Talk Story: Foxzy
How did Hawai‘i become your home?
Hawai‘i came to be our home for a variety of reasons, one of the most pressing being the priority to feel safe and to be able to focus on spiritual, mental, and emotional growth, as opposed to not being able to focus on those things living on the mainland. Prior to moving here about a year ago, which I refer to as “The Great Migration”—we fled—I had celebrated my birthday on Maui because there was an annual food and wine festival. I’m a foodie and I had never been to Hawai‘i and I love to travel and so I came to Maui for three days, and one day on O‘ahu, but what struck me far more than the food was the atmosphere, the peace and the tranquility. Of course, the natural beauty that is visible, but beyond the visual, all my other senses were stimulated. It wasn’t just the food that the chefs prepared, it wasn’t the resorts, or just the ocean because I had been to Cancún, I had been to Punta Cana, I had been to the Caymans. It was a feeling that I got. During my stay on Maui and O‘ahu I awoke every day just as the sun was rising. It seemed that my internal clock was resetting itself and I would watch the sun rise. And I had this crazy thought like, “I need to live here.” So, I returned to Cleveland. I was born in Warren, Ohio and had lived in Washington, DC for 15 years and moved back to Ohio to care for my grandparents and so my daughter, Devyn, could get to know them. But after living in the city for so long moving back to a small town was like mental and spiritual suicide. You have a lot of closed minded people who don’t quite get your drift because they haven’t been exposed to a lot of alternative cultures. It seemed that culturally we were extremely limited because of people’s mindsets.
Sometimes because Hawai‘i is so far away from everywhere else people complain that we are often disconnected or in some ways culturally isolated. How do you feel about the cultural opportunities for you in Honolulu and the cultural spaces that are available to you here?
It’s funny that you say that because I felt the same way about Warren, whereas Honolulu has so many cultural experiences and so many things to learn. When I look at Honolulu, when I look at O‘ahu, when I look at Hawai‘i as a whole, I don’t feel that deficit just because it is populated by a large majority of Asians or Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Polynesians. I don’t feel that means that it is specifically lacking anything for me, because even though I don’t feel my experience as a Black woman is being fully represented that doesn’t take away from me being able to relate to other humans. It doesn’t take away from me being curious about their experience. Now, on the other hand, I feel a veritable absence of them being interested in my experience. I’m here and open to learning new things about other cultures and familiarizing myself with Hawaiian history, and Hawaiian language, and Hawaiian customs, so that I can stay humble and have respect for the land and people and customs and culture of the place that I choose to call home. It would be great if [Locals] living here would feel the same positive curiosity to know about me. But I don’t feel like I am lacking any opportunities just because it is an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
It’s not like living in Cleveland or DC and someone calling you a racist name or someone purposely going out of their way to be nasty to you because it’s an overt racism. This is more of a subconscious slight. It’s more of “I don’t want to deal with you because you’re a foreigner or a haole” more so than “I don’t want to deal with you because you’re Black. ” It’s a different type of prejudice, it’s a different type of racism here. We haven’t ever come across any Hawaiian who directly discriminated against us because we were Black—they didn’t make that clear—but there is a guard up with certain people because you’re not from here. From day one—I get this at least 3 or 4 times a week—it could be a shop keeper at a store, it could be if you’re looking for a place to rent, or at the grocery store, anywhere, because we are Black it is assumed that we are in the military. You just can’t happen to be African American and choose to live in Hawai‘i or choose to be here, or choose to go to school here or choose to start a career here. I go to KCC [Kapi‘olani Community College], I am a culinary arts major and that was another reason why I moved here. The culinary arts program here is one of the top 10 in the US. It just seems that the general consensus is that because you’re a person of color you’re here in the armed forces. It’s a slight, to me. It’s a subconscious slight. It’s like saying “Well, I know you can’t possibly have any family here, you can’t possibly be here for anything other than an extended vacation." So you’re either a tourist or military.
