The Return of Eric Benet & Kenny Lattimore

from the Root.com


Eric Benet and Kenny Lattimore have returned just in time to save R&B from the children.

Music for Grown Folk
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheRoot.com

Sept. 30, 2008--More than a decade after their solo debuts, Eric Benet and Kenny Lattimore have managed to survive a recording industry hopelessly invested in the whims of young listeners and the apparent pursuit of ringtone sales. Years before "grown and sexy" became a marketing scheme to sell music to 30-somethings, Benet and Lattimore both made music for grown folk. Though neither became a recognizable star on the level of some of their peers such as R. Kelly and Maxwell, each has nevertheless had a solid, if not stellar, career. As much of contemporary R&B harks back to a distant past—if we are to listen to the likes of Solange and Raphael Saadiq—it is fitting that Benet and Lattimore are also looking back on their new recordings, Benet's Love & Life and Lattimore's Timeless.

Read Full Essay @

Remembering Norman Whitfield

from Vibe.com

CRITICAL NOIR
Soul Revolt: Remembering Norman Whitfield
by Mark Anthony Neal

At the root of Motown's success in the 1960s was a stable of youthful and innovative producers and songwriters. Though figures like William "Smokey" Robinson and the trio of Brian Holland, Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier are legendary for their roles in Motown's rise as the "Sound of Young America," Norman Whitfield, the fiery Harlem born producer, is often given short shrift. Whitfield, who died on September 16th of complications related to diabetes, was arguably the most important of those first generation of Motown producers as he adeptly adapted the Motown sound, in the late 1960s, to fit the tenor of one of the most tumultuous political and cultural moments in American society. In the process, Whitfield put a lasting stamp, not just on Soul music, but pop music for years to come.

Read the Full Essay @

All Things Ernest Hardy

Upcoming Book Events

Audre Lorde Project and Brecht Forum presents...
Ernest Hardy reading from Blood Beats: Vol. 2, moderated by Kenyon Farrow
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
7:00pm - 9:30pm
Audre Lorde Project
85 South Oxford St.
Brooklyn, NY

Robin's Bookstore, Philly
Friday, October 3, 2008
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Robin's Bookstore
108 South 13th St.
Philadelphia, PA

ALSO

The Death of the Critic
USC; September 24 2008
By Ernest Hardy

I had a conversation with the great Greg Tate earlier this year in which he observed that many Black folk who in the ‘70s and ‘80s would have been poets and novelists are now going into academia because they have more freedom and possibility to come into their own as creative critical thinkers. I would suggest that the same is true for folks who at one time would have been music or film critics. That’s all great for the world of academia, its various journals and university presses, but it leaves a debilitating and collectively retarding void in mainstream cultural discourse.

Read the Full Essay @

Sucka-Free Democracy

from Post-No Ills Magazine: A New American Review of...Reviews

Sucka-Free Democracy:
Hip-Hop's Potential Response to An Obama Presidency
(A Post No Ills E-Roundtable)

ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS:

Adam Bradley
R. Scott Heath
Natalie Hopkinson
Natalie Y. Moore
Mark Anthony Neal

With the first presidential debate of the 2008 election three days away, a night many predict will dictate the outcome of this historic election, Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, whether or not it will publically admit to it, banks on getting strong support from generations of Americans who either initiated, were influenced by, or were forged within hip-hop culture. Obama’s campaign wades through America’s past towards a possibility that many of the Civil Rights era thought they would never see, to the delight and chagrin of members of that generation. But an increasingly pressing question is what will the “hip-hop generation(s)”—a lyrically, visually, and aesthetically rebellious group—potentially have to say to a head of state their support, not antagonism, helped elect? We posed the following question to our panel of writers, scholars, and cultural critics:

Barack Obama’s rise in politics to become a legitimate candidate for the presidency of the United States could be considered part of a trend that has been playing out on municipal and state levels for some time now—that is, African Americans, increasingly of the post-Civil Rights generation, leading offices and institutions that many African Americans may view as historically disinterested in or opposed to their prosperity.

