Black Future: HEAVY

Photo by Emily Almodovar

To celebrate Black History Month, GIFTED is spotlighting ‘HEAVY’, by our very own Vicky Pasion. HEAVY brings attention to, and uplifts, the experience of young black boys. Vicky expresses alliance and a vision of hope. ‘Lift Your Head Up’ serves as a message of light, in natural response to the experiences of prejudice and injustice weighed on the shoulders of black culture.

The music video gives a sense of bittersweet childhood innocence. As the boy rides his scooter and plays in the park, I’m struck by the image that follows: he sits by the fencing of a tennis or netball court, and shadows appear as bars across his body. In a space specifically designed for play, the young boy looks through these ‘bars’, which becomes an image alluding to the violence of mass incarceration in both the USA and the UK. In the US, African American children represent 32% of children who are arrested, 42% of children who are detained, and 52% of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court — even though African American children represent only 14% of the child population (NAACP). In the UK, too, a 2019 report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) found that over half of the inmates held in prisons for young people in England and Wales are from a Black or minority ethnic background (Guardian). In the US, spending on prisons and jails has increased at triple the rate of spending on public education in the last thirty years (NAACP). With more invested in prisons than in education, there is a pressing need for increased support and opportunities for black youth. 

Therefore, the call to ‘lift your head up’ also shows opposition to burying your head in the sand to the realities of racial injustice: this video asserts a demand to do better by this young black boy. As childhood innocence is juxtaposed with the prejudice of a system which works against marginalised groups, Pasion sings, ‘Young black boy we’ve let you down’. We see euphoric freedom as the boy plays amongst natural surroundings. Yet, we’re reminded that the weight of the world will be heavy on this young boy as he grows to contend with social constructions of masculinity and his sense of self, as well as growing to understand the ways in which the world will view him as a black man.

Throughout the video, HEAVY presents a message that is clear and bright: we must lift up the young people in our communities, and fight for a better world for them to grow up in. As Pasion’s lyrics reflect on needed change in the future: ‘I’m sorry for the pain you’ve carried round and round / But lift your head up from the ground’, we also see this story unfold in the narrative of the video. The boy runs up a hill, again moving onwards and upwards towards light and better days ahead. He reaches Pasion at the top of the hill and she lifts him up, and together they point out towards the skyline. These tender final images show love, care, and affection, and the viewer is reminded that we must lift each other up every day — we must work together today for a better world tomorrow.

Photo by Emily Almodovar