One of the reasons there is a coldness or a wall up is because they equate Black skin with military, they equate military with militarized, hostile occupation that destroyed their sovereignty. They equate that with ‘temporary’ because I think it’s a subconscious thing “We want our freedom, we want our sovereignty” and that definitely has to do with the military presence leaving. Therefore, if you’re considered to be in the military because you’re Black you’re not going to be here long. “I don’t want to be friendly to you, I don’t want to get to know you, I don’t want to extend my arm for you to be a part of my community because you will voluntarily leave. You’re Black so you’re not acclimated to putting down roots or contributing to your community because you probably live in a ghetto or a project and you don’t have a sense of family or you won’t be an upstanding contributor to a religious or social organization.” I think that in itself is a form of racism and prejudice because you’re biased about reaching out to someone based upon what you think their moral standpoint is, or lack thereof. I feel that all the time. Even though the main assumption that everyone Black is in the military still holds true, you don’t see a huge retention of people from the military who retire and stay here so I think that speaks volumes about how they’re being received here and the vibes they are picking up from the people who have lived here all their lives. Because there are so many people who come for the military. Why don’t they stay?
Again, it all boils down to if more Black people who live here in Hawai‘i could convey to everyone here that we not just here, it’s not just an means to an end, and we are not here to justify our presence here—we’re here to celebrate it and we’re here to expand upon it. If we could convey that message and in return people could want to learn as much about us and be as involved with us then I believe there will be no barrier at all.
On a more positive note, how refreshing is it to live here and know that this is a brown person society? This is a person of color society where I am not afraid of the police, I’m not afraid to be pulled over here. Every time I’ve been pulled over it’s been a pleasant experience. The police were helpful to me. They gave me directions. That’s not what I would experience in Cleveland, or in DC, or in Virginia. There’s not this feeling of dread. It’s a feeling of “I am being pulled over, obviously I did something wrong.” They tell you “Oh, you can’t go this fast” and one police officer told me where to go to get my tags up to date, get Hawai‘i license plates for my car. It’s a very good feeling having left Cleveland, a very large part of that being because of police brutality. Tamir Rice was a major turning point in Black Lives Matter, so was Sandra Bland, so was Freddie Gray. [Tamir Rice was] major because he was a child. He was 12 years old and Ohio is an open carry state so even if he did have a real gun—which he did not, it was a toy gun—the police protocol would have been to ask him if he had a permit. You should never be found shot to death in an open carry state because you have the right to openly carry a weapon.
Isn’t it ironic that Tamir Rice is a spitting image of Emmett Till? It’s haunting. That type of movement in the Universe, of the energy, to where you have two children brutally murdered by White people and there is no justice for either of them—that was one of the emerging forces that pulled me to Hawai‘i, that has me here now. I can’t live anywhere that that goes unpunished. I don’t want my daughter living anywhere that that goes unpunished.
My daughter had just gotten her permit and was getting her drivers license and I knew any day she would be driving and all I kept thinking about was, “They killed a 12 year old boy alone in a park. What would they do to my daughter if they pulled her over and she got mouthy with them? What if they felt she was being mouthy and she wasn’t?” So, I coached my daughter for hours on what her rights were as a driver and what type of protocol was expected of her. You don’t question the officer, you don’t raise your voice, you don’t put your hands anywhere that he can’t see them. We should have been talking about what color car she wanted or what kind of places she would go. We shouldn’t have been talking about how to avoid death. That was a mitigating factor in us coming here: freedom. In my estimation, covert racism will always be easier to stomach than overt racism. I don’t feel like I will ever go outside and see “nigger” scrawled on the sidewalk. I know that pōpolo is a reference to Black people, but I don’t take it offensively. It’s not the worst thing that I’ve ever been called.
I don’t ever see myself moving back to the mainland. I don’t care if people here don’t take me seriously or think I am temporary because I fully intend to set roots down here, to grow plants and vegetables, to be a homeowner, to graduate from a university here. And if my daughter chooses to go to the mainland and live different places and explore the world I want her to have the confidence to know that she always has a home here in Hawai‘i with me. Or if she doesn’t choose to live here maybe her children will choose to live here with me one day, if she has any. Or their children. I just feel this intrinsic need to put down roots. It’s such an urgency. It’s such a beautiful feeling of peace. I never had that feeling in Cleveland. I never had it in DC.
A lot of people in Hawai‘i identify as mixed-race and that includes a lot of Black people here, too. Other Black folks from mixed backgrounds have mentioned people here relating to them as part of a category of “hapa” when they couldn’t necessarily connect with them as Black. Have you had experiences of people questioning your Blackness based on what you look like?
