I've noticed recently that I'm becoming more and more... I don't know... conscious of my blackness.
This is not a bad thing by any means, I mean, I've been black my whole life. Unlike Michael Jackson. And will continue to be for years to come.
What I'm saying here is that recently, I've noticed how a lot of things I do seem to revolve around blackness. Mainly our past as a black people. Anywhere in the world.
Over the past few weeks I've been working on a couple of designs, and the recurrent theme in these designs, seems to be Blackness. I don't know why. I don't know if I'm making any sense to you reading this, just that I'm trying to figure it out myself.
I designed a piece a few weeks ago. Titled Resist. That's the one with the red background by the way. And I didn't necessarily set out to design a piece like that. It just ended up that way.
I was listening to some music at the time, and a song kept crawling up on my playlist and I created the RESIST with a fist and set it aside while working on the rest of the design. Which was meant to be a grundgy wallpaper. I just ended up adding RESIST into the design, and then came the few words from the song. A house song by Roland Clark. I'm not sure who's on the vocals though...
This is not a bad thing by any means, I mean, I've been black my whole life. Unlike Michael Jackson. And will continue to be for years to come.
What I'm saying here is that recently, I've noticed how a lot of things I do seem to revolve around blackness. Mainly our past as a black people. Anywhere in the world.
Over the past few weeks I've been working on a couple of designs, and the recurrent theme in these designs, seems to be Blackness. I don't know why. I don't know if I'm making any sense to you reading this, just that I'm trying to figure it out myself.
I designed a piece a few weeks ago. Titled Resist. That's the one with the red background by the way. And I didn't necessarily set out to design a piece like that. It just ended up that way.
I was listening to some music at the time, and a song kept crawling up on my playlist and I created the RESIST with a fist and set it aside while working on the rest of the design. Which was meant to be a grundgy wallpaper. I just ended up adding RESIST into the design, and then came the few words from the song. A house song by Roland Clark. I'm not sure who's on the vocals though...
After that I just added pics of people doing exactly what the song was saying. Resisting. It all came together. I can't explaing it.
I have no reason for feeling the need to tell anyone to "resist", or "run for their lives". Hell, I self don't have any reason to resist.
Second piece:
I designed this last night -04.Feb.2009. Inspired by this one...
I was bored at my place, and decided to work on a design. I didn't have anything in mind at the time, but while browsing around looking for a background pic, I came accross some pics in my library. It was a picture of President Obama, the and the African continent. And at the time, there was a bootleg house mix of my favourite former State President Thabo Mbeki's speech/poem, I Am an African. I decided to put the three together.
As the design went on, I realised the project was just getting bigger as I got more ideas of what to add, but didn't wanna clutter it like the Resist one. So I thought I should rather perfect what I already have and would finish it off today after I got the rest of the pics I wanted to add. (I'll be putting the pic up on here tomorrow.
Ok, enough about the design process, I'm sure you were starting to nod off there a little bit.
What this whole thing is really about is basically that I was never raised as anything but being a black person. I was raised in a family where nobody backed down from anything. From any race at any given time. Though none of my family member give much of a damn about politics...
I don't hate any race for any reason. I was raised to be aware of my blackness. Not aware of it as in, be ashamed or apologetic for it. Just be aware.
I don't come accross as the type of black person who would cause any problems for anyone, and to be honest I really am not like that. And it's for that very reason I don't expect you to treat me any different because of the black person that I am.
Though I claim not to read any books, there are a couple of books I have read; and maybe that's the reason I'm feeling the way I do at this point in my life. I prefer reading about people's lives. And not some guy who is told to climb up a montain for a ring. I don't even watch those type of movies.
I prefer biographies. Especially what is Black literature in the mainstream. Even though most black literiture isn't really what you would call 'mainstream'. I read Alex Hailey's Malcolm X biography twice, I can't tell you why. Simply because I don't know. Read Capitalist Nigger (for some reason I can never remember this guy's name) lost interest in it at some point, but finished it anyway. I'm thinking of readin 3 other books in more or less the same train of thought as the two I mentioned.
Being a child of the web generation. I do most of my reading online. I lose myself on Wikipedia a lot. I just click links from within whatever article I'm reading and I just never know where I'll end up.
End.
I have no reason for feeling the need to tell anyone to "resist", or "run for their lives". Hell, I self don't have any reason to resist.
Second piece:
I designed this last night -04.Feb.2009. Inspired by this one...
I was bored at my place, and decided to work on a design. I didn't have anything in mind at the time, but while browsing around looking for a background pic, I came accross some pics in my library. It was a picture of President Obama, the and the African continent. And at the time, there was a bootleg house mix of my favourite former State President Thabo Mbeki's speech/poem, I Am an African. I decided to put the three together.
As the design went on, I realised the project was just getting bigger as I got more ideas of what to add, but didn't wanna clutter it like the Resist one. So I thought I should rather perfect what I already have and would finish it off today after I got the rest of the pics I wanted to add. (I'll be putting the pic up on here tomorrow.
Ok, enough about the design process, I'm sure you were starting to nod off there a little bit.
What this whole thing is really about is basically that I was never raised as anything but being a black person. I was raised in a family where nobody backed down from anything. From any race at any given time. Though none of my family member give much of a damn about politics...
I don't hate any race for any reason. I was raised to be aware of my blackness. Not aware of it as in, be ashamed or apologetic for it. Just be aware.
I don't come accross as the type of black person who would cause any problems for anyone, and to be honest I really am not like that. And it's for that very reason I don't expect you to treat me any different because of the black person that I am.
Though I claim not to read any books, there are a couple of books I have read; and maybe that's the reason I'm feeling the way I do at this point in my life. I prefer reading about people's lives. And not some guy who is told to climb up a montain for a ring. I don't even watch those type of movies.
I prefer biographies. Especially what is Black literature in the mainstream. Even though most black literiture isn't really what you would call 'mainstream'. I read Alex Hailey's Malcolm X biography twice, I can't tell you why. Simply because I don't know. Read Capitalist Nigger (for some reason I can never remember this guy's name) lost interest in it at some point, but finished it anyway. I'm thinking of readin 3 other books in more or less the same train of thought as the two I mentioned.
Being a child of the web generation. I do most of my reading online. I lose myself on Wikipedia a lot. I just click links from within whatever article I'm reading and I just never know where I'll end up.
End.
2 killa comment(s): on "The (r)evolution of me"
You can't not be aware of your blackness. I know I can't. If you aren't, someone, something will remind you. Whether in a good or bad way. "Black consciousness" has been mistaken for dwelling on the slavery and the apartheid. It's not. Those are separate issues. They were brought on by us being black, and have contributed to the many stuggles we fight with daily, if not entirely sourced them, but being black on its own, is something else. And it's a very complex something in this world. But it's what we are and it's beautiful and I love it. :)
Amen.
I love being black.
Being black is what makes me who I am. Take away everything that I've got, and what am I left with? My blackness.
What makes me black? Nothing. Nothing makes me black. I AM black.
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