Black Joy Matters

Commissioned by Hastings Museum & Art Gallery. 2020

Made in response the the BLM Rallies across the world, Hastings & in St Leonards.

CREDITS

Conceived & Directed by Anna-Maria Nabirye. Audio Joy Sharers: Joy Alpha, Jennifer-Jane Benjamin, Marie-Hélène Boyd, Dawn Dublin, Claudine Eccleston, Deanne Naula, DOP Hannah Hutch. Additional Camera Dawn Dublin & Brad Butler & Dan Hope. Edited by Anna-Maria Nabirye. Thanks to Arts Admin for Head & Physical space.

Dear white folks

This bit is especially for you. You maybe questioning why I chose to make a piece about Black joy. You maybe questioning why Black people deserve a whole ten minutes & forty-six seconds of film dedicated to their joy. Of course everyone should experience joy and everyone experiences sadness and hardship. If you are not questioning these things- then the rest of this blurb is not for you- but read on if you are curious.

But there is a particular pain and sadness that I feel myself as a Black person and more specifically as a Black woman that isn’t to do with the loss of a child or sibling, or a parent or a cousin or an aunt.

That isn’t to do with an unrequited love of someone you care for dearly.

That isn’t to do with the breakdown of a friendship or marriage.

That isn’t to do with the loss of a job or fighting as hard of you can and not winning whether in sport or work in any where else.

That isn’t to do with a holiday falling through or arriving at a destination only to find out that its closed or a beach day trip on a rainy day.

There is a particular sadness and pain that I feel as a Black woman, when your, humanity is not seen.

When your human rights are not fought for.

When your very being – on the planet, on your street, in your house, in your body, in your heart is denied. Purely because of the melanin in your skin.

And when I see a fellow Black person denied those rights, that space purely because of the melanin in their skin. There is a pain that can be shared because that pain that is so specific, it can reverberate across the Atlantic Ocean. A pain that means me living here in the small British seaside town of St Leonards-On-Sea watching the news about Breonna Taylor, who lived in a Louisville, Kentucky, USA, a young woman of 26, a woman who lived in a place that I’ve never been to, in a culture that i dont truly understand, despite this difference, she reverberates through me and her pain resonates in my skin, in my bones, in my body and in my heart.

The racism of the USA is the problems of the UK and that’s why these 10 minutes and 46 seconds are dedicated to the joy of Black People.

Black Lives Matter.

Black Women Matter.

Black Joy Matters.

**If you know & live this, this letter wasn’t for you. Go and give some joy to the Black people you love or you are yet to love. Not sure how - donate to the Black Curriculum HERE or join the fight to seek justice for Breonna Taylor HERE.