"Violence Against Women is as American as Apple Pie"--Rep Gwen Moore (Wisc.) Gives Witness to Violence Against Women

from Care2:

In a bold move, Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin introduced the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act by sharing her personal experience as a rape and domestic violence survivor.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/congresswoman-recounts-rape-violence-to-introduce-violence-against-women-act.html#ixzz1qVvu8xhw

“We Are the 44%” Coalition Challenges Sexual Violence Against Black and Latina Teens

Media Contact:

Rosa Clemente

413.345.4018

Public Statement - For Immediate Release

February 21, 2012

“We Are the 44%” Coalition Challenges Sexual Violence Against Black and Latina Teens 

Online and offline Activism Spurs XXL Magazine to Suspend  Digital Editor Over Too Short’s So-Called “Fatherly Advice” 

Last week popular hip-hop magazine XXL posted a video on its website (XXL.com) from Too $hort, a 45-year old rapper who came to prominence in the late 80’s for his raunchy lyrics and videos. In what was called his “fatherly advice” video, the rapper instructed 12, 13, and 14-year-old boys on how to “turn out” their female classmates. In a transcript from the video, he said: "A lot of the boys are going to be running around trying to get kisses from the girls; we’re going way past that. I’m taking you to the hole. …You push her up against the wall. You take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens."

As a response, a coalition of outraged Black and Latina activists, artists, and writers – all of whom have a long history in social justice activism – have come together to ensure that this does not happen again and have named themselves the We Are the 44% coalition. The coalition’s name aims to give voice to the many teen survivors of sexual assault. Too $hort’s video specifically targeted adolescent students. This group is consistent with the appalling statistic that 44% of sexual assault survivors are under 18 years old (visit the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network website: www.rainn.org/statistics). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reports that 1 out 5 women in the United States have been raped in their lifetime (www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/sexualviolence/index.html). Because Too $hort’s video blatantly promoted sexual violence against girls, and because boys are also being advised to develop irresponsible, abusive and ultimately criminal behavior compelled, the all-women coalition decided to take pointed actions (see demands listed below).

The coalition recognizes this video—and the fact that XXL gave it a platform — as part of the larger issue of sexual assault against our women and children, particularly Black and Latina girls. The coalition also recognizes that the aforementioned statistics do not reflect the countless abuses that go unreported, including that of teenage boys who are often the unrecognized survivors of sexual assault. And most importantly, the coalition recognizes the urgent need to create heightened awareness and broad, uncategorized support for the eradication of sexual violence against children.

FOCUS

The community of people who have been sexually assaulted in the United States is one that includes millions of people.* In fact, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, a person is sexually assaulted every two minutes

It is also true that sexual violence disproportionately affects Black and Latina girls. For this reason, We Are the 44% coalition has decided to focus its work on this marginalized segment of the larger community, for it is one that is often unrecognized and unheard.

Because February is Teen Dating Violence Prevention month, the coalition will also highlight and support various anti-sexual violence organizations, including:

1. A Long Walk Home [www.alongwalkhome.org]

2. Just Be Inc. [www.about.me.com/justbeinc]

3. Girls for Gender Equity [www.ggenyc.org]

4. GEMS [www.gems-girls.org]

5. Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project [www.sexcrimesagainstblackgirls.com]

* * * *

Since the video’s release, online activism has kept the pressure on the media outlet’s Editor in Chief Vanessa Satten and on Too $hort: A number of petitions (including http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/protectgirls/?source=coc_website) have been created and signed by thousands of people. And the hashtags #FireVanessaSatten and #ItsBiggerThan2Short both generated significant activity on Twitter. As a result, XXL removed the video from the site on Sunday. On Wednesday night, in response to escalating pressure, Satten suspended the digital editor allegedly responsible for putting up the video.

DEMANDS

The We Are the 44% coalition acknowledges that both Too $hort and Satten have issued public statements about the video. We firmly believe that because the threat of sexual violence was levied against Black and Latina girls – whether or not is was meant as a joke and whether or not it was uploaded with approval – there must be amends in order for the apologies to be relevant and meaningful. Today, the coalition will deliver the following demands to Too $hort and Harris Publications in the hopes that they will demonstrate their willingness to end sexual violence.

We demand that:

1. Too $hort, along with the professionals he hires to support his recording and touring career, must participate in education and sensitivity training on the topics of sexual assault and rape.

2. Too $hort must donate to local and national anti-sexual violence organizations that service Black and Latina girls.

3. All Harris Publications leadership, management, and staff members participate in education and sensitivity training on sexual assault/rape.

4. Harris Publications improve and make public its editorial policy so that the promotion of sexual violence is not encouraged or accepted under any circumstances.

5. Harris Publications create premium space for the promotion of anti-sexual violence content (articles, creative work, etc.) on its websites and in all its publications, on a permanently and quarterly basis. Additionally, that Harris Publications permanently set aside, on a quarterly basis, two full pages for use by the coalition to highlight its work and that of its member organizations.

