W. Kamu Bell

Brings the Funny

to Race, Politics

and Black Hair

 

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

Have you heard of comedienne W. Kamu Bell? Once again I was over at Racialicious when I stumbled across this great article about Bell, who is about to get his own comedy news show --produced by Chris Rock -- on the FX. I can't believe I've never heard of Bell until now, especially since his brand of humor is so Meltingpot ready. And because he has great hair. One of his most famous shows is called, Ending Racism in About an Hour. In that show he covers interracial dating, Black hair, and all things Obama. *squeal*

Rather than try to explain how funny he is, how about you just take a look and laugh for yourself. Both clips are from the Ending Racism show.

Here's Bell on Black hair:

Here's Bell on Interracial Relationships.

 

 

__________________________

>via: http://www.racialicious.com/2012/05/17/race-comedy-w-kamau-bell-rises-above-t...

Meet Booker T. Washington:

American Hero

by Renee Nal

 

May 17, 2012

 

Booker T. Washington was one of the last of his kind, born a slave on a tobacco farm in 1856 and rose as one of the figures instrumental in inspiring and advocating for African-Americans. A brilliant orator, he gained recognition from many influential figures and philanthropists who helped him to build schools for children in the south, one of his great passions.

Theodore Roosevelt was one of Washington's great admirers and referred to him as "one of the most useful citizens of our land."

Washington founded what is now Tuskegee University in 1881. He was a champion for the legal challenges of Jim Crow laws. He became the first African-American to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1896, and a Boston newspaper ranked him among "our national benefactors." By the time of Washington's death in 1915, Tuskegee had enrolled 1,500 students for the year and its campus encompassed some 100 buildings and 3,500 acres. His book, "Up with Slavery", is one of many he wrote and is still widely read today.

An article recently described Washington as well aware of the racists in the south and the north. He worked quietly and consistently around those people, working to ensure a better future for African-Americans. He believed that the fight for equality would take generations. Washington had a strategy, which he felt would lead to full civil rights for African Americans. His vision consisted of four things: "industry, thrift, intelligence and property."

Industry: Washington believed that there was a misconception that white America viewed African-Americans as lazy. He sought to prove them wrong by endorsing work and invention. He trained African-Americans, both men and women as engineers and architects and other skilled professions. He wanted African-Americans to experience the dignity and reward that comes with hard work.

Thrift: Washington encouraged African-Americans to save their money and invest in their future. He believed that communities that did not invest in themselves did not flourish.

In fact, when philanthropists offered to pay for a school in a southern black community, Booker asked for only half of the money, and required the community come up with the other half. When a community invested in its' own future, it had a future, according to Washington.

Intelligence: Some racists believed that African-Americans were not smart and could not learn. Washington sought to fight this myth with the truth. As an educator, he wanted to assure that African-Americans had the opportunity to learn. He believed that "intelligence meant power".

Property: Washington insisted that if possible, African-Americans should own their own property. He believed that in the ownership of property, freedom would be found.

Washington's Vocal Critic, W.E.B. Du Bois

One of Washington's most vocal critics was W.E.B. Du Bois, born in 1868, the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1910. Du Bois, a socialist, believed that capitalism was a primary cause of racism. Du Bois was a civil rights activist, and earned the label "The Father of Pan-Africanism."

Of Washington, Du Bois wrote, "Mr. Washington's programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races." He was against the Atlanta Compromise (a compromise with white southern leaders made by Washington that was seen by Du Bois as degrading). In 1905, Du Bois and several other African-American civil rights activists, incorporated as the Niagara Movement.

At their conference, the view of the Atlantic Compromise was summed up by a pastor who spoke at the conference, "Today, two classes of Negroes ... are standing at the parting of the ways. The one counsels patient submission to our present humiliations and degradations; ... The other class believe that it should not submit to being humiliated, degraded, and remanded to an inferior place ... it does not believe in bartering its manhood for the sake of gain."

In 1961, Du Bois renounced his American citizenship and moved to Ghana and joined the Communist Party. He passed away in 1963.

Booker T. Washington endures as one of the founders of the civil rights movement. His lessons of industry, thrift, intelligence and property still hold true for all people.

