Make My Funk the B Funk: 
Conjuring Black Funk-Notes on Culture, Sexuality and Spirituality Vol. 1     
Vintage Entity Press

by Craig Washington
Funk. What it is. Is it straight up body odor or the unmistakable aroma of sex itself? If funk is the smell, then funk music is the sound, the thump of the bump and grind, the vibe of passion. As a manchild of the seventies, I experienced Black funk as the intercourse of drum, electric bass and horn, rhythm superseding melody, and the mystical feelings it summoned in my heart and my loins. According to Herukhuti, sociologist/anthropologist, sexologist, shaman and educator “Black funk is the germinating force of existence.” Funk here serves as a metaphor for life’s longing for itself, the erotic core of sensuality and spirituality, the proverbial “spirit in the dark”.  Herukhuti, the author of “Conjuring Black Funk” urges to tap into this force in order to break through the external and internalized restrictions that sap and bind us. Through the act of conjuring Black funk, we can rejuvenate ourselves and re-create a more loving and just society.  Here’s our chance to dance our way out of our constrictions.

This collection of essays delivers a fresh, uncompromising critique of dominant Black attitudes and behaviors as well as the institutions that shape them. But the juicy fruit is the assortment of tools it bears for our liberation through self affirmation and our resistance to oppressing each other as we have been oppressed. Herukhuti contends that our decolonization as people of color in a Western/European dominated society must incorporate sexual and spiritual emancipation as individuals and as a collective. As Paolo Friere declared, to be oppressed or oppressor is to be non human, so to become human and whole, we must critically oppose both poles. For Herukhuti, becoming whole means becoming consciously embodied, and embracing our sensuality as fully as our spirituality. It is to embrace the erotic which is utterly transformative. To conjure Black funk is to counteract the colonization of our bodies and minds, to rediscover and be our authentic selves, and to build relationships and communities that make this possible. The author’s canny blend of intellectual rigor and bold self disclosure outpaces the simplistic analyses and populist stances recycled by many of his contemporaries.

The author identifies this work as grounded in Afrocentric Decolonizing Queer Theory, a social change framework distilled from Black feminist thought (particularly Audre Lorde), “Black/postcolonial queer theory” and afrocentricity. Through the domains of culture, sexuality and spirituality, Herukhuti covers a gamut of systems, values, beliefs and practices. Insights and theories are illustrated with personal accounts which invite the reader to consider how these concepts may be applied to their own path.  Herukhuti’s experiences with polyamory, Afrocentric spirituality, sexual aesthetics, and bondage/sadomasochism are shared with humility, candor and color. Unlike many activists and academicians, he models how “the personal is the political” and eschews the starched (and disembodied) distance enforced by questionable standards.

In the Culture section, Herukhuti interrogates the HIV/AIDS industry, pervasive down low mythologies, and contemporary gym/body culture.  Common elements between the prison industrial complex and the “HIV industrial complex” (such as the manipulation of racism, classism, and heterosexism; human rights violations; and the profiteering of prison construction companies and pharmaceutical companies alike) are convincingly highlighted. He considers the “fitness revolution” as a societal obsession propelled by the promotion of low fat, muscled or toned bodies, the socialized desire for those bodies and the manufactured shame about our own bodies. As our market driven anxieties about body shape and size heighten our consumption of equipment, gym memberships, and beauty products, corporate pockets are fattened while our fractured self esteem is measured by the bathroom scale and the mirror. Herukhuti references his experiences with such practices as yoga and tai chi chuan that align mind, body, and spirit instead of slimming down/pumping up as alternative modes of physical culture.

Among the best of the Sexuality essays is “De-fiending polyamory”.  Herukhuti presents polyamory “the practice of engaging in committed relationships that include two or more people” as a viable relationship construct that both demands and facilitates integrity, intimacy and commitment. He carefully distinguishes the type of polyamorous relationship that is his focus as one borne of mutual consent as opposed to those conducted dishonestly or those engendered through patriarchal values that advantage one partner over others.   Beginning the essay is a fair handed examination of our culturally engrained choices and attitudes about monogamy as a universal relationship ideal. One of the books most incisive reads, “Sexual courage: the enduring legacy of Emmett Till and the war of terror” indicts people of color for punishing or rejecting those who deviate from compulsory sex and gender norms. The infamous Morehouse College beating (in 2002, one Morehouse student was beaten with a baseball bat by another because the former looked at the latter in a public shower) is included as an example of the “sexual Jim Crow” enforced by Black people who are ashamed of the sexual diversity that characterizes our communities.  In a climate roiling with fear, hostility and masculinist anxieties, engaging in same gender and other transgressive sex and/or being honest with others about our sexual orientations, are daily acts of bravery. 

Through training within a traditional African priesthood, Herukhuti was exposed to deities both male and female that were represented as having very prominent genitalia. Their images represented for him a spiritualism that honors the body as well as the spirit without shame. In “When Your Deities have Dicks and Pussies,” he recalls celebratory rituals analogous to sexual union with Gods that “mount” the celebrants. “Being mounted can be an ecstatic, orgasmic experience”.  This fertile grounding prepared Herukhuti to value his sexual experiences for men and women as a means of exploring and embracing his own essential truth. As with Herukhuti ’s personal path, this book is a demonstration of courage chosen, faith revealed and wisdom earned. It had a nourishing effect on my soul, leaving me hungry for more self discovery, more passion and pleasure in my life, my work, and my Self. Taking in his message, I find myself contemplating the power I can unleash by daring to be more of myself and less of what is performed to please others. I am left with a new understanding of George Clinton’s legendary prescription, Funk not only moves, it can re-move. Dig?