Letter from the Editor I’ve dug up articles from 1980, attended shows and lectures, and watched videos on innovation, creativity, and
art, the three buzz words of mass inspiration -- and I realized that the beauty of all three of those take time to learn, hone, and perfect, time that I was not allowing for myself to learn. Per a conversation with my brother, I learned a multitude of things about myself. Besides the fact that I am indeed basic (and that really burns), I’m not ready to commit my life and undivided attention to the working artistry that is a magazine, an album, or even a painting. He brought up a documentary that I began working on in the early part of 2014 that seemed good until editing. My unfinished work will be my demise, unless an unpolished embodiment of a feeling can be defined by a camera roll or a computer. This project was meant to inspire. I used this medium and project to ask an important question that never gets asked nowadays: What do we do? What are the minority students doing? And why aren’t we promoting that? The quality of education that universities provide us is so often forgotten when we’re standing at the forefront of crime, poverty, and drug abuse. Education is forgotten when unemployment rates are high and our primal survival skills are activated. In my most primitive and unfiltered state, I’m sweet. I have nothing but love for the people I interact with, and I show nothing but kindness and humor and fun. I am a loyal human being dedicating his life to the fight against cruelty of all kinds -- I was never an angry soul and to this day, In my third year of undergraduate education, I found that I have learned about myself more than I thought I would. I’ve learned who I like, what I like, and where I envision myself post-undergraduate. My past is my present and my present is my future because one could not exist without the other. DWNTWN offers a multitude of conversation that exist on a cultural and social level. For me, this is a reflection of my thought patterns and a statement of personal acknowledgement and identity. The edition is called Tunnel Vision, the Mixtape because I find that universities and students within them ignore the culture, art, and life that exists outside of their immediate academic experience. DWNTWN draws inspirations from outside of that view that Rutgers students so often talk about. The mixtape highlights the beginning of an artistic exploration and the unfinished beauty of a work of art. (Sorry, you can’t listen to it.) I’m concluding to say that, the small portions of art that I can control are directly reflected in the long months that I sat up at 4am in New Brunswick, drawing designs, calling around for ideas. I hope you enjoy DWNTWN and I hope you come back for more. Vous pouvez ouvrir. Thank you. T|H
TRACK LISTING
T U N N E L V I S I O N
E D I T I O N
you could sey that again 4 the entertainment experience 11 good hair good business 12 nika minaj thinkin’ out loud 17 open letter to white hipster boys 23 bioray: the raritan gallery 26 noire: the visual transcription 32
YOU COULD SEY THAT AGAIN A CULTUR AL O U T LO O K
story + visuals: travis henry s e l f - styled
Avakame, 21, sat down with me to discuss cultural objects from his anthropologically strung mind. As a Bensalem native, he moved to Newark to be both closer to his school and his target research topic: the homeless. Post-graduation, he wants to apply his anthropological skills in conjunction with his interest in ethnographic studies to focus on the homeless population in the United States. DWNTWN’s editorial is only an excerpt from our 40-minute conversation, available on the website.
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Track one
I took a two-year break in our friendship to understand the sincerity, brilliance, and utter wisdom that came from one man, Seyram Avakame, known colloquially as “Sey”. We rekindled our friendship on the eve of one of the best parties that our school has to offer, and after a prolific conversation about his life, I invited him to one of the most informative and experiential interviews that I have conducted thus far. 12:03pm: The phone rang, as a muffled man instructed me to answer my apartment door, located at Studio 97 in downtown New Brunswick. It was Avakame, who walked in and dropped his bags. Before we headed to the bathroom, we both had this look of worry. What if we get caught? What if we get too high? (I got us muffins to soak it all up.) We decided this was one of those now-or-never moments, so we headed to the bathroom, hot-boxing the hell out of it until the coughs sounded therapeutic. Our departure meant that we were about to embark on a journey, both mentally and socially. “Yo, Teej, you eatin’ the fuck out the muffin.” “ Yeah, well… I’m hungry, let me live.”
“Music’s more than a cultural object, sir. It’s a cultural vehicle. Often
music and their artists the dictate the direction of the culture.”
“The only thing that changed is the color of the lollipop or the wrap package so people can buy -8-
His music taste was self-divided into two categories: “Music that makes you do” and “Music that makes you feel”. When asked to elaborate on the former, Avakame talked about music that allows people the freedom to “do” what they want. He was addressing the “coon tunes” or club music that makes people want to “do women”, “do dances”, “do parties” or “do functions”. When asked about his latter category, he kept his answer short by stating EDM because it gives a palpable feeling. In regards to artists, he listens to DJ Mustard, Wale, Chance the Rapper and the Social Experiment, French Montana, the Lox, J. Cole, and Drake – but not before sectioning Drake’s triumphs into categories and eras. Avakame bumps to “The Mixtape” Drake from “Comeback Season” because his lyrics, tone, and mood were very distinct. “So Far Gone” Drake seems like the “feeling music” but his recent album “If You’re Reading This, Then It’s Too Late” sounded more aligned with “doing music”. All in all, he finds that his artist taste cannot be defined because he loves to feed off of many artists, usually at one time. Recently, he played Hot Stylz’s Lookin’ Boy. When asked about music’s cultural relevance, he began his conversation that stirred the mood for the rest of piece. “It’s a cultural vehicle. It’s often – Often, music and their artists dictate the direction of the culture, and when I say the culture, it means different stuff coming from my mouth than it does from a Latina woman’s mouth or a white man’s mouth or an Asian American grandma’s mouth. You know what I’m saying? And like I was about to say, artists and music propel what’s dope in the culture. That’s just the bottom line.” Culture is on the cusp of departing from another season of line dances, originally starting from Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” which spiraled into two year span of line dances, from the aforementioned jingle to “2 Step”, the “Cupid Shuffle”, and “Walk it out”. In 2015, dances found the most popular amongst the adolescents and college students were the “Nae Nae”, the “Whip”, and the “Atlanta Drop”. “That’s where the culture is at. It’s back to the youth being something that the old people don’t understand. If you talk to a late twenties or early thirties rap fan, they will absolutely hate Rae Sremmurd and all of them dudes but they’re dope to us because they’re making dope music that’s making us feel.” An elaboration of that concept brought us to creativity where his strict words were “an illusion in creativity in the culture” which indirectly mentioned Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix” web video series. His example? Migos. Their ad lib was seen as creative and new, but afterwards, every other artist started to copy their flow. Artists like Drake used that same stylistic flow on The Language on his album “Nothing Was The Same”, and the masses thought that their favorite artists began putting out that flow as originals, but… “YOU KNOW HOW THAT SHIT GOES.”
