At the Crossroads of

Activism, Food, and Mind

by Michelle

Activism
Recent, racially charged events have put us all in an uncomfortable, vulnerable space. I see the students in my
summer program, mostly people of color, scared and hurt - they are writing about police brutality, racial profiling,
and their black lives mattering with maturity and hope. I saw protesters in D.C. scared and angry. It has taken me
time to come to terms with my own position, perspective, and progressive actions, and it is an ongoing process;
throughout it, we cannot lose sight of ourselves, our own needs, and the people in our lives and theirs. In my early
years at William & Mary, I participated in a student activist group called United Students Against Sweatshops
(USAS); I attended a conference in Tennessee, and recall the lyrics of a Regina Spektor song where she says that she
“went to protest just to rub up against strangers;” I don’t even remember
the causes of everything I was shouting about, but it felt good to. I think
that now, more than ever, we have to keep the cause and the people at the
center of it in our collective forefronts. A grad school friend posted to
Facebook challenging “Black trauma porn” posts and “shar[ing]
traumatic videos and texts for ‘awareness.’” I have to say that the
intersection of social media and activism is something that I have really
struggled with now that I am back on Facebook and Instagram after a
two+ year hiatus, but it’s something I am also coming to terms with and
trying to better understand my position and power with as well.

Food
Another personal journey the pandemic has afforded me is my relationship with
food. My weight loss journey started just a few years ago (coinciding with my
departure from social media/quitting psych meds/other resolves), but I’ve
always had a passion for food. Recently, I’ve been trying to reconcile my desire
to be healthier/thinner and an anti-diet/Health at Every Size/body positivity
movement I was introduced to through a podcast that was recommended to me
called Food Psych by Christy Harrison. I am about halfway through Caroline
Dooner’s (a three-time podcast guest!) The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should be
Easy, which I will be participating in a “Nourished Minds at Peace” book club
about (my third this week!), something I saw on my favorite indie bookstore
shelves months ago and thought: Cute, but not for me. I also watched two seasons of Shrill on Hulu, starring
Saturday Night Live (a guilty pleasure) actor Aidy Bryant based on a book by another podcast guest Lindy West,
which is an autobiographical love story of sorts about being a larger bodied woman. Simultaneously, I have finished
my third round of Whole30 and am figuring out how to let go of my restrictive/binge cycles while embracing my
new, feel-good, healthy lifestyle (and smaller body). I also watched the new Hulu series Taste the Nation with
Padma Lakshmi, which was a fascinating exploration of how different cultures have integrated into American
cuisine and I related so much to the cultural fusion, immigrant/ multicultural stories, and shared passion for food.
Also thinking of starting a food blog!
Mind
Finally, quarantine has forced me to confront my own mental health demons.
This has been extraordinarily arduous for me, yet maybe more difficult
for my family to come to terms with. I have found solace in various
online communities, therapeutic treatments, self-care strategies,
workbooks, friends, and (sometimes painful) trial and error. I’ve been
reflecting on how difficult it is to receive adequate mental health care and have honest and meaningful conversations
with the stigma and shame still clouding mental illness, which so many people struggle with; some of the
community resources I have taken advantage of (and got me through many difficult times) are unknown and
underutilized, and I’ve been thinking about what I could do to improve it -- daunting, but maybe necessary and
affirming.

VISITING THE MONUMENTS IN JUNE: When There Are No Right

Answers
By Kieran

In Richmond, defacing the monuments - My mom said “It’s time they go into a museum. They
are still art, still history, but maybe they don’t belong on the street anymore.” (In July,) She
suggests the pedestals be crumbled, pieces sold for money for underfunded RPS. As for the
toppers? Maybe send Stonewall Jackson to his gravesite.

As they continue to get more color, I feel really sad thinking about how the world is disrupted by
a pandemic, and people don’t really say the cases of Coronavirus are decreasing-- we continue
to cope -- coping gets easier, but meanwhile, the effects deepen, and we look toward recovery -
like making up missed learning, or the big changes in supply and demand that will restructure
our economy, with deeper anxiety.

