Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 260

Domestic Violence, Race, Class and the Edge of Carceral Feminism

'Law scholar Aya Gruber examines the intersection of gender crime and criminal law in the mass incarceration era - and explains how 'tough on crime' policies towards domestic violence expanded the policing, surveillance and punishment of marginalized communities, amplifying the harm faced by victims and their families. Gruber is author of the book The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women's Liberation in Mass Incarceration from University of California Press.' -- This is Hell!

This is Hell! · Domestic violence, race, class and the edge of carceral feminism.

Left of Black S11 · E9 | André Brock, Jr. Discusses African American Cybercultures on the Web

How do Black people show up online? And how does that digital presence contribute to vital conversations that, many times, can only happen in a virtual space? André Brock, Jr., Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, joins Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal to talk about how African Americans infuse Blackness into the digital spaces they occupy to deal with an increasingly polarizing, and hostile, social and political climate. The pair discussed Prof. Brock's latest book, the acclaimed Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (NYU Press).

The Quarantine Tapes 145: Natasha Trethewey

'Guest host Eddie Glaude is joined by poet Natasha Trethewey on episode 145 of The Quarantine Tapes. Natasha’s most recent book is her memoir, Memorial Drive. In their conversation, Eddie asks her about the process of writing and releasing that book into this moment of political and social reckoning. Natasha offers a deep look at her process of crafting this book in an emotional and thoughtful episode. She talks about why she found it so important to tell her mother’s story in this book and how she took control of that narrative in her writing process. Eddie and Natasha’s conversation is warm, familiar, and wide-reaching, ranging from comparing gumbo recipes to parsing the role of silence in writing.'

Lawyer Brittany Barnett Combats America's 'Huge Crisis' Of Mass Incarceration

'Brittany Barnett works on behalf of people serving harsh sentences as a result of the war on drugs. Nine of her clients have been granted clemency. Her new memoir is A Knock at Midnight.' -- Fresh Air

Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva

'Big Freedia is a 21st Century musical trailblazer from the Dirty South, who emerged from the Bounce music scene in New Orleans and has helped popularize the genre across the country and the world.  Big Freedia joins LA Review of Books co-hosts Eric Newman and Medaya Ocher to discuss her new memoir God Save the Queen Diva; and talk about how she, and dance club culture in general, has responded to the global pandemic.'

LA Review of Books · Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva

Pandemic Relief and the Georgia Elections by Ben Jealous

Pandemic Relief and the Georgia Elections

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

Fair warning: this isn’t a traditional Christmas-week column.

If we think of clarity as a kind of gift, though, we can be grateful that the effort to pass a much-needed COVID-19 relief bill in the waning days of this Congress makes one thing crystal clear: hurting families and small businesses will be abandoned if Republicans keep control of the U.S. Senate by winning Georgia’s January 5 runoff elections.

There is some good news. The $900 billion package includes emergency relief for renters, families, small businesses, and more. That relief, that, includes direct help to individuals, is urgently needed. It will extend some protections against evictions for another month. It will give small business owners a little more breathing space to try to survive the pandemic.

About 12 million unemployed people who were going to be cut off at the end of the year will receive $300 weekly in federal support and an extension of the unemployment assistance program until mid-March.

All this is necessary. But it is a temporary fix that falls far short of addressing the pain people are experiencing and truly setting us on the road to recovery.

Almost 12 million renters will be behind on their rent by an average of almost $6,000 at the end of this month, according to one study. The Census Bureau says that about 29 percent of Black families are behind on rent. Much of the back rent has piled up since unemployment benefits under the CARES Act—the first relief bill—expired during the summer. According to some estimates, as many as 20 million tenants—about the population of Florida—are at risk of eviction.

With a problem that huge, David Dworkin, CEO of the National Housing Conference, told MarketWatch that the bill’s $25 billion in rental assistance is just a band-aid, “a practical start for staving off the immediate threat of mass evictions across the country.”

Because the bill falls short of what is needed, some people are blaming “Congress” generally.

Let’s get real. If congressional Republicans had their way, there would have been no bill—or a far worse one.

Republicans have been resisting a meaningful relief bill for months. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told President Trump not to make a deal with Democratic lawmakers before the election. He tried to hold the current bill hostage to a provision that would make it harder to hold big companies accountable for providing unsafe workplaces. Another Republican senator held up the bill to try to impose restrictions on the Biden administration’s options for encouraging economic recovery.

Look at what the Senate Republicans proposed at the beginning of December. Their plan had no new money for federal employment and a January 31 cutoff for extensions in unemployment insurance.

The Republican plan had zero dollars—zero!—for rental assistance.

The Republican plan had zero dollars—zero!—for direct relief to individuals and families.

The Republican plan had zero dollars—zero!—for the SNAP nutritional assistance program often known as food stamps.

Millions of people will get emergency help because Democratic congressional leaders refused to accept Republicans’ demands.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is famous for using and abusing his power to stop legislation dead in its tracks. I believe there is only one reason he agreed to the compromise: he knew that throwing millions of Americans off unemployment and out of their homes just before Christmas would have encouraged Georgia voters to make sure that Republicans and McConnell don’t hang onto power in the next Senate. But Georgia voters are smarter than that and will see through Mitch McConnell’s schemes.

President-elect Joe Biden, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and Democratic congressional leaders know that much more is needed to help Americans get through the current economic crisis. They’ll only be able to give Americans what we need if we give them what they need—victory in the Georgia Senate races and a Democratically-controlled Senate.

 

So, try to find some time this holiday season to join one of the many efforts that are encouraging Black voters in Georgia to show up for the Senate runoff elections the way they did in November. It’s not very often that voters have a chance to shift the direction of the country twice in just two months. Let’s make it happen.

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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.

Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha On 'Sylvie's Love"

'Actors Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha, the stars of Sylvie's Love talk about Black man vulnerability, not having to choose as a woman, and more.' -- VIBE Magazine

Louder Than A Riot: Making Revolution Irresistible

'Yo Gotti grew up in Memphis just across the state line from Mississippi State Penitentiary (aka Parchman) — so this year, when he learned about the squalor its inmates were living in, he wanted to help. Gotti enlisted Jay-Z and Roc Nation to sue the department of corrections for human rights violations. In our finale episode, Louder Than A Riot ask how much celebrity activism really helps the prison reform movement, and sit down with rapper Noname and organizer Mariame Kaba to consider the alternate solutions proposed by prison abolition.'

In 'Soul,' Jon Batiste's Music Helps Bring Pixar's First Black Lead To Life

'Pixar's new animated film Soul is the story of Joe Gardner, a middle school school music teacher with big dreams about performing jazz onstage. "Music is all I think about, from the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I fall asleep at night," he says. "I was born to play." "Born to Play" is the name of one of the movie's many songs composed, arranged and performed by real-life musician, Jon Batiste. He was one of several of the animated film's musical consultants, who also included Herbie Hancock, Daveed Diggs and Questlove.'  -- Morning Edition

The Quarantine Tapes 137: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

 

'Host Paul Holdengräber is joined by writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o on episode 137 of The Quarantine Tapes. A celebrated author of novels, plays, essays, and more, Ngũgĩ talks with Paul about how the themes of his most recent book, The Perfect Nine, resonate in this moment. Ngũgĩ tells stories of meeting Langston Hughes as a young man before unpacking his own theories about what makes a truly good storyteller. In a thoughtful and wide-reaching conversation, he and Paul dig into questions of the oral tradition of literature, the value of multilingualism, and how colonizing powers leverage language and memory to suppress the colonized.'