Hood Profet: Visitor, Traveler, Warrior

Interviewed by Nate Davis and edited by Addison Lee

Photo Credit — @las.margaritaville

Mike Davis is a radical mixed poet and activist in the LA community. Their work explores their identity, Los Angeles, and more, under which they have gathered over 50,000 instagram followers, their bio reads, “I’m a visitor, I'm a traveler, I'm a warrior”.

Nate Davis: So, first question. What are your preferred pronouns?

Mike Davis: Well...he/him/his, they/them/theirs.

ND: What got you started on writing spoken word? And what made you want to do it for as long as you have and at the level that you have.

MD: So when I was really young my mom started making me write and just touching on the lived experience of black and brown, I for sure knew just hardship at a really young age. My mom was one of the first folks that kinda just brought poetry into my life and was like “yo here are some tools to use to work through whatever is going on and here's some things that you can utilize whatever, whatever”. And then poetry, just kind of became a back burner in my life since I grew up with it. Then my father passed away. And shortly after he passed away, I got involved with an organization that does, or used to do really great work. When I started getting politically educated everything kind of came back out. I think it's just recently that I've been able to identify that it makes so much sense that my poetry came back up when I was doing political education and resistance work because of how much healing is also a resistance act.

So I started doing political work and then all my poetry shit came back up and then I slowly transitioned out of organizing and now I would like to do poetry for a time.

ND: For other mixed race creators or creatives, what would you say as advice or words of comfort?

MD: I don't know what works for everyone because I also feel, in healing and education and finding yourself and all the things there's no.... there's no rubric.  

I mean there's no one linear way to be like "Yo this is how you love yourself" or "This is how you unpack your trauma" or "This is how you learn about ethnicity and identity and like culture". I've always said... I started standing in my identity of being Afro-indigenous and being black and brown at the same time around when I started getting political educated. But I just recently also realized that I didn't learn my history as one thing, if that makes sense? I'd learned like indigenous and African ancestry and politics and history as two very separate identities and then put them together myself, right. But that process like kick started this whole…being unapologetically myself at all times. So I guess that's my shit. The more you learn about yourself the more comfortable it becomes. And because everything I do is from an organizing background, everything is very much---how do I retain as much information as I can and then educate my folks in a way that they can also understand and then retain it and then spread it to other folks.

ND: A lot of the work you write covers a variety of genres and topics but race and the background you come from is a key thread. To that point, do you think of yourself as a mixed race poet or a poet who happens to be mixed race and what does that distinction mean to you?

MD: I think I'm just a poet you know. I have trouble choosing either one because I don't want to say I'm a mixed race poet, but obviously yes, I'm an Afro-indigenous. I'm a mixed race poet. But saying, "Oh I am this mixed race poet" automatically puts me in this box that all my work is towards breaking down and redefining. So that makes me a little uncomfortable but then also going like I'm just a poet that happens to be mixed race is kind of weird because that's back burning my identity which is everything that I am.

 But also in this, I know I navigate being mixed race and being Afro-indigenous differently than the next person. And not necessarily because I've decided so. More so because I can't dictate how folks identify me when I walk into spaces, I can’t dictate how I show up in the world all the time. But then also the flipside of this, is that I do have the privilege to do that also. So I know if I shaved my head and I go to a predominantly brown space I’ll show up in that space as Brown and if I'm ordering food and roll my r's a certain way folks would be like "Oh okay fosha".

 I know if I pull my hair back or if I let my hair out or if I braid, because of how I show up physically I have these spaces and pockets where I show it in these spaces differently.

It's hard for me to go "oh I'm just a mixed race poet" or "I'm a poet that happens to be mixed race" because sometimes, especially when using my poetry as an organizing tool, I'll show up in spaces where I'm doing poems that are predominantly black and I show up just as a black poet and sometimes I'm in spaces when they're brown and I show up just as a brown poet. I'm very aware, for folks to hear and register and respect my art if I'm in the brown space and they need to view me as brown and I'm like “fosho, here I am”.

 But also you're gonna fucking hear this poem about me being afro-indigenous, you know?

So yeah, I don't know where I fall on the spectrum.

ND: Do you think being mixed race and having the colliding worlds and identities and getting that helps you reach more people with your work? Or do you think it limits your audience to a specific group of people?

MD: I mean I think it fosho affects and also just talking back about the privilege of being able to navigate spaces differently like whatever, but also the flipside of this is that... I've gotten a lot of flak for my identity you know. Just people very blatantly invalidating my existence right. And so one side of this is like, yeah I get to show up in spaces right. But also I almost never completely pull it off. So it's interesting... I feel like I'm granted access to a lot of spaces right, which is amazing. But also I fight the battle that folks that aren't Afro-indigenous or some kind of mix with black don't understand.

