2004-05-12 - 11:13 p.m.
Tonight I was doing research for my final project for my “Education and Social Change” class. I was looking at the history of ACT UP-NY (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and doing a lot of thinking about direct action, democracy and using art as a way to catch people’s attention and educate them about crises such as AIDS. I have been really excited doing this project, but I am also the first to admit that it has been taking place in the midst of a hectic rush. I was staring at the bookcase and realizing that in a matter of days I can read any book I want for the whole summer! I can’t wait.
I appreciate and value the space of the politicized classroom, I really do. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had within the space of the academy to find language for the things I feel, for learning about theories and tools to negotiate, understand and critically read the world around me. I have the chance to be challenged by and engage with intense and inspiring people and it is seriously amazing. And yet, I am exhausted of this space. I feel constrained by the classroom, I feel that I am being sucked into the white walls of those square rooms like they are an airless vacuum. The academy is a surreal space and my college in the middle of New York City that might as well be in the middle of Connecticut is no exception. I feel like the conversations often go in circles, I need new tools for these spaces, not just to learn the formula of how to talk smart and succeed in class.
How do we really talk about race, whiteness and white supremacy in the classroom without repeating the same conversations? Without privileging the voices of white people (again) or expecting students of color to “educate” us? These are profoundly uncomfortable situations for a lot of us, I realize, but its the uncomfortable classes that have stuck with me the most (uncomfortable because the level of complexity was so high, not because the environment was hostile or the subject uninteresting). But where do we take the work outside of that space? Everyone will have a different answer for this and maybe I am frustrated because my vision is not yet (and may never be) clear. That said, I am incredibly excited to have the opportunity to teach zine workshops to teenagers this summer at the IPRC and Girls Rock Camp in Portland and feel like this is a really good opportunity to think about “anti-racist pedagogy” in an area that is not a traditional classroom.
I feel like I have been rambling. The intensity of the past few days has been punctuated by intense thunder storms. I stayed up late watching the lightening one night and listening to the thunder echo off the rooftops of the rowhouses on my street. Today not only was the sky illuminated by intense bolts of lightening, but it was pouring rain. People were cowering in the subway stops, but I knew it wouldn’t let up, so I walked home and got thoroughly drenched. I felt like I needed the soaking rain that ran down my face and pooled in my shoes to help me process the emotional weight of the classroom I had just left. The water rain in rivers down the streets and it reminded me of when Ariel and I stood in the water running down High Street in Portland, Maine after a hard rain, letting it splash around our knees, shreiking with laughter and not caring that it was dirty, city water. I would never consider doing that here however. Now I am running around my house in beige track shorts and a Need shirt and getting psyched for summer. Watch out PDX, here I come, but not just yet...
