Photo spread for an imaginary Sherlock Holmes of the Harlem Renaissance.
Wentworth Miller as Sherlock Holmes.
Idris Elba as Dr. John Watson.
1925: Harlem, New York City.
Sherlock Holmes is the light-skinned, blue-eyed son of a Black mother and White father, a man who has grown up with a foot in both worlds. By necessity, he is an astute observer of those around him, and frequently ‘passes’ as White. Holmes puts his powers of observation and his chameleonic tendencies to good use as a private detective in New York City, where he moves back and forth between downtown (White) Greenwich village and uptown (Black) Harlem, investigating illegal gambling rings, brothels, and speakeasies, where he is not above sampling the wares himself.
Dr. John Watson is a Black doctor who served in an integrated regiment during the First World War. One of the few commissioned Black officers in the U.S. Army, he occupied a respected position in the Forces, only to return to the harsh reality of a segregated society when the war ends. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Watson moves to Harlem in order to establish a private practice, where he can serve the up-and-coming Black middle class of New York City.
In a divided city, Harlem is where the classes and the races meet:
A major element of Uptown allure was its enormous social fluidity; in this urban free zone …the elite not only frequented public restaurants, but basement speakeasies, where they mingled not only with non-Social Register customers but with people of color.
From Hide/Seek (p. 28):
Prohibition…closed bars and dance clubs in white areas, but permitted them to fluorish in black neighborhoods like Harlem. Many white citizens first came to Harlem during Prohibition, crossing a profound racial divide that made Harlem essentially a black city in the midst of a white one. There, they first encountered Harlem’s personalities, social mores, and artistic culture.
The culture these white tourists found in Harlem was notably more tolerant of sexual difference, giving many whites their first taste of an unashamed, well-integrated queer culture. In venues like the Cotton Club, openly queer performers regularly entertained, and as the evening’s entertainment was already in violation of the law under Prohibition, it encouraged a sexual openness unavailable in other parts of the city.
Harlem thus became the center of many white homosexuals’ existence…For many white queers, Harlem was a ‘sexual playground’, and its poverty, un- and under-employment, and racial tensions were less germane to their experiences of the place than its erotic possibilities…
Fresh from the Army, Dr. Watson is thrust into this fervent neighborhood, into a Harlem where black and white, male and female, queer and straight, collide and converge. But his own understanding of himself, his race, and even his sexuality, is challenged when he meets Sherlock Holmes, who is investigating the death of a pair of singers at the Cotton Club. Originally called in to identify the cause of their deaths, the staid and sober Watson is thrown into a world where nothing is as it appears at first glance: a world where black is white and white is black, where the police pay pimps for the right to the street, and where moonshine flows like milk and honey. To make matters worse, the whole investigation is led by Holmes, a brilliant, crazy man who plays the dangerous game of passing as white in the city that never sleeps.
Thanks to AfroGeekGoddess for suggesting Wentworth Miller as a possible Sherlock Holmes in this canon.
yep.
I would watch the hell out of this show.
I’ve seen a couple of other artists re-imagine Tangled in India, and thought I’d have a crack at it myself. SO MUCH FUN
AHFADSGJHDSKJGHDKJS
OMG
I literally have no other words, these are AMAZING.
this is…this is SO COOL.
Genius!
<3
Multiculturalism for Steampunk is starting up a weekly art challenge, and it looks promising. SO EXCITED. I’ve had a bunch of ideas for non-Western steampunk outfits floating around in my head, and it’s nice actually having a weekly deadline to motivate me to finish some of them.
This is pretty subtle in its steampunkery (read: no extranneous metal bits), but I was just trying to bring in a few western/Victorian elements to traditional Indian clothing- legomuttoned sleeves, the double breasted, collared choli, and adapting the churidar into buttoned spats.
…Also a sweet hat.
-CUUGGGHHH amazing
Jasika Nicole as Sheryl Holmes
John Cho as John Watson
Stealing Maria and Autumn’s idea of fancasting the American version of Sherlock Holmes with POCs.
And apparently slapdash photoshopping.
sCREAMSSS
THIS IS REALLY GOOD AND PERFECT WOW OH MAN
If sherlock were arab this is what i think he’d look like
look at this handsome guy dang
i dunno what he’d be named
day reblog
![raceboot:
[Image: a compilation of images featuring Kate Kane as Batwoman in the top row, with a focus on her vivid red hair and scarlet lips. The bottom row features 3 photos of recording artist Rihanna, who is of Afro-Guyanese, Barbadian, and Irish descent, sporting a similar shade of bright red hair.]
icicleman:
Rihanna as Batwoman // Kate Kane](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm4y1cVdOl1qa4q3po1_500.png)
[Image: a compilation of images featuring Kate Kane as Batwoman in the top row, with a focus on her vivid red hair and scarlet lips. The bottom row features 3 photos of recording artist Rihanna, who is of Afro-Guyanese, Barbadian, and Irish descent, sporting a similar shade of bright red hair.]
Rihanna as Batwoman // Kate Kane
I am on a racebending SPREE tonight. This is Belle in 19th century India.
Yes, that is blue dry-erase marker, and yes, this is a crummy iPhone picture. What can I say, sometimes your supplies are in storage when you get the urge!
omg perfection
Partly inspired by racebending Disney doodles, and partly inspired by the fact that I actually am Mexican, I couldn’t tell you how much I love the concept of vigilantes and “banditos”. I have some family history rooted in the Mexican-American war, and even a couple of great-great aunts who… were not really esteemed ladies, but pretty badass all the same. xD’…
Anyway, I kept looking at this blog and kept thinking about how one would racebend something like Robin Hood. All of the drawings I’ve seen here depict people, so I kind of wanted to try my hand at one of Disney’s more anthropomorphic characters. Naturally, Robin Hood was my first choice in this.
Instead of a fox, I turned him into a maned wolf - which are native to mostly to South America (not really Mexico in particular, but I was looking for a similar design aesthetic to manipulate) and yeah. o-o It isn’t my favorite Disney movie, but y’know… the challenge. xD’>_>’
omg excellent
