I can’t stop thinking about Elijiah McClain. He was murdered by police in Colorado on August 24, 2019. Colorado, here -- a place that prides itself on ideas of paradise and peace, and sells it. Elijah was a peaceful, introverted massage therapist who played violin to stray cats in his free time. As the officers who assaulted him injected him with ketamine, he pled -- “Let go of me. I’m an introvert. Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking. I can’t breathe.” Who is allowed to breathe? To have peace? Who is granted the privilege of a life lived simply and well, without interference from those who think themselves more powerful? No one is questioning my right to be in any space I occupy. I can be here, outside, with a mask on and my hands in my pockets, without fear of being considered a threat to power. It is a privilege to threaten the power and get away with it. Too many people have died for the rights we all deserve - the right to exist in a place, be ourselves, and feel at peace. I am a hybrid body on stolen land, with light skin and a cisgender, femme identity. It’s a life with few conflicts, and my body looks like it belongs in most spaces. It definitely isn’t assaulted, abused, or murdered the way that black bodies are in America. And yes, I feel guilty as hell. But guilt is useless, and I want to do something with it. I’ve been taught media a lot as I’ve been taught social advocacy, environmental justice, and civic engagement. It probably comes with the territory of Generation Z, of trying to grow up in the midst of a climate crisis, a digital renaissance, and a pandemic. I’m pretty good at talking through screens and keys -- less good at the in-person stuff. So I’ve been thinking a lot about how to use my privilege to speak and act in a world where we can’t get close to one another. I make videos. I write blog posts, and poems. I watch videos, and read blog posts and poems. This is a space in which I like to engage with the minds of others, and I feel comfortable bearing my mind to the world. It is also a place where we can have discourse, hopefully, free of violence and threat. (allow me to note that this is a space that is increasingly becoming restricted, manipulated, and censored). I can’t stop thinking about Elijah McClain because I can’t stop thinking about the world that enabled him to be murdered. The world full of manipulated narratives, hurtful stereotypes, and implicit biases that taught one group of men that they had the right - the responsibility - to see him injured and killed. That taught them to believe that his body was less worthy of occupying the same space, of doing what it wanted to feel at peace. What can I do to help Elijah McClain? Nothing. He’s dead. So are George Floyd, Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and countless others. But I can turn inwards and recognize what it is within me and the ways I move through the world that have enabled their deaths. And I can ask you to consider the same. Where is it in your world where you can advocate and act for change? For me, it’s here, on my laptop - learning, reading, and trying to synthesize the work that I am doing in my own world, in my own mind. For others, it’s protesting, giving aid, donating time and resources, or actively reconfiguring the structures that enable hate within our society. I watched a youtube video earlier about the idea of finding your mission -- the intersection of what you love and you’re good at with what the world desperately needs. I don’t know my mission yet, but I know that the world needs a lot of active caring, compassion, and re-learning. It needs us to talk about these things and recognize where we have failed one another. And talking - nay, typing - is something that comes pretty naturally to me. Listening and learning come less naturally, but I’m actively trying to create space for humility and openness - I don’t have the answers, and I need to try to seek them out. We are all on this mission together. We cannot continue to let our communities down. We all deserve the space to breathe.
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