In, Not Of

In, Not Of 

“If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you.” 

                                                                                                                    - John 15:18-19

"The movement of things can be felt and touched and exists in language and in fantasy, it is flight, it is motion, it is fugitivity itself. Fugitivity is not only escape, “exit” as Paolo Virno might put it, or ‘exodus' in the terms offered by Hardt and Negri, fugitivity is being separate from settling.”

                                                                               - Jack Halberstam, The Undercommons

I take a really interesting class on the Black Radical Tradition, both to be able to complete my credits for my degree but also to get to get a true assessment of whether or not I am a revolutionary.

I have been told that I am different. I hold beliefs that are essentially contrarian. Too complicated. Too dismissive. Maybe even ungodly? So for a minute I convinced myself of this exceptionalism. My eyes were open. I could see clearly. And I could critique the country with no fear, critique Republicans with no fear, and critique whiteness, male-hood, the and others with more dreary eyes than mine with no fear. But through all of that, my life and journey have remained the same.

Being in, not being of. That was what I was battling with today. Despite the exceptionalism I convinced myself of, I was—am—still an active participant in this mediocracy. Professionalism, sanitized messages, bake sales, and galas. Pomp and circumstance and other ornate things that were hallow and, frankly, rotted. I’ve been swallowed up in proving my potential for production, rather than enjoying being a student. Not even enjoying, just being a student. I, embarrassingly up to this point, believed that I’m an object of labor in production, much like that of a tractor or an iPhone.

In, not of. What does it mean to lead a revolution, but first I have to register the protest and get funding approved? What does it mean to lead a revolution, but have to ask to take space anywhere on campus? What is revolution without imaginary? A revolution within bounds?

And what’s more, why do I seek to get recognition from here? I’ve worked so hard, advocated for space, for counseling, for any comforts from an institution that teaches to destroy. That makes me invisible and quiet. Why would I want to be appeased, comforted, therapized by this façade? This phantom? How can I expect to be fed from something so hollow and barren? Indebted to a place that mechanizes us?

In, not of. The university was a fixed star in my sky. What I believed would take me north. But as my sky loses its equilibrium and as the field shifts, I’m called to the fugitivity of the underground, where the liberation will make me knowledgable.