Hey Folks… MPLS based writer, Safy Farah and collaborators are in the process of launching a new publication project, 1991, a zine about the past and present written and produced from the perspective of young Somali-Americans artists and authors. It looks like a fantastic project and deserves all the support it can muster to get off the ground. If you have the ability, here’s an opportunity to help with a current fundraiser for the publication.
Patrick Murphy’s photo of the I-94 shutdown from last night’s anti-Trump / fascism march. Reports of the march were astounding; cars stuck on the freeways cheering in solidarity, drivers getting out dancing, women in hijab’s leaving their cars – blocked on the street – crying and saying “thank you,” and most inspiring of all for me, thousands of people, streaming through the West Bank shouting “Somali Lives Matter” and Somali neighbors rushing out of their homes, their shopfronts cheering and raising their fists.
This will be a hard and difficult few years ahead, but the signs of solidarity in the last few days make me know that we gonna be alright!
Malik is a security guard here in the Midtown GlobalMarket. He’s incredibly friendly, and we often joke around about books we could make together about he and his co-workers experiences on the job. The other day he let us know he has a book that he does want to make, not a joke, but an oral history of the voices of Somali elders – folks his parents age and older – who were able to escape the civil war and come here to Minneapolis.
I’m so excited to help to get this book published. It’s a publication that our neighborhood, and Minneapolis as a whole, needs.