Trailer: 'Night Catches Us' with Anthony Mackie & Kerry Washington

ReelBlack Talks with Director Tanya Hamilton of 'Night Catches Us'

Reelblack sat down with filmmaker Tanya Hamilton to talk about her debut feature, NIGHT CATCHES US. Filmed entirely in Philadelphia, it took nearly 10 years to develop and stars Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival and Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films, It opens in Philadelphia, New York and Santa Monica on December 3, 2010.

ABOUT THE MOVIE

In 1976, after years of mysterious absence, Marcus (Anthony Mackie, "The Hurt Locker") returns to the Philadelphia neighborhood where he came of age in the midst of the Black Power movement. While his arrival raises suspicion among his family and former neighbors, he finds acceptance from his old friend Patricia (Kerry Washington, "Ray," "Lift") and her daughter. However, Marcus quickly finds himself at odds with the organization he once embraced, whose members suspect he orchestrated the slaying of their former comrade-in-arms. In a startling sequence of events, Marcus must protect a secret that could shatter everyone's beliefs as he rediscovers his forbidden passion for Patricia.

Official Website with Trailer and FB info

Encouraging Black Adoption

Blacks are less likely to adopt than whites.

Why Black Couples Should Think Twice About Adoption
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend always holds a special place for me. Eight years ago, on the Friday after Thanksgiving my wife and I got word that we would be adopting our second child. The anniversary of my youngest daughter’s adoption coincides with National Adoption Month, a month set aside to raise awareness about the status of children in the Foster Care system.

According to statistics provided by the Administration for Children and Families, there are nearly a half-million children currently in Foster Care. Thirty-one percent of those children within Foster Care are Black, representing a percentage that twice that of the Black population in the United States.

The reasons why Black kids populate the Foster Care at such a high percentage are varied, including the fact child welfare offices often disproportionately direct Black children in Foster Care, instead of showing more patience in dealing with the struggles of Black families. As NPR’s Michel Martin noted in his story about Foster Care last year, very often child welfare workers bring negative opinions about Black families into their sense of what would be in the in best interests of Black children.

But the issues that send Black children into Foster Care is just one part of the narrative. Black children are also disproportionately represented in Foster Care because Black adults do not adopt children at nearly the same rates as their White peers. As recently as two years ago, the federal government embarked on an ad campaign to encourage Black adults to adopt Black children.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21

Playwright Marcus Gardley Talks About New Play

Hailed by critics as the next August Wilson, Gardley has a new play starring Phylicia Rashad and a promising career ahead of him.

Playwright Marcus Gardley Talks About New Play
by Abdul Ali | The Root.com

At the young age of 32, playwright Marcus Gardley has racked up several awards for his plays and is already drawing comparisons to the legendary August Wilson. A sought-after playwright in the regional theater circuit, the Oakland, Calif., native was named one of Dramatists magazine's 50 playwrights to watch.

Gardley's latest foray onto the regional stage is Every Tongue Confess, running at Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage until Jan. 2, 2011. The play, starring Phylicia Rashad, is a moving response to an almost forgotten racial inferno of the mid-1990s, when hundreds of black churches in the South were mysteriously burned.

Gardley spoke to The Root about being a young playwright, how he got started and how he really feels about being compared to August Wilson.

The Root: I first heard of you when you were compared to August Wilson in the New York Times. How do you feel about that?

Marcus Gardley: I struggled with that a lot. I love August Wilson, but I don't want to be the second coming of anyone. It's definitely a compliment. But I think in the theater, we tend to put people in boxes. He [Wilson] was more interested in naturalism and realism. And I am not. I appreciate and love naturalism, but I don't do it well. So my fear was, if people came to my play expecting to see a naturalistic play, they'd be turned off by the magic realism that I'm very much in the school of. I hope that the work I create can be in dialogue with his. And I hope more young writers can be a part of this conversation. There's a tendency to pick one. August Wilson was "one" for so many years. He fought to not be the only one. There's a way to celebrate the diversity.

