Sunday, October 31, 2010
Booksigning: Professors Lee Baker and Charlie Piot
Please join African and African American Studies and Cultural Anthropology for an author reading, book signing, and reception
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
4:30-6:30PM
225 Friedl Building
Duke University
featuring
Professor Lee Baker
Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture
and
Associate Professor Charles Piot
Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa After the Cold War
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Pop & Politics Radio: New Voters, New Challenges
New Voters, New Challenges
Farai Chideya and team go to Arizona to look at immigration and jobs, and check in with new voters to see if they’re getting involved. With the passage of the state’s controversial immigration bill in April, Arizona is at the center of the nation’s immigration debate. From Phoenix to border regions of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Yuma, Chideya talks with people about their hopes, fears, and anxiety.
Listen HERE
Farai Chideya and team go to Arizona to look at immigration and jobs, and check in with new voters to see if they’re getting involved. With the passage of the state’s controversial immigration bill in April, Arizona is at the center of the nation’s immigration debate. From Phoenix to border regions of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Yuma, Chideya talks with people about their hopes, fears, and anxiety.
Listen HERE
Speaking Back to Street Harassment: Elizabeth Mendez Berry Testifies at the NYC Council Hearing
Elizabeth Mendez Berry testifies at the historic NYC Council Hearing on Street Harassment
Flying While Black
Flying While Black:
Border Control, DNA and the Case of the Lips
by Simone
After tracing his maternal ancestry in 2005 through genealogical DNA testing, or personal genomics, and finding his ancestral links to the Mende and Temne peoples of Sierra Leone, actor Isaiah Washington attested to his “rebirth” saying he believes that “DNA will finally become the tool to bridge the gap between our brothers and sisters who have been lost.” Earlier this year, now “DNA-branded” [see note at end on this term] as Sierra Leonean, Washington was sworn in as a citizen of that country. Citizenship by way of mitochondrial DNA.
But what about the role of DNA for our brothers and sisters who have been stranded or detained abroad? Enter “the lips case”.
On May 21st 2009, Somali-born Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud attempted to board a flight out of Nairobi to return home to Toronto, after a three-week visit to Kenya. Upon inspecting her passport, Dutch KLM airline authorities claimed that her lips looked different than that observed in her four-year-old passport photo, branded her an “imposter” and not the rightful holder of the passport that she presented. Mohamud was detained overnight in the airport. Two Canadian High Commission officials met with her the following morning, told her “you are not Suaad” and confiscated her passport. Mohamud was held in the airport for four days until she was released on a bond, tasked with proving her identity within a two-week time frame.
Canadian High Commission officials did not accept Suaad’s ID cards and she was charged with using a false passport, impersonating a Canadian and with being in Kenya illegally. Subsequently she was jailed by Kenyan authorities from June 3rd to June 11th, facing possible deportation to Somalia. While Mohamud was in limbo in Kenya, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon was quoted on July 24th as saying, “there is no tangible proof” that Mohamud is Canadian and that “all Canadians who hold passports generally have a picture that is identical in their passport to what they claim to be.”
It wasn’t until Mohamud requested DNA testing through a motion filed before the Canadian Federal Court by her attorney in Toronto, and then had that test conducted on August 10th 2009 that charges against her were dropped. Mohamud’s DNA was compared to that of her Canadian born son, confirming her identity with a probability of 99.99%. She was issued an emergency passport and she boarded a plane to Amsterdam to make her way home to Toronto arriving on August 15th. This DNA verification not only proved who she said she was, but, apparently, determined her citizenship status as well. This case raises the question of “who can be abandoned by the state and by what technological means? and “will this case be used to argue for even more surveillance by way of a genomic encoded passport?”
Read the Full Essay @ Racism Review
Border Control, DNA and the Case of the Lips
by Simone
After tracing his maternal ancestry in 2005 through genealogical DNA testing, or personal genomics, and finding his ancestral links to the Mende and Temne peoples of Sierra Leone, actor Isaiah Washington attested to his “rebirth” saying he believes that “DNA will finally become the tool to bridge the gap between our brothers and sisters who have been lost.” Earlier this year, now “DNA-branded” [see note at end on this term] as Sierra Leonean, Washington was sworn in as a citizen of that country. Citizenship by way of mitochondrial DNA.
But what about the role of DNA for our brothers and sisters who have been stranded or detained abroad? Enter “the lips case”.
On May 21st 2009, Somali-born Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud attempted to board a flight out of Nairobi to return home to Toronto, after a three-week visit to Kenya. Upon inspecting her passport, Dutch KLM airline authorities claimed that her lips looked different than that observed in her four-year-old passport photo, branded her an “imposter” and not the rightful holder of the passport that she presented. Mohamud was detained overnight in the airport. Two Canadian High Commission officials met with her the following morning, told her “you are not Suaad” and confiscated her passport. Mohamud was held in the airport for four days until she was released on a bond, tasked with proving her identity within a two-week time frame.
Canadian High Commission officials did not accept Suaad’s ID cards and she was charged with using a false passport, impersonating a Canadian and with being in Kenya illegally. Subsequently she was jailed by Kenyan authorities from June 3rd to June 11th, facing possible deportation to Somalia. While Mohamud was in limbo in Kenya, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon was quoted on July 24th as saying, “there is no tangible proof” that Mohamud is Canadian and that “all Canadians who hold passports generally have a picture that is identical in their passport to what they claim to be.”
It wasn’t until Mohamud requested DNA testing through a motion filed before the Canadian Federal Court by her attorney in Toronto, and then had that test conducted on August 10th 2009 that charges against her were dropped. Mohamud’s DNA was compared to that of her Canadian born son, confirming her identity with a probability of 99.99%. She was issued an emergency passport and she boarded a plane to Amsterdam to make her way home to Toronto arriving on August 15th. This DNA verification not only proved who she said she was, but, apparently, determined her citizenship status as well. This case raises the question of “who can be abandoned by the state and by what technological means? and “will this case be used to argue for even more surveillance by way of a genomic encoded passport?”
Read the Full Essay @ Racism Review
Friday, October 29, 2010
Anti-intellectualism at UAlbany
Anti-intellectualism at UAlbany
by Teresa L. Ebert and Mas'ud Zavarzadeh
Using state funding as an excuse, the University at Albany is phasing out its classics, French, Italian and Russian departments, while expanding its technologies and business programs. The decision is an act against its middle-class and working-class students who are denied a comprehensive education and are instead trained as bearers of practical skills that have market value.
To deny individuals the full range of education and consequently turn them into instruments of the market is not only betraying an educational ideal. It is a violation of the human right to develop one's full potential.
Humanities do not have market value. They are knowledge that, among other things, enables students to approach the market itself "critique-ally." The university administration, which is more at home in the business world and unsympathetic to intellectual matters, has decided that students do not need such critique-al knowledge.
This is a corporate priority. Corporations demand a work force that is technologically skilled and gets specific jobs done competently without thoughtful questioning of their consequences for the public good or pointing to "other" ways they can be done.
The humanities are critique-al knowledge rooted in the "other" -- other organizations of social relations, other modes of thinking, other forms of behavior, other values and ethics of work. French, Italian, Russian, and classics are essential to providing this knowledge in a world where the "other" is becoming increasingly more significant. Students at Albany are now limited to reading about the "other" in translation.
What is lost in that translation is the otherness of the other. The other is made to be like us. We become estranged from all who are not like us. The reactions to the proposed Cordoba Center in Manhattan are a symptom of not knowing the "other."
The reduction of the humanities is justified by the vulgar business logic of supply and demand. According to the administration, there are not enough students in these programs. This is ironic because the reason more students are not taking courses in other cultures is the provincial and anti-intellectual culture of pragmatism fostered by the administration.
UAlbany is a "research" unit of the State University system. Its task is not only teaching, but also research. Faculty in foreign languages and cultures not only make scholarly contributions to contemporary knowledge, but their very presence changes the ecology of knowledge and adds to the range and quality of scholarship in English, philosophy, history and other humanities and social sciences.
UAlbany is becoming a regional campus for training local technocrats and business people by leaving education in "other" languages and culture to those universities that educate the international ruling elite.
These universities are actively establishing centers for global studies. They educate a global elite that knows other languages and cultures and runs the global economy while the University at Albany trains its students for basic jobs in the new economy.
This two-tier education perpetuates class inequalities. Educators are the vanguard of struggles for social equality. But UAlbany is becoming an agent of inequalities. Eliminating these foreign language programs at Albany is a class decision that deprives students of a full education that is available to students in elite universities. It imposes business priorities on education and naturalizes class inequalities.
Originally Published in the Albany Times-Union
***
Teresa L. Ebert is a professor of English at the University at Albany. Mas'ud Zavarzadeh is a retired professor of English at Syracuse University. They are co-authors of "Class in Culture" and a forthcoming book on social class and the humanities in the digital age.
by Teresa L. Ebert and Mas'ud Zavarzadeh
Using state funding as an excuse, the University at Albany is phasing out its classics, French, Italian and Russian departments, while expanding its technologies and business programs. The decision is an act against its middle-class and working-class students who are denied a comprehensive education and are instead trained as bearers of practical skills that have market value.
To deny individuals the full range of education and consequently turn them into instruments of the market is not only betraying an educational ideal. It is a violation of the human right to develop one's full potential.
Humanities do not have market value. They are knowledge that, among other things, enables students to approach the market itself "critique-ally." The university administration, which is more at home in the business world and unsympathetic to intellectual matters, has decided that students do not need such critique-al knowledge.
This is a corporate priority. Corporations demand a work force that is technologically skilled and gets specific jobs done competently without thoughtful questioning of their consequences for the public good or pointing to "other" ways they can be done.
