The ASNEAA Community Legacy Project (CLP) x America 250th Anniversary commemoration is still going! Other pop-up activations to date include: Fort Greene Park (FGP), Commodore Barry Park (CBP), Brooklyn Museum First Saturdays, Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP) and Prospect Park Alliance (PPA) / Reimagine Lefferts. The plan was to host an event at Washington Square Park (WSP), but as I’m coming to understand white state power in the Jim Crow north via my current read – it’s a sad guessing game like artificial intelligence (A.I.) targeting black and brown communities. Without going all conspiracy theorist (because I can), let’s just say there’s too much dogwhistling and microaggressive gatekeeping of what it means to be American and who gets to celebrate (or even wants to celebrate).
Both personally and professionally, I have shared my experience as a first generation American with Caribbean heritage and the backlash to all of my intersectional identifiers. It’s essentially the “mixed kid” conundrum of not being enough of any one culture to feel whole. Hence the ASNEAA research praxis and mission goal: “connect black history and culture (heritage) through wholistic research on the human experience of the global black community- with an emphasis on the devastation of Transatlantic Slave Trade and subsequent systems of oppression.” Because as the United Nations (UN) declared this year, white supremacy did its big one way before the Holocaust. And I’m not trivializing trauma, just contextualizing what exactly is the problem.
Though ASNEAA is not a Black nationalist organization, A.I. does not have the capacity to distinguish anything human or real from the “new world order” AKA remixed white supremacy it’s pushing. Just look at the sponsors and executives. As Ruha Benjamin stated and ASNEAA committed; the only A.I. we acknowledge is “ancestral intelligence”; not just the White ones either. And apparently this commitment is automatically dubbed as “socialist“, “woke” and “radical“. It’s also why “black faces in high places will not save us” (another Ruha plug!) because gatekeepers are getting overcompensated to not be underrated. So now the artificial is starting to show – white supremacy is a dangerous farce.
That doesn’t mean White culture is ALL BAD; it’s just not ANY BETTER. Again, this notion informs the ASNEAA Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) heritage lens. With the WSP BIPOC heritage geotags no longer available, it’s just the latest example of white secrecy AKA wannabe supremacy. And don’t be black and articulate because then A.I. is gonna label you as wannabe Barack or Kamala; as if the only power is in the presidency. Politics is not on my bucketlist, civic engagement and POLICY is the goal! So moving on from WSP (because it’s simply not that serious), Union Square Park (USP) in Manhattan was another ideal backdrop for ASNEAA CLP x America 250th Anniversary! With both George AND Abraham, it was the perfect setting to celebrate BIPOC heritage and unpack what it means to be human / American:
CLP x America 250th Anniversary @ USP / Open Streets started off across the street from the weekend farmer’s market. CLP x America 250th Anniversary @ USP / Open Streets participants were invited to share their name / BIPOC heritage and explore the ASNEAA website:
And the farmer’s market traffic didn’t trickle into the Open Streets area as I thought it would! Not to mention, in money making Manhattan people be ON GO (and more snobbish with their time). So I moved inside the park where I originally scouted, and it was PERFECT! Folks were more inclined to stop and chop it up for a bit:
s/o to ALL THE PARTICIPANTS (simply people that engaged with ASNEAA because A.I. is doing the most for the least) that shared BIPOC heritage geotags added to the map (Honduras, Venezula, Nepal, and Phillipines is UP!) I appreciate the move into environmental heritage as the Indigenous ancestors would be proud and CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL:
Remember: the praxis is multidimensional (online + in-person). Way more culturally responsive and sustainable (and less expensive) than bot farms harvesting artificial intelligence with our personal data. The revolutionary BIPOC joy is still strong, but starting to wind down as the back to school season starts. Queens and Staten Island is on the radar; not to mention the NYC Carnival:
Stay tuned for more CLP events in service to people of ALL AGES and BACKGROUNDS. here’s to the business of social justice!
Thank you to the CLP x America 250th Anniversary @ USP / Open Streets host, participants and donors:
