Posts tagged feminist

Help POC Zine Project find a publishing partner for the poverty zine series

COMMUNITY: We need referrals to publishers who can help us print the first poverty zine series issue. Email daniela@dcapmedia.com or submit here.

Folks who actively support us finding a publisher will be credited on a special “thank you” page within the zine on on the upcoming resource website.

TALKING POINTS

We want to print an initial release of 500 copies of a 30 page zine (equivalent of 8-10 pieces of letter sized paper folded to 30 pages, double sided).

The zines need to be printed on waterproof material so that they are durable and withstand being exposed to the elements (we want to be realistic about community needs - a paper zine won’t work).

PROGRESS SO FAR

We received an initial quote of over 10k. This is unrealistic for us, at around $20 per zine. We are hoping to get in-kind donations or a significant discount, which we would use in conjunction with funds raised through a publishing partner network.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

1. Recommend and connect us with potential publishers! We’re especially eager to partner with independent publishers with a history of supporting community-based movements addressing poverty.

2. If you are an individual, or part of a university/collective/etc. who can support fundraising efforts for publishing the poverty zine series, contact Daniela at daniela@dcapmedia.com.

She will explain the process and detail the mutually beneficial outcomes of collaborating as part of this publishing partner network.

WHY WE NEED SUPPORT

The zines will be given away for free through DIY distribution partners nationwide, including participating agencies that serve populations living at or below the poverty line. This series will also be available as paper-based zines that anyone can reproduce and share, and available as an e-zine and (coming soon) website.

POC Zine Project is a grassroots advocacy platform. We do not have a consistent source of funding and this is intentional. We are for finding solutions by building community with like-minded individuals and organizations.

Please share! #signalboost ♥ Thank you.

- POC Zine Project

P.S. We are still looking for submissions from people (of any background) who have experience living at or below the poverty line. Click here for submission criteria and please share this with anyone you know who might be interested in participating.

We are especially eager to include stories from folks affected by Hurricane Sandy.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: A Zine about Mixed-Race Queer & Feminist Experience

Hi y’all,

Lior, Lil, and Lee at Bluestockings in NYC are working on a new zine about mixed-race queer and feminist experience. Here is their call for submissions:

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS A Zine about Mixed-Race Queer & Feminist Experience

Deadline: December 15th, 2012

Hey, mixed-race folks, how do you respond when you get asked what you are? Do you feel at a loss for words when trying to describe your racial, ethnic, or cultural background? Do you find yourself struggling to understand where you belong in the context of prominent racial paradigms? Do you run into a POC-white binary that is reductive, incomplete, or simply not enough? What does it mean that there often isn’t an easy answer? And what happens when you add gender, feminism, and queerness into the mix?

Hey, queers and feminists, let’s respond to the lack of representation of mixed-race folks like us. Yes, we are deeply indebted to the countless beautiful queers and feminists of color who have demanded to be heard; who fight, survive, and die on a daily basis. We are indebted to colonized people and feminists of color around the world and in the states who have taught us that black and brown are beautiful; who have shown us how to act with compassion and love and thoughtful rage in the face of white supremacist violence.

This zine is a call to continue this work; to build upon the work of anti-racist and decolonial literature, given the nuances of our lives as mixed-race queers and feminists, so often living on stolen land while refusing to forget the land stolen from our ancestors.

No doubt, racism against folks of color is fucking real, and those of us who are mixed race and sometimes or always pass as white are much less prone to the multiple forms of violence faced by black and brown folks. However, too often, that’s the end of the conversation.

This zine strives to challenge the narrow conception of POC vs white, a binary which doesn’t allow space for many folks’ experiences or for more complex identities (even among POCs and white folks).

As mixed-raced queers and feminists, we refuse to whitewash our histories.

We refuse to label individuals based solely upon our perceptions of their skin color or features. Colonialism attempts to whitewash, erase, assimilate and subjugate through violence and oppression.

We refuse to finish this work. We invite you to collectively participate in this refusal.

