Nija Major twerks with a purpose in ‘Brainwashing.’ Take notes, Miley Cyrus (NSFW)

Like the rest of pop-obsessed America, I awoke Monday morning to the barrage of blog dissertations and think pieces (both new and rehashed) going in on Miley Cyrus’ unabashed MTV VMA twerk-a-thon the night before.

“Miley Cyrus Needs to Take an African-American Studies Class,” a Vice column was titled two months ago in response to her original sin, the video for “We Can’t Stop.” As comically satisfying as it’s been to see critics rage against the machine formerly known as Hannah Montana over her cultural misappropriation, black booty fetishization, and straight-up minstrelsy, the irony is that she, and RCA Records, are getting exactly what they want: Attention!

Even the Onion skewered CNN.com, and online media-at-large, over it’s lowest common denominator coverage. While Cyrus has successfully twerked her way to momentous distraction-of-the-summer status, however, an Atlanta-based artist released a new video last week in which she’s seen twerking for a higher purpose.

Nija Major, 25, is a former stripper turned performance artist who creates under the moniker the Major Gallery. And in her new video “The Brainwashing” (posted above), she uses twerking to draw attention to just how much of a distraction America’s infatuation with pop culture has become. In the three-and-a-half-minute piece, directed by Omar “Chilly-O” Mitchell, she projects subliminal images of war, civil uprisings, genocide, and the famous United Negro College Fund slogan, “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” onscreen while indulging viewers with her own nude twerk session to the soundtrack of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away Now.”

It’s a study in contrasts, no doubt.

The former University of Kentucky arts administration major conceived and created the piece to submit to the Creatives Project’s artist-in-residency program, the Creative Community Housing Project. But in the aftermath of Mileypalooza, it’s arguably taken on a whole new resonance. So after calling Major up to discuss it, she engaged me in a 20-minute conversation that covered the history of twerking, white appropriation, strip club culture, and the personal awakening that took her from an object of desire to homelessness to the subject of her own quest to enlighten others.

Obviously, this isn’t a new conversation but considering all that’s happened in the last 24 hours, I’m reading even more of the political statement in your piece, “Brainwashing.”

Nija Major: And that’s my plan. It’s so funny because I sent it to one of my friend’s who’s a dope dealer in Huntsville, Ala. He said to me, “I don’t know what I’m looking at but you look good.”... It’s art and it’s open for interpretation. Somebody’s going to look at it one way and another person’s going to look at it a totally different way.

I just wanted to make people think. I wanted it to be so subliminal, with “The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” flashing in the background, or the images of the uprising in Egypt, the Holocaust. I’m standing here in front of you shaking my ass, half-naked, but look at everything else that’s going on around.

So how do you define twerking?

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First of all, I’m from Atlanta, I’m from Miami, I grew up on twerking. That’s just like true to culture. And it’s not anything sexual, it’s really just a form of dancing. It’s African. It was more like a mating call, it was a form of expression. This was how we communicated, through this form of dance. And it’s still that way. But white people see it and they’re like, ‘This is sexual.’

Even Miley Cyrus, she’s onstage, shaking her ass with her tongue out and stuff, she has this foam finger and she’s simulating sex with it, and I’m like, that’s not the culture. But if she wants to appropriate it and show it that way, that’s good because it’s shows people this is not the way to act. This is a disgusting way to act... .

I think that’s the thing with certain stereotypes of black culture and the glorification of strip club culture -

But I’m also a former stripper, so I look at it a different way. When I’m in the club and I see money falling from the air, that’s good luck. That’s what it means in other cultures. If you go to India and you throw money at someone while they’re dancing, you’re trying to bless yourself with good luck.

It’s not just about somebody on stage spreading their ass cheeks. It’s several different layers to this. This world has been around for so many years. People just think in terms of 2013, but what about 1013 or the year 13? These are customs that have been around for years and years and years. It’s just that now it’s become widespread because we have technology. We can see what people are doing in China right now. A thousand years ago, we wouldn’t know.

Where were you an exotic dancer?

I danced in Miami. I worked at King of Diamonds, Take One, G5ive. But I had a spiritual awakening - like Monday I was dancing and everything was OK, and Tuesday I woke up and I was like I can’t do this ever again.

Why was that? What drove you to that decision?

I felt like I wasn’t doing anything with it. I love to dance and I don’t mind dancing naked. I actually like dancing naked, but I didn’t like the environment that I was doing it in. I started to feel like I was selling myself short when I could actually do something bigger with it.

How long ago was that?

A year ago. The last time I danced was right around my birthday. It was like I had that awakening.

Tell me how you went from dancing in strip clubs a year ago to conceptualizing this performance art piece?

Oh my God, when I say went through so much in the past year just to get to this point, I was in Miami living on the street, literally. When you go from making so much money to saying that money isn’t worth more than me keeping my integrity and doing something positive, it was really hard. I’ve probably had 10 jobs since then. I worked at Z Gallerie; I sold furniture; I was a telemarketer; I worked in a kids’ gym. I did so much just trying to figure out what I wanted to do. This was like a big lesson in finding myself. Cause at the end of the day I knew I wanted to do something positive. I wanted to teach people what I’ve learned... .

I just felt like I went through all of this, I don’t want anybody else to have to go through it. So that’s where the video came from. I really realized that it’s so many other things going on in the world, and we use other things as distractions so we don’t have to look at how serious things are, how important things are.

I feel like the whole twerk conversation is a distraction. Let’s go even further back: When the Europeans first came to Africa and they saw African women walking around naked and how they oversexualized it. That was just the culture. We didn’t wear clothes. We were free to do that. But they wore clothes, so they felt like it was sexual that we didn’t.

Everything is a distraction. Nobody wants to pay attention to what really matters. And honestly, I feel like what matters is having love for yourself and having love for mankind - enough so that you don’t disrespect what’s already here in place for us.

Do you get upset because this has become such a big distraction?

At first I was upset but then I started thinking like it’s an appropriation of our culture in a way, but then they’re kind of mocking it because they don’t understand it. So I feel like we should just let them have it. This is what you think we’re doing but it’s really something different. So if that’s what you want, you can keep it because you’re really making it into a farce. And really you’re making yourself look stupid.

The more we focus on the fact that they’re taking from us, we really feel like we’re losing something. No, we’re not losing anything, we’re gaining more. I feel like we need to understand that we’re taking back our integrity as black people. But I feel like a lot of black people are like this twerking, this is us, this is all us, but the way that they’re white people doing it is not our culture. Our ancestors would not be happy to see a black woman acting like Miley Cyrus; that’s why I’m glad it’s her....

The fact that we can even look at Miley Cyrus as trashy is important. That’s groundbreaking to me. When you look at her and you’re like, ‘Well I don’t want to look like that.’ Ok, well how do you want to look? How do you want people to see you?

On Sept. 13, Nija Major will host a viewing party for “The Brainwashing” at Huria Boutique, located at 132 Walker St., which will also be a charity event for #HashtagLunchbag. The Major Gallery launches a web-based gallery (themajorgallery.com) on Oct. 26.