Metea’s annual Black History Month showcase makes its return this week. The student-led event aims to celebrate Black culture by allowing students to explore and express their talents in various forms: singing, dancing, spoken word poetry, and fashion modeling. In hopes of encouraging their audience to imagine and re-envision what the future might look like for Black people, the Black A.C.E’s, previously known as the AASA and Unity in Excellence, set this year’s theme to Afrofuturism. Yesterday on Feb. 17, the showcase played throughout all lunch periods in the school’s auditorium.
“It’s fun for us to do, just being part of something and representing that for the school, no one could come and still have fun doing it,” senior Jawshawn Edwards, board member of the Black A.C.E.’s, said.
Afrofuturism contains elements of sci-fi and futuristic reality. It is an innovative spin on the reinvention of African diaspora culture. Despite its name, though, it doesn’t focus only on the future. It mixes the past and present to remind Black people of their power.
“It’s fun to reimagine things [through] the lens of Afrofuturism, ” president of Black A.C.E. Braden Collins said. “We let our imaginations take hold, and take things that we know—things we’re comfortable with—things that are a part of us, and elevate them on that scale.”
The show’s unique theme is used to convey how Black culture has significantly impacted present-day America and will continue to in the future.
“We just want to showcase our students here at Metea, the things they bring to the table, the things that Black people bring to our American culture as a whole, as well as our world and global culture,” Collins said.
Teachers took their classes to the showcase, and students visited the auditorium during their free periods yesterday.
“We have our vision of what it’s going to look like,” Edwards said. “I think it will be very fun and exciting to carry out.”
