Dear Readers, 
This is not a newspaper article. This is not a school report or any kind of media coverage about what's going on at my school. This is an address to Hampshire College's President, Jonathan Lash and how I feel about everything that has been happening. For those who do not understand what has been happening with my school, bascially, our institution made the decision to take down the U.S. American flag after it was burned overnight before veterans day as a response to the Trump Election. Since then, there have been many protests on campus, as well as threats to many faculty and people of color. Therefore, the president decided to put the flag back up. On the day he made that decision, and flew the flag again, I decided to write him an email about how I felt about this entire situation. Here it is below: 

Dear President J. Lash, 
I know how hard it must have felt to have a news reporter try to force his way into your house and pressure you to do something you didn't want to do. I understand how hard it must have been for a man of your color and age to experience such violent attacks. Last night, I went to sleep feeling very proud of the campus I am attending, whether or not it is being depicted in the media badly by delusional white supremacists and racists supporters of trump. I felt proud of the discussion and organizing that was going on around campus, within the people of color community and the progress being made with white people as allies. But today, I woke up to news that the flag put back up and I was disappointed. My first thought was that Lash had given in and let them win. He made their statement of: "Niggers will never prosper" come true. And that hurt me more than just putting the flag up. On Wednesday and maybe Thursday as well, you went around to classrooms asking people how they felt about the flag issue and what they think should be done about it. You were given several answers I presume and we already from the start knew what answer you were going to choose.
What frustrates ME, (and I say me because this is not a message for you to take into consideration that everyone came to a consensus upon, this is just the way I feel and wanted to let you know) the most about this entire thing is that not once did you ever really really support the people of color on this campus and the way we are being treated on this campus and in this community. For one, people of color have been experiencing what you only experience in one night and from that event, you GAVE UP instantly. Point black period, the moment that you as a white man of privilege experienced any type of harassment or threats or violent attacks that people of color have been experience FOREVER, you choose to give in to your privilege of choosing your race over your morals and doing the right thing  (which is to stand behind us in the fight and be a true ally) and that is what breaks my heart the most. Me as a person of color, I cannot do that. I cannot just choose my race and use my privilege to make my problems go away and that is life for me. You get to be safe now, when from the start, before and even after this flag event, I never was. I will never be safe as a queer, black women of color in this society. Ever. But at least you get to be. 
I as a student of this institution chose this college to attend because I believed that it was different from any other college I was thinking of applying to. The choice to attend this institution occurred to me in a dream because I really fell in the love with the idea of "disrupting education" and asking different questions about history and what it means to live in the United States as a person of color. I came here to build a vision of what the US SHOULD look like, and for a moment, I thought that that's what you would want to do to, but I guess I was wrong. I personally, as a individual and a student don't know what to do or where to go from here, but I know the fight will never stop. Just because you put the flag back up does not mean threats against people of color will cease to exist. Just because you put the flag back up doesn't mean these white supremacists and trump supporters will stop threatening and making fun of school. I AS A INDIVIDUAL feel like you have made matters worse. You have made those people who protested on Sunday and will protest this coming Sunday feel like its okay to treat people of color and others who do not conform to trump politics and ways of thinking unequal. You have made them believe that it is okay to threaten people and come on campus and intimidate people and make not just people of color feel unsafe, but everyone who is affected negatively by this trump presidency. That includes people of the LGBTQ community, the people of color community, the people who are undocumented immigrants,  the people who identify as Muslim, the people who identify as Semitic,  and everyone else who trump supporters feel like they can harm if they disagree. That's what I felt you have done with this decision. And I am just very disappointed. 
You may respond to this email directly to me because again I want to reiterate that this message represents the way I feel about this situation. I do not want you to just go out and say this represents the entire community of people of color, lgbtq, etc. I just want you to take into consideration that the decision you made to stand by the flag which represents so much hate and violence and racism and homophobia and etc, I just want you know the implications of what you've done and think about the steps you should want to take from here. Talk to us, listen to us, and actually CARE. NO MORE BS. This trump presidency is real. People are already dying, and as much as you think conforming and giving in helps, IT DOESN'T. It just shows us where you stand. I will leave you with one of my favorite and most important quotes that I have discovered so far while being at Hampshire College. I read a graphic novel for leisure at the library by Jim Demonakos and Mark Long. It was called The Silence of Our Friends. At the end of the book, there is a quote by Martin Luther King Jr that says: "In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. You should read it. I'll even give you the call number: PN6727.L67 S55 2012.  Thank you for your eyes and time. 
Sincerely, Rejjia Camphor
​P. S. I don't know if you remember me, but you sat in on Tinson's Freedom Dreams class. I am a Division I student and I was sitting right next to you that day. Do not hesitate to respond and talk to me.

