For several years, the term Post-Black has enthusiastically dove off the tips of various African American Gen Xers’ and Millennials’ tongues; reluctantly the same term has yet to make a big splash with many earlier generations of African Americans who voiced their concerns and took action during the Civil Rights Movement. With the recent release of Touré’s controversial book, “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now,” which highlighted the multiplicity of Post-Blackness, Post-Black has catapulted to the forefront of mainstream America. So, what is Post-Black? Thelma Golden (2001) claimed, “Post-Black was the new Black;” (14) if Post-Black is in fact, ‘the new Black’ what is the ideology that surrounds it within the Black community and within the context of Black philanthropy in the visual arts[1]?

Post Black speaks to the new diversity and complex identity in African American culture. Whereas the social dynamics of decades before required a uniform Black American identity to battle impending social injustice, the new opportunities afforded the generations of today as a result of victories won and fallen barriers have given rise to a growing diversity that some are enthused about and others are not. (Womack 2010).

The term Post-Black, was said to be introduced in the late 90s; yet, Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1994) described the duality of the concept he began to first experience in the 70s within one of his written works in the early 90s without using the term Post Black:

 I am divided. I want to be Black, to know Black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling Blackness at any particular time—but to do so in order to come out the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color. Bach and James Brown. Sushi and fried catfish (xv). Gates consciousness experienced a societal shift in the continuum of African American Blackness—one that was grounded in the civil rights movement of Blackness yet approaching the Post-Black era.

            The changing nature of self on the African American continuum through a postmodern lens of identity currently has three distinct phases:

• The African transatlantic slaves who were brought to the US witnessed the first phase of pre-modern identity. “In pre-modern communities identity is social, but it is not beset by doubt and conflict. Personal identity is stable, because it is defined and maintained by long-standing myths and pre-defined systems of roles.” African slaves living in the US experienced doubt and confusion in regards to chattel slavery; yet, not doubt and confusion on society’s perspective of their roles as slaves in America as it was socially engrained in them daily and their application of their constructed roles was overseen daily. “Your thought and behaviour [sic] are enclosed within a limited world view, and the direction your life is going to take is more or less determined for you (Ward 2003, 118).
•  Modern identity was found in the freed slaves through the civil rights movement. “Identity entered into crisis for the first time. As in pre-modern cultures, your personal identity remains based on your relations with others. It retains a degree of stability, but its orientations and influences start to multiply. Where in pre-modern communities you knew exactly what your place was in the clan, modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles.” African Americans personal identity of Blackness was in relation to others. Others being that Blacks were the opposite of their White counterparts and in relation to a unified authentic Blackness that the community constructed. Ward (2003) explains, “There is still assumed to be real, innate self underneath the public roles you play, but the struggle is in finding it and being true to it (119).
• Post-Civil Rights Movement to present day African Americans are of postmodern identity. Characterized as: “Social life is faster and more complex than it was in modernity. More and more demands are placed on us, more and more possible identities are paraded before us, we have to juggle a rapidly expanding number of roles as society starts to fragment” Glenn Ward (2003) reveals, “Although identity remains an issue in day-to-day life, postmodern theorists have binned any notion of self as substantial, essential or timeless. In place of the earnest modernist search for the deep, authentic self, [such as pro-Blackness in the modern identity in the African American community] we have a recognition, and sometimes a celebration, of disintegration, fragmented desires, superficiality, and identity as something you shop for” (120).

The shift caused by a societal effect in the African American continuum was also documented in Carson’s axiom with concrete focus on philanthropy—“Black philanthropy is shaped by the social, economic, and legal climates faced by African Americans at the different points in history. As the social context changes, so does Black philanthropy” (Carson 2005, 5). Comparatively, due to contemporary times various societal shifts are re-identifying the diverse cultural groups in the Black American community.   In a blog entry entitled, “Post Black as Post Modern-A talk with Graphic Novelist/Prof. John Jennings” Ytasha L. Womack (2009), author of Post-Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity interviews John Jennings on the notion of Post Black.

YLW: When you think of Post Black what is the first thing that comes to mind?

JJ: I think of Post Modernism. The Post Industrial age. Modernism, was about being in the present. Being able to measure the things that you’re seeing with your own eyes, with your own senses. Man is the measure of all things

Post Modernism brings in the question of which man, what if it’s a woman? It brings in all these other perspectives. I think Post Black includes this measure of self-reflectiveness. Blackness is not something we created. It’s something we were given. Now it’s post slavery, post reconstruction, post civil rights and we’re looking at how we fit into the larger context of things.

Darryl Atwell, Scientist, Founder of CAS51 (a Washington D.C. based Black art collectors collective) has what may be correlated as a postmodern identity view on the concept of Blackness.

I actually don’t like the term Black, even the term African American today too has problems as it separates all of us of African descent.  Rather, you are from Jamaica, Cuba…I have issue with everyone calling Obama Black as he is of mix heritage. He has a Black parent and a White parent and the whole notion of him being Black is actually racist. Historically, it was considered an impurity [one drop rule]^[2] and he was cast out. We gravitate to hold on to him as Black because he has achieved something that’s really great and in the social construct of America he is deemed Black so I understand that. Yet, in its essence I think it is a notion that has to be removed.

The varied perspectives of Blackness shifts from an ethnic and social construct to cultural constructs as well.

            Take the television series The Cosby Show that aired from 1984 to1992, the show produced pluralistic social and cultural perspectives focused on the African American community. The visual arts culture was first introduced on the show in season 2: episode 13 “The Auction” (1986). The Cosby Show’s influence illustrated that African Americans were a part of a larger role in society and could transcend stereotypes, societal and self-constraints of what it meant to be Black and enter into a larger cultural context like the visual arts. 

