How Black American Migrants Are Faring in Mexico

Written by Adam Mahoney orginally published digitally by Capital B Press on April 1, 2024

….“Anti-Blackness and the exclusion of people with darker skin is global,” said Danielle Elizabeth Stevens, who first moved to Mexico from Los Angeles in 2016.

Anti-Blackness flows through Mexico’s history, whether it is acknowledged or not. “There’s an idea here that if you’re Black, you can’t be Mexican,” Stevens said, explaining how her Afro-Mexican friends are constantly othered and discriminated against. (Afro-Latinos make up less than 5% of the Mexican population.) 

In the U.S., Stevens said she could not trust the government or those around her to regularly “protect and safeguard” her as a Black woman. While she can’t say she fully trusts those in Mexico to do so, either, she now has more of an ability to do it for herself because of greater accessibility in CDMX. (Gender-based violence is on the rise in Mexico, as the country has one of the world’s highest femicide rates.) 

But Stevens understands that stability can only shield you from the harmful realities of anti-Blackness and gendered violence for so long. She said she’s seen an uptick in “Black Americans [being] really eager to disprove that they’re Haitian,” but ultimately what she has found is there is no escape to what comes with being registered as Black. In her years living in Mexico, she said she’s regularly been accosted for photos and “fetishized” and openly discriminated against at restaurants and other public places. 

Nevertheless, she was quick to say that building a life with more freedom, autonomy, and a loving community has been “seamless” in Mexico, as she connects deeply to her spiritual practices to guide her journey. 

Full article can be found here.

LA Times Food Cover Story: These two L.A. chefs aren’t staying quiet. Their meals are fueling a revolution against racism.

Written by Patricia Escarcega, originally posted digitally in the Los Angeles Times on June 19, 2020. Posted in print on the Cover of the Los Angeles Times Food Section on Sunday, June 21, 2020.

Chef Danielle Elizabeth Stevens constructs one of her signature dishes at her Los Angeles home. Stevens recently launched #WeStillGottaEat, which provides free meals to Black residents in Los Angeles County. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

….In [South LA at the end of May 2020], activist and health and wellness educator Danielle Elizabeth Stevens was launching #WeStillGottaEat, an initiative to deliver free meals to Black residents in L.A. County, out of her home kitchen in Southwest L.A.

For these two chefs, cooking and feeding others has become a simple yet profound way to fight racism, one nourishing, home-cooked meal at a time.

Chef Danielle Elizabeth Stevens founded Danielle’s Soul Kitchen and recently launched #WeStillGottaEat, an initiative to feed Black residents in L.A. County. Her menu includes triple citrus Thai yellow salmon curry; Berbere-spiced plantain and chile-lime smashed black bean tacos with sliced avocado; and other dishes crafted for flavor and good health. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Stevens hopes to target the systemic inequalities that have blighted historically Black neighborhoods in L.A., including food insecurity, hunger and lack of access to fresh, affordable produce.

She also aims to feed Black people who may be feeling depressed, lonely or exhausted by the dual crises of COVID-19 and racial inequality.

With her partner, Mel Aliya, Stevens has cooked dishes such as Berbere-spiced plantain and smashed chile-lime black bean tacos; Thai yellow salmon curry with blood orange, yuzu, and west indian lime; and a jerk chicken plate with garlicky black beans, coconut quinoa and pimenta-roasted broccoli.

“I’m doing this work because I think it’s a revolutionary practice to choose to care for Black people, a community that has been so often neglected and exploited.”

— DANIELLE ELIZABETH STEVENS

The #WeStillGottaEat initiative is deeply personal, Stevens said.

“I’ve been inspired to do this by my grandmother, who was born in North Carolina into forced sharecropping. When I ask her what foods she grew up eating, she tells me she ate whatever the white man gave her.”

That amounted to a diet of table scraps and offal, Stevens said.

“To me, that illustrates how food and accessibility are intentional things. My grandmother never had access to the food systems within her own community, and that was by design. She never had any say on what she was able to eat.”

Stevens is funding #WeStillGottaEat through a Patreon page and through solicitations on her Instagram; a small team of volunteers will deliver a total of around 1,000 meals this month to Black residents around Los Angeles County, who can request a meal using #WeStillGottaEat’s online Google form. She plans to move into a commercial kitchen soon to grow the program.

Chef Danielle Elizabeth Stevens at her home in Los Angeles. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Stevens, who studied sociology at UC Santa Barbara and previously worked as a community health activist, is optimistic that we are on the cusp of social change.