My 3 year-old twin niece and nephew, Bella and Jackson, stayed with me a few months, visiting from the mainland. They are extremely fair skinned almost to the point that you didn’t know them personally you would think they were White children. Jackson has blond curly hair—he almost looks albino to me— and then Bella has these long curly ringlets and very fair skin. When they were with me people here would assume they were my children and it was so weird, the only thing people ever exclaimed about was their complexion and the texture of their hair. They would look at me and go “They have the most beautiful skin!” or “They have the most beautiful hair! Look at that hair! It’s so curly and fine!” Almost as if they couldn’t understand why the hair was curly or fine because if they were my children the hair should be coarse or thicker. They would compare my features and my daughter’s features with the twins’ features. They were so entranced by the European physicality of these two little babies. People would walk up to them and touch their hair and just exclaim. I just thought to myself, “That is so weird.” Usually when someone exclaims over a child they say “Oh, they’re so smart!” or “Look at them playing!” or “What a cute little dress you have on! What pretty little shoes!” But here it as always comments about skin tone and hair texture. I thought it was the oddest, most inappropriate thing ever. What if they didn’t have that curly hair? What if they didn’t have those fine features? Would they not get the compliments?
I went to Art After Dark one time and out front random people were just coming up to me. They weren’t even being evasive about it. They were just flat out were like, “What are you? Are you Egyptian? Are you Middle Eastern? What are you?” It was just a pressing question for them. I’m clearly Black. Clearly. Whether I am butterscotch complexion or whatever. Clearly, I am Black to anyone else in America.
With them it seems like when they’re White, Japanese, and Hawaiian they’re gonna refer to the White or Japanese as if it’s a step up race-wise, or evolution-wise. “I’m proud of this heritage because I am from here, yet I am still mixed with White or Japanese.” Whereas, as a Black person, if you have pride in yourself you’re not going to look at being mixed with European blood as something that makes you better.
In the Black community you can be mixed and be fully Black, whereas in Hawai‘i there is a concept of partitive genealogy where you can be discretely multiple ethnicities. Do you find that to be the case?
I have never in my life identified as being biracial. If someone inquires about my ethnicity I go, “I’m Black.” And then they go, “C’mon, what you mixed with?” For personal reasons, I refute any further inquiry. I won’t say, “My mother is White,” because I don’t identify with White culture, White people. In many ways I don’t identify with my White mother because first and foremost she didn’t even identify with her own family so I wasn’t raised around White people. My White family was in Texas and I never interacted with them. Nor did I interact with my White grandparents. I was raised primarily with my Black family, outside of my White mom. So when people here ask me what I am it is almost as if when I don’t say I’m Egyptian or when I don’t say I’m Puerto Rican or Dominican or any of the things they’re probably expecting me to say they have this look of surprise when I say I’m simply Black. It’s almost like it is followed by disappointment. I can see a flicker of disappointment across their face. Which to me is unconscionable. How can you have a look of disappointment because I told you what I am? I answered honestly. As if “Oh wow, she’s Black. I can’t believe that. That’s not my cup of tea.” Or, “She’s pretty for a Black girl. I almost thought she was something else.” It’s just sad that in 2016 in a multiracial, multicultural place, that that still happens.
What would a Black community in Hawai‘i look like for you?
People form relationships because they feel connections, whether those are spiritual or superficial. Maybe there needs to be an ad on Craigslist or something “If you are a person of color, Black, or Indigenous, do you want to come and discuss past, present, or future? Are you not finding the socialization?" and maybe we can network with you, know some of everyone. We could compile an emotional and physical presence. Like a rolodex. Where do we begin to make those connections? Where do we start to get people to want to reach out?
I think we need to not only reach out to Black people on the island, but some kind of way, we need to talk to people who have lived here all their lives and go, “Hey, we’re having a meet and greet and we’re going to discuss aspects of Black culture” since they feel that it doesn’t exist or it’s something that they have seen on TV.
What is Black culture? Well, Black culture certainly is not American culture, per se, and it is not what [Locals] think it is. I would say the best way to describe Black culture nowadays is that it is based upon the individual, what rituals, or what things they choose to observe. I think because we are so disjointed and not connected to one another as we should that every Black person’s Black cultural experience is their own personal experience. I think so. And I don’t think that is a negative thing because it leaves a lot of room for connection and growth. Because that means that everyone has something to bring to the table. That’s the beauty of it.