Spotted: Walking home from a happy morning in Oakland, CA
Occupation: Actress/Dancer/Model/Singer
What do you do?
I'm an artist. I live with gratitude. That's my main MO.
Where did you get your earrings?
I made them! Do you wrap? [Yeah!] I started 6 months ago—I'm really getting into healing stones. I've been wrapping them for myself and for friends.
Do you have a lot of them? How do you choose them?
No, I don't have a lot of them. So for personal use, it's been a journey of discovering what I need—for manifestations, self love, confidence, those types of things—creativity. But people have been telling me what kinds of things they want to work on, what ailments, and I've been doing my own research and putting it together.
What got you started?
My girlfriend, actually, has a lot of stones so I've been learning from her. Then she wanted them all wrapped so I wrapped like, 20 stones for her. It's some serious sacred technology.
Tell me about your outfit.
This is a post-club, night at the girlfriend's house look. This is what was at her house—mini blue shorts and a sweatshirt from last night!
Specifically a FILA sweatshirt—have you had it for a long time, or was it just a great find?
I thrift. I am an avid, lifetime thrifter. Everything you see here is a find.
Same thing with the bag?
This is a third generation. My great-grandparents made this out of their own sheep from rural Idaho.
Wait, really!? Are you from Idaho?
Originally. My great-grandparents were from Idaho but they moved to Alaska. My mother's family are third-generation farmers.
What are they doing in Alaska?
My grandfather moved there for the oil business and my mother went to school there, where she met my Haitian-immigrant father. In college. in Alaska—and so I was created.
How did you get here?
I moved from Alaska to Idaho to Northern Arizona to attend a private college, located in a 30,000-person town in a retirement community. As for Oakland, my father has lived here for most of my life and my grandma lives here. So I moved here to be in a city with feminists and brown people and all kinds of lesbians.
What about your bracelets?
I didn't make these bracelets—they're from Sacred Well. I love Sacred Well.
And your shoes?
They're my hidden sneaker-heels. They look a lot more comfortable than they are. I mean, they're fine. They're the most comfortable heel lift, non-platform style that you can have. And the ankle support is awesome. I love them. I wear them all the time.
How tall are you, actually?
Actually, actually? I'm 5'7 and sticking to it.
Tell me about your hair, what do you do?
I was just talking about this with someone! So for the past year I have been growing my hair out after having spent 3 years shaving it. At one point it was a hightop and colored. But now I'm in a super-growth phase. I use coconut oil religiously. It's the only oil that permeates the shafts of the hair. I water rinse—I don't use shampoo. I do a lot of different things with it, twist it—I'm all about embracing natural hair.
I'm actually a model for this natural hair calendar—for Esoteric Images. If you go to esotericimages.com, we're in the fundraising stage right now because it's for 2015.
What month are you? It is a themed calendar or is it just you being sexy with awesome hair?
I'm December, finishing the year off! It's not themed, it's just sexy-posed.
When was the last time you said "I love you" and meant it?
Aww, this morning! Yeah, I'm so in love right now.
How long have you and your girlfriend been together?
We just passed a year!
Congratulations! How did you meet?
We met on the set of a Cheryl Dunye short film called Black is Blue that just screened. We were extras. She's an actress as well, and a healer.
What was Arizona like for you?
Arizona was the perfect place to study what I was studying—which was cultural studies, with a social justice bent. I was studying the prison-industrial complex and critical race theory in a state that has the most egregious affronts to civil rights to date. I moved there right after they passed the "show me your papers" bill, SP-1070. And then they passed HB-2281, which was the ethnic studies ban. So I got to do a lot of work actually mobilizing my community in an effort to help the organizers in southern Arizona but the town was an all-white retirement community. It was the first settlement in Arizona, so it had very deep roots.
How did you feel walking down the street there every day?
I mean, I'm used to that community—growing up in Idaho and Alaska—so it wasn't too out of the norm. People definitely weren't inviting—they don't even try. Here, it's like people are nice and friendly but politically there are still serious issues. The most intense issues were actually in my school community because I was one of maybe 20 students of color. So, yeah, there was a lot of tension. I belonged to a political group there for students of color—it was a lot. My professors are writing articles about it, still.
It was a great place to grow, politically—and to develop my feminist politics.
Is there anything that you have been really interested in lately?
Yeah, I mean I've really been all about creating my own experience, manifesting my reality—brain science, quantum theory. Concerning past experiences that were depressing for me, I've been really involved in this illusory reality, right? Like all the crazy shit that's happening every single second in this world.
Everything is trying to kill you, is the reality. But I have really been trying to create the world that I want right now—in the moment.
