{"id":228952,"date":"2025-05-02T07:15:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T11:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=228952"},"modified":"2025-05-07T09:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T13:00:08","slug":"graduating-student-passes-out-affirmations-to-those-who-need-to-heal-including-herself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2025\/05\/graduating-student-passes-out-affirmations-to-those-who-need-to-heal-including-herself\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduating Student Passes Out Affirmations to Those Who Need to Heal \u2013 Including Herself"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Wednesday afternoon, bright but with a bit of the usual bluster of spring in Storrs, and Ebonie Marie<\/a> is making her way into the center of campus armed with the pale blue and white satchel recognizable by those who\u2019ve encountered her before.<\/p>\n

\"Countdown<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re the girl with the affirmations.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have them today?\u201d<\/p>\n

She does.<\/p>\n

\"Ebonie
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it was from the spirit, from the universe, or from God, but something told me you\u2019re not the only one who needs to read these things,\u201d Marie says. (Sydney Herdle\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Marie \u201925 MA approaches people of color around the University, she offers them a slip of paper from the satchel, each printed with an affirmation she says all minority students need to hear, but not all do:<\/p>\n

\u201cTake up space! You deserve to be in every room you enter.\u201d \u201cYour ancestors are so proud of you.\u201d \u201cEverything about you is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRacism has been in America for decades. It may continue to be here in America for decades. How do you heal the people being affected by it versus trying to change the people who are causing the problem because that may not ever work,\u201d Marie asks. \u201cThe answer is community healing and giving people permission to be themselves, letting them know that I see them even if no one else does. I hear them. I care, even if they feel like they\u2019re in a place where most people don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marie started her Wednesday practice of passing out affirmations at the end of March after what she calls a difficult Tuesday when she was feeling hopeless and defeated. To move through those emotions, she started to write affirmations for herself, things like \u201cYou don\u2019t need to be fixed\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before she knew it, Marie says, she had a list of about 50.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it was from the spirit, from the universe, or from God, but something told me you\u2019re not the only one who needs to read these things,\u201d Marie says. \u201cSo, I printed them and started cutting them out one by one until I had these strips of paper with affirmations on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting at the Student Union, she\u2019s covered much of campus, including Wilbur Cross and the Homer Babbidge Library, in search of students who look like her, and along the way she\u2019s been met with a mix of joy and surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been very receptive once they realize they can trust the thing that\u2019s happening,\u201d she says of students.<\/p>\n

These affirmations are things she came up with \u2013 not snippets culled from the internet \u2013 which gives them more power, more heft, she says, having been written in a Black woman\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

As she sees each person\u2019s inevitable smile, she feels a little better, on her way to healing from her own hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what Black artists have always had to do. The Harlem Renaissance produced some beautiful poetry and beautiful music, but all of that was happening during the Jim Crow era. We\u2019ve always had a bit of disillusionment to have joy and that\u2019s what I have. I\u2019m skipping around passing out affirmations like I don\u2019t have a care in the world, when the truth is there\u2019s so much crumbling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marie describes herself as an actor, songwriter, and poet from Los Angeles who\u2019s slated to receive a master\u2019s in acting, something she\u2019s loved since she was 5 years old when she repeated things heard on TV or recited speeches at church or school.<\/p>\n

In her grandmother\u2019s living room, a young Marie would stage shows and \u201csell\u201d tickets to family members to fill in an audience \u2013 even to uninterested cousins who just wanted to play in the family\u2019s common space.<\/p>\n

She saw her first Broadway show at 12 years old, \u201cAida,\u201d followed by her second the following day, \u201cStomp,\u201d and later on, \u201cThe Lion King.\u201d She was hooked, and says she knew acting was her path, that she couldn\u2019t live without the music, costumes, and pageantry of it all.<\/p>\n

Now at UConn, after hitting barriers and incurring trauma along the way as a now-adult Black woman, Marie is staging her solo show \u201cDo We Look Fine?\u201d on Saturday, May 3. It\u2019s a show borne of her go-to response when people ask how she\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fine. I\u2019m fine. But what I really want to ask is, \u2018Do I look fine?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cAsking me how I am is a bit of a microaggression to me because clearly you can see that I\u2019m not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues, \u201cI believe that people can be good people, talented people, successful people without trauma. I know no one gets through this life unscathed by trauma, but I don\u2019t want to persevere nevertheless.\u201d<\/p>\n

In pursuit of self-healing, she\u2019s after one other thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pray for the day when Black artists can just create because they feel like creating and they can create from a place of joy, not from a place of pain,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Performances of \u201cDo We Look Fine?\u201d<\/a> will be at 3 and 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 3, at the Studio Theatre in the Drama-Music Building on the Storrs campus. Tickets are free and can be obtained online<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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