Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1055

Has President Obama Been Good for African-Americans?

WHYY RadioRadio Times with Marty Moss-Coane
Has President Obama Been Good for African-Americans?
Friday, September 30th, 2011
Last weekend, President Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) amidst increasing criticism from its members that he has not addressed the needs of the African American community, particularly a 16.7% unemployment rate among blacks,  and that he has compromised too much with Republicans in Congress at great cost to urban America.  This week, in an interview on BET, the President urged the caucus to stop complaining and "march with" him.  
Has the President lost support in the African-American community and have the Administration's policies neglected their concerns?  We'll talk about the President, Congress and the issues of concern to the African Americans with MARC LAMONT HILL, Associate Professor of Education at Columbia University and JAMES PETERSON , Director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University.
Listen to the mp3

Herman Cain Plays the Race Card?

James Braxton Peterson, Director of Lehigh University Discusses the Candidacy of Herman Cain.

"I Know Precious"

From Precious II For Colored Girls: The Black Image In The American Mind Columbia College | Chicago | April 26, 2011.

Panelists:

Mark Anthony Neal, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, Joan Morgan, Vijay Prashad and John Jennings.

Moderator: Bakari Kitwana

Dehumanized and Dismissed: Bananas, the NHL, and the Rhetorics of White Racism

Dehumanized and Dismissed: Bananas, the NHL, and the Rhetorics of White Racism by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
During arecent exhibition game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Detroit RedWings, the larger history of racism within NHL and society at large showed itsugly head.  Held in London Ontario,a fan (or multiple fans) threw not one but two bananas at Wayne Simmonds.  One of the flying bananas in factreached the ice as Simmonds, one of 28 blacks playing in the NHL, skated in onthe goalie during a shoot-out.  "Idon't know if it had anything to do with the fact I'm black. I certainly hopenot," Simmondsnoted.  "When you'reblack, you kind of expect (racist) things. You learn to deal with it. I guessit's something I obviously have to deal with – being a black player playing apredominantly white sport."  Others connectedto the sport were not so willing (despite their having greater power andprivilege) to reflect on the racial realities and hostilities of the NHL inthis moment or elsewhere.  Whiledescribing it as a "stupid and ignorant action," Commissioner Gary Bettman madeclear that incident was "in no way representative of our fans or the people ofLondon, Ontario."  Maxine Talbot, ateammate of Simmonds, summarily dismissed the incident as "isolated" that saidlittle about the state of hockey: "It's not like there's a problem with racismin our league.  It's one person!" Dismissing it asan aberration and the work of some ignorant fans, the response fails to see thebroader history of the NHL, not to mention the larger racial issues atwork.  While Bettman and others soughtto isolate the incidence as the work of a single person who isn'trepresentative of hockey culture or society at large, others pointed to thepersistence of racism within the NHL. Kevin Weeks, who had a banana thrown at him during the 2002 Stanley CupPlayoffs, noted his lack of surprise that Simmonds was subjected to suchracism: "I'm not surprised. We have some people that still have their heads inthe sand and some people that don't necessarily want to evolve and aren'tnecessarily all that comfortable with the fact that the game is evolving."  Weeks is notalone here, withGlen McCurde, vice-president of membership service for HockeyCanada, contextualizing Simmonds' experience within a larger tension that hasresulted from the growing diversity of the NHL and Canada at large: "Werecognize there's a changing face of the population in Canada and hockey needsto change too.  We need to changetoo.  We need to ensure ourprograms are welcoming of all Canadians." Yet, this instance (among others) illustrates that both hockey andCanada itself are imagined through and protected of whiteness.  According to PeterDonnelly, the history of hockey is where "the sport has beencomfortable in its whiteness. Reflecting on the larger history of racism in the NHL, Weeks, McCurdie,and Donnelly situate this moment within a broader milieu of racism.  The incidentitself, the broaderhistory of the NHL, and the frequent practice of fans throwingbananas at black soccer players within the Europeanleagues (or the hurling of other racial epithets), however, wasunconvincing to many of the commenters that appeared below the ESPN article.  Focusing on the over sensitivity ofAfrican Americans, the lack of evidence of racial animus, and otherwise denyingthe importance of this incident through their insertion of "jokes" the collective reaction can be bestdescribed as both denial and dismal. In many ways the reaction to the sight of a fan throwing a banana at ablack athlete mirror the type of responses that followed the reports about ASUfans donning blackface during a football game.  These moments, as with other instancesof everyday instances of racism, have not led to sustained dialogues about thepersistence of racial violence within the public square or even efforts toeradicate the daily penetrations of racial hostilities, but instead efforts toisolate, deny, and dismiss, constructing these instances as minor issues atworst, one that has very little impact on society. Such a callousand simplistic understanding of racism is on full display with ThomasChatterton Williams' The Atlanticpiece, "RacismWithout Racists?"  Writingabout Oprah Winfrey and other middle-class (or upper-middle class) AfricanAmericans who have spoke out against daily confrontations of individualprejudices and systemic racism, Williams seems to dismiss the significance ofthese moments, reducing them to trivial and minor moments ofinconvenience.  "The loomingproblem in black America is not that Oprah Winfrey can't go to Hermès afterhours or that Dr. Alexander is being overlooked. The point of real concern, itseems to me, ought to be the significant and growing class divide within theblack community itself--the widening gap in opportunity and access thatseparates blacks who have educations and resources from those who do not.  Offering a very narrow construction ofracism that erases the connections and interdependence of racism, Williamscontinues with his argument:If we are fortunate enough to findourselves in or near that first category, it is our ethical obligation not toforget the sacrifice it took for us to get there. Beyond that, though, it'sdifficult to see what advantage can be gained trying to prove a negative orlamenting what cannot be known. And this much is certain: In a world wherethere's racism, whether with or without racists, living well--as all of thepeople under consideration here are clearly doing--is, and always will be, thebest and only revenge.What is strikingabout his discussion here is the concerted efforts to isolate themicro-aggressions, the white racial frames that emanate throughout society, andthe consequences of everyday racism. Individualize racism doesn't exists in avacuum but instead illustrates a larger history and ideological framework.  A fan throwing a banana at a blackplayer isn't merely an affront to the player, an example of individualizedracism, but a window into a larger history of racism inside and outside ofhockey.  It reflects the nature ofwhite supremacy; it embodies the ways in which racism dehumanizes blackness andimagines black bodies as both pathological and savage.  To deny theimportance of the systematic dehumanization of blackness, given itsconsequences, evidence by the state-sponsored murder of Troy Davis and thepersistence of the war on drugs, is troubling.  The everyday racism of white supremacy whether it be with fansthrowing bananas, college students donning blackface or attending ghettoparties, or the dissemination of racist jokes and epithets, is violent itself;yet, at another level, the constant intrusion of dehumanizing rhetorics,representations, and behaviors contributes to a process where both equality andfull citizenship for people of color remain a dream deferred.  ***David J. Leonardis Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and RaceStudies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary AfricanAmerican Cinema and the forthcoming AfterArtest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regularcontributor to NewBlackMan andblogs @ No Tsuris.

