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| Cultural News & Views
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SINGERS,
DANCERS, ACTORS, AGES 12-18
Are you a dynamite singer, dancer, actor, and/or poet?
Then try out for IMPACT Repertory Theatre,
Harlem's hottest teen repertory company.
Use your talent to perform,
Community Service and have Madd Fun.
IMPACT has performed in films, videos, at schools,
colleges, the Apollo, and United Nations.
No pay, but excellent training and exposure.
Have song and monologue prepared.
Auditioners will be taught a dance combination.
Auditions are:
Saturday, March 27 and April 3,2004, 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Compton Hall, Room 311, Convent Avenue at 139th Street
City College of NY
Call
Elvira Carrizal at (212) 926-4516
to
schedule an audition time.
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Medgar Evers College Center for Black Literature
presents
7th Annual National Black Writers Conference:
A Tribute to and Symposium on John Oliver Killens
The Culture and Politics of Black Literature
March 25-27, 2004
Thursday, March 25th: from 6:30-8:30 pm
Conference Opening and Keynote Address by Gil Noble
Langston Hughes Auditorium
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
135th Street & Malcolm X Boulevard, Harlem
Friday, March 26th:
Medgar Evers College Founders Auditorium
PLEASE NOTE: In addition to the following presentations, writing workshops will run throughout the day. Reserve your space early.
9:30-11:30 am
Tales of African People in Stories, Games and Song with Mary Umolu
12:30-3:00 pm
Poetry Readings & Dramatic/Spoken Word Performances with Tish Benson, George Edward Tait, Roger Bonair-Agard, DuEwa M. Frazier & Abiodun Oyewole
3:30-5:30 pm
Spoken Word, Hip-Hop & Poetry Slam
4:00-5:30 pm
Storytelling by African American Elders
7:00-9:00 pm
Cultural Program featuring Stacyann Chin, Ruby Dee, Mos Def, Katti Gray, Randy Weston & others
Saturday, March 27th: Medgar Evers College Founders Auditorium
9:30-11:00am
Roundtable: Culture & Politics of Black Literature with Manthia Diawara, Ferai Chideya, Tony Medina, Quincy Troupe, John Williams & Brenda Wilkinson. Moderated by Louis Reyes Rivera
11:00am-12:30pm
Panel: The Literary Works of John Oliver Killens with Fred Hord,
Bianca T. Jacob, Steven Nardi & Carlyle V. Thompson
1:00-2:00 pm
Author Readings: Obery Hendricks, Jasper Kenji & Nelly Rosario
2:00-3:45 pm
Panel: John Oliver Killens as Writer and Activist with Ossie Davis, Betty L. Harte, Paul R. Lehman, Richard Wesley & Sarah Wright
4:00-5:15 pm
Roundtable: John Oliver Killens as Friend and Mentor with Malaika Adero, Fred Beauford, Elombe Brath, Jacqueline Johnson, Hazel Reid & Sam Yette
5:30-6:30 pm
Testimonials: B.J. Ashanti, Carol Dixon, Arthur Flowers, Honorable Thomas, Russell Jones and Mrs. Bertha Jones, Barbara Killens, Louis Reyes Rivera, Jitu Weusi & others.
for registration information:
http://www.mec.cuny.edu/nbwc
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Universal
Music, Roc-A-Fella and Team Roc
Presents…
“THE
DIAMOND I
S
FOREVER”
CHARITY
AUCTION
www.UniversalMusicStore.com/Diamond
*A
Great
Opportunity
to win some cool Hip-Hop memorabilia and Rocawear gear, while giving
back to the community.
___________________________________________________________
America
Magazine, www.americamag.us, has
launched this month February 2004. NYC Mission
S
ociety’s Team Roc program is one of the selected charities to benefit
from the subscription cards sales. If you subscribe to America Magazine
$2 of your fee can go towards one of the charities listed on the card,
Team Roc/NYC Mission
S
ociety is listed. Look for America
Magazine
at your local newsstands.
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NEW BOOK: BET (BLACK
ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION)
I wanted to connect with you in reference to a new book we
have coming out in April 2004 called THE BILLIONAIRE BET: ROBERT
JOHNSON AND THE CREATION OF BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION by Brett
Pulley. The author is Senior Editor for FORBES magazine and a
seasoned author in his own right. He has appeared as an entertainment
expert on "Inside Edition" and "Access
Hollywood" just to name a few. He was an expert for the Dateline
special on Michael Jackson and is in charge of Forbes's annual list of
100 most wealthy
and influential people. Now, let me tell you a
little about the book...
This is the first book published about Mr. Robert Johnson and it delves
into the life of Robert Johnson and discusses Mr. Johnson's history and
business practices all the way up to present day. It reveals how he took
at a $15,000 loan to build the BET empire that we know today. Its also
talks about his humble beginnings. It also tackles his controversial
helm at the top of BET. This book examines race and culture and how they
come together and split apart. This book is also filled never-before
reported details of Johnson's life, the music industry, entrepreneurship
and entertainment. The book also talks about Mr. Johnson's latest
business venture, the acquisition of the newest NBA team, the Charlotte
Bobcats which has been covered extensively in great publications such as
VIBE and Sports Illustrated, just to name a few. The sports angle is
sure to heat with the start of 2004 NBA season.
