Complete with transvestite love interest, this 1,500 strong production of Thriller by the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu, Philippines proves Jacko is still the king of pop.
Technorati Tags: Thriller - Michael Jackson - prison
Two different takes on the highlights of 2006...
from Miguel Cuevas:
from The Electronic Intifada:
The Brooklyn-based group Nation Beat combines two of the richest cultural syntheses of the Western hemisphere in their album Maracatuniversal. Fusing funky New Orleans second line brass with the rhythms of mangue music from Recife, Brazil, Nation Beat connects two of the more substantive variations of the New World's African/Latin (Yoruba/Catholic) amalgam. Some call it syncretism others call it transculturation. Socio-economics and politics aside, I just call it booty-shakin' fun!
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Technorati Tags: Nation Beat - mangue movement - second line - New Orleans - Recife Brazil
Late morning on Monday I boarded Amtrak, and left New Orleans for Lafayette, Louisiana. My day job sent me there for a two-day, in-the-field training session with a colleague. Little did I know that this small town would be such a wonderful gem!
We stayed at a quaint little bed n' breakfast called the Blue Moon Saloon. The early morning banging and fire alarm drill are but a small blip in my memory now, as I recall how the funky ambiance and charming French boarders from University of Virginia entertained my work buddy and me over wine our last night there.
Best of all were the wonderful crew of public radio station KRVS 88.7 who showed us their town, introduced us to the cultural movers and shakers of the community, and treated us to the best business lunch on record.
Although not quite the same as New Orleans, Lafayette certainly has its share of beautiful Francophone architecture, as well as gorgeously landscaped parks and public grounds. University of Louisiana Lafayette's Cypress Swamp, with alligators and all, was particularly pretty even if we didn't get to see any of its reptilian inhabitants.
At our station meeting I met folk musician D'Jalma Garnier, and the host of Zydeco Est Pas Salé John Broussard. These two Creoles were the essence of Francophone Louisiana culture - recounting the area's history and its elders, describing the cuisine and its authentic purveyors, and rolling both French and Creole with ease off the tongue. What the hell does Alan Richman know anywho?
The piece de resistance was Executive Chef Terryl Jackson's culinary masterpiece at Prejean's Restaurant. He came out to greet us and the station staff as we sampled his delectable selection of Cajun cuisine. Blackened redfish smothered with crawfish étouffée, dirty rice, eggplant and okra gumbo, seafood fried catfish, stuffed mushrooms, pecan pie - the list went on and on and no matter how much coffee I drank after it all I was still overcome with the "itis." I thanked Terryl and his mama for teaching him how to cook like that, and rolled out of my chair and out the door.
I must admit the most enjoyable part was the overall feeling of Lafayette. Sure it's small town living, but the cultural traditions are so rich and so much a daily part of life for the people living there that it's a far more sophisticated existence in many ways than living in New York City. I will have to come back to this place again, and explore this interesting dichotomy more. Maybe in late April?
Technorati Tags: Lafayette Louisiana - KRVS 88.7 - Blue Moon Saloon - Prejean's Restaurant - zydeco - Creole - Acadian - Cajun
At the crack of dawn this Friday past, I headed down to New Orleans to Desire Street where my better half lives in a funky little neighborhood called the Bywater. Dr. Bob, Christopher Porché West and the Flavor League are some of the better known artists who, along with Second Line Clothing, have taken up residence in this old Creole neighborhood.
We've been painting the town in his decked out limo, which he has been adorning with Mardi Gras beads for something like six years now. The infamous Mardi Gras car is stopped regularly by onlookers who want photos, like Bass Goddess Greta from whose site I took this shot pictured above. Vblogger Miss B Havens also included a couple of good pics in her flickr Mardi Gras 2006 photoset.
One might think that riding around in a car like this would make the passenger a magnet for some unorthodox adventures, and they'd be right! Over the last three days I crashed a film crew Christmas party where I met a midget double for Brad Pitt, I was smoked out by a couple of community housing activists and tricked into eating alligator at a New Orleans staple, and I danced with a group of trannies in a second line down St. Claude Avenue. Only in New Orleans!
