Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1056

Can Obama Fortify African American Support?

Robert Traynham and James Peterson on the challenges facing the President in the African American community.

President Obama's Silence on Troy Davis Execution Emboldens Young Progressives

PresidentObama's Silence on Troy Davis Execution Emboldens Young Progressivesby Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan
The refusal of President Obama to commute Troy Davis'sdeath sentence, or even ask local authorities to postpone his execution, bringsto a decisive end the faltering romance with the President among youngAmericans, freeing them to lead much needed justice movements on their own.
It would be a mistake to regard young Americans of thisgeneration as politically passive. It was their energy and idealism that drovethe remarkable and unexpected victory over Hilary Clinton in the DemocraticPrimary, and the history making campaign that made Barack Obama our firstAfrican American president.
It was understandable, given the atmosphere of thatcampaign and the idealistic, activist rhetoric candidate Obama employed toexcite hopes of an American Renewal ( "Yes We Can") that many young peoplerelaxed after the election, assuming their future was in good hands and thatthe vision of a just society which drove them to participate in the campaignwould drive the President's policies.
Over the last three years, that expectation of moralleadership has been disappointed on many fronts. The huge expenditure  tobail out the banks, the failure to mount an effective jobs campaign, therefusal to fight for a public option in the  health care plan,  thecontinuation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently, the acceptance of a budget compromise which eviscerated programs ranging fromstudent loans, to public radio, to environmental projects made the Presidentseem as though he lacked a moral compass, or worse yet, was unwilling tochallenge policies which might jeopardize his election chances or hurt theinterests of his  Wall Street donors.
The President's compromises and evasions, coming at a timewhen poverty rates were growing, the racial wealth gap was escalating, andyoung people, whether educated or not faced the worst job market since theDepression,  left many young people confused and demoralized.  Manycould not believe what was happening to them economically; they were stillhoping that the economy would correct itself, or the President they had placedso much hope in would find some way of righting the ship that was sinking aroundthem.
But while disappointment with the President was growing,the political warfare waged against him by the Republicans, particularly afterthe 2010 Congressional elections, left him with a residue of credibility. Weren't the President's opponents responsible for the tepid and ineffectivepolicies coming out of Washington.  Didn't Republicans try to obstructevery positive initiative he tried to launch, from asking the wealthy to paytheir fair share of taxes, to rebuilding the crumbling American infra structure.
Enter the Troy Davis case. Here was a defendant who hadbeen on death row for twenty years, insisting on his innocence, while thewitnesses against him were steadily recanting their testimony.  Thethought of executing someone with this much doubt surrounding his convictionhad created a worldwide protest movement involving millions of people aroundthe world, not just because of the cruelty of capital punishment and theinjustice of this particular case,, but because of the disproportionate applicationof the death penalty in the US to poor people and people of color.
To many young people in this country, and elsewhere, theexecution of Troy Davis was a moral wrong of startling clarity, and given thehopes they had invested in Barack Obama when he ran for President, theyexpected him, at the very least to speak out against Troy Davis's execution,and if possible, to use his power to stop it.
When the President did neither, and Troy Davis died,Barack Obama's image as a visionary leader died with it.
But in this case, the cloud had a sliver lining.
While Troy Davis courage in the face of state murderinspired young people to fight harder against injustice, Barack Obama's silence freed them to lead themselves. No longer could they expect someone in aposition of power to stand up for the weak and powerless, to confront deeplyentrenched patterns of racial and economic equality, or even insure that youngpeople in this country would have a secure economic future
If there was going to be a fight on all those fronts, itwould have to be led by young people themselves, in the streets as well as inthe political arena, and they would have to fight harder than they had everfought in their life.
The Wall Street occupation currently taking place is asign that more and more young people have gotten this message.
While they may—or may not—give  their vote toBarack Obama in 2012,  they most important thing they will be doing willbe acting collectively to change the course of American and world history, andin doing so they will have lots of solidarity and support from young activistsaround the world facing similar problems.
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Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies andHistory at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program.He is the author of two books, Communistsin Harlem During the Depression and WhiteBoy: 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.

