Glory Road: 9th Wonder: How This Producer is Changing Hip Hop

Channel One News feature on Producer 9th Wonder & the 'Sampling Soul' Course he co-teaches with Mark Anthony Neal at Duke University.

#MoreThanaMonth: C.L.R. James

Best known as the author of The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Cyril Lionel Robert James was born on January 4, 1901 in Port of Spain, the largest city in colonial Trinidad. Most of his youth was spent in the village of Tunapuna, just about eight miles outside the city. His intellectual legacy is succinctly described as complex and controversial, having made significant contributions in the fields of sport criticism, Caribbean history, literary criticism, Pan African politics and Marxist theory. 

--Akins Vidale

Sampling Michael: Rhythm, Masculinity and Intellectual Property in the ‘Body’ of Michael Jackson | Mark Anthony Neal at Ohio State University, March 2, 2012

Still the ‘Best Intentions'?: Edmund Perry Case Resonates Years Later

Still the ‘Best Intentions'?: Edmund Perry Case Resonates Years Later

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

If there was a shared belief regarding the promises of the Civil Rights Movement, it was the faith that with the legal limits of segregation removed, young Black Americans would be able to achieve the American Dream if they adhered to a program of hard work and dutiful study. 

In June of 1985, Harlem bred Edmund Perry seemed the embodiment of that faith, having just graduated from one of the nation’s most prestigious prep schools with his first year at Stanford University awaiting him in the fall. Instead, 17-year-old Perry was shot to death in his Harlem neighborhood by a White undercover detective, in what was “officially” termed an act of self-defense.  Nearly three decades after his shooting, Edmund Perry’s death still resonates in meaningful ways.

On the evening of June 12, 1985, Perry and his 19-year-old brother Jonah, a second year student at Cornell University, were walking on Morningside Drive in Harlem.  After a skirmish with an undercover police officer, Perry was shot in his abdomen and died shortly thereafter. 

The story of Perry’s death elicited many public responses, particularly in the context of regular charges of police brutality directed at the New York City police department. Suspicions of the NYPD occurred in the aftermath of the questionable deaths of the graffiti artist Michael Stewart and 66-year-old Elenor Bumphers who was shot-to-death during a forcible eviction in the Bronx.  As noted cultural critic Nelson George queried at the time of Perry’s death, “Was Edmund, like so many other victims of this city, just too black for his own good?”

Urban Organic w/ Bryant Terry | Episode 3: LBC: The Growing Experience

In this episode, Bryant Terry goes to Long Beach, where urban farmer Jimmy Ng worked with neighbors to transform a blighted lot from waste to wonder.

Walter Mosley on Writing Mystery Novels, Political Revelation, Racism & Pushing Obama | Democracy Now

Democracy Now! interviews award-winning writer Walter Mosley, an author many people were introduced to when Bill Clinton praised his book while running for president. Mosley has published 37 books, including a series of bestselling mysteries featuring the private investigator Easy Rawlins. The first novel in this series, set in 1948 and called "Devil in a Blue Dress," was made into a film starring Denzel Washington. 

Mosley has been hailed for his use of the popular detective novel as a vehicle for confronting racism across multiple decades. "When I started writing Easy Rawlins ... I was trying to talk about my father's generation, black men and women who moved from the deep South to different parts of the world," Mosley says. "Here's these wonderful stories about these people who have moved here and who make a big difference here. Let's include them in the literature." Mosley's latest novel, "All I Did Was Shoot My Man," follows the modern-day private eye Leonid McGill as he navigates a world filled with corporate wealth, armed assassins and family drama. 

His writing has spanned many genres, from young adult to science fiction, but he is less known for his non-fiction works that address the pressing political issues of our time. Mosley's most recent work of non-fiction, "Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation," starts on a deeply personal note, then expands to a call of action for people to organize against wealth inequality. Regarding the his continued support of President Barack Obama, Mosley notes, "We can't blame a guy who, you know, got elected, and he's sitting there alone in the White House. ... I agree, he has a lot of power, but he doesn't have enough power without us."

