Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 744

Dancer Carmen de Lavallade Reflects on Career in "As I Remember It"

"For over 60 years, dancer Carmen de Lavallade has performed worldwide in collaboration with legendary artists such as Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, Alvin Ailey and her late husband Geoffrey Holder. Still performing in her 80s, Ms. de Lavallade is currently touring an autobiographical show called As I Remember It. The production features Ms. de Lavallade performing with projections of her younger self as well as with films featuring some of her significant collaborators." -- Big Think

Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory (dir. by Orlando de Guzman)

 In the Fusion documentary Ferguson: A Report from Occupied Territory , directed by Orlando de Guzman and co-produced by Katina Parker , the residents of St. Louis County talk about their experiences with Law Enforcement. Long time activist and St. Louis native Rev. Osagyefo Sekou perhaps describes it best: “Part of the struggle for us in Ferguson is to break a four-hundred-year belief that black people are not human.”

New Book--My Soul Is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas by Bertin M. Louis, Jr.

My Soul Is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas
Bertin M. Louis, Jr.
NYU Press200 pages
December, 2014ISBN: 9781479809936

In the Haitian diaspora, as in Haiti itself, the majority of Haitians have long practiced Catholicism or Vodou. However, Protestant forms of Christianity now flourish both in Haiti and beyond. In the Bahamas, where approximately one in five people are now Haitian-born or Haitian-descended, Protestantism has become the majority religion for immigrant Haitians.

In My Soul Is in Haiti, Bertin M. Louis, Jr. has combined multi-sited ethnographic research in the United States, Haiti, and the Bahamas with a transnational framework to analyze why Protestantism has appealed to the Haitian diaspora community in the Bahamas. The volume illustrates how devout Haitian Protestant migrants use their religious identities to ground themselves in a place that is hostile to them as migrants, and it also uncovers how their religious faith ties in to their belief in the need to “save” their homeland, as they re-imagine Haiti politically and morally as a Protestant Christian nation.

This important look at transnational migration between second and third world countries shows how notions of nationalism among Haitian migrants in the Bahamas are filtered through their religious beliefs. By studying local transformations in the Haitian diaspora of the Bahamas, Louis offers a greater understanding of the spread of Protestant Christianity, both regionally and globally.

Reviews

"A ground-breaking study drawing on five years of transnational ethnographic research in the Bahamas, Haiti, and the United States. As a Haitian-American, Louis is cognizant of the subtleties of Haitian culture and the cultural differences between Haitians living in Haiti and Haitians living abroad. A major strength of this book is the author’s keen recognition of the importance of boundary maintenance and his insights into native constructions of 'religion,' such as the distinction Haitians make between being Protestant (Pwotestan) and being Christian (Kretyen)."—Stephen D. Glazier, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

"A ground breaking study of the evangelical Protestant churches in the Haitian communities of the Bahamas, describing the ways in which these churches provide their congregations with a sense of national and transnational identity. Vital for students of diasporic and transnational studies, anthropologists, historians and sociologists of religion, this book is a comprehensive study likely to be the authoritative source on this topic for years to come."—Leslie G. Desmangles, Trinity College

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Bertin M. Louis, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies, Affiliated Faculty of American Studies, and a Faculty Fellow of the Center for the Study of Social Justice, Global Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Bill Nye: The Evolutionary Benefits of Sex (Beyond the Obvious)

"What were the first organisms to have sex? We may never know the answer, but as Bill Nye explains in this Big Think interview, scientists are very interested in why sexual activity remains so popular in nature beyond the obvious reproductive implications. The Science Guy delves deeper into this topic in his latest book, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation." via Big Think