___Hip-hop music artists haven’t pulled many punches when it comes to criticizing, arguably without much nuance, and opposing the American political system and U.S. government—from Chuck D (“Neither party is mine / not the jackass or the elephant”), to Nas (“George Bush killer ‘till George Bush kills me”), to André 3000 (“Y’all telling me that I need to get out and vote / Why? Ain’t nobody black, nothing but crackers / So, why I got to register?”), to Dead Prez’s Stickman (“I’m down for running up on them crackers in they city hall”).
___What do you think hip-hop music and its generations of listeners’ relationship to the presidency and government will look like if Barack Obama is elected president? How will hip-hop employ its candor with a leader who is not “the man” but rather “a brother,” and do you see its critiques being forced to grow due to this potential change in dynamic?

Below you will find links of to each of panelists’ opening responses to the above question, and follow-up responses to each other’s statements. The sincerity and fervor of their exchange speaks to the importance of the work that needs to be done in order to process what political maturation in hip-hop culture means to hip-hop heads from age seventeen to fifty. And as you read, please add your own thoughts, via comment posts on this page, to the discussion so that this small roundtable can become a nation-wide cipher.

Read the Full E-Roundtable Here @

Whither the Black Middle Class?

from NewsOne.com

LEFT OF BLACK:
Global Financial Crisis Threatens Black Middle Class
by Mark Anthony Neal

The current crisis in U.S. financial institutions, along with record-breaking home foreclosures, higher unemployment rates, and skyrocketing gas prices, has given many Americans reason to pause, if not panic. Though the federal government has stepped in to help calm the public fear by bailing out certain institutions, as the old saying goes “when White America catches a cold, Black America catches the flu.”

And it is no different in this case. There’s little question that working-class and poor Americans are catching the brunt of what some pundits have called a recession. In this election season however, the working class and so-called working poor are often recalled only in relation to branding one presidential candidate an elitist and the other as out-of-touch with the economic mainstream.

Yet clearly the presidential candidates have been directing their economic rhetoric at the middle-class. Perhaps rightfully so, given widespread perceptions that the middle class sees its own financial stability as tied to the housing market and investment banking, particularly for those who hold 401K plans and various other IRA and pension plans.

But what exactly do we mean by the “middle class?” FactCheck.org at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication notes that there’s no standard definition to “middle class,” observing that the vast majority of Americans view themselves as middle-class. Even the presidential candidates seem unable to agree, as Senator McCain recently suggested (admittedly, in jest) that 5 million per year is the dividing line between being middle-class and rich.

In the absence of clear definitions that also account for social factors like geography, education and social class standing (a college professor making 40,000 a year has more social standing than an electrician that makes three times as much), most pundits use median income as a marker of middle-class status. According to 2005 census data, the median income for American families was a little more than 56,000. But when that data is adjusted for race, the median income for blacks is nearly 20,000 less than it is for whites.

When one looks at the comparisons between black and white incomes between 35,000 and 75,000, there is noticeable parity. However, for all of the egalitarian talk that those numbers might suggest, the reality is that middle-class blacks and whites who might live in the same neighborhoods, send their kids to the same private schools, and earn the same annual incomes are not equal.

Read the Full Essay @

Obama-Biden for Women?

special to NewBlackMan

The Chisholm candidacy didn't forge a solid coalition of those people working for social change; that will take a long time. But it began one.

-Gloria Steinem

“Real Fe Fes Speak: Obama–Biden for Women
by Stephane Dunn

Perhaps that long time from then is now. In 1973, Ms. Magazine captured the historic significance of Shirley Chisholm’s run for president. She didn’t win, of course, but she disturbed the notion of the run for presidency as a white male domain. Last week the Feminist Majority and NOW (National Organization of Women) along with several other women’s organization announced their strong support of the Obama-Biden ticket. Feminist Majority Political Action Chair Ellie Smeal declared that “women simply cannot afford a President McCain.” While gender has been in the swirl of public debate and media attention since Hilary Clinton entered the race for the Democratic nomination, the entrance of Sarah Palin into the high voltage political spotlight dramatizes the ways that the nation still fumbles at gender based dialogue.

The sexist overtones in the media attention on Palin’s appearance, gender and family, and the very significant visibility of the two major female candidates of the year-Clinton and Palin as well as the manipulation of them by supporters have encouraged women to confuse real feminist representation and potential radical change with the visibility of a woman. The recently declared support of the Obama-Biden ticket by the Feminist Majority and NOW should be all over the news given the charges of sexism against Obama and the fact that “gender” like “race” is the hot word of this election year.

