Angela Davis @ #OccupyWallStreet [Washington Sq. Park]

'Left of Black' S2:E8 w/ E. Patrick Johnson and Honoreé Fanonne Jeffers

Left of Black S2:E8

w/ E. Patrick Johnson and Honoreé Fanonne Jeffers

October 31, 2011

Host  and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; an Oral History.  A Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Johnson’s ethnographic work on this book evolved into a play called Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales.  Johnson shares his motivation to turn his book into a play, and also discusses how his journey through these projects helped him better come to terms with his own personal issues.  He shares his reactions to the different responses he’s gotten so far from to the stage performance.  Johnson, whose play premiered in Chicago’s About Face Theater and was recently staged at The Signature Theater in Arlington Virginia, also discusses the significance of the title.  

Later Neal is joined by Honoreé Fannone Jeffers, poet, commentator, satirist, blogger and professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.  Jeffers, author of several collections of poetry including The Gospel of Barbecue and Red Clay Suite, discusses her blog Phillis Remastered and her work-in-progress on the 18^th century poet Phillis Wheatley.  In a wide ranging conversation, Neal and Jeffers also discuss the legacy of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary,  the Slut Walk protest & the concept of Post-Black. 

***

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.

***

Episodes of Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U

Cornel West @ #OccupyHarlem

Amber Cole is My Daughter

Amber Cole is My Daughter

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

I was too busy raising my two daughters, aged thirteen and eight, to pay much attention to Amber Cole, but the truth is that Amber Cole is my daughter and the daughter of so many of us.

Unlike Jimi Izrael’s recent suggestion, I have not seen the so-called Amber Cole video.  That so many have—and in the process downloaded and trafficked in illegal child pornography—speaks volumes about how we, as a society, think about Black girls. For that reason alone, Amber Cole is my daughter.

I suspect that for far too many, who have voiced displeasure and alarm about Amber Cole, and or the parenting skills of the adults responsible for her, it is less about real concern for Cole and more likely about the collective shame that she evokes.  Unfortunately it is such shame, and the politics of respectability that go hand-in-hand with Black collective shame, that often keeps us from having honest discussions about sex and sexuality in our communities—often to the detriment of our children. 

Ironically, this shame is seemingly always directed towards the women and girls in our communities and rarely extended to the men and boys who are complicit in sex acts.  It goes without saying, that in the case of Amber Cole, such complicity is indeed criminal; under the law, a 14-year-old cannot consent to sex acts.  Too often our conversations with our boys is not to discourage underage sex acts—indeed such acts viewed as a rite of passage for boys—but rather, to caution them about impregnating a partner, whether she consents or not.  Few have mentioned rape in response to this case, the reality of the act over-shadowed by the resentment and ire that Amber Cole has drawn from many.

As such there are some who will claim that Amber Cole’s behavior is the product of slack parenting, single-parent households and the continued erosion of values within Black families.  Still others, part-time psycho-analysts, will suggest that Amber Cole’s behavior is a cry out for the kind of attention that only a (presumably missing) father can provide or, as Jimi Izrael argues, the actions of a girl whose mother was too busy being everything but a mother.   It all sounds correct in a society that cares little about Black girls and even less about what motivates them to do the things that they do. No one is questioning the parenting skills of the parents of the boys in the video.

Despite our shame and consternation, Amber Cole is not the first—and will not be the last teenage girl to engage in sex acts—consensual or not. 

If Amber Cole was my own daughter, I would have first asked her if she felt safe and if she was coerced into such acts.  If it was her choice, I would ask without judgment, whether it was her desire to give pleasure, derive pleasure, or both, by engaging in such acts.  It would be at that point that we would talk about the myriad ways that teenagers, sexually attracted to each other, can engage in pleasurable and age appropriate activities that allow all to safely express their sexual attraction.  We would also discuss that it is never appropriate for such acts to be recorded and circulated, unless agreed upon by consenting adults.

In our indignation at Amber Cole, we have forgotten that she is still teenager, not yet a woman, who should not feel ashamed about her healthy sexual desires.  Amber Cole needs not our stern lectures or our prayers, but just the opportunity to be simply a 14-year-old girl again.

Amber Cole is my Daughter.

