Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 993

Is the Black Church Dead? Roundtable on the Future of Black Churches

columbiauniversity:
"IS THE BLACK CHURCH DEAD? A ROUNDTABLE ON THE FUTURE OF BLACK CHURCHES"
During the first few months of 2010 a new, yet familiar, debate broke out about the role of black churches in the United States. What began as a provocative article on the Huffington Post elicited a wide range of responses from religious leaders around the country, ignited an online dialogue among academics, and sparked a plethora of essays across the blogosphere. These exchanges inspired a series of interviews on NPR, and, ultimately, the dialogue was featured in the New York Times.

Bringing together a group of distinguished voices who represent the worlds of both church and academia, this roundtable conversation will build on many of the themes that emerged in the above debate with the hopes of helping to highlight, clarify and query some of the most pressing challenges and promising developments that occupy the American religious landscape. A number of critical issues—including religious pluralism, gender exclusion, marriage equality, class divisions and the persistence of racial inequality—in contemporary society will be on the table in this discussion of the

Participants to include:

Prof. Anthea Butler, Associate Professor and Graduate Chair of Religion - University of Pennsylvania

Eddie Glaude, Jr.; Professor of Religion & African American Studies and Chair, The Center for African-American Studies - Princeton University
Prof. Fredrick Harris; Professor of Political Science & Director of African-American Studies, Columbia University;

Prof. Obery M. Hendricks, Jr.; Visiting Scholar-Religion & African American Studies, Columbia; University; Professor of Biblical Interpretation - New York Theological Seminary

Rev. Dr. Eboni K. Marshall, Assistant Minister for Christian Education, Abyssinian Baptist Church-Harlem, New York

Rev. Otis Moss, III, Senior Pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ-Chicago, Illinois

Prof. Josef Sorett, Assistant Professor of Religion & African-American Studies - Columbia University

West Indians in UK Seek Jubilee Apology

AlJazeeraEnglish  Britain has begun four days of festivities for Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee, with massive celebrations marking the exact anniversary of the queen's coronation.

But not everyone in the country is celebrating the event.

West Indians who moved to the country when Elizabeth started her reign 60 years ago say she should apologise for British colonialism and slavery that had once caused much suffering in their native countries.

The immigrants say they continue to face much racism in the UK.

Laurence Lee reports from London.

Facebook and Your Privacy: What Every Consumer Should Know in the Age of Social Networking

Highlights of Alfredo Lopez from May First/People Link during a round table discussion about social networks and online privacy at NYU on May 3rd, 2012.

Marc Morial, Jamal Bryant & Michael Eric Dyson Discuss LGBT Issues in the Black Community

Marc Morial, Jamal Bryant and Michael Eric Dyson on Our World with Black Enterprise hosted by Marc Lamont Hill.

Tavis Smiley & Cornel West Talk Voter ID Laws & Poverty

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West talk to CNN's Carol Costello about their book, voting rights, and the role of poverty in the presidential elections.

Foundation Work Helps to Reverse Social Plights, Perception of Black Men and Boys

Foundation Work Helps to Reverse Social Plights, Perception of Black Men and Boys by Kimberly N. Alleyne | America’s Wire
WASHINGTON—Concerned about the plight of African-American men and boys, several philanthropic organizations have launched initiatives to improve opportunities for them to succeed. Some programs address the structural bias that leaves these men more likely to be incarcerated, jobless and disproportionately affected by other social disadvantages.
One of every 15 African-American men is in a U.S. prison or jail compared with one of every 36 Hispanic men and one of every 106 white men. Moreover, scores of African-American men are affected by chronic unemployment, lack of education, poverty and poor health outcomes.
Organizations such as Open Society Foundations, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Mitchell Kapor Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and local and regional foundations are working to assist African-American males.
Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Campaign for Black Male Achievement sponsored by Open Society Foundations, recalls that media stories about the plight of black men in 2006 spurred discussion on how the foundation could engage.
“I thought, ‘How can we, a foundation that supports open society values, and believes in a democratic society, as a foundation, not be at the forefront of these issues?’ ”he says.“When we launched, there was not an equivalent on a national level.”
The program began in June 2008 and was to be a three-year campaign. But 18 months in, Dove says, George Soros, chairman of Open Society Foundations, and its board were impressed by the work, expanded the budget and agreed to make it ongoing. Since 2008, it has spent $29.6 million funding 94 organizations working on educational equity, strengthening family structures and increasing work opportunities. Grantees are in Chicago, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Philadelphia,New Orleans and Jackson, Miss.
“We are responding to long-term systemic and structural barriers facing the African-American community, specifically black men and boys,” Dove says. “An adequate response is not a three-year or five-year commitment. An adequate response is generational commitment so that direct services and policy advocacy are bridged.”
Dove maintains that to adequately address challenges faced by African-American men,“we need an endowed social corporation that can focus on these issues for the long haul.”
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s work in this regard dates to the early 1990s when it launched a Men and Boys of Color initiative that included grants and creation of opportunities for black males. For more than 20 years, Kellogg has been in the forefront in supporting initiatives such as Community Voices, which started the nation’s first health clinic for men in Baltimore, addressed flaws in local juvenile justice systems and assisted ex-convicts in re-entering communities in numerous cities.
“Both explicit and unconscious bias affects young men and boys of color in particular, denying them equal opportunities to succeed in their communities,says Dr. Gail C. Christopher, Kellogg’s vice president for program strategy. “At the Kellogg Foundation, a critical objective for our racial healing and racial equity strategy seeks to remove structural and implicit barriers that limit their success. Achieving and sustaining racial equity requires strong systems of accountability, and as importantly, success requires uprooting a belief system of racial hierarchy.”
Last September, Kellogg sponsored “Too Important to Fail,”Tavis Smiley’s PBS report on health and education disparities among African-American boys. The foundation also funded a University of North Carolina project, the Promoting Academic Success initiative, which worked with families, schools and communities to improve academic achievement of African-American and Latino children in Lansing, Mich., and Polk County, Fla.
Under its America Healing Initiative, the foundation funds many organizations, such as the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, that engage in efforts to address the challenges faced by black males. One grantee, the Opportunity Agenda, recently released a report on perceptions of black males in the media. The report seeks to educate media makers, educators and others on how negative images of black communities perpetuate negative stereotypes.
A significant part of the challenge is improving educational opportunities for African-American men.With its College Bound Brotherhood program established five years ago, the Mitchell Kapor Foundation helps black youths and men achieve success by equipping them to pursue a college education. Based in San Francisco, the program provides grants to community-based organizations offering college preparedness programs in the Bay Area.
Justin Davis, the foundation’s program coordinator, says it has awarded more than $1 million to organizations.“We also offer an online database, which is a free directory that lists college readiness programs in the San Francisco Bay area community,” he said. “It helps students, parents and teachers.”
The program hosts an annual graduation celebration at which college-bound high school graduates are lauded for their achievements.“This year, we are celebrating 150 young black men who are enrolling in college this fall,” Davis says. “This is the only event like it in the Bay Area. Last year, it was standing room only. One of the most powerful images was seeing a stage full of young black men who are going to college. It’s a great thing to see.”The programs are making an impact.
Jordan Johnson, 17, is heading to Morehouse College next fall largely because of his participation in the Young Scholars Program, one 15 organizations that the Kapor Foundation supports through grants from College Bound Brotherhood. Johnson says the program changed his perspective about college.The Young Scholars Program offers college preparatory and leadership development, plus tutoring, mentoring, cultural enrichment and scholarship assistance. Over the past 10 years, its students have attended colleges and universities such as Texas Southern, Fisk, Cornell and Yale.
“I got involved in the Young Scholars Program my junior year,” Johnson says. “Before I got involved, I thought I was going to a junior college or a two-year college. I didn’t have the professional, social or academic skills to go to a four-year college.”
But the program changed his aspirations. He plans to study business management.“I didn’t think I was going to Morehouse because my GPA is 2.67,” he says, “but the Young Scholars Program gave me hope. I have been accepted to 17 colleges. I have not received any rejections.”
Another organization, Foundation for the Mid South, works to address poverty in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, a region whose 30 percent poverty rate is the nation’s highest. Based in Jackson, Miss., the organization focuses on education, health and wellness, wealth building and community development. The Kellogg Foundation is among funders of its work.
Matthew Caston, a communications fellow at Foundation for the Mid South, asserts that to be successful, more African-American men require better education. For instance, the foundation’s data show that two of three boys of color cannot read at grade level by third grade and that 19.1 percent of black males are unemployed, compared with 8 percent of white males.
“We have found that education is the biggest determinant of success in the areas of incarceration, health and earning. People who are more educated are healthier and have better jobs,” Caston says, adding that reading scores are the biggest determinant for high school graduation and employment. “Males of color in our region are at the bottom in reading scores.”
The foundation is working to improve education and economic outcomes for youths of color by assisting parents and civic, community and government leaders in improving the educational system and launching a public awareness campaign about its shortfalls.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Black Male Engagement (BME) Challenge takes a different approach.
Pronounced “be me,”BME piloted programs in Detroit and Philadelphia last year,and its primary mission is to highlight actively engaged black men in those cities. BME is also funded in part by the Open Society Foundation’s Campaign for Black Male Achievement.
“There are many initiatives that show that black men are disengaged, absent or a threat to their communities, but our working assumption is there is nothing to fix about black males,” says Trabian Shorters, vice president/communities program at the Knight Foundation and BME’s spearhead. “BME is not about fixing black males. Black men are assets to their communities, and we are working to respond to the many of them who are engaged and how to get more black males engaged.”
Under the program, African-American men in Detroit and Philadelphia were asked to submit video testimony showing how they strengthen their communities. The 2,083 videos received told many stories about personal journeys that included men helping veterans returning to their community and introducing children to dance instead of street life .The storytellers were invited to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to further their community work.
“So many regular guys go unsung,” Shorters says. “They don’t do this work for a pat on the back, but it is nice to affirm what they do.”BME has awarded $443,000 in grants “to 443 regular, everyday guys,” he adds.
Shorters says everyone knows “good guys” who are not part of the dreadful statistics. “I hope that BME creates a network of these kinds of guys, regular guys,” he says. “We want to make it so that if your cousin Joe is a good guy, doing something great for his community, that he can plug into the network and meet other guys like him and find resources to support his work.”
Though many foundations focus their attention on systemic and structural barriers affecting African-American males, the whole “village” carries the burden of success.
“This is our unfinished business,” Dove says. “This is not black America’s unfinished business. It is America’s unfinished business.”
*** America’s Wire is an independent, nonprofit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education and funded by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Our stories can be republished free of charge by newspapers, websites and other media sources. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at mike@frisbyassociates.com.

"hip-hop didn't invent anything...hip-hop re-invented everything" |Trailer for 'Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap'

Jay Smooth: Leave Michelle Obama Alone With Your Random-Ass Opinions

ANIMALNewYork.com:  Debunking the latest fake controversy about the First Lady, and her friendship with bootylicious R&B singers.

Imani Uzuri Shares Stories and Musical Journeys on her New album "The Gypsy Diaries"

from Imani Uzuri:
Singing the Travels: Imani Uzuri Finds the Bold Heart and Global Soul of Home on The Gypsy DiariesThe mysterious figure on the moonlit railway platform, the passerby on the dusty road are not strangers; they are friends and fellow travelers. 
And to stunning vocalist and thoughtful, globally-inspired composer Imani Uzuri, they spark melodies and musical connections. With the beautiful growl of a blueswoman and the sweetness of a nightingale, Uzuri finds the deep ties that bind her rural Carolina roots to Eastern Europe and North Africa, that bind the purr of sitar strings and the ripple of Japanese folk flute to African-American traditions and the international arts underground.
Born of worldly travels and spiritual travails, Uzuri’s rich acoustic songs on The Gypsy Diaries (release: June 5, 2012) find fresh settings for unifying human experiences: the loss of loved ones, the joy of discovering, the alienation and shifts of moving, meeting, and departing. Riveting live, Uzuri will celebrate her new album on June 1 at Joe’s Pub in New York. 
The introspective, gentler companion to Uzuri’s high-voltage debut, Her Holy Water, on The Gypsy Diaries, Uzuri paints images of travel—the chance meeting, the surprise connection—and reflects in global tones on the nature of distance, love, and our shared, transcendent moments.

MC of the Voiceless? Immortal Technique on Al Jazeera

AlJazeeraEnglish:
 
Underground rapper Immortal Technique joins us on the couch to discuss hip hop activism.