When we conceptualize our nation as an ecosystem, our national and societal wounds — and their urgent need for repair — become deeply apparent. Despite this dire need for healing, it is also society’s responsibility to strive toward that reparation — to strive to nourish, to thrive effectively and efficiently. Michigan in Color’s was established in pursuit of healing and education. And while we attempt to distinguish ourselves as a section, we must continue with dignity and unwavering reclamation: The kind of resonance we can use to amplify your sentiments, stories, ideas and truth — inspiring a community understanding and safety. A creation of a new form of justice.
Despite society’s superficial attempts to placate people of color, this space was created to actualize empowerment and flourishing in a nurturing community until these safe spaces are not an abnormality, but an expectation.
The people have shown us the amount of revolution that can happen in just a few short months. They have further elucidated— there exists a dire need for a nuanced approach to political and social movements, with knowledge of our historical past championed by the minority. We have learned that revolutions begin with education. We intend to start off the year on that note and ensure that the movement lives unapologetically in our work. To our amazing summer managing editors, Gabrijela Skoko and Cheryn Hong, we thank you for bringing the fire and diligence to MiC that allowed this section to be a platform for that education, and we thank all of our amazing writers for providing us with content that could enlighten week after week. Let’s keep it rolling.
Michigan in Color’s work is grounded in ancestral and world knowledge, pursuing and springboarding valuable change with empathy and unity. In everything we do, we hope to inspire others to center intersectional voices, injustices and systems of oppression in order to properly establish a route toward restorative justice. In doing this, one will inevitably learn about the surprisingly universal ways in which we have all experienced life; we are not as different as we may proclaim to be. The colonial violence that oppresses Black people in America is the same that oppresses Palestinians across the ocean, is the same that separates immigrant families at the border, is the same that draws district lines and upholds systemic poverty and mass incarceration. It is intolerable, if not deplorable, that a small fraction of the population, the billionaire elite, are given the power to destroy and exploit the environment to the exponential degree that they have. The voices we give a platform to in our space are voices of change, ones that have experienced some degree of oppression and who work to actively deconstruct the systems perpetuating that oppression. These voices and our editors strive to empower individuals and bridge communities, but most importantly and overwhelmingly to incite transformation, to incite revolution.
This is a call to action. A call to join the ceaseless fight until all of our communities have the same access to opportunity that we have as students at this University. A call to requiring and demanding dignity and respect as a human right. To expose and dispose of systems and mechanisms that use “—the consistent application of violent solutions to nonviolent, and often nonexistent, problems.” Michigan in Color needs your energy and your art, your peace and your presence, not only as tangible documentation of our dissatisfactions, but also of our jubilations.
To the university and to communities across campus, it is not enough to be aware. “Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best as they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands;” why is it radical to demand what our nature inclines?
We urge all readers to continue to learn and unlearn. Continue to question the systems that we are voluntarily and involuntarily a part of. Continue to readjust your lens when a new angle is presented — having the difficult conversations along with the joyful ones.
We urge all artists, all creators to continue sharing your stories with MiC and in general. We are currently hiring columnists, bloggers and graphic designers. If you are a student of color interested in contributing click here to apply and learn more about open positions. You do not need to hold one or any of these positions to write for the section, we accept contributions regularly, which you can submit to our email: michiganincolor@umich.edu. Do not underestimate your voice or your intellect — they are the foundations of peace and revolution, of hope and understanding and they are integral to societal development.
“There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now” – James Baldwin