A Working Definition of Mixed-race

While this may not be the perfect term, we are using it to frame a very broad set of experiences and identities, which may include tracing all or part of one’s culture or heritage to brown people and colonized people, inclusive of all skin tones. This may also include being raised with multiple cultures or with immigrant experience.

Why Queers & Feminists?

Not only are we interested in the ways that mixed-race folks’ identities interact with queerness and feminism, but we also believe that it is important to prioritize stories from queers and feminists, whose voices are often marginalized.

Moreover, with a topic as broad as race, we want to anchor our discussions in some common politics. This anchor is important because it is a big part of how we (the editors) choose who to organize with, live with, form community with, fuck, and, in this case, write zines with.

Possible Topics

Privilege. [Not] Passing. Sex, relationships & dating. Conflicting and conflated identities (especially related to race and queerness, transness, feminism, class, dis/ability). The POC/white binary. Cultural appropriation. Structural and institutional oppression. Art, music & creativity. [Not] Belonging. Cultural estrangement. Immigrant experiences. Families & histories. Colonizing processes in family, work, activisms & relationships. Being too brown/not brown enough. Home. Diaspora. Performing identities. Physical manifestations of race, and intersection with other forms of identity and presentation. Preserving and paying respect to heritage & history (eg: interviews, oral histories, folklore). Remembering. Tracing origins and roots. The importance of race/ethnicity/culture to political formation. Mixed-race community. Food & recipes. Remedies. Developing new language(s). Race/religion overlap (and exclusion). And much, much more.

Media and formats

Poetry, prose, essay, visuals (B&W for zine, possibly color online), audio (for online), interviews, and other formats (pitch them to us!— we’re good catchers).

Deadline for submissions

December 15th, 2012.

Submit to  mrqfzine@gmail.com.

Contact:  mrqfzine@gmail.com www.mrqfzine.tumblr.com (See tumblr for information on the editors.)

You can also follow the making of this zine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrqfzine

About the Editors

Lee Naught is a radical, genderqueer, homo, chican@ organizer who has participated in a variety of collective, feminist, and sexuality-based projects. They grew up in confusing, undulating, and ultimately class-privileged environments; raised on one side by their Mexican mom, tía, grandma, and older sister in SoCal, with additional parenting on the other side by their gringo dad and sometimes by step-moms, too. These days they also get to share family space with their queer collective home in Brooklyn, NY. Lee spends most of their time working as a collective member at Bluestockings Bookstore, in addition to sex educating with Fuckin’ (A) (also known as the NY Radical Sex Positivity Project). Lee plays drums in a queer cuddlecore band, and enjoys bikes, politically rowdy queers, cooking vegan enchiladas for a friendly crowd, watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and pretty much anything that involves excessive glitter. Through this zine, Lee hopes to do some learning from other folks whose histories contain both colonization and race privilege, and folks thinking about the ways that queerness and gender non-conformity impact their relationship with their ethnicity.

Lior is a homo-queer musician, jewish-moroccan radical educator, interested in collectively cultivating the fierce political power of brown love and loving brown; which he learned about from Audre Lorde, his Ima and abuelita. Most recently, Lior was teaching a poetry class to high-school sophomores that focused on works by queers and women of color. Over summer, he played guitar in the downtown musical The Material World. And currently, he is an advocate-counselor at a high school in Brooklyn. Lior is hoping for lots of submissions from other brown and arab jews who are making the connections between apartheid, zionism and mizrahi struggles; who are telling their stories and the stories of their families: from the violence of assimilation/immigration, to being complicit in zionist colonization, to the love bubbling so patiently in grandmother’s kitchen. Lior plays guitar in the post-punk-dance band Gay Panic and the cuddle-core band Kitty and The Fags. He is also behind the acoustic project Music Was My First Gay Lover.

