Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 76

'We Own This City' has a Modern-day Conversation with 'The Wire'

'HBO's We Own This City zeroes in on rampant corruption and abuse within Baltimore's criminal justice system. It features drug dealers, civilians and the police officers who recklessly target them both. There's also politicians and federal agents with competing interests and egos. If this sounds like The Wire, they do share some DNA: David Simon and George Pelecanos are its creators. And while a few Wire-verse alumni appear, is this series more than just a rewiring of Baltimore politics?'

Conversations in Atlantic Theory • Alex Madva, Vanessa Wills, Ian Olasov, and Dana Miranda on The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives

'This discussion is with four contributors to a new edited collection titled The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives, published in late-2021 by Oxford University Press. We’re joined by Alex Madva, who teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Cal Poly Pomona, where he also directs the California Center for Ethics and Policy. Along with Brandon Hogan, Michael Cholbi, and Benjamin Yost, he co-edited this collection and is the co-author with Cholbi of the included piece “Can Capital Punishment Survive Black Lives Matter”? Vanessa Wills, who teaches in the Department of Philosophy at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and authored the essay “‘He Ate Jim Crow’: Racist Ideology as False Consciousness,” which takes up Karl Marx’s treatment of ideology as a way to understand the persistence of antiblack racism. Ian Olasov, a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, who authored an essay in the volume on philosophy, language, and how we talk about Black liberation, titled “The Movement for Black Lives and the Language of Liberation.” And Dana Miranda, who teaches in the Department of Philosophy at University of Massachusetts at Boston, the author of “The Violence of Leadership in Black Lives Matter,” which examines the relationship between movement aims and the distinction between leadership and mobilizations that are leaderful.'

For Céline Semaan, Fashion and Activism Have Always Gone Hand in Hand

'If you’re not familiar with Céline Semaan, you should be. The Lebanese Canadian designer, writer, and advocate is known for her pioneering work in sustainable fashion, from creating the Slow Factory — a public-service organization working at the intersection of human rights and environmental justice — to, most recently, writing a book. Host Lindsay Peoples sat down with Celine to chat about career pivots, the future of sustainable fashion, and the value of hope in the fight against climate change.'

Reckoning and Resilience - Artist Kennedi Carter and Art Collector Gail Belvett

"What I witness with [Black cowboys] is this freedom and overall oneness with nature that I find to be particularly interesting, but also just a level of sentient aliveness. There's nothing that seems to bring them more peace and happiness than being on a horse, especially after a long and hard day." -- Photographer Kennedi Carter  

‘Photographer Kennedi Carter, who was born and raised in Durham, N.C., and whose photos are part of Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now,  is in conversation with art collector and Nasher Museum Gallery Guide Gail Belvett.'

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NBN:

'Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) uses three Black electronic musics – footwork, grime, and the work of the producer Actress – to provide a theory of how Black musical experimentation has disrupted the circuits of racialized domination and exclusion in the 21st Century city. The book carefully attends to the unique ‘sonic ecologies’ produced by these three musical forms in South/West Chicago; East London and South London respectively, steering a course between uncritical celebration narratives of ‘resistant’ cultural production and dystopian analyses of urban decay. Dhanveer Singh Brar instead theorises these musics as forms of popular experimentalism which are not just inseparable from questions of space, race and class, but are productive of social and spatial relations. The book draws upon, and intervenes in, Black Studies literature to contribute a set of examples, questions and provocations that help readers to think about how the ‘Blackness of Black electronic dance music’ has produced (and continues to produce) a fugitive urban aesthetic sociality that has flourished in spite of the degradations of state and capital.'

In Conversation: Autumn Womack & Imani Perry | The Matter of Black Living -- The Aesthetic Experiment of Racial Data

'The Matter of Black Living excavates the dynamic interplay between racial data and Black aesthetic production that shaped late nineteenth-century social, cultural, and literary atmosphere. Through assembling previously overlooked archives and seemingly familiar texts, Autumn Womack shows how these artists and writers recalibrated the relationship between data and Black life. The result is a fresh and nuanced take on the history of documenting Blackness. The Matter of Black Living charts a new genealogy from which we can rethink the political and aesthetic work of racial data, a task that has never been more urgent.'

Ronan Farrow on the Threat of Modern Spyware

'Ronan Farrow has published an investigation into a software called Pegasus and its maker, NSO Group. Pegasus is one of the most invasive spywares known; it allows users—including law-enforcement officials or government authorities—to hack into a target’s smartphone, gaining access to photos, messages, and the feeds from a camera or microphone. NSO markets Pegasus as a tool to catch terrorists and other violent criminals, but once a surveillance tool is on the market it can be very difficult to control. Farrow finds that Pegasus is being used to suppress political opposition in democratic nations, including Spain. The largest known cluster of Pegasus attacks has targeted people in Catalonia who support the independence movement, which the Spanish government views as a threat. “This is not just an information-gathering tool,” Farrow tells David Remnick; “It’s an intimidation tactic, and it works”.'

Historian Phil Dixon on the Legacy of Negro Leagues Players and Manager Buck O'Neil

'In 2020, Major League Baseball reclassified seven Negro League teams as major league, meaning the statistics of those players will become part of the MLB's official historical record. The recognition is due in no small part to author, historian, and co-founder of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Phil Dixon, whose most recent book is called, John "Buck" O'Neil: The Rookie, His Words, His Voice. Dixon joins to discuss the legacy of O'Neil as a player and manager in the Negro Leagues, and the importance of preserving the history of Black baseball.'

Celia Rose Gooding Boards the USS Enterprise as Uhura

'Paramount+ is bringing viewers back onboard the USS Enterprise with the new series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.  Actor Celia Rose Gooding stars in the series as Uhura. The role was originated by Nichelle Nichols in the original Star Trek television series when it premiered in 1966.  Gooding joined The Takeaway to discuss taking on the role of Uhura and how she sees it fitting into her burgeoning career in entertainment.'

The Story of How One Independent Bookstore Has Survived, and Thrived, During the Pandemic

 

'The documentary, "Hello, Bookstore," follows a four-decade-old independent bookshop in Lenox, Massachusetts, and its owner Matthew Tannenbaum as the seller's community comes to its aid during the pandemic. Tannenbaum and director A.B. Zax join us to talk about the film, and we take calls from listeners about their own local bookstores.'