Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1030

Etta James: "Something Got a Hold on Me" (1962)

Etta James (1938-2012)

Trailer: 'The Story of Soul!' feat Stokely Carmichael, Miriam Makeba, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka

In late 1967, PBS aired the inaugural episode of Ellis Haizlip's show, SOUL!. Shot at the WNET studios in New York, it would be the first nationally syndicated television program in history dedicated solely to African-American culture. Through legendary music and interviews from the show itself, archive footage and present day discussion, feature length documentary The Story of SOUL! will recount the story of an historic African-American series and a how it's ideals and goals affect America today.

FATHER MC: Will Jay-Z Push Fatherhood like He Has Champagne?

FATHER MC:  Will Jay-Z Push Fatherhood like He Has Champagne? by Mark Anthony Neal | Ebony.com
"The most beautifullest thing in the world is daddy's little girl."—Shawn "Jay Z" Carter
During the early stages of her singular solo recording career, former Supremes lead singer Diana Ross gave birth to her daughters Rhonda (1971) and Tracie (1972).  To pay tribute to her little girls, Ross conceived of the album To the Baby, which included covers of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," Michael Jackson's "Got to Be There", Oscar Brown, Jr.'s "Brown Baby", John Lennon's "Imagine" and Marvin Gaye's "Save the Children." 
The album was eventually scrapped. Though Motown's official reason was that the project didn't have a solid lead single, I suspect that the label wasn't quite ready to have their flagship artist give in to the desires of motherhood.  Decades later, no one would give second thought if a vocalist of Ross's stature—say Beyonce Knowles—chose to pay tribute to motherhood in song. Yet, many were surprised when Knowles's husband, Shawn Carter, released "Glory" shortly after the birth of their first child.
In many circles, the birth of Beyonce and Jay Z's daughter might seem like a bit of fate; what better punishment for a rapper, who many believe has contributed to the objectification of women in popular culture, to now be faced with the challenge of raising a daughter in the context of the very culture he helped to create.  Nevertheless the birth of his little girl also represents the opportunity for a powerful transformative moment—as it has been for so many fathers, who find themselves faced with helping their daughters navigate a world that is often hostile and dismissive of them.
Read the Full Essay @ Ebony.com

Left of Black: Wednesday @ the Center | Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring

Left of Black: Wednesday @ the Center Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring
w/Omar Offendum and Pierce Freelon January 16,  2012
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in personby activist, hip-hop artist, and architect OmarOffendum , and jazz, hip-hop artist, and educator Pierce Freelon . Recorded in October as part of the John Hope Franklin Center's Wednesdays at the Center programming,Offendum and Freelon discuss the role that hip-hop has played and continues toplay in activism.  Offendum, a Syrian American artist, and Freelon, whose parentsare  Jazz artist Nnenna Freelon andarchitect Philip Freelon, discussthe importance of authenticity, and reflecting one's community and backgroundin their work.   
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Left of Black is a weekly Webcasthosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John HopeFranklin Center at DukeUniversity.
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Episodesof Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U

Trailer: 'Bad Friday': Rastafari After Coral Gardens

A documentary film directed by Deborah A. Thomas and John L. Jackson, Jr.
Producers: Deborah A. Thomas, John L. Jackson, Jr., Junior "Gabu" Wedderburn, and Junior "Ista J" Manning
Musical Director: Junior "Gabu" Wedderburn SYNOPSIS For many around the world, Jamaica conjures up images of pristine beach vacations with a pulsating reggae soundtrack. The country, however, also has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, and the population is actively grappling with legacies of Western imperialism, racial slavery, and political nationalism – the historical foundations of contemporary violence in Jamaica and throughout the Americas. 
BAD FRIDAY focuses on a community of Rastafarians in western Jamaica who annually commemorate the 1963 Coral Gardens "incident," a moment just after independence when the Jamaican government rounded up, jailed and tortured hundreds of Rastafarians. It chronicles the history of violence in Jamaica through the eyes of its most iconic community, and shows how people use their recollections of past traumas to imagine new possibilities for a collective future.

"#theLakersAreSoWhite:" Celebrations of the White Baller

"#theLakersAreSoWhite:"Celebrations of the White Ballerby David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
Oneof the more popular twitter trends of late has been the #theLakersAreSoWhitememe, a response to a Lakers' roster that has five American white Americanplayers: Luke Walton, Jason Kapono, Josh McRoberts, Steve Blake, and Troy Murphy.   The meme includes a range of postsfrom the silly – #thelakersaresowhite half the team is skipping the plane backtonight to open a gluten-free bakery in #ripcity – to those based solely aroundrecycling stereotypes of blackness and whiteness: 
# thelakersaresowhite Kobe boughtthem all do rags for Christmas and they all thanked him for the new"handkerchief".
# TheLakersAreSoWhite theKardashians won't attend Lakers games anymore
# thelakersaresowhite they can'tdance
Thememe elicited a column from JAAdande on the changing "color" of the Lakers.  The 2011-2012 Lakers have the most number of white Americanplayers since the 1977-1978 team. In "Purple and gold take on a new color," Adande reflects on the Lakers'recent demographic shift, situating the increased number of white Americanplayers on the Lakers within a downward trend throughout the league.  Adande wonders if the Lakers, as one ofthe NBA marquee franchises, have the potential to increase the number of whitekids seeking entry into the NBA. "It also would be interesting to see if havingso many white players on a high-profile team could have any long-term effectson the dwindling number of white American players in the NBA."  At this level, the piece is quiteinstructive because it offers a challenge to the biological determinism thatboth explicitly and implicitly governs much of sports discussions.   
Yet,Adande's shock and awe reinforces the very spectacle that so often surroundsthe entry of whiteness on the basketball court.  The mere fact that he writes an article, and that countlessothers chimed in with twitter comments (the meme) is a testament to the ways inwhich dominant discourse normalize blackness within the context of the NBA.  The spectacle and discourse of the whiteballer anomaly pivots on the assumed natural connection between blackness andbasketball.  "Basketball'sprevailing ghettocentric logic keys on essentializing the embodied practicesand experiences of Black urban male youth as a means of denoting an 'authenticBlackness' designed to appeal primarily to White, middle-class consumers,"writes David Andrewsand Michael Silk.
It is highlylikely that such commercially driven paeans to basketball's location within theBlack urban American landscape are more attuned to the mainstream (White)consumptive gaze. In light of this, the commercial media, and advertising inparticular, have therefore reduced difference to a 'cultural commodity'(Sandell, 1995) and valorized 'a particular, mediated notion of urbanblackness," which connects non-Black, suburban youth to only 'the mostdesirable aspects of urban black male experience and physicality—all from asafe and sanitized distance' (Soar, 2001, pp. 51-53). 
Inimagining whiteness as Othered within a basketball space, Adande, like much ofthe media and popular discourse surrounding white ballers, further reinscribesblackness as authentic to the basketball landscape and therefore foreign,unnatural, and inauthentic in virtually every other space.
Theeffort to celebrate whiteness and its presence within the context of the NBAreflects the overall effort to manage and control the NBA's blackness.  GlynHughes(2004) argues that, "The NBA ismarketed and managed with a specific, if often tacit, goal of making Black mensafe for (White) consumers in the interest of profit" (p. 164).  By highlighting and celebrating thepresence of whiteness, by noting the many ways that white players help blackplayers, the discourse is in many ways neutralizes white fears of black bodies.  For example, Bill Plaschke took a breakfrom being the leader of the Andrew Bynum hater nation to take his turn as thepresident of  "Josh McRambis," "Josh McFly" and "Josh McHoosier" (names he gives toJosh McRoberts) fan club.  
In "Lakers'Josh McRoberts is becoming a household name,"Plaschke argues "McRoberts has done the sort of things that make the Lakersbetter while leaving the sometimes glamour-weary Lakers fans inspired. Theextra pick that frees Kobe Bryant for the jump shot? That's him. That extrapass that leads to a Bynum dunk? Him again."  Recycling the stereotypes long associated with blackness andwhiteness, Plaschke depicts one of the Lakers' newest acquisition ashardworking and team-oriented, as someone who makes their "glamour" (black)players that much better.   
Inan article discussing the representations of white players in the NBA, LarryPlatt (2000) documents how Matt Maloney (former Penn and Houston PG) isoften described by commentators and reports as "heady or cerebral," possessinga tremendous "work ethic" needed to offset his lack of "athletic ability"(71-72).  The celebration of theLakers "white core" emanates from this rhetoric and their underlyingassumptions. Todd Boyd, in Am I Black Enough for You , further elucidatesthe inextricable links between race and the styles of play associated withdifferent players.  Whereaswhiteness represents a "textbook or formal" style basketball, blackness hascome to embody  "street orvernacular" styles of hooping defined by flash (narcissism), individual play(selfishness), and uber athleticism.   Boyd identifies a hegemonic narrative where "whitebasketball" players are represented as individuals for whom "adherence to aspecific set of rules determines one's ability to play successfully and'correctly.'" White playersare seen in relationship to intelligence, mental toughness, and mental agility,whereas the blackballer is imagined through physical attributes – strength,toughness – and aggressiveness. Intelligence, orientation toward team play, and sticktoitness precludeblackness.  These ideas are theundercurrent and foundation for the recent pieces by Adande and Plaschke. 
In both cases and within much ofthe media adoration for white basketball player there is a focus on temperamentand attitude.  That is that whiteplayers possess the requisite attitude and demeanor to succeed alongside oftheir black teammates on the basketball court.  Adande seemingly argues that the ability of the "5 whiteamigos" to succeed on the Lakers reflects their backgrounds: "If you think about it, the Lakers now have a clusterof white players because they have five individuals who were at ease beingoutsiders."  Noting that Blake grewup in Miami, Walton played with several black players at University of Arizona,and McRoberts was the only white guy on his AAU team, Adande concludes thatthese experiences as "minorities" provided them with the requisite education tosucceed in a league where white players are minorities.  In erasing white privilege, inreimagining whites as victims, in denying the normalization of whiteness inbasketball and other segregated spaces, Adande reifies the hegemonic views ofrace and the role of sports as the greater equalizer. 
According to CharlesBarkley: "The best thing about sports is that it's colorblind.  In the locker room, we're all thesame.  Sports bring ustogether.  I meant if you can play,your gonna play, no matter what you are" (quoted in Platt 73).   Don't tell that to Tim Tebow andthe Lakers "of a different color;" don't tell that to Andrew Bynum or anynumber of black athletes who have "been constructed as asite of pleasure,dominance, fantasy, and surveillance" (Kingand Springwood 2001, 101).  The celebration of white ballers inopposition to black players is yet another example of how "in a post-civilrights America, AfricanAmericans have been essentially policed, and literally (re)colonized through Euro-American idiomssuch as discipline, deviance, and desire."
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Genderand Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written onsport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular andacademic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture,examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popularrepresentations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. Leonard's latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will bepublished by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

Jay Smooth: Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

Duke MLK Celebration Service 2012 with Donna Brazile

Sunday, January 15, at 3:00 p.m. in Duke Chapel, the University hosted the 2012 Service of Celebration in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Donna Brazile, Political Commentator and Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation of the Democratic National Committee is the keynote speaker. The service includes the 100 Men in Black Choir and the Collage Dance Company.

Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring on a Special Martin Luther King Day Episode of Left of Black

Hip-Hop Activism and the Arab Spring on a SpecialMartin Luther King Day Episode of Left of Black
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in personby activist, hip-hop artist, and architect OmarOffendum , and jazz, hip-hop artist, and educator Pierce Freelon .  Taped in October as part John HopeFranklin Center Wednesdays at the Centerprogramming, Offendum and Freelon discuss the role that hip-hop has played andcontinues to play in activism.  
Offendum, a Syrian American artist, andFreelon, whose parents are  Jazzartist Nnenna Freelon and architect Philip Freelon,  discuss the importance of authenticity, and reflecting one'scommunity and background in their work. 
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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: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Neal onTwitter: @NewBlackManFollow Omar Offendom onTwitter: @OffendumFollow Pierce Freelon on Twitter:@durhamite
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"We Need Leaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of the People"

"We NeedLeaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of  the People"  byMark Nasion | special to NewBlackMan
Forthose  on the left who don't understand  my willingness to work withwhites they regard as conservative or racist, let me tell you a little bit aboutmy political mentor, Rev. Claude Williams. Rev. Williams, with whom  Ispent four summers with during the early 1970s organizing his personal papers,was a Presbyterian minister brought up in the hills of Tennessee in anevangelical tradition ( a credo he described as "God said it, Jesus did it, Ibelieve it, and that settles it) who  had a conversion experience in hislate thirties and became an advocate of the social gospel and an opponent ofsouthern segregation.
Williamshad an opportunity to put these principles into action when he became aminister in a mining town called Paris Arkansas during the Depression, anddevoted his ministry to strike support, moved to Commonwealth Labor Collegewhen he was forced out of  Paris and there became a supporter of theSouthern Tenant Farmers Union, an interracial organization that fought for therights of sharecroppers and tenant farmers being forced off the land byDepression conditions and New Deal agricultural program.
Whenorganizing for the STFU, Williams developed a unique strategy fororganizing  southern blacks and white for progressive unionism byemploying biblical imagery common to both.  His fiery preaching andinnovative charts and posters, using quotes from the bible to promoteinterracial solidarity and a cooperative commonwealth, made him one of theSouth's most effective organizers,  and a hated figure among local elites,who literally ran him out of Arkansas in the late 1930s.
Fromthere, Williams moved to Memphis, where he helped organize interracial localsof the Food and Tobacco Workers Union and in North Carolina and then wasbrought up to Detroit during World War II by the UAQ to help preach to theSouthern Blacks and Whites working in easy proximity during that city's autoplants.
Afterthe war, Williams moved back  to farm South of Birmigham where he beganworking with interracial locals of the Mine Mill and Smelters Union and holdingmeetings on his property to help people register to vote.  When a wave ofMcCarthyite reaction set in, Williams became a target of the local Klan, whoset fires on his property, killed his dogs, and forced him to stop holdinginterracial meetings on his farm. But his white neighbors, who had been therecipient of many acts of generosity on the part of Williams and his wifeJoyce, refused to let the Klan kill him, so he remained on his farm through theworst days of Klan and Citizen's Council Terror until and opening came in themiddle 60's and a strong civil rights movement came to the Birmingham area.
Ihad learned about Williams amazing work when writing my Master's essay on theSouthern Tenants Farmers Union, but meeting him in person, an being givenresponsibility for organizing and filing his personal papers was atransformative experience.  Williams was a big, powerful, hard drinking man  who held a deep conviction that Southern working class whites,when they could overcome their racism, were far more reliable allies to Blacksthan northern white liberals because they had a common religious heritage aswell as a common class interest. He had shown the potential of this approach inlabor struggle after labor struggle before McCarthyism had sidelined him andbelieved it was the only one that would allowprogressives  to challenge domination of American politics bythe  rich and powerful.
Havingthe opportunity to live with a person who not only articulated such a view withgreat eloquence, but  practiced it every day, and survived pressures thatwould have silenced most people, made a tremendous impression on me.  Williamschallenged me, as he did all leftists to relinquish elitist contempt of workingclass people and meet them on their own ground, using arguments rooted in theirown culture and traditions, and providing and example of courage and generositythey would respect. As he told me on countless occasions " We don't needleaders  of the people, weneed leaders among thepeople.!"
Throughoutmy life of political activism,, I have tried to take that message to heart andreach out to people of diverse political perspectives while fighting for racialand economic justice.
NothingI have experienced in 40 plus years of activism, including my experience withthe Occupy Movement and the 99 Percent Clubs in the last 6 months, hasconvinced me this approach is wrong.
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Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at FordhamUniversity and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author oftwo books, Communists in Harlem Duringthe Depression and White Boy: A Memoir.Naison is also co-director of the BronxAfrican American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will bepublished in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the1930's to the 1960's.