Rap Sessions: From Precious II For Colored Girls: The Digital Highlight Reel

For the 5th year the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in The Arts and Media at Columbia College and Rap Sessions co-presented a Community Dialogue. The powerful 'townhall meeting,' created and moderated by award-winning journalist, activist, political analyst and Institute Fellow Bakari Kitwana explored contemporary moments in popular culture and political debates where race, image and identity were center stage. 

The program featured Elizabeth Méndez Berry (journalist and author, "The Obama Generation, Revisited," featured in The Nation), John Jennings (SUNY Buffalo; co-author, Black Comix: African American Independent Comix and Culture), Joan Morgan (journalist, culture critic, and author, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost), Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University; author, New Black Man), and Vijay Prashad (Trinity College; author, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World). 

This highlight reel presents some of the program's prominent moments.

From Precious II For Colored Girls: The Black Image in the American Mind

From Precious II For Colored Girls: The Black Image in the American Mind

For the past five years, the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media has partnered with Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues to bring together a distinguished panel of scholars, journalists, and activists for a townhall-style meeting addressing important issues in our communities. Rap Sessions is led by critically acclaimed journalist, activist, political analyst, and Institute Fellow, Bakari Kitwana.

This year's panel explores contemporary moments in popular culture and political debates where race, image, and identity have taken center stage. Recent films like "Precious," "For Colored Girls," and TV shows like "The Wire" and "Treme," as well as current political issues such as immigration, are among the topics addressed by this panel.

Panelists include: Elizabeth Méndez Berry, journalist (The Nation, Washington Post) and author of The Obama Generation, Revisited; John Jennings, professor of visual studies, SUNY Buffalo, and co-author of Black Comix: African American Independent Comix and Culture; Joan Morgan, journalist, cultural critic, and author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost; Mark Anthony Neal, professor of Black popular culture at Duke University and author of New Black Man; Vijay Prashad, director of international studies at Trinity College and author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of The Third World.

Listen @ WBEZ

Rap Sessions Community Dialogue From Precious II For Colored Girls @ Columbia College | April 26, 2011

Rap Sessions | 
Community Dialogue From Precious II For Colored Girls:

The Black Image in the American Mind

Columbia College

Tuesday, April 26th

6 p.m. Reception / 6:30 p.m. Program

Conaway Center | 1104 S. Wabash Ave., 1st floor

This event is free and open to the public.

For the fifth year, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts & Media partners with Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues to bring a distinguished panel of scholars, journalists, and activists for a townhall-style meeting addressing important issues in our communities. Rap Sessions is led by critically-acclaimed journalist, activist, political analyst, and Institute Fellow, Bakari Kitwana. 

This year’s panel explores contemporary moments in popular culture and political debates where race, image and identity come center stage. Recent films like Precious and For Colored Girls, and TV shows like The Wire and Treme, as well as current political issues such as immigration and others, are among the hot button issues to be addressed in this context.

Featuring:

• Elizabeth Méndez Berry (journalist and author of The Obama Generation, Revisited, featured in The Nation)
• John Jennings (Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY Buffalo, and co-author of Black Comix: African American Independent Comix and Culture)
• Joan Morgan (journalist, cultural critic, and author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost)
• Mark Anthony Neal (Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, and author of New Black Man)
• Vijay Prashad (Director of International Studies at Trinity College, and author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of The Third World)

Moderated by Bakari Kitwana, journalist, activist, political analyst, and Institute Fellow.

This program is co-presented by the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, and Rap Sessions. It is sponsored in part by the Leadership Donors of the Institute; Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; Office of Multicultural Affairs; and Critical Encounters: Image & Implication.

For more information, email institutewomengender@colum.edu or call 312.369.8829.

Is Hip-Hop Feminism Alive in 2011?

Joan Morgan coined the phrase back in 1999, but what does hip-hop feminism look like today? Is it Queen Latifah? Nicki Minaj? Or the 10-year-old girl calling out Lil Wayne?

