Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1072

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #10: Bilal feat. Mos Def & Common—"Reminisce"

20 Years in 28 Days: A Marriage in MusicDay #10: Bilal feat Mos Def & Common—"Reminisce"by Mark Anthony Neal
The late Benjamin James Moore (BJ) was a childhood friend and one of my favorite interlocutors on New York City baseball; he was a Yankee fan and I the lifelong Met fan.  Our friendship was forged over hundreds to walks to the Avenue (Tremont), usually to but cigarettes, milk or any assortment of incidentals for our parents.  Two years younger than me, BJ also attended Brooklyn Tech, so at least for my last two years of high school, I didn't make that four hour trek by myself.  BJ also gets, perhaps, the most important hat-tip for what would be the next chapter in my relationship with my future wife.
Though I really wasn't all that interested, it was who BJ kept me reasonably up-to-date with my future wife's life.  More importantly it was through BJ's and his job at the Tower Records on West 4th Street (where I spent many, many hours), that he became aware that Peaches was an undergraduate at NYU.   At some point, I kind of expected to run into her in the store.
Back in NYC for the after four years upstate and still a little loopy after an unexpected break-up, the last person I was thinking about as I walked aimlessly down Broadway past 8th Street headed south, was Peaches; She called out my name. Twice. She recalls not being sure I remembered her; I recall just simply being caught off guard and generally speechless standing in from of the Benetton that was there for years.  A few minutes of quick chatter latter, I made the requisite promise to call and perhaps take her our for a meal.   I literally never thought about that encounter again, thinking there was no way that she was single and available.
Where that Benetton used to be
That chance encounter has become part of the mythology of our relationship, perhaps best captured in Bilal's track "Reminisce" ("Just when I think that I've forgot you/ I hear that dub that we used to rock to/Just When I think I'm gettin' on without you/Somebody Passed and asked me about you").  Few have the opportunity to have a second chance at a first love and to my surprise that chance was set in motion for me.

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #9: Hall & Oates—"Maneater"

20 Years in 28 Days: A Marriage in Music  Day #9: Hall & Oates—"Maneater" by Mark Anthony Neal

When I first saw "Peaches" that 1st day of school in September of 1982, she gave me a look as cold as any that I had ever witnessed.  Years later I would see that look from her, more than a few times, a reminder of what happens when you get on the woman's wrong-side; relieved these days that that look is often reserved for our rambunctious daughters. With the exception of the revelation that a former girlfriend had been threatening her, I am no more clearer in 2011 than I was in 1982 over what had happened over that summer.  The only thing I knew is that it was done.   
With my head still in that pop-top-40 mindset that got me through high-school, Hall and Oates "Maneater," seemed apropos ("the beauty is there, but a beast is in her heart").  I had been a fan of Hall & Oates for sometime initially because of blue-eyed Soul classics like "She's Gone" and "Sarah Smile," but really got turned on to then (via FP's sister) with the release of "Rich Girl."  The group was on a commercial run in the early 1980s with tracks like "Kiss in On My List," "You Make My Dreams," "Private Eyes," and their Black cross-over hit, "I Can't Go for That," which topped the "Hot Soul Singles" and Pop charts in January of 1982.   "Maneater," which would have been on an iPod playlist with Toni Basil's "Oh Mickey," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," The Police's "Spirits in a Material World," Diana Ross's "Muscles" and Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney's "The Girl is Mine" that fall, was the lead single from their 1982 album H2O and the biggest hit of their career.
With graduation looming in the spring, I put my head down and moved on.  Things were softer when we re-connected late in the spring of 1983, shortly before I graduated.  All the things I love about my wife now, were evident in her natural beauty then.  As far as I knew, this was the closing of the chapter in what was always going to be sweet teen-aged romance.  Little did I know, there would be a sequel.

