By Jess Mitchell Managing editor of content
I didn’t get to watch The Oscars last Sunday, but I watched enough of the videos, read enough of the news stories and scrolled through enough BuzzFeed articles to give me a picture of a night that made me regret not tuning in live.
One of my favorite highlights was when Viola Davis won Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Fences,” which completed her journey to achieving the triple crown of acting: winning a Tony, Emmy and Academy Award. This makes her the 23rd person in history, and the first black actress in history, to do so. When I read the transcript of her speech upon receiving that third award to finish off the triple crown, her words blew me away:
“You know, there’s one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered. One place, and that’s the graveyard….I became an artist—and thank God I did—because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”
She beautifully captures one of the essences of being an artist in any medium, whether that be through painting, photography, writing, performance or music. Arguably, any of these art forms have the ability to take what was, what is and what could be and transform that into an expression that touches a part of ourselves we can’t explain. And with Davis’ words, so much of that is by telling people’s stories.
But here’s the sad part about it. Not everyone’s stories are being told. Not everyone’s stories are being shared as much as others’. And some stories that need to be shared are not reaching those who need them the most. Odds are, there are stories and lives being lived you know nothing about with struggles that are unfamiliar to you. But they are no less important than your own.
As someone who has grown up with high societal privileges, it is my responsibility to recognize them and realize they are not earned. I need to hear what’s going on in other people’s lives and do my best to listen, to try to understand as much as I can and then do something about the injustices.
This goes especially for people of privilege: for the white population, for the male population, for those whose religions are favored, for those who are deemed “physically able,” for those who don’t have to worry about finances and survival on a daily basis and the list goes on.
But the key here is to not just say we’re going to be better, but to say we’re going to be more inclusive or supportive of all people. It’s not even enough to listen. We need to do better. We need to do more. We need action.
And why do we do this? It’s not for an award. It’s not for one group to dominate another. It’s for giving everyone a life that, for them, is full of acceptance, love, equality, justice and fulfillment. It’s to celebrate life of all kinds.
The editorials of The Quill reflect the views of individual members of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the entire editorial board or of the university. The content of the Forum page is the responsibility of the editor in chief and the Forum editor.
