Sports Chalet, Pleasanton, California.

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Just got back from a wonderful vacation. I was in Kauai with my fabulous partner and several good friends. We had great food, saw great sights, and laughed a whole lot. I also did a lot of drawings; but I didn’t post any new images while I was away.

Frankly, I needed the rest. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to live in a society in which the fear of Black men is endemic. What does it mean that the same people I associate with kinship and love, friendship and beauty are experienced as threatening and monstrous by so many others?

It’s overwhelming and enraging and heartbreaking, all at the same time; and yet even those words fall short of the complexity of how I and so many other people of African descent are feeling during this period of protest and mourning. So, I’m turning to the wise words of others. Over the next several posts, I hope the pairing of other people’s words with my own images will convey more than either could on their own.

Ajuan Mance