Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 461

Left of Black S8:E21: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy

Left of Black S8:E21: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by scholar and author Alisha Gaines, author of Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy (UNC Press, 2017), which Jonathan Holloway describes as “nuanced examination of the many complicated layers that inform the ‘Black experience.” Gaines, who is Associate Professor of English at Florida State University, returned to Duke University, where she earned a Ph.D. in 2009, as part of the Symposium,   Black Women, Black Studies and Knowledge Production . In her book Professor Gaines constructs a unique genealogy of “empathetic racial impersonation” -- White liberals walking in the fantasy of Black skin under the alibi of cross-racial empathy.

Elegy Ending with a Cell Door Closing: A Poem by Dwayne Betts

'Dwayne Betts, a contributor to Caught Podcast, recites "Elegy Ending with a Cell Door Closing." 

Spike Lee, Adam Driver, & John David Washington on 'BlacKkKlansman's' Contemporary Relevance

'BlacKkKlansman director Spike Lee and stars Adam Driver and John David Washington grace this week's cover of THR and join us to talk about their upcoming crime drama about the Klu Klux Klan. Despite being set in the early 70's it still holds tragic relevance to current times. "It's not a relic of the past, this is happening today" says Lee.' 

Guthrie Ramsey,Jr. On The Symbolism In Childish Gambino’s Viral ‘This Is America’ Video

'Donald Glover released a new song and music video “This Is America” under his musical moniker Childish Gambino on Saturday Night Live this weekend — and single-take music video is laden with metaphors about race and gun violence in America. Professor Guthrie Ramsey, Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania breaks it down for Time.'

Helga: A Convesation with National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson

'Author Jacqueline Woodson won the 2014 National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, and this past January began her two-year tenure as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; her latest book Another Brooklyn was a New York Times best-seller. In this conversation, host Helga Davis sits down to talk with Woodson about family – the alternative one she was born into and the one she made for herself. Finding the ones with whom she can connect has been invaluable for her; here she shares how she made her community and how they have influenced her process.'

"Where are the African Gods?": Lyricist Abbey Lincoln’s Words Brought to Life in This Meditative Portrait of Black Masculinity

'A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse video director Khalil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons." -- NOWNESS

MOCA Lecture: Njideka Akunyili Crosby

'MacArthur Foundation Grant Award-winning artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby creates large-scale works that seamlessly intertwine classical modes of painting with drawing, collage, and printmaking. Taking as their subject issues of transnationality, love, and diaspora, the works draw the viewer into interior spaces that are both fictional and rooted in the Nigerian-born, Los Angles-based artist’s experience. Akunyili Crosby speaks about her practice and the site-specific work on view at Grand Avenue, the second in a series of rotating works animating MOCA’s Arata Isozaki-designed facade.' -- MOCA

Changing the Narrative on Black Men and Boys: A Conversation with Dr. Michael A. Lindsey

'On this episode of Black America, host Carol Jenkins is joined by Dr. Michael A. Lindsey, Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University's Silver School of Social Work. Dr. Lindsey discusses the institute's campaign for changing the narrative in which Black men and boys are viewed, poverty and his research related to depression in adolescents.' -- cunytv75

New Portraits of the Black Diaspora From the Schomburg Archives

'Artist Firelei Báez discusses her exhibit “Firelei Báez: Joy Out of Fire,” along with Hallie Ringle, Curatorial Assistant at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Báez' features women whose legacies are preserved and maintained by the archives of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture , reimagining them in conversation through portraits that incorporate archival photographs, notes, diaries, letters, and manuscripts.' --
Midday on WNYC
         
        

Black Lives Matter L.A.'s Dr. Melina Abdullah On the Increasing Police Violence Against Black People

'For this week's installment of our weekly Campaigners for Black Lives series, Dr. Melina Abdullah, a founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, joins us to discuss the increasing assault on Black people and what a multi-faceted resistance might look like.' -- Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod