Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 620

Ghanaian film 'Children of the Mountain' Gets Global Buzz

'When Ghanaian filmmaker Priscilla Anany started working on her feature, Children of the Mountain, she probably did not anticipate the global buzz it has garnered.  “I made a movie and I wanted to show it to the world and I needed a good platform that would really push it,” she told Africanews' Nii Akrofi Smart-Abbey. But after 5 years of writing, re-writing and trying to raise funds for the film, Priscilla can now look back with pride at her work.' -- +africanews 
 

What I Could Never Just Say (for Arthur C. Neal, Jr.)

Arthur C. Neal, Jr. (May 5, 1935 -2008)  



What I Could Never Just Say (for Arthur C. Neal, Jr.)by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
So it’s that time of the year again, Old Man--that three day-period in May when you, Frank Paul, Sr. and Willie Mays all celebrate birthdays. I still remember that May afternoon in 1972--a week after your 37th birthday and a few days after Mays had been traded to The Mets--when Mays hit that homer in his first game as a Met.  We watched many games that summer, and even more still the following summer when the Mets went to the Series.  I had almost imagined that we’d spend these years -- the now years -- watching games at Durham Bulls Park, which is simply the best place in America to watch a game; you would have loved it.
Tearing up a bit thinking about what might have been, but that’s only because I know what was.  
I now know that those first games you took me to at Yankee Stadium had more to do with with the fact that it was  a short bus ride--and even a walk--down 168th Street (beneath the El), to Webster Avenue, and then the right on 161st Street, across the Grand Concourse--on a warm summer day; A trip to Shea would mean a bus and two trains, both time and money that you didn’t necessarily have.
I guess more than anything, what I lament is that there was not more time.  I never begrudged your 10-hour, 6-days-a-week, BX-BK grind, because when you were home -- those Sundays of grits, runny eggs, buttered-oven-toast, baseball, The Mighty Clouds of Joy, and Jimmy McGriff--you were home.
I suspect your grand-daughters do not begrudge that which I learned from you; both the passion and the joy of the work itself, and the discipline and time that it demanded; they both take a piece of that with them.  Your oldest granddaughter is lean and long as you were; your youngest is as hearty and mischievous as you were -- you would have sat at the kitchen table, drank-coffee and talked shop with the oldest and would have gleefully watched Scooby-Doo with the youngest.
And I get that this is more formal of an address that our sharing of the physical plane ever allowed. We both know that the Woman that we shared--my Mother and your Wife--took up quite a bit of bandwidth; there were few words for us to get in.  Your music did your talking, as we listened to grown men talk, sing, and play about God, religion, love desired, love lost -- redemption, forgiveness and responsibility -- all the things you came to embody for me, even in your silence.
At 50, I am the age you were, when you were most hopeful.  Hope was a relative thing for a grown man, born and raised in a South, more desperate than dirty, who came to the big city as young man, which no definable skills except the ability to put in a hard day’s work, a tenth-grade education, and your integrity.  You came to New York at the behest of your Sister -- my Aunt Virginia -- who like so many of your siblings settled in the Bronx; she introduced you to my Mother.  
You were only two-years older than I am now, when Aunt Virginia succumbed to cancer.  I recall her homegoing -- literally in the same place where I would say goodbye to you twenty-one-years later -- because it was the first time I saw you cry; your fragility disrupted me, if only because it reminded me, perhaps for the first time, that the losses were inevitable; my own stoicism in response to death, the byproduct of that moment.
Less than a decade after Aunt Virginia’s death you would be robbed of your own physical strength, beginning your slow decline in the face of MS.  Those drives back to Augusta that I once imagined, those box-seats at Shea or even Yankee stadium, a brunch on the deck in your son and daughter-in-law’s home, in the very South that you had left in the 1950s were not to be possible.  Your granddaughters would never get to see you dance; your youngest granddaughter would never see you walk.  What disrupted me in those days was your lack of complaint.
I write these words today, because, like  you and your music, it’s the way I speak. And though I came to understand that these are words that you could have never read -- learning to read being a luxury for a Black boy raised in an era for which Jim Crow was not a metaphor -- but alas my last lament, that I never took the time to read to you, what I have told the world with my words  so often:  That I am the man I am because of You, that your love of our music, our culture and our family, made me love the same, and it has provided for me and your family in ways that were/are unimaginable to you; that I love you for simply being the man that you were/are.

Was It a Race Riot or An Anti-Black Massacre? 19th Century Violence in Memphis

'On May 1, 1866, Memphis was home to a massacre that killed 46 African-Americans and injured many others. Now a historical marker shows an ongoing rift between white historians and black activists. '-- NPR

Baseball, Race, and Cultural Colonialism by Lawrence Ware

Baseball, Race, and Cultural Colonialismby Lawrence Ware | @Law_Ware | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
As we enter a new baseball season, it’s time to confront a hard truth. One, I think, that is part of why baseball is relegated to an afterthought culturally: we allow the feelings of losers to dictate the behavior of winners. This is masked behind words like sportsmanship and phrases like unwritten rules; yet, the fact remains: the culture surrounding baseball in America does not allow those who excel at their craft to express joy in their success.
In April of last year, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig told the Los Angeles Times that he was going to cut back on bat-flips. He said: “I want to show American baseball that I'm not disrespecting the game." Yet, he did say, "If it's a big home run or if I'm frustrated because I couldn't connect in my previous at-bats or if I drive in important runs for my team, I might do it…you never know. I can't say I won't do it." This comes after pressure from American baseball purists who contend that bat flipping and other forms of celebration after home runs are disrespectful to the sport.
As Bomani Jones points out, they hold that the kind of behavior you find in Latin American and Asian Countries (where they bat-flip creatively and proficiently) is not in the spirit of how it should be done within our borders. Bud Norris, pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, said it like this: "We're opening this game to everyone that can play. However, if you're going to come into our country and make our American dollars, you need to respect a game that has been here for over a hundred years..."  In other words, you can get home runs; you can play in our country but you must adhere to our expectations. Expectations grounded historically in a game that has been resistant to ethnic inclusion.
It’s a subtle form of cultural colonialization to allow a player to display their athletic brilliance, but to disallow the celebration of that performance because of the feelings of those who lose. It’s inconsistent because pitchers routinely celebrate striking out players, but it is  also part of why I think baseball has seen a steep decline in participation from African Americans.
In the NFL, you are allowed to be performative. Players dance after they score a touchdown. In the NBA, Stephan Curry shimmies after he hits a three. In the MLB, you’re supposed to merely circle the bases after you hit a home run. Smile if you want…but don’t show any teeth.
I don’t mind Puig’s bat-flip for the same reason why I loved Cam Newton’s proclivity to dab on them folk—we should allow our best athletes to fully embody the joy of playing the game. Yes, these celebrations may rub those who lose the wrong way, but if they don’t want folks stunting, then they should ensure they either win the game or cut back on the home runs they allow. Either way, a sports culture that overly polices the amount of joy expressed on the field is little more than an attempt to protect the feelings of those who gave up their right to complain when they lost a game or gave up a home run.
The celebrations should not be over the top and teams should not try to run up the score, but let people express the joy of the game—because, after all, it is a game.
 +++
Lawrence Ware is an Oklahoma State University Division of Institutional Diversity Fellow. He teaches in OSU’s philosophy department and is the Diversity Coordinator for its Ethics Center. An advisor to Democratic Left and contributing editor at RS: The Religious Left, he has also been a commentator on race and politics for the Huffington Post Live, NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and PRI’s Flashpoint. He is an ordained minister in the Progressive Baptist Convention. Find him on Twitter @law_ware.

Trump Hotel Workers in Las Vegas Ask Billionaire + Presidential Hopeful for Fair Pay

'Employees at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas make $3 less on average than the rest of the workers on the strip.  In December 2015, the workers voted to form a union, but hotel management has refused to negotiate their contract. Two workers share their experience of working at the presidential hopeful’s hotel.' -- +The Guardian  

Wade Davis II: The Mask of Masculinity

'Wade Davis, an ex-NFL player for the Titans, Redskins, and Seahawks, shares a gripping story of growing up gay in the world of football and urges us to reconsider our definitions of "masculinity." He is the NFL’s first diversity and inclusion consultant, and co-created the YOU Belong initiative and the Speaker’s Collective. Davis is also a U.N. Women HeForShe Ambassador, a U.S. State Department Speaker Specialist, and the official LGBT Surrogate for President Obama.' -- +TEDx 

Monique W. Morris: How Racism and Sexism Collide to Criminalize Black Girls

'Social justice scholar Monique W. Morris explores the ways implicit biases in our society - around class, sex and race - combine to push Black girls out of schools and towards the criminal legal system, and explains why educational institutions must re-examine their misunderstandings around the thoughts and actions of Black girls, and their reliance on an exclusionary discipline framework that amplifies the mistreatment of an already vulnerable group of children. Morris is author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools from The New Press.'

Bill Moyers in Conversation: Eddie Glaude Jr. on America's Racial 'Value Gap'

'Democracy in Black is rich in history and bold in opinion, and inconvenient truths leap from every page. For example, and I’m quoting the book again, “black people must lose their blackness if America is to be transformed. But of course, white people get to stay white.” The author is Eddie Glaude Jr. was raised in the Deep South, in Moss Point, Mississippi, and still remembers the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross at the fairground. He’s now a professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton University, where he also chairs the Center for African-American Studies. This is his third book, and he’s a member in good standing of the black establishment, which he rigorously calls to account in Democracy in Black.' -- Moyers and Company  

SoundAffect: Dr. Michael Eric Dyson Speaks Out on Activism and Political Engagement

'In a recent visit to Appalachian State University’s podcast studio, one of America’s foremost African American voices and renowned public intellectuals, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, shares advice on how to affect change, government and academic leadership, activism and speaking up.' -- +Appalachian State University  

#StrangeFruit: Unpacking the Yoruba Symbolism in Beyoncé's #Lemonade

'Joan Morgan is an award-winning author and journalist who wrote When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, and coined the term hip-hop feminism. But what you might not know about her is that she's also a practitioner of Yoruba, an African religious tradition. And as it happens, "Lemonade" is chock full of Yoruba imagery. Morgan joins us to help us understand these symbols. The album also included nods to the Black Lives Matter movement, and police violence against black citizens. We speak to Brittney Cooper and Treva Lindsey about what some of those images evoked for them.'