Category Archives: black pride

Sunday at The Guggenheim

art, black pride, black women, blackness, culture, Female Gaze, Feminine, Inspiration, race, women of color

Revoke my New Yorker card if you wanna but it’s taken me years to realize that the M3 from Harlem goes to the Guggenheim museum in almost 20 minutes! I discovered it this weekend and now I just don’t know what to do with myself. I’m a bit of a Museum nerd and it kills me when there’s a show I wanna see on the East side and all I think about is all kinds of soul sucking train line switching I have to do in order to get there. The M3 route takes me through memory lane passed Central Park East and and my High School and finally on the upper East Side where I went on first dates, saw movies, hung out at HMV (remember HMV?) and tried to catch transportation home on school day evenings before my pass expired. I love this line.

Simone Leigh

This weekend, Simone Yvette Leigh’s “Loophole of Retreat” brought me to the Guggenheim, not one of my favorite Museum spaces but for some reason, it was more than tolerable this time. I always love seeing The Guggenheim from the outside but something about walking around an incline in circles without ever knowing what floor you’re on irks me. Still, when I saw one of Leigh’s pieces on a subway ad months ago I was just viscerally struck by the power of it, the Blackness and the femininity. I finally read more about Simone Yvette Leigh and her work a few weeks ago. I visited her “Brickhouse” sculpture on the Highline and have since just been fascinated and obsessed with being close to her pieces.

Continue reading Sunday at The Guggenheim →

The Ancestral Plane: Black Panther Spoiler Alert

Black Film, Black History, black pride

It’s hard for me to pick favorite parts of this movie. Everything was done so well that as my husband said, there was never one moment where my mind wandered or my eyes strayed. I could do nothing but watch this movie. From the first frame to the last, I was hooked. Pre-packed snacks made their way into my mouth somehow and I would lean forward occasionally but other than to laugh, clap or wipe away tears, I didn’t move much.

BP Gif

The Ancestral plane scenes touched me very deeply. I didn’t know what to expect when T’Challa was ceremonially buried in the ritual to make him king of Wakanda. And so I was completely transported. Where T’Challa went, I went too. The line of kings appearing as midnight Black Panthers writhing silently on branches in a tree representing royal lineage just burned through me. My God, can Coogler tell a story!

Kilmonger

And then when Killmonger went there. My heart just broke. I cried for Killmonger. I could not see him fully as a villain. I wanted redemption for him. But I understood his choice because I knew more about where he was coming from and what he refused to go back to in any world.

28166704_1705050069554404_3321619521459678190_n

Wakanda Needs You…

Black Film, black pride, black women, blackness,

We just came home. My husband has already turned the television on in the living room. But I can’t let the world in just yet.

I still feel that feeling of the world of Wakanda surrounding me. I’m still. I’m mesmerized but I’m also focused and sure about something.

It doesn’t matter that the Magic Johnson Staff showed up late to open up the theater for the 9am showing of Black Panther. My husband was upset and I was irritated myself but we got there at 8:27am, got on line at 8:30am and whenever I looked behind me as we waited, I saw the line get longer and longer. And that’s what mattered to me. I was like, we’re gonna get it together, it’s gonna be fine. Nothing is going to get me to hate on my people.

And it didn’t matter that there was a little boy next to me with his mom next to him and his brother on the other side of her who hardly stopped moving for more than a few minutes because didn’t I just say to my husband as we were walking up to the theater how cool it would be if we were taking our kids (we have none yet) along with us and how we would take them even if they were as young as five? I’m pretty sure the little boy next to me was around that age. Kids squirm and can’t sit still in theaters for a myriad of reasons. I think he was having a hard time understanding what was happening because he kept leaning over to mom on his right to ask questions and she answered every one. She also clapped, laughed, had a good time and was physically affectionate with him as she gently tried to get him to sit as still. .

It didn’t matter that at a very pinnacle and violent point in the film, one of the audience members popped up and let rip a stream of angry curses. I was upset and startled but mostly because he was disturbing the movie. My instinct made me get up, go outside and let staff know what was happening so they could regain order. I learned later on from my husband that a few other sistas had done the same at that time.

It certainly didn’t matter that I was the only movie goer I saw with my face painted like Shuri, T’Challa’s sister and one of the three iconic women that carried the film impeccably along with all the other stellar cast members into history. I’m no stranger to being in the minority with what I will wear on my body and face in public. I get that from my mom.

Up until now, I had been so caught up with a lot of the façade, the imagery, the fantastic visuals that the Black Panther film has inspired all over the country, all exploding with pride, imagination, social impact and love on social media. These are all so very important. Human beings take into our minds what we take in with our eyes. And hearts often remember what minds forget.

In this way, Black Panther is so much more than just a movie. It gets everything right in that it shows the flaws and complexities of Wakanda as much as it does the ideals of what it means to be a great nation. The pros and cons of nationhood vs globalization from a centralized African perspective is among one of its greatest strengths.

But a five-year old child may not see those themes right away. They just want to see a fun movie. They want to identify a good guy and a bad guy, a great hero, and a great foe. And if you’re a Black child and you see all of these things plus a great nation, a proud, beautiful and diverse Black people who are the wielders and developers of a futuristic, highly advanced technology, warriors, ritual, tradition a reverence to nature as a well as an inextricable tie in to Black life and culture in America and much more from a completely decolonized lens, you are seeing something which will have the potential to shape your self identity in ways we can only begin to imagine at this present time. It shouldn’t be a privilege or a special thing for a Black child to see these things in a movie. But it is. Because we are a powerful people. And we live in a world where that power is systematically ground out.

Shuri

No, I understand that tribal face paint or markings whether we understand their true meaning or not are about much more than what you or I can see. If I was apart of a tribe on the continent that participated in ritual face scarring what would matter is how the symbols identified me to others, both to those in my tribe and to outsiders. Colonizers turn all of that into commodity. And because of that, our minds often consume only the surface of our own origins.

No, what matters is that we as Black people all over the world see the ways in which we can exchange, share, maintain, reinterpret, support, inform and build with one another by utilizing the ways in which Diasporic people have always connected to what is most powerful about our Blackness.

I will be seeing this movie as many times as I can with as many Black people I love as I can. But that’s just a drop in the bucket, something that I can do with great joy and enthusiasm. It is the obstacles we struggle with and transcend in our evolution as human beings, which will help to get us farther in our minds and in our spirits as Black people. The actual work of dismantling colonized thinking starts there with that work. And a film like Black Panther is a watershed moment that grinds forward like a surgical strike with an idea for the future of Blackness which conceives a Black nation never touched by evil White ideologies yet still struggles with it’s own growing pains as ruler ships and traditions are questioned, challenged and overthrown.

Wakanda is no utopia. Where does the idea of utopia come from anyway? If we were in one, we certainly wouldn’t need the idea. And so it is with Wakanda. No Black person could have ever imagined such a place could exist nor need it to if not for nature of our grossly understated predicament in this country since being stolen from the continent in which all of humanity was conceived. Wakanda reaches out to us because we conceived of it and we conceive at our highest frequencies only that from which we emerge. Wakanda needs us as much we need Wakanda. We are all family and “nobody wins when the family feuds.”

#wakandaforever

Sean Carter Confessionals: Family Feud

Black Film, black girls, Black Lives, black pride, Black relationships, black women, blackness, culture, family, Feminine, Film, men, mother, Revolution, women, , , ,

The wretched of the earth do not decide to become extinct, they resolve, on the contrary, to multiply; life is their weapon against life, life is all that they have.

-James Baldwin

A man who don’t take care of his family can’t be rich. I watched Godfather, I missed that whole shit…

-Jay-Z

 

The year is 2444 The home is rich and lavish. The setting is coldness, anger and betrayal. Michael B. Jordan storms angrily into the bedroom of Thandie Newtown’s characteron a particularly “important day” loudly berating her capacity to be the head of a clearly powerful family only to find her in bed with a dude played by Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes. I notice immediately how pale Thandie, Michael B. Jordan and X are. The only colors you see are like pale blues and yellows. But the paleness of their skin tone makes me think of sickness, deficiency, greed heartlessness and death. Sure enough, before the scene is done, both men are killed, Mark by Trevante and then Trevante by Thandie’s character, Game of Thrones style, because she wants the family “Throne” for herself.

2444

Both Anthony and Trevante are both wearing clothing at the waist inspired by garb worn by men in ancient Khemit. Thandie wears a scant bandage outfit nearly identical to the one Milla Jojovich wore in the “The Fifth Element” a film set in a future that opens in an Egyptian temple and where the planet is under threat of total destruction if an essential element, which is embodied by a woman is not recovered.

Jay Z Family Feud screen grab Credit: Tidal

In the year 2148 an indigenous woman, Bird and Jacob played by Irene Bedard and Omari Hardwick are joint world leaders hailing from two great families. They respond to questions from a citizenry council about violent events that have lead to Jacob’s rise in power. Jacob recounts the legacy of his family and their struggle to uphold and maintain law and justice throughout generations. He talks about how one of his ancestors who played a major role as one of the founding mothers.

Founding Mothers

She was the primary architect of something called “The Confessional Papers” in 2050 and revised the constitution with a group of amazing women, played by Janet Mock, Neicy Nash, Mindy Khaling, Rosario Dawson and Rashida Jones just to name a few.

His ancestor, played by Susan Kelechi Watson in the year 2050 by is none other than Blue Ivy Carter.

Now we’re in Blue Ivy’s  narrational 2050 memory as she recalls her father’s words, “Nobody wins when the family feuds.”

Beyonce-family-feud

Cut to 2018 which is basically now, where there the musical narrative of the video for Jay Z’s “Family Feud” begins. Jay-Z walks a present day Blue Ivy to sit in a church pew and then walks the front to start rapping before Beyonce who Amens at him from the pulpit in royal Blue, looking like a sanctified and sexy ass Popestress. She also appears in a black mini dress and billowy white sleeves behind the screen of a confessional as Jay speaks to her from the other side. The metaphor is plain to see now. And there is still so much left to unpack. I want this to be movie or a television series!

Blu ivy FF

I’m still on the floor!

I don’t know about you but I’ve already watched this video about five times now. I know I will lose count of how many times I watch it again and of how many other pieces of symbolism I pick out of this brilliant work of art and revolution made explicitly for the culture. I also know that 4:44 is a fierce, proud and unapologetically Black call to action to each of us who are about that life if there ever was one and I couldn’t have asked for anything better to arrive as 2017 comes to an end and 2018 kicks the door and our asses in.

Here’s to a Black Ass, Woke Ass 2018!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What place freedom?

africa, afrika, black pride, black women, culture, embarassment, media, popular, shame, women, , , , , , , ,

What kind of world do I want my unborn daughter to grow up in? It’s a question I’m asking myself more and often lately. And it kind of scares me.

How do young Black girls come to love themselves if they ever do? I know way more about how they come to hate themselves and each other. Though I have never hated my skin color, I myself struggle all the time with the crippling tendency to identify my value with how I look each day, my weight, hair, make-up, clothes. It’s an ongoing process. In my searching and my studying about the power of the human heart and mind, I understand that these things are only transient, fleeting symbols in our lives. But when I’m in the thick of these illusions on a daily basis it’s a real challenge to remember that these images are not who I am at the core. It’s even harder not to always be angry, disappointed, cynical and even a little apathetic to the oppressive nature of racism and the ways in which it subtly and systematically pumps out the message that people who look like me are not as important, valuable, lovely, integral and human as those who identify as white.

And let me be clear. I don’t hate white people. Just by default of the nature of the way I was raised, (home schooled and vegan) I often have a lot more in common with some white people than most blacks until I don’t. But I’m still uncomfortably aware of the way racism and white privilege work to stereotype, demonize, dehumanize and destroy the character of people of color in ways that have not changed since slavery. I am a woman of color and as such I fall into a category which is largely stereotyped, marginalized, brutalized and undervalued to the end goal of mental, emotional economical and political obliteration. It is the evolution of slavery.

This weekend I was hanging out with six lovely ladies at the house of my good friend and academic mentor. We were eating this great chili that her daughter made and chatting about topics like the inhumanity of incarceration and the experiences of mixed race children and how they make their way in the world. Some time later in the evening I started talking about being a home schooled vegan who graduated from a charter high school. Incidentally her daughter also brought up her experience at something called the Afrika School. I asked her what that was and what emerged was this realization the both of us were raised by women who took us to institutions to educate us about African heritage outside of the system of Westernized indoctrination and education which leaves out completely the stories of African Culture pre Slavery time. We were both enrolled in African Dance, Art and drumming classes as well as holistic and alternative practices like meditation, chanting, smudging, vegetarianism, veganism, cleansing, crystal healing, altars prayer and a respect for feminine energy.

But we never talked to our peers about these experiences. And though we never put them down we also never shared them, revered them or boasted about them. That’s another thing we had in common. I think we both agreed that while we didn’t regret it, we also didn’t know how to fit what we had learned from these experiences into the world we existed in where the majority of young black women and men did not receive his kind of tutelage. And when you already feel strange, or odd, or different from people as a young person for whatever reasons, it’s rare that you make the decision to be your “self” not knowing who that is yet or to share stories which would potentially alienate you even further. In High School, fitting in is about being like everybody else. College is about “reinventing” yourself. It’s all a fucking marketing tool.

In any case we exchanged some of the hijinks of these experiences and had a few awkward laughs over them but agreed we were better off having had them rather than not at all and I told her that I would be interested in interviewing her about our shared experiences at some point. I think it’s important to have a space of comfort and pride with which young black women take part in self affirming practices. I feel bad that  as a young person I was not more out of the closet about my time at the Shrine of P’Tah learning about Imhotep, the pyramid architect or at the Fanny Lou Hamer institute learning more about Black Educators with a small group of young people whose parents had the same ideas my mom had. I might tell myself I wasn’t embarrassed about these experiences but if I wasn’t why would I choose to keep it to myself?

Two reasons.

1. Popular culture aka white identified systems of oppression,  never brought it up and young people respond to popular culture even if they live under a rock.

2. I was embarrassed to share things that were not discussed in popular culture.

I do hope that by the time my children get here, this is no longer the case. But in the meantime I have to do what I can to make up for all that I kept to myself by staying connected to those with like-minded ideals for the promotion of spiritual and historical education of young Black hearts and minds. And while I do that I have to confront and dismantle any residual shame or embarrassment that still exists in me over the possibility of not being accepted by popular culture or any majority.