TR: As a storyteller, what are your thoughts about contemporary film and theater?

MG: I see a lot of movies and feel like I can do a better job. It's all about opportunity. Theater has become so expensive, and my audience is young and they can't afford it. My job is to write to all people. Sometimes I think, why am I wasting my time? I honestly don't know why I haven't left [to work in TV or film]. It's just that I'm called to do this. I have had a lot of older people come up to me and say they don't get it. They say my play is too loud. There's too much going on. Subscribers tend to be older and white; I want to find a way to bring more young people and diverse groups into theater.

Read the Full Interview @ The Root

'Left of Black': Episode #11 featuring Curator Trevor Schoonmaker

Left of Black # 11--November 29, 2010
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is on location at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, NC with curator Trevor Schoonmaker, who curated The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, which runs at the Nasher Museum until February.

Schoonmaker's previous exhibitions at the Nasher Museum include Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (2008-10) and Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode (2007-08). Prior to joining the Nasher Museum his exhibitions included The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol (2006), DTroit (2003-04), and Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (2003-05). He edited the book Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway.

Looking Back (Forward): "Sun City" by Artists United Against Apartheid

Classic video as example of pitch perfect agitprop. Given the way this collection blurs genre and generation, can't help wonder what it might look like if done today?

Any thoughts?

Mumia Abu-Jamal Talks Kanye West

from The Liberator Magazine

Mumia comes to the defense of West from behind enemy lines, almost saying for him now what Kanye might say one day for himself when he's older and wiser -- Mumia has nothing to lose. For now, Mumia says Kanye speaks directly through his art as one of the "most brilliant musical artists of his generation."

Listen HERE

The Misunderestimation of Sarah Palin

The Misunderestimation of Sarah Palin
by Melissa Harris-Perry

I assigned Sarah Palin's Going Rogue in my course on women in contemporary US media and politics. I spent the week walking around town, riding the train and dashing through airports with the book tucked under my arm. "Isn't she awesome?" gushed a waitress in a New Jersey restaurant. My seatmate on a flight to Louisiana smiled knowingly and whipped out her copy of Decision Points. On my way to California a guy in a University of Alaska sweatshirt nearly threw himself across the aisle to chat with me. It was a camaraderie with perfect strangers that I once evoked by wearing my Obama sweatshirt.

I expected my Princeton students—mostly young women, self-identified as liberal and feminist and actively engaged in local and national politics—to be critical of Palin. But although they found her authorial voice irritatingly self-assured and disagreed with her policy conclusions, they also found her surprisingly compelling. They thoughtfully drew parallels between her nontraditional (dare I say mavericky?) career choices and those of Hillary Clinton, whose Living History we read the same week.

I pushed my personal Palin test one step further by watching Sarah Palin's Alaska with my 8-year-old daughter. My kid's dislike of Palin is pure, instinctive and content-free. It's not as though she has well-formed policy positions; she just knows that Palin was an opponent to be vanquished. Born in Hyde Park, my daughter learned to read "Obama" as her first word, because it was plastered on signs all over our neighborhood in 2004. My kid accompanied me to campaign events throughout 2008 and has heard many kitchen table commentaries railing against Palin and the Tea Party. But twenty minutes into the first episode, she was transfixed. She loved watching the baby bears. She was jealous that Palin had a studio in her house: "Mom, can't you get one from MSNBC?" She cracked up with hand-clapping hysteria as the mountain-scaling Palin shouted, "I was never a gymnast or a cheerleader!" At the end my kid declared, "I know we don't agree with her, but her life sure is interesting."

Eight-year-olds don't vote. My students are not planning to switch parties. My book toting elicited as much clucking disapproval as it did enthusiastic bonding. My experiences are not scientific or systematic, but after reading and watching Palin and the reactions to her these past few weeks I am convinced that underestimating Sarah Palin is a mistake of epic proportions.

Much of the urban East Coast discourse about Palin and other Tea Party women is dismissive and mocking. Most Democratic and many Republican commentators rely on a basic assertion that Palin is stupid and therefore not credible. But this perspective ignores that visceral emotions are at least as important as sober rationality in making political choices. Whatever her failings, Palin has successfully harnessed new media forms to engage and direct emotional reactions in ways that are surprisingly effective.

Read the Full Essay @ The Nation

Inside Jay-Z's Launch of "Decoded" With Droga5, Bing

Inside Jay-Z's Launch of "Decoded" With Droga5, Bing
by Tyler Gray|Wed Nov 24, 2010

For the launch of his autobiography, hip-hop's premiere entrepreneur turned marketing into interactive art and a scavenger hunt that rewarded his die-hard fans. Here's an exclusive peek inside Jay's bag of tricks.

On Kanye West's new song, "So Appalled," Jay-Z raps, "I'm so appalled, I might buy the mall, just to show [...] how much more I have in store."

As Jay's protégé's album dropped this week (and leaked much earlier on the web), Jay himself was revealing what he'd long had in store for the publishing world: a game-changing marketing plan for his autobiography, Decoded, itself a groundbreaking book.

Beyond a mere collection of stories--which many readers would find plenty tantalizing--Decoded is also a rap Rosetta Stone. Listeners can literally decode Jay's lyrics on 11 studio albums to unlock new details about the 40-year-old's personal history. The marketing for the book took the idea further, mashing up old-school billboard advertising, new-school social media, mobile apps, and more for an interactive game that let players unlock pages of the book and enter to win concert tickets and memorabilia. Jay's corporate partners, meanwhile, scored a fortune in buzz.

Read the Full Essay @ Fast Company

The Onaje Allan Trio Featuring Martha Redbone

The Late John Hope Franklin Talks Family and Growing Up with His Son

“We had to do a good deed every day...”

John Hope Franklin, the late scholar of African American history, tells his son, John, about being a Boy Scout during the 1920s.

Listen Here

Recorded in Tulsa, OK, in partnership with National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

The Root Interview: Beverly Guy-Sheftall on Black Feminism

The noted Spelman College scholar and author talks to The Root about what Oprah should be doing, Michelle Obama and why the president is a feminist.

The Root Interview: Beverly Guy-Sheftall on Black Feminism
by Akoto Ofori-Atta

Known for her eccentricity and boldness, Beverly Guy-Sheftall has never been scared to take the brave action necessary for change. (With her fondness for bright colors and head-to-toe leopard prints, she's also not scared of taking fashion risks.) A pioneer of black feminism in the 1960s, she took the helm of black feminist studies, raging against strong sentiments that positioned black feminism as obsolete once black women gained access to the labor force. Since then she has worked tirelessly to institute black feminist studies as a legitimate discipline, and continues to do so as the founder and director of the Women's Research and Resource Center at Spelman College, where she is also the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies.

An accomplished and well-respected scholar, Guy-Sheftall has co-edited and written books that continue to serve as the cornerstone of black feminism, most notably Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought and Still Brave, the follow-up to the anthology All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave. She also co-founded SAGE: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, which has become a critical resource for black women's studies.

Now, as the president of the National Women's Studies Association, Guy-Sheftall has succeeded in adding color to what has historically been a mostly white organization. Under her leadership, issues around feminists of color have permeated the organization's discourse, creating a more inclusive space for women's-studies scholars.

As the end of her two-year term as president draws near, Guy-Sheftall sat with The Root at the 2010 NWSA conference to discuss her role with the organization, the importance of black feminism and the lessons she hopes to pass on to future feminists of color.

Read the Full Interview @ The Root

Religious Scholar Obery Hendricks on 'Our' Responsibility to the Poor

Columbia University Professor Obery Hendricks argues leaders have a biblical responsibility to help the poor.

'Left of Black': Episode #10 featuring William Jelani Cobb & Bassey Ikpi

Left of Black: Episode # 10

w/Mark Anthony Neal

Monday, November 22, 2010

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal talks with William Jelani Cobb author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress and spoken-word poet Bassey Ikpi.

