Daddy's Record Collection

Mark Anthony Neal pays homage to his father's record collection. Neal is a professor with the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University and author of New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity.

How Did You Learn To Be A Father?

One ‘Man Down’; Rape Culture Still Standing

One ‘Man Down’; Rape Culture Still Standing

by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan

Art should disturb the public square and Rihanna has done just that with the music video for her song “Man Down,” directed by long-time collaborator Anthony Mandler. The song and video tell the story of a casual encounter in a Jamaican dancehall, that turns into a rape, when a young woman rejects the sexual advances of the man she has just danced with. Much of the negative criticism directed at “Man Down” revolves a revenge act, where Rihanna’s character shoots her rapist in cold-blood.

Some have found the gun violence in video’s opening sensationalist and gratuitous. The Parents Television Council chided Rihanna, offering that “Instead of telling victims they should seek help, Rihanna released a music video that gives retaliation in the form of premeditated murder the imprimatur of acceptability.” Paul Porter, co-founder of the influential media watchdog Industry Ears, suggested that a double standard existed, noting that, “If Chris Brown shot a woman in his new video and BET premiered it, the world would stop.” Both responses have some validity, but they also willfully dismiss the broader contexts in which rape functions in our society. Such violence becomes a last resort for some women, because of the insidious ways rape victims are demonized and rapists are protected in American society.

Part of the problem with Rihanna and Anthony Mandler’s intervention, is the problem of the messenger herself. For far too many Rihanna’s objectivity remains suspect in the incidence of partner violence, that was her own life. As a pop-Top 40 star who has consistently delivered pabulum to the masses, minus any of the irony that we would assign to Lady Gaga or even Beyonce, there are some who will simply refuse to take Rihanna seriously—dismissing this intervention as little more than stylized violence in the pursuit of maintaining the re-boot. Porter, for example, argues that BET was willing to co-sign the video, which debuted on the network, all in the name of securing Rihanna’s talents for the upcoming BET Awards Show. It’s that very level of cynicism that makes public discussions of rape so difficult to engage.

I imagine that much less criticism would have been levied at Erykah Badu, Marsha Ambrosias or Mary J. Blige for the same intervention, in large part because they are thought to possess a gravitas—hard-earned, no doubt—that Rihanna doesn’t. This particular aspect of the response to Rihanna’s “Man Down” video highlights the troubling tendency, among critics and fans, to limit the artistic ambitions of artists, particularly women and artists of color. Rihanna’s music has never been great art (nor should it have to be), but that doesn’t mean that the visual presentation of her music can’t be provocative and meaningful in ways that we nominally assign to art. Additionally, responses to “Man Down” also adhere to the long established practice of rendering all forms of Black expressions as a form of Realism, aided and abetted by a celebrity culture that consistently blurs the lines between the real and the staged.

Ultimately discussions of “Man Down” should pivot on whether the gun shooting that opens the video was a measured and appropriate response to an act of rape. Perhaps in some simplistic context, such violence might seem unnecessary, yet in a culture that consistently diminishes the violence associated with rape, often employing user friendly euphemisms like sexual violence—as was the case in the initial New York Times coverage of a recent Texas gang rape case—rather than call a rape a rape. As an artistic statement, intended to disturb the public square, Rihanna’s deployment of the gun is an appropriate response to the relative silence associated with acts of rape, let alone the residual violence that women accusers are subject to in the denial and dismissal of their victimization with terms like “she deserved it,” or “she was asking for it” because of her style of dress.

One wishes that as much energy that was expended criticizing Rihanna’s video for its gun violence was expended to address the ravages of the rape culture that we live in. One man may be down, but rape culture is still standing.

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Mark Anthony Neal, a Professor of African-American Studies at Duke University, is the author of five books, including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy and the co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2nd Edition) which will be published next month.  Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan

Hubert Laws and Mark Anthony Neal Discuss Gil Scott-Heron on NewsTalk Ireland

Remembering Gil Scott-Heron
NewsTalk Ireland 106-108fm
The Green Room | with Orla Barry

Guest:

Hubert Laws, Jazz Musician
Mark Antony Neal, Duke University Professor


Listen Here

The Legacy of Gil Scott-Heron

A Tribute to Gil Scott Heron

The Advocates | WLTH 1370am (Gary, Indiana)

with Attorneys Tony Walker, Trent A. McCain, and Richard Leverett

Guests: Minister Conrad Tillard, Sr. Pastor of Nazarene Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ (UCC)

Mark Anthony Neal, Professor, African & African American Studies, Duke University.

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.

Fans Gather to Watch Oprah Series Finale in Raleigh, NC

'Left of Black': Episode #35 featuring Cornel West

Left of Black #35
w/ Cornel West
May 16, 2011

On the season finale of Left of Black, Princeton Professor Cornel West joins host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal in a conversation about the “Image of Black Males in the Age of Obama.”  The discussion was recorded at the Baptist Grove Church in Raleigh, NC and sponsored by the Cornel West Academy for Excellence.

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→Cornel West is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard and the University of Paris. He has written 19 books and edited 13 books. He is best known for his classic Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. West has recorded three spoken word albums including Never Forget, collaborating with Prince, Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Talib Kweli, KRS-One and the late Gerald Levert.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

'Black Male Identity in the Age of Obama' feat. Cornel West, 9th Wonder & Mark Anthony Neal

Rashard Mendenhall Offers Contrast to the Apathetic Black Athlete

Rashard Mendenhall Offers Contrast to the Apathetic Black Athlete

by Mark Anthony Neal | The Atlanta Post

Like many Americans, professional football player Rashard Mendenhall was moved by the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US military personnel.  Yet what moved Mendenhall to speak out in the hours after the announcement was his disgust with the celebratory antics of folk who gathered across from the White House and at Ground Zero in New York City.   On his Twitter feed Mendenhall wrote “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side…”  Mendenhall, who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers, also expressed some concern that many who were celebrating in the streets didn’t really know the full story.

Reaction to Mendenhall’s comments was swift, most notably by Steelers team president Art Rooney II, who quickly distanced the team from Mendenhall’s comments. “The entire Steelers organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon,” he announced. And just recently, Mendenhall was dropped as a spokesman for the sports apparel company Champion.

On Sports talk radio—never a bastion of thoughtful commentary—the reactions were to be expected: athletes should keep their opinions about anything other than the game, to themselves.  As Thabiti Lewis observes in his book Ballers of the New School: Race and Sports in America, sports are intended to “divert us from conversations of political, economic, or social criticisms and analysis, while cultivating jingoists—intense patriots.” Yet, underlying even those nominal responses is the belief that Black athletes, in particular, should shut-up and, to quote rapper and activist Jasiri X, “just run the ball boy.”

Read the Full Essay @ The Atlanta Post

'Left of Black': Episode #31 featuring Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

Left of Black #32 

w/ Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

May 2, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons in a discussion of sexual violence in Black communities, homophobia, and popular culture controversies surrounding Ashley Judd, Kobe Bryant and DJ Mister Cee. Later Neal talks with historian Zaheer Ali, one of the lead researchers on the late Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Re-invention.

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→Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. Simmons is the writer, director and producer of NO! the Rape Documentary, a ground-breaking film that explores the issues of sexual violence and rape against Black women and girls.

→Zaheer Ali is a doctoral student in history at Columbia University, where he is focusing his research on twentieth-century African-American history and religion. His dissertation examines the history of the Nation of Islam’s Temple/Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, New York. Under the direction of Dr. Manning Marable, he served as project manager and senior researcher of the Malcolm X Project (MXP) at Columbia University, a multi-year research initiative on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and was a lead researcher for Dr. Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011), a comprehensive biography on Malcolm X.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Also Available @ iTunes U

'Left of Black': Episode #31 featuring Karla FC Holloway

Left of Black #31
w/ Karla FC Holloway
April 25, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by fellow Duke University Professor Karla FC Holloway, author the new book Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics (Duke University Press).  Neal and Holloway discuss medical racism, the Tuskegee experiments and the new biography of Malcolm X.

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→Karla FC Holloway is James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. She also holds appointments in the Law School, Women’s Studies and African & African American Studies. Her research and teaching interests focus on African American cultural studies, bicultural studies, gender, ethics and law. Professor Holloway is the author of eight books, including Passed On: African-American Mourning Stories (2002), BookMarks—Reading  in Black and White, A Memoir (2006) and the recent Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics.


***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Also Available @ iTunes U

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.

The Show: Doug E Fresh and Mark Anthony Neal in Conversation

The Apollo Legacy: Hip Hop!

Doug E. Fresh and Mark Anthony Neal host an evening of performance and conversation about the relationship between hip hop and the Apollo.

Monday, April 25 at 7:00 pm
The Apollo Legacy: Hip Hop!
Performance Series

Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10029

In the late 1980s, the television series It's Showtime at the Apollo was one of the first national platforms for local hip hop artists. Join legendary hip hop performer and one of the originators of the human beat box Doug E. Fresh, former host of It's Showtime at the Apollo, for an evening of performance and conversation about the relationship between hip hop and the Apollo Theater, with Mark Anthony Neal, co-editor of That's the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader (Routledge, 2011). Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing: How the Apollo Theater Shaped American Entertainment and in collaboration with the Apollo Theater and the Hip Hop Culture Center in Harlem.

Reception to follow.

Reservations recommended; $5 general admission.

For more information please call 917-492-3395.

Atelier@Duke: Media & Politics; Culture & Identity

Atelier@Duke: Media & Politics; Culture & Identity
February 25, 2011

Panelists at the Atelier@Duke symposium discuss "Media and Politics, Culture and Identity," the final panel at the Atelier@Duke, an event marking the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University Libraries.

