Protests and
Pandemics Summer
New City Zine Issue 1 Protests and Pandemics summer New City Zine Issue 1
Dear readers,
We created this zine because we wanted a space to process and reflect on the messy-chaotic-whirlwind of isolation, rage, and despair that has emerged in 2020. We know that in the midst of these unprecedented and unparalleled events, there were still innumerable moments of hope, beauty, love, and unexpected grace in our community. We needed a place for these stories to live and could think of no better way to preserve and highlight them than through the arts. We are still here, each of us fighting for justice and discovering truth, even though it may be harder to see right now. This collective work shines through your submissions of humor, grief, prayer, and resilience. We hope that you’re as encouraged and empowered as we were when reading these. We pray that these pieces embolden you to continue fighting and discovering, grappling and wrestling, resting and surrendering to the truth of your belovedness and the unchangeable peace that lives within each of you. Thank you for participating in this holy work that is so much bigger than any of us; thank you for following the Spirit as she inspires us to build the New City.
Your editors,
Chavonn Shen Tori McCabe
2 Table of Contents
Cover Art by Tumi Akin-Deko
Note from the Editors 1 Chavonn Shen, Tori McCabe
Untitled 3 Krista Lucas
Their Very Cells Remember (Or, Remembered Greatness) 6 Paula Neeley
Untitled 8 Ari Applewhite
COVID Benediction 9 Taylor Johnson
Questions (July 2020) 10 Michèle Steinwald
To Be Soft 12 Chavonn Shen
Untitled 13 Seygbai
Half Baked Quarantine Thoughts 14 Kai Hsu
A parody of an American Petroleum Institute 15
3 Funded Ad as if It were an Ad to Sell 1% Milk Lee Samelson
So now the real story: How to Stand up to the Bull-ies and not be a Cow-ard 17 Lee Samelson
We Are the Healers 19 Eric Rucker
Pandemic Poem #24 21 Clarence White
Untitled 22 Jean Carlos Diaz
An Invitation 23 Rev. Christian Briones
Russian Dolls 25 Eric Rucker
Notes 27
4 Untitled by Krista Lucas
SAY HIS NAME GEORGE FLOYD
How long will you forget me, Lord? Forever? Agony filling my heart Will my enemy keep defeating me?
WHEN BLACK LIVES ARE UNDER ATTACK, WHAT DO WE DO? STAND UP, FIGHT BACK
Lord, argue with those who argue with me Fight! Stand up and help me! Let those who intend to hurt me Let them be like dust on the wind Let disaster come to them when they don’t expect it
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE
Those who look to God will shine; their faces are never ashamed
THE PEOPLE, UNITED, WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED
Violent witnesses They pay me back evil for good How long, my Lord, will you watch this happen? Rescue me!
HEY HEY, HO HO THESE RACIST COPS HAVE GOT TO GO
Look at me! Answer me, Lord my God!
5 Otherwise my foes will rejoice
WE READY WE COMIN’
The Lord’s messenger protects those who honor God Taste and see how good the Lord is! The one who takes refuge in him, Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing
I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN
Those who are my enemies without cause Those who hate me for no reason They don’t speak the truth Instead, they plot false accusations against innocent people in the land Don’t keep quiet about it Establish justice! Don’t let them celebrate over me
HOLD UP, HOLD UP WE WANT FREEDOM, FREEDOM ALL THESE RACIST KILLER COPS WE DON’T NEED ‘EM, NEED ‘EM
The Lord’s eyes watch the righteous, his ears listen to their cries for help But the Lord’s face is set against those who do evil to eliminate even the memory of them from the earth
WHAT DO WE WANT? JUSTICE WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW
When the righteous cry out, the Lord listens; he delivers them from all their troubles
IF WE DON’T GET IT SHUT IT DOWN
6 I have trusted in your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in your salvation
I CAN’T BREATHE
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he saves those whose spirits are crushed
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
7 Their Very Cells Remember (Or, Remembered Greatness) by Paula Neeley Copyright © October 1996
This poem formed in my mind after I read a book from my father’s collection: The Destruction of Black Civilization for the second time. Simultaneously, I had also been reading in a medical journal about a theory that everything that has ever occurred in the Human species is recorded in our DNA and that bundle of memories is passed on at a cellular level.