Cobb is Professor of History and Africana Studies at Rutgers University and the author of To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic and The Devil & Dave Chappelle and Other Essays.

The Nigerian born Ikpi, is a Washington, D.C. based mental health advocate and writer who blogs at Bassey World

***

Also available for download from iTunes U

The Trouble with the Yale Anthology of Rap

Members of the Anthology of Rap's advisory board speak out about the book's errors. Plus: Grandmaster Caz lists the mistakes in his lyrics.

Stakes Is High
by Paul Devlin

On Nov. 4, I wrote a review of The Anthology of Rap, noting the book's many transcription errors. Last week, I wrote a follow-up article on the Yale University Press book, enumerating further errors and pointing out that the majority of the mistakes discovered in the book so far—by me and by others—also appear in the transcriptions on Web sites like Online Hip-hop Lyrics Archive. In that follow-up article, I asked the editors to explain their transcription process, and they obliged, outlining a seven-step process. The primary source, they stated, was always the music itself: The editors say they typed out original transcriptions after listening to the songs. They then checked their lyrics against other sources—including sites like OHHLA—and also, when possible, asked the artists themselves to vet the lyrics. According to the editors, "nearly 30" artists reviewed the editors' transcriptions.

I decided to reach out to one of the artists who checked his lyrics to see how that process worked. In the acknowledgements section of the book, the editors "offer special thanks to the following for reviewing transcriptions of their lyrics, offering insights into their craft, and generally providing support for this undertaking." The editors then list the names of 29 rappers.

Among them is Grandmaster Caz, a hip-hop pioneer. Caz's name jumped out at me because, in reading his songs as transcribed in the anthology, I'd noticed what I thought was a substantial mistake. So I got in touch with him and, earlier this week, visited him at his apartment in the Bronx. Reading through the book's transcriptions of his work with me, he caught a series of errors.

Read the Full Essay @ Slate

O-Dub on the New Kanye West

Kanye West Gets 'Twisted,' But Misses The Beauty
by Oliver Wang

On Monday one of the most anticipated — and most leaked — albums of the year hits stores: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. The rapper began releasing several of its songs on his own website since the late summer, and he even produced a 35-minute music video to go with it. Now, the final, complete album is in the offing.

Black Boys Read: Nelson George on Reading & Writing

Am I The Only Feminist Who Liked Perry’s “For Colored Girls”?

Am I The Only Feminist Who Liked Perry’s “For Colored Girls”?
by Janell Hobson

I doubt that I am, and judging from the mostly black female audience that filled the theater where I watched Tyler Perry’s film adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s celebrated “choreopoem,” I believe the word-of-mouth among black women is that Perry got more things right than wrong in presenting the classic narrative on black women’s blues.

Other Ms. reviewers, such as Mako Fitts and Linda Villarosa, point out some crucial problems with Perry’s take–from homophobia to a conservative dismissal of positive black female sexuality to a simplistic portrayal of black men. Over at The Root, Salamisha Tillet argues that Perry severely undermines black feminism through his negative portrayal of Janet Jackson’s character, Jo, a black professional woman.

I can’t help but wonder, though, at the chorus of critics not previously invested in black feminist issues who gave the film overwhelming negative reviews. From Roger Ebert to the early reviews offered in Variety and Hollywood Reporter to Courtland Milloy who wishes to speak “for black men who have considered homicide” after watching the movie, reviewers have condemned the film as “cluttered,” “man-hating” and a “train wreck.”

What none of the critics–feminist or otherwise–pointed out was the transformation that occurred when Perry grounded the abstract poetry of Shange in cinematic realism. On-stage monologues about secret abortions and abuse allow us to go with our imaginations and feel the poems, but seeing these scenes through candid film shots was downright traumatizing. Whatever art and lyricism are conveyed in poetry, there is nothing like the gritty reality of the motion picture. While Shange’s words offer great humor and great pain, along with rainbows and rhythmic movements in jazz and salsa, Perry’s adaptation goes a step further by transporting the dance and the words into concrete scenarios played by concrete characters with names, addresses, relatives, partners and careers.

