The construction of “B(l)ack” is a two-sided co-informing of meaning that signifies for us a doubling effect. The immediacy of seeing “Black” signifies the subject of focus: Black people and the essence of and/or the performativity of blackness, not as monolithic, reductive, or restrictive but maybe as a cosmological configuration of being; an acknowledged being with a groundedness in African roots filtered and tainted by the American experience, forged through the caldrons of slavery, struggle, survival, and the diaspora—(re)cognized; a process of not just recalling or seeing and making known but also a double cognition as in “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses”—of the Black self—again and again and again. The Black self, which is not an artifact of materiality but of origins and the influences of blood and history that signal the particularity, plurality, and performativities of our being, and in being Black in these United States of America, as well as the multiple borders to which we all cross to get in here or to get out of here.
So, within the construction of “B(l)ack,” the reference to “back” is not a coincidence. It is a charge of remembrance—to look backward to (re)member the self in history (the past), in community (to the present), with a forward thinking toward our collective futures. The doubling recognitions of positionality and action demands the triple stages of seeing as a thrice relational orientation that includes the subject of experience and being, the moment of reengagement of histories, and the reorientation to knowing of that experience through a critical memorialization of the self as an active agent. The process includes the tripartite of reflection, refraction, and reflexivity. The difference between reflecting or looking back on experience linked with memory and recall then refractively bending and turning those memories to crack open meaning and significance, followed by engaging in a reflexive turn of looking at the self-looking at the self in a twice removed level of critical self-objectivity.1
The reference to “back” is also then a charge to “talk back”: to talk back to history, to talk back to racism, to talk back to authority, and thus to talk back to oppression in those ways in which we engage in continual dialogues with our ancestors and histories. Talk back to our current situatedness in America in a time with continued racism in which we still fight, march, and declare that Black Lives Matter and, in the process, talk back to the systems and structures of oppression that restrict our social mobility—and, in fact, continue to threaten our continued existence. Talking back is a charge: to speak truths, to challenge the conditions of living. And as our recently departed sista-friend bell hooks writes,
In the world of the southern black community I grew up in, “back talk” and “talking back” meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure. It meant daring to disagree and sometimes it just meant having an opinion…. Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture of defiance that heals, that makes new life and new growth possible. It is that act of speech, of “talking back,” that is not mere gesture of empty words, that is the expression of our movement from object to subject—the liberated voice.2
The following pieces “talk back” in ways that are also about “talking Black,” through aspects of the vernacular of Black cultural life.3 Hence, “Black talk” is quintessential to Black people, as both colloquial and stylistic, as well as a focus on issues that matter to Black people. The pieces in this section bleed the borders and boundaries of all other sections to address the issues, the Black issues that are most pertinent to these four Black persons engaged in this dialogue. Sometimes, the issues are addressed directly, and other times, they are addressed indirectly—through play, parody, or parable that is also a part of the Black dialect.
To whom or what do you talk back, or maybe even—as appropriate, “talk b(l)ack?”
BKA
Notes
- Here I also use this construction of “a tripartite of reflection, refraction, and reflexivity” in my discussions on autoethnography as qualitative methodology. The most recent of such discussions will appear in Alexander, B.K. “Teaching and engaging autoethnography as qualitative methodology” in the conference proceedings: Pasque, P. A. & Alexander, E. (Eds.). (2021). Advancing culturally responsive research and researchers: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. New York: Routledge. From the 1st Annual Advanced Methods Institute (AMI) Conference (Theme: Culturally Responsive Research and Researchers) sponsored by The Ohio State University, College of Education & Human Ecology—June 2, 2021. Columbus, OH.
- See hooks, bell (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking black. Boston, MA: South End Press, 5, 9.
- See Smitherman, G. (1994). Black talk: Words and phrases from the hood to the amen corner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Durell M. Callier wrote on Tue, Apr 20, 2021, at 12:09 PM:
Subject: Re: Fw: Just saying hey
Hey Y’all,
On this the 70th birthday of THEE Luther Vandross, I thought of you all when I saw this animation/celebration by Google.1 I think it’s sweet and creative. It’s rainy here in upstate NY, but I am doing alright, and this just brightened up my day.
As an aside, I am thinking about the queer reading of Donny Hathaway that Bryant did a few years back, regarding lyrical autoethnography.2 Watching this Luther tribute, while working with you all about Black notes, forms another type of opening in Vandross’s music for me. Placing the specter of who was receiving all of Luther’s loving and crooning, and who might be loving him aside (if at all). Today, “Never Too Much,” reads like a love letter to Black folks. More specifically, given my/our being Black scholars, this intergenerational dialogue/quartet rifts on the melody, that “a million days in your arms is never too much.” I could say more, but “Never Too Much,” reads/feels like a classic gold standard on being loved on/by/with Black people in and beyond the academy.
Hope you all are doing well. Gotta head in to teach, or rather head over to Zoom. Will get a script out to you by the end of the week.
Take care,
Durell
Mary E. Weems wrote on April 20, 2021, 9:46 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Just saying hey
“Everybody wants me to be what they want me to be, I’m not happy when I’m trying to fake it” damn … so many, many folks afraid for complex reasons to just “be” … Yes! Loved Luther and all you share on this vibe makes sense Durell. Thanks, for sharing. And damn, Bryant, I’d love to read that piece…. Donny Hathaway and “gay” never even crossed my mind, but I loved his music and am remembering now how he died … Lord.
Cold and shitty day here, but I’m good too Durell. See ya’ll soon Family!
Mary
Dominique, written from a place in time to inform the now.
Greetings Blacktastics.
Just caught my breath. Just caught up on some missed emails and thankful that upon arrival, we are all still here together. I’m counting on joy and holding firmly to the queer found poem that is us. “For all we know,” we may be a poem that helps Luther find his way home to a past life lost lover of 22½ years. F...
