Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1066

Association of Black Women Historians on 'The Help'

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help
On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.
During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help's representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.
Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated "black" dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, "You is smat, you is kind, you is important." In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the "Law," an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.
Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women's fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.
Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers' assassination sends Jackson's black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.
We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women's lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.
Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. 
Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. 
Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Suggested Reading
Fiction:  
Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic's Life, Alice Childress The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley The Street by Ann Petry A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight
Non-Fiction: 
Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to:ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com

Watch the Throne: A Meditation on Black Power

Watch the Throne: A Meditation on Black Power by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan
"Power to the people | when you see me, see you"—Jay Z, "Murder to Excellence"
Arguably, two artists in the prime of the careers, have never decided to come together in the ways that Shawn Carter and Kanye West do on their new recording Watch the Throne.  When Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross paired for 1974's Diana and Marvin, Ms. Ross was hoping to revive a solo career that had stalled.  The same could be said when Aerosmith, signed on to a one-track deal with Run-DMC on "Walk This Way" (Raising Hell, 1986). Michael Jackson was just hoping for the validation of Rock critics with their unwavering devotion to the White Rock god, when Mick Jagger shared lead vocals with him on The Jackson's "State of Shock" (1984) in what was likely just another payday for "Jagger the Dagger." 
The pairing between Carter and West, begs the question, what's in it for each?  When Bobby "Blue" Bland and B.B. King paired for two live albums in the mid-1970s, it was clear that the two had genuine affection for each other after years of sharing top-billing on the Chitlin' Circuit.  In contrast, Carter and R. Kelly seemed to barely like each other through two recordings and an aborted tour.  The disconnect was borne out in the music, which was often recorded in separate studios over tracks that neither artist had any real relationship with, let alone each with other; Best of Both Worlds (2002) and Unfinished Business (2004) were pure calculated and cynical money grabs. 
And indeed when word of Watch the Throne began to surface, it was audiences and fans that reacted with cynicism, despite that fact that Carter and West have often expressed real affection and respect for each other—the big brother and the petulant little brother—and have generally produced memorable tracks when they have collaborated such as "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" (2005), "Never Let Me Down," (2003), "Run this Town" (2009), last year's "Monster," and of course West's production on The Dynasty Roc la Familia (2000), The Blueprint (2001), The Blueprint 2 (2002) and The Black Album (2003). 
Such cynicism was likely the product of collective fears that Carter and West's pairing would not only not produce great art, but would confirm their unwillingness—or more scarily—their inability to say anything of consequence at a moment when many desire their artists to—in the words of Bill Clinton—at "feel their pain."  This was part of Chuck D's point when he too invoked the spirit of Otis Redding (as Carter and West did on the leaked single "Otis") to challenge Carter and West pay more attention to the music's "heart, rather than swag," even as he co-signed the duo's talents and influence.
Yet part of what possibly made Watch the Throne attractive for Carter and West is the fact that they are all too aware of their disconnect from the working-class worlds that produced them—and the unique and isolated positions that each holds at the pinnacle of their craft and celebrity, and the relative power associated with those positions.  Their ambivalence is evidenced in the oh-so casual way that the recording was rolled out, minus the usual shock and awe that one would expect from artists of their stature.  As such Watch the Throne serves as a meditation on Black Power; not in the sense of the social movement that challenged America in the 1960s and beyond, to live up to its radical democratic tenets, but rather in the will of so many generations of Black folk to imagine the highest quality of life for themselves.
In his now classic essay "Homeboy Cosmopolitanism," Malian film scholar Manthia Diawara says of this impulse towards individual success, that the "search for the good life is not only in keeping with the nationalist struggle for citizenship and belonging, but also reveals the need to go beyond such struggles and celebrate the redemption of the black individual through tradition." What has always made hip-hop matter to the masses, even in the days of "party and bullshit,"—which if we're honest, have always significantly outnumbered the moments of political militancy—is its ability to be aspirational. 
This is a point that branding expert Steve Stoute argues in his forthcoming book The Tanning of America: How Hip-Hop Created a Culture that Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy, where he writes that the "force of aspiration," is the "power that turns nothing into something, that creates worlds and paves destinies, and changes the have-nots into the have-somes and occasionally have-it-alls."  In a country marked by rich immigrant cultures, Black Americans may represent the most aspirational of peoples—willing themselves off of plantations and into some semblance of a (still unrealized?) full citizenship—long before Shawn Carter and Kanye West ever picked up a mic. Black aspiration is Black Power,  dating to the time, per the late poet Sekou Sundiata, some "slave" dreamed in her head, a freedom that she would never fully experience.
