Black Woman on Purpose

Michael Turrentine is an actor, writer, activist, and social justice educator originally from Oklahoma, but is excited to be hunkered down in the Windy City of Chicago. He is excited to be a part of the KICKBACK Commission and ecstatic to be working with About Face. He is represented by Gray Talent Group.

A Celebration of Black Women!

I actually began this process not knowing at all what I was thinking about writing about. The idea of our writing playground being larger than life with no limitations other than the fact that we should be inspired by an item or several at the Arts Bank honestly was daunting for me! I began brainstorming about random thoughts I could find myself writing down; black queerness in later years of age, blackness in the time of quarantine, queerness in the time of 2020, etc. My brain was going wild, until I had a conversation with my mother when an unexpected death in the family reared its head. While talking to her as we discussed funeral plans, I looked her in the eyes and uttered the question, “How do you do it?”. “Do what?” she responded. “This. Keep everything going when it’s, like, WAY too hard to.” She then looked at me, smiled, and said “Because we have to.” I smiled back and said, “You’re a superhero.” And to this she laughed and said one of the deepest phrases I had heard. “No, I’m a Momma”.

Suddenly I knew exactly what my inspiration for my piece would be; black women. My mother in particular, but the essence of what I see every day that black women do to quite literally hold the world up. So it was obvious when I came across a book of poetry in the Arts Bank by the phenomenal Audre Lorde (In particular, her poem “Stations” jumped out), I had to use it as my main source. Audre is a black, queer, warrior poet and she is fabulous! And then my next step was odd but I thought it essential. I began messaging all of the black fem folks in my life and asking them one simple question; “Would you please finish the second half of this phrase with what you think it means to be a black woman? Black Woman On Purpose = “What?”

I honestly didn’t know what my responses would be, but message after message began coming back and the responses were amazing, insightful, beautiful, heartbreaking, deep, thought-provoking, and exactly what I needed to finish this piece. I am honestly really excited about what this piece means and what comes out of it.

“Is queerness all that different from empathy? Maybe queerness is just finding comfort, solace, and safety in the familiar.” I wrote that at the beginning of writing this piece and I think it is absolutely another little nugget in the project that I think shines. I love being black. I love black people. I love being queer. And being that combination makes me feel like a superhero a lot of the time. And that’s what I think of black women. That’s what I think of my mom. Y’all are superheroes.