Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 488

Nnedi Okorafor: "My science fiction has different ancestors -- African ones"

'"My science fiction has different ancestors -- African ones," says writer Nnedi Okorafor. In between excerpts from her "Binti" series and her novel "Lagoon," Okorafor discusses the inspiration and roots of her work -- and how she opens strange doors through her Afrofuturist writing.' -- TEDGlobal 2017

“I’m the Head the Nigger in Charge…”: The Legacy of Robert Guillaume

“I’m the Head the Nigger in Charge…”: The Legacy of Robert Guillaumeby Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The above quote is taken from the film Lean On Me (1989), a biopic of New Jersey educator Joe “bat man” Clark. Ostensibly a star turn for Morgan Freeman -- released shortly before his breakthrough in Driving Miss Daisy -- it was Robert Guillaume, as  Freeman’s supervisor, who stole the scene with the line “I’m the head nigger in charge.” Guillaume, with his deadpan comedic delivery, made his name stealing such scenes as “Benson DuBois” -- the role he is most remembered for -- in the sitcoms Soap (1977-1979) and Benson (1979-1986).
Though Guillaume’s name evokes origins in some far off French Caribbean island, he was born Robert Williams on November 30, 1927, and by his own definition was  “a bastard, a Catholic, the son of a prostitute, and a product of the poorest slums of St. Louis.” (Guillaume: A Life, 1).  It was in the Catholic church, that the grandmother that raised Guillaume took him regularly, where he realized his initial talent for singing church music. Guillaume’s singing voice would serve him well on Broadway and off in the 1960s, allowed him to attend and drop out of both Saint Louis University and Washington University in St. Louis, and eventually to star in a critically acclaimed stint as the star of The Phantom of the Opera in 1990.
Guillaume was well past thirty when he finally left St. Louis in the late 1950s, leaving behind his estranged wife Marlene and their two young sons Kevin and Jacques, and headed to Cleveland to join the Karamu House theater.  Founded in 1915 as The Playhouse Settlement by Oberlin graduates Russell Jelliffe and Rowena Woodham, and renamed in 1941, Karamu House is one the oldest African American Theaters in the country.  Alumni of Karamu House included veteran actor Bill Cobbs (New Jack City, The Bodyguard, Night at the Museum), Vanessa Bell-Calloway (All My Children, Biker Boyz, Survivor’s Remorse), and Ron O’Neal of Superfly fame.
It was in Cleveland that Robert Williams officially became Robert Guillaume; the late actor recalled in his memoir Guillaume: A Life (with David Ritz), “Robert Williams was too common a name. Besides I knew of several Robert Williamses on death row...Frenchifying Williams into Guillaume was a classy move.” (62)  Guillaume also recalled the advice of Karamu’s stage director Benno Frank who told Black members of the troupe, “White people...may need a method to find their feelings” -- a shot at the method acting techniques of the era -- “You have no such problem.”
When composer and Karamu alumnus Howard A. Roberts, who created the score for Alvin Ailey’s legendary Revelations (1960), came to Cleveland to recruit talent for Free and Easy, a musical about Black jockeys in which Roberts was musical director, Guillaume was ready to go. Guillaume joined a cast that would include actress Beverly Todd (Queen Sugar’s “Mother Brown”) and famed Black hoofer Harold Nicholas.
Settling in New York City with his lover Karin Berg (a devout Catholic, Guillaume remained married to his wife Marlene for another twenty-years), Guillaume would contribute to several theatre productions in the 1960s including Kwamina (1961), Fly, Blackbird (1962), Tambourines to Glory (1963), starring future Oscar winner Lou Gossett, Jr. as lead and based on music from Langston Hughes, and Golden Boy, which starred Sammy Davis, Jr.. Guillaume remembers being somewhat intimidated by Davis -- then at the peak of his powers and popularity -- noting that “Sammy moved in a world that felt too fast, too extravagant, too fabulous to include me. He gave the impression of never sleeping...his partying -- like his performances -- took on a mythic proportions. So I kept my distance.” (84)
Guillaume translated his new found visibility into the role of “Sportin’ Life”, in a European tour of Porgy and Bess, which also allowed him to perform alongside his vocal hero William Warfield, who starred at Porgy. The touring production also allowed Guillaume to reconnect with his sons Kevin and Jacques, who traveled with their father when Porgy and Bess settled in Israel during the summer of 1966.  
Guillaume was well aware that his choice to travel abroad was an effective exile from the political happenings in the streets of America, and ironically a source of tension with his partner Karin Berg, a White woman and Freedom Rider, who was being increasingly politicized by the Civil Rights Movement. Guillaume wrote in his memoir, “I take no pride in confessing to sitting out the great social, political, and moral movement of my time...My actions were centered on myself. I wanted to survive. I wanted to make it; I wanted to work.” (81)
To his point, Guillaume was over 40-year-old when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in April of 1968, and as the 1970s began, he watched his old Karamu running partner Ron O’Neal become a major Hollywood star on the strength of his star-turn in Superfly (1972).  O’Neal’s success was a cautionary tale for Guillaume, as the former’s success betrayed his formidable talents as a classically trained actor and singer; as “Superfly” resonated in the mainstream, few producers and directors took the opportunity to cast O’Neal in serious roles.  It was in the O’Neal directed sequel Superfly T.N.T., that Guillaume made his Hollywood film debut -- playing a seemingly  autobiographical expatriate singer in Rome.