Yet even this long tradition of aspirational power, falls flat at a moment when there exist and unprecedented wealth gap between the poor and the so-called super-rich and the United States faces a double-dip recession, that Black America could have predicted—and indeed  that well-known economist Young Jeezy did four years ago.   To be sure this is not the first recession that Black America has bore the brunt of, yet it might be the first in which Black artists are burdened with an expectation to speak to its palpable presence in the lives of their fans and supporters.
In the midst of a recession in the mid-1970s, when New York City was on the brink of defaulting on its loans and then President Gerald Ford threatened to veto any legislation aimed at bailing out the municipality, William DeVaughn could wistfully sing about the "diamond in the back/sun-roof top/digging the scene with the gangster lean," on his aspirational classic "Be Thankful for What You Got." The song was as  much a cautionary tale about the trappings of materialism (as Black flight was becoming a reality), as it was a reminder that the culture already embodied a sense of wealth where a gangsta-lean—yet another precursor to ghetto fabulousness—was a hard earned commodity, as valuable as the pimp car rolling down the avenue.
Hip-Hop's genius move from outset  was to make the trinkets of everyday life the stuff of hyper-consumption—a story at least as old as Pig Feet Mary selling chitlins', hog maws, and of course pig feet out of a baby carriage in Harlem in the early 20th century, later becoming a real estate tycoon or White folk dragging the Fisk Jubilee Singers around the globe for a taste of those good old Negro spirituals in the late 19th century, or Henry Box Brown recreating his escape act for European audiences years before the Emancipation Proclamation—I mean, I could go on.
Perhaps no commodity was as valuable to hip-hop as the conceit, the lyrical boast, itself intimately related to the traditions of Black expressive culture whether visualized by the Dandy on Chicago's Stroll in the 1920s or Nikki Giovanni's 1969 poem "Ego Tripping" ("I sat on the throne | drinking nectar with Allah | I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe to cool my thirst | My oldest daughter is Nefertiti | the tears from my birth pains | created the Nile | I am a beautiful woman").  When Biggie opined "fuck a dollar and a dream,"—putting into to context the way that hood-controlled numbers running (s/o to Casper Holstein) had been appropriated by the State (with a capital S)—he did so knowing that he was of a generation of young Blacks who were part of a commercial culture that no longer simply had to dream.
There's no denying that the music changed; the conceits that were once simply metaphors—yes, the dream of Black Power—are now quantifiable assets.  What's a rich rapper to do?  Who is there to talk to (especially one who looks like you) when Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are no longer in the room?  Watch the Throne is compelling because it allows us to eavesdrop on what a particular segment of the Black elite thinks.  The trafficking in the toys of the Hip-Hop elite is a given—count the references to Maybachs, but, also Basquiat—and no doubt the gratuitous flaunting of Carter and West's possessions and status is downright offensive, particularly in this moment—but significantly less so than a "political industrial complex" that funnels billions of dollars into a political process that only 1% of the population that controls 90% of the nation's wealth benefits from. Give Hip-hop credit; It has built its wealth well beyond and despite of the forces of the State.
Equally important as you listen to Carter and West throughout Watch the Throne is the recognition that this is not your parents' Black elite; Carter, West and a host of other Hip-Hop generation Black elites were not products of blue vein enclaves, summers at Oak Bluffs, Jack & Jill programs, and Boule meetings. This is a point that Bakari Kitwana makes in his essay "Zen and the Art of Transcending the Status Quo: The  Reach from the Hood to the Suburbs" (Jay Z: Essays on Hip-Hop's Philosopher King ed. Julius Bailey), where he notes, "Jay Z is making sexy the notion of elite class blacks who identify more with the black masses," adding that Carter is a "bridge between the black poor and black elite in way that current activists in the tradition of Malcolm X can never realize." 
As two of the most accomplished trickster figures—shape-shifters—working in contemporary culture, Carter and West's seeming thoughtless celebration of their wealth and status, must also be read as potentially signifying on the very elite culture(s) that still deny them full access.  As with the controversial "Monster" video and the self portraits of Carter and West that accompany Watch the Throne's digital booklet, the duo are all too aware—West in particular—of how they are perceived within mainstream American culture; they are still relatively young Black men whose success—if not their aspiration—is framed by the realities of race. 
Carter and West are also not wholly oblivious to the kinds criticism that their work might generate in terms of gender; Carter has often gone to great lengths to explain his discursive deployment of the term "bitch," much the way O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube) did nearly twenty years ago, notably in a rather stunning critical exchange with bell hooks—an exchange Carter arguably replayed eight years ago with journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry. When West appropriates Big Pun's line from "It's So Hard" in his verse on "It's My Bitch," ("I paid for them titties | get your own"), with the song's late 1980s throwback rhythm track (replete with Charlie Wilson vocals and a nod the PE's "Brothers Gonna Work It Out"), and given the now well known violence that the late Christopher Rios visited upon the body and spirit of his wife, perhaps the expectation is that audiences will read such a song as a commentary on how far hip-hop's gender politics have progressed in some quarters.
In a rather persuasive reading of Watch the Throne, critic Hua Hsu argues that the recording "captures two artists who no longer need dreams; art cannot possibly prophesy a better future for either of them." Yet, I would argue that Watch the Throne is, at it best, mostly about the dreams of Carter and West's fans, supporters and even detractors—and their collective wills to live the best lives possible for themselves and their families.