pper on the gum. It’s still mint gum, but not it’s just in a festival y it during Christmas.” -9-
We’ve reached this nexus point where one umbrella technology conglomerate is creating a car, as we speak, but we are still trying to understand machines, electronics, and the Internet of Things. He spoke on the knowledge of any advanced technology when the world was still tripping on how sleek the RAZR was, no one would have believed that a watch that could wirelessly connect to an phone. On a note concerning Apple’s cultural relevance, technology influenced the music industry in ways previously unimaginable – no one wants to buy albums unless a person truly supports the artist, which started back when LimeWire gained in notoriety. People love to go out of their way to illegally download songs, and the invention of Apple’s iTunes attempted to facilitate that process, but the issue remains. On a note concerning Apple’s cultural relevance, technology influenced the music industry in ways previously unimaginable – no one wants to buy albums unless a person truly supports the artist, which started back when LimeWire gained in notoriety. People love to go out of their way to illegally download songs, and the invention of Apple’s iTunes attempted to facilitate that process, but the issue remains. Where technology and music found the strongest partnership exists in the realm of credit. Five years ago, a producer never had their own tag on a song. The value of the technology and production has been so good that producers are getting their credit on songs from the beginning. Producers known for this included Metro Boomin’, Mike Will, and DJ Khaled. At this point, Avakame states that artists are shouting out their in-house engineers, which makes them not want to do freelance any longer. It has allowed society to further than ever traveled. A point that stuck with me was when he spoke briefly about the growing conversation the dying music industry: “To people who say that the music industry is dying or the music is trash now, it’s because they only remember the good because the bad didn’t get remembered. People don’t want to remember the bad. Only the good music from whenever they were around is good to them now.”
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To talk about fashion included the breakdown of Urban Outfitters’ growth and Hollister’s decline in popularity. A man who so often shops and roams through the racks of a thrift shops opened his thought about all of this. In this sense, college students in America have begun to shift how they conform, but they still choose to do so. At this point, not everyone fits in the template that Aeropostale and Hollister has established for themselves; their audience, at this point, has skewed younger because the people who are shopping for their target audience are people who still have their clothes bought by their parents – basic and easy fits the mind of the mother. For the college students who choose to take part in this age of cultural expansion and differentiating amongst their friends, they understand that there are not five simple steps to looking “fly” anymore. In order to be seen as a fashionable, productive member of society, you must have “one high fashion piece” in your closet which goes to both men and women. Women in college, before three or four years ago, did not care about having Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Givenchy, Valentino, or Giuseppe. Sey’s theory is that in another seven or eight years, the mainstream fashion paradigm will shift against, just like it did with Aeropostale and Hollister.
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“At the end of that era of conformity, you started getting gunned for Aeropostale. They were arguably the first people. Oh, you wanna fit in so you gotta get this Aero. That used to be dope and when it first started shifting, Aero was the first to go, and then it was all of the skateboard stuff.” He was referencing Journey and Hurley’s. Once Aeropostale left the forefront of apparel, American Eagle weakened, along with Hollister. However, Abercrombie and Fitch stood strong for a while, but just recently “started getting wack” because only the people who could afford it would buy it, which was a symbol of socioeconomic status (as crazy as that sounds.) These over popular stores became ran out and replaced by Urban Outfitters and thrift stores, his favorite. People started buying Air 51 military jackets and MA-1 bombers, an article of clothing he has no problem wearing. Hollister sweat suits have been commandeered by Forever 21’s fast fashion. His comment on conforming looped back to his first point that: “Nothing’s changed, really. The only thing that changed is the color of the lollipop of the wrapper on the gum. It’s still double mint gum, but not it’s just wrapped so people can buy it during Christmas.” In a hybrid of technology and fashion, we look to Google Glass. They cornered the market in the technology realm, just like Beats’ headphones did when it came out; everyone had to have them. Even the tech magazines reviewed them saying that “They’ve got the best sound in technology right now”. For a two-year period, you were one of the hot kids on the street if you had the Beats headphones over your ear. Google Glass had that same effect; everyone wanted them – life on a singular device, and then it just vanished. We started talking about the black college scene, faith, and the micro cultures to which he belongs. - 12 -
Track two
TheEntertainmentexperience by: wyatt daniels
Jaded by the industry, I seldom wonder if there is a good person out there; interns are stepping on each other’s backs and the legitimized employees make sure you feel less than by the time you clock out at the end of the day. There’s this predisposition when entering the entertainment industry about how cruel people can be. Up until now having five internships, three in music and one in entertainment, I never understood. It’s sad because most people enter the entertainment industry as naïve as I was before coming into this position. Something happens after two months and the flames, snakes, and spikes come out of their personality when directing their subordinates, and I always question their motive operandi. All sweet conversations become snark comments that cut deep. Surprisingly enough, the head producers and writers are the nicest ones; the young, hot receptionist who recently turned 25 along with her group of collectively pretty girls who narrowly escaped college are the ones stabbing each other in the back, as if that’ll get you somewhere. The producers and directors come and engage with the lower class, like myself, and they’re fascinated at the universities and programs that we’ve done, and vice versa (obviously.) Everyday, when I ride the elevator down to the lobby, I question my self-worth, and that shouldn’t be. I think that people confuse niceness with idiocy or mediocrity, and they place you in this category so that they can watch you fail, and point their fingers to the boss and say “I told you so”. What ends up happening when that occurs is that you get placed in this lower dynamic of people (granted, we’re interns, so we’re already at the bottom.) and you begin to selfcategorize and socially identify with this state of inauthenticity. Where I find cognitive trouble is that people who are already doing well aim to be the best, and in doing so, they are putting other people down, their perception of the interns is very similar to that of the receptionist. The knives that cut deep can sometimes feel so warming after several times. The cruelty experienced on a daily basis begins to feel normal because that’s the entertainment industry’s way of saying that you made it. It’s a beautiful thing to exist in a spot of immense creativity, where ideas are flying on a Boeing jet, sometimes never to reach a destination, other times reaching to places as relevant as Laguardia or LAX. So excited to be in this place of knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and copious amounts of talent, we suck it up. We, as in assistants, interns, coordinators, and producers, suck it up because we understand that entertainment thrives in chaos, and chaos seldom happens in a place where everyone is consistently saying “Please” and “Thank You” especially to a group of millennials who feel entitled to the opportunity to meet the head of media conglomerates and nightly television hosts. What we find out is that people aren’t mean, people are helpful; the receptionist’s disdain towards us isn’t to be intentionally mean, but it’s to say “I’ve been there, and I don’t want to see you mess up like I did” and we listen because we’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t.
