How are you? We're teeming as there is so much to celebrate. We shared the first peeks of our interactive digital narrative, New World Haven, this week. We also joined the founding partner Economic Cooperative at Sangha House NOLA.
Additionally, the NOIR Labs team continues to grow. After adding a product team in June to help us close out Phase I of the Brooklyn Innovation Portal, we’ve expanded our editorial team in order to increase production on our socials, website and newsletter, among other outlets.
We’ll be introducing our new team members very soon, right here in this newsletter.
Though you can join and buy recordings at any time, we recommend joining from today so that you can meet your practice partner and start speaking Yoruba immediately. Remember, the New World will be built on African language intelligence. See our IG Live with Patrick Sankara Majekodunmi to learn more about the class.
Back to Afro-Nowism
Did you read the June 2020 article on Afro-Nowism? What did you think?
These were our favorite quotes from the author, Stephanie Dinkins:
The reconstruction of an intersectional black politics requires practices and theory that address the social relations of science and technology, crucially including the systems of myth, power and time that structure our imaginations.
Humans have the responsibility to reconceive the systems that threaten communities rendered simultaneously hyper-visible and invisible by their perceived difference.
As artificially intelligent ecosystems based on opaque algorithms and biased data proliferate and biological design gains momentum, we are confronted with the need to reimagine human supremacy. Advances in our understanding of machine learning and our single-celled bacterial cousins portend opportunities to create broad definitions of society based on mutuality and lateral coexistence among species and computational machines.
In Dinkins' elaboration, Afro-Nowism urges us to confront the possibility that indeed we could be Liberated in the present moment, rather than in some far and distant future, many generations away. It gives us permission to embrace this possibility without apology. This requires of us the capacity to be in the NOW.
Gain transcendence in community with Liberators and friends of the Dharma.
Sacred Medicine
Nothing brings you into the present NOW moment like a deeply contemplative spiritual practice. At Sangha House NOLA, a surging meeting ground for seekers of the Highest Enlightenment, we are learning to embody this path.
The SACRED MEDICINE Series with Venerable Clear Grace Dayananda, Brother Reimoku and Sangha Core has been serious medicine for so many of us. Check them out here before they are removed and secured in the Sangha’s digital membership archive.
Need help telling your story? Connect with us to learn how you can use data and narrative to position your organization for greater revenue, impact and thus visibility. Learn more about our Strategic Storytelling services here.
Learn the why behind NEW WORLD HAVEN, our interactive digital narrative project funded by the Mellon Foundation, on Portal X.
Are you the plug? Are you the person that puts all your friends on to the new new? Clearly if you’re forwarding this newsletter, you are ;)
This captivating artwork by Ade “Àsìkò” Okelarin, a British-Nigerian visual artist, embodies the intersection of identity, culture, and heritage. Known for his use of photography, mixed media, and film, Àsìkò’s work often straddles the line between fantasy and reality, creating a rich narrative that explores themes of identity, culture, memory, and heritage. Learn more here.
Titanium Armor. Samuel A. Blay. Digital Painting. 2023. Read in browser In loving memory of General Alhaji Bushura, our beloved Uncle. In memory of Marcellus Williams and the billions we’ve lost unjustly since the MAAFA began. Hoteps, Stand Up. It was in Brooklyn that I first learned what a Hotep was, in the mid 2000s. The vegan restaurant, Imhotep, just blocks from my Crown Heights apartment, was where we'd listen in on elders' conversations about Marcus Garvey and the impending Fall of...
The Galaxy Within. Source Unfound. Read in browser Hello Reader, How are you? This is Yetunde, the daughter of Olori Lolade! Here at NOIR Labs, things are getting hectic. We have so many more people, including myself, and we are getting ready for you all. I’m hoping to work on my first formal article for noirpress very soon and I’m so excited to share this! In the meantime please continue to check your inbox and junk mail for updates and messages from us! Thank you, Yetunde Olowosoyo Proud...
Yoruba Talking Drummer by Dorr Bothwell (1969). Serigraph. Private collection. Read in browser Ede Ni Koko (Language is Key) Bawo ni? How are you caring for yourself with everything happening in the world? I hope that you are well. Let me give you a fair warning about this message. We have started a new phase. A phase where we have removed whiteness from the center of our universe. Will this work for you? Thus you will see Yoruba first as you proceed. Báwo ni ẹ ṣe ń tọ́jú ara yin, pẹ̀lú...
