Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 883

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"Rainbow of Uneven Colors"--Mary Frances Whitfield

Moral Mondays: 700 Arrested in North Carolina Civil Disobedience Campaign Against GOP Lawmakers

Democracy Now
For weeks, thousands of people have been gathering at the North Carolina State Legislative Building for the weekly "Moral Monday" protest called by the NAACP to protest the agenda of the Republican-led state Legislature. Over the past 10 Mondays, 700 people have been arrested, including the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. "If you want to change the nation, you have to change the South," Barber says. "If you want to change the South, you have to change the state capitals, and we believe that this extreme ideological group understands that their narrow minded agenda doesn't have much longer in the public arena."

ReelBlack: Director Ryan Coogler Discusses "The Mission to Make Fruitvale Station"

ReelBlack
Oakland-based writer/director RYAN COOGLER discusses his influences and the challenges of making FRUITVALE STATION, his award-winning feature debut. A Reelblack Exclusive. Camera Craig Carpenter, Phillip Todd. A Reelblack Exclusive.

#JusticeforTrayvon (My Closing Statement) by David J. Leonard

#JusticeforTrayvon (My Closing Statement) by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Ladies of the Jury,
Imagine for a moment that you, your son or daughter, sister or brother, granddaughter or grandson, ventured to the corner store for some candy and something to drink but never returned?   Can you imagine if you left the house and didn’t return to watch the second half of the NBA All-Star game?  Can you imagine if you, your child, your loved one, your flesh and blood were presumed to be guilty as he walked home?  Thought to be a suspect, a punk, a fucking asshole? Can you imagine if you, your child, your loved one, your flesh and blood was thought to be a criminal, thought to be on drugs, thought to be up to no good just because of how she looked, what clothes she was wearing, and because of the color of her skin?  Can you imagine if your child was gunned down right around the corner from your house and the police didn’t notify you right away?
Can you even imagine the police letting the perpetrator go or the news media remaining silent?  What would it mean to you if the media sat idly by, that the police show limited concern, and the nation seem unaware or not concerned about the fate of your child?  Can you imagine the pain and the hurt not just of losing a child but watching a media, a justice system, and a nation fail to act?
Can you even fathom listening to people put your child, who no longer walks the earth, on trial? Drug tests? Fights? Pictures of his muscles, all to paint him as a “thug” or a “gangsta?”  Can you imagine the news media demonizing your child, blaming your child for his own death?  Can you imagine the focus turning to your parental choices, your child’s friends, your background?
What if a defense attorney asked you to think about your child being responsible for their own death even though someone else shot them? How would that make you feel?  Can you even comprehend someone saying that to you?
Maybe you cannot imagine these things; maybe your whiteness, your privileges, your experiences make this difficult for you to fathom.  That is no reason to deny his family justice.
The defendant assumed Trayvon didn’t belong in neighborhood; he assumed Trayvon was up to no good; he assumed Trayvon was a criminal.  And ‪race matters in every regard.  The question before you is will race matter in our pursuit of justice?  Will it matter as you think about Trayvon’s life; his lost future; his parent’s anguish?  Look at them, they are in the courtroom; can you imagine?
He had the right to walk to the store; he had a right to walk him; he had the right to defend himself; he had the right to LIFE and the pursuit of happiness; he had the right to go on to college, to live his life, to fulfill his dreams.
His parents should not be here right now; they shouldn’t have shed so many tears, lost so many nights of sleep because another man assumed Trayvon Martin to be a criminal.  His parents should have seen their child graduate last year; they should have been able to spend dinners talking; they should be hugging their child right now.  George Zimmerman took that all away.  Give them solace; give them justice; give us all hope and belief in “equal justice under the law,” because sadly, we cannot give them Trayvon back.  We can, however, give them justice.  We must demand justice, because every life is worth protecting; every life is worth mourning.
Yes, I want you to think about the evidence, but more I want you feel; I want you to think the pain, feel the injustice, feel the anguish.  Yes, the law matters, but decisions must be guided my morality and justice; it must account for the lost life; the pain and suffering.  Justice is about the law, right and wrong, our moral sense and values.  Henry David Thoreau reminds us  of this when he said, “Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.”
I have a dream that one day youth of color can walk to store without being profiled. I have a dream that one youth of color will not seen as suspect, not seen as criminal, not confronted, and not shot dead just feet from their parents home.  I have a dream that justice will be equal; I hope that you will make the right decision and at least fulfill the promise of justice in this case.  One step forward; toward moving beyond dreams, hopes, and possibilities, to see justice secured and achieved.
#JusticeforTrayvon #Justice
***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  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.

