Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to write something in response to the police violence and brutality against Black people that has once again overwhelmed our country. It’s hard to find something new to say when what you’re trying to say is so simple. There isn’t a “hot take” to this issue, nor is there a contrarian opinion.
It’s simple: Black lives have and always will matter. Furthermore, they are essential and worthy; matter is the minimum when you consider the culture, societal, and academic shifts they have created. Yet, for hundreds of years, we have seen this refrain systematically denied through the course of American history. For hundreds of years, young Black men have been lynched and murdered in cold blood at the hands of white Americans leveraging their privilege and place in society to continually oppress black Americans and keep them powerless. Words can’t even begin to scratch the surface of the generations of pain, loss, indignity, disrespect, and hate, which is why choosing to stand on any other side than that of Black Americans is not only problematic, but racist because any other side is actively working to police the anguish of the Black community.
The foundations of our nation were never created to accommodate the livelihood of Black people which is why issues of race continually resurface. Why do we still see the same disgusting events over and over again? Why do we still have to protest? Because the systems at play will never protect the interests of Black Americans. This is why we see Black Americans reacting in the way that they are. They peacefully protested, and everyone said they were disrespecting the country that supposedly gave them so much. They peacefully protested, and Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. They peacefully protested, and absolutely nothing has changed in the way that America treats its Black citizens because it functions on the manipulation of marginalized people. America would not be America without the exploitation of Black people. They are the reason for why you are able to choose to be political.
For this reason, they are entirely justified in reclaiming the power that American capitalism stole from them through looting and rioting. If you have a problem with this, ask yourself why. Are you uncomfortable with Black people taking ownership of their lives after white people spent centuries asking Black people to stay patient only to sweep their struggles under the rug? Looting and rioting is not ideal. The fact that Black people still have to be on the front lines fighting for their own humanity while simultaneously risking their own lives is it not ideal, however it is an accurate reflection of the society we have created, the society that is supposed to be the most progressive and equitable.
The use of force through riots and looting isn’t designed to hurt people. It’s a manifestation of the years of frustration of feeling like absolutely no one is listening to you. White people have never felt threatened by Black people in America because they know that the power they possess is enough to perpetuate the oppression of Black Americans. What they ARE threatened by is their mobilization and unwillingness to accept the mistreatment, because they know that there is strength in numbers. And to those who have attempted to co-opt Martin Luther King Jr’s message of peaceful protests against the very people MLK sought to protect: stop trying to leverage the voices of Black people to prove a convoluted point. Stop whitesplaining the history that flows through the blood of Black people. It shouldn’t matter to you how Black people choose to voice their frustrations as they are entirely entitled to this and so much more. If they want to burn everything to the ground: so be it. The system is inherently racist anyways and the only way we can see justice is if we abolish racist systems and start all over.
As time after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders grew, I was worried that publishing something now, after so much time, would be irrelevant. That everyone would’ve moved on already to something new, but if this essay serves any purpose, it’s to remind you that these injustices are happening everyday, and will continue to happen right under our noses as long as we don’t demand systemic change.
The creation of the Black Lives Matter movement came from a place of necessity, and since then its message has been commodified as a way to posture to others that you are not racist, however we cannot allow the movement to be simplified to just a hashtag because it demoralizes those who are directly affected by systemic racism and police brutality. When BLM is simplified to a trend as opposed to a long term movement, people underestimate how long it takes for societal change to happen, and I’m guilty of this as well—hence why I hesitated to write and post this.
Furthermore, the death of Black and Brown people don’t serve to remind or trigger you into anger or frustration. As cell phones and social media have become instrumental in raising awareness to issues that were only visible to those who suffered from them, it has also desensitized many people to the image of dead Black and Brown bodies. Simply the fact that the color of one’s skin determined their death should be enough to enrage people into action, yet now it’s a matter of how gruesome or how sad a story is.
It doesn’t matter whether a Black person had a criminal record or wouldn’t even hurt a fly: the bottom line is that ALL Black lives matter. Comparing certain deaths over others perpetuates harmful notions that Black people are criminals and therefore deserve the racism that they endure.
Of course, the change we seek won’t be fulfilled from electoral politics which is derived from the policies created by racists. The change starts from the people, and we need to begin reclaiming the power that we are meant to have. The politicization of every issue, no matter how non-partisan it truly is, will forever keep us divided as long as we are slaves to the electoral system.
We have to think bigger and collectively realize that our power is greater than just voting, which some may consider useless at this point, but if we dare to imagine a world that is not just equitable for some but for all, a world that isn’t controlled or crippled by militarization, but a world lead by community and acceptance, then we might realize that dream that seems so unrealistic now.
Minorities in America know what it’s like to be ostracized and discriminated against by virtue of the color of their skin or their country of origin. It’s their collective fight for being seen as equal by their white counterparts that lead to the politically correct umbrella term, people of color, being used to refer to anyone who wasn’t white. But what determines whiteness? Is it the color of their skin or their ethnicity? Or the color of their parents’ skin?
The parameters of being considered a person of color are so ambiguous, that it dilutes the implications of actually being a person of color in America. I say this because oftentimes, the people who label themselves as people of color are those who benefit from systems of oppression because they pass as white or have less melanin in their skin than others. Though they may be immigrants or Latinx or Arab or biracial, they still don’t have to face the continual barrage of racism and discrimination that Black and Brown people because of how they appear to others.
This is why, among other reasons, that Black people, specifically Black Americans, have been distancing themselves from the term people of color. We all know the history of institutionalized racism in America and how this country was built on slave labor and oppression, and though Brown people have been discriminated against historically by colonizers as well, nothing compares to the universality of anti-Blackness that is present in every culture, including those of South Asians, Latinx, Arab, just to name a few.
Nothing compares to the experiences of Black people throughout the world, which is why it’s insensitive to liken the discrimination that racial and ethnic minorities face in America to that of Black Americans who’s history of oppression and systemic racism overwhelms our own.
Obviously this isn’t a game of oppression Olympics—which is another tactic used to alienate minorities from each other by focusing on trivial matters as opposed to Systemic Racism. There is no denying that Brown people experience racism and discrimination by white people as well, however we cannot forget or ignore the fact that our own communities participate in anti-Blackness as well.
Colorism is still ingrained in many cultures and beauty standards that praise those with lighter skin than darker skin, and within Arab countries, a word that people often use for Black people is “abeed” which literally translates to “slave.” It’s hypocritical to try to equate experiences from people of these cultures to that of Black people because our cultures participate and perpetuate anti-Blackness just as much as white Americans. Not to mention, ideas such as the model minority myth continually pit non-Black people of color against Black people in efforts to appease white people. This myth is what helped ingrain the notion that Black people are lazy and uneducated while other people of color are upstanding citizens, and rather than dismantle this divisive idea, immigrants from Asian and Middle Eastern countries continued to perpetuate it in the hopes that they’d be viewed as equal to white people.
When you think of “people of color” there isn’t one image that can truly capture the experience of every ethnic or racial minority in America. It asserts that all marginalized people, regardless of their social class, are a monolithic group despite the fact that no two people of color are exactly alike.
Something we hardly talk about as a society is anti-Blackness. Though we may discuss racism to a certain degree, anti-Blackness in specificity is charged with white supremacist ideals that no one wants to address, which is probably why we refer to all minorities as people of color. The root of systemic racism in America is anti-Blackness, and it’s not just this country; it’s a universally institutionalized idea that we don’t talk about enough. We cannot continue to paint the experiences of Black people with broad brush strokes because it’s unfair and it allows people to exploit the actual oppression of Black people to gain certain “advantages” such as affirmative action that creates a narrative of greed and selfishness that only hurts Black people.
We’ve relied on Black people before to open doors for immigrants in Eastern countries through the Immigration Act, so the least we can do is amplify their voices for once, rather than drown them out with our own.
Over the last 244 years, the only consistent thing about America is our inability to change our society for the better. Despite the myriad of amendments and legislation, in 2020, we are still exactly where we started, just under a different and more politically correct name. The lynching of Black bodies hasn’t stopped. The brutalization and exploitation hasn’t stopped. The only thing we are innovative in is our modernization of slavery under the guise of public safety and this is because the preservation of America is contingent on the continuation of the oppression that Black people across numerous generations are familiar with. Not only are Black Americans living with generational trauma, but they are still forced to live the same realities as their ancestors, just through a different lens. These trends are no coincidence, and are simply a byproduct of the racism and anti-Blackness that is rooted in the intentions and ideals of the slave owners who created this country.
The thing about systemic racism is that it has a propensity of cropping up in the least expected areas, even places where power dynamics are supposedly deconstructed to advocate for the equality of marginalized groups *cough* *cough* feminism *cough* *cough*. It’s a result of a centuries long effort to condition Americans to subconsciously think of others, and possibly themselves, as inferior. Since it’s so normalized, we cannot fathom a reality where our thought process isn’t directed in such a way making it difficult for people, even Black people themselves, to look into the way our society operates from a 3rd person point of view and realize how saturated American culture is saturated with racism.
How dense the topic of systemic racism itself should be enough to indicate to you how pervasive it is, and more importantly, how important it is to actively seek ways to dismantle any internalized racism you may have learned.
We are currently reliving a reality that America has just seen in 2015, in 2014, in 1992, in 1968, in 1831, all rooted from a same place of exhaustion and frustration of being forced to live a reality that is inferior and less than to others by virtue of the color of their skin. This pent up anger and frustration against those in places of power is nothing new, and the way we’ve reacted to them is not new either as history tells us, yet America has been unable to take this into account and consider that, perhaps, the meaningless lip service and futile legislation that has passed over the years have done little to nothing to liberate Black Americans.
