Panel to eye shifting perceptions of black culture, politics, ethnicity

An upcoming town hall-style meeting will feature a distinguished panel focusing on how shifting perceptions of black culture, politics and ethnicity has affected the ways blacks are perceived and discussed in today’s national culture.

“From Precious II For Colored Girls,” presented by [Rap Sessions] (http://www.rapsessions.org/) , is slated for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15 in Preston Geren Auditorium, located in the Langford Architecture Center’s Building B on the Texas A&M campus. The event is sponsored by Texas A&M’s [Africana Studies Program] (http://africana.tamu.edu/) , the [Memorial Student Center Black Awareness Committee] (http://www.mscc.tamu.edu/organizations/show/38) and the College of Architecture, as part of its Year of Diversity initiative.

“The meeting is one of several Year of Diversity events being planned, including lectures, design charrettes and a special session on diversity at the College of Architecture’s fall 2012 faculty research symposium,” said Mardelle Shepley, director of the [Center for Health Systems & Design] (http://archone.tamu.edu/chsd/) , who is helping to coordinate the events.

[Rap Sessions] (http://www.rapsessions.org/) is a national tour engaging the most difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation, jumpstarting local debate with panels of leading hip-hop activists, scholars, and artists.

The panel will lead a 90-minute discussion focusing on contemporary moments in popular culture such as films like Lee Daniels’ “Precious, ” Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls,” television dramas like “The Wire ” and “Treme, ” and hot-button issues like immigration and Islamophobia, where race, image and identity take center stage, in the context of the U.S.’ racial history and future,

Clips from HBO’s award-winning documentary series “The Black List,” in which African-American luminaries share candid stories and insights into the struggles, triumphs and joys of black life in the U.S., will be used as a springboard for an interactive and timely discussion, in which participants will be asked to consider issues including:

• Is “racial tolerance” a passé idea as pundits from Glenn Beck to Juan Williams suggest?
• To what extent does gender and class continue to inform our understanding of race?
• Has black authenticity as defined through a 1960s lens run its course?
• How do popular narratives of blackness from Birth of a Nation to Precious impact public policy concerning policing, incarceration, housing and employment?
• Is there room for the full-range of black political expressions in the American mainstream?
• Are provocative black images like Will.i.am’s blackface at the 2010 MTV awards overstated or understated?
• What can students do to move the national discussion of race beyond the black-white paradigm?

The evening’s panelists include:

Mark Anthony Neal, author of five books, including “What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture,” “Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic“ and “New BlackMan.” He has lectured on hip-hop and gender around the country, including the Ford Foundation, Stanford University and the groundbreaking 2005 Hip-Hop and Feminism conference at the University of Chicago.

Joan Morgan authored the bestselling book “When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist.” Since the book’s publication in 1998, Morgan has been a widely sought lecturer and commentator on hip-hop and feminism. An award-winning journalist, a provocative cultural critic and a self-confessed hip-hop junkie, she began her professional writing career freelancing for The Village Voice before having her work published by Vibe, Madison, Interview, MS, More, Spin, and numerous others.

John Jennings is an associate professor of visual studies at the State University of New York-Buffalo. His research and teaching focus on the analysis, explication, and disruption of black stereotypes in popular visual media. His research is concerned with representation and authenticity, visual culture, visual literacy, social justice, and design pedagogy. He is an accomplished designer, curator, illustrator, cartoonist and award-winning graphic novelist.

Elizabeth Méndez Berry is a journalist who has written about culture, education and criminal justice for the Washington Post, Vibe, The Nation, Latina and Time. “Love Hurts," her investigative article on domestic violence in the hip hop industry, won ASCAP's Deems Taylor award for music reporting, and was included in Da Capo's Best Music Writing anthology. She has lectured at Duke University, Fordham and Princeton and is an adjunct professor of music journalism at New York University.

Vijay Prashad is professor and director of the International Studies Program at Trinity College. He is the author of a dozen books, including most recently “The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World.” The Village Voice chose “Karma of Brown Folk” and “ Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting” its books of the year and 2000 and 2001.

Moderator Bakari Kitwana is a journalist, activist and political analyst whose commentary on politics and youth culture have been on CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, and NPR. He is CEO of Rap Sessions and Senior Media Fellow at The Jamestown Project, a Harvard Law School-based think tank. His 2002 book “The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture ” has been adopted as a course book at more than 100 colleges and universities.

For more information, contact Mardelle Shepley, 979.845.7009 or mshepley@arch.tamu.edu .