Third World Press Faces the Future

It's never been simply a Black-owned publishing house—it's been a community institution

Third World Press Faces the Future
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

The recent announcement that Third World Press, the legendary Black owned publishing company founded by Haki Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) was struggling, should come as no surprise. In the midst of a recession (despite what the economists say) the publishing industry is struggling across the board, whether it be magazine, newspaper or book publishing. Third World Press, though, has never been simply a Black owned publishing house—it has been a community institution, run by a family that has been committed to the city of Chicago for more than four decades. More importantly Third World Press has been on the front lines of providing alternative visions of African-American thought, imagery and creativity.

It was more than 25 years ago that I was introduced to Haki Madhubuti and his business doppelganger in the form of a gift; an early and critical mentor gave me a copy of Madhubuti’s 1978 book Enemies: The Clash of Races. The book stayed in my back-pack for two years as I regularly re-read passages in between my college classes, eventually seeking out many of the books that Madhubuti cited including Chancellor Williams’ The Destruction of Black Civilization and Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. I was also drawn to Madhubuti’s own poetry—his collection From Earthquakes to Sunrise Missions in particular—as his poetic cadences, like my father’s dance and Marvin Gaye’s use of falsetto continue to punctuate my own use of language.

Madhubuti awakened my interest in scholarly non-fiction and helped me tap into my creativity, but more critically his work with the press was an early example of why it was important for artists, writers and musicians have control of the means of production and distribution of their own work. Well before the explosion of Black literature and non-fiction that marked the 1990s and early 20th Century when, to borrow a line from historian David levering Lewis, the “Negro was in vogue,” Madhubuti simply went about the business of publishing the books he wanted and the books he thought needed to be read in Black communities.

The array of authors who published for Third World Press is pretty impressive including Gil Scott-Heron, legal scholar Derrick Bell, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, literary critic Joyce A. Joyce, television journalist Roland Martin, poet Kalamu Salaam and The Isis Papers’ author Frances Cress Welsing. Third World Press also published the Tavis Smiley edited New York Times best-seller The Covenant. Part of the story of Third World Press is that during the 1980s and 1990s, when the dominant mainstream corporate model with regards to Blackness, was to buy up Black owned companies and set them up as boutique operations (see Def Jam, Roc-a-Fella, Bad Boy, Essence Magazine and Black Entertainment), the publishing company remained in family hands.

Madhubuti’s commitment to keep Third World Press in Black hands is the product of the political era in which it was founded.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21

Chasing Jamal Parris

from NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin

Chasing Jamal Parris: Did TV Station Cross The Line?
by Michel Martin

A newly surfaced television interview with Jamal Parris, the third of four men accusing Atlanta-area megachurch pastor Bishop Eddie Long of sexual coercion, is making its rounds online.

The local Fox affiliate in Atlanta, WAGA-TV, landed the "exclusive" interview after it dispatched its "Senior I-Team Reporter" Dale Russell to hunt for Parris in Colorado, where he now lives — but the city was not disclosed.

Apparently, the feverish hunt was successful.

Parris appears in the report looking as though he has been ambushed by Russell and his determined TV crew in a grocery store parking lot.

The reporter even goes as far as to admit, "Jamal Parris didn't want to talk at first, but before he left us he had plenty to say about Bishop Eddie Long."

Red the Full Essay @ Tell Me More

Wayne Brady and Mike Tyson Do Bobby Brown's 'Every Little Step'

'The Tenth Inning': Just a Beautiful Thing

Baseball has an ugly face, that’s the business part.
—Pedro Martinez

'The Tenth Inning': Just a Beautiful Thing
By Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters Film and TV Editor

“There’s something that happens on the field that’s like poetry, like ballet,” says Gerald Early. “The remarkable thing about the game,” he goes on, “is how beautiful it is, despite all the ugliness that might be around it at times. It’s just a beautiful thing.”

Speaking near the beginning of The Tenth Inning‘s second half, premiering on PBS 29 September, Early describes his love for baseball is deeply personal, based on his childhood experiences and particular plays etched into memory, a concept illustrated as he speaks by still photos of bodies in mid-air, strained and contorted, and for that instant of a play, perfect. For Early, who so appreciates such individual acts of grace, the “ugliness” is around the game, as opposed to inherent in it. It’s a view that helps him to love the game still, even knowing about the Steroid Era, recurrent labor disputes, costly stadiums, underpaid facility crews, and exploitative farm systems.

Early’s dilemma is at the center of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s four-hour follow-up to 1994’s Baseball. And it remains unresolved, in part because baseball is, as Keith Olbermann noted at the start of the first part of The Tenth Inning, a game immersed in its own history. This makes for at least two sorts of fans, those who remember and can rhapsodize over plays, like Early, and those who know stats. The documentary makes use of fans who are also players, reporters, and historians, an assembly of men—and Selena Roberts and Doris Kearns Goodwin (note to Burns: girls like baseball too)—who set about here pondering their devotion to a sport that has disappointed them repeatedly.

Recent disappointments loom large in The Tenth Inning, which means to look at what’s happened in baseball since Baseball. By turns treacly and rapturous, pedestrian and insightful, the documentary submits that, as Howard Bryant observes, “Most people have found a way to make their peace with the sport they love.” Still, the history rankles. And here, too much of it is noted only briefly.

Read the Full Essay @ Popmatters

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Cynthia Fuchs is director of Film & Media Studies and Associate Professor of English, African American Studies, Sport & American Culture, and Film & Video Studies, at George Mason University.

Gil Scott Heron's 'New York Is Killing Me' Remixed by Chris Cunningham

from MOMA.org

New York Is Killing Me
featuring Chris Cunningham

Cult filmmaker, musician, photographer, and producer Chris Cunningham is known for his highly acclaimed music videos for artists including Aphex Twin, Björk, Portishead, and many others. Since 2003 his focus has moved to music: he produced two tracks on The Horrors' Mercury Prize–nominated Primary Colours; won a Cannes Golden Lion for his reworking of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" in his 2008 Gucci Flora commercial; and created audiovisual remixes for Gil Scott-Heron and Grace Jones. Recently, he has headlined festivals around the world with his new live show, and is presently working on his first audiovisual album.

