Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 773

"Mr. Bojangles" -- Sammy Davis, Jr.

Sammy Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 - 1990) came up in an era when Black entertainers had to be -- to use contemporary language -- multi-taskers.  The young Sammy Davis, Jr. made his name hoofing, as so many Black entertainers did, but at his peak had mastered dance, the stage, film and the recording industry.  He also served as a model for how to leverage his celebrity, and his network, for social justice.  Mr. Davis was the ceiling that Michael Jackson eventually transcended. Here Mr. Davis performs one of his signature tunes, "Mr. Bonjangles," a song which could have been written for him.  Shout-out to Flip Wilson for allowing Mr. Davis to tell his story.

#AliveWhileBlack and #CrimingWhileWhite Highlight Aggressive Policing & White Supremacy

Fusion

Fusion’s Alicia Menendez sat down with actor and political activist Gbenga Akinnagbe (from HBO’s “The Wire”) and political analyst Zerlina Maxwell to talk about public reactions to the grand jury’s decision. For Maxwell, who holds a law degree, the decision “is stunning. It’s absolutely shocking,” she told Menendez. On social media, many took to Twitter to air their frustrations using #CrimingWhileWhite and #AliveWhileBlack to express personal run-ins with police.

Keeping Vintage Black Music Alive: A Conversation with Sonic Archivist Harry Weinger

The Root | Left of Black

In this preview of the next Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined in studio by Harry Weinger to talk about working with sonic archives, including the Marvin Gaye archives. Weinger is a producer, writer and educator who is currently Vice President of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises. Weinger teaches at New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music .

Left of Black S5:E11: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing

Left of Black S5:E11:  Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr., (@DrJeffrey2U) Associate Professor of Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. McCune is the author of Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and the Politics of Passing (University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Explaining his decision to discuss Black Male Queer sexuality outside of the metaphor of the closet, Professor McCune admits that many of the men he interviewed for his book described  “the closet was just another carceral space.” 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).*** Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in @ iTunes U*** Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

What Digital Humanities Looks Like: Reimagining Michael Jackson's 'Scream' for #BlackLivesMatter

So of course the first question is why a course on Michael Jackson--and why  at this time?  Why not a course on Jackson?...a course that uses his body of work and his literal body as a vessel to explore the anxieties, fears, apprehensions and violence produce by the centuries old presence of people of African descent in the United States?

For this particular iteration of the course, we looked at Michael Jackson’s relationship to the Archive(s) -- do a quick Google search on Earl “Snake Hips” Tucker, who died almost 70 years before the advent of YouTube, for example.  For their final projects, the students--in 8 groups of 7--were assigned a particular track from Jackson’s catalogue, and charged to curate uploadable digital content, that addresses many of the course’s most prominent themes: race, gender (performance), class, cultural appropriation, and the function and value of the archive(s).

Presented here is one such project, which reimagines Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson’s “Scream” for the #BlackLivesMatter moment, foregrounding it in a significant moment in Duke’s own history of racial politics.

For all those who have wondered, this is what Digital Humanities Looks Like.Shoutouts to Archana Gowda, who served as curriculum consultant and Duke Librarian Karen Jean Hunt, Duke Professor and Dance Historian Tommy DeFrantz, Universal Music Enterprises’s Harry Weinger, and artist Pierre Bennu, whose presentations to the class provided the students with disparate examples of the Archive(s).

"They Killed Franklin" from the series 'Character Assassination' | "#BlackLivesMatter | #ThePeanuts

"They Killed Franklin" from the series Character Assassination.

from the dude who gave us ‪#‎BlackBarbieMoses‬; 
Pierre Bennu making ‪#‎BlackLivesMatters‬ even in our childhood post-race nostalgia.

Teen’s Death Brings Up Painful Past in South: National Coverage on Lennon Lacy 'Lynching'

Katie Couric | Yahoo News
While Ferguson, Mo., erupted after a grand jury failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, another story was playing out some 900 miles away from the cameras — and the outrage. On the morning of Aug. 29, Lennon Lacy, a 17-year-old African-American high school football player from Bladenboro, N.C., was found dead in the open field of a mobile home park, hanging from a swing set. When Lennon’s mother, Claudia, arrived on the scene, she felt in her heart that he had not committed suicide. “When I looked at him I knew — I said — I said to myself — I said, ‘He didn't do this... He couldn't have.’"