Lil Lefkowitz is a mixed-race, queer, second generation, latina with a passion for feminisms that create space for a myriad of complex identities, orientations, and experiences (read: a tica with attitude). Lil’s endeavors in new york city have been varied distinct and include being an Upward Bound creative writing instructor, a community supported agriculture project organizer, and a nonprofit worker at a women’s foundation. Lil recently graduated with a degree in women gender studies, sociology, and queer studies and now works as a community support worker with developmentally disabled adults. It is Lil’s hope that the MRQF zine will incite a discussion about the many nuances that comprise mixed-race queer folks’ identities specifically within the diasporic experience.

————————-

PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST

We’ll definitely be adding this zine to the archive once it’s complete <3

- POC Zine Project

FREE RIDE UPDATE: SLC Queer/Feminist Zine Fest 2012

Hi y’all,

The submission deadline was October 25, so we are no longer reviewing applications from folks to attend the SLC Queer/Feminist Zine Fest on November 10. All those who submitted prior to the deadline and met the criteria will be sponsored, and have been notified.

We know this sponsorship offering limited who could participate (we’re 100% DIY and volunteer). We were only able to sponsor POC folks who could get to NYC on their own and we agreed to cover their travel to SLC and back to the NYC pickup point.

It’s clear that many of you in other states are interested in attending zine fests, and need help with covering the costs. 

We hope that zine fest organizers and zine librarians at academic institutions consider this need for future events and how financial hardship prevents some people from participating. By combining funding sources from different departments and partnering with the on-campus zine fest or community zine fest to do additional fundraising, it is possible to offer a few sponsorships.

We would especially like to see more POC attend these events. 

It’s important to build community and work through class struggle together. With that in mind, we will be offering sponsorship to some folks - REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY LIVE IN THE WORLD - to attend our first national poc zinester + ally conference in 2014. Stay tuned for updates.

<3

COMMUNITY: If you would like to see more zine fests and other DIY events help combat class struggle by working in sponsorships, reblog this post and add the name of the fest or event you’d like to see this happen at and why this is important to you.

If you have time, be sure to also contact the organizers directly and ask them to create a sponsorship program so that some folks facing financial hardship can attend and participate. We’ll do the same!

Love,

POC Zine Project

Race Riot! Tour Recap: Brooklyn! @ Death By Audio on Oct 7, 2012 

Ten days have passed since our Race Riot! tour finale event at Death By Audio in Brooklyn. Our last tour date had the most amount of people in attendance, and zine partner sales were higher than any other stop on our tour, so thank you NYC for your love and support!

We’re going to do a zine and art book about our first tour experience, (details coming soon) so for now, here are some beautiful moments from October 7, 2012:

- Cristy C. Road gets the crowd at Death By Audio to sing “Tell It to My Heart” by Taylor Dayne before she begins reading from Spit and Passion

Photo by Mimi Thi Nguyen

- POC Zine Project’s Race Riot! Tour attendees at Death by Audio on Oct 7, 2012

- Mimi Thi Nguyen reads at Death By Audio

- Leshaun lovell (l) Share roman (m) and Jade Fair (r) at POCZP’s Race Riot! Tour stop at Death By Audio on Oct 7

- DJ Shomi Noise holding her zines Building Up Emotional Muscles #1-3 at Death By Audio on Oct 7

- Shady Hawkins perform at Death By Audio

Photo by Mary Christmas

- Mimi (l), Cristy (m) and Suzy X (r) from the band Shady Hawkins chill on stage 

- Joan Chen came all the way from the west coast and brought Bay Area poc zines for the archive! <3 Thanks, Joan!

- Back of crowd during Anna Vo’s reading at Death By Audio

Photo by Mimi Thi Nguyen

- Osa Atoe, creator of the Shotgun Seamstress series (out now on Mend My Dress Press), reads at Death By Audio

- Aye Nako performs at Death By Audio

Photo by thetenderestheart

- Part of POC Zine Project’s Race Riot! Mall at Death By Audio

Photo by Mimi Thi Nguyen

MEMORIES FROM THE EVENT

By Daniela

The venue was PACKED and at a certain point (about halfway through the show) we had to ask everyone who was sitting to stand up so that a horde of folks waiting in line outside could get in. Like all of our other tour stops, the door cover was sliding scale/pay what you can with no one turned away for lack of funds.