Left of Black S2:E3 w/ Lester Spence and Lawrence P. Jackson

Left of Black S2:E3 w/Lester Spence and Lawrence P. JacksonSeptember26, 2011

Left ofBlackhost  and Duke University ProfessorMark Anthony Neal is joined by LesterSpence , Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and author of Starein the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-Hop and Black Politics .  Spencediscusses why people are still apprehensive about hip-hop culture, the role ofthe "neo-liberal hustler entrepreneur," and grassroots hip-hoporganizations.  Spence also talks about the challenges of studying hip-hopand politics.  
Later Neal is joined by Professor Lawrence P. Jackson ,Professor of English and African American Studies at Emory University, author of The Indignant Generation: ANarrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 and RalphEllison: The Emergence of Genius .  Jackson considers the periodbetween the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement, and addresses thedebates among black authors during this period.  Jackson also discussesreaders' initial reaction to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and the challenges of publishing scholarlynon-fiction with contemporary trade presses.
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Left of Black is a weekly Webcasthosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.
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Episodesof Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U

Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution [Occupy Wall Street ]

Uploaded by ivaasks on Sep 23, 2011
We want to share insights into the formation of a new social movement as it is still taking shape in real time.
The video was shot during the 5th and 6th day of the occupation.
 This idea to occupy the financial district in New York City was inspired by recent uprisings in Spain, Greece, Egypt, and Tunisia which most of us were following online.
 Despite of the corporate media's effort to silence the protests, and Yahoo's attempt to to censor it in e-mail communication, the occupation is growing in numbers and spreading to other cities in the US and abroad.
 Please forward our video to likeminded people via email, facebook, twitter - and make the voices of dissent circulate.

Find the latest news, learn how to participate and support:
https://occupywallst.org/

Could Dr. King Watch Big Time College Sports?

CouldDr. King Watch Big Time College Sports? Race Beyond Shame byDavid Leonard and C. Richard King | NewBlackMan
In"Shameof College Sports," legendary American historian Taylor Branch turns hiscollege sports in this month's TheAtlantic.   Focusing on the profits generatedthrough college sports, the lack of power available to student-athletes, andthe absurdity to claims of amateurism and student-athletes, Branch exposes theexploitation and hypocrisy that is as much part of the NCAA experience as MarchMadness and Bowl Games.  Almost hoping to disarm critics who often scoff at 'slavery analogies,'Brand avoids that comparison instead embracing one that centers on colonialism.
Slaveryanalogies should be used carefully. College athletes are not slaves. Yet tosurvey the scene—corporations and universities enriching themselves on thebacks of uncompensated young men, whose status as "student-athletes" deprivesthem of the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution—is to catch anunmistakable whiff of the plantation. Perhaps a more apt metaphor iscolonialism: college sports, as overseen by the NCAA, is a system imposed bywell-meaning paternalists and rationalized with hoary sentiments about caringfor the well-being of the colonized. But it is, nonetheless, unjust. The NCAA,in its zealous defense of bogus principles, sometimes destroys the dreams ofinnocent young athletes.
Providingreaders with an amazing history, including the origins of the termstudent-athlete (as part of a systematic effort to avoid paying workers'compensation claims for injured football players) and illustrating the methodsused by NCAA and its partner schools to maintain the illusion of amateur sportsall while raking in the dough, Branch surprisingly avoids the issue ofrace.  The colonial analogynotwithstanding, there is virtually no discussion of the racial implications inthis system, the larger history of the NCAA in relationship to race, and theways in which white racial frames help to justify an acceptance of such asystem.  
Branchseems to point to the racial implications here in a section entitled, ""ThePlantation Mentality," where he quotes Sonny Vaccaro:
"Ninety percent of the NCAA revenue is produced by 1percent of the athletes," Sonny Vaccaro says. "Go to the skill positions"—thestars. "Ninety percent African Americans." The NCAA made its money off thosekids, and so did he. They were not all bad people, the NCAA officials, but theywere blind, Vaccaro believes. "Their organization is a fraud."
Thereference to the "Plantation mentality" and the explicit acknowledgement thatthe bulk of profits are generated within sports that in recent years have beendominated by African American athletes generates surprisingly little discussionof the radicalized political economy of college athletics today.  Over a decade ago, D.Stanley Eitzen observed
Theserules reek with injustice. Athletes can make money for others, but not for themselves.Their coaches have agents, as many students engaged in other extracurricularactivities, but the athletes cannot. Athletes are forbidden to engage inadvertising, but their coaches are permitted to endorse products for generouscompensation. Corporate advertisements are displayed in the arenas where theyplay, but with no payoff to the athletes. The shoes and equipment worn by theathletes bear very visible corporate logos, for which the schools arecompensated handsomely. The athletes make public appearances for their schoolsand their photographs are used to publicize the athletic department and selltickets, but they cannot benefit. The schools sell memorabilia andparaphernalia that incorporate the athletes' likenesses, yet only the schoolspocket the royalties. The athletes cannot receive gifts, but coaches and otherathletic department personnel receive the free use of automobiles, country clubmemberships, housing subsidies, etc.
Toour minds, then, Branch clearly misses an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which the system isbuilt around generating profits through the labor of young African Americanmen.  Those profits – the billionsof dollars earned through television contracts, merchandizing, video gamedeals, concessions, booster donations, ticket sales – find there way into thehands of overwhelming white constituency, coaches and athletic directors, insupport of a largely white establishment. 
Muchof the money generated by football and basketball programs funds those othernon-revenue generating sports; those that are not only overwhelmingly white butalso reflect a larger history of segregation and inequality.  That is, the labor of blackstudent-athletes pays for sports that many African Americans have no chance ofsecuring scholarship in because those sports are not available in highschool.   
In"The Color Gap in Girls' Sports," Sara Clarke Kaplan highlights this inequality,comparing the sports offered at Washington D.C. schools compared to thoseArlington County, Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland, concluding thatwhereas D.C. (and most urban school districts) offer "varsity basketball,volleyball, softball, and track for girls" those neighboring suburban districtsoffer the "big 4" along with "soccer, field hockey, tennis, swimming,gymnastics -- even crew."  Accordingto studies, roughly 85-95% of suburban youth play sports, compared to 15-25percent of those living in urban areas. EuroAmericans play high school sports at far greater levels (moresports=more opportunities) than African Americans and therefore have a greaterchance of securing a scholarship. According to the Women's Sports Foundation, "African-Americanfemales represent less than 5% of all high school athletes, less than 10% ofall college athletes."
Wecan see a similar reality with boys sports, with golf, tennis, volleyball,baseball, lacrosse, and countless others. The pipeline to a college scholarship comes from America's suburbanpublic school and private school; yet, it is the profits generated fromfootball and basketball that pays the ticket for those other athletes.  Indeed, without the labor of blackathletes in college football and basketball, support and subsidies for othersports would wither away. Importantly, it is this radicalized labor, moreover, that enables moreelite or rarefied sports to thrive on many Division I campuses: on the onehand, black athletes subsidize white privilege; on the other hand, they make itpossible for many schools to recruit and retain white student-athletes,arguably making historically white institutions more competitive in theirefforts to attract white students.
