Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 776

Duke University Students Show Solidarity with #Ferguson

courtesy The Duke Chronicle The Duke Chronicle
Students marched from the Duke Chapel to East Campus Monday night, chanting in protest of the decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting of Michael Brown. The group—which began as a small prayer circle at the West Campus bus stop—grew as it marched, accumulating approximately 100 people by the time they reached East Campus. Chanting slogans such as “stand up, fight back,” “black lives matter, our lives matter” and “no justice, no peace, no racist police,” the march echoed protests held across the nation Monday following the decision of a Missouri grand jury.

Left of Black S5:E10: Telling the Stories of Black Life on Film

Left of Black S5:E10:  Telling the Stories of Black Life in Film

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in the Left of Black studio by Emmy Award Winning filmmaker and MacArthur Genius Award recipient Stanley Nelson (@StanleyNelson1).Discussing the importance of documentary film Nelson says, “The stories that we tell are stories that have some resonance with today” adding that his next project on the Black Panther Party “is really a story about young African American people getting involved.” Nelson’s films include The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords (1999), The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice (2005), Freedom Riders (2010) and Freedom Summer (2014).  Nelson is also co-founder of the production company, Firelight Media.
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: @LeftofBlack
Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Are Reasons for Racial Disparities in Arrest Really That Unclear?

Mark Anthony Neal Talks 'Sampling Soul': Outtakes from 'The Hip-Hop Fellow'

Price Films
In this outtake from The Hip-Hop Fellow , Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal discusses keeping the Soul music archive relevant to young Blacks.
The Hip-Hop Fellow is a feature length documentary following Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder's tenure at Harvard University.
Interviewees include Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Kendrick Lamar, Young Guru, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, Phonte, Dr. Marcyliena Morgan, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Ab-Soul, Rapper Big Pooh & DJ Premier.

Average Night in #Ferguson: More Protest; More Arrest

Fusion
More than 100 days after Mike Brown’s death, protests at the Ferguson Police Department remain a nightly occurrence. But police have reacted more aggressively in recent days, carrying out arrests.

Studio 360: Reg E. Cathey Reads The Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toilet Training Your Cat

PRI Public Radio International
Reg E. Cathey (Oz, The Wire, House of Cards) reads The Charles Mingus CAT-alog for Toilet Training Your Cat.

Technology Empowering Activists as Privacy Laws Lag

Fusion
Technology is advancing and allowing people to start movements but it’s also giving governments access to a lot more information.

The Spin with Esther Armah: State of Emergency in Ferguson & Democrats and the White Working Class

The Spin with Esther Armah

n  State of Emergency in Fergusonn  Do White Working Class Voters hate Democrats?n  1 in 30 kids is homeless.

with  Asha Bandele + Professor Blair Kelley + Joan Morgan

'Don’t Be Cool': Ferguson on Watch by Stephane Dunn

Negro Silent March--1917'Don’t Be Cool': Ferguson on Watch
by Stephane Dunn | @DrStephaneDunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile) I realized something today. Grand Jury and verdict watches really have been like pulse and pause beats of our lives. There was the one back in ‘92. LA erupted and the lasting tag of the moment became the late Rodney King’s simple, poignant plea – ‘Can we all just get along?” And last year in 2013 we waited it out, again, warning ourselves inwardly and aloud to each other not to expect the best from the justice system – though inside we hoped for that best. We braced ourselves with this feigned pessimism so that when the decision came and George Zimmerman was not indicted for killing young Trayvon Martin, we wouldn’t feel the indignation and pain of it at such a deep gut and heart level.
And now we stop here again, waiting for days now and counting, for the word – will the Grand Jury indict police officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri? We are holding our collective breath, staying tuned to social media so we can exhale with the announcement. At the same time, the protesters in Missouri, indeed the community of people who want justice for Michael Brown, are being handily policed through a relentless national PSA campaign before the Grand Jury announcement.
The ‘be cool’ media onslaught intends to ensure we accept the decision [read no acquittal very possibly], nicely and quietly and go on our way back to somewhere before the killing. News broadcasts keep playing calls for calm, reporting on property owners’ fears that they will be victimized by angry rioters, and reminding us that the National Guard is on alert and that the city and state are prepared to police the streets of Ferguson to keep the peace.
Athletes, celebrities, and community leaders, some never seen before in support of justice for Michael Brown throughout the whole of the matter are taking to TV, twitter, and radio to plead the case – be calm; keep cool no matter what the decision. We’ve gotten that a lot over many years, before Trayvon and Michael, long before the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April of ’68. Just be cool. The peaceful protesting in and beyond Ferguson is still needed and will be no matter the decision and especially if Wilson is not indicted though this is the less saleable story. An imagined dark mass of riotous, violent lawbreakers poised to overtake Ferguson the minute the decision is announced is spinning on the news as a given.
The words of Michael Brown, Sr., ‘Hurting Others Is Not The Answer' and President Obama’s seconds long call for calm have become useful sound bytes, helping to cement the spectre of a violence scarier than the murderous violence that brought us here. It has overtaken the real story about social injustice and something very refreshing in response – sustained protest even when public attention and the media turned elsewhere for pressing news until the Grand Jury watch began. SWAT teams, the FBI, and ATF are hovering over Ferguson and for what? Peace? No, for a war but not one for social justice.
All of this demeans civil rights protest in the same way that mass media in this country has historically criminalized and demonized black protest against the oppressive status quo. It demeans the peaceful protesting of Ferguson and Missouri residents especially and the case that brought them into the streets in the first place - the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer, the killing of yet another young black man by a white police officer. The students sitting in at lunch counters and the marchers who came into Mississippi, Alabama, and Memphis, Tennessee in the ‘60s to join with black people who lived there got the same media reception. The local and state government tagged them as trouble making, dangerous outsiders. It happened in Memphis in the last few days of Dr. King’s life as he attempted to march in solidarity with black sanitation workers. We should vehemently resist a media onslaught that plays upon our fear that a few ill behaving folk might transform us into that scary, mythic riotous mob that lives in the mainstream imagination and which then can be justifiably subdued by tear gas. The peaceful protesters of Ferguson, the residents and those who have traveled there in solidarity before this latest pause, are and have been the truest reality. All hell already broke loose in Ferguson the moment Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown to death and the people’s dignity has already proven itself and held.
***
Stephane Dunn, PhD, is a writer who directs the Cinema, Television, & Emerging Media Studies program at Morehouse College. She teaches film, creative writing, and literature. She is the author of the 2008 book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press). Her writings have appeared in Ms., The Chronicle of Higher Education, TheRoot.com, AJC, CNN.com, and Best African American Essays, among others. Her recent work includes the Bronze Lens-Georgia Lottery Lights, Camera Georgia winning short film Fight for Hope and book chapters exploring representation in Tyler Perry's films. Follow her on Twitter: @DrStephaneDunn

How to Get 'Black' Films to Black Audiences: A Conversation with Stanley Nelson

The Root
In a preview of the next Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined in studio by documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson. A multi-Emmy Award Winner and MacArthur Genius Award recipient, Nelson is known for his films Freedom Riders, The Murder of Emmett Till, Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice, and the recent Freedom Summer.