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The Ecosystem of Refusal
Menopause and the Power of Maroon Space

Charting Pathways from the Margins to the Menopausal Multiverse
From Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause by Omisade Burney-Scott
Margins are maps in disguise, coded with ancestral memory, ecological wisdom, and stories too bold for the center. The margins—the spaces where the stories, experiences, and wisdom of human beings deemed “other” have been relegated—are not places we chose. They were deliberately constructed by a dominant culture intent on controlling not just the narrative of menopause but the narratives of race, gender, sexuality, class, and power itself. For those of us who live at the intersections of these identities, the current menopause landscape could be considered inhospitable terrain, one that mirrors the broader societal patterns of erasure, exclusion, and pathologizing difference.
But what if these margins were sacred spaces instead of sites of exile? What if the margins were ecosystems of resistance, transformation, and care? They could be places where people create culture, conjure safety, and practice sovereignty. Margins are not the edge of the story—they are the origin of new ones.
The margins of menopause—once peripheral spaces of silence and invisibility—are being reclaimed and reimagined as intentional, intergenerational menopause maroon communities and a direct pathway to the Menopausal Multiverse.
A Word About Maroons
Throughout the Americas and the Caribbean, maroon communities were formed by formerly enslaved people who refused the terms of their captivity. These communities, often hidden deep in forests, swamps, or mountains, were rooted in self-liberation, sovereignty, and cultural preservation. They integrated themselves into natural landscapes, allowing them to live, organize, and thrive in plain sight.
In the American South, the Great Dismal Swamp became a haven for those who had self-liberated from enslavement. Historical records and oral histories document that from the 1600s through the Civil War, thousands of Black people sought refuge in the swamp’s dense forests and wetlands, forming maroon settlements that lasted for generations. Despite the harsh terrain, these communities developed intricate systems of agriculture, bartering, kinship, and resistance. The swamp became not only a physical sanctuary but also a site of Black ingenuity, perseverance, and refusal.
In Jamaica, Queen Nanny of the Maroons is celebrated as one of the most formidable leaders of resistance against British colonial rule. Born in what is now Ghana, she was brought to Jamaica as an enslaved African and escaped into the Blue Mountains, where she became a leader of the Windward Maroons in the early 18th century. Nanny led successful guerrilla warfare campaigns against the British, outwitting colonial forces and negotiating a peace treaty in 1739 that secured land and a degree of autonomy for her people. Beyond her military prowess, Queen Nanny was a spiritual leader and herbalist whose knowledge of African traditions, healing, and community governance shaped maroon society. Her leadership embodied the power of post-menopausal Black womanhood—rooted in clarity, strategy, protection, and vision.
These maroon societies were not utopias, but they were declarations of self-determination in a world that denied their humanity. Many were led by elder post-menopausal Black women—women who wielded their wisdom, pragmatism, and power to build sovereign spaces of care, resistance, and renewal. Their stories offer not only a historical blueprint but also a spiritual map for how we might reimagine our own liberation.
The Menopausal Maroon and the Margins We Did Not Create
At Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, we recognize that people of the global majority did not create the margins of the current menopause landscape, but we are reclaiming them. These margins were built by systems that failed to see us: the medical industrial complex that pathologized our bodies, the wellness industry that commodifies our pain, and media and research landscapes that often render our experiences invisible unless they can be exploited for profit.
Yet within these margins, we are creating something different. Through storytelling, oral histories, intergenerational knowledge exchange, and embodied cultural practices, we are illuminating what has always been here: a rich and diverse ecosystem of menopausal wisdom. We are not hiding in plain sight. We are illuminating the margins as a sacred space of safe passage—a waystation between erasure and freedom, between isolation and multiverse.
Our divestment from the mainstream menopause landscape is not about abandonment, it is about realignment. It’s about redirecting our labor, attention, and partnerships toward the world we want to live in. And in doing so, we are transforming the margins into a map with a series of questions born out of 6 years of excavation from the margins:
-
What might a divestment strategy look like if it begins with a question of sovereignty? What would it mean to build structures that refuse exploitation and instead center our stories, truths, experiences, power, and cultural wisdom?
-
What would it mean for genderqueer, nonbinary, and trans people to divest from narratives that flatten or erase their embodied experiences, and instead claim space as knowledge holders, visionaries, and healers?
