This is Capsuled, a site showcasing sub-genres and subcultures of queer and/or BIPOC descent. This series will be highlighting queer and/or BIPOC creatives in a casual interviews with a focus on understanding the impact of community on marginalized identities and learning more about really cool individuals.
Today, I sat down with the Baton Rouge-bred public health activist and we discussed his community involvement based in LA. Check out his interview below and watch the full-length interview under the videos section!
Share a bit about yourself
My name is Avaion, I am a rising senior at University of Southern California. I study health promotion and disease prevention. And I often say before anything, I'm an activist. You know, I grew up in a rural town outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in this stretch of land called cancer alley, because it has some of the highest concentrations of chemical factories and also the highest concentrations of cancer diagnoses in the US. And, and it was also a food desert. So it was a very food insecure place where, you know, fresh fruits and vegetables were a rarity. And so, you know, at a young age, I started to become aware of the fact that a lot of the people around me, were dying, or falling ill at a rate that was much quicker than what in what I saw, and people who weren't living in that community. So, so I decided I would, you know, learn more about health inequity. And you know, how we can see systems of domination acting on our built environment.
I got accepted to USC and studying health here and hoping to get back to my community back home, you know, I was surprised I had this fantasy of what the west coast was going to be. It was kind of like, I'd come here, you know, get my education, go back home and change things. But I quickly realized, you know, the issue of food deserts and food apartheid is very much real here in LA, too. It's just in those black and brown communities that you don't see in Hollywood film. So my activism here in LA started much sooner or, you know, the facts that I have, you know, an activist community here was surprising to me, but, but, but nonetheless, you know, I still eager about, about changing things back home, as well.
I feel like my work really is interested in those slow drawn out forms of violence that are so easy to go under our noses, you know, in 2020, with Black Lives Matter protesting and the calling out of police violence, which was absolutely necessary, but I'm interested to right and what you were talking about these issues of gentrification food, apartheid. Um, the lack of literacy and the attack on books that we're seeing happening in the South. Those are all very much things that affects not only our physical safety as Black people, but also our mental and spiritual health, as well.
What communities do you belong to?
I'm mostly doing food justice work. I'm an intern for vegans of Los Angeles. I'm a long term volunteer with support and feed, which I've been, it's an amazing organization. It's founded by the Eilish family, so Billy Eilish, his mom runs it. So it's really great to see, you know, after stardom, you know, there's still this work happening to create equity. But basically, that it's set up as them buying meals from small businesses, small vegan businesses, and then taking those meals and bringing them to areas who otherwise wouldn't have access to, to healthy food. I just got the opportunity to spearhead their New Orleans program, which I was super excited about. And I was able to rope in some friends from back home to who I trust to help volunteer and see that out. So it was a really amazing, full circle moment. But aside from that, I just started a food pantry with vegans of Los Angeles, about five minutes from a five minute walk from from where I am now. And it's been one of my most rewarding projects, because I get to really see, you know, the community that I'm living in as a guest while while I attend USC and really give back to them and engage in those everyday conversations.
Martin Buber has this quote where he says that all living is meeting that I've been thinking a lot about recently, and it's absolutely true. I mean, we're having those day to day exchanges. So that's where our social justice work really comes in, you know, outside of just in the head, but how you interact with people, and also the environment, you know, our meeting and communing with, with nature. But aside from the food justice work, I'm also the co chair for an undergraduate co chair for harm reduction, Los Angeles, we're trying to get a harm reduction clinic started up in Skid Row, which is an area in downtown Los Angeles with a high unhoused population. And unfortunately, because a lot of these people are drug users, when they go to your traditional clinics, they are treated as humans, you know, so we're really invested in creating a clinic in an atmosphere, where they're able to maintain their dignity, and not be seen as drug seeking. You know, and, and aside from the clinic aspects of harm reduction, Los Angeles, we also have conferences, so that prospective medical students are educated on what harm reduction is in practice. And we also have an advocacy team, so posting things on social media, so that people get to hear what harm reduction really is, and how they can can be advocates for it.