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press) and Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University.  He is founder and managing editor of NewBlackMan and host of the weekly webcast Left of Black.  Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

#Occupy Duke

southern socialism

Occupy Duke

by Josh Brewer | The Chronicle

Duke must join the Occupy Together movement as an academic institution, employer and collection of workers while explicitly standing with Durham and North Carolina. 

Many have criticized Occupy’s horizontal structure for being an indirect, uncoordinated churning mess—this is what democracy looks like. Unions were hierarchical, well-organized, politically connected and very specific about their demands during the bipartisan deconstruction of workers’ rights and deterioration of the American manufacturing sector. In The Chronicle, the movement’s self-identification—occupy, an impolite word historically functioning as a coital euphemism—has been criticized. More shockingly, the article attacked the Southern poor while disregarding Occupy’s proliferation. No, most Southerners, like most Americans, may not understand derivative markets and have nothing financially left to risk, but does this really delegitimize our demands for equality? 

In my hometown I have seen mom and pop shops shut down by Walmart (ironically started as such in my state), the middle class get poor and the poor get poorer. I see good people unable to work with their hands—something most Duke students couldn’t do if their life depended on it. I see people die for a profit-procuring medical system. The unemployed and working classes have never had agency in this political system; this must change. Occupy must empower the Lumpenproletariat and force recognition of solidarity among the middle classes. 

“Why should I care,” says the stereotypical i-banking Dukie. Most likely you don’t care about my type of folk (no, I reject the yuppie liberalism helping you sleep at night) but what about your fabled “Duke Degree” job sector: The banking industry will take another round of cuts to maintain the disproportionately inflated average earnings; the medical system increasingly forces doctors into unethical relationships with hospital administrations (profit maximization) and pharmaceutical companies; engineering firms are going elsewhere; graduate students of all fields are facing increased costs and shrinking federal aid. 

Musicians #Occupy Wall Street

?uestlove, Moby, Kweli, Kanye West, Russell Simmons, Bilal, Angelique Kidjo, and Gbenga Akinnagbe (from The Wire) stand in solidarity with the #Occupy protests on Wall Street and across the country.

For more information on how you can help and get involved, check www.okayplayer.com/wallstreet.

The Occupy Movements and the Universities

The Occupy Movements and the Universities   

by Mark Naison | Special to NewBlackMan

The Occupation movements spreading around the nation and the world  have the potential to revitalize University life, particularly those initiatives involving community activism and the arts..  The role of arts activists in Occupy Wall Street is a story that has not been fully told,.  Community arts organizations in New York such as the South Bronx's Rebel Diaz Arts Collective  and Brooklyn's  Global Block Collective have been involved with  Occupy Wall Street for almost a month, making music videos on the site, documenting the movement's growth through film, and trying to bring working class people and people of colure into the movement. The Occupation has become an essential stopping point for a wide variety of performing artists, none of whom have asked for payment for their appearances.

   

University faculty and participants in community outreach initiatives can only benefit from tapping into this tremendous source of energy and idealism. I have never seen students on my campus so excited about anything political or artistic as they have about these Occupation movements, which have spread into outer borough New York neighborhoods ( We have had "Occupy the Bronx") as well as cities throughout the nation and the world.  What the movement has done is reinvigorate democratic practice- much of it face to face- widely regarded as nearly extinct among young people allegedly atomized by their cell phones and iPods.

Putting the “Run Away Slaves” Ahead of the Plantation: Parity, Race and the NBA Lockout

"Basketball and Chain" by Hank Willis Thomas

Putting the “Run Away Slaves” Ahead of the Plantation: 

Parity, Race and the NBA Lockout

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In wake of LeBron James’ decision to take his talents, along with those of Chris Bosh, to South Beach to join forces with Dwayne Wade, the NBA punditry has been lamenting the demise of the NBA.  This only became worse with the subsequent trades of Deron Williams and Carmelo Anthony to New Jersey and New York respectfully.  Described as a league “out of control in terms of the normal sports business model” where player power “kills the local enthusiasm for the customer and fan base,” where superstars leave smaller markets with no hope of securing a championship, where manipulating players and agents have created a game dominated by “players whose egos are bigger than the game,” much has been made about player movement.