Special thanks to XL Recordings, ACE HOTEL NEW YORK, and Sud de France Wines: Jaja de Jau and Domaine Lavail.

Marc Lamont Hill vs. Ann Coulter on Larry King Live

'Waiting for Superman' Won't Fly with Some Audiences

'Waiting for Superman' Won't Fly with Some Audiences
by R. L’Heureux Lewis

Waiting for Superman is a powerful film about educational reform and the potential of our schools from the same team that brought us by director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilcott, the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Unfortunately the filmmakers leave the audience hoping for a change that is as likely as a caped crusader appearing in real life.

While the film taps into the concerns that many of us have towards a failing educational system, it fails to provide a full portrait of what is really happening in the nation's schools. If you're interested in heart wrenching stories, see this film. But if you are interested in changing education make sure you bring your x-ray vision so you can see beyond the veil of what the filmmakers are advocating.

The film opens with an interview of Anthony, a young black boy enrolled in a Washington, D.C. school. We learn that Anthony's father died years earlier from a possible drug overdose and his grandmother is now raising him in a poverty stricken neighborhood. With poise he answers math questions and in his eyes you see the glimmer of potential and high educational hopes. Unfortunately Anthony is slotted to attend a failing middle school that feeds into a high school nationally known as a "dropout factory" where 40 percent of students fail to graduate. This is an all too common reality many black, brown and poor students in the United States.

The happy ending to this story is to come by Anthony being rescued by an innovative new D.C. charter boarding school. The catch is that this salvation is only available to a few via a lottery. The lottery exists because when more people enroll in charter school than they can accommodate they must use a lottery system to determine admission. Guggenheim and filmmakers lament this point and stress "we know what works" but we leave success up to chance for our young people.

The story of Anthony and the other families that are followed are touching but do not tell the full reality of schooling, particularly in charter schools. Behind the heart tugging narrative lies an inconvenient truth, that charter schools on average actually perform no better than traditional public schools and often perform worse! In the nearly two-hour film this reality is tucked in a sound bite where the film confesses only 1 in 5 charter schools is excelling. Yes, you read that right, 80 percent of charter schools do no better or fare worse than traditional public schools. It is clear this research finding does not deter the filmmakers, but viewers should not be so quick to skip it. The Stanford's CREDO National Charter School Study has done the most comprehensive work on charter schools and found that they are far from a cure all for educational woes.

Read the Full Essay @ theGrio

From the Belly of the Beast (New Birth Missionary Bapist Church)

Long Odds
by William Jelani Cobb

The cars began streaming into the parking lot at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church even before the sun had risen. On a normal Sunday church traffic chokes the off-ramps at Interstate 20, down to Bishop Eddie Long Boulevard that leads onto the grounds. This, as the news vans lining Bishop Eddie Long Boulevard attested, was not a normal Sunday.

For those who had no knowledge of Eddie Long before charges of sexual coercion were leveled at him last week it's difficult to convey Eddie Long's niche in the Atlanta ecosystem. He presides over a massive institution, with reportedly more than 25,000 members. On I-85, just north of the airport, a titanic billboard featuring Long's image greets commuters. The caption reads "Live like him, Lead like him, Love like him." The him is presumably a reference to Jesus Christ, but it's Long's image drivers see, not the Nazarene carpenter. The church campus sits on 250 acres of land in suburban Lithonia but it is inescapably linked to Atlanta's religious culture.

Long is arguably the pre-eminent black proponent of the prosperity gospel and his message of financial deliverance dovetailed neatly with Atlanta's credo of visible black success. More than a handful of his critics have seen New Birth as a counterpoint to Ebenezer Baptist, the church co-pastored by Martin Luther King, Sr. and Jr. Where King led an inner-city congregation and emphasized the biblical mandate to pursue social justice, Long's sprawling compound is miles outside Atlanta and he is more likely to exalt the possibilities of grand financial success.

Nor are the connections to MLK merely metaphorical. Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin and Coretta Scott King is a minister at New Birth. She and Long stirred controversy in 2004 when they led a march demanding that the legislature amend the state Constitution to forbid gay marriage - which was already illegal in Georgia. (It was particularly incendiary given that Long began the event by lighting his torch in the eternal flame at Martin Luther King's crypt.) In 2004 Long endorsed George W. Bush in all but name, charging that John Kerry would not protect the nation from the looming menace of same sex unions.

Against that history, the charges that Long coerced teenage boys in his youth foundation (ineptly dubbed the "Long Fellows") into gay sex acts detonated like a concussion grenade. On some level the homophobic pastor who is secretly engaging in gay sex is the most fatigued of clichés. But Long's allegations differ if for no other reason than the scale. It also has to be mentioned that the black church had perfected its own version of Don't Ask, Don't Tell long before the military dreamed of such a compact.

Read the Full Essay @ The Atlantic

'Left of Black': Episode #2 featuring Joshua Bennett

'Left of Black' Host Mark Anthony Neal talks Black masculinity, hip-hop, and disability with spoken word artist and Marshall Scholar Joshua Bennett.

From The Lost Soul Archives: The Jackson Five at the Miss Black America Pageant, 1968

Th Jackson Five at the Miss Black America Pageant in New York City at Madison Square Garden, 1969.

From The Lost Soul Archives: Raymond Miles @ Greater St. Stephens in New Orleans

The Late, Great New Orleans Gospel artist Raymond Myles performing at Bishop Paul Morton's Greater St, Stephens in New Orleans.

Call & Response—A Candid Conversation Around Black Manhood

Footage from the 3rd installment of Passage of Right: Call and Response. Featuring: Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, Edward M. Garnes Jr., Susan Harbage Page and John W. Love Jr. Moderated by Fahamu Pecou.

