Lose Your Sister Lose Your Sister

(TW: R*pe, sexual assault) In this week’s episode, we discussed the Angela Davis episode of ‘Finding Your Roots’ alongside her 1972 essay “Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves,” to explore how slavery’s genealogical terror permeates our politics and art. Thinking critically about media reception and discourses of ancestral discovery, we tie Davis’s appearance on Finding Your Roots to other major works, such as Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and The Invitation (2022), for their reflections on (anti-)Blackness and the horror-drama of genealogy. In closing, we consider our own relationships to the “slave descendant” narrative and question what violence is made possible by the language of “descent.”

In this week’s episode, which was actually recorded back in November 2022, we discussed two films from last year, “The Woman King” (dir. Gina Prince- Blythewood) and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (dir. Ryan Coogler). Thinking critically about how Indigeneity and the African diaspora are imagined in these works, we considered how these creative projects grapple with the (im)possibility of solidarity and desires for a mythic past. Focusing on representations of Black women at war, we analyzed how gender, sexuality, violence, grief, and histories of slavery and anti-blackness play out in these blockbuster films which center on Black women warriors in fictionalized and fabulated early and/or pre-colonial African kingdoms.

On this week’s epsiode, we discussed Janet Jackson’s Lifetime documentary, “JANET JACKSON,” which follows the life and career of the one and only Miss Janet Damita Jo Jackson, the youngest of the famous and infamous Jackson family. Zeroing in on the documentary’s choices in representing Janet’s career and life, we explored the implications of Janet’s story within the broader music industry and make space to acknowledge her undeniable influence on contemporary pop and R&B music around the world. Lastly, we considered how race, class, gender, sexuality, and abuse factor into the way Janet’s story is told and we wrestle with the role that sorrow, disappointment, and indebtedness play in the complex history of Black women musicians of which Janet is a formidable and unforgettable pillar.

On this week’s episode, wediscuss the biographical drama “King Richard” and its portrayal of the story of Richard Williams and his 78-page-plan to make his daughters Venus and Serena into world renowned tennis champions. Placing the film in conversation with HBO’s recent docuseries on Tiger Woods, and more, we explore how fame, racial capitalism, and industry exclusivity influence relationships between Black parents and their children within sports and other entertainment spaces. Connecting this phenomenon to the broader history of Black children positioned as vanguards for integration efforts, we ask what the cost is/has been in the development of young Black trailblazers.

On this week’s episode, we will discuss the Netflix film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novella “Passing,” directed by Rebecca Hall, which follows the story of Irene (played by Tessa Thompson), an upper middle class light skinned Black woman who reunites with a childhood friend Clare (played by Ruth Negga) who has been passing for white. Discussing how these women relate to one another as well as secondary character, we analyze how race, colorism, class, gender, and sexuality shape Larsen’s story and the choices Hall made in its adaptation. In closing, we ask questions about the effectiveness of the adaptation and consider the future of passing narratives.

To kick off Season 2 of LYS, this week we talked with the brilliant hosts of Zora’s Daughters podcast (Alyssa and Brendane) about none other than Octavia Butler’s 1993 science fiction novel, “Parable of the Sower.” Together, the four of us discuss futurity, age and identity during apocalypse, Black feminist thought, and the discourses of world building and world ending within sci-fi, as well as Black and indigeneity studies. In closing, we meditate on the resurgence and reprinting of Butler’s work, the popular narrative of Black women’s cultural clairvoyance, and the contemporary crisis of climate, housing, and labo(u)r in the midst of an ongoing pandemic.