In this climate of rampant (or blatant) racism, many feel powerless and angry, not sure what they can do to help change the world. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis... We're often under the impression that to make a difference, you need to be a charismatic super-human that very few can measure up to. Activist and professor Angela Davis herself couldn't disagree more. She explains why, in this speech about the power of ordinary people, community, organizing, to bring about social change. And the woman knows what she's talking about, if you feel me... All those emblematic figures are people like you and me, who decided to take their concerns to the next level and get involved. Watch the video below (appearance sponsored by the Women's Resources and Research Center at UC Davis in 2007, brought to our attention by BoweryBetty).
Born in 1967, Cedella Marley was the eldest of Bob Marley's biological children. Here, as a new film about the singer goes on general release, she explains that as a father he was surprisingly strict.
He was a cool dad, as cool as they come. He never raised his voice to us and I think it's because they spent so much time on the road, that when they were off the road it was, "We have four days, what are what are we going to do? Let's just have a blast."
If he was in town he would always be the one that would come and pick us up from school, take us to the beach. We'd go running, swimming. He was very competitive, a work-out fanatic.
My parents' style of parenting was: "If we're running a race, don't actually think I'm going to let you win!" Those were fun times though - watching him watch us lose!
I wouldn't say he was a cuddly dad, but he was fun. He was funny - he would always try and make you laugh.
He wrote songs, hanging around, and it was fun to watch him too. It was kind of casual, if we were sitting back watching tv, he'd have his guitar.
Nice Times was my lullaby, he actually wrote that song for me when I was born.
Music was important in our childhood. It wasn't something that we had to do. My father's attitude was, "If you want to do it you can do it, but if want to do it you're going to have to be great at it."
He was a perfectionist - it had to be perfect.
He was very strict about our schoolwork. We went to Catholic schools. It was very funny for people who would say, "Your father is such a Rastafarian." And I was, "Yeah and he sent us to Catholic schools!"
Growing up in Jamaica culturally you have religious prejudices. And being children whose parents were Rastafarian, people wanted to make you feel like you were "less than" because of your religion. I think that's why daddy and even we children were over-achievers - we're always striving to break down barriers, and make changes and do something different with our lives.
Cedella Marley was interviewed by Outlook on the BBC World Service
My dad wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, and in hindsight when I think of all the legal trouble that we've been in, I should have probably gone to law school!
My dad had girlfriends. I think that goes with the territory - I would never marry a musician. But his relationship with my mum looked loving. Whenever I saw them it was loving.
My mum raised most of dad's kids at one time or another. We all lived in the same house at one time or the other. And now even in adulthood we live blocks away from each other. My life would not be the same without them.
I really can't think of any time where we actually had a friend sleep over, because the parents wouldn't have it. If I had a friend and she wanted to spend the weekend at my house, she'd tell her parents she was actually spending the weekend at someone else's house.
I think they had this misconception of our household.
They might have thought that you would come to the house and there would be drums of herb [marijuana] hanging out and rolling paper stacked to the ceiling but our house was very strict, our parents didn't smoke inside the house.
My dad was a sexy father, with flowing dreadlocks, muscular. I was very proud of him.
++++++++++++++++++
Bob Marley
Born in Jamaica in 1945 to a white father and a black mother
Catch a Fire, first album with the Wailers, released to critical acclaim in 1973
First international hit - No Woman No Cry (live version) released in 1975
Whenever he would come and pick us up from school I would walk out with my chest up and my nose in the air. I was like, "That's my dad." He was the sexiest dad in prep school.
His lasting influence on me? He said something that I don't 100% agree with. He said: "If my life is just for me then I don't want it."
But I know what he meant. If you can't do something that would help to bring about change, then what are you living for? Even though our time was short, he was a great person to have as a father.
[Cedella Marley designed the Olympic kit for the Jamaican team.] We did a photoshoot with Usain Bolt a couple of months ago and inside the clothing I have a couple of quotes from dad embroidered. I said to him, "This is going to be dad's first time coming to the Olympics, and we both looked at each other and laughed."
It's one of the proudest moments in my life to be able to do that. I am going to be in London for the Olympics and Jamaica is going to be on fire!
And her name’s DJ Venus X. Why not follow her on Twitter? She’s already got a profile in The New York Times style section. The piece opens with a scene from the after party for Terry Richardson’s exhibition at Half Gallery, “Mom & Dad.” Quoth Richard Phillips: “It was one of the best parties I have ever been to in my life.” Heady praise!
When TheTimes interviewed the DJ, whose real name is Jazmin Venus Soto, “she was gingerly burning an assortment of MP3s onto blank CDs…for a private party in honor of Damien Hirst’s dot paintings to be given by the Gagosian Gallery later that evening.”
The conclusion? “Not since DJ Spooky…has a DJ been appreciated in so many cultural contexts.”
There’s also the requisite Christian Marclay comparison. Read it all here.
Shayne Oliver and VenusX of GHE20 G0TH1K (pronounced Ghetto Gothik) seem to be everywhere as of late. If they're notCREATING MUSIC FOR FASHION SHOWS, appearing inT MAGAZINE, DJing Art Basel Miami and OC PARTIES, or going on tour with Gang Gang Dance, you can find them at their now legendary weekly NYC party. We met up with $hayne and Venus at the annual San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy for some meatball subs and carnival games, and talked about what's new on Planet GHE20 G0TH1K. Plus, they made an amazing mixtape for us––check it out.
OC MIXTAPE SERIES #3: GHE20 G0TH1K - THE CRUELEST INTENTIONS LIVE MIXTAPE by OPENINGCEREMONYZachary Ching: So how do you guys know each other? $hayne Olivier: We've known each other since we were babies. VenusX: We met when we were 19. We used to run around the city and had all the same best friends. We'd go to Room Service, Roxy’s parties, Sway, Happy Valley...ZC: So you've always been friends? VX: I didn’t really care for him at first (laughs). But a couple of years later, I realized he was cool. Then we started DJing together and we fell in love… Then I asked my friend Daniel Fisher (DJ PHYSICAL THERAPY) from school to DJ with us. He was amazing, so we kept doing it together. With so many hours to fill the night, you've gotta find a good core team––and that was me, Daniel, and Shayne.ZC: Who has always shown GHE20 G0TH1Ksupport from the get-go? VX: Gang Gang Dance and Spencer Sweeney have been really supportive. Alexander Wang used to come a lot and that was cool. Mya (M.I.A) would come really consistently last summer. A lot of radical artists, feminists, gay people. I don’t know, we have such a diverse group of supporters.ZC: You've been doing this for two years, and you're going on tour with Gang Gang Dance next week. What's next? VX: We want to make our own music, like an EP. Work with young girls, female artists––all female. A girl universe. It’s all about women.ZC: You've always had a guest at your parties. Who have been some of your favorites? VX: Ashland. (DJ TOTAL FREEDOM) He’s so insanely beautiful. He’s my favorite. Who else? SFV ACID live was amazing. $O: Oh yeah, that was my favorite. Like really good.ARAABMUZIK was good too.
