Notes on Black Performance
Danny Glover and Zakes Mokae in Master Harold… and the Boys written by Athol Fugard, 1982
This piece was written for my blog Little Mama Drama, but I am also reformatting and reposting it to this platform.
These past few years, I have been choosing a word for the year, and my word is value for this year. It is a word that has continuously come up in my work and conversations. As we look at value within design thinking and performance it has been interesting how much the levels and meaning behind the word fluctuate. This semester I am fortunate to take a course called Performing Blackness, rooted in black performance and diasporic tendencies and culture that affect everyday life. On our first day, we read lines from Beyonce’s Renaissance in unison and out loud.
So cozy, I love me
They hate me because they want me
(I’m dark brown, dark skin, light skin, beige)
(Fluorescent beige, bitch, I’m black)
Ts Madison and Beyoncé, Cozy
Beyonce in Schiaparelli Haute Couture, 2022
We followed this up with a moment of silence and presence that we do every class. My wonderful professor takes us through some calming words about forgetting the stuff outside of our classroom doors. I have been trying to take this into my everyday practice, work, and life. This course has offered some views into black modernity, and how it manifests, how it is taught and learned. Focusing on how we understand and value this thinking today.
Authors we have touched on:
Suzan-Lori Parks, Zora Neale Hurston, Fred Moten, Toni Morrison, Thomas DeFrantz, Anita Gonzalez, W.E.B. Dubois, Harry J. Elam Jr.
Some of these authors have been easier to dissect compared to others. But all have been offering a new but throughline perspective of the importance of black expression, its fluidity, and its necessity. So it has been a true joy to sit in class and get to learn, see other black faces, or non-black faces that are still actively present, and feel the depth of this expression wholeheartedly.
Below is a write-up my professor calls textual meditation or a written response based on some of the readings we have done so far. As well as an ode to Suzan Lori Park’s New Black Math, and a new rendition for Black Designers. Enjoy!
Textual Meditation: Referencing Suzan Lori-Park’s piece “The New Black Math”
As a child, I used to not want to play outside too long out of fear of getting too dark. Often each summer, we would vacation to my mother’s hometown on Lake Erie. Our days consist of lying in the sand, reading, and playing in the water. Sunlight offered my skin a noticeable contrast where my bathing suit lay. My tan lines were usually most noticeable among my siblings, them all having lighter complexion than I. Back then, I was often reminded of this difference, often getting made fun of. Interestingly, the place where we all came to embrace our skin and get darker together could cause such friction. Despite this, the water was always there for me, embracing me with a warm comfort as far as the eye could see.
Maybe one’s career is like that lake. Full of good shit at the top and bottom, large, scary, and here for the world to see. As I navigate through design I seek black placemaking amidst a sea of Eurocentric ideology. Arguing against getting squeezed into black boxes full of assumptions and misconceptions. Suzan-Lori Parks is standing on big business and reminds me that “As African-Americans, we should recognize “this insidious essentialism for what it is: a fucked up trap to reduce us to only one way of being”(SLP, An Equation for Black People Onstage). We should endeavor to show the world and ourselves our beautiful and powerfully infinite variety”. Wish someone would tell this to the kids that used to make fun of me and call me names. I wonder if they would even get it.
I want to never forget this. I will never forget this. I am here because of this and I want the world to know this. Navigating through these spaces often in solitude. I embrace the reminder that this is just the beginning. That my mama was the first and only in her whole department and I might be the only one in some of my classrooms. A reminder of the depth and relief that our black presence offers to most and to many. Letting that be enough sometimes and still shining as bright as can be. Hell, that’s enough for me.
Like a damn woodworker with only a spoon to use, I aim to carve a path. Often ruminating that maybe God knew what he was doing all along. Getting me used to standing out and figuring it out for as long as I can remember. Although I might not see people in the room who look like me, I can wade. I can float. Running full speed ahead as the water engulfs me in its warm embrace. Reminding me that some things are out of my control and for good reason. Now, I find myself standing in the sun when it’s out to say hello. I often miss it when it’s too far away. I embrace the sun to remind myself that this skin I’m in exists to be seen, dark, ashy, and all that in between.
I loved Suzan-Lori Parks’ New Black Math so I wanted to recreate it for myself as a black designer. :)
An Ode to the “New Black Math” for Designers.
A black designer designs
A black designer is me
A black designer is you
A black designer is a full body of water
A black designer don’t work for you
A black designer shows up
A black designer shows out
A black designer aint nothing to play with
A black designer plays
A black designer has been here since before design became an established cultural norm
A black designer loves color
A black designer needs no color
A black designer knows when enough is enough
A black designer is here and never forgotten
A black designer uses their hands
A black designer goes above and beyond
A black designer gonna do it, to it
A black designer treks
A black designer sees
A black designer gonna figure it out
A black designer is meant to stand out
A black designer is without a doubt where they are meant to be
A black designer been here
PERIOD.
If you want a copy of any PDFs or are interested in performance, send me a note and I can get it to you!
