Mirrors | Charcoal Magazine Issue 1

Welcome to Charcoal Magazine’s first issue.

We intentionally chose to center our inaugural issue around the theme of mirrors; as a magazine dependent on artist submissions, Mirrors is as much an introduction to us as it is to you, the artists.

We invited you to share with us your reflections and self-portraits, and the responses were both exciting and moving.

This issue includes interviews with artists from the community; visual art from photographers, painters, and graphic designers; personal narratives; and thoughts on the world at large. We introduce you to student musicians working hard to balance school and passion, and we asked you to answer our titular question: “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

Building Charcoal from the ground up has been an unbelievable experience, and we are so glad to finally share it with you. None of this would not have been possible without our contributors. So, thank you.

What do you see when you look in the mirror?

For this photo series we decided to talk to you one-onone and find out what your reflection says to you. Follow team members Cameron Cooper and Remy Usman as they document some of the personalities they met along Boston University’s campus.

All photography by Cameron Cooper and Remy Usman

Graceson Abreu

“I see a beautiful Afro-Latinx person.”

Gracie Koh

“I see things around me. I feel like my surroundings influence me a lot and what I think of myself.”

Kyle Jaramillo

“Nike sponsored athlete.”

guess it depends on the day, what I’m wearing, if I’m going out that night, or just what mood I’m in.”

“I

Jiayi Ma

“I see someone who is trying her best to make it…I see a ChineseAmerican.”

Josh Frías

“A philosopher.”

Hodan Hashi

“I see ambition because I wake up with the mindset of what I’m going to get done today.”

“I see growth, and I remember how I used to see myself and how much I’ve changed since then.

Sydney Georges

“I see a growing woman who is still building her self-esteem.”

The pixelated brown mask: The problem with Digital Brownface

Vicki Saeed

The campaign for media diversification is possibly the worst thing to happen to diverse media.

Rather than create insightful content that spans the experiences of a varied group of people, writing rooms across the nation have chained themselves to the most superficial form of representation. Tossing marginalized characters into their works for the sake of filling a quota. Though intentions might be noble, the fight between content creators for the title of #WokestBaeOwO has glossed over the main fault of these efforts.

Where are all the brown people?

Allow me to set the scene. You’re playing a role-playing video game franchise that you hold near and dear to your heart. With all of its issues and Problematique™ aspects, you still find yourself embedded in the lore and in love with its characters. In your travels through this virtual world, you come across a character who can only be described as stunning. She is tall and beautiful, with carob skin and eyes the color of an autumn storm. You fall in love with her immediately, and dedicate yourself to writing 50k-word fanfics about her on the daily.

And much like Melville’s Ahab, your obsession comes with a price. You notice that, despite the claims of a color-blind society, much of your goddess’s storyline involves her dark skin. Snippets from NPCs reveal such claims as “Her lover must lose her in the dark,” and other such insults. Further, you begin to pay close attention to how you are supposed to relate to this character. Though she is no more passionate or stubborn than the next player companion, you find that you have more than enough opportunities to fight her on her views. You can insult her character, insult her opinions, and all but banish her from your side. You find it strange, to put it mildly, that you can take such measures.

So, you do some digging. You comb through wiki pages and fan-blogs wondering just how someone like you could write such trials and tribulations for someone like that. And, after much searching, you find your answer. Your favorite character was not written by someone like you, and her experiences no longer mirror your own.

There is a certain insidiousness that comes with white content creators writing characters of color. I’m not talking about the J.K.Rowling approach (that is: writing side characters with such ethnic names as Cho Chang and Parvati Patil who never manage to make it big in

the plot, and then taking to the internet ten years after your final novel is published to talk about the United States of Benetton going on behind the scenes). While that certainly is a problem in and of itself, there are those who take it a step further than merely sprinkling in a few Names of Color and calling it a day.

When you aren’t the author of a best-selling children’s book, you often must turn to the internet for validation. Remember that RPG I talked about? Well, let’s say you really love your player character. You love them to bits because they’re a part of a world that you could only hope to enter. You love this character so much that you make an entire Tumblr dedicated to churning out art (in various mediums) focused on your character and their adventures throughout their world. “Here she is, world!”

You say triumphantly to your followers. “This is my OC, Strawman Brownstruggle. All her life she’s been beaten down by the White Man, but she doesn’t let that break her! Her special skills are yelling, sass, and not needing a man.”

And you love Strawman. You love the way she only has two emotions: anger and glibness. You love the fact that, despite the hunky guys and gals available for some digital lovin’, you save the romance for your melanin-challenged characters. Strawman don’t need no man! She can do it all on her own, snapping her fingers in a z-formation while she does so.

