I have had a lot of feels about Moana. I have personal feelings about "How far I'll go". I have mad wondelust. If you let me go, if I could just go, I might never come back. I want to explore everything. I want to see it first hand. I want to get as close to feeling it as I can. I am peopleless. There are POC people that have a story. They can trace it. Maybe not their lineage exactly but they have land they know their people came from. I don't have that. I know I'm West African and some Indigous, but I don't know which tribe. I don't know which country in Africa, what people in Africa. I wonder also hoping to find my people one day. I watch Moana and I get all the feelings, not because I'm a Pacific Islander, but because that is as close as Disney or any movie that I've seen has gotten to getting any Indigous culture right. This is as close as I have gotten to seeing my people on a screen. I know I will never get a West African Disney princess. I can dream but I don't see it happening. I get cultrally adjacent feelings. I don't know what it like to finally see you're people on a screen, but I'm getting close. This movie for me, a POC, bisexual, non binary person reminds me that there is a way for me to honor my ancestors in my identity, some how. I just have to find it. There is a way for me to be feminine and masculine at the same time that's not stepped in colonialism. There is a way to do it our way. There is a way for me to be neither in a way that doesn't repesent the oppressor.
I think I can do that by taking some cues from my hair. I have permed it more than a few times in my life time trying to conform to western beauty standers. Even when I perm my hair, when it gets wet it still curls. not as much but, it refuse to be completely straight. It refuse to be broken, it is strong. My hair will not been to the will of white standers. I just realized this. My hair has survived everything I have put it through. It is resilient. My hair is the closes thing I have to knowing my ancestors. They were strong, resilient, and full of spirit, because if they weren't I wouldn't be here. If I could personify my hair that person would represent my ancestors. I want to continue their legacy. I want them to know that all they went through was not in vain. I maybe be lost but I'm trying so hard to find my way back. I will make them proud.
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