Breathing In Slowly

We Speak is a poster and blog campaign featuring ten young women who are speaking up about their relationships with mental health and how it informs their identities. Part of Launch: Stamps School of Art and Design’s Senior Thesis Exhibition at the University of Michigan, it will be featured at Work Gallery - Ann Arbor in the exhibition opening on Friday, April 18th from 6-9. The show will remain up through May 3rd. 

In the past year, the ten young women featured in the poster portion of We Speak came face to face with the state of our mental health. Our stories, carefully and honestly written, are meant to start a conversation about a topic that many of us wish we could ignore. But these are our realities, and in sharing them, we want to start chipping away at the stigma that often keeps us feeling weak and alone.

In addition to the original ten participants, everyone is encouraged to consider sharing their own story about mental health. By contributing your experiences, you can help open the discussion about the importance of mental health and tear down the stigma that keeps it so hidden. By sharing this project, you can foster support.

Because you know, when you’re the tank in a group, you’re taking the hits. Which is kind of what the first expression is aiming for.

This is not about personal preference. My feelings about the people on this list range from adoration to indifference to disgust. But none of these people had as positive reaction as Laverne Cox and Lupita Nyong’o did. In fact, many of them actually have a higher percentage of “no” than “yes”. With the exception of Benedict Cumberbatch, Laverne Cox received more reactions than anybody else, AND she has one of the highest “yes” percentages of anybody on the voting list.

So what is the point of voting, if the results of the voting don’t matter? We were told to vote for who we believed should be on the list, we did, and two of the people who received the most affirmative votes were not included.

So what was the point? Did you include them in the voting as some sort of kick-back, or an attempt to placate their fans, without any intention of including them? You included Megyn Kelly in a list entitled “pioneers”, and yet Laverne Cox has done more pioneering for the rights and interests of trans women than Megyn Kelly has ever done. You included two men who run dictatorships and commit human right violations routinely, people in media who haven’t really done anything spectacular within their fields, two politicians who had overwhelmingly negative reactions and…the Koch brothers?

Perhaps you had other criteria for the title “influential”. Perhaps a trans woman who campaigns for the rights and awareness of issues relating to trans women (one of the most denigrated groups in the world) didn’t meet that standard. Perhaps being awarded several humanitarian-related awards and being the key note speaker at several events wasn’t enough. Perhaps a woman who dares to speak out about these issues at the risk of her very identity being derided and attacked, because she wants to make her community better and she wants to help young girls just like her accept themselves and grow up in a better world just wasn’t influential enough for you.

And I guess a young actress who swept the awards season isn’t what you would call influential. I guess a woman who took on an emotionally trying role in a film that highlighted the atrocities on our nation’s past wasn’t good enough. A dark skinned woman who has just been deemed the most beautiful woman in the world, bringing hope and happiness to millions of black girls and women who are often insulted because of their skin—that just didn’t quite meet the same standards as being in a few films in one year. 

Or maybe, just maybe, the accomplishments of these two women challenge societal norms too much. Maybe what they have done and what they stand for is too uncomfortable for your readership and your editor. Maybe you just think the people the Koch brothers and Rand Paul influence are more important than the people Laverne and Lupita influence.

Submitted by: dreamsofsugarplumcakes

RAW VEGAN RECIPE: Nutella Lärabars by Dreams of Sugar Plum Cakes (Celestina)…RECIPE

These Lärabars come with a secret.

There’s no Nutella in these.

BUT, there is cocoa (or cacao, if you prefer) and there are hazelnuts, and it tastes quite a bit like Nutella, so I am going to continue calling these Nutella Lärabars.