June 5, 2010

Skateboard D



Canon EOS 7D | Canon 35mm f/1.4L | Natural Light
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This is Delon. He's the webmaster for Freshman Clothing - a local hip-hop/skateboard culture clothing store. He's also a skateboarder. Obviously.

He's not alone.  In fact there is almost always a group of mostly black skateboarders  practicing tricks and crashing their acrylic wheels into the concrete in front of Freshman Clothing. They are representative of a small but enthusiastic sub-culture of black skateboarders in the city of Detroit.

Their race is noteworthy because I am old enough to remember when skateboarding was not something that was accepted in the black community. I don't know why, it seems so silly, but that's how it was.

I'm happy to see the progressive schlepping away of prescribe ideas about who is allowed to do what. In honor of social progress, maybe I'll get myself a board..

[View the daily blog and meet more of:The People of Detroit ]

6 comments:

Tafari said...

I get excited when I see the young Negro skate boarders. Way back in the day, I was heavy into skateboard & I still have scar to prove it.

That last fall ended my fascination with this though. Im to pretty to be all scarred up & shit.

Amber "Bam" Cabral said...

I LOVE THIS BLOG!!!

I moved from Detroit to Atlanta about 9 months ago and I want to go back to Detroit SOO badly. My boyfriend lives there still, so I do visit often. I wrote a blog about it.. Find my blog here -->www.ambercabral.com

The photography here is very nice too. I really enjoy photos of people of color in their element, rather than the staged supermodel looks you see so much of these days.

About that Support Detroit shirt... Know where I could cop one of those?

Anyhow, will be back often.

B.

mgindi.tumblr.com said...

I want a Detroit-related shirt so badly. I kinda want the RUN DET shirt like RUN DMC that i saw at DEMF. or a support detroit shirt. or a Pure Detroit shirt. so many to choose from!

Delon "D.DIDDY" said...

Well I must say myself that this is a great post..Believe it or not there are a lot of black skaters in the city of Detroit ( I would know im the one in the pic lol ) it’s a shame really some kids in Detroit a little scared of people knowing that they skate..for example being called white boy and what not it discourages kids from wanting to learn how to skate… and we all know that people fear what they don’t understand but im changing all of that in the city…oh and I got that shirt at DSE @ Grand local store in Detroit..

Delon D.DIDDY
www.thelifeandtimesofdelon.blogspot.com

THRASHERjay said...

I am a 17 year old skateboarder in Detroit and it's a little difficult for me to prosper because there's no one to skate with and rarely somewhere to skate for me!!

Tee_rrance said...

Salute you guys (with my roller boots on, still can't manage balance in skateboards)! You still got shirts for me? Where else can I buy those aside from Amazon?