We were lucky to catch up with Imani Foster recently and have shared our conversation below.

Imani, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I spent my senior year in college theorizing about Black girlhood. As a Black girl, raised in a Black city, I had always accepted my experience at face value–things are this way because they’re supposed to be this way. I had given in to so many stereotypes, tropes, misconceptions, microaggressions, and other negativity aimed at ME because of my Black girlhood. I’d been berated about bad attitudes, warned against appearing “ghetto” lest I never make it anywhere, ignored and overlooked even as I excelled, made fun of for my hair texture and the fact that I “talked white.” And it wasn’t just white folx I felt this experience with!

In college, I studied African American studies and began to read from Black feminists who put words to my very experience. I studied Toni Morrison, who shares with readers about how the very ways Black women were even BROUGHT to America still shows up in how we live and are treated today. About how the Black woman’s body has been separated from the Black woman, oversexualized, abused, and at the same way sought after by those who work hard to dehumanize us. About how the ONLY people who can save Black girls, are Black women. Because we’ve been there before, and many of us have done the work to unlearn what society has told us we are, and show up as the amazing lights we have always had the power to be.

My mission is completely driven by the Black feminists like Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Barbara Christian, Toni Morrison, Kimberle Crenshaw, and so many more like them. They did such beautiful work in a time when absolutely no one cared what Black women had to say. They created safe spaces like the Combahee River Collective, in order to theorize and heal from the experiences that many Black women still struggle with today. It’s driven by all of the beautiful Black girls who remind me who I needed when I felt ugly, useless, or like I had nothing to offer the world, because of what the world had been offering me.

Imani, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Imani Foster and I’m a 25-year-old Black woman from Detroit. I studied Black Studies at Northwestern University from 2018-2022, and left with a renewed sense of responsibility to share my learnings with my own community. In 2023, I launched H.E.Y Black Girl, a program for Black girls from Detroit to practice healing, empowerment, and yoga. While I had been practicing yoga since high school, it wasn’t until I had a significant experience at church with a young Black girl that I determined I had found my calling.
My community is made up of Black girls from the ages of 7+. I deal with girls who may struggle with all kinds of issues from anxiety and depression, to significant grief and trauma. And honestly, some of them just deal with the every day struggles of growing up in Detroit–which may be exacerbated by being young, Black and a woman. But for me, it’s not about the problems these girls face in their lives–it’s about the potential they have to come out on TOP if they have the right guidance, support and love. The girls that I deal with have huge aspirations, ranging from being doctors, lawyers and teachers, to being esthticians, beauticians and more!
I meet weekly with my girls in order to break bread together, journal and have vent sessions, practice yoga and meditation, affirm each other, and most importantly–build DEEP relationships that help to sustain these girls.
I am most proud of the fact that the work that HEY Black girl does continues to impact girls from all walks of life! We have been able to bring in two mentees along the way, and have our first group of girls graduating next year!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’m sorry, i truly dont have good answers to any of these questions

I’m sorry, i truly dont have good answers to any of these questions

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/h3yblackgirl/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imani-foster-56a4341ba

Image Credits

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