Although DBA had a cash bar, people kept it together and the energy overall was amazing. Around 9pm, after I had made sure the projector was working, we kicked things off.

 Jamie Varriale Vélez, our local guest reader, did an amazing job and was super brave (she read first). Race Riot! crew Osa, Anna Vo, Mimi Thi Nguyen and Cristy C. Road followed. I played MC, worked at the Race Riot! mall, dealt with problems as they came up and took some of the photos you see in this post.

We’re still getting tons of positive feedback for Aye Nako and Shady Hawkins, the two fierce bands that held down the second half of the evening.

Jordan Alam tabled on behalf of the Barnard Zine Library (longtime ally entity), sharing some of the POC and feminist zines available in their collection. Thanks, Jordan and Jenna Freedman! <3

BIG THANKS to Cristy C. Road for coordinating our finale event logistics, Death By Audio for allowing us to use the venue and all the DBA folks who handled sound and door needs.

I’m probably forgetting to thank a million people but we’ll get it together for the zine and art book that we’re doing for the tour. 

We’ll have more candids and quotes from tour members and attendees in the weeks to come.

Thanks again, you reading this right now, for your interest and support. This is an experiment in community and activism through materiality. If you took any photos or video of this event and are willing to share so we can add it to our documentation, please email daniela@dcapmedia.com. <3

***ANNOUNCEMENT***

If you’re interested in developing your digital media and community organizing skills by interning for POC Zine Project, email daniela@dcapmedia.com.

We can provide college credit or, if you’re not enrolled at an accredited university, professional mentorship. Meatspace internships will take place at DCAP Media HQ in NYC. Telecommuting/remote production internships are also available.

IMPORTANT THINGS

1) We’re doing a zine about this tour, so if you were part of any of the events, let us know if you want to contribute by emailing daniela@dcapmedia.com.

2) We’re doing a national conference in 2014. 

3) We’re doing a west coast tour in 2013.

4) If you want to be a part of any upcoming POCZP events, let us know.

5) We love you.

ABOUT POC ZINE PROJECT

POC Zine Project’s mission is to make zines by people of color easy to find, distribute and share - community and activism through materiality. We took the Race Riot! tour through 12 cities from Sept 24 - Oct 7, 2012.

STAY INFORMED

poczineproject.tumblr.com

facebook.com/poczineproject

twitter.com/poczineproject

All tour dates: http://bit.ly/PeEgaR

TOUR RECAPS ARCHIVE

Oct 7: Death By Audio - Brooklyn

Oct 6: University of Maryland + Brickhaus - College Park and Baltimore

Oct 5: St. Stephen & the Incarnation Episcopal Church - Washington, D.C.

Oct 4: University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh

Oct 3: Skylab - Columbus

Oct 2: Rachael’s Cafe - Bloomington

Oct 1: University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign + UCIMC - Champaign

Sept 30: multikulti - Chicago

Sept 29: University of Michigan + 3rd Death Star - Ann Arbor

Sept 28: The Trumbullplex - Detroit

Sept 27: Ohio University + evening potluck with Cindy Crabb - Athens

Sept 26: Mr. Roboto Project - Pittsburgh

Sept 25: The Wooden Shoe - Philly

Sept 24: 538 Johnson - NYC - Brooklyn

Sept 14 - Wellesley College pre-Race Riot! tour panel

All photos should be credited to Daniela Capistrano/POC Zine Project unless otherwise noted. Please be sure to credit and link to poczineproject.tumblr.com if you reblog individual pics. Tx! <3

Race Riot! Tour Recap: Columbus! @ Skylab on Oct 3, 2012 

Columbus, Ohio! We arrived a bit early so we decided to walk around and explore the downtown area.

- Anna Vo and Mimi Thi Nguyen: so many feelings.

- Cristy on the corner of High and Gay Street

- Cristy and Mimi at sunset

- Mimi Thi Nguyen and her pink purse

- Daniela Capistrano

Around 7pm we headed to Ryan’s, our event organizer for Columbus and host for the evening. This printmaking-art space/punk house has an amazing first floor filled with printing materials and equipment. The second flow is the living space for the three folks who work and reside there.

