change, and growth. It is, as Mrs. Obama mentions often, a book about “swerve.”

I know this notion well: all through my childhood, I was a “box checker” like the former First Lady. I made lists, real and mental, of things that I needed to do in order to be successful, in order to be who I wanted to be. Like Mrs. Obama, I was buoyed by “consistent love and high expectations,” and because of this, I grew into the person I am today.

But I also realized, as I grew older, that the world is not governed by the “code of effort-result” but instead by forces that are sometimes out of our control. I grew to learn to swerve, to go against my natural proclivity towards rigidity and move in the direction the world was taking me. Like Mrs. Obama, I have learned to balance my box-checking with swerve, and I cherished the stories of how she had learned this balance, too.

—

The first part of the memoir, prior to heading to the White House, was my favourite part of Becoming. It was a reminder that powerful people are people just like us: that in some cases, their experience of growing up—the stories of working through hardship, and of being the recipient of the grace of those who saw potential in us, of people who opened doors to opportunities that were closed to so many of our more-deserving peers—are so emotionally similar to our own that we see ourselves in their success.

There is a moment in Becoming when Mrs. Obama, then young and in school, doesn't tell her parents about the class trip to France because she knew they didn't have the money, and that she was already immensely grateful for the love, home, and opportunity they could provide. Eventually, her parents find out, and the future First Lady is sent to France with her class on an experience the likes of which her parents could only dream of having.

I can't help but think of my parents, as I was growing up, who always seemed to be able to ensure I had access to every opportunity that came my way even when I knew they didn't have the money. (I think, too, at the things I did not ask them for because I knew the pain that would come from them having to say no because of our limited resources.) I think of how, now that I have grown up, I better understand just how hard it was for them, how much they scrambled to never make me feel like I was wanting. I think of their unending sacrifices and I am so thankful. I am ever so thankful.

—

Becoming is a story of reckoning with the challenges but also the graces of the past, but it is also a memoir loaded with hope for the future. It is a reminder that, with compassion and caring, we have the power to change the world in our small ways. Mrs. Obama reminds us that we all come from somewhere, and that somewhere will shape who we are—but also, that we have the opportunity to shape those somewheres right back.

This is a memoir that reminds us of what it means to lead with grace and kindness; it is a memoir that will make you weep in gratitude for having been able to experience that grace and kindness, in many ways, for eight years now gone by.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

A distortion of reality

This week, I listened to an episode of Still Processing on reality, and an episode of Decoder Ring about a grifter. During each one, I kept thinking to myself: why do we feel compelled to construct our own realities? Why do we force these constructed realities on others?

They are questions that were particularly salient as I was reading John Carreyrou's Bad Blood, the story of Theranos' rise and fall. Written like a thrilling fiction novel, Carreyrou's account is not just compelling, but sobering: often, when we construct a reality for ourselves, we can tear down so many others in the process.

Ostensibly, Elizabeth Holmes didn't set out to deceive people: she had set out to create a technology that could help others, that would make a huge difference. What was the first step in the path to her decline was not that she couldn't deliver on her high expectations, but that she constructed a version of reality where she not only could deliver, but where she already had—and then, convinced others to buy into that reality, too.

As Jenna and Wesley said on Still Processing, “we now live in an era where people can choose to believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of proof or evidence.” This troubling fact, coupled with the tale of how Theranos' reality distortion ended up harming people both physically and financially, enforces a deep-seated feeling: that the stories we tell ourselves, the narratives that form our truth, are critically important to how we interact and engage with others.

How do we reconcile the fact that my reality may not match yours? What does it mean when the reality I've constructed ends up harming you?

Bad Blood is not really a story of hubris or fraud, but instead of a moment when a desired reality becomes a believed one, and the widespread repercussions that come from forcing a constructed reality—one that has no real grounding in truth—upon others. It's a thrilling read, but a frightening look at the world we've created.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

I don't think I've ever read a book like this one, and now I want every book to be like this one. What a revelation in what you can do with the written word.

Listening to the voices we need to hear

Before beginning any one of my classes, we spend some time acknowledging the people that were here before us. I start each class not with a territorial acknowledgment, but with a few minutes on what it means to be on the land that was stewarded and cared for by the indigenous people of our country. Each class, we try to contextualize this history with what we are learning in the course.

This is my small way of acknowledging that I am a settler on this land, and that my relationship to it can only be defined in the context of those who were the custodians of the land throughout the ages.

A few classes ago, after reading Tommy Orange's There There, we spent the first few minutes in class talking about urban indigeneity. It is too easy for us to think of our relationship to indigenous people as a historical one; it is more important to understand that the relationship is an ongoing one, a contemporary one, an evolving one, and one that needs to be looked at anew with justice, reconciliation, and decolonization as its core tenets.