6. Vanessa Satten, Editor-in-Chief of XXL.com and XXL Magazine, be fired immediately.

* * * *

The Women of the “We Are the 44%” Coalition Are:

• Nyoka Acevedo – Educator, Activist
• Esther Armah – New York Radio Host; Playwright
• asha bandele – Author, Activist
• Monifa Bandele – Activist, Writer
• Dereca Blackmon – Educator, Organizer, Spiritual Activist
• Dr. Yaba Blay - Scholar, Professor and Co-Founder, Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project
• Nuala Cabral, Educator, Filmmaker, Activist and co-founder, FAAN Mail
• Raquel Cepeda - Writer, Filmmaker, Cultural Activist
• Rosa A. Clemente - Activist; Doctoral Student, UMASS-Amherst; 2008 Green Party VP Candidate
• Dr. Brittney Cooper - Professor
• Michaela angela Davis – Image Activist
• Dr. Dawn Elissa Fischer – Professor and Parent
• dream hampton - Writer, Filmmaker, Activist
• Shantrelle P. Lewis - Curator and Co-Founder, Sex Crimes Against Black Girls Project
• Dr. Treva B. Lindsey - Professor of Women's and Gender Studies
• Condencia Brade - The National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault
• Joan Morgan - Author, Cultural critic and Doctoral Student, NYU
• Stacey Muhammad - Filmmaker, Activist
• Dr. Rachel Raimist - Filmmaker, Scholar, and Crunk Feminist
• April R. Silver – Activist, Writer/Editor, “Be A Father To Your Child”
• Dr. Kaila Adia Story - Assistant Professor Audre Lorde Endowed Chair in Race, Gender, Class, Sexuality Studies, University of Louisville
• Farah Tanis – Black Women’s Blueprint
• Lah Tere – Inner City Queen Productions
• Cristina Veran
• Dr. Salamishah Tillet - Academic, Activist, and Co-Founder, A Long Walk Home

[list in formation]

Male Activist Allies

• Dr. Jared Ball - Professor of Communication Studies, Morgan State University
• Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele, Community Organizer; Professor, Lehman College/CUNY
• Dr. Marc Lamont Hill - Professor, Author, Columbia University
• Byron Hurt - Filmmaker, Activist
• John Jennings - Scholar and Artist; Associate Professor of Visual Studies, SUNY Buffalo
• Bakari Kitwana - Author of The Hip-Hop Generation
• Dr. David Leonard - Prof., Dept. of Comp. Ethnic Studies, Washington State University
• Dr. R. L'Heureux Dumi Lewis - Writer; Assistant Professor, City University of New York
• Dr. Mark Anthony Neal – Prof., African & African American Studies, Duke University
• Dr. James Peterson – Dir. of Africana Studies, Assoc. Prof. of English, Lehigh University
• Kevin Powell - Activist and Writer

For more information and background, visit the new We Are the 44% Facebook Fan Page. Check regularly for updates and activities from the coalition. Media inquiries are directed to Rosa Clemente at 413. 345.4018.

And the Beat Goes On: Chris Brown, Too $hort, and the Disposable Conscience of Consumer Society

And the Beat Goes On: 

Chris Brown, Too $hort, and the Disposable Conscience of Consumer Society

by Lisa Guerrero | special to NewBlackMan

Last week while still reeling from the controversy put into motion by Too $hort’s avuncular primer for young black boys on how to violate young black girls, people momentarily paused to consider, and by “consider,” I mean “rush to judgment,” on Rihanna’s decision to collaborate with Chris Brown, her former abuser, on a remix of her song “Birthday Cake.”  

As one of my friends on Facebook put it:  “Rihanna needs to sit down and have a talk with Tina Turner.”  I can’t say that I necessarily disagree.  The idea that a woman would choose to invite her abuser back again to play a role in her life after having broken free from his abuse is seemingly unfathomable to many people, men and women alike.  What seems ungenerous in many of the criticisms of Rihanna circulating around this decision is that she isn’t the first woman to make such a choice, and sadly, won’t be the last.  The cycle of codependency isn’t one that is neatly broken, not even by the act of the dissolution of the relationship, which is “getting away” only in terms of physical proximity. 

I can say to myself that I would never make such an obviously silly choice, but then, it’s only “obviously silly” to me because I’m not in that situation.  However, what I do know of Rihanna’s situation, and why I feel that her decision is more complicated than people assume that it is, is this: much of the rest of the world seems to have forgiven Chris Brown his trespasses, if they ever held him accountable in the first place.  So why is it the sole responsibility of Rihanna to withhold her forgiveness and force his accountability?  Why should she be anymore forceful than a legal system that apparently felt that his domestic violence merited no jail time?  Or a fan base that apparently feels his talent far outweighs a little thing like beating his girlfriend?  

Yes, she is his victim.  Yet she is no less his victim than she is the victim of a society who so cavalierly and quite systematically ignores, dismisses, and erases the violence enacted by the day, the hour, the minute against black girls and women.  Chris Brown violated her.  But she has since been continually violated ideologically and discursively by an excessively self-centered consumer public who has never demonstrated a sustained outrage against Chris Brown long enough to stop buying his albums, but has enough outrage to go around for Rihanna that she would ever choose to collaborate with him.

This latest flap over Rihanna and Chris Brown comes on the heels of the furious flurry of ever more outrageous manifestations of a problematic performative black masculinity that anchors itself in the unapologetic denigration of, and dominance over women generally, and black women in particular.  Let me say upfront that this critique is not a new one.  The ongoing critical narrative around the misogyny and homophobia of, for example, the singular arena of hip hop is, on its own, a media and scholarly cottage industry, and not without good reason.  But my interest here is not necessarily to rehash this well-trodden and well-deserved critique of commodifiable black masculinity.  My interest is in thinking critically about the relationship between the discursive moves within media culture that work to serve consumerist desires while ideologically and materially sacrificing the safety and subjectivity of black women.

Days before Chris Brown was in the news for collaborating with the woman he once left bloody and bruised in a car while he worked out the way to “spin” domestic violence with his PR manager, he was in the news for his surprising and ungracious win at the Grammys, his enfant terrible behavior in its aftermath, and the sad and ignorant Twitter parade of the predominantly white female fans who said that Chris Brown “could beat [them] anytime.” 

