✨cleo🍒

Soulaangoth/Soulaagoth/Soulaanigoth Pride Flag:

Soulaapunk/Soulaanpunk/Soulaanipunk Pride Flag:

Gothnegro (reclaimed):

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Good evening, my lovelies! Over these past few months an idea's been swirling around in my head to give a name to a very specific branch of black alternative subculture, especially for black goths / Afro-goths and black punks / Afro-punk. And then a few such ideas popped into my head: soulaangoth / soulaanigoth / soulaagoth, soulaanipunk / soulaanpunk / soulaapunk and gothnegro. Hence my creating each of these flags!

Background: Soulaan is a term used to describe Black Americans who are descendants of chattel slavery in the United States. It's a cultural movement that emphasizes Black American identity, economic self-sufficiency, and spiritual empowerment. The term honors Black Americans, particularly those from the Southern United States, reflects the deep cultural and historical connections Black Americans have to their roots and is specifically designated for those whose ancestors were instrumental in shaping American society. The term "soulaan" reflects the importance of soul in Afro-American culture such as soul music, soul food, etc.

The term soulaan/soulaani translates to "people of soul". It originated on Tiktok in 2020 and the term soulaan/soulaani was coined by T-Roy Parks, Maroc Wallace, and Dwayne Coleman.

I remember researching all this during my search to understand more of my blackness and black heritage and the intergenerational trauma from chattel slavery and its impact on me, and this gave me more understanding of the layered and nuanced facets of the intersections of African roots, particularly West African roots, behind African American heritage and culture and Southern African American culture, heritage and community. And more so in the fact that soulaan culture also very much acknowledges the admixture of African American, European and Native/Indigenous American heritage and culture among soulaan descendants past and present. So along with me being both black and mixed race with African American, European, West African (Nigerian, Ghanaian, etc.), Afro-Caribbean and Native/Indigenous American + Black Native and Afro-Indigenous heritage, I also have extensive lineage and roots in the south and deep south from states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, etc. Plus I also have Gullah ancestry--and the Gullah people have built an intriguing culture rooted in West African (Nigerian Yoruban), Afro-Caribbean and Southern African-American cultural, linguistic, ethnic, spiritual and ancestral traditions and way of life, consistently building a rich, unique and complex culture and community that's still going strong to this day. So on that facet, soulaan absolutely resonates with me as a descriptor for my black identity and my mixed identity, and all the beautifully complex layers accompanying it.

Now with that out of the way, I'm also a goth and an Afro-goth as well as a punk rocker and an Afro-Punk; and the main aspect of being a goth is confronting the parts of life and humanity that's dark, twisted, eerie, spooky, morbid, unsettling, grotesque and macabre and facing it head on, as well as finding the beauty in it. And with that context in understanding how the horrors of colonialism, colonization, white supremacy, slavery, racism, antiblackness, xenophobia, genocide and intergenerational trauma have heavily affected and impacted Black Americans from generation to generation past, present and future while still acknowledging and embracing the beauty of our culture and community along with the confronting and drawing directly from pain, darkness and trauma and, in context of goth and goth subculture, embracing various motifs from southern gothic, Black southern gothic and gothic horror and then using that as visual and artistic recontextualization of Black trauma in all its forms as a method of catharsis and finding healing and artistic freedom. Then add a drop of a punk / punk rock sensibility in reclaiming Black anger, passion, rage and joy within an Afro-punk framework, and it becomes more potent.

Now, onto each color meaning for the flags' stripes:

Black: A reference to the meaning of the word "negro" and the reclaiming of it as an act of defiant pride of your Black African roots, and representing the intersection of black communities and goth subculture (and hence also the Gothnegro flag, combining both goth and negro together).

Red: Symbolically representing the blood of our African and African American ancestors that was spilled during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the general epidemic of slavery and genocide as well as the driving backbone on which American land is built; also the color of anger, rage, passion and intensity and thus representative of reclaiming these very emotions that mainstream eurocentric society has told black people to repress.

Deep reddish brown: A mixture of the colors red and brown to symbolically represent both the blood of our African and African American ancestors and the brown soil of the earth--the soil of African land which they were stolen from, the soil of American land which they took care of and played a major part in shaping along with American history and the soil of which this generation of black people still stand on past, present and future and the reminder that said land, earth and soil is still very much soaked in our ancestors' blood as a form of respectful remembrance.

Dark brown: Once again referencing the earth and soil that our African and African American ancestors were birthed on, tended to and took care of that the next generations have a responsibility to take care of as well as the brown melanin in black people's skin and the beauty that's to be found and acknowledged in it.

Light reddish brown: Another reference to everything mentioned above regarding black people's connection to the earth but in greater context to African spirituality, especially within West African, Afro-Caribbean and Southern Black American cultures, history and communities and particularly Gullah people, history, culture and community.

Pale wine-ish brown: Acknowledgement of the the shared struggle and solidarity + intercultural bonding and unifying between Native Africans, African Americans and Native/Indigenous Americans and the intersections of Black African, African American, mixed race Black Native and mixed race and intercultural Afro-Indigenous people, culture, heritage and community in various parts of the American continent and various diasporas (i.e. Afro-Indigenous, Black Native, Black Freedman, Afro-Taino Indigenous, etc.).