#syreeta mcfadden

[garadinervi]

Syreeta McFadden, The Exhibit That Reveals Toni Morrison’s Obsessions, «The Atlantic», April 22, 2023

Exhibition: Toni Morrison: Sites of Memory, Curated by Autumn Womack, Milberg Gallery, Firestone Library, Princeton University Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, February 22 – June 4, 2023

[ireadstuffiguess]

“Only in America can a dead black boy go on trial for his own murder.”

- Syreeta McFadden

[skylightbooks]

“Carrasco goes on to tell Pieces’ director, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, about a 1995 reading in Mexico City where Morrison was greeted by a huge crowd of ardent fans. When she took the stage, the audience was asked if they wanted an interpreter. They refused, Carrasco recalls, saying that they understood her: ‘They know there’s a freedom in this woman’s language.’” 

[keeperofkats]

As Syreeta McFadden noted, 'Only in America can a dead black boy go on trial for his own murder.'

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

[protoslacker]

Last week, after much anxiety over the fate of nearly 4 million historic photographs, those archives were sold at auction for $30 million to a consortium of the nation’s leading private foundations. The archives will be donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Getty Research Institute. “If the sale had not been acquired through the partnership of the four foundations, it would have been deeply disappointing, to say the least, to archivists whose work it is to not only organize and preserve archival material but to make them accessible,” Jina DuVernay, a visiting archivist of African American collections at Emory University, told me via email. “The worst case scenario would have been that the Ebony photo archive would be sold to a private owner and no one would have access to the vast images. Without the images, future generations would not have the evidence, documentation, and the wealth of knowledge that can be acquired from the photographs.”

Jina DuVernay quoted in an article by Syreeta McFadden in The Atlantic. Why Ebony Magazine’s Archives Were Saved

The famed chronicler of black American life commissioned some of the most important photos in history—and they were almost lost to the public.

[angel-realm]

human hair contains histories / here’s mine: when I wash it shrinks to a sponge / absorbs your bullshit questions / and your passive aggression

meaning, if you pull / it will resist / my hair is switchblade: if you touch it / you will bleed

- Syreeta McFadden; Question and Answer. Or: Pirate Jenny Shit Talks with Her Employee

[journalistpeterparker]

Zac Efron Shows Off His Racism

thanks @tchallin for proofreading this for me 

Zac Efron posted a picture of himself sporting dreadlocks on instagram last week, sparking instant backlash.

It may seem silly to some that all this outrage is over a hairstyle, but the issue is deeper than that. While several cultures have ties to dreadlocks, they are predominantly associated with black people. The policing of black people’s hairstyles is a well documented form of racial discrimination.

“To many African Americans, it is a hairstyle that represents a reclamation of black identity. It is a hairstyle of protest and beauty, a restoration of justice and rejection of western European (read: white) beauty standards,” Syreeta McFadden wrote for the Guardian.

McFadden is right. There is a long history of dreadlocks being used to resist white supremacy.

“Bahatowie priests of the Ethiopian Coptic church locked their hair since the fifth century... the practice absorbed political meaning when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, forcing Emperor Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari) into exile...Guerrilla warriors under the command of Ras Abebe Aregai swore not to cut their locks until Selassie was restored to the throne.” McFadden explained.

Likewise, Kikuyu freedom fighters in Kenya wore their hair in locks when they fought imperialists from Britain.

Yet Black people are often denied jobs for wearing natural hairstyles. In 2015, when Zendaya wore dreadlocks to the Oscars, Giuliana Rancic said the Disney star “smells like patchouli oil ... or weed.”

Conversely, when Kylie Jenner, a white woman, wore dreads, she was praised by the media as a “risk taker” and generally rewarded by fans and the industry.

When black people celebrate their heritage, they are demonized. But when white people bastardize it, they are rewarded.

“There’s history and context tied to these styles that cannot be ignored, a historical legacy forever linked to the ongoing cultural remnants of slavery and institutional racism,” Zeba Blay of the  Huffington Post wrote. “A white person who wears these styles dismisses that context and turns black hair into a novelty, a parody, a subtle form of blackface...White women are able to wear black hairstyles without the stigma of actually being black.”  

“The line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurred. But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves,” actress Amandla Stenberg said in 2015. “Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.”

This debate is not new. Zac Efron has a phone with internet access, he has undoubtedly seen these debates unfolded around other celebrities several times before. He has no excuse to be this ignorant. That he still chose to wear dreadlocks shows how little he, and others like him, think of black people and their history.

[troismediac-blog]

Dystopian Entertainment: Are We an Irony?

source: bustle.com

George Orwell’s 1984, Black Mirror, Divergent, Fahrenheit 451, Hunger Games, and many others. You name it.

