Janelle Monae/ Lorde essay

In watching the Janelle Monae film I found some parallels with the Lorde essay and I was a bit confused but it made me think about the roe of women within the idea of afro-futurism. In the Lorde essay she mentioned that Malcolm X had altered and broadened his opinions concerning the role of women in society and the revolution and the Janelle monae video featured primarily black women, making me wonder how effective women are in revolutions across the board and what they mean to the idea of afrofuturism. Lorde herself demonstrated the strength of black women through afro futurism. I believe her greatest contribution to the idea of afrofuturism was the continuation of the idea of black women being strong and outspoken and furthermore she adopted the idea of non conformity.” Either I denied or chose between various aspects of my identity, or my work and my Blackness would be unacceptable. As a Black lesbian mother in an interracial marriage, there was usually some part of me guaranteed to offend everybody’s comfortable prejudices of who I should be.  That is how I learned that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. My poetry, my life, my work, my energies for struggle were not acceptable unless I pretended to match somebody else’s norm.”

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