Roosevelt Must-Reads: Contradictions of Resistance

This week I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of fascinating reads fall into my lap/inbox/text message notifications.

The first of which is “Funambulist, Issue No. 23: Insurgent Architecture.” The Funambulist is a bi-monthly publication that challenges its readers to address “spatial perspectives on political anticolonial, antiracist, queer, feminist and/or antiableist struggles in various scales and geographies of the world.” Favorite takes from this May/June issue include Makda Embaie’s “Language as Diasporic Heritage: Excavating Words and Histories from Sweden to Eritrea” and Noora Aljabi’s “US Sanctuary: Architecture & Injustice.”

Secondly, Irmgard Emmelhainz’s tender and unforgiving essay formed as a letter, “Decolonial Love” in Issue 99 of Eflux’s online journal. Any piece of writing that begins with a Fred Moten quote immediately wins me over, but it was the author’s agility in gracefully putting to words the relentless contradictions of a contemporary existence of resistance, one in tension with the needs of and for desire, that kept me engaged throughout the piece.

A friend also recently introduced me to Real Life magazine through this disturbing (because is it even possible to interrogate the subject of AI without being disturbed?) research on facial recognition models and the algorithms they feed.

Lastly, this weekend I’ll be contributing to my recent exploration in the world of coffee by reading a 2017 joint study by Cornell University and Fair Trade USA on “The Cost of Financially Sustainable Coffee Production” that was re-circulated yesterday. Definitely a read of interest if you’ve ever wondered why your latte costs $5+, yet coffee farmers often harvest their product at a loss.