no one man should have all that power
randomities, vol. 1
yooo…
I’ve been wanting to create a newsletter for a while, but the recent media industry reckoning intensified my desire. Between abuses of power, literal abuse, and constant layoffs, it feels like time for me to stop relying on unreliable outlets.
I’m using this space for the pieces that mean the most to me. Not just rap writing, but essays criticizing capitalism, patriarchy, bigotry, LGBTQIA phobia, and how these oppressive systems intersect. I know the email format hinges on concise, punchy emails. But know from the jump: that’s not happening here 😂. There will be a lot of long-form essays and periodic compilation-type posts like this.
But this first post isn’t about me. It’s about us. Or more specifically, how we can rally around the Black women who have come out about the mistreatment they’ve received in the digital media field via movements like #ItsNeverOkay and #SurvivingBSO.
Black women’s’ purviews set all our cultural trends, and it’s indicative of white supremacy that they’re not in more leadership positions. I feel like people in power can either empower others or exploit their power. Too many of these men opted to do the latter, and too many people at the publications looked the other way. The industry’s flaws aren’t limited to white publications. These women have exemplified that predominantly-Black outlets commit the same abuses.
I haven’t contributed to most of the outlets that got called out, but I won’t be contributing to Okayplayer again until the women who formed the #ItsNeverOkay movement receive their requests (support them financially here). I encourage others to do the same. Solidarity is sacrifice.
quick takes
suddenly white people who never “saw color” have used race as the basis for every placatory announcement they’ve made of late. but it’s too late to reshuffle the decks of a sinking ship.
was listening to a Justice In America podcast from last year, and Miriam Kaba dropped a gem: when people ask you what your vision of abolition is, it’s okay to say “not this.” we don’t have all the answers for the future, as long as we know it can’t be this system. lets have faith in our ability to conceptualize together.
please ask the people you know making Breonna Taylor memes to stop. it’s trivializing.
anyone peddling a culture they’re not protecting (especially for corporate gain) is exploiting. we need to show entertainers they’ve gone around the board enough times w/ for-profit symbolism.
bars of the moment
I named this newsletter more fire for many reasons, one of which is a play on James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Choice quotes from that book will be the basis for my initial bars of the moment section. Ordinarily, this section will highlight tweets or quotes from articles that resonate with me. But this time, I’ve left it to one of our most respected minds to reflect that we’re in the same struggle that he spoke of:
“The impossible is the least that one can demand.”
“Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?”
“Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.”
“People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.”
“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”
artifact
In this section, I’ll be sharing a random old YouTube video, interview, song, music industry story, or something that I think fell through the internet cracks over the years.
People are picking apart the flaws of so-called “conscious rap” lately — which I’ll be doing in long-form later this week in this newsletter. Nas is a beacon of “conscious rap” for many, but he sought to hang an effigy of Jay-Z at Summer Jam 2002 — and he used white people to make it. Imagine that happening in 2020! This is an example not only of the deficiency of Black patriarchal consciousness but how easy it is for Black people to co-opt facets of white supremacy against people they don’t like.
Until next time…subscribe if you already haven’t!
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Great Andre. Thanks for all the thoughtful and insightful writing you give us.