Los Angeles, CA
“For whatever reason when I came here everybody started calling me Future. Everyone in the states calls me Future, it’s pretty much what I am known by. In fact, if it wasn’t for Facebook I don’t know if they’d know my other name.
Transilient: Did you come up with that name for yourself?
Future: No, it was actually at the first Black Lives Matter convening in Detroit… okay, I have some moderately eclectic type pieces, some Battlestar Galactica type stuff, they just started calling me Future because of my clothes. It was very literal.
(everyone laughs)
I act as the International Ambassador for Black Lives Matter. I do a lot of consulting work with a lot of different organizations. Essentially, looking at their culture and at policies to find out where they’re not inclusive of marginalized folks, racialized folks, and trans and non-binary people. I look at what those barriers are and how to remove them.
I’m a parent too and I love being a parent. Though, parenting is a trip y'all. I am not going to make any assumptions but any time I’ve ever met anyone who’s not considered normative or has had tensions in their lives or struggles, and one of the commonalities amongst us is providing the type of parenthood that you wished you had. You are mourning and celebrating simultaneously, it’s a trip. Both Patrisse and I, are different, but grew up very poor. I grew in foster care, group homes, and in women’s shelters. It’s weird to know that this person is going to have a very different life than I had.
Transilient: You’re super busy with educating, activism, theorizing, and parenting. Do you have a self-care regimen?
Future: Have y’all read this article by Melissa Harris Perry that just came out? It’s really provocative and shook a lot of folks up. She talks about squad care versus self-care.
She’s basically saying that the idea that we are all responsible to and for each other in a particular way can go further than self-care. She says squad care is anti-capitalist inherently and keeps more people a float including elders.
My relationship to it theoretically is that self-care is a useful tool in squad care.
There are times that you need to take a moment to figure out who you are.
The best argument for self-care is the one bell hooks presented.
That the premise of self-care according to bell hooks and the focus of it is about self-actualization. It’s not about bubble baths and streaming and I do those things too. Buzzfeed just did a thing was like, “How much are you streaming?” I was like… “Too much, too much, too much!”
One has to question who the article was really written for because who’s like, “leg warmers!, granola! , and yoga! ” but if it is you, that’s your thing, then that’s what’s up.
I do like the idea of rigorous self-care. Your self-care should be about healing. Healing your trauma. It looks like the process of self-actualization. So, I started to ask folks, “Do you know yourself more after your self-care practice?”
That’s my relationship to it now.
What it looked like in practice for me, I am boxer, it was going to the gym and hitting the bag and that gets my head well and gets my head right. I found out recently that I am actually a domestic. You know this whole thing with me, “Let me get you some wedges of lemon and lime for your water.” I made donuts last night for Patrisse’s nieces, from scratch and Patrisse is frying up some now for y'all if you want them. You feel me? That’s becoming a new self-care thing. I did not know about that stuff and this part of me. Self-care is trying out new things. It’s a chemistry I can understand. Cooking is a chemistry I understand. It’s about providing it for a larger group of people."
#BlackLivesMatter #Blackjoy #MoreThanNonBinary #nonbinary #LGBT#parenting #love #selfcare #bellhooks