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Akiera Xavina Charles
Groundation Grenada
St. George’s, Grenada

Moments before setting up my first writing workshop with Groundation Grenada, I struggled up Market Hill in town while carrying four bags full of supplies. By the time I arrived to the Priory, I had already sweated out my edges. I remember quickly …

…dabbing my baby hairs with gel praying that those pesky naps would stay down for once.

Once people startled to trickle into the space immediately my vibes changed. Probably, I was super excited that people actually showed up, but regardless of who came or not I was sure during that moment of these workshops and myself.

With the backyard location of the Priory, almost feeling like a picture from Solange’s wedding photos, everything about this space ended up feeling “Black Girl Magical.” I even recall there being a lot of laughter and smiling in the space, which spoke wonders to my spirit. After everyone opened up with introductions, we proceeded on having conversations about topics ranging from sexual orientation, asexual desire, lipstick, sleeping with professors and Broadway shows. We wrote letters, talked about our least favorite animals, whispered into each others’ ears, and wrote responses to how we imagine Grenadian women.

While now reminiscent of this moment, I still think back to the week before this event when I became a creature of the night; nighttime was our “friend-enemy.” It cloaked our sins and identities, but also made us vulnerable to the many forms of evils lurking around at night. I remember at night was when I would met up and flirt with other women loving women and queer women in Grenada. During these nighttime retreats I also noticed how gay and men loving men would move more freely throughout these LBTQ kickback fetes by wining up on so or tongue kissing so. Only after we left these fetes would we remember our morning selves – timid souls cloaked by secrecy. Nonetheless, before night became morning, I left the party having gotten five numbers for different ladies (yay).

 

Some notes from my journal… Wi-Fi-fly …goes buzz into the night … buzz… young people walk around like zombie looking for Wi-Fi maybe under a mango tree … Or down by the ravine …buzz ehhhhhh …                                                   Wi-Fi connection is good down here boi …ehhh I lost me Wi-Fi Papa God… …buzz…

 

 Akiera Xavina Charles. As a senior in Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Akiera is concentrating in “Understanding How Visionary Futurism and Spatial Geography Shapes the Afro-diasporic Imaginary.” While describing herself as an Afro-Caribbean, queer mango-loving, soon to be landscape architecture with a knack for throwing shade on “Whiteness,” as well as, documenting the dreams and desires of Afro-diasporic folks, Akiera on the side also likes to write Black Feminist manifestos and cook vegan food.

Akiera Xavina Charles
Groundation Grenada
St. George’s, Grenada

Being in Grenada was very uncomfortable for me. I felt my privilege everywhere I went … The dotish old man finally stared at his daughter’s face after fifteen years of absenteeism violently streaked across his face. He ran to his 30 year-old girl friend, frantically looking for his wash towel the obeah woman blessed the day before. After all, she warned him that I was coming back full of vengeance. Meanwhile afraid to touch or hug me, my father instead stare at she-me-her-they at the airport; through me he saw all the woman he ever womanized and cheated on. 

 

Even with my mashed-up-Southern-drawl-meets-New-York-Black-millennial-slang (with a touch of Caribbean somewhere in between), I felt unable to fully fit in there – Grenada.  Either my too-glammed-up attire, iPhone, or my double nose piercings gave me away as a foreigner or indicated my class. Eventually I ended up blaming “my American citizenry” for this unwarranted exotification and attention attached with being a Black foreigner able to “move.”

Sometimes I would feel the eyes of those secondary school girls zoom in on me when I walked pass the Andall shopping center in town. I guess they’re just taking note of my sunglasses, shoes, lipstick, demeanor, and face, but still I felt uncomfortable knowing that I was the  center of their attention.

However, now looking back unto my experience in Grenada, the most difficult part initially was revealing to my family and other Grenadians my reasons for coming there. Instead leaving them with roundabout answers, mentioning in drips and drops about something:  “women,” “community,” and “organizing work,” I usually left most conversations feeling deceptive and “fake.” In my heart they knew and I knew that my sojourn back to Grenada meant something more, besides doing quaint community organizing  work.

For some reason, the words “women loving women” and “lesbian” hid in the deepest  part of my mouth too frightful to make any grand appearances. Yet, one day I noticed it came out in whimpers, after my cousin’s eyes decidedly spoke its same language. I was shock that we spoke our desires through our eyes, it almost felt too dangerous – too R rated for that house. Eventually, I realized her mom understood our shared language; patiently she waited for the truth to part ways through my mouth, but fortunately it never did.

