Notebook 5
My zine is a counter narrative because it complicates the United States historical perspective of stepping, addresses the transnational nature of Blackness, and highlights the resistance of South African minors under great duress and Dutch oppression. When regarding ‘Blackness’, Black identity, and Black thought- the Black American lived experience and global view tends to take precedent and dominating narrative in all things Black. With pan national ideals already taking on heteropatriarchal structures, the additional silencing that occurs with a single narrative of blackness in a global context is not conducive (to say the least) to goals of liberation for all Black/African diasporic people.
My zine shares the story of South Africans (note South Africans is to refer to Black indigenous folk of southern Africa), who created an art that spoke of their struggles, built community, and rejoices in their agency in resistance. A story that can be similarly found across the diaspora, but is of South Africa and adopted by Black Americans and others (in the way that Blackness becomes consumed by society). It is along this story sharing and adoption of various methods of resistance and cultural arts that Blackness is transnational. Art shared across the diaspora and global conditions of antiBlackness that provoke resistance are all products of and perpetrators of transnational Blackness.
Lastly, the master narrative of South Africa is that of apartheid enforced by Dutch settlers that through international efforts was lifted and the country liberated. My zine has no such ending. It incorporates a timeline with beginnings around the introduction of the gumboot and stepping to nations respectively, and goes on as just a line. Stories and events continue but, there is no mention of any ending or efforts outside of the local contexts of the art developing. My zine focuses of the realities and strengths of South Africans, pinpointing but one moment on a long timeline of struggle and resistance- dismantling and creating. My zine aims to, in simple means share a causal story as not an anomaly but a part of many other stories and narratives that can so easily be lost or made token spectacle by perpetrators of master narratives.













