GOLD WAS MADE FA' HER.

I grew up in Third Ward, Houston with my mama and three older siblings. It wasn't until I went outside of my neighborhood that I realized we were societies definition of poor and the community that I loved so much was considered "ghetto" and volatile. That reality created a lack of access and very early as a child I noticed the sacrifices and lengths the women around me took to survive.

Now as an adult I understand why Black hood women for generations had to create our own spaces and be resourceful to feel beautiful, seen, and appreciated for who we are and what we have. Respectability politics were created from a system that keeps whiteness as the standard of behavior, tone, appearance, and success. This has resulted to a hierarchy of oppression within our communities and made it harder for Black women in the hood to have access to equity, equality, and exists honoring their autonomy within the system. And that is because it wasn't created for us. The south alone has been a gold mine for the fashion industry and pop culture ~ yet we don't see the faces of the originators who created it nor does the world at large show us that honoring and valuing Black women is a norm. We are reminded of that when we die at the hands of hate and racial injustice, and our names are forgotten.

We are reminded of that when we walk outside of our doors, and take the prayers that 'big mama' passed down for our protection to make it back home safely. We are reminded of that when our bodies are policed, and felt that there is only so much space we can take up in a world that targets our existence. We are often tokenized, and when we are photographed it is usually never to uplift our voices but to fit inside the fabric of the masses ideas of who they think we are. This is violent and oppressive; and we deserve so much more. I want to change this narrative by exhibiting visual stories of us as mothers, daughters, healers, women, and Godly creators of this universe. Although society attempts to dehumanize our experience, I want to create spaces that represents us in fullness, truth, and in all of our glory without having to dim any elements of ourselves that makes us, us.

The intention of these stories is to help bring attention to a subgroup of black women that the world uses for mockery, profit, and chooses to dehumanize because historically we’ve been taught that Black women have to work ten times as hard to adhere to misogynoir politics in order to thrive and be accepted. Yet, the intent is to not convince the predominant gaze that we deserve more, but to intersect our identities, culture, hardships, and beauty to remind us that at core we matter simply because we exist. The Black hood woman is a rose, and we have always mattered. The mission is making our world a better place by contributing the dichotomy of art and activism, cultural celebration, history, and healing to the people that need it most.

This is a visual poem to Breonna Taylor and countless other Black women that didn't get the justice and honor they deserved on earth, but are worthy of receiving reverence for their spirits to carry on through those of us that are still here. This is home... the South will forever be home.