Advocacy

Looking in the mirror I see my scars, messy curls, and oversized shirt, as I try to fix myself up for the day. Sometimes I don’t want to pick up my phone because society is just depressing. Over the summer, social media was filled with constant Black deaths, which made this pandemic even harder to go through as a Black woman. Every day it was another child missing, another Black life lost, another Black Trans woman killed, another white woman abusing a Black person. After all this pain, I’d still see people online maintaining their disrespect of Black women.

Growing up with a fully Japanese grandmother and a half-Japanese mother, I have often seen them take hits from racists over their skin color, eye shape, face shape, and my grandmother’s accent. I have heard a cacophony of racist names thrown with precision at my family, and yes, chink thrown at me. I even, once, was called a “dumb Asian,” and I just laughed at the reverse stereotyping he had tried to pull on me. 

I woke up this morning crying for people I do not know  
And I didn’t have to relate them to my Uncle or Aunt or Mother or Brother.
I woke up this morning and I missed their luminous smile.
I missed the way their lungs filled with oxygen and released carbon dioxide.
I missed the way heat radiated off their body. 
the way the blood pumped through their veins. 
the way their pupils dilated at the sight of a loved one.  
I missed the way their voice chimed in the open air. 

Warning - be aware this piece contains potentially disturbing content, on the occasion of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (further information below article).

Join Marwah, Lizz, and guest Taylor Lamb (UVa CLAS '18 and former Editor of Iris Magazine!) as they explore the ways digital culture interacts with race, gender, and other identities, thinking about their own experiences on and off social media.

Episode 2 amplifies and deepens the conversation hosts Lizz and Marwah had with activist and author Zyahna Bryant in episode 1. In this episode, Lizz and Marwah hear from two UVA undergraduate women of color, Caroline and Lauren, as they discuss what it means to belong—and not belong—at a predominantly white institution, and how they both advocate for shared spaces.

JUST GIRLY THINGS: a Horror Checklist of Real and Surreal Thoughts from Poetic Hell

Here lies a body of words which arrived at my window one night in jagged fragments and forced me to make their cacophony into a less than sophisticated arrangement of reverbs: 

In the first official introduction to Hues, Lizz and Marwah are joined by special guest Zyahna Bryant -- renowned student activist, community organizer, and University of Virginia first-year student. Together they discuss what it means to navigate predominantly white spaces as women of color, exposing and exploring the very real lived experiences that statistics alone can't capture. 

Y’all cannot understand how much work and excitement and time has gone into this project.

Maybe this TRAILER will help. Please watch and spread the word.

Last month I found myself sitting around a stranger’s kitchen table with a group of sexual assault survivors and co-conspirators, plotting.