vōx isn’t afraid of uncomfortable conversations
By Trish HoseinPhotos By Katy Shayne‘How Do I Connect With My Ancestors’: A socially distanced conversation with vōx on Privilege and Reparations
I walk through a metal gate to the garden that she’s created in her small front yard. It is filled with raised beds of vegetables and greenery. She tells me that earlier in the day she found rogue potatoes underneath the dirt that she plans to scallop. We sit on opposite sides of a long wooden table underneath a fabric awning where she’s set out a joint and one glass of kombucha and one glass of wine for each of us.
vōx is known for her avant-garde wardrobe but today we are both in oversized sweatshirts. Her face is bare and stunning. It is a cool summer evening. A pleasant evening for us to speak about unpleasant things.
There is a deeply rooted hurt between white women and women of color in America - a wound salted after the plurality of white women voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election. vōx has been outspoken about her support for her brothers and sisters of color, so when I ask her if we can have a conversation about this and issues related to it, I am excited but not surprised that she agrees.
In her song “How Do I Connect With the Spirits,” vōx confronts her ancestral history and its role in white supremacy. I’m struck by this because while people of color and immigrants like myself are forced to continually live the implications of our ancestral history, white people are not. It made me curious as to how and why the artist, who grew up in the white conservative town of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, came to feel like this confrontation was necessary.
Family and Politics
It sounds like your family is very conservative and you are very liberal. Growing up were you also conservative?
I think up until probably the last 10 year I did not participate at all. I didn’t think about anything in politics. In a way I always felt against my parents and whatever their views were but it wasn’t as clear cut as that, it was more like I wanted to be a rebellious kid. It wasn’t that I disagreed with their political views. I didn’t know what their political views were because they never talked about it at all growing up. I just kind of deduced it over snide little comments here and there.
We compare our starkly different upbringings - mine in two countries and filled with every race and creed - hers growing up in a small town, only ever seeing black people when she traveled into bigger cities on family trips. She explains that most of her exposure to minorities came after she moved away for college. It brings up another good point: privilege is having the option to participate in politics.
Why do you think you have such a different view regarding issues like white supremacy and your role in white supremacy than your upbringing might suggest?
Everytime I go back to visit my family - which isn’t very often maybe once a year - I immediately feel like I’m 13 again. Even though I’ve changed and I live a different life in LA and I communicate differently with the people I know here - my chosen family.
So I think that maybe just the length of time that I haven’t lived near with them has really caused me to examine things from a farther vantage. I don’t know if I could look at it objectively if I were seeing them every day.
In your interview with Paper Magazine you said you aren’t able to go back to your family and ask these types of questions?
We don’t talk very often. There’s not a strong relationship there. And they wouldn’t answer these questions if I asked them. I think that’s more what I meant. But I don’t really need that information. I know what their thoughts and feelings about people of color are. I met my grandparents, they were blatantly racist and ignorant. It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter if factually they owned slaves or not, more for me it was about what was in their hearts.
Do you think there is any benefit in still talking to them?
Totally.
Do you have these conversions with them?
I haven’t.
Do you think you should?
Totally.
I want to ask what she’s waiting for. I don’t. We are all grappling with how the structure of white supremacy has colonized our minds, and in the same way, she struggles to speak with her family on race, I have been conditioned to not make white people uncomfortable.
Responsibility and Reparations
How and why do you think you can take responsibility for your ancestral history?
I think that the most exciting thing to me is how many people’s minds I can change if I can actually learn how to be a good ally now and learn how to communicate with other white people about these things I’m learning. Think of all of the one on one conversation I could have through my life. I think that’s why it’s so important and why it’s on me to break the chain.
Since this interview vōx has said that she no longer refers to herself as an ally after coming across this Volted Voices Instagram Post, and now believes that “that's a term that's reserved for POC to decide and not for white people to call themselves.” She says “I feel like I'm learning every moment and trying to do better.”
How do you feel about reparations and what kind of role do you think we have in correcting social injustice? What do you think are the changes that can be made and the tools that can be given to communities to aid this?
