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#NIUNAMÁS | 𝐚𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 ˊ˗

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[namedconquer]

OF BEAUTY

DIARY ENTRY: 01/08/2017

Beauty is a social construct!

 It has been constructed to best serve white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist systems, with an agenda to deliberately exclude anyone and anything that does not package perfectly for profit – depending on the market. These markets could be different contexts, a few years back it was about being supermodel thin, now we could say it is about being “stripper thick” We could even consider the different markers of beauty in cultures around the world, some value eyes, hips, many value skin tone…The complexity and cruelty of capitalism, with its siblings patriarchy and white supremacy, is that this construction is fluid – it flexes through time and place, morphing and moulding, changing shape, but always serving an evil agenda. Once you understand that beauty is constructed by those in power, you become aware of your own power to construct beauty in a way that best serves you. What I mean is not the clichéd affirmation of, “Beauty Comes from Within,” – because it doesn’t. There is nothing essential about beauty. I’m advocating for the everyday exercise of constructing a definition and standard of beauty that suits and serves you. Deciding that though your edges are not laid today, today’s definition of beauty becomes non-laid edges – and gotdamnit you’re beautiful! These deliberate decisions and definitions are an everyday, maybe even hourly exercise, because whilst you are constructing beauty for yourself, you must simultaneously deconstruct definitions that come against your standard. Theoretically, social constructions are not real, they are made up. They shouldn’t matter, but realistically, they have adverse effects on our being in this world. You get to work, edges not laid – gotdamnit you’re beautiful! And then, your white boss states that your afro is unkempt and unprofessional.  You’ve got to churn, do the mental and spiritual work of deconstructing and reconstructing, deconstructing and reconstructing. Whew! If you ask me, being beautiful is exhausting – it’s a task that relies very little on the physical and external appearance, but weighs heavy on the mind and spirit.

It is a task that I have tried in the past year to fulfil, and found some success in the fact that I do not have a deep hatred for my dark skin. I understand that the exclusion of darker skinned people (whatever their race) are white supremacist ideals used to fuel conquest, colonialism and capitalism.  I do not want to be complicit, even in the smallest way, of believing there’s something wrong with my skin, and feed into the rhetoric. That’s not to say self-hate doesn’t creep in now and then, between the churning of deconstructing and reconstructing, I may add a lightening filter to my Instagram selfie and then some days I just post. Beauty is an everyday exercise – an hourly exercise.

For me it has become an exercise of life and death. My body has deteriorated – I have lost so much weight. When I took a look at myself in the mirror after two weeks of hospital admission, I hated it. On top of that I had a bloody cold sore on my lips – I deemed myself ugly. Ugly infected with sickness is death. This fear of frailty goes way back, beyond the two-week hospital admission or the week admission last year. It goes back to a school photo of me in Grade 7 that surfaced whilst I was in Grade 8. In this photo, my dark skin looks pale – not light or ashy –but pale, without its glow. I’m smiling – I have a beautiful smile, but my face has lost its filling and firmness, and is struggling to sustain the smile. It seemed as though the smile would fall upon my protruding collar bone and that would be the end of me – shattered, a pile of tiny bones with barely any skin. My mother came across the photo once, hidden in a drawer under stacks of unnecessary things we put in drawers, and she said, “You shouldn’t show people this picture, otherwise they will know.” They will know what? That I was a sickly child, to put it lightly. From then I associated thinness with  sickness and death, and at the time the photo was taken, I had heard with my own ears the doctor telling my grandmother, “if this doesn’t work she might not make it”. Lo and Behold I did. I made it to Grade 8, where a fellow pupil came across one of my grade 7 photos and remarked, “you looked so much better when you were thinner”.  Sigh – beauty is a social construct.

Sometimes the constructions you form will be in alignment with white supremacist, patriarchal and capitalist standards – I am quite aware of my skinny privilege, I have a smug “never been a dress size over 8 in my life” pride I have to keep in check every so often. To an extent, I understand the reasoning behind why my fellow pupil leaned more towards thin than health. The world is very unjust to bodies above a certain size, and the assumption is that if you weigh above a certain number on the scale, you’re automatically unhealthy, unfit, undeserving of food or adequate seating and freedom of movement. These are all normalized assumptions - it’s not like we have written our BMIs on our foreheads (and even if we did we would still need to question the power behind that measure). In this context, the dilemma for me then becomes anxiety between the thing I see as death. and the big girl that will be socially excluded (and trust that social exclusion has as much intensity as death – do you exist if people deem you invisible?) Hence, another layer to what beauty is and must become, not only must you churn to construct and deconstruct – you must recognize where your definitions of beauty are in alignment with the socially constructed standards – find where that privilege intersects with someone’s oppression and then extend your constructions of beauty to include them. Think on how broaden definitions on beauty will help you grow, think on how inclusive definitions will help others grow.