-
What would it mean for formerly incarcerated people to reshape the narrative entirely, to reclaim agency in a system that pathologized and punished them, and build a community rooted in care, dignity, healing, and renewal?
-
What would it mean for people under 40 to divest from the idea that menopause only belongs to the old, the straight, or the settled, and instead, see their own early, surgical, or medically induced menopause experiences as valid, powerful, and transformative? What would shift if younger people navigating menopause were affirmed in their identities and offered language, community, and care that honors their transformation as legitimate and deeply wise? What if their stories became maps, guiding others through uncharted terrain with clarity and courage?
Our answer, shaped by the determination of maroon communities and the futuristic vision of the Menopausal Multiverse, is this:
It means building something sovereign and interdependent. It means reclaiming the ecosystems we’ve been told are wastelands. It means listening to our elders, trusting our stories, and creating spaces where all of us, not just some of us, are free.
Lessons from Queen Nanny and the Great Dismal Swamp
As we shape new ways of being and belonging in the Menopausal Multiverse, we activate the memory, strategy, resilience, and creativity of our ancestors—not to replicate the past, but to honor its wisdom while creating something radically new. These lessons from Queen Nanny and the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp remind us that what has been built before can be reimagined, and what was meant to be hidden can now be illuminated.
From Queen Nanny, we learn that leadership can be strategic, emergent, and deeply spiritual all at once. Her legacy teaches us that organizing for freedom demands not only tactical brilliance but also a profound reverence for ancestral knowledge. She reminds us that survival alone is not enough—we must also fight for land, for dignity, and for the sacred right to govern our own lives. In this light, menopause becomes more than a biological transition; it emerges as a threshold into a new kind of leadership, one that is clear-eyed, protective, and unapologetically rooted in community.
From the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, we learn that even the most seemingly inhospitable places can be transformed into havens when shaped by collective will and resistance. The margins, far from being empty, are alive with potential, with memory, and with the blueprint for what is possible. These communities show us that we do not need proximity to power to create safety, culture, or systems of governance that reflect our values. What we need is each other, a deep connection to land, shared commitment, and the courage to build beyond the gaze of the systems that have abandoned or betrayed us.
To build the Menopausal Multiverse is to carry forward these lessons. It is to reconnect with the land, with the community, and with ancestral wisdom. It is to root our future in place, resistance, and self-determination. It is to honor the margins, not as peripheries but as portals. It is to understand that healing justice and reproductive justice begin with remembering who we are and refusing to be forgotten. The Menopausal Maroon is not a metaphor. It is a living practice of reclamation and redesign. And it will lead us home.

The Margins Are a Map
A Meditation from the Menopausal Multiverse
Close your eyes.
Inhale deeply.
Let the breath trace a line—not to the center, but to the edge.
To the margin.
To the place you were told was too much, too complicated, too far.
Now exhale, and imagine this:
The margins are not exile.
They are a beginning.
They are the ground where ancestors whisper,
where stories root,
where liberation takes its first breath.
The margins are maps in disguise—
coded with memory,
lined with resistance,
drawn in the hand of the Maroon, the midwife,
the queer visionary, the freedom-seeker.
They are where those of us othered by our race, ethnicity, gender, religion or access to resource
those who have been cast out have always conjured safety,
crafted beauty,
and practiced sovereignty.
So today,
if you find yourself at the edge—
of a system, of a story, of your own becoming—
know this:
You are not lost.
You are not late.
You are not outside.
You are exactly where the map begins.
This margin,
this wild edge,
is not a boundary.
It is a portal.
It is a place of power.
Breathe into it.
Honor it.
Name it sacred.
And walk forward, not toward the center,
but into the multiverse
where all of you is welcome.

