Exercising Locally, Connected Virtually--The B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge

Exercising Locally, Connected Virtually--The B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge

by David Leonard | special to NewBlackMan

It is easy to hate on new media technology these days. Next to politicians (and teachers of late) and hip-hop, new media is consistently demonized and scapegoated for everything from obesity to social isolation. According to Ray Oldenburg, in the United States “citizens are encouraged to find their relaxation, entertainment, companionship, even safety, almost entirely within the privacy of homes that have become more a retreat from society than a connection to it” (qtd. in Watkins 2009, p. xix).

Don’t tell that to Byron Hurt. This filmmaker, who received national acclaim for his brilliant 2006 documentary, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, initiated the "B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" after he completed his own exercise challenge in April 2011.  Noting that his cousin Shawn Hurt started an exercise group on Facebook, Hurt saw the power in creating a community committed to active living. “The inspiration came from Friends on my Facebook page,” Hurt explained. “I posted my daily workouts in my Facebook status for 30 days, and it seemed to inspire many of my Friends.” The goal of the group is very simple: workout for 30 minutes or more for 30 straight days. The mission of the group – to “inspire, motivate, and supporting willing participants” – has captured the attention of a number of people, attracting over 100 members to this Facebook group as of June 2011.

Minus the fact that she is married to Byron Hurt, Kenya Crumel, the director of program management and technical assistance at a consulting firm, is typical of the group. Between job and family, she often struggled to find the time and energy to exercise on a consistent basis. Her background as an athlete, having run the New York City Marathon in 2007, did not make this any easier. With the “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge,” she not only found motivation, but a community that inspires and helps her achieve her goals. “Being a member of the group gives me a community that helps me be accountable for taking care of myself. Seeing everyone post everyday inspires me,” notes Crumel “I get new ideas about exercise routines from other members. And I feel proud when I finish exercising and I get to post on the board, knowing that I might be inspiring someone who isn't feeling motivated.”

She is not alone. Participants cite the challenge of working out for 30 consecutive days, the instruments of accountability, and the knowledge gained from learning about the exercise routines of others as why the group is so effective. “I read posts from people with many of the professional and personal responsibilities that I have and they manage to find time to take care of their bodies” writes Lori Martin, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “I am reminded that we make time for the things that are important to us by being a member and that fitness should be a priority for us all.” The group is not simply a space of education, where participants learn what others are doing, gaining ideas as to new ways to exercise, but gain knowledge of how to integrate exercise and health consciousness into their daily life. Exercise is an immense commitment and what this group reveals is that by joining others, by committing to not only the task of the 30 in 30 but to a community, the exercise becomes both easy and enjoyable.

Yet, more than anything else, the “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" is about creating a community of strangers committed to helping and assisting others reach their potential. It is about camaraderie and community. Rhea Combs, a freelance art producer at an advertising agency in Portland, Oregon, describes the power of the group in the following way: “Even the phrases like ‘get it in, fam,’ reiterate the notion that this is community/family, not just a group of strangers.” In isolation, the group has become connected by their commitment to exercise, to being health, and to each other.

What is beautiful about the group is how it utilizes competitive spirit to empower rather than isolation and discourage its members. Participants compete against the challenge and against them, both of which is made that much easier because you are competing alongside of others. “The potential of a group like this is enormous because when you have a positive group of people pushing for one goal at the same time but at your own pace -- it's a genius idea,” notes Derrick Anthony, a filmmaker who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “Working out is like fishing, you want somebody there when you catch the big fish. And if no one is there when you catch it, you will most definitely tell them about it. Working out makes you feel great and you want to tell the world.” This space not only provide a means to “floss” a bit about one’s accomplishments but to do so in a way that encourages others to get their work in each and every day. It is harder to be lazy when your phone keeps announcing how much work your peers are getting done in the gym, on the track, and wherever they can exercise.

Having joined the group myself, I have seen its power, its beauty and the inspiration that comes through the establishment of a community bound together by a shared identity and goal. In March, I completed by 2nd marathon, only to find myself physically lost without a clear goal to guide my exercise routine. Joining the group has rekindled this focus, finding power in the determination of others. My hope to inspire others and my yearning to fulfill my commitment has provided the needed push to get me back on track. It has reminded me of the bigger picture for myself and from society at large.

Hurt, who acknowledges how “fitness is a big part of my life,” sees the "B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" as part of a larger struggle “ to get people to start thinking more about health, nutrition, and wellness.” His efforts to bring people together are but one example of his commitment to educating and inspiring people to be healthier. His forthcoming film, Soul Food Junkies, examines his own relationship to soul food, “the positive and negative aspects of soul food, and how soul food is a major part of black cultural identity. As a community, we need eat better, work out more, and be more in tuned with our bodies.” This group, like his film, shows the power new media technology as a source of community, intervention, and personal/communal transformation.

S. Craig Watkins, in The Young and the Digital, argues that “social and mobile media” are “bring people together across the longstanding barriers of race class.” Summarizing the work of Marshall Van Alstyne and Erik Brynjolfsson, he notes how “increased connectivity has the potential to create diverse communities by providing individual the opportunity to come together across social as well as geographical boundaries” (2009, p. xx). The “B. Hurt 30 for 30 Community Fitness Challenge" demonstrates the power and potential here, illustrating how new media technology not only brings together a diverse group of people but does so in a way to create a community based on a shared identity, a collective goal, and a willingness to be both encouraging and inspiring.

“I think this group speaks to the power and influence that new media has on our daily lives. Social media creates a whole new kind of space for people to interact and engage with one another. In many ways it's such a brand new world that we are living in,” notes Hurt, “So I think new media is a great way to organize people and create groups like mine, where people can feel like they are part of a like-minded community and they can be challenged and motivated to get fit in a safe space." As a group member, I cannot agree more because without the support and inspiration of my new fitness family, I would have clearly taken a day off. Connected to them, I remain committed to my exercise routine and myself. 

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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic 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).

'Left of Black': Episode #22 featuring S. Craig Watkins

Left of Black #22
w/S. Craig Watkins
February 21, 2011

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes Professor S. Craig Watkins (via Skype), author of the book The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future (Beacon Press).

→S. Craig Watkins is a Professor of Radio-Television-Film and Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of several books including Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Beacon Press 2005), Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (The University of Chicago Press 1998) and most recently The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Currently, Watkins is launching a new digital media research initiative that focuses on the use and evolution of social media platforms. For updates on these and other projects visit theyoungandthedigital.com.

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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.

Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media

from The Huffington Post

Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media
by S. Craig Watkins

When the social and digital media revolution gained momentum at the dawn of the new millennium, no one would have predicted that less than a decade later black and Latino youth would be just as engaged as their white, Asian, and more affluent counterparts. Across a number of measures -- use of mobile phones and gaming devices, social network sites, and the mobile web -- young blacks and Latinos are beginning to outpace their white counterparts. For years the dominant narrative related to race and technology in the U.S. pivoted around the question of access. Today, the most urgent questions pivot around participation and more specifically, the quality of digital media engagement among youth in diverse social and economic contexts.

Picture this: In the very near future the population in many of the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. will be significantly shaped by young Latinos and African Americans. A recent estimate from the 2010 U.S. Census data finds that U.S. Latinos make up nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population under age 20. The median ages for Latinos and African Americans is, respectively, 26 and 30. This is compared to a median age of 39 among non-Latino whites. Forty-five percent of children younger than five in the U.S. belong to non-white groups. The population that public schools educate in America will reflect these seismic demographic shifts.

Virtually all of those Latino and African American teens will have access to more information and data in their pockets than any brick and mortar school or library currently provides. Many already hold access to a rich array of information in their hands today. However, most teens use mobile phones as social, recreational, and entertainment devices. This is especially true among black and Latino youth who use their mobile phones to watch videos, play games, and listen to music at rates that dwarf their white counterparts. But what if young people were encouraged to view their mobile phones, cameras, and iPods as learning devices and tools for critical citizenship and engagement in their communities?

This is actually happening in a surging number of community centers, after school programs, and media education initiatives. These community leaders, technology educators, and social entrepreneurs view kids mobile lives as a starting point to engage, explore, and experiment with the world around them. The work that Lissa Soep is doing with Youth Radio is a great example of an innovative learning ecology where student interest in media technologies is connected to local challenges. Unfortunately, learning experiences like these are rare in the schools that most young people attend.

Every day, a majority of black and Latino youth walk into schools that are not equipped to engage them in any meaningful way. As one social studies teacher in a school populated by black and Latino students told me, "my colleagues have no idea of how tech savvy these kids are." In many of the low-performing schools that I have visited mobile is viewed less a learning tool and more as a source of teacher-student conflict. Mobile phones are treated as contraband to be controlled, policed, and ultimately, confiscated. This battle around the phone reflects a broader problem in low performing schools: the creation of a classroom environment marked by distrust and hostility.

A consistent finding in ethnographic studies of poor urban schools is the high level of mistrust and misunderstanding between students and their teachers. Students believe that teachers do not respect them. Teachers believe that students are often incapable of meaningful learning. Students and teachers lose. In the age of greater public accountability teachers are often penalized for low student performance. And in a world where 21st Century skills are vital for meaningful employment the frosty disposition of black and Latino students toward their teachers contributes to a widening achievement gap and soaring drop out rate.

Technology alone will not change what is happening in low-performing schools. But effective insertion of technology into the classroom might help break the ice that chills the relationship between students and teachers. Rather than spending their time and energy policing mobile phones what if teachers asked their students to pull out their devices to execute a class assignment. In a small experiment I conducted a few weeks ago we observed some interesting behaviors. We were curious to see how a group of ninth and tenth grade boys would respond to a new mobile gaming app that offers information and education related to substance abuse. Here is an excerpt of how I reported what we observed:

"The introduction of the gaming app via mobile devices transformed the classroom and learning environment that these students inhabit everyday. Learning became social, communal, collaborative, competitive, engaging, and, in their words, fun. Students voluntarily stated that a game like this should be incorporated into their health class. Doing so, the young student noted, would make the class more interesting and more fun."

My colleague, in a separate brief, also noted how the environment changed once we introduced the mobile devices:

"Immediately, the energy level in the room went up and the emotional intensity increased. The boys were animated, smiling, laughing, and talking together. Teams consulted on the best answer to each question, and then either celebrated their correct response or commiserated after their incorrect answers."

These students had never met us and yet after playing the game sat through a debriefing session and gave us rich feedback. Their mood was cooperative and friendly. Boys that may have generally been disinterested and detached were wide-eyed and vocal. We believe that the devices (and the pizza) helped create a very different environment, one in which learning, dialogue, and engagement occurred naturally.

The challenges facing low performing schools are complex and yet elements of the problem are easily identifiable. Low performing schools are filled with students who are simply not engaged or interested in learning. In their eyes school is a place where surveillance, harassment, and disrespect are daily occurrences. Inserting technology into an environment like this is a multi-faceted experiment involving not only the reinvention of learning but also the transformation of students' disposition toward their teachers and learning.

My point? The initial impact of technology in low performing schools may be simply to break the ice between resistant students and reluctant teachers. Until that ice is broken meaningful engagement and learning will never happen.

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Follow S. Craig Watkins on Twitter: www.twitter.com/scraigwatkins