I Used to Love H.E.R. Afrocentricity

She didn’t have a body but she started gettin’ thick quick
Did a couple of videos and became Afrocentric
Out goes the weave, in goes the braids, beads, (and) medallions
She was on that tip about stoppin the violence
About my people she was teachin me

The song which addresses the direction of hip-hop towards and away from politically and culturally “conscious” themes, is indicative of how Afrocentrism came to be viewed by Black americans, generations after the initial discussions of Afrocentricity. It is through rap music specifically, and by association hip-hop cultural in general, that many can identify Afrocentrism, if not by specific symbols and language, then by some vague conceptualization. Although Common articulates a rise and fall of certain themes and symbols in hip-hop, the fluidity of the term Afrocentrism even among early creators and adopters of Afrocentrism raises issues as to whether Common made a poignant comment on hip-hop, or fallen into a dialectic counter-productive to the Black struggle.
Such a discussion involving Afrocentrism must consider the various perspectives and uses of the term. Perhaps Molefi Kete Asante’s Afrocentricity is best associated with the symbols, themes, purpose and function of Afrocentrism. For Asante, Afrocentrism is the re-centering of discourse and culture around African living and thinking. Asante would encourage the seeking out of “Africa” in all things. This serves not only as a critique of Eurocentric structures and beliefs permeated by racism, but also as a corrective measure to such consequences. In the centering of culture and discourse around “Africa,” people of the diaspora become more of a subject within the given social structure, rather than their status-quo position as an object of that structure.
Melba Joyce Boyd is inclined to agree with Asante in regards to the re-centering of culture. However, “Africa” might be a problematic location as this symbol might conjure more myth, and perhaps fantasy, than reality. Boyd concentrates on Blackness, which moves beyond the cultural memory of Africa. Furthermore, Boyd allows multiplicity and multiculturalism within Blackness, certainly paving the way for scholars like Stuart Hall and Kobena Mercer to explore Blacknesses.
Boyd and Asante both view Afrocentrism as a tool for uncovering true consciousness and an authentic Black (African) self. Critics like Barbara Ransby however are among the many who find essentialism within Afrocentrism problematic. For Ransby, Afrocentricism is a process, both fluid and multifaceted. It is not enough to explore the multiculturalism within Afrocentrism, but to approach Afrocentricity itself as a site of differing ideologies, views, subjects, and ways of understanding the world. The often rampant sexism which Ransby articulates, is for her the consequences of such essentialist views of Afrocentrism, and I would extend, Blackness.
Although Lee D. Baker draws heavily on Asante and other early adopters who posit Afrocentricity as location, Baker explores more in-depth how Afrocentrism is both a place and a space. It is through a “bipolar” Afrocentricity that the politics of space and the connection of people to place can engage in a more equitable social process. Although there are different cultures, for Baker, the Afrocentric themes and particularly symbols remain consistent. In fact, one might explain Baker’s view of Afrocentrism as inherently functionalist, as Afrocentrcity holds the key to a Black collective consciousness.
Certainly these four authors do not exhaust the range of discourse addressing Afrocentrism. They do however highlight the way in which scholars engage with the political and social construction of a belief, practice, and dialectic- and it’s very real consequences. For Common, perhaps hip-hop never truly stopped being Afrocentric or perhaps it rarely ever was. Thus the song I Used to Love H.E.R. may have followed in the model of Afrocentrism. Not so much for the songs message, but for the ensuing feud (dialectic) with Ice Cube reminding us that Afrocentricity, like hip-hop, is far from monolithic.

Fantasy Cockfighing: Clifford Geertz and Deep Play

Clifford Geertz’s essay, “Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” exemplifies thick description as practice of Geertzian theory. In explaining the function of cockfighting in Balinese society, Geertz elaborates in detail the process of preparing the animals, the system of wagering both in and outside of the ring, and the actual fighting of the birds. Geertz shows readers how each process, event, and occurrence might be fully investigated to uncover elements of Balinese culture.

Courtesy of Flickr: Moody Man

Perhaps more than his methodology, I found his application and conceptualization of Jeremy Bentham’s deep play to be the most intriguing. Bentham argues deep play as “play in which the stakes are so high that it is, from his utilitarian standpoint, irrational for men to engage in it at all” (254). Geertz however, goes through great effort to explain how Balinese cock fighters actually engage in activity precisely because of deep play. Much more than money is at stake during these contest. Kinship ties, masculinity, and status are factors which are exercised during these cockfights. Furthermore, these arenas not only resemble the social hierarchy of culture in Bali, but it becomes “a story they tell themselves about themselves” (266). Of this, Geertz describes it as “playing with fire only not getting burned” (261).

It is perhaps this deep play which engulfs thousands of fantasy football players each Sunday. Hours upon hours (dollars upon dollars) are spent primarily by men to win little more than bragging rights or a trophy among friends. Even when money is spent to participate in fantasy football leagues, in hopes of winning more money than put in, players are at best holding 1:12 odds. Players at least neglect menial duties, while others’ addiction to fantasy football takes over their lives. Certainly this activity does not parallel Balinese cockfighting in terms of bloody cruelty or unlawfulness, but further research should examine how fantasy football might be analogous.