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Is Hip-Hop Feminism Alive in 2011?
by Akoto Ofori-Atta |The Root.com

In 1992 Dr. Dre released his single "Bitches Ain't Sh--," complete with a chorus that emphatically reduces women to nothing but "hoes and tricks." In 1996 Akinyele famously sang "Put It In Your Mouth," a song that flooded radio airwaves and clubs across the country.

Fast-forward to 2003, and Nelly releases a video for his single "Tip Drill," in which he famously slides a credit card between the cheeks of a video vixen's bottom. And then there was, of course, the Don Imus incident, when he justified his "nappy-headed ho" comment by arguing that black men regularly call their women out of their names in hip-hop songs.

There is no shortage of these cringe-inducing moments that have made women question their relationship to hip-hop. But these moments don't go completely uncontested. From Queen Latifah's "U.N.I.T.Y." ("Who you callin' a bitch?") to a 10-year-old's heartfelt plea to Lil Wayne urging him to speak highly of women, hip-hop feminism has almost always been just as audible as the crass catcalls. While one might be hard-pressed to find a song of the "Put It In Your Mouth" variety in heavy rotation today, hip-hop feminists still have a job to do in railing against a male-dominated culture.

Hip-hop feminists are like other feminists in that they advocate for gender equality. Where they part ways from other feminist groups is that they operate in and identify as part of hip-hop culture, as expressed in their choices in music, dance, art and politics.

Leaving Behind Rap's Misogyny

For some, the term "hip-hop feminism" offers up quite the enigma. Critics position misogyny as hip-hop's cardinal sin, which raises the obvious question: How do women actively participate in a culture that seems to hate them so vehemently? For self-described hip-hop feminists, attempting to answer that question is not their only task, since understanding what hip-hop feminism is and isn't goes far beyond responding to women-bashing sentiment.

"I could care less about what these boys are expressing in their lyrics, whether it's misogynistic or sexist or not, because we've had that conversation," says Joan Morgan, author of the seminal book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist. Today's hip-hop feminists, she says, should be focused on addressing other critical issues, like challenging the "respectability politics" that keep black women from freely expressing their sexuality.

Read the Full Essay @ the Root.com

From Precious to For Colored Girls: Rap Sessions 2011 Launches @ Syracuse University

FROM PRECIOUS II FOR COLORED GIRLS
The Black Image in the American Mind

When the newly minted Tea Party Movement clashed with the 100-year-old civil rights group The NAACP last year, it brought to the fore a tension bubbling beneath the surface throughout the nation: What happens when the conservative re-branding of free speech meets the liberal preoccupation with political correctness?

From entertainment to politics, and the media images that accompany them, the civil rights era idea of “Blackness” is currently in flux. FROM PRECIOUS II FOR COLORED GIRLS examines how this redefinition of Black culture, politics and ethnicity—from without and within—has affected the ways Blacks are perceived and discussed in today’s national culture.

With a view on America’s racial history and future, this exciting program dissects contemporary moments in popular culture and political debates where race, image and identity come center stage. Films like Lee Daniels’ Precious, Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls, television dramas like The Wire and Treme, and hot button political issues such as immigration and Islamophobia lead the list.

Led by a distinguished panel of scholars, journalists and activists, this provocative, 90-minute townhall style gathering challenges students to consider the following:

• Is “racial tolerance” as passé an idea as pundits from Glenn Beck to Juan Williams suggest?

• How do the various backgrounds and experiences of Black immigrants fit into this discussion?

• To what extent does gender and class continue to inform our understanding of race?

• Has Black authenticity as defined through a 1960s lens run its course?

• How do popular narratives of Blackness from Birth of a Nation to Precious impact public policy around policing, incarceration, housing and employment?

• Is there room for the full-range of Black political expressions in the American mainstream?

• Are provocative Black images like Will.i.am’s Black face at MTV awards overstated or understated?

• What can students do to move the national discussion of race beyond the Black-White paradigm?