Recorded:
Saturday September 18, 2010 at McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte NC.

NBM Saturday Edition:(Not) About Eddie Long: BlackQueerness and Social Life

Special to NewBlackMan

(Not) About Eddie Long: BlackQueerness and Social Life

by Ashon Crawley

Queerness (always already a concept in and of blackness) once and again comes down on us, befalls us, befuddles us. Queerness rears its ugly head, showing itself, laying bare the necessity of the hypothetical and hypocritical in any theology, BlackChristianity notwithstanding. The general question: why are we all up in arms regarding the (al)legibility of the potentiality of queerness in BlackChristianity once again? I am not interested in Eddie Long in his particularity as much as I am intrigued by what his seeming infractions – and the many responses to it – speak about notions of sexuality, religious tradition and the structured life of BlackQueer folks. I want to make a few general observations, possible because of my obsession with the words of Hortense Spillers, Toni Morrison and Fred Moten. These three, in my understanding, engage projects that ask how thought and imagination – of gender and sexuality for Spillers (see “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book”); of literature and narrativity for Morrison (see Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination); of the western philosophical tradition for Moten (see “Knowledge of Freedom”) – are always troubled by a pathogen that needs be detected, diagnosed and discarded.

So I want to here make a claim that there is an irreducible erotics at the heart of Christianity generally, certainly in the western formation of Protestantism with its focus on and targeting of the body’s behaviors and comportments, even moreso true for articulations of Christianity in Black(ness). This erotics is that which continually is in need of control, in need of policing, in need of curtailment. In Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique, Roderick Ferguson convincingly argues that the Black Holiness/Pentecostal church targets the body of individuals as that which needs to literally behave itself. This behaving of oneself is always done through the control of the libidinal excesses, through a rhetorics against eroticism. Evelyn Brooks-Higginbotham in Righteous Discontent elucidates how the politics of respectability was likewise used to target and curtail the seeming loose behaviors of Black Folks as a means to citizenship and Christian formation. One may begin to think about the relationship between notions of self-control that Black Protestantism can be said to aspire and reckless abandon that BlackQueer folks may be thought to embody and perform. BlackQueer folks are the performative vestibularity (Spillers’s word) of the particular Black Church context in which I am interested. BlackQueer folks in this religiocultural context come to stand in for everything that the one who is “saved, sanctified and filled with the holy ghost” is not. Joseph Roach might say that BlackQueer folks, though marginalized and placed on the outside, are central to the faith tenets of this particularly raced, sexed, religious context.

This is a longwinded argument regarding the necessity of proximity of a certain BlackQueerness to any articulation of BlackChristianity. Supposedly, being saved, sanctified and filled with the holy ghost is everything BlackQueerness is not. But BlackQueer folk are necessary in church buildings and in mental imaginations as targets of hatred that is nothing other than residue of the patriarchal, sexist, racist, classist society in which we all live, move and have our being. BlackQueer folks, then, must occupy space of choir lofts and the prepared notes of preachers if any of that preaching is to be effective…so it seems. I am convinced that BlackQueerness, as a sensual, sensuous field, is the libidinal, excessive, always already out of control, in need of control, philosophy that preachers write and orate against. Or, more precisely (hopefully), there is an intense and fundamental relationship between the desire for respectability, citizenship and salvation on the one hand with the BlackQueer figure on the other. This BlackQueer figure figures its way into sermons and songs by way of denial (outright, overwrought, write out, wrought over), by glances, by stares, by rumor, by gossip, by condemnation, by celebration (we sing and play the organ very, very well!).

If this is the case – and certainly, Eddie Long might agree with my sentiment of the some purported sinfulness of BlackQueer folks as he has in times past, taking firm stances for the family and against marriage equality – BlackQueerness is a sort of pathogen that exists previous to declarations of salvation; we might even say it is the force that animates BlackChristian formation. Some call it sin. I call it a particular enjoyment and pleasure of erotics that is foundational for life and love that was the condition of possibility for abolition movement, for modes of flight and escape, for what we call freedom. (And I don’t want to be “saved” from that…and I doubt you do either. So the quest of BlackChristianity since enslavement has been to figure out a way to assert desires freedom while somehow striving toward American citizenship – recognition by the state.) Normative BlackChristianity (so intimately related to the Christianity of its origin, though this is not my concern here) suppresses its anoriginal BlackQueerness by recognition, relegation and removal. This removal only a ruse.

Many are astonished by such allegations. Astonishment – given when folks say “I can’t believe it!” or “Let’s pray for him!” or “This can’t be true!” – is the articulation of the betrayal of knowledge by stupefied senses. The etymology of “astonish” is “to stun, to daze, deafen, astound.” The senses – of sight, smell, taste, touch, sound – are cut, augmented by some seemingly new knowledge that, we know, isn’t too new at all. The senses are stunned by the knowledge of BlackQueer folks existing and having social life in the face and place of impossibility. It’s like how Harriet Tubman escaped slavery, arrived to New York only to find herself alone. She then stole her body back to the very place she left in order to bring others with her. There was a desire for and movement toward sociality that animated her notion of joy and happiness, what we call freedom.

This elucidates my concern for how BlackQueerness – in the space of the religious circle that seeks, but is also predicated upon, its exclusion – astonishes by the alleged and the legible. Some folks simply don’t want to believe that a person like Long could even engage in such activities because the activities are supposedly reprehensible. Because of the position of power he occupies, and by way of the rhetoric he utilizes against BlackQueer folks, the putting to question of Long is put to question. Or, how can one allege that he is even allegible? For many, Long and others like him do not even inhabit the zone of the alleged because of money, power, respect is a covering and mode of escape. The concern here, I think is this: what does it mean that a type of BlackQueerness can make even the most successful, blessed, prosperous (and those all should've been in scare-quotes) man succumb, acquiesce, fall? This isn't about him. It's about the notion that he has all these material objects/possessions that should have been able to "protect" him from such penetrations (and I mean that in many resonances, whether or not any of the alleged sex acts were indeed penetrative). We live in a society of possession and he preaches prosperity through possession. Yet, none of that could protect his libidinal borders.

