Pandora’s Box Office: Race And Revolution In The Biggest Movie Of All Time.
It wasn’t until several weeks after Avatar’s release that my wife and I managed to squeeze into Raleigh’s iMax theater (mid-afternoon in the middle of the business week and it was packed) to experience the phenomenon. To keep it completely one hundred… despite some slight reservations I thought it was freak’n awesome! It was astounding to watch, especially in iMax, the cinematography was spellbinding and the writing and acting were quite good. It’s no surprise that the sci-fi thriller managed to sink the Titanic and become the highest grossing movie of all time. As a life-long science fiction junkie it would be easy for me to get swept up in Pandora-maina with praise for the innovative film. However, the professor and cultural analyst in me demands more. It is because of Avatar’s unprecedented commercial success and cultural significance that I feel the need to delve into some of the deeper issues.
One only needs to look historically to understand why it’s so important that we interrogate cultural phenomena like Avatar. For example, take the 1915 drama Birth of a Nation. Birth of a Nation was the Avatar of it’s time, having broken revolutionary ground with state of the art cinematography, special effects and unprecedented box office sales. It was actually the movie that coined the term “blockbuster” because folks were wrapped around the block waiting to watch it. One can learn a lot about early-20th century social and cultural politics by watching and analyzing Birth of a Nation.
4 Comments. Filed under entertainment, film, war, popular culture.
“God Damn Haiti” From John Quincy Adams to Pat Robertson
This is why I love teaching. Today, in both my Blacks and Popular Culture class at UNC and in my Music and Political Movements class at NCCU, I discussed the Haiti crisis with my students. Quoting from yesterday’s blog post, in which I published Pat Robertson’s remarks on Haiti being damned, I suggested to my students that Robertson was using the “Devil” as a veiled metaphor to criticize and condemn the Haitian revolution. The controversial topic sparked passionate debate in both classes, and I discovered that not all of my students agreed with me. When I got home (to my delight) I found the following email in my inbox (which I am posting here with his permission):
6 Comments. Filed under racism, poverty, diaspora, Haiti.
Announcement
Special Announcement: due to the ridiculous amount of stuff I have to do this month, I can’t post a Blackademics interview for January. BUT STAY TUNED: I promise we will have a very special and exclusive Blackademics interview for Black History Month.
Deuces.
-Pierce
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Our Prayers Go Out To The People Of Haiti / Pat Robertson Spews Unbridled Racism In The Wake of a Tragedy
First and foremost our prayers go out to the people of Haiti. I have compiled a list of disaster relief organizations to which you can donate funds, but if you choose do so, do it with caution. One of the lessons we learned from Katrina was that donating money with good intentions, to incompetent and unethical organizations can compound a crisis. I have not taken the necessary time to comb through this list and exclude shiesty relief foundations such as the CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), so I urge you to do so. Speaking of the CBN, I have included a youtube clip of one of their “Haiti relief” broadcasts into this post. Normally, I wouldn’t give such a ridiculous baffoon as Pat Robertson an audience on Blackdemics, but I think watching the following video can help facilitate caution when it comes to giving money to people who claim to have the best interests of Haiti in mind.
Haiti was the first country in the African Diaspora to successfully liberate herself from enslavement. Under the leadership of such revolutionaries Toussaint L’ouverture (I talk about L’ouverture with our November interviewee, Lilian Thuram) Haiti obliterated the French army and became a haven to, and inspiration for enslaved Africans everywhere. Robertson’s suggestion that the Haitian Revolution was the result of a “deal with the devil” is reflective of his belief that Black self-determination is evil. I suppose the “good” or “Christian” thing for the Haitians to do, would have been to allow the French to continue raping, murdering, torturing and working them to death until they were “granted” independence alongside the other Caribbean nations in the mid-20th Century. Robertson’s got it all wrong. The ones who made the deal with the devil were the French. The Haitian Revolution was an act of God. Don’t let organizations like the CBN use your well-intentioned money to undermine the Haitian people. The best way to guarantee the sanctity of your contribution would be to book a flight to Haiti and instead of donating money, donating your sweat and time. But for those of you who can’t, choose carefully:
3 Comments. Filed under racism, poverty, diaspora.
December Interview w/ Spiritual Activist, Queen Mother Frances Pierce
Happy Holidays from Blackademics! This month’s interview is with community activist and spiritual leader Queen Mother Frances Pierce. Pierce is featured prominently in MK Asante Jr.’s new film on Kwanzaa, The Black Candle, which premieres nationally on TV One Saturday, December 26th at noon. Queen Mother and I discuss her role in the film as she reflects on the celebration, traditions and legacy of Kwanzaa. Enjoy!
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A Petition to Prevent Sex Trafficking. Sign it.
The Homie, Maria Tchijov over at Change.org hit me up the other day about a new petition that puts pressure on the corporate owners of the Comfort Inn to put a stop to child prostitution in their hotels. The petition was initiated by Change.org blogger Amanda Kloer, following the sex trafficking and subsequent tragic death of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis in Sanford, right here in my home state of North Carolina. Blacakdemics.org salutes Amanda for starting this initiative - and if you believe in the cause, please sign the petition by clicking this link. While child sex trafficking should be particularly significant to the Black community because it disproportionally affects children of color in America, this is human rights issue. Choice hotels needs to step up to the plate and do their part to put an end to this heinous industry. So let’s do our part.
5 Comments. Filed under violence, healing.
Five Years of Blackademics in Schools
The Blackademics Hip-Hop curriculum was first introduced at Durham School of the Arts in 2004. Durham’s Hayti Heritage Center was sponsoring its inaugural Hip-Hop and Spoken Word festival, and home-town heroes Language Arts (myself and “dope emcee” Aden Darity) was on the ground facilitating discussions with high school students about Hip-Hop music and culture. The event culminated in a performance for the entire student body, during which LA performed alongside several DSA students, including Aden’s younger brother jazz guitarist William Darity. Since ‘04, the curriculum has gone through some major changes. Most important, perhaps, was in 2006 when the curriculum developed from an independent study/community project into a fully fledged honors thesis. Under the tutelage of Dr. Perry Hall and historian Dr. Genna Rae McNeil, it matured from a classroom workshop into a comprehensive analysis of African American music, from Spirituals to Hip-Hop.
In the 5 years since its inception, Blackademics has traveled from Durham’s Hayti Heritage Center to the Martin Luther King Jr. Arts Complex in Columbus Ohio; from Durham School of the Arts, to the Deepalaya School Gusbethi in New Dehli, India; and from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to the University of Ghana at Legon. Now celebrating our 5th year I wanted to share footage from two recent workshops that bring it back to where it all started. Below, I’ve got youtube clips from my Hip-Hop/jazz quartet, The Beast’s most recent program at Durham School of the Arts. Below that, check out a Hip-Hop Symposium we developed for Movement of Youth, featuring Grammy nominee Phonte (of The Foreign Exchange - congrats on the Grammy nod, Tigga!). As Blackademics.org grows, we will incorporate more information about our educational programs into the framework of the blog. We’re really looking forward to the next 5 years!
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November Blackademics Interview: World Cup Champion Lilian Thuram
Last week I had the honor of kicking it with one of the world’s most accomplished soccer players of our time, Lilian Thuram. However we didn’t discuss his 1998 World Cup or EURO 2000 Championship victories, his 140-plus career caps or his legacy as one of the best defenders, ever. Instead we took a tour of Durham and talked about the legacy of enslavement on Durham County’s 30,000 acre Stagville Historic Plantation (a former prison/home to over 900 enslaved Africans). Afterward we visited the “seedlings” of Durham’s revolutionary non-profit eco-organization SEEDS (Southern Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces). Thuram was in town as a guest in residency at Duke University and a panelist in Dr. Laurent Dubois’ Soccer Politics series. Our interview takes place in the car, on the way from SEEDS back to his hotel. A special thanks goes out to Dr. Dubois who graciously arranged and translated the entire interview as well as to Ryan and Nadira Hurley of Durham’s eco-fashion botique Vert & Vogue for making this interview possible. Check out the interview here, or watch the youtube below. Enjoy!
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Old Ideologies Die Hard: The Persistence of “The Talented Tenth”
Historicizing “heroes” has proven to be a tricky business for black folk in America, that is, when we choose to undertake the endeavor at all. Oftentimes, our proclivity to re-imagine our icons is nothing more than a static idolatry that fails to account for the full complexity of the individuals we claim to acknowledge. We cherry pick the facts we want to remember about them, and disingenuously disregard the rest, similar to public school texts that maintain Christopher Columbus discovered America, the pilgrims and Indians enjoyed Thanksgiving meals together and Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Indeed it appears that we have bought into the American tradition of creating myths and branding them as history.
Rather than deal with the complicated ideological and political trajectories of our respective heroes, we prefer to pancake their existences and stretch these flat, singular moments into the homogenous narratives that we romanticize. And it is in this regard, that we ignore the true hope of radical change presented in the political possibilities of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as we obsess over Malcolm X’s sterile nationalist rhetoric that we have confused for progressive politics. And it is precisely in this regard, that we are still haunted by the reactionary bourgeois claims of W.E.B. Du Bois’ notion of “The Talented Tenth” as we ignore his shifts toward Marxism, the hopes of a unified black proletariat and third world solidarity.
12 Comments. Filed under news/politics, black culture, entertainment, poverty, black image, radical politics, history, racial rhetoric, President Obama.
October Interview: Dr. Kwabena Nketia pt. 2
Celebrating our 4th year of Blackademics.org interviews, we’re kicking things off with an exclusive 2-part interview with world-renown ethnomusicologist and emeritus professor, Dr. JH Kwabena Nketia. This is part 2 of that installment. Enjoy!
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