Finally, McCain’s and the Republicans’ weak pro-woman’s political empowerment front might finally be addressed as the group voices who have long labored for true radical social change and progress for women have a chance to be more visible in the media’s spotlight. This has been one of the key problems with the talk about Palin, Clinton, women voters, and gender in general-much of it has taken place without seriously engaging the publications and the host of major organized women’s groups who do the work of unraveling gender in between election years and whether the candidates are male or female.

It might be too completely radical for some folk-women and men-to think that the ticket without an actual female on it might be the most progressive best choice for more women and men just as it might be too much for some to believe that the ticket with the black guy might indeed be the most rationale choice that America can make right now. When Chisholm ran, she knew that the stakes were higher than the actual win because one brave step has to be made for other steps to finally lead from a long time to a now.

***

Stephane Dunn, Ph.D, MFA, is currently an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Morehouse College. She has also taught at Ohio State University. A scholarly and creative writer, she specializes in film, popular culture, literature and African American studies. She is the author of articles and commentaries and the book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (University of Illinois Press 2008).

To the Chocolate Granola Gurl

“…in the sun, she dances to silent music/songs that are spun of gold somewhere in her own little head/One day all too soon, she’ll grow up and she’ll leave her dolls and her prince and her silly old bear/when she goes they will cry as they whisper goodbye/they will miss her I fear, but then so will I”

—“Waltz for Debby” as performed by Johnny Hartman
(music by Bill Evans; lyrics by Gene Lees)

To the Chocolate Granola Gurl

I can’t believe it’s been a decade since we first brought you home. I don’t think your mother and I have ever told you how much of a surprise you were; we simply didn’t see you coming. We had wished and prayed for a long time for a baby—and suddenly there was that phone call a decade ago that made you a possibility. There was little time for preparation.

You spent the first weeks of your life with a foster family in upstate New York; good folk, perhaps, who home-schooled their children and attended church daily—you in fact spent the evening of your third day on this earth at a church service. They seemed quite amazed about what a pretty little brown girl you were. We visited you in your second week, and I stand by my recollection that you pulled my eyeglasses off of my face. Even then there was just something about your eyes—you were asking questions with your eyes well before there were words to match your curiosity. It’s like what the Old Man said to Hawk, curiosity surrounds you like a landscape. I am reminded of our recent bike outing on the American Tobacco Trail (I’m still recovering, BTW) and when I suggested we bring our Ipods along the next time, you said, “but then I couldn’t talk to you.” It seems it was like that even from the beginning.

The night before we were to become a family, your mother and I traveled back to New York City. We had so little time (or money for that matter) to prepare for your arrival, but your Aunt Sonja and Uncle Frank opened up their hearts and gave us many of the things that nurtured your god-sister Imani in her first year. I still remember listening to the Met game on the radio driving back to Guilderland that night.

The next day we headed to Cortland, NY. I can’t even explain the sense of terror I felt, putting you in the car seat that first time and the sudden realization that all of our lives would never be the same. Your mother remembers you awakening from a quick nap on the car ride home and simply letting out a small exhale when you saw us. Perhaps you already understood that we were a family. We named you after the first initials of our first names. In Hebrew your name means, “one who was taken from the water” and how fitting it was. (and yes, I just got the text you sent me).

***

I can’t believe that it’s been ten years. You should know that I think about you and your sister often. I have playlist on my Ipod called Whurl-A-Gurls that I listen to when I start to miss the two of you and it’s not just those times that I’m traveling, but some days I start to miss the two of you just five minutes after I’ve dropped you off to school. It’s a reminder that every day the time we get to spend with each other is one day less; a reminder that each moment the two of you will need your mother and I even less. Right now I’m listening Chrisette Michele’s “Your Joy” and about to cry. That happens often enough, like when we watched the video for “Yes We Can” together for the first time and you only commented, that it would be nice to have a woman president. And I’m again reminded of the songs you asked me to put on your Ipod, like Alicia Keys’s “Superwomen” and again reminded that I promised to finally work on your blog—Chocolate Granola Gurl.

