originated from Gail Lewis’s Black Feminist Theory




  • Bus Stop
  • Twitter / X
  • On Nikki Giovanni, Dr. Umar Johnson, and Pseudo-Pan-Africanism


  • When I concpetualized this website – specifically the bus stops I wanted to highlight and expand upon for the final project – I did not think I was going to write a piece on any singular black feminist thinker. However, seeing the discourse around Nikki Giovanni and the rewriting of narratives only days after her passing deeply upset me. As I began to think further about the conversations being had, I started to ask myself more questions on how we got here. 

  • This tweet went extremely viral – as of the time I took this screenshot it had been viewed by over five million users. Within the original tweet, this quote tweet and several in the subsequent comment sections, the narrative of Nikki Giovanni studying & fighting for black communities for invalid or warped reasons seemed to spread far and wide. Some accussed Giovanni as being fueled mainly out of being rejected from white spaces. Others declared that the identity of a black scholar fundamentally isolates oneself from the black community. Shards of truth may exist within these statements but it is hard to engage with them when the dominant narrative seems to be that Giovanni failed in her ‘supposed’ role as a black leader. She did not love being black and maybe did not even want better for black people, but rather was more interested in cozying up to white folks – including her wife.

  • I was very upset to find these tweets and especially from people I presumed had never engaged with any of Giovanni’s poems or essays or interviews. It can be easy for me to be stuck on the nitty gritty details of these arguments but I want to look further. In their eyes, Nikki Giovanni is not a ‘good Black leader’. Perhaps she is not even a ‘good Black person’. There is a promotion of values that I want to highlight, as a concerning black aesthetic seems to be appearing at to the forefront of many’s minds. It is something I want to call pseudo-Pan-Africanism. It advertises itself like its original, authentic form – its mission is to eradicate white supremacy and establish solidarity and unity across the African diaspora. However, it stops there and rears and ugly head when it places its gaze on those who do not satisfy their conditions. 

  • In my eyes, the face of pseudo-Pan-Africanism is Dr. Umar Johnson. He is a ‘motivational speaker’, ‘activist’, and most importantly, self-proclaimed ‘Prince of Pan-Africanism’. Many know Dr. Umar for his ever-growing library of TikTok soundbites where he pleads with Black men and women to not betray their race and get into relationships with white people. His clips where he dramatically chastizes ‘snow bunny lovers’ who are ‘lusting and thirsting over the skim milk’ are admittedly quite funny – and he knows it. This is a performance that he buys into. I started to think about his format of messaging and when I looked back at the Nikki Giovanni tweets, I could not stop wondering if there was a connection between the two.

  • There is a saying that all good jokes hold elements of truth in them – otherwise how would they make us laugh? I think many may guffaw or snicker when a Dr. Umar video pops across their For You page because of his vivid language and impassioned delivery. But I also think some people agree with the values he is advertising to a certain extent. The idea that cis black men or women who do not engage in relationships with each other should be cast away and seen as far gone is clearly a sentiment many agree with (note that Dr Umar has produced many transphobic and homophobic statements in the past – see attached video on left). What is implied here is that on the top a list of traits seemingly ‘good’ Black people have is a devotion to following this rule. When a commitement to Blackness on a qualitative level holds such a priority, people like Nikki Giovanni can create all the legendary works they have, but will always be regarded as undeserving of praise and unmotivated to truly further the cause.

  • I think the sentiment here is incredibly damaging and requires serious attention. The way Dr. Umar communicates this ideology is incredibly covert and clever and I think that it could have damaging effects on Black institutional memory. When those who are Others are being relegated as ‘poor Black people’ because they cannot or will not subscribe to the ideal Black life that is very rigid and fundamentally exclusive, we as a people begin to prioritize faulty aesthetics of pro-Blackness rather than genuine traditions of action and work. The people who pour their hearts and souls to the missions of pro-Blackness may not and will not appease everyone or fit into any specific mold (in a world where more queerphobia, misogynoir, and general class-unconsciousness thrive, this will always be the case). To replace these icons with nothing more than hoteps whose true ambitions lie in uplifting a toxic cis-Black male masculinity would be a grave misfortune for us all.