BLACK

BLACK BLACK is a project about raising up individual black voices within the community.

The intention of BLACK is to get individuals of the black community seen and their voices heard through the medium of portrait photography.

Hi all! Firstly, we want to apologize to all of you, but especially these upcoming participants, for our post delay. Som...
09/21/2020

Hi all!

Firstly, we want to apologize to all of you, but especially these upcoming participants, for our post delay. Sometimes life can really hit ya all at the same time and that’s what happened here. We also wanted to talk through future changes to how the interview and photo process will work as we are coming into the colder seasons and we are assuming what will be a heightened flu and COVID-19 period.

Moving forward, we will be doing photos and interviews separately. Photos will be done in a public space outside in downtown Aurora (Water Street in between Downer and Benton) with Bri Short Photography. Interviews will now be done via Zoom video chat with Bri Mooney and/or Mercedes Patterson. We will be following up with some individuals we were talking to before about participating, but we are also looking for more future participants. Please feel free to message us on Facebook, Instagram, or email us at [email protected] if you are interested in being interviewed!

Lastly, we figured we’d put some faces with our names so you know by whom you’d be interviewed and photographed. So “Hello!” from all of us!

We can’t wait to get moving again and to share even more stories!

“I’ve been cutting yards for years. That was always my little summer job. I was a kid doing that. But last summer, a cou...
07/23/2020

“I’ve been cutting yards for years. That was always my little summer job. I was a kid doing that. But last summer, a couple people asked me to cut their yards for some reason. I put my lawn mower in my trunk and went out and cut it after work. I just started doing it and posted pictures of it and that’s when it spread like wildfire. I started getting people to hit me up for it. I was using an app to get yards. One of my friends was in a bunch of mom groups and she posted to reach out to me. It just all kind of snowballed. After last summer, I realized I made some decent ass money last year on top of working full-time so I thought I would turn it into a legit thing. I acquired an LLC, set up a business account, made the page, and just happened like that. I enjoy doing it.”
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~Da’Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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Hire A Cut Above using the link below:
https://www.facebook.com/ACutAboveAurora/

What does being Black mean to you?•“I mean… I love that s**t. To me, I’m not religious, but the best way to put it is th...
07/21/2020

What does being Black mean to you?
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“I mean… I love that s**t. To me, I’m not religious, but the best way to put it is that I’m blessed. Granted, all the fu**ed up things that happen to Black people: the inequality, the injustice, it’s all extremely fu**ed up. The world without Black people would be very boring. We run s**t. And I think that’s the tough pill for a lot of white people to swallow. I remember when I used to work security, there was this white girl who kept making these jokes. I said, “everybody wanna be n***a until they gotta be a n***a”. You sit here and make all these jokes. You love Black culture, but yet you all appropriate the f**k out of our culture. She responded, ‘what is Black culture?’ And I mean, what isn’t?? She asked, ‘well then what is white culture?’ I told her, ‘well, when you find out, let me know.’ I was serious. If you think about it, even way back when… it was Native American culture. I guess they’re European so they got wigs, maybe? There are so many other cultures that have become valuable or profitable. Because a lot of white people feel so entitled, they think it’s theirs.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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“Well, in 8th grade, I dated a white girl whose father was a racist. That was interesting. She was not. I’ve also been t...
07/20/2020

