Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 777

Marking Time: Exhibit Shows Prison Made Art

"The Way It Is" by Rafael de Jesus. Profile of Marking Time: Prison Arts and Activism Exhibition and Conference curated by Professor Nicole Fleetwood, Director of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Jimmy Ruffin--"What Becomes of the Broken Hearted"

Older brother of David, and a star in his own right, Jimmy Ruffin (May 7, 1936 – November 17, 2014) is most known for the Motown classic "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" (1966)

Violence in Post-Verdict Ferguson: What We Should Really Be Worried About

Attica Prison, 1971 Violence in Post-Verdict Ferguson: What We Should Really Be Worried About
by Heather Ann Thompson | @hthompsn | Huffington Post
Many reports out this week warn that if the grand jury sitting in the Darren Wilsoncase decides not to indict, there will likely be violence in Ferguson, Missouri. This, the media explains, is why Governor Jay Nixon has already declared a state of emergency. This is also, the FBI maintains, why local, state and federal law enforcement must be at the ready. Should Wilson not be facing a trial, all hell is likely to break loose.
All are absolutely correct about one thing -- the residents of Ferguson better start bracing themselves for violence. This ugliness, though, will not happen because local residents have vowed to protest should Wilson not be indicted. It is assured because even though this nation, publicly and most vociferously, defends the right of its citizenry to protest -- and routinely pats itself on the back for being one the world's most ardent defenders of free speech -- when those protests are unapologetically critical of racial injustice, or of racialized law enforcement practices, or of broader unjust policies to which state officials are deeply wedded, tolerance seems to wear thin.
In fact, by vowing to take to the streets should Michael Brown's killer face no legal rebuke, the men, women and children of Ferguson's mostly black neighborhoods are merely following in the footsteps of countless generations of Americans before them who have felt similarly unheard and unrepresented. Like those previous marginalized citizens, should the legal system fail them, all that is left to residents of Ferguson is their right to express their dismay via signs, slogans, and impassioned speeches.
And yet, as they light their vigil candles and bundle up to head out into frigid temperatures on the day that the verdict is finally announced, there is another aspect of America's protest history of which they, and we all, must also be most mindful.
Consider some of our country's most famous protests.
Notably, when the black residents of Birmingham, Alabama felt compelled to express their dismay with the ugly policies of segregation they endured in 1963 by taking to the streets, in turn, city leaders chose to surround them with scores of angry, gun-toting sheriffs and deputies who were more interested in assaulting these protesters than in letting them march.
And, in 1968, when young people from cities across the country felt compelled to express their dismay with the deeply racialized war in Vietnam by taking to the streets of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, in turn, elected officials chose to surround them with machine-gun tanks and countless battalions of heavily-armed policemen in full riot gear.
Then, in 1970, when students at Kent State University felt compelled to take to the lawn of their campus in order to express their dismay with the escalation of fighting in Southeast Asia, in turn, the mayor chose to call out the National Guard.
And, but a year later in 1971, when overwhelmingly black prisoners took over the Attica State Correctional Facility so that they, finally, could express their dismay that they didn't have even basic human rights, in turn, the governor allowed nearly 1,000 furious and heavily-armed harmed troopers and correction officers to surround that institution.
And, notably, every one of these now-iconic protests ended most violently.
Indeed the number of people hurt by local members of law enforcement in Birmingham in 1963 caused international outrage. Then, so many people suffered bloodied heads, concussions and broken limbs at the hands of local police in Chicago in 1968 that even local hospitals and medical workers were stunned. The Kent State University protest ended even more violently still. Four students were literally shot to death by National Guardsmen while several other young protestors were seriously wounded by guard gunfire -- one paralyzed for life. And Attica too ended in unimaginable bloodshed in 1971. After being allowed to storm the prison, almost 600 state troopers proceeded to shoot more than three dozen men to death -- prisoners and prison employees alike. Their bullets then caused so many traumatic gunshot wounds to so many others that triage units could barely cope with the disaster before them.
Ironically, these are the very examples of past popular protests that so many Americans today think of when they express serious doubts that any civil rights or government-critical gathering could ever, really, be peaceful. And, yet, the public has totally misunderstood what lessons these iconic events in fact teach us.
So, let us now be crystal clear: In none of these now-infamous protests were the protestors responsible for the extraordinary pain and injury that so many people suffered in them. In fact, in every one of these iconic protests, violence was caused by, and was in fact guaranteed by, local, state and federal officials who made the disastrous decision to prepare for, and then respond to, these episodes of popular sovereignty with ugly force.
To see how this next sure-to-be historic protest will play out, though, we just have to wait. We must first wait to see if the grand jury is going to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown. We must then wait to see whether the people of Ferguson do in fact turn out in large numbers to express their dismay should he not be indicted. And, if they do, we will then wait for the injury reports. Why? Because local, state and federal officials, as well as so many of the white residents who live in communities nearby to Ferguson, are already making such reports likely if not inevitable.
State officials have already called up the National Guard, they have already decided to send armed tanks to Ferguson, they have already decided to call armed officers into the protest area, and they have already decided that paddy wagons will be at the ready. Meanwhile, and most alarmingly, countless of Missouri's white residents have spent the last few weeks arming themselves to the teeth. As one local gun store owner recently explained their actions, "Police aren't going to be able to protect every single individual. If you don't prepare yourself and get ready for the worst, you have no one to blame but yourself." In fact, so determined have whites been to arm themselves against black protesters in Missouri that suburban gun shops have literally sold "everything that's not nailed down."
These are the decisions and actions -- historically and today -- that turn otherwise peaceful protests volatile, dangerous and violent.
Although another round of violence in Ferguson may well be inevitable, how we understand what happens there is not. It is our obligation to question why it is that every time ordinary people, particularly ordinary poor people of color, want to march and to express their dismay at an injustice, state officials decide to surround them with enormous tanks and to arm themselves with canisters of tear gas as well as bullets -- both real and rubber. It is our responsibility to ask, particularly when things get violent, who it is that has the guns, the tanks, the tear gas, and the batons -- and who does not. Indeed, if things get violent in the next weeks in Ferguson, let's at least be clear about why that happened. Let us not get our history of protest in America wrong one more time.
***
Dr. Heather Ann Thompson is a native Detroiter and historian at Temple University who has written numerous popular as well as scholarly articles on the history of mass incarceration as well as its current impact. She recently completed Blood in the Water: the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 for Pantheon books and the author of Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City . In 2015 Thompson joins the faculty at the University of Michigan.