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G OOD H A IR G O OD B U S IN E S S
The owner of her own company, Christiana Osawe, 19, tells DWNTWN everything you need to know about black hair, while she also talks to us about her business, and the support she gives to local and black-owned businesses.
interview + visuals: travis henry
How are you? I’m good. How are you? I’m good. So, you own your own hair business. Yes, I do. Touched by Tiana Hair Services. OK. Alright, how’s that going? I don’t actually do hair during the semester, but during breaks, I’m thriving. That’s always good. So you know a lot about hair, I’m assuming. Yeah, somewhat. Alright, break it down for me. Let’s talk weaves, extensions, braids, twists. What’s the other thing? Oh, my friend was telling me. Crochet? Crochet! Yes. Brazilian versus Indian. Remy. Tell me. So when it comes to weaves, there’s different thicknesses of the hair, and you get different kind of hair to match the thickness of your own hair. So if you have really coarse hair, you get Indian hair. If you have a little less coarse, Brazilian. Less than that, Peruvian. And if your hair is really fine, get Malaysian because that’s going to be the type that matches your hair the most. Malaysian is the thinnest, and Brazilian would be the thickest, obviously. And, yeah. So we got bundles. You know the talk about bundles, right? No. You don’t know the talk about bundles? Absolutely not. Alright, let me teach you about some bundles. So, usually you buy your hair in bundles. Usually at the store, they have packed hair. SO bundles would be a pack of hair. They sell the bundles by weight, and you go and get your bundles. When I do people’s sew-ins, most people come to me with three or four bundles. Sew-ins? What’s that? A sew-in is a weave. Cornrow the hair in first, and then you sew the weave into your hair. OK. Most people come with three or four bundles, you know for fullness. My friend likes six bundles, but yeah, bundles are expensive. If you’re trying to get your girl something nice, get her some bundles because she’ll appreciate it. And yeah… Alright, so that was weave, right? That was weave, yes.
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Track three
OK, so tell me about braids. Braids and twists, like why are they so different and why do girls freak the hell out about it? OK, so braids and twists are protective styles – braids mostly strengthen your hair while twists grow it more. Both are used for both purposes but each one has its special purpose. SO, I personally like doing braids better because I think it’s easier but a lot of people like the way twists look because it looks more natural than the big, clunky braids in your hair. Some say they’re lighter, I don’t feel the difference to be honest. So you can’t have – with braids, you can basically do different lengths, and different thicknesses of the braids. So if you wanted braids that were really thick and long, that would be Poetic Justice. Like the movie, I’m assuming. Like the movie. You could do smaller poetic justice, or down-to-your-butt for the flowy whatever. When I was younger, I would do the short-a-little-below-the-shoulder braids and then curl the ends, you know the elementary. Actually, I’ve seen people in college do it too, so it might not be as elementary as I thought. And then this past Winter Break, I did box braids, and it was really short box braids and a bob on myself. What I did was a bob look but then with braids, and I burned the ends. It was nice and cute, you know…bringing back the 90s style. Alright, check you out. Yeah, you know that Jada Pinkett. Look at you. Was that “Set it Off”? Uh, yeah, Set It Off.
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OK, so… all-natural hair. That’s a thing. See, I don’t know if I’d be the best spokesperson because I just permed my hair last week. That’s okay. After being natural for about 2 ½ years, maybe 3. So then you would be a good person because I want to talk about perms also. So, I actually went natural by accident. I just stopped perming my hair. And then it just grew out, so I cut all of my permed ends off, but I think the hype about going natural is basically a lot of people do it to embrace their culture or some people do it will do it because the curl look looks. When you wet natural hair, you get natural curls. When you wet permed hair, you get…strings. Um, I don’t see the hype in going natural. Going natural is not for everybody, and I know that sounds weird because everybody was born with natural hair, but I know for me, after I went natural, my hair is so bad. It made my hair worse. Really? It did. Okay. Let me just talk about my journey for a little bit. Alright, tell yo’ story. So, I stopped perming my hair beginning of senior year. Was that 2013? 2013, yeah. No, 2012, I stopped perming it. And then 2013, prom came, and I was like “My leave out has got to be fire.” And leave out is like the hair that you leave out when you have your weave, so I was like, “No, my edges got to be laid.” Why is black hair so complicated? It’s really not. It’s just that to get this look, I can’t do it with my natural hair. I need the baby hairs to be slick. Yes, the baby hairs, like FKA twigs going on. Yes, that’s exactly it. SO I had to perm my leave out, so I permed my edges and the little portion of my leave out, so I did the ponytail, and made that shit look natural. Ah. OMG, I am over you, but keep talking. So, after that, I was like “Oh, this is kind of cute.” I have my leave out permed, I don’t have to straighten it every day like I would if my hair were natural. Let me just keep doing this when I get weaves. Perfect. So, the next time, I got a weave was the beginning of my freshman year, so what was that? Like… 2014? Yeah, whatever. Am I lying? Wait, March... March of 2014. OK. And I permed my leave out again, but I permed it different spots, so I had one part growing out and the middle part growing out, and the new part growing out, so when I had my hair natural, it just looked crazy. It was like straight-curly-straight. It was weird. So, then, after that, I was like “Let me just try and grow it all out, and then I’ll just go natural.” So I cut my hair that summer, and I was basically all natural. Actually, I was all-natural. Then I was feeling spontaneous and shaved the back of my head, but we don’t talk about that now because it didn’t do what I wanted it to do. It’s alright. It never does.
