Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 241

Leroy Moore, Krip Hop Nation and the Politics of the Paralympics

"On this episode of Edge of Sports, host Dave Zirin speaks with Leroy Moore, one of the founders of the hip hop organization, Krip Hop Nation about the Paralympics. Edge of Sports also talks to Moore about his love of Hip-Hop, his favorite artists, and growing up in New York City during the birth of the music genre."

Edge of Sports · Leroy Moore, Krip Hop Nation and the Politics of the Paralympics

The Quarantine Tapes 165: Sanford Biggers

"On episode 165 of The Quarantine Tapes, guest host Imani Perry is joined by Sanford Biggers. Sanford is an artist working across a wide range of disciplines. He talks with Imani about some of his recent work with quilting, describing how he came to that medium and talking about the cultural and historical elements of that work. Imani asks Sanford about his beginnings in art and about the range of his work, from sculpture to music to textiles. Sanford offers a brilliant view into his process as an artist, talking about creating pieces that speak to police brutality, remixing classical European and African art, and the kinship between hip hop and quilting."

'Crusade For Harmony' Surveys The Life Work Of Saxophonist Julius Hemphill

"Julius Hemphill was a founding member and principal composer for the World Saxophone Quartet. The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony features seven discs of newly released music from his archives." -- Fresh Air

The Voice And Spirit Of Bobi Céspedes

"Considered the musical madrina of the Bay Area's Afro-Cuban community, Bobi Céspedes has been practicing her art there in a number of bands and performance settings for over 40 years. Céspedes' recent album, Mujer y Cantante, was recorded with a small group that includes top notch instrumentalists, some of whom are young enough to be her sons. It gives her voice and her spirit a boost of youthful energy, so when I catch up with her from her long-time home in Oakland she is full of energy to share her history and connection to her Afro-Cuban heritage." -- Alt.Latino

Tigress & Tweed: Andra Day Channels Billie Holliday and Angela Davis

In this multivalent performance of the song "Tigress & Tweed" from the film The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Golden Globe winner Andra Day channels Billie Holiday and Angela Davis.

The Quarantine Tapes 163: Alicia Hall Moran

"On episode 163 of The Quarantine Tapes, guest host Imani Perry is joined by Alicia Hall Moran for a two-part episode. Imani and Alicia have a fascinating and wide-reaching conversation about Alicia’s work as an artist and vocalist. Alicia pulls on varied threads of history and music in their discussion about art, family history, and collaboration. She tells Imani about her Black Wall Street project, discussing the project’s connections to her father and her family. Ranging from Carmen to Roots to figure skating, Imani and Alicia’s conversation is an incredible and insightful look at everything that surrounds the work of making art."

Women’s History Month Is the Right Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

Women’s History Month Is the Right Time to Raise the Minimum Wage

by Ben Jealous | @BenJealous | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

 

It is time for a maximum push for a new minimum wage.  

 

The federal minimum wage has not budged for more than a decade. But the cost of living keeps rising. So, low-income people fall further and further behind. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift millions of working people out of poverty. This is especially true for families headed by women, especially Black women, who are disproportionately clustered in minimum-wage jobs. 

 

It would make a big dent in the income and wealth gaps that make Black Americans poorer and their families more vulnerable. And it would help right something that is seriously wrong with our economy, which keeps pushing a greater share of the country’s overall wealth to the tiny percentage of the most ridiculously rich people at the very top. 

 

This is a moral question as well as an economic one. 

 

If the minimum wage had kept up with the rise in workers’ productivity over the years, it would now be closer to $25 an hour. But it didn’t. 

 

In other words, as a society, we have been effectively stealing from the people who already have the least. 

 

So this is about justice. And it is specifically about racial justice. 

 

According to congressional testimony from the Economic Policy Institute last month, “Due to the impacts of structural racism and sexism, women and Black and Hispanic men are concentrated in low-wage jobs” and would greatly benefit from a higher minimum wage. 

