liveyourtruth Lafemmebear’s “If” Embraces Black Queer Self-Love

[FlyJ]

Copied: For a lot of Black queer and trans femmes, love is something we have to bestow upon ourselves. We don’t read the comments on any article about us, we carefully curate our social media feeds, we tread very lightly when dating, and sometimes we avoid the mirror. In this context, I couldn’t be more excited to premiere Lafemmebear’s new music video for “If,” off her previous EP — in advance of the release of her new one, Blaq: the Story of Me.

This song and video feel like a conjure, a gift, like being seen, like being loved. Lafemmebear asks, and then answers, a crucial question for Black queer femmes interested in survival — and, critically, not just survival but joy: “If I loved me despite the fear, would that be alright?”

The video ends with a spoken word piece by Samantha Goff, which I’ll just reproduce in its entirety below, because it’s gorgeous, and powerful, and will be running through my mind for quite a while:

To me, Black femme joy is about being unapologetically Black. Everyday, all day. It’s about… knowing who you are, and leaning into that and celebrating that, and figuring that out as a journey, but it’s a beautiful one. And once you’ve found the core of who you are, and can truly live it and express it everyday, that’s when you are living in your joy, ’cause you’re living in your truth. And the times when it gets hard, because the world is not made for Black femmes, especially not made for queer Black femmes, you find your tribe, other people like you, and you commune. And you get through.

 

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