What is it that is specifically growing? Some call it spirit / soul / self – the only thing I believe to be essential to a human being. Beauty is not from within, nor intelligence, nor any other attribute we’ve been shamed for falling short of, but the spirit / soul / self is – it’s an untainted and fragile part of our being.  It needs the body to hold it, it needs thoughts to frame it and it needs emotions to manifest itself, and that is why we must be deliberate about what we construct around us and the world to build it up. Everything but the spirit / soul / self is constructed, learnt, conditioned, socialized. In my very vulnerable state of feeling ugly, I have come to define self-love as the deliberate exercise of activating and amplifying the spirit – that essential part within me. When possible I believe all thoughts, actions, emotions, must serve the growth of the spirit / the soul / the self to fulfil not just your body and mind but any spiritual or physical space you occupy. If you do not take deliberate action in constructing structures and definitions that prop your spirit up, it will be suffocated by all the emissions of capitalism. In the same way that capitalism is eroding the beauty of our Earth, you will find your spirit sinking deep in the waters of a melting ice cap.  

Construct. Deconstruct. Churn!

Today, my beauty is health. It’s the fact that I haven’t had difficulty breathing, and that my cold sore is waning to the furthest corner of my lips. Understanding that today’s beauty is about recovery and patience, and less about my desirability in a world that often deliberately excludes me. Which reminds me of a Haitian saying, “Nou led, Nou la” translated “We’re ugly, but we are here.”  I’m alive – I’m here! I’m regaining my health and though my edges aint laid…gotdamnit I’m beautiful!

KUNDAI CONQUER

[namedconquer]

OF BLOOD

Photography: Victoria Simpson

[namedconquer]

1.

Silence in parenting –

a spiritual stronghold in so many black families.

A stigma around sickness

A strict adherence to societal norms.

So, there they sat – silent

as the doctor – as the white doctor spelled out for me,

“H. I. V.

(pause)

Is not the same as AIDS."

She continued,

Speaking of the softness of the sickness

and not the seriousness.

Its serious was found in the silence

where they sat stern and sad and silent.

2.

Secrets between siblings –

unspoken truths in so many black families.

A struggling siblingship of specious sportsmanship.

he ran in

streaming tears from his eyes

a soft weep soundtrack for the silence of the room.

Symphony:

silence

softness

seriousness

secrets

and sickness.

The soles of his school shoes had split.

The sniggering of the doctor’s waiting room occupants had summoned his sorrow.

The silence I was to exercise around him had summoned my sorrow.

“The sickness must be a secret!” the doctor had said.

I sat there,

there they sat,

all of us 

silent.

Surprised by the sibling’s intrusion of the serious.

From where I sat I could not really see the broken part of his shoe.

I contemplated.

Still contemplating…

…what really broke that day?

Was it the shoes?

Was it the seriousness?

Was it the stigma of sickness spoken with softness?

3.

Slowly making our way to the car

sibling with school shoes in hand

my father finally breaking the silence

“Are you okay?” He asked.

I remain silent.

KUNDAI CONQUER

Illustration: Sinomonde Ngwane

[namedconquer]

THE POEM

What does a five-year-old know about antiretrovirals?

About red blood cells & white blood cells?

What does she know about counting CD4s?

That remain hidden, even after you’ve opened your eyes &

totalled a hundred unable to seek them anymore.

What does she know about stigma?

Except that it sounds like a sting,

that makes others allergic to a type of me.

What does she know of second skins,

she must one-day wear to protect her lover from herself?

Of intimacy & sex?

Of how her pussy is a prison one awaits their death?

She must only know that it matters to SURVIVE.

KUNDAI: CONQUER

Illustration: Sinomonde Ngwane

[namedconquer]

SICKNESS FALLS UPON US ALL

Like rain, sickness falls upon us all, rich or poor, black, Indian, mixed race and white. Whilst it is important to acknowledge that some have the privilege of umbrellas, others the misfortune of having to utilise plastic for cover and still others live with the sheer injustice of having nothing at all, the universal experience of illness is undeniable.