 

A higher percentage of Black women are full-time minimum wage workers than any other racial group. More than one-third of Black women have been in frontline jobs during the pandemic, where they are still paid less than white men.

 

This is about the health of our children and families. About 80 percent of Black women are sole, primary, or co-breadwinners for their households. Bringing home a few thousand more dollars per year could be transformative for low-income families. 

 

When he was campaigning, President Joe Biden told voters that he supported a $15 minimum wage. House Democrats included it in their most recent COVID relief bill. But because of an interpretation of Senate rules, the minimum wage may not be included in the final bill. 

 

That cannot be the final word. The administration must put its weight behind the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, which would get us to a $15 minimum by 2025. 

 

For congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration, fighting for a $15 minimum wage is a place where moral obligation and political interests intersect. 

 

Biden and Democrats campaigned on a $15 minimum. And they are in the White House with a Senate majority because Black women organized and turned out the vote. 

 

Rev. William Barber recently reminded us that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a $2 an hour minimum wage almost 60 years ago. That would be over $15 today if it kept up with inflation. 

 

King talked about racial equality as an unfulfilled promise from the nation’s Founding Fathers.  Democrats cannot let a living wage remain an unfulfilled promise to Black Americans.  

 

***

 

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

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Eddie Murphy: 'Laugh 'Til It Hurts' (Official Trailer)

"From producers Dana Webber and Brian Aebech, Legacy Distribution is proud to present the feature length biography, Eddie Murphy: Laugh 'Til It Hurts. Almost six decades later Eddie Murphy remains loved by fans for his infectious smile and goofy laugh. Learn about many challenges Eddie is faced with along his way to stardom as Eddie continues to make his fans Laugh 'Til it Hurts."

Coming 2 America: The Princess Remix by Stephane Dunn

Coming 2 America: The Princess Remix 

by Stephane Dunn | @DrStephaneDunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

 

So, here’s the thing, movie magic can strike twice, but it’s rare. If an original movie achieves cult-like affection and fame, any sequel is burdened with being the follow up expected to recapture the charm of the first yet stand uniquely on its own. This is what Coming 2 America (2021)directed by Craig Brewer with several screenwriters, including Kenya Barris (Blackish) as well as original Coming to America writers David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein, confronts thirty-three years after its 1988 predecessor.  The original became an instant classic, starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Sharie Headley, James Earl Jones, John Amos, and Madge Sinclair. Murphy understood this hence some of his reluctance to consent to doing a sequel before now.

 

It’s likely that a few unspoken dynamics came to bear in the remake decision, including the times. In those thirty years, we finally saw a Black Panther movie, a box office juggernaut that put the fictional, self-sufficient wealthy African nation [Wakanda], Afrocentrism, and the complicated ties between the African world and Black America center stage. On its heels several years later came Covid and Black Lives Matter protests in the streets. 

 

The relief of the Coming 2 America sequel rumor and anticipation comes after a defining 2020 year of reckoning and a vastly different entertainment scene. We don’t have big movie premieres at theatres where we sit elbow to elbow, hoping in unison before the first scene rolls, and when it’s over, exhaling together, exhilarated or deflated, as we compare notes with people we know, and some strangers made less so through the shared experience.  

 

At home as the credits came on, I received a flurry of phone texts asking, which do you think is better, the first Coming to America or the sequel? It isn’t as straightforward as the question might suggest; the original had that charm – character chemistry, fun, romance, and hilarious comedy in the midst of its more problematic implications with patriarchy in Queens, NY and Zamunda. Coming 2 America in 2021 is consciously aware of this and intentionally attempts a progressive take. A desperate Prince turned King Akeem returns to America for a “bastard” [his word] son, Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler) to anoint as his future heir to the throne while ignoring his more than capable and wise eldest daughter Princess Meeka (KiKi Layne). We see the influence of the exciting women generals in Black Panther as she and her two younger sister princesses are introduced as outspoken, skilled martial arts warriors.   