Commentators have lamented how players are yet again destroying the game from the inside, thinking of themselves ahead of its financial security and cultural importance.  In “NBA no longer fan-tastic,” Rick Reilly laments the changing landscape facing the NBA.  Unlike any other sport, the NBA is now a league where “very rich 20-somethings running the league from the backs of limos,” are “colluding so that the best players gang up on the worst. To hell with the Denvers, the Clevelands, the Torontos. If you aren't a city with a direct flight to Paris, we're leaving. Go rot.”  In other words, this line of criticism have warned that “the inmates are running the asylum,” so much so that the league “is little more than a small cartel of powerful teams, driven by the insecurities and selfishness of the players who stack them.”  

While such rhetoric erases history (of trades – players of the golden generation have certainly demanded trades; the same can be said for other sports as well) and works from a faulty premise that parity is good for the economics of the NBA (the very different television monies for the NBA and NFL proves the faultiness of this logic), the idea that the league needs more parity remains a prominent justification for the NBA lockout.   “The owners believe that the league should be more competitive and that teams should have an opportunity to make a profit,” notes David Stern. Similarly, Adam Silver, deputy commissioner, argues, “Our view is that the current system is broken in that 30 teams are not in a position to compete for championships.” 

October 31st 'Left of Black' Explores The Experiences of Black Gay Men in the South and the Legacy of 18th Century Poet Phillis Wheatley

October 31^st Left of Black Explores The Experiences of Black Gay Men in the South and the Legacy of 18^th Century Poet Phillis Wheatley

Host  and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by E. Patrick Johnson, author of Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South; an Oral History.  A Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University, Johnson’s ethnographic work on this book evolved into a play called Pouring Tea: Black Gay Men of the South Tell Their Tales.  Johnson shares his motivation to turn his book into a play, and also discusses how his journey through these projects helped him better come to terms with his own personal issues.  He shares his reactions to the different responses he’s gotten so far from to the stage performance.  Johnson, whose play premiered in Chicago’s About Face Theater and was recently staged at The Signature Theater in Arlington Virginia, also discusses the significance of the title.  

Later Neal is joined by Honoreé Fannone Jeffers, poet, commentator, satirist, blogger and professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.  Jeffers, author of several collections of poetry including The Gospel of Barbecue and Red Clay Suite, discusses her blog Phillis Remastered and her work-in-progress on the 18^th century poet Phillis Wheatley.  In a wide ranging conversation, Neal and Jeffers also discuss the legacy of Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary,  the Slut Walk protests & the concept of Post-Black. 

***

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke's Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

***

Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Honoreé Fannone Jeffers: @BlkLibraryGirl

###

Steve Stoute and Jay Z on 'The Tanning of America'

Classic Black Cinema | John Akomfrah--The Last Angel of History (Intro)

A 1995 documentary directed by John Akomfrah discussing all things afrofuturistic. Features interviews with George Clinton, Derrick May, Kodwo Eshun, Stephen R. Delany, Nichelle Nichols, Juan Atkins, DJ Spooky, Goldie and many others. The film makes mention to Sun Ra, whose work centers around the return of blacks to outer space in his own Mothership. Produced in 1995.

“Right Thru Me”: Authenticity, Performance, and the Nicki Minaj Hate

“Right Thru Me”: Authenticity, Performance, and the Nicki Minaj Hate

by Javon Johnson | special to NewBlackMan

I began teaching at the University of Southern California in fall 2010 as the Visions and Voices Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow. Among others, one of my duties as Postdoc is to teach African American Popular Culture. One of the biggest difficulties with teaching a course such as this is the seemingly impossible task of trying to get my students to move beyond simply labeling aspects of Black pop culture as good or bad – that is, getting them to unearth and critically discuss the political, social, economic, and historical stakes in Black film, music, theater, dance, literature and other forms of Black popular culture.

I struggled mightily with getting them to see how a Black artist or sports figure could simultaneously be good and bad and how those labels, even when collapsed, do little to explain how violent rap lyrics are used as justification for unfair policing practices in Black communities, how literature and music is often used as a means for many Black people to enter into a political arena that historically denied us access, or even how Black popular culture illustrates that the U.S., since pre-Civil War chattel slavery, has had, and will continue to have, a perverse preoccupation with Black bodies.   