ND: So I think one of the things that we don't always address is sort of... how do you mix mixed identities? So things like being a queer person or being non binary or being bisexual where you're kind of in both worlds but still outside of it. How do you think that intersects with race? Do you think that one provides an easier access to another, or that it kind of helps to have multiple mixed identities?

MD: I mean, I think for myself my struggle and also conquest started with culture and ethnicity. And how that looks on my identity. Since this has been basically an all life journey, once I figured that out-- and I’m obviously still figuring things out--I was able to go "OK let's use these same tools that we've used to break down ethnicity and use it to break down sexuality and how that plays into identity". I guess from that aspect it helped because it was like "OK I've broken down these boundaries and boxes and these binaries in my identity ethnically already and racially, so now how can I do this with gender and sexuality".

So in that aspect it helps, but then also being Afro-indigenous and showing up in these different spaces I was talking about, I get flak from black and brown people, you know? Like I get flak from the black Instagram pages that are all like fucking "what happened to the real man" you know? Or like the super Chicano, cholo pages that are like "You used to be bald, what the fuck are you doing?", you know what I mean? So I think for myself it's been a little bit harder, because I've already previously existed in all these different spaces as a very hetero cis man. Now coming back into these spaces and being like,

"oh you know I'm sorry about all of that, actually this is what's going on", you know?

 It's a little bit harder cause you don't realize it until it's happening, but I've had to come out and educate folks a thousand times over. And it kind of sucks to have to do this in all these different facets and all these different spaces. So not only am I navigating how I show up but now I'm also navigating... how do I say this... because it's like if I'm talking to a specific room I have to navigate how I show up ethnically now, and then it's also, how do I break this down to you in a way that's going to resonate so that you actually hear me.

ND: So you're talking about how you started getting into a lot of more of your identity and accepting that around when you started organizing--do you think that was the turning point in your life where, I think, often we see our identity or the ethnicities that we come from as sort of like barriers and we dislike them and we either try really hard to go in one box or go away from everything. When do you think your turning point was, where you were like I'm going to start accepting all of this?

MD: Again, probably around the same time that I got politically educated. Because I fosho went through a couple years when I was younger where it was like I'm not black I'm just brown, or I'm not brown or I'm just black. Or I'm only Salvadorian and I'm not Mexican or I'm only Mexican and not Salvadorian, you know? I mean they're like, I'm only going to begin with these kids and I'm going to roll my eyes as hard as I fucking can. So I fosho went through all of these motions, and then again it wasn't until I was able to get a grasp of what my history was on both sides and being able to relate them, that I was like "oh I can exist in these spaces and be both at the same time". And then also, I didn't hear Blaxican or Afro-indigenous or Afro-Chicano or any of these things til I was like sixteen. So it wasn't till like high school, maybe, that I was like "oh yeah, I can exist", you know? And it was because of the political education. But I think even now it's still very much a struggle. And going back to the erasure of black folk and our history and our narratives and just everything, it's still very hard for me, at least, to find... to find history that is Afro-indigenous. I know how to find them separately and correlate them, and I know how Africa and Cuba like fought together, apartheid, whatever, whatever. I can find them separately but it's still really difficult for me to find, The Diaspora and actual logistics and dates of shit….what was the question again?  

ND: I think you answered it, it's what was the turning point.

MD: Oh yeah, yeah. So when I got politically educated was when I realized that I can exist.

ND: Is there anything you have, any parting comments or anything you'd like to say as a message to other mixed race people where they're growing up... where they've hit a point where they're kind of maybe growing into that. Any words for anyone.

MD: I guess just thinking specifically about the younger and next generation of folks even this this conversation of Afro-indigenous identity or Blaxican or Afro-Chicano is still very new, and it's still in the very early stages, right? But a part of me has, again, difficulty even talking about how hard it's been to find the actual historical context to help explain this identity. I feel like these conversations are still very "oh yeah we're here like we exist, like Afro-indigenous people are a thing", right? And it bothers me a lot because I'll go into these spaces and I'm so tired of having these conversations about this identity that's just proclaiming this identity instead of giving any kind of actual education around it.

So I guess my thing for younger folks is that I'm just excited to see folks standing on the shoulders of the conversations and the works that are being done now. I'm really excited to see what Afro-indigenous looks like ten years from now. Or what the conversation is or if it's even a conversation anymore, if there's a little box that says 'Afro-indigenous'.

I guess if it was for advice, it would be for folks to find their communities and their folks and their education, you know?