To Do list №7 June 2020

I am so grateful for those of you that helped raise money with us for George Floyd's family!  Selkie says PROUDLY  Black Lives Matter!!  I must continue to grow as a company and these values are part of the company ethos. Your opinions mean everything to Selkie, so please feel free to write back to this email!!

This months checklist;

1. Show your solidarity
2. Donate to victim funds
3.  Donate to organizations
4. Sign a petition
5. Use and share resources
6. Support black-owned businesses in Los Angeles
7. Educate yourself on the history of institutional racism in the country
8. …And then have conversations with family and friends about it
9. Follow organizations and leaders to keep you informed and educated
10. Vote

This evening, pour a glass of wine or a tea, sit down with us and make time for this list.

Donate

• Official George Floyd Memorial Fund: These funds will also go towards the funeral and burial costs along with the counseling and legal expenses for his loved ones. A portion will go towards the Estate of George Floyd for the benefit and care of his children and their educational fund.
• Tony Mcdade: Tony Mcdade was a black LGBTQ person, was shot and killed by a Tallahassee Police Department officer. The funds go towards funeral and memorial costs.
• George Floyd Memorial Fund: Donate directly to the family of George Floyd via this gofundme created by his brother, Philonise Floyd.
• George Floyd’s Sister’s Fund: Further support George Floyd’s family’s mission in getting justice for his death through this gofundme set up by George Floyd’s sister, Bridgett Floyd.
• I Run With Maud:Donate to the family of Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, who was murdered in February while jogging.
• Justice For Regis: Donate to the family of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who fell off a balcony and died after a confrontation with the police.
• Justice for Jamee: Donate to the family of Jamee Johnson, who was shot four times in the chest by a police officer during a traffic stop.

Sign a petition

• #JusticeforFloyd: The Color of Change petition demands that Mayor Frey block all four officers from receiving their pensions and ban them from ever working in the force in the future. Although, Derek Chauvin calls for Officers Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng to be charged too. It also demands the release of any protestors that have been arrested. The petition currently needs 55,000 more signatures to meet its goal of 2,500,000. You can sign the petition at the link below or text “FLOYD” to 55156.
• Justice for Floyd: This petition by Change.org demands the other three officers involved with the murder are held accountable. You can sign the petition here.

Use and share resources

“How to Become actively anti-racist”

The Good Good Co has put together a beautiful post that summarizes an essay by acclaimed professor Ibram X. Kendi for the new York Times. Read it. Share it.

Loveland Foundation

The prominent group focuses on offering free counseling to black women and girls. You can share the resource with people you know or donate to their fund here.

Therapy for People of Color

Created by a Kenyan living in Boston, this document is filled with free valuable resources for those that have had traumatic experiences.

Showing Up for Racial Justice

SURJ is a national network of groups & individuals that organizes white people for racial justice.

This list is from https://secretlosangeles.com/black-lives-matter-movement-action/ and they have even more suggestions! Go check it out.

The Lovebirds is laugh out loud alone funny. Definitley the funniest of the year- the milkshake scene alone is worth watching for. "On the brink of breaking up, a couple gets unintentionally embroiled in a bizarre murder mystery. As they get closer to clearing their names and solving the case, they need to figure out how they, and their relationship, can survive the night."

The Lovebirds is laugh out loud alone funny. Definitley the funniest of the year- the milkshake scene alone is worth watching for. "On the brink of breaking up, a couple gets unintentionally embroiled in a bizarre murder mystery. As they get closer to clearing their names and solving the case, they need to figure out how they, and their relationship, can survive the night."

White Fragility;Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism

"DiAngelo addresses her book mostly to white people, and she reserves her harshest criticism for white liberals like herself (and like me), whom she sees as refusing to acknowledge their own participation in racist systems. “I believe,” she writes, “that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color.” Not only do these people fail to see their complicity, but they take a self-serving approach to ongoing anti-racism efforts: “To the degree that white progressives think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived.” Even the racial beliefs and responses that feel authentic or well-intentioned have likely been programmed by white supremacy, to perpetuate white supremacy. Whites profit off of an American political and economic system that showers advantages on racial “winners” and oppresses racial “losers.” Yet, DiAngelo writes, white people cling to the notion of racial innocence, a form of weaponized denial that positions black people as the “havers” of race and the guardians of racial knowledge. Whiteness, on the other hand, scans as invisible, default, a form of racelessness. “Color blindness,” the argument that race shouldn’t matter, prevents us from grappling with how it does."

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologist-examines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism

Wow, No Thank You.

Listening to this on Audible is an absolute delight. You only need to read the reviews to know you MUST read this, especially if you are over the age of 30. 

A Most Anticipated Book according to:
*Elle * Oprah Magazine * Vulture * New York Times * PureWow * AV CLub * Time Magazine * Entertainment Weekly * PureWow * Buzzfeed * The Observer * Bustle * Huffington Post * The Millions * Parade * Electric Literature * Bustle * Lithub * BookRiot * Bitch * Washington Independent * The Rumpus * and more *

“Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny…. irresistible as a snack tray, as intimately pleasurable as an Irish goodbye.”
—Jia Tolentino

From Samantha Irby–beloved author of New York Times bestseller We Are Never Meeting in Real Life--a rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays.

Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with “tv executives slash amateur astrologers” while being a “cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person,” “with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees,” who still hides past due bills under her pillow.
     The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby’s new life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable.

SEE LESS

What better way to celebrate summer than reading stories about food and mexican culture while making fresh tortillas?

"Mexico from the Inside Out, Olvera's first book in English, is the culmination of this quest; it reaches beyond a simple overview of national cuisine, at a point when gastronomy from this American nation is in its ascendance. Given Olvera’s position within the culinary arts – Pujol is currently ranked number 16 in the 50 Best Restaurants list  – and his dedication to national culture – his signature dish features a 600-day-old mole sauce – he is inimitably well placed to both describe and innovate this important gastronomic culture.

His studies fed into a new take on his national cuisine, the fruits of which are now plain; aged 37 his restaurant was placed 17th on the 2013 50 Best Restaurants list; in 2013 he launched Eno, a chain of coffee shops and gourmet stores, and in 2014, Cosme, his acclaimed New York restaurant. He has also drawn up the in-flight menus for Aeroméxico, the Mexican flag-carrier airline; worked to improve Mexico City’s public-school breakfasts; and authored this new title.

“This book is a chance to bear witness to a collective story of efforts and lessons,” he explains, “as well as to transmit some ideas that are not always easily communicated from the table.”

The 280 page, hard-backed book may include plating instructions for every dish, yet it does reach far beyond the haute cuisine place setting, as Enrique intended. The beautifully observed and reproduced photographs by the renowned Chilean food photographer and stylist Araceli Paz feature the markets, snack stalls and streets of Mexico, as well as artfully presented dishes and produce."

https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/food/articles/2015/july/21/how-enrique-olvera-turned-mexican-food-inside-out/

Tawny Chatman

WINNER,  IPA PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR, 2018

These hypnotizing portraits are some of the most striking, memorable digital paintings I've ever seen. I want to swim in them.

"Tawny Chatmon’s ethereal portraits celebrate the beauty of black childhood. Inspired by the Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelite, and Vienna Secession movements, she translates motifs from classical works to a contemporary setting, shifting the focus to those who have been underrepresented in Western art. Tawny begins with a photograph  — often featuring a family member or close friend — and reworks it through a series of superimpositions using digital techniques, collage, and gold leaf appliqué.

Tawny was born in Tokyo and now lives and works in the United States. She has a background in theatre, an endeavour that continues to inform her practice today. Most recently, she participated in the Art of Blackness exhibition in Chicago, an annual group exhibition that highlights the best of African-American art and design. Her works have also been featured in publications including Afropunk and Vice. "

https://www.instagram.com/tawnychatmon/?hl=en

"I’ve long been drawn to paintings by the old masters, but couldn’t help but begin to feel disconnected to them. The historical representation of black faces — faces like mine, my children, my family, my ancestors — in classical western art and culture, for lack of better words, very haunting.  Often depicted as servants, props, background, or not at all.  I wanted to create contemporary imagery with hints of references from older paintings, bringing to the forefront faces that were not celebrated. I worked with stylist Isabelle Philogene to pull clothing with similar patterns, textures and adornments mixing in whispers of African influences as well. I worked with Charese Adkins on the initial hairstyles (which I later manipulated) mixing African and African American traditional hairstyles and Judy Rowe for makeup. My children, models I’d worked with in the past, my goddaughter and other close family and friends were my subjects." - Tawny, https://www.photoawards.com/tawny-chatmon/