Technorati Tags: New Orleans - Bywater - Bywater Art Market - Jacqueimo's - second line parade - Creole
On Friday, December 15, Shrine for the Black Madonna returns to the concert stage for the first time in eight months. The gig is at Southpaw in Park Slope Brooklyn, and it's part of the American Underground Concert Series - meaning a full night of hip new music. Admission is $8. Come prepared for moving, grooving, and maximum lift-off.
American Underground #5:
Friday, December 15 @Southpaw8pm: DJ SPIRITHOOD of the Dustbin Brothers.
9pm: SANKOFA
10pm: FAITH
11pm: SHRINE FOR THE BLACK MADONNA
12mid: IFWHEN
Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue (between Sterling + St. John's)
Park Slope, Brooklyn 11217
718-230-0236
2/3 to Bergen Street
4/5, Q or W to Atlantic Avenue
M or N/R to Union Street
Found this NYOIL video on the blog Postgradute Musings. Apparently it was banned from YouTUBE in less than 48 hours. One might be inclined to reject the language and the approach, but isn't it about time more of us start having this conversation?
yall should all get lynched
They say falling in love changes your life. However, I never expected it to change the world. A little over a year ago I met and fell madly in love with a New Orleans Creole. A near replica of my late mother in looks, he charmed me completely with his genteel manner, fun-loving spirit and dedication to Creole culture.
As he and his family began to accept me into the fold and share their traditions with me, I began to examine my own history – and lack thereof. What was so different about these people? Other French Creole friends of mine, New Orleanian and Haitian, also shared family bonds and traditions that were far more cohesive than my own. I suspected that it had something to do with the French connection and set out to find just what that thing was.
Frankly this connection didn’t surprise me so much, as France has enjoyed a kind of favored nation status within the African American arts community for its acceptance of our greatest artists when our own country did not. But the link between the French and Africans here in our own country I think is less well known.
One upside of Hurricane Katrina, if there could be one, was the reintroduction into the American mainstream of New Orleans’ unique centuries old tradition of race mixing. The inference of course is that plenty of miscegenation had been goin’ on, and not just of the white master raping the black slave variety that lurks unresolved in the imaginations of contemporary Americans, both black and white.
Creoles are a special bunch because they are heirs to an atypically enlightened view of interracial relationship that was squelched by the Louisiana Purchase and did not have a resurgence until after the Civil Rights Movement. If the French and the Africans could love each other under those circumstances, then maintaining familial unity over petty internecine rivalries must be a no brainer for their offspring.
I was about to leave it at that when I learned that the Spanish controlled Louisiana for a period of 40 years (1763 - 1803) before ceding it back to the French - who then sold it to the Brits (Americans) a year later in the Louisiana Purchase. Interestingly enough it was actually under Spanish rule that the gens de couleur libre grew from 3% to 20% of the total population of New Orleans. Turns out the French weren’t so damned special after all!
Why didn’t I remember any of this stuff from my US history classes? Intrigued, I decided that I would need to dig deeper. Maybe Virginia, where my family hails from, had more complex race relations during its pre Civil War period, too.
These series of posts are dedicated to the ‘finest woman in East Elmhurst’ of her day, my mother Kathlean Elizabeth Barnes. I am bold because she could not be.
Technorati Tags: New Orleans - Creoles - Hurricane Katrina - France - miscegenation - Haiti
For 8 years now I've been watching black NYC's under 40 set slide into a pathetic display of unoriginal groovin'. You know what I'm talking about...the part grind, part wave-your-hands-in-the-air, part two step? Sure our folks have still got rhythm, but they don't know what the hell to do with it anymore except to simulate sex on the dancefloor.
