In an effort to bring diverse Black voices together to create space for healing intra-racial anti-Black trauma, and inspire Black intimacy, we’ve invited our favorite young scholars, thinkers and changemakers to a dialogue on Bridging the Gap: Healing Intra-Relations Between Africans, Black Americans, Black Caribbean and all Black people.
Referencing personal experience, as well as critical studies in popular culture and academia, our panel will begin to address the trauma of intra-racial friction/anti-Blackness, and to define what Black unity can look like in this era of structural upheaval and Black restoration.
As our Town Halls will take place monthly to start, we intend to continue this conversation with subsequent dialogues (up to three on the Town Hall Saturdays), on our social media, and in our digital community. Our guests and speakers would love to hear from you! What do you think are the most important tools for inspiring Black unity and Black intimacy? How do we begin to heal the trauma that has kept us from truly accepting and embracing each other, regardless of ethnicity?
Our guests, Demar Lewis, Jean-Louis Reneson, Lanice Williams, Uzomaka Obiocha, and Ifeanyi Okafor will be using the following reference points to begin the dialogue. Join us by watching live and voicing your opinion in the comments! If you’d like to join in for the live dialogue on future sessions, please let us know via editor@noirpress.org.
Beyonce’s Black is King is Stirring up controversy
Some of the divisive commentary related to Black is King is similar to those of the Black Panther film. A depiction of Africa as a monolithic Continent and culture reinforces stereotypes that the African storytellers and creatives have been trying to deconstruct.
“Jade Bentil, a Black feminist historian and PhD researcher at the University of Oxford, commented in a tweet: “The repeated tropes/symbolic gestures that homogenise & essentialise thousands of African cultures in service of securing the terrain for Black capitalist possibilities & futures is tired.”
Beyonce comes in as a mainstream voice that “all” would listen to, and she herself stated on Instagram that she “wanted to present elements of Black history and African tradition, with a modern twist and a universal message.”
However, is Africa and Africanness universal?
Is it Beyonce’s place to supposedly bring this unifying vision?
Cynthia Erivo On Controversy In Playing Harriet Tubman: ‘I Was Naive’
Cynthia Erivo dealt with major backlash for being casted to play the American abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman in the biographic film Harriet. Twitter debates questioned the choice of a Nigerian-British actress to portray an Black American icon.
During an interview with BET, Erivo said: “At first I was naive, because I didn’t know that it would be a huge problem for me to play this woman, because I had come from playing African American women onstage.”
What criteria should be used for casting in roles of such significant to specific Black communities?
Black Panther’ offers a regressive, neocolonial vision of Africa
Black Panther is, by far, one of the contemporary films that has created a breadth of conversations within the Black community. It has also created polarized camps. Some celebrated it as an afrofuturistic depiction of the continent, and an opportunity for the Black Diaspora to return Home. Others suggested it reinforced negative messages of a “problematic” Africa to the world.
In an interview to Time Magazine, Chadwick Boseman presents a similar view: “You might say that this African nation is fantasy,” says Boseman, who portrays T’Challa in the movie. “But to have the opportunity to pull from real ideas, real places and real African concepts, and put it inside of this idea of Wakanda—that’s a great opportunity to develop a sense of what that identity is, especially when you’re disconnected from it.”
Another camp claims that the film exists within a Western mold, and echoes ideas and ideals of colonial minsets. According to Patrick Gathara, Kenyan writer and Washington Post contributor, “(…) the movie is little more than a marvel of marketing. Far from offering a “redemptive counter-mythology,” as Jelani Cobb writes in the New Yorker, the movie trots out many of the same destructive myths about Africans that circulate the globe. At heart, it is a movie about a divided, tribalized continent, discovered by a white man who wants nothing more than to take its mineral resources, a continent run by a wealthy, power-hungry, feuding and feudalist elite, where a nation with the most advanced tech and weapons in the world nonetheless has no thinkers to develop systems of transitioning rulership that do not involve lethal combat or coup d’etat.”
What are your thoughts on Black Panther?
How did you experience the film?
Black access to higher education is a topic of prominence around the world. Many top-notch educational institutions are located in the United States, and for this reason attract talent from abroad as well. Representation matters, and colleges and universities work with their admissions offices to have Black students on campus. However, where are those Black students from?
In this paper, Massey et al, share an insightful perspective: “The overrepresentation of immigrants was higher in private than in public institutions and within more selective rather than less selective schools. We found few differences in the social origins of black students from immigrant and native backgrounds. The fact that most indicators of socioeconomic status, social preparation, psychological readiness, and academic preparation are identical for immigrants and natives suggests that immigrant origins per se are not favored in the admissions process but that children from immigrant families exhibit traits and characteristics valued by admissions committees.”
Are Black immigrants filling the “Black quotas” in American higher education institutions?
Should affirmative actions prioritize Black Americans over foreigners because of the historical challenges for the former to access colleges and universities in their country of origin?
Belgian authorities investigate police ‘kneeling’ death
In late July, Belgian police said that a 29-year-old man of Algerian origin, later identified as Akram, was arrested outside a café in Antwerp after allegedly trying to attack people.
According to BBC, “his death drew parallels with the case of George Floyd, who died in May after a police officer knelt on his neck during his arrest in the US.”
Twitter debates around colorism and the hijacking of Black suffering and experiences. Additionally, “calls for action” were shared since the hashtags #justiceforAkram and #JusticepourKram were not trending like George Floyd’s.
When issues such as police brutality affect various groups – including non-Black groups, is it fair to compare those experiences to the systemic harassment that Blacks receive from authorities globally?
John Boyega’s Black Lives Matter Speech
John Boyega is a British-Nigerian actor and producer, known for multiple works, including the Star Wars saga. However, in June 2020, his appearance at Hyde Park in London, was raw and moving. Wearing a black hoodie, he spoke from his heart and soul about what it means to exist in a Black body.
“Black people, I love you. I appreciate you. Today is an important day. We’re fighting for our rights. We’re fighting for our ability to live in freedom. We’re fighting for our ability to achieve,” Boyega said. “Let’s show our brothers and sisters around the world that we have their back.”
What is the role and responsibility of artists, entrepreneurs, and other prominent Black people in speaking up against global racial injustice?
We look forward to a rich and meaningful conversation about Global Blackness.
Join us on Saturday, August 1, at 10am EST on Youtube!