I usually write about 3-4 pieces in my bi-weekly best reads round-ups, but this time around, I’m going to focus on two that really stood out to me in the hopes that both writers gain new subscribers and that there is also a focus on these two excellent essays. The first piece is by Kaimataara, a superb, insightful disabled Māori writer, someone I’ve now known close to a year on Substack. They are a joy to read, and I continue to learn so much from their deep wisdom, so I am grateful for the labor they put into all their work. The second piece is by Nikki Buchanan, a Brooklynite, I’ve just recently discovered from the piece that she wrote about getting out onto the streets. She describes herself as a “multidisciplinary practitioner and budding scholar of the Afro-diasporic traditions of Hoodoo, Lucumi, Palo, and Espirtismo.” I found her piece mesmerizing, and I’m sure you will too. So, with that said, let’s jump into each of their essays.
Kaimataara’s in-depth piece “Do White Trans People Exist?”
A complex, nuanced, deeply incisive essay about transness, racism, and colonialism, against the Māori. Kaimataara does a lot of heavy lifting in this essay, specifically because I suggested that they write about their gender identity after they wrote a note about it a few weeks ago, and for that, I am most grateful. Like usual, it’s a stunning piece. They delve into how they are “invoked for queer white people,” but for all the wrong reasons, and then they go into how Māori are always transitioning because they are in a “constant state of proven,” and also forced into permanent liminal spaces. This is made even worse, too, when being agender, or ira kora, as white queer people gatekeep this identity, and those even come from trans Pākehā (white people).
But for Kaimataara, being ira kora is deeply tied to Te Kore, the nothingness. They continue:
The beginning from where Te Pō — the long night originates from and from Te Pō comes Te Ata — the dawn.
As ira kore my gender identity does not simply mean “without gender”, because like the cosmology origin, Te Kore wasn’t “without” Te Pō or Te Ata, rather it gave rise to them. The void between the lungs expands the lungs. If the void was missing it would collapse.
Kaimataara provides a deep, rich background to the problems around transness for the Māori as a result of colonialism and also the (violent) gatekeeping that trans Pākehā invoke against those who identify as ira kora. Every single word is worth reading. Go check it out now.
Nikki Buchanan’s “The Simulation Wants You Inside. I Chose the Streets” is up next.
Buchanan writes passionately about avoiding isolation and choosing life and joy after returning to New York City this summer. She tells her readers:
The simulation wants you isolated. It wants you afraid. It wants you inside your head, inside your house, inside your trauma. It wants you to forget that joy is possible. Because a joyful Black person is a dangerous Black person. Joy is resistance. Joy is proof that the simulation hasn’t won.
As is clear, Buchanan refuses to remain in isolation. She has embraced joy, even if that means cussing someone out (justifiably so!) in a deli after the Knicks’ historic triumph. Joy, as she writes, “is not passive.” Far from it. It is also about standing up for your community, and in this specific case, she did exactly that.
Her writing is electric, just as the streets she describes in New York City are. People are enlivened; they are part of each other’s daily lives, interacting and living their best lives together.
Buchanan speaks of protection from her ancestors, too, and of experiencing “unadulterated joy” as a result.
The piece brims with Black resistance through hyperlocal action and community interaction, and in her jubilation, you celebrate Buchanan and everyone around her.
Further Reading
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