 

 

Bitches Brew

- Miles Davis'

Ultimate Statement

of Defiance

• Posted by Sound Check on May 11, 2011 

There's an eternal battle nearly every underground artist fights. In theory, achieving mainstream cultural acceptance and ubiquity for the art you create without having to change a note of it should be a major victory. But the taste is often bittersweet. You can't help but wonder what you've lost in becoming successful. Think of that little emocore trio from Seattle who's second album went on to become one of the most significant albums (and best selling) of all time despite being every bit as abrasive and-let's say-grungy as their first. But no originally revolutionary musical movement has gone so completely from the home of rebels to the toast of high society as the “Great American Art Form” known as jazz.

Contributor: Nathan Leigh

 

 

Jazz was originally the respite of absurdly talented musicians not welcomed by the white establishment in traditional orchestras. By the mid-60's the variant of jazz which emphasized small combos and long solos known as bebop wasn't just accepted by the establishment. It was the establishment. Codified in the “Real Book” and the “Fake Book;” two enormous volumes of simplified sheet music for the entire collection of traditionally accepted jazz standards. What in classical music and traditional theatre they call “the Canon.”
I often wonder what the heroin addicted rebel genius Charlie Parker would have thought had he lived long enough to see doctorate programs in jazz composition and performance and major universities, with his own music held up as the golden ideal. Though Parker may have lived fast and died young, one of his frequent collaborators, and another of the great innovators of bebop, Miles Davis survived to see his cultural victory was a Pyrrhic one. Witnessing the utter co-option of his art form at the hands of the mainstream Davis drew a line in the sand in 1970 when he released the landmark Bitches Brew.
He had been moving away from bop at that point for a decade at least, but his previous recordings (even the heavily electric In A Silent Way from 1969) still maintained a tenuous connection to the past. In A Silent Way, despite it's electric and free jazz leanings even borrowed the Sonata Form from classical music. Bitches Brew was a complete break from all this. It was an ugly, confrontational, emotionally brutal, noisy mess of an album.

 

 

With two drummers, two keyboardists, and two bass players, two percussionists, and an electric guitar, this was not your mothers' bebop combo. There are no standards. Barely any melodies at all. Sanctuary, the albums' sole ballad, only makes it about halfway through its running time before devolving back into the frenzied chaos of previous tracks. The guitars are slightly overdriven and recall hippie icons Grateful Dead and Country Joe and the Fish. The drums play straight rock rhythms rather than the ride shuffle that has come to define jazz in the minds of most listeners. The songs don't so much begin as much as happen, and rather than come to a satisfying conclusion, they simply end; crumbling back into the chaos from whence they came.

 

 

The term most often used to define the music is “jazz-rock fusion” or simply fusion. But the fusion which achieved success with bands like Weather Report (founded by one of the keyboardists and the soprano sax player from the Bitches Brew era band) still had melodies. What Davis was doing here was an act of defiance. With a 20-year legacy of classic recordings, and a band featuring some of the most talented jazz musicians to ever record, Miles Davis was declaring war on the jazz establishment.
What makes his rebellion all the more striking is the fact that this was not an album from a young upstart, eager to prove himself. Bitches Brew was the 34th full length album from an extremely successful 44-year-old man. Davis was as much a part of the world of jazz over cocktails at Lincoln Center as he was waging war against it.

 

 

Listening to the opening strands of chaos from album opener Pharaoh's Dance, it's clear that this is a revolution. 40 years later and the album's carefully sculpted noise is still ahead of its' time. Devin Ocampo from Faraquet and Medications may have borrowed from the instrumentation in Medications' latest album (seriously, who uses a bass clarinet? Amazing.), but even he still marries the sound to semi-traditional songwriting. Davis is going for nothing but total reinvention. Solos and melodies burble up from the primordial sonic soup and dissipate just as effortlessly.
Perhaps what is most amazing is the beauty of it all. The music walks a steady line between total noise and melody. If the players were any less talented, and it would devolve into an unlistenable jumble. Any more traditionally oriented and it would lose that excitement. That “we're doing something new” energy which every artist since the first caveman drew his lunch on a wall has sought but only about 500 or so have ever successfully achieved.

 

 

As a child raised in the 90's listening mostly to music made before I was born, I've often wondered what it was like to hear David Johansen first declare “When I say I'm in love you best believe I mean love L-U-V” and know you were hearing something truly new enter the world for the first time. In an era where Katy Perry samples Garry Glitter and no-one bats an eye, where post-hardcore bands appear on the Billboard charts, and every underground music scene is only one Jay-Z mash-up or TV soundtrack away from cultural ubiquity, hearing Bitches Brew is still a revolution. In Davis' quest to evade the popular co-option of bebop, he created something truly remarkable, an album that by its' very nature can never be co-opted by the mainstream.