- This looks interesting, right? makewavescolumbus.tumblr.com

We had an amazing vegan chili and cornbread dinner with Ryan and then headed to Skylab, which is on the fifth floor of a building in downtown Columbus.

We’re writing this from the van so we’ll just let the photos tell the rest of the story …

- Alexis McCrimmon (l) and Osa Atoe (r)

Alexis is a filmmaker and screened two collage style experimental shorts last night. But we didn’t take any pictures because we were too enraptured.

- Art by Cristy C. Road

- Alexis and our host Ryan at Skylab

- One of the posters for our show made by local organizers

- Mariam Bastani shakes it

- Anna Vo hoops

- Mimi dances to freestyle near the Race Riot! mall

- Nerve Wracking performs (Meghan on guitar)

We’ll be updating this post with more photos later today, we just need to get them off of everyone’s phones ^_^

Tonight we have an evening event at the University of Pittsburgh. We can’t wait to see Heather Manning, who helped organized our previous Pittsburgh show at The Mr. Roboto Project, but who couldn’t attend because she had to work. 

If you’re in the area, come through and please help us signal boost. <3 Thanks fam.

More:

1) We’re doing a zine about this tour, so if you were part of any of the events, let us know if you want to contribute.

2) We’re doing a national conference in 2014.

3) We love you.

ABOUT POC ZINE PROJECT

POC Zine Project’s mission is to make zines by people of color easy to find, distribute and share - community and activism through materiality. We are touring through 12 cities from Sept 24 - Oct 7.

STAY INFORMED

poczineproject.tumblr.com

facebook.com/poczineproject

twitter.com/poczineproject

All tour dates: http://bit.ly/PeEgaR

TOUR RECAPS ARCHIVE

Oct 7: Death By Audio - Brooklyn

Oct 6: University of Maryland + Brickhaus - College Park and Baltimore

Oct 5: St. Stephen & the Incarnation Episcopal Church - Washington, D.C.

Oct 4: University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh

Oct 3: Skylab - Columbus

Oct 2: Rachael’s Cafe - Bloomington

Oct 1: University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign + UCIMC - Champaign

Sept 30: multikulti - Chicago

Sept 29: University of Michigan + 3rd Death Star - Ann Arbor

Sept 28: The Trumbullplex - Detroit

Sept 27: Ohio University + evening potluck with Cindy Crabb - Athens

Sept 26: Mr. Roboto Project - Pittsburgh

Sept 25: The Wooden Shoe - Philly

Sept 24: 538 Johnson - NYC - Brooklyn

Sept 14 - Wellesley College pre-Race Riot! tour panel

From the archives: Jamie Varriale Vélez recounts the first ‘Meet Me At The Race Riot’ panel (2011)

Para liberar nuestras fronteras: Seeing, Feeling, and Finding Community ‘at the Race Riot’

By Jamie Varriale Vélez

I remember, in fine detail, the exact moment during Meet Me at the Race Riot (editor’s note: read this rad report back) when I finally managed to relax.  

I tend to be a nervous public speaker.  I’ve gotten compliments on how ‘natural’ and comfortable I seem at readings, and I think that I’ve managed to accept them gracefully.  But whatever confidence I seem to project is a mere illusion, and I didn’t even seem to have that on this particular evening.  I went to ‘the race riot’ with more than my usual portion of anxiety, carried it right up to the front of the room when I sat down with the other readers, and clung to it for over an hour.

(Jamie’s portion begins at 19:49 into this video.)

Before the last presentation, moderator Daniela Capistrano opened up a general Q&A session by asking if anyone in attendance knew of or was working on zines about the Occupy Movement.  Someone in the audience shared that they had been involved in documenting the feminist and queer experience at Occupy Wall Street, and also that they had somehow managed to scam photocopies of this from a major corporation.  This was met with murmurs of approval and appreciation, including fellow reader Mariam Bastani’s quiet, but affirmative, “Haaaaii…!”

