Why Have a Picasso When You Can Have a Basquiat?
Jean Michel Basquiat’s work was both countercultural and revolutionary. Channeling his Afro-Caribbean heritage into masterpieces, he honed in on Black people as the protagonists in the majority of his paintings.
By modernizing images of traditional African art and infusing them with elements of Black spirituality, he created very complex pieces with multiple layers of meaning and depth.
It is often said that great art is polarizing and forces people to form an opinion or take a side. Basquiat’s pieces are a prime example.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Emerging out of the New York graffiti scene, he became notorious for spraying “SAMO” all over the city, which stood for “Same Old Shit” and was a direct act of rebellion against America’s oppressive systems.
The acronym underlined his anti-government, anti-establishment, anti-religion, and anti-politics sentiments and gained him fame within the underground NY art scene. As Basquiat evolved into a canvas painter, he provided social commentary on the world around him and sought to uncover deeper truths about individuals as a whole.
To that point, much of Basquiat’s work was him trying to discover what it really meant to be a Black man in America. He overcame a family background where his mother battled mental instability and his father was abusive. His troubled family life led him to homelessness in his late teens, peddling paintings on the back of postcards for change.
Much like a Picasso, Basquiat’s pieces are highly recognizable. Using his signature crown images, doodling, Biblical and pop-culture references, as well poetry and childlike figures are characteristics that are distinct in his artwork.
Slave Auction (1982), History of Black People (1983), Irony of the Negro Policeman (1981), Charles The First (1982) and Obnoxious Liberals (1982) are just a sampling of his body of work.
What you will find in these pieces is Basquiat’s struggle with his identity that led him to critiquing racism, colonialism, and capitalism as he felt those existing systems were deeply at odds with who he believed himself to be as a person.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Basquiat’s story has a tragic end with a heroin overdose at age 27 often attributed to difficulty navigating his newfound fame and depression.
Since his death, some of his highly coveted pieces have sold for upwards of $100 million and have become must-haves for athletes, celebrities, and art collectors alike.
Also, if you are a rap fan, then it is highly likely that you have heard Basquiat’s name dropped in songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West, J.Cole, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Nas, and many more. He is hands down the most referenced painter in hip hop music and continues to live on as a young icon in popular culture.
It would be irresponsible to not comment on the irony of this success since his death, given the fact that he was labeled as a misfit and mere street artist by critics while he was alive.
His art spoke against so much in society and it makes you wonder whether the people buying his work now even understand the symbolic meanings and themes he was experimenting with.
If you want to know more about Basquiat’s journey and hear his nuanced perspectives on society directly from his mouth, check out his documentary titled “The Radiant Child.”
Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, died from racism. Her uphill battle of fighting for racial equity after the unjust death of her father in 2014 was worthy, but she suffered, and paid the ultimate price.
On December 30, 2017, she died at the age of 27 after being placed in a medically-induced coma, following a heart attack, according to news reports.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-1512094833018-0"); });
Erica endured chronic stress from her work as an organizer, but also from her life as a Black woman, born into a deeply racist and sexist society that strained her health. Chronic stress from discrimination and poverty hurts Black women’s health by raising their risk for various health conditions, like heart disease. And years of science backs it up.
In fact, one study found that middle-aged Black women are approximately 7.5 years biologically “older” than their white counterparts. For decades, Black women have taken on multiple caretaking roles in their families, friend groups, workplaces,and communities.
Black women have made incredible strides in college attendance, worked harder for less, and fought for liberation through activism and organizing. And it literally kills them.
Because of this, Zora Neale Hurston’s words still ring true that Black women become the “mules of the earth.” This devastating narrative of Black women suffering in the United States is so common that it has a name - The Sojourner Syndrome.
The concept is named after Sojourner Truth to describe how racism, sexism, and classism all negatively impact Black women’s health. Leith Mullings developed the concept to explain why so many Black women continued to have miscarriages, low birth weight, preterm, and stillborn babies, no matter their education or income levels.
We can honor Erica Garner by fighting for a support system for Black women and their health. Universal health care, a living wage, and increased high-quality social services like low-cost child care, would be a start. When we uplift Black women, we uplift our community.
To learn more about the Sojourner Syndrome, check out Leith Mullings work Stress and Resilience: The Social Context of Reproduction in Central Harlem.
“The white man has succeeded in subduing the world by forcing everybody to think his way...The white man's propaganda has made him the master of the world, and all those who have come in contact with it and accepted it have become his slaves.” - Marcus Garvey
Born in Jamaica in 1887, Marcus Garvey has been called the “Negro Moses” for his triumphant efforts to fight for Black liberation and economic independence. Drawing heavily on the work of Booker T. Washington, Garvey encouraged complete social and political separation from whites and resettlement in Africa.
When Garvey moved to England at age 25, he became steeped in Pan-African philosophy and began formulating a plan for how to empower Black people. After three years of writing for the African Times and Orient Review, he founded the first chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.).
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
The U.N.I.A. birthed several organizations aimed at helping Black people get to Liberia and start a new life as part of the “Back to Africa” movement.
Garvey believed that a people dislocated from their homeland are like a tree without roots. He supported Black nationalism and sought to separate socially, politically, and economically from whites.
As a powerful dynamic speaker, Garvey attracted massive attention from Black people across the world who bought into his ideas of racial uplift. Later, his followers, called “Garveyites,” named his compelling beliefs “Garveyism.”
In addition to public speeches, Garvey propagated his ideas through his newspaper Negro World, which reached a global audience spanning four continents and over 200,000 readers. This publication was the most widely-read Black publication of its time and held that record for many years.
Garvey realized that to see the change he wanted to see, he would have to take his efforts a step further. So he created the Black Star Steamship Line and Negro Factories Company.
He designed Black Star to provide affordable transportation to Black people worldwide and the Negro Factories Company encouraged economic independence by building factories, grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses.
The American government took an anti-Garvey stance and the F.B.I. went on a mission to ruin his life and career. According to historian Winston James, “They placed spies in the U.N.I.A., they sabotaged the Black Star Line. The engines of the ships were actually damaged by foreign matter being thrown into the fuel.”
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Eventually, the government charged Garvey with mail fraud, sentenced him to five years in prison, and deported him to Jamaica after his release. Despite legal woes, he remained politically active and continued his U.N.I.A. work abroad.
Hands down, Marcus Garvey holds a special place in our people’s history as one of the most influential Black activists of all-time. Even Rastafarianism, The Nation of Islam, and Black Power movements have drawn from Garveyism to ground themselves in Black nationalist principles.
Reading Garvey’s own words brings us enlightenment and empowerment as his revolutionary message still rings true today. Discover more about his powerful message here.
It’s popular for people to say they are going “Back to Africa,” but rarely do we talk about former movements of doing so. To be honest, “Back to Africa” efforts have come in waves and seen their share of success and failure.
As early as 1820, Black Americans began journeys back home via the American Colonization Society (ACS) founded by Charles Mercer and Robert Finley. Comprised of prominent white religious leaders and slave owners, the ACS had contradictory intentions for supporting the migration of free Blacks to Africa.
While religious figures thought that Blacks would have a better chance for true freedom by leaving the U.S., slave owners either desired to get rid of them out of fear of rebellion or wanted them to stay in order to exploit them for further economic gain.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Many free Blacks had doubts about leaving the country and were often too afraid to leave what they were conditioned to view as “comfort” near white people.
It was around this time when many American-born Africans began considering themselves African-Americans despite living in a nation that clearly did not want them there.
But what about the Blacks who chose to leave?
The ACS founded the Republic of Liberia and welcomed nearly 13,000 residents by time of the Civil War. The Liberian government promised 25 acres of land to Black migrants from America, but those who came over encountered unexpected challenges.
