Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 413

Horror Films and the Inversion of the Normal Body: Life in the Bird Box by Wilfredo Gomez

Horror Films and the Inversion of the Normal Body: Life in the Bird Box by Wilfredo Gomez | @BazookaGomez84 | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Spoiler alert: If you have yet to see this film, some major plot points will be revealed in this article.
By now I’ve been bombarded with news coverage, social media musings, and conversations that have attempted to make sense of the film Bird Box. A mysterious force has made its way from Russia to the United States and people are committing mass suicide. What we do know is the storyline does not provide rationale or context for the force, but it leaves an indelible mark on a society that plays a hand in its own demise. Look upon the light, the outside world...and inevitably impending death will appear.
There is something compelling about the film that I have extrapolated upon my initial viewing, and subsequent views, have further illuminated thoughts that demand some attention and critical  reflection. The film inverts the paradigm of the normal body. In his contributions to an edited reader, disability studies scholar Tom Shakespeare addresses the emotional connections that ties viewership, visual representation, and the expectation of reinforced normalcy, a characterization he identifies as the ideology of ability, or an inherent assumption that society and its representation through a variety of mediums automatically assumes the presencing and privileging of an able body.
As part of the horror genre, films like Bird Box, A Quiet Place, and the reboot to The Predator (an action film), asks viewers to subvert their understanding of how we naturally acquiesce to the representation of able bodied narratives spearheaded by able-bodied actors who “play” able bodied protagonists. What a film like Bird Box does is situate the seemingly arbitrary nature of representation and representational politics that Hollywood at its best unpacks through the escapism of popular culture and entertainment. As Meryl Streep contextualizes through her speech at the 2017 Golden Globes, “an actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel, what that feels like” (as she points to the camera and audience). Therein lies the hook to the film. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty of survival, being able-bodied becomes a liability, and it is the presence of the disabled body that is empowered in its ability to decide the fate of society. Disabled people are either going to represent your salvation or your untimely demise.
One of our first encounters with the presence of the disabled body centers around a group run to a local convenience store in search of supplies and food. Once there, John Malkovich’s character (“Douglas”) suggests that the band of misfits (forced to live in harmony and humanize one another) who ventured out into the scary world, car windows covered or blacked out, need not return back to the house (to provide for the well being of others). Almost immediately, the convenience store becomes a site of instability, as the presence of an unknown threatens to disrupt the ecology they ideally seek to cultivate. A knock on the door introduces viewers to the character of “Fish Finger,” whom Lil Rel Howery’s character, “Charlie” points out, “he’s been to prison, and he’s a bit crazy, but he’s always nice to me.” The invocation of crazy signifies upon discourses of mental illness, but the qualifier of individual experiences/interactions with the mentally ill suggests that they possess the ability to maneuver in an able bodied world, where one can act with compassion and have their humanity be recognized as such. However, there is no such redemptive quality in this particular interaction as “Fish Finger”(played by Matt Leonard) is exposed as a mentally ill person capable of great harm, not excluding murder (the penultimate act of violence). Thus, he must be further “institutionalized” by being shut out from incorporation into the group.
The dialogue preceding this trip not only provides insights into the presence of disability, it further reinforces the primacy that disability will come to play in establishing the parameters of a future that depends upon impairment as a technological innovation that allows the newly disabled to effectively navigate and negotiate a post-able bodied America. Thus we might riff on the forthcoming work by scholar Ruha Benjamin (Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code) to think through how society functions in its legal, ethical, and political contours, characterizing disability after technology. The exchange in the film proceeds as follows, “alright...so the idea is that we can blackout all the windows, its efficient and its safe.” To which the reply is, “wait, is anybody else hearing this, how is driving blind safe?” And finally we have, “we’re not we got the GPS.” This exchange solidifies the nexus linking disability to technology in a world where all the rules of normalcy and the functioning body are disrupted by the pervasive specter of disability.
