“A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change.”   
                                                                                                                                                                                                -Bell Hooks
 

I’ve known Alexia for almost a year now, and activism permeates every aspect of her existence. Through her studies, her art, her student-org involvement, her work, and her effervescent presence, Alexia never lets a moment of her life slip by where she is not advocating against systems of oppression by educating, encouraging, and informing both herself and others. Alexia and I are in USC Helenes together, and  even though Alexia has been a member for less than a year, she has managed to make huge changes to the organization. She’s truly the first member to ever push for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through her perseverance and fearlessness to point out the systemic oppression that Helenes contributes to (such are the recruiting of mainly white cis female students), she was able to create her own Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leadership position this year. Moreover, she established an amendment to make DEI an official executive board position. I also work under Alexia in a student organization called Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment (SAGE), which I cover in my magazine. Alexia serves as the executive; every week, she tries to push a new angle to support the femme and female student body at USC. Not only have I watched Alexia work endlessly to create positive social change and a more inclusive community, but she has also personally preached and recommended Bell Hooks as a way for USC Helenes to educate ourselves on systems of oppression, making her perfect for this praxis. 

I’ve never had a chance to talk one-on-one with Alexia, but always knew that there was so much I could learn both about her and from her. Fulfilling my role as a “witness” to Alexia’s story, I wrote down and sent her a series of questions that asked her about not just her work and achievements in activism, but her personal stories, intentions, and experiences in systems of oppression that she’s personally been affected by. During the interview, Alexia drove home two main points that emulated the meaning of love ethic. The first point Alexia made was how crucial it is to emphasize providing a safe space for marginalized communities, which consist of populations of people that have “the right to be free,” but do not yet have the access or resources “to live fully and well” due to systems of oppression (Hooks). Alexia also mentioned how important it is to constantly be in a process of learning and unlearning. Through her work and education, Alexia has made it a point to inform herself of the ways that she is privileged and oppressed. In this endless cycle of learning and unlearning our own biases, we can understand when and where it’s appropriate to take up space versus when we need to step back and give room to others. 

To me, “bearing witness” is something that we actively do as humans every single day. We bear witness to one another through writing, through art, through discussion, and most importantly, through listening. I made it a priority that during this interview, I didn’t say anything beyond the questions that I asked her. I wanted to see how she interpreted the questions based off of her own experiences and let her responses guide the direction that the interview went in. While I stuck to my original plan of creating a magazine, the idea of being a witness to Alexia’s story changed how I designed and edited the contents of the magazine. For example, rather than explaining Alexia’s history and putting her responses into my own words, I ended up directly quoting Alexia for the majority of the magazine. This is because I wanted it to feel like the reader was directly learning from Alexia in the same way that I felt I did. I wanted others to also bear witness to her purpose and story. Furthermore, when it came to Alexia’s artwork, I decided to just create a single page with very little context, letting her art speak for itself. During our interview, Alexia stated that “‘Femininity’ looks different to different individuals, and I think that’s what’s beautiful.” With femininity as a prominent theme in her art, I decided to respect her thoughts on the subjectivity of femininity by letting the viewer interpret the art themselves. I also used colors that I thought represented Alexia’s purpose and personality, mixing in both pastel and traditionally “femme” colors with bright bold colors often found in the artwork of resistance. 

During our interview, Alexia and I discussed the power of media, and I asked her how she thinks social media has played a role in her efforts to create a transformational social change. Beyond hate comments, she stated that the one drawback of the media is that there’s a lot of performative activism: “it’s always going to be difficult to get people to participate past the superficial level.” However, the media also plays a huge role in the dissemination of resources. Especially during the pandemic, Alexia took note of how our dependence on media and technology has exponentially grown in terms of receiving information and support. As someone that is constantly putting out resources to ensure that all members of her community can find a safe space, Alexia points out that while media can often serve as a disingenuous place, the positive potential it carries to help improve even just one more life outweighs the negatives.