I imagine that there are a long list of promises that I’ve made to you these past years that you simply pack away close to your heart, knowing my intent, even when I don’t deliver. It’s one of the traps of modern parenting—my dad knew better than to promise anything other than a roof over my head, food in my belly and an example of how to be a man—a black man—and he kept his promise until the day he went home. I was so proud of you the morning of his going home service, reading scripture and comforting your own dad; I simply couldn’t believe how grown you had become on that snowy morning last February.

I really just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you. Hopefully we’ll spend some time tomorrow celebrating our annual family day—in commemoration of our decade as a family—over ice cream or maybe even Locopops. Daddy may not always show it, but he loves you, and he’s had to take some time to really understand how difficult this really difficult year has been for a 10-year-old brown girl, who just wants to know that her daddy will always be there to talk to.

Love,

Daddy

Post-Race Nostalgia?

from Vibe.com


CRITICAL NOIR:
Love that (White) Girl: Post-Race Nostalgia in the Age of Obama and Palin
by Mark Anthony Neal

Raphael Saadiq has been managing the archive for much of his career, beginning more than 20-years with his work with Tony, Toni, Tone, songwriting collaborations with D'Angelo (of which "Untitled" is the clear standout, his stellar production on tracks like Mary J. Blige's "I Found My Everything" and the Earth, Wind & Fire comeback recording Illumination, as well as his own shade-short-of-brilliant-though-obscure solo recording career.

Saadiq is in fine company with the likes of Jimmy Scott, the late Ronnie Dyson and Rahsaan Patterson--men who share Saadiq's proclivity to finesse vocals in registers well beyond the privilege masculinity affords. Quite frankly, upon hearing "Love that Girl" the lead single from Saadiq latest album The Way I See It for the first time, I thought I was listening to woman. Yet it was a woman--some Joss Stone look-alike lovely--that arrested my attention as I gazed on the video treatment for "I Love That Girl."

Retro-fitted with a sound heisted from the Brunswick label's rhythm section--and imaging packaged with a giddy 1960s innocence reminiscent of The Wonder Years, "Love that Girl" is perfectly pitched for the so-called post-Race moment. The video for Raphael Saadiq's "Love That Girl" succeeds, in part, because it trafficks in the very anxieties of this moment, by inverting the cynicism that that informs much of the political discourse emanating from media pundits.

Read Full Essay @

Daphne Brooks on Amy Whinehouse

from The Nation

Tainted Love: Amy Winehouse and the (Black) Art of Appropriation by Daphne A. Brooks

London's Victoria and Albert Museum is currently paying tribute to the Supremes, the queen mother of all "girl groups," in a colorful exhibit that celebrates the more-than-passing connections between the Motown trio's rise to pop prominence and the 1960s struggle for civil rights. Featuring a luminous array of vintage glitter gowns and go-go petal dresses donated by original Supreme Mary Wilson, "The Story of the Supremes" highlights the link between the groundbreaking group's consistent execution of refined elegance and what you might call the civil right to black glamour that was dominant for much of twentieth-century black music history.

English pop phenom and London native Amy Winehouse is a singer who owes as much to the sound and look of the Supremes, the Ronettes and other pioneering girl groups as she does to the vocal stylings of bygone jazz and R&B greats like Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Afro-Scottish pop legend Dame Shirley Bassey. On second thought, "owing" is putting it nicely. Winehouse's Tower of Pisa beehive, satin gowns and little black gloves invoke the styles of everyone from Lena Horne to the Shirelles, and her frothy brew of Motown girl-group melodies crossed with Etta James-era rock and blues riffs and silky-smooth 1970s soul arrangements are textbook BET lifetime achievement material. Just about the only thing Winehouse hasn't repackaged from the black music archives is the one thing she could use: a lesson from Motown's legendary etiquette coach Maxine Powell, who taught her charges to exude grace and a classic Hollywood glow. The mannered, elegant look that Winehouse pairs with a shot glass was, for Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, about more than Cleopatra eyeliner. It was about affirming black dignity and humanity amid the battle to end American apartheid.