It was small, but that was the moment.  I turned to look at her, and I cracked up.  I thought that her response was entirely valid, as I too support any and all conning of corporate entities out of paper and ink.  But it was also funny, so I laughed.  For the first time that day my shoulders loosened up, I took a deep breath, and I forgot about my anxiety.  I stopped wondering what I, who have done ‘basically nothing’ for zine culture, was doing up there with a panel of ‘legit’ readers and started to enjoy being there.

If only I’d let myself enjoy more of it.  Jordan Alam, Osa Atoe, and Mariam told us how they had come to zine culture and also how they had become conscious of issues of race, class, gender, and identity, and Mariam and Osa spoke at length about their experiences with punk and hardcore.  All three were genuine, thoughtful, and entertaining.  Jordan spoke with candor about the therapeutic value of talking to herself, and using those conversations to write zines.  Mariam read to us from a piece that addresses the issue of white punks’ aversion to the “expression” ‘people/persons of color’, and explains “what’s really up” with punk and race with her uniquely goofy, yet tough voice.  Osa read an unpublished zine contribution from artist and veteran punk Vaginal Creme Davis about her mother’s involvement with a criminal lesbian separatist organization.

But I listened to all of this as if from just outside the classroom’s door, and watched as if through a window: straining to hear and see all of it, and distracted by my longing to be in the room with everyone.  I sat there wanting to be and feel present, wanting to forget the personal problems I had tried to leave at home when I frantically ran out the door and to the train station earlier that day.  But it isn’t always so easy to do that. 

My anxiety about this event began before I even agreed to participate.  Co-organizer and respected colleague Kate Wadkins e-mailed me a month in advance to ask I’d like to read at an event about zinesters of color, with the likes of Osa Atoe and Mimi Thi Nguyen.  Fully aware of their work and their impact, I almost declined.  I didn’t feel like I belonged on the bill.  The idea of reading with them scared me.

So I told Kate that I would be happy to read.  If something scares you, that means you should do it, right?  And if someone offers you this type of opportunity, you should take it as a compliment, and trust her judgment, right?  I accepted Kate’s invitation, and decided that this would be just the motivation I needed to help me finish the zine that I’d been planning all summer.  I spent the next month hard at work on writing, layout, and ultimately unsuccessful ‘anxiety management’. 

I’m pretty sure that I utterly failed to manage my anxiety because I didn’t know its source, and didn’t recognize its until the night of the reading.  When the event began, I looked out into the audience and realized that none of the friends I’d asked to be there had arrived.  I saw about 100 attentive, engaged faces (…as well as some great hair and really cute tops), but few of them were familiar.  I’d struggled to think of people to invite to the event, and then struggled some more with feeling guilty for asking them to take time out of their lives to support me.  When the few people I did ask didn’t show, it made me feel incredibly alone.

To fully understand this, you need to know that my parents, who were very supportive of everything I did, are both dead.  One of them died less than 18 months ago.  I have no siblings, and no family nearby, and I’ve been busy with grief and being the executor of an estate, and I’ve felt distant and removed from most of my friends.  I’ve needed them and their help, but some have made it clear that they can’t or don’t want to, and it’s made it hard for me to trust everyone around me. Feeling ‘really alone’, and afraid that I will always feel that way, has been my central issue for the past year.  Wishing I could talk to my parents, and missing their reassurances, is something that I have to deal with regularly.

Grief is isolating.  It draws borders around you, and it can make you feel like you aren’t capable of moving forward or liberating yourself.  It can colonize you, and convinced you of your inferiority.  Isolated, and occupied by those intense, miserable emotions, is how I felt when the reading started. 

Fortunately, it’s not how I felt afterwards.  Some of my friends did make it in time to hear me read, and I will forever be grateful to them for it.  I read about my misadventures in teaching, and what I’d learned from trying to incorporate my post-colonial politics into my interactions with my students.  I managed to get through my reading without fainting, and I couldn’t help but feel grateful for that, as well.

