In the opening of her WE AS OURSELVES, WILL SAVE US ALL - YouTube video Tanesha Barnes challenges us to reimagine life outside of imposed ideas of what we can, should and will be. During a recent phone conversation, Tanesha shared how she originally shot the video for her TedX Princeton Women Talk that was scheduled to go live at the end of November, before it was cut out by organizers in the final hour.
Tanesha and her daughter Solana in Bali
I had an opportunity to collaborate with Tanesha when I recommended her for a booking in the Virgin Islands where I was heading up the PR & Marketing initiatives for an Expo project. Both of us had done study aboard stints in Europe during our college years and had started accumulating our own global adventures by the time we linked up in-person for the USVI opportunity. Our first phone meeting was a few years before, when I blindly called her with a proposal to add a hair care brand to her Connecticut wellness boutique’s product inventory. It was her candidness and ability to reimagine during this initial conversation that put her on the top of my recommendation list when the Expo project came across my desk. I continued to follow Tanesha and her journeys via social media where her 2020 Black Freedom Colony (BFC) concept in Tulum popped up in my feed.
Caught in deep thought. I spent every morning in Tulum refocusing with a swim.
I was still processing the world’s response to the BLM marches that took place over the summer, sorting through all of the 2020 election jargon that was flooding my timeline and carving out what would be my new normal with the global Covid-19 pandemic [CLICK TO READ MORE ABOUT MY TAKE ON THE SUMMER 2020 BLM MARCHES]. I just needed a break from it all and I loved the idea of having a space abroad for exploring, processing, healing and strengthening through community during this time of transition. I did a lot of pivoting during a challenging 2020 that required me to rethink how I implement self-care. I am grateful for the adventure and the lessons that I encountered during my sojourn in Mexico’s bohemian oasis.
While creating community has always been Tanesha’s gift, being able to incorporate her global life experience into The Black Freedom Colony has expanded her skills. “I am learning that community building takes the proper application and balance of education, clarity, love, patience, grace, hard lessons and boundaries,” she recently shared in a heartfelt post. Read more in my Q & A chat with Tanesha below.
PGRW: In your talk you describe freedom as an exercise of the imagination. Born and raised in the US, you have spent the past few years living around the globe, exercising your freedom to live outside of imposed ideas of what you can, should and will be. How has the way that you define yourself evolved as a result of you becoming a global citizen?
Black Freedom Colony’s Taco Tuesday night at CINCO Tulum Beach (Mexico)
BARNES: As I began to travel, I began to see myself more fully. In other nations I was able to have more human experiences and less racialized interactions with people that I would meet. The more I traveled the more free I felt to define myself and shape my identity outside the imposed categories of the US. I think as you become more global you become more expansive, more wholly yourself and more free.
PGRW: Can you explain how travel can be instrumental in enabling us to see “ourselves as ourselves?”
BARNES: We are entering a new era where we will aggressively seek to recover ourselves outside the limited perceptions and institutional restrictions of our oppressors. As we return to who we really are as a people and community we will come back into balance and live within our power and agency.
PGRW: What is The Black Freedom Colony?
BARNES: The Black Freedom Colony began in Tulum, Mexico as a temporary relocation and will continue to M'hamid, Morocco for a more permanent home base at Sbai Palace in the Sahara Desert. It is an opportunity to slow down, without distractions and grow closer to your family, your fellow participants and yourself within a community of support. Therapy, healing workshops, farming, cooking, exploring and excursions are programmed over the journey. Together we relearn how community can positively function within our own values and principles.
PGRW: You describe moving your people towards freedom as your life’s mission. How has your Black Freedom Colony helped you with this mission?
The Black Freedom Colony is an opportunity to help people imagine a different way of life, within community, receiving the support and feeling of safety it affords. Freedom is simultaneously individual and collective, you can't achieve it without the cooperation of the people around you.
“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.” -James Baldwin
Tanesha and the Black Freedom Colony meetup with the founders of Black Travel Gram in Mexico.
CLICK HERE TO READ COLLEGE STUDENT, DHYMOND HENDRICKS, PGRW ARTICLE ON BECOMING A GLOBAL CITIZEN