What Straight Black Men Can Learn from Black Gay Men

Duke Ellington and Longtime Collaborator Billy StrayhornWhat Straight Black Men Can Learn from Black Gay Menby Aaron Talley & Steven-Emmanuel Martinez | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Growing up, we were both terrorized by straight Black men.
Of course, this is not because straight Black men are terrorists, but because Black men are taught to subscribe to oppressive boxes of masculinity. Subsequently, anything that threatens this box becomes an enemy and a target.
As queer Black men we reject the generalization that all straight Black men are homophobic, but it does not mean that they are exempt from the heterosexism that we as queer Black men have experienced at their hands. But forgiveness is a better offering than distance between us – so consider this article our peace offering. After all, Black love is redemptive.
The terrorizing that we felt would amount to a rift between our Black gay selves and our straight Black brothers. To be a Black man was to be effortlessly strong, competitive, and sexually dominant, we were told growing up. There was no room for vulnerability or uncontrolled emotions. To be vulnerable was to be feminine or soft, and therefore wrong.  And although we had yet to come into our social and political consciousness, we were already self-aware enough to discern that this country was no place for Black gay men. Even more, that no one was coming to save us.
As young Black gay men, we didn’t quite fit neatly into stereotypical notions of what it means to be masculine, or to operate in constructed ideals of manhood. But growing up, in Detroit and in Brooklyn, we tried to carve out spaces for ourselves. We found ourselves nestled in our bedrooms, safe spaces 1000 miles apart, but both covered in the same fog of shame and isolation. Not even our mothers’ love could protect us. We would eventually get older and find community in other people, and in amongst each other. Two queer Black boys, who unapologetically and unconditionally remind each other that we love one another.
Now adults and more self-actualized, we understand that this rift between Black gay men and straight Black men is not a result of either groups’ emotional faculties, but a result of systems which attempt to demarcate what Black manhood must be. As Black gay men, we are no longer afraid to be intimate with one another, to share space with one another, to express our needs and expect them to be met. In short, we know that we are loving beings capable of expressing love, and we seek that love from each other. That love often comes in maladaptive forms: a read, some shade, and sometimes a balancing act between both. But real love isn’t always gifted in a bow.
We understand that most of our straight Black counterparts don’t actively practice the sort of platonic love we share as friends. So this is our offering to our straight Black counterparts: unconditional love requires much more than dabs and pats on the back.   We can no longer allow straight Black men to deny themselves of intimacy with each other. Our straight Black brothers are stuck in a matrix of suppressed emotions. 
And when those emotions do surface, they must come through hyper-masculine filters--the locker room, through aggressive bravado, through hugs that must first be preceded with a handshake. Real love is not hidden. Real desire to express ourselves emotionally does not come with preconditions. We mustn’t hide behind this bravado, but start the easy process of affirming ourselves openly.
In Black gay men, our straight brothers have the opportunity to see what love between men can look like. We have learned throughout the process of our oppression how to self-define our survival -- and that definition looks like love between us. You can share in that. Straight Black men have the opportunity to think about how the pressure to be masculine, to be competitive, the fear of being called gay or soft, and how the fear of showing emotion denies them opportunities to love in the way that is most truthful to who they are.
So, if there’s anything Black gay men can teach our straight Black counterparts is that Black men loving Black men is an act of radical self- love.
***