Yet as Blaxploitation-fare like Superfly and Shaft began to wane, it was the television sitcom that began to create opportunities for Black actors and actresses. Guillaume made appearances on  Julia (1968) with Diahann Carroll, Marcus Welby, MD. (1975) and All in the Family.  Guillaume likely caught the attention of the latter show’s producer Norman Lear, during his turn as the star in a revival of Purlie! (based on the Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious), in late 1972.  Lear famously scouted Sherman Helmsley for the future “George Jefferson” who portrayed the character of “Gitlow” in the same production.
With the success of series like Sanford & Son, The Jeffersons, The Flip Wilson Show and Good Times -- shows all driven by comic talents -- Guillaume never felt that television was an option for him.  Guillaume was in fact, back on Broadway, earning a Tony Award nomination in 1977 as “Nathan Detroit” in an all-Black revival of Guys and Dolls, when the opportunity to to star as a butler in a new sitcom presented itself.  
Ironically it was Ron O’Neal, whose own career with shrouded by charges that he undermined Black racial progress by portraying a drug-dealing pimp, who insisted that Guillaume not take a role that was “ a step backwards. Television is still operating in the dark ages of Amos & Andy.” (147).  The series was Soap (1977-1981), which broke new social ground regarding issues of religion, mental health, and homosexuality -- Billy Crystal portrayed mainstream television's first homosexual character in what was his  breakthrough role. Of the character of “Benson,” Guillaume wrote, “For a Black man the material was complex. The character was irreverent.  The question was, how to express such irreverence? In reading the lines, I felt an immediate rapport with this butler called Benson...I saw Benson as Guillaume’s “Benson DuBois” was easily the wisest character on the series -- that was part of the joke -- but also a character with a wealth of empathy, which translated into an Emmy Award in 1979 for the actor.  For Black audiences, the character’s appeal might have been that  he was able to “talk back” in ways that had been denied actual Black domestic workers.  As such “Benson” was an index of changing social opinions regarding race.  
When Guillaume was tabbed to do a spinoff of Soap, simply called Benson, the character’s transition from head of the fictional California Governor’s household, to State Budget director, to Gubernatorial candidate, mirrored the real world politics of Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley’s campaign for Governor of California. Bradley lost the 1982 election by 100,000 votes, and was defeated a second time by then incumbent George Deukmejian, months after Benson left the airwaves. Four years later Douglas Wilder, became the first African-American governor since Reconstruction, when he was elected the 66th governor of the State of Virginia. Guillaume was nominated four times for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, before finally winning in 1985.  For nearly a decade, “Benson DuBois” was in fact, the “Head Nigger in Charge” on mainstream television.
In the 1990s, Guillaume was introduced to a new generation courtesy of his narration on the HBO children’s series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995-1999).  The series, produced by Guillaume’s second wife Donna Brown Guillaume, re-told classic fairytales with multicultural references and representation.  Guillaume was also famously cast as the voice of Rafiki in The Lion King. Guillaume recalled thinking that Disney wanted him to play Mufasa and complained to his agent “why...must a black man always play the monkey?”  When he realized that James Earl Jones was chosen to play the king, he sheepishly told his agent, “I’ll play the monkey.”
The Lion King episode, in many ways encapsulates Guillaume’s career; overshadowed by Louis Gossett during his early years on Broadway, and by his best friend Ron O’Neal during the Blaxploitation-era, and by the likes standup comedians like Flip Wilson, Redd Foxx and Bill Cosby on television, it might be easy to overlook Guillaume’s legacy.  
Yet in a career defined by a dogged determination to breakthrough, Guillaume became a certified star at an age -- 50 -- when most are beginning to see diminishing opportunities. It was such determination that Guillaume put on display in one of his last and most memorable roles, as television producer Isaac Jaffe on the short-lived series Sports Night, which earned Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2000. In a cast that featured actors Josh Charles and Peter Krause (a riff on the classic ESPN pairing of Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick), Felicity Huffman, and Joshua Malina, Guillaume did as he always had: stole scenes.  When Guillaume suffered a stroke midway through the first season -- by then in his early 70s -- not only did the actor return to work, his affliction was written into the storyline.
Robert Guillaume died at age 89 on October 24, 2017. He was survived  by his wife of thirty-plus years Donna Brown Guillaume, three daughters,  Patricia, Melissa and Rachel, and one son, Kevin. His son Jacques preceded him in death in 1990. 
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Mark Anthony Neal been conjuring analog for a digital world for a minute; Check him at @NewBlackMan + @LeftofBlack + BookerBBBrown on the ‘Gram + and the homebase at NewBlackMan (in Exile). 

