Exercising Locally, Connected Virtually--The B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge

Exercising Locally, Connected Virtually--The B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge

by David Leonard | special to NewBlackMan

It is easy to hate on new media technology these days. Next to politicians (and teachers of late) and hip-hop, new media is consistently demonized and scapegoated for everything from obesity to social isolation. According to Ray Oldenburg, in the United States “citizens are encouraged to find their relaxation, entertainment, companionship, even safety, almost entirely within the privacy of homes that have become more a retreat from society than a connection to it” (qtd. in Watkins 2009, p. xix).

Don’t tell that to Byron Hurt. This filmmaker, who received national acclaim for his brilliant 2006 documentary, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, initiated the "B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" after he completed his own exercise challenge in April 2011.  Noting that his cousin Shawn Hurt started an exercise group on Facebook, Hurt saw the power in creating a community committed to active living. “The inspiration came from Friends on my Facebook page,” Hurt explained. “I posted my daily workouts in my Facebook status for 30 days, and it seemed to inspire many of my Friends.” The goal of the group is very simple: workout for 30 minutes or more for 30 straight days. The mission of the group – to “inspire, motivate, and supporting willing participants” – has captured the attention of a number of people, attracting over 100 members to this Facebook group as of June 2011.

Minus the fact that she is married to Byron Hurt, Kenya Crumel, the director of program management and technical assistance at a consulting firm, is typical of the group. Between job and family, she often struggled to find the time and energy to exercise on a consistent basis. Her background as an athlete, having run the New York City Marathon in 2007, did not make this any easier. With the “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge,” she not only found motivation, but a community that inspires and helps her achieve her goals. “Being a member of the group gives me a community that helps me be accountable for taking care of myself. Seeing everyone post everyday inspires me,” notes Crumel “I get new ideas about exercise routines from other members. And I feel proud when I finish exercising and I get to post on the board, knowing that I might be inspiring someone who isn't feeling motivated.”

She is not alone. Participants cite the challenge of working out for 30 consecutive days, the instruments of accountability, and the knowledge gained from learning about the exercise routines of others as why the group is so effective. “I read posts from people with many of the professional and personal responsibilities that I have and they manage to find time to take care of their bodies” writes Lori Martin, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “I am reminded that we make time for the things that are important to us by being a member and that fitness should be a priority for us all.” The group is not simply a space of education, where participants learn what others are doing, gaining ideas as to new ways to exercise, but gain knowledge of how to integrate exercise and health consciousness into their daily life. Exercise is an immense commitment and what this group reveals is that by joining others, by committing to not only the task of the 30 in 30 but to a community, the exercise becomes both easy and enjoyable.

Yet, more than anything else, the “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" is about creating a community of strangers committed to helping and assisting others reach their potential. It is about camaraderie and community. Rhea Combs, a freelance art producer at an advertising agency in Portland, Oregon, describes the power of the group in the following way: “Even the phrases like ‘get it in, fam,’ reiterate the notion that this is community/family, not just a group of strangers.” In isolation, the group has become connected by their commitment to exercise, to being health, and to each other.

What is beautiful about the group is how it utilizes competitive spirit to empower rather than isolation and discourage its members. Participants compete against the challenge and against them, both of which is made that much easier because you are competing alongside of others. “The potential of a group like this is enormous because when you have a positive group of people pushing for one goal at the same time but at your own pace -- it's a genius idea,” notes Derrick Anthony, a filmmaker who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “Working out is like fishing, you want somebody there when you catch the big fish. And if no one is there when you catch it, you will most definitely tell them about it. Working out makes you feel great and you want to tell the world.” This space not only provide a means to “floss” a bit about one’s accomplishments but to do so in a way that encourages others to get their work in each and every day. It is harder to be lazy when your phone keeps announcing how much work your peers are getting done in the gym, on the track, and wherever they can exercise.

Having joined the group myself, I have seen its power, its beauty and the inspiration that comes through the establishment of a community bound together by a shared identity and goal. In March, I completed by 2nd marathon, only to find myself physically lost without a clear goal to guide my exercise routine. Joining the group has rekindled this focus, finding power in the determination of others. My hope to inspire others and my yearning to fulfill my commitment has provided the needed push to get me back on track. It has reminded me of the bigger picture for myself and from society at large.

