Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 888

June 24, 2013

Soul for Lost Love and Crises of Faith—Bobby 'Blue' Bland's "Chains of Love'



from: "Soul for Lost Love and Crises of Faith" (Vibe.com, 2008)


Not enough people talk about the Bobby “Blue” Bland these days, though his signature hiccup (if you could call it that)  is one of the more classic idiosyncrasies in the history of American popular music.  Give Kanye West and Shawn Carter some credit for recovering “Ain’t No Love In the Heart of the City”—a great Bland track no doubt—but not representative of the classic sides he laid down for Duke in the late 1950s and 1960s like “Turn on Your Lovelight” (see the opening montage in Eve’s Bayou),  “That’s the Way Love Is” or “Cry, Cry, Cry.”  As the latter songs displays, didn’t nobody beg better than Bobby “Blue” Bland in his day and “Chains of Love” is a classic example.  In the song Bland laments the power of a love that he can’t extricate himself from (“now I’m a prisoner”), as he begs for his lover to stop holding him hostage if she’s not gonna love him back (“if you gonna leave me, please set me free”).  But it is the last verse that gets at the sense of despair as Bland sings, “well it’s 3 O’ Clock in the morning, lawd and the moon is shining bright…and I was just sitting here wondering, lawd (hiccup) where can you be tonight?” and you can just imagine this man sitting on his porch rocking his body back and forth recalling the classic “Trouble in Mind” (“I’m going down to the river…if the blues don’t get me, I might have to rock on away from here.”
--Mark Anthony Neal
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Published on June 24, 2013 06:16

June 23, 2013

"Change is Coming!" | June 17th Moral Monday Protest


Moral Monday Protests
June 17th, 2013 - In this 7th Wave of Moral Monday Protests, thousands gather and 84 people are arrested for speaking out against regressive legislation at the North Carolina General Assembly.
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Published on June 23, 2013 07:42

The Other James Gandolfini: "Sopranos" Actor Remembered For Support of Injured Vets, Community Media


Democracy Now
James Gandolfini, the celebrated actor best known for his role as mob boss Tony Soprano on the hit TV series, "The Sopranos," died Wednesday at the age of 51. While coverage of his death has focused mainly on his acting career, little has been mentioned about the more political side of his work. In New York City, he was a beloved figure not only because of his acting on the stage and screen, but also because of his major support for community media and producing documentaries critical of war. In 2010, he produced the HBO film "Wartorn: 1861-2010" about post-traumatic stress disorder from the Civil War to Iraq and Afghanistan. He also conducted a series of in-depth interviews with U.S. soldiers wounded in the Iraq War for a 2007 HBO film, "Alive Day Memories: Home From Iraq." We speak to the films' co-directors, Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill. 
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Published on June 23, 2013 06:48

June 21, 2013

Tell Me More: Vem Pra Rua: The Music Of Brazilian Protest

Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/Getty Images


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Published on June 21, 2013 20:25

It's Bigger Than Paula Deen by David J. Leonard

It’s Bigger Than Paula Deen by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The fallout from Paula Deen’s deposition and the lawsuit itself is a reminder of the ways that race and gender operate within the restaurant industry.  It’s bigger than Paula Deen.  Yet, as you read media reports, as you listen to various commentaries, you would think this is a story about an older white woman wedded to America’s racist past.  Yes, this is a story about Paula Deen, and her crumbing empire.  But that is the beginning, not the end. This is bigger than one individual, her reported prejudices, or the lawsuit at hand.  This is about a restaurant industry mired by discrimination and systemic inequalities.
Racism pervades the entire industry, as evident in the daily treatment faced by workers, the segregation within the industry, differential wage scale, and its hiring practices.  According to Jennifer Lee, “Racial Bias Seen in Hiring of Waiters:”
Expensive restaurants in New York discriminate based on race when hiring waiters, a new study has concluded. The study was based on experiments in which pairs of applicants with similar résumés were sent to ask about jobs. The pairs were matched for gender and appearance, said Marc Bendick Jr., the economist who conducted the study. The only difference was race, he said.
White job applicants were more likely to receive follow-up interviews at the restaurants, be offered jobs, and given information about jobs, and their work histories were less likely to be investigated in detail, he said Tuesday. He spoke at a news conference releasing the report in a Manhattan restaurant.
“There really should not be a lot of difference in how the two of them are treated,” Mr. Bendick said. He was hired by advocacy groups for restaurant workers as part of a larger report called “The Great Service Divide: Occupational Segregation and Equality in the New York City Restaurant Industry.” He has made a career of studying discrimination, ranging from racism in the advertising industry to sexism in firefighting.
Mr. Bendick said that in industries, such experiments typically found discrimination 20 to 25 percent of the time. In New York restaurants, it was found 31 percent of the time.
A recent report from the ROC (Restaurant Opportunities Center) found that Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Capital Grille, among others) was responsible for creating a racially hostile environment.
The report also outlines recent lawsuits against Darden for employment discrimination based on race, including a 2008 lawsuit that charged that Bahama Breeze employees of color in Beachwood, Ohio were repeatedly pelted with racial slurs such as “Aunt Jemima” and “stupid n**ger” by managers.  This resulted in a EEOC announcement of a $1.26 million settlement from Darden in 2009.  In describing the settlement, EEOC’s acting chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said “No worker should have to endure a racially hostile work environment in order to earn a paycheck.”
It additionally concluded that Darden, “fired black servers because they did not ‘fit the company standard’ at their Capital Grille restaurant” and that it “prevents people of color & immigrants from accessing living wage positions, such as server and bartender, at their Capital Grille fine dining restaurant.” It’s bigger than Deen.
A 2007 lawsuit against Restaurateur Daniel Boulud points to another instance:
According to the lawsuit, dining room workers at Daniel Boulud have been denied promotion because they were Latino or Bangladeshi. The employees also say that Mr. Boulud and other managers yelled racial slurs. At one point, they say, Spanish was banned among employees; only English and French were allowed. Those are examples, they say, of how the working culture at Daniel favors white Europeans at the expense of other groups.
Here are but a few examples from the EEOC:
In March 2008, a national restaurant chain entered a consent decree agreeing to pay $30,000 to resolve an EEOC case charging that the company gave African-American food servers inferior and lesser-paying job assignments by denying them assignments of larger parties with greater resulting tips and income, by denying them better paying assignments to banquets at the restaurant, and by failing on some occasions to give them assignments to any customers. The consent decree enjoins the restaurant from engaging in racial discrimination and requires the chain to post a remedial notice and amend and distribute its anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. The amended policies must state that prohibited racial discrimination in “all other employment decisions” includes, but is not limited to, making decisions and providing terms and conditions of employment such as pay, assignments, working conditions, and job duties; also, it must prohibit retaliation. In addition, the company must revise its complaint mechanism and clarify and expand its website and toll-free phone number for the reporting of incidents of employment discrimination. The consent decree also requires the restaurant to provide training in equal employment opportunity laws for all of its employees and to appoint an Equal Employment Office Coordinator, who will be responsible for investigating discrimination complaints. EEOC v. McCormick & Schmick’s Restaurant Corp, No. 06-cv-7806 (S.D.N.Y. March 17, 2008).
In January 2008, a bakery café franchise in Florida entered a two-year consent decree that enjoined the company from engaging in racial discrimination or retaliation and required it to pay $101,000 to the claimants. EEOC had alleged that the company segregated the Black employees from non-Black employees and illegally fired a class of Black employees in violation of Title VII. Under the consent decree, the principal of the company must attend an eight-hour training session on equal employment opportunity laws. The decree also mandated that if the company ever re-opens the franchise in question or any other store, it must distribute its anti-discrimination policy to all employees, post a remedial notice, and report any future complaints alleging race-based discrimination.EEOC v. Atlanta Bread Co., International and ARO Enterprise of Miami, Inc., No. 06-cv-61484 (S.D. Fla. January 4, 2008).
In September 2006, the Korean owners of a fast food chain in Torrance, California agreed to pay $5,000 to resolve a Title VII lawsuit alleging that a 16-year old biracial girl, who looked like a fair-skinned African American, was refused an application for employment because of her perceived race (Black). According to the EEOC lawsuit, after a day at the beach with her Caucasian friends, the teen was asked if she would request an application on her friend’s behalf since the friend was a little disheveled in appearance. The owner refused to give the teen an application and told her the store was not hiring anymore despite the presence of a “Help Wanted” sign in the window. After consultation among the friends, another White friend entered the store and was immediately given an application on request. EEOC v. Quiznos, No. 2:06-cv-00215-DSFJC (C.D. Cal. settled Sept. 22, 2006).
In December 2005, EEOC resolved this Title VII lawsuit alleging that a fast food conglomerate subjected a Black female employee and other non-White restaurant staff members (some of them minors) to a hostile work environment based on race. The racial harassment included a male shift leader’s frequent use of “n**ger” and his exhortations that Whites were a superior race. Although the assistant manager received a letter signed by eight employees complaining about the shift leader’s conduct, the shift leader was exonerated and the Black female employee who complained was fired. The consent decree provided $255,000 in monetary relief: $105,000 to Charging Party and $150,000 for a settlement fund for eligible claimants as determined by EEOC. EEOC v. Carl Karcher Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Carl’s Jr. Restaurant, No. CV-05-01978 FCD PAW (E.D. Cal. Dec. 13, 2005).
The examples are a plenty. As with every American institution, race matters.  Restaurants are immensely segregated: by location, by job, by placement on the floor, by wage, and by clientele.  Servers, bartenders, and hosts are white, while runners, bussers, those in the back of the house, and those who make the lowest wages are overwhelming people of color.  Of those who have reported earning less than minim wage, 96% are people of color.  Workers of color experience racism and microaggressions; they are more likely to be questioned as to their qualifications.  It is a world where irrespective of diversity, in terms of both staff and food choices, racism remains a constant on every menu.  According to Saru Jayarman, “We tend not to realize that diversity is not the same as equity – that simply seeing a lot of restaurant workers from different backgrounds doesn’t mean that restaurant workers from different backgrounds have equal opportunities to advance to jobs that will allow them support themselves and their families.”
The restaurant industry is also rife with sexism – women earn 85 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts.  Women are also relegated to the lowest-paying jobs with the worst chances of upward mobility.  Women are subjected to rampant sexual harassment.  Although only 7% of the nation’s workers can be found in restaurants, in 2011 they accounted for 37% of the sexual harassment complaints to the EEOC.
The relative silence about these daily abuses and horrid conditions is telling. It’s bigger than Deen.  She is not the lone rotten apple but one of many in a rotten barrel. Yet the emergent narrative that once again images racism as the purview of southern whites of a previous generation is revealing.  It’s bigger than Deen.   It’s bigger than Food Network but about an industry that has gotten away with abuse and discrimination yet we rarely get to see “behind the kitchen door.” This lawsuit, and the media fallout have shined a spotlight on a culture of abuse and exploitation.  Yet we can’t take our eyes off Deen.
***
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.  
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Published on June 21, 2013 19:49