The humanities are critique-al knowledge rooted in the "other" -- other organizations of social relations, other modes of thinking, other forms of behavior, other values and ethics of work. French, Italian, Russian, and classics are essential to providing this knowledge in a world where the "other" is becoming increasingly more significant. Students at Albany are now limited to reading about the "other" in translation.
What is lost in that translation is the otherness of the other. The other is made to be like us. We become estranged from all who are not like us. The reactions to the proposed Cordoba Center in Manhattan are a symptom of not knowing the "other."
The reduction of the humanities is justified by the vulgar business logic of supply and demand. According to the administration, there are not enough students in these programs. This is ironic because the reason more students are not taking courses in other cultures is the provincial and anti-intellectual culture of pragmatism fostered by the administration.
UAlbany is a "research" unit of the State University system. Its task is not only teaching, but also research. Faculty in foreign languages and cultures not only make scholarly contributions to contemporary knowledge, but their very presence changes the ecology of knowledge and adds to the range and quality of scholarship in English, philosophy, history and other humanities and social sciences.
UAlbany is becoming a regional campus for training local technocrats and business people by leaving education in "other" languages and culture to those universities that educate the international ruling elite.
These universities are actively establishing centers for global studies. They educate a global elite that knows other languages and cultures and runs the global economy while the University at Albany trains its students for basic jobs in the new economy.
This two-tier education perpetuates class inequalities. Educators are the vanguard of struggles for social equality. But UAlbany is becoming an agent of inequalities. Eliminating these foreign language programs at Albany is a class decision that deprives students of a full education that is available to students in elite universities. It imposes business priorities on education and naturalizes class inequalities.
Originally Published in the Albany Times-Union
***
Teresa L. Ebert is a professor of English at the University at Albany. Mas'ud Zavarzadeh is a retired professor of English at Syracuse University. They are co-authors of "Class in Culture" and a forthcoming book on social class and the humanities in the digital age.
So you Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities?
Perhaps, "too real" talk about the lives of your average college professors in the Humanities--MAN
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Do Black kids still like baseball?
Do Black Kids Still Like Baseball?
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
It was one of the most memorable times I spent with my dad. Summer of 1973 and Hank Aaron was running down Babe Ruth’s career homerun record. The Atlanta Braves were in New York City for a weekend series with the New York Mets and my day surprised me with tickets. Hammerin’ Hank didn’t disappoint—he hit two homers that day. By the season’s end, Aaron had 713 homerun, two short of breaking Ruth’s record.
My dad couldn’t afford to take me to games often. Though we lived in the Bronx, literally minutes from Yankee Stadium, my dad was a Mets fan—a holdover National League fan from the 1950s before the New York Giants relocated to San Francisco and took my dad’s favorite player, Willie Mays. For my dad’s generation of Black men, Black baseball players, led by Jackie Robinson, Mays, Aaron and Frank Robinson, who would later become Major League Baseball’s first Black manager, were the realization of a world undergoing change.
When I first started watching baseball during the 1971 World Series, the sport was dominated by young Black ballplayers. The 1971 Pirates, who won the series that year, were the Blackest team in the league, in both style and substance, featuring future hall- of-famers Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente (whose running style everybody wanted to imitate), Dock Ellis, who the year before pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD, Al Oliver and Rennie Stennent. Not interested in political issues, the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were my dad’s version of Black Power and he made sure I understood the significance of their ascendance as champions.
I was hooked, as many of my peers were, this in the era before the NBA had become an international brand and the New York Knicks were derisively described as the New York “N----r-bockers.” Part of the appeal was that many of the best baseball players in the 1970s and early 1980s were Black, and they were fundamentally changing the way the game was being played, whether talking about Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson on the base paths, Rod Carew, whose .388 batting average in 1977 was the highest in thirty years and Reggie Jackson, who became Mr. October.
Black dominance in professional baseball made sense in the 1970s, as the era marked the high-water mark of the percentage of Black players in the Major Leagues. For many kids in the hood, baseball was still a sport that could get you out of the hood, into college, the minor leagues and possible the majors. But something has happened along the way.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
It was one of the most memorable times I spent with my dad. Summer of 1973 and Hank Aaron was running down Babe Ruth’s career homerun record. The Atlanta Braves were in New York City for a weekend series with the New York Mets and my day surprised me with tickets. Hammerin’ Hank didn’t disappoint—he hit two homers that day. By the season’s end, Aaron had 713 homerun, two short of breaking Ruth’s record.
My dad couldn’t afford to take me to games often. Though we lived in the Bronx, literally minutes from Yankee Stadium, my dad was a Mets fan—a holdover National League fan from the 1950s before the New York Giants relocated to San Francisco and took my dad’s favorite player, Willie Mays. For my dad’s generation of Black men, Black baseball players, led by Jackie Robinson, Mays, Aaron and Frank Robinson, who would later become Major League Baseball’s first Black manager, were the realization of a world undergoing change.
When I first started watching baseball during the 1971 World Series, the sport was dominated by young Black ballplayers. The 1971 Pirates, who won the series that year, were the Blackest team in the league, in both style and substance, featuring future hall- of-famers Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente (whose running style everybody wanted to imitate), Dock Ellis, who the year before pitched a no-hitter while high on LSD, Al Oliver and Rennie Stennent. Not interested in political issues, the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates were my dad’s version of Black Power and he made sure I understood the significance of their ascendance as champions.
I was hooked, as many of my peers were, this in the era before the NBA had become an international brand and the New York Knicks were derisively described as the New York “N----r-bockers.” Part of the appeal was that many of the best baseball players in the 1970s and early 1980s were Black, and they were fundamentally changing the way the game was being played, whether talking about Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson on the base paths, Rod Carew, whose .388 batting average in 1977 was the highest in thirty years and Reggie Jackson, who became Mr. October.
Black dominance in professional baseball made sense in the 1970s, as the era marked the high-water mark of the percentage of Black players in the Major Leagues. For many kids in the hood, baseball was still a sport that could get you out of the hood, into college, the minor leagues and possible the majors. But something has happened along the way.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
Libyan women ground their artwork in tradition
The Libyan women also show the darker side of society.
Libyan Women Ground Their Artwork in Tradition
by Natalie Moore
To many in the Western world, Arab women are mysterious, repressed and shrouded in long black robes. And many Libyans are aware of that sweeping stereotype. But Libyan women are active in politics, academia and government. They also have a presence in the arts.
Listen to the Full Story HERE
***
As the reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s bureau in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Natalie Moore covers news and issues in that community and surrounding areas.
Libyan Women Ground Their Artwork in Tradition
by Natalie Moore
To many in the Western world, Arab women are mysterious, repressed and shrouded in long black robes. And many Libyans are aware of that sweeping stereotype. But Libyan women are active in politics, academia and government. They also have a presence in the arts.
Listen to the Full Story HERE
***
As the reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s bureau in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Natalie Moore covers news and issues in that community and surrounding areas.
Lebron James Descends From Hero to Bad Cowboy
Lebron James Descends From Hero to Bad Cowboy
by Thabiti Lewis
Last week, Lebron James responded to a number of racist Twitter messages he received. He reluctantly conceded that race is perhaps the reason many are rooting against him. In doing so, after years of trying to be politically correct and race neutral Lebron revealed for the second time in three weeks the bad hand he has been dealt in the way of public perception and race.
A few sports writers caution James that pulling the race card may hurt his public image. But those who worry about the race card fail to realize that James’ situation is akin to a game of Old Maid. And just like in Old Maid after all the pairs have been matched, the person left holding the ‘old maid’ card loses. In this case, James is stuck holding the race card.
Throughout his career James has tried to appease everyone, but once he opted to appeal to himself, questions about him being a bad person suddenly emerged. His popularity today has even allegedly dropped below that of the recently maligned Tiger Woods. In an ESPN/Seton Hall Sports poll of 900 people to gauge James’s popularity, only 32 percent of white fans favor him compared to 64 percent of black fans (Tiger Woods was favored by 35 percent of white fans).
The urge to recast James as the bad guy largely stems from his recent willingness to acknowledge the racial dynamics surrounding his image—from the way he chose to leave the Cavaliers to his disclosure of racist messages sent to him on Twitter. In the aftermath, he and his other star Miami Heat teammates—Wade and Bosh—have been has unfairly deemed by some experts “bad cowboys” with a “bunker mentality.”
Can this be real? Does releasing the public racist messages sent to him on Twitter really transform Lebron James into a “bad cowboy?” Now, angered, and perhaps fatigued, he plays the hand that has been dealt to him.
On Friday ESPN SportsCenter finished its three part series on the public perceptions of Lebron James. Allow me to save us all time to understand the dynamics driving the perceptions.
In my new book Ballers of the New School I attempt to explain the impetus behind perils and perceptions of modern athletes in America. To understand the recent negative public perception of James, one must concede that there are numerous images of Black male identity that dominate the American psyche. These images range from egocentric and barbaric to excessively humble (the latter being most appealing to mainstream culture). The question of James lagging in popularity results from his decision to abandon the excessively humble persona.
Although largely apolitical, modern Black athletes are trouble for those who want to put them in a box because they do not “know their place.” By contrast, this new generation of athletes, whom I call Ballers of the New School (BNS), use performance on and beyond the playing field to claim space in the American landscape, boldly asserting their own modern voice, style, rules, and values. BNS are complex because sometimes they transform and other times they reify the socially produced distortions of black people.
Athletes of the last three decades are also problematic because they demand as much respect and money as they can claim, without apology or overstated humility. Perhaps Latrell Sprewell’s words in his famous AND 1 commercial best epitomize the complexity of sports culture, race, and BNS when he said: “You say I’m an American nightmare; I say I’m the American Dream.”
