#also the vision is black. as in a man of african descent. no relation to the post i just need to say this every chance i get | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ramennoodles2121 · 3 years

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Multimedia Journal Entry #2

Hello all! For the second multimedia journal entry the movie I selected was Marvel’s Black Panther. Black Panther was an action-adventure Sci-Fi film directed by Ryan Coogler which came out into theaters on February 16th, 2018. This film was mainly prominent in media for it being almost entirely directed and casted by people of African descent. According to NRP, on its opening weekend, the film produced roughly $192 million in domestic gross, ranking it fifth all-time for Disney produced movies, and 1st all-time for movie debuts in the month of February.

For a brief summary, the main character T’Challa; played by Chadwick Boseman, fights to claim the throne after his father was assassinated and looks to change the ways of their people and expand their culture. T’Challa comes from a super technologically advanced society Wakanda, which is a hidden town in Africa to remain in secrecy from the outside world. The main antagonist Erek Stevens who goes by his codename Killmonger; played by Michael B. Jordan, also looks to take the throne, but to use it to take over the world to show the true power of Wakanda ad people of African descent. Stevens looks to do this to get revenge for the hundreds of years of racial inequality, slavery, and injustice his people have suffered. Even though he is the villain, the thing Stevens is fighting for is very relatable to the actual history of people of African descent, which makes the viewer relate to him and second guess if he should really be treated like a bad guy. T’Challa; however, does end up winning over the throne by unifying all of his people and beating Killmonger. T’Challa’s vision for Wakanda is similar in was that Stevens envisioned, however, he would not take over the world by force, but rather have his nation come out of hiding in order to expand the wealth and knowledge of their people to the entire world.

This movie highlights many of these narratives that existed in the past and even in today’s society over racial tension. Its very rare to see a superhero movie explore these topics since the main narrative of superhero movies is the action. A big reason of why Wakanda was hidden for so long was because they felt like at the time the world could not handle the fact that they would be the worlds leader in technology. This movie does a great job in representing these issues in its plot, raising awareness to these things that they need to change. This movie created a movement not only in the Marvel cinematic universe, but mainly with the viewers watching the film, as it shows that a hero can be a black man, or anyone of any race. The film also does a good job in showing feminism and female power, as the majority of Wakanda’s royal guard elites are women. There are many female superheroes within the marvel universe, but this is definitely a good touch for the movie.

Looking back the movie, Black Panther still remains very vocal in today’s culture and media. One popular thing that came out of the movie was the Wakanda Forever salute, which many people embrace and can be commonly seen as a celebration move amongst many athletes of African descent. This cultural movement continues to grow as even more media is being produced not only by Marvel, but many different cinema and theatrical producers. This helps give inclusion and representation to all different races and ethnicities, showing the true side of humanity. Black Panther was so successful, it will be receiving a sequal movie within the next few years. Unfortunately, they will have to do it without Chadwick Boseman, and he sadly passed away at the age of 43 due to colon cancer on August 28th, 2020. The movie does not plan to replace Black Panther in honor of Boseman’s legacy of the character and himself as an actor.

Sources:

Held, Amy. “'Black Panther' Breaks Records and Barriers In Debut Weekend.” NPR, 18 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/18/586935542/black-panther-breaks-records-and-barriers-in-debut-weekend.

KolKin, Josh. “‘Black Panther’ Breaking Barriers.” RampageWired, 25 May 2020, www.rampagewired.com/2018/05/09/black-panther-breaking-barriers/.

Reilly, Nick. “'Black Panther 2' Will Not Feature CGI Footage of Chadwick Boseman.” NME, 11 Jan. 2021, www.nme.com/news/film/black-panther-2-will-not-feature-cgi-footage-of-chadwick-boseman-2853588.

Rankin, Seija. “See the 'Black Panther' Cast's Road to the Oscars, in Pictures.” EW.com, 23 Jan. 2019, ew.com/oscars/black-panther-road-to-oscars/.

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la-liga-zine · 6 years

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Amara, Cardi and Black Dominicanidad in the United States

In January of 2018, both Amara la Negra and Cardi B.’s names have been buzzing on social media for different reasons. The experiences of these two women, who identify racially as Black and ethnically as Dominican, serve to illustrate the subtle, nuanced complexities of race in the 21st century and in a transnational context.

Amara was featured in a recent clip from Love and Hip Hop Miami where she is seen debating a music producer about her experience and identity as a person who’s of the African diaspora.[1] The internet supported Amara for claiming her blackness proudly in front of an overtly sexist white Latino man. Overnight, social media was ablaze with Amara fever, and it became clear that people had a lot to say about her appearance. She was accused of wearing blackface, accusations that centered around her hair and her skin tone.

Cardi B. released a 90s hip hop inspired video with Bruno Mars, an artist at the center of concerns about the appropriation of African American culture. In a recent article on the issue, a writer cited her as garnering the kind of success that lighter skinned Black women are afforded to the detriment of darker skinned black women.

On the one hand, Amara has been questioned for appearing “too dark” and wearing “fake” hair. On the other, Cardi B. has been challenged for being too light vis-à-vis her African American peers in the music industry.

Accusations of this sort against Amara have floated around as rumors for years. And It is important to question the structure of privilege that will place both Cardi B. and Bruno Mars into positions of prominence, garnering success in relation to their darker skinned African American and Afro-Latinx peers. However, while the answer to addressing colorism is clear to me (consistently dedicate resources to the dark skinned, working class women who are systematically denied access), the path that I want to travel veers off these two lines and addresses what we understand “blackness” to be. Ultimately, we cannot stray far off the mark of colorism’s hierarchies because it continues to structure the ways that resources are allocated and lives organized. However, I’m allowing myself space to make other points in order to better understand Cardi B. and Amara’s positionalities as Dominican women living in the transnational context of the D.R.-U.S. relationship.

The thoughts and the questions that rise up in me when considering the recent public conversation about these artists are: “What are the aspects that construct the contemporary experience of blackness in the Americas?” and “What would it mean to center Amara and Cardi’s Dominicanidad in conversations about their racial authenticity in relationship to their African American peers?”

When talking and thinking about race, one of the most elusive concepts, multiple realities must be balanced. Skin color, hair texture and other physical features mark difference that gets framed as “racial” Given that anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity pervade the modern world, across nations and spaces, these factors will significantly (and differently) impact life outcomes of Black and Indigenous peoples. Within Black diaspora communities, class status, practices (everything from aesthetic practices like art, music and dance to healing practices) and the network of relationships and shared values that Black people develop in response to historical circumstances and imposed structures (like structural racism) and as a result of contact with each other work alongside these markers of difference to create the social contexts where “race” is understood and experienced. Prominent among the structures that craft Black experiences are racism and colorism, which work alongside classism, misogyny and other structures of privilege to pattern experience.

For Dominicans like Cardi B. and Amara who live between the racial system of Latin America and the U.S., status, practices and relationships have become significant, alongside physical features, in defining a racial identity. I say practices, thinking of the ways that styles of clothing, ways of speaking and embodying “Blackness” have become key markers of how we understand “Blackness.” Contact refers to the ways that extended contact between, for example, African American and Dominican people in Cardi B’s New York City, has precipitated new identities for young Dominicans like her that have yet to be unpacked (but that I’ll explore here). Relationship is another significant aspect that aligns the two factors mentioned: How we understand our own racial identity is never an individual experience. Instead, we form politicized visions of our racial identity when we learn from and with others who also endure racism’s effects. Or who perpetuate them. Contract, Relationships and Practices lean upon each other: The practices that make up racial identity are deeply tied to the relationships we have to the people in our circles. At the same time, racism, shapes whom we can actually be in close relationship with due to unaddressed housing segregation and classism in the U.S.

Put simply, Cardi B.’s blackness is a unique combination of two things: First, her experience as a low-income, lighter skinned Dominican woman in countries highly invested in colorism. Second, her experience in proximity to African Americans, experiences which I suggest have crafted a unique way of being afro-descendant and Dominican that are different from being African American and different from being Black Dominican in the D.R. Yet the two are deeply intertwined.

The first factor means that contending with her light skinned privilege is fully part of her experience as a black person, as it should be for all people of African descent in the Americas who have mixed heritages. In other words, contending with her whiteness vis-à-vis her blackness are also part of the work of Cardi B’s (and by extension all Dominican Americans) afro-descendant should be experiencing. Such contention comes with an acknowledgement of the whitening privilege of our practices: Our abilities to speak English, our U.S. passport and the fact that Dominicanyorks can pay in dollars when we travel to the D.R. It also means not erasing indigeneity in the desire to claim blackness, while being wary of the way the Dominican state has systematically used indigeneity to erase blackness. This, in sum, is a fine balancing act.

The second points to the fact that an entire generation of Dominican-Americans like Belcalys has grown up in the urban communities of New York. Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. While tensions remained when African American, Puerto Rican and Dominicans kids mingled, Dominican youth largely adapted to the environment in which they were being raised, adopting hip hop culture and mixing and mingling it with their own regueatton, dembow and more recently “Spanish Trap.” Dominicanyork culture flourished from this proximity to African American peers, and while it’s largely been male-dominated and represented, Cardi B. is the closest thing to its female example for a mass popular audience. To be Dominicanyork means to hold the privileges of gringolandia (English, passport, dollars) yet to also be considered criminal and less legitimate by being associated to African- Americans. This is all happening while more traditional Dominicans continue to systematically deny Afro-Dominicans and Dominican Haitians the right to life, to their cultural practices and heritages.

Afro-Dominican. Dominicanyork. African-American. Here are multiple ways to be an afro-descendant person in the worlds that Cardi B and Amara move through. And yet the conversation is not focused on these blended identities, how complex and interesting they are. Instead, the conversation about Cardi B revolved around “beef” between her and her African American peers.

By the contemporary conversations, one might think that the relationships between Dominicans and African Americans have always been problematic. Yet the connections are much deeper than most people can understand. As the historian Anne Eller found, in the early 19 th century, as Haiti and the D.R. were the only free black and mulatto Republics in the Western Hemisphere, African Americans regularly fled to the Dominican Republic to establish communities away from U.S. racism. When the U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican Republic, they installed a system of brutal Jim Crow law, much like African Americans experienced in the United States. If the U.S. African American community was a nation, its closest neighbors would be the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

While the freedom dreams from the 19 th century Caribbean and the forms of resistance to Jim Crow Dominicans enacted have largely been extinguished by a brutal regime of state-sponsored white supremacy and anti-blackness in the 20 th century, today’s debates about Cardi B and Amara’s blackness in relation to their Dominicanidad and to their standing vis-a- vis African Americans would lead us to believe that the places where these two artists come from, and the places where they have been able to establish success, are less related than they actually are. The Black people of the U.S. and those of the D.R. have historically been in relationship in ways that we are just now beginning to understand, with the discovery that the first free black person from the island of Hispaniola, Jan Rodriguez, arrived in New York City in the 1600s and a black Dominican man flew as a Tuskegee Airman.

