Josephine & James

It's taken me a long time to make this update I realize. It also took me a long time to process the first installation of The Great Barrington Project. I didn't expect it to be as emotional as it was.
I'm grateful for everyone who turned out, especially in a week when Berkshire County was mentioned as having the second-highest Covid cases per capita in the US! Several people did message to say they were uncomfortable coming out, but we still had about 70 people show up.

Attendees included the Berkshire County District attorney & one of our elected town selectpersons. I was especially happy to see the principal of our middle school and one of the school teachers in attendance. One thing I came away with was the importance of addressing bias, and feelings of not being heard, during school years,

Black Berkshires residents had been invited to email their stories of growing up here and the bias they may have encountered. People from all ages and backgrounds responded and though they weren't prompted, the vast majority of responses were things that had happened in childhood.
A Monument student who was called n*igger and told to let it roll of his back.
A Stockbridge Plain middle school student who, along with the only other Black student in her class, was told to pretend to be a slave and be hunted by her White classmates while on a historic field trip. She urinated on herself out of fear and was laughed at by her classmates.
Someone said" I never went to dances. I knew nobody would ask me to dance."
These incidents are all recent, and they still happen.

Those examples were read on stage by the amazing actress MaConnia Chesser. What was especially resonant was the anonymity- they could be the stories of any Black person in Berkshires. We all have stories.

Very unfortunately, there is no video of the event. I'm sad to say that I was scammed by someone who took my money and didn't show up and stopped responding to emails. It was hard not having the video ( and losing a significant amount of money ) but I was also personally hurt on a deep level. I wanted a videographer who actually believed in the project and we had a long conversation about it. My first thought when he didn't show up was that he must be hurt. It would never occur to me that he wouldn't show up. I had told him how much the project meant to me and he was also excited about it, and even said he’d do a free promo reel as support. I want to say lesson learned, but what’s the lesson. Not to trust in people? I’ve spent a lifetime not trusting people, and don’t want to be that person again. This involved other people though. I so wish I had documentation for those that participated, but there’s nothing I can do.

This was always meant to be a work in progress. I am learning as I go and I'm excited to see how it evolves and changes.

What's next? The donations I've received will help with bringing this to less affluent communities than Great Barrington, where it might not otherwise be possible.
I will be enacting The Great Barrington Project in Crown Heights. Brooklyn in September or October, the date is still being worked out. It will be an opportunity for, local Black people, to talk about the effects of gentrification in a rapidly changing neighborhood.

I will also be working with the Reading, PA NAACP and bring The Great Barrington Project to their Juneteenth week of events in 2023.
I applied for an artist’s residency in Paris and will find out if I got it in the next couple of weeks. I’m curious to see how it would manifest and be interpreted in a place with different perspectives on racial dynamics than the United States. Since I was a kid, I’ve dreamed of Paris, and possibly someday living there. I was fascinated first by Josephine Baker, and later by James Baldwin. They gave me hope that an unhappy childhood didn’t mean I had to have an unhappy life. I might be able to find a place where my existence - a queer, black awkward nerd - would not just be tolerated, but accepted, and dare I dream… celebrated. I won’t go off on a tangent about Paris right now, maybe that will be another post, but there is so much I’m thinking about - how travel can be about going somewhere, or about leaving someplace.

Thank you to The Bookloft, Berkshire Food Co-op and Prairie Whale for helping sponsor the evening.
Huge thanks to Stephanie Wright, Reverend Joallen Forte, William Philips & MaConnia Chesser.
And the highest gratitude to Gwendoly Van Sant and Luci Leonard for their truth, friendship, and integrity.

And thank you to each of you for helping bring this to life!