Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 822

Feeling the Black Fantastic: A Symposium on the Work of RICHARD ITON | May 16-17

Nathan Jalani TaylorFeeling the Black Fantastic:A Symposium on the Work of RICHARD ITON
Center for African American History (CAAH) at Northwestern
Friday, May 16 2pm & Saturday, May 17
Hotel Orrington 1710 Orrington Ave. Evanston, IL 
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014Hilton Orrington, Heritage Ballroom, 2nd Floor
2:00PM • OPENING CEREMONIES & REMARKSMaster of Ceremonies:Sherwin K. Bryant, Director, CAAH
Dwight A. McBride, Dean of TGSSarah Mangelsdorf, Dean of WCASMartha Biondi, Chair AFAM
MUSICAL INTERLUDEZinga Fraser • “Ella’s Song”, “Everything MustChange”
2:30PM • OPENING ROUNDTABLECathy CohenFred HarrisMark Anthony NealValerie SmithHarvey NeptuneModerator: Alex Weheliye
4:00PM • REFRESHMENTS
4:30PM • BLACK LEFTISMMinkah Makalani • “The Politically Unimaginableand the Black Left : De/Coloniality and BlackRadical Thought After Richard Iton’s In Search ofthe Black Fantastic”Donna Murch • “Living for the City: BlackCalifornia, Black Consciousness, and StateRepression in the Postwar US”David Austin • “The Road to Revolution: Iton’sRoutes and the Making of the Black Fantastic”Moderator: Damon Sajnani
6:30PM • CRITICAL INTERLUDEPauline Ekholt, Writer/Performer • “How to be aMinority for White People”
7:00PM • RECEPTION
SATURDAY, MAY 17, 2014Hilton Orrington, Conference Room, 9th Floor
9:00AM-11:00AM • RACE, LAW AND PUBLIC POLICYDebra Thompson • “Politics Without Guarantees”Lester Spence • “Off to Battle: Reflections on Politics and thePolitical in Black Popular Culture”Juliet Hooker • “Affirmative Action and the Paradoxes ofContemporary Black Politics”Moderator: Zinga Fraser
11:30AM-12:30PM • LUNCH • MEMORIAL MOMENT
1:00PM-3:00PM • BLACK POPULAR CULTUREFred Moten • “Air Shaft /Rent Party”Margo Crawford • “Ghetto Fabulous Meets Neo-Natural Black:Uncovering the Black Fantastic of Black Body Politics”Shana L. Redmond • “Swimming Pools: The Quiet Life ofNickerson Gardens”Moderator: Christine Goding
3:00PM • REFRESHMENTS
3:30PM-5:00PM • INTERSECTIONALITY AND COLONIALITYKatherine McKittrick • “Fantastic/Still/Life: On Richard Iton (AWorking Paper)”Rinaldo Walcott • “Funk: A Note on the Black Human”Aaron Kamugisha • “‘That area of experience that we term the newWorld’: Sylvia Wynter, Richard Iton, and Coloniality”Michelle A. Stephens • “Feeling Black: Race, Sexuality, Affects ofDifference and the Trope of the Skin”Moderator: Assata Kokayi
5:00PM-6:00PM • CONCLUDING DIALOGUESherwin K. Bryant and Barnor Hesse • “Dread Beat an’ Blood:Archiving the Blues in Black Fantastic Forms”Moderator: Jean-Pierre Brutus

To Save the Girls, the World Must Help Nigeria

To Save the Girls, the World Must Help Nigeria by Jacob Olupona | The HuffingtonPost
The recent kidnapping by the jihadist group Boko Haram of hundreds of girls from a school in northeastern Nigeria shocks our sensibilities. Wanting only an education, the girls are now being held in parts unknown, and their captors have threatened to sell them into slavery. Like other girls before them, they are likely being sexually abused and forced to marry members of the radical group.
This is an intolerable offense against humanity. If the corrupt and indifferent Nigerian state cannot or will not intervene, other nations must. At stake are not just the lives and well being of these poor girls, but the future of Nigeria and other African states.
Boko Haram has declared war against the Nigerian state. The group was founded officially in 2002 when its leader, Muhammad Yusuf, sought to establish Shari'ah law in Nigeria's largely Muslim north. One of the major themes of Yusuf's preaching was his outright rejection of Western education. (In the local Hausa language, Boko Haram means, roughly, "Western education is sinful.") The group became more visible and active in 2009, when it clashed with state forces and Yusuf died while in state custody.
Boko Haram, which appeared at first to be a moderate separatist or jihadist movement, became more militant after the killing of its leader. Violence heightened and over the last few months included the bombing of a motor park in the federal capital of Abuja. Although some claim that Boko Haram is an anti-Christian movement, the group does not target other religions as much as it does the secular state of Nigeria.
Boko Haram insidiously employs Islam to justify its crimes, but larger groups or Islamic institutions in Nigeria do not sanction its activities in any way. Moreover, the group is overwhelmingly opposed by Nigerian society. In fact, when security forces fail to contain Boko Haram's violence, citizens often engage them at the risk of their own lives because they recognize how high the stakes in the current situation are.
Because they are opposed to Western education and the education of girls in particular, the jihadists have cowardly targeted girls' schools. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau actually boasts that he is going to sell the recently kidnapped girls into slavery. Again, this particular approach to Islam does not have widespread support in the area. Sadly, it does have a disproportionately large effect on Nigerian society.
It's important to understand that Boko Haram did not emerge in a vacuum. It is almost a direct result of the failed state that is corrupt and unable to provide even a basic level of safety and services to the country's citizens, from education, to healthcare, roads, electricity, and even sanitation.
The Nigerian government's response to Boko Haram is a prime example of its incompetence. Security forces conducted their own rampage, which often resulted in the deaths of innocent people throughout the north and validated the militant group's claim that the government is illegitimate, oppressive, and exploitative. It also precipitated an escalation of the militant group's violence and the deaths of more innocents.
It wasn't always this way. Despite lackluster performance, the leaders of newly independent Nigeria in the 1960s were far better than those who govern the country now. The decline of the Nigerian state that began during the military regimes of 1966-1979 and 1983-1998 has reached its climax in the current social and political order.
Today, Nigeria is totally unable to control its borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Consequently, many foreigners come into the country to fight for Boko Haram. What began as a local phenomenon has become an international movement that includes outside jihadi groups. They have attracted people, training, and funding from all over the Islamic world, and evidence points to the Al-Qaeda establishing itself in the border area.
If law and order breaks down in Nigeria, the consequences will reverberate beyond West Africa. The West can expect a large flow of refugees to other countries, further destabilizing an already fragile region, and creating another safe haven for fundamentalist jihadis to launch attacks on an international scale. This is not simply a Nigerian affair. In the absence of competent government, the international community must intervene.
The solution lies not just in targeting Boko Haram, but in strengthening social institutions, embarking on literacy programs that will liberate minds from forms of religious fanaticism, reaffirming the secular nature of the state, providing strong leadership and competency, and educating citizens on their rights, obligations, and duties. Nigeria must embark on a new nation-building project that will enable it to correct the mistakes of the past and set itself on the path to progress.
Nigeria, which GDP recently exceeded that of South Africa, enjoys the greatest wealth of human and natural resources on the continent. Many believe that the nation can achieve greatness in the modern world. However, Nigeria has not demonstrated its capability because of failures to uphold any kind of social contract with its citizens. There is hope that the conversation going on now at the national confab in Abuja may lead to recommendations that can move the country forward.
But first, we must free these innocent girls from the horrors they are experiencing at the hands of Boko Haram. It is surely a global task and concern. The world cannot leave the issue to the Nigerian state alone.
***
Jacob K. Olupona, who is from Nigeria, is Professor of African Religious Traditions at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of African and African American Studies in the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of several books including Òrìsà Devotion as World Religion: The Globalization of Yorùbá Religious Culture (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008) and City of 201 Gods: Ilé-Ifè in Time, Space, and the Imagination (University of California Press, 2011).

Filmmaker Amma Asante Talks About Her Film 'BELLE'

ReelBlack
Filmmaker Amma Asante visited Philadelphia on the opening of her 2nd feature film BELLE. In this exclusive clip, she talks about what inspired her to make the film, the difference between Black film in the UK and the States and how she hopes BELLE will inspire generations to come. BELLE is now playing in select cities. http://www.foxsearchlight.com/Belle/

Spike Lee Interview: "Do The Right Thing" 25 Years Later

HuffPostLive
Director Spike Lee joins Marc Lamont Hill of HuffPost Live to talk about the 25-year anniversary of Do the Right Thing and the New York Knicks.

Making Waves in the South Bronx: Profile of the BronxWorks Aquatics Team

BronxNet
BronxWorks Aquatics provides youth in the community with swimming lessons. Here to share more about the program is Eileen Towey, BronxWorks Aquatics Director.

Rapsody: "Betty Shabazz" [Video]

RapsodyVevo

From the album, 9th Wonder Presents: Jamla Is the Squad (Deluxe Edition). 

Directed by Brian Petchers
Produced by 9th Wonder

Official music video by Rapsody performing Betty Shabazz. 2014 Jamla Records / Culture Over Everything

In Performance: Vanessa Williams Sings 'I Can't Give You Anything but Love'

New York Times Video

Vanessa Williams, with Adam Birnbaum on piano, sings "I Can't Give You Anything but Love" from the musical revue After Midnight, on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theater.Produced by: Fritzie Andrade

Why We Need More Black Women as News Decision-Makers

Why We Need More Black Women as News Decision-Makers by Mark Anthony Neal | The Root.com
Juxtaposed with news coverage in recent weeks about the horrifying abduction of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls is the sheer volume of national media attention devoted to Donald Sterling’s garden-variety racist rants—a positioning that seems, frankly, absurd.
The girls’ story is thankfully starting to get traction, but too often in mainstream media, coverage of critical news trails more sensationalized stories.
Despite many news programs featuring African-American women as on-air hosts—Joy Reid of MSNBC’s The Reid Report, Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America, Gwen Ifill anchoring PBSNewshour and Michel Martin helming NPR’s Tell Me More, to name a few—there are still far too few people of color, particularly black women, in executive, editorial and production positions who have the decision-making authority to promote stories in ways that reflect the concerns of our communities.
It’s been more than two generations since a wave of largely independent black public-affairs programs, like Say Brother, Black Journal and Inside Bedford-Stuyvesant, emerged in the era after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. As Devorah Heitner explains in her book, Black Power TV, “An emerging sense that representation was a right, not a privilege, structured media activism in this era.” Now, some are again looking at independent black media as an alternative.
Read Full Essay @ TheRoot.com

"Smart is Sexy": 'The Spin' Launches with Staceyann Chinn, Joan Morgan & Blair Kelley

The Spin
This is the launch show of 'THE SPIN: all women media panel', my new weekly syndicated radio show. It was recorded at New York City's NPR Studios. 10 radio stations across the country have confirmed they will carry the show including Chicago, Arizona, Las Vegas, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina. This launch show features Staceyann Chin - award winning poet, Tony nominated writer, author; Professor Blair Kelley - scholar historian, author; Joan Morgan - provocative cultural critic, critically acclaimed author, award winning journalist, editor. Every week we take on 3 topics. For this show we talk: 'Guns, God, Beer, Babies'; 'Can Slavery Ever Be Funny?'; Named & Shamed: Tackling Sexual Assault on College Campuses. 

Who Wants Young Black Men? Introducing the 1Hood Media Academy

1Hood Media
"Who Wants Young Black Men?" is a commercial produced by and starring 1Hood Media Academy to relaunch http://1hood.org/. "Who Wants Young Black Men?" was written by Paradise Gray, directed by Idasa Tariq, edited by Amil Cook, and shot by 1Hood Media Academy students.