Afrofuturism and blackness in review

Y'all should check out this art review from New York Times. As side from being an art review, it discusses the role afrofuturism has played on black identity.

It begins with a profile of Sun Ra who, "gave African-American identity a new, loose, utopian way to go. And he inspired an interdisciplinary cultural movement called Afrofuturism, which is the subject of a fabulous exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem".

It claims, "Afrofuturism lets artists retain race and its undismissable history as a subject, but encourages them to mess with it, go wild: dissect it, customize it, flaunt it, move beyond it, and do any and all of that in high visual style."

Cosplay is about the Costume not the Flesh

People of color cosplay at fan conventions. It’s no secret. Unfortunately it doesn’t take a detective or diversity officer to see that they get flack for cosplaying “white” characters without painting their faces, white face. It doesn’t end there. White folk get flack for not getting the eyes on Asian character’s right. Others get flack because their body type doesn’t match the characters. And Other's still get flack for doing brown face or black face.

Don't get discouraged. Praise is abundant for even the most controversial cosplay. There is a lot of love dishing and flack hashing at these conventions. Maybe we can minimalize the latter.

Earlier I posted about actors of color playing typically white characters. Well the cosplay thing is completely different, because the function of the activity is different.It is an act of liberation, of relief from the constraints of a world that is not as free as our imaginations. Cosplay is the art of displaying a costume. Donning another identity for a moment. Playing by the rules of another world.
But its only a partial escape. The real world still matters. Norms still matter. People can feel offended.

Skin color is not a factor in costume play when it’s a human. unless its an alien or an orc skin color shouldn’t mater. Otherwise painting your face black, brown, or white is offensive. You can thank Minstrel Shows for that. Neither should eyes or body. The point of cosplay is manipulating costume materials not flesh.

So if we just focus on the costume and the act, and leave out the flesh as factors of good cosplay then we get rid of a major source of flack. Right?

 

 

 

Octavia's Message to the Grassroots

Octaiva Butler's novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are thick with messages, lessons, and commentary geared toward the contemporary audience. Many of those still apply.

These novels center around the life and actions of the founder of the Earth Seed movement in a post-apocalyptic America. Danger, uncertainty, and harsh living conditions are constant. Still the grass roots movement that the protagonist organizes survives disaster, thrives, survives disaster again, disappears, revives, and thrives again. Maybe these messages will help out you struggling grassroots organizers.

Here are some lessons from the Earth Seed doctrine:

• Change is god, god is change. Change is a virtue. Change is the way to survive.
• Manage the size of community
• Share and accept but don’t impose
• The past is an abyss that seduces with nostalgia and devours
• Knowledge is survival, shared knowledge is power
• Communication  is king
• When the opposition threatens to destroy your group its okay to dismantle and hide. When the storm clears you can start anew.
• Dystopia and utopia are inseparable
• Empathy is a burden as much as it is a gift. It is unreliable as a unifying factor.
• Self-interest is the greatest organizing force
• There is no perfect solution, just workable ones.

These are great novels. check them out for yourself.

Blerd Definitions

A blerd can be defined as:

• A nerd who is of African American decent. A BLack-nERD.
• A combination of the words 'Black' and 'Nerd'. In essence a black nerd.
•  A nerd that expresses blackness in their nerd activities

What are the implications of these definitions?

 The first one makes heritage the major gateway into this identity.It implies that the behaviors of black nerds are closely linked to their heritage. It reminds me of the theories of a radical Black psychologist named Kambon. He theorized that people of African decent share an African worldview and a set of afro-centric behaviors. He claimed that the genetic characteristic that allows African decedents to share this collective African consciousness is Melanin. Melanin in the skin, spine and brain. Its all there in is text The African Personality In America: An African-Centered Framework.

