Star Light, Star Bright
Fully obsessed with this dress from Lirika Matoshi. It’s been my self-portrait dress of choice lately.
Weekly Roundup
This past week I’ve been spending time reading articles, watching a Ted Talk, and watched the movie Just Mercy.
The Good Trade is a website that produces pieces on a variety of themes including sustainability, feminism, and the arts, among others. I resonated with author Kayti Christian and her piece, The Danger & Inherent Privilege of Neutral Politics. In it she points out the role privilege has played in her own politics. Much like Kayti, I mostly followed the lead of my parents when it came time for me to vote. Even now, although my views have grown and changed and developed, and I don’t blindly follow my parents’ views, I don’t do much research myself. And the inherent privilege in that is that I don’t really have to do much research because policy and law, for the most part, supports me and my freedoms as a cisgender, straight, white person. I am learning that I need to educate myself on items on the ballot, on candidates and their true goals and track records, and on the holes and gaps in our justice system, especially for those that are marginalized.
Another article featured on The Good Trade is entitled What it Means to Center Ourselves in Conversation, written by Emily Torres. You’ve likely heard about what it means to be a good listener, and that we typically listen in order to respond, so we don’t really pay attention. Good listening means you hold space for the other person to speak and share, and you don’t bring the conversation back to you and an experience you had.
Emily takes this further and looks at it through the lens of privilege and race by explaining that centering ourselves in conversation usually results in us (the person of privilege) becoming defensive and derailing the other person (who has not experienced the same privilege) in order to protect our fragile ego and sense of self. Again, it’s a way of listening to reply, rather than to comprehend or learn something new. As a white feminist, I’m learning so much about the role that I play, the privilege I have, and the need to decenter myself and listen to and learn from women of color.
Luvvie Ajayi is an author and speaker. I recently watched her 2017 TEDtalk on getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Luvvie talked about acting as a domino and encouraging others to follow suit, to shake up the status quo.
This weekend I’ve started reading Thick, by Tressie McMillan Cottom. More thoughts on that in next week’s Weekly Roundup once I’ve finished it!
Black Lives Matter Marches
I attended my first march/protest/rally a couple months ago for Black Lives Matter. It was such an incredible, inspiring experience. Here are some of the shots I captured along the way. As a photographer, I am inherently a historian. For the most part I’m capturing the history of my personal human experience, of my family, and of my friends. These recent marches were historical on a much grander scale, which is why I chose to shoot with black and while film. It felt like an homage to all of the photographers and historians that came before me, and of those that have been fighting this fight for equity and equality for centuries.
xxo
Weekly Roundup (x2)
Last week I hit a wall. I was feeling so incredibly overwhelmed by all of the news headlines, whether it was about the soaring number of confirmed COVID cases in the U.S., or the videos of people refusing to wear masks in different businesses, or the painful stories (and videos) of racism.
July 3rd was a paid holiday for me, so I decided to turn my phone off for the entire day. One day, at first glance, doesn’t seem like it would have a huge impact. But those 16 waking hours or so without technology started to calm me down. I realized just how often I go to my phone for distraction. I’m moving forward from that experience with less time on my phone. I turned off most of my notifications. I stopped wearing my Fitbit that vibrated every time I got a text or reminder or email. I deleted Tiktok and stopped scrolling on Instagram.
Over the last two weeks my homework included several podcasts and books. I listened to an interview between Emma Watson and Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. I also listened to an interview between Brené Brown and Ibram X. Kendi, author of several books including How to Be an Antiracist. At one point in the interview, Brené asks Ibram about what it means to be antiracist. I love his response: “The heartbeat of anti-racism is confession, is admission, is acknowledgement, is the willingness to be vulnerable, is the willingness to identify the times in which we are being racist. To be willing to diagnose ourselves and our country in our ideas and our policies.” Ibram also states that being racist or antiracist is not a fixed trait. Sometimes we are racist; sometimes we are antiracist. We will all have our moments. But the heart of antiracism is being able to acknowledge those shortcomings, learn from mistakes and from others, and then to do better.
I also read The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett. This was such a great novel. I read it over the course of a couple days. Bennett’s novel covers the lives of family members in several different generations, locations, and their experiences with race and racism.