Maxwell's Equations

This is the first features piece I wrote while trying out, or as students here say, 'comping' for one of the literary magazines at my college. I made it past the first round, but didn't have enough time to start, let alone finish, my next piece for the final round. I'm giving it another shot this semester and I'm hoping to write about ramen, a beautiful Japanese noodle dish, which just happens to be my only true love and joy in this world. To be honest, this is a draft more than anything else and I intend to revise it someday, but, for now, here it is posted as it was first written. I didn't bother to remove the double-spacing. Here we go America. 

Maxwell’s Equations.

The following are a series of false analogies concerning physics which you do not understand.

I. Gauss's Law

The electric flux leaving a volume is proportional to the charge inside.

You were told that your dreams could not fit within the borders of The Continent. This is why the ground beneath your feet has shifted, and why the grass is no longer a parched yellow, but a nourished green. When you were younger than you are now, you dreamt of flying across the Atlantic to come here. The West. You wished to stand under vaulted, collegiate Neo-Gothic structures to breathe the thoughts of long-dead old white men. Now that this has happened, it occurs to you that you might have been trying to age into one of them. This does not equate. What is equal is the following. To the left of the equals sign: in The Continent, the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet are not the same colour as the rest of your skin. To the right of the equals sign: in The West, the rest of your skin is not the same color as the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet.

You try to explain.

First, you expand the terms on the left side. In The Continent, the palms of your hands stretched towards the sun when it glowed orange towards the evening and swiped across the sky as it purpled. You had shoes, but for some odd reason memory says otherwise, so the soles of your feet dance with the dust as you tried to awkwardly help your grandfather herd  the cows home. Your grandfather sighed because the rest of your skin screamt ‘city-child.’ Second, you expand the terms on the right. In The West, the rest of your skin is actually your body it its entirety. This body is yours, but for some odd reason memory says otherwise, so your palms pick cotton and your soles dragged across the Atlantic through slave-ships in the the water instead of commercial airplanes in the sky. But you say it took you three flights to get here.  

You try to explain.

You were taught that your thoughts are electric currents that flow through your neurons. From this you decided that the beginning and end of your everything must reside within this electricity. The electric flux leaving a volume is proportional to the charge inside.  Your everything is nothing more and nothing less than the strange happenings between positive and negative charges. This is why you try to explain your home, your body and your skin with physics which you do not understand.

II. Gauss’s Law for Magnetism

There are no magnetic monopoles; the total magnetic flux through a closed surface is zero.

There are North poles; there are South poles. They pull together if they’re different; they push apart if they’re the same. There is no such thing as a North pole existing without a South pole; there is no such things as South pole existing without a North pole.

You are black.

One night you are at party with faces that look like your and those faces are dancing. You are still. Their legs and arms swish in movements that are not intrinsic to you.  Their breath fills the air and it is thick, heavy and sweaty. The sound of the music is discordant to your ears. This aural landscape is composed of the following image-associations : hoodies, gunshots, fades, kicks, beats. More than a few girls’ asses are placed neatly in front of boys’ crotches and they rotate around one well-oiled joints. This still feels strange to you. Why? Isn’t the music of the diaspora prevalent in The Continent as well?  Back there and then, when the songs of the diaspora rappers and singers spread  through The Continent like wildfire, you figured it might be a way of returning home for them. And they were welcomed even though your body did not let you dance.  Here you are in the West with your brothers and your sisters who were taken away from you- do you not feel welcomed? Are your faces not the same?  Then, are your faces pulled together because you are different, or pulled apart because they are the same?

One afternoon  you are in the freshman dining hall with faces that look like yours and those faces are talking. You all talk about what you want to study. One wishes to study Economics and African Studies to save The Continent. Another wishes to study Medicine  and African-American studies to save The Continent in the West. You say that you want to study Physics and Philosophy because you’re looking for the true nature and structure of reality. They ask you if you’re interested in philosophy from The Continent. You blankly say that, whether we like it or not, the foundation of the modern world was built by philosophers from the West. There is a pause. You are ashamed. You quickly add that the best way of fighting The West is by knowing their ways of thinking directly and hope that this means and proves something.

One day you and a friend walk down stretches of tarred pathway cutting through the grass. Right by the corner between the big old library and your small old dormitory you find that someone has spray-painted something curious on the black tar. Beneath an arrow pointing forward, the words ‘NO N*GAS’ flash in hasty yellow curls. You lie down next to ‘NO N*GAS’ using your backpack as a pillow , relaxedly place your hands at the back of your head and flash your teeth in an aggressive brace-wire smile. You ask your friend to take a picture of this pose for your Instagram. No niggas. No North poles without South poles. No South poles without North poles. There are no magnetic monopoles;  the total magnetic flux through a closed surface is zero. Surely your blackness is the same as theirs.