We are living in a world where dystopian universe feels near, just like a blink of an eye. Many people from centuries ago tried to picture what our world will look like many many years from now. The dystopian naratives gives us a perspective where the world become much worse than we could imagine. Technologies, AI, science and other human’s inventions is throwing human its boomerang for disrespecting nature, society and humanity.

This dystopian naratives are pictured to us through many ways; legends, artworks, historical artifacts, and of course, entertainment. Dystopian entertainment will teach us what we need to learn about dystopian world and at the same time, make us sit in our chair comfortably, watching our own world tearing apart. Thus, this dystopian fiction become a popular imagination, confronting a major existential dilemma: making people fear of something is no longer a useful way of preventing it.

As Devon Maloney stated in his article at the verge.com:

“Dystopian futures have never been more piercingly relevant. We live in an era when many of the genre’s most far-reaching prophecies have come true, from radical inequality and authoritarian doublespeak to irreversible climate change and unsettling breakthroughs in AI. Dystopian fiction is inherently political, but it also gained steam because it was good entertainment, an escapist adventure into the frightening hypothetical consequences of human frailty. But when the real world is so thoroughly exhausting, it’s hard to get any kicks from such a deeply cynical format: a genre that predicts steadily worse conditions on the horizon.”

source: diariodonordeste.verdesmares.com.br

Not only dystopian entertainment reflects our anxieties and existential crisis, they now reflecting our reality. Or bluntly, our ironic reality. Contemporary dystopian entertainment, films, literature, etc., gain their inspiration from our worst nightmare as human beings and our worst imaginings of ourselves-- and it is, in a way, tends to be more real than not. 

Ironically, we are watching the possibilities of our world and the reflection of our own lives but after that we are throwing our popcorn cups into the street, laughing about the movie and without importance, criticizing the director for that bad shoots and cranky jokes.

This is probably why I find strange comfort in consuming dystopian stories. They are reminders, despite reflecting a dire present, that it’s never too late for us, that we’re not that far gone and can reverse the machinery that makes our nightmares real. Maybe they are a kind of litany for survival, that humanity will continue despite our best efforts to destroy ourselves. (McFadden, 2015)

Referensi:

Maloney, David.  2018. To stay relevant, Black Mirror has to change how dystopian fiction works. https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/31/16955308/black-mirror-happy-endings-debate-the-purpose-of-dystopian-fiction-charlie-booker-season-4

McFadden, Syreeta. 2015. Dystopian stories used to reflect our anxieties. Now they reflect our reality. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/26/dystopian-stories-margaret-atwood-walking-dead-zombies

[sinrau]

Months removed from the height of nationwide street protests, the movement has arrived at an important juncture, where its next steps will determine its success.

Syreeta McFadden 7:00 AM ET

Direct action is never the primary component of a movement’s longevity; it is only a piece that works in concert with a multitude of efforts.Martin H. Simon / Redux

August 28 holds significant meaning for many African Americans. This year, it marked the 65th anniversary of the murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy who was lynched by two white men near Money, Mississippi. Till’s death served as one of the catalysts for the civil-rights movement, and organizers of the 1963 March on Washington—one of the largest mass demonstrations of the 20th century—selected this date for their gathering. This year was also the 57th anniversary of that march. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the National Action Network organized thousands of people wearing masks to fill the Mall last Friday and commemorate the march’s legacy—and assert a new commitment to fighting injustice. It is not a coincidence that the Movement for Black Lives —a consortium of more than 50 Black-led organizations, including the Black Lives Matter Global Network—also hosted its virtual Black National Convention that Friday evening, where it unveiled its multipronged political agenda on matters of police brutality and beyond.

The momentum for cultural and political change stemming from the reemergence of Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer has been extraordinary. Throughout communities across the country, portraits of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are wheat-pasted on building walls. Signs that read black lives matter are posted in residential and storefront windows, and the words have been painted onto city streets. Statues that venerate racists, segregationists, and Confederates have come tumbling down. Brands and corporations have rushed to acknowledge systemic racism, ranging between strong and lukewarm commitments to addressing structural inequities. The Minneapolis City Council unanimously voted to dismantle its police department. And school districts in Oakland, California ~,~ and Madison, Wisconsin, announced plans to terminate their police contracts. But as the end of summer approaches, will this transformative energy last or languish?

Since the height of the protests in June, there’s been an absence of a meaningful nationwide embrace of police reforms. That month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the creation of a national database on police use of force, yet the measure fails to address broader issues related to policing. And while the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, may provide renewed pressure on state legislators to act, there’s no denying that the largest social movement of the 21st century has to enter a new chapter.