 

2012 Lois Cranston Memorial

Poetry Prize

 

Prize: $300 cash prize. Winner and all finalists will receive a one-volume subscription to CALYX Journal and publication on CALYX’s website. All entrants will receive contest results and U.S. entrants will recieve a complimentary issue of CALYX Journal.

Dates: March 1-May 31, 2012, postmarked

Final Judge: Emily Warn is the author of five collections of poetry, including The Leaf Path (1982), The Novice Insomniac (1996), and Shadow Architect (2008) from Copper Canyon Press. She most recently served as founding editor of poetryfoundation.org. Her essays and poems appear widely, including in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, BookForum, Parabola, The Writers’ Almanac, The Bloomsbury Review, Tikkun, and Critical Mass.

Please submit up to three unpublished poems (six pages maximum). Simultaneous submissions are discouraged. The CALYX editorial collective reads all manuscripts first, then selects 10-20 finalists to send to the final judge.

 

For postal submissions:

Please send up to three unpublished poems (six pages maximum), cover letter with name and contact information, and $15 reading fee (checks payable to CALYX, Inc.).

                  Send materials to:                              

                  CALYX, Inc.

                  Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize

                  PO Box B

                  Corvallis, OR 97339

For online submissions:

Please upload three unpublished poems (six pages maximum) in a single .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdx file to our online submission manager.  Reading fee ($15 + $1 paypal processing fee) is payable with Visa or Mastercard through our secure online payment portal. Do not include name on poems—submissions will be read blind.

To submit online, please visit: www.calyxpress.org/submissions

 

About the contest: Lois Cranston was an editor for CALYX Journal for more than ten years. Her remarkable life experiences and knowledge of literature enriched the editorial collective and the journal issues she helped edit. In its eleventh year, this poetry prize in her name honors the memory of her commitment to the creative work of women from all walks of life.

 

Click here to read the 2011 winning poems.

 

Autumn Leaves -

Wynton Marsalis Quintet

at Ronnie Scott’s 2011

August 16, 2011. Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London.
Wynton Marsalis (trumpet)
Walter Blanding (saxophone)
Ali Jackson (drums)
Carlos Henriquez (bass)
Jonathan Batiste (piano)

Main Street Rag's 
Annual Chapbook Contest

 

2012 Guidelines

Deadline: May 31, 2012  
Reading Fee: $17

PRIZE: Winner receives $500 and 50 copies of chapbook and a one year subscription to The Main Street Rag. All entries receive a copy of the winning manuscript and are considered for publication.

Runners-up will be offered publication as well as a one year subscription to The Main Street Rag.

Every manuscript entered will be considered for publication .

Send between 24 and 32 pages of poetry, any style/form, no more than one poem per page. Please use 12pt type using Arial or Times New Roman.

Do Not Include Dedication and/or Credits/Acknowledgements Pages in entry.
For the purpose of fairness, it is important that judges know as little about the author as possible and these pages are not relevant to the judging process. If they should accidentally slip through the registration area, the author will not be eligible to win.

Include cover sheet with author’s contact information--name, address, phone number, and email address. The author's name should not appear anywhere else in the manuscript.

No manuscripts will be returned, so please do not send oversized SASEs. We prefer to notify by email, but if an author wants to use an envelope, please use a business-size (#10) envelope.

For notification of receipt of manuscript, entries can include a post card, but if they include an email address, we will send a verification of receipt via email.

Do not send anything USPS Return Receipt or Signature Receipt--we won't stand in line for these items and they will eventually be returned to you (when the US Postal Service gets tired of putting cards in our box). If you need confirmation that we received it, include a reliable email address or a stamped return post card.

Although MSR frowns on simultaneous submissions for our magazine, it is acceptable for our book contests. Upon notification, however, winner must immediately withdraw his/her mss from consideration elsewhere (or from the MSR Chapbook Contest--if the manuscript has been chosen winner in another contest).

All checks should be made payable to Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001.

Since our goal with our contest is to select manuscripts for publication, we no longer disqualify manuscripts that do not follow guidelines exactly. They will still be considered for publication; however, they will not be eligible to WIN the contest.

The most common reason for disqualification (in the past) has been the inclusion of acknowledgments and author's credits. We try to catch these pages and discard them before the manuscripts get to readers since we prefer to have a blind reading. Unfortunately, they sometimes get missed. Rather than lose out on an opportunity to publish a good manuscript, we've decided to continue the judging, but eliminate the possibility of a cash prize for those who do not follow the guidelines.

 

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Email Submission Instructions

Main Street Rag does allow for email submissions, but the guidelines are even more specific, so please read them carefully before choosing this method and give yourself enough time to prepare the manuscript file properly.

Guidelines for email submissions

 

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Mailing Instructions:

All checks should be made payable to Main Street Rag, PO BOX 690100, Charlotte, NC 28227-7001.

We recommend using US Postal Service Media Mail (within the US), but that takes longer to arrive, so DO NOT send it Media Mail if you are mailing it on or near the deadline. Why? because we distribute the LAST manuscripts to first round readers on June 8. Anything that has not arrived by the day before (June 7) will be excluded and the check returned in the SASE (if one has been provided--otherwise, it will be shredded).

DO NOT use clips or binding of any kind. We have THOUSANDS of clips here from years of submissions and we remove anything that comes in a binder and throw away the binder. If you want to pay for a binder and the shipping to get it here only to have it thrown away, that's your choice. It will not go to any readers in a binder of any kind.

DO NOT send anything that must be signed for (Signature Receipt or Express Mail) since it means having to stand in line to receive it (and we won't). And please don't use FED EX to send anything to our physical location since their local drivers are literacy challenged (they don't read instructions and we may not receive what you send as a result).

 

Contest Recommendations

2012 FIELD POETRY PRIZE

The editors of FIELD are pleased to announce the sixteenth annual FIELD Poetry Prize competition. The contest is open to all poets, whether or not they have previously published in book form. Unpublished poetry manuscripts between 50 and 80 pages in length will be considered. Oberlin College Press publishes the winning manuscript in the FIELD Poetry Series and awards the winning author $1,000 plus standard royalties.

Manuscripts must be submitted during May 2012. The contest reading fee is $28 and includes one year’s subscription to FIELD. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, through our online Submissions Manager (note: the submission pathway will appear there on May 1st).

All manuscripts will be judged by the editors, David Young and David Walker. We will announce the winner here in August 2012.
 
Please note: Persons interested in submitting work for the FIELD Translation Series should read these guidelines.

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
Contest Code of Ethics

CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to
1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and
3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically.
We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.

Oberlin College Press supports the CLMP code, and, in an effort to make our contest selection process as ethical as possible, close friends, relatives, and those whose manuscripts have been shaped in any way by the contest judges are ineligible to enter our contest.

IUDs Are 20 Times

As Effective As the Pill,

So Why Aren't More Women

Using Them?

• Amanda Hess
  Lifestyle Editor, GOOD

The intrauterine device, or IUD, is the most effective form of reversible birth control available to women. New research shows that when the small, T-shaped device is inserted into a woman's uterus to deter sperm from reaching an egg, it's 20 times better at preventing pregnancy than the birth control pill, the hormonal patch, or the vaginal ring. Condom failure rates are even worse. In one study, 75 percent of women said they'd prefer an IUD to alternate forms of contraception. Still, only 5 percent of women actually use them.

IUDs could be instrumental in improving one of America's most dismal reproductive stats: 50 percent of pregnancies in the United States—3 million a year—are unplanned. Half are a result of contraceptive failure. So why aren't women using the best and most desirable pregnancy prevention tool on the market?

It's partly an issue of cost. IUD insertion can cost hundreds of dollars. That initial investment can last between five and 10 years, but many women can't front the cash—in the study, 75 percent of women chose the IUD over other forms of birth control when all contraceptive options were offered free of cost. Our health care system sacrifices long-term benefits for short-term economics, too: Instead of footing the bill for an extremely effective form of birth control now, we're paying for millions of unplanned pregnancies down the road.

But even women who can afford the IUD are often deterred or outright denied access. Until recently, the FDA only approved IUDs for use in women with children, citing "risks of permanent infertility"—in rare cases, an IUD can puncture the uterus upon insertion, or increase a woman's risk of complicating an otherwise harmless STI. But there's some evidence that the infertility risk is overstated. One 2007 study found that even among women who engage in "high-risk" sexual behavior and had a history of STDs, the IUDs on the market today "do not increase the rate of pelvic inflammatory disease or infertility among women." In fact, Mirena—a hormonal IUD that hit the market in 2001—could actually help "protect against STDs by causing an overproduction of cervical mucus," a natural barrier to infection.

Today, the FDA still only recommends Mirena for women who have children, and doctors still work to deter childless women from choosing an IUD. When one friend approached her gynecologist about switching to an IUD, the doctor told her that she had a personal policy against prescribing the method to women not in monogamous relationships—even though my friend reported that she understood the risks, has never contracted an STD, and always uses condoms. The implication is that some women are allowed to make their own choices about their reproductive health, and some aren't—and only women who already have kids are allowed to risk never having any more. 

Of course, IUDs aren't for everyone. When the IUD was approved for childless women in 2005, usage rates jumped 160 percent. But the study found that women who choose IUDs still tend to be "older, to have public health insurance, and to have more children," while the pill, the patch, and the ring remain more popular among women who have private health insurance and no kids. That leaves the IUD too expensive for the women who want it most and its use discouraged among the women who can actually afford it—and U.S. unplanned pregnancy rates some of the highest in the developing world.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user starbooze

Poet Kamau Daáood Explains

The Rhyme And Reason

Of Art In Black Los Angeles

December 30, 2011

Ryan Faughnder 

Executive Editor

My fingers are dancing grassroots
I do not fit in form, I create form

Poet and performer Kamau Daáood, at age 61, takes the stage at L.A.’s Hammer Museum following two much younger spoken word artists. Accompanied by Trevor Ware’s walking bass lines, he dives into one of his best known poems, which he wrote for his mentor, the legendary pianist and community activist Horace Tapscott. His brow furrowed as if searching for something in meditation, his deep voice growls through lines connecting vivid imagery of music, nature and spirituality. “I seek the divinity in outcasts, the richness of rebels / I will pray for you on this snaggle-toothed piano / songs for the unsung.” 

 

Poet and Performer Kamau Daáood of South Los Angeles (photo by Grand Performances, via Creative Commons)

 

In another selection, his long opus in honor of John Coltrane, he begins with soft, declarative lines. “John Coltrane was a freedom fighter / Liberator of the spirit from the shackles of form… / expanding beyond the boundaries / blow away decay…” And as he builds, his voice grows sharper, taking long scatting detours, screeching in bursts like the altissimo range of a tenor sax.

It’s a spoken-word reading, to be sure, but Daáood ’s work, more so than most contemporary performers in the genre, bounces off the music in ways that reflect his rise in the Los Angeles art scene years ago.

The Hammer’s exhibition Now Dig This! Art in Black Los Angeles 1960-1980, to which the poetry reading is connected, shines the spotlight on L.A.’s many overlooked black artists. Daáood, who is intimately linked to black L.A.’s art scene, is an ideal person to help in this effort, which is produced in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time, a campaign across a multitude of museums to bring attention to formative Southern California artwork. The exhibition closes Jan. 8.

Because of the lack of opportunities, historically, for black artists in L.A. to display their works, there’s been such a backlog of painting, sculpture and performance art from this era that the amount and diversity of the works can be overwhelming.

Like Daáood's poetry, much of this art feels musical. The assemblage artists combine found objects the way Ornette Coleman uses scales. David Hammons’s painted black figure draped in the stars and stripes echoes Jimi Hendrix’s distorted take on the American national anthem.

For Daáood, who knew many of the artists when he was helping to create the World Stage in South Los Angeles for neglected artists and performers, the exhibition is an overdue highlight of black artists’ contributions to L.A. culture.

“Many of them were very much contemporaries of better known white artists that were working at the time,” Daáood says in an interview. “John Outterbridge was a contemporary of [Robert] Rauschenberg and Frank Stella. All those cats, they were working in the same period of time. But because of the cultural divide, they did not get to receive the support and acknowledgment of the work they did.”

The show champions selections even many who are familiar with L.A.’s art culture have never seen. The fact that such a major component of L.A. culture has gone unrecognized by the mainstream art world makes the exhibition, curated by Columbia University art historian Kellie Jones, all the more important and fascinating.

The title Now Dig This! not only calls to mind the music of Sly and the Family Stone and the West Coast jazz that helped define Southern California culture for decades, but also evokes the urgency for the work to be seen. “Even the artists themselves felt they were coming out of nowhere, felt they had no history, because it wasn’t taught,” Jones says in a phone interview.

Black artists and performers often lacked the resources and support from outside organizations necessary to do art. When Daáood created the World Stage in 1989 and when Dale Brockman Davis and Alonzo Davis created the Brockman Gallery in the late 1960s, it was to fill the need of artists to join together for support. 

Daáood  and others would sometimes circumvent the need for gallery space by performing in public. “We used to just get on the bus, no plan no flier or nothing,” he recalls. “No money’s gonna come from it. Who’s gonna know about it? Who’s gonna document it? A lot of us would do stuff just for the sake of art.”

***

Prana moving through time signatures
Bop blown through a wormhole
Aimed at the earlobe of God
Pondered DNA in saxophone solos

As an up-and-coming poet, Daáood  knew visual artist John Outterbridge, whom he saw as a mentor, and worked with him for years when Outterbridge was director of the Watts Towers. Outterbridge, who was about old enough to be his father, showed him how to rein in his anger when creating performance poetry. “John kind of tempered me,” Daáood  says. “I was a young poet with hair all over my head, wearing overalls and angry all the time, and John kind of broadened my world.”

When Daáood  was just starting, he was furious about injustices he saw in the world, but he discovered it was too easy to express mere anger. The higher art was in expressing joy. “That’s a major bridge I had to cross when I was a youngster,” he says. “It was not enough to make people feel bad and talk about how crazy the world is. I needed to have solutions and I needed to point in new directions in the work. Once I put that in the work, it took a quantum leap.”

Indeed, Outterbridge takes a contemplative, tactile approach with his art, creating sculptures and dolls from found items such as old rags and metal objects.

 

 

 

“When I think of anger, I think of emotion,” Daáood  explains. “When I look at John’s work and the skillfulness and craft that he put into it, I think of thought. I think of skill, I think of mastery. There’s something in anger. It’s not a  bad thing if it is channeled and harnessed in order to transform.”

That dynamic of anger against thought is especially evident in the works of the visual artists on view at Now Dig This! 

Melvin Edwards’s sculpture, “The Lifted X” from 1965, is an abstract homage to Black Power icon Malcolm X. Edwards’ welded steelwork smolders with emotion, but also thought. Some of the shapes are mangled like a crushed fist. Others are simply diagonal steel bars. It’s an intimidating image of a larger-than-life historical figure. 

The Charles White paintings on display engage viewers with reflective images that clearly comment on specific events. “Black Pope” puts an African-American Holy Father in sunglasses that could belong to Bootsie Collins. His rendering of political activist Angela Davis, which portrays her as almost goddess-like, is the most literal example of activism through art in the exhibition. It’s accompanied by a letter White wrote demanding her release from prison.  

For Daáood , the mentorship wasn’t so much pedagogical as it was inspirational. 

When he would interact with artist David Hammons before Hammons moved to New York, he would see the way Hammons lived in his works of art, sometimes literally. “I was walking through his studio, there were prints all over the ground, and I was stepping over them, like ‘Hey, man, get this shit up off the ground.’ And I would open up his refrigerator, and there’s shoes and books in the refrigerator. And he said, ‘Hey, man, what did you think you were going to find in there -- food?’”

And another time: “You’d go in there the day after Christmas, and you’d see 20 Christmas trees with the stands stuck to the ceiling so it looked like a forest over your head. I mean, David used to just take the top of my head off.”

***

Truth is
Some of us live hard
Understand the nuances in a moan

As evidenced by practitioners like Daáood, performance is an essential aspect of the Hammer’s exhibition. Walking into the room featuring work by performance artists Maren Hassinger and Senga Nengudi at Now Dig This! is like walking into a kind of frozen dance recital. 

Hassinger’s wire rope installation in the middle conveys the same sense that all its parts are moving. The pieces of wire rope come together in a circle, looking like something you might find underfoot in a forest, but could just as easily appear in a scrap yard. Nengudi’s figures made of pantyhose and sand-filled bags seem to dance around Hassinger’s piece.

Hassinger’s installation, River, sitting outside the gallery near the library, is a wrap made from chains and ropes, incidentally collected from the Port of Los Angeles. It flows into a coil resembling a noose or possibly a delta. Like all Hassinger’s work, it gives a sense of time and of movement. 

To Hassinger, the work has a personal rather than political meaning, though others have viewed the ropes and chains and seen them as references to the shackles of slavery. Hassinger didn’t see it that way, though she has done works that channeled that the life of her father, which she said saw its share of lynching and incest. 

“My father’s life kind of reads like Faulkner,” she says when describing one of her pieces. “I was determined that my children not inherit that anger and despair I felt I’d inherited from my father.” 

Nengudi’s pantyhose figures draw on her experience of the tensions of pregnancy not only on the body but on the mind. “I was fascinated by how the body expanded and contracted and – usually – went back to the same shape,” she says.  

David Hammons’s assemblage homage to Charlie “Bird” Parker – using a saxophone with a rusty spade coming out of the mouthpiece held by hands coming out of the wall – reflects so many of the issues in Now Dig This! Performance, music, hipness, the natural and the mechanical. Like Bird’s life, much of the work offers infinite cool colliding with tragedy. Like Bird, the artists were also on the edges, setting the stage for whatever came next. 

Daáood’s poem “Leimert Park” depicts him standing on a street corner, telling “old-school stories with a bebop tongue to the hip-hop future.” Now Dig This! could be a beginning of that future, tapping into the history of art of L.A.’s black artists to open the door to another era. It gives a platform to a group that previously had to provide its own. The exhibition, however, with its scope that officially ends in 1980, leaves the art world hanging on the edge of what might be called the hip-hop generation.

Daáood acknowledges what any socially conscious person acknowledges about hip-hop, such as materialism, violence and misogyny. However, drawing on his experience working with multiple generations and types of artists in L.A., he does not let that discourage his optimism for the future. “You have artists that are very lofty in their thinking, very spiritual,” Daáood  says. “There’s a spectrum, and you can’t just put a label on the genre and say it’s one thing, any more than you can say that for any of us. … I believe that the best part of ourselves will rise. I believe that there are people doing great things to brighten the world.” 

Reach Ryan Faughnder here. Follow on Twitter here. 

Hear a selection from Daáood's album Leimert Park:

The Lynch Quilts Project:

In Search of Laura Nelson

Help me make an awesome road trip to Oklahoma to connect an awesome project to a diverse group of community activists and create avenues of racial healing.

Greetings All:

My name is LaShawnda Crowe Storm and I am an artist, community activist and educator. A fabulous opportunity landed in my lap a few days ago and I need your help to make this dream a reality and perhaps the chance change the world as we know it.

I have the opportunity to present my series The Lynch Quilts Project at the 2012 John Hope Franklin National Symposium, a conference focusing on racial healing in America. This year's Symposium (May 31-June1, 2012) focuses on The Politics of Reconciliation and I will speak on the panel Art as a Vehicle for Dialogue, Social Change and Healing.

This is a wonderful opportunity to not only connect The Lynch Quilts Project to a diverse group of community activists and organizations focused on racial healing, social justice and conflict transformation, but to also show how the arts are a vital catalyst to generate dialogue and healing in our communities.

 

So, what is The Lynch Quilts Project?

So, you are probably wondering, "What is The Lynch Quilts Project and why is it important?" Started in 2003, The Lynch Quilts Project (LQP) is a community-based effort that explores the history and ramifications of racial violence, specifically lynching, in the United States through the textile tradition of quilting. This project consists of a series of six quilts examining the lynching phenomenon from various perspectives including, but not limited to, collective memory, communal conflict, gender, healing and politics. The quilts combine a variety of traditional and contemporary quilting techniques to explore how the past, present and future are intricately connected.

From the beginning, this project was grounded in the communal experience. In an effort to bring as many people to the table in this discussion about race and lynching, I sent out a nationwide request for fabric contributions through a letter writing campaign to a variety of art, community and activist organizations, as well as web-based outlets such as list serves, blogs and discussion forums. Fabric contributions have included wedding dresses, baby bibs, prom dresses, material taken from altars, handmade and hand dyed material, old quilted pieces and the literal shirt off someone’s back, all of which are used in the construction of the quilts in this series.

The first quilt in the series, Her Name Was Laura Nelson, was completed in 2004 and since its debut has been exhibited in a variety of venues with diverse populations. At each showing viewers have the opportunity to record their stories and opinions concerning issues of ethnic conflict in a project journal and contribute a piece of fabric to the project. To date, dozens of stories and more than 150 lbs. of fabric donations have been collected.

 

Why Attending the Symposium is Important

In my creative practice, I seek to do more than simply point to these issues impacting our society, but create avenues for those necessary, but difficult, community dialogues and interactions, which lay at the foundation for change. In order to do this, it is important that art move in to areas beyond the creative realm and connect to the wider community. In my case, that means presenting about the project in community and alternative spaces, as well as traditional venues. It means connecting with those organizations that focus on issues of social justice, racial justice and healing, conflict transformation, etc.

As such, attending the symposium is important for two primary reasons.

1. Community Connections
2. Searching for Laura Nelson

Community Connections

At present, I am working with volunteers from across the country to complete the remaining 5 quilts in this series, of which 3 will be completed within the next 9-12 months. Once these are completed, the goal is to create a traveling exhibition that connects with the surrounding community at each venue, offering more than just art, but a series of public discussions and workshops on these issues associated with racial reconciliation, human rights and social justice explored in The Lynch Project. Presenting LQP at this symposium will do more than connect it to the larger national dialogues on race and racial healing, but most importantly introduce the project to a diverse group of community activists, who will then help in connecting the exhibition with local communities and resources nationwide. This connection is vital in order to tailor the exhibition to each community which will serve as the support system to develop locally focused workshops and public discussions.

Let's be honest.

The lynching and race discussion is hard. Period. As such, having a support network to help the conversation remain civil is the only path towards anything close to the crucial and much needed dialogue. The connections made here will be the pool of resources to help make this a reality.

Volunteers working on Her Name was Laura Nelson at the Chicago Historical Society 2004.

Searching for Laura Nelson

The story of The Lynch Quilts Project begins with the tragic death of Laura Nelson and her son L.D. (14-16 years old) on May 25, 1911 in Okemah, OK. As such, by attending this conference it gives me the opportunity to travel to Okemah, which lies approximately an hour south of Tulsa, OK and document in film and video this place where the tragedy occurred.

For me, this is a cathartic moment as I am able to go to the source of where so much of my inspiration and energy has been dedicated for the past 10 years and in doing so document the journey, which may in some respect help to heal this history. . . if only a little.

 

Photograph of Laura and L.D. Nelson's lynching taken on May 25, 1911 in Okemah, OK.   These photographs were typically turned into souvenir postcards available for sale to the general public at locations such as the local pharmacy or general store.

The Impact

Given the recent national outcry concerning the murder of young Trayvon Martin in Florida, I think we can all agree that work like The Lynch Quilts Project is VITAL to creating an atmosphere where these difficult, but necessary dialogues concerning America's racial past and present can occur.

It is only when we begin to educate ourselves and combat this form of ignorance will we have the necessary skills to transform pain into power and in the process remake America into a more tolerant and conscientious society.

Folks, this isn't easy and it takes all forms of stakeholders in our society to make change happen. Help me to help others see the vital role the arts and
 creative industries play in this form of community dialogue, healing and transformation. 

What We Need & Why

I need help getting to The John Hope Franklin National Symposium in Tulsa, OK. I will also use this trip to visit and document my journey in photos and video to Okemah, OK, which lies about an hour south of Tulsa, OK. This is the site where Laura Nelson and her son L.D. (14-16 yrs. old) tragically died on May 25, 1911.

This trip to Okemah is to understand the landscape, the environment, history and how this place has changed, evolved or remained the same since this tragic event. We will also make community connections to lay the groundwork for creating some form of grave marker and/or memorial for Laura and L.D. Unfortunately, after their murder their bodies were never claimed and both were buried in an unmarked grave. Perhaps by honoring them in the place they lived and died we can bring about some form of healing not only to these individuals, but their town and this history in general.

Initially, I need $1800 to get to the Symposium and present my work, as well as visit Okemah, OK. This portion of the funding with cover travel expenses (car rental and fuel), hotels, per diem, conference fees, printing, and any unexpected incidentals (i.e. inflamed gas prices).  Any funding raised beyond $1800 will be used to fund the costs of a marker/memorial stone, which can range in price from as little as $900 to upwards of $3000. Any funding raised beyond $3500 will go towards the upcoming traveling exhibition of The Lynch Quilts Project, which is slated to begin approximately late 2013-early 2014.

Other Ways You Can Help

So, it's in your hands. If you're checking out this page we urge you to donate, even if it's just a little. We NEED everyone to share the campaign with as many people as they can. Tell your friends, post it in your Facebook, Twitter or website. If you think you can help in other ways, the please don't hesitate to get in touch ASAP!

In addition, educate yourself about the history of lynching in the United States and how this form of racial terror has moved forward in time and continues to impact the contemporary fabric of our society. For example, have you ever wondered why so many African American families fled the Deep South during the early part of the 20th century to live in northern cities? And what does that Great Migration to cities now mean, when these once safe havens have now become riddled with bad schools, violence and lack of economic opportunities?

Additional Resources

These resources will provide additional information on The Lynch Quilts Project, Laura Nelson, the National Symposium and community healing.

The Lynch Quilts Project

Laura Nelson's Story

John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation

Confronting History I: The Story of John Hope Franklin

Confronting History II: The Story of John Hope Franklin