Madame Matilda Burns was my French language teacher growing up in Lexington, Mississippi. She was an unapologetic-ally sharp, cultured, stylish Black woman in a dusty country town: a role model for the ages. And I would love to say that I chose French because of her magnetism, or because the language appealed to my sensibilities, or because I had some special gift for it, but the less romantic truth is that all the students at S. V. Marshall High School (at least those who wanted to go on to college) took French, because Madame Burns was the only language teacher at my high school and her only language certification was French... et voila!  

The Holmes County School District was at that time—and is still today—among the poorest in the nation, with a virtually all-Black population of students and teachers. So it was by this improbable coincidence that I embarked on an adolescent journey with French language and culture that fused awkwardly with the many lessons that reinforced our shared sense of Black community in Holmes County.  

When Black History Month came along each year we had the usual educational assemblies, Civil Rights plays, and the less typical Black-History-themed French assignments. Most notably, Madame Burns devised a creative way for us to practice conjugating verbs; everyone had to select a notable African American, find a photo of them to display in class, and use a single verb in French to describe the person along with a brief history of their contributions to society and Black Culture. My favorite selection was Maya Angelou, though I cannot remember the verb I chose to represent her countless attributes. 

I grew to love French under Madame Burns’s tutelage and went on to take two years of French in college alongside my fashion design classes. I thought that combining my love for French and fashion was just an inevitable marriage—the language and culture that gave the world haute couture seemed a solid elective track for a design degree. For a long time, I romanticized (and overestimated) my ability to speak French, as my most recent trip to Paris proved I still need some lessons. Rightly so! French is a complex and structurally challenging language, which is why I consulted a slate of tenured professors of French Language and Culture when chain-stitching a message in French on my newest designer sweatshirt.  

The concept was simple enough: Black is Beautiful. The phrase is alive with meaning in American English, so self-explanatory that embroidering the words on one more piece of clothing does little to start new conversations. But what happens when we try to express this truth in other languages? French would seem the natural choice for me personally, but also given the close ties between French and the African diaspora. So much of the Black world is Francophone, and Black icons like Josephine Baker and James Baldwin both found freedom in France that they could not find in America. But the language falls short of these freedoms and the result is indeed provocative. 

The translation “l'homme noir est beau” is technically correct, meaning “the Black man is beautiful.” In its more immediate meaning I wish to affirm this statement, that the Black man is beautiful, but as a translation for Black is Beautiful “l’homme noir,” the black man, betrays the inability of French to evolve beyond gendered identity.  

The hard-edged formality of the language is so pronounced that every professor I surveyed took issue with the phrase while simultaneously acknowledging its technical correctness. Their proposed solutions were more varied, ranging from the suggestion to stick with English, as many French academics, activists, and journalists do, to the less formalized “le noir est beau,” which literally means black is beautiful but lacks the clear cultural gravity of the English meaning. 

The French language taught to millions of Black people still overlooks their unified identity and limits them in a sexist framework of gendered aristocratic conventions written over four centuries ago. The gendered language that uses man (as in man-kind) for all Black people adds insult to injury, removing women like Madame Burns and Maya Angelou, the icons of my youth, from the language I love. But I cannot take the easy road presented by academics here; even with its most obvious limitations in our modern and diverse world I still believe we need to examine the language as it is today. With the current climate of issues facing people of color globally, along with my own firsthand experiences I was inspired to express Black is Beautiful in a provocative way—in a way that will start new conversations or rekindle old ones for a new generation to consider.  

Rather than use English, my design leans into the tension of formalism and dual meaning. My desire with this garment is not to elevate the inherent sexism or racism of an old language, but to offer a moment of thought and examination.