I chose the site ‘Big Smoke’ because I’m an urban indian, which is to say I’m already an ethnic and political mutt. What defines me is not so much the factionalism that surrounds me but that constant ebbing and flowing of just those cohesive wholes, splintered and multifarious tho they may be. I can in a lot of ways choose my identity as I see fit – I’m Tsalagi, Irish and Black, a blonde with kinky hair – and in a lot of other ways will not be accepted by purebreds of any persuasion.

I chose the moniker ‘Rott635′ as a nod to the semi-anonymity of the public outcry of the neighborhoods I grew up in – nickname plus building number; it used to be street number but that could be traced back – as well as the semi-anonymity of the lanes I follow out in the web. The effect of such are both similar: Both for their cacaphony, seeming lack of message, but utter necessity for the venting of the people their subcultures represent.

I teach in a Brooklyn public school. It feels like being banished to the provinces at times, other times like being sent to the front lines of mainstream culture.