A similar narrative appears later in the film as a stranger seeks entry into the home of the film’s protagonists, a home that operates as a paragon of an archaic and obsolete society that dares to continue its resistance movement in a world that no longer shares the same belief system. Upon entering the home, this “stranger,” (“Gary” played by Tom Hollander) is bombarded with the questions, “who are you and how did you get here?” John Malkovich’s character proceeds to demean the well-intentioned “Olympia,” (played by Danielle Macdonald) questioning her humanity (in letting “Gary” enter) by asking, “are you a simpleton?” “Gary’s” initial characterization of his narrative highlights the presence of “things,” which quickly evolve to become “they,” “creatures,” and ultimately, “psychos.” 
The mental institution (which none of the characters can place) known as “Northwood” is the space that effectively becomes transmogrified, equipping the “criminally insane” with “hall passes” that allow them to “roam the halls,” without policing, supervision, or the aid/help of the able-bodied. The arc of the story collapses identities, whereby those who force others’ eyes open (to gaze upon the “truth”) become synonymous with the creatures whose origins story or place of birth is unknown. Mental illness represents one spectrum of the newly enabled disabled who become able-bodied in part because of the assumption that they are already trapped within a hell of their own making. Their mental illness makes them immune to the forces governing the outside world. Those who are not mentally ill do in fact become the newly disabled, impaired in their ability to get around the societal barriers that give rise new institutions and structures of power and surveillance.
In stark contrast to the presence of mental illness lies, the “Janet Tucker School for the Blind,” the arrival of the unexpected deus ex machina, a structure symbolizing safety, hope, and the restored humanity to “Malorie,” (Sandra Bullock’s character) “boy” (played by Julian Edwards) and “girl” (played by Vivien Lyra Blair). Thus, the blind become the pillars of salvation which offers up emotional attachment, affect, individuality, and the neatly demarcated roles that continue to reinforce gender norms. What was once (in a previously able-bodied/disabled divide) an institution dedicated to the training and educational enrichment of the visually impaired becomes a site of new possibilities, whereby the privileging of differentiated bodies is translated and transcribed amid a new communicative medium, the language of necessity, survival, hope, and most importantly, the erasure of boundedness that characterizes “other” vis-a-vis some previously agreed upon norm. Prior to their arrival at the Janet Tucker School for the Blind, it is the voice of “Rick” (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince) that becomes the calming voice of reason, rationale, and democracy. Without that stabilizing presence, the characters of Malorie, boy, and girl remain detached from humanity, disabled in their collective misunderstanding of how to maneuver in a world where everyone is blind. As such, traditional titles, roles, and names become severed from individual and collective engagements of each other, serving as a reminder of outdated paradigms. The only way Malorie, boy, and girl could be redeemed is to embrace the vulnerability of disability.
Agreeing to that social contract, Malorie becomes dissuaded from designating girl as the chosen figure who will look out for the boat at its most dangerous points. Motherhood suggests an intimacy and emotional attachment that is equal parts biological as it is social, cultural, and political. By negating motherhood, Malorie preserves the barriers of societal impairment as evidenced in the blindfold. Moreover, social barriers bleed over into a politics of hope, as stories of triumph and sight become contested grounds upon which survival is predicated. Rick and the School for the Blind, allow Malorie and company to morph their relationship and identities, affording viewers agency in establishing parameters for Malorie’s motherhood, her children, and her newly reconciled ability to feel and empathize with the world around her.
Tellingly, the ideology of ability does not afford viewers the translation services to enable this particular reading of Bird Box. In doing so, it ensures that those of us viewers, both disabled and able bodied alike resume our (unquestioned) daily roles as birds boxed in the horrors of the ideology of ability. If you question the validity of such an analytical lens, ask yourself whether the ideology of ability gives rise to the “Bird Box Blindfold Challenge.”
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Wilfredo Gomez is an independent scholar and researcher. He can be reached at gomez.wilfredo@gmail.com or via twitter at @BazookaGomez84.