***

THE PANELISTS

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books, including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1998), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002), and New BlackMan (2005). He has lectured on hip-hop and gender around the country, including the Ford Foundation, Stanford University and at the groundbreaking 2005 Hip-Hop and Feminism conference at the University of Chicago. Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, Neal is a frequent commentator on NPR and contributes to the on-line media outlets SeeingBlack.com and theLoop21.com. Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (2011) is his forthcoming book.

Joan Morgan is the author of the bestselling When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist. Since she published the book in 1998, Morgan has been a widely sought after lecturer and commentator on hip-hop and feminism. An award-winning journalist, a provocative cultural critic and a self-confessed hip-hop junkie, she began her professional writing career freelancing for The Village Voice before having her work published by Vibe, Madison, Interview, MS, More, Spin, and numerous others. Formerly the Executive Editor of Essence, she’s taught hip-hop journalism at Duke University. She is currently a doctoral student in the Program in American Studies at New York University.

John Jennings is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research and teaching focus on the analysis, explication, and disruption of African American stereotypes in popular visual media. His research is concerned with the topics of representation and authenticity, visual culture, visual literacy, social justice, and design pedagogy. He is an accomplished designer, curator, illustrator, cartoonist and award-winning graphic novelist. His work overlaps into various disciplines including American Studies, African American Studies, Design History, Media Studies, Sociology, Women and Gender Studies, and Literature.

Elizabeth Méndez Berry is a journalist who’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, Vibe, The Village Voice, Smithsonian, Time, among many others. She has written about topics from music to immigration. In 2008, she won the Columbia Journalism School's Hechinger award for best education coverage for her piece on the death of a Bronx high school. Méndez Berry has been interviewed about music and culture on NPR, NBC, CNN en español. She has lectured at Duke University, Fordham and Hunter College and is an adjunct professor at NYU's Clive Davis School of Recorded Music, where she teaches music journalism.

Vijay Prashad is Professor and Director of the International Studies Program at Trinity College. He is the author of a dozen books, including most recently The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (2007). The Village Voice chose two of his previous books as books of the year (Karma of Brown Folk, 2000; Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting, 2001). He is a contributing editor for Himal South Asia (Kathamandu, Nepal), Amerasia Journal (Los Angeles), and Left History (Canada). He writes a regular column for Frontline (India), and for www.counterpunch.org. He is on the board of the Center for Third World Organizing, United for a Fair Economy, and the National Priorities Project.

MODERATED BY BAKARI KITWANA

Bakari Kitwana is a journalist, activist and political analyst whose commentary on politics and youth culture have been seen on CNN, Fox News (the O’Reilly Factor), C-Span, PBS (The Tavis Smiley Show), and heard on NPR. He is CEO of Rap Sessions and Senior Media Fellow at the Harvard Law based Think Tank, The Jamestown Project. His 2002 book The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture has been adopted as a coursebook in classrooms at over 100 colleges and universities. The former Executive Editor of the Source, he has taught in the political science department at the University of Chicago, is co-founder of the 2004 National Hip-Hop Political Convention and is a visiting scholar the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College of Chicago. Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era (Third World Press, 2011) is his most recent book.

ABOUT RAP SESSIONS

For the last five years, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, brought townhall style meetings to scores of cities across the country. In 2011, Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation. By touring the nation with leading hip-hop activists, scholars and artists, Rap Sessions helps jumpstart crucial local debate. Past participating institutions include Harvard Law School, Princeton University, Brown University, University of California - Berkeley, Stanford, Vanderbilt University, Washington University, the University of California - Los Angeles, the University of Chicago, The City Museum of New York, The Kauffman Foundation, The Walker Art Center, The Experience Music Project Museum, among others.

***

To book a session: 440-779-9893 • email bakari@bakarikitwana.com • or visit: www.rapsessions.org.

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21.com

Carry on Tradition--Celebrating the Legacy of Hip-Hop Feminism

On the cusp of the millennium, several books by young Black women ushered in a fresh perspective on Black womanhood.

