Thanksgiving, mania, and new consciousness.
A year ago, I didn’t know where I would be now. I knew I would leave Chicago, but the only certainty was uncertainty. Now I’m 4,000 miles away getting another degree in Fine Art. I’m attending KiT (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.
Some combination of insanity and luck and utter luxury to be living in my world. In my world, I can be a citizen of the United States and still get a free Masters degree in Norway. In my world, my disposable income can go into things like the shotgun trip to Copenhagen I booked on Saturday and left for on Sunday.
In my world, I can get angry with the racism and violence in Chicago and the U.S. and people don’t immediately assume I’m rioting or crazy. I am told I am thoughtful or impassioned. At the very least, I get dismissed as liberal or imaginative. I don’t represent my entire race when I speak. My degree choice was made by an internal voice, not an external need. It wasn’t based on job prospects, providing for a family, or somehow legitimizing myself in society. I don’t have to disprove a stereotype in order to prove myself worthy of life. I am not obligated to convince people of my humanity in order to live a peaceful, happy, productive life inside of the margins of society.
It is disturbing to me when I think about the violence and hatred oozing out of every crack in the world. It’s enough to make me wonder if there was ever any good within its core–within our core? It seems clear to me that I have skirted around these shifting tectonics my whole life. It’s like playing lava monster as a child, but instead of jumping through the playground, I’m just floating around it. It’s annoying,to put that in writing, to acknowledge it like that. It certainly isn’t a game in real life, but it goes to show how separate my world is. Because I know, and am becoming more aware of everyday, how this is a condition of all of the privileges I have benefited from. I find myself wondering how much of what I do and have done is based on my own perseverance or skill and what is dependent on where I have grown up, what parents I was born to, what I look like, etc.
It’s not that I want to feel bad. I definitely know I’m not a victim. Circumstance is, after all, something that is largely out of our control. But I do feel horrified, because a sudden awareness to something so unconsciously wired, so insidious, is like picking open a scab and squeezing the pus out of it. But, sitting here, after the most dull period of disconnect with my own creativity in my life– I am really wondering why and how I could possibly be accepted as not just a student, but a graduate student for an art institution, 6437 kilometers away from where I was last year. How lucky I am. How ungrateful I am.
It’s American Thanksgiving today. In solidarity with the people who are oppressed, disenfranchised, harassed, assaulted, murdered, discriminated against, in constant fear, and under constant suspicion–my heart is so heavy. Your lives matter. Your voices matter. Your cultures matter. Your thoughts are valid. You have the right to grieve and mourn– and you have the right to be angry. I am thankful for you.
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