Hurt, who acknowledges how “fitness is a big part of my life,” sees the "B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" as part of a larger struggle “ to get people to start thinking more about health, nutrition, and wellness.” His efforts to bring people together are but one example of his commitment to educating and inspiring people to be healthier. His forthcoming film, Soul Food Junkies, examines his own relationship to soul food, “the positive and negative aspects of soul food, and how soul food is a major part of black cultural identity. As a community, we need eat better, work out more, and be more in tuned with our bodies.” This group, like his film, shows the power new media technology as a source of community, intervention, and personal/communal transformation.

S. Craig Watkins, in The Young and the Digital, argues that “social and mobile media” are “bring people together across the longstanding barriers of race class.” Summarizing the work of Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsson, he notes how “increased connectivity has the potential to create diverse communities by providing individual the opportunity to come together across social as well as geographical boundaries” (2009, p. xx). The “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" demonstrates the power and potential here, illustrating how new media technology not only brings together a diverse group of people but does so in a way to create a community based on a shared identity, a collective goal, and a willingness to be both encouraging and inspiring.

“I think this group speaks to the power and influence that new media has on our daily lives. Social media creates a whole new kind of space for people to interact and engage with one another. In many ways it's such a brand new world that we are living in,” notes Hurt, “So I think new media is a great way to organize people and create groups like mine, where people can feel like they are part of a like-minded community and they can be challenged and motivated to get fit in a safe space." As a group member, I cannot agree more because without the support and inspiration of my new fitness family, I would have clearly taken a day off. Connected to them, I remain committed to my exercise routine and myself. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press).

Our World with Marc Lamont Hill: Gender Justice

Marc Lamont Hill is joined by Salamishah Tillet, Byron Hurt and Akiba Solomon.

Film Teaser: Byron Hurt's 'Soul Food Junkies'

Filmmaker Byron Hurt explores the health advantages and disadvantages of Soul Food, a quintessential American cuisine. Soul food will also be used as the lens to investigate the dark side of the food industry and the growing food justice movement that has been born in its wake.

Byron Hurt: Why I Am a Male Feminist

The word turns off a lot of men (insert snarky comment about man-hating feminazis here) -- and women. But here's why black men should be embracing the "f" word.

Why I Am a Male Feminist
by Byron Hurt

When I was a little boy, my mother and father used to argue a lot. Some mornings, I would wake up to the alarming sound of my parents arguing loudly. The disagreement would continue until my father would yell with finality, "That is it! I'm not talking about this anymore!" The dispute would end right there. My mother never got the last word.

My dad's yelling made me shrink in fear; I wanted to do something to make him stop raging against my mother. In those moments, I felt powerless because I was too small to confront my father. I learned early that he had an unfair advantage because of his gender. His size, strength and power intimidated my mother. I never saw my father hit her, but I did witness how injurious his verbal jabs could be when they landed on my mom's psyche.

My father didn't always mistreat my mother, but when he did, I identified with her pain, not his bullying. When he hurt her, he hurt me, too. My mother and I had a special bond. She was funny, smart, loving and beautiful. She was a great listener who made me feel special and important. And whenever the going got tough, she was my rock and my foundation.

One morning, after my father yelled at my mom during an argument, she and I stood in the bathroom together, alone, getting ready for the day ahead of us. The tension in the house was as thick as a cloud of dark smoke. I could tell that my mother was upset. "I love you, Ma, but I just wish that you had a little more spunk when you argue with Daddy," I said, low enough so my father couldn't hear me. She looked at me, rubbed my back and forced a smile.

I so badly wanted my mother to stand up for herself. I didn't understand why she had to submit to him whenever they fought. Who was he to lay down the law in the household? What made him so special?

I grew to resent my father's dominance in the household, even though I loved him as dearly as I loved my mother. His anger and intimidation shut down my mother, sister and me from freely expressing our opinions whenever they didn't sit well with his own. Something about the inequity in their relationship felt unjust to me, but at that young age, I couldn't articulate why.

One day, as we sat at the kitchen table after another of their many spats, my mother told me, "Byron, don't ever treat a woman the way your father treats me." I wish I had listened to her advice.

As I grew older and got into my own relationships with girls and women, I sometimes behaved as I saw my father behave. I, too, became defensive and verbally abusive whenever the girl or woman I was dating criticized or challenged me. I would belittle my girlfriends by scrutinizing their weight or their choices in clothes. In one particular college relationship, I often used my physical size to intimidate my petite girlfriend, standing over her and yelling to get my point across during arguments.

I had internalized what I had seen in my home and was slowly becoming what I had disdained as a young boy. Although my mother attempted to teach me better, I, like a lot of boys and men, felt entitled to mistreat the female gender when it benefited me to do so.

