Pressed Coffee 10: July 17-30
And we’re back! thank you for allowing us a moment without Pressed Coffee…one less unopened newsletter in your inbox! Although here’s to make up for that.
In this issue: News on MOCAD Resistance and DIA Staff Action, a 30-Second Book Review by Samantha Noel, upcoming nox library book distribution, and of course, Raikou.
the nox crew at Hey Y’alls free children’s book fair in Detroit
Politics & Society
July 22
Texas School Board Keeps Grooming Code That Led To Suspension Of Black Students
Matthew Swartz for NPR
July 30
Detroit teachers want slaveholders’ names removed from these three charter schools
The schools of concern are Washington-Park, Madison-Carver, and Jefferson-Douglass academies, all of which link a slaveholder or proactive racist with prominent Black Americans in history.
Brute Forces: Dispatches on Police Violence from Around the World
From the Baffler
“In an attempt to explore the origins of these uprisings, we asked six writers residing in different countries to reflect on the state of police brutality there. Edna Bonhomme casts light on a history of state-abetted violence against African and Asian migrants in Germany that has yet to be reckoned with. Dalia Hatuqa reports on the recent killing of a disabled Palestinian man and the deadly collaboration between Israeli and American police forces. Manisha Sethi analyzes how the Indian police have systematically targeted Muslims and members of other minority groups, effectively serving as a standing army for the forces of Hindu fascism. Nara Roberta Silva looks back at the militarization of Brazil’s police under the 1964–85 dictatorship—a process that was not reversed under civilian rule. Gaby Del Valle writes about the cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents, which moves the United States’ borders ever more inward. And April Zhu examines the criminalization of poverty in Kenya, where dozens have been killed by the police for violating pandemic lockdown curfew laws.”
Arts & Culture
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit Terminates Director After Allegations of Racism and Sexism
via ArtNews
The removal of Elysia Borowy-Reeder as Executive Director of MOCAD is but the first in a list of demands created by MOCAD Resistance. Read more about the movement here: MocadResistance.com
Recent posts from MOCAD Resistance:
Letters from Teen Council
Precarious Positions
“Artists deserve so much better than an overextended staff of disempowered, gas-lit curators whose well-being is continuously threatened while their individual shortcomings are actively weaponized. Intentional and informed decision making has no home at this organization as it is currently conceived, and the potential for miscommunication, misunderstanding, and direct harm to myself, my co-workers, and our partners is extraordinarily high under these conditions.”
– from Anonymous in Precarious Positions post
Service Workers at the Detroit Institute of Arts: Letter of Support for DIA Staff Action
Read service workers' demands for a $15 minimum wage. Accessible via the link above thanks to DIA Staff Action.
This week we’re happy to present a 30-second book review by Samantha Noel, Associate Professor of Art History at Wayne State University. Dr. Noel gives us her take on In the Wake: On Blackness and Being by Christina Sharpe, a book, she says, that gives her solace when thinking about the “inexplicable prevalence of premature Black death and the enduring resolve of Black life.”
Professor Noel’s research interests revolve around the history of art, visual culture and performance of the Black Diaspora. She has published on black modern and contemporary art and performance in journals such as Small Axe, Third Text and Art Journal. Noël’s current book, Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2021), examines black modernism in the early twentieth century, particularly how tropicality functioned as a unifying element in African Diasporic art and performance.
This fall, Noel will be teaching a course on Performance Art in the Americas at Wayne State University, a class students may take as an elective or on track to their Art History degrees (definitely wishing I were still a student at Wayne right now).
What We’re Loving: Art Mile Detroit
From the website: Art Mile Detroit is a citywide exhibition taking place July 29-August 5 with a week of public programs, featuring digital installations, artwork sales, virtual museum tours, and live events such as panel discussions, artist studio visits, film screenings and musical performances.
Art Mile features these amazing people, groups and places!:
Updates: Book Distribution
Hey Y’all Detroit’s Free Children’s Book Fair
This past Saturday was the day we had all been waiting for: the free children’s book fair for which we raised over $1,200! Charmane, founder of Hey Y’all, did an amazing job bringing this all together. The book fair launched off a wider initiative, Hey Y’all Let’s Read—a free youth book club that sends a book once a month to participant’s homes, hosts read-alongs via zoom, and provides art activity kits for projects that relate back to themes in the book. This book club is meant to promote reading and engagement with art and books.
Check out these photo from the event, and consider donating to Hey Y’all here!
BIPOC Skate Sesh at Riverside Park in Detroit
Flier created by Chanel Monet, art by Ginny Neumann
Join us August 12th at the Riverside Skate Park in SW Detroit as we talk and exchange some of our favorite books! The event is being organized by Chanel Monet and Saruh Almendarez. It’s a femme + queer -centered event, but all are welcome!
nox library hours: we will be there with books starting at 6pm to the end!
This is the firs time we'll be self-funding a book distribution (as in no fundraiser involved), but of course, if you'd like to help our efforts to de-institutionalize critical engagement with this literature, donations are always welcome!
Paypal: NoxLibrary@gmail.com
Venmo: @noxlibrary
!!If you picked up a book at our last distribution, feel free to bring it back in exchange for a new one!!
We’re also happy to exchange for any relevant books on prison abolition, workers struggle (/class), anti-colonialism and BIPOC experience.
Titles on our list:
La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua
Assata: An Autobiography
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Abolition Democracy by Angela Davis
Golden Gulag, Ruth Wilson Gilmore
9.5 Theses on Art and Class by Ben Davis
See you there!
♡ Raikou ♡
post-walk nap
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