2018 Article "What Do We Mean When We Say "Auntie"? by André-Naquian Wheeler (Titles Of Photographs In 2018 Brooklyn exhibition "Aunty! African Women in the Frame, 1870 to the Present")

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series about the words "Aunt" and "Auntie" ("Aunty") as referents for Black women or used with a Black woman's name or nickname.

This post provides an excerpt of a 2018 article by André-Naquian Wheeler that is entitled "What do we mean when we say ‘auntie’?"

In this article, the writer comments about the use of the word "auntie" or "aunty" as a referent for young women from various African nations as documented in photographs which were part of a 2018 photography exhibit.  

The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to André-Naquian Wheeler for writing this showcased article and thanks to all the African women who photographs are included in this exhibit.

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Click the "calling Black women auntie" tag below for more pancocojams posts on this subject.

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ARTICLE EXCERPT: WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY "AUNTIE"
by André-Naquian Wheeler   
From https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/yw7n7j/aunty-african-women-in-the-frame-1870-to-the-present-exhibition-origins

Art- A new exhibition is an attempt to add depth and understanding to the colloquialism.

"Every six months or so, the internet turns a new piece of Black Vernacular into a hashtag. One year its #TheCookout. The next, #Sidechick. The slang typically originates among black social media users — used as the building blocks for formulaic memes and impassioned The Shade Room debates — and, suddenly, enters popular (see: white) usage. Over time, the word becomes a little bit less ours, going down a cultural path similar to “ratchet.” That is, used overzealously and erroneously. This year, “auntie” is that word.

What is an auntie? Or, better question, who is an auntie? It depends on who you ask. But some universally agreed upon aunties are: Oprah, Tracee Ellis-Ross, Mrs. Tina Knowles-Lawson (don’t you dare forget the mrs!), and Jennifer Lewis. Women who will two-step to an Xscape jam, throw back a wine cooler, and give you unsolicited dating advice.

[…]

The term’s newfound popularity can largely be credited to Rep. Maxine Waters, who achieved internet fame in 2017 with her inimitable “no-f—ks*-given” attitude (a mandatory auntie quality). But the onslaught of memes and the rise of #AuntieTwitter has seen “auntie” become divorced from its racist, colonial past. Remember Aunt Jemima?

A new Brooklyn exhibition, Aunty! African Women in the Frame, 1870 to the Present, can be seen as an attempt to add depth and understanding to the colloquialism. Curators Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Catherine E. McKinley use the term as a launching pad for examining how African women have been captured. Over 100 photographs — from vintage family snapshots to contemporary high-art portraits — of African women are on display. Women who were, or would become, aunties.

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*This word is fully spelled out in this article.

[…]

Laylah says the exhibition’s title came about during the late stages, when the women were deciding which images to include. “We would pull out photographs and Catherine would look at the women and say, “This is Aunty! And that’s Aunty!’ We thought, well, we should call it Aunty.”

 

“Auntie has always been a troubling word for me,” Catherine tells i-D. “As a child, I hated when people called me it. But in Africa, it really is a term of respect. I felt like I embodied ‘auntie’ when I visited with my kids. All of a sudden I wasn’t ‘sister.’ I was ‘ auntie.’”

[…]

Catherine goes on to discuss how “auntie” is primarily an assigned identity and role. We may be calling Rep. Maxine Waters auntie, but when has she ever publicly called herself it?

”I think about all the darker meanings of it,” Catherine says, “like the homophobic connotations behind Auntie Man in Jamaica, and the ways it also carries over into men’s lives as a pejorative. It’s very burdened. For a woman who does not want to be an auntie, or may exist outside of gender norms, it’s also a very weighted term.”

This reckoning with agency, identity, and ownership is present throughout Aunty! Remember, these images are from the past. And the past is not pretty. Many of the images were produced explicitly for the white gaze, taken during colonial occupation of Africa. A single wall is dedicated to this period, a time when African women were not in control of how and when their image was taken. There are photos of them being shown off at European “human zoos.”

[…]

As time moves along, the images in Aunty! become more jubilant and self-crafted. There’s glamour portraits of young women in the sixties, wearing sunglasses and appearing effortlessly cool. These are the aunties we think of today: women of color who manage to thrive, even in a world that seeks to oppress them.

[…]

“Aunty! African Women in the Frame, 1870 to the Present” will be on view from Nov. 15 through Jan. 31 at United Photo Industries Gallery in Brooklyn.”…
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Pancocojams Editor's Note: This article includes examples of some of the photographs of young African women that were part of that 2018 photography exhibit which was held in Brooklyn, New York. The titles of some of these photographs reflect the custom of referring to these young Black women as "Auntie".

For example " Photographer unknown, Perfect Aunties, Chad (?), Date unknown, Courtesy of the McKinley Collection" and "Photographer Unknown, Aunty Korama in Kaba and Slit, Accra, Ghana, 1970s. Courtesy of the McKinley Collection."

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