This isn't about him. It's about those of us who don't have these possessions. How ever will we “protect” ourselves? The media harps on the innocence of the accusers and the church speaks about the possessions they lacked (e.g., they were poor kids, broke into the church, tried to steal possessions). The media and church also speak about Long in terms of material possession, his wife and children included. He has attained this stuff, so these intimate zones of contact, these desires for companionship seem contradictory at best, scary at worst. Salient is the relationship between possession of stuff (capitalism) and modes of expected socialsexual behavior. We gotta rethink what it means to be a sexual being. We gotta be attentive to how capitalism works with and against modes of religious desire. As such, allegibility, in my estimation, is a concern for the possibilities to think through and against modes of power, of authority, of religious or embodied text. If we can allege Long, religious tradition is ledged, place on the sill about to topple over and break. To put to question the very questions is to think about alleging as a condition of possibility for new modes of existence that do not depend upon suppression and relegation, but rather openness celebration.

More intriguing for me, though, is the notion of legibility, the possibilities for discernment. There is a social life occurring underground, outside, beneath the surface. It’s that open secret that everyone suspects but few respect. Who has this knowledge, this discernment? Astonishment comes by way of the kind of social life – men (and more expansively, all gendered folks) laughing, loving, sexing, hugging, enjoying each other’s company – inhabiting the homophobic zone of BlackChristianity makes possible. To steal a question from Moten for my own purpose: “what if desire is correspondent to a certain kind of event to which a certain set of social conditions make possible?” I want to displace the question of Long’s particularity, of his alleged acts to ask, rather, what are the social conditions in which he (and his accusers, and many, many others in similar positions) have desire?

Being set on the outside of any institution does not mean that life simply goes away, that folks don’t have relationships, don’t want to love. It means that they (we) find ways to do it in the space of impossible conditions. This is not to claim that it’s cool for Long to be homophobic, an abuser of power or boys. But to step aside from that question, I ask what sorts of possibilities for life exist for those who have been and continually are constrained, compressed? The sort that is alleged regarding Long is certainly one possibility. But there are others as well: where having a coke with a lover in the public square can become an occasion fo poetry; where the secret smiles and winks and nods body forth love. I am interested in what the social conditions for desire to be enacted are. The possibility of a BlackQueer social life – not merely as supplement but constitutive – in the face of BlackChristianity’s very denial of this social life allows us to be attentive to how desire for relationship, for sociality, is a spiritual thing.

And…

watch this, watch this, watch this

...someone should preach about that.

***

Ashon Crawley is a graduate student in the department of English at Duke University.

Commentary: Why Rev. Long's Sexuality Isn't the Point

Commentary: Why Rev. Long's Sexuality Isn't the Point
by Saida Grundy

This week we were actually not surprised at all to learn that another "mega-church" preacher was accused of doing in his private life the exact thing he threatens hellfire against from the pulpit.

The consistent deluge of moral hypocrisy from evangelist clergymen has them running neck and neck with GOP elected officials in the "Who-can-hate-the-most-in-others-what-they-actually-do-themselves" 4x4 relay race...

Which brings us to metropolitan Atlanta. Two Georgia men have alleged that Eddie Long*, pastor of 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, coerced them into sexual acts that began when both were teenagers. The salacious details of the case unfold like birthday gifts to "The Boondocks" writing team. None of the checklist items of career-ending sex scandal are spared here. The plaintiffs separately filed complaints that accuse Long of exploiting his spiritual authority over them in order to solicit sexual acts in exchange for lavish gifts, trips, cars and electronics.

I have always considered public allegations against sham moral leadership to be good wholesome family fun, and for the moment, we are all entitled to be swept up in the licentious hoopla of it all. But to stop short of understanding what should be our real problem with Long's message and politics only baits our own homophobia. This is not Eddie Long's fall from grace, for he never should have been in our good graces. Let us consider that the Reverend's most serious offenses against our conscience were committed proudly in broad daylight.

Read the Full Essay @ Essence.com

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Saida Grundy is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Eddie Long Case Should Mark the End of Black Church Homophobia

Eddie Long Case Should Mark the End of Black Church Homophobia

by Anthea Butler

Bishop Eddie Long, megachurch pastor and prosperity purveyor, has now been named in three separate lawsuits alleging sexual coercion of two young men in Atlanta, Georgia. Bishop Long, in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “is one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement.”

Like the formerly-closeted Ken Mehlman, who recently repented for his work to prevent gay marriage, these lawsuits, if substantiated, would suggest that Long’s homophobia began with his own self-loathing.

What is especially disturbing about this story is the manner in which Long is alleged to have lured young men on trips and sexual encounters. Calling the plaintiffs his “spiritual sons,” the lawsuit states that Long used various rituals in a ceremony to “seal” his “sons”—including candles, exchange of jewelry, and discussion of biblical verses that reinforce the spiritual and God-like connection between himself and the young man.

Isn’t this the man who marched with Bernice King alongside five thousand African Americans against gay marriage? As Sarah Posner points out here on RD, this practice of manipulating congregants into sexual relationships stems from “kingdom now” relational theology, mandating close relationships with spiritual leaders or “spiritual parents” in an individual’s life.

Conveniently, Long’s Longfellows Youth Academy was a place where young black men could be “trained to love, live and lead,” with Long and others acting as “spiritual parents.” Though they appear to have been taken down the website had included testimonials such as: “My real journey to Manhood didn’t start until I joined Longfellows.”

Another testimonial powerpoint outlined how the Ishman masculine journey and Bishop Long’s teachings about the bloodline stated that their “bloodlines should not be destroyed” and that “we have to take care of our bloodline because if we don’t, we are not doing our jobs as men.” With the revelations of sexual activity and the link of one of the plaintiffs to the academy, the academy is being sued, along with New Birth church as a corporation.

