Black art should display how life should be, not how it is

[Dad]

Spreading propaganda to prevent black people from striving to be better and to think better. Secret crabs in a barrel technique to shut down the minds that dont agree with the current status quo.

If I’m successful how am i not striving to be better?

 

[ba'al]

So again what's stopping people from supporting positive art collectively? Don't know how many more circles your going to take this discussion through.

What?? This is an odd way to miss the point. Do you believe the black image can continue to afford negativity? Is the group not denigrated enough to where we can spare anymore depressed and debased depictions?

^^^^The correct answer is we cannot afford it and no amount of spin, denialism, or market talk is going to change that.

 

[Tornado Drill]

So again what's stopping people from supporting positive art collectively? Don't know how many more circles your going to take this discussion through.

You good man, I'm done making my point. You don't agree koo.

 

[AlainLocke]

So just blame white people controlling you free will......

Guess Public Enemy should never exist. Or De La Soul. Or Brand Nubian. They bucked at white supremacy and still have an audience today. They spoke about c00n blacks supporting white supremacy. @Zero is right. You dont support pro black groups or positive pro black Images like that. Or most of the Coli. Some things are deeper than money.

...

And Brand Nubian music didn't stop Black people from being poor, drug dealing, pimping, working shyt jobs, going to shyt schools...

You are missing the point...

So called positive representations of Black people don't mean shyt...to anybody besides aspirational Blacks who are ashamed of those that are in direct confrontation with the realities of Blackness

People who don't get to hide behind their education or their quarter million dollar house or their nice little high five figures job

I don't look at an artist like Chief Kief and turn my nose up at him like he is doing some great harm to Black people...dude grew up in a war zone... he's one of the reasons we even pay attention bto Chicago...

Blaming Black artists for shyt is some Fox News shyt...it's some corny shyt...

I thought we left that shyt in the 90s...when older Black folks were crying about Gangsta Rap and begging the government to lock nikkas up

White Supremacy and capitalism created the conditions that so called negative artists create their art about...

Yet you wanna look down on them lol...

 

[ba'al]

You good man, I'm done making my point. You don't agree koo.

Didn't seem like you had a point really in this discussion. Glad you good though. I'm good too. Have a nice day.

 

[Wild self]

If I’m successful how am i not striving to be better?

You think of materialism only. The only long term success in your paradigm is cash. Not generational wealth. Not positive images of black people with dignity. Just cash.

Your way of thinking is why we got so many agents and c00ns

 

[Wild self]

It's also a side effect of capitalism, which sells the myth of "pragmatism" and "getting down to business", as well as the "There is No Alternative" way of thinking ushered in by Thatcher and Reagan, that still rules most of politics and economics now. Basically anything about hope for something different, some other way of living the future, etc...is dismissed as "dreaming", "not having your feet on the ground", not "real people issues", and all that right-wing (but now mainstream) way of thinking.

So that means that the very concept of imagining something else, having hope for a different tomorrow, etc...is seen as a laughable utopia, or as being "disconnected from reality". That's exactly what all right-wing politicians say, and a lot of people agree, even some of those who do not vote for these politicians. Obviously all of this trickles down to all spheres of society, including art. It even transformed art into a business like any other (especially in countries where art might not be that subsidized), used more to get paid than to actually express oneself. So if you want to get paid, you do what sells. And what sells is not positive and forward-thinking stuff, seen as "unrealistic". All the reboots, sequels, spin-offs, prequels etc Hollywood is making is also an indication of that in a sense, imagination is quite low in general these days, because it's damn-near frowned upon in politics and economy.

That being said, there's a lot of painting, photography and whatnot that portray Black people in a positive way, and gives images of possible futures and whatnot. Litterature too. I'm more aware of this coming from Africa than in the US, but it must be out there too. Afro-futurism and a new wave of knowledge of self has helped in that matter. Must be there in the US too but maybe not that much in the mainstream yet.

Best post in this thread, BY FAR!

Peoples imaginations and visions have been depleted to the point where no one even comprehend to be better. That is the fascist right wing Reagan way of thinking. Trickled down to black folk that get upset when people challenge their views.

 

[mbewane]

Best post in this thread, BY FAR!

Peoples imaginations and visions have been depleted to the point where no one even comprehend to be better. That is the fascist right wing Reagan way of thinking. Trickled down to black folk that get upset when people challenge their views.

 

[Dad]

You think of materialism only. The only long term success in your paradigm is cash. Not generational wealth. Not positive images of black people with dignity. Just cash.

Your way of thinking is why we got so many agents and c00ns

You read minds?

I never put a definition on success - I know it comes in all forms, just like I know art comes in all forms and how we choose to define its tone and message is our prerogative.

 

[Thatrogueassdiaz]

When black rappers make songs and music videos about life in the ghetto, mumbling incoherently, shooting other black people, poverty and dissing black women etc my basic response to that is to get depressed and/or ambivalent.

When black painters paint murals of cops viciously assaulting unarmed teenagers I am not inspired or moved to change anything.

When black filmmakers and actors portray black characters as down and out pimps, dumb athletes, drug dealers, or goofy white sidekicks for comic relief rather than nuanced and complex human beings with diverse backgrounds and perspectives I feel like throwing my remote through the TV screen and saying "fukk it" with black movies.