“But it will take more people to align with the Black Lives Matter and food justice movement,” she said. “It will take some discomfort.”

She notes that her work connects her to the long, complicated and painful history of Black women’s labor in America.

“Historically, Black women have been caretakers,” she said. “People aren’t doing the same for us as Black women.”

“I just really hope that people understand that this moment can be a true shift into engendering a world where Black people are loved, where Black people are humanized and cared for the way that we so richly deserve.”

It’s now time for all Americans to “show up” for Black people, she said.

“I’ve seen people post the black square and say ‘Black Lives Matter’ on social media,” she said. “And then the next day it’s business as usual.”

1500 Words with Danielle Elizabeth Stevens

Image: Berbere-spiced plantain and chili-lime smashed black bean taco with sliced aguacate, a purple cabbage and carrot caribbean slaw, peppercorn + fennel pickled purple onion, vegan queso fresco, chermoula, and crispy jalapeños. Courtesy of Danielle Elizabeth Stevens.

As told to Andrea Gyorody (assisted by Bianca Morán and Anna Cho-Son). Originally published on Active Cultures on Tuesday July 28th

Los Angeles–based artist, chef, social justice educator, and health & wellness consultant Danielle Elizabeth Stevens speaks here about her initiative #WeStillGottaEat, operated as part of Danielle's Soul Kitchen with help from her partner Mel Aliya and a team of volunteers. The project welcomes requests for free meals for Black folx across LA, and is crowd-funded through donations and supported by partnerships with like-minded organizations. #WeStillGottaEat has received more than 1000 requests for meals since launching in June, and continues to receive more as they search for a permanent commercial kitchen that will allow them to expand their outreach and impact.

My art, like all art, challenges, inspires, and calls into question the mundane, that which we take for granted. We live in a society that shoves us into boxes, and doesn't allow us to embrace our wholeness and breadth. I'm unapologetic about spanning a range of different disciplines as an artist. I've been inspired by the bravery in my community, the Black women who dare to cultivate the courage to embody their/our totality and warmly welcome all the dimensions of themselves into their lives and their work.

Food is a special modality to me. It's curious and intriguing. Political. Universal. A deeply personal medium. A portal and pathway to freedom. In a world that is working vehemently to render marginalized people extinct through state-sanctioned violence, systemic oppression, and psychological terror, my work is in uplifting and honoring the everyday artistry and sacred divinity of Blackness, of the "Other," of those who exist at the margins.

With the #WeStillGottaEat Initiative, we are utilizing the modality of food to create stunning works of art to offer as a beautiful gift to Black folks who have existed at the margins for far too long. We are providing high-quality, chef-made, farm fresh, mostly organic, locally sourced meal care packages for free to Black folks specifically, as a site for nourishment and healing in the midst of both a racial pandemic and a public health emergency.

I see the preparation of food and the praxis of caretaking as historically feminized forms of labor. Black folks have often been violently exploited to fill these roles; our caretaking has been exported to benefit a system that has relied wholly upon our subjugation for centuries. Let's consider the historical patterning: the legacy of Black women nursing white women's children, cleaning their homes, while white women took care of themselves. This energy has never been reciprocated. When we think about that context, it is a deliberate and revolutionary practice for me to choose to care-take for Black folks and develop models of care, protection, and safety for our sacred community. To me, this is alchemic, transformative. The #WeStillGottaEat initiative is lovingly imbued with carefulness and intention every step of the way, which exists in direct opposition to the structural oppression and complete disregard to which Black people are subject. We hope these meals serve as a soothing balm, a reminder that our community is DEEPLY loved, and that another world is possible and well on Her way. These meal care packages are both a protest and an act of love that we hope will inspire our folks to continue conjuring a new world of our most vivid imaginings.

To break bread with our family and community is a deeply treasured and revered ritual in Black communities; it is how so many of us wage love and care with one another. As a child, I recall instances when I was targeted by anti-Black racism, discrimination, and microaggressions, and I could look forward to arriving home to a warm and delicious meal from my grandmother. Through these home-cooked meals she said to me: With all that you went through today, please know that I will always love and protect you, I got you, I see you, and I care for you. Food has always been a honey sweet elixir in this way, a conduit to provide and engender the type of radical love of which the rest of the world deems us unworthy. Food told me at an early age that my healing and my joy matter.