To watch the complete daily, independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, and for additional Democracy Now! interviews with today's most prominent authors, visit http://www.democracynow.org/topics/author_interviews

 

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Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit http://www.democracynow.org/donate/YT

John Henrik Clarke - A Great and Mighty Walk

John Henrik Clarke - A Great and Mighty Walk

This video chronicles the life and times of the noted African-American historian, scholar and Pan-African activist John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998). Both a biography of Clarke himself and an overview of 5,000 years of African history, the film offers a provocative look at the past through the eyes of a leading proponent of an Afrocentric view of history. From ancient Egypt and Africa’s other great empires, Clarke moves through Mediterranean borrowings, the Atlantic slave trade, European colonization, the development of the Pan-African movement, and present-day African-American history.

Left of Black S2:E21| The Race-ing and Un-Race-ing of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry with Orin Starn, Thabiti Lewis and Darrell Stover

Left of Black S2:E21 | February 27, 2012

The Race-ing and Un-Race-ing of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in-studio by Duke University Professor Orin Starn and via Skype© by Professor Thabiti Lewis (Washington State, Vancouver). Authors of The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal (Duke University Press) and Ballers of the New School: Essays on Racism and Sports in America (Third World Press), respectively, Starn and Lewis analyze how Tiger Woods has differed from many other Black male athletes in terms of how he is un-racialized and re-racialized at various moments.  Later the scholars discuss the meaning of Woods’ identification as Cablinasian.  

Later, Neal is joined also in-studio by poet Darrell Stover who currently a program director at the North Carolina Humanities Council, a position her formerly held at the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation| Hayti Heritage Center.  Author of  the new collection of poetry Somewhere Deep Down When, Stover considers how history has shaped the meaning of being a poet, shares his poetic influences, and discusses the importance of reaching out to the larger  community through poetry.  Stover and Neal talk about Amiri Baraka’s immersion in multiple art forms, and discuss the legacy of Gil Scott Heron.

***

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 free download in HD @ iTunes U

“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

“High” Performance: Black Athletes and the “War on Drugs”

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Some days the sports media seems obsessed with drug use by athletes.  Whether recreational drugs or performance enhancing drugs, sports pages are often dedicated to lamenting and bemoaning the dialects between society and sports as it relates to drugs.

Stepping into a culture that obsesses over drug use amongst athletes, Courtland Milloy highlights a recent study - Cannabis in Sport: Anti-Doping Perspective”– from Marilyn Huestis, Irene Mazzoni, and Oliver Rabin.  In spite widespread media condemnation of athletes accused of smoking marijuana and the drug testing policies of several professional sports league, Milloy concludes that there may be good reason for players to smoke marijuana.  “Whenever a professional athlete is suspended for smoking marijuana. . . a question usually arises: Why would they risk so much for so little? Turns out, the benefits of taking a few puffs aren’t so little,” he writes in “For pro athletes, the risks of smoking pot are high — but so are the benefits.”  He then quotes the authors, who offered a lengthy discussion of the issues at hand as they relate to sports:

That when smoked in small amounts by athletes,  “cannabis can decrease anxiety, fear, depression and tension. Furthermore, cannabinoids play a major role in the extinction of fear memories by interfering with learned aversive behaviors. Athletes who experienced traumatic events in their career could benefit from such an effect. . . . . Athletes under the influence of cannabis indicate that their thoughts flow more easily and their decision making and creativity is enhanced.  Health professionals have encountered athletes including gymnasts, divers, football players and basketball players who claim smoking cannabis before play helps them focus better.

The conclusions should be of little surprise given the widespread research on the medicinal properties of cannabis.  Likewise, the story of Rickey Williams, who reportedly smoked marijuana to treat his social anxiety, which is debilitating to all but particularly difficult for public figures, is testament to the conclusions here. 

Yet, its importance rests with its effort to challenge the narrative that criminalizes today’s athletes.   This study and the column itself disrupts the “the fusion of black athletes, rappers, and criminals into a single menacing figure who disgusts and offends many blacks as well as whites,” (Hoberman 1997, p. xix).  By imagining potential marijuana use as a response to the physical and mental strains associated with professional sports as well as a “performance enhancing drug,” Milloy disrupts the pathological/criminal/race-based narratives that guide the convergence of the front and back pages.      