A Bronx Tale: Putting a Context to Failing Schools and Urban Decay

A Bronx Tale:   Putting a Context to Failing Schools and Urban Decay  by Mark Nasion | special to NewBlackMan 
It has become fashionable for the Right Wing of the School Reform Movement, along with some progressives, to argue that failing schools are a major cause of the decay and stagnation in inner city neighborhoods.
As a  historian of the Bronx, who has traced the borough's development from the 1930's through the present, I would like to raise a few questions about this formulation, based on important episodes in the Bronx history.
First, when factory owners in the Bronx began closing their operations in 1950's and 1960's, or moving them to other states or other countries, did they do so because the schools of the Bronx were failing and the places they were moving their operations to ( e.g. South Carolina, Alabama,  Haiti, the Dominican Republic)  had  better schools and a better educated labor force?   The resulting job losses devastated the Bronx's economy, but they were the result of factory owners quest for cheaper labor, not for  a better educated labor force.
Second, when banks and insurance companies began redlining the Bronx, and landlords in the borough started burning their buildings to collect insurance money ( a phenomenon which reached epidemic proportions from the late 60's through the late 70's) did they do so because the Bronx public schools were performing poorly or did they do so because the job losses referred to in Question 1 made it difficult for South Bronx tenants to pay their rent?
Third, when the city of New York during the 1975 fiscal crisis, decided to eliminate music programs in the public schools, and shut down the after school centers and night centers which had been fixtures in every public school in the city since the early 1950's, did they do so to punish the public schools for failing to educate their students properly, or because banks refused to lend money to keep the city government afloat unless they made drastic reductions in youth services no longer deemed "essential?"
Fourth, when a crack epidemic swept through the Bronx from the mid 1980's through the mid 1990's, did it do so because the schools were failing to do their job, or because young people in the Bronx gravitated to the underground economy because there were no legal job opportunities available and because youth recreation programs had been devastated by budget cuts?
Presented in chronological order, these were the four great tragedies that led the Bronx, once a place where upwardly mobile Black and Latino families moved to in search of better housing, better schools and safer communities ( from the 1930's through the 1950's) become a international symbol of urban decay and urban violence.
Can anyone seriously argue that" failing schools" were the major cause for this chain of disasters, or were  the causes to be found in global movements of capital,  investment decisions by banks, landlords and local businesses, and government policies that took resources and services out of Bronx neighborhoods and Bronx institutions, including public schools.
***
Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930's to the 1960's.

