My armor of tears

Talk of the Quad: The broken container

Last year, I was in Paris during the terrorist attacks, and I don’t know how to tell that story. Similarly, I don’t know how to tell the story about Trump’s recent election. But there seems to be a strange and shivering thread between the two events. Both violent, painful, chaotic. Yet Paris was somewhat contained. This election is not—the common mantra being, “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
We tell stories to make meaning of trauma—to contain pain so we can better examine it and give it value. But sometimes we are in such distress that the container cracks. We can no longer write or speak in the same way, we can no longer contain the pain or carry it comfortably.
Paris: the cherry glow of sirens, the bitter cold, windows slamming shut, a vacant Eiffel Tower. Alternatively: my friend who calmly held my hand, the family member who made a quiche, a café filled with people drinking champagne the next day.
Either it becomes a story of horror and fear, which you’ve already heard, or a story of healing and bravery, which feels mawkish and insincere.
I think we dislike narratives which exist in gray, uncertain space. We want them to have logic, to land on one side of a binary—tragedy or comedy, conflict resolved or broken open, a character whose biggest desire is fulfilled or wrenched from them completely. Climax, falling action, resolution.
But trauma, especially when it first occurs, isn’t a neat and tidy narrative. Sometimes there is no narrative at all.
The New Yorker recently featured a piece in which 16 writers weighed in on the election. As my friend Marie Scarles observed, “There are so many different versions of why Trump won, and so many ways for us to imagine the future. Should we pay more attention to poor whites? To Muslims? To women? To LGBTQ? To racists? To immigrants? All seem urgent, but none can be held as the be-all-end-all.”
We are searching for a straightforward answer, an immediate ending so this can be over and done with.
After the election, hunched over my carrel in H-L and unable to write, I got a text message from my father: “Trauma turns us into animals, which means story-telling turns off. We revert to fight, flight or shock.” But sometimes, maybe our storytelling tendencies shutting down is a good thing. Maybe it allows us to survive. Narratives can be healing, but they can also be dangerous.
By attending to many different perspectives, perhaps a new story will eventually arise, something both nuanced and messy, something which contains many strands. Perhaps it will be a story of hope but a particular kind of hope, which Rebecca Solnit describes as “an ax you break down doors with in an emergency … [it] should shove you out the door.”
For now, we are living in uncertainty. The story is that there is no story—at least no singular one—which means there is no singular conflict, no one resolution. I wish I had a coherent story to tell about Paris, but I don’t. For me, the container is still broken open, as it is now for America post-election. This means we must listen to each other, and listen carefully.
Raisa Tolchinsky is a member of the Class of 2017.

Talk of the Quad: #activism

The day of the Women’s March, I received a record number of likes on an Instagram post. As I scrolled through my feed on that day, I saw iterations of the same picture over and over. Each featured a crowd of women, many of who were wearing pink hats and holding signs denouncing Trump and his beliefs in one way or another. Each photo also had a substantial number of likes. As I scrolled through the photos of the Women’s March, double-tapping with wild abandon and delighting over the accolades pouring in on my own post, I had a thought: how many people marched “for the ’gram?” Was I one of them?
Although I loved the attention from my Instagram post, and I did put great care into choosing the most aesthetically appealing photo, I know that I did not march for the ’gram. I marched because of fear and concern and love and because it was my civic duty. The problem is this: when I posted to Instagram, was I reducing my action, and the action of others, to a photo op? How should I feel about the fact that instead of posting a photo focusing on the movement as a whole, I made a post focused on why I, as an individual, was in attendance?
The march was flawed in that it excluded many groups: the focus on vaginas excluded trans women, tickets to D.C. and other locations were expensive, those who had to work or take care of family were not able to participate and the March was not accommodating to those with disabilities. Because it was a crowd filled with middle-class white women, law enforcement was respectful and we were not perceived as a threat. The privilege that allowed the Women’s March to be so successful and so momentous is the same privilege that limited it from being an all-inclusive march. I see the Women’s March as a place of privilege, a place of self-aggrandizement but equally so as a place of empowerment, unity, hope and the conception of a movement that needs to continue. The March was for an umbrella of issues. It was a way to say “We’re here! Listen to us!”
Marches and petitions and action in the future need to be more focused and more specific, but for the first day of the new administration, I think that the Women’s March, although flawed in many ways, was what it needed to be.
Instagram activism is flawed in a similar way. By avoiding controversy as much as possible, marchers and Instagrammers alike were able to receive support and generate positive attention. However, by not addressing the flaws of the March, was I complicit in the exclusion of key groups? Was I reinforcing the exclusionary feminism that I so deeply aim to avoid? And what is the effect of widespread social media coverage of political events? Does seeing Instagrams of protests teach people that they can have a part in the government and in making change, or does it teach them that they can look cute holding a sign? Just as the Trump memes desensitized us from the threat of his actions, do well-framed photos from protests desensitize us from the immediacy of the cause? Is liking an Instagram post enough? Is making an Instagram post enough? Is showing up enough? Probably not. It is a right to march but a privilege to feel safe while doing so. It is a right to have free speech but a privilege to have overwhelmingly positive responses. To not use those privileges would be unfair—I just hope I am using them in a productive way.
Nina Alvarado-Silverman is a member of the Class of 2019.

