I’m an artist, writer, facilitator, and emerging filmmaker. I began telling stories on film in 2014, starting with three powerful Black women. I launched my YouTube channel @damaliabena in 2019 and have talked to dozens of people about activism, racial equity, belonging, and decolonial scholarship over the last several years. I am also a non-profit leader who works closely with communities in the Bay Area. Through this work, I’ve had transformative conversations with Rhonda Magee, Monica Guzman, Yung Pueblo, Tricia Hersey, and Bayo Akomolafe. My graduate studies in Social Justice and Community Organizing inspired me to make my first film, We Move Mountains. Watching documentaries like Enslaved, 13th, and True Justice seeded the idea for my production company, Freedom Narratives Films. I agree with Bryan Stevenson, we’ve “lost the narrative battle.” It’s time to reclaim it. I am making this film and creating other content to “claim a different future” through counter-narrative storytelling. (Stevenson, 2020).
Spiritual Bio
I’m a product of the enslaved and the enslaver; the colonized and the colonizer. My people before me were African and European. They were brought together because of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and I’m a product of this experience. My people practiced African Spirituality before Christianity emerged. I feel that in my bones. It’s an ancestral memory. They were medicine women who healed their families through herbs and plants. They cleaned peoples homes and washed their laundry. They were craftsmen. They were nurses. They were teachers. They were philosophers, educators, and politicians. They were also religious.
My paternal grandfather was a Christian minister (Disciples of Christ). My paternal grandmother embodied her Christian faith in a way that everyone around her could feel. I was raised in a mostly Christian household. My father was agnostic. My mother is still a follower of Christ. My maternal grandparents were Methodist and Catholic. When I was 13, I was confirmed in the Anglican Church. Very early on, I questioned harmful religious theologies like people going to hell, etc…. When I think back, I’ve always questioned just about everything that feels unloving, unethical or immoral. In my late teens-early 20’s, I explored the Nation of Islam. In my mid-late 20’s and early 30’s I was Rastafarian. I completed a Yoruba rites of passage in my 30’s as well. And, I’ve long participated in a Buddhist community. I’ve had a rich faith-based journey and in 2013 found a spiritual home in Oakland. I’m part of the New Thought community in the Bay Area and continue to learn more about spirituality as I make this film.
I am the daughter of Jamaican parents. I happened to be born on American soil. I am a product of Jamaica and America. I am a culture keeper and questioner, who is also a person of faith.