Friday, February 28, 2014

Images from the Lewis Gordon talk





Notes on the Lewis Gordon talk



Lewis Gordon's talk on February 26 at Lovejoy Library was one of the great intellectual events that I've witnessed during my 10 years here at SIUE. There seemed to be a convergence of circumstances and developments that made the event such a successful moment. A combination of factors -- the prominence of the speaker and his delivery style, the location, the collaborative efforts of organizers, the student turnout, and the level of enthusiasm -- contributed to the nature of the event. 

The speaker. Professor Gordon is clearly an experienced lecturer, and displayed a capacity to talk through philosophical ideas in such a smooth, fluid way that he kept listeners thoroughly engaged throughout his talk. The recurring comment from people is that he made philosophy accessible. And fun.

The location. The rooms in the Morris University Student Center were overbooked for the times that we wanted to host the event. But perhaps that was a blessing in disguise.We filled the Friend's Corner of Lovejoy Library to capacity. It was tight, but the space really worked. In retrospect, I feel even better about hosting a premier philosopher in our library, a library named after an abolitionist no less, as opposed to a nondescript conference room.    

 The student turnout. Approximately 85 students attended. Some were from my African American literature course. Some were from my colleague Tisha Brooks's courses. Some were from Saba Fatima's philosophy courses, and some heard about the event around campus.  

The enthusiasm. Many students completed our feedback forms and noted their enthusiasm about the talk. Several students approached me later and told me how much they enjoyed it. The high level of interest already has me wondering about how we can extend this kind of activity.   

It was a rare moment to see so many people converge for a scholarly presentation in the library. Who would have thought that a talk rooted to Africana philosophy would draw so much interest?

Related:
Notebook on Lewis Gordon 

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Shifting views of natural hair in the workplace

By Briana Whiteside

When I first made the decision to transition into having natural hair, I received a lot of negative comments from my coworkers. They remarked that my hair looked unkept, and/or they preceded to tell me how they preferred my straightened hair. These unsolicited comments made me feel a little uneasy at first, but I made a conscious decision to continue on with the process.

Overtime, their views have changed, and in surprising ways. Now they ask me how do I get my hair to be so fluffy and big, or my favorite, “does it grow out of your head like that?” There was one time in particular when I came to work that a group of my white coworkers told me that they wished they could have hair like mine because it was so versatile. They liked the way that I can go from a “fro” to a “chic updo” because they can’t do anything with their naturally straight hair. They had curl envy.

Just this weekend another coworker, the one who initially remarked that my hair was unkept told me that she liked my “Foxxy Brown fro” then preceded to touch it. Initially, I was caught off guard by someone freely placing their hands in my hair, but I realized that it’s the texture that she was curious about. “It’s so soft” she remarked.

I have very thick hair, and it has grown significantly over the past 9 months, so much so that it warrants the attention of my coworkers. My hair at work is a cultural statement. I am not ashamed of who I am or the type of hair that I have. Yet, I do believe that if I hadn’t fully embraced this journey my coworkers would not have been able to come to terms with it either.

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.    

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

AR-EN: Selves & Selfies

[A Notebook on Alyssa Rosenberg & Emily Nussbaum]    

In her article “Selfies, Instagram Videos, and Why Posted Images Are As Revealing As Candids,” Alyssa Rosenberg writes that unlike unexpected images, “an image that a subject has participated in creating can tell us all of those things and how the subject wants to be seen.” What were you inclined to think or reconsider regarding selfies as a result of reading Rosenberg’s essay? Why or how so?

The Beautiful Struggle, Chapter 4

[The Beautiful Struggle]

In chapter 4 of The Beautiful Struggle, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, “But seeing that handle among the books of glorious Africa, I knew why I could never be Javonne or Pete, that my name was a nation, not a target, not something for teachers to trip over but the ancient Nubians and the glorious Egyptians of the 25th” (112). At this moment, he discovers for himself the true meaning of his name, thus gaining a sense of pride.

How did you respond to Coates's growing sense of cultural pride from that moment or somewhere else in the chapter? Why or how so?

AOC: Choice Contexts & Informed Intuition

[The Art of Choosing]   

By Danielle Hall

In The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar's discussion of automatic and reflective choosing, heuristics, and self control (or our lack thereof) is fascinating. She addresses the idea about the importance of learning to understand how our acts of choosing derive "context" or "emotion" (pp. 111-19).

Iyengar also highlights the use of intuition, sometimes what we call our hunch or gut feeling, but even that must be developed. She brings up Malcolm Gladwell's "10,000 hours" of practice to achieve expertise in an area, but suggests that practice alone is not enough. Here, she states that it also takes both practice and self-critique to have an "informed intuition," which involves sorting through our reflective and heuristic modes of thinking (p. 129).

What can we--as a university community--do to ensure that we are fostering informed intuition among students? Or, how do we develop a space that encourages more appreciation for the diversity of contexts that inform people's different choices here?

Toni Morrison: Beyond Fiction


This project was created by the students of the ENG 477 Toni Morrison seminar offered this spring in conjunction with Professor Tisha Brooks and Professor Howard Rambsy in the English Department. Many people know that Toni Morrison is a world-renowned author of fiction. She has written ten novels, including The Bluest Eye, her first book; Beloved, her best-known work; and her most recent novel, Home. Morrison is also the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, an honor she received in 1993. However, Morrison is more than a writer of fiction. Over the past three decades, she has also produced a considerable number of essays, memoirs, reviews, eulogies, lectures and speeches in addition to publishing a well-respected book of literary criticism, titled Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, and editing The Black Book: Three Hundred Years of African American Life.

[Related: Images from the Toni Morrison exhibit]

Over the course of this recording you will hear excerpts from this rich and varied collection of Morrison’s non-fictional work. In addition to hearing passages, chosen and read by students in the ENG 477 course, you will also hear their reflections on Morrison’s writing and the discoveries they have made through encountering her work. It is our hope that Morrison’s words will inspire you as they have inspired us—that you come to understand her central commitment to using language and art, rooted in black culture, to examine, critique, and resist the evil of injustice and oppression, while showing us how to survive and thrive in the midst of it.

Location: Peck Hall 3117
Time: Thursday 9:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Notes on UTSA's Annual African American Studies Symposium

This was my first time attending UTSA's Annual African American Studies Symposium. However, I've heard about the program for years now based on conversations with Joycelyn Moody, who founded the symposium when she arrived at the university. This was the seventh year of the symposium.