To that end, at Friday night’s convention, the Movement for Black Lives presented a robust 2020 platform, connecting the dots among issues of policing, reproductive justice, housing, climate change, immigration, and disabled and trans rights. In addition to outlining demands to “ end the war on Black people,” the platform urges the passage of the Breathe Act, federal legislation that would ensure the closure of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, defund police departments, and reestablish social programs for the formerly incarcerated. The platform also calls for land reparations for Indigenous communities and Black farmers, electoral justice via the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and the advocacy and protection of trans people. The convention was an energetic capstone to a summer of victories both significant and modest.

Still, direct action is never the primary component of a movement’s longevity; it is only a piece that works in concert with a multitude of efforts. Movements frequently face setbacks and fierce resistance, and some even wait decades to capture the national imagination. “When the cameras turn off, when there’s not as much attention to the issues in mass media or social media, we think that the movement activity has somehow ended,” Allen Kwabena Frimpong, a co-founder of the AdAstra Collective, an organization that supports and studies social movements, said in a recent interview. “But it hasn’t. It’s that what is required of us has shifted … in this phase of the cycle. It’s a time to build strategy.”

When Black Lives Matter protests first captured the nation’s attention and spread across American cities in the late summer of 2014, three high-profile police killings of Black people had occurred: John Crawford III in Ohio, Eric Garner in New York, and Michael Brown in Missouri. It was 18-year-old Brown’s shooting death by an officer in Ferguson that marked a tipping point in the movement: The nation saw several weeks of uprisings and sustained protests demanding policing reform and accountability. That energy was sustained in Chicago, New York, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Oakland, St. Louis, and others until 2016.

The street protests subsided with the advent of Trump’s presidency, but this did not mean that activism and organizing weren’t happening behind the scenes. The networks created by those protests nurtured the infrastructure necessary to seed engagement today. The Movement for Black Lives released a policy platform in 2016, pivoting toward increased influence in electoral politics, and advocating for economic justice, investment in education and health care, and reparations. And activists working in Ferguson launched Campaign Zero, a data-driven resource that drew attention to police-union contracts that make it impossible to discipline, investigate, or fire officers for repeated charges of misconduct. Organizers from these groups, along with those from the Black Lives Matter Global Network, have maintained a clarity of focus for years.

And it shows: In 2016, just 43 percent of Americans supported the Black Lives Matter movement. Four years later, the needle has moved significantly. A majority of Americans —and more than half of white people— support the protests as well as major reform in policing. Defunding police departments has been a long-held position by activists working toward outright abolition and the transformation of norms for enforcing public safety. In this moment, ideas that were once deemed too radical have meaningfully entered the mainstream discourse.

Perhaps the closest analogue for this present American moment is 1965, in Selma, Alabama—where protests led to a swift federal legislative response. After years of grassroots efforts and organizing to challenge local voting laws that barred Black Americans from the ballot box, national civil-rights leaders from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee started to align their efforts with Alabama activists. But it was the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson —a veteran and church deacon who was shot by a state trooper during a nighttime march on February 18—that accelerated the push for federal intervention. That’s when the idea to march 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery was born. (At one point, organizers considered carrying Jackson’s casket to the steps of the capitol to lay at the feet of Governor George Wallace.)

On March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, the nation witnessed the totalitarian brutality of the American South on live TV when state troopers advanced on some 600 protesters attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Then-25-year-old John Lewis, the head of SNCC, was severely beaten and suffered a skull fracture; the troopers tear-gassed and battered other protesters on the bridge. From Atlanta, the head of the SCLC, Martin Luther King Jr., urged people from other states to come to Selma in solidarity, and by March 9, hundreds had answered the call. They attempted to cross the bridge again to march to Montgomery, but turned back to avoid another confrontation with the troopers. The strategy was employed to dramatize the unequal application of the law and to affirm the peaceful disobedience of this enterprise. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., as protests in support of the Alabama campaign went on outside the White House, a small group of young people staged a sit-in for almost seven hours—first in a main-floor corridor and later in the East Wing—after surreptitiously gaining entry through one of the building’s public guided tours.