What is less recognised however, is the expression of illness. Attempts at emoting illness are overwhelmed and buried beneath heavy medical terms of diagnosis, of viral loads, of CD4 counts, antiretrovirals, tumours, insulin and treatments written illegibly by doctors on prescription pads.“Those who are ill do not speak in their own voices. They are represented but do not represent themselves. Others speak for them, drawing illness definitions, classifying illness experiences, and setting the rules for what is believed.” (Foucault 1980 as cited in Lagerwey & Markle 1994 pg127).

The ways in which chronic diseases are spoken and written about are further alienating to the very people living with those diseases. Ignoring the intertwining of one’s identity to an illness. Undermining the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality that determine certain bodies more vulnerable than others. That positions me – a dark skinned young African woman as the typical face of human immunodeficiency. The emotional manipulation through campaigns of various medical institutions and some NGOs further enforce ideologies in their language, naming some as “survivors” and others as “victims”. 

I believe a deeper and more nuanced understanding of illness will be effectively reached through an expression of illness that goes beyond the medical and unpacks its chronic complexity. Discussions about disease must expand past biological bones and blood to elaborate on the emotional and lived experience.

Throughout the ages storytelling has been a universal action, and specifically for me it is a therapeutic endeavour. Beyond the direct telling of stories, we are born into complex communal narratives and furthermore experience and understand our lives as stories we are living out (Bury, 2001). I am sure that I am not the only one who analyses my life as chapters in a possible novel, actively writing, reading and living it. When considering storytelling and illness, as mentioned before, there is an absence of illness narratives that centre the emotional and psychological lived experience. Considering how common illness is, Virginia Woolf questioned the absence of illness as a major theme in literature, “one would expect novels devoted to influenza, epic poems to typhoid, odes to pneumonia, lyrics to toothaches” (Woolf 1967 as cited in Lagerwey and Markle, 1994 p121). 

I believe there are many profound pieces to be written on all sicknesses, yet I shall focus on my lived experience with HIV and AIDS. I’ll be doing this through a project called Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), which will consist of prose, poetry and performance, that which Virginia Woolf called for years ago. I will not be the first to answer her clarion call. Following in the footsteps of my greatest idols, Audre Lorde, who wrote “The Cancer Journals”, along with many other writers and social scientists who have worked to elaborate on illness beyond the boundaries of bio-medical narratives. 

The exploration of illness narratives, specifically chronic illness, shines a light on the nature of experience, its meanings, and actions taken to deal with it. Furthermore, the narratives reveal a set of important issues that deal with links between identity, experience and culture (Bury, 2001). As someone who loves sociology I could not tell a story without a sociological underpinning, hence ART is almost a study on myself living with HIV within our current society. I intend to unpack intersectionality in terms of illness, looking at what it means and the vulnerabilities that arise in a capitalist and white-supremacist society when one is black (African) and a woman living with HIV. 

I must emphasise that ART is subjective and I do not claim to speak for all HIV positive black women. I must also caution that the project is not the traditional red ribbon positivity that is consistently being touted, though I agree completely that one can live a full life with HIV. The project’s primary aim is to express and not necessarily educate – it will not function as a Life Orientation class; however, it is open as an opportunity to learn. Staying on that note, ART is not a project that will give medical advice and anything I may state regarding medical aspects of HIV will definitely need a second opinion. What I really want from this project is for people to feel and think – to feel and think differently not just about HIV and AIDS but all chronic illness. 

I am hoping to bring illness to the surface, where it is acknowledged as a legitimate human experience not to be spoken in shame or hushed hospital voices. Expressing and thinking freely about illness will, I believe, bring fuller conceptions and discussions on what health actually is. Health not as dictated by capitalism but understanding health radically, understanding self-care and self-preservation beyond the physical, understanding care as resistance within our very individualistic society, and getting a grasp on what it takes to heal over and over again, as one does when faced with a chronic physical and/or mental illness. As Nayyirah Waheed points out, “self-care and healing have been written out of so many of our cultures and yet are critical components of how a human being stays alive.”Responding to that I say, in writing self-care and healing back into culture we must not neglect the expression of illness as it literally threatens every aspect of a human being’s life. 

