Expressions: On Finding Home

In this series, I’m sitting down with the people at the intersection of social impact and the puzzle pieces that make up cultural expression. Think of the things that make up and celebrate our humanity — art, music, language, community-building, storytelling, food, film, the list goes on and on. When we honour these expressions of our collective humanity is often when we drive the biggest impact towards a better world. Join me as I dig into the minds of the people who are doing just that.?

Today? Welcome to Karungi Tibbs .

Can you tell me a little about your background?

A little bit about me, I'm from Mississippi, but like the Deep South, the Bible Belt part of Mississippi. For a long time, I actually hated that because we could’ve been in Chicago, but my family decided to immigrate down to Mississippi, and I was really pissed off about that.

When I left the South and actually lived somewhere else, I began to love it in a way that made sense to me. Everywhere is the same. There's nothing about the South that isn’t happening elsewhere, but for some reason, we use it as a scapegoat.

That began really fueling a lot of my writing because I went to college for film production. I decided to go into producing and writing because, at the end of the day, I’ve been writing my whole life, like, since sixth grade. I had a little journal, as we all do, writing down thoughts and ideas, but none of them were about the South. They were fantasy places. More recently, I started writing about the South more, but the one that I've seen, the one that I've experienced.?

I work at Undisputed Cinema. A lot about what Undisputed does is we focus on stories that have not been told, or maybe stories that happened, but never from this person's perspective. And I love that because then it also forces me to look at my home and see like, okay, but how have we been telling stories about the South, how have we been telling stories about Black people? Are there any ways to do it that feel more organic and not " White Studio exec" wants to feel woke’ type material?

How do you make sure you’re telling stories about home and other people's homes in a way that’s authentic?

It's kind of like a comedy. If you're making fun of someone, you want to make sure that they're laughing first. So in the same way, when you're telling stories about your home or homes that aren't yours, you need to make sure that the people who are of that neighborhood or place or culture, that they're enjoying it. If they're having a great time, everyone's going to have a great time, but if they're not, it's not going to go that well.

The key is focusing on the person that you're making it for and completely forgetting about what the “market” wants or as they like to say, “Middle America—” the general audience. I don't know who they're referring to, because I grew up in Middle America, but for some reason, my stories aren’t appealing to Middle America. So who is Middle America?

It's just about focusing on what is feeling good, what is actually funny to the people in the room who are making it, and the people who you're making it about. If they're feeling good, and you're feeling good, it will do well in the market.?

Part of what I’m exploring with this series is cultural expression. How would you define cultural expression?

See, this is a little bit of a tough one because I grew up around specifically only white people and so I often struggle with, "is what I'm writing about my experience?" At the end of the day, it is a Black experience because I'm Black. Nothing's going to change how I'm experiencing life.

But sometimes I get worried, does my writing feel authentic enough to other people that look like me or is it too singular or, God forbid, is it white? Does it feel white? Because that's all I've known for so long.

And so defining cultural expression is less about standards that all of society is expecting you to meet and more about just letting it flow. Home is home. Culture means — for me — expressing what home means and then staying true to, “it's Black enough for me.” I don't care what other people think. I can't change how I grew up. That's just how it was.

If you had to leave the community with a lesson on how to drive the biggest impact, what would it be?

“I'm not competing with anyone but the 'me' that just went on the stage.”? You're going to go down a dark rabbit hole of nothing by trying to compete with everyone else. Just compete with you. At the end of the day, you are all you have. You are the only experience that you know.

Don’t let anyone ever shame you. You have to feel it first in order for it to have an impact. You can't shame me about anything about my choices, about my hair, about my skin, how I dress. You can’t do it. And then that makes people look stupid when they try to shame you.?

If you didn’t grow up in society, if you grew up near a waterfall, naked like an animal, you would never—animals don’t feel shame about themselves. You wouldn’t either if you didn’t grow up in this society. So why are you feeling shame now? All that matters is what exists after society collapses. And that is community, friends, food, water, shelter, and pride.

So yeah, compete with no one, don't feel shame.

Thank you for reading Expressions by Agitate. Anyone come to mind at the intersection of cultural expression and impact who has a damn good story to tell? Let me know at [email protected].