Black Conservatives: Myths and Realities

William Mitchell College of Law is hosting a Black History Month event on Thursday, February 21, from noon to 1:30: Black Conservatives -- Myths and Realities.

Panelists:

• Roscoe Howard, former U.S. Attorney
  
• Peter Bell, chairman of the Metropolitan Council
  
• Michael Jordan, law professor
  
• Michell Jones, attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office
  
• Moderator: Professor John Radsan, former Deptartment of Justice attorney and CIA assistant general counsel

Date: Thursday, February 21

Time: Noon - 1:30 (appetizers and beverages served)

Place: Auditorium; William Mitchell College of Law (875 Summit Ave., St. Paul, MN 55102)

Contact: Please contact Kate Johansen (katherine.johansen@wmitchell.edu) with questions or requests for additional information.

Save Yar fundraiser

In parts of South Sudan, bandits steal children from other communities like cattle. Hundreds of abductions in recent years have gone unpunished as these human-rights violations are overshadowed by other problems. The Save Yar Campaign has been working hard from Minneapolis since October to stop this wave of abductions. We took our campaign to Washington, D.C. and, with the support of Congress and federal departments, met with South Sudan's president.

Now it's time to carry this campaign to the place where the change has to occur: South Sudan. The campaign is preparing to send three University of Minnesota students to South Sudan to meet with government officials and tribal leaders to build a coalition aimed at ending child abduction and returning abducted children to their families. We'll meet with local researchers who can carry forward the campaign on the ground long-term.

We will undertake this trip with volunteer labor and donated lodging and ground transportation. But to make it happen, we need to raise the funds to cover airfare, visas, meals, and phone calls.

Join us for lunch this Saturday for a fun and delicious way to contribute to this grassroots campaign!

Come to Tam-Tam's African Restaurant in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood this Saturday, February 16, anytime from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to sample sensational East African cuisine at this cutting-edge eatery; mix and mingle with fellow Minnesotans concerned with Africa; buy a Save Yar T-shirt; and pledge a specific part of the students' trip.

February 13 "Coffee Hour" presentation

On Wednesday, February 13, Zenzele Isoke will present "Gender, Social Capital and the Problematics of Racial Liberalism in Hip Hop" from 2:00-3:30 in the Geneva H. Southall Library (Social Sciences Tower 815). [Presentation Abstract]

Isoke explores how the 2004 National Hip Hop Political Convention (NHHPC) served as a transformative space for U.S. Black feminists to do anti-racist, anti-sexist political work in Newark, NJ. Black feminists' active participation in the NHHPC was a strategic effort to situate women of color feminisms in the larger historical movement for racial justice in urban communities. Isoke argues that NHHPC served as a stage for deeply gendered contestations over visibility, access, and public influence – mirroring unresolved Black sexual politics of an earlier era. Using semi-structured interviews of Black women political activists in Newark, she analyzes their efforts to politicize a gender specific national political agenda. This manifestation of Black women's agency and subjectivity within the conceptual space of hip hop was motivated by a sustained effort to mobilize people in urban communities around a variety of issues, including police brutality, the criminalization of Black and brown youth, sexual and gender-based violence, failing schools and media literacy.
Isoke's presentation is part of a larger book project called "The Political Spaces of Black Women in the City: Identity, Agency and the Flow of Social Capital in Urban Communities." Isoke's research poses the following questions: how do black women create and utilize political spaces toward transformative ends in communities of color? How can feminist social researchers, using an epistemic paradigm rooted in the larger social justice project of radical black feminism, provide valid accounts of black female subjectivity rooted in everyday black political struggle in American cities? Isoke's research explores the contemporary structural realities that face Newark’s families and analyzes the narratives of courage, sacrifice and hope captured in the political biographies of the women interviewed.

forum on the mortgage crisis in north Minneapolis

The University of Minnesota's Institute for Advanced Studies, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center joins its community partners, the Northside Residents Redevelopment Council and the University Northside Partnership, in hosting a conversation about how the current mortgage crisis impacts north Minneapolis, an area which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the state. This meeting is an opportunity for interested and concerned faculty, staff, community leaders, organizations and residents, as well as city and county officials, and relevant non-profits to share information about their experiences, knowledge, research, and programs related to the mortgage crisis in north Minneapolis. Anticipated outcomes:

• increased understanding of local programs and projects
  
• greater recognition of how the crisis impacts lives
  
• awareness of opportunities for community/university collaborations and leveraging of resources to achieve change
  
• increased knowledge of the history of housing ownership in north Minneapolis
  
• greater understanding that north Minneapolis is a microcosm of national trends that adversely impact communities of color
  
• identification of research gaps
  
• discussion of possible strategies to strengthen and enhance existing policy and social interventions
  
• increased awareness of legal challenges
  
• formulation of an action agenda

For more information, contact Irma McClaurin, Executive Director, Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center, University of Minnesota, imcclaur@umn.edu, 612.624.2798.

NOMMO African American Authors series

On Thursday, February 7, the NOMMO African American Authors series kicks off. Professor Alexs Pate hosts fiction writer and cultural commentator Randall Kenan at 7:30 PM in Cowles Auditorium (located in the Hubert H. Humphrey Center.)

Global Media <-> Diasporic Cultures

In 2008 AA&AS and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication are the primary sponsors of a speaker series: "Global Media <-> Diasporic Cultures." Corporations within the transnational media industry compete to capitalize upon traditions and popular cultural forms from around the globe. Simultaneously, artists and audiences from these cultural spaces continue to innovate and migrate in the shifting economic and social landscapes of the 21st century. Courting these multicultural, often nomadic, audiences, media makers seek to acquire, shape, and re-shape cultural materials in order to transmit products that draw upon and market to different racial, cultural, and national identities. The speakers in this series have produced cutting-edge research on this quickly changing landscape of media texts and cultures. Their work sheds light on genres, styles, and stars of this multinational media era, as well as the cultural, social, political, and economic phenomena that drive trends in this media landscape. Members of the university community, as well as communities within the Twin Cities, who attend these talks will be able to engage with the speakers about specific cases of media products and persona that reflect upon global media cultures, and discuss the often problematic deployment of race, ethnicity, gender, and national identities represented in many media trends.

The following speakers have been scheduled: Bambi Haggins (University of Michigan), author of Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America; University of Minnesota faculty member Jigna Desai, author of Beyond Bollywood: The Cultural Politics of South Asian Diasporic Film; Deborah Paredez (University of Texas, Austin), author of the forthcoming book Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory; Sean Jacobs (University of Michigan), South African journalist and scholar; and University of Minnesota faculty member Richard Martinez, who is working on analysis of news coverage of the 2006 immigration protests. Martinez will kick off the series on Friday, February 1, 2008 (12-1:10 in Murphy Hall 228).

Black Paris global seminar

In May, Professor Trica Keaton will lead a Global Seminar in Paris, France:

Paris is considered one of the most beautiful and exciting places in the world, and for over three centuries, diverse African American artists, intellectuals, musicians, writers, and everyday people have pursued various dreams in the "City of Light," particularly when denied opportunities in the U.S. African Americans are often held up as evidence of racial tolerance in France, even as the lived-experiences of other African diasporic peoples have challenged that very representation and the principles of inclusion upon which it is built. Through stimulating reading, workshops, tours, guest lectures, films, and residence in Paris, this seminar will acquaint you with the life, adventures, and times of those who comprise "Black Paris," as we seek to explore the many questions and paradoxes specific to the African diaspora in this fascinating and complex global city.