Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1024

Video | Phonte: "The Good Fight" (dir. Kenneth Price)

"The Good Fight"
Phonte | Produced by 9th Wonder
Directed by Kenneth Price

from: Charity Starts At Home

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Harnessing Hip Hop To Teach Students: Gloria Ladson-Billings on CNN

Educators are using hip hop as a teaching tool to engage students, increase critical thinking, and tackle achievement gaps.

"Truth to Power:"? No Truth or Empowerment in Jason Whitlock's Tweet

"Truth to Power:"? No Truth or Empowerment in JasonWhitlock's Tweet by the Collective | The Feminist Wire | NewBlackMan
We come together to express our collective disappointmentover Jason Whitlock's recent tweet about Jeremy Lin.  We hope that our voices, our analysis, and our angerdemonstrates not only our opposition to this sort of rhetoric but theideologies and stereotypes that provide a foundation for people like Whitlockto stand upon.  His tweet is a symptomof a larger problem and therefore warrants analysis and condemnation in aneffort to transform the very culture that produces these sorts of comments eachand every day.
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PerhapsJason Whitlock is suffering from (L)insanity. Or, perhaps on a much morepolitically incorrect level, Whitlock is on that bull.
Histweet wraps misogyny, stereotypical phallic fantasy, and race into one awkward'joke' that provides enough side eye for years to come. Perhaps most disturbingis the crude attempt at humor with little to no purpose and situating it withinpolitics of (ir) respectability. Further complicating (complementing?) thepeculiarity of this tweet is the imposition of digital anonymity/privacy ofWhitlock and his followers: because I'm behind a screen name (or lack thereof),is it cool to laugh and 'joke' about such sensitive and taboo topics? Is itrespectable?
DoesWhitlock have (social) responsibility? Damn right. Why wouldn't he? Because, inan offsetting way, Whitlock's crudeness is a representation of the publicdismissal of race as a marker of American cultural discourse. And,simultaneously, how jacked it is – ReginaBradley

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Maleprofessional sports, like the military, have long been valued for its abilityto allow talent to flourish, in spite of the realities of race and ethnicity.  Professional sports are often viewed asthe most natural of American meritocracies, though such opportunity, as itwere, rarely extends beyond the field into the realms of management andownership.  This is not to suggestthat racism, sexism, and homophobia are non-existent in professional sports,but that impact is largely muted by performance.
Onelocation where intolerance remains unfettered, is of course, within the arenaof commentary where sports-talk radio and the comments sections of sports sitesrecall the kind of racist, sexist and homophobic rhetoric that many believedwent underground generations ago. Ironically such rhetoric has proved big-business for big Media, creatingcelebrity in hosts and sports journalists, whose bad behavior is celebrated as"realness" and who somehow think that thoughtful and reasoned analysis andcommentary are towing some invisible line of political correctness. 
Inthis regard, Jason Whitlock is not alone—his now infamous idiotic, racist,sexist, homophobic and xenophobic rants are part of his brand, and it's a brandthat apparently serves him and his employer Fox Sports, very well.  Bless them.  And while I feel no real need to compare Whitlock's recentcomments about Jeremy Lin—as misogynistic as they were racists—to theill-advised comments on twitter by journalist Roland Martin, I would at leastexpect that the same fervor in which GLAAD demanded that CNN punish Martin, andthat many of Martin's Black peers demanded that Martin be reinstated by hisemployer, would be deployed to protect a young Taiwanese-American basketballplayer, who is simply doing his job to the best of his ability within ameritocratic structure that we all claim to value – Mark Anthony Neal

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Appalled.I find myself rendered nearly speechless in the face of the harmful andrepulsive comments of Jason Whitlock and many others with regards to JeremyLin. We, however, cannot remain silent about such racist and misogynisticcomments. Relying upon deeply infuriating racial, sexual, and genderstereotypes to "celebrate" Lin illuminates not only the absurdity of apost-racial society or national, cultural imaginary, but makes apparent themost disgusting and deeply entrenched stereotypes that are foundational tosocial and cultural discourses on race in the United States. To merelydisregard Whitlock's or other comments about Lin that pivot around deeplyproblematic racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes as "jokes" or "harmlesssports banter" minimizes the dehumanizing nature of such comments. In the samebreath that we laud Lin, let us also collectively deplore the words of thosewho rely upon damaging stereotypes in their commentary - Treva Lindsey

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There are so many levels on which Whitlock's (knee)jerkattempt at satire was sad and wrong; most of them have been covered by others,including the boorishness of greeting a player who's risen to the toughest ofchallenges by ceremonially unmanning him; the pathetic symbolism of a man whose racehas historically suffered because of sexual mythology unleashing the tools ofsuch distortion and degradation on a man of another race that has so suffered;the almost antique misogyny of Whitlock's phrasing and innuendo. So I'll focuson something I haven't seen raised: The enormity of Whitlock's imposition ofthe darkest stereotypes of the modern celebrity athlete on a young man whoclearly is anything but. Lin is humble, hard-working, clean-cut almost to afault -- and a deeply, deeply devout Christian who has spoken of joining theministry after his playing days are over.
Forget the ridiculous anatomical slur: The suggestionthat he might celebrate a victory he dedicated to God by having random sex witha "lucky lady" is almost certainly what would offend and horrify Linmore.
Now, given that his employers at Fox will likely loselittle if any sleep over Whitlock's arrant racial offense, the question I askis this: Will FSN -- whose sister networks carp endlessly about the war onfaith -- punish Whitlock for demeaning Lin's deep, professed Christian beliefs?
If so, I'll take it - Jeff Yang