Sugar Hill Records Founder Sylvia Robinson Goes Home

 Sylvia Robinson, 'the Mother of Hip-Hop,' Dies at 75
by JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR. | New York Times

Sylvia Robinson, the singer, songwriter and record producer who formed the Sugar Hill Gang and made the first commercially successful rap recording, died early Thursday morning at a hospital in New Jersey. She was 75.

Ms. Robinson had a notable career as a rhythm and blues singer long before she and her husband, Joe Robinson, formed Sugar Hill Records in 1979 and served as the midwives for a musical genre that came to dominate pop music.

She sang with Mickey Baker as part of the duo Mickey & Sylvia in the 1950s and had several hits, including "Love Is Strange," which was a No. 1 R&B song in 1956. She also had a solo hit, under the name Sylvia, in spring of 1973 with her own composition "Pillow Talk."

But Ms. Robinson was revered as "the mother of hip-hop" for her decision to record the nascent art form known as rapping, which had developed at clubs and dance parties in New York City in the 1970s. In 1979, the label Ms. Robinson and her husband had founded, All Platinum, was awash in lawsuits and losing money.

Facing financial ruin, Ms. Robinson got an inspiration when she heard people rapping over the instrumental breaks in disco songs at a party in Harlem. Using her son as a talent scout, she found three young rappers from the New York City area – Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike and Master Gee – and persuaded them to record improvised raps as the Sugar Hill Gang over a rhythm track adapted from Chic's "Good Times." The record was called "Rapper's Delight" and reached No. 4 on the R&B charts, proving rap was a viable art form and opening the gates for other hip-hop artists.

Ms. Robinson later signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, recording their seminal 1982 hit, "The Message," the groundbreaking rap about ghetto life that became one of the most powerful and controversial songs of its time and presaged the gangsta rap movement of later years.
Sylvia Robinson, the singer, songwriter and record producer who formed the Sugar Hill Gang and made the first commercially successful rap recording, died early Thursday morning at a hospital in New Jersey. She was 75.

Ms. Robinson had a notable career as a rhythm and blues singer long before she and her husband, Joe Robinson, formed Sugar Hill Records in 1979 and served as the midwives for a musical genre that came to dominate pop music.


She sang with Mickey Baker as part of the duo Mickey & Sylvia in the 1950s and had several hits, including "Love Is Strange," which was a No. 1 R&B song in 1956. She also had a solo hit, under the name Sylvia, in spring of 1973 with her own composition "Pillow Talk."

But Ms. Robinson was revered as "the mother of hip-hop" for her decision to record the nascent art form known as rapping, which had developed at clubs and dance parties in New York City in the 1970s. In 1979, the label Ms. Robinson and her husband had founded, All Platinum, was awash in lawsuits and losing money.

Facing financial ruin, Ms. Robinson got an inspiration when she heard people rapping over the instrumental breaks in disco songs at a party in Harlem. Using her son as a talent scout, she found three young rappers from the New York City area – Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike and Master Gee – and persuaded them to record improvised raps as the Sugar Hill Gang over a rhythm track adapted from Chic's "Good Times." The record was called "Rapper's Delight" and reached No. 4 on the R&B charts, proving rap was a viable art form and opening the gates for other hip-hop artists.

Ms. Robinson later signed Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, recording their seminal 1982 hit, "The Message," the groundbreaking rap about ghetto life that became one of the most powerful and controversial songs of its time and presaged the gangsta rap movement of later years.

Left of Black Celebrates Black Female Artists Julie Dash and Lizz Wright on Next Episode [October 3, 2011]

Left of Black Celebrates Black Female ArtistsJulie Dash and Lizz Wright on Next Episode [October 3, 2011]
Filmmaker Julie Dash joinshost and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Leftof Black .  This year marks the 20th Anniversary of therelease of Dash's ground-breaking film Daughtersof the Dust which was the first feature by anAfrican-American woman to gain national theatrical.   The film draws onDash's South Carolina heritage and focuses on three generations of women withroots in the Sea Islands and Gullah culture. Dash discusses how she became a filmmakerand the challenges she faced along the way.  Dash also reveals hersurprising view of filmmaker Tyler Perry. 
Inthe second segment, musical artist and vocalist Lizz Wright joins Neal.  The Georgia born singer discusses howher family's tradition in storytelling inspired her career as a vocalist. Wright, whose music is difficult to place in one genre, talks aboutincorporating religion into her music as well.  Wright also identifies themusicians who influenced her and the inspiration her album artwork. Finally Wright explains how she's maintained control of her music.  Wrighthas released four full-length recordings, including the recent Fellowship.  She performs at Duke University's ReynoldsIndustries Theater on October 7th.
Leftof Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke's Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity.Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal andfeatured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.  
Left of Black is recorded and produced at the JohnHope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at DukeUniversity.
***
Follow Left of Black onTwitter: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Nealon Twitter: @NewBlackManFollow Lizz Wright onTwitter: @LizzWrightMusicFollow Julie Dash onTwitter: @JulieDash
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Left of Black to Celebrates Black Female Artists Julie Dash and Lizz Wright on Next Episode [October 3, 2011]

Left of Black to Celebrates Black Female ArtistsJulie Dash and Lizz Wright on Next Episode [October 3, 2011]
Filmmaker Julie Dash joinshost and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Leftof Black .  This year marks the 20th Anniversary of therelease of Dash's ground-breaking film Daughtersof the Dust which was the first feature by anAfrican-American woman to gain national theatrical.   The film draws onDash's South Carolina heritage and focuses on three generations of women withroots in the Sea Islands and Gullah culture. Dash discusses how she became a filmmakerand the challenges she faced along the way.  Dash also reveals hersurprising view of filmmaker Tyler Perry. 
Inthe second segment, musical artist and vocalist Lizz Wright joins Neal.  The Georgia born singer discusses howher family's tradition in storytelling inspired her career as a vocalist. Wright, whose music is difficult to place in one genre, talks aboutincorporating religion into her music as well.  Wright also identifies themusicians who influenced her and the inspiration her album artwork. Finally Wright explains how she's maintained control of her music.  Wrighthas released four full-length recordings, including the recent Fellowship.  She performs at Duke University's ReynoldsIndustries Theater on October 7th.
Leftof Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke's Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity.Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal andfeatured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.  
Left of Black is recorded and produced at the JohnHope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at DukeUniversity.
***
Follow Left of Black onTwitter: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Nealon Twitter: @NewBlackManFollow Lizz Wright onTwitter: @LizzWrightMusicFollow Julie Dash onTwitter: @JulieDash
###

Rap Sessions: FROM PRECIOUS II FOR COLORED GIRLS @ Cornell University

FROM PRECIOUS II FOR COLORED GIRLSThe Black Image in the American Mind
October 1st, 2011Cornell UniversityIthaca, New York
Swartz Performing Arts Center430 College Ave.Doors at 6:30pm (Panel at 7:00pm | Concert at 9:00pm)
Join Invincible, Tamar-kali, and Jean Grae -- together known as the Born in Flames tour - as they embark on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. This multi-dimensional event will feature a panel discussion, From Precious II Colored Girls: The Black Image in the American Mind, composed of the three artists, Joan Morgan, Carlito Rodriguez and Mark Anthony Neal, facilitated by Bakari Kitwana of Rap Sessions. Following the panel will be a live concert by the three artists.

Homeland Insecurity

Homeland Insecurity by Lawrence Jackson | special to NewBlackMan
I was in a good mood when I entered oldNational Airport in Washington, DC on Sunday September 25 to fly back toAtlanta where I live.  Much of the hallway banter at the Congress haddwelt upon the recent execution of Troy Davis in Georgia, a seemingly clear-cutcase where "reasonable doubt" was quite strong, but historic race prejudicequite a bit stronger.  I had heard Charles Ogeltree talk about his newbook on the racial profiling of high profile African American men, such as Ihad experienced most recently while bike riding in the city of Decatur inGeorgia. And I had done my part, encouraging enthusiastic crowds read my book TheIndignant Generation, an exploration of black writers and their novels andcriticism that transformed American racial attitudes between 1934 and 1960.
While I stood in a deep line awaiting themetal detecting machines, I was approached by a portly uniformed Asian Americanwoman, who asked me "Can I swipe your hands."  I had seen her looking thecrowd over and I had decided in advance to decline an opportunity toparticipate in the trial-runs of any new surveillance technology. I was beingliterary, as in Herman Melville.  I said to her, "No thank you.  Iprefer not."  
And then the war began.
She returned to her machine a few feet away,crestfallen and benumbed, as if she had been denied a phone number at adance.  She whispered to another TSA coworker, "He said no," and anotheryoung woman, a Latina named Ashley Miranda and an African American woman namedDanielle Dorrall talked back and forth about what the next step shouldbe.  Ms. Dorrall said, loud enough for me to hear, "It's your option." They were all in their early twenties, and the Asian American woman, whom Inever saw clearly again for the next 75 minutes which I was detained, went tofetch a supervisor.
After a minute or two Barbara Toya appeared,tall and upright, slightly gray, and triumphant.  She asked to see myticket and identification, which she held onto, and she said that if I did notthen take the test I would have to submit to additional measures.  With agleam that appeared to give her joy, she told me that I would miss my flight. Thus, I became, in my own mind at least, a bit stubborn.  I felt unjustlythreatened and as if Ms. Toya was trying to intimidate me.  So I told herI had no intention of agreeing to have my hands swiped as part of a randomsample group and that I believed this was clearly an optional procedure thatall passengers were not subjected to.  I added that I also had nointention of walking through a magnetic resonance imaging device and if theywanted to undertake further elaborate measures that was their choice orduty. 
Toya disappeared with my documents and theother junior officers separated me from the other passengers, but no one seemedclear where I should go.  I wanted to be screened and take advantage of anairline ticket I had paid for, but I declined to participate inexperiments.  Ms. Dorrall assumed charge and requested that I stand in thespecial queue for the disabled and airline personnel; but she wasn't sureprecisely what a safe distance was and when I asked where I should leave my bagshe kept saying "there."  Finally I asked her, "Why don't you just show mewhat you mean?"  I had been transported and my English no longer servedme, as it hadn't when I retrieved my boarding pass from an electronic machinethat seemed capable of communicating only in Spanish.
A Hispanic looking TSA officer, short, aboutthirty and filling out his clothes, looked at me intensely and wrote in anotebook the entire time.  After some interlude Ms. Toya arrived with ahandsome-looking man in a suit, Donny Love, as my "prefer not" went up thechain of command.  Mr. Love told me point blank that they would not passme through screening without having my hands swiped, a consideration given topassengers randomly and at the ease of TSA personnel.  His mandate struckme as absurd.  I told him that I knew at least some of my constitutionalrights, though invasion of privacy did not come to my lips.  Then I lethim know—black like me and Ms. Toya though he was--that I considered this anewsworthy event in the publicly humiliating sport of racial profiling. (Itmight be worth knowing that I look more like one of Ghaddafi's sons than the"other" Lawrence Jackson, the Seattle Seahawks defensive end.) I told Mr. Lovethat I had just come from the Congressional Black Caucus and I was not about tobe treated like this!  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Martin LutherKing III  (whom I would glad-hand after the flight to talk about the newbook) passing through security.  "Sir," I asked Mr. Love, "Will you pleaseshow me in writing this rule about the requirements of airline passengerscreening at federally regulated sites."  I was convinced that they weremaking-up portions of the story.
One thing can be said for Mr. Love: he didn'twaste time on a problem that he couldn't solve.  He departed swiftly, hisminions in tow, leaving a very pretty DC police officer to come up and keep mecompany.  Only, after she surmised the situation, and the brotherinvolved, decided that she had better uses for her time, and left me in the handsof Ms. Dorrall, her unarmed junior soror.  Ms. Dorrall became talkativeand wanted to know how dare I use a term like "racial profiling," as evil inher heavily mascaraed eyes as affirmative action no doubt—the Lil Wayne-stylepolitics of the younger generation for you.  I admitted to her that "wemight not, right here, be capable of having a productive conversation aboutthis topic because you are talking to a forty-three-year-old African Americanman who has been heavily, aggressively, and most violently racially profiledsince he was sixteen." 
But, the teacher in me tried to plant alittle seed. (The best thing I learned at the CBC Conference?  Humandancing, which is to say African dancing, grows out of an agricultural ritual:right foot digs the hole in the ground, left hand casts the seed, left footcovers it up.  What a revelation and see if it don't work!)  I toldthe young transport authority, "The federal and state cases in this matter usestatistics over time to prove racial profiling; it doesn't have much to do withpersonal observation or individual bias, its about longstanding patterns ofdiscrimination over time."  Or something like that.  She wasn'timpressed and I felt a bit like I needed to impress her to steady my ownresistance.  And they were breaking me down, making me feel like I had onthose gloves and earmuffs and goggles that you wear on your way to the secretrendition sites for waterboarding.  No one in the line wanted to make eyecontact with me, the potential terrorist, nor did anyone dare to ask why theman with his jaw set was standing alone talking to security people.  Iknew that if I took out a camera to film my side of the story, it would havebeen on like I was named Bin Laden.   
So they took the "prefer not" all the way tothe top.  A Caribbean brother who ran the shop, Inspector Herman Williamscame out.  I was about an hour into the event by then, standing with mybackpack with my computer in it and my rain coat still on.  Williams wasbald headed and wearing commando gear, like he had his submachine gun by thedesk, just in case.  He was vigorous and I told him that I couldn'tunderstand this.  I had been presented with an option at a randomscreening.  I declined on principle and was informed that I had to undergoadditional security precautionary measures, which I agreed to.  Now I wasbeing told I had no choice but to submit to the first procedure that a youngperson requested me to participate in.  No one asks you if you would liketo walk through the metal detector or to put your cell phone in a plastic tuband run it through the scanner; you have to do it.  So I asked again tosee their protocol in writing because I was certain that the constitutionprotected me, three-fifths of me at least, I thought in the back of mymind.  Inspector Williams said, " It's in the SSI."  But he thoughtit wise to return to his office to check.
After another five or ten minutes, theInspector returned.  "I assure you Mr. Jackson, the Sensitive SecurityInformation guidebook requires you to have your hands swiped for explosivesbefore being admitted beyond the screening area.  But you can't seeit.  It's secret." 
Well, there it was.  It was illegal forthe citizen to examine the book of facts and rules that determined the natureof his rights in that particular portion of the sovereign territory of theUnited States.  I caved in to the Inspector, which was easy to do, sincehe could be damned charming when the occasion called for it, and he decided toease glare that had been Ms. Toya's technique.  He admitted that my rightswere probably being violated, but it was for my own good, and he gave me hiscard and tried to assure that the homegrown terrorists were the worstones.  I gave them my paws to swipe, and they all acted surprised whenthey were clean.  Williams stayed around until I went through the metaldetector, with a copper bracelet and seventy-five undetected cents.  Heeven asked why they took me aside to be frisked, and I told him that as long asI had a choice I would not go through the magnetic resonance imagingscanner.  I trusted the surgeon general exactly as much as I trusted anyother government; I preferred the government of my own common sense.
I am not bothered over-much by the fact thatrandom hand swipes by bored, lethargic twenty-somethings seem to me about asprotective at airport security as making sure that identification matches theairline ticket which is printed from a personal computer on a piece of paperfrom Office Depot.  Or that real fraud takes place with the securitycompanies who produce technologies that assuage the nightmares manufactured onthe theater that is the evening news.  Rather, I am concerned that myminor inconvenience was a colossal waste of intelligent people's time. Truly a colossus of waste, and this profligate bureaucracy was ham-handed onthe people by the same zealots who say they want small "gubment." 
There was really no small irony that Toya andLove and Williams might really be doing something better than flagging a manwhose ancestors probably arrived in 1683 when the English traded for men alongthe Gambia River, and whose E1a1 haplogroup ancestor had some chance of havingbeen Muslim himself.  And though I was raised and am raising my childrento worship at the feet of Jesus, the Lamb, and the TSA officials probably doto, I wouldn't be surprised if they shared a West African muslim ancestor ortwo. 
And then, on the otherhand, what if that really was all they had to do, "check the check to check thecheck" as they say in Wendell Harris' Chameleon Street?  What ifthat giant bureaucracy really has no place to go, and little to do, except comeup with new measures of surveillance and new things to outlaw?  What ifthe keep inventing new manuals and protocols of legal might that you can neversee?
***
LawrenceJackson is professor of English and African American Studies. Professor Jacksonearned his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1997, and he began his teachingcareer at Howard University in Washington, DC. He joined Emory's faculty in2002, the year his biography, RalphEllison: Emergence of Genius , was published. His most recentbook is called The Indignant Generation: ANarrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 (Trailer.) (Princeton2010). His forthcoming books include Fromthe Staunton to the Dan: Slavery, the Civil War and an Afro-Virginian Familyand a biography of Chester Himes. He has lectured widely in the United Statesand abroad, and he was featured in a 2002 documentary on Ralph Ellison's life.Professor Jackson offers courses primarily in 19th and 20th century AfricanAmerican literature and culture, shaped by his interest in urban studies,social class formation, realism and modernism, popular culture, blacknationalism, and decolonization theory. Dr. Jackson's website can be found at lawrencepatrickjackson.com

Robots of Brixton [directed by Kibwe Tavares]

Brixton has degenerated into a disregarded area inhabited by London's new robot workforce - robots built and designed to carry out all of the tasks which humans are no longer inclined to do. The mechanical population of Brixton has rocketed, resulting in unplanned, cheap and quick additions to the skyline.
The film follows the trials and tribulations of young robots surviving at the sharp end of inner city life, living the predictable existence of a populous hemmed in by poverty, disillusionment and mass unemployment. When the Police invade the one space which the robots can call their own, the fierce and strained relationship between the two sides explodes into an outbreak of violence echoing that of 1981.
With Support from
Kibwe Tavares - Direction, animation, modeling, lighting, texturingetc...David Hoffman - Photographer Brixton riots archive.hoffmanphotos.com/Mourad Bennacer - Sound Designer designsonore.tumblr.com/DJ Hiatus "The Great Insurrection" hiatusmusic.net
For more supercool projectsfactoryfifteen.com