Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 939

Women of Color and the Political Economy of Sympathy

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Leonard | <b>NewBlackMan (in Exile)</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">“Given the racist and patriarchal patterns of the state, it is difficult to envision the state as the holder of solutions to the problem of violence against women of color. However, as the anti-violence movement has been institutionalized and professionalized, the state plays an increasingly dominant role in how we conceptualize and create strategies to minimize violence against women—Angela Davis. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Words sadly ring true given the daily realities of state violence, and the limited care and concern for the daily realities of violence in our country. What is wrong with us/U.S.? The endless examples (in a long, sad history of violent acts) act of violence against a woman of color to <i>NOT</i> make headlines is beyond devastating.  It is pedagogical in pointing to the material consequences of the intersections of race and gender.</span></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">This has been all too clear with reports about the horrific circumstances of Glenda Moore, a Black mother who lost her two young sons during Hurricane Sandy.  According to <i><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/b... Daily News</a></i> Moore was “</span><span style="font-family: Times;">holding onto them, and the waves just kept coming and crashing and they were under,” the mother’s sister told the Daily News at her home. “It went over their heads … She had them in her arms, and a wave came and swept them out of her arms.” In the midst of the storm, Moore knocked on doors searching for help to no avail.  As Moore’s sister recounted to <i>The Daily News</i></span><i><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;">"They answered the door and said, 'I don't know you. I'm not going to help you,’”…"My sister's like 5-foot-3, 130 pounds. She looks like a little girl. She's going to come to you and you're going to slam the door in her face and say, 'I don't know you, I can't help you'?'”</span><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Although there seems to be reticence and an unwillingness to talk about racism and sexism – implicit biases – in this case, the limited (yes there has been some media attention) concern and national mourning for the death of these children, and the pain endured by Moore is telling.  <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/onlin... people came together to raise over $313,000</a> dollars for a tormented school bus monitor, the Moore family is fighting just to raise enough money to bury their children (<a href="http://www.youcaring.com/fundraiser_d... of today, there is just short of $11,000 dollars</a>). It is yet another reminder that not all pain, not all suffering is created equal.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">While the reports surrounding Sharmeeka Moffitt, who accused several men of attacking her because she wore an Obama t-shirt, proved unsubstantiated, her experiences point to how racism and misogyny is operationalized within contemporary culture.  </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Yet another reminder of the violence besieging the United States and the media’s silence (and complicity) on the violence experienced by women of color; the fact that Sharmeka Moffitt’s name did not initially warrant front-page news, a lead story on the national news, or national conversation is telling.  The fact that people required more evidence in this stance is revealing.  The fact that people dismissed the initial reports by noting “We don’t know what happened;” “we don’t know the specifics;” “we don’t know if it is a hate crime” is not without consequence.  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Yes, her accusations prove to be false, but this doesn’t tell us anything about the silence and disinterest from dominant media and political leaders unless the claim is that the lack of coverage resulted from their investigations and conclusions that it wasn’t a story worthy of media attention.  If that was the case, why did the media and the national spotlight grow when the police concluded that her injuries were self-inflicted?  In other words, when the reports were that Ms. Moffitt was the victim of an attack, that left her with 60% of her body burned, there were critics.  Yet, when she became the perpetrator, when she became a cautionary tale, when she became a source of contempt, an example of pathology and criminality, the story mattered.  Invisible as victim but seen as threat, Sharmeka encapsulates the lack of care and concern for trauma and violence endured by women of color? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">As with Trayvon Martin and countless other incidents, the specter of violence, when its victims are people of color, when its victims are women of color, registers limited attention within the United States. This has been quite clear with the lack of national outrage about the murder of </span><span style="font-family: Times;"><span class="MsoHyperlink">Rekia Boyd.</span> What about <a href="http://www.thegrio.com/news/woman-arr... Brown</a>, who reveals the lack of care for women of color within our society?  While American media pundits and leaders rightly stand up to condemn the horrific and brutal attack of Malala Yousafzai, why can’t we fight for justice for both Malala and Pakistani victims of drone strikes?  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Why can’t we see the many women deported and the many more families split alongside of the national debates about Saundra Fluke and contraception?  Why can’t we see Glenda Moore as we saw the parents who lost their children in Aurora, Colorado?  Why don’t we mourn the loss of </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Connor and Brandon Moore as we did when other (white, middle-class) children lost their lives?  Why so casual, disinterested, and otherwise dismissive of the violence and trauma effecting women of color?</span><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">This response (or lack thereof) plays to the continuous imperative of neoliberal, color-blind ideology to distance contemporary America from its racial history and legacy of violence- including rape, medical/pharmaceutical testing and sexual assault against black and brown women. At the same time, this lack of response (never mind priority) continues a long tradition of the invisibility of black/brown female suffering. </span><span style="font-family: Times;">From Malala and Marrisa Alexander, from Rekia Boyd to “4 little girls,” from Glenda Moore to </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Encarnacion Romero, white supremacy has shown itself to be disinterested in the pain felt by women of color. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The specter of white supremacy, misogyny, and ideologies of hate are all too familiar.  What is also all too common is our silence—our  complicit acceptance of violence, hate, and destruction when it is “over there.”  What is all too familiar is the refusal to stand for justice for all people; all deaths and all brutality are not treated equally. Campaigns against stop and frisk and campaigns to end street harassment, and non-profit organizations working to end rape and sexual violence against women (<a href="http://www.alongwalkhome.org/">A Long Walk Home</a>, <a href="http://faanmail.wordpress.com/author/... Mail</a> and particularly women of color, have stepped in to do the work that rest of our society, including our government and media, should be doing.  Many of us don’t even know (care to know?) the stories of these black and brown women and don’t care about their “Dreams Deferred.”  </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The normalization of violence in our culture, due in large part to ongoing foreign conflict and media violence, is not an excuse for apathy—collectively or individually.  And because of the pervasive ugliness of racism, some folks out there are wondering (and possibly hoping) that the men who committed this act turn out to be black or brown. Though all evidence points to the contrary, if the assailants were men of color, we would still be left to deal with issues regarding violence against women as a racialized phenomena. <a href="http://womenofcolornetwork.org/docs/f... 30%</a> of African American women are the victims of partner violence during the course of their lifetime (rape, physical assault or stalking).  <a href="http://www.incite-national.org/index.... to Incite</a>, </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">American Indian women are twice as likely to be victimized by violent crime than women or men of any other ethnic group. In addition, sixty percent of the perpetrators of violence against American Indian women are white and Asian American women are most likely to be victimized by whites as well (Greenfield and Smith 1999). Rates of violence against African American women as well are higher than the national average (Rennison 2001). </span><span style="font-family: Times;">In general, forty-three percent of women will be raped (including marital rape) and one-half of women in the U.S. will be battered in their lifetime (MacKinnon 1987, 23-24).</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The silence and erasure of women of color victims, the blind neglect to the missing <a href="http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/... <a href="http://madamenoire.com/79158/no-one-m..., and the overall disregard for the abuse, violence, and pain endured by women of color reflects the logic of racism and sexism.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">These young women, and countless others have all faced violence under similarly disturbing circumstances.  All should have prompted national outrage and action or, at the least, for us to <a href="http://mhpshow.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20... their names</a>.  How meaningful would it have been for President Barack Obama to suggest a moment of silence for </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Marissa Alexander, Glenda Moore </span><span style="font-family: Times;"> and/or Malala? Would this have been seen as race baiting…dog whistling? Who cares? It would have been seen as a gesture, signaling at least awareness if not a deep concern, for the safety and well being of black and brown women in the U.S. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Please pause for a moment to consider the irony of a presidential debate on foreign policy and references to Malala but silence about drone attacks and countless other policies that inflict pain and suffering on women of color throughout the world.  Please pause to think about the narrow framing of foreign policy and “women’s issues,” which has seemingly erased the trauma and violence faced by women of color.  <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/opin... Ortiz</a> put this rather starkly:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">In their second debate, the candidates for president talked —finally— about immigration, violence and women. What they did not talk about was violence against immigrant women and how our country's anti-immigrant laws make it worse for us and our children. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Too many immigrant women, forced into the shadows of society, have had to make the choice between protecting themselves or keeping their families together.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">I have had to make that choice.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">I endured abuse by my partner, while worrying constantly about my then three-year-old son. But, because of my immigration status, I feared what would happen if I contacted the authorities. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 0 16778247 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:JA;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">When I finally did make the decision to call, my fears turned out to be all too real.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Instead of helping us get away from my abusive partner, police arrested me. I spent five days in jail, separated from my son, before authorities moved me to immigration custody and began deportation proceedings.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Why don’t we know her name or that of </span><span style="font-family: Times;">Encarnacion Romero, whose parental rights were revoked because the court concluded that, “she abandoned her child when she was imprisoned after a 2007 immigration sting at a poultry processing plant.”  Where’s the outrage; where’s the appeal to justice and/or family values?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">The selective invoking of violence elsewhere should give us pause? Why are we so comfortable looking for pain, suffering and violence elsewhere? U.S. exceptionalism . . . manifest Destiny . . . white man’s burden?  Yet, there is no reason to look at the outside for the horrific violence when it continues to plague our communities all while the media and “the leaders” remain silent, co-conspirators in the persistence of violence.  All point to the fallacy of a post-racial America and the shared level of violence between those who “we” see as uncivilized and “our” neighbors and society.  This same post-racial society has spawned notable and newsworthy reverse-discrimination claims and anti-affirmative action cases that only detract from the clear and present danger of such thinking as it manifests in the persistent inequality and violence, both structural and in cases of Alexander, Malala and countless others–physical, that black and brown men and women now experience at record levels since the abolition of slavery. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">***</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Times; font-style: normal;">Stephanie Troutman</span></b></i><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-style: normal;"> is Assistant Professor of Women & Gender and African-American Studies at Berea College, Berea, KY. </span></i><span style="font-family: Times;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">David J. Leonard</span></b><span style="font-family: Times;"> is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of the just released <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5321-after... Artest: Race and the War on Hoop</a> (SUNY Press) as well as several other works. Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan, layupline, Feminist Wire, and Urban Cusp. He is frequent contributor to Ebony, Slam, and Racialicious as well as a past contributor to Loop21, The Nation and The Starting Five. He blogs @No Tsuris.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"></span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com...' alt='' /></div>

Black CGI Director Peter Ramsey Discusses His New Film 'Rise of the Guardians'

HeyUGuysBlog  Joe Cunningham and Colin Hart from HeyUGuys interview Director Peter Ramsey at the UK premiere of Rise of the Guardians.

Madea's Big Scholarly Roundtable to Examine the Media of Tyler Perry at Northwestern University

Madea's Big Scholarly Roundtable to Examine the Media of Tyler Perry at Northwestern University
Northwestern University’s Block Cinema and department of radio/TV/film organize panel discussion
A Nov. 28 daylong symposium of film screenings and discussion will explore African-American media mogul Tyler Perry’s work.
EVANSTON, Ill. --- A daylong symposium of film screenings and discussion about the work of actor, director, screenwriter, playwright and producer Tyler Perry -- who is known for creating and performing in drag the cantankerous character of Mabel “Madea” Simmons in his feature films -- will be held on Northwestern University’s Evanston campus in late November. 
While the African-American media mogul’s 2012 film “Alex Cross,” about a homicide detective “who is pushed to the brink of moral and physical limits” may have disappointed at the box office, Perry remains a powerful force in Hollywood. Each of the 13 films Perry has produced since 2002 have enjoyed opening weekends with top earnings. The writer-producer-director-actor also continues to produce the wildly popular gospel stage plays that constitute his show business origins, while at the same time overseeing two commercial cable sitcoms.
The Tyler Perry symposium will be hosted by Northwestern’s Block Cinema and the School of Communication’s department of radio/TV/film.
“Madea’s Big Scholarly Roundtable: Perspectives on the Media of Tyler Perry,” Wednesday, Nov. 28, includes a panel discussion as well as film screenings with moderated conversations. All events take place on the University’s Evanston campus and are free and open to the public.
• “Madea’s Family Reunion” will be screened at 9:30 a.m. and “The Family That Preys” at 1 p.m., at Annie May Swift Auditorium, 1920 Campus Drive.
• The panel discussion on Perry’s work begins at 5 p.m. at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Drive
“This program marks a turn toward serious academic consideration of Perry’s media that has been a long time in coming, but is nonetheless right on time,” said Miriam Petty, assistant professor of radio/TV/film and African American studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the organizer of the symposium and moderator of the panel.
“For someone like me, who is interested in Hollywood film as well as African-American popular culture, the complexities and contradictions inherent in what Perry does and how he does it make his work compelling to discuss, study and think and write about,” said Petty.
Featured panelists will consider Perry’s extensive body of work from a variety of perspectives, exploring such topics as his theatrical roots, the influence of the African- American church on his work, the highbrow/lowbrow tensions his works stir up, and the ways that class, region, gender and sexuality are reflected in his screen and stage productions and in discussions of Perry himself.
***
Moderator: Miriam Petty (Assistant Professor, Departments of Radio/TV/Film and of African American Studies, Northwestern University)
Participants:
Mark Anthony Neal (Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African & African-American Studies, Duke University)
Racquel Gates (Assistant Professor, Department of Media Culture, CUNY College of Staten Island)
Daniel O. Black (Novelist; Professor of English, Clark-Atlanta University)
Brittney Cooper (Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies & Africana Studies, Rutgers University)
E. Patrick Johnson (Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies, Northwestern University)
Madea’s Big Scholarly Roundtable is co-sponsored by Northwestern University’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, Block Cinema, the black arts initiative, departments of radio/television/film, African American studies and performance studies, School of Communication, Center for Screen Cultures, Screen Cultures Program and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Free parking is available during the panel discussion portion of the symposium. For more information, call (847) 491-4000 or visit blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.

James Braxton Peterson on Duke University's "Institutional Blackface"

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Times;">Institutional Blackface</span></i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">by James Braxton Peterson | <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-p... BlackVoices</b></a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">For those that do not know, I am a proud graduate of Duke University (Class of '93). As a black alumnus of one of the greatest universities in the world with a troublesome history with race and racism, I am often treated to the highs and lows of the Duke experience. Last week was no different as members of the Duke University Black Alumni Committee reached out to me to begin the process of organizing an event featuring myself, the NBA's Grant Hill, the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson and others to commemorate the 50-year celebration of the presence of black students at Duke – yes, it's only been 50 years. Duke beat Kentucky – i.e. Duke men's basketball beat the University of Kentucky – and this is always good. But in addition to these great moments – moments that make me proud to be a Duke grad, we were once again treated to the insensitive (and now common) practice of white undergraduates who "dress up" as black characters and blacken up their faces in order to do so. Sigh.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">Halloween is a holiday that I generally dread anyway since wearing a (figurative) mask for me and for many of my ancestors was a necessary strategy deployed regularly and specifically for the sake of subverting white supremacy. But because I am a professor, former grad student, etc., the Halloween holiday also means that I have been perennially treated to seriously demeaning tricks. White students put on blackface at Halloween, take pictures and generally circulate and celebrate their "costumes." I think of this as the "southern strategy" of the Halloween holiday. Young white folks, usually male, are able to express their racial and racist angst (conscious and subconscious) in a space and at a time that for the most part sanctions backwards, demeaning behavior. This has happened at <i>every</i>institution of higher learning at which I have ever worked or learned. It is strategic because the blackfacers almost never face the facts of our dark American history and almost always claim ignorance in the aftermath of outrage and the pain communicated (perennially) by the black university communities that must bare witness to these regular insults.</span></span></div><a name='more'></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">For the few of you out there who do not know the history of blackface minstrelsy please allow me to provide you with an ever-so-brief primer. In the 19th century, white performers blackened their faces and aped the most stereotypical, dehumanizing, and demeaning "characteristics" of black people. This practice became one of America's first popular forms of entertainment. Its pervasiveness contributed to the American narratives of race that considered black people to be less than human, "other" and utterly unworthy of citizenship, much less equality. Eventually black entertainers blackened their own faces and exploited America's appetite for the destruction of black humanity. This not-too-distant history is a painful reminder – I guess only to black people – of the awful history of racism in America. That it can be so cavalierly and regularly referenced with no sense of this history or with feigned ignorance of said history is even more troubling than the wearing of blackface in the first place.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">But this incident stings a bit more, not just because it's my alma mater, but because of the fact that a head coach of a Division I sports team was not aware that a student athlete engaging in this kind of act might not be a good look for the team, the program, or the university; that a web administrator <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11... style="color: blue;">could/would post this on the Duke Athletics Department website</span></a> without any thought or consideration of how it might offend Duke alum, current Duke students and faculty is also absolutely striking. I despise these kinds of analogies, but imagine the Duke Athletic Department posting a picture of a student athlete dressed as a Nazi soldier. Yes, the cavalier wearing of blackface offends me that much. It harkens back to a history in this country where everything from entertainment to labor, from religion, to education, everything, was systemically designed to destroy the humanity of people who look just like me – people from whom I am descended.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">I could rail on, but instead I would like to make an announcement. I am hereby formally offering my services as an advisor, professor, and/or consultant [PRO BONO] to any institution with which I have ever been affiliated for me to come in during any first-year orientation, diversity "training" or other opportunity, to address this issue specifically and to place in its full context the wearing of blackface on college campuses. For some time now, I have been less and less offended by the students who actually do this, and more and more amazed that some of our greatest educational institutions are incapable of appreciating how painful and embarrassing this pervasive practice has become.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times;">***</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0.1pt 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Times;">James Braxton Peterson</span></b><span style="font-family: Times;"> is the Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University. He is also the founder of Hip Hop Scholars, LLC, an association of Hip Hop generational scholars dedicated to researching and developing the cultural and educational potential of Hip Hop, urban, and youth cultures. Peterson has appeared on Fox News, CBS, MSNBC, ABC News, ESPN, and various local television networks as an expert on race, politics, and popular culture.</span><b><span style="font-family: Times;">Follow James Peterson on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/DrJamesPeterso... style="color: blue;">www.twitter.com/DrJamesPeterson </span></a></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com...' alt='' /></div>

Vijay Prashad: "Election 2012 and the Un-Peoples"

Maurice Morales:  At a Boston benefit to support encuentro 5, Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad (here), and Sam Christiansen discussed the ramifications of the 2012 elections and "where do we go from here." Prashad is author of "Arab Spring, Libyan Winter," "A People's History of the Third World," and many other books on contemporary history.

Denzel Soars; 'Flight' Hits Turbulence

Denzel Soars; Flight Hits Turbulence by Typically, I avoid movies about plane crashes. I could easily slide into having a phobia about flying but like to travel to places that a car can’t take me. I had an inkling that Flight would be worth my relaxing the no plane crash film, and well, Denzel Washington is in it. Flight presents Washington’s arguably finest performance in some time. It is a fitting tour de force that suggests the actor’s studied integration of all that’s he’s accumulated over the years in a film career that has made him the superstar ‘Denzel Washington’ and, thankfully, an actor who can really draw us into the character he inhibits, sometimes making the iconic superstar looming so large in our consciousness at least temporarily recede.
Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a veteran commercial pilot who makes a stunning, successful emergency landing. He becomes an instant hero and just as quickly an anti-hero of the most complicated kind. It turns out he’s an egomaniacal drunk and cocaine user who doesn’t let flying get in the way of his daily indulgence in the excesses of alcohol and drugs.  Flight is directed by Robert Zemeckis and co-stars Don Cheadle and John Goodman who make their moments on screen count the way we have come to expect talented character actors to do.
Flight is a movie you ponder after leaving the theatre. It offers some breathtaking shooting and editing; the crash sequence registers as scarily real and will make other nervous flyers more so after seeing the movie. Even veterans of the sky may tense up a bit should they ever hit turbulence again. Though it is visually arresting, the more stunning spectacle is Whip’s determined self-destruction.  The panoramic view of an airplane in flight at night as Whips gazes wistfully at it, an achingly long still shot of one little vodka bottle, and Washington’s engrossing, authentic portrait of a man disintegrating into alcoholic decay are the memorable ingredients of the film.
This is why it’s so disappointing that Flight undermines its depth not to mention moments of fine writing and direction by lapsing into some tired staples of popular film – not the least of which is the ridiculously obvious heterosexist framing of the major female characters.
The opening scene, which introduces a hung over Whip, makes the point. Whip awakes to a phone call from you guessed it – a nagging ex-wife and mother of his fifteen year old son whom he complains only calls when she needs money. While a hung over Whip winds his way through the call, his naked bed mate, flight attendant Katerina Marquez (The flight attendant does come to play a crucial role in Whip’s fate [no spoiler here]. It is unnecessary not to mention annoyingly formulaic that the camera situates her as a pretty, young, naked object with big breasts like a cheap 1970s B-grade action flick. The movie falls prey to more all too unnecessary pitfalls of contemporary Hollywoodish cinema with the insertion of the younger, hard-on-her-luck good hearted white girl junkie (Kelly Reilly) who doubles as damsel in distress and symbol of Whip’s possible redemption. Nicole and Whip’s unlikely meeting in the stairway of a hospital with an of course quirky terminally ill cancer patient becomes the prelude to something it should’ve resisted – a romance. The big moment – the massage, the look, the kiss, is almost laughable. It’s that predictable and tries too painfully hard to be the beginning of something greater than it should be.
The real story – Whip’s gleeful immersion in his addictions and arrogant denial of its consequences doesn’t need such an implausible, dry love story. A friendship might’ve worked if it didn’t insist that since she is a woman and he is a man they must have sex and really fall for each other. This is what happens when a film interrupts a great story and the performance of compelling character complexity to throw in some clichéd staples as if it’s afraid we won’t stay tuned in if there’s absolutely no female nudity or sex or the promise of a great romance with a redeemed working class kind of gal.
Flight develops like the literal and figurative ride it depicts. It has arresting highs and some unnecessary lows. It overstays its welcome a tad by not knowing where to end and in a strange,  jarringly overt nod  to one of Washington’s most iconic roles, Whip actually echoes Malcolm X  in one of the last scenes [the line, place, and circumstances? No spoiler here]. You’ll have to take the bumpy yet memorable ride that Flight offers.
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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.com, and Best African American Essays, among others. Her most recent work includes articles about contemporary black film representation and Tyler Perry films.

Home of The Supremes & First Black Public Housing Complex to be Demolished in Detroit

Home of The Supremes & First Black Public Housing Complex to be Demolished in Detroit Huffpost Detroit | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
The vacant Brewster-Douglass housing projects are set to be demolished, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced Thursday, and soon a fraught piece of history will disappear from the city's skyline.
The 18.5-acre development on the city's near east side bordering Eastern Market, now known as the Frederick Douglass Homes, is expected to happen next year. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Capital Fund Emergency Grant Program awarded $6.5 million to the Detroit Housing Commission to pay for the demolition.
"The former Brewster-Douglass complex has a proud place in Detroit’s rich history, as the nation’s first federal housing project for African Americans; as the place where Joe Louis learned to box; and where Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard formed the Supremes,” Bing said in a statement.
“However, as a vacant site it became a major eyesore and a danger to the community," he said. "We welcome the chance to make it a productive residential and commercial area once again."
The first public housing for African-Americans when the original Brewster Homes opened in 1935, the projects were recently the subject of a short documentary by Detroit filmmaker Oren Goldenberg. The film shined a light on those who still live there as squatters, as well as showing the congregation of the Greater Shiloh Baptist Church, a historic black church at the site that has twice avoided demolition.
“I think people want to see them torn down, because they’re blight at this point," Goldenberg told The Huffington Post earlier this year. “Things being torn down in Detroit seems like progress, but it all depends on what’s built to replace them."
According to the Detroit Free Press, Bing said developers from throughout the country are already proposing ideas for the large space. The city stated demolishing the site will aid in plans to connect the Dequindre Cut pathway to downtown and Midtown.
Shuttered for good in 2008, the complex contains four 12-story high rise apartment buildings, two six-story mid-rise apartments and 75 town homes.

Democracy Now: Palestinian Civilians Bear the Brunt of Unrelenting Bombings in U.S. Backed Attack on Gaza

Democracy Now

President Obama has announced his full support for Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip even as dozens of Palestinians, including many civilians, continue to be killed by U.S.-supplied weaponry. At least 95 Palestinians have been killed in air strikes by warplanes and drones. More than 700 have been wounded, including 200 children. On Sunday, a massive airstrike leveled a home in Gaza City killing 12 people including 10 members of the same family. Over the past week, rockets fired from Gaza have killed three Israelis. We go to Gaza to speak with Raji Sourani, an award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.[image error]

Al Jazeera English: Death Toll in Gaza Hits 100; Israel Targets Media Building

Al Jazeera English  For the second time, Israeli air strike has hit the media building that houses both local and foreign journalists in Gaza. Israel, however, denied it is targeting the media. Meanwhile, the number of dead has continued to rise across the Gaza Strip.   Al Jazeera's James Bay reports.[image error]

Left of Black S3:E10 | Who is Black in Multiracial America?

Left of Black S3:E10 | Who is Black in Multiracial America?
November 19, 2012
American racial history was long framed by the notion of the “one drop” rule, which within a political economy of race and difference, was a blatant attempt to embolden Whiteness and the privilege that derived from it.  Scholar Yaba Blay offers a different view of the “one drop” rule with her multi-media project (1)ne Drop which “seeks to challenge narrow, yet popular perceptions of what Blackness is and what Blackness looks like.”
Blay, a Visiting Professor of AfricanaStudies at Drexel University and contributing producer to CNN’s Black in America 5, which was inspired by the (1)ne Drop project, joins Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on the November 19th episode of Left of Black to talk about the complexities of Black identity.  Neal is also joined by University of Washington Professor Habiba Ibrahim for part two of an interview about her new book Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism (University of Minnesota Press).
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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.
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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U [image error]