Rap Sessions Re-Ups

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATIONAL TOWNHALL MEETINGS TO EXPLORE THE HIP-HOP GENERATION'S STAKE IN THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION


February 18, 2008 (New York, NY)—Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop announces a national tour focused on hip-hop, youth civic participation and the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Rap Sessions presents its third annual national discussion tour, which unites a diverse panel of leading hip-hop activists, artists and youth politics experts to engage youth and community leaders in candid, compelling conversations about ways hip-hop generation voters can organize to have an impact on this year's election.

Targeting the hip-hop generation and their younger millennial siblings, these dynamic and provocative discussions are designed to inform young voters on the candidates, the issues, and prepare them to participate fully in the upcoming election.

"The 2008 Presidential Election is the most important election of this generation's lifetime," notes Bakari Kitwana, the Executive Director of Rap Sessions and the author of The Hip-Hop Generation. "The goal of these gatherings is to educate youth on their civic rights and responsibilities, and, equally important, to help young voters understand ways to place their issues on the national agenda."

Reflecting on the record young voter turnout in caucuses and primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and across the United States, as well as groundbreaking turn-outs in 2004, Kitwana added: "The hip-hop voting bloc will be a defining factor in 2008. We want to be sure that our young people are informed on exactly what's at stake for the hip-hop generation and not be lulled to sleep by the hype of gender, race or simply voting for voting's sake."

Beginning in March, Rap Sessions' interactive community dialogues will convene in ten cities across the United States.

• Jeff Johnson, BET's Cousin Jeff Chronicles, director of Truth is Power and author of Let's Get Free: Strategies for Organizing the Hip-Hop Voting Bloc;

• hip-hop political organizer Angela Woodson, co-chair of the 2004 National Hip-Hop Political Convention and director of Faith-based Initiatives for the Ohio Governor's Office;

• hip-hop artist M-1, one half off the innovative hip-hop duo dead prez;

• public policy analyst Dr. Maya Rockeymoore, author of A Political Action Handbook for the Hip-Hop Generation and the former chief of staff for Congressman Charlie Rangel;

• Billy Wimsatt, co-founder of the League of Young Voters and author of How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office;

•hip-hop activist Rosa Clemente, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Black August and The Hip-Hop Caucus.

Bakari Kitwana, the moderator of these discussions, is co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention and the former editor of The Source. His bookThe Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture has been adopted as a coursebook at over 100 colleges and universities across the country. A consultant for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Kitwana has been acknowledged as an expert on youth culture and hip-hop politics by CNN, Fox News, CNBC, BET and other leading news outlets. His writings have appeared in the Village Voice, The New York Times, The Nation, Savoy and the Boston Globe. Currently Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, he teaches a course in the political science department entitled, "The Politics of The Hip-Hop Generation." Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop: New Realities of Race in America is his most recent book.

For more information about Rap Sessions, log onto: www.rapsessions.org

Press Contact: Mona Finston, Mona Finston PR, 212-724-6117, email mfinstonpr@earthlink.net.

March
11th; Boston, MA
12th; Fairfield, CT
25th; Bethlehem, PA

April
3rd ; San Francisco, CA
5th; Chicago, IL
8th; San Luis Obispo, CA
9th; Los Angeles, CA
18th; Milwaukee, WI
19th; Madison, WI
29th; Marquette, MI

Opening Barkley: The Birth of Cool

from CRITICAL NOIR @ Vibe.com

Critical Noir: Opening Barkley
by Mark Anthony Neal

Birth of Cool, a retrospective exhibition on the life and work of artist Barkley L. Hendricks recently opened at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina. Conceived by Trevor Schoonmaker, the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum and Richard J. Powell, the John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University, Birth of Cool is the first such retrospective of the Philadelphia native's work. According to Powell, the foremost scholar of Hendricks's work, the idea of a Hendricks retrospective was "beguiling, with the idea to encounter old friends, audacious strangers, and engrossing paintings, it seems, for the very first time." The exhibition's opening night was reflective of Powell's observations bringing together an eclectic group of people for a discussion between Hendricks and Powell, which was followed by an after-party that featured Grammy-award winning producer and DJ 9th Wonder.

Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts and Yale University, Hendricks emerges in the late 1960s just as "Black Power" became synonymous with black vernacular culture via the agitprop of Black Arts Movement figures like Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal. Hendricks was primarily interested in figurative and life sized portraiture, thus his subjects, more often than not, were simply the bodies of everyday black folk. Hendricks's aesthetic commitment to the "folk" likely helped keep him beyond the radar of the mainstream art world. As Franklin Sirmans, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Mencil Collection in Houston, "these are black people who are rarely glimpsed outside their community (not art galleries), but within these communities they can easily be seen just as easily as symbols of vibrant everyday life." As such, over the past few decades, Hendricks has helped establish black bodies as sites vernacular culture--his influence seen in the work of younger artists such as Kehinde Wiley and even Iona Rozeal Brown.

Read Full Essay at CRITICAL NOIR @ Vibe.com

Is John McCain an Option? Two Views

If Limbaugh can register a protest vote for Hillary, why can't we look at the GOP?

Why Blacks Should Consider McCain
By William Jelani Cobb/TheRoot.com

The Clintons have thus far run one of the most underhanded and bitter political campaigns in recent history. And while there is no reason to suspect that they are racist, they are clearly willing to play upon the sympathies of whites who are--which is probably worse. This was evident by the twin "accidents" in which Clinton staff member Billy Shaheen and that pillar of the booty-shake community BET founder Bob Johnson attacked Sen. Obama for his youthful dalliances with drugs. Any lingering doubt about who they were playing to was erased when Bill Clinton essentially dismissed Obama's South Carolina victory by comparing it to Jesse Jackson's wins there in 1984 and 1988.

