Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1009

Trailer--Hayti:The Legacy of Black America

The Legacy of "Black Wall Street"
Parrish Street in Durham,North Carolina, was a national symbol of Black progress. The Black Financialdistrict in Durham four blocks of economic power located in predominately White,downtown Durham. It was known as "Black Wall Street" . Hayti, Durham's primary African-Americanresidential district, was the core of Black life in Durham.
Over 200 Black-owned and operated business existed in  Durham's black business district. W.E.B.DuBois, upon visiting Durham in the early 1900's, reflected in his writings onthe uniquely tolerant relationship between Blacks and Whites. Some of the richestBlacks in America at the time, lived in Durham.  There are valuable lessons to be learned from their experiences, for the benefit of generations to come.
In an effort to define The Legacy of Black America, we choseas a model, the Black Durham Experience in the city's first 100 years. With the help of local historians, oralhistories and historic archives, we are hard at work creating what we hope will serve as an educational referenceand social cultural history resource. This is not just kicking up the dirt where a community once stood. Our film is about the historic upbuilding of this remarkable community, the destruction and the spirit of Hayti that lives on today.                    
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"Christian Theology...Should be a Fugitive Discourse": J. Kameron Carter on Religion & Race

   

Video streaming by Ustream

from DukeToday:


Race and religion continue to be flash points in American politics and society. In his book Race: A Theological Account J. Kameron Carter examines the role of Christianity and Western philosophy in the making of modern perceptions of race. He also uses slave narratives and early Christian thought to find theological arguments he says can counter modern misunderstandings of race and point to a new orientation for the faith.
In a live "Office Hours" conversation April 5, the Divinity School professor answers questions from online viewers about the connection between the identity of Jesus and the concept of race.

Trailer: "Big Fun in the Big Town" (dir. Bram Van Splunteren, 1986)

from Five Day Weekend Media :
New York, 1986: a city of big dreams and equally big problems. Like New York itself, hip-hop music encompassed both of these human conditions. But hip-hop and its cultural birthplace shared other important characteristics, too: the desire to always be original, a hustle-to-survive ambition, and -- if the stars aligned -- the ability to come out on top, no matter what the odds.

Dutch filmmaker, journalist and rap fanatic Bram Van Splunteren stepped into the city for one intense week in 1986. He was armed with five things: a camera crew, a map, a deep respect for the hip-hop artform, a list of phone numbers, and a burning desire to get to the bottom of what this still-growing subculture was all about. By the time he left, he had the answers he needed, along with a treasure trove of golden video footage. Tragically, these images never returned from Europe, languishing in obscurity from hip-hop's homeland for more than a quarter-century. Until now.

Big Fun in the Big Town is about hip-hop when artistry in the game was still at its center. When skills, not hype, got you your first record deal. When Run-DMC took the reins from Doug E Fresh and Grandmaster Flash, paving the way for hundreds of other hitmakers to follow. When a chart-topping LL Cool J still lived with his Grandmother. When the Latin Quarter was the club to be at on any weekend night. And when artists from all backgrounds could taste their own pop chart dreams, just beyond their reach but still seemingly attainable.

This essential, fast-paced documentary shows hip-hop from just about every angle, and approaches its subjects with a journalistic sobriety and respect rarely given to this oft-misunderstood artform and culture, even to this day. It presents worldwide superstars and aspiring rappers, dancers and beatboxers on an even playing field, reminding us that rap was once a wide-open game for anyone with talent to grab at the brass ring of fame.

Commercially available for the first time ever after more than 25 years, Big Fun in the Big Town is nothing short of a revelation.

Dutch director Bram Van Splunteren has been a noted music, arts and human-interest documentarian for more than two decades, known for feature films on The Red Hot Chili Peppers ("A Dutch Connection") and Loudon Wainwright ("One Man Guy"), among many others. For more information, visit: www.bramvansplunteren.nl.

Education in Era of the McTeacher

Education inEra of the McTeacher by Theresa Runstedtler and David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
  "It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher'spay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach." – Alabamastate Senator Shadrack McGill (R)Speaking at a prayer breakfast last month, state SenatorShadrack McGill (R) argued that increasing school teachers' salaries would notonly destroy the quality of public education in Alabama but it would be tantamountto blasphemy. (Of course, this position did not prevent him from advocatingfor a 67-percentpay increase for Alabama legislators.) To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or manypeople's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be acalling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, OK? And these teachersthat are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It'sjust in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also someteachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would stillperform to the same capacity. If you don't keep that in balance, you're goingto attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching ourchildren. So, everything has a balance.Even though McGill's theological grounding of theissue of teacher pay is laughable at best, his assertion exposes an underlyingtension in current debates over education reform. Ironically, those whodemonize teachers frequently deploy this tired mantra of selfless publicservice to rationalize low teacher salaries, even as they expect the sameteachers to operate in an increasingly corporatized, "results-based"environment – without corporate-sizedwages. In other words, they want to have their cake and eatit too, and all on the backs of those who spend their days working in theclassroom, often with paltry resources, little support, and the constant threatof punitive measures and public derision. And this pressure to push the rubricof privatization into public education is not just coming from the Right. The"progressive" movement for education reform has also jumped on the corporatebandwagon.Indeed, the logic of consumerism now dominates the"enterprise" of American education from kindergarten to college. We haveentered a phase defined by a client relationship, with teachers becoming akinto academic concierges or service representatives, rather than intellectual leadersand mentors. Schoolteachers and professors must provide information, guidance,and whatever else their student-customers' desire.  More and more we are told that we are in the business ofcontent delivery and job training, rather than social analysis and critique.  In "Puttingthe Customer First in College," Louis Soares, the Director ofthe Postsecondary Education program at the Center for American Progress, even argues for the establishment of an "Office ofConsumer Protection in Higher Education": Students make customerchoices based on available information, interests, abilities and lifecircumstances that will mostly determine whether they succeed in obtaining aneducation with a meaningful credential. The problem is our higher education marketplace today does not account forthis customer focus that is soimportant to success. In large measure, this is because education policies thatguide this marketplace are largelycrafted by the dominant voices in higher education—colleges and universitieswith the resources to sway elected officials. Students as customers have no voice in this policy conversation.(emphasis added)Writing about the phenomenon of helicopter parents, AfshanJafar links the rise of hovering moms and dads to the heightened consumerismin U.S. education. "This trend is clearly the manifestation of a consumeristmentality: I'm paying for this, so even though I am a sophomore, I should beable to take the course that is open to juniors and seniors," writes theassistant professor of Sociology at Connecticut College. "Or: I'm paying forthis, so this better be good (and "good" really means a good gradehere). This consumerist mentality explains the sense of entitlement that weperceive in some of our students and their parents." While often attributed to the increasingcosts of higher education and therecent string of consumer-fraud class actions brought by students, this"retail" ethic runs much deeper. It reflects a substantive paradigm shift inthe language, practice, and structure of American education.With this emphasis on benchmarks, quantifiableresults, and customer reviews, it is no surprise that attacks on teachers,whether at the university or public school level, haveescalated in the past few years. Whether measured by standardized tests orstudent evaluations, teachers are now expected to produce immediatelyrecognizable "results," even as the funds dedicated to the classroom (asopposed to testing companies and college administrations) continue to shrink. Female instructors, especially women of color, arebearing the brunt of this paradigmatic shift in education. They have become themost visible scapegoats in the drama of educational reform. Pascale Mauclair, ateacher at P.S. 11 in Woodside (Queens), knows this all too well. After the New York Post published a database trackingthe performance of "12,170math and English teachers in fourth through eighth grade" (Teacher DataReports), Mauclair became an unfair target of public ridicule and scorn. In anill-informed and inflammatory report that included Mauclair's yearbook photo, thePost's GeorgettRoberts branded her "the city's worst teacher." Since then, some parentshave demanded that their children be removed from her classroom, while others havecalled for her termination. Besieged by reporters at her home, Mauclair evenhad to call the police twice to have them removed from her property. In response, Leo Casey of edwize.org argues that "the story of PascaleMauclair and P.S. 11 begins with a tale of the flawed methodology and invalidmeasurements of the Teacher Data Reports [TDR]." Because of inequalities acrossthe system, consumerist, "one-size-fits-all" reports like the TDR often obscuremore than they reveal, opening up teachers like Mauclair to unwarrantedassaults:
P.S. 11 is located atthe epicenter of a number of different immigrant communities In northernQueens, and over a quarter of its students are English Language Learners.Mauclair is an ESL teacher, and over the last five years she has had small,self-contained classes of recently arrived immigrants who do not speak English.Her students arrive at different times of the school year, depending upon thatdate of their family's migration; consequently, it is not unusual for herstudents to take the 6th grade exams when they have only been in herclass for a matter of a few months. Two factors which produce particularlycontorted TDR results – teaching the highest academic need students and havinga small sample of students that take the standardized state exams – define herteaching situation.
That women and people of color are shouldering theburden of the widespread demonization of teachers is evident not only with themedia attacks on Mauclair and RhenaJasey (two of the biggest stories out of New York have focused on blackwomen), but with the more general assault on teachers who work with ESL and specialneeds students, those who work in districts with less funding, those who servecommunities of color, and especially those who do all of the above. In reducingeducation to the sum of "measurable" scores (tests scores, teachingevaluations), we are not only turning our children's classrooms over to aconsumer-based model of dubious benefit but also failing to address themyriad of material and structural inequalities that impact teaching andlearning.   Professors are by no means immune to this form ofscapegoating. The disproportionate impact of the consumerist education ethic onteachers of color and female instructors is equally evident at the collegelevel. We have faced an intensified assault on our profession since the late1970s, including the silencing of our voices in discussions of universitygovernance, the stripping of our right to organize at private universities, andthe move to casualize our labor. The ratio of contract to tenure-track facultyhas ballooned. With exploding numbers of lecturers and adjuncts (mostly womenand people of color) now doing the majority of the teaching and the simultaneousshrinking of the tenure track(still mostly white and male), the professoriate has devolved into a kind ofacademic caste system.Every day we see the darker side of the increasedemphasis on assessment, on the push to demonstrate success through quantifiablebenchmarks.  In a system thatvalues numbers, whether it be majors or students "served" per class (revenueper credit hour), professors who teach subjects outside the mainstream, thosewho challenge conventional norms, and those who demand student accountabilityare perpetually at a disadvantage.  We also see it with the explosion of websites wherestudents can (be)rate professors, telling the world who is and who isn't a "good"teacher.  Just as foodies can (be)ratetheir local restaurant on Zagat.com, students can similarly highlight thequality of the instruction (the food) and the quality of delivery (the service)on these  websites.  They provide a public forum whereanonymous (and usually disgruntled) students feel empowered to discipline andpunish their instructors. The critiques on these sites are often more viciousand personal than the teacher evaluations collected by universities. Misogynisticand racist abuse abounds. Indeed the increasing emphasis on teachingevaluations in higher education obscures the profound impact of sexism andracism in the classroom. These ratings are not simply "neutral measures" of"good" versus "bad" teaching. Numerousstudies have documented the powerful ways that race, gender, and sexuality shapethe classroom setting, and yet the impact is far more poignant than anystatistic can convey. Evident in comments that lament that a female instructor "lookstoo young" to be teaching a large survey course, in those that assess the physicalappearance of female professors (their –bodies or fashion choices), or in thosethat chastise "angry" or "bitter" faculty of color for daring to bring upissues of race, we can see and other metrics of consumer satisfaction often tell usnothing about the quality of education. Adding insult to injury, those of us who look for support from our eldercolleagues often come up empty-handed. The same kind of sexism and racism thatpermeates the classroom still permeates the profession.

Black Enterprise.com: David Banner on the Trayvon Martin Killing

Artist and Activist David Banner discuses the implication of Trayvon Martin's death with BlackEnterprise.com.[image error]

AT&T 28 Days 2012 Presents Kevin Powell in Raleigh, NC

Kevin Powell introduced by Common |  AT&T 28 Days 2012 | Raleigh, NC

Emily Butera: US Immigration Law and Child Welfare (video)

Emily Butera of the Women's Refugee Commission presents at Wednesdays at the Center, Duke University, The John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies.

Music for Our Moment: Gregory Porter--"1960 What?" (music video)

Motema:
The politically-charged "1960 What?" is taken from jazz / soul singer Gregory Porter's GRAMMY nominated debut album "Water".

Van Jones on Trayvon Martin, Racial Violence and Why Obama Ignored Race Issues For Two Years

DemocracyNow.org :

As thousands of people across the country call for justice in the case of Trayvon Martin, we're joined by Van Jones, longtime anti-police brutality activist and co-founder of ColorOfChange.org, which aims to strengthen Black America's political voice. He describes fearing for his own safety while wearing a hoodie, and discusses the state of race relations under President Obama. 
"This kind of hits close to home for me. I am an African-American father. I've got two little black boys," Jones says. "How am I going to protect these young guys? I mean, do you have to dress your kid in a tuxedo now to send them down the street?" 
Jones says the moral voice of the Black community on race went silent after Obama was attacked for his response to the 2009 unlawful arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., and hopes the Trayvon Martin case "opens the door for the kind of grown folks conversation we thought he was going to be able to lead when he was a candidate, which he did lead when he was a candidate, but hopefully we can see now going forward."

Trailer: "Sparkle" (dir. Salim Akil, 2012)