I wrote this piece some years ago when I was trying to navigate the terrain of a new environment.  Moving from Toronto to NYC gave me a window into things and ideas I had never been privy to.  Just a border kept me disconnected with a part of myself that longed to experience both the negative and the positive that life had to offer.  I never dreamed I would face the things I faced in such a cosmopolitan city.  Sometimes I also believe it was who I was to become, to face the woman I was meant to be.  I was to herald a new learning that would serve me in the future.  Living, loving and finding my grace as a black woman, a mother, and a partner to another artist is what I eventually unearthed.

This piece is as relevant today as it was the day I wrote it.  We are living in a time that demands we as black people share what rests at the heart of who we are.  Using art is a tremendously rewarding way to extrapolate a definitive methodology regarding our status in the world, a way to take us into an unknown future.

Karen Gibson Roc

Big thanks to The Arsenal Film Group, Kista Liney, and Kimberly Solomon

NEVAHBLACKDOWN