My class is not the only group of people who have trouble moving beyond the ever-limiting dualities of good and bad. Like my students who could not wait to tell me all of the reasons they feel Nicki Minaj is a bad artist, icon, and even person, many Black people that I speak with are quick to throw the Harajuku Barbie under the bus on account that, as one of my students put it, “She makes [Black women] look bad, like all we are good for is ass, hips, and partying.” Fellow rappers such as Lil Mama and Pepa have commented on Nicki’s over-the-top dress up and character voices, with Kid Sister asking, “do people take her seriously?” What is most troubling about comments such as these is how reductive they are, how readily they dismiss Black women’s identity possibilities, in that anyone who dresses and talks like Nicki must be selling out and doing a disservice to real hip-hop, real Black people, and real women.

Belly of the Beast: From Durham to Wall Street

Belly of the Beast: From Durham to Wall Street

by Lamont Lilly | special to NewBlackMan

The scene was a perfect storm of organized chaos.  Here were the young and old, students & workers, immigrants and oppressed, all addressing the failures of capitalism’s current worldwide crisis, outlining the destructive forces of global banking systems and highlighting the lack of communal values in a place that loves to cry patriotism. Right-winged conservative press would have you to believe that the only “fanatics” there were Ivy League white college kids—the privileged and idle-minded, or simply a cadre of recent graduates who have yet to find jobs after completing Master’s Degrees. But that wasn’t true at all.  The idea of occupying Wall Street may have begun as a young white thing, but by the time we arrived on the evening of October 8^th, there were participants of all nations, all races and all ages—raising a range of pertinent issues.

There were Haitians from the Bronx who had marched the George Washington Bridge earlier that day in a show of solidarity. There were domestic and sanitation workers from Queens. There were the unions and labor organizations from all over the country—Working Class adults who currently live the effects of capitalism from the front line, Blue-collar folks whose wages have been decimated by the manipulation of global markets, international corporatism and “Third World” exploitation. For this one night, I was living what Democracy really looks like: the common masses united in a single front.

Creatively illustrated cardboard was everywhere. Homemade signs and justice banners waited on deck for live action. While some were large and others were small, all were quite grand in stature, bearing sharp demands and philosophical ideals such as “Books not Bombs” and “Stop the War on the Poor.”  It was a true Who’s Who of change slogans.  There were also posters of Troy Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal.  However, nearly everyone possessed an anti-capitalist placard of some sort. The LGBT community was also in full-effect, but that was merely the surface.

There, within this tightly restricted park-ground was everything a revolutionary would need for a couple of months, that is, aside from a public restroom. There were mass water dispensers and community chow lines, a first aid station equipped with medics, and an immense library for learning and entertainment. There were sleeping bags, tents and thinly padded nap mats for rest and relaxation. There was art and music, love and hope. There was one common cause and one loud voice: The People.  No lobbyists or politicians were allowed. No bureaucrats or corporate bourgeoisie were welcomed.

Coming Home: On Returning to A Parent’s Final Place of Rest

Coming Home: On Returning to A Parent’s Final Place of Rest

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

In my mind home had always been that place where my parents resided.  This is not to say that I don’t have a home that I share with a wife and two daughters, but that the very idea of going home—to some mythical, long past moment—was always concretely related to the place where my parents resided.  I can’t say that my home as a child was particularly warm; more functional than anything, and that is not to say that I didn’t know that I was loved, since I was indeed Arthur and Elsie’s baby-boy and only child.  My father’s matter-of-fact way of going to work, six days a week, without comment or complaint (and in the shadow of my mother’s out-sized personality) continues to color my workman-like approach to everything from writing, to cooking Sunday morning breakfast (as he did), parenting and marriage. 

The sensibility that my father bequeathed to me, his son, may have been his greatest gift in the months immediately after his death.  He died in his sleep one February night, with his 73^rd birthday a few months on the horizon, as matter-of-factly as he lived, with little fuss.  In the spirit of my mother and father’s ying and yang, meant that I was left with ying, unhinged by the death of her mother and husband a month apart that winter.   And unhinged is how I might have described my own state in those months following my father’s death, my untreated hypertension out-of-control, closing out what had been nearly three-years of sleeplessness, in which I slept no more than four hours of sleep a night. 

Left of Black Discusses Arab Spring and Hip-Hop Activism with Syrian American Artist Omar Offendum

Left of Black Discusses Arab Spring and Hip-Hop Activism with Syrian American Artist Omar Offendum

On Wednesday October 26, 2011 at 12:00 noon est., Left of Black will feature Syrian American Hip-Hop artist Omar Offendum and artist and educator Pierce Freelon of The Beast on a special live audience taping of the show, as part of the Wednesday at the Center programming at the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies at Duke University (Room 240).

