D Smith – A Provocation for More

KOKOMO CITY is the directorial debut of D Smith, a veteran of the music industry who was shunned when she came out as trans. D says she was inspired to create a work of art that calls us to imagine and produce more and better options for Black trans women in the world, and that cis Black women and her brothers, uncles and father would encounter in order to provoke necessary and life-sustaining conversations about the world we want to inhabit together.

We explore:

• how her artistic process reflects what she’s learned through her own survival, thriving and liveliness

• the role of forgiveness in clearing room for creative expression

• creating art about Black LGBTQ lives that intentionally extends beyond the confining limits of mainstream LGBTQ media narratives.

Busy Being Black transcripts are edited for clarity and readability.

Transcript

Josh Rivers: Thank you so much for being here, D. To open my conversations on Busy Being Black, I like to ask all of my guests the same question: How's your heart?

D Smith: My heart is happy because it's being used for what it's supposed to be used for. And I'm maximising that opportunity. My heart is filled with stimulation, joy – even the things that give me anxiety or disappoint me. My heart is thriving, in the sense that it knows something is going to happen today. Like last year at this time, my heart was very sad and lonely because I was not feeding it: I was feeding it dirt and grit and sadness, and this is a very different time for me – and I'm happy. Thank you for asking.

Josh: It's so interesting to hear you talk about feeding your heart dirt and grit and sadness. And as you were saying that, I was thinking of our diets as queer Black people in the world right now and how so much of what we experience in life is dirt and grit – with glitter on it. We're cajoled into eating shit, and it's not until we do something for ourselves or move closer towards our purpose that we start to see what it is that we're eating and change that up. So I feel proud of you for that shift.

D: Wow. Thank you. I love how you said that because it is literally the truth. And queer people, I've mentioned this in a couple interviews, we're trained by each other and also society that we have to have this persona of superhumanness. I mean, we really are superhuman. We really are. We're magic like that, but we are human, right? And even if we don't have it [together], we're going to spend our last [dime] to look like we have it together. And it's draining us. It's hard to maintain that facade in fear of people talking about you in a negative way or you just not living up to the world's expectations. I had a conversation with Ts Madison and I was led to tell her at the end, “Listen, we already know who you are, we already know your intentions, you've been doing this a long time and you've put a lot on the line for yourself and for everyone. It's okay for us as queer people to take a break.” I don't think we ever tell people it's okay to take a week off or two days off from being a leader or a politician or an activist or a trans person or a queer person or a gay man. It's okay. We have to turn that off sometimes and really just press that reset button to refuel and remember who we are as people.

Josh: That's a sermon. I was just having a conversation the other day – I'm part of a group of men who are trying to figure out how to be better men and how to divest from masculinity – and we're having conversations about what does the masculinity we want to inhabit look like? And I brought my queerness and my Blackness and my gayness to this conversation and I was like, “I just don't know who I am if I'm not a Black gay man.” Right?

D: Right!

Josh: And I can sometimes feel this fire in me saying, “I'm a man!” But what is that allegiance I have to masculinity, to man-ness, to Blackness, to gayness, to queerness – so much so that I don't know who I am without it?

D: Wow.

Josh: So what does it even mean to stop wearing these labels and to know that one can rest and stop performing all the time? I don't even know.

D: I have chills. I've never heard anyone say that before and it is so true. And I just thought, “Who was I before I identified and acknowledged my transness?” – which I've known since I was a child, I've just suppressed it. I think the most frustrating thing about our journey as queer people is that there's so much to unpack. There's so much to heal, you know? And it's like, living in this world where we're demanding opportunity and demanding rights and protection and equality, we really don't have time for revisiting who we are. And that's almost a waste of life, but also fighting is also to make someone else's life better, right? A lot of the things that we're fighting for, a lot of them we really won't benefit from in our lifetime. I think we're gonna make it super sweet or much, much better for a generation that's probably not even born yet. So, yeah, we're pioneers, but we have to pace ourselves and take turns on being on the front lines so that we all have the opportunity to pull back and heal, and have time for ourselves and healing our minds, you know? [Share this]

Josh: It also occurs to me that as a Black trans woman, even when you're embarking on self-healing, it always signals or signifies something to someone else. Does that make sense? As in, your work is never just for you. I think that's part of the point you're making.

