November's Letter
At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you. Barbra Streisand
Please consider reading this letter on Substack’s site by clicking the banner or the title of the letter as sometimes the letter gets clipped for length. Clicking the banner is also the only way to view the most up-to-date version as I fix all of the many, many grammatical errors that seem to magically appear after I send the letter to your inbox.
11.26.23
How do I even write this letter without first acknowledging the genocide happening in Palestine or the mass displacement and genocides happening across Africa, not just in the Democratic Republic of The Congo or Sudan, but in all the places being pressed beneath the boot of the exploitative, colonial power of white-supremacy, corrupt governments, and non-Black people mining and destroying the continent for its resources? None of this is new business and no one person can speak on every kind of oppressive atrocity happening around the globe because there is no square inch of land on this earth that is not oozing with anti-Blackness, homophobia, Islamophobia, and suffering because of it. Many struggle to hold that this world is spinning off its axis from the sheer weight and force of hatred, greed, and violence. It has been hellish to behold what is happening all around us.
There seems to be no safe space to learn, dissent, express rage, or to even discuss what’s happening in Palestine without being harassed, doxed, dismissed, and called antisemitic. All of our major news outlets, like The New York Times and The Guardian, have failed, to a stunning degree, to cover the humanity of the Palestinians being murdered and displaced. Luckily there appears to be some attempts to improve. The bias in the coverage of Israel as victim and Palestine as aggressor, ignoring the last 75 years of what led to 10/7, and the near complete lack of coverage of what’s happening in Sudan or The Congo at this very moment makes me sick. The two-side-isms of journalism/news is constantly disappointing and rooted mostly in the same old disingenuous performance art that is journalistic objectivity. It is not real. There is almost always right and wrong, even when it’s complicated.
I’m exhausted by nearly all social media discourse about these things. People are rightfully angry but the shaming and guilting, the calling out capitalist celebrities for refusing to use their platforms when many of them cannot speak out because of their contractual obligations, shady allegiances, and most importantly, the money that they would lose. This is what happens when we turn humans into heroes. We ignore those who dedicate their lives to resistance, we don’t fund the modern-day revolutionaries among us, standing on the front lines when the cameras are gone. This is what happens when we expect those whose allegiances lie within maintaining the status quo and selling off watered-down performances of their oppressed identities, to show up for a real-life crisis that would threaten that bank account.
The greatest calamity of this moment seems to be the ongoing erosion of empathy and humanity and its continued replacement with hatred and individualism. I pray that folks who are enraged by these ongoing injustices finally understand that those in the global majority have a unified enemy in White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. However, I have so little faith in people, especially in people living in first world countries. Our collective inability to commit to anything that would disenfranchise us from the convenience economy is well known and clear. I have been dissociating for as long as I can remember but this moment has had me damn near astral projecting into a different stratosphere. Thankfully, I haven’t had to argue with anyone online, not a single soul. I hope that it’s because people already know my body and my politics. I stand with truly oppressed people ALWAYS. By any means. I pray that this is clear in everything that I have committed my life to and rested my career upon. I am deeply committed to the folks that, like me, are beneath the boot of these colonial powers.
Seeing the chorus of hateful, ignorant, and lazy critiques of any pro-Palestinian support as inherently antisemitic has been so disheartening, so ahistorical, so much like the MAGA folks online. Usually, I can dismiss such stupidity as trolling or as a lifelong commitment to white-supremacy and white comfort but seeing so many public figures and institutions not only standing on the wrong side of history in language, but in gesture and violence, has been unreal. Folks have been dropped from films, have lost representation for their work, and their very livelihood has been threatened by speaking out about the human and moral costs of this ongoing war against Palestinians. People in Palestine deserve to fight for their lives, their human rights, and their home. ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE DESERVE THE RIGHT TO FUCKING LIVE, BY ANY MEANS. How many times and in how many ways will we allow white-supremacist settler colonial violence to eviscerate, displace, and disappear an entire group of human beings? For oil? To maintain power? You want to uphold that? How can a person not see the connections to our collective struggles? You don’t see that Israel released as many people as it arrested during the ceasefire, that it never stopped killing people? How can people who call themselves human stomach videos of children being picked off by sniper rifles while Israeli teenagers make fun of these murders on Tik Tok?
