Wind sounds

MIKA COOK-WRIGHT (they/them)

wind sounds examines a personal encounter with racism through the vault of trauma and similar negative memories this moment brings up. it exists within the context of personal, ancestral, and collective memories, particularly, those of ancestral trauma. wind connects physical locations in the same way that memories connect bodies across time and space; the memories/experiences/anxieties in my body have been shaped by bodies that came before. I hope this carves out a space for nonblack people to think about not merely the trauma they inflict, but the trauma they awaken.

accompanying text: have you ever made me feel safe? Do I trust you? Are you any different from the never ending stream & dull drone of hatred from people who look like you? Are you the stream? Are you a rock in it? Do you understand that it is as clear cut as this: either you wake up every day with an intention to dismantle white supremacy in every facet, or you don’t think white supremacy is that dire of an issue?

speech from wind sounds:

I have a thing about doors and locks. When I go to bed I check ridiculous places for people hiding. The 6 inch by 12 inch drawer of a desk. I check to see if there is a man in there. Behind the paper thin curtains I think there could be two men hiding. I think a man could scale the completely flat face of this building and break into my third floor window. On the other side of the door there are dead eyed police. Every footstep is a cop, a man, or both.

That helicopter is coming for me. Those distant sirens are for me. I wonder which father-son neighborhood watch duo will come for me, I wonder where they’re hiding. I’m a mile deep into the woods, off the path, and I look around for cameras. I wonder how many snipers are in the grass, which car as I walk home, will swerve off the road and into someone’s yard, just to mow me down on the sidewalk.

there is no reason for people like you to feel what you call, "fear,"