After graduating from college, I needed a job. I learned about a new outreach program that was set to launch. It was called the Mentors in Violence Prevention Project. As a student-athlete, I had done community outreach, and the MVP Project seemed like a good gig until I got a real job in my field: journalism.

Founded by Jackson Katz, the MVP Project was designed to use the status of athletes to make gender violence socially unacceptable. When I met with Katz, I didn't realize that the project was a domestic violence prevention program. Had I known that, I wouldn't have gone in for the job interview.

So when Katz explained that they were looking to hire a man to help institutionalize curricula about preventing gender violence at high schools and colleges around the country, I almost walked out the door. But during my interview, Katz asked me an interesting question. "Byron, how does African-American men's violence against African-American women uplift the African-American community?"

No one had ever asked me that question before. As an African-American man who was deeply concerned about race issues, I had never given much thought about how emotional abuse, battering, sexual assault, street harassment and rape could affect an entire community, just as racism does.

Read the Full Essay @ theRoot.com

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Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and anti-sexist activist.

'Left of Black': Episode #16 featuring Byron Hurt and Blair L. M. Kelley

Left of Black #16—January 10, 2011
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by filmmaker and activist Byron Hurt in a discussion of his recent film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and his in-progress film Soul Food Junkies. Neal is also joined in-studio by North Carolina State University historian and critic Blair L.M. Kelley in a wide ranging conversation about social protest in the early 20th Century, social media and contemporary Hip-Hop.

Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. His films include the award-winning Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and I AM A MAN: Black Masculinity in America. Hurt is currently completing his next film Soul Food Junkies, which explores the health advantages and disadvantages of Soul Food.

Blair L. M. Kelley is the author of Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy v. Ferguson (UNC Press, 2010) and is Associate Professor of History at North Carolina State University.

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.

Do We REALLY Want A New Kind of Black Man?

Do We REALLY Want A New Kind of Black Man?
by phillisremastered

Tonight, I listened to an extraordinary podcast on Black Male Privilege featuring a round table with brother-scholars R. L’Heureux Lewis, Marc Lamont Hill, Byron Hurt, and Mark Anthony Neal.

I am not playing when I say “extraordinary.” Frankly, I’ve been waiting for the last 25 years for a group of Black men to challenge other Black men on their privilege in the community—and really meant it. What was so wonderful about this forum is that none of the men expected a pat on the head for having a public conversation that Black women have been having for several decades, in public and private.

These brothers also shared their difficulties about confronting Black Male Privilege in their own lives and in their families. For example, documentary filmmaker Byron Hurt talks about when he and his wife had their first baby, a little girl, they quickly moved into traditional male and female gender roles, much to his concern.

Hurt said that he became aware of how much more mobility he had than his wife, because she was breastfeeding their daughter. He could come and go if he wanted, while his wife could not. He said he had to really make sure that he was spending just as much time with their baby, and to keep track of whether his personal behavior was in sync with his public proclamations of gender equity.

Read the Full Essay @ Phillis Remastered

Trouble Man: Black Male Privilege?--A Forum

The Brecht Forum
Monday May 17, 2010 @ 7:30pm
Co-sponsored by Centric Productions

Trouble Man:Black, Male Privilege
A Contradiction? An Illusion? A Reality?

Byron Hurt
L'Hereux Lewis
Marc Lamont Hill
Mark Anthony Neal
Esther Amrah (Moderator)

This panel is part of Esther Armah's New Monthly Live Interactive Emotional Justice Conversation Series -Afrolicious

Black men are in crisis. Prison, schools, racism, brutality. But, what about black male privilege? What does it look like? How do we define it? How and who does it hurt or help? How does it inform our relationships? Is it our silent reality: undiscussed, unspoken, unrevealed? Byron Hurt, Marc Lamont Hill, Mark Anthony Neal, L'Heureux Lewis take on black male privilege and break it down.

*Esther Armah (Moderator): International Award winning Journalist, Radio Host of Wake Up Call and Off the Page WBAI 99.5 FM, Playwright

*Marc Lamont Hill, Associate Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Author of Beats, Rhymes and Classroom Life

*Byron Hurt, Award winning filmmaker, Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Barack&Curtis, and Soul Food Junkies, anti sexism activist, Essayist

*R.L. Heureux Lewis, Assistant Professor Sociology and Black Studies at the City College of New York

*Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University and Author of New Black Man


The Brecht Forum
451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets)
New York, NY 10014
Phone: (212) 242-4201

Byron Hurt Pays Tribute to Guru

Byron Hurt Tribute to Guru

by Byron Hurt

April 27, 2010 — On Monday, April, 19, 2010, Hip-Hop lost one of its legendary rap artists, Guru. I was saddened to learn of his death. Guru was one of my favorite rappers, and the rap group he founded with DJ Premier, Gang Starr, was one of Hip-Hop's iconic rap groups.

