White people love black art until it forces them to see or engage black pain beyond caricatures and stereotypes. To avoid confronting black pain, white audiences turn to white artists who appropriate black art without substance.

Once you move overseas, you slowly, without noticing at first, start to develop a new struggle around your identity that you didn’t know existed before. Before your move, you had simple answers to questions such as “Where are you from?” and “Where’s home for you?”

There is no single Black perspective. Nor is “The Black Experience” a concept that can be easily captured, branded, and packaged with a beautiful design bow. The essence of Blackness is simultaneously complex, deeply rooted, deeply felt, and above all else, human.