Read to feel.

Feel to read.

Read. Reading matters. Read slowly. Read to feel. Feel to read. It all begins with reading your own breath. How are you reading your own body? Learn to read beyond the printed word. Read to connect what portals you to other ways of knowing. The act of reading, beyond what you touch and see, transforms creatively worlds with possibilities.  Clelia O. Rodriguez

New Publications

Rodríguez, Clelia O. (2024). Maternizando la matriz. Prólogo por Glenda Mejía. Prefacio por Maya Cú. Buenos Aires: Otro-Otra.

Para descargar el e-Book clickee aquí

 
November Readings
El rescate del Náhuat (2014). Audiovisuales UCA.
On "progress:" James Baldwin was tired of waiting for progress. So are we. Move Silent Sam.
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown and Company, 1991.
How do you cite email communications from individuals?. American Psychological Association.
Cela, Camilo José. La Colmena. Madrid : Real Academia Española : Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española ; Barcelona : Alfaguara; 2016.
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York : Bloomsbury Academic; 2018.
Rodriguez, Clelia O. How academia uses poverty, oppression, and pain for intellectual masturbation. RaceiBaitr. April 6, 2017. Web.
October Readings
Norvald Fimreite and Lincoln M. Reynolds. Mercury Contamination of Fish in Northwestern Ontario. The Journal of Wildlife Management, Jan., 1973, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 62-68.
Martinez, M. A., Glover, K. T., Ota, M., Long, T. A., & Ureta Viroga, M. M. L. (2023). Sacrificing body and mind: Pretenure women faculty of color, their health, and well-being. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. 
Laughing at Genocide: On Anti-Palestinian Racism in Higher Education by Girish Daswani. In Everyday Orientalism. October 2024.
Mkwesha, Faith. "Chihera Shava Mhofu: Libation Offering to Ancestors." In Who Are You Without Colonialism: Pedagogies of Liberation. (2023), IAP Book Series, Volumen X. Co-Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi.
Love and Freedom: A roundtable on policing and prison justice. Featuring: El Jones | Moderator Sara Tessier, Northpine Foundation | Ashley Avery, Coverdale Justice Society | Martha Paynter, Wellness Within | Rachel Zellers, Third Eye Collective | Fadi Ennab, Police-Free Schools Winnipeg | Michelle Paul, Mi'kmaw Land Defender and Water Protector | Audrey Huntley  No More Silence | Marlihan Lopez, Coalition to Defund the SPVM | Jade Almeida, Harambec | Poetry by Damini Awoyiga. Music by DJ Tranzishen.
September Readings
Root  jfdkfjdljfladj jfdkfjdljflad: Shadow-Work as Pedagogical Training, Zahra, Komeylian.  In Who Are You Without Colonialism: Pedagogies of Liberation. (2023), IAP Book Series, Volumen X. Co-Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi.
Shauna Landsberg, Shauna Landsberg. In Who Are You Without Colonialism: Pedagogies of Liberation. (2023), IAP Book Series, Volumen X. Co-Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi.
August Readings
Author: @PassTheCheesee https://x.com/PassTheCheesee
1. Sonya Massey - "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus."
2. George Floyd - "I can't breathe."
3. Eric Garner - "I can't breathe."
4. Michael Brown - "I don't have a gun. Stop shooting."
5. Philando Castile - "I wasn't reaching for it."
6. Breonna Taylor - "Why did you shoot me?"
7. Freddie Gray - "I need a doctor."
8. Tamir Rice - "It's not real."
9. Oscar Grant - "You shot me! I got a four-year-old daughter!"
10. Laquan McDonald - No audible last words; shot while walking away.
11. Elijah McClain - "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm just different. I'm just different, that's all. I'm so sorry. I have no gun. I don't do that stuff. I don't do any fighting. Why are you attacking me?"
12. Alton Sterling - "What did I do?"
13. Walter Scott - "I’m just going home."
14. Botham Jean - "Why did you shoot me?"
15. Stephon Clark - "Grandma, call the police."
16. Atatiana Jefferson - "I’m here."
17. Sandra Bland - "Why am I being apprehended?"
18. Tony McDade - "I'm not armed."
19. Daniel Prude - "Give me your gun, I need it."
20. John Crawford III - "It's not real."
21. Manuel Ellis - "I can't breathe, sir."
22. Amadou Diallo - "Mom, I'm going to college."
23. Aiyana Stanley-Jones - No audible last words; shot while sleeping.
24. Terrence Crutcher - "I'm not doing anything."
25. Sean Bell - No audible last words; shot multiple times.
26. Jonathan Ferrell - No audible last words; shot while seeking help after a car crash.
27. Ezell Ford - "It's me, it’s me."
28. John Crawford III - "It's not real."
29. Renisha McBride - No audible last words; shot while seeking help after a car accident.
30. Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. - "Why are you doing this to me?"
31. Tamir Rice - "It's not real."
32. Eric Harris - "I'm losing my breath."
33. Jamar Clark - "Please don’t let me die."
34. Rayshard Brooks - "I don't want to hurt you."
35. Alfred Olango - "Please don’t shoot."
36. Shantel Davis - "What did I do?"
37. Kendra James - "Please don’t kill me."
38. Akai Gurley - No audible last words; shot in a dark stairwell.
39. Miriam Carey - No audible last words; shot in her car.
40. Timothy Russell - No audible last words; shot during a car chase.
41. Malissa Williams - No audible last words; shot during a car chase.
42. Jordan Edwards - No audible last words; shot while leaving a party.
43. Yvette Smith - "I'm coming out."
44. Jordan Davis - No audible last words; shot at a gas station.
45. Victor White III - No audible last words; died in police custody.
46. Dontre Hamilton - No audible last words; shot in a park.
47. Eric Reason - No audible last words; shot during a dispute.
48. Emantic "EJ" Bradford Jr. - No audible last words; shot in a mall.
49. Oscar Grant - "You shot me! I got a four-year-old daughter!"
50. Clinton Allen - No audible last words; shot during an encounter.
51. Ronnell Foster - No audible last words; shot during a foot chase.