If Beale Street Could Talk, It Would Say Women Matter Too by Mary Frances Phillips

If Beale Street Could Talk, It Would Say Women Matter Too by Mary Frances Phillips | @mfphillips | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
In If Beale Street Could Talk, director Barry Jenkins offered moviegoers bold colors, beautiful scenery, and strength in silence, all signature features in his body of cinematic work. He emboldened viewers with the power of black love, a political act of resistance in dire times of intense state violence against black bodies in the U.S. Critics and attendees have raved about this bold adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel and love story.
Behind the love politics and the striking glamour shots, the storyline involves Alonzo “Fonny” Hunt, a 22-year-old black man (Stephan James) sent to prison on false charges of the rape of Victoria Rogers, a Puerto Rican woman (Emily Rios). Fonny’s fiancée, Tish, (KiKi Lanye) is left to grapple with the devastating separation that threatens their love and their lives. As part of the process to center Fonny, the representation of Tish’s experiences are limited. Too often black women’s experiences with violence and brutality from the carceral state are pushed to the margins of these powerful narratives.
Fonny’s artistic value shines on the screen. Jenkins offers a window into Fonny’s work as a skilled craftsman. His vocational training allowed him to hone his skills with woodwork. In the film, he takes issue with the word, “artist,” but reveals that his creative process is driven by his gut feeling. It is clear that Fonny is a deep thinker with a creative mind. He also has a meaningful friendship with Daniel, his childhood mate (played by Brian Tyree Henry) who delivers a powerful performance and a gripping account of the trauma he experienced in prison when he visits Fonny. Fear, he explains makes up the worst parts of prison life.
In the telling of Daniel’s trauma, Tish is hidden in plain sight. She narrates the story but omits context on who she is as an individual person. What are her ambitions and passions? What is her educational background? What is her relationship with her friends? Her community? Does she have a life outside of Fonny? She lacks the kind of character development granted to Fonny. The erasure of her background in the film serves as a missed opportunity for the audience to learn about her personhood. Fonny’s artwork and friendships indicate that he has his own personal interests that do not revolve around his romantic partner only.
Conversely, Tish lives for Fonny. Her entire existence revolves around him. She is docile, soft-spoken, meek, and dependent.  She is domestic. She cooks, but we don’t even know if she is a good cook. Her identity, character and strengths are hidden if not completely ignored. These characteristics are portrayed in several scenes. One night during a walk, Fonny suggests to Tish potential activities for their date night. She fails to make a decision. During a moment of lovemaking, Fonny directly asks Tish if she likes it. She holds back from giving him a straight answer. On their pursuit to find an apartment, they walk into a huge empty dusty warehouse. As Tish scopes out the dreary surroundings Fonny attempts to convince her that this space is the perfect option to turn into a home. Instead of Tish fully articulating her reservations, she poses questions on how this building could function as their home. To convince her, he responds by participating in play with Levy, the landlord (Dave Franco) to imagine a fridge and stove in the space. He succeeds when she begins to participate in his world of make-believe. But ultimately, it’s clear: Tish has no vision. Fonny is always leading. Moreover, their power dynamics continue outside of the home. In a chilling scene, Tish defends Fonny during a confrontation with a police officer after he fought off a white man who sexually harassed her in a store. The white woman store owner stops the white male officer from his continued aggravation of Fonny. Angered, after the incident, Fonny walks ahead of Tish down the street, throws tomatoes against the wall and cautions her to stay in her place:
“Don’t you ever try to protect me.”
“But you were trying to protect me,” Tish retorts.
“It’s not the same,” he responds.
Within the bounds of patriarchy, Fonny is able to protect Tish as black men historically have not been able to protect black women from white male sexual violence; however, Fonny does not allow her to protect him. Fonny reprimands Tish for safeguarding him from racial violence because he interprets her protection as a threat to his manhood. This scene represents Fonny’s battle over his masculinity against the white male perpetrator and his lover, Tish. Scholars such as Farah Jasmine Griffin and Ula Taylor have written extensively about the relationship between race, patriarchy, and protection. Although Tish actively shields Fonny from state terror, she is unable to protect herself from the gender violence she regularly endures by white men at her place of employment as a fragrance spritzer. As she explains, white men violate her body as they press their nose into the back of her hand for a sniff. Her ability to defend Fonny but not herself, falls in line with protecting the sanctity of the black race at the expense of black womanhood. This film has a difficult time showing how race and gender matter equally. It pushes the dangerous notion that race and gender by no means intersect simultaneously. Audiences don’t fully know who Tish is because, in our lived experiences we still do not know how to acknowledge black women’s humanity.
Ultimately, both families are invested in proving Fonny’s innocence, particularly the women who cannot avert their attention from his incarceration. Women suffer from the incarceration of men. Tish’s life is substantially impacted by Fonny’s incarceration. What is lost by ignoring women are the ways that women’s lives are critical to the family unit. Women are deeply affected physically, emotionally, psychologically, and financially from a loved one in prison. Moreover, the fact that Tish is pregnant throughout the duration of his incarceration neglects the physical stressors that impact good prenatal health. Studies have shown how racism and stress impact black women’s morality rates and well as their infant mortality rates. Black children are born at lower birth rates and have higher instances of preterm deliveries. Nowhere in Jenkins or Baldwin’s telling of their story illustrates the dire statistics black pregnant women face. A fuller portrait would reveal that in the face of insurmountable odds, it’s not Fonny and Tish’s love that’s at risk, but the life of their unborn child. The centralization of Fonny over Tish perpetuates the idea that the contributions of wives, mothers, and even girlfriends don’t have value. If Beale Street Could Talk it would say Tish matters too.
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Mary Frances Phillipsis an Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Lehman College, City University of New York. Her work looks at women and gender in the modern black freedom movement. She is writing a biography on Ericka Huggins in the Black Panther Party.

