Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 772

Your Facebook Friend Said Something Racist. Now What?

New Tech City
Your Facebook feed has become the new town square. The new water cooler. The new [insert your analogy of choice]. Sometimes your far off "friends" and relatives share views far out of step with your values. It can get ugly.

On Set: Quvenzhané Wallis's Favorite Things

New York Times Video

The actress Quvenzhané Wallis talks about some of her favorite things.

Produced by: Bon Duke

Story Time with T-Pain: Shel Silverstein's 'Where the Sidewalk Ends'

The Boombox
Sit down for story time with T-Pain as he reads four poems from Shel Silverstein's classic children's book, Where the Sidewalk Ends.

HuffPost Live: "A Love Supreme" at 50

HuffPost Live w/ Marc Lamont Hill
50 years ago, the John Coltrane quartet recorded A Love Supreme a jazz masterwork recognized as one of the greatest albums in history. Hosted by: Marc Lamont HillGuests:
Dr. Cornel West @CornelWest (New York, NY) Activist; Author; Public IntellectualDr. Guthrie Ramsey @DrGuyMusiqology (Philadelphia, PA) Professor of Music & Africana Studies, University of PennsylvaniaDr. Lewis Porter (New York, NY) Jazz Pianist & Composer; Author, "John Coltrane: His Life and Music"Archie Shepp (Paris, France) Grammy Award-nominated Jazz Saxophonist & ComposerAshley Kahn (San Francisco, CA) Instructor, Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, NYU Tisch ; Author, A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature AlbumStanley Crouch (New York, NY) Poet, Author & Cultural Critic

Donald Byrd--"I've Longed and Searched For My Mother" (1965)

William Claxton: "Donald Byrd on the 'A' Train" (1959)Dr. Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 -2013) is most remembered for the funky sides he dropped with the Mizell Brothers in the 1970s--"(Fallin Like) Dominoes" and "Flight Time"--and for mentoring young Black musicians at HBCUs like Howard University (The Blackbyrds) and North Carolina Central University (125th St NYC Band). But even before that point he was an innovative artist, as evidenced by his Brass with Voice recording I'm Trying to Get Home (1965), where -"I've Longed and Searched For My Mother" is taken from.

"White Like Me": Eddie Murphy #CrimingWhileWhite

Eddie Murphy under (White) cover.

What Happened to Lennon Lacy? | NC NAACP Town Hall

NC Forward Together Moral Movement Channel

As questions remained unanswered in the hanging death of 17 year old Lennon Lacy , the North Carolina NAACP holds a town hall meeting in the town of Bladenboro to discuss updates in the case.

Redd Foxx on The Merv Griffin Show (1966)

Redd Foxx (December 9, 1922 - 1991) was so much more than the character that he made famous on Sanford & Son , as witnessed by the dozens of stand-up albums he released during his life--many of them as insightful as they were raunchy. Before the world would get to know "Fred Sanford," he was being name-dropped by Detroit Red as Chicago Red in The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In this clip from 1966, Merv Griffin prefaces his introduction of Foxx with "he's kind of a stranger to television"; six years later he would be the star of one of television's most popular sitcoms. 

Jimmy Smith -- "Get Out My Life"

Lots of Sunday afternoons of my dad listening to Jimmy Smith (December 8, 1925 - 2005), some brown liquor within arm's reach.  "Get Out of My Life" from Respect (Verve, 1967) remains a fave of mine, though I'm sure there are some purists that prefer his early Blue Note sides.

