Arcadia England

What does it mean to be black in a white dominated world? 

By Harper Jones

It means being a part of culture that others want to emulate. 

Being pop-culture; creating what is popular so that someone mediocre could make it so.

Finding brother and sisterhood in unfamiliar spaces. 

It means being overly cautious of every move and step you take. 

Being ten times better than your peers just to receive the same acknowledgement they would.

It means being the children of revolutionaries– fighters for freedom in all forms. 

The children of survivors. 

It means being the direct descendants of Africa and its diaspora; having to create our own record of where we are from for our descendants because no one else would. 

It means having a target on your back for existing.

It means pain.

Being strong for the sake of being strong– so no one will see the cracks.

Being a “representative” of the collective when you could only speak for yourself.

Feeling obligated to educate others when it is not your job.

Being sexualized and deemed “exotic”.

“Jezebel-ed” 

It means celebration.

Happiness.

Melanin.

It means being creators of our past, present and future.

This past Black History Month, being away from my community and what I know, has given me a chance to look at what being black means to me and the world. The common experiences we shared despite living in different parts of the world and how those experiences shaped their communities. 

I had the privilege to attend an exhibit called Life Between Islands at the Tate Britain and it gave me an up close and personal exposure to the Afro-Caribbean Brit experience through art. The exhibit curator, David A. Bailey, took us on a journey of four generations of Caribbean-Brits through the lenses of artists such as Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Frank Bowling, Aubrey Williams, Charlie Phillips, Horace Ové, Michael McMillian, Barbra Walker, Zak Ové and so many more. From the moment I walked into the room, I knew that I would be experiencing something so different yet familiar to what I know. 

Seeing pieces such as Joyce’s Front Room– an interactive piece that transported the viewer into the front room of an Afro-Caribbean household; Walker’s Charly, Josiah, and Richard– drawings of current day British servicemen on World World I recruitment posters that were spread across the West Indies; Zak Ové’s Hairy Man and La Jablesse— sculptures centered around characters in Caribbean folklore and religion made from ropes from the Thames river; and Crosby’s Remain, Thriving— mixed media painting of the grandchildren of the Windrush Generation that celebrates Afro-Caribbean immigrants but also comments on the 2018 Windrush scandal— evoked not only awe for how beautifully these artists illustrated history, but also the power emanating from their works. I witnessed the power of being black and coming out of pain and strife stronger than before. It was an act of activism— pointing to a community that was not only undervalued, but deserved to be shone a light on. These artists, past and present, immortalizes the culture of Afro-Caribbean Brits and mirrors the black experience as a whole. Being in a country that did not accept you, yet desires your body and spirit for their means. Being in a world that attempts to take away your foundation to assimilate to their own. Being black in a white dominated world. 

As a BLACK artist— of a different field– I was inspired by this work because not only could I relate to it, but it motivates me to use my craft as a light for my community as other African American artists have done before. I will take the torch that was passed to me by the great black artists before me of all origins, and hold it high in the sky to show the world WE ARE HERE. WE ARE ALIVE. 

1.  Afro-Caribbean citizens who had moved to Britain following the 1948 British Nationality Act.