Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 700

Project Bronx: Who Are Your Top 5 Rappers

"In case you were not aware of it the Bronx is the birth place of Hip Hop. That is why we at +ProjectBronx  thought it would be appropriate to ask our people what rappers made it to their TOP 5 MC List." 

"Asterisk: (A Glyph)--in the post-Serena Slam Era" by Hakim Bellamy

Asterisk: (A Glyph)--in the post-Serena Slam era
by +Hakim Bellamy 



When you say her name
what do you mean?

Do you mean “us?”

Do you mean Latin, or
do you mean Chamoru* for sunlight,
sunshine?

Or do you mean daughter?
Do you mean dark?

When you do not say her name
what do you mean?

When you say calm
do you mean invisible
or ladylike?

When you say peaceful,
do you mean conquered?

When you say serene
do you mean “sista”
or slave name?
What exactly do you mean?

When you say tennis
do you mean love
or combat?

When you say respect,
do you mean you first?

Do you mean all white
when you say club?

Do mean color,
or do you mean code?

Do you mean Druid Hill,
or do you mean Indian Wells?

When you say racquet,
do you mean rigged?

When you say endorsements,
do you mean permission?

When you say masculine,
do you mean anger?

When you say loud,
do mean record-breaking?

When you say manly,
do you mean win?

When you say unpretty,
do you mean powerful?

When you say her name,
does it make you feel small?

When she says fuck,
does it make you go numb?

When you say boo,
do you mean little girl?

Does it scare you
that she is no one’s prize?

When you say slam,
does it hurt?

When you say serve,
do you mean help?

Who do you mean
when you say hero?

When you say asterisk,
do you mean champion,
but…

When you say history
do you mean yours?

When you say game
do you mean everything
or do you mean sport?

When you say match,
do mean none?

Interpretation aside-ways
Do you know what “it” means?
Do you know what she means?

Do you know what she means
to Compton?

When you say she’s no angel,
Do you mean blasphemous

Do you know why forsaken people
sometimes turn athletes into gods?

Gods that look like them?

Do you recognize the broadness of wingspan
it takes to put a city on your back?

Halo, cocked just a ll’ bit to the side
but not cracked.

When you tell her to tuck in her attitude,
and pull up her ass,

I get it.
I am no longer confused.

When you say
it’s nothing, I know I know
that you are just
mean.

© Hakim Bellamy, September 5th, 2015

*The Chamorro people, are the indigenous peoples of the Mariana Islands. Chamoru society was based on what sociologist Dr. Lawrence J. Cunningham termed the "matrilineal avuncuclan", one characteristic of which is that the brother(s) of the female parent plays more of a "father" role than the actual biological male parent.

**In colloquial usage, an asterisk is used to indicate that a record is somehow tainted by circumstances, which are putatively explained in a footnote referenced by the asterisk.

Damon Wayans the Clown by Mark Anthony Neal

Damon Wayans the Clownby Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
If we’re being honest with ourselves, Damon Wayans was often the un-funniest of the collective that was featured on the groundbreaking sketch comedy show In Living Color. A quick scan of his signature characters--“Blaine Edwards” (from the Men On...series), ”Handi-Man”, “Oswald Bates”--finds a comedian whose basic contributions to the show trafficked in homophobia, and comedy at the expense of the Physically Challenged (we can also put the “Head Detective” in this category) and  those who are victims of the carceral state (and the educational system).
It should not come to any surprise that it is Wayans--who is more in line generationally with Bill Cosby than say W. Kamau Bell--who so emphatically came to Bill Cosby’s defense with a screed that is more reprehensible than any of Wayans’ offensive routines. Not only did Wayans dismiss  the accusations of Cosby’s more than 40 known accusers, he depicted Cosby’s accusers with a level of misogyny that even some of Cosby’s defenders might find problematic.
I assume Mr. Wayans thinks he was being funny; he was not.
In Living Color found cultural gravitas in its challenging of respectable notions of public representations of race, gender, and ethnicity in the early 1990s; that it did so from distinctly Black and Hip-Hop inflected sensibilities is what powered its popularity, and eventually invited a level of scrutiny  and policing from its network, that seems quaint by current standards.  At the center of show’s vision was Damon Wayan’s character “Homey the Clown,” which served as the vehicle in which Black grievances against White Supremacy could be lodged and reparated with a swift bonk on the head from a flour-filled sock.   
It was this performance of militant Blackness that earned In Living Color, and Wayans in particular, a pass on some of its more troubling representations.  As E. Patrick Johnson writes in his critique of the show’s Men On... skits, which featured Wayans and David Allen Grier as queer Black men,
“the representation of effeminate homosexuality as disempowering is at the heart of the politics of hegemonic blackness...Insofar as ineffectiveness is problematically sutured to femininity and homosexuality within a black cultural politic that privileges race over other categories of oppression, it follows that the subjects accorded these attributes would be marginalized and excluded from the boundaries of blackness.” (Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, 51)
Twenty-five years later, Wayans is still operating under the false assumptions that Johnson critiques above. In the context of Cosby’s seeming inability to defend himself in “real-talk,” Wayans--and his unfunny-self--decided to “defend” the race, in light of Cosby’s “ineffectiveness.”
But Wayans has even less credibility than he did as an up-and-coming comic more than a generation ago. Hollywood good looks aside, Wayans has been left behind by a generation of his peers, including Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx (a In Living Color alum), Tracy Morgan, and even his younger brothers Shawn and Marlon. Wayans’ comments about Cosby’s accusers are the ramblings of the doddering old uncle, who is sitting by himself in the corner, looking for an audience.
Damon Wayan’s is low hanging fruit. There is real work to be done in this nation, regarding violence against woman; paying attention to clowns is not part of that work.
***
Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University, where he directs the Center for Arts, Digital Culture, and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of several books including Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (NYU Press, 2013).