I have a special relationship with my grandmother. She is memoir for us; a dynamic historical presence for our family. My grandmother puts such profound care and intention into the meals she creates for us. Her history with food has a painful foundation yet her audacity to provide nourishment and enrichment to her family sets the tone for the sacred work that we're doing with #WeStillGottaEat.

My living grandmother was born in the 1940s segregated U.S., in the deep south of North Carolina. She, as well as her mother and father (my great grandmother and great grandfather), were born into forced sharecropping (read: glorified slavery). As a chef and believer in the revolutionary power of food, I often ask, "Grandma, what food did you eat growing up? I want to celebrate the magic of what has kept you, us, alive." She replies, "We could only eat what the white man gave us, the scraps leftover, sometimes pig feet, pig ears, the innards of cows, we had a small garden, but that's about it." My family, and Black people collectively, have been robbed of so much abundance, opportunity, nourishment, wealth, and resources—and it's transgenerational. I will never ever EVER feed my people scraps. And I will never let a white or non-Black person tell me what I'm allowed to feed my people, or put a cap on what they feel we deserve. My people will never be an afterthought to me, and this is my resistance, the ancestral fire that ignites the #WeStillGottaEat initiative.

The heart of this Initiative is to abolish food apartheids and expand food access throughout Black communities in our city. Due to forces like gentrification, redlining, racism in urban design, green space being actively denied, restricted and refused municipal investment, and grocery stores being forcibly scarce, there are entire neighborhoods in LA County that are deemed unworthy of having access to healthy, sustainable food systems. I grew up in Long Beach, California, and have so many memories of being stripped of and denied vital resources within my community. I remember thinking, Why is there a liquor store right down the street? Why can I easily access chips and candy with my 25 cents allowance, but there's nowhere in my community within walking distance for my family to receive fresh groceries? I grew up eating a lot of boxed and canned goods and when we would go to the grocery store, my single mother and my 3 sisters and I struggled on the bus to lug heavy bags to and fro. When I was a child, I wondered why there were so few parks or farms or gardens in our neighborhood. I remember the city closed our only community park, right by my grandmother's home off of the PCH. My grandmother was told they closed it because of "too many homeless people and thugs congregating." At such a young age, I had no language for understanding how or why the criminalization of our existence was why I had nowhere to play and be as a young Black girl. During my childhood I didn't have access to the food that I prepare now. I lived the very experiences of the folks I am doing this work with and for. Food injustice was a mechanism of violence that my grandmother experienced when she was a child and structural oppression ensured this stratification was inherited through generations. So when I was a kid, two generations later, I, too, was denied control over the foods my family ate, our overall health, and ultimately our well-being.

Food should not be a luxury reserved exclusively for those who have enough disposable income, upward mobility, or the appropriate address and geographic location. There's no reason why in South LA there's 1.3 million residents but only 60 grocery stores. There are a range of long-standing, interconnected structural injustices that strategically create food inaccessibility and food violence within Black communities. Centuries of economic injustice and wage theft, including forced enslavement, Jim Crow, segregation, and even wage inequality today (where Black women like me are earning 61 cents to every dollar that a white man makes) are all related to how and why we are stripped of food sovereignty. There are entire neighborhoods that are intentionally designed for Black people to have worse health outcomes than the general population. I don't think any Black person—I don't think that anybody—should have to pay for a meal. These are resources we need to sustain ourselves. Food should always be free, period.

My people are magic makers, future conjurers. Our very existence is a miracle embodied. We are not even supposed to be alive. There are entire structures vehemently invested in our death, and anybody who turns on the news or reads the newspaper is a witness. That's why I'm intentional about creating spaces where Black people can imagine themselves/ourselves into the future. There are so many things that we see for #WeStillGottaEat and it is beautiful to dream up some of the things that we want to do for our community. We want to create programming that's unapologetically centered around Black people; spaces, archives, and dialogues that provide a blueprint for what a world of nourishment, safety, and care looks like for US. What food justice looks, feels, smells, and tastes like. To experience the contours of a new world that is free of food injustice, where food liberation for our community is eternal and can exist in praxis and fortitude.

Black people are the future, Black people are today, Black people are tomorrow. I trust that by the grace of our ancestors we will create a sustainable, long-term, well-funded, intersectional, collaborative hub for all things Black and food and social justice and healing. We warmly invite the people who are reading this to join our love revolution by learning more, donating, and volunteering. We hope to see y'all on the other side, a world where food freedom has finally arrived.