Read the the Full Essay @ Ms. Blog

For Colored Boys Who Have Survived Sexual Abuse, Is “For Colored Girls” Enuf?

For Colored Boys Who Have Survived Sexual Abuse, Is “For Colored Girls” Enuf?
by Jennifer Williams

On November 5, Oprah Winfrey aired the first of a two-part episode on male survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Two hundred men stood in the audience, each holding a photograph taken at the age their innocence was stolen by the priest, babysitter, or parent who molested them. Filmmaker Tyler Perry was among them, just two weeks after he had shared his childhood experiences with physical and sexual abuse for the first time with a television audience on Oprah.

Perry initially disclosed his abuse last year in a lengthy letter he addressed to his fans and posted on his website. In the letter, Perry revealed that viewing Lee Daniels’ Precious, a film based on Sapphire’s novel Push, triggered a series of traumatic memories from his childhood, including being brutally beaten numerous times by his father, raped by his friend’s mother and molested by a male church member. Like the character Precious, he said, he used his imagination to escape his body.

Perry’s appearances on Oprah coincide with the release of his film For Colored Girls, adapted from Ntozake Shange’s 1975 Obie award-winning play. Perry’s recent airing of his childhood sexual abuse also comes on the heels of several other black men publicly coming out of the closet about childhood sexual abuse.

Read the Full Essay @ Ms. Blog

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Jennifer Williams is a writer and professor of English at New York University. She blogs at "for colored girls who drink cosmos when suicide seems to gauche."

Jay Z & Michael Eric Dyson Rock the Bourgeois and the Boulevard

Show Some Compassion for Kanye

What you saw in that interview with Matt Lauer and all the recent antics is an artistic genius who is in pain. Right now he needs our support, not derision.

Show Some Compassion for Kanye
by Bassey Ikpi

I've joked that Kanye was hugged too much as a child. It was a tongue-in-cheek observation, given how the same mind that gave us the 30-minute, visually and metaphorically stunning Runaway movie is prone to hissy fits and meltdowns when he doesn't get his way or award.

There were hints of this from the moment "Jesus Walks" exploded into our musical psyches, but after the death of his mother, Donda, it seemed as if Kanye became even more impulsive -- all act now, think later. Open book -- no filter. Queue up his infamous and inappropriately timed statement "George Bush doesn't care about black people." This is a man who doesn't mince words or hold back his emotions.

In a recent video making the rounds, Kanye discusses his last year and the penalties of being outspoken in a business that is all PR and photo ops: "If you say anything, you lose everything." Honestly? It's a refreshing approach in a society that seems to value politically mute buttons for celebrities. And refreshing, especially, for young black men who would rather stuff the pain until it eats them from the inside than let anyone see even a crumble of emotional dust.

It took me a while to admit to being a Kanye West fan. I loved his music and definitely saw hints of genius in his earlier productions both for other artists and for himself. But I found his arrogance off-putting. I appreciated his talent, but from the second I heard of this "Kanye West, son of college professors, raised to be intellectual and artistic," I expected more from him. At the very least, humility. Where I simply ignored the Soulja Boys and Ying Yang Twins of the world, I was disappointed in Kanye -- his swan dive into the hip-hop pitfalls of materialism and braggadocio bored me. I just expected more than the "Louis Vuitton Don" image and ridiculously ostentatious displays of wealth.

Still, as time moved on, so did my opinion of Kanye. I began to admire his ability to own himself, to express his unabashed love of fashion even while demanding that his fans think bigger, smarter. Different. Like when he openly challenged homophobia within the unabashedly homophobic rap community (we'll forgive him for not yet speaking openly about misogyny -- baby steps). Or his refusal to advance the gun talk. He's the anti-thug antidote -- the representation for the other side of the game.

Read the Full Essay @ The Loop

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Bassey Ikpi is a Nigerian born poet-writer and mental health advocate. She is currently working on a memoir documenting her life living with bipolar II disorder. Follow her on Twitter.