Carry On Tradition
by Britni Danielle

On the cusp of the millennium, several books by young Black women ushered in a fresh perspective on Black womanhood. Writers like Joan Morgan, Lisa Jones, Dream Hampton, Tricia Rose, Rebecca Walker, and others, represented a new brand of post-civil rights, hip hop-influenced feminism that spoke to young women in ways in which older Black and White female writers could not. The f-word was no longer a stance reserved for White women who wanted to get even with men. It was no longer the struggle in which our foremothers fought for inclusion. This new brand of feminism was relatable. It understood that we liked to look cute, have fun, discuss serious issues, and loved our brothas, despite their inherent privilege.

I remember reading When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost when it debuted and thinking that Joan Morgan was speaking FOR me. I loved hip hop, hard. It was my first crush, the soundtrack to my youth, it inspired my passion for writing, but I always felt some kind of way about the ease in which women were relegated to the sidelines. With the exception of a few dope women (Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-n-Pepa, Lauryn), women were almost always seen as sidepieces and groupies.

But I kept listening. Even though I danced to its beats, would argue about who was the best emcee, and would defend hip hop like it was my big brother, I always felt uneasy about its willingness to label other women (because clearly, they couldn’t be talking about ME, right?) bitches and hoes. Joan Morgan’s in-your-face exploration of women maturing in the age of hip hop articulated my own contradictory feelings about a culture I loved, but didn’t always love me.

This new brand of feminism understood that the struggle of women wasn’t about hating men. It wasn’t about writing them off and branding them as enemies. Our feminism—as beneficiaries of many movements of equality—was about claiming our voice, articulating our worth, and fighting our own, modern, battles.

Read the Full Essay @ Clutch Magazine

Arts and Activism On-the-Air: Joan Morgan

Arts and Activism On-the-Air
with April Silver of Akila Worksongs
August 29, 2010

A pioneering hip-hop journalist, JOAN MORGAN began her professional writing career freelancing for THE VILLAGE VOICE. There, she quickly established a reputation as a black-feminist writer who was unafraid of tackling the most highly charged topics. Tune in to hear the woman who coined the term “hip-hop feminism” in 1999, when she published the groundbreaking book, "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost." Morgan discusses writing as activism, her creative process, Hurricane Katrina & Rita, Michael Jackson and romance, The Notorious BIG, and more!

Rap Sessions: Does Hip-Hop Hate Women? @ Dartmouth College, May 26, 2010

Rap Sessions: Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?

A Community Dialogue and Panel

Dartmouth College

Filene Auditorium

6:00 pm

Featuring award-winning author Joan Morgan; Detroit rapper and activist Invincible; rapper Blitz the Ambassador; Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal; and moderated By Bakari Kitwana, journalist, activist and political analyst.

Sponsored by Special Programming and Events Committee, the Center for Women and Gender, Institutional Diversity and Equity, Departments of Music and Sociology, the Women's and Gender Studies Program, Sigma Delt, TriDelt, Psi U, Lambda Upsilon Lambda, and the AAM.

Contact: Cristen Brooks, 603-646-2722

Does Hip-Hop Hate Women? Chatting Up Chrianna and Youth Culture

from NewsOne.com

PODCAST: Experts Rap About Chrianna & Youth Culture

As the world waits for Chris Brown to appear in court today to be arraigned on two felony charges connected to the dating violence incident with R & B singer Rihanna, NewsOne.com sat down with a handful of journalists, scholars and activist who have had their finger on the pulse of hip-hop generation’s gender wars for much of the last decade: Tracy Sharpley-Whiting (author, Pimps Up, Hos Down and director of Black Studies at Vanderbilt University), Joan Morgan (author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost), and Newsone’s own senior editor Bakari Kitwana (Underground Current and director of Rap Sessions). This was moderated by Mark Anthony Neal (Left of Black and author of New Blackman).

The debate got heated on all sides as the group challenged young fans and the mainstream media and prepared for the Does Hip-Hop Hate Women? townhall meeting this Thursday April 9 at Connecticut College.