Davey D with Dick Gregory and Paul Mooney

Watch live streaming video from tradiov at livestream.com

The Passion of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry February 27th 'Left of Black'

The Passion of Tiger Woods and Contemporary Black Poetry February 27^th Left of Black

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in-studio by Professor Orin Starn and via Skype© by Professor Thabiti Lewis.  Authors of The Passion of Tiger Woods: An Anthropologist Reports on Golf, Race, and Celebrity Scandal (Duke University Press) and Ballers of the New School: Essays on Racism and Sports in America (Third World Press),  respectively, Starn and Lewis analyze how Tiger Woods has differed from many other Black male athletes in terms of how he is un-racialized and re-racialized at various moments.  Later the scholars discuss the meaning of Woods’ identification as Cablinasian.  

Later, Neal is joined also in-studio by poet Darrell Stover who currently a program director at the North Carolina Humanities Council, a position her formerly held at the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation| Hayti Heritage Center.  Author of  the new collection of poetry Somewhere Deep Down When, Stover considers how history has shaped the meaning of being a poet, shares his poetic influences, and discusses the importance of reaching out to the larger  community through poetry.  Stover and Neal talk about Amiri Baraka’s immersion in multiple art forms, and discuss the legacy of Gil Scott Heron.

***

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. 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 Thabiti Lewis on Twitter: @ThabitiBaller

Follow Darrell Stover on Twitter: @Scipoet1000

###

What Would Hattie McDaniel Think?

This year's nominees are the latest African-American actors to face a backlash for their roles. It needs to end.

Stop Policing Black Actresses

by Mark Anthony Neal | Salon.com

Months after its release, and perhaps in spite of the Academy Award nominations and Golden Globe awards garnered by two of its actresses, “The Help” continues to court controversy.  Such was the case recently when Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer visited the set of “The Tavis Smiley Show,” and the host raised long-standing questions about why the actresses accepted roles that he felt diminished their humanity and that of other African-Americans. Smiley admitted disappointment that Davis and Spencer were being feted for playing the same role — as domestics — that earned Hattie McDaniel the first Oscar for an African-American for her role as “Mammy” in the film “Gone With the Wind” 73 years ago. Underlying Smiley’s gentle admonishment of Davis and Spencer is the simple question: Has so little changed that African-Americans are still tethered to the same stereotypical roles that defined their presence in mainstream American media nearly a century ago?

Continue Reading

***

 

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.  More Mark Anthony Neal

Panel Discussion: 'Question Bridge: Black Males' @ the Brooklyn Museum

Question Bridge: Black Males is an innovative video installation created by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Chris Johnson in collaboration with Bayeté Ross Smith and Kamal Sinclair. The four collaborators spent several years traveling throughout the United States, speaking with 150 Black men living in 12 American cities and towns, including New York, Chicago, Oakland, Birmingham, and New Orleans. 

From these interviews they created 1,500 video exchanges in which the subjects, representing a range of geographic, generational, economic, and educational strata, serve as both interviewers and interviewees. Their words were woven together to simulate a stream-of-consciousness dialogue, through which important themes and issues emerge, including family, love, interracial relationships, community, education, violence, and the past, present, and future of Black men in American society.

Question Bridge: Black Males
January 13 - June 3, 2012
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/question_bridge/

[Trailer] Love My Hair When It's Good & Then Again When It's Defiant and Impressive: An Original Play by Chaunesti Webb

March 8-17
Manbites Dog Theater
703 Foster Street 
Durham, NC 27701
919.682.4974


The Play:

Genevieve and Moni have grown up playing double-dutch together, chasing fireflies on grandma’s front porch, and sharing the pain of the hot comb.  Worlds collide with age and the search for identity as they attempt to make sense of the world through the complicated relationship they have with their hair.  Theirs is a story of love and envy, silence and joy.  Follow these two cousins and the family of women who love them, as they come of age together in the south, a south, too small to contain their curiosities. Sassy, lyrical and nostalgic, I LOVE MY HAIR integrates interview text, poetry, original music, movement and video, to explore family, community, race, class, politics and identity.

