Happy long weekend! Today is week 22 of #TWmemorymondays! Honestly today is one of the days where I wish I could just not do this project - so many fun things happening! But pushing through is part of the process. 💪🏼

Today's memory is a very recent memory, which I won't get into. It was a situation where I felt really unseen as a POC and that through the good inentions the carelessness of the incident really hurt me. It took me awhile to piece it together of what bothered me, and I finally wrote the person my perspective and why it was hurtful. The correspondence was really good, helpful, and the person pretty much reacted and said everything book perfect.

What I want to focus on is how that experience felt like. After I came to the realization why it hurt me, I felt sick to my stomach even after the great donv station. Literally it lived in my stomach. I realized I had this expectation that everytime I speak up I will feel a burden lifted off my shoulder and I will feel more empowered.

But everytime I do speak up that never happens. This past time I expected this weight lifted again! And I felt just as sick after!

It's because even though this conversation went well, it won't be every single time. So speaking up to racism is this vulnerability to having yet another traumatizing experience - where that person could be defensive, shut me down, misunderstand me, etc. AND is the realization that even though growth is good and speaking up is worth it, the white supremacy is really big and is in the air we all breathe.

It makes me sick to be reminded by this truth. I'm thankful for that response and need to embrace it. Shouldn't all our responses to evil systems against humanity be gutteral?
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#TWmemorymondays: A painting inspired by a memory every Monday of 2018. Connecting abstract art to real life. Week 22/53. 'Gutteral' / 8x8 in / mixed media on paper