Why does the sight of dark skin conjure up such fear in them? They remember. Their very cells remember that our land was once the center of civilization, that we taught them to read and write and shape metals and build temples and make music and tend to the earth and praise Spirit.
More than 2,000 years of globally-sanctioned slavery won’t erase their annoying itch of our remembered greatness.
And they haven’t stopped trying to erase us.
Took away our names even as they plundered our land; built a kingdom on stolen property; erased a history and covered it with lies. Perhaps they should be a little afraid. I must be a threat to all they think they’ve constructed otherwise, there’d be no need to hold me back.
8 Every hair on their heads recalls a time when wisdom and wealth were Black. They haven’t stopped trying to erase us. Like my ancestors, I haven’t stopped refusing to be erased because … I remember too.
Oh, yes. I remember. Even in my youth, I knew their zealotry was synonymous with fear; their rhetoric was a cover for emptiness.
And yet, they’ve stolen something they can never possess. (Ntozake Shange: Taking what’s mine doesn’t make it yours, it makes it stolen.) Ownership does not bestow greatness. Ownership reveals the depth of moral corruption.
And now comes a defining battle --for me, for Black bodies, for the Earth-- the very real struggle between spiritual and physical survival.
Take my name, my culture, my music! My greatness does not lie in these. It resides in my thoughts, my fears, and my awareness of the collusion to stamp out all that I use to be.
They can strip away my shell, I can allow them to … to believe that they’ve modified me all the while knowing that I hold the core of remembered greatness inside of me.
9
10 Covid Benediction by Taylor Johnson
God of our midnight, the Christ light, Spirit of stubborn hope, fill us tonight with:
Compassion for the nurses, the healthcare workers, the ones on the frontlines & borderlines of burnout, who bear witness to disaster, day in & day out
Compassion for the laboring mothers in masks who had to adjust their birth plans in the midst of a pandemic
Compassion for the teachers who are riddled with anxiety in the middle of not knowing if they'll be with their students at the expense of their own health
Compassion for the therapists who are lonely & missing the children & clients they've never even met yet, who lack in motivation & patience
Compassion for the dying, for the ones receiving oxygen through respirators; may Love fill their lungs as they breathe their last breath in sterile hospital beds
Compassion for the families who never got to say goodbye because regulations prevented them from holding hands of their loved ones in sacredness
Compassion for the children who miss their preschools or their playgrounds, who have meltdowns & who have parents who comfort but feel the same
Compassion for those in prison, sitting in cells at the mercy of everyone else's decisions
Compassion for the national leaders politicizing & polarizing an issue when we could have chosen each other
Compassion for the ones not wearing masks
Compassion for those laid off, looking for jobs, not knowing how they'll make rent
Compassion for ourselves, for our anxious, torn up, tired hearts. For the ways we’ve failed to love ourselves, our enemies, our neighbors as image bearers.
In Love empowering that knows no bounds, no borders, no others, Amen
11 Questions (July 2020) by Michèle Steinwald
At the end of my weekly Al-Anon* meetings, we close with the LORD’S PRAYER. Recently at New City Church’s Sunday services, we have included it too, although addressed to OUR (PARENT) and often said as OUR MOTHER.
Raised in a non-religious household however having attended a Catholic grade school in Canada in order to learn French, I knew the words but it never made sense to me. In class, the ritual of reciting it was a memory exercise for me, part assimilation/blending in so as not to be questioned about any personal belief system.
Before going to that school, we moved around a lot and somehow my parents either couldn’t manage to get me to school on the first day of classes or didn’t deem it important. Consequently, embarrassed if I didn’t know something that other kids seemed to be fine with, I assumed instructions had been explained on the day I missed and so would pretend to understand and follow along. I had questions but never asked them.
WHO ART IN HEAVEN (can we do art in heaven? why not say are? isn’t it is?) HALLOWED BE THY NAME (or hollow—thinking of a name as it echoes—do important names automatically get amplified when spoken in heaven?) THY KINGDOM COME (served on a platter? wouldn’t we come to the kingdom?) THY WILL BE DONE (what does done mean? is will noun or verb?) ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN (won’t it be different there, even though it is the same as here?)