Andhere, the historian of Civil Rights Movement misses a fundamental connectionbetween those struggles for freedom and the bondage of the blackstudent-athlete.  The mostprestigious and profitable college sports programs in the country are allhistorically white institutions, some which resisted for decades efforts tointegrate them. Now, ironically, even as these ivory towers remaindisproportionately white, they happily exploit those too long excluded andmarginalized.  Moreover, these whitedominated institutions of higher learning still refuse to properly educateAfrican Americans.  Where,historically, it was the color bar, Jim Crow, and separate-but-equal thatenabled them to avoid their obligations, today, it is the primacy of on-fieldperformance, overt and covert efforts to discouraging thinking and learning,and the threat of losing one's scholarship.  Graduation rates for black athletes should remind us howlittle interest or care most institutions of high learning have for their blackstudent-athletes: it as if most colleges and universities regard them aschattel that can be easily replaced with another disposable body.  This pattern of denying access andblocking education attainment, same as it ever was, multiplies the exploitation. 
Bigtime college sports feeds on a system of primary and secondary education thatunder-educates African Americans, skimming of the most talented, while rarelygiving the communities from which they corm and to which they will return asecond thought.  The NCAA hasstructured a system in which coaches, scouts, and administrators are all toohappy to channel the dreams and desperation of young black men who often haveno other options and nothing to fall back upon but their bodies.  In the process, they not only reinforcetacitly the notion of black physicality--in contrast with white intellect, butthey also strengthen racial hierarchies, including the barriers that have keptAfrican Americans from participating fully as students and as athletes.
Butthen, perhaps, this should not surprise us.  The very notion of amateurism and its later complement, thestudent athlete, emerged as meaningful social and political forces during anera in which intercollegiate athletics were almost exclusively white onlyspaces--and in the case of amateurism elite white spaces.  And importantly, both constructs tookshape to contain threats to big time college sports: amateurism to rebuffscandals and corruption, the latter to squash the rights of athletes.  The invocation of the ideals (if thatis the right word) often works to contain threats to the status quo and do soby cleansing or forgetting the radicalized history of the NCAA and sport moregenerally in the USA. 
Inpost-Civil Rights America, African Americans now find themselves awkwardlycrowded under ill-fitting ideas of the past, but try as it might big timecollege sport cannot hide the proliferation of racial hierarchy.  One need only glance at studies ofstacking and until recently the paucity of black quarterbacks to see the truth;but it is perhaps more visibly seen in the small numbers of African Americancoaches, athletic directors, and university presidents.  Big time college sport may be one ofthe few domains in American life where the people with most experience inpursuit have the smallest representation in its management and leadership.
Inresponding to Branch's piece, Kenneth Shropshire points to the missedopportunity in expanding upon the colonialism analogy when he writes, "Colonialismwas shrouded in, "Europe knows what's best for Africa, and by colonizingthem we will guide their savage ways toward ours."   The ubiquitous references thatcelebrate college sports as a place of discipline, as a place of teachingvalues, "seasoning," maturation, enlightenment, and otherwise HELPINGstudent-athletes points to a larger history encapsulated by the ideology ofwhite man's burden.  Thecelebration of college sports as a vehicle to secure the "American Dream" andto secure the requisite skills and discipline needed to excel in society reeksof colonialism and race given that (1) it is so often used in reference toAfrican American athletes, and (2) because it is used as evidence of the compensationprovided to those excelling in revenue sports. 
Whiteowners and overseers then, white administrators and coaches now: in both casessystems of slavery.  To return toEitzen,
Slaves,by definition, are not free. The slaves of the antebellum era did not have theright to assemble or petition. They did not have the right to speak out orfreedom of movement. Those conditions characterize today's college athletes aswell. The NCAA, schools, and coaches restrict the freedom of the athletes in manyways. By NCAA fiat, once athletes sign a contract to play for a school, theyare bound to that institution. They make a four-year commitment to thatcollege, yet the school makes only a one-year commitment to them. If an athletewishes to play for another big-time school, he is ineligible for one year (twoyears if his former coach refuses to release the athlete from his contract).Yet, if a coach wants to get rid of an athlete, the school is merely bound toprovide the scholarship for the remainder of that academic year. Coaches, onthe other hand, can break their contracts, and immediately coach another school…The right to privacy is invaded routinely when it comes to college athletes…Freedomof choice is violated when athletes are red-shirted (held from play for a year)without their consent. Athletes may have little or no choice in what positionthey play. They may be told to gain or lose weight, with penalties fornoncompliance. Coaches may demand mandatory study halls and determine whatcourses the athletes will take and their majors.
Whilewe, with Eitzen, acknowledge that the analogy between athletes and slave can be"overdrawn," we remain mystified that did not foreground the racialpolitics of big time college sports. Even if only an element in his larger analysis, discussing race wouldsurely have produced a more hostile reception and may have led some to dismisshis reading of the NCAA now.  Asit, "Shame of College Sport" affirms common sense understandings ofthe racial contours of contemporary American life, allowing most Americans, theNCAA, and sport off the hook precisely when we should insist on engagement,equality, and inclusion.  Dr. Kingwould expect nothing less of us.
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DavidJ. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Genderand Race Studies 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.
C. Richard King is the Chairof Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and theauthor/editor of several books, including TeamSpirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy and Postcolonial America.

"I Am…": Troy Davis, Fred Hampton and the Black Freedom Movement

"I Am…": Troy Davis, Fred Hampton andthe Black Freedom MovementbyMark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan
TheState has acted in the case of Troy Anthony Davis and in many ways that wasnever in doubt; it acted as it has always acted.  What was never really clear, is whether we all had theresolve to respond.  The more thanhalf-million signatures that were generated on behalf of Davis (largely viasocial media), the re-engagement of the NAACP under the leadership of BenJealous, and the stellar on-the-ground coverage of the State murder of Davis byAmy Goodman and Democracy Now arejust a few examples that we still do have the capacity to build, organize andresist.  That we need to sustainthese efforts on behalf of social justice goes without saying.
Iwas most struck though, by the many images of signs, tee-shirts and Facebookpages that declared "I Am Troy Davis"—images that circulated within logicsparticular to this moment of social media and the market forces that frame somuch of our visual culture and our political activities.  Anybody could imagine themselves as apolitical progressive if they simply wore a t-shirt.   Yet, instead the invocation of "I Am Troy Davis" tookme back to another historical era of mass political resistance.
BlackPanther member Fred Hampton was murdered by the State, at roughly the same ageas Troy Davis, when the latter was initially arrested for the murder of  police officer Mark MacPhail.  Unlike Davis, who was arguably tried infront of a jury of his peers, Hampton was gunned down by the Chicago PoliceDepartment in concert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (under thedirectorship of J. Edgar Hoover) in the early morning hours in what poet andpublisher Haki Madhubuti has called a "one-sided shootout."  Hampton's crime was, ultimately, beingone of the youngest and most effective organizers within the Black FreedomMovement of the late 1960s. 
Theattack on Hampton, which included the use of a Black FBI informant, wasintended to highlight the so-called violent nature of the Black Panther Partyand was firmly in line with the FBI's preference to remove effective localleadership, before they ascended to the national stage.  The plan backfired when the house thatHampton and comrade Mark Clark were murdered in was left open for public viewing,allowing for independent forensic experts to discover that  the vast majority of the gunfire camefrom the police officers; the party members in the house fired one bullet inself defense.
ThoughHampton's story was long known among Chicago residents and veterans of theBlack Freedom Movement, a new generation became aware with the broadcast of theground-breaking documentary series Eyes onthe Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985 .  The episode "ANation of Law, 1968-1971" specifically examines the acts of repressionvisited upon the Black Freedom Movement by the State, including the murder ofHampton and the put down of the Attica prison revolt. 
Oneof the episode's respondents, FatherGeorge Clements, had been named the first Black priest at Chicago's HolyAngels Catholic Church in Chicago in June of 1969, six months before Hampton'smurder.  In the episode Clementsrecalls a mass he held in response to Hampton's killing:
"in the midst of this mass, I was trying to explainto our children, we had all the school children there, all 1,300, and I wastrying to explain to them the importance of Fred. And I wasn't getting through,at least I felt like I wasn't getting through. And in the midst of my explanation,I just burst into tears. And the next thing I knew was here was one of our 8thgrade boys. He jumped up and he said, "I am Fred Hampton." And then agirl in the 6th grade, she jumps up and says, "I am Fred Hampton."Another kid in first grade, "I'm Fred Hampton." And before you knewit, the whole church, kids were all shouting, "I am Fred Hampton."
FatherClements' recollection speaks to the power of the very idea of a Fred Hampton,as the late political leader was very much a prototype for the next generationof Black political leadership in the 1970s and the very reason he had to bedestroyed.  By the time Hampton'sstory is told via Eyes on the Prize,the Black Freedom Movement as it existed at the end of Hampton's life had beenlargely—and effectively—neutralized by the very State forces responsible for hisdeath, more formally known as the FBI's covert counter intelligence program or COINTELPRO.
Thevalue of consciousness raising by hip-hop artists in the 1980s, notably BlackPower child, Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour), was that thevery practices of sampling that allowed hip-hop to mine the sonic history ofAmerican music was also used to piece together a history of Black radicalismand resistance; a generation of American youth were introduced to figures likeJoanne Chesimard—Assata Shakur—and Malcolm X. 
It was this element of hip-hop that filmmaker SpikeLee increasingly made use of in his own films, and as such, Lee drew referenceto Clements' story about Fred Hampton in the closing montage of his film Malcolm X.   In scenes shot in South Africa and Harlem, NY, Leecaptured young students, encouraged by the actress Mary Alice and a justreleased Nelson Mandela, standing from their seats shouting "I Am MalcolmX."  It was a brilliant piece ofcinematic layering that allowed for a recognition of a broader reality of Blackloss and trauma.
Unfortunately in the hands of Madison Avenueadvertisers, Lee's spark of creativity was little more than a gimmick, thatthey later deployed in the name of a "Cablinasian" professional golfer, who had no more interest in the historyof Black radicalism than he did embracing the post-racial project, even as hebecome the defining symbol (before our current President) for that projectwithin a neo-liberal meritocracy.  The subsequent "Iam Tiger Woods" campaign which Nike ran in the aftermath of Woods' historicwin at the Master's Tournament in 1997, effectively silenced the voices ofthose girls  and boys who stood upin Holy Angels Catholic Churchchanting Fred Hampton's name, and the legacy of the movement that their voices embodied.
And yet in September of 2011, Fred Hampton is againrecalled, this time in another symbol of the State's will towardsviolence.  Most heartening wereimages of Davis' nephew De'JaunCorreia, a reminder that the State murder of Troy Davis can serve as hisgeneration's River Jordan, a possibility that was also reflected in the photoof Howard University students, mouths taped in silent protest, effectivelymocking the first Black President for his own silence on the matter of TroyDavis.  May a generation be renewedin the aftermath of Davis' death.