​I am an observer. I find myself willingly sitting down and listening rather than speaking my opinion every now and then. I’ve been observing a lot of stuff on the blog and in the world and there are some things I wanted to mention that I have seen.

First, I don’t feel comfortable with the topic of religion. This year in my school there was a club called FOCUS. It met on Mondays and it included pizza, gathering and a small conversation about Christianity. I have a small mental grasp on what Christianity is (Adam and Eve, Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and small stories here and there like Cain and Able or Moses). I find myself asking one too many questions during the meeting  (some that other classmates think are silly, that I should just know and other question that don't have a definite answer). I hated those answers. But I guess with “Faith” sometimes there aren’t real answers.
One day on the way to the movies with my BF, one of his family members engaged me in a conversation about religion and what I think. She asked me if I believe in God, which I answered I want to believe there is a higher power but I’m unsure if that is God. She asked me do I believe that devil is this higher power, which I shook my head side to side ( possibly shaking a few screws lose in the process) and answered too loudly “NOOO!” As we continued our journey to the movies to forget that my uncle’s funeral was the same day she then asked me about heaven. Now, the only talk I’ve had about heaven is with my Uncle Fredrick when he told me, my siblings and cousins about cloud like mansions and pavements of gold, and God just sitting on a throne. That was around 10-years-old before my Grandmother passed away. This entire conversation caused my anxiety levels to skyrocket. The sounds of faith and feelings of indecision about what I believe caused me to start crying in the line to get our tickets. I don’t want to be forced to believe anything yet, I will learn what is the truth in due time but how is it you expect me to believe in a God we haven’t seen? When he kills off young people before its their time to go and when there’s terrible things happening every day.? I guess I don’t know but religion makes me uncomfortable.
 
Second, I like to think of myself as innocent and trying to see the best in people but my faith in humanity was truly tried this past weekend. I can not describe what had happened at full length as to protect the person that it happened too, but I wanna know why people think that some things that are potentially dangerous are funny? Why is playing with the balances of life and death so funny, or a good “game to play”? This weekend has made me question the possibility of making it to the age of 25 as well sadly. Since I live in Baltimore, I feel like I could be mugged, stabbed, taken or anything at any given moment. Night or day. What’s the odds of making it out now? I’m going to college here and I’m nervous now. This weekend I have learned that anything could happen at the blink of an eye and it’s not entirely certain that we’re gonna make it to 25. Even though that's what we want, I hope we can make it there physically.

The other day I was told that there was slavery in Africa before the Europeans took Africans over to the Amerikka’s (this was when I was watching the Roots: Remake last night). This is somewhat shocking to me because to me slavery is slavery is slavery, there no gray area here to me. Apparently, it was more respectful over in Africa (people apparently married into it and were prisoners of war etc.). Later in the conversation I was asked if I had to build the pyramid and I was the pharaoh wouldn’t I have used slaves to build them. My answer was no I would not force someone to do something that they didn’t want to do, I mean why not just be buried in the sand. Yes, I know someone had to build the pyramids so that way the pharaoh can have a tomb to put his worldly possessions in to bring them to heaven but to me that’s just wrong no matter how you spin it.
 
I think maybe I am overly opinionated maybe or paranoid, afraid but I have valid reasons for being this way. But that’s all for now and I’ll continue to observe. 