Mark Anthony Neal on 'Being Mary Jane" -- March 31, 2015 at 10:00pm est

Mo’ne Davis and the Stakes for Black Girls in Competitive Sports

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Arial; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; color:purple; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><b>Mo’ne Davis and the Stakes for Black Girls in Competitive Sports</b></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">by David J. Leonard | @DrDavidJLeonard | <b>NewBlackMan (in Exile)</b><br /><br /> Joey Casselberry, a student-athlete at Bloomsburg University, joined others on Twitter to express outrage at the prospects of Disney making a bio-pic about Mo’ne Davis. Notwithstanding the fact that she captivated the nation with her brilliance during the 2014 Little League World Series, Casselberry was not having it. He took to Twitter,<a href="http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/mo... announcing</a>, "Disney is making a movie about Mo'ne Davis? What a joke. That slut got rocked by Nevada.” <br /><br /> Rightly so, his comment prompted outrage and his immediate dismissal of from the team. Amid all the public discourse there has been little discussion of race, gender and sports. <br /><br /> Mo’Ne plays baseball; and so does Casselberry. Baseball, America’s pastime, is seeped in a history of White Supremacy. From the era of segregation to the era of integration, baseball has always been a contested space defined by white anxiety and efforts to preserve white supremacy and more specifically to preserve the sport as a province of White boys and men. This is not just a reality at the professional ranks, but among youth. Baseball, like so much of American culture remains racially stratified, separate and unequal, a sport, like the communities itself, <a href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/918.... <br /><br /> It is hard not to think about the connection between Mo’ne Davis, and Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League team, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/197889/... was recently stripped of their title for allegedly playing with kids from outside of their district</a>. Each succeeded in spite of denied opportunities only to be told that, “Black Success Doesn’t Matter.” For each the message is clear: even in sports, a place where purportedly ‘balls don’t lie’ and ‘it’s all about scoreboard,’ victories result in investigations, questions about the veracity of success, and outright hostility. <br /><br /> The racist and sexist hostility directed at Davis, like Don Imus’ <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2007... about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team in 2007, highlights that in America Black success is often met with White hostility. On and off the field, Whiteness is defined in opposition to blackness. Black success is an insult to the sensitivities of most white people, including those who don't think of themselves rabid racists. It is a challenge to institutions that work to perpetuate white privilege and power, that require the illusion of self-induced Black failure.<br /><br /> We have seen this story before with the experiences of Gabby Douglas, and the Williams Sisters, each who dealt with denied opportunities, hostilities, and a culture of uncelebration during their struggles to make it and in the face of success.<br /><br /> Here is one little girl, who despite these sociological realities – like Gabby Douglass breaking into the gymnastics world – broke through and experiences the wrath of some white man’s projections. The recent success of <a href="http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-comment... Neal and Simone Manuel</a> and the dominance of the Williams Sisters are further examples. <br /><br /> While embracing their stories as evidence of the American Dream, as examples of of American Exceptionalism and racial progress, these girls and their experiences are proof of the realities of racism and sexism. <br /><br /> Mo’Ne at certain levels is an exception (and thus needed to be put back into place) to the <a href="http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org... denial of black girls sporting opportunities</a>. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12... one study</a>, black girls are less likely to participate in sports. <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/10160/t... school underfunding, divestment from parks and recreation programs, the privatization of play, the literal foreclosure on green space, and countless else</a>, childhood sports remain a Jim Crow reality. Writing about the race and class inequities of sporting opportunities in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington D.C., <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/10160/t... Clarke Kaplan</a> highlights the costs and consequences:<br /><br /> As women's sports have been institutionalized within big money college athletics, elite private teams and leagues have become the principal site for player development and college recruitment. Without access to such venues, aspiring college athletes are far less likely to be seen by college coaches, much less given a scholarship. Shunning the underfunded schools and struggling rec centers in the District, college coaches, trainers, and recruiters flock to the richer, whiter suburbs that have laid claim to women's pre-college athletics as their domain.