Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 881

Censoring Howard Zinn: Former Indiana Gov. Tried to Remove "A People's History" From State Schools

Democracy Now

Newly disclosed emails obtained by the Associated Press show former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels sought to remove Howard Zinn's work from state classrooms just weeks after the historian's death in 2010. Zinn's many books include the classic, "A People's History of the United States," which sold more than a million copies and is still used in high schools and colleges across the country. In an email exchange with top Indiana education officials, Daniels wrote, "This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away." After he described "A People's History" as a "truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page," Daniels asked: "Can someone assure me that it is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?'' 
Daniels' comments have sparked outrage within the academic world in part because he recently became the president of Purdue University in Indiana. We're joined by two guests: Anthony Arnove, the co-editor with Zinn of "Voices of a People's History of the United States," a critically acclaimed primary-source companion to Zinn's bestseller; and Dr. Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary. 

Bigger than Jay Z: Fear and Anxiety of the Black Sports Agent by David J. Leonard

Bigger than Jay Z:  Fear and Anxiety of the Black Sports Agent by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
He has more professions and careers than names.  So it is not surprising that Shawn Carter is now a sports agent.  And without fail, this decision has elicited backlash as if Jay’s presence would corrupt the “pure,” “righteous,” and ethical culture of sports agents. 
Since Jay Z announced his plans to become a sport agent, a plan that includes partnering with Creative Artist Agency (CAA), one of the biggest agencies in the business, there has been ample backlash. One agent turned hater noted,
“Jay-Z doesn’t know sh*t about baseball. You don’t hire a real estate agent to do neurosurgery.
“Can you imagine the hardline negotiations that will take place when Jay-Z walks into (Yankee president) Randy Levine’s office with that Yankee hat he’s always wearing and says his client wants to play with the Dodgers?
“Celebrity in baseball comes from performance, but Robinson is looking at Jay-Z and Beyonce to make him a celebrity. He is being naïve. The story now is about Jay-Z, not Robinson.”
Not to be outdone, a post at Bart Stool Sports, a cesspool for sports commentary, further articulated this criticism of Jay Z, albeit through a racist and anti-Semitic narrative:
Look I get it. Jay Z is a cool ass dude. Especially for a New York athlete. And I know he can work wonders for your off the field popularity and endorsement deals and all that stuff. As I said in my first blog about Cano signing with Roc Nation, I know CAA is a big agency and capable of representing these guys. But the fact that these clowns are dumping high profile, very powerful agents to be with their favorite rapper Jay Z is lunacy. First of all, if I’m an athlete, I want an old, white Jewish man dealing with my money and my contracts. Give me a -stein or a -berg or a -witz as my agent. That’s the guy you want handling your negotiations. Secondly, these super agents they are dumping are not the guys you want to be your enemies. Boras and Condon are the type of spiteful bastards who will go out of their way to fuck you.
Not surprisingly, Jason Whitlock, the Tipper Gore of the sports world, weighed in on Jay Z’s ascendance into sports agent territory. Asserting “the marriage of Jay Z to the sports world is idiotic” and referring to Jay as “Stephen from Django,” Whitlock argues that Jay Z’s values are incompatible with the values of sports, particularly baseball.
Selling athletic competition and selling music are two distinctly different disciplines. Sports are founded in traditional, mainstream American values. Music, particularly rap and rock, is founded in rebellion and anti-establishment values.
Jay-Z’s sensibilities do not comfortably co-exist with the sensibilities that best promote athletic culture. The NBA’s headfirst embrace of hip-hop music is one of the main reasons the league has lost relevancy the last 15 years. Blaming it all on the aging and retirement of Michael Jordan and/or the Pistons-Pacers brawl at The Palace is intellectually lazy and David Stern-friendly propaganda.
Whitlock’s conclusions and the outrage from the legion of Hova Haters are striking for a number of reasons, including his scapegoating of hip-hop as the reason for the NBA’s fan problems (it’s gotta be the fans), his bankrupt praise of sports values, his myopic celebration of baseball and football because of its values, and disregard for Jay Z’s accomplishment as a business man (and yes there are critiques that could be had here). 
The commonplace nature of his comments and their connection to a larger discourse should give pause for several reasons:
First, there seems to be a general dismissal of Jay Z as businessman, as someone who has built a financial power.  Whether or not you agree with the politics or choices he has employed to reach the top, it is hard to discount his success within a capitalist context.  The denigration that “he’s just a rapper” not only discounts his successes outside the rap game but also continues the narrative that rappers are not intelligent, creative, and resourceful individuals.   It perpetuates longstanding stereotypes about white intelligence and black inferiority.  It is telling that the same people who celebrate the American Dream, who celebrate bootstraps ideologies that see hard work and ingenuity as the basis of success, are the first to dismiss Hova as not worthy of being an “agent.” It’s not like he’s Donald Trump, Jim Buss, or Mitt Romney, who inherited their success. 
Secondly, those who elevate the importance of agents seem to be living in a fantasy world that doesn’t recognize the economic landscape of the sports world.  While collective bargaining agreements and the salary caps limit the negotiation possibilities in many contexts, the power of agents rests with the ability to transform athletic stars into transnational global icons.  Who is best suited to do that – Scott Boras or Jay Z. 
Third, there seems to be this narrative, one based in white supremacist ideologies, which imagines white agents as successful, and black agents as incapable of doing the job.   According to Kenneth Shropshire, “African-American sports agents are not only confronted with the historic allegiance of African-American athletes to white agents and a lack of positive race-consciousness by these athletes, but also with the negative commentary of the white sports age.” The disparagement is quite visible in the response to Jay Z and Roc Nation ascendance into sport agency business. 
Fourth, the reaction mirrors the backlash directed at LeBron James and his decision to hire his childhood friend as his agent; when he decided to partner with his friends to control his brand and image.  Maverick Carter described the backlash as such:
Everyone said, 'What is he doing? Why would he give three of his friends, three young African-American guys…' - that's what they really wanted to say, right? - '…hand over his business to them at that level?' LeBron looked at it as, 'I know these guys. I believe in these guys. I trust these guys. I'm gonna give these guys the shot. I'm gonna empower them to do all the things they wanna do and all the things they've seen and dreamed about doing,'" 
Yet critics were relentless; how did that work out? 
Finally, ultimately the backlash is about anxiety and fear and not just from agents who fear clients lost; it is about the racist assumptions that the role of the agent, the skills of a white man, is to discipline and control black bodies. The allure and popularity of Jerry McGwire is wrapped up in the appeal of his disciplining Rod “show me the money” Tidwell, whose success, happiness and redemption results from his relationship with his white agent.  The rise of Jay Z denies this fantasy of white assistance and mutual redemption.  
According to Glen Hughes these racial ideologies are fundamental to American racial discourse “This is the joke driving the Barkley Right Guard ‘uncivilized’ ad from awhile back. Teaching Black men how to behave – how to dress, speak respectfully, and generally assume a humble affect – is a paternalistic task for management, for the league, for white people who know better. It’s the basIn the end the question is why do sports commentators and others care so much who is Robinson Canoe or Kevin Durant’s agent.  I wonder if they can even name Kobe Bryant or RG III’s agent, but whether Rob Pelinka or Hova, these commentators will begrudge any money earned especially when done on the terms established by these black athletes themselves. Yes, haters gonna hate but more is at stake here.  And that is worthy of our attention.
***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.  Leonard’s latest books include  After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness   (SUNY Press) and African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings (Praeger Press) co-edited with Lisa Guerrero. He is currently working on a book Presumed Innocence: White Mass Shooters in the Era of Trayvon about gun violence in America.

Dr. Elaine Richardson Talks About Her Memoir 'PHD (Po Ho on Dope) to Ph.D.: How Education Saved My Life'

GiveUsFreeRecords
Dr. Elaine Richardson--Dr. E.--discusses her journey from the streets to university professor detailed in her new memoir, PHD (Po Ho on Dope) to Ph.D.: How Education Saved My Life . The author discusses how her experiences inform her music and approach to teaching and research with young adolescent girls and Hiphop generation youth.

Mark Anthony Neal Talks Race in the US on CBC News

CBC News

CBC News speaks with Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of black popular culture in the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University, about U.S. President Obama's comments in the wake of George Zimmerman's acquittal.

Off the Wall: iona ROZEAL brown Pays Homage to Spike Lee

Jay Z's Life+Times
Painter iona ROZEAL brown explores the intersections between Japanese Kabuki theater and voguing, as well as Shunga (Japanese erotic art) and hip-hop -- while paying tribute to the likes of Kabuki actor Bando Tamasaburo V and Spike Lee -- in her recent New York City solo shows "introducing...THE HOUSE OF BANDO" and "no one's gonna love you, so don't even wonder." 

Jasiri X & Paradise Gray Discuss the Zimmerman Verdict on KDKA 1020

1 Hood
Jasiri X and Paradise Gray along with Pittsburgh City Councilman Rev. Ricky Burgess were in studio guests on KDKA Radio for a panel hosted by Bill Rehkopf about the Zimmerman Verdict and next steps for our community.

Living Thinkers: An Autobiography of Black Women in the Ivory Tower (Trailer)

Roxana Walker Canton (dir.)
This documentary examines the intersection of race, class, and gender in the experiences of contemporary Black women professors and administrators through their education narratives from girlhood to their present status in academia. Early 20th century trailblazing Black women like Eva Beatrice Dykes withstood overt racism, sexism and discrimination, to open the doors to higher education for Black women. During the last part of the 20th century, America still witnessed “firsts” with Black women breaking down walls of “segregated” professions in academe. More Black women entered the university, secured higher-ranking administrative positions, and achieved tenure and promotion. But the progress continues to be slow and the numbers of Black women in these positions continues to be low. As outsiders within, many 21st century Black women intellectuals find academia to have a “chilly climate,” where they are usually few in number as faculty and top administrators, but in greater numbers as lower ranking staff in housekeeping and in food services. In spite of the continued struggles facing this community, African American women in the academy have used the university as a space to find personal identity, give voice to global and community issues facing the black community at large and black women more specifically, and make significant contributions to American intellectual history. Their presence and contributions are rarely acknowledged and valued and the image of African American women as intellectuals, for many, deemed incomprehensible. Living Thinkers reveals the travails, the disappointments and the triumphs of becoming Black women professors in the US.

Storms and (Buried) Warnings in the Age of Travyon Martin and George Zimmerman by Ed Pavlić