The second definition is a parsing of the title. It also claims that blerd is an essence. Like the first its an essentialist definition. It implies also that one is black, but does not imply that blackness can be performed. It implies that one is nerd. This definition neglects the possibility of invisible and silent blackness, a private blackness, or an individual blackness. The same goes for nerdness. Both seem clearly visible

The third definition is based in the style employed during activities. Unlike the other three definitions it makes a distintion between nerdom and blerdom. Blerdom is a nerdom where blackness is performed. It Implies that blackness must be performed. Lastly it implies the use of “blackness” implies multiple shades of black. There are many different ways to define a blerd. Some are more exclusive then others but each one draws the line somewhere.

Got a Bad Vibe from this Comic

I checked out Vibe, a webcomic, today with high hopes. I heard that its protagonist was voodoo priest and the art gave the loas a modern feel. I was disappointed to fins that despite the modern feel it was still a reduction and misappropriation of voodoo practices.

As a comic it works. the characters have personality. the art is brilliant and gives the setting its own personality. The story clings to certain genre conventions but its still good. Here Alain Locke would remind us, "art for art-sake".

As a representation of voodoo, Haitian or otherwise it doesn't work. The protagonist calls himself by the primitivist term, "witch doctor", instead of a hougan or priest. The roles of the loas are reduced. It claims Ogun is the loa of magma but does not mention that he is also loa of the forge, war, and technology. It claims Agua (Agwe) is the loa of storks, but neglects that he is the loa of the sea, ships, and luck. The comic also makes no distinction between the rada or petro. I feel like Zora Neal Hurston would cringe.

The lore and practice of voodoo has many aspects that take years to learn and are the subject of think textbooks. Its still a young comic. Let's see where it goes...

The Horror of American Horror Story's Third Season

Something is messed up about American Horror Story's Third Season. Its not the primitivism, sexism, incest, or even the disrespectful use of grotesque images of slavery simply to entertain its audience that I'm talking about.

What's messed up is the way American Horror story rewrites the history of marvelous real, aka magical,  traditions in America. The show claims that magic started in Africa and was given to the whites during the incidents in Salem when Tituba a slave from Barbados taught the children of Salem magic. So they didn't just neglect, they erased the influence of American Indian traditions, Latin American traditions, European traditions, and  Asian traditions of the marvelous real.

That's like erasing the fact that the fire magic in Dark Souls comes from the Great Swamp or saying Luke Sky Walker discovered the force on his own without having a legacy of Jedi behind his training.

On one hand, The magical lore and the conflict signifies white fears of their loss of power in America and the realization that their power had always been limited.

On the other hand, It’s also a recognition  of the role that blacks played in the construction of this nation.

Watch the show with this in mind and you will see what I mean.

Liberty and Death: Revolution of the Dead

Halloween is a scared time in which we respect the dead by watching them feast on the living. During my zombie movie marathon two films stood out to me. Land of the Dead and Warm Bodies. In both films the zombies were humanized. In each film the majority, the dead, was harassed and oppressed by the minority that hid behind walls and towers. In each film a revolution occurs to liberate the masses.

 

In Land of the Dead the revolution is violent. ·         A zombie leader wearing the uniform of a working class man teaches his fellow zombies how to use the tools of their oppressors to invade the fancy towering symbol of exploitive capitalism. ·         They succeed but only in occupying on settlement and gaining the respect of the middle class. The middle class moves to the top of the power chain. ·         They violently impose assimilation on the population. Those that don’t want to be assimilated, aka zombified, must flee. ·         In the end society remains segregated between the living and the dead. ·         If Touisant d’Oveture were a zombie this would have been the revolution he sought.

In Warm Bodies the revolution is non-violent. ·         A curious zombie falls in love with a living girl. Their love becomes an infectious example for other zombies that haven’t gone mad from hunger. ·         This non-violent revolution is only non-violent between two parties: the humans and the sane zombies. The third party, the depraved zombies, is deemed too extreme and militant. Thus it is dealt with violently. ·         The societies are bond by love and soon integrate and eventually undergo transculturation. ·         If James Baldwin were a zombie this is how he would have sought his liberation.