I saw something on Twitter the other day that was discussing how the things that we get from politicians like the civil rights act for example, are only given because it doesn’t threaten their power or privilege. If it was in the interest of politicians to actually give minorities the equal rights they deserve, America wouldn’t exist as we know it. Over the years, the so-called progress that we have made were the result of desire to satiate citizens and satisfy them with a piece of legislation that ultimately wouldn’t change anything about their standards of living. For every step of progress we made, politicians were able to slip their agenda in there to not make it too easy for Black Americans. Though the passage of the Civil Rights Act was a milestone for racial equality, redlining and other unfair housing policies that still existed made it difficult for Black Americans to use the boost that the Act gave them to create a better life for themselves.
What this tells us is that America’s race relations aren’t reformable. As long as America exists in its current form, Black liberation will never be, which is an important realization to have to understand where to go next and where to target your advocacy.
The two most notorious systems in America that are a direct result of systemic racism exists in our criminal justice system: the police and prisons. Throughout the Antebellum Era, Black Americans, especially Black men, were vilified and sexualized by white Americans to paint them as criminals who would stop at nothing to violate Southern Belles. This set a precedent for what would ultimately become the basis for the mass incarceration crisis we have today as well as the practices that police use for Black Americans. After slavery was abolished through the 13th Amendment, the clause that says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” became a loophole that southerners heavily exploited, and all of America exploits to this day. The criminalization of Black Americans aided in the normalization of incarcerating Black Americans, even for the slightest infraction. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty has never applied to Black people for this reason because our society viewed them as criminal by their very nature, and over time, along with other various racist initiatives, America has managed to create a legalized institution of slavery. Prisoners, 34% of whom are Black, are forced to do labor at no pay, and privatized prisons, which are an especially heinous form of prisons, allow shareholders the ability to profit off of prisons and prison labor, thus profiting off of Black Americans which sounds exactly like slavery to me.
The people assisting the highest rate of incarceration are the police which were initially known as slave patrols. They would catch runaway enslaved people who would often end up being brutalized and even killed by them in similar fashions to the way Black Americans continue to be murdered today. The history of the police is rooted in the perpetuation of racism and white supremacy which is why it comes to no surprise that their practices heavily promote racial profiling and unnecessary methods of violence and aggression to create peace in our neighborhoods. Today, the police have proven to exist solely to police majority Black and Brown communities, protect property, and incite violence. The police that operate in inner city neighborhoods as opposed to suburban police are two completely different methods of policing that prove that through the investment in community building and organizing, the job of the police becomes useless. It further highlights the stark contrast between the lives of white America and Black America and shows that if we really wanted to, that reality can be expended to all Americans (granted, there’s a lot of things wrong with suburbia too but you know what I mean).
America as a whole is archaic. It’s rooted in a mindset that promotes white supremacy and racism and if we want it to change or be better, we have to reinvent what we want America to mean for us as opposed to what we were forced to believe about it. We have to address the ugly side of it, because if we’re being honest, 95% of it is ugly anyways, in order to create a sustainable society for all.
Throughout every injustice in history, Americans have always taken to the streets in riots and protesting as a means to force politicians in action and voice their frustrations. Whether it was the Nat Turner Rebellion or the Stonewall Riots, protests and riots are the result of built up inaction and injustice that is set off by one event.
Protests are the voice for the voiceless, a means for reclaiming your power. It’s how white colonizers (who murdered indigenous people, but that’s irrelevant, right?) were liberated from the tyranny of the British Monarchy. For Black and Brown Americans who have justifiably protested for their rights, however, history paints them as needlessly violent, destructive, and ungrateful.
Nothing has changed with the riots and protests that recently engulfed Minneapolis in chaos and mourning over the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police. Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets by marching, rioting, looting, burning. They were protesting to make sure that their voices couldn’t be ignored as they have always been in this country and to convey their frustration with a system strategically designed to continually oppress and alienate Black Americans from everyone else so they are unable to organize in large numbers.
White people will never be able to fathom the generations of trauma and pain that Black Americans have lived through in this country, so who are they to police how Black people choose to express their justified anger? There are lives at stake. How many more Black lives have to be murdered before a response is elicited from politicians? They don’t deserve to wait or continue numbing the pain.
When Black people riot in the streets, loot stores, and burn buildings, it reminds White America of who actually built this country, of who actually owns this country. It’s a reminder of how fragile the facade of the American Dream is, especially when it was created at the expense of Black lives.
Like Malcolm X said, Black people aren’t outnumbered, they are out-organized, and when horrible events such as Breonna Taylor’s death create a community centered around a collective mourning of another Black life lost, it is essentially the white establishment’s worst nightmare because Black people are passionately united behind one cause.
Before you make assertions regarding the way people decide to protest, you have to remind yourself of why people are protesting in the first place. Protesting is a response to an injustice; the way that people protest should be a measure of how severe an issue is, rather than a reflection of the communities they come from. Discussing the ethics of protesting is futile and hypocritical when the issue at hand is state sanctioned violence or institutionalized racism. Once we remind ourselves of this fact, why should it be important to anyone that a building was burned down? Arguing over the methods of protesting is simply a way of redirecting the blame on a situation that Black people never deserved to be put into. Black people shouldn’t be the only ones fighting for their own humanity, but when we allow the sensationalized perceptions of how protests are handled by them, it alienates the allyship that is so essential to end anti-Black racism and white supremacy in America.
While the overwhelming majority of all Black Lives Matter protests have been peaceful, there have been instances of rioting and looting that are entirely justified. The violence at these protests have been intentionally directed at property as opposed to people to show how replaceable superficial things such as display windows or store products are, contrasted to the irreplaceable value of life. The police in America loot the bodies of Black and Brown people as easily as streets are looted and burned down, and that’s exactly what they want to convey, as well as communicate the fact that the lives of Americans should be more important to bystanders than the destruction of a Target, for example.
Activist Tamika Mallory phrased it perfectly when she said that America looted Black people first, therefore Black Americans are responding to the violence in the only way they’ve been shown: through the pillaging and looting of white colonizers.
As long as Black people have existed in the Americas, their bodies have been exploited and pillaged, some to the point of death. When you compare this physical and tangible trauma to the protests of Black Americans, the only logical conclusions that you can reason is how inhumane and unacceptable the treatment of Black Americans have been.
It’s so frustrating to hear people’s criticism of how Black people have handled their trauma. They always say that they should keep their protests peaceful if they want any sort of results. This insensitive response speaks to the amount of power that white Americans have over the existence of Black people. Because even when Black people have protested by “the books,” their liberation is still delayed. They owe it to themselves and their lineage to reclaim their power by responding to injustice in a way that is fitting for them.
Furthermore, protests that are perceived to be violent have been proven to stem from the police who, rather than maintaining a semblance of peace at protests, have instead been agent provocateurs and used the anger of protesters to incite violence.
Portland, Oregon, a city that has overwhelmed the news headlines have been subjugated to the unchecked power of federal agents sent by Trump. Instead, they exacerbated the very point of the protests by using unnecessary and illegal acts of violence against Portland citizens under the guise of preserving peace.
You can talk all day about how you’d prefer someone to get their point across but that ultimately doesn’t change the reality for Black Americans. They are still being brutalized, exploited, and ignored while we create sensationalized headlines scapegoating Black protesters for the sake of views. The only wrong way to protest is to not protest at all, and spending any other time debating the ethics of it distracts from the larger, systemic issue at hand.
It’s about time that we center the voices and needs of Black Americans, it’s the least we can do to begin creating a future for everyone.
Since its inception, democracy has been branded as one of America’s many hallmarks. As long as democracy and freedom has been associated with America, everyone else has been led to believe that America is the leader of the free world.
But even as Thomas Jefferson declared independence from the tyranny of Britain, he still justified the ownership of human beings as slaves. And even as the founding fathers drafted the constitution that would protect our unalienable rights and liberties, they still justified the exploitation of black bodies in order to serve the interests of White America.
These foundational documents provided the blueprint for America and its interests over time, and since the country’s founding, America has pillaged, colonized, looted, exploited, ravaged, stolen, imperialized, controlled, capitalized, and subjugated the rest of the world all in the name of “democracy.”
Not to mention, the denial of humanity to the very people that built this country’s wealth that continues to this very day.
America co-opted the concept of democracy and created an excuse to oppress the world under the guise of goodwill and progressiveness, which is why I hate democracy. American democracy, to be specific.
Along the journey towards global domination, our government intentionally corrupted the world’s ideals of what democracy should be in order to preserve their image of goodness and utopia. We allow America to wage unnecessary and useless wars to preserve “democracy” and “freedom.”
But what is democracy? To America, democracy is defined by capitalism where the means for production are unregulated and unchecked, but that is inherently undemocratic because capitalism has only allowed for the corruption and greed of rich people to control the lives of others. At its core, democracy is the form of government that is run by the people for all people, and when we allow some people to have more power than others, the foundational ideologies of democracy are nullified.
American democracy, or capitalism, has been the basis for the myriad of undemocratic things that America has done. Yet, to the rest of the world, it’s entirely justified and patriotic. Ever since World War 2, when America really started to pillage and loot on a global scale, so much propaganda was used to vilify any other means for democracy like socialism and communism and glorify the democracy that America was the vanguard of. It allowed the military to interfere in any foreign conflict that they deemed “undemocratic” while not allowing room for growth in our ignorant mindset of what democracy is.