Of course, as is always the case, the anti-Muslim sentiment caused from October 7th is leading to increased violence against Muslims and those perceived as Muslims in the West. Three students were shot in one of my favorite places, Burlington Vermont. In the UK two women were arrested for holding signs with Arabic writing after the officers couldn’t verify the text because they didn’t speak Arabic or trust the women’s translation. A 6-year-old child was stabbed to death in his home by a racist white neighbor while his mother, also stabbed over a dozen times, lay bleeding and barricaded in her bedroom. It is heartbreaking. I am often ashamed to be American, even though my folks built this shit, but the feeling of disdain I have for this place is overflowing. Overwhelmed doesn’t begin to describe it. Hopeless does not begin. I am rattled and distraught. None of us are safe, even, if not especially, those who believe themselves to be. The biased coverage, the dehumanization, it’s just too much.
I wish more of this energy, this investment, this outrage and urgency was pointed toward Africa right now, toward Sudan and DRC primarily. I wish that I was less certain about the reason that one atrocity is being treated as far more important than the others, as it pertains to collective unrest, financial bolstering, and news coverage. We know why. We always know.
The oppressor wants us to be quiet about our suffering, to endure brutality with a relative air of “civility.” This too is an old tool of white supremacy. We must continue to make noise about ALL of the atrocities happening. In the same breath, we must also disconnect, we must look away and protect our own mental health, our own sanity and safety. Somehow this is an unpopular opinion. Stepping away from the mass traumatization to breathe and regulate is seen as a privilege and it is. But it is necessary, especially for oppressed people. I know that it can feel counterproductive and challenging to say that in this time of catastrophe and crisis, we have to bear witness but we also have to look away to protect our eyes. I have no answers. I can only offer that I’m struggling and have always been struggling with dichotomy. I come from a mighty lineage of Black, queer, and trans activists. Folks who fought with every breath in their bodies for justice in whatever ways they could. We must find our way back to this energy. It is more challenging than ever before but certainly more necessary.
The largeness of this hellishness makes my own life, my own needs feel irrelevant and infinitesimally small. However, I’m trying to do better at allowing myself some light in the darkness, to offer myself a moment to speak amidst the explosive, cacophonous sounds of the world ending.
In lighter, softer news I need to acknowledge that I started this newsletter one year ago this month. I quietly celebrated that accomplishment on November 4th but wanted to acknowledge it here. Thank you so much to all of the folks that have subscribed, newcomers and (day ones)?. Thank you to the folks who keep this newsletter in their tabs for weeks, trying to find the time and attention span to read what my sad ass has been up to and to the people who treat receiving this newsletter like an event, ingesting it all in one sitting and letting me know it, too. I’m grateful for every email, every comment, every message, and every share. I wanted this space to be one where I could be as honest as possible, one where I could come to scream about the state of the world into the embrace of community. I’m proud of myself for committing to it.
To celebrate this accomplishment, I’m excited to announce that I’m doing a print sale. I’ll be sending out a separate post about it but I’m finally starting the process of letting some prints enter the world. People ask me constantly about whether or not I sell prints, which for the most part I do not. I usually spend too much time vetting interested collectors to make sure that the prints are going to caring homes. Now, I’m trying to loosen the reins a tiny bit. I’ll be offering a limited run of five images, each in an edition of 10 for $450 including shipping (international girls will have an additional fee for shipping). The prints will be signed and editioned on the verso. Please do consider supporting this sale if you’re interested in collecting my work. I won’t do this very often. Please share and spread the word to collectors. Thanks so much and more soon.
