Black Lives Matter Marches

I attended my first march/protest/rally a couple months ago for Black Lives Matter. It was such an incredible, inspiring experience. Here are some of the shots I captured along the way. As a photographer, I am inherently a historian. For the most part I’m capturing the history of my personal human experience, of my family, and of my friends. These recent marches were historical on a much grander scale, which is why I chose to shoot with black and while film. It felt like an homage to all of the photographers and historians that came before me, and of those that have been fighting this fight for equity and equality for centuries.

xxo

Weekly Roundup (x2)

Last week I hit a wall. I was feeling so incredibly overwhelmed by all of the news headlines, whether it was about the soaring number of confirmed COVID cases in the U.S., or the videos of people refusing to wear masks in different businesses, or the painful stories (and videos) of racism.

July 3rd was a paid holiday for me, so I decided to turn my phone off for the entire day. One day, at first glance, doesn’t seem like it would have a huge impact. But those 16 waking hours or so without technology started to calm me down. I realized just how often I go to my phone for distraction. I’m moving forward from that experience with less time on my phone. I turned off most of my notifications. I stopped wearing my Fitbit that vibrated every time I got a text or reminder or email. I deleted Tiktok and stopped scrolling on Instagram.

Over the last two weeks my homework included several podcasts and books. I listened to an interview between Emma Watson and Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. I also listened to an interview between Brené Brown and Ibram X. Kendi, author of several books including How to Be an Antiracist. At one point in the interview, Brené asks Ibram about what it means to be antiracist. I love his response: “The heartbeat of anti-racism is confession, is admission, is acknowledgement, is the willingness to be vulnerable, is the willingness to identify the times in which we are being racist. To be willing to diagnose ourselves and our country in our ideas and our policies.” Ibram also states that being racist or antiracist is not a fixed trait. Sometimes we are racist; sometimes we are antiracist. We will all have our moments. But the heart of antiracism is being able to acknowledge those shortcomings, learn from mistakes and from others, and then to do better.

I also read The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett. This was such a great novel. I read it over the course of a couple days. Bennett’s novel covers the lives of family members in several different generations, locations, and their experiences with race and racism.

Weekly Roundup

When the movie Selma first came out, my older brother and I tried to go see it in the theaters. About five minutes into the showing, someone had a medical emergency. Paramedics were called and the movie was stopped, and we didn’t get to view the movie that day.

Earlier this past week, my brother texted me that he and his wife had watched it and that it was incredible. It’s free to rent on Amazon Prime right now (thank you Ava DuVernay for your generosity in making your films so accessible right now). This movie floored me. The parallels to what is going on right now. The performances from each and every actor. The direction and vision of Ava DuVernay. I finished the film and texted my brother right away…”Wow. I think I cried at least five times.” He said they did as well.

It’s painful to watch reenactments of people hating someone and causing harm to their body, mind, and spirit. It’s even harder to watch actual footage of events like this, whether they were decades ago, or moments ago with the current protests and rallies. I think this is one reason I never seriously dove into learning more about personal accounts of the Civil Rights Movement. When I watched 12 Years a Slave years ago, it was incredibly difficult, painful, and draining to watch, knowing that this was common. And yet, I find myself drawn to reading personal stories and accounts of Jewish people in concentration camps and during Hitler’s reign…

I also just finished Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Again, I am beginning to see the anger and frustration that POC must feel, knowing that these tragedies keep repeating themselves, people keep getting murdered, with no consequence for the murderers. There were so many parts of this book that I wanted to underline. I felt like I would have highlighted almost all of his words of wisdom. The section where he describes his trips to Paris fascinated me. He was in such awe and wonder of this new place, and yet he couldn’t fully relax because his conditioning in America to always be on the defense stayed with him, even abroad.

Last year I started riding the bus to work once or twice a week. I remember overhearing a conversation of another rider, a Black man, talking on his phone to a friend about a recent trip to the UK. He said something along the lines of feeling safer in London than he does in America. His words struck me then and have obviously stayed with me. I cannot imagine feeling unsafe in my day-to-day life. Yes, there are moments when I feel anxious about being a woman alone on a walk. But that momentary fear or anxiety isn’t from the police, the men and women I was taught are there to serve and protect me. To grow up being taught that those with power (and guns) are not really there to protect you, but to judge you and harm you…I can’t even begin to imagine the toll that takes on your nervous system.

In the week ahead I hope to dive into more podcasts. Emma Watson recently posted about this playlist with shows and episodes to listen to. I’ll report back next week with my reaction to more resources!

xxo

My Best Self

Here are some quarantine self-portraits that make me happy.

xxo

Weekly Roundup

Earlier this week I wrote a post about this podcast. Highly recommend. I’ve been sitting with several things that stood out for me.

I watched this beautiful film about a “transgender star at sundown”. The cinematography is gorgeous. Her words are powerful, and I get chills every time I watch it. I started following Nowness on Instagram and their IGTV is full of beautiful films and pieces. I spent a couple hours last night going through several of them.

As with several films in my queue for months, I’ve had Between The World And Me on my Kindle for almost a year now, but am only just now diving into it. There are so many things I want to highlight, but then I feel like I would just end up highlighting the whole book.

I’ve been doing some reflecting on why this is, why I’ve had movies about Black people, or with predominantly Black casts, or books by Black authors, and yet I let them sit in my queue or library for months…

Last summer I saw a documentary, called This Changes Everything, about the lack of representation of women in Hollywood. Something shifted in me when the actors, producers, directors and other professional women they interviewed for the documentary talked about girls of color really not seeing themselves in mass media. When you do not see someone who looks like you in a role or position in life you are striving for, it is harder to imagine you could actually do that job, or have that career, or make that difference. This is something I never thought much about, because even though women are underrepresented in just about everything, or given archetypal roles of “good girl” or “bad girl,” I still saw myself in those roles because I am White. I have always seen myself reflected in media, no matter the format.

I’m embarrassed to say that one of the reasons the books and movies about POC have remained unwatched or unread is because I thought I wouldn’t be able to relate to the characters. What I’m realizing in now diving into this kind of content is that I have kept my head in the sand for too long. I am going to graduate school to become a therapist. I want to be able to serve all people, not just ones who look like me or have a similar background to mine. I am learning about different cultures that are rich with color, vibrancy, community, traditions, and faith. And I hope this education and expansion of knowledge continues for the rest of my life.

xxo