Then, with barely enough time to assemble a coherent critique of Brown, Too $hort, aka Todd Shaw, and XXL Magazine dropped the “rape how-to” heard ‘round the pop culture world.  Besides both being instances of a shameless flaunting of an unrepentant, violent black masculinity, they also both starkly demonstrate how American media culture in the 21^st century works in earnest to create an impenetrable discursive distance wherein no one is responsible for the consequences of their words and actions when they exist within the mainly ethereal boundaries of pop culture.  In these two cases particularly, violence against women plays out as a performance separate from material realities.  In other words, when women, especially black women are beaten and raped “in the real world,” we are meant to believe that it has nothing to do with Chris Brown’s fans using his violent history as a means of flirting, or with Too $hort’s mentoring of teen boys where he “takes [them] to the hole.”  In the latter example, Too $hort’s “apology” was, in fact, “I’m not responsible.”   

His apology, which he tweeted, stated that while in “$hort mode” he “had a lapse of judgment,” and that’s “not how I get down.”  So under this logic, Todd Shaw didn’t encourage such a vile crime. Too $hort did.  And following the logic further, Too $hort is merely a commodified persona who isn’t real, ergo no one is responsible for telling young black men how to “take it to the hole.”  This farcical defense, along with XXL’s equally ludicrous attempts at deniability (both of which have been sharply analyzed by various scholars and cultural critics including hereand here) illustrate not only the discursive distance the guilty parties are trying to construct for themselves, but also the discursive distance they are providing to consumers who themselves want to remain blameless when they play “Blow the Whistle” on their iPods or read about their favorite hip hop stars in XXL.

Similarly, the rhetorical refrain of “I’d let Chris Brown beat me anytime” that was tweeted with enthusiasm and shocking frequency by a chorus of Brown fans during his Grammy performance, would likely be copped to as “just a joke” if the female fans were questioned about it.  Their use of his violent tendencies as articulations of their adoration is risk-free for most of them in that:  1) it is highly unlikely they will ever have an interaction with Brown, especially one long enough to open a space for violence to occur, and 2) if Chris Brown were ever to beat them, even with their weakly informed consent, the fact of their race, (again, the tweeters were disproportionately white women), would likely mean that the social value place on them (versus the social devaluing of black women) would translate into harsh sociocultural and legal punishment for Brown, neither of which he has faced after his assault on Rihanna.   

This internet action of Chris Brown’s fans is reminiscent of Chris Rock’s commentary on women’s willingness to disconnect from the implications of the misogyny of hip hop.  In his concert “Never Scared,” he says that he is amazed by the extreme misogyny women hip-hop fans can so easily rationalize.  Women will excitedly dance to the most violent, misogynistic music, and when confronted with the illogic of consuming a product that relies on female debasement most will justify their consumption and fandom by blithely claiming:  “He ain’t talkin’ ‘bout me.” 

In both instances female consumers fail to understand that the undervaluing, disrespect, and violence against these kinds of spectacular femininities, especially spectacular femininities of color, be they the imagined stereotyped representations of women that flood pop and media culture, or the equally ethereal “celebrity womanhood,” is directly linked to their own undervalued gender location in society.  That is to say that those rappers are, in fact, talking about you, and that Chris Brown could, in fact, beat you, even without your permission…especially without your permission.   

We have created a consumer-based society that implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, codifies violence against women generally, and black women specifically, because it successfully separates material experiences from commodified images and performances of those experiences through deliberate discursive maneuvers meant to convince us that the two things can actually exist exclusive of one another; in other words, that a society’s popular culture can operate in isolation from the society in which it is created.  The flawed logic in this proposition is blatant, yet we buy it, literally, again and again.  Consumers require these discursive narratives to absolve their consumption practices and to keep their own sociocultural subjectivities in tact, if only in their own minds.

           

In these most recent cases of Chris Brown and Todd Shaw we can see the insidious display of a racialized version of scholar Judith Butler’s theory of the performativity of sex wherein “sex” is a product of the process of repeating hegmonic norms, meaning that one becomes located as a boy or a girl through the reiteration of a complicated discursive norming that she refers to as “girling” or “boying.”

This is a “girl,” however, who is compelled to “cite” the norm  in order to qualify and remain a viable subject.  Femininity is thus not the product of choice, but the forcible citation of a norm, one whose complex historicity is indissociable from relations of discipline, regulation, punishment.  (Bodies That Matter, 1993:  232)

Accordingly, we can think of the racialized version of this theory as “black girling” or “black boying” where “the complex” racial “historicity,” as it intersects with the gendered historicity, “is indissociable from relations of” a particularly racialized “discipline, regulation, and punishment.”  Through these racially particular reiterations of hegemonic norms, black girls and women are compelled to perform a sexual subjectivity of disposability, while black boys and black men are compelled to perform a sexual subjectivity of criminality.  As Butler argues, “Gender is performative in the sense that it constitutes as an effect that very subject it appears to express” (“Imitation and Gender Subordination,” 1991:  24).  This means that in considering racialized gender performativity these marginally located black masculine and feminine subjects are “made real” through their constant discursive repetition, especially by the subjects themselves.   

The cases of both Brown and Shaw serve as extreme examples of those compulsive reiterations involved in the process of “black girling” and “black boying.”  One of the immediate results of these two instances is that black womanhood gets understood as almost epiphenomenal to black masculinity.  The vulnerability of black women, along with their very subjecthood, gets erased by the predominance of a black male subjecthood that, itself, faces its own disposability in relation to a hegemonic white manhood.  In this way, we can understand the “beat me” tweets of Brown’s fans, the insultingly unconvincing “apology” of XXLeditor-in-chief, Vanessa Satten, and the behaviors of Brown and Shaw themselves as part of a complex discursive matrix that constitutively produces a “no-fault” public sphere and fortifies the lack of value of both black womanhood and black manhood.

In the wake of these recent instances scholars and critics have reinvigorated various long held discussions around the twin crises of black manhood and black womanhood in the United States, both of which are crucial considerations whose urgency needs to be sustained.  At the same time, I think it is also important to consider the crisis of an American consumer culture that only seems able to engage society on the level of commodity without consequence. In this crisis American consumer citizens can be confronted with Chris Brown’s brutality and see it as separate from the talented pop star.  They can be convinced that there really does exist a distinct “$hort mode” that is different from Todd Shaw, a man who would supposedly never advocate the violation of young girls.   

I call this the “disposable conscience of consumer America.”  It relies on a fluid, trendy “performance of outrage” that can be taken on and off depending on if a celebrity who has committed a social sin or an actual crime subsequently puts out a catchy hit or puts out a good movie or is having a good season.  This disposable conscience has the effect that as a society we are apparently only invested in celebrity mea culpa and redemption in so far as they affect our ability to consume.  With Brown and Shaw, the society at large is less concerned about the continuing devaluation of black girls and women enacted by these two predators than with their opportunity to buy their albums and dance to the music.  And the beat goes on…literally.

***

Lisa Guerrero is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University Pullman, editor of Teaching Race in the 21st Century: College Professors Talk About Their Fears, Risks, and Rewards (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and co-author of  African Americans in Television, co-authored with David J. Leonard. (Praeger Publishing, 2009).

XXL Feature ‘Too Short’ on Common Sense, Long on Misogyny

A Harris Publication publication

XXL Feature ‘Too Short’ on Common Sense, Long on Misogyny

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

My daughters don’t know who Todd Shaw, aka Too Short is, yet he claims to know them, as he advised their males peers—provided instructions—as  to how to rape and sexually assault them.  

In a society that continues to assert its familiarity with the bodies of Black women and girls—the rhetorical groping of the Michelle Obama being only the most visible example—Too Short advising  boys to “take your finger and put a little spit on it and you stick your finger in her underwear and you rub it on there and watch what happens,”—what we all know as a “finger f*ck”—is, unfortunately, not all that surprising; seems more like the status quo for Black women and girls.

Those offended by the feature, a video that initially appeared at the XXL website, quickly responded.  As Jamilah Lemieux write at Ebony.com“This FORTY FIVE YEAR OLD MAN wants the young fellas to "get inside a girl's mind”…Coercion, perhaps even assault, is of no consequence here. Hence, no explanation of how to proceed if the target in question says "Stop! I don't want you to do that!." 

A group of scholar activists organized an on-line petition, demanding that Harris Publications, the publisher of XXL, remove the magazine’s editor-in-chief Vanessa Statten.  And Statten has to go; allowing such content to be posted, whether it crossed her desk or not, is unconscionable and bespeaks a larger crisis we face in journalistic integrity.  The feature also bespeaks, as well, our willingness to use Black girls as commercial fodder, deemed expendable, because they are perceived as lacking public voice.

XXL Magazine and Shaw, have since issued an apology, but as Akiba Solomon notes, it’s an apology that takes no ownership for statements that encourage and sanction criminal acts against girls. And this is not simply about political correctness; besides advocating rape and sexual violence against Black women and girls, diatribes like Shaw’s also further criminalizes Black boys, within institutions—our schools—in which Black boys are always, already criminalized.

Harris Publications, which also publishes King, Juicy and Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement (equipping law enforcement with the very tools to be used against Black boys), knows this dance well; it’s a blueprint for disengaging yourself from controversy, deployed brilliantly daily by shock jocks, elected officials and a host of professionals—some of them even Black—knowing that there will be little recourse to their brand. 

Fact is that few, who are regular subscribers of XXL or regular consumers of their content will feel compelled to reject the publication, no more than those offended by statements, by say Misters Whitlock or Martin (as examples of two recent controversies) will stop watching Fox Sports or CNN (or listen to Tom Joyner). 

We need some new strategies—this protest, petition, and wait for the apology, suspension, removal is getting old.  

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press) and Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University. He is founder and managing editor of NewBlackMan and host of the weekly webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

Kevin Powell: Joe Paterno, Herman Cain, Men, Sex, and Power

Joe Paterno, Herman Cain, Men, Sex, and Power
by Kevin Powell | special to NewBlackMan

Joe Paterno. Herman Cain. Penn State football. Presidential campaigns. Men. Sex. Power. Women. Harassed. Children. Abused.

These are some of the hash tags that have tweeted through my mind nonstop, these past several days, as multiple sexual harassment charges have been hurled at Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain; as Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coordinator for Penn State's storied football program, was arrested on 40 counts related to allegations of sexual abuse of eight young boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky's alleged indiscretions have not only brought back very ugly and unsettling memories of the Catholic Church sexual abuse mania a few short years ago, but has led to the firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno and Penn State president Graham Spanier, plus the indictments of athletic director Tim Curley and a vice president, Gary Schultz, for failing to report a grad assistant's eyewitness account of Sandusky allegedly having anal sex with a ten-year-old boy in a shower on the university's campus in 2002.

In the matter of Mr. Herman Cain I cringed, to be blunt, as I watched his press conference this week denying accusations of sexual harassment against him, which has swelled to four different women, two identified and two anonymous, for now. I was not there, so I don't know, only he and the women know the truth. But what was telling in Mr. Cain's remarks is that he was visibly defensive and defiant, rambled quite a bit about the media's smear campaign and, most curious, only once mentioned sexual harassment as a major problem in America, and it was just one quick, passing sentence. Then he went back to discussing himself, which he is particularly adept at doing.

What Herman Cain and the disgraced male leaders of Penn State have in common is the issue of power and privilege we men not only wield like our birthright, but which has come to be so inextricably linked to our identities. So much so, in fact, that many of us, regardless of race, class, religion and, in some cases, even sexual orientation or physical abilities, don't even realize what a disaster manhood is when it is unapologetically invested in power, privilege, patriarchy, sexism, and a reckless disregard for the safety and sanity of others, especially women and children.

Every single year, it seems, some well-known man somewhere gets into trouble because of sex, money, drugs, or violence, or some combination thereof (and God only knows how many unknown males do likewise). It is always the same themes, just with a new cast of characters. Yesterday it was priests of the Catholic Church. Today it is the male leadership of Penn State. Yesterday it was Anthony Weiner and Charlie Sheen. Today it is Herman Cain. I remember earlier this year, in fact, in the wake of Mr. Weiner's sudden and rapid fall from grace, a report was published that said over 90 percent of sex scandals in America feature us men as the culprits. That very few women engage in that mode of self-destructive behavior.

The question begs itself: Why not? I feel it has to do with how we construct manhood from birth. Most of us boys are taught, basically from the time we can talk and walk, to be strong, tough, loud, dominating, aggressive, and, yes, even violent, even if that violence is masked in tales of war or Saturday afternoon college football games. Without anything to counteract that mindset like, say, that it is okay for boys and men to tell the truth, to show raw emotions and vulnerability, to cry, to view girls and women as our equals on every level, we are left with so many of us, far into adulthood, as fully formed physically but incredibly undeveloped emotionally. And if you are a male who happens to have been sexually assaulted or abused yourself, and never got any real help in any form, highly likely you will at some point become a sexual predator yourself. And if you are a man who still thinks we are in pre-feminist movement America where it was once okay to, well, touch, massage, or caress a female colleague inappropriately, to talk sex to her, as she is either working for you or attempting to secure a job (and has not given you permission to do so), then you are also likely to be the kind of male who will deny any of it ever happened. Again and again and again-

The bottom line is that our notions of manhood are totally and embarrassingly out of control, and some of us have got to stand up and say enough, that we've got to redefine what it is to be a man, even as we, myself included, are unfailingly forthright about our shortcomings and our failures as men, and how some of us have even engaged in the behaviors splashed across the national news this year alone.
 
But to get to that new kind of manhood means we've got to really dig into our souls and admit the old ways are not only not working, but they are so painfully hurtful to women, to children, to communities, businesses, institutions, and government, to sport and play, and to ourselves. Looking in the mirror is never easy but if not now, when? And if not us in these times, then we can surely expect the vicious cycles of manhood gone mad to continue for generations to come, as evidenced by a recent report in the New York Times of a steadily climbing number of American teen boys already engaging in lewd sexual conduct toward girls. Where are these boys learning these attitudes if not from the men around them, in person, in the media, on television and in film, in video games, or from their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, older brothers, teachers, and, yes, coaches?

For sure, nothing sadder and more tragic than to see 84-year-old Coach Joe Paterno, who I've admired since I was a child, throwing away 46 years of coaching heroism and worship (and 62 total years on the school's football staff) because the power, glory, and symbolism of Penn State football was above protecting the boys allegedly touched and molested by Sandusky. Equally sad and tragic when Mr. Cain's supporters are quick to call what is happening to him a lynching when this man, this Black man, has never been tarred and feathered, never been hung from a tree, never had his testicles cut from his body, never been set on fire, as many Black men were, in America, in the days when lynching was as big a national sport as college football is today. Anything, it seems, to refute the very graphic and detailed stories of the women accusing Mr. Cain of profoundly wrong, unprofessional, and inhuman conduct.

But, as I stated, when our sense of manhood has gone mad, completely mad, anything goes, and anything will be said (or nothing said at all), or done, to protect the guilty, at the expense of the innocent. We've got to do better than this, gentlemen, brothers, boys, for the sake of ourselves, for the sake of our nation and our world. It was Albert Einstein who famously stated that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Then insanity may also mean men and boys doing the same things over and over again, for the sake of warped and damaged manhood, and expecting forward progress to happen, but then it all crumbles, once more, in a heap of facts, finger-pointing, and forgetful memories when convenient.

If any good can come of the Cain and Penn State disasters it is my sincere hope that spaces and movements are created, finally, where we men can really begin to rethink what manhood can be, what manhood might be. Manhood that is not about power, privilege, and the almighty penis, but instead rooted in a sense of humanity, in peace, in love, in nonviolence, in honesty and transparency, in constant self-criticism and self-reflection, and in respect and honor of women and girls, again, as our equals; in spaces and movements where men and boys who might not be hyper-macho and sports fanatics like some us are not treated as outcasts, as freaks, as less than men or boys. A manhood where if we see something bad happening, we say something, and not simply stick our heads in the sand and pretend that something did not happen. Or worse, yet, do something wrong ourselves, and when confronted with that wrongness, rather than confess, acknowledge, grow, heal, evolve, we instead dig in our heels and imagine ourselves in an all-out war, proclaiming our innocence to any who will listen, even as truth grows, like tall and daunting trees in a distant and darkened woods, about us.

A manhood, alas, where we men and boys understand that we must be allies to women and girls, allies to all children, and be much louder, visible, and outspoken about sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse and molestation. Knowing that if we are on the frontlines of these human tragedies then we can surely help to make them end once and for all, for the good of us all.

That means time for some of us to grow, and to grow up. Time for some of us to let go of the ego trips and the pissing contests to protect bruised and battered egos of boys masquerading as men. Before it is too late, before some of us hurt more women, more children, and more of ourselves, yet again-

***

Kevin Powell is an activist, public speaker, and author or editor of 10 books. His 11th book, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and The Ghost of Dr. King: And Other Blogs and Essays, will be published by lulu.com in January 2012. You can reach him at kevin@kevinpowell.net, or follow him on Twitter @kevin_powell

An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk

An Open Letter from Black Women to the SlutWalk

September 23, 2011

We the undersigned women of African descent and anti-violence advocates, activists, scholars, organizational and spiritual leaders wish to address the SlutWalk. First, we commend the organizers on their bold and vast mobilization to end the shaming and blaming of sexual assault victims for violence committed against them by other members of society. We are proud to be living in this moment in time where girls and boys have the opportunity to witness the acts of extraordinary women resisting oppression and challenging the myths that feed rape culture everywhere. 

The police officer’s comments in Toronto that ignited the organizing of the first SlutWalk and served to trivialize, omit and dismiss women’s continuous experiences of sexual exploitation, assault, and oppression are an attack upon our collective spirits.  Whether the dismissal of rape and other violations of a woman’s body be driven by her mode of dress, line of work, level of intoxication, her class, and in cases of Black and brown bodies—her race, we are in full agreement that no one deserves to be raped.

The Issue At Hand

We are deeply concerned. As Black women and girls we find no space in SlutWalk, no space for participation and to unequivocally denounce rape and sexual assault as we have experienced it.  We are perplexed by the use of the term “slut” and by any implication that this word, much like the word “Ho” or the “N” word should be re-appropriated. The way in which we are perceived and what happens to us before, during and after sexual assault crosses the boundaries of our mode of dress.  Much of this is tied to our particular history.  In the United States, where slavery constructed Black female sexualities, Jim Crow kidnappings, rape and lynchings, gender misrepresentations, and more recently, where the Black female immigrant struggle combine, “slut” has different associations for Black women.  We do not recognize ourselves nor do we see our lived experiences reflected within SlutWalk and especially not in its brand and its label. 

As Black women, we do not have the privilege or the space to call ourselves “slut” without validating the already historically entrenched ideology and recurring messages about what and who the Black woman is.  We don’t have the privilege to play on destructive representations burned in our collective minds, on our bodies and souls for generations.  Although we understand the valid impetus behind the use of the word “slut” as language to frame and brand an anti-rape movement, we are gravely concerned.  For us the trivialization of rape and the absence of justice are viciously intertwined with narratives of sexual surveillance, legal access and availability to our personhood.  It is tied to institutionalized ideology about our bodies as sexualized objects of property, as spectacles of sexuality and deviant sexual desire. It is tied to notions about our clothed or unclothed bodies as unable to be raped whether on the auction block, in the fields or on living room television screens. The perception and wholesale acceptance of speculations about what the Black woman wants, what she needs and what she deserves has truly, long crossed the boundaries of her mode of dress. 

We know the SlutWalk is a call to action and we have heard you.  Yet we struggle with the decision to answer this call by joining with or supporting something that even in name exemplifies the ways in which mainstream women’s movements have repeatedly excluded Black women even in spaces where our participation is most critical. We are still struggling with the how, why and when and ask at what impasse should the SlutWalk have included substantial representation of Black women in the building and branding of this U.S. based movement to challenge rape culture? 

Black women in the U.S. have worked tirelessly since the 19th century colored women’s clubs to rid society of the sexist/racist vernacular of slut, jezebel, hottentot, mammy, mule, sapphire; to build our sense of selves and redefine what women who look like us represent. Although we vehemently support a woman’s right to wear whatever she wants anytime, anywhere, within the context of a “SlutWalk” we don’t have the privilege to walk through the streets of New York City, Detroit, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, L.A. etc., either half-naked or fully clothed self-identifying as “sluts” and think that this will make women safer in our communities an hour later, a month later, or a year later.  Moreover, we are careful not to set a precedent for our young girls by giving them the message that we can self-identify as “sluts” when we’re still working to annihilate the word “ho”, which deriving from the word “hooker” or “whore”, as in “Jezebel whore” was meant to dehumanize.  Lastly, we do not want to encourage our young men, our Black fathers, sons and brothers to reinforce Black women’s identities as “sluts” by normalizing the term on t-shirts, buttons, flyers and pamphlets. 

The personal is political. For us, the problem of trivialized rape and the absence of justice are intertwined with race, gender, sexuality, poverty, immigration and community.  As Black women in America, we are careful not to forget this or we may compromise more than we are able to recover.  Even if only in name, we cannot afford to label ourselves, to claim identity, to chant dehumanizing rhetoric against ourselves in any movement.  We can learn from successful movements like the Civil Rights movement, from Women’s Suffrage, the Black Nationalist and Black Feminist movements that we can make change without resorting to the taking-back of words that were never ours to begin with, but in fact heaved upon us in a process of dehumanization and devaluation. 

What We Ask

Sisters from Toronto, rape and sexual assault is a radical weapon of oppression and we are in full agreement that it requires radical people and radical strategies to counter it.  In that spirit, and because there is so much work to be done and great potential to do it together, we ask that the SlutWalk be even more radical and break from what has historically been the erasure of Black women and their particular needs, their struggles as well as their potential and contributions to feminist movements and all other movements.

Women in the United States are racially and ethnically diverse.  Every tactic to gain civil and human rights must not only consult and consider women of color, but it must equally center all our experiences and our communities in the construction, launching, delivery and sustainment of that movement.

We ask that SlutWalk take critical steps to become cognizant of the histories of people of color and engage women of color in ways that respect culture, language and context.  

We ask that SlutWalk consider engaging in a re-branding and re-labeling process and believe that given the current popularity of the Walk, its thousands of followers will not abandon the movement simply because it has changed its label.

We ask that the organizers participating in the SlutWalk take further action to end the trivialization of rape at every level of society.  Take action to end the use of the word “rape” as if it were a metaphor and also take action to end the use of language invented to perpetuate racist/sexist structures and intended to dehumanize and devalue. 

In the spirit of building a revolutionary movement to end sexual assault, end rape myths and end rape culture, we ask that SlutWalk move forward in true authenticity and solidarity to organize beyond the marches and demonstrations as SlutWalk. Develop a more critical, a more strategic and sustainable plan for bringing women together to demand countries, communities, families and individuals uphold each others human right to bodily integrity and collectively speak a resounding NO to violence against women.

We would welcome a meeting with the organizers of SlutWalk to discuss the intrinsic potential in its global reach and the sheer number of followers it has energized. We’d welcome the opportunity to engage in critical conversation with the organizers of SlutWalk about strategies for remaining accountable to the thousands of women and men, marchers it left behind in Brazil, in New Delhi, South Korea and elsewhere—marchers who continue to need safety and resources, marchers who went back home to their communities and their lives. We would welcome a conversation about the work ahead and how this can be done together with groups across various boundaries, to end sexual assault beyond the marches.

As women of color standing at the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class and more, we will continue to be relentless in the struggle to dismantle the unacceptable systems of oppression that designedly besiege our everyday lives.  We will continue to fight for the development of policies and initiatives that prioritize the primary prevention of sexual assault, respect women and individual rights, agency and freedoms and holds offenders accountable.  We will consistently demand justice whether under governmental law, at community levels, or via community strategies for those who have been assaulted; and organize to end sexual assaults of persons from all walks of life, all genders, all sexualities, all races, all ethnicity, all histories.

Signed by: The Board of Directors and Board of Advisors, Black Women’s Blueprint | Farah Tanis, Co-Founder, Executive Director, Black Women’s Blueprint | Endorsed by: Toni M. Bond Leonard, President/CEO of Black Women for Reproductive Justice (BWRJ), Chicago, Illinois | Kelli Dorsey, Executive Director, Different Avenues, Washington, D.C. | S. Mandisa Moore | The Women's Health and Justice Initiative, New Orleans, Louisiana | Black and Proud, Baton Rouge, Louisiana | Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program at Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts | Population and Development Program, Amherst, Massachusetts | Zeinab Eyega, New York, New York | Black Women’s Network, Los Angeles, California | League of Black Women, Chicago, Illinois | African American Institute on Domestic Violence, Minneapolis, Minnesota | Brooklyn Young Mother’s Collective, Brooklyn, New York | Women’s HIV Collaborative, New York, New York | National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault (SCESA), Connecticut | Girls for Gender Equity, Brooklyn, New York | My Sister’s Keeper, Brooklyn, New York | The Mothers Agenda New York (the M.A.N.Y.), Brooklyn, New York | Sojourners Group For Women, Salt Lake City, Utah | Dr. Andreana Clay, Queer Black Feminist Blog, Oakland, California | Dr. Ida E. Jones, Historian, Author, The Heart of the Race Problem: The Life of Kelly Miller | Willi Coleman, Professor of Women's History, member of the Association of Black Women Historians, Laura Rahman, Director, Broken Social Contracts, Atlanta, Georgia | Marlene McCurtis, Director, Wednesdays in Mississippi Film Project | Issa Rae, Producer, Director, Writer, Awkward Black Girl, Los Angeles, California | The Prison Birth Project| Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative & The RingShout for Reproductive Justice | Yvonne Moore, Southern California, Sexual Assault Survivor | Kola Boo, Novelist, Poet, Womanist | Jessicah A. Murrell, Spelman College C'11, Candidate for M.A. Women's Studies | Shanika Thomas | Cathy Gillespie | Kristin Simpson, Brooklyn, New York | Mkali-Hashiki, Certified Sexological Bodyworker, Certified Sound, Voice, & Music Healing Practitioner, Owner & Operator of Body Enstasy, Erotic Wellness Facilitation | Linda Mizell, Ed.D., Assistant Professor School of Education, University of Colorado at Boulder| Sherley Accime, President, C.E.O. ANEW, NY, SeaElle Integrated Therapies | Diedre F. Houchen, M.A. Ed., Alumni Doctoral Fellow, Black Education, University of Florida | Hanalei Ramos, Co-founder, Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment, NYC |

• To endorse this letter, email us with Subject: “Add My Name” to: info@blackwomensblueprint.org

• To be part of the broader conversation, learn more and to participate in our “Live Free” campaign to end sexual violence, email: Farah Tanis, Executive Director, Black Women’s Blueprint, ftanis@blackwomensblueprint.org

• Add Your Voice! Take Our Survey- Answer Anonymously-10 Questions About Rape/Sexual Assault.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V868RZG

• Join Our Workshop: Silent No More: Supporting the Survivors and Creating Response to Rape/Sexual Assault in African American Communities. Friday, October 28, 1:30-4:30 PM – RSVP for more information and location to info@blackwomensblueprint.org

•  Give What You Can! Support the Work at The Intersections http://www.indiegogo.com/Help-Finish-The-Film-Under-Siege-The-Policing-of-Women-Girls-In-America?c=activity&a=214519&i=addr

•  Join the Cast or Sign Up For Updates On Mother Tongue: Monologues In Sexual Revolution! For Black Girls & Stolen Women Taking Back Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our Lives – The National Black Theater of Harlem, February 24, 2012 info@blackwomensblueprint.org

Rape Culture and American Comedy

Funny Women Are Dangerous: Rape Culture and American Comedy 

by Black Artemis  

Sometimes I miss doing standup. Women who are funny are powerful, and therefore dangerous. But this is the first time I ever regretted not pursuing standup because I missed an opportunity to hand some predator’s ass to him.  

Summary: in pursuit of shits and giggles, a man admitted before a live audience that he aggressively pursued sex with a woman who told him repeatedly that she didn’t want him in her home never mind her body. The purpose of said revelation: to inspire other men to improvise a sketch based on this event for even more shits and giggles.  

Let someone suggest, however, that rape culture in the United States is alive and well, and heads rush to spew conspiracy theories about humorless feminists.

Yet this occurred in a nation where, according to our own justice department, one in four women will be the victim of a rape or an attempted rape. Where violent words like smash, pound, beat, and hit have become synonymous with have sex. Where a female pop singer can’t even imagine being raped and fantasize revenge without getting several advocacy groups on her case while no one blinks an eye as one male recording artist after the next makes the top twenty by packaging rape carols as love songs. 

This happened at an improv festival in New York City. Not in Congo, Iran, Nicaragua or anyone of “those places” we like to turn up our noses and wag our finger at for the atrocious way women are treated. Nope, it happened right here in the good ol’ US of A where a sexual assault survivor has to be damned near perfect if she stands a snowball’s chance in hell of seeing her perpetrator tried by a jury of his peers. Between the acquittal of two police officers for sexual assault (one with a history of being abusive toward women while in uniform) and the dismissal of the rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn (who suspiciously leaves a trail of rape allegations wherever he goes), this damned city is turning into Club Med for predators. 

The thing that disturbs me the most about this incident is that the male comics on stage were astute enough to crack jokes about the ethical and legal ramifications of this knucklehead’s behavior, but not a damn one of them was brave enough to call it out explicitly and shut him down. Then again, evidence abounds that violence against women is regular fodder for our entertainment, especially comedy. From Ralph Kramden’s threats to send his wife Alice to the moon to Twitter hashtags such as #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend our society has a long history of laughing at threats and assaults against women.

Read the Full Essay

Association of Black Women Historians on 'The Help'

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.

We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. 

Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Suggested Reading

Fiction:  

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress 

The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James 

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley 

The Street by Ann Petry 

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction: 

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph 

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter 

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones 

Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to:

ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com

Loaded Guns, Loaded Metaphors: Rihanna’s “Man Down” Video

Loaded Guns, Loaded Metaphors: 

Rihanna’s “Man Down” Video

by Janell Hobson | Ms. Magazine

Rihanna has a genius for controversy. As soon as the music video for her latest single, “Man Down,” premiered this week on BET’s 106 & Park, it created an instant backlash from various groups demanding it be banned from television. However, the outcry is not about depictions of S&M fantasies or a same-sex kiss or even passive acceptance of domestic violence. This time, she is being condemned for promoting murder.

I have to wonder if I’ve seen the same video.

I see a revenge story by a rape survivor, who makes it clear that, no matter what a woman wears or how she dances or if she walks alone at night, rape is wrong and deserves punishment. Rihanna reiterated this message when she broadcast on Twitter:

Young girls/women all over the world … we are a lot of things! We’re strong innocent fun flirtatious vulnerable, and sometimes our innocence can cause us to be naïve! We always think it could NEVER be us, but in reality, it can happen to ANY of us! So ladies be careful and #listentoyomama! I love you and I care!

While I understand the moral concerns about popular messages that condone violence, the hue and cry over this video seem to reflect a deeper anxiety. After all, if parental groups worry that pop stars such as Rihanna are encouraging young women to seek violent retribution, then I wish they would also condemn blockbuster action movies, video games and comic books that preach the same message to young boys. 

Or is it perfectly okay for action figures like Thor or Batman or a regular American G.I. to seek justice through violent means? And what does it mean for the larger public to loudly condemn a fictional scene of a rape victim grabbing her gun and pulling the trigger on her perpetrator, especially when other violent representations in media are not condemned but championed?

Read the Full Essay @ Ms. Magazine

'Left of Black': Episode #31 featuring Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

Left of Black #32 

w/ Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali

May 2, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons in a discussion of sexual violence in Black communities, homophobia, and popular culture controversies surrounding Ashley Judd, Kobe Bryant and DJ Mister Cee. Later Neal talks with historian Zaheer Ali, one of the lead researchers on the late Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Re-invention.

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→Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. Simmons is the writer, director and producer of NO! the Rape Documentary, a ground-breaking film that explores the issues of sexual violence and rape against Black women and girls.

→Zaheer Ali is a doctoral student in history at Columbia University, where he is focusing his research on twentieth-century African-American history and religion. His dissertation examines the history of the Nation of Islam’s Temple/Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, New York. Under the direction of Dr. Manning Marable, he served as project manager and senior researcher of the Malcolm X Project (MXP) at Columbia University, a multi-year research initiative on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and was a lead researcher for Dr. Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011), a comprehensive biography on Malcolm X.

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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.

Also Available @ iTunes U