The Playwright:

CHAUNESTI WEBB is an interdisciplinary theater artist based in Durham, NC.  This native Bull-City-Teaching Artist-Writer-Director-Actor-Mover-Lover of Music and Language, holds an MFA in Theater and Contemporary Performance from Naropa University where she trained in Viewpoints, Psychophysical Acting (Grotowski), Roy Hart Voice work, Butoh, Somatic Techniques, and Contemplative dance practices.  Her interest as a Teaching Artist is in facilitating groups and individuals in creating original work for the stage.  She has taught Self-Scripting and movement techniques for adults and youth with a specific focus on bringing voice and expression to marginalized experiences.  She has worked as a guest artist at Duke University, Boulder Valley School District, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School District and various art centers and theaters, teaching movement and directing performances.  She was a 2008 participant in the Urban Bush Women Summer Institute where she trained with company members and explored community-based art making.  Chaunesti also works in media advocacy producing training and educational videos on issues including public health, social justice and institutional equity.  She also works as an arts administrator for the Health Arts Network at Duke, managing performing arts programming for the medical center.  Chaunesti is a 2010 Durham Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant recipient and a National Performance Network Creation Fund recipient.  She is a member of, and administrator for, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE).  Chaunesti also holds a BA in Communication Studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Support the Play at IndieGoGo

Saul Williams: Volcanic Sunlight Interview (2012)

ReelBlackTV's Lyrispect caught up with poet/actor/musician SAUL WILLIAMS to discuss his latest project VOLCANIC SUNLIGHT (Columbia), what types of music he uses to inspire him and his thoughts on the next generation of young poets in this exclusive clip.

Challenging Authority in Cyberspace: the Case of Al-Jazeera Arabic Writers

Professor Mbaye Lo and Duke University student, Andi Frkovich, present research they have done on Al-Jazeera.

Urban Organic | Episode 2: GHOST TOWN: Novella Carpenter farms in West Oakland

In this episode, Bryant Terry visits author/farmer Novella Carpenter at her Ghost Town Farm in West Oakland.

#LinSanity and the Blackness of Basketball

#LinSanity and the Blackness of Basketball

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackman

Over the last week, there has been significant discussion about how race is playing out within the media and fan reception of Jeremy Lin. Focusing on anti-Asian slurs, prejudice, and stereotypes, the media narrative has not surprisingly provided a simplistic yet pleasurable narrative. Imagining racism as simply bias that can be reduced through exposure and education, the media discourse has erased the powerful ways that sports teaches race and embodies racism.  As Harry Edwards argues, sports recapitulates society, whether it be ideology or institutional organization.

According to Marc Lamont Hill, professor of education at Columbia, “blackness is at the center” of the media’s Linsanity.  Seeing basketball as a space of blackness, “the whole undertone is irony, bewilderment and surprise.”  Harry Edwards, Sociology Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, highlights the predicable narrative, which reflects the fact that “we live in a niche society.”  This encourages people to “retreat into traditional storylines.” Irrespective of facts or specifics, the deployed media narrative has retreated to a place that depicts the NBA as a black-league defined by athleticism and hip-hop that is changing before our eyes.  The arrival of Jeremy Lin, who the media continues to cast in the role of the “model minority” whose intellect, personality, and overall difference is providing the league with something otherwise unavailable, is constructed through a narrative black-Asian conflict.   

Replicating stereotypes, the undercurrent of the Lin narrative, the media inducted fantasy, has been his juxtaposition to the league’s black players.  “Discussions about the NBA are always unique because the NBA is one of the few spaces in American society where blackness, and specifically black masculinity, is always at the center of the conversation, even when it's not.  Power is often defined by that which is assumed, as opposed to that which is stated,” noted Todd Boyd, Professor of Critical Studies at USC, in an email to me.  “Because black masculinity is the norm in the NBA, it goes without saying. Concurrently any conversation about race in the NBA inevitably refers back to this norm.  In other words, people seldom describe someone as a ‘black basketball player’ because the race of the player is assumed in this construction. 

