By Katrice Claudio
“We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity.” – Fred Hampton
In an age where the nuances of identity are a regular topic of conversation, intersectionality becomes the center of most discourse without people realizing it. A relatively new concept in the sociological sciences, Intersectionality helps us delve deeper into the detailed experiences of our identities and how it impacts our day to day lives. Some of us are aware of our intersections but aren’t aware of how much we trip set over our blocks. Is it tribalism? Is it territorialism? One could argue that it’s plain old textbook fears: Fear of change, fear of loss of privilege, and fear of erasure.
Kamora Le’Ella Herrington understands at the root of all fear is ignorance (both blissful AND willful) and vulnerability. She waters this root relentlessly.
This uncomfortable, chaotic, and delicate emotional wilderness is the garden where Kamora plants seeds of revolution. True to the philosophies of Fred Hampton, she does not fight the power, with power. She fights the power with vulnerability. Starting with herself. Everything centers around radical self-acceptance, placing less importance on the performance of power and appeasing who wields it, and more emphasis on empowering the masses through vulnerability and creating healing spaces where that vulnerability can be honored. Her leadership style doesn’t bend or appease to the status quo, but bends towards, and for the community she acknowledges and nurtures, directly.
It goes without saying, at Kamora’s Cultural Corner, the product is pure, it’s productive, and it’s potent.
A Native-Born, Biracial, American, Lesbian, Femme, Kamora shows up with a cage rattling, table shaking, onslaught of drive rooted in disruptive love and calculated maniacism. It isn’t trendy, palatable or cute, but it’s intentional. It’s dirty, ugly, scary work….at first, but once you release the insecurities experienced when releasing privilege, we find fundamental truths about the human experience, who’s living it, and how.
In order, to change anything, you must shift the perspective. Typically, we appraise our social values through a eurocentric, heterosexual, and patriarchal perspective. KCC’s “Black Arts Heals” invites us to meet, in our fullness, and assigns value to the experience of our intersections starting from the Black, Queer, and Afrocentric perspective first. Programming like “Community Conversations” allows safe, liberating exchanges between familiar strangers, and teaches us new things about the complexities of humanity we may have not learned prior to showing up.
Amplifying the voices of marginalized people, and sharing our experiences both common and distinctive, invites opportunities to reach understanding. Understanding fosters compassion and empathy. This is the goal for members of our Black and Brown queer youth who often have a hard time receiving the simplest privilege of being understood. Kamora does everything in her power to see to it that it happens.
She’s unabashedly passionate, committed, generously invested, and protective, like any Mother who loves her babies. Most importantly, she shows up as herself, flaws and all, and it permeates in everything Kamora’s Cultural Corner touches. It’s almost hard to see this kind of love as possible, without triggering a need for questioning and discernment. This type of unusual love doesn’t require performance. It requires that we empower ourselves by relinquishing the need to perform. It encourages us to redefine our relationships with the narratives we’ve adopted from “absolute truths” into “one of many truths”. At the KCC we’re all valid and underinformed. Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong. Her “it is what it is”, no-BS, approach to the hard conversations is often taken as “abrasive”, “inappropriate”, and “overbearing”, which leads to her being avoided or ignored in certain realms instead of validated, or at minimum, acknowledged – one of many truths.
Another possible truth: She’s an undeniable reminder that discomfort is the catalyst for change, and the things we choose to remain comfortable with, need to change.
Collective healing spaces that are productive, rooted and unwavering are not easy to curate. They are inherently Afrocentric, and common in Afrocentric healing practices, but considered radical in an individualistic, westernized society. These spaces are painted as untrustworthy, disorganized, or offensive by those who find safety and comfort in their privileges. It is not designed to prioritize the profile of anyone building a “leadership brand” through community advocacy, rather than engage in true community building, through radical, collective community leadership.
She’s consistently directing all power to the people, and it’s the reciprocity of the people that allow her to continue the work she’s doing. Monetary donations raised for KCC and Black Arts Heals are done through events, and services, but also, through Patreon where a monthly $5-$18 commitment, makes it possible to see her vision of a “world where people are free to love their babies”, come to fruition.
To some, Kamora is an advocate, “conjure woman”, and hero. To others, a familiar pain in the ass that could get a lot farther if she would just “act right”. No matter how you perceive her, she’s certifiably impactful and there hasn’t been a printed article that speaks to anything otherwise. Why? Because if nothing else she’s consistent, and consistency is King.
This necessary work demands that we see the magic in our refusal to continue things the way they are. It demands we find value in learning how to divorce our respectability politics. It opens us to the necessity of trusting ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
There will be no angel, savior or saint at the doorstep of Kamora’s Cultural Corner. There will be no apology for the saint you were looking for, not being there. You didn’t show up at the wrong address, but you will be required to remove your airs before ever being asked to remove your shoes in these spaces. The very real fact is, what you see, is what you get. There is no red cape. No golden lasso. Just an open door, a room full of beautiful humans trying to make sense of the human experience, and a litany of resources for the community that people desperately seek, but woefully gets underfunded and underutilized.
THAT’S what we need to be paying attention to, and that’s what we need to invest in. This is not a reactionary movement. It will not wait for permission when so many don’t want to see it to exist. If Kamora is good for nothing else, it’s being willing to do what no one else does, to get results no one else gets, for people no one prioritizes. If we’re being transparent, we crave change, but often don’t want to do the work ourselves to make it happen. At the minimum, the least we can do is support Kamora’s Cultural Corner so they can.
Information about Kamora’s Cultural Corner can be found at: https://kamorasculturalcorner.com/
Contribute to Kamora’s Cultural Corner patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/KCC1023