Do your forms of escapism often involve community?
I feel that anything that isn't involving community is a form of escapism, you know, I feel we've created a society that's trying desperately to remove people from our need to connect and community build. So honestly, I've gotten to the point where I feel anything that's not community oriented, you know, sharing space with others bettering ourselves. As people, anything that's not that really is escapism from that truth that we all need it. But if you're if you're thinking more about, you know, this idea of coping mechanisms and stress relief, then absolutely, I feel like, you know, when I'm at the community garden, right and getting my hands dirty, and chatting with the elders, in the Willowbrook community, for instance, there's an amazing org there called black woman farmers, who I have the privilege of being able to work with, and, you know, when I think of what calmness is, and, and what being at peace feels like I envisioned that, that that garden and, and spending time around a plot of soil with them and hearing their stories about life and hearing their advice about growing into, to, you know, growing into an embodied self, you know, and these communities that I get the chance to work with, really are the ones that I feel, have mastered really embodying this wholeness of self of promoting this love ethic. And, you know, as I'm getting older, I'm realizing that's what, absolutely the most important to me.
What contemporary inventions or spaces have been integral in fostering communities in your experience?
Yeah. Yeah, you know, kind of roping in Back to the end of the last question that you were talking about, you know, I think social media is interesting, right? I mean, you have some people who are able to find people who they won't, who might not, who they might not otherwise get the opportunity to come across, in real life. And that could go either way, right? It could be someone who sees you and recognizes you and, and hears you, or it could be someone who tells you to kill yourself, you know, and I don't and I'm not hyperbolic when I say that, you know, people definitely are in Bolton's bind to keyboard. You know, the truth is, right. While we have this idea of connection with the internet, people are on average, are lonelier than ever, especially our generation, we're facing more issues of anxiety and depression. Now more than ever, and so I think it's really important that we're investigating what we really mean when we say community, both in the digital sense and in real life too.
But I think the spaces that I've been able to find that have been definitely with the rise and community fridges which I love, you know, not just for those people get the chance to eat but I love the conversations that are happening around the community fridges, you know, what people are talking about planning on cooking with, with what they get are in community gardens, when people are curious about how something was was grown. You know, I didn't realize that brussel sprouts and kale kind of grow on the same tree. It's like on the stock of it or all of these Brussels and you know, there's just this amazing moment where I was like, we're so disconnected from our food and even I as someone who's a food justice activist didn't recognize this. And so you know, all the conversation and learning that happens in those spaces. So yes, I definitely love this trend of community fridges and and community Gardening that's rising. Um, there's this activist Ron Finley, in Los Angeles, he also goes by the gangsta gardener. And he does amazing work at taking these small public spaces. So you know, the grass at an intersection of streets and turning that into into a community plot. Right? And he says it's like his graffiti, right people get to recognize that as art and get to think you know, about food. So yeah, definitely this rise in, in, in awareness of, of food insecurity. And all the activists taking charge and leading the way on revolutionising that have been so inspiring.
How has your activist involvement further enriched your relationship with older generation folks?
