Left of Black S3:E10 | Who is Black in Multiracial America?

Left of Black S3:E10 | Who is Black in Multiracial America?

November 19, 2012

American racial history was long framed by the notion of the “one drop” rule, which within a political economy of race and difference, was a blatant attempt to embolden Whiteness and the privilege that derived from it.  Scholar Yaba Blay offers a different view of the “one drop” rule with her multi-media project (1)ne Drop which “seeks to challenge narrow, yet popular perceptions of what Blackness is and what Blackness looks like.”

Blay, a Visiting Professor of AfricanaStudies at Drexel University and contributing producer to CNN’s Black in America 5, which was inspired by the (1)ne Drop project, joins Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on the November 19^th episode of Left of Black to talk about the complexities of Black identity.  Neal is also joined by University of Washington Professor Habiba Ibrahim for part two of an interview about her new book Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism(University of Minnesota Press).

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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.

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

D.L. Hughley on New Book: I Want You to Shut the F*ck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes is Ruining America

Jay Z Weighs in on Same-Gender Loving Americans

Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture (part one)

Anderson Cooper details the results of a study commissioned by AC360° to explore children's perception of race. In Part I of the "Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture" series, an in-depth look at how young children interpret ambiguous drawings and understand interracial friendships.

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.

Teena Marie and #BlackTwitter

Twitter conversations around singer's death speak to the lack of trust African-Americans have in mainstream media.

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Teena Marie and #BlackTwitter
by Mark Anthony Neal | TheLoop21

I was doing my usual Sunday night multi-tasking of trying to meet a writing deadline, following the late NFL scores and eavesdropping on Twitter when I first heard the news about the death of legendary R&B singer Teena Marie. That Twitter has become a source of breaking news is not surprising — many producers and bookers from mainstream news sources from CNN to NPR have perches on Twitter. But Twitter also has the propensity to get the story wrong and to spread mis-information (as opposed to government sponsored dis-information), including ill-conceived rumors about the deaths of celebrities.

This later dynamic takes on an added emphasis within the phenomenon of #BlackTwitter — cited many times this past year for its ability to dictate what are the most popular trends on Twitter to the obliviousness of most non-Black Twitter users. Only months ago Twitter announced that Bill Cosby had died, which Cosby rebutted via his own Twitter account @BillCosby. And accordingly many within #BlackTwitter were skeptical and suspicious even after Ronald Isley announced Marie’s death on Twitter (and yes, even the recently incarcerated Mr. Biggs is on Twitter) and it was announced on Philadelphia’s WDAS.

Amidst what is certainly a tragedy for Ms. Marie’s family and for pop music in general, the #BlackTwitter response to Ms. Marie was a marvel to witness. Many resisted outright that Ms. Marie had died — citing Ms. Marie’s own Twitter account which was last used on Christmas Day — awaiting official word from a reputable news source, even as many also disregarded traditional sources like CNN as being viable to deliver news that was meaningful to Black audiences.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21