Labor Day 2022 was the beginning of my annus horribilis.
Like a freeloading lover, the annus horribilis overstayed its welcome. Annus horribilis peed on my rug. It drank the last swallow of orange juice and left the toilet seat up.
I pulled a tarot card reading this morning, and the results surprised me. The tarot cards said I was trying to build a future from a broken heart.
Before moving on, I must make an important distinction. The tarot cards didn’t say I was broken. They said I was trying to build a future from past pain. I am whole and complete, even if dented and cracked in places.
So, this and a series of personal essays to follow are the Krazy glue to repair the shattered places where Ernest Hemingway said that the light comes in. That’s easy for a white man to say. No one tried to break the spirit of his people on a slave ship.
Back to Labor Day 2022.
My then-film producer issued me an ultimatum – let her handle the finances, or she would take the $25,000 she spent nine months procuring off the table. She thought I was irresponsible and reckless about how I spent money on a documentary about my own life.
Funny how the documentary industry works sometimes. They ask questions to overcorrect for decades of cultural appropriation, poverty porn, and soul extraction. No one thinks you should get paid for having the courage to face one of your biggest fears on film for all the world to see.
“You aren’t a celebrity,” they say. “Why should anyone care about you? You can’t make us money.”
I have always known that Black people were brought to the United States as cargo. We were not brought to the Americas to be loved, protected, or cared for. Our purpose was not to have a life of our own. It was to breed for a nation that continually tried to kill us.
But it’s not the fault of “late-stage capitalism” or the villainous “patriarchy.” The people who pulled the $25,000 from my documentary film because of the self-righteous tears of a white woman were Black. They make a living from professing to fund stories like mine and creatives like me. All skin folk aren’t kinfolks.
I could continue to complain, no whine, over the various professional stings I’ve experienced this year. But then, that would be boring and self-indulgent. Instead, I will offer what I’ve learned so far.
1. Work and family are separate things. Don’t believe companies that profess to be a family. You do a job, and they pay you for it. It’s transactional. Or, as we used to say in politics, “If you want a friend, get a dog.”
2. Trust your instincts. I should have fired the producer when she kept undermining my decisions.
3. Sometimes, you’re the villain in other people’s stories. This realization freed me from the double bind of people-pleasing and “goodness.”
4. Everyone is entitled to their truth, but not mine.
5. Redemption is possible when you do what you love and stick to your vision no matter what.
6. You have absolutely no control over life. Learn to meet life where you are and set yourself free.
7. Writing can save your life.
I’ve been writer blocked bc I think what’s coming up is more confessional personal memoir and I’ve convinced myself that’s not newsletter worthy. Which is not like me. Anyway, thank you for writing and giving permission. And thank you surviving your terrible year. Solidarity!
Wow. A powerful advocacy against the use of money in this fucked up culture in all the unholy ways it's used.
"I have it, you. need it, so you will do what I want in my way to serve my needs and desires - yours are irrelevant." Even in the "tell your truth" creative world, the nonprofit in service to the supposed needs of its constituency...
Those who have money are so steeped in colonial capitalism that extraction, exploitation and control are deeply inbred reflexes even in "do-gooding and beauty/truth-creating".
I'm so sorry Kerra for how this pervasive fuckery impacts you and I'm glad you see it for what it is. That's the opening towards an entirely different way of engaging with sacred exchange with its unlimited possibilities when free of this deeply dysfunctional extraction.