We used to be free, letting our bodies be conduits for sensuous rhythms and beats. There was a time when black folks used to get down! Sure sexuality was always a part of our movement, but nowadays seems like all we want to do is profile. A jiggle here, a little ass in the air there, and voilá a video ho is born.
I recognized this as a serious problem when I was out dancing several weeks ago at a local gay club and there was no deep house, no disco, no R&B even. There were no fabulous queens tearing up the floor. Almost all the boys were thugged out, "dancing" to the only music playing: hip hop. What is the world coming to when fags don't even break a sweat anymore?
My worst experience to date, however, had to be at a barbecue I attended over this past July 4 holiday weekend. Things started out well enough with an early evening music mix of classic R&B and disco jams. Sure we'd heard them all god knows how many times before, but the sounds of Chaka, Yarborough & Peoples and Teena Marie can and do always get a Brooklyn party started.
As darkness fell and the crowd began to really feel the liquor, the atmosphere changed. A group of husky Latinas headed toward the dance floor. Feeling those several Kettle One and tonics I myself had imbibed, I was right behind them. Just then the DJ changed up the flow and put on some popular hip hop songs. The wind came right out of my sails as I watched the women light up with glee. With absolutely no shame in their game they proceeded to switch and tick in front of the entire group of men, women and (young) children at the barbecue. Oh not THIS again! Girl don't you know that all that long hair does not make you Shakira?!!!
The lascivious glares of the party's intoxicated men quickly curdled the vodka in my belly. Sure I had dealt with a meat market before, but this time it was different. Two young black girls grinded among the portly women on the floor. Our table watched the men watching these little girls move, and the implications were disturbing. I finally got up from my chair and approached the two pre-teens.
"Girls, how old are you?" I asked.
"Thirteeen," replied one who was engrossed in a handheld videogame. The other piped up, "twelve." Jesus these girls were young! Where the hell were their mothers? Weren't they peepin' how these nasty men were checking out their adolescent daughters' moves?
"Well ladies," I continued, "I think you are really great dancers, but you should be careful about the kind of attention you could be attracting with those sexy moves." The girl with the handheld pretended to ignore me as she took in my admonition, while the other focused intently. "I just want you two to be careful. Take it from me...I have been in situations before where I aroused interest from people I did not want to be interested. Although you may think you want it, you really don't want that kind of attention just yet. Leave that to the grown folks. Y'know what I'm sayin?"
"You mean grown folks like you?" asked the 12 year-old. The vidiot turned up from her handheld to catch my response.
"Well, I may be grown but I still don't want that kind of attention," I gestured over to three drunken men sitting along the edge of the dance area. I turned back to eye the pair's response and they nodded in agreement with me. Satisfied that I had made my point, I retreated back to my seat. The two young girls continued to dance - albeit in a more age appropriate manner. Finally the 12 year-old scampered off the floor. I felt relieved. Just then the vidiot wrapped her arms around one of the most egregious offenders on the floor.
"Hey mama, are we going home soon?" she asked the woman.
"In a little while baby," she replied, "I'm still getting my groove on!"
My friend leaned in close to me and said, "and now you know why them girls are like that, huh?" I turned to look at her and she shook her head in disapproval. "There ain't nothin you can do about it when her own mother's like that." I turned back to catch the young vidiot switchin and tickin right along side her mother, as a tall, boozy brotha sandwiched between them.
Technorati Tags: Soul Train - Brooklyn - R&B
The atmosphere was merry as I walked along 7th Ave yesterday with my brother who was back from Indiana for the summer. Now a vegan and unable to chow down on the customary college kid cuisine (burger n’ fries, pizza, et al), he required more humane, meatless fare. So we chose Gobo, a vegetarian joint right smack in the middle of all the gay festivities.
We left the serene confines of the West Village restaurant for the raucous street atmosphere, and immediately I was annoyed. This was not at all like me as I normally enjoy a good party. In fact, six years earlier I had marched in PrideFest 2000 along side the God’s Love We Deliver float. My sister had been volunteering for the AIDS relief organization and I gladly joined in, pleased that I could simultaneously let loose and support a worth while organization’s efforts.
But this year’s queens were getting on my damned nerves. Ironic as it may be, they just seemed so contrived. Was I getting fag fatigue? Or worse still, becoming a republican?!!! No, no my progressive credentials were still intact. Something else was amiss. It was the fags themselves that were wrong.
All that gender-bended sashaying may once upon a time have been a revolutionary challenge to mainstream sexuality and gender roles. But when straight men willingly allow five men’s queer eyes to give them the once over on cable TV, when a primetime sitcom about a gay-straight couple who shack up and play married tops the ratings year after year, and when those three annoying little words “you go girl” refuse to evaporate from the national lexicon, you know that gay culture is in no fear of disappearing.
Co-opted by the corporate powers-that-be for mainstream consumption, gayness has been thoroughly diluted and is loosing its edge. The empire has struck back folks and unlike Luke, many of those gay boys are joining their fathers. Plagued by the same bugaboos of the 60s feminist movement, racism and classism, the gay rights movement fell prey to the Faustian bargain of mainstream acceptance: a place at the table in exchange for adopting the values of America’s patriarchal, supremacist majority.
Mainstreamed gay culture is extremely elitist and subtly racist. The popularity of the show Will & Grace can no doubt be attributed to their fantastic Manhattan living. Could you imagine TV viewers being as interested in Billy Bob & Grace, the story of a closeted middle American high school drop out who shacks up with his pregnant teenaged friend as cover for his “alternative” lifestyle? And how about the “Fab Five”? African Americans have consistently been at the forefront of cutting edged fashion in the US. Yet, how is it possible to have five gay male leads on a show about fashion tips and not one be black? The coding is all there – to be gay and fabulous one must not be black, or poor (hell not even middle class!). So much for that famed Stonewall "rebellion” against the powers-that-be.
And the propaganda is clearly working, as evidenced in the instructive documentary Flag Wars about the gay-driven gentrification of the working class black community of Columbus, Ohio. In one memorable scene a wealthy white realtor, Nina Masseria, rails on camera in a drunken fit about the local blacks’ unworthiness to own property. In real life, it appears that this dike’s racism isn’t so subtle (Oh Oscar Wilde, you genius you). This same situation has replicated itself in other formally black neighborhoods like Boston’s South End, where now in an ironic twist gays are being priced out by even more upwardly mobile (mostly white) breeders. Faustian bargain, indeed.
In short, gays have ARRIVED and all the tactics they put into place to get themselves here now seem unnecessary, passé even. We know you’re here, and we’ve gotten used to it. Now what?
Technorati Tags: gay pride parade - gay culture - Queer Eye for the Straight Guy - Will & Grace - Flag Wars
What: RISE short film festival
When: Sun 2 July 1-3pm
Where: Tricycle Cinema
The Tricycle Cinema is screening a selection of shorts celebrating London's cultural diversity, made by members of London's black and ethnic minority communities as part of the RISE FESTIVAL (formerly RESPECT). Including films by Lawrence Coke (winner of the BFM Best Short Film 2005/Images of Black Women Film Festival), Julius Amedume and Wayne Campbell. Q & A with a panel that includes some of the writers, directors and performers featured will follow the screening. Tickets are FREE and are available from the Box Office 020 7328 1000.
Technorati Tags: cinema - London - Tricycle Cinema
JUNE 2006
Date: Thursday, June 22
Artist: The Refugee All Stars from Sierra Leone
Details: Human Rights Watch International Film Festival - NYC Festival Info
Location: Lincoln Center
Date: Friday June 23, 7-10 PM
Artist: The Refugee All Stars from Sierra Leone
Details: The Refugee All Stars of Sierra Leone
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Thursday, June 29, 12 noon
Artist: Salif Keita
Details: http://www.bam.org/events/metrotech.aspx
Location: MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn
Date: Friday, June 30, 8:00 PM
Artist: Salif Keita
Details: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00003C951AFFB763
Location: Apollo Theater
JULY 2006
Date: Saturday, July 1 st 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas, Balkan Beat Box, Ska Cubano
Details: Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra * Balkan Beat Box * Ska Cubana
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Saturday, July 1
Artist: Angelique Kidjo, Vusi Mahlasela & more!
