Our World with Black Enterprise: Zerlina Maxwell and Michael Eric Dyson Discuss Re-Election of Barack Obama

BEMultiMedia

 

We look at President Barack Obama's successful re-election bid and what it means for America over the next four years. Our guests include: David Webb, co-founder of Tea Party 365; Zerlina Maxwell, political analyst and writer for the New York Daily News; and Michael Eric Dyson, author and professor of sociology at Georgetown University.

Keli Goff & James Braxton Peterson Discuss 2012 Election on 'Our Voices with Black Enterprise'

BEMultiMedia

 

This week, we showcase a Reporter's Roundtable examining the up-coming 2012 presidential election. Panelists include Tara Wall, Media Strategist and Senior Adviser to the Romney Campaign; James Braxton Peterson, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor at Lehigh University; and Keli Goff, Political Analyst for The Root.com.

HuffPost Live: No Hard Knock Life—Jay Z & the American Dream

From running cocaine in Brooklyn to sitting atop $460 million, President Obama calls Jay-Z an "American success story" in a new campaign ad appealing to young voters.

Hosted by:

 

• Marc Lamont Hill

GUESTS:

• Touré (New York, NY) MSNBC Host and Author @toure
• Mark Anthony Neal (Durham, NC) Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University @NewBlackMan
• Marty Grace (Brooklyn, NY) Hip Hop Artist and Minister @martygrace164
• Rahiel Tesfamariam (Washington, DC) Columnist at the Washington Post @RahielT
• Tom Cunningham(Los Angeles, CA)Creative Director for Leadstar@tomistalking

HuffPost Live: When Nicki & Mariah Fight, All Women Lose

While the Nicki Minaj / Mariah Carey "diva feud" makes for good gossip & better ratings, it only reinforces the image of black women as mean, untrustworthy & dangerous.

Hosted by:
 

• Marc Lamont Hill 

GUESTS:
 

• Joan Morgan (New York, NY) Journalist, Author and Cultural Critic @milfinainteasy
• Mark Anthony Neal (Durham, NC) Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University @NewBlackMan
• Pat Sandora (New York, NY) Sr. Producer & Host of 'Likes or Yikes?' on @ivillage @PatSandora
• Regina Walton (Berkeley, CA) Freelance Social Media Consultant @reginawalton
• Rahiel Tesfamariam (Washington, DC) Columnist at the Washington Post @RahielT

Black POTUS Blues & the "Angry Black Man"

HuffPost Live:

 

Critics say the fear that white people will perceive blacks as "angry" is controlling President Obama's behavior. Is there danger in running away from stereotypes?

 

Hosted by:

 

• Marc Lamont Hill  

 

GUESTS:

 

• Trymaine Lee (New York, NY) Senior Reporter for HuffPost Black Voices @trymainelee
• Gayla Burks (New York, NY) Registered Democrat @Piquedmag
• Keli Goff (New York) HuffPost Contributor and Political Correspondent to TheRoot.com @keligoff
• Mark Anthony Neal (Durham, NC) Professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University @NewBlackMan
• Tresa Edmunds (Modesto, CA) Activist and Writer for ReeseDixon.com @ReeseDixon

50 Cent Discusses Jay Z & the Death of Chris Lighty with Marc Lamont Hill

HuffPostLive

 

50 Cent chats with Marc Lamont Hill about assuming too much responsibility with G-Unit, his thoughts on Jay-Z's career and his inability to understand the recent death of manager Chris Lighty.

50 Cent Discusses World Hunger with Marc Lamont Hill on HuffPost Live

HuffPostLive

Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) discusses growing up in the 'hood, eating cheese sandwiches and experiencing other hardships before he rose to fame with HuffPost Live's Marc Lamont Hill.

Rap Sessions: A Conversation About Sex, Love and Gender Politics in Today’s Pop Culture

“Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?