I initially sought out a church experience as an extension of my recovery in Al- Anon. Praying and prayers had been a mystery to me. Participating in New City’s Gospel Living classes, I learned how to construct my own prayers. I now practice saying grace before every meal, giving thanks for my blessings, acknowledging where my privileges have provided for me more than I have necessarily earned. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.
We use Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Steps in the Al-Anon program. I was slowly facilitating a relationship to a Higher Power through this program. The 10th step, “continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it,” helps me notice when I need to apologize, make amends, in the moment. FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US.
12 My prayers and the 12 steps promote healing, daily meaning making, and intention setting. AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL. Forming a relationship with god, believing in a power greater than myself, so much so that I turn my life and my will over to Them. FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM (a place? were we ever only referring to a place?) AND THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOREVER AND EVER (why do I imagine the king in Bugs Bunny cartoons, with gold spilling off of him as he spoke/ate/lost his temper, during this closing proclamation?) While I mistrust the flowery language—effusive and flattering—of the LORD’S PRAYER, I am learning how to have faith, practice asking questions, and listening to my past to make room for a new future. AMEN
*support group for friends and family of Alcoholics
13 To Be Soft by Chavonn Williams Shen
My grandmother’s hands were like figs dried in a Mississippi summer. Her scars read like love notes: calluses born in cotton fields, mason jar lid imprints on her palms, freckled pricks from needles left in purses, burns near her right wrist. She was slow with chicken grease.
Sometimes she’d lather dishes and scrub the same cup until its shine rivaled finery seen in the Sears catalogs she loved to keep.
She dreamt of mansions up north filled with linen only meant for others to envy. Her help would press stubborn shirts and fetch her coat if the wind even whispered of frost. They’d rub lavender on her hands until she was soft as watered earth.
They’d clean windows for her to watch lesser women pass by, their hands rough like cracked dirt. Thoughts fixed on to-do list, their own overseers.
14 Untitled by Seygbai
15 Half Baked Quarantine Thoughts by Kai Hsu
In the weeks immediately following the murder of George Floyd, liberal Asian Americans rallied to support Black folks.
Well...many of us took that to mean “Call out anti-blackness in our Asian communities.”
Now I’m wondering if “white guilt” has a cousin named “(East?) Asian Guilt”?
Do liberal Asians have collective “family shame” around our anti-black Asian communities?
I hope in the future, Asian Americans find other way to support BLM. I also hope Asian Americans seek justice for ourselves as well, especially in the age of COVID. We are oppressed by white supremacy as well! We are discriminated against in hiring and workforce too!
——————————————
On Truth
In an era where certain leaders seem to have a tenuous grasp of reality, forget about laws, stating basic truths is powerful and grounding.
Some basic truths these days need to be repeated like mantras.
“Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter...”
“It is wrong for unmarked vehicles and unidentified people to abduct and detain people. It is wrong for unmarked vehicles and unidentified people to abduct and detain people…”
Say these things for yourself. Say these things in response to the people who threaten protesters. Say them for our country.
——————————————
16 On “Karens”
I am so fortunate. Yes, for all the material things and my current (fingers crossed) health. I’ve also realized that I am fortunate because my workplace experiences very few “Karen’s”. This is not some cosmic coincidence.
Karens are like the Sith in Star Wars. They thrive on hate, and hunger for power. Anger, aggression, deception, and manipulation are the solutions, not the problems.
To a Karen, a place like the Jedi Temple, where truth, harmony, peace, logic, and reason are valued traits, would sap their power. Where would these exact qualities be revered and the qualities of a Karen be exposed as powerless and hollow?
A mental health clinic.
It is staffed with people who seek truth, who will not be bullied, and will draw boundaries if necessary. In fact, the more poorly a client acts, the more they are seen as needing help. Acting like a Karen would expose themselves as being deeply flawed.
To agree to therapy, one must be willing to admit one needs growth and change. A Karen is far too arrogant to admit to any personality flaw.
Therapy involves introspection, honesty, vulnerability. A Karen only seeks to blame others and deceive.
A true Karen would never be so foolish as to set foot in a mental health clinic. They know that in a therapists office, they must confront the worst truth; the only “manager” powerful enough to solve their problems...is themselves.
