This I Believe...
There's Rih welcoming you to my first blog post!! Let's get started!
Writing has always been my primary, if not only, way to express my doubts, emotions, and ponderings. As long as I can remember I have kept vivid journals detialing the dumbest drama to the most intense life questions.
So, as I was thinking of my first blog post I thought back to my last year of high school (okay yes, this was about a month ago lol) when I was tasked with a short writing project where I had to lay out my beliefs.
For anyone who knows me this is both easy and hard; easy because I have an opinion about everyhting and I love sharing them but hard because how in the world am I supposed to fit that into under 400 words.
As always, I went as close to the word maximum as possible and now have the intense ramblings of my brain here to share with you. This seems like it is the best way to kick off this blog in explaining the amalgamation of beliefs and feelings that make me who I am. This blog will have fashion articles, social justice articles, and thinkpieces so get ready for a true intersectional blend of what the fashion and journalism industries really should be.
Thanks for reading xoxo (see below for This I Believe essay)
I believe it is important to get angry, to scream, and to cry. I believe it is more important to care too much than to care too little. I believe having a passionate opinion about your favorite flavor of hummus is just as vital as your passionate opinion about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I believe that all humans deserve respect but not all deserve kindness. I believe that those who disrespect you or something you care about aren't owed a smile in the hallway. I believe it is better to scream than to stay silent. I believe that it is an injustice to think that kindness to those who are systemically oppressing others will work or change them.
I believe that loving yourself beyond reproach will affect every portion of your life and those lives around you. I believe that if someone cheats on you, you should under no circumstance stay with that person. I believe that being neutral on anything is a sin. I believe that neutrality is the most negative emotion.
I believe that it is better to be hated than to be liked by all. I believe it is better to be ostracized by those who don't deserve you, than to put up with immaturity and bigotry just to “fit in”.
I believe that being young is a mentality and not a quantitative variable. I believe that embracing aging and everything it comes along with is important. I believe that women's bodies and souls are the first and most vital lifegiving source of everything good in this world. I believe that being taught that self-sacrifice is all-important is the first wrong thing we are taught.
I believe that teachers should be paid as much as the president. I believe that the militarized race soldiers we call police should be disbanded. I believe that the internalized teaching of criminalization of black and brown bodies is a state tactic to enforce racism and continue capitalism.
I believe that men are trash. I believe generalizations about those who oppress are important to the sanity of those oppressed. I believe that straight men are the most dense group of people I have ever met. I believe that any straight man offended by that statement should seriously reanalyze how angry that makes them compared to how blase they are about actual injustice.
I believe that boundless honesty can cure anything. I believe that Gen Z female anarchists will change the world. I believe that standing firm in your beliefs will make you a happier, healthier person.
I believe that reclamation of words and phrases has been a saving grace for oppressed peoples. I believe that the United States is a crumbling edifice that has lived on exploitation and imperialism since its birth. I believe that the base of the United States never has been, is not, and never will be great. I believe that the military uses vulnerable people to act as pawns in their grand scheme of who can kill more people for more oil and wealth. I believe there is no length to which the United States government will not go to in order to make more money.
I believe that Rihanna is the queen of the world and that it isn’t stupid or unimportant to venerate someone who has been the only genuine role model in my young life. I believe that no matter how frustrating anything can be, sisterhood, a good book, and a solid iced chai tea latte can brighten your day.