The World Around Me

Growing up as a revolutionary thinker many of my influences are a result of the watching film and reading books about some of the most infamous revolutionary leaders. But as society changes and the revolution seems to die down, those same leaders and the attempts that were made to create a better culture becomes commodified. My first semester of college, I would see the faces of Angela Davis, Marcus Garvey, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Bob Marley, and Che Guevara on t-shirts almost everyday. For someone who desires social change, it almost seems to be a insult to the efforts that were made by these leaders but then I also realized that someone of the African leaders that were printed on some of these t-shirts were unfamiliar to me. So thereby exposing me to names and events that I otherwise would not have known nothing of previous to seeing their faces. So the pop culture way of taking someone who has made an impact on social change and turning it into a fashion accessory can be seen a both a negative and positive; for myself it exposed me to a history that has reshaped and contributed to my way of thinking today.