A Conversation About Sex, Love and Gender Politics in Today’s Pop Culture”

Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Georges Auditorium

Dillard University

The debate over whether hip hop music negatively influences youth today continues. In an upcoming discussion forum at Dillard University (DU), men and women will share their insights into how this musical genre portrays women. Dillard University will host “Does Hip-Hop Hate Women? A Conversation About Sex, Love and Gender Politics in Today’s Pop Culture” on Wednesday, Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Georges Auditorium of the Professional Schools Building. Taking place in a town-hall-style meeting, the gathering will be conducted by leading hip-hop intellectuals. However, everyone is invited to attend and to participate in the free event.

Panelists will include: Bakari Kitwana, author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture; Joan Morgan, author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip Hop Feminist; Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African American studies at Duke University; Treva Lindsey, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Missouri; Marc Lamont Hill, host of the show “Our World with Black Enterprise”; and Akiba Solomon, a journalist with the news website Color Lines. Kevin Griffin of the New Orleans collective 2-Cent Entertainment will preside.

“It’s important that we consistently engage in dialogue about the ways women and men are portrayed in our society,” said event organizer Michael Wilson, an instructor of African world studies at Dillard University. “And by using hip-hop as the vehicle to drive this discussion, students will be able to directly and critically think about visual literacy, identity, black masculinity, homophobia, perceptions of women, and how they overlap in media and public policy debates.”

The event is part of a series called “Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop” that has been held at Brown University, Harvard Law School, the University of Chicago and other schools. The panel aims to examine the tensions and animosities between young men and women that some hip-hop music exacerbates, and to present youth with viable strategies they can implement in their personal lives and organizations.

The Department of African World Studies and the Office of the President at Dillard University are sponsoring the event, along with Rap Sessions and 2-Cent Entertainment. A reception with refreshments will follow the discussion.

Do Black Celebrities Have a Duty to Give Back?

1HoodMedia

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill hosts a panel discussion on Huff Post Live with actor Isaiah Washington, Hip-Hop artist Jasiri X and Andrea Plaid, associate editor of Racialicious.com about Harry Belafonte's controversial comments on Jay Z, Beyonce and the social responsibility of Black celebrities.

Word Rapport: Obery Hendricks with Marc Lamont Hill

The Schomburg Center:

 

A profound and moving exploration of  Obery Hendricks's latest book The Universe Bends Toward Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church, and the Body Politic with Marc Lamont Hill.

The Black Athlete: From Jack Johnson to Metta World Peace @ The Brecht Forum 6/26

The Brecht Forum

June 26, 2012 @ 6:30 PM

The Black Athlete: From Jack Johnson to Metta World Peace

 

Theresa Runstedtler in conversation with David J. Leonard Moderated by Marc Lamont Hill

 

Sports are central to American public life in the twenty-first century – evidenced by the power and profitability of ESPN, the congressional hearings about steroids, and the ubiquity of sports programming in the mainstream media.  Of course, this is nothing new. From Jack Johnson to Jackie Robinson, and from the 1968 Olympic protest to the 2004 Palace Brawl in Indianapolis, sports have always been more than just a game. Drawing from their recently published books – Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line and After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness – Runstedtler and Leonard will explore the history of black athletes, reflecting on how race and racism have shaped and continue to define American sports culture.
 
A former professional dancer/actress from Canada, Theresa Runstedtler chose to shift her passion for popular culture from the studio and stage to the classroom. She graduated with a PhD in African American Studies and History from Yale University in 2007, and she is now an Assistant Professor of American studies at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). For the 2011-2012 academic year, she will be a Mellon postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

David J. Leonard is associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. With a B.A. in Black studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master's and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, he has dedicated his career to interdisciplinary scholarship, transformative teaching, and research that underscores the continued significance of race within popular culture, the structures of politics, and society at large.

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading hip-hop generation intellectuals in the country. His work, which covers topics such as culture, politics, and education, has appeared in numerous journals, magazines, books, and anthologies. Dr. Hill has lectured widely and provides regular commentary for media outlets like NPR, Washington Post, Essence Magazine, and the New York Times. He is the host of the nationally syndicated television show Our World With Black Enterprise, which airs Sunday mornings on TV One and broadcast markets around the country.  He also provides regular commentary for CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News Channel, where he was a political contributor and regular guest on The O’Reilly Factor. An award-winning writer, Dr. Hill is a columnist and editor-at-large for the Philadelphia Daily News.

Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15
Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers

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

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

Sportin' Life aka David Alan Grier Discusses Porgy & Bess on 'Our World' w/ Marc Lamont Hill

BEMultiMedia

Black Enterprise talks to David Alan Grier about Porgy & Bess on Broadway, on the Our World with Black Enterprise show, with host Marc Lamont Hill.

Black in America w/ Marc Lamont Hill, Imani Perry, Eddie Glaude & Toure

BEMultiMedia

 

Black Enterprise talks being Black In America on the Our World TV show with Marc Lamont Hill, and special guests Toure, Imani Perry, and Eddie Glaude.

EMOTIONAL JUSTICE UNPLUGGED: ‘BLACK LOVE: A RE-IMAGINING’ Love: Lessons, Legacy, Loss, Learning

EMOTIONAL JUSTICE UNPLUGGED

In partnership with WBAI99.5FM

presents

‘BLACK LOVE: A RE-IMAGINING’ Love: Lessons, Legacy, Loss, Learning

A Conversation with Marc Lamont Hill & Robert Cornegy Jr

Moderated by Esther Armah

***

There is nothing more revolutionary than black love.

How do you define love? How have men, women, lovers, parents, friends influenced and impacted how you love? How has the way you love shaped your relationships: work & love? How has rejection, abandonment and loss shaped how you love? How does the way you love shape your masculinity? What lessons have you learned? What do you need to unlearn? What legacy has the way you love created for you? What lessons would you share? Where do you need healing? Join the conversation, re-imagine love.

Panelists

Marc Lamont Hill: Activist Scholar, Author, TV Host, Political Commentator. Associate Professor of Education @ Columbia University; TV Host of Our World with Black Enterprise, Author The Classroom & The Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America

Robert Cornegy Jr: State Committeeman/District Leader 56th AD, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Brooklyn College, Husband and father of 6

Moderated by

Esther Armah: NY Radio Host, Playwright, National Best-Selling Author

DATE: WEDNESDAY MAY 16TH 2012

TIME: 7.00PM TO 9.30PM

VENUE: The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street between Bank & Bethune

Subway: A, C, E to 14th Street & 8th Avenue

ADMISSION: $10 cash only; first come, first served

Plus book signing: 'The Classroom & The Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America'

Twitter: @estherarmah

Marc Lamont Hill Talks with Schomburg Director Khalil Muhammad on Our World with Black Enterprise

BEMultiMedia 

Black Enterprise talks to Khalil Muhammad on Our World with Black Enterprise, with host Marc Lamont Hill. Muhammad, head of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture talks about his plans to continue the institution's legacy.

Rebirth of a Nation: Race & Gender Politics in Today's Media | In Philadelphia, April 18th

Rebirth of a Nation: Race and Gender Politics in Today's Media

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (ET)

Church of the Advocate

1801 W. Diamond St.

Philadelphia, PA 19121

Noted African American literati and scholars will join Art Sanctuary and Rap Sessions as they host 'Rebirth of a Nation: Race and Gender Politics in Today's Media' - a community dialogue on the role of African Americans in the media in the new millennium - on Wednesday, April 18, 6:00p.m. -8:00p.m. at The Historic Church of the Advocate.

Moderated by journalist and author Akiba Solomon, the all-star panel includes professor and media personality Dr. Marc Lamont Hill, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University Mark Anthony Neal, Journalist and Hip-Hop Feminist author of When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost, Joan Morgan, and cultural critic and journalist Elizabeth Mendez Berry as they facilitate this interactive town hall style meeting that takes a look at current depictions of African Americans in the media, the disproportionately high negative media coverage of African Americans in this seemingly post-racial America, and the role of positive African American images in the media as it relates to inducing social change in our communities.