Yao Ming's Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities

Yao Ming's Exit: Globalization and All Its Possibilities by David J. Leonard | Special to NewBlackMan
Yao Ming is reportedly retiring from the NBA.  A player of immense talent and potential, his career for some will be a disappointment.  While debating his on-the-court successes, whether or not he is a hall-of-famer, and the large basketball significance are interesting, I think his retirement should elicit thought and reflection about the globalization of the NBA.  His importance to the game, in global sports marketing, and in terms of larger social forces transcend the game and that has always been the case.  In 2003, when Yao's statistics were pedestrian at best, I wrote in Colorlines about the larger significance of his arrival to the NBA.
The star power of Yao Ming is not the result of his extraordinary stats for the Houston Rockets. He averages a respectable 13 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. The flurry of magazine covers, billboards, and television commercials featuring Yao reflect the desires of American and Chinese companies to cash in on Yao's popularity. Beyond the efforts to sell basketball to more than 2 billion Chinese nationals, the NBA hopes to capitalize on the sudden explosion in ticket sales to the Asian American market. Asian Americans buying group packages for Rockets games represent 11 percent of the buying public, 10 percent more than last year. In cities across America, Yao attracts fans to the Rockets' away games to such an extent that a number of stadiums, in places like Detroit, Boston, and Oakland, have offered special "Asian American nights." When the Rockets played the Golden State Warriors this spring, the Oakland arena announced parts of the game in Mandarin. Rockets' coach Rudy Tomjanovich frequently boasts of Yao 's importance in bridging cultural and political gaps. In other words, Yao is presumably schooling America about Chinese culture and history.
Since 2003, Yao Ming's economic, social, and cultural importance has increased tenfold.  According to a 2007 study, 89 percent of Chinese between the ages of 15 and 54 were "aware of the NBA," with 70 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 24 describing themselves as fans.  More recent numbers show a game increasing in popularity, despite Yao's diminished presence.  On average, NBA games (despite being aired early in the morning) deliver 558,100 viewers; NBA.com/China generates roughly 12 million hits per day. A two billion dollar market, China has proven to be immensely important to the NBA's global expansion and its overall financial success. 
While the immense fanfare directed at NBA stars is partially a result of the emergence of Yao Ming within the NBA, American players have, in recent years, generated equal, if not more, popularity.  For example, Yao Ming, whose jersey ranked as the sixth most popular in 2007, had dropped into tenth by 2008 even behind the likes of Gilbert Arenas.  However, their successes aren't detached from Yao's cultural importance.  The popularity of players like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James is partially the result of the doors opened by Yao Ming. 
Yet, the arrival of Yao Ming, and the overall popularity of the NBA within China hasn't been an organic process but has been the result of a systematic effort and investment from the NBA.  With over 100 employees in China alone, four offices, and access to $250 million dollars, the NBA has made a concerted effort to both attract fans and develop talent there and elsewhere.  Basketball is immensely popular in Latin America (Brazil and Argentina), in Europe, and throughout Africa.  While partially attributable to the success and popularity of NBA stars from those countries, it is many ways the results of the NBA's conscious effort to both cultivate fans and future players.  Take Africa, where in 2010 the NBA expanded there, opening an office in South Africa.  "There is tremendous potential to grow the game in Africa and the opening of an NBA office will help us to expand our business in the region, noted David Stern. "We have conducted Basketball without Borders Africa since 2003 and with a presence on the ground we can enhance our ability to increase our social responsibility efforts and develop more activities to engage our fans."  The arrival of Yao Ming, Omri Casspi (Israel), Nene (Brazil), Manu Ginobli (Argentina), Serge Ibaka (Congo) and countless other players are a testament to the NBA's global investment.
What is important here is that the success of the NBA globally reflects a financial commitment from the league and its teams.    Nate Silver, in his recent column about the financial state of the NBA, notes that while player salaries and revenues (a slight dip) have remained relatively constant since in 1990, the league has seen increased revenues from licensing and media rights, which can be partly attributed to the global success of the game.  More importantly, he notes how the increased expenditures from the NBA has come about because of the investment from the league in new media and global expansion. 
Growth in non-player expenses has outpaced that of salaries, having increased by 13 percent over five years and 43 percent over 10 years. Although some of this undoubtedly reflects sound business ventures, like the league's investments in digital media or efforts to expand the game internationally, they have nevertheless had a reasonably large effect on the league's bottom line. Had non-player expenses been the same in 2009-10 as they were in 1999-2000 (adjusted for inflation), the league would have made a record profit that year.
 In other words, Yao Ming or Dirk's success in the league, the millions of televisions sets around the globe tuning in to watch the NBA each night, or jersey sales in Beijing or Johannesburg, reflects an investment, some of which has paid dividends to date and some of which will certainly pay off into the future. As J.A. Adande argued about Yao's exit from the game: "Maybe it will take 19 years after Yao for his influence to come to fruition the way the Dream Team was reflected in the number of foreigners selected in this year's draft."
The retirement of Yao Ming, thus, highlights the difficulty of the owners' position in that current profit margins reflect a commitment to grow the game (and owner profits) not player salary demands.  Likewise, during this same period, NBA franchises have seen dramatic increases in their overall values (the Washington Wizards were sold for 550 million dollars in 2010, even though Forbes estimated the team to be worth 370 million), which can also be attributed to the global importance of the game.  More consumers equal greater franchise values.  Again, the NBA's investment, which strips away the profit margins in the moment, has bolstered the overall value for individual owners.  Clearly globalization has been good for the NBA and its owners; Yao is but one example and anyone who denies his importance citing his often-hurt feet or unfulfilled potential misses this larger picture.
Yao's retirement also highlights the increasing difficulty facing the NBA because of globalization.  Whereas the NBA hoped to cultivate and capitalize on stars from China, Germany, France, Brazil and elsewhere, it has been African American stars that have captured the hearts and minds of many global fans.  Amid, a lockout the popularity of the NBA stars throughout the world, and the development of the game in a myriad of locations has unwittingly provided a certain amount of leverage for the players.   Following several other lesser-known journeyman players, Deron Williams announced this week that he plans to sign with a team in Turkey if the lockout continues into the season.  He noted the possibility of other player's following suit, including Bryant.  Kobe "could go make more money overseas, I guarantee you. If (European teams) knew he could be there for a full season, or they knew I could be there for a full season, or they knew LeBron James could be there for a full season, they'll pay more money, of course." 
This should be of no surprise to those who witnessed the 2008 Summer Olympics.  While attending a U.S. Women's basketball game, Bryant attempted to move through the crowd to his sea only to find himself amid a sea of cheering fans.  The sight of Bryant, an African-American basketball star, who has experienced ample criticism and media derision during the course of his career, receiving fanfare assumed to be reserved for Chinese athletes was a testament to the popularity of the NBA and its American basketball stars in China.  Similarly, given that exhibition games versus Turkey and Lithuania (in Macau prior to the Beijing Olympics) resulted in sellouts some 1-hour after tickets went on sale, the NBA players, not just the league itself, has tremendous economic prospects in playing overseas.  "The stands during last week's exhibition games in Macau were awash with product," reported Anthony Cotton in The Denver Post.  "The 12-man US team has donned the uniforms the players will wear in the Olympics just three times, but already hundreds of fans were garbed just like Carmelo Anthony and Kobe Bryant – home and away" (2008).  Can you imagine the excitement, and financial possibilities of Bryant and teammates taking a team around China, Asia, or elsewhere to play exhibition games? 
While Yao didn't open these doors per see, he is a reminder that the NBA's popularity throughout the world isn't simply a gain for David Stern, NIKE, and the entire NBA establishment, but the player's themselves, whose power and leverage grows with each player taking their talents to Shanghai, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, or Milan.   