Having spent longer than I’d like to admit in fandom spaces, I can safely say that while Strawman Brownstruggle is a comedic exaggeration, she isn’t completely off the mark. Many white content creators in these spaces have taken it upon themselves to roleplay systemic oppression, adding new dimensions to the struggles already presented in RPG franchise across the infosphere. The issue stems not only from the fans generating this content, but also from the sources themselves. A fantasy race – i.e. Elves – have their in-game struggles based on the ongoing plight of, say, indigenous peoples. A race of warmongering horned giants with a vaguely-Arabic language system are referred to by the game’s head writer as a “militant Islamic Borg.” The writers claim that the universe is a color-blind and free of homophobia, but a character heavily-coded as South Asian still has a storyline dependent on his family’s anti-gay sentiments.

Fans like me, who are told that seeing a brown face in a medieval environment is more unrealistic than killing an ogre with a glorified butter knife, are understandably angry, then, when white content creators take the actions of insensitive video game writers one step further. The co-opting of oppression by these creators for the sake of entertainment only becomes more insulting when these same #WokeBaesOwO are quick to claim, “Well I think all lives matter” when faced with IRL oppression.

Being white doesn’t mean you can’t have characters of color. But if you do, be prepared to ask yourself this: are you using your position of privilege to boost the voices of the marginalized, or are you simply adopting a struggle that doesn’t belong to you? You can roleplay as a FCOC (fantasy character of color), use your favorite Nene Leakes reaction GIFs as a response for every bit of criticism you get, and mangle AAVE all day long. But the fact remains that once you step away from your computer, you step away from your persecution-porn. The brown face you seein your screengrabs isn’t the one that looks back at you in the mirror, and at the end of the day your oppression is a choice.

Your content is yours to create but the fact remains that – for some of us – the Struggle™ extends far past our screens.

are you using your position of privilege to boost the voices of the marginalized, or are you simply adopting a struggle that doesn’t belong to you?

intro-

introspection

A look into the distortion of the self through reflections.

Model: Patricia Ho

Photographed by Eva Vidan Art direction by Remy Usman

My Grandmother Carried White Babies on Her Back

Xaulanda Thorpe

My grandmother carried white babies on her back so that she could support her children, the main reason most black women became nannies, the only reason my grandmother became one. She was a proud woman, a single mother with no support system, and a black woman in a time when black women were neither appreciated, accepted, nor affirmed. She found respect to be the most valuable thing a person could give so she made sure no one disrespected her. She had a step that would command everyone to turn to her and say “Hello ma’am. Good day, sister. Need any help, Miss?” Everyone in my tight-knit black neighborhood gave her the same respect. I had never seen her disrespected, but I knew it had happened anyway. Far from where our eyes could reach.

No one ever spoke of it, but all the kids knew; I guess by the face she wore whenever she saw a white person, a slight stun that she hid with a bow of the head. She bowed like that when she was a nanny working for Esther. I never met this woman or even saw her, but from stories I knew she was absolutely stunning. She had big blonde hair that she always curled and eyes the color of the sky before a storm. Her nose and lips were small but prominent, and she had a coy smile that could attract any man. Esther had attracted a very handsome man, a kind hearted lawyer. My grandmother told me he was an Atticus Finch type, and their baby girl would become a Jean Louise.

My grandmother was the complete opposite. She was plump and strong almost to a fault. A big woman with an even bigger personality. She had a stubbornness that would pull men in and then spit them out like dry chewing gum. A beautiful woman with skin that glowed and a large kinky fro, she adorned herself in cheap faux gold rings and earrings and colorful makeup.

She was no Esther. Sometimes when my grandmother was getting ready in her room, I would peek through her door and watch her stand in the mirror. She put down her faux gold necklace and picked up a fake pearl necklace. One that looked like what Esther apparently wore. She would wrap the ivory beads around her neck and stare at her reflection for a while, frowning. I knew she wanted to be Esther, a woman she could never be.

My grandmother carried white babies on her back so that I could carry white babies inside me. I can still hear the sizzle of the hot comb she used to straighten my hair as she warned me to stay away from those boys in the neighborhood. I cried at first because I liked the little black boys; they were my friends but I learned to acquiesce. I stood on the porch of the house my grandmother earned, hair straightened, dress ironed, as I watched the boys dig the soles of their feet, blackening the white under bellies into the balding patches of our lawns to project themselves over metal fences just to catch a glimpse of the pretty white girls

on the other side. The girls were too far away and they only caught shadows. My grandmother’s friends on their strolls would walk by and comment on my ridiculously uncomfortable appearance. “What a pretty grand-baby you have. She will become a pretty wife to some boy.”

“She sure will,” my grandmother said. I looked at her with confusion and hurt. At the age of seven, in a body not ready to be a wife, with a mind not able to understand the duties of a wife, I thought about what type of wife I will be.

I unsuccessfully tried to seize the enormity of marriage. I didn’t see my aunties or my mother as a reflection of what type of the wife I wanted to be, but I knew my grandmother wanted me to be an Esther. Esther, with her dainty shoulders enveloped in her husband’s strong arms and her little wrists buckling under the weight of her newborn daughter. That was the type of wife i was expected to be.

