Issue #4: Reflections for a New Year
“We have to be as radical as reality itself.”
Welcome to Shamira Explains It All/Shamira Explique Tout, a culture newsletter discussing the origins and impact of Black production and exchange, identity, and intellectual property via our digital, social, and archival discussions - and whatever else may be timely and interesting. Part English, Part Francophone. Reach out with feedback, suggestions, tips, and ideas at contact@shamirathefirst.com.
This time last year I had dreamed that this newsletter space would be a quarterly mailing of my ad-hoc thoughts and musings, after realizing that a monthly commitment would be too much of an effort to put forth in the middle of a life-altering pandemic that we had hoped to be coming out of in a few months. However, to reference the Abrahamic principle, “men plan, God laughs.” To say that the last twelve months — and the twelve months prior to that, to wit — have been destabilizing would be putting it mildly; the swings of the pendulum have been extreme, leaving me in a perpetual state of agitated tension to the point that I don’t recall the last time I felt peace. How can anyone, really, when we are unflinchingly making a death march through the Greek alphabet of airborne viral variants?
The aforementioned pendulum, of course, can apply to many things beyond the public health crisis and all of the humanitarian coefficients caused as a result. Dr. Bedour Alagraa refers to the pendulum as a through-line of global fights for Black liberation transformed from moments of rebellion to points of repression - from the quicksand that enveloped the “defund the police” movement in the United States to the interminable punishment of Haiti for the crime of having the audacity to fight to be a free Black nation. In this viral pandemic, people continue to be shaped by the trauma of the past two years, boomeranging between the margins of functional and despondent as many cling to the vestiges of what they previously understood to be their entitlements within the domain of the United States empire — while our federal government looms over our livelihoods as an ouroboros of marginal protections in the face of overwhelming catastrophe.
As an individual — and I will only speak for myself in this portion — I still veer wildly from day to day, straining to find a baseline in the midst of the incomprehensible present. For every productive day, there are two where I barely made it out of bed, temporarily frozen via my subconscious by the weight of everything this crisis has been unable to let me escape: the frailties of my own emotions, trapped by the insecurities that, in different circumstances, you would normally tuck away before they asphyxiate you, preventing you from being brave and creating your best work. I relied on a variety of sleep aids more than ever before, letting medication turn the noise off in my brain that I seemed incapable to do on my own; I would later desperately seek a resolution to that noise during the daytime hours as well and struggle to cope, my physical body a barely sentient husk of misery that desired little company in a time when the human race craved interaction. Even my appetite showed no mercy, ranging from days of ravenous and endless hunger to stretches of involuntary fasting — a psychosomatic reflex that has lingered from the worst spells of my disordered eating — yet somehow managing to constantly remain tangential to my fluctuating energy levels, leaving my spirit in a punishing limbo of malaise that I genuinely thought I would never escape from, despite more rational heads (and paid professionals, I might add) pleading that I give myself enough grace to free myself from the prison of my own expectations.
Many tears flowed — heaves and sobs for the people I lost, for the person who I thought I was on the way to becoming before a pandemic forced me to reset my mental health journey, for my writing and my genuine apprehensions over whether people understood me and believed that I had something to say, and for the career transition and growth I knew I had to make but was entirely too terrified to make the leap and take on my own — conditioned by decades of American capitalism, subliminal anxieties framed around the poverty I have been fortunate to escape but am never more than a few months removed from, and an implicit multigenerational family expectation of financial and emotional support that spans oceans and continents.
Miraculously — because if you were to ask me for a step-by-step plan I could not tell you how to replicate any of it — I managed to navigate two flourishing careers in finance/tech and writing while wading this gulf of distress. I had an intern I mentored at my day job and three large project successes, two(!) print cover stories and other print features published, and a bi-lingual column launched to access the Francophone world, which has long been a passion of mine. I am endlessly honored and grateful for those that believe in me and continue to support my words and thoughts, and if you’ve read this far, I hope that you continue to do so as I push my craft and thoughts forward and deeper. The support, public and private, has been momentous for me, even if I feel the need to disclose the failings that have come alongside some of the year’s biggest triumphs. As best as I could, I have tried to pay it forward, offering my advice and support to anyone who has reached out in good faith, albeit in sporadic spurts of energy — another effort I will aim to deepen and approach with sharper intent in 2022.
