I had often expressed to close friends that the revolution was coming, that narrative unfolded quicker than I could have imagined. I have chosen several times to leave New York for Paris because I felt that French colorblind politics would allow me to breathe, collect my thoughts, and use the time I’m not worrying about race to put into fruition what I would like to manifest in the future. However, every time I leave New York to be in solitude I find that I always miss my connection to my Black American and Afro-Latinx community above anything else. I miss the person I am when I am in spaces where it is applauded to be unapologetically yourself and to relish in your individuality. Where it is collectively understood that we are navigating within a system that was not created to serve us. This was the Black community I found at NYU and it was always the space that I felt affirmed: my intelligence noted, my determination respected, and my art supported.
Starting university during 2015 meant I was entering a predominantly white space affirmed by my Afro-Dominican identity. The reason for this was because the natural hair movement had spread and so had the mobilization of activists through the Black Lives Matter movement. The unification of Black people allowed me to find my place of acceptance, my place of belonging. However, it is hard to feel fully connected to your chosen family when abroad. I am limited to Instagram posts and FaceTime calls. No longer can I walk through SoHo, Harlem, the Heights and the Bronx with my friends, photographing the beauty of their Black essence because it’s what I wanted others to see. My transient habit that I developed when I scored that full scholarship to NYU allowed me to envision myself outside an oppression / liberation binary. Studying abroad allowed me to see the ways in which my experiences were shaped by racialized and gendered socialization. This allowed me to imagine myself outside of the context of American racial context.
At first, the news from overseas seemed to not shake me with the 8 degree magnitude earthquake in the way that it would in New York; the Parisian atmosphere is not putrid of the stench of institutional racism in the way it is in America. One need only to look at the statistics of who populates a college classroom and who populates a prison (though let us not forget France’s colonial history in the Americas, Africa and Asia, nor its current role as a neo-colonial state).
However the collective pain of the grief of spilled blood in order to uphold a racist patriarchy has eventually burned my soul with the generational and diasporic pain of Black subjugation under the imperial structure. When I feel an emotion my whole body feels it. My back gets tense. My shoulder gets tense. My chest hurt. My heart throbs. My spirit feels wounded and weakened. I cry hysterically. This was how my body reacted all of 2015, yet the pain comes as a surprise every time. Each cramp tighter. Each breath heavier. Every thought more cynical.
All of quarantine I have been practicing meditation in order to align my spirit, to move with intention. I intend to always uplift the morale of Black people because we must never fold to the order of the capitalist regime. Because writing is my purpose and my source of therapeutic relief, I will be sharing a series titled “Notes From Abroad.” I will share writing concerning the ways in which my experiences are shaped by racialized and gendered socialization. I will also be comparing the works of Black diasporic authors to give nuance to 20th century black liberation efforts. Since IG is a limiting platform for vocalizing sentiments on such a dense subject, I will be sharing my thoughts on my website for my various written works. I hope to facilitate group or individual discourse, it is important to stay educated, mobilized and spiritually at peace.
To my Black women, we all know we are always supporting Black men, but please let us nuance the ways in which we are also impacted by race-sex paradigms. Our narratives are important, our pain is illicit, our voices must be heard. It is not a battle of who suffers more, it is a matter of representing ourselves, getting comfortable in our narratives so that others cannot tell them for us. This work, though laborious, is needed because liberation has always been taught as attainable first for Black men and Black women as secondary. This inherited belief exists even today. Stop police violence. Stop imprisoning non-violent black men. Protect the black male body. But when will the women who have fallen subject of male violence be protected. When will their concerns be voiced?
Above all, to all my Black artists, please keep creating. We are the generation that will set the foundation for this century's evolution of Black consciousness and expression. This is not a light task. Be careful with yourselves. Self preservation is the greatest form of resistance.
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