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So, yeah, after I cut it, I just kept doing weaves. And what I do since I do my own hair, I sew them onto a cap so that I can keep using the wig. So, it’s like a U-part wig and my leave out. U-Part meaning the part in your hair is actually a U-Part? The part is literally a U. And then I have an L-part wig too so that my bang can come out over it. So I kept doing those, so I straightened it literally every day. By then, my hair was so damaged. It was so damaged, and I kept changing my part so it wasn’t even like one side was damaged, everything was damaged, so I had to perm it. We’re in some weird realm where all-natural is the only thing you can do, where when you perm, it’s like you’re going against something. Why? I don’t know. I don’t understand this movement. Women have been perming their hair for years. Right. I feel like now when you perm your hair, it’s like “Oh my god, you’re so bougie.” Yeah, it’s kind of crazy because if you had an Afro five years ago, that would’ve been the wrong thing. You would’ve had to have a perm back then. I don’t know I guess people are really just trying to go back to their roots, that’s what I’m thinking.
“If you had an Afro five years ago, that would’ve been the wrong thing. I guess people are really just trying to go back to their roots.” So outside of hair, do you support black business? I think so. Where we’re from… Whitehouse Station/Flemington, there are no beauty supplies store, so in that sense, I’m going to go to Walmart. It’s actually funny because I went to Rite Aid one time, and I was like “Oh, I’m looking for your hair supplies. Where are you hair supplies?” And they were like “Oh, sorry, we don’t sell ethnic hair products.” Like I was looking for bobby pins. I wasn’t looking for no ethnic products, and they really just shut my shit down. Wow. I wonder why that is. After that, every time I’m just like every time I go to Rite Aid, you’re thinking I want some ethnic products. Right, you’re not all about cocoa butter and patouchie oil. Right, like I use Garnier Fructis regularly. Like that is my shampoo. Do you see your business advancing to a place where you can do it during the semester? The only way that would be if I open up a shop and have people working for me. Would you do that? Yeah, I would, actually. Alright, go ahead, you entrepreneur, I see you. Work. The YBEs of America. Alright then. Wow. Thank you so much.
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NIKA MINAJ thinkin out loud s t o r y
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v i s u a l s s t y l e d
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The young Cambodian, Nika Eang, is breaking the societal barriers as a woman proud of her heritage and willing to partake in the celebration of the African-American culture. An artist in her past years, Eang, walks the DWNTWN crew through her journey as a Cambodian child growing up in the troughs of Camden, NJ and the effects that it had on her upbringing. Through it all, we get to talking about cultural appropriation in the media and her school life. - 19 -
[ Track four
Born in Camden, New Jersey, Nika Eang, a first generation college student, moved to Franklinville, Camden’s smaller and quainter suburb neighbor when she was around the sixth grade. Before college started, she enjoyed painting and playing both the violin and the flute, however, financial ties stripped Eang from her early musicianship. Unlike some of the more northern Asian countries like Korea or Japan, Cambodia is a third-world country. Her father moved to the United States in the eighties and her mother, the nineties. Eang reminisces about the potential punishments her parents tell her: “We’re gonna send you back to Cambodia and see how children live since you’re so ungrateful.”
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The food is similar to that of Thailand and India, meaning curries. One of the things that she even found interesting about her own culture was that while poor, New Years and other trivial celebrations were big; it’s the few times a year that families will splurge. The most money is usually spent on wedding and both the bride and the groom is adorned in gold – they feel like royalty for one night only. While most people are Buddhist, Eang is not too religious herself; however, she can point out the nearest temples for her family: one in Camden, the other in North Philadelphia. Speaking of those two areas, areas that someone could consider “the hood’, she talked to us about the distribution of wealth in Cambodia when it came to the standard of living. In Cambodia, the difference is between a city person and a farmer. She was fortunate enough to hear both sides of the story as her dad was the “farmer” and her mother was a city girl. There’s a higher standard when someone lives in the city, which she found humorous because the city living in Cambodia equates to the American version of an average apartment. Cambodians speak Khmer. However, southern Cambodians speak a dialect called Khmer Krom which is similar to the way that Texans speak to Northeasterners. Their accent resembles that of a Vietnamese because the south of Cambodia borders Vietnam. - 21 -
Eang’s upbringing offers a halt in the conversation between “Nature v. Nurture” because while she gre Growing up, most of her friends were Spanish; he first best friend was actually Puerto Rican, and when sense of cultural diversity – blending Asian culture with other elements. Her words?
“They weren’t fobby. The word “fobby”, I guess, if no one knows what that means, it means “Fresh off t always in the books.”
