Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 636

Relatable for Who? Novelist Marlon James on Pandering to White Audiences

'Marlon James  joins Shad in studio q for a wide-ranging conversation about uncomfortable art and the politics of pandering — from the lack of diversity in the publishing industry to his year-long struggle with Kendrick Lamar's latest album. Art should make us uncomfortable, he argues, even if it comes from people we largely agree with.' -- +q on cbc  

Art of Cool Festival Presents Screening of Spike Lee's 'Clockers'

On Sunday March 13, 2016 at 2:30 The Art of Cool Festival presents a free film screening of Spike Lee's Clockers at The Carolina Theater in Durham, NC, in celebration of the the work of Lee's longtime collaborator Terence Blanchard, who headlines this year's Art of Cool Festival held in Durham, NC, May 6-8.  Clockers will be introduced by Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal.
Tickets for the event are free--Register Here. 

Inside “Negroland”: A Conversation with Pulitzer Winning Author Margo Jefferson

'Inside “Negroland”: A conversation with Pulitzer-winning author Margo Jefferson regarding her writing process and America's Black socio-economic Elite. Hosted by Kibwe Chase-Marshall '10 and sponsored by the Black Student Union at +Brown University'

#BKLive: AfroCrowd, Crowdsourcing on Wikimedia

'During last year's Black History Month, a new initiative was launched to increase the number of people of African Descent contribute and edit entries on Wikipedia.  Every month now, you can attend what's called "Afro Free Culture Crowdsourcing Wikimedia" -- or AfroCrowd, for short. Sherry Antoine, AfroCrowd's Project Manager, talks more on the project.' -- +BRIC TV 

Artist to Artist: Audra McDonald and Shanice Williams in Conversation

'Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald sits down for a talk about the intricacies of her creative process and craft with Shanice Williams, who burst onto the scene in December 2015 as Dorothy in NBC's The Wiz Live!' -- +LincolnCenter 

#TheSpin: Zoe Saldana Goddamn! Playing Nina, Provoking a Storm

On this episode of #TheSpin , host Esther Armah is joined by Dr. Yaba Blay and Shani Jamila, in a conversation about the casting of Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone, in a biopic of the artist's life and career. The panel also discusses a plan to require virginity tests for college bound girls in South Africa. 

Left of Black S6:E21: In the Future of Blackness--A Conversation with Alexis De Veaux

Left of Black S6:E21:  In the Future of Blackness--A Conversation with Alexis De Veaux
On this special episode of Left of Black, recorded with a live audience at Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by two-time Lambda Award Winner Alexis De Veaux.
De Veaux is the author of Yabo, which won the 2015 Lambda Award for Lesbian Fiction. De Veaux is also the author of the award winning biography of Audre Lorde, Warrior Poet: A Biography, which won the 2005 Lambda Award for Biography, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.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).
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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in @ iTunes U
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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Searching for The Soul of the Black Church by Law Ware