Steven-Emmanuel Martinez, 26, is an Afro-Latino Brooklyn native. He graduated Hampshire College with a Bachelors in Public health and is currently working on his Masters at Brown University’s School of Public Health. He currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island and is working on a multi-platform project that profiles HIV positive Black and Latino gay and bisexual men.  You can follow him on Twitter @steven_brooklyn
Aaron Talley is an activist, writer, educator, and blogger for the Black Youth Project. He is also a member of the youth-led activist organization the Black Youth Project 100. He is a teacher, graduate of the University of Chicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program, and works with youth on the South Side of Chicago. He is from Detroit, Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter @Talley_Marked

Left of Black S5:E9: The Long 1970s & The Institute of the Black World

Left of Black S5:E9:  The Long 1970s  & The Institute of the Black World

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Historian Derrick E. White (@BlackStar1906), author of The Challenge of Blackness: The Institute of the Black World and Political Activism in the 1970s (University of Florida Press, 2011) and co-editor of Winning While Losing: Civil Rights, The Conservative Movement and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama (University of Florida Press, 2014).

Recalling some of the debates within the Institute of the Black World, the influential Black Think Tank founded by Professors  the late Vincent Harding, Stephen Henderson and William Strickland, Professor White notes, “when we talk about activism, we get enamoured in charismatic leadership; I’m interested in logistics...How do we fund people who are going to be on the front lines?” Professor White is Visiting Associate Professor of History at Dartmouth College and currently working a book tentatively titled, Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Florida A & M and the Rise and Fall of a Black College Football Dynasty.
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

Marley Family Launches Global Cannabis Brand

Marketplace
The family of Jamaican-born reggae star Bob Marley launched a first-of-its-kind global cannabis brand on Tuesday. Called Marley Natural, it will hit the market in late 2015 – and is aimed at both medical and adult-recreational use (21 and over). It is a venture of Bob Marley’s widow, Rita, who is also a reggae musician, and his children and grandchildren, in partnership with Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, a leading cannabis focused private-equity firm.

In the 'Left of Black' Studio: South African Composer & Musician Neo Muyanga

photo credit: Catherine AngstSouth African Musician and Composer  Neo Muyanga  visited the  Left of Black  set with Mark Anthony Neal to talk about his in-progress Libretto "Revolting Music," which re-imagines South African protest music in the present. Muyanga is in-residence at Duke University as a WiSER-Duke Writing Fellow, supported by Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, Franklin Humanities Institute, and Forum for Publics & Scholars. His most recent recording is Dipalo: a Mixtape for Those Who Practice Counting .
Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center and the Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship (CADCE) at Duke University.

Jay Smooth: 3 Lessons from Hip-Hop History Every Activist Should Know

Fusion
This is our new bimonthly video series, The Illipsis, written, starring and produced by DJ, video essayist and cultural critic Jay Smooth. In this first episode, Jay deconstructs the history of hip-hop to illuminate how young activists can continue challenging and reshaping the status.

How George Washington Carver Overcame Jim Crow to Become One of America's Most Influential Scientist

PRI
Earlier this month, scientists gathered at Tuskegee University in Alabama to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of George Washington Carver, a modern-day Renaissance man. Carter revolutionized farming in the American South; he was a painter, singer, piano teacher and educator. He did NOT invent peanut butter, as the common myth goes; he did, however, invent nearly 300 uses for it, says Cathie Woteki, chief scientist and undersecretary for research education and economics at the US Department of Agriculture.