To this day, “third-world countries” which is another concept created by Western countries to perpetuate the white savior complex by asserting that countries that were robbed of their country’s resources by the West are poor and helpless, continue to buy into the myth of American democracy. Rather than creating a new standard of freedom and liberty in the world, countries that were destroyed by America continually attempt to build a government in the image of America.
Even the distinctions between the West versus the East, and the narrative that countries in the West are the definition of progress and freedom, while the East is oppressive is laughable because America and Europe created the blueprint for systemic racism and misogyny that brands the East.
To deny the existence of these systemic issues in our countries is doing a disservice to the aspirations for democracy. The coronavirus exposed all of the systemic issues at the root of our country’s operation at an important time in history where White people were very quick to claim that we are living in a post-racial society. The first step to actually living in a democratic society is to acknowledge the wrongdoings of our predecessors.
"America never intended to be a country for all people: the founding fathers were all rich, white men who wanted their property to be free and liberated, as opposed to the people who lived alongside them."
The establishment of oppressive systems such as the police, the prison system, and the military were intentionally created to deny Black Americans basic rights supposedly guaranteed in the 1st Amendment, which clearly shows that this country was never created to accommodate the livelihood of Black Americans while posturing as vanguards of democracy.
Through the course of history, there has never been a moment where Americans have not been protesting for one thing or another, and ironically, America now uses that as justification of being a country led by the people (when in reality it’s not) but in the moment, the government did everything it could in order to suppress the voices of protestors through the use of state sponsored violence like the police and maintain the safety of property and capital. America continually ignored the voices asking for change because it would upend the standards of power and class in America, which is what the government truly wants to preserve.
The current protests are a huge example of this because just as White America was becoming oblivious to the violence that Black Americans routinely experienced, the video of George Floyd being murdered exposed the realities of America and the systematic efforts to perpetuate systemic racism.
The American government tries harder to preserve oppression against Black people than it does listening to them and abolishing the structures that exist solely to create a new iteration of slavery.
I could call America a hypocrite for claiming democracy as their own while sponsoring all sorts of violence and oppression against people, but America never intended to be a country for all people: the founding fathers were all rich, white men who wanted their property to be free and liberated, as opposed to the people who lived alongside them.
As long as we allow America to limit our ideas of what’s possible in the realm of democracy and government to a superficial level, we will never be free.
It was recently predicted that Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, would become the first trillionaire (with a T) in the next few years because of the massive growth in sales that Amazon saw in the wake of the coronavirus. There are so many things wrong with this dystopian sentence but what stands out most to me is the fact that while billions of people around the world are suffering from a deadly disease, that very disease has become Bezos’ best asset in ensuring even more economic growth, if that was even possible for a company like Amazon that essentially runs the global economy.
The underlying issue here is that Amazon will continue to exponentially grow because of how increasingly reliant Americans are on Amazon to provide essential supplies to their homes. For many impoverished Americans, Amazon is their best option for affordable items, yet these same community members are being exploited by Amazon through employment and through the business that they provide. Despite how much some people may resent the business model that Amazon operates under, they have no choice but to shop from there, which probably causes them to hate Amazon more.
For many capitalists, this is simply an issue of a lack of competition in the many industries that Amazon has overwhelmed, but the last thing we need is competition— businesses should be able to thrive (until a certain point) without being worried about being eaten up by corporations like Amazon. The real issue is the lack of options for consumers. To deny that Amazon has monopolized every corner of the economy is to close your eyes to the obvious, which is that Amazon has monopolized every corner of the economy. The stagnation of economic growth for lower class Americans is exploited by Amazon’s successful attempts to essentially pilfer these consumers of their money and business because they know how much Americans rely on the cheapest and most affordable options while simultaneously contributing to their poverty and inability to establish a stable income.
"Our definition of success has become so warped and entrenched in the guise of money"
There is no way for a business to reach this amount of unchecked power without capitalizing off of unethical practices. Amazon is one of America’s biggest employers, but the treatment that their workers face is inhumane and the standards that they are forced to uphold are unrealistic. The biggest reason for why they are able to get away with their many violations of workers’ rights is how dependent the employees are on Amazon for work. Just as they slowly convinced Americans to solely rely on Amazon for products, the same was done for their employees: so many Americans believe that there aren’t any other options for work or products because of the unfathomable power that Amazon has on the world.
No one has seen this amount of unchecked power within a business in years, so many people trust that the government will know when to step in. Well, honey, do I have some news for you. It’s clear that the power to change the dynamic between corporations and their consumers lies within the hands of consumers until the government gets their life together. Corporations shouldn’t have the ability to dictate our shopping habits and lower our standards for what’s considered fair treatment. Some people have chosen to use that power by boycotting such businesses for their unethical practices, but like I mentioned many Americans can only afford the prices that Amazon offers despite the environmental and social cost.
When the driving factor for creating a business is money, ethics are the last priority on an entrepreneur’s mind because of how expensive it is, but if you are not in the business of providing services and goods to consumers while maintaining an environmentally and socially aware approach, then you shouldn’t be in business. Our definition of success has become so warped and entrenched in the guise of money, but we need to reshape our priorities and hold businesses accountable for these things. The fact that the ability to boycott a business is a privilege should be the only indicator necessary that the power that capitalists love to suggest that consumers have doesn’t exist. I’m sure that Jeff Bezos doesn’t lose a second of sleep over the corruption that he and his business have caused and created knowing that he will still have millions of customers who rely on him everyday.
One of the first things we are given at birth is our name, and although it may not seem important at face value, our names are an extension of ourselves and identities. It speaks to a heritage and history that is unique to who you are and has shaped you into the person you are today. Your name is inherent to your being, and when your name is intentionally mispronounced, that person is diminishing your value and diluting your identity and all of your complexities for the sake of simplicity and social order.
In our monolithic society, the powers that be value monotony over individuality, and your name challenges that norm and our perceptions of identity. One of the many ways that colonists forced indigenous groups into American society through assimilation was by giving the younger generation a new, Eurocentric name that reflected a standard of white supremacy that they wanted to uphold.
Though it may seem like an imperceptible change, over time they forgot their own names, their first language, and ultimately their identity.
This blatant form of whitewashing is still an implicit part of our culture, and many first generation Americans, immigrants, or anyone with a foreign name, knows this first hand.
At a young age, we are taught that anything foreign is inferior to the cultural and social advancements of the West, and this is perpetuated anytime names that are not originally English are intentionally mispronounced or replaced by a nickname that sounds “American.”
I’m all too familiar with having a substitute teacher reach my name on the roster, immediately pause and glance up with a look of anxiety on their face at having to pronounce the unfamiliar combination of letters that seem out of place in the English lexicon.
"Each time we let people call us by a name that isn’t a reflection of who you are, a part of your identity is lost and deemed unimportant and we perpetuate a system that seeks to silence us and our opinions."
For a long time, I wouldn’t bother correcting their pronounciation of my name to save the embarrassment of feeling other-ed or called out, but thinking back, I have to wonder: was it for my sake, or for the sake of the teacher?
By allowing people to manipulate the name that is so attached to your being in a way that ignores your diversity and culture in place of a name that is familiar to them, but foreign to you, you’ve lost all autonomy over the way people perceive you and are now a pawn of a name that means nothing to you.
Of course, this all results from inherent systems of xenophobia and white supremacy that exists in our society that fosters an environment of inferiority to minorities in America. When you feel that your name isn’t good enough for the people around you that fit Eurocentric standards, that is a result of a narrow minded society.
Minorities tend to be apologetic and be more inclined to take less space, as that is what society trained us to do: be grateful for all the opportunities we provided for you and don’t be selfish by having the audacity to ask for more.
This line of reasoning distorts the standard of what everyone deserves and creates an unbalanced hierarchy all dependent on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc.
The first step towards creating an equal society is to be unapologetically yourself and that starts by forcing people to pronounce your name under your own terms to regain autonomy over your being.
Once we demand what we know we deserve, we can work towards equality because equality starts with yourself and how you view yourself in comparison to others.
Though a name doesn’t define who you are and shouldn’t limit your existence, it’s imperative to recognize the power that a name has in creating opportunities for growth and forcing people to be uncomfortable with what they don’t know to normalize the complexities in every person.
Each time we let people call us by a name that isn’t a reflection of who you are, a part of your identity is lost and deemed unimportant and we perpetuate a system that seeks to silence us and our opinions.
I recently listened to a podcast called “The Process” from Noor Tagouri where she has a conversation with a creative about their process for creating their content among other things, and in this episode that I listened to, Noor interviewed filmmaker Minhal Baig who made headlines in late 2019 for her movie “Hala” that featured a Muslim girl wearing a hijab as the protagonist. For many Muslim Americans who heard the news, this was a huge step in the direction of authentic representation in the media, but for others, the premise featured in the trailer that announced the film, seemed to highlight a trope that continued to put the archetype of a White Savior over that of the coming of age or internal shift in the main character; others thought that the story of Hala was inaccurate to what Islam “actually” is and thought it was too Western-ized to capture the actual nature of the maligned religion.
In the interview, Noor brings this up to Minhal, along with a phrase I wasn’t familiar with: horizontal hostility. As it turns out, horizontal hostility is essentially a term that describes a situation where people of the same background, whether it be ethnic, religious, racial, or sexual orientation, etc., accuse each other of not representing the ideal standard of what (insert blank) is in a way that reinforces a system of oppression.
For example, there is a long history of black men mistreating black women; this would be horizontal hostility because though these people belong to the same racial background and have experienced similar notions of oppression, black men still benefit from the privileges that come from living in a patriarchal society and can exploit that to hurt black women, whos intersectionalities of race and gender furthers their disenfranchisement.