Read the Full Essay @

***

Daphne A. Brooks, an associate professor of English and African-American studies at Princeton University, is the author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Duke) and Jeff Buckley's Grace (Continuum)

Who You Callin' a Sexist?

from NewsOne.com

LEFT OF BLACK:
Memo To John McCain: A Male Chauvinist Pig is Still a Pig
by Mark Anthony Neal

So, Senator John McCain’s campaign has accused Senator Barack Obama of sexism in relation to the latter’s use of the phrase, “if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” That the mainstream press has spent so much time and energy on this non-issue, speaks volumes about the extent to which real examples of sexism and misogyny remain beyond their full interpretive grasp.

As recently as a month ago, NBC commentator and former NFL player Tiki Barber referred to his on-air colleague Jenna Wolfe as a “full medal cunt,” during NBC’s Olympic broadcasts. The comment generated little, if any, press scrutiny. Now, the same press wants us to believe that Obama’s use of an odd colloquialism is somehow tantamount to issues like domestic violence, inequitable wages, the rape and murder of female military personnel by their male peers and the media’s own questionable coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin.

Of course, that it was John McCain who felt compelled to raise the issue of sexism in the Obama campaign is absurd in and of itself. My guess is that Senator McCain has likely never heard of the Ms. Foundation or the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, let alone the hundreds of less prominent, though no less effective, organizations and activists that combat sexism, misogyny and violence against women and girls on-the-ground, everyday.

This is the same John McCain who uttered nary a mumbling word when a supporter rhetorically asked, in reference to Senator Hillary Clinton, “How do we beat the bitch”? Now we are to accept that issues of gender are high on his list of domestic concerns? In this particular instance, McCain is in company with many other men: he refuses to challenge other men on legitimate examples of sexism and misogyny.

In the process, he, like they, becomes complicit in the very sexism and misogyny that they claim to be concerned about.

Read Full Essay @

What About Long-Term Senior Healthcare?

from NewsOne.com

LEFT OF BLACK: Conventions in Rearview--Senior Healthcare Remains
by Mark Anthony Neal

With the inclusion of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin on the Republican Presidential ticket and Barack Obama's equally historic emergence as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party, both national conventions took on a larger than life quality. Now that the battle lines are fully drawn-celebrated veteran vs. upstart elitist; small town values vs. a cosmopolitan sophistication-it remains to be seen whether this election cycle will produce any meaningful conversations about day-to-day issues. The senior healthcare crisis would be a great start.

In a nation in which nearly 50 million people lack health insurance of any kind, most seniors over the age of 65 are nominally covered by Medicare. The Medicare system has its faults, particularly with regards to affordable prescription drugs. And the system also offers little for long-term care, except under specific circumstances.

As Americans increasingly live longer lives and with millions of seniors suffering from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, long term care options, such as nursing homes, assisted-living environments and retirement communities, have become increasingly prevalent. The struggle for many seniors is trying to find ways to pay for long-term care.

Read Full Essay@

Melissa Harris-Lacewell on Smalltown, America

from The Chicago Tribune

Obama's own small-town values
by Melissa Harris-Lacewell
September 8, 2008

Speakers at the Republican National Convention talked a lot about small-town values. They told America that a man from Chicago could not relate to the homegrown ethics of ordinary people. I know better. Barack Obama was my state senator. Right in the middle of that Senate district is my beloved small town, Hyde Park. There is no small town that knows more about sacrifice, honesty, hard work, community and patriotism.

We know about terrorism. In Hyde Park, I was embraced by dozens of neighbors on Sept. 11, 2001. We stood at Lake Michigan and turned our eyes toward our precious Chicago skyline. We kept vigil over our city, wondering if we would be targeted next.

We know how to be neighborly. Hyde Park is where a homeless man caught me when I stumbled while walking home in the snow eight months pregnant. He carried my bags 10 blocks. He wasn't rich, but he was righteous. Hyde Park is where we make room for each other to set up tents and barbecue in the parks on warm summer days. We parade down 53rd Street on Independence Day and together we listen to blues and jazz. We celebrate America with the flair and flavor of the best patriots.

We know about the energy crisis. In Hyde Park we walk to work, take Metra or catch the No. 6 bus downtown. We are city people, but we share our trees with the monk parakeets and feed the pigeons in the park.

