CONNECT has helped me reflect on the ways in which racism shapes my responses, or lack of response, to the world. On the day of the 2016 election, I found myself resigned to at best absolute hopelessness and at worst numbness. As a biracial man, millennial, artist, and individual with obsessive-compulsive disorder, I often find myself both passionately invested in and militantly distracted from the long arc of social and political life in our nation. As much as I would like to believe that racism has not been a primary ordering force in my life, I have come to realize that my tendency to isolate, hyper-focus, and theorize has roots in the defense mechanisms I developed as the sole minority in a small conservative New England town. Given my isolation, I decided that the best way to handle trouble was to be nowhere near it in the first place, prioritizing my own safety and comfort as a sort of moral good.
After CONNECT, I’ve come to the conclusion that evidence of comfort is not particularly comforting evidence. It seems many people, even those who have a broad understanding of history like myself, find themselves stranded on a plateau, uncertain whether to celebrate nominal individual gains or risk instability for a better but unforeseeable future. As it turns out, a sincere and honest dialogue can be the first step to pushing through this inertia. Our sessions offered a middle ground between an ascetic self-preservation and my borderline fanatic experience as a community organizer, both of which were unsustainable and spiritually impoverishing lifestyles. Exposure to diversity of thought and experience in such an intentional and intimate environment has revitalized my faith both in myself and the world at large. If more groups of this nature existed, I have no doubt that a wide variety of people might be pushed towards their own proactive and idiosyncratic truth.
— Alexander Crockett
After CONNECT, I’ve come to the conclusion that evidence of comfort is not particularly comforting evidence. It seems many people, even those who have a broad understanding of history like myself, find themselves stranded on a plateau, uncertain whether to celebrate nominal individual gains or risk instability for a better but unforeseeable future. As it turns out, a sincere and honest dialogue can be the first step to pushing through this inertia. Our sessions offered a middle ground between an ascetic self-preservation and my borderline fanatic experience as a community organizer, both of which were unsustainable and spiritually impoverishing lifestyles. Exposure to diversity of thought and experience in such an intentional and intimate environment has revitalized my faith both in myself and the world at large. If more groups of this nature existed, I have no doubt that a wide variety of people might be pushed towards their own proactive and idiosyncratic truth.
— Alexander Crockett