Beyond Nostalgia: Choosing the Legacies We Build From

By Lucky Star, Responsible AI | Blockchain Educator & Consultant

Nostalgia has a powerful pull. It can create a comforting bridge to the past, but it can also quietly obscure the realities lived by so many. Silent films and 1950s pastel Americana are often revered for their charm, their innovation, or their "innocent" portrayal of everyday life. Yet much of this imagery omits — or smooths over — a global history of struggle, undervalued contributions, and purposeful challenge.

During the silent film era, much of the world grappled with colonial expansion, segregation, and narrative suppression from public storytelling. The 1950s, while framed in many popular narratives as an idyllic decade of prosperity, were profoundly different for millions fighting for autonomy, fundamental freedoms, and national self-determination across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and beyond.

To revisit these eras without acknowledging their erasures risks participating in history-washing: a form of remembering that elevates selective comfort over collective truth.

By contrast, the 1970s and 1980s crackled with transformative energy. These were decades defined by the reimagining of power, the flourishing of independent nations, the creation of cultural movements like Afrofuturism, and the collective assertion of dignity across borders. Shared sense of struggle deepened. Creative sovereignty expanded. New visions of self-determination took root.

Choosing to summon the spirit of the 1970s and 1980s today is not merely an aesthetic choice — it is a decision to honor futures built on reclamation rather than omission.

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