 

The long-awaited sequel is undermined by the “A” story direction instead of a more visionary one that could have reinvigorated the magic and made it uniquely distinctive and memorable. When his father King Jaffa (James Earl Jones) laments his impending death with Prince Akeem having only daughters and no grandson to someday rule, he reveals that Prince Akeem has a son in Queens conceived while he was drugged in a one-night stand. Now at the risk of being a downer, is it okay to trivialize crossing the line between sexual assault and consent because it’s the guy whose taken advantage of in a scene intended as a hilarious flashback?

 

What follows is a drive-by quick repeat of Prince Akeem’s original story. His newly discovered son falls in love with the wrong right woman, his Zamundian barber Miremba (Nomzamo Mbatha), after agreeing to marry the live-to-please-her-husband royal daughter of a warring Zumanda neighbor, King Izzi (Wesley Snipes). The romance of Lavelle and Mirembe doesn’t get the cute enough dance towards their falling for each other that in turn makes us fall in love with them as we do with Lisa and Akeem in the original. 

 

The sequel unnecessarily recycles the original plot with a Black Panther-esque note or two, [undiscovered Black American kin returns as misfit heir to the throne] when it could have easily taken the fresher direction and allowed the story to be the eldest daughter’s quest. I evaded the text questions about the new Coming 2 America versus the original and indulged in some fantasy story revision. After all, I was at home in pajamas on the couch, so this stood in for after movie chatter at the theatre.

 

What if Meeka, amply played by an arresting Layne, rebelled against the gender status quo? Fed up with her father’s adherence to Zumanda’s archaic law that only men can rule, she takes off for America inspired by her father King Akeem’s journey. Only her quest isn’t for a groom. She seeks freedom from such restrictive patriarchal boundaries and the realization of her ambition and leadership skills. 

 

And yeah, what if she unexpectedly found love too [it is a romantic comedy] while kicking sexism’s butt in America some too along the way then returned triumphantly to Zamunda to save her country by kicking King Izzi’s butt literally and negotiating like a chess master? 

 

Just fantasizing mind you, but imagine Leslie Jones, who provides most of what feels like fresher moments of humor, let loose as a self-made, still raunchy, liberated Queens ally to Meeka instead of Lavelle’s baby mama and back-in-the-day “ho” [film’s word not mine]? 

 

It’s still an exciting deal anticipating a who’s who Black cast assembled on screen as we get with Snipes, Morgan Freeman, Tracey Morgan, Jones, John Amos and Murphy himself, etc., and the sequel need not upset our nostalgic love for the original film. Coming to America tapped into our cinematic yearnings in the late 80s just four years before the Rodney King beating came to define another turbulent decade of racism and violence. 

 

Movie sequels stand in part on their own or not despite, and because of the historical weight and the unique historical period in which they are released. I wouldn’t and can’t presume to answer for legions of Coming to America fans which film might rock for them more. Most will watch at home on diverse devices alone or in limited company, a still newish reality for a film that would’ve certainly brought mega lines outside of movie theaters. Coming 2 America coming out right now is more than a return to a cultural phenomena; for many, the remake registers as an even bigger personal thing.

 

***

Stephane Dunnis a writer, filmmaker, and professor. She earned her MA, MFA, and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Her writings appear in Ms., Vogue.com, CNN.com, and others. She speaks frequently about gender and race particularly in film and popular culture. She is the author of the book,  Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films. Her screenplay Chicago ’66 has been selected as the Finish Line Screenwriting competition’s inaugural Tirota Social Impact winner. 

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The New Conversation with Dr. Dwight A. McBride | Ep 2: Darrick Hamilton

  "Darrick Hamilton is The New School's Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and Founding Director of the Institute on Race and Political Economy. Hamilton is considered one of the nation’s foremost scholars, economists, and public intellectuals, and has been involved in crafting policy proposals, such as Baby Bonds and a Federal Job Guarantee."