Happy Black History Month!
If you’re like me, you celebrate Black history, present, and future all year. But February is special because the rest of the nation celebrates with us.
Though we all know Stacey Dash will be right around the corner with self-hating, Faux News check-cashing, moronic antics about how celebrating black people is racist *rolls eyes*, we’ll celebrate anyways.
I have a few articles in my editorial calendar to publish for the month of February (Yes, I’m back to blogging regularly), but I had to lead with this link-roundup. Here are some of AWW’s top Black History Month Posts:
So You Haven’t Heard of Afrofuturism?
So you haven’t yet heard of Afrofuturism?
Please, allow me to upgrade your life to a plateau of awesomeness where time travel is the norm, Androids reign supreme, and Janelle Monáe happily twerks in the mirror wearing, of course, black and white.
Picture a cultural meta-genre that encompasses some of the most incredible artists, musicians, entertainers, filmmakers, philosophers, and scholars—an aesthetic where Octavia Butler, Grace Jones, Janelle Monáe, W.E.B. Dubois, Will Smith, Michael Jackson, and Erykah Badu all take center stage with a common inspiration. Read more…
7 Unexpected Travel Destinations to Learn About the African Diaspora
After studying abroad in Argentina for several months where black people are few and far between and the porteños point, stare, and want to touch your skin because it’s much darker than their own, I was desperate to find a face that looked like mine. There weren’t many in Buenos Aires, other than the study abroad students like myself and a few Brazilians here and there. However, I did find blackness in the mammy figurines in a few restaurant kitchen windows. This made me curious about the countries past and relationship with people of African descent. Read more…
Uncovering Black History in a Seemingly White Nation
On a jog one morning through the streets of Buenos Aires, where I’d been studying abroad, I caught a glimpse of a small black figure in the window of a bakery. I stopped and stared into the window for a while, until one of the workers in the shop came to see what the problem was. I couldn’t explain it to her, because I didn’t think she would have fully understood my feelings of shock and disappointment about the figure. Other than the two I’d traveled to Buenos Aires with, that ceramic mammy was the only black face I’d seen in weeks. Read more…
My Top 10 Novels for Black History Month
(Written by incredible women writers)
1. Beloved (Toni Morrison)
This Nobel Prize winning novel touches on issues of stereotypes in the media, a mothers’ limitless love, and the dehumanizing aspects of middle passage and slavery. A desperate mother slays her daughter in an attempt to escape her slave master; however, the daughter never dies. Her ghost rises and takes on human form to haunt the town. Trust me: “This is not a story to pass on.” Read more…
Enjoy Black History Month.
Photo courtesy of Enokson Flckr.
Some of you crazies are going shopping on Black Friday. I can’t deal with the madness. I will be posted in my comfortable bed writing an article on Hilary vs. Bernie and the Black vote (coming soon…look out for it). But, y’all have fun, and pick out something nice for me.
A Woman's Worth 