featured artist: tabitha bianca brown

this is some amazing artwork. tabitha bianca brown uses mixed media, graphite, photoshop, among other mediums to create these:

click here to view larger images.

check out more of her work at the pairabirds, her website.

what the…?

…

i have no words.

give up

my ‘pretty wings’ go to shame as i am endlessly degraded. i hold in the tears that instead turn into a built-up hatred, as every step i take is observed under a microscope. indirectly telling me i’m not good enough for respect, or flat out letting me know that my body just doesn’t make the cut. what i once thought were my god-given attributes are instead a warrant for public scrutiny. i am a spectacle that simultaneously serves to be his pleasure and dissatisfaction.

if i respond, or even give an angry glare, chaos. so i continue to walk, attempting to ignore my hair, skin, and nails being burnt to crisp. i survive– barely– as my daily walk is flooded with a storm of harassment. embarrassment.

but as i see through him, he turns my “stuck-up” demeanor into another warrant. oh, so you’re too good for us?

ATTACK.

like frantz fanon’s lived experience:
“they were countering my irrationality with rationality, my rationality with the ‘true rationality.’ i couldn’t hope to win.”

but of course, fanon doesn’t care about my lived experience. i am yet another obstruction to the his recognition. my internal criticism brings him down. my tears that have waited to surface are a sign of weakness that will resonate with the rest of the community. a pseudo-umma that has replaced unity with one-sided support. not only are my emotions not good enough, they have become a detriment. i am a detriment and thereby deserve nothing more or less than pure disrespect.

“you have to be tough to be able to live,”*
i tell myself as my skin’s lack of moisture turns me into stone. i lift my head to the world and feel a frozen breeze blow from my forever-imperfect body. the breeze of anger and conditioned oblivion that i once questioned has finally absorbed into my bloodstream.

i fall over, comply.

i can’t handle this newfound hatred i have. not for the world, nor myself. no, for “my people.”

and i give up on them.

____________________
*Also from Frantz Fanon’s “Lived Experience of the Black Man,” Black Skin, White Masks.

…

afterthoughts: i wrote this a while back, in response to what i saw as the antithesis of unity and harmony. and although i labeled this as an “off-topic” post (definitely a little more personal than my usual stuff), i think this important topic ties back to what we discuss at black queen. we have frequently discussed internal degradation that shows through in family members telling us to get a perm, or “friends” constantly scrutinizing our hairstyles. but where does this come from? how do our interactions with men (whether regarding our hair or not) relate to how we treat each other as women? how do our interactions with men relate to how we see ourselves?