<br /><br /> In the case of Mo’ne Davis, Douglas, and countless others, the system failed to foreclose opportunities to these girls as they found ways to break down the doors of racism and sexism. The failures of a system to contain and constrain prompts the backlash and the efforts to preserve the order of White things.<br /><br /> For legions of other children, boys and girls, the system is working. Like them, Mo’ne is supposed to be a failure. She is not supposed to be playing sports, donning the covers of magazines, and becoming a national sensation. She is supposed to be invisible. She’s supposed to locked up, unhealthy, pregnant, and an example of the pathologies of a community. The outrage and the backlash directed at her, Gabby Douglas, the Williams sisters, and the Jackie Robinson West Little League Team reflects the yearning to maintain these sorts of narratives, to protect the logics of White Supremacy.<br /><br /> We must talk about sports, their power, and their denied potential for Black girls and boys. The efforts to contain, and render Mo’ne Davis invisible is an effort to protect a racial and gender order that regularly denies black girls the opportunity to participate in sports, to PLAY, and to otherwise be children. <br /><br /> Symbolically, the denied sporting opportunities matter in that they illustrate the lack of investment in Black girls; they reveal a denied level of innocence and a failure to see Black girls as the future. The lack of investment has consequences. “Sports were the only space where I felt like I had some power. Some autonomy. Some control. A place to creatively express myself without some adult or white person’s gaze and rules being projected onto me,” notes Stacey Patton, a scholar, writer, and journalist. <br /><br /> The goal, according to <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/cultu... Reid</a>, is about creating opportunities that has benefits that extend beyond the sporting fields. “The goal is not for Black girls to become professional athletes or NCAA champions, although that would be wonderful. The point is giving these girls a better chance at success and happiness. Sports won't solve every problem for every Black girl, but it could definitely give them the edge that so many of them desperately need.”<br /><br /> Yet, as evident by the experiences of Davis, Douglas, the Williams Sisters, and so many ‘invisible’ Black girls, sports also function as a space that are equally disempowering and silencing. They are spaces of limited resources and inaccessible sports; they are spaces of denied celebration and hostilities. <br /><br /> According to Patton, “But then when I played organized sports I had a hard time. In boarding school I was the only Black girl on the team and there was always a white coach trying to ‘break me’ and make me ‘fit’ into a ‘system.’ This continued in college with a tyrant coach who was verbally abusive and talked to me and others like we were slaves. The frustration got so real that I didn’t love the game any more because for me sports mirrored the larger white supremacist structure which is always about policing black expression, controlling our bodies, and killing our spirit."<br /><br /> This is why it’s so important to talk about sports and sporting cultures here. The tweet was racist and sexist; it does embody the persistence of racism and sexism among <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/w... millennials</a>; it does embody the violence of social media. Yet, his tweet, like the media’s refusal to even imagine Davis playing baseball in high school or college, like the hostilities directed at Douglas and the Williams sisters, like the stripping about JRW like the divestment from predominantly Black and Latino schools, are indicative of the systemic divestment in the educational opportunities and sporting cultures available to Black girls. <br /><br /> All over this country we have Black kids fighting and saying Black Lives Matter. That is the exact opposite message of the tweet. Yet, it would be a mistake to see Joey Casselberry apart from a society that regular says Black Lives don’t matter; that systemically denies Black girls and boy the opportunities to success on and off the field. <br /><br /> More than sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, sporting opportunities for Black girls remain illusive. More than forty years after the passage of Title IX, Black athletic success is met with racism and sexism. Black kids, from Mo’Ne Davis to Tamir Rice, playing in the park are not worthy of celebration and protection but violence and, sometimes, even death. From the streets to the baseball diamond, Black childhood, innocence remains illegible in the white imagination. <br /><br /> +++<br /><br /><b>David J. Leonard</b> is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. Leonard's latest books include <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5321-after... Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness</i></a> (SUNY Press), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/African-America... Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings</i></a> (Praeger Press) co-edited with <b>Lisa Guerrero</b> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Hate-Pop... Hate: White Power and Popular Culture</i></a> with C. Richard King. He is currently working on a book<i> Presumed Innocence: White Mass Shooters in the Era of Trayvon</i> about gun violence in America. You can follow him on Twitter at @drdavidjleonard.</span></span></div>

Four Years of Syrian Resistance to Imperialist Takeover by Sara Flounders and Lamont Lilly

Four Years of Syrian Resistance to Imperialist Takeover by Sara Flounders and Lamont Lilly | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
U.S. efforts to overturn the government of Syria have now extended into a fifth year. It is increasingly clear that thousands of predictions reported in the corporate media by Western politicians, think tanks, diplomats and generals of a quick overturn and easy destruction of Syrian sovereignty have been overly optimistic, imperialist dreams. But four years of sabotage, bombings, assassinations and a mercenary invasion of more than 20,000 fighters recruited from over 60 countries have spread great ruin and loss of life.
The U.S. State Department has once again made its arrogant demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must step down. This demand confirms U.S. imperialism’s determination to overthrow the elected Syrian government. Washington intends to impose the chaos of feuding mercenaries and fanatical militias as seen today in Libya and Iraq.
A delegation from the International Action Center headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark traveled to Syria in late February to present a different message. Visits to hospitals, centers for displaced families and meetings with religious leaders, community organizations and government officials conveyed the IAC’s determination to resist the orchestrated efforts of U.S. imperialism acting through its proxies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Israel.
The IAC’s opportunity to again visit Syria came following its participation in a packed and well-organized meeting of the International Forum for Justice in Palestine, held in Beirut on Feb. 22 and 23. The conference was initiated by Ma’an Bashour and the Arab International Centre for Communication and Solidarity and again confirmed the centrality of the burning, unresolved issue of Palestine in the region.
The solidarity delegation to Syria included Cynthia McKinney, former six-term member of the U.S Congress; Lamont Lilly, of the youth organization FIST – Fight Imperialism, Stand Together; Eva Bartlett, from the Syrian Solidarity Movement; and Sara Flounders, IAC co-director.
The delegation traveled the rutted, mountainous, blacktop road from Beirut to Damascus to the Lebanon-Syria border. On the Syrian side, this road was a modern, 6-lane highway, a reminder of Syria’s high level of infrastructure development. Even after four years of war, this is still a well-maintained highway. Due to sanctions against Syria, hundreds of trucks attempting deliveries stretched for miles on both sides of the border.
Compared to two years ago, when the IAC visited Damascus, this year we didn’t hear the constant thud of incoming rockets from mercenary forces shelling the city. These military forces have been pushed back from their encirclement of the capital. Syrian military units, checkpoints, sandbags, blast walls and concrete blocks were now less pervasive. Markets were full of people and held more produce.
A visit to Damascus’ largest hospital showed the cumulative impact of four years of devastation. At the University Hospital, where children with amputated limbs receive treatments in the ICU, many children had been brought in maimed from explosives and with shrapnel wounds from mortars and rockets fired on Damascus by terrorist forces.
At a visit to a center for displaced families at a former school, we met with university students, who provide sports, crafts, tutoring and mentoring programs. Medical care, free food and education programs are provided by the centers. But conditions are desperately overcrowded. Each homeless family, often of 6 to 10 people, is allocated a single classroom as housing. Almost half the population has been displaced by the terror tactics of mercenary forces.
A Mosaic of cultures
A theme in almost every discussion was Syria’s heritage as a diverse, rich mosaic of religious and cultural traditions. Sectarian divisions and intolerance are consciously opposed. One can see the determination to oppose the rule of foreign-funded forces.
A visit with Syria’s Grand Mufti Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun and Syrian Greek Orthodox Bishop Luca al-Khoury reflected the centuries of religious harmony that previously existed in Syria.
Mufti Hassoun stressed the need for reconciliation. He described to the visitors the assassination three years ago of his 22-year-old son, Saria, who “had never carried a weapon in his life.” Saria was gunned down after leaving his university. At the funeral, Mufti Hassoun declared he forgave the gunmen and called on them to lay down their weapons and rejoin Syria. He described his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Bishop Luca al-Khoury, as his cousin and brother.
Bishop Khoury described the ease with which he received a visa to the U.S., while Mufti Hassoun was denied a visa, although both are religious leaders. “Why do they differentiate between us?” said Khoury. “It’s part of the project to separate Christians and Muslims here. It’s over gas pipelines which are supposed to run through Syrian territory. This will only happen if there is a weak Syrian state.
“If the Syrian government would agree to give a monopoly to France to extract gas from Syria, then you would find [President François] Hollande visiting Syria the next day. If the Syrian government would give the monopoly to [the United States of] America, [President Barack] Obama would declare President al-Assad as the legitimate ruler of the Syrian people.”
