THE NEW BLACK
When I incorporated The New Black I thought it would be a place where I could express my opinions on fashion... that’s about it. I had the other facets of my life locked away and they would all remain compartmentalized.
That is NOT at all what it has become. I don’t often express my opinions because of the nature of my artist brain but I do put it into my work. So I decided to talk about what thnwblk is to me today.
The terminology “the new black” has been used in fashion to Indicate there is a new lit moment.
Being as though black is ALWAYS in, this ‘new thing’ is the new (current) black.
Floral is the new black,
Orange is the new black,
Etc.
The mood of thnwblk is to highlight the dope people and things in my purview.
There is however another layer to it.
The overall spirit of the climate in which I exist is littered with ideas, stereotypes and misconceptions of what black is.
Funny, the PR that makes people think one race or culture is civilized, when it is responsible for as many grotesque and barbaric acts as any other race or culture (if not more) also creates a dark narrative for other races. (Not saying names here).
So we want to redirect the mindset of the misinformed.
New PR.
Love is The New Black.
(Love is the always Black)
What I feel about today...
I feel like there is always a subplot to this experience we have here.
Sometimes The Good Lord sits us down.
You know how you see your (or somebody else’s) kid about to get into something dangerous, about to hurt themself, and you say “sit down for a minute. You need to chill out.”
Sometimes God looks out like that. Sometimes you get a heads up. You’re ALL THE WAY WYLIN and you need a minute. The idea of a slowing down is a novel idea (pun intended) in this day and age.
Everything is about instant gratification and that is dangerous.
It forces hasty behavior and promotes a lack of thoughtfulness (cuz who has the time to think?).
Take a minute and think of how many things you truly like on your own.
Not “more of what you like” or what “what you’ll also like”
fed to you by an algorithm.
We live in a world where things are fed to you so quickly that before you can process how you feel about one thing, another is presented to you.
There has to be danger in that.
Being told you like something, consuming it, and before you can process what you feel about it, something new is fed to you. It’s subconscious suggestion. Beauty and fashion trends, social behaviors, political views, can all be “suggested” and before you know it, they become preferences.
For example,
If I say there was a break in at a house in my neighborhood.
Then we start to talk about the security measures our community is currently employing.
Then we start to discuss strengthening those measures.
Then we begin to explore the people that we know to be unscrupulous... and what should be done about them.
We can go down a rabbit hole that doesn’t even acknowledge the idea that the initial discussion many have been based on BS. There was no break in in the first place.
Some of these ideas are so far removed from the conversation that they have evolved into, that they are just taken as truth.
SLOW DOWN.
With social media being as present as it is, there is a great deal of misinformation spreading that can easily become “truth”. No fact checking, no credibility.
Allowing that to influence you is dangerous.
Take a minute. An hour, a day.
Detach.
Process the things that you’ve digested.
Do you even like what “you might like”?
Have you spent time knowing yourself?
Do you have FOMO on your own life & human experience?
There has always been a moral obligation of media to at least present facts behind their opinion. While that hasn’t always been the case, there has always been a standard for giving information. There have been checks and balances and even repercussions.
Social media does not have the same moral code.
It thrives off of the idea that if someone took the time to put this into “print”, it must have some merit. That is simply not true and before we even digest the ideas that are fed to us, we have to defend our positions on these issues.
Sometimes, God slows us down for a reason.
Sometimes we are going too fast.
It takes time to live this human experience more deeply.
It cannot be achieved instantly.
Dig deep.
Find out who you are without someone telling you who you are, or being worried if people ‘like’ it.
