Important News!
My name is Grey and I am the sole creator of Obsidian Tea. This time last year, I’d just gotten out of major surgery and had decided to take on Obsidian as a project. I’d noticed there was not only a gap in accessible resources for blues dancers to learn more about the culture behind the dance, but general a lack of resources for non-Black Americans to learn about Black culture in the USA. Majority was either written by White Americans for white Americans or Black Americans For Black Americans. This mean that either the work is missing bits or making assumptions that people are of the same culture and therefore have a similar world view. Or, it was the media which only portrays one, very limited view of being Black in america.
For the past year I’ve been writing Obsidian Tea as a small way to combat this and give people resources for learning about Black culture and blues music. In general I’ve gone back and forth about how important this project is to me, and how much time I can and am willing to put into it.
I’ve decided to go full time. I’m unsure if this will be sustainable, but I’m excited to try. I hope to bring better content, more of it and develop new skills for the site. I’m excited for this new chapter in Obsidian Tea’s life.
To celebrate our one year anniversary we have some cool stuff happening.
First we will be revisiting some of the old articles and seeing what’s changed and asking for how it’s impacted readers lives.
Second, from now until the end of the year we are encouraging readers to become patrons. Many people say they are unsure they can afford to be a patron. Did you know that our 1 dollar tier exists???(a article on how to support without money will be out later this week) with the amount of change you can probably find on the ground or in your couch can truly make a difference for the site and you get a cool perk! Early access to articles and a community of like minded passionate people, off Facebook, to discuss with.
Third, we are accepting articles from guests.
Are you Black or POC and have something to say about the blues dance community? Do you research blues history and want a platform to get people excited about what you know? Are you excited about bridging the gap between cultural understanding? Do you want to write about how blues/ blues dancing has impacted your life? Consider emailing [email protected] with an idea and let’s talk.
Thank you to all of our readers thus far, to all of the people who have shared our research, started discussions, watched videos and most importantly, supported the site. Let’s start this year off right!
Grey