We the People! reflection by Dr. Stacey Chimimba Ault, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Sacramento State

I reflect often on the intersections. The in-between spaces, the margins, those places where you feel seen, uplifted, supported, and at once silenced, alone, invisible.  The sites where you matter and are valued, and also where you sometimes disappear, questioning your worth.  At once survivor and victim, tired and energized, superwoman and unremarkable human hardly holding it together.

Black women often live in this space.  We do so without words to describe the dichotomy.  Without thought given to the exhaustion we feel as we navigate trauma, and fight to exist in spaces that weren’t created for us. Sometimes we do so without noticing or appreciating the power, agency, joy and rest we experience when we have the freedom to be our bold and beautiful selves. 

It is in this place I find the work of Noelle Tavares.

We The People! is a reflection of the essence and beauty of Black people.  It bears witness to all of the great things we have put into this world and gives us our flowers while we are still alive.  Tavares states, “My work reflects on what’s happening in my community, what’s happening in the world and what’s happening with brothas and sistahs getting killed who look just like me or my children … my work is also inspired by music, life and the sights that I see.”  

Tavares’ art speaks to those of us in the margins and centers us in the conversation. Whether in print or on clothing Tavares gives us permission to be seen, visible and noticed.  By announcing Black pain and anger in a vibrant, colorful, musical way Tavares doesn’t minimize it, she honors it and elevates its power.  Allowing us to sooth our trauma with a balm, a medicine, a sense of hope.

As I write, I am mourning the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, the latest young Black woman girl child, to be killed by law enforcement, I am reminded once again of the intersections.  Of what it means to be at once child, and Black, and female, and poor, and involved in a system that purports to protect us from victimization and yet perpetrates the ultimate violence.  I invite us all into a pause.  A time to reflect on our own intersectional identities.  A moment to recall times we have been victim and perpetrator, privileged and oppressed, inside and outside.  Most importantly, I invite us to remember how powerful we are; how we have the opportunity to individually and collectively dismantle the mindsets, ideologies and systems that uphold binaries and inflict violence; rebuilding something vibrant and colorful and beautiful in their place. WE…the People!