By Christina Vortia
Hypelit.com
February 3rd, 2018
I really loved this.
“(H)afrocentric
is the best of Boondocks, without crusty misogynoir. It’s the best of
Chappelle, without uncritical transphobia. It’s the best of A Different
World and Atlanta without commercial breaks every eight minutes selling
you colorful sugar and fried meats” – Kiese Laymon
No better words could ever describe this comic that is funny as hell, sharp, and unapologetic af.
Naima
is the activist. The woman wears a tank top sporting a picture of John
Brown under “Ally” in big bold letters and totes a portable soap box,
she is the biracial “woke” sistah who is tirelessly fighting for the
cause on the campus of Ronald Reagan University. Her girlfriend, Renee,
is a fashionista who uses her wardrobe to challenge gender biases. Miles
is Naima’s musically inclined brother, always ready to burst her lofty
revolutionary ideals. El is the overworked Mexican American student,
trying to both help his family and do well in school. As Naima attempts
to plan a Block party, she runs into a cast of characters and scenarios
that is satirical of millennial college culture. There’s a website
developer who’s also addicted to social media…there are the crunchy
granola white students who know how to install solar panels and
appropriate black culture, and then there’s the hip hop head obsessed
with kemetic energy and Wu Tang. By volume 4, Naima is grappling with
her desire to be a revolutionary but also still land internships and
gainful employment. She’s then visited by Miss Fairy who holds a
startling resemblance to Fannie Lou Hamer…in tights. Miss Fairy hooks
her up with a job pulled straight out of Baratunde Thurston’s How to Be
Black by interpreting the behavior of black people to white people…
The challenge: Can Naima answer the questions without getting on her
soap box and ruining the gig?
These characters were so fresh,
unlike any I’ve seen in a comic before. Completely relatable, downright
hilarious, and so damn smart. I’m not sure when the next volume is due
out, but I’ll be waiting on it. I totally could see this as a show,
filling a void left gaping and wide when Aaron McGruder was ousted from
Boondocks.
hafrocentric: GETTING TO KNOW (H)AFROCENTRIC: AUTHOR, JULIANA “JEWELS” SMITH
Recommendation: Read it! You’ll thank me later.
Audience: Millennials and Up
*I borrowed the eBook version of this comic from my library Hoopla account.
Back to Juliana “Jewels” Smith’s Author Page
