How did the two of you come together? Can you recount the founding of Love As A Kind Of Cure?
Cleyvis:
Our mutual friend is De’Shawn Charles Winslow. We met at his debut book’s launch party – In West Mills is a great summer read, btw! It was basically love at first sight. We all headed to a bar after the reading to toast De’Shawn, and I purposely sat next to Magogodi because she had this laughter which reminded me of myself. We both laugh really loudly. Being writers and being in a lot of these publishing spaces, you don’t really get to connect with other Black women often, so I felt very drawn to Magogodi. I think it was a mutual thing. We laughed that whole night and ended up going to get ice cream a month later and we just started developing a friendship.
Then, in August, just two months after we met, Toni Morrison passed. That cemented our friendship and our purpose in a way that I’m very grateful for. We really believe that Toni Morrison – who was our literary Living Ancestor – brought us together. She knew what she was doing (LoL)! Immediately, we wanted to do something equal to her, to honor her legacy and indelible mark in both our lives and in American letters. And so The Toni Morrison Festival was born, which we launched this year on our Queen’s birthday at the Brooklyn Museum.
It was a cold NYC February night, but people were already lining the building to get in, before doors opened! We were so humbled by the love in the room. It made us double down on our mission to keep Morrison’s words and work alive for future generations of readers and to continue challenging white supremacy and patriarchy in the arts. I mean, in the Nobel Prize’s 115 years of laureates in literature, only 15 have ever been women! Toni Morrison remains the sole black woman to win a Nobel literature prize. To say nothing of the media landscape at large, where 79% of the publishing industry is white, less than 40% of print and digital bylines are women’s; and a paltry 4.8% of TV writers are black!
Then, in August, just two months after we met, Toni Morrison passed. That cemented our friendship and our purpose in a way that I’m very grateful for. We really believe that Toni Morrison – who was our literary Living Ancestor – brought us together. She knew what she was doing (LoL)! Immediately, we wanted to do something equal to her, to honor her legacy and indelible mark in both our lives and in American letters. And so The Toni Morrison Festival was born, which we launched this year on our Queen’s birthday at the Brooklyn Museum.
It was a cold NYC February night, but people were already lining the building to get in, before doors opened! We were so humbled by the love in the room. It made us double down on our mission to keep Morrison’s words and work alive for future generations of readers and to continue challenging white supremacy and patriarchy in the arts. I mean, in the Nobel Prize’s 115 years of laureates in literature, only 15 have ever been women! Toni Morrison remains the sole black woman to win a Nobel literature prize. To say nothing of the media landscape at large, where 79% of the publishing industry is white, less than 40% of print and digital bylines are women’s; and a paltry 4.8% of TV writers are black!
Magogodi:
Love As A Kind of Cure emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. When we saw how hard the pandemic hit our community – black and brown people in NYC and around the world – we knew we had to offer a salve, no matter how small. So we put together Love As A Kind of Cure, a digital “cure” for COVID-19, focusing on COVID x Inequality. We wanted to spread light and love amidst the sea of our collective grief and anguish. Remember, bodies were literally piling up in NYC. Those body bags were filled with people who looked like our grandmothers, our uncles, and our sisters. That hurt. Especially when you coupled the losses with how much more ongoing exposure black and brown communities still have to the virus. In Cape Town, where I was living when the pandemic broke, thousands of black people still have no way of sheltering in place and feeding their kids, let alone washing their hands often, without indoor plumbing, with only one shared communal tap in a yard of, say, 12 people. Everyone was in pain.
Because of that pain, we were inspired to activate kindness. We also wanted to help people see the through-line between the many hundreds lost and the deep, systemic inequality that allows this virus to disproportionately attack black and brown bodies. Why are Latinx people more susceptible to COVID-19 exposure? Why are multiple members of the same families being taken out in concentrated black and brown zip codes? Following COVID x Inequality, we realized we had an interesting recipe. Not to mention a super casual spotlight of our work in The New York Times for our very first event!
Essentially, we’re tackling big and seemingly intractable social issues – like inequality, gender politics, and racism – using art as a way to engage and activate ordinary folks toward social transformation. And since we understand that our struggle is an honor and is love in action, our joyful experiences are always rooted in love.
Because of that pain, we were inspired to activate kindness. We also wanted to help people see the through-line between the many hundreds lost and the deep, systemic inequality that allows this virus to disproportionately attack black and brown bodies. Why are Latinx people more susceptible to COVID-19 exposure? Why are multiple members of the same families being taken out in concentrated black and brown zip codes? Following COVID x Inequality, we realized we had an interesting recipe. Not to mention a super casual spotlight of our work in The New York Times for our very first event!
Essentially, we’re tackling big and seemingly intractable social issues – like inequality, gender politics, and racism – using art as a way to engage and activate ordinary folks toward social transformation. And since we understand that our struggle is an honor and is love in action, our joyful experiences are always rooted in love.