I miss her eyes … round …oh … very round full of our truths

shhhh … Don’t tell them you saw our many liberations through her eyes. 

After the dotish old man realized that his daughter was interning for and staying with another Grenadian woman who is an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in Grenada, something in his head finally clicked; no longer was this man dotish. Fear gripped his eyes when he first encountered Malaika Brook-Smith Lowe. From then on, he knew what we were – zamies. 

With the days leading up to my workshops, spent liming (hanging out) and feverishly making lesson plans after lesson plans worrisome  thoughts began to tie  up my mind. As result, I ended up feeling super awkward during my collaborative yoga/afro-futurism film screening workshop with the  co-founder of Groundation Grenada, Malaika.

Since all eyes were on me as I waited for my “magical facilitating skills” to come alive, I instead felt my lips quiver from nervousness as I read aloud parts of Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s short story in Octavia’s Brood. When four minutes passed with me still reading from the book, I was sure everyone had lost interest in everything I was saying – becoming blah…blah …blahhh.

In this case, having thought that cultural barriers were what made it difficult for me to explain afro-futurism to the audience, I later on realized that perhaps my initial facilitating style was to blame. My readings came off “too teacher-like” and “jargony.” Now reminiscing on what writing friend from NYC pointed out to me on the phone, I reckon how this writing series became successful  after I made it more organize, interactive and relatable (yay).

 

 

Akiera Xavina Charles. As a senior in Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Akiera is concentrating in “Understanding How Visionary Futurism and Spatial Geography Shapes the Afro-diasporic Imaginary.” While describing herself as an Afro-Caribbean, queer mango-loving, soon to be landscape architecture with a knack for throwing shade on “Whiteness,” as well as, documenting the dreams and desires of Afro-diasporic folks, Akiera on the side also likes to write Black Feminist manifestos and cook vegan food. 

Akiera Xavina Charles
Groundation Grenada
St. George’s, Grenada

Greetings! My name is Akiera Xavina Charles, and I am a rising senior at Gallatin concentrating in “Understanding How Visionary Futurism and Spatial Geography Shapes the Afro-diasporic Imaginary.” As an Afro-Caribbean, mango-loving queer woman and creative writer, I take seriously the theory and practice of imagining alternative futures that promote modes of sustainability and communal love and that call on destroying capitalism, white supremacy, and all other “isms.”

Currently, I live my life as an oftentimes-misunderstood Black radical millennial. I have gotten used to some folks categorizing me as insane or mystical given my beliefs and bi-sexuality. I often have to explain myself and explain why I seek futures outside the framework of whiteness and Western linear time.

However, slowly and surely, I am learning how to love myself amidst a world that has had difficulty knowing how to love me. I have learned to trust in my pedagogy of queer Black feminist theory, which enables me to see beyond the future that has been prescribed for us. But it is a radical feat for people of color to imagine that something other than whiteness, capitalism, and colonialism awaits us; this smells of danger, anti-patriotism, and anachronism. As a result, it has been difficult for me to find community around my academic and personal interests.

And then, I found it   .    .     .

Or it found me   .    .     .    others who felt the same, desired the same, envisioned the same: my/our/their queer Grenada!

One day searching online, I came across the Grenadian human rights organization, Groundation Grenada. Their website openly discusses LBGTQ issues, beautifully yelling to the rest of the world that same-loving women and LGBTQ folks in Grenada exist and that our lives matter. I felt immediately in love with this organization once I realized it shares my knack for in-your-face radical advocacy and that it has a radical anti-colonialist Caribbean feminist perspective. I am still in awe of gaining the chance to intern there this summer.

In the meantime, as I mentally prepare myself for my sojourn home, revising my workshop lesson plans and interview questions, I still do not know what to expect. I was born in Grenada but am now a college-educated US citizen; I grapple with my unfamiliarity with Grenada and the many privileges I have. I am also bothered by the silence that exists around Grenadian queer or erotic sexuality; I wonder whether some of the women I plan to work with this summer will feel open and comfortable enough to share their stories and dreams with me.

Though I want to learn more about the cultural history of queer and same-loving women in Grenada, I do acknowledge that I approach this research without a heavy awareness of their experiences and of the silence that marks their lives. Yet, since my project serves as a queer memory project for Grenadian women, girls, and femmes, I intend for it to challenge that silence. And considering that some people tried to discourage me by saying that “that queer stuff ain’t real down in your tropical Bible-loving oasis,” this project is a loud and in-your-face testament to the importance of creating space for “silenced” identities while engaging in social justice work.