Documentary Reveals

Heroisim of Independent

Haitian Journalists

Black and Cuba cinematographer, Ashley Panzera, is currently in Haiti working on Noise Runs, the forthcoming documentary about a team of young, Haitian journalists who spark social change in the tent camps of Port-au-Prince as they produce a radical Kreyol-language newspaper.

In Haiti, 90% of the press is controlled by the wealthy elite. It is written in French. Most Haitians speak Kreyol.

In the aftermath of the earthquake of 2010, a group of childhood friends reunited in Haiti to found Bri Kouri Nouvél Gaye (Noise Travels, News Spreads), a free, Kreyol-language newspaper focused on democratizing information in the tent camps of Port-au-Prince.

Noise Runs follows this team of radical citizen journalists as they develop, print and distribute one edition of the paper. Meanwhile, a group of readers awaits the latest edition, living daily realities of life in the camps: broken promises for reconstruction, a brutal “peace-keeping” force, the persistent threat of cholera and eviction, and only one link to information about the real forces at work behind it all.

One reality the hundreds of families living in camps for internally displaced people is harassment and intimidation.  They are at imminent risk of forced eviction.  The subjects at Bri Kouri report the story here.

On May 27, Amnesty International delegates received assurances from a representative of the alleged landowner that no one would be forcibly evicted.  However, Amnesty will be monitoring the situation closely to ensure that residents do not receive further threats of forced eviction or violence, and they will continue to call upon Haitian authorities to ensure that camp residents have access to durable solutions, including adequate housing and access to services.  You can help keep the pressure on by signing this letter to Haitian authorities inviting them to stand for the rights of the residents. You can also help by and spreading the word, staying in touch on Facebook and Twitter, and joining the conversation on Twitter at #noevictions.

Unfortunately, cases of forced eviction like this are not uncommon.  There are many families at risk in many camps. Stay in touch with us to get updates on how to take action.

To learn more about Bri Kouri Nouvel Gaye, you can check out Let Haiti Live, a comprehensive program for Haiti working to strengthen the independence and self-determination of the Haitian people. Learn about their partnership with Bri Kouri, read on-the-ground reports from the Bri Kouri team, and find out how you can support their work.  You can also find them on Facebook.

Word, Shout, Song:

Lorenzo Dow Turner

Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner Connecting Communities through Language

This exhibition documents the historical journey made by people from Africa to the Americas, along with their language and music. In the 1930s, Lorenzo Dow Turner discovered that the Gullah people of Georgia and South Carolina retained parts of the culture and language of their West African enslaved ancestors. Turner’s research produced a living treasury of previously unknown traditions, songs, and folkways that also uncovered and illuminated the connections with West African and Afro-Brazilian communities. On view are rare photographs, recordings, and artifacts collected by Turner from those Gullah communities in the United States, Brazil, and West Africa.

Mende women reenacting a Mende funeral ceremony.
Courtesy Anacostia Community Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Ring Shouters, 1930
Courtesy Anacostia Community Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Two men with tape recorder.
Courtesy Anacostia Community Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Lorenzo Dow Turner portrait

Organized by Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum

Researched, Designed and Presented by the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. This traveling exhibition is made possible by the James E. & Emily E. Clyburn Endowment for Archives & History at South Carolina State University,

TEXT “Donate Dusable” TO 72727

EXHIBIT DETAILS

OPENING DATE:

June 15, 2012

CLOSING DATE:

December 31, 2012

Posted by Valerie Taliman on July 4, 2012

Iroquois Confederacy

is foundation of

United States Constitution

First draft of the Constitution

Photo by American Indian Institute

 

Haudenosaunee Recognized by Congress - Resolution Acknowledges Contributions to the Constitution

Did you know that the foundation of the United States Constitution comes from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy?

H. Con. Res. 331 was passed in October 1988 to acknowledge the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations to the development of the United States Constitution, and to reaffirm the continuing government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes and the United States established in the Constitution.

Congress, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, "acknowledged the historical debt which this Republic of the United States of America owes to the Iroquois Confederacy and other Indian Nations for their demonstration of enlightened, democratic principles of government and their example of a free association of independent Indian Nations."

Here is the wording of H. Con. Res. 331:

"To acknowledge the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations to the development of the United States Constitution and to reaffirm the continuing government-to-government relationship between Indian tribes and the United States established in the Constitution.

Whereas, the original framers of the constitution, including most notably, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, are known to have greatly admired the concepts, principles and government practices of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy; and

Whereas, the Confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one Republic was explicitly modeled upon the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself; and,

Whereas, since the formation of the United States, the Congress has recognized the sovereign status of Indian Tribes, and has, through the exercise of powers reserved to the Federal Government in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (art. I, s8, cl.3), dealt with Indian tribes on a government-to-government basis and has, through the Treaty Clause (art.II, s2, cl.2), entered into 370 treaties with Indian tribal nations; and,

Whereas from the first treaty entered into with an Indian nation, the treaty with the Delaware Indians of Sept. 17, 1778, and thereafter in every Indian Treaty until the cessation of treaty-making in 1871, the Congress has assumed a trust responsibility and obligation to Indian Tribes and their members to "exercise the utmost good faith in dealings with the Indians" as provided for the Northwest Ordinance of 1987 (I Stat.50); and

Whereas, Congress has consistently reaffirmed these fundamental policies over the past 200 years through legislation specifically designed to honor this special relationship; and,

Whereas, the judicial system of the United States has consistenly recognized and reaffirmed this special relationship;

Now, therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, that:

1) The Congress, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, acknowledges the historical debt which this Republic of the United States of America owes to the Iroquois Confederacy and other Indian Nations for their demonstration of enlightened, democratic principles of government and their example of a free association of independent Indian Nations;

2) The Congress also hereby reaffirms the constitutionally recognized government-to-government relationship with Indian Tribes which has historically been the cornerstone of this nation's official Indian Policy;

3) The Congress specifically acknowledges and reaffirms the trust responsibility and obligation of the United States Government to Indian Tribes, including Alaska Natives, for their preservation, protection and enhancement, including the provision of health, education, social and economic assistance programs as necessary, to assist Tribes to perform their governmental responsibility to provide for the social and economic Well-being of their members and to preserve tribal cultrual identity and heritage; and

4) The Congress also acknowledges the need to exercise the utmost good faith in upholding its treaties with the various Tribes, as the Tribes understood them to be, and the duty of a great nation to uphold its legal and moral obligations for the benefit of all its citizens so that they and their posterity may also continue to enjoy the rights they have enshrined in the United States Constitution for time immemorial."

See the resolution here: http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/hconres331.pdf

For more, go to:  http://www.oneidaindiannation.com/about/sovereignty/35808979.html

 

<p>Worldsessions: Fatoumata Diawara (Paris) from FlechAmaní -}-> on Vimeo.</p>

STYLE ICON:

FATOUMAA DIAWARA

Breathtaking and talented with an eclectic style all her own, Ivorian-born Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara is an undeniable beauty and a woman of many trades.

Not only does she sing and play the guitar, Diawara has appeared in several films including Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s 1999 feature film La Genèse, Dani Kouyate’s Sia, le rêve du python, and the musical Kirikou et Karaba in which she played the lead role.

Camp Mulla

Friday Bonus #MusicBreak

September 21, 2012 By Sean Jacobs 

Yes, I’ve been listening to pop music a lot. You get work done and don’t have to think too much. First up above is Nairobi’s Camp Mulla and their generic rap pop. Nigeria’s Iyanya presents “Ur Waist.” Yes, he could not have been more obvious:

More Nigerian pop: “Fine Lady” by Lynxxx (featuring Wizkid) with its brief Fela sample.

Might as well get continental here. Congolese pop from Shakalewe:

… and Zambian pop from B1 and Debra:

Congolese-French rapper Youssoupha pays homage to his father  — 1970s Congolese rumba star Tabu Ley Rochereau (Google him if you don’t know):

Cane Babu and Young Starz Basagalamanya Squad from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, where the desperate ruling party puts forward 19 year olds for election to Parliament:

Second generation Cape Verdean migrants to The Netherlands shout out Nelson Mandela and the modern state’s founding father Amilcar Cabral:

The Ghanaian-German singer Y’akoto, all neo-soul, with “Good better best”:

And Brooklyn-based Kilo Kish shot this video around Manhattan:

* Bonus: I’ve blogged about this South Sudanese immigrant rapper (more marketing genius) based in Australia before:

Contests

Each year, Boston Review runs competitions in poetry and fiction. We also partner with the Unterberg Poetry Center/92nd Street Y to publish the winner of the annual “Discovery”/Boston Review poetry contest.

We strongly encourage online submissions for our poetry and short story contests (please note: the “Discovery” / Boston Review contest cannot be entered electronically), with payment via credit card. Contestants also may submit entries via postal mail but will not receive acknowledgement of successful submission. Email submissions are not accepted. Please do not contact us to ask whether you have won a contest. All contest entry payments are non-refundable and previously published work may not be submitted to any contest. All winners are announced publicly and informed prior to that announcement. Complete instructions for submission to all contests follow.

 

Aura Estrada Short Story Contest (Deadline: October 1, 2012)

The Boston Review Essay Contest (Deadline: December 1, 2012)

“Discovery”/Boston Review 2013 Poetry Contest, with the Unterberg Poetry Center/92nd Street Y (Deadline: TBA, January 2013 )

Sixteenth Annual Poetry Contest (Deadline: June 1, 2013)

---

 

Aura Estrada Short Story Contest

Deadline: October 1, 2012
Judge: Nathan Englander
Prize: $1,500

Complete guidelines:
The winning author will receive $1,500 and have his or her work published in Boston Review, the summer of 2013. First runner-up will be published in a following issue, and second runner-up will be published at the Boston Review Web site. Stories should not exceed 5,000 words and must be previously unpublished. Mailed manuscripts should be double-spaced and submitted with a cover note listing the author’s name, address, and phone number. No cover note is necessary for online submission. Names should not appear on the stories themselves. Any author writing in English is eligible, unless he or she is a current student, former student, relative, or close friend of the judge. Simultaneous submissions are not permitted, submissions will not be returned, and submissions may not be modified after entry. A non-refundable $20 entry fee, payable to Boston Review in the form of a check or money order or by credit card, must accompany each story entered. All submitters receive a complementary half-year subscription (3 issues) to Boston Review. Submissions must be postmarked no later than October 1, 2012. The winner will be announced in May 2013, on the Boston Review Web site.

Please enter online using our contest entry manager. This requires payment using a credit card.

Or mail submissions to:

Short Story Contest, Boston Review
PO Box 425786
Cambridge, MA 02142

Read winning stories from past years:
Alexandra Thom’s The Piano (2012)
Kalpana Narayanan’s Aviator on the Prowl (2011)
Adam Sturtevant’s How Do I explain? (2010)
Jessica Treglia’s Canceled (2009)
Patricia Engel’s Desaliento (2008)
Padma Viswanathan’s Transitory Cities (2007)
Tiphanie Yanique’s How to Escape from a Leper Colony (2006)
Lisa Chipongian’s Intramuros (2005)
D.S. Sulaitis’s If It’s Anywhere, It’s Behind Us (2004)
Gale Renee Walden’s Men I Don’t Talk to Anymore (2003)
Manini Nayar’s Home Fires (2002)
Kate Small’s One Night a Year (2001)
Girija Tropp’s The Pretty Ones Have Their Uses (2001)
Pauls Toutonghi’s Regeneration (2000)
Jacob M. Appel’s Shell Game with Organs (1999)
Kris Saknussemm’s Unpracticed Fingers Bungle Sadly Over Tiny Feathered Bodies (1998)
Kiki Delancey’s Jules Jr Michael Jules Jr (1997)
Mary Ann Jannazo’s No Runs, No Hits, No One Left on Base (1996)
Tom Paine’s The Milkman & I (1995)
Michael Dorris’s Layaway (1994)

For more fiction in Boston Review, click here.

 

 

 

The 2012 Boston Review Essay Contest

Deadline: December 1, 2012
Judge: Glenn Loury
Prize: $1,500 plus publication

With all the derision cast upon flip-floppers and etch-a-sketches, it is easy to forget that changing one's mind can be a noble and decent act. Sometimes a conversion is unavoidable. It can come fast or slow, deliberately or unexpectedly. There is no formula, and that's why the story of a changed mind can be a great one.

Boston Review wants you to tell us how you came to see things differently. We are looking for personal essays of up to 3,000 words that describe experiences or encounters that forced you to recognize dissonances in your worldviews, struggle with those dissonances, and ultimately affirm new moral, intellectual, spiritual, or political commitments. Essays will be judged on the strength of the writing and critical analysis.

Complete guidelines:
The winning author will receive $1,500 and have his or her work published in Boston Review, March 2013. Essays should not exceed 3,000 words. Mailed manuscripts should be double-spaced and submitted with a cover note listing the author's name, address, and phone number. No cover note is necessary for online submission. Names should not appear on the essays themselves. Any author writing in English is eligible, unless he or she is a current student, former student, relative, or close friend of the judge. Simultaneous submissions are not permitted, submissions will not be returned, and submissions may not be modified after entry. A non-refundable $20 entry fee, payable to Boston Review in the form of a check or money order or by credit card, must accompany each story entered. All submitters receive a complementary six-month subscription (3 issues) to Boston Review. Submissions must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. The winner will be announced in March 2013, on the Boston Review Web site.

Please enter online using our contest entry manager. This requires payment using a credit card.

Or mail submissions to:

Short Story Contest, Boston Review
PO Box 425786
Cambridge, MA 02142

 

 

“Discovery” / Boston Review 2013 Poetry Contest

Deadline: TBA, January 2013
Judges: TBA
Four Prizes: $500
Note: Submissions will be accepted to the 92nd Street Y only. Questions should be directed to the 92nd Street Y (212-415-5759).

Now in its fifth decade, the “Discovery” Poetry Contest, formerly “Discovery” / The Nation, is designed to attract large audiences to poets who have not yet published a book. For the fifth year, the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center is proud to partner with Boston Review. Each of four winners is awarded a reading at the Poetry Center, publication in the May/June 2013 issue of Boston Review, and $500.

Timothy Donnelly, poetry editor at Boston Review, coordinates the contest, and three leading poets are invited to judge. Many winners of this contest have gone on to distinguished careers as poets, among them Marilyn Hacker, Katha Pollitt, Mary Jo Salter, and Mark Strand.

Read winning poems from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008.

Complete guidelines:

 
1. The contest is open to poets who have not published a book of poems (self-published chapbooks do not count as published books). Those who have a book contract at the time of submission or who are subsequently awarded a book contract are not eligible for the contest if their book is scheduled for publication before fall 2013. Individual poems that have been or will be published in periodicals or anthologies may be submitted; however, at least two of the submitted poems must be unpublished and under two pages in length.

2. Submit four identical sets of a typed ten-page manuscript. Each set is to contain the same ten pages in the same order. Include no more than one poem per page. NO personal identification should appear on any of the poems; no copyright attributions for previously published poems should appear on the poems.

3. Photocopied manuscripts are acceptable. However, in the case of previously published poems, do not send photocopied pages of the periodical or book in which the poem(s) originally appeared.

4. Please staple each manuscript; do not use paper clips.

5. Enclose ONE cover letter including your name, address and day and evening telephone numbers, as well as a list of the submitted poems in the order in which they appear, with copyright attributions for published poems. Do not attach this cover letter to the manuscripts.

6. An entry fee of US $10.00 must accompany the submission. Please make checks (drawn on U.S. banks only) or money orders (in U.S. currency only) payable to the 92nd Street Y, and attach them to your cover letter. DO NOT SEND CASH.

7. All poems must be original and in English (no translations).

8. No contestant may submit more than one entry. No corrections can be accepted after receipt of the contest submission.

9. Entries must be RECEIVED by DATE TBA, January 2013.. Please note this is not a postmark deadline. If you wish to receive confirmation of receipt of your manuscript, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard (not envelope) and allow several weeks for its return. Due to the large number of submission received, manuscripts cannot be returned. Winners will be contacted by telephone in early March 2013; all contest entrants will be mailed the names of the winners and of the judges shortly thereafter.

10. No phone queries can be taken, either to inquire about contest deadlines, the status of your entry, or to request the names of winners. If you wish to hear a recording of the guidelines, or to receive another set of these guidelines in the mail, call 212-415-5759.

Mail submissions to:

“Discovery”/ Boston Review 2013 Poetry Contest
Unterberg Poetry Center
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10128

 

 

Sixteenth Annual Poetry Contest

Deadline: June 1, 2013
Judge: TBA
First Prize: $1,500

Complete guidelines:
The winning poet will receive $1,500 and have his or her work published in the November/December 2012 issue of Boston Review. Submit up to five unpublished poems, no more than 10 pages total. Any poet writing in English is eligible, unless he or she is a current student, former student, relative, or close friend of the judge. Mailed manuscripts must be submitted in duplicate, with a cover note listing the author’s name, address, email, and phone number. No cover note is necessary for online submissions. Names should not be on the poems themselves. Simultaneous submissions are not permitted, submissions will not be returned, and submissions may not be modified after entry. A non-refundable $20 entry fee, payable to Boston Review in the form of a check or money order or by credit card, must accompany all submissions. All submitters receive a complementary half-year subscription (3 issues) to Boston Review. Mailed submissions must be postmarked no later than June 1, 2012.

The winner will be announced in November 2013 on the Boston Review Web site. All poems submitted to the contest will be considered for publication in Boston Review.

Please enter online using our contest entry manager. This requires payment using a credit card.

Or mail submissions to:

Poetry Contest, Boston Review
PO Box 425786
Cambridge, MA 02142

Read winning poems from past years:
2012: Announcement coming soon
Heather Tone (2011)
Anthony Caleshu (2010)
John Gallaher (2009)
Sarah Arvio (2008)
Elizabeth Willis (2007)
Marc Gaba (2006)
Mike Perrow (2005)
Michael Tod Edgerton [PDF] (2004)
Susan Wheeler (2003)
Max Winter (2002)
D. A. Powell (2001)
Christopher Edgar (2000)
Stephanie Strickland (1999)
Daniel Bosch (1998)

For more poetry in Boston Review, click here.

 

Call for International Submissions:

Pacifica & Meridian Literary Magazine

Pacifica & Meridian is a new literary magazine based in Orange County, California. Our mission is to connect-lesser known authors and artists with readers by publishing works online and in print.

We are seeking fiction short stories, poems, novel excerpts, and photographed art for our first December 2012 printed issue and November website launch. Authors selected to appear in the print magazine will receive $15 - $50 per submission.

Your work is personal and precious; you have sacrificed much time refining your style to express your point-of-view and originality.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:

1. Accepting unsolicited fiction short stories, poems, novel excerpts and photographed art submissions year-round.

2. Open to U.S. and international submissions. Stories must be in English.

3. Short story and poem submissions must be original and unpublished; print or electronic. Electronic publications include websites, eBooks, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.

4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, however Pacifica and Meridian must be notified promptly via email if work is accepted elsewhere.

FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS:

• Header contains author’s name, title, and date

• Footer contains page numbers

• 1” margins

• Double spaced

COMPENSATION: Authors selected to appear in the print magazine will receive $15 - $50 USD.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: questions@pacificaandmeridian.com

For submissions: via submittable

Website: http://www.pacificaandmeridian.com/

 

Call for Applications

from Developing Countries:

2013-2014 Harvard - Radcliffe Fellowship

for Creative Arts and Journalism

($70,000 annual stipend)

Deadline: 1 October 2012

(Note: Women and men from across the United States and throughout the world, including developing countries, are encouraged to apply for the fellowship. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study seeks to build a community of fellows that is diverse in every way.)

The Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program is a scholarly community where individuals pursue advanced work across a wide range of academic disciplines, professions, and creative arts. Radcliffe Institute fellowships are designed to support scholars, scientists, artists, and writers of exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishment who wish to pursue work in academic and professional fields and in the creative arts. In recognition of Radcliffe’s historic contributions to the education of women and to the study of issues related to women, the Radcliffe Institute sustains a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender, and society. Applicants’ projects need not focus on gender, however. Former fellows of the Radcliffe Institute (1999 to present) are not eligible to apply.

SELECTION PROCESS: Each application is reviewed in a dual-tiered process by peers in relevant disciplines. Applications are judged on the quality and significance of the proposed project and the applicant’s record of achievement and promise. Applicants are notified of the results of the selection process in March.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: Stipends are funded up to $70,000 for one year with additional funds for project expenses. Some support for relocation expenses is provided where relevant. We work with fellows with families who have particular issues connected to relocating to smooth the transition. If so directed, Radcliffe will pay the stipend to the fellow’s home institution. Fellows receive office or studio space and access to libraries and other resources of Harvard University during the fellowship year, which extends from early September 2013 through May 31, 2014. Visual artists and film, video, sound, and new media artists may apply to come for either one or two semesters. In the event that they come for one semester, the stipend is $35,000. If you fall in this category and are interested in only coming for one semester, please indicate that in your abstract. Fellows are expected to be free of their regular commitments so they may devote themselves full time to the work outlined in their proposal. Since this is a residential fellowship, we expect fellows to reside in the Boston area during that period and to have their primary office at the Institute so that they can participate fully in the life of the community.

Applicants will be notified in March of the results.

DISCIPLINES:

• Creative Arts: Creative Writing, Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction/Biography/Autobiography/Memoir, Nonfiction/Current Issues and other topicsJournalism

• Playwriting or Screenwriting

• Performing Arts: Dance, Theater Performance

ELIGIBILITY FOR INDIVIDUAL CREATIVE ARTISTS - APPLICATION MATERIAL

Please note that artists and writers need not have a Ph.D. or an M.F.A. to apply; however, they must meet other specific eligibility requirements, listed below.

Applicants in creative arts cannot be students in doctoral or master’s programs at the time of application submission. Applicants in creative arts cannot apply in consecutive years; those applicants may apply after waiting two complete application cycles. For example, creative arts applicants who applied in the fall of 2011 must wait until the fall of 2014 to apply again; those who applied in the fall of 2012 must wait until the fall of 2015 to apply again.

Applicants whose projects draw on the resources of the Institute's Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America (the country's foremost archive in women's history) are looked on favorably, but such a focus is not a requisite for applying. In addition, because of collaboration with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, topics related to research in this area are of particular interest.

Creative Writers

• Fiction and Nonfiction: To be considered for a fellowship in fiction or nonfiction, applicants must have any of the following: one or more published books, contract for the publication of a book-length manuscript, or at least three shorter works (longer than newspaper articles) published. Evidence of publication in print format within the last five years is highly desirable; Web site publications are not acceptable as the only form of previously published work. Applicants should note that reviewers take into account evidence of a distinctive, original voice, richness or dimensionality of text, and coherence in the project plan. Professionals interested in writing about their work experiences should apply in the category of nonfiction. Recommendations from editors and/or agents are not acceptable.

• Poetry: To be considered for a fellowship in poetry, applicants must have had at least 20 poems published in the last five years or a published book of poetry and must be in the process of completing a manuscript. Reviewers examine the submissions for evidence of originality, vision, and maturity. Recommendations from editors and/or agents are not acceptable.

Journalists: Applicants in this genre are required to have worked professionally as a journalist for at least five years.

Playwrights/Screenwriters: Applicants in this genre must have a significant body of independent work in the form. This will include, most typically, a play or screenplay produced or under option.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

For queries: fellowships@radcliffe.edu

For submissions: via the online application portal

Website: www.radcliffe.harvard.edu

 

Radical Black Cities

By admin | Published: September 17, 2012

Occupy Wall Street has provided a dramatic reminder that cities still matter as spaces of participatory democracy and engaged citizenship. Yet while Occupy was criticized for being too white, in the United States, Blackness, once synonymous with the urban, now stands in for disappearance. The migrations from north to south, the exodus from city to suburb, and the renditions from the street to prison have all worked to undermine the idea of Black cities – and the very possibility of Black people living in cities. Gentrification and urban renewal, supported by the normalization of state-sanctioned terror against people of color through stop-and-frisk campaigns (not to mention the wholesale dragnet of the Muslim community), has acted to racially cleanse urban space.

Elsewhere in the African diaspora, from Accra to Port-au-Prince, neoliberal economic policy has continued to undermine the state’s ability to sustain and defend Black urban communities while contributing to the creation of a series of segregated zones separating cosmopolitan elites from the dark masses.

In this, The Public Archive’s fourth installment of Radical Black Reading,* we hope to contribute to an informal conversation about the history, plight, and future of Black cities – and towards the imagination of a radical Black city. It is a conversation taking place (if only in disparate, scattered form) across the African diaspora. The question of Black urban space, of Black geographies, and of the possibility of a radical Black city adds an urgent element to discussions of the nature of the urban, while the very survival of the Black city becomes a radical act of hope and resistance.

David Austin’s Fear of a Black Nation: Race, Sex, and Security in Sixties Montreal (Between the Lines) provides a good place to start. In Fear of a Black Nation, Austin, among the foremost chroniclers of West Indian and pan-African political and intellectual histories, builds on two previous works, A View for Freedom, an oral history of the St. Vincents-born, Montreal-based cricketer and organizer Alphonso Theodore “Alfie” Roberts, and You Don’t Play with Revolution, an edited collection of CLR James’ Montreal lectures and talks. Fear of a Black Nation recovers the critical role played by Montreal as a nexus for Black Power and the Caribbean Left and takes the Canadian state to task for its attempt to undermine Black activism while marginalizing Black Canadian citizenship. Austin argues that Montreal in the late sixties was defined by a public hysteria generated by white fears of Black sexuality which were used to justify a repressive state of security. Fear of a Black Nation is critical reading for understanding the history of Black Montreal – and the African diaspora writ large.

A remarkable body of literature on urban Jamaica has been generated over the past few years. Anthropologist Deborah A. Thomas’ Exceptional Violence: Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica (Duke) calls for the reclamation of Jamaican citizenship against the persistent structural violence of colonialism and the political-economic restructuring of neoliberalism. Thomas’ documentary Bad Friday: Rastafari after Coral Gardens, co directed with John Jackson, critically recovers the history of the 1963 police assault on the Montego Bay Rasta community. Coral Gardens and the 1968 Rodney Riots in Kingston are flashpoints in The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto (Ghetto People Publishing), an intense and boldly militant work of ghetto Gnosticism by Adidja Palmer, aka dancehall artiste Vybz Kartel. The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto was published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Jamaican independence (as was Rub-a-Dub Style: The Roots of Modern Dancehall, by former Reggae Quarterly publisher and dancehall historian Beth Lesser) and at the center of the book is an attack on the Jamaican state’s commitment to Jamaica’s Black urban sufferers. “Fifty years of what for poor people?” ask Kartel. Meanwhile, novelist Colin Channer has recruited an all-star ensemble of writers on the Kingston underworld for Kingston Noir (Akashic) and in Yardie and Yardie II: The Legend of Rude Boy Richie (GhettoLife Publishing), Prince Kofie evokes Kingston in the Black pulp tradition of Chester Himes, Iceberg Slim and Victor Headley while versioning the cold-blooded transnational ethnography of Laurie Gunst’s Born Fi’ Dead: A Journey Through the Jamaican Underworld.

Teju Cole’s neo-Sebaldian meander in Open City is undoubtedly the most celebrated of the recent writing on Black New York but it should not overshadow a number of other recent important books. In Errancities (Coffee House) poet and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe travels from Harlem to Black cities beyond and Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ excellent debut Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (Little, Brown) is an elegant psychogeography of the pan-African city. Rhodes-Pitts also contributes an essay to photographer Dawood Bey’s throwback pictorial, Harlem U.S.A (Yale). On the historical front, Leslie Alexander’s  African or American? Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861 (Illinois) and Carla L. Petersen’s Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth Century New York (Yale) both examine the archive of emancipated Blacks in the Big Apple while Brooklyn-son Brian Purnell’s highly anticipated A Movement Grows in Brooklyn (Kentucky) considers the history of the Congress for Racial Equality and the Civil Rights Movement in the largest Black city in the US. Filmmaker and author Vivek Bald, director of Mutiny, a fantastic documentary on the history of Britain’s South Asians in dub, punk, and ska, returns with a stunningly original historical archeology of Harlem in Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America (Harvard).

Elsewhere in the Americas, the online journal Habana Elegante has a smart portfolio on San Juan, Puerto Rico. Esther Whitfield and Anke Birkenmaier have assembled a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary exploration of post-1989 Havana urbanism in Havana Beyond the Ruins: Cultural Mappings after 1989 (Duke); their book complements Alejandro de la Fuente’s richly-documented Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (UNC). Two recent monographs explore the history of Black social movements in urban California: Daniel Widener’s Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles and Donna Murch’s Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (UNC). The politics of sound and space in Washington, D.C. is considered in Natalie Hopkinson lively and pointed Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City (Duke). Elisa Joy White’s Modernity, Freedom, and the African Diaspora (Indiana) offers a welcome comparative perspective on black urbanism through an examination of post-Katrina New Orleans, but also the deportations of Nigerians from Dublin and the status of Blacks in the suburbs of Paris.

The coffee table set will enjoy architect David Adjaye’s lavish seven-volume African Metropolitan Architecture (Rizzoli) but a more substantive consideration of contemporary African urbanism is found in African Cities: Alternative Visions of Urban Theory and Practice, (Zed Books), Garth Meyer’s radical reinterpretation of how African cities are discussed in both urban studies and African studies. Chimurenga, the incredible pan-African journal out of Cape Town, has been doing a similar work of urban reassessment and reinterpretation through its African Cities Readers. Co-published with the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, two volumes of the African Cities Reader have already appeared and a third is on its way. The ongoing problems of housing and segregation plaguing post-Apartheid Cape Town are discussed in Tony Roshan Samara’s Cape Town after Apartheid: Crime and Governance in the Divided City (Minnesota) as well as No Land! No House! No Vote!: Voices from Symphony Way (Fahamu), a moving collection of testimonies from the city’s internally displaced. The sonic landscapes of Accra are evoked in anthropologist of sound Steven Feld’s Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana (Duke) while urbanist Fassil Demissie has edited Colonial Architecture and Urbanism in Africa: Intertwined and Contested Histories (Ashgate).

Mogadishu, a city at one time viewed as the most dangerous in the world, as emblematic of every stereotype of a congenital African urban violence, and as the embodiment of the West’s fear of Islamicist hegemony, is undergoing something of a renaissance and rebirth – as suggested by the recent writing on the Somali capital. Rasna Warah and Mohamud Diriye’s forthcoming Mogadishu: Then and Now narrates the history of Mogadishu from its ninth-century origins to the outbreak of civil war in 1991. Global Post has published an online dossier, Destination Mogadishu, examining Mogadishu in the aftermath of the country’s civil war. Two monographs provide some broader context on Somalia’s political history: Mary Harper’s, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State, published by Zed Books through the Royal African Society’s African Arguments series and Stig Jarle Hansen’s Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The history and ideology of a Militant Islamist Group, 2005-2202 (Hurst).

However, perhaps the best way into Mogadishu is through the work of Somali novelist Nurrudin Farah. Farah already has two trilogies under his belt with Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship (1980–1983) and Blood in the Sun (1986–1999). With the publication of Crossbones, following the publication of the novels Links and Knots, Farah now has his third, dubbed Past Imperfect. Like the novels that came before it, Crossbones, dispenses with the exoticist memoirs of child-soldiers and aid-workers, missionaries and anthropologists, and reclaims Somalia through an unsentimental complexity. Farah uses the landscape of contemporary Mogadishu to examine the perilous contradictions of Somalia history while Crossbones contributes to the literary labors of re-imagining the radical Black city.

The Public Archive <editor@thepublicarchive.com>

*Previous iterations of Radical Black Reading can be found here, here, and here.

Image: David Osagie, Occupy Nigeria (2011)

Commemorating the

International Day of Peace:

The Night of Truth

by Fanta Nacro

 

On the occasion of the International Day of Peace, 21 September, we highlight the film, The Night of Truth (2005) by Fanta Nacro to reflect on peace, "both within and among all nations and peoples", the message that the United Nations wanted to convey by declaring this Day.

 

Text and Image Source: BFI

 

The Night of Truth (La Nuit de la Vérité), the audacious feature debut of the award-winning Burkinab female director Fanta Rgina Nacro. Set in an unnamed African country, after ten years of bloody war, The Night of Truth dramatises the process of truth and reconciliation, echoing the recent histories of South Africa, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and highlights not only the female perspective but also the subtleties and complexities of learning to live together again in trust and respect.

 

Genocide, raw and recent, is not far from the minds of the Nayak and Bonandé peoples who have been locked in a decade of bloody ethnic conflict. Now, the President (commander of the Nayak national army) and Colonel Theo (controller of the rebel Bonand army) are determined to end the conflict. A celebration is arranged, but cynicism remains on both sides and - as the evening wears on - tension mounts. Not only have drums been banned from the musical entertainment, because, in the past, they were used as a call to arms, but many of the women, notably the president's wife Edna, cannot simply forgive and forget. The evening comes to a climax when the village jester Tomota, a Nayak-hater, indignantly decides to beat the drums during the festivities. The sound becomes a trigger that releases the feelings of distrust and fear that have been suppressed by both sides.

The Night of Truth was conceived in memory of Fanta Nacro's uncle, accused of inciting a coup, and who was murdered in a horrifically brutal way. Compelling performances from a cast of mainly non-professional actors lend an eerie authenticity to film (all of the men are played by members of the Burkina army). The professional actress Naky Sy Savané is particularly outstanding in her role as Edna, who is grief-stricken over her son's death and harbours a bitter lust for revenge. Her brooding performance conjures an atmosphere of sinister foreboding, demonstrating the extent to which official peace deals are undermined by the lasting psychological wounds inflicted by war.

 

Fanta Nacro was the first woman from Burkina Faso to direct a fiction film (the short Un Certain matin) and The Night of Truth, which has won awards at film festivals around the world, is a stunning example of the rise of African women filmmakers, bringing a new voice and perspective to African cinema.