Keep reading:
Global Echoes of Resistance:
Artists Harnessing Art, Culture, and Ancestry
Michèle Aoun
{
"article":
{
"title" : "The Ecosystem of Refusal: Menopause and the Power of Maroon Space",
"author" : "Omisade Burney-Scott",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/menopause-maroon-space",
"date" : "2025-06-15 14:26:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/BW_Omi_Eno_M_Nixon_Taplet.jpg",
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"content" : "Charting Pathways from the Margins to the Menopausal MultiverseFrom Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause by Omisade Burney-ScottMargins are maps in disguise, coded with ancestral memory, ecological wisdom, and stories too bold for the center. The margins—the spaces where the stories, experiences, and wisdom of human beings deemed “other” have been relegated—are not places we chose. They were deliberately constructed by a dominant culture intent on controlling not just the narrative of menopause but the narratives of race, gender, sexuality, class, and power itself. For those of us who live at the intersections of these identities, the current menopause landscape could be considered inhospitable terrain, one that mirrors the broader societal patterns of erasure, exclusion, and pathologizing difference.But what if these margins were sacred spaces instead of sites of exile? What if the margins were ecosystems of resistance, transformation, and care? They could be places where people create culture, conjure safety, and practice sovereignty. Margins are not the edge of the story—they are the origin of new ones. The margins of menopause—once peripheral spaces of silence and invisibility—are being reclaimed and reimagined as intentional, intergenerational menopause maroon communities and a direct pathway to the Menopausal Multiverse.A Word About MaroonsThroughout the Americas and the Caribbean, maroon communities were formed by formerly enslaved people who refused the terms of their captivity. These communities, often hidden deep in forests, swamps, or mountains, were rooted in self-liberation, sovereignty, and cultural preservation. They integrated themselves into natural landscapes, allowing them to live, organize, and thrive in plain sight.In the American South, the Great Dismal Swamp became a haven for those who had self-liberated from enslavement. Historical records and oral histories document that from the 1600s through the Civil War, thousands of Black people sought refuge in the swamp’s dense forests and wetlands, forming maroon settlements that lasted for generations. Despite the harsh terrain, these communities developed intricate systems of agriculture, bartering, kinship, and resistance. The swamp became not only a physical sanctuary but also a site of Black ingenuity, perseverance, and refusal.In Jamaica, Queen Nanny of the Maroons is celebrated as one of the most formidable leaders of resistance against British colonial rule. Born in what is now Ghana, she was brought to Jamaica as an enslaved African and escaped into the Blue Mountains, where she became a leader of the Windward Maroons in the early 18th century. Nanny led successful guerrilla warfare campaigns against the British, outwitting colonial forces and negotiating a peace treaty in 1739 that secured land and a degree of autonomy for her people. Beyond her military prowess, Queen Nanny was a spiritual leader and herbalist whose knowledge of African traditions, healing, and community governance shaped maroon society. Her leadership embodied the power of post-menopausal Black womanhood—rooted in clarity, strategy, protection, and vision.These maroon societies were not utopias, but they were declarations of self-determination in a world that denied their humanity. Many were led by elder post-menopausal Black women—women who wielded their wisdom, pragmatism, and power to build sovereign spaces of care, resistance, and renewal. Their stories offer not only a historical blueprint but also a spiritual map for how we might reimagine our own liberation.The Menopausal Maroon and the Margins We Did Not CreateAt Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, we recognize that people of the global majority did not create the margins of the current menopause landscape, but we are reclaiming them. These margins were built by systems that failed to see us: the medical industrial complex that pathologized our bodies, the wellness industry that commodifies our pain, and media and research landscapes that often render our experiences invisible unless they can be exploited for profit.Yet within these margins, we are creating something different. Through storytelling, oral histories, intergenerational knowledge exchange, and embodied cultural practices, we are illuminating what has always been here: a rich and diverse ecosystem of menopausal wisdom. We are not hiding in plain sight. We are illuminating the margins as a sacred space of safe passage—a waystation between erasure and freedom, between isolation and multiverse.Our divestment from the mainstream menopause landscape is not about abandonment, it is about realignment. It’s about redirecting our labor, attention, and