The Kelly Conversations: Mark Anthony Neal Talks R. Kelly @ Pitchfork w/ WBEZ's Jim DeRogatis

WBEZ | Pop N Stuff w/ Jim DeRogatis
Where does R. Kelly fit in the spectrum of black popular music? Can or should his music be separated from the acts that he’s been accused of? Does he mean different things to different audiences—his African-American following vs. the young, mostly white fans who will see him live at the Pitchfork Music Festival after being struck by Trapped in the Closet on IFC?Mark Anthony Neal is a professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University. He has lectured far and wide, founded the blog NewBlackMan, and written extensively about Kelly, including a chapter in his latest book  Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (Postmillennial Pop)  (NYU Press).

Michael B. Jordan & Octavia Spencer Talk 'Fruitvale Station' with NPR's 'Tell Me More'

NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin
The new film Fruitvale Station tells the true story of a young, unarmed black man who was shot and killed by an Oakland, Calif., transit police officer early on New Year's Day 2009. The death of Oscar Grant sparked days of riots and unrest in Oakland, and lots of conversations about relationships between citizens and the police. Fruitvale Station follows the 24 hours leading up to the shooting. The film won critical acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival, taking home the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. It opens in select theaters on July 12
Listen Here

Exhibit A? The Theater of a Black Dummy by Esther Armah

Exhibit A? The Theater of a Black Dummy by Esther Armah | HuffPost BlackVoices
Speechless. I am in a Manhattan diner. Eyes glued to CNN. The prosecution in the George Zimmerman trial has pulled out a black dummy. He straddles it, handles it, pulls it up, stays straddled and questions a witness. The defense follows. They, too, straddle the dummy and then continue to question the witness. The man on the stand is a private investigator testifying to who may have hit whom, at what angle, with what amount of force. I am no longer listening. I am watching a representation of Trayvon, no longer human, an exhibit – now a black dummy, no soul, no heart, no eyes, no mind, no dreams, no life. In that moment a roll call of black male bodies turned into dummies, humanity drained out of them, hits me. Finding words to convey why this visual strikes so viscerally is hard. CNN breaks from the trial. The anchor comments on the introduction of the dummy – telling viewers they will be amazed, stunned at what just happened.
Commercials play. More commentators appear. Analysis follows. How will this play out? Did the prosecution over-play its hand? How will jurors react? And on, and on. I consider Trayvon's mom and daddy -- two sorrowful parents observing legal experts use a dummy to represent their dead child.
Watching the prosecution and then the defense straddle the black dummy to demonstrate a piece of evidence, I am floored. I have a meeting to get to, but I am still sitting in the diner. The waiter needs me to pay the check. I am leaned forward reading subtitles, watching CNN's live coverage. I watch other diners glance at the screen, salad lunches are interrupted, conversations momentarily put on hold. One asks another: Is that a black dummy? Lunch companion stares, nods: They, too, are now glued to CNN.
Trials are about evidence, we are told. Jurors are cautioned to weigh the facts presented before them, to navigate minefields of data, draw conclusions based on that data and arrive at a verdict solely based on that information. Emotionality is also a crucial part of that evidence. That dummy evoked feelings. That was its intention. Within this trial, emotionality carries the weight of history, it shapes our perspective especially around race and gender. Yet it is so often negated, dismissed, disregarded and discredited. The black dummy brings to mind images of too many lifeless black bodies of men and women, killed because they evoked suspicion according to their killers.
Trials are institutional spaces that offer more than the weight of evidence to convey guilt or innocence. They carry society's prejudices and practice; they hold history and shape perspective; they are deeply emotional spaces where information is not simply presented, but interpreted. The actions by the prosecution and defense teams seek to evoke and provoke feeling, not simply convey information but connect that information to a juror. The juror is made to feel. With this trial, there are not simply facts and figures – there is a history of our relationship with black male bodies evidenced as threat and predator -- and there is the challenge to create a new relationship: that of the black male body as victim.
The prosecution sought to evoke feelings of Trayvon as victim by using that dummy. The defense then took its turn -- straddled the dummy, manipulated it this way and that as they continued to question the witness while staying straddled on the dummy. Disturbing, deeply disturbing. The presentation of the dummy transformed the courtroom into a theater and introduced drama and action as a means to disrupt fact and shift to the power of emotion. That may have been the intention. For me, watching two white white men straddle a lifeless black dummy is evocative of more than a moment during a trial that is capturing headlines, it was a reminder of a history where black bodies are utilized and discarded by institutions within elements of white America.
America's relationship with emotionality and blackness is uncomplicated when it comes to the mamas of boys broken and buried due to deadly violence. A black mama's grief must be tempered, measured, unhostile, not vocal. It must never be racial. Conditions met, America may exercise her empathy muscle, support may be given, an audience may appear, and the mainstream media may open its doors. America's collective outpouring of grief came with head nods and murmurs of approval toward Sybrina's demonstration of grief -- she is collected, calm, clear and not polarized or polarizing because of race talk. Let's be clear, this is not about how Sybrina Fulton – or any mama – grieves. That is deeply personal and private. It is about America's relationship to that grief, and her need to feel included, innocent and neither implicated nor castigated.
Tim Wise, a white anti-racist activist, author and writer has said of this case and America that it is: "...a nation where blackness and danger have long been considered synonymous, such that any black male over the age of perhaps 10 can 'reasonably' be assumed a predator..."
CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday night did a segment on the Zimmerman trial, which featured activist scholar and author Dr. Marc Lamont Hill. Dr. Hill said: "...we have this history of seeing black male bodies as dangerous and threatening and always worthy of lethal force, we never can see them as victims of violence, only as purveyors of violence, it is easy to believe that George Zimmerman is justified."
That history doesn't individualize black boys, doesn't see their innocence, their dreams, their joy and especially their fears. That's why "emotional justice" is crucial; it is about tackling this legacy of untreated trauma that shapes our relationships and silences those traumas despite their manifestation in myriad forms – this trial is one of those forms.
There is a collective need by elements of white America to see all black male bodies as threat, so introducing a dummy is not an effective tool to emphasize a boy's victimhood or to drive home testimony, rather it becomes a reminder of that very institutionalization of black male bodies. If a black boy doesn't get to be scared, but always gets to be scary -- since that is part of this nation's history -- how can emotionality not be a crucial part of the evidence being weighed by this – or  indeed any – jury?  Impartiality is a myth when it comes to black boys and their violent deaths at the hands of white institutions. We privilege perspective and offer versions of history and contextualize behavior to support our perspective. Denial of emotionality does not serve justice, it maintains a relationship between race and violence that continues to see black mamas bury their babies and become witness to trials that end with them hearing two devastating words about the killers of their children: "not guilty."
***