During the time of slavery and after one of the biggest reason for a disconnect between black Americans and Africa is not only culture but language. Language, the cornerstone of any culture is the key to being understood and being heard. Many black Americans feel they can never return nor even visit any country in Africa because of a language barrier. No traces were left after slaves were boarded onto the slave ships including names and languages spoken between slaves. One of the poems I wrote, entitled “Yoruba Talk,” was borne out of the idea of the power of language to connect a lost people to their culture.
            Poet Sabata-mpho Mokae captured this sentiment best in his poetry reading when he spoke about the counterculture nature of African writers writing in the language of their country/tribe. It is unusual although he said it is becoming more common. The power of language, specifically the English language, was used to assimilate slaves into the North American culture and now allows African writers and black American writers to have exchanges on the basis of their struggles/current oppressions. Sabata-mpho Mokae also talked about the similarities and cultural exchange that can occur between African movements and movements in America.
            These movements include the black lives matter movement/civil rights movement in America and movements in Africa against apartheid or to gain a country’s independence from their colonizers. While this exchange is great and allows for more dialogue between a people who have a direct ancestry, the historical trauma that comes out of the black body’s requirement to learn English also cannot be down played. As June Jordan mentions for Phillis Wheatley, English is the language of the white, used to further the brainwashing and socialization of any slaves that learned to read (Jordan 254) where Jordan refers to the English writing Wheatley encounters as “filth.”
            At Sabata-mpho Mokae’s poetry reading, where he read from his book “Kanakotsame: In My Times,” a book about South African black urban life, he mentions that as a black South African your first language is English. There is no choice in this matter; one learns it by default even if it is to the detriment of learning one’s own native language, Setswana for example. In America there is also a disconnect with language because Ebonics, a slang version of English, is not readily accepted and is looked down upon by those in power. In the workplace or anywhere outside of a black person’s home, they are not allowed or are forcibly removed from spaces where they do not give in to speaking “proper” English. As I mentioned in my previous blog post there is a freedom and power in poetry that the black community can take a hold of.
https://books.google.com/books?id=MnBNCnvt2gQC&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=condemnation+of+ebonics&source=bl&ots=Inxs4Goop8&sig=jIQfIRY-1uvX1Ppj6CnWCjQNjeM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwib7cTkpunMAhWLmR4KHRHPDQwQ6AEIQjAH#v=onepage&q=condemnation%20of%20ebonics&f=false
 
Through poetry, one can find the community that Audre Lorde mentions, or can feel free to write in Setswana for someone like Sabata-mpho Mokae, or for Phillis Wheatley, to write and not be under the threat of death for simply writing at all. Through her writing, she could dispel myths about slavery and discover her own self even through the oppression of slavery (Jordan 255). June Jordan wrote this about Phillis Wheatley, “And she was the first. Come from a country of many tongues tortured by rupture, by theft, by travel like mismatched clothing packed down into the cargo hold of evil ships sailing, irreversibly, into slavery; poet is African in Africa, or  Irish in Ireland, or French on the Left Bank of Paris, or white in Wisconsin. A Poet writes in her own language. A poet writes of her own people, her own history, her own vision” (Jordan 252). Although black Americans today may not be able to learn the language of the specific African country their ancestors were taken from, through poetry they can connect and create an open dialogue with African writers today as well as having the freedom to write in any language they choose is appropriate.
 
 
 
 
 
Citations
 
Rickford, John Russell, and Russell John Rickford. Spoken soul: The story of black English. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

By: Faith M. Owhonda

If there is one thing, I have learned from reading black poets and studying black history is that we are a strong people. Lyrics, beats, rhythm and words are the black community’s inheritance at least that is what I believe. We were not just stranded or left by God, no; we were given so much more, so much intelligence and talent. We were not just given or “forced” religion: but poetry. Brion Gill, a Baltimore poet and activist, in her poem “When the Novelty Nullifies,” says she is not a proponent of comfortable poetry but truthful poetry. I like the idea of that because the truth of who we are as a community, a people, our differences, our fight, and our freedom lies in this poetry. The work of Brion Gill and Audre Lorde inspires me every day and I think Audre Lorde says it best when she says, “Without community there is no liberation,” as she also goes on to write that even within communities there is a sharing of differences. (Quote taken from “The Master’s Tools will never dismantle the Master’s house).
            These words are tools.
My words are tools.
Sharp and cutting I swing
Like biting fire and wet rain
I like the sound of a tongue
Rolling against my back molars
I am ready to swing past all problems
Past the pain,
For my country,
For my freedom.
 
I am magic; realized
like Audre Lorde calling
me by name; I am poor,
I am black, I am fat
I AM HAPPY.
 
Poetry is a revolution.
 
