Dear Friends,
I'm running a one year anniversary sale this weekend over at www.trialanderror.art, and I have to say that it feels incredibly strange to write those words. It didn't even occur to me that there would be all of this weird corporate nationalistic hoopla going down in the middle of June. It dawned on me that my one year anniversary was coming up, which was a good excuse for a clearance sale.
I’m doing this sale in the middle of preparing an exhibition that’s all about the cognitive dissonance of having a genuine sense of personal worth as a Black person while living within a country that, at its core, was developed through your commodification and dehumanization. I’m behind on all of the above projects, so I’ll be spending a lot of weekend working in my studio. Luckily my studio is also a sanctuary where my mind gets to meander and play; imagining itself into existence on its own terms. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to build my life around these moments of actual freedom, and I’m grateful.
In reality, y'all, I just want to go to the rodeo and cry like I did last year because I got to see intact Black people enjoying themselves.
I can't help feeling like we're being asked to forget the fucking nightmare of ongoing racist trauma that was the last year (or 400) that's coming to a close. How are we “celebrating” a holiday that most of America JUST found out about because Donald J Trump decided to hold a klan/campaign rally in Downtown Tulsa smack in the height of the pandemic...
ON FUCKING JUNETEENTH.
ON A DAY THAT CELEBRATES ENSLAVERS FINALLY DECIDING THEY WAS READY TO LET US GO.
AND AFTER WEEKS OF UPRISING AGAINST POLICE MURDERS OF BLACK PEOPLE.
AFTER 3 MONTHS OF WILLFUL DISREGARD OF HUMAN LIFE AS THE PANDEMIC WAS TAKING HOLD AND GETTING READY TO KILL 600K AMERICANS, DISPROPORTIONATELY BLACK AND BROWN AND SICK AND POOR.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad if Black folks turn up to party like it's 1866. I hope ya’ll got that vaccine before you do it, but I also get that we’re tired of being the ones having to make the sacrifices. Somebody better fix me a plate, ‘cus I don’t know if I’ll be making it to the barbecue. If my body lets me, I’ll find a quiet picnic spot on the outskirts of the rodeo tailgate party to eat some spicy fruit and ribs and strawberry hibiscus lemonade with friends. I’m mad, and I got work to do, but I also need to eat.
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I’ve attached the words and images below that I shared a year ago as I prepared to launch my little wee business on Juneteenth. Please read if you’ve got the bandwidth. If not, here’s the basic gist:
Abolish The Police
aka
aka
aka
Burn it all down and start over.
aka
Or at least just leave Black people the fuck alone.
aka
If you can’t manage that, at least pay us real cash money for fuck’s sake
But also
Fuck The Police.
Yours Truly,
Naima
(This text below originally appeared in a few forms: As part of my email newsletter and as a Facebook and Instagram post. I’m replicating the Facebook version here, along with the images that I shared. I was introducing my first online collection, Anthem.)
As the T**mp campaign prepares to drop a COVID-19 laced racism bomb on Tulsa, just blocks from the site of one of the most atrocious sites of anti-Black violence in American history, I have been thinking a lot about love and freedom. June is supposed to be the month where Queer people celebrate our love, and Black people celebrate our freedom. However, we can't forget that Juneteenth marks the end of slavery on plantations that had evaded enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation for years. We can't forget that the first "Pride" was an uprising against police violence. Watching the sacredness of these events, and the love and freedom that they represent, get desecrated, co-opted or ignored by white supremacy sometimes leads me to despair. White supremacy keeps threatening to steal my capacity to love. White supremacy keeps telling me that I'm not free to be exactly who I am, even though I know better. White supremacy keeps making room for incompetent leaders that prey on our fears and depend on our sense of scarcity.
I made Anthem because I am as stubborn, self-loving, and invested in my own freedom as my parents taught me to be. Fuck The Police because they don't make us safer. Fuck The Police because Black and LGBTQI people have a lot of experience taking care of our communities. Fuck The Police is a love poem, because what is more loving than rebellion against violence, tyranny, mediocrity, and willful ignorance?
Anthem Is Pink, And PINK is HOT.
HOT HOT PINK because ABOLITION IS LOVE / HOT HOT PINK because THE FIRST PRIDE WAS A RIOT / HOT HOT PINK because WHEN WE CARE FOR OURSELVES AND OUR COMMUNITIES WE WIN.
I'm also finally getting my first online shop up and running, featuring items priced $10-$200. I'm honored to be able to share 10% of the proceeds of the tote bag with Project Nia. I've learned an enormous amount about building a world without the violence and harm of the police from Project Nia and the radical imagination of its founder, Mariame Kaba. #blackartists #queerartists #pink #fuckthepolice #ftp #defundthepolice #pridewasariot #juneteenth #getfree #nomoremediocrewhitepeopleinpower #fuckdarthkarenforever