Nika has always been open to celebrating culture in her friend group – she has an Italian best friend, an she remains the closest with her Haitian best friend. She believes that social inclusion allows for everyo lege, she felt different from the Asians that she came in contact with because most of them weren’t h stereotypical nature of Korea or China. Eang stated that the traditions in those countries were more up tones that were shaped by her geographic upbringing, but she tries to assure people that it’s just that…C
When one sees Eang, they recognize, appreciate, and respect this balance that she has to understand b roots, but she does not even see the balance. What she does see is the need to enforce racial, ethnic, siblings by example.
“She’s getting all of this fame off of black culture without learning about it or giving credit to it.” - 22 -
ew up in Camden, she kept her strong Asian foundation. she did befriend Asians, they adhered to her heightened
the Boat” like they’re not very stereotypical, they weren’t
n aforementioned Puerto Rican best friend, and currently, one to understand about each other. Once she got to colher nationality; Cambodia seems more relaxing than the ptight and strict. She has heard of backlash for the urban Camden, she is not trying to “stay black” or “be black”.
black culture but feel so close and connected to her Asian and cultural tolerance which she does with her younger
“It’s unnecessary to close yourself off. You can learn so much from other people and they can teach a lot of thing, so I think it is important for people to start opening up with that idea.” She credits her strong foundations and her intuitive skill to permeate boundaries to her father; her mom, however, comments on the high volume of Afro-ethnic friends that she has, even though she treats them like her own. Eang’s family appreciates a diverse community, and welcomes interracial dating, a practice not welcomed in many families, especially in the black and Asian communities. Touching on black culture and acceptance, we, Nika, the photographer Nicolette, and I, started a discussion on cultural appropriation and first up for a brief roasting session was Iggy Azalea. Eang’s opinion was that she’s getting all of fame off of black culture without learning about it or giving credit to it. She doesn’t know what she stands for because she continues to appropriate black cultural objects, but keeps quiet in lieu of recent sociopolitical events that have begun to shape the way African-Americans and police interact (i.e. Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and Martese Jackson). Nika even pointed out that some of her songs are racist, referencing this idea that Australians look down upon Indians. Following Eang’s philosophy towards equality, fairness, and justice for all races, she does not understand why racism needs to exist. On her high note, she talked about how frustrated she was when Guiliana Rancic said that model and actress Zendaya looked like she smelled like “Patchouli Oil and weed” because she was wearing dreads, the new fashion craze made famous by Kendall Jenner.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?” Highlighting the Jenner sisters as the epicenters of black appropriation, we discussed the prepubescent teenager’s accentuated lips and large posterior, Eang remarks that it even scared her too. “You see how beautiful black women can be, but they don’t wanna be black because there are so many negative things associated with being a black woman, and I see that every day with my friends. They are trying to mimic their features, and yet these black women are being bashed for having them. How are they [my friends] being deemed as “the ugly ones” whereas their white counterparts can have the same features and say “Oh, that’s beautiful.” On our final note, we discussed the crowning jewel of appropriation: Coachella Music Festival. Celebrities love wearing bindis, which are forehead decorations worn in South Asia, particularly India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius. A question that rose was where or not this choice of fashion is seen as celebrating or disrespecting the culture, but it seems to be counterintuitive when the ones wearing the clothes exhibit no signs of knowledge of the culture. People see Angelina Jolie wearing headscarves in the country learning about the culture, but Coachella offers these outfits that just look “cute” which end up being mass-produced five months later and branded as the newest concept in fashion. - 24 -
open letter to all the white hipster boys an excerpt from letters written by: kaitlin yin pang
when you prey on edit // approach me. I can’t help myself from feeling special. you tell me you think I am in beautiful in romantic [insert european language you learned to feel more cultured here]. when you call me exotic, I want to tell you I am not unexplored frontier for your pleasure or intoxicating borderline to cross. it is so easy for you to make me commodity. you call me exotic to make my yellow skin something easier to slip into. my skin stamped foreign but thank god, at least I am exotic. I am a stranger in your homeland. yellow peril pours from between my thighs but this fear excites you. I’m different enough to excite you but thank god I am still white edit // safe edit // accommodating enough for you. I am your favorite ethnic dish you order to impress your friends. I am Oriental piece of art hanging in the MoMA I am hentai porn scene and easy fuck. I am The Other. I am Miss Saigon, Memoirs of a Geisha. I am waving red Communist Flag. I am Enemy. I am military occupation in the Pacific Rim. edit // I am exotic, just for you.
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Track five me love you long time but you never ask about my mother or the wars my ancestors fought you just want to fuck someone who looks like me, someone who makes you feel all man. soldier still I just want to be good enough for you like clockwork, we move into your bedroom they tell us we should feel grateful white boys even looked in your direction. my desires like land being ravaged edit // conquered edit // rectified after we are done, you spoon me from behind and I push you off me I am consumed by guilt crawling up my body swallowing me scattered piece by piece this is not a story of metamorphosis, air slick with the smell of napalm in the morning heavy with weight of ghosts between us this is not a story of excavation or loves found again. the morning after I try to wash unwanted lush edit // self loathing edit// you off me in the shower. it does not work. I stand under the water jets for far too long, hearing gunshots and screams in my periphery.
- 26 -
BIORAY: The Raritan Gallery Fresh off of their two-year anniversary, Shawn Harris, co-founder of The Raritan Gallery, sits down to talk The Raritan Gallery’s journey from their infancy to the present, allowing us to understand what makes The Raritan Gallery tick. We also discuss The Raritan Gallery’s future when it ceases to remain a student-run project.
