#dirtycomputer

Dirty Computer

ANDERSON PAAK GOT THE JUICE at #Coachella Festival 🔥🔥 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx2XkIVHWfa/?igshid=1mnpnuj6yp3t0

Afrofuturism is the escape I never knew I needed. This course has brought something unique and important to academia. It is an excellent way to highlight Blackness that in my education career has been lacking. Traditional education is a sprinkle of Blackness here and there in a white hegemonic setting. Black education looks like slavery, civil rights, Martin Luther King versus Malcolm X, and maybe a dash of police brutality. The story that is told about Blackness and Black history is riddled with struggle and although that is a major foundation resulting from white supremacy, that is not our whole story. I thoroughly enjoy that Afrofuturism addresses the plight of Black people with a critique and presents a vision for our future. An afrofuturist history education looks like Black Panther, Lion’s Blood, Cosmic Slop, and Many Moons. Yes, slavery is a hundreds of years story for Black Americans, but it is Afrofuturism. Enslaved Africans used music, song, and dance to time their work, to uplift their spirits, and communicate in code to coordinate secret meetings and escape in what looked like a good time to their masters and praises to Jesus. Enslaved Africans envisioned themselves in a space and time beyond what they saw before their eyes. These works embody this completely by considering history but putting a twist on it. From imagining Africa having never been colonized to white people being enslaved by Muslim Africans.

Afrofuturism also brings Black women into the light. The groundwork that Black women put into pursuing liberation is often overlooked. As my friend Jada puts it, Shuri ran so that T’Challa could walk! And this is often the story not told. Black women were central to Wakanda in all aspects, in leading, protecting, cultivating, and innovating. Throughout the film, you will find Black women putting in work. During slavery, Black women would cornrow maps onto their heads, beautifully constructing routes to freedom. Woven in their braids would be seeds or rice so they could feed themselves along the way. In Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer, she displays resistance to brainwashing, memory erasing, sexual, symbolic, and physical violence. Her work embodies [Black] women’s empowerment and Black women’s liberation which comes with the liberation of all. Black women are bad mamma jammas, but we are also soft in pynk.

At the end of each day, as Kendrick says, we gon be aight! Our resilience is demonstrated time and time again. Afrofuturism is our past, present, and future in one and it is the education that I absolutely needed. It is what you need, have a seat...

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Aysia-Marie Perkins