Blues Note for Joseph in the West End by Stephane Dunn

Blues Note for Joseph in the West End by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
How come you college muthafuckas think ya’ll run everything? You come to our town year after year and take over. We was born here, gon’ be here, gon die here . . .  We may not have your education but we ain’t dirt neither. You mission punks always talking down to us.— Samuel Jackson, School Daze      I glance out of the window of a house on Lowery. It sits across from Parsons street in the West End. My Morehouse College colleague and I are packing up after a day of shooting scenes for a short film project. I’ve put the cast, a new high school graduate, a ten-year old, and my toddler son in the car while we make sure nothing has been left behind and the house is locked up. My maternal antenna is way up hence the anxious glances towards the car. Earlier, as we gathered outside discussing the particulars of a shot, my colleague is squeezed – literally – on  the butt by a Grace Jones looking sister who is just passing by.  "Chubbs," a  toothless elderly man to whom I give some change, grabs me in a bear hug.  My son offers a dandelion to a lady passing by speaking in tongues to herself all the way down the street. The newly graduated eighteen year old looks everywhere but at the parade of hard cases, purposefully focusing on texting.
The ten-year old glances at us and shrugs, shaking his head like what’s that about? My son, the soon to be four-year old, looks at everyone passing by and across the street with a studied focus and sometimes runs to me with a question he can’t yet articulate. I glance out the window a last time. A woman in a dingy, torn shirt and short shorts walks toward the car where the children sit with the windows rolled up and the doors locked. Her hands are moving fast, frantically really, and she appears to be talking nonstop. I rush out of the house and towards the car just as she leans towards the window then pulls back and walks away from the car still talking to herself and gesturing.   
All day, we’ve been at turns pained and guarded. We’ve shaken our heads and made bad jokes to relieve our tension and discomfort at seeing the ravages of drugs, alcohol, and lack – of  resources, opportunity, hope and vision hanging so raw on the people’s faces and in the very set of their shoulders and footsteps. We’ve done it because we don’t want to own that we feel a bit nervous, threatened actually, and we’ve had to fight off the heavy question that we see reflected in each other’s eyes.
Why should a community of people live this way and especially when it is melded into the history and the physical life of a storied HBCU college center? A community encircled by streets bearing the names of great Civil Rights leaders, Lowery, Martin Luther King no less. Students live in the neighborhood. We  faculty, at times, walk around  on our way to the library or to the gas station, on our way somewhere, or we drive through it on countless days each year. The great scholar, writer, and professor W.E.B DuBois lived several long gone houses away from the one where we’ve been working on our film. Countless other faculty and staff and notable community folk once lived around there too. As we drive off, relieved, we don’t know that sixteen days later, one of our students will be gone, shot to death in a car across the street from where we shook our heads and wandered aloud.
We each had Joe in one of our classes on the way to this, his senior year. He was pleasant, and he was respectful even when you were getting on his case, pushing him to focus in a little bit more because he was bright. He’d have that same pleasant half-smile, and maintain the same sort of low key aura.  It was clear he had some home training as we like to say. It was clear too that he had wonderful potential that we didn’t want him to miss realizing. On graduation Sunday, a few weeks before, he walked with his class of 2013 peers through the annual corridor of robed faculty. He nodded to some of the professors in whose classes and offices he’d sat over the years. President Obama spoke. His mother saw this, her only child, make that long prayed for walk across the stage. This Friday is his twenty-fourth birthday. Saturday his mother will bury him.
I’m on campus teaching summer class, talking to more bright faced young men about thesis statements while I cannot get Joe’s face out of my head. I keep thinking of his mother on a too long flight from California coming back here after a graduation trip, to identify her son and take him home for the last time.  Many of us are shaking our heads, dismayed, saddened, trying to say what we cannot possibly say in a flurry of emails—glad this terrible thing is being spoken of aloud and acknowledged while we are going about business with a sense of paralysis.
A suspect has been identified. The investigation is ongoing and of course discussions of security, safety for the students, for the campus community, continue. Perhaps it will become a more police patrolled, high security surveillance area. But the campus [the AUC really] no matter how seemingly removed, is within a community, a distressed one. An uneasy us and them mentality permeates.  Spike Lee alludes to this dynamic in School Daze when Samuel Jackson’s character, a local, confronts Dap (Laurence Fishburne) and a group of his Mission College peers. That film, of course, was shot here within the boundaries of the campuses and the West End. But in real life the lines are more superficial than they might seem. Some Morehouse students are locals too. Others come here from ravaged communities where their parents and loved ones fear for their lives.
The West End includes folks living there and wandering the streets who have been victims of violence and who are more self-destructive than anything. They too need protection, attention, and care. Dr. King moved briefly into a Chicago ghetto and in those last years engaged in collective struggle against another inhumane oppression – poverty and classicism. He was still striving for a strength to love in action. The young black lives we parent, teach, pass by on the street, try to ignore and fear as well as suspect, are worthy of us engaging actively in love in this struggle not merely for a fragile physical security but for the soul of the whole community and certainly for precious young lives like Joseph's. 
***

