chineze okpalaoka on sisterhood
name | chineze okpalaoka
describe your sisterhood in 3 words | evolving, revealing, refining
on your must-read list | parable of the brown girl: the sacred lives of girls of color by khristi lauren adams
song currently fueling your soul | brilliant by lisa mcclendon for warmth and nostalgia; guarding the gates by lauryn hill for soaring; disparate youth by santigold for taking over the world
current inspiration | i’ve recently been inspired and intrigued by stories and pieces of art chronicling black girlhood in different countries and cultural contexts. two that come to mind are: this is how we disappear, a book by titilope sonuga, and a short film titled dulce by guille isa and angello faccini.
COMMUNITY CARE
last year you began hosting candid conversations with black women in your community. what did those conversations teach you and remind you of sisterhood?
i think of the gospels that talk about how mary, Jesus’s mother, pondered things in her heart. people would say stuff about Jesus, and she would just ponder those things in her heart (luke 2:19). that’s a lot of how my artwork takes form. i have an idea, and then i see an image or overhear a conversation, and it resonates with what’s already been brewing within me. so i take note of it, store it, and keep meditating on it as i move through life.
the first exhibit i did, which i did as a part of my 25th birthday, was centered around telling my story about how i was coming into my own as a black woman, and reflecting on the times in my childhood when i didn’t feel beautiful or celebrated as a black girl. the number of black women who connected with what i shared stunned me. on some level you know that others are experiencing the same things you are, but you don’t know how deeply it’s being felt or experienced. there was one girl in particular who came up to me, after the exhibit, in tears. she said that she almost didn’t come, but something told her she needed to be there. she thanked me for the space i had created for healing. i heard other feedback similar to that, and it made me realize how all of us have been living parallel experiences, but we’ve been siloed off. no one was talking about it or creating space for these conversations. personally, as a woman of faith, i hadn’t heard any theology that addressed the pain that black women experience.
i grew up hearing things in the church like “you’re more christian than you are black.” or, “you’re more christian than you are woman.” i always wondered why those things had to be at odds. if God made me this way, then my blackness and womanness should be part of how i encounter him. they shouldn’t be posed as necessary opposites or obstacles to holiness or devotion. so i knew that after that exhibit, i wanted to expand black girl miracle and make it a space where i could share other women’s stories too.
do you feel like your faith community at large has been a watering hole during this time of civil unrest?
my faith community has shifted a lot within the last few years. depending on who’s in leadership and what people believe, you can feel that your human experiences don’t matter and that you should focus on getting to heaven. i didn’t feel like i could talk openly about the issues i was struggling with. there were also times when i didn’t know how to put language to what i was feeling. i didn’t know i was suffering under the “strong black woman” trope. you hear in church that you’re supposed to be more than a conqueror, and then you have society idolizing the way black women always endure in spite of suffering. when you marry those two messages together, you internalize it. you end up muscling your way through life without realizing there are some deep cracks in your foundation.
at large, this is a real thing for a lot of black women. we can feel like our faith communities don’t speak to our experiences. however, i’ve been able to find smaller pockets of faith communities that have been watering holes for me. one is a small group of women that i have met with over the last four or five years. we’ve met in each other’s homes and worshipped, read the Word, and prayed together. that has been a place of restoration and stability for me.
although we didn’t plan for this, the group ended up being made up of all black women. it has helped me remove some false assumptions i had about whether it was possible to be a proud black woman who was fully in love with and devoted to the Lord, while still being fully committed to living this life on earth and still having a vision of eternity. i’ve been able to experience that in this small group. i attribute so much of my spiritual growth to those monday night meetings.