Both revolutions are successful by their own terms. However, the imagery in Land of the Dead is far more indicative of the intersectionality of oppression. It uses working class uniforms to signify economic oppression. The way the camera tends to linger on the front female zombie in the soft ball uniform signifies gender based oppression while stereotypes about soft ball players are relied on to hint at heterosexism. It’s no accident that a man that looks like an angry black buck leads the zombie revolution. These stereotypes are used for understanding not from laziness.

Warm Bodies however avoids the intersectionality off oppression and instead plays out an ancient vs modern dichotomy. It claims that humanity and the rights that go with it are not determined by a pulse or the circulation in your skin, but in the capacity to love other humans. Thus it relies on the assumption that society is beyond its “–isms” and that all humans are treated equally.

Both are good movies. Their differences begin and end with their genres. Land of the Dead is a drama while Warm Bodies is a romance.

Find The Abandon

Aliens and stimulating dialogue. All y’all that haven’t seen this treasure yet I suggest trying it out. The Abandon is an independent web series that begins with four black male friends on camping trip in the woods. All is going rocky until aliens come and start snatching people.

In the summer of 2012 five men go on an annual hiking trip. However, things change drastically when they receive news of a global alien invasion.  
The Abandon follows a group of friends who must navigate and survive a global alien invasion that has changed the world forever. They have two choices:  focus on their individual survival or secure the longevity of the human race.

 

The special effects are what you’d expect, but has the most fully developed cast of black character’s I’ve seen in a long time. Its shame that the producer felt that he had to go indie with this diamond. It shows different ways of dealing with internal, external, and interpersonal adversity.

On Casting the Human Torch

Rumor has it that Micheal B. Jordan will be cast as the Human Torch in the newest incarnation of the Fantastic Four on the big screen.

These rumors got some folks saying, "WTF, The Human Torch and his sister Mrs. Fantastic are always white. What happened to staying true to the comic?". That concern and outrage is legitimate, if its rooted in the recognition that even Marvel universe black folk and white folk have different lived experiences. The Human Torch is character that was created with blackness (what that means) in mind. He was created with American whiteness in mind. In the comic books and the previous movies he does not demonstrate a double consciousness until he gains powers. He is a character shaped by his privileges, not disadvantages. those privileges would be lessened if he were black. You can't just switch out races of the character like that without rewriting the character. Other wise that character in its new racial skin will signify complete assimilation, and thus a disregard for the benefits provided by marginalized cultures. I'm not talking about the symbolic benefits like dance and food and style. I'm talking about the deep benefits, the ontology, wisdom born of experience. The Human Torch has never been harassed for Shopping While Black , or tokenized, or felt fear when he passed a confederate flag on country road in Alabama or felt like James Baldwin was writing to him in The Fire Next Time, etc. If respect is give to the black experience in America then the Human Torch in this upcoming Fantastic Four Movie will not be true to the comic books if the actor is black.		These rumors got others being like, "alright cool, finally another black superhero on the screen. we need more images like that to empower black males". Every now and then our fictional heroes must be revisited, revised and updated to fit the needs of the audience. The veil of nerdom was lifted long ago. the illusion that superheroes were a white male thing is dispelled. The consumers demand to see themselves in every aspect of the production and every format of the product. Its time that demand is met with more than just scrapes. time to go mainstream y'all. It's not just about exposure or inclusion. Its also about diversity of image. Given the background of the character a black human torch would provide image of a black male middle class individual with power. Not just power but equal power, because he is part of team and not side kick like Daigle in Arrow. As much as loved the black superheroes in movies that lived on the economic fringes of society like Blade and Steele, we need more than that. Even if a black Human Torch is not write to reflect a "black experience" its still a much needed image of empowerment, because it would show young black men that they do not need to be defined by what other's expect of their skin color.

Whether the rumors are true or not the fact remains that we need more black superheroes and heroines to be displayed beyond the pages of comics. They need to be as accessible to folk as the white superheroes. The best way to do that is to bring black heroes that were originally black to the big screen like the long anticipated Black Panther .