Writing has always been and will continue to be the heart of expression. Music, books, speech all originate in writing. The ability to take words and make them your own is what keeps the world spinning. Music for example, is paramount in society. It builds friendships, inspires discussion and opens the eyes of the ignorant. I can’t think of something more radical than the idea of every individual expressing their whole and true self. Granted, we as a world are nowhere near grasping the idea, but that just makes the act of illustrating ourselves for others more distinctive. True self-expression is rare, and like all rare things, it is beautiful when it happens.
The idea of the importance of the individual both grows and diminishes every day, depending on who you ask. The question of whose stories should be told rock both the nation and the press. Our planet, as we know it, is evolving into something new and uncharted. We are slowly dipping our toes into the idea that the story of one group of people shouldn’t be the only one broadcast through the media. Spurring that change are often the voices of the underrepresented or the underacknowledged. Every human has their own perspective and story and opinions, and if we choose to value just one, we must value every other voice. Without listening to others and hearing what mistakes we have made and what we have done right, we will never work to become the best we can; and with that, we do a massive wrong to all the people we harm and let down. Justice will never rest upon our minds until we open up both the airways to give a platform for all voices and to receive and hear them.
Many of you reading this know what it feels like to capture in the physical world what usually only exists inside your mind, your soul. That’s why we fall in love with writing again and again. Not that it’s an easy process by any means, but the struggle of word choice and figurative language pay off when you can finally look back at yourself, standing tall in proud black letters against a jarring white background. But that’s the issue: people tend to see things in just black or white.
We live amongst people who are eager to assume and profile, each year it becomes harder to be heard. You are black or you are white; straight or queer; spiritual or atheistic. In this day and age, we must force others to listen to us while a blanket of convention tries to strangle the air from each syllable in our mouths.
It seems that every time I sit down to write, I’ve been given a smaller and smaller piece of paper. I’m forced to compact myself into a single page, into a paragraph or line. Saving time or preserving fragile stereotypes incredibly outweighs the general human right to be heard out. And as our word limits diminish we cut adjectives to examine what exists at the very core of ourselves, and articulate how to express that, explain that. So I advocate that all of you tell us what is at your core, and I promise we will hear you.