SPIRITUAL CARE
what convictions drove and guided you toward a higher purpose as you created and cultivated black girl miracle?
i just shared about this on my instagram because sometimes i’ll hold on to my ideas, waiting for the perfect moment instead of just putting it out there. i was sharing about my relationship with regret. there is an igbo proverb that says, “whenever one wakes up is his own morning.” for me, what resonates is the idea that whenever you have the revelation that how you were living or how you were believing in the past is no longer benefiting you—that’s your morning. i can begin right there, instead of wallowing in self-pity or regret over time lost.
i am learning to find the joy in creating again and remembering why i started—realizing that our gifts, our talents, our callings are not just responsibilities given to us, but they are also what connects us to God. his gifts to me are to be enjoyed by me and are also enjoyed by him. that’s the part i was missing. and so this whole art thing began to feel like more of a burden than a gift. i’m now finding that space to create for myself, connect with God through what i create, and understand that part of the beauty in art is sharing it and inviting others into that experience. balancing all of those dynamics is helping me to be okay with learning as i go.
i used to think the mistakes i made or the way things went wrong were sort of irredeemable. but my new perspective is reflecting how i’ve been growing in my personal life and how i’m more forgiving of myself. i’m learning that i have the power to choose again and move forward. this is affecting my art too, because painting comprises of a series of micro-decisions that you have to make along the way. i love that if i mess up, for the most part, i can wait for the layer to dry and just paint over it. i’m applying that to my life as well. it’s helping me to close the gap between getting an idea and deciding to act on it.
what does being a “late bloomer” mean to you, and how has that impacted the way you trust God with your journey?
i used to consider myself a “late bloomer.” but i realize now how rooted that idea was in these timetables and milestones i’d set for myself. in reality, those timelines had no bearing on my worth as a person or my progress in life. i’d been so hostile towards myself, seeing my weaknesses and flaws as some prison sentence keeping me from the life i wanted, instead of as an invitation for God to make himself more manifest in me. i remember going through a season a few years ago where the Lord began dealing with my value system and showing me how contrary his metrics were to my own. the truth is, this life is a vapor, a dress rehearsal for an eternity with Christ, and my life will be measured by how well i have learned to love. this whole life is about love, it’s being upheld by love, and will end in love. these days, i only concern myself with keeping pace with his voice. a phrase i commonly repeat in prayer is, “Lord, your leadership is good, and it is perfect.” he is not embarrassed by any part of my story or anxious about how i’m turning out. knowing that God enjoys me as i am, at every stage of the journey, at every crossroads and every supposed detour, is taking the edge off of life. it’s removing a lot of the anxiety i had about my journey and how i relate with him. are we ever “late bloomers” if he has made everything beautiful in its time? (ecclesiastes 3:11)
PHYSICAL CARE
when was a time when you felt weak, and how did you learn to release the burdens you weren't meant to carry so you could walk in your purpose?
after i did black girl miracle, i was pretty discouraged. i knew it was a successful event. and even though people told me it was a great event and it inspired them, it took a lot out of me. i was in school. i was working. i was creating art for the event, i was collaborating with others, i was navigating issues in my personal life, and the stress of all that made me question whether or not it was worth it. i felt disconnected because while everyone else was able to enjoy the show, i could only see how much pain it had caused me. i ended up sinking into a creative depression. it was hard for me to make anything. i was questioning my relationship with art. i had to pray through that and ask the lord to redeem it and remind me why i loved it.
eventually, i forced myself to just start creating again, instead of waiting for some “aha moment” to motivate me. i’ve found that sometimes the inspiration comes after you resolve to move forward. but i still didn’t feel like i had direction about what to create. recently, i had a dream where someone asked me about applying to an art fellowship. in the dream, i said i would create a visual documentation of black girlhood and how our childhood has been impacted by racial injustice. when i woke up, i realized that was what i needed to do. it was my assignment. and now i’m having to follow through. i’ve started researching different mediums that explore this topic to help inform what i create. that is my act of obedience.
how has God taught you to love the body you're in, and how did that play a role in creating about-face?
i first began jotting down ideas for about-face about two years ago. some months later, i came across a photographer on instagram who is based in columbus, ohio. his name is tariq tarey. his photography is stunning. his work felt raw, and not overly edited. that’s what i wanted to reflect in this project. i wanted to show black women in our most natural and vulnerable state. his work captured that. when i started the interviews, it was surprising how many of the stories i heard from each woman were so similar. even though i had a list of questions, the conversations became less and less formal and transitioned into more intimate storytelling. we would talk about our hair, insecurities we had about our bodies, our earliest memories of beauty, and the pivotal truths that have changed the way we see ourselves. that project confirmed for me the importance and the value of sharing our stories and connecting with people over the things we’ve experienced.