52. Tony Robinson - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
53. Charly Keunang - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
54. Samuel DuBose - "I didn’t even do nothing."
55. Quintonio LeGrier - "I’m sorry."
56. Bettie Jones - "I've been shot."
57. India Kager - No audible last words; shot in a car.
58. Keith Lamont Scott - "Don't shoot him. He has no weapon."
59. Jordan Baker - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation.
60. Christian Taylor - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation.
61. Michael Dean - No audible last words; shot during a traffic stop.
62. Rumain Brisbon - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
63. Gregory Gunn - No audible last words; shot during an encounter.
64. Yuvette Henderson - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation.
65. David Joseph - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation.
66. Calvin Reid - No audible last words; died in police custody.
67. Antonio Zambrano-Montes - No audible last words; shot during an encounter. 68. Zachary Hammond - "Why did you shoot me?"
69. Anthony Hill - No audible last words; shot while naked and unarmed.
70. Saheed Vassell - No audible last words; shot while holding a metal pipe.
71. Willie McCoy - No audible last words; shot while sleeping in a car.
72. Robert White - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
73. Micheal Lorenzo Dean - No audible last words; shot during a traffic stop.
74. Monique Tillman - "I didn’t do anything wrong."
75. Randy Evans - No audible last words; died in police custody.
76. Vernell Bing Jr. - No audible last words; shot during a car chase.
77. Cameron Massey - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
78. DeAndre Ballard - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation.
79. Maurice Gordon - "Can you let me out?"
80. Rayshard Brooks - "I don’t want to hurt you."
81. Pierre Loury - No audible last words; shot during a foot chase.
82. Deborah Danner - "I’m not feeling well." 83. Jason Harrison - "I’m sick."
84. Corey Jones - "Hold on, wait!"
85. Keith Childress - "Don't shoot."
86. Justine Damond - No audible last words; shot after calling 911.
87. Amilcar Perez-Lopez - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
88. Mario Woods - "I'm not going to shoot you."
89. William Chapman II - "Don’t shoot me."
90. Chad Robertson - No audible last words; shot while running away.
91. Charlie Willie Kunzelman - No audible last words; shot during a confrontation. 92. Terrence Sterling - No audible last words; shot during a traffic stop.
93. Sylville Smith - "Why are you harassing me?"
94. Bruce Kelley Jr. - No audible last words; shot during an altercation.
95. Korryn Gaines - No audible last words; shot during a standoff.
96. Maurice Granton Jr. - No audible last words; shot during a foot chase.
97. Paul O'Neal - No audible last words; shot during a car chase.
98. Antwon Rose II - "Why are they shooting?"
99. Patrick Harmon - "I’ll go with you."
100. Aaron Bailey - "Why did you shoot me?"
101. Miles Hall - "No! Don't do it!"
July Readings
8th Fire: Indigenous in the City, Keith A. Crawford. Kid CanoeTV. Feb 8, 2018.
If I Must Die by Refaat Alareer
Episode 11: Settler Colonialism, Race, and the Law | The Race and Rights Podcast
Bambara, Toni Cade. Those bones are not my child. New York : Pantheon Books; c1999 1st ed.
Vigneswaran, Karthik. "Uprooting the Colonial Seed." In Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi, IAP, 2023.
Hamouchene, Hamza. "The psychology of oppression and liberation." In Africa Is a Country. June 28, 2024.
Guastella, Dustin and Jennifer C. Pan. The Dead End of “Anti-Racist Discrimination”. In Jacobin. June 23, 2024.
Gabay, Aimee. UNESCO accused of supporting human rights abuses in African parks. In Mongabay. June 17, 2024.
Salaita, Steve. "The Customs of Obedience in Academe." Feb 12, 2024. Blog.
June Readings
The REDress Project by Jaime Black
Oka, Cynthia Dewi. "a conversation with my six-year-old about revolution." In Revolutionary Mothering : Love on the Front Lines, edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, et al., PM Press, 2016.
Testimony from the Rafah massacre 27.05.2024
I left my children playing in the tent. I hugged them as it felt like the last hug. I left to cook them something to eat.
I came back panicking as I heard the airstrikes. I found my SIX children that couldn’t fit in the tent. They burnt and became ash. I carried the six in my arm as if it were a handful of sand. I continued hugging and kissing them.
My SIX children, world, they became the size of a HANDFUL OF SAND.
Letters of Hope. Solidarity letters with the People’s Circle for Palestine.
Chrisjohn, Pamela Lynn.  "I Am Who I Am. In Who Are You Without Colonialism: Pedagogies of Liberation. (2023), IAP Book Series, Volumen X. Co-Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi.
On “Respect”
April Readings
Rajagopalan, Megha and Qadri Inzamam. (2024). The Brutality of Sugar: Debt, Child Marriage and Hysterectomies. In collaboration with the Fuller Project. New York Times. March 24.
Green, Heidi. (2023). Academia is too much for my neurodivergent brain. I’m leaving. Times Higher Education. July 19.
Vine, Deloria. (2006). The world we used to live in: Remembering the powers of the medicine men. Golden, Colo. : Fulcrum Pub.
Castillo, Isabel. (2020). She Dared to Run: The Unlikely Story of Prudencia Ayala. Americas Quarterly. Oct 22.
Romero | Full Movie | Collector's Edition | Raul Julia | Richard Jordan | Ana Alicia | Eddie Velez
samuels, c.k. (2023). "liberation" in Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation. Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi, IAP.
March Readings
Shenaz Hossein, Caroline and Michelle Stack. (2024). Universities should respond to cuts and corporate influence with co-operative governance. The Conversation. Feb 21.
Martin, S. B., & Dandekar, D. (2022). Global South scholars in the western academy : harnessing unique experiences, knowledges, and positionality in the third space (S. B. Martin & D. Dandekar, Eds.). Routledge

