A couple of weeks ago a new color was born. It was brought to life by the Pantone Color institute and named after a phenomenon, roughly half of all human beings have to deal with. Something that is, however, as Pantone’s campaign states, still often considered shameful and a taboo — the period. It was covered, with great attention, by the international media, from The Guardian to The New York Times, and generally described as a fight against a stigma. Yet it was not only the symbolic power of the new color’s name, whose promotion of social change deserved to…
The rejection of at least two ‘white translators’, to translate Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb”, hit the news today. Two more thoughts on that.
It surely appears reasonable to remove white people from the job to translate Amanda Gorman’s poem, and put young black female translators in charge instead. Besides the persisting importance to give more voice and visibility to underrepresented groups, there is a lot of truth to the expression and trouble of “walking in some else’s shoes”. There will always be elements of racism impossible for white people to comprehend. Above all when they are expressed and discussed between the lines of a poem. There is certainly the need for certain groups to stay silent about particular problems, and rather listen. This…
An attempt to give a voice to a younger version of myself, that was not able to find the right words.
“I do not want to have to identify as a woman.
I want to identify as human.
I do not want to have to fit into one of two categories.
Just to be recognized as human.
I want my female properties to be acknowledged as a part of my humanness.
Myself to be an expression of the human versatileness.
A humanity which, as we have learned,
is far too complex to be reduced to a robust division of two,
a binary conception,
throughout history and times.
I do not want to be classified for how I dress. How I behave…
Bernadette Weber
A documentarist, editorial contributor, and doctoral researcher in ethics. Austrian, Italian background, based in Spain, active all across Europe.
