In Solidarity Spring 2017

AUTHOR Title text text text

IN SOLIDARITY SPRING 2017 NOISE

1

COVER ART Alexandra Nicome LAYOUT Alexandra Nicome Lydia Smith Elka Lee-Shapiro EDITORS Alexandra Nicome Lydia Smith Elka Lee-Shapiro Benjamin Balatbat Mackenzie Lew

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS Dear Readers,

In Solidarity is a publication created by and for People of Color at Oberlin College. Each semester, the editors choose a theme to create an intentional space for celebrating the art and voices of People of Color on our campus. We invite any artist of color to submit work that can be shared on paper. We are humbled by the work of past editors and contributors and are proud to carry In Solidarity forward in 2017.

Too often People of Color are told to be quieter, to demand less, to fit into white supremacist ideals of respectability. We are forced into silence and simplify our truths to make our narratives more palatable. In the face of violence and injustice, silence is complicity as its own form of violence. We urge people to make noise, to be loud, to listen proactively rather than reactively. In this issue, noise is a site of expression! Noise is the power of collective resistance, the celebration of ourselves and each other. We hope this issue can be an outlet to process some of the noise of 2017. We are here and we are listening.

In solidarity,

Alexandra Nicome ’17 Lydia Smith ’17 Elka Lee-Shapiro ’18 Benjamin Balatbat ’19 Mackenzie Lew ’19

IN SOLIDARITY SPRING 2017 In Solidarity is a publication that honors the narratives of People of Color. We recognize that our communities face intersecting forms of structural and interpersonal violence, and many pieces in In Solidarity reflect upon those realities. We urge readers to take care when reading this issue.

NOISE

Table of Contents PRIYA, Voices, Noise?

ANONYMOUS, Timekeeper SHENG KAO, mouth OLIVIA VASQUEZ, Be a Man, Like a Girl SHENG KAO, girl ALEJANDRA DIAZ, Sehnsucht OLIVIA EVANS, self-portrait ELKA LEE-SHAPIRO, æ ¹ LYDIA SMITH, Observations of Attendance...

ROWAN/TAIYANG LEE, Liminality IJE LOVE, Panic Attack Pt. 2 MELISSA HARRIS, Cracking ANTHONY MOATON, Hear No Evil IJE LOVE, shaken::arb ALEXANDRA NICOME, Absolution

1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 14 15 16 17 18 24 25

PRIYA

Voices Voices in my head Picking at my thoughts Why can’t I get these noises out of my head These noises are eating at my flesh.. my soul Wanting to feel whole Wanting to stop the voices in my head

Noise?

Why do people associate “noise” with Black and Brown folx?

We don’t make noise We make sure that we are heard Tired of being Silenced Tired of being Ridiculed Instead of giving us our reparation You tell us that we would be respected more if we were quieter Not understanding that we have been silenced for years Not understanding that you were driven force to cause that silence So you will hear our “noise” We will be heard

1

ANONYMOUS

Timekeeper Beep, beep, beep That constant beeping like a metronome keeping you in time keeping you here, in time That metronome, your keeper

In time, more sounds trickle in: a harp covers top 40 the laugh track from The Office nurses murmuring sometimes in English often in Tagalog

To lose track of time, we fill the room with our own sounds bring in Bluetooth speakers to play the blues the voices of Jenna, Alicia, and Norah filling this space with song

We talk over the beep, beep, beep conversations taking us elsewhere to scenes of canyons covered in ferns forests where ancient giants shiver in the breeze beaches with white sands, quiet and peaceful to times when that beep, beep, beep was just a noise we heard on Grey’s Anatomy But always, in time, returning to that beep keeping track the noise from those beeps per minute keeping us on track that metronome my mother’s keeper

2

SHENG KAO mouth

another meaningless mouth sprouting somewhere on my skin every time a man says he wants to fuck me. a thousand of them gaping open and closed, wordless, like the gill slits of a drowning fish.