The book pubs in April 2004 and I am interested in having the book in
the BOOK section of your site or shared with your audience as a feature
or review in April 2004 issue. This would be an excellent launch
for the book. I need to know what steps I need to take to make this
happen! I feel strongly about this book and this author and know this
would be a great read for your audience because it gives a detailed and
accurate accounting of Robert Johnson, his life, his business and his
extreme entrepreneurial savviness that has gotten him in the
billionaire bracket that he is in today. It is
"must-read" from everyone from business owners to music fans
to sports fanatics. This book has a lot to offer and I hope I have
gaged your interest!
The is a riveting look into a man who has accomplished so much and until
now has not been talked about on personal level to date. This book
delves into what made Mr. Johnson what he is today and reveals valuable
lessons for America and those interested in moving into the media,
entertainment, sports and entrepreneurial arena.
Please share THE BILLION DOLLAR BET with your audience. If you
have any questions or would like to obtain the book for feature or
review, let's make that happen! I would be happy to forward you a galley
or final copy when it becomes available. If you would like to interview
the author, we are currently setting up his media and interview schedule
for publication week and I can set that up for you as well.
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you
soon.
Sincerely
Lissa Brown
Associate Publicist
Wiley
201-748-6017
librown@wiley.com
TOP (1.1.04) |
African American
Women In Cinema Annual Film Festival 2004 is seeking features,
documentaries, shorts and animation and screenplays by women who
are African, Latino or Asian Diaspora. Please visit www.aawic.org
for submission forms.
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About the Website
Taken from the site: Christopher's
Cypher is not meant to showcase me as a writer as much as
it is a vehicle to connect with all those who seek a greater more
profound understanding of this experiment called life. Christopher's
Cypher is not something you ViEW, as much
as it is something you TouCH, FeEL,
and hopefully one day embrace. It's not just a website, it's a
life. Tap into it...
About the Book
Imagine
spending your whole life searching for the one; searching for
acceptance; searching for just a hint of satisfaction.
Imagine walking through life alone, confused, and convinced
you will never find what it is your heart desires.
Jared Covington is such a man in search of all things life
has promised, but has not delivered.
I’m On My Way is a passionate tale of a sometimes
bitter, sometimes angry, but always hopeful young man and his search
to undercover the love of his life and in the process, himself.
About
the Author
A native of the streets of Brooklyn, Christopher
David is a writer, poet, and constant seeker of the truth.
In his powerful first novel, he shows us how dangerous love can be
when mixed with extraordinary doubt, desperation and a longing to be
accepted.
To be who you are and become what you are capable of is the only
goal worth living. ~Alvin Ailey
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Mr.
Freeman, You Look Divine
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
In 1898 a prominent black minister named Henry McNeal Turner wrote an
essay titled, "God Is a Negro." When even some of Turner's
fellow members of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination objected,
he replied in print that "every other race of people since time
began" envisioned God in its image. "Why should not the
Negro," he concluded, "believe that he resembles God as much
so as other people?"
Some 105 years later Turner's premise has received unlikely, in part
unintended, confirmation in a big-budget Hollywood comedy. The new Jim
Carrey film, "Bruce Almighty," presents the black actor Morgan
Freeman as God. More specifically the movie evokes African-American
theology by showing God identifying with the poor and scorned, taking
the forms of a janitor and a homeless man.
Audiences have clearly accepted the notion: "Bruce Almighty,"
released on May 23, made $100 million in its opening weekend to lead all
films, and by last weekend had taken in $170.8 million. Among black
religious figures and film scholars, Mr. Freeman's performance has
provoked both satisfaction and skepticism.
"It's significant because it would not have happened 20 or 30 years
ago," Professor James H. Cone, an influential African-American
theologian who teaches at the Union Theological Seminary in New York,
said in an interview. "The use of a black God reflects how much
white Americans can relax with the idea of racial inclusiveness,
provided it doesn't challenge their power."
The comfort level, Professor Cone went on, also attests to the
increasing exposure of white Americans to black Christianity, whether by
studying the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or by watching
ministers like T. D. Jakes and Frederick K. C. Price on cable
television.
The Rev. Johnny Ray Youngblood, senior pastor of St. Paul Community
Baptist Church in East New York, Brooklyn, lauded Mr. Freeman's
performance from his pulpit. "The spirituality of black people is
being depicted — not just our singing, our entertainment," Mr.
Youngblood said. "There's a sense in this movie that at the highest
levels of existence there are black people."
The film is essentially a comic version of the Job story, with Mr.
Carrey as a television newsman named Bruce Nolan who grows so depressed
and frustrated that he dares God to do something about it. Whereupon God
grants Bruce divine powers, which he proceeds to use on himself: sports
car, promotion to news anchor, revenge on sundry enemies. Only then,
omnipotent but unhappy, does Bruce realize that the purpose of godly
power is to dispense mercy and compassion to others.
Members of the creative team behind "Bruce Almighty" said the
choice to depict God as black occurred more from a desire to cast Mr.
Freeman than to make any racial or theological point. Steve Oedekerk, a
screenwriter who helped devise the film with Mr. Carrey and the director
Tom Shadyac, said their goal was to present God as "more
personal," less "generic and pious." Race did not figure
in the screenplay. But in discussing how to cast the film, Mr. Oedekerk
said in an e-mail message, the creative team focused very early on Mr.
Freeman for his combination of authority, wisdom and comic timing.
"We all knew having a black God was a choice that would be talked
about," Mr. Oedekerk noted, "but I don't think we were
thinking it would be as groundbreaking as it turned out being. I was
personally surprised by the attention this received. For me this type of
casting isn't as groundbreaking as it is overdue."
Reviewing the film in The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote:
"For Mr. Freeman, playing God is a piece of cake. With his quiet,
measured drawl, which implies depths of good-humored wisdom, he may be
the most convincing screen sage Hollywood has these days."
The film's personal, impious God embodies some central premises of black
theology. The concept of God or Jesus being black was first espoused by
the writer Robert Alexander in 1829, when his "Ethiopian
Manifesto" called for a "black Messiah" to liberate the
slaves, Professor Cone said. Since then the idea was taken up by figures
as varied as Henry McNeal Turner, Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X, who
famously deplored the way "the white man has brainwashed us black
people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus."
Many black ministers today cite the biblical verses that describe Jesus
as having "hair like lamb's wool" and feet the color of
"hammered brass."
At least one film prior to "Bruce Almighty" featured a black
God, with Rex Ingram playing De Lawd in the 1936 all-black musical
"Green Pastures." The image of a Christian deity was
implicitly altered when the comedian George Burns, whom many viewers
knew was Jewish, took the title role in the 1977 movie "Oh,
God!" and two sequels.
In "Bruce Almighty" the title character first meets God in the
guise of a janitor, wearing coveralls and mopping a warehouse floor.
"People underestimate the value of good ol' manual labor," God
tells the skeptical Bruce. For Mr. Youngblood that scene resonated with
black theology's view of Jesus as an oppressed man put on earth to free
the oppressed.
Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of African-American and religious
studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said via e-mail:
"Freeman's God allows Bruce to work out his soul's salvation in
trial and error. That's part of black theodicy — the attempt to
understand, better yet survive, the existence of suffering and
evil."
The praise for "Bruce Almighty" in black intellectual circles
is not unanimous. The cultural critics Gerald Early of Washington
University in St. Louis and Linda Williams of the University of
California at Berkeley said that Mr. Freeman is carrying on what Ms.
Williams, in an e-mail message, called "the same old tradition of
the saintly black man who is shown caring
for the relatively trivial worries of white protagonists."
Both scholars traced that line of cinematic characterization back to
Uncle Tom tending Little Eva in the 1927 film adaptation of Harriet
Beecher Stowe's abolitionist novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Sidney
Poitier took on several such roles in the postwar decades, particularly
as the handyman caring for a group of white nuns in "Lilies of the
Field" (1963). Mr. Freeman himself portrayed the moral instructor
of a self-absorbed white as a rich widow's chauffeur in "Driving
Miss Daisy," the 1989 screen version of Alfred Uhry's play.
"We have here another instance of a wise black person helping a
white person achieve insight, realize his humanity," Professor
Early said of "Bruce Almighty." "That's about as tired a
Hollywood formula, indeed an American culture formula, as one can
get." He added, "Audiences subconsciously were drawn to it,
particularly white audiences who like their black folk non threatening
and supportive."
But even those who find the portrayal of a black god problematic laud
the performance itself. "If you're going to go the route of having
a black God concerned about a trivial white person," as Professor
Williams put it, "you couldn't get a better God than Morgan
Freeman."
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The
Pledge
(Dedicated to our Children and Youth)
By Alberto O. Cappas
I
pledge to maintain
A healthy mind and body,
staying away from the evil of drugs.
I pledge always to try my best to understand
the importance of knowledge and education,
painting a positive picture of where
I plan to be tomorrow,
not allowing obstacles to stop the growth
of my plans for the future.
I pledge to seek answers to questions,
understanding that the answers to questions
sometimes lead to other discoveries.
I pledge to work hard,
with the awareness and confidence
that hard work today will serve
as the seeds for my strong tree tomorrow,
a tree no one will ever be able to tear down.
I pledge to learn proper languages,
beginning with my mother’s,
always prepared to appreciate others.
I pledge to gain a better understanding
of myself,
by understanding my cultural roots,
to fully accept who I am as a human being,
a rainbow of many cultures and colors.
I pledge to overcome any personal misfortunes,
always striving to become
A wiser person.
"The
Pledge: Dedicated to our children and Youth",
by Alberto O Cappas.
Bio:
Alberto O Cappas: a graduate of the SUNY @ Buffalo. He has been widely
published in magazines, journals and is the author of several collection
of poems, including "Dona Julia & Other Selected Poems, now
available in bookstores and on the internet."
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