There are secrets inside of my poetry.
Inside my speak, my language.
It is the inner cochlea to my experiences
The root to my slave great-grandmother
And my ticket to my motherland talk;
Now say with me, not against me;
West Africa.
Where I was born needed a lense
A way to profess love.
A way to tell a story.
A way to steal without stealing;
A way to educate the uneducated.
It is poetry.
​It can be you.
            In reference to the power of poetry, Audre Lorde’s piece entitled, “Poetry is not a Luxury,” is the most eloquent and masterful extrapolation of that concept. She writes, “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams towards survival and change, made first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action” (Lorde 37). I love this quote because it captures everything that is true for every poet, especially those within marginalized or oppressed groups. There is a hidden cocoon inside of poetry itself that gives life and a sense of belonging to the person writing and reading it. Another instance of a modern day poet who encapsulates this as well is hearing the poetry of Tameka Cage Conley, a Baltimore poet at the #RiseBaltimore event. She dedicated her poetry to the black bodies slain by police brutality and talks about how poetry saved her; “I needed to write, to have a place to pour my grief and longing for justice” (Tameka Cage Conley).
 

Faith Maya Owhonda

Whether or not it is manifested explicitly, I think that in some ways every poem is historical and every poem is political. That is to say, that no poem exists without context. Whether the politics is of an intimate human relationship or representative of a nation, holding up a voice for an entire community, there is policy there. Just so, there is history in every word we write or say. Whether it’s a history of the language itself, or the way a person’s vocabulary is specific to their own experience and tells a story of personal or collective knowledge. From the minute to the most general dense, a poem in its present will always be in some way listening to its past, listening to the greater context in which it falls and the history that supports or weaves through it.
 
In this way, I think that poetry is often at its most powerful as a manifestation of a search for truth or at least an effort towards honesty. It seems natural that progression should move, or strive to move, closer to authentic. Yet then we have a problem of classifying or defining things such as truth and honesty. How do we differentiate definitions between truth and honesty? Can there be honesty without truth?
 
The idea of defining poetry as something documentary is relevant here as well. If we can define a poem by its certainty of fact, its reliable reporting of actual events, how does that change our understanding of it and our potential connection and response? Does it in this case remain poetry, or has it crossed a line into veridical report. There is the argument that poetry is inherently not evidentiary, it exists completely within the imaginary life rather than a real life. So, perhaps attendance to fact or historical accuracy is not explicitly relevant to poetic honesty, but a certain truth of context is implicitly present.
 
Below is a draft of a poem that came out of some of these ideas of contextualizing poetry, specifically poetry of a political or social mind, in conjunction with an idea of appropriating different forms of rhetoric and modes of language. I use the word appropriate for lack of a better one, as it is not at all my intention to seize any kind of narrative, I am looking more at what can be learned from the form and rhetoric of media. Coming from of some research into news coverage of the Baltimore Uprising, in conjunction with influences of older texts, archives of redlining in Baltimore, housing ordinances, documentation of antiquated forms of systematized racism that are still very much prevalent and permeating, this is a piece of trying to understand some of these kinds of rhetoric and how they weave through the reality of oppression and place.
 
 
1.
 
and something then that ripened into ghetto, 
these human bodies have been strangers
                           a piece: of mind, of hand, of smaller ill-built structure
 churches had the great ambition /it’s an effort to move eastward/
to remedy the fundamental ills /the black tar then on marble steps/ 
                           the alley as the lung block, pen in favor of the councilman 
      these objections notwithstanding
                            that no/ that no/ that no
                            no section of the city  is exempted, it applies to every house.

*
 
how is this for just another of celestial body?
(of a river) have its source
(of a person) provocation
                  and guard state troops deployed and city limits and injuries to neck
                  there were sixty structure fires and then some. 

​In exploring the intersection between poetry and social justice, there is a question of definition. What makes an expression political? Does it have to be explicit? How does one measure or classify what a piece of work is doing in politicized expression? underlying it all: can you define what it means to be a poet? Is there some kind of criteria It seems that as poetry moves forward, especially into realms of social justice and activism, the move is pushing back against these ideas of qualifying expression. If poetry is meant to be an open and available tool for active expression and communication, there should not be boundaries. But then again, how does it maintain faculty without some kind of expectation or criteria. It becomes a kind of paradox, trying to define or codify something that is put forth as free and organic. I think that perhaps it boils down to intentionality. Intention is something that we can search for in poetry, but not something that can necessarily be homogenized or measured to look a specific way. There are a million different ways to map intention. There are a million different ways that one can put forth their own intention, and then many different ways that it can travel forth and be interpreted. But especially when we take poetry as something political, as something that strives to communicate urgency and enact awareness and change, it seems that there necessarily must be some kind of intension that moves through.
 
