Before being a legit-bill-paying adult, do you remember how much easier it was to slip out of dailiness and into the freedom of your own imagination? Maybe you’ve forgotten the wild liberation of declaring yourself the king of castles conjured at the summit of plastic playground infrastructures, but I haven’t.
I see us, all Black folk, boldly imagining better for ourselves.
Yesterday, I returned my displaced indigenous body from the United States to the thick air and naked sunshine of the Caribbean. As I smoked a spliff under an almost full moon, I felt both powerful and free. In fact, I felt so free, I wanted to join the night birds and the tree frogs in their songs. My older sister (who joined me via video call) cackled as she heard my ridiculous attempts to whistle along.
To her, I was suddenly like the archetypal white girl at the club whose distinct lack of rhythm threatens to throw off one's own (god-given) fully-melanated and on-beat grasp of rhythms. Certainly the night creatures’ concert did seem to falter momentarily at my incredibly joyful but perhaps tone-deaf accompaniment.
I share this moment because ultimately we all want to belong. There are many textures of Black Power. I asked hundreds of us from across the African diaspora the question “When do you feel most powerful?” for my forthcoming book, Black Powerful: Black Voices Reimagine Revolution. From their answers, I can tell you it is a chorus you are welcome to join.
One of those I spoke with was Zephyra R. Fentress, a youth contributor,. They describe themselves as a dreamer and a schemer—an amazing nonbinary, Black human with a brain too exceptional to be trapped in ‘neurotypical’. They responded to the prompt saying, “When I am deep in my imagination [I feel most powerful].” I see Zephyra and remember my own imagination has been saving my life all along. I imagine the hand-rolled cigarettes that I smoke in traffic won’t kill me because tobacco is medicine.
Contributor Najah Monique Todd, who with Del Brown formed the dance-pop duo Mirrorgloss, feels most powerful when, "investing in [her]self and [her] future …”. She goes on to say that at her most powerful she is, “working to be a beacon that shows the vast possibilities we have as Black people.”
The candor of this response underpins so much of the work I’m doing—celebration. We are inundated with insidious narratives of Black Struggle and Black Trauma and Black Survival reinforcing the idea that Black people are “less than” what white supremacy deems fully human and worthy. Depending on one’s intersectional identities, some of us have an easier time recognizing how rare it is to hear a young Black person talk about the power of their imagination. This book is a living testimony to us as we see ourselves. Spoiler: the monolith of Blackness is an artifact of the white imagination—you know, the one that can’t even imagine centering anything other than itself.
Of the hundred African diasporic voices included in the book, André O. Hoilette, who hails from Jamaica, says that he feels most powerful when "... calling to ancestors ... with whiskey and sometimes hand-rolled tobacco” and went on to describe adding crushed ginger to mint tea while "... set[ting] protections around [him]self.”
My internalized oppression wants me to make excuses for our medicine—call it woo-woo, or witchcraft, rather than acknowledge that these indigenous practices are part of what makes us indisputably powerful. This power goes beyond muscle memory for so many of us, who discover that our practices are time-honored and our soul memory is sharp from eons of triumph over death itself. Our power is really magical and our magic is also part of our power.
Haitian Contributor, Marie-Ovide Gina Dorcely, says she feels most powerful when “… under the protection of [her] shades”. She invokes the requisite sanctum declaring, “I gather myself up for the onslaught, as I have for what seems like countless centuries. But it isn’t coming today. I’ll be spared. All evil fails.”
And so it is. We are our own protection, by any and all means necessary.
Both Aarons and contributor, Rone Shavers, the author of Silverfish,suggest there is power in the words “fuck you,” especially when delivered with the same sincerity one might save for a religious ceremony. Being cussed out always exists at the apex of Black Power and Black Generosity. And Shavers insists, "I manifest evidence of my power every day ... “ and does so.
Non-binary, trans, educator and Black parent, Mattie M. Mooney, says "I feel most powerful when my daughter talks. She is so self-assured, confident, and aware. All the things that I wish that I was at her age (she's twelve).”
What does it mean to be embodied as a site of rebellion? Queer, youth contributor, Roman O’Brien, says, ”I feel powerful when I reflect…" .Nothing beats the wisdom of those still new enough to not be fully indoctrinated by self-hatred.
Writer, artist, and game developer, Beverly Aarons says, "I feel powerful when I am telling people to back off out of my life…” and goes on to explain, "I'm a Black woman, many many people believe that they know my life better than I do.”
Aarons statement leads me to one of my own. If we had the time and space, I would call a secret and very exclusive “Black People Only” meeting right here.. We absolutely are never allowed privacy unless it is paired with erasure or irrelevance, we would try to figure out how to deal with the epidemic of Black Propriety Policing that has been a plague in our communities for generations. Can we live? Or is that asking too much?
Natasha Marin is a Seattle-based conceptual artist, published poet, and activist with roots in Trinidad and Canada.