ART aims to fulfil all the above mentioned purposes but if it fails in that mission, let it be known that it has already fulfilled the crucial purpose of amplifying what was becoming the dying courage of my voice. In doing so, it will have prevented a diagnosed body, tainted blood and a societally  deemed irrelevant identity in illness, from dying in silence. 

Bury M. (2001) “Illness Narratives: Fact or Fiction?” Sociology of Health & Illness 23(3) Pages 263-285

Lagerwey D. & Markle G. (1994) “Edith Wharton’s Sick Role” Sociological Quarterly 35(1) Pages 121-134) 

KUNDAI CONQUER

[namedconquer]

ACUTE INFECTION

Photography: Victoria Simpson

[namedconquer]

THE PROLOGUE

What Does a Five-Year-Old Know About Antiretrovirals?

Blue and white checked dress with the mandatory Hillcrest Preparatory School hat. The hats were compulsory, because the sun was a constant in mountainous Mutare. Forgetting her hat at home was the biggest worry of this young girl’s life.

The walk from the BP garage to Florida Crescent was as treacherous as the heat, yet nothing out of the ordinary for this grade one girl. She was courageous, independent, never afraid, and very talkative. When she wasn’t chatting to anyone, she was singing or chatting to herself, as she did on the walk home.She sung all the way through the gate of what was once a municipal house - her destination – her home. It was the home her father grew up in. The home her father’s father passed away in. The home in which her father’s two sisters grew up and passed away. The home where the matriarch still stood, and kept the tired walls full of family history still standing too. The house stood like her grandmother – old but strong, outdated but functional, small but sweet, traditional yet empowering a newness.

Her song skipped down the driveway, though driveway was not what she called it  because there was no car yet. It was her yellow brick road, the grass trimmed path placed beside a magically minute orchard of home remedies – lemon, orange, guavas, butternut, even a grape vine that actually bore grapes in season.  Merrily singing, she entered the house to be met by thehistory laden walls that stood, to be met by her Gogo, who just stood there too. Today, the non-negotiable rule of taking off your uniform and washing school socks was evaded. Gogo greeted and then summoned her (grand) daughter to where she stood next to what would become an ever so familiar pharmaceutical brown paper bag. She took out what looked like the 2-dollar white mint sweets from the school tuckshop, shaped like a 5-rand coin but thicker, more sinister than sweet.

Too big for the little girls throat; her grandmother broke it in two and passed the first half to her.. Unwritten rule of black childhood – do as you told and do not ask. So she gulped it down with water, knowing now it wasn’t a sweet but a pill, not knowing what the pill was for but taking it anyway. It didn’t taste much like anything because the water had washed it down.  She repeated the process with the second half, and stood and smiled to reassure her grandmother, who was anxiously staring at her like an experiment.

Experiment gone wrong, the granddaughter could feel the pill fizzing and travelling back up her throat. It felt like the halves had reunited, and were fighting their way out. “I’m going to vomit” she said, the experiment about to explode. Her Gogo, in a panic, responding unconvincingly, “don’t think about vomiting or else you will.”  That was the first theory she ever took on – maybe if you do not think about it, it won’t really happen. This was also the first time that theory failed her,no matter how tightly she closed her eyes and envisioned the pill as nothing but a 2-dollar/ five-rand shaped white mint sweet, the inevitable happened. Remnants of a lunchbox lunch, Mazoe drink and ARV gushed out onto the living room carpet, living room coffee table, and  dress. Uselessly she ran to the bathroom, only to cough out a shattered self-esteem, tiny fragments of innocence that were to be replaced with illness.

Back in the living room, her grandmother was already on her knees with bucket and cloth, cleaning up the failed experiment, neatly packing more history into the walls, exercising her shoulders for enough strength to keep everything still standing. Feeling for the first time like another burden her Gogo had to carry, the child apologised profusely for the mess, offering to help, but was told to take off her uniform and wash her socks instead.

Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow would be another try. Tomorrow would be the routine of the next day, and the next day, two halves gulped till forever reluctantly but successfully. Tomorrow there’ll be sun and she’d sing of it, “bet you two-dollar, five-rand mint sweet that tomorrow there’ll be sun” all throughout her walk from the garage to the home. She’d sing all throughout her life there’d be sun, there’d be tomorrow.

