PUB: cfp: Media and Protest (Conference, London, June 2013) > Feminist Memory

cfp: Media and Protest

(Conference, London, June 2013)


Protest and the Media

Date: 12 and 13 June 2013
Venue: University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5LS

The 5th Annual Conference of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University Westminster, held in association with the British Journalism Review, will focus on ‘Protest Movements, Free Speech and the Media’.

Confirmed speakers include:

-       W. Lance Bennett, Professor of Political Science, Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication, and Director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington

-       Nick Couldry, Professor of Media and Communications and Director of the Goldsmiths Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy, Goldsmiths College

The recent wave of protests sweeping both authoritarian regimes and Western liberal democracies has highlighted the close interconnections between media and protest, particularly in times of economic hardship.  New forms of social media can disrupt constraints placed on traditional sources of information and public debate, whether through state intervention or monopolistic private ownership, and in theory provide platforms for a multiplicity of voices. Going beyond the hype surrounding ‘Twitter’ or ‘Facebook’ revolutions, this year’s conference will look at the role of media in representing and promoting protest and dissent. It will explore how contemporary media can shape practices of organizing, decision-making and mobilisation, change the focus of public debate, and influence the structure of protest movements and their capacity for social and political.

Our focus is not confined solely to recent protests or to new media. Instead, we aim to situate current movements such as Occupy or the movements of the Arab Spring within broader trajectories of protest with papers examining the role of media in past mobilizations. We also seek to investigate the plurality of media used in protest, both new and old, mainstream and alternative, digital, analogue and paper-based.

We welcome a variety of approaches and topics which may include, but are not limited to, the following:

•       Media representations of protest

•       Media surveillance, censorship and repression of dissent

•       Media and the global diffusion of protest

•       The interaction between alternative/ citizen journalism and mainstream media

•       The interface between protest movements and journalists

•       The role of mediated communication in the organizing and decision-making practices of protest movements

•       Protest movements and their use of the media to appeal to the state

•       Comparisons between the role of the media in current and past protest movements

•       The impact of the media on protest movements’ capacity for social and political change

 

PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION

The conference will take place on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 June 2013. The fee for registration will be £195 with a concessionary rate of £99 for students, to cover all conference documentation, refreshments, lunches, wine reception and administration costs. Registration will open in March 2013.

DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS

The deadline for abstracts is Monday 4 February 2013. Successful applicants will be notified by Monday 18 February 2013. Abstracts should be 250 words long. They must include the presenter’s name, affiliation, email and postal address, together with the title of the paper. Please send abstracts to Helen Cohen atjournalism@westminster.ac.uk

 

VIDEO: 10 African films to watch out for, N°15 > Africa is a Country

10 African films

to watch out for, N°15


The Professor is a fiction film by Tunisian director Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud. Synopsis: Tunis 1977. Khalsawi Khalil, Professor of Constitutional Law is responsible to defend the official State’s position in a period of tension between the government and the Interntional League for Human Rights. One day, Khalil learns that Houda, one of his students with whom he has an affair, has been arrested in the south of the country with two Italian journalists who came to investigate on strikes in the country’s phosphate mines.

Al Djazira (“The island”), an Algerian short directed by Amin Sidi-Boumédiene which recently won “Best Film from the Arab World” at the 2012 Abu Dhabi film festival. No trailer yet, but follow the film’s Facebook page for updates.


Al-khoroug lel-nahar (“Coming Forth by Day”) is an Egyptian short film written and directed by Hala Lofty (her debut) about a mother and daughter looking after their stroke-ridden husband/father. A first review in Variety sounds promising:

The film Malagasy Mankany (“Legends of Madagascar”) by Haminiaina Ratovoarivony premiers in Antananarivo later this month. It’s a drama-comedy-cum-road-movie about Malagasy youth:

Technically not a film yet to come, but an interesting campaign of films used for the 2012 Dream City event on public art in Tunis last September. “The project aim[ed] to develop and support artistic creations in public spaces in order to promote the democratisation of art and social change among ordinary citizens.” They made a series of beautiful teaser videos in different colours: pink (with a Tinariwen soundtrack), redgreenyellow, and a general trailer (with a Massive Attack soundtrack):

Mijn Vader en Van Gogh (“My father and Van Gogh”) is a film by Inès Eshun about her father Isaac who’s been living in Belgium as “an illegal immigrant” for more than 20 years. Upon leaving prison, he finds he can no longer return to the room he lived in — a room also used by painter Vincent Van Gogh when he resided in Antwerp. Using Van Gogh’s letters, Isaac’s letters and the work of artist Johan Ojo, the documentary paints an untold story:

La charia ou l’exode, réfugiés du Mali (“Sharia or exodus, the refugees from Mali”) is a documentary by Arnaud Contreras who interviewed Malians on the run for violence in their home towns/villages, “none of [whom] mention the destruction of the mausoleums of Timboctou”:

In Sen Kaddu: Autour des cinémas de Dakar, Momar Diol and Thomas Szacka-Marier interview people in Dakar about their most cherished memories of cinema and cinema halls. This project was done at the occasion of Dak’Art Off 2012, the Biennial of Contemporary African Art in Senegal.

 

Le Maréchalat du Roi Dieu (“The Marshalcy of King-God”) is a documentary by Nathalie Pontalier, who tells the story of André Ondao Mba from Libreville, Gabon. Mba shares a house with his two sons but he is ill, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He has been painting murals for over twenty years — containing messages and mythologies that remain opaque to many.


And LUX is a film by French photographer Sébastien Coupy about rural Burkina Faso. It’s a collage of his photos, with commentary and voice-overs by Burkinabés about the many meanings and the scarce availability of electricity, “lumière”, light, LUX. A first fragment here, and a second below:

 

LITERATURE: 1939 translation of Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Aimé Césaire > Poetry Society of America

A. James Arnold and

Clayton Eshleman

on the original 1939 translation

of Notebook of a Return to

the Native Land

by Aimé Césaire

 

A NOTE ON THE ORIGINAL 1939

NOTEBOOK OF A RETURN

TO THE NATIVE LAND

Here are the first twenty strophes of our translation of Aimé Césaire's 1939 Notebook of a Return to the Native Land. This 725 line poem is a work of immense cultural significance and beauty. To date commentary on it has focused on its Cold War and anticolonialist rhetoric, material that Césaire only added to the revised 1956 text which turns out to be the fourth, and until now, primarily known version of the work.

Since 1956, readers of Césaire's masterwork have had to wrestle with what is, in effect, a palimpsest. On three occasions after the poem's first publication in the literary journal "Volontés" on the eve of World War II, the poet revised the carefully composed original text in a new spirit and with different aims. In 1947, the Paris bookseller Brentano's, which published in New York City during the war, brought out the first book edition of the poem with an English translation by L. Abel and Y. Goll prefaced by André Breton's essay, "A Great Negro Poet." A few weeks later, Bordas, in Paris, brought out a third edition based on a different (no longer extant) typescript.

Whereas the two 1947 editions were revised exclusively by the addition of new elements to heighten certain effects, the 1956 edition published by Présence africaine in Paris (until now taken to be the definitive text) excised much of the earlier additions and substituted for them blocks of text that would align the poem with the poet's new political position, one which embraced the immediate decolonization of Africa in militant tones. Most notably the visible traces of a spiritual discourse were obliterated, and the sexual metaphors that characterized carnal passages addressing the speaker's union with nature were replaced by new material that introduced an entirely new socialist perspective focused on the wretched of the earth.

Our intention in offering the 1939 French text of the Notebook, translated for the first time into English, is to strip away decades of rewriting that introduced an ideological purposed absent from the original. We do not claim to reveal what the poem ultimately means but rather how it was meant to be read in 1939. Reading with the poem's first audience, so to speak, will finally permit a new generation to judge its enduring power a century after the poet's birth.

                                                   —November 2012 

 

* * *

An excerpt from
NOTEBOOK OF A RETURN TO THE NATIVE LAND   translated by A. James Arnold & Clayton Eshleman

1   

    At the end of first light burgeoning with frail coves the hungry Antilles, the Antilles pitted with smallpox, the Antilles dynamited by alcohol, stranded in the mud of this bay, in the dust of this town sinisterly stranded.

2

    At the end of first light, the extreme, deceptive desolate eschar on the wound of the waters; the martyrs who do not bear witness; the flowers of blood that fade and scatter in the empty wind like the cries of babbling parrots; an aged life mendaciously smiling, its lips opened by vacated agonies; an aged poverty rotting under the sun, silently; an aged silence bursting with tepid pustules

3

    the dreadful inanity of our raison d'être.

4

    At the end of first light, on this very fragile earth thickness exceeded in a humiliating way by its grandiose future—the volcanoes will explode,* the naked water will bear away the ripe sun stains and nothing will be left but a tepid bubbling pecked at by sea birds—the beach of dreams and the insane awakening.

5

    At the end of first light, this town sprawled—flat, toppled from its common sense, inert, winded under its geometric weight of an eternally renewed cross, indocile to its fate, mute, vexed no matter what, incapable of growing according to the juice of this earth, encumbered, clipped, reduced, in breach of its fauna and flora.

6

    At the end of first light, this town sprawled—flat…
    And in this inert town, this squalling throng so astonishingly detoured from its cry like this town from its movement, from its meaning, not even worried, detoured from its true cry, the only cry one would have wanted to hear because it alone feels at home in this town; because one feels that it inhabits some deep refuge of shadow and of pride, in this inert town, this throng detoured from its cry of hunger, of poverty, of revolt, of hatred, this throng so strangely chattering and mute.

7

    In this inert town, this strange throng that does not huddle, does not mix; clever at discovering the point of disencasement, of flight, of dodging. This throng that does not know how to throng, this throng, one realizes, so perfectly alone under the sun, like a woman one thought completely occupied with the lyric cadence of her buttocks, who abruptly challenges a hypothetical rain and enjoins it not to fall; or like a rapid sign of the cross without perceptible motive; or like the sudden grave animality of a peasant, urinating standing, her legs parted, stiff.

8

    In this inert town, this desolate throng under the sun, not connected with anything that is expressed, asserted, released in broad earth daylight, its own. Not with Josephine, Empress of the French, dreaming way up there above the nigger scum. Nor with the liberator fixed in his whitewashed stone liberation. Nor with the conquistador.* Nor with this contempt, nor with this freedom, nor with this audacity.

9

    At the end of first light, this inert town and its beyond of lepers, of consumption, of famines, of fears crouched in the ravines, of fears perched in the trees, of fears dug in the ground, of fears adrift in the sky, of piled up fears and their fumeroles of anguish.

10

    At the end of first light the morne* forgotten, forgetful of exploding.

11

    At the end of first light the morne in restless, docile hooves—its malarial blood routs the sun with its overheated pulse.

12

    At the end of first light the restrained conflagration of the morne, like a sob gagged on the verge of a bloodthirsty burst, in quest of an ignition that slips away and ignores itself.

13

    At the end of first light, the morne crouching before bulimia on the outlook for tuns and mills, slowly vomiting out its human fatigue, the morne solitary and its blood shed, the morne bandaged in shade, the morne and its ditches of fear, the morne and its great hands of wind.

14

    At the end of first light, the famished morne and no one knows better than this bastard morne why the suicide* choked with a little help from his hypoglossal jamming his tongue backward to swallow it; why a woman seems to float belly up on the Capot River* (her chiaroscuro body submissively organized at the command of her navel) but she is only a bundle of sonorous water.

15

    And neither the teacher in his classroom, nor the priest at catechism will be able to get a word out of this sleepy little picaninny, no matter how energetically they drum on his shorn skull, for starvation has quicksanded his voice into the swamp of hunger (a word-one-single-word and we-will-forget-about-Queen-Blanche-of-Castille,* a word-one-single-word, you-should see-this-little-savage-who-doesn't-know-any-of-God's-Ten-Commandments),

    for his voice gets lost in the swamp of hunger,
    and there is nothing, really nothing to squeeze out of this little brat,
    other than a hunger that can no longer climb to the rigging of his voice,
    a sluggish flabby hunger,
    a hunger buried in the depths of the Hunger of this famished morne.

