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AFROPUNK FESTIVAL.MOVEMENT.

What does it mean to be a counter-cultural movement?

AfroPunk for many is a moment when it becomes clear that their personal is not one that they are on alone. The festival highlights an alternative mode of blackness that is both a creation of a community within a community and a reassurance that non-normative forms of Blackness do exist.

Social Media Pressence

Afro Of The Day

The Film

AfroPunk as a movement has several components as a force online. From their forums on the website. Twitter hashtags and instagrams of the “Afro of the Day” It is clear that Technology is an integral part of the culture

CO

MM

UN

ITY Punk

Alternative Subculture The film centers on uncovering black followers of the punk movement. It quickly becomes clear that like blackness, punk can be a term that doesn’t fully describe what this alternative culture is. People who are drawn to this festival and largely to this movement do not fit into a similar box. They bring with them their life experiences and create a new level of what it means to be be punk and anti-establishment. People who align themselves with this community are often not fully aligned with every aspect of the scene. They could relate to the aesthetic of the art but not the music. Yet they feel connected to the movement because it involves people who share being black and feeling alienated from the larger generalization of what it means to be black.

Who Has Ownership?

Looking into what it means to be punk and to be black especially within a United States based lens brings up questions of ownership. In her book Right to Rock author Maureen Mahon discusses the origin of rock and its split from the larger black community. Rock has been coded as white in recent decades despite being a central part of the black American music canon. Mahon asserts that rock and the aesthetic of rock culture should not be removed from definitions of blackness. Outside of the

AfroPunk forum there are some dissenting opinions surrounding the movement. White punk enthusiasts claim that the point of punk is to rebel against class and conformity and that adding race is a disservice. By continuing to establish that there is a necessity for a community like AfroPunk both on the internet and in actual music and cultural scenes, these participants are claiming ownership of a term and a movement that they feel

connected to. PHOTO CREDIT KARA MAHON

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