partnerships toward the world we want to live in. And in doing so, we are transforming the margins into a map with a series of questions born out of 6 years of excavation from the margins: What might a divestment strategy look like if it begins with a question of sovereignty? What would it mean to build structures that refuse exploitation and instead center our stories, truths, experiences, power, and cultural wisdom? What would it mean for genderqueer, nonbinary, and trans people to divest from narratives that flatten or erase their embodied experiences, and instead claim space as knowledge holders, visionaries, and healers? What would it mean for formerly incarcerated people to reshape the narrative entirely, to reclaim agency in a system that pathologized and punished them, and build a community rooted in care, dignity, healing, and renewal? What would it mean for people under 40 to divest from the idea that menopause only belongs to the old, the straight, or the settled, and instead, see their own early, surgical, or medically induced menopause experiences as valid, powerful, and transformative? What would shift if younger people navigating menopause were affirmed in their identities and offered language, community, and care that honors their transformation as legitimate and deeply wise? What if their stories became maps, guiding others through uncharted terrain with clarity and courage? Our answer, shaped by the determination of maroon communities and the futuristic vision of the Menopausal Multiverse, is this: It means building something sovereign and interdependent. It means reclaiming the ecosystems we’ve been told are wastelands. It means listening to our elders, trusting our stories, and creating spaces where all of us, not just some of us, are free.Lessons from Queen Nanny and the Great Dismal SwampAs we shape new ways of being and belonging in the Menopausal Multiverse, we activate the memory, strategy, resilience, and creativity of our ancestors—not to replicate the past, but to honor its wisdom while creating something radically new. These lessons from Queen Nanny and the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp remind us that what has been built before can be reimagined, and what was meant to be hidden can now be illuminated.From Queen Nanny, we learn that leadership can be strategic, emergent, and deeply spiritual all at once. Her legacy teaches us that organizing for freedom demands not only tactical brilliance but also a profound reverence for ancestral knowledge. She reminds us that survival alone is not enough—we must also fight for land, for dignity, and for the sacred right to govern our own lives. In this light, menopause becomes more than a biological transition; it emerges as a threshold into a new kind of leadership, one that is clear-eyed, protective, and unapologetically rooted in community.From the maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, we learn that even the most seemingly inhospitable places can be transformed into havens when shaped by collective will and resistance. The margins, far from being empty, are alive with potential, with memory, and with the blueprint for what is possible. These communities show us that we do not need proximity to power to create safety, culture, or systems of governance that reflect our values. What we need is each other, a deep connection to land, shared commitment, and the courage to build beyond the gaze of the systems that have abandoned or betrayed us.To build the Menopausal Multiverse is to carry forward these lessons. It is to reconnect with the land, with the community, and with ancestral wisdom. It is to root our future in place, resistance, and self-determination. It is to honor the margins, not as peripheries but as portals. It is to understand that healing justice and reproductive justice begin with remembering who we are and refusing to be forgotten. The Menopausal Maroon is not a metaphor. It is a living practice of reclamation and redesign. And it will lead us home.The Margins Are a MapA Meditation from the Menopausal MultiverseClose your eyes.Inhale deeply.Let the breath trace a line—not to the center, but to the edge.To the margin.To the place you were told was too much, too complicated, too far.Now exhale, and imagine this:The margins are not exile.They are a beginning.They are the ground where ancestors whisper,where stories root,where liberation takes its first breath.The margins are maps in disguise—coded with memory,lined with resistance,drawn in the hand of the Maroon, the midwife,the queer visionary, the freedom-seeker.They are where those of us othered by our race, ethnicity, gender, religion or access to resourcethose who have been cast out have always conjured safety,crafted beauty,and practiced sovereignty.So today,if you find yourself at the edge—of a system, of a story, of your own becoming—know this:You are not lost.You are not late.You are not outside.You are exactly where the map begins.This margin,this wild edge,is not a boundary.It is a portal.It is a place of power.Breathe into it.Honor it.Name it sacred.And walk forward, not toward the center,but into the multiversewhere all of you is welcome."