KUNDAI: CONQUER

[namedconquer]

WHITE SAVIOUR, BLACK DISCIPLE: The Experience of Travelling Rwanda with My White Friend

“And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from trees. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”. Mark 11: 7 -9

A white Jesus no doubt, with blue eyes, thick brunette waves and maybe just a tinge of a tan as depicted in copious Christian Christmas movies. The contentious conversations around Jesus’ race whilst on Earth have never really consumed me. I’ve always rationalized that having being born in what we now call the “Middle East” that he was Arab, probably a dark skinned Arab as he was able to take refuge in Egypt. I just think a blue-eyed, white baby would easily have been found by Herod at that time.

However, having read the above extract of Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” and juxtaposing it with my recent trip to Rwanda, I may be open to a “Jesus is white argument”, for there is no other race on earth whereby praise and privilege proceeds you, even in travel. I recall times when rural Rwandese people would crowd around my travel companion, my white travel companion and shout, “Muzungu! Muzungu!” and “Hallelujah” testifying to her that God had told them he would send a stranger from afar and, “Praise the Lord”, here she was. Sceptical of the testimony, I wondered how specific God was about the stranger who could have also easily been me, since my white friend and I had travelled from the same far away land – South Africa.

The situation was awkward and uncomfortable even for V. (my white friend). We had deliberately decided that our trip to Rwanda was not to be a lost cause of “voluntourism”” – taking happy pictures with rural children surrounding us or capturing poor living conditions, only to comment, “how resilient and full of life the people are”. Finding that approach problematic, our intention was to travel Africa, visiting a country we had only been exposed to through the refugees we work with. Our aim was to learn, listen, and experience, as well as drink really good coffee. We had no intention to save anyone, certainly not the entire nation, and quite frankly were incapable of such. Unfortunately for V., that was the burden placed on her back throughout the trip.

Upon one of the thousand hills of Rwanda surrounded by so much green – banana plantations, cassava plantations, rice plantations, tea plantations and coffee (obviously coffee), was a scene reminiscent of episode 10, season 3 of “Game of Thrones.”  Khaleesi, with her stark white hair, her pale white skin, embodying whiteness, is surrounded by the brown and black slaves she has freed, all reaching their hands to praise her, trying desperately to get just a touch of her. There on that hill, was V. surrounded by many children pushing each other and myself out of the way, all to get a glimpse of their white guest and sneak a touch of her, just a touch of her - “If I touch even [her] garments, I will be made well.” Mark 5: 28. Surely, a white Jesus.

I felt the same bitterness that comes upon you when a black cashier has greeted the white lady with, “Good morning ma’am, would you like a plastic with that?”, and you follow after, only to be received with scornful eyes and reluctant one-word questioning, “plastic?”. Here I was, on that hill invisible to other black people, an African in Africa, yet unacknowledged by fellow Africans young and old. I was hurt, and those moments were lonely because not only was I not connecting with many of the locals, I was unable to reach and speak to V., as she was overwhelmed with attention. V. was the only person I could have a cohesive conversation with, as the majority of the locals were only fluent in their mother tongue - Kinyarwanda or had previously been educated in French. I questioned the possibility of Pan-Africanism, and whether it would ever move from an ideal to a reality, when whiteness has been put on a pedestal even in places and spaces where white people historically left the most damage. I wondered, not in an attempt to justify white supremacy, how white people would not pick up that complex of superiority when everywhere in the world they go, they are welcomed and revered.

Now, this could simply be the rantings of a jealous somebody, or just an irritated traveller annoyed at the fact that I could barely walk ten steps with V. without being bombarded and pushed out by a crowd. In the better moments, I felt like the best friend to the big celebrity; we even had an effective “security guard” in the form of our driver Bosco who would usher us quickly into the car and shield us from massive crowds – though sometimes I feel he was shielding the car more than us. Instead of inconsiderate questions thrown by the paparazzi, the chant was “Muzungu! Muzungu!”, so much so that V. ceased to hear her name and was predominantly called Muzungu, even by our hosts, for the duration of the trip. Routine to our road trips - a young boy shouts from the side of the road, “Muzungu, give us your money!” The first time it happened, it gave V a shock and got an internal smirk from me, because BINGO, there it was – whiteness’s alignment to economic privilege.  