Courtesy of Flickr: D.Clow - Maryland

Upon reading Geertz’s essay, I immediately thought of the function fantasy football serves in in the United States. It is truly an exercise of masculinity primarily through “knowledge” of football (a hyper-masculine event) followed by the application of statistics and technology. Fantasy football also affords the exchange of social status among peers, with hardly any one transposing success into an higher social class status. Similarly, Geertz describes of Balinese cockfighting “Men go on allegorically humiliating one another and being allegorically humiliated by one another, day after day, glorying quietly in the experience if they have triumphed, crushed only slightly more openly by it if they have not. But no one’s status really changes” (262). Indeed the participation in both events speaks to the culture, particularly the values and beliefs manifested into behavior, rather than a rational attempt to improve one’s social position.

Fantasy football may also be useful to explore in relation to Balinese cockfighting to reveal the function of gambling in either society or among men in general. How might fantasy football players who invest money, invest large amounts of money, or invest no money differ amongst each other? How do these different types of players compare to the gamblers at cockfights? I believe these questions answered through Geertzian theory might unlock elements of masculinity in particular, but perhaps other elements of global culture. Understanding the differences might also help one understand how different social systems come to impact the way in which interaction is mediated. For example, Geertz describes Balinese wagering as making even the most simple process a complex art. Given the complex structure of capitalism, do United States fantasy football players seek to further complicate wagering, or might they seek to simplify the process?

As one who plays fantasy football (particularly mindful of my losing season last year), I would apply Geertz’s comment of Balinese cockfighting that it truly is “a kind of sentimental education” (267). Each week, I participate not in the brutality of NFL players, but in the capitalistic ownership of players. Surely, future research will uncover much of United States’ culture not from the football game, but from fantasy football.

The Grammy’s: Cat Massacre or a Dream World of Consumption

Rosalind Williams’ The Dream World of Mass Consumption and Robert Darnton’s Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin may not seem to be a likely pairing in terms of content, context, and overall tone of the author. The Dream World of Mass Consumption provides a pessimistic undertaking of world exhibitions, particularly in Paris entering the twentieth century. Darnton’s Workers Revolt on the other hand examines the narrative of a cat massacre in the 1700’s with regards to what the story reveals about the pre-proletariat workers, and also about “us” who can’t find the humor in the story.

They seemingly arrive at very different conclusions, Darnton arguing that perhaps we are disconnected from our ability truly laugh and Williams cautioning readers to avoid the passivity of mass consumption. Although these works are quite different, Darnton and Williams both complicate the readings and understandings of their respective subjects. When examined together, the authors’ message becomes an afterthought to their methods and critical analyses which seemingly goes against traditional knowledge about their subject matter. Indeed there is bravery in their scholarship, and a blueprint for how scholars must penetrate the multiple layers of the now which pop-culture likes to remain insulated. Darton and Williams understand that now is situated not only in the history which proceeds it, but largely in the future, the cultures, and the people which follow.

Understanding this as methodology is of particular use as the beginning of the year is awards season for the entertainment industry, such as the Grammy Awards. When the white-British R&B female singer sits just in front of the salsa dancing Afro-Caribbean football player, where surf music seemingly trapped in a pre-Vietnam era is performed on the same stage as the emerging genre of electronica, where a group called Lady Antebellum is introduced by a Black man named Ladies Love Cool James, we must go beyond labeling an event like the Grammy’s as a spectacle. Certainly one may find parallels to the world exhibitions of Paris and argue how our consumption of music has now become the fantasy which corporations are now attaching themselves (even I am contemplating buying Adele’s album to feel as if I know what good music is). However, many of us who watch, do so not to see who will win or what folks are wearing, but just to make fun of the pompousness and the people. Many watch just to see something go wrong, to see individuals break the codes, and like me- cheer when people are not there to accept the award, as if that is some sign of solidarity with others who don’t take events like this to seriously. So what function do the Grammy’s actually serve? To celebrate “artists?” To sell records? To mark important signifiers on a cultural timeline?  Perhaps it is not or time to truly understand it, but merely our role to frame the context for future scholars to one day contemplate.

If nothing else, these readings remind me that for individuals and scholars alike, there is a tremendous gap between knowing what is going on and understanding what is going on. Knowing may simply require being there, but understanding takes courage, patience, sometimes a few hundred years after the event is finished. I will be mindful of this as people and media alike try to frame what legacy of Whitney Houston for me.

