Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 456

Thelma Golden on The Studio Museum & Post-Black Artists @ Crystal Bridges

'Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem discusses her inspirational career and ideas about how art can influence cultural change. Introduced by curator Lauren Haynes, this discussion will explore the work of several African American artists, including Betye Saar, Kerry James Marshall, and Julie Mehretu.' -- Crystal Bridges 

What It Means To Be 'Middle-Aged'

'So you’re middle-aged now, but does that mean you’re really a grown-up?  Pamela Druckerman, journalist and Author of four books, including There Are No Grown-Ups: A Midlife Coming-of-Age Story and Beth Teitell, features writer for the Boston Globe discuss What It Means To Be 'Middle-Aged'.'

Meet Vanessa Braxton, the Owner of Black Momma Vodka

'Vanessa Braxton is the CEO and President of Black Momma Vodka and Black Momma Brand. She is also the first African-American woman distiller, master blender, and operator of a nationally distributed vodka in the country, and the owner of the only black-owned tea and beverage manufacturing facility.' -- Black Enterprise

“It don’t change nothin’”: The Return of Queen Sugar by Mark Anthony Neal

“It don’t change nothin’”: The Return of Queen Sugar by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Perhaps no one Queen Sugar character generates as much ambivalence as Kofi Siraboe’s Ralph Angel. This not to dismiss Charley Bordelon’s(Dawn Lyen-Gardner) well-intentioned class anxieties, but rather to acknowledge the real ways that Ralph Angel takes up so much emotional space in series that largely finds resonance in the lives of Black women.  If we are to read OWN’s Queen Sugar more closely alongside the same-titled Natalie Baszile novel that inspired the series, we then realize it is not a dead Ernest Bordelon that spirits the series narrative, but rather Ralph Angel as “duppy trickster” who animates the existential earnestness of the series; Baszile’s Ralph Angel doesn’t survive the novel. Thus when Ralph Angel closes part-one of Queen Sugar’s two-night season-three premiere, with “it don’t change nothin’’ he does so with the gifts of foresight and afterthought that only a ghost can possess.
To be sure, our hearts ache for Ralph Angel on the news that Blue(Ethan Hutchison) is not his biological son – part of that emotional space that we’ve granted Ralph Angel, is not just the idea that he is single Black father, but in his being any Black man being an attentive father; Ralph Angel is the counter embodiment to the Ghost Dads that so many children (even as adults), have had to make unrequited peace with. Ralph Angel is defiant in his claim “it don’t change nothin’”; he’s still gonna be the boy’s father.  But Ralph Angel ain’t just speaking for himself.
ForRutina Wesley’s Nova, who along with Charley’s son Micah, serves as the series’ political consciousness, “it don’t change nothin’” means being identified as a “Black Identity Extremist” – to the chagrin of the newspaper that publishes her words – even as she sits down with a New York publishing house to discuss the possibility of a “six-figure” book deal based on her columns she wrote for her employer.  Nova’s book deal is  jeopardized when she quits the newspaper – over  the gutting of an article about Black youth protest that her editor found too political – and  the newspaper won’t allow the republication of her articles for the book, which only heightens the stakes associated with what Baraka famously theorized as the “changing-same.” For Nova it is a reminder that having a platform for your ideas don’t mean much if you don’t have ownership of those ideas.  What also “don’t change” for Novais the renewable spirit of resistance, exhibited by the quartet of teens that she tried to profile, who take a knee at a high school basketball, replenishing her own spirit in the process.
While Charley has her own struggles with the slipperiness of “Black Owned” in what might be presumed as post-plantation Louisiana – Queen Sugar’s big-story arc of race, land and exploitation – her “it don’t change nothin’” moments coincide with those of her teen-age son Micah (Nicholas L. Ashe), who is trying to triage his relative privilege, his artistic practice as a photographer and the wokeness of the era, which is all too real to him given his own harassment by a police officer. If ‘it don’t change nothin’’ indexes shifting political and cultural terrains in the Trump-era, Charley and her ex-husband Davis hoped to create a level of privilege where Micah could thrive above the fray, only to have the 16-year-old find his passion and duty in the very fray he was raised to be indifferent to.  Indeed, Black Privilege “don’t change nothin’”.
Finally there is Aunt Vi – in a brilliant and sultry performance by Tina Lifford – who is diagnosed with Lupus in the season-two finale.  We find her in season three managing her disease and managing the emotions of the doting, and hovering Hollywood (Omar Dorsey), as she launches her pie company.  When Aunt Vi defiantly proclaims “it’s my time”, it is a symbolic bookend to Ralph Angel’s earlier pronouncement.
At its best Queen Sugar suspends time, forcing thoughtful reflections on the past and strategies for the future, perhaps informed by the wisdom gained by the aforementioned reflections.  In this regard Charley and Ralph Angel are the pivoting counters – as is indeed the case in Baszile’s novel – where in this instance Charley represents long-game, and Ralph Angelis the haunting of the moment.
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Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of African American Studies and Professor of English at Duke University, where he is Chair of the Department of African & African-American Studies.  The author of several books including Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (NYU Press), Neal is the host of the video podcast Left of Black , now in its 8th season.

A Class Debates the Importance of Having Male Teachers

'More than 40 percent of public school students in New York City are boys of color but very few of their teachers look like them. That discrepancy is one reason Aaron Harris is a teacher.   As an African-American male teacher, Harris said he wants to be a mentor to students in his English classes at the High School for Public Service: Heroes of Tomorrow. To do that, he needed a mentor, and that's why he joined NYC Men Teach last year. "It's been the most integral part of why I'm still teaching,” he said.' -- WNYC News
         
        

A Reckoning in Puerto Rico, Eight Months After Maria

'Eight months after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico, a sense of where the island is today from a radio host and a psychologist. A survey of surviving residents on the island, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that more than 4,600 Puerto Ricans may have perished due to the hurricane.' --The Takeaway

Driven Into Debt: Melissa Sanchez of ProPublica Discusses How Ticket Debt Affects Black People

'The ProPublica Illinois series "Driven Into Debt" examines how ticket debt affects the working poor, particularly Black people and opens the door to spiraling fines, fees and tough punishments from the city and State that don't allow them to make progress on repaying the debt. Reporter Melissa Sanchez spoke with Jill Hopkins to unpack the bureaucracy of parking tickets.' -- vocalo 

This Society is Not Holding Together: Historian Steve Fraser on 'Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion'

'Historian Steve Fraser explains why the mass delusion of class denialism in post-WWII America blinds us to the deepening economic inequalities in our daily lives and robs us of the words and ideas necessary to challenge the political elites that are very aware of the class divide - and doing their best to stay on the other side.  Fraser is author of Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion from Yale University Press.' -- This is Hell! 

The MusiQology Podcast Episode 5 – Lee Mo

'Rising star of Philly’s contemporary jazz scene Lee Mo sits down in the studio with Guthrie Ramsey, host of the MusiQology Podcast . She discusses the influence of the church on her musical history, coming of age in Temple University’s jazz scene and picking up a horn, and experiencing music’s ability to create social bonds.' -- MusiQology 

Author Austin Channing Brown Discusses Black Dignity, Inclusion and Her New Book "I'm Still Here"

'In her new book, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, author Austin Channing Brown gives a sobering account of growing up Black, Christian, and female in middle-class White America. Her book chronicles her journey navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert who helps organizations practice genuine inclusion. Jesse Menendez spoke with Brown about her book, finding her Blackness, and the empty use of buzz words like reconciliation and diversity.' -- vocalo