Do Striking Ballers Really Need the NBA?

Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout? by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
In recent weeks, LeBron James decided to take his talents to a high school gym in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and a number of other NBA players decided to take their talents to the Philippines and Kevin Durant took his talents to Rucker Park.  On, August 2, Kevin Durant dropped 66 during a Rucker Park game.  For the footage I was able to watch, it wasn't an average 66 but a performance that included several thrilling dunks, smooth drives to the basket, and a sick number of three pointers over at times three "defenders."  His performance wowed an excited crowd and has mesmerized fans on YouTube (almost 600,000 views for one video of his performance).    Marc Berman describes the scene as a reminder of how "how much the hardcore fans still love this game, why it matters, why an NBA season can not be lost so billionaires can get a sweetheart deal." Emphasizing the context of the lockout, Berman illustrates how this was not just another July game at the Rucker. 
It was quite a basketball doubleheader on Monday - covering the lockout labor talks at a ritzy midtown hotel on 52nd Street and Park Avenue, then cabbing it 100 blocks uptown to Harlem for Kevin Durant.
More than 2,500 fans jammed into Rucker Park - standing room only on 155th street and 8th Avenue. The 6-11 OKC superstar played for free and the fans of the EBC Rucker League watched for free, but what they saw was priceless.
Going from the disillusioning labor talks and the dour David Stern bashing the Players Association to Monday night's basketball bedlam in Harlem was a shot in the arm for this basketball scribe.
The game was living and breathing and still pure, with fans screaming their lungs out, jumping up and down in their metal bleacher seats, almost every time Durant brought the ball up court. Durant, wearing the orange of DC Power, dumped a near EBC Rucker record 66 points on the Sean Bell All-Stars . . ..
Durant was not done. For his encore, he scored a mere 41 in a pro-Am game at Baruch College once again reminding fans around the globe of the amazing talents of NBA stars.   Yet, this performance was overshadowed by the efforts of John Lucas III, who netted 60 in that game.
Durant has not been the only one ballin' this summer.  LeBron James played at in the Drew Summer League dropping 33 points at the Leon H. Washington Park gym, which is located in the heart of Watts, California.  Casper Ware described the situation as "a great experience."   Challenging the media demonization of LeBron, the senior guard from Long Beach State was immensely complementary of James:  "He was still passing even though he was LeBron. He just wanted me to play my game. He told me, 'Don't stand around and just throw me the ball. Play your game. I can get mine. Play your game and don't change for me.' He was very cool and down to earth. You could talk to him like any other player."  From coast to coast, NBA basketball fans have been treated to the greatness of the league.
The visibility of NBA players has not been limited to the United States, as several NBA superstars (Durant, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Chris Paul), took their talents to Manila earning a cool $400,000 (tax-free) for this "ultimate All-Star weekend."  This was Bryant's second trip to the Philippines in July, alone having participating in a 5-city tour earlier in the month (before going to Korea and China) where he dazzled fans.  The importance transcends any the earning possibilities evidence in these appearances but illustrates both the immense global popularity of NBA players and the leverage available during the lockout.  Andrew Sharp highlighted this power as such:
Kobe Bryant has been at the center of rumors all summer long, most of which center on the possibility of him spending next season playing for the Besitkas basketball club in Turkey. On that front, a meeting on July 30th should go a long way toward deciding his future.
But after seeing some of the footage from an All-Star NBA exhibition in the Philippines this past week, you can't help but wonder why. Or, why not? As in, why not just play in the Philippines?
It's a stage that'd broaden stars' marketing appeal throughout Asia, and clearly, there's a longstanding addiction to basketball and basketball superstars. It's not just an opportunity to play elsewhere; as far as the Philippines is concerned, it's an opportunity to play somewhere you'll absolutely love. 
It reminds of what Gilbert Arenas said on his blog (RIP) after a trip to Manila a few years ago. "It was a different world. I've never seen fans like that in my life. These pictures can't even do justice to what was going on out there. One thing I want to say about Filipinos: they're very warm people, very good-hearted people. Like, everybody was nice. You know, you meet nice people, but a whole country of nice, genuine, warm-hearted people was unbelievable."
Whereas NFL players needed the game, needed the infrastructure of the NFL, needed their teammates and otherwise needed the owners/the Commissioner/the NFL Network to showcase their talents, to play the game they love, and otherwise make a living, these events demonstrate the powerful ways that NBA players exist in a different sporting world.   As argued by Mark Anthony Neal, "NBA players have long been in a unique position; with regards to the NBA; the players exist as both the labor and the product.. . . ." Their economic futures and cultural importance is not controlled and determined by the league and its ownership class.
The fanfare visible at each and every event, the ability of players to connect to fans in the United States and globally during a lockout, and the impact of new media, illustrates the changing landscape of the NBA since the last lockout.  While always a sport driven by individual stars and economically reliant on charismatic ballers, globalization, the power of the Internet, and the nature of basketball all allow NBA players to remain visible, connected and otherwise sources of pleasure for basketball fans alike during the owner induced lockout. 
Amid the context of NBA players highlighting their talents from high school gyms to worldly destinations, David Stern took to the airwaves to not only denounce the players for refusing to bargain in good faith but to dismiss the prospect of players going overseas: "I think if anything, I think there's simply no way that the players collectively can generate more than a couple of hundred million dollars and we have a system that has been delivering $2 billion to them."  His comments are striking on a number of levels.  (1) It is revealing that Stern imagines the NBA as a business that gives NBA players 2 billion dollars rather than one where world-class athletes earn/generate 2 billion dollars for themselves and billions more for the owners, television networks, and various transnational companies.  The players deliver the money to themselves and others (including the millions to David Stern as his salary).  Nothing is given to them.  (2) Stern's comments seem to discount the cultural capital (and financial possibilities) procured as players' go overseas.  Playing in one-time events or signing for the duration of the lockout isn't simply a financial move about player salary but one that highlights the popularity and adoration afforded to players at a local level, whether at the Rucker or a Manila gym.  (3) Reflecting racial scripts and stereotypes NBA players have historically faced a barrage of criticism because of their purported greed; media commentators and fans have long denounced players for being all about the money and not the fans, the game, or tradition. 
Such a narrative doesn't stand up to the reality of NBA stars simply playing during this summer.  David Stern's comments read against a backdrop of Durant at the Rucker, LeBron James in Watts, and Kobe & others in Manila are revealing in that it demonstrates who is working hard to not only protect but enhance profits (the owners and the league).
While not a strategy, the image of players balling in the Philippines with local players, LBJ showing up at a LA High school gym, and Durant dropping a cool 66 in contrast to Stern's labor talk is striking; the footage of Kobe, Durant, and James throwing passes to unknown players, conducting clinics, and signing autographs for kids in Watts, Harlem, Manila, and Shanghai while owners and Stern talk collective bargaining agreements, hard caps, non-guaranteed contracts and the economics of the game is revealing.  While much of media will continue to depict the players as greedy, as selfish, and otherwise "bargaining" in bad faith, the daily reports online tell a different story.  I know for me, the daily articles and YouTube highlights are tapping into my love for both the NBA game and its amazingly talented players.
Post Script
According to Tom Ziller (who is citing a report by David Aldridge), NBA owners frequently lament the financial success of today's players.  According to an anonymous source, owners often talk about "being tired of making THESE (my change) guys rich."  This same source reports that these same owners may push for including commercial endorsements and sponsorships in calculating the players' share of the league's basketball related income.  According to Aldridge, "the theory" is "the players wouldn't become famous and able to make such deals if not for the NBA infrastructure that puts them on television and other media."  This is the same sort rhetoric that guides David Stern's denunciation of the player's union and the idea that the players' should be grateful and content with whatever the owners decide players should get.  Given the excitement generated by player participation in various basketball games and the commercial/basketball/cultural importance the players, it is clear that the players are more important than the infrastructure.  It is time for the players to tell the owners that they are sick of making THEM guys rich.    
***
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout? by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
In recent weeks, LeBron James decided to take his talents to a high school gym in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and a number of other NBA players decided to take their talents to the Philippines and Kevin Durant took his talents to Rucker Park.  On, August 2, Kevin Durant dropped 66 during a Rucker Park game.  For the footage I was able to watch, it wasn't an average 66 but a performance that included several thrilling dunks, smooth drives to the basket, and a sick number of three pointers over at times three "defenders."  His performance wowed an excited crowd and has mesmerized fans on YouTube (almost 600,000 views for one video of his performance).    Marc Berman describes the scene as a reminder of how "how much the hardcore fans still love this game, why it matters, why an NBA season can not be lost so billionaires can get a sweetheart deal." Emphasizing the context of the lockout, Berman illustrates how this was not just another July game at the Rucker. 
It was quite a basketball doubleheader on Monday - covering the lockout labor talks at a ritzy midtown hotel on 52nd Street and Park Avenue, then cabbing it 100 blocks uptown to Harlem for Kevin Durant.
More than 2,500 fans jammed into Rucker Park - standing room only on 155th street and 8th Avenue. The 6-11 OKC superstar played for free and the fans of the EBC Rucker League watched for free, but what they saw was priceless.
Going from the disillusioning labor talks and the dour David Stern bashing the Players Association to Monday night's basketball bedlam in Harlem was a shot in the arm for this basketball scribe.
The game was living and breathing and still pure, with fans screaming their lungs out, jumping up and down in their metal bleacher seats, almost every time Durant brought the ball up court. Durant, wearing the orange of DC Power, dumped a near EBC Rucker record 66 points on the Sean Bell All-Stars . . ..
Durant was not done. For his encore, he scored a mere 41 in a pro-Am game at Baruch College once again reminding fans around the globe of the amazing talents of NBA stars.   Yet, this performance was overshadowed by the efforts of John Lucas III, who netted 60 in that game.
Durant has not been the only one ballin' this summer.  LeBron James played at in the Drew Summer League dropping 33 points at the Leon H. Washington Park gym, which is located in the heart of Watts, California.  Casper Ware described the situation as "a great experience."   Challenging the media demonization of LeBron, the senior guard from Long Beach State was immensely complementary of James:  "He was still passing even though he was LeBron. He just wanted me to play my game. He told me, 'Don't stand around and just throw me the ball. Play your game. I can get mine. Play your game and don't change for me.' He was very cool and down to earth. You could talk to him like any other player."  From coast to coast, NBA basketball fans have been treated to the greatness of the league.
The visibility of NBA players has not been limited to the United States, as several NBA superstars (Durant, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose, Chris Paul), took their talents to Manila earning a cool $400,000 (tax-free) for this "ultimate All-Star weekend."  This was Bryant's second trip to the Philippines in July, alone having participating in a 5-city tour earlier in the month (before going to Korea and China) where he dazzled fans.  The importance transcends any the earning possibilities evidence in these appearances but illustrates both the immense global popularity of NBA players and the leverage available during the lockout.  Andrew Sharp highlighted this power as such:
Kobe Bryant has been at the center of rumors all summer long, most of which center on the possibility of him spending next season playing for the Besitkas basketball club in Turkey. On that front, a meeting on July 30th should go a long way toward deciding his future.
But after seeing some of the footage from an All-Star NBA exhibition in the Philippines this past week, you can't help but wonder why. Or, why not? As in, why not just play in the Philippines?
It's a stage that'd broaden stars' marketing appeal throughout Asia, and clearly, there's a longstanding addiction to basketball and basketball superstars. It's not just an opportunity to play elsewhere; as far as the Philippines is concerned, it's an opportunity to play somewhere you'll absolutely love. 
It reminds of what Gilbert Arenas said on his blog (RIP) after a trip to Manila a few years ago. "It was a different world. I've never seen fans like that in my life. These pictures can't even do justice to what was going on out there. One thing I want to say about Filipinos: they're very warm people, very good-hearted people. Like, everybody was nice. You know, you meet nice people, but a whole country of nice, genuine, warm-hearted people was unbelievable."
Whereas NFL players needed the game, needed the infrastructure of the NFL, needed their teammates and otherwise needed the owners/the Commissioner/the NFL Network to showcase their talents, to play the game they love, and otherwise make a living, these events demonstrate the powerful ways that NBA players exist in a different sporting world.   As argued by Mark Anthony Neal, "NBA players have long been in a unique position; with regards to the NBA; the players exist as both the labor and the product.. . . ." Their economic futures and cultural importance is not controlled and determined by the league and its ownership class.
The fanfare visible at each and every event, the ability of players to connect to fans in the United States and globally during a lockout, and the impact of new media, illustrates the changing landscape of the NBA since the last lockout.  While always a sport driven by individual stars and economically reliant on charismatic ballers, globalization, the power of the Internet, and the nature of basketball all allow NBA players to remain visible, connected and otherwise sources of pleasure for basketball fans alike during the owner induced lockout. 
Amid the context of NBA players highlighting their talents from high school gyms to worldly destinations, David Stern took to the airwaves to not only denounce the players for refusing to bargain in good faith but to dismiss the prospect of players going overseas: "I think if anything, I think there's simply no way that the players collectively can generate more than a couple of hundred million dollars and we have a system that has been delivering $2 billion to them."  His comments are striking on a number of levels.  (1) It is revealing that Stern imagines the NBA as a business that gives NBA players 2 billion dollars rather than one where world-class athletes earn/generate 2 billion dollars for themselves and billions more for the owners, television networks, and various transnational companies.  The players deliver the money to themselves and others (including the millions to David Stern as his salary).  Nothing is given to them.  (2) Stern's comments seem to discount the cultural capital (and financial possibilities) procured as players' go overseas.  Playing in one-time events or signing for the duration of the lockout isn't simply a financial move about player salary but one that highlights the popularity and adoration afforded to players at a local level, whether at the Rucker or a Manila gym.  (3) Reflecting racial scripts and stereotypes NBA players have historically faced a barrage of criticism because of their purported greed; media commentators and fans have long denounced players for being all about the money and not the fans, the game, or tradition. 
Such a narrative doesn't stand up to the reality of NBA stars simply playing during this summer.  David Stern's comments read against a backdrop of Durant at the Rucker, LeBron James in Watts, and Kobe & others in Manila are revealing in that it demonstrates who is working hard to not only protect but enhance profits (the owners and the league).
While not a strategy, the image of players balling in the Philippines with local players, LBJ showing up at a LA High school gym, and Durant dropping a cool 66 in contrast to Stern's labor talk is striking; the footage of Kobe, Durant, and James throwing passes to unknown players, conducting clinics, and signing autographs for kids in Watts, Harlem, Manila, and Shanghai while owners and Stern talk collective bargaining agreements, hard caps, non-guaranteed contracts and the economics of the game is revealing.  While much of media will continue to depict the players as greedy, as selfish, and otherwise "bargaining" in bad faith, the daily reports online tell a different story.  I know for me, the daily articles and YouTube highlights are tapping into my love for both the NBA game and its amazingly talented players.
Post Script
According to Tom Ziller (who is citing a report by David Aldridge), NBA owners frequently lament the financial success of today's players.  According to an anonymous source, owners often talk about "being tired of making THESE (my change) guys rich."  This same source reports that these same owners may push for including commercial endorsements and sponsorships in calculating the players' share of the league's basketball related income.  According to Aldridge, "the theory" is "the players wouldn't become famous and able to make such deals if not for the NBA infrastructure that puts them on television and other media."  This is the same sort rhetoric that guides David Stern's denunciation of the player's union and the idea that the players' should be grateful and content with whatever the owners decide players should get.  Given the excitement generated by player participation in various basketball games and the commercial/basketball/cultural importance the players, it is clear that the players are more important than the infrastructure.  It is time for the players to tell the owners that they are sick of making THEM guys rich.    
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

Martha Southgate on 'The Help'

The Truth about the Civil Rights Era by Martha Southgate | Entertainment Weekly
I resisted the fictional and soon-to-be cinematic juggernaut that is The Help for quite some time. In an otherwise extremely positive review in 2009, EW summed up my feelings quite well: ''The backstory is cringeworthy: A young, white first-time author — inspired by her own childhood relationship with her family maid in Jackson, Miss. — sets out to write a novel from the point of view of black maids in the midst of the civil rights era.'' Cringeworthy indeed. Further, the plot of the book itself — young white woman encourages black housekeepers to tell their truth through the vehicle of a book the white woman writes — I found both implausible and condescending to those maids. An oral history of black maids published in 1962? I don't think so. I'm acquainted with intelligent readers — both black and white — who enjoyed the book. I also greatly respect the talented actresses in the film who have proclaimed their affection for it. But I still couldn't get on board. When I took a closer look at what Kathryn Stockett hath wrought, I didn't much like what I saw — but The Help is only a symptom, not the disease.
There have been thousands of words written about Stockett's skills, her portrayal of the black women versus the white women, her right to tell this story at all. I won't rehash those arguments, except to say that I found the novel fast-paced but highly problematic. Even more troubling, though, is how the structure of narratives like The Help underscores the failure of pop culture to acknowledge a central truth: Within the civil rights movement, white people were the help.
The architects, visionaries, prime movers, and most of the on-the-ground laborers of the civil rights movement were African-American. Many white Americans stood beside them, and some even died beside them, but it was not their fight — and more important, it was not their idea.
Implicit in The Help and a number of other popular works that deal with the civil rights era is the notion that a white character is somehow crucial or even necessary to tell this particular tale of black liberation. What's more, to imply that what the maids Aibileen and Minny are working against is simply a refusal on everyone's part to believe that ''we're all the same underneath'' is to simplify the horrors of Jim Crow to a truly damaging degree.
This isn't the first time the civil rights movement has been framed this way fictionally, especially on film. Most Hollywood civil rights movies feature white characters in central, sometimes nearly solo, roles. My favorite (not!) is Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning, which gives us two white FBI agents as heroes of the movement. FBI agents! Given that J. Edgar Hoover did everything short of shoot Martin Luther King Jr. himself in order to damage or discredit the movement, that goes from troubling to appalling.
Why is it ever thus? Suffice it to say that these stories are more likely to get the green light and to have more popular appeal (and often acclaim) if they have white characters up front. That's a shame. The continued impulse to reduce the black women and men of the civil rights movement to bit players in the most extraordinary step toward justice that this nation has ever known is infuriating, to say the least. Minny and Aibileen are heroines, but they didn't need Skeeter to guide them to the light. They fought their way out of the darkness on their own — and they brought the nation with them.
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Martha Southgate's fourth novel, The Taste of Salt, will be published in September.