When it comes to Islam, this term illuminated precisely what I had felt plagued my community for centuries and has played a large role in the disillusioned way that the media portrayed Muslims.
It’s no secret that many Muslim majority countries are in a third-world state after being exploited by colonialism and imperialism from Western countries, and continue to stay in a state of unrest through the many despots and dictators that attempt to take over these countries and overrule democracy. In many ways, this has lead to the reinforcement of an oppressive patriarchal state because of the distorted interpretation that many men in these cultures have of Islam that are simply tradition— not religion.
Muslim majority countries share the same interpretations of religion that tend to be oversaturated with cultural contexts that aren’t representative of Islam. Things like oppressing women by forcing them to wear a hijab and keeping them inside the house to raise children and not make money of her own are all sins in Islam yet many people don’t regard it this way, including women.
"To suggest that Hala wouldn’t have felt liberated or free if the white boy hadn’t “saved” her from her oppressive religion and culture perpetuates the exact assertions many Americans have about Muslim women: that they need to be saved or freed from the confines of their scarf that is slowly choking them to death. "
The internalized misogyny and lack of autonomy in these countries makes it difficult to retain any agency to speak against these injustices and as it continues to be passed down by generation and generations, it’s taken as Bible, no pun intended.
The double standard involving men and women in the East is rejected by the West that prides itself in maintaining gender equity, yet there are other implicitly misogynistic parts to the West that still exist— we’ll get into that a bit later.
Needless to say, reconciling the Muslims that live in the West that aren’t necessarily assimilated to the point that they forget their identities but simply treat others with equality and the Muslims that live in the East who maintain a dated perception of the role that gender plays in society yet still believe in the same facets of Islam is difficult and speaks to the levels of misogyny that has bled through many aspects of society and culture.
It’s often difficult for people to understand groups, especially Muslims, who seem to come from irreconcilable backgrounds and mutually exclusive beliefs, and place a label on them so that they are easily digestible.
"for Muslim women who live in the West, “liberation” doesn’t end at the right to vote, because many other aspects of their identity inhibits them from full equality due to the patriarchy and xenophobic nature of the West. "
I’ve come across many questions from non-Muslims and Muslims alike such as “but you don’t seem Muslim ‘enough’” as if there is a equation I have to fulfill in order to ordain my beliefs.
These sentiments came up a lot with the release of Minhal’s movie “Hala”. Although I haven’t seen the movie, from what I can tell, the main character, Hala, explores her sexuality in a way that is not even discussed in Muslim households with a White boy, though this isn’t the main focus of the movie.
Growing up, my perceptions of who a Muslim could be was very limited; I couldn’t comprehend in my mind that anyone who called themselves a Muslim could drink alcohol, do drugs, have sex with multiple partners, etc. But what I’ve realized as I’ve grown older is that though there may be some inconsistencies in the way that someone practices their religion, they can still be as much of a Muslim as someone else. Portraying the different lifestyles of a vast group of people who have been tied down to one narrative can create more open mindedness but it’s difficult.
While it’s important to portray as many realities of Muslims as possible, as multifaceted as they may be, it’s equally important to not associate the religion itself with the lives of the people. The mistake that the media made when showing Muslims was that they associated the oppressive cultures with the religion and that’s not how Islam is. Similarly, just because someone has many intersections within their religion and their lifestyle, it may not be accurate to the literal religion itself.
Like I said, people like to label the things that they see so it’s easier to understand, but we can’t ignore the dimensionalities of people who may belong to one group but are a part of many others or associate a rigid definition with an interpretative group.
While some said that the movie wasn’t Muslim enough or accurate to the exact rules of Islam, others pointed to the suggestion that Hala had some type of relationship with a white boy in the movie to call out the trope that existed in Western media that implicitly suppressed the story of Hala, in place of a superficial relationship that hid all of the dimensionalities of the protagonist. For some, the movie’s progress for representation was eclipsed by the presence of a misogynistic archetype that took the spotlight away from the girl, who happened to be Muslim, to the boy.
I want to make the disclaimer that this is how it appeared in the trailer, not how it actually went down in the movie, according to what the filmmaker said.
This is a very valid point because for Muslim women who live in the West, “liberation” doesn’t end at the right to vote, because many other aspects of their identity inhibits them from full equality due to the patriarchy and xenophobic nature of the West.
To suggest that Hala wouldn’t have felt liberated or free if the white boy hadn’t “saved” her from her oppressive religion and culture perpetuates the exact assertions many Americans have about Muslim women: that they need to be saved or freed from the confines of their scarf that is slowly choking them to death.
It appeared that this attempt for accurate representation was conducted through the male gaze, like many other media portrayals, and continued to ignore the realities of Muslim girls in America.
Regardless of the impression you may have about the movie, there is only one way to get a true interpretation of it and it’s by watching it. For those who have, the progress for representation is undeniably there as it captured the emotion and nature of growing up as a Muslim girl in America.
Meet 27 year old collage artist, photographer, writer, illustrator, aspiring filmmaker, and all around really cool person, Alia Wilhelm! Her unfiltered, homemade aesthetic was influenced by Rookie Mag, an online magazine that captured the spirit of growing and exploration for teenagers who identified as girls. Since then, Alia has built up her portfolio with her signature collage art and artistic vision through features in various magazines and websites. She has worked as a director’s assistant for many film projects, most notably “Emma”, and in light of the isolation that may come from quarantining, she created a website called “Nearness” with fellow Rookie Mag alumni Anna White that curates the work of people around the world about their experiences with quarantine in hopes that it will bring people together.
I first learned about Alia Wilhelm through the iconic collage kits she curated for Rookie that I would experiment with when I first started making digital collages. I was so drawn to the messy and intimate style that she used to create her art and I would try to copy it with everything I made.
Read more for the conversation I had with Alia about narrowing down her numerous interests, what it’s like to move from place to place, and how Rookie has influenced her artwork.
Make sure you check out Alia’s work, including the Nearness Project for great articles and thought provoking art!
AW: Not too bad! I usually live in London but right now I'm staying with my boyfriend's mom. We're both with his mom outside of Manchester which is north of London, by like an hour and a half and today is like our one month anniversary of being here since we left London. It's nice here, there's a lot more room to roam around than our apartment, so it feels good to be here, but it's definitely been very strange. I was working on a feature film before this as a director's assistant so that was really intense and it was very long hours and going from that to, all of a sudden, not having too much to do has been weird. But I started this sort of online space recently.
ST: Yessss! I’m a huge fan.
AW: Oh, thank you! So that's taken up a lot of time and that kind of feels like I almost am sticking to a normal workday because I have that going on. I wish I had a little bit more space to just think about stuff because, sort of whether or not I'm doing it on purpose, it ends up taking a lot of my day, and I really enjoy it. And we're getting a lot of submissions from people and so hearing how they're doing and reading essays and seeing artwork that's being made right now is really nice, actually. But I think it would probably be good if I spent a little bit more time just digesting how weird this all has been.
ST: Yeah, it hasn't fully set in yet.
AW: So what are you up to? Is this a full time thing for you, or do you do it on the side?
ST: Yes. Mainly on the side since I'm mainly occupied with school. I'm a junior right now. So it's been good because I have more time to focus on other things that I didn't normally have time for, but among other things, I’ve just been writing and making stuff to pass time.
AW: Yeah, sounds good.
ST: So tell me about your work as an artist and just more about yourself.
AW: Well, I used to contribute to Rookie Mag and I don't know if you know about them.
ST: Yes! That's where I found your work.
AW: Oh, cool! That's nice to hear. Yeah, so basically, I was a really big fangirl for a long time and then kept submitting stuff and after a couple of years, I think, I heard back from them about them wanting to publish some comic that I had drawn. I feel like my work has been really influenced by all of the art on there and having those few years to just make stuff for them has like, taught me about how I like the stuff I make to look in terms of editing writing, and writing stuff myself, or the kind of tone I want it to have because I always really liked how frank everything was but also funny. It was just such a nice mix of self deprecating and serious.
ST: Yeah, I admired that aspect of it. And that was actually one of my questions: how it influenced your art, or worldview, or both.
AW: Yeah I think hugely. I think, also, the weird thing is that I used to like writing when I was growing up, but I never drew really. I mean, I drew as a kid in school, but I never illustrated anything; I'd never used Photoshop before and I didn't really start doing all of that stuff until I was like, over 22, I would say. I graduated from college and I studied journalism and I was really struggling with Photoshop for a while but I think being a contributor at Rookie—it's funny because even the first few files I sent them, I obviously had no idea what format I should be sending collages in, and everything saved in this weird way, but you can kind of see over time that I was starting to figure out that I liked mixing mediums; I really like mixing photos with coloring pencils scans or watercolor, and I like mixing words with images. But I feel like before Rookie, I would never have called myself an artist in any way.
"I'd love for that to happen to people, for them to be moved by [my art] enough to have conversations with themselves and to reflect and see things a little bit differently after they read it."
ST: Yeah, I can relate to that sentiment. I've always just been drawn to writing and I never saw that as an art form, and I've dabbled in collage art as well over the years but I was always hesitant to be like, “yeah, I'm an artist.”
AW: Yeah, something about it feels a little bit pretentious in a way. Until you really believe that that is what you are, it feels a little bit awkward to say it is.
ST: So how did you develop your style of multimedia? How did you get into collage art?
AW: At first, I really liked photography and that was kind of the first art thing that I was doing, but it started off as just like photos of my friends and then, inspired by Rookie, I sort of started staging stuff a little bit more and I got into collage because of them, too. For a while I was trying to do photography and illustration and collage, but what I make money from nowadays and also what I just like the most out of those three’s to make collages. That has just kind of naturally become, I guess, the thing I have the most interest in, so it's just what I've gravitated towards. I like for things to look kind of like DIY: you can tell that someone cut things out or, you know, colored something in. I like that kind of homemade feel to things.
ST: What kind of message do you hope to send out with that feel? It's a big theme in your art and also Rookie with the diary-esque vibe.
AW: I guess what's interesting is that all of this stuff is being published online and a lot of stuff these days looks digital. Even art: it's so easy to color something in with the click of a paintbrush tool or the click of a paint bucket tool on Photoshop. So I sort of like the contrast between something being displayed online where it could be digital, and kind of refusing to just type it out and maybe using handwritten font instead; I feel like it just personalizes things a little bit, like it almost feels like what you're reading is more personal or the photos you're looking at are coming from an individual and not from a company. I guess things feel a little bit more unique and personalized and honest in a way.
ST: So, oftentimes, a lot of what young women like to spend their time on is either trivialized or politicized in whatever work they may be in. Have you experienced this?
AW: I'm not sure that I have, although, maybe unknowingly I have. I did get an email yesterday that was interesting where someone was asking if I was free to make a collage for a health and beauty magazine, and they mentioned wanting sort of a feminine style to go in with everything and I just thought it was interesting because that is what I gravitate towards. My images have a lot of women in them and it’s not even necessarily a conscious decision to do that, but I guess it feels like it is a reflection of my life. But I think it's interesting because you can get pigeonholed, if that's your style, into brands or magazines that want to have that sort of like feminine aspect to them and want to include you, but does that mean you don't get included in other magazines? But for the most part that hasn't been a negative thing for me. I think I probably also haven't gotten published in enough stuff to maybe have that kind of experience. There's a really big community of young women out there who are making this art and also a big part of the submissions we've gotten for Nearness have been people women or people who just don't don't want to identify like what gender they are. It's been interesting to see that we're getting so much work from people who aren't necessarily male.
ST: Yeah. I think it was the same thing with Rookie, too, like, it was such an inclusive community of people who were like-minded but also had different life experiences and I see that reflected in a lot of your work too, so I find it interesting that it's unconscious, almost like it's kind of just what you're drawn to. A lot of people like to politicize that and make that a statement, so I like that it’s just a natural part of your art.
AW: I think it's like an aesthetic choice, too. I mean, it might be political, it might unconsciously be that way. But I think when I'm looking for images to use in my collages, a lot of times it boils down to a very simple kind of taste thing, which is just, you know, retro images of women in the 60s sunbathing or whatever. I don't know why I gravitate towards that. It's kind of the same thing with the books I choose to read which often tend to be by women, but I'm not going into the bookstore with that in mind.
"I feel like when you make artwork, you can take a perspective on what you're trying to say because you are the author. So even if it's to accompany an article, you can poke fun at something or you can make it really serious"
ST: Why do you think that it's important to portray the realities of teen girls in the way that you do in a more realistic way that's unlike what social media looks like these days?
AW: I think it's probably also important for teenage boys but I don't know if anyone is actually doing that. Teenagers, in general, have grown up with phones, as well as this very clean-cut image that you get on Instagram and on the internet nowadays, so we have this image of what perfection means. But I had a good few years in my life where I was seeing images that didn't feel like they were just that perfect, shiny, gleaming photo. I think that that's in large part due to Rookie that I was seeing art out there that wasn't just your typical, perfect version of what a girl‘s supposed to be like. And I think for teenagers, that's so important because that's when we're the most susceptible to looking at those kinds of photos and feeling insecure as a result.
ST: I saw in your bio on Rookie that said something about you're looking for a home or something and I know that you're half Turkish and half German. So how has that duality in your identity and constantly moving around and seeing different places, influenced your art?
AW: That's interesting. I've never really thought about that.
ST: I can definitely relate because I live in America, but I'm also Libyan and Arab and that, so just finding my place has been on my mind recently.
AW: Yeah, I can understand that. I think that can feel intimidating and scary when you're growing up, but I think now that I'm a little bit older, I really appreciate having that. I feel like it gives you a little bit of perspective because you never really feel like you belong no matter what situation you're in, and you can kind of step away from something and look at it a little bit more objectively, but I don't know, it's actually hard to say how that's influenced my art. I think the reason why I started making stuff probably has to do with me moving around a lot because I remember getting kind of obsessed with documenting stuff as I was growing up, whether that meant having a diary or keeping ticket stubs and taking photos of people who I knew I wouldn't always be surrounded by so now when I collage, I'm grateful that I have all of these photos from the past few years that I've hoarded; it happens to make for good material sometimes when I'm making something.
ST: How does your art give you a voice or empowers you?
AW: I like that it always gives me an opportunity to learn about pop culture or history. I feel like it empowers me in terms of, I always have something I'm working towards that teaches me something. Like today, I was working on a collage that's gonna go with this piece coming out tomorrow about 10 movies to watch in quarantine and they're all about isolation in one way or another. And it was just interesting putting the time into researching these films and learning what they're about and what the characters look like. I guess I just like that I'm always learning something when I make collages and I feel like when you make artwork, you can take a perspective on what you're trying to say because you are the author. So even if it's to accompany an article, you can poke fun at something or you can make it really serious or it just gives you a chance to decide what you want to say every time you're opening a blank, overwhelming, intimidating Photoshop document.
ST: In general, what do you think you want to convey through your art and what you would like to say through it? Is there like a general theme that keeps your pieces kind of personal to you?
AW: I think it depends. Sometimes, you know, this is for a magazine and they want it to feel like this and then it doesn't always feel like it has a personal message behind it. But I think aesthetically, I always try and retain a little bit of distance from this current time period. I like things to look a little bit older and I think that's a reflection of how I feel about this time in general, that sometimes it's overwhelming and there's part of me that wishes I'd been born like 50 years ago to experience what life would have been like, a little bit slower. But I think in general, as selfish as it sounds, I sort of like to use it as a way to self reflect. It’s not necessarily always to try and have a message for people about what I think is important, but just as a way to kind of actively psychoanalyze myself, but also have a little bit of fun doing it.
ST: Where do you see yourself in a couple of years and how do you see your art evolving? I know you've gotten a lot more involved in filmmaking and everything like that, so how do you see that progressing?
AW: I'd like to direct something like to direct a film in the next 5, 10 years, if possible. It's interesting working as an assistant. I think seeing firsthand how hard it is, it's humbling and also doesn't make me feel like it's something that's super attainable very quickly. It seems like something you have to work very hard to get to. But I'd like to do that and I think I'd like to keep collaging and have that on the side. I just don't ever really seem able to have one thing, I feel like I always have at least a couple.
ST: As a director's assistant, you worked on Emma and the director is a woman, have you worked with male directors in the past and how has that experience differed?
I actually haven't weirdly enough, I've worked as a director's assistant for some commercials and then Emma, and the work that they do has also always been like, they've thought about the fact that they're women and what are they trying to say that's different. And it's been interesting to be someone's assistant and kind of their sidekick too, seeing them go through making those decisions.
ST: What kind of stories are you drawn to when it comes to movies and what kind of stories would you direct in the future?
AW: I think I'd like to make something that's semi autobiographical. I have this story in my head, which is similar actually, to the first comic that I ever submitted to Rookie about moving to London and how hard and sad that was for a while, so I think I'd like to make a movie about that time period and fictionalize it a little bit. I like movies that are about transition periods, I think, and also friendships. I love “American Honey”; that's one of my favorite movies. And I tend to like films that are kind of slow and a little bit sad. Like when I go to the movies, if I leave having cried, I'm always happy and feel like my money’s been spent well.
ST: Do you hope to do the same through your art?
AW: I do. Good question. I'd love for that to happen to people, for them to be moved by it enough to have conversations with themselves and to reflect and see things a little bit differently after they read it.
ST: Yeah, I think that's the best outcome of artwork
AW: Yeah, that's a big, lofty goal. I guess that's why I always feel very happy and grateful and kind of surprised when I get nice comments or messages from people after writing something like that. It always feels really great that someone related.
As the climate crisis continues to grow everyday, it’s important to recognize the factors that lead us here as well as the intersectionalities to this multifaceted issue. It’s not a surprise to many people around the world that we only have a couple of years to stop the irreversible damage that global warming will inevitably cause to our Earth, yet in the months that many youth activists around the world have shined a spotlight on an issue that has been existing for many decades, there hasn’t been nearly enough legislative change in the government to change the way we live and enforce certain standards for corporations to abide by.
There is only so much an individual consumer can do for the climate but corporations are at the root of the issue since they strategically market products with non-biodegradable material, material that can’t be naturally broken down like plastic, to consumers for a cheaper price which is what many Americans can afford.
Sustainable things, whether it’s fashion or reusable products, are notoriously expensive and for people who live in these vulnerable areas, sustainability is not a feasible option, as much as one would like it to be.
Large companies have the option of changing the way they create their products and the price at which they sell them and it’s their responsibility to do because of how much of an influence they play in the lives of consumers.
"Having days like Earth Day are important but not enough to create institutional change because Earth Day is all about the ways that a global citizen can live a sustainable life, and doesn’t force people in power to recognize the ways that their lifestyle has many implications on the climate."
Corporations have a long history of exploiting consumers and workers to make the biggest profit through the cheapest material and if there was ever a time to stop, it’s now.