Angry Black Woman by Porsha O.
Garcia, N. M., & Garcia, S. F. (2024). Grief (Work) Is Heart (Work): A Critical Race Feminista Epistolary Exchange as an Offering on Death, Grief, and Well-Being to Academia. Education Sciences, 14(1), 58. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010058
How to Spell Abolition by Adebe DeRango-Adem
 
May Readings
Eirksen NaMee. (2016). "My Son Runs in Riots for Oscar Grant & other warriors 7/8/10." In Revolutionary Mothering : Love on the Front Lines, edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, et al., PM Press.
Burrell, Nia. (2023). "Young Researchers of Color Need Better Mentors." Ed. by Gina Jimenez. In Scientific American. December 18.
Kelley, Robin D. G. (2024). Letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik. In Boston Review. April 29.
Foucault, M. (2012). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Denichaud, Daniele. (2023). "13 Moons 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0." In Who Are You Without Colonialism: Pedagogies of Liberation. (2023), IAP Book Series, Volumen X. Co-Edited by Clelia O. Rodriguez and Josephine Gabi.
Book Talk, Beyond Racial Capitalism: Co-operatives in the African Diaspora. Hosted by Rafael Grohmann DigiLabour Initiative with Caroline Shenaz Hossein, Sharon D. Wright Austin, Kevin Edmonds, Salewa Olawoye-Mann and Silvane Silva. (2024)
omar iloy ft. El Hijo de Borikén - La Rebeldía Ocupa el Pasto. (2023). 
Episode 6: Global Solidarity, with Clelia O. Rodríguez + Thenjiwe McHarris.
The REDress Project by Jaime Black
On "graduating" - thinking of all the students that do not get to make it. #neverforget   Photo by: Neal Augustin https://twitter.com/AugensteinWTOP/status/867013670592794624 
Banner made by students of higher consciousness in an higher learning institution. Writing: OISE Students 4 Palestine. May 2024. 
A Letter to the Graduating Class of 2024 by Clelia O. Rodríguez

Every day we open our eyes we have the gift of change. Changers rise to the rhythm of higher consciousness which is not the same as higher learning. Diplomas do not grant warrior status. These administrative papers are part of politicized and socialized educational campaigns that brings the temporary illusion of “success.” The money that covered the fees and tuition to achieve the goal of the consonants and vowels of B.A., MA, PhD, the land where the learning scenarios took place, and the denying of pluriversalities of Knowledge have one shared affinity: Violence.

For the past three years I have taken a lot of pride sitting at the stage of the Convocation listening to the names of graduating students in a feast of proud communities that witness the miracle of students “making it.” This year I didn't even get the email with the invitation to attend. Self-explanatory much. I was once also a student who crossed stages carrying on my back the responsibility that was bestowed upon me from a community that was supposed to be destroyed. I remain rooted in the solemn cry for Humanity knowing that this journey of struggle is echoed in each of the voices of students whose breath, and spiritual presence is now the why of our Being.

As part of the requirements to fulfill the completion of your degree, you were asked to read, write, reflect critically, and to engage in endless discussions. All the violence I speak about is also part of that paper. As the nerves, excitement and adrenaline subside, you’ll arrive to a moment of silence when you’ll have to come to terms with Truth: How critically oblivious are you or were you to the violence of silence? To join a program, you were probably asked to write a statement of interest, and a statement of diversity in some of the newer programs catching up with performative tactics and strategies of DEI, and today whatever you wrote worked because you were accepted, and you get to graduate. How were you able to maintain your professed values to Social Justice in the practice beyond just wanting to get the reading lists from the only Black, Indigenous and racialized scholar in your department? How did you confront the inequalities when you were in a room full of silence? What changed in your hearts? What and who was spiritually murdered in the name of professionalization as you reflect today? How many land acknowledgements did you read or were read to you in a room full of well-read colonialists who are well-versed in decolonizing ways, apparently? The "what now?" question is between you and the Creator now.

To the graduating political class of 2024: You are the reason why many of us go on our knees with ancestral gratitude when we wake up in the morning. Without your fervor of demanding Dignity and transformative ways of learning and teaching beyond the likes, we in the multidimensional responsibilities we embody as professors, Tías, political mothers, and Ancestors-in-the-making, our ceremonies wouldn’t hold the real threats to our right to Sovereignty Knowledge.

To the graduating political class of 2024: Your senses, thirst, hunger, and unapologetic demand for the creation of dreamt spaces of Liberation is already here. The Palestinian textile is woven to the sacred geometry of my braids. The memory of today is tomorrow’s fire for the ceremonies that heal the womb. We are co-existing in a world that feels many times as an episode of Black Mirror. The absence of moral leadership is out. We know it. We see it. We aren’t happy or staying silent about it. To speak of hope while a genocide is happening is THE Hope. Do not become used to the false claims of learning to “navigate the system." Next time someone says that tell them you are the water and can’t be drown. The next time someone attempts to shift your pain to numbness tell them you can’t burnt because you are fire. The next time you see a person taking up space with their whiteness, their patriarchal violence, their heteronormative ways of behaving and their minimalist colonialist discourse to write off from the historical record of their violence tell them it ends with you.

To the graduating political class of 2024: Every child matters. Remember to remember! You don’t get flowers, applauses, congratulatory banners, cheerful messages, or my changes of plans to make it to your graduation in person this year. You get spiritual seeds from my sacred maíz mother that have existed in the kitchens of the world made up from red clay. Your Fire has literally awakened the energy of many of our ancestors of Abya-Yala, Amaru Kancha, the Pachamama, Turtle Island or what is known as the Americas. The presence of our multi-dimensional, infinitely epistemological sources of knowledge and the love of our seeds is with you as you scream Free Palestine.

As an active member part of a faculty community at an institution that is referred to as my Alma mater, a Latin phrase that's been around for 956 years as per the Gregorian Calendar, what is nourishing, mothering, honoring, and lighting up my relation to knowledge is literally you, graduating student. June 6, 2024 Clelia O. Rodríguez