“We Are the 44%” Coalition Challenges Sexual Violence Against Black and Latina Teens

Media Contact:

Rosa Clemente

413.345.4018

Public Statement - For Immediate Release

February 21, 2012

“We Are the 44%” Coalition Challenges Sexual Violence Against Black and Latina Teens 

Online and offline Activism Spurs XXL Magazine to Suspend  Digital Editor Over Too Short’s So-Called “Fatherly Advice” 

Last week popular hip-hop magazine XXL posted a video on its website (XXL.com) from Too $hort, a 45-year old rapper who came to prominence in the late 80’s for his raunchy lyrics and videos. In what was called his “fatherly advice” video, the rapper instructed 12, 13, and 14-year-old boys on how to “turn out” their female classmates. In a transcript from the video, he said: "A lot of the boys are going to be running around trying to get kisses from the girls; we’re going way past that. I’m taking you to the hole. …You push her up against the wall. You take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens."

As a response, a coalition of outraged Black and Latina activists, artists, and writers – all of whom have a long history in social justice activism – have come together to ensure that this does not happen again and have named themselves the We Are the 44% coalition. The coalition’s name aims to give voice to the many teen survivors of sexual assault. Too $hort’s video specifically targeted adolescent students. This group is consistent with the appalling statistic that 44% of sexual assault survivors are under 18 years old (visit the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network website: www.rainn.org/statistics). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that 1 out 5 women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime (www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/sexualviolence/index.html). Because Too $hort’s video blatantly promoted sexual violence against girls, and because boys are also being advised to develop irresponsible, abusive and ultimately criminal behavior compelled, the all-women coalition decided to take pointed actions (see demands listed below).

The coalition recognizes this video—and the fact that XXL gave it a platform — as part of the larger issue of sexual assault against our women and children, particularly Black and Latina girls. The coalition also recognizes that the aforementioned statistics do not reflect the countless abuses that go unreported, including that of teenage boys who are often the unrecognized survivors of sexual assault. And most importantly, the coalition recognizes the urgent need to create heightened awareness and broad, uncategorized support for the eradication of sexual violence against children.

FOCUS

The community of people who have been sexually assaulted in the United States is one that includes millions of people.* In fact, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, a person is sexually assaulted every two minutes

It is also true that sexual violence disproportionately affects Black and Latina girls. For this reason, We Are the 44% coalition has decided to focus its work on this marginalized segment of the larger community, for it is one that is often unrecognized and unheard.

Because February is Teen Dating Violence Prevention month, the coalition will also highlight and support various anti-sexual violence organizations, including:

1. A Long Walk Home [www.alongwalkhome.org]

2. Just Be Inc. [www.about.me.com/justbeinc]

3. Girls for Gender Equity [www.ggenyc.org]

4. GEMS [www.gems-girls.org]

5. Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project [www.sexcrimesagainstblackgirls.com]

* * * *

Since the video’s release, online activism has kept the pressure on the media outlet’s Editor in Chief Vanessa Satten and on Too $hort: A number of petitions (including http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/protectgirls/?source=coc_website) have been created and signed by thousands of people. And the hashtags #FireVanessaSatten and #ItsBiggerThan2Short both generated significant activity on Twitter. As a result, XXL removed the video from the site on Sunday. On Wednesday night, in response to escalating pressure, Satten suspended the digital editor allegedly responsible for putting up the video.

DEMANDS

The We Are the 44% coalition acknowledges that both Too $hort and Satten have issued public statements about the video. We firmly believe that because the threat of sexual violence was levied against Black and Latina girls – whether or not is was meant as a joke and whether or not it was uploaded with approval – there must be amends in order for the apologies to be relevant and meaningful. Today, the coalition will deliver the following demands to Too $hort and Harris Publications in the hopes that they will demonstrate their willingness to end sexual violence.

We demand that:

1. Too $hort, along with the professionals he hires to support his recording and touring career, must participate in education and sensitivity training on the topics of sexual assault and rape.