Although Liberia was described as a new home and land of opportunity, many of these formerly enslaved folks had been stripped of their original languages and customs and converted to Christianity leaving them with few solid connections to their roots.
Additionally, the first rulers of Liberia were white and the subsequent Blacks from America who rose to power often emulated what they learned from these past leaders, which led to the subjugation of native Africans who were in the region.
Migration died down for a while until the next wave resurfaced with the rise of the KKK in South. Blacks feared for their lives and saw no hope for achieving true equality in America.
Unfortunately traveling to Africa was costly, so lots of people who hoped to go were precluded from doing so.
Up until this point there had been no Black-led efforts to get people back to the motherland, but then arrived the legendary Marcus Garvey bringing with him the idea of African Zionism.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
In Garvey’s own words, “many white men have tried to uplift them [the Negroes], but the only way is for the Negroes to have a nation of their own, like the Jews, that will command the respect of the world with its achievements."
Garvey developed a three-pronged approach to getting people to Africa. First, he established the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which birthed crucial organizations that aided in the effort to get resources to Liberia.
Second, he created the Black Star Line that provided direct transportation to different parts of Africa. Finally, he instituted the Negro Factories Corporation to encourage Black economic independence by building factories, grocery stores, restaurants, and other businesses.
Unlike the ACS, Garvey was not simply motivated by the idea of racial separation from white Americans but rather a definitive need for Black nationalism. Much of his political and religious thought spawned rastafarianism and inspired the Nation of Islam.
Revisiting these “Back to Africa” movements begs us to ponder what such a push would look like today. Media-driven stereotypes about Africa may hinder our ability to even conceptualize what life could be like for us there.
Additionally, “Back to Africa” rhetoric often focuses on the idea of freedom and returning to roots, but are most people prepared for that cultural immersion?
If a new “Back to Africa” movement is going to work, we must all come together and repair what has been lost culturally and reject much of the poison Europeans have injected us with. Stokely Carmichael said it best when he articulated that it all starts with a focus on Africa and accepting ourselves as African, not just being Black.
If you are interested in planning your return home, Ghana has implemented a “Right of Abode” program which welcomes all brothers and sisters in the Diaspora to become citizens of the nation.
If you ever attended a sporting event in America, you have witnessed a sea of patriotic folks placing their right hand over their hearts as someone proudly sings the Star Spangled Banner to honor their country. Unfortunately, for Black Americans, participating in this ritual can produce conflicting emotions given the racist history of the national anthem.
On one hand, many of us want to feel connected to the place we live everyday. In practice, that can mean saluting the flag, saying the pledge of allegiance, respecting the president, and singing the national anthem. On the other hand, this nation once prided itself on our ancestors’ slave labor and continues to show a lack of concern for Black lives.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
In 1814, Francis Scott Key penned the Star Spangled Banner as a poem 117 years before it became the national anthem. According to The Root, “it is one of the most racist, pro-slavery, anti-Black songs in the American lexicon” because Key supported slavery, believed Blacks were mentally inferior, and captured his sentiments in the “lost stanza” of his poem.
Below are lines that openly celebrate the murder of enslaved Blacks from Key’s poem that were conveniently left out of the national anthem:
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Key’s underhanded remarks show his disdain for Blacks fighting for their own freedom and poignantly expresses that enslaved Blacks were destined for the grave. Key and other white men believed that Black soldiers were a threat to their perceived white superiority.
Colin Kaepernick and other Black athletes have taken a stand against modern-day injustices by kneeling during the national anthem to bring attention to police brutality and inequality in America. This has also brought renewed attention to the song’s lyrics and Key’s racist background.
As a reminder, James Weldon Johnson wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing” in 1900 as a way for African-Americans to display patriotism while remaining focused on Black liberation. Perhaps, it is time to return to singing an anthem that was made “for us and by us.”
Barbecues are one of the most exciting events in the Black community filled with laughs, delicious food, and a 90s R&B playlist - preferably beginning with Mary J. Blige’s “Real Love” - to set the mood just right.
But beyond the fun, BBQs have a special historical place as an African-American tradition that started as a way to sustain entire families with limited resources and dozens of hungry mouths to feed. Look, we’ve always been a resourceful people.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
When the Spaniards stepped foot in the Caribbean, they observed a cooking technique completely foreign to them. The natives were slow-cooking meat over burning wooden planks and the result was the juiciest, most flavorful food the Spaniards had ever eaten.
Word of this cooking method spread like wildfire and especially caught on in the American South, where pigs were abundant.
Whole hog cooking was a sustainable way to cook for the entire community. Being the person to tend to the hog was a rite of passage for young Black men in the South. Often, they had to watch and observe the process several times - maybe years - before being trusted to perform the duties themselves.
Because roasting a pig is an all-day activity, the “pitmaster” and his crew often sat around sharing stories, drinking whiskey or beer, and taking turns basting the hog with a mixture of spices and juice that kept the pig from drying.
In the South, tobacco reigned as a major cash crop, so Black people would use the same fire they dried the tobacco leaves with to cook meat for a communal meal. Because harvesting and drying tobacco was a lengthy process, everybody worked together to make sure they didn’t lose any of their product.
Whether you prefer vinegar-based sauce from Eastern North Carolina or ketchup-based sauce from Kansas or Texas, we all recognize that a BBQ is much more than throwing a couple of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. The BBQ is a safe haven where we preserve a precious piece of Black culture, share a meal, and make memories that last a lifetime.
If you want to learn more about the rich history of barbecuing in the Black community, pick up a copy of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South here.
While the military was one of the first institutions to integrate back in 1948, it wasn’t until 2017 that U.S. Army grooming policies were changed to permit a common hairstyle amongst Black women soldiers: the loc.
Army Regulation 670-1 details the regulations for “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia.” In updating the grooming policies for women soldiers, the directive sought to clear a previous discrepancy that differentiated between locs, cornrows, and twists -- allowing some while barring others.
Now, locs are permitted so long as they are “of uniform dimension; have a diameter no greater than a half-inch; and present a neat, professional and well-groomed appearance.”
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Under the old rules, hairstyles that “twist[ed] two distinct strands of hair around one another to create a twisted ropelike appearance” were previously banned.
The change was a long overdue and welcomed accomplishment by women soldiers who were forced to resort to harsh chemicals or expensive treatments in order stay within regulations.
The Army is not the only division of the military that has delayed just and fair treatment through regulating Black hair. It wasn’t until late 2015 that the Marine Corps approved loc and twist hairstyles.
However, its regulation of those styles still creates challenges for Black women. For example, according to the Marine Corps’ Hair Regulation video, “entwined” hairstyles (meaning braids, twists or locs) can be no more than 3/8ths of an inch in diameter (or the size of a standard paperclip), can be spaced no more than 3/8ths of an inch apart, and locs must be parted with only a square or rectangular shape.
If you want to pull your “entwined” hairstyle into a bun, that bun cannot extend more than three inches from the scalp nor be wider than the wearer’s head.
But the regulation of Black women’s hair is nothing new. Couched in a narrative that favors straight, blond tresses over coarse coils, Black women have sought to chemically straighten, heat-damage or otherwise alter their natural form in order to ascribe to a Eurocentric style of beauty.
In recent years the natural hair movement has transformed this - resulting in hundreds of thousands of Black women relinquishing the ‘creamy crack’ and opting to wear and style their hair in ways similar to those of our ancestors past.
However, even within this movement, there is still debate over a “preferred curl pattern” or texture that places a hierarchy on certain hair types. Like colorism for hair, these debates and preferences reinforce Eurocentric standards of beauty that are counterproductive to our collective identity.
While our military sisters have more freedom to rock their hair in its natural glory, let us continue to celebrate Black beauty in its many forms and textures; styles and lengths; coils and coarseness.