Democratic sneakers

I'm Brazilian and I speak Portuguese so I took a look at the dictionary to check the meaning for the word "democracy".

de·moc·ra·cy

–noun, plural -cies.

1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system

2. a state having such a form of government.

3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.

4. political or social equality; democratic spirit.

5. the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.

It's related to politics but also has to do with respect and that's what this post talks about.

I'm a cinema student and I have my dirty pair of All Star sneakers. Actually, all of my friends from college have theirs too. I don't know if I'm being narrow-minded writing this post, but everybody in cinema, theatre, music, painting and all the kinds of segments involving arts have their pair of All Star sneakers – dirty, I would say!

Of course there are exceptions, but working in this area and not having your All Stars is weird, at least in Brazil. But why am I writing a blog post about it? Well, on Thursday night Chris invited me to go to the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus and watch an art performance. Chris took me to the room where he was working at a project. He studies arts there. Afterwards, we went to see the play. Different kinds of hair, clothes, accessories but one thing never chances, even overseas - now I can prove it on my own: the 'dirty All Star sneakers' remain! And if something so personal like your sneakers are treated in a respectful way - because they are dirty and no one cares - why do we still have problems when the issues are politics, religion or sexuality?