As part of the organization's mission to bring visionaries into direct contact with the community, Art Sanctuary continues to be at the forefront of directing an ongoing conversation on race and culture as it relates to media and the arts. Founded in 2005, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, has conducted over 70 town-hall style meetings in scores of cities across the country. In 2012, by touring the nation with leading hip-hop activists, scholars and artists, Rap Sessions continues its commitment to engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation. Making its way to Philadelphia, Rap Sessions has partnered with Art Sanctuary to help jumpstart crucial debate and identify solutions to the question, "How do we effect change?"

This event is free and open to the public.

Marc Lamont Hill on Jeremy Lin [video]

Marc Lamont Hill talks with CNN's Kyra Phillips about race relations and Jeremy Lin's success with the New York Knicks.

Beyond the Classroom and the Cell: An Interview with Marc Lamont Hill

Beyond the Classroom and the Cell: An Interview with Marc Lamont Hill

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

Marc Lamont Hill and Mumia Abu-Jamal are two of the most visible intellectuals of my generation. Separated by the walls of injustice, The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America brings these two giants in the struggle for justice together.  

Discussing family, life and death, hip-hop, love, politics, incarceration and so much more, this book highlights their prominence and passion in the fight to “make America again.”  As Susan L. Taylor describes in her endorsement of the book: It “gives voice to what is rarely heard: African American men speaking for themselves without barriers or filters, about the many forces in their lives.”  Inspiring and illuminating, informative and insightful, The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America is a conversation about issues and about these prominent figures.  Amazing as the book is, I had the opportunity to talk to Marc Lamont Hill to discuss the book and its power.

David J. Leonard: How did the book come about?

Marc Lamont Hill: The book really emerged naturally out of my relationship with Mumia.  I have been working on his defense, advocating for him for years, but it was in 2008 when we actually started a direct personal relationship.  He called me out of the blue, right in the middle of the Democratic primaries, and we talked.  He reached out and told me that he read my work and that he had seen me on TV; he appreciated the work.  It was all love so we rapped about the work; we talked about Obama, we talked about whether or not he could beat Hilary Clinton and that almost became the source of our weekly conversations. 

He would hit me every Friday at 5:30.  We would just talk and as we began to talk more we developed a critique of Obama and what it meant for him to become President.  We also talked about our lives, about our children, and about the other intellectual interests we had; we talked about culture and so much other stuff that we developed a bond and friendship that continues until now.  After a while, we said lets do some work together. 

Initially we thought we would write a book, a more traditional book on black life in America.  It was an interesting project.  We started to write essays together and the thing that we noticed was that we were melding our voices into one; we were losing our distinctiveness, we were losing the thing that made our conversations so rich: we had similar politics, we had similar values, but we also different perspectives, we came from very different places, we occupy very different social locations. 

We decided that instead of trying to transform these conversations into something else we would spotlight the conversations in the tradition of Cornel West and bell hooks, and James Baldwin and Margaret Mead. 

We decided to do a book of conversations, talking about the things that matter to us, the stuff that we care about.  Politics came up, issues of life of death, leadership, education, love and relationships.  Over the course of a year, we talked every Friday at 5:30 and that became the basis of many of the chapters in the book.  Between prison visits, letter writing and phone conversations we produced this book, which I hope reflects the depth and breadth of our conversations as well was the deep love, commitment and respect we have for each other

DJL: When I was reading I was thinking about the West-hooks and Baldwin-Mead dialogues of the past, but this book felt different because of the level of respect and the love between the two of you; it felt more intimate than what we often get with dialogues and discussions between two prominent public figures.  You give readers not only your assessment about the world, but also insight about yourselves.             

MLH: That is what we wanted to do. We have each written a lot; we each occupy public lives and because of that, certain parts of who we are get exposed all the time; our ideas, our perspectives, our ideologies all get revealed.  But we wanted to locate ourselves in this work. We wanted to give more perspective on who are we, but we really wanted to go deeper, to show who we are, to expose our anxieties and fears; we wanted to link the ideas to our personal stories.  We wanted to tell a different story and we also wanted people to know that people conversing in this book are people who care deeply for each other and can model a kind of love ethic necessary for social change.   It should feel more personal because it was.

DJL: I thought the chapter on love was very powerful.  It brought the entire book together, because the conversations and the book itself seem to come from not just the love and respect you have for each other, but also the love and respect you both have for the issues, the communities, and the voices and histories so often unloved and disrespected.   I thought it was a powerful way to anchor the book, as it is a living example of the power of that love ethic

MLH: We hope so.  That was our goal.  This is the stuff that moves us.  This is the stuff that wakes us up in the morning; the ideas we wrestle with every single day.  The love chapter in many ways anchors the book because that is what this is all about: a profound love for each other, a profound love for our people, and people everywhere.  We hope the book puts a spotlight on the issues that matter most to the people who have the greatest need.  We hopefully we can then link that to change, to social transformation.  But it all comes back to love.  We are trying to model a different level of love, to explore that level since we don’t have the answers since we are wrestling and struggling with this stuff as much as anyone else.  We are willing to do that in public and that takes an ethic of risk that will pay off in the end.

DJL: Indeed.  As opposed to essays, the conversational approach allows you to wrestle with those larger issues, going back and forth, reflecting on the complexity and contradictions, revealing that vulnerability so uncommon amongst intellectuals, public figures, and politicians.  We are so often trying to prove that we have the answers.  The conversations highlight the exploration, self-reflection, and vulnerability.

MLH: That is what it is all about.  We live in as society where its not OK to wrestle with anything, where it is not OK to have contradictions, where it is not OK to change your mind.  Think how we beat up on political candidates.  Change should be a good thing, where people develop and grow, but we live in a world where people are expected to have all the answers and not having the right answers is seen as a sign of weakness. 

We come from a tradition where the more we learn, the more we explore, the more we realize what we don’t know.  And the more we realize what we don’t know the more we become committed to investigation, to inquiry, to sitting at the heel and learning at the elbows of people who know what we don’t know.  That is what we try to do with the book.  We offer a lot of knowledge but also talk about our shortcomings, what we struggle with, personally and ideologically.  Even as we go over issues of race versus class, talk about the contours and contradictions of masculinity, or the sources of the prison industry, we are struggling with this stuff, with each other and ourselves.  We want people to know that is OK.  You can’t be a committed cultural worker, an active engaged intellectual if you constantly don’t wrestle with yourself, constantly don’t struggle to develop a sharper and more coherent vision of the world. 

DJL: When I originally heard about the book, my assumption was the it was going to be primarily about incarceration and the criminal justice system.  I thought it would be an anchor and a central theme in the book, and while incarceration is a theme (and a chapter in the book), it does not dominate the book.  Did you both make a conscious decision not to limit your conversations to that place? 

MLH: It was and wasn’t.  At one level, we just let the conversations go where they took us.  Mumia had just finished Jailhouse Lawyers and he has obviously written Live from Death Row.  He has really engaged the prison question in great depth.  I also have written and lectured on that topic.  We are both excited by that conversation and focus a great deal of our energies on criminal injustice and prison industry.  But we also wanted to expand the conversation; we did not want to reduce our intellectual scope and interest to that thing. 

It was unconscious in that we just explored the topic we are about.  It was conscious because we called the book The Classroom and The Cell but did not reduce it to prisons and schools, our areas or expertise.  We called it The Classroom and The Cell because in many ways those two locations speak to the condition and possibility of black folk, along with our respective positionalities. As we do the book, he sits on death row, although recently move to slow death row.  And I am in an Ivy League school.  To that extent, the classroom and the cell was about us, our condition, rather than the scope of the book.

DJL: One of the most profound aspects of the book rests with its ability to challenge what Angela Davis has described as prisons’ ability to magically make people disappear.

MLH: We are grateful for that opportunity to challenge that belief.  Prisons, like slavery, are instruments of social death in so many ways. Yet, people are still fighting and struggling.  When we have people like Mumia Abu Jamal screaming from the wilderness, it is a reminder that people who are locked up inside the dungeons of America’s prisons, are still alive, still kicking and have so much to offer.  It is so easy to think about the people locked in these dungeons not as human beings.  It is easy to lose sight of that humanity.  It is easy once we put that label of criminal on them to see them as a class, as an element of people who don’t deserve our support, our love, and our investment.  Mumia reminds us that these are people and these are people with possibilities.  If we listen to Mumia’s voice, if we cared what he was saying, if we read the prison writings of so many brothers and sisters who have been incarcerated, many unjustly, we would have a whole different posture on prisons, on vulnerable people. 

DLJ: This comes through the book as society systemically imagines those incarcerated as living in another world, yet the book reveals the dialectics and engagement between those who are “free” and incarcerated peoples. 

MLH: A day doesn’t go by where I don’t get a letter from incarcerated brothers and sisters.  What would be shocking to many is how much they are engaged with the world, how much they are unpacking the complexities of the world, how much they are reaching out folks, advocating for themselves, and bringing serious critique to bear.  They are so alive and kicking.  It is easier to hide that fact; it is easier to pretend that they are just sitting in a cage somewhere.

DJL: We see this through the dehumanization of incarcerated people, through the efforts to represent those locked up as “animals,” all in an effort to sanction, rationalize, and justify such an inhumane system.  Your conversations highlight the agency, the love, the families involved, the beautiful insights and the humanity, which collectively disrupts the dominant narrative and the efforts to erase people from our consciousness.

MLH: Yeah, brother, that is was our goal. 

DJL: You end each chapter with a list of books for further reading.  Talk about that

MLH: Karla Holloway in her great book, Bookmarks: Reading in Black and Whites, talks about the tradition of black writers leaving their bookmarks, who they have read, who they were reflective of what they were engaging.  It was also about affirming the humanity of black folks, the intellectual capacity of black folks by showing that literacy, so often seen as the seat of reason and signpost of humanity, was something that we had.  We are not so committed to proving that we are literate but following in that tradition.  We also wanted to leave a map of what we have read, what informs us; these are books that shaped us.  I can’t think about masculinity without thinking about [Mark Anthony Neal’s] New Black Man.  I can’t think about love without thinking about bell hooks.  Michelle Alexander shapes my understanding of the prison crisis.  We want people to know where we came from.  In a practical sense, we hope that people would keep going with the conversation, and listing the books will hopefully help in that process.  Just last week, I got a letter from a brother in prison who requested James Baldwin’s Fire Next Time because it was on the list.  They wanted to go deeper on this love thing

DJL:  It highlights the ways that the conversations reflect on the past while imagining a future. Was there anything from your conversation that surprised you or left an indelible mark? 

                                                                                                                       

MLH: There are so many moments.  It is easy to think about radical figures and political prisoners as very serious, as revolutionary action figures.  Going more deeply with Mumia, and I realized his full humanity – I had lost sight of that as well.  He is one of the most playful and funny people you could ever meet.  He is hilarious.  He is one of the most loving, caring and gentle people you would ever meet, something you would never know from the public representations of him.  He really represents a complex masculinity.  All of that comes through our conversations.   He is so strong.  He has been on death row for a crime he didn’t commit – he is an enemy of the state – yet he is so strong.  You can lose sight that he hurts sometimes, that he endures pain like everyone else.  He is away from his family, his life; he has been animalized for 30 years.  As we are fighting for those incarcerated, as we are advocating for political prisoners, we must remember that they are full-people, with a range of emotions and we have to keep track of all of them.

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop(SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.

Marc Lamont Hill is Associate Professor of Education at the Teachers College of Columbia University.  Hill is co-author, with celebrated political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal,  of the new book  The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations of Black Life in America.  He is also the author of  Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogyand the Politics of Identity and host of Black Enterprise’s Our Voices.

What If February Was More Than a Month? 'Left of Black' Promo

Watch Left of Black, Mondays in February at 1:30 pm est. on the Duke University's Ustream Channel

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in HD @ iTunes U