Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 903

"On Boston & Violence: An Intimate Relationship" by Esther Armah

On Boston & Violence: An Intimate Relationship by Esther Armah | HuffPost Black Voices
Boston. Remote in hand, I channel surf, pausing from one horror to another. I've just heard the president's message of unity, swift justice for the perpetrators, and recognition that on this day we are all Americans – not members of different parties, but of one nation.
National horrors like Boston, or Newtown, bring us together in our grief, unite us in our condemnation, stun us, and momentarily silence us because we agree on the brutality. We draw on a collective comfort. When the violence is the kind that is collectively mourned, no focus will rest on the shortness of the women's running shorts. No one will say because the women voluntarily went to Boston and ran in the marathon they were asking to be blown up. Here's the thing. We have a contradictory and intimate relationship with violence.
There is the type of violence we mourn and are horrified by, there's also the type we sanction, sanitize, justify -- in life, love, work, sports. We separate that violence according to who the victims are and who perpetrates it in specific ways. We unite in our mourning for the victims of some violence, but we tend to be divided, hostile and accusatory in the face of others. For most of us, violence is relative. Who gets to be the victim? Who is accused of being the perpetrator?
Violence occupies an emotional space; it is at once familiar and horrifying and sanguine. It is individual and institutional. We don't respond to sexual violence the way we do with the violence of Boston or Newtown, for example. We are not all Americans when a woman or girl is raped or sexually assaulted; we are good girls and bad ones. We will not collectively mourn the shock to her body, the distress, the trauma, and its potential legacy. We will engage in insisting on knowing her potential role in that violence, we will defend the individual perpetrator of that violence, and we will be divided. But the act of violence in Boston produces different responses. We won't question any of the women's rights to be in that public space dressed in shorts or in any way suggest that their clothing or presence might arguably be interpreted as an invitation for an act of domestic terrorism. We will agree the perpetrator deserves to face consequences, the full weight of the law. We will not defend the perpetrators right of free and peaceful assembly, we will agree that his freedom should be curtailed.
We will defend the 1st Amendment right of a newspaper when it spews emotional violence masquerading as comedy about an Oscar-nominated brown girl reducing her to a "cunt" -- a body part as The Onion did with Quvenzhane Wallis. We will not collectively condemn this emotional violence but engage in 140-character defenses of the 1st Amendment and mockingly Tweet to the constituency of the outraged to pipe down and chill – it’s  only comedy. We will, in no way, defend the violence that occurred in Boston, however.
We will mourn the black bodies who came from far and wide to take part in a marathon that goes back to 1897 -- provincial and global -- as part of an institutional space to be celebrated, respected and revered. The humanity of the black marathon runner will be counted, not disregarded. In this moment, those black bodies morph into our national identity; they are momentarily American bodies with shared goals, ambitions, and dreams. Yet, we are never all American when a black man falls victim to the institutional violence of the state; we are prosecutors, interrogators of his behavior, questioning him, his actions, his words, his intentions, defending the institution. We are divided. We are accusatory. We are hostile. We are defensive when the state enacts violence upon black bodies.
Our horror post-Newtown or Boston is tangible; we can taste it, feel it, and relate to it. Our dismissal of the violence suffered by children on the streets of the south side of Chicago and other urban (and mostly black, brown, and working poor) neighborhoods across the country is equally tangible. We are not all American when it comes to the violence of poverty. We measure, judge, label individuals and communities marked by the violence of economic disenfranchisement. We do not collectively raise our voices against the institutions that contribute to maintaining poverty and inequity in our country.
Our relationship with violence is exactly that, a relationship. We are married to our version of violent events; we are divorced from certain folk's experiences of violent events. We negotiate what we believe, whom we believe, of whom we are skeptical and who is a liar. We have wakes and obits and sadness in 140 characters on Twitter or FB threads. We may be outraged that this piece would even be written, dismissing it as inappropriate. You maybe right. The real tragedy? So am I.
Our relationship with violence needs 'emotional justice' -- the untangling of a societal and generational inheritance of untreated trauma, this space where we are handed the job of teasing out which violence is which and navigating institutions, systems, individuals and society accordingly. This is our world. What are we willing to do to change our relationship with violence?
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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.

Ricin Toxin: Poison of Choice Over the Years

The New York Times

This toxic chemical was detected in a letter addressed to President Obama and can be deadly if it is inhaled.