III. Faraday’s Law

The voltage induced in a closed circuit is proportional to the rate of change of the magnetic flux it encloses.

“Maxwell’s Equations are a set of four differential equations that describe electromagnetism. One might shudder at first at the word ‘electromagnetism’. What  a strange unification. The world of charges and currents; sparks, fizzes and flashes. The world of poles and magnets; compasses, maps and directions. Brought together. In fact, the forces of electricity and magnetism are essentially the same force. Electricity and magnetism are just manifestations of electromagnetism in itself. Furthermore, a changing magnetic field produces an electric field and a changing electric field produces a magnetic field.”

So you think to yourself.

From the first equation, you showed that the electricity is the blackness in your mind which is tied to The Continent. It will travel with your forever, no matter what space you exist within, because the blackness you carry with you is always proportional to the blackness you were born with. From the second equation, you used magnetism to relate your blackness to the blackness of the diaspora, the blackness of The Continent to the blackness of The Continent in The West. You discovered that even though they appear to be different, they are the same blackness, because one does not exist without the other. The third equation tells you that the blackness in your mind and the blackness of your skin are the same blackness.

You cannot think your way out of your skin.

IV. Ampere’s Law

The magnetic field induced around a closed loop is proportional to the electric current plus displacement current (rate of change of electric field) it encloses.

“Maxwell’s fourth equation is symmetrical to the third equation. So they basically look the same. If you fiddle around with them a bit, and if the current density J is zero, then you can make them look exactly the same. There is then no doubt that a changing electric field produces a magnetic field, or that a changing magnetic field produces an electric field, or that electricity and magnetism basically amount to the same thing, electromagnetism. Another interesting thing that happens if you play around with the equations: you get c: the speed of light.”

So you think to yourself.

You are surprised and astonished and awed at this physics that you do not understand. From it appears a fundamental truth of the universe, the speed of light. It is the fastest anything in this space and time can ever go, the limit of everything that has been, is, and ever will be. And it is the product of your skin.

How beautiful, how terrible, how fast, how slow.

***

P.S The images for the equations are sourced from the Wikipedia page for 'Maxwell's equations'. They're rather well made...

On The Matter of Black Lives

A few weeks ago, DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure in the #BlackLivesMatter movement visited the campus of The Taft School, where I'm currently stationed. Another student here, Sumi Kim, and I each wrote an article about #BlackLivesMatter for The Papyrus, the student-run news publication at Taft. Unfortunately, due to spacing issues, these articles were not able to published in their entirety. But I have a blog.


Sumi.

Black lives matter.

        It’s a simple slogan, only three words long. Yet those three words are among the most controversial phrases one can encounter today.

The words are relevant. The words are straightforward. And above all, the words are misunderstood. The meaning behind them is twisted from mouth to mouth; they support black-supremacy, they promote racism, they hate the police, they highlight discrimination, they advocate equality. With all these wildly different interpretations circulating around the public, the meaning of the movement becomes subject to the preconceived notions held by the person who encounters it.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement began as a response to the murder of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch guard George Zimmerman in Miami Gardens, Florida. 17-year old unarmed Trayvon was fatally shot by Zimmerman as he was walking back from a convenience store, because Zimmerman felt Trayvon was “suspicious”. Since then, the movement has spread across the nation, growing in popularity as increasing numbers of black lives have been unjustly taken by police. The hashtag #Blacklivesmatter was even named the 2014 word of the year by the American Dialect society.

The actual heart of the “Black Lives Matter” movement is racial equality. There is no way to disguise it; in America, African Americans are still subjected to institutionalized racism. It is no miscalculation that 80% of people pulled over by police in New York City are either black or Latino. It is no miscalculation that even though anonymous surveys conducted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have reported that five times as many more white people do drugs than black people, the rate at which African-Americans are reported for drug offenses is ten times more than white. It is no miscalculation that white people are more likely to be hired, to be paid more, or to get away with criminal activity. “Black lives matter” goes beyond responding to police brutality, despite its original intentions; as stated on the official website, “We are committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension all people.”

        Contrary to popular beliefs, the movement does not promote black supremacy, or justify killing cops, or justify attacking white people. "Black lives matter" is not saying, "Only black lives matter." Of course, all lives matter and no one race is superior over the other. That is clear in many ways, from the United Nation’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” to the principles of the Founding Fathers: life, liberty, and equality. All lives matter, but not all lives are subject to the same prejudice as African Americans are. The amount of backlash that a movement simply highlighting the racial inequality in America has received is evidence enough that all lives are not yet equal.

Despite the simple purpose of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, I have no doubt that some readers are going to come across this article, see its title, and simply skip it due to their preconceived notions of the movement. I’m not saying that the root of the prejudice against Black Lives Matter stems from nowhere; like in every movement, there are extremists. Everyday lives of innocent civilians have been interrupted, property has been looted and damaged, and cops have been killed in retaliation. However, the majority of the people involved with the movement protest peacefully and denounce these violent acts. It is these few radicals that give “Black Lives Matter” a bad connotation that dissuades people from delving deeper into the movement. Even within our Taft community, many students had not been as exposed to the true intentions of the movement before DeRay McKesson spoke during morning meeting, and were pleasantly surprised at his simple yet powerful words.

 The movement itself is doing everything it should to be an effective catalyst for social change; the abundant, mistaken prejudice of people who are uneducated about its intentions is one of the only things inhibiting the movement from widespread success. Therein lies the biggest problem facing the campaign: how is “Black Lives Matter” ever going to be effective if people are immediately turned away based on the connotation that surrounds it? How is it ever going to change America if people take one look at those three words and turn their eyes away?

The success of “Black Lives Matter” thus falls onto our generation. It is we who must spread this message of equality and justice. It is we who must educate those unaware of the racial problems still plaguing America. It is up to us, as Taft students, to take advantage of the privilege we have and help our peers.

It’s been 150 years since slavery was abolished in America and yet racial inequality and ignorance are still present in our society. Our generation should be the one to finally end this discrimination, and the “Black Lives Matter” movement is the opportunity we should be taking. It’s time for us to seize it.

Image Source: everyvoice.org

Tawanda.

Every morning, the fresh and green winds of New England awaken them. This wind is the freedom of America itself, as are the possibilities inherent in each gleaming classroom; all gateways to a future that their parents told them could only be fought for- never given. Yet every time they walk into a classroom they can feel their foreignness, the strangeness of their skin being in such privileged space. To be black at Taft is to know the greatest irony of America: freedom for all, where all is few. White privilege, says Aaron Dillard ’16, is ‘white people not having to worry about being white.’ Being black, however, means being the only student of colour in an English class studying ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.’ Even in places of great opportunity such as Taft, men and women of colour encounter ‘the struggle.’ The unexplainable discomfort around people who ‘bump your stuff but won’t love your people’ who also tell you that ‘you’re really beautiful for an African girl.’

And then there’s the people who ask, “Why not #AllLivesMatter?”

The social movement #BlackLivesMatter has been met with only half-opened arms. Republican Presidential Candidate Ted  Cruz recently stated that its name is ‘literally suggesting and embracing and celebrating the murder of police.’ Meanwhile, 2015 shows one of the lowest numbers of murdered police officers in decades, and the movement has now become both more organized and more decentralized. The key word here is ‘more.’ Since BLM started, police brutality against black Americans has not ceased. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Freddie Gray. That’s just the men. When one of the leaders of BLM, DeRay McKesson visited Taft, he sparked both interest and controversy. His speech brought to the surface issues of race at Taft. Not only that, but it seems like they’re here to stay and be discussed, even outside the classroom.

Before we go on any further, let it be made explicit that this is an article about the social movement #BlackLivesMatter and how it relates to being black at Taft. It is not an article against white Americans, nor is it an article about hating the police. However, as both of those bodies are inextricably tied to the matter of black lives they ought to be discussed. ‘Why not #AllLivesMatter?’ Because, as the popular Taft saying goes, there’s more than one perspective.  Let us recognize this contradiction: ‘all’ in America is not inclusive, for all lives do not, in fact, matter in this country.

One of the biggest things that were emphasized to me before coming to America from Botswana, besides the perennial sleeplessness of prep schools, was that I ought to be prepared for discovering that my skin isn’t just something I was born with. I was told various horror stories, ranging from the comic to the tragic. Not too long after it hit me that I was actually coming here, that Taft physically exists and isn’t some strange abstraction, I started staring at my hands and wondering if there was anything wrong with them. My mother warned me often about the police.

‘I don’t think a white person understands the struggle,’ says Ismatou Bah ’16.  She goes on to say that maybe they can understand ‘95%’ or ‘99%’ of it. But never entirely.  This instantly reminds me of all the times back home I’d been called a coconut: white on the inside, black on the outside. If I’ve only just recently started staring at my hands, how much can I say I really know about the chaos of being black in America? Can I relate with Makari Chung’s ’16 exasperation when she asks, ‘Why is my hair such a phenomenon?’ When I stepped out of JFK, did I feel, as many black people in this country do, like a ‘target to be hated’?

Explaining the issue of race in this country often gives people more questions than answers. And while my experiences are not, as of yet, as explicit as those of the men and women of colour in this country, I can wholeheartedly affirm that racism in this country does exist. If you doubted before, then there is no longer any reason. I offer none of the biases of America, white or black. I simply tell you, as an unabashed foreigner, that the question of ‘Why not #AllLivesMatter?' is easy enough to answer if one pays a reasonable amount of attention to anything in this country.

Have you been paying attention? 

DeRay Mckesson speaking at Taft
Image Source: taftphotos.com