“Well, in 8th grade, I dated a white girl whose father was a racist. That was interesting. She was not. I’ve also been told, ‘you talk really well to be Black’. I was the Black white kid in school. I wasn’t hood enough, because I talked a certain way and dressed a certain way. I’ve been in stores where I’ve been followed. I’ve been in elevators where white women have clutched their purses. Like if someone opens a door for me, and I say ‘thank you’ their face will light up like they weren’t expecting that type s**t from me. It comes in all forms and happens so often that sadly I feel like a lot of Black people, we kind of get used to it so we don’t really pay attention to it as much. It’s weird. Although, I do enjoy having interactions with people that you can tell they probably thought one thing and then you start talking to them and they’re like ‘oh s**t, he’s not who I thought he was.’”
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“It would be nice if white folks would stop saying all lives matter and just understand everything that’s going on in terms of the injustice and how just as much as everybody thinks that everything is equal, it’s not. I’ve been saying for years now that it’s a Black and Brown matter, not just a Black matter. I understand the Black Lives Matter movement, because we are dying at a crazy rate. I remember looking at a statistic only a month after George Floyd was killed and there were already over 100 police brutality cases involving the killing of a Black person. It’s one of those things where once people can understand and see and it not be a thing of ‘well, what about me?’ that will help. I also think that the younger generation is going to shake some s**t up. I think more than ever they are the ones that are getting away from the social norms and traditions. They are shaping things into what they want it to be. I feel like, because of that, in five years, we will start seeing more of a shift. As much s**t that I give some of the kids these days, I commend them-- whether it be their sexuality, relationship status type things. They move how they want to move. I can’t knock them for that.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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“I felt like I was ahead of my time, I guess, because I didn’t subscribe to the typical high school bulls**t. I was cool...
07/15/2020

“I felt like I was ahead of my time, I guess, because I didn’t subscribe to the typical high school bulls**t. I was cool with everybody. I wasn’t a jock, but I was athletic. I was smart, but I wasn’t in the AP classes, I was in a couple plays. Like I knew everybody: the drama kids, the jocks, the popular kids, everything, but I never considered myself one of the popular kids. But also because I dated big girls, I would catch backlash for that. That s**t never phased me. My mindset was that I needed to get good grades and be done with this s**t. But at the same time, I was working and making sure I had money. High school wasn’t everything to me. It was four years of my life I gotta go through and just get done.”
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“My grandma and I were always close. Even when I was younger, I would go over to her house on the weekends or when she got off of work. That was just like home for me. I learned the whole family dynamic from my grandma. Because when you think of Black grandmas, you think of the movie, Soul Food. She was that rock that held everybody together. Holidays were done at her house. She would cook all the good-ass food. She taught me, without teaching me, to take care of your people. She raised me and she helped take care of my cousins a little bit. She always put herself on the back-burner. That’s why I think today I am the way I am. One of my little brothers lived with me for a little bit and one of my other little brothers lived with me a little bit too. I have an open-door policy as long as you are actin’ right, you can crash with me.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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"So whenever I was at school, we would bring all of these comments or concerns of racism, bigotry, discrimination, all o...
07/11/2020

"So whenever I was at school, we would bring all of these comments or concerns of racism, bigotry, discrimination, all of that to administration. They’re Catholics. They promote love, they promote all this stuff. They weren’t doing anything about it. They weren’t even listening to us, they would actually push us aside and say it was petty. Why don’t you just get over it? They say it in their fluffy language, but that’s what they were saying. It pi**ed me off. That’s what made me get away from Christianity. I actually ran away in college. I am not trying to be a Christian anymore. I am not trying to do anything like that. After awhile, if I can’t make a change, who will? I started changing myself. Starting changing my life."
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~Kendall Williams
Mentor. Christ Intern.
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“I think because of the way we were raised, we know how to communicate. We know how to talk properly. We also know how t...
07/10/2020

“I think because of the way we were raised, we know how to communicate. We know how to talk properly. We also know how to use some slang. For the most part, we could handle a conversation with an adult at 12 years-old. Where most kids were just trying to run around and try to play basketball. That made the perception of ‘Ohh, you white. You talkin’ like you white.’ Not even knowing the history of Black people telling other Black people that they talk like they’re white, what that does to another Black person. Instead of saying, ‘Oh man, you’re intelligent.’ It makes you feel like ‘well, I don’t want to be white!’. So then you start dumbing yourself down. You start making mistakes. You start doing things that you have no business doing because that’s what the ‘picture’ of being Black is, right? Selling drugs. The neighborhood that we lived in was like a drug alley. So we saw everything from the drug addict to the super drug dealer coming through the block everyday with a different car. And I knew everybody. I knew them all. So it was like trying to get back to my identity and where do I fit in with being cool with the drug dealer and also know how to have a full conversation with an adult on a level where most people can’t. Where do I fit in in that? And that was the struggle of trying to find out how to be ‘Black’.”
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~Kyle Brown
Father. Husband. Christ Intern.
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Kendall: “Our mom was always on us the whole time. I mean, if we didn’t have her… probably would have been way worse. Sh...
07/09/2020

