Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 885

"it's the paranoia of not being a great dad"—Jay Z on Fatherhood

Samsung Mobile USA
JAY Z talks fatherhood in this intimate look at "JAY Z Blue" from his upcoming album "Magna Carta Holy Grail."

"What Does Graffiti Sound Like?"- Duke University's Audiovisualities Lab

Franklin Humanities Institute
The Audiovisualities Lab aims to provide a structure for encouraging teaching and research in the booming field of sound studies, complementing and challenging the existing primacy of visual studies. It offers a privileged space for research gathering of undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty, around a series of topics approached through specific classes, seminars, and workshops.

Nigeria's National Theatre Faces Closure

AJE
The Nigerian government is planning to turn the country's national theatre into a hotel and shopping mall. The proposals have upset actors, threatre groups and artists but the government says the plans will generate money and create employment. Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege reports from Nigerian capital of Lagos.

Beat Making Lab Mashup: 'The Star-Spangled Banner' vs. 'Lift Every Voice and Sing'

Beat Making Lab 

Celebrate independence with an epic mashup: US National Anthem [Star Spangled Banner] + Black National Anthem [Lift Every Voice and Sing]. Download the mashup at: www.beatmakinglab.com/mashup
Original anthems recorded by: The Beast + BIG BAND 
Anthem remix/mashup by: Apple Juice Kid 
Videography, editing, voiceover: Pierce Freelon
Show Wrapper: Josh Souter, Emily Forsberg, Kelly Mertestdorf
Subscribe: www.youtube.com/beatmakinglabSupport: www.BeatMakingLab.com

"It's Gotta Be the Ink": Crime, Athletes and Tattoos by David J. Leonard

It’s Gotta Be the Ink:  Crime, Athletes and Tattoos by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Sports media is often a place ripe with racial, class, and gendered meanings; it often is a site where stereotypes and profiling are articulated; where bodies, particularly bodies of color, are subject to scrutiny and examination, ridicule and demonization.  Sports media, especially when the coverage moves beyond the game, is often dominated by generalizations and grandiose arguments that spill over outside of the arena and playing field.  This has been evident with two recent columns about John Wall and Aaron Hernandez, both of which extrapolate meaning and pathology from tattoos – or better said the meaning in an inked body of color.
In a recent column, Jason Reid cautioned the Wizards (he provides clarification here) against signing a contract extension with Wall because of his decision to get and unveil his tattoos:
Posing shirtless recently for an Instagram photo, Wall revealed several tattoos. Wall’s interest in body art is surprising, considering he previously said he did not have tattoos because of concerns over his image for marketing reasons. Many NBA players do have tattoos, and Wall isn’t breaking new ground in sharing his ink with fans through social media.
But not every player flip-flops on a topic in such a public way. Factor in that Wall is expected to receive a huge payday from the Wizards next month, and the timing of his tattoo revelation raises questions about his decision making. For a franchise with a history of backing the wrong players, that’s food for thought. . .
Reid makes clear that Wall’s decision to get tattoos leads him to question his mindset, his character, and his priorities since he previously stated that he wasn’t getting any tattoos because of a potential reaction from fans and the organization.  Yet, now he has them, causing Reid to wonder about Wall’s focus on the game and the fans.  It’s gotta be the ink.  
Reid’s effort to read meaning into Wall’s tattooed body is nothing compared to Jason Whitlock’s recent column, which is disturbing even by Whitlock’s standards.  Amid the many troubling points of “analysis” that nostalgically pine for popular culture and a sports world of yesteryear, Whitlock uses the arrest of Aaron Hernandez as an instance to pathologize and demonize today’s athletes, and accordingly goes in on tattoos:
Athlete covered in tattoos is linked to several violent acts, including “accidently” shooting a man in the face. Modern athletes carry guns. They do drugs. They mimic rappers and gangster pop-culture icons.
Athletes want street cred, and they costume themselves in whatever is necessary to get it. Nike, Reebok, Adidas, etc., were the first to recognize the importance of authentic street cred when it came selling product to American youth.
Sadly Whitlock was not done:
When he stood in chains before a judge at his arraignment, in a white T-shirt and his arms decorated in ink, Hernandez did not look out of place. Guilty or innocent, he looked like someone who had prepared for this moment. He didn’t look like an athlete. He looked like an ex-con…
We can no longer distinguish bad from good. We no longer even aspire to be good; it has considerably less value. That’s what Aaron Hernandez represents, to me. Popular culture has so eroded the symbolic core principles at the root of America’s love affair with sports that many modern athletes believe their allegiance to gangster culture takes precedence over their allegiance to the sports culture that made them rich and famous.
There is so much wrong here that I am not sure where to start but let me unpack a few arguments.  (1) He seems to argue that America’s crime problem (despite declining crime rates) is the result of its faulty values. Popular culture is the teacher to blame. The celebration of Jay-Z and Tony Soprano (and I am not fooled by the inclusion of Tony Soprano to obfuscate from the racial arguments) has created a culture of criminality, as evidenced by Aaron Hernandez. 
Whitlock writes that Hernandez, “stayed true to his boyz from the 'hood. He mimicked the mindset of the pop-culture icons we celebrate today.” While acknowledging the costs and consequences of “a 40-year drug war, mass incarceration,” Hernandez is a product of “a steady stream of Mafia movies, three decades of gangster rap and two decades of reality TV have wrought: athletes who covet the rebellious and marketable gangster persona”—a  little nostalgia to go with Whitlock’s simplicity and reductionist linear narrative. 
In amazing level of erasure of history, of violence, Whitlock, who clearly plays a sociologist, psychologist and media studies scholar on both TV and the Internet, pontificates how to thwart crime and violence: revamp the television guide and top-40.   Yes, it’s got to be the television.  Rather than address structural realities, it is time for politicians, activists, and communities to address the real menace: popular culture.  If only he was kidding.
(2) I wonder if he or others who like to blame rap and popular culture for everything invoke these arguments in other cases or just those involving people of color.  I must have missed an examination of the listening habits of Adam Lanza or James Holmes?  I wonder what sort of influence hip-hop and Allen Iverson had on the Boston bombers, Catholic priests, or Wall Street executives.  Clearly, it is time for Whitlock and others to listen to Michael Franti’s “It’s a crime to be broke in America.”
They say they blame it on a song
When someone kills a cop
What music did they listen to
When they bombed Iraq?
Give me one example so I can take a sample
No need to play it backwards
If you wanna hear the devil
Cause music's not the problem
It didn't cause the bombin'
But maybe they should listen
To the songs of people starving…

More than reminding me of the scapegoating of music which truly masks the criminalization and demonization of bodies of color (nobody has made issue of George Zimmerman’s tattoos), I recall a response to David Whitley’s piece aboutColin Kaepernick because sadly I can just remix this***
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 withLisa Guerrero.

Duke University Professors on Moral Monday Protests

Duke University

Hundreds of people have been arrested at the North Carolina Legislative Building as part of the "Moral Mondays" protests against policies by the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory. Five of those people -- Duke professors Willie Jennings, Robin Kirk, Bill Turner, Jed Purdy and Bill Chafe -- participated in a live webcast interview about the protests Monday, July 1.

Also joining the conversation was Duke alumnus David Graham who wrote a recent article for The Atlantic about the protests, which compared North Carolina's politics with those of Wisconsin's two year ago.

Pride@Google: Chris Kluwe, Brendon Ayanbadejo & Scott Fujita—From Athletes to Advocates

GoogleTalks

Chris Kluwe, Brendon Ayanbadejo, and Scott Fujita Announce Broadening Support for "Athletes' Brief" on Marriage Equality
Chris Kluwe of the Oakland Raiders and Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens announced today the addition of numerous supporters for their "Athletes' Brief" with the U.S. Supreme Court. The Athletes' Brief was filed in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. The brief expresses the importance of equal rights, and the role that athletes play in affecting public behavior by the way they treat others, and especially their effect on young people.
"Brendon and I have emphasized all along that athletes have a special message when it comes to welcoming others as friends and teammates, without regard for their sexual orientation—we've made that point before in some unique ways, and we felt we had a special perspective to offer the Court in a very serious case about equality," said Kluwe. 
Ayanbadejo added, "We knew from our prior work and membership in organizations like Athlete Ally that support for basic human rights is widespread in the sports community, so we asked our friends like Scott Fujita if they would support that message in our brief." 
Fujita, a linebacker who was part of the New Orleans Saints team that won Super Bowl XLIV, reached out to his former teammates and found an equally positive reaction. Fujita noted, "Football is a macho sport, but we've found many players to be accepting. We hope to create an environment where a player who is gay will be treated like any other teammate."
Kluwe, Ayanbadejo, and Fujita are all Ambassadors for Athlete Ally, a leading organization working to end homophobia in sports. 
The "Athletes' Brief" brief can be found at http://bit.ly/XdxbzX, and the list of supporters at www.athletesbrief.com.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II: "Somebody Must Raise a Dissent!" #MoralMondays

Moral Monday Movement
On the eve of 70,000 jobless North Carolinians losing their unemployment benefits, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II shares a very personal history while charging that for the good of the whole, somebody must raise a dissent.

Face the Nation: Ben Jealous & James Braxton Peterson Talk SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage & Voting Rights

Face the Nation
The Supreme Court handed down several momentous decisions this week, including rulings on same-sex marriage and voting rights, and CBS News' Jan Crawford, Dr. James Peterson, Benjamin Jealous, Michael Gerson, and Fernando Espuelas discuss the fallout from those issues and others.

"Roomieloverfriends" | Episode 5 of 5‬ ‪ [Season 2‬]

Black and Sexy TV

"Roomieloverfriends" is a BLACK&SEXY.TV production @blackandsexytv
Starring Shayla Hale, Andra Fuller, Austen Jaye, Teagen Rose, Krystal Bradford, Yaani King + Billy Mayo

Created and Written by Dennis Dortch + Numa Perrier @MissNuma
Executive Producer: Issa RaeProduced by Numa Perrier
Produced by Desmond Faison 
Associate Producers: Irwin Daniels, Krystal Bradford, and Dean Russell
Directed by Dennis Dortch
Cinematography by Will Novy + Brian Ali-HardingPost Picture: Brian Ali-HardingEdited by Jamila Glass
Make Up: Sydney Milan
Hair: Erin Smith
Production Assistant: Jean Black, Maya Morales


Special Thanks: Brian Ali-Harding, & Desmond Faison
FEATURED MUSIC:
"Convertible Thinking" - Richard Wright ft. M. SpiveyProduced by J. Bizness 
"Gett Down" Produced by S. Davis
"Re-Run" Produced by Cliff
Theme song "Chemistry" written and performed by Allegra Dolores @allegradoloresProduced by Henry "Lukecage" Willis