Activists, bolstered by the national attention to the crisis in Selma, saw the swift materialization of those efforts at the federal level. On March 15, addressing a joint session of Congress, President Lyndon Johnson introduced voting-rights legislation. “Their cause must be our cause too,” Johnson said. “Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.” With the support of federal courts, activists and allies set out again for Montgomery, leaving Selma on March 21 and arriving at the capitol on March 25. That final Selma-to-Montgomery march, which culminated with 25,000 participants, was the embodiment of a victory soon to come: On August 6, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

The civil-rights movement was ultimately successful, yet it was also beset by ruthless obstruction. Prior to 1965, Selma activists, along with SNCC, orchestrated voter-registration efforts and sit-ins to protest segregation, and were met with fierce resistance from state and local authorities in concert with the White Citizens’ Council and the Ku Klux Klan. A 1964 court injunction forbidding gatherings of three or more people for the cause of civil rights also stymied momentum. It’s clear that social movements are endemic to American life: The constant presence of protests and activism has shaped culture and policy over the past 60 years. Yet the anticipation of delays and deterrence by oppositional forces is built into movement work. Key players have to continuously adapt their strategies and challenge resistance by powerful actors to achieve any movement’s goals.

Today, the Black Lives Matter movement is a decentralized, leaderful, interdependent network of organizations and individuals, channeling its resources toward building a society where Black people can flourish. Friday’s march and convention presented a myriad of committed activists working twin threads of direct-action protests and longer-term plans to dramatize the urgency of this crisis. Rooted in Black feminist thought, the convention demonstrated the capaciousness of this movement and highlighted efforts from large and small communities nationwide. Success for these activists and allies ranges from closing down a notorious jail to electing someone to Congress. As long as these efforts face a hostile Trump administration, though, the movement is likely to encounter many setbacks. Still, its holistic agenda—that all (cis/trans/queer/disabled) Black lives matter—is why the movement will last.

“Every Black person in the United States is gonna stand up,” Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake, told the crowd at Friday’s march. “We’re gonna hold court today. We’re gonna hold court on systematic racism … Guilty. Racism against all of us.” Widespread multicity street protests in the name of Blake and others may once again claim nationwide consciousness. But the unseen, deliberative work of activism will persist whether the cameras are on or off.

Black Lives Matter Just Entered Its Next Phase

[feministdeathparty]

Many filters are both technological and cultural, and often we are not aware of these filters. An example that is particularly relevant for selfies and photography in general is that of the bias towards white skin in most twentieth-century photography (Roth 2009; McFadden 2014). Early camera film was calibrated to provide good detail for white faces, but the light sensitivity was so narrow that faces with darker skin were shown with hardly any detail, with eyes and teeth often the only discernable features. Lighting and balance were calibrated by using ‘Shirley cards’: images of a pale skinned woman with dark hair against a white background. It is only in the last couple of decades that calibration cards have reflected all skin tones, for instance by including images of a range of people with different skin tones, as well as objects in a range of colours. Even today it can be difficult to take a photo of a light skinned and a dark skinned person together without losing all detail in one or the other face.

Lorna Roth writes that in the 1950s some parents did complain to Kodak that class photos lit for the white children did not show the faces of the black children, but despite this there were no organised campaigns for Kodak or other companies to improve film. It wasn’t until the 1970s, when companies selling chocolate and dark woods complained that they couldn’t get good photos of these dark items that Kodak developed their Gold Max film with better light sensitivity. Roth (2009) speculates that the reason that the change came from pressure from advertisers’ rather than from the African-American community was that ‘at the time, it was assumed by the public that such things were based on science and could not be changed, and so battles were fought on issues of economics, poverty, and other civil rights matters that were of higher priority to the African-American and African-Canadian communities’ (120). This kind of technological determinism (the belief that technology drives cultural change) is a common assumption, often criticised by scholars but still frequently taken for granted by everyday people who have not had the assumption challenged (Winner 1980; Wyatt 2007). Photographers and the people who developed the technology were not likely to be deliberately creating the skin tone bias, at least not on an individual level, but the effect was far-reaching: people with darker skin tones rarely saw good or natural photographic images of themselves. And nobody thought of simply calibrating film to suit dark skin better. Even today, lighting and photography techniques tend to be taught to suit light skin tones, and as photographer Syreeta McFadden writes in her article ‘Teaching The Camera to See My Skin’ (2014), the skill of photographing people of colour well is often hard-learned and self-taught.

Jill Walker Rettberg. (2014). Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves

[ameliawiseaub]

Contextual Research - Songs that Spark and Support Social and Political Movements  

Beyoncé: “Formation”

The singer’s newest video is an inherently political and a deeply personal look at the black and queer bodies who have most often borne the brunt of our politics

Formation is both provocation and pleasure; inherently political and a deeply personal look at the black and queer bodies who have most often borne the brunt of our politics. All shapes and shades of black bodies are signaled here and move – dare we say “forward”? – in formation. Even the song’s title is subversive, winking at how we have constructed our identities from that which we were even allowed to call our own.

