Liberation + Pleasure
“Pleasure is a measure of our liberation.”
"Can you imagine all the things Black folks could create if we didn't have to spend so much of our time talking about racism?"
In all of the media I've consumed this month, I can't remember exactly where or when I saw that question posed, or by whom, but it made me recall why I came to write this newsletter in the first place. I wanted to play a part in liberating all of the pent-up ideas, resources, and magic held hostage by oppression—particularly the oppressive walls we erect between art, science, and what I like to call "soul," where only certain people are allowed into certain conversations, rooms, etc.—and how media reinforces narratives that either maintain or destroy those oppressive walls.
Though I've often participated in anti-oppression work, I came to this specific place at the intersection of art, science, and justice during a short time in which I considered becoming an astronaut. In that year, I watched the fifth episode of deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos, which told the story of Joseph von Fraunhofer. Orphaned and working as an apprentice in the hot basement of an oppressive employer (so, like, domestic servitude), von Fraunhofer was later rescued from a fire that caused the employer's house to collapse, given some grant money, and freed up to further research optical glass. Eventually, he invented spectroscopy and discovered (or at least more thoroughly documented) what became known as Fraunhofer lines. In case that doesn't ring a bell for you, those discoveries eventually led to what we know today as the field of astrophysics and the study of things like dark matter.
But he had to literally get out from under a wealthy white man to do it.
And we are all better because of it.
On the phone with my friend Sarah recently, she said something that struck a similar chord. I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something to the effect of, "Shifting resources to Black folks is actually an act of self-care. We need all of the ideas, imagination, wisdom, and resources that Black folks have to offer because unleashing all of that knowledge liberates us as white people, too. It helps us all envision new ways to be and live."
Do you feel it?
That's liberation as pleasure.
Liberation as fundamental to unleashing the world's next great idea.
Liberation as work that brings us all more alive.
So, here's to getting out of the way, to the work I must do to stop drowning out other voices, and to radically centering and uplifting all of the joy and imagination and creativity and brilliance stifled by my whiteness.
It's a goddamned pleasure.