In other news, I moved recently into a beautiful house that I cannot comfortably afford. I am madly in love with it, so I’m going to have to make changes to my work and my lifestyle if I’m going to make this place a home. I’m feeling a deep, bodily sigh of relief and gratefulness to FINALLY have space, peace, and beauty all around me. To have everything that I own in one place, after many years of precarity, has felt like a blessing. I finally have a studio too (!!!!), something I’ve never had the privilege of having outside of residency programs.
This house feels like a pause state in a video game. Finally I can sit in silence, breathe and pull apart my life and career to figure out what’s next. Working as a freelance photographer making the kind of work that I make is unsustainable. Being exploited, underpaid, and interchanged while simultaneously being under/uninsured, in debt, and neglecting my health must come to an end. I’m using this time here as wisely as I can, to tend to my archive, apply for everything under the sun, to try to put a few books together, to move slow and decisively, and to write my heart out.
For those who don’t know, I’ve moved a lot in my life, 38 times so far. Having a space that truly feels like home and that offers me stability, has and continues to be the dream of my life. If I’m being honest, this is something that still feels unattainable in a real way. However, this house offers me these things for the moment and I’m so happy to have it. Building this space up, with the help of my dearest Joel, has been life affirming shadow work. I had a rich and deeply fulfilling summer, rife with complications but really so special, one of the best summers I can remember. Now, as winter draws near, it’s time to nest.
I’m happy to report that I’ve started talking to my mother again. Things are still complex. I’m still struggling with a lot of who and how she is, but having her back in my life feels like the blood is flowing again, and to my heart this time. She and my little brother came to the house for Indigenous People’s Day and it was… as special as it was spiritually grueling. Family is tough. I wish our time together would have been a bit happier, but I’m accepting the win of just getting my family to visit. I’m grateful for that. I also got in that kitchen, do you hear me? I fucked that Thanksgiving food UP! My mother and I collaborated on the cooking duty and it was delicious.
It's nice to be cooking again. One of the most peculiar trauma responses that I deal with is one involving the kitchen. Growing up homeless often meant that my family and I had very little autonomy over when, where, and what we ate. Sometimes we stayed in shelters where they served food. Sometimes we stayed with my mother’s friends with the understanding that we were responsible for securing our own food elsewhere. When we did have our own places, cooking was a deeply intimate experience for my mom, and I usually just watched her from the dining table triggered by her drinking and exhausted by the lateness of the hour. When I went into foster care and group homes, we had staff that prepared our meals, often without much love. As a young adult in independent living programs, I took cooking classes but I also bounced around a lot, even within the same program, because of the transphobia and queer antagonism I was experiencing. Eventually, I became disenchanted with cooking altogether because to move to a place, spread out in a kitchen, and perform the intimate act of cooking for people and for yourself implied a level of commitment and stability that I not only lacked but grew to resent. Add to this my career and my pension for traveling constantly. Eating out has been my primary way of life for the last four years and it has cost me a great deal financially and worsened my overall health in ways that I can see and feel. So having the ability to cook in my own beautiful ass kitchen has been one of the highlights of this move.
I’ve also had some lovely opportunities come my way. This summer I had the great honor to photograph the oldest survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre, 109 year old Viola Fletcher for The Washington Post. It was such a privilege to share this moment with Mother Fletcher and to honor her with a beautiful portrait. The team of Black women around her were so caring, so invested in making her look and feel her best, her most elegant. I was also commissioned to photograph THE two-time Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter in her beautiful home in LA for The New York Times. A shoot I will never get over. What a funny, generous, and kind woman. My goodness. I felt a real kinship with her and I hope I get the opportunity to photograph her again and again. The Park Avenue Armory commissioned me to photograph the truly legendary and singular, Kyle Abraham to honor his upcoming performance, Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful. Kyle is one of my favorite human beings and I loved the experience of having him in front of my camera again. In my latest for Rolling Stone I had the pleasure of photographing five incredible women: Timnit Gebru, Rumman Chowdhury, Safiya Noble, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Joy Buolamwini, for a story about the dangers and biases in AI. My fav Joe Rodriguez was not on set that day, which sucked, but it was such a beautiful experience. These women were so generous with their time, and each was such a breath of fresh air. Their story is incredible and frightening, so do give it a gander.
