Guest column by Maya Arthur | How to search for your body (even when in flames)

My body is burning.

Flames sidle up and down my skin. The fire ignites and dies down. It’s a cyclical burn, charring my already black skin. It is a fire of fear, paranoia and simple distrust.

This country has set me on fire.

Before yesterday, I made myself palatable. I gave my body away to be consumed and liked. But right now, this country has fired a gas top, plopped my body and others on a nice, deep, entrenched pan to sizzle for a while. For our bodies to pop. To burn. This country doesn’t want to consume us. They want us burned and tossed away.

How do you search for your body and your livelihood when it’s in flames?

I don’t know all the steps; to be honest, these steps are complicated. They have their own problems and nuances that will be hard to figure out as the years go by. Some steps need to be gone and others gained. Maybe all of them are yet to be written. But as I grapple with the results of this election, my previous complicated feelings towards my identity, my body and my space are increased. And the very ability to even understand and comprehend my body, my ability to ask questions and to actively and critically think of my surroundings are completely threatened.

How do you grasp at resiliency when your country has told you that they hate you and everything you represent? That the majority of people in this country have voted against your very ability to understand yourself because your basic human rights will be stripped?

I don’t know all the steps. And I don’t know the answers to those questions. And frankly, I don’t think I have time to answer those questions. It is apparent that we need to mobilize.

As a community, we need to join other bodies and build upon that fire. Inverse the fire affecting your exterior, and put that fire inside ourselves. So we can ignite and move.

The scapegoating of who’s to blame, the questions as to how this exactly happened, the general shame of the apathy and complacency towards this election? The crying and constant discussion? The complete avoidance of what happened (or what you think is avoidance from others)? They are difficult and problematic and complex. But I understand. These are some of the ways people are coping and reconciling what happened. There is nothing wrong in grieving. I only ask we take care of each other in this time.

And when you are ready, let’s go. Let’s move, but never move on from this circumstance. Let’s take action. Let’s try.

Trump’s whole presidential campaign has been targeted moments, shaping and encouraging the people who have felt saddened, disenfranchised and simply wanted a hold on a supremacy that felt like it was slowly crumbling underneath them. These moments stacked together created a movement. Revolution or Apocalypse?

It depends on the person.

But I say, let’s take it back. Let’s create our own moments, project our own stories, our own histories, let others know that we are together. Trump was not the one who divided this country. Division has been here all along. It just took a face, an image, a persona for others to come together in unison and create what they felt was right and good.

Let’s join together, in solidarity and in unison and light another fire. A fire we want this time.

MAYA ARTHUR is a junior in the College, studying English. She is co-programming chair of the Untied Minorities Council where she’s super invested in all things solidarity.