Art In Uncertain Times: Intention and Hope in a Hard Week’s Month

Intention: A Hard Week’s Month

It’s been a hard week in a hard month in an even tougher year that we’ve been ill-prepared to cope with. And it’s nowhere near over.

On the surface we may wonder because all this is not new.  Racial injustice, the racism, it isn’t new. On the contrary, racial injustice has been happening for years and years, become ignored and for some so much a part of society that it has been brushed under the carpet as not mattering. To talk about it, especially to people who don’t wish to understand, as it impacts every aspect of living is too exhausting and for the most part we choke it down (if you’re Black that is) attempt to navigate around it and try to get on with life. The fire-hose is always on however. The pain is ongoing and until there is racial justice and real racial equality this pain  will always be ongoing.

There is hope however.

This time feels a little different.

For the first time it looks like all of us can now see (because we’ve been unable to turn away) what brutality and racial injustice looks like, and more seem willing to learn about what this means. People are now making sure that, in this seemingly broken world, their voices are being heard and that they are not prepared to be silenced. They are marching and protesting in their thousands all around the world. This is no longer some “other people’s” problem or even some “other country’s” problem. This is everyone’s problem. Clearly it’s not going away without a fight. And everyone, each one of us has to work together for the solution. We can either stand united or fall divided.

We hear about the silent majority. Supposedly powerful.. And, well, silent. Rising when it mattered.Or not.

Compared to being part of a yelling mob in the echo chamber that is Twitter, for example, perhaps this was once okay.  But now? Today, in this time? This is not the time to be the silent majority.  It’s not the time for neutrality. This is the time to be vocal and united in the fight for racial justice and face down all that would prevent it, whether that is examining our own biases or joining our brothers and sisters in protest or changing the way things have been done, or being an artist, creating art, or a writer or a teacher or a CEO, a leader or whatever you do.  And it’s not the time for empty words and gestures appearing meaningful, going nowhere and frankly doing nothing.

This is not the time for you to “feel comfortable”. Precisely the opposite.

This is the time to find empathy with those who may appear on the surface to be different to you…and who have a different experience daily, to not brush aside their experiences with  ignorant racist “whataboutery” nonsense but to listen learn, look within, change and find better ways to support. Every little counts and we can all do more and do better.

After all, if our shared humanity is unable to accomplish this what then is or shared humanity worth?

It’s been a hard week’s month and year. It’s far from over. Let’s focus on the message, not the mayhem that is trying to drown it out.

Art In Uncertain Times: My latest art piece created today June 7 in these Uncertain Times is called Intention. What’s yours?

You can see more of my art here

You can also follow me on Intstagram, (where I prefer my art to words)