"1500 Words with Danielle Elizabeth Stevens" was published in Active Cultures Digest, Issue 5, July 2020.

——

Danielle Elizabeth Stevens is a culinary artist, social justice educator, and integrative health practitioner born and raised in Los Angeles. In her work, she connects social justice, public health, and activist education through audaciously imaginative pedagogical frameworks to demonstrate that life, health, and social change are fundamentally artistic endeavors. Danielle has curated and designed bold and inventive creative experiences at The New Museum, New York, The Museum of Impact and Newark Arts, New Jersey, Redline Contemporary Arts Center, Colorado, and her work is part of the permanent collection of the Newseum in Washington, D.C.. She is currently the Founder and Head Chef of Danielle' Soul Kitchen and the #WeStillGottaEat initiative, which provides FREE meal packages for Black communities in Los Angeles. You can learn more about her work here and DONATE to the initiative here.

L.A. Chefs with LCD: Meet Danielle Elizabeth Stevens

by Sandy Ho and Tiana Petrullo. Originally published on LCD website on June 29, 2020.

This week, our guest food editor, Sandy Ho, interviewed six Los Angeles-based chefs. Here, Sandy chats with Danielle Elizabeth Stevens, Founder and Head Chef of Danielle's Soul Kitchen, on how she got her start, what makes her move, and how she has been affected by this incredible and unprecedented moment in time.

SH: How has Covid 19 and the current Black Lives Matter movement affected you and your business?

DS: I have been a social justice educator and health & wellness consultant for over a decade, but in my most recent capacity, I am the founder and Head Chef at Danielle's Soul Kitchen, which is a brand new Ladera Heights-based eatery committed to culinary excellence and food justice. We started off being open to the public, however, as a team that is deeply committed to social justice and healing, and in the midst of seeing so much Black death and pain, we responded to what the moment called for and a few weeks ago launched #WeStillGottaEat as our way of protesting. #WeStillGottaEat provides healing and comfort to Black folks in our local community by preparing and providing high quality, farm-fresh, deeply lovingly made, mostly organic meals & food items to Black residents in LA (including families, individuals, & children.

We launched due in large part to our commitment to Black people's healing in the midst of being targeted by both racial injustice and a government system that has failed to protect our community from the COVID pandemic. We are humbled and prepared to rise to the occasion of expanding food access within Black communities in LA as it has been an often overlooked, deeply underfunded, but profoundly significant issue that needs to be addressed. Launching during COVID exacerbates the ever-present need for wholesome meals, as it is even more difficult for folks to access and afford fresh food and groceries; AND people are overwhelmed by, exhausted with, or unable to prepare meals for themselves and their families.

SH: Describe a pivotal moment in your career that has led you to where you are now.

DS: My work is deeply informed by resisting against Black peoples' subjugation. There has not been a moment in my life where it hasn't been clear that Black people are under attack via structural oppression. It is present in the culinary world, the food industry, everywhere. Anti-Black racism is wildly pervasive. 

I learned at a very young age the importance in bringing healing to Black people. Whether it be through the way a home-cooked meal from my mother and grandmother comforted me after a high school teacher undermined my work and accused me of plagiarism because she could not fathom the brilliance of a young Black girl; or watching in awe as my grandmother cooked 'Picnic' for the 100th time, a deeply flavorful dish that we all race for during the holidays, that has a rich history as my grandmother recalls learning from her mother how to magically prepare this variation of pork shoulder -- the occasional edible food she was given to eat at the discretion of white landowners as a young girl who was stripped completely of food sovereignty and forced into sharecropping in North Carolina in the 1940s.

My work is unapologetically centered around the freedom, liberation, and healing of Black people. I believe that trauma, oppression, and freedom are inherited, intergenerational, epigenetic. Before I was even born I received information and energy from my mother and my grandmother about the world that we live in. It is in our legacy, it is in our blood, it is in our family, in our ancestors' commitment to freedom.

I still carry the weight of my grandmother's trauma; of my mother's pain, of my great grandmother's forced silence, of my ancestors/ history. And I ALSO carry the resilience, the unapologetic commitment to our joy, our freedom. The courage to stand for what's right. And most importantly to the commitment to deep care and abundant love, which I think are the most radical and revolutionary articulations of activism & resistance.

SH: What empowers you to wake up in the morning and what keeps you up at night?

DS: I am empowered by the energy of my ancestors and those that continue to dare to live our lives out loud. I am kept up at night aligning myself to my purpose. In a world that is working vehemently to render Black people extinct, it is a deeply spiritual practice to be self-possessed and self-determined as a Black woman and to continue to do the work that I do.

SH: Tell us about one dish that changed your opinion on food/people/love/ingredients.

DS: I can't think of any one single dish but I will just say that gathering people around food and having the honor of caretaking, sharing, and bringing healing through food to my community, no matter what cuisine or dish it is, really is a beautiful and universal medium to express my deep love to & devotion for Black people.

SH: Where do you see yourself in the future of food for the world?

DS: To me, food is deeply revolutionary. I was recently on the cover of the LA Times Food Section and the heading was 'Feeding the Revolution'. I believe this clearly articulates the work that I do. I see my work as a chef, culinary artist, and artist of many other modalities as being in service of Black liberation & social justice.

SH: How can we stay up to date with what you're doing?

DS: Ig: @danielleelizabethstevens

Twitter: @spiritbirdsie

Link for more info: https://linktr.ee/WeStillGottaEat

Patreon: Patreon.com/WeStillGottaEat

CNN Analyst and Sirius XM Radio Host Laura Coates Interviews Danielle Elizabeth Stevens

Originally posted on January, 19, 2018

Listen as Danielle Elizabeth Stevens discusses tennis star Serena Williams’ life threatening birth story, the urgent state of Black infant and maternal health in the U.S. for Black birthing parents, how to approach Black women’s health from a community-based, reproductive justice perspective, and why integrative healing justice is one of the most revolutionary frameworks for improving the health and wellness of Black women, femmes, and children. Tune in below! xx

Healing from Oppression: Critical Conversation with Danielle Elizabeth Stevens, This Bridge Called Our Health

Originally posted on Wed, 09/21/2016 - 9:36am

The Washington Peace Center continues our new critical conversation series with Dia Bui, Co-Director, and Danielle Elizabeth Stevens, who discusses her organization, This Bridge Called Our Health, a Black queer-woman led digital publication and community healing resource. She describes the importance of self-care and healing in a world where Black women, Black queer women, and people of color are oppressed. She offers methods of healing to combat trauma and oppression. 

Where did the inspiration for This Bridge Called Our Health come from?

The inspiration came from the anthology “This Bridge Called My Back”, which addressed the ways that women of color have been harmed by the academic industrial complex. The book offered a space where women of color spoke truth to power about the possibilities and limitations of finding healing and building sisterhood with one another to mend the bruises inflicted by the harm of academia.

With This Bridge Called Our Health, we provide a digital space and community resource that centers the healing of Black women and femmes; To share authentically about how we are wounded by intergenerational trauma and state sanctioned violence. Everyday, we are living with the repercussions of slavery and other forms of institutionalized violence that have a harmful impact on our minds, bodies and spirits. This Bridge Called Our Health offers a space to de-stigmatize discussions around healing, trauma, self-care, grieving, and violence; where it's okay to honor our vulnerability and name the ways we are harmed; To remind us that we’re not going through it alone and we don’t have to suffer in isolation and silence. The harm of oppression is a shared experience, and in many ways the challenges of cultivating healing from that can be too; We affirm and celebrate the power of building family, community, and sisterhood as a way to embody our truths collectively and forge paths for our collective healing.

Who are you inspired by or who do you draw inspiration from?

This is such a big question, wow. My mother, my grandmother. There’s a quote from Beyonce’s Lemonade, “Grandmother, the alchemist. You spun gold out of this hard life. Conjured beauty from the things left behind. Found healing where it did not live”. I think about all the beautiful ways my mother and grandmother created vitality for us, out of what many would believe to be nothing. We didn’t have a lot of money or material items having grown up in poverty, on welfare, in the hood in Long Beach, CA. But we had an abundance of love. They have shown me how to honor the divinity and magic in myself, and remind me to be a compassionate mother to my own inner child. That really creates a blueprint for my work and reminds me that I am worthy of healing, worthy of love, and worthy of the community that my mother, grandmother, and sisters created for me growing up. 

What steps (moves) have you taken on your journey to heal from oppression?

 I think it absolutely starts from within and being honest with yourself about the ways that you’re hurting. There are things that happen in our lives that call us to reflect. For a long time, I could not see my own reflection, or bear to look at myself in the mirror. For a long time, I ran away from myself, afraid to explore my own shadows, the murky pain that lies within my hearts’ chambers. But pain festers when you neglect it. Healing necessarily means that you have to be able to look at your reflection, to look at yourself in the mirror and all the ways you need to heal. To look at yourself in a compassionate way and allow yourself time to uncover. And to hold yourself tenderly as you do that uncovering. To say to yourself softly, “I want to open up a space for you to heal”. And I really have to carve time, space, and energy for that. I have to make regular time to quiet the noise so I can do that. What I mean by noise is everything that gets in the way of being with our breath and being with ourselves. For me that had always been relationships, work, likeability, expectations other people had of me, being concerned about other people's business. But carving sacred space to be with myself and actually be genuine with who I am and who I am not, really unlocked powerful truths about myself and began to create a blueprint to my healing.

In your writing, you talk about your identities being a Black, Queer woman. How do these identities impact your work?

I have a lot to say but what I feel compelled to share at this moment is that being a Black woman in this society, I have been conditioned to always stand strong in the face of adversity. And I’ve had to be wildly resilient and ‘strong’ in order to create life as a Black queer woman from a poor single mother household, intimately navigating overlapping forms of oppression. When things have knocked me down, the tools of resilience and ‘strength’ continue to keep me alive when forces are trying to render me and my people extinct. But in regards to healing, those tools have not always be useful. When there are wounds that have opened up or when we have been hurt, we have to give ourselves permission to be soft. Being tender and honoring my vulnerability and softness is like a form of resistance to the ways this society hardens Black women and strips of our layers, our dimension, our humanity. It’s ok to be soft even when the system has hardened you. It’s ok to be soft when it comes to our healing.

In the blog, there are writings about Radical Compassion which to me is so important to talk about in this work and in the movement. What does radical compassion look like and what does it mean to you?

When I say radical compassion, it’s something we have to hold for ourselves, to honor our wholeness and recognize our humanity in a world that renders us sub-human. We have to remember that we are growth embodied, and must hold compassion for the infinite possibilities of learning, transforming, and becoming in our journey through life; for ourselves and one another. Even as someone who has been an organizer and activist for the past 10 years, I just recently begin to understand the shift that I needed to make in approaching social justice work with radical compassion. I found that I want to be more gentle and compassionate towards my people, especially when our people are already suffering through enough. Radical compassion with one another is a way to get free together. We have to create a foundation of radical compassion to fight against the system; the system and it’s harmful energetic presence in our communities is the foundation and root of our pain, it is not our people alone. Radical compassion is a way to get free collectively against these systems that are harming us.

I see my folks and people out here doing this work. I see their heart and trust so deeply that they care about our freedom. And sometimes I see us rip one another apart and that breaks my heart. I’ve absolutely been there too. I don’t think the onus of not having radical compassion for each other should be placed exclusively on our folks, though. The onus should be placed on the toxicity of oppression and the pervasive ways it permeates into the ways we build community together. We need to not let the the dynamics of oppression come in between the ways we love on one another. And that’s hard work! But to me, that is the work.

On Movement and Leadership: Respectability politics v.s. Authenticity

There's so much dynamic leadership that comes from our communities. The mannerisms of Black women are often seen as counter to our notions of “leadership”, which is rooted in respectability politics. But we are experts of our own experiences, and no one can speak to our experiences but us. We absolutely can and do engage in leadership. The most inspiring leaders I know are all Black folks who are women, queer, and/or trans. We need to continue to create platforms for Black queer and trans communities. Black voices are often not heard because we are being spoken over by the good intentions of well-meaning non-Black folks. But social justice spaces need to do a better job at uplifting Black queer and trans organizations and collectives, to celebrate the work that’s already being done.

I think Black queer and trans folks generate so much knowledge, culture and livelihood in this movement and this world. It’s frustrating to me to see Black women and Black folx embody such truth in our experience but are always held in skepticism or told to show proof of our oppression, while when a non-Black person talks about Blackness, their words are legitimized because of the harmful ways our society understands power in relation to identity. There are so many non-Black individuals and organizations who profit off of my Blackness; People who are receiving capital through both exhibiting forms of leadership that are seen as ‘digestible’ (ie: anything in tandem to mannerisms of Black people that are often devalued) and also through talking about Black suffering. I think that’s harmful. I don't need Tim Wise to legitimize what I go through. I don’t need non-Black people who have Black friends who read “African American History” books to represent my very personal experiences with the intimate harm of anti-Blackness. Black people have been speaking truth to power for generations, this is what we’ve been saying for generations. We need to trust our people, trust Black women, and trust Black queer and trans people. Believe us when we name our own truth.

On allyship towards Black people:

I think a lot of people who engage in allyship do it for the wrong reasons. For them it often depends on image, accolades, and recognition. It’s not authentic or genuine. If you’re only doing it for your image, it’s disingenuous. We live in a society where people are capitalizing off of anti-Blackness; From the enduring criminalization of Black people through state-sanctioned violence and the prison industrial complex, to the ways that non-Black people are literally getting checks by talking about the violence Black people face; Blackness continues to be a commodity that everyone is getting paid for except for us! It’s really dangerous. We need to honor the voices and experiences of Black, queer and trans people. If non-Black folks are being asked to speak for and about Black people, they need to yield those opportunities to Black, queer and trans people.

On state violence:

There is a constant erasure of Black women when it comes to state sanctioned violence against Black people. I wrote a piece for Elixher magazine a couple of years ago about Ferguson and invisibility of Black/women and girls. I also wrote a love letter to Black women and girls killed by police and vigilantes for This Bridge Called Our Health and For Harriet. To be clear, I think it's fucked up and heart breaking when any Black person get killed. Black folks of all genders and experiences. It’s just saddening to see that the violence that occurs against Black women and girls doesn’t get much attention. When I go to marches and bring up Black women, I get asked why I’m trying to divide the movement. To be told that my audacity to honor the lives of Black women who are killed by police is divisive is so illustrative of the ways Black cis, queer, and trans women continue to be dehumanized, both within and outside of our own community. It demonstrates the ways society and our community continues to devalue Black women. My life is dedicated to Black women, femmes, and girls. Black women have been the blueprint to my healing and freedom. I will always honor us. That why with This Bridge Called Our Health, it is so important and deliberate for us to continue centering Black cis, queer, and trans women, femmes, and girls and name the ways we are harmed and the possibilities of our healing. We’re unapologetically dedicated to uplifting the narratives of Black women in this work, to honor the intrinsic magic and radiance of Black women in a society that continues to strip Black women of our divinity.

On non-Black POC inclusion in the upcoming “Healing from Oppression” skillshare:

I’m a Black queer woman from a working poor single mother household in Long Beach California  and my relationship with institutionalized trauma is intimately connected to all of those identities and experiences.  When I’m creating and speaking, it’s from that perspective. Black women and authors serve as the blueprint in healing spaces we create. In the healing spaces I create, I center Black women by naming that this space centers Black women, and by using the work of Black women to guide my work in order to bring intentional visibility to the leadership and creative expression of Black women.

On Inheriting Healing:

This Bridge Called Our Health carefully and deliberately centers around a model of transformative justice. To me, the way that I understand it is that hurt people, hurt people. People who are hurt, often hurt others. We got a lot of hurt folks in our community, a lot of folks living with a lot of bruises. When our bruises are unmended, they bleed. I think a lot of folks bleed on each other.  I know I’ve bled on people and that has inflicted harm onto them. People have bled on me, and it has inflicted harm onto me. How can we mend the wounds within us all that are craving for attention and gentleness? How can honor our healing so that we don’t inflict harm and violence on ourselves and other people? How can we begin to be gentle with the inner child in us that is just craving compassion, visibility, and some space to just be? It starts from within. That cycle of healing starts with us. We are inflicted with systemic forms of violence which manifest into trauma, and we are not isolated in these traumas. We can break that cycle. We can break the recurrence of cyclical violence in our community. I dream of a world where instead of continuing the cycle of inheriting violence, we create a world where of inheriting cyclical healing. A new world like this ispossible; and I’m absolutely committed to conjuring it.

As an organizer, movement builder, what gives you joy?

Black folks arriving in spaces just as they are. It brings me joy to bear witness to the healing experience of my people and the beautiful ways they embody emotions and give themselves the permission to feel. It brings me joy when we allow ourselves to heal and be human. It’s wonderful to be unapologetically human in shared space together. I also just love to carve spaces the can hold the ways Black folks transform, shape-shift, grown, become, it’s beautiful to bear witness to that trajectory from the beginning to the end of a workshop. Black folks in general give me joy; building kinship, sisterhood, family and community. The ways we make connection with one another, the beginning process of family and love is so beautiful to me. That brings me so much joy. Seeing somebody say “yes, sis”, “ I agree with you”, “I see you”. The ways we reflect one another is so inspiring to me. It reminds me that we don’t go through life in isolation. The shared experience, that reflection is so warm to me.

