“…Yet the dialogue surrounding the subject of identity contains many pitfalls. Paradoxically, the individual can get lost in the heated conversation that inherently arises around the topic. Oftentimes, that discourse becomes reductive…Reduced to our pronouns, our race, our political affiliation, our religion, our nationality, or whatever category becomes the focus, the individual is blended into the oblivion of a colored bar on a graph or section of a pie chart…”

…rather than studying mythical ‘golden ages past’, history is most fascinating when it is telling the story of ‘now’. As we celebrate a supposed century of women’s suffrage in the United States, it’s painful to understand that the right to vote remains under constant assault…

“I have a vivid memory of my parents taking me to see Midori perform at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, MI. I was about 9 years old, and a group of local Suzuki violin students went to see this prodigy, who had already catapulted to international fame by the time she was our age. When we saw her, she couldn’t have been more than 17…”

If there are any lessons to be garnered from Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the announcement of the freedom of slaves in Texas nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it is that the work of anti-racism, anti-bigotry, and the battle for civil rights is never over.

“In the case of ‘guerrilla’ that glories ‘gay’, that is to say there aren’t many gay guerrillas, I don’t feel that gaydom has, does have that strength, so therefore I use that word in hopes that they will…So therefore that is the reason I use ‘gay guerrilla’ in hopes that I might be one of them, if called upon.” - Julius Eastman