3

OLIVIA VASQUEZ Be a Man, Like a Girl

4

SHENG KAO girl

a girl is the smallest type of god.

yes i saw the girls in the dog-days of summer / no worship yet / for the ways they can lash a deity, can muzzle one / like a horse, can gentle chaos / by conquering chaos / with firecracker & drum / beating craters into the moon’s white face with their hands / with wooden wands until splintering point the strike / of a match, of / a drum / first borne / as if out of nothing / summer’s first cicada / newly breaking the silence / and then relentless / girls and aliens screaming away the sky / each meter of song conjuring thunder & light / each brief contact / with a pale fake moon / a meeting of the heaven and earth / 天地

gunpowder girls / set themselves on fire / for the flicker / for the drifting spark ending with smother / for the taunt towards inextinguishable void / the girls, always flickering / the flickering – only happens / when there is first brightness / the girl existing – and then not

5

ii. yes, girls / and their incendiary / celestial bodies that’s where we learned / to reverse-engineer a firework something so bright and loud / the monsters crisp away into nothing

when you ask a god to strike you are / offering up your body as the medium / as the sole conductor / for the light possessed / by a whole sun and yes I know now / how this could be confused for magic / for witchcraft the girls / clothing themselves in night / shaping their bodies electric a bruise on the skin / a cloud in the sky / a girl alight

a girl is a small thing.

6

ALEJANDRA DIAZ Sehnsucht

Looking out the window in class, my German professor’s explanation becomes a soothing murmur in the background.

German is not the choppy and anger-filled language some Americans joke about. It is smooth and light, making it hard to pay attention to my professor some mornings. And as his words becomes rhythmic up and downs, I slowly fall back into my memories.

I try to unlearn English. I try to become the small girl who stared at the TV screen watching American cartoons with my American born and raised cousin. I try to remember the bright images flashing before my eyes, 24 frames per second, and my sad attempts to find the Spanish words among the odd and brutal sounds of English.

As my thoughts dwell on Spanish, I painfully recall my awkwardness with my language. The way my tongue feels heavy at times and the Spanish comes out like strangled noises and desperate heavy breaths.

How is it then, I ask myself, that despite the awkwardness, the pain and the frustrations, Spanish has somehow become a sacred language. Its words have become reassuring and powerful hymns. And somehow I feel that it is only in Spanish that I can be heard when crying and begging to a god I half believe in.

And somehow, I feel that only through Spanish, can he grant me peace when I am at my weakest.

And while I dream, my mind slowly pulls itself back together as the vivid imagery of my memories overwhelms me and reason wins over emotion. The Spanish is slowly buried under years of English and at the very top the fresh layer of German smooths out the wrinkles of my memory. Once again I am reborn. The cracks in my control are mended. Again I return to the novel in front of me and try to find words in the soothing murmur of German.

7

OLIVIA EVANS self-portrait

8

ELKA LEE-SHAPIRO æ ¹

This film tells the migration stories of three generations in my family.

scan QR code to view film on Youtube

9

10

11

12

13

LYDIA SMITH

Observations of Attendance at AAART Collective Events

my white peers dance in the dark close their eyes pretend they are not the problem forget that space is grounds for oppression pretend their awkward dance moves are enough for revolution my white peers aren’t here for artists only art as long as it’s conceptual enough hip enough to move their hips to no time for talks or workshops they have too much work

my white peers have time for us at night only no eye contact during the day in the dark it’s easier to close our eyes pretend we’re all the same on the inside

14

ROWAN/TAIYANG LEE Liminality

15

IJE LOVE

Panic Attack Pt. 2

Red eyes match Red throat match Red atmosphere Of betrayal Match the red of discomfort surely churning in the gut as blood

rushes to fingertips ravaging fingertips tearing tremors through fingertips, assigning shackles to fingertips 7.0 magnitude force shaking his fingertips trying to rip fingers out of wrist joints Tears mix with Nose tears Mix with Blood tears in the throat

He gags on years Suppressed memories Hidden heartache And evaporates all hope.

16

MELISSA HARRIS Cracking

17

ANTHONY MOATON Hear No Evil

“You haven’t changed a day.”

I laughed sarcastically. “You lie.”

“Honestly. You haven’t.”

“Do I fuck as good as you remember?”

“We never had sex until last night…”

“Exactly,” I smiled and shook the pepper shaker over my eggs.

Jazmine Sullivan once sang that her man fucked her so good she made him pancakes in the morning. Nick took me to Denny’s. Good enough, I guess.