}
,
"relatedposts": [
{
"title" : "Culture Must Be the Moral Compass That Geopolitics and Economics Will Never Be",
"author" : "EIP Editors",
"category" : "essays",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/culture-must-be-the-moral-compass-that-geopolitics-and-economics-will-never-be",
"date" : "2025-07-15 16:14:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/2025_7_Opposing_Nazism_1.png",
"excerpt" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.",
"content" : "The widespread cultural rejection of Nazism in the West did not emerge spontaneously from humanity’s innate sense of right and wrong. It was not simply that people around the world, and especially in the West, were naturally alert and to the moral horror of fascism.Rather, the transformation of Nazism from a nationalist ideology admired by many Western elites into the universal symbol of evil was a story of narrative engineering and the deliberate construction of collective memory. It is a story that reveals a larger truth: culture has always been the moral compass that geopolitics and economics cannot, and will not, provide on their own.And at this moment, it is crucial to understand and use the power of culture to shift geopolitics, and not the other way around.Understanding this history matters today more than ever. Because if it was possible to turn Nazism into the ultimate taboo, it is equally possible to reposition other violent ideologies and state projects—such as Israel’s ongoing system of apartheid and settler colonialism—as morally indefensible. But to do so requires acknowledging that cultural reckonings don’t simply arrive; they are made.Pre-War Ambivalence: When Fascism Was FashionableContrary to the comforting myth that the world naturally recoiled from Nazism, in the 1920s and 1930s many influential Americans and Europeans viewed Hitler’s Germany with admiration. American industrialists like Henry Ford openly praised Hitler’s economic management and fierce opposition to communism. Ford even funded antisemitic propaganda through his publication, The Dearborn Independent. British aristocrats, including the Duke of Windsor, flirted with Nazi sympathies, seeing Germany as a model of discipline and order.It was only when Hitler’s ambitions clashed with the strategic interests of other nations that fascism became intolerable. And even then, many major US and UK companies maintained their business interests with the Nazis, including Ford, IBM, GM (Opel), Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil), Chase Bank, and of course Coca-Cola, who famously created the brand Fanta so that it could break the boycott and do business with Nazi Germany.This distinction is critical: condemnation of Nazism began not as a moral imperative, but as a political necessity. Germany’s aggression threatened the European balance of power, British imperial security, and eventually, American economic and military interests. The moral narrative would only come later, after the fighting was over.It is important to learn from the past and see that only culture can shift perception, and to use culture to shift the economic realities that would otherwise wait to be shaped by politics.Wartime Shifts: From Enemy State to Symbol of EvilWorld War II did not instantly transform public opinion. For many Americans, the war in Europe remained remote until the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Even then, the decision to fight Nazi Germany was entangled with power politics: Hitler declared war on the United States first, effectively forcing Roosevelt’s hand.Nevertheless, the war provided fertile ground for a reframing of Nazism. Wartime propaganda efforts by the Allies recast the Nazi regime as a brutal, alien threat to civilization itself. Hollywood joined in: The Great Dictator (1940) ridiculed Hitler’s delusions of grandeur, while Casablanca (1942) romanticized resistance. Images of goose-stepping soldiers, swastika flags, and shattered cities circulated widely.As the Allies advanced, they encountered the first concrete evidence of the Holocaust: ghettos, mass graves, and emaciated survivors. Yet even then, much of this evidence remained unknown to the general public. It was only after liberation that the full horror became impossible to ignore.Post-War Revelation: The Holocaust and the Cultural BreakThe turning point came in 1945, with the liberation of the camps and the Nuremberg Trials. The images and testimonies from Auschwitz, Dachau, and Bergen-Belsen revealed the industrial scale of genocide. Millions murdered with chilling efficiency. A systematic attempt to erase an entire people. For the first time, the abstract notion of “Nazi evil” was grounded in visceral, visual evidence.Sociologist Jeffrey Alexander describes this phenomenon as the cultural construction of trauma. Atrocities do not automatically generate collective memory; they must be narrated, documented, and ritualized until they become an inescapable moral reference point. The Nuremberg Trials played this role by broadcasting confessions and evidence to a global audience. Schools, museums, and the press reinforced the narrative: Nazism was not simply defeated; it was unmasked as pure, irredeemable evil.Cold War Myth-Making: The Free World Versus FascismThe Cold War further cemented this narrative. To build legitimacy against the Soviet Union, the United States and its allies positioned themselves as the moral victors of World War II, the saviors of Europe from fascism. In reality, many of the same powers—Britain, France, and the United States—continued their own brutal colonial projects and enforced systems of racial hierarchy at home.But the cultural story was powerful: the West stood for freedom; the Nazis had embodied totalitarian darkness. School textbooks, popular films, and Holocaust memorialization institutionalized this story, forging a shared moral identity that could be contrasted against communist “evil.”This process was neither accidental nor purely