The Job of the Living: Photos from the Oakland 5000

I was suffering through a long run the other weekend while listening to one of my favorite interviews with Hanif Abdurraqib. The interview closed with Hanif being asked, what are the demands of the times asking of him as a writer? He began to answer what the writer’s job is, but changed his thoughts to say the job of the living is to be unflinchingly honest, “…be honest about our ability to feel deeply and thoughtfully because if that goes away, if that begins to erode there are consequences we will never be able return from.”

With the double exposure series I have been working on people have asked me how I create them, however, the question of why I am creating them is more interesting and is the point. With the business of the world, the untenable pace as Hanif puts it — aka capitalism — it is too easy to dismiss the harms we live through each day. Or maybe we recognize them but don’t have the time or energy to think critically of how harm to one is harm to us all. If it isn’t happening directly to us, why think about it and have feelings about it? With the double exposure photos I create I want them to serve as a reminder that everything is connected. We are all connected. Where we run, who we run with, the systems that have been created that allow us to move freely or not — all of it is connected.

Running can’t save us from the harms we live through, but it is away to feel alive. It is a way to feel deeply and thoughtfully, and I think any of my friends that were at the Oakland 5000 will tell you that. Because even if we aren’t the ones running and we are just on the sidelines cheering, we feel for our friends and community who are racing and giving it everything they’ve got. In other words, the race isn’t happening directly to us, but we deeply feel and understand our connection to those who are in it.

Photos: The first set of photos were taken walking around Oakland. The second set of photos were taken during the Oakland 5000 at Laney College.