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The Bigger the Hoops, the Bigger the Self-Discovery
How a piece of jewelry helped me confront white supremacy.
One of my favorite photos of myself is from high school. I’m standing in a pumpkin patch wearing dramatically big gold hoop earrings, my natural curls, and a frown. (Do you just love my fall-themed intro, or what?)
I thought of this photo last month when my therapist asked me when I last felt like my authentic self — the version of me that I expressed honestly and without shame to the world. The memory of this imagery was a surprise.
And when I thought of this photo, I so clearly saw those hoop earrings, a type of jewelry I loved, but soon stopped wearing for almost 15 years.
Throwback anecdote
I can’t remember when and why I started wearing hoops, but ask me if I wore them every day, and I’ll say often.
I went to high school in the mid-2000s, as the Bay Area’s counter-culture Hyphy movement exploded all around me. I was a teenager embodying what I saw as the style of my time: white tees and Air Force 1s, big chains and stunna shades, lots of drugstore gel to smooth down our bangs, NBA jerseys and NFL hats, velour and two-piece tracksuits, and way too many puffy jackets for California weather.