Teaching at a university, working in the public service—these are both inherently acts of perpetuating colonial structures. I acknowledge that, and while I grapple with that reality, I also try to think how I can practice decolonization in my own small way in these colonial structures. I don't have answers, but it's something I try to think about every single day.

One of the practices we are trying to do, at work and in class, beyond authentic conversations about land and territory and history, is trying to understand the importance of voice. Whose voices are included when decisions are made? Whose voices are listened to when we think about how to serve the people around us, the world around us?

Tommy Orange's There There brought that importance of voice into a tangible reality. The novel is told through many stories, each in many voices. It switches from first person to second to third and back again, across levels of formality and familiarity. Every personal narrative is told with a different voice, and each voice is the one that is just right for that story. The story is compelling and heartbreaking, but it is this interplay of voice that is most striking about Tommy Orange's novel; I left it feeling as though I had heard the same shared history from a multitude of people who were a part of that history.

The voices of the novel are resonant: they sing and echo much after you have put the book down.

And so, this week, I will start our class with a conversation about voice, and about how we can honestly, authentically, and justly honor the voices of those who were here before, those who are still here. I won't have any answers, but we will start here, and allow the voices of those we need to hear guide us along the way.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

I've been reading a lot about the AIDS crisis from the 1980s, and how, in face of a lack of interest or support or even basic compassion from lawmakers and people in power, people had to make incredible sacrifices to try to save the people they loved. I thought a lot about that time when I read this novel: what would I sacrifice to ensure that someone I love could survive? Would I sacrifice my ability to ever see them again, sacrifice our happiness together in service of their health and life? These are the questions people had to grapple with in the 1980s; these are the questions I wish we could have grappled with more in the novel.

You know when you read a book and hate the characters and hate the story and pretty much hate how you feel after reading it, but realize that it was one of the best books you've read in a long time? That's what happened to me after reading this: I was enthralled and enraptured, but really didn't like how I felt after it all. A beautiful and conflicting juxtaposition, and one that makes me want to avoid Ms. Moshfegh's next book, but devour it as soon as it comes out, all at the same time.

What is mapmaking but the telling of stories of the lands where we have travelled and the places that have shaped us?

This is what I think about constantly as I read Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar's The Map of Salt and Stars, a story of adventure embedded into a story of loss and escape. The main narrative, a tale of refugees forced to leave Syria when their home is destroyed, is bleak but powerfully poignant today, as populism demonizes those coming to our borders seeking refuge. The tale within the tale, of a grand mapmaking adventure, is magically mystical—but it does more than mirror the main narrative. It reminds us that we are defined by the places where we travel, where we seek shelter. Mapmaking is but a way to articulate how we have been shaped by these spaces.

— — —

One of the most powerful sentences, one that made me pause and breathe deeply, in Joukhadar's novel is only four words long:

“I smell burnt cumin.”

How much of our memories of tragedy, of loss, of heartbreak, are hidden in these small, passing, visceral, sensory reminders? It is remarkable how a scent, word, a sound, a frisson of touch, can take us back to a time gone by. It is profound that sometimes our only way to process tragedy is through these sensory markers: they are a map to our pasts, drawn across our bodies.

( Originally published on inthemargins.ca)

My most memorable birthday party was my 20th, for a multitude of reasons I won't get into here, but since then I've been mostly low-key about birthdays. Aging has made me mellow, and instead of celebrating birthdays, I ease into them with quietness. For Big Angel's 70th birthday, ostensibly his last one, he wants one last party, one last celebration—and to him, I can relate. When you know there will be no more reasons to celebrate, you want your last party to be a big one, a memorable one, not just for yourself, but for everyone you love. This is the setting of Urrea's novel: it is a novel about a party, but more a novel about celebrating the ones we love, about relishing in their presence, and about knowing that our bonds extend well beyond life and death. It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time; it is a novel that makes me want to party.

There are foxes in our backyard. I have only seen one once, but have seen their tracks in the snow or the frost, and occasionally in the wet spring mud. Prior to reading Ms. Forna's novel, I had never thought about the interior lives of these foxes and how they experience the world, but now I can't stop thinking about them. Happiness is ostensibly a novel about connections between people and the impacts of trauma, but really, it is a novel about being in touch with the living world around us, and how so much delight can be found when we commune with the urban natural environment.

I struggled reading The Friend, not just because it is a novel framed by suicide and loss, but because it is a novel so focused on how writing and reading frame our capacity to cope with grief, and with the tumult of the world around us. There is a beauty to the way Ms. Nunez speaks of various kinds of “friendships” here—with mentors, with colleagues, with students, with the ex-wives of ex-lovers, with the titular friend, the dog Apollo—but there is also an incisive questioning about the nature of life, and its worth in living. This can be discomfiting if you are grappling with those questions yourself; this rumination on friends and grief and life itself is much heavier than its story, and its short length, will indicated.

