Category: #ProfessionalBlackGirl

Animal>>> Cyborg>>> Machine (2009)

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in #BlackLivesMatter, #ProfessionalBlackGirl, African Americans, art, automation, Blackness, blogging, civic culture, comics, communication, persuasion, politics, teaching, professional writing, composition, computers, cuteness, cyborgs, design, ethos, family, fashion, feminism, film, gender, higher education, hip-hop, information design, LGBT, rhetorics, robotics, science, sex & sexuality, sexual politics, sexual politics, space & spatiality, spatial justice, spatial rhetorics, style, technology, time & temporality, visual literacy, whiteness studies

This video is much racier and sleeker than the previous montage vid I posted; more sound effects and video clips.

Race & Cyberspace (March 2009)

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in #ProfessionalBlackGirl, African Americans, Blackness, communication, persuasion, politics, teaching, professional writing, digital literacy, gender, higher education, information design, literacy, multimodal, politics, professional writing, race, racism, rhetorics, space, spatial justice, technology, video, visual literacy, whiteness studies, writing

Today while I was opening up old media files and preparing for the launch of CONJUREjournal, a new undergraduate digital publishing platform that I’m helping develop for our HBCU students, I came across this essay montage video that I made as a doctoral student almost 11 years ago. 

It was 2009. The iPhone was the hottest, must-have gadget on the market and the now, all-but-defunct iPod was still new. Despite the literally dozens of generations of  iOS and Android mobile devices that have come and gone in the last decade, sadly—though not surprisingly—generate many of the same debates surrounding technological access and what we’ve come to recognize as “algorithmic oppression.” 

Remember?

In those days, a cacophony of voices had declared it a “post-racial” era. To paraphrase Ta-Nehisi Coates, the president was black and Obama was about to be “eight years in power.” Fast forward to 2016 and it’s easy to understand why people might feel some nostalgia.

Also during that time, it was the boom years of what continues to be an offshoot field of English programs: digital rhetoric. We were still trying to figure out how to attribute authorial citations for on-screen projects and as one who was bearing witness to new idioms of expression, I decided to split the difference with a “SPECIAL THANKS” title card in the closing credits.

Another thing that strikes me about housing this and similar projects here on this very blog site is how much it looks like some kind of crazy time capsule. (I mean, can you say Tumblr gURLs?) The display and aesthetic layout right here appear less “cute” by today’s design standards—more kitsch—almost, in fact, quaint.

Quick warning: there’s nude content with images from a couple of Vanessa Beecroft’s conceptual art installations between the 1:05 and 1:22 time marks. 

 

Professional Black Girl: Video Series Celebrates ‘Everyday Excellence’ of Black Women

by Nicole Ashanti McFarlane, posted in #ProfessionalBlackGirl, African Americans, beauty, communication, persuasion, politics, teaching, professional writing, composition, cute, cuteness, design, digital literacy, ethos, fashion, feminism, feminity, gender, hair, media, play, politics, professionalism, race, rhetorics, sexual politics, style, technology, video, visual literacy, YouTube

Professional Black Girl: Video Series Celebrates ‘Everyday Excellence’ of Black Women and Girls and explores the love language shared by black women, and how we twerk and work with unmatched professionalism. 

Episode 1

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#ProfessionalBlackGirl

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DURHAM, N.C. — Dr. Yaba Blay, renowned activist, cultural critic, and producer, launches Professional Black Girl, an original video series created to celebrate everyday Black womanhood, and to smash racist and “respectable” expectations of how they should “behave.”

Seventeen Black women and girls ranging in age from 2- to 52-years-old were interviewed for the series. Each episode features a candid discussion with personalities such as Grammy Award-winning recording artist, Rapsody; Joan Morgan, author of the Hip-Hop feminist classic When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost; and 13-year-old world traveler Nahimana Machen, sharing what it means to be a “Professional Black Girl.”

“‘Professional Black Girl’ looks like Taraji P. Henson at the 2015 Emmys jumping up to hug Viola Davis. It looks like Mary J. Blige and Taraji and Kerry Washington in that Apple commercial. It looks like me rolling up to a room full of people in Berlin to speak with my bamboo earrings on,” explains Tarana Burke, a non-profit consultant and fashion blogger featured in the series.

Limited edition Professional Black Girl merchandise, created in partnership with Philadelphia Printworks, is available now onphiladelphiaprintworks.com. The first full episode, featuring Dr. Blay, will air September 9, 2016, with an episode airing each Friday onYouTube and yabablay.com until December 23, 2016.

“The terminology that is often used to describe and define Black girls—such as bad, grown, fast, ghetto, and ratchet—are non-affirming and are words that are intended to kill the joy and magic within all Black girls,” says Dr. Blay. “We are professional code-switchers, hair-flippers, hip-shakers, and go-getters. We hold Ph.Ds and listen to trap music; we twerk and we work. We hold it down while lifting each other up, and we don’t have to justify or explain our reason for being. This is us.”

Follow #ProfessionalBlackGirl across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to celebrate and affirm the everyday excellence of Black women and girls.

For more information, or to interview Dr. Yaba Blay, please contact Shakirah Gittens at 718-687-6231 or by email at info@DynamicNLyfe.com.