So I convinced myself that I would go to a good college, meet a nice “professional type,” code for white, maybe a lawyer, and marry him. I would have my Atticus Finch and we would have our Jean Louise. My grandmother never said it; but who would talk about their deal with the devil? You don’t tell anyone you’ve sold your soul. It sounded wrong, but what was worse? To sell your womb and your future children? Or to have your back, strong brown spine doubled like the branches of a gnarled willow tree? Wasn’t it better to have a golden fence that could pen the whole community than a rusty metal fence that could barely crate your own house? Wasn’t it better to live in the suburbs smelling fresh apples and oak than to live in the ghetto choking on the smell of sewage. Wasn’t that why my grandmother carried white babies on her back?

As I looked in the mirror unable to stand straight with my wilting back and growing insecurity, I felt as though I let my grandmother down. I wished I could shovel the dirt with my fingers and unearth her now thin white skeleton from her grave and ask who she wanted me to be.

Because I can never be Esther. I never wanted to be Esther.. She is what no one black is allowed to be. We all have to be strong to a fault, showing absolutely no emotion, no will, no hesitation, becoming lifeless shadows ourselves so that we no longer have to glance over the metal fences of the ghetto to gaze at their polished perfect lives.

Sometimes I look at my grandmother’s jewelry on my body in the mirror. The faux gold hoops and rings look so big on my thin body, like a child playing dress up, a body that has yet to grow into clothing, a girl who has yet to bloom into a woman. I don’t know what type of wife I will be or even what type of woman but as I watch the bangles slip off my tiny wrists, I hope one day I can be like my grandmother.

Illustration by Remy Usman

Blue

Annette Montero

These pieces represent the loss of identity that one may feel when battling with depression and anxiety. Although everything can appear fine and cheery on the outside (thus the bright colors), you may slowly begin to lose yourself, as represented by the continual loss of details in each piece. As this feeling gets stronger, it feels like you become your anxiety and depression.

Painting by Annette Montero

“all of my work is shot on 35 mm film”

Photos by Bradley Noble

There is something exciting about receiving a roll of film back and reliving the moments you’ve had. My work is a combination of action shots and portraiture. I would not say that I have a specific vision in mind when I shoot; if I see something I like, I take a snap of it. However, I really enjoy taking pictures of people at events–particularly at parties. I love the images of people living in the moment and simply enjoying life. I’m someone who lives off of positive energy, so this is exactly what I hope translates through my photography.

Top: The night I took this picture was one of the best nights of my summer. This was during a country-wide music party in France. But when I look at this photo, I think back to all the truly interesting and beautiful people I met over my two months there. When I look at this picture, oddly enough I see myself. Though there are obvious differences between myself and these strangers, I see carefree, unbothered and infectious people just living and enjoying being young. That is a vibe I am on.

Right: All I see here are beautiful and vibrant people. I was lucky enough to take this picture during a break at a concert. It brings me joy when I am able to show my friends off in my work. This image is filled with positive energy.

Q+A with @blackinshanghai

by Remy Usman

Last semester while studying abroad in Shanghai, China, Bidemi Paulmer noticed an uncomfortable phenomenon: wherever she went, the flashes and clicks of cellphone cameras followed. Sometimes the cameraperon was difficult to spot, posing in faux-selfie stance with a bright smile and misdirected eyes. Other times they would stand tall with their elbows out, phone covering their face or lowered just enough so that they may regard their subject: Bidemi. This happened so often that she began to expect the inevitable wall of phones and cameras pointed in her direction. So, she decided to flip the script.

Bidemi’s Instagram account, @blackinshanhai, documents her encounters with the strangers snapping her picture. Some are captured from afar, a few from up close–almost all feature expectant smiles.

Read on for our interview with the mind behind @blackinshanghai.

Interviewed

Photography and captions by Bidemi Paulmer.

After requesting in [Mandarin] to not take my photo, all he could do was repeat it back, laugh, and hold his phone up.

#blackinshang

Can you tell us a little about your background?

I was born in Nigeria and moved to New York before I was a year old. Nigeria has many cultures, and I’m a blend of a few. My dad is Yoruba and my mom is Igbo. After a few years I moved to New Jersey which is where I am still currently based. My family always valued education through travel so I’ve been fortunate to visit over 23 countries. I believe that many of the experiences that I’ve had abroad have shaped my personal views on different issues.

How did @blackinshanghai start?

@blackinshanghai started during my study abroad trip to China. As a black woman in a quite homogeneous country, I attracted a lot of attention. When I first arrived in Shanghai, my group and I visited a lot of tourist sites. However, as I was taking pictures of the monuments and scenery, I immediately noticed people taking pictures of me without my consent. It was initially funny, but I became irritated after a few days. I was always a fan of Cole Sprouse as a kid, and I recalled his @camera_duels where he posts pictures of people taking sneaky photos of him. I thought it would be a great idea and decided to give it a try. It made the entire experience less awkward and eventually exciting.