“Turkey is warring on us,” Khoury continued, “with financial support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and political support from America, Europe and Britain. Drones cross our borders daily, providing coordinates for the terrorists as to where to strike.”
Both religious leaders declared, as did many others in Syria, that the only solution is an international effort to stop the flow of arms: “If the American government would like to find a solution for the Syrian crisis, they could go to the Security Council and issue a resolution under Chapter 7 for a total ban of weapons from Turkey to terrorists in Syria. In one week this would be over.”
Syria’s accomplishments
Political and media adviser to President al-Assad, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, described the problem of stopping the weapons and mercenaries flooding into the country: “With external support and financing, and an over 800-kilometer border with Turkey, it’s very difficult to stop the flow of terrorists.
“Syria was formerly one of the fastest developing countries in the world,” Shaaban continued, “and one of the safest. We have free education and health care. We did not know poverty; we grew our food and produced our own clothing. At universities, 55 percent of the students were women. In whose interest is it to destroy this heritage? Who is the beneficiary of this?”
Shaaban described her time as a Fulbright scholar at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and later as professor at Eastern Michigan University: “I always wanted to be a bridge between Syria and Western cultures. At the beginning of the crisis, they tried to buy me. They urged me to ‘come to a civilized place,’” she said. “We have baths which are over 1,000 years old and still functioning. I studied Shelley: They didn’t have baths 800 years ago in England. We did. We were having baths and coffee.”
Meeting with PFLP Leaders
The delegation headed by Ramsey Clark also had an important opportunity to meet with Abu Ahmad Fuad, deputy general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abu Sami Marwan, of the Political Bureau of the PFLP, and hear of the ongoing developments in Palestine and the region.
According to a Feb. 25 statement released by the PFLP after the meeting, “The PFLP leaders discussed the nature of the U.S./Zionist aggression against the people of the region, their intervention in Syria and the attempts of colonial powers to impose their hegemony by force and military aggression, through division of the land and people, and by pushing the region into sectarian or religious conflict.
“This U.S. policy is nothing new.” The Front noted that the colonial powers have waged an ongoing war against the Arab people to prevent any real progress for the region on the road to liberation, self-determination and an end to Zionist occupation.
“The U.S. delegation discussed the urgent need for building ongoing solidarity with Palestine in the United States and internationally,” continued the release, “in particular to confront the deep involvement of the United States — militarily, politically and financially — in the crimes of the occupier, and to end its attacks on Syria, Iraq and the people of the entire region.
“The solidarity delegates noted that there is a colonial scheme to divide and repartition the region according to the interests of major corporations and imperial powers, targeting the resources of the people, sometimes through blatant political interference in the affairs of the region and other times through wars and military attacks on states and peoples.
“The two sides emphasized the importance of communication between the Palestinian Arab left and progressive and democratic forces in the United States to confront Zionism and imperialism in the U.S. and in Palestine alike.”
Ramsey Clark described the aim of the visit: “To find more opportunities for dialogue and coordination among the Syrian and American people.  We saw culture and credibility in Syria and we appreciate the struggle of this people. We will disallow them to shift Syria into Iraq or Libya.”
Cynthia McKinney, former member at the U.S. Congress, said that she appreciated “Syria’s heroic stance, as people and leadership, in its war against the U.S. imperialism. The Syrian people are exceptional in their capability of resistance as the acts during four years have failed to achieve their goals.”
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Sara Flounders is Co-Director of the International Action Center (IAC). Lamont Lilly is an organizer with Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) and Workers World Party.

"Love From the Sun" -- Norman Connor feat. Dee Dee Bridgewater (1974)

Bandleader and percussionist Norman Connors is joined by legendary vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater on the title track of his 1974 recording Love From the Sun . Album also features Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes, Hubert Laws on flute and Eddie Henderson on trumpet.

The Tale Of Mingering Mike, Who Painted Himself A Music Career

 "A self-taught visual artist who longed to make soul records, Mingering Mike ended up realizing his dreams on paper rather than vinyl. Decades later, his work is paying off, as it has been added to the collection of The Smithsonian American Art Museum."

Op-Doc: A Conversation With My Black Son

In this short documentary, parents reveal their struggles with telling their Black sons that they may be targets of racial profiling by the police.