February is the national Black History Month in the United States. This is a way of remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. I understand so many hurt souls have been mistreated for a long time. As it is never too late to have a space for discussion of social justice, this week in common art we started a group-based art project focused on it. Using a black marker to draw a line, each person connected to the line of the next person. After creating a group image of a line, we created art to express our intention toward a social issue we cared about. ( I want to thank my professor for bringing our class the idea of the structure for this exercise.)

During the creative process, I was thinking about how I could be more aware of my privilege, how I should be aware all the time, and how I could take better care of my community.  I struggled with a sense of frustration at my inadequacy. Suddenly, however, I found that the key is to keep myself curious before judgment. What I mean is that unlearning can sometimes be as important as learning, like our brain functioning (this idea was inspired by one of our participants at common art). Society and its rules will keep improving as we work for social justice, so there is nothing Right and Wrong. Although right enough at the moment, our core value will probably seem traditional and inconclusive in the future; that’s when we will need to relearn something. Relearning is a process of unlearning oppressive rules, patterns, and systems and then learning something again from a different perspective. Even if the process is a little awkward and uncomfortable, and it is easy to make a “mistake,” I am here to learn, unlearn, and relearn.