Category Archives: Revolution

“If you like that, you’ll love this…”

Film, mass media, media, Revolution, ,

“Can’t Get You Out of My Head” grew out of Curtis’s response to the populist insurgencies of 2016. Curtis was struck by the fury of mainstream liberals and their simultaneous lack of a meaningful vision of the future that might counter the visceral appeal of nationalism and xenophobia. “Those who were against all that didn’t really seem to have an alternative,” he said. –Adam Curtis Explains it All

I’ve been watching this terrifying docu-series made by Adam Curtis lately and I’m always watching it late at night and it is terrifying but I can’t stop watching it. The most recent of his films that I just finished viewing is “HyperNomalisation.”

I feel like I’m learning something I’m not supposed to. Which is probably why I keep watching, because, like many people, I get off on defiance and anti-authoritarian behavior but according to Curtis, revolution and uprising may just be another long way back to the old models of power we have no alternative to. This seems to be what he is suggesting using uniquely disturbing editing devices and a deadpan voice over that at their most brutal simply state the truth about power and society that no one wants to know.

It’s a hard pill to swallow and yet the way Curtis strings together alarming connections using footage and rarely seen before rush cuts of violent political coos, wars and upheavals spliced with popular film and television clips and scoring them darkly and ironically with a range of songs that accent and emphasize the hard truth, it’s hard to press pause. And each of these videos, narrated by Curtis himself are about 2 hours or more long so that’s saying a lot for me. Raoul Peck used a very similar editing device of disillusionment using jarring visual juxtapositions in his film “I Am Not Your Negro” which I’ve watched multiple times and highly recommend.

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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 Revolution Looks Like

Revolution,

“I cannot know who am if you do not know who you are.

Will you help me know?”

–A Huey P. Newton Story

I was chatting with my good friend over at Life As I Know it this past weekend during that insane downpour in NYC which is still going on now and I mentioned some issues I experience when I’m blogging here with regard to my own identity. In this new world, we write and record things for public consumption which often sit in the draft position forever and never get seen. For whatever reasons, we doubt ourselves, have fears about what others will think, have trouble connecting to our authentic selves and back down into the seeming safety of silence where we serve no one, not even ourselves.

It was in one of these unseen drafts that I said I am not a revolutionary even if I do and say revolutionary things. But I call bullshit on myself because I think that’s a cop-out. I just have a hard time taking responsibility for the enlightenment of others because it means I am responsible. And that’s just it. I AM! We all are. Otherwise, what is the point of this life we’ve been given?

Brown Girls Blythe
Three Black Blythes

In 2008 I became obsessed with a collectors doll called Blythe. Shortly after purchasing my own first Blythe Doll I began to see Black versions of her which I could not find for sale. When I discovered that collectors were painting their white dolls Black, I inquired online with collectors and customizers and learned everything I needed to know in order to make one myself. In doing so I created a doll that was one of a kind, and the first of several. It was an incredible feeling. The politics of color with regard to doll manufacturing is crazy. “Skin Trade” by Ann DuCille helped to to understand a bit about that world and how it affects young girls of color.

Reconstructing a pattern of oppression so that it reflects images that you seek and are familiar with in a world that is dominated by ideals from the dominant culture is nothing if not revolutionary.Through doing so in this regard, I have connected with some incredibly creative women who do revolutionary things within this hobby which I am endlessly inspired by. Photographers, crafters, diminutive seamstresses and much more.

My mom was revolutionary when she replaced white baby Jesus with a Black one in the elaborate nativity scene she would put under our Christmas tree each year and when she designed ornaments that represented the animal hierarchy in the mythological Tree of Life connecting Heaven to the Underworld.

Like the history of people of color, revolution has never had only one face, one name, one story, one movement. And that has never been so obvious as it is now with the internet and social media being used to promote the work and voices of innovators, entrepreneurs, educators artists and activists alike. We all have the opportunity to revolt against injustice in our own way.

For myself, I will work hard on not letting my own rigid ideas of what it means to be revolutionary keep me from sharing my own unique voice with others. Because you can never know how revolutionary you are if you keep your light hidden out of fear.