“Black is . . .” and That’s the Beauty of It: Ten Propositions Concerning the Visible and the Visual, in Consideration of Black Cinema and Black Visual Culture1

These ten propositions have arisen in contemplation of an epistemological and methodological dialogue between black cinema and black visual culture. The propositions consider what each has to offer to the other. The aphoristic formulation and listing of the propositions, though provocative, reflect a principled, specific, and open engagement with the moving image as part of a conceptualization of the visual.