“As of June 18, 2021, Juneteenth is recognized as a national holiday. But the end of slavery was also a sweeping national declaration, and yet the material conditions of Black people were left largely unimproved,” Jameelah Jones writes.
Q: Dear Cody, what made you stay in Lawrence? After everything with your former employer and the current state of this community, why stay?
Fally Afani/Contributed
Let’s take a brief look at each evening’s film along with a few other short statements submitted by Free State Festival participants.
“You open the app and you’re pleasantly surprised that you’re able to identify as nonbinary, only to immediately be misgendered in the next step by being forced to be perceived as either a man or a woman to others,” Kimberly Lopez writes.
“I believe districts are a bad idea for these 4 reasons: Accountability; issue focus; voter turnout; candidate turnout,” Matthew Herbert writes.
“I regard my needs as typical, not ‘special,’ and I prefer the term ‘disabled.’ This is the term favored by most disability activists who are involved in a civil rights movement and who are working to create a world where everyone with any type of disability is respected, accommodated, and can participate,” Dot Nary writes.
This week, Cody reflects on radio requests, their crushes on “90210,” and the songs they sang flamboyantly in their youth.
“It might start out as a minor annoyance, but after a while, whether those moments of misgendering come from a place of malice or not, it hurts,” Kimberly Lopez writes.
Erin-Queen Spiridigliozzi
For this piece, LarryvilleLife reached out to six friends in local bands to see how they are feeling about returning to the stage this summer. A few of them have recent shows under their belts and a few are poised to re-emerge in the coming weeks and months. Here’s what they had to say.
“What does it look like if you believe Black trans folks the first time? Why do you need to be convinced that anti-Black racism and transphobia exist?” Cody writes.