Community has always been something I struggled with. Growing up in rural Louisiana, I didn't really, and I mean, even sometimes here, too, I don't fit into an easy box of what, you know, queerness means all the time and what blackness means all the time what maleness means all the time. And so it has been a struggle to find community. And, and, and so, you know, Bell Hooks always says, I have to go where the love is. And I think that's definitely been true for me. And my work, you know, some of my closest friends are much older women of all races, you know, so being able to build that bridge, across gender, across age across race, and really redefine community and think of it in a more broader sense has absolutely made me feel more connected to everyone, you know, at the core, you know, when we, when I'm having these conversations with these older women, I mean, a lot of it is the same, you know, we're trying to find our place and stand in our wholeness and fullness, while existing in a system of domination. And I think, you know, once we are able to recognize that identity politics aside, the more connected we'll be, you know,
I think it's Professor Taiwo, has a has a amazing book called cap, the elite capture capturing the elite, and it's all about identity politics, and the history of that term, as used by the Combahee River collective, and how corporations are really profiting off of this idea of identity, right? I mean, we have June Pride Month, that has become entirely corporatized. And now we're seeing even Juneteenth being turned into this holiday for corporations to bank off of black history. So I think, you know, while identity is important, we have to be critically vigilant about how it's being marketed towards us, you know, and recognizing really, at our core, what it is, we mean, when we say community, or when we bond over the collective forms of, of trauma.
Who are your icons?
I think I'd have to say my intellectual news of the moment is definitely Bell Hooks. You know, there's so much power in naming things. And I think her position on recognizing our system of domination as the essence of white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy has been so powerful, and how I recognize my lived experience and reality. You know, I'm able to better understand what's working against me, so that I can be critical and thinking about what what I'm being fed, what scripts I'm being told, are possible for me or that I shouldn't be adhering to and, you know, something she talks a lot about, you know, with white supremacy and patriarchy is how, you know it has no gender it has no race. You know, this idea that white is supreme, this idea that, you know, men are men are supreme, you know, that's able to infiltrate anyone's mind and that's what the most effective thing is right there. don't have to be the ones that's always carrying it out. Because there are people of those communities who will carry it out for them. So I think that's why it's so important that we're connected to our community, getting grounded and connecting with the soil.
A lot of people have been disappointed but but vice president Kamala Harris's actions, but the signs were all there. You know, like, I think, you know, also going back into this whole identity politics thing, you know, um, you know, her stance on a lot of issues have not been ones that are liberatory. You know, and I think, you know, belflex does a good job at at helping us, you know, recognize things like that, so we don't fall victim to it, how we can be critically aware and vigilant, and then also embrace our communities and learn how to foster transformative justice, how to call people in rather than call them out and understand that there is room to grow and change and that just because you've participated in the perpetuation of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, doesn't mean that that always has to be you. So she's definitely one of my intellectual muses.
Right now, Linacre. She's a trans Brazilian singer, definitely has been a style icon for me lately. And music as well. They have a phenomenal voice. And, you know, when I think of music that speaks truth to power, I think of Linacre novelists Toni Morrison has definitely been one of my favorites lately. I took a picture with her book, it's not any of her fiction work. It's just a book of transcribed interviews of her and, you know, as I'm going further along in my activist journey, you know, I'm recognizing the importance of this visionary and imaginative thinking, you know, with the same audacity and an imagination that white folks have been able to, to imagine and craft with the reality for us should be, we should also own that power, and imagining what's possible for us in our communities, and also using that to create rehabilitative spaces. But yeah, she's definitely been a catalyst for, for me thinking more imaginatively, as well. So those are my top three favorites right now.
What are some ways you get yourself to engage in theory?
I think a huge part of it is becoming comfortable with stillness. You know, I feel and I are very loud and quick culture that mostly the Internet has cultivated, our brains have become accustomed to, you know, there's this amazing book by Nicholas Carr called what the internet is doing to our brains. But, you know, we're becoming used and conditioned to having information constantly available, readily available. And so when we had to sit with ourselves and really read a book, but that might bring that information to us more slowly. You know, it's hard. But But I think, you know, I also have a pretty regular meditative practice becoming accustomed to what that stillness, and that silence with myself feels like. So then, right. When I'm reading, it's a it's an easier place to tap into. And I think also what made reading may be easier for me is because when I was mentioning earlier about not really having community growing up and still struggling with it now, I always thought of these writers especially black women writers as my community as the voices who are cheering me on. So I think when we read when we think of it as a conversation across space and time with these authors, it's able to be more engaging.