Listen Here

Rihanna, Chris Brown and Dee Barnes

from Left of Center

Another Love TKO:
Teens Grapple With Rihanna and Chris Brown
by Raquel Cepeda

...Author and cultural critic Joan Morgan, who coined the term “hip-hop feminism,” remembers a pivotal moment in 1991, when women in the entertainment industry-led by the pre-eminent fashion model, agent, and activist Bethann Hardison-came together to support one of their own, rallying around rapper and Pump It Up host Denise “Dee” Barnes, who was very publicly and viciously assaulted by super-producer and then-N.W.A. member Dr. Dre at a record-release party while a bodyguard reportedly held off the crowd. (Dre eventually settled out of court.) “It was really a rallying cry for many people,” Morgan says now. “And it really started to plant what became a very directly feminist commitment to analyzing hip-hop.”

Since, we’ve moved into a viral world without boundaries, where more voices are heard, raw and uncensored, because of the anonymity the Web offers. And now, nearly two decades later, the conversation about misogyny among young people, hip-hop culture, and society in general needs to address another very real facet: the hatred of women by women. “By definition, misogyny is about the hatred of women. It’s not gender-specific,” says Morgan, who saw gender-trumping violence when covering the Mike Tyson rape trial for the Voice in ‘91. “So there are men who hate women, and other women who hate women.” The teenage girls’ unconditional, sometimes puzzling support of Chris Brown isn’t necessarily misogynistic; their acrimonious contempt for Rihanna-their hatred-is.

Read the Full Essay @

Joan Morgan UnPlugs with Hillary

from Vibe.com

Hillary Clinton Talks Chances for Clinton/Obama Dream Ticket
by Joan Morgan

Last weekend, author and broadcaster Tavis Smiley invited all four leading presidential candidates to New Orleans along with venerated members of the black cultural and political elite -Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Cornel West, Donna Brazille, and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee among them-to address the annual State of the Black Union Symposium.

That the Republican candidates Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator John McCain did not attend came as no surprise. More unexpected was the fact that Senator Obama, locked in a dead heat for the pivotal March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries, declined Smiley's invitation, offering to send his wife, Michelle instead. Smiley publicly criticized the Senator's decision and was lambasted by black folk across the country who derided Smiley for shortsightedness and egotism. Smiley, who's usually on the sunny side of black popular opinion, reported that members of his family experienced harassment and even death threats. Such is the intensity of Obama-mania at this stage of the campaign.

Sen. Clinton, who has watched her lead in money, delegates, and polls dwindle with alarming rapidity as Obama racked up 11 consecutive primary victories-and whose presidential hopes hang precariously on her ability to secure victories in Texas and Ohio-was there. "More than Obama, Senator Clinton needs to address this crowd," said Rev. Sharpton, "to explain some of the race-tinged language we've heard from people in her campaign that has polluted and polarized this race."

Considering the conflama, the Morial Convention Center was a fitting location. Fresh coats of paint and pretty words are not enough to exorcise the heartbreaking history of Hurricane Katrina or the uneasy spirits left in her wake. The sanitized stench of betrayal, broken promises, and ceaseless finger-pointing are a palpable part of the history of this venue. It is not an easy place to fake the funk.

Greeted by a standing ovation, the embattled Senator from New York took the stage and offered these poignant words:

"This campaign has taken all of us into uncharted territory as a party, as a nation, and as individuals. And yes, I think we can be both proud and grateful that we are breaking barriers and changing history for the good. But uncharted territory means the way forward isn't always easy. The high stakes and historic nature of Senator Obama's candidacy and mine have vested this campaign with an intensity and an excitement seldom seen in the political arena. And, as often happens, there have been some painful moments, too. Those of us who have fought together for decades, to right wrongs and break barriers, cannot allow differences in our choice of who should be elected to undermine our fundamental unity and determination to change the course of this country starting in November [applause] because we represent precious opportunity and urgent responsibility for our wounded nation."

After her address, and a question and answer session with Smiley that was broadcast live on C-Span, Sen. Clinton and I sat down for this exclusive interview. What followed wasn't only a frank admission of her weaknesses, but also a reiteration of her unique strengths.

Read the Full Essay @ Vibe.com