Blog EssayPersona or Power? When Black Identity Becomes “Too Much”

By Anna Adonu Reynolds

As a storyteller and a creative working deeply in visual identity, I have always understood the power of image. Image is language. Image is memory. Image is politics. Especially when you come from a cultural background rooted in diaspora, movement, survival, and imagination.

I identify as a world citizen, but I am also very clear about where I come from and what I carry. And that clarity is exactly where the friction often begins.

Years ago, when I created the concept for the music video Konträr, I was already addressing this tension long before Afrobeats and African aesthetics became globally fashionable. The work was intentional, rooted, and unapologetic. It wasn’t fiction. It wasn’t an avatar. It was identity.

What followed was not celebration but backlash.

I was suddenly “invited to the table.” And anyone who has been there knows what that often really means:Let’s soften this.Let’s make it more digestible.Let’s remove the parts that make people uncomfortable.

The message had to be diluted.

Around that same time, I found myself pushed into projects like “Denk mit … Denk ich an Deutschland”, featured in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2009. On the surface, it was framed as inclusion. But I had to ask myself an uncomfortable question:

Was this about amplifying my voice or repurposing it?

Because when your message is recontextualized to fit someone else’s narrative, stripped of its original power, and decorated with symbolic gestures even things as absurd as “free Wi-Fi for foreigners” layered onto serious conversations it starts to feel less like inclusion and more like insult added to injury.

Especially in Germany, a country with a very specific historical and racial context, these things are not neutral. They are loaded. And I don’t think many people realize how dangerous it is to ask a Black woman artist to “be careful” while simultaneously benefiting from her presence.

Let me be clear.

You cannot tell an artist:

“Have a message,”but then say,“Just not the one that empowers Black women too much.”

You cannot celebrate diversity as long as it stays quiet, abstract, or fictional while rejecting it the moment it becomes embodied, confident, and politically awake.

What often gets labeled as “too aggressive,” “too political,” or “too confrontational” is simply Black self-definition without apology.

And that is the real issue.

The industry, the media, and cultural institutions often prefer avatars over real people. Fiction over flags. Vibes over values. Because fiction is safe. Fiction doesn’t challenge power. Fiction doesn’t remember history.

But identity does.

As a Black woman, as a mother, as a creator, and as someone who has been doing this work long before it was profitable, I am done watering down my message to make others comfortable.

From now on:No more symbolic inclusion.No more repackaging my truth.No more telling me which parts of my power are acceptable.

If we’re going to sit at the table, then let’s actually talk.About who benefits.About who gets edited.About why empowerment is only celebrated when it’s harmless.

Because this isn’t just about art.It’s about authorship.And I choose to remain the author of my own story.