Artist ALOK arrived at Syracuse University during a week of organized protests on campus. ALOK talked about the systemic oppression faced by the transgender community and people of color.

On Monday morning, ALOK spent time at The Barnes Center at The Arch with students protesting the ongoing racially-biased incidents on campus for the past two weeks. 

“What I was feeling here in Syracuse after spending some time in that sit-in is that something needs to be jolted,” ALOK said during the Q&A after the performance.

ALOK was the keynote speaker for the LGBT Resource Center’s annual Transgender Day of Remembrance commemoration on Monday. TDOR raises awareness about the ongoing violence and murder of trans and gender non-conforming people, especially transgender women of color, ALOK said in an email.

Throughout the 80-minute performance, ALOK used poetry, comedy and performance art to address suicide, harassment, violence and erasure faced in transgender and gender non-conforming communities. 

ALOK said that 2019 is set to be one of the deadliest years on record for the transgender community, citing that there has been a 37% increase in violence against people who are transgender.

They added that in order to combat problems faced by the transgender community, society cannot limit the conversation to days like TDOR. ALOK said that systemic solutions, such as confronting the oppressive two-gender system that frames transgender and non-binary lives as undesireable, need to be found.

“Do not grieve us when you never want to be us,” ALOK said. “The way we end violence against trans people is we no longer care if we are mistaken as them.”

Stefany Lema, an SU sophomore who attended the talk, said the theme of fighting the system ALOK spoke on related back to the sit-in at the Barnes Center, where #NotAgainSU protesters vowed to combat the racially-biased incidents that have occurred at or near SU.

At the same time as ALOK’s performance, the Department of Public Safety reported the 11th racist or bias-related incident in the past two weeks at or near SU.

“It all ties back to systemic issues so it’s important for all of these communities to come together, and all of us to speak about this because at the end of the day it affects all of us,” Lema said. 

SU sophomore Yuderis Verges, who has also been involved with the protest, resonated with how ALOK encourages people to fully express themselves rather than repressing who they are. In one poem, ALOK called people to “scream” their truths.

“We’re screaming about the same thing,” Verges said. “But none of us are hearing each other. We’re screaming and not getting anything done.”

Published on November 19, 2019 at 10:25 am

Contact Amanda: ampaule@syr.edu