Notice a pattern? When artists make art it should give you hope, inspiration, motivation, and upliftment. It should display the best of life and human potential. That is what's most vital about it. Black art is unique in that it mostly shows black people in subservient positions or as victims of circumstance.

The standard response by the "keep it real" crowd is this is "how shyt is". Maybe. But not how it should be.

For all the bad-talking and critiques here on Black Panther, it was the first movie in recent memory to completely reject any and all negative stereotypes about black people AND also present an uplifted vision of Africa. I think that's what drew people the most about it. That resonated with people on a deeper level.

Art is about what could and should be, not about depravity and degeneracy and the worst possible examples the artists can come up with.

This is precisely what we don't need.

We can do better.

You should take a African American literature class, my man, because there are specific black arts movements that reflect your sentiment. Hip hop is just an artistic movement; it doesn't encapsulate the entire history of black arts in the country.

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

Why not both?

 

[Barnett114]

Another thread filled with the overuse of the word c00n and respectability politics.

 

[BlackJesus]

Another thread filled with the overuse of the word c00n and respectability politics.

Respectability politics is summed up by "how will we look to white people? Do we have their approval?"

My point has zero to do with white people. Their opinion matters even less than they themselves.

This is 100℅ about BLACK people and the art we create for black consumption.

Will you continue to create art that puts yourselves down, debases and destroys your soul or start creating art that up lifts you and makes life worth living?

 

[Deuterion]

This is an example of people taking negative American cultural aspects and ascribing them to the Black community. American culture as a whole is violent, raunchy, and decadent so obviously that will trickle down to all the cultures that fall within its sphere of influence. You can look at White American art and you will see all these same trends you see in Black art forms. Problem is, White American debauchery is so engrained into all Americans that we see it as normal instead of seeing it for its abhorrent nature. Look how many movies, shows, and games come out that are all about shooting and killing. That shyt is so commonplace in White American culture it’s ridiculous.

 

[videogamestashbox.com]

I been making that point for a while now in regards to fiction...
(Though I have my issues with Wakanda as fiction)
My problem with Wakanda as a fictional concept (No B.S. zone)
MY 7 problems with the concept of wakanda​

When discussing ways to combat White supremacy, yall will talk everything BUT economics/business even going so far as to write fantasy fiction

Facts.

Those two(economics/business & fantasy fiction) aren't mutually exclusive. My position has always been the point of fiction is to clearly depict the ideal. Then run that ideal(in your case economics/business ideal) through stressors(what ever your plot antagonist is).

​

Spare us the postmodernism / subjectivity / illyana vanzant /dr phil / oprah / newage / subjective-personal truth talk ...no love lost

That aside this reminds me of when people conflate history and politics. The mere existence of a thing(historically) is not point of contention. The question is what is our position on those "truths". Like when cacs try and say Africans should accept homosexuality politically because we found some random occurrence(that typically has nothing to do with actual homosexuality) in the historical record. I'm like ....and?. "Historically" I can find damn near anything, "Historically" I can find somebodies mama getting slapped in da face; the question is what do people value. You can't come to me and say politically we should accept murder because we find it in the historical record ...it's someones personal truth.

Politics is the reaction to the existence of things not the acquiescence to those existences. In relation to this show The walking dead and TV in general the (political)question is what is our desired representation of the African man, woman, child, our elders, and ancestors.
With all that said, obviously everyone isn't going to be on the same political page ...and I get that So for the purpose of this thread folks are simply throwing around ideas of what they would rather see. Personally I say make our own and leave them cacs be. The reality is though that right now cacs are putting up bread to finance media that represents us a certain way then braodcasting that depiction around the world. That depiction is worthy of discussion where it does(n't) mesh with our varied political positions.





Full disclosure: If I want to see a depiction of various personal truths I'll watch the news / documentaries. For me fiction should depict "the ideal" put under various contextual stressors. I.E. what is the ideal black man & woman and how do they react/build within the context of a zombie attack(the stressor) ...heck, how do they react/build in the presence of...

... Regardless of how much we don't want to admit or how much we hate it, there are gay black ppl, there are black c00ns, there are ignorant black fools, there are black ppl who we wish weren't black ppl, but none the less they exist. Their realities are real. ...

and how do those ideal black men & women react/build in the presence of...

...This is very similar to arguments I hear a lot of older black ppl make about rappers. "Oh they make black ppl look bad" but the truth is that those drug selling, pants sagging, robbing, killing stealing black ppl do exist, and what gives them any less right to have their truth portrayed in the media ?...

Fiction for me is the same as the "artist rendition" of a new building to be constructed in the future.

(I acknowledge not everyone holds this view)




NOTE: We can go off into the discussion of who's "ideal"? What if there are multiple "ideals"?, etc. MY point here is to simply make the fundamental case.​

If done correctly at least two things happen...

1. Society has a clear unambiguous shared idea of what the ideal your working towards looks like in the end.
2. You get to answer the obligatory negro overblown doomsday scenario questions of - "well what happens when white people do [insert imaginary cac instigated tragedy here]"