Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 618

TimesTalks: Kerry Washington and Anita Hill on Public Awareness of Sexual Harassment in Workplace

'Award–winning actress and executive producer Kerry Washington and professor, lawyer and author Anita Hill, discuss the new HBO film Confirmation, which tells the real–life story of the 1991 Supreme Court hearing to confirm Judge Clarence Thomas, at which Hill testified that Thomas sexually harassed her when he was her supervisor. The hearing was a pivotal moment in history, galvanizing the public’s awareness of sexual harassment in the workplace, women’s rights and race relations. Interviewed by New York Times culture reporter Melena Ryzik.' 

Conversations in Black Freedom Studies: Educational Injustice and Organizing

'Schomburg Education presented the program, "Educational Injustice and Organizating," as part of their  "Conversations in Black Freedom Studies series."  More than a half century after the Supreme Court’s Brown decision, panelists Drs. Matthew Delmont, Carla Shedd, and Ainsley Erickson examine basic questions about segregated schooling and the fight for equal education: (1) What happened to the busing solution to racially segregated and unequal schools? (2) Is school segregation the only mechanism of racial inequality? (3) How do children navigate the oppressive terrain of educational injustice in unequal cities?' -- +Schomburg Center   

American Studies Association Statement on NC #HB2

May 10, 2016
ASA Statement on North Carolina HB2
For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
John F. Stephens, Executive Directorasamedia@theasa.net
 
In March of 2016, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2 (HB2), otherwise known as the “ Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act ” which severely limits how cities and counties can protect their residents from a wide range of discrimination, including racial bias in the workplace. HB2 effectively overturns local policies that protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) people. It bans a city or county from requiring its vendors to provide employees with a living wage and decent benefits and preempts local anti-discrimination policies and enforcement tools that protected everyone regardless of race, national origin, age, disability, gender or religion. In addition, HB2 prohibits a worker who is the target of racial, age or other discrimination from going to any state court for relief. 
While the Governor’s attempt to construe the bill as solely about safety and security – in short, the protection of children and families from LGBT people –  people of conscience around the US and around the world have condemned HB2 and its attempt to use hatred and fear to legislate discrimination in place of federal protections.
Among the many protections active and available to all people in the United States, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has declared that Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination requires that covered employees (including those of public universities) must be permitted to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. Second, the Department of Education has declared that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination requires that students in universities receiving federal financial assistance must be able to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.  
In the wake of the passage of HB2, corporations, performers and professional organizations have cancelled events, prohibited travel to the state and halted planned expansions into the state. As elected leaders of an academic association with members across the state, we, the Executive Committee of the American Studies Association, join with others around the world in condemning HB2 and calling for its repeal. We are greatly concerned that the flagship University in the state (UNC-CH) and this country’s oldest public University has not taken a stand in opposition to HB2, but has provided mixed messages about the need to comply with the law, while at the same time upholding Title VII and IX protections. Such mixed messages do little to ensure members of the LGBTQI community that the atmosphere in which they work and teach is safe.
Our bylaws, in contrast, give us clear guidance. In seeking sites for our annual meetings, a fundamental criterion is the accessibility and safety of all of our members. HB2 commits the state of North Carolina to exactly the opposite, reinforcing and institutionalizing regimes of exclusion, intimidation, and hate that target people whose dignity and integrity is fundamental to our most basic values.
Therefore, we endorse the actions of those who have joined a boycott of the State of North Carolina until HB2 is fully repealed. Further, we encourage other organizations, including ASA’s regional chapters, to commit to accessibility and safety of all members in deciding where they meet if they have not already done so.
Executive Committee of the American Studies Association
President: David Roediger, University of Kansas
President-elect: Robert Warrior, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Immediate Past President: Lisa Duggan, New York University
Councilor: Jodi Byrd, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Councilor: Christina Hanhardt, University of Maryland, College Park
Councilor: Sharon Holland, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

First Listen: Corinne Bailey Rae, 'The Heart Speaks In Whispers'

'Music Was Always This Anchor': Rashod Ollison's Story Of Soul And Struggle

'Music has always been a part of Rashod Ollison's life. His new memoir, Soul Serenade, is a story both of songs and hardships. Music, and particularly Soul music, was what got him through. His love of music began at an early age when he first heard the "wail" of Aretha Franklin. It continues in his current life as a music journalist.' -- +NPR 

Jazz Under the Soul Covers: “Mighty, Mighty”--Earth, Wind & Fire + Doug Carn

Jazz Under the Soul Covers: “Mighty, Mighty”--Earth, Wind & Fire + Doug Carnby Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
It was a recent performance of Doug and Jean Carn’s “Arise and Shine” by the North Carolina Central University Jazz Ensemble featuring Charenee Wade as the opening act for Art of Cool Festival headliner Terence Blanchard, that took me back to the archive of the  Black Jazz Records label.  Founded by pianist Gene Russell in 1969, the label functioned as a truly independent alternative to the major Jazz labels (Blue Note, Columbia), and one that was emboldened by the spirit of Ujamaa.
If the label had a star, it was keyboardist Doug Carn, who with then wife and collaborator Jean Carn(e) of Philly Soul fame (“Don’t Let It Go to Your Head”), recorded several albums for the label including the classic  Infant Eyes (1971), Spirit of the New Land (1972), and Adam's Apple (1975), from which Carn’s cover of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Mighty, Mighty” appears.  The song was featured on EWF’s Open Our Eyes (1974), and it is of the last examples of the group looking back the “free” funk days of its earlier recordings.  For Carn, it was a chance to record music that was accessible to a broader audience (a relative term for both acts), while also acknowledging the shared sensibilities of a group of artists that would be headed in opposite directions.
The Black Jazz Records label folded in 1975, the same year that Earth, Wind & Fire released their crossover breakthrough, That’s the Way of the World.

Michel Martin: Perhaps It's Time To Celebrate A Day In Honor Of Caregivers

'Caregiving for family members is an essential and difficult job, especially with the number of Americans 65 and older projected to double by 2060. So, NPR's Michel Martin proposes a new holiday.'   

'Ballroom' and the Fight to Survive and Build Community in the Age of HIV

'In this episode of The Movement , host Darnell Moore returns to a NYC's ballroom community,  a site of black liberation. The ballroom scene emerged in response to the exclusion and antagonism black LGBTQ and Latino queer and trans people faced within their own communities and the LGBTQ spaces where many sought safety. Public health concerns, like HIV, are exacerbated by the racism black and Latino LGBTQ people may experience within broader LGBTQ communities.' -- .Mic

Saul Williams Revisits "Coded Language" 15 Years Later

Saul Williams revisits his hip-hop manifesto "Coded Language" to commemorate the 15th Anniversary of his debut album Amethyst Rockstar.  

Murky Truths, Split Bonds, & the Black Panther Too: Captain America--Civil War by Stephane Dunn

