Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 983

Toni Blackman: A Dove Real Woman Role Model

[image error]

Cultivating Connections & Changing Conversations About Men and Boys of Color

Cultivating Connections & Changing Conversations About Men and Boys of Color by Maisha Simmons and Jane Isaacs Lowe | Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
As promised, here’s an update on the Gathering of Leaders held in Philadelphia earlier this month. A more thorough report on outcomes from the Gathering will be available soon, and we’ll share it here on the Forward Promise Forum. In the meantime, we wanted to share our initial reaction to this event, which was truly a milestone for us.
We were thrilled with the remarkable turnout of more than 100 leaders working to address the unique set of challenges facing young men of color in America. Most of the participants represented philanthropies, but other attendees were practitioners, government policymakers, and members of the media (with representation from education, youth development, health, family, and workforce development/employment sectors).
Our goal was to start a conversation so that we are able to answer these fundamental questions:
How can we better support one another in our work?How should we coordinate to make the biggest impact in the lives of young men of color?How do we take this work to scale and make it sustainable?
And while the gathering was hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this type of work obviously requires all hands on deck. The Foundation wants to work with others in philanthropy and the young men of color field to build a movement that addresses disparities boys and young men of color face, creating changes that improve their health, social, educational, and employment opportunities and outcomes.
As we researched the field in preparation to launch Forward Promise, we noticed 1) a growing momentum in the field around taking action, rather than stand on sidelines watching, and 2) a desire to move past meetings that focus on identifying problems for young men of color. It’s clear that the problems have been named, and the challenge is how to coalesce around solutions. This thinking contributed greatly to our desire to gather key players in a room together.
At the Gathering, participants were able to make connections with people they’ve never met, or with whom they have never worked. Strategy sessions enabled participants to dig deeper and talk about supporting one another in a meaningful way. Practically speaking, the event highlighted how we as a field are connecting dots so we can support and collaborate with one another. For example, if programs in Oakland and New Orleans are doing similar work, how do we make sure they're connected to share best practices and learn from each other’s mistakes?
Notably, the makeup of the participants represented mostly African American communities, which was also the case with last year’s Forward Promise Call for Ideas. This might be due to relying too heavily on relationships we’ve had in place for some time and a need for broader outreach. Another reason we might not be seeing/hearing from more folks working with Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, and Native American populations could be because these groups haven’t yet thought about the larger issue of how the health of the populations they serve affects communities. It’s a question we need to explore further. Either way, it's a knowledge and action gap. Ultimately, we’ll continue to look for ways to accommodate these differences to round out the work of Forward Promise, specifically the diversity of the grantee pool for our upcoming call for proposals.
Overall, conversations during the two-day event largely affirmed the research of our policy work group, which has been assessing policies related to the health of young men of color. We’ll be releasing policy briefs - in partnership with the Center for Law and Social Policy - later this summer, which will share the insights from our policy team.
We are thankful to have had the opportunity to meet new people and learn new ideas alongside others investing in programs that tap the talent, smarts, and potential that all young men should be bringing to our communities and to our nation. The issue is of critical importance to all of us in society, not just communities of color. We’re ready to assume a seat at the table with others who have been in field for long time, and with others like us who are now explicitly focused on this population. 
***
Maisha E. Simmons is Program Officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the Vulnerable Populations Team; Jane Isaacs Lowe is director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Vulnerable Populations portfolio.

Remixing the Art of Social Change @ Howard University | Saturday, July 7th

Remixing the Art of Social Change
Howard University Armour J. Blackburn University Center
Saturday July 7, 201210am - 6pm
Map and Directions | Register| Agenda
 “The Remixing the Art of Social Change: Expanding the Cipher” is an international teach-in (conference) bringing together organizations, artists, and scholars that utilize hip-hop culture to promote social change and advance how hip-hop is used as a tool to promote that change. The teach-in has previously convened in Chicago and San Francisco and this will be the fifth time in Washington D.C.
This years Teach-In will feature a number of well known and important figures including rapper/producer David Banner.  BET’s Jeff Johnson, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal: co-editor of the Hip-hop Studies Reader, and Joan Morgan: author of When Chicken Heads Come to Roost will also be presenting. Detroit’s hometown shero, recording artist and activist Invincible will also be speaking. The teach-in will also feature hip-hop pioneers Kool DJ Red Alert and D.C.’s own DJ Kool, along with hip-hop dance pioneer Popmaster Fabel. We will also feature new author Samuel Sidel, author of Hip-Hop Genius and one of the State Department's first Hip-Hop Ambassadors, Ms. Toni Blackman This event is made possible in part thanks to well known hip-hop Scholar, journalists, and activist Bikari Kitwana.  We are also proud to be hosting the D.C. premier of “Graffiti Fine Art” by new filmmaker Jared Levy.
WBL will organize a variety of roundtables, panel discussions, film screenings, and workshops that build upon the efforts of the previous five teach-ins.  Topics covered this year will include: The Company You Keep, “I Was There”, Context Matters, and Media Makes a Difference. To view a copy of the entire agenda, or to learn more about the event, please visit http://www.wblinc.org/teachin
This year’s Washington, D.C. teach-in will act as a kick-off event for the start of the 11th Annual Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, a widely recognized cornerstone of the Washington D.C. hip-hop performing arts & cultural community. Words Beats & Life’s International Teach-In will be host to some 300+ people, representing 50+ organizations from across the country and world.
SPONSORS: Words Beats & Life, DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Rap Sessions and Southwest Airlines.
Full Schedule: Click to view/download

Ill Doctrine: Why Is Every Hip-Hop Debate So Annoying?

Ill Doctrine: Why Is Every Hip-Hop Debate So Annoying? from ANIMALNewYork.com on Vimeo.



Why debates about hip-hop culture are a bad influence on society.

Guilty: Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline to Pay Largest Healthcare Fraud Settlement in US History

AlJazeeraEnglish  The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline will pay $3 billion in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history. The company covered up the drug risks and encouraged doctors to prescribe its products for uses they did not have approval for. From Washington, Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reports.

Media Scholar Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture and Civic Engagement

Media Scholar Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture and Civic Engagement from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.


DML Research Hub  Henry Jenkins is the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He arrived at USC in Fall 2009 after spending the past decade as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of 12 books on various aspects of media and popular culture.
A couple key questions Jenkins asks in his research are: "How do we go from participating in our culture to participating in our political and civic structures? [...] What does it mean to be as passionate about the future of society as you are about anime, about games, about the sort of forms of popular culture that young people are involved with?" (2:42) (3:19)
Henry was one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, and has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of: social networking websites, networked computer games, online fan communities, advocacy organizations, and emerging news media outlets.
Henry Jenkins blogs at henryjenkins.org and is a prominent member of the MacArthur Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP). To learn more about the YPP network, go to ypp.dmlcentral.net.

Trailer: 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' (dir. Benh Zeitlin)

(dir.
Beasts of the Southern Wild :
Benh Zeitlin's BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD whisks you to a surreal realm, where little girls and mythical animals coexist in a bayou called The Bathtub, all intertwined in the cosmic mesh of the universe. Hushpuppy (stunning newcomer Quvenzhane Wallis) relentlessly explores her world for answers, to satisfy her curiosity, and to make her budding mark on a world she's only beginning to comprehend.

New Book! Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S.

Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S. by H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman
Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson
Oxford University Press, September 2012

Description:
Barack Obama is widely considered one of the most powerful and charismatic speakers of our age. Without missing a beat, he often moves between Washington insider talk and culturally Black ways of speaking--as shown in a famous YouTube clip, where Obama declined the change offered to him by a Black cashier in a Washington, D.C. restaurant with the phrase, "Nah, we straight."
In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use--and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society. Throughout, they analyze several racially loaded, cultural-linguistic controversies involving the President--from his use of Black Language and his "articulateness" to his "Race Speech," the so-called "fist-bump," and his relationship to Hip Hop Culture.
Using their analysis of Barack Obama as a point of departure, Alim and Smitherman reveal how major debates about language, race, and educational inequality erupt into moments of racial crisis in America. In challenging American ideas about language, race, education, and power, they help take the national dialogue on race to the next level. In much the same way that Cornel West revealed nearly two decades ago that "race matters," Alim and Smitherman in this groundbreaking book show how deeply "language matters" to the national conversation on race--and in our daily lives.
Table of Contents:
1 "Nah, We Straight": Black Language and America's First Black President
2 A.W.B. (Articulate While Black): Language and Racial Politics in the U.S.
3 Makin A Way Outta No Way: The Race Speech and Obama's Rhetorical Remix
4 "The Fist Bump Heard 'round the World": How Black Communication Becomes Controversial
5 "My President's Black, My Lambo's Blue": Hip Hop, Race, and the Culture Wars
6 Change the Game: Language, Education, and the Cruel Fallout of Racism

Reviews:
"Articulate While Black brilliantly dissects the politics of language as embedded in the politics of race...The beautiful thing about [the book] is that it breaks down Obama's oral signifying...and helps us to navigate the complexities of Black linguistic habits and the complications of Black rhetoric writ large... Alim and Smitherman do a great deal of switching themselves, sliding from dense academic prose to streetwise vernacular, proving they are brilliant examples of the very practice they dissect...In the process, [they] leave little doubt about the cogency of their argument: that without being a past master of Black (American) rhetoric, Obama wouldn't be president of the United States."--Michael Eric Dyson, University Distinguished Professor of Sociology, and author of Debating Race
"A fabulously original work! Two of America's leading authorities on Black Language and Culture draw on their expertise and extensive scholarship to profoundly reshape the national conversation on race--by "languaging" it. In complicating compliments about President Obama's "articulateness," they brilliantly analyze his artful use of language--and America's response to it--as a springboard to consider larger, thought-provoking questions about language, education, power and what Toni Morrison has referred to as "the cruel fallout of racism." Few sociolinguists tackle these complex issues with as much insight, sophistication, and downright directness as Alim and Smitherman. As they firmly conclude, it's time to change the game - and this book does just that."--John R. Rickford, J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Linguistics and the Humanities at Stanford University, and co-author of Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English
"A sweeping ethnographic and linguistic tour de force that moves between popular culture and political culture with unprecedented academic verve. Daps to Alim and Dr. G."--T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor, Vanderbilt University, and editor of The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union"
"The game done changed, and it looks like the iconic figure of Barack Hussein Obama read through the formidable critical lens of leading sociolinguists H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman. Trafficking in the very linguistic style-shifting that the duo charge President Obama with, Articulate While Black is a groundbreaking and definitive exploration of the cultural meaning of the nation's first Black President."--Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University, author of New Black Man

About the Author(s):
H. Samy Alim is Associate Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Anthropology and Linguistics at Stanford University, where he directs the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language (CREAL) and the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA). Some of his most recent books include You Know My Steez, Roc the Mic Right, Talkin Black Talk, and Global Linguistic Flows. He has also written for various media outlets, including The New York Times, Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo), and The Philadelphia New Observer, among others.
Geneva Smitherman is University Distinguished Professor Emerita of English, Co-Founder and Core Faculty, African American and African Studies, and Core Faculty, African Studies Center, at Michigan State University. She is a pioneering scholar-activist in the struggle for language rights and for Black Studies. Her list of books includes Talkin and Testifyin, Discourse and Discrimination, Black Talk, Talkin That Talk, Language Diversity in the Classroom, and Word from the Mother.

[image error]

Jasiri X: "Dear Debra--A Letter to BET"

Still Relevant?

[image error]

The Melissa Harris Perry Show: The AIDS Epidemic and the Black Community

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Christopher MacDonald-Dennis , Dean of Multicultural Life at Macalester College, and a self-described "queer Latino Jew."; Katrina vanden Heuvel , editor and publisher of The Nation, and author of "The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in the Age of Obama."; Karen Finney , columnist at The Hill, and MSNBC political analyst. Karen was formerly the communications director at the Democratic National Committee.; Igor Volsky , deputy editor of ThinkProgress.org.[image error]