As I combed back through my 2021 archives as I was working on this post, I realized that unintentionally, I cycled through many of these themes in some of my strongest pieces this year whether it was a reported story, an interview, an obituary, or a critical essay. Grief, wellness, community, archives, and tradition were topics I repeatedly found myself wrestling with as we reconciled with our legends becoming ancestors or connected with the visceral pain or irritation that we may not have been able to immediately put our finger on, but inherited throughout a diaspora that has been suffering under the thumb of anti-blackness and its various manifestations long before this pandemic made certain truths plainspoken. Water isn’t just hydration and bathing; it’s lineage that can be traced in spirituals and indigenous practices, and one of the easiest ways to track a narrative of environmental racism in action within Black neighborhoods. Communities are coming to terms with the depth of the losses they’re experiencing — physical, financial, emotional — one after the next, without much recompense or sympathy from those who convinced them that they were the last defense against the looming threats of fascism, dictatorship, and a smorgasbord of other eroding civil rights that haven’t gotten notably better or worse for them in the executive administration transition. Wellness and self-care is far from just face masks and bubble baths; it’s equitable healthcare, it’s connection, it’s a freedom to love and build roots and power in equal partnership and community itself, and documenting and archiving that legacy before there’s no one left to protect it altogether.
I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions — I’m a goal-oriented person, I’ve just never kept track of resolutions specifically — but if I were to express some general aims for myself for the next year it would be to commit to the transition. I do my best work when I write with more intention, specificity, and care for the topic at hand, and so do all of my favorite writers, past and present; I will continue to increasingly strive to do as much as the media industry will permit, especially as tech/culture/Black diaspora analyses continue to collapse onto each other, all areas I have unique expertise on. But beyond media, I want to emphasize building the community I want to see for myself, both politically and emotionally. As some of you may know, I am actively involved in two immigration coalitions (UndocuBlack and Abolish ICE NY/NJ) and proudly support Equality for Flatbush (I unfortunately don’t have time to offer physical hours to E4F currently). Hopefully, by this time next year, I am not still effectively working two full-time careers so I can spend more time on these efforts. I write about culture — and especially pop culture — because I think its the most tangible and accessible way to put up a mirror for audiences to our socio-political realities and the way in which what is being shown to us plays into that; sometimes, however, you have to stop observing the story and participate in it.
For my subscribers who read this, I hope that you enter the new year with a clean slate, forgiving yourself for wherever you think you may have failed and unburdened by the commitments of 2021. I hope that the events of the last year have helped you realized that you are as strong as your community is, given or created, and potentially think about how that extrapolates to international apparatuses and those levers of power. Most importantly, I hope you embrace that you may not find the solace that you seek until you walk towards your fears and come out on the other side. This is a journey that we can all take together in 2022, while reading, writing, creating, and hopefully growing and creating bonds with one another.
That said — if anyone is looking to hire a senior culture writer/critic/reporter next year, please feel free to email me: contact@shamirathefirst.com.
For those who still need a NYE playlist for your Omicron stay-at-home pajama-jam, here are 3 francophone playlists I made for Amaka Studio this year:
“The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.” - bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (1994)
Below are some writing highlights of mine for the year those who are so inclined.
Shamira’s 2021 Reads
When language that leads with liberation gets softened to demand inclusion and recognition, it is one of a series of actions that are easy to minimize — and allow for empathy to be engaged on terms that are least burdensome for the powerful. A poet becomes heralded for declaring the return of democracy, while the working class continues to flounder with no end in sight; despite defund the police rhetoric, police budgets across the country have increased, with qualified immunity quietly being excluded as a provision in the George Floyd bill. An elected official can make a presence at a macabre tax-deductible affair of the elite such as the Met Gala, donning toothless aphorisms such as “Equal Rights for Women” or “Tax the Rich” — phrases that aren’t unpopular, and are commonly said on campaign and debate trails — while those who fight for their rights on the other side of the red carpet are arrested, and their constituents across the river continue to recover from a hurricane or fight for freedom from the inside of a jail cell.