Adam Mansbach & James Braxton Peterson @ Lehigh University

Adam Mansbach, author of the recent "Go the F*ck to Sleep" at Lehigh University with James Braxton Peterson, Director of Africana Studies at Lehigh University.

An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk

An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk September 23, 2011

We the undersigned women of African descent and anti-violence advocates, activists, scholars, organizational and spiritual leaders wish to address the SlutWalk. First, we commend the organizers on their bold and vast mobilization to end the shaming and blaming of sexual assault victims for violence committed against them by other members of society. We are proud to be living in this moment in time where girls and boys have the opportunity to witness the acts of extraordinary women resisting oppression and challenging the myths that feed rape culture everywhere. 
The police officer's comments in Toronto that ignited the organizing of the first SlutWalk and served to trivialize, omit and dismiss women's continuous experiences of sexual exploitation, assault, and oppression are an attack upon our collective spirits.  Whether the dismissal of rape and other violations of a woman's body be driven by her mode of dress, line of work, level of intoxication, her class, and in cases of Black and brown bodies—her race, we are in full agreement that no one deserves to be raped.
The Issue At Hand
We are deeply concerned. As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it.  We are perplexed by the use of the term "slut" and by any implication that this word, much like the word "Ho" or the "N" word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress.  Much of this is tied to our particular history.  In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, "slut" has different associations for Black women.  We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label. 
As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves "slut" without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is.  We don't have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations.  Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word "slut" as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned.  For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood.  It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress. 
We know the SlutWalk is a call to action and we have heard you.  Yet we struggle with the decision to answer this call by joining with or supporting something that even in name exemplifies the ways in which mainstream women's movements have repeatedly excluded Black women even in spaces where our participation is most critical. We are still struggling with the how, why and when and ask at what impasse should the SlutWalk have included substantial representation of Black women in the building and branding of this U.S. based movement to challenge rape culture? 
Black women in the U.S. have worked tirelessly since the 19th century colored women's clubs to rid society of the sexist/racist vernacular of slut, jezebel, hottentot, mammy, mule, sapphire; to build our sense of selves and redefine what women who look like us represent. Although we vehemently support a woman's right to wear whatever she wants anytime, anywhere, within the context of a "SlutWalk" we don't have the privilege to walk through the streets of New York City, Detroit, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, L.A. etc., either half-naked or fully clothed self-identifying as "sluts" and think that this will make women safer in our communities an hour later, a month later, or a year later.  Moreover, we are careful not to set a precedent for our young girls by giving them the message that we can self-identify as "sluts" when we're still working to annihilate the word "ho", which deriving from the word "hooker" or "whore", as in "Jezebel whore" was meant to dehumanize.  Lastly, we do not want to encourage our young men, our Black fathers, sons and brothers to reinforce Black women's identities as "sluts" by normalizing the term on t-shirts, buttons, flyers and pamphlets. 
The personal is political. For us, the problem of trivialized rape and the absence of justice are intertwined with race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration and community.  As Black women in America, we are careful not to forget this or we may compromise more than we are able to recover.  Even if only in name, we cannot afford to label ourselves, to claim identity, to chant dehumanizing rhetoric against ourselves in any movement.  We can learn from successful movements like the Civil Rights movement, from Women's Suffrage, the Black Nationalist and Black Feminist movements that we can make change without resorting to the taking-back of words that were never ours to begin with, but in fact heaved upon us in a process of dehumanization and devaluation. 
What We Ask
Sisters from Toronto, rape and sexual assault is a radical weapon of oppression and we are in full agreement that it requires radical people and radical strategies to counter it.  In that spirit, and because there is so much work to be done and great potential to do it together, we ask that the SlutWalk be even more radical and break from what has historically been the erasure of Black women and their particular needs, their struggles as well as their potential and contributions to feminist movements and all other movements.
Women in the United States are racially and ethnically diverse.  Every tactic to gain civil and human rights must not only consult and consider women of color, but it must equally center all our experiences and our communities in the construction, launching, delivery and sustainment of that movement.
We ask that SlutWalk take critical steps to become cognizant of the histories of people of color and engage women of color in ways that respect culture, language and context.  
We ask that SlutWalk consider engaging in a re-branding and re-labeling process and believe that given the current popularity of the Walk, its thousands of followers will not abandon the movement simply because it has changed its label.