O-Dub on "Nerds, Retro Soul & the Stickiness of Writing About Race"

On Nerds, Retro Soul & the Stickiness of Writing About Race
by Oliver Wang

Quite a few people asked if I had read this past weekend’s NY Times piece by Rob Hoerburger on the new(ish) generation of retro-soul artists, “Can a Nerd Have Soul?”

To be honest, I initially avoided it given the godawful headline and while that may not be Hoerburger’s fault, it gets things off to a terrible start, not the least of which is the insinuation that the things we associate with nerdiness – obsessive behavior, social awkwardness, intelligence and whiteness – are somehow mutually exclusive with what we associate with “soul.” And since “soul” is also synonymous with Blackness, the title suggests, whether intentionally or not, that whatever Black soul connotes – emotion, pride, community – it’s incompatible with the idea of also being smart, a little goofy and detail-oriented. That would surely come as a surprise to the countless Black soul artists, producers, songwriters and label owners of the last five decades, many of whom could surely be all those things without it seeming very contradictory. You read enough R&B biographies and for every commanding, crazily confident stage king like Solomon Burke or James Brown, it’s exceedingly easy to find other artists who were known for their awkward introversion (Aretha Franklin), debilitating shyness (Marvin Gaye), or preternatural, photographic memory (Stevie Wonder).

I don’t mean to write a treatise about a headline but my point: it’s a wack headline and does the longer article a disservice in potentially dissuading folks from reading further. But I finally gave in, hit the lede (which I liked a lot) and then things began to fall apart for me.

My biggest issue with it is that, from very early on, it creates this strange – and I would argue, false – division within the world of retro-soul artists. On one side, there are “the nerds”, identified here as including Mayer Hawthorne, Aloe Blacc, Eli Reed, Kings Go Forth, etc. And they are somehow different from other similar artists who apparently are stylistically different but not in any well-explained way.

Read the Full Essay @ Soul Sides

Jay Z Goes 'Fresh Air'

from NPR

The Fresh Air Interview: Jay-Z 'Decoded'

'Left of Black': Episode #9 featuring Joan Morgan & Sofia Quintero

Left of Black'--Episode # 9
w/Mark Anthony Neal
Monday, November 15, 2010

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Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal discusses the controversy over Tyler Perry’s big screen adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls and surviving the Bronx, New York with writers Joan Morgan and Sofia Quintero.

-->Joan Morgan is the author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip Hop Feminist and a founding contributor to Vibe Magazine.

-->Sofia Quintero is the author of several novels including Explicit Content, Picture Me Rollin’ and most recently, Efrain’s Secret, her first young adult novel.

***

Also available for download from iTunes U Here

Decoded: Jay-Z in Conversation with Cornel West

Pretty Amazing Conversation--Jay Z and Cornel West at the New York Public Library

Negroes on Bikes: America's Black Army on Wheels

Watch the full episode. See more MontanaPBS Presents.

MontanaPBS Presents
Bicycle Corps: America's Black Army on Wheels

This program tells the story of the 25th Infantry's bicycle trip from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri in 1897. The African American infantry took the trip to test a theory that the bicycle would replace the horse in transporting men for the army. The program also examines the life of the African American soldier at the turn of the century, in particular First Sergeant Mingo Sanders.

'Leaving Atlanta' The Film--Thinking Past Hollywood

The Producers of the film adaptation of Tayari Jones' Leaving Atlanta are taking a unique approach to raising funding for their film. In the spirit of the Black Arts Movement, the producers are thinking past the Hollywood system.

Check their web-site HERE to learn more about the film.

For Colored Girls: A Town Hall Gathering

For Colored Girls

A Town Hall Meeting
w/ the Department of African & African-American Studies

featuring Professors

Wahneema Lubiano
Tarshia Stanley
William "Sandy" Darity
Maurice Wallace
Jennifer Brody
Mark Anthony Neal


November 16, 2010 | 7:00 PM
The Mary Lou Williams Center
Duke University
919.684.3814

For Colored Girls, Is Tyler Perry's Film Enuf?