The Hip-Hop and Religion Reader--edited by Monica R Miller + Anthony B. Pinn (Book Trailer)

Routledge | Taylor & Francis
The Hip Hop and Religion Reader ed. by Monica R Miller , Anthony B. Pinn
Edited by two recognized scholars of African-American religion and culture, this reader, the first of its kind, provides the essential texts for an important and emerging field of study – religion and hip hop. Until now, the discipline of religious studies lacked a consistent and coherent text that highlights the developing work at the intersections of hip hop, religion and theology. Moving beyond an institutional understanding of religion and offering a multidimensional assortment of essays, this new volume charts new ground by bringing together voices who, to this point, have been a disparate and scattered few. Comprehensively organized with the foundational and most influential works that continue to provide a base for current scholarship, The Hip Hop and Religion Reader frames the lively and expanding conversation on hip hop’s influence on the academic study of religion.
Section I Setting the Context, Framing the Discussion. 1. Michael Eric Dyson: Performance, Protest, and Prophecy in the Culture of Hip-Hop. 2. Anthony B. Pinn: Making a World with a Beat: Musical Expression’s Relationship to Religious Identity and Experience.3. Greg Dimitriadis: Hip Hop to Rap: Some Implications of an Historically Situated Approach to Performance. 4. H. Samy Alim: A New Research Agenda: Exploring the Transglobal Hip HopUmma. 
Section II What’s the ‘Religion’ in Hip Hop? 5. Monica R. Miller: Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover. 6. Joseph Winters: Unstrange Bedfellows: Hip Hop and Religion. 7. John L. Jackson: Peter Piper Picked Peppers, but Humpty Dumpty Got Pushed: The Productively Paranoid Stylings of Hip-hop’s Spirituality. 
Section III The Religious Aesthetics of Hip Hop Culture. 8. Margarita L. Simon: Intersecting Points: The ‘Erotic as Religious’ in the Lyrics of Missy Elliott. 9. Elonda Clay: Two Turntables and a Microphone: Turntablism, Ritual and Implicit Religion. 10. Angela M. Nelson: ‘God’s Smiling on You and He’s Frowning Too’: Rap and the Problem of Evil. 11. Martina Viljoen: ‘Wrapped Up’: Ideological Setting and Figurative Meaning in African American Gospel Rap. 12. Racquel Cepeda: AfroBlue: Incanting Yoruba Gods in Hip Hop’s Isms. 
Section IV Hip Hop and/in Religious Traditions. 13. Juan M. Floyd-Thomas: A Jihad of Words: The Evolution of African American Islam and Contemporary Hip-Hop. 14. H. Samy Alim: Re-inventing Islam with Unique Modern Tones: Muslim Hip Hop Artists as Verbal Mujahidin. 15. Felicia M. Miyakawa: The Five Percenter ‘Way of Life’. 16. Dervla Sara Shannahan and Qurra Hussain: Rap on ‘l’avenue’; Islam, aesthetics, authenticity and masculinities in the Tunisian rap scene. Christianity. 17. Josef Sorett: Believe me, this pimp game is very religious: Toward a religious history of hip hop. 18. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan and Marlon F. Hall: Put Down the Pimp Stick to Pick Up the Pulpit: The Impact of Hip Hop on the Black Church. 19. John B. Hatch: Rhetorical Synthesis through a (Rap)Prochement of Identities: Hip-Hop and the Gospel According to the Gospel Gangstaz. 20. Daniel White Hodge: Where My Dawgs At?: A Theology of Community. Judaism.21.Judah Cohen: Hip-Hop Judaica: The Politics of Representin’ Heebster Heritage. 22. Malka Shabtay: RaGap’: Music and Identity Among Young Ethiopians in Israel. Eastern Religion.23. Steven J. Rosen: Hip-Hop Hinduism: The Spiritual Journey of MC Yogi. 24. Ian Condry: Battling Hip-Hop Samurai. 25. Anthony Y.H. Fung: Western Style, Chinese Pop: Jay Chou’s Rap and Hip-Hop in China. 
Section V Hip Hop as Religion. 26. Siphiwe Ignatius Dube: Hate Me Now: An Instance of NAS as Hip-Hop’s Self-proclaimed Prophet and Messiah. 27. James Perkinson: Tupac Shakur as Ogou Achade: Hip hop Anger and Postcolonial Rancour Read from the Other Side. 28. Robin Sylvan: Rap Music, Hip Hop Culture and ‘the Future Religion of the World’. Conclusion—Monica R. Miller & Anthony B. Pinn. Contributors.