Ali Shaheed Muhammad And Adrian Younge On Sampling, Jazz And Hip-Hop

'A Tribe Called Quest's Ali Shaheed Muhammad and prolific producer Adrian Younge stopped by the studios of KMHD Jazz Radio in Portland to talk about the long history of Jazz and Hip Hop influencing each other. Their new album The Midnight Hour showcases this history, bringing a hip hop sensibility to contemporary jazz.'

Netflix Will Produce its First-Ever Original Series in Africa

'Netflix might be acquiescing to the Saudi government, but the streaming giant is also trying to exert its influence across the African continent. A new Netflix original series called Queen Sono about a cross-continental spy will star South African actress and ABC’s Quantico alum, Pearl Thusi. Lynsey Chutel , a Correspondent for Quartz in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been following these developments closely. She says that the African market has long been ignored, but that this is a positive step forward in showing streaming businesses the continent should be taken more seriously. In choosing South Africa as its first production site and this intercontinental story, Chutel says, Netflix is signaling it has bigger plans ahead.' -- The Takeaway

Telling Stories and Telling Histories: Wayetu Moore's She Would Be King

'Wayetu Moore speaks with host Eric Newman about her debut novel She Would Be King, which interweaves history with magical realism to re-tell Liberia's founding in the 19th century. The Allegorical tale revolves around three characters: an immortal woman Vai, exiled from her indigenous community; an African-American man June Dey, who possesses super-human strength; and Norman Aragon, half-white from Jamaica, with the magical power to vanish. As the three stories merge, Liberia is born. Wayetu tells Eric about her family's history in Liberia, their move to America when Wayetu was five years old during a civil war, her subsequent relationship to Liberia, and what motivated her to write its foundation myth in such a beautiful and mystical form.' -- LA Review of Books 

How One Designer Created the “Look” of Jazz

'What does modern jazz look like? For a lot of music fans, the visual identity of jazz has become synonymous with a single record label that defined the sound and feeling of the musical style during its transformation from the complicated melodies of bebop to the soulful hooks of hard bop during the 1950s and ’60s. That record label is Blue Note, and their album covers are so iconic, they’ve been the point of inspiration for graphic designers and musicians for the past 60 years.' -- EARWORM  S1 • E12/Vox
 

Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod: Rev. William Barber On Poor People's Campaign

'A growing national movement to end poverty and calls for a moral revival. Nearly half a century ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called for a Poor Peoples Campaign. He was assassinated before he was able to fully implement it. In May 2017, four months after the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Rev. Dr. William Barber introduced the new Poor Peoples Campaign, building on Kings call to end poverty. Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod brings you the voice of Barber himself, speaking at a mass meeting in Los Angeles where he launched the new Poor Peoples Campaign in California.'

