Just a few years ago, there was no such thing as a black girl or woman, who was also a nerd. There was “no such thing,” in the same way that there were no black actors deserving of Oscar nominations, and in the same way that there are no black women who like comic books, or suffer from depression. There were no black girl nerds in the same way that there were no black women who had an impact on the great American story of N.W.A., and in the same way that there have been no black women filmmakers worthy of an Oscar.
In February 2012, Jamie Broadnax Googled “black girl nerds,” and there were, literally, no results. According to our modern-day authority on all things, black girl nerds didn’t exist, and so Broadnax decided to make them: Let there be black girl nerds. Of course, most of us know the black girl nerds were already there to begin with, in the same way that there were black actors deserving of Oscar nominations in 2015, and in the same way that there black women whose stories should have been told in Straight Outta Compton. But erasure has been a tool consistently and effectively used against black girls and women, which is why we consider those people working actively against those systems of erasure to be heroes. As the BGN community continues to grow, we salute Jamie Broadnax, one of the most important makers of 2016.
What’s fascinating about the writer and social media maven, who has a Masters Degree in Film and Marketing, is that she had no idea that what she was making would have such an incredible impact. She admits that she had “no long-term vision” of building a huge online community or social media movement, when she first started Black Girl Nerds.
“The vision was: ‘black girl nerds’ is not on Google. Let me create a blog with that term.”
There’s a wonderful scene from The Great Debaters, where Denzel Washington’s character tells his black students that if they don’t like the way American English is constructed so as to often denigrate blacks, they might try writing their own dictionaries. Broadnax did precisely this, with one term and one space that has grown to encompass so much more than she expected.
”[It] went from being a blog about me and my personal musings, to a website filled with tons of content and several different perspectives—a lifestyle magazine of sorts,” Broadnax says. “I never expected that it would grow to be this. I never thought I’d be podcasting, ever. I never thought I’d be doing public speaking, or making TV appearances.”
When asked if the site has exceeded all of her expectations, she responds with a firm, “Hells yeah.”
Like many others who’ve become fans of Broadnax’s work and the community she’s built, I didn’t go out seeking a space for black girls who identify as nerds, or who are active participants in geek culture. I was on Twitter, most likely on a night when Scandal or Sleepy Hollow was airing, discovered one of her many signature hashtags (even the directors and showrunners of these huge series use them), and couldn’t resist joining in the conversation. From that point on, I was always checking in on BGN to see what the conversation was about for that day. Broadnax amazed me because it seemed like, no matter when I logged on, she was already on Twitter, leading a dialogue about an upcoming premiere, a recent TV episode, a comic book with a compelling black character, and just about any and everything else that Black Twitter was taking on that day. And Broadnax has had the pleasure of watching these very real and organic conversations unfold on her platform, and then trickle down to the TV shows she and her followers are discussing. Tai Gooden has written about the great impact of the Blerd community on TV, but the message bears repeating: Broadnax and the blerds have incredibly prominent voices that reach beyond Black Twitter and into the TV writing rooms, production teams and casting agencies.
“Black Twitter is a force—we are a huge, influential, changing, evolving force of nature,” Broadnax declares. “The fact that live-tweeting is having an impact, and not only changing the way we watch television, but changing the narrative of what we’re seeing on television, [is proof that] TV is trying to be more appealing to people of color.”
One of my favorite examples of the force of Black Girl Nerds and the space that Broadnax has created for them, is last year’s take-down of Matt Damon, after he told black filmmaker Effie Brown that diversity behind the camera is irrelevant. Broadnax created the hilarious hashtag #Damonsplaining and, before long, Black Twitter had the story trending. In another world, and in another time, Damon’s comments might have been swept under the rug, or written off as a minor guffaw. Instead, his name got co-opted, and then dragged through the Twitterverse, because, once again, Broadnax took it upon herself to call attention to the attempted erasure of a group of people—in this case, the women of color and women directors represented by Effie Brown. For Broadnax, it’s important to acknowledge the direct relationship between conversations about the inclusion of black perspectives everywhere, and social media.
“TV executives are taking note and saying, ‘We need to pay attention to what online communities are saying.’ I don’t know why the film industry isn’t doing this,” Broadnax says. “The film industry is like Facebook, and TV is like Twitter. Twitter is very progressive and ahead of the curve.”