“The aesthetic of the Raritan Gallery is so different because it’s unorthodox. ” So, how are you? I’m good. How are you? Good. Good. So could you just tell me how it all started? So, basically, the inception of the idea of The Raritan Gallery started when Damani came to me to consult with me to channel his inner fashion interviews. He was a person who was always interested in the culture, but he didn’t know what direction he wanted to go in. So I told him, “You know you should make a fashion blog to express yourself. If you need help, I’ll help you.” And then, it started as a small idea and then we took it to the whole next level. Out of two years, we’ve accomplished so much. Yeah, it seems like you guys have such a strong following and a culture behind it. The aesthetic of the Raritan Gallery is so different because it’s unorthodox. We don’t follow the norms of a regular blog, and now we’re a visual company. Now we offer more than just the stereotypical editoria The visual company… is that part of TRGmedia? Yeah, well, for the most part, we have editorials but we like to offer more visuals in order to promote our aesthetic. It’s really to show people what we do and our take on fashion, our take on culture and the visual company, for the services portion, we offer product photography. If you want to hire one of our artists freelance, that’s part of TRGmedia. We also have musical artists under us, so TRGmedia is a different branch that we want to have under us. In order to conquer every aspect of it, we have to be versatile, so that’s why we added TRGmedia instead of just being a blog; we made it a visual company. Ok. How many people do you guys have working? Total? I mean, we have a lot of freelance people, but our team consists of… we have myself, Damani, Austin, Jamiel, Maggie, Harrison, John, um, Dennis, so I would say it’s about eight of us. Alright, so where are you guys now?
- 28 -
Track six We just recently celebrated our two-year [anniversary] on February 13. Now, we’re at a point where we’re doing different side project, so Damani and John Fay have their own comic book interview series coming out. I’m usually behind the scenes. At first, I wanted to be the main stylist and coordinate styles, but now I’m doing visuals with Austin, our videographer. I’m also designing, Damani designs, and we’re looking for a lot of different artists to collab on new projects. Like I said, we’re not really a brand but we want to offer tangible products back to our supporters. So we recently got our beanies. You saw those? I did. They come in burgundy, black, and navy. Now those are selling. Actually, we want to have a web store where we can just give back TRG products. We want to show the talent of other aspiring artists, so that’s why we do have collabs of other artists. That’s where the product comes into play, and that’s what I like to focus on.
- 29 -
So, where do you see The Raritan Gallery going? Realistically, if we keep the aesthetic behind it, it could go—it has so many options for itself. There are so little boundaries, but you know once you bound yourself to a certain kind of perspective, it’ll never be the same, you know? We’re trying to keep that unorthodox view of it because it has potential to drive even further. Let’s say we start pulling in more and more editorials. It’s going to look like an editorial blog, that simple, based-on-content alone. Personally, I graduate this semester, Damani doesn’t. I want to get these short-term goals done before I graduate, which is two more TRG releases, it’s a special edition line that I was designing, and then we had our Classics selection. I want to a Classics Selection II and then all of the collabs that I’ve been working on…we’ve been working to the point that we can set it in motion. And this event is going to be life-changing, you know? Our new PR person, Maggie, she really knows her stuff so we have been working with an event planner, and hopefully by the end of April, we can coordinate this event with a lot of people.
So tell me about what it is. The event is basically to showcase the accomplishments of The Raritan Gallery. It’s like networking but also to showcase our accomplishment, and it’s also to show people what’s in store for the Gallery. Visually, I already have in my mind how I want to set-up the loft or studio of where we would have it, but we’ll also have products that you can leave with. We’re also going to have gift bags to everyone who comes there. Basically, we want to give back. It’s more networking in itself, because we have certain people we want to be there, like on our celebs list. That’s part of our network, and if we have everyone there, then TRG is going to expand nationally. Like, I have family members that are celebrities in the West Coast, and I want them to be there. Once that happens, they can see how far we’ve come as a visual company and they can represent TRG out there. You said it wasn’t a brand yet. Why do you feel that way? Because I feel like a lot of people, they never stay on course. TRG, as a brand – as a company, that represents a brand, like the triangle with the “RG”, that’s a brand, but as a clothing brand, we don’t want to be like that. There are a lot of people who never stay on course to what they want to be. They’ll be a blog, and then next thing you know, they’ll be a clothing line. That’s not our focus so if you stay true to doing visuals, and occasionally you do products. That’s cool because you know support isn’t always visual, everyone wants to read, sometimes people want tangible support. They want something back. They want to see what we’re actually doing. When we make products, we don’t release it unless it’s of the highest quality that we can produce. Once we release the highest quality, people appreciate it more. It’s not like we’re making shitty shirts with regular steam-pressed lettering. We’re actually giving back.
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So how did you guys get your following? It’s kind of weird. It’s like planting a seed and watching it grow because before I was doing TRG stuff, I was known on campus for fashion things, and then when people see you doing things that are nice, and they like it, it’s not something that’s a one-time thing with a little bit of effort. I put my heart and soul into TRG and when people see that, no matter if they don’t understand the whole aesthetic of TRG, they like the adversity and the commitment of it. They’ll want to know more about it and support it. From people who don’t even believe in fashion, like my fraternity brothers all bought shirts because they liked the shirts, not even because it’s from me. I’ve had people hit me up on social media saying, “Yo, I like what you’re doing, where can I get a shirt online?” You know? Support is going to come with hard work, no matter what. You have to market yourself properly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not going to happen automatically. Yeah yeah yeah. Just market yourself the way you want to. Do you think the market, the following that you guys have now… is it the kind of people that you guys want supporting you or do you guys not have a preference? Um, the people that are supporting us are definitely the people we want supporting us but we want to expand into the community. We want to turn… We have more than just college students, we have a support-based around the country. There are people around the country following us. Our whole thing is to turn a potential blogger who just blogs occasionally into an avid blogger. We want to get more interactive with the site. We kind of have more brainstorming ideas. We want to – I don’t want to give it away because it’s our ideas. We don’t want to let other blogs into our ideas, but there’s a way to give back virtually where it causes the reader to be even more interactive on the site. It’s kind of like them telling us what they like.
