Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 824

Audra McDonald: "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" on The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report
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Pearl Cleage Talks New Memoir: 'Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs'

1HoodMedia: Young Black Men Discuss Donald Sterling, Call Clippers "Slaves"

1HoodMedia

At 1Hood Media Academy we discussed Donald Sterling's racist comments and whether or not the Clippers should have played after they were made public. 

1Hood Media Academy is a tool to help young people critically analyze messages, broaden their experience of media, and develop creative skills in creating their own media messages. for more information or to apply go to http://1hood.org/

A Magic Moment

A Magic Moment by Lori Latrice Martin | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The story buried in the headlines of the Sterling scandal is the transformation of society’s perception of Magic Johnson over the past couple of decades. In the early 1990s—when I was a senior in high school—the legendary Irving "Magic" Johnson revealed he had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The news shocked the sports world and the broader society.
Magic not only battled against the disease—which was at the time still considered an almost certain death sentence—but he also battled the ignorance and intolerance that many people living with HIV and AIDS faced during that period. He raised funds and awareness.
Over the next few years he served also as a sports analyst and a generator of economic development in distressed communities. Magic soon regained his status as an ambassador of the game.
Sterling has clearly made a number of misjudgments and missteps-to put it mildly-but this time, “he messed with the wrong one.” Previous allegations from the likes of NBA great Elgin Baylor, and scores of prospective black and Hispanic renters, fell on deaf ears. It is doubtful that reactions to Sterling's comments would have been as visceral if Sterling’s alleged girlfriend had posted a picture of herself with Dennis Rodman or Meta World Peace (nee Ron Artest).
It is questionable whether some athletes would have responded as Magic responded—taking Sterling up on his request not to attend Clippers games for example and organizing efforts to mobilize a league, without his leadership. After all, contemporary black athletes have been described as a lost tribe by a host of individuals, including William Rhoden, author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves.
Magic's leadership on this issue cannot be understated. The players were able to show what could be accomplished through collective action. To be fair the immediate outcome is largely symbolic and does little to address the systematic racism, which exists in virtually every American social institution.
The Sterling issue to date, however, has reminded us that the idea that we are living in a post-racial society is a myth. The Sterling scandal also provided further evidence that, contrary to some claims, Black America is not disuniting because of class differences. Race still matters.
The recent Supreme Court decision on the use of race in college admission, coupled with the comments and actions by Clive Bundy and Donald Sterling show that class provides little cover for blacks in the 21st century.
The continued racial disparities between blacks and whites on a host of sociological outcomes point to the continued significance of race. Players, fans, and anyone committed to the principles of fairness, equality, and justice must keep up the pressure on sports and other American social institutions to address the policies and private practices that contribute to the gap between society as it, and society as it should be.
***

Lori Latrice Martin is Associate Professor of Sociology at LSU. Martin is the author of Black Asset Poverty and the Enduring Racial Divide and the forthcoming White Sports/Black Sports: Racial Disparities in  Athletic Programs (Praeger Press).

Autism, Like Race, Complicates Almost Everything

Meredith Rizzo | NPR

From "Po' Hoe on Dope" to Ph.D.: Professor Elaine Richardson on the Tavis Smiley Radio Show

Tavis Smiley Radio Show
As a young girl growing up in a tough Cleveland neighborhood, Elaine Richardson fell in with the wrong crowd. She started skipping school, drinking and smoking, and eventually ended up leading a life of prostitution, addiction and incarceration. Then she literally got smart – and now she’s a professor at Ohio State University. In her memoir, “PHD to Ph.D.: How Education Saved My Life”, Richardson chronicles her journey from life on the streets to earning her doctorate in English and applied linguistics.

Will Owners Be the Real Conscience of the NBA?

