this interview is part of the world we want to live in series
How do you identify yourself in the world?
I identify as a creative, an artist, a musician, and a social activist — but I feel like I never really had a choice in that ‘cos when you’re born into a certain type of body there’s a need to carve out safe spaces and equal access. I’m an empath. I feel some folks have difficulty caring about experiences they don’t share. When I hear youth I work with talk about how they can’t focus their first day of middle school because they don’t know if their mom or dad will be there when they get home from school because of the ICE raids that have been happening. That makes me feel like I gotta do something, even if I’m not sure what that is.
It sounds like there’s a lot that compels you to be engaged in the work that you’re doing. Did you have examples of that growing up?
My mom is a persistent go-getter. She worked a bajillion jobs so that me and my three brothers could thrive. I remember her saying, I want you to have every opportunity so people with different privileges can’t make you feel they have something you can’t access. I get my independence from my mom — trying and saying yes to so many things. The hard part about that is, I feel my mom doesn’t know how to ask for help when she needs it and I saw how this negatively affected her mental health. I ask myself, are you checking in with yourself? I can’t be running around ’til my body can’t go anymore. It’s not sustainable. I’m getting better at saying no. With theater, people were always asking me to stage manage stuff. But when I stage manage I can’t play music, ‘cause I’m not getting home until midnight and drumming is loud! Once I set some boundaries and requested music-related roles in theater instead, it started to happen. I’m living in this space of realizing the worst thing that can happen is someone says no. Hearing no stinks but I would be so much more pressed if I didn’t bother asking.
I’d love to hear about creative, personal, or political projects you have going on right now. What’s on your mind?
I’m working on putting together a soft punk style zine, which my friend suggested because of what I post on instagram. It’s geared towards Black and brown gender nonconforming people. There aren’t many resources for gender non-conforming Black and brown people to talk about dysphoria and what kinds of clothes could feel good.
I drum in a band called Hula School. Drumming is really fun and that in and of itself always feels like an act of resistance. I get to hit stuff in time to music and it’s cool.
I went to Pitchfork Music Festival to take photos for Tom Tom Magazine. I am the web manager for the magazine which focuses on music, art, and more recently, politics. I’m focusing on getting more gender non-conforming and Black and brown people to write and be be featured on the website. They’re doing a good job at it now but there could still be more. I wrote a piece about how to move forward post-Women’s March. Because I’m just like okay that’s cute, but also there were a lot of things that were hurtful and here’s why. It’s nice to write a full narrative instead of a thread on twitter, like 👏🏾 this 👏🏾 is 👏🏾 why 👏🏾 this 👏🏾 blows!
I’d love to hear you talk more about putting your voice out there. There’s vulnerability in doing that publicly. What about that felt empowering and energizing, and what felt hard?
I took the time to let people know that this is the first step to make more inclusive events. Me in 2010 would have never thought using body parts as a signifier of what it means to be a woman would be upsetting to folks who don’t relate to that experience. It was empowering to know there were so many people reading that otherwise wouldn’t have thought beyond their own experience.
What was kind of nerve-wracking was you never know how people are gonna react. I was like, oh my god, am I gonna get like hate mail? People get in their feelings. Then I thought about how there are people who are gonna be mean to me just ‘cause and I quickly made peace with the fact that some people may not like the piece. I got over wanting to be liked by everyone a super long time ago. I’m proud of myself for that. I believe if no one’s peeved, you’re probably a little bit off. I got energized from that. I’m like, ooh, this could make someone pissed. That’s kind of cool too.
Can you say more about drumming and making music as acts of resistance in and of themselves?
I have always been interested in percussion. In middle school we had to take either band or choir. I didn’t want to do choir because I felt like everyone was expecting me to sing. I want to do band and I want to do something percussive. But I got stuck with the fricking clarinet! My teacher didn’t really know how to play it or how to teach me. I almost failed that class. After that I figured I’d do choir for the rest of my life. I didn’t know how to get access to learning how to play percussion and didn’t have any Black women role models who drummed. It wasn’t until I did Girls Rock in 2013 when I realized I can do that. After that I finally started drumming lessons. I picked it up fast. I was like wow, this is what I needed for all those years.
This week I came back to Girls Rock and there were so many more Black and brown girls which made me so happy. A young Black girl saw me sitting on the drum thrones. She looks at me and she’s like, I didn’t know black girls could drum. I told her, absolutely, we can do anything we want. She’s like, ohhh. There are still so many Black girls and Black people that feel that way; feel that there are experiences and feelings we’re not allowed to access. One reason I did Girls Rock this session is because they need more Black and brown representation in the program, so I’m like, let me roll in real quick. I’m so glad I did. Just the conversation with that one young person, she now realizes that she can drum too. I was that girl.
Being visible in music is important. A lot of people praise the Boston music scene, and it’s great, but it’s not really representative of the people that live here. A local music journalism magazine called Allston Pudding was uplifting the same generic all-white-dude bands every week. When they said they needed more writers, I’m like, okay, let’s do this. Black and brown percussive representation in Boston exists, but no one’s making the trek outside of their bubble to access it. I’m excited to start writing for them and bring new content to their website.
We met at a few years ago at an LGBTQ theater company that at the time had mostly white leadership. I’m hearing from your experience of going into Girls Rock Camp and starting to write for Allston Pudding that part of what you’re doing is infiltrating dominantly white organizations. It seems like that must be an intentional choice because I imagine it comes with its fair share of bullshit.
Oh yeah. I got so tired of seeing all these white people prospering in mediocrity. I love music and art so much but people are still not making space. Folks say they want to make space for voices other than their own, but they stay in their bubbles. I’m excited to infiltrate even though it comes with nonsense. I don’t put up with it anymore. I’m asking the hard-hitting questions they need to hear and won’t if I’m not there.
On an emotional level, what are you’ doing to fortify yourself around experiencing that nonsense?
I consume a lot of television where the majority of the cast are Black and brown. Instagram is therapeutic for me as well. I love watching videos of skateboarders, and tutorials with rad Black makeup artists where they do their makeup and slay their hair. When I don’t have the capacity for social media, it’s skateboarding, napping, and pizza. Thankfully connecting with the people I live with is a form of self-care. I feel grateful to have access to so many different forms of caring for myself.
What role does community play in your life?
People in my community are my biggest cheerleaders and they plant seeds I never would have thought about. Without them, I would never have pursued a lot of the things I’m involved in. I never expected I would be a part of a community outside of my family.
A lot of the things I do weren’t served to me on a silver platter. Growing up, I thought all I had access to was sports because my mom was such a sports fanatic and my brothers did sports. Then I was in my first school play — the Music Man — and it was fun but I didn’t know how to pursue that interest further. In high school I did a performing arts program that involved acting, musical theater, and stage management. I went to school for theater before realizing I wanted to integrate social justice into the arts. That’s when I got the internship [at the aforementioned LGBTQ theater company]. It was cool, but after some time I didn’t really like working at a white-run organization that focused on serving people of color and yet weren’t receptive to feedback from the folks of color on staff and in the community. I bounced to infiltrate different spaces that would be receptive to hearing what I have to say around making things more inclusive.
It seems pretty special to be able to integrate the arts to engage in social justice and to build a better world. I feel like those things are really compartmentalized for a lot of people. On another note, I know that there’s bad news all the time; I’m also feeling aware that the news out of Charlottesville last night is really intense. [Note: we had this conversation on August 13th, a day after a protestor was killed at the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville]. Broadly speaking, how are you doing?
Honestly, I’m doing great. This is upsetting, but like most people of color have been saying, none of this is surprising. This has been around for so long but people weren’t affected by it unless they were Black or brown, so they’re just like, that only happens in the south, love wins, blah blah blah. I’m just like fuuuuck, no. There’s a map of all the 900+ active hate groups in America. I was like wow, that one is in the neighborhood I grew up in. That one is a T ride away from my house.
It’s a rollercoaster, it’s an I told you so, it’s a where have y’all been? When stuff like Charlottesville happens, everyone’s upset, then after a week it dies down and people forget about it. Charlottesville is happening every single second of every single day. I’m interested in seeing the trajectory of people’s’ desire to combat this. It’s hard to be optimistic. My mom recently talked to me about having kids but I don’t feel comfortable bringing a lil’ Black bundle of joy into this nonsense. I don’t want them to ever have to feel like they don’t have the space to be themselves because some white boy in their second grade class called them a n*gger because they wouldn’t share their crayons. I would be fighting kids and I can’t do that.
It was difficult to unplug yesterday because you get into this cycle of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and you’re like, omg stop! Sometimes I feel weird leaving my house. I feel weird seeing white people on the train. Sometimes I can feel people calling me a slur. Living in east Boston and watching it gentrify so quickly is upsetting and sad. Sometimes I sit down and I’m like, jesus christ, is the world ever gonna look the way I want it to look? Is it ever gonna be safe and secure for me to have some little Lindseys running around? Most of the time I just don’t think so.
What does the world you want to live in look like?
The world that I want to live in looks like people having the space to experience the things they want to and be who they want to be. Where they can decide day-to-day what pronouns feel good and people are just like, ‘yeah sure absolutely!’ That’s the world I want to live in, where people are like, you wanna try something to live in your most comfortable self? Absolutely, do that. I want to live in a space where bathrooms are gender neutral and you’re not stressed about trying to pee.
I want to live in a space where basic human needs are free. It’s bullshit that people have to pay for housing and food and being able to get around to their jobs. It’s wack that people have to work so many jobs just to get by. The wack ass sexual health stuff taught to young people is bullshit. I would live in a world that’s not heteronormative. I want to live in a world where talking about mental health is normalized and people have access to therapy without going broke. I would love to live in a world where people aren’t working to live but because they want to.
I just want to live in a world where people can feel comfortable because there’s only a portion of people in the world who feel comfortable just living and that’s fucked up. There are so many people who are born and don’t even know the amount of discomfort that’s in store for them. We’re not here for that long, and it blows to have people be uncomfortable for so much of the time they’re here.
