Introduction
In this selection of past Radix submissions, students call for nuanced, caring approaches through which all are treated with dignity.
Selected Artwork and Writing
Universal Compassion and Radical Empathy
Embracing Human Complexity and Diverse Identities
In “A Humble Hymn to Something” (Summer 2017 pg. 17), Alice Damiano meditates on the value of breaking down rigid categories that work to exclude and seeking to honor experiences and identities outside dualistic frameworks:
I feel so distressed
when I hear someone saying
“Everything or nothing
and there’s no third way”
Why should I limit
one thousand options to two
why should I approximate
until I lose the clue
Why should I label people,
as well as myself
as perfect or awful,
as normal or strange
Why should I replace
a colour picture with black and white
why should I describe the world
in darkness and light”
Inclusion as the Language of Cultivating Connection & Relationships
For if you don’t belong you cannot be?
Yet be you must,
in words you can.
You see, the wheels once turned into a room.
Lone room of one. Lively and well, in they went.
Neck braced, immobile, she lay.
“No French, no English” the lone woman said.
She looked, I saw. Belong I thought, insist.
Resist she did not, Farsi it was.
Iran I did not see. Swipe of my screen.
At Salam, a smile. To Haleh shoma chetor ast?
A nod, a tear, hope in a glim.
Smiles returned, a life’s battle message passed, good luck my friend.
Inch’Allah you replied, Inch’Allah you spoke.
I do not know of any God. I do not know where you begone.
But there, on the clean cold clinical linoleum, we spoke and we belonged.
Language tied and cast its net. For if there is one in who I know, albeit distrust be such.
Language divine is such. For sometimes, if the language we all speak we hear, then we can be.
Language in Babel did not disperse. For two hearts know the Language that belongs.
Putting Aside Prejudices & Crafting a Space of Belonging
Michael Clarke’s “Stereotype, a Definition” (November 2014 pg. 6) addresses the flawed and biased nature nature of stereotypes. An antidote is "seeing with Love:"
A static formulation of an individual;
hearsay.
To anticipate behaviour without prior substantiation.
A judgement formed a priori.
To disallow complexity.
To indulge in oversimplicity.
To deny Truth its gray vestments and vague vespers.
To yield to Confirmation Bias; see Pattern Recognition
(Psychology).
To indiscriminate.
To inherit the assumptions of one’s immanent culture.
To unwittingly bastardize a people; see xenophobia.
To yield to Arguments from Authority; see filial piety.
To believe without knowledge.
To understand without compassion.
To see without Love.
To laugh without smiling.
Edward Ross’s “Shells” captures painful feelings of rejection when others are unable to see beyond outward appearance (November 2014 pg. 17):
It is my skin.
It keeps me warm in winter wind.
It is my safety,
and it’s my home,
but outside of it
I can not roam.
My shell is the part
that most will see.
It does not make up
the whole of me.
The outside part
feels like a gaffe.
When others see it,
they only laugh.
I did not know
that so much pain
could come from those
who are so vain.
They judge my shell,
with a long leer,
for its colour, its shape,
why is unclear.
If it is green or red,
or short or tall,
it does not mean
you know me at all.
I am who I am.
I am not someone else.
Get to know me first.
Judge me for myself.
Envisioning Heaven
If I were to have a heaven it would be open to all
As long as you don’t make other people fall
My heaven would help the people on Earth
to see that maybe their heaven is right where they are
I’d visit hell and Earth also as often as I should
Because I’m only human and I might need to remember why my heaven is so good
If you had a heaven what would yours be? Would I be in it? Would you have lots of trees?
Write me a letter and mail it to my heaven
Resisting Cultural and Social Exclusion
Sarah Bell advocates for Indigenous peoples and their rights in "Untitled" (January 2014 pg. 13), a call for Truth and Reconciliation, compassion, and inclusion:
people aren’t meant to be shot at turning brother
against brother
people aren’t meant to hit one another
to leave each other battered and bruised
people aren’t meant to walk around with broken
hearts
and to see nothing but pain
people aren’t meant to be forced to speak another language
people aren’t meant to be taken away from their
mothers, their fathers
people aren’t meant to be missing
to be murdered
to be taken advantage of
to be stripped of all that they know
to be reduced to a shell
so how do we undo the pain that has been wrought upon these people
perhaps let’s start with
people were meant to be connected to one another,
to the earth
and to their people
to speak in their native tongue
to sing songs that have been passed on and on from
mothers to daughters and fathers to sons