altruistic. It was a strategic use of culture to consolidate power, project moral authority, and deflect scrutiny of the West’s own violence. The lesson is clear: collective memory is not a neutral mirror of reality. It is built, contested, and leveraged.The Sociological Core: Why Public Opinion ShiftsTo understand how an ideology once admired by many became the universal emblem of inhumanity, we must look beyond military defeat. Several mechanisms combined:Symbolic Association: Nazism transformed from a nationalist experiment into a symbol of mechanized genocide and racial supremacy.Cultural Trauma: The Holocaust became a shared wound that redefined moral frameworks across the West.Visual Storytelling: Images and films, rather than mere text, anchored the horror in the public imagination.State Rebranding: The Allies used anti-Nazism to build a postwar myth of moral superiority, even as they pursued imperial ambitions elsewhere.These insights are not simply historical trivia. They are a roadmap for how cultural shifts happen—and how they can be deliberately engineered.Israel, Palestine, and the Next Cultural ReckoningToday, Israel’s treatment of Palestinians—systematic dispossession, apartheid laws, and repeated military assaults—remains largely protected in Western discourse. Politicians insist on Israel’s right to defend itself. Media narratives default to framing the violence as a “conflict” rather than an occupation. Solidarity with Palestinians is often smeared as antisemitism.Yet history shows that moral consensus is not fixed. With enough sustained exposure, narrative work, and cultural pressure, the global imagination can be reshaped. Just as Nazism’s legitimacy eroded, so too can the idea of Israel as an unassailable “victim-state.”This is not a call to equate the Holocaust with the Nakba—each is historically distinct. It is, however, an argument that the techniques which made Nazism morally intolerable—trauma visualization, reframing language, relentless storytelling—are tools available to any liberation movement.Here is how such a transformation could unfold:1. Narrative InversionIsrael’s founding story must be contextualized: a state born from the trauma of European antisemitism that, in turn, created the dispossession of another people. Exposing this contradiction—survivors becoming occupiers—breaks the simplistic binary of oppressor and victim.2. Visual Culture and TestimonyJust as photographs of emaciated bodies in camps forced an awakening, so too can images of bombed Gazan neighborhoods, amputee children, and anguished families. Digital archives and survivor testimonies can anchor these experiences in collective memory.3. Linguistic ReframingTerms like “apartheid,” “settler colonialism,” and “ethnic cleansing” shift perception from tragic conflict to structural violence. Legal frameworks—UN reports, ICC filings—can fortify these terms with institutional legitimacy.4. Media SaturationBypassing corporate media gatekeepers requires a multi-platform strategy: TikTok clips, Substack essays, livestreamed trials of Israeli policy, viral documentaries. Saturation is what makes denial unsustainable.5. Global RealignmentPositioning Palestine within global struggles—Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, anti-colonial movements—expands solidarity. When the Global South embraces Palestinian liberation as part of its own decolonization, moral isolation will deepen.6. Cultural Institutions and EducationJust as Holocaust education became standard in Western curricula, Nakba education can be mainstreamed. Museums, memorials, and fellowships can institutionalize remembrance and scholarship.7. Policy Pressure and Legal ActionPublic consensus is the soil in which policy change grows. Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, coupled with legal prosecutions of war crimes, transform moral clarity into material consequences.8. Making Occupation a LiabilityWhen supporting Israel becomes politically and financially risky—akin to defending apartheid South Africa—corporate and governmental alliances will fracture. Reputational risk can be a powerful motivator.Conclusion: Cultural Reckonings Are EngineeredIt was not “natural” for the West to reject Nazism. It took defeat, trauma exposure, and decades of cultural labor to enshrine anti-Nazism as a foundational moral principle. Similarly, it is not inevitable that the world will recognize Israel’s oppression of Palestinians as an urgent moral crisis. It will require strategic, sustained, and courageous cultural work.Culture—more than geopolitics or economics—sets the terms of what is morally acceptable. It is the compass that can point humanity toward justice. But only if we are willing to pick it up and use it."
}
,
{
"title" : "Neptune Frost",
"author" : "Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman",
"category" : "screenings",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/eip-screening-neptune-frost",
"date" : "2025-07-12 16:00:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/netune-frost-movie-poster.jpg",
"excerpt" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.",
"content" : "Thank you for all who joined the special screening of Neptune Frost, with exclusive introduction from writer/director Saul Williams. Stay tuned and become a member for our next edition of our EIP monthly screening series.Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective. From their camp in an otherworldly e-waste dump, they attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime exploiting the region’s natural resources – and its people. When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection sparks glitches within the greater divine circuitry. Set between states of being – past and present, dream and waking life, colonized and free, male and female, memory and prescience – Neptune Frost is an invigorating and empowering direct download to the cerebral cortex and a call to reclaim technology for progressive political ends."