Storms and (Buried) Warnings in the Age of Travyon Martin and George Zimmerman  by Ed Pavlić | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
You see that woman that walks the streets,You see that policeman out on his beat, But, when the Lord gets ready, you gotta move. —Fred McDowell & Rev. Gary Davis
            *
Trayvon remains underground, to my knowledge he hasn't arisen. No Ascension nor Assumption. He'll never be a free man, again. It’s true and it’s a crime.
Last week in Douala, Cameroon, on the other hand, a crowd spent four hours lynching a suspected criminal, waking him up, and apparently lynching him all over again. Da Capo. CNN International noted that such lynchings are a common occurrence in Cameroon. Well, as a well known 20th century bard from Baltimore sang, famously, “God Bless the Child”. . . who makes it through the Southern trees of Cameroon. Or, Florida. Or Chicago on the 4th of July. Or, or. 
Also, last week, at about 9:30 pm on Monday July 8th, on my block of Havyar Sokak in Cihangir, Istanbul, while gas-masked protesters ran for cover, doused their faces and rinsed their mouths in milk and rubbed their eyes with Tums tablets, and while I slammed my windows shut to close off billows of tear gas from the latest round in the Istanbul Police force's war against sidewalk cafés and green spaces, I noticed the delivery guy from MissPizza, located just across the narrow street, exit into the fray, calmly place three Miss Pizzas in the orange box on the back of his Vespa, pull his red handkerchief up over his nose, and buzz off up the wrong way of the one-way cobThe collision of these images got me thinking about risk, proportion, freedom and its ever-shiftily situated situations.   
Meantime, George Zimmerman, having, we're told, benefitted (again!) from his "white privilege" in the "not guilty" verdict, and reported upon by a multicultural, medial array of reporters, one can only guess, all checking their own Privilege-Meter apps on iPhones (have you seen that app?) as soon as cameras are diverted, realizes that, you know what, he "may never be a free man, again." In tag lines on CNN, France 24, BBC, Bloomberg, and Al Jazzera among other networks, no doubt, we’re told over and over, "His life may never be the same, again." 
Ok. And, that's a bad thing?
It must be the fixation with the new app on the iPhone. If not, how explain that no one seems to remark that the reason George Zimmerman (cue Star Wars soundtrack) "may never be a free man, again" might just be because: one, his previous idea of freedom seemed to be spending his waking hours armed, patrolling a gated community looking for the next shadowy threat to his freedom, or his property; and, two, that having come face to the face with the grim, in fact murderous, existential results of a gated "freedom" based upon so-called "white privilege," Mssr. Zimmerman still refuses to face the seemingly inescapable conclusion that, by whatever tricknosis, he'd been hoodwinked into calling his (I'm guessing unpaid?) prison-guard lifestyle freedom for many years.
James Baldwin used to annoy people by saying, simply, "If you keep me in jail, there's got to be someone to watch me. Now there are two prisoners." 
Have none of these, we'd assume, well-educated reporters and commentators entertained the simple question: why was a man who'll never be free, again, compelled to patrol his neighborhood with a gun when he was free? And, so the more thorny question--one we won't pursue here—if Trayvon wasn't free, why does it seem he was so comparatively non-plussed about the Orange Alert in the neighborhood (if not in the world) on that night a year and a half ago? 
In “Jailhouse Blues,” a long time ago, Bessie Smith observed that the problem with jail is you got to stay so long. Even after all your friends have got up and gone. It’s worth thinking about.
But, in fact, Zimmerman’s right, and so are the reporters--at least according to what their agents claim, at every chime in the 14 second news cycle, on Twitter--George Zimmerman's life IS in danger. So is everyone else's, not the least of whom those people so obsessed with their safety, and the ever-multiplying, ever-lurking threats to it, that they refuse to actually live in their towns, in their cities, which is somewhat too neatly to say in their own lives, at all. Or, at least to the extent that they can avoid—which is exactly to say afford—it.
In this, in fact, strangely, Zimmerman's hope is everyone's—or at least many many many people's—hope made painfully, almost appallingly, vivid. It's to turn tide, face the insidious (or glaringly obvious, depending upon one's point of view) design of his former imprisonment on the wrong-side of the gates in the world of gated communities, neighborhood watch, homeland security, etc., etc., ad nauseum, in fact, ad mortem. From that turning, with as much guts and aplomb as it takes to deliver a Miss Pizza in Istanbul, or to buy Skittles in Florida, or to drive a car (to work, at night!) as a black man, the kind of guts it takes for a seven year old to play in Nat Cole Park (Chicago) on his nation’s birthday, he'll encounter his former exile for what it was and from that point of view, just possibly, he'd assent to life among human beings (yes, with its attendant risks).
From there, amid rhythms of a life actually lived in the world, he’d realize that, turns out, in most cases, the world isn't a murderous plot against one's safety. In relation to that rhythm, he might encounter the glimmer in the functioning psyche that indicates the extent to which, however, the contemporary world does seem—especially to the extent one's tuned into the media outlets, including and especially the so-called social ones—an almost constant assault on one's sanity. The battle against that assault isn’t waged with fire arms, it’s not even usually a battle at all; it involves life lived in communication with people, and with people whose points of view, whose experiences, are different from one’s own.