Love, Hip Hop, & Latinx: Amara La Negra and the Uncovering of Race by Wilfredo Gomez

Art By Simply Jess
SJ Art website (www.simplyjessart.com) and instagram (@artbysimplyjess) Love, Hip Hop, & Latinx: Amara La Negra and the Uncovering of Race by Wilfredo Gomez | @BazookaGomez84 | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
What does it mean to theorize or better yet to operate as one who theorizes: this is a question posed by the first season of Love & Hip Hop:Miami. The implications of those theoretical propositions will continue to play out during the upcoming second season. The person at the center of this query is Amara La Negra. At its foundation, theory suggests a particular way of looking at the world. For Amara La Negra, her Afro-Latina identity is central to how she conceptualizes her Latinx identity, a springboard for a broader conversation about race, nationality, belonging, being, and inclusivity. Amara is unapologetic about her blackness, but its centrality to her Latinidad brings a critical lens to bear on the erasures of bodies and its significance in excavating histories and experiences that are far too readily dismissed in conversations regarding Latinxs in America.
Collectively, these sentiments made for tension and public conversation during the first season of Love & Hip Hop: Miami. One could suggest that it was the driving force behind the entire first season as discourses of colorism, access, and inclusivity touched upon topics of race, ethnicity, language, socialization, consciousness, diaspora, class, kin, hair politics, representation, performance, commercial appeal, mainstream standards of acceptance, a politics of respectability (what is and is not acceptable/commendable with regards to the representations of race) and geography. What all of this highlights is the cache and critical possibilities inherent in the language of Latinx identity, whereby the X signifies upon and is critical of Latinidades at the crossroads. A stark departure from Latino/a and Latin@, Latinx pushes back on its predecessors tackling the increasingly politicized nature of what it means to conceptualize, embody and enact one’s Latinidades both in private and in public. The X forces listeners to think critically about intersectionality and the power dynamics involved in the prospects of that “inter” being disrupted, stifled, and made void of voice and agency.
For a figure like Amara La Negra, she is both black and Latina, proudly claiming her Dominican identity from the outset of season 1. A hip-hop cipher promoting the show’s premier in 2018, not only highlights Amara’s Dominican identity as evidenced in the symbol of the Dominican flag that adorns the house near her as she (deliberately) raps in Spanish, it highlights a nostalgia that further implicates an invitation to diaporic blacknesswith the presence of an old car that simultaneously symbolizes how the past is always invoked and ever present (think of Cuba) and how the presence of Afro-Cubans both in Miami and Cuba (in both the contemporary and historical context), draws attention to the specter of Celia Cruz’s musical memory and artistic influence in Amara’s performative repertoire. Moreover, the fact that Amara punctuates her rhyme with the crescendo of a clenched raised fist (an homage of sorts to John Carlos), a clarion call for a more nuanced diasporic blackness, situates black power firmly in the wheelhouse of Latinidad in ways that illuminate the transnationalism and transregionalism that is encapsulated in the diverse geopolitical realities and histories that inform the presence, movements, and cultures of Latinx communities. However, the performance and embodiment of that identity as an everyday lived reality seems lost on figures such as Young Hollywood and later on Veronica Vega (more on that in a bit).
In the age of Trump and Trumpian politics, public calls for walls, border security, and safety serve as coded language that effectively signifies-delivering multiple messages that permeate throughout a variety of media outlets. The direct consequences of said actions and behaviors weaponize xenophobia giving it free reign to be every bit of rampant as it is flagrant. What results is an essentializing of identity and the political arena, where terms are politicized (and politically charged) in ways that draw tangible connections between language, broken systems, institutions, and the criminalization of bodies that implicate individuals as an extension to and commentary on the condemnation of the “other.” As such the invocation of words like “gangs” and “MS-13,” amongst others, represent systems of indifference that demonize, dehumanize, and pathologize with frequent (and unchecked) promiscuity. One unintended consequence of these actions is that they not only expose glaring misunderstandings of the push and pull forces that contribute to “others” being “here,” they also serve to essentialize Latinidades, creating singular universal narratives that ignore diversity within and across communities. Thus, the broader American public does not or can not be afforded the space, tools, or literacies to understand the differences say between Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Mexicans, on the one hand, and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans on the other. I raise this point not to further essentialize the conversation, but to make an argument about the existence of Latinidades in the American popular imagination.