The Wild Wonders of Biz Markie - Vulture
Appreciating Biz Markie is a full-body sensory experience. The heaviness in Markie’s tongue counterbalanced the levity in his musical approach, adding dimension to his beatboxing and weight to his vocal stylings. It can be heard unmistakably on an early track like “Vapors” — a neologism coined by Markie about the fickleness of fame and fortune — which originally appeared on Markie’s 1988 debut album, Goin’ Off, and which Snoop Dogg later covered on 1997’s Tha Doggfather. Goin’ Off is also home to the renowned track “Make the Music With Your Mouth Biz” — an ode to Biz’s dexterous use of his body as a physical instrument, down to placing the mic against his throat as a signature move — and more humorous and frank songs like “Pickin’ Boogers.” And still, none of those tracks beat “Nobody Beats the Biz,” the song from the album that became rap’s gold standard.
Mother Nature serves the dual purpose of both inspiring the masses looking for guidance towards the future, and connecting with the next generation of artists who have had the privilege of following in the footsteps of Kidjo and her contemporaries while blazing trails of their own…Community is more critical than ever before, and her mission to inspire change and speak truth to power has now been re-centered in collective work and trust, embracing the impact that her work has had on the younger generations.
Mali Twist: The African Photo Lens in Post-Colonial and Contemporary Pop-Culture - Amaka Studio (English & French)
Malick Sidibé. Regardez-moi, 1962/2011. Brooklyn Museum. Photo: Image courtesy of L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, New York City
What is so striking about these photosets is not just the technique used, but also the level of intimacy, built out of a cultural lexicon that Sidibé had built in documenting his homeland. “My photographs are a kind of tourism because it’s as if you’re traveling to Mali when you see them,” Sidibé said in a 2009 interview. He added, “I remember the names of almost all the people who appear in my photographs. If I can’t remember their name, I remember their father, what they’re doing now, if they have children.” Malian filmmaker and NYU professor Manthia Diawara recounted this ritual of cultural reportage and archiving in an interview with the New York Times: “You went to your tailor with your James Brown album, and you said to him, ‘I want my jacket to look exactly like this,’ and you’d do your hair like him, everything else. Then Malick would take your picture and make you immortal.” For many, it would end up being just another photo in an album to show the next generation, unaware of its decades-later transformation into a valuable commodity.
The Courage of bell hooks - Vulture
Photo: Karjean Levine/Getty Images
She embraced a pedagogical mission of giving clarity and context to ongoing discussions, encouraging those who dared to interrogate existing ideas of race, class, or gender. Her approach to it all was informed by radical possibilities: We are not exclusively defined by any one single classification as long as we are fully present in all of them.
If integrity was one pillar by which hooks faithfully abided, love was the other. In a country that had so long ago turned a sacred act into a commodity — the purchase of mined diamonds one of many expressions of power and ownership — hooks strove to shed the artifice.
You Don't Know the Real Tessa Thompson, and That's by Design - InStyle December Cover Story
| CREDIT: AB+DM/THE ONLY AGENCY
These complex characters are Thompson's favorite to engage with, she says: "Work that asks more questions than it answers — I typically think that means something interesting." That also seems to reflect how Thompson approaches the expectations that come with being celebrated not just for her performances but for her radiant offscreen presence: embracing ambiguity and fluidity, and charting a path that is entirely her own and not adherent to any formal rubric of how to navigate stardom. "I really have a problem with strict binaries when it comes to anything," she laughs. "That's tough for me."
The pandemic may have heightened economic insecurity and career instability, but the foundation for these conditions are not new—they have long been enmeshed in the fabric of America’s capitalist development. From antebellum plantation slavery to corporations’ unprecedented profits over the past year, America’s growth has often been at the expense of Black workers, who continue to be overrepresented in unpaid and low-wage jobs…By conservative estimates, Jeff Bezos makes more in an hour than one of his warehouse workers could earn in a millennium.
Platinum plaques won’t keep our people alive, and simply comforting ourselves with the memory of hits past resigns us to the complacency of accepting tragedies like Rob’s as an inevitable series of events. Some may argue that the industry and those who run it have no legal obligation to provide for long-disposed-of artists. But consider the nature of exploitative recording contracts, especially those offered at a time when artists had even less legal or business representation (Rob signed to a $450,000 ten-album contract), and consider the continued absence of a proper union for artists. Then much of this recompense can fairly be viewed as overdue, regardless of how trends may now benefit a new class of rappers. It is important to reward emergent work; it is critical to preserve its cultural legacy.
Alors, c’est tout. See you all in the New Year. Sign up now so you don’t miss the next issue, which will hopefully not be a year from now.
In the meantime, tell your friends!