Details: http://www.celebratebrooklyn.com/celebrate/schedule.asp
Location: Prospect Park
Date: Sunday, July 2
Artist: Baba Maal
Details: www.irvingplaza.com/calendar/
Location: Irving Plaza
Date: Sunday, July 2, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Seu Jorge, Jose Gonzalez, Alex Cuba Band
Details: Seu Jorge * Jose Gonzalez * Alex Cuba Band
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Saturday, July 8, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Hakim, The Lion of Egypt and his Egyptian Orchestra
Details: Hakim, The Lion of Egypt and his Egyptian Orchestra
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Thursday, July 13, 12 noon
Artist: Amadou & Mariam
Details: http://www.bam.org/events/metrotech.aspx
Location: MetroTech Center, Downtown Brooklyn
Date: Sunday, July 16, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Amadou & Mariam, Daby Toure, Birdy Nam Nam
Details: Amadou & Mariam * Daby Toure * Birdy Nam Nam
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Saturday, July 22, 11:30pm
Artist: Daara J
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2036
Location: Joe's Pub
Date: Sunday, July 23, 3:00-6:00 PM
Artist: Konono No. 1 * Daara J * Maldita Vecindad
Details: Konono No. 1 * Daara J * Maldita Vecindad
Location: Central Park Summer Stage
Date: Monday, July 24, 8pm & 10:30pm
Artist: Konono #1
Details : http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0724.html
Location: S.O.B.s
Date: Tuesday, July 25, 8pm & 10:30pm
Artist: Tomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0725.html
Location: S.O.B.s
Date: Wednesday, July 26, 8pm & 10:30
Artist: Kekele
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0726.html
Location: S.O.B.s
Date: Thursday July 27, 8pm
Artist: Jump N' Funk feat. Brooklyn Funk Essentials
Details: http://www.sobs.com/african/2006/0727.html
Location: S.O.B.s
AUGUST 2006
Date: August 5, 2:00 PM- 9:00 PM
Artists: "African Festival!" Kékélé, Lágbájá & more!
Details: http://www.celebratebrooklyn.com/celebrate/schedule.asp
Location: Prospect Park
Date: Tuesday August 8, 7:30 & 9:30
Artist: Lenine
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2144
Location: Joe's Pub
Date: Wednesday August 16, 9pm
Artist: Brook's Qawwali Party / American Ghazal
Details: http://www.joespub.com/caltool/index.cfm?fuseaction=detail&performanceID=2161
Location: Joe's Pub
Date: Wednesday, August 16, 7:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas
Details: http://www.antibalas.com/pages/index3.html
Location: Jackie Robinson Park
Date: Thursday, August 17, 7:00 PM
Artist: Antibalas
Details: http://www.antibalas.com/pages/index3.html
Location: Marcus Garvey Park
Technorati Tags: Afropop - world music - Seu Jorge - Konono No.1 - Amadou Mariam
When you see more and more folks rockin' those neon yellow Brazil t-shirts, you know that World Cup fever is in the air! I admit that like most Americans I was only nominally interested, until last week when Ghana put the smack down on Czech Republic. Did he really score that goal in just over a minute into the game? Damn!
Those with real love in their hearts do a far better job than me at sharing why football (ahem...soccer) is such a kick-ass sport - no pun intended. There is of course the classic autobiography Pele, My Life and the Beautiful Game by the Afro-Brazilian legend. But there are two more recent additions that look like a good read regardless of one's level of interest in the sport itself. Franklin Foer of New Republic fame penned How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization, which blends his lifelong love for the sport with his career interest in international politics.
