The things that I have learned throughout this semester has surrounded how I can physically and practically implement the concepts that we have gone over this semester. Beginning this semester around our personal experiences, I had the chance to observe and be critical of the ways that I embody radical blackness. Because of the complicated history of black Americans and many of those apart of the African Diaspora, it can be hard to navigate the ways of life to resist and accept. However, being in this class has given me a deeper insight into what steps to take towards the decolonization of my entire being and the things that I engage with. I have been deconstructing my mindset on respectability, what abolition truly means, the ways that I fit into decolonization, and my relationship with my faith. A lot of this thinking happened during and after the strike, which has led me to believe that the strike was divinely placed within the semester. I have been challenged in ways that I have never been before over my last years at Bryn Mawr. Many of my changes have impacted my personal life in addition to my academic life. If I had to list one thing that has impacted me the most is learning and listen to Nia Love and how her whole artist and personal life has been about embodying black radical tradition to led her into a life and work of freedom.
Journal 1.
This audio piece is how I am entering this class this semester. I have been fed up with the news, with the killings, with everything; however, I felt the need to continue exploring work that still needs to be done, which is why I am taking this class. I was inspired to write this poem after reflecting on Frank B. Wilderson’s theory of Afro-Pessimism. While I understand that we can use this theory to observe and analyze the collective black experience in the U.S, I extremely dislike this theory or adopting it into my framework. It feels as though there is no movement forward; that black people will never live or aren’t living. While this poem talks about life in the physical, it is also a comment on what life in the spiritual would feel and look like. This is where I am as I am entering Critical Blackness.
Journal 2.
The Black woman
“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” Malcolm X’s statement still rings true in this day. In a culture where men, and for my argument, black men are supposed to be the head of the household and to support and protect black women; it sure seems the concept of leadership as remained while protection and support have gone out of the window. While my claim does not apply to all black men, it is evident that men who do not actively value black live other than their own unconsciously put black women in harm’s way. Reading Brittney C. Copper’s article, “My Brother’s Keeper and the Co-optation of lntersectionality, gave me context for how the black community will always be the most marginalized because of the focus on black male lives rather than black lives holistically.
Reading Copper’s article makes me think about how the protests that have been happening recently and in the past. While there is a protest advocating for justice for black people, such as Breanna Taylor and Sandra Bland, those two names are the ones that come to my mind the easiest. If someone were to ask me what protests are happening about black men immediately I would stay Amhad Aubrey, George Floyd, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and the list can go on. While I am in support of these black lives being advocated for, what about the women, transgender, and non-gender conforming people? If these lives are not represented properly in the streets then it is clear that these lives are being advocated for properly in schools. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris was the first book I read that exposed how girls in schools are criminalized as much as black boys are, and that the school to prison pipeline is not just subject to black boys, but to black people.
One thing that I have noticed this year with the Black Lives Matter protest is the advocation for queer black lives. By having rainbow flags at the front of the black lives matter protests it forces people to see that queer lives are also apart of black. This is seen as a way to push for people to acknowledge that black lives that are in jeopardy are not only black males. The overlooking of black women and other black lives other than men is destabilizing the black community. There needs to be total support of all black lives with all intersections of identities so that we ensure that our community is safe. If coming together does not happen on a grand scale then advocating for girls and non-gender confirming people will fall to the waist side.
Journal 3.
Journal 4
Undercommons
The Undercommons, a book by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, has given me a different perspective on what it means to embody radical blackness. For centuries many black movements have centered around having the same rights as whites, and while we legally have those same rights blacks are still seen as second-class citizens in a country that was built with black labor. A large portion of black movements focus on getting what we are being refused; however, Harney and Moten have given black people a new lens to approach radical blackness. Black people have “the right to refuse what has been refused to you” and through this refusal dismantle what white supremacist systems say is needed in order to live a life of freedom. Instead of incorporating ourselves in the system to be accepted, we need to refuse their invitation to be accepted into a system that continues to display discrimination and expand disparities.
Connecting Harney and Moten’s concept of the undercommons my life reminds me of James Baldwin’s quote of “you have to be willing to go for broke”. Baldwin’s words coupled with the concept of the undercommons have shown me that I should not expect to be accepted within the systems in which I work, but to do the work that I desire to do and make a path for myself. This class is an example of what it means to engage in work that promotes the abolition of systems while being within an institutional system.
Journal 5.
Here is a poem that I made into a song that focuses on me talking to a younger version of myself. I am telling myself to continue to dream and be explorative in a world that wants to dim her light. I felt inspired by Bettina L. Love coming into our classroom and speaking with us about her journey towards abolition and freedom dreaming in the classroom.
Journal 6.
These people here are my inspiration for the work I had ahead of me. All of these artists centered blackness through writing and some by acting. I hope to find my own path in theatre and do the same; to radically inspire and empower black youth to freedom dream in the ways that schools restricted.