2. Too $hort must donate to local and national anti-sexual violence organizations that service Black and Latina girls.

3. All Harris Publications leadership, management, and staff members participate in education and sensitivity training on sexual assault/rape.

4. Harris Publications improve and make public its editorial policy so that the promotion of sexual violence is not encouraged or accepted under any circumstances.

5. Harris Publications create premium space for the promotion of anti-sexual violence content (articles, creative work, etc.) on its websites and in all its publications, on a permanently and quarterly basis. Additionally, that Harris Publications permanently set aside, on a quarterly basis, two full pages for use by the coalition to highlight its work and that of its member organizations.

6. Vanessa Satten, Editor-in-Chief of XXL.com and XXL Magazine, be fired immediately.

* * * *

The Women of the “We Are the 44%” Coalition Are:

• Nyoka Acevedo – Educator, Activist
• Esther Armah – New York Radio Host; Playwright
• asha bandele – Author, Activist
• Monifa Bandele – Activist, Writer
• Dereca Blackmon – Educator, Organizer, Spiritual Activist
• Dr. Yaba Blay - Scholar, Professor and Co-Founder, Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project
• Nuala Cabral, Educator, Filmmaker, Activist and co-founder, FAAN Mail
• Raquel Cepeda - Writer, Filmmaker, Cultural Activist
• Rosa A. Clemente - Activist; Doctoral Student, UMASS-Amherst; 2008 Green Party VP Candidate
• Dr. Brittney Cooper - Professor
• Michaela angela Davis – Image Activist
• Dr. Dawn Elissa Fischer – Professor and Parent
• dream hampton - Writer, Filmmaker, Activist
• Shantrelle P. Lewis - Curator and Co-Founder, Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project
• Dr. Treva B. Lindsey - Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
• Condencia Brade - The National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault
• Joan Morgan - Author, Cultural critic and Doctoral Student, NYU
• Stacey Muhammad - Filmmaker, Activist
• Dr. Rachel Raimist - Filmmaker, Scholar, and Crunk Feminist
• April R. Silver – Activist, Writer/Editor, “Be A Father To Your Child”
• Dr. Kaila Adia Story - Assistant Professor Audre Lorde Endowed Chair in Race, Gender, Class, Sexuality Studies, University of Louisville
• Farah Tanis – Black Women’s Blueprint
• Lah Tere – Inner City Queen Productions
• Cristina Veran
• Dr. Salamishah Tillet - Academic, Activist, and Co-Founder, A Long Walk Home

[list in formation]

Male Activist Allies

• Dr. Jared Ball - Professor of Communication Studies, Morgan State University
• Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele, Community Organizer; Professor, Lehman College/CUNY
• Dr. Marc Lamont Hill - Professor, Author, Columbia University
• Byron Hurt - Filmmaker, Activist
• John Jennings - Scholar and Artist; Associate Professor of Visual Studies, SUNY Buffalo
• Bakari Kitwana - Author of The Hip-Hop Generation
• Dr. David Leonard - Prof., Dept. of Comp. Ethnic Studies, Washington State University
• Dr. R. L'Heureux Dumi Lewis - Writer; Assistant Professor, City University of New York
• Dr. Mark Anthony Neal – Prof., African & African American Studies, Duke University
• Dr. James Peterson – Dir. of Africana Studies, Assoc. Prof. of English, Lehigh University
• Kevin Powell - Activist and Writer

For more information and background, visit the new We Are the 44% Facebook Fan Page. Check regularly for updates and activities from the coalition. Media inquiries are directed to Rosa Clemente at 413. 345.4018.

Ebru Today - Dr. David Leonard on Media's Coverage of the Recent TCU Drug Arrests

How Companies Are 'Defining Your Worth' Online

Fresh Air 

One of the fastest-growing online businesses is the business of spying on Internet users. Using sophisticated software that tracks people's online movements through the Web, companies collect the information and sell it to advertisers.

Every time you click a link, fill out a form or visit a website, advertisers are working to collect personal information about you, says Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. They then target ads to you based on that information.

On Wednesday's Fresh Air, Turow — the author of the book The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth — details how companies are tracking people through their computers and cellphones in order to personalize the ads they see.

Stefon Harris: There are No Mistakes on the Bandstand

What is a mistake? By talking through examples with his improvisational Jazz quartet, Stefon Harris walks us to a profound truth: many actions are perceived as mistakes only because we don't react to them appropriately.

Stefon Harris plays the vibraphone -- and leads a jazz ensemble with a collaborative sound built on collective inspiration.

“The African American Man in the Age of Obama” | Panel Discussion with Byron Hurt and Mark Anthony Neal at Hue-Man Books | Feb 23rd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, February 23rd, 6:00 p.m.

New York, NY: Hue-Man Bookstore

 

Hue-Man Bookstore welcomes editor Joanne Griffith of the new book Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America, and guests discussing “The African American Man in the Age of Obama.” 

Guests include Byron Hurt, filmmaker and director of Soul Food Junkies and Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and  Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University.
 

Hue-Man Bookstore and Café is located at 2319 Frederick Douglass Blvd., New York, NY 10027. For more information, please call 212-665-7400.

A Response to “Notes on a Dying Culture”

A Response to “Notes on a Dying Culture”

by James Ford III | special NewBlackMan

Whitney Houston’s unexpected passing shocked me. I mourn for her and her loved ones who feel her recent passing more profoundly than I ever will. I thought Bob Davis’s recent post would help me consider the impact of this loss. Sadly, his post repeats the same Civil Rights vs Hip-Hop generation storyline. As a member of the generation he criticizes, I see his post as an invitation for further discussion.

Davis says the culture of the American Civil Rights Movement was “rejected…by its own children” and two camps sprung up: one upholds the Civil Rights Movement’s values and another doesn’t. The latter group may erase black culture altogether. This decline storyline sabotages communal self-reflection, which is only effective when every generation is accountable for its strengths and weaknesses. I learned this from listening to hip-hop, in the rawness of the Rza’s beats, the low-end of 808s, Big Crit’s bluesy production and lyricism or Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Sometimes, rawness refers to uniqueness; it’s not wrong, just different. At other times, rawness points directly to what is detrimental and must be overcome. How does this relate to Davis’s post? Davis doesn’t want to deal with all that is raw within the Civil Rights Movement and those who witnessed it. He scapegoats hip-hop to avoid facing this issue.

What's Going On?! Chris Brown, XXL, Contraception & Our Media | Know This! with Ariana

Marc Lamont Hill on Jeremy Lin [video]

Marc Lamont Hill talks with CNN's Kyra Phillips about race relations and Jeremy Lin's success with the New York Knicks.

And the Beat Goes On: Chris Brown, Too $hort, and the Disposable Conscience of Consumer Society

And the Beat Goes On: 

Chris Brown, Too $hort, and the Disposable Conscience of Consumer Society

by Lisa Guerrero | special to NewBlackMan

Last week while still reeling from the controversy put into motion by Too $hort’s avuncular primer for young black boys on how to violate young black girls, people momentarily paused to consider, and by “consider,” I mean “rush to judgment,” on Rihanna’s decision to collaborate with Chris Brown, her former abuser, on a remix of her song “Birthday Cake.”  

As one of my friends on Facebook put it:  “Rihanna needs to sit down and have a talk with Tina Turner.”  I can’t say that I necessarily disagree.  The idea that a woman would choose to invite her abuser back again to play a role in her life after having broken free from his abuse is seemingly unfathomable to many people, men and women alike.  What seems ungenerous in many of the criticisms of Rihanna circulating around this decision is that she isn’t the first woman to make such a choice, and sadly, won’t be the last.  The cycle of codependency isn’t one that is neatly broken, not even by the act of the dissolution of the relationship, which is “getting away” only in terms of physical proximity. 

I can say to myself that I would never make such an obviously silly choice, but then, it’s only “obviously silly” to me because I’m not in that situation.  However, what I do know of Rihanna’s situation, and why I feel that her decision is more complicated than people assume that it is, is this: much of the rest of the world seems to have forgiven Chris Brown his trespasses, if they ever held him accountable in the first place.  So why is it the sole responsibility of Rihanna to withhold her forgiveness and force his accountability?  Why should she be anymore forceful than a legal system that apparently felt that his domestic violence merited no jail time?  Or a fan base that apparently feels his talent far outweighs a little thing like beating his girlfriend?  