Talk of the Quad

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Kiyoko H. Nakamura-Koyama

Contributor

December 9, 2016

When my little sister Taye was two, I would try to hold her and she would respond with small teeth in my flesh. When she was five, she was ordered to the principal’s office almost every week. When she was 14, she would puff up her chest and demand, “Say that to my face.” I idolized her ability to stand up against mini white supremacists that pulled their eyes back and stuck out their teeth. But even the greatest fighters are not invincible. As I watched her mature, her skin became so thick from such micro-aggressions that she drew pictures on her arm with a knife to make sure she could still bleed. We both squeezed our eyes shut at night and prayed to wake up white.

The sky dripped rain the day my little sister died, I remember vividly. It was the end of my first year at Bowdoin. She hung herself next to a short dress from T.J.Maxx and a forgotten kimono.

Feeling endless sorrow, I now fight for Taye. So many people argue that people of color are thin-skinned, but I argue the depth of people of color’s emotions has built armor. Thick skin is not in spite of emotions, but because of emotions. I watched as peers with emotions as deep as wells courageously made themselves vulnerable by picking up microphones, speaking at Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) meetings, sitting on panels, holding up “Can we talk?” signs after the “tequila” party—making noble attempts to harmonize a microcosm of humanity.

I wrapped myself in armor out of my grief for my sister. However, I learned quickly that having thick skin means people want to see you bleed. By the end of my sophomore year I took on a public fight with the former president of BSG to instate a multicultural representative and by the end of my junior year my voice—my freedom of speech—was marked “unbecoming of a Bowdoin student” and I was abruptly silenced. At the end of that year, I told a faculty member that I felt like someone had violently cut holes through my body and I didn’t know how to stop the bleeding. I was ashamed because I thought the holes were a manifestation of thin skin.

When I saw the reactions rising on Asian Student Association’s Facebook albums: “#ThisIs2016,” I was thrilled that different micro-aggressions towards Asians were being validated. When I held up my sign, “I guess you’re pretty… for an Asian,” I looked into a dark lens that would soon be viewed by over 7 million people. Anonymous eyes scrutinized my face before typing out, “they lied”; “you’re not pretty”; “you’re lucky someone even thinks you’re attractive”; and “most Asians are pretty, just not you.” I heard Taye’s voice, “Say that to my face.”

But I surprised myself: I cried.

I’m beginning to believe that the tears on my cheeks are not a sign of weakness. My emotions give me the strength to step into situations that those who have thin skin may never dare to take on. The courage that’s necessary to take a stand and the inevitable repercussive stabs hurt like hell. And even though the greatest fighters are not invincible, they leave legacies. My sister’s legacy gifted me the emotions that have helped me construct an armor of thick skin. So make me bleed the Niagara Falls. My tears only make me stronger.

Kiyoko H. Nakamura-Koyama is a member of the Class of 2017.

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