The Little Professor & His Friends: Edu-tainment For All Ages
Greetings Blackademics and Happy New Year. One of my New Years Resolutions this year is to contribute more positive stories to the blogsphere. I feel like we become so overwhelmed by the negative issues that we face as a community, that we sometimes forget to stop and celebrate our brilliance. That being said, I’m going to kick off 2009 with an uplifting expose’ about a young brother called the Lil’ Professor.
When I first heard the name Lil’ Professor, I thought it was a new rapper jumping on “Lil” Hip-Hop bandwagon following the successes of Lil’ Wayne, Lil’ Kim, Lil’ Jon and Lil’ Mama. Upon investigation, I came to find out that the “Professor” is actually a comic book character… Even better! I’ve been a comic book fan my entire life, and in my mind’s eye, the Lil’ Professor represented a new Black super-hero; like Professor X meets Barack Obama. Well… yes and no. It took an email from the comic’s co-creator and author, Gary Smith to set the record strait. The Lil’ Professor is actually a character in an educational comic book series called The Little Professor and His Friends. Here’s what Gary had to say about it:
2 Comments. Filed under positivity, academia, art.
The Black Candle - A Revolutionary Documentary on Kwanzaa by MK Asante, Jr.
HAPPY KWANZAA, Blackademics! To celebrate this holiday season, I highly recommend that everyone take a look at the new documentary from MK Asante, Jr. entitled, The Black Candle. It’s the first feature film on Kwanzaa. The Black Candle is vibrant exploration, celebration and history of the African American experience. Narrated by Maya Angelou, the film also features everyone from the founder of Kwanzaa, Dr. Maulana Karenga, to Chuck D, Dead Prez, and Sunni Patterson. If you didn’t catch Asante in Jet Magazine this week, take a look at this clip from CBS’ The Early Show:
Filmed across the United States, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, The Black Candle is a timely illumination on why the seven principles of Kwanzaa (unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith) are so important to African-Americans today… The Black Candle traces the holiday’s growth out of the Black Power Movement in the 1960s to its present-day reality as a global, pan-African holiday embraced by over 40 million celebrants. - TheBlackCandle.com
You can purchase the film here. Check it out, and share it with your community!
2 Comments. Filed under positivity, diaspora, history, Africa.
whopper virgins & the fast food nation: colonialism, marketing, food, sex, and hunger politics.
it has been a long time, but i am back 
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Cross posted from kameelahwrites.
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i am sure everyone has seen the whopper virgins commercials with the ‘natives’/'whopper virgins’ in traditional garb tasting burger king whoppers after they have been rescued from their tribal settings to consume fatty American food in a more ‘modern’ setting. if you haven’t, please check the following links:
the quotes below speak for themselves. i will say that in addition to all the commentary on race and hunger politics, i’d like to add some quick gendered commentary. like “virgin” colonial lands that invited penetration, these commercials reproduce discourses around the paternalistic need/imperial impulse to penetrate bodies and spaces deemed ripe for conquest. i am surprised no africans were thrown into the mix, but then again we all known africans are promiscuous and the juxtaposition of ‘african’ and ‘virgin’ would just confuse viewers. yay for another anthropological blunder.
on to the links:
@jezebel: Burger King Needs To Lose Its Whopper Virginity
Can we please just take a moment to call shenanigans on these “Whopper Virgins” commercials that Burger King insists on playing every 5 minutes? The premise itself is ridiculous: Burger King travels to remote areas of the world, basically “rounds up” people who have never eaten Whoppers before, and then films them as they taste a Whopper for the first time. “The Whopper is America’s favorite,” a voiceover claims, “but what will these people choose?” Perhaps the most offensive part of the ads is, as Marilyn Borchardt of Food First points out, the fact that “the ad’s not even acknowledging that there’s even hunger in any of these places.” Brian Morrissey of AdFreak.com calls the ads “embarrassing and emblematic of how ignorant Americans still seem to the rest of the world.”
3 Comments. Filed under Uncategorized, racism, news/politics, television, poverty, health.
The Dynamics of Black Masculinity During Pick-up Basketball Games
Today, I was playing basketball at Lyon Park Community Center here in Durham, NC. It’s a weekly Sunday run from about 1pm-4pm. Moderately competitive. We usually get about 15-20 young basketball players, many of whom live in the community surrounding the center. I’d say the median age is about 20 years old - half high school basketball players and a handful of older heads who only get to run once a week. The Lyon Park Community Center is a First Calvary Baptist Church/Durham Parks and Recreation collaborative, so there’s usually no serious drama between players. Today was a rare exception. However, always looking on the bright side of things, I see it as an excellent opportunity to discuss issues of Black Masculinity in a larger context.
There’s no disputing the trials and tribulations that Black men face in this country. We’ve endured hundreds of years of being disenfranchised and emasculated, while at the same time being portrayed as vicious and barbarian. In the 21st Century, post-Obama, the majority of these negative stereotypes are still pervasive in the media. In some cases, Black youth embrace the stereotypes that are perpetuated in mainstream culture, and adorn a mask of what they think Black masculinity should represent. These disillusioned children tend to imitate the figures that they see in violent video games, movies and music videos in a futile attempt to find themselves.
3 Comments. Filed under men's issues, sports.
December Interview w/ The Legendary Raphael Saadiq
This month’s interview is with artistic genius Raphael Saadiq, who was in Durham performing alongside John Legend this week. I joined him after the show for a night of drinks, club hopping and salsa dancing in the Bull City. This interview takes place at about 2:30 am in my car, so please excuse the poor lighting. We talk about his music, Grammy nominations and Motown role models. Check out the interview here or watch the Youtube below. PS. Good looking out Julie Pitts!
Comments Off. Filed under music, interviews.
Lil Wayne Leads All Artists of Any Category in Grammy Nominations
“Welcome back Hip-Hop, I saved your life,” Wayne triumphantly announced at the end of his song “Dr. Carter” from his multi-platinum album Tha Carter III. The self-proclaimed “best rapper alive” garnered 8 Grammy nominations this year, including Best Rap Song for “Lollipop,” Best Rap Solo Performance for “A Milli,” Best Rap Performance by Duo for “Mr. Carter” (featuring Jay-Z) and album of the year for Tha Carte III (just to name a few). Granted, some of the songs from this list (”Mr. Carter,” for example) are better than others (”Lollipop”!?) - it is quite a feat for any artist to garner such prestigious praise from the recording academy. Weezy’s 8 nominations place him ahead of industry giants Coldplay, who earned 7 nominations; as well as Jay-Z, Ne-Yo and Kanye West, who each earned 6 nominations. For a complete list of nominee’s, check out Grammy’s website.
Critics of mainstream rap often point to corporate appropriation, glorification of negative stereotypes and a general decline in creativity among popular Hip-Hop artists, as evidence of the music’s waning influence and potency.
7 Comments. Filed under black culture, entertainment, music.
The Other First “Black” President
Blackademicians, I’d like to apologize for the lack of posts recently. My wife and I just had a baby boy, so I gave myself a little hiatus from the blogsphere. I returned to find an interesting article forwarded to me from fellow contributor, Weusi Baraka. The article, entitled “Barack Obama is not the First Black President,” focuses on the 29th president of the United States, Warren Gamaliel Harding (pictured here). Author Abdul Karim Bangura, a professor at Howard University, raises some very interesting points and historical facts that I was unaware of. Check out an excerpt of the article here:
3 Comments. Filed under academia, history.
November 2008 Interview w/ Keli Goff
This month’s interview is with journalist, blogger and political analyst Keli Goff (check her out at her website: keligoff.com). We talk politics - discussing everything from the controversial proposition 8 gay marriage referendum, to the Republican Party’s current identity crisis. Listen to the interview here. Read the transcript here.
Comments Off. Filed under interviews.
Fear of a Black President
Hard as it may be to believe, not everyone is completely overjoyed at America’s recent choice of president. In fact, some folks seem downright shook, so to speak. Check out some of the recent headlines and quotes from the lunatic fringe:
11 Comments. Filed under racism, news/politics, racial rhetoric.
“Yes We Did” - Who Helped President Elect Barack Obama Make History?
“Yes we can” was the resounding phrase ringing out to an audience of more than 250,000 people at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois last night. Barack Obama had just won the most prestigious and powerful position in the United States of America. The Chicago crowd - and millions of others watching from their homes, local rallies, bars, universities, churches and community centers internationally - screamed back with passion “Yes we did!” To say that emotions ran high yesterday evening would be a gross understatement.
Barack Obama did more than pummel John McCain in the Electoral College tally (338-163, 37 still undecided) he also handily won the popular vote and dominated in several demographics. Obama beat McCain among African-American voters (95 percent to 4 percent); first-time voters (68 percent to 31 percent); women voters (56 percent to 43 percent); voters under 30 (66 percent to 32 percent); Latino voters (66 percent to 32 percent); and voters making less than $100,000 a year (55 percent to 43 percent). He redrew the nation’s electoral map, turning red states blue, while inspiring record turnout among women, blacks, Hispanics, whites and youth. An estimated 136 million Americans – as many as 66 percent, the most since 1908 – pulled a lever, touched a screen, or filled in ballot yesterday. This is a true testament to American’s hunger for change.
President Elect Barack Obama, 47, has become the first African-American to win the White House. He will be sworn in as the 44th president on January 20.
2 Comments. Filed under news/politics, collective action.
