“how does it feel to be a problem?” – W.E.B Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
I think about that question a lot. Sometimes it makes me smile and laugh. Sometimes I despair. Even in my privilege, I feel myself grating against the systems we live within. It’s confusing and sad to think profit motivates more change than actually caring about people. It’s also infuriating. There are so many layers of abstraction to the violence that begets convenience. It’s difficult to recognize it as violence sometimes just because it’s everywhere.
Still, it’s deeply alienating, especially when “good” people decide to look away rather than face how dystopian the world is. I’ve felt alien since I was a child because of how much I care. How much I just want everyone to be safe and loved and exist without someone telling them they shouldn’t. I grew up absorbing the words of powerful Black authors: Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, bell hooks. I love being Black. I am also profoundly ashamed of my existence.
I think that’s how it feels to be a problem.
Leila Shabam, a peer from college, is crowdfunding her relatives’ escape from Gaza. I hope funding reaches them in time.
February is Black History Month, but I haven’t done much on my own to celebrate. Oh, I did buy a tiny comic book biography of Edmonia Lewis, a Black and Native sculptor whose work gained prominence in the late 19th century. I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know more than that. Also, on Monday I was researching for book posters I’m making for the school library and I found out Jacob Lawrence was 23 when he created his Great Migration painting series with support from Roosevelt’s New Deal!! There’s something energizing about seeing Lawrence had funding to do his work in his youth. I also love knowing that he taught in Seattle before he died. It makes me want to discover more. I want to create again.
Speaking of art, I want some of mine to find new homes! I have a shop for some stickers, prints, mini prints I made last year. I only have 4 of each big print left, so if you want one now is the time to buy. I have no idea when I will be able to make more.
On a somber note, I need to acknowledge all the death I’ve seen this month. Nex Benedict, a nonbinary teen, died after bullies inflicted injuries on them in their school bathroom. Aaron Bushnell, a US Air Force member, died from self-immolating in protest the continuing ethnic cleansing happening to people in Gaza and the United States complicity with it (despite most countries in the world favoring a ceasefire). Little Hind Rajab and her family and the other civilians trapped and ultimately killed by the IOF. The many facing war and displacement in Sudan and horrific work conditions and violence in Congo. The widespread starvation created by manmade barriers. The unhoused people abandoned by the state right here, left to live and die exposed to the elements.
Right now, I am holding onto community and care and onto living my values. Yesterday I went to the library to pick up a book and the security guard told me about a community dinner by the SE Seattle PEACE Coalition in the building next door. I almost didn’t go, but attending felt like an answer to something. Community is something I’ve been missing here in Seattle (and in Georgia tbh). That I happened to find that event, that I could walk to the library and take the bus home, that I ate enough and brought some food home gave me some peace. I’m starting to love South Seattle.
….infinite love + peace… Tulani Kiara