At the moment I’m struggling between wanting to post all about BLM and also finding space for other things that are important to me like art, writing, and creativity.. not that these are mutually exclusive. For my personal accounts, I’ve been inactive after going full-time social media for work. I’ve been promoting BLM anti-racist works on those accounts. I’ve used my personal accounts as an amplifier of those professional accounts, but I’m in need of a vector that communicates more directly about the issues.
About the issues: Since late May, the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDale, and more and more and more have catalyzed a dystopian flash-forward in the world’s consciousness on issues of race, Black Lives Matter, and violence. The tide of politics has risen exponentially, and I’m struggling to stay afloat.
My personal issues with confronting the issues: Honestly, even in the past when BLM exploded with the death of Travyon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the shooting of Michael Brown, I largely stood in silent solidarity with my left-leaning peers. Silence is violence. The dialectic has to be shared among everyone in 2020.
And that’s where I trip up. I need to educate myself more beyond my education. I need to read and note and participate. What that looks like: reading, highlighting, sharing, and engaging with works by radical Black authors and organizers. Sharing action items (petitions, email templates, other accounts, and places seeking donations) and continuing to take part in these action items yourself. Checking in with yourself about how you can do better each and every day. Understanding the weaknesses of your past and calibrating for the future.
My issues with the issues is deep. It shows itself in my shallow distaste for the look and feel of organizing, for the lack of aesthetics, for the blunt edges of realities that I’ve happily excluded myself from. Maybe I tackle these with solutions that I’ve seen other use: design for politics*, social media for politics, community building for politics
*politics as protests, resource sharing, collective healing
I need to: build tolerance for the boring but necessary, exercise speaking out as a muscle
I need to: conceptualize a queer future
dalanium.wordpress.com 