Stephane Dunn, PhD is a writer and Co-Director of the Film, Television, & Emerging Media Studies program at Morehouse College. She is the author of the 2008 book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas : Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press), which explores the representation of race, gender, and sexuality in the Black Power and feminist influenced explosion of black action films in the early 1970s, including, Sweetback Sweetback’s Baad Assssss Song, Cleopatra Jones, and Foxy Brown. Her writings have appeared in Ms., The Chronicle of Higher Education, TheRoot.com, AJC, CNN.comand Best African American Essays, among others. Her most recent work includes articles about contemporary black film representation and Tyler Perry films.
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Published on June 21, 2013 07:26

June 20, 2013

Victory for Community Radio as FCC Puts 1,000 Low-Power FM Frequencies Up For Grabs


Democracy Now
In a major victory for the community radio movement after a 15-year campaign, the Federal Communications Commission has announced it will soon begin accepting applications for hundreds of new low-power FM radio stations in October. This means nonprofits, labor unions and community groups have a one-time-only chance this year to own a bit of the broadcast airwaves. It is being heralded as "the largest expansion of community radio in United States history." We're joined by two guests: Jeff Rousset, the National Organizer of the Prometheus Radio Project, which has led the campaign to challenge corporate control of the media and open up this space on the dial; and by Ramon Ramirez, the president of PCUN, the largest Latino organization in Oregon. In 2006, Prometheus Radio Project helped PCUN establish the low-power FM station "Movement Radio," which has helped inform farm workers about labor rights, as well as the larger Latino community about immigration reform efforts, health issues, and other community-related topics. The FCC's short application window for new stations will run from October 15 to October 29. "This is a one-shot opportunity," Rousset says. "The work that we do over the next four months will really help shape the course of this country's media landscape for the next 40 years."
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Published on June 20, 2013 21:06

June 19, 2013

"Mix-Up, Mix-Up": Nikki Minaj, Rihanna And Other (Mis)Readings Of Pleasure, Feminine Artifice, Black-Caribbean-American Diasporic Performances In Popular Visual Culture #NiP


Black Portraiture[s]: The Black Body in the West"Mix-Up, Mix-Up": Nikki Minaj, Rihanna And Other (Mis)Readings Of Pleasure, Feminine Artifice, Black-Caribbean-American Diasporic Performances In Popular Visual CultureJoan Morgan, Kimberli Gant, Treva Lindsey, Mark Anthony NealThis video appears courtesy of Manthia Diawara and the Institute of African American Affairs.
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Published on June 19, 2013 09:30

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