The Appropriation of Blackness

The continuing appropriation of Black culture in the U.S. is closely tied to the trauma and injustice of the African diaspora and the history of slavery. Black people, Amenii argues, need to re-appropriate themselves, through the “excavating and re-articulating of our intellectual heritage and knowledge systems.” Citing Ahmad Azzahir’s description of African modes of thinking as “based on spirituality, symbol, mythos, and harmonium,” she sees her own work as “creative anthropology” that draws on storytelling and image-making to create self-study. Her production Food for the Gods, “a multi-media performance installation created in response to the killings of Black Men by police and other institutions of authority,” consciously includes a non-Black ensemble, so that its subject can be seen as a global issue.https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/ballinst_catalogues/1025/thumbnail.jp