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JasonWhitlock's tweet brings me back to a time in the early 70's when I was playingon a football team comprised of players from Harlem, the Upper West Side and anItalian Restaurant near Lincoln Center. The only way people could communicatewas exchanging ethnic slurs and boasting about sexual conquests, a discoursethat reduced me to total silence. It is sad to see how much that atmosphere, sodeeply entrenched nearly 40 years ago, still dominates sports journalism andshapes the way men immersed in competitive sports construct their masculinity,irrespective of their racial or cultural background. Needless to say, thatatmosphere creates a camaraderie rooted in fear and suspicion on the field. Italso promotes violence off the field toward those who are targets, especiallywomen, who are viewed as appropriate subjects of sexual aggression followingsports victories, and inhibits real relationships based on candor and trust. Inshort, it is really bad, and really sad. I had hoped that younger people hadmoved beyond what I had grown up with, but apparently not. Predatorymasculinity is alive and well and living in America –Mark Naison

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Atwhat point will we resist re-assigning markers of difference that have workedto asphyxiate our identities as people of color for centuries? And, when willwe realize that our deployment and projection of racial fantasies andstereotyping toward our selected "Others" not only destabilizes our ability toflourish as humans, but also are antithetical to our own personal and politicalinterests? Further, on what occasion will black men and boys constructmasculinities that are courageous enough to loosen the yoke of cultural (mis)re-presentationsand broad enough to embrace the complex subjectivities of both self and others?
JasonWhitlock's recent tweet regarding Jeremy Lin is obscene. And for those who wantto dismiss it as normal sports talk, shame on you! Whitlock's tweet is part andparcel of a larger, inter-textual grand narrative on classificatory violence,which aims to categorize things that feel out of place—in order to bring usback into a so-called normal state—or worse, get rid of the "problem" bythrusting it into the realm of "the spectacle." Does this sound familiar? Itshould. Herein lies where identities, of both the signified and the signifier,get reinvented. However, in the present age of hyper-social-media, it is alsowhere public discourse turns into a theater of fetishized display, where bodiesserve as indisputable evidence for racial, sexual, ethnic, and gendereddifference. This is where the signifier hopes to mark himself as "normal."However, sadly for Whitlock, he too is part of the joke. He too isproblematically fixated at a level of genitalia; no longer a black man, but apenis (pun intended) - Tamura A. Lomax

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JasonWhitlock's tweet fails not only the racism/sexism test but also the satiretest. The racism is obvious--though it should be pointed out that thealternatively "positive" and "negative" stereotypes of Asians and Blacks (e.g.nerds v. athletes) have always been designed to complement each other andreinforce white supremacy. I might even be more offended by the patheticattempt to be funny. It seems that any time someone breaks through a majorpublic color barrier that America is required to go through an initial cycle ofexorcising all of the most tired stereotypes before we can adjust to a wholenew condition. So congratulations, Jason, you made the list alongside thebirthers and Fuzzy Zoeller's "fried chicken" (he forgot to add "pad thai")comment about Tiger Woods – ScottKurashige

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JasonWhitlock might as well have pulled up the corners of his eyes and said, "ching,chong, ching, chong," like the kids who used to taunt me on the playground as akid. (And I'm not even Chinese; I'm Filipina).  In less than fifteen words, he managed to dredge up the mosttired racial, gender, and sexual stereotypes associated with "oriental" people:the hypersexuality and ready availability of Asian women, and the effeminacyand queerness of Asian men. His comments play into the longstanding techniquesof divide and conquer that have pit people of African and Asian descent againsteach other since colonial times. We have much more to gain in working togetherto combat white supremacy, not just in the United States, but also across theglobe. Whitlock's comment does nothing to encourage the development of thesetypes of solidarities – TheresaRunstedtler

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U.S. racial discourses remain arrested in that primalscene of childhood violence: the schoolyard. For so many of us, the schoolyard "wisdoms"about which Jason Whitlock tweets are not just a bad memory but a daily reality. It isespecially painful to hear such "wisdoms" repeated by a black man. Whitlock'schauvinism denies Jeremy Lin's body the capacity to represent the nation aswell as more obviously the NBA and the high stakes capitalist world of sportscelebrity. Bodies like Lin's can never measure up. But in a sense neither canWhitlock's. This was the terrible irony that left me feeling more saddened andbroken than angry. Whitlock participates in the very logic that demeans hishumanity. His comment suggests that he has embraced racist notions of blacksexual prowess as the sorry (mis)measure of his own masculinity and self-worth—hisfantasies about Lin's body, inversely reciprocal, certainly speak to suchunhappy investments – Hiram Perez

