CYCLONE MUSINGS:
BLACKNESS, CITIZENSHIP & REPARATIONS IN THE AFRO-ATLANTIC 

CURATED BY JADELE MCPHERSON
November 15, 2017

Part of JACK's year-long series, Reparations365

In an increasingly-polarized nation around race and racial ideologies, and growing corporate culture, artist/scholar Jadele McPherson asks, “What could reparations mean in this present era?” McPherson will be joined by MC and poet Frantz Jerome (Peace Poets, Hemi), writer and poet Venessa Marie Marco (Nuyorican Poets Cafe), and musician and scholar Danielle Brown (My People Tell Stories). Join us for an evening "re-mixing" community dialogue, conjuring and performance to explore new sites of understanding for reparations in the Afro-Atlantic and around the globe.

CURATOR’S NOTE:

W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness (Souls of Black Folk, 1903) still rings loudly in our nation’s national debates swirled with images of the alt-right, Charlottesville and Charleston, amidst de-centralized Black Lives Matter organizing and movement building to dismantle violence and anti-blackness in the U.S. and beyond. The tension between blackness and citizenship also characterizes transnational studies, organizing and artistic creation in the African Diaspora. In Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880, Dubois shows how the Freedmen’s Bureau had difficulty being accountable to African-American freedwomen and freedmen. The U.S. government was more concerned with its wealthy white citizens than “40 acres and Mule”. Considering this history, and that Du Bois was also West Indian (Bahamas, Haiti), we propose this offering—part community dialogue, part conjuring, part performance—to explore new sites of understanding for reparations.

We want to think through what kinds of coalition building and alliances are necessary in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Harvey in Houston, and Hurricanes Irma and Maria which devastated Dominica, the US Virgin Islands, central provinces in Cuba, and Puerto Rico. In particular, the Trump administration’s lack of adequate response to the crisis in Puerto Rico has resulted in unnecessary deaths, illness. Some are calling it “genocide.” In an increasingly-polarized nation around race and racial ideologies, and growing corporate culture, what could reparations mean in this present era? Are reparations simply the idea of unpaid capital to Afrodescendants? Do we need Pan-African institutions to reach reparations? How have African-American, Afro-Latinx and Caribbean identities shifted over time? How will they shape our collective identities and values in the future?

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jadele McPherson is an interdisciplinary artist, singer and actress. In 2015, she created the musical-theatrical piece, DA CLOCK, and performed it at Pregones Theater for Pepatian's Creating Connections, and at JACK, with support from a Brooklyn Arts Council Community Fund Grant. McPherson performed as a part of Latasha Digg's tributes to Jayne Cortez at the Lincoln Center Atrium & the Highline Park. In August 2016 she performed with Yosvany Terry's Quintet at BRIC's Celebrate Brooklyn tribute to Celia Cruz with Angelique Kidjo featuring Pedrito Martinez. McPherson was in Meshell Ndgeocello's Can I Get a Witness (Dec 2016) at Harlem Stage directed by Charlotte Braithwaite. She debuted her latest work, La Sirene, at JACK in December 2016, and traveled to HERE Arts Sanctuary Festival (February 2017) and Brown University's Rites & Reason Theatre (March 2017).

Venessa Marco is an African Caribbean writer by way of Cuba and Puerto Rico. She has recently moved from Los Angeles, California to Harlem, New York. Marco is currently pursuing her P.h.D in English. She was a member of the 2012 Da Poetry Lounge in Hollywood, California slam team and a member of the 2013 Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which placed 3rd in the nation

Frantz Jerome is a lyricist and poet with extensive experience in arts education and workshop and program development. He served as head counselor for Project 2050's Summer Retreats. He has been working with youth for over ten years and practicing his art as an MC and poet with The Peace Poets. Frantz studies writing at The New School University in New York City. He aspires to create proper opportunities for youth in the arts while practicing his arts as a skilled wordsmith.

Danielle Brown, Ph.D. is the founder and owner of My People Tell Stories, LLC (MPTS), a company that provides educational, cultural, and performance-based services centering on the people of the African diaspora, and with a specific focus on the Caribbean region. Founded in 2014, Brown’s work is based on the premise that people of color in particular, and marginalized people in general, need to tell and interpret their own stories. Brown received her Ph.D. in Music from New York University with a concentration in ethnomusicology, and a specialization in the music of Latin America and the Caribbean. Brown offers diversity education to music teachers and others seeking to dismantle the effects of systemic racism in the field of music. She is an active vocalist and cuatro player, and composes and performs jazz and Latin American and Caribbean-based music. Brown is author of the ground-breaking ethnographic memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home. A musical adaptation of the book, sponsored in part by the Brooklyn Arts Council, will premiere at Medgar Evers College in December 2017.

This series is made possible by a Humanities New York Action Grant, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from many individual donors