What Is Black Power for Niggas That Don't Know What Power Is

Note :

I always speak to the double consciousness of being Black in the United States and how interesting the way Black life and culture in our own spaces appear juxtaposed against mainstream white ones. I'm always interested in how we change or divert from the White way of doing things like dance, speak, engage, etc.

But even more, I'm interested in the way we replicate Whiteness in our own society. 

Identity comes into play with this. I identify, politically, as a leftist. More specifically, I'm a Black Marxist, as well as Black nationalist. My grandma always told me, when you know better, you're supposed to do better, and this is my MO.

With that being said, let's get to the piece. 

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Last week, Mr. Umar Johnson come to our school to give a lecture, accompanied by some of Morgan's most esteemed panelists Dr. Natasha Pratt-Harris and Dr. Paul Archibald. While many of us already knew what we were up against, this type of dialogue exposed a lot of things for a lot of people. Several topics were discussed: womanhood, Black queer, disease and pathology, Black youth, Black capitalism, etc.

There are several observations with last night:

1) The questions were definitely censored. The microphone should've been made open to allow the dialogue people were expecting to happen. Censoring the questions went against the stated openness; thus wasting time for people who expected a critical dialogue.

2) Umar and friends don't seem to understand anything going on in today's movement. Umar disrespected Black youth as if Baltimore youth didn't take the highway last year at Afromation. Or as if young folks ain't been shutting down airports, businesses and other things. Umar chooses to ignore what's going on because it doesn't fit his narrative, but the work is definitely being done. 

3) Black folks love to be talked down to. Umar did nothing but pathologize (definition: to view or characterize as medically or psychologically abnormal) the Black community by saying we wanted to be White and a bunch of other bollocks. This is very similar to President Obama's talking down to Black people, with his more mired in respectability politics whether in his "My Brother's Keeper Program", constant use of Jethro and Pookie, and other things. 

As someone who loves's Black people, this felt oddly bizarre, yet people were applauding and cheering it on. Protest and civil disobedience, for all it's worth, is a part of "the work".

But one of my biggest questions for others who call themselves Black Nationalists:

2) What is Black power for niggas that don't know what power is?

There are two scenarios: (1) Umar Johnson's politics aren't mature enough to understand power, hegemony and what it actually is to the core. (2) Umar Johnson understands what power means and just seeks to replicate it in Blackface. I believe its more option two than one, but another part of me believes that Umar doesn't have the intellectual range or scholarship. 

We know what happens when niggas don't know what Black power is. That's how you get Malcolm X, MLK, and President Obama on the same shirt when the two were nowhere near each other ideologically. President Obama doesn't represent Black power in the slightest, yet people will seem to compare the two. The term "Black excellence" has been used as some coverall to celebrate all, but it seems abit backwards to celebrate free Breakfast programs and a system of inequity that makes it where they're needed, no?

Nevertheless, if we aren't critical of power as it is currently, we get a dangerous and circular vision of power where will be forever entangled in struggle. Black women, Black queer, and other marginalized folks have every right to be free and every right to fight for it. This system is patriarchal just as much as it is racist, so Black male domination isn't Black Power in the slightest.

Looking at the White experience in White America ought to be a great place to start when looking at power. Whiteness in America has its own hierarchy, tangled in gender, sexuality, ownership of resources, and nationality. We must remember, for a while Irish people weren't considered White in America.

With that being said, whawqt does Umar Johnson's Pan-Afrikan "Utopia" look like? Is it something imaginative and radical or is it just a Negro recreation of this mess we have in the states? From what I heard the other night, it's more the latter than the former, which is rather unfortunate given Johnson's building of celebrity by posing as such. Loud, obnoxious hollering and petty dramatic spectacle is all that you need to move people as we've learned with 45's Presidency and many times before, critical thinking be damned.

Black Power, as most people in the work seem to define it, is based in self-determination and liberation of all Black people. The radical Black Power movement spoke of revolutionary nationalism, socialism, and anti-imperialism. Waving an RBG, wearing dashikis and other African garb, and renaming oneself doesn't make Black Power. Maybe the proper term is "Black Hegemony"- doesn't quite roll of the tongue all that well - but "Black Power", it is not.

Word Vomit On Hating the Hateful and My Vision For the World

I'm laying in my bed warm and wrapped up after a long day in DC. Tomorrow is the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump and I wanted to see DC to close the circle of me going to the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama.

This week has produced a lot of interesting conversation as many people come to terms that this is our President-To-Be. The Electoral College system has granted a reality-tv clown keys to the White House, Intelligence briefings, and access to much undeserved power. America's system that was supposed to protect democracy....failed.

