Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 805

#Ferguson Protests Erupt Near Grave of Ex-Slave Dred Scott, Whose Case Helped Fuel U.S. Civil War

Democracy Now
Just miles away from the scene of the protests in Ferguson lies the grave of Dred Scott at the Calvary Cemetery on West Florissant Avenue. Born a slave in Virginia, Dred Scott sued in a St Louis court for his freedom. The case went to the Supreme Court, resulting in a landmark 1857 decision that African Americans were not citizens of the United States and therefore had no rights to sue in federal courts. 
The court described blacks as "beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The Dred Scott Decision is considered by many to be the worst decision in the Supreme Court's history. We discuss the case's significance with Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia University and founder of the African American Policy Forum.

"Rebel Music (3 O'Clock RoadBlock)"--Bob Marley & the Wailers

#DontShoot #Handsup #MikeBrown #Ferguson #ResisttheCurfew

Lullaby in Ferguson by Stephane Dunn

Lullaby in Ferguson by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“We didn’t have to be shot down with no tear gas.”
This from “Alisha Williams,” a protester in Ferguson, a veteran who survived Iraq. “I did ten years in the military, just came back from Iraq. I didn’t get tear gassed in Iraq. But I’m on city streets getting tear gassed,” her hoarse voice folds into sobs over the phone before the world Sunday night.
A man has been shot, hurt, brought down with a parade of rubber bullets. His hands were up, but he wouldn’t turn around, wouldn’t stop marching. For Michael Brown, because all of them, he didn’t stop.
Tiananmen Square 1989.
I’m sitting on the couch, watching the news, flipping from one news channel to another, and reading reports on the computer. I’m not there. I want to be there. I’m glad I’m not there. I need to be there.
Ferguson is everywhere in the United States, under thin surfaces waiting to crack and shatter revealing that it is. Breaking news tags punctuate Alisha’s voice. Michael Brown’s autopsy results are back. Shot six times, two in the head. Alisha dissolves into incomprehensible sobs, the CNN news reporter moves on, a lady is saying there have been other young black men shot by police over these last seven days. One in Ohio, one in. . . Stop.
A protester, another black woman at the scene, this time on television bears witness. “We not stopping,” she shouts and shouts again.   
Red Summer 1919.
It’s late, almost midnight. I’m tired, recovering from a cold. I should sleep, but I stay awake, my weak solidarity with the familiar folk I see on the TV covering their faces as best they can with elbows, bandannas, shirts. A thick curl of smoke builds, gathers force, and races down a street towards protesters. The talking heads all have an opinion, many experienced law folk, police officers, analysts, former captains and such. Stop.  
The us and them hangs loudly in their “objective” voices.“ One justifies the use of the gas. The police can’t separate the troublemakers from the peaceful ones so that’s just how it’s gotta be, he concludes, not a hint of sorry about it. People are still out there though, their signs in the air, ‘Stop Killing Us’. “Hands up: Don’t Shoot!”
Bloody Sunday 1965.            
12:30 Am. Breaking News: things seem to be settling down; the police enforce curfew. Stop...I should, I want to sleep. Ferguson, Missouri isn’t sleeping.
Now, 2014.
***

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

Mo'ne Davis Throws Like A Girl — At 70 MPH

Gene J. Puskar/AP

American Studies Association Executive Committee Statement on the Salaita Case

ASA Executive Committee Statement on the Salaita CaseThe Executive Committee of the American Studies Association, which represents over 5000 scholars of American Studies around the world, protests the decision of University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise to rescind the offer of a tenured faculty position in American Indian Studies to highly regarded ASA member Professor Steven Salaita. Professor Salaita was offered the position in October 2013 following a national search and evaluation of his scholarship based on its merit and contributions to comparative indigenous studies. The administration’s action in rescinding the offer in August 2014, after Prof. Salaita had resigned his tenured position at Virginia Tech, and just days before his classes were set to begin at UIUC, sets a dangerous precedent. This last minute top down decision with no faculty consultation and no reason provided violates the tenets of faculty governance. Alarmingly, these actions constitute as well a de facto assault against the Program in American Indian Studies at UIUC despite its carefully earned status as one of the leading intellectual programs nationally in its field. This decision if not overturned is sure to erode the confidence of scholars and students of American Indian and Indigenous Studies that UIUC is an open and welcoming institution that values equally their social, cultural and intellectual contributions.  Additionally, if, as reported, the offer was rescinded based on Prof. Salaita’s twitter feed and opposition to the Israeli invasion of Gaza, the university’s actions constitute a clear violation of the principles of academic freedom, contravene the University’s self-proclaimed valuing of diversity, and suggest an intolerable anti-Arab bias.We call upon you to restore faculty governance, to respect the Department of   American Indian Studies and the faculty peer review process in evaluating faculty for tenured positions, and to begin to rebuild the UIUC’s reputation as an institution of academic excellence by restoring Professor Steven Salaita as a tenured associate professor of American Indian Studies at UIUC.Letter from Constitutional Law Professors Regarding Revocation of Appointment of Professor Steven Salaita to the University of Illinois FacultyPetition: In Defense of Academic Freedom: A Call to People of Conscience not to speak at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign until Chancellor Wise honors the contract to hire Professor Steven SalaitaASA Executive Committee Condemns Israel’s Attacks on Palestinian UniversitiesStand with the ASA CampaignPublished on August 16, 2014 by ASASTAFF.