Black London's Darcus Howe Challenges BBC on Coverage of "Insurrection" (video)

Jumping the Broom to Equality

Jumping the Broom to Equality by Mark Anthony Neal | HuffPost BlackVoices
My wife and I recently marked our 20th Wedding Anniversary, only days after same-sex marriage was legalized in our home state of New York. When we married 20 years ago, many in our generation were enamoured with re-connecting with our West African heritage. As Kente cloth became the rage on 125th Street and other centers of urban blackness, and leather Africa medallions with red, black, and green replaced the trunk jewelry of the mid-1980s, more than a few of us chose to mark our matrimonial rituals with symbolic gestures like jumping the broom.
"Jumping the Broom," which mainstream Americans were introduced to after the groundbreaking mini-series Roots was broadcast in January of 1977, highlights the enduring faith that enslaved Africans had in the power of family and commitment. Denied access to legal marriage, jumping the broom was a symbolic act of defiance; indeed even after blacks could legally marry, the act of marriage, with or without the broom, was an act of resistance within a society that denied blacks their full humanity.
The belief that blacks held in marriage and life-time partnership was part of the mantra of "making a way out of now way" -- a mantra that Black communities shared with the world during the watershed moments of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
That symbolism was not lost on my wife and I at the time of our marriage; yes, it was a chance to unite in the eyes of the law and within the tenets of our Christian beliefs and our parents' values --they were collectively married 86 years -- but it was more than anything an act of faith. That symbolism is not lost on thousands of New Yorkers who are now to also share in such acts of faith -- also in the eyes of the -- law -- thanks to the legalization of same-sex marriages in New York State.
There are those, of course, who claim that same-sex marriage is a sign of the continued demise of the black family. Christopher Arps of the Project 21 Black Leadership Network and founder of Move-on-Up.org, asks for example, "with the black family in freefall, why define and diminish the value of marriage?" Arps suggest that homosexuality is an abomination, citing the requisite example of Christian doctrine, ignoring that that same Christian doctrine was invoked to justify the enslavement of blacks in the first place.
Even as so many will cite that 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers, a closer view of those numbers suggest that very often there are two parents present in the household and even when that isn't the case, both parents continue to see themselves as co-parents. The genius of black survival in this country, whether during chattel slavery or the economic crisis of today, has been their willingness, time and time again, to re-interpret doctrine -- whether legal or biblical -- in ways that best served their humanity, and ultimately the humanity of the nation.
Jumping the Broom was one of the best examples of blacks to buck the status quo in the pursuit of what was right -- to make a way out of no way. In legalizing same-sex marriage, New York State has also done the right thing and will allow many more to jump the broom into full equality.
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Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press). He is professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and the host of the Weekly Webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