The potency of Formation doesn’t come from its overt politics: it comes from the juxtaposition of lyric with the images, which organically present black humanity in ways we’ve haven’t seen frequently represented in popular art or culture.

[caribbeaeequalityproject]

In honor of LGBTQI+ Awareness Month @bmcc.theater is hosting an Evening with @staceyannchin - Feminist, Poet, LGBTQ+ Activist. Staceyann Chin is a spoken-word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Pittsburgh Daily, and has been featured on 60 Minutes. She was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she shared her struggles growing up as a gay person in Jamaica. Panel Discussion follows the reading with” Staceyann Chin, Professor Brianne Waychoff (Gender & Women Studies) and Professor Syreeta McFadden (English) Book Signing: bring your book and have it signed by Staceyann! For more information, contact Karl O. Williams at kowilliams@bmcc.cuny.edu. (at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4NhUAJBA63/?igshid=19mwo9h2ie8wr

[just-quirky-artee]

             After re-reading the Eisenhower article, a few times, I think I have a better understanding of its message. In correlation to the article, I think remix can be used to actively “fight” against what is being mass consumed. They mention that the culture that young girls are consuming is making them the passive victim (I want to expand it to beyond just girls because younglings all have things being showed to them that’s detrimental to mental and physical health). Remix is an epic way to go against normative dichotomies and think critically of our current social world. If remix is done in an accessible way to the masses (meaning that they can easily read into it and understand its larger issue) it creates a rip in the messy web that’s been woven online.

               It’s easy to see now, the historic visual culture of photography. Syreeta McFadden’s podcast, along with our discussion last class, revealed a new perspective to me. One that had not even dawned on me until this school year. I think that also must relate to the Language of Bombardment. I was never told about these critical issues. I had never learned about Intersectionality. I was taught one thing, one way, for 13 years. Immediately, my own personal images changed. Those reaction gifs I’ve seen online have changed. I see people (you know those ones from high school who you just cringe at but are necessary to you for a reality check that people really ARE that ignorant) who post memes with African Americans being displayed as a joke for being themselves. These images can be changed by active education. Not by passive note taking on uninteresting, comic-sans-riddled, and un-informational education.  

               I have heard of a few videos on the playlist. Watching the Key & Peele video again didn’t make me laugh-cry, you know that kind where you bang your funny bone on something, like the first time in 2012 (9th grade). It made me question why it was so funny to me. Why did I not understand the intention of this video beyond its intent to make people laugh? Why has everyone who’s talked about it NEVER mentioned its true intention? The video narrated by Laverne Cox was extortionary well documented. Like wow, what a great artist and video all together. But again, WHY WAS I NEVER TAUGHT THIS? If friggen shoulders in high school are an issue, then the school board has severely over looked REAL issues in this world. Creating sheep that do not venture out of their farm and are herded back in the moment they get too close to the gate do not make for an active society! Fight back. Ask questions. F the (poisonous) dichotomies.

                >>>>>>>>>Oh one other thing, I thought it was interesting that we’ve been talking about color, color film, and lighting but the Kendrick Lamar video was in black and white.

[hannahrosevanbuskirk-blog]

Trainer 03: Changing Times/Changing Images

I think that introducing remix as a tool for art making teaches students to become more conscious media consumers, because they are critically thinking about the media they are exposed to in order to incorporate it or critique it in their own artistic practice or form of making. 

A great example of a well known musical artist doing just this is Beyonce. The music video to Formation, and all of Lemonade in general, is chock full of references to other artists and media creators. In the “Formation” video, Beyonce visually references a specific scene in the movie Daughters of the Dust, she also references performance artist Pipilotti Rist’s Ever is Over All performance where she smashes cars, and Charles Laughton’s The Night of The Hunter, which is a 1952 film noir movie about a West Virginia serial killer. Beyonce’s Lemonade is rich with references to art and media that don’t necessarily deal with content relating to her work, but she takes these and sort of “remixes’ them to fit into her artistic vision, and make her content more powerful. Doing this can change the way the remixed content affects the consumer. Syreeta McFadden did this in a way as well, but in a more direct way because she became a photographer and “remixed”, physically changed the way that black skin is portrayed in photography. 

The Eisenhower article mentions the phenomena of the teenage girl only being able to consume “junk culture”, and this made me think of rookiemag, which is an online magazine that was created by Tavi Gevinson (then a teenage girl), for teenage girls, because she felt that there was a lack of relevant, interesting, stimulating content being marketed towards that demographic. She created the website based off the layout for a typical online magazine, but all the content is created by teenage girls, content that they want to read and they want to see. This is a great example of seemingly vulnerable media consumers becoming media producers. Teaching students to take what they consume and create new things with it is a great tool in art education