Yusef Salaam of the 'Central Park Five' Discusses the Central Park Jogger Case

Youth Communication

Yusef Salaam, one of the "Central Park Five," describes what it was like to be convicted for a brutal crime he didn't commit, and the documentary "The Central Park Five." 
Youth Communication helps marginalized youth develop their full potential through reading and writing, so that they can succeed in school and at work and contribute to their communities. Learn more about us at http://www.youthcomm.org

Thatcher and the Inner City Riots

Thatcher and the Inner City Riots by Linton Kwesi Johnson | HuffPost BlackVoices
In the wake of Baroness Thatcher's demise there is consensus among politicians and commentators of all persuasions that she was the most divisive British prime minister in living memory. Call it irony, call it hypocrisy, call it what you will, but it is the same Conservative party that unceremoniously ousted her from power when she became an electoral liability that is now heaping praise on her and honouring her with a state funeral in all but name.
To my mind, Thatcher was a ruthless class warrior for the ruling class. Her ignominious achievement was the tearing up of the post-World War Two 'settlement', clawing back the gains the working class had won. Her cross-party admiration stems from the fact that she is regarded as the architect of the neo-liberal orthodoxy to which they all subscribe, notwithstanding the dire straits in which the free market dogma has taken the British economy.
How did Thatcher's rule impact the black population? In 1979 when the Conservative party won the general election black people were still being treated as third class citizens, if citizens at all. By then we had been engaged in a three decades-long struggle against racial oppression and marginalisation and for racial equality. Although our parents had arrived in Britain as colonial subjects we were still being treated as aliens. The Thatcher years saw an intensification of our struggle for racial justice. Thatcher will be remembered by many black people of my generation as a bigot and a xenophobe who fanned the flames of racial hatred, giving succour to the fascists who were emboldened to carry out terrorist attacks against black and Asian people. When she ranted on about Britain being swamped by alien cultures, it was sweet music to the ears of the National Front/British National Party brigade.
As we approach the 32nd anniversary of the Brixton riots this month, my mind goes back to January 1981 when thirteen young black people died in a racist arson attack on a birthday party in New Cross, south-east London. I remember how the atrocity was covered up by the police and the coroner at the hastily convened inquest. I remember how the parents of the deceased were thwarted by the authorities in their quest for justice. I remember the Black Peoples Day of Action when an estimated 20,000 people took to the streets to demand justice and the Brixton riots that came a month later. I recall the Tottenham riots of 1985 which, like the Brixton riots of 1981 and those 2011, spread throughout inner city areas. I recall that back in the eighties, for young black people, living in an inner city area was like living in a police state.
The 1980s, the Thatcher decade, was one of class struggle and racial conflict. I was the decade when black people had to resort to riots, uprisings and insurrection in order to integrate ourselves into British society; a time when we had to organise and agitate for justice. By the beginning of the 1990s Thatcher had to go, stabbed in her back by her own cabinet and black people began to make some progress in our struggle against marginalisation and for racial equality and social justice.
There are some first and second generation black people who will agree with David Cameron's assertion that Thatcher not only saved Britain from ruin but put the 'great' back into Great Britain. My late Jamaican barber was one her more fanatical supporters and I discovered that my mother had voted for the Tories in 1979. I asked her why and she replied that, at the time, she felt a woman deserved a chance and could not do worse than the Labour administrations of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. She quickly added that, in her 27-year sojourn in England, it was the first and last time she ever voted in a General Election.
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Linton Kwesi Johnson was born in 1952 in Chapelton, Clarendon, Jamaica. He was a member of the Black Panthers, and developed his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets and drummers.  In 1974 Race Today published Johnson’s first collection of poetry, Voices of the Living and the Dead. He has had four more books published and in 2002 became only the second living poet and the first black poet to have his work included in Penguin’s Modern Classics series, under the title Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems. 