Super Bowl from Mikhail Bakhtin to Stuart Hall

Reading Peter Stallybrass and Allon White’s introduction to The Politics and Poetics of Transgression hours after watching Super Bowl XLVI caused me to examine the Super Bowl as a carnivalesque spectacle, drawing from Mikhail Bakhtin. Although the term Super Bowl officially refers to the championship game between the last two football teams, one might speak of the numerous parties in the host city as well as in homes across the country as a uniquely United States (and commercial-capitalistic) off-shoot of carnival. Surely there are elements to support a Bakhtian analysis of Super Bowl, especially the parties in the host city. I was in San Diego, when the city hosted their last Super Bowl.  I remember watching the subtle and overt sexuality, “the laughter”, the alcohol, the drugs, the dancing and many outrageous acts, all while thinking “these are people with respectable jobs and corporate executives out here actin’ a fool.”

There may not have been the exact grotesque body Bakhtin speaks of, as many of the men and women showed their toned, curvy, and enhanced figures. Symbolic filth (23) and the concentration of “physical needs and pleasures” (23) however dominated the interactions of people that weekend. Certainly the rules of the bourgeois and any notion of high culture were suspended as members of several classes (races, ethnic groups, and other stratified communities) partied together.

What struck me most then, and especially now, is the number of hip-hop themed and inspired parties. To be a young Black male walking around the Gaslamp District that weekend was to be more desirable than normal weekends when downtown is much less inviting. Super Bowl week in the host city is flooded with current and former football players, musicians, and other entertainers. In San Diego, and I’m sure this past weekend in Indianapolis, Black players, musicians, and entertainers attract a lot of attention, as evidenced by promotional fliers advertising their performances or mere appearances at certain venues.

In making since of the desire for the many white folks to party with us-or perhaps Black entertainers partying for them, Juan Flores in Pueblo Pueblo: Popular Culture in Time helps us understand the development of popular culture analysis. Bakhtin may insist that we Black men and women- hip-hop, swagger, and sexualized- were the grotesque bodies which other cultures embodied as momentary escape. Flores however turns to Stuart Hall, who would argue that “Black” culture is not necessarily a momentary escape, but a fabric of the very American culture which the Super Bowl patriotically displays. Although it may often be less visible in elements of national culture on display, “Black” culture is always operating. Even the absence of a “Black” repertoire is the presence of the marginalization of Black people and other communities of color. Through the reference of Hall, Flores helps clear Stallybrass and White’s main point that while Bakhtin helped develop the analysis of popular culture, the understanding of high/low culture is insufficient in understanding the forces, motivation, structure, or modus operandi. Instead, one must examine the tension and “transgression” which operates through spheres of culture.

Do You Believe in Magic?

Twenty years ago today, I watched Magic Johnson announce his retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers because he contracted the HIV virus. This is how I was introduced to AIDS. Because of this, images of people with AIDS is always juxtaposed with the tall, smiling, athletic, black-skin, masculine, heterosexual Magic Johnson. Along with the images and visual representation of AIDS, the narrative of how one contracts the disease is, for me, either similar or not similar to Magic’s. Douglas Crimp’s article, Portraits of People with AIDS, is complicated (and will continue to be complicated) as stories like Magic both shatter the stereotype of AIDS and provide false memory of such depictions.

Reading Crimp’s analysis of how AIDS was portrayed in photographic exhibits, nightly news, and documentaries did help reveal the exploitation of mortality during that time period. In thinking about Magic Johnson’s press conference, I vividly remember worrying that he was going to die. As Crimp shows us, different media operated to show us the manifestation of this death. Depending on the analysis, one may argue that mortality is commoditized, or at least fetishized.

What I do not remember about the press conference is protest groups such as ACT UP. I do not want to speculate their presence or absence, but I do question how this event would have fit into their agenda. Magic personified much of what AIDS groups worked for in terms of representation. Johnson was not sickly, pathetic, or dehumanized. More importantly, he spoke his condition for himself more so than the thousands of non-celebrities who contracted the virus before him. This issue does raise concern over the roles of class, gender, and sexuality in our representation of people with AIDS.

Back on my blog

I’m back on my blog. A lot of things have happened since the last post, I’m now a father and a graduate student! This has really slowed down my poetry writing and performing, but I’ve done some amazing projects- a short film, some commercial work, and a project which may be published in the future edition of a best selling autobiography (I’ll name drop if when it goes to print).

At some point during each of these projects I have been told I do not have a “web presence,” or that I am hard to track down. I suppose I like it that way. I don’t want to be a commercial artist, I don’t have the time to gig all over the country, and I don’t think I could handle the attention of being a popular spoken word poet. However, I do want people who like the type of poetry and work that I do to experience it.

So what does that mean for this blog? I suppose it means a complete lack of focus. I will post my reactions to events in the news, social justice, and sports. I will also share my weekly post for different courses doing my graduate studies, including book reviews, film reviews, and other analysis of sorts. As I geek out with technology that allows me to live my fantasies as a recording artist, DJ, filmmaker, etc. I will also share those things.

I suppose I should have a web presence, but I don’t want to promote myself. I want to promote a shift in how we use our resources from consumers to producers. We can’t all get paid like Steve Jobs, but we sure can change the world like he did. Hopefully this will be my part in effecting that change.