Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 389

Hill Harper Wants To Increase Financial Literacy In Schools

'Hill Harper talks about Experian's "Boost America" Campaign and preaches the importance of better integrating finance courses in the American school system.' -- BUILD Series

Who Sent Chicago Reporter Jim DeRogatis the Original R. Kelly Tape

In a discussion about Black music and fear, music journalist Jim DeRogatis and Mark Anthony Neal, chair of the Duke Department of African & African American Studies how he anonymously received the infamous R Kelly sex tape. The event was held in Sept 2018 for Chicago Duke alums and was co-sponsored by the Duke Alumni Association.  DeRogatis's book Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly will be published in June of 2019.

Trailer: 'Making Sweet Tea' -- a Feature Length Documentary about the Lives and Loves of Southern Gay Black Men

 'Making Sweet Tea is a documentary film that chronicles the journey of southern-born, Black gay researcher and performer, E. Patrick Johnson, as he travels home to North Carolina to come to terms with his past, and to Georgia, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. to reconnect with six black gay men he interviewed for the book, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South—An Oral History. Johnson transformed that book into several staged plays over the course of a decade. The film combines documentary moments from the men’s lives a decade after the publication of the book and from Johnson’s life, depicting both how the men have changed and been changed by the book and play. The film also covers the complexities of Johnson’s relationships with the men, with his family, and with his hometown in western North Carolina, and is done in collaboration with anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, John L. Jackson, Jr.'
Making Sweet Tea (Trailer) from Sweet Tea on Vimeo.

Meshell Ndegeocello Talks James Baldwin and Her Career

'10-time Grammy nominee Meshell Ndegeocello talks about James Baldwin and her career with All of It's Alison Stewart.'
         
        

Liz Johnson Artur Creates Black Visual Community with "Dusha"

'"I think there's a part in you, when you never had things, that you don't want to show that you need," says Russian Ghanaian artist and photographer Liz Johnson Artur, who spoke with WNYC's cultural critic Rebecca Carroll about her first solo exhibition,"Dusha." The show, which opened at the Brooklyn Museum last week, features a wide array of images — black-and-white video, sound installation, photographs, sketches and portraits — all focusing on people and scenes from within the African diaspora.' --  WNYC News
         
        

Giving Birth While Black

'A Black woman in America is three to four times more likely to die than a white woman during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the year after the baby's born, according to the Centers for Disease Control. As more and more Black women share their near death experiences while giving birth, including world tennis champion Serena Williams, we see this reality affecting black woman regardless of education or wealth. So what are Black women supposed to do with this information as they think about pregnancy? And what’s being done in the medical field to change it? In a deeply personal search for answers, producer Veralyn Williams talks with celebrated author Tressie McMillan Cottom, with Black women in her own life including her friend, Leeann Rizk, Associate Director of Community Organizing at Planned Parenthood (pictured above), and with Doctor Deborah Cohan, a white OB-GYN from the Bay Area who is confronting her own implicit bias. ' -- The Stakes

Historian Donna Murch on The Opioid Crisis, the Drug War and the Business of Racial Capitalism

'Historian Donna Murch traces the racial divide between the opioid crisis and the drug war - as the pharmaceutical industry aggressively pushed opioids to a 'new class' of White consumers in a deregulated market, the logic of racial capitalism presided over a segregated system of licit and illicit narcotics that swallowed generations of lives while profiting corporations and the political elite. Murch wrote the article "How Race Made the Opioid Crisis" for Boston Review.' -- This is Hell!

"I was blind, but now I see!": Talking Aretha's 'Amazing Grace'

'Aretha Franklin made you believe you were hearing both heaven and earth. Her voice was not of this world: it was “a gift of God,” people have said. She was the reason women want to sing, said Mary J. Blige, who covered Aretha hits. James Baldwin said the way Aretha sings is “the way I want to write.” Our guest Ed Pavlić calls her voice a Hubble telescope, taking us back to the origin of time and truth. She stands in an improvised church in Watts, Los Angeles in the troubled time of 1972, a shy woman with the blessed assurance that her people—which could mean all of us—needed a song, and a singer. Amazing Grace became the album of her lifetime (and the most popular gospel album ever)—reborn this year, on film, in a new documentary. Guests include Pavlić, Rev. William Barber, Shana Redmond, and Wesley Morris.' -- Radio Open Source 

The Architects of Illmatic: DJ Premier

"Not the one that's on the album. The one on the album is a remix." During the making of Illmatic, DJ Premier made one version of "Represent," then he heard what L.E.S. and Q-Tip did on "Life's a B*tch" and "One Love" respectively. It sent him right back into the lab." -- Mass Appeal

Black Women and the #MeToo Movement

'Black women have played prominent roles in responding to sexual harassment, yet their experiences are regularly relegated to the sidelines, delegitimized, and dismissed. Panelists will examine how race influences which sexual abusers do and don’t face consequences for their misdeeds. They will compare the outrage about Harvey Weinstein, whose victims were primarily white, with the relative indifference toward R. Kelly, whose victims are primarily black. Panelists are Kenyette Tisha Barnes, Stephanie Jones-Rogers, Rashida Jones, Dee Barnes, Jamilah Lemieux, and Beverly Johnson. Moderated by Kimberlé Crenshaw.' -- Hammer Museum