It is now post-American Independence Day and as a result, I feel something like a patriotic hangover.
The beginning of July leaves me hot and irritable. I go back and forth on my opinions of hot dogs and fireworks, and in recent years have come to blatantly detest that the way we support and nurture the idea of “nationalism” is not kept more in check. The indoctrination of pledging allegiance to a country we don’t know anything about as children is WILD if you think about it. I mean, why not foster a superiority complex and perhaps distrust of the rest of the world while we’re young?
My Independence Days have been particularly charged as of late and I feel like I just can’t channel my dissent into anything productive, let alone creative. Typically an inflammatory post (or three) makes its way onto the internet but afterward, I am still dissatisfied and thinking about how I’m just stirring the melting pot.
How is this connected to being an ex-dancer? Why, thanks for asking.
It’s connected by the memory I have of referencing the glory of patriotism in one of my dance solos I did in high school that I choreographed myself. It’s connected because in college for my dance degree, the failings of our government, especially regarding art, were not stressed enough, or they were and it simply went in one ear and out the other and I feel remorse for that, (or possibly it’s a combination of both). It’s connected to the fact that art can be a tool for activism, ideological exploration, and expression and that I am only now beginning to tap into the potential of what art can communicate. I am also mourning the fact that I did not do enough of that when I was dancing so fervently. All of this I’d like to explore further in future posts.
Thankfully I recognize that this platform is a new way for me to participate in artistic activism in a way that makes sense to me in this current moment (see top of page). And a platform, however small, is also a good way to uplift artists that are already using their voices to be evocative, enact change, and inspire through their creativity.
So, in the interest of celebrating the America I believe in and want to see, below is a humble compilation of art and artists that have heartened me. I hope you explore at least some of these and take a page from their proverbial books. I know I hope to.
It’s NEVER too late to let the artist in you begin to explore how to share the thoughts and feelings that are sometimes too difficult to bring up in conversation at your next social gathering, after all— art can be beautiful and it can be uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make people think and feel and to challenge and expose gaps in our thinking and feeing. Why do we continue to don red, white, and blue? What has our country done for us lately? What is it planning to do?
I encourage you to lean in.
postscript: please share other artists that inspire you with their activism in the comments!
postpostscript: at the end of the post you’ll find a link where you can send an email to your congressperson. Just type in your zip code and message and it will do the rest of the work for you. I am sharing what I recently sent to my congressional reps because A. sometimes we all need a jumping-off point and B. it is the first thing I’ve sent to my representatives and I am proud of it.
postpostpostscript: the exploration of some of these big topics that I glossed over in here, I am aiming to expand in further posts.
PODCASTS:
BOOKS/AUTHORS:
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Water Dancer by Ta’Nehisi Coates
Anything by Octavia E. Butler but Kindred in a must read.
Visit Octavia’s Bookshelf in Pasadena, CA which features exclusively BIPOC authors.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams
The World We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara
CHICAGO BASED ART + EXHIBITIONS:
The National Puerto Rican Museum — liminal: LGBTQ+ Chicago - Boricua Imaginings Exhibit running through Feb 15, 2025.
The National Museum of Mexican Art — Yollocali Arts Reach, youth artists of 2023 running through Aug 23, 2024.
The Chicago Art Institute — Georgia O’Keefe Exhibit running through Sept 22, 2024.
WRITE TO YOUR CONGRESSPERSON:
MOVE TO IMPEACH JUSTICES ROBERTS, THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, BARRETT.
I urge you to move to impeach Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. They have proven to be partisan in their rulings with no regard for precedent or maintaining impartiality. They are overtly corrupt in collecting bribes, flaunting their lack of accountability, not recusing themselves when there is conflict of interest, and passing rulings that personally benefit themselves. This is not the "GOOD BEHAVIOR" that is required for them to maintain their positions of power and they are doing an unconscionable injustice to the American people. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO INVEST IN AND SHAPE A CONSERVATIVE AMERICA. Statistics show that the majority of Americans do not support their recent decisions. They are serving their own ideologies and stripping civil rights and liberties. Conservative beliefs do not have to mean dismantling the country’s humanity and moving us backward by generations.
Please fight for our rights. Talk honestly and persuasively with your fellow congress members that serve alongside you. No rational person should overlook the recent decisions. Do not let them criminalize homeless people. Do not let them enable a president to behave as a king and dictator. Do not allow corporations to poison us downstream.
Do not allow Americans to be silenced and imprisoned! We, who are not lawyers and are uneducated on the overcomplicated nature of our government; we, who are caught in the cycle of corporate greed that refuses to let us rest and shift our attention away from day-to-day survival; we, who are inundated with clickbait news articles and have become desensitized to our own rights being infringed upon.
I know you are also overworked, underpaid, and no doubt struggling to keep up with your own family and life but please do not let the most powerful court in the world get away with oppressing what it should be protecting.
There must be a way to bring the Justices to justice.
Thank you for your time,
Jessica Hublick