For Colored Girls, Is Tyler Perry's Film Enuf?
Courtney Young | November 12, 2010

What is the price paid when a director widely considered to be anti-feminist interprets a beloved black feminist text for film? Can a piece as endearing as Ntozake Shange's 1975 classic choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enuf reach its full cinematic potential outside the hands of a black female director? When movie mogul Tyler Perry first announced he would be reviving the celebrated text for the screen, many fans of the original production reacted with dismay, worry, even anger. A deft combination of poetry, music and movement, the choreopoem gives life to the voices of seven unnamed women distinguished on stage only by a singular color of dress. The piece allows each woman to relay her story frankly, at times through a collective narration, airing a host of issues that affect black women's lives—rape, abortion, domestic abuse and child murder, but also love, sex, and friendship. Would the complexity of black women's lives and voices survive in Perry's hands?

Before the film even hit theatres on November 5, reviews were running the gamut. At The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt eviscerated the film [1] as "too crude and stagy for Shange's transformative evocation of black female life." New York magazine's David Edelstein [2] excoriated Perry's translation, concluding, "He has taken Shange's landmark poem cycle…cut it up, and sewn its bloody entrails into a tawdry, masochistic soap opera that exponentially ups the Precious ante." But not all reviewers found the film to be an unmitigated disaster. Mark Anthony Neal, a professor at Duke University, writing for The Loop, asserts that [3], "The film's commercial success marks one of the visible moments for mainstream Black Feminism, within a national culture that has been largely ignorant of Black feminist writing and art."

The $20.1 million raked in over opening weekend undoubtedly makes Perry's first R-rated film a financial success. But its initial popularity in no way mitigates Perry's ultimate transgression, committed by so many when adapting classic works: failing to present the characters as they are, rather than as he wants them to be. Perry's refusal to stretch the boundaries of black female expression, which is key to Shange's text, beyond the scope of his own familiarity indicts his direction.

A number of recurring themes inform or, at times, dictate the actions of Perry's female protagonists across his films, with religious messaging being one of them. His choice to center For Colored Girls on this theme is no exception. But Perry fails to fully comprehend Shange's complex portrayal of the ways that black women find God. Shange articulates a spirituality that is fluid and introspective, even divinely feminine. Religion is never centrally cast in the text; spirituality is rather understood as a vehicle through which black women communicate with each other and with themselves. Arguably, the most widely quoted moment in For Colored Girls is when the "lady in red," one of the most memorable characters of the production, asserts, "I found god in myself & i loved her/ i loved her fiercely."

Read the Full Review @ The Nation

Quintin Dailey at Rest

from the New York Times

Quintin Dailey, Gifted but Troubled Player, Dies at 49
By Douglas Martin

Quintin Dailey, a talented but troubled basketball player whose missteps, including a sexual assault conviction, contributed to the University of San Francisco’s decision to drop its storied basketball program for three years, died Monday in Las Vegas. He was 49.

The cause was hypertensive cardiovascular disease, a spokeswoman for the Clark County Coroner’s Office said.

Dailey broke scoring records and earned all-American honors at San Francisco, whose teams, led by the likes of Bill Russell and K. C. Jones, had won two consecutive N.C.A.A. championships and 60 consecutive games from 1954 to 1956 and 15 West Coast Athletic Conference championships.

Dailey, 6 feet 3 and 180 pounds, averaged 20.5 points a game in his three years and 25.2 as a junior. He broke Bill Cartwright’s team record for most points in a season, 717, scoring 755.

But Dailey’s aura was shattered in 1982 when he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a nursing student in a dormitory. The woman said he had been drunk and had threatened her with a weapon but did not rape her. A state court sentenced him to three years’ probation.

A document in the case revealed that Dailey had accepted $1,000 a month from a San Francisco booster for a summer job he did not have to do. The university had already been placed on probation for violating N.C.A.A. rules in the 1979-80 and 1980-81 basketball seasons. For the university, the Dailey revelation “was the last straw,” said Dan Johnson, a lawyer for the university.