I was able to check another thing off of my bucket list when I was asked to write about the marvelous Carla Williams and her beautiful debut monograph, Tender for THE NEW YORKER! This is one of the highest honors of my life, both being able to write something for The New Yorker, the most prominent literary magazine on the planet for over 100 years, and to write about the debut book of a brilliant Black woman who truly deserved to have her work contextualized with care. I’ll never shut up about this and I really hope to write more for them in the future, though, if I’m honest, the experience left much to be desired re-communication and editing.
A major struggle for Black artists who create and offer their work to the world is that we want our art to be validated alongside the best, to receive a fair and rigorous assessment not just intracommunally but in the world at large. However, our work is rarely given that kind of care, consideration, and investment without being steamrolled or sterilized by white tastes and white institutional standards. So often, Black artists and thinkers writing about other Black artists and thinkers is treated like a complete afterthought. It’s unfortunate.
I was accepted into the Willipa Bay Artist in Residency program in Washington State for September of 2024. I’m excited and grateful for the opportunity to spend more time out West next year. I was also offered the crazy honor of being The Hopkins Review’s cover artist for 2024. One of my images will be on each of the quarterly literary journal’s covers along with some other fun things inside! You can read THR’s lovely announcement here. So much gratitude. I also got a really sweet mention in this interview with my dearest Jon Henry which made me smile.
There’s so much more going on, but Substack is currently warning me that this letter is nearing its length limit for emails, so, speeding along.
Reading, Watching, & Listening…
One of my favorite books of this year was my friend, Alejandro Varela’s short story collection, The People Who Report More Stress. I was very annoyed by the focus on white men in this book. His characters were OBSESSED with white validation and it was agonizing at times, but the writing was transfixing. Alejandro created such rich, flawed and human characters. I appreciated the nuance that he offered conversations on class aspirations and the difficulties therein, as well as his focus on Queer families and parenting. Comrades was one of my favorites from the collection as was All The Bullets Were Made in My Country. Excellent book.
Love Songs: Photography and Intimacy was a true delight. I loved it. The editing was ingenious and many of these photo projects and their statements moved me intensely. I wanted so much more.
I was trying to enjoy Patti Smith’s Just Kids as well as M Train, but the writing was so boring I literally could not endure it for more than a few minutes at a time. I was genuinely starting to enjoy Just Kids, the writing was a bit more exciting than M Train, but then someone told me about her song, Rock and Roll Nigger and… yeah. Now, I can struggle through reading controversial authors, but when I read Patti’s 1978 defense of the song during an interview with Rolling Stone, I had to sit that book right down. White folks have never, ever, EVER lacked in audacity.
I’ve been loving Courtney Faye Taylor’s poetry collection, Concentrate. This is some Black ass writing, poignant and textured. Her poems describe incredibly specific experiences of Black life in ways that I simply could not have imagined. Her use of problematic online reviews as a visual refrain throughout the book is so clever it made me cover my mouth each time. She’s doing with words what I’m trying desperately to do with photographs, creating a dazzling tapestry of Black complexity that shines a warm and caring light on the everyday Black experience and performs for no one’s gaze but ours. What a powerful offering, my goodness.
I was ecstatic to get my hands on Jim Goldberg’s latest book, Coming and Going. A staggering feat. This is how you document a life. It was riveting, personal, and heartbreaking. I spent hours poring over this book. I leaned all the way into the pages and took in every detail of this tome.