***
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 blogs @ No Tsuris

Happy Birthday Mavis Staples!

An American Classic.

Jeter!

Why I Am Wary of Geoffrey Canada As a Social Commentator

Saturday Edition
Why I am Wary of Geoffrey Canada As a Social Commentator by Mark Naison | Special to NewBlackMan
I have been wary of Geoffrey Canada as a social commentator ever since he published a book called Fist, Knife, Stick, Gun whose first section describes the Morrisania section of the South Bronx in the 1950s and 1960s as a hell hole, a place plagued with violence and negativity. Violence and negativity there certainly was, but there were also great neighborhood sports programs, vibrant churches, great music and arts programs in the public schools, and many mentors and "old heads" who helped guide young people away from trouble. 
Canada's grim vision of this predominantly Black section of the Bronx, contradicted by literally scores of interviews I did with people who lived in the same community, was a disturbing example of literary "tunnel vision"- an author's propensity to make his personal experience universal. By contrast, read Allen Jones' The Rat That Got Away: a Bronx Memoir , set in South Bronx housing projects and neighborhoods in the same time period, whch recognizes that the same community could contain hustlers, political activists, striving students, gang leaders, protective parents, drug dealers and inspired teachers and mentors.
Today, Canada's seems to apply the same tunnel vision to education when he views failing schools as the bane of struggling neighborhoods and says that private business would never tolerate such failures. But such a comment could only be made by someone who doesn't examine the role of the private sector in America's inner city neighborhoods, which was to shut down operations, and move out when neighborhood conditions and global economic trends made them unprofitable. 
While public schools in these communities remained open, factories shut own, banks closed their doors, insurance companies and banks redlined the areas, landlords abandoned and burned properties, and whole business districts disappeared. In many cases, it was neighborhood public schools, hardpressed and occasionally disorderly as they were ( read Janet Mayer's wonderful book As Bad As They Say: Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx ) were the one place where young people could find support and inspiration when they were abanoned by private capital, and savaged by government cutbacks.
To now hold these very same public schools up to scrutiny as failures in an otherwise successful society can only be done by erasing what has happened in inner city America in the last 40 years. Global economic trends, coupled with government policies which siphoned wealth upward, destabilized and in some instances destroyed inner city neighborhoods, not teachers unions and poorly run public schools.
*** Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham's Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930's to the 1960's.