The second, The African Game, is a book of photography and essays that delves into contemporary life in the continent using football (ahem...soccer) as a medium. Nigerian-born filmmaker/photgrapher Andrew Dosunmu and Brooklyn-based writer Knox Robinson collaborate to bring much-needed, modern stories of African people to life. An exhibit of Dosunmu's work is coming up on June 22 at Brooklyn's Rotunda Gallery.
Check out An Inconvenient Truth’s MY SPACE page for the “artist on artist” interview. Mos Def interviews Al Gore about global warming, and asks why the former presidential hopeful thinks it’s the most important domestic and foreign policy issue for the 21st century.
At one fell swoop not only does Gore recast himself as an “artist” as opposed to a failed political figure, but he does it on MY SPACE, which even with the flap over their fine print is the (virtual) place to see and be seen. Everybody who is anybody is on MY SPACE. Guess it comes easy for the man who invented the internet to know how to exploit it.
Not to mention, Gore’s hipness factor increased about 500% by appearing with hip hop icon Mos Def. (Hmmm…seems straight outta the Clinton playbook, yet slightly modified. Ditch the triangulation, but keep the miscegenation.) The “Mighy Mos” is hands down the most important hip hop artist today. Through his various film and TV roles he’s garnered mainstream cross-over appeal, while maintaining mad street cred among EVERY segment of the notoriously divergent hip hop community. (Remember East Coast vs. West Coast?).
Whether Mos’ mass appeal translates over to Gore is yet to be determined, but it’s a safe bet that a lot more young people, black and non-black alike, will see the film. Fan or not, hip hop is where it’s at! Those who ignore its power as the race-crossing (or class, or gender, or fill-in-the-blank) worldwide cultural force that it is risk going the way of the Dodo bird. Perhaps Al got hip to the game after he read this?
Technorati Tags: global warming - Al Gore - Mos Def - MySPACE - An Inconvenient Truth
For Brooklynites and other city dwellers in the know, the annual Dance Africa Festival at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is the unofficial kick-off to the summer. With movies, music, street fair and dance performances, this Memorial Day weekend event is a 4-day smorgasbord of culture from around the Diaspora.
As I walked the fair with my buddy George who was in town for a few weeks, I saw folks I hadn't seen, well, since last year's festival. We exchanged hellos while we chowed down on a coupla corns on the cob before making our way into the Saturday nite dance performance.
And my how it was spectacular! Baba Chuck Davis started off the festivites with his usual respectful dedication to those who had passed on to the ancestral realm. An elder was escorted to the customary spot on the stage where performers could offer up dance in his honor. (And as usual this all took too long!)
The Peruvian dancers Peru Negro were the final act, and they were wonderful. But I had been dazzled by the group who performed just before intermission, the Universal African Dance & Drum Essemble. Stilt dancers, an all female drumming troupe (spectacular in its own right as I have rarely seen a female African drummer much less a whole troupe!), "afrobats" and children no older than 4 or 5 years of age took over the stage in a whirlwind of motion. It is hard to describe the feeling that came over me while watching, the sense of kinship. It stirred something in my core, something rooted deep in the familiar. I was proud to see so many black people unapologetically taking part in an expression of their own cultural heritage.
Watching the young children on stage reminded me of the performances I had just seen at the New Orleans Jazzfest a month back. The Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indians, too, had their tiny young children singing along on stage. And Sunpie Barnes (hmm that's my family name...) of Sunpie & the Louisiana Sunspots had his young son playing along on the accordian to their funky Afro-Caribbean inspired zydeco tunes. The children looked so free and natural and happy playing up there with their parents. I knew those kids, both here in Bklyn and there in NOLA, would have no doubt who they were when they grew up. In what seems like the endless sea of bad news we have to deal with about the possibilities for our children's future, watching them I felt hopeful for the first time in a long time.
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When I'm feeling overwhelmed by the rat race and wondering why the hell I live in this overcrowded, overdeveloped city I remember Dance Africa, and all the wonderful cultural events in store for the next three months. There is nothing like summer in New York City.
