BLACK ART

The truth about Blackness (especially in relativity to its White counterpart) has, maybe not always, but certainly in this authors research, "re-ce-nt-ly"- (said sarcastically and with the least bit of uncertainty) been shown as a "black stain" on the world. (Here "black stain" a reference to one conservative critic calling the above picture "noirceur" in a gallery review translating to "black stain".)

Was the critic commenting on her black skin? Or did he or she simply not enjoy the painting? We're leaning towards the former here but that could just be my paranoia.

When Jordan Peele's 2017 horror film GET OUT came out, I reacted in two ways, 1. Man...it's crazy that racism and films about race are needed in this day and age and 2. Is this the best that being Black and Blackness has to offer? Just nonstop onslaught racism?

I've done my research, (being Black being about 80% of that data collecting) and what I've discovered is that Colonialism and 600+ years of history have really fucked Blackness. What's even worse, is nowadays history hasn't changed things by far measure. Various museums around the world to this day still hold stolen Black art from Africa on their walls. Around the country and world, not a month really goes by without some form of public Black execution.

Meanwhile, in America, there's been the occasional Barack Obama (who after reflection didn't do much for Black people - I'd even go far as to say bombing countries is a big loss for us) and our Martin Luther King's (who was supposedly a huge sex fiend which...I'm cool with, but he apparently cheated on his wife which I'm not cool with), history in large part, for whatever reason continues to gift us without much ACTUAL Black empowerment. And this isn't just due to colonialism - Here's the thing. We continue to thrive and try.

We have Beyonce who is fucking amazing. And we have really great music, some of which is beautiful but also some of which is misogynistic, we aren't perfect, but we try. We see people like Nipsey Hussle investing in himself, his family and his community, and we see those heroes die, by our own hand, conspiracy theory or not, it takes a hand to pull a trigger, and in the future, I just hope the biggest lesson about Blackness becomes we learned how to love ourselves and that love let a new story be told throughout time.

For myself, flawed as I am - I still try to become a positive example of Blackness, exalting and celebrating my heroes while also being honest about our humanness and errors. This I do to a lesser degree with other races but you know your own family the best.

I will say this...for all of our many years of forced resilience, the beauty that comes out of our culture is one of power, strength, focus, and determination. Even though our history and story is wrought with pain - it's also the story of a people that would never die. And if that must be our story - then we will walk head held high into our future.

Listen to my latest song ...BLACK IS that touches on some of these topics here: https://bit.ly/BLACKISLINK

Follow me on IG/Twitter: @kidastronavt