JASMINE WILLIAMS

Jasmine Williams is an undergraduate student at the University of West Georgia.

As a Black woman in America, I am constantly presented with false images of what I am and what I should be. Though I have read books, sorted through feelings, and changed my mind time and time again, I am still left feeling weaponless in the fight against social injustice. At my weakest, I want to give up, thinking there is no end to this cycle, and live a life oblivious to the things happening around me. I am in a constant struggle between wanting to make grand social statements and wanting to just be.

In my work, I want to create a space that allows black women and men to be complete and complex. That space can be found in hip-hop and funk music. Groups like Outkast and Parliament speak about loading the mothership, leaving this Earth that has described and prescribed what black looks like, and go to this otherworldly place of complete freedom and expression.