#culturalanalysis

February is Black History Month, a month set to observe the history of the movements and achievements of African Americans and their descendants.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

“In my early years, there were a number of experiences that made me decide I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. There were a number of issues I wanted to address. I wanted to use my career as a platform.”

— Cicely Tyson

“All I want for my children — and I think all you want for yours — is a fair and equal chance and respect for their dignity as human beings. Give us that and we’ll do the rest.”

— Jackie Robinson

“I'm a perfectionist. I'm pretty much insatiable. I feel there's so many things I can improve on.”

— Serena Williams

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is though… the thing is that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.”

— Jesse Williams

“This all started as a love story. And it still is. This love transformed me from a curious, stargazing young girl to a professional astrophysicist, hot on the heels of celestial discovery. Who knew that chasing after the universe would ground me so deeply to my mission here on Earth. Then again, when do we ever know where love's first flutter will truly take us.”

— Jedidah Isler

Back in 2013, Adam Curtis wrote about the perpetual cycle of scandal and outrage. Ten years on, we have completely spun out of control.

Curtis makes reference throughout to the journalistic practice of exposé, placing monolithic structures of government/business under the microscope of public opinion. The pinnacle of 'honest journalism', with your favourite newspaper regularly committing itself to 'the pursuit of truth'.

Whether it is All The Presidents Men, Spotlight, or more recent exaltations of journalistic practice. There is a cultural obsession with the cycle of scandal. An obsession that is clouding the judgement of the public on social media. Any issues with murky reverence, what will be the next scandal after the UCLA Protests? How will tomorrow outrage me more than yesterday?

Full story on Substack.

Yara Shahidi is an amazing individual, actress, activist and STEM advocate who delivers and articulates powerful messages of great importance. On “Black-ish”, a television show that has earned and deserves enormous critical acclaim for its discussion and tackling of complex social and race issues, Yara Shahidi portrays the character, Zoey Johnson.

One of her favorite Zoey lines is: "I'm cool, plus I'm black, which is cool, so I win twice.”

As stated within the article:

“Ultimately, as an actor, every story has to be told, but it’s more than saying ‘I want to make sure that every black person on TV is a good role model.’ What we are lacking now is the balance of good, bad and indifferent characters. We have a lot of characters that are entertaining to watch, and they are all played by talented people, but it’s not who you want to be or your sister or your mother or brother to be.”  - Yara Shahidi

As a dynamic force in Hollywood, what keeps her grounded the most:

“I feel like there is nowhere to go other than the ground, if that makes any sense,” she said while laughing. She went into detail about stereotypes that black actors face and how they can be misinterpreted. “So many times, actors will get bad reps for being full of themselves. Confidence, especially on women and people of color, is misconstrued as being conceited,” she said.

“What makes me just ‘Yara’ and not refer to myself as ‘an actress Yara Shahidi,’  is the fact that I’m a kid and I like being a kid. I like having a normal life. My normal is different from most people’s normal, but there still is a balance of I talk to friends and sometimes I text too much, and I’m also in school and balancing classes, and I have a family that supports that. So acting has not absorbed my entire world, which has allowed me to have a base reality. My base reality is our reality. It’s not a set. It’s not a character. It’s not a show. It’s planet Earth.” 

“She’ll have hour-long conversations with random people if she knows anything about what they are trying to do, like ‘ok, here are all of my connections I have, here’s this, here’s that.’ And so many people are like ‘stop talking and monetize that,’ but it comes from this place in her heart where she can’t stop talking if she knows how to help you, and that is just very powerful to watch,” she said.

To read the full article, visit: BLAVITY EXCLUSIVE: YARA SHAHIDI TALKS ABOUT NORMALIZING DIVERSITY, HER ASPIRATIONS, ‘BLACK-ISH’ & MORE