However, that’s only part of the story. Sex scandals happen everyday in church because leaders and members of strict churches can’t uphold the high standards of living they promote, aspire to, and harangue people over. The endless carousel of revelations about the Catholic Church worldwide is exhibit A of that broken message. In that sense, there is nothing new here.

The real story however, is that this case explodes the cover of the black church’s internal don’t ask, don’t tell policy which has had a profound effect on the community and its followers. It’s very interesting that the Long scandal broke almost immediately after black pastors led by Bishop Harry Jackson came together with the Family Research Council to oppose the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Act. Many black pastors have staked their entire ministries on the “family” and the obsession with mainstream gender norms that encourage heterosexual marriage, abstinence, and patriarchal norms. It is an all-encompassing message that is obsessed with the suppression of sexuality in black churches, mega-churches and storefronts alike.

Read the Full Essay @ Religion Dispatches

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Anthea Butler is associate professor of religion at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making A Sanctified World (UNC Press, 2007)

Clayton Perry Chats It Up with John Legend

Interview: John Legend – Singer, Songwriter and Producer
by Clayton Perry

In less than a single decade, John Legend has made a mark upon the music industry that will never be erased. As a six-time GRAMMY Award winner, Legend has garnered respect not only for his chart-topping singles and smooth, velvety vocals, but he has also become one of the last mainstream vanguards of contemporary soul music. From Get Lifted, his 2004 debut, to Wake Up, (2010), his innovative collaboration with The Roots, John has blurred the lines of hip-hop, soul and inspirational music with seemingly little effort.

Outside of the world of music, John Legend has become well-known for his philanthropic efforts as well. In 2007, he started the “Show Me Campaign” and partnered with The Gap’s “Project Red” initiative. In the year that followed, he would also become heavily active in President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, where his performances of “If You’re Out There” and “Yes We Can” at the Democratic National Convention stood out as classic moments in our nation’s socio-political history. More recently, Legend has lent his celebrity and support to Harlem Village Academies, which was created to change the lives of children – and to change the world.

As Columbia Records’ promotional machine revved up for Wake Up, John Legend managed to squeeze some time out of his busy schedule and settle down for an interview with Clayton Perry – reflecting on childhood inspirations, America’s “invisible” population, and members of the Roots collective.

Clayton Perry: Considering all of your philanthropic efforts, it is not surprising that you are co-creator of Wake Up, a politically-driven concept album that you recorded with The Roots. When you look back on your life, is there a particular person or event that you credit for sparking such a high level of social engagement and social consciousness?

John Legend: With me, it all started as a kid, when my parents used to take me to the library. We would read about people that were making big changes – historically – in the nation. We read about the Civil Rights Movement and people who stood up for justice and spoke up for poor and disenfranchised people. So I’ve always drawn my inspiration from people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, and countless others who were bold and daring to go against all odds. So I have always believed in that and these people have inspired me to become a better person and a better citizen.

Clayton Perry: Since your album is entitled “Wake Up,” why do you think so many people have fallen asleep?

John Legend: Well, you know, sometimes people just get caught up in their own daily lives, which I can completely understand. Sometimes people are struggling. Sometimes people are trying to raise families. And they are understandably focusing on themselves and their immediate surroundings. And so that is part of it. Then, when I think about what is going on politically, I think a lot of the time, people are turned off and confused when they see what is going on in Washington. They see some of the games that are being played, some of the sniping back and forth, and some of the selfish behavior by some of their politicians. It makes them not want to even deal with [the political process] and look away and eventually become disengaged. And there are many other factors why people may tune out from a broader perspective. But with this particular album and the work that I do, I am arguing that we should care about people outside of our families and outside of our communities. We should care about what is going on in the world. When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.

Read the Full Interview @ Clayton Perry's Interview Exclusives

Apartheid in Our Schools?

from The Boston Globe

Apartheid in Our Schools
by Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist

WHEN PRESIDENT Obama took office in January 2009, the UCLA’s Civil Rights Project reported that segregation patterns in public schools “were far worse in 2006 than in 1988.’’ Eighteen months later, a new study has shown how much worse the patterns are. Diversitydata.org, supported by the Kellogg Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, has published figures compiled by Northeastern University researchers that found “gross levels of disparity.’’

Mocking any rhetoric about democracy and equal opportunity, the new study says children of color “continue to attend very different schools than white children.’’ That is a polite way of saying we are reverting to what the Kerner Commission Report on urban unrest found: “two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.’’

In Chicago, the average black student goes to a public school that is 74 percent black while the average white student goes to a school that is 6 percent black. Boston was among the 10 worst major metropolitan areas in its ratios of segregation for African-American and Latino students, and third for white students having the lowest exposure to fellow students in poverty.

Diversitydata.org found that 43 percent of both Latino and African-American students attend schools where the poverty rate is more than 80 percent. Only 4 percent of white students do. The report said, “issues of persistent high racial/ethnic segregation and high exposure of minority children to economic disadvantage at the school level remain largely unaddressed.’’

There is no surprise in these results. The drumbeat of resegregation data has played to an indifferent nation since the 1990s. The world’s richest nation remains arrogantly comfortable with a system hurtling backward toward a modern apartheid. Nothing need be done as long as families of means, who are disproportionately white, can secure K-12 educations in the suburbs and private schools, or commandeer elite public schools such as Boston Latin (which killed affirmative action years ago under the threat of lawsuits).

The most curious thing about the interval between the UCLA report and the new one is the silence from the White House. This has led to growing disenchantment from education experts. Richard Kahlenberg, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, said, “There are school districts out there that haven’t given up figuring out legal ways to integrate their schools, but they’re not getting any support from Washington.’’

