A journey towards creating a space to reflect on Blackness in Italy: The Blackn[è]ss Fest

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Contrary to what I wrote in my previous newsletter, today’s post isn’t about debunking the Parisian girl stereotype. I am pushing back this edition to next Wednesday because I want to talk to you about the journey that led me to be part of the Blackn[è]ss Fest, an initiative to highlight the Black Italian experience.

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In my first newsletter, I talked extensively about my relationship with Italy, albeit in correlation with fashion. This time, I'd like to emphasise it in correlation with race and racism. When I arrived in 2009 in Bologna, I didn't know a thing about Italy's colonial past in Eritrea, Lybia, Somalia, and its failed attempt on Ethiopia. Being French-Cameroonian, I was used to seeing Black people around me in France, but in Bologna, not only could I count them on my ten fingers, but the ones I saw mainly were street vendors. Note that I said Bologna, not Italy. It's an important detail because the country's Black presence is quite fragmented. I might not have seen many Black people in Bologna, but there were already more Black people in Parma, a city one hour away from Bologna. Such fragmentation makes Black Italians very diverse and embodies the country's societal and political issues. 

According to Wikipedia, around 800,000 people of African descent are in Italy, but this number needs to be clarified. Statistics based on ethnicity aren't allowed in the country. Because there is no jus soli (right of soil), Black Italians born and raised in Italy belong to the immigrant census when they don't have citizenship or disappear from it once they get citizenship. Therefore, assessing how much Black people live in the country is difficult. It makes their identity perception and experience as Black Italians and Europeans unique. Imagine asking for a visa to work in your country, waiting until you are 18 to ask for citizenship, or not being able to study abroad because if you leave your country before you can officially ask for citizenship, you'll lose your right to it. And what I am describing here is just the tip of the iceberg. Being denied one’s nationality leads to identity issues that then become mental health, social, political and societal issues.

These appalling situations made me realise I took the jus soli for granted. I believed it was the same everywhere in Europe, but Italy gave me a needed reality check. 

When I began my Instagram profile, The Little Black Diary, in 2017, it was to tell my family's story intertwined with research about the Black diaspora all over Europe because I realised we didn’t know about each other. To my surprise, the first people to react to it were Italians from all walks of life. People wrote me messages about their families, their experiences growing up Black in Italy, being in an interracial relationship or sharing with me things I didn't know about Italy's colonial and racial past. It helped me understand Black people's experiences in Italy much better and observe common points and differences between the Black Italian experience and the Black French one.

After finishing my studies and beginning my professional life in Munich and London, I always returned to Italy. This constant travelling between France, Germany, the UK, and Italy made me reflect on how Black people were perceived in each of these countries, the African diaspora in each of them, and their colonial and racial History. London was the place where I could sit with my thoughts and write them down because the city fosters spaces where talking about race and racism is possible. So it is no wonder The Little Black Diary started there.

The response from my Italian people to The Little Black Diary encouraged me to think about a series centred on Black Italians, so in October 2019, I embarked on a trip to Milan to meet some of them and record their stories to turn them into a podcast. That’s how I met Ariam Tekle, an Eritrean-Italian film director and my future co-founder. We sat around an espresso and spoke for nearly three hours about how we grew up and the differences between Italy and France in how they approached race and racism. She was the first person I met who didn’t whisper or use English to avoid people’s judging looks or comments in public space. She was unapologetic about her identity and wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. At the end of our conversation, Ariam suggested that we work together. Initially, we thought about a YouTube series, but the pandemic hit, and our plan changed.

In May 2020, Blackcoffee, the Italian podcast without filters about Black identities, was born. Between May 2020 and December 2022, we recorded 101 episodes in which we interviewed Black Italian activists, scholars, artists, etc. to tell about their experiences and work around Blackness in Italy. We produced five seasons, with the third one that was crowdfunded. We produced five seasons and crowdfunded the third one in February 2021 which enabled us to invite scholar Marie Moïse and journalist Adil Mauro to create two sections. Passato Rimosso, Marie Moïse's section explored the origins of racism; Storie (Ig)note Adil Mauro's section was about Italian Black figures that made the Italia History throughout different eras. In the summer of 2021, we won the Culture of Solidarity Fund, a grant created by the European Cultural Foundation - for the record, they launched the Erasmus program - which enabled us to produce episodes in English to introduce the Black Italian experience to a broader audience and inviting scholars and activists from the Netherlands, Portugal, and Germany to talk about the Black experience in their countries.

The Blackn[è]ss Fest in 2021, a three-day event of connection, discovery and reflection around antiracism through music, art, and panels with guests from all over Italy that come to amplify the conversation about the Black Italian experience. This year, the festival's third edition will take place from 6 to 8 October in Milan. And I will be hosting two panels on:

• Photography, archiving and future counternarratives

  With female photographers Iman Salem and Taitu Cowrie, we will explore the topic of counternarrative through photography as a medium to tell stories about the world and act of resistance.

• A reflection on the deconstruction of Black bodies in fashion

  This talk will focus on the role of fashion in constructing Black identities. We will explore the topic with Milan-based Jamaican fashion editor Jordan Anderson and Italo-Eritrean digital talent Winta Beyene.

Every person involved in The Blackn[è]ss Fest is paid: the creative and organisation committee team members, the artists, and the guests. Because all the people involved are BIPOC, the festival doesn’t want to replicate the cultural and entertainment industries’ exploitative working conditions that affect predominantly non-white workers in Italy. Thanks to our partners, we reached 50% of our budget for the 2023 Blackn[è]ss Fest edition. To complete the remaining 50% of the budget, we launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at covering the following:

• Staff salaries: 6323,22 €

• Guests travel & Accommodation: 2123,89 €

• Production: 11580 €

• Communication: 2900 €

Below is the Blackn[è]ss Fest crowdfunding campaign video :

Much like Substack, an eco-system built to empower writers through reader-supported publications, The Blackn[è]ss Fest is a space we would like to see supported by festival-goers and people who share anti-racist values. For that reason, I’d like to invite you to contribute by clicking the button below:

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Thank you for your support, and see you on Wednesday!

Emmanuelle