When Afrocentric Art Goes Wrong.

Last night, Brokey and I were attempting to one-up each other by pointing out cheesy, hackneyed displays of Afrocentricity. (You know what we mean: that dreadlocked-Jesus-on-the-cross-ass stuff.)

I offered up this. She countered with this. I came back with this. And she came back with …well, see for yourself.

“Wtf is goin on there??!” she asked. A terrific question. I made a joke about tub farting. She suggested it was the Almighty watching some lovemaking and interceding. (Because, you know, we’re 12.)

Best caption wins a cowry shell necklace, a sleeve of Nag Champa, and a lifetime supply of Self-Love™.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • I honestly think this is God creating Eve out of Adam’s rib. I already have a cowrie shell necklace; can I get a made in China kente-print dashiki instead?

    • you can never have too many shell necklaces. just double up.

      (Think Mr. T with Knowledge of Self.)

  • Tralala

    Jesus is hawt.

  • “Coming to Break You Off” – God (I know I am going to hell for that one) Maybe a weird afrocentric version of Joseph, Mary and God? (since you did mention black jesus!)

    • April

      Ooh, you know you are wrong for that!

  • I don’t have a caption, but it totally looks like god is snapping that poor woman in half.

  • DVE

    My Bible trivia guess would be that this is meant to be a picture of Eve being made from Adam’s rib? But as for a caption, I got nothing mroe clever than WTF?

  • When in doubt, turn picture upside down. It still might not make sense, but at least you tried.

    What’s up with the white hands? I feel like there’s a joke in there somewhere about skin-so-ashy-it’s-dusty and the dangers of not using lotion regularly. Something like that.

  • Kerry James Marshall speaks to some of the issues in this type of work.

  • Bill

    Looks like either death is taking her from him or a dream is bringing her to him. Either way, stuff happens. Either way, how come there aren’t any skinny chicks in Afrocentric art?

  • gray

    A tongue-in-cheek defense of patriarchy? Just follow me – the caption reads:

    ‘This is her body, broken for you’.

  • Ash

    This reminds me of the kind of art they had in this hair salon I used to go to. The artist obviously has some talent (as far as the shading and proportions go), but it looks like two chalky hands breaking a woman in half with smoke coming out of her…and I’m not sure what to make of it. Not understanding the man. Maybe the hands already finished breaking him in half? I don’t know. Hilarious, nonetheless.

  • Scipio Africanus

    It looks like Adam Smith’s Invisible hand is about to crack her in half, dip her in butter, and then take a swig of beer.

    • l laffed. :-/

  • “I heard that if you let the spirit hold you, you can’t get pregnant after.”

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  • Born

    Who says this is Afrocentricity gone wrong? Why can’t it just be “Art”. If the subjects were Caucasian, I suspect that most would just call it Art. When will we be free to express ourselves as freely as white people do?

    • I think you’re misreading the title. This is a running joke here at PB — the funny/WTF-ish art folks’ mamas/uncles/whomever have draped on their walls.