Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 817

A Stigma of Black Gun Ownership

New York Times

Tanzina Vega reports on the stigma associated with Black gun ownership.

Produced by Emily B. Hager.

José James--"EveryLittleThing" [Video] from 'While You Were Sleeping' (2014)

JoseJamesVevo

José James' new album "While You Were Sleeping" is available now on Amazon (smarturl.it/jj-wyws-amazon) or iTunes (smarturl.it/jj-wyws-itunes)
Music video by José James performing EveryLittleThing. (C) 2014 Blue Note Records 

Why We Can’t Wait: Women of Color Urge Inclusion in “My Brother’s Keeper”

Following the letter released two weeks ago from 200 Concerned Black Men addressed to President Obama, posted here is a letter from over 1,000 Girls and Women of Color calling for their inclusion in the President’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. The letter is signed by girls and women of all ages and backgrounds, who range from high school teenagers, to professional actors and playwrights, to civil rights activists and organizers, to university professors and philanthropists. In writing the letter, they stress that any plan for uplifting communities of color must not compromise or come at the expense of the lives of girls and women of color, and they emphasize that any program designed to improve communities of color cannot target only half of its population. “If the air is toxic,” the letter states, “it is toxic for everyone to breathe it.” Citing the statistical realities that many young women of color must confront, the letter urges a more inclusive understanding of how we can address the problems facing communities of color, and demands a more expansive vision for  “My Brother’s Keeper” that would incorporate girls and young women of color, begin to collect data on these oft-neglected groups, and create a foundation to better the lives of all of our youth. All who are share an interest in building a collective and inclusive movement dedicated to improving the lives of girls and young women in addition to boys and young men of color are encouraged to read, share, and sign on to the letter.NOTE: Affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply the endorsement of the listed institution.
Why We Can’t Wait: Women of Color Urge Inclusionin “My Brother’s Keeper”
   June 17, 2014President Barack ObamaThe White House1600 Pennsylvania AvenueWashington, D.C.. 20500
Dear President Obama,We write to join the concerns expressed by the letter from 200 Black Men about My Brother’s Keeper (MBK), and to share our hopes that together, we can re-align this important Initiative to reflect the values of inclusion, equal opportunity and shared fate that have propelled our historic struggle for racial justice forward.While we applaud the efforts on the part of the White House, private philanthropy, social justice organizations and others to move beyond colorblind approaches to race-specific problems, we are profoundly troubled about the exclusion of women and girls of color from this critical undertaking. The need to acknowledge the crisis facing boys should not come at the expense of addressing the stunted opportunities for girls who live in the same households, suffer in the same schools, and struggle to overcome a common history of limited opportunities caused by various forms of discrimination.We simply cannot agree that the effects of these conditions on women and girls should pale to the point of invisibility, and are of such little significance that they warrant zero attention in the messaging, research and resourcing of this unprecedented Initiative. When we acknowledge that both our boys and girls struggle against the odds to succeed, and we dream about how, working together, we can develop transformative measures to help them realize their highest aspirations, we cannot rest easy on the notion that the girls must wait until another train comes for them. Not only is there no exceedingly persuasive reason not to include them, the price of such exclusion is too high and will hurt our communities and country for many generations to come.Those who have justified the exclusive gender focus of MBK often remind us that male youth of color are like the miner’s canary: their plight warns us that something is wrong in the mine. Indeed, something is desperately wrong when so many of our youth are falling victim to the consequences of punitive discipline, underfunded schools, poor job prospects, declining investments in public space, decreasing access to higher education, and worsening prospects on the job market.Clearly American society continues to be a toxic environment for many of our young people. Yet male-exclusive initiatives seem to lose sight of the implications of the canary’s distress: it is not a signal that only male canaries are suffering. It makes no sense to equip the canary with a