#BlackInAmsterdamAdventures (Day 9)

...Nothing like the bond of Black Woman Sisterhood across the pond. Let me just tell you, I was given new life today at today's International Symposium on Black Europe. UMASS-Amherst Gender and Women Studies professor Dr. Tanisha C. Ford exemplified what I seek as a budding scholar and professor. Dr. Ford presentation on "Creating an 'Eclectic Archive' New Directions in Cultural History brought awareness to this notion of radical blackness by pushing aesthetic boundaries. In essence we witnessed how blackness travels and is circulated through this triangle of US/United Kingdom/South Africa. Her work sheds light on this idea of 'Soul Style' and how Black women across the globe interrogate oppressions of race, class, and gender across the diaspora through various cultural aspects and aesthetics (hair, fashion, music, print magazine. etc.) of the civil rights movement. I would learn about how Black women adopted a way of dressing that essentially acknowledges the people they are fighting for; the pipeline bridge (using Black models) between the US & South Africa with the distribution of the DRUM magazine; and the popularity of the Grandassa models (based out of Harlem) in the Nigerian magazine 'Flamingo'. Via each of these aspects there is this sense of what Ford calls this cycle of 'pleasure-violence-innovation' (a pleasure of embracing your African roots, at the same time being attacked for this embracing, and then finally using certain fashion adornments as a site of class formation). Now although Ford's focus is/was centered in Brixton, United Kingdom and South Africa I saw a lot of threads with my current and future work with regards to the Black female body. The Black (female) body is an amazing site of study when it is given fair justice. All in all, I look forward to Ford's text "Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul".

Thus, just when I thought I had a firm grasp of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements another layer of knowledge is added (and this is a GREAT thing by the way!). So as someone who is beginning to embrace this idea of being a Black Cultural Studies scholar, I realize how many dimensions ones work can go and how it can still be ground-breaking, creative, and innovative. Therefore, being able to map Blackness in alternative ways that resonates with me and my work offers another route of interpretation that I look forward to providing!

(Top L-R Grandassa model Brenda Deaver; a group shot of the Grandassa models in Nigeria; Bottom L-R Dr. Tanisha C. Ford giving her presentation on "Creating an 'Eclectic Archive'..."; The cover of Ford's upcoming book; and myself pictured with Dr. Ford)