In the Wee Small Hours… (for the Citizens of Ferguson)

In the Wee Small Hours… (for the Citizens of Ferguson) by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
It’ll be half-past the minute of midnight, and Mr. Bland will be singing, as he does every-night—“Chains of Love…” 
Mr. Bland was of the generation of Black folk who know a little something about sundown towns, those places and spaces where Black  folk—who were never welcome—couldn’t be seen. 
Curfew ain’t never fazed us.
In and out of shadows, like Uncle Ray once said, “The nighttime is the right time.”
The nighttime is the time to plan.
Mr. Bland—“Chains on Love…”—trying to keep mind and home and body together. He be planning...something.  It’ll be well past half-past the minute of midnight before he stops singing this song, as death will come as surely as life will come walking back through that door.
One-sided shoot-outs on Chicago’s Southside.  Mark Clark and Fred Hampton lay dead. They was planning; that’s why them dead.
One-sided shootout—#handsup  #dontshoot #MikeBrown #Ferguson—broad daylight, world come now with cell phones that shoot picture.  Imagine that Chairman Fred.
Curfew ain’t never fazed us. 
Use the darkness wisely.

Now Mr. Gaye be singing…”in the wee small hours of the morning….”

What Ferguson Tells Us About Protest Culture In America: An Interview with Mark Anthony Neal

What Ferguson Tell Us About Protest Culture in America by Carimah Townes | Think Progress
As the media focuses on the protests and residents of Ferguson, and outrage over the incident goes viral, it is important to understand the shooting, protest, and police response as one aspect of a larger social, cultural, and historical moment. The civil unrest in Ferguson is not a random, isolated event, but the product of “racial segregation, economic inequality and overbearing law enforcement” in the town. And it is a continuation of a legacy of civil unrest in communities of color throughout America.I spoke to Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal, an African-American Studies scholar with an emphasis on pop culture representation, about racial discourse in America, and how culture helps us define and shape historical moments as they unfold.
When we talk about culture and social movements, it’s easy to jump right into the realm of celebrity and limit the discussion to which artist or actress said xyz. But culture is obviously about customs, and social groups, and how we develop beliefs and ideas that define us. It isn’t just about celebrity. So in looking at Ferguson, what elements of culture should we really hone in on?
I think the idea of community. One of the things we’ve seen in the aftermath of the shooting of Mike Brown is this idea of the community coming together, and in part of that community is the idea of protecting children, and the idea of protecting black masculinity. So when you see the posters of “I Am a Man,” which immediately takes it back to moments during the Civil Rights Movement, there’s this whole idea that a community is going to protect its children. And when their children get shot in the streets, particularly the kind of kid that the community views as someone who’s going to go on to greater things, what you see is this idea of the community closings links and coming together in ways that are very distinctly cultural — that we’ve seen whether we’re talking about Watts in 1965, thinking of the riots in Miami in 1980, and in recent history, what we saw in Los Angeles in 1992.
Read the Full Interview

Remembering Woodstock: Joe Cocker--"With a Little Help from My Friends"