Sociologist Alex S. Vitale: The Only Way to End Police Abuse is to End the Police

'Sociologist Alex S. Vitale explains why the problems of modern policing - brutality, corruption and impunity - can't be reformed away in a capitalist system with only force to offer the poor and disenfranchised, and how only democratic solutions to address the roots of social problems can deliver a safer, more just society for all its citizens. Vitale is author of The End of Policing from Verso.' -- This is Hell! 

Why All the Black Kids Are Still Sitting Together in the Cafeteria (Q&A With Beverly Daniel Tatum)

'How school leaders should embrace conversations about race and other insights from bestselling author and former Spelman College President Beverly Daniel Tatum.' -- Education Week 

What Communities Lose When There's No Local News

'After the closure of DNAinfo and Gothamist, WNYC's vice president for news examines the state of local reporting and why it's so hard to fund it The closure leaves a void in New York City's news ecosystem, which has drastically changed in the digital age. According to WNYC's Vice President for News  Jim Schachter, when community news sites like these shut down, the community itself suffers.'
         
        

Sickle Cell Patients Endure Discrimination, Poor Care And Shortened Lives

'About 100,000 people in the United States have sickle cell disease, and most of them are African-American. While there is effective care for the disease, it's difficult for patients to obtain.' -- Weekend Edition Saturday

First Person: Queer & Muslim in America

'In season 2 episode 3 of PBS Digital Studios’ First Person, host Tonilyn A. Sideco talks with PhD candidate and queer Muslim activist Eman Abdelhadi about growing up Muslim, finding a community of other queer Muslims, mental illness, rereading her own history and her commitment to her Muslim identity.'

"We've Rendered the Black Subject without a Class" -- Lester Spence on Black Cultural Production

'Lester Spence (Political Science, Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins) discusses contemporary Black cultural production and the general reticence to engage with class.' -- Scholars and Publics

Sampling Philanthropy: 9th Wonder Gifts Music Production Tools To Duke and Other North Carolina Schools

Sampling Philanthropy: 9th Wonder Gifts Music Production Tools To Duke and Other North Carolina Schoolsby Sadé Dinkins | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“When you’re in front of your beat Maschine, there’s nothing but you and the Maschine. It’s a sacred place nobody can get in between,” said Grammy Award-winning producer and African & African American Studies professor Patrick Douthit, also known as 9th Wonder.
He should know. This summer Douthit, who founded Jamla Records, donated several Maschines, a music production tool that facilitates the sampling process used in hip-hop, to Duke Arts.
Scott Lindroth, Vice Provost for the Arts and a music professor, said Douthit’s donation will “contribute to a more expansive range of inquiry linking artistic practice to history and culture” and is the beginning of an auspicious partnership.
Upon completion, Lindroth said the new Rubenstein Arts Center will host Douthit’s Hip-Hop production class and students will be able to access the Maschines in the new space.
“The art of sampling used in the creation of hip-hop and facilitated by Maschines, has opened up new ways music can ‘speak’ across generations. It brought new meanings to ‘old’ work even as it generated new art,” Lindroth said.
Douthit’s courses, which include Hip-Hop Production, Hip-Hop Cinema, and the History of Hip-Hop (co-taught with Mark Anthony Neal) have begun to lay a foundation for the education, appreciation, and fostering of hip-hop on campus. Douthit said the new arts building will provide a space for a more comprehensive hip-hop education, reaching every end of the spectrum, from production to DJing to rhyme structure.
“Just like you need to have a class studying the great poets of the time, you need to have a class studying the great MC’s of the time,” Douthit said.
Maschines are a product of Native Instruments, a leading manufacturer of software and hardware for computer-based audio production and DJing. Native Instruments has a long-standing relationship with Douthit, who praises the tech company for its apt ability to streamline the beat-making process.
Douthit lamented the fact that last year students were unable to take the Maschines to and from class in order to continue their creative streak outside of the classroom. His donation, however, will provide not only that option to foster one’s innovation outside the classroom, but also an additional resource through which students may find that creative escape from the academic rigor of Duke.
“The arts open up your mind and make you not think so much in the box,” Douthit said. “It helps you become imaginative and creative and you’re not so analytical when it comes to things, even with life decisions.”
Douthit is also donating Maschines to his alma mater North Carolina Central University, the Raleigh Boys Club, and the MLK Community Center in his hometown of Winston-Salem.
To quantify the impact of such a donation is a grand task, and one that deserves more qualitative recognition said André Mego, a Duke sophomore, who interns with Jamla Records, and who took Douthit’s hip-hop production class. “It is much deeper than making music. It is about expressing oneself. You look for records that hold the sentiment you have inside you that you want to release and you piece it together either by chops or through a loop in order to express the feelings you hold,” said Mego. “9th’s donation is one that gives me hope for a bigger home for hip-hop at Duke.”

Delivering Hope: The Story of Two Black Midwives in Southern California

'Host Jenn Stanley and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors are joined by Black midwives Racha Tahani Lawler and Debbie Allen to discuss racism in health care and midwifery, and what it means to provide maternity care and support to communities who need it the most.' -- Rewire