Yes, she is his victim.  Yet she is no less his victim than she is the victim of a society who so cavalierly and quite systematically ignores, dismisses, and erases the violence enacted by the day, the hour, the minute against black girls and women.  Chris Brown violated her.  But she has since been continually violated ideologically and discursively by an excessively self-centered consumer public who has never demonstrated a sustained outrage against Chris Brown long enough to stop buying his albums, but has enough outrage to go around for Rihanna that she would ever choose to collaborate with him.

This latest flap over Rihanna and Chris Brown comes on the heels of the furious flurry of ever more outrageous manifestations of a problematic performative black masculinity that anchors itself in the unapologetic denigration of, and dominance over women generally, and black women in particular.  Let me say upfront that this critique is not a new one.  The ongoing critical narrative around the misogyny and homophobia of, for example, the singular arena of hip hop is, on its own, a media and scholarly cottage industry, and not without good reason.  But my interest here is not necessarily to rehash this well-trodden and well-deserved critique of commodifiable black masculinity.  My interest is in thinking critically about the relationship between the discursive moves within media culture that work to serve consumerist desires while ideologically and materially sacrificing the safety and subjectivity of black women.

Left of Black S2:E20 | Redefining Black Power and Re-Thinking Black Male Achievement with Joanne Griffith and Shaun Harper

Left of Black S2:E20 | February 20, 2012

Redefining Black Power and Re-Thinking Black Male Achievement with Joanne Griffith and Shaun Harper

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by journalist Joanne Griffith, editor of the new book Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America (City Lights).  Griffith discusses the observations of several of the book’s contributors including historian Vincent Harding, Professor Michele Alexander and MOVE member Ramona Afrika, who cites Fred Hampton Jr.’s recent quote that “Barack Obama is the new crack.”  Griffith also shares about the interview she had with Rev. Jeremiah Wright that was not included in the book, and points out the unfair images of Blacks in the media.

Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by Shaun Harper, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and Director for the Center for the Study of Race and Equality in Education,.  Recently, Harper released a study entitled “Black Male Student Success in Higher Education.”  Harper discusses the importance of looking at achievement rather than failure, and describes one example of an exceptional Black male role model.  Lastly Harper shares some of the experiences of Black male students in higher education as they navigate through racial hardships.  

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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.

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

Marcus Books Panel | Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America

Marcus Books: The Oldest Independent Black Bookstore in the Country celebrating 52 years of service, presents author Joanne Griffith and her new work entitled Redefining Black Power Reflections on the State of Black America.

This book reading/signing was converted into a Panel/Audience Discussion on the state of Black Politics, Barack Obama's Presidency, Black Power and so much more. With panel guests Dereca Blackmon, Hodari Davis and the Oakland community.

Redefining Black Power and Re-Thinking Black Male Achievement on the February 20th 'Left of Black'

Redefining Black Power and Re-Thinking Black Male Achievement on the February 20^th Left of Black

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by journalist Joanne Griffith, editor of the new book Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America (City Lights).  Griffith discusses the observations of several of the book’s contributors including historian Vincent Harding, Professor Michele Alexander and MOVE member Ramona Afrika, who cites Fred Hampton Jr.’s recent quote that “Barack Obama is the new crack.”  Griffith also shares about the interview she had with Rev. Jeremiah Wright that was not included in the book, and points out the unfair images of Blacks in the media.

Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by Shaun Harper, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Equality in Education.  Recently, Harper released a study entitled “Black Male Student Success in Higher Education.”  Harper discusses the importance of looking at achievement rather than failure, and describes one example of an exceptional Black male role model.  Lastly, Harper shares some of the experiences of Black male students in higher education as they navigate through racial hardships.  

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. 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.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Joanne Griffith on Twitter: @globaljourno

Follow Shaun Harper on Twitter: @DrShaunHarper

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