Your world sounds good.
Thanks. I definitely think about it a lot. If I had one wish I would have to make it into the biggest run-on sentence of my life but it would be worth it. I have to perfect that run-on sentence.
What do you see as your role and your work in helping to create the world you’re describing?
My role is visibility and being vocal. A lot of people like to hear what I have to say, whether it be purely comedic or about a social issue that’s been bugging me. I love being vocal about the media we consume. I watched this trash show on Netflix, Blow, which is about televised women’s wrestling in the 80’s. I didn’t understand what people saw in it. They had super racist character names that weren’t even historically accurate. I’m like wow, y’all really tryin’ it. I have a problem with period pieces because it feels like being able to say racist things is literally why some folks pick certain time periods. I was tweeting out my thoughts and feelings about the show and one of my friends was like wow, thank you so much, this is gonna help me better engage with media and think about why I like stuff. I’m glad that me yelling about how extra this show was was helpful for them. I love making sure that myself and others are active consumers of media and that when they make media, they’re not perpetuating the same issues we see in current TV, movies, and books.
Being visible in art spaces where I’m not usually seen is also very helpful. I know for the kid I mentioned earlier, seeing me at Girls Rock was helpful for her to understand she has access to everything. I know that me pursuing things I’m passionate about is making space for others to do the same. I’m excited to not be the only one or one of a few. With all of my self-care and with my community, I feel properly supported emotionally and spiritually to put myself in these heavily white spaces. Having support systems and community I’m just like, (gasp) I have a safety net to catch me while I scream about stuff! Then after I’ve screamed, I can come back and make an informed piece, like the one I did about the Women’s March. I screamed all day, took a nap, and when I woke up I started typing.
It seems like you’re really coming to everything you’re doing as a whole person and giving yourself space to feel the frustration and anger and then kind of being like, okay, here we go.
Writing has been really helpful. It’s great in terms of expanding my vocabulary and making accessible pieces folks can wrap their mind around. Sometimes I read some stuff where people are using all these big words for no reason. That’s one of the things that can be scary for people trying to get information. Everyone learns and ingests information differently. I feel I’m good at sharing information in an accessible way. Instead of speaking from a heady academic place, it feels more like a conversation and not, let me tell you about this👏🏾because 👏🏾 I 👏🏾 know👏🏾 everything! 👏🏾
As someone who’s so immersed in the music and arts world, I would be remiss to not ask you about the music and art that’s inspiring you right now.
The music that’s inspiring me is still A Seat at the Table [by Solange]. That entire album is so open and unfiltered. Her vulnerability and her want to take up space with her Blackness and her strangeness resonates with me. I’ve always felt strange. I always felt like my nerdiness and my weirdness never mixed with my Blackness so Solange is inspiring to me. She shows me that all of these things about myself can live in the same space as my Blackness. Seeing that there’s no limit to what Black is has been really helpful.
I really like the new Tyler the Creator album. He made this really beautiful, soft record I never would have expected in which he talks about his queerness. He always rubbed me the wrong way and I perceived him as really aggressive. Naming his album Flowerboy and having the cover be an image of him standing in a field of sunflowers is really lovely.
I really like the new Downtown Boys record. I’ve always appreciated them because seeing people of color in punk is so inspiring. I love punk music but the community is so white. Whenever there’s something musically and culturally cool I figure it has to have been lifted from communities of color. There’s no way in hell that this isn’t something a community of color put together as a form of self care, visibility, and being able to play music really loud.
I’m going through all of the old R&B and soul my mom would play. Every single Sunday I wake up, wash my face, and listen to Sade. I have been getting into Chaka Khan’s deep cuts after growing up listening to the notable hits that most folks know. I love seeing black women taking up space in music. It shows me that the limit does not exist. There’s still so much space to take up and I’m moved to take up that space and I’m excited for the little girl I talked to at Girls Rock Camp to take up that space too.
Is there anything coming up for you in course of this conversation you feel like sharing?
In terms of taking stock of what my focus is and what I’m focusing my time on, this conversation was really invigorating. I was feeling like I just wanted to sleep for a million years, but now I can’t wait to go home and practice drums, I can’t wait to write things. Talking through stuff is a form of self-care. Sometimes I get caught up and don’t feel like my work is making an impact. Then I talk about it and think about the bigger scheme of things and remember there’s someone, somewhere who will read this and it’s changing the way they’re going to think. I want to show people that all of the things that live inside them can work in harmony. Just because you’re one thing doesn’t mean it lessens this other thing that also lives inside of you.
I’m interested in seeing the ways in which art is gonna expand. So many people are feeling empowered by A Seat at the Table and a lot of other records. Seeing Issa Rae come from Youtube and now have Insecure on HBO empowered a lot of people — so many more people of color are taking the time to make web series and tell their stories on Youtube. That’s what I think about when things are looking so bleak. I look at the art that other people of color are making and I’m just like, okay, maybe it’s not the MOST bleak and maybe we can make it to the other side.
You can find Lindsey Anderson on Instagram @lin.anderss.
freddie blooms 