It is with this in mind, that Amara La Negra takes on a particularly pedagogical project through her body, language usage, and artistry when juxtaposing her Latinidad to the Latinidades represented (and celebrated) via the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara, and Shakira (Puerto Rican and in the latter two’s case Colombian). Amara’s use of “Afro-Latina” is an affirmation of blackness. Taken within this context, producer Young Hollywood is a proxy for the American popular imagination (not ignoring his own melanin infused existence). Not only does he explicitly state that Amara can not be elegant while possessing of afro, he does so mockingly referring to her as a “nutella queen,” while playfully (if not ignorantly) asking if Amara is in fact Afro-Latina because she is African. Hollywood goes on to further complicate the policing of what become the porous borders of blackness by framing the optics of Amara’s body and artistry through the real, symbolic, and sonic bodies of Beyonce and Macy Gray.
The reference here invokes a discussion about the how, when, and where, involved in ways of knowing and ways of being: coded language for artistry, sound, crossover success (which Amara explicitly aspires to in season 1 and seemingly attains by season 2), beauty, and narratives involved in performances of racial passing (both the what counts as “white” in the case of Vega’s controversial use of the word “nigga” and “black” as evidenced in the narrative surrounding Amara’s Afro Latinx identity). This analytical lens echoes the work of Tracy Sharpley-Whiting in Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Young Black Women, Hip Hop and the New Gender Politics, wherein she brilliantly connects the optics (and cross-over sound and sights) of hip-hop with the broader forces of globalization and digital technology, which privilege, through repetitive behaviors and ideology, a reinforcement of the very particular branded narrative of femininity that reinscribes the appeal of ethnic ambiguity, and the subsequent desire for a consumable exotic beauty. The significance of the previous statement should not be overlooked as it speaks to a longing for a commodifiable black body (and sound) void of blackness (an ethnic ambiguity the Love & Hip Hop franchise has mobilized to its advantage).
Rather than commending or uplifting Amara’s identity and attempts to expand the prospects of what is commercially viable (beyond English language crossover appeal), Hollywood’s comments further cement the liminality of Amara’s body by constraining the being and becoming at the crossroads of her blackness and Latinidad. As a result, Amara’s identity is further cemented as performance, a performance of blackness or perhaps more compellingly, an African-American artistry in drag. This invites a curiosity on the part of viewers that seek to unpack the socialization processes that might frame Amara’s blackness as an exotic brand of African-American identity. Moreover, there is a persistent variable that questions the visual, suggesting a concern of legibility (a recognition of Amara’s Afro-Latinx identity) and credibility (an understanding that that Afro-Latinx identity is in fact authentic).
This is an identity that Amara is all to aware of having cited the influences of the likes of both Celia Cruz and Tina Turner, (influences that speak to an American upbringing and the relevance of popular culture in informing identity politics, as well as thinking about questions of representation vis-a-vis black bodies in the Americas). This represents Amara’s pushback on white Latino privilege and white (read: American) privilege more broadly conceived, as she attempts to navigate the politics of the music industry. These misreadings stoke the fires of misunderstanding, which revolve around the legitimacy of her hair and skin complexion as manifested in rumors regarding her tanning/darkening her skin or worse yet, allegations about performing in blackface.
