Student's Blog

Blog Post 4  So far in our course about Afro-futurism, we have talked about many different themes, messages and topics that can be conveyed through different mediums. Particularly, one work that we have gone over that has stuck with me is the film Daughters of the Dust by Julie Dash. This film was set in 1902 and talks about a family named Peazant family and is set in the Sea Islands right before they are getting ready to migrate to the mainland.  One theme that was present in this work is how Dash used memory as resistance. One character in the movie, specifically Nana Peazant, insisted on honoring the past and the people who came before them. Or another example is the bottle tree which was used to remember everyone who came before them. It is clear that memory is a mode of survival, especially for a group of people that have been systemically diminished.  Another theme that I thought was central to this movie was Black womanhood and healing. The film showed a lot o...

  African American Studies 112B      In this blog post, I will discuss some themes from class that we have talked about so far, more specifically, survival and community building.  First, one major and central theme we have talked about is survival. The work that comes to mind first is the short film Pumzi by Wanuri Kahiu. We see Asha’s survival throughout this short film by how she constantly defies the authoritative council that controls all of her thoughts and actions. They want her to believe that there is no outside life beyond these parameters but she does not listen to them once she discovers her soil sample. They told her to take her dream suppressant medication and locked her up when she asked to go outside. Asha ended up sneaking outside to plant her seed in the soil with water, and she ended up dying, but her survival was symbolic. Asha was trying to survive through his crazy controlling council and start the spark of new environmental revitalizati...

 African American Studies 112B The two real life issues that make it necessary to create my Earthseed community is hatred and intense polarization that are both present in the US. As we see throughout the news and hear from our friends and family, there are so many forms of hatred towards many different types of people, such as racism, anti-semitism, xenophobia, gender discrimination and so many more. Similarly, another big issue that our country faces is the political divisions and polarizations; more than ever, people across the US are split up and do not work together to fix our society because of this separation.  One Earthseed verse from Parable of the Sower that I can apply to my community is, “God is Change.” I can connect this verse to my Earthseed by showing how change is attainable and possible if enough people are willing to contribute to it. My community will learn to be adaptive and find new ways to come together to fight hatred, rather than staying divided du...

  African American Studies 112B - Blog Post 1      Referring to the Space Traders film by Derrick Bell, something that I really liked about the film was how it alluded a lot to major and relevant themes in the US without directly saying it. Specifically, in the film, there was one scene where it showed the Black Americans being loaded onto the ship and shipped away. This scene looked like it was mirroring and reflecting the transatlantic slave trade that happened years ago. The fact that in both scenarios, they are being loaded onto ships and sent off - it felt as if they were directly reflecting and mirroring each other. Something else that I really enjoyed about this film was how the aliens showed how the US is willing to sacrifice Black Americans for wealth and economic gains. Even though the dispute between the US was with aliens and this is not necessarily a realistic type of event that would occur, the fact that they were so willing to give up their own citizen...

African American Studies 112B This past week, we talked about the significance of vampires in Afrofuturism - specifically, we talked about the new movie Sinners by Ryan Coogler. I was lucky enough to have watched this movie a few weeks ago when it first came out, and taking this class helped me analyze and understand many of the components about this film that I would not have picked on without learning in this class. Coogler was able to create a film that discussed both the past and present in such a unique way with the use of vampires in this film.  First and foremost, the use of vampires in this film was a vehicle to discuss cultural appropriation. The main plot of the film is how two twin brothers open a juke joint with their close friends in the Jim Crow era. The vampires (white people) in the film love the blues that are performed in the juke joint but do not care about the people who make it. There are so many aspects about Blackness, such as Black culture, style, music incl...