The conversation will also be streamed live on Duke University's Ustream channel. Viewers are invited to also follow the discussion via Twitter using the hashtags #LeftofBlack or #DukeLive.

Omar Offendum is a Los Angeles-based Syrian-American hip-hop artist. He began his musical career as member of the Arabic-American Hip-Hop group N.O.M.A.D.S. Omar is committed to supporting humanitarian aid for Palestine. His street performance and poetry projects have been reviewed among others by the BBC, ABC News and Al Jazeera. A bilingual artist, Omar performs in both Arabic and English, often bridging between American and Middle Eastern cultures by translating and performing English-language poetry in Arabic for Arabic audiences and Arabic songs for American audiences.

Pierce Freelon is an emcee, professor, activist and the founder of Blackademcis.org. He earned his bachelors degree in African and African American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors and his masters degree in Pan-African Studies from Syracuse University. At UNC, Freelon developed a Hip-Hop curriculum, which he has taken into high schools and universities from South Central to Atlanta and from southeast Asia to West Africa. He is currently an adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches Music and Political Movements and Blacks and Popular Culture.

Left of Black is hosted by Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal and recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

###

Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

Is the NBA Lockout About Race?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

I thought I would write a follow-up to my piece, “Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The ‘limited intellectual capital’ of the NBA’s Players” which has elicited a significant reaction.   It should be clear from the outset, I am not interested in conversations about individuals, intention, or motivation.  To paraphrase the always-brilliant Jay Smooth, the conversations should focus around what has been said, what has been done, and what all of this means in a larger context rather than the individual actors.  The discussion needs to be about how ideology, narrative, and frames operate within these larger discussions. 

One of the common responses to Bill Simmons’ commentary and more specifically the criticism directed at me for reflecting on the racial meaning in those comments has been that Simmons was talking about all NBA players, not just those who are black.  Given the racial demographics of the league and the racial signifiers associated with basketball, it is hard to accept the idea that “NBA player” isn’t a mere code for blackness.  In other words, blackness and basketball become inextricably connected within the dominant imagination, akin to Kathryn Russell-Brown’s idea of the criminal blackman.  Just as the “criminal Blackman” exists as contained identity within the dominant white imagination, the blackballer functions in similar ways. 

The process of both essentializing and bifurcating the black baller is evident in the very distinct ways that the white racial frame conceives of both white and black players, playing upon ideas of intelligence and athleticism.  Whereas the blackballer is imagined as athletic, naturally gifted, and physically superior, white basketball players are celebrated for their intelligence, work ethic, and team orientation.  In Am I Black Enough for You, Todd Boyd identifies a dialectical relationship between racialization and styles of play where whiteness represents a “textbook or formal” style basketball, which operates in opposition “street or vernacular” styles of hooping that are connected to blackness within the collective consciousness.   In both styles of play, notions of intelligence, mental toughness, and mental agility are centrally in play. 

A second and widely circulated denunciation against those critical voices has been our lack of fairness or the double standards of this portion of the discourse.  Whereas I honed in on Simmons’ comments, little has been made about those of Jason Whitlock (Bryant Gumbel has been the at the center of media commentary).  Lets be clear: the comments of Jason Whitlock, irrespective of intent, are worthy of criticism in that his recent commentary plays upon and reinforces dominant narratives and frames about race and blackness.  Looking at his comments, alongside with those of Simmons, further illustrates the ways in which ideologies are circulated, and how commentaries such of these cannot be understood outside of these larger contexts.

Left of Black S2:E7 with Jonathan Gayles and Alondra Nelson

Left of Black S2:E7

w/ Jonathan Gayles and Alondra Nelson

October 24, 2011

Jonathan Gayles, professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University and writer, director, and producer of the film White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in American Comic Books joins host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black. Gayles discusses reaction to his movie, which won best documentary feature at the 2010 Urban Media Makers Film Festival and remembers the impact of the late Dwayne McDuffie founder of Milestone Media. Neal and Gayles also discuss Black Entertainment Television’s ill-fated attempt to bring the animated series Black Panther to television.

Neal is also joined by Alondra Nelson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination Nelson reveals the historical relationship between the Black Panther Party and medicine.  Nelson reminds audiences of the real danger Civil Rights activists faced while marching and sitting-in, and how issues of healthcare were of practical concern given the threats of violence.  Nelson highlights the how the work of the Black Panther Party continues to inform community medicine movements.

***

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.

***

Episodes of Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U

Trailer: 'White Scripts, Black Supermen' | A Film by Jonathan Gayles

Through interviews with prominent artists, scholars and cultural critics along with images from the comic books themselves, White Scripts and Black Supermen examines the degree to which early Black superheroes generally adhered to common stereotypes about Black men. From the humorous, to the offensive, early Black superheroes are critically considered.  Written, Produced and Directed by Jonathan Gayles.

Jasiri X: "#Occupy (We the 99)" [Video]

Free Download http://jasirix.bandcamp.com/track/occupy-we-the-99

Filmed live at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Pittsburgh by Director Paradise Gray, Jasiri X reconnects with super producer Cynik Lethal to provide a soundtrack for this growing movement that has taken the world by storm. We gonna Occupy!

LYRICS 

Verse 1
The Power's with the people don't let these cowards deceive you
and be the next mouse in the talons of a eagle
this country's wealth gap isn't unbalanced it's evil
we celebrate access while the people have less
in poverty abject madness
while the economy collapses add stress
that's the last straw
you want class war well give you what you ask for
the have nots at the have's door
we came to crash your party
and we aint leaving until we're even
the Constitution guarantees these freedoms
any one against that's committing treason
your not a real patriot unless you stand for what you believe in
and nobody got more welfare than Wall Street
hundreds of billions after operating falsely
and nobody went to prison that's where you lost me
but my home, my job, and my life is what it cost me

Verse 2
Remember when police beat the Egyptians who were defiant
even president Obama condemned the violence
but when NYPD beat Americans there's silence
it's apparent that there's bias
sticks for the people but give carrots to the liars
those crooked cops just for embarrassment should be fired
and if you want to see terrorists then look higher
they in them skyscrapers with billions from my labor
forcing people out of there homes with falsified data
so we either unify now or cry later
1% got the wealth but the 99's greater
so in every city we gone occupy major
cause nobody got more welfare than Wall Street
hundreds of billions after operating falsely
and nobody went to prison that's where you lost me
but my home, my job, and my life is what it cost me

Jay Smooth | #OccupyWallStreet: Outing the Ringers

The Progressive Roots and Disastrous Consequences of Test Driven Pedagogy

The Progressive Roots and Disastrous Consequences of Test Driven Pedagogy 

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

When the nation turned to the right in the 1980's and 1990's and neo-liberalism in its many manifestations began to dominate the policies of both political parties, parents in inner city neighborhoods desperate to do something in their increasingly violent, impoverished neighborhoods turned to schools to try to reverse the growing class and race inequality in the nation which  they feared—quite accurately—was putting their children gravely at risk. In looking for help, they turned their attention to the one institution that had not abandoned their neighborhoods, the public schools and tried to figure out some way to have schools serve their needs.

In trying to make schools work better, they ended up, making what turned out to be a Faustian bargain with leaders in corporations and foundations looking to revolutionize American education through technology. In city after city across the country, inner city parents and their advocates decided to endorse the application of universal testing in the schools to show how far their children were falling behind, and with it, the imposition of a test driven pedagogy, pioneered by charter schools, designed to bring their children up to the levels of middle class and upper middle class children in the acquisition of basic skills, and with it give their children an opportunity, in an increasingly hierarchical society, to gain entry into the middle class

'Left of Black' Marks the 45th Anniversary of the Founding of The Black Panther Party with Author and Professor Alondra Nelson

Left of Black Marks the 45^th Anniversary of the Founding of The Black Panther Party with Author and Professor Alondra Nelson

Alondra Nelson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination joins host Mark Anthony Neal on the October 24^th episode of Left of Black. On the episode, Nelson reveals the historical relationship between the Black Panther Party and medicine.  Nelson reminds audiences of the real danger Civil Rights activists faced while marching and sitting-in, and how issues of healthcare were of practical concern given the threats of violence.  Nelson highlights the how the work of the Black Panther Party continues to inform community medicine movements.

Neal is also joined by Jonathan Gayles, professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University and writer, director, and producer of the film White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in American Comic Books. Gayles discusses reaction to his movie, which won best documentary feature at the 2010 Urban Media Makers Film Festival and remembers the impact of the late Dwayne McDuffie founder of Milestone Media. Neal and Gayles also discuss Black Entertainment Television’s ill-fated attempt to bring the animated series Black Panther to television.