Organized by Rhonda Gonzales, Sonja Lanehart, Joycelyn Moody, Scott Sherer, and Deborah Thomas, the symposium theme this year was "100 Years Forward in African American Literary and Visual Arts."

The program included presentations on Jim Crow signage in works by Toni Morrison, race in children's books, contemporary black visual artists, Ernest Crchlow's lithograph Lovers, and the artwork of Mary Frances Robinson. I contributed a presentation on Malcolm X.
 
UTSA's symposium is a really good model for what's possible at various other institutions interested in African American programming. Among other things, the UTSA symposium really serves the local student population in useful ways. The presentations are set on the time of changing classes, so several teachers and professors at the university invited their classes to attend. The event exposed them to a range of ideas from specialists in different fields; the student may not have otherwise had such opportunities.

Related:
Malcolm X & Visual Aesthetics

Monday, February 24, 2014

The 'Almos' or 'Almost' of Richard Wright's short story

By Kenton Rambsy

A close look at the inclusion of one of Richard Wright’s short stories in anthologies over the years reveals a shift in spellings for the title. In African American literature anthologies, the title of Wright’s story appears as “Almos’ A Man.” In American literature anthologies, the title appears as “The Man Who Was Almost a Man.”

While the stories do not change, the two titles emphasize very distinct editorial decisions. One title highlights black vernacular. The other one highlights standard speech.

The title “Almos’ A Man” foreshadows the geographic setting of the short story by relying on African American Vernacular English and also underscores the importance of the South in black literary history. The “Almos’ a Man” title re-presents Southern speech patterns emphasizing the long “s” sound instead of the short “t” sound. The “t” is dropped from the word “Almost” and shortened to signal characteristics of black folk culture and emulate the drawl in speech that is common among black people in South.

The standard “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” title suggests that the story pertains more to a coming-of-age tale. Perhaps even the standard title helps to align Wright with other canonical white American writers who appear in American literature anthologies such as Mark Twain and William Faulkner who also deal with the coming of age male theme in their works. In other words, the standard title draws more attention to the similarities in theme instead of cultural differences.

The subtle differences in Wright’s short story titles indicate that his story is framed in different ways (highlighting Black Vernacular or Standard English) depending on the contexts. 

Related:
A notebook on short stories by black writers

Handout on Malcolm X

Below is the handout I created for my presentation on Malcolm X at 7th Annual African American Studies Symposium. The handout also contains my overall thesis, an inclusion I have been making more and more these days. The handout features three iconic Malcolm images as well as Malcolm-inspired images: KRS-ONE, Denzel Washington, Huey Freeman, and Barack Obama all as Malcolm. I make handouts like these available, in part, so audiences can have something tangible to take from the presentation.




Sunday, February 23, 2014

Images from UTSA's 7th Annual African American Studies Symposium

 A few images from UTSA's 7th Annual African American Studies Symposium. The symposium was organized by Rhonda Gonzales, Sonja Lanehart, Joycelyn Moody, Scott Sherer, and Deborah Thomas.

[Related: Malcolm X & Visual Aesthetics


Symposium founder and co-organizer Joycelyn Moody

UTSA student Jyron Joseph opens symposium with performance of "Old Man River."

University of Georgia Professor Barbara McCaskill makes presentation.

A national treasure: Joseph and Aaronetta Pierce


One of the best things about doing presentations on Malcolm X, as I did at the Annual African American Studies Symposium, is you happen to make unexpected connections with audience members. After my presentation, I met Joseph and Aaronetta Pierce, who had attended my talk. The Pierce's are long-time and deeply invested supporters of African American arts.

We first connected on the point, however, that we share a mutual friend. Right after my talk, Mr. Pierce approached me and asked, "Do you know a man named Eugene Redmond?" Do I know Professor Redmond? Well, I've based so much of my writing and career interests on emulating Redmond's activities. The Pierce's and I had a good time talking about following Professor Redmond's adventures. 

I've mentioned the prominent San Antonio art collectors Harmon and Harriet Kelley and how they became inspired by the art exhibition "Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950" in San Antonio in 1987. Well, it turns out that Aaronetta Pierce was instrumental in  making that exhibit a reality. She had been appointed to the Texas Commission on the Arts in 1985, and she was a pivotal force in making sure Hidden Heritage and other exhibits and programs took place San Antonio and across the state of Texas.

Like Professor Redmond, Mr. Pierce is a book collector, and he owns more than 8,000 publications. Not surprisingly,  Maya Angelou once referred to her friend Aaronetta Pierce as a "national treasure." In many ways, both the Pierce's are just that. 

Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Great Collector: Notes on Harriet Kelley

Art collector Harriet Kelley with Joycelyn Moody, founder and co-organizer of UTSA's African American Studies Symposium

Near the end of my presentation on Malcolm X at the Annual African American Studies Symposium, I retold a familiar story, one that's good to tell over and over again, which goes as follows: 

In 1987, Harmon and Harriet Kelley attended an art exhibition, "Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950" at the San Antonio Museum of Art. Although the Kelley's had graduated college during the 1960s, seeing that exhibit was instrumental in their beginning an extended, out-of-school course of study in African American visual art.   

In 1995, Mrs. Kelley informed a report for The New York Times that seeing the exhibit and realizing how few of the artists that she and her husband were unfamiliar with made them feel "like we had missed out on a whole part of our culture." But they made up for it.  

Over the course of the last 27 years, the Kelley's continually acquired pieces here and there. They now have one of the largest and most impressive private collections of art in the country.  They have loaned pieces of their collections to museums across the country, making it possible for many to thousands to view the work of black visual artists, including Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglass, Grafton Tyler Brown, and Laura Wheeler Waring. 

 The Kelley's story coincides with Malcolm's narrative, because like him, the Kelley's desire to pursue such serious underground or out-of-school study was inspired by a moment when they felt troubled that they did not know enough about African American heritage. That feeling prompted them to read, study, seek ut experts in the field, collect, and then to share.

Related:
The Harmon & Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper

Friday, February 21, 2014

Annotating Lewis Gordon's "Black Intellectual Tradition"

A couple of days ago, my "Becoming a Rap Genius" class began annotating  Gordon's article "Black Intellectual Tradition." We first spent class time discussing the first part of the article. During our class, most students acknowledged that they had not heard of "black intellectual traditions" before reading Gordon.

Students also acknowledged that they had not heard of many of the people that Gordon mentioned in passing. So there were a couple of reasons why we might benefit from annotating the essay together.

I've been most enthused about the collective contributions that our group has made notating  and providing images to people, sentences, and phrases in the essay. Over the last few days, our class produced 115 annotations. We provided embedded links for biographical information on figures such as Benjamin Banneker, David Walker, Anna Julia Cooper, Huey Newton, and many, many more.

It's been rare to involve so many students in the process of utilizing online annotation to engage scholarly writings by African American thinkers. Working on the Gordon essay has been an important step in our developing process.

Related:
Notebook on Lewis Gordon 

A Notebook on Lewis Gordon

Professor Lewis Gordon gave a talk at Lovejoy Library on Wednesday, February 26, at 1:30. In preparation for his visit, we produced a few writings about his work. We also produced reflections on his thoughtful and engaging talk.

Reflections on Gordon's visit:
Notes on the Lewis Gordon talk
Images from the Lewis Gordon talk

Writings on Gordon's work:
Lewis Gordon, Hip hop, and black intellectual tradition
Lewis Gordon, black feminism, and Black intellectual tradition
Lewis Gordon, Religion, and Black Intellectual Tradition
Annotating Lewis Gordon's "Black Intellectual Tradition"
Annotation of Lewis Gordon's "Black Intellectual Tradition"

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Huey as Malcolm

Huey Freeman, the main character of Aaron McGruder's The Boondocks, is designed in some ways to channel the militant spirit of Malcolm X.  In an image from the first episode of McGruder's cartoon, Huey takes on Malcolm's pose with a gun.


Malcolm X & Visual Aesthetics

Here are notes from UTSA's 7th Annual African American Studies Symposium, where I made a presentation about Malcolm X and visual aesthetics.

From the presentation:
Iconic Malcolm images
A few Malcolm images
Handout on Malcolm X 
Malcolm X photographs & Malcolm-inspired images
Huey as Malcolm 

From the symposium. 
Notes on UTSA's Annual African American Studies Symposium
The Great Collector: Notes on Harriet Kelley
Images from UTSA's 7th Annual African American Studies Symposium
A national treasure: Joseph and Aaronetta Pierce

A few Malcolm images

Photographs of Malcolm circulate fairly widely on the web.








Wednesday, February 19, 2014

The Beautiful Struggle, Chapter 3

[The Beautiful Struggle]

At one point in chapter 3 of The Beautiful Struggle, Coates states, “slowly I came to understand why these boys needed to wear capes, masks, and muscle suits between bars. Slowly I came to feel that I was not the only one who was afraid” (102). What’s one thing in particular that he mentions that you think assisted him in understanding why black boys needed to wear masks? Please provide a page number.

Reflections on the Art of Choosing so far

[The Art of Choosing]   

We've covered a few chapters in Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing so far. We've looked at issues related to cultural background and cognitive dissonance among other issues. 

Of the issues that we've covered, what's one topic addressed by Iyengar that you have found particularly useful for how you think about choice and choosing? Why? 

AR-EN: Comedy and 'biracialism'

[A Notebook on Alyssa Rosenberg & Emily Nussbaum]   

In her essay “Color Commentary: the shape-shifting masterminds of ‘Key & Peele,” Emily Nussbaum writes that, “Key and Peele’s biracialism is central to their comedy, but in a far different way than I’d imagined: it is expansive, not constricting, a Golden Ticket to themes rarely explored on television.” How does Nussbaum’s observation about Key & Peele’s biracialism alter or solidify the way you view or might view their comedy?

Pretty Hurts

By Briana Whiteside

When Beyonce dropped her unannounced album entitled Beyonce on Decemebr 13, 2013, at 12 a.m., fans went wild. The most well-known song, “Drunk in Love,” seems to capture its audience by its beat. However, the most important song on the album for black women is “Pretty Hurts.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about the politics surrounding physical “beauty” and what it means for black women. “Pretty hurts” capitalizes on my previous writings concerning colorism, style, and hair textures among the sistahs. The song also speaks to the healing that women, more specifically, black women must go through in order to become comfortable with who they are.

The outro goes: “When you’re alone all by yourself (pretty hurts pretty hurts)/and you’re lying in your bed (pretty hurts, pretty hurts)/reflection stares right into you (pretty hurts pretty hurts)/are you happy with yourself (pretty hurts, pretty hurts)/ you stripped away the masquerade (pretty hurts, pretty hurts)/the illusion has been shed/are you happy with yourself?”

Beyonce is calling to attention the reality that insecurities run deeply within women. Black women, more specifically, because of the westernized standards of beauty that we may feel we have to adhere to. In “Pretty Hurts,” Beyonce is having an important dialogue with her female fans which echoes the psychological affects that unrealized hurt or shame that may come with trying to/or being “pretty.”

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.     

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Richard Wright’s Native Son influenced short stories in anthologies

By Kenton Rambsy

On March 1, 1940, Wright’s Native Son was released to generally positive reviews. Despite being the first book written by a black writer ever chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club, the book also seems to have shaped how his work is presented across a number of anthologies. My on-going research examining anthologies that contain black short stories indicates that anthologists were more likely to include short stories by Richard Wright published after the publication and success of Native Son.

Wright’s “The Man Who was Almost a Man” and “The Man Who Lived Underground,” which appear in posthumous his Eight Men (1961), are routinely anthologized, having appeared in more than 10 collections since 1969. My data reveals that the likelihood that a piece from his first collection of short stories appears in more than 10 anthologies is unlikely over the past 80 years. Still, on occasion, “Big Boy Leaves Home,” “Bright and Morning Star,” and “Long Black Song” appear, but not nearly as often as short stories written after Native Son.

Despite the fact that many of Wright’s pre-Native Son short stories are not regularly anthologized, the importance of his first collection of short stories should not go unnoticed. The 1938 release of Uncle Tom’s Children—Wright’s gritty collection of stories about race, racism, and violence in the deep South—would earn Wright the coveted Guggenheim Fellowship in 1939, which he would use for financial support to complete Native Son. After the novel’s successful debut novel in 1940, his publisher Harper and Brothers reissued his short story collection with two new stories “Bright and Morning Star” and “Big Boy Leaves Home” as well as Wright’s essay “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” as the book’s introduction.