But -back to the conversations - I've been discussing in my peer groups my rather violent and "radical" feelings about how we deal with hate. Being a student leader at an HBCU, my peer group consists of other student leaders, as well as many others. I often look around, enamored with space and time, thinking how we will be the ones to inherit the Earth and the importance of what we do in our time with it - at least until its time to pass it on to the next generation. 

This passing of the torch can either be quite optimistic or, more recently for me, very pessimistic. As the 20th century seems to restart right before my eyes with our modern neofascist gilded age, the mainstream Black response to our looming troubles seems to be passive and uninspired. In the passing of the torch, who will each of us become and replace? Who will push us towards greatness, who will pull us away from it, and who will sit idle?

One of the sadder things things I've heard recently is "You can't fight hate with hate." and it's usually followed by the famous MLK quote. People often forget how other people/leaders/structures fought and organized against MLK, even as peaceful and respectable he was. Is his life and murder not a lesson on how we deal with hate? Even more so, this love that people talking about conquering hate with is often lacking of any type of passion. That love is only activated when convenient. Your "love" keeps you silent on issues of war in a time when we need every voice to speak out. Your "love" allows the slaughter of innocent children overseas, meanwhile allowing Nazis the space to taunt and tease the vulnerable over in the states. 

Another, slightly more sickening, variant of the above that I've seen is the comparing of the two as if they are the same. I'll say this now: Hating the hateful is not the same as being hateful. In fact, even suggesting the two are the same is cognitive dissonance and naivete. Because saying "I hate this racist who wants Black kids to starve." is nowhere near close to saying "Gay people are abominations to the Earth and should burn in Hell.". Yet, because people often look at things without context, one would assume that these two are the same.

Looking at things without context is how we get caught up, and this is where a lot of us fail. If I wish violence and ill will towards Donald Trump and his deplorables, I am justified. Why? Because somewhere along my lineage, my enslaved ancestors toiled this land and lived their lives of inequity, continuing for generations up to and beyond me, and as I sit in my bed, typing this, I carry on the burden of worrying about life, death, and debt that I - on the basis of justice and everything America is supposed to stand for - shouldn't have to. I refuse to carry the same fear that my grandparents carried. I refuse to allow my experiences and the experiences of those before me to be washed away and wiped out. While his deplorables post pictures of dead Black bodies and white violence on the Internet and my mentions, stoking trauma and making a joke of our struggle - my wish for their demise is appropriate.

This compassion and concern for the hateful, deplorables and others, is so bewildering to me. Mostly because there are so many others much more deserving of this affection. Where were the cries for nonviolence and love when innocent children bombed overseas? And no, I'm not weaponizing the slaughter of children across the globe to make a point. I like to think I'm consistent about my disapproval of drones and war. 

My ultimate goal is to make my piece of the world a better place, and it can't be as long as these people are allowed to exist and have functional power within it.

As for my peers, I'll always be following the journey of who we are and how did we get here. But, I hope we begin to think, especially in this crucial moment, about the bigger picture and begin to act. I hope we take our passion and commitment to servicing humanity from philanthropy and charity to working for justice and human rights.

I am waiting for us, collectively, to fight with this love we always talk about; otherwise, our silence and inaction is just a consequence of assimilation and the slight bit of privilege we get from it. 

On Wattstax

We watched it the film Wattstax in class.

Even without the emotional attachment from nostalgia, the era seemed magical. The sea of afros, and the beautiful clothing. The seventies were definitely a beautiful era for fashion.

Wattstax's film technique brought us to life with the closeness of the artists on stage and highlighting the interesting fashion of the time. The cinematic experience lies within the witness of the experience, the emotion of the music, and the historical significance of the time. The colors are teal and warm browns, oranges, and golds. The crowd is a sea of afros and bushes. There seems to be a grit in the film.  The humor and the interviews, mixed in with footage of the actual performances themselves, made Wattstax more than just a concert film. 

But we also see how defined the era was for Blackness. In perspective, it would make sense considering this was post-Black Panther era. This was also before we really saw the destruction that drugs would do to Black people in America. There was a joyous pride in being Black.

Wattstax was a beautiful cultural timepiece giving us just a taste of what that period was like.  

Surviving T-Ville

My movie concept involves a Black neighborhood under attack in the early 20th century. After a young man is found dead, beaten and battered, on the Black side of the railroad tracks, the town must organize and figure out how to grieve - and worse - how to avenge the death. 

A few weeks after the murder of the young man, several Black folks in Thomville decide to torch the White side of the town and flee. The movie deals with the troubling decisions behind it, the organizing of the rebellion, and the consequences that follow. 

On Friday.