Searching for The Soul of the Black Church--The New Abolition: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Social GospelReview by Law Ware | @Law_Ware | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
In The New Abolition: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel, Gary Dorrien, the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, does the difficult and important work of examining the intellectual foundation of the black-American religious institutions that were instrumental to the civil rights movement. It is also an examination of personalities at the center of these institutions during its growth—particularly Du Bois, who, while never officially a part of the “Black Church,” was nevertheless important to its development. It’s the kind of book I wish I’d read before graduate school. It takes historical black figures seriously as intellectuals and examines the genealogy of their thought.Growing up, I, like many, was unaware of the rich intellectual tradition within the black community. I could talk about the athletic prowess of Jim Brown or Oscar Robertson or the musical genius of Sam Cooke, Big Mama Thornton, and Miles Davis. Yet, the only figures I knew as intellectuals in any meaningful way were Martin Luther King, Jr. (and really, he was more of an activist to me than a thinker) and Malcolm X (and he was scary to me because, though I did not know it at the time, he scared white people). Dorrien’s magisterial text brilliantly both tells the story of the development of the black social gospel and explicates the ideas of the great thinkers at the center of that narrative.The text takes a step back from the oft-discussed civil rights era and examines the radical intellectual tradition that gave rise to the movement for social justice in the 1960s.  Ella Baker once said, “King didn’t make the movement, the movement made King.”  Dorrien takes this notion seriously and argues that the “movement did not come from nowhere” and that without this history “the radical social gospel theology and activism of King are inexplicable.”  Figures such as radical Black Nationalist Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and writer/activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett are featured prominently. In fact, although Du Bois is central to the narrative, it is not until a third of the way into the book that he is investigated with any depth. The text reads as a series of vignettes about important figures and their ideas against the backdrop of larger cultural forces conspiring to marginalize people of color. The role of the Black Church as an incubator of radicalism and intellectualism becomes clear as the history of black religion in America is shown to be the thread that connects all of these stories. Yet, there has never been a unified, holistic position taken by all black social gospel intellectuals on the issue of civil rights or on how best to actualize the potentiality of the collective black community. Dorrien is aware of this diversity of opinion and explicates the strengths and weaknesses of each with a careful and critical eye. He begins by examining, perhaps in too much depth, the strand of thought championed by Booker T. Washington. This position argued that hard work on the part of disenfranchised blacks assisted by philanthropic whites would begin to alleviate the ills faced by the black community. He juxtaposes that position with the philosophical tradition embodied by thinkers like Turner and Du Bois. They argued for Black Nationalism—either by immigration to Africa or by cultural affirmation—and political engagement. He then follows this nationalist thread to its eventual engagement with Marxism and activism centered on questions of economic inequality. Dorrien’s text is essential reading that, unlike any volume before, charts the development of the black social gospel while treating the figures at the center of the narrative as complex human beings and towering intellectuals instead of saints in a hagiography. As he summarizes the relationship of Du Bois to the Black Church, he does not conflate the relationship, he merely observes that Dubois was a man who had “a keen appreciation of Jesus, and a lover’s quarrel with the black church.”Interestingly, this seems to summarize the position of many contemporary black Millennials—especially those engaged in the movement for Black Lives—regarding many black churches. And this “lover’s quarrel” raises difficult questions for the future of the black social gospel and black churches, which have historically been the home of movements engaging in civil disobedience and attempting to better the plight of black people in America.Although it is true that there has never been uniformity about how best to combat racism, the philosophical rationale for social justice movements has usually been expressed with religious language and imagery, and the Black Church played a pivotal role as a place to meet and organize. Why, now, when a new civil rights movement is gaining momentum, is there relative quiet from some black churches? Why are too many of these churches reactive in the face of social injustice instead of proactive? Why do black pastors openly criticize the #BlackLivesMatter movement?I think part of this has to do with the inability of many black churches to affirm the lives of those who operate outside the norms of sexuality articulated by traditional Christianity. Further, many black pastors decry racism and economic injustice while supporting ecclesiastical policies grounded in patriarchy. Take into account that the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement are black women, two of whom identify as queer, and you get the source of the tension. Further, many pastors think that the Movement for Black Lives needs a singular leader, but those with the movement push back against an authoritarian top-down approach common in many black churches. There have always been secular elements in the civil rights movement. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was not grounded in a religious institution. Neither was the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. But rarely has there been a threat of a movement’s being almost exclusively secular. The contemporary #BlackLivesMatter movement has the potential to be the first if those engaged in the articulation and development of the black social gospel do not allow their thinking to evolve and become intersectional. The New Abolition: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Black Social Gospel both illuminates history even as it challenges us in the present. It is not an easy read, but it is one that rewards those who love the Black Church, black intellectualism, or, simply, black people.***
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. A frequent contributor to the publication The Democratic Left and contributing editor of the progressive publication 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. Follow him on Twitter: @law_ware

Has Hollywood's Neglect of Slavery Ended?: WGN’s Underground Makes the Case by Stephane Dunn