Without his first collection of short stories, Wright may not have not of had enough institutional support to write his first novel. The success of his novel, in turn, prompted the circulation of new and previous works.

Related:
A notebook on short stories by black writers 

The art of annotating poems on Poetry Genius

One of the most unexpected results of working with students to annotate poems on Poetry Genius has been the use of images. The students upload images to complement their written annotations of lines. Some of the students have become really skilled and creative at selecting photographs and illustrations. I look forward to seeing what they come up with for their assignments.

For example, in the line from Margaret Walker's "For My People," where she writes "Let a new earth rise," a student provided this image:



And for the next line "Let another world be born," he uploaded this:


The students are selecting from the large body of images on the net.  Reading my students' translations of lines as well as viewing the images that they provide adds a level of engagement that was  previously unavailable to me. Actually, checking their annotations this semester has prompted me to cover a wide range of visual items and ideas.  Never before have I covered so many images presented by students in a literature course. 

A few of the students seem to be in silent competition with each other for more and more creative deployments of images. For them, annotation is an art, not merely a typical academic exercise.

Related:
Becoming a Rap Genius: Resources 

Monday, February 17, 2014

Lewis Gordon, black feminism, and Black intellectual tradition

By Briana Whiteside
“The main concerns of black feminism range from equality for black women to the privileging of black women's perspectives, experiences, and political location in all aspects of social life. Its development has posed challenges to the foundations of many fields in the humanities, social sciences, and life sciences by bringing intersecting considerations of gender and race to bear on methodological assumptions and data.” --Lewis Gordon

In “Black Intellectual Tradition,” Lewis Gordon explains the tenants of black feminism and its evolution. Gordon writes that black feminism “has roots in the nineteenth century” based on the works and efforts of “Maria Stewart, Martin Delany, Frederick Dougalss, Ana Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell,” to name a few. In the twentieth century, writings by Suzanne Cesaire, Claudette Jones, Angela Davis, and Toni Cade Bambara present the idea that it is important to study “the plight of black women” to help in the “understanding of American capitalism and freedom struggles.”

Black women writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones, and Gloria Naylor, as well as Nalo Hopkins and Zora Neale Hurston focus on the struggles and psychological wellbeing of black women by making black women characters central to their novels. In turn, black feminist scholars such as Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Akasha Gloria Hull, Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Hazy V. Carby, for instance, have created a large body of writings to address the confinement of black women in America. Their works contribute to the canon of black feminist theory.

Moreover, Barabara Smith, Trudier Harris, and political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry have addressed the limitations placed on black women through harmful stereotypes, more specifically, the strong black woman characterization. Their observations about isolation in black womanhood, the power of black female bodies, and the importance of communal spaces for black women have expanded views of black feminism.

The complexities of black women's lives have been the foundation of black feminist theory and works.

Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.    

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Retelling origin stories of Afrofuturism and The New Jim Crow

For a few years now, I've retold the story to the young folks in my classes about how a "student" named Alondra Nelson organized a large group of people to talk about the intersections of race, technology, and speculative fiction. She organized the gathering of ideas and people under the label "the Afrofuturism List" or "The List" for short, which operated as a list-serv on Yahoo.

"She was a student, just like you," I say in my closings of the story. "I mean, imagine that: one of you organizing a wide-ranging conversation about artistic culture or intellectual ideas. What would that be like?"     

In recent years, I've added to my arsenal of origin stories. I tell the one about how a young sister was attending a protest rally and noticed someone's sign that referred to unjust mass incarceration as "The New Jim Crow." The sister thought about the sign and idea for a while, and eventually went on to write a book on the subject.

That book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, has become a tremendous contribution to conversations about widespread injustice in this country. "Imagine what kind of ideas one of you in this class is going to come up with," I say, "after observing and working with community organizers in the processes of advocating for justice. You'll be just like Michelle Alexander."

There's pressure and excitement involved with me speculating that the next Alondra Nelson or Michelle Alexander could be a student in my class. Doing so causes me to set the standards for the class and myself at certain places.

No doubt, it's important to introduce students to stories about slavery liberation struggles, Civil Rights and Black Power activism, and other major historical moments. But I've learned that there's also motivational value in seemingly micro, contemporary histories like the origins of Afrofuturism and The New Jim Crow.    

Related:
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mark Anthony Neal, and Writing about Black Men

Friday, February 14, 2014

Networks of 'consciousness' for collegiate black men

In retrospect, one of the educational benefits that I received early in my collegiate career was my involvement with a network of fairly well-read black men. During my senior year of high school, I was on the fringes of a "conscious" study group comprised of collegiate black men. My first year of college, I immediately became part of an informal study group, and I was constantly getting reading suggestions and guidance from a few older conscious guys in the area. 

Today, when I think about some of the challenges that the young guys I work with face, I realize how much I benefited from those underground support networks of active thinkers. The brothers at my university almost never have such networks. The first-year guys can't identify slightly older conscious men or women on campus whom they look up to for out-of-class reading suggestions, for instance.

I'm not making the unfair argument that we've heard too often:  black men do not value intellectualism. Actually, over the years, I've noticed many guys yearning for guidance on books and ideas. They would welcome the assistance in the way that I did during my first year.

But, those networks of consciousness, that is, those networks of avid thinkers and readers, that can assist young black men in their intellectual development at the earliest stages of their collegiate careers seem to be unavailable. The problem is beyond the level of individuals. It's structural and institutional.

Related: 
Collegiate Black Men and the circulation of black books   

Iconic Malcolm images

Although there are many images of Malcolm, some are more prominent than others. The following three images are among the most well-known and widely circulating images.

1961: Eve Arnold

1963: UPI/Bettman

1964, John Launois


Related:
Malcolm X & Visual Aesthetics

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Collegiate Black Men and the circulation of black books

A couple of weeks ago in one of my classes (comprised of all first-year black men), we were discussing Ta-Nehisi Coates's book The Beautiful Struggle. Coates mentioned, in passing, a few book titles that the guys were unaware of, but that I felt were common when I was coming up.

"But," I said, "our library probably won't have a lot of those books."

"Why not?" someone asked.

"Well, we're at a white school, and I don't think it rolls like that, not like the black college I attended."

That led us to an extended discussion about underground black books and then to a little experiment. Groups of guys in the class agreed to go to the circulation desk and ask if our library had some of the books that Coates and I were quite familiar with such as Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys Jawanza Kunjufu or anything by J.A. Rodgers, Naim Akbar, or Frances Cress Welsing.

Our experiment revealed that the library did not have the books. "The librarians were nice about it though." But, thankfully, our library does have books by John Henrik Clarke, Carter G. Woodson, and various others.

After I thought about our exchanges more, I realized that it wasn't just the library that made books available to me my first year of undergrad. I had in fact become part of a network of slightly older guys who were always mentioning various books that everyone...or at least everyone "conscious" was supposed to have read.

Also, during my senior year of high school, I was also on the fringes of an underground study group composed of black men college students. They started hipping me to books I should be reading. More importantly, they likely conditioned me to search out "conscious" folks and study groups once I started college.   

My first year of formal classes in college felt relatively easy in comparison to all that informal underground curriculum. 

A 1960s/70s Poetry Puzzle: How to make poems black and blacker?

After a poetry reading that Eugene B. Redmond gave in East St. Louis in the mid 1960s, a guy approached the stage and said to Redmond, "Brother, we want to hear some black poetry." The comment unsettled Redmond at the time, because he had not heard "black" said in quite that way. But he began thinking on it. In fact, Redmond recalls that "I remember tossing and turning in my sleep 'What does he mean, what does he mean, ‘black poetry’?"

Redmond was among several poets who were beginning to question what a black or blacker poetry might look like. Amiri Baraka wondered. Larry Neal wondered. Gwendolyn Brooks wondered. Countless poets associated with them wondered as well.

The consideration of black poetry was especially challenging and fascinating for poets born prior to 1940, that is, poets who had become poets before the rise of a category known distinctly as "black poetry." Nikki Giovanni and Haki Madhubuti, for instance, who were some years younger than those others, first became poets when the idea of black poets held more weight.

But that wasn't the case for poets like Redmond and Baraka. They were published poets before black poetry had gained as much cultural capital as black poetry.

These days, given the rise of MFA programs, the value of academic appointments, awards, and the overall professionalization of the field of creative writing, African American poets, at least those poets who want to heighten their chances of advancing in the field, must contend with questions of how to navigate those systems.   
   
But at a key moment during the 1960s, poets like Redmond were pondering the question of how to make their poems black or blacker. This was the era of Black Power, by the way, so activist-minded poets were inclined to consider how they might produce art and arts-based project that served the interests of African Americans.   

The poets as well as editors and commentators came up with many answers. For one, they began referring to the poetry as black poetry with more regularity and intensity. Many chose to make more deliberate efforts to align the poems with music. In addition, poets sought to channel the spirit and ideology of Malcolm X in their works. They chose to look to Africa, celebrating aspects of the people, cultures, and historical events. 

The results were varied. But what's really notable, in retrospect, was just how many poets, editors, and publishers tried to respond to the request from audiences who wanted "some black poetry." 

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

AR-EN: Involvement of women in popular culture production

[A Notebook on Alyssa Rosenberg & Emily Nussbaum]  

At one point in her article “What Impact do Women Have on the Popular Culture They Create,” Alyssa Rosenberg writes that, “There are two reasons to want more women making popular culture (and to make sure they’re paid equally and have access to similar levels of support fro their work): equality of opportunity, and the actual impact that their presence has on content.” Of those two reasons, which one stands out most to you? Why?

The Beautiful Struggle, Chps. 1 & 2 Reflections

[The Beautiful Struggle]

After reading the first two chapters of Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Beautiful Struggle, what do you view as one of the key challenges that impede productive intellectual development for black boys in West Baltimore, or any struggling section of a city for that matter?    

A.O.C.: Songs of Ourselves - Chapter 3

[The Art of Choosing]  

By Danielle Hall

In Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing, each section of chapter 3 expounds on notions of dissonance and the earlier concept of collective choices. The chapter title bears the name of Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself."

At one point, Iyengar discusses the parallels between Whitman's rhetoric of self contradiction as an organic and multi-layered concept. She suggests that ours is more complex when we are unable to or less likely to find balance or reconciliation within our multidimensional selves. Here, she states that many people enter into a state of "cognitive dissonance" when caught between conflicting forces, which are typically our beliefs and actions (97-98).

Even at the core of what we consider to be our own unique qualities and individualisms or what we understand about our path to self discovery are in fact interconnected by both internal and external relationships. Those relationships are related to what we believe about ourselves, the manifestation of our actions, and societal perceptions of who we are. These ideas, more or less, are malleable as we change and develop over time or on a daily basis, with whom and how we interact and navigate throughout various spaces or settings.

What idea from chapter 3 fascinated you most? Why or how so? Provide page citation please.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Notes toward a history of 21st-century black poetry

Let's say we're writing a history of 21st-century black poetry. What would it look like--what trends to address, what poets to include, what else?  Maybe Black History Month is a good moment to consider these issues.

In terms of writers, we'd certainly mention some of the major award-winners like Natasha Trethewey, Tracy K. Smith, Elizabeth Alexander, Terrance Hayes, Nikky Finney, and others. We can and should think of many talented non-award winners, as the awards do not necessarily mean a poet is somehow better. However, winning awards, in our society, do serve as megaphones and amplify the presence of poets.

Our 21st-century history of poetry would need to highlight the rise of award-winning and prominent black women poets. Have we ever had so many at any point in history?

As far as trends, we'd need to mention the large number of poets who writing persona verse. We'd need to write about the rise of sonnet sequences, and we'd need to address the fact that so many contemporary black poets have written about slavery.    

There's certainly commentary we'd need to do about publishers, magazines and journals, and anthologies that have served as key platforms for poets. We'd need to address the important roles of Cave Canem, academic appointments, and poetry conferences and festivals. 

It wouldn't be enough to only focus on "new" poets, as so many elder, established poets have assisted in shaping the field over the last several years. I'm thinking of people like the late Lucille Clifton, Ai, Jayne Cortez, and Amiri Baraka to name just a few who have passed on but who were central forces in the first decade of the 21s century. Then, there is the continuing presence and popularity of well-known figures like Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou.

Of course a challenge would be writing about the many, many poets who've emerged and adequately addressing their various works. Consider prolific poets like Allison Joseph, Kevin Young, and Frank X. Walker. A history would have to cover their many writings and others?

So writing that history, those histories would be tall orders. But I'm hoping writers, poets, readers, and scholars take it on. In the meantime, I plan to do my part by continuing to chart aspects of what's going on with poetry in bits and pieces here on this site.

Related:
An Introduction to 208 volumes of poetry by African American poets, 2000-2013  

Monday, February 10, 2014

Zora Neale Hurston’s Most Frequently Anthologized Stories

By Kenton Rambsy

1925 stands out as a significant moment in the literary career of Zora Neale Hurston. In that year, Hurston’s short story “Spunk” was published in The New Negro: An Interpretation edited by Howard University Professor Alain Locke. The New Negro would go on to become the definitive text of the Harlem Renaissance and help to solidify Hurston’s reputation as a short story writer.

Hurston’s short stories appeared in over 50 anthologies after 1925. If you randomly select an anthology that contains Hurston’s work, you are probably going to encounter her short story “Sweat” (1926) or “The Gilded Six Bits” (1933). In fact, these two stories are anthologized so frequently that there are numerous online resources—including two in-depth entries on Wikipedia—to aid readers in better understanding the plots as well as major themes and motifs.

Another notable finding with Hurston pertains to the presentation of her work in anthologies. Hurston is presented both as a fiction writer and cultural critic with her essay “Characteristics of Negro Expression” (1934) or an excerpt from her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) appearing alongside her short stories. In other words, unless it’s an anthology that contains only short fiction, Hurston’s short stories are usually paired alongside her work in other genres.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how “The Wife of His Youth” largely defines Charles Chesnutt’s reputation in anthologies despite his writing across multiple genres. Attention to Hurston’s presentation in anthologies, however, reveals that unlike Chesnutt, she is represented by more than just her short fiction. Perhaps, more attention to the presentation of short story writers across multiple anthologies will reveal the role editors play in deciding what selections will be made available to teachers and students.

Related:
A notebook on short stories by black writers

Sunday, February 9, 2014

A month of coverage on Amiri Baraka

Well, here we are, a month after the passing of Amiri Baraka. People wrote reflections on Facebook and Twitter. People published pieces on blogs and in newspapers. Folks wrote poems. Some people posted video tributes.

Me? I turned to bibliography. I began reading and collecting the various items on Baraka that I was coming across each day. I built this entry Coverage on Amiri Baraka's Passing, which grew and grew. I was and remain really saddened by Baraka's loss. Even now, writing that hurts.  

The only slight comfort I had was being intrigued by the diversity of responses about him. There's usually rarely such widespread coverage on a poet at any point. Even when poets die do you see so much extensive writing from various quarters.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Black Arts poets as problem-finders

Part of what made poetry of the 1960s and 1970s such a memorable and powerful force in African American and American literary history were the extents to which leading artists and editors conceived of themselves as problem-finders. They were constantly identifying and trying to work through what they perceived of as problems associated with the overall state of poetry.

Some felt that the problem was that "white" journals did not accept works by black poets. Some felt that it was a problem that black poets would even want to publish in presumable white journals. Some felt that poetry needed to become more fiery. Some felt that it was not black enough or that it was too black.

Many felt that black poets should abandon conventional text-based approaches and become more attuned to performance and music. Remember, Larry Neal, in the afterword to Black Fire (1968):
Listen to James Brown scream. Ask yourself, then, Have you heard a Negro poet sing like that, of course not, because we have been tied to the texts, like most white poets. The text could be destroyed and no one would be hurt in the least by it. The key is in the music. Our music today has always been far ahead of our literature. Actually, until recently, it was our only literature, except for, perhaps, the folktale.
 The idea that black poets and perhaps people did not have their own place drove the idea of the Black Aesthetic. The lack of "our own" spaces drove poets like Dudley Randall and Haki Madhubuti to establish black-owned publishing companies and several others t o produce magazines. The question of "what is a black poem?" prompted poet Eugene B. Redmond to produce Drumvoices: The Mission of Afro-American Poetry (1976), one of the most extraordinary studies of black poetry ever produced.   

According to creativity scholars, problem finding, more so than problem solving, characterizes those who are especially creative and innovative. An unusually high number of leading black arts writers and organizers appear to have adopted problem-finding styles. That could explain why they had such far-reaching results.

Related
The Black Arts Era 

Friday, February 7, 2014

The Multiple (Poetic, Sonic) Registers of Amiri Baraka

It's not just the shifts from Everett Leroy Jones to LeRoi Jones to Ameer Baraka to Amiri Baraka. It's not just the multi-genre work as poet, playwright, fiction writer, music and cultural historian, and jazz critic. And it's not just the apparent shifting ideologies.

Those things are important, sure. But when we focus on just the poetry even, we witness Baraka channeling multiple registers. For now, I'm thinking of "registers" in the musical way where we consider the range of a musician going high and low on various notes. In Baraka's case, the registers could mean the many, diverse tones he was likely to adopt. 

There were the quiet, touching poems. There were quick, biting poems (think of his low coup). There were poems with militancy, poems with anger, poems with humor. There were poems that featured Baraka screaming (something like his Coltrane poem "I Love Music").

He had poems that he performed with musicians,  such as "Something in the Way of Things (In Town)" with the Roots. (That piece carries a haunting tone, by the way). He has whole albums where he performs with musicians, including It's Nation Time (1972) and New Music -  New Poetry (1982). But he also has poems where he himself incorporates music such as his humming on his poem "In Walked Bud." 

In poems like "Digging Max" and "Jungle Jim Flunks His Screen" test, he does all this cataloging. In several pieces, he does something akin to chanting. There are other pieces that seem to allude to political speeches. And of course, there are many of his poems that seem to infuse multiple tonalities and registers.     

There really was a lot going on in a Baraka performance or "reading." So much so that you had to go rethink how you read him on the page.

And like I said, that's just with the poetry. So there's no surprise that so many people have chimed in to comment on Baraka. He tapped into those multiple registers, and people responded.

Related:
Coverage on Amiri Baraka's passing 
A Notebook on Amiri Baraka    

Thursday, February 6, 2014

“Live or Die”: Avoiding Shelternization

By Briana Whiteside

In part two of the five-part “Invisible Child” series that ran in The New York Times in December 2013, we learn of the complexities surrounding lives of those who live in the Auburn shelter. Dasani and her family are still at the center of the story; however, we are given the opportunity to hear the complaints and worries of other residents. Women and children have been fondled and violated by men, some verbally abused, and others live in fear for their lives. Yet, in spite of the living conditions at the Auburn shelter, Dasani refuses to become another statistic.

“Shelternized” is a term that Chanel, Dasani’s mom, uses to describe the numbing feeling of living in a shelter where “crack pipes” on the bathroom floor are viewed as normal. Where “faulty fire protection, insufficient heat, spoiled food” as well as the presence of “mice, roaches, mold and bedbugs” are common factors of everyday life. From Chanel’s view, her children have become “shelternized,” yet Dasani’s imaginative game “Live or Die” proves different.

In round one of the game, Dasani confronts evil villains that represent her chores and must find baby Lele, her younger sister, who is crying tears of “lethal rocks.” Then she must save her parents from “angry pirates” that represent the social workers. In the third round, she goes to school and must rescue her teacher Miss Hester from giants because “if she dies, all the kids die, too.” Finally in the last round, the girl must face a rival from the projects “who picks up cars and hurls them.” If she lives, she wins the prize of a new home, but if she loses, she has to return to the shelter, “which is death.”

Dasani explains, “My goal is to make it to the end, but I keep dying.”

Dasani equates life in the shelter with death, and this realization keeps her from becoming completely “shelternized.” Her ability to imagine and create a video game that closely resembles her daily struggles in many respects shows the tenacity of a girl who recognizes her formidable circumstance but is fighting to escape.


Briana Whiteside is a graduate student in English at SIUE and a contributing writer for the Cultural Front.  

Charles Chesnutt’s “The Wife of His Youth”: An Anthology Favorite

By Kenton Rambsy

My exploration of African American short fiction begins in August 1887, when Charles Chesnutt’s first short story “The Goophered Grapevine” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Chesnutt would go on to publish two collections of short stories, The Conjure Woman (1899) and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color-Line (1899). Even though Chesnutt wrote three novels during his lifetime, he is perhaps most remembered for his short stories.

His short fiction would go on to appear in over 100 anthologies since the release of his first story. Tracking the publication of short stories in anthologies, so far, reveals how Chesnutt’s stories are represented in a large number of African American and American literature anthologies. Although Chesnutt wrote numerous short stories, “The Wife of His Youth” has appeared by far the most.

The frequent reprinting of “The Wife of His Youth” in anthologies has solidified that story as the signature Chesnutt piece, at least among high school and college students who often gain access to American and African American literature through anthologies. Despite writers like Chesnutt producing a range of works, they often become known by a single work over time.

Related:
A notebook on short stories by black writers

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The Beautiful Struggle, Chapter 2

[The Beautiful Struggle]

In chapter 2 of The Beautiful Struggle, Coates writes, “the bad end of a beef was loose teeth and stitches, rarely shock trauma and ‘Blessed Assurance’ ringing the roof of the storefront funeral home” (30). He makes several other observations about the violence among young black males in this chapter. What one sentence or phrase concerning the violence that Coates discussed stick with you? Why? Please provide a page number.

A.O.C.: Choice & the Influence of Cultural Background

[The Art of Choosing

Sheena Iyengar's travels to multiple countries and her interactions with hundreds of people, not to mention her attention to studies involving thousands of participants, have given her tremendous insight concerning the cultural factors that influence choices.

Iyengar notes that "members of individualist societies are taught the special importance of choice" while on the other hand, "members of collectivist societies place greater emphasis on duty" (45). Iyengar strives, by the way, to move beyond the typical task of suggesting that one society's approach is superior to another; instead, she highlights and celebrates the differences.

What aspects of choice, in relation to the influence of cultural background, seemed most essential to you and why concerning chapter 2 (pages 22 - 73) of Iyengar's book? Please provide a page number for your citation.

AR-EN: Notable changes in the field

[A Notebook on Alyssa Rosenberg & Emily Nussbaum

In an interview with Zulkey magazine, Emily Nussbaum, who writes about television shows for The New Yorker discussed the changes with the medium. For one, she says that "overall, technology has made all the difference. Tivo and DVDs turned TV into something you could collect and re-watch." In addition, she mentions that the writers who cover television changed over time, noting that:
in the past there were two main kinds of official TV writers: buzz-oriented entertainment reporters, and then your more literary writers who were slumming. There's a whole new school of writers now, all of whom take TV seriously as their central subject. Obviously, people vary a lot in their tastes, but I'd say that it's a group of critics who aren't interested in the old defensive/condescending approach to the medium, or in endless comparisons to movies and books, and who are trying to forge new ways to talk about television as its own fantastic thing.
So for Nussbaum, the major changes have related to technology and approaches of writers. What would you say about your own field? That is, in your view, what has been one of the most notable changes in your field of study? What makes that change notable?  

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Anthologies that Contain Short Stories by Black Writers

By Kenton Rambsy

My ongoing study of short stories has encouraged me to begin cataloging anthologies. Specifically, I am interested in identifying all anthologies that contain short fiction by African American writers. Over the next year, I plan to update this list frequently and expand upon my findings. I will write other posts that identify black writers and specific short stories that have been anthologized with high frequency. 

The list appears chronologically and identifies the name of the anthology and editor.


1925: The New Negro: An Interpretation
Edited by Alain Locke

1931: Readings from Negro Authors
Edited by Otelia Cromwell.

1941: The Negro Caravan: Writings by American Negroes
Edited by Sterling A. Brown, Arthur P. Davis, and Ulysses Lee

1950: American Literature by Negro Authors
Edited by Herman Dreer.

1963: Soon, One Morning; New Writing by American Negroes, 1940-1962
Edited by Herbert Hill

1966: American Negro Stories
Edited by John Henrik Clarke.

1967: The Best Short Stories by Black writers: The Classic Anthology from 1899-1967
Edited by Langston Hughes

1968: Dark Symphony
Edited by James A. Emanuel and Theodore Gross

1968: Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature
Edited by Abraham Chapman

1969: Black American Literature: Fiction
Edited by Darwin T. Turner

1970: From the Roots: Short Stories by Black Americans
Edited by Charles L. James

1970: On Being Black: Writings by Afro-Americans from Frederick Douglass to the Present
Edited by Charles T. Davis and Daniel Walden.

1970: Forgotten pages of American Literature
Edited by Gerald W. Hasslam

1970: Black American Literature: Essays, Poetry, Fiction, Drama
Edited by Darwin T. Turner

1970: The Black Experience; an Anthology of American Literature for the 1970s
Edited by Francis Edward Kearns

1970: Black Identity: A Thematic Reader
Edited by Francis E Kearns

1971: Blackamerican Literature, 1760-Present
Edited by Ruth Miller

1971: Black Literature in America
Edited by Houston Baker

1971: What We Must See, Young Black Storytellers : An anthology
Edited by Orde Coombs

1971: Black Insights: Significant Literature by Black Americans—1760 to the Present
Edited by Nick Aaron Ford

1971: Gift of the Spirit: Readings in Black Literature for Teachers
Edited by Karel Rose

1971: What We Must See, Young Black Storytellers : An anthology
Edited by Orde Coombs

1971: Cavalcade; Negro American writing from 1760 to the present
Edited by Arthur Paul Davis and J. Saunders Redding

1971: Black Insights: Significant Literature by Black Americans—1760 to the Present
Edited by Nick Aaron Ford

1971: I, too, Sing America; Black Voices in American Literature
Edited by Barbara Dodds Stanford

1972: New Black Voices: an Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature
Edited by Abraham Chapman

1972: Black Writers of America; a Comprehensive Anthology
Edited by Richard K Barksdale and Keneth Kinnamon

1974: Keeping the Faith: Writings by Contemporary Black American Women
Edited by Pat Crutchfield Exum

1975: Black Eyed Susans: Classic Stories by and About Black Women
Edited by Mary Helen Washington

1979: Women Working: An Anthology of Stories and Poems
Edited by Nancy Hoffman and Florence Howe

1992: Black Southern Voices: An Anthology of Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction, and Critical Essays
Edited by John Oliver Killens and Jerry W. Ward, Jr.

1992: The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
Edited by Joyce Carol Oates

1992: Calling the Wind: Twentieth Century African-American Short Stories
Edited by Clarence Major

1993: America Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories
Edited by Anne Mazer

1993: African American Literature: An Anthology of Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
Edited by Demetrice A Worley and Jesse Perry

1994: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories
Edited by Tobias Wolff

1995: Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America
Edited by Herb Boyd, Robert L Allen, and Tom Feelings

1995: Revolutionary Tales: African American Women’s Short Stories, From the First Story to the Present
Edited by Bill Mullen

1995: Children of the Night: The Best Short Stories by Black Writers, 1967 to the Present
Edited by Gloria Naylor

1996: Norton Anthology of African American Literature—1st Edition
Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y McKay

1999: The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: Fifty North American Stories Since 1970
Edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone

1999: The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories
Edited by Daniel Halpern

2000: Almost Touching the Skies: Women’s Coming of Age Stories
Edited by Florence Howe and Jean Casella

2000: Dark Matter: a Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
Edited by Sheree R Thomas

2000: The Prentice Hall Anthology of African American literature
Edited by Sharon Lynette Jones and Rochelle Smith

2001: Double-Take: a Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology
Edited by Venetria K Patton and Maureen Honey

2002: The Best American Short Stories, 2002
Edited by Sue Miller and Katrina Kenison

2003: Norton Anthology of African American Literature- 2nd Edition
Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nellie Y McKay

2005: The Art of the Short Story
Edited by Dana Gioia and R. S. Gwynn

2006: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction
Edited by R V Cassill and Richard Bausch

2006: The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two: 1865 to Present
Edited by Susan Belasco and Linck Johnson

2006: The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition
Edited by Paul Lauter

2008: The Ecco Anthology of contemporary American Short Fiction
Edited by Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha


Related:
A notebook on short stories by black writers

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Mark Anthony Neal, and Writing about Black Men

If you're like me and trying to consider writing seriously about noted black men as thinkers and as complex beings with weaknesses and strengths, then you kind of, sort of have to follow some of the pieces by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Mark Anthony Neal. I was reminded of that fact recently when I noticed Coates's extended blog entry on Obama. Here's Coates's closing:  
There are moments when I hear the president speak, and I am awed. No other resident of the White House, could have better explained to America what the George Zimmerman verdict meant. And I think history will remember that, and remember him for it. But I think history will also remember his unquestioning embrace of "twice as good" in a country that has always given black people, even under his watch, half as much.
Obama has been a really important, consistent topic for Coates. He has written about Obama with pride and admiration, and at the same time, he has expressed his misgivings about some of Obama's practices, including how the president talks at and sometimes down to black people.

Neal's book Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (2013) kind of caught me by surprise. On his blog site, Neal regularly writes about a range of contemporary cultural topics, including hip hop, feminism, and black masculinity. So I wasn't expecting him to step back a little and produce, in his book, extended treatments on Gene Anthony Ray, Avery Brooks, and Luther Vandross, as well as pieces on Jay Z, R. Kelly, and The Wire character Stringer Bell.

Like Neal, Coates has produced writings on an eclectic group of black men. Coates has written extensively about Louis Farrakhan, Bill Cosby, Malcolm X, and his father, Paul Coates. Over the course of their writings, Neal and Coates write about an even broader array of black men. And I'm aware that scholars now have deep investments in focusing on "black masculinity," but there seems to be something else also at work in their treatments, like say, "black intellectual histories," though they don't use that phrase as much.

Still, I get that sense, that Neal and Coates are really delving into black intellectual and cultural histories when you follow them working through ideas on these various black men over the course of several years. I also appreciate the extended side reading lists Neal and Coates have consulted, which emerge while reading their pieces on an assortment of subjects.      
 
I work with a large number of black men students at my university. Sure, in case you're curious, we do cover many non-black male subjects. But we also talk and think about black men fairly often. We talk about our own experiences as well as all the circumstances of black men we observe out there in the world. We're like Neal and Coates in the sense that we end up thinking about an array of figures over an extended period of time. 

I sometimes wonder in my classes comprised of all first-year black men college students: what if the "next" Coates, Neal, Colson Whitehead, Kevin Young, Aaron McGruder, _______________, ______________, or ____________ is among us? Thinking about the guys as the "next" Coates or Neal, for instance, is somehow more interesting to me than thinking of them as the next Obama or Jay Z. Thinking of the fellas in this way also means that we have more work to do covering considerable ground in order to prepare for extended careers continually addressing the activities and ruminations of black men cultural figures.   

Related:
Mark Anthony Neal
Ta-Nehisi Coates