In announcing the termination of intercollegiate basketball in July 1982, the Rev. John Lo Schiavo, president of the university, a Jesuit institution, said the program had become perceived as “hypocritical or naïve or inept or duplicitous, or perhaps some combination of these.”

He added, “All the legitimate purposes of an athletic program in an educational institution are being distorted by the athletic program as it developed.”

Basketball returned to the University of San Francisco three years later.

Dailey said he had pleaded guilty to the assault charge mainly to get the matter out of the way before the N.B.A. draft, which was being held three days later. After the Chicago Bulls made him their first draft pick, he told reporters that he had pleaded guilty only to stay out of jail, that he felt no remorse and that he had “forgotten” the whole episode.

The next year, in 1983, he was forced to remember. He settled a suit by the nursing student who had accused him of the assault, Vickie Brick, by paying her $100,000 and publicly apologizing.

Nevertheless, women’s groups protested his arrival in Chicago; anonymous callers threatened his life, apartment complexes turned him down as a resident and fans booed him everywhere.

“I can’t help believing that if Dailey weren’t a basketball player, if he were just another creep off the street, he would still be learning what a chamber of horrors the halls of justice can be,” John Schulian, a columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, wrote.

Dailey responded by making the N.B.A.’s 1982-83 all-rookie team. Over a 10-year N.B.A. career with four teams, he averaged 14.1 points a game. His most productive year was 1985-86, when he averaged 16.3 points a game for the Bulls. After four seasons with Chicago, he played for the Los Angeles Clippers, the Seattle SuperSonics and the Los Angeles Lakers.

He had problem upon problem, many self-induced. He missed practices and games, gained 30 pounds in a single season, twice violated the league’s drug policy, once attempted suicide and took leaves of absence for psychiatric care.

“I had to learn life by trial and error as I went along,” he said in a 1988 interview with The Los Angeles Times. “I erred a lot.”

Quintin Dailey was born on Jan. 22, 1961, in Baltimore. His parents died within a month of each other when he was teenager. A stellar basketball player in high school, he was recruited by more than 200 colleges. At San Francisco, he majored in communications and was a campus disc jockey.

Dailey’s marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by his daughter, Quinci, and his son, Quinton Jr., who is a guard on the Eastern Michigan University basketball team.

Dailey, whose last job was as a supervisor for the Clark County Parks Department in Nevada, had a penchant for pungent quotes. In 1985, he complained to The Chicago Tribune that Bulls coaches favored Michael Jordan over him.

“I’m a player who likes to shine a little bit myself,” he said.

Why Do We Believe that Marriage is the Panacea for What Ails Black America(s)?

Stats fail to capture the full portrait of how families function in Black communities

Un-married Mothers Yes, but Not Always Single Parents
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

According to a recent article by the Associated Press, 72 percent of Black babies are born to un-married women. Such numbers, which have circulated for some time, have spurred responses such as calls for “Black Marriage Day” and “Marry Your Baby-Daddy Day” as part of what might be deemed the “No Wedding, No Womb” movement.

Such responses though, like the statistics that inspired them, fail to capture the full portrait of how families function in Black communities. Many studies have suggested that there is a direct correlation between single-mother hood and the likelihood that children born out-of-wedlock are more apt to struggle in school, be incarcerated at some point in their lives, become addicted to drugs and then reproduce that same cycle with their own out-of-wedlock children.

Such studies though, often neglect other powerful influences, such as the quality of schooling, biased criminal justice systems, institutional racism and poverty—conditions that lead to the same kind of outcomes.

Within this context, out-of-wedlock births takes on the feel of what University of Chicago political scientist Cathy Cohen calls a “moral panic,” particularly among the Black Middle Class, which often feels that the lack of moral values among the Black poor, threatens to undermine the social and political gains of the post-Civil Rights era.

But the statistics only tell part of the story in that they don’t fully explore the nature of the relationship between single mothers, the fathers of their children and the children themselves.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21