Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 391

Angela Davis & Barbara Ransby: We Stand with Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Courageous, Bold Black Woman

'Two of the founders of Black Lives Matter, as well as professor Angela Davis and scores of other black women  held a rally on Capitol Hill to defend Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and to urge Congress to censure President Trump for his attacks on her. Omar made history earlier this year when she and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan became the first Muslim women in Congress. She is also the first member of Congress to wear a hijab. Omar, who was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a refugee, has been at the center of numerous right-wing attacks since taking office. Omar recently said death threats against her have spiked in number since President Trump tweeted a video juxtaposing her image with footage of the 9/11 attacks. Democracy Now speaks to the academic and activist Angela Davis, as well as Barbara Ransby, historian, author, activist adviser to the Movement for Black Lives and one of the planners behind Black Women in Defense of Ilhan Omar.'

How a Wealth Gap Contributes to a Privacy Gap

'Facebook is facing scrutiny from countries around the world on its handling of users' personal information, but it's far from the only company that has seen massive data breaches in recent years.  While those sorts of infringements on privacy impact people from all income brackets, poor people tend to face far more severe repercussions, and not only because of the immediate financial costs involved with restoring credit scores and scrubbing personal information from the internet.   Poor people are also more likely to use a mobile phone to access the internet, which tends to mean they give up more information through apps and GPS-locations.  Michele Gilman is a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who has written extensively about how digital privacy falls along economic lines. She joined The Takeaway to explain the added risks for poor people online.'

Episode 4: Accountability? in Capitalism!? w/ Ryan Bowers & Napoleon Wallace of Activest

'On this first episode Black Future Manifest[o] sits down with Napoleon Wallace and Ryan Bowers of Activest, a firm that is leveraging financial markets in order to help drive change within communities across the US. We talk municipal bonds, Black capitalists, and searching for how to be ethical within a capitalist society.'

Left of Black S9:E16: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century with Kehinde Andrews

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan) is joined in the studio by professor Kehinde Andrews (@kehinde_andrews), author of Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century (ZED, 2018), which Afua Hirsch says “takes the concepts that underpin so much of our woolly, contemporary talk about blackness, structural racism, pan-Africanism and – most of all – radicalism, and does the hard, essential work of re-inserting meaning and critique into the debate.” Andrews is a Professor of Black Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University and the Director of the Centre for Critical Social Research.

More Than 'Kind Of Blue': In 1959, A Few Albums Changed Jazz Forever

'Sixty years ago, this month, Miles Davis finished recording Kind of Blue, perhaps his greatest masterpiece and still jazz's bestselling album. But it was not the only milestone recorded that year.John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus all cut timeless classics, which is why many fans hold that 1959 is the greatest year in all of jazz music. There are countless think pieces exploring the idea, a popular new blog devoted to the subject and even a documentary film, 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz.'

Artist Simone Leigh, finally in the spotlight, reflects on her naysayers

'You can't miss the work of artist Simone Leigh in New York this month. Her solo show just opened at one of the city's great museums and she's also the inaugural sculptor for a massive display space on the city's popular High Line park. Those are just some of the accomplishments that have earned her growing recognition as an emerging force in the art world. Anthony Mason reports.' -- CBS This Morning 

S2*E2 | Professional Black Girl CASEY FERRAND

'Casey Ferrand. Journalist. Executive Producer. An aspiring (Author). Wakandan Goddess. Professional Black Girl.' -- Yaba Blay

The Debate Over Felon Disenfranchisement

'Imagine being an American citizen and not being allowed to vote. That’s the reality for thousands of incarcerated men and women around the country, and the 2020 Democratic candidates have been weighing in. There is some disagreement among them about who can vote from prison, but in at least 10 states, thousands of formerly incarcerated people who have already served their time are still unable to vote. Sean Morales-Doyle is Counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, specializing in voting rights. He joins The Takeaway for a look at the national landscape of felony disenfranchisement today, and why this topic is back front and center.'

Damon Young & Kiese Laymon: The "Good Dude" Closet

'Writers Damon Young and Kiese Laymon both are on book tour, promoting their acclaimed memoirs. And while they've been friends via social media for years, they'd never met face to face before recording a conversation for Death, Sex & Money . The two sat down together to talk about basketball and body image, money anxieties, and why being a "good dude" might be more about fear than anything else.' -- Death, Sex & Money 

Special Sauce: Kwame Onwuachi's Journey From Setbacks to Success Story

'This week's Special Sauce guest, chef-restaurateur (Kith/Kin in Washington, DC) and memoirist ( Notes From a Young Black Chef ) Kwame Onwuachi, has led an interesting life, to say the least. How interesting? By the time he was 21, the now-29-year-old had already started a catering business and cooked on a ship cleaning up oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico—all after discarding a previous life that included membership in a gang and selling "nutcrackers," or homemade alcoholic punch, on the streets in the Bronx.' --
SeriousEats