Artistic Mediums
This artistic medium was used by James Van Der Zee to create a visual counter-narrative of dignified, middle-class Black life.
What is photography?
While the Harlem Renaissance created a "new Negro" identity, it was a direct response to this oppressive concept that defined Black people through the view of their oppressors.
What is the "white gaze"?
"I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins."
Who is Langston Hughes?
The Harlem Renaissance was a collective act of this, a word that means the ability to act and make choices within limiting social structures.
What is Agency?
Langston Hughes connected Black identity to ancient rivers to deliberately bypass this hegemonic historical narrative.
What is the historical narrative of American slavery?
The Black Panther Party used this medium to mobilize and organize, making their newspaper a direct and unapologetic tool for political action.
What is graphic design?
While John Coltrane's music was seen as a form of liberation, the Black Arts Movement was concerned that it could become this—a commodified form of Black culture for a white audience.
What is "Black cool"?
This movement was founded on the belief that art must be "by, for, and about black people."
What is the Black Arts Movement?
James Van Der Zee's dignified portraits of Black families were a form of this, an act of creating a new and different version of a story to challenge the dominant one.
What is a counter-narrative?
Zora Neale Hurston's decision to use the vernacular in Their Eyes Were Watching God was a direct refusal to pander to these two audiences.
What are white readers and a Black elite?
In the Harlem Renaissance, writers like Zora Neale Hurston used this medium to capture the authentic voices of the Black South, rejecting pressure to assimilate.
What is literature or writing?
While the Civil Rights Movement often focused on integration, this later movement was a radical break that advocated for art made "by, for, and about Black people."
What is the Black Arts Movement?
This writer used the phrase, "It's a funny thing about love… it’s a big ole pot of stew, and it’s got a little bit of everything in it," as an example of the authentic vernacular she used in her work.
Who is Zora Neale Hurston?
The Black Arts Movement was a direct response to this, arguing that when Black art becomes popular with a white audience, it risks being stripped of its political essence.
What is the commodification of art?
The Black Arts Movement believed that art created for the community itself ensured that the message remained this.
What is uncompromised or uncommodified?
This art form, practiced by musicians like John Coltrane, used improvisation as a form of freedom and resistance, breaking from traditional European musical structures.
What is jazz music?
While Langston Hughes re-rooted Black identity in an ancient, pre-colonial past, Octavia Butler looked to this to imagine a Black-authored future.
What is a post-apocalyptic or futuristic setting?
This artist claimed to be from Saturn, a statement that was part of his cosmic mythology and his rejection of earthly oppression.
Who is Sun Ra?
The use of improvisation in jazz music is a perfect example of resistance through artistic expression, as it broke from these traditional musical forms.
What are traditional European musical structures?
By creating an entire cosmic mythology and claiming to be from Saturn, Sun Ra's goal was to transport listeners to a place free from this.
What is earthly oppression or the confines of the white gaze?
This futuristic genre is a powerful medium for "ontological repair" because it allows a people to re-imagine their past and future.
What is Afrofuturism?
This idea that a community's future is a continuation of its oppressive past is what Afrofuturism actively subverts.
What is historical determinism?
The film Black Panther is a powerful example of this philosophical project, which re-establishes a sense of being and possibility for a people.
What is ontological repair?
The central purpose of the Black Arts Theatre, which created plays for community centers, was to use art as a tool for this.
What is mobilization or raising political consciousness?
Afrofuturism is a deliberate rejection of this power, which is often held by the white gaze, to dictate Black futures.
What is the power to dictate or limit Black futures?