17 A parody of an American Petroleum Institute funded ad did as if it were an ad to sell 1% milk by Lee Samelson
“Be an Energy Voter! Vote for Energy! Drink the propaganda on down! Drink the milk of the 1%! Increased domestic oil and gas production. It does a body good. Grow, Grow, Grow, Extract, Extract, Extract, More, More, More and ignore any other consequences! Our corporate sponsors in schools instruct kids that drinking 1% Milk will make their bodies grow. If your children keep drinking 1% milk then they will grow, grow, grow, until they are 10 feet tall, 20 feet tall or 100 feet tall… and on and on. Because in the fantasy world that we present to you, natural limits to growth do not exist. If you drink 1% milk, then you too will just automatically assume that oil and gas wells will just magically replenish themselves once we do the extraction (...oops I actually meant to say the word production rather than extraction). So, go ahead! Pour yourself a nice chilled glass of 1% milk, take a sip and watch as the milk will magically reappear back in the glass. Because in the fantasy world that we depict for you, resources will never be depleted or run short. What do we mean by do Vote 4 Energy? Because we like policy makers who just automatically presume oil and gas will be cheap and abundant forever and ever into the indefinite future until kingdom come. As an activity, we recommend that kids should also try eating an apple with their glass of 1% milk to get more balance from food groups. See, we are advanced scientists and engineers who by surprise, admit that the world is round! As we all know an apple is round like the shape of the earth. Now watch your kid take a bite out of the apple and then watch the apple replenish itself back into its whole form bite after bite. The resource never depletes! Wow! Who ever knew that violating the laws of thermodynamics could ever be so fun! Also, try pouring some of this 1% milk on a bowl of Lucky Charms because Magical Thinking is Magically Delicious. Definitions of ‘Energy Voter’ brought to
18 you specially by the 1%. Terms and conditions may apply. This advertisement is paid for by the 1% who thinks they can define what “voting for energy” means for the other 99%. Anyone who voices a contrary evidence will be belittled and called “anti-energy”. Special waivers from the law of thermodynamics will be granted for the duration of those claims.”
So now the real story: How to Stand up to the Bull-ies and not be a Cow-ard by Lee Samelson
This 1% milk comes from cows that have been injected with ‘Bovine infinite economic growth hormone’. It is specially designed to enable industry to extract more and more and more from a cow regardless of any other damaging consequences, just like fossil fuels. According to the edicts of infinite growth, Cows who only produce the usual amount of milk are known as “udder failures” or “milk duds”. Use of Bovine infinite economic growth hormone leads to an outbreak of what Kenneth E. Boulding and Paul Ehrlich call “mad-cowboy economics disease”. These prions of mad cowboy economics disease are not even alive but still carry out a destructive agenda unthinkingly, without any consciousness. These Mad Cowboy prions are automatons for “either grow or die” as if “develop and improve” is never an option for our economy… because it would be disruptive to the powers that be! Fox News has muzzled their own journalists who tried to report on this bovine growth hormone. How do you stand up to the bull-ies and not be a cow-ard? In contrast to Mad Cowboys, Maverick Rodeo Cowboys are very good at ‘bucking up’ the system. The maverick rodeo cowboys perform the bold, courageous and daring move of simply asking this question, ”What would happen if this milk of the 1% suddenly stopped using Bovine infinite economic growth hormone?” The answer is that we would get rad spaceship economics rather than mad cowboy economics! Then more and more people would start questioning “Hmmm… How could we get creative and use the resources we have more efficiently and allocate them more equitably, rather than a single-
19 minded emphasis on grow, growth, growth, more, more, more, extract, extract, extract?” If that shift in consciousness were to finally happen and spread everywhere, then the 1% would have a cow! Never-ending growth theory is the perfect tool for the Dye-it Koch-led 1% to deflect themselves from public scrutiny while they loot the planet for XL-sized Keystone Beer. These 3 in-greedy-ents are far more dangerous mixed together than they are individually. When you mix them all together into the same atmospheric glass, the deadly cocktail will melt any ice cubes faster than bartenders previously predicted! And that was already coming from an already high bar!
