If, on December 31st, 1951, I wrote these descriptive sentences about
1: A moderate talent hampered by his sociopathic obsession with white women; who consciously crafted his work free from any cultural signifers to black people
2: A middle class kid with a skeevy interest in sex, who is so obsessed with black people not understanding his story, that he often forgets to develop his own one.
You would assume, in an era before Ellison and Baldwin, that I was talking about 1:Chester Himes( before the Cotton series) 2: Richard Gibson and Frank Yerby.
So why, when on December 31st 2011, they describe Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino and Drake, do I have to pretend that the cultural discussions about them that we are having now? In these agonizing, retrograde, backlash fueled discussions defending the thrown crumbs of black male privildge and the brothers who will grovel on the floor to eat them, why are we pretending that any of it is "futuristic"; that a new generation is "telling their story", that we are doing anything except what we are actually doing, which is ignore 60 years of intellectual struggles that actually happened?
I dont consider myself a nostalgist. There have been plenty of terrible acts and years that black culture critics wont care to admit were so. That said, so much of what came out in 2011 can just burn in hell.
1: A moderate talent hampered by his sociopathic obsession with white women; who consciously crafted his work free from any cultural signifers to black people
2: A middle class kid with a skeevy interest in sex, who is so obsessed with black people not understanding his story, that he often forgets to develop his own one.
You would assume, in an era before Ellison and Baldwin, that I was talking about 1:Chester Himes( before the Cotton series) 2: Richard Gibson and Frank Yerby.
So why, when on December 31st 2011, they describe Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino and Drake, do I have to pretend that the cultural discussions about them that we are having now? In these agonizing, retrograde, backlash fueled discussions defending the thrown crumbs of black male privildge and the brothers who will grovel on the floor to eat them, why are we pretending that any of it is "futuristic"; that a new generation is "telling their story", that we are doing anything except what we are actually doing, which is ignore 60 years of intellectual struggles that actually happened?
I dont consider myself a nostalgist. There have been plenty of terrible acts and years that black culture critics wont care to admit were so. That said, so much of what came out in 2011 can just burn in hell.
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