Back in the 2000s and early 2010s, social media companies sold us a vision: a hyperconnected, virtual world where strangers could cross paths and follow each other, where acquaintances could become “friends,” and distant family could be clued into the everyday happenings of each other’s lives. This glowing, idealized picture once painted by tech companies has largely been abandoned. Today, anxiety and paranoia sell. Social media monopolies benefit from the latent sense of distrust and conflict their platforms breed, as they farm and sell user data. Digital communities have become increasingly isolated, suspicious, and performative. Potentially nuanced dialogue is reduced to narrow 280-character and 60-second takes. In comment sections, it’s difficult to tell whether you are arguing with a person or a bot. AI content continues to flood timelines, with flat attempts at emulating actual human beings. The future of movement building and community at large calls for a return to in-person gatherings: intimate settings where trust, nuance, and imagination can be fostered.
One such gathering is Shades of Discourse, a NYC-based, quarterly event series I created to bridge the worlds of Black creatives, organizers, and scholars: three groups that play vital roles in driving radical social change. Our mission is to dissolve the silos between theory, activism, and creative practice, recognizing that impactful social movements require not only the inclusion of scholars, organizers, and creatives but the intertwining of these roles. Radical scholars diagnose systems of oppression, organizers drive change on the ground, and creatives envision the resonant, new worlds we aim to build. When these roles are isolated, their transformative potential is diminished; only through deep, intimate collaboration can we fully realize the transformative futures we seek.
At its core, Shades of Discourse is an experiment in community-building and grassroots organizing: a social lab where young Black creatives, scholars, and activists can come together to imagine radical futures through shared learning, organic dialogue, and the co-creation of culture, knowledge, and praxis.
What exactly is Shades of Discourse?
How do you create a space to elicit dialogue and collaboration between organizers, scholars, and creatives? Shades of Discourse is a recurrent event series, with each event made up of three component sessions.
- Mixer Session
Each event starts with a mixer-style social hour where attendees can meet and socialize. The goal of this hour is to encourage event participants to form organic connections and conversations. Event activations are designed to encourage attendees to adopt a mindful and reflective mindset. Both grassroots organizers and cultural workers vend literature, booklets, and zines in the space, fostering thoughtful discussion and knowledge-sharing. Record and book vendors enhance the space, amplifying the vibrant spirit of cultural exchange.
The most recent Shades of Discourse event focused on the theme of “Homes We Imagine, Homes We Remember.” Together, we gathered around the idea of home: both the cities, neighborhoods, blocks, and other places that define where we come from and the stories that shape our sense of belonging. Bulletin board activities were set up during the mixer to help attendees unpack this concept of home (Example photo here). Aishamanne Williams vended copies of the latest issue of Hoodwear Diaries: a zine rooted in the politics of hip-hop, fashion, and Blackness, pushing back against the appropriation and commodification of Black cultural expression seen in the “streetwear” industry. Organizers from Black Men Build and the Urban Democracy Lab joined us as well, sharing resources linking radical theory to collective action.
- Discussion Session
The second part of the event is a working group session where participants engage in discussion around a timely issue in Black popular discourse, critically unpacking the complex social structures that shape it. During this hour, all attendees, regardless of background, will be recognized as organic scholars, invited to contribute to the co-learning and theory building around a given concept.
Our latest “Homes We Imagine, Homes We Remember” Shades of Discourse event provided a chance to collectively unpack the concept of home. The discussion began with a brief introduction by Aishamanne about her article “Remembering Aaliyah.” The piece explores Aishamanne’s complicated attachment to her celebrity idol Aaliyah, a figure who had passed away by the time she was growing up, but nonetheless defined her style and serves as a touchstone of Black femininity for her. Her introduction of this story, presenting home-as-culture –– the cultural touchpoints that ground identity and belonging –– quickly expanded into further interpretations of home. Home-as-diaspora emerged as an attendee spoke on their experience of being a first-generation Caribbean New Yorker, trying to find belonging somewhere between the US and “back home.” Home-as-place quickly sprang up, with multiple folks discussing how gentrification is effacing the blocks they grew up on and, in turn, is warping their memories. Home-as-imagined then surfaced through the dialogue as we discussed the places of belonging we have yet to have and what radical action it might look like to attain them.
- Live Art Session
Each event concludes with a multimedia live art session where three artists from different mediums share in-progress and completed works. The session offers attendees a window into their creative processes. More structured than a general mixer, the session encourages attendees to engage with one another and with artists at work, fostering a space for experimentation and co-creation.
At the “Homes We Imagine, Homes We Remember” event, we were blessed to have three incredible artists join us: Sierra Francesca Enea (Collagist), Aaliyah Weathers (Mixed Media Artist), and Knotty Professor (Music Producer). Each artist set up in different parts of the space and showcased completed and/or in-process works. Sierra led a collective collage project, inviting attendees to join her in cutting and pasting materials for an in-progress, canvas-sized collage piece. Aaliyah presented a mixed-media installation, an interactive altar dedicated to the network of social commons that comprise Black sonic geographies across the diaspora. Knotty transformed a corner of the venue into a makeshift studio, as he cooked up hip hop and house beats that soon became the basis of an impromptu ciphers and writing session.
After each of these three-part Shades of Discourse events, the goal is to drive connection, interaction, and collaboration between event participants, lasting bonds that will carry on beyond the event.
Why Creatives are Central to Movements
A key goal of Shades of Discourse is to elevate an intertwined network of Black creatives, organizers, and academics. While the centrality of organizers and scholars in social movements is well established, the crucial role that cultural workers play often receives comparatively less attention. We often acknowledge that artists play a role in social movements, but there hasn’t been enough focus on exactly how they make an impact.
Revolutionary change must be resonant. It won’t be enough to simply rationalize social change: treating revolution like the solution to theoretical equations to be reasoned into. Social movements have to move people. They must be felt, embodied in the way people walk and talk, how people move through the world, and create meaning in it.
Moving people, transporting them to new worlds, is precisely what artists and creatives do through their practice. As Robin Kelley states in Freedom Dreams, “the most radical art is not protest art but works that take us to another place, envision a different way of seeing, perhaps a different way of feeling.” In his book How Music Works, musical artist and all-around creative, David Byrne, similarly explains this central function of cultural production in discussion of music:
Music—and I’m not even talking about the lyrics here—tells us how other people view the world—people we have never met, sometimes people who are no longer alive—and it tells it in a non-descriptive way. Music embodies the way those people think and feel: We enter into new worlds—their worlds—and though our perception of those worlds might not be 100 percent accurate, encountering them can be completely transformative.
Musicians and creatives, more generally, are constantly transporting people into new subjectivities where radical worlds can be imagined. This work of moving people, transporting them, cannot be overlooked by radical movements. It has to be embraced. The way to scale our movements, to move people, to have them reimagine themselves and the worlds they inhabit. Art does that. Culture does that.
Alongside transporting audiences into new ways of seeing the world, creatives play a crucial role in movement building by responding to the crises of our time. Emphasizing the ever-changing economic, political, social, and ideological contexts in which culture is produced is essential. Music, fashion, visual art, literature, idioms, memes, and other cultural expressions emerge during specific historical moments, moments shaped by intersecting structural conditions. The art and culture of a given moment help us make sense of the times we’re living through. Even as vast social structures transition from one historical juncture to the next, cultural production simultaneously evolves, continuing to match the moment.
When we center creatives alongside organizers and scholars, we make sure our movements are timely, innovative, and magnetic. For Shades of Discourse, culture is not a distraction or background noise; it is the terrain on which the radical capacity of movements is realized. As social discourse becomes increasingly fragmented and siloed, we must see culture as an indispensable tool in having our movements resonate with everyday people.
Narrative Power as Movement Strategy
Narrative power is not reactive; it’s about initiating conversations and opening up new ways of seeing the world: the power to define moments, craft stories, shape interpretation, and envision futures. Centering storytellers and creatives expands the movement horizon, unlocking new possibilities, and helping people reimagine their place within it. Shades of Discourse is one attempt to cultivate narrative power, bridging the worlds of culture with organizing and scholarship. Spaces like this fuel movements, allowing them to resonate with everyday people. Whether or not you can attend a Shades of Discourse event, we invite you to join us in centering creativity within organizing and sustaining cultural work as a vital part of our collective future.
To stay up to date with all Shades of Discourse happenings, follow us @shadesofdiscourse on Instagram and join the mailing list here.