We know about the power of faith. In Hyde Park we brave the bitter winds to gather in Rockefeller Chapel on Thanksgiving morning. We are welcomed by African drums; we are blessed by rabbis, priests and preachers; then we are sent home to our holiday feasts by the smell of burning sage offered by Indian tribal leaders.

We know about caring for our young people. In Hyde Park I watched a young woman turn down corporate job offers so that she could take over as principal of a failing public high school. With the help of parents, the commitment of students, and her own powerful determination, she is making Kenwood Academy one of the best schools in the city.

We know about diversity. Blacks and whites share a chess game in the park. Jews and Muslims work together to feed the hungry. Immigrants and citizens share the lakefront for a jog.

Read the Full Essay@

***

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. She lived in Hyde Park and taught at the University of Chicago from 1999 to 2006. She misses it every day.

Book Signings! Book Signings!

The Gothic Bookshop cordially invites you to a celebration and book signing for J. Kameron Carter’s new book,

Race: A Theological Account

Tuesday, September 9th, 2009
from 4:30 to 6:30pm
on The Schaefer Mall, Bryan Center
Duke University

"Jay Kameron Carter has written an extraordinarily insightful and sophisticated analysis of race as it has been constructed in modern philosophy and theology. His study reconceptualizes modernity and demonstrates the centrality of religion to any understanding of racism." –Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College

"An intellectual tour de force! This book demonstrates great intellectual range and theological imagination; it should be read by all students of theology, religious studies and African American religion and history. I have nothing but praise for this work by a young African American scholar who must be reckoned with." --James H. Cone, Charles Augustus Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary

***



Friday, September 12, 2008 8:00 p.m.

Charis Books & More
1189 Euclid Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30307
Tel:(404)524-0304

Stephane Dunn with Baad Bitches& Sassy Supermamas

Local author and Morehouse College professor, Stephane Dunn, has written a lively study that explores the sexualized, subordinate positioning of women in low-budget blaxploitation action films. Her book, "Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films," is hot off the press. Come hear Stephane at Charis as she talks about a distinct moment in the history of African American representation in popular cinema, touching on Black Power and feminist influences. Following the discussion, Stephane will sign copies of her book for fans.

"Dunn puts the whole blaxploitation experience into logical context, explaining the social conditions of the era relating to race and gender that affected how the black community observed these films. . . . An essential companion to the black film studies genre. Recommended."--Library Journal

"With trenchant intellect and sassiness that is only matched by the larger-than-life characters she examines throughout "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films, Stephane Dunn provides a fresh perspective on intersections of gender and sexuality within blaxploitation-era black film. This is a very important addition to scholarship in African American cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and American studies."--Mark Anthony Neal, author of New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity

Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City

The pre-ordained rise and expected fall of America's hip-hop mayor.

Living Down to Expectations
By Natalie Y. Moore | TheRoot.com

Politicians are bound to have tension with the media performing a watchdog role. But many black politicians don't seem to understand that part of their job is media relations. After being elected to positions of power, black politicians often reflexively assume a beleaguered stance, which is understandable, given the historical representations of blacks in the media. But many of them seem to forget that the whole point of electing black leaders is for them not to be helpless actors, but to wield power and influence, yes, even with the media.

Read the Full Essay @

Hating the Message or Hating ON the Messenger?

William Jelani Cobb on the Black Left: "Obama and the Suicidal Left"

***

Not a response, but this from my Vibe colleague Jalylah Burrell gets to the heart of something at the root of some displeasure with Obama:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright proved himself to have some foolish tendencies at his wild press conference, but damn it, he will always have a special place in my heart and my psyche and that of so many African Americans for cultivating a space in which we can be UNASHAMEDLY BLACK. We don't have to shrink from our color, our names, our musical tastes, our everything.

A Right on Hadley Street: Solange Knowles

from Vibe.com

CRITICAL NOIR: Up-and-Coming R&B Diva # 19
by Mark Anthony Neal

You have to feel for Solange Knowles or any up-and-coming R&B Diva. There's always gonna be somebody prettier (those doe-eyes notwithstanding), somebody grittier, somebody who dances better, somebody who plays the piano finer, somebody with more curves, somebody who is thinner, somebody who is more exotic, somebody who is Whiter and of course--in a perfect world--somebody who can sing better. And in Solange's case it doesn't help that your older sister is, arguably, the hardest working person in the industry and heir apparent to a Hip-hop Soul Queen who by all measure is not going anywhere, anytime soon.

So what's an Up-and-Coming R&B Diva to do?

A year ago, uber-critic Greg Tate elicited much chatter when he described Alicia Keys's As I Am as "very much an album in the old-fashioned sense, a complete work: one you shouldn't subject to shuffle before you've given Keys's sequencing a chance to work its magic, its rising and falling arcs, its gut-punch-and-goose-bumps denouement." A year later Keys's "Teenage Love" was as ubiquitous as summer, her love anthem "Like You'll Never See Me Again" bought a beloved black soap opera star back from the dead, and "Superwoman" has many dreaming of the first black First Lady and first baby-gurls in the White House.

Yet, I would argue that Solange Knowles's Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams realizes what Keys's As I Am only hinted at: a fully blown black pop that is in conversation with its 1960s predecessors like Dionne Warwicke, Barbara Lewis and The Shirelles. Hadley Street Dreams is more Maxine Brown and Diana Ross than Aretha Franklin and Mabel John and too many folk can't make that distinction as they conjure the Soul Goddesses from a time long-gone--but not as long as we'd like to believe it was. Truth be told, Ms. Knowles probably can't make those distinctions either, but damn if the music don't speak for her.

Read the Full Essay @

Gov. Sarah Palin: A Double Take

from The Root

From Clarence Thomas to Sarah Palin, nobody plays cynical identity politics like the GOP.

The Grand Old Bait and Switch
By Salamishah Tillet | TheRoot.com

Sept. 3, 2008--John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee has re-inserted the "woman" question into the presidential debate.

By choosing the second white female vice presidential candidate, McCain is trying to fashion himself, Sarah Palin, and, by extension, the entire Republican Party as more committed feminists than the Democrats.

But what is being called a "maverick" decision by McCain, is in fact just another version of the old Republican game of bait and switch with identity politics. Starting with George H. W. Bush's nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the GOP has been trying to convince Americans that any "woman," "African American" or "candidate of color" will do. And while the argument can be made that any diversity is better than no diversity, this Republican version is especially egregious because it often appoints minority candidates who vote against public legislation that insure that other members of their group have the same opportunities, choices and paths to success as they did. In effect, diversity, which dismantles affirmative action programs and women's reproductive rights, is the worse form of political fraud.

Read the Full Essay @

***

Salamishah Tillet is an assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

ALSO

When did single parenthood and teen pregnancy stop being important to the family values party?

All in the Family
By Stephane Dunn | TheRoot.com

September 3, 2008--The Internet was buzzing with rumors that Gov. Sarah Palin's 4-month-old son is actually the child of her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol. To silence these rumors, Camp McCain-Palin released this bombshell: Bristol couldn't have had the infant because she is five months pregnant.

Whew! This is the stuff of Access Hollywood.

McCain claimed he knew about the pregnancy, but the timing was suspect. The announcement, squeezed in-between a pared-down Republican Convention and Hurricane Gustav's impact on New Orleans, allowed the bomb to fall more like a leaf.

Now, the storm has subsided, and the political one is roaring back up. The Republicans are in defense mode with some arguing that it is in poor taste to make Palin's family situation a campaign issue.

Really? When one considers the high-wattage criticism surrounding the year's most-famous pregnant teen, Jamie Lynn Spears, and all the talk about how the actress's high-profile glorified teenage pregnancy and the news reports of a teenage pregnancy pact that followed, it's hard to pass off Bristol's pregnancy as a kind of private family affair.

But even worse, some Republicans are spinning Bristol as a poignant example of the-right-to-life and an opportunity for the potential second family to relate to regular folk.

This is the same Republican Party of the mid- to late 20th century that solidified a careful ideology of "family values" with emphasis on traditional mores and thinking. Cracked-face or not, the rightist swing of Republican politics doesn't neatly allow for such "mistakes" as teenage pregnancy for a candidate, especially during a major election year.

Read the Full Essay@

***

Stephane Dunn is a writer and author of Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (August 2008). She is also an assistant professor at Morehouse College.