Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 526

BookTV: Caroline Light on 'Stand Your Ground: A History of America's Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense'

'Caroline Light, director of undergraduate studies in the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Harvard University, offers a critical examination of stand-your-ground laws, now adopted in thirty-three states, and how the gun rights movement has emboldened DIY self-defense. Light is the author of Stand Your Ground: A History of America's Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense .' -- +BookTV   
 

Black Issues Forum: Black Parents on the Challenges of Youth Sports

'Youth sports can bring our children amazing experiences and lifelong friendships, but there are also major obstacles facing student athletes as they navigate the financial and academic strains on their lives. Duke University Head Softball Coach Marissa Young, Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, and parent William Monden share their stories of the world of youth sports. Also, we feature a local training group called D.I.V.E.R.S.E.' -- +Black Issues Forum  

A Dream Arises Anew: on Reparations

Photo: Alice Seeley Harris (1904)A Dream Arises Anew: on Reparationsby Charles Bane, Jr. | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The Pan- African dream of Malcolm X died in a hail of gunfire in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, but his spirit stirs at the talk of reparations, not only for African- Americans but other brethren who endured like Holocausts.
At the Berlin Conference of 1885, Leopold II of Belgium asserted his rights to the Congo, which he named the Free State of the Congo. Until 1908, his overseers and mercenaries murdered or brought disease that destroyed millions. The entire state was effectively enslaved and subject to cruelties that bear comparison to Auschwitz. No region or its men, women and children escaped a daily quota of rubber gathering which left no time for crop gathering or planting. At first, the Congo had exported ivory but with the discovery of rubber Leopold's prospects soared. Villages that fell behind in their assignment of rubber gathering were destroyed. The King of the Belgians became the richest man in Europe and was hailed for his philanthropy at home. No reparations have been made to what is today the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The nightmare of African enslavement in Haiti exceeds the brutality of the Belgian Congo. No effort was made to feed slaves in the sugar cane fields, who were forced to wear tin masks without mouth openings to prevent them from biting the cane. The colony became the richest in the world, but the death rate among slaves was the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Torture was common; many were burned alive or put to death in constant exhibits of psychotic violence.
In 1825, France demanded a "fee" from Haiti, as a condition of independence. In American currency, the amount is equal to $ 20 billion. Haiti paid down the debt until 1947, but demanded it be returned in 2004. France has refused to do so; nor has the issue of reparations been breeched.
Much needs to be done in the U.S., to compensate successive generations of the slaves who enriched our country materially while toiling under terror, and former Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice could be of enormous value in bringing to the United Nations reparations to Black Peoples as an international issue. Such were the honeycombs of Malcolm's dreams.
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Photo: A Congolese looks at the hand and foot of his five year old daughter, her only remains, after her murder for not meeting her daily rubber quota.
Charles Bane, Jr. is an activist and published author.

'New Yorker' Covers More Reflective of The Times

'The New Yorker's cover art has long reflected a cosmopolitan sensibility — but recently, the images have become much more topical, depicting issues the nation is facing like politics, immigration and race.' -- +WNYC 

#EdgeOfSports: ESPN’s Jemele Hill on Hosting SportsCenter and Dealing with Haters

'The co-host of SC6, ESPN's 6 PM SportsCenter show, Jemele Hill joins Edge of Sports host Dave Zirin, to talk about how she and her co-host Michael Smith are reshaping the sports institution, with a little bit of help from Biggie Smalls and amplified by growing up in Detroit.'

#StrangeFruit: What It Means To Be Black + Gay + Christian

'Video of one of Gospel singer Kim Burrell's sermons went viral exposing homophobic sentiments in the Black church.  On this week's episode of #StrangeFruit, Dr. Michael Brandon McCormack, Assistant Professor of Pan-African Studies and Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville, suggests that at the root of some of homophobia in Black congregations lies an old familiar culprit: respectability politics.' -- StrangeFruitPod
 

The Missing Black Girls and Black Women You Don't Hear Much About

'More than 60,000 black women are missing in America. One of the reasons we don’t hear much about that is the media. By some accounts, the press is four times more likely to report when a white person goes missing over someone who is black or brown. With Julia Craven reporter for the Huffington Post; Robert Lowery Jr. vice president of the Missing Children Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; former assistant police chief in St. Louis' northern suburbs, Phylicia Henry director of operations of Courtney's House, an organization that supports sex-trafficked youth between the ages of 12 and 21.'  -- 1A

Left of Black S7:E19: Black Feminist Fugitivity -- Hortense Spillers & Alexis Pauline Gumbs in Conversation

Left of Black S7:E19: Black Feminist Fugitivity -- Hortense Spillers & Alexis Pauline Gumbs in Conversation
On this special episode Left of Black, guest host Alexis Pauline Gumbs is in conversation with foundational Black Feminist Theorist Hortense Spillers. Spillers is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor at Vanderbilt University and the author of Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture (University of Chicago Press, Spring 2003) and the groundbreaking essay "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book". Gumbs is the author of Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity (Duke University Press), co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and the Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, an educational program based in Durham, North Carolina.  Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University and in conjunction with the Center for Arts + Digital Culture + Entrepreneurship (CADCE) and the Duke Council on Race + Ethnicity
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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

The Nasher Museum Presents Nina Chanel Abney--Royal Flush

'The +NasherMuseum presents a short video to accompany Nina Chanel Abney: Royal Flush, the first solo exhibition in a museum for the Chicago-born artist. The exhibition is a 10-year survey of approximately 30 of the artist’s paintings, watercolors and collages. This video captures Abney’s creation of a large wall mural on the entrance wall of the exhibition, commissioned by the Nasher Museum. Abney, born in 1982, is at the forefront of a generation of artists that is unapologetically revitalizing narrative figurative painting, and as a skillful storyteller, she visually articulates the complex social dynamics of contemporary urban life.' 

Precarious Publics: Bianca Williams on "Radical Honesty"-- a Black Feminist Approach to Truth-Telling

'University of Colorado-Boulder Associate Professor of Anthropology Bianca Williams is a teacher/organizer with Black Lives Matter, and a mobilizer for equity within Anthropology. She constantly encounters people’s feelings and the affective stereotypes they bring into a space. Angry Black Woman. White tears. Strong Black Woman. White fragility. Scary Black Man. Contrary to the belief that individuals engage in critical thinking and strategic planning without emotion, Williams contests that feelings and emotions often drive how, and if, one utilizes (critical race) theory and (feminist) praxis. It also influences how, and if, individuals are able to show up as allies/accomplices inside and outside the classroom. Prof. Williams offered “radical honesty,” a Black feminist approach to truth-telling that can enable us to embrace emotions as we learn, organize, and envision what future anthropologies will look like.' -- +Duke Franklin Humanities Institute