An AfroDigital Sign O’ the Times: A Big Sista Hug to Akilah Johnson

akilahIf you did a  google search at any time today, then you immediately noticed today’s Google Doodle by Akilah Johnson.  Johnson, a high school tenth grader, won this year’s Doodle for Google contest, winning a 30K college scholarship and 50K worth of technology for her school.  I did not actually know about the contest but was immediately drawn to Johnson’s doodle called “My AfroCentric Life.”

My initial reaction was related to the adult coloring book trend. I have been curious in the past few months about adult coloring books and their supposed connection to mindfulness and mental health. I tend to flip through the pages when I encounter one.  Though I have an abundant supply of colored pencils and markers, I seldom use these utensils for any concentrated creativity anymore.  More importantly, I’ve never been compelled to actually purchase one of these coloring books because I am not particularly inspired by the designs, though I appreciate their intricacy.  I am always annoyed that Africanized cultures are ommitted despite the undeniable power of pattern and design in African visual life.  Though I contemplate doing my own Afrocentric pages, I just never managed to do that work.  When I saw Johnson’s artwork, I thought: see THERE it is!  Her signature black sharpie, black crayon, and colored pencil style should be an inspiration for what an Afrocentric coloring book and line-design project could offer.

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Congratulations, Andrene!

andrene congrats

Click here for Andrene’s ePortfolio, PRETTY FOR A BLACK GIRL (created in her first-semester “Freshman English” course)!

Thank you also to the Africana Studies Department’s willingness to embrace what Abdul Alkalimat, in his definition of eBlack Studies, has called “a new conception of mapping our existence in cyberspace.”  We are proud of you, Andrene!

AfroDigital Consciousness (ADC): Definitions and Callings

Last week, at this time, I was with teachers, parents, and activists at ABEC (A Black Education Congress) who collectively offered a vision for what it means to live and be in AfroDigital spaces. This week, I am thinking about those conversations more deeply, understanding the ways that  I am accountable to a history and set of ideals for education (and technology) that go far, far beyond the scope and imaginations of the schools where I work.

ADC PosterAfroDigital Consciousness (ADC) was a term that I thought was brilliantly defined at ABEC and captures exactly the kind of ideal that goes beyond what schools intend for us.  ADC= SPIRIT+ COMMUNITY+ TECHNOLOGY (“Ego-Tripping 2.0″ is an interconnected notion inspired by the opening performance at ABEC that included a reading of Nikki Giovanni’s “Ego-Tripping.”)  ADC is multi-sensory oriented and steps into our practice and spirit. ADC creates community instead of destroying it. ADC means you play the game better… because you are on another level. 

Perhaps, one of my favorite moments was the emphatic declaration that ADC goes beyond what students of color most commonly receive in schools: a MINIMAL COMPETENCY, SKILLS-BASED apparatus.  We ask: what spirits have our ancestors left or what is the knowledge that can propel us forward in a culturally relevant way? ADC recognizes that technology is power and power is defining your own reality (see Dr. Akbar’s work here).  

When we talk about ADC, we are fundamentally talking about IDEAS. AfroDigital Ideas offer a Pan African vision, work globally, and represent an uncensored bearing of an African American/global perspective. AfroDigital Ideas preserve our history, culture, and arts and RESTORE our culture.  In particular, ADC directs a new vision of teaching:

  • Children CAN code and design; they can do it if provided the opportunity
  • Students need to be provided the opportunity to use their creativity and develop that capacity
  • We must tell the story and history of ourselves and our ancestors utilizing technology

We even talked about an AfroDigital Universe that is non-intimidating, user-friendly, AND economically freeing apps, websites, and digital experiences and includes (but is not limited to):

  • An app for health & beauty for African/African Americans that promotes natural beauty for young, impressionable girls
  • Mental health apps that will deal with: bullying, depressions, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder (these resources will be linked to help black families receive authentic, genuine assistance)
  • An online search engine geared towards our African culture
  • An online African/African American company where all groups can create, edit, and publish books on various cultures.  This includes illustrators who have access to spaces where they can upload their art
  • An online African-centered virtual school that is developmentally friendly
  • A digital archive of our lesson plans and best practices as a resource for teachers that is community-informing
  • Online examples of a Hip Hop based education for teaching
  • A gaming platform/experience that takes you back to Kemet (with Baba Asa Hilliard as guide/avatar)
  • Kwanzaa principles that are digitally lived and offer self-love
  • Resources-focused search capabilities that access resources across the Diaspora

Of course, these apps and technologies will not be developed overnight.  That’s not the point here.  It’s about the ideological apparatus behind what we do, how and why.  And, for me, it’s about always remembering that fundamental UNDERSTANDING:  we are accountable to a history and set of ideals for education (and technology) that go far, far beyond the scope and imaginations of the schools where we often work and the dominant systems of education that enroll many of us.

For Tiana & Black Children: AfroVisual/AfroDigital Love

8C8880633-tdy-130906-TianaParker2-tease.blocks_desktop_teaseLike most black women who I know, I was really upset this weekend when I saw the news coverage of beautiful, 7-year old Tiana Parker, a straight A student, as she shed tears when her school officials castigated her hair/locs!!  If you ever thought black hair could be politically neutral in our social world, then you may never truly understand these kinds of tears. After being continually harassed, Tiana’s father was forced to enroll her in a new school because her charter school banned all dreadlocks as inappropriate, calling Tiana’s locs a distraction from learning/thinking.

I talk/write/think a lot about the white violence and terror that black girls face in school and this example rocks me to my core.  I find myself remembering what E.M. Monroe wrote about her son’s (Miles) first day of kindergarten this fall in the post, “Models Monday: Black Boys, Trayvon Martin, and the Politics of Comfort.”  In the post, Monroe talks about the humanity of Ms. Malcolm, a teacher who can see Miles’s humanity:

I tell you, it was a damn good surprise to have someone who sees your black child as having a life worth preserving temporarily responsible for their keeping. She’s a model for how a person might demonstrate their liberal views: You want to prove to me that you aren’t racist, well then how about you showing me that you Always choose to be an Aide and not an Assassin.

Monroe captures brilliantly the kind of teacher and school that I think black children like Tiana so rarely experience.  It is clear to me that the adults at Tiana’s school belong to a kind of violent trajectory that Monroe discusses in this post that she relates to the murder of Trayvon Martin.  Make no mistake about it: this demonization of Tiana’s hair— a part of black bodies— belongs to the same ideology that demonized Trayvon Martin’s black body.

Like what Ms. Malcolm offered Miles, Dr. Yaba Blay offered Tiana and black women a similar kind of witnessing.  Dr. Blay’s response has been the most brilliant with her focus on Tiana’s spirit.   She created what she calls A care package of sorts. A digital book of photos and messages from 111 women and girls from all over the country and all over the world, all of whom wear their hair in locs, all of whom want Tiana to know that she and her hair are PERFECT.” The result is simply stunning (followed by a new facebook community).  Click on the digital booklet below that Dr. Blay left open for embedding and sharing across multiple platforms:

It’s an important reminder about the political power of healing and loving black children and the role of always offering them visual images for staking out who we are.  This digital care package also offers black communities a way to inhabit digital spaces outside of the white norms of collecting images and videos to showcase family consumption and bourgeois achievements— after all, that is the same kind of whiteness that left Tiana in tears.  E.M. Monroe and Dr. Blay offer us real images and processes of what it looks like to show and love black children in a digital age.  These are the only kinds of AfroVisual/AfroDigital spaces that can recognize our humanity.