Academics IRL (in real life): Taking Scholarship out of the Ivory Tower @ Purdue April 17-19

STEW 322, 314, & the BCC http://facebook.com/AcademicsIRL
Purdue's American Studies Graduate Program is hosting its student research symposium April 17-19, 2013 at Purdue University.  This year's theme is "Academics IRL (in real life): Taking Scholarship out of the Ivory Tower."  We are thrilled to have THREE keynote speakers this year:April 17, 7 pm, STEW 322- Lecture by Lt. Heather Penney: Purdue American Studies Alum and 9/11 Pilot and Hero (Refreshments will be served)April 18, 7 pm STEW 314 - Film Screening of "Destination: Planet Negro" and Discussion by Film Director Kevin Willmott.  Q&A to follow (Refreshments will be served)April 19, 7 pm STEW 314 - Lecture by African American Studies scholar, blogger, and professor Dr. Mark Anthony Neal on his soon-to-be published book, "Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities" (Reception to follow)From 9-5 on Friday April 19, the Black Cultural Center will be hosting panels on American Studies student research.  From music, to violence, to gardening - we have lots of interesting things to discuss!  (Morning and afternoon refreshments will be served)
Email klovell@purdue.edu for information or check our Facebook.com/AcademicsIRL

Left of Black S3:E26 | Black Digital Sci-Fi & Black Girls in the 'New' South

Left of Black S3:E26 | Black Digital Sci-Fi & Black Girls in the 'New' South
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined, via Skype, by Keith Josef Adkins, writer and director of the digital Sci-Fi series ‘ The Abandon .’  
Later Neal is joined by University of Georgia professor Bettina Love, author of the new book ‘ Hip Hop's Li'l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Hip Hop Identities and Politics in the New South ’ (Peter Lang Publishing)
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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 Blackare also available for free download in @ iTunes U

'Open Letter' (remix) featuring Jay Z and Common

Political Scientist Mark Sawyer on the Carter Family Trip to Cuba

Beyonce and Jay Z Are Race Traitors for Going to Cuba !?!? by  Mark Sawyer | HuffPost Black Voices
While I expected right-wing television and bloggers to go bananas over Jay-Z and Beyoncé's trip to Cuba, nothing prepared me for the idea that somehow by traveling to Cuba, Beyonce and Jay Z had betrayed their race. That's right. Cuba is a "racist" nation and traveling there is to co-sign anti-black racism.
In my appearance on Fox News this was raised as well as claims of racism against Ché Guevara. Another portion of the argument rests upon the four or five black dissidentsin Cuban prisons that includes at least one rapper. I don't spend much time in the right-wing echo chamber but the ridiculousness of these claims was in many ways beyond my comprehension. It needed research.
At least let me establish where I come from on this. I have been studying issues of race and racism in Latin America for approximately two decades. Many might cite my book Racial Politics In Post-Revolutionary Cuba as a stand out empirical exploration of the problem. I am one of a very small group of scholars to have taken the temperature of racial attitudes on the island in relation to racial policies.
The broad scholarly consensus is that Cuba through a combination of redistribution of wealth, improved education systems and open access to health care had moved the black population on the island closer to parity with whites than any other society in the world. Black life expectancy hovered in the 70s only a couple years shy of the white life expectancy. Infant mortality rates fell dramatically and Cuba all but eliminated illiteracy. Old attitudes never died and racism still exists on the island. Cuba proves you can almost reach parity in terms of social indicators but still not kill the attitudes that supported the enslavement of people of African descent.
With those attitudes still spoiling the water, the decline of Soviet support, tourism, and the rise of remittances from white relatives in Miami has meant racial inequality has been on the rise in Cuba. In spite of that, Cuba remains the one place where blacks are the most patriotic despite being perceived at the bottom of the pecking order and the more patriotic whites are the less they are likely to express racist beliefs about blacks. That looks like a successful anti-racist project to me. But, on the minus side Cuba eliminated black organizations that might work to lobby for black interests even in the context of a one party state. But the criticism of Cuba goes far beyond what the settled scholarly consensus is on the matter.
The most unbelievable commentary on Fox News, was that of Maria Anastasia O'Grady, argued that Cubais state "Run by Old White Guys, and many of the people who are in jail are young black people." She then likens Cuba to South Africa of all places. Let's not forget Cuba fought South African supporters in Angola costing Cuban lives. Castro received the largest cheer at Nelson Mandela's inauguration because of the staunch support during the struggle to end apartheid. Let's not include the irony of O'Grady making this claim within the United States where one in 15 African-American men are in prison and one in three black men will expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Black women are also three times more likely to be imprisoned in the U.S. than white women. The "police state" Cuba as described by "O'Grady" does not imprison nearly as many people as a percentage of the population as the U.S. and certainly not similar proportions of blacks given population. But further, there is nothing similar to the U.S. embargo on Cuba and the boycott of South Africa. The South African boycott and divestment was requested by anti-Apartheid activists in South Africa not a distant exile community with few formal ties to the country.
But, the attack of racism goes even deeper. Another portion of it rests upon the claim that Ché Guevara was an unrepentant racist. I was unaware that Guevara had been leading Cuba in the last few decades but it warranted a closer look. I trolled around on blogs and saw right wingers tend to string together a series of quotes from across Che's life. The most racist of them is from when Ché was 24 years old. It reflects a Ché whose views evolved on the issue of race and who eventually saw black liberation as synonymous with ending oppression. The second in 1959 is taken horribly out of context. The quote goes, ""We're going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing." Ché is referring to the concept that he saw blacks as participating in the revolution not as blacks but as patriots. That is, the Revolution would be universal and color blind. Of course Ché also said when speaking at the University of Las Villas, "The University must paint itself black, mulato, worker and peasant." Of course, they also lift another quote out of context as Che struggles with attempts to train Congolese soldiers. The same kinds of concerns he expressed about peasants wherever he went to help foment revolution.
If Ché and the revolution were guilty of anything, it was a series of sins more consistent with American conservative's current thinking about race than not. The Revolution was by ideology more color blind than focused on fixing the problem of racial inequality. Further, while the current right in the U.S. does not want to outlaw all civic organizations, it's painfully obvious they feel America would be better off without groups like the NAACP who advocate for black interests and Senator Scott of South Carolina a black Republican, refused to join the Congressional Black Caucus.
So where does all the "Cuba is racist" talk come from? Why do we have white commentators accusing Jay Z and Beyonce of betraying their blackness on television? To understand this phenomena we have to turn to the back alleys of the Cuban exile community and its support of the blockade of the island. Over the years, their support of apartheid South Africa and a range of other policies alienated Afro-Cubans on the island and African-Americans who were open to Fidel Castro's friendship. In the early 2000's the Cuban members of Congress funded projects located at HBCU's for scholars under to contract to produce articles on racism in Cuba. Scholars visited Cuba but did no original research and largely summarized the works of scholars like myself without any of the necessary context and caveats. We were then invited to a conference at Howard University hosted by Ileana Ross-Lehtinen so they could report their "findings" on racism in Cuba and have the validation of top scholars in the field.
As the conservative Miami Cubans have struggled to connect with blacks on the island they have seen talking about racism on the island as a possible entrée to Afro-Cubans.
Of course it is dishonest. These same Cubans defend the levels of racial inequality and practices of segregation in pre-Revolutionary Cuba by denying the practices out of existence. In their minds, the Revolutionary regime has been the only Cuban regime with racial problems. And unlike in South Africa where activists called upon the world to boycott the apartheid regime, the vast majority of Cuban dissidents see the U.S. blockade of the island as counterproductive.
So Jay-Z and Beyonce walked into a perfect storm. A right-wing media machine hell-bent on painting the president as a radical socialist. That machine and its allies also happen to have an increasingly distorted set of narratives about Cuba unhinged from historical or current social realities. And a new right-wing a la Senator Rand Paul at Howard, who having lost the black vote badly, now feel emboldened to explain to African-Americans our history and what we ought to believe if we just had their knowledge. The narrative is if Jay Z only knew Ché he would not visit Cuba. On my appearance on Fox News the host and guests who clearly know nothing about the island, suggest that Beyonce and Jay Z are dumb, knowing they should not visit Cuba. Clearly two individuals who have amassed hundred of millions as media moguls are not dumb and also are hardly spokespeople for the superiority of communism. Further, they dismiss what astute observers of all political persuasions note, the embargo is a relic of the Cold War and has outlived its usefulness. The fact is Americans like Jay Z and Beyonce visiting the island along with more American artists, athletes, students and even tourists is more likely to bring about political change and reform in Cuba than an embargo that has failed for more than 40 years.
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Mark Sawyer is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at UCLA, the Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics and the Chair of the UCLA Interdisciplinary Program in Afro-American Studies.  His published work includes Racial Politics in Post Revolutionary Cuba which received the DuBois Award for the best book by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the Ralph Bunche Award from the American Political Science Association. 
Follow Mark Sawyer on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/@mqsawyer

MHP Show: 'Venus & Serena' Gives Rare and Candid Look at the Tennis Superstars

Poet Elizabeth Alexander Muses About Spring