About
Yvonne lives in Berkeley, California with her partner and their four-legged family. During the day, she works at a racial justice think tank, crunching numbers to eradicate white supremacy. At night and sometimes weekends, she sits at her computer, trying to make sense of the world.
These are the fruits of her attempts. Apologies in advance if they are sometimes sour, not always sweet, unripe or not fully ready to launch. Yvonne is working on her craft of writing and playing with using all five senses.
Yvonne tweets, shares what she reads, makes friends, takes pictures, and watches video. Occasionally, she chats and talks on the phone. She loves hearing from you at yvonnegrapher at gmail dot com.
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Author Archives: yvonnegrapher
Happy Birthday, Yuri Kochiyama
Born on May 19, 1921, Yuri grew up in a white middle class suburb of San Pedro, California. Her life was irreparably changed when Pearl Harbor was bombed. She and her family were forcibly removed from their homes and interned at detention camps setup for Japanese Americans during World War II. There, Yuri connected the [...]
Posted in gender, multitudes, race Tagged bay area, national question, nyc, race, stalking, strategic essentialism Leave a comment
Sociology of Board Games
Sociological Images recently posted pictures taken at a toy store of board games targeted towards girls. Of course, they’re pink. The box of Scrabble spells out “f-a-s-h-i-o-n” and girls’ Monopoly comes in a pink, velvet-lined jewelry box where you can keep game pieces.
A dissertation should be written on the sociology of board games, if there [...]
Posted in capital, gender, observed, race Tagged accumulation by dispossession, capital crisis, race 1 Comment
Empire Strikes Black
“I want to join the Starfleet Academy!” I exclaimed to a colleague when leaving the theater. Watching the new Star Trek movie left me with a sense of optimism about intergalactic governance, a desire to trust and give of myself wholly to the Federation, who will school me, train me on how to [...]
Posted in dead white men, geek, race, the state Tagged accumulation by dispossession, dead white men, neoliberal, obama, race, social darwinism, space and place, spatial fix 4 Comments
NAFTA Achoo!
Paula Deen promises us special Mother’s Day recipes: Bacon wrapped shrimp over pasta, sweet potato biscuit sandwiches, all served with generous helpings of Smithfield’s bacon and luncheon meats. Her teeth gleam against her skin, the color and texture of the well-preserved, smoked ham.
The factory farm that may have produced the pork gracing Paula’s dishes [...]
Tent City
“Excuse me, where’s the tent city?”
The man with matted dreadlocks and a weathered face from the sun squinted at me. He wore a white tee shirt grey with wear and slung a tattered jean jacket over his shoulder, hot from the afternoon sun. “Why would you want to go there?”
Why indeed. Like [...]
Posted in capital, race, urban studies Tagged accumulation by dispossession, capital crisis, new deal, obama, race, space and place, spatial fix, subprime Leave a comment
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
From my perch here on the thirteenth floor in downtown San Francisco, I can catch a sliver of the Bay. There’s often a boat, usually cargo, floating in the water with a backdrop of a mountain range and sometimes at sunset a fantastic explosion of color streaking the sky: pinks, blues, violets, and then black.
One [...]
Hope from People
An open letter to those seeking to build a world from below, in which many worlds are possible
We call on all anarchists, horizontalists, autonomists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians, and others organizing a world from below to bring our best creative spirits to the project of a “Celebrate People’s History and Build Popular Power” bloc on January 20, [...]
Missing Brad
I miss Brad.
I was so sad to hear recently that the Mexican government bungled the investigation, not a surprise, and took out further reprisals against APPO.
Being in a new city, I feel so disconnected from remembering Brad and what he represents to me. Brad for me is so wrapped up with the energy and the [...]
The Great Rehearsal
The Great Rehearsal:
A symposium and week of events
on the World Revolution of ‘68 and its legacies
September 17-25
www.greatrehearsal.org
1968 was a world revolution. From Mexico City to Tokyo, Paris to Prague, Columbia University to Berkeley, it was a revolutionary event that at once failed and transformed the world. The process it put into place continues today. 1968, [...]
Posted in multitudes Tagged american indian movement, anarchism, bay area, capital crisis, critical theory, longue duree, marxism Leave a comment
Ronald Takaki, Rest in Peace