"Talking About Freedom" -- Syl Johnson | "Development Arrested" -- Clyde Woods | Alberta Hunter

Alberta Hunter credit: Mike Maple"the blues and the spirituals are not simply mechanistic responses (to oppression). They are the conscious codification of African American folk wisdom.  The derivatives of these forms such as jazz, gospel, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, funk, and rap, all refer back to these anchors and their insights. These new musical genres are documentary in nature.  That is, they still must explicitly, or implicitly, address African American consciousness of this period and the intellectual/performance traditions that emerged during it.  They are popular in the true sense of the word: generated by and for en evolved community of consciousness and memory" --Clyde Woods, Development Arrested: The Blues and Plantation Power in the Mississippi Delta

#CrimingWhileWhite is Not Solidarity! by Dr. Stephany Rose

#CrimingWhileWhite is Not Solidarity!by Dr. Stephany Rose | @thedrstiletto | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
#CrimingWhileWhite is not solidarity for justice. It is glaring evidence that white privilege is utterly blinding. In the wake of a no indictment for NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo who killed Eric Garner by choke hold in July of 2014 renewed calls for justice have ignited citizens across the United States and communities around the globe. The decision for a grand jury not to indict Officer Pantelo comes in the midst of national unrest against excessive police violence that results statistically higher in homicide by police in black communities. Protests and demonstrations proclaiming #blacklivesmatter continue to erupt across the country as more and more grand juries seem to sanction the excessive violence of paramilitary police officers. In counter narratives to #blacklivesmatter, “good intentioned” non-blacks have attempted to co-opt the hashtag and replace it with #alllivesmatter. The impetus to do so reveals the insidiously blinding nature of racism; advocates of #blacklivesmatter in no way believe or perceive that other lives that are not black do not matter. The argument and hashtag suggests black lives have mattered less to operants of the state who are willing to allow black Americans to die at the hands of police officers every 28 hours. The impetus behind hashtags like #alllivesmatter and #CrimingWhileWhite proclaims that if we could just equally talk about our issues and concerns in airspace then institutionalized racism would diminish; this reveals the blinding light of racism in the midst of doing social justice. Genuine justice is not simply an argument for equal practice and attention; doing justice resides in equity, not equality. As an assistant professor of Women’s and Ethnic Studies where semester after semester I teach "Introduction to Social Justice," I meet students approximately every 16 weeks who perceive social justice to be the fight for “equal rights.” While social justice does encompass the fight for equal access and equal treatment under the law, justice must be achieved through a practice of equity, not equality. What is the difference? Equality as a practice of presumed justice is me walking into a room and providing everyone a pair of size 6 stiletto pumps and instructing them to go about their lives wearing them. I have been fair. I have treated everyone in the moment equally. Everyone has shoes to use and wear. The problem is, however, unless the room is full of people with smaller than average feet, with no physical disablements, and proficiencies for maneuvering in stilettos, the fair and equal treatment has become useless except for those who are able to effectively walk in the shoes. Justice, on the other hand, walks into the room and provides each person what is necessary for them all to usefully and effectively maneuver throughout their lives, which may be shoes that fit or other mobility devices specific to their needs. Hence, doing social justice is not simply all things being equal, but all things being equitable. #CrimingWhileWhite is not an equitable justice practice. Yes, #CrimingWhileWhite emerges as a space where liberal-minded white people through their social media accounts are provided the opportunity to express their acknowledgement of racism and white privilege being real. Though communities of color have known this since the invention of whiteness, white awakening in 2014 is indeed still necessary as colorblindness in a post-Civil Rights era masks the reality of racism to many white Americans. However, the mere recognition of white privilege in this moment is not a call to justice and solidarity if it solely remains a space for “good intentioned” white folks to unload an array of unearned advantages they have acquired in life, which has resulted in an accrual of social benefits upon which they have built their lives. #CrimingWhileWhite actually reaffirms the outrageousness of white privilege, by allowing whites to admit their privilege while carrying on still in white privilege. It is salt being poured onto open racists wounds. Equity and justice in this moment for #CrimingWhileWhite would be those same white privileged people demanding for federal probes into the police officers and forces that allowed them off the hook while breaking the law. It would be investigating judges that provided lighter sentences, if sentences at all, for white offenders as opposed to their counterparts of color. It would be a financial outpouring into the defense funds of accused people of color from white privileged criminals who have been allowed to carry on with employment opportunities, access to housing, or no state sanctioned disruption to their families.
In other words, white privilege allowed #CrimingWhileWhite folks to walk with effective support in the shoes issued to them, while blacks and other people of color have been forced to figure out how to make size 6 stilettos work. Unhindered by labels of menacing, criminal or convict #CrimingWhileWhite folks have been allowed to carry on with life; black Americans crying out #blacklivesmatter are grasping for a sense of justice that will allow them to live, point blank. Don’t get me wrong, #CrimingWhileWhite is definitely a space of good intentions and even a starting point for justice seekers; but sadly we know all too well how the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. ***