mentor, a gas mask and or some other individual-level support while leaving the mine as it is and expecting the females to fend for themselves. If the air is toxic, it is toxic for everyone forced to breathe it.The President is right that our youth need to be sent a message that they are valued, that their lives matter and that someone cares enough for them to invest time, resources and attention to confront the obstacles undermining their futures. Yet apparently, the “kids” who warrant such wide-scale investment do not include girls and young women of color. But, let this much be clear: today, many women and girls of color are under siege in the United States and the myth that they are not must be challenged.Our daughters’ lives are disproportionately at risk, as data on violent victimization make clear. Native American girls are victims of rape or sexual assault at more than double the rate of other racial groups, while Black girls have the highest rates of interpersonal victimization from assault and are more likely to know their assailant than all other groups. Additionally, the homicide rate among Black girls and women ages 10-24 is higher than for any other group of females, and higher than white and Asian men as well.Our daughters’ access to education is disproportionately compromised. Black girls are more than 3 times more likely to be suspended from school than white girls, and are disproportionately funneled through the juvenile justice systems. This is the first step in a process that leads to the over incarceration of Black women, whom are 3x more likely to wind up behind bars than white women. Additionally, the four-year graduation rate for Latinas is the lowest among all girls. Dropping out of high school places all youth at risk, but the negative effects on their long term economic security is even greater for girls than it is for boys.Our daughters’ economic futures are disproportionately undermined by wage and wealth inequality. Women of color face both gender and race barriers in the job market, and typically make less than both men of color and white women. The median wealth for Latinas is $120 and for Black women it is $100 dollars, This means that just about half of Black women and Latinas are forced to walk an economic high wire without any net whatsoever. Considering that the majority of all households depend on women’s wages and wealth, the economic future of female youth is vital to the community as a whole, including the sons and daughters that are dependent on their mothers’ well-being.Our daughters are ignored and under-researched. Although the exclusion of girls has been justified as data-driven, the fact is that little data is gathered on them. This situation creates a vicious cycle in which the assumptions that girls are not in crisis leads to research and policy interventions that overlook them, thus reinforcing their exclusion from efforts like MBK to bring successful programs to scale. MBK is not only built on this foundation, but extends it further by failing to require the inter-agency task force to report data that address the wellbeing of girls of color as well as boys. This erasure simply adds to the crisis that girls of color face, forcing them to suffer in relative silence.In short, women and girls of color are not doing fine, and until they are, men and boys will not be doing fine either.Girls and young women must be included in all our efforts to lift up the life chances of youth of color. To those who would urge us to settle for some separate initiative, we need only recall that separate but equal has never worked in conditions of inequality, nor will it work for girls and women of color here.To those who would urge us to take up our concerns with the White House Council on Women and Girls, we note that the Council, like many gender-focused initiatives on women, lacks an intersectional frame that would address the race-based challenges faced by young women of color in a racially-stratified society. We note as well that the scale and magnitude of the issues addressed within MBK are specific to the needs of communities of color. The White House Council on Women and Girls should of course, be encouraged and supported to do more; however, girls and women of color suffer, struggle and succeed with the men and boys in their lives. Only together will our collective well-being improve.Moving forward, we are mindful that those who risked their lives to challenge racial injustice believed that we all deserved better lives: men as well as women, girls as well as boys. Holding up the reality of our shared fate, we call on all MBK partners–public as well as private–to expressly include women and girls of color in this historic effort. We stand ready to work together to realize the aspirations that we all share for our youth and for our community.View Entire List of Signatures