It clicked into place during that fateful Q&A, though.  The people who had come to listen to us asked questions about the work we do, the identities we perform, and the obstacles we’ve faced, and told us their stories about their experiences with punk, zine culture, oppression and resistance.  Listening and watching as these dialogues opened up and progressed around me made the zine community feel tangible.  The consistent use of conscientiously feminist, anti-racist, anti-classist language made the space feel positive and safe.  Being able to listen to this, and feeling free to laugh with Mariam in the middle of all of this made me feel safe.

Mimi Thi Nguyen’s final presentation closed the evening, appropriately enough, with her ideas on people of color and their place within punk, zining, and activist communities.  She read from a critique of recent Riot Grrrl nostalgia and inquiry, which notes how women of color are framed as a “big downer” within these narratives.  Women of color are so often reduced to just that — they are asked to provide a sort of ‘women of color’ commentary, and rarely treated as full participants and creators.  Women of color are an ‘intervention,’ rather than a legitimate part of the thing itself. 

Which might not sound terribly uplifting, but I know that it inspired me to take more control of my own narrative.  It reminded me that in both my shaky personal life and my uneven life as a zinester of color, I am more than an intervention or a ‘downer’, that I’m an active contributor to something bigger, to a culture and community that matters to me.

Participating at Meet Me at the Race Riot: People of Color in Zines from 1990 — Today didn’t solve my problems or fix my life.  I won’t pretend that ‘community’ is a substitute for family, friends, or other close relationships, because it isn’t.  Community’s value is distinct and not easily quantified.  It has a unique way of assuaging feelings of loneliness — if you seek it out, and if you let it. 

Editor’s note: Jamie Varriale Vélez was on the first “Meet Me At The Race Riot: People of Color in zines from 1990-Today” panel held in collaboration with POC Zine Project, Barnard Zine Library and For the Birds Collective in November of 2011.

POC Zine Project Race Riot! Tour will go to twelve cities from Sept 24 - Oct 7. Click here to find all info for each city.

Meet POC Zine Project tour member Osa Atoe!

Osa Atoe is a musician who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is the child of Nigerian immigrants, who grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC and then lived on the West Coast for seven years. She feels that her involvement with punk is unlikely and often wonders how she ended up here. Osa likes to play music more than anything else in the world, which is why her zine, “Shotgun Seamstress,” is mostly a music fanzine. She began that zine, a DIY publication by and for black punk rockers, when she lived in Portland, Oregon in 2006.

(Read issues of Shotgun Seamstress for free online.)

You can purchase all of Shotgun Seamstress as one very rad anthology from Mend My Dress Press later this month. (Osa will be selling the book during the tour as well!).

Osa is very proud to be able to say that she was in a band called New Bloods that put out a record on Kill Rock Stars before the label went completely to shit. While being in that band, Osa discovered that she loves to book punk shows and decided to begin booking all-ages DIY shows for girl bands & other folks, too, under the name No More Fiction when she moved to New Orleans in 2009. That initial love has turned into a more complicated, love/hate relationship since then, however Osa was still very much excited to help book the DIY portion of the POC Zine Project RACE RIOT! Tour.

Here is what Osa had to say about joining the POC Zine Project tour:

Why I want to be a part of the his ridiculously rad tour: Because I want to hang out with Mimi, Mariam, Daniela, Cristy and Anna every single day, every hour, every minute for two weeks straight. I need my POC punk time because I don’t get enough of it in my day to day life. Because I love to tour. I think that being able to tour & travel has helped me deal with how white punk can be because I’ve been able to make connections with black & brown punks all over the country and even internationally. I love to be on the road, I love to travel and I especially love to travel with a purpose, and what better purpose than this?

Community: Osa will be participating in ALL our tour dates: Sept 24 - Oct 7. Please help her offset the cost of participating in this tour by purchasing her zines, music and spreading the word about the tour.

MORE RACE RIOT! TOUR MEMBER BIOS

Cristy C. Road

Anna Vo

Mimi Thi Nguyen

Mariam Bastani

More bios coming soon!