My parents are really conservative. My dad is Muslim, and my mom is the most conservative woman you’ve ever met. They’re very aristocratic in the most quaint suburban way.
Wearing a hijab never made me feel any more conservative – it made me feel safe. Then, after 9/11, I became the butt of a joke on the playground, so I stopped wearing it. Kids can be really cruel when you’re the only black girl in your Girl Scout troop.
I don’t have a primary doctor, a primary hairstylist, a primary anything. I don’t even have a primary address! Everything is just whenever I can find one.
When your parents regulate everything you hear and everything you intake, it forces you to get creative in other ways. It sparked the writing bug and the very overactive imagination. Because I’ve had a lot of time by myself and a lot of time isolated from regular culture, I created my own.
I don’t think I’m inherently feminist. I think the universe wants me to be a feminist, and I think I resonate with that. I think it just chose me to be this female energy, thing. And I’m very drawn to female energy, but I don’t really have any prerequisites in feminism. I just roll with it.
As long as you’re being honest and there’s the intention in what you’re doing, then I think that energy permeates your field and becomes like a homing signal for other people with like energies.
I learned everything the hard way – like, literally, everything. I know that God does that to people that he has lessons for. I just wish that I had learned less extreme lessons.
