Be careful of those who want your jazz but not your blues.
At the beginning of last week, I was surprised to receive an email from the Office of Alumnae Engagement at Spelman College with a subject line that read, “EARLY ACCESS: Polo Ralph Lauren for Oak Bluffs.” It caught me by surprise and I felt my heart drop. Memories of the last Ralph Lauren collection raced through my mind. It was Spring 2022, Spelman and other HBCUs had been dealing with weeks of cowardly bomb threats, Spelman students were in the midst of a tense housing crisis and protest, and the trials of returning to campus from the covid pandemic were arguably at their apex. I remember the collection simultaneously being both a breath of fresh air from the issues Black communities were facing and a horrifying example of neo-liberal corporate-sponsored historical revisionism.
It’s ironic because I had just been thinking that I had finally healed from the first drop in the weeks before the Oak Bluffs collection. I clicked on the link, browsed through the styles, and didn’t think much of it. I wasn’t prepared for the ways this newest drop would spark so many online conversations and reflections about capitalism, elitism, Black historical narratives, and cultural appropriation. And it turns out it brought up some feelings I have about it too. Here are my main concerns:
HBCUs and Spelman College have served different purposes at different points in time. They are constantly evolving and have evolved significantly over the past decade alone. I graduated five years ago (YAY!!) and the campus culture is much different now compared to when I was both an incoming and outgoing student. My Spelman experience was heavily shaped by foundational themes of collective uplift, interdependent struggle, and Black pride. Classism and the capitalists were there, but ultimately we largely adopted an understanding that our fates under a Temu dictator were intertwined. The students of today are more eclectic and unique than ever! So much progress has been made in developing new ways to understand ourselves and our history. Yet you would not know that based on these two Spel-House video essays.
This second collection made me remember problems I had with the first collection in regards to the so-called story-telling. As someone who loves history and takes the preservation of Black history seriously, I get concerned when our schools co-sign on conservative-leaning fairytales and Spelhouse fantasy while letting actual Black history programs and departments fall to the wayside. IDK I’m not entirely down with my former institution of higher education promoting an ahistorical “Portrait of the American Dream!” that glosses over the majority of real HBCU history and student/alumni experience.
Obviously I know these are SOME people’s experiences and I know that this is a fashion company not a history lesson. As someone with a degree in History from Spelman College, I’m very aware of the multiple concurrent and congruent histories that make up HBCU and Black history. However, what happens when people don’t have the tools to distinguish between the histories and the myths of the schools? What happens when we adopt elitist attitudes that further harm marginalized people and our communities? Who is invested in a passive, non-disruptive, sanitized, exclusively non-violent (though Black capitalism is the quiet violence they have scrubbed from the screen) telling of Black history? How much is our history worth to the people who lead the schools? What’s the price for letting people play dress up in our aesthetics/clothes, tell us a warped version of our history, and pay us crumbs? What happens when we sell ourselves and our poor students out?
Which then brings me to the Oak Bluffs collection which was okay. I’m personally a Newport, RI girlie, but we love a good nautical summer wardrobe. As I was listening to and reading people’s commentary on the collection, some people recommended that people should watch the film on YouTube. So I did, and I will say it exceeded my expectations. I recommend watching it as well if you have not seen it. I learned a lot about Oak Bluffs but also noticed some omissions. There was pretty much no mention of the poor/working-class people who struggle to survive on Martha’s Vineyard or the racist segregation practices of white Martha’s Vineyard residents that pushed out first Indigenous people and also Black people. There was also pretty much no mention of queer communities or queer families with the exception of the iconic Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall who didn’t necessarily bring it up. These are things that shape and enrich the stories.
And it makes me wonder why, in a time when people are chastised for critically engaging with their surroundings, when teachers are being fired, attacked for speaking the truth, we are being forced to consume these easily-digestible heternormative classist and not even fully accurate narratives? Even fiction has a little bit of truth in it! My thing is actual HBCU history is more exciting than these nebulous, ambiguous, soft-baked narratives. To me, both video essays had me feeling like when I left the caf - still hungry - empty because they are out-dated, one-dimensional, and not even rooted in a compelling storyline besides Black capitalism which isn’t excellence and isn’t liberation. I’m currently reading Dr. Ruha Benjamin’s Imagination: A Manifesto and she’s talking about the ways we have to guard our imagination and not let it be limited by devious people’s warped vision of the future. In 2025 when everything is “not that deep,” I think deeply about corporations attempting to take on the role of story-tellers and historians. Companies shouldn’t be the most preeminent source for Black history (I know that’s not entirely the case, but I know for a fact most people’s knowledge of contemporary Black history is not where it should be). We can’t be afraid to go back and fetch our history even when it’s heavy and ugly and painful sometimes.
In my first Founders’ Day convocation, civil rights activist and Spelman sister Stacey Abrams asked if there were any witnesses to the transformative power of Spelman College. Many of us could attest to it. Spelman was and is more than pretty faces, expensive clothes, and straight A’s. The diversity of Spelman and HBCU populations is something most people have never seen before. It is otherworldly. Spelman is a place where women and gender-expansive students come to become whole. It’s where people are able to acquire skills to change the trajectory of not only their life, but their family and community's life. Spelman and HBCUs all over the country were founded for people to create opportunities in a society that closed doors on them because of the color of their skin. Yes there is a tradition of the richest and the lightest going to HBCUs, but that cannot be the only history we know or idealize.
We cannot solely be concerned with old money aesthetics and the accumulation of wealth. We gotta fill our brains with knowledge. We should take notes from the residents of Martha’s Vineyard on the film and work to advance collectively as they did. We should learn from real Black history how people have built and sustained communities before we indulge in the fantasy. But at the same time, let us be cautious of who and why people are invested in promoting certain Black experiences while excluding others. Be aware of people who want the jazz but not the blues. Let’s actually be great and not just cosplay being great. I appreciate the collection for giving us the vibes. I hope it inspires more great Black creation.