Apparently none of the high-profile black leaders who are backing Hillary Clinton have been able to prohibit the kind of cynical race hustling that marked the South Carolina primary. (This recalls the old saying that the problem is not that black leaders so often sell out, but that their asking price is so pitifully low.)

But in the wake of the Sister Souljah episode (not to mention Bill Clinton's stiff-arming of his black nominee for the Justice Department (Lani Guinier) and his short-lived Surgeon General (Jocelyn Elders) it must appear that there is nothing the black community won't forgive you for provided you show up at one of our churches and hum a spiritual every so often. As a matter of principle, no candidate, no matter how deep their alleged ties to the black community, should be allowed to race-bait a black politician and still receive the majority of our vote.

All this points to one clear – if unlikely – conclusion: if Hillary Clinton receives the Democratic Party nomination, African Americans should consider voting for John McCain. But before you fix your lips to call me a sellout consider this: Carter G. Woodson once remarked that any race that consistently gives its vote to one political party is asking to be taken advantage of.

Read the Full Essay

***

We don't have the luxury of a protest vote.

The McCain Option? Pul-eeze.
By Jack White /TheRoot.com

Feb. 8, 2008.

Memo to William Jelani Cobb.

Re: Your proposal that "if Hillary Clinton receives the Democratic Party nomination, African Americans should consider voting for John McCain."

Knee-grow, pul-eeeze!

Your column on The Root ranks as the most ridiculous political idea any Negro has put forth my since my brother-in-law decided to support Clarence Thomas on the grounds that, after all, he's a brother. So ridiculous, Dr. Cobb, that at first, I thought you were kidding… and I still hope that you were. But on the odd chance that you were serious—or that some people let themselves be swayed by your cockamamie idea—I thought I'd better inject some common sense back into the discussion.

The last thing black people need is to take your advice to emulate right-wing extremists like Anne Coulter, who claims she hates McCain so much she'd rather vote for Clinton. Even thinking about following that course is a self-destructive diversion. We've already wasted enough time this year on a Negrofied version of the medieval debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: how many of us can buck-and-wing on the bi-racial chromosomes of Barack Obama? Now that we've finally got that settled and have thrown in behind the brother, there is absolutely no rationale for unearthing the age-old questions about our relationship with the Democratic Party. Way too much is at stake.

Read the Full Essay

That Ol' Black Magic

Earl Monroe & Al Attles Speak At "Black Magic" World Premiere

Basketball Legends And Co-Producers Participate In Panel Discussion At Documentary Screening

(Durham, North Carolina) — Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, has announced that Earl Monroe and Al Attles will participate in the panel discussion following the world premiere of the theatrical cut of "Black Magic". The premiere will be held Monday, Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Carolina Theatre, located at 309 W. Morgan St. in Durham.

Attles and Monroe, prominent North Carolina basketball legends, are also two of the most influential black figures in the history of the sport. After graduating from North Carolina A&T State University, Attles became one of the first black NBA coaches in 1979 and persevered to become the second to win a NBA title. Monroe, a Winston-Salem State University graduate, was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History after an astounding 13-year career. Dan Klores, director of "Black Magic" and the 2007 critically acclaimed film festival hit "Crazy Love", will join Attles and Monroe on the panel to discuss the history that inspired the film. "Black Magic" tells the story of the injustice that defined the Civil Rights Movement in America, through the lives of basketball players and coaches who attended historically black colleges and universities.

Individual tickets for the "Black Magic" World Premiere and panel discussion are $12 and may be purchased at the event or by visiting the Box Office at www.fullframefest.org. Tickets for both the pre-screening party and film are available to Full Frame members for $35 and $50 for non-members.

Related Links:
www.fullframefest.org

www.shootthemoonprods.com
www.mmimarketing.com

Yes We Can; Yes We Did

from NewsOne

Yes We Can--Yes We Did
by Mark Anthony Neal

***

Though not usually given to emotional outbursts, I was confused as I found myself tearing-up while watching “Yes, We Can.” I was caught even more off-guard as my daughter asked me why I was crying.

Although I make my living by “having an answer for everything” I was quite frankly at a loss for words. But then I imagined the world that my 72-year-old father lived in when he was 9-years-old, knowing at the time that there was little chance that he could ever vote, let alone vote for somebody who looked like him.

I was only a little older than my daughter is now when my father did cast his first ballot in 1976 for Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter.

I could also remember the first time I pulled the lever — voting for Reverend Jesse Jackson in the New York Democratic convention in 1984 and how good so many of us felt — giving each other sly winks—as we walked in and out of the voting site, knowing full well that our vote in that primary was little more than a symbolic gesture of pride.

As I struggled for language to give my daughter, I realized also that for her and many of her peers, Barack Obama’s campaign is nothing extraordinary (she has made more of the fact that a “girl” has never been president).

And while there will be many difficult conversations in the future between us about the disenfranchisement of convicted felons, Diebold machines and voting irregularities, it is this sense of normalcy that I guess ultimately triggered my emotions in response to the “Yes We Can” video. It’s a normalcy that my father could never imagine — a normalcy that as a teenager I had long learned not to ever expect.

Obama’s 13 victories on Super Tuesday gets him no closer to his party’s nomination and thus no closer to the presidency, but as I again watch “Yes, We Can” and again tears well-up in the eyes, I can swear that what I am really hearing are generations of folk who came before us whispering “Yes, you did.”

Read the Full Essay

Tashan - Black Man

Great Memories from my "CultNat" days in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

Pragmatist that I am, I teared up a bit watching this for the first time with my 9-year-old daughter. At 9-years old, my father could never imagine a moment like this, and even as the "Young Gifted and Black" generation watched Chisholm's run in '72 or watched Jesse's convention speech in '84, this is still a moment to behold.