Let’s celebrate black life!
In an recent interview between Marz Lovejoy and Latham Thomas I heard Latham say something that was so powerful it has since looped in my mind. She said, and I’m paraphrasing with my own words, “the energy we spend in the black lives matter movement with mourning, protesting, strategists, raising funds, posting, etc, what if we used that same energy to celebrate black life?” ( And this isn’t to take away from the movement but in addition to).
That really got me thinking, what does it look like to celebrate black life while the person is living? Outside of a birthday party. And how do we celebrate black life in the womb? Outside of a baby shower.
Then I started to Google and Pinterest searching for images of pregnant women and mothers. It took several page swipes to find a black mother. When I would search images specifically for pregnant black mothers many results were white women in black clothes and there were limited images of just the black mothers belly and not revealing her face or entire body. Or images of black pregnant women that are celebrities. With these limited images which continues to perpetuate the erasure of the Black woman’s body, how is there room to celebrate black life? If we can’t even see it possible through an image.
Representation matters.
Images are powerful.
As I prepare for my own birth and continue to prob these questions I have an artistic call to action: collect and share photos that celebrate black life. Specifically, I’m asking for as many mothers and pregnant mothers to:
1. Send 1-2 photos of your pregnancy and photo of child /children
2. Email me these photos at celebrateblacklife @ Gmail [.] com, include your name and location
3. Help spread the word by tagging a mom friend below
In the months to come more details about this project will be shared. For now it’s just the beginning process and I will be in the collecting and researching phase. ❤️
Photo credit Wallace Smith
