Letter from the Editors

Abstract

Blackness as a non-monolithic lived experience surrounds us at all times, permeating across institutions and platforms. Within this antiblack singularity where Black is rendered visible through violence and cruelty, Look @ Me Now: Black (In)Visibility across Institutions and Platforms seeks submissions highlighting Black joy, activism, exploration, and liberation as an unapologetic reclamation. Blackness does not and must not fit into Western technocultural modes of being and living. In lieu of challenges, across various spaces, platforms, and institutions perseverance and ingenuity have long served Black people as catalysts for agency and visibility. Shifting perspectives and bending realities, Blackness continues to leave its imprint within cultures, technologies, institutions, and platforms. Black (In)Visibility speaks to Black narratives and traditions as both demanding visibility and foretelling the benefits of an insular and protective interpretation of obscurity. Particularly, the invisibility of Blackness can be combated through non-oppressive systems and frameworks of knowing, doing, and being. What non-traditional frameworks and technologies do we use to make Blackness visible? How do choices of consumption and engagement confront and produce assumptions and frameworks for Blackness and establish alternative frameworks of vitality and joy? And finally, in what ways does visibility, invisibility, or hypervisibility affect the constitution and perception of Black personhood and everyday life? Our interpretation of (in)visibility encompasses the diversity of Black imaging and imagining and redaction and annotation. Moreover, our hope in this collection is to assemble a robust corpus that engages with Black (In)Visibility across various non-academic spaces and academic disciplines and perspectives.