The ideal world has healthcare for all and free college and a living wage. It should be all of those things, and they should be focused as reparations first.
Her answer is in line with the Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree, who Te-Nehisi Coates’ described in “The Case for Reparations” as a proponent for reparations as “a program of job training and public works that takes racial justice as its mission but includes the poor of all races.” In the US, reparations have been thought of as a radical idea, with Congress refusing to fund research on the topic though the entire US economy was built on the labor of enslaved people. I bring this up and Vōx reminds me, defunding the police was seen as a completely fringe idea up until a couple of months ago, too.
I think it comes down to what we were talking about earlier, how in the US we feel like we don’t have an obligation to take care of each other.
It’s that, it’s also just pretending like you’re a good enough person that the system of racism doesn’t exist for you. That’s like every white person. So yeah, how do you make someone feel like it’s their responsibility? I don’t know. If there was some sort of science that was like “Look, this is why you’re fucked up from this cellularly, maybe people would care more, but that’s really not the heart of the issue.
She’s right. I bring up an episode of the podcast, With Friends Like These that I listened to earlier in the day in which guest and ex-white supremacist Derek Black admitted that he changed his mind about most of the facts he was taught to believe about race but still remained a white supremacist for years after. He confessed he didn’t even realize the cognitive dissonance until a college friend brought it to his attention.
You can give people facts and facts don’t change people’s minds. So much of our belief systems…
Are not based in fact.
We exchange a worried glance. Look where ignoring facts has gotten us.
Privilege and Allyship
Privilege is something I feel like can be difficult to see in real time. I think part of the evolution we’re going through is being able to discern what is a result of one’s privilege. For me it’s easy to see my privilege in terms of finances, like that my parents paid for me to go college. It’s harder to see the everyday effects of that privilege, like the way education changes speech, and how speech affects interactions. Can you identify a specific generational privilege that you think you have?
Totally. Definitely everything involving safety. It doesn’t really matter that I feel afraid of the police, I’m never actually in danger. That’s a huge privilege and one that’s been really hard to face lately. Feeling that lead me away from situations where I could be the person to stand up to a police officer for a person of color. I would love to get to a place where I was not afraid to do that.
Have you been able to recognize your privilege in your career?
Yeah I’m sure it’s really impacted my career. I haven’t done any number checks on the label I’m on, but I’m pretty sure they’re 95% white artists. That’s really prominent in the indie music scene… and I’m sure in many other ways I haven’t noticed.
This estimate is accurate. Vōx is on Toronto based indie label Art’s & Crafts. I scrolled through the 58 acts on their roster, some solo artists, and some bands. I found one Black person and a small handful of other people of color.
What are ways you’ve failed as an ally and how are you changing now to be better?
I feel like there are two things that come to mind, the first being not making any routine changes to my life the last time that there was a movement starting. When that happened I joined in and participated and didn’t continue because I didn’t make any actual changes to what I was doing every day. So I’m joining an organization called White People for Black Lives. I did an orientation and they have a bunch of cool workshops. They also organize with Black Lives Matter on protests and all sorts of different magical things depending on how you like to get involved.
The other thing that I think about is figuring out where my skills are best suited within the movement. Not everyone is going to be a person who goes to protests, or feels comfortable making phone calls. So this time I wanted to figure that out, and I realized that I never really pursued learning enough and educating myself enough to feel like I could communicate with other white people. That feels like the best way for me.
The evening is getting colder so I finish my kombucha, leave half-glass of wine, and thank her for her time. I mentally replay the conversation on my walk to the car, not quite sure if I got the answers I was looking for, and even more unsure I asked the questions that would find them. Admittedly, my questions weren’t perfect and I rambled. Her answers weren’t perfect and she stumbled. But the revolution is not reserved for perfect people having perfect conversations. This is how we move forward. Imperfect. Stumbling. Rambling. Trying.
Vōx’s newest single “I Hid in Him” is out everywhere now.