I don't know what my grandma was thinking allowing my cousin and I, just little kids at the time, to watch Friday like it was a family video. And then, once we were hooked to the violence and debauchery, she went and allowed us to get hooked to the following sequels - my favorite now being "Friday After Next". There is something hilarious and authentic about the Friday films. 

I grew up in a house that I only realized was very afro-centric a couple of years ago - after I left for college.  Growing up in small town South Carolina, nobody was going to tell you anything was afro-centric. But the lion paintings and the elephant figurines and the warm colored patterns gave it all away. 

And so, Black film means to me a lens to see what Blackness is in America. Whether through hyperbolic comedy or normcore drama (oxymoron, I know), Black film, like other Black art forms, takes me to a place familiar to me. It makes me comfortable. Black film shows us the ghetto cousin or auntie. Black film gives us the comforting grandmother - the wholesome matriarch that brings family together whether in The Krumps or any film with Loretta Devine. Black film brings about some wild escapades such as A Johnson Family Vacation or any Tyler Perry film. Black film also grounds the cinematic lens in our specific Black experiences such as greek life in Spike Lee's School Daze or the famous Selma directed by Ava DuVernay. Even the ridiculousness of a young man being chased throughout a shopping complex by some ruthless gangsters is Black. One would wonder how you can racialize such an experience, but just watch Friday After Next and you'll see what I mean. 

Me growing up watching Friday didn't do too much harm, but then again my grandma kept me with a bookshelf. I think the movie is a classic. The entire series is a classic, and I hope they don't push for another film.  Black film is an important piece to our culture. Black film allows us to recreate our world as we see it; giving us a type of power over our narrative - one that we haven't always had. 

Freetown Sound: A Modern Music Piece for Freedom

Freetown Sound is as global as the man himself. Hynes is Sierra Leonean-Guyanese Londoner who now lives in New York City. The instrumentation, mixed with the strongly messaged lyrics, bridges the diaspora worldwide.  "You are special in your own way," he sings in "But You".

The opening track "By Ourselves" features a powerful poem by Ashlee Haze. Some tracks melt seamlessly into each other like "Chance" and "Best to You". Tracks like "Hadron Collider" are more fit for a theatrical soundtrack. Problem is, the album is theatre.

Hynes, who has synesthesia, took the sensory details and production to another level. When I listen to the album I feel the sun and the beach. It's well into sunset and the air is cooling down. You know that moment when the sun is orange and the clouds are a pinkish lavender? This is it.

Freetown Sound is freedom pop. Hynes' masters the collaborations, integrating them into the sound of the album effortlessly. The album features Ava Rain, Empress Of, Nelly Furtado, and more. The album is also more cohesive than the previous "Cupid Deluxe", but it also has its own type of narrative. It's a late 80s TV-show set in Harlem.

The album speaks to Hyne's own personal problems as a queer Black male in America. Not too long ago, he was profiled and harassed by security at a music festival. Hynes also feels the weight of police brutality, even making a song for Sandra Bland - "Sandra Smiles". He performed a concert in New York, with proceeds going to a music program at a Harlem school. 

Freetown Sound is an early morning in Harlem at its peak. Freetown Sound is a novel, a poetry collection, written in 24 consecutive late nights at 3AM - or that's what it sounds like. It sounds like something one would pen when they feel the most vulnerable. 

As a Black person listening to the album during these rough times - it feels like it was made for me. The smooth sounds are calming before bed, on buses, and walking around the city. 

It's been a long week. I, like many other Black folks across the country, have lost so much sleep dealing with more names adding to the list of Black people extrajudicially murdered by the police. The names Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are not etched into the nation's history. But, for those of us paying attention, we've also seen brutality in Dallas and Atlanta and other places across the nation. This proves traumatic as many of us question, when will this stop? Many of us watched unrest unfold via Periscope in August 2014. Two years later, the rights of Black people are threatened more with a stripped Voters Rights Act, and Blue Lives Matter laws protecting police around the nation. Even our own Black President signed a federal law protecting law enforcement through the creation of a watchlist. Unfortunately, the same type of energy isn't afforded to protecting the due process of Black Americans. Where Black leadership isn't able to offer any affirmation, art does. Freetown Sound reminds us, "We gon be alright!".

As I listen to Freetown Sound, I am taken to a better place. A place where kids sit on the porch eating freeze pops in the summer sun. I'm taken to a beach right before dusk, letting the water rush over my feet one last time before it closes. I'm at a block party, grabbing the last fruit punch from the cooler. The album is clearly Black; the words speaking power to truth, from beginning to end. 

View the videos "Augustine" (feat Ava Rain) and "Sandra's Smile" below