Nick scrunched his face with concern. “What’s wrong, Milo?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” I really meant that. This was a dream come true. But I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be.

“I broke up with him, you aren’t a home-wrecker or something.”

“Nick, you could have been married with kids, wouldn’t have stopped me.”

Nick poured syrup over his pancakes while looking me dead in the eye. “If you had said something a while back…”

“Oh, please.”

“Please, what?”

“Don’t look me dead in the eye,” I start waving my fork at him, “telling me I could have had you all along. You’re not my property. You made your own choices.”

Nick smirked. “The boy who just said he’d ruin a marriage is now taking the high ground?”

“I wanted you to be happy.”

“You were scared.”

“Damn right, I was.”

18

Nick caught my foot under the table with his. He wrapped his leg around mine. He said, “You’re right though, I shouldn’t have said that. Do you not like me anymore? It’s OK if you don’t.”

I paused. Ate some eggs. Refused to look at him. “Is it?”

“Yeah. I mean, I spent all this time with Marty…”

“I don’t care…”

“And I didn’t see you again unless I was with him.”

“Yeah, it was like you didn’t even graduate. Failure-tolaunch?”

“That’s harsh.”

I back down a bit. “Yeah, well, It’s true.”

Nick leaned back, crossed his arms and thought deeply. His leg was still wrapped around mine.

I sighed, feeling exasperated with the conversation. “Nick, what do you want?”

“I don’t know. See where this goes?”

“I’m going. I graduate, and unlike you, I’m leaving and not looking back. It’s over. I’ll talk to Andrea, but other than that, I won’t give a fuck about anybody. Especially you.” I figure if I am this mean to him, maybe he’ll just give up, and we can pretend all of this never happened. It would probably be easier for both of us.

“Are you mad at me or something?”

“I’m not mad. Not at you.”

“Who are you mad at?”

I took my last bite of eggs. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

I got up, got his leg off of me, and went to the bathroom.

I stared at myself in the mirror, and saw his marks on me.

Last night was everything; I brought Nick back from the party, and Andrea found her own Prince Charming and let me have the place to myself. I kind of wish she didn’t. No, that’s not true, who am I kidding?

19

“Milo.”

Shit.

“What?”

“You don’t have to be afraid of what Marty will think.”

“Why would I be afraid?”

“Because we both know that given the right circumstances, you would have tried to fuck me while I was with him. And you don’t want to look him in the eye and know you finally took me from him.”

He was right. *** Two years ago “Do you love Nick?”

Marty continued doing his homework at his desk, furrowed brow and all. “I do.”

“What do you love about him?”

“He makes me feel good.” He was speaking tersely, a sign that he didn’t really want to engage in conversation right now so he could focus. I chose to push further.

“But what about actual things about Nick? About who he is?”

“He’s a good person.”

Bullshit. You don’t love someone because they’re “good.”

When you truly love someone, you know how horrible they can be. You realize that you can’t just divide people you love into simple “good” and “bad” categories because you hope that someone will love you when you know that you can be absolutely horrible yourself.

What does Nick see in him?

“What do you think Nick loves about you?”

“He always talks about my face, especially my nose.” He stopped writing for the first time in an hour to think about what he just said. “He thinks I’m too giving for my own good, I guess.”

20

“Really?” I couldn’t believe the type of asymmetrical relationship I was witnessing. “Wow.” Wow indeed. Fucking brilliant. I guess love doesn’t have to be reciprocal. You just have to say “I love you,” and hope that the other people involved in the relationship say it back, and it’ll just work out happily ever after. But if I say it, if I say “I love you,” who will say it back to me? Who will let me love their face, their soul, their existence? And who will love the same things about me? *** “They’re gonna think we ran out.”

“I paid the bill.”

“What do you want, Nick?”

“You.” “No, that’s not real. You wanted Marty.”

“That’s over.”

“What, are you serious? Just like that.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a long story…”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

I keep myself from yelling. “Don’t tell me what I care about.

You told me so much about your life, your dreams, who you were. I opened up to you, and trusted you, and you left. You left me alone, but you didn’t leave…”

“Milo…”

“Let me finish. You didn’t fucking leave. You were still here. Everywhere I went. You wouldn’t leave, but you weren’t here, not for me anyway. That’s crazy.”

