ADULTHOOD IS A S#!%SHOW
This is for those who carried the load of smoking weed when it was illegal, such as myself. We searched for safe havens, kept the industry thriving, and most importantly ran from the DT’s so everyone else could walk…out of a cannabis shop with legal marijuana. We set the tone and are the ancestors. I’m proud. Artist: BambashkArt
Love these renditions of Mona Lisa as a cool, glammed, gangster black woman. Alter ego Mona Leisha has officially stepped into the building. Clock it. You’re welcome, to anyone who just found their new hip decor. Which one would you display? Artist: Ebonic Embrace
Via: NostalgiaWineAndJazz
Artist: John Mandu
Artist: Adenuga John Opeyemi
Black people make everything look cool, thus we’re copied. The swag can’t be duplicated and to be down you have to be chosen. We persnickety as hell. You’re welcome for being the culture. That’s on all genres of music, art, fashion, cooking, dancing, beauty, civilization. What am I missing? Via: Ebony Magazine
“I could see books in front of me. I had read them secretly, but this time, in this fever dream, I was able to read without fear of being discovered. I had wondered every time I sneaked in there what white people would do to a slave who had learned how to read. What would they do to a slave who knew what a hypotenuse was, what irony meant, how retribution was spelled?”
Artist: Siphesihle Ntsungwana
Seeing black men depicted with flower crowns is important and multivalent. For one, they’re perpetuated as aggressive criminals. Simply wearing a hoodie, or retrieving their phones from a pocket is enough for law enforcement to feel threatened, pull a gun and take their lives.
Piggybacking off my initial point, they are dehumanized due to stereotypes of criminality. As if they don’t feel, bleed, experience heartbreak, have aspirations that are curtailed by systemic racism. Mind you, we were imported here and enslaved, it’s the white man who should elicit such fear. Having spread their fallacy of supremacy globally, oppressing everyone, taking what isn’t theirs through genocide, murder, rape.
Finally, it combats toxic masculinity. They’re often pigeonholed into hypermasculine boxes and aren’t given room to breathe, to exist as a unique, singular being. This kind of representation matters, allowing them to be soft. Everyone deserves such grace. To cry instead of bottle up feelings by being told to man up. Resulting in uncontrolled rage when conditions get overwhelming. Which painting is your favorite? Why? Artist: Moses Zibor
“Knowledge is a kind of power, and the knowledge you find in this book will help you find power inside yourself.
Power is not a material possession that can be given. Power is the ability to act and that must always be taken, for no one will ever give that power to you.
Those who have power wish to keep it, and those who want power must learn to take it.”
Artist: Olamide Ogunade Olisco
When you return to class from free period stoned af, sans eye drops, trying to play it cool. Only for the teacher to single you out and ask why your eyes are red. Raise your hand if you’ve been there. Artist: Kwesi Botchway