Content area
Full Text
The actual beginnings of our expression are post Western (just as they certainly are pre-western). It is only necessary that we arm ourselves with complete self knowledge!;] the whole technology (which is after all just expression of who ever) will change to reflect the essence of a freed people. Freed of an oppressor, but also as [Askia] Toure has reminded we must be "free from the oppressor's spirit," as well. It is this spirit as emotional construct that can manifest as expression as art or technology or any form.
Amiri Baraka1
"Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud." The rhythmically pulsating refrain of the James Brown song and the title of his 1969 album publicly vocalized the African American desire to reclaim, recover, and articulate self-claimed black identity and expression. Not surprisingly, the song became an anthem in black America during the late civil rights movement. A few years before the release of this album, Stokely Carmichael clearly articulated the meaning of black power that James Brown referenced in his song. In the same-titled book, Black Power, Carmichael defined black power as "a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society."2 At a most basic level, Carmichael was calling for African Americans to gain control of their existences within the United States, as well as abroad, and to understand that there is something special, unique, and valuable about cherishing, nourishing, and supporting black people, black cultures, and black communities. In a similar way, Amiri Baraka, in the essay "Technology & Ethos," was calling for black people to rethink their relationships with technology and take action to make technology more representative of black culture.3 More important, Baraka was arguing that through black technological utterances rooted within black cultures, black communities, and black existences-or what I would call expressions of black vernacular technological creativity-technology would be more responsive to the realities of black life in the United States.
Carmichael and Baraka represent two of many critical black...