It’s no surprise that as the gap between the wealthy and poor increases, the climate worsens and this is because there is no accountability in the wasteful lives that excessively rich people live and there is no sense of feeling impacted by the destruction of their pollution and the deteriorating climate.
Now that everyone is forced to stay inside, we’re seeing the influence that factories and wealthy people have had on the environment because in places like Venice, their canals have never been clearer, and in New York City, pollution levels are noticeably lower. It shows just how much large, systemic change is needed in the next years to solve this issue. But it’s not as easy as one thinks because like I mentioned, there are many intersectionalities with the climate crisis.
As long as politicians continue to approach issues with an objective lens rather than acknowledging the multitude of groups that the climate poses a problem to, we aren’t getting anywhere because this isn’t a one size fits all solution.
Having days like Earth Day are important but not enough to create institutional change because Earth Day is all about the ways that a global citizen can live a sustainable life, and doesn’t force people in power to recognize the ways that their lifestyle has many implications on the climate.
On top of the changes that we make in our lives, we have to push companies to make sustainability a priority and an affordable option for all consumers so that disenfranchised people don’t get lost in the shuffle as they often do.
Not only do we make sure they prioritize these things but do so in an authentic manner rather than simply co-opt an issue that has life changing implications on other people for marketing purposes. It seems that as the climate crisis continues to “trend,” companies are taking advantage of that by making it appear they are moving towards a more eco-friendly approach to attract more consumers.
Authenticity and accountability are vital to making sure that companies don’t fall back on old habits and also in making sure that customers have the upperhand in the way that corporations run their businesses rather than allowing the economy to control the way we live our lives.
Which means let’s take down capitalism and redistribute the wealth so that we can live fulfilling and environment-conscious lives!
Happy 4/20! In honor of Mary Jane, I’ll be exploring the topical plant that we haven’t been able to hear enough of on the news. Arguments for whether marijuana should be legalized have become a big part of party politics in recent years, and regardless of whether you agree with the notion of smoking weed, it should be legalized because there is more to this issue than meets the eye.
Decades before the movement pushed for its legalization, weed has always stereotypically been associated with communities of color, which as a result, is often criminalized and misconstrued to be dangerous. Not only that, but marijuana has disproportionately impacted black and brown communities through the criminal justice system. According to the ACLU, despite the fact that white people and people of color use marijuana at relatively the same rate, black people are four times likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana than white people.
A small violation such as this can have long term implications on the lives of people who are already disenfranchised in America. A drug offense, no matter how severe, can make it harder for black and brown people to find jobs, get public housing if necessary, apply for loans, and many other public benefits. And when it comes to people of color, these offenses are often exacerbated and consequently, the sentences are unfairly worse.
Furthermore, the fact that they are being arrested puts strains on an already overcrowded and predominantly black and brown prison system. And although legalizing weed may not stop mass incarceration, the arrests of marijuana related offenses would help alleviate that issue. In 2018 alone, over 660,000 arrests were made relating to weed, and 92% of that was for possession.
"This highlights the underlying issue in many of the policies written in America: legislation is written from a “colorblind” point of view that ignores all of the holes that the criminal justice system can exploit in order to continue debilitating people of color."
As a result of how robust police in America have been in curtailing marijuana use—in 2010, the police made about one drug bust every 37 seconds—many resources have been drained in a relatively harmless issue (of course there are many exceptions but if there weren’t this much effort on stopping people from smoking weed, maybe there would be a better job at stopping people from dealing or trafficking it; I don’t know, just a thought). According to the ACLU, states spend more than 3.6 billion dollars on the issue of marijuana alone that could be used in many other spaces of government that lack the resources that are wasted in this ineffective endeavor.
Yet, even with states like Colorado who have legalized the recreational use of weed, people of color are still disproportionately subject to unjust criminalization. In fact, the group that has benefited the most from legalizing marijuana is, unsurprisingly, white people. Arrests for white people have gone down by 51% while for African Americans and Latinos, it has gone down by 25% and 33%, respectively.
This highlights the underlying issue in many of the policies written in America: legislation is written from a “colorblind” point of view that ignores all of the holes that the criminal justice system can exploit in order to continue debilitating people of color. As long as laws are put in place without the interests of marginalized groups at the forefront, people of color will continue to be left behind while politicians revel in the glory of legalizing something that many assumed would help stop racial disparities.
And it also exposes the intentions for why many Americans have had a sudden change of heart about the drug that was so vilified; it has presented obvious economic benefits that outshined the actual issue with the way marijuana is addressed in the criminal justice system.
For the rest of the states that have yet to legalize cannabis, they must acknowledge the racial implications the marijuana issue has had on communities of color and work with them to create a solution that doesn’t only benefit white people and the economy.
Meet 17 year old Olivia Bokesch! A content creator from South Carolina who’s bold fashion and compelling voice has created a community of teens from around the world to show that fashion and politics aren’t mutually exclusive. I first met Olivia through a project we are working on called Our Era and when I realized that she blogged about fashion AND politics, I was hooked! I’m always looking for creators who see and recognize the intersections of fashion and politics in our daily lives because the simple act of dressing up as a woman in Western society is inherently political. Read more for the insightful conversation I had with Olivia and make sure you check her website and Instagram out!
www.absolutelyolivia.com
IG: @absolutelyolivia
ST: So where did you find inspiration to start your website especially because a lot of blogs are kind of dying down. Where did you find inspiration to start yours?
OB: Um, well, I didn’t do much research before starting my blog [laughs]. My aunt was like, ‘you should start a blog’ because I was big into fashion and I think I would just search up fashion blogs. And I saw all the bigger bloggers like Who Wore What, and then I saw magazines like Man Repeller and stuff like that that were doing cool stuff. So I was like, ‘okay, like, why not?’ And so I guess that’s where I got inspiration, but now, I’ve definitely started writing less for it just because I'm focusing more on my Instagram content, which I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. So a lot of times I find my inspiration from kinda more Gen-Z oriented magazines, like Our Era Magazine because that’s more of the audience that I want to be geared towards.
ST: When did you start writing about activism and social issues and politics for your website? And like, what drove you to do that?
OB: So I kind of started getting into the activist world when I was about in seventh grade. My church was like, ‘okay, we're going to allow gay people to get married at our church’ and a lot of people left my church because of that and that really like impacted me for some reason, because I was really confused why people didn't think that was okay. And so that's when I started really going into politics more, but I always kept it separate from my blog because I just wasn't sure if it was an acceptable thing for me to talk about and I built my readership around fashion and not about social issues, so I was like, ‘are people gonna think that I'm crazy or dumb because I'm young and I don't know what I'm talking about.’
I think the first thing I ever published about activism was after Charlottesville and I wrote about privilege and what my privileges are and how I try to be aware of those and how other white people like me can be aware of our privilege, and I got really good feedback from that, I guess. I felt a little bit more empowered in speaking about my political beliefs, so that’s where I got started.
ST: How have you used that side of yourself and combined it with your love of fashion?
I’m actually writing an article for Our Era right now about fashion activism. I think that fashion is such a big empowering tool, especially for like, females, because that's something that a lot of us are drawn to— I don't want to speak for everyone— but I feel like it can be used as a tool to empower people to want to go out, and when I look at marches and I see people wearing outfits that represent their beliefs and who they are and maybe the cultures they come from, that's so beautiful and inspiring to me. And I'm like, ‘okay, I want to be badass like that. I want to live like that and I want to talk like that and I want to talk about what they’re talking about,’ so fashion for me is like a visual aspect of activism and so that's kind of how I try to tie that in especially when I talk about activism in my posts. A lot of times, I use my fashion as a way to draw people into what I'm talking about so then they may be more likely to read what I'm saying.
ST: So are these thoughts consciously on your mind as you dress up each day and plan shoots and these kinds of things? Does the political side of fashion ever play into the choices you make?
OB: They definitely do. Sometimes I'm like, ‘should I wear this to church’ or ‘should I wear this to a dinner with my conservative grandparents,’ you know what I mean? Like, what are they going to be viewing me as if I roll up in, like, a crop top and a mini-skirt? So I feel like it definitely does have a part in my daily choices, and then with the blog, I feel like I'm a little bit more freer with what I wear because I do want people to see me wearing what I want and be like ‘okay, if she can do it, I can do it.’ That's part of my goal in that.
I just did a women's empowerment series and part of that series was a women in STEM photo where I wore a blazer and crop top but we were in a lab setting just to show that you can be— one thing I see is that, like, you can’t be pretty and smart and that’s just not true. Girls can want to look good, dress good, and still have opinions.
ST: How has the community that you've built up played into the way that you view the world? Like, have they widened your worldview?
OB: They definitely have because I feel like when I started my blog and started getting into the blogging community, I was a lot younger and more naive, so I think it definitely helped. And like I said, I was just kind of getting into activism and stuff so being on Instagram and reading blogs really helped me learn and I have built a lot of my beliefs through who I follow.
Sometimes I'll post something on my stories and someone will slide up and they’ll share another opinion or be like, ‘I don't know if this is how that is.’ So, it's definitely a learning experience and being able to be humbled by other views and realizing that your view isn't the end all, be all, has definitely helped me understand that there are so many different perceptions of the world. You gotta kind of build ideas for yourself, but you can’t let yourself be blinded by your own beliefs, so they’ve definitely made me more open minded.
"just seeing another woman rocking self-confidence in a badass outfit is empowering, no matter who they are. I like to think I can do that for other people when it comes to my writing."
ST: I forgot to ask this but, how did you even get into fashion in the first place?