The GOAT of photojournalism, Joseph Rodriguez’s breathtaking photo story about aging in prison was sharp and necessary. Excellent photography on a really difficult topic. I read this glorious profile of the great Jesmyn Ward three or four times. I just couldn’t get enough. Also, Kennedi Carter’s dreamy portrait is tender and perfect. I was struck by this very loving piece about Ms. Lauryn Hill’s evolution and her reimagining The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill for the iconic album’s 25th anniversary. I appreciated this level of care. In the past I’ve struggled with some of Ms. Hill’s more contemporary renditions of these classic songs, but this sincerely offered me another way of thinking. I’m new to Salamishah Tillet’s writing but she got me now.
This interview with this bag of rotting cow dung Jann Wenner is another note on the audaciousness of whiteness. I remember reading it and being totally gagged that he would say this part out loud, but when you feel empowered and untouchable, like so many white men do, this is the kind of ass you make of yourself. Embarrassing. I felt a similar rage reading much of the writing about the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. I feel so exhausted even going here, like I’m continuously screaming into the void, but just stop writing about us, stop writing about Black art. No amount of scholarship will make you fully equipped, and each publication that continues to hire nearly exclusively white writers to be their publication’s voice on Hip Hop is doing us a continued, anti-Black disservice. There were SO many pieces, too many, that were just lacking. It also reminded me, yet again, just how many white photographers built empires on the images of Black musicians, ordaining themselves as authorities because they were there, while the rappers themselves have barely survived the very lifestyles that these people surveilled. It is such an injustice and I will be enraged about it for all the days of my life. However, my favorite piece of writing, honoring this very important anniversary, came, expectedly, from a Black woman. Danyel Smith wrote a stunning elegy to the Rapper’s We Lost for The New York Times Magazine that blew me out of the water. It was eerie at times, pointed at others, but always deeply heartfelt. Her words were portals and reading about this level of despair was extremely painful. I felt a particular tinge of fear and shame reading about the plus sized rappers who died from health disparities related to weight, a fear that I have for myself that feels more and more like a looming threat each day.
Danyel just gets it and she gets us. She has for decades. I’m so grateful that Elliott sent me this piece. Sadly, I could only read it once because I was a sobbing wreck of nerves by the end.
I enjoyed this and this and I was irritated to the point of levitation by this (like girl what? is this what we on)? I loved Zeshawn Ali’s mournful and honorific writing about his father’s death that he shared to honor the anniversary of his passing.
I devoured What Becomes A Legend Most, an autobiography of Richard Avedon. It was the best audiobook experience I’ve ever had and the definitive book about this great artist’s life. My dear friend, Joe Pug (photographer extraordinaire) had been telling me to read this book for over a year, even mailing me a copy. I was so enamored by the first Avedon autobiography, Something Personal, by Avedon’s last studio manager and dear friend Norma Stephens, that I didn’t really want to give it a chance, but I’m happy I finally did. It was light on gossip and heavy on research and care. Outstanding work.
And lastly, I’m currently listening to Barbra Streisand’s memoir, My Name is Barbra, read by the legend herself. Where do I even begin? I have been a fan of Barbara since high school. My love of Glee in college was rooted exclusively in its appreciation of this icon (word to Lea Michele). I’m mesmerized. Hearing Barbra telling me the story of her life while I sweep my studio, flip through photo books, and sip lattes while peering out the café window is a dream come true. This book is arresting, I am arrested, bitch bail me out! I had this book’s release date on my calendar since last fall. I am so happy to finally have this gift in my life. What. A. LIFE!
I spent a lot of this year in theaters. My favorite film of the year is Passages. My God. The most stunning film, the most unhinged story, the most undeniably gifted cast. I saw passages four times in LA and once in New York. A whopping accomplishment of cinematic brilliance. Franz Rogowski is a fucking force. This man is ACTING. Adèle Exarchopoulos is ACTING!!! Ben Whishaw is transcendent. This is a masterclass. What a movie.