D: Yeah, I mean... I think some of the issues in the transgender community is that we all have been held back for so long – just as individuals. Let's just take the transgender experience out of it. I just think as individuals we've been held back and we have so much to bring to the table. We all want to be the first to do this. We want to be the loudest to do that. We want the biggest that, the biggest dress, the biggest red carpet moment, the biggest social media moment. We all want that because we feel like we have something to say, and we all feel like it's very important. But again... I think at the end of the day, us really honing in exactly what we're trying to say as a community – whether that's queer, gay people, trans people – so that we could focus on what really, really matters: to just move the needle forward in a more aerodynamic way. We're moving, but it's kind of chaotic. It's a lot of chaos.

Josh: Yeah, we're building the plane as we're flying.

D: Yeah, that's scary! And that's kind of funny, too! [laughter] But you know, the good thing about it, with a lot of this ruckus that's happening publicly, I personally think it’s great news. I think that the silence was worrying me. The safety nets really worry me. I think that we have to put ourselves out there as Black people in general and talk about all of these issues, regardless what side we're on, what religion we are. We have to talk about this if we wanna make it to the next 20 years, like as a Black community. So, all the ruckus and the tensions that's happening, I welcome it because it really shows that we're moving forward because we're reaching more people. A timeline full of emojis, rainbows and unicorns scares me. I like a good, “Fuck you!” because it goes to show that I'm getting closer to someone else. It's ruffling feathers. It's making people talk – and we need more talking than silence. [Share this]

Josh: That's interesting. I haven't considered that approach before: bumping into someone else isn't just them yelling a pejorative, it's them encountering your lived experience.

D: That's right.

Josh: It proves you're real, right?

D: That's right. And not just your story, but your existence. The justification of you taking up the space in this world is actually being presented in front of people for whatever reason. Whether it's on their phone, or a friend or a girlfriend talking about it in the bed, you're starting to reach more people. And it's not about converting anyone to anything, right? It's just about us crossing paths as humans and being introduced to each other. We're going to have to face the music and I think we're just on the precipice of really having no choice but to talk about this as a community.

Josh: I've been really inspired and enchanted, I should say, by the late John Berger. So, for listeners who might not know, John Berger was a British-French art critic who's credited with coining the phrase “the male gaze”. And part of Berger's challenge to us was that we can better understand and appreciate art, not by “objectively” looking at the piece of art in front of us, but by understanding where the artist was at the time in their life they made that piece of art. I read somewhere that in 2018 you had this idea for Kokomo City. What was happening in your world in 2018 that made Kokomo City seem like it had to become real?

D: There are so many reasons why I had to do the film, or I wanted to do the film. I mean, personal reasons, social reasons. I tried to stay away from politics, but everything in the world is so political and sensationalised in a political way that it's really hard to navigate that without looking like a coward or unintelligent. So I'm just trying to find a space that I could reach people without it being pushy. So initially when I thought to do Kokomo City, I was sleeping on someone's couch. Like for about three or four years, I've been sleeping on couches. All of my friends have had me on their sofas and couches – and for various times. It was a very dark place, honestly. I've always played things by the book, always done things the right way: being a decent person, making a living, you know? And never been in any trouble, jail, or even a fist fight. So, doing things the right way still got me banished and discriminated [against] and disgraced out of the music industry, and it left me lonely and extremely vulnerable and embarrassed and ashamed. I was so ashamed [that] entire experience. What inspired me to do Kokomo City was the fact that I was seeing so much queer and transgender content, but I didn't feel that it was moving the needle forward in an urgent, provocative, relatable way. And I wanted to create something that represented not only me as an artist, but Black people that was – I wanted something swaggy. There are some really great documentaries that were done around that time, but they just felt really... I don't want to say corporate, but they felt really measured. And my brother, my brother's friends, and his homeboys and cousins, they would never watch any of those LGBTQ documentaries. They just would never. They would have no reason to. Nothing stood out, or nothing felt like it could connect them or bridge them. With Kokomo City, I wanted to create something I would want to watch, something I know my brother would at least hear about, my dad will at least hear about. And that's exactly what has happened. [Share this]

Josh: Can I just say, thank you for saying that because it's for Black people.

D: Yeah, absolutely.

Josh: Like, the whole time I was watching it and – I was making my food and I was talking back to the girls. Like it was like a proper call and response!

D: Yes! [laughter]

Josh: I was like, this is for us, right? Because it's not a lot of art that you talk back to like that.

D: Because the difference is, when I did this film, I had no agent. I didn't have the CAA at the time. I didn't have my management company. I didn't have a producer. It was literally just me with no interruption, no second-guessing, no one making me think twice. I had nothing. I just did what felt natural – and creative, like, this is my creative integrity, and I'm gonna completely do what feels like D. Smith and would represent me. But I had people like Spike Lee in mind, and I had all 90s films, and even Boyz in the Hood. There's little things that people wouldn't catch in the documentary. But I didn't want to make a quintessential documentary because Black people, we don't … we watch certain things, but you got to really get Black people in their bag. That's the slang, that's the dialect, that's the imagery, that's the music, it's the way it's shot. It's just got to be swaggy. And it's not a lot of swaggy content with LGBTQ people. It's just not. And I think that's what I'm bringing to the table. And people are responding to it. And Black women, in particular, are really championing this. I know a lot of people like to paint out like Black women and trans women are against each other, but Black women are really stepping up and really saying like, “this shit was dope, I can't wait for my husband to see this. I can't wait for my boyfriend to see this. Me and my girlfriends are going to watch this.” And that's a natural, grassroots response. And you can't put a price on that. Like, that is what it's all about: my people coming to see something that I did – on both sides of the fence.

Josh: I think that's what happens when we, as Black people, experience art made for us. Like, it's just so obvious.

D: It's different.

Josh: I'm getting emotional thinking about it. It just hits differently, right? And so the other LGBTQ documentaries that you haven't named, but that you're alluding to, of course your brothers and your dad are not gonna watch them because those are gay documentaries. They're not documentaries about Black people …

D: Listen, a lot of these organisations are here to help, but a lot of times, they literally just pit us against each other. Every week there's a new rule, every week there's a new title, it's just a lot to keep up with. I'm almost at the place where I'm just like, personally, I just don't want any part of the extra splitting of the hairs. I really just want to communicate as plainly as possible. That's all I want. I'm not going to crucify anyone that says something to me that should be offensive if they didn't mean to. I'm not one of those people. And I've been used in that way in the past, and I've fought it, and I got out of that, and I'm back where I belong. And I don't wanna tell any trans women or queer people how to express themselves, but we need leaders in our community from top to bottom, from straight to transgender. We need all of them to come together in the room and decide how they're gonna represent all of us and how we're gonna come together and represent each other, because when we have outside influences that don't understand our culture, it literally divides us. And these are powerful entities, powerful organisations that have helped in certain ways but also have caused a lot, a lot of harm.

Josh: I read an essay by an author, Stephanie Bishop, describing her process of writing a novel, which she says is as much about destruction as creation. She says, “At some point, the wrecking ball comes and it smashes its way through the artifice of whatever thing you've been diligently carving, or through whatever you've been trying to write in order to avoid.” And it's so clear to me reading her essay that the process of making art is also what it takes to live, right? You gotta destroy to recreate. So, I'm curious about in what ways might the process of creating Kokomo City reflect what you've learned through your own survival, thriving and liveliness?

D: Yeah, wow, incredible. When talking about this film, I also talk about my process of really forgiving, and I think that was the destruction, the destruction of the wall that I built in animosity, that I built towards people that did me wrong. Even outside of me being trans, just all of the baggage and luggage and trauma that I brought with me over the years – it’s so incredible how much energy I put just living, carrying that stuff, not wanting to leave it or destroy that. And I started to use that as an excuse for just defending myself. They did me wrong, da-da-da. But to do this and to make this film even exist, I had to really forgive myself for being so hard on myself, forgive myself for also being mean to people, forgive myself for allowing people to hurt me, you know? But no one inspired or encouraged me to go through that process. It happened naturally. I didn't know what was happening. I just went with it. I did fasting, all of these things before Kokomo City really took root. And yeah, that is amazing. I love that analogy of destroying to create. You have to get rid of to make room for something new and real and vibrant and purposeful.

Josh: And before you go, what inspires you about the lives of sex workers? What makes them, for you, particularly important lives to document – and in many ways immortalise?

D: Well, I support sex work, but I don't encourage it. I'm intrigued by the process in which these women are engaged into being introduced into sex work. And I really want trans people, as community, to now teach the newer trans women, young women that this is not the 90s anymore. This isn't the early 2000s, where this should be an option. You know, if it becomes an option, we have to support them. But we also have to present to them, “Hey, girl, if you really don't want to do that, you could get a job at Walmart, you could work at CVS. You could do other programs.” There's really, really other options. May not be as quick, but I worry about trans women that have to do sex work. Again, I do support, but I do worry. And it's become very stressful after losing a cast member. It's become very different than when I started. I just want us to become more aware that we should definitely protect younger trans women to avoid them having to make sex work an option.