However, Amara La Negra is not the only figure on the show implicated in essentialist notions of blackness, or calls for a nuanced blackness, a fluidity mindful of socialization, solidarity, self-identification, community, and the ever illusive idea of culture. During the latter stages of season 1, Veronica Vega, becomes an antagonist of sorts, a stark contrast to where she started in the beginning of the season as a confidant of Amara’s. Even at the outset of season 1, not only is Vega cognizant of colorism, she articulates an idea of racial democracy, suggesting that all Latinos trace their ancestry to European, indigenous, and African roots. It is perhaps within this particular paradigm that Vega not only self identifies as black, she does so while employing the lexicon and (loaded) history of the word “nigga” in ways that both rupture and explore the public and private domains of language usage, while highlighting the productive tensions that underscore the presence of Latinos within hip-hop. This too highlights a crossroads that exists at the intersections of African American and Latinx relations, let alone how those relationships co-exist within the realm of cultural productionand popular culture.
Not only does Vega (implicitly) cite an age-old adage in Spanish-speaking Caribbean households, “Y tu abuela adonde esta” (and your grandmother where is she? A phrase that speaks to a larger ideology, at least rhetorically, of racial democracy within familial lineages.It is meant to serve as an acknowledgement, and at times, chastisement, that signals to lighter complexioned folk, that within families, blackness is inherently and fundamentally a part of collective roots, and a challenge for a more enlightened stance on race and identity that combats, or filters out, the expression or adherence to anti-black sentiment. Whether or not the discourse accomplishes that is the subject of another article). The intent behind the invocation is an attempt to counter racial essentialisms, while confronting the presence of white supremacist values and value systems (which are highlighted in spanish-speaking communities, by the phrase, “mejorando la raza,” a call to “better the race” by intermarrying and having children with someone of a lighter complexion, presumably in an attempt to whitewash blackness-an aspirational whiteness if you will).
In the reunion following season 1, Vega, perhaps unintentionally, delivers an ultimatum of her own identity by stating “I’m black...I’m absolutely black.” This statement stands in stark contrast to her (physical) appearance and is juxtaposed (on camera) with the presence and commentary of Juju, who herself, like Vega, is of Cuban descent, (not overlooking the contributions made by Amara La Negra to spark such conversations). However, in light of the debate surrounding who, when, where, and how one can deploy such contentious language, we might ask ourselves, what further informs Vega’s conceptualization of blackness and black identity? Would she in turn, self identify as Afro-Latina or Latinx for that matter? Would the audience present at the reunion (including the cast) respond differently had she taken the stance, “I identify as a product of the black diaspora?” In reflecting on the politicization of Latinx identity, what gets glossed over, highlighted, or erased when articulating such a view as part of one’s identity politics? How do we think through erasures or essentialisms within the assumptions made by the language of Latinx identity, when the ideological stance underscoring its necessity as vocabulary (and marker of greater inclusivity) may or may not be a term that is universally understood or deployed?
Vega alludes to this by speaking not of race, during her exchange with Trina (who suggest that “her people” were upset with Vega for her linguistic transgressions), but of processes of racialization. She expresses the sentiment that in a room full of caucasians, her “whiteness,” its credibility, legibility, performance, and authenticity, is called into question for essentially not being the “right” brand of whiteness. Thus, Vega is astute in her understanding of what it means to be implicated in discourses (and realities) of white privilege, and how that excludes bodies rendered “other.” She applies that analytical lens to the plight of Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria implicitly speaking to and speaking out on racist colonial policies and practices that not only race, but racialize: an erasure of Americanness and citizenship that unmasks white supremacist values symbolized by the role of empire (and exceptionalism) in promoting and projecting racial paradigms that privilege some bodies at the expense of others. In being “othered” these Caribbean (diasporic) bodies are abject, dehumanized and disposable. While unacknowledged, the brief exchange (between Trina and Vega) accentuates Vega’s solidarity politics and agency as someone who has a race (in terms of how her body is “read”) on the one hand, and how she racializes her own being, becoming the other. Thus her “blackness” if you will is political, diasporic, Latinx, and Caribbean.
