This is just a taste of more to come!

This week we looked at two foundational texts of museum representations of Africa written by, Susan Vogel and Arthur Danto. While their arguments and perspective are important to positioning ourselves in questioning the museum’s intentions in displaying Blackness; particularly Africa. Whereas in the Wilson and Geismar readings we look ahead to the future. For all texts we believe it is important to analyze the ideas as much as the word choice each author chose to articulate those discussions. It is found in the way these articles are formatted, but also a way for us to begin thinking about the way we plan on describing the objects and curate our story through the labels found in the exhibition.

This week I wanted to focus on the ways I use the media, which I will use to describe music, television and art, to give myself a break from the conversations we havein class and life. Not to say that the media I surround myself with doesnt work under the themes of race and navigating one's existence, but there is an immersive component to consuming art that doesnt happen in the classroom. In the classroom I can listen to the same conversation around theory, but never get down from the meta discusssion to reflect on the impact it has on our current relationships. The media I surround myself with gives my mind the break it needs to think outside of textbook theory and process in the "real world".

I'm thinking about social media. 

I guess all media can, to some extent, be tailored to what we want to see, but social media especially can create an isolated, insulated sphere of informaton and vew points. Even the ads are matched to our Google searches and 'liked' pages. You hear about the same films, the same people, and often the same politics. 

The earliest example of blackness that I can recall were watchng re-runs of 90's sitcoms. Shows like, A Different World, Living Single, 227, The Cosby Show ( despite recent issues the show dipcited a lifestyle I wanted to strive for.) These shows were well rounded tackling issues from the normal break-up to date rape and even dyslexia. It seems worlds away thinking about how the depeciation of black lives and black love has changed. I began watching these shows at about 8 or 9, after not being allowed to watch tv or listen to the radio. This along with motown and history books were my introduction race in a secular/popular sense, media. Even now I can recall episodes like the back of hand and the lessons learned remain with me, forever.

i've been on twitter for a long time. i've gone through a lot of phases. i wrote poetry about boys who kissed me in beach houses and the backs of cars. i preached feminism 101 when those boys didn't text me back. i learned that the feminism white women promoted didn't work for me and that demanding cunnilingus wasn't going to save me (or anybody). i made valuable connections with other black teens who were thinking about the stuff i was. twitter is where i first became publicly political; it handed me feminism and helped me to learn it, engage in conversation about it, and develop my own ideas about what it was and what it should be. 

Solange is a singer, actress, businesswoman, speaker of truth, my hero, and honestly my definition of a care free black girl. Recently, she wrote an essay about an experience she had at a concert, that she attended with her son and husband. As she was dancing and singing along to the music, a woman behind her began to yell out at her and through trash on her. You can read the essay here, it's beautifully written. http://saintheron.com/featured/and-do-you-belong-i-do/ 

The last few lines stood out to me the most. They read:

We belong. We belong. We belong. 

We built this.