oh, dear diversity
it’s been a while that I’ve wanted to write to you,
it’s been a while that I’ve had an open note on my desktop
to begin a letter addressing you
but wait,
I’d rather put my thoughts in the form of a poem;
however, I believe my poem won’t praise you necessarily.
This is a poem of complaint.
Part of my poem is a memoir of arrival
with my big purple suitcase;
I immigrated three years ago.
I was immersed in my internal joy,
hungry to learn and humble to ask.
I was becoming a student again.
Part of my poem is an illustration of exhaustion,
of being fatigued from the institution,
of being scratched by the ugly game of power.
My joy didn’t last long.
I learned
there has always been a constellation of joy killers.
oh, dear diversity
you are tempting,
your nature promises joy and liberation,
but who owns you?
I have already begun with my questions, if you don’t mind me asking,
because I believe I have a say.
I brought you something more when I started sinking bodily in spaces
spaces of learning, spaces of creating, and spaces of reimagining.
Sadly, those institutional spaces rarely embrace the extension of my body.
They’ve even seized my color and my body for their good,
for them to be diverse,
but not for me to be empowered by diversity and to own my joy.
oh, dear diversity
I’m not very original in this poem;
it's inherited from many intersectional feminists
to understand traumas and to embrace them.
Among these good ancestors,
I want to name Sara Ahmed
who believes in the power of complaint,
that it could dismantle whiteness as an institutional situation.
oh, dear diversity
I want this poem of complaint to be heard
and to be a shelter for someone to heal,
as it has been to me
to resist and to rise.
Designer Dorsa Javaherian (she/her), originally from Tehran, is currently based in Cologne. She thinks and works at the intersections of design, community building, and inclusion and believes in plural futures.
The title of this vertical, Complaint Collective, is an homage to Sara Ahmed, whose ideas have been and continue to be extremely influential to Futuress. In killjoy solidarity, we stand!
Title image by Omid Akbari Kharazi