Prioritizing (Or Not) Diversity In Newsrooms

Tell Me More with Michel Martin | NPR
Prioritizing (Or Not) Diversity In Newsrooms
The Census estimates people of color comprise a third of the U.S. population now, and nearly half in 2050 if trends continue. But newsrooms don't show similar representation. Michel Martin explores this issue with members of CNN, Racialious.com, Journal-isms and the NABJ. Also, the NABJ's latest survey finds minorities are only 12 percent of news managers.

WUNC's The State of Things: Meet Mark Anthony Neal

WUNC-91.5
The State of Things w/ Frank Stasio

Meet Mark Anthony Neal

Mark Anthony Neal grew up in a home where the record player spun mostly gospel and soul. His father's music selections created the soundtrack of his youth and eventually guided Neal to become a pioneer in the field of pop culture studies. Today he's a professor in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University and the author of five books, including his latest, New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity (Routledge/2005). Neal is also the host of Left of Black , a Web series that examines social issues within the context of African-American culture. He joins host Frank Stasio to talk about pop culture's place in academia and how black intellectualism is received once it steps outside the classroom.
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Jasiri X Returns with "City of Steel"

From Jasiri X :
According to the New Pittsburgh Courier, " The average homicide victim in 2010 was a 33--year-old Black male with four prior arrests, most likely shot on the North Side, in the Hill District or the East End with a 9mm semi-automatic pistol in the early morning hours of a Saturday in July. The average shooter was a 29-year-old Black male with four prior arrests. The motive was likely retaliation. And according to the clearance-rate data, there is a 46 percent chance that he is still at large ."
This is why we decided to dedicate our latest video to the problem of violence in our community.
"City of Steel" was filmed on Pittsburgh's Northside at, Northview Heights housing project, Allegheny County General Hospital, Zone No.1 Police Station, Union Dale Cemetery, and the newly reopened state prison, SCI Pittsburgh.
"City of Steel" was produced by Rel!g!on and directed by Paradise Gray.
This is the third video, in the four video series entitled "The Pittsburgh Press", which was made possible by a generous Seed Award from the Sprout Fund.

LYRICS
In Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each dayYou're either fiending or you're tryin to be the Kingpin
In the late hours thugs dream to take powerbaked powder cocaine entry in the dope gameX or the Big H reps come from big weightyou can catch a big break graduate to biggateyou can catch a big case graduate to triple maxaffidavits, eye witness, warrants for official tapslegal fees cripple stacks, ya funds is limpingwith your money on crutches you can't run from prisonnow it got ya gums itching, now you've begun snitchingsaying you've become Christian no more drugs and womenbut the press leaked ya name so 44 guns is spittingno more tongues is flipping you got slugs in ya systemain't no happy endings in this coke operajust broke coppers and dope poppers, bodies found in coat lockershope nada you'll get ya folk shot uponly guarantee is they'll be another boat with product, here
In Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each dayYou're either a customer or hustler
In Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each dayYou're either fiending or you're tryin to be the Kingpin
In the early morning when ya barely yawningthugs is carry on and what they carry is long andsound like cherry bombs and will cherry ya garment andbury ya squadronfor that cash stash that's buried in your apartmentbe wary of a cartridgethat's loaded and fired by legendary marksmendead on with dead eyes dead weight cause dead guys'don't tell the Feds lies therefore the lead fliesIn Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each daywe stay on the fast lane of the freewayeach day's a replay no room for delayhe say she say he spray she layon the pavement she's going away withher virginity in tack because she said she'd save ittill the day she got married but that day will never comecause she died at 16 so she'll stay forever young, here
In Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each dayYou're either a customer or hustler
In Pittsburgh PA you'll get served each dayYou're either fiending or you're tryin to be the Kingpin