Murky Truths, Split Bonds, & the Black Panther Too: Captain America--Civil War  by Stephane Dunn | @DrStephaneDunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
I sat there at the advanced screening giddier than my son and his Avenger fan little buddies, anxiously glued to the big screen, with the 3D glasses [I’m still not used to] making Iron Man appear near ready to fall off the screen, practically breath halfway erratically for what seemed an incredibly long ten or was it fifteen minutes or twenty fascinated, waiting for Him.
Understand that since I was a teen reading an old comic book at an old comic book store, discovering Fantastic Four and saw this brilliant prince dude from this scientifically advanced African nation and went literally in search for more, found Marvel’s Stan Lee & Jack Kirby created him, that it was in 1966 and coincidentally so timely it appeared just a short time before The Black Panthers - Huey Newton, Black Power, Black Panthers, emerged fully on the scene, found him loving and marrying Her, my favorite comic super hero-sheroh – Storm, I’ve been hooked.
Understand that I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my superhero comic book affinity and an all out love/hate tussle with their big budget cinema counterparts. Nary a glimpse of black women, too much sidekick sidelining if any love at all to and between actual black and brown people, and even unrequited Storm X-Men love with the watered down, marginalized, and miscast X-Men film series Storm [no shade to Halle personally]. I have been waiting a really, really long time, teased by gossip, leaks, setbacks, and other Marvel comic movie series.
So, yes, I sat there, toes actually wiggling, heart actually beating a bit too fast, dreading, questioning: Did they really get the casting of Him right? Yeah, I knew already Chadwick Boseman is a fine actor, read that he knows martial arts and so forth, but it had to work. Would there even be more than a scant glimpse of Him I’d miss if I looked down at my popcorn a second? The wait was over but would it satisfy? Captain America: Civil War, opening nationwide, this weekend, and it brings together two delicious, rare elements – a deeper complication of the moral good so inherently apart of modern superhero films and their comic book roots, and the long overdue debut of something rarer still, a major black superhero, a fictional African comic superhero, that elusive one who will actually take center stage in a movie of his own name, BLACK PANTHER.   
Whew, yeah, for real, for real. Earlier that day when I met with Captain America producer Nate Moore at the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta to talk Civil War, Captain America and Iron Man, race and women within Marvel and the industry, and of course the debut of the Black Panther, he assured me that the Black Panther was not just in the movie but getting a juicy introduction not a mere glimpse or a sidekick sort of nod. Exhale. And I did too, with a whole lot of other black folk who seemed to have been waiting anxiously too, for Boseman to appear on that screen in 3D, big screen glory and be a real deal, perfect T’Challah, Black Panther.
Black Panther aside for a moment, Captain America: Civil War is pretty damn good. It’s a grown up, audiences-are-smart and deep enough to ride with us through their discomfort at the implosion of the Avengers internally and a more complicated greying of the truth and the lines between good and bad or rather evil sort of modern superhero flick albeit with it some of the expected bells – kick ass fighting, fast paced action sequences, an Avengers enemy or two.
Recent Captain America film aficionados already knew from the last Captain America film, Winter Soldier (2014), that Bucky (Sebastian Stan), AKA, the Winter Soldier and Steve Rodgers/Captain America’s former childhood buddy turned victimized soldier was bound to continue being a source of confusion and pain for Captain America (Chris Evans). No surprise here, as Moore sums up, the struggle between the two poses a perfect superhero comic book and big film universe question: ‘Can Bucky be redeemed?’ The thing about Captain America is that he is fiercely loyal – to the world and fighting against any evil that rises up against it – but it doesn’t trump his individual loyalty and implicit faith in them, hence his resistance to casting aside Bucky who was Steve’s friend pre his cool Captain America transformation.
The last film also highlights further the contrasting ideological positions of Steve Rodgers and Tony Stark and the fragility of their prickly, brothers-in-arms but not quite easy friends sort of relationship. Hence, it’s not a huge surprise that Civil War lives up to its name and pits these ‘three brothers’ against one another. What distinguishes Civil War is the spectacular fashion in which it layers and spins the plot twists but takes the time to offer intimate probes into the individual angst and collective divide and ties between the key players when all are forced to grapple with the weighty costs of being the world’s superheroes and which side to choose Iron Man's or Captain America's especially Sam Wilson, the Falcon  (Anthony Mackie); Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Vision (Paul Bettany), James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).  
T’Challah/Black Panther makes his entrance into these dynamics as a stranger motivated not by Avenger inner strife or their vulnerable situation with the world’s nations and each other but by loyalty to his people, his country Wakanda and his father King T’Chaka. He is pretty baadass, ‘Who’s that Man’ kind of ‘Shaft’ impressive, raising eyebrows, messing with the already tenuous Avenger flow, and not apologizing for it. But even in this the truth is not simple – and in the end we don’t know if and how the Avengers will survive or not as a unit, if Iron Man and Captain America can ever truly be on the same side of justice again, and what kind of mayhem Bucky and the Avengers will ultimately cause for Black Panther and his nation.
Though supposedly it is not racial difference but rather an ethnic difference rooted in individual power traits, universe/national origins, and where one's allegiance lies [good or evil] that defines the comic superhero universe rather than color; appearance and racial politics define Hollywood's imaging and imagining of heroes, tough guys, and supernatural heroes too.
Captain America: Civil War has a bit more than usual black male superhero visibility in the mix with Mackie making the most out of the Falcon, Cheadle’s earnest War Machine and the Panther debut, but we will have to wait for the Black Panther’s own movie to see how black, how mythically, fictionally African, Marvel and Hollywood’s imagination will go and if that means foregoing white, noble heroes somehow taking center stage, black Wakandan on black Wakandan romantic love, baadass, kickass black Wakandan women or not. I’m probably in for some more long, long waiting for my girl Storm. In the meantime, Black Panther is really here.  
***
Writer and professor Stephane Dunn, PhD, is the director of the Cinema, Television, & Emerging Media Studies program at Morehouse College. She teaches film, creative writing, and literature. She is the author of the 2008 book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press). Follow her on Twitter: @DrStephaneDunn