***

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke's Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

***

Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Alondra Nelson: @Alondra

Follow Jonathan Gayles: @JonathanGayles

###

Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve: The “limited intellectual capital” of the NBA’s Players

Bill Simmons and the Bell Curve:

The “limited intellectual capital” of the NBA’s Players

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Like many sports writers, Bill Simmons has used his columns this week to condemn NBA players, ostensibly blaming them for the cancellation of games.  On Friday, he offered the following that put the onus on the players:

Should someone who's earned over $300 million (including endorsements) and has deferred paychecks coming really be telling guys who have made 1/100th as much as him to fight the fight and stand strong and not care about getting paid? And what are Garnett's credentials, exactly? During one of the single biggest meetings (last week, on Tuesday), Hunter had Kobe Bryant, Paul Pierce and Garnett (combined years spent in college: three) negotiate directly with Stern in some sort of misguided "Look how resolved we are, you're not gonna intimidate us!" ploy that backfired so badly that one of their teams' owners was summoned into the meeting specifically to calm his player down and undo some of the damage. (I'll let you guess the player. It's not hard.) And this helped the situation … how? And we thought this was going to work … why?

Congratulations, players — you showed solidarity! You showed you wouldn't back down! You made things worse, and you wasted a day, but dammit, you didn't back down! Just make sure you tell that to every team employee who gets fired over these next few weeks, as well as to all the restaurant and bar owners near NBA are

Beyond trotting out the “angry black man” trope, which seems to be commonplace within the NBA punditry, and blaming the players for the forthcoming unemployment facing many employees within of the NBA, Simmons hinges his evidence about the incompetence of the players by citing the amount of formal college education of Piece, Bryant and Garnett.  In other words, people are losing jobs and fans are losing games because the NBA is at the mercy of its stupid/uneducated black players.  And, Simmons wasn’t done here, offering additional clarity about his comments in “Behind the Pipes: Into the Arms of the NHL.”  Explaining why he started going to hockey games, Simmons once again returns to the lockout or better said the player caused cancellation of games.  In this column (sandwiched in between his general arrogance, dismissive rhetoric, and overly simplistic analysis that presumes sports exists in his theoretical mind and not reality), he writes

Where's the big-picture leadership here? What's the right number of franchises? Where should those franchises play? What's worse, losing three franchises or losing an entire season of basketball? What's really important here? I don't trust the players' side to make the right choices, because they are saddled with limited intellectual capital. (Sorry, it's true.) The owners' side can't say the same; they should be ashamed. Same for the agents. And collectively, they should all be mortified that a 16-hour negotiating session, this late in the game, was cause for any celebration or optimism. In my mind, it was more of a cry for help.

Unusually Simmons offer some blame for the owners.  As the intelligence once, they have an obligation to fix the situation.  Although they have the intelligence they allow the players, who lack intelligence, to have input in the situation. To Simmons, this is the source of the NBA’s problem. 

Bakari Kitwana On Kanye West at #OccupyWallStreet (VIDEO)

Bakari Kitwana and Urban Cusp On Kanye West at #OccupyWallStreet

As the nation and global community turns its attention to the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement, celebrity involvement has been a growing hot topic. Last week, controversy erupted over Kanye West's presence at the protest site, Zuccotti Park in New York City, at the invitation of Russell Simmons. One article of particular interest, Why Kanye West Doesn't Belong at Occupy Wall Street, was written by GOOD Senior Editor Cord Jefferson. Highlighting the selling price of his outfit and his image as the "Louis Vuitton Don," the writer concluded by saying that "what OWS doesn't need is everyone who'd like to be seen as a populist jumping on Rboard for a photo opportunity before leaving to go buy $500 jeans. Lip service and deceit is what got us into this mess in the first place."

Watch this videotaped discussion to hear Urban Cusp's Editorial Director Rahiel Tesfamariam reflect on the author's points with Bakari Kitwana, who has a forthcoming new book entitled Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era. Kitwana has been seen and heard on CNN, Fox News, C-Span, PBS and NPR. He is the CEO of RapSessions.org and Senior Media Fellow at the Harvard Law-based think think, the Jamestown Project. Kitwana is also the former editor of The Source, co-founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention and author of the best-selling The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture.