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Conclusion: You Remind Me . . . “Post–BAM/Soul” Reflections
- University Press of Mississippi
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162 Conclusion You Remind Me . . .“Post–BAM/Soul”Reflections Not only can the legacy of the Black Arts Movement be critiqued through an examination of the vast pantheon of material produced by those who were committed to perpetuating its objectives via nationalist and culturally inspired ideals at that time, but it can also be interpreted within existing contemporary mediums of expression invoked by later generations of artists who have seized upon, preserved, and been inspired by the culturally and politically motivated aesthetics promoted by Black Artists of an earlier era. Many scholars have commented on the ways in which some of the BAM’s most popular and controversial rhetorical features have appealed to later generations and prompted new dialogues and debates about the resiliency of BAM aesthetics that have been adapted to respond to the cultural, political, and artistic sensibilities of new audiences. Modern and contemporary paradigms of African American expression, including hip-hop and “post-soul” aesthetics that engage narratives of cultural autonomy, race consciousness, and community and/or nation-building ideals through popular media reflect and recall many of the BAM’s core elements, as noted by Mark Anthony Neal, for instance: Representatives of the black arts movement and a school of black nationalist thought . . . form some of the intellectual building blocks of the post-soul generation. [Their] work continues to resonate in the work of the post-soul intelligentsia, perhaps because they rightly understood that accessibility to the masses was not necessarily antithetical to high creativity, political activism , and intellectual acumen . . . It is this nationalist foothold on college campuses that often served to initially politicize the post-soul generation, especially when expressed via hip hop . . .1 163 Conclusion In this regard, the “success” and legacy of BAM exists within the constantly morphing and ever-expanding black vernacular tradition, as do its successes, failures, faults, and the unresolved questions raised about its objectives since its inception. Scholars continue to debate BAM’s import and new generations of readers continue to both glamorize and vilify its objectives, as well as be compelled by its most provocative aesthetics as means of characterizing identity, culture, community, and belonging. As products of what Mark Anthony Neal and Nelson George have referred to as the “post-soul” generation, contemporary artists continue to express ideas about identity and community in transnational contexts, and new technology-driven media inform such practices. The work of female Black Artists of the sixties and seventies reflects their interest in moving beyond the ideals of the BAM in a way that appeals to rather than compromises the core principles of the movement’s nation-building aesthetic , and it honors what critic Dionne Espinoza refers to as “[e]xpressions of embodiment, oppression, and self-naming . . . [that are] central to the politics of interpretation and to the politics of identity.”2 Faced with the challenge of demonstrating a commitment toward the popular aesthetics of this period, for women writers the struggle to introduce universal themes while initiating their own unique poetic and artistic perspectives was especially challenging yet fruitful. Johari Amini, Carolyn Rodgers, and Angela Jackson played important roles in the advancement of the culturally specific aesthetics for which men of the BAM continue to be credited. And much of their Black Art suggests that not only were they invested in gender empowerment and reorienting the masculinist goals of BAM in order to accommodate their voices, but they encouraged various versions of Black Art and consequently freed it from its commonly perceived “fixed” qualities in favor of a much more amorphous concept that would thrive beyond its most inspired years. Although a “vast amount of cultural criticism, particularly from black feminist and ‘womanist’ authors has profoundly rethought the nature and limits of black nationalism in the years since the Panthers ’ heyday,” an evaluation of the work of rarely credited writers and/or lesser-known figures such as Amini, Rodgers, and Jackson might compel new ways of thinking about black nationalism of the sixties and seventies (T. V. Reed 69). Even at the height of the BAM, their work offered audiences alternative ways in which to consider nation-building objectives. As many scholars have noted, Black Arts and Black Power cultures continue to be referenced and emulated by popular artists in contemporary [44.222.116.199] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:43 GMT) Conclusion 164 culture in every venue of artistic and political expression. In particular, “Hip-hop culture has continued to draw extensively on African...