Central Park Summerstage
Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park
World Financial Center concerts
City Parks Foundation concerts
Wingate Park concerts
Asser Levy Park seaside concerts
Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
Brooklyn Museum 1st Saturdays
"NYC For Free"
Technorati Tags: BAM - Dance Africa - New Orleans Jazzfest - Brooklyn Museum
Harriet's Alter Ego is pleased to present…
Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues
Images from New Orleans, Post-Katrina
A Photography Exhibit by Award-Winning Photojournalist Delphine Fawundu-Buford
Opening Reception & Artist Talk
Sunday, June 4, 2006, 4-7pm
Exhibition Dates: June 4 - 30, 2006
Harriet's Alter Ego Boutique & Gallery
293 Flatbush Ave. bet. St. Marks & Prospect Place
Brooklyn, New York
2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B, N, R, D to Atlantic Avenue
For more info: 718-783-2074 or Harriet's Alter Ego
Photographer Delphine A. Fawundu-Buford latest series is a collection of riveting images of the Big Easy, post-Katrina. Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues is a photo-essay created during her 2006 trip to New Orleans as a NABJ Gulf Coast Fellow. A large part of her mission was to document the lives of the everyday people who were affected by Katrina. The images largely excerpt Crescent City and its inner communities that have been ravaged by Katrina with emphasis on the 9th Ward. Muddy Water Gumbo & High Tide Blues consists of five smaller series "The 9th Ward Remains," "Blues Soldiers" "2nd Line" "Infatuation with Mammy?" and "We Still Here."
"As I photographed these remains, it felt as if I were at an archaeological dig," Delphine explains of "The 9th Ward Remains" series, "getting a more personal perspective of everyday people who lived in the 9th Ward, some who listened to music, read books, wore under-wired bras, used silver metal forks, and earned degrees just like me."
Delphine has gained wide recognition from her image "Patiently Waiting," which graced the cover of the catalog for the memorable 'Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers' exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2000. Her career that spans over a decade includes publications such as Black: A Celebration of a Culture and Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers from 1840 - Present by Deborah Willis. Some of her editorial credits include RollingStone, Essence, Honey and Vibe. Delphine has exhibited locally and nationally and has participated in critically acclaimed exhibitions 'Only Skin Deep' at the International Center of Photography and 'Open: Artist Working in Brooklyn' at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Her works are in the private collections of Danny Simmons (NYC), The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the New York Coalition of Creative Art Therapies just to name a few.
Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina - Brooklyn - Delphine Fawunda-Buford
"If your hands are in the dish, people do not eat everything and leave you nothing...."
Adinkra symbols have been popularized among black Afro-centric artists and intellectuals largely because of Haile Gerima's Adinkra-titled indie film Sankofa. Music heads will also recognize Sankofa as Cassandra Wilson's ethereal ode to African identity and self awareness on her rootsy 1993 masterpiece Blue Light 'Til Dawn. The popular West African symbol is also the moniker of an underground Hip Hop artist hailing from Fort Wayne, Indiana, as well as a favorite rap group among North Cack's Chapel Hill locals.
Not knowing otherwise one might think Sankofa, which literally means "return and get it", is the only semiotic form of wisdom the Akan people of Ghana had to offer. But the ubiquity of this particular Adinkra may have more to do with the Africans on this side of the pond than anything else. As the only group of people who in their entirety were forced to come to the Western hemisphere, the prerequisite for our arrival was the erasure of our languages, religions, histories and cultures.
This breakdown of identity has meant that blacks have had to wage a battle for individual self consciousness simultaneously with a collective struggle against white supremacy in all its forms (slavery, Jim Crow, urban renewal, gentrification and now globalization). In reality, these two struggles are really flip sides of the same coin as white oppression of blacks (and all other peoples of color for that matter) has always contained political, economic, social, cultural and psychological components.
