Dear Reader, by Tyrese Coleman
Dear Reader,
I’ve been spending a lot of time imagining myself in love scenes. Not always sex scenes, though sometimes, my imagination involves sex, I’m not gonna lie. But mostly, thinking about myself as the heroine of a sprawling love story, or a deeper narrative that feels consequential to the meaning or understanding of womxnhood, regardless of the cliche. The cliche, I mean, of dainty whiteness. So much time and effort and violence has been given up in pursuit of maintaining that fragile orb of white womanhood that many Black womxn are compared to and against. Think of the ridiculous memes of an ape-like Michelle Obama versus Melania Trump, European goddess. The racist, unfair harassment of Megan Markle in tabloids and television as compared to -- oh, what’s that other princesses’ name that no one cares about anymore? When womxn of the African diaspora seek to challenge the white, fragile cliche of womanhood, we are demonized, we are cursed, we are heckled.
But I’mNotHereToRewriteOrEducateOrExplainToYouAllTheDifferentWaysInWhichBlackWomxnHaveBeenMisinterpretedOrIntentionallyMisunderstoodOrHowOurAngerOrNotAngerOrGeneralExpressionsAreWeaponized.
Google that shit, if you don’t know already. Because the white gaze has no place here.
I am concerned about Black womxn. I am concerned with Black womxn. I am concerned about how we feel, how we express love, how we show our appreciation for ourselves and one another and our families and friends. I am concerned with being a part of our narrative because, not so deep down, all humans want their own love story.
It is Valentine’s Day, 2020. Today, Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield’s romantic movie The Photograph is set to premiere in movie theatres nationwide. If you know anything about me, you will know that I am a hopeless romantic, and because no one knows us better than our phones, all of my social media is feeding me clips of Issa and LaKeith, their foreheads touching, the chemistry of their fancy restaurant date, the angst and fear of a new relationship, and I realize that it has been so damn long since I’ve seen a movie that celebrates Black love like this. I am eager for it, so desirous and hungry that I feel a pain deep in my gut yearning for satisfaction. Sometimes, I watch television and movies from the 90s, that golden, beautiful, age of Black artistry, and in the depths of the glow from my tv screen, I indulge, giddy from watching love stories full of womxn who look like me. The familiar yearning again roiling deep or, sometimes, sliding across my skin in tingles of satisfaction when the womxn on the screen is adored as she should be.
This physical need is how I felt conceptualizing this issue.
I’ve Got Love on My Mind is not an issue solely about romantic love. The love scenes we envision aren’t just about romance because that is not all that love is about. When I say “love,” I mean the emotional manifestation of what it means to be human. Love is grief: the ways Julia Mallory explores the conflict of loving herself enough to free herself for romance after the death of her child; Or Faylita Hicks’ mourning in the wake of her fiance’s suicide; Vonetta Young’s adolescent longing for the love of her father; Or celeste doak’s expression of gratitude, respect and awe for her Black uterus, once gone but never forgotten.
Our love scenes are queer and beautiful, stroked intimately with teenage lust and huberis as in Aureille Marie’s poetry. Or Lindsey Ferguson’s story of longing for the unrequited love of another woman. Our love stories don’t even have to involve anyone else such as Saida Agostini’s vision of lust for our own bodies and Serena Simpson’s self-defining moment of falling in love with a pair of new kicks. Diana Viega’s story reveals what happens after the love is gone. And Tara Campbell’s interviews help us put it all in perspective.
But let’s be real, we yearn for the excitement of a good romance. Deesha Philyaw instructs us how to love a man of science while Lauren Francis Sharma confronts the reality of what it means to fall for someone you least expected. But in the end, Haley Holifield specifically argues against romantic love, urging on its demise. Though inevitably, our love scenes are illustrated in the joy, the hope, we find amongst the cairns, amidst the gray stones of life, as shown in our cover art and other images by Donyae Coles.
And while everyone says to believe Black womxn, to support Black womxn, to follow and emulate, to #TrustBlackWomen, rarely do we see #LoveBlackWomxn or Black Womxn Love. But we do, of course.
We love deeply, painfully, fully, with more presence and intention than, I feel, the world gives us credit for. I decided that I wanted to show other Black womxn, my sisters, how much I love them. So this issue is my love story. To all of you.
Thank you for reading!
Tyrese Coleman, Guest Editor