“Black boys in this country cannot afford to play cops and robbers… if we’re always considered the latter.”
Born from American spoken word poet, writer, and professor, Dr. Javon Johnson’s ‘cuz he’s black’, “
Voicemails To My Future Self: Vol 1” brings to life a poem that reveals the struggle he faces in teaching his young, black nephew about the complexities of interacting with the police. Created by Raleigh, NC based video agency
Myriad, the poem became a script to this short anthology series which is meant to be a platform for people to tell their unique stories. Myriad, as a part of their
Myriad Originals series, set out to not only tell Dr Johnson’s story but also protect it and allow his vision to come forth.
“In a lot of ways, voicemails are time capsules. The ways in which voicemails hold on to a certain type of livable past, that isn’t quite dead but might be gone, that’s the power of the medium. How it disturbs time. How it can make 10 years ago feel like this morning,” said Dr. Johnson. “Black folks are rarely afforded childhood in this country and I want them to see it. I want them to grapple with ‘how do we engage in the moment’.”
About Javon Johnson:
Dr. Javon Johnson is an Assistant Professor and Director of African American & African Diaspora studies and holds an appointment in Gender & Sexuality Studies in the Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his Ph.D. in Performance Studies with a certificate in Gender Studies and Cognate in African American Studies from Northwestern University in 2010. A renowned spoken word poet, he is a three-time national poetry slam champion, a four-time national finalist, and has appeared on appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, BET’s Lyric Café, TVOnes Verses & Flow, The Steve Harvey Show, The Arsenio Hall Show, United Shades of America with Kamau Bell on CNN, and co-wrote a documentary titled Crossover, which aired on Showtime, in collaboration with the NBA and Nike.
About Myriad Originals:
Myriad Originals are emotionally provocative films that inspire action. They are the stories of kindness and conflict, passion and conviction, escape, survival, and belonging, told by the people at the heart of the narratives.