There’s a reason why they coined the term “couch potato”. Excessive TV watching turns you into a potato in time. Research has shown that when you are watching TV, your higher brain regions shut down, and activities shift to the lower brain regions. Your lower brain is set in a

1. I was walking in the woods yesterday and I had an epiphany. It wasn’t one I wanted to have. I was thinking about today’s class, where we are reading Kimmerer’s ‘Gathering Moss’. I’ve taught Braiding Sweetgrass in multiple classes every year since 2016. It’s eminently teachable

2. Both books are beautifully written. Students uniformly enjoy them as assigned reading. They do a great job communicating to non-Indigenous folks the contours of basic Indigenous relationships to more-than-human beings. They’re wildly popular with white readers.

3. I’ve found Braiding Sweetgrass to be a great entry point for non-Indigenous folks to Indigenous scholarship. But this is where yesterday’s epiphany comes in. Neither Braiding Sweetgrass or Gathering Moss tends to the deep deep lineages of Indigenous scholarship in Canada or US

4. As the popularity of ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ has soared, I’ve seen more and more white folks wax on about ‘braiding knowledge’. But they often don’t know any of the lineages of these concepts beyond what is presented in this one book. They confidently run with this.

5. Kimmerer does a commendable job of weaving in her own experiences, her family stories+nods to some very important knowledge keepers who deserve to be celebrated for their work. But Braiding Sweetgrass does not tend to the citational politics Sara Ahmed & others teach us about

A thank you to Twitter for teaching me a trans man the truth about transgenderism. I’m no longer lost!

A thread for the headships at Twitter:

What transgenderism is and what it is NOT - What I learned as a Twitter 👩‍🎓 graduate thread.

1.Abigail Shrier & JK Rowling are leaders of a world wide cult that believes woman are equal to men and must be stopped @AbigailShrier

2.I am a real man, bio is wrong; I gave birth through my penis hole that I was led to believe by evangelicals was my vaginaWICKED Christians

3.Just because I transitioned doesn’t mean I know more than a 6 year old & I should be ashamed & embarrassed to believe I know more than people or children who have never been through or witnessed or dealt with medical transition

4.Gender Dysphoria is NOT a mental illness & should never be challenged & medical transition should be administered at, “Mom/Dad I feel like a..” IMMEDIATELY NO QUESTIONS ASKED

5.Children know more than adults & understand consequences without having to go through situations, educational purposes, or have a fully developed brain for hindsight - it’s quite amazing.

Thread:
A year ago, at this hour exactly I was in Maujpur in northeast Delhi. For days, weeks & months, I -- like several other reporters -- filed multiple stories on the #DelhiRiots. On the violence, the perpetrators, the victims, the burnt homes & shops, the fear.

I remember every minute of Feb 23, 2020 -- from the speeches to smoke billowing from afar. What I can't ever forget is the face of a man who sat alone in front of a shop, his kurta dusty and torn, blood on his forehead, unable to answer who he was & where he wanted to go.

I've his photo, I never posted it anywhere, and I won't either. He was in such shock, and there was no help around. I tried talking to him but he didn't say a word. He was numb.

It'll take me years before I can fully write down what happened that afternoon -- a stampede, stones flying all around me, a colleague who held nu hand & ran, another who lost her slipper for a minute, tear gas, my inhaler, salt.

I sent my mother messages, my hands trembling. At 1 am, I was home -- my head buried inside a pillow between my parents.