If Caylee Anthony had been Black, Would You Know Her Name?

If Caylee Anthony Had Been Black, Would You Know Her Name?by Keith L. Alexander | Here's a quiz: Which names do you recognize?
Aja. N'Kiah. Tatianna. Brittany. Caylee.
All five girls, authorities said, were killed by their mothers. Yet it's likely that, besides their family and friends, not many people remember sisters Aja Fogle, 5, N'Kiah Fogle, 6, Tatianna Jacks, 11, and Brittany Jacks, 16. In 2008, when their decaying bodies were found in their mother's Southeast Washington rowhouse, their faces weren't splashed on the covers of magazines, and their deaths weren't the subject of debate on national news programs.
The contrast to the story of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, who also died in 2008, and whose face has graced numerous magazine pages and prime-time television specials, could not be more stark.
Banita Jacks, now 36, the mother of the four girls found dead in Washington, was convicted of her daughters' murders and sentenced to 120 years in prison. Caylee's killer has not been convicted, though prosecutors charged her mother, Casey Anthony, 25, with her daughter's slaying. A Florida jury acquitted her of the murder charge this past week, and she will spend a handful of additional days in prison for lying to the police.
Prior to Jacks's conviction, she was known by few outside Washington. A Google search revealed about 26,000 hits for stories mentioning Jacks, vs. more than 73 million hits, and growing, for Anthony.
How is it that the tragic death of one little girl could attract so much more attention than the tragic deaths of four sisters?
The easy answer is that the disparity in coverage is about race and class. Media critics argue that if Caylee had been black, her disappearance and death would never have received as much attention. There were indeed sharp contrasts: Caylee, white, from a middle-income home in suburban Orlando, in the shadow of Disney World; the Jacks sisters, black, from a lower-income Southeast Washington neighborhood besieged by drugs and crime, just blocks from the Capitol.
Those differences may have played a part, but there were other reasons that Caylee became a household name and Aja and her sisters did not. The way the Anthony case unfolded in the courts — and especially the way the state of Florida handled the prosecution — has a lot to do with the outcry now in the court of public opinion.
Read the Full Essay @

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music | Day #8: Laura Branigan—"Gloria"

20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music Day #8: Laura Branigan—"Gloria"by Mark Anthony Neal
The Butler Houses, named after, Edmund Borgia Butler, a former chairman of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and former Fordham University Law Professor, are comprised of six twenty-one story apartment buildings located between Webster and Park Avenues to the west and east, and 169th and 171st streets to the south and north. Within those six buildings are 1476 apartments with a conservative (in my mind) estimate of 4,357 residents living in those apartments. "Peaches" was one of them.
In the popular parlance of the day, this was Fort Apache, the Bronx, made famous by the "Bronx is Burning" quip by Howard Cosell during a nationally televised baseball game from Yankee Stadium, and the Paul Newman film, Fort Apache. The natives simply called it the South Bronx—and I knew it well, since I was a product of the place, a few years removed. 170th Street & Webster AvenueAs such I, perhaps, understood why "Peaches'" mom was hell bent on keeping her 14-year-old daughter off the streets—there would be no mid-afternoon rendezvous on Lexington Avenue and 86th Street—a neighborhood that would become one of our favorites when we visited New York after we were married—and I, for damn sure, wasn't up for any seek-and-find trips to the Butler Houses. The strange dude on the telephone act wasn't gonna work either—can't call a number that you're not supposed to have, to talk to a girl, who's not supposed to be getting phone calls.
So I was left that summer, working evenings as a stock boy at a Waldbaums in Co-Op City, spending the days playing Strat-o-Matic—like I said I was a major nerd—watching Ryan's Hope and All My Children (it's when my now 29-year addiction to the soap began—still watch it most evenings with the wife)—and listening to 101-WCBS FM and songs like Poco's "Crazy Love," The Climax Blues Band's "I Love You," Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" and Edison Lighthouse's "Love Grows."
The one song that I came to hate that summer was the late Laura Branigan's "Gloria" for all the obvious reasons; it was a reminder of my lost summer. Didn't help that it wasn't a great song, despite being nominated for a Grammy Award in 1983. It would still be some years before I was introduced to another song called "Gloria," this one recorded by Enchantment, an oft-forgotten vocal group, whose "Where Do We Go From Year," is one of the great underrated Soul ballads from the 1970s (s/o to Vaughn Harper). It was that other "Gloria" song by Enchantment that was played on our wedding day.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: So Much for Us to Learn