Panelists include Nia-Malika Henderson (The Washington Post), Susannah Meadows (Newsweek), Linda Williams (Raleigh News & Observer), Orin Starn (Duke), and moderator Mark Anthony Neal (Duke).

African American Males Transcending Urban Disadvantage

African American Males Transcending Urban Disadvantage

Researchers studying African American boys and men living in urban contexts typically default to deficit models. While few would dispute the need to understand the factors that contribute to urban disadvantage, scholars are increasingly exploring “what works” – the social resources, conditions, practices, and policies that yield more encouraging outcomes for African American males in the city.

As leaders of the Penn Institute for Urban Research Faculty Forum, Penn GSE Professor Shaun Harper and Annenberg Professor John Jackson have brought together leading scholars who are addressing these issues.

Titled African American Men Transcending Urban Disadvantage, the Forum will feature:

David Wall Rice, Morehouse College:
Reimagining Black Male Identities and Expectancy, 4/18

Elijah Anderson, Yale University:
A Discussion of Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male, 4/19

Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University:
Beyond Pathological Media Misrepresentation, 4/20

All lectures will be held from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Huntsman Hall (University of Pennsylvania), Room 250, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.

This forum is free and open to the public.

Sampling Soul--Duke University Fall 2011

Black Popular Culture—Sampling Soul (AAAS 132)
Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit)
Fall Semester 2011
White Lecture Hall 107
Tuesdays 6:00pm -- 8:25pm

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Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s and became the secular soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown and record companies such as Motown and Stax, as well as the term Soul became symbols of black aspiration and black political engagement. In the decades since the rise of Soul, the music and its icons are continuously referenced in contemporary popular culture via movie trailers, commercials, television sitcoms and of course music. In the process Soul has become a significant and lucrative cultural archive.

Co-taught with Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, Sampling Soul will examine how the concept of Soul has functioned as raw data for contemporary forms of cultural expression. In addition the course will consider the broader cultural implications of sampling, in the practices of parody and collage, and the legal ramifications of sampling within the context of intellectual property law. The course also offers the opportunity to rethink the concept of archival material in the digital age.

Reading the Language of Rape Culture

WUNC 91.5
The State of Things | Frank Stasio

Reading the Language of Rape Culture
Wednesday, April 06 2011

Most cases of rape and sexual assault never make the news. But in recent weeks, horrific stories about victims of sexual violence have created national headlines. Some language used in the reporting of these cases and public reactions to them has caused controversy. How we articulate ideas about rape sheds light on American perceptions of violence, gender and race. Host Frank Stasio discusses the language and the law surrounding rape with a panel of guests including documentary filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons; Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American Studies at Duke University; Melissa Harris-Perry, associate professor of politics and African-American Studies at Princeton University; and Mary R. Block, associate professor of history at Valdosta State University.

Listen Here

R&B Artist Marsha Ambrosius Dishes on Controversial Video

R&B Artist Marsha Ambrosius Dishes on Controversial Video
Tuesday, April 05, 2011| by Eddie Robinson

R&B vocalist Marsha Ambrosius is not your typical diva. Her debut album "Late Nights & Early Mornings" — which peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's 200 Albums chart and No. 1 on the R&B Albums chart — features music about passionate romance, bitter breakups and gay suicide.

In her latest music video for her current single "Far Away," the singer showcases scenes of gay bashing and homophobia — subjects that are still taboo in the African American community.

Expanding The Boundaries of R&B

Ambrosius spent the early part of her career as half of a neo-soul duo, Floetry. She's also written hits for Alicia Keys and Michael Jackson, so she's chosen to take some risks as a solo artist.

"Far Away" is a song written by Marsha after a close friend of hers attempted suicide because he was gay. The singer said she realized she was getting into untested territory in the world of R&B.

"It would be easy for me to write a song about a relationship I was in with my boyfriend at the time," said the Grammy Award nominee. "We'd be going through it — fighting, back and forth — and I'm standing in the rain with the big hair and the eyelashes — that's standard! That's all been done before. But for me, I wanted to tell the story that wouldn't be told otherwise."

Read the Full Essay @ WNYC.org

Soul Cinema!--Duke Summer Session I

Black Popular Culture--Soul Cinema (AAAS 132)
Mark Anthony Neal
Summer Session 1
Perkins LINK 2-060 classroom 1
M/T/TH 12:30-2:35pm

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the term Soul came to represent the essence of "Blackness," particularly within the realms of music and popular culture. One of the places where "Soul" was particularly pronounced was in the film industry, where Black independent film makers and Hollywood (via Blaxploitation) created timeless and controversial moving images of Black life and culture. The course will examine so called "Soul Cinema" of the 1970s and its impact on contemporary American culture. Possible films include Sweet Sweetback´s Badass Song (1971), Killer of Sheep (1977), Ganja and Hess (1973), A Piece of the Action (1977), and The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973).