}
,
{
"title" : "Uranus & The Cycle of Liberation",
"author" : "Céline Semaan",
"category" : "",
"tags" : "",
"url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/uranus-and-the-cycle-of-liberation",
"date" : "2025-07-11 16:25:00 -0400",
"img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Uranus.jpg",
"excerpt" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.",
"content" : "I’m definitely not an astrologer. I don’t even know where Uranus is in my chart. But I do know how to read systems and translate them to the public. What I’ve learned, through years of designing for social and environmental justice, is that history doesn’t just unfold. It cycles upwards. And if we learn to pay attention to those cycles, we can prepare—not just to resist collapse, but to shape what comes after.Even if you don’t care about astrology, the timing of these celestial movements provides us a way to examine macro trends that we can learn from. History may not exactly repeat itself, but it does echo.Uranus—the planet astrologers associated with upheaval, rebellion, and technological transformation—entered Aries in May 2010 and stayed there until 2018. That cycle coincided with a surge in political uprisings, many of which redefined our understanding of mass resistance in the 21st century.The Arab Spring began in late 2010, starting in Tunisia and erupting across the Middle East. It wasn’t just about corrupt regimes—it was about reclaiming voice, land, and dignity after decades of foreign interference, neoliberal decay, and post-colonial repression. From Tahrir Square to Pearl Roundabout, these movements were leaderless, fast, and media-savvy.Occupy Wall Street followed in 2011, challenging the violent inequality embedded in late capitalism. In 2013, Black Lives Matter emerged after the murder of Trayvon Martin, later exploding into a global uprising in 2014 and again in 2020. Standing Rock (2016) reminded the world that Indigenous resistance was not only alive but visionary. #MeToo (2017) became an international reckoning with patriarchy and sexual violence, a reminder that personal testimony is political terrain.Across these years, protests were decentralized, digitized, and visual. Social media moved from a personal tool to a frontline of collective witnessing. Livestreams replaced press conferences. Memes became political language. Design itself became a protest, and Slow Factory built the visual language for it.This was not coincidental but archetypal, because Uranus in Aries, even symbolically, tells the story of radical ignition, collective fire, visionary unrest.And yet, none of it was sustained. What followed was a backlash: fascist resurgence, climate denial, propaganda wars, and intensified state surveillance. We saw mass demobilization, media fatigue, and widespread disinformation. Many of the movements that sparked global hope were either crushed, co-opted, or burned out.So now, as Uranus moves through Taurus (2018–2026), the terrain has shifted. Taurus is about materiality, land, value, and stability. It demands we not only rise up, which is crucial, but to build. We are asked to not only critique systems, but replace them. Not just “burn it all down”, but radically imagine what’s next.This is the political and spiritual context I hold as I continue my work.At Slow Factory, we spent the past decade offering free education, cultural strategy, and ecological design rooted in climate justice and human rights. And with Everything is Political, we’re building an independent media platform not beholden to corporate donors or foundation filters—a place where movement memory, critical analysis, and cultural clarity live. If we don’t design the next phase of liberation, someone else will design it for us.This work isn’t about virality. It’s about continuity. We are here to hold political memory. To protect the intellectual commons. To ensure that the next generation doesn’t forget who stood for truth—and who profited from silence.The ask is to build the very systems we are all looking for, and for that we deserve the time, energy and support to imagine, design and co-create as a community. We can’t delegate our liberation to politicians, and we certainly won’t see startups capitalizing on the changes our society needs. Perhaps we will witness the hyper privatization of every single service our communities need, but we must strategize for during and after collapse. Funding structures will have to be challenged, as they are designed to sustain themselves and uphold status quo. However, we are witnessing the collapse of every industry: media, education, banking, all industries we rely on, will be challenged. We are going to need to rely on our creative skills and our ability to build true solidarity across our communities towards a common goal outside of dogma and division. It’s a cultural moment, and we are here for it.Resistance isn’t just about protest. It’s about imagination. And imagination requires discipline, community, and space.We are creating that space right here. And together we can co-create together if everybody puts in effort and care. For now, we are imagining what systems of mitigation amidst systems collapse will look like. Will we outsource our infrastructure to highly funded Silicon Valley funded platforms feeding off of public data feeding ads markets and Ai learning in real time from our work? Or are we truly invested in building sovereign media? I personally invest in the latter, and hope you all join us. Because we are the majority, and truly if we align we are unstoppable."
}
]
}