Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1023

Baratunde Thurston - On Tyler Perry and The Future of Black Film

from ReelBlack

Author and comedian BARATUNDE THURSTON shares his thoughts on the state of popular African-American film and his hopes for the future. His new memoir, HOW TO BE BLACK is available now from Harper Collins.

Beyond the Classroom and the Cell: An Interview with Marc Lamont Hill

Beyondthe Classroom and the Cell: An Interview with Marc Lamont Hill byDavid J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
MarcLamont Hill and Mumia Abu-Jamal are two of the most visible intellectuals of mygeneration. Separated by the wallsof injustice, The Classroom and the Cell:Conversations on Black Life in America brings these two giants in thestruggle for justice together.  
Discussing family, life and death,hip-hop, love, politics, incarceration and so much more, this book highlightstheir prominence and passion in the fight to "make America again."  As Susan L. Taylor describes in herendorsement of the book: It "gives voice to what is rarely heard: AfricanAmerican men speaking for themselves without barriers or filters, about themany forces in their lives." Inspiring and illuminating, informative and insightful, The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations onBlack Life in America is a conversation about issues and about theseprominent figures.  Amazing as thebook is, I had the opportunity to talk to Marc Lamont Hill to discuss the bookand its power.

David J. Leonard: How did the book come about?
Marc Lamont Hill: The book really emerged naturally out of myrelationship with Mumia.  I havebeen working on his defense, advocating for him for years, but it was in 2008when we actually started a direct personal relationship.  He called me out of the blue, right inthe middle of the Democratic primaries, and we talked.  He reached out and told me that he readmy work and that he had seen me on TV; he appreciated the work.  It was all love so we rapped about thework; we talked about Obama, we talked about whether or not he could beatHilary Clinton and that almost became the source of our weeklyconversations. 
Hewould hit me every Friday at 5:30. We would just talk and as we began to talk more we developed a critiqueof Obama and what it meant for him to become President.  We also talked about our lives, aboutour children, and about the other intellectual interests we had; we talkedabout culture and so much other stuff that we developed a bond and friendshipthat continues until now.  After awhile, we said lets do some work together. 
Initiallywe thought we would write a book, a more traditional book on black life inAmerica.  It was an interestingproject.  We started to writeessays together and the thing that we noticed was that we were melding ourvoices into one; we were losing our distinctiveness, we were losing the thingthat made our conversations so rich: we had similar politics, we had similarvalues, but we also different perspectives, we came from very different places,we occupy very different social locations. 
Wedecided that instead of trying to transform these conversations into somethingelse we would spotlight the conversations in the tradition of CornelWest and bell hooks, and JamesBaldwin and Margaret Mead. 
Wedecided to do a book of conversations, talking about the things that matter tous, the stuff that we care about. Politics came up, issues of life of death, leadership, education, loveand relationships.  Over the courseof a year, we talked every Friday at 5:30 and that became the basis of many ofthe chapters in the book.  Betweenprison visits, letter writing and phone conversations we produced this book,which I hope reflects the depth and breadth of our conversations as well was thedeep love, commitment and respect we have for each other
DJL: When I was reading I was thinking about theWest-hooks and Baldwin-Mead dialogues of the past, but this book felt differentbecause of the level of respect and the love between the two of you; it felt moreintimate than what we often get with dialogues and discussions between twoprominent public figures.  You givereaders not only your assessment about the world, but also insight aboutyourselves.             
MLH: That is what we wanted to do. We have each writtena lot; we each occupy public lives and because of that, certain parts of who weare get exposed all the time; our ideas, our perspectives, our ideologies allget revealed.  But we wanted tolocate ourselves in this work. We wanted to give more perspective on who arewe, but we really wanted to go deeper, to show who we are, to expose our anxietiesand fears; we wanted to link the ideas to our personal stories.  We wanted to tell a different story andwe also wanted people to know that people conversing in this book are peoplewho care deeply for each other and can model a kind of love ethic necessary forsocial change.   It shouldfeel more personal because it was.
DJL: I thought the chapter on lovewas very powerful.  It brought theentire book together, because the conversations and the book itself seem tocome from not just the love and respect you have for each other, but also thelove and respect you both have for the issues, the communities, and the voicesand histories so often unloved and disrespected.   I thought it was a powerful way to anchor the book, asit is a living example of the power of that love ethic
MLH: We hope so. That was our goal.  This isthe stuff that moves us.  This isthe stuff that wakes us up in the morning; the ideas we wrestle with everysingle day.  The love chapter inmany ways anchors the book because that is what this is all about: a profoundlove for each other, a profound love for our people, and people everywhere.  We hope the book puts a spotlight on theissues that matter most to the people who have the greatest need.  We hopefully we can then link that tochange, to social transformation. But it all comes back to love. We are trying to model a different level of love, to explore that levelsince we don't have the answers since we are wrestling and struggling with thisstuff as much as anyone else.  Weare willing to do that in public and that takes an ethic of risk that will payoff in the end.
DJL: Indeed. As opposed to essays, the conversational approach allows you to wrestlewith those larger issues, going back and forth, reflecting on the complexityand contradictions, revealing that vulnerability so uncommon amongstintellectuals, public figures, and politicians.  We are so often trying to prove that we have theanswers.  The conversationshighlight the exploration, self-reflection, and vulnerability.
MLH: That is what it is all about.  We live in as society where its not OKto wrestle with anything, where it is not OK to have contradictions, where itis not OK to change your mind. Think how we beat up on political candidates.  Change should be a good thing, where people develop andgrow, but we live in a world where people are expected to have all the answersand not having the right answers is seen as a sign of weakness. 
We come from a tradition where the more we learn, themore we explore, the more we realize what we don't know.  And the more we realize what we don'tknow the more we become committed to investigation, to inquiry, to sitting atthe heel and learning at the elbows of people who know what we don't know.  That is what we try to do with thebook.  We offer a lot of knowledgebut also talk about our shortcomings, what we struggle with, personally andideologically.  Even as we go overissues of race versus class, talk about the contours and contradictions ofmasculinity, or the sources of the prison industry, we are struggling with thisstuff, with each other and ourselves. We want people to know that is OK. You can't be a committed cultural worker, an active engaged intellectualif you constantly don't wrestle with yourself, constantly don't struggle todevelop a sharper and more coherent vision of the world. 
DJL: When I originally heard about the book, myassumption was the it was going to be primarily about incarceration and the criminaljustice system.  I thought it wouldbe an anchor and a central theme in the book, and while incarceration is atheme (and a chapter in the book), it does not dominate the book.  Did you both make a conscious decisionnot to limit your conversations to that place? 
MLH: It was and wasn't.  At one level, we just let the conversations go where theytook us.  Mumia had just finished Jailhouse Lawyers and he hasobviously written Live from Death Row .  He has really engaged the prisonquestion in great depth.  I alsohave written and lectured on that topic. We are both excited by that conversation and focus a great deal of ourenergies on criminal injustice and prison industry.  But we also wanted to expand the conversation; we did notwant to reduce our intellectual scope and interest to that thing. 
It was unconscious in that we just explored the topicwe are about.  It was consciousbecause we called the book The Classroomand The Cell but did not reduce it to prisons and schools,our areas or expertise.  We calledit The Classroom and The Cell becausein many ways those two locations speak to the condition and possibility ofblack folk, along with our respective positionalities. As we do the book, hesits on death row, although recently move to slow death row.  And I am in an Ivy League school.  To that extent, the classroom and thecell was about us, our condition, rather than the scope of the book.
DJL: One of the most profound aspects of the book restswith its ability to challenge what Angela Davis has described as prisons'ability to magically make people disappear.
MLH: We are grateful for that opportunity to challengethat belief.  Prisons, likeslavery, are instruments of social death in so many ways. Yet, people are stillfighting and struggling.  When wehave people like Mumia Abu Jamal screaming from the wilderness, it is areminder that people who are locked up inside the dungeons of America's prisons,are still alive, still kicking and have so much to offer.  It is so easy to think about the peoplelocked in these dungeons not as human beings.  It is easy to lose sight of that humanity.  It is easy once we put that label ofcriminal on them to see them as a class, as an element of people who don'tdeserve our support, our love, and our investment.  Mumia reminds us that these are people and these are peoplewith possibilities.  If we listento Mumia's voice, if we cared what he was saying, if we read the prisonwritings of so many brothers and sisters who have been incarcerated, manyunjustly, we would have a whole different posture on prisons, on vulnerablepeople. 
DLJ: This comes through the book as society systemicallyimagines those incarcerated as living in another world, yet the book revealsthe dialectics and engagement between those who are "free" and incarcerated peoples. 
MLH: A day doesn't go by where I don't get a letter fromincarcerated brothers and sisters. What would be shocking to many is how much they are engaged with theworld, how much they are unpacking the complexities of the world, how much theyare reaching out folks, advocating for themselves, and bringing seriouscritique to bear.  They are soalive and kicking.  It is easier tohide that fact; it is easier to pretend that they are just sitting in a cagesomewhere.
DJL: We see this through the dehumanization ofincarcerated people, through the efforts to represent those locked up as "animals,"all in an effort to sanction, rationalize, and justify such an inhumanesystem.  Your conversationshighlight the agency, the love, the families involved, the beautiful insightsand the humanity, which collectively disrupts the dominant narrative and theefforts to erase people from our consciousness.
MLH: Yeah, brother, that is was our goal. 
DJL: You end each chapter with a list of books forfurther reading.  Talk about that
MLH: Karla Holloway in her great book, Bookmarks: Reading in Black and Whites ,talks about the tradition of black writers leaving their bookmarks, who theyhave read, who they were reflective of what they were engaging.  It was also about affirming thehumanity of black folks, the intellectual capacity of black folks by showingthat literacy, so often seen as the seat of reason and signpost of humanity,was something that we had.  We arenot so committed to proving that we are literate but following in thattradition.  We also wanted to leavea map of what we have read, what informs us; these are books that shapedus.  I can't think aboutmasculinity without thinking about [Mark Anthony Neal's] New Black Man.  I can't think about love without thinkingabout bellhooks.  MichelleAlexander shapes my understanding of the prison crisis.  We want people to know where we camefrom.  In a practical sense, wehope that people would keep going with the conversation, and listing the bookswill hopefully help in that process. Just last week, I got a letter from a brother in prison who requestedJames Baldwin's Fire Next Time because it was on thelist.  They wanted to go deeper onthis love thing

DJL:  Ithighlights the ways that the conversations reflect on the past while imagininga future. Was there anything from your conversation that surprised you or leftan indelible mark?                                                                                                                          MLH: There are so many moments.  It is easy to think about radicalfigures and political prisoners as very serious, as revolutionary actionfigures.  Going more deeply withMumia, and I realized his full humanity – I had lost sight of that aswell.  He is one of the mostplayful and funny people you could ever meet.  He is hilarious. He is one of the most loving, caring and gentle people you would evermeet, something you would never know from the public representations ofhim.  He really represents a complexmasculinity.  All of that comesthrough our conversations.  He is so strong.  He hasbeen on death row for a crime he didn't commit – he is an enemy of the state –yet he is so strong.  You can losesight that he hurts sometimes, that he endures pain like everyone else.  He is away from his family, his life;he has been animalized for 30 years. As we are fighting for those incarcerated, as we are advocating forpolitical prisoners, we must remember that they are full-people, with a rangeof emotions and we have to keep track of all of them.
***
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of CriticalCulture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. Hehas written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing inboth popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy ofpopular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, andpopular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.He is the author of Screens Fade toBlack: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.
Marc Lamont Hill is Associate Professor of Education at the Teachers College of ColumbiaUniversity.  Hill is co-author, with celebrated political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal,  of the new book  The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations ofBlack Life in America .  Heis also the author of  Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogyand the Politics of Identity and host of Black Enterprise's Our Voices.

Byron Hurt: Are You Man Enough to Challenge Too Short?

Are You Man Enough to Challenge Too Short? by Byron Hurt | special to NewBlackMan
Most of you know that, in addition to documentary filmmaking, I facilitate a lot of gender violence prevention and education workshops with young boys and men - across race, class, and educational levels. Over the years, I've been in the room with, literally, thousands of boys and men, creating and leading conversations about masculinity, the prevention of physical and sexual violence against girls and women, and homophobia. Most importantly, I encourage non-abusive men to work to change the male peer culture that makes physical and sexual violence against women socially acceptable. Take it from me, a long-time anti-sexist activist, educating boys and men about sexism and physical and sexual violence toward girls and women means that you are swimming upstream. The work requires prioritizing these issues as important to discuss, and constant, consistent reinforcement.
Just this past weekend, in a workshop with 8-9 year old boys in Brooklyn, NY, one young boy bragged about his girlfriend being "cute with a big butt." The other boys laughed. I stopped him in his tracks and challenged him about his comment right in front of the other boys and men in the room. The moment he made his comment, he probably did not think that a man would challenge him for making such a trite, objectifying statement. The question is, where did he learn that having a cute girlfriend with a big butt was something to brag about publicly, and that by doing so it would gain him social acceptance and approval from the other boys and men in the room? It starts with poor "fatherly" advice from men like Too Short, who felt that his recent comments in a video posted on XXL.com would go unchallenged - especially by men.
While the comments Too Short made may strike some boys and men as funny and conventional male thinking, they are not. But unfortunately, too many sexist men in positions of influence and power reinforce to young boys what acceptable masculinity looks like. Too many men are teaching boys - at home, at school, on the playground, through porn culture, sports culture, military culture, fraternity culture, police culture, and mainstream media outlets like XXL - that physical and sexual aggression toward girls and women is okay.
This has to stop. And it stops when men who care about girls and women speak up and voice our disapproval and take action when we hear misogyny out of the mouths of other men who do not represent us or our view on manhood. If you are a man who strongly disagrees with Too Short's comments and find them disturbing, then please sign this online petition and share it with your male friends.
Show your support for the girls and women in your life that you know and love, as well as to the girls and women across the country who are outraged by Too Short's comments. Show them that we do not all think and act like Too Short and other men who espouse such sexist viewpoints. And finally, question and challenge sexism and misogyny wherever you see it, because men need to hear more men who are confident enough to stand in support of girls in women's human rights.
***
Byron Hurt is the New York-based producer and award-winning documentary filmmaker. Hurt is a former Northeastern University football star and long-time gender violence prevention educator. For more than five years, he was the associate director and founding member of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, the leading college-based rape and domestic violence prevention initiative for professional athletics. He is also the former associate director of the first gender violence prevention program in the United States Marine Corps. His next film in Soul Food Junkies.

Ebru Today - Dr. David Leonard on "Linsanity" & NBA's Racial Landscape

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of CriticalCulture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. Hehas written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing inboth popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy ofpopular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, andpopular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.He is the author of Screens Fade toBlack: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

XXL Feature 'Too Short' on Common Sense, Long on Misogyny

A Harris Publication publication






















XXL Feature 'Too Short' on Common Sense, Long onMisogynyby Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan
Mydaughters don't know who Todd Shaw, aka Too Short is, yet he claims to know them, as he advised their malespeers—provided instructions—as  tohow to rape and sexually assault them.  
Ina society that continues to assert its familiarity with the bodies of Blackwomen and girls—the rhetorical groping of the Michelle Obama being only themost visible example—Too Short advising boys to "take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick yourfinger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens,"—whatwe all know as a "finger f*ck"—is, unfortunately, not all that surprising;seems more like the status quo for Black women and girls.
Thoseoffended by the feature, a video that initially appeared at the XXL website,quickly responded.  As JamilahLemieux write at Ebony.com "This FORTY FIVE YEAR OLD MAN wants the young fellas to "get inside agirl's mind"…Coercion, perhaps even assault, is of no consequence here. Hence,no explanation of how to proceed if the target in question says "Stop! Idon't want you to do that!." 
Agroup of scholar activists organized an on-line petition ,demanding that Harris Publications, the publisher of XXL, remove the magazine'seditor-in-chief Vanessa Statten.  AndStatten has to go; allowing such content to be posted, whether it crossed herdesk or not, is unconscionable and bespeaks a larger crisis we face injournalistic integrity.  Thefeature also bespeaks, as well, our willingness to use Black girls ascommercial fodder, deemed expendable, because they are perceived as lackingpublic voice.
XXLMagazine and Shaw, have since issued an apology, but as Akiba Solomon notes ,it's an apology that takes no ownership for statements that encourage andsanction criminal acts against girls. And this is not simply about politicalcorrectness; besides advocating rape and sexual violence against Black womenand girls, diatribes like Shaw's also further criminalizes Black boys, withininstitutions—our schools—in which Black boys are always, already criminalized.
HarrisPublications, which also publishes King,Juicy and Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement (equipping law enforcementwith the very tools to be used against Black boys), knows this dance well; it'sa blueprint for disengaging yourself from controversy, deployed brilliantlydaily by shock jocks, elected officials and a host of professionals—some ofthem even Black—knowing that there will be little recourse to their brand. 
Factis that few, who are regular subscribers of XXL or regular consumers of theircontent will feel compelled to reject the publication, no more than thoseoffended by statements, by say Misters Whitlock or Martin (as examples of tworecent controversies) will stop watching Fox Sports or CNN (or listen to TomJoyner). 
Weneed some new strategies—this protest, petition, and wait for the apology,suspension, removal is getting old.  
***
Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including theforthcoming Looking for Leroy:(Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press) and Professorof African & African-American Studies at Duke University. He is founder andmanaging editor of NewBlackMan andhost of the weekly webcast Left of Black . Follow him onTwitter @NewBlackMan.

Left of Black S2:E19 | A History of Haiti and the Legacy of Violence in Jamaica with Laurent Dubois and Deborah Thomas

Left of Black S2:E19 | February 13, 2012
A History of Haiti andthe Legacy of Violence in Jamaica with Laurent Dubois and Deborah Thomas
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in-studio byLaurent Dubois, the Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies andHistory at Duke University   A co-director of the Haiti Lab at the Franklin HumanitiesInstitute ,  Dubois discusses hisnew book Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (Metropolitan Books).  Dubois gives historical context to thelongstanding relationship between the U.S. and Haiti.  Also the author of SoccerEmpire: The World Cup and the Future of France , Dubois also talksabout how he uses athletics as a gateway into political and culturalengagement. Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by University ofPennsylvania professor of anthropology DeborahThomas.   The author of
***
Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced incollaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.
***
Episodes of Left of Blackare also available for free download in HD @ iTunes U

Black Power on TV: How 'Soul Train' Host Don Cornelius (1936-2012) Reshaped Independent Black Media | Mark Anthony Neal on Democracy Now!

Whitney Houston is just the latest cultural icon to pass away during this year's Black History month. On February 1, "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius was found dead at his home in Los Angeles, in what appeared to be a suicide. Cornelius brought black music and culture into America's living rooms through his dance show, "Soul Train," one of the longest-running syndicated shows in television history, and played a critical role in spreading the music of black America to the world. "Don Cornelius was very clear. This was going to be his vision, it was going to celebrate the diversity of blackness, it was going to celebrate the vitality of blackness, and it was going to be available to folks in the mainstream," says Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, who also reflects on the recent deaths of Whitney Houston and the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer, Etta James.

"America's Pop Princess": Whitney Houston Remembered for Unprecedented Crossover Success | Mark Anthony Neal on Democracy Now!

The music world continues to pay tribute to pop superstar Whitney Houston following her death on Saturday at the age of 48. She was honored at last night's Grammy Awards by host LL Cool J and Jennifer Hudson. "She is part of a generation of what I called "black pop crossover artists," that would include Eddie Murphy, the late Michael Jackson, and even basketball player Michael Jordan, in that they had unprecedented amount of access to the American mainstream," says Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal. "We had never seen that level of black celebrity before… Her success in that mainstream was really unprecedented."

Rap Sessions | Maya Rockeymoore: "Get Out the Vote is not the End of the Game...Policy is the Real Game"

Dr. Maya Rockeymoore leads Global Policy Solutions, a Washington, DC-based policy firm that works to create and advance social change strategies for the world.
For the last six years, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, brought townhall style meetings to scores of cities across the country. In 2011, Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation. 
By touring the nation with leading hip-hop activists, scholars, and artists, Rap Sessions helps jumpstart crucial local debate. Past participating institutions include Princeton University, Brown University, University of California-Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Chicago, Harvard Law School among others. Tour Topics:
:: Hip-Hop and Politics:: Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama / Tea Party Era
:: FROM PRECIOUS II FOR COLORED GIRLS
:: Global Hip-Hop & Economic Recovery
:: Islamophobia & Hip-Hop
:: Is America Really Post-Racial?
:: Hip-Hop & The 2008 Presidential Election
:: Does Hip Hop Hate Women?
:: Race & Hip-Hop

Learn More at http://www.rapsessions.org

Ebru Today: Yohuru Williams on Recent Affirmative Action Cases in Higher Ed