We ask that the organizers participating in the SlutWalk take further action to end the trivialization of rape at every level of society.  Take action to end the use of the word "rape" as if it were a metaphor and also take action to end the use of language invented to perpetuate racist/sexist structures and intended to dehumanize and devalue. 
In the spirit of building a revolutionary movement to end sexual assault, end rape myths and end rape culture, we ask that SlutWalk move forward in true authenticity and solidarity to organize beyond the marches and demonstrations as SlutWalk. Develop a more critical, a more strategic and sustainable plan for bringing women together to demand countries, communities, families and individuals uphold each others human right to bodily integrity and collectively speak a resounding NO to violence against women.
We would welcome a meeting with the organizers of SlutWalk to discuss the intrinsic potential in its global reach and the sheer number of followers it has energized. We'd welcome the opportunity to engage in critical conversation with the organizers of SlutWalk about strategies for remaining accountable to the thousands of women and men, marchers it left behind in Brazil, in New Delhi, South Korea and elsewhere—marchers who continue to need safety and resources, marchers who went back home to their communities and their lives. We would welcome a conversation about the work ahead and how this can be done together with groups across various boundaries, to end sexual assault beyond the marches.
As women of color standing at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class and more, we will continue to be relentless in the struggle to dismantle the unacceptable systems of oppression that designedly besiege our everyday lives.  We will continue to fight for the development of policies and initiatives that prioritize the primary prevention of sexual assault, respect women and individual rights, agency and freedoms and holds offenders accountable.  We will consistently demand justice whether under governmental law, at community levels, or via community strategies for those who have been assaulted; and organize to end sexual assaults of persons from all walks of life, all genders, all sexualities, all races, all ethnicity, all histories.
Signed by: The Board of Directors and Board of Advisors, Black Women's Blueprint | Farah Tanis, Co-Founder, Executive Director, Black Women's Blueprint | Endorsed by: Toni M. Bond Leonard, President/CEO of Black Women for Reproductive Justice (BWRJ), Chicago, Illinois | Kelli Dorsey, Executive Director, Different Avenues, Washington, D.C. | S. Mandisa Moore | The Women's Health and Justice Initiative, New Orleans, Louisiana | Black and Proud, Baton Rouge, Louisiana | Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts | Population and Development Program, Amherst, Massachusetts | Zeinab Eyega, New York, New York | Black Women's Network, Los Angeles, California | League of Black Women, Chicago, Illinois | African American Institute on Domestic Violence, Minneapolis, Minnesota | Brooklyn Young Mother's Collective, Brooklyn, New York | Women's HIV Collaborative, New York, New York | National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault (SCESA), Connecticut | Girls for Gender Equity, Brooklyn, New York | My Sister's Keeper, Brooklyn, New York | The Mothers Agenda New York (the M.A.N.Y.), Brooklyn, New York | Sojourners Group For Women, Salt Lake City, Utah | Dr. Andreana Clay, Queer Black Feminist Blog, Oakland, California | Dr. Ida E. Jones, Historian, Author, The Heart of the Race Problem: The Life of Kelly Miller | Willi Coleman, Professor of Women's History, member of the Association of Black Women Historians, Laura Rahman, Director, Broken Social Contracts, Atlanta, Georgia | Marlene McCurtis, Director, Wednesdays in Mississippi Film Project | Issa Rae, Producer, Director, Writer, Awkward Black Girl, Los Angeles, California | The Prison Birth Project| Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative & The RingShout for Reproductive Justice | Yvonne Moore, Southern California, Sexual Assault Survivor | Kola Boo, Novelist, Poet, Womanist | Jessicah A. Murrell, Spelman College C'11, Candidate for M.A. Women's Studies | Shanika Thomas | Cathy Gillespie | Kristin Simpson, Brooklyn, New York | Mkali-Hashiki, Certified Sexological Bodyworker, Certified Sound, Voice, & Music Healing Practitioner, Owner & Operator of Body Enstasy, Erotic Wellness Facilitation | Linda Mizell, Ed.D., Assistant Professor School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder| Sherley Accime, President, C.E.O. ANEW, NY, SeaElle Integrated Therapies | Diedre F. Houchen, M.A. Ed., Alumni Doctoral Fellow, Black Education, University of Florida | Hanalei Ramos, Co-founder, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment, NYC |
To endorse this letter, email us with Subject: "Add My Name" to: info@blackwomensblueprint.orgTo be part of the broader conversation, learn more and to participate in our "Live Free" campaign to end sexual violence, email: Farah Tanis, Executive Director, Black Women's Blueprint, ftanis@blackwomensblueprint.orgAdd Your Voice! Take Our Survey- Answer Anonymously-10 Questions About Rape/Sexual Assault.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V868RZGJoin Our Workshop: Silent No More: Supporting the Survivors and Creating Response to Rape/Sexual Assault in African American Communities. Friday, October 28, 1:30-4:30 PM – RSVP for more information and location to info@blackwomensblueprint.org Give What You Can! Support the Work at The Intersections http://www.indiegogo.com/Help-Finish-The-Film-Under-Siege-The-Policing-of-Women-Girls-In-America?c=activity&a=214519&i=addr Join the Cast or Sign Up For Updates On Mother Tongue: Monologues In Sexual Revolution! For Black Girls & Stolen Women Taking Back Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our Lives – The National Black Theater of Harlem, February 24, 2012 info@blackwomensblueprint.org

Kevin Alexander Gray on State Violence and the Murder of Troy Anthony Davis

Kevin Alexander Gray , author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics , spoke to Dennis Bernstein of KPFA Flashpoints Radio about state violence and the Georgia State murder of Troy Anthony Davis.

MuthaWit: "Wasted (Fill My House With Salt)" [video]

"Wasted (Fill My House With Salt)" is the second single from MuthaWit's album "men & women (la Revenge de Uncle Baldy)" released in 2011 on URB ALT Media

Video Credits:

Produced by URB ALT Media
Direction and Videography by Bighead Scientists
Edited by Odd Endeavors Productions

Music Credits:

A)Lou Rossi -- guitars
B)Meryl "Miss J" Jefferson -- violins
C)Sam Myer -- trombone
D)V. Jeffrey Smith -- alto sax, soprano sax
E)JC - drums
F)Samuel Fernandez - bass
G)Ben Tyree -- guitars
H)Boston -- guitars, drums, percussion, lead vocals, bground vocals

Written, Performed, Arranged and Produced by Boston and MuthaWit
Engineered and Mixed by 2KLB at The Womb, GA
Mastered by Gualterino at Bad Alien Studios

MuthaWit album:
http://urbalt.bandcamp.com/album/men-women-la-revenge-de-uncle-baldy