Civil Rights Project director Gary Orfield said, “Obama has hired good people, but they’re not getting the job done. They’re not coming up with imaginative proposals.’’ Diversitydata.org research analyst Nancy McArdle said, “We’re not seeing the mobility strategies at either the national, state, or local levels that could break these patterns. Proven programs in Massachusetts, like Metco, keep getting cut or level funded.’’

It does not take long to realize why there is no leadership yet from Washington. Three years ago, the Supreme Court, in a bitterly divided 5-4 decision, threw out voluntary school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville. The Bush administration, which actively sought to kill affirmative action in education, jumped on the ruling and had the Education Department issue a memorandum saying it “strongly encourages the use of race-neutral methods for assigning students.’’

The memorandum made no mention of the opinion in that case of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted with the majority. But he also said “the problem of de facto resegregation in schooling’’ may allow districts to make a case for “avoiding racial isolation’’ with narrowly-tailored plans that include race as one component.

Education advocates hoped the Obama administration would have by now offered its own, more helpful guidance on voluntary integration programs. In an administration that feels that some racial issues are a third rail for an African-American president, this has not happened. Obama’s big education speech this summer to the Urban League made no mention of school resegregation. He talked plenty about his Race to the Top contest to fight the achievement gap, but racial desegregation is not part of that fight. Children of color continue to be exposed to disproportionate disadvantages that make the gap almost impossible to close. Until Obama publically connects the two, consider the issue “unaddressed.’’

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.

A Message from SUSAN L. TAYLOR in Support of THIRD WORLD PRESS

A Message from SUSAN L. TAYLOR in Support of THIRD WORLD PRESS

I am reaching out to you on behalf of one of the most honorable people I know, a man whose work has elevated and encouraged our community for more than 40 years, Haki Madhubuti.

In 1967 Haki (those of us who came of age in the 60's discovered him then as poet Don L. Lee) founded Third World Press, the renowned book publishing company that has provided a place for our voices for two generations.

Third World Press (TWP) alumnae include Poet Laureate and first African American Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Derrick Bell, Julianne Malveaux, Chancellor Williams and John Henrik Clarke among others. Tavis Smiley's best-selling The Covenant With Black America was published by TWP. As difficult as it is to fathom, there were no other outlets for the work of many powerful thinkers TWP has published.

The role that Haki Madhubuti and Third World Press have played has been singular and seminal. Today they have an urgent need. The downturn in the economy has hit the press particularly hard. In recent years we have seen the erosion and subsequent disappearance of independent Black bookstores. We cannot now take for granted or let fade the one progressive publishing house that has told our story when no others would. Our love and support are the answer.

The Third World Press family is restructuring and repositioning itself to be competitive with mainstream publishing houses. This capacity-building effort urgently needs your financial support.

Join my husband, Khephra, and me in ensuring the survival of this vital institution. The critical need is to raise $500,000 by the end of the month. We can do this! Khephra and I have donated and are also committed to serving on TWP's advisory board and bringing new writers to the publishing house. From my heart to yours, I'm asking you to send a lifeline to Haki and the TWP family. I'm asking you to make a financial contribution that matches the best of your intentions and the depth of your love and respect for the griots and great voices TWP has brought us over the years.

Let us take care of our own. Please get the word out to your network via email, Facebook, blog and Twitter.

Send your contribution today to:

Third World Press
P.O. Box 19730
7822 South Dobson Avenue
Chicago, IL 60619

You can also donate securely online via PayPal, visit: http://bit.ly/SupportTWP

To learn more about TWP, you can visit their Web site at http://www.thirdworldpressinc.com


More love,

Susan L. Taylor

War Stories from the Faculty Blogosphere

Panel of Faculty Bloggers and Tweeters Discuss Why Researchers Should Use Social Media

Stories from the Faculty Blogosphere
By Karl Leif Bates

Durham, NC -- The popular coinage "social media" would have been an oxymoron only five years ago.

Back then, "media" was a giant megaphone that broadcast information only one way and "social" was being in the same room with other people. Today, everyone is "the media," and we don't even have to be in the same time zone to be social.

While they may take some getting used to, the new tools of social media can be a wonderful way to teach for scholars who used to broadcast (often one-way) to a room full of flesh-and-blood students, according to four social media experts assembled on Sept. 17 to coach about 70 Duke faculty.

The workshop was organized by Duke's Office of News and Communications and the Center for Information Technology.

"Blogging is an ideal forum for scholarly communication," said Laurent Dubois, the Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History. Dubois said he started using blogs only about a year ago as a virtual class discussion for his sections on soccer and politics, Haiti and contemporary France. But he quickly saw how the tool added the ability to bring in outside sources of information and have engaging class discussions round the clock.

And his personal dispatches from the World Cup in South Africa led to an invitation to write a commentary for CNN.

"I take risks on my blog," Dubois said. "It's a relief, frankly, to be able to change voices."

Rather than being a distraction from his scholarly duties, contemporary social critic and New Black Man Mark Anthony Neal, sees his social media output as central to his efforts to bring scholarship to a wider audience.

"After a decade of writing for a broader audience, I see myself as a public intellectual," said Neal, a professor of African & African American Studies and a regular columnist on the site Loop 21.com. Neal has become pretty much a one-man social media movement. He maintains three blogs, and also connects with the world through Facebook and Twitter. He recently started a weekly YouTube show, "Left of Black."

He started using Facebook because he found students were ignoring his emails and Twitter (just this year) because he found "alumni still wanting to have the Mark Anthony Neal experience." Now the two sites serve as drivers to bring people to his blog posts, "the home base," where longer, more thoughtful work appears.

Neal is publishing his scholarship digitally and in a timely fashion, and the audience is as wide as it wants to be. "The technology has caught up to my ambitions."

"This sounds like 'knowledge in service to society,' " said moderator David Jarmul, associate vice president for news and communications.