In the United States, that’s all we’ve got. We don’t have villages, per se; if we retreat, we retreat to bunkers, often ones falling down around abandoned factories. As Baldwin wrote, Americans’ “history is each other.” And, the truth is that privilege doesn’t bear upon access to that; in my experience, far as I’ve been able to tell, privilege bears an inverse relationship to that, based as privilege seems to be on geographies charted, and gated, by zip codes and test scores and demographic pedigree.
Zimmerman could, then, say, join in cooperation with those fighting the absurd, wild West-inspired, (and so inescapably white supremacist) "stand your ground" legislation and begin to chip away at the murderous, paranoid concoction that had, by degrees, one guesses, throughout his lifetime, replaced his personality and preempted his historical and social sensibility. He could, therefore, begin to assess the route that had delivered him to such a awful place (it’s egregious to call it free, it’s almost criminal to think of it as privileged), carrying a loaded weapon, stalking shadows and, finally, a teenager armed with Skittles, ice tea and, you think?, an attitude. 
From that point of view, a seemingly deeply un-American realization arcs to well within one’s grasp: the idea of privilege (who's got it, who wants it, how much, etc.) itself is incompatible with freedom which simply doesn’t exist, can not be practically experienced, understood, or communicated in the “I got mine, you got yours to get,” terms of our contemporary public and, even, intellectual discourses. 
Now. Such a turn of tide as I describe above and the accompanying existentially-engaged rationality it makes possible won't make George Zimmerman safe. But, it might make him a person, no mean feat. By that route, no matter who says what, and only by that route, he’d be freer than any access, no matter how fluid, to any privilege, no matter how vaunted with shiny trinkets, could make him. And, the threats to his life, then, would come from exactly those NRA-lobby types that likely informed and instructed him en route to his previous (or current) mentality, are supporting him now and who almost certainly financed his defense. Circular, this. And, strange as it sounds, if he'd just admit his racism and realize the trick bag he's in, has been in, many, I'd say most, of the people protesting the decision in his case would join him in rational, political, historically resonant, organized work against the insane prevalence of guns (and the will to use them) and gates (and our compulsive need to build them) in our streets, in our homes, and in our minds. 
Yes, it's terrible. Trayvon Martin is going to stay dead. And, George Zimmerman will never be a free man again. And, if you can't pierce the fatally circular (il)logic in the story about this situation as told in the media, neither will you. But, I take it, that's ok. Because if you've come this far just following along, you probably aren't much freer now than George Zimmerman was two years ago hiding out nights in the bushes (that decorated the iron fencing) around his neighborhood. Which, unless you're sick about the murder, about all the murders, the verdict, and the disastrous pageant it's provoked in the media, truth be told, is likely just the way you want it. If you follow the media version of reality, you’d never suspect there was another way to have it.
But, why not, right? You can always order out. Let the cat on the Vespa, the taxi drivers, and the public school kids bear the risks. But beware, the un-freedoms you are told diminish as your privilege meter reaches the red zone activating your open door to the dreamland. . . well, you just might be holding the device upside down. 
When you're standing at whatever version of shutters you've chosen, shutters that close you in at least as well as they close anything out, it might be good to think about the warning part in the title of the early poem, "Storm Warnings," by the poet, Adrienne Rich, another 20th (and 21st) century bard from Baltimore, when she concludes: 
            This is our sole defense against the season;             These are the things we have learned to do             Who live in troubled regions.
By exactly the (buried?) logic of the case and life (so-called) of George Zimmerman, a storm warning if ever there was one, a storm the warning in which is being woefully, and one guesses willfully, overlooked, we’d better learn to do something else. 
Ed Pavlic, Istanbul, July 16, 2013
***
Ed Pavlić’s  most recent books are Visiting Hours at the Color Line (National Poetry Series, Milkweed Editions, 2013), But Here Are Small Clear Refractions (Achebe Center, 2009),Winners Have Yet to be Announced: A Song for Donny Hathaway (UGA P, 2008) and Labors Lost Left Unfinished (UPNE, 2006). His other books are Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue(Copper Canyon P, 2001) and Crossroads Modernism: Descent and Emergence in African American Literary Culture (U Minn P, 2002). His prizes include the National Poetry Series Open Competition, the Darwin Turner Memorial Award from African American Review, The American Poetry Review / Honickman First Book Prize, and the Author of the Year Award from The Georgia Writers Association. He has had fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center, The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, The MacDowell Colony, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University. 

Sterilization Behind Bars: Mothers 'Lose Humanity,' Says Advocate

On His 95th Birthday, the Story of Nelson Mandela's Struggle Told Outside His Old Soweto Home

Democracy Now
As the world marks the 95th birthday of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president and a beloved symbol of the country's struggle to end apartheid, longtime South African activist Trevor Ngwane takes Democracy Now! on a tour of the township of Soweto. Speaking outside of Mandela's former home, Ngwane recalls when the ANC leader was first captured, leading to a 27-year imprisonment before his release in 1990. Ngwane was active in the struggle against apartheid that culminated in Mandela's 1994 election and today remains a leading South African voice for human rights.