Creating an influential and resonating documentary that digs into the heart of cosplay and Geekdom from a Black perspective as her first film wasn’t exactly Cheyenne Ewulu’s plan to begin with. What was supposed to be more of an artistic catharsis to express the frustration with racism and lack of awareness she noticed in the community she called home, became a beacon for Black cosplayers to find hope and admiration in their work.
Nyambi Nyambi’s character Jay Dipersia has been through a lot the past four seasons of The Good Fight. From facing deportation to fighting pay gap disparities, Jay has been given difficult circumstances to overcome. But, in the fifth season of The Good Fight, which premiered yesterday on Paramount+, Jay is given multiple obstacles that he must deal with — the aftermath of COVID, Black Lives Matter Marches, and losing three of his colleagues — two have moved (Cush Jumbo and Delroy Lindo left in the season five premiere episode) and his fellow investigator Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) has decided to study law.
It’s been a long, long quarantine folks. Let’s be honest, under normal circumstances, we’d all be waist deep in Con season — the most wonderful time of the year; starting with Wondercon, then Paleyfest, E3, Anime Expo, and glorious, glorious SDCC. But alas, 2020 has been something of a cruel master. And while truthfully these are a.) first-world problems, and b.) necessary sacrifices to maintain health and safety, yours truly still longs for the ability to take solace and comfort in the simple joys of abandoning life’s problems, and uniting as one ginormous tribe of nerds, hugging and crying over the excitement generated from the world debut of the most anticipated trailers of the year in Hall H. I miss those days, and if you’re anything like me, I’m sure you all do too.
Dr. Who. Star Trek. The Twilight Zone. The Night Stalker. Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Battlestar Galactica (the original series) E. E. “Doc” Smith. JRR Tolkien. David Eddings. Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman. Joseph Campbell. The Avengers (tv show and comic), Spider-Man, The Uncanny X-Men, DC’s Trinity and on and on and on. What do all of these pieces of geek-pop have in common? They were all generated from the minds of (mostly) white men.
Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this, but it begs the question: Do I actually like this stuff, or is it all part of some kind of indoctrination into the dominant culture? Continue reading “Decolonizing My Fandom”
Last week, we brought you Black Girl Nerds’ account of the shooting of Darrien Hunt, the 22-year old Utah man who was killed by police for “brandishing a sword” that happened to not be a real sword at all. Depressingly, Hunt’s murder is part of an all too common pattern of high-profile killings of unarmed black men by those who have been sworn to protect and serve them.
The death of Darrien Hunt did not happen in a vaccum. In the wake of similar instances in Staten Island with Eric Garner, or Ferguson with Michael Brown, and Ohio with John Crawford1 — and these cases are just from this summer — the mainstream media and society in general is paying attention more than they ever have in the past.
This morning I read the link to a news article tweeted to me about Darrien Hunt, a 22-year old Black male who was gunned down by police on Wednesday September 10 by the Saratoga Springs police department. Several news outlets initially picked up the story as reported by the police and Tim Taylor, the chief deputy attorney for Utah county. His statement to the press was as follows:
When the officers made contact with Mr. Hunt, he brandished the sword and lunged toward the officers with the sword, at which time Mr. Hunt was shot.
“The details of my life are quite inconsequential…”
If you know where that’s from, then we’re gonna be great friends! Hi — my name’s Will, and I’ve forgotten more about pop culture than you’ll ever know. It even says so on my website! I’ve been invited to tell my “origin story” here, and I don’t quite know where to start. You see, I did this on my own site a few years back, and it ended up being five parts. It’s just kind of hard for me to boil things down to the basics sometimes. Anyway, I guess I was invited because I’m what you might call a “nerd of color.” I’ve never really thought of myself as such, though. To me, I’m just a nerd who happens to be black. That’s the mindset I’ve carried with me over the past 10 years of my blogging “career,” and it’s really only recently that race came into things. You see, the whole “blerd” (black nerd) movement was starting, and I decided it might be nice to appoint myself King of the Blerds. As I saw it, no one had claim to the title, so why not? I’m just another guy trying to make it in these mean internet streets, so why not aim high? It was at that point that I realized there were many more like me out there – more who had more claim to the title than I had. I also started to realize I was the lone black voice to a lot of my web pals. This was great power that I hadn’t asked for because, as we all know, it came with great responsibility.
