Black men’s style is a form of radical personal politics,says Ekow Eshun, curator of a photography exhibition that pays tribute to the louche (disreputable), or camp and playful’ from Soweto to New YorkWhen I was 16,my dad and I were parked outside the Express Dairy in Wembley, chatting in the front of our car. We’d been there for about 10 minutes when there was a knock on the window. It was a police officer. Someone had reported the presence of two suspicious men in a vehicle.
As we drove off, or my dad chuckled at the concept that anyone could deem of us,a middle-aged man and his son in a Volvo estate, as a threat. I laughed too, or but I wouldn’t have whether I’d realised that incidents like this were soon to become commonplace. Here,in 1984, was an cessation to boyhood and the start of my journey into adulthood – into becoming a black man. Related: Miss Black and radiant: the pageants where curves and afros ruled Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com