Understanding Ferguson; Understanding White Supremacy

Understanding Ferguson; Understanding White Supremacy by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
To look at Ferguson, Missouri is to look at America and its history of white supremacy.
To understand white denial and white privilege one need only look at Ferguson and its aftermath—from the history of racism, housing discrimination, racial profiling  (African Americans account for 86% of all stops, 79% of all searches, and 93% of all arrests), and educational inequality, one need only look at Ferguson and its aftermath.
Reading about Michael Brown's school is to read a snapshot of America.  His becoming yet another victim of racial terror and yet another African AJLove Calderon and I wrote that central to white supremacy is the criminalization of black bodies from cradle to grave:
Race matters even in death.  How else can we explain the lack of concern society shows for the anguish of black parents who have lost a child?  The mantra of not speaking ill of the dead is rarely applied to black youth.  For all too many, that means routinely seeing the victims as criminals, as unworthy of sympathy and assumptions of innocence. Instead of being seen as victims, as someone’s son or daughter, someone’s friend that lost their life, they are turned into criminals deserving of death. 
The killing of Michael Brown (and Renisha McBride, John Crawford, Bo Morrison, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Eric Garner, Shelly Fry, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Rekia Boyd, Amadou Diallo, Timothy Russell, Malissa Williams) is not an aberration; this is the result of white supremacy, history and its persistent and entrenched realities.  Ferguson is a window into America’s racial fabric,  reflecting  the deindustrialization of American cities and the many families that have been left behind in its wake, often confined by prison walls, enforced by guards and police forces.  
Yet, despite stereotypes, it is a story of perseverance and resistance, a community of working-families, a farmer’s market, kids playing on the playground, and so much more.  It is not the caricature that America continues to paint yet a reminder of our failures and misplaced priorities. 
Ferguson is representative of a history of economic neglect. In the school district where Michael Brown attended high school, 98% of families lived in poverty.  Unemployment is 11% and median family income is 37,000.  Ferguson is indicative of hyper segregation and housing discrimination, of white flight and a racially stratified real estate market.  According to David Von Drehle
In 1916, the city passed a zoning law that explicitly restricted black homeowners to certain neighborhoods. The following year, in a case out of Louisville, Ky., the Supreme Court struck down racial zoning laws. So St. Louis realtors responded with a series of restrictive covenants designed to separate the races. White homeowners were forbidden to sell their houses to black customers, and real estate agents could lose their licenses if they participated in a forbidden transaction. Eventually the covenant strategy failed as well. In 1946, the Supreme Court struck down those arrangements in a case that came from St. Louis. Now the metropolis turned to redlining, the practice of steering black buyers into certain neighborhoods by discriminating on their mortgage applications.
The consequences are hyper segregation, or as some have described St. Louis, a community of “sealed neighborhoods;” is the loss of wealth in houses, which contributes to huge wealth disparities and a crumbling tax base. No matter how many times families agreed to increase property taxes (which are highest in the state), it was never enough.  Redlining, divestment, and a segregated housing market guaranteed property values to be so low that no tax rate would produce sufficient revenues to support schools, hospitals, or any number of public services.   It is no wonder that at Michael Brown's school, graduates had to share two gowns.  In America where Black and Brown bodies are “disposable,” investment in policing and control, rather than empowerment and education is commonplace: Jesse Jackson described the state of Fergusonas follows:
High unemployment and low graduation rates result in guns and drugs in and jobs out; hospitals and public schools closing; gym, art, music and trade skills taken out of our public schools; inadequate investments being made in our infrastructure with roads crumbling, bridges falling down and an outdated public transportation system; a failure to address climate change; denial of capital investment for entrepreneurs; abandoned homes and vacant lots; a lack of youth recreational opportunities
To look at Ferguson, to look at the killing of Michael Brown, to look at the criminalization of Brown and those protesting the systemic deaths of Black youth, is to understand America.  We see history; we see the costs and consequences of the PIC and school-to-prison pipeline.  We see the ramifications in investing in tanks not textbooks; in more cops on the street not more teachers in the classroom.  We see the long-term impact of the Reagan revolution and Clinton's calamity.  We see how political leaders, the media, and White America have failed Black families, and communities, from Ferguson to New Orleans, from Oakland to New York City.  We as a result of OUR failures and the pathologies of white supremacy, accountability and justice, responsibility remains a “dream deferred.”

As JLove Calderon and myself wrote in our effort to talk to white America about our complicity in the countless deaths at the hands of police officers, security guards, and others, we penned:
If we want to stop the violence, maybe we should look in the mirror, and look at racism, the most violent weapon in human history.  To deny race is to deny this history. To ignore racism and refuse to deal is to allow for the most dangerous weapon to continue to kill and kill without any consequence and intervention.  To wipe clean this history is to erase the pain and trauma of racial terror.  And worse, to keep repeating it, over and over. Stand up for what’s right
And when we say stop the violence, let’s remember that police violence and state violence are both as American as apple pie. They are the sources of terror each and every day.  They are endemic to American racism; anti-black state violence and anti-black police terror are the most violent weapon in history.
***
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.  Leonard’s latest books include  After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness   (SUNY Press),  African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings (Praeger Press) co-edited with Lisa Guerrero and Beyond Hate: White Power and Popular Culture with C. Richard King. He is currently working on a book Presumed Innocence: White Mass Shooters in the Era of Trayvon about gun violence in America. 

Iraqi War Veteran: Police Response in Ferguson 'isn’t the country we fought to protect'

PRI
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are speaking out against the militarized response of the police in Ferguson, Missouri, earlier this week.