Since far too often we only publicly say nice things about people when they are dead I’ve decided to randomly pick a Facebook friend every day and say something nice about them.
May 23, 2019
Today’s person: Rhodessa Jones!
I have no idea when I met Rhodessa. It wasn’t the time I saw her MCing a cabaret at ODC in a red corset and a thong...no... and it wasn’t when she was wearing one of her leopard bodysuits at a Cultural Odessa performance ...I’d remember that...
And it wasn’t when she first introduced an audience to the participants of the Medea Project, which she’s been doing for two-and-a-half-decades. I’m pretty sure I met her before she began her world-changing and everybody-humbling work with incarcerated women, before she started helping these brave women bring their stories to life, to the stage, and helping the audience see these women not as prisoners but as people who have faced challenges most of the audience could only imagine, as people who’ve had to navigate abuse, tragedy, loss, disease, and economic hardships and who, with the help of the magnificent Rhodessa Jones, are finding and voicing their triumphant selves with honesty and unbelievable bravery.
No, it was before that...
Perhaps in a Mime Troupe show? No...
I have no idea when or where I met the force of nature and revolution and insight and fierce kindness that is Rhodesia Jones. I just know I must have at some point.. And I’m a better person because of it.