Are there any readings that are particularly transformative for you?

I think navigating the academic industrial complex has made me have a particular relationship to reading with having to read for production in college. Reading for pleasure is something I’m still trying to discover; I’m uncovering what it looks and feels like to read for my own pleasure. We often just produce for other people’s consumption and not necessarily for ourselves. It’s what capitalism does, diminishes the self in that way. But anything by Black women i’m here for. Any discourses around healing and dreaming, spirituality, tarot, astrology, music.

How can folks support your work and This Bridge Called Our Health?

1. People can like our FB page, Instagram and Twitter at This Bridge Called Our Health, I personally engage in a lot of discourse around healing, trauma and self-care in my own FB page, so I welcome folks to contact me there as well.

2. This Bridge Called Our Health is basically a two-person, volunteer-run platform with no institutional funding or grants. The only funding we’ve had in the two years we’ve been around is what we have raised through the fundraiser we currently have that launched this summer. Black women and trans led org don't get much funding in comparison to other orgs with identities closer to sources of power and resources.  We welcome support by sharing and making donations to our fundraiser.  It’s important to name that healing is a form of feminized labor; labor that has historically been left for women to do. It’s labor that under patriarchy and white supremacy, is readily consumed, used and digested but isn’t always valued. We understand that we do work in this scope and welcome donations from our community members who are benefitting from this Black woman-led labor.

3. Through spreading the word about the work that we do, collaborating with us, and becoming a client. We offer a range of healing services including group and collective healing, grieving, and self-care spaces, sacred individualised healing sessions, consultation, curriculum development, and event-planning for organizations, schools, business, and more, all through a social justice lens. We are currently open for Fall and Winter programming and beyond, so if people are interested, we welcome them to email us at: thisbridgecalledourhealth@gmail.com

Danielle will be facilitating the upcoming DC Trainer's Network Skill-share "Healing from Our Oppression: Blueprint for  Women and Femmes of Color" on Tuesday, September 27th 6:00pm-9:00pm at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church 1525 Newton St. NW Washington, DC 20010

For more information, contact thisbridgecalledourhealth@gmail.com.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS)

Originally posted January 2017

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) is the largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of transgender people, with 27,715 respondents across the United States. The USTS was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality in the summer of 2015, and the results provide a detailed look at the experiences of transgender people across a wide range of areas, such as education, employment, family life, health, housing, and interactions with police and prisons.

Meet the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey Team

Danielle Elizabeth Stevens, Survey Outreach Fellow (They, Them) (Spring 2015)

As the Survey Outreach Fellow, Danielle worked to conduct comprehensive outreach to organizations, groups, and individuals throughout the country, building coalitions and support to ensure that the survey can be accessed by trans people across the country.

As a grassroots organizer and community healer, Danielle brought a unique perspective to their role as the USTS Outreach Fellow. As a gender-nonconforming femme person and lover engaged in work related to anti-oppression education, social justice activism, and community organizing (particularly within femme, queer, and trans people of color communities), Danielle’s life work is engaging in coalition and movement building amongst various communities, as our liberation depends on it.

Read more at: http://www.ustranssurvey.org/about

NBJC Recognizes National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day with the Voices of Emerging Leaders

Originally posted on April 10, 2015   06:01 PM

Today, April 10, 2015, the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) joins with the nation to recognize National Youth HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD), which is an annual observance to educate the public about the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people as well as highlight the inspiring work young people are doing across the country to fight the epidemic. Young people today are the first generation to have never known a world without HIV/AIDS. In the United States alone, one in four new HIV cases are among youth, ages 13 to 24. Every month, 1,000 young people acquire HIV, and more than 70,000 young people are currently living with HIV across the country. Most new HIV cases in youth (about 70 percent) occur in gay and bisexual males; most are African American.

Danielle E. Stevens, #100toWatch cohort member and U.S. Trans Survey (USTS) Fellow at the National Center for Transgender Equality, added this: "Recognition of NYHAAD is vital in bringing attention to the ways in which HIV/AIDS impacts young, Black queer and trans communities. Typically, the way in which national dialogues around HIV/AIDS are framed center on the experiences of gay cis-gender men, leaving Black cis, trans, straight and queer women, femmes and girls out of the conversation. We must be intentional on this day to uplift the narratives of Black women and girls of all genders and orientations."

Read more at: http://nbjc.org/blog/nbjc-recognizes-national-youth-hivaids-awareness-day-voices-emerging-leaders