Feb. 26, 2021
Welcome back to our Arts & Culture newsletter where we share ways that arts and cultural practice helps us envision and operationalize belonging. We hope you get a little sustenance. We invite you to ask how these monthly offerings might be applied or influence your own practice, regardless of your profession or sector.
With gratitude and in partnership,
Evan Bissell Arts & Cultural Strategy Coordinator evanbissell@berkeley.edu
+an offering In a forthcoming interview with DJ and producer Rich Medina, he shared with us that one of the most soothing songs for him in 2020 was the magnificent Sunday and Sister Jones by Roberta Flack. For Rich, it captures the mourning and grief of these times - and of times before. With so many of us now directly impacted by loss during the pandemic, we hope it gives you space to step into the feelings you need.
+opportunities Image: The cover of Unmasking Yellow Peril, by 18 Million Rising
Zines!! Two zines put together by 18 Million Rising for helping to think through and take action during these challenging times. Through powerful collages, Unmasking Yellow Peril shares a longer history of anti-Asian racism, while Call on Me, Not the Cops provides a culturally-specific roadmap to have conversations within families about finding safety with each other, not the police.
+ecosystem Image: Podcast art by Chucha Marquez
2019 OBI conference presenter Movement Generation recently launched their new podcast, Did We Go Too Far?, taking on everything from presidents to parenting in a pandemic, and offering perspectives on queer ecology, black land & liberation, and being okay with the unknown.
+from the archives Haben Girma shares the joy, creativity and insight she’s gained as a salsa dancer and surfer who is also deaf-blind. In her 2019 Othering & Belonging Conference keynote, she explores these and other experiences to illuminate the way that people with disabilities drive innovation that expands belonging for all.
+nourishment In a recent meeting around mass incarceration and environmental justice, OBI graduate student researcher Sagaree Jain facilitated a “ghost line” writing exercise that we invite you to try at home. First, read through Set the Garden on Fire by the poet Chen Chen. Write down a line or two that landed with you. Now, write your own poem starting with one of those lines and then end with that same line. Give yourself 5-10 minutes to do the writing. Take out the ghost lines and re-read your poem. Bonus: share it with us or tag us on social media! February LOVE mix from OBI staff
+a reflection Image: Gerald Lenoir
From Negro to Black by Gerald Lenoir, Identity and Politics Strategy Analyst
I was born 1948 into the rich milieu of Negro culture and customs and grew up in Los Angeles. My parents’ roots in the Creole ethos of New Orleans grounded me and my siblings in the language, music, folkways and culinary traditions that thrived in the segregated South. During the Great African American Migration of the 1940s, my parents and maternal grandparents, along with multitudes of other Negro migrants, transplanted themselves and their culture in California.
Mama’s creative culinary genius meant that we had a steady diet of gastronomic wonders—red beans and rice, okra gumbo, jambalaya, and po’ boy sandwiches. As toddlers, Mama would sing “Fais Dodo” (Go to sleep), a song from the Louisiana Cajun culture, to soothe us into slumber. Legendary “N’Awlins” natives like Satchmo, Brook Benton, Irma Thomas, Fats Domino and Mahalia Jackson were the musicians and singers whose 33 1/3 vinyl records could be spinning on Daddy’s turntable any time of day or night. The mélange of European classical music and West African rhythms dubbed jazz, the distinctive sound of New Orleans R&B, and harmonic Zydeco tunes were auditory fare served up at home regularly.
Like most southern migrants, family was everything to us. Mama was the oldest of nine children. Among them and their respective spouses, they brought 31 children into a close-knit matriarchal clan. All of us lived in Los Angeles and Compton, so the village that raised all of the first cousins was awesome!
The culture was not without its flaws, however. Light-skinned Creoles with “good hair” were often favored by Negroes and whites and treated preferentially. Colorism dictated that they had more worth and were more beautiful than those of us with darker skin and nappy hair. The closer your appearance was to the dominant white standards, the more you were accepted by society. That changed dramatically in the 1960s.
With the Black Power Movement came a surge of Black pride and cultural empowerment. James Brown’s recording of “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” became the strident anthem of my generation. Nina Simone’s “Young, Gifted and Black” and Curtis Mayfield’s “We’re a Winner” reinforced a narrative of racial self-esteem. We grew Afros and dressed in daishikis as visible symbols of our newfound Blackness. We transformed ourselves form being white-designated Negroes to self-actualized Black people.
I was deeply impacted by the Negro-to-Black identity transformation. The cultural shifts had readied me and my peers to become political actors in shaping our own destiny. In 1969, as a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I joined the thousands of Black and white students who answered the call of our Black student leaders to strike and shut down the university until the demands for Afro-American Studies and for more Black professors and students were met. We won educational opportunities that valued who we were and honored the contributions of Black people to this country.
The present-day Black Lives Matter political movement and the cultural renaissance that is unfolding builds upon the gains of our past struggles. Young Black changemakers are creating a caring culture, an inclusive identity, and a potent political movement heading towards a freedom future.
Amen and Ashé! |