16  

    At the end of first light, the disparate stranding, the exacerbated stench of corruption, the monstrous sodomies of the host and the sacrificing priest, the impassable beakhead frames of prejudice and stupidity, the prostitutions, the hypocrisies, the lubricities, the treasons, the lies, the frauds, the concussions—the panting of a deficient cowardice, the heave-holess enthusiasm of supernumerary sahibs, the greeds, the hysterias, the perversions, the harlequinades of poverty, the cripplings, the pruritus, the urticaria, the tepid hammocks of degeneracy. Right here the parade of laughable and scrofulous buboes, the forced feeding of very strange microbes, the poisons without known alexins, the sanies of really ancient sores, the unforeseeable fermentations of putrescible species.

17

    At the end of first light, the great still night, the stars deader than a smashed balafo.

18

    The teratical bulb of night, sprouted from our villainies and our self-denials…

19

    And our idiotic and insane stunts to revive the golden splashing of privileged moments, the umbilical cord restored to its ephemeral splendor, the bread, and the wine of complicity, the bread, the wine, the blood of veracious weddings.

20

    And this joy of former times making me aware of my present poverty, a bumpy road plunging into a hollow where it scatters a few shacks; an indefatigable road charging at full speed a morne at the top of which it brutally quicksands into a pool of clumsy houses, a road foolishly climbing, recklessly descending, and the carcass of wood, which I call "our house," comically perched on minute cement paws, its coiffure of corrugated iron in the sun like a skin laid out to dry, the dining room, the rough floor where nail heads gleam, the beams of pine and shadow across the ceiling, the spectral straw chairs, the gray lamp light, the glossy flash of cockroaches in a maddening buzz…

+++++++++++


Aimé Césaire
line
Notebook of a Return to the Native Land will published in a bilingual edition by Wesleyan U Press, April 2013 in conjunction with an international Cesaire conference to be held on the Wesleyan campus April 5/6.
line
A. James Arnold has been identified with the poetry of Aimé Césaire since 1981, when Harvard University Press published his book Modernism and Negritude. A decade later he published Césaire's Lyric and Dramatic Poetry (1946-1982) at CARAF Books, the series he founded at the University of Virginia Press, in a translation by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith. In 2011 he and Eshleman collaborated on the bilingual edition of Césaire'sSolar Throat Slashed for Wesleyan University Press. He is the lead editor of the genetic edition of Césaire's literary works, to be published in the Planète Libre book series in Paris to mark the centennial of the poet's birth.
line
Clayton Eshleman's first collection of poetry, Mexico & North, was published in Kyoto, 1962. From 1968 to 2004, Black Widow Press brought out thirteen collections of his poetry. In 2006, Black Widow Press became his main publisher and with The Price of Experience has now brought out six collections of his poetry, prose, and translations, including in 2008 The Grindstone of Rapport / A Clayton Eshleman Reader. Wesleyan University Press has also published five of his books, including Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & the Construction of the Underworld (2003), the first study of the Ice Age cave art by a poet. He has published fourteen collections of translations, including Watchfiends & Rack Screams by Antonin Artaud (Exact Change, 1995), The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo (University of California Press, 2007) and Solar Throat Slashed by Aimé Césaire, cotranslated with A. James Arnold (Wesleyan, 2011). Forthcoming publications include, with A. James Arnold, a cotranslation of Césaire's original 1939 Notebook of a Return to the Native Land  (Wesleyan, 2013) andPenetralia, a fifty-seven year poetry retrospective (Black Widow, 2015).

 

IMMIGRATION: How the Africans Became Black - Wayétu Moore > The Atlantic

How the Africans

Became Black


By Wayétu Moore

 

A Liberian-American reflects on the experiences of Africans who have moved to the United States, a growing community that accounts for 3 percent of the U.S.'s foreign-born population.

liberia banner.jpg
Yama Sumo a former refugee from civil war in Liberia, sits by her sidewalk vegetable stand outside a housing project in the Park Hill section of Staten Island in New York City on September 20, 2007. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

 

After leaving my nine-to-five job, I was led to a New York Immigration Coalition job posting. While waiting in the coalition's lobby for an interview, a copy of a popular TIME Magazine cover caught my eye. "WE ARE AMERICANS," the cover read. The photo on the cover featured faces of various brown and yellow immigrants, eager and hopeful, representing both the spirit of America's revolutionary history and its inevitable future. I was remembering my own family's immigration when I stopped to wonder: Where are the Africans?

U.S. immigration debates are overwhelmingly centered on immigrants from Latin America. Proportionately, Mexicans and central Americans far outnumber other immigrant groups in the United States. According to a Migration Policy Institute study, since 1970, "a period during which the overall U.S. immigration population increased four-fold, the Mexican and central American population increased by a factor of 20." In a subsequent study on black immigration, the same organization reported that black African immigrants account for 3 percent of the total U.S. foreign-born population.

Much as Irish immigrants benefited from the white racial umbrella, black immigrants are benefiting from a black racial umbrella.

Like their Latin American counterparts, African immigrants keep a low profile in an effort to avoid humiliation, deportation, and loss of work. Many of them, whether accidentally or otherwise, wind up blending in with African-American culture. But however closely they may identify with black America, they, too, are immigrants.

THE IRISH

I recently read a book titled How The Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev. Ignatiev traces this nation's white solidarity to the arrival of Irish settlers in New York in 1840, the country's subsequent disassociation from its African-American working class -- and ultimately, from the African-American race.

According to Ignatiev, Irish Catholics, then known as the blacks of Europe, came to America as a disenfranchised, oppressed race under the English Penal Laws. The greatest voice for Catholic emancipation at the time, Daniel O'Connell, urged the new immigrants to continue the struggle for equality in America by showing support for abolitionists. Instead, the Irish realized that discrimination against them by white elites was linked at least in part to their working, sleeping and living closely alongside blacks of similar economic and social status.

In order to stand out from blacks economically, Irish immigrants had to monopolize their low-wage jobs and keep free Northern blacks from joining unions during the labor movement. And in order to disassociate socially, they had to consent to active participation in the oppression of the black race, embracing whiteness and the system that disenfranchised and justified an ungovernable hatred toward African-Americans.

Ignatiev includes an 1843 letter from Daniel O'Connell: "Over the broad Atlantic I pour forth my voice, saying, come out of such land, you Irishmen; or, if you remain, and dare countenance the system of slavery that is supported there, we will recognize you as Irishmen no longer."

The color of their skin saved them, but has also nearly obliterated a once vibrant cultural identity so that today I know no Irishmen. I have friends of Irish descent, former coworkers who mentioned the occasional Irish grandfather or associates who gesture toward familiarity of the lost heritage over empty pints on St. Patrick's Day -- but the Irishmen are now white, and the Irishmen are now gone.

Race in America is often thought of as a two-toned, immutable palette. No matter how early their ancestors arrived, Americans of Asian descent, Americans from Spanish-speaking countries, and Americans from the Middle East will always be considered foreign, it sometimes seems. For black immigrants who arrive as neither African-American nor white, affiliating with the African-American identity is often easier. Being considered African-American in this country is still better in most instances than being considered an immigrant.

Much as Irish immigrants benefited from the white racial umbrella, black immigrants are benefiting from a black racial umbrella. They cleave to African-American culture and identity groups and remain silent or unheard in the larger immigration dialogue. In the context of the immigration debate, while many of the prominent faces of those in need are often brown, it's worth remembering that the term "immigrant" captures black Africans, too. At the same time, black immigrants and their children are also helping to redefine what it means to be black in this country.

ON BEING BLACK

When I was stopped in Arizona at a checkpoint during a midnight drive from Los Angeles to Houston, I was not asked if I was born in this country or if I was of legal status. The officer glanced at my license and simply asked me where I was going.

We were the only African family in our small Texan town and as far as the residents were concerned, we were black.

"Home," I answered. "Back to Houston."

I sounded like him and looked like about 14 percent of this country -- so the officer let me pass. Someone like Natalie Portman -- a white woman, but born in Jerusalem and an immigrant to the United States -- might have had the same experience.

If Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer-winning journalist whose (brown) picture on the cover of TIME hung on the wall of the New York Immigration Coalition, were stopped that night, he may have been interrogated with questions, squeezed for identification, for proof that he deserved to be here. How just is that?

My family left Liberia in 1990 amid the country's first civil war. We were among tens of thousands that successfully escaped to America. Five-years-old at the time, a green and frightened young immigrant, I moved with my growing family to three different states before settling in Houston in 1994. By then, my accent was gone. I pronounced the r's at the ends of my words, I knew the radio music my elementary peers sang along to and I could quote the latest episodes of "TGIF." By 2000, my only reference to Liberia, other than my parents, annual family reunions and a war scar underneath my right foot, was my name. I said it and people asked if I was African. If I did not say it, they could not know. We were the only African family in our small Texan town and as far as the residents were concerned -- we were black. It was not until I moved to New York for college that my answer of "Spring, Texas" when people asked me where I was from was unacceptable. "No," they would say, "where are you from from?" Oh. Liberia.

Like a small percentage of Liberians, my recent ancestors were descendants of American slaves. A reverend by the name of June Moore immigrated to Liberia with his wife Adeline Moore in 1871. After settling in Arthington, Liberia, Wallace Moore, one of June's and Adeline's three sons, had a son named David Moore, who had a son named Herbert Moore, who had a son named Augustus Moore Sr. -- my father.

But growing up in America as a black or white person encourages the abandonment of such history and the adoption of "black" or "white" American culture as one's own. Despite my Liberian heritage, my interactions outside of my house during my developmental years took place as though I were, culturally, an African-American -- not an African. From first grade through high school, I received an American public-school education in which all mentions of people who looked like me were African-American. I took ownership of the culture because otherwise, I did not exist.

When I was 11 years old, I was called a nigger at a neighborhood corner store by a shopkeeper who thought my friends and I were stealing from him when six or so of us entered his store after track practice. The word was foreign to me, as was his motivation in using it. My friends and I cried as we were chased out of the store, but even then I knew their tears came from a different, more familiar place.

In the same way we respond to someone with white skin -- whether that person is a white European or a white Hispanic -- so America responds to people with black skin, no matter if they have been here for 20 years or 200 years. Being black in America is accompanied by a stupefying consciousness, a sudden, life-long awareness of your skin, your nose, your hair -- all those things that, ironically, we are taught do not matter at all.

PASSING

Still, developing an awareness of all that being black in this country may entail does not automatically mean that young black immigrants are accepted by their peers. The young immigrant is usually subject to other kinds of bullying. National Geographic programming, comedians, international news all showcase Africans as savage, disease-ridden, ignorant, and poor. As a young student in this country, an African student, there are few greater burdens than psychologically balancing the public's perception of Africa against what the immigrant knows to be true.

Social pressures cause a grave, hopeless desire to blend in with peers, even if the price is total rejection of the foods, music and languages of that child's home country. The easiest avenue for assimilation into American culture, for young black immigrants, is the assimilation into African-American culture. African immigrants are not the only group to do this -- Carribeans and black Hispanics may do this as well, all to ease the burdens of cultural ostracism.

These young people eventually learn to socially navigate both African-American and their home culture. This passing of black immigrants and first-generation black Americans as members of African-American culture results in a cross-cultural black identity, where the individual is equally invested in both African-American interests and the empowerment of their (or their parent's) home country and the many issues that affect its native sons.

 

* * *

 

My father is a proud man. All of my uncles are proud men. They wear Liberia and her stories on their shoulders and made consistent attempts growing up to engage us in her music and history. Still, my father was as careful as he was proud. My siblings and I were reminded to always obey the law, never get in trouble, to fear punishment and respect authority. The immigration struggles that face many Hispanics in this country -- fear of prison, fear of deportation or separation from family -- are more intensified among Africans, because many of us, my family included, left countries in conflict or at war. Drawing attention to your immigrant status means raising the possibility of having to return to a country whose economy and infrastructure may barely function.

Ours is also a numbers game. As 3 percent of a foreign-born population, African influence in the immigration movement is low. Language barriers keep some black immigrants from becoming activists. It's not just about English; at one information session in the Bronx, instructions and information on legal clinic appointments were given only in Spanish, even though 10 percent of the attendants were black immigrants who mostly spoke French. The Francophones had to consult with one another to figure out what the session leader was saying.

Some black immigrants are vocal and have received help from a few quarters. To people of countries beset by armed conflict, natural disaster, or other circumstances that would make going home unsafe, the United States grants what's called Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS gives certain foreign nationals a special opportunity to live in America, to work, to pay taxes, and to own homes and businesses. Haitians benefited from this after the 2010 earthquake, and Liberians were also beneficiaries.

Every year, 4,000 Liberians face the threat of deportation from the United States.

But in 2007, an estimated 4,000 Liberians were told that their special status would expire on September 30 at midnight. On September 12, however, President Bush signed a bill that gave the Liberians permission to stay another 18 months and continue working. That reprieve has since been granted 4 times; yet every year these Liberians -- some with children who are American citizens, homeowners, and taxpayers -- face the threat of deportation.

Liberian nationals, with the help of The Universal Human Rights International Group and community associations led and managed by fellow Liberian immigrants, continue to lobby Congress for permanent residency. Michael Capuano, a Democratic U.S. congressman from Massachusetts, is a co-sponsor of the Liberian Refugee Immigration Protection Act. If passed, the bipartisan bill will allow Liberians with TPS to apply for permanent residency, something they are not currently allowed to do.

You may have passed a Liberian covered by TPS today. You may have thought that he was just black.

What the Irish were to white identity in the 19th century, so are African immigrants to African-American identity today. Black immigrants have a meaningful contribution to make to the immigration debate; for Jose Antonio Vargas and the other brown faces on that TIME cover, the black immigrant voice may be all the push reformists need.

+++++++++++++

- Wayétu Moore is a freelance writer and founder of One Moore Book, a boutique publisher of multicultural children's books.

 

ECONOMICS: Stealing Africa: a documentary about how multinationals continue to suck the continent dry > This Is Africa

Stealing Africa:

a documentary about

how multinationals

continue to

suck the continent dry

<p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 600px;">Watch Stealing Africa on PBS. See more from Why Poverty?.</p>

by Siji Jabbar

 

Stealing Africa [660x300]

How is it that Africa is so rich in resources and yet so poor? The question is often asked as much by Africans interested in altering the continent's fortunes as by those intent on blaming Africans alone for the paradox. We write about this from time to time, either directly or indirectly - our most recent article on the subject appeared just a week ago - and many others do the same, but it's easier for people to blame it all on Africans because that absolves everyone else of any responsibility.

The question of how Africa can be so rich in resources yet so poor - relative to the other continents - is also central to the impressive documentary Stealing Africa by Danish film-maker Christoffer Guldbrandsen. It's only 55 minutes long, and you can watch it in its entirety online. Unfortunately, it's currently only accessible to those surfing from the UK (watch it HERE), US (watch HERE), Canada (HERE) or the Netherlands (HERE), or to those accessing the web via a proxy server. I'll add more links as they become available. In the documentary, Christoffer Guldbrandsen reveals how one Swiss company, Glencore, is making billions from copper mining in Zambia while the country remains one of the poorest in the world. You won't be surprised to learn that the IMF and World Bank were involved in the sale of the mines that led to this situation. (When are African nations going to stop taking advice from these organisations? The neoliberal policies they "recommend" have been disastrous for Africa and for developing nations around the world, resulting in the continuous transfer of wealth from the south to the north. You can read more about this here (Impoverishing a Continent), here (How the IMF, World Bank and Structural Adjustment Program destroyed Africa), and here (Globalization 101: Why is the IMF controversial). The IMF has even tried pushing its policies on China).

Glencore makes so much money from copper mining in Zambia that the mayor of the village in which the company is registered can't spend all the money the company contributes to the public coffers. Meanwhile 60% of Zambia's population live on less than $1 a day and 80% are unemployed.

When Glencore went public, the windfall tax earned by the Swiss village of Ruschlikon was so large that the mayor proposed a lowering of the tax rate by 7%. But one local resident had a different idea. He suggested the tax rate be reduced by 5%, and that the difference between the two rates of tax reduction should go to the African communities affected by Glencore's operations. A public meeting was called, but the village's residents voted against handing anything back to Africa. They wanted to keep all the money for themselves.

 

This is far from an isolated case; wherever you are from in Africa, you can be sure that some of that country's resources are making less for the country than for the western multinationals involved in extracting those resources. The popular perception is that Africa receives so much money in aid and it just wastes the money, and that western countries are very generous in providing any aid in the first place. But as pointed out in the documentary, the amount of money flowing out of Africa is ten times the amount of aid the continent receives.

Even those familiar with some of the ways in which Africa continues to be sucked dry by these multinationals will despair by what they will learn from Stealing Africa.

The next time someone tries to blame it all on Africa or complains about how much aid the continent receives, send then a link to Stealing Africa.

 

HISTORY + VIDEO: African Liberation: The Cancer of Betrayal > Black Acrylic

African Liberation:

The Cancer of Betrayal


 

Amilcar Cabral

Africa would be a different continent today if nationalist movements had been able to make the transition from revolutionary forces opposing oppressive colonial rule, to equally progressive governing political parties. However, this idealistic observation is almost redundant as nationalist liberation movements did not operate in a vacuum, but within a hostile domestic environment and even more aggressive geopolitical landscape. Movements were undermined by the counter operations of the global super powers, as well opportunists at home who seized the chance to profit from the neo-colonial agenda. Before corrupt African leaders became a cliché, it was African leadership that freed Africa from colonial rule – exemplified by liberation movements led by Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau, Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel in Mozambique, Agostinho Nesto in Angola, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and Patrice Lumumba in the Congo.

 

Agricultural engineer, writer and poet Amílcar Cabral was heavily inspired by the Cuban revolution and led a 10 year guerrilla movement against the Portuguese. Cabral was assassinated by Portuguese agents eight months before Guinea-Bissau declared independence. He believed that socialism was the only means of uprooting the exploitations of capitalism and imperialism in Africa. He also understood that the external threat of colonialism was mirrored amongst natives – particularly the unpredictable bourgeoisie who relied on the colonial apparatus for their livelihood. Outlining the objectives of the war for independence Cabral stated, “we are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never be more exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men’s skins; we do not want exploitation in our countries, not even by black people” (Return to the Source, 1974). Cabral’s concerns were legitimate and evidenced time and time again. The most obvious example of betrayal being the assassination of Thomas Sankara who was assassinated in a coup d’état supported by the French and led by his oldest friend Blaise Compaoré in 1987.

Amílcar Cabral articulated his concerns about the pattern of betrayal in African liberation movements during his speech at the State funeral of Kwame Nkrumah in Conakry. The speech titled Le Cancer de la Trahison (The Cancer of Betrayal) insinuates that it was the cancer of betrayal that really killed Nkrumah, by killing his vision for Ghana when his government was overthrown in his absence. Nkrumah is often celebrated as the father of Pan-Africanism and this philosophy resonated loudly amongst leaders, intellectuals and musicians in Africa and the diaspora who championed the idea of a unified global African community. Today Cabral’s words are as powerful as they were at Nkrumah’s funeral in 1972. Betrayal of the collectivist philosophy that anchored Africa’s liberation movements and the erasure of the legacies of African heroes is why today leadership in Africa is typically shamelessly dysfunctional. Lack of progressive leadership is why the Mo Ibrahim Foundation - an organisation working hard to promote good governance on the continent – has withheld its Leadership Award for the third time in six years. African nationalists like Amílcar Cabral remain the greatest examples of leadership Africa has ever seen.

“… What to say? but we must speak otherwise at this point, if we don’t talk, our hearts may burst.  Our tears should not infiltrate the truth.  We, freedom fighters, we do not mourn the death of a man, even a man who was a comrade and an exemplary revolutionary, because as President Ahmed Sekou Toure often says ‘what is man in front of the infinite being and transgressing of the people and of humanity?’  We do not mourn the people of Ghana scoffed in its most beautiful realisations, in its most legitimate aspirations.   We are not crying for Africa, betrayed.  We are mourning, yes, of hatred towards those who were able to betray Nkrumah to serve the ignoble imperialism …  Mr President, Africa by requiring through the voice of the people of the Republic of Guinea, as always fairly represented by President Ahmed Sekou Toure, whom Nkrumah had put in his right place on the Kilimandjaro’s highest summits of the African revolution, Africa rehabilitates itself and through history. President Nkrumah, which we honor is primarily the great strategist of the struggle against classic colonialism, he is the one who created what we call African positivism, what he called “positive action”, affirmative action.  We pay tribute to the declared enemy of neocolonialism in Africa and elsewhere, the strategist of economic development in his country.  Mr President, we praise the freedom fighter of the African people who always gave his full support to national liberation movements, and we want to tell you here that we, in Guinea and Cape Verde islands, even though it is true that the most important factor for the development of our struggle outside our country was the independence of the Republic of Guinea, the heroic ‘no’ of the people of Guinea on 28 September 1958.   It is also true that if we went through the struggle regenerated, it was essentially due to the concrete support of Ghana and particularly of President Nkrumah …

Mr. President, we should however in this moment remember that all coins in life have two faces, all realities have positive and negative sides… to all positive action, is opposed a negative action. To what extent is betrayal’s success in Ghana linked to problems of class struggle, from contributions to social structures, from the role of party or other instructions, including armed forces as part of a new independent state.  To what level, we shall ask ourselves, is betrayal’s success in Ghana linked to a correct definition of this historical entity and craftsman of history that is the people and their daily work, in defending its own independence conquests?  Or to what extent is betrayal’s success not linked to the major problem of the choice of men in the revolution?  My idea on this question will allow us to better understand the greatness of Nkrumah’s work, to understand the complexity of problems he had to face so many times alone… problems that will allow us to conclude that, as imperialism exists, an independent state in Africa should be a liberation movement to power or it would not exist.  Let no one tell us that Nkrumah died of a cancer to the throat or some other disease; no, Nkrumah has been killed by the cancer of betrayal that we should uproot… by the cancer of betrayal, that we should root out of Africa if we really want to definitely crush the imperialist domination on this continent.  But, we, Africans, firmly believe that the dead continue living by our sides, we are a society of dead and living.  Nkrumah will resuscitate each dawn in the hearts and in the determinations of freedom fighters, in the action of all true African patriots.  Our liberation movement will not forgive those who betrayed Nkrumah, the people of Ghana will not forgive, Africa will not forgive, progressive mankind will not forgive!”  Translation via Afrolegends

 

AUDIO: D'Angelo Mixtapes > Soulified

D’Angelo:

A Sad State for a Great Talent

Heard whispers of D’Angelo having a new album out, and I had to jump up to track it down, and see if all the fans wishes had been answered.  Found that that said album is called “Interpretations: Remakes”.  Well…. it’s ANOTHER fraud.  All it is music from his previous official releases and concerts, put into basically a mixtape.

So, after being disappointed once again, I tried to get a better understanding of who is putting out these mixtapes disguised as official releases.  The company’s name is “Think Different Music Group“.  According to their Bio, they work with artists for A&R and to market their albums.  My question is, why would an artists give the green light for a 3rd party to release sub par versions of their music, when his current label Virgin Records can do that, and they have the masters?  Also why wouldn’t he have those releases listed on his MySpace page to garner more sales?  The ONLY official compilation album is “The Best So Far“.  All these other  releases are just mixtapes that someone is trying fleece devoted fans, who are dying for a new album.

D’Angelo’s fans want to throw their money at him for concerts, albums, singles and possible music videos. In the title I say it’s a sad state, because both the artist and the fan are being abused.  I mean this is D’Angelo. The man that gave real meaning to “Brown Sugar”, and co-defined “Lady” along with Lionel Richie (Happy Birthday today).

So, here are five mixtapes that I have collected to help get the fans by until we are blessed with new material from Sir D’Angelo.  Enjoy.

[Update] Thanks to “The Ned” found out that D’Angelo’s trainer has made a statement concerning the near future of D’Angelo. Here it is.

“I’m rocking with Mary [J. Blige] this SUMMER and I’m starting with D’Angelo next week,” Jenkins revealed toSOHH last weekend. “So I’m looking for a big transformation with D’Angelo. We’re back. His music is good and he’s gonna be coming back pretty strong in the next three or four months. The music is tight. That transformation was really one of the big ones that put me on the map so we’re looking to get him in better condition than the ‘Untitled’ video. That’s the target we’re shooting for.” (SOHH)

Download Links

DAngelos Interpretations Remakes (1482)

DAngelos Live At Universal Ampitheater (979)

DAngelo's Ameldabee Presents The Soul Of DAngelo (891)

DAngelos Yoda The Monarch Of Neo-Soul Vol. 1 (299)

DAngelos Yoda The Monarch Of Neo-Soul Vol. 2 (752)

Lynwood Rose Mixtape (711)

1   Features

2   Really Love

3   I Found My Smile Again

4   Your Love Is So Cold

5   Heaven Must Be Like This

6   Everybody Loves The Sunshine (Live Cover)

7   Superman Lover (Live Cover)

8   Devils Pie (Live)

9   Send It On In (Live)

10   Can’t Hide Love (Live Cover)

11   I’m So Glad Your Mine (Al Green Live Cover)

12   Sweet Sticky Green (Ohio Players Live Cover)

13   Sexy Little Things U Do (Live)

14   She’s Always In My Hair (Prince Cover)

15   Go Back 2 That Thing

16   Fair But So Uncool

01 . One Mo’ Gin

02 . Shit, Damn, Motherfucker

03 . Bullshit

04 . Jonz in My Bonz

05 . I Found My Smile Again

06 . Smooth

07 . Spanish Joint

08 . Really Love

09 . So Far to Go (Interlude)

10 . When We Get By

11 . Noting Even Matters

12 . Your Precious Love

13 . Alright

14 . Accapella (Interlude)

15 . Shinig Star

16 . Ghetto Heaven

17 . Heaven Must Be Like This

18 . Your Love Is So Gold

19 . Break You Off

20 . She’s Always in My Hair

01. Heaven Must Be Like This (Ohio Players)

02. Feel Like Making Love (Roberta Flack)

03. Cruisin’ (Smokey Robinson)

04. Your Precious Love (Feat. Erykah Badu)

05. Girl You Need A Change Of Mind (Eddie Kendricks)

06. She’s Always In My Hair (Prince)

07. Can’t Hide Love (Earth, Wind & Fire)

08. I’m So Glad You’re Mine (Al Green)

09. Feel Like Making Love (LIVE) (Roberta Flack)

10. Sweet Sticky Thing (Ohio Players)

11. Give Me Your Love (Curtis Mayfield)

12. Cruisin’ (LIVE) (Smokey Robinson)

13. Use Me (Bill Withers)

14. Everybody Loves The Sunshine (Roy Ayers)

15. Superman Lover (Johnny “Guitar” Watson)

01. D’Angeloduction

02. Brandy – ‘Baby (D’Angelo and Baby Fro Uptown Remix)’

03. D’ Angelo – ‘Me And Those Dreamin’ Eyes Of Mine’

04. D’Angelo – ‘Brown Sugar’

05. D’Angelo – ‘Lady’

06. D’Angelo – ‘Cruisin’

07. Trib Called Quest – ‘Crew’

08. Vertical Hold feat. D’Angelo – ‘Pray’

09. Angie Stone feat. D’Angelo – ‘Everyday’

10. D’Angelo, Erykah Badu – ‘Your Precious Love’

11. The Boys Choir of Harlem feat. D’Angelo – ‘Overjoyed’

12. D’Angelo – ‘I Found My Smile Again’

13. Black Men United feat. Boyz II Men, D’Angelo – ‘U Will Know’

14. D’Angelo – ‘Girl You Need A Change Of Mind’

15. D’Angelo – ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’

16. The Roots feat. D’Angelo – ‘The ‘Notic + The Hypnotic + The Spark’

17. BB King feat D’Angelo – ‘Ain’t Nobody Home’

18. D’Angelo – ‘Sweet Sticky Thing + I’m So Glad You’re Mine + Heaven Must Be Like This (Live)’

19. Gza feat. D’Angelo – ‘Cold World (Remix)’

20. Method Man feat. D’Angelo – ‘Break Ups 2 Make Ups’

21. Slum Village feat. D’Angelo – ‘Tell Me’

22. Common feat D’Angelo – ‘Geto Heaven (Part Two)’

23. Lauryn Hill feat. D’Angelo – ‘Nothing Else Matters’

24. D’Angelo feat. Method Man, Redman – ‘Left And Right’

25. D’Angelo – ‘Devil’s Pie’

26. D’Angelo – ‘Africa’

27. D’Angelo – ‘Spanish Joint’

28. D’Angelo – ‘She’s Always In My Hair’

29. Rapahel Saadiq feat. D’Angelo – ‘Be Here’

30. The Roots feat. D’Angelo – ”Break You Off’

31. D’Angelo, Femi Kuti, Macy Gray, The Soultronics – ‘Water Get No Enemy’

32. Roy Hargrove feat. D’Angelo – ‘I’ll Stay’

33. D’Angelo feat. Isaac Hayes, Chuck D – ‘Sing A Simple Song’

 

VIDEO: Happy Birthday Joe Williams (December 12, 1918)

• December 12, 1918 Joe Williams, hall of fame jazz singer, was born Joseph Goreed in Cordele, Georgia but raised in Chicago, Illinois. By his early teens, Williams had taught himself to play the piano and formed his own gospel group. By 1939, he had started to tour with established bands and got his big break in 1954 when he was hired as the male vocalist for the Count Basie Orchestra, where he remained until 1961. His first album was recorded in 1955, “Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings,” and contained the single “Every Day I Have the Blues” which reached number two on the R&B charts. That recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992 as a recording of “lasting qualitative or historical significance.” By the 1970s, Williams was appearing regularly on such variety shows as “The Tonight Show” and “The Steve Allen Show.” Williams was nominated for eight Grammy Awards and in 1985 won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocalist for the album “Nothin’ but the Blues.” Williams worked regularly until his death on March 29, 1999. In 1983, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 1993 he was designated a NEA Jazz Master, the highest honor the United States bestows on a jazz artist, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1995 he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame. Prior to his death, Williams established the Joe Williams Every Day Foundation to provide support for music and musicians, especially those in jazz, and to create career opportunities for deserving young talent. Williams’ biography, “Every Day: The Story of Joe Williams,” was published in 1986.

>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-12122012

JOE WILLIAMS

PUB: Third Coast

2013 Third Coast Fiction

and Poetry Contest Open Now!

Deadline: January 15

2013 Jaimy Gordon Prize in Fiction: $1,000 & Publication

Judged by: Antonya Nelson


2013 Third Coast Poetry Prize : $1,000 & Publication

Judged by: Jane Hirshfield


Complete Guidelines for Online Submissions

1. Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or three (3) previously unpublished poems under the proper heading (Fiction Contest or Poetry Contest). Multiple contest entries in one or more genres are permitted, but you must submit each piece separately.

2. There is a $16 reading fee for each entry, and each entry fee entitles entrant to a 1-year subscription to Third Coast, an extension of an existing subscription, or a gift subscription. Please indicate your choice in the “cover letter” box and include a complete address for subscription.

3. All manuscripts should be typed (fiction entries should be double-spaced). Please include entry title(s) and page numbers on all manuscript pages. Since the judging is blind, the author’s name and identifying information (including address, telephone, and email) should be appear only in the “cover letter” box; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself.

4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted; if accepted elsewhere, we ask that work be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a poem or story is chosen as a finalist, Third Coast requires that it be withdrawn from any other publication considerations until the winner is selected. 

5. Winners will be announced in April 2013 and published in the Fall 2013issue of Third Coast.  All contest entries will be considered for regular inclusion in Third Coast.

6. Writers associated with the judges or Third Coast are not eligible to submit work to the contest.

7. No money will be refunded. Submissions will not be returned.


To submit to the contest online, please visit:

 

Complete Guidelines for Postal Submissions

1. Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or three (3) previously unpublished poems with a $16 reading fee payable to Third Coast. Please send each entry separately and clearly mark whether it is a poetry or fiction entry. Send entries and reading fee to:

Third Coast 2011 Fiction or Poetry Contest
Department of English
Western Michigan University
1903 W Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331

2. Each $16 entry fee entitles entrant to a 1-year subscription to Third Coast, an extension of an existing subscription, or a gift subscription. Please indicate your choice and enclose a complete address for subscription.

3. All manuscripts should be typed (fiction entries should be double-spaced), and accompanied by a cover letter with the author's name, contact information (address, telephone, and email address), and entry title(s). Please include entry title(s) and page numbers on all manuscript pages. Since the judging is blind, the author’s name and identifying information should only appear on the cover letter; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself.

4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted; if accepted elsewhere, we ask that work be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a poem or story is chosen as a finalist, Third Coast requires that it be withdrawn from any other publication considerations until the winner is selected. 

5. Winners will be announced in April 2013 and published in the Fall 2013issue of Third Coast. All contest entries will be considered for regular inclusion in Third Coast.

6. Writers associated with the judges or Third Coast are not eligible to submit work to the contest.

7. No money will be refunded. Submissions will not be returned. Send SASE for results only.


About the Judges

Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry, including the new Come, Thief, After (shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and named a “best book of 2006” by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the London Financial Times), Given Sugar, Given Salt, (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award), The Lives of the Heart, and The October Palace, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, Orion, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, six editions of The Best American Poetry, and many other publications. In 2012, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Antonya Nelson is the author of eight books of fiction, including Female Trouble and the novels Talking in Bed, Nobody’s Girl, and Living to Tell. Nelson’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, Redbook, and many other magazines, as well as in anthologies such as Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Best American Short Stories. Her books have been New York Times Notable Books of 1992, 1996, 1998, and 2000. The New Yorker called her one of the “twenty young fiction writers for the new millennium.” She is also a recent recipient of the Rea Award for Short Fiction and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA Grant.

 

PUB: The 2012 Open City Magazine No-Fee RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest @ Anderbo

The 2012 Open City Magazine
No-Fee RRofihe Trophy
Short Story Contest @ Anderbo

2012 RRofihe Trophy

For an unpublished short story
(Minimum word count: 3,500; maximum to 5,000 words)

Winner Receives:

$500 cash
Trophy
Announcement & Publication on anderbo.com

Judged by Rick Rofihe

2012 Contest Assistant: Carolyn Wilsey
Carolyn Wilsey has read fiction for Esquire and Swink,
and is the Managing Editor of Anderbo. She teaches
writing privately and at colleges in New York City.


2012 Contest Reader: Jean Hartig
Jean Hartig is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She is
former associate editor of Poets & Writers Magazine and
has served on the editorial staff of A Public Space and Lumina,
published by Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned her MFA.

Guidelines:

–Stories should be typed, double-spaced, with the author’s
  name, the story's title, and contact information on the
  first page

–Submissions must be received by December 31st, 2012

–Limit one submission per author

–Author must not have been previously published in
  Open City Magazine or on Anderbo

–E-mail submissions to editors@anderbo.com with
  RROFIHE TROPHY in the subject line

–YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR STORY-MANUSCRIPT
  ENTRY WITHIN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL—NO
  ATTACHMENTS!

–THERE IS NO READING FEE and all literary rights will
  remain with the author

 

Contest Judge Rick Rofihe is the author of FATHER MUST, a collection of short stories published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, Open City, Swink, Unsaid, and on epiphanyzine, slushpilemag, and fictionaut. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, SPY, and The East Hampton Star, and on mrbellersneighborhood. A recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award, he has taught MFA writing at Columbia University. He currently teaches privately in New York City, and was an advisor to the Vilcek Foundation for their 2011 prizes in the field of literature. Rick is the Editor of Anderbo.