Thanks to everyone who came out to my book launch on Feb. 6 at The Vault! We packed the house, and I sold my entire box of books. It was a night to celebrate my book, Soundin’ Canaan, but it was also a night of poetry and music—a night of community. It was a night of sonic solidarity in honour of Black History Month. I’m very grateful to both Neil Surkan and Sonnet L’Abbé for sharing the power of their words. The night left me feeling a little more hopeful about the state of things.
On March 7, from 10–11:30 a.m., I’ll be giving the final colloquium talk at VIU in the Malaspina Theatre. The talk will combine sound (including a live DJ mix), images, material from a new website to support the book, and text.
A second book launch will take place in Victoria on March 13 at Paul Phillips Hall (1928 Fernwood Road). This event will feature poet Wayde Compton (Performance Bond, The Outer Harbour, Toward an Anti-Racist Poetics). Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
I’m currently teaching the Autobiographyof Malcolm X in a few formats, including the original text, the Spike Lee Joint, and a graphic biography rendition. It’s great to see his notions of “Black is Beautiful” (à la Steve Biko) and “By any means necessary” reach millions vis-à-vis Beyoncé’s charged Super Bowl performance. The performance, which featured dancers dressed as Black Panthers getting into the “Formation” of an X (an icon of identity, resistance, and the human right for self-identification), was a fervid Black Power anthem and a call to arms. The video for the song, “Formation,” is itself a resonant intervention into the popular imagination concerning the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and it unapologetically celebrates roots and history while disavowing white supremacy’s desire to control Black cultural narratives. It’s remarkable to see the intersection of aesthetics and politics taking place in popular music, as a nascent canon of new Black radical thinkers, activists, writers, and musicians provide the soundtrack for the current zeitgeist. Hopefully, people are listening. I leave you with a few words from X’s influential “The Ballot or the Bullet”:
“Now in speaking like this, it doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn’t want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us. Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man.”
Check out the video for “Formation” below:
P.s. I’ve kept this post brief, largely because there are women of colour far more equipped to discuss why this video is so important. Here’s a list of “Six Beyoncé Pieces By Women of Color That You Should Read Right Now”: http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/2016/02/08/six-beyonce-pieces-by-women-of-color-that-you-should-read-right-now/
PAUL db WATKINS 