In some ways, we must necessarily reach beyond aesthetics. But this is not to say that the page is not a tool, that the form and use of artistic techniques would undermine rather than support. One might even say that in poetry of politics is where these tools become all the more important. Perhaps a message could be conveyed more effectively through aesthetic manipulation on the page or the use of the spoken word than through a more direct discourse. ‘Tool’ becomes a word that can apply to any way that a writer chooses to use their voice.
 
But then, does the question of how to be a poet, or more specifically of how to be a poet of social justice, intone community? It seems difficult to fight for justice in a vacuum. This then is where we can find on aspect of poetry as social justice. It presents an opportunity for one to expose their own reality and fight for something that they may have ‘ownership’ of in some sense, but it also allows a space for support. Support through artistic expression. Solidarity is something like recognition. But where does recognition fit into a fight for justice? It cannot be synonymous with definition; it should not be synonymous with any kind of condescending patronage. It should be inclusionary.
 
So first, what is a poet? And second, how can you define poetry as political? In many ways, the answer for both of these questions is that there isn’t one. In a conversation I had recently with Baltimore-based artist Olu Butterfly Woods, she remarked that she didn’t quite consider herself a poet. In a way, this was reassuring to hear as one who aspires to ‘be a poet’. There is something to be said for artistic expression that defies classification but is nevertheless supported by intention. 

“I cannot hide my anger to spare you guilt, nor hurt feelings, nor answering anger; for to do so insults and trivializes all our efforts” (Audre Lorde 130).

The Split the Rock Festival inspired by Audre Lorde’s quote: “There are too many silences to be broken” inspired me in many ways. The first panel I attended, “Now What? Everyday Experience and Resistance in the Middle East,” centered around the discussion of poetry from the Middle East and the role of activist poets in resisting oppression there. I was particularly moved by readings of Mahmoud Darwish’s work on Palestine. This festival, in addition to Audre Lorde’s writings in Sister Outsider, gave me renewed energy to write about a topic that has been on my mind for a while now. For a long time I’ve thought about writing an Op-Ed for Hopkins Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to express my frustration with trying to organize around Palestine on a deeply Zionist campus: in which every event, direct action, and post by SJP is labeled anti-Semitic, especially if it falls during Israeli Apartheid Week. It is incredibly distracting from the work we are trying to do and silencing if we were to succumb to that pressure. For a while I thought, what right do I have to complain about trying to organize around Palestine in America when I have the luxury to just quit if I wanted to while, on the other hand, people in Palestine are tortured both physically and mentally when trying to cross a border just to visit family, go to school, or get medical treatment? Clearly my struggles are not as bad. Maybe I should not even complain all.

Then I realized this is all part of the same occupation. Occupying minds, spaces, discourses. Colonizers do not stop at occupying land. In fact the power of occupying and dominating narratives largely aids and supports their physical oppression. (Read: Fanon) Audre Lorde says, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change” (112). SJP members have been asked countless times to join others for coffee to discuss our club and “the conflict,” to co-host events in which Palestinian puppets complicit with Israeli authority want to have “dialogue,” to make sure we are tame in discussing this “conflict”--to be careful not to offend anyone because it’s a “very complicated issue.” We cannot use the oppressor’s framework over coffee to dismantle oppression. As far as I’m concerned there is a clear oppressor and a clear population being oppressed. I’m not sure where the confusion is or why I should be careful to not insult people supporting this occupation whether they realize it or not, with their explicit support of the Israeli government perpetrating these crimes or their silence on the occupation. I will not discuss Palestine on terms of oppression, with those who insist Israel is just defending itself from terrorists, with those who do not insist on ending settlements in Palestine. I refused to co-host events that were only intended to show we want to have peaceful dialogue. NO, I want change! I am not interested in just talking. Many students in SJP have not publicized their affiliation with SJP. Understandably so, this is because Palestinian activist students are regularly harassed and put on lists of being anti-Semites through many sites and organizations dedicated to this. (Google if you wish. I will not give them publicity by sharing the link.)

In The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, an excerpt from Sister Outsider, Audre Lorde says, “In the cause of silence, each of us draws the face of her own fear- fear of contempt, of censure, or some judgment, or recognition, of challenge, of annihilation. But most of all, I think, we fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live… We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners must as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid” (42). This is my attempt to start sharing parts of myself that need to be unsilenced. Lorde’s powerful statement reminds me of a popular TedEx talk by Brene Brown on The Power of Vulnerability which shares similar sentiments about the courage it takes to speak out without worrying about judgment. Lorde explains, “we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us” (44).This reminds me that there will never be a perfect time to do what frightens us the most. We won’t magically get over our fears or silences without working through them.

“The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves against the manner of saying. When we turn from anger we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar. I have tried to learn my anger’s usefulness to me as well as limitations ” (131).

As some of what I stated may be taken wrong by someone, I would like to clarify that there is a difference in targeting individuals and targeting systems of oppression. Anger is an emotion, not an action. Anger is an alarm that something wrong is happening.
Pay attention.  

As we discussed throughout class, and during this panel, sometimes activism is writing, in the poetry itself. Here is an attempt to share a part of myself, inspired by Palestine:

                                                What is a beginning?
It started with a rock. No, with a gun. Now go back. We were here first. Anywhere but here. Even further. Further. Now leave.

What is a beginning? Where do I begin? Is it the end of a previous begining? The start of another end? Darkness to light. Light to darkness. Chicken or egg?

Break of dawn. The setting of the sun. The rise of the moon.
Birth. Death. Life.
It began with happiness. No, no with sadness.
This beginning is exile. Now it’s settlement.
The peak. The dip. The top. The bottom.
Gaza. Ramallah.
The British Mandate.
The hate.
The return.

The origin. The inception. The blastoff. The genesis. The Fatiha. The beginning is the root. It’s the essence. The border. The threshold. It’s the cause, the purpose. So basically the end. Where to begin?

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break.  When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket.
Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
“What is your name?” the man asked.
He replied, “Jacob.”
“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”  - Genesis 32: 24-28

Sometimes I feel like I should be at war with myself. Being an activist-minded Christian in academia, I feel that those facets of my life are constantly at war with one another, particularly my identity as a Christian. In many ways, the conservative Christian has become the face of Christianity and this branch of the faith tends to take the side of the oppressor or be the oppressor, making Christians the enemy of activists and vice versa. Then, on the academic side, faith is seen as its antithesis, because belief must operate without sound evidence. Thus, juggling all three of these identities, I often feel like I am a double-agent.

But, I'm not.

"My faith informs my activism" - Bree Newsome

Like, Bree Newsome, my faith informs my activism.  I was sitting in Shriver Hall on April 27th when I heard Ms. Newsome say these words and I was thrilled and relieved. I had expressed this same sentiment in my reflection post-Split This Rock. While Split This Rock was an amazing experience, I felt this narrative was missing in the conversation of activism and art. I am an activist because I am a Christian and I wanted to explore more and have more conversations concerning that. It can be a particularly difficult world to navigate being an outspoken activist, Christian, and artist when one misstep can have you viewed as not activist enough or not Christian enough. I would've loved to explore both at Split This Rock and in this course what that intersection looks like.

One of the most jarring moments during Split This Rock for me was when Dominique Christina recited her final poem, which ended with her pleading with God to care for unjustly killed Black sons the same way He cared for His. I was shook by her comment, mostly because I understood the sentiment -- the anger and the pain that she felt. It is customarily taboo to question or demand answers from God, but two of the most prominent figures in the Bible did. Job asked for answers and justice. Jacob wrestled with one of His angels.

Like Jacob, I, too, wrestle with God. Not in an arrogant way, but the humble way a child tries to understand the things their parents do. I understood Dominique Christina's plea, because despite myself, I had asked the same question. While a portion of my faith demands that I accept that I will never fully understand why God does the things He does or allows certain things to happen, I still wonder why. Last year, when a portion of Hopkins showed its true colors by posting racist remarks on Yik Yak (an anonymous social media app) after Freddie Gray's death, I remember sitting in my room crying out to God, asking "Why do they hate us so much?" Too often on the internet, I read similar hurtful statements from proclaimed Christians, following each of these tragedies and I return to this question because I can't reconcile God's love with the hate of His people.

Despite the fact that some can, I cannot call myself a Christian and remain silent in the face of injustice. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before me and Bree Newsome currently and countless others, activism is the vehicle  by which we exercise our faith. For me as an artist, both of these things permeate my poetry and my fiction. I exist in all of these spaces -- being a Christian, being Black, being a woman, being an activist, and being an artist -- and I exist in them without shame. They cannot be at war with one another for me, because their co-existence enables my existence.

I have not received the answer to my question or Dominique Christina's. But, as the old song goes, I will call on the Lord all night long and I will not let go until He blesses my soul and I am made a witness that He will come through.