OB: You know, I’m not 100% sure. I wore mainly athletic clothes for all of elementary school, so my sister was like the fashion one, but I guess in fifth grade for my birthday, my grandparents took me on a shopping trip and I started getting into it more. But when I tell you the first stuff that I started picking out [laughs]. But I think fashion for me was a way to build my own confidence and that's really why I stuck with fashion; I just saw people being liberated through it
ST: In what ways has it empowered you? Like, if you weren't dressed in a way that gave you confidence, for example, how would that affect your interactions with people and what you do?
OB: I actually think about that a lot because I hate wearing oversized clothing, which is weird but to me I am most comfortable in a crop top and I don't know what kind of backwards patriarchal society might have contributed to that [laughs]. So on days when I wear an oversized hoodie, people at school will be like, ‘Oh you're looking rough today’ so it makes me more aware of how I present myself to people.
ST: Yeah, and another thing that I always tell myself is that when you dress up, you have power over how people will perceive you or whatever, so when you do wear an outfit that you feel really good in, what kind of vibe do you want to give off? What would be the ideal thing people would be able to tell about you?
OB: I feel like I just want people to think that I'm comfortable in my own skin. Regardless of whether I am or not, which again, that could give a false perception, but at the same time, when I see women, like, stomping down the street in a power suit, I'm like, oh my gosh, she's so cool. I want to be like that, like I want to have that energy.’ So I guess I want to give that energy to people to inspire them to go out and maybe go out of their comfort zone in the hopes that they feel the same as me and then do the same thing for other people.
"Since fashion is something so closely tied to the identity of female-identifying people, what you wear is political. When I get dressed to go out and wonder if what I’m wearing is “appropriate,” that’s political to me because it stems from the patriarchal society we live in."
ST: You brought up not wanting to give off a false perception about looking too perfect, so how do you manage that balance between wanting to empower people but not make it so that they're looking up to some unattainable standard?
OB: Yeah, that's really where I try to make my writing come into play. I try to make my writing pick up the slack for what my pictures may lack, which means breaking down that false perception. I want to make these like editorial images, because that is my passion and what I love to do, but at the same time, I don't want people to think that my life is like a magazine ad. It's not. But I think in real life, it may be harder because I have heard people say something like ‘you're always so put together.’ And I’m like, ‘Girl, I just broke down last night.’ [laughs] So I try to seem approachable with people in real life and on Instagram because that’s where people start to say ‘she looks like she's got it going on,’ but we’re both just trying to figure it out ourselves.
ST: I personally feel like your fashion already gives off that vibe of like, very inviting; it's super playful and colorful, so what are your views on personal style and having a set style? Do you see yourself evolving every day?
OB: I don't know. I've never really been able to pin down my personal style. I used to always describe it as feminine but with edge because I’m definitely not edgy or grungey, but if I wear a girly dress, then I want to wear combat boots with it, but sometimes I’ll wear a girly dress and want to wear heels with it, so I don't know. I think it is pretty much just whatever I think goes with the shoe, honestly. I would say my day to day style is like jeans and a crop top, which is a little bit more basic but I like to accessorize with jewelry and stuff.
"You gotta kind of build ideas for yourself, but you can’t let yourself be blinded by your own beliefs"
ST: And once you feel that way does that influence the way you carry yourself?
OB: Yea, because if I have a presentation to do at school that day— especially if it's on something more political— and if I'm wearing an outfit that makes me feel good, then I feel like I can better speak about what I believe in and people will listen.
ST: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
OB: In 5 years, I see myself in college studying Advertising, hopefully somewhere in the Northeast. I hope that I’ll have established my creative directive abilities enough that I’ll be able to be working in some way as a creative director for brands! I’m not sure if the blog itself will still be running, maybe with a rebrand, but I do know that I will still be creating content to inspire and empower my followers.
ST: I saw that you started a project called Faces of Feminism a couple of months ago, so tell me about that
OB: Faces of Feminism is a media platform that I co-founded with my friend Callan. The mission of FoF was to give a space where diverse people from around the globe could have their voices be heard and recorded. Through short submissions, interviews, personal essays, and informative articles, FoF served to bring to light unique voices using their own platforms to speak out about important issues to them. We got to interview people like Nadya Okamato from Period and Shivali Gutali from Girl Genius Magazine. We also featured essays from Anthony Belotti on how abortion is a trans issue and Kimmie Madrigal on her experiences with environmental racism. FoF is now run by new owners, but for about a year, FoF was our baby and it was hard to leave it!
ST: How has your experience with Faces of Feminism influenced the way you blog?
OB: FoF changed the way I blogged because it exposed me to the ways intersections of a person’s identity truly changes their unique experience with the world. It taught me how to better lift up voices of people directly affected by an issue, rather than centering my own. It made me more aware of how I spoke about activist issues on my blog and gave me a more open-mind to other people’s perspective.
ST: You mentioned that fashion means something different for everyone but there is still the underlying similarity in that we all wear fashion for a sense of empowerment. How do you make sure your content caters to the lives of all people so that they can personalize your fashion and writing into their own lives?
OB: One way I make sure my content caters to all women is by having a broad personal style. This way, there’s a greater possibility that what I’m wearing can inspire someone else’s personal style. Plus, for me, just seeing another woman rocking self-confidence in a badass outfit is empowering, no matter who they are. I like to think I can do that for other people when it comes to my writing. I also try to be broad so that the topics I speak about can apply to whoever may be reading. I always encourage my readers to take what I’m saying and apply it to their life in a way that is useful to them.
ST: Is that how fashion and politics intersect for you?
OB: The empowerment fashion creates is 100% how fashion and politics intersect for me. Since fashion is something so closely tied to the identity of female-identifying people, what you wear is political. When I get dressed to go out and wonder if what I’m wearing is “appropriate,” that’s political to me because it stems from the patriarchal society we live in. On the opposite end though, fashion is political when it’s empowering. It can be a rebellion in the face of the society we live in that tells us our bodies aren’t ours. I think fashion can be a visual aid to activism too; whether that be slogans on a t-shirt or a clothing line that was made ethically and sustainably.
ST: What do you hope people take away from your content?
OB: I hope that people come away from my content thinking that they have what it takes to wear what they want and/or to let their voice and opinions be heard. I want to show people that you CAN do what others are doing. You CAN join that protest. You CAN rock that dress. You CAN create beautiful content from home without professional supplies. You CAN grow and change and still be you at the end of the day. Overall, I want my content to be a point of empowerment in someone’s journey to self-confidence in themselves and the way they view the world.
In an age where demographics define a lot of one’s identity and beliefs, it can be hard to look past a person’s race or gender and see a more complex person whose existence isn’t only defined by factors beyond their control.
Despite the many similarities people of a certain marginalized group may experience when it comes to oppression or ignorance, not everyone’s life experiences look the same and the beliefs of others, though at points similar, can be starkly different.
"The discourse about marginalized communities, then, becomes centered not on the voices and opinions and beliefs of these people, but on ways to “save” people who we don’t understand by stripping their identity away in the name of “diversity.” "
And as complicated and difficult it may be to comprehend people whose beliefs seem to contradict their identity, those people deserve a seat at the table when it comes to representation and inclusion, just as much as someone who could be considered digestible by any narrow minded person.
Oftentimes, these palatable people— who adhere to “normal” ways of living that don’t complicate their worldview— are the ones the media chooses to represent their respective communities. And while this is great for efforts to move society towards a place that is more representative of the realities of life in America, it can still limit the scope of one’s understanding of a largely misunderstood group of people.
In a Ted Talk about single stories, a concept where once you portray a group of people under one story or narrative, that is all they will be in the eyes of the ignorant, writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says, “the single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are not true, but that they are incomplete. They make one story the only story.”
This is so true of our current media industry because just because a person of color was invited to a panel, doesn’t mean that that was enough to compensate for the millions of other voices yearning to be heard; we all offer many different perspectives as minorities but that doesn’t make us immune to being just as ignorant as other privileged people so we need to pass the mic not to one representative, but to as many people as possible so that we can normalize the existence of people who have been treated as anomalies for so long.
This is where the difference between representation and inclusion lies: representing an underrepresented group is good, but it isn’t enough because we can’t limit the perception of a group of people based on what seems easier to accept or understand. We need to encourage complexity when it comes to identity by creating inclusive environments that is inviting to many different people, not a specific type of different person.
Once we do that, we run the risk of creating another stereotype that divides a group of people into simplicity versus complexity.
Amani Al-Khatatbeh, the founder of muslimgirl.com— a website that seeks to amplify the voices of muslim women in the West— talks about this in an interview with GQ Middle East. She said, “I have always rejected the notion of being the voice for the voiceless because growing up, that’s how my oppression has been executed. Like, ‘Oh, we need to speak on her behalf and talk for her because she can’t speak for herself, she’s silent.’ No, everybody has a voice, it’s just that there are people who are systematically silenced. It’s not about being their voice, it’s about allowing them to speak for themselves.”
This is exactly what I’m talking about when I say that a divide between the simple and the complex is forming because (not that American Muslim women are simple) as more people of color, not limited to Muslims, adapt their identities to an existence that balances the thin divide between being diverse but not too much so that societal standards change in their favor, they are seen as the people who will liberate the people of their community by speaking for them— essentially using these figures to dillute the complexity of others for the sake of maintaining social order.
The discourse about marginalized communities, then, becomes centered not on the voices and opinions and beliefs of these people, but on ways to “save” people who we don’t understand by stripping their identity away in the name of “diversity.”
Rather than fostering connections between people of different backgrounds, the only emotion people of privilege have for the disenfranchised is pity, as Adichie also mentioned in her Ted Talk.
