AFROFUTUR(IS)T SURVIVAL GUIDE 🧚🏽♂️
i was born. i was born 46 minutes to midnight, during a full moon, on a Friday, to a Leo and a Pisces. i could tell many stories and ink an autobiography filled with truth and dishonesty. But mostly, you should know that i was born. i am her(e), carrying and bearing every day. i was named. Middle name from my mother, and last name from my father. i’ve been consumed by who I’m supposed to be. Obsessed with how i can emulate her. Or how i can be perceived as her. i’ve had to be so many people and things to be seen and liked and loved. i’ve offered my love and food and legs and emotion for men who refuse to do it themselves. And in return i’ve gotten a glance, a smirk, 2 seconds of attention. i have been the glue and am tired of being sticky. I’m tired of being stuck. The younger me who longs for love and the words to express it reaches up from the inside. i think that i am not alone in this. i feel that others are with me.
i was born in Southfield to parents from Pine Bluff and Brooklyn. i don’t remember much of my childhood in Michigan. Maybe that’s a good thing. i remember being perceived as an exuberant, lively, curious child: my talkative and humorous nature warranting changed seating arrangements and the occasional parent teacher conference lecture. i was imaginative: i used to color coordinate my outfits, a different color each day. i changed my handwriting every year. i cried when India stabbed her hand with a pencil. i ate glue and stapled my finger. i was a leader. In the 3rd grade i banded a group of students together. During class we would rub paper and eraser together, collecting the scraps that were typically given a backhanded push to the floor. We molded the small pink scraps into balls and sold the eraser dust as “Sasha”. i started JJJJewelry with Harshini in 4th grade. The business fizzled, as many others did. My venus is in gemini. i would form a new crush every year and tell them on the last day of school (to avoid rejection of course). i still remember their names. i still remember my name. i guess i remember Michigan too.
i moved to Georgia in the middle of my 6th grade year. i adapted. i was funny. i observed people, learned what they liked. i mirrored them, and assumed it meant that they liked me. That’s a hard habit to break out of, being for other people. i think they want me to be me. i’ve been told i have a pure soul. i wonder what they see. i’ve been told i’m quiet. i wonder when that happened. i often ponder who i’m going to be. Or who i was… or both. i’ve come to realize that the solution doesn’t have to be so singular, so binary. i can move forward and backwards. i used to think that to find myself i needed to choose, pick one. Go forward or inward. Or inward then forward. i didn’t allow my growth to be disorganized. i have come to challenge those strict notions of what it means to come into myself.
Afrofuturism gives me permission to reject traditional suppressive norms and embrace difference, community, and emotion. It is a tool that reminds me to stop questioning self and start questioning system. To start relying on self and not system. Afrofuturism IS. There are a few tools you need to successfully navigate this world through an Afrofuturist lens. Glue, imagination, and question marks to name a few. So maybe it’s better to say you only need one thing that carries lots of things… like a bag or a book. Mostly, you need space: to feel, grieve, and reflect. Journals grant me the opportunity to do all three and more. To press back against confined spaces. The space i take up on the margins is growing uncomfortable. Herein lies not a solution, but a response: an amalgamation of me in different stages of life and learning. i work to honor the space that i take up and use, the many Me’s that make up this community. i think about young Jade. And what she wanted. And i’m proud of what we(she) created. So many of the questions i pose come from my inner child. She whispers, and Afrofuturism yells back.