Cathy Davidson, Ruth F. Devarney Professor of English, blogs, tweets and posts, but spent most of her portion of the panel extolling the connectivity of Twitter. The 140-character bursts from her Twitter connections has almost entirely replaced traditional media for her, and has saved, not consumed, her time, she said. "Twitter is the most efficient thing I do in my day," she said.

The mini-posts themselves, called "tweets," don't say much in themselves -- "it's like Haiku," she said. But the best tweets contain links to larger resources, and by watching trusted streams of updates and passing things along to her own followers, Twitter becomes a new way of staying current, Davidson said. "I use Twitter as my filter on the news. It's a great way of receiving and sending information, but it requires commitment."

The other payoff, Davidson said, was the sense of connectedness and community that social media gives her. Her posts garner immediate feedback and spark interesting discussions.

Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy assistant professor Misha Angrist, aka the blogger GenomeBoy, said blogging doesn't have to feel like homework. In fact, he took a break from blogging for a while when it started to feel burdensome, and now he has found a happy balance where he blogs about things he knows about ,when and where he feels like it. "I've managed to find a way to do this and not go crazy or have it take over my life." Angrist recently joined the ranks of PLoS Blogs, a new family of science bloggers hosted by the Public Library of Science open access journals.

"You don't have to worry about it becoming overwhelming because you can control how much you do it," Dubois added

Lynne O'Brien and her staff from the Center for Instructional Technology showed faculty how they too could easily use Facebook, Twitter and WordPress blogs and answered questions from the technical to the philosophical. Their tutorials can be found at cit.duke.edu/blog/2010/09/17/socialmediaworkshop/ or you can see what participants thought of the session, as it happened, by checking the hashtag #dukesocial on Twitter. (Or just click here to execute a Twitter search on that tag.

Farai Chideya Interviews Kendrick Meek

From PopandPoliticsMedia

Congressman Kendrick Meek, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, sat down to talk about his chances of winning in November, the challenges of running as a minority, and his thoughts on the state of the economy

The J Dilla Foundation to Launch Art Contest for Legendary Music Producer

For Immediate Release:
September 20th 2010

The J Dilla Foundation to Launch Art Contest for Legendary Music Producer.

J Dilla's legacy to raise money for children's music programs and the arts.

Ma Dukes and the J Dilla Foundation, with La Famiglia Magazine and 323East are proud to announce “So Far To Go,” an official J Dilla tribute with an international art contest. This contest is an invitation to fans around the world to gather and celebrate the life of one of the most influential recording artists and producers, James Dewitt Yancey, also known as J Dilla. The “So Far To Go” Art Contest was created to contribute to the legacy J Dilla left behind through artistic expression.

Artists create original designs inspired by the legacy of J Dilla and register by uploading their artwork to www.art4dilla.com. Users vote on the artist's work to choose the winner. The winning design will be produced as a poster and limited edition Giclee print series signed by the artist and J Dilla’s mother, Ma Dukes. Proceeds will be donated to the J Dilla Foundation and fund their ongoing programs.

The word "foundation" has several meanings. A person lays the foundation for a successful life and career through focus, hard work, and (most of all) by never losing sight of how his public and private efforts will influence the world around him. It is also the familiar term for any established agency that has as its mission a firm commitment to improve the lives of others. It is fitting, therefore, that the J. Dilla Foundation combines these two definitions perfectly and allows the legacy of one man's art to be the inspirational force in other people's lives.

The “So Far To Go” International J Dilla Art Contest is organized by La Famiglia Magazine and 323East Gallery on the behalf of Ma Dukes and the J Dilla Foundation. Sponsors include Stones Throw Records, Fat Beats, Bombing Science and Ohm Creative Group.

The official launch date of the “So Far To Go” J Dilla Art Contest is September 30, 2010. For artist registration and contest details go to the official contest website: www.art4dilla.com.

Contest Dates:

9/20/10 – Artist can enter the contest and upload artwork
9/30/10 – Voting starts
12/30/10 – Contest Ends

About J Dilla

J Dilla, born James Dewitt Yancey, was a Grammy award winning record producer and artist who emerged from the mid-1990s underground hip-hop scene in Detroit, Michigan. According to NPR.org, he was one of the music industry’s most influential hip-hop artists. J Dilla changed hip-hop culture and the music industry as we know it. His creativity has molded and contributed to the sounds of recording artists such as De La Soul, Slum Village, Phat Kat, Common, The Pharcyde, Busta Rymes, Erykah Badu, and many more. On February 10, 2006 at the young age of 32, we lost J Dilla to Lupus and the rare blood disease TTP. The true story surrounding the beauty and controversies of the legacy left behind are monumental. For more information about J Dilla, visit:

http://www.stonesthrow.com/jdilla

The J Dilla Foundation is a non-profit charitable institution that serves to help fund inner-city music programs and provide scholarships to students attending schools that have progressive music curricula. The foundation was started by Maureen Yancey, mother of acclaimed producer James “Jay Dee aka J Dilla” Yancey. Maureen proclaims, “The J Dilla Foundation seeks to be a staple in the movement for progressive music education. We also hope to be leaders in the efforts to enhance and develop arts programs in urban communities.” Target cities for 2010 are Detroit, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.

323 East is a collection of creative energy materialized in a mashup of art, culture, lifestyle and creativity. Located 20 minutes north of Detroit in Royal Oak, MI; 323East is home to over 100 artists with rotating works in a variety of mediums. Recent exhibitions include local and international artists Glenn Barr, Audrey Pongracz, Ron Zakrin, Lost Fish, Charmaine Oliva and David Foox.

La Famiglia Magzine is an independent magazine focusing on music, art, urban and cultural movements from around the world and the ideas and energy that bridge the gaps between them. La Famiglia Magazine is published by La Famiglia Publishing; a creative development and publishing company.

To register or for more contest details go to:

http://www.art4dilla.com

***

Press Contact:

Jesse Cory
Ohm Creative Group
323 E. Fourth St
Royal Oak, MI. 48067
jesse@ohmdigital.com
248-246-9544

Is Tyler Perry Possessed by the Word? Thoughts on 'For Colored Girls...'

Tyler Perry's Presence is the Difference Between a Major Blockbuster and a Little Watched Film.

Possessed by the Word?: Tyler Perry does 'For Colored Girls'
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21.com

There was a collective holding of breath recently, when the trailer for Tyler Perry’s adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Was Enuff began to circulate on the internet. I was among those who were pleasantly surprised by the craftsmanship and power of the trailer, replete with a stunning vocal melding of Nina Simone’s classic “Four Women.”

The trailer is in clear contrast to what audiences have come to expect from the Tyler Perry brand. If the trailer is any indication of the quality of the film, than it might seem that our apprehensions about what would happen when Perry got his hands on this signature Black feminist text, might have been for naught. But are we witnessing a growth in Perry’ skill-set or the fact that even a “professional novice” like Perry can’t mess up a text that is so magical?

The original Broadway production of For Colored Girls…, which opened at the Booth Theater in September of 1976, inspired as much controversy as Perry’s adaptation does now. Produced two years before the publication of Michele Wallace’s Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwomen, Shange’s text represented the most explicit expression of Black Feminist discourse to find an audience in mainstream American culture. In the late 1970s—before Alice Walker’s The Color Purple appears—the work of Shange, Wallace and novelist Gayl Jones became easy targets for those who believed that Black feminism undermined Black men, who were already under assault by racism and White supremacy.

In his 1980s essay, famously titled “Aunt Jemima Don’t Like Uncle Ben” Stanley Crouch described Shange’s work as “militant mediocrity and self pity.” However critics like Crouch and others felt about Shange’s work, the power of For Colored Girls… was not lost on anyone, including a ten-year old Joan Morgan who, two decades before the publication of her groundbreaking When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist, was disappointed in not being able to accompany her mother to a performance of the show during that initial Broadway run. Perhaps Erykah Badu was recalling a similar reaction when she channeled Shange in her music video for “Bag Lady” (2000).

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com

Bassey Ikpi: 'Bringing Up Boogie'

{Bringing Up Boogie} I Don't Bake and My Kid's a Neat Freak:
We Were Made for Each Other
by Bassey Ikpi

Last week, while in the car with Boogie, I was fiddling with the radio, trying to find a song that I wouldn’t mind him repeating in mixed company, when Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” pumped through the speakers. What’s a mother to do but go hard singing “uh oh uh oh, oh oh oh” and doing the dance? So I got busy, and when we hit a stoplight, I took my hands off the wheel and really let loose, completely oblivious to the stares Boogie tossed from the backseat. When the song was over, there was a bit of silence; I turned to smile at my baby boy and he sighed, “And you don’t make cookies.”

I almost had to pull over I was laughing so hard, but the kid was dead serious. And at the base of it, right. If we’re going by International Mom Law, I’m a terrible mother. I don’t make cookies. I don’t really cook at all, and hardly ever for him. I’m a vegetarian and he refuses to eat anything green. I stopped eating pork when I was 11 (and again when I was 13 and found out that pepperoni was pork). Boogie has a love of bacon that rivals most grown men. He loves bacon so much that he even eats and likes veggie bacon because it has the word bacon in it. Besides not knowing how to prepare meat dishes, I’m just not very interested in cooking. Never have been. My mother is a fantastic cook and my sister just started a cupcake business, so Boogie gets plenty of home cooked meals and homemade treats. He just doesn’t get them from me. Matter of fact, one day, he walked into the kitchen when I got a sudden inspiration to try out a recipe. He stared at me standing over the stove, spatula in hand and asked, “What’s wrong with grandma?”

I’ve had debates with people who tell me that Boogie will grow up to resent me because I never baked him a cake or lovingly placed pieces of flesh in boiling oil (I mean, fried chicken). I’m not sure if that’s the case, but I do spend a lot of time talking to him. I have wonderfully hilarious conversations with my boy. I read to him when he’ll let me get through a book rather than hurrying me through to his favorite parts. I take him to the movies and to the park. I take him shopping and to shows with me. I’m not trying to make myself feel better about my lack of culinary skills; I just honestly don’t see where not cooking is going to throw me into the same category as Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest.

My own mother has told me that Boogie will not learn how to properly take care of himself because I’m such a slob. Wrong. I am messy. My clothes and shoes are can be found behind couches, in the bathroom, in the armchair in my bedroom... If there are clothes or shoes in the closet, then it must be Sunday—cleaning day. But somehow Boogie has managed to be a clean freak. When he sees me folding clothes, he applauds and gives me a “Good job!” This morning, I decided to get some of the clothes and shoes off my bedroom floor and he walked in and said, “Finally! I’ll make the bed!” and he did. Actually, the kid has made the bed while I was in it before. He’s very particular about where things go. He’s very particular about where he goes. Where he fits. And he fits here, in my parents house, so it’s been difficult for us to leave. I think that would be more disruptive to his life than whether or not I baked a cake yet or how often I vacuum.

I travel a lot for work. And I leave him in order not to disrupt his routine. He needs to feel grounded and supported and my wanderlust shouldn’t disturb that. He counts on Grandma and Grandpa and Ms. Dea and his friends at school and that dreadful Fresh Beat Band. But I have to go so rather than unpack, I kind of stay in a constant state of “about to leave.” I’ve been in that state for a while—ever since this “I need help with this new baby for a few months” turned into “I guess we live here now.” But because I never wanted to be the one who came running home when times got tough, I never fully unpacked. Never fully allowed the dressers to hold my shirts and underthings. Never gave the closest permission to taste my permanence. My books, my precious things, remain in boxes in the corner. I’m just not ready to settle here. I’m just not ready to be a “mother” in that way.

That probably sounds worse than I mean it.

What I mean is that I’ve had to learn in the last few months that what makes me a “good mother” can’t be judged by other people’s rules.

Read the Full Essay @ MyBrownBaby