Will Owners Be the Real Conscience of the NBA? by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
“What can really be done? The guy’s like a billionaire so a fine’s gonna be like a dollar." The guy, of course, is Donald Sterling, the now more infamous owner of the LA Clippers.  
My student, one of the hundreds of young black men at Morehouse College, echoed others.
“You can’t really get somebody for being prejudice and the girl was wrong. Who wants to be taped in the privacy of their own homes and then have somebody throw it out there. That ain’t right,” argued another.
‘What I don’t understand, “ A bewildered student wondered aloud, “Is how can he be racist like that when he was sleeping with somebody black and got all them black players, a black coach, and paying them all this money too?”
We were in class, a theory and criticism class, and I went into this whole discussion about the historical nature of white supremacy, of master-slave narratives, reminding them about the rape and exploitation of black women and men. But truthfully, it was inadequate. They were seriously confused, mostly by the idea that what Sterling embodies still exists to that extreme and by the uncertainty about what could be done or should anything be done by the NBA and the Clippers players themselves.
We now know that Adam Silver has made his first stand as NBA commissioner and responded, days after the firestorm broke, to Sterling’s racist rant to his former girlfriend. Silver banned Sterling for life from any physical participation in the NBA and the Clippers organization and fined him 2.5 million; ultimately, he can’t do what he says he hopes will happen – that Sterling be forced to sale his ownership in the LA Clippers. That’ll take a 75% vote by the other NBA owners; only several are these are minorities. Sterling can still make his Clippers money, and a lot of it, indefinitely. It’s not a moment for a victory dance or returning to game business as usual.
It’s a moment to direct a hard, long gaze at the racial politics implicit in the hierarchical structure of the NBA that has long been reality cause here is the truth we all know now too well: Donald Sterling was not a racist in hiding. David Stern and the owners knew who he was and has been and they were content to have him be one of them. His exploitation of poor, black, and Hispanic tenants has been public knowledge for years. In 2009, he settled a massive lawsuit due to his racist, discriminatory practices in housing and some shaky personnel problems within the league have dogged his business career. Listen to Elgin Baylor now.
Sterling’s only problem this time was that his business politics went viral, affecting NBA business, and commanding the attention of the media and the larger public. If he could have gone on with his racist business orientation being a minor, footnote in the media, none of the last few days would be happening. That’s what’s disturbing.  More disturbing, folks are already putting a footnote on this scandal, writing it off as a teachable moment, praising Silver and ready to move on, singing Kumbaya, “Can we all just get along” so we can get back to some good playoff basketball.
It will be shameful if this is basically it. There’s a lot more to be done notwithstanding our short attention span even for a good scandal. We need to remain disgusted that the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP was about to award Sterling again. Public censure, pressure, and interrogation of the last few days should now be directed to the NBA owners to demand that they stand on the right side of history and confront their own complicity in allowing the 21st century plantation-like nature of the NBA.
The players in other leagues should be sharing their desire for this with their franchise owner. Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, once declared his affection for Donald Sterling – and this was in light of the little attention Sterling was receiving even then for his racist practices. Will Cuban, will his colleagues, do the right thing now and vote Sterling out of the club? I love the playoffs but I can’t love the games more than I want to see the real heart of the NBA game finally changed.
***

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.

Left of Black S4:E30: Hearing the Truths of Black Girlhood

Left of Black S4:E30:  Hearing the Truths of Black Girlhood
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Ruth Nicole Brown, assistant professor of Educational Policy Studies & Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Professor Brown is the is the author of  Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood (University of Illinois Press, 2013) and Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy (Peter Lang, 2008).Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.
Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in @ iTunes U
Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlackFollow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan
Follow Ruth Nicole Brown on Twitter: @knowandremember

What Do Cliven Bundy, Phil Robertson and Ted Nugent Have in Common?