Funny or Die: Black Women Run Hollywood

Funny or Die
A secret society of Hollywood actresses reveals just how powerful black women really are. With Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Alfre Woodard, Tracee Ellis Ross, Meagan Good, Retta, and Loretta Devine.Black Women Run Hollywood from Funny Or Die      

Starbucks to Subsidize Workers' College Degrees

WSJ Digital

Starbucks to subsidize workers' pursuit of college degrees.

From Hip-Hop to Zombie Nation (In Celebration of Black Music Month) by Bill Banfield

From Hip-Hop to Zombie Nation  (In Celebration of Black Music Month)by Bill Banfield |special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)  I've been a musician all my life, and studied every kind. I've personally watched with tears in my eyes and blood in my ears  the slow decline of excellence and artistic focus and commitment in the fields of music. I have never seen a time when, Black music, in particular, is being constructed  outside of the ideas, needs and life-focus and the will of Black people. In American history it has never happened like this before. So what does that tell you? Get mad at me if you want; I have never seen a generation and community of music makers that have zero value or identity about who it is. In culture, that's like being a zombie nation.
Mainstream commercial Hip-Hop song, style and imagery, and most Black popular music today has little or no interest, in telling the people who they are, where they are and who they can become.
"…We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who…"
If Hip-Hop had not been born, I wonder if we would have better Black popular music?  Would there have been a more concrete value system? Due to Hip-Hop and too much of contemporary projections, aspirational notions of music saving the souls, propelling ahead and building and cementing community are gone. I'm not sure the people have a music they can call on, be with, and stand on. A less sustainable and substantive identity is blown up on media hype and false fame and flame is now what exists for people to emulate. Horrible. 
You know what I despise most about mainstream Hip-Hop?  Its "aspirational values goal" are  focused on stupidity and being crude.  So much of the language is deplorable.
Let me say for the bleeding hearts and "Hip-Hop bandwagon heads" again, I'm only talking about mainstream, radio (non)friendly, commercial Hip-Hop; what most kids listen to. Of course the cultural form of Hip-Hop, underground and politically astute and "value griot–based," spoken word and creative progressive music forms, are completely outside of my attack here. Most of our kids today don't listen to the " value based" music, where cultural form, message, art and heritages are fully in tact.
The overall generational value represented in far too many of  the most commercial songs—not all—will only depreciate the long range advancement of young people, particularly young people of color. The music promises nothing to work forward to except carnal excess, and being  young forever. Silly ideas.
Hip-Hop alone simply will never save nor secure the new Black music aesthetic. Yet, there is sooooo much invested in this  badly broken aesthetic form.
Most of the codes for contemporary Blackness have been tossed or are market reconstructions, like "ghetto fabulous” or “keeping it real,” or “Ghetto” or “hood." The thing that saddens me and maddens me is, "most of the narratives" we commonly hear and see around Black people and their culture are all bad; broken, busted and below market expectations. The only narrative that's sold is, the popular  Hip-Hop culture narratives where all the subjects  are constructed as young, "hood-bound-frowned" or "glamour-fantastic-plastic-TV-get-rich.” A very sad picture indeed.
And yet, young people of all stripes and places today are so beautiful, full of promise and productive.  African pop music and Caribbean and the ethnic/culture musics in the world are bright, brilliant, energetic and filled with positive images of young artists all connected, making music that matters that is connected to something. What happened to the American presentation of Black music? 
So why don't the music forms allowed by this "silly American cartoon culture," present and permit a more full and holistic picture—sound(s) for all of us who love music and popular culture to live in? The " man" has a very bad plan for us. Let's get him, out!!
Don't believe the hype, choose a higher path to heights. The options are out there. There are better and more examples of cultural models of  excellence than this. Hip-Hop as a larger cultural framework failed. Its biggest  product is soured commercialism that has done more damage to youth ascendancy than any other form today. 
It's not Hip-Hop the cultural form's fault, the form and the forum is powerful and rightfully a part of great Black art. The poison is big business, greed, and the community that allowed the form to fall into the gutter. Not enough have had the courage to tell the " baby" to stop drinking, and cursing and "chasing the devils." 
So enough with the apologies, I'm with Nas, Hip Hop is dead.
***
Bill Banfield is a composer, recording artist, musical director, scholar and the Professor in the Music and Societies program at the Berklee School of Music.  He is the author of several books including the recent  Representing Black Music Culture: Then, Now, and When Again?  and the host of ACC with Bill Banfield.

'Hip-Hop Fellow' Outtake: 9th Wonder on the Impact of Public Enemy, The Cosby Show and HBCU Enrollment

9th Wonder Teaching at Duke University The Hip-Hop Fellow is a feature length documentary following Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder's tenure at Harvard University.
In this outtake, filmed at Duke University, 9th Wonder discusses the impact of Public Enemy and television series like The Cosby Show and A Different World on Black student interest in attending college in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