Women in the D.R. are actively imagining and practicing a world where their blackness is not questioned as an entry point into their Dominicanidad by wearing their hair natural. In the U.S., they’re forging selves between their Dominicanness, their relative blackness, indigeneity and whiteness, and their status living in an anti-black, anti- immigrant country. Amara lives within this transnational context, a context hardly acknowledged as she emerged in English-language media over the past few weeks. When Amara first burst onto the scene with her single “Ay” in 2012, Amara’s blackness was simply not legible as signs of gendered empowerment. Some have speculated that if Amara had not rocked her Afro-Latina heritage, which in her case really is her Dominicanidad, the conversations about her body would not have been nearly as pronounced.

"Women in the D.R. are actively imagining and practicing a world where their blackness is not questioned as an entry point into their Dominicanidad."

The debates about Amara’s body, the authenticity of her hair and skin tone are futile and disrespectful. They obscure the symbols of a blackness in her aesthetic that are also incredibly, inherently Dominican and Caribbean. Watching Amara’s body of work without centering on her physical body exclusively brings into view a complex performance. Amara uses the stereotypes associated with Black women in the Americas: Mammie/domestic help and oversexualized Jezebel. She does this frequently and has established herself as an artist through this practice. With, through and despite this, the elements of her videos make quintessential reference to Dominican blackness: Looking closely, her first single contains a gaga band and carnival diablos cojuelos, both symbols of (safe) carnivalesque blackness in the Spanish Caribbean. She regularly mocks Dominican white womanhood, claiming “Te afecto bonita” in the equivalent of a Dominican valley girl accent in “Asi” and sleeping with the male partner of a lighter skinned Dominican woman in “Se Que Soy.” How Amara and her team play with the signs of Dominican and Caribbean blackness in their videos is much more interesting than wondering whether her hair is real or not. How these aspects of her aesthetic will remain visible in her move towards mainstream Latinx commercial success in the U.S. will be interesting to move the conversation on Dominicanidad and blackness to a new space.

Amara and Cardi B. remain interesting to me as a Afro-descendant Dominican immigrant woman because I understand that both are highly dangerous for the investment in whiteness and class-status that has shaped my country of origin. Despite all the ways that celebrities, and pop culture in general, can be “problematic,” Cardi B.’s rise to fame, her chapiadora aesthetics and her hood feminism is a complete threat to the status quo in the D.R. that has consistently pushed people like her and her family to the margins. Watching Amara be taken up my mainstream U.S. society has similarly brought feelings of joy and curiosity in me, as I see a new model for representing Blackness and Dominicanidad becoming more mainstream, one that is not as depoliticized as someone like Zoe Saldaña, who held that space in popular culture until recently.

My excitement, as with anything, is always marked by my awareness that we should not hinge our hopes for black liberation on Cardi B. or Amara (nor on Beyoncé, Jay Z or Oprah, or…). In contemporary circles of Afro-Latinidad, social justice and “wokeness,” there's a lot of pressure to perform the mirage of a perfect “woke” figure. The claims to this reality are made complex by the fact that our pop culture figures often serve as scapegoats for a broader audience that, due to the way that media consumption has replaced deepened interactions, uses these figures and their struggles to keep us from doing our own complex work and being our own inspiring figures challenging anti- blackness in all its forms.

In a year that has brought us deeply regressive policies and a near return to pre-Civil Rights United States, we are looking for sheroes like Cardi B and Amara to cheer on and ride hard for. The general comments about both “cultural appropriation” and “Blackface” that inspired me to write this article are indicative of a desire for authenticity that betrays a greater anxiety and need to protect a blackness that is deeply under siege. Policing the bounds of this blackness in U.S. pop culture means resorting to forms of gatekeeping that keep us from understanding the systemic forms of resource inequality that keep the people who create the cultural material in question—working class people of African descent who claim connections to the U.S. mainland or the Latin American region—from living dignified lives. Questioning appropriation by centering on the assumed perpetrators while refraining ourselves from asking “Whose culture counts as Black culture? Why is black culture being treated as a limited resource? Who instituted such thinking in the first place?” fails to move the conversation in the direction of equity.

[1] I refrain from using the terms Afro-Latinx because it is a broad categorical term that does not allow us to get into the specificity of the experiences of individuals, specificities which are often connected to specific local histories and national trajectories. The term Afro-Latinx, moreover, deserves further unpacking for its origins. For now, it serves to say that both Amara and Cardi B. are women who live with the effects of the forms of systemic racism and lack of imagination that have plagued the world for centuries, though they live with these effects very differently due to the intersections of their class, location, nationality privileges, etc.

#Cardi B #Amara La Negra #Afro Latinx #Afro Latinidad

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indianpolsoc · 4 years

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Can we afford to leave Gandhi behind?

The following is an opinion piece by guest writer Anunay Chowdhury and does not reflect the views of the Indian Political Society.

Gandhi was a racist but fortunately his journey did not end there. He lived a life that inspired people from all over the world to struggle against the discrimination. A real learning of his story establishes him to be everything but a racist.

In my experience, every episode of manifest discrimination against the people of African descent is followed by a brief period of historical revisionism. This allows us to position ourselves where we can better understand the experiences of the people as a member of the minorities and discriminated groups. These voices are often lost in the lofty volumes of indifferent historical accounts by historians of our time. Every attempt to unearth these historical accounts only allows us to reflect and interrogate history from a different, often neglected, point of view. The George Floyd’s murder and subsequent protest in its wake has brought about the same period of revisionism. And as a consequence of that, in many places, there has been growing demand to take down statutes of persons who have had a history of abuse towards black people and minorities. These people, apart from there excellence in their respective field of profession, have had an unfitting side related to their treatment to black and minority groups in retrospect. They have exhibited either a sheer lack of sympathy or a general lack of concern to human life. For lack of a more appropriate expression, they cannot be protected by a veneer of “acceptable action by the erstwhile standards”. The argument for retrospective assessment of people for their past action is not a newfound one. The Nuremberg trials in 1946 and International Military Tribunal for Far East in 1948 are apposite examples in this case. Academic inquiry into the validity of these tribunals will reveal a spectrum of justifications and contradictions. Broadly these tribunals do establish a general principle to allow revisionist assessment of the past actions of the people by standards that evolved after their alleged actions. Key historical figures cannot escape the same scrutiny irrespective of their grandeur and significant contribution otherwise. They should be held to the same standards as the west has created for itself much later after the alleged actions in question. How do we act as a consequence of this revisionism is beyond the scope of this piece.

The above discussion brings me closer to the actual narrow subject of today. The recent desecration of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Washington DC outside the Indian Embassy and some residents demanding to bring down the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the city of Leicester UK. Their actions were motivated by past actions, rather words by Mahatma Gandhi during his early days of 21 years stay in South Africa. This was the time Mahatma Gandhi was just Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; an English- educated lawyer who had completed his studies in London’s Temple Inn, looking to earn a livelihood. The origins of bestowing the title “Mahatma” or “a great soul” is a debatable one but is popularly believed to have been given by Rabindranath Tagore, another Nobel Laureate of Indian origin (Confirmed by Gujarat High Court). Tagore gave this title to MK Gandhi much later in life at around 1915 after being deeply influenced by the thoughts and ideas of MK Gandhi. Although this title did find some opposition later during the Indian independence struggle by some of the other leaders of the time, the title remained associated with Gandhi even long after his death. Gandhi lived an extraordinary life upon returning to India from South Africa in 1915. He found his voice resonated among the middle-class and the lower-class people and was very successful in organising mass movements – for which he is renowned in modern history. But to no one’s astonishment, MK Gandhi lived a life of a common man with common goals in life and not much before he was known to be a “Mahatma”. Most of the people who study him diligently find his journey from a common man to saintly figure and leader, inspiring. The most important aspect of the life of Gandhi is not the man himself but the ideas that he propagated. He is a construct of worldly principles and thought which goes well beyond the biological template of his body. But before his transition, he led a normal life of struggling lawyer and agreed to work in South Africa for a meagre salary. The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, a book by Ashwin Desai and Goolam H. Vahed, traces, in detail, the time spent by M. K. Gandhi during his stay in South Africa. The book also unearths, although not for the first time, MK Gandhi’s manifest disdain for the people of the Black community. M.K Gandhi contested unsuccessfully to the British authorities to treat Indian subjects in South Africa at par with the White English imperialist but most importantly above the black native population. He contested that the Indian community is intellectually and culturally superior to that of Black people. He addressed members of the black community as the “kaafirs,” a derogatory term by today’s standards.

To his defence, M.K Gandhi’s grandson – Rajmohan Gandhi, also a notable historian, spoke at the Interfaith Scholar Weekend in Fresno, California around March 22 2020 (Video available on Youtube)[1]. He said that his use of the term was a term exhibiting racial superiority, but his usage of the term belonged much to the period than to him. Kaafir was a common term which wasn’t objected by the people of the black community and Indians in the Indian subcontinent at that time. He was merely acting within the social construct of the time. Another submission to further that point is that when Jacobus Matiwane, addressed the Indian community as “Coolies,” an equally derogatory term by today’s standards. John Dube, the first president of African National Congress in 1912 in his address to Chiefs of Zululand to support the ANC, addressed Indian community as “Coolies” (See paper by Heather Hughes). It only implies that these titular addresses were reliant upon the erstwhile social vocabulary. It was a complicated period where the leaders were in cut-throat pursuit to further the well-being of their communities.

The other part of his life, which would help me establish my main argument is his flourishing practice as an attorney in the Transvaal province. In 1903, Gandhi founded the weekly magazine – Indian Opinion. He helped build an_ Ashram_ in Phoenix, Durban which was incidentally near the school of John Lagalibalele Dube. Dube’s weekly magazine called _Ilanga lase Natal _was initially printed in the press of Indian Opinion. The people from his school often visited the ashram. Remember, Africans whom he initially described as “savage,” “raw” and living a life of “indolence and nakedness,” were being helped now by Gandhi to publish the weekly magazine. This was a time when he only voyaged to help the Indian community and the treatment which was meted out to them by the ruling minority of white people. This was also the time when Gandhi supported the idea of imperialism and all the social change that it promised - to elevate the fate of humankind. Acting upon his belief, he led a small ambulance corp. in 1906 to help the establishment against the Natal militia chief- Bambatha, who rebelled against the new poll tax. This, he thought, would help in rapport- building between the Indian community and the white Europeans. The corps, which served for a little over a month, was asked to take care of the wounded and whipped Africans since no white would treat them. Seeing the brutality of the whites against the Africans was a traumatic experience for Gandhi. Nelson Mandela wrote in an article in Time magazine on December 31, 1999:

“His awakening came on the hilly terrain of the so-called Bambatha rebellion… British brutality against the Zulus roused his soul against violence as nothing had done before. He determined on that battlefield to wrest himself of all material attachments and devote himself completely and totally to eliminating violence and serving humanity.”

“Satyagraha” was the Gandhi’s most potent tool of passive resistance (passive meant espousing non-violent means. It has been often confused with non-activity. See Erik H Erikson’s Gandhi’s Truth: On the origins of militant nonviolence). It, literally, translates to “insisting truth with love” (Satya = Truth, agraha = insist). It was his time during South Africa that he was able to hone satyagraha. After serving in the rebellion from the side of the government, he realised that mere petition and deputations would not bring about the desired result. He organised a large number of Indian workers to defy the laws as a mark of protest. 50,000 Indian workers went on the strikes by 1914 with over 10,000 being put to jail. Those who were jailed were often subjected to long hours of tortures and inhumane punishments. The protests were ultimately successful. A precedent was set that would help him mobilise masses in India after his return from South Africa. Gandhi, more or less, began to transcend into his later self - A self that would inspire struggles against oppression all over the world. The immediate and local impact was when The South African Native National Congress (SANNC) Constitution, which was drawn up in 1919, had, in Chapter IV, Clause 13 emphasised “passive action” as a means to be used. It has been suggested that this “was perhaps a reflection of the impact Gandhi’s passive resistance campaigns among South African Indians had made upon African opinion” (See ES Reddy, Gandhiji’s Vision)

Although Gandhi had appreciated the efforts of local leaders in attempting to advance the interests of the natives which was duly reciprocated, The leaders of both the groups (Indians and Natives) still voiced their concerns to the white rulers on the racial lines. They believed that a joint effort would endanger the whole movement that had taken shape over the years. Gandhi, around this time, had recognised the parallel resistance propelled by the native leaders. In an address to the YMCA in 1908, he said:

“South Africa would probably be a howling wilderness without the Africans…”

“If we look into the future, is it not a heritage we have to leave to posterity that all the different races commingle and produce a civilisation that perhaps the world has not yet seen.[2]”

In an article published in Indian Opinion on October 22, 1910, He said:

“The whites… have occupied the country forcibly and appropriated it to themselves. That, of course, does not prove their right to it. A large number even from among them believe that they will have to fight again to defend their occupation. But we shall say no more about this. One will reap as one sow.[3]”

Gandhi was also able to use the work of John Tengo Jabavu, who raised the enormous sum of 50,000 pounds from Africans for establishing an educational institution, to inspire the Indian diaspora. He wrote:

_“… it is not to be wondered at that an awakening people, like the great native races of South Africa, are moved by something that has been described as being very much akin to religious fervour… British Indians in South Africa have much to learn from this example of self-sacrifice. If the natives of South Africa, with all their financial disabilities and social disadvantages, are capable of putting forth this local effort, is it not incumbent upon the British Indian community to take the lesson to heart, and press forward the matter of educational facilities with far greater energy and enthusiasm that have been used hitherto?[4]” _

On WB Rubusana’s election to the Cape Provincial Council, he commented:

_“That Dr. Rubusana can sit in the Provincial Council but not in the Union Parliament is a glaring anomaly which must disappear if South Africans are to become a real nation in the near future.[5]” _

The South African Native National Congress (SANNC) was formed as a reaction to the formation of the Union of South Africa by the British masters. Pixley ka Izaka Seme led a group of attorneys who formed the SANNC after a round of conference. John Langalibalele Dube was chosen as its first president. Dube then wrote a letter to various luminaries of the time and published it in his newspaper Ilanga lase Natal on February 2, 1912. _Indian Opinion _reproduced an extract from his letter in its issue of February 10, 1912, under the title “The Awakening of Africa.” It referred to Dube as “our friend and neighbor” and called the letter a manifesto.

Perhaps the clearest exposition of “transcended Gandhi” came in the form of an editorial. In 1913, when the Natives Land Act was passed by the Union Parliament, Gandhi was vehement in his denunciation. An editorial in Indian Opinion on August 30 1913, reported:

_ “The Natives Land Act of the Union Parliament has created consternation among the Natives. Indeed, every other question, not excluding the Indian question, pales into insignificance before the great Native question. This land is theirs by birth and this Act of confiscation – for such it is – is likely to give rise to serious consequences.[6]”_

After he departed from South Africa in 1915, he did not forget the struggle that was going on in the African continent. He regularly addressed the issues of South Africa on different forums and occasions. In referring to “South African races”, He declared in Cambridge on November 1, 1931:

“Our deliverance must mean their deliverance.[7]”

In an interview to Reverend S.S. Tema – a member of the ANC – on January 1, 1939, he said:

“The Indians are a microscopic minority. They can never be a ‘menace’ to the white population. You, on the other hand, are the sons of the soil who are being robbed of your inheritance. You are bound to resist that. Yours is a far bigger issue. It ought not to be mixed up with that of the Indian. This does not preclude the establishment of the friendliest relations between the two races. The Indians can cooperate with you in a number of ways. They can help you by always acting on the square towards you.[8]”

The influence of Gandhi did not limit to South Africa and India. The universality of the principles found a new home in the movements of the African American struggle towards equality. WEB Du Bois was one of the most prominent leaders of the American civil rights movement. He founded the Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1929, Du Bois asked for a letter from Gandhi to the American Negroes, acknowledging that while Gandhi was busy struggling for the freedom of his people, “the race and color problems are worldwide, and we need your help here.” In reply Gandhi wrote:

“Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is no dishonour in being slaves. There is dishonour in being slave-owners”[9].

Du Bois saw in Gandhi a force that challenged the colour line by challenging the civilisation that created it as a force of disruption, oppression and violence, rather than a force of civilisation as it claimed to be. In his 1948 essay “Gandhi”, Du Bois writes that Gandhi was the “greatest man in the world” and the “Prince of Peace” among living leaders:

“It is singular that a man who was not a follower of the Christian religion should be in his day the best exemplification of the principles which that religion was supposed to lay down. While the Christian Church during its two thousand years of existence has been foremost in war and organised murder, Mohandas Gandhi has been foremost in exemplifying peace as a method of political progress”[10].

Interaction with Gandhi was instrumental in inspiring Howard Thurman to write his magnum opus - Jesus and the Disinherited in 1949. During his interaction with Gandhi in 1935, he was questioned as to why the blacks in America stayed Christian, and why did they not turn to Islam as it guaranteed equality between slaves and masters. Thurman comprehensibly addressed the question in his work which inspired Dr. Martin Luther King (he always kept a copy of the book on his side as he assumed leadership of the Civil Rights Movement). One of the most apparent exhibitors of the Gandhian philosophy was Dr. Martin Luther King himself. The connection was so palpable that the screenplay writers in the movie Selma 2014 did not forget to hang the portrait of Gandhi in the backgrounds of Dr. King in his workplace. In his speech “My Pilgrimage to Non-violence”, Dr. King explains how he came to a Gandhian practice of non-violence after engaging with Western philosophers from Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Hobbes, and Rauschenbausch. As he says:

“Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. Love, for Gandhi, was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and non-violence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking for so many months. The intellectual and moral satisfaction that I failed to gain from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, the revolutionary methods of Marx and Lenin, the social-contracts theory of Hobbes, the “back to nature” optimism of Rousseau, the superman philosophy of Nietzsche, I found in the non-violent resistance philosophy of Gandhi. I came to feel that this was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.[11]”

The influence of the Gandhi’s principle cannot be limited to the text of this article. To be able to gauge the effects of philosophy propounded by Gandhi is a matter of separate academic discipline. Gandhi said, “My life is a message”. The journey of an ordinary man and how he dismissed his early prejudices and championed an ideology that propounds for an equal space for the unequals. Even after being given a title of “Mahatma” (Great soul) that enunciates sainthood, his greatness is not because of a contestable record of saintly life but owing to his proximity to a life of an ordinary human being. His imperfections are the only things that make him a perfect fit human to emulate. Apart from his polymathic contributions, one aspect of his life teaches us a lesson in building oneself and an ability to recreate and embrace our differences. I interpret that as the sole objective of the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement calls for a “hriday parivartan” or “change of heart” of the other side.

I deem his contribution to the philosophical underpinning of the protest movements as the most irreplaceable principle in the current struggle. “We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field” said Mahatma Gandhi in his letter to Adolf Hitler on December 24, 1940, while describing the nature of Indian independence movement. I do not want to make an impression of castigating the whole movement because of the violence that broke in several areas during the protest. The stand here is to only appeal to subscribe to the foundations laid by Gandhi. Of Gandhi not as a man in bone and flesh but as a philosophical skeleton. It is not a time to distance us from him; It is a perfect time to revive his teachings and ideals. Let us judge a man of not what society made him but what he made of the society. In my limited understanding, the Black Lives Matter movement is not about the equal opportunity to fight with others but about the equality of respect that a human being deserves. It is a movement not about making equal boundaries between communities but to diminish all the boundaries to create a uniform space. Let us not bury our past with indifference. Let us revive it so that it could guide us in becoming a more accepting society. I do not contest the rights and wrongs of the statue vandalism that took place. I only ask a step behind and ask ourselves, do we not want everyone to be like Gandhi? An ordinary man with distasteful prejudices for the black community and who transcended into a person who ended up inspiring the most prominent of leaders of the black community over the world in their struggle against discrimination. Do we not have a perfect face to show to the world while we march to protest the systemic behaviour against the black community. By invoking Gandhi, I believe, we would not have only raised questions about the discriminatory behaviour but also provided the answers as to how to amend ourselves. To give remedy while we question injustice is the best form of protest, I believe. While I make a passionate appeal to you, I shall also leave the judgment with you.

It will be a waste of good money to spend Rs 25,000 on erecting a clay or metallic statue of the figure of a man who is himself made of clay…” Gandhi, Harijan on February 11, 1939

Dr. King reading “The Gandhi Reader”, edited by Homer A. Jack

Dr. Martin Luther King with a portrait of Gandhi in his workplace.

Anunay Chowdhary is a first-year Law student at King's College London.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwoPwPOI4m0&t=1272s

[2] See Ramchandra Guha, Gandhi Before India

[3] Indian Opinion on October 22, 1910

[4] Indian Opinion, March 17, 1906

[5] Indian Opinion, September 24, 1910

[6] Indian Opinion, August 30 1913

[7] R.K. Prabhu & U.R. Rao (Compiled_), Mind of Mahatma Gandh_i (Oxford University Press, London, 1945) 135

[8] 'Interview to S.S. Tema', H, 18 February 1939, CWMG, LXVIII

[9] Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948. Letter from M. K. Gandhi to W. E. B. Du Bois, May 1, 1929. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

[10] Prashad, V. (2009). Black Gandhi. Social Scientist, 37(1/2), 3-20. Retrieved June 20, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/27644307

[11] My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” 1 September 1958, in Papers 4:473–481)

#politics #articles

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tediousoscars · 5 years

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2018

Predict-o-meter: This year: 8/12; Total: 99/119 (83%)

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary: It is time once again to set aside our daily woes and discuss all things Oscar.

This year’s class of 8 Best Picture nominees is extremely solid. There are no real clunkers, but, in my mind there are 4 soaringly great films, 3 solidly good films, and one … problematic film that is both great and not so great. We’ll get to that.

But keep in mind that even though I am using my traditional Contenders/Pretenders bifurcation there are no films below that I would recommend you avoid. They are all very good.

- THE CONTENDERS -

Black Panther. The beauty of this film is that it works so well on so many different levels. If you are simply looking for a blockbuster spectacle to munch popcorn to, you will not be disappointed; it totally works on that level. And even though it is the 18th(!) installment in Marvel Studios’ Cinematic Universe of inter-related films, “Black Panther” may be enjoyed on its own in isolation; if you have never seen another Marvel movie (Really? What is WRONG with you?) you won’t feel at all lost. And that is all well and good; I love a good blockbuster as much as the next guy. But that won’t get you Oscar Nominations. For that, we need to dig a little deeper. On the next level down, it’s just a really good movie. Great characters who are well-developed and three-dimensional, a compelling story told with humor and drama in equal measures, gorgeous cinematography and costumes that bring an imagined world to life, and an all-star cast of talented actors who are clearly giving it their all. The heart and soul of “Black Panther” is the fictional land of Wakanda: a central African nation hit with a meteor in the distant past that provided ancient Wakandans with access to vibranium, a near-magical metal that allowed them to develop advanced technology well before the rest of the world. Technology that they used to hide themselves away while developing ever more advanced weapons and transportation, including the technology that turns their tribal King into the titular super-powered protector. And herein lies the central conflict of the film: A Wakandan spy on assignment in Oakland in the 90s becomes disillusioned by the disparity between the safety and comfort that Wakandans enjoy and the degradation and oppression faced by members of the African Diaspora across the globe. When he is taken out by Wakandan authorities he leaves behind a young son who grows up hell-bent on avenging his father, but also determined to complete his father’s mission of using Wakandan technology to uplift all those of African descent. This isn't the standard “Good vs. Evil” we’ve come to expect from superhero movies. It’s a more nuanced “Isolation vs. Engagement” discussion of the best way to allocate scarce resources for the greater good. At its greatest depth “Black Panther” is a thoughtful exploration of themes of racism and oppression, violence and statecraft, retribution and forgiveness that stands up to critical analysis. In interviews with the cast and crew it is obvious that they were very cognizant of the fact that with Wakanda they were essentially creating from whole cloth an African mythology that could play a role comparable to that of Camelot in the Anglo-Saxon imagination. They took this responsibility very seriously and were determined that everything associated with “Black Panther” be of the highest quality. They succeeded spectacularly. No matter how deeply you choose to look at this film you will not be disappointed. It succeeds on every level.

Bohemian Rhapsody. This story of iconic stadium anthem band Queen and their mercurial frontman, Freddy Mercury, was told with the full cooperation of the surviving band members, and one of their conditions was that it not have an R rating. This has led to some consternation and gnashing of teeth over Mercury’s legendary excesses being watered down. But I thought that the device they used was effective: Rather than show the actual debauchery the film focuses on the morning-after detritus. Mercury staggers blinking through a maze of prone bodies and over-turned furniture, empty glasses and bottles scattered hither and yon, cocaine residue coating every horizontal surface. But the film isn’t primarily about Mercury’s rock star life; it’s about the band and how they worked together and became a worldwide sensation despite significant headwinds - watching the label guys turn up their noses at the eponymous song (soon to become one of the most beloved rock songs of all time) is choice. Everything here is well done. The story unfolds naturally, the performances are all solid, and the insight into the inner workings of the band are illuminating. Yes, they have the unavoidable family squabbles, but for the most part it isn’t about ego, it’s about the music. They fight for their own individual interpretations and priorities, but they all share a common vision of what Queen should be, and that is the organizing principle for their conflicts, at least during the band’s formative period. It’s all entertaining and engaging and good, maybe even very good, but it’s just not great. Until, at the very end, a choice is made by the filmmakers that turns on the after-burners and vaults the film into the stratosphere. After an ill-fated attempt at a solo album, a chastened Mercury beseeches the band to get back together for Live Aid, the bi-continental music festival for African famine relief that was the biggest music event of its era. A typical movie would handle this either with a quick montage of the various songs played in the set, or perhaps, one single entire song. But for this film they recreated Queen’s 20-minute Live Aid set in its entirety; note for note, move for move. And they imbue the performance with the knowledge - not known to the general public at the time - that Freddy Mercury had been diagnosed with AIDS (at a time when this was a death sentence). It is breathtaking. Rami Malek is favored to win Best Actor for his turn as Mercury, and this climatic, thrilling set is a big part of the reason why.

The Favourite. This is not your typical costume period piece about palace intrigue. We are used to tropes in which strong, formidable women connive behind the scenes to manipulate the men in power to do what they want. But this is the court of Queen Anne of England (Olivia Colman), so a woman is already in charge. Or she would be if failing health and mental instabilities didn’t prevent her from being effective. Enter Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), childhood friend and sometime lover to the Queen, Sarah rules the roost on behalf of the Queen and does her best to steer the ship of state in the direction that she, and her stalwart Duke of a husband, sees as best. And it is all going swimmingly until Sarah’s cousin Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives impoverished and disgraced by some disastrous antics of her father's. Sarah graciously takes Abigail under her wing out of familial loyalty, but is soon out-maneuvered and her young cousin takes her place at the Queen’s side and in her bed. This is all entertaining enough, but there is a fascinating subtext. Though Sarah does love the Queen, it is her over-arching love of Britain that drives her to seek and wield power. By contrast, Abigail has been rich and she has been poor and she has decided that being rich is better. So all of her machinations are aimed solely at personal gain. The interplay between these three characters - Anne, Sarah, and Abigail - is so intricate and expertly portrayed that all three of the female leads have been nominated for their roles. And it’s not just a question of great acting; the film is visually interesting as well. Typical depictions of royal courts in film are brightly lit to highlight the garish colors of the clothes and tapestries that abound. Here, though, the film is shot using mostly natural light. The relatively muted tones and deep shadows serve to augment the feeling of stealth and intrigue that often accompanies a simple passage through a hallway. Great performances, compelling art direction, and a (nominated) screenplay that crackles with snark, “The Favourite” is an enjoyable romp that manages to provoke a few thoughts along the way.

Green Book. At it’s core “Green Book” is a road movie with a well-trodden premiss: Two characters with nothing in common and a healthy disdain for one another are forced by circumstances to drive across the country, mayhem ensues, and they become fast friends. We’ve seen it a hundred times, but I’m not sure we’ve ever seen it done this well. Dr. Don Shirley was fastidious, refined, educated (the “Dr.” comes from multiple Ph.D.s), erudite, and a virtuoso pianist with unique style and flair. Frank Anthony Vallelonga Sr., better known as Tony Lip, was a guido street-brawler from the Bronx with a strong moral code that didn’t always align perfectly with a strict interpretation of the law. He wasn't in the Mob, but he was certainly Mob-adjacent, and could have been made at the drop of a fedora if he’d chosen to. And they were real people. In the film Tony is hired to be driver/fixer to Dr. Shirley on a 2-month concert tour. And right there you have the makings of a perfectly serviceable buddy road trip movie. But wait, there’s more. Dr. Shirley happens to be Black. And gay. And the tour is through the Deep South. And it’s 1962. This is fraught territory, and there is great potential for the film to slip into awful stereotype or maudlin sentimentality. But the screenplay - written in part by Tony’s son Nick - navigates this minefield with deft courage. Tony evolves from a casual, thoughtless racism to a deep respect for Dr. Shirley, both as a man and as an artist. For his part, Dr. Shirley moves from disdain for Tony’s uncouth nature to grudging respect for his tenacity, loyalty, and unique ability to see through a problem to a solution. And eventually respect turns to affection, which is all very predictable, but as with any good road picture it’s about the journey, not the destination. And this journey is laid out in a thoroughly entertaining, natural, and believable fashion (Nick swears that every event depicted in the film actually happened). This is movie-making at its finest.

- THE MISFIT -

Roma. The problem with this film is that from a technical perspective it is a mind-blowing masterpiece, but from a narrative perspective it’s a little slow and sparse, if I’m feeling generous, and downright boring if I’m not. Director Alfonso Cuarón is a shoo-in to win Best Director for his brilliant technical work here. Shot in large-format digital black and white the film looks crisp and clean throughout. But what is more astonishing is the rich, vibrant world that Cuarón uses as a backdrop for his story, which would otherwise be small and fairly claustrophobic. Brass bands randomly march down side strides, people are shot from cannons, and lavish weddings take place in the background of what would otherwise be simple scenes with a few lines of dialog. This takes a 30-second scene of dialog - for which 6 takes could probably be done in an hour - and turns it potentially into a 3-day budget-busting ordeal because of the logistics of getting 150 people in place and properly lit. And he does this over and over again. It must have directors, cinematographers, and producers dropping their jaws, but none of this effort and virtuosity drives the plot forward one millimeter. The largely autobiographical narrative (one of the young boys presumably represents Cuarón as a child) centers around Cleo, an indigenous domestic working and living in the home of a well-off doctor in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City circa 1970. There is drama as Cleo deals with an unexpected pregnancy and the doctor abandons the family in favor of a young mistress, but the action plays out languidly through a series of “slice of life” vignettes. You learn a lot about the daily routine within the household - putting children to sleep, cleaning up dog poop - but precious little about the inner lives of the characters portrayed. Each year movies are nominated for Best Picture that are not nominated for Best Director. I think a strong case can be made that “Roma” should have reversed this trend. Cuarón’s Best Director nomination is richly deserved, but overall this film is not Best Picture material. It is a movie made for people who make movies. If you are a film student or an aspiring director it is a must-see. But casual movie-goers looking for entertainment should probably look elsewhere.

- THE PRETENDERS -

BlacKkKlansman. “BlacKkKlansman,” like “Green Book,” takes on themes of racism through the recounting of an incredible real-life story. In this case our hero is Ron Stallworth, a young, ambitious detective with the Colorado Springs Police Department. As the Department’s first Black officer, Stallworth is given an assignment to go undercover and attend a campus rally by Kwame Ture, a firebrand leader of the Black Power movement. Finding that he likes undercover work, Stallworth impulsively reaches out to the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan with an eye towards infiltrating the group. Over the phone he plays the part of white supremacist to a tee, but when he finagles a face-to-face meeting he quickly realizes that maybe he hasn’t thought this thing through. With the help of fellow detective Phil “Flip” Zimmerman (Adam Driver in a nominated role), Stallworth embarks on a Cyrano de Bergerac-esque escapade in which he talks to the Klan - including Grand Wizard David Duke - over the phone while Flip meets them in person. Director Spike Lee (nominated) has been known for his fireworks around issues of race in the past, but here he adopts an almost journalistic tone, presenting the story without hyperbole and letting the facts speak for themselves. This sounds laudable, but it actually serves to make the film feel a little … bland. Especially when combined with a very muted performance by John David Washington whose Stallworth always feels like he’s just trying to get through this scene before someone realizes he’s not supposed to be on set. Neither of these issues is enough to tilt the picture over into “bad” territory - it’s definitely interesting and entertaining - but they are enough to kick it out of Best Picture territory.

A Star is Born. There seems to have been a pact made with the Old Gods that in each generation the greatest female performer of her time must remake a version of the 1937 film “A Star is Born” starring Janet Gaynor. In 1954 it was Judy Garland, in 1976 it was Barbra Streisand’s turn, now, in 2018, the mantle falls to Lady Gaga, who was nominated for her efforts. By now the story is familiar: established star at the peak of his fame takes a talented ingénue under his wing only to watch her career take off while his crumbles. Bradley Cooper stars, directs, and worked on the screenplay; he was nominated for his portrayal of the gravel-voiced Jackson Maine, and for the screenplay, but not for his direction. Cooper’s Jack is an alcoholic with a troubled past, but is also a talented singer-songwriter and modern-day troubadour. When Gaga’s Ally - whom he plucked from obscurity singing torch songs in a New York City drag bar - starts to achieve success as his wanes, it is not simple jealousy that drives him off the deep end. He objects to the WAY she achieves success. In one of their first conversations Jack tells Ally, “There are lots of people with talent. But having something to say and being able to say it in a way that makes people listen? THAT’s special.” So when Ally starts writing catchy pop songs and performing on stage with backup dancers (à la Lady Gaga) Jack is perturbed, but is characteristically incapable of expressing his concerns without sounding unsupportive. So he bottles up his feelings and turns to the bottle. Both Cooper and Gaga give fantastic performances and there are several numbers that Gaga performs that are transcendent (I see big things for that girl). It’s definitely a solid film, and Gaga’s songs are worth the price of admission, but it just didn’t rise to the level of greatness in my mind.

Vice. There has been a bit of a hot streak of transformative performances portraying real-life political figures. I’m thinking particularly of Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln and Gary Oldman’s Churchill. But in both of those cases the figure in question had pretty much faded from living memory. Not so with Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s “Vice” President. Christian Bale (nominated) IS Dick Cheney to such an extent that if it weren’t for scenes depicting a young Cheney early in the film I don’t think I would have been able to identify the performer as Bale. It’s astonishing. And Amy Adams (nominated) is nearly as good as wife Lynne Cheney. But there is more to this film than just an epic performance by the leads. Director Adam McKay made his name with screwball comedies like “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers,” which most decidedly did not garner him Oscar nominations. But he turned a corner with 2015’s “The Big Short,” which did. Now he’s back and nominated again with “Vice” and, as with “The Big Short,” though he is swimming through serious waters he has not forgotten his comedic roots. “Vice” is by turns hilarious and infuriating, sometimes both at once. Given the current state of our politics the W era has taken on a warm glow of nostalgia for a time when, even if we didn’t agree with our leaders, we could sleep safe and secure in the knowledge that at least they weren’t actually agents of a foreign government. But “Vice” dredges up some of the seedier behind-the-scenes aspects to remind us that using Executive Privilege to undermine democracy is sadly nothing new. I probably should have liked “Vice” more than I did - Sam Rockwell’s (nominated) turn as W is not to be missed - but for some reason attempts to use the power of the presidency to subvert the intentions of the Founders just doesn’t seem as quaint and jovial as it once did.

So which SHOULD win?

For me it comes down to “Black Panther” and “Green Book.” Out of a top-to-bottom very strong class these two stand out in my mind as the ones that are really hitting on all cylinders. From direction and cinematography, to acting and art direction, to just straight up story telling, these are the most well-rounded of the bunch. And while I do love me some “Black Panther” (Wakanda forever!) I have to go with “Green Book” for its added layers of emotional resonance.

But which WILL win?

I said above that “Roma” is a movie made for people who make movies. Well … guess who votes for the Oscars? People who make movies. “Green Book” is actually in the running, but appears to be a distant second. I’m going with “Roma,” which would be the first foreign language film in history to win Best Picture.

Best Actress - This appears to be a two-way race between Glenn Close for “The Wife” and Olivia Colman for “The Favourite.” I’m going with Close.

Best Supporting Actress - It appears as though my favorites from “The Favourite” will be shut out, as this seems to be between Regina King for “If Beale Street Could Talk,” and Amy Adams for “Vice.” I’ll take Regina King.

Best Actor - When I saw “Vice” on 12/27/18 I walked out of the theater and tweeted: ‘Bale’s gonna win Best Actor. You heard it here first.’ And I still believe that’s what should happen. And it just might, but now it seems that Rami Malek has the buzz for “Bohemian Rhapsody.” (Did I mention that they shot the epic Live Aid set on THE FIRST DAY OF SHOOTING?) I can’t quibble too much; he was great too. I’m jumping on the Rami Malek bandwagon.

Best Supporting Actor - Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) will need to clear off some more space on the mantle.

Best Director - Alfonso Cuarón in a runaway. I have no quarrel with this, just with Best Picture.

Best Cinematography - Alfonso Cuarón for “Roma.” See above.

Best Foreign Language Film - This hardly seems fair with “Roma” poised to become the first foreign-language film to actually win Best Picture, but … “Roma.”

Best Animated Feature - “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Seriously, if you haven’t seen this do yourself a huge favor and check it out.

Best Original Song - “Shallow” from “A Star is Born.” As an added bonus the song actually plays a key role in the plot and is performed in its entirety in the film.

Best Original Screenplay - I am really pulling for “Green Book,” because it’s a great story, but also a great story-behind-the-story, with Tony Lip’s son penning the screenplay. But it looks like “The Favourite” will win.

Best Visual Effects - “Black Panther” is unlikely to win Best Picture, but Marvel should take home an Oscar here for “Avengers: Infinity War.” (Actual winner: “First Man”)

That does it for this year. Until next year keep your popcorn warm and your soda cold.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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How Lovecraft Country Uses Horror to Tell Black Stories

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In Lovecraft Country, Atticus “Tic” Freeman is a Korean war vet, who went to war to escape the physical abuse he received at the hands of his father. But before that, he escaped into the imagined worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and countless others. Reading stories wasn’t just something he did to pass the time; reading stories was survival.

Commercial books, film, and television, what we call popular culture, are gateways to the world outside of the small spaces we each occupy. We connect to each other across the globe through shared experiences in the media we consume. The stories that serve this function best, transcend genre. As Lovecraft Country’s Courtney B. Vance puts it to us in relation to HBO’s new radical horror: “I’m not a big horror film person because I’m a scaredy cat. I’m a story person. If you build it in a field of dreams, they will come. If you tell a great story, I don’t care what the genre is.”

We form communities around the stories we love. We build our identities around the characters that touch us the most. Storytelling gives us access to different places, experiences, and points of view. During a recent roundtable interview for Lovecraft Country, I asked Jonathan Majors how Tic would feel about the emergence of sci-fi and fantasy stories that center Black people, and he had this to say:

I think Tic, he would be on cloud nine. I wonder if he would have seen it before the war, what he would have done. I wonder if he would have gone off to the war or if he would have just continued to live his life, having had seen himself already take it in and taking on that adventure, that soldier, that mentality. He wouldn’t have to escape reality, he’d just sit in the movie theaters and take in a different reality.

Stories also give us a way to better understand the world we live in. Through metaphor and allegory, we gain a deeper understanding of each other and ourselves. “Metaphor is one of the most universal ways of communicating a thought, I think,” Majors tells journalists. “I think it allows for people from many walks of life to connect to one singular moment, one singular image, one singular idea. I think that’s quite useful in making art.”

Our relationship to stories changes when we see ourselves reflected in them. Largely, the books Tic reads feature white heroes who move about the world unhindered by bias of any sort. A confederate soldier can go to Mars and unironically become a liberator. Tic, a Black man, cannot easily find himself in that character. The only way for someone like Tic to see himself in the adventure, as the hero, is to make that reality. Tic goes to war to escape his father, yes, but he also goes to war to put himself in the story.

Lovecraft Country gives us the opportunity to see ourselves, to see reflections of who we are. “Our protagonists are of African American descent,” Majors says. “That is a very novel thing, to be a part of a team, to be a part of a story that is holding up black people fully. There are things you will not like about Atticus, there are things you will love about him, and that can be said for every character in the piece. That is a beautiful thing.”

Not only does Lovecraft Country authentically capture the verity of being Black in a country that is built on anti-Blackness, but it gives us a venue to explore our own power within that dynamic. Lovecraft Country gives us a world where we can tap into a power bigger than Whiteness, wealth, and all of the things that bestow inherent, unearned privilege. It is both an accurate reflection of the world we live in and a fanciful vision of the world we could live in, if the inexplicable was verifiable.

More than just entertainment, of which it absolutely is, Lovecraft Country is catharsis. What the show does so beautifully is juxtapose the fantastical against the practical, and use the absurdity of fantasy to highlight the absurdity of real life. It takes us on a journey that is both deeply personal and wildly incomprehensible. We connect to the characters because they are reflections of us, but we are removed from their experiences because those experiences are outlandish.

Lovecraft Country also gives the audience an outlet to work through its own shit by giving form to things that otherwise manifest as thoughts or behaviors that are difficult, if not impossible, to combat. Racism is a force with no singular face or voice, it is alive but can’t be killed. You can fight racists, but racism is a functional structure of power. But magic exists alongside it, and it is concrete power, inherent but not exclusive. Magic is potentially an equalizer.

Black folks watching Lovecraft Country are able to push past the trauma because the characters are able to. We see them not just survive, but take something from their enemy/oppressor. When Tic turns Samuel and the other Sons of Adams to dust, that’s a moment of pure unadulterated joy. When Ardham Lodge collapses in on itself, there’s a feeling of immense satisfaction. That’s the power of storytelling. It allows us to feel things without taking the pain into ourselves. We aren’t all going to take the same things away from this show. We can’t. This is always true, even if the largely cishet white man-run world of cultural criticism would like us to believe otherwise. We come into a story with our identities, a specific lens that affects our perception of everything we consume. But Lovecraft Country doesn’t make space for everyone to be a hero, that is not the point. White viewers who have always been reflected in all their shades, with all their facets, aren’t supposed to find themselves among the heroes, because this is not their story. They have John Carter, Jonathan Harker, Indiana Jones… And we have Atticus Freeman and Letitia Fucking Lewis.

The post How Lovecraft Country Uses Horror to Tell Black Stories appeared first on Den of Geek.

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averyjarhman · 4 years

Video

youtube

Hello. Welcome to the 21st Century.

I'm sharing the following information to establish the fact NOT ALL American citizens of African descent share the same values, nor do all American citizens of African descent embrace the same outlook for pursuing their individual unique vision for L, L, (Love) and Happiness.

In the first broadcast titled "Many Black Women Don't Want A Good Man" a young woman of African descent speaks about the poor relationship choices she believes many American women of African descent are making.

"Many Black Women Don't Want A Good Man"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7MBUCFsVk4/

My question for this woman, "For the most part, who is RESPONSIBLE for raising nurturing and socializing the men she speaks poorly of?"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In this NSFW, ⚠️ Strong Language ⚠️ Viewer Discretion Is Advised, a single man of African descent strongly criticizes MEN & WOMEN for the relationship choices they make.

"Black single mothers who feel they deserve to be married" RED SUPREME TV 1 - 10,263 views 8.47K subscribers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WOwhQUow8/

The following COMMENT was published by a mature single woman of African descent replying to RED SUPREME's video broadcast...

Bee Vegan 1 year ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5WOwhQUow8&lc=UgxDHmQzgahzmbz0vb14AaABAg/

“I’m not bashing single mothers in any way but the truth has to be told. I’ve never gotten along with these women as co workers or acquaintances simply because I am a traditional woman and damn proud.They would give me some of the most idiotic advice such as I needed to hurry up and have a baby because I’m in my 30s despite not having a husband. That’s when I stop the conversation right there. I need to be married first.

They also would tell me I’m selfish for not wanting children and how easy I have it without them. Then why encourage me to struggle instead of giving me the real about how hard your life is being an unwed single mother.

No, you are selfish for not providing a stable situation before having kids. Marriage, home and emotional stability. Then they would say how they don’t regret having their children and wouldn’t change a thing. All lies.

Its another tactic to justify their illogical actions that cannot be reversed. Who wants to struggle raising children alone? Its already hard when you are a single woman /man without kids working a 9-5 and a 6-10 trying to be an entrepreneur, paying overpriced property taxes with no assistance. I’m not complaining for doing things I’m supposed to do.

However, no single mother can step to me talking about she independent and work harder when she get government assistance, food stamps, section 8, tax refunds child support and many other benefits. Then have the audacity to say she is the one who deserves a husband”

As always, I look fwd to reading intelligent replies on this social and HEALTH related topic.

Peace.

#relationships #mental health

0 notes

mastcomm · 4 years

Text

The Man Behind the New Front Row

In the fashion world, there are a bunch of rules. Most people are scared to break them, sometimes for good reasons, other times not.

About a year and a half ago, Kerby Jean-Raymond, the creative director of the fashion line Pyer Moss, led subway-challenged fashion editors to Crown Heights in Brooklyn for a show called “American, Also.” A fantasy of black life free from the threat of racism and police brutality, it featured a 40-person gospel choir, artwork by Derrick Adams and references to “The Negro Motorist Green Book,” a pre-civil rights era travel guide.

For reasons that extended beyond wokeness, Mr. Jean-Raymond’s show was one of the most acclaimed of the season. Then he followed it up with a decision to toss out the fashion calendar, in favor of showing just once a year.

A select group of established designers had begun this move a few seasons before, but Mr. Jean-Raymond was arguably the first who made that decision just when he was poised for stardom.

Was he nuts? Some thought so.

Fashion insiders have a tendency to forget that the biggest designers usually rise by upending convention rather than upholding it. In that way, the naysayers are a little like veteran political pundits whose pontifications about electability don’t mention that our two most recent presidents made it to the White House by positioning themselves as disrupters of Washington tradition.

Nate Hinton, the founder of the Hinton Group, a two-year-old fashion P.R. firm, understood the logic behind Mr. Jean-Raymond’s move. Mr. Hinton is his publicist and, therefore, a chief enabler, a guy whose job undoubtedly includes a certain amount of implementing the client’s wishes.

Still, sucking up wasn’t principally what was going on when he helped Mr. Jean-Raymond arrive at the conclusion that the fashion calendar was a relic.

First, said Mr. Hinton, who is 39 and looks closer to 26, there was the cost of staging a show twice a year (usually $150,000 each time, at minimum). That made sense a decade ago, when having a fashion week slot was the only accepted way for a designer to build heat around a collection.

Back then, sites like Style.com ran pictures within a day or two — but hardly anyone saw them so the clothes weren’t old news when they hit store shelves, and fashion magazines, several months later.

Instagram changed that. Yet designers, egged on partly by the publicists who made money publicizing those shows, kept going broke trying to keep up.

“It makes no sense,” Mr. Hinton said during one of several interviews over the last week. “It cripples young designers.”

That is particularly true for his clients, many of whom are people of color in an industry that just five years ago had barely any brand-name black designers.

But now, Mr. Jean-Raymond’s approach to fashion week is spreading throughout the industry, along with an obvious question: What if Mr. Hinton, as one of fashion’s most promising young image makers, reaches the top tier of the fashion heap by helping to kill fashion week?

WHEN PEOPLE DISCUSS publicists — an admittedly small group — conversation usually centers on whether they lied on behalf of a client or said yes or no to a journalist’s request for an interview.

Fashion publicists operate differently.

At KCD, the industry’s most august firm — which was started in the early 1980s — the founders Paul Cavaco and Kezia Keeble used their previous work as fashion stylists as the building block for their company.

Its principals today are certainly capable of doing media strategy for designers clawing their way out of catastrophe (see: John Galliano), but they also produce scores of fashion shows (Marc Jacobs, Versace), manage brands’ social media (Balmain) and broker partnerships between mass retailers and luxury designers (see: Target and Missoni).

That makes them something like a fashion hybrid of a P.R. firm and a Hollywood agency. (Their all-black suits even match the ones favored by agents at CAA and William Morris.)

For many years, KCD’s chief competitor has been PR Consulting, whose founder, Pierre Rougier, is largely inseparable from Nicolas Ghesquière and Raf Simons, two erstwhile fashion darlings. Where friendliness was KCD’s corporate mandate, PR Consulting helped create an air of exclusivity for Mr. Ghesquière and Mr. Simons by dismissing those perceived as wannabes (or worse, middle market.)

Mr. Hinton worked for both firms, and his solo career seems like an attempt to meld the friendly demeanor of Ed Filipowski (his boss at KCD, who died in January) with the clubby synergy that exists between Mr. Rougier and the curated circle of designers he represents.

“That’s how Kerby and I relate to each other,” Mr. Hinton said. “It’s part of why I understand his vision and what he wants. We know the same people, we share friends, we hang out.”

BACK WHEN MR. HINTON entered the industry, there wasn’t just a dearth of black designers. There were few black behind-the-scenes people in positions of authority. “I don’t even know if I can think of one,” said Mr. Hinton, who has a level of candor, even chattiness, that for better and perhaps for worse, is uncharacteristic of publicists.

Mr. Hinton grew up in Norfolk, Va. His mother was an anesthesia technician, and his father wasn’t around, he said.

“There was never enough money,” Mr. Hinton said. “That’s part of what motivated me.”

At Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk, he staged fashion shows in which students modeled borrowed street wear from Iceberg and Girbaud.

At Shaw University, a historically black college in Raleigh, N.C., he studied physics, but protons didn’t capture his attention quite like Tom Ford did.

In 2003, Mr. Hinton graduated with a degree in business administration. He moved to Washington, D.C., for a job at Federated, the department store conglomerate.

A year later, he moved into an apartment in Paterson, N.J., and commuted to New York City, where he was hired as the sample supervisor at Prada (that’s fashion-speak for running the company closet). From there, he moved into the brand’s public relations department.

In 2011, he was hired by Mr. Rougier at PR Consulting.

In 2012 he was fired by him after a dust-up whose central elements — operatics and pettiness — sit atop fashion’s periodic table.

The end came after the actress Emma Watson picked a dress for the MTV Movie & TV Awards. It was made by a little-known brand called Brood, whose account representative at PR Consulting was Mr. Hinton. “It was like my first V.I.P. moment,” he said.

On the day of the show, Mr. Hinton got what he described as a violent flu and failed to get the news release out before his trip to the emergency room. People magazine was among several outlets that published pictures of Ms. Watson without naming his client.

“I’m, like, slightly incapacitated,” Mr. Hinton said. “I can’t really respond to emails and texts. And so Pierre calls me, and he’s going off on me.”

Looking back, Mr. Hinton realizes it would have been smart to text Mr. Rougier and say he was in the hospital; that not informing him had a flaky millennial quality.

Still, Mr. Hinton said the final straw was the apology he didn’t deliver. “I was fired for my reaction to that call, which was just as saucy as his,” he said. (Mr. Rougier, asked about this, called Mr. Hinton “a great guy.”)

Soon after, Mr. Hinton was hired by KCD.

Two of the firm’s clients were Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, who, as the creative directors of Public School, were among a tiny group of well-known minority designers.

“Nate really got close to them and became part of their team and their circle, and I think that opened his mind to what he really wanted to do,” said Rachna Shah, a partner at KCD who served as his immediate supervisor.

In 2016, Mr. Hinton received a phone call from one of Mr. Rougier’s top aides. She informed him that Raf Simons was taking over Calvin Klein. Might Mr. Hinton come to work on the account?

Mr. Hinton said he would, seeing it as an opportunity “to sort of clear my record with Pierre, if you will.”

“Also,” he said, “it was Raf, and being able to order his clothes at a discount was great for me.” (Mr. Hinton was kidding. But also not.)

IN 2018, RUMORS began to spread that Mr. Simons’s days at Calvin Klein were numbered. When it became clear the prophecy was true, Mr. Hinton started plotting his next move.

Through Antoine Phillips (a vice president of brand and culture engagement at Gucci) and Laron Howard (a marketing manager at Burberry), Mr. Hinton met Mr. Jean-Raymond, who had recently held his much discussed Crown Heights show and was looking for a publicist.

“I went to all the big firms,” Mr. Jean-Raymond said in an interview at his Chelsea offices.

One told him they already had “one black designer” and didn’t need another, he said. Others proposed exorbitant monthly fees.

Having a person who was affordable, black and understood his message was the logical step, so he called Mr. Hinton.

For a few weeks, Mr. Hinton fretted about whether to start his own agency. Then Mr. Osborne and Mr. Chow of Public School called to say they were leaving KCD and wanted him to do their P.R. under the table. He replied that there was no need to work surreptitiously since he was about to start his agency.

Mr. Jean-Raymond gave Mr. Hinton and his five-person team desks in the Pyer Moss offices in Chelsea. According to Mr. Jean-Raymond, Mr. Hinton will also be getting equity in the company, though when and how much isn’t totally clear. “It’s in process,” Mr. Hinton said.

A number of clients Mr. Hinton later signed up failed to pay their bills; fees usually run about $7,000 a month. They parted ways with Mr. Hinton, and others joined up.

One is Sergio Hudson, a Gianni Versace-obsessed African-American designer who made the pantsuit Demi Lovato wore to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Another is Claudia Li, a New Zealander of Chinese descent whose clothes have a Comme des Garçons on the Q Train to Fort Greene vibe.Last week, she and Mr. Hinton stood in a conference room at her sunny garment district office preparing the seating chart for her Feb. 8 show.

Ms. Li, 31, wore a white hooded sweatshirt and a pleated yellow and blue skirt she designed. Mr. Hinton had on a black Aliétte hoodie, Acne Jeans (“my faves”) and Rick Owens sneakers that look like Converse All Stars and sell for about 30 times the price.

While Mr. Hinton moved around color-coded Post-its, Ms. Li talked about how lucky she was to work with him.

For one, she said, her previous P.R. personcost too much. For another, Mr. Hinton “recognized the establishment without being enslaved by it.”

Mr. Hinton chimed in about the importance of speaking directly to consumers and building community around brands. “But we’re not trying to say, ‘Screw everyone,’” he said. “We’d love to have Anna Wintour at her show.”

“I’d literally faint,” Ms. Li said.

I asked Mr. Hinton if he was in a position to call Ms. Wintour and plead Ms. Li’s case.

“I can call her,” he said. “Would she answer the phone? Hell, no!”

Of course, Mr. Hinton encountered Ms. Wintour when he worked the red carpet at the Met Gala for KCD. And he sort of knew her before that.

“At Prada, I was responsible for delivering her clothing orders,” he said.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/the-man-behind-the-new-front-row/

#Life style

0 notes

googlenewson · 5 years

Link

With a thoughtfully woke CEO and consistently high ratings on all the diversity lists, Randall Tucker knew that his new life as Mastercard's Chief Inclusion Officer would be a different kind of gig.

"This was not a turnaround situation," he laughs. "But my marching orders were to build on the great work and make it more relevant and global."

Now, just over two years on the job, Tucker says he's making a mark. "We've elevated the conversation of diversity and inclusion at that leadership level," he says. "We've all made sure that the work is seen as just as important as all other functions within the company."

RaceAhead caught up with Tucker just as he was about to jet off to celebrate his 24th wedding anniversary. "My husband and I met our first week at college," he says, an unexpected development but a wonderful one. "As I’ve gotten older, I've learned that everything is better when you have someone to share it with."

It’s a philosophy that informs his thinking about what makes a welcoming workplace. What follows is a lightly edited version of our conversation.

RA: Let's start with how you started. Mastercard was already doing so well and has a vocal equality champion in CEO Ajay Banga. How did you set your course?

RT: Well, we needed a working definition of what we were trying to tackle. I started with my formal definition of D&I – diversity is all the things that make us similar as well as different, the things you can and can't see about other people. Then there's inclusion - how do build diverse teams and keep them? At the end of the day, those are the two things that made sense for me, the management committee, and Ajay to focus on.

I imagine data played a big role.

Exactly. Next, I took a pause for the cause to figure out what we're really trying to move the needle on and how D&I can help support our core businesses. I had leadership interviews with the first two tiers of the organization. I had one-on-one conversations with board members. I looked at our HR data and employee engagement survey data and then the customer data which asked about our commitment to diversity.

How does “diversity” play out globally?

It's very different from region to region. In the US, we tend to gravitate to gender and ethnicity as the markers of diversity. But in other parts of the world that might not be the heavier weight. It might be language, it might be education, it might be religion or your career experiences. So that was part of the thinking.

Then basically I looked at all this stuff and said, what's it trying to tell me?

What was it trying to tell you?

Two things, one big, one modular. The first is that inclusion education matters. I don't believe we are born inclusive leaders, so part of the job is to build the muscle of inclusive leadership in our talent. That's how we make sure everyone can reach their greatest opportunity in the organization.

Next, we needed to focus on the regional goals that made specific sense to those leaders, while still mapping back to the global vision. One size fits all, but with regional customization.

Can you give me an example of regional differences?

The idea is that to create the greatest business opportunities you need diverse perspectives at the table. In Asia, it's how do we hire more people outside of the payments and banking industry, since our focus is primarily tech? In Latin America, it might be increasing women in senior leadership. In the US, it's often how do I get more people of African descent in the mix. The goal is to get all those perspectives working together harmoniously, so everyone feels that they belong.

How did you shape inclusive leadership training at Mastercard?

I started by thinking about what those things that keep coming up that we need to get better at right now. Things you'd find on employee surveys, things that we get sued for - and then solve for them in tangible ways.

It's not about holding hands. What's impeding us from meeting our goals and creating a space for belonging so people can think better and innovate better? Also, I have opinions about implicit bias training.

Let's hear it.

Inclusive leadership is a skill you can learn like any other, like financial acumen or executive presence. It's a honing of something. It's hopeful. It's a relaxed approach because we can all be more inclusive leaders. Standalone trainings feel like "we need to fix you." It creates outlier work and people don't understand how it relates to their business.

Instead embed your inclusion thinking in every policy, practice, and conversation. Now, it's just the way Mastercard execs learn to lead.

The numbers show - and it comes up all the time in my reporting – that non-majority culture talent can't make it past their first leadership jobs. What should companies be doing differently?

The piece that I make sure that I control is the development piece: What is the inclusion dialog around talent review? In that discussion, who is going to be given those stretch assignments. Who is in your next class of leaders in the organization? Are they diverse? We're having those conversations upfront about the people who are being identified as high potential. I show you the photo of your talent pool and ask you, is this what you want? Give them a chance to make a different decision by giving them the data.

The inclusive leadership part is - what do people specifically need to succeed?

So much of inclusion is about getting people to really see each other.

We do ourselves a disservice if we only talk to people like ourselves. We make sure our business resource groups (BRGs) are collaborating with each other. We make sure people are mentoring and sponsoring people different than themselves. There is not a Mastercard executive who won't make time for lunch if you ask. So ask.

But really, I learned about the power of dialog and crisis management when the Pulse Nightclub [mass] shooting happened.

You were the Senior Director of Inclusion and Diversity at Darden Restaurants at the time?

Yes, and it was right down the street from us. Orlando is already a welcoming environment. But now we needed to ask, what does it mean to love and respect your neighbor? So, I brought in people from the black, Hispanic, gay, Muslim, and law enforcement communities for a panel discussion. You know, we didn't all agree, but it was healing.

And that's what I'm really proud of, bringing that sense of dialog and discussion here to Mastercard every day. How can we get better at really talking to each other? Working with other groups? Inclusion can't be built in silos.

On Point

[bs-title]Intel talks diversity on Capitol Hil[/bs-title][bs-content]Intel's diversity and inclusion chief Barbara Whye testified to Congress in support of the STEM Opportunities Act, a law that will address the issues that women and underrepresented talent face in tech. She had plenty of pointers to share. Intel had made a public promise in 2015 that by 2020 its employees would better reflect the population of the US. They ended up reaching their goal in 2018 with a workforce now 27% female, 9.2 % Hispanic, and about 5% African American. She ticked through a variety of inclusion strategies, but asked lawmakers to do better. "These programs can help to reduce the opportunity gap, but only Congress has the influence and resources to address these systemic problems on the national level."[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://wapo.st/2VESn7J" source="Washington Post"]

[bs-title]The UK conducts a "racism in the workplace" survey, gets bad news[/bs-title][bs-content]The UK's Trade Union Congress (TUC) used an online survey to better understand the daily experiences of their Black and Ethnic Minority population (BME) in the workplace. The survey asked over 5,000 people some basic questions about their experiences at work, whether or not they had been racially harassed, or if they had been treated differently by their employer because of their race. The survey also asked the workers to share their experiences of bringing issues of racism to their employers and how they reacted. The study found that racism still plays a large role in the lives of the BME workers with over 70% of Asian and Black workers reporting they had experienced racial harassment at work and around 60% of Asian and Black workers, reporting that they had been given unfair treatment by their employer because of their race. The full report, called "Racism Ruins Lives," is below.[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2HrNzsz" source="Racism Ruins Lives"]

[bs-title]A fire in a New Haven mosque was intentionally set[/bs-title][bs-content]I'm not sure why this story isn't getting more attention, but a two-alarm fire which heavily damaged a New Haven mosque is now a federal investigation. "This was intentionally set," New Haven Fire Chief John Alston told the Hartford Courant. "Any time there's an event like this in a house of worship, anywhere in the United States, it triggers a response of both the ATF, the FBI, and state and local authorities. That has happened."[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2JigfaG" source="Hartford Courant"]

[bs-title]White supremacy is terrorism[/bs-title][bs-content]The number of hate-based murders, people who were killed for their race or religion, doubled in 2017. And, the attackers followed an ideology of white supremacy which meets the FBI definition of terrorism. But, experts say, law enforcement has been slow to treat these criminals as terrorists because they are American and white. The first domestic terrorism conviction happened in 2017, after a white assailant determined to start a race war, stabbed a 66-year-old black man to death on the streets of Manhattan. It's still an outlier. "I think we needed to call it what it was," Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance told CNN. "This was an act of terrorism," Vance explained. "This exists in our country and it happened here."[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://cnn.it/2vWYCVd" source="CNN"]

On Background

[bs-title]A surprising podcast about the day-to-day lives of people in China[/bs-title][bs-content]One of China's most popular podcasts, "Gushi FM" (or Story FM in English), tells the kinds of stories people rarely hear in the country's tightly controlled media market. The stories of loneliness, heartbreak, love, loss, and adventure range from a Chinese construction worker's escape from war in Libya, to a man who went with his father to Switzerland to die by assisted suicide. Kou Aizhe, a librarian turned journalist, is the host. "Through every story, my goal is to show the complexity of each person. I want to show the different angles," he says. While the podcast's audience is growing, with 35,000 new listeners each month, it's facing funding headwinds. But fans love it. Listener Shao Xueyan says that "Through listening to other people's stories I could reflect on my own life. It made me realize that there will always be good things that happen in life as long as you are alive."[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://nyti.ms/2VTIDWN" source="New York Times"]

[bs-title]The forgotten survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church attack[/bs-title][bs-content]t's been almost 60 years since the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing took the lives of four young girls, but no one remembers that day more than Sarah Collins Rudolph. She survived the attack, but her older sister Addie Mae did not. While the event may have been a turning point in the quest for civil rights, to this day Rudolph and her husband George carry deep feelings. After the accident, in which Rudolph lost an eye, she received no counseling, recognition, or restitution. She still struggles with health problems as a result. "The way they treated me here in the city of Birmingham, they don't acknowledge me as being the fifth little girl," she says. She thinks about the incident every day and worries for the future with the many recent shootings. "We have a president now, and it looks like all this stuff is coming back because he don't talk against it," she says.[/bs-content][bs-link link="https://wbur.fm/2VF0zFk" source="WBUR"]

[bs-title]How to write about and understand immigration in the US[/bs-title][bs-content]This resource, from Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy is designed for journalists, but it works for anyone who wants to publish anything from a memo to public remarks on the subject of immigration. The number one issue with immigration reporting is a lack of context. Is the event you are highlighting a single event or part of a broader history? "It's really tempting, I think, at this moment for journalists to say the Trump administration is doing x, y, z. I think it's really important for journalists to ask the question, 'When did this program start?' Or, 'When did this issue start?'" says PRI's Angilee Shah. Click through for more and a public Google document with over 70 immigration data sources.[/bs-content][bs-link link="http://bit.ly/2ADzRjB" source="Shorenstein Center On Media"]

[bs-content]Aidan Taylor assisted in the preparation of today's summaries.[/bs-content]

Quote

[bs-quote link="http://bit.ly/2VEQSqf" author ="--Ajay Banga"]At the end of the day, if you surround yourself with people who look like you, who walk like you and talk like you, and grew up in the same places you did and worked with you in your prior jobs, then you will have a sense of comfort of hiring people around you who have that familiarity. But you will also have the same blind spots. You will miss the same trends. You will miss the same opportunities.[/bs-quote].

from Fortune http://bit.ly/2HrbiJj

#World News

0 notes

csrgood · 7 years

Text

The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) And Lightbox Announce Partnership to Foster Diversity in Documentary Filmmaking

Today, The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) and Lightbox, a multi-platform media company focused on creating high quality non-fiction programming for film, television and digital platforms, announced they will collaborate on a new initiative to foster diversity in the feature documentary arena.

This multiyear program will leverage Lightbox’s success in producing award-winning and commercially successful documentaries with the ABFF’s unparalleled pipeline and record of accomplishment for identifying many of the industry’s most promising Black filmmakers.

To jumpstart this initiative, ABFF and Lightbox are announcing the ABFF’s inaugural Feature Documentary Competition and a national ‘call to action’ will be made the week leading up to the start of the 2017 American Black Film Festival, which runs June 14-18 in Miami Beach. The competition will be open to all African-American documentary filmmakers and any documentary filmmakers interested in exploring non-fiction stories and themes that speak directly to the African-American experience.

Selected films will be developed and produced by Lightbox and the newly formed ABFF Films division and executive produced by ABFF Ventures CEO Jeff Friday and Lightbox co-founders Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn. The first of the ABFF’s annual Feature Documentary Competition is being co-sponsored by National Geographic and 21st Century Fox, who will fully fund the development of the selected films.

Based in London and Los Angeles, Lightbox has produced several acclaimed documentaries that speak directly to the experience of people of color in America, including ESPN’s “Fantastic Lies“ about the 2006 Duke Lacrosse scandal; National Geographic’s “LA 92” that marked the 25th anniversary of the civil unrest in Los Angeles following the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case; and company is currently in production on the only authorized documentary about the life and legacy of the late Whitney Houston.

“We are honored to be partnering with the ABFF to encourage further diversity in the documentary genre.” said Lightbox co-founders Jonathan Chinn and Simon Chinn. “The documentary community has a rich tradition of embracing creative voices from a wide array of demographics and perspectives, but there is clearly more work for us to do to support African-American and filmmakers from minority communities who want to express themselves through the powerful medium of documentary story telling.”

For the past 21 years, ABFF has been deemed as the nation’s most prominent film festival, which recognizes and provides a platform for African American filmmakers. This collaboration will help to elevate unique perspectives and vision in the documentary space.

"We're so encouraged by the public's growing appetite for documentary films and are excited to partner with Lightbox, National Geographic and 21st Century Fox Studios to provide this unprecedented opportunity," says Jeff Friday, CEO of ABFF Ventures.

Details of the National Geographic/ 21st Century Fox sponsored competition and submission guidelines can be found at the ABFF’s website: www.ABFFVentures.com/films.

Details of the initiative will also be announced following a special screening of National Geographic and Lightbox’s feature documentary “LA 92” in Miami as part of the American Black Film Festival. The film, directed by Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin, will screen on Friday June 16th at 1:45pm at The Miami Beach Cinematheque.

“As we expand our push into premium programming, and especially look for new projects to present under our National Geographic Documentary Films banner, I cannot think of a better opportunity to foster new talent and discover new voices with important stories to tell,” said Tim Pastore, President of Original Programming for National Geographic Channel. “The opportunity to join our parent company in partnering with Jonathan, Simon and the team at ABFF is incredibly exciting. I cannot wait to see what talent we discover.”

Jeff Friday and Lightbox are represented by Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

Join the conversation on social media by visiting ABFF’s multiple social media platforms: Twitter @ABFF Facebook American Black Film Festival Instagram @AmericanBlackFilmFestival YouTube American Black Film Festival Hashtags #ABFF2017 #WeAreABFF Website www.ABFF.com

ABOUT LIGHTBOX: Headquartered in London and Los Angeles, Lightbox is a multinational media company focused on creating high quality non-fiction programming for film, television and digital platforms. It was founded in 2014 by Academy Award and Emmy winning producers and cousins Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn. Simon and Jonathan’s partnership represents a seamless melding of two distinct but compatible backgrounds and a strongly shared creative sensibility. Since its founding in 2014, Lightbox has produced many notable projects including documentary films Atari: Game Over and The Thread, for Xbox Entertainment Studios; an ESPN 30 for 30 film about the 2006 Duke Lacrosse scandal entitled Fantastic Lies; as well as several series for both the UK and US markets such as The Traffickers for Fusion, Inside British Vogue for BBC, The Runner-Up for Esquire, War Child for Channel 4 and the groundbreaking Captive for Netflix. Lightbox recently released its first theatrical feature documentary LA 92, about the 1992 LA Riots for National Geographic’s Documentary Films Division, and is currently in production on the first and only authorized documentary about legendary pop icon Whitney Houston, which is slated to hit theatres in 2018. Prior to co-founding Lightbox, Simon Chinn became one of the world’s most successful feature documentary producers with two Academy Award-winning documentaries, Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man, to his credit. His other prior producing credits include Project Nim, The Imposter, The Green Prince, My Scientology Movie. Jonathan Chinn co-founded Lightbox on the heels of a successful career as one of the most respected non-fiction television showrunners in the US, winning an Emmy for American High (Fox/PBS) and the Television Academy’s prestigious Honors Award for 30 Days (FX), the latter of which went on to become FX’s highest rated unscripted series. Other producing credits include Kid Nation (CBS), Push Girls (Sundance) and Hotel Hell (FOX).

ABOUT ABFF: The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) is an annual event dedicated to showcasing quality film and television content by and about people of African descent. It supports emerging artists to foster a wider range of images, stories and storytellers represented in the entertainment industry. The festival is committed to the belief that Black artists and content creators deserve the same opportunities as their mainstream counterparts. ABFF founder Jeff Friday conceived the festival in 1997 as a vehicle to promote diversity in the motion picture industry, and strengthen the Black filmmaking community through resource sharing, education, artistic collaboration and career development. Today, the ABFF is recognized as the preeminent pipeline to new Black talent, both in front of and behind the camera, and is regarded as one of the leading film festivals in the world. The ABFF is a property of ABFF Ventures, a multifaceted entertainment company specializing in the production of live events, television and digital content targeted to upscale African American audiences.

ABOUT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS, LLC: National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between National Geographic and 21st Century Fox, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic’s media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children’s media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and ecommerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 128 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers … and reaching over 730 million people around the world in 171 countries and 45 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

source: http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/40123-The-American-Black-Film-Festival-ABFF-And-Lightbox-Announce-Partnership-to-Foster-Diversity-in-Documentary-Filmmaking?tracking_source=rss

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