Esther Armah is the creator of ‘Emotional Justice Unplugged’, the multi platform, multi media intimate public arts and conversation series. She’s a New York Radio Host for WBAI99.5FM, a regular on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes and an international journalist, Playwright and National best-selling author. For Emotional Justice, go to:http://www.facebook.com/emotionaljustice. 
Follow Esther Armah on Twitter: www.twitter.com/estherarmah

Big Think: Ramez Naam on Idea Sex and the Evolutionary Logic of Knowledge Transfer

Big Think

Why do certain ideas succeed? Ideas have to pass a kind of Darwinian fitness test, argues the computer scientist Ramez Naam, who is the author of "More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement." (http://goo.gl/7lBWl) It turns out the most useful ideas are the ones that spread, like the wheel that was invented in Egypt and was improved upon in Sumaria by going from a solid disk to spokes. 
Passing the usefulness test crucially involves the ability of ideas to propagate themselves, just as biologically successful humans are able to pass on their genes. In the case of the wheel, two ideas met, and reproduced. In other words, the wheel was carried by humans to another place where it was then improved upon by other people. 
So everything we're doing in society today, such as expanding access to education and research tools, Naam says, "is accelerating this process of the Darwinian evolution of ideas."

'Art Pope Exposed': The Man Pulling the Strings of the NC Assembly

Facing South
Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis of the Institute for Southern Studies introduce us to their research into Art Pope's broad influence on North Carolina politics.

Choreographer Camille A. Brown Talks About Race & Blackface Minstrelsy in New Work 'MR. TOL E. RAncE' (2013)

AmerDanceFest

Camille A. Brown & Dancers makes its ADF debut this year with the provocative MR. TOL E. RAncE (2013), which examines black stereotypes in popular culture and throughout history. In today's 80 Faces, choreographer and artistic director Camille A. Brown discusses the creative process and the importance of exploring her voice through her choreography. 
MR. TOL E. RAncE runs from July 9th through 11th at Reynolds Industries Theater. A moderated post-performance discussion with Ms. Brown and the cast follows each show. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit americandancefestival.org.