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JasonWhitlock's racially insensitive tweet about rising Asian-American NBA superstarJeremy Lin betrays an investment in an impoverished Black masculinity narrativethat pivots upon the erroneous and scientifically disproven idea that Black menhave bigger penises than every other group. Whitlock's need to re-establishBlack masculine potency vis-à-vis narratives of athletic and sexual dominancesuggests the presence of a threat. But why is the presence of an Asian Americankid who can ball his ass off so threatening? Perhaps because Lin's presence inthe Black male dominated space of the NBA rightly demands we rethink our tiredand dangerous investment in the myth of biological Black male athleticsuperiority. Coupled with the homophobic tweets of news commentator RolandMartin, it is clear that the logic of hypersexual Black masculinity isdangerous (e.g. lynching, myth of the Black male rapist, etc) not only to Blackmen but also to other subjugated masculine subjects, be they Asian men, gay men(Black and otherwise) and women, who become the targets of straight Black men'smisguided need to re-establish dominance – BrittneyCooper

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Whatmakes Whitlock's tweet funny? First, of course, there is the nod to the socialconstruction of Asian men as feminine and sexually passive, which then getsplayed out in our (oh so necessary) cultural discourse on the size of theirpenises. So that's funny. Then, there is our collective racial imagination ofbasketball as a sport in which Black men demonstrate a certain aggressive kindof masculine performance. So the presence of a Chinese American in this sportdemands that he be assessed for his ability to perform race consistent with ourimaginations, both on the court and off. He impresses us with his on-courtmoves, but we are obsessed with whether an Asian male can compete with(naturally) virile Black ballers when it comes to really laying it down. Sothat's funny, right? Oh, and of course, we all know women can't help but fightover dick, especially the dick of a basketball player, which, as we've alreadyconcluded, is huge because it's black.
Unless…haha… it's not. And what (all) women really want at the end of the night is to be"lucky" enough to score a big dick, so they can feel the "pain." So Whitlock'stweet is also about this woman lying there prostrate, sexually frustratedbecause Lin couldn't deliver, which, of course, she should have known becausehe's Asian. So once again, women are not only insatiable in bed, but are alsonaïve, particularly about sex. Which just confirms what we already know aboutwomen. And that is hilarious, no? – MichaelJ. Dumas

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Itmakes me wonder about you, Mr. Whitlock, that you assume Jeremy Lin shouldcelebrate his stellar performance on the court last night by inflicting "pain"on a woman. Is that how you celebrate your tweeting achievements? It is amazingthat you could be so unaware of the irony of racially stereotyping Lin'sanatomy and linking it to sexual violence, given the ugly history in which "southernjustice" has been justified again and again through fantasies of black men,their genitalia, and their supposed propensity to inflict sexual pain on women.But then again, given your "achievements" as a sportswriter in the past, yourcluelessness is not all that surprising – AnoopMirpuri

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Myresponse is flavored by spending the past few days immersed in a discussion ofthe liberation that is to be experienced with Post-Blackness. In the age ofsocial media, I remain amazed by the lengths bullies, masquerading as "writers,"are willing to take to demonstrate their ability to use micro-aggressive meansto exert their supremacy over others. As a Baby-Boomer, I'm left withquestions. Is social media a mechanism used by the socially inept to exercisetheir "voice" that is impossible in a face-to-face environment? Does somesocial media exacerbate the breadth and depth of stupidity possessed by theowner? Does it foster stupidity; perpetuate it? I believe that all of the worldvia the blogosphere is a stage and juxtapose this medium against an old schoolwarning that I received in the 1980s to avoid emulating a colleague who was awild cannon in the work place because with that person it was always "whatcomes up, comes out." But in those days, what you said was only heard by thosewithin hearing distance. Should you think before you tweet? Jason Whitlock's "performance"at perpetuating racial stereotypes is flawed on way too many levels to begin toarticulate – Valerie L. Patterson

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Jason Whitlock, who describes himself on his twitter page as "too honest"and someone who "speaks truth to power" once again showed the power in speakinghurtful untruths based on stereotypes, assumptions, and systemically producedbiases.  Jason Whitlock has made anentire career in demonizing Others, disseminating the ideologies of whitesupremacy, and peddling sexism.  Heoncerefereed to Serena Williams as an "unsightly layer of thick, muscledblubber, a byproduct of her unwillingness to commit to a training regimen anddiet that would have her at the top of her game year-round."  This is the same man, whohas described "hip-hop culture" as "nothing morethan prison culture," and who onceprovided this assessment of blackyouth:
We have a problem in the black community, and it didn't make its debutat All-Star Weekend Vegas. What was impossible to ignore in Vegas was ondisplay in Houston, Atlanta and previous All-Star locations. With the exceptionof Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March, it's been on display nearly everytime we've gathered in large groups to socialize in the past 15 or so years.The Black Ku Klux Klan shows up in full force and does its best to ruin ourgood time. Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has nowtaken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangersand posse members. Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and '50s, we fear them,keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don't bother us. Our fearmakes them stronger. Our silence empowers them. Our lack of courage lets themdefine who we are. Our excuse-making for their behavior increases theirinfluence and enables them to recruit more freely. We sing their racist songs,gleefully call ourselves the N-word, hype their celebrity and get upset whenwhite people whisper concerns about our sanity. And whenever someone publicly statesthat the Black KKK is terrorizing black people, black neighborhoods, blacksocial events and glorifying a negative, self-destructive lifestyle, we denyand blame the Man. I don't want to do it anymore.
The recent tweet about Jeremy Lin is a continuationof more of the same from Mr. Whitlock, leaving me to wonder if he would be better-suitedwriting stump speeches for the GOP or better yet keeping his "honesty" tohimself – David J. Leonard

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Whitlock'stweet was a cheap shot of the basest proportions. He's an embarrassment to thewriting establishment – Oliver Wang

Contributors
Regina Bradley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Florida StateUniversity
Britney Cooper is a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow at Rutgers University
Michael J. Dumas is an assistant professor of Education at New YorkUniversity
Scott Kurashige is the Director of Asian/Pacific Islander AmericanStudies at University of Michigan
David J. Leonard is an associate professor of Critical Culture,Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University
Treva Lindsey is an assistant professor of Women's and GenderStudies at University of Missouri
Tamura A. Lomax holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Vanderbilt Universityis co-founder of The Feminist Wire
Anoop Mirpuri is an assistant professor of English at DrewUniversity
Mark Anthony Neal is professor of African and African American Studiesat Duke University
Mark Naison is professor of African American Studies and Historyat Fordham University
Valerie L. Patterson is an assistant professor of Public Administrationat Florida International University
Hiram Perez is an assistant professor of English at VassarCollege
Theresa Runstedtler is an assistant professor of American Studies atSUNY Buffalo
Oliver Wang is an assistant professor of sociology at Cal StateLong Beach
Jeff Yang is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal Onlineand can be heard regularly on WNYC 's "The Takeaway."

Whitney

Whitney by Stephane Dunn | special to NewBlackMan
I'm at some once a year fancy gala –the kind of thing that makes you suffer through three inch heels and a bitterFebruary wind to see and be seen. Half into the spinach with arugula and pecanssalad with orange sesame dressing, a whisper builds and people begin to forgetthe discrete lap level text check and their holding the blackberries and i-phonesup close, squinting and reading, texting, and sighing then look up across thetable at a stranger formerly of little interest who looks back asking the samequestion: Is Whitney really dead? 
And soon, the Facebook posts and twitterfeeds confirm it, and I keep eating bread and butter and there are voices inthe background. There's a program and distinguished people are getting awardsand people are clapping, but in my head I'm screaming with clenched fists likeFlorida Evans: Damn, Damn, Damn! Whitney Houston is dead. I wantto scream it really and stop the program just for a second, just to confirm,something momentous has happened. The awards and the chatter go on and a movieis running through my head. 1978's Sparkle, a pretty, sultry brown girl startsto sing her way out of the ghetto with her little sisters. She falls for a userand an abuser and then she's on drugs and bruised and dead. The remakemarks Whitney's return to the big screen only Whitney doesn't play Sister butnow she's dead too.
By three am, I'm sitting on the samecouch in the same spot where I was sitting on June 25, 2009 when a part of myyouth passed away with a headline: Michael Jackson has died. And now, anotherheadline takes another part, my young adult life. I flashback to college, lastdance of the school year, end of April, and my heart is breaking. My firstadult love is crashing. I don't want to let go, but it's over. He asks me todance. I want to be close to him, but I want to say no. Whitney's singing: Wheredo broken hearts go, do they find their way home . . . and I know it's hisgoodbye, and we're not going to make-up ever again.
I see her glimmering like golden brownsand in the sun on album covers and on stage and I like her 'cause she's skinnylike me and utterly gorgeous and she can saaaaang. She makes me wish I couldsing too and I do [in secret] and when I'm struggling with classes and billpaying and just trying to find my way and make it to somewhere, I hum andsometimes wail, badly, alone, in my little efficiency apartment, . . . becausethe greatest love of all is happening to me, I found the greatest love of allinside of me . . .
I think about me and my sister friendsgoing to check out Waiting to Exhale and wearing out that soundtrack andlip syncing and I think about Whitney, sitting there pregnant and fine in thatvideo singing that Dolly song from earth to heaven and back and wondering, howcan the girl sing like that and then I glimpse myself cranking up the radio 'causethey're playing Whitney's song, and I gotta marvel all over again. And Iwill always love youuuu. I see me cringing every time somewannabe-the-next-Whitney dared take on one of her songs and arguing folkdown who don't know better. Nobody sung that national anthem like Whitney.Nobody. Period. 
It's after four am, and I keep thinking and remembering andhearing that voice, and how much it hurt over the years to think of her hurtingand not singing and people talking about her and judging and her becoming oneof those stories of the wayward star gone the way of drama and drugs. I nevergave her up. I claimed her survival and her triumph. I'm tearing up. CNN isplaying that damned too beautiful song . . . bittersweet memories . . . Ican't stand it – headlines, reflections, tributes, 'we'll always have her music'.I don't want it to be the same old story. It shouldn't be the same old story.
I want real talk about how folk can beprepared for being inside of fame and how they can be saved before they losetheir voices. I want new ways to protect and arm those ambitious geniusesagainst the snares on the way to fame and fortune. I want her not to belike those other too surreally phenomenal songstresses from Billie to Judy andAmy.
Whitney Houston dead at forty-eight.
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StephaneDunn, Ph.D., a writer and assistant professor at Morehouse College, specializesin film, popular culture, and African American Studies, and creative writing.She is the author of Baad Bitches and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power ActionFilms (University of Illinois Press 2008) and her work has appeared in suchpublications as Ms., TheRoot, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and BestAfrican American Essays.

Mark Anthony Neal Lectures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison | February 13, 2012

Getting Real II: Hip-Hop Pedagogy, Performance & Culture in the Classroom & Beyond

UW OMAI lecture series: 
"When You See Me, See You: Hip-Hop, Wealth & Social Justice" by Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal

When: 02/13/12 @ 7:00pm
Cost: Room 1101
Call: 890-1006
Web: www.omai.wisc.edu


HIP-HOP TEACHING, PERFORMANCE AND CULTURE

Using hip-hop pedagogy as a teaching tool to integrate topics from history, politics and art to culture and performance in the classroom will be the topic of the second annual lecture series "Getting Real II" at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this spring.

The free 15-week lecture series will begin Monday, Jan. 23 in Room 1101 Grainger Hall and is sponsored by the UW-Madison Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate and the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI). Each week's lecture will begin at 7 p.m. and all are free and open to the public.

The series features internationally renowned educator and specialist on multicultural education UW-Madison professor Gloria Ladson-Billings as host and a slate of guests from the top universities and leaders in the growing field of hip-hop studies.

This year's series will examine how the pedagogy imbedded in traditional spoken word and the contemporary hip-hop movement is being used by educators to teach a broad range of traditional topics in the classroom and serve as an innovative approach to engaging students who have been historically under-served by traditional schooling.

Ladson-Billings is the current Kellner Family Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association. Her research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students.

Guest lecturers will focus on how hip-hop culture and culturally relevant teaching can serve as innovative approaches to help bridge the achievement gap in our nation's public schools through the creation of new strategies and curricula.

"Educators give lip service to the concept of 'critical thinking' but reduce the concept to the ability to perform on sections of standardized tests of conventional reading," says OMAI Executive Director Willie Ney, whose office oversees the nation's only college-level program dedicated to teaching through the use of hip-hop.

The internationally recognized First Wave Hip-Hop Theater Ensemble is now in its fifth year at UW-Madison.

"The basic premise of the series is that true critical thinking is stimulated through a critical pedagogy-one that challenges typical orthodoxy to help students ask incisive questions about the nature of the current social, political, economic, and cultural order," Ney says.

One of the more innovative strategies for engaging students in critical thinking is through hip-hop culture, Ney adds. Similar to the work of the 1950s and 1960s citizenship schools and freedom schools, New Studies (e.g. black studies, Chicano studies, women's studies) and popular culture studies, hip-hop culture pulls on the organic and local culture of students to help them see the ways grassroots movements engage learners and help produce transformation.

"This series will pull on educational theories such as socio-cultural theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, critical media theory, post-colonial theory and critical race theory to help participants connect hip hop as both an art form and a pedagogical tool to improve the academic success of students who remain marginalized in our schools," Ney says.

For more information on the series call 608-890-1006 or visit http://www.omai.wisc.edu

Schedule for "Getting Real II: Hip Hop Pedagogy, Performance and Culture in the Classroom and Beyond," Monday evenings at 7 p.m., Room 1101 Grainger Hall:


Feb. 6 - "Why the Charter School Movement Has It Wrong and How We Can Make It Right" featuring guest speaker Kaleem Caire, CEO Urban League of Greater Madison.

Feb. 13 - "When You See Me, See You: Hip-Hop, Wealth and Social Justice," professor Mark Anthony Neal of Duke University.

Feb. 20 - Guest Speakers assistant professor Dawn-Elissa Fischer and adjunct professor and journalist Davey D of San Francisco State University.

Feb. 27 - "Developing Critical Hip-Hop Feminist Literacies of Black Womanhood in an Afterschool Program," featuring Docta E, also known as professor Elaine Richardson of Ohio State University.

March 5 - "Everybody Make Some Noise: The Audience Dynamic in Youth Spoken Word" with Anna West, youth Spoken Word organizer and doctoral student from Louisiana State University.

March 12 - "Global Ill-literacies: Hip Hop Culture(s), Youth Identities, and the Politics of Literacy," featuring associate professor Samy Alim of Stanford University.

March 19 - "Partners in Rhyme: Hip-Hop and Global Democracy," Gloria Ladson-Billings.

March 26 - Guest speaker and author Marc Lamont Hill of Columbia University.

April 9 - "Re-Imagining Teaching and Learning: A Snapshot of Hip-Hop Education" featuring guest speaker New York University adjunct professor Martha Diaz and Eddie Fergus, deputy director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and research assistant professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at New York University.

April 16 - Guest speaker TBA

April 23 - "Into the Traffic Jam: Contradictions, Interruptions, Classrooms and Hip-Hop" featuring guest speaker associate professor David Stovall, University of Illinois-Chicago.

April 30 - "First Wave Pedagogy: Roots to Routes to Roots" featuring Christopher Walker, UW-Madison assistant professor of dance and First Wave Hip-Hop Theater Ensemble artistic director.

May 7 - "Final Cypher: Showcase Performances of Curriculum and Instruction," featuring 375 seminar participants. This event will be held at 7 p.m. in the H'Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall, 1050 University Ave.

A History of Haiti and the Legacy of Violence in Jamaica on the February 13th 'Left of Black'

A Historyof Haiti and the Legacy of Violence in Jamaica on the February 13thLeft of Black
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 FranklinHumanities Institute ,  Duboisdiscusses his new book Haiti: The Aftershocks ofHistory (Metropolitan Books).  Dubois gives historical context to the longstandingrelationship between the U.S. and Haiti.  Also the author of Soccer Empire: TheWorld Cup and the Future of France , Dubois also talks about how he usesathletics as a gateway into political and cultural engagement. 
Later, Neal is joined via Skype© by University ofPennsylvania professor of anthropology DeborahThomas.   The author of

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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on the Ustreamchannel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/left-of-black. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitterconversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags#LeftofBlack or #dukelive. 


Left of Blackis recorded and produced at the JohnHope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at DukeUniversity.


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Follow Left of Black onTwitter: @LeftofBlack
Follow Mark Anthony Neal onTwitter: @NewBlackMan
Follow Laurent Dubois onTwitter: @SoccerPolitics


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Pride and Prejudice: Jeremy Lin and the Persistence of Racial Stereotypes

Prideand Prejudice: Jeremy Lin and the Persistence of Racial Stereotypes byDavid J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
Therecent success and national visibility afforded to Jeremy Lin has both inspiredAsian Americans and has been driven by the adoration and pride he elicits fromsome within the community.  Whetheron twitter, Facebook, or in the stadiums, it is clear that Lin is not simply anational phenomena but a treasure for the Asian American community. 
According toJamilah King, "regardless of how the rest of the season goes for Lin, andthe Knicks, his moment in the spotlight is an important time to reflect on howthe country views its Asian American athletes."  Whereas past Asian athletes, whether it be Yao Ming or Ichirocaptured the global Asian Diaspora's imagination, Lin is the most widelyrecognized Asian American athlete on the American team sport scene.  TimothyDalrymple highlights the appeal of Lin to Asian American males:
He particularly has a following amongstAsian-Americans.  And some Asian-American young men, long stereotyped astimid and unathletic, nerdy or effeminate or socially immature — have foughtback tears (which may not help with the stereotype, but is understandable underthe circumstances) as they watched Jeremy Lin score 25 points, 7 assists and 5rebounds for the New York Knicks.
In"Asian Americans energized in seeing Knicks' Jeremy Lin play," J.Michael Falgoust elucidates his cultural power within the Asian Americancommunity in quoting the thoughts of several different people:
"I don't care about the outcome. I just want tosee him in action. He's as good of an Asian American athlete as there is" — RoseNguyen
"I'm so proud. I don't care if he is Chinese orKorean. I had to see him … my boyfriend has been talking about him somuch" — Christine Lee
"I'm really excited. He breaks so manystereotypes. And my friends are just as excited. If you go to my Facebook feed,it's all Jeremy Lin. I like that he plays smart. But then he's from Harvard. Sothat is expected. He is also humble. He reminds me a lot of Derrick Rose, who'salways crediting teammates" — Andrew Pipathsouk
AndrewLeonard similarly argues that Lin's popularity amongst Asian Americans isemblematic of the power of social media and also the pride that athleticsuccess garners for Asian Americans, otherwise seen as "nerds" not"jocks."  While problematicallyinvoking the language of "genetics" that erases Lin's tremendousathleticism/speed, Leonard concludes that Lin inspires Asian American kids whoyearn for a masculine role model given persistent invisibility and anti-Asianracism within the public square. "He's a triumph of will over geneticendowment, a fact that makes him inspiring to an entire generation ofCalifornian kids restless with their model minority shackles," he notes.
On Monday, the social media world was also gettingworked up about Michigan Republican Senate hopeful Pete Hoekstra's racist Super Bowl ad,featuring a Chinese woman (labeled "yellowgirl" in the HTML code for the Webversion) gloating over all the jobs her country was taking from the U.S. Oncethrown into the 24/7 crazy cultural mashup perpetual motion machine, it didn'ttake long before anger about that ad ran head on into Jeremy Lin pride. I haveseen tweets urging Jeremy Lin to run for the Republican nomination for theMichigan senate seat, tweets warning that the only American jobs in danger fromAsians are those belonging to New York Knick starting point guards, and even atweet riffing off Kobe Bryant's self-identification as "black mamba" — JeremyLin is suddenly  the "yellow mamba."
Linhas trended #1 on twitter on three successive game days, was top-10 searcheditems on Sina Weibo and is all the talk of the sports world.  For the moment, it is Jeremy Lin'sworld and we are all just living in it.                                          Thepride and possibility reflects the broader erasure and invisibility of AsianAmericans within popular culture (minus this year's Top Chef).  "Asians arenearly invisible on television/movies/music, so any time I see an Asian on TVor in the movies, I feel like I've just spotted a unicorn, even though usually,I see them being portrayed as kung-fu masters/socially awkward mathematicalgeniuses/broken-English-speaking-fresh-off-the-boat owner of Chineserestaurant/nail salon/dry cleaners," writesone blogger. "Anyway, this phenomenon is 10x worse in sports.  While there has been some notableprogress with Asians in professional baseball, Asians are all but non-existentin the big three sports in the US (football, basketball, baseball)."   
Lin breaks down, or at least penetrates,the walls that have excluded Asian Americans from popular culture.  The pride, adoration and celebration reflectthis history of exclusion, a history of erasure, and invisibility.  The efforts to link Lin to Nike's"Witness" campaign is illustrative in that we are all witness, maybe for thefirst, time in history, of an Asian American sports hero, someone whochallenges and defies expectations and stereotypes.
Amidthe invisibility is a history of feminization of Asian American males.  When present within media and popularculture, Asian American men have been represented as asexual, weak, physicallychallenged, and otherwise unmasculine. Sanctioning exclusion and denied citizenship, the white supremacistimagination has consistently depicted Asian male bodies as effeminate.  The entry of Lin into the dominantimagination reflects a challenge to this historic practice given the power ofsports as a space of masculine prowess.  
Whethershock or celebration, Lin's cultural power rests in his juxtaposition to thestereotyped Asian American male. According to TimothyDalrymple, "their astonishment at the sight of Jeremy Lin outperforming theother players, their consistent references to how exhausted he must be, and how"magical" a night he's having (rather than a natural result of talent and hardwork) suggests that they've bought into the stereotype of the physically inferiorAsian-American male."
Lin'srecent ascendance is not simply about success or dominance within the sportsworld, a place defined by masculine prowess.  It reflects the cultural and gendered meaning ofbasketball.  Lin is excelling in aworld defined by black manhood, an identity the white racial frames constructthrough physicality, strength, speed and swagger.  Unlike other players who burst onto the American scene (YaoMing, Yi Jianlian, Wang ZhiZhi), Lin is a guard, who has found success becauseof his athleticism and skills as opposed to his presumed freakish stature.  "The best part is how viscerallypleasurable it is to watch Lin play: His game is flashy, almost showoffy, andrequires him to have guts, guile and flair in equal measure," writes WillLeich. "The drama of it is, it's obvious, what's most fun for him. It isall you could possibly want as a feel-good story. "
Inother words, Lin's appeal comes from his ability to ball like a street playerto face off and dominate against black players at "their own game."  The celebration of Lin as a challengeto the denied masculinity afforded to Asian American males reflects the ways inwhich black masculinity is defined in and through basketball culture.  While surely offering fans theoften-denied sporting masculinity within the Asian body, the power of JeremyLin rests with his ability to mimic a basketball style, swagger and skillassociated with black ballers. 
Prideemanates from the sense of masculinity afforded by Lin, a fact that emanatesfrom stereotypical constructions of black masculinity.  "Through no fault of his own, Linstands at a bombed-out intersection of expected narratives, bodies, perceivedgenes, the Church, the vocabulary of destinations and YouTube," wrote JayCaspian Kang, who's Asian American, about Lin's electrifying play at Harvard."What Jeremy Lin represents is a re-conception of our bodies, a visible measureof how the emasculated Asian-American body might measure up to the mythiclegion of Big Black superman" (cited by King in Colorlines)
Fulfillinga fantasy for a "white American fantasy of an athletic prowess that can trumpAfrican-American hegemony in the league" (Farred,p. 56) and the appeal of a masculinity defined by its association withblackness, the celebrations, parties, and various public adoration are wrappedin these ideas of race, gender, and nation.   Writing about Yao Ming, Grant Farred, in Phantom Calls: Race and the Globalization ofthe NBA , reminds us about these issues:
The body of the athlete, which has a long history ofstanding as the body of the nation, is simultaneously reduced and magnified inthe Yao event, in its micro-articulation (Asian-American), it is asked torefute the myth of the feminized ethnic by challenging – and redressing thehistoric wrongs endured – those 'American' bodies that have been dismissed thephysicality of the Asian male.  Asrepresentative of the Chinese nation, Yao is expected to remain a nationalsubject even as his basketball heritage seems difficult to unlearn andcontinues to disadvantage him in the NBA. . . . In his representation of the'Chinese people,' Yao will not become an NBA – which is to say 'African American'– player.  He will not trash talk,he will not develop an 'offensive personality,' in more senses than one, and tohis detriment, he, will not become more 'physical' (62)"
Linis confined by this trap, so his wagging tongue (that was blue during onegame), his trash talk, his swagger, his reverse layups, his flashy speed, and nowhis dunk, all confirms that Lin isn't just a basketball player but aballer.  The celebration is thus,wrapped up in the dominant configurations of blackness, and how hegemonicvisions of black masculinity confer a certain amount power to Lin.  According to DaveZirin, Lin's power rests with his transgressive play: "Asian-Americans, inour stereotypical lens, are supposed to be studious and reserved. We wouldexpect nothing less than that the first Asian-American player would be roboticand fundamentally sound; their face an unsmiling mask."  While Lin is not the firstAsian-American to play professional basketball in the U.S. (Rex Walters, WataruMisaka, and Raymond Townsend – h/t Scott Kurashige), Zirin's analysis points tothe larger ways that race operates in this context. 
Lin'sappeal comes because he defies people's expectations about Asian Americansbecause he is excelling and playing in a way that people expect from andauthentically associate with black players. Zirin goes further to argue,"Instead, we have Jeremy Lin threading no-look passes, throwing down dunks and,in the most respected mark of toughness, taking contact and finishing baskets."With this analysis we see how race not only defines Lin, but the NBA as acultural space.  His power restswith his ability to "become" black within the national imagination as baller,yet remain outside the prison/prism of the black-white binary.  Or as Oliver Wang notes, the fanfareillustrates how "hegemonic masculinity is constructed whereupon whiteness hidesbehind a cloak of black desire." 
Linis therefore not breaking down stereotypes (maybe denting them), but in manyways re-inscribing them. Celebrated as "intelligent" and as "a hustler," his success has beenattributed his intelligence, his basketball IQ, andeven his religious faith.  Hisathleticism and the hours spent on the court are erased from thediscussion.  Moreover, in positioninghim as the aberration, as someone worthy of celebration, the dominant mediaframe reinforces the longstanding stereotypes of Asians as unathletic nerds.Likewise, the juxtaposition of his identity, body, and basketball skills to theNBA's black bodies simultaneously reinforces the dominant inscriptions of bothblackness and Asianness.   WhileJ-Lin brings something new to the table – an Asian American basketball rolemodel;  Knicks' victories – we mustnot forget the many things that remain in place.  
***
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.

Panel: Groups and Identity: New Opportunities, New Problems? featuring William 'Sandy' Darity and Tyrone Forman

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
Cross Talk: Groups and Identity: New Opportunities, New Problems?
Participants:
William Darity CASBS Fellow, Economics, Chair African & African American Studies Duke University
Tyrone Forman CASBS Fellow, Sociology, Emory University
Dina Okamoto CASBS Fellow, Sociology, UC Davis
Emily Ozer CASBS Fellow, Psychology, UC Berkeley

K & J | "...Paris" [video]

Nancy Biurski & Elisabeth Haviland James Talk 'The Loving Story' (Premieres on HBO on Valentine's Day)

from ReelBlack
In many ways, Richard and Mildred Loving were a typical couple. They grew up in the same Virginia town, fell in love and decided to cement their relationship by marrying. Because she was part-black and part-Native American, and he was white, however, their 1958 marriage was declared illegal by their home state. But the Lovings fought back and ultimately changed history through a watershed Supreme Court case that overturned bans on interracial marriage in 16 states. 
The exclusive HBO documentary THE LOVING STORY, the uplifting saga of these unlikely Civil Rights heroes, debuts on Valentine's Day, TUESDAY, FEB. 14 (9:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT) during Black History Month. Other HBO playdates: Feb. 14 (5:15 a.m.), 18 (3:30 p.m.), 23 (1:00 p.m.), 26 (9:00 a.m.) and 29 (12:30 a.m.) HBO2 playdates: Feb. 19 (12:20 p.m.), 24 (5:15 p.m.) and 29 (8:00 p.m.) Married in Washington, D.C. on June 2, 1958, Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were arrested in their home state of Virginia five weeks later and subsequently convicted of the felony crime of miscegenation. To avoid a one-year jail sentence, they agreed to leave the state, and could only return to Virginia separately. But that was just the beginning of their story. 
THE LOVING STORY features never-before-seen vintage film and stills of the Loving family shot in 1965 and 1966, as well as compelling present-day interviews with the Lovings' daughter Peggy, neighbors, police and their intrepid ACLU lawyers Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop, who argued the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case that finally brought justice to the Lovings. The luminous, newly discovered 16mm footage of the Lovings and their lawyers, which was shot by filmmakers Hope Ryden and Abbot Mills, and photographs by acclaimed LIFE photographer Grey Villet capture the intimate realities of the Lovings' daily lives. The prints were given to the Loving family by the photographer 45 years ago and given to the filmmakers in 2010. (A selection of these photos is currently on view at the International Center of Photography in New York through May 6.) 
After the Lovings failed to have their convictions overturned at the state level, ACLU attorneys Cohen and Hirschkop sought a federal forum, and Loving v. Virginia was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 10, 1967. Through his attorneys, Richard Loving said to the justices, "Tell the court that I love my wife, and it is unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia." On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Lovings, striking down the prohibition of interracial marriage in 16 states in a breakthrough decision that continues to shape America's attitude towards marriage to this day. Neither dedicated activists nor participants in the protests of their time, the Lovings spent nine years simply trying to be able to live legally in their home state, and on their journey became little-known heroes of the Civil Rights era. They didn't ask to be heroes. They just wanted to be happy. Director and producer Nancy Buirski says the message of the film is both timeless and timely. 
Although depicting a universal love story, it comes at a time when, she says, "white supremacy groups are growing in the U.S. -- in the very communities that perpetuated and maintained anti-miscegenation laws up to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling. While we've elected the first mixed-race president, we also recently witnessed a Louisiana justice of the peace refusing to marry a mixed-race couple. "Contemporary parallels are gently embedded in the Lovings' fight for marriage equality. Today, 45 years after Loving v. Virginia, Perry v. Schwarzenegger is making its way to the Supreme Court. This is a story not of just civil rights, but of human rights and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of religion, race or gender." 
THE LOVING STORY was an official selection at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and Heartland Film Festival, and won the WGA Screenplay Award at the 2011 SilverDocs Festival.