I'll challenge anyone to just go a day without using your phone and then see how much you actually did miss out on. And that's a good way of really realizing maybe I don't need to be in the loop constantly. Think pieces are going to be on Twitter. too. Yeah. So that's something that that I've done to you that has helped me, you know, not feel like I need to be in the loop and engaged, you know, just go without my phone and see, you know, just how much I miss out on that. And it's not much I found.
You know, I think it's important that you maybe spend time with those things that felt like they could take us away, or really engage us when we were younger, you know, as I've, you know, cultivated a more spiritual practice, that's something to this idea of the inner child, you know, what are these things that that I was able to use to cope when I was younger, and that's reading for me, but also things like drawing and art and creativity. I mean, I think those are also important and your, if anyone's wanting to get more involved in social justice, I think those are also important. As much as as reading theory, you know, and I think nothing is more radicalizing than lived experience, you know, on on these predominantly white collegiate campuses, I find that a lot of these leftist spaces mostly are just book clubs for for white folks who aren't doing any community work and feel self righteous, because they're reading about people who do. So I think, you know, if if reading is maybe difficult for you, really engaging with your community, right, like seeing what problems they're having, what things keep them up at three o'clock in the morning. And then creating space for them to share that and brainstorm about what you can do, and what you can collectively do to make that reality a little bit better
In what ways do you think music can enrich an individual and/or collective experience in communities?
Yeah, I love music. I um, I recently got a a Walkman. So that I could get some cassettes and listen to some of that, that physical music. But, you know, I say that to say it's a big part of my life. And, you know, I feel like for a lot of black family, spirit to virtuoso has been deeply ingrained. And it has been, I mean, when I think of jazz and when I think of blues, especially, you know, it's been this site where black expression free, free of white gays, you know, I think it's more difficult now. As hip hop has kind of become, has gotten a spotlight, shined on it, and it's less about the community, but I'm sure in your spaces as DJ, you know, this more underground music still has that same spirit. You know, I, I bought this conundrum because I was really into drumming, particularly Latin American, Afro Latin drumming and, you know, I thought about how, in the United States in the south, particularly, drumming was banned for enslaved people, because they feared the the power that that had for the community either being used as some call to action or to escape. You know, and, and, you know, sitting on that cocoa and the sitting drum that I recently purchased, I was really reflecting on that, and thinking of just how powerful black music is. So So to answer your question, absolutely. I think, you know, music is definitely a connection piece, and has been a very accessible form of art for a lot of people. You know, let's Lucille Clifton, one of my favorite poets, she says that art should comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. I just really liked her words on that. And when I think of what art is, I asked myself, does it embody that, you know.
I love asking people what song they have in their head at the moment. You know, it's crazy, just how, how music is able to stick with us in that way that we almost always, regardless of if we're being conscious of it or not, we almost always have some sound playing in the back of our head from a song we love or have heard frequently. I think that is very powerful.
What does community mean to you?
Community to me is is a space where people are able to feel whole you know, I feel there's you know, existing in a dominator culture and and hyper individualized culture, you know, we exist as very fragmented selves. And I think influencer culture is one of the biggest examples of this you know, a person has a thing their, their niche their, you know, what's marketable for them, but we don't To allow them, you know, the full range of, of human expression. And I think community is a place that fosters that, that celebrates that, but also a place where you're able to be held accountable productively. And so when I envision a healthy community, it's one that allows us to be whole, and that freedom of expression. And then also those faults in us that also are part of our being and coming together to figure out, you know, how we can call this person in, rather than call them out, you know, because I feel like a lot of violence comes, in fact, from exclusion. And the more we call people on and obviously not those, you know, clearly right or wrong issues, but, you know, when we call people in and really understand where they're coming from, where that violence comes from. I think that's when we create very powerful communities.
Any final messages?
I guess my call to action is to go see what your community needs. Man. You're talking to people bridge. Those are bridges gaps. Yeah.