one of my earliest memories is of me, at age three or four, praying for God to make me white. i don’t remember when the idea that being black was wrong first invaded my psyche. that belief was so insidious. but i wanted to be white, and i wanted whatever whiteness could afford me. i knew that it was a shameful thing to pray for, but i was disappointed that i had received the short end of the stick—i was a black girl with a difficult name, the coarsest hair, and dark skin. i felt betrayed, like God had made a mistake when creating me. but i never really talked about it. years later, i had significant encounters with God and people that began to change the way i saw myself. that was honestly the catalyst behind starting black girl miracle and it played a role in beginning about-face.
we often perceive beauty as strictly vanity, so having poor self-esteem or body image issues is not something people consider to be that big of a deal. of all the things happening in the world, it seems like a “first world” problem to not feel comfortable in your own skin. but it affects you. what you think about yourself will bleed into every other area of your life. so i wanted to create a forum where we could talk about it, shame-free. women and girls are having these experiences anyway, both positive and negative—so why not talk about it?
SELF-CARE
what limiting beliefs have you learned to let go of to step more fully into yourself?
while living in south africa a few years ago, i was invited to participate in a story slam. it was similar to a poetry slam, except they would pick a theme and invite a few storytellers to share a story around that theme. one of my friends asked me if i would participate, and initially i said no. but eventually, i changed my mind. that year was the summer that alton sterling, philando castile, and even locally, tyre king, had been killed by police. i was listening in on a lot of conversations about the black experience and how we, as believers, ought to respond to issues of justice. i remember hearing one girl share her experience attending a predominantly white middle school and how she used to always take the yearbook and scratch out her face because she felt her features were too black.
the theme for the story slam was perception. i began thinking more about the perception of beauty, and it became a revelatory moment for me as i started writing out my story. i had to think about what i believed about blackness and my humanity. i had to explore those areas. i had been viewing my blackness as the antithesis of everything i saw in the Bible. and i viewed my womanness as an obstacle. i started to unpack that.
the biggest thing that has changed and is changing my life is the reality of Jesus’s humanity. that part of the gospel message gets me the most excited and makes me come alive. it blows my mind that he came in a human frame, God in the flesh. after his death, burial, and resurrection, he didn’t throw off his human frame. he kept his body, and he still has a body. that speaks volumes to me about the dignity of humanity. what is it about this human frame that Jesus chooses to dwell in temples not made by man’s hand, but in our hearts? we were made in the image of God (genesis 1:27). i think about all the different ways we can reflect him in our given bodies.
those are the parts of the gospel message that have begun to unravel my preoccupation with perfection, and everything else that kept me in these negative mental cycles. i think about how Jesus didn’t see his humanity as something to be cast off. i recently read john 4, the story about the woman at the well. it says, “... Jesus, being wearied from his journey, sat down by the well.” i think about scriptures like that. he was God and could call legions of angels to help him, he didn’t have to feel the human frame’s weakness. all the things that are a natural part of our lives were not seen as something to avoid. he was committed to knowing what it’s like to live how we live here on earth. that helps me accept my humanity and limitations and believe that God will help me when he stretches me beyond them.
you said, "we're not taking over. we're taking our place. we were never meant to be gods, but God's." what does this mean to you as you cultivate self-worth in spaces that may value attributes dissimilar to what you embody?
it touches on the “strong black woman” image and what happens when people have been degraded and oppressed for so long. i see it a lot in our culture. it’s this knee-jerk reaction where we try to deify or even idolize ourselves to prove our significance. to me, that’s a misplaced effort. it’s not about taking over or striving to trade places with the oppressor, it’s about rightfully owning our inheritance as people and as believers. there’s a quote that says, “but remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them and idolizing them.” i feel that black women have existed on both ends of that spectrum, and as much as society has tried to crush us under the “strong black woman” narrative, we’ve internalized it too. we don’t have to set these unrealistic expectations for ourselves to earn a sense of worthiness or dignity. we have to make peace with our position as human beings. that’s my message behind it.
share a message from your future self to your present self.
i did not always know who i was becoming, but i knew i had to fight like hell to protect her. i missed out on a lot of my life in that way, but now i know i could have laughed a little easier, breathed a little deeper. i had absolutely nothing to worry about. God is in your midst. i’m proud of you.
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*this conversation is about the power of womanhood.