Has Hollywood's Neglect of Slavery Ended?: WGN’s Underground Makes the Caseby Stephane Dunn | @DrStephaneDunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
It’s not even a little bit quietly kept; Hollywood reflects the rest of the American conscience that likes to avoid dealing with the reality of slavery and its resulting legacy. Every year I find myself in the same circular conversation challenging some rant by somebody about how sick and tired he or she is of Hollywood movies about black people being slaves and Jim Crow era servants (something The Help unfortunately gave weight too) or during some panel discussion some listener bemoans aloud the same and asks me why this is and  I always answer the same.
How many Hollywood movies and television shows in the last twenty years, hell, in fifty have actually been about slavery and really, really gone there and I’m not talking about in that Cold Mountain or Spielberg’s Lincoln way where black folk are like décor or sidekicks or peripheral figures in dramas about white folk set during slavery? And television – series no less - go ahead frown and think – oh yeah, there were miniseries – three from the 1970s probably come to mind -A Woman Called Moses, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and of course Roots.
After the Oscar winning success of Twelve Years a Slave, the Book of Negroes on BET, Nate Parker’s recent historic Birth of a Nation Sundance sell, and the coming A & E remake of Roots, is the industry finally coming around to the trauma, pain, loss, love, hate, greed, terror, and brutality of America’s own defining terrible drama?
We are a long way from thousands of feature films and television shows about slavery, but the  new series Underground on the unlikely WGN makes the case that perhaps Hollywood and viewers are ready. Underground, created by Misha Green and Joe Pokasi, executive produced by John Legend with music by the likes of Raphael Saadiq, and episodes directed by Anthony Hemingway and others, is set in 1857 on a remote Georgia plantation with a provocative premise – a group of enslaved blacks form relationships and plot to escape and survive the 500 mile trek to freedom in the North amid natural barriers and slave catchers.
Jurnee Smollett-Bell stars as Rosalee, a house servant coming into adult and womanhood, opposite Aldis Hodge’s Noah, the rebellious lead escape plotter. The strong cast rounds out with a complex set of characters both in the Big House, the fields, and within the abolitionist movement and the plot references some key histories – the Dred Scott case for one and the Fugitive Slave Act for another. Amazingly, it gets raw, dares to get downright ugly as slavery really was but it’s also damn good entertainment.
I know right but, Underground manages three s-words pivotal to nighttime drama – [See Empire and Scandal] sizzling, sexy, and at turns shocking. The secret – the centering of resistance and the enslaved heroes in addition to a capable ensemble cast, and blossoming chemistry [perhaps love] between Bell-Smollett’s Rosalee and Hodge’s sultry Noah. While episode one introduces the interesting players and the beginnings of the infamous escape plot, more nuances are teased out in episode two and well by three it’s teeming and boiling over.
Yes, there good and bad masters and mistresses and shadily complex characters – both white and black but interestingly Underground pushes beyond just playing the expected types to play with some character complexity and contradiction. We’ll necessarily examine it for historical accuracy or too extreme violations and have to wait and see where we are by episode ten.
I was skeptical coming into screening that first episode - a television show about the Underground Railroad? On WGN? I still insisted on my raised eyebrow by the beginning of the second episode though I was watching intrigued and didn’t want to stop. Hopefully, neither controversy off screen over the story’s possible origins nor our false illusion that we’ve somehow been besieged with the subject of slavery in our entertainment will derail Underground’s chances of gaining a well deserved good viewership.
Underground premiering March 9, 2016, 10:00 pmOther Cast Members :Christopher MeloniAmirah VannTheodus CraneReed Diamond
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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

How Do Advancements In DNA Testing Technology Help The Reparations Movement?

'Alondra Nelson, Dean of Social Science at Columbia University and the author of the new book The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome tells Michelangelo Signorile all about the effect that the new “direct to consumers” DNA testing technology offered by companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe are having on advancing the movement for reparations for the decedents of African Slaves in the United States.' -- +SiriusXM