We are all made up of many

What does it mean to be made up of many? How do we reconcile the multitudes that live within us, that many selves that make up our self?

In Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi takes the metaphorical struggle of being made up of “a village full of faces and a compound full of bones” and makes it literal: Emezi shows us what it would it would mean to come to terms with having so many different spirits living within us by telling us the story of Ada, an ogbanje, a girl who houses spirits.

I have housed spirits. I have had to come to terms with multitudes. When I was younger, my bipolar disorder manifested itself in schizoaffective symptoms: I heard voices, was swayed into action by the many who lived inside me. It was a scary time, one that took a lot of care—and medication and therapy—to help me understand that I could listen to myself instead of them.

But what if, instead of silencing the many, I learned to embrace them? What if, like Ada, I came to terms that there were spirits inside me that made me who I am, and that was okay; that the presence of multitudes didn't make me any less of an individual?

This is the joy in reading Freshwater: the novel is a journey in learning to understand that we are all fractured selves, that we are all made up of the many. Our journey to that understanding can be a tumultuous one—and Akwaeke Emezi creates poetry out of that tumult as we are guided through Ada's story—but it is also one that culminates in solace and self-awareness.

Perhaps we are all ogbanje in our own ways, and we just don't have the mythology, the words, to help us express who we really are.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

One of the stories that Daniel Alarcón shares in this collection, “República and Grau,” features a blind beggar and a young boy who joins him to beg for money to supplement the family income. The boy changes his appearance, his mannerisms, all to make more money on the street corner. In “The Provincials,” Nelson pretends to be his more successful brother, turning pretense into personality, losing himself, and eventually, the people around him, too. What changes do we make to who we are in order to get more, be more? Who are we, really, when we continually shift ourselves based on where we are and who we are with? Questions Alarcón leaves us with; questions that are almost impossible to answer.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

Towards the end of The Apprentice, Jacques Pépin describes his current home kitchen, custom-built to his desires after a lifetime spent in the culinary industry. The kitchen as he describes it is dreamy: everything in its right place, with an abundance of counter space and the best tools for the task.

L and I are house-hunting right now, poring over hundreds of real estate listings, in an effort to find the right place for us to settle in for the long term. We have our differences in tastes and desires, but we share an important commonality: the primacy of the kitchen. As we flip through the perfectly-staged photos in each listing, we always stop at snapshots of the kitchen, often using it a barometer for how we will feel about the rest of the house.

The appeal of a nice kitchen is not simply superficial. After all, the kitchen is a place of congregation; during any gathering or party, guests naturally come together in the place where food is being prepared, and where drinks are accessible and abundant. Ever since moving to London, L and I go out less and cook a lot more. I prepare the fifteen weekday meals, and some on the weekends, so I often find myself spending more time in the kitchen every week than I do in any room of the house other than the bedroom. Having a place to cook, a place to gather that is functional, accessible, and beautiful is an important consideration in our future house purchase.

Unlike Mr. Pépin, I have not spent my entire life in kitchens, commercial or domestic. My desire, ability, and propensity to cook regularly are relatively new developments that have come from my work-at-home situation and the want—nay, need—to be healthier and more financially prudent. I do not feel the same ease in the kitchen as Mr. Pépin, but as he describes so well in The Apprentice, any ease, skill, and comfort will grow slowly as I spend more time preparing meals. Mr. Pépin may have cooking in his blood, but he beautifully describes how his abilities were slowly honed over time, through painstaking hard work from apprentice to master chef; a good cook is made through trial and error, repetition, and learning from the best.

I will never be as proficient in the kitchen as Mr. Pépin—or as many of the people in my life, to be honest—but my comfort grows every day. L will hopefully attest that my skill has improved as well, as she is the one that must eat the fruits of my labor. What The Apprentice taught me is that proficiency will take time, will take work—and hopefully, in the near future, will involve a more functional and beautiful kitchen, too.

Time to get back to looking at real estate listings.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

There are many books that bring me to tears, but few have brought me to rage and sorrow like Ms. Bala's novel about the plight of refugees being detained, away from their families, because of the political machinations of a governing party that hates everyone that doesn't look like them. It's clear that this book was written during our last political regime, and it's clear that the book has a point of view; it's a point of view that I not only agree with, but believe strongly. Those that seek to dehumanize us because of our differences need to be removed from power and have no place in making decisions about the lives of others.

I've been thinking a lot about legacy and heritage recently. For the most part, this rumination has been centred on how to preserve and honor the past, but after recently reading Home Fire, I've been turned on to the opposite question: what happens if your legacy is something you want, you need to escape?

Kamila Shamsie's novel is about many things—duty, family, modernity, and geopolitics among them—but a central concern revolves around the notion of a new generation trying to distance itself from the reputation of the previous one. Isma, Aneeka and Parvaiz may be the children of a famed fighter for the Islamic State, but that is not their legacy; instead, they are doing what they can to create their own.

I am reminded of this when I read about the way some news media have been treating Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is running for Congress in this election. His grandfather, whom Campa-Najjar disavows vehemently, was one of the Munich terrrorists, and died sixteen years before Ammar was born. Yet, some media outlets continue to tie his campaign to the actions of his grandfather; they are trying to tie his legacy to a disavowed heritage.

How do you separate yourself from the mistakes, the horrors of the ones that came before you? What does it mean to share the name, the blood of someone whom you disavow, discredit; what does it mean to want to distance yourself from the generations who were supposed to know better, but obviously didn't?

In Home Fire, Kamila Shamsie asks these questions, but does not answer them. Her characters grapple with their heritage in different ways, but in the end the question remains: we are different than those that came before us, so how do we make sure that the path we carve makes that difference clear?

(originally posted on inthemargins.ca)

The tragedy in An American Marriage is not in the dissolution of a perfect union, but instead in the way the criminal justice system can tear apart a family, tear apart an individual from their own innate self, all because of a wrongful conviction. This novel is a tragedy told through letters; a part-epistolary novel that shows the frailty of maintaining a connection through the tenuous medium of postal correspondence, while also showing us that even the strongest of bonds can fray.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

There are verses in this collection that shook me so deeply that it felt like the words were carved into my skin, and that I would wear them like a tattoo for life as a reminder of just how beautifully violent and poignantly visceral Smith's words can be. This is poetry that we need, today; this is poetry that can't, and definitely shouldn't, be ignored. This is poetry that captures our contemporary existence and forces us to wear it like carvings on our body, always there to be touched and felt and lived.

It is rare that I encounter any book with a character that shares the same name as my brother. It is even rarer that the character not only has his name, but shares the way he looks, and his mannerisms. I could see my young brother in Ms. Acevedo's novel-in-verse, and I could see my young self in the pursuit of slam excellence, and I could see my friends and everyone I knew in high school in every part of this book. The Poet X is not just a beautiful poem to growing up and coming of age, but an ode to the diversity of experience we don't see often enough on the page.

What We Lose reads like a collection of essays and vignettes, but together, they form a coherent story of someone who loses her home—only in this case, home is not a place, but a person. What does life look like when you become homeless (personless, motherless)? What do the fragments of this homeless life say about a life as a whole?

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)

I have yet to watch Raoul Peck's I Am Not Your Negro, the critically-acclaimed documentary on James Baldwin released last year, but if the collection of Baldwin's writing that inspired the documentary—captured in the I Am Not Your Negro collection—is any indication, it is a documentary that needs to be seen by everyone.

Reading Baldwin's I Am Not Your Negro was sobering and powerful. After the events of Charlottesville a few weeks ago, when I heard people proclaim “this is not the America I know,” I was reminded of this passage in the book:

White people are astounded by Birmingham.

Black people aren't.

White people are endlessly demanding to be

reassured that Birmingham is really on Mars.

They don't want to believe,

still less to act on the belief,

that what is happening in Birmingham

is happening all over the country.

They don't want to realize that there is not one step,

morally or actually, between

Birmingham and Los Angeles.

I Am Not Your Negro

Most of the white Americans I've ever encountered, really, you know, had a Negro friend or a Negro maid or somebody in high school, but they never, you know, or rarely, after school was over or whatever came into my kitchen, you know. We were segregated from the schoolhouse door. Therefore, he doesn't know, he really does not know, what it was like for me to leave my house, you know, to leave the school and go back to Harlem. He doesn't know how Negroes live. And it comes as a great surprise to the Kennedy brothers and to everybody else in the country. I'm certain, again, you know...that again like most white Americans I have encountered, they have no...I'm sure they have nothing whatever against Negroes, but that's really not the question, you know. The question is really a kind of apathy and ignorance, which is the price we pay for segregation. That's what segregation means. You don't know what's happening on the other side of the wall, because you don't want to know.

Worth repeating:

(originally posted on inthemargins.ca)

I have been, for a few years now, obsessed with bees and the role they play in our ecosystem. When colony collapse disorder started affecting North American bee populations, I was stricken with worry. Maja Lunde's novel is essentially a book written to stoke my anxiety: what would the world look like if the bees disappeared? What could we have done to avoid this? Sure, the book reads a bit like it was written for children, but the story is an important one for our time.

(originally published on inthemargins.ca)