While rushing down a Franz Rogowski rabbithole, I fell in love with the film Great Freedom. Secretly, I liked it more than Passages, but Passages had me in a chokehold. Franz and Georg Friedrich were electrifying. The subtlety of the performance paired with their unmistakable chemistry was unreal. There’s really nothing like an indie. I also fell down an Ira Sachs rabbit hole (the director of Passages) and fell in love with Little Men. A unique, quiet, and lovely film. As well as Keep The Lights On which was excellent but wild as FUCK. Like, the craziest character study. A very interesting film.
Painkiller was the worst thing that I’ve seen since Baz Luhrman’s entirely useless take on the Great Gatsby. Goofy, cartoonish, insufferable, and unbearable. I just can’t believe that Uzo Aduba participated in something so unnecessary, since there have been a slate of films, docs, and series that have dealt with the story of opioid crisis and its origins and impact, with sincerity and compassion. However, as always, Uzo’s performance was sumptuous. She’s a scene stealer and I adore her.
I was sad to see Reservation Dogs go. I have a lot of feelings about this show ending so soon, but I digress. The final season was heartbreaking and endearing and I’m going to miss those bad ass kids. One of the best shows on television.
The Changeling was nuts. SOOOOOOO unique. I loved it. More Afrofuturism. More Afrosurrealism. More, more, more. The cast, the performances, the writing, perfect. I know that I’m biased, because my sister, Michael Williams, directed episode 7, but it was my favorite episode of the season. Adina Porter? What can’t she do? It is entirely possible that the depth of her talent is endless. What a gift. The directing and cinematography and that episode? The performance of Stormy Weather as that man lay dying? Jesus. Just wonderful. I can’t wait til next year.
The Morning Show was fantastic this season. Nicole Beharie is the love of my life. She’s another one whose talent seems to know no bounds. That third episode where she got that racist woman together on live television should garner her at least an Emmy nod, prayerfully, an Emmy win.
Full Circle was amazing, though, again, I’m biased. My dear friend Sheyi Cole was one of the stars of the show. And what a star he is. Now, the storyline could have used some work. This story attempts to take a new approach to the slightly played out story of the wealthy white family with big secrets being extorted by the young, Black and Brown folks, but it leaves way too much to be desired, falling into tropes and stereotypes a bit too often. There are things that could do better but I loved it and watched gleefully every week. I loved the performances from the fresh cast and I hope it gets another season!
Lastly, FRASIER IS BACK! I’m not sure how many of you all know this but Frasier is my favorite show of all time. Frasier had such an impact on me as a child, teaching me a great deal about language, art, culture, comedy, intellectualism, and snobbery. The family dynamic on the show was entirely different from anything I’d ever seen but the tensions were familiar and made me feel less alone as a child. Frasier taught me a love of language and I owe that show so much. When I heard Frasier was coming back I was over the moon because I knew it would be horrible and I did not give a solitary damn. And would you look at that, the show is abysmal. ABYSMAL. But I watch every single week. I watch for the references to the past and the pleasure of revisiting. The story that they’ve come up with here, of moving Frasier back to Boston to reconnect with his son the way he moved to Seattle all those years ago to take care of his father is sweet. I miss John Maloney so much. This show is nostalgia ultra and I’m happy to have a little piece of my childhood on the TVscreen again.
This letter is way too long, so I won’t talk much about what I’m listening to. Just know it’s lots of Cannonball Adderley, Weyes Blood, Peter Cat Recording Co., Tame Impala (you can thank Joel for the last two) and Steve Lacy (primarily this song). Oh, and I’m obsessed with this ratchet lil number by Baby Tate. I love comedic rap and she is SPITTING!!!
One more month, y’all and this year is over, but who knows, maybe something magical will happen before the year ends. I’m wishing you all a little magic and a whole lotta life.
Talk Soon!
YOUR MIND! how lucky we are that you share these monthly missives with us. thank you for sharing your heart.
also, passages?! BAYBEEEEEEE
was searching for the words to try and express my adoration for you this month and this song started playing in my head so......https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls6qsTAZPVE
ur so special so special so special