Kendall: “Our mom was always on us the whole time. I mean, if we didn’t have her… probably would have been way worse. She’s always been there. She’s our ride or die. She taught us to know who we are. She was really big on that. Holding true to our identity. What we are doing now, we finally understand what she meant. Because then she would always just say ‘stick to your identity- you’re a Christ follower. You’re a king. My sons are men of valor and righteousness.’ We would always be like ‘what are you talking about?’. Now we understand and we appreciate it. I just remember going to bible school and she would be teaching. She would always say ‘make sure you have an opinion’. I wish I would have known how to use my opinion for the better. She has definitely been an influence on us holding true to our identity.”
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Kyle: “My mom had a voicemail and I hated it so much. You would call her phone and she would never answer. She still doesn’t answer. It would say: ‘Hello, who are you and what do you want?’ And it was like a two-fold question. It was like ‘who are you and what do you want from me?’ but also ‘who are you and what do you want?’. She would drill that into us. I remember her asking us that question like ‘Wake up! Who are you and what do you want?’. Like mom… I want to go to sleep! But she just drilled that and drilled that and drilled that. To the point where it’s like, now I am asking myself ‘Who am I and what do I want?’. Identity in the whole just makes a better person. When you know who you are and you know your values, you eliminate a lot of crap. And when storms come, you know how to anchor down.”
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~Kyle & Kendall
Brothers. Christ Interns.
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Kyle: “We are a giving family. I think that stems from our grandparents on both sides. Our grandma was an evangelist. Fr...
07/08/2020

Kyle: “We are a giving family. I think that stems from our grandparents on both sides. Our grandma was an evangelist. From the time that I was little, I can remember her bringing people into her home and letting people stay with her. Everybody. Prostitutes. It didn’t matter who. Like people that you would normally look at and be like ‘Listen, I will give you ten dollars, but you cannot stay in my house.’ And she would be like ‘Come on in!’. This was my mom’s mom.”
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Kendall: “And then on my dad’s side, she would be making cakes and cookies. She would feed you to death. She would feed us, the people next door, everybody around. It was just a good tight knit community.”
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~Kyle & Kendall
Brothers. Christ Interns.
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Interviewer: “What’s your favorite part about being Black?”•Danielle: “Being Black. That. Being Black is my favorite par...
07/05/2020

Interviewer: “What’s your favorite part about being Black?”
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Danielle: “Being Black. That. Being Black is my favorite part because even though it’s something that’s scary and dangerous, it’s f**king lit. I literally say this all the time, that if I had to be anything else, I wouldn’t want to be. It’s scary being Black. It’s kinda dangerous being Black. Sometimes you are targeted for being Black. But if I get reincarnated, I better show up as a f**king Black person. I could be a man or I could be a woman, just make me Black. I am confident in that. That’s what I know. There is power in being Black where often we didn’t feel that power of being Black. Now I am charged up. I am 100% battery right now. I feel confident in that Blackness. I am confident to walk in it and own it now, whereas in my adolescence, I didn’t walk in it. Now I am confident in showing up as myself. I love being Black because there is soul in being Black. There is beauty in my skin tone.”
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~Danielle Nurse
Author. Self Love Advocate.
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"What makes me me is that I am a genuine and authentic being. I can resonate with people. I can make people feel comfort...
07/03/2020

"What makes me me is that I am a genuine and authentic being. I can resonate with people. I can make people feel comfortable being themselves. That’s what makes me me. I don’t project something that makes you feel like ‘oh, I have to be more this or I have to be more that.’ I embrace the fact that I am nurturing being. I am a love-filled being. But I don’t take no s**t at the same time. It’s kind of like, really being able to have that duality. I enjoy my duality more than just playing a polar end. You gotta find that happy medium. I now understand that there is no perfect version of yourself. You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be you.”
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~Danielle Nurse
Author. Self Love Advocate.
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