On Privilege

Dusk is beginning to reach the city of Accra. My feet are covered in a layer of red dirt. I should have gone home long ago. What was I even doing out so late after dark? The answer of every twenty one year old who has nothing to do but all the time in the world: nothing good. I arrive at the taxi station. I watch with anxiety as the last of the sun dips below the horizon. The station is usually active with taxis and tro tro’s rushing in and out to take people where they need to go. Now, all I see are lines of people, feet shuffling and anxiously anticipating relief. Everyone is tired and there is only one taxi for what feels like a hundred people.

I watch as the station manager fights through a crowd of people to reach me and he grabs me by the arm. I already know what he’s about to do. I catch his eyes for a second but that’s all I need to understand the harsh truth of what he’s not telling me. I don’t belong here.

Before anyone can notice the whiteness of my skin, he pulls me towards the car and shoves me inside it. Chaos ensues. This act incites a riot. I hear shouts in the dark. The car rocks back and forth as the people outside push against it. The driver’s door is yanked open and he fights against the hands and the arms until he can lock the door closed. Before he can move the car forward, a fist makes contact with the window. The glass splinters.

Then we’re gone, the chaos and the rage behind us. I can hardly breathe and I’ve been shocked so many times in a million moments I can’t even muster tears. I can’t feel anything but I know exactly what happened. I wait until we’re out of the view of the crowd before I breathe again. There are so many ways to explain what happened. As a white female, I wasn’t safe. I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have been there. This was the first time I saw what my privilege was and wasn’t. Being white brought me to the front of the line. Being female put me in the car.

I struggled in my short few months in Ghana because I was a woman. Every day I was harassed. Male teachers refused to shake my hand. There were times where I could hear my auntie in my homestay being beaten by her husband. I refused proposals with politeness and a smile. There was one night on Cape Coast when all I wanted was a moment to read Alison Bechdel's Fun Home but instead was stopped and forced to have a conversation with a group of men. The leader of the group took the book out of my hands and I’ll never forget how he paused on a scene of two naked women and mocked it for being pornographic. Never mind that the woman in the book was experiencing her sexual freedom. This had everything to do with power and I didn’t have it.

This was privilege in its most blatant state. I couldn’t deny it. I was complicit in it for allowing it to happen but just as guilty for not being mindful of my time. I knew I couldn’t be out that late but I was young and dumb and that didn’t matter and because of that other people paid the price. Exhausted. Frustrated. Eager to get home. And here I come, rushing past the line and into the car that they had waited for? It’s not just or fair. And I went along with it because I was young and scared and eager for the quick comfort and safety it would bring.

There are times in our lives that are going to shake us, rattle us, and turn us around and what do we do with those experiences? Do we still and allow the water to settle? Or do we make it ripple and wave? What are the privileges we’ve all taken for the comforts they bring? And what do we do with that knowledge we have about that privilege?

Where Do We Go From Here?

The sky is overcast and the general bleariness so familiar to Ohio sets the mood. Brandon and I have packed the car with trash we’ve accumulated over the past five years living together and we can’t for the lives of us figure out what to do with it. Where does one abandon the things they no longer want from a life they no longer have?

For a while now we have been standing in between two worlds. On one side, there was the life we had built in Wooster and the other, a life we were leaning towards in Cleveland. One expressed our development and served us in the ways we needed at the time. On the other was the future, which felt so bright.

It’s obvious at this point that we’re in a time of transition. Neither one of us knows where we’re going to be or who we might become but we’re leaning into this nebulous unknown with the understanding that it’s time for us to move forward with our lives and become who we were meant to be.

So we’re driving through Wooster with a car full of trash trying to figure out where to dispense of it. We pass through The College of Wooster, which was so important for our formative years and was so comfortable and safe that we never left. We see Brandon’s old apartment building. There used to be a building next to it that was owned by the same landlord and was burned down years ago for some strange unknown reason. My old apartment emerges soon after and we toss some of the trash in the dumpsters outside and I can’t believe it was ever acceptable that we lived in either place. It’s funny how your priorities change. At the time I was keenly aware of how miserable it felt to walk to Save-A-Lot to buy my groceries but I was thrilled to have a place of my own, which would allow me to fully own my autonomy.

We have come so far. Tossing out trash is like shedding a second skin, freeing yourself of what you had built for yourself to transform into how the hell do I know? I was so scared before to express myself and I’ve grown past the things I saw as barriers. I’ve decided to own my strength and own the person that I’m going to be. So much of my twenties I spent with my head down trying to do the things I was told to do by people that built a world for me that I didn’t want. I was so young and naive and stupid and I allowed people to take advantage of me, take away my confidence, and treat me poorly because I worked at the bottom of a hierarchy and didn’t know how to advocate for myself. I will never forget how small people made me feel or how they treated me differently after my perceived status had improved. For those who care about wealth and privilege and use it to lord their status over others: make a better effort in how you treat people because you never know where they might end up in life.

I’m not that quiet person anymore. I’ve decided I’m going to embrace who I’m supposed to be. You get so distracted with work, school, and the things happening in your life that you completely forget the point of what you were meaning to do in the first place. I’ve decided to own my power and embrace the freedom of choice and rid those things in my life that don’t make me feel good about myself. Now’s the time to set boundaries and lean in and step up and speak out. I’m going to make people uncomfortable and that’s okay. Do we want to live our lives with the default setting on, acknowledging the systems that exist are shitty and promote poor behavior or do we want to try and create something better, no matter how challenging that is or how impossible it might seem?

I don’t want to sit by and allow the world to move around me. I’ve decided to pick my head up and find ways to make life better, one small incremental step at a time. I want to feel rooted; deeply connected and embraced by those around me as if we were the same force. Evolving, learning, changing, and transforming.

So, where do we go from here?

On The Passing Of Winter.

Hiking near mount hood last august.

“The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted…” S. Kierkegaard, Journals.

Looking at the calendar and seeing that we are 10 days into April has given me some inspiration. Spring is a time of renewal and I think that concept reflects where my life currently stands. Marissa and I recently (mostly) completed a move from Wooster to Cleveland, and with this move we enter into a new stage of our lives. We started this website several years ago to satisfy a creative need we both shared. The idea of creation or the act of being creative is a nebulous idea, and Marissa and I have very different ways of being creative.

Even if we have different concepts of creation, Marissa and I both desire to use this space as an expression of creation. I will mostly use this space to organize my thoughts and hopefully express them in a meaningful and productive manner. Marissa will use this space differently, but I don’t dare to speak to her mind or motivations as they belong to her for her to express. Regardless of her direction, I hope to use this space in a way that is engaging and up-building. In my mind, I am attempting to build to something, but I do not have that goal in sight yet. Therefore, allow me the time to process my intentions through a reflection.

This winter was cold, windy, wet, and long. Even now, as the weather has turned for the better, I am still feeling the drag this winter placed on me. However I may feel day-to-day, I have an overall sense of optimism. I am in a graduate program that I have seen myself develop in new and unexpected ways. Marissa and I have been married for a little over a year, and I have seen myself, and the relationship, grow and develop in new and wonderful ways. We moved into a house in Cleveland that is near where we work, near where we study, where we can spend time with friends, and where we can become part of a new community.

To witness the passing of winter, there is also a passing chapter in our lives. One thing is certain to me, transition is constant. Winter comes and it goes, leaving us with the potential of a new spring. Old questions are answered but they never really go away, and I think that is the point to all of this. I still have questions that the passing of winter cannot take with it.

Will I excel in my classes? Will my career take me somewhere that satisfies my soul? Will the Indians finally win a World Series (much more on baseball later)? Will I produce positive value to my community? Do I have the ability to start a business and take that leap for myself? Will I ever truly find answers to these questions? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I even want the answers. What would I do if I actually found them?

What I do know is that winter has passed and with it the new optimism and potential of a spring is here.