A Response to Recent Global Political Events
or Kindred Spirits’ Mission Statement
In light of recent and harrowing American political events, it is painfully clear that there has never been a more fervent need for safe spaces for people of colour, whether that be in America, the UK, and even Oxford.
This has happened repeatedly, not just this century but throughout history. The voices of the marginalized are rejected in favour of the “stereotypical,” the “centre.”
We must realize that there must be a space created specifically for these voices, or else they will never be valued for what they are or what they could be.
As we talk about making space at the current table for these voices, where there has been a long history of bias and oppression, what if we try something different?
What if we create a new table, one that is based on stability and strength. One built by the hands of its community? One built with love as its centre, not a person or a figure?
James Baldwin said, in Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris:
“Love has never been a popular movement. And no one’s ever wanted, really, to be free.
The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people.
Otherwise, of course you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you’ve got to remember is what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster, you could be that cop. And you have to decide, in yourself, not to be. ”
In creating Kindred Spirits, we have already decided—right here, right now—that we are not despairing.
We will use art and literature as forms of liberation, freeing us from the depths of despair. We will do something.
We grieved yesterday. Today and tomorrow are for doing something.
—The 2024-2025 Editors of Kindred Spirits Magazine.
P.S. To our friends of colour, Kindred Spirits is—and will always be—a safe place for you to land. Whether or not you are creative, please know that we always have—and always will be—a place for you to express yourself freely.
