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Letter of 200 Concerned Black Men Calling for the Inclusion of Women and Girls to the President’s “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative

Girls Like Me (Chicago)Posted here is the Letter of 200 Concerned Black Men Calling for the Inclusion of Women and Girls to the President’s “My Brother’s Keeper” Initiative. The open letter questions how attempts to address the challenges facing males of color, without integrating a comparable focus on the complex lives of girls and women who live and struggle together in the same families, homes, schools, and neighborhoods, advances the interests of the community as a whole.  As Kiese Leymon, one of the organizers noted,  “The men who came together to lift up this issue are organizers, professors, recently incarcerated, filmmakers, taxi drivers, college students, high school teachers, ministers, former pro­athletes, fathers of sons, and fathers of daughters. These men, identifying as straight, queer and transgender, all share a commitment to the expansion of My Brothers Keeper ­­ and all other national youth interventions ­­ to include an explicit focus on the structural conditions that negatively impact all youth of color.”  All Black men who believe that it is vital for our community to hold up the reality that shared fate requires a shared focus on interventions that work are encouraged to sign the letter by clicking here: blackgirls2014@gmail.com.Originally Published at the African American Policy Forum
Letter of 200 Concerned Black Men calling for the Inclusion of Women and Girls in “My Brother’s Keeper” May 28, 2014President Barack Obama
The White House1600 Pennsylvania AvenueWashington, D.C.. 20500
Dear President Obama,We write as African American men who have supported your presidency, stood behind you when the inevitable racist challenges to your authority have emerged, and have understood that our hopes would be tempered by the political realities that you would encounter.  While we continue to support your presidency, we write both out of a sense of mutual respect and personal responsibility to address what we believe to be the unfortunate missteps in the My Brothers Keeper initiative (MBK).  In short, in lifting up only the challenges that face males of color, MBK — in the absence of any comparable initiative for females — forces us to ask where the complex lives of Black women and Black girls fit into the White House’s vision of racial justice?Your acknowledgment that race-conscious policies are still needed, and that addressing the needs of those left behind “is as important as any issue that you work on” was inspiring to us. We agree with your sense that racial inequality remains an urgent American problem that, as you indicated, “goes to the very heart” of why you ran for the presidency. We knew very well that you were echoing Dr. King’s observations when you noted that “groups that have had the odds stacked against them in unique ways…require unique solutions.” We understand, as do you, that those ‘’who have seen fewer opportunities that have spanned generations” include men and women in our communities who have struggled side-by-side against the opportunity gaps, shrinking resources and disparate conditions that contribute to the desperate circumstances facing our community. So we were surprised and disappointed that your commitments express empathy to only half of our community — men and boys of color. Simply put, as Black men we cannot afford to turn away from the very sense of a shared fate that has been vital to our quest for racial equality across the course of American history.As African Americans, and as a nation, we have to be as concerned about the experiences of single Black women who raise their kids on sub-poverty wages as we are about the disproportionate number of Black men who are incarcerated. We must care as much about Black women who are the victims of gender violence as we do about Black boys caught up in the drug trade.  We must hold up the fact that Black women on average make less money and have less wealth than both White women and Black men in the United States just as we must focus on the ways in which Black men and women are disproportionately excluded from many professions.We are not suggesting a national moratorium on Black male-oriented projects. But our sense of accountability does reflect the fact that our historic struggle for racial justice has always included men as well as women who have risked everything not just for themselves or for their own gender but for the prospects of the entire community. Moreover, we are concerned that your admonishment to Black and Latino men to be more responsible and to stop making excuses frames problems of educational attainment, unemployment, and incarceration consistent with those who say Blacks suffer from a “culture of pathology.”  We believe in a vision of accountability and racial justice that is neither male-centered, heteropatriarchal or victim blaming.Taking the lives of Black girls and women seriously would increase the likelihood that we would recognize and lift up loving parents regardless of whether they exist in single, dual, same-sex or opposite sex families; decrease our tendency to express nostalgia for a family structure whose absence wrongfully becomes the putative focal point for all that ails us; and put into sharp relief the fact that the obstacles we face are not simply matters of attitude adjustment and goal setting, but the consequences of deteriorating opportunities, the weakened enforcement of civil rights laws, and the increasing emphasis by government actors on policies that focus on punishment, surveillance, and incarceration.We recommend an expansion of the MBK — and all other national youth interventions — to include an explicit focus on the structural conditions that negatively impact all Black youth.  Of course encouraging young Black men and women to do their very best is important, as is holding them accountable when we think that is warranted. Our interventions, however, must acknowledge that the life chances of youth of color are impacted by the converging dynamics of racism, sexism, class stratification, homophobia and other such factors. For example, MBK, in its current iteration, solely collects social data on Black men and boys. What might we find out about the scope, depth and history of our structural impediments, if we also required the collection of targeted data for Black women and girls?If the denunciation of male privilege, sexism and rape culture is not at the center of our quest for racial justice, then we have endorsed a position of benign neglect towards the challenges that girls and women face that undermine their well-being and the well-being of the community as a whole. As Black men we believe if the nation chooses to “save” only Black males from a house on fire, we will have walked away from a set of problems that we will be compelled to return to when we finally realize the raging fire has consumed the Black women and girls we left behind.SigneesRev. James M. Lawson, Jr., Civil Rights Icon and Mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Danny Glover, American Actor, Film Director and Political ActivistDarnell L. Moore, Editor, Founder of ‘You Belong,’ Brooklyn, NYDevon Carbado, The Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law at UCLA, Los Angeles, CAMarlon Peterson, Program Coordinator at ‘Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets’, Brooklyn NYRobin D. G. Kelly, The Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in United States History, UCLA, Los Angeles, CAOscar H. Blayton, Lawyer, Williamsburg, VARicardo Guthrie, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZMichael Hanchard, SOBA Presidential Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins UniversityLuke Charles Harris, Co-Founder of the African American Policy Forum, Department of Political Science, Vassar College, New York, NYKiese Laymon, Author, English Department, Vassar College, Jackson, MSMark Anthony Neal, Professor Of African and African American StudiesRev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Pastor for Formation and Justice, First Baptist Church, Jamaica Plains, MADr. James Turner, Founding Director, Africana Studies Center, Cornell UniversityMichael Dawson, John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science and the College Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, The University of ChicagoDavid Ikard, Associate Professor of English at Florida State University, Ph.D.Nyle Forte, Teacher and Baptist Pastor, Newark, NJWalter Fields, Executive Editor and Columnist at North Star News, Irvington, NJHouston Baker, Distinguished University Professor of English and African American Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TNCedric Robinson, Department of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, CACharles Steele, President and CEO, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Atlanta, GAThomas Sayers Ellis, Professor, Poet, PhotographerEduardo Bonilla Silva, Professor of Sociology at Duke University, Durham, NCMychal Denzel Smith, freelance writer and social commentator, Knobler Fellow at the Nation Institute, Brooklyn, NYWade Davis II, Speaker, writer, activist, educator, former NFL player, Co-Founder of You Belong, Executive Director of You Can Play, New York, NYScott Poulson-Bryant, Award-winning Journalist and Author, co-founding editor at Vibe MagazineAlexander Hardy, WriterSaeed Jones, Writer and Editor, A 2013 Pushcart Prize Winner, Brooklyn, NYCharles Mills, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University, Evanston, ILCleve Tinsley IV, Ordained Baptist minister, Adjunct Professor of Religion and Culture at Rice University and Springfield College, Houston, TXAl-Lateef Farmer, EOF Recruiter/Student Development Specialist at Mercer County Community College Philadelphia, PAKamasi Hill, Evanston Township High School, Chicago, ILRobert Jones, Jr., Writer and Founder, Son of Baldwin, Brooklyn, NYRobert Hill, Afro-American and Caribbean History, Editor of the Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers, UCLA, Los Angeles, CATed Bunch, Activist, Educator, Co-Founder of A Call to Men, Rockville Centre, NYBrad “Kamikaze” Franklin, President/CEO at Our Glass Entertainment, Jackson, MSDavid Whettstone, Public Policy Advocate & Writer, Washington, DCAdisa Ajamu, Executive Director at the Atunwa Community Collective Development Think Tank, Los Angeles, CAHerman Beavers, Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PAWren Brown, Actor, Los Angeles, CAOscar Alexander Robles, Manager of Non-profit Partnerships, Former Co-Director in the Coalition for Equitable Communities at Florida State UniversityAde Raphael, Student, Irvine, CASeth Bynum, Student, Montclair, NJJulian Williams, Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, Vassar CollegeOcasio Wilson, Albany, NYMerio Maye, Far Rockaway, NYTerrell TateDashawn Walker, Bowdoin College Class of 2014, Portland, MEKen Miles, Co-chair African American Alumni Association at Vassar CollegeElijah Winston, Student, Gilbert, AZMatthew Brown, Student, Brooklyn, NYJuan Thompson, Student, Chicago, ILJon Conningham, Digital Media student at the University of WashingtonJames Cantres, Student, African Diaspora at NYUChad Anderson, Program Associate, Office of Integrative Liberal Learning and the Global CommonsJafari Allen, Associate Professor of Anthropology & African American Studies at Yale UniversityGuthrie Ramsey, Professor of Music at University of PennsylvaniaMonroe France, Assistant Vice President for Student Diversity/Director of Multicultural Education and Services, NYUClifton HallIsaiah M. Wooden, Ph.D candidate and Director-dramaturg, Department of Drama at StanfordAaron Talley, Activist, Writer, Educator, Blogger for the Black Youth Project, Detroit, MILa Marr Jurelle Bruce, Lecturer in Theater Studies, Yale University.Dr. Van Bailey, Inaugural Director of the Office of BGLTQ Student Life at Harvard CollegeDonald P. Gagnon, Associate Professor of English at Western Connecticut State UniversityDonald Anthonyson, Organizer, Families for Freedom, New York, NYAndrew Cory Greene, Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Alternative to Incarceration and Higher Education Intervention, New York, NYAbraham Paulos, Director of Families for Freedom, NYDuane RobinsonHashim K. Pipkin, Writer and educator, Randallstown, MDBryson Rose, Ohio University Program Coordinator of Pregnancy Prevention at the Hetrick-Martin Institute HMHS, New York, NYLuis Inoa, Assistant Dean of Students/Director of Residential Life at Vassar College, Brooklyn/Queens, NYAkeel St. Vil, Brooklyn, NYHerman Gray. UC Santa CruzTony Porter, Educator and Activist, Co-Founder of A Call to Men, Rockville Centre, NYGuy LefevreMatthew Brown, Student, Brooklyn, NYKleaver Cruz, Writer and Teacher, Dream Director at Leadership Institute in the Bronx, New York, NYWalter Cruz, Graphic designer, New York, NYAbraham Gatling, Watertown, CTKendall Coleman Bronx, NYRussell Robinson, Professor and Distinguished Haas Chair in LGBT Equity, UC Berkeley LawQuincy James Rineheart, M.Div., Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GAAhmad Greene-Hayes, Williams College ’16, Williamstown, MAPaul Daniels, II, Morehouse College ’12, Atlanta, GATim’m T. West, Activist, Educator, Artist, Director of Youth Services at theCenter on Halsted, Chicago, ILDerrick WalkerWeslee Glenn, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Cal Tech, Los Angeles, CAVaughn E. Taylor-Akutagawa, Activist, Entrepreneur, Researcher, and Executive Director at Gay Men of African Descent, New York, NYCharles McKinney, Associate Professor and Director of Africana Studies Program at Rhodes College, Memphis, TNHiram Perez, Assistant Professor, English Department at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NYPreston Mitchum, Adjunct Professor, Advanced Legal Research and Writing at Georgetown University, Washington, DCKiyan Williams, Artist, Performer, Stanford ’13, Stanford, CAJohn Murillo III, PhD candidate, English Department at Brown University, Providence, RIDymir Arthur, Dean of School Culture at Achievement First, Brooklyn, NYAlan MullinsKevin Lawrence Henry Jr., PhD candidate in Education at University of Madison-Wisconsin, Madison, WIMichael Dumas, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education Leadership at NYU Steinhardt, New York, NYRiko A. Boone, Counselor at The Door, Outstanding HIV prevention work of the the year awardee, New York, NYDevon Tyrone Wade, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, New York, NYAunsha Hall-Everett, Consultant at Harm Reduction Coalition, New York, NYAllen K. JamesDurrell Callier, Doctoral student at University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign’s School of Education, Policy, Organization & Leadership, Champaign-Urbana, ILJames Roane, Graduate Student in History at Columbia University, New York, NYGeorge Bellinger, Jr., AIDS Activist, New York, NYDarius Clark Monroe, Filmmaker, Director of Evolution of a Criminal, Brooklyn, NYOscar Alexander Robles, Manager of Non-profit Partnerships, Former Co-Director in the Coalition for Equitable Communities at Florida State University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice ’15, New York, NYRichard Yarborough, Professor of English at UCLA, Faculty Research Associate at the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, Los Angeles, CAAlex Blue V, Doctoral Student in Ethnomusicology at UC Santa Barbara, University of Northern TexasAlvin Starks, Creator and Former Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the Open Society Institute, Brooklyn, NYDevon PetersonChris Mcauley, Associate Professor in Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara, PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan, Santa Barbara, CAClarence Lusane, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, American University, Washington, DCMonty Pender, Transportation Director, ABCD, Canton, OHJames Gordon Williams, Theorist, Composer, Pianist, a Yale Bouchet ScholarRoderick Ferguson, Professor of American Studies at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MNJohari Jabir, Assistant Professor of African American Studies at University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, ILScot Brown, Associate Professor of History at UCLA, Los Angeles, CATyrone Forman, Associate Professor of Sociology at Emory University, Atlanta, GAEddie Bruce-Jones, Lecturer in Law, Program Director, Admissions Tutor at Birkbeck University of London, London, EnglandObari Cartman, Photographer, Artist, Activist, Chicago, ILMaurice Jackson, Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington, DCDavid MeltonDr. Clemmie Harris, PhD candidate, Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PAJustin Stucey, Producer and Business Developer at Production Glue, New York, NYGregory Davis, J.D./M.A. in Afro-American Studies and Law at UCLA, Los Angeles, CARoland Roebuck, Activist, Washington, DCR. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at the City College of New York, CUNYDavarian L. Baldwin, Paul Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College, CTM. Keith Claybrook, Jr., CSU, Dominguez Hills/ Claremont Graduate UniversityCompton, CADr. Brian PetersonChristopher Stackhouse, Maryland Institute College of Art Brooklyn, NYNahum D. Chandler, Associate Professor of African American Studies University of California, IrvineDarrell Moore, Philosophy, De Paul University Chicago, ILJason Saunders, Graduate student, UVARobeson Taj Frazier, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CAAvery R. Young, Teaching Artist, Urban Gateways, Chicago, ILJohnny E. Williams, Department of Sociology, Trinity College, Hartford, CTJames FordHerman Gray. Department of Sociology, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CAArthur Little, Professor of English, UCLA, Los Angeles, CAAbdul Ali, Goucher College, Towson, MDDavid H. Anthony, III, Department of History, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CAKai M. Green, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CABill Fletcher, Jr., Activist/Educator/Writer, Mitchellville, MDTommie Shelby, Harvard University, Cambridge, MAPeniel E. Joseph, Founding Director, Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Tufts University, Somerville, MAMarcus Anthony Hunter, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Yale University. New Haven, CTProfessor Joseph Wilson, City University of New York, NYNeil Roberts, Associate Professor, Africana Studies Program, Williams CollegeJonathan Collins, Doctoral Student, Department of Political ScienceUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CAErik S McDuffie, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, ILTavia Nyong’o, New York University, New York, NYSidney J. Lemelle, Professor of History and Africana Studies, Pomona College Claremont, CAMinkah Makalani, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX & Brooklyn, NYDarnell Hunt, Director, Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLAPete Carr, AttorneyRobert O’Meilly, Zora Neal Hurston Professor of English, Columbia University, New York, NYRobert Williams, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NCJohn Keene, Author/Artist/Professor, Rutgers University, Jersey City, NJMakungu M. Akinyela, Ph.D., LMFT, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GAEric A. Hurley PhD, Department of Psychology, Pomona College, Claremont CAGeffrey Davis, Ph.D. Candidate, University Park, PADavarian L. Baldwin, Paul Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College, CTM. Keith Claybrook, Jr., CSU, Dominguez Hills/ Claremont Graduate University, Compton, CAMichael Stoll, Professor of Public Policy, and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Urban PovertyFred Moten, University of California, Riverside, CASteve Edwards, Director of Marketing & Business Development, Elite Daily, New York, N.Y.Jerry G. Watts, Professor of English, Sociology and American Studies, CUNY Graduate CenterBrian Tate, President, the Tate Group, Brooklyn, NYFrank Guridy, Department of History at UT-Austin, Austin, TXEric Miller, Professor, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, CATarell Alvin McCraney, Playwright, Steppenwolf Ensemble Member, Chicago, MacArthur Grant Recipient 2013Dr. Tony Laing, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignDamien Sojoyner, Scripps College, Los Angeles, CABryan Epps, The Shabazz Center, Newark, NJPercy E. Holmes, Education Specialist, Brooklyn, NYRobert Warren, Personal Trainer and Fitness Expert, New York, NYBenjamin Reynolds, Clergy and Doctoral Seminary Student, Chicago, ILJason Craig Harris, Humanities Educator, New York, NYRobert West, LGBT Advocate and Non-profit Administrator, New York, NYGeorge Turner, Trial LawyerJelani Lindsey, Attorney, Rancho Cucamonga, Los Angeles, CARobert Reid-Pharr, Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies, City University of New York, NYMichael Mitchell, PhD student, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CAGeoff Ward, Professor and Parent, School of Social Ecology, UC Irvine, Irvine, CABennett Capers, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, NYDavid Troutt, Professor of Law, Rutgers School of Law, Newark, NJKevin Powell, New York, NYNick Mitchell, Ethnic StudiesPrescott Saunders, Data Analyst, Poughkeepsie, NYWilliam Johnson, Professor at University of Memphis, Memphis, TNJason Saunders, Graduate Student, UVANicholas Brady, Graduate Student, University of California, IrvineProfessor Ronald S. Sullivan, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MAProfessor Robert Westley, Tulane Law SchoolDavid Wasserman, Public Defender, Los Angeles, CALester Myers, Security Guard, Forrest, MSProfessor Thomas Mitchell, University of Wisconsin Law SchoolStephen Ward, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MIChristopher Marsburn, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Psychology & Social Behavior, University of California, IrvineProfessor Thomas Mitchell, University of Wisconsin Law SchoolKent Faulcon, Actor, Writer, Director, Los Angeles, CAAndre Ware, Actor, Writer, New York, NYPaul Pelt, Chef, Washington, DCTheodore Craighead, Paris, FranceMelvin Smith, Jr., Architect, Birmingham, ALMilton Jennings, Engineer, Hyattsville, MDAnthony Norris, Clinton, MDLarry A. Stephens, Det. Sgt. Detroit, MIRahsaan Patterson, Actor, Singer, Los Angeles, CA

Jackson Rising: People Power and the New Cooperative Movement

Jackson Rising: People Power and the New Cooperative Movementby Lamont Lilly | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Once home to some of the most violent racists in the U.S., Jackson, Mississippi is now a key training ground for self-determination and organized “people power” throughout the U.S. South. From May 2 through May 4, 2014 activists, organizers and fellow revolutionaries from all over the world gathered at the Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference at Jackson State University. An estimated 500 people participated in some or all of the conference.
The primary objective of such an assembly was “to educate and mobilize the people of Jackson to meet the economic and sustainability needs of their community,” and to share with others how such strategies can help produce the radical change oppressed communities will need to survive within the current global capitalist crisis. The event was organized by the Jackson Rising Organizing Committee and was held at the Walter Payton Recreation and Wellness Center, where students and community members were welcomed alike. The spirit of resistance and self-reliance filled the air.
As an opening, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives provided a warm welcome and an insightful introduction to the local cooperative movement there in Jackson, Mississippi, outlining how their efforts have been a form of resistance and an assistance in providing the people’s needs. The Southern Grassroots Economies Project (SGEP) offered an intense overview on why the cooperative movement has begun to blossom and take form throughout the Southern Black Belt, highlighting how public policy can actually support and finance such grassroots efforts.  Regional activists and organizers learned firsthand how the SGEP has been working diligently since 2011 to “build a Southern economy rooted in self-reliance, solidarity, community ownership and meeting human needs rather than maximizing profit.”
Black Workers for Justice and a host of union activists expressed the importance that strategies for worker’s rights coincide with burgeoning worker-owned cooperatives, and how in hindsight, such forces actually strengthen one another. 
The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation sponsored a community workshop presenting four case studies inspired by Argentina’s cooperative movement. Omar Sierra, deputy consul general of Venezuela in Boston highlighted the redesigning of communal territories in Venezuela through participatory planning. Manuel Matos, representative of the Afro-Descendant Community Council of La Toma [Colombia], shared how Afro-Colombians are building ties for land autonomy and participatory governance. Mazibuko Jara, of Amanda! Magazine and Alternative Information Center introduced conference participants to how the cooperative movement is resisting the rise of neocolonialism in South Africa.
Black Arts Movement Askia Toure w/ Lamont LillyA call for independent institutions
The main political orientation of this conference was that the working class should no longer depend on capitalism to provide for our basic needs. How can we, if it’s failing us from every angle? Speakers and cultural artists emphasized that freedom fighters have to assist the people in building institutions of liberation, and implementing practical strategies that promote autonomy from the capitalist system. Building cooperatives was stressed as an alternative to corporate grocery chains to supply oppressed communities with fresh fruits and vegetables. Educational cooperatives were presented as a working model to educate our children in a manner that enriches both them and society.
Organizers stressed that the task at hand now is working to construct economic and social networks that serve the oppressed rather than cater to the elite.  The question is how do the people begin to provide themselves with adequate healthcare? How do low-income and marginalized communities create sustainable employment with living wages for themselves? How do underserved communities become their own solution to dilapidated housing, food deserts and waste management? How can communities affected by the school-to-prison pipeline combat such practices through participatory planning and self-reliance? How do communities protect themselves from police departments that terrorize rather than “protect and serve?” 
Fact is, the capitalist system and its various layers of control and exploitation will not stop until we make it stop! While issuing demands and raising voices is necessary, the harsh reality is the needs of the people have continued to be ignored.
Low-income oppressed communities need more than free newspapers, pamphlets and open access to political forums. In order to truly empower those who are marginalized, freedom fighters must be engaged in the work of providing basic survival needs including food, clothing, shelter and community safety. True, mass marches and political protests are very much so needed, but it will take another kind of mobilization to toil the soil and feed hungry children. It will take more than film screenings to help provide employment for those who have been incarcerated. Such developments require the collective application of practical skills, knowledge and community-based planning. 
Capitalism couldn’t care less about the needs of the oppressed. Hard work, creativity and revolutionary ingenuity can help lay groundwork for oppressed communities to begin meeting their own needs – creating their own modes of child care and transportation, manufacturing and apparel.
Within the capitalist structure, self-reliance among marginalized communities is a critical form of resistance. Limiting the power and impact capitalism and its corporatocracy possesses over our everyday lives is one of the first steps to building a “People’s Power” Movement. These points were recurring themes amongst organizers throughout the conference.        
The weekend session concluded with a rousing tribute to revolutionary and former mayor of Jackson, the late Chokwe Lumumba, as his son, Chokwe Antar Lumumba chanted: “Free the Land! Free the land! Free the land by any means necessary!” The spirit and legacy of former Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who won the mayoral campaign promoting cooperatives as part of building people’s assemblies, resonated throughout the entire conference. 
What the Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference informed and reminded the movement is that oppressed communities must liberate themselves. #JacksonRising was a reminder that most underserved communities already possess the skills, labor and resources needed to improve their quality of life, and that we as revolutionaries must not only believe that; we must also lead the charge.       
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Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press, Human Rights Delegate with Witness for Peace and organizer with Workers World Party. He was delegate at the “Jackson Rising: New Economies Conference.” Follow him on Twitter @LamontLilly.

Morehouse Professor Stephane Dunn on the Writing Life of Maya Angelou

“Ms. Maya Angelou” by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“Listen to yourself and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God.”                                I don’t have to work hard to recall the first time I became familiar with the voice of Ms. Maya Angelou. I was a young child when I sat in front of our huge floor model television with my family watching Ms. Angelou in a rare TV event, black miniseries called Roots. Just two years later, I sat in front of that same television and excitedly watched another too rare TV event that completely transfixed me, the adaptation of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings starring the late Esther Rolle and Diahann Carroll with Constance Good as a young Maya. It was rare because the voice of a young black girl was hardly ever the center of a television movie.
I read the book for the first time in that next two years. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was the autobiography that turned me on to a whole genre of African American writing that I’d never been introduced to yet fully either in school or out. Marguerite’s painful, beautiful journey from voice to silence to the realization of voice and poetry captured for me the power of the written and spoken word. It helped bring into my consciousness something I had been actively doing since the age of nine or ten: I wanted to be a writer.
Once I discovered Ms. Angelou’s memoir, I was hooked and devoured the library the next couple of years, reading a slew of autobiographies like Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and the seven installments in Ms.. Angelou’s story, including Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting Merry Like Christmas (1976), and The Heart of a Woman (1981). They are prized treasures on my bookcase. That first though, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is one of the texts of my life. I refer to it on the very first page of the preface to my book and reference to it in a play I finished recently. I, like so many others, have performed her poems, favorites like “Still I Rise” and “Phenomenal Woman.” Her words together are a soundtrack that articulates the vitality, beauty, strength, and history that define my humanity, my black woman-ness. She captured the marvelousness of our dance, triumph and survival.
Over the years, I bordered on envying the bevy of public folk like Oprah, her ‘daughter’, who were obviously downright awed and captivated as they sat across from her, not really interviewing her but listening, taking in the wisdom that was in every measured, thoughtful word she spoke.  There is no time that I heard her on screen, radio, or Internet that I could stop listening and then marvel how it was that she could be always such a model of art, of grace, and self-beauty. Author, writer, activist, dancer, poet, filmmaker, actress, seer—she personified inner beauty radiating out, not merely aging  but constantly evolving and embracing our mutual humanity and life.  She commanded and exuded respect and thus spoke across generations from her peers to Hip Hop. 
Just as she showed us in life the intrinsic rewards of choosing to fiercely embrace our mutual humanity and the journey to becoming all that is possible, she showed us how to transition with the same embrace, leaving us with the might of her words – and over twitter ‘cause she was that kind of timeless cool: Listen to yourself and in that quietude, you might hear the voice of God.
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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.

Choosing To Stay When 'Tell Me More' Ends

Brothers Writing To Live: An Open Letter to Boyce Watkins

Dear Boyce:
We come at you as Brothers who appreciate your ability to build a recognizable brand and become a voice of importance for many in our communities, but with such visibility and influence comes great responsibility.  It is in the spirit of this latter point that we absolutely must challenge the logic and validity of your recent essay “How Sleeping with the Wrong Woman Might Turn You Into a Rapist.”  At best, your essay is irresponsible, callous and willfully thoughtless; at worst, it is hateful, misogynistic and deeply troubling coming from one who claims to love and represent the interests of our people.There is not an index of sexual violence and rape in this country that suggest that the rates of such offenses could ever be equated with the number of false accusations.  Indeed the numbers tend to pivot the other way as cases of rape and sexual violence, especially in our own communities, are underreported, often out of the need and desire for many of the victims to protect their Black males assailants.  In other words, very often the Black women victims of rape and sexual violence are more willing to offer protection to their attackers, than you were willing to offer protection to those same Black women in your article.  Many of these issues are directly addressed by Aishah Shahidah Simmons in her important film No!: The Rape Documentary .Right now, a Black woman somewhere in the US and around the world is having to confront real-time threats and acts of sexual violence at the hands of a male perpetrator. Right now, a Black woman—someone's mother, aunt, sister, partner, friend—fears telling the truth about an act of sexual violence that has forever shaped her life because she believes that authorities and others won't believe her report. Right now, a man is calling an act of rape a moment of great sex. And your unthoughtful article is excusing the inexcusable and furthering the problem of sexual assault, too often waged against our sisters, in a rape culture. But rather than name your article as solely problematic, we are using this opportunity to address a culture of women-centered violence. We, too, must do the work of self-reflexivity and transformation. As Black cis and trans men, we are the beneficiaries of a rape culture and our sisters are its victims. The words we offer here are reminders to us to do our work just as well: to challenge ourselves, to hold each other accountable, to change ourselves, to think differently about our sisters and to live differently in community with them. We encourage you to do the same. It is not without concern for the history of Black men being falsely accused of crimes, specifically rape, that we come to you. We all know this history very well. It is however, our concern that you are willing to turn a blind eye to the history and suffering of our sisters, to actively degrade them by name – “wolf in freaks’ clothing”—and  by action, based on personal anecdotes and a vendetta against white liberals. We are not engaged in the project of Black uplift if we choose to ignore that Black women are often terrorized by the Black men that claim to love them. This article you published excuses that terror.Like you, we are black men who have committed a large part of our life to the page, and to our communities. As Black men writing to live, we welcome regret. We welcome revision. We encourage each other to create prose that embraces the word "and," prose that wraps itself around the crackly paradox of being a Black man in the United States. We encourage you to revise your piece and welcome the possibility that yes some black men are wrongfully accused of sexual violence, sexual assault and rape by black women, AND those black women, like most black women, are far more likely to never ever report sexual violence, assault or rape committed by us, the black men closest to them.  Our hope is that our attempts at honest prose, and our attempts at committed revision will lead to healthy, decision-making in our lives on and off page. We know the women in our communities deserve far more love and care that we have offered, Boyce. More than anything,  we know we can be much better at loving each other.Kiese Laymon, Writer & Professor at Vassar CollegeMychal Denzel Smith, Writer, Mental Health Advocate, & Cultural CriticKai M. Green, Writer, Filmmaker, & Ph.D Candidate at USCMarlon Peterson., Writer & Youth & Community AdvocateMark Anthony Neal, Writer, Cultural Critic, & Professor at Duke UniversityHashim Pipkin, Writer, Cultural Critic, Ph.D. Candidate at Vanderbilt UniversityWade Davis, II, Writer, LGBTQ Advocate, & Former NFL Player
Darnell L. Moore, Writer & Activist

Yasiin Gaye: The Return (Side Two) (Official Teaser Video)

Amerigo Gazaway

COMING SOON: "Yasiin Gaye: The Return (Side Two)"

Download the single "Travellin' Man Pt. II" here:http://amerigo.bandcamp.com/album/yas...

Amerigo Gazaway's Soul Mates series continues the theme of his previous work in creating collaborations that never were. On the series' latest installment, Amerigo unites Brooklyn rapper Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) and soul legend Marvin Gaye for a dream collaboration aptly titled "Yasiin Gaye". Building the album's foundation from deconstructed samples of Gaye's Motown classics, Gazaway re-purposes the instrumentation into new productions within a similar framework. Carefully weaving Bey's tangled raps and Gaye's soulful vocals over his new arrangements, the producer delivers a quality much closer to an authentic collaboration than a lukewarm "mashup" album.

Jazmine Sullivan's Reality Show: Culture (Episode 1)

Justin DouglasDirector/Producer
JDouglasMedia

Ed Jones
Producer
Stone Room Entertainment

Dennis Atkinson
Music Production
DLA Productions

Lawrence Lowe
Photography

Delores J. Brown
Production Assistant

Juanita Young
Production Assistant

Brianna Montgomery
Photography Assistant

Music video by Jazmine Sullivan performing Jazmine Sullivan's Reality Show: Culture. (C) 2014 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

#YesAllWomen: Rebecca Solnit on the Santa Barbara Massacre & Viral Response to Misogynist Violence

Democracy Now
Santa Barbara is grieving after a 22-year-old man killed six college students just after posting a misogynistic video online vowing to take his revenge on women for sexually rejecting him. The massacre prompted an unprecedented reaction online with tens of thousands of women joining together to tell their stories of sexual violence, harassment and intimidation. By Sunday, the hashtag #YesAllWomen had gone viral. In speaking out, women were placing the shooting inside a broader context of misogynist violence that often goes ignored. In her new book, "Men Explain Things to Me," author and historian Rebecca Solnit tackles this issue and many others.

Brazil's Dance With the Devil: Dave Zirin on the People's Revolt Challenging 2014 World Cup

Democracy Now
In his new book, Brazil's Dance With the Devil: The World Cup, The Olympics and the Fight for Democracy, sportswriter Dave Zirin tackles the growing unrest in Brazil in the leadup to one of sport's biggest spectacles. 
Thousands of police officers have joined bus drivers for day two of a massive strike in São Paulo, just weeks before the World Cup is set to begin. Meanwhile, more than ten thousand people have occupied a lot next to one of the arenas that will host the World Cup's opening match. They call their protest, "The People's Cup" and are opposing the nearly half a billion dollars spent on the stadium, even as their communities lack adequate hospitals and schools. Demonstrations throughout the country have called attention to similar concerns. Zirin joins us to discuss the protests rocking Brazil, as well as the biggest sporting controversy in the United States -- the NBA's attempt to oust owner Donald Sterling over his racist comments about African Americans. Zirin is a sports columnist for The Nation magazine and host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius/XM. 

Tribute to Two Real Soul Brothers: Vincent Harding & Sam Greenlee

Tribute to Two Real Soul Brothers: Vincent Harding & Sam Greenlee by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
                                       Dead men make such convenient heroes.                                       For they cannot rise to challenge the images                                       That we might fashion from their lives.                                       It is easier to build monuments                                       Than to build a better world. – Carl Wendell Hines Jr.
I was in my first year of graduate school and taking an African American literature course with the late Dr. Erskine Peters. He had a ton of excellent texts on his syllabus and an extensive supplementary reading list. I was amazed that there were still so many definitive African American books that I still hadn’t read. From early on, eighth grade through high school, I couldn’t get enough of reading autobiographies, novels, and essays by African American writers. In college, I’d seemingly read most of the few African American writers assigned. But the list of writers and books my professor gave the class was long.
I determined to read as many as I could and I started with one whose title grabbed me – There is a River (1981); the author’s name was once I recognized in association with Dr. King.  I read the whole of it the very day that I started reading. When I read his gorgeous prose about the black freedom struggle, about our continuous resistance at every point, I was utterly amazed and delighted. It led me to Denmark Vesey’s place in Charleston years later and to other stops along the way to trying to fill in the blanks and discover more courageous, defiant black folk than the couple that dotted history books when I was growing up. I reread it the summer following that school year. 
Since then I’ve picked There is a River up many times, almost as much as I’ve listened to one of the most important speeches Dr. King ever delivered, “Beyond Vietnam,” which exhibits the genius of its architect, the unassuming, brilliant, passionate seer, historian Dr. Harding. The blue stickies marking passages I wanted to remember and loved are still in the book, which is literally worn to point of falling apart at the seam.
I was too embarrassed to present it in that condition to Dr. Harding to sign when I had the great pleasure of speaking to him when he spent the semester at Morehouse as a distinguished visiting professor. But it was far more important that I got to listen to him up close, be blessed by his undiminished intellectuality and socio-political insight, and witness his grace and beautiful dignity. I was able to grasp his hand and tell him how meaningful the ‘Beyond Vietnam’ speech is to me and to say bless you for There is a River; I keep returning to it. 
The second year of graduate school, I dated a guy who asked if I’d ever seen The Spook Who Sat By the Door (1973), the story of a black CIA agent who uses his training to organize an urban black revolution against white supremacy. He was crazy about it; it was a sacred cult classic to he and his friends. I’d found a copy of the book, written by author and poet Sam Greenlee, for like three bucks in a dusty bookstore in college, but I’d never seen the film adaptation. He had it and so we watched together.
I literally cannot remember any of our dates save that evening we spent watching, then discussing and debating The Spook Who Sat by the Door.  Greenlee and Ivan Dixon had written the screenplay; it showed the evidence of the guerilla-style filmmaking and the budget limitations but it did not diminish the representation of the thoughtful, compelling revolutionary implications. The film was literally too hot to handle for the studio execs and theatres when it came out as the story goes and was hardly in theatres before disappearing. The film too stayed on mind and spirit and of course I eventually got a VH1 then DVD copy of the film. I did not know that a few years later it would be the subject of a chapter in my book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.  
I spoke – or rather choked on the telephone - with Sam Greenlee a few months ago for a all of two minutes. Even via phone, I was excitedIt’s movingly meaningful that these two real soul brothers passed on the same day, on Malcolm X’s birthday, at eight-two and eighty-three respectively.  In a discussion about Dr. King once, Vincent Harding referenced the poem by Carl Wendell Hines, ‘Jr. : ”Dead Men  make such convenient heroes . .  . it easier to build monuments .  .  .” 
It is no small thing to choose to be voices for justice and life-long critics of injustice, no small thing to have created a masterpiece in words or a compelling film that speaks across time from history to present chaos with an unapologetic demand for revolution. This is work that should be accorded the tribute of active introduction and passing on to generations now and later. It is this hope that the prophetic Dr. Harding wrote of so eloquently in his introduction of There Is a River:
 So I write in hope that some men and women will read the words and recognize that they/we are the essential force, are the river, are the vision. I write, trusting that some parents and grandparents and teachers will read aloud and share this with the children, will become new sources of memory . . .  
Ashe.
***
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.