I loved everything about this guy. His entire look was a throwback to an earlier time, from his handlebar mustache and soul patch to his ’80s-style weightlifting shirt to his left-is-right-and-right-is-wrong hoop earring.
If the Village People was a group of hardcore body builders, at least one of them would look like this.
Ajuan Mance
I ran into this gentleman at the Piedmont Grocery, on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. He moved slowly and tentatively up and down the aisles in a way that suggested both a lifetime of wear and tear and the grace and serenity of old age.
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How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
Posted by Ajuan Mance
From what I can see, African American men have adopted several different ways to deal with male pattern baldness. Some shave their heads entirely, a look that many a brother can rock with style and confidence. Other men keep the same hairstyle they wore before baldness set in, only without as much hair in the middle. (Think Roscoe Lee Brown.) One thing you won’t see on many Black men is the comb-over. This style is largely (and, some might say, fortunately) incompatible with tightly-curled hair. As a result, most Black men just can’t wear a comb-over; but some of those who can, well, they actually do.
Ajuan Mance
La Farine Bakery, Fruitvale Ave, Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
Trader Joe’s Grocery Store, Alameda, CA.
Ajuan Mance
On Saturday morning, my fabulous partner and I headed out to Livermore Premium Outlets with nothing but our wallets. We emerged a couple hours later with six pairs of shoes. Oddly enough, I wasn’t really planning to buy any shoes at all. I am, however, happy to say that those six pairs of shoes cost us less than we would have paid for three pairs at the normal retail price.
I haven’t made many mall trips in the last few years, and I haven’t purchased any new shoes since 2011. On Saturday, though, we immersed ourselves in the entire all-American shopping mall experience. We strolled, we browsed, and we even had lunch in the food court. There was a Japanese food stand that was handing out delicious samples of stir-fried chicken, and we chose to eat there.
The man in this drawing was in line right behind me at the food court. This was an interesting coincidence, given that I could count the number of Black people I saw at this mall on my fingers and toes. This is not to say that the crowd was not diverse. That’s one of the interesting things about the San Francisco Bay Area. There are so many different ethnicities present, that even in the absence of any one group, non-white people still might outnumber their white counterparts by a large margin. That seemed to be the case at the Livermore Premium Shops.
I chose to include this guy in the series because he was one of only two Black men I saw during my entire shopping trip (and I only caught a brief glimpse of the other man, out of the corner of my eye). The man in this drawing was also an interesting subject because his mustache and beard, the hair on his head, his eyes, and his skin were all different shades of the same color brown, kind of the way that a Crayola crayon and the paper wrapped around the crayon are basically the same shade, but rendered in different textures and different levels of saturation. It would not be entirely inaccurate to say that if this man was object, he would probably be a crayon.
Ajuan Mance
Cock-A-Doodle Cafe, Oakland, CA.
Ajuan Mance
Labor Day, Stoneridge Mall, Pleasanton, CA.
I loved this gentleman’s summery outfit. It pushed all of my happy fashion buttons, from the khakis to the cotton camp shirt to the snappy pork pie hat. It came as no surprise to me that he was browsing in the Tommy Bahama/Ralph Lauren/Tommy Hilfiger section of the Macy’s men’s store.
Ajuan Mance
Today marks the 600th entry in my series of 1001 drawings of Black Men. Of course, the images in this series depict many more than 600 Black men, and some of my drawings include two, three or even as many as 30 different figures. Some of my subjects are drawn from life, some from memory, and less than a handful from photographs that I took on my phone.
Last Saturday night I found myself at the New Parish in downtown Oakland. The event was the WERQ! Vogue Ball. After the excitement of spending the day at the San Francisco Zine Fest, I was a bit too tired to enjoy such a high energy atmosphere, and I found a quiet corner in which to sit and do some people watching. This brother reminded me a little of a young George Clinton, if George Clinton had worn dreadlocks back in the day. That and the fact that he was wearing sunglasses indoors and at night made a deep enough impression on me that I immediately brought him to mind when I sat down to my sketchbook the next morning.
Ajuan Mance
Hi Everyone!
I hope you’ll be able to join me for this exciting panel discussion:
