People Watching

Employee at the Y.

Alina_Oh-138-2

Alina_Oh-134

She texted me those, in lieu of a pic when I said she should submit a pic to Afropunk’s Afro of the Day. Africa is beautiful. That hair…!

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On the words “crazy” and “mad” and their use

Was going over some back issues of Abyss & Apex Magazine, looking for certain types of stories we’d published.

And I saw something and… I felt obliged to say something about it.

In regards to persons who don’t, in my opinion, bother to educate themselves before they start reacting, and reveal their lack of knowledge .

Re: Use of the word “Crazy” (in this particular case, as a short story title).

Without revealing personal information, I’ll use another example that I can, being a black person:- the N word. I don’t agree to its use, but others have quite articulate reasons for their using it, and others just simply use it because that’s their environment and don’t have any articulated explanation for it at all.

Same goes for – again, without revealing personal information – the word “crazy”.

To wit, here’s Donna Kakonge (https://twitter.com/kakonged). Her book title? “How To Talk To Crazy People.” She recounts personal experiences. She goes to Mad Pride; I’ve met her there, and originally when she was doing an author signing at Chapters Indigo in the Manulife Centre; she knows me.

The same goes for the word “mad”; in fact there is a concept of “Mad Pride”, and I can point you to where that exists:- http://madpride2015.blogspot.ca/

Which implies I go to Mad Pride, too… doesn’t it?

Anyway. I think I’ve made my point.