Before studying abroad, were you anticipating any reactions in response to your appearance?

As a child, I grew up in a predominantly white area so I was very used to standing out among my peers. China is not really a popular destination among Westerners and people of color, although it’s starting to change now. Before leaving the country, I tried to read as many blogs as possible that were written or recorded by people of color who had visited China. They often recalled many incidents of receiving special treatment by being mistaken

hai hina

for famous people of color (such as Michelle Obama or Kobe Bryant). I was also aware that people were going to take my photo. But, there’s really no way to prepare for that. It’s a completely different situation when it’s you in the center and crowds of people surrounding you shamelessly pointing their phones and cameras in your face. It’s almost as if I was in a zoo or circus.

When did you decide to take pictures of the people taking pictures of you, and why post them?

I am a big fan of photography, so I take pictures of just about anything. It was only natural for me to take a picture of my subjects. I took my first picture in the middle of Yu Garden in Shanghai. An elderly man was taking my picture despite me telling him not to, in Mandarin. As a way to make him feel as awkward as I did, I held my camera up to his face and snapped a photo. He thought this was very funny, and his smile came through in the photo. When I was looking through my photos that night, I came across that particular photo and it struck me. It was such a beautiful photo that was full of character. Also, from a photography perspective, the photo was clear and centered. I then realized that I could use my photography skills to start this photo project.

Did any of your subjects react to you photographing them? How did you deal with that?

I was extremely surprised to see that my subjects smiled and laughed when I took [their] picture. This really captures the warmth of Chinese culture. People did not see my actions as offensive, and they didn’t expect me to either. It comes down to a genuine curiosity. Shanghainese people are very accustomed to foreigners, given Shanghai’s history as a port city. In fact, there are areas in Shanghai where I heard more English and French than Mandarin. However, the people taking my picture were people visiting Shanghai from small villages and have never seen a non-Chinese person before. What I found very interesting was that they were willing to engage with me and that they genuinely wanted to get to know me. I found this to be a learning opportunity to educate them about my culture and [to] show them that I am not much different from them.

What did you hope to accomplish in flipping the camera on your subjects?

I did not expect to accomplish anything when I first started. It was really just a way for me to adjust to the situation while practicing portrait photography. However, the first night I created the Instagram, I received over 40 followers. I had no idea that it would become as big as it did. Once I had a steady follow base, the purpose was purely for comedy. Posting these pictures was a unique

way for me to share my experience abroad and make people laugh. Lately, I have been very busy in my senior year and have not kept up with it. But, I still have many pictures from my trip that I’d like to post. I do plan to return to China, so hopefully, I can create more content while I am there.

Did your feelings on being photographed change at all throughout your time abroad?

While being photographed was initially fun and eventually exhausting, I started to accept it once I started the blog. Since then, I made the experience more enjoyable for myself.

I actually discovered your Instagram page during my own time abroad, and it validated my own feelings of otherness in a foreign, fairly homogeneous city. When you created @blackinshanghai, did you hope to reach others in similar situations or were you mainly using it as a personal outlet?

It was a little bit of both. I was first using it as a personal outlet to deal with a difficult situation but that changed over time. People loved how “real” the photos were and I think that people could identify with them whether it was about race or not. Everyone has had times where they felt like the elephant in the room no matter the reason.

How did your study abroad peers react to @blackinshanghai?

My peers loved the idea. In fact, my peers often notified me when people were taking my picture so that I could seize the opportunity and take a photo as well. Everyone was really supportive, even the program staff. I also received tremendous support from my peers at home and in Boston. I also think a lot of people supported me because it was funny and different because who doesn’t love to laugh?

Did you learn anything about yourself throughout this project?

I learned that photography truly is a world language that surpasses all barriers. Instead of uncomfortable stares, my subjects and I exchanged pictures and laughter. My project defined my experience of cultural exchange, and my subjects and I will forever have photos of one another, each of us belonging to a culture incredibly different from the other’s.

I see a lot of potential with this account and I would love to develop it more. However, getting content is difficult since I no longer live in China. Since I have more free time now, I will continue to upload the remaining pictures that I have from my trip. As I previously mentioned, I do plan to return to China so hopefully I can continue.

Do you plan to continue @blackinshanghai?

Above: No, she wasn’t laughing at one of my jokes #blackinshanghai #blackinchina #whatwassofunny

Left: Don't let the selfie stick fool you. Her smile and direct eye contact was a giveaway #blackinchina #blackinshanghai #zerochill

Amber Lin Painting Faces

For my drawing restraint project, I chose to utilize the limitations of holding my fingers in a standard position. I achieved this by fitting a pedicure nail separator in my hand and securing its position with tape. With the nail separator in between my fingers I was unable to freely move my fingers as I dipped them into paint and made larger than life-size portraits. I used green, red, and white paint and bowls from the dining hall as my mixing palette. Since this required me to treat my hand as a brush and move my body across large pieces of paper, the process was very physical.

Maisa Gheewala

Interviewed by Meredith McDuffie

A senior painting major at Boston University, I met Maisa Gheewala at her studio in the College of Fine Arts. Tacked to the walls of her cubicle were paintings of black and white shapes, figure drawings, and sketches. Born in Pakistan, Maisa spent her freshman year at Mount Holyoke College but feeling that it was too isolated, she decided to transfer to BU a year later. She liked BU because of how connected it was with the city.

Maisa has always considered herself a creative thinker, and has been painting ever since she can remember, even through high school. She had considered writing once, but felt that it was too restrictive; painting, on the other hand, was much more freeing, since it could incorporate a variety of forms. So she picked up a paintbrush as a young child and never put it down.

Maisa told me that there is nothing in her past she can think of that caused her to start painting. “I just started doing it,” she said, “It was instinctual.”

She feels that her involvement in the arts has made her less conservative than the rest of her family, but her parents, and her mother especially, have always been encouraging and supportive of her painting.

Recently, Maisa explained to me, she has been especially inspired by nature. She grew up in a city, and is fascinated by the colors, shapes, and textures she finds in nature and organic forms.

“I don’t like hard lines,” Maisa said. “They’re too rigid and sharp.” I was hardpressed to find any in the many paintings she has hanging around her studio.

I asked about the many figure drawings she has on one of the walls of her studio. “I’m interested in people,” she said. “People,their faces, their psyche. I like knowing people.”

Maisa believes that many artists hope to make people question our society and our lives with their pieces. Artists, especially contemporary ones, are concerned with social justice, and questioning the system and the world we live in. But Maisa says she doesn’t know how she would accomplish such a task, and doesn’t think she’s trying to.

In fact, Maisa tries not to convey any messages in her pieces. Last semeter, she created a series of pieces during which she was thinking about sex and shame, and found that a lot of people connected with this, relating to the sense of vulnerability, even though it wasn’t an intentional message.

To Maisa, painting is something meditative and fun, and she doesn’t want to compromise that by politicizing her work. Painting is an integral part of her identity. She just hopes that in the future she will be able to continue painting, and if people want to buy her work, all the better.

The streets of Brownsville are cracked by countless afternoon suns baking the humidity out of the atmosphere. Everything is heavy; the air thrums with a lazy suspense, like the entire world is on the brink of action. But no one ever makes the first move. It’s so hot that you can feel yourself suffocating, a smile plastered on your face and your body splayed out somewhere in the shade of a tree whose limbs mimic yours. If a physicist looked at the scenario, she couldn’t help but think about how interesting the system is; as though all things have reached a stable equilibrium at the minimum of a potential graph.

But it does not feel that way. It feels like – at the tiniest disturbance – chaos could ensue.

I’m on a school bus heading to dinner. The yellow vehicle sways from side to side, a lull that puts every passenger to sleep. I myself cannot, however. I’m fidgeting with my fingers, nervous about what MIT will say to me. The decision I’ve been waiting on for a month is only a song’s length away – and rather appropriately, I think, I decide to listen to Queen’s “Under Pressure.”. A bead of sweat trails down my neck as the song ends, and I pull up the MIT Admissions Decision page. I refresh three times. A fourth. A fifth. Everything is still around me and my music has faded into a reverberating silence.

There’s one last click on the refresh button in the corner of my screen. Then – “On behalf of the Admissions Committee, it is my pleasure…” My world crashes into chaos.

my desk – a green one and a silver one. If I tilt my head and conjure up a bit of effort, I can imagine that Karen’s is the green one – her in her woodland cammies – and mine the silver one to the right, a copper grey tint on its curved surface, similar to the color of my hair.

Of all my radical acts of individualism, I think my favorite has to be the tattoo on my arm. Most people ask if it’s a solar system, and my response is always that they’re not wrong. Each of the circles represents a family member; the two in the middle, concentric, are a symbol of my once-married parents; the next two my elder sisters and their children, and at the ends are representations of Karen and myself. If I run my index finger over those ridges of scarred tissue tinted black, I can pretend that I’m eleven again, lying on a Mega Blok with Karen in our Georgia apartment, trying to build a dinosaur.

It’s a solar system purity, a vital orbit of the most important connection I’ll ever experience.

Having a twin was both a blessing and a curse to my childhood self. I was never more than half of “The Llanas Sisters,” and at the tender age of ten it was sometimes necessary to feel important. I remember on birthdays it was hard to share the spotlight. Our matching blue jackets over white Barbie t-shirts on our eleventh birthday marked the last of our identical outfits as I learned to find individualism in the clothes I wore.

Up until our nineteenth birthday I existed in this state of deluded singularity; I thought my existence on its own warranted a story that excluded Karen and focused, really, on what I felt was a neglected individuality. It wasn’t until MIT pounded me into the ground that I re-evaluated the list of things I felt defined me; and rather unsurprisingly I found that doubles of things really were necessary. In my room, I have a pair of: body pillows, regular pillows, towels, blankets, and water bottles that sit on

Half of a Whole

I can split the time we lived in Georgia into two halves. The first we spent playing along the rolling hills and sudden, ten-foot drop behind the apartment complex; the second living in what seemed an unremarkable trailer park at an address I now remember strictly as 105 Somma Circle. If you took a quick look around Somma Circle in broad daylight, it appeared a lot more mundane than the apartment complex must have. The apartment complex was surrounded by a sea of rolling green that ended, on one side, with a miniature set of cliffs. In the center of the complex sat a green-grassed ellipse that was peppered with Loblolly pines; in late summer, after the mating music of cicadas had died down, you could see their skins glisten on the tree trunks. The single road through the complex looped around this sea of life so that all the apartment buildings faced inward – an awe-struck audience every summer – and as the leaves around us transitioned into fall red, the magic lingered on the top of that hill with them.

Somma Circle had none of that. Somma Circle rested on one of the flatter areas of the town. There were no hills for things to hide behind, no Loblolly pines to cast shifting shadows, no grass-covered center of life for the mobile homes to face in reverence. The road also did a U-turn there, hence the circle part of Somma Circle, but the effect was more utilitarian than pulled-from-the-pages-of-a-fairy-tale. There were mobile homes on both sides of the road, and so – where elsewhere you might have heard a chorus of cicadas during that ripe part of the summer – there stood instead two rows of houses, back to back. There was a lot of concrete and, in the daytime, not enough shade from the single tree I remember seeing in our front yard. It was windy, it was arid. It was the bare minimum; my family was trying to survive off of beans and gorditas. We didn’t need more than that.

“one of us became a college student at MIT and the other became a Marine”

Karen and I always made it work, though. While Somma Circle felt very open and bare and – like all things that have very little to hide – honest, its edges seemed to constantly fight off an advancing front of trees that wanted to embrace its flatness in their caressing limbs again. Toward the rear end of the circle, the side far away from the boulevard it extended off of, there was a particularly wild jumble of leaves and vines and roots. It was enticing – mysterious – and during late summer nights the flat expanse – full of gravel and wispy, brown-green grass – lit up with lightning bugs. That, however, is the subject of an entirely different recollection; for the moment, it suffices to show that, while Somma Circle itself was stark and unyielding, the world cradling it was always very inviting and on cool evenings it redeemed itself in ways even the apartment complex did not.

Being driven, by the competitive nature of existing in a set of two, Karen and I started a littlecompetition – whoever caught the largest number of leaves won. I don’t remember the final score, only that she had caught the last leaf and she was very proud of it. The image of her standing in the middle of the road, hands reaching up to pick the leaf from the air current above her, remains etched into my mind even ten years later. She looked so genuinely happy – the kind that only a child can really be. It was pure and unadulterated – content with such a simple act of existence. What I wouldn’t give to go back to that moment in my life; what I wouldn’t give to stand on the street next to Karen as she caught the last leaf and tell her that I love her, tell her that we’d make it, tell her to keep the leaf and press it so that ten years later I’d have something to convince me I didn’t dream the whole damn thing up.

See, for the longest time I thought this twinhaving business was a little overrated but we got the chance to get things right twice. You know, one of us became a college student at MIT and the other became a Marine. There are parents who wish for one of those things, and then parents who wish for the other – and of course there are parents somewhere in between. But we covered all the bases. In retrospect, I realize that she and I were my parents’ last chance to get things right. That isn’t to say that our two eldest sisters weren’t instances of my parents getting things right. Rather, Karen and I were an instance of my parents making it into the last two cups in a beer pong game with one ping pong ball left to spare. Impossible, you’d think, but I think we’re a damn good example of it.

I never asked her what Marine Corps Recruit Training was like and now that it’s so far behind her I think I’d rather not. That span of three months was rough on both of us. I wrote her exactly three letters and I tried to be cheery, but instead ended up talking about my newly diagnosed mental illnesses and how hesitant I was about taking the medication. She told me she hated the food. When we saw each other at the airport in mid-December, both alive and well, we started sobbing. I hugged her and she felt so tiny; all the weight she had lost was missing from between my arms. I swallowed back the swelling anxiety that came with talking about MIT to outsiders and told her right into her collar bone, “I didn’t think I’d be alive to see you again.” And it was funny, because she was the one training to be a killing machine.

Patricia Ho blood pact

In Chinese culture the color red is used during auspicious events such as marriages and New Years because it symbolizes happiness and good fortune. Red also plays a significant role in symbolizing blood relations within families.

In this series, red is the metaphor for blood that holds together two different types of relationships: arranged marriage and sisterhood. The relationships I chose to convey are not blood related, nor do they represent happiness. In the arranged marriage photos, red conveys the helplessness and sorrow of this ancient Chinese practice. Conversely, in the sisterhood series, red acts as a literal family-like bond of blood that holds the two unrelated women together. I hope that the juxtaposition of the two themes encourages readers to consider the deeper meaning of red in a different culture.

Models:

Photographed

Samantha Wong, Tammy Wu, Edward Yun

and edited by Patricia Ho.

Tommy Choppa

Name: Tommy Choppa, 22 City: Lynn, MA, born in Haiti Instagram @officialtommychoppa Twitter @tommychoppahd YouTube @TommyChoppatv SoundCloud @Tommy Choppa

I describe my music as “Feel Music,” there’s always some type of feel to it. Not only the feel, but everybody listening is going to FEEL what they are hearing.

I hope to pursue my music with many projects and video I plan to release. I’m also a student at North Shore Community College in Lynn. My major is business and as an artist it’s all about branding so I plan to incorporate everything together.

I always loved making music, but I it took more seriously after I graduated high school. Since then it’s been a fun journey.

I’m also a co-owner of T.R.A.P Collections Clothing, which is a family business run by my brothers.

Bella You

Name: Beleyou Kebede

City: Atlanta, GA Instagram @bella.you SoundCloud @bella.U

Before I even knew what it meant to be a singer, I loved using my voice to make music. From putting on holiday shows with my sister for our family to talent shows to making covers, I’ve never thought of doing anything else. I know no matter where my voice takes me, singing will always be something I will love doing and sharing with the people around me.

When I was 16, I decided to start taking singing seriously and try to find melodies for all those lyrics and poems that filled my notebooks. But with anything, there was a learning curve and while balancing school and college apps, music took a backseat for a while. This year I’ve found inspiration again and am working on my first original project. I’m very excited to be entering this new chapter in my musical journey and hope the people aroundme enjoy what I put out and relate to it. I make music about my own experiences to make sense of what life puts me through and to capture a moment in time, in a way that only music can do. Just as other artists have inspired me, I want my music to speak to people and make them feel something.

My project will be dropping on SoundCloud very soon so look out for it @bella.U

love is in

the hair

Meredith McDuffie Photos

by Remy Usman

Growing up, my sister and I dreaded Hair Day. It came once every six weeks, and we woke up with the feeling of two people resigned to their terrible fate. My aunt would take one of us down into the basement, wash our hair, and then begin the long, tedious process of re-braiding it. At the young age of six, I was always worried that my aunt would accidentally drown me in that basement sink, but the worst part was always the hair braiding. We would sit for half a day as our aunt pulled and twisted at our hair as we were forced to watch reruns of Days of Our Lives, and the only breaks we had were to the bathroom; even dinner was brought down to us on paper plates.

Hair Day is a memory I remember much more fondly the older I get, mostly because I have come to realize it was an experience I shared with many other black girls. Box braids, twists, dreads- whatever the hair style, we all had our own Hair Day memories, all different and yet somehow the same. We could all relate to that feeling of restlessness that comes from sitting in one place for too long, of looking in the mirror and realizing with a sinking feeling that there was still so much hair left to be braided.

My sister and I grew out of our braids. We entered junior high and our mother let us get our hair permed, pressed, and straightened. I was excited to finally have straight hair, like all the other kids in my school, and I felt like I finally fit in. With straight hair, I felt less ostracized from my peers, less different. I wore hats and headbands to cover my nappy edges, and it wasn’t until high school that I realized I had been trying to cover up the evidence of my blackness; I had tried to fit in by becoming as white as I could.

In high school, I gradually began to own my blackness, to celebrate it, so I started wearing my hair naturally. I stopped getting it permed and let it grow out in all its nappy, curly glory. But I do remember a moment when I became distinctly aware of how other people saw black hair. In high school, the girls lacrosse team all got cornrows as a team bonding experience. I was the only black girl on the team, and the only person who did not participate; something about it did not sit right. I asked one of my teammates how long it had taken for her cornrows; a couple hours, at most, she had told me, and suddenly I was reminded of Hair Day, of the hours and hours spent sitting in a chair. These girls had ‘black hair,’ yet they did not have the experience that came with that hair. While this had been a fun bonding experience for the team, I felt more isolated from them; for me, what had been an acceptance and celebration of my identity was for them nothing more than a silly group activity.

Hair has always been tied with identity, but in the 1960s black hair became a revolution in and of itself. The afro style became especially popular, as it was a very distinctive style that represented rebellion against and Eurocentric standards of beauty and pride in one’s black identity. Black hair was no longer just about a collective ‘we,’ it was also a call to arms against the beauty standards that insisted eurocentric features were the epitome of beauty, that insisted black hair was ugly, dirty, and less than. And while this particular revolution has not been in the spotlight, black hair has been tied with black identity ever since.