5 Songs from the Isley Brothers from When They were a 'Rock' Group

5 Songs from Isley Brothers  from When They Were a Rock Group by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“Shout”—(1959)
The Isley Brothers’ breakthrough single was “Twist and Shout,” recorded in 1962 and covered a year later by The Beatles.  But it’s the “shout” in “Twist and Shout” that highlights The Isley's roots in the Rock revolution.  Released  in 1959, “Shout”—clocking in at more than four-minutes (rare for that era)—takes Rock & Roll (back) to Church and folk weren’t ready.
“Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)”—(1968)
The Isley’s few years over at Motown, produced a few hits, notably “This Old Heart of Mine,” but was marked by the “white people on the cover of the album” controversy that Robert Townsend would later recreate in The Five Heartbeats(1991).  “Take Me in Your Arms” was a HDH track that gave some of the first glimpses of what the Isley’s would fully realize during the 3+3 era.
“Keep on Doin’”—(1970)
The Isley’s landed their own imprint—T-Neck Records—in 1969 and began to push the boundaries of their sound in ways that could not be simply categorized.  Get Into Something was their third release on their imprint and features some classic Doo-Wop ballads (“I Need You So” and “I Got to Find Me One”), but the title track and “Keep On Doin’” sound like mantras for their mash of Rock and Funk in the 1970s.
“Ohio/Machine Gun”—(1972)
Givin’ it Back signals the Isley's explicit practice of covering Rock acts, after so many covered their songs.  Stephen Stills (“Love the One You’re With”), Bob Dylan (“Lay Lady Lay”) and James Taylor, with a fire-and-brimstone cover of “Fire and Rain,” with a cover of Bill Withers “Cold Bologna”–with Withers on guitar—included for good measure.  The gem though their “Ohio/Machine Gun” suite in which the Ohio bred brothers acknowledge their roots and the political realities of the day (two years before “Fight the Power”) covering  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s tribute to the students murdered by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State in 1970 and the passing of their musical comrade Jimi Hendrix, who was part of their band in the 1960s and an influence on Ernie Isley.
“Summer Breeze”—(1973)

3+3 fully articulated the Isley Brothers' sound of the 1970s, and for much of the decade it represented the outer-boundaries of Black pop, until audiences were lulled to sleep—literally—by sweet nothings in their ear from Brother Ronald. The lead single “That Lady”—originally recorded in the early 1960s—is now part of pop music lore from that period and they make another run at James Taylor (“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”), but their cover of Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze”? Just #someothashit.

5 Isley Brothers’ Songs from When They Were a Rock Group

5 Isley Brothers’ Songs from When They Were a Rock Group by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“Shout”—(1959)
The Isley Brothers’ breakthrough single was “Twist and Shout,” recorded in 1962 and covered a year later by The Beatles.  But it’s the “shout” in “Twist and Shout” that highlights The Isley's roots in the Rock revolution.  Released  in 1959, “Shout”—clocking in at more than four-minutes (rare for that era)—takes Rock & Roll (back) to Church and folk weren’t ready.

“Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)”—(1968)
The Isley’s few years over at Motown, produced a few hits, notably “This Old Heart of Mine,” but was marked by the “white people on the cover of the album” controversy that Robert Townsend would later recreate in The Five Heartbeats(1991).  “Take Me in Your Arms” was a HDH track that gave some of the first glimpses of what the Isley’s would fully realize during the 3+3 era.
“Keep on Doin’”—(1970)
The Isley’s landed their own imprint—T-Neck Records—in 1969 and began to push the boundaries of their sound in ways that could not be simply categorized.  Get Into Something was their third release on their imprint and features some classic Doo-Wop ballads (“I Need You So” and “I Got to Find Me One”), but the title track and “Keep On Doin’” sound like mantras for their mash of Rock and Funk in the 1970s.
“Ohio/Machine Gun”—(1972)
Givin’ it Back signals the Isley's explicit practice of covering Rock acts, after so many covered their songs.  Stephen Stills (“Love the One You’re With”), Bob Dylan (“Lay Lady Lay”) and James Taylor, with a fire-and-brimstone cover of “Fire and Rain,” with a cover of Bill Withers “Cold Bologna”–with Withers on guitar—included for good measure.  The gem though their “Ohio/Machine Gun” suite in which the Ohio bred brothers acknowledge their roots and the political realities of the day (two years before “Fight the Power”) covering  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s tribute to the students murdered by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State in 1970 and the passing of their musical comrade Jimi Hendrix, who was part of their band in the 1960s and an influence on Ernie Isley.
“Summer Breeze”—(1973)

3+3 fully articulated the Isley Brothers' sound of the 1970s, and for much of the decade it represented the outer-boundaries of Black pop, until audiences were lulled to sleep—literally—by sweet nothings in their ear from Brother Ronald. The lead single “That Lady”—originally recorded in the early 1960s—is now part of pop music lore from that period and they make another run at James Taylor (“Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight”), but their cover of Seals and Croft’s “Summer Breeze”? Just #someothashit.

Hacking Race and Technology: Farai Chideya Talks with Black Girls Code Founder Kimberly Bryant

One with FaraiTechnologist Kimberly Bryant on why she founded the nonprofit Black Girls Code.Farai Chideya speaks with engineer-turned-nonprofit CEO Kimberly Bryant. Her daughter's mixed experiences in early tech education led Bryant to found  Black Girls Code , which offers hands-on instruction in cities across America.
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