Blaque/OUT Magazine. May 2021 Issue# 008

Thomas Warfield is a man of many hats. He is an internaRonal star, a dancer, choreographer, singer, pianist, teacher, and advocate. It is his passion for equality, jusRce and loving one another that is (aside from his vibrant and colorful wardrobe) most striking and what lead me to a conversaRon with him around systemic oppression and the unlearning that needs to happen within our society.

While unlearning is necessary from deep within our social constructs, it begins with us as individuals. Making space for yourself is where unlearning begins. That is the unlearning we need most of all. CreaRng space for people to be their own. “You can’t tell them who to be,” Warfield urges.

Among Thomas’ many credits, is a social science class he taught called Social Individual IdenRty. “We are all playing a role that we are taught to play. From the Rme we are born, as a boy you are given the message of blue, trucks, army men and if you’re a girl you get pink, dresses, hair accessories. Right off the bat, before you can even walk, the message of who you’re supposed to be is already told to you. It’s a whole system that locks you into a room. In school, the teacher knows everything, and you know nothing. There’s all of these messages that you have to decipher and as you decipher them, they are being put into your idenRty.” When someone comes along and challenges our beliefs of what should and shouldn’t be, it begins to poke holes in our world and those beliefs that have been insRlled in us for so long. For some, it’s an uncomfortable experience. Some people see it as an intrusion on their own existence. But where did we get lost in this belief that one can’t exist alongside the other? The existence of transgender people does not decimate the existence of cis people. A lijle girl deciding that she likes blue and playing with cars doesn’t take away from those that like pink and playing dress-up. We o_en use our differences and things we don’t understand as barriers, rather than treaRng them as individual idenRRes that should be embraced.

Thomas shares a story of a Rme when he was performing as the only Black person in a Chinese dance company. He wasn’t familiar with the area or the language, but on a chance to explore, he decided to ride the train in a remote area of China. He got off at a train staRon and came across a young Chinese girl sieng alone on the side of the road drawing in the dirt with a sRck. When