“I put my heart and soul into TRG and when people see that, no matter if they don’t understand the whole aesthetic of TRG, they like the adversity and the commitment of it. They’ll want to know more about it and support it. ” CREATIVE DIRECTION - TRAVIS HENRY PHOTOGRAPHY - THE RARITAN GALLERY - 32 -
“students will stand in line for hours to get tickets to a party, but only twenty people will show up for a rally for social justice… maybe that’s the community that we’re in now”.
n o i r e b y : t r a v i s h e n r y
noire was originally a student documentary scheduled for release in november 2014. after much thought, both the director and producer decided to close the project, as the medium was not the best way to represent the topic. two of the most important topics that were focused on were a term commonly used in the black community known as “black excellence” as well as the popularly-used word “ratchet”. the short film sought to define those two words and phrases, if they existed, and what the two words did to the black community. in this transcription of the conversations, four inteviews were chosen to best represent the ideas that define both black excellence and ratchet. these are the results...
Part I: Black Excellence Interview with Savannah Britt Savannah Britt is the 20 year-old serial entrepreneur who is taking the entertainment industry by storm. At age twelve, she started Girlpez Fashion Magazine, a publication focused on fashion, beauty, and self-empowerment for teen girls. The publication quickly shot britt to fame, earning her a personal congratulations from Teen Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief Amy Astley. This also made her the “youngest magazine publisher in the world.” Currently, Britt is the youngest magazine publisher in the United States. TH: What is black excellence to you? SB: To me, black excellence is going above your goal and the norm by outliving a potential stereotype or assumption of who you are. It’s rising the bar to the next level and achieving your goals in the upper echelon. TH: Where have you seen it? SB: I’ve seen black excellence on TV and in my everyday life. I look at people like Will and Jada [Smith], I look at people like Michelle and Barack Obama, it’s everywhere. It depends on how you’re affected and how you see someone raising the bar in the black community. TH: Where in your everyday life have you seen it, can you go into detail? SB: I see it in my parents. My dad is an amazing story of black excellence. Here he is, from one of the worst parts of Boston, he grew up in Roxbury and he rose above what the statistic would possibly be for a gentleman of his stature. He went on to do amazing things: he was a high school All-American in basketball. He went on to get not just an undergrad degree, but a Master’s degree. He makes great money now and he rose above the environment that he was from, the environment that he was supposed to be defined by. TH: Why do you think it’s so hard for our generation to show a quality like black excellence? SB: I think our generation thinks that we’ve reached the point that we’ve always been looking for, the point that Martin Luther King and Malcolm X fought for. They think that we’ve made it, but in actuality, it’s still a continuous process and that’s why we go about gimmicks like black excellence but we’re not actually getting to the root of it, we’re not actually defining it. I think that’s the issue with our generation. They’ve given up. they think that life’s so easy at this point, and really it involves having open discussions like this once again. (Does that make sense?)
TH: Do you think that it’s something we should claim or let it be an unspoken thing? SB: I guess it depends on the type of person you are. I’m the type of person that speaks things into existence, so if i’m saying black excellence and I’m promoting black excellence, then I’m actually embodying and living what it means to be black excellence. I mean, I do believe to speaking things into existence, but claiming and being sometimes, that depends on if you’re actually really doing it. Because if you’re actually really doing it, is there a reason to claim it? Aren’t you just living it?
“If you’re actually really doing it, is there a reason to claim it? Aren’t you just living it?” - 36 -
Interview with FAWZAN LARI Fawzan Lari is a third year student at Rutgers University majoring in Public Health minoring in Africana Studies. He is a student activist heavily involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement and he is founder of the People’s Coalition against Police Brutality.
“If people just started to act more like that, and we stop subjecting ourselves to the bad lyrics, the bad media, then yeah, there would definitely be a difference in the stereotype.”
TH: How do we promote the idea of black excellence in schools? FL: I think we can promote the idea of black excellence in schools by marketing it to students in a more “attractive” way. students will stand in line for hours to get tickets to a party, but – for instance, we had a rally against social justice, and we have twenty kids come out. maybe that’s the community that we’re in now, but maybe we can find a way to make it more attractive and appealing to the general public. TH: Do you think that in order to persuade the black community, people outside of our race would have to go first? FL: I feel like in order to persuade the black community, we don’t necessarily need other people from other races, but we do need that [one] role model that people look up to, like on campus -- a member of a fraternity and sorority, but I don’t really see them promoting this kind of black excellence that we’re looking for.
TH: Why do you think it’s so hard for our generation to show a quality like this? FL: I think it’s mostly because of mainstream media. Some people rap about good qualities, but a lot of people listen to rap music and a lot of rap music contains a lot of vulgarity. People watch reality tv shows like Basketball Wives, 16 & Pregnant, Love and Hip-Hop. I don’t watch any of that because it’s embarrassing, it’s disrespectful. If you got rid of that kind of stuff, I think it would be easier to shift the perspective. TH: Do you think if all African-Americans attempted to embody black excellence, do you think it would start to change the perception that other people have of the African-American community? FL: I think that the stereotype wouldn’t even be seen. What some people don’t even understand is that some European-Americans, along with other races, can go their entire lives without coming into contact with an African-American and the only thing that they see of us are the things on TV; they see the crime, the reality shows, the fights, the drama, the rap music, and that’s all they know. When they do come across a black person, they don’t know what to expect. they expect the stereotype. If people started to act more like that and we stop subjecting ourselves to the bad lyrics, the bad media, then there would definitely be a difference in the stereotype.