I wonder if an art preservation/ public property protection response for the monuments would
have been quicker if the pandemic weren’t slowing our movements, or whether it’s been slower
in order to minimize violence. People have been extremely vocal about Confederate monument
removal, especially after a highly-publicized white supremacist rally took place in Virginia in
2017. Since then, Richmond responded by renaming the Arthur Ashe Boulevard, renaming an
elementary school after President Barak Obama, and erecting a statue, “Rumors of War,” made
by African American artist Kehinde Wiley, in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

In recent months, protests in Richmond joined a national BLM protest sparked by several highly-
scrutinized African American deaths. People want no more to do with the monuments. The
graffiti and fires that have been set are illegal, and I feel torn, because the graffiti on the Lee
monument pedestal is beautiful and impressive, even though plenty of the language is
offensive.

I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything like this -- where protesters are defacing public
property, and no-one is getting in trouble. People are decorating the barriers around the Lee
Monument in the middle of the day. The barriers are still public property. They are assembling,
which is certainly legal, except the location -- on the most concentrated site of graffiti, right on
top of the illegal spray paint art -- well, it’s a little like a festival, with a dj booth, a pamphlet
booth. People are invited to come and look, to spend time. It’s a pop-up, a bubble of outrageous
color on Lee Circle, and a makeshift memorial for twenty-some African American or ethnic
minority citizens who died in violent police altercations.
When I went, loud peace and observation were a pleasant, enriching community experience for
me, but when I think about it, I’m a little perplexed by the temporary permission for illegal activity
made by hundreds of protesters. Their angry words, and the sheer volume of them. The
president has issued an order now to enforce strictly against protestors defacing monuments.
But this one has already become a hyperbole of graffiti.

I’m sometimes stressed out by the possibility that my cell phone microphone is recording my
daily chatter, or that my webcam has been hacked, so it’s kind of a relief when this phenomenal
movement continues, and in Richmond, seems so visually concentrated at the Lee Monument
circle. So vibrant and tangible, and vibrance is something a city strives to be. An exception
seems to have been made by the people of the city, I guess -- to allow the graffiti to become
more than graffiti. For dozens of memorials to be set up neatly all around the base of the statue.
Someone made a fleece stuffed animal for every memorial. I didn’t get the story behind them,
but they were all endearing, odd shapes. Someone left a sack of potatoes and onions at a
memorial shrine. One day, I picked up glass from broken vigil candle jars.

And when I’m there, the issue of killing and fighting, also illegal, are so powerfully painted before
me. And families of victims -- I can’t imagine the burden of acceptance that must fall on them.
I’m a mix of frightened when law and order is jolted/upset. Frightened and inspired because I’ve
been shown/reminded that community decisions develop and grow and space can be made for
people to carry on discourse, and I guess, trespasses sometimes can just be forgiven under the
collective watchful gaze of so many people.

It’s also so warm out, and I am just thinking, hey, it would be exhausting to track down that
many graffiti artists and give them tickets. The number of infractions has become a tremendous
statement, and I’m glad, and embracing the idea. This particular visual, social gathering place
has captivated me and challenged me, and I have heard a potentially controversial opinion --
could the monument be left there and kept the way it is? No, there are too many expletives.

The Richmond police chief stepped down in June, and the mayor cited the need for public
safety reform and the department to embrace change and protect people first. Law can become
a little muddled here when a momentous cause gains such traction in public discourse. The job
of the police has been brought under my examination, and Stoney’s remarks remind me of the
most basic function - public safety.

Public discourse helps me see vividly both the frightening experience of someone being
confronted by police and also understand that police work at times demands a lot of
independent action and decision making. It’s comforting to have their job articulated in simple
terms, and boggling to consider which mistakes in the workplace are forgivable when people’s
lives are on the line. Good that we are examining closely and discussing deeply.

The painted statue pedestal has taught or reminded me about acceptance and public opinion,
and really broadened my perspective on my community. It also reflects VCU’s awesome motto:
“Make it Real.” VCU has a wonderful art school, and I can’t help feeling like this pedestal is an
important piece of art history, and might make a great inspiration for students for years to come
if it were somehow preserved. The 3d photo maps I saw online were really, really cool.

I’m a young person who is learning to “fill in between the lines” and to appreciate that the
society I’m accustomed to is imperfect and full of living moving parts and always changing. That
it’s built with

...time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions
(Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock, T S Eliot.)

I’m grateful for what I have, for my neighborhood law officer - she’s super cool. And full of
respect for BLM.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/richmond-police-chief-resigns-tensions-in-virginia-capital