What Do Cliven Bundy, Phil Robertson and Ted Nugent Have in Common? by Ian Reifowitz | HuffPost Politics
Sean Hannity is very, very sad. See, the real problem with the whole sordid Cliven Bundy affair is that Democrats will use his er, musings, about African Americans to paint Republicans with a broad brush, and accuse them and the whole conservative movement of being fundamentally racist. Hannity--after being the Number 1 fan of Mr. Bundy's heroic quest to avoid paying what he owed for using our land—now condemns the deadbeat rancher's racism, claiming, "Every conservative that I know does not support racism, period!"
Except, of course, for his friend, Ted Nugent. And neither is Hannity familiar with Phil Robertson, even though he supported Robertson on the air after the Duck Dynasty star essentially denied that there was racism in the Jim Crow South. In the words of the great philosopher George Walker Bush (this one never gets old): "Fool me once, shame on – shame  on you. Fool me – you  can't get fooled again." I think it's pretty obvious who Sean Hannity thinks are fools: the American people.
Seriously, though, let's talk about Republican racism. We can even just stick to the last couple of years. Yes, yes, we know that Republicans just hated Bundy's racist remarks. Except for the ones who have been slow to say so. Of course, when Bundy said that black Americans might have been better off under slavery, he was merely echoing the wisdom that Republicans from Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) to Michele Bachmann to Rick Santorum to Pat Buchanan (just to name a few), have also shared. At some point, it's not a bug, it's a feature of conservatism.
And we know what this is about. It is impossible to disconnect the "states' rights," anti-government foundations of conservatism from the racism that hides beneath it, exposed nakedly every so often by the Cliven Bundys of the world. It's there right below the surface when Paul Ryan talks about "the inner cities." Yes, it's there, no matter what Ryan says about his bones being free of racism. Dana Milbank rightly pointed out that the whole anti-government conservative movement "has been inextricably tied to racist movements." Why? Conservatives hate the federal government at least in part because it has protected the rights of minorities.
The avatar of modern Republican conservatism and racism, Strom Thurmond, left the Democratic party to run for president in 1948 explicitly advocating both states' rights and segregation. Here's one of his more infamous comments, one that reveals the real reason behind the call to limit the authority of the federal government, no matter who is making that call:
“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”
In 1964 Thurmond became a Republican to back Barry Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and millions of white Southerners followed him into the GOP in subsequent years. Strom is the original tea partier. For more, check out Strom Thurmond's America by Joseph Crespino.
The hypocrisy of Republican support for Bundy knows no bounds. As Jamelle Bouie insightfully asked, "What if Bundy Ranch were owned by a bunch of black people?" Ta-Nehisi Coates called out Bundy and those conservatives who supported his cry for liberty, noting: "There may be no better example of racist privilege than the right to flout the government's authority and then back its agents down at gunpoint." I can't say it better than those two gentlemen.
And this privilege is at the heart of the tea party that has all but taken over the GOP. Judson Phillips is the head of Tea Party Nation. His support for Bundy knows no bounds, as he compared Bundy's stand-off with the Bureau of Land Management to--wait for it!—the American Revolution. Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer got it right about Fox and the Republicans who backed Bundy when he said: "They invited this skunk right into their tea party and they can't get the smell out fast enough." And no matter what those suddenly outraged Republicans are saying now that Bundy is no longer useful to them, there is no rift between the tea party and Cliven Bundy, according to at least one right-winger over at Newsbusters. Does that surprise anyone?
Cliven Bundy, in all his glory, represents the ugly heart of modern conservatism, which relies on racial resentment to motivate its overwhelmingly white base. Here's how Duke University African & African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal explained it: "We are looking at some of the 'last white men standing,'...[Bundy's] comments represent that, and people rally around him because of this idea that white men are under siege. They are calling out the political establishment to stand by them."
This is an existential fight for Cliven Bundy and for the tea party that, in reality, thinks just like he does. This means that Republicans are vulnerable on this issue at the ballot box. Now, I'm not suggesting that Democrats make Cliven Bundy their Number One campaign issue this fall. Nevertheless, this is something we can use to drive a wedge inside the Republican coalition, which cannot survive without Cliven Bundy Republicans. Here's what I'm thinking:
Remember Ward Churchill? The right-wing media tried to make him out to be some kind of poster boy for the Left after Bill O'Reilly spent days highlighting his disgusting characterization of the financial industry professionals killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11 as "little Eichmanns." Instapundit Glenn Reynolds characterized Churchill as the "very image" of "the Left." That was ridiculously untrue, but it was part of a general strategy of forcing Democrats on the defensive. That's exactly what we should do with Republicans and Cliven Bundy.
This will have a significant electoral impact, given that there really are Cliven Bundy Republicans (there never was any significant number of "Ward Churchill Democrats," as anyone so radical would certainly see Democrats as no better than Republicans). Although they usually keep their racist hate to themselves, Cliven Bundy's beliefs reflect what many on the Right actually believe. His hatred of the federal government is shared openly by Republican candidates, office holders and voters across the country.
We need to use Bundy to force Republicans either to alienate a significant part of their base, or reveal to moderates, independents and even mainstream conservatives just how nuts they really are. Either way, they lose and America wins.
***

Ian Reifowitz is author of  Obama’s  America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity. Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ianreifowitz

Jay Smooth: Three Things About the Donald Sterling Tape