During legal slavery our struggle against white oppression often took the form of self consciousness as artistic expression. With no legal rights, no right to civic participation and no right to ownership even of oneself, African slaves only had art, if that, as a means of self determination. A significant example is that of New Orleans' Congo Square, where slaves were legally permitted to gather, sing and dance, as well as trade goods.
This self consciousness as struggle was famously characterized by actor Levar Burton in the landmark 1977 TV mini-series Roots. When the newly imported slave Burton refuses to answer to the name Toby, he is savagely whipped by his master. The master repeatedly asks Burton what his name is, and Burton replies Kunta Kinte. With every refusal to acquiesce, or rather with every affirmation of his African identity, Burton receives a lash. It is the expression of his African identity in and of itself that is a threat to the white master’s control. In the end, however, the beating is too much for Burton. He relinquishes control of his identity to the master, calling himself Toby.
The scene, then, becomes an apt metaphor for the limits of individual black self consciousness alone in the fight against white supremacy. It took the collective action of runaway slaves to create the Underground Railroad, and the coalition-building of freed slaves with whites to further build upon the abolitionist movement. And finally, Africans took a decisive roll in gaining their collective freedom by fighting in the Civil War. This is not to say, though, that Africans didn't resist enslavement from the get. Contrary to popular American myth African slaves ran away, fought back and even commited suicide to avoid or escape from bondage. But the end of legal slavery was only possible through collective resistance.
Fast forward 100 years to another decisive stage in the history of the Struggle. Although the strategies and ideologies may have been different for each group, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements both combined African American self expression with collective struggle in the fight against white supremacy. Along with the sit-ins and freedom rides were the freedom singers. The literary giant James Baldwin debated the efficacy of non-violence with Black Power leader Malcolm X. The play Home on the Range by Black Arts Movement writer Amiri Baraka was performed as a benefit for the Black Panther Party. Black Art and activism worked in concert to move Black people onward and upward. Even with the eventual (some say inevitable) assasinations of the Movements' flagship leaders no one can question that significant gains were made for black people in this country, and that the Civil Rights Movement ultimately won out over the Black Power Movement for the direction in which black people were to go.
Our history bares out that Sankofa – self consciousness, self awareness or self determination – is guaranteed only when accompanied by collective action. Enter Wo Nsa Da Ma A - the Adinkra symbol meaning participation, democracy and pluralism. It comes from the aphorism "Wo nsa da mu a, wonni nnya wo", which literally means "if your hands are in the dish, people do not eat everything and leave you nothing". It is the combination of Sankofa and Wo Nsa Da Ma A that has propelled us from chattel slavery, through Jim Crow and into the post Civil Rights era.
So where are we now? We live in a period of plenty of Sankofa and very little Wo Nsa Da Ma A, and my how it shows. Integration, otherwise known as assimilation for America's immigrant groups, has rung the dealth knell for black politics and collective action in this country. Although none of the Civil Rights activists could have possibly desired it or known that integration was going to kill black community, it most certainly has. The question is why?
Mainstream white America's unending refusal to acknowledge the structural racism endemic to our society makes it possible to continue to blame black pathology on our plight. This of course has always been the case and always will be until the bubble of white privilege is burst. Let's just say I'm not holding my breath. According to white folks then, and more and more blacks, the problem is us. But that isn't a satisfactory answer, since if black pathology has always been a constant why now are we experiencing the breakdown of our families, the acrimony between black men and black women and the mass incarceration of our men on scales that did not exist pre Civil Rights?
If I had a dime for every time I heard a black person tell me that slavery destroyed the black family I'd be living in a penthouse on 5th Ave. The fact is, though, that despite the enormous obstacles placed on African slaves most couples married and stayed with the same spouse until death and most children were raised in two-parent households. The situation is far more dire for the black family now of the post Civil Rights "liberated" generation. Isn't it far more likely that the values of the larger society we have integrated into have had a negative effect on us as individuals and as a community?
More in Part II....
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