It’s hard for me to remember a time before my blackness, a time when I never felt a “double-conscious” history embedded in my skin. My earliest memories are from the time when I was living on Scott Air Force Base in Southern Illinois between the ages of 5 and 10. My family told stories riddled with warnings—never be alone with whites, fear strangers who are not like me—horror stories of missing relatives who went out with a group of white friends never to return home again, left in the wilderness as a prank or even murdered. Back then, I didn’t realize that these stories and warnings were not meant as racist diatribes, but rather were laced with the history of subjugation and harm that my family and friends encountered at the hands of whites. These stories were meant as a survival guide, a shorthand to growing up black.

These warnings and fears that were passed down for generations have become the backdrop and impetus for much of my art. By focusing on the most obvious aspect of my identity, skin color, I reveal the subtleties of the stereotypes that continue to haunt me. I incorporate blackness as a trope, a signifier—a tool to see myself in the world.