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Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
It Begins! A Black Power Summer....
If you know me, then you know I like to have my ducks in a row before I do anything. ANYTHING. That doesn't inhibit my absolutely charming randomness, but I like my shit to be tight at the end of the day, careerwise.
Anywho, here are some books I'll be working my way through this summer:
Secondary Works:
1) "New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement", Lisa Collins and Margo Crawford (Dr. Crawford is awesome!)
2) "The Black Arts Movement," James Smethurst. (Smethurst rocks!)
3) "Wrestling With the Muse," Melba Boyd (Amazing woman and mentor)
4) "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour", Peniel E. Joseph (Nice guy)
5) "After Mecca", Cheryl Clarke (Brilliant)
6) "Black Power", Jeffrey Ogbar
As you can see from many of the above descriptions, I have a lot to live up to :-)
Primary Sources:
1) "Black Power", Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton
2) Collected/Selected poetry of Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Don L. Lee, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others
3) "Rebellion or Revolution?" Harold Cruse
4) "Black Fire", Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal
5) "The Black Woman", Toni Cade Bambara
6) "Soledad Brother", George Jackson
7) "Revolutionary Suicide", Huey Newton
8) "The Wretched of the Earth" and "Black Skin, White Masks", Frantz Fanon
9) "White Man, Listen!", Richard Wright
...The list continues...I'll try to post some book reviews. If you all have any suggestions, hook it up!!
Until then, I'll continue to complain about Amherst, which currently smells of hot-ass cow.
Later.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
What I did on my last day as a second-year graduate student....
2) Woke @ 10:15am
3) Rode to Connecticut with a friend to meet our girl at the airport and do lunch @ a Cracker Barrel, noon-3pm
4) Turned in my final paper @ 4:30pm
5) Graded student papers @ 5:30pm
6) Called Adrian to cheer him up @ 6:30pm
7) Bought books in celebration of my freedom!
8) Dinner with Nicole @ 7:30pm
9) Bed...
Feels like I'll sleep tonight for every hour I lost over the past nine months of teaching and learning.
This feels good.
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This is how lame Amherst is:
Lamer than this would be the depressingly white girl, surrounded by her white friends, wearing a shirt, with an Afro-ed sister on it, that read:
"The Only Cool Girls...Are Black"
Get me out of here. Please
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
In the midst of this DEPLORABLE paper...
I discovered something interesting about Cuban hip-hop. It, like hip hop movement in several other world circles of youth, drew it's influence from African-American artists in the late 1980s and the 1990s. However, this Cuban music also had the musical influences of salsa, son, timba and other Afro-Cuban melodical forms to add to its art and relevance to the Cuban youth.
Like its American brother, Cuban rap, at times, also serves a political function, as Sujatha Fernandes writes, giving a voice to voiceless black youth in a post revolution/"post-race" Cuba. But a major difference between our rap and theirs comes from the distinction between what is underground and what is commercial.
While "underground" implies a revolutionary tinge and "commercial" obviously emphasizes material gain and wealth, the cultural outsider to Cuban rap would be surprised at which form would be more meaningful to black Cubans. Cuban underground rap, Fernandes writes, is often more likely to fall into the fold of "revolutionary" art, that is, art that does not emphasize racial disparity - after all, Cuba is the only nation more "post-race" than the United States (my nose just grew 5 inches) - nor challenge the socialist government. On the other hand, in the midst of socialism and what some see as economic deprivation, Cuban commercial rap presses the need for poor black Cuban youth - typically composing the highest numbers of the unemployed - to hustle in order to make ends meet. There's no chance for conspicuous consumption, because as one rapper notes commercial and underground are all the same in Cuba because there is no market.
What a tangled web we weave...
Still reading.
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Like its American brother, Cuban rap, at times, also serves a political function, as Sujatha Fernandes writes, giving a voice to voiceless black youth in a post revolution/"post-race" Cuba. But a major difference between our rap and theirs comes from the distinction between what is underground and what is commercial.
While "underground" implies a revolutionary tinge and "commercial" obviously emphasizes material gain and wealth, the cultural outsider to Cuban rap would be surprised at which form would be more meaningful to black Cubans. Cuban underground rap, Fernandes writes, is often more likely to fall into the fold of "revolutionary" art, that is, art that does not emphasize racial disparity - after all, Cuba is the only nation more "post-race" than the United States (my nose just grew 5 inches) - nor challenge the socialist government. On the other hand, in the midst of socialism and what some see as economic deprivation, Cuban commercial rap presses the need for poor black Cuban youth - typically composing the highest numbers of the unemployed - to hustle in order to make ends meet. There's no chance for conspicuous consumption, because as one rapper notes commercial and underground are all the same in Cuba because there is no market.
What a tangled web we weave...
Still reading.
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Monday, May 18, 2009
An Introduction
Aside from the people, .....
I HATE IT HERE.
Amherst is just one of those places that you don't go for any extended period of time. For a summer? Sweet. A weekend? Even better. A month? Doable. Any length of time longer than a month is just pushing it.
Several factors may contribute to my disillusionment with this area. I'll just begin with one.
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan - one of the blackest cities in America, purposely. The white flight of the 1950s-1970s basically robbed me and my generation of any real meaningful interactions with middle-class white Americans and those ethnic/"racial" others that they let into their fold. Unless we crossed 8 Mile Rd., or drove west on Michigan Avenue long enough to be engulfed in suburban whiteness, my family and I (outside of my parents working) had little to do with any groups of people outside of city limits when I was a kid. I appreciate those interactions with people of different ethnicities because, with prime-time television and local news outlets telling you, an impressionable 10-year-old, or what have you, that all non-black people fear and hate you and here's why.... , those real-life instances with diverse connections across cultural and imagined racial lines gave me a chance to learn about and love people unlike me and more importantly correct and be corrected about false assumptions about race.
Amherst is a different story.
This place touts itself on diversity and liberal politics and, most importantly, "tolerance" - the worst kind of 'ism (though it grammatically isn't an "ism", it is). Everyone here protests something, even if they have no clue about the people, thing, or concept that they are protesting for. It seems to be the "en vogue" thing to do. And it is not always just white people here - though, since people of color make up less than 10 percent of the population, it almost always is. Do not get me wrong: I love when people are willing to learn about other cultures and jump in whole-heartedly to explore what it means to be a part of someone else's world. I love genuine interest and diversity of thought, habit, and interaction from people who are shaped by their environments. Voyeurs and posers, however, piss me off. People who rock dashikis, lock (not "dread") their hair, are regulars at salsa and reggae nights, learn how to play the talking drum, rock the mic from time to time at the local hip hop shows and still, STILL have the nerve at the slightest opportunity to call out "you people" (of color, not always black) for simply being. More than once have I observed or heard first-hand the instance of "tolerance" being tested by a simply suspected person of color by a "liberal" white person here. First and foremost, the concept of "tolerance" implies inadequacy of the group being tolerated. So, though these people are interested in dressing as I dress, embracing the cultures of my African, Latino, Hispanic, and Afro-American brothers and sisters, and dancing as we dance, we are still just to be tolerated?
Get the fuck out of here.
Amherst has the potential to be a great place to raise a family and have a quiet, prosperous life - if you can overlook all the bullshit. Detroit has its issues - major issues - but everything is out in the open, has been for more than half a century. Amherst is in denial. The Jason Vassell case and the local reactions to it speak volumes to that point: . When this place gets over itself, maybe I'll get over being here.
Until next time....
I HATE IT HERE.
Amherst is just one of those places that you don't go for any extended period of time. For a summer? Sweet. A weekend? Even better. A month? Doable. Any length of time longer than a month is just pushing it.
Several factors may contribute to my disillusionment with this area. I'll just begin with one.
I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan - one of the blackest cities in America, purposely. The white flight of the 1950s-1970s basically robbed me and my generation of any real meaningful interactions with middle-class white Americans and those ethnic/"racial" others that they let into their fold. Unless we crossed 8 Mile Rd., or drove west on Michigan Avenue long enough to be engulfed in suburban whiteness, my family and I (outside of my parents working) had little to do with any groups of people outside of city limits when I was a kid. I appreciate those interactions with people of different ethnicities because, with prime-time television and local news outlets telling you, an impressionable 10-year-old, or what have you, that all non-black people fear and hate you and here's why.... , those real-life instances with diverse connections across cultural and imagined racial lines gave me a chance to learn about and love people unlike me and more importantly correct and be corrected about false assumptions about race.
Amherst is a different story.
This place touts itself on diversity and liberal politics and, most importantly, "tolerance" - the worst kind of 'ism (though it grammatically isn't an "ism", it is). Everyone here protests something, even if they have no clue about the people, thing, or concept that they are protesting for. It seems to be the "en vogue" thing to do. And it is not always just white people here - though, since people of color make up less than 10 percent of the population, it almost always is. Do not get me wrong: I love when people are willing to learn about other cultures and jump in whole-heartedly to explore what it means to be a part of someone else's world. I love genuine interest and diversity of thought, habit, and interaction from people who are shaped by their environments. Voyeurs and posers, however, piss me off. People who rock dashikis, lock (not "dread") their hair, are regulars at salsa and reggae nights, learn how to play the talking drum, rock the mic from time to time at the local hip hop shows and still, STILL have the nerve at the slightest opportunity to call out "you people" (of color, not always black) for simply being. More than once have I observed or heard first-hand the instance of "tolerance" being tested by a simply suspected person of color by a "liberal" white person here. First and foremost, the concept of "tolerance" implies inadequacy of the group being tolerated. So, though these people are interested in dressing as I dress, embracing the cultures of my African, Latino, Hispanic, and Afro-American brothers and sisters, and dancing as we dance, we are still just to be tolerated?
Get the fuck out of here.
Amherst has the potential to be a great place to raise a family and have a quiet, prosperous life - if you can overlook all the bullshit. Detroit has its issues - major issues - but everything is out in the open, has been for more than half a century. Amherst is in denial. The Jason Vassell case and the local reactions to it speak volumes to that point: . When this place gets over itself, maybe I'll get over being here.
Until next time....
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