On March 1st 2018 I quit my job. Of course this decision was the culmination of many things, but mainly I was ready to be a full time artist. Just as critical though was the idea that I no longer can live with being a repressed person and, as we all know, places of employment are straight up dens of repression and pain. Back on December 15th 2017 I had one of those days where afterward you have to look yourself in the eyes and choose whether to keep doing what you’re doing or flip the script. At the time I worked in a rather affluent part of South Florida at a public library in youth services and often felt compromised. Partly because I was the only black person working in YS but also partly because there is only so much you can do to correct children who are rarely held accountable. Earlier in that day I had the revelation to bank on myself and be true. Later in the day I experienced some stuff that made that revelation even more potent, prompted me to write what you’ll see below and ultimately tipped my scale toward finally leaving that gig.
Never Again
I never want to inhabit a space where I don’t have enough energy to hold myself accountable. This happened today and as I interact with my art I started inadvertently unpacking my subconscious. Two moments, tucked away with the rest of my repressive, dissatisfying work day emerged,
The first:
A young white (or pretending to be white) girl shouting “nigger bitch” right in front of me and several black children.
The Second:
A white boy and a pretend-to-be-white boy telling a grown black woman holding a baby that, “I’ll be your daddy”.
These moments fill me with things I can’t ignore. A bit of shock, outrage, anger, sadness, and a painful hindsight; but above all is the feeling of choosing to be voiceless in those moments due to disconnection. I essentially didn’t say then what is now floods my mind in hindsight because to even be in that environment I have to be so personally restrained that the energy to stand on my purpose escapes me. There are social, racial, generational and economic realities at work in those moments as well, but after digging I see only my lack of personal accountability which transcends and looms larger than any other factor.
As an artist, black person and black man I feel it my responsibility to defend, stand for and represent truth for all but especially people that look like me. To call out things that aren’t cool or just in any way that they show up. I didn’t do that today and truthfully it hurts to admit. I remember the people that those heinous things were said to and how they at looked at me for a resolution and I had none. But in admitting all of this I face that I must be and do everything I am and that if there people or places that hinder my ability to do that I must remove them or myself from them. Period!
Not doing this is a feeling I absolutely CANNOT live with and for this reason alone I must be connected.
I have fostered disconnection just to make it through the days lately. This is a reality I face right now as I write this. I did not know it had gotten this bad. I am at a type of crossroads where I settle or strive, stand or sit, truly be I am and what I do and in my heart, I know that is not natural. That is not life, but that is how I have lived of late. Today snapped me out of that and I’m grateful and charged up to change it.