Full Description
Performative Intergenerational Dialogues of a Black Quartet promotes the importance of intergenerational Black dialogue as a collaborative spirit-making across race, genders, sexualities, and cultures to bridge time and space.
The authors enter this dialogue in a crisis moment: a crisis moment at the confluence of a pandemic, the national political transition of leadership in the United States, the necessary rise of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color activism—in the face of the continued murders of unarmed Black and queer people by police. And as each author mourns the loss of loved ones who have left us through illness, the contiguity of time, or murder, we all hold tight to each other and to memory as an act of keeping them alive in our hearts and actions, remembrance as an act of resistance so that the circle will be unbroken. But they also come together in the spirit of hope, the hope that bleeds the borders between generations of Black teacher-artist-scholars, the hope that we find in each other's joy and laughter, and the hope that comes when we hear both stories of struggle and strife and stories of celebration and smile that lead to possibilities and potentialities of our collective being and becoming—as a people.
So, the authors offer stories of witness, resistance, and gettin' ovah, stories that serve as a road map from Black history and heritage to a Black futurity that is mythic and imagined but that can also be actualized and embodied, now. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and activists in a wide range of disciplines across the social sciences and performance studies.
Contents
Performative Intergenerational Dialogues: An Introduction, Section I: Tribute and Libation to A Black Quartet, 1. Generational Drama/Intergenerational Trauma, 2. When You Hear It From Her, 3. "I Wish Cotton was a Monkey", 4. "And the Protest Goes On...", Section II: Motha/ Sista and Fatha/Brotha Wit: Listening to the Lessons, 5. Motha Wit, 6. Fatha Wit (or Brotha Wit), 7. I Affirm, 8. "Reading (to/for) Daddee"; Section III. Letters to Those Who Mattered, 9. To Daddee (Love, Keith), 10. Dear Grandpa (Love, Cookie), 11. What Becomes (Possible) When a Black Woman Sees You: A Gratitude Meditation for Mama Crystal, 12. A Praisesong to Softness: Reflecting on Soft Black Masculinities and Survival, 13. A Tribute to Franklin: A Comic Appreciation, Section IV: Monuments of Memory and Remorse, 14. Monuments to Living (or Finding and Reviving the Dead in a Graveyard), 15. Rice: A Visit to a 12-Year-Old Black Boy's Memorial, 16. The First Time..., 17. Going There, 18. High Bar Love, 19. Standing at the Intersection of 38th Street E and Chicago Avenue S, Section V: B(l)ack Talk, 20. April 20, 2021: On Luther and Chauvin, 21. Trilogy of Terror on the Black Hand Side, 22. Feel/Think the Kink: A Dialogue with Jubi Arriola-Headley's Original Kink, 23. Spell Casting as Talking Back, 24. Admirable or Ridiculous: Talkin Black, Back, & Between Kin Folk, 25. Feeling Real: Reprise (Talking B[l]ack to a Younger Brother), Section VI: Voting Rights and Writing Volition, 26. Why Did Black People Vote for Trump?, 27. Another Prayer Meeting, 28. We are the People (July 4, 2021), 29. What's the Matter? (A Play), 30. The Will to Love: Dialogues on Loving Blackness in an Anti-Black World, 31. A Letter to Process, Positionality, and Possibility, Performative Intergenerational Dialogues: A Conclusion