In the Black cultural visual arts community, Najee Dorsey Founder of BAIA spoke on a generation that does not see art in their mainstream television series—African American art—nor does the generation have influencers who collect and promote the collection of art.  I characterize this generation as Post-Huxtable collectors—the contemporary generation of young African American collectors who were born after, born during or were young adolescents during the mainstream climax of The Cosby Show. These collectors do not enact their ethnic identity specifically to Black art; they rarely collect based on ethnicity as their decision is largely based on current mainstream or popular culture influences and where they have imagined themselves to be in the future socially and culturally.

The Post-Huxtable collectors are Post-Black as they tend to transcend past and present social stigmas; thus, imagining and creating an escapist culture of a better personal future much like—Afrofuturists. “Certain social conditions have produced in people a heightened awareness of appearance and style…We now forge our identities by using goods as signals of both individuality (difference from social groups) and solidarity (a sense of belonging to other social groups) (Ward 2003, 121). 

Post-Huxtable collectors and Black Nouveau Riche producers and artists Kanye West and Pharrell Williams special interests in the visual arts are representative of their sub cultural identities.  Collecting Japanese designer limited edition toys, artwork collection and album cover art collaborations with White artists: George Condo and KAWS, album cover art, and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, and Italian designer Ricardo Tisci depicts the transcendence of African Americans who cultivated Black art to emphasize their ethnic identities. The hybridity of Pharrell and Kanye’s sub cultural interests are just as important as their ethnic identity. In the continuum they are rooted in their Black Hip-Hop culture, they identify with American popular culture and subcultures (street art) while transcending into a culture of globalism—Japanese, Parisian and Italian.

Art Managers must certainly take note of this shift in the continuum of Black philanthropy and adjust their philanthropic models, individual and institutional mindsets accordingly when approaching prospective African American—especially Gen X and Millennial—donors. Black philanthropy is not restricted to only giving to Black causes, the Black community or Black organizations and institutions. African Americans are “rooted in, but not restricted by (their) Blackness” (Touré 2011, xi).

[1] Philanthropy in the visual arts includes art collecting.

[2]  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html

*To comment visit www.posthuxtabletheory.com

*Biases: I am a Black American, Christian, visual artist and scholar who researches    contemporary U.S. cultures and subcultures, popular culture, brands and cultural arts—with a dominant focus on the visual arts.

    There is a lot of controversy surrounding the recent release on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch the Throne album cover artwork created by Riccardo Tisci. Now, I am not sure about the Illuminati business; but, the artwork is controversial which I personally believe collaborators may have created for reaction alone. In the framework of PR and advertising this may have been an outstanding move because the work is relevant on a pluralistic platform: religion, entertainment, music, fashion, art, etc.


Various bloggers/writers are focusing on the use of Horus and other Egyptian gods and deities in the artwork. Being of the African Diaspora, for me this reference is just a form of looking back Sankofa principle: “it is not wrong for one to go back and take that which they have forgotten” or “simply go back and take.”  It has to be understood that our ancestry is of the African Diaspora and Christianity was spread to various locales. Religion existed in various forms before Christianity touched the shores of the African coastline. 

Not every African Diaspora reference is demonic. Yes, inanimate objects and animals were historically worshipped by Egyptians and yes we understand as Christians about the Holy Trinity and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We also understand that God gives us free will. Traditionally in U.S. society any religion grounded in African culture was viewed as “Black Magic” since our counterparts did not understand our native culture. Consider this: Blacks are multifaceted and rich in history and it would be beneficial to learn your ethnic history as well as your national one.

Now, Ricardo Tisci is an Italian designer and Catholicism reigns supreme in his world as well as mythology.  Questions: Can both religions cohesively exist in a person? Just as Egyptology and Christianity may live in a person? Does it create an internal battle? Does ascribing to multiple religious viewpoints make a person supernaturally evil ?  As Christians we know you can only serve one God. So, we immediately think the aforementioned person and/or people are sacrilegious. Call me a contemporary Christian or whatever; but, I believe in one God and I also relate to various cultures and subcultures—my cultural viewpoints have no impact on my religious views. 

In an art history scope Rocco (France) and Baroque (Italy) artists were very huge on ornamentation and in architecture the style was heavily embraced in the Catholic churches of the period. The Baroque style was used to evoke the bizarre, drama, tension, grandeur, etc in art. It was also embraced by the Roman Catholic Church as an artistic device to symbolically display the use of prideful power and control. In a nutshell, Baroque art was used to express a dramatic emotion.

Ornamentation, a technique heavily used in Rocco and Baroque art, has historically concealed meaning, this concept is very apparent in Watch The Throne, as the artists  are using this device in contemporary times to confuse the meaning of power and authority. How does one get it? When one has it what to do with it? What comes with power? Are there sacrifices? Does power alienate you? Who is really in control? Who is really on the throne? Etc…

What I find particularly fascinating is, in a globalized world the collaborators have created a hybridization of art steeped in the African (Egyptian), French (Rocco) and Italian (Baroque) historical context that touches on the drama of present day as well as future imagined notions of grandiose power. To transcend the stereotypical identity of Black Americans in U.S. society Kanye and Jay-Z are essentially introducing the cultures and subcultures they ascribe to a new era of Black Americans. The question remains: are you ready for the shift?

Just two cents from a hybrid chic,

Tanekeya Word

Check out more album artwork photos here