An Open Letter of Love to Black Students: #BlackLivesMatter

Black students and professors, Beaumont Tower, Michigan State University, December 6, 2014. photo by Darryl Quinton Evans An Open Letter of Love to Black Students: #BlackLivesMatter via BlackSpace 
We are Black professors.
We are daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, godchildren, grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, and mothers.
We’re writing to tell you we see you and hear you.
We know the stories of dolls hanging by nooses, nigger written on dry erase boards and walls, stories of nigger said casually at parties by White students too drunk to know their own names but who know their place well enough to know nothing will happen if they call you out your name, stories of nigger said stone sober, stories of them calling you nigger using every other word except what they really mean to call you, stories of you having to explain your experience in classrooms—your language, your dress, your hair, your music, your skin—yourself, of you having to fight for all of us in classrooms where you are often the only one or one of a few, stories of you choosing silence as a matter of survival.
Sometimes we’re in those classrooms with you.
We know there is always more people don’t see or hear or want to know, but we see you. We hear you.
In our mostly White classrooms we work with some of you, you who tell us other professors don’t see, don’t hear you. You, who come to our offices with stories of erasure that make you break down. They don’t see me, you say. They don’t hear me. We know and don’t know how to hold your tears.
How do we hold your tears, and your anger?
You are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our godchildren. You, with your stories of erasure break our hearts because you are family, because your stories of erasure ultimately are stories of violence, because your stories mirror our experiences, past and present.
Right now. This is all happening now. Every day. We know this.
We want you to hear.
You tell us your stories and sometimes we tell you our own stories of cops who stop us on the way to work, of grandparents born in Jim Crow, of parents born during segregation into an economic reality that made them encourage us to get solid jobs, of parents born outside the United States who came face-to-face with the harsh reality of U.S. anti-Blackness, how we chose institutions where we often feel alone. We tell you stories of almost dropping out of school, stories of working harder than anyone else even when it felt like it was killing us, even when it is killing us. We tell you we know historically and predominantly White universities might let you/us in, but they don’t care much about retaining us no matter how many times they misuse pretty words like diversity, or insult us with the hard slap of minority.
We tell you about the underground network of folks who helped us, the people who wrote us letters, the offices we cried in, the times we were silent, the times we spoke up, the times we thought we wouldn’t make it, the people who told us to hold on. We tell you over and over about the railroad of Black professors and other professors of color who we call when we know one of us is in need. We remind you skinfolk isn’t always kinfolk. We tell you to be careful. We tell you to take risks. We tell you, guard your heart. We tell you, keep your heart open. We tell you to hold on. Hold on, we say, to you, to us, because holding on to each other is everything, often the only thing.
Hold on.
We want a future for you, for us right now.
We write this is in solidarity with the families of Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Renisha McBride, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley Jones, and so many others who they are killing, so many others who should have had the chance to be in our classrooms, who should have had the chance to simply be.
We write this in solidarity with Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and too many others stolen and gone, too many others who fought for us to be in this privileged place where we still have to fight for justice.
We write this in solidarity with The Combahee River Collective and #BlackLivesMatter who knew and know we have to fight for and love all of us if any one of us is going to survive.
We write this in solidarity with you, Black students, here and elsewhere, and with those on the ground for over 100 days, four and a half hours, two seconds.
The living and the dead. We hear you. We see you.
In our classes we’ll continue to do what we’ve always done: teach about race, anti-blackness, and White Supremacy. This has and will continue to put us in positions we have to defend. This has and will continue to compromise our jobs, our health, our relationships with other people who profess to be our colleagues. This has and will compromise relationships with partners who tell us with love we need to set better boundaries.
We’re trying.
We study ourselves. We study, we live Black lives. We organize. We strategize. We march. We teach to nurture and resist. We don’t always talk about the letters we write to administrators, the angry emails we send, the committees and task forces we serve on, the department meetings where we question and push for more, the colleagues who question our research, our presence, our skin, our manner of being. We don’t always talk about the weight of pushing for more, more being basic equity, more being the right to exist without explanation or apology, more being the right to love and be loved.
What we do is not enough. It’s never enough, but we’ll keep on. We’ll keep finding ways to do more. For all of us.
We’re supposed to say views expressed herein are ours alone, but we believe that truth to be self-evident.
Some people who share our views will not sign this but they’re still with us. The living and the dead.
We’ve never been alone.
You already know your life matters. Know we’re fighting with you and for you. With all of us. For all of us.
We got you.
We see you. We hear you. We love you.
********
Rae Paris, Michigan State University
Django Paris, Michigan State University
Jessica Marie Johnson, Michigan State University
Brian G. Gilmore, Michigan State University
Michael J. Dumas, New York University
Terry Flennaugh, Michigan State University
Tama Hamilton-Wray, Michigan State University
Jeff Wray, Michigan State University
Yomaira Figueroa, Michigan State University
Tacuma Peters, Michigan State University
Michelle A. Purdy, Washington University in St. Louis
Adrienne Dixson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Maisha T. Winn, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dorinda J. Carter Andrews, Michigan State University
Terrion Williamson, Michigan State University
Karla FC Holloway, Duke University
Kiese Laymon, Vassar College
Chezare A. Warren, Michigan State University
Shaun R. Harper, University of Pennsylvania
Adam J. Banks, University of Kentucky
Metta Samá, Salem College
Tamara Butler, Michigan State University
Lisa Ze Winters, Wayne State University
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, University of Pennsylvania
Valerie Kinloch, The Ohio State University
Ibram X Kendi, University at Albany-SUNY
NiCole T. Buchanan, Michigan State University
Geneva Smitherman, Michigan State University
Keisha L. Green, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Terah Venzant Chambers, Michigan State University
Glenn Chambers, Michigan State University
David E. Kirkland, New York University
Brittney Cooper, Rutgers University
Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
Tamura Lomax, Virginia Commonwealth University
Treva Lindsey, The Ohio State University
***
If you are a Black professor and would like to add your name, please email blackspaceblog@gmail.com with your name as you would like it to appear, along with your institution.