if you live in l.a.

MENDI + KEITH OBADIKE LAUNCH BIG HOUSE / DISCLOSURE

a 200-hour long house song with the voices of Chicago-area Citizens

WHEN: March 1^st- 8^th
WHERE: Northwestern Univ. Campus – Kresge Hall and online at
http://Blacknetart.com/Bighouse.html

CONTACTS: office@blacknetart.com (blacknetart.com) &

w-leopold@northwestern.edu, 847-491-4890 (Northwestern Office of

University Relations)

Mendi + Keith Obadike (born 1973, USA) make interdisciplinary art works using live art, music, literature, and new media. One of their better-known projects is Blackness for Sale, in which they auctioned Keith’s blackness on eBay. Mendi + Keith were commissioned by Northwestern University’s Art Theory and Practice Department to create a new work, Big House / Disclosure, an intermedia suite featuring a 200-hour long house song that will be heard in real-time from March 1st-8^th in Kresge Hall on Northwestern’s campus and online at http://www.blacknetart.com/Bighouse.html. This work was created in honor of the 200^th anniversary of the abolition of the British Slave trade in 1807 and Chicago’s role as the first city in the United States to adopt a Slavery Era Disclosure Ordinance in 2002, requiring businesses seeking city contracts to disclose whether they have profited from slavery.

Big House / Disclosure was constructed using audio interviews conducted by Northwestern University students with Chicago-area citizens about slavery and the city’s slavery era ordinance. Mixing these interviews with elements of Chicago house music, the artists created a multi-channel sound installation. The project includes 200 video clips of live art and musical performances viewable from the website (http://blacknetart.com/BigHouse.html). Musical events in the sound installation are triggered by custom-designed software tracking the real-time rise and fall stock prices of several corporations that have admitted to profiting from slavery.

Keith Obadike received a BA in Visual Art from North Carolina Central University and an MFA in Sound Design from Yale University. Mendi Obadike received a BA in English from Spelman College and a Ph.D. in Literature from Duke University. They have received a Rockefeller New Media Art Fellowship and commissions from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitechapel Gallery of London, Electronic Arts Intermix, and The New York African Film Festival. Their Internet opera, The Sour Thunder, was commissioned by Yale University, broadcast in its’ entirety in (104.5 fm) Berlin, and released by Bridge Records in 2004. In 2005 they launched Four Electric Ghosts, an opera produced by Toni Morrison’s Atelier at Princeton University, and in 2006 they performed a live sound art transmission from the Amory Art Show in New York commissioned by the Franklin Furnace. Big House / Disclosure has been generously supported by a Pick-Laudati Award from Northwestern University.

http://www.cas.northwestern.edu/arthistory/outofsight/related.html

NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

March 30 - April 22, 2007

300 North Washington Street · Gettysburg, PA 17325
P: 717.337.6300

Opening Reception: Friday, March 30, 5-7 pm

Artist Roundtable: Saturday, March 31, 9-10:30 am

This exhibition features the works of nine contemporary artists from across the country and abroad who are dealing with the problems involved in attempting to define the African/African American self. A broad range of artistic media are included (painting, photography, sculpture, installation), demonstrating both traditional and more conceptual approaches to representing visually the diversity of experience and history that today informs notions of individual identity within diasporic African communities.

Frank Hallam Day
Andries Fourie
Claudia C. Marchini
Christina M. Marsh
Issa Nyaphaga
Takara Portis
John E. Rozelle
Hank Willis Thomas
Lydia C. Thompson

Part of the 2007 CPC Africana Studies Conference, "Interrogating Issues of Citizenship, Identity, Ethnicity and Race in the African World, 150 Years After the Dred Scott Decision."

interesting

(Although I've worked on enough publishing projects with a poor or no editor to know that citing it from a print source isn't always more reliable...)

A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source

By NOAM COHEN

Published: February 21, 2007

When half a dozen students in Neil Waters’s Japanese history class at Middlebury College asserted on exams that the Jesuits supported the Shimabara Rebellion in 17th-century Japan, he knew something was wrong. The Jesuits were in “no position to aid a revolution,” he said; the few of them in Japan were in hiding.

He figured out the problem soon enough. The obscure, though incorrect, information was from Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia, and the students had picked it up cramming for his exam.

Dr. Waters and other professors in the history department had begun noticing about a year ago that students were citing Wikipedia as a source in their papers. When confronted, many would say that their high school teachers had allowed the practice.

But the errors on the Japanese history test last semester were the last straw. At Dr. Waters’s urging, the Middlebury history department notified its students this month that Wikipedia could not be cited in papers or exams, and that students could not “point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors.”

With the move, Middlebury, in Vermont, jumped into a growing debate within journalism, the law and academia over what respect, if any, to give Wikipedia articles, written by hundreds of volunteers and subject to mistakes and sometimes deliberate falsehoods. Wikipedia itself has restricted the editing of some subjects, mostly because of repeated vandalism or disputes over what should be said.

Although Middlebury’s history department has banned Wikipedia in citations, it has not banned its use. Don Wyatt, the chairman of the department, said a total ban on Wikipedia would have been impractical, not to mention close-minded, because Wikipedia is simply too handy to expect students never to consult it.

At Middlebury, a discussion about the new policy is scheduled on campus on Monday, with speakers poised to defend and criticize using the site in research.

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia and chairman emeritus of its foundation, said of the Middlebury policy, “I don’t consider it as a negative thing at all.”

He continued: “Basically, they are recommending exactly what we suggested — students shouldn’t be citing encyclopedias. I would hope they wouldn’t be citing Encyclopaedia Britannica, either.

“If they had put out a statement not to read Wikipedia at all, I would be laughing. They might as well say don’t listen to rock ’n’ roll either.”

Indeed, the English-language version of the site had an estimated 38 million users in the United States in December, and can be hard to avoid while on the Internet. Google searches on such diverse subjects as historical figures like Confucius and concepts like torture give the Wikipedia entry the first listing.

In some colleges, it has become common for professors to assign students to create work that appears on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia’s list of school and university projects, this spring the University of East Anglia in England and Oberlin College in Ohio will have students edit articles on topics being taught in courses on the Middle East and ancient Rome.

In December 2005, a Columbia professor, Henry Smith, had the graduate students in his seminar create a Japanese bibliography project, posted on Wikipedia, to describe and analyze resources like libraries, reference books and newspapers. With 16 contributors, including the professor, the project comprises dozens of articles, including 13 on different Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias.

In evaluations after the class, the students said that creating an encyclopedia taught them discipline in writing and put them in contact with experts who improved their work and whom, in some cases, they were later able to interview.

“Most were positive about the experience, especially the training in writing encyclopedia articles, which all of them came to realize is not an easy matter,” Professor Smith wrote in an e-mail message. “Many also retained their initial ambivalence about Wikipedia itself.”

The discussion raised by the Middlebury policy has been covered by student newspapers at the University of Pennsylvania and Tufts, among others. The Middlebury Campus, the student weekly, included an opinion article last week by Chandler Koglmeier that accused the history department of introducing “the beginnings of censorship.”

Other students call the move unnecessary. Keith Williams, a senior majoring in economics, said students “understand that Wikipedia is not a responsible source, that it hasn’t been thoroughly vetted.” Yet he said, “I personally use it all the time.”

Jason Mittell, an assistant professor of American studies and film and media culture at Middlebury, said he planned to take the pro-Wikipedia side in the campus debate. “The message that is being sent is that ultimately they see it as a threat to traditional knowledge,” he said. “I see it as an opportunity. What does that mean for traditional scholarship? Does traditional scholarship lose value?”

For his course “Media Technology and Cultural Change,” which began this month, Professor Mittell said he would require his students to create a Wikipedia entry as well as post a video on YouTube, create a podcast and produce a blog for the course.

Another Middlebury professor, Thomas Beyer, of the Russian department, said, “I guess I am not terribly impressed by anyone citing an encyclopedia as a reference point, but I am not against using it as a starting point.”

And yes, back at Wikipedia, the Jesuits are still credited as supporting the Shimabara Rebellion.

new site

Welcome to Open Door ::: contemporary art projects

Bayeté Ross-Smith, Passport Series

About Us

Open Door-Contemporary Art Projects (OD-CAP) offers a novel approach to accessing art and culture information. Using a combination of different media, OD-CAP exists in a new virtual territory and takes the “best practices” in the complex world of art museums and exhibitions to “extend the white cube” making it possible for artists, scholars, and curators to interact with off and online communities.

OD-CAP is a specific content-oriented social-networking interactive collaborative site to change long held assumptions about audiences and their engagement with art. The OD-CAP website explores and develops the intersection between technology and community-building. At OD-CAP, visitors at all levels can discover new colleagues and collaborators through shared interests. Visitors can also adapt new media habits through the OD-CAP site exploring technology to make a difference in their personal visual literacy and the visual literacy of their communities.

Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins, Ph.D

Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins, Ph.D. is the founder and principal of LeFalleCuratorial, a curatorial firm specializing in modern and contemporary art of the Black diaspora. Recent projects explore the ever-changing world of contemporary art.

As a component of LeFalleCuratorial, OD-CAP encourages collaborations with communities and organizations whose work intersects with art practices that illuminate overarching urban cultural realities. OD-CAP encourages concepts in sustaining physical and cultural environments as central elements of healthy communities.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR AN OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, MARCH 1 FROM 6-8PM

BRADLEY McCALLUM & JACQUELINE TARRY
WHITEWASH
March 2-30, 2007

Lisa Dent Gallery
660 Mission Street, 4th Fl.
b'twn 3rd Street and New Montgomery

Lisa Dent Gallery is proud to present the work of McCallum Tarry in their first solo exhibition in San Francisco. The exhibition will include paintings from their newest series, Whitewash, as well as a video and still photographs from their recent project, Cut. At first glance, the works from the Whitewash series appear ephemeral and poetic. Using photographs mined from the archives of various national collections taken during the 1950s and 60s, closer examination reveals the tension and violence of the Civil Rights Era. Many of the photographs have been widely circulated over the last 40 years as reference points of the cultural and political upheaval occurring in the US; assassinations of political leaders, the desegregation of schools, urban rioting. McCallum and Tarry have painted the images on canvas with printed silk stretched over the surfaces. The works read as our memories, the communities and events becoming illusive and more subtle over time. In their video project, Cut, the artists themselves are shown in the process of cutting each other'€™s hair. Instead of the comfort of a barber'€™s chair or the use of fine scissors, the artist'€™s instead are revealed half dressed in a seemingly vast, dilapidated room, using only a small razor blade to remove their hair. Their actions are unsettling and rough at one moment, gentle and erotic the next, leaving a work that is €œsexually charged, racially fraught and emotionally complex.€ Cut was created during a recent residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA. Bradley McCallum received his BFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and his MFA from Yale University. Jacqueline Tarry received her BA in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo and was a 2003 participant in the Whitney Museum'€™s Independent Study Program. The artists live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 12:00-6:00pm and by appointment Lisa Dent Gallery Website

Dr. Eric Jolly, the President of the Science Museum of Minnesota, has
recently opened an exhibit that takes a frank and honest look at the
issue of "race". Entitled "Race: Are We So Different", the exhibit
is designed to travel across the US. If you would like to learn about it,
please follow the link below.


http://www.smm.org/race/

huh

Overnight somebody posting a bunch of vitriolic nonsense to this blog. Now it's gone and won't be back. Take that elsewhere and start your own blog--I'm not interested.

http://develop.temple.edu/alumni_friends/blast/feb07/tyler/africa.htm

FROM TABOO TO ICON: IMAGES OF THE BLACK BODY
Naomi Beckwith, Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow, ICA, University of Pennsylvania
Allan L. Edmunds, Artist, Educator, Founder and President, Brandywine Workshop
Lonnie Graham, Artist and Professor of Visual Art, Pennsylvania State University
Emily Hage, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Deborah Willis, Artist, Scholar, Chair and Professor of Photography & Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

Symposium Moderator:
Dr. Susanna Gold, Lecturer in Art History, Tyler School of Art

Tuesday, February 27, 2007
5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 105
Temple University, Main Campus
1809 North 13th Street

This event is free of charge.

For more information about the symposium, visit www.sophiesanders.com or call 215.204.7837.

Major funding for the symposium marketing and post-event dinner provided by the Temple University Graduate School; other major funding provided by the Temple University Alumni Association, the General Activity Fee, the Art History Department, and the Office of the Dean of Tyler School of Art. Additional support donated by Exhibitions and Public Programs of Tyler School of Art, the Graduate Art History Organization, the Faculty Senate Lectures and Forums Committee of Temple University and an anonymous donor. Collaborative assistance provided by the African American Studies Department, Temple University.

To make a gift to Tyler School of Art click here.

Renee Cox & Wangechi Mutu
cordially invite you to MoCADA in Fort Greene, Brooklyn on
Thursday, February 22, 6:00-9:00pm,
for the opening reception of
The Postmillennial Black Madonna: Paradise & Inferno
A Two-Venue Multimedia Exhibition by 23 Artists

Feb-May 2007 · Brooklyn NY
MoCADA & Skylight Gallery

www.postBME.com

Presented by Renee Cox & Wangechi Mutu
Curated by Danny Simmons & Brian Tate

Featuring New and Recent Work by:
Sameeh Alderazi, Aisha Tandiwe Bell, Sanford Biggers, Sherry Bittle & 
Michael
Rader, Tyrone Osborne Brown, Barron Claiborne, Onyedika Chuke, Bara 
Diokhane,
Sherman Fleming, Jeffrey Gibson, Ayaana V. Jackson, Charlotte Ka, Meret
Koehler,
Jasmine Murrell, Florence Neal, Dulce Pinzon, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, 
Marie
Roberts,
Masala, Dwayne Rodgers, Duhirwe Rushemeza, Keisha Scarville, Xaviera 
Simmons

Paradise @ MoCADA: February 22-May 13, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, Feb 22, 6-9pm
w/ DJ Reborn & Urban Word NYC
The James E. Davis Arts Building
80 Hanson Place · Brooklyn, NY 11217-1506
Corner of Hanson Pl & South Portland Ave · Fort Greene
718- 230-0492 · www.mocada.org

Inferno @ Skylight Gallery: March 15-May 5, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, Mar 15, 6-8pm
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
1368 Fulton Street, 3rd Fl · Brooklyn, NY 11216
Btwn New York Ave & Brooklyn Ave  · Bed-Stuy
718 636-6949 · www.restorationplaza.org

SHRINE FOR THE BLACK MADONNA: Concert & CD Release Party
Friday, Mar 9, 8pm @ Sputnik
Brooklyn indie-band celebrates the release of twin CDs, Paradise and 
Inferno,
that helped spark The Postmillennial Black Madonna Exhibition.

Sputnik ·  www.barsputnik.com · 718-398-6666
Taaffe Place · Brooklyn, NY 11205 · Btwn Dekalb & Willoughby · 
Clinton Hill
$10
Shrine for the Black Madonna proudly supports RAINN & Grameen Foundation
www.myspace.com/shrinefortheblackmadonna
www.grameenfoundation.org · www.rainn.org

-------------------------------------

if only these weren't spam...

The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth...

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus be...

Nordstrom Celebrates Black History Month With Kamoinge Photo Exhibit

In celebration of Black History Month, Nordstrom will showcase a photography exhibit by Kamoinge, a talented group of African American photographers. These images illustrate life and culture as expressed through music over the past 40 years. The exhibit will be displayed in select Nordstrom stores and at http://about.nordstrom.com/promos/black_history_month.asp throughout the month of February.

Adger Cowans, Archie Shepp, 1980

Appearing for the second year at the Nordstrom exhibit, Kamoinge is a group of New York City-based photographers whose work has been featured in books, museums, newspapers and magazines throughout the United States. Kamoinge (a Swahili word meaning "a group of people acting together") was established in 1963 in Harlem to alleviate the sense of photographic isolation generally felt by black photographers. Today their mission has evolved to produce visual images of time that reflect human relationships, political and social interactions and the spiritual world of imagery. Nordstrom has recognized Black History Month over the past five years with in-store exhibits.

"We are honored to celebrate Black History Month with the Kamoinge photography exhibit," said Amelia Ransom Letcher, vice president of Diversity Affairs. "Through this exhibit, our customers will see a wonderful mix of old and new photographs that reflect African American culture and spirit through music."

The exhibit will feature 11 photographers: Salimah Ali, Anthony Barboza, Mark Lee Blackshear, Adger Cowans, Gerald Cyrus, Colette Fournier, Herbert Randall, Herb Robinson, Radcliffe Roye, Jamel Shabazz, and Shawn Walker.

Exhibit Locations
The exhibit will be on display at select Nordstrom stores: San Francisco Centre, Arden Fair (Sacramento), Fashion Valley (San Diego), Galleria at South Bay (Redondo), Calif.; Park Meadows (Littleton), Colo.; King of Prussia, Pa.; Michigan Avenue (Chicago); Circle Center (Indianapolis); Southpoint (Durham), N.C.; Dallas Galleria; Houston Galleria; Perimeter (Atlanta); Pentagon City (Arlington), Va.; Lloyd Center (Portland), Ore.; Downtown (Seattle) and Southcenter (Tukwila), Wash.

what's so funny about black women's bodies?

I'm currently working on a lecture that I'm giving at Duke University's symposium "Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity" on March 2 & 3. I am focusing on the blogosphere and the images of black women that are out there for review on a daily basis. It really puts a different spin on library and archive research, doesn't it?

Is there a difference here? On the left, reportedly, an actual woman's body was used in Norbit; Eddie Murphy's head was superimposed on her body. Niecy Nash, above at the Reno 911! Miami premiere, was wearing a prosthetic butt (as she does in the film and on the show):

The film’s most impressive effect – surpassing even a 30-foot-long beached whale made of wood and neoprene – is Raineesha Williams’ enormous posterior, a specially created prosthetic that impressed all those who experienced its glory. “It was the most expensive prop, by far,” says Garant. “When Niecy modeled it for us, a group of people who were just standing around started poking it and turning it in the light. They had no idea it was a fake butt. And when we told one of our real-life police escorts the booty was fake, it was like telling a child there was no Santa Claus. It just crushed him. We all felt very proud of that butt.”

From http://www.wildaboutmovies.com/movies/Reno911MiamiMoviePosterTrailerThomasLennonBenGarantKerriKenney.php

The emphasis above is mine; that sounds suspiciously like the eyewitness accounts of the Hottentot Venus in London in the early nineteenth century, the poking and turning of a black woman's buttocks by viewers. What's going on here? Please, share your thoughts with me--I'd love to incorporate them into the lecture.

Saturday is the last day to see April Banks' Free Chocolate @ Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco. If you haven't had the chance to see it you've got today and tomorrow!

Check out this online review on Farai Chideya's Pop+Politics.
http://www.popandpolitics.com/2007/02/15/free-chocolate%e2%80%99s-bitter-journey/

Also pick up a copy of the March issue of ArtWeek Magazine and look for a review on Free Chocolate.

I have a whole list of print reviews, radio interviews, installation photos and video from events. If you are interested in seeing, send me an email.

Thank you everyone for all your support, questions, critique and encouragement. What a great experience this has been. Stayed tuned for what's coming next!

Oh, and there are still t-shirts and chocolate left if you want some!

Sincerely,
april

(updated with images)

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the Winter 2006/7 cadre biannual grant for visual artists. It was a very difficult selection process as all of the jurors were overwhelmed by the quality of the applications, and if we'd had more money we could have easily funded more artists. With $3908.69 in donations, we made the decision to partially fund six artists/projects with the belief that the amount we could contribute would still make a significant difference in the realization of the work.


It is clear to us that this type of funding is needed, so it is our collective challenge to continue to spread the word about cadre in order to insure its continued success and growth. We are in the process of scheduling a celebratory event here in San Francisco to toast the winners and continue to build our donor base. We hope those of you who are local will be able to attend - stay tuned for more details!

And finally, we're off and running toward the next grant cycle with $325 already donated! We gladly accept donations all year round. Please visit the cadre site for details.

And the recipients:



Jessamyn Lovell's "Catastrophe, Crisis, and Other Family Traditions" is a long-term project that incorporates photography, text, drawing, video, and sound to create an anthology of her family's life. The book serves as a photographic journal that includes the stories and erratic, transformative history of the struggles her family has dealt with and continues living through on a small farm in rural Upstate New York. ($1000)



Ifetayo Abdus-Salam
Itefayo will use the cadre grant towards the creation of a video piece that will integrate some 20 existing interviews with women and scholars in an in-depth examination of the stereotypes of Black women in American society. She will explore the way these stereotypes are further perpetuated by common contemporary images of Black women in media, and the effects of such imagery on Black women. ($450)






Collaborator's Guide is a collective of interdisciplinary artists, designers, illustrators, writers, stylists, thinkers, technologists, friends, and patrons who create socially engaging and participatory situations. They will execute two site-specific participatory events and exhibits, which in turn raise funds to be re-donated to cadre. The project will take place in London and Tokyo, where Collaborator's Guide members reside, allowing cadre to reach new audiences. ($1066)



Jessica Ingram is working on a project concentrated in Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, photographing sites of racial conflict and violence, looking at how these sites are memorialized. She is curious about how these sites fade into the landscapes, or awkwardly stand out, seemingly unnoticed locally. How do the affects of this history still reverberate in these communities and in the landscape? ($750)



Andy Fraser
Andy's sculptural pieces make a simple connection between small abrasions and bigger illnesses such as AIDS. At first just wrapping objects in band-aids, a tedious and compulsive task, Andy is now making shapes with the band-aids that are more organic and less identifiable. ($140)



Nora Barrows-Friedman
Nora will be traveling back to occupied Palestine to continue her photographic work, and will be putting together a series of images that will be shown in a gallery exhibition in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also establishing a website with her images and published reports from Palestine, Barrows-Friedman will make a fully-functional multi-media outlet for her artistic expression as well as important news, information and analysis of the ever-changing situation. ($500)




Many, many thanks to our jurors who put in many hours reviewing our 28 applications. And thanks to all of you for your continued support of this project!!

myra's blogging caa

(check it out--for those of us into academic conferences)

Myra Greene

Myra Greene is an assistant professor in the Photographic Arts Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. Her theoretical interests include the shifting identity of African Americans in today’s popular and consumer culture. She continues to challenge the types of images that photographs can potentially create. Greene holds a BFA in photography from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in studio art from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Greene’s work can be seen at www.myragreene.com.

All posts by Myra Greene

• Which "Ism" will win? part 1
• Morning session
• blog busting
• Conference Pulse/ Job Search
• Two Themes
• Identity Issues

this is how it starts, y'all (pray for Iran)

Bush Says Iran Is Source of Deadly Bombs

here's a gem

(from Southern Maryland Newspapers online, via Racialicious)

Why must our children, no matter what race, creed, religion, etc., be forced to celebrate Black History Month?

As far as I know, this is not a required curriculum yet every year, it consumes the entire month of February.

The schools do not, or shall I say are not allowed to, celebrate other federally recognized holidays (such as Christmas, Hanukkah and Easter).

Children are not required to do book reports about these holidays nor are they forced to listen to biographies over the public address system when it takes away from normal school time. Why is it then, acceptable for Black History Month?

Many children in the schools are not black and therefore have absolutely no reason whatsoever to celebrate Black History Month. This is the exact same thing as many children are not Christian and therefore are not required to celebrate Christian holidays.

I want an end put to school-endorsed celebrations and activities concerning Black History Month.

I no longer want my child to be forced to do a report about a famous black person just because of the month.

I do not want my child to have to listen to stories about Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver every single year during February.

The whole idea of Black History Month is for black people. There is no Asian History Month or English History Month or Middle East History Month or Russian History Month or Australian History Month.

Therefore, none of these groups has the chance to celebrate their heritage or famous people from their heritage.

I am formally requesting that all activities in the school system that are about Black History Month be banned permanently.

Should anyone else out there feel the same way, please take a minute to e-mail your school principal and e-mail the St. Mary’s County board of education at boe@smcps.org.

You can find your principal’s email address at the school Web site www.smcps.k12.md.us.

Lisa Stallings, Leonardtown

And some responses:

http://www.somdnews.com/enter/letters/

WILLIAM EARLE WILLIAMS Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ William Earle Williams has already logged more than 50,000 miles in the pursuit of his current project, Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War. When he began to look closely at Civil War memorial sites in 1986 with his Gettysburg: A Journey in Time series, he noted a serious deficiency. Though Lincoln delivered his famous address in the hub of important locations holding rich details of African American participation in the struggle for freedom, there are no plaques or statues present to give us the full story. There is no mention of bullet holes in the barn of a black station master on the Underground Railroad, nor the white abolitionist-owned tavern that is also in the immediate area of the Gettysburg Address site. This begs the question whether these landmarks are not an equally important part of the story of our country’s history, and why they would not be. There is a notable absence of an equally comprehensive record to commemorate and honor the contribution of more than 180,000 African American soldiers, who trained, fought, and ultimately shaped the outcome of a Union victory in the American Civil War. This disparity is the driving force for Williams’ work, as he sets out to create a comprehensive pictorial record of prominent sites where black troops contributed to the final Union victory with distinction and valor. Alan Trachtenberg’s essay for Williams’ Gettysburg catalogue reminds us how the transformation of land—once battlefield, now national park—is indicative of a nation’s need to remember and to forget. Just as monuments symbolize an imperative to remember, Williams’ photographs serve to restore forgotten or unmaintained sites to our national memory. —Laura Guth, Assistant Director, Light Work William Earle Williams Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War Light Work gallery reception and artist lecture featuring William Earle Williams: Thursday, February 1, 2007 from 5-8pm Light Work, Robert B. Menschel Media Center 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, New York 13244 details

William Earle Williams: Underground Railroad Made Visible ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Light Work's main exhibition Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War by William Earle Williams is accompanied by several companion exhibition, including an exhibition of Williams' images about the Underground Railroad. The images in Underground Railroad Made Visible by William Earle Williams depict various sites on the Underground Railroad. Williams photographed many Underground Railroad sites in Central New York when he participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2003. William Earle Williams: Underground Railroad Made Visible January 16-March 8, 2007 Community Folk Art Center 805 E. Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY 13210 www.communityfolkartcenter.org

Done By the Forces of Nature

Recent work by
Simone Leigh and Chris Neal

curated by Roberto Visani

January 27th – February 24th, 2007

Opening reception
Tuesday February 6th, 2007
6-8 pm

John Jay College Gallery
Department of Art Music and Philosophy
899 Tenth Avenue, NY, NY 10019
3rd Floor

you have to click on it to read it

Collectage: Transcribing Oral Memory
Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier

Exhibition Dates: February 8 – March 10, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 8, 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Featuring live jazz from Emory Jazz Studies and fabulous food.
Gallery Talk: 6:00 - 6:30 p.m.

An online catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be available on February 15, 2007: http://visualarts.emory.edu/

Remembering China Sparrow by Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier, 1995; mixed-media

Dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham speaks of the “energy within” that forms once formal training has ended and the “pure strength” of the individual comes through. Once that strength is discovered an evolution begins and, as Dunham puts it, one moves on a “stream that is you but it’s even over and beyond you.”

Collectage: Transcribing Oral Memory examines the visual career of African-American visual artist Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier with paintings and mixed media works dating back to 1972. Also included are images from Stereo Propaganda: Deconstructing Stereotypes, Reconstructing Identity, her recent solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. Collectage follows Marshall-Linnemeier’s streams, dreams, and imaginings with works that span her career and includes paintings completed by the artist when she was just seventeen years old.

Marshall-Linnemeier has a keen interest in people and cultures of color, especially their stories and she developed a formula early on for these examinations. Her “illuminated photographs,” a term that she coined in 1989 as a student at the Atlanta College of Art, are also included. The illuminated photographs were inspired by colors and form in Renaissance painting, as well The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Langston Hughes and Roy de Carava. They incorporate photography, painting, and stories to examine communities and the people within.

It is oral history that inspires much of Marshall-Linnemeier’s work and she has used oral history and stories as a means to inspire and transform individuals who would have otherwise been ignored. These individuals include those who have largely been dismissed by society and seen as incorrigibles because of their refusal to conform to society’s standards. It is here that her work becomes part anthropological.

About the Artist:

Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier uses photography along with cross-cultural mythology to examine and define human beings whose presence she finds compelling. Her images are distinguished by a lyrical approach to text as art and a knowing sense of color as a point of accentuation in altered photographic images. An honors graduate of the Atlanta College of Art and graduate of the University of Mississippi, Marshall-Linnemeier has received numerous awards including the Lyndhurst Foundation Young Career Prize, an NEA Fellowship, and a Northern Telecom New Works Fellowship. Her determination to study firsthand the cultures of people of color throughout the world has resulted in her securing fellowships from Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest-Arts International that took her to Adelaide, South Australia and the first Fulton County (Georgia) International Residency in Balgowan, South Africa. Her work is held in numerous collections including the High Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport. A solo exhibition of her work was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in 2006.

This exhibition is supported in part by a generous grant from the Emory
University Founders Week Academic Festival Fund.

Gallery Hours
Monday - Friday, 9 am - 4 pm
Saturday, 12 noon - 4 pm

Visual Arts Gallery
Emory University
700 Peavine Creek Drive
Atlanta, GA 30322
Located on Emory's main campus, off Eagle Row (formerly Fraternity
Row), across from the baseball field.
Map, directions, and parking:
http://visualarts.emory.edu/contact/index.html

For more information, contact:
Mary Catherine Johnson
404.712.4390, mcjohn7@emory.edu

United Black Girls

Rush Arts Gallery
Chelsea

526 West 26th Street, Suite 311
New York, New York

212 691 9552

February 1 - March 31, 2007

Opening: Thursday, February 1, 6:00PM - 8:00PM

Show Map

Image (by Ifétayo Abdus-Salam) from Rush Arts Gallery.

These people and the privilege inherent in their self-righteousness just make me sick--of course it's political when you work (in your father's campaign) to insure that not every gay person's right to be a parent is protected. And they can't even see it.

Mary Cheney: Pregnancy's not political

Thu Feb 1, 6:32 PM ET

SUMMARY: "This is a baby," the vice-president's lesbian daughter tells a Barnard College crowd. "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement."

The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.

"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine. "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."

Cheney, 37, announced in December that she and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, were starting a family. The baby is due in the spring and will be the vice president's sixth grandchild.

Dick Cheney became testy last week when CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him what he thought of conservatives who are critical of his daughter's pregnancy. Cheney told Blitzer he was "over the line."

In a brief interview with The New York Times after Wednesday's panel, Mary Cheney said she agreed that Blitzer had crossed a line. "He was trying to get a rise out of my father," she said.

Glamour editor Cindi Leive asked Cheney during the panel discussion if she had anything to say to conservatives such as James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who have criticized her pregnancy, asserting that children should be raised by heterosexual married couples.

She responded, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years on this issue has shown there is no difference between children who are raised by same-sex parents and children who are raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is that children are being raised in a stable, loving environment."

Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL.

She is the author of "Now It's My Turn: a Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life," published last year. (AP)

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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it's too early for april fool's, but...

Songwriter-producer Linda Perry is sometimes credited with "creating" Pink, and helped propel Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and James Blunt to superstardom.

But the pop kingmaker can't find a front woman for a new album's worth of songs she has written in the voice of a black lesbian.

"The process has been a real struggle," a source tells us. "She has been auditioning all hot black lesbians to sing her songs, but is having absolutely no luck at all."

Perry, who fronted '90s band 4 Non Blondes, wanted to create a "racier" kind of artist, says the music insider.

I spotted this in the comments on Crunk and Disorderly--apparently it's from the NY Daily News but I can't find it. It's bizarre, to say the least.