Still, the conversations around inclusivity and diversity are designed to be in the favor of the powerful so that they may have an influence on the way that marginalized people are seen, even though it may appear that discussions regarding issues faced by minorities are led by minorities, who have always been at the background of conversations
NEW POST✨ a culture of superiority and exclusivity has been a part of America far before Trump was elected to office, because as many like to say, he was a side effect of this toxicity. ✨ It has been so inherent in our society that many minorities have developed a sense of inferiority when it comes to civil rights or simply asking for things they deserve in everyday life. ✨ READ my latest post which can be found at the link in my bio for more about the endless inferiority cycle in our culture • #poc #peopleofcolor #woc #womenofcolor #minority #minorities #society #culture #identity #inferioritycomplex #civilrights #socialjustice #racialjustice #genderequality #racialequality #equality #politics #politicizedidentities #advocacy #activism #collage #collageart #digitalmedia #digitalart #art #blog #essay (at Columbus, Ohio) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-7rR3VBIHc/?igshid=1uxkgvp5uusxg
Far before Trump took office, there has always been a culture of superiority and exclusivity in the West, despite the fact that it has gone unspoken. Instead, it is suggested through the way that minorities are portrayed in the media and through the types of people responsible for telling the stories of marginalized communities.
Over time, this builds a sense of inherent inferiority where a minority like a person of color, who have been historically segregated and oppressed from society, even if it’s not explicit in the law, feels like they deserve less because of their position in society.
It may be hard to understand for people who haven’t had any trouble getting what they want or asking for what they want in their communities, but through cultivating a culture of microaggressions, the sense that one doesn’t belong or doesn’t deserve as many opportunities flourishes.
Of course, this is one of my many examples of the people afflicted with this kind of mentality but because it affects many minorities, the cycle of misrepresentation never ends; it’s only been in the last couple of years that the conversation of inclusion and authenticity in the media has really been brought to the forefront of the entertainment industry, following eye-opening situations—like the 2015 Oscars where not a single person of color was nominated for an acting award—highlighted an issue that has been prevalent for many years, so marginalized communities are still getting used to demanding what they believe they deserve. But what if what you accept is a lot less than what you deserve because of the propensity one has to accept less than what they are offered?
"We deserve to be able to demand for large, institutional change without being called ungrateful or radical"
The government has a bad habit of giving minorities just enough to keep them quiet or acquiesced. This gives the illusion that our leaders are caring for vulnerable communities, but the destituteness of these groups of people has been so normalized that it’s natural to many Americans that many marginalized people don’t have equal opportunities. There isn’t enough enthusiasm within the bystanders of our communities to elevate minorities to a place where they are equal to the people who have long held the power and the lack of enthusiasm also stems from the fact that they are disillusioned by the “goodness” of the government where once they do the bare minimum, it’s enough to check the civil rights box.
This is where the problem of never getting farther than small changes once every administration (which is rarer than a blue moon these days) stems from. We deserve to be able to demand for large, institutional change without being called ungrateful or radical, because the way our existence is viewed is not proportional or equal to privileged people. You can’t compare the lifestyle of a black or brown person living in an inner city without proper access to education or health care to the lifestyle of a white family living in a safe, suburban neighborhood because it’s simply not equitable. Of course, there are many exceptions to this as many white people are also disenfranchised from an economic standpoint, and some people of color are not.
Yet that is exactly what the government has always done: they see minorities in this country as having “enough” rights because they choose to maintain a color blind standpoint that denies the existence of disparities between people of color. This doesn’t make them any less racist than someone who uses a slur because they are still refusing to prioritize the needs of vulnerable communities.
Many minorities believe it’s enough for a politician to exclaim that they view minorities the same way they view other privileged people and it leads to accepting only what is offered to them by the government--which is almost always an empty promise--and never ask for more for fear that they may lose what they already have.
We have to dismantle the notion that having the audacity to advocate for your equality is not audacious at all and that it’s necessary that our sense of self worth is equal to the people in power so that they may not exploit our sense of inferiority by ignoring our needs and the realities of the disparities that still exist in this country.
One of my favorite things about fashion is its ability to transcend language and communicate something about yourself or belief that is universal to the world. Fashion is like its own language that uses colors, and prints, and fabrics, to express something intrinsic to the wearer.
I believe that fashion is inherently meant to empower you rather than objectify you, as our society tends to do, because fashion is an extension of one’s personality and identity so it complements your persona, rather than diminishing and limiting your worth to your body.
And when you choose to take fashion one step further by bringing attention towards yourself in a bold manner, you now have the power to influence people in a unique way, and a way that you choose for yourself that isn’t steered through any objectifying or degrading lens.
Fundamentalists often disagree with the notion of voluntarily shining a spotlight on your existence, as it may attract unwanted attention from men who want to take advantage of your body, but when you choose to dress in a manner that is chosen by you, you have the power over how people get to see you—that to me is boldness in fashion.
"Claiming autonomy over your being through fashion gives you more room for self expression and self growth. As I continue experimenting with fashion, I want to keep pushing myself to wear things that I love regardless of what people may think if they see my outfit. "
A big stereotype that people have associated with women who choose to wear a hijab is that they often wear things that allow them to blend in or go through life without being detected or seen by the untrained eye, which is simply not true. Like I said, fashion to me isn’t strictly meant to put your body in display but to put your identity on display, and convey nuances about yourself that are unique to your life experiences, which allows you to be bold in that manner.
For me, fashion isn’t meant to attract people to what I’m wearing, but to force people to reckon with my presence in whatever area I may be in.
It doesn’t serve a community well to go unnoticed because there are many other facets that people can be known for aside from physical appearances.
When your presence cannot go unnoticed, you automatically have some influence with the work that you are a part of.
Not only that, but getting to a point where you are comfortable with attention people give you, you exude confidence and empowerment that makes you seem untouchable to everyone else.
Claiming autonomy over your being through fashion gives you more room for self expression and self growth. As I continue experimenting with fashion, I want to keep pushing myself to wear things that I love regardless of what people may think if they see my outfit.
Insecurities and low self-esteem is not a foreign feeling for young women like myself, which is a result of a system that bred unrealistic Eurocentric beauty standards and expectations in line with the male gaze that eroticizes everything that girls do.
Wearing whatever the hell you want, regardless of the social standards, reclaims control over how people see and interact with you, as I mentioned previously.
The more we push ourselves out of our comfort zones, the more we explore other interests that don’t fit the confinements of our rigid beauty standards, the closer we are to entirely dismantling it.
As minorities continue to carve out spaces for them to grow in the world of entertainment, you would think that the representation of groups who’ve often been ignored would be more authentic over time, but despite how much the media has diversified I still feel like the perception people have of some minorities— specifically brown people— hasn’t improved.
When you look at the careers of people like Lilly Singh who built their platform pretty much only around joking about strict immigrant parents, it’s almost never funny to people of the respective community. It’s clear that Lilly catered her content to white people in a way that didn’t expand their narrow perception of immigrants from the East, but rather indulged and enabled it. Obviously Lilly isn’t the only one who does this, but her content is what I’m most familiar with, and none of her skits ever seemed to go further than her immigrant mother throwing a shoe at Lilly’s head, which is funny, but only to a certain point.
And of course the purpose of comedy isn’t to authentically represent people of color, but it does have consequences when your community has always been misrepresented. Lilly’s content doesn’t show a nuanced portrayal of what it is like being brown in the West, which could be just as funny as her usual content while also offering a more genuine outlook in the lives of minorities. Instead, like many other content creators, she took the easy way out and tried to please everyone with her comedy, but what good is making an ignorant person laugh at a joke you made if it reaffirms their myopic beliefs? It’s counter-intuitive and it makes the content of people who seek to appease or impress White people as a caricature of their culture: a modern Jim Crow that disguises itself as representation.
"It’s obvious from the work that we’ve seen from this generation is that there is more at stake than views, shares, and retweets. Our awareness of larger underlying issues at play makes our content intentioned in the inclusion and representation of all people"
I always talk about how authentic representation doesn’t dilute itself in the presence of narrow minded people, because that maintains the exclusive hierarchy that minorities intend to break down, and this is no exception. We can’t discount the strides that people like Lilly have made in an industry that just five years ago wasn’t as diverse as it is now, but we have a lot more to do to get to a place where the content portraying misrepresented people is authentic and isn’t trying to profit from the system that seeks to exclude that very same people.
Many people of color feel the need to project a certain personality that many people are familiar with so as not to put them on edge, which can end up feeling like a performative identity and may be what Lilly is pressured to feel, but that’s the very issue with our entertainment industry.
We only accept a certain type of minorities that is easy to chew or understand lest they have more facets that reach past our grasp of understanding, and that needs to change, and that change starts with the creators we give a platform to.
Staying true to your experiences, no matter how obscure or weird it may seem, is important to shed light on the lives of people all around us and it empowers people of that respective group to gain the confidence to live authentically. You don’t have to rely on the same overused tropes to make people laugh.
Despite this established precedent, Gen Z creators are taking it one step farther and prioritizing authenticity over relatability. People like Jaboukie Young-White and Issa Rae (not Gen Z but we’ll let it slide) have all created amazing content and made impacts on the communities they come from by curating their platform to reflect the realities of all people, no matter their race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or age.
It’s obvious from the work that we’ve seen from this generation is that there is more at stake than views, shares, and retweets. Our awareness of larger underlying issues at play makes our content intentioned in the inclusion and representation of all people; we don’t conform to the monolithic structures that have been overplayed for years.
