By Mary Dispenza

A photo tells a thousand stories and evokes memories. I paint and photograph subjects that matter to me. The people of Mexico and Hispanic descent matter to me. I spent time serving and caring for children and teaching art in an orphanage in Mexico called Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos y Hermanas.  That experience, so different from my white self, privilege, and culture opened my eyes and heart. We are connected. We want the same things – peace, love, justice, equality and a better life and environment for ourselves and our children. That is why so many immigrants seek homes in America. At our best, that is who we are, and what we give.

By Robert Beveridge

I would open my flesh

along the perforations

scoop out the excess

fat, tendons, Nigerian

movie trivia, lo mein.

In those days Myspace

was everyone’s favorite

destination, we all knew

each other, we all knew

By Luzene Hill

A world in balance and equilibrium was the prevailing philosophy, as well as the structure of society, on this continent prior to 1492.   Olin (motion-change) is the Nahuatl word given to the natural rhythms of the universe, from beating hearts to earthquakes.   These cultural foundations were buried by the white noise of patriarchal colonialism.   

The rhythm of a world in balance is here.   

It has always been here.

“Revelate” revels in Indigenous culture rising up.  The pulsing rhythm is resounding, exploding back into the world – through female figures of energy and power.

By Russell Willis

Masquerading as instinct
something ingrained, embedded
in the mind
the heart
or soul
reflexive triggered as fight or flight

But not

Not instinct

A choice it is
this thing called hate 
a decision made by someones
then shared
decisions
strings of decisions
whole family trees of decisions

By Heather Marie Scholl

1a: the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy 

Violence is a slippery term, sliding between definitions with the turn of a phrase. Is it the violence in the imagination of white people, or the violence forced upon the bodies of Black people? Can violence be the assault of an object? Or does violence require mourning, trauma? If we label destruction of property as violence does it imbue it with personhood? As if it might bleed when broken, a family of shutters and doors mourning the loss of a window.

By James Croal Jackson

I’m privileged to sit in my home on a sunny day 

with just a headache

in late May two thousand twenty. God I feel

plenty guilty. My friends 

are linking hands in the street and I am scared

of all that’s viral. Oh what has lingered

in the air since, yes, America. 

I have wept with internet videos

in my shadowed home, 

never gassed 

standing up for what is right.