When locals saw V., they saw money, or perhaps the reparations that Africa would probably never receive. People were not responding so enthusiastically to V. because they knew her or liked her (even though she is a very likable person), people were drawn to her because of what she represented. The white body has always represented wealth, and though not all white people are rich (most are richer than people of colour), their skin becomes a currency in which moving through life and the world is made easier for them. We travelled through mostly rural spaces as our hosts were a pastor and his wife, passionate about spreading the good news in low-income/no income areas of Rwanda. That’s not to say all rural spaces are poor, however, by the testimonies of many who lived there their greatest needs pertained to resources, employment and education. V. for many, was the embodiment of all that was lacking, and I must admit at times my English-speaking self was noted in line with the illusion of the “better black”.  

The majority of my Rwandan experience was not theoretically unfamiliar to me - white privilege, economic privilege, recognizing race relations and class relations is all undergraduate sociology to me. It was seeing it all play out so blatantly, not on TV, not as reported in news article, or in yet another viral video, but unfolding right before me and directly affecting me on multiple levels. The most hurtful occurrence happened as we boarded a boat on Lake Kivu. There was a steep step just before the water, and the man in charge of the boat assisted V. in navigating it, but then pushes in front of me, hastily ushering everyone else onto the boat and leaving me standing alone. At that point, my emotional maturity had waned, all my intellectual rationalization was capped, and for the first time on that entire trip I allowed myself to sink in to that invalidation. I literally wanted to be as invisible as I had become for most of the trip. V. abruptly turned around in the rush and hurried back to me, where I stood lonely on the hill and insisted, “hey, let me help you”.  The disgrace on the boatman’s face was evident. He looked confused, as if he was trying to figure out why the white woman cared for the black woman. I felt momentarily disgraced, as if by taking her hand down the hill I was taking a handout, when actually I had paid for the boat ride. What was consistent about the trip was that V. couldn’t help the treatment she was getting, you cannot forfeit privilege. However, she never forsook me as a friend.  

Our friendship during the journey mentally tested me as I thought of questions unanswered by undergraduate sociology – how can interracial friendships work when white privilege will always be at play, making me, the black one disposable? A deeper question on reconciliation struck me as we walked through Kigali Genocide Memorial. The task of reconciliation, by South African rhetoric, is an exercise in Kumbaya tactics. As I heard the stories from the Rwandan genocide about how neighbours killed their neighbours, yet after the violence the same two families lived next to each other, I wondered, how can reconciliation really be achieved. When V’s privilege stands strong because of historical violence and continued racism, I am disheartened that our friendship will barely scratch the surface of true reconciliation, and yet I also know, from having learnt the foundations of the Rwandan genocide, that invalidating her humanity is not a suitable alternative. Honestly, I do not know, and came back from Rwanda with more questions on everything; race relations, class confrontations, ethnic conflicts, wait what – wax print is not originally African and could I now become a coffee person?

I reckon white Jesus has the answers. I ponder if Jesus was white (he’s not), besides dying for our sins, did he also die to forgo his white body and bring us all to the realisation that we are just spirits confined not just in sin, but social constructs of an unjust world. I wonder if Jesus, who was tempted in every way, was ever tempted into a superiority complex of whiteness as he rode that colt into the city, or have we missed the point entirely and again imposed constructs on Biblical writings. Perhaps the “Triumphal Entry” was a bible story about an invalidated colt ushering in a new society, as it began the trip to what would soon be Jesus’ (white) human death and should have been a discussion on what each individual’s task is in our travels of equality.  

[namedconquer]

[namedconquer]

Beauty is a social construct!

[namedconquer]

[namedconquer]

“Feet why do I need you when I have wings to fly.” I first learnt about Frida Khalo & her diary in Grade 9 art class where I was immediately moved by her, her story and some of her art. The way she was so capable of expressing the morbid - her proximity to death & pain has always been an aspect to which I relate. Her unapologetic intense passion for life, love & Diego allowing brown girls all over then & now to not be ashamed of their own emotions but rather channeling that into the revolution.

As she was a leftist it may be assumed that she wouldn’t be impressed by the way her face & her name have been plastered onto t-shirts & such for aesthetic & (capitalist) consumption. Which begs the question how do we honour our idols / heros beyond the visuals to progress the missions the fought hard for whilst they were alive?

Happy Birthday Frida Khalo

Artwork 1: What The Water Gave Me Artwork 2: The Two Fridas Artwork 3: The Broken Column

#FridaKhalo