20 We Are The Healers by Eric Rucker
To be a healer now is for life to ask of us the nearly impossible
That tenseness is the cry the body makes from too much too fast for too long
If you can, stop for a second exhale it with the love of a thousand women marching for peace
To be a healer now is to put our shoulders to this gargantuan stone and to dare try to roll it away
But we are the healers we are the ones who shout an insurrectional No into the yawning dark cave that holds our beloveds bound
We are the ones who keep letting fireseeds of freedom grow out from thickets of trauma so we can remember why the hell we’re getting up day after day:
To tell them that no one will be thrown away
And maybe it’s arrogant to claim that we are the healers
But dammit I’d much prefer a world where more broken people try to be saints than hacks at podiums
21 resuscitating their polling numbers or the bourgeois muttering why bother?
22 Pandemic Poem #24 by Clarence White
23
By Jean Carlos Diaz
24 An invitation by Rev. Christian Briones
The muscles in your face tossed and turned can’t sleep any longer
Your nose moved in an incomplete circle Could it be the cycle of white supremacy coming undone right there on your contorted face
As I watched What appeared to be an exorcism I didn’t see a police officer white supremacy’s militarized host
I saw your humanity clawing it’s way out of you Clawing like the stings of teargas against the tissues of our lungs we can’t breathe
You blinked in explosions boom boom boom
Like the flash grenades you all throw at us
Did you finally see we come shrieking for justice Signs made of paper in our hands you come silent batons and Ar 15’s in your hands
My brother You can’t wipe your tears with that face shield
25 and all of those weapons in your hands
26 Russian Dolls by Eric Rucker
In the hell of space in between precious people & the people they need this is the year of impossible calls this is the year of hospital walls
I see so many dots but no lines at all
None of the names that we used to call God mean a thing all I can say now is I’m meant to ease suffering we’re Russian dolls - don’t you see I’m in you, you’re in me all of our lives boiling down to this holding
I was drawn on paper and torn in two half of myself when taken from you in bed alone, lying confused in the absence of all that I once assumed
There’s an indented mattress that used to hold you
I made a vow to you all that I aim to keep I am no savior I can’t reach much past these two feet But my hands are reaching for contact, for comforting compost my life God you make much of sincerity
27 Closing
Thank you for being in community with these artists. You are invited to worship with New City on Sundays, follow us on social media, and continue to strive for justice with us. If you would like to financially support our antiracist work, consider a financial donation to New City: https://GrowNewCity.church/donate.
In all things, may God's peace grow in you.
28 Notes
Cover “This is a collage, and I've always wanted to make a funky collage for a zine! This is inspired by/features the poem, ‘won't you come celebrate with me’ by lucille clifton. It was shared with me in a poetry class taught by Chavonn, and it was a poem that super stuck with me. I wanted to try to capture black girl joy and rebellion over the background of literal police brutality.” - Tumi Akin-Deko
Page 3 “This is a found poem using words from Psalm 13, Psalm 34, Psalm 35, and protest chants. ” - Krista Lucas
Page 12 “To Be Soft,” by Chavonn Shen, first appeared in Diode Poetry Journal in June 2020.
Page 13 “One of my favorite scenes from the "The Wizard of Oz" is when Dorothy opens the door and moves from black and white to color. This to me represents Grace. I wanted it to be permanent like the grace God gives and continues to give his chosen people. Also, I haven't quite finished but I imagine that true Grace is as overwhelming and beautiful like stepping into chrome color.” - Seygbai
Pages 14 and 15 “This started as a series of half baked thoughts, but in the process of writing this, I realize some of them became much more ‘baked.”’ - Kai Hsu
29 Pages 16 and 17 “I have a compilation of 3 related short writings that include metaphor, satire and word puns that explore the interconnections between a type of outbreak, hitting planetary limits, and the recent Supreme Court Ruling on LBGTQ Discrimination.” - Lee Samelson
Page 21 “This is part of a series of poems typewritten since the beginning of the pandemic. Poems and letters. That is what we need, now. We need to use our words with each other, send words to each other. Stay connected.” Clarence White
Page 22 “This was a post associated with a news article by the New York Times.” https:// www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/politics/trump-st-johns-church-bible.html? smid=fb-share - Jean Carlos Diaz
Page 25 “I wrote this song in response to COVID (and everything else going on).” - Eric Rucker
30