... - 37 -
Interview with Ayana phoenix Ayana Phoenix is an honors student at Rutgers University majoring in Psychology and Labor Studies with a minor in Spanish. Her interest in journalism inspired her to join the Emma L. Bowen Foundation where she has interned at Fox News for three consecutive summers, learning about the media and minority representation on and off-screen. She hopes to be fluent in Spanish by the time she graduates. Besides that, she enjoys community service, dancing, and playing volleyball. TH: How do you define black excellence? AP: I would say black excellence is a lifestyle; it’s how you carry yourself more so than the accomplishments you’ve made. Those who show black excellence are the ones that carry themselves with integrity. Pride is a big thing, having respect for themselves and for others, especially others in the black community. A lot of times, we lack support for each other, so those who help out their black brothers and sisters and do so in a manner of grace exemplify black excellence. TH: Where do you see examples of black excellence? AP: I think I’ve seen black excellence in my circle of friends over the last two years. I have an internship with the Emma Bowen Foundation, an organization that gives minorities internship opportunities in media and technology fields. A lot of those people in that program are people that I go to church with as well. One of them I’ve known since I was five so I see these examples of building black leaders and black excellence within this circle; it’s almost like a family circle. We support each other, we’re kind of the next examples of black excellence. In terms of my personal life, besides my friends, I would say my parents, definitely. They were my first examples of excellence, and how you can be excellent and prideful of your origin and your history of being an african-american. Through media, I would say oprah, she exemplifies black excellence. Tyra Banks, I really respect her a lot. She does a lot besides modeling; she gives back to young girls and that’s something close to my heart. I respect how she went back to school to get her Master’s degree in Business. Tatyana Ali is another one in the media; she used to be on The Fresh Prince [of Bel-Air] and she went back to school and got her Master’s. I think education is a huge part of black excellence. They really inspire me. TH: In today’s generation, you see so many teens not being able to embody like black excellence, and you see them acting, for lack of a better word, ratchet. Why do you feel like we do see this? Why can’t we all just show it? AP: This is a question I think about all the time, especially if i go to black events. I think the main thing that sticks out to me that doesn’t go towards black excellence is the lack of support that we have for each other. When I go to talent shows and date auctions, and I see people poking fun at the people on stage rather than lifting them up like “Oh my god, they have talent, they have courage, you know what I’m going to support my brother, i’m going to support my sister”. I’m really big on sisterhood, community, brotherhood and I feel like many people our age don’t understand that we’re connected. We are really connected as brothers and sisters because of the color of our skin, because of the struggle that we go through that other races don’t. Like it or not, we’re all family and I feel like they don’t understand that. They don’t understand how linked we are or how linked we should be. I think that’s why a lot of teens cannot grasp that bonding aspect of black excellence; I think community is big component of black excellence. I don’t think we can be excellent on your own, necessarily. Essentially, work ethic comes from you intrinsically, but I think you need others around you to lift you up and support you. and I don’t think teens understand that support that they should have for each other.
“We are really connected as brothers and sisters because of the color of our skin, Because of the struggle that we go through that other races don’t”. - 38 -
Part II: Ratchet Interview with nadirah simmons ( added: Adoabi ojinnaka + Viemma nwigwe) Nadirah Simmons is a current junior at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, majoring in Journalism and Media Studies and minoring in Africana Studies. She describes herself as “unapologetically black,” and with her degree in Journalism she plans to develop and host a television that provides media representation for the activists, artists, social groups, and issues within the black community. In her free time she enjoys listening to ridiculous amounts of rap music, reading historical novels, and watching movies. TH: What is ratchet? NS: Ratchet is subjective, I don’t know. To a lot of white people, or just non-blacks, they’ll say that ratchet is “acting black” but it isn’t just for black people though. The ways I’ve seen it used though are ghetto, trashy, a little bit slutty, so that’s how some people define ratchet. TH: How is it used in your school? NS: If a girl is walking around with no clothes on, that’s ratchet. If you’re eating your food with no fork, that’s ratchet. It’s honestly attributed to everyone for any and everything. TH: What would you attribute this newly neologized culture to? NS: What? If i had to attribute it to any one specific thing, I’d probably say music because that’s where I hear ratchet the most... maybe a rapper, I can’t remember. Honestly, I listen to so much rap music that it all just meshes together. but definitely a rapper, somewhere. TH: Are there any celebrities that exemplify this behavior? NS: I don’t know ***laughs*** if you use my definition of ratchet, which is a little bit trashy--acting a little wild, then definitely using the “n” word, I consider that ratchet if that’s how we want to take it, so definitely Nicki Minaj with the whole cover using Malcolm X (referencing the Looking Ass Nigga album cover) holding a gun. To me, that was inappropriate because it did not respect my culture.
“The ways I’ve seen it used though are like ghetto, trashy, a little bit slutty.” AO: Beyoncé, after her new album, ratchet just flew off the charts. TH: Please explain. i’m so intrigued. VN: She is a mother. AO: When her daughter grows up, how is her daughter going to feel looking at her mother doing those things? Granted, Beyoncé is a woman. She has a brain for herself, she knows what she’s doing. but she’s on this high pedestal like the Most Gorgeous Woman in the World, That’s a certain stature that not everyone can attain. With her new album, she was coming into the urban, modern hip-hop, It made me look at her in an entire different way. she was doing the front-twerk. VN: She had everyone doing the front-twerk for a minute. She knows that ratchet is in. AO: The way I see it is that if you took what Beyoncé did in her videos from the new album and put it on some random girl from the hood, you know she’d be labeled as a ratchet thot. (defined as “that hoe over there”, a common abbreviation/phrase to describe promiscuous women in modern society)
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if the negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. don’t let anybody take your manhood. be proud of our heritage…we don’t have anything to be ashamed of. somebody told a lie one day. they couched it in language. they made everything black ugly and evil. look in your dictionaries and see the synonyms of the word black. it’s always something degrading and low and sinister. look at the word white, it’s always something pure, high and clean. well i want to get the language right tonight. i want to get the language so right that everyone here will cry out: ‘yes, i’m black, i’m proud of it. i’m black and i’m beautiful!”
- dr. martin luther king, jr.
...
name: travis henry age: twenty major: communication + french student minor:
design,
hip-hop,
technology, + branding role: editor + designer
name: nicolette molina age: twenty-one major: psychology + health + society student minor: photography, kanye west, the black keys, + books
credits.
role: photographer + editor
America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. - Thomas Friedman