Kendra Ross

Because of great love we are courageous. Being loved deeply gives you strength, and loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu

Anyway this is some of the big picture facing @robfields—who is sharp, diligent, and motivated—and team as they form a new strategy. Which they will buy some time and resources to do with this emergency crowdfunding.

Around Weeksville is a poor community, largely NYCHA, that benefits from the classroom, garden/food programs etc., and real estate interests hovering over the area. The Black/adjacent bohemia that hung out 10 years ago, lending cachet, is now 2nd-stage gentrified out of Bed-Stuy.

I'm seeing moral appeals to Black Brooklynites to support Weeksville, and yes. I'm seeing calls on non-Black/gentrifiers in Bed-Stuy/Crown Heights to do same, and yes also. Civic ethics in general says: support Weeksville. But then?

It's also, of course, a community issue for Brooklyn, and the east-central sections of Brooklyn where gentrification is approaching, picking its way around the projects as it moves thru Ocean Hill toward Brownsville/ENY. There are big real estate stakes which are also cultural.

Instead it's a set-up for failure. @NYCulture and other relevant departments can't stand back and watch as @Weeksville flounders under the weight, in large part, of a city-funded white elephant. Even if they inherited it from the Bloomberg administration, it's still their issue.

Weeksville's management over the years needs to be scrutinized, but the bigger issue is that plopping down a beautiful facility in an undervalued, underserved neighborhood and expecting the organization will fund and program itself into success at that new scale is not realistic.

A valiant but small cultural and community organization, which was doing good and maybe sustainable work but of only hyperlocal impact and on a shoestring, got a grand new facility without the resources to staff up, build programs etc. It has risked turning into a white elephant.

As coverage has noted, @Weeksville opened a big new building with performance, exhibition, and class/meeting space in 2013. It is beautiful and has won architecture awards. The Bloomberg administration funded it for the most part with at least $23m. Problem solved, right? But no.

Depression can even show up as perfectionism, the pursuit of excellence with hopes of erasing the shame.

You know what? Vasectomies are reversible. Why not just make all men get them? And then if they're truly ready to be a father, they can undo them. What's that? You have problems with this? Yes, you're right, it's wrong to regulate men's bodies like that.

Thank you for having me as your first experience covering a trans person. I know I will not be the last. so excited to see Elle leverage their platform to help other talent of trans xp find visibility, & the safe space to be acknowledged & vulnerable in this powerful way.https://twitter.com/IndyaMoore/status/1126488348070219776 …

I can't believe that @JohnsHopkins called the police on students protesting against police on campus! This is why the occupation is happening in the first place! #noprivatepolice #JHUsitin Get police off campus NOW! We are taking this to the press!!!

A day who but super relevant to today’s action at Johns Hopkins University. Especially considering all the radical scholarship JHUPress publishes. #JHUsitinhttps://twitter.com/CoreyMiles__/status/1125448047910109191 …