Dr. Stephany Rose is assistant professor of Women's and Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and author of Abolishing White Masculinity From Mark Twain to Hiphop: Crises in Whiteness

I’m Mad as Hell… and Thankful by Emmett G. Price III

I’m Mad as Hell… and Thankfulby Emmett G. Price III | @EmmettGPriceIII | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
  I’m mad as hell!
Regardless which side of the street you stand on there are no winners in Ferguson.
Just a glimpse at ongoing news coverage, or a peek at the comment sections of online sources reveal rage- both black and white - concerning Michael Brown Jr.’s death. 
This rage is often articulated through the lens of “ LEO" - law enforcement officer - supporters or critics. Unfortunately, most of these polarized jousts neglect to consider that not all LEOs are white. And, these stinging jabs, often from anonymous commenters, do not capture the emotions of the huge number of quiet sympathizers  - those whose hearts continue to be heavy with the realities faced by so many families of the courageous women and men who don uniforms and take the oath to “never betray my badge, my integrity, my character, or the public trust.”
Yet, with Brown lying four and a half hours in the hot August sun…I’m mad as hell.
Ferguson is no longer a dot on the Greater St. Louis area map; it is now a national landmark of injustice akin to Tulsa Riots, 1921, Watts Riots, 1965, and Bloody Sunday, 1965).  Though rarely given adequate coverage in schools, these volatile moments in United States history transformed the national landscape. Ferguson, like Tulsa, Watts, Selma, has sparked a national conversation that is felt deeply in the hearts and minds of  us all-  sympathizes, separatists, loyalists, compassionists, activists, self-selective non-participants and everyone in between.  Ferguson challenges our national commitment to growing a democracy that works for everyone. 
But, where do we begin?
In the spirit of gratitude and social justice - I believe we need to be whole-heartedly invested in listening to the voices of young people. 
And I am thankful that the surrogate children of Dr. King’s children - in all hues, ethnicities, nationalities, gender expressions - are joining hands as they sacrifice themselves in order to call for justice to extend its embrace around everyone - not just the entitled and privileged.  
I am thankful that this young generation chose to use this clarion call to bridge social divides, class partitions and political platforms in order to be contemporary champions of freedom.  
These young people don’t see Michael Brown, Jr. or Trayvon Martin, or Tamir Rice or Dillon McGee or Cameron Tillman or Laquan McDonald, to name just a few of the young black unarmed men killed  as their sons or nephews – they are their brothers!
I am inspired by this generation of freedom fighters who refuse to let the legacies of Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer and Medgar Evers die. And as Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and Sweet Honey in the Rock said it best “we who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes.”  
I’m thankful for all the young people who have retained the spirit of ethical discontent and righteous indignation through the use of civil disobedience. From the metropolitan streets to suburban driveways and on to remote rural places, our nations’ young people are sick and tired of being sick and tired.  From sit-ins to mass marches to taking over interstate highways to writing the digital translations of these stories that are now flowing through various channels of social media, these millennials, who have previously been labeled a selfish generation, are using their voices to call for a change. 
I am not a fan of violence.  I am not a supporter of looting, destruction of private or public property and I do not condone or support any of this deviant behavior.  Despite media presentations, the majority of the protests across the country have been peaceful, respectful and meaningful.   
No matter how mad I am, I am also Thankful!
Young People, thank you for your courage to prove that hope lives!  Thank you for reminding us all that #BlackLivesMatter!
#Ferguson 
***

Emmett G. Price III, Ph.D. is a pastor, professor and weekly contributor to WGBH’s Boston Public Radio “All Revved Up” segment.  He is the author of  Hip Hop Culture  and editor of several works including  The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide .  Follow him on Twitter.