Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 408

Stacey Abrams: “We Have to Work Harder” Than Those Who Would Suppress the Vote

' Democracy Now recently spoke to Stacey Abrams in Los Angeles, where she was attending the National Day of Racial Healing. “Our responsibility doesn’t end on Election Day,” she said. “The minute the elections are over, the people who won—who did not share our values—are going to be working hard. We have to be working even harder".'

Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. On DNA Testing And Finding His Own Roots

'As host of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. tells celebrities about their family history. He reflects on his own history and some of the more controversial aspects of DNA testing.' -- Fresh Air

A Teen Faces Colorism At School And At Home In 'Genesis Begins Again'

'Thirteen-year-old Genesis keeps a running list of things about herself that she hates — her skin is #95. Debut author Alicia D. Williams says she hopes her book, Genesis Begins Again, will help young people "heal".' -- All Things Considered

Dr. Arabia Mollette: Fibriods - Everything Black Women Need To Know

'Dr. Arabia Mollette explains what fibroids are and how Black women are affected more so by them as well as it's signs and symptoms.' -- MadameNoire

Home Schooling in America: An African-American Family’s Cultural Decision

'Monica Utsey’s sons love to play West African drums and are involved in an African-centered home schooling collective that Utsey helped found to support families of color in Washington, D.C. There, her sons learn about their culture and take classes in traditional academics. They are also involved in their local Boys and Girls Club where they can often be found at the end of the day playing sports and doing other activities. Home school for Utsey is about finding activities and experiences that her children enjoy and building communities around those shared interests. When her youngest son loved playing Minecraft, Utsey found a Minecraft home school and signed him up for classes. She believes children try harder and learn more when they are doing something they love. The Utsey family was profiled as part of an Education Week video series on home schooling families.' -- Education Week 

Joseph Winters: The Sacred Gone Astray: Eliade, Fanon, Wynter, and the Terror of Colonial Settlement

'In this paper, Professor Joseph Winters contributes to discussions around the intersection of religion, race, and coloniality. He shows how a particular conception of the sacred, exemplified in the work of Mircea Eliade, underwrites colonial imaginaries and projects of settlement. While Eliade alludes to the connection between the creation of sacred space and conquest, Sylvia Wynter and Franz Fanon show how constitutive this relationship is for Western Man and modernity. Winters concludes the paper by examining an alternative sense of the sacred—defined by excess and impurity—in the writing of Fanon.' -- Duke Franklin Humanities Institute

Chicago Humanities Festival: Jasmine Nichole Cobb on the Remaking Black Visuality in the Early Nineteenth Century

'In the decades leading up to the end of U.S. slavery, many free Blacks posed for daguerreotypes—a type of very early photograph. These portraits captured their stories and recorded history, served to prepare blacks and whites both for the coming realities of emancipation, and dignified their subjects, particularly by representing Blackness outside the cultural trappings and assumptions of slavery. In Picture Freedom, Duke University Professor Jasmine Nichole Cobb explores these images to trace the emergence of black freedom as an idea and as a visual representation that has always been crucial - if contentious - to establishing selfhood.' -- Chicago Humanities Festival

Student Debt: An American Horror Story

'Michael Hobbes is a reporter for HuffPost and the co-host of “You’re Wrong About,” a podcast that debunks historical and political myths. His article on millennials, “Generation Screwed,” was nominated for a National Magazine Award.' --Big Think

Tech Leader Kimberly Bryant on the Importance of Female Mentorship

'In the third episode of Artsy’s Breaking Glass series, Kimberly Bryant reflects on the challenges she has faced in her own career as a woman of color in STEM, from being one of the only black women in her college engineering courses to gaining the confidence to lead in a male-dominated workforce. Ultimately, she hopes that Black Girls Code will not only equip girls with hands-on experience, but also confidence and bonds of sisterhood—creating a community that will empower the girls to carve out their own spaces in the tech industry. “I want them to understand,” Bryant says, “that they have the right, the power to create the life they want for themselves”.' -- Artsy

Bringing Contemporary Art into the Classroom with Art21 Educators

'Art21 Educators is an intensive, year-long professional development initiative and learning community. The program is designed to support K–12 educators in any subject area who are interested in bringing contemporary art, artists, and themes into classroom teaching and learning.' -- Art21