Research (for tired negroes)
I am embarking on my research for a project that I’m calling Dream Coffins (for tired negroes)… There will be more to share soon, but this moment feels like a perfect time to create space for Black Americans—and the representations of Black Americans—to experience quiet, rest, joy, safety, and connection with one another and our ancestors.
It also feels like the right time for others to confront the system of power they have created. Racism is not a Black problem as much as it is a White problem. White America has defined its supremacy—consciously or not—around whiteness and has often framed racism as an issue of Blackness. But it is not an issue that exists without whiteness.
“What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it is necessary to have a 'n*gger' in the first place, because I'm not a n*gger. I'm a man. But if you think I'm a n*gger, it means you need it.” - James Baldwin
Tired Negroes will not erase—but will put to bed—the racist representations of Blackness and, in the spirit of Afrofuturism (1) and those magnificent Ghanaian fantasy coffins, imagine a visual language that frees us from those representations.
1. Afrofuturism expresses notions of Black identity, agency and freedom through art, creative works and activism that envision liberated futures for Black life. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/afrofuturismBibliography
Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Translated by Richard Howard. Hill and Wang, 2010.
Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. Grand Central Publishing, 2000.
Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Talents. Narrated by Patricia Floyd, Sisi Aisha, and Peter Jay Fernandez. Recorded Books, 2007 accessed through Spotify in June 2025. Audiobook
Clark, Cheryl. Archive of Style: New and Selected Poems. Northwestern University Press, 2024.
Jamieson, R.W. “Material Culture and Social Death: African-American Burial Practices.” Historical Archeology, Vol 29, No 4, pp. 39-58.
hooks, bell. Belonging: A Culture of Place. Routledge, 2009.
Parker, John. In My Time of Dying: A History of Death and the Dead in West Africa. Princeton University Press, 2021.
Salm, Steven and Toyin Falola. Culture and Customs of Ghana.
