“be something else” Collage, cut and woven New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12" — **“be something else”**
Collage, cut and woven *New Yorker* Magazine paper, 9" x 12"

Since taking on this project, I haven’t had much time for extra reading. If it happens at all, it’s in bed as I’m nodding off.

This week I managed to start a book that I didn’t want to put down. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. But since I had to dive into this week’s project, I chose a New Yorker issue that would feel like an extension of Oluo’s book.

It was the cover art that grabbed me. Kadir Nelson’s “Say Their Names” from June 22, 2020. I knew what I was in for. And I was all in.

“Say Their Names” by Kadir Nelson @kadirnelsonThe New Yorker, June 22, 2020 — “Say Their Names” by Kadir Nelson @kadirnelson
*The New Yorker*, June 22, 2020

So YAY! Let’s talk about race! Everyone’s favorite topic. If you’re starting to squirm, I can recommend several books, movies, and podcasts for you. Because as much as I wish I was writing the next Great American Think Piece on Race, I have no illusions. I’ll leave that to the great scholars and historians and inclusion experts.

I get it. Some who don’t want to talk about race might be thinking, If we didn’t make race such a big deal then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But we are waaaaaaaaaaay too late for that. Like 400 years late. Or maybe 5000. Our house is on fire, and there’s no more pretending that it’s not. White Supremacy is in our groundwater. There is no escaping its effects, even if we don’t talk about it.

But I’m not here to educate. That’s what this list is for. I can’t dismantle systemic racism with one essay. But I’m not going to shy away from the topic either.

So. Anti-racism. I’m all in. But let’s talk about semantics for a sec. For a long time I have loved this quote from Mother Teresa: “I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.”

Yes, it’s semantics, but it’s also more than that. I think there’s an energy behind the words. Because there is intent behind them. Intent is the first step toward manifesting. Manifesting whatever it is you want. I intend to bake a cake. Then I set about making that happen. (Mmmm. Cake.) I intend to dismantle Systemic Racism and The Patriarchy. Then I set about making that happen. (A girl can dream.)

Remember the “War on Drugs” and what a failure that was? Probably because we were fighting against a symptom instead of finding and healing the root causes of drug abuse and addiction (and systemic racism.)

So while I am all in and will go as far as I possibly can in my evolution as an anti-racist, I am focusing my energy on “racial healing.” Racial justice. Racial equality. Racial healing.

In this week’s New Yorker, in addition to an up-close-and-personal account of some of the protests in Minneapolis right after George Floyd’s death, there was, coincidentally, an article involving my home town of Milledgeville, Georgia. “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” My homegirl. Milledgeville is a smallish town in the middle of the state and was the capital before and during the Civil War. Flannery lived there in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. Of course she was racist!! Color me shocked.

I lived in Milledgeville in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I was no stranger to racism while I lived there. In fact, it was hurled directly at me. Not because I was white, but because I was a white girl in love with a black boy.

That first-love relationship dissolved after five years. Not because of race, but because we just grew in different directions. I am grateful that we’re still friends.

I still have beloveds who live in Milledgeville, so I will do my best to be diplomatic. But the day I left there for good, in 1989, there was a Klan rally happening downtown. I could not get outta there fast enough.

I was no longer in an interracial relationship, so I didn’t have to bear the brunt of racist micro- and macro-aggressions. But my first love did. And does.

Having that relationship doesn’t make me special. But it was formative. It forced me to make decisions about who I am and what I stand for. LOVE WINS. Always.

So I continue my education and evolution. I do my best to stay awake and aware. I speak out when I can. I pray for racial healing.

I got the vision for this week’s collage when I saw all the protest images.

I wanted to weave a black-and-white heart. I imagined weaving together black and white hearts. Mending broken hearts. Mending our collective heart. I imagined our grandmothers’ hands, darning the threads of this heart like a sock, making the patched area stronger than the original.

When I first imagined this collage, I thought—wouldn't it be cool to show a splash of red in the hole of the heart? I mean, we all bleed the same color, right? But this issue offered no red.

I considered searching for a piece of red from a prior issue, but that felt like cheating. So I went with the blue/green tree/sky. I think it’s even more evocative than the red would have been. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

Choosing the title was the last element. I love finding the titles from the words that I end up cutting out of each issue. Usually, the title is pretty obvious to me. But I could have gone several ways with this one. “It is time for it to be something else.” Be Something Else. It’s a choice. It’s a reframing. It requires vision. It requires intent.

Yes, it might also require courage. Or at least a willingness to feel discomfort. But “community is a mighty life force.” Together we can create a “something else.” I vote for racial healing. And always LOVE.