“Milo, I know I fucked up, I… I want to make this right.

What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to take me home.”

21

*** Three years ago “Milo, you have so much talent.”

Nick and I are sitting at a café, a weekly ritual. He buys me tea, and we talk about life.

“Do I really?”

“Stop being so self-deprecating,” he says while adding sugar to his tea. “You’re amazing.”

“If I was so amazing, why didn’t I get into Pippin?”

“First-years almost never get into the big plays. You have to wait your turn.”

I sigh, staring at the floor. “I think that you’re one of the only people here who believes in me.”

“Of course I do. You need to believe in yourself though.

Look me in the eye.”

I did.

“Make sure to look in a mirror every day and tell yourself that you are amazing.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. It’ll change everything.”

I wanted to say “I love you.” I said, “Thank you.”

Maybe I should’ve said it. Freaked him out, gotten some sort of reaction. At least I wouldn’t be in the purgatory of loving someone who treats me like a lover but only calls me a friend. *** “Are you ready to go?”

I’ve been waiting in the passenger seat for him to come out of Denny’s. I say, “Yeah, whatever.”

We buckle up, and head down the highway.

“I loved you.” I couldn’t help but say it.

“I know.”

“You just know everything, don’t you?”

22

“To be honest, I might have confused my feelings for Marty…”

“With me? You’re not the first guy to say that to me.”

He turns the corner towards my house.

“Nick?”

“Yes?” “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“What do you want?”

“You. Do you want me?”

I pause. “You know the answer.”

I’m at my house. I get out the car. So does he.

“Safe travels.”

“Don’t I get a hug?”

I go over to hug him, he kisses me.

I don’t understand anymore. None of this makes sense. This is real now, and I don’t know what to do.

Nick must have read my mind. “I’m here, Milo. I’m real.

I’m here.”

“Yeah, for now. Then what?”

“We don’t have to worry about that yet. What do you want?”

“Reality.”

“Here’s reality.” He kisses me again.

It’s all I ever wanted.

23

IJE LOVE shaken::arb

24

ALEXANDRA NICOME Absolution

When I was walking through the storm last night the wind whipped past me so fast it sucked the air from my lungs.

I was so shocked I almost laughed. The storm was playing a game and it was fun until I felt the risk.

Today, the air is still cold and heavy.

Mud slick and slippery, it absorbed the rain as part of a spiritual reckoning. Not so much cleansing, as recollecting.

Mud pushes bubbles from deep inside surfacing Air once suppressed reenters this world anew After the storm, soil readjusts––wet dirt expands and stretches, as much as it can, before it dries again. You know that new earth smell, after a storm? It smells like that––fresh, with a bitter, tangy singe. I can feel the new air around me, it brushes past, an unsettling warmth in this otherwise cool springtime air.

The noisy readjustment scares me.

I am a descendant of silencing, you know. written histories unrecorded, oral histories––unanswered questions, Just, silence If mud is always dirty, this place will never be clean.

And that’s okay, because absolution was never the goal. No–– the soil, the wind, the water, they force remembering, they command remembering, they make my body feel what has passed.

This place gets loud and heavy, so full of memory it can’t help but seep into concrete, up through asphalt cracks.

25

Everyday, I walk past John Mercer Langston’s house.

The after-storm made me stop in front of that house. The ground got so loud, with crickets and frogs and water and mud.

I was overtaken by the sound; I had to stop walking. That’s when the wind came and reminded me how close I am to Langston’s history. The wind reminded me of swift death, the wind told me to be grateful––to give thanks.

The air I breathe here is a manifest possibility.

Those Black folks who came and went through this place, they lived so I could breathe this air touch this ground hear this rain feel this wind Work Play Sing Cry They came through this place. It was an action. Their bodies walked where I’m walking. They stopped to talk where I’m talking. Those Black folk yelled and laughed and said “come on over here” They sat and drank on that blue porch. They gardened and weeded.

They dreamt and nightmared.

They anointed every inch of this place with their presence This place, they came through this place they touched this ground through this place through this place through this place

26

IN SOLIDARITY SRING 2017

27