Leave Michael Vick Alone: The Racism and Misogyny of Football Fans by Lawrence Ware

Leave Michael Vick Alone: The Racism and Misogyny of Football Fansby Lawrence Ware | @Law_Ware | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
I’ve never been more disgusted to be a football fan.
Recently, Michael Vick was named the backup quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers. It makes football sense. If Ben Roethlisberger is injured (as he is prone to be given his quarterbacking style), Vick provides the athleticism, leadership, and consistency that Charlie Batch was never able to provide. Vick gets to stay in the league, and the Steelers get an experienced backup quarterback on their roster.
It’s a win-win, right? Wrong. Once news of Vick’s signing went public, football fans lost their minds. They protested. They wrote letters. They held vigils for Vick’s ‘victims.’ In the words of my mother: they acted a plum fool.
However, what piqued my interest was the moral inconsistency of the reaction. On one hand, people are reacting with moral outrage about the signing of Michael Vick, a man who unquestionably made poor choices, but paid his debt to society. All the while, the same fans are turning a blind eye to Roethlisberger, a man that all evidence suggests committed vicious crimes for which he was never forced to truly atone. I think there can really be only two reasons for this kind of moral inconsistency.
Racism
If you cannot tell, Michael Vick is black and Ben Roethlisberger is white. This is an important fact if you wish to fully understand what is happening here.  Whiteness is given another chance. Whiteness is given the benefit of the doubt. It is possible to rehabilitate a white person because they are able to fully embody their humanity. Black people, especially black men, are not afforded this right.
America will never forgive Michael Vick. He was a party to abusing dogs, and dogs are viewed with more empathy than black people.  Further, he made the mistake of unapologetically embracing an urban expression of blackness upon becoming a franchise quarterback. His braids were controversial. His on field swagger was controversial. He was everything that struck fear in the hearts of suburban white America. When he was found guilty of dog fighting, this only reinforced what many already believed: Michael Vick is a thug.
Ray Lewis was involved in the death of another black man, and the NFL highlighted him as a story of redemption. Even Steelers fans got teary eyed when he did the squirrel dance after winning the Super Bowl. Yet Vick being involved in killing dogs? That’s just too far. The not very subtle subtext is that the death of dogs bothers fans more than the death of black men. Racism is clearly at work.
MisogynyDomestic violence and sexual assault at the hands of collegiate and professional football players has become normalized. We barely bat an eye when it happens, unless it is caught on tape. This desensitization to violence against women creates a culture in which the voices of women are ignored and those who commit these heinous acts are never forced to come to terms with the harm they inflict.
Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault in 2008 and 2010. In 2009 he reached a settlement in the first case, and the 2010 incident never led to criminal charges. The prosecutor was not confident he would be able to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. While neither victim ever recanted their accusation, he was never found guilty of sexual assault in a court of law.  Citing the NFL’s personal conduct policy as the reason, Roger Goodell suspended him without pay for the first six games of the 2010 season. But folks are mad at Vick.
What this communicates to women is that sports fans will forgive a man that all evidence suggests is guilty of rape, but they will not forgive a man guilty of killing dogs. This places the pain of animals above the violation of women. It is this kind of inattentiveness to the voices of women that allows a culture of misogyny to thrive in NFL locker rooms.
I’m not excusing Vick for his past misdeeds. What he did was wrong. However, he paid his debt to society. The moral inconsistency of the response to Vick is influenced by the racism and misogyny that has always been a feature of NFL fandom. Get yourselves together football fans, your racism and misogyny are showing.
+++
Lawrence Ware is a professor of philosophy and diversity coordinator for Oklahoma State University’s 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 for the HuffPost Live, CNN, and NPR.

Pullman Porters: Ordinary Men, Extraordinary History

'They made beds and cleaned toilets. They shined shoes, dusted jackets, cooked meals and washed dishes. Yet the Pullman porters created history in the face of adversity and racial prejudice. They helped form the foundation for the black middle class, and became instrumental in the civil rights movement.

' +aarpbulletintoday  

Melina Abdullah on the Legitimacy of the Disruption Tactics of #BlackLivesMatters

'Melina Abdullah, professor of Pan-African Studies at California State University Los Angeles, discusses the intent of the Black Lives Matter movement and recent criticism its received from notable Republican candidates.' -- via +MSNBC 

Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library Provides Safe Haven for Troubled Neighborhood

'The Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore provides safety and security in one of the nation's most dangerous neighborhoods.' -- +Al Jazeera America News 

Wangechi Mutu: "I'm interested in how the eye can trick you"

'Wangechi Mutu finds it pleasing to hear that her video piece, “The End of Eating Everything”, made viewers’ skin crawl with its haunting and evocative creepiness. It means her optical trickery is working. The Kenyan artist, now based in New York City, constructs rich mythical mash-ups of beauty and the grotesque that tease and taunt the eye." -- +Design Indaba 

Between the Lines: Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson Talks with George Clinton

At the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Funk musician George Clinton shares stories with Ahmir Questlove Thompson about his life and career upon the release of his latest book, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard on You?: A Memoir.

MadameNoire's Where You Been?: Bilal Talks How He Got His Start, Musical Influence & Soul Sista

'Singer-Songwriter Bilal details how he was discovered, shares how 'Soul Sista' started from a joke and talks about his new album In Another Life.' -- +MadameNoire