On March 26, 2003, I interviewed Gang Starr for my film "Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" on the set of his music video, "Rite Where U Stand" in Brooklyn, NY.

What you see here are never seen before clips from that interview. This is my personal tribute to Keith Elam, better known worldwide as Guru.

BLACK MALE PRIVILEGE? A CONTRADICTION, AN ILLUSION OR A REALITY?

BLACK MALE PRIVILEGE? A CONTRADICTION, AN ILLUSION OR A REALITY?

Define Black Male Privilege? That is exactly what Dr L'Hereux Lewis, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at CUNY says he can do. His work is part of a new segment on Wake Up Call on masculinity called: *'Between Peril & Privilege'.*

The recession has been dubbed a 'man'-cession' due its disproportionate impact on men; blue collar white men, middle class white men, Hispanics and African Americans. With destroyed industries and upward spiraling unemployment; the rise and rise of Rush Limbaugh who takes white middle class male sense of failure and turns it into rage, the ascent of a black man as president and a new generation of scholars - black and white - arguing we must re-define masculinity, Wake Up Call brings you this new segment. For social justice black men are so often in peril; in so many other elements of society white men enjoy privilege.

'Between Peril & Privilege' is the segment where Wake Up Call brings you provocative, critical analysis on masculinity. BYRON HURT, award winning film-maker, essayist and gender activist and MARK ANTHONY NEAL, a professor at Duke University and the author of New Black Man: Re-thinking Black Masculinity join Wake Up Call host, Esther Armah.

Listen Here (Segment begins at 46:00)

Hip-Hop's Shifting Masculinity?

President Drake: Hip-Hop's Shifting Masculinity

by Regina Barnett

Jimmy raps?!

Aubrey “Drake” Graham’s been around for a minute. He’s not some cat who just magically appeared and became a celebrity overnight. I remember my cousin harassing me on MySpace to check him out. I liked what I heard. But I really didn’t take him seriously. He was Jimmy. From Degrassi.

He’s being taken seriously now. One of the headliners of Weezy’s Young Money Clique, Drake is changing and has changed the game. His flow is nice. Aside from lyrical performance, is it possible that he is changing the branding of manhood in the rap game?

The folks over at Makin’ It Magazine struck up an intriguing conversation of Drake as rap’s Barack Obama. It’s not the first time President Obama has entered the Hip Hop realm. Byron Hurt created a fabulous dichotomy of President Obama and 50 Cent titled Barack and Curtis. I don’t know if the president has rhymes, but it is a fascinating topic to present the Barack/Drake masculinity dichotomy. In other words, can Drake be the Barack Obama of Hip Hop?

Read the Full Essay @ Red Clay Scholar

"Help Haiti" Fundraiser; A Film Short by Byron Hurt

On Thursday, January 21, 2010, Kevin Powell, April R. Silver, DJ Spooky, Laura Dawn, DJ Beverly Bond, Marc Ecko, Annabella Sciorra, Laura Dawn, and Marisa King-Redwood produced a fundraiser to "Help Haiti" at ELEMENT in Greenwich Village, New York City. Please watch this short piece that I produced and directed, which documents the event.

Help Haiti - Produced and Directed by Byron Hurt. Edited by Johnalynn Holland.

HelpHaitiOnline.org is a resource website designed to be an online clearinghouse of information in the wake of the tragic earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010.

BLACK MAN INSIDE: Rethinking Black Male Masculinity

Our Common Ground with Janice Graham
URBAN PROGRESSIVE TALK RADIO LIVE
ALL WEEK ~ May 18-21, 2009

MAN INSIDE: Rethinking Black Masculinity Man Inside:
Conversations with Our Brothers

8-10 PM EST //X^^X\\ Live TALK //X^^X\\ Call In: 954-530-2068

Listen Live at http://www.ustalknetwork.com
(click the Listen Now link)

email: Janice@ourcommonground.com
“Transforming Truth to POWER one show at a time”

TRUTHSPEAK: " Feminist politics is a choice. When men make that choice, our world is transformed." - bell hooks


MAN INSIDE: Rethinking Black Masculinity Man Inside:
Conversations with Our Brothers

OUR COMMON GROUND presents a full week of special programming focusing on issues relevant to the Black American male and Black male feminist thought. "The Black Man Inside: Rethinking Black Masculinity".