The Strauss-Kahn case is not about winning or losing, but opening a dialogue on rape, violence and gender.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn: So Much for Us to Learn by Eve Ensler | Huffington Post
The events unfolding in the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF accused of sexually assaulting a hotel chambermaid, are both surprising and surprisingly not surprising. The New York Times first reported claims that there were serious problems with the prosecution relating to the credibility of Strauss-Kahn's accuser, who is originally from Guinea.
On Friday allies of the one-time French presidential hopeful welcomed this speculation, expressing hope for his swift return to the political scene. But the collapse of this case is not the worst thing that could happen: that would be for us all to retreat into our corners, to retrench our polarized positions. What is important is what we learn from this global episode, and what dialogue it leads us to.
This is a stream of the questions running in my head all morning.
How do you fight a rape case if you have lied in your past? How do you fight a rape case if you have been sexually active? How do you fight a rape case as a woman who wants a future in journalism, politics, banking, international affairs? How do you fight a rape case and ever hope to be taken seriously again or be perceived as anything other than a raped victim?
How do you fight a rape case as a woman in places like Congo where there are no real courts and no one is held accountable? How do you fight a rape case as an illegal immigrant with no rights in that country?
How do you fight a rape case if you still believe rape is your fault, if you don't even know what rape is, if you are afraid of upsetting your boyfriend/husband, or afraid of getting him in trouble because he will be more violent to you?
How do we get men to stop raping lesbians or independent or highly sexual women as a "corrective act" rather than addressing the forces and powers they are truly angry at? How do we get men to understand the impact of rape: how the external bruises are internalized and remain for ever?
How do you speak out against rape and not be called a man hater, a gold digger, a slut? How do you convince women to speak out when their character is called into public question?
How do you speak out against incest or childhood sexual abuse if your mother is sleeping with the man who is abusing you, and you know she loves that man or will not believe you?
How do you speak out against the adored, handsome, powerful, charming company president/caring psychotherapist/honored history professor/visionary film director when you risk being despised by those around him? How do you speak out against the charismatic leader of the party or country when to do so jeopardizes the standing of the party, the country itself, and could let the opposition take power?
How do you press charges for sexual harassment and not worry about losing your job, or being seen as weak or unable to protect yourself or hang with the guys and "take a joke".
When do we stop separating how we treat women from our vision of a free, equal, just world -- ie how do you call yourself a socialist, an intellectual, a leader, a freedom fighter, an anti-apartheid, anti-racism, pro-earth champion, and not make honoring women a central part of that equation?
How do we create a real dialogue between men and woman about violence: what it does, how it hurts? How do we stop saying that women who are opposed to violence hate sex? When do we stop seeing them as the same thing?
The DSK scandal has rocked the world: it has brought into question issues of sex, power, race, class and gender. It is not simply a matter of winning or losing this particular case. The stakes are much higher. This case is a defining moment, a signifier of the direction we move in -- towards transformation or more abuse and loss.
This post originally appeared in The Guardian on Friday, July 1st and has been republished in many publications around the world.
*** EVE ENSLER is a Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist. She is the award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues, which has been published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Eve's newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life Of Girls Around The World, was released February 2010 in book form by Random House and made The New York Times Best Seller list.