Although less prominently featured on season 1 of Love and Hip Hop: Miami, is the storyline of Steph Lecor, a fair complexioned woman of Haitian descent. At various points throughout the season, she is present in conversations (along with Veronica Vega and Amara La Negra) surrounding debates around racial authenticity, its embodiment, and its resistance to the business and politics of conformity. She enters these discussions not only with an understanding of how those debates within the Latinx community translate to other communities, she does so with an understanding that highlights her own understanding of racial essentialisms. Her engagement and understanding of the complexities of Latinx identity are in conversation with the recent provocatively argued, and brilliant offering by Ayanna Legros, a Haitian-American woman and who self identifies as Afro-Latinx. In light of this argument and the conversations they have sparked I can’t help but reconfigure Lecor’s contributions and presence within these discourses given the historical context and significance of Haiti being the first free black republic in the Western hemisphere (having obtained its independence in 1804), and the role that played for black folk throughout the diaspora to conceive of and execute both large scale and everyday acts of resistance that afforded them opportunities to exercise control over their individual and collective becomings. The American popular imagination also comes into play for Lecor given Haiti’s presence in the apparatus of xenophobia and racism that informs our contemporary debates around values,  authenticity, and the role of the United States throughout the Americas (we have Donald Trump to thank for that with his derogatory comments towards Haiti and other countries).
The figure above taken by Jessica the artist and designer, entitled “Afro Latina” situates through art, how the personal is so intimately woven into the fabric of that which is both public and private: an endeavor that situates race more as a byproduct of what others see and project, as opposed to how the individuals fashion their own identities. It is by no means coincidence that the image of one Amara La Negra appears in black and white, a cultural commentary on what constitutes blackness and who has access to its deployment-competing voices, aspirations, and intersections that provoke more grey matter than the image could possibly capture. And while words like strong, love, bold, powerful, beautiful, and loyal feature prominently, the words “Afro” “Latina” are punctuated by fists and fittingly capped off by an afro. While missing, Latinx is embodied in the figure that is the muse Amara La Negra: Afro Latina existing at, yet transcending the structures and institutions empowered through language. One can only imagine how these particular discourses and insights implicate those others who may themselves be Latinx throughout the Love & Hip Hopfranchise: Trina, Gunplay, and others. Let us see how we can further complicate these discussions together...through love and hip hop at the crossroads of Latinx identity.
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Wilfredo Gomez is an independent scholar and researcher. He can be reached at gomez.wilfredo@gmail.com or via twitter at @BazookaGomez84.

Angela Davis on Running from the FBI, Lessons from Prison and How Aretha Franklin Got Her Free

'For more than four decades, Angela Davis has been one of most influential activists and intellectuals in the United States. An icon of the black liberation movement, Davis’s work around issues of gender, race, class and prisons has influenced critical thought and social movements across several generations. She is a leading advocate for prison abolition, a position informed by her own experience as a prisoner and fugitive on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list more than 40 years ago. Once caught, she faced the death penalty in California. After being acquitted, she has spent her life fighting to change the criminal justice system. Just before the midterm elections, Angela Davis sat down with Amy Goodman in Washington, D.C., at Busboys and Poets to tell her life story.'

Behind the Scenes of "Lazarus" | Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at The Kennedy Center

'In the Company’s first two-act ballet, acclaimed hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris—whose work includes past favorites Exodus and Home—is inspired by the life and legacy of Mr. Ailey. With Lazarus, Harris connects past and present in a powerful work that addresses the racial inequities America faced when Mr. Ailey founded this company in 1958 and still faces today. Now more than ever, the world needs the power of dance to bring people together and connect us all by our common humanity. Celebrating its 60th anniversary, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater continues to push the art form into fascinating new territory while still honoring signature classics.' --The Kennedy Center