But has society’s attitude towards black hair really changed all that much?

White celebrities like Miley Cyrus, who donned multi-colored braids in 2015, and Gigi Hadid, whose Vogue photo shoot featured an afro, wear black hairstyles as if they are a revolutionary new style; the white community commodify and appropriate black hair, but they do so while denying black people the right to their own hair. In fact, the past few years alone have been littered with stories of little girls being sent home because their natural hair was ‘distracting,’ of men being denied employment because their dreads were too ‘unprofessional.’

Solange Knowles herself has written an ode to the microaggression of white people asking to touch black people’s hair, a song aptly titled ‘Don’t Touch My Hair.’ Solange repurposed this title as a hashtag when she expressed disappointment in the British Evening Standard Magazine for cropping out her braided hair crown. On a track from her 2016 album, Solange describes her hair as her soul, an integral part of her identity. Actress Lupita Nyong’o expressed similar indignation when a different magazine edited her hair to be smoother, essentially fitting a more Eurocentric idea of what hair should look like.

In 2016, pop star Justin Bieber debuted his new dreadlocks at a music awards concert. When confronted with criticism, Bieber responded that his hair was not cultural appropriation, but rather was simply just his hair. But consider the words and connotations associated with dreadlocks: dirty, matted, unprofessional. When Zendaya wore faux locks to the Oscars in 2015, she was criticized for looking as if she smelled weed. But dreadlocks, like the afro, have a history tied with black empowerment and black pride. While the origins of the hairstyle are still behind debated, dreadlocks were popularized in the west by the Rastafarian movement, of which one notable figure was Bob Marley. Rastafarians saw dreadlocks as a connection to their African identity and

physical manifestation of their vow of separation to Euro-imperialist structure. Bieber’s locks being considered ‘stylish’ while Zendaya was attacked for hers leaves a clear message: dreadlocks, despite their roots, are ok only when white people are wearing them.

Here, then, is a dual affront on black identity through black hair. Black hairstyles are exploited by white celebrities, toted as fashion trends, while the white community simultaneously tells black people that their hairstyles are not their own. Braids, dreadlocks, afros- these things are acceptable only when the white community is using them. On Gigi Hadid curly hair is stylish- on Lupita Nyong’o it is a mistake in need of editing before publication.

These incidents are not random bouts of prejudice; they are calculated formulas whose purpose is to erode the black self. By punishing black people for wearing their hairstyles and applauding white people for appropriating them, society attempts to discredit and devalue this part of a black person’s identity; it tells them that to wear their hair natural is to participate in something unfashionable, unstylish, something ugly.

And while it may seem like such a minimal aspect, this Eurocentric attitude sows discord within the black community, leading to infighting that causes us to ask if someone is less black because they press and straighten their hair. But the danger in this formula is that it wants us to say yes: it wants us to state, firmly, that our black hair is part of what makes us black, and wants us to be ashamed. The commodification, the appropriation, the judgement, the consequences that come from wearing natural hair are all designed to turn us away from it. These things craft a narrative that become deeply ingrained and internalized, telling black people that they should not want to have black hair — and should thereby not want to be black.

And the truth is, this formula is an effective one because it forces black people to choose: wear your black hair and be black, or straighten it, tame it, and be less black. But the reality is that neither of these are good options because they both constrain black identity into two boxes. Natural hair or straightened. Braided or permed. Black or not black. This duality effectively restrains black identity because it leaves no room for black identity to be anything more than these two things. Black hair is undeniably a part of black identity. But by making black hair the be-all-end-all, the black community holds itself back from exploring the complexities and intricacies of identity.

Almost two decades from my last Hair Day, I remember it fondly. I remember the smell of shea butter and laughing along with my auntie at the ridiculousness of the characters on Days. My sister and I have grown into our hair, though we have both taken different paths. I wear mine braided. She wears hers in a weave. But despite the difference in our hair styles, there is one thing we both know without any doubt: we both love our blackness.

Fall 2017 Mirrors .001

Staff

We’re a small team at Charocal. A big thank you to everybody who contributed!

Managing

Adia Turner

Bradley Noble Remy Usman

Eva Vidan Shari Tumandao

Cameron Cooper Vicki Saeed Meredith McDuffie

Contributors

The stories and images featured in this issue are thanks to the artists listed below who submitted their work.

Patricia Ho Amber Lin

Tanya Llanas

Annette Montero

Xaulanda Thorpe

Blood Pact

Painting Faces

Half of a Whole Blue My Grandmother...

Models

Cameron Cooper Sernah Essien Madison Hardee Bella Kebede Oreine Robinson Valentina Wicki-Heumann

Sponsors

Boston University Arts Initiative

The Howard Thurman Center, Boston University

COVER: Our cover features Patricia Ho, photographed by Eva Vidan. Stay in Touch!

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