James’s recent actions officially earned him disfavor. He joins the legion of athletes that refuse to play the game of “appease and be humble.” Those who refuse to accept this role are depicted as angry, full of rage, uppity, ungrateful for their opportunities, or “bad cowboys.” BNS like James who do not play by the rules of the racial card shuffle are vilified.
James’s lagging public acceptance stems from having committed a serious infraction: he broke the racial covenant or what Charles Mills calls in his book of the same name, the racial contract. Mills argues that this contract has its own rules and ways of knowing the world—according to an assumed racial hierarchy. By breaking the contract and revealing a less than post-racial reality, James instantly earns a tag of “bad cowboy.”
Yet what is germane to James and this generation of ballers is that their culture is hip-hop. The aesthetics and principles encourage creativity and free self-expression, entrepreneurship, underground networks, the unconventional, and carving one’s own space in a republic unwilling to consistently offer equity and opportunity to non-whites.
The BNS who reach hero status yet reject the racial contract find themselves facing media campaigns that spin them as bad people. The responses to this refusal are clear indicators of the racial state of our nation.
So what really is James’s crime that such extensive vitriol and anger is being cast in his direction?
As a BNS James’s crime is his rejection of the “model minority” role in America. Playing this role means that he should be submissive, apologetic in speech, and willing to be put through the paces by white Americans to prove himself worthy. James pulled as many of these cards as his hand could hold before figuring out that more than anyone else, he alone determines his worth.
Originally published at NewsOne.com
by Thabiti Lewis
Last week, Lebron James responded to a number of racist Twitter messages he received. He reluctantly conceded that race is perhaps the reason many are rooting against him. In doing so, after years of trying to be politically correct and race neutral Lebron revealed for the second time in three weeks the bad hand he has been dealt in the way of public perception and race.
A few sports writers caution James that pulling the race card may hurt his public image. But those who worry about the race card fail to realize that James’ situation is akin to a game of Old Maid. And just like in Old Maid after all the pairs have been matched, the person left holding the ‘old maid’ card loses. In this case, James is stuck holding the race card.
Throughout his career James has tried to appease everyone, but once he opted to appeal to himself, questions about him being a bad person suddenly emerged. His popularity today has even allegedly dropped below that of the recently maligned Tiger Woods. In an ESPN/Seton Hall Sports poll of 900 people to gauge James’s popularity, only 32 percent of white fans favor him compared to 64 percent of black fans (Tiger Woods was favored by 35 percent of white fans).
The urge to recast James as the bad guy largely stems from his recent willingness to acknowledge the racial dynamics surrounding his image—from the way he chose to leave the Cavaliers to his disclosure of racist messages sent to him on Twitter. In the aftermath, he and his other star Miami Heat teammates—Wade and Bosh—have been has unfairly deemed by some experts “bad cowboys” with a “bunker mentality.”
Can this be real? Does releasing the public racist messages sent to him on Twitter really transform Lebron James into a “bad cowboy?” Now, angered, and perhaps fatigued, he plays the hand that has been dealt to him.
On Friday ESPN SportsCenter finished its three part series on the public perceptions of Lebron James. Allow me to save us all time to understand the dynamics driving the perceptions.
In my new book Ballers of the New School I attempt to explain the impetus behind perils and perceptions of modern athletes in America. To understand the recent negative public perception of James, one must concede that there are numerous images of Black male identity that dominate the American psyche. These images range from egocentric and barbaric to excessively humble (the latter being most appealing to mainstream culture). The question of James lagging in popularity results from his decision to abandon the excessively humble persona.
Although largely apolitical, modern Black athletes are trouble for those who want to put them in a box because they do not “know their place.” By contrast, this new generation of athletes, whom I call Ballers of the New School (BNS), use performance on and beyond the playing field to claim space in the American landscape, boldly asserting their own modern voice, style, rules, and values. BNS are complex because sometimes they transform and other times they reify the socially produced distortions of black people.
Athletes of the last three decades are also problematic because they demand as much respect and money as they can claim, without apology or overstated humility. Perhaps Latrell Sprewell’s words in his famous AND 1 commercial best epitomize the complexity of sports culture, race, and BNS when he said: “You say I’m an American nightmare; I say I’m the American Dream.”
James’s recent actions officially earned him disfavor. He joins the legion of athletes that refuse to play the game of “appease and be humble.” Those who refuse to accept this role are depicted as angry, full of rage, uppity, ungrateful for their opportunities, or “bad cowboys.” BNS like James who do not play by the rules of the racial card shuffle are vilified.
James’s lagging public acceptance stems from having committed a serious infraction: he broke the racial covenant or what Charles Mills calls in his book of the same name, the racial contract. Mills argues that this contract has its own rules and ways of knowing the world—according to an assumed racial hierarchy. By breaking the contract and revealing a less than post-racial reality, James instantly earns a tag of “bad cowboy.”
Yet what is germane to James and this generation of ballers is that their culture is hip-hop. The aesthetics and principles encourage creativity and free self-expression, entrepreneurship, underground networks, the unconventional, and carving one’s own space in a republic unwilling to consistently offer equity and opportunity to non-whites.
The BNS who reach hero status yet reject the racial contract find themselves facing media campaigns that spin them as bad people. The responses to this refusal are clear indicators of the racial state of our nation.
So what really is James’s crime that such extensive vitriol and anger is being cast in his direction?
As a BNS James’s crime is his rejection of the “model minority” role in America. Playing this role means that he should be submissive, apologetic in speech, and willing to be put through the paces by white Americans to prove himself worthy. James pulled as many of these cards as his hand could hold before figuring out that more than anyone else, he alone determines his worth.
Originally published at NewsOne.com
***
Thabiti Lewis teaches English at Washington State University Vancouver and is the author of Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America (Third World Press).
Weekly Webcast ‘Left of Black’ To Focus on Politics, Culture
Weekly Webcast ‘Left of Black’ To Focus on Politics, Culture
by Camille Jackson
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
DURHAM, N.C. -- This fall, Duke University African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal has taken his role as the one of the university’s public intellectuals to a new level with his weekly program, “Left of Black,” featuring interviews with academics, authors, artists and others discussing cultural issues.
The next episode of the online show will turn its attention toward politics in time for the midterm election with guests Farai Chideya, a former NPR news analyst, and Cathy Cohen, a political scientist from the University of Chicago.
Both guests will join Neal via video conference software, or Skype.
The program will air online at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 1, on Duke’s Ustream channel, ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.
Neal, who covers the most prescient topics of the day, will discuss NPR’s firing of political commentator Juan Williams with Chideya, who recently wrote a piece criticizing how the network deals with diversity. Chideya is the host of “Pop+Politics with Farai Chideya,” a three-part radio series on the 2010 midterm election.
Cohen is the author of “Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics,” and co-editor of a new book series, “Transgressing Boundaries: Studies in Black Politics and Black Communities.” She and Neal will talk about African-American voter participation.
“I definitely see this program as an extension of my desire to make the knowledge produced in and by the university available to a wider public,” Neal said. “It is also a chance to highlight the ideas of folk who aren’t the standard talking heads.”
Neal, known for his progressive views on black male masculinity, describes the program as offering “a contrarian view of blackness,” or a perspective that goes beyond the status quo of what it means to be black. Blackness, he says, cannot be defined as “a political position in the left/right paradigm.”
The 45-minute show, now in its second month, includes Neal interviewing two guests, in studio or by Skype, and introducing a “question of the week.” Student volunteer Galvin Wells of North Carolina Central University poses the question to bystanders in short video clips. He also provides additional footage and production assistance.
“Left of Black” is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke. Catherine Angst, multimedia specialist, and Jason Doty, administrative manager, tape and produce the show from a customized basement studio.
"I find it incredibly inspiring that even with very limited resources and the wider expectation to 'do more with less,' the Franklin Center still finds innovative ways of using technology to address important issues of today," Doty said.
In the last episode Neal reflected on the 15th anniversary of the Million Man March, asking guest James Peterson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, about the long-range impact of the march on black men. Also, music critic Rashod Ollision shared his critique of the current state of R&B music.
Past episodes have featured:
-- Spoken word poet Joshua Bennett speaking candidly about negotiating the constraints of black masculinity in the hip-hop era;
-- Local author Zelda Lockhart revealing her struggles with the publishing industry;
-- A discussion on how black mega churches have changed the way people worship, and the Morehouse College dress code with regular contributor and Morehouse professor Stephane Dunn;
-- And, an exploration of portrayals of black female sexuality, and rape and the Civil Rights Movement.
"Left of Black" also airs on Time Warner’s public access television stations. In Durham County, the program airs at 10 p.m. Mondays on channel 18. In Orange and Chatham counties it airs Tuesdays at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on channel 8.
The webcast can also be found on iTunesU and has been embedded by several news websites and blogs including TheLoop21.com and TheDivaFeminist.com.
For a complete archive of “Left of Black” visit Duke on Demand.
***Camille Jackson
T: (919) 681-8052
Email: camille.jackson@duke.edu
© 2010 Office of News & Communications
615 Chapel Drive, Box 90563, Durham, NC 27708-0563
(919) 684-2823; After-hours phone (for reporters on deadline): (919) 812-6603
K-Ci and JoJo Seek Redemption
Are the Hailey brothers continuing a sad tradition of the tragic 'Soul Man?'
K-Ci and JoJo Seek Redemption on Reality TV
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
Robert Townsend’s 1991 film 'The Five Heartbeats', chronicled the lives and careers of a fiction R&B group, The Five Heartbeats. At the center of the story was the character of Eddie King, Jr. (portrayed by the underrated Michael Wright), a dark shadowy figure, who was magnetic on stage, but self-destructive off stage. Eddie King. Jr. was a metaphor for the ‘Soul Man’, a tragic figure in African-American lore. Nearly 20 years later singers and brothers K-Ci and JoJo Hailey seem to follow a script that is all too known for far too many Black male singers.
The Brothers Hailey are currently the stars of the TV-One reality series K-Ci & JoJo ‘Come Clean’ which features the former Jodeci lead singers in recovery from alcohol (and presumably drug) addiction. At their peak in the mid-1990s, Jodeci were the bad-boys of R&B, thuggish counterparts to the January “white sale” clean of Boyz II Men. K-Ci and JoJo seemed to live up to that reputation in every way, including widespread rumors that K-Ci was physically abusive to then romantic partner Mary J. Blige. By the early 2000s, enough stories had begun to circulate about their personal and professional unraveling, that the worst was feared when a video of JoJo collapsing on stage hit the internet in 2008.
Gifted vocalists, whose performances always remained in conversation with their musical roots in the Black Church, the travails of K-Ci and JoJo were all too reminiscent of the many Black male singers who had struggled to balance their artistic gifts with the pressures of celebrity and dysfunctional family lives.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
K-Ci and JoJo Seek Redemption on Reality TV
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
Robert Townsend’s 1991 film 'The Five Heartbeats', chronicled the lives and careers of a fiction R&B group, The Five Heartbeats. At the center of the story was the character of Eddie King, Jr. (portrayed by the underrated Michael Wright), a dark shadowy figure, who was magnetic on stage, but self-destructive off stage. Eddie King. Jr. was a metaphor for the ‘Soul Man’, a tragic figure in African-American lore. Nearly 20 years later singers and brothers K-Ci and JoJo Hailey seem to follow a script that is all too known for far too many Black male singers.
The Brothers Hailey are currently the stars of the TV-One reality series K-Ci & JoJo ‘Come Clean’ which features the former Jodeci lead singers in recovery from alcohol (and presumably drug) addiction. At their peak in the mid-1990s, Jodeci were the bad-boys of R&B, thuggish counterparts to the January “white sale” clean of Boyz II Men. K-Ci and JoJo seemed to live up to that reputation in every way, including widespread rumors that K-Ci was physically abusive to then romantic partner Mary J. Blige. By the early 2000s, enough stories had begun to circulate about their personal and professional unraveling, that the worst was feared when a video of JoJo collapsing on stage hit the internet in 2008.
Gifted vocalists, whose performances always remained in conversation with their musical roots in the Black Church, the travails of K-Ci and JoJo were all too reminiscent of the many Black male singers who had struggled to balance their artistic gifts with the pressures of celebrity and dysfunctional family lives.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Barbershop Outreach Boosts Blood Pressure Control in Black Men
from MedPage Today
Barbershop Outreach Boosts Blood Pressure Control in Black Men
By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Hypertensive black men who got health education and monitoring along with a haircut from their barbers were able to achieve better blood pressure control, according to data from a two-year randomized intervention study.
The study, involving more than 1,000 men who patronized 17 black-owned barbershops in Dallas County, Texas, from March 2006 to December 2008, found that almost 10% more of them achieved predefined blood pressure levels with free monitoring and encouragement for physician follow-up compared with those who received only educational pamphlets.
The nonblinded barbershop intervention resulted in a trend toward lower systolic blood pressure, reflected in an absolute difference of 2.5 mm Hg compared with the control group, reported Ronald G. Victor, MD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and colleagues.
The results suggest an intriguing public health opportunity, Victor and colleagues concluded in an article published online in Archives of Internal Medicine.
"The data add to an emerging literature on the effectiveness of community health workers in the care of people with hypertension," the researchers wrote in conclusion.
"Contemporary barbers constitute a unique workforce of community health workers whose historical predecessors were barber-surgeons," they added.
An estimated 70% of hypertensive black men have blood pressure that exceeds recommended levels (Hypertension 2008; 52: 818-827). The CDC has assigned priority status to the development of novel hypertension outreach programs to deliver messages that resonate with black men, the authors wrote in the introduction to their findings.
Traditionally, black churches have partnered with the medical community as conduits of medical outreach, but fewer black men attend church than do black women, the authors noted. Black-owned barbershops have special appeal for community-based interventions because of their status as a cultural institution that draws a large and loyal male clientele, providing a comfortable discussion forum for numerous issues -- including healthcare.
Barbershop-based hypertension outreach programs have become increasingly common, wrote Victor and co-authors. Whether the programs improve hypertension control among black men has remained unclear, however.
The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the potential for barbershop outreach programs to effect better blood pressure control among hypertensive black men. All black male patrons of the 17 Dallas County barbershops were offered baseline blood pressure screening for hypertension.
Screening criteria included self-reported use of prescription blood pressure medication, a blood pressure higher than 135/85 mm Hg for men without self-reported diabetes, or a pressure greater than 130/80 mm Hg for diabetics, the investigators explained.
After the baseline period, barbershops were randomized to distribute pamphlets about hypertension as a control group or to act as an intervention group, where barbers continually offered blood pressure checks to all male customers and dispensed sex-specific messages about blood pressure control.
The barbers in the intervention group discussed blood pressure control and encouraged their customers to seek follow-up evaluation from physicians. Messages also were conveyed through the use of wall posters showing actual barbershop customers involved in hypertension treatment-seeking behaviors.
Hypertensive black men identified through screening received identical treatment prior to randomization of the barbershops.
The nine barbershops were randomized to the intervention, involving 539 patrons with confirmed hypertension. The eight barbershops assigned to the control group had a total of 483 patrons with confirmed hypertension.
The evaluation period lasted 10 months, and the primary outcome was the proportion of customers in each group who achieved blood pressure control of <135/85 mm Hg (<130/80 mm Hg for diabetic men). At baseline, 69% of the men were being treated for hypertension, and 38% of the men had blood pressure at the defined control level. At the end of the study, the proportion of barbershop patrons with blood pressure control increased in both groups: 19.9% in intervention group and 11.1% in the control group (P<0.001). However, the intervention group had significantly greater improvement from baseline compared with the control group (P=0.03).
The authors noted several important limitations to the study. For one thing, not all barbers participated fully, and not all patrons agreed to have their BP monitored and be referred for physician follow-up. Because study sites were confined to a single county, the results cannot be generalized to other areas. Additionally, because the barbershops' clientele were predominately middle income, "the intervention had limited ability to reach very low-income individuals who will require other types of intervention," the authors wrote.
They stressed that the study "provided a snapshot of BP improvement at a point in time and does not demonstrate whether the outcomes are sustainable, particularly because financial incentives were paid to barbers for conducting the intervention and to patrons for following their advice in seeking medical attention."
Additionally, because hypertensive patrons chose their individual physicians, data could not be collected on increased antihypertensive treatment costs associated with the intervention.
But "the results of this study provide the first evidence for the effectiveness of a barber-based intervention for controlling hypertension in black men and indicate that more research is needed to develop a highly effective and sustainable intervention model prior to large-scale program implementation," the authors wrote in their discussion.
By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Hypertensive black men who got health education and monitoring along with a haircut from their barbers were able to achieve better blood pressure control, according to data from a two-year randomized intervention study.
The study, involving more than 1,000 men who patronized 17 black-owned barbershops in Dallas County, Texas, from March 2006 to December 2008, found that almost 10% more of them achieved predefined blood pressure levels with free monitoring and encouragement for physician follow-up compared with those who received only educational pamphlets.
The nonblinded barbershop intervention resulted in a trend toward lower systolic blood pressure, reflected in an absolute difference of 2.5 mm Hg compared with the control group, reported Ronald G. Victor, MD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and colleagues.
The results suggest an intriguing public health opportunity, Victor and colleagues concluded in an article published online in Archives of Internal Medicine.
"The data add to an emerging literature on the effectiveness of community health workers in the care of people with hypertension," the researchers wrote in conclusion.
"Contemporary barbers constitute a unique workforce of community health workers whose historical predecessors were barber-surgeons," they added.
An estimated 70% of hypertensive black men have blood pressure that exceeds recommended levels (Hypertension 2008; 52: 818-827). The CDC has assigned priority status to the development of novel hypertension outreach programs to deliver messages that resonate with black men, the authors wrote in the introduction to their findings.
Traditionally, black churches have partnered with the medical community as conduits of medical outreach, but fewer black men attend church than do black women, the authors noted. Black-owned barbershops have special appeal for community-based interventions because of their status as a cultural institution that draws a large and loyal male clientele, providing a comfortable discussion forum for numerous issues -- including healthcare.
Barbershop-based hypertension outreach programs have become increasingly common, wrote Victor and co-authors. Whether the programs improve hypertension control among black men has remained unclear, however.
The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the potential for barbershop outreach programs to effect better blood pressure control among hypertensive black men. All black male patrons of the 17 Dallas County barbershops were offered baseline blood pressure screening for hypertension.
Screening criteria included self-reported use of prescription blood pressure medication, a blood pressure higher than 135/85 mm Hg for men without self-reported diabetes, or a pressure greater than 130/80 mm Hg for diabetics, the investigators explained.
After the baseline period, barbershops were randomized to distribute pamphlets about hypertension as a control group or to act as an intervention group, where barbers continually offered blood pressure checks to all male customers and dispensed sex-specific messages about blood pressure control.
The barbers in the intervention group discussed blood pressure control and encouraged their customers to seek follow-up evaluation from physicians. Messages also were conveyed through the use of wall posters showing actual barbershop customers involved in hypertension treatment-seeking behaviors.
Hypertensive black men identified through screening received identical treatment prior to randomization of the barbershops.
The nine barbershops were randomized to the intervention, involving 539 patrons with confirmed hypertension. The eight barbershops assigned to the control group had a total of 483 patrons with confirmed hypertension.
The evaluation period lasted 10 months, and the primary outcome was the proportion of customers in each group who achieved blood pressure control of <135/85 mm Hg (<130/80 mm Hg for diabetic men). At baseline, 69% of the men were being treated for hypertension, and 38% of the men had blood pressure at the defined control level. At the end of the study, the proportion of barbershop patrons with blood pressure control increased in both groups: 19.9% in intervention group and 11.1% in the control group (P<0.001). However, the intervention group had significantly greater improvement from baseline compared with the control group (P=0.03).
The authors noted several important limitations to the study. For one thing, not all barbers participated fully, and not all patrons agreed to have their BP monitored and be referred for physician follow-up. Because study sites were confined to a single county, the results cannot be generalized to other areas. Additionally, because the barbershops' clientele were predominately middle income, "the intervention had limited ability to reach very low-income individuals who will require other types of intervention," the authors wrote.
They stressed that the study "provided a snapshot of BP improvement at a point in time and does not demonstrate whether the outcomes are sustainable, particularly because financial incentives were paid to barbers for conducting the intervention and to patrons for following their advice in seeking medical attention."
Additionally, because hypertensive patrons chose their individual physicians, data could not be collected on increased antihypertensive treatment costs associated with the intervention.
But "the results of this study provide the first evidence for the effectiveness of a barber-based intervention for controlling hypertension in black men and indicate that more research is needed to develop a highly effective and sustainable intervention model prior to large-scale program implementation," the authors wrote in their discussion.
The Drizzy Phenomenon
special to NewBlackMan
The Drizzy Phenomenon
by Wilfredo Gomez
Lookin down from the top and it’s crowded below/my fifteen minutes started an hour ago--Drake “Fireworks”
On Wednesday, September 29 I made my way to New York City from the City of brotherly and sister love. I had readily anticipated this date for months on end and it had finally arrived. The occasion: Drake! The place: New York City, mecca for superstardom and hip-hop history. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…right? I had gone to New York City to see the phenomenon for myself. While my colleague Marc Lamont Hill has expressed his dislike for Drake with his heavily circulated “I Hate Drake. There, I Said It,” I can speak for myself in stating matter of fact that I am a Drake fan and have been since he’d been doing his thing on the mixtape circuit with the release of his critically acclaimed So Far Gone.
At a minimum I had to go to New York to see one of my new favorites, along with Beyond Belief, STS, PacDiv, and others later on in the same night. But on the other hand, I had gone to New York with the curiosity of a serious hip-hop head. I wanted to know: so what exactly is this Drake phenomenon? How serious is it? Does he put on a good show? Is he the real deal live? All of these questions, and I patiently waiting.
Even before the show, the energy and excitement, was real, very real. A brief introduction and words shared with Toure, let me know that the event was something not to be missed as FUSE would be recording the show and airing at a later date. Once I got to my seat, the anxiety of those around me was palpable. Questions and statements came in constant barrages: “What’s the first song gonna be?” “Do you think Jay-Z is gonna come out?” “I heard he ends the show with “Over.” “I wonder who the special guests are going to be.” All of this, and the show hadn’t started. The audience was consistently tinkering on the edge of falling out of their seats waiting for the show to begin.
Drake opened the show with “9Am in Dallas” a song, Drake himself wishes would have served as the introduction to his debut album Thank Me Later. From the outset, several things are clearly evident. Drake is the rebirth of the slick, so to speak, a digable planet digested and palatable because we, the viewing public, and presumably fans feel what Drake is feeling at that moment. Drake is not invested in the contested politics of transcendence. By this I mean to suggest that unlike Rick Ross he does not think himself as organized crime bosses Big Meech or Larry Hoover. Neither does he take the lead of hip-hop luminaries Jay-Z and Nas, who have at one point in their respective careers refashioned themselves as Jay Hova and God’s Son, Drake is the epitome of a hustler’s ambition turned hustler’s emotional rollercoaster. In a calculated move towards the mainstream, Drake embraces a racial sincerity and performative identity that moves towards the call for humanity as the man nicknamed “Drizzy” (famously dubbed such by mentor Lil Wayne) becomes the Aubrey Graham who some of us followed during his days on television on Degrassi.
Drake is transforming the way we understand emcees, an artist whose credibility is rooted in the musical mélange of emotional vulnerability and braggadocio. His foray into audiobiography, are less rooted in the cultural scripts on industry insiderism, a sodeparture from the hypermasculine black male identity that seems to plague all emcee’s regardless of what their class and racial backgrounds are. His attention to emotional interiority undermines traditional notions of masculinity in hip-hop by affording the artist a sense of transparency. This particular brand of artistic transparency is sorely lacking when thinking about the commercial viability of the next great thing to come out of hip-hop culture at large. Perhaps, it is possible to read into his upcoming project, a R&B mixtape and first single appropriately titled Its Never Enough and “I Get Lonely too,” as offering further insights into this matter.
In the cultural imagination and historical memory that is hip-hop, modern debates of style over substance tend to be featured prominently on your airwaves and TV screens. As evidenced from his frequent facial expressions, mood swings, and propensity for kneeling, Drake comes across as an artist whose anxiety and human frailty manifests itself in a simultaneous call towards audience approval and audience forgiveness. This duality not only finds a perfect match in the rapper, who doubles as an R&B crooner, it seems to superficially, albeit momentarily resolve the dilemma raised in Bryon Hurt’s celebrated Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by finding a substantive balance between Drake, the performer, and Aubrey Graham, the man who pens his lyrics. It is within this capacity that Drake represents a new trope within hip-hop, an antithesis of sorts, a creative corpus that counters Lil Wayne’s sentiments about not being a human being! Through Drake’s presence in the mainstream, we have found a way to wax poetic on the gauntlet of human emotions that render us, vulnerable, overwhelmed, humbled, arrogant, and at times something other than our “true” selves. The cultural and generational amnesia that consumes us is present and packaged in the emo-rapper, a paradigm of the imaginative possible impossibilities of [brown male] life.
Nowhere is this more evident than when reflecting on the “Left of Black” episode, featuring Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal and spoken word poet and soon to be Princeton doctoral student Joshua Bennett. At a minimum, Drake, his music, stage presence, and ability to clearly move the crowd effectively deconstructs the politics of cool, suggesting that there is a space from which one can contest notions of the street hustler turned hustler of scrabble and video games.
Joined by the likes of Trey Songz, Swizz Beats, Birdman, Jay-Z, it is evident that Drake doesn’t lack credibility in the hip-hop game. His commitment to his craft, regardless of his infamous “Blackberry freestyle,” his ability to move the crowd, his ability to evoke a range of emotions from audience members while also having his own self-reflexive moments speaks volumes. By explicitly invoking the memories of Marvin Gaye, Ol’ Dirty Bastard(Wu-Tang), and Aaliyah, Drake has a sense of history and his place in the pop culture pantheon of those greats and those who never got the chance to rock the mic. To be clear, there is no miseducation of Drake from which to speak of. Dare we say, that he does R&B and hip-hop like no artist since Lauryn Hill? That has yet to be proven, as Drake’s fifteen minutes of fame started an hour ago. But if this claim turns out to be truthful, please be sure to Thank Me Later!
***
Wilfredo Gomez is a Doctoral Student in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Drizzy Phenomenon
by Wilfredo Gomez
Lookin down from the top and it’s crowded below/my fifteen minutes started an hour ago--Drake “Fireworks”
On Wednesday, September 29 I made my way to New York City from the City of brotherly and sister love. I had readily anticipated this date for months on end and it had finally arrived. The occasion: Drake! The place: New York City, mecca for superstardom and hip-hop history. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…right? I had gone to New York City to see the phenomenon for myself. While my colleague Marc Lamont Hill has expressed his dislike for Drake with his heavily circulated “I Hate Drake. There, I Said It,” I can speak for myself in stating matter of fact that I am a Drake fan and have been since he’d been doing his thing on the mixtape circuit with the release of his critically acclaimed So Far Gone.
At a minimum I had to go to New York to see one of my new favorites, along with Beyond Belief, STS, PacDiv, and others later on in the same night. But on the other hand, I had gone to New York with the curiosity of a serious hip-hop head. I wanted to know: so what exactly is this Drake phenomenon? How serious is it? Does he put on a good show? Is he the real deal live? All of these questions, and I patiently waiting.
Even before the show, the energy and excitement, was real, very real. A brief introduction and words shared with Toure, let me know that the event was something not to be missed as FUSE would be recording the show and airing at a later date. Once I got to my seat, the anxiety of those around me was palpable. Questions and statements came in constant barrages: “What’s the first song gonna be?” “Do you think Jay-Z is gonna come out?” “I heard he ends the show with “Over.” “I wonder who the special guests are going to be.” All of this, and the show hadn’t started. The audience was consistently tinkering on the edge of falling out of their seats waiting for the show to begin.
Drake opened the show with “9Am in Dallas” a song, Drake himself wishes would have served as the introduction to his debut album Thank Me Later. From the outset, several things are clearly evident. Drake is the rebirth of the slick, so to speak, a digable planet digested and palatable because we, the viewing public, and presumably fans feel what Drake is feeling at that moment. Drake is not invested in the contested politics of transcendence. By this I mean to suggest that unlike Rick Ross he does not think himself as organized crime bosses Big Meech or Larry Hoover. Neither does he take the lead of hip-hop luminaries Jay-Z and Nas, who have at one point in their respective careers refashioned themselves as Jay Hova and God’s Son, Drake is the epitome of a hustler’s ambition turned hustler’s emotional rollercoaster. In a calculated move towards the mainstream, Drake embraces a racial sincerity and performative identity that moves towards the call for humanity as the man nicknamed “Drizzy” (famously dubbed such by mentor Lil Wayne) becomes the Aubrey Graham who some of us followed during his days on television on Degrassi.
Drake is transforming the way we understand emcees, an artist whose credibility is rooted in the musical mélange of emotional vulnerability and braggadocio. His foray into audiobiography, are less rooted in the cultural scripts on industry insiderism, a sodeparture from the hypermasculine black male identity that seems to plague all emcee’s regardless of what their class and racial backgrounds are. His attention to emotional interiority undermines traditional notions of masculinity in hip-hop by affording the artist a sense of transparency. This particular brand of artistic transparency is sorely lacking when thinking about the commercial viability of the next great thing to come out of hip-hop culture at large. Perhaps, it is possible to read into his upcoming project, a R&B mixtape and first single appropriately titled Its Never Enough and “I Get Lonely too,” as offering further insights into this matter.
In the cultural imagination and historical memory that is hip-hop, modern debates of style over substance tend to be featured prominently on your airwaves and TV screens. As evidenced from his frequent facial expressions, mood swings, and propensity for kneeling, Drake comes across as an artist whose anxiety and human frailty manifests itself in a simultaneous call towards audience approval and audience forgiveness. This duality not only finds a perfect match in the rapper, who doubles as an R&B crooner, it seems to superficially, albeit momentarily resolve the dilemma raised in Bryon Hurt’s celebrated Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by finding a substantive balance between Drake, the performer, and Aubrey Graham, the man who pens his lyrics. It is within this capacity that Drake represents a new trope within hip-hop, an antithesis of sorts, a creative corpus that counters Lil Wayne’s sentiments about not being a human being! Through Drake’s presence in the mainstream, we have found a way to wax poetic on the gauntlet of human emotions that render us, vulnerable, overwhelmed, humbled, arrogant, and at times something other than our “true” selves. The cultural and generational amnesia that consumes us is present and packaged in the emo-rapper, a paradigm of the imaginative possible impossibilities of [brown male] life.
Nowhere is this more evident than when reflecting on the “Left of Black” episode, featuring Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal and spoken word poet and soon to be Princeton doctoral student Joshua Bennett. At a minimum, Drake, his music, stage presence, and ability to clearly move the crowd effectively deconstructs the politics of cool, suggesting that there is a space from which one can contest notions of the street hustler turned hustler of scrabble and video games.
Joined by the likes of Trey Songz, Swizz Beats, Birdman, Jay-Z, it is evident that Drake doesn’t lack credibility in the hip-hop game. His commitment to his craft, regardless of his infamous “Blackberry freestyle,” his ability to move the crowd, his ability to evoke a range of emotions from audience members while also having his own self-reflexive moments speaks volumes. By explicitly invoking the memories of Marvin Gaye, Ol’ Dirty Bastard(Wu-Tang), and Aaliyah, Drake has a sense of history and his place in the pop culture pantheon of those greats and those who never got the chance to rock the mic. To be clear, there is no miseducation of Drake from which to speak of. Dare we say, that he does R&B and hip-hop like no artist since Lauryn Hill? That has yet to be proven, as Drake’s fifteen minutes of fame started an hour ago. But if this claim turns out to be truthful, please be sure to Thank Me Later!
***
Wilfredo Gomez is a Doctoral Student in Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Monday, October 25, 2010
What Everyone Is Missing About NPR's WilliamsGate
from the Huffington Post
What Everyone Is Missing About NPR's WilliamsGate
by Farai Chideya
"juan, gettin ugly. wonder if it will result in him severing ties, or mutual"
That was my note at the top of an email I sent back in September of 2007 to a colleague at NPR. In full disclosure, I am a former employee of NPR, let go in 2008 as part of the cancellation of three shows, including one I hosted. In the email, I'd forwarded a Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz dissecting a Fox/NPR/Juan Williams triad of recrimination. The headline: "NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk -- Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer." In Kurtz's words:
This incident is more telling than the oft-dissected statement Williams made on Fox that Michelle Obama had "this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going." Juan Williams and NPR have been a mutual mismatch for years. In this volley, Williams -- with his reported new $2 million over 3 year contract with Fox -- is the clear winner; with Fox a close second; and NPR left holding the bag. It need not have been this way.
If NPR had such clear concerns over how Juan Williams fit into their organization, in the amorphous role of "news analyst," then they had an opportunity to let him go a long time ago. They could have decided he didn't fit their needs, and moved on in a less polarized time. But by firing him now, in this instance, after years of sitting uncomfortably with his dual roles on NPR and Fox, they made a few crucial errors. They chose to fire him for doing what he has done for years... be a hype man for Bill O'Reilly. Why now? And they also showed tone-deaf communication with member stations by firing Williams during a pledge drive season. I know to many that will sound like nit-picking, but the relationship between NPR and member stations has oft been strained, and the Williams matter does so more, as evidenced by station disclaimers like this one from WBUR.
Author and Atlantic Blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote of Williams, "It's a dangerous, dangerous thing to make a living running your mouth." He was referring to the Carmichael/Obama statement. I would agree, and disagree. Having been both a news analyst and a reporter, I think it's dangerous and valuable to step up to the mic as an expert. I have been a pundit, but I always simultaneously did reporting. Recently, I've been going to Tea Party meetings and immigration rights meetings. Getting out in the field and actually talking to people is a wondrous thing. You learn we are not monolithic, any of us. But reporting has become devalued in the current media environment, which is struggling with revenue models. Far better, as a simple ratio of time-to-income earned, is simply to find a show that will have you on and do whatever you have to do to ingratiate yourself with the host.
Juan Williams pointedly said in his comments after the firing that he was the only black man on-air at NPR.... and not a reporter at that. Guest hosting on Fox, he also called himself a "loyal employee" of NPR, and implied the network was run by a "far-left mob." (If so, I didn't meet any in my four years at NPR. It's run by a Beltway cohort, perhaps, but not "far-left.") Do I think NPR fired him because he is black? No. Do I think NPR kept Williams on for years, as the relationship degraded, because he is a black man? Absolutely. Williams' presence on air was a fig-leaf for much broader and deeper diversity problems at the network. NPR needs to hire more black men in house on staff as part of adding diverse staff across many ethnicities and races. It also needs, broadly, a diversity upgrade that doesn't just focus on numbers, but on protocols for internal communication. Among the revelations in this incident is that the Vice President of News fired Williams by phone without giving him the opportunity to come into the office and discuss it.
After I was let go from hosting an African-American issues show at NPR, I walked away relatively quietly, though with a series of questions about how power was allocated and shared at the network, and whether diversity truly mattered to management. Although the focus right now is on whether NPR should be defunded (God no!), I would like to see a little more light shine on how NPR deals with diversity. It has a new diversity czar, Keith Woods, and I hope he is empowered to look at the issue broadly and respected by management.
I also hope that NPR continues to support its programming that does feature diverse voices, including Michel Martin's Tell Me More (which had a great, honest roundtable about Williams) and acquired/partner programming like the fantastic on-the-road/town-hall show State of the Re:Union by Al Letson.
This country needs NPR, now more than ever. But it needs an NPR and media, broadly, that are adventurous rather than expedient when it comes to reporting on a divided America, and cultivating the most diverse staff, and audience.
***
Farai Chideya is currently broadcasting public radio midterm election specials, reported in the field. You can find more information at PopandPolitics.com
Follow Farai Chideya on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@faraichideya
What Everyone Is Missing About NPR's WilliamsGate
by Farai Chideya
"juan, gettin ugly. wonder if it will result in him severing ties, or mutual"
That was my note at the top of an email I sent back in September of 2007 to a colleague at NPR. In full disclosure, I am a former employee of NPR, let go in 2008 as part of the cancellation of three shows, including one I hosted. In the email, I'd forwarded a Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz dissecting a Fox/NPR/Juan Williams triad of recrimination. The headline: "NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk -- Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer." In Kurtz's words:
The White House reached out to National Public Radio over the weekend, offering analyst Juan Williams a presidential interview to mark yesterday's 50th anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock. But NPR turned down the interview, and Williams's talk with Bush wound up in a very different media venue: Fox News. Williams said yesterday he was "stunned" by NPR's decision... Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news, said she "felt strongly" that "the White House shouldn't be selecting the person."
This incident is more telling than the oft-dissected statement Williams made on Fox that Michelle Obama had "this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going." Juan Williams and NPR have been a mutual mismatch for years. In this volley, Williams -- with his reported new $2 million over 3 year contract with Fox -- is the clear winner; with Fox a close second; and NPR left holding the bag. It need not have been this way.
If NPR had such clear concerns over how Juan Williams fit into their organization, in the amorphous role of "news analyst," then they had an opportunity to let him go a long time ago. They could have decided he didn't fit their needs, and moved on in a less polarized time. But by firing him now, in this instance, after years of sitting uncomfortably with his dual roles on NPR and Fox, they made a few crucial errors. They chose to fire him for doing what he has done for years... be a hype man for Bill O'Reilly. Why now? And they also showed tone-deaf communication with member stations by firing Williams during a pledge drive season. I know to many that will sound like nit-picking, but the relationship between NPR and member stations has oft been strained, and the Williams matter does so more, as evidenced by station disclaimers like this one from WBUR.
Author and Atlantic Blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote of Williams, "It's a dangerous, dangerous thing to make a living running your mouth." He was referring to the Carmichael/Obama statement. I would agree, and disagree. Having been both a news analyst and a reporter, I think it's dangerous and valuable to step up to the mic as an expert. I have been a pundit, but I always simultaneously did reporting. Recently, I've been going to Tea Party meetings and immigration rights meetings. Getting out in the field and actually talking to people is a wondrous thing. You learn we are not monolithic, any of us. But reporting has become devalued in the current media environment, which is struggling with revenue models. Far better, as a simple ratio of time-to-income earned, is simply to find a show that will have you on and do whatever you have to do to ingratiate yourself with the host.
Juan Williams pointedly said in his comments after the firing that he was the only black man on-air at NPR.... and not a reporter at that. Guest hosting on Fox, he also called himself a "loyal employee" of NPR, and implied the network was run by a "far-left mob." (If so, I didn't meet any in my four years at NPR. It's run by a Beltway cohort, perhaps, but not "far-left.") Do I think NPR fired him because he is black? No. Do I think NPR kept Williams on for years, as the relationship degraded, because he is a black man? Absolutely. Williams' presence on air was a fig-leaf for much broader and deeper diversity problems at the network. NPR needs to hire more black men in house on staff as part of adding diverse staff across many ethnicities and races. It also needs, broadly, a diversity upgrade that doesn't just focus on numbers, but on protocols for internal communication. Among the revelations in this incident is that the Vice President of News fired Williams by phone without giving him the opportunity to come into the office and discuss it.
After I was let go from hosting an African-American issues show at NPR, I walked away relatively quietly, though with a series of questions about how power was allocated and shared at the network, and whether diversity truly mattered to management. Although the focus right now is on whether NPR should be defunded (God no!), I would like to see a little more light shine on how NPR deals with diversity. It has a new diversity czar, Keith Woods, and I hope he is empowered to look at the issue broadly and respected by management.
I also hope that NPR continues to support its programming that does feature diverse voices, including Michel Martin's Tell Me More (which had a great, honest roundtable about Williams) and acquired/partner programming like the fantastic on-the-road/town-hall show State of the Re:Union by Al Letson.
This country needs NPR, now more than ever. But it needs an NPR and media, broadly, that are adventurous rather than expedient when it comes to reporting on a divided America, and cultivating the most diverse staff, and audience.
***
Farai Chideya is currently broadcasting public radio midterm election specials, reported in the field. You can find more information at PopandPolitics.com
Follow Farai Chideya on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@faraichideya
'Left of Black': Episode #6 featuring James Braxton Peterson and Rashod Ollison
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Bucknell University Professor James Braxton Peterson in a discussion of the legacy of the Million Man March, The Morehouse College dress code, homophobia and bullying, and Hip-Hop Masculinity.
Neal also talks with former Baltimore Sun music critic and current pop culture critic for The Virginian Pilot and Jet Magazine about the current state of R&B Music and the career of Prince.
Neal also talks with former Baltimore Sun music critic and current pop culture critic for The Virginian Pilot and Jet Magazine about the current state of R&B Music and the career of Prince.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Race, Rage, and Reconciliation
from Pop & Politics
Race, Rage, and Reconciliation
Pop & Politics Radio Special
Farai Chideya and team go to Florida to talk about the ways the American Dream is colliding with reality, and what it means in the voting booth. Chideya speaks with Colonel Allen West, a black Tea Party candidate; residents of a historic black community, where the land has been contaminated by industrial toxins, who say business and politicians have abandoned them; Muslim-Americans in Gainesville; and victors and victims of the foreclosure crisis.
Listen HERE
Pop & Politics Radio Special
Farai Chideya and team go to Florida to talk about the ways the American Dream is colliding with reality, and what it means in the voting booth. Chideya speaks with Colonel Allen West, a black Tea Party candidate; residents of a historic black community, where the land has been contaminated by industrial toxins, who say business and politicians have abandoned them; Muslim-Americans in Gainesville; and victors and victims of the foreclosure crisis.
Listen HERE
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Gary Younge: 'Forgetting Afghanistan'
Forgetting Afghanistan
by Gary Younge
During a recent debate between the Colorado senatorial candidates in Denver, Republican Ken Buck gave his considered assessment of the occupation of Afghanistan. "It's a fundamental mistake to assume that a people as backward as the Afghans are going to be able to build the industrialized nation and the democracy that it takes to be able to achieve what we would consider a Western-style democracy."
Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs would certainly agree. In written and videotaped evidence to Army investigators, a member of his brigade described Gibbs as harboring "pure hatred for all Afghanis," saying he "constantly referred to them as savages." So to prove his Western-style sophistication, Gibbs would allegedly order civilians to be "waxed" for sport. Then he and his fellow soldiers would pose with the corpses and, sometimes, keep skulls and other body parts as trophies.
As Buck was speaking, the race was on for the military to recall all the pictures that had been circulating in the unit before the "backward" Afghans got hold of them and drew their own conclusions about the kind of civilization their occupiers had in store for them.
This, of course, should not be confused with the raid in February that killed two pregnant women, a teenage girl and a police commander (all innocent) or the execution-style murder of eight teens and preteens in Kunar province just after Christmas—both of which were originally covered up. Or any other atrocities that we have not yet heard about or may never hear about.
But if Buck's comments were a gaffe, it is not clear by whose standards. Unlike Christine O'Donnell's flirtation with witchcraft or Meg Whitman's nanny saga, his statements made no headlines, sparked no comment and drew no fire. Among the hundred or so liberals in an overspill room watching on the big screen, there was nary a howl of derision or disbelief. Buck's Democratic opponent, Michael Bennet, did not see fit to challenge him. His remarks moved neither polls nor people nor pundits. The race did not change.
The American people, it seems, are bored with war. Like a reality show that's gone on too long, it ceases to shock, shame or even interest. In September, when pollsters asked what the most important problems facing the country are, just 3 percent mentioned Afghanistan. Even when combined with Iraq it has not reached double digits for several months. In a CBS poll in early October it did not register at all. A Pew poll the same month found that just 23 percent said they were following the situation closely. And they do not like what they see. Polls show that 60 percent of Americans believe Afghanistan is a lost cause, and roughly half compare it to Vietnam and favor a timetable for withdrawal.
Unlike Iraq, however, which was electoral kryptonite for the GOP, the Afghan war is absent from this electoral moment, suggesting that nobody will be asked to pay—let alone be made to pay—for these mistakes. "The essential characteristic of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common," wrote nineteenth-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, "and must have forgotten many things as well."
Read the Full Essay @ The Nation
***
Gary Younge, the Alfred Knobler Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the New York correspondent for the Guardian and the author of No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the Deep South (Mississippi) and Stranger in a Strange Land: Travels in the Disunited States (New Press).
by Gary Younge
During a recent debate between the Colorado senatorial candidates in Denver, Republican Ken Buck gave his considered assessment of the occupation of Afghanistan. "It's a fundamental mistake to assume that a people as backward as the Afghans are going to be able to build the industrialized nation and the democracy that it takes to be able to achieve what we would consider a Western-style democracy."
Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs would certainly agree. In written and videotaped evidence to Army investigators, a member of his brigade described Gibbs as harboring "pure hatred for all Afghanis," saying he "constantly referred to them as savages." So to prove his Western-style sophistication, Gibbs would allegedly order civilians to be "waxed" for sport. Then he and his fellow soldiers would pose with the corpses and, sometimes, keep skulls and other body parts as trophies.
As Buck was speaking, the race was on for the military to recall all the pictures that had been circulating in the unit before the "backward" Afghans got hold of them and drew their own conclusions about the kind of civilization their occupiers had in store for them.
This, of course, should not be confused with the raid in February that killed two pregnant women, a teenage girl and a police commander (all innocent) or the execution-style murder of eight teens and preteens in Kunar province just after Christmas—both of which were originally covered up. Or any other atrocities that we have not yet heard about or may never hear about.
But if Buck's comments were a gaffe, it is not clear by whose standards. Unlike Christine O'Donnell's flirtation with witchcraft or Meg Whitman's nanny saga, his statements made no headlines, sparked no comment and drew no fire. Among the hundred or so liberals in an overspill room watching on the big screen, there was nary a howl of derision or disbelief. Buck's Democratic opponent, Michael Bennet, did not see fit to challenge him. His remarks moved neither polls nor people nor pundits. The race did not change.
The American people, it seems, are bored with war. Like a reality show that's gone on too long, it ceases to shock, shame or even interest. In September, when pollsters asked what the most important problems facing the country are, just 3 percent mentioned Afghanistan. Even when combined with Iraq it has not reached double digits for several months. In a CBS poll in early October it did not register at all. A Pew poll the same month found that just 23 percent said they were following the situation closely. And they do not like what they see. Polls show that 60 percent of Americans believe Afghanistan is a lost cause, and roughly half compare it to Vietnam and favor a timetable for withdrawal.
Unlike Iraq, however, which was electoral kryptonite for the GOP, the Afghan war is absent from this electoral moment, suggesting that nobody will be asked to pay—let alone be made to pay—for these mistakes. "The essential characteristic of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common," wrote nineteenth-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, "and must have forgotten many things as well."
Read the Full Essay @ The Nation
***
Gary Younge, the Alfred Knobler Journalism Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the New York correspondent for the Guardian and the author of No Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the Deep South (Mississippi) and Stranger in a Strange Land: Travels in the Disunited States (New Press).
Thursday, October 21, 2010
I Was Anita Hill
from the Huffington Post
I Was Anita Hill
by Duchess Harris
The political event that had an impact on my young adult life more than any other was the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings.
In October of 1991 I was 22-years-old and in my first month of graduate school. It was the first time I'd left the Eastern seaboard where I'd always used public transportation. Without understanding the Midwestern landscape I moved to Minnesota with no car. I had broken up with my East Coast boyfriend and I was the only Black student in my department. I couldn't afford long-distance calls and Al Gore hadn't invented the internet, so I was often glued to the television.
I watched the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings every day. Even though Anita Hill was a Republican social conservative, she was a Black woman who taught law, and that was my dream. I watched wondering, what if something horrible like this happened to me? No one believes her.
A few years later, I started teaching in a department (that I am no longer affiliated with), and I soon found out. We went on an international research trip. We were in a warm destination during January term, and my department chair asked me to go to a topless beach with him.
Similar to Anita Hill, I did not come forward. A well-meaning white colleague (like Nina Totenberg), told the Dean who insisted that I file a grievance. I was not tenured and couldn't imagine defying the Dean.
To make a long story short, an investigation was done, and I was not believed. Similar to Professor Hill, I was publicly vilified. Similar to Professor Hill, my career persevered.
I am sharing this story because a few years later I ran into my perpetrator's wife. Unlike Virginia Thomas, she never called my campus phone and she never asked me to apologize.
If Mrs. Thomas thinks that those of us who have experienced this are sorry that we spoke truth to power, well yes Virginia; there is a Santa Claus.
***
Duchess Harris is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Macalester College, author of Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton, and co-editor with Bruce D. Baum of Racially Writing the Republic: Racists, Race Rebels, and Transformations of American Identity.by Duchess Harris
The political event that had an impact on my young adult life more than any other was the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings.
In October of 1991 I was 22-years-old and in my first month of graduate school. It was the first time I'd left the Eastern seaboard where I'd always used public transportation. Without understanding the Midwestern landscape I moved to Minnesota with no car. I had broken up with my East Coast boyfriend and I was the only Black student in my department. I couldn't afford long-distance calls and Al Gore hadn't invented the internet, so I was often glued to the television.
I watched the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings every day. Even though Anita Hill was a Republican social conservative, she was a Black woman who taught law, and that was my dream. I watched wondering, what if something horrible like this happened to me? No one believes her.
A few years later, I started teaching in a department (that I am no longer affiliated with), and I soon found out. We went on an international research trip. We were in a warm destination during January term, and my department chair asked me to go to a topless beach with him.
Similar to Anita Hill, I did not come forward. A well-meaning white colleague (like Nina Totenberg), told the Dean who insisted that I file a grievance. I was not tenured and couldn't imagine defying the Dean.
To make a long story short, an investigation was done, and I was not believed. Similar to Professor Hill, I was publicly vilified. Similar to Professor Hill, my career persevered.
I am sharing this story because a few years later I ran into my perpetrator's wife. Unlike Virginia Thomas, she never called my campus phone and she never asked me to apologize.
If Mrs. Thomas thinks that those of us who have experienced this are sorry that we spoke truth to power, well yes Virginia; there is a Santa Claus.
***
That Old Time Religion: Remembering Albertina Walker
That Old Time Religion: Remembering Albertina Walker
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
Contemporary Gospel music is experiencing it’s greatest period of sustained growth and success. Black Gospel artists such as CeCe Winans, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, Mary, Mary and Donnie McClurkin have become major stars. Today’s Gospel artists not only find their music programmed alongside top R&B hits on Urban radio, they also benefit from exposure on cable television networks like The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) and movie and stage productions thanks to the enterprises of Tyler Perry & David E. Talbert.
This is quite a contrast to the world that Albertina Walker envisioned when she founded The Caravans—Gospel’s first Black female super-group—in 1953. Walker, who died on October 8th, was one of the last links to a more humble period for Gospel Music and by extension Black America.
As author Anthony Halibut describes those humble beginnings, using the example of one of Walker’s inspirations Roberta Martin, “she began her career in store-front churches, singing for nickels and dimes.” Heilbut could have been talking about any of the Black Gospel singers who first came to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s like Albertina Walker, as easily as he could have been talking about the origins of Gospel music itself.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21
Contemporary Gospel music is experiencing it’s greatest period of sustained growth and success. Black Gospel artists such as CeCe Winans, Yolanda Adams, Kirk Franklin, Mary, Mary and Donnie McClurkin have become major stars. Today’s Gospel artists not only find their music programmed alongside top R&B hits on Urban radio, they also benefit from exposure on cable television networks like The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) and movie and stage productions thanks to the enterprises of Tyler Perry & David E. Talbert.
This is quite a contrast to the world that Albertina Walker envisioned when she founded The Caravans—Gospel’s first Black female super-group—in 1953. Walker, who died on October 8th, was one of the last links to a more humble period for Gospel Music and by extension Black America.
As author Anthony Halibut describes those humble beginnings, using the example of one of Walker’s inspirations Roberta Martin, “she began her career in store-front churches, singing for nickels and dimes.” Heilbut could have been talking about any of the Black Gospel singers who first came to prominence in the 1940s and 1950s like Albertina Walker, as easily as he could have been talking about the origins of Gospel music itself.
Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Inside the Secret World of Mental Illness
The One the Record discussion tackles the hidden world of mental illness with Psychiatrist Dr. Janet Taylor; mental health advocate, Mychal Denzel Smith; and author Sil Lai Abrams with Our World host, Marc Lamont Hill
'Left of Black': Episode #5 featuring Danielle McGuire and Stephane Dunn
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Wayne State University Historian Danielle McGuire, the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.
Neal also talks with Morehouse College English Professor Stephane Dunn about the recent Vibe Magazine article 'The Mean Girls of Morehouse." Dunn is a regular contributor to theLoop21.com and the author of Baad Bitches and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.
Neal also talks with Morehouse College English Professor Stephane Dunn about the recent Vibe Magazine article 'The Mean Girls of Morehouse." Dunn is a regular contributor to theLoop21.com and the author of Baad Bitches and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Mad at 'Mad Men'
The creators of Mad Men get so many things right in this period television series. Too bad they get black women so wrong.
Mad at 'Mad Men'
by Salamishah Tillet
In Mad Men, AMC's seminal series on the 1960s advertising scene, all the women are white, all the blacks are men and, well, the rest of us non-male colored folks are housekeepers and Playboy bunnies. At least, that's what one would think watching the show lauded by The Washington Post as "TV's most feminist show."
Mad Men is all about progressive gender politics -- as long as it comes wrapped in white skin. For female viewers who both enjoy Mad Men and come wrapped in brown skin, watching the show can be a frustrating experience.
For the fourth season, Mad Men, which comes to a close on Sunday, the civil rights movement serves as little more than a decorative backdrop. Now set between 1964 and 1965, the show continues to wonderfully detail the fall and the failures of its patriarch, Don Draper, while also exploring the limited gender roles that stifle white suburban housewives, like Betty Draper-turned-Francis, and the sexual harassment and gender discrimination that plague working women, like Peggy Olson and Joan Harris.
In fact, the show's creative representations of white male chauvinism and a budding white feminist movement is best captured in the ninth episode of this season, "Beautiful Girls," which oddly pits the fomenting civil rights movement against the budding feminist movement. When Abe, a white male hipster, sits down with Peggy and waxes philosophic about revolution -- particularly the upheaval in Greece and the civil rights movement in America -- Peggy quickly interrupts, "Most of the things that Negroes can't do, I can't do, and no one seems to care." Abe chides: "All right, Peggy, we'll have a civil rights march for women."
The civil rights movement, it seems, was for black men only.
Part of the reason the show gets away with such a reductionist version of the civil rights era is that for the past two seasons, there have been few references to the major battles and gains of this significant social movement. Significant moments of the '60s, from the March on Washington to the Birmingham Bombing to President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act, are either mentioned in passing or show up as grainy news footage on TV.
Black male historical figures like Malcolm X, Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte are mentioned only briefly by the show's white characters. Or they're strangely used as the shadowy metaphor for the societal oppression of white women, like Betty Draper dreaming about Medgar Evers when she is heavily sedated for her third child's birth, or when the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight serves as a backdrop for Peggy Olsen's duel with her family.
Read the Full Essay @ The Root
Mad at 'Mad Men'
by Salamishah Tillet
In Mad Men, AMC's seminal series on the 1960s advertising scene, all the women are white, all the blacks are men and, well, the rest of us non-male colored folks are housekeepers and Playboy bunnies. At least, that's what one would think watching the show lauded by The Washington Post as "TV's most feminist show."
Mad Men is all about progressive gender politics -- as long as it comes wrapped in white skin. For female viewers who both enjoy Mad Men and come wrapped in brown skin, watching the show can be a frustrating experience.
For the fourth season, Mad Men, which comes to a close on Sunday, the civil rights movement serves as little more than a decorative backdrop. Now set between 1964 and 1965, the show continues to wonderfully detail the fall and the failures of its patriarch, Don Draper, while also exploring the limited gender roles that stifle white suburban housewives, like Betty Draper-turned-Francis, and the sexual harassment and gender discrimination that plague working women, like Peggy Olson and Joan Harris.
In fact, the show's creative representations of white male chauvinism and a budding white feminist movement is best captured in the ninth episode of this season, "Beautiful Girls," which oddly pits the fomenting civil rights movement against the budding feminist movement. When Abe, a white male hipster, sits down with Peggy and waxes philosophic about revolution -- particularly the upheaval in Greece and the civil rights movement in America -- Peggy quickly interrupts, "Most of the things that Negroes can't do, I can't do, and no one seems to care." Abe chides: "All right, Peggy, we'll have a civil rights march for women."
The civil rights movement, it seems, was for black men only.
Part of the reason the show gets away with such a reductionist version of the civil rights era is that for the past two seasons, there have been few references to the major battles and gains of this significant social movement. Significant moments of the '60s, from the March on Washington to the Birmingham Bombing to President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act, are either mentioned in passing or show up as grainy news footage on TV.
Black male historical figures like Malcolm X, Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte are mentioned only briefly by the show's white characters. Or they're strangely used as the shadowy metaphor for the societal oppression of white women, like Betty Draper dreaming about Medgar Evers when she is heavily sedated for her third child's birth, or when the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight serves as a backdrop for Peggy Olsen's duel with her family.
Read the Full Essay @ The Root
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