Degrees of Discovery: A Trip in Isolation
I can tell you one thing, exploration and discovery was not lacking in my life during that quarantine mess which forced most of us into isolation for a year. I was everywhere while I waded in pools of sci-fi and fantasy in movie, book, magazine, comic and TV forms. Being shackled by the threat of a world-conquering virus provided an opportunity to explore worlds, peoples, situations, and, most importantly, my identity as it relates to the multiple layers of reality that existed in a fishbowl outside of my windows. Discovery on discovery on discovery.
One of the more inspiring lines for me is from “The Fifth Season,” the first book of The Broken Earth series by N. K. Jemisin.
“We’re the ones who figured out just how amazing our kind can be, if we learn how to refuse the gift we’re born with.”
The narrator was referring to a group of people bound together genetically, something they didn't choose. Their shared genetic gift caused fear to those who didn’t have it. This group often supported each other in harnessing the strength of their linked identities, out of the way of fearful eyes. Sometimes though, they lived with internal fear for who they were while walking among those who outnumbered them - blending in however they could.
Sound familiar? It did to me, as I’m sure it does to any person who isn’t white in this country. It gave me two insights:
1) being other-than-white is more than a gift, it’s a gift with serious weight and pressure. To be someone more than a regular Joe, higher expectations that are internalized and put on me from others, be it consciously or not. If I accept the gift, I cannot be anyone else than what assumptions and stereotypes tell me. Refusing this gift, and stepping into the complications of individuality to harness the power of being all my identities, not simply a man of color. That is power.
And 2) shared identities bring power to themselves through community. Any part of my identity is a power, if I am able to connect with others who also share that power in order to share, learn, educate, embrace, support, collaborate - the list goes on. Power only magnifies with(in) community. Imagine that feeling as I watched and marched with others during one of the more racially charged summers I’ve ever been a part of.
I have been on a slow moving mission since this book to connect with other mixed-folks, to discover how amazing we are, how amazing I am as a person. By searching out and embracing a community that is mixed, it strengthens my capacity to rephrase reactions to a world of binaries. Black and white. Right or wrong. Democrat or Republican. Male or female. This or that... I’m different. I’m black and white. I’m right and wrong. I’m this and that. I’m mixed.
Jemisin’s book helped me explore my identities, especially racially and discover a power I had, but maybe didn’t put a name to. My power is an innate ability to engage in different perspectives and provide non-binary ideas, thoughts, assumptions and spaces on a continual basis for the rest of my entire life. I have paradigm-shifting powers just from being who I am. For myself mostly, but others when circumstances align.
“I have been on a slow moving mission since this book to connect with other mixed-folks, to discover how amazing we are, how amazing I am as a person.”
It feels good to refuse the weight of the gift of what my skin color is and embrace the power of who I am that stems from the experiences I hold because of my race. Skin is color, but the experiences that color has in this world can be harnessed into power. This doesn’t apply simply to my race either, embracing all the several identities I hold is powerful. As I continue to grow my community across identities (i.e. biracial, plant-lover, athlete, feminist-supporting cis-male, sci-fi follower, imagineer, etc.) the more power I am able to harness to shift spaces I’m connected to towards one that helps do the same for others. Now that’s a discovery!
Mike Ramsey is a Boost Consultant and currently works as the Community Engagement Specialist at Community Planning/Development Dept. for the City of Denver. Mike aims to ensure communities succeed in their quest for collective education. He believes that as diverse and broad the definition of community is, there exists an equal number of potential methods to connect the knowledge(s) of members of a community for the mutual benefit of all.