How Are You?

During the summer I was scrolling through Instagram and stumbled upon a video from a magazine that annoyed me. A big magazine who I won’t name, made a video featuring quite well off people asking them “how are you?” The question was specifically asking them how they were handling living through a pandemic and it pissed me off. Firstly, who gives a fuck how well off white celebrities are doing? They are fine and they always will be fine.

The video was posted a few weeks before the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement, but the news about people of colour dying at a higher rate compared to white people was all over the news. The people I wanted to hear from at that moment were black people, black women and queer people more specifically. I wanted to know how they were doing.

So I sat down with my friends Zamzam, Na’iamh and Kirsten after the murder of George Floyd to ask them how they are. They are all from and living in, different parts of the world; Zamzam from Sweden, Na’iamh from the United Kingdom and Kirsten from the United States. We discussed everything from the pandemic, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Pride, White supremacy, transphobia and the hypervisibility of being black and being a woman.

We discussed a lot and we laughed a lot. This summer was hard for all of us but even harder for black people. I am very grateful that they gave up some of their time to speak with me.

Video edited by the incredible: Natalie Christen

IG: @_renaissance.woman

(she/her)

Starring:

Zamzam (IG: @zamx2)

Na’iamh (IG: ns4ffiya.__)

Kirsten (IG: catharaxia)

Words and interview by: Halima Jibril

(she/they)

IG: @h.alimaa