Jalylah Burrell

Hello, Babar

Seattle-bred, Brooklyn-based cultural critic Jalylah Burrell riffs on anything and everything.

RE:Definition: A New Brooklyn Exhibit Tackles Black Male Identity

Posted 09/26/2008 at 10:37 PM | Comment?

W.E.B. DuBois had it right when he called the color line the scourge of the twentieth century. Pulsing through that broad line has always been the question of Black folk's humanity, our manhood and womanhood. Excluded from the conventional definitions at various points in history, Sojourner questioned the exclusion of Black women in her famous "Ain't I a Woman" speech and the late photographer Ernest Withers the exclusion of Black men in photographs of the Memphis, Tennessee sanitation workers strike of 1968 that preceded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.

Last night, journalist and aspiring politician Kevin Powell and MoCADA founder/executive director Laurie Cumbo revisited Withers' subject, Black men asserting their full membership in manhood with its all its rights, privileges and baggage, in their "I Am A Man" exhibit. I must admit, I am a bit leery of bold assertions of manhood as they so easily devolve into manifestations of male privilege and entitlement not to mention violence. So many Black men have puffed out only to snuff and be snuffed out. It seems a futile chase yet I recognize how important it remains to many Black men's self esteem. There has got to be a way around it but in the mean time, a few artists of Powell and Cumbo's curating are mucking through it. I was struck hardest by Rah Crawford's work in my walk through the packed exhibit during last night's opening and I encourage those of you in or near New York City to head to Fort Greene, Brooklyn and check out the exhibit for yourself. It runs through January 18, 2009.

Rah Crawford's 'iMan: Divine'