Read on Twitter
I’m inviting non-Black folks reading this to ask yourselves if there are Black curators, chefs, designers, artists, novelists, humorists, drag performers, essayists, dancers, stylists, etc. whose work you are familiar with, and/or who you follow on Twitter and Instagram.
I’m asking myself the same, and where the space feels and looks v white, I know I have work to do, to look deeper.
Integrating Black arts, culture, and storytelling into one’s culture diet is a vital part of unlearning anti-Black attitudes and beliefs.
Integrating Black arts, culture, and storytelling into one’s culture diet is a vital part of unlearning anti-Black attitudes and beliefs.
Media rarely represent BIPOC — Black and Indigenous people, especially — as anything other than victims and/or heroes overcoming impossible challenges.
Media has a responsibility to be honest about the violence symptomatic of systemic racism, but it is also their responsibility to give visibility to the full humanity of BIPOC.
Make no mistake: In this moment, news outlets and social media companies are turning Black suffering into profit. (See also: Hannah Black’s widely circulated open letter to the curators of the 2017 Whitney Biennial http://www.artnews.com/2017/03/21/the-painting-must-go-hannah-black-pens-open-letter-to-the-whitney-about-controversial-biennial-work/)
Twitter and mainstream media are telling you a story. What is the story are you learning about being Black in America?
To “do the work,” you don’t have to only read Angela Davis, James Baldwin, or Ta-Nehisi Coates. Consider how radical Black joy and imaginations could shift your perspective.
Watch the works of Black filmmakers such as Julie Dash, Ava Duvernay, Spike Lee, Arthur Jafa, and Melina Matsoukas.
Get caught up on the latest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race and start Legendary on HBO (after you’ve at least watched Paris is Burning).
Immerse yourself in the history and music of the Soulquarians (I’m biased). Black music is arguably America's most important cultural export. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/music-black-culture-appropriation.html
Follow Black critics and subscribe to podcasts hosted by Black folks (e.g. Still Processing, The Read, Another Round, Soooo Many White Guys, Small Doses)
Buy books by Black authors — esp. fiction and poetry. Some of my faves are: Meaty, White Teeth, All About Love, The Turner House, Americanah, and Difficult Women.
Appreciate and promote, but don’t appropriate or fetishize, Black art or creativity.
I am heartbroken by “the catastrophic condition of the world” and its brutal history, but it is important to remember that this isn’t all that we are https://frieze.com/article/staying-room
For those seeking an anti-racism resource guide, focused on academic and non-fiction works, this is one of the best that I’ve come across: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hpub-jkm9cLzJWqZSsETqbE6tZ13Q0UbQz--vQ2avEc/preview. Thank you to @tatortash and other contributors to this valuable document.
