​DECOLONIZING BLACK IDENTITY™

​A Curious Culture Critic Conversation

​WHO ARE WE?

​Recent conversations about Black Americans and the African diaspora have raised familiar questions about identity, culture, history, and belonging. But beneath the debate is a question we don't always stop long enough to examine:

​What does it actually mean to be Black, and more specifically, what does it mean to be Black American?

​In this two-hour Curious Culture Critic Conversation, we'll step back from the latest debate and examine identity itself.

​We'll explore:

• ​What is identity?

• ​What does it mean to be “Black” in America?

• ​What does it mean to be Black American?

• ​Where did the identities we use to describe ourselves come from?

• ​Who gave us these identities and who gets to define them?

• ​What happens when a racial category becomes a substitute for a people, a culture, or a lineage?

• ​What are we identifying as, and what are we identifying with?

• ​And perhaps most importantly: What do we call ourselves by our own standards?

​This is not a debate about which Black people are “better,” who belongs in the diaspora, or whose history matters more.

​It's an opportunity to get underneath the argument and examine the architecture of identity itself.

​Because if identity shapes how we see ourselves, how we understand our history, how we relate to one another, and what we believe is possible...

​we should probably know where that identity came from.

​COME CURIOUS.

​Leave seeing differently.