ZC: Who would you love to have at GHE20 G0TH1K? VX:SISSY NOBBY. AMBER ROSE. I think booking people outside is like a nice treat sometimes. But it's good to keep working with our friends. They’re so talented and don’t really get acknowledged by the city because everybody’s trying to hear crazy party music.ZC: What would the GHE20 G0TH1K anthem be? $O: Oh god. VX:"CREEP LO" BY CODE OF DARKNESS. That’s pretty fucking evil. It’s like early Bone Thugs-era rap music. It’s all about homicide and the devil. But it’s made by black people. So it’s Ghetto Gothik.ZC: That’s why I love Bone Thugs. Like, ouija boards,incantations, backwards writing on the CD... $O: They knew exactly what they were doing! VX: Yes! That’s what we’re looking for again in the mainstream, because nothing is fun right now. Everything is really evil and dark. There’s a recession, the world is coming to an end, and people are kinda scared. So the music should be the same.
ZC: What gigs outside of New York have you really liked? VX: I liked playing with Odd Future at SXSW. They were really fun. And we got to meet Puff Daddy, Wiz Khalifa and Amber. Art Basel Miami was fun, too.ZC: Let’s talk about your hair. VX: Wanna know why it’s green? Because I like to smoke mad weed, and one day I woke up and it was just green.ZC: Exactly what I thought! VX: And also because green is the color of money, and I’m looking for that right now (laughs). And also because if you think green, you’ll survive the Apocalypse. Green is just the color of 2012.ZC: So $hayne, you just showed the Spring '12 collection for your line, Hood by Air. You and Venus, of course, did the music for the show. Are GHE20 G0TH1K and Hood by Air merging into the same thing? $O: GHE20 G0TH1K and HOOD BY AIR are both under one name, Clear, Inc. VX: Having one umbrella gives us more flexibility. The GHE20 G0TH1K party is going to continue as long as there’s space for it, but we want to make our music, have a band, and continue Hood by Air––and mobilize everything through what we've built over the past two years. The sound of the party became the style of the clothes, and the style of the clothes informs the future sound of the party. It’s hard to break everything apart.
ZC: Would you call it a lifestyle? VX: I mean, it’s already there and has been for a long time. The DMX cover, FLESH OF MY FLESH, BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, Ghetto Goth, you know––we didn’t create it, but we’re just bringing it back. It’s how we feel. Everything is mad corny. We don’t like disco. We don’t like LMFAO. And we don’t like a lot of things. So (laughs) we just try to make some noise that we dolike, and try to feed people new ideas. And then give them clothes that look like the sound of those ideas. And la-di-da-di-da. You know what I mean. It’s all the same shit. Lifestyle.ZC: Let's play fill-in-the-blank. $hayne, you go first. $O: Ghe20 Goth1k is dark but never evil . Venus is the best friend but the worst at being anybody but herself . Most weekends, you can find me at if I told you, I wouldn't go anymore . I would never been seen in the morning .ZC: Venus, your turn. VX: Shayne is the best friend but the worst lover . Most weekends, you can find me at the mall . We really like Opening Ceremony but we LOVE Hot Topic . If your party were a person, it would have: Amber Rose 's body, Hatsune Miku 's hair, Gwen Stefani 's style, and Aaliyah 's voice.
ZC: Last question––true or false. Is green the new black? VX: True! Very much so.
From left: Emily Berl for The New York Times, PatrickMcMullan.com
Her singular style has made the D.J. Venus X in demand with fashion designers and art galleries. At right, working a Museum of Modern Art party.
By ALEX HAWGOOD
Published: April 18, 2012
She is also a dexterous street-style chameleon, describing her wardrobe as “freakish cosplay,” short for costume play, “mixed with goth and the hood.” During the day, this might mean baggy pants and a halter top that suggests a ’90s raver; at night, a sprayed-on leopard miniskirt with a cropped pink jacket that wouldn’t look out of place on the rapper Lil’ Kim; a white T-shirt and Timberland boots when visiting her extended family (“they’re deeply Catholic”). She also constantly alters the color and style of her hair, which for six months was a shade of green that resembled oxidized copper (it is now back to black).
By the time she played the hit “We Found Love” by Rihanna, the crowd was soaked with sweat. And just as the song was about to reach its climax, she unexpectedly looped the soaring crescendo on repeat, then stopped the track entirely before starting dubstep, the latest electronica hybrid to go mainstream.
“I thought there was going to be a riot,” said the artist Richard Phillips, who was there, along with the designer Cynthia Rowley and the downtown gadabout Aaron Bondaroff. “It was one of the best parties I have ever been to in my life.”
It is disruptive moments like these that Venus X, born Jazmin Venus Soto, thrives on. “I do sampling, chopping-and-screwing live and remixing on the spot, so if something is playing the crowd likes, I will interrupt it heavily to break apart the process of continuity,” Ms. Soto, 25, said in a recent interview from her closet-size room at the Marrakech Hotel on Broadway and 102nd Street.
She was gingerly burning an assortment of MP3s onto blank CDs (“they’re more tactile than an iPod,” she said) for a private party in honor of Damien Hirst’s dot paintings to be given by the Gagosian Gallery later that evening. (Also of concern was what to wear to such an occasion: “a purple fur necklace that kind of looks like a neck brace” or an outfit from the East Village boutique Vampire Freaks?)
Not since DJ Spooky, an experimental turntablist whose work first spilled over to the worlds of film, literature and art in the 1990s (he was featured in a Whitney Biennial), has a D.J. been appreciated in so many cultural contexts.
Last September, Ms. Soto went on tour with the experimental rock band Gang Gang Dance and performed a live set during the Fashion Week show for Gerlan Jeans, a label known for its macabre club-kid wear. In December, she provided the soundtrack for several events at Art Basel Miami, including a pool party given by the artist Mickalene Thomas. That same month, she was also working out the logistics of an illegal rave at an empty warehouse space she had been tipped off about in the Bronx.
“If a cop comes, you offer them money — or you hire an off-duty cop to protect you,” Ms. Soto said.
She has been the warm-up act for the dapper rapper Theophilus London, collaborated with the austere men’s wear designer Patrik Ervell and done parties for Phillip Lim and the Museum of Modern Art.
“She’s a tastemaker, but she’s raw,” said Mr. London, a Trinidad native who grew up in Brooklyn and has known Ms. Soto since childhood. “She’s been out there on the streets figuring it all out for as long as I can remember. She understands culture — all of it.”
Ms. Soto is a first-generation American born to a Dominican mother and an Ecuadorean father. She grew up in Washington Heights and says that she learned to leapfrog different demographics at an early age. “My worldview is the result of all the stuff that went down in the city in the ’80s and ’90s,” she said, including one day, she said, when she and her brother had to dodge gunfire on the way to school.
Ms. Soto credited an ex-boyfriend for teaching her how to D.J., and mentions a book she borrowed from a recent ex-girlfriend in the next breath. She cited both the black-power meetings she attended as a teenager and the bubble-gum feminism of the Spice Girls as ideological influences.
Ms. Soto first drew attention in the art/fashion/music/night-life nexus through GHE20GOTH1K (pronounced “Ghetto Gothic”), a party she hosts alongside her best friend, Shayne Oliver, who designs the label Hood by Air, and the producer Physical Therapy.
It began at the Beauty Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, then bounced over to the Gallery Bar on the Lower East Side as well as a handful of undisclosed locations (like a sweltering hot basement across the street from a tortilla manufacturer in Bushwick).
Within a year, GHE20GOTH1K was widely recognized as reanimating New York’s underground night life. It was one of the few parties where a wide cross section of the city — gay and straight, black and white, goths, punks, hip-hop heads, artists, music snobs, fashion designers like Mr. Ervell and even the occasional celebrity like Diplo — came to dance under one roof. Ms. Soto said she views D.J.-ing for such a diverse audience as a defiantly political act, and frequently peppers sound clips from the Al Jazeera news network, audio from the riots in Egypt and sound pings from submarines into her sets.
“I’m going to play Al Jazeera in the club, and you’re going to like it,” she said. “And it’s going to be cool, but not weird cool. It’s going to be like Kanye West and Jay-Z cool.”
Ms. Soto said she gets many of her samples and international beats from the Web: culling noises from the depths of YouTube, music forums, direct messages from her online creative community, and a miscellany of international MP3-sharing sites. This often means the quality of the tracks she plays can seem muddled and distorted, the aural equivalent of a pixelated clip.
In a phone interview, Lauren Cornell, an adjunct curator at the New Museum, where Ms. Soto will perform at a benefit next month, said: “Venus responds to how stratified night-life culture can be, and it’s something she tries to break down. I think that by putting politics at the forefront of her music, she is breaking people out of their expectations of what they typically hear on a dance floor. It’s getting them to be a little more self-conscious to what they’re listening to, where it comes from and how they’re processing it.”
Ms. Soto seems determined as well to preserve her independence. She said a representative for a major recording artist approached her about a deal, but that after a series of back-and-forths, she turned down the offer and is instead releasing a mix tape herself online later this year.
“A lot of the specifics of her taste may be somewhat far-reaching for the mainstream,” said Matthew Schnipper, the editor in chief of The Fader. “I can understand how to industry players it’s appealing: ‘Wow, look at this woman doing something really diverse in the realm of world music — let’s try to bottle that up.’ ”
To someone who hasn’t heard Ms. Soto, it can be hard to define her craft. Is she a D.J. and party promoter with an eclectic style? An artist who recalls the lineage of “sonic awareness” pioneers like Pauline Oliveros and Christian Marclay? An agitprop provocateur like M.I.A. and Santogold?
This is a piece written by a favorite writer of mine, Kola Boof. Egyptian-Sudanese-American Kola Boof is the author of the critically acclaimed novel “The Sexy Part of the Bible” (Akashic Books) and many others:
@OwlsAsylum asked me to put my feelings in writing for his blog where I can be as open as I like…so I warn you now…that what I have to say is not going to be what you’re used to reading in Black American publications or even White-ran African ones.
Before I talk about what it’s like to actually live with a ‘cut vagina’ and my conflicting feelings around the whole controversy, let me quickly rehash what happened to cause this brouhaha—a Male Mixed Race Swede artist named Makode Linde (the term ‘mixed race Swede’ being shorthand for White to those of us who come from Africa) engaged in performance art in which he depicted the image of a Charcoal-skinned woman served up at a party as a living edible cake. The party, hosted by Sweden’s Minister of Culture Lena Adelsoln Liljeroth, was supposed to raise awareness about the issue of Genital Cutting in Africa. Honoring the artist’s own claims—his intention was to show how racist White people are by having the mostly White partygoers cut up and eat the genitals of the moaning, screaming Charcoal Woman. With glee, the Whites did exactly that. I’m laughing my ass off remembering it (the video)—but inside, I’m calling ‘Camel Shit’ on the artist’s supposed intent.
Let me ask those who see this as art right now. If it was Makode Linde’s intention to make the world ‘see’ how racist we are by eating the genitals of the moaning cake—then why not make the cake look like a real African girl? An older woman with big bare tits wouldn’t be having this genital cutting experience—a small child would. Certainly, I have no problem with the charcoal skin (what East Africans refer to as “Biblical Days Black”—the color of our original Cushitic mother). But it seems racially methodical to present this African image in a sexually Western stance (the large bare breasts stand at attention unnaturally; not fall to the side despite the fact she that she is lying supine—typical Western pornographic imagery that came in vogue when more than 30 million White women in 18 nations received fake silicone breast implants). Linde’s caricature is definitely not a small defenseless child receiving initiation rites in Africa. As well, notice the frighteningly garish mouth—savage teeth, swollen red lips—the stereotypical Western racist cartoon image that plagues waving Sambo figures on White doorsteps in the Southern U.S. and other grotesque Massa-Welcome images traditionally found comical by those who deny Black humanity.
Why was dreadlock-wearing Linde so insensitive to how his ‘African woman’ looked? My belief is that he never expected video of the party to reach the entire planet. He thought the ‘feel-good racist imagery’ would create a bonding experience between his lonely Biracial shell and the Superior Swedes he’s most likely sought acceptance and solidarity from all his life. Like so many new age Racists of Color, Makode Linde thought this display and all reaction to it would be confined to the upper class and their few ethnic puppets—kept in town, like most of his other art works.
Following the controversy, Linde stated, “I didn’t intend for anyone to feel embarrassed. But we’re talking about female genital mutilation—is there any comfortable or cozy way to talk about it?” Yes there is—let me do so right now.
I was vaginally infibulated in Omdurman, Sudan soon after my birth. Infibulation in my region of Africa in 1969 meant that the muscles inside the vagina were cut loose and reconfigured ‘tighter’ (supposedly to incur ‘purity’ as the Mullahs claimed that the Koran states: “Woman is Impure”). After the tightening process, the vagina is stitched shut—you grow up having your period through a straw—which can take some women an entire month. On the outer lips of the vagina, seared in Arabic, they put the name of your father and his mosque on the left side—the right side of my vagina was left blank for the name of my future husband to be seared on with a hot poker later. My clitoris was not removed, because my birth mother was an Oromo, not a Muslim and wouldn’t allow what Arab Muslims call ‘the worm of unclean thoughts’ to be cut away. Thus I cannot speak on the horror of having no feeling, no clitoris. But protocol follows that years after this ritual—at your wedding ceremony, the groom is given a small razor. This is to slit you open so he can begin penetrating you on the ‘wedding bed’—a process that can take weeks.
