6.26.08
Some of Us are Brave
Host/Producer Kali Alexander
email: kalialexander@gmail.com
I’m This afternoon I’ll be talking with Dr. Jelani Cobb about sex, lies, videotape, celebrity worship, and R. Kelly. Dr. Sharroky Hollie and Cherie Franklin from Culture and Language Academy of Success (CLAS) will be joining us in studio to give us an update on the work they're doing to educate our youth. We’ll also hear a commentary from Sikivu Hutchinson of Black Fem Lens. And yoga instructor Nadia Pillay will drop by to share how we can cultivate the royalty within through the ancient science of Kemetic Yoga.
Segment 1: Sex, Lies, Videotape, Celebrity Worship, and the R. Kelly Acquittal Following the 2002 surfacing a so-called sex tape, charges of child pornography were brought against r&b superstar R. Kelly. The tape immediately became a popular twisted underground item in the Black community as it depicted a man presumed to be R. Kelly, in a room in Kelly’s Chicago home, exchanging money, urinating on, and having “sex” with a 13 year old girl. The young girl in the video is presumed to be Kelly’s goddaughter and as is typical of victims of rape and molestation, refused to come forward. On June 13th of this year, after less than 8 hours of deliberation, jurors returned with a not guilty verdict despite the videotape evidence. Here to talk about the complexities of the R. Kelly case and its implications beyond the celebrity r&b crooner is Spelman University professor, blogger, and author Dr. William Jelani Cobb. www.petitiononline.com/rkellywww.jelanicobb.com Segment 2 Educating our Youth
Welcome back to SOUAB, I’m Kali Alexander, and I’m now joined in studio with Dr. Sharroky Hollie and Cherie Franklin from Culture and Language Academy of Success, also known as CLAS. CLAS is a charter school within LAUSD and has gained attention for its culturally affirming and responsive pedagogy tailored to meet the needs of students of African descent. After some challenges this past year with the school board, Dr. Hollie and Cherie Franklin has returned to give us an update on the future of CLAS.
phone: 310.680.7100
Segment 3: Commentary by Sikivu Hutchinson, editor of www.blackfemlens.org.
The Future of Feminism
By Sikivu Hutchinson In the aftermath of the acrimonious campaign of Hillary Clinton and Co. the divide between white feminists and feminists of color is even more Grand Canyonesque. Over the next several months, Clinton and Obama will stump together in what is sure to be a high octane show of fence mending. During the campaign, prominent white feminists Geraldine Ferraro and Gloria Steinem wrote racist tirades assailing Obama’s gender privilege while painting Thatcherite Clinton as a victim of the endemic sexism of American politics. Their barnstorming vitriol (fanned by Clinton’s own racist pandering to “hard working whites” in West Virginia) reached a fever pitch when the DNC finally concluded the tug of war over unseated Florida and Michigan delegates. That evening, an enraged white woman caught on You Tube slammed Obama as an “inadequate” black male who had effectively disenfranchised all women with a capital W. What many white women didn’t want to acknowledge was that Obama’s Senate voting record and campaign platform on women’s issues are comparable to Clinton’s. He’s received a one hundred rating from mainstream women’s organizations such as Planned Parenthood, espousing traditional liberal feminist positions like pro-choice and expanded family medical leave and support for domestic violence victims. So other than garden variety racism, white female opposition to Obama is symptomatic of the continuing struggle over the future of feminism. Though third wave feminism has ably challenged the Eurocentric biases of liberal feminism, the gender politics surrounding the Clinton campaign underscored the arrogance of white female privilege. Having a white elite corporatist female politician in the White House will never be an antidote to the gender inequity women of color experience because the daughters of Clinton, Ferraro, Steinem, et al don’t live in apartheid conditions in the so-called ghetto. Chelsea Clinton does not see herself dehumanized in mainstream media portrayals spanning the spectrum from bitch to ho to sassy sidekick, did not have to hunt for college preparation classes in her sophomore and junior years while being steered toward beauty school, did not have to drop out of school due to an unplanned pregnancy or the need to help her extended family with child care, nor find herself an HIV/AIDS patient with emergency room health insurance at sixteen. As the founding mentor of a young women’s leadership program at a South L.A. high school, these are the realities I see facing many girls of color in urban school-communities ravaged by budget deficits and the low expectations of administrators and faculty. They are the future of feminism. The social welfare of women of color—shut out of living wage employment, affordable health care, child care and real access to a college education—has become the barometer of the nation’s underclass. In a recently released L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll Obama leads John McCain by twelve percentage points. Though intrigued by the prospect of an Obama presidency, some of the young women in my program are skeptical that his election will significantly impact their lives or alter the racism and sexism that they experience on a daily basis. While he has not explicitly linked social justice with economic and gender justice in his campaign platform, he remains indebted to black women for his triumph in last year’s seminal South Carolina primary. As the nation lurches toward a recession and the economic meltdown reverberates most severely in communities of color, Obama’s obligation to address these issues couldn’t be more morally urgent. The challