THE IMPORTANCE OF BLACK SPACES
Hi everyone this is YM.
If you notice, I'm wearing---I'm recording
on my laptop, so I'm hearing a headset with
a microphone so I can kind of clean up the
sound.
Because if I just use the laptop's mic, the
sound won't be that good.
So I'm just giving you a head's up about why
I'm wearing the headset right here.
I wanted to talk to y'all tonight about the
importance of Black spaces.
This thought kind of came to me because earlier
today I attended the second annual Black August
in the Park event---it was held in Durham's
Central Park, which is kind of downtown, west
downtown where the Farmers' Market is.
And I went to that today, and it was the second
annual event; I didn't go last year.
I didn't know about it last year, but I did
go---someone told me about it, one of the
volunteers for the event told me about it
a month ago, and I was looking forward to
it this whole time, basically on pins and
needles.
And when I was there, I saw Black people of
all ages, all genders, every background.
Not just African Americans, but Black people
who were from the continent---Nigerian, Senagalese,
Kenyan Black folks.
I saw, well they had food trucks out there,
and there was one that was owned by Afro-Puerto
Rican entrepreneurs.
And they had DJs there, so they were mostly
playing hip-hop music and everything.
But just seeing the diversity of people, seeing
the diversity of age, and gender, and the
whole range of skin colors, from really white-passing
to obsidian bone black.
Because you know Black people are every color
of the rainbow.
And so it just got me thinking---all these
people having fun together and out with their
kids and grandchildren and everything, college
students---across the board, Black people
from every background.
And it just got me thinking about the importance
of Black people---whatever walk of life you
come from---Black people having SPACE.
Cause when you live in a society like the
United States, or Canada, or Britain---any
society where white people or non-Black people
are the majority---but specifically in my
case Anglo white people, English-speaking
white people, are the majority----you really
don't see a lot of images of yourself.
You don't see a lot of reflection of yourself,
particularly as a kid growing up.
Now I think it's different for today's babies
and schoolchildren and young people, because---you
know I was born in the Seventies.
So other than the Seventies sitcoms that revolved
around African American families---like "Good
Times" or "What's Happening!" and "The Jeffersons."
Other than those sitcoms, you really didn't
see Black people on TV.
Particularly as I was born in the Seventies,
but I was really a kid in the Eighties, and
so by the time I hit childhood in the Eighties,
there was hardly any representations of Black
people in media or on television.
Of course you had superstars like Whitney
Houston or Michael Jackson; that's my whole
childhood: Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney
Houston, Luther Vandross, and as you know
they're all gone now.
All of them have passed on.
Those were the representations of Blackness
when I was a kid.
You know, all these people are African American.
Now also as we know today, Whitney Houston
and Luther Vandross were LGBTQ people.
You know, Whitney being bisexual and Luther
being gay---but when I was a kid I didn't
know that.
I had no idea that they were LGBTQ people.
So I just grew up with very limited representations
of Blackness.
I've never been a big sports fan, but of course
Michael Jordan---by the time I hit late elementary
school, he was huge, right?
And so those were kind of the role models
that kids of my generation had.
But again, whether it's popular music, or
whether it's sports, or rarely---Hollywood.
Now the exception to that was Eddie Murphy,
who was a huge star when I was a kid.
He's not, he's kinda like an elder statesman
now, but when I was a kid he was a superstar.
He was as famous in terms of moviemaking as---I
mean I don't even know who the hot Black movie
stars these days are now!
But I'll just tell you: Eddie Murphy was as
famous as Beyonce when I was a kid.
So that was his level of superstardom.
But those were the only images I had of Black
folk.
And I didn't know any Black people like me.
Again, I didn't understand that I was queer---I
didn't know what that meant, I didn't have
any language around it.
But I knew I was different from other Black
girls.
And also, I was one of those kids that listened
to so-called "white" music.
I mean---what does that mean though?
What is white music, right?
Really in my case, it was Black music as peformed
by white people, really.
Led Zeppelin, and Metallica, and the Rolling
Stones, and the Beatles.
I was a huge fan of white male rock music
growing up, and still am!
But of course as an adult who's an activist,
I'm way more critical of it now.
But that was just like, I had such limited
representation of Blackness as a kid.
And growing up as a kid that was born---in
the early parts of my childhood I lived in
suburbia, but after my parents split up I
grew up in the hood.
So just having this weird background class-wise
where I'm socialized initially as a suburban
kid, and then I become a hood kid, right?
And so that just kind of messed me up in a
lot of ways.
And dealing with other kids in the hood who
were dealing with the same struggles I had
in terms of not knowing who we were, not having
any good role models.
One of the things I noticed earlier today
at Black August in the Park was seeing so
many parents [with their] children that were
modeling a vision of Blackness that I could
have only dreamed of as a kid.
You know, I grew with two parents raised in
the Jim Crow South, Boomer generation, post-World
War II generation, right?
You know, their representations of Blackness
were limited as hell.
And they dealt with all the self-hatred and
self-loathing that Black people dealt with.
You know, making jokes about people being
dark-skinned and not wanting to get in the
sun cause you don't want "to get too dark[er]."
And the misogynoir, the messed up attitudes,
the terrible cissexist gender politics, you
know---the IGNORANCE about Africa, oh my god!
Like my parents' generation knew very little
as kids in school my mother and father knew
very little about Africa.
I don't think my dad knows much about Africa---I
mean he could probably tell me wrong---but
I don't think my dad knows much about Africa
now.
And everything I've learned about the continent
and our ancestors and our history, I had to
learn in college.
I didn't learn until I was in my late teens
when I started community college, right?
And started taking Black history and African
history classes.
So I just grew up with very little self-knowledge
about what it meant to be a Black person.
And particularly a Black person in an Anglo
Protestant colonial society like the United
States---I just didn't know what anything
meant.
And so I feel like today's kids are getting
so much---not only do they have better role
models and a wider diversity of role models,
right?
They got Rihanna, who's Afro-Caribbean.
They got Beyonce, who's not only African American
but Lousiana Creole.
They got queer, they got Big Freedia, there's
Angel Haze, there's Frank Ocean---who FINALLY
came out with his album, right?
So they got famous Black queer role models
now, which again, as a kid---all my, you know
unwittingly---the queer roles models I had
were all closeted, so I didn't even know they
were queer.
So today's kids, they have greater access
to, as Laverne Cox [or Janet Mock] would say,
possibility models for Blackness than kids
of my, the Gen-X generation did---and even
the older Millennial generation of Black folks
in this country did.
And not saying that it's anywhere where it
needs to be; there's still a lot of antiblack
attitudes, a lot of misogynoirist attitudes
about Black women and femmes, our transphobia,
our transmisogyny, our colorism that we've
internalized, which is still terrible---particularly
our attitudes toward dark-skinned feminine
of center 
people 
are 
just horrible.