I escaped the Arab Muslim wedding, because my parents were murdered in front of me at the age of six and my Egyptian grandmother handed me over to UNICEF (to be ‘left for adoption’ after she got permission from the Mullahs—adopting being illegal in Egypt) because she could not fathom having a chocolate colored granddaughter in her White Arabic family. Through UNICEF, I was eventually placed with a Black American family in Washington D.C. and did not learn that I was vaginally infibulated until my Black American mother gave me a bath the first time I arrived in America. She and my new Black American father rushed me to D.C. General Hospital that night, horrified at the stitching between my thighs.
My life is not typical of the African girl who has been circumcised or infibulated. I grew up Americanized. My Black American parents wanted to have my vagina “corrected” at 16—but I refused because it was the only thing that connected me to my birth mother. Losing my virginity at 17 to my Black American tutor (who to me was White because of his egg-nog colored complexion) took an entire month. Imagine having your upper lip pulled up over your entire head—that’s how it feels for a ‘cut girl’ when she first has sex, you literally pass out. On one occasion in the back of his car, we got ‘stuck’ like dogs and had to be “wet” by fire hose to get us apart. It was so humiliating. Each attempt was excruciatingly painful for me, but like any teenaged girl I was determined to prove that I loved my man. Later, in my twenties traveling the world as a model and actress, I learned the value of having “pinhole pussy”—I could manipulate men with it. No matter how many of them I bedded, it appeared to each next guy that I was a virgin. And when men think they are the first and it’s even tighter when they return—they do a lot more for you. My vagina gave me all manner of problems—hormone imbalances; winter time shrinking. But because of my power over men sexually, I grew to take pride in my vagina. I refuse for instance to allow Westerners to tell me that I’m “mutilated.” I don’t accept that. I am different, but my life is not over, I am not defeated and I see myself as inconvenienced; violated—but not mutilated. With its shield face and Arabic writing, my vagina is very pretty to me.
Activists using the term “mutilation” forget that this is a Psychological condition, not just physical. We that are cut have to live our entire lives with our vagina. We have to move on and accept this horrible inconvenience and find joy in it.
I am now 42 and have given birth to two sons by cesarean—yet I am like a 12 year old down there. It does not change. This tightness that is created for male pleasure (no other reason, despite what the religious men say) is a never-ending curse of pain and ecstasy; sexual rapture bound up in brutally inhuman suffrage for the woman. I have learned to live with this—to even exploit it for my advantage. But I would not wish it on anyone. My vagina has been for men…and not for me!
So to watch a man—a man calling himself a ‘Black man’—lay on a table and holler moans that invited laughter as his friends cut chunks of his pink genitals away and at them—was so devastatingly powerful that it reduced me to loud, butchered sobbing. I couldn’t stop crying. Add to that the psychological effect of having to cope with the strangeness of Western reaction—particularly Black American friends defending this image and claiming that the intent of the art was to help girls like me.
Help us how? Who did it change? Who among the masses even understood what they were watching? It looked like a Halloween comedy show! Far and wide—people were laughing! No one watching that video thought of little African infants lying on the ground in rows between Cassava plants being cut on by dutiful old women. No one thought of that.
And that brings me to the most painful experience of the video, the one that came in the days after I watched out—the shutting out of my voice and of women like me by arrogant bougie African American writers and publications—writers and publications that would claim to speak ‘for us’ in delineating the experiences of African women and girls in public forums—yet slander my name and claim that I am “crazy” and shouldn’t be understood or have a voice.
This happened despite the fact that I am a well published author in America; a citizen of America; a Black African woman and a person who is vaginally infibulated. These Blacks at Ebony.Com, The Root and The Grio…the same ones who insisted that Makode Linde’s “voice,” however controversial, should be analyzed and understood on an intellectual basis…dismissed me, an infibulated African woman writer as someone there should be no time for—no understanding of. Herein lies the hateful core of not only Linde’s art piece, but the overall problem with Western Blacks—the innate hatred, distrust and lies they quickly attach to a Black female image when that female image threatens to Blacken them.
Certainly, because I am a noted author, published in eight countries—what I have to say will go into the canon of Black literary commentary whether people like it or not. So I say that these editorial staffs at Ebony.Com, The Grio, The Root and so many other so called Black publications are ‘pretentious,’ ‘privileged’, ‘vain’ and ‘wrongheaded.’ They want to visit Africa like a grave. You dare not be in the room. There is nothing journalistically scientific or factual about their methods when they say that Makode Linde should exist and be heard, but not Kola Boof. This is what Linde’s cake represents no matter where a Black woman goes. Routinely, you hear these American Negroes say when discussing me, “She is crazy”….but not a single one will counter “Why is she crazy?”
They don’t even acknowledge the moaning cake.
I have slapped Amiri Baraka for repeatedly calling me a bitch at the Harlem Book Fair. While heckling me on stage, he also stated that I was a “CIA Agent” and…”really a man.” A year before that incident, my books were banned by Black American bookseller Eso Won—the top black bookstore in Los Angeles. I never had a single ‘run-in’ or altercation with anyone in or near that book shop ever. No explanation was given—my publisher was simply informed that my books and I were banned from their Afrocentric shelves.
After discovering that 12 other Black women writers are banned from Eso Won bookstore, including Pulitzer nominee Wanda Coleman—I felt something akin to Linde’s Sara Baartman cake. The perpetual cutting, mentally as well as physically, is worldwide for Black women.
One local Black radio talk show host befriended me and had a different take. He said that I am despised by Black Literati for being ‘too truthful’ in my speaking style, for focusing quite forcefully on dark skinned Black women’s issues and for refusing to accept America’s one drop rule and see Mixed Race people as “black.” This last one in particular angers them he said, because so many of the leading Black movers and shakers in publishing are mixed race blacks or Black men with White spouses and mixed offspring. Years even before that, however, I was lied on by Black American scholars that I’ve never met, as high up and influential as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West—granted I can’t stand them and they probably knew that from reading my books. But the thing is, why would intellectual Afro-descended people be so afraid of the rising career of a Black African woman? I hadn’t slapped their friend Amiri yet. I hadn’t done anything but be an African Womanist artist.
And then there’s smaller fish like Dr. Goddess, Deesha Philyaw, Dan Billin, Dominique DiPrima, Arab-funded ESPAC reporters and so many others who gossiped incessantly behind my back and made one nefarious claim about me after the other—all without ever having met me. These are supposed to be smart Negroes and Arabs of high importance.
In the canon of Black history, they have the delusion that I am an unimportant ‘folksy’ figure (shocking and vulgar they say) who will one day disappear while they (cloaked in white collars, college degrees and visits to Harris-Perry’s Nerdland) will go on to be remembered as intelligent, fearless, Black-loving auteurs of what they called ‘the African Diaspora.’ Something more organic to them than me, mind you—because Whites owned them and they now think with the same arrogant self-importance of the White Tower. What could I, the dirty ground possibly have to say? This is very sad indeed as this is a virtual re-enactment of Zora Neale Hurston and the Niggerati of the 1930’s. And yes, as a writing talent and a critical thinker, I am comparing myself to Zora, most definitely. One has to sigh and fan oneself, because naturally, I’m not innocent in this mess. From the beginning, I’ve been a complete bitch to anyone that dismissed my reality or my right to have a voice. I gave it right back to them with all the pent up relish of my life long suffering. But how dare an African mother come here and do that! We’re Black and we want our place in the White people’s great society—but she, our own mother, is not one of us!
Makode Linde personified more than anything the modern Black conscious when he fashioned that cake. And I promise you—the Cake Is Baked. Linde is not alone in that tar-black butchered bitch fantasy, which is why so many Blacks are defending him. Whether it be our own black sons on the radio calling us “Bitches and Hoes” or proclaiming in their latest works of art: “I don’t date Dark butts—why did my baby come out so Black—White women are better”—the Cake Is Baked. The men’s yellow icing drips down the side of our much-despised nappy heads like a golden blond weave. If we protest, we are called ‘angry…bitter.’
The violent-voiced male rapper is not a threat to the community. Barking like a dog is his right by virtue of testicles. Pathetic Nicki Minaj draped in Barbie Doll drag while referring to little black girls as ‘nappyhead hoes’ in more than two of her songs is not a threat to the community. But we, the moaning burnt cakes with savage teeth and thick red lips—our sliced up fudge-inducing pussies threaten the Black community’s Mulatto follies—their niggerstock delusions of a bright future. As I wrote in a book once: ‘The Black Woman is the most unprotected, unloved woman on earth…she is the only woman on earth…that grows unwatered.’ In America, where they believe (or want to believe)…that that Bitch in New York Harbor is their real mother…it sticks to their fingers like frosted truth. Since none of us in the Black community plan on staying black—we don’t have time to care about Black women. So of course the bougie Negro journalists must consider Makode Linde’s brand of art—he’s their sanctioned portrait maker!
The horrified astonishment at the recent cake-eating debacle has shaken up the world and brought the issue of racism to the fore once again this year.
The social media world went into shock this week, as they beheld the Swedish Minister of Culture perform a clitoridectomy on the sculpted vulva of a human sized cake, which took the shape of an African woman undergoing forced genital mutilation. She then fed it to the black-faced artist who screamed in agony as she sliced through the baked labium - much to the amusement of the white guests. The inside of the cake was blood red and the guests smiled and ate of the black female cake-body, seemingly oblivious to the macabre nature of the whole affair.The response from women all over the world was visceral. They called it racist, misogynistic and hateful. Many black women expressed outrage and hurt, given the historical referencing to the Sartjie Baartman narrative.As a white woman I was sickened to the core and momentarily at a loss for words -- and it was this response that got me thinking about how deep the construct of whiteness really goes. It took me a while to grasp that the horrible, misdirected and grotesque tastelessness of this gastronomic protest art actually successfully made a point about whiteness.It exposed the European cake eaters as savage in their non-responsiveness to the horror of the act in which they willingly participated, apparently ignorant to the notion that the ‘art’ was in the observation of their behaviour. This, I think, is what was so disturbing to the white gaze, which was forced to gaze upon whiteness and try to make sense of the primal nature of it all.It disturbed the white certainty of rationality and possibly pointed to our own complicity in the insulting and grossly insensitive act of the eating of an African woman’s most private body parts in what became a reversal of the anthropological participant observation ethos.It certainly got me thinking about my own upbringing in a country that was built upon the dehumanisation of black people whilst I was trying to make sense of what appeared to be an uncanny physical manifestation of feminist writer bell hooks’ thesis on Eating the Other. I was forced to ask myself if it is really possible for those of us who grew up white in South Africa to fully transcend the inevitable unconscious hold of the whiteness construct, even those of us who are in interracial relationships.Furthermore how much does the same macabre insensitivity to blackness play out in the day-to-day lives of white South Africans that we may also be oblivious to?Having Our Cake and Eating It
I know whiteness through and through. I was raised on it. I’ve lived it, I’ve eaten it and mostly I’ve heard it: at tea parties, at dinner parties, at braais and pubs and family gatherings ... and all in all I have come to the sad conclusion that, besides the miniscule number of renegade white folk who may or may not have authentically transcended the whiteness trap, whiteness has largely remained a static and unyielding phenomenon in South Africa.This is thanks to the liberal legacy of the Nelson Mandela epoch, which created a situation in which there is no real pressure on whiteness to change.Whilst white concerns remain central to the master narrative - in the economy, in the press, in film and popular culture, whiteness in South Africa remains an obdurate monolith mostly in denial of the social, political, and cultural privileges still accorded to whites in our unequal society. It would seem though, that whites are carefully taught not to recognise white privilege just as males are taught not to recognise male privilege.This is evidenced in the average white dialogue around race in which whiteness is often presented as victim to the ‘savagery’ of blackness in the form of endless whinging about crime, corruption, inefficiency and BEE. From intellectual discourse, to mainstream chatter, to barely-educated braai banter, whiteness is always sure of one thing - superiority over other races - particularly the African race. Whether it is disguised in liberal equanimity or downright racism, this whiteness discourse espouses the same learnt notion that white is right - even in a so-called Rainbow Nation.This mythical rainbow nation, it turns out, is none other than the ‘liberalist’ enfant terrible that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) gave birth to whilst South Africa was dealing with the labour pains of a reconciliatory-premised transformation. Though it was established as an emotional clearinghouse for the traumas and atrocities experienced and committed in the days of apartheid and as a catalyst for healing the nation -- it turned out to be the motherfucker of all fuck ups for blackness.In fact it did nothing for black folk, who were apartheid’s rightful victims. Rather it alleviated white folk’s guilt and annulled their fear of a retaliatory bloodbath. Hell, it even allowed perpetrators of racist and heinous crimes against humanity to develop a newfound camaraderie with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Cyril Ramaphosa – all three of whom have since been appropriated by the white liberal narrative as icons, mascots and success symbols. Viler though is that this trio is also held up by the whiteness construct as empirical evidence that some black folk do indeed contain intelligence and humanity, because, after all, they display the same gentle virtues, rationality and corporate acumen as whites.But it is the image of Mandela that has been most ‘eaten’ by whiteness, to use bell hooks’ term again when discussing the ways in which whiteness creates a false gastronomically expedient relationship with the ‘other’ through the romanticisation of blackness for the purposes of cultural commodification - (just one example of the many she describes).When apartheid was in full swing, the black freedom fighters could not have foreseen the commodification of their struggle in the contemporary profit-driven smorgasbord claimed by whites in South Africa - a banquet table laden with delectable and marketable black cultural commodities, such as Steve Biko T-Shirts, Ubuntu slogans and Madiba Magic. As Winnie Mandela allegedly did not say - Mandela’s aging smiling image is used by certain white folk as a fundraiser in a wheelchair - so shameless is this Madiba Magic feeding frenzy.Mandela’s smiling effigy has also become a symbol of reconciliation in South Africa and is held up by liberals as a sign that progressive political change is indeed taking place. His image has been appropriated, re-colonised and stripped of a revolutionary history to be devoured as a symbol of white liberalism and logic. Thus the previously demonised Mandela has miraculously become an icon in the West and has created a kind of denialist insanity in the average white liberal mind. He’s cute, he’s old, he smiles a lot and he somehow absolves white folk of their guilt - much as Jesus on the cross absolves Christians of their sins. Like the Jesus icon, he is not really real - he’s kind of a fuzzy deified construct through whom one can transcend all sorts of racist misdemeanours.But when it comes to the rest of ‘them’ - as in those ‘blacks’, who by their mere presence do not absolve white folk of their guilt and who cannot be directly commodified and consumed; those who have the cheek to beg at robots; who dare protest their poverty and demand dignity and who at times have to steal to survive; well white people generally say disgusting things about ‘them’ real black folk, using a veritable plethora of terms. Sometimes it is outright racism - like, ‘Those monkeys can’t run a country’ to ‘Fucking Kaffirs’ (often in Virgin Active gyms). Other times it is simply changing their accents to some sort of monosyllabic phonetics when talking to the gardener or the maid. Many times it is the overuse of the words ‘us’ and ‘them’, as if indeed, black folk are a different species.In fact much racist white banter seems premised on the fact that ‘they’ may not belong to the human race at all, as the father of ‘absolute knowledge’ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel suggested in the early 1800’s when he posited, with great white man authority, “The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality - all that we call feeling - if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character.”And here we are, hundreds of years later and seventeen years into a ‘Rainbow Nation’ and mainstream white racial banter remains the same dehumanising rant, albeit delivered in less erudite language.But these mainstream racists are openly despicable and easy to spot.It is the liberals that espouse a so-called post-race epoch that need to be watched out for because it is this uber privileged class of white folk that has become even more dangerous to blackness than the outright white supremacists. Members of this echelon have been the direct beneficiaries of the TRC and it is they who have cleverly constructed a new liberal ‘discourse of disguise’, largely designed to dupe fellow humans into believing that they are not white supremacists even whilst they maintain their stranglehold over the dominant discourse of knowledge and capital. They are largely the educated and academic class of self-appointed gatekeepers who have been forced to move over slightly and share the institutions of higher learning and business with black folk.Despite their polite liberal façade, the white folk that populate this class most often secretly believe that black people are not nearly as learned as themselves and that they lack the type of leadership skills needed to run these institutions. Thus they often set about sabotaging the black folk in these positions of power by withdrawing their moral support and using subtle and insidious put-downs camouflaged as supportive language. Behind closed doors though, and safely with ‘their own’, they openly critique blackness with smug little laughs and comically raised eyebrows and nudge-nudge wink-wink commentary, in a sort of ‘having their cake and eating it’ ritual.When they are called to book they draw upon their vociferous ‘hegemony-denial’ and make up nonsensical and expedient new terms such as ‘black supremacy’ whilst conjuring up new fields of learning aimed at disproving their ‘god-given’ privilege.This is white dominion at its best. As someone who grew up inside the construct of whiteness, that for over four decades has dished me up a platter of privileges which I’ve oft imagined I have long since rejected - my disgust at the black minstrel female cake eating debacle has, incongruously, also left me asking the hardest question of all -- is it possible for white people, myself included, to ever fully transcend the whiteness construct or are we all vulnerable to being exposed and tripping over our own unconscious programming by some genius provocateur?
“EVERY human being on earth, no matter what their culture, creed, skin colour, or nationality, shares one gene traceable back to one African woman. Scientists have named it ‘The Eve Gene’. This means ALL of us, even ridiculously stupid, ignorant, perverted, blaspheming racists are the descendants of one African woman.
One African woman is the mother of all of us. Africa was the first world. You come from there! Your skin may be ‘white’.. because you didn’t need it to be black any more where you lived. But as Curtis Mayfield said.. “You’re just the surface of our dark, deep well”. So you’re being morons. And God is having the last laugh at your ignorant expense.
If you hate black people, its yourself you hate. And the mother who bore you. If you kill or wish ill on black people, its yourself you kill and wish ill on. As well as the mother who bore you.
When you dishonor the the utter glory and majesty of black people, you lie. Your heart lies to you and you let it. Despite seeing every day, all your life, how you and your country would be less than wonderfully functioning and inspiring to the world, without the manifold and glorious contributions made by the descendants of African slaves, who did not by the way actually ask to go to America and leave their future families there to be disrespected for eternity.
What are you doing hating yourself by hating your brothers and sisters who daily show you nothing but inspiration and love, despite having NOTHING, in their own country? Despite having barely a chance of anything, because of racism. Despite being granted no ‘permission’ for proper self-esteem.”
For the Culture Minster of Sweden to Apologise for the Offensive Display of Artwork towards Black African women in the form of the Painful Racist Cake.
To stop the abusive racially charged characterisations of black women, To empower black women as they defend themselves against racist and stereotypical imagery, to improve race relations in the African diaspora as well as on the continent, to raise cultural competence and sensitivity to issues pertaining to Africa and African cultures, to enhance understanding and views of African people as human beings with dignity and pride.
In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of modern humans. In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother’s side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is generally passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition. Mitochondrial Eve is the female counterpart of Y-chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor, although they lived thousands of years apart.
Each ancestor (of people now living) in the line back to the matrilineal MRCA had female contemporaries such as sisters, female cousins, etc. and some of these female contemporaries may have descendants living now (with one or more males in their descendancy line). But none of the female contemporaries of the “Mitochondrial Eve” has descendants living now in an unbroken female line.
Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago,[2] most likely in East Africa,[3] when Homo sapiens sapiens (anatomically modern humans) were developing as a population distinct from other human sub-species.
Mitochondrial Eve lived later than Homo heidelbergensis and the emergence of Homo neanderthalensis, but earlier than the out of Africa migration.[4] The dating for ‘Eve’ was a blow to the multiregional hypothesis, and a boost to the hypothesis that modern humans originated relatively recently in Africa and spread from there, replacing more “archaic” human populations such as Neanderthals. As a result, the latter hypothesis became dominant.
Samantha Asumadu is a British film director, producer and journalist. She has worked mainly in the Great Lakes Region of Africa doing news features and documentary. She also campaigns on democracy and safety issues.
In partnership with The Nightingale Theatre in Brighton, we’re really pleased to announce the launch of Bulbul 2012, our first annual playwriting competition for aspiring and emerging writers. (For those who don’t know, ‘bulbul’ is nightingale in Arabic.)
We are looking for four thirty-minute plays that engage with or respond to the Arab Spring. How you do that is entirely up to you. All we ask is that your work displays a unique voice, a strong storytelling element and a cohesive narrative.
The winning plays will be picked by a panel of judges that will include, amongst others, Steven Brett (Artistic Director of The Nightingale Theatre), Chris Taylor (Director of New Writing South), Tanushka Marah (Artistic Director of Company:Collisions) and award-winning playwright Alia Bano.
The winning entries will be performed by a professional cast at The Nightingale Theatre in September 2012.
GUIDELINES
Scripts must have a playing time of approximately 30 minutes, require minimal set/props and an acting company of no more than four. Please note, we are not looking for monologues, musicals, adaptations or children’s theatre. Our focus is on the writing!
Only original, previously unproduced/unpublished scripts that are inherently theatrical with live staging at their core will be accepted. Please do not send scripts for television, radio or film.
All scripts must be in English, typed in 12pt font and double spaced.
Please do not put your name or contact information anywhere on your script as all submissions will be read anonymously.
Applicants must be aged 16 or over. There is no upper age limit.
There is no limit on the number of plays an entrant can submit.
A non-refundable entry fee of £5 per script will apply. Please use the PayPal button below. Under ‘Add special instructions to the seller’ please include your full name, address and the title of your play.
Please do not send your only copy as we are unable to return scripts.
Please do not send any amendments or further drafts once your script has been submitted.
Please do not send cassettes, CDs, videos or sheet music with your script.
We are unable to enter into any correspondence about scripts (except with shortlisted entries).
The deadline for submission is 30 June 2012.
The four winning entries will be announced on 31 July 2012.
From the FREE Record Store Day 2012 limited edition 7.” The record also includes the K’NAAN’s cover of Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side.” National Record Store Day is Sat April 21, 2012
With the long-awaited documentary Marley hitting theaters tomorrow—and making history as the first movie to premiere simultaneously on Facebook—we thought we’d draw your attention to some footage that makes its way into one of the more interesting parts of the movie.
That would be video of Marley’s performance at Zimbabwe’s April 1980 independence celebrations. Things didn’t turn out so well. In an incident that foreshadowed the newly inaugurated Robert Mugabe’s chaotic (and ongoing) 32-year run as president, the concert was marred by a teargas incident which sent a number of Marley’s bandmates running offstage, with a high-on-adrenaline Marley performing through it as if nothing happened. (He’d later remark to his band, “now I really know who’s down for the cause.”)
Here’s a clip of natty dread mashing up “Zimbabwe” (a song which the film notes had been adopted as a rallying cry by Zimbabwean freedom fighters in the former Rhodesia’s run up to freedom) in Zimbabwe. Powerful stuff.
Look out for our interview with Marley director Kevin MacDonald tomorrow.
After years in the making, the documentary Marley hits theaters—and Facebook (where its making history as the first movie to screen on the site the same day as its release)—today. We caught the movie at its U.S. premiere in Miami last week, and it is an impressive document, rich in facts, perspectives and unseen footage new to even Bob Marley’s biggest fans—and the artist’s own family. We recently spoke with director Kevin MacDonald.
Large Up: One of the most interesting things about the movie was the choice of interview subjects and the depth of them. Can you tell me how you went about deciding on who to interview? Did you pick all the subjects or did they come to you? Kevin MacDonald: Everything about the film is mine. There [was] nobody else involved in any creative decisions about the movie. I just started by wanting to interview as many people as I could. So the project grew in an organic way from the desire to just find out about Bob and speak to everybody who was closest to him and who knew him best and were intimate with him. I started interviewing the family and then it turned into musicians and in the end I interviewed over 80 people, and I think 60 of those ended up in the film. Because there wasn’t a huge amount of archived footage of Bob, I [decided] to make the movie a kind of oral history of Bob Marley. The portrait of him is really painted by the words of the many people who appear in the film. Bob is quite an enigmatic figure. Most people believe he’s a huge star but I hope that, by the end of the film, everybody has contributed a little mosaic piece in the final portrait of Bob becoming visible for you.
LU: With all of those interviews, only two of his children were in the movie. Was there any reason why? KM: I interviewed others but most of the children were so young that they didn’t really have anything to say directly about Bob. I didn’t want to make a film where people were just giving me their opinions on how it felt to be Bob’s son—it was meant to be a portrait of the man. There are only really two children who have particularly strong memories of him, Cedella and Ziggy, and that is why they were the two who ended up in the film. They were 14 and 12 when Bob died and the others were, I think, eight or under so they were really quite young, and hadn’t spent that much time with Bob in the last couple of years. If you think about what you remember when you were that age, you can’t remember huge amounts.
LU: You traveled to Germany to the town where the medical facility was where Bob got treatment for cancer. What led you there? KM: Well, I think there has been so many stories told, so many conspiracies about Bob’s death, the illness and… I was interested, as I was in most cases in the film, in meeting the people who were there and finding out what the truth was rather than relying on second opinions and research. I hired a researcher who found the doctor who flew in the airplane with Bob, a couple of his neighbors, his nurse and I interviewed all of them and one ended up in the final film, the nurse. I think it was very interesting to see what the effect of Bob was on somebody from such a completely alien background, such a different culture as this woman was. And I was touched to see that he had a very powerful emotional effect on her and she remembered him so vividly.
LU: The photos that you had there at the end of him in his last days—had those been published before? KM: I think one or two of them had been in books but a lot of those came from local press agencies in Germany, in Bavaria and Munich. A huge amount of making this film was trying to find photographs, archive film, acoustic versions of songs. I had a great research person who was just tirelessly contacting every photo agency, every newspaper… for every twenty hits you made you probably got one result but that meant that we got things that were really special, pictures of Bob in the snow, with his sunglasses on when he’d lost his dreads—kind of very striking surreal images.
LU: Yeah, I’ll say, I had never seen those sort of pictures of him, in that state. KM: I think one of the most interesting things for me was, even Bob’s family, even the children didn’t really know that much about what had happened at the end of Bob’s life. That is one of the reasons why we thought we should go into some detail. It could be the subject of a whole film in it’s own right.
LU: Was there anything that you were asked not to include, or were you allowed to go into all the warts and things that you uncovered. KM: Nobody asked me not to include anything. That was sort of part of my arrangement with the family and with the producer. I’d made films about musicians before and I know how difficult it can be in terms of permissions and how sensitive people can be, and I didn’t want to get involved in that kind of arguments about cuts. I wasn’t interested in making a kind of airbrushed version of who Bob Marley was, and I made that clear in the beginning and the family were very happy to go along with giving me total creative control.
Kevin MacDonald
LU: Were you surprised to be approached about doing this movie? KM: I had tried to make a movie about Bob about seven or eight years ago—a documentary tracing the journey of a handful of Rastas from Jamaica to Ethiopia for the big concert that was being put on there in Ethiopia for Bob’s 60th birthday. I got to know Chris Blackwell and I spoke to a couple of members of the family and I met Diane Jobson, Bob’s lawyer and various other people. The film didn’t happen for a bunch of reasons but two years ago I got a call from the producer of this film, Steve Bing, who had bought the rights to the music to make a movie, and he said, “I’ve heard from Chris Blackwell that you are interested in Bob Marley and you’ve tried to make a film before, and are you still interested?” And I said, “Yes, very much so.” I loved the music so to me it was genuinely a dream come true.
LU: You grew up a fan? KM: I was thirteen when he died. I grew up in Scotland in the countryside but I remember Marley was obviously present, I don’t know how. One of the first three or four albums I ever bought was Uprising in 1980 and throughout my teen years I was very interested in Bob and I think partly that’s what gave me the motivation the make the movie. I think when music means that much to you when you are younger, it forms a part of who you are. So that’s why I wanted to understand who that man was.
LU: There have been more than a few efforts in the past at putting Bob’s life into a movie and this is really the first time that it’s ever come together. Why do you think that is? KM: Well, I think there’s a difference between the films people are trying to make, which are biopics, fictional movies with actors. I think the reason those haven’t happened has a lot to do with the reluctance of the Marley family to see anyone else playing Bob. Biopics are very difficult. I mean look at what Michael Mann did with Muhammad Ali. Great filmmaker, very well-made film, great actor but they didn’t really capture who Muhammad Ali is. And you wonder whether it would work with Bob. He’s so well-known, his face—would people accept it? I think also there are disagreements within members of the family about which project they’d like to back. A lot of different people have a voice in the Marley estate. My experience was that they were very keen to make this film and to give somebody creative freedom to make it. There were other directors meant to make this film before. I think maybe I had the good fortune of coming in at a point when everyone was just desperate to get it done. I think one of their motivations for making this film is very simply they wanted to know about their father. There were a lot of things in the film that they said to me, Oh we didn’t know that and we’ve learned a lot. They found seeing the film a very emotional experience, and a very educational experience for them. And that’s been one of the most gratifying things for me, to hear that from them.
LU: For somebody who’s life that has been parsed through so much, it seemed like you really found a lot of new details that people didn’t know about. KM: A lot of books have been written but they’ve all relied on the same basic material some of which is kind of dubious. Particularly in the 70’s people were a little less than scrupulous sometimes with their factchecking and things just get passed on. We spent the time and the money and the effort to be thorough and to persuade people to talk. I think about a third of the people in this film had never spoken before so it had a lot to do with the happy time we are doing this. People feel like they want to talk now, but it’s also we persevered in trying to persuade them to talk. We were rigorous about this. Bob is such an important figure, who we recognize more and more as a huge cultural icon, not just in music but in all culture, and I think he deserves that kind of rigor, and I think he deserves to be treated in a way that’s historically respectful. And that’s why I wanted to make a movie that is not your average rock n roll documentary. I can’t put everything in but I thought this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make this film and make a really comprehensive movie about Bob so I’ve got an obligation to history in a way.
LU: Who did you have to be most persistent with to get them to share their story? KM: Three people. Pascaline Bongo, who is the daughter of the president of Gabon; Allan “Skill” Cole, who was Bob’s greatest friend in the late ‘60s and ‘70s and professional footballer, has not really been interviewed before on camera; and Bunny Wailer, who has done interviews before but has grown very cynical about the sort of Bob Marley commodification.
LU: How did you come on that story of the princess of Gabon ? KM: I had been told by a few people that she had been very important in the last years of his life, in introducing him to Africa. The first time he played in Africa he was invited by her father but her, really. That seemed like a key point in his life. Obviously Africa means so much to him. I thought here’s a bizarre story, a strange individual in this incredibly luxurious environment and you feel like that’s a million miles from Trenchtown, so that appealed to me. They’d had a relationship that went beyond just a girlfriend relationship, I think she’d been also instrumental in a couple things in his life. She visited him in Germany before he died.
Thanks to a generous bequest from Sara A. Whaley, NWSA will offer two $2,000 Sara A. Whaley book awards on the topic of women and labor. This prize honors Sara Whaley, who owned Rush Publishing and was the editor of Women's Studies Abstracts. Each year NWSA will award up to 2 book awards ($2,000 each) on the topic of women and labor.
BASIC GUIDELINES
Women of color of the U.S. and/or International origin are encouraged to apply.
Suggested topics on women and labor include but are not limited to:
Migration and women’s paid jobs
Illegal immigration and women’s work
Impact of AIDS on women’s employment
Trafficking of women and women’s employment
Women and domestic works
Impact of race on women’s work
Senior Scholar Guidelines
Must be a current NWSA member
Books considered must have a first date of US publication between May 1, 2011 and April 30, 2012.
A senior scholar with a record of publication of at least two books.
Junior Scholar Guidelines
Must be a current NWSA member.
Manuscript must have signed at least a contract with a publisher or the book is already in production.
Welcome to the 2012 Concern Creative Writing Competition.
This year we look to the future...the year is 2050 and the population of the world has surpassed 10 billion people. You have been asked to write a 1,000 word chapter for the 2050 State of the Developing World Report. What will you write about?
The options are endless, but if you need suggestions download the flyer.
In this climate of rampant (or blatant) racism, many feel powerless and angry, not sure what they can do to help change the world. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis... We're often under the impression that to make a difference, you need to be a charismatic super-human that very few can measure up to. Activist and professor Angela Davis herself couldn't disagree more. She explains why, in this speech about the power of ordinary people, community, organizing, to bring about social change. And the woman knows what she's talking about, if you feel me... All those emblematic figures are people like you and me, who decided to take their concerns to the next level and get involved. Watch the video below (appearance sponsored by the Women's Resources and Research Center at UC Davis in 2007, brought to our attention by BoweryBetty).
- Lou Constant-Desportes