This week long special programming focusing and reflecting on Black men, masculinity and their relationships to Black community values, addressing challenges of much needed transformation and the demands to build healthy relationships and community. The Black man inside is essential to our struggle and protection.

"The Black Man Inside: Rethinking Black Masculinity" will feature conversations with four Black men whose inquiry, struggle and transformation embody a love for themselves and for our people. Janice Graham "In Converstation in the language of TruthSpeak at OUR COMMON GROUND with: BrotherScholar/Activists, Drs. Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University and David Ikard, Florida State University~ Gary Lemons, University of South Florida: and Brother Activists, Major Neill Franklin, formerly of the City of Baltimore Police Department and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and Anti-Sexist Activist, Filmmaker, Byron Hurt.

May 18 - 21, 2009 8-10 pm ET LISTEN LIVE & CALL IN: http://www.ustalknetwork.com


Monday, May 18, 2009

Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity


Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Dr. David Ikard, Florida State University
Breaking the Silence Toward a Black Male Feminist Criticism

Dr. Gary Lemons, University of South Florida
Black Male Outsider: A Memoir


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Major Neill Franklin, formerly of the City of Baltimore Police Department and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP):" A Framework Out of the War on Drugs"

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Byron Hurt, Anti-sexist activist and Filmmaker
I AM A MAN: Black Masculinity in America and Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes

Byron Hurt Chats Up "Barack & Curtis"

from NPR's All Things Considered

November 8, 2008 · Byron Hurt, the producer of the Web documentary Barack and Curtis, talks about the changing face of black masculinity in the U.S. since Barack Obama's rise to power.

Listen @

The Thug & The Candidate

from Vibe.com

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CRITICAL NOIR:
The Thug(s) and the Candidate: Musings on Black Masculinity
by Mark Anthony Neal

"That black men who display hypermasculine characteristics fetishize--that is, simultaneously love and loathe--those considered less masculine or, to be explicit, that niggas covet faggots has been unmasked in insightful criticism. That faggots desire to be niggas has occasioned less critique..."

--Vershawn Ashanti Young, Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity

***

One of the prevailing theses of the current election season is that Senator Barack Hussein Obama is not the round-way-brand of black man. Such a premise is palpable only to the extent that one chooses to read Obama against the image of marketplace confections of black masculinity, particularly those that legibly erect centuries' old tropes of danger, bestial behavior, and sinister eroticism. The idea that we should distinguish between the candidate and the thug(s) is one of the defining truisms of polite society--less a measure of the candidate's humanity and more so an index of the tolerance within said polite society.

But black men do not live in polite society--however effectively they earn their keep within those spaces--and even the candidate's wife understands this, telling CBS news months ago about her fears that her husband might get shot at a gas station in Chicago as opposed to being assassinated on the campaign trial by some desperate political actor yelling "traitor." As Chris Rock surmised some time ago, niggas don't get assassinated, they get shot--and there always been more of a chance that the Senator from Illinois's fate would be decided by a bullet intended for a nigga, as opposed to that intended for the candidate, because quiet as it's kept--Harvard pedigree notwithstanding--Obama never stops being a black man. And this is perhaps the implicit message of Byron Hurt's recent film short Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power and Respect. The film is a brilliant and thoughtful intervention on the subject of black masculinity at a moment when Senator Barack Obama is poised to redefine black manhood for much of the world.

There is a telling sequence early in Hurt's Barack & Curtis, where radio journalist Esther Armah, states that "Barack equaled Harvard, someone like 50 Cent equaled hood; hood equaled virility, Harvard equaled impotence." That Armah's compelling observation is rarely disturbed speaks to the extent that many of our perceptions about black masculinity have been finely shaped by a market culture that makes it easier for us to go to sleep at night, because we can so effectively distinguish the niggas from the black men. As such Barack Obama and Curtis Jackson are little more than brands, in a highly volatile and fabulously lucrative, politicized marketplace.

Read the Full Essay @

Barack and Curtis [Barry and 50]: Forthcoming Short from Byron Hurt

from The Masculinity Project:

What does it mean to be a man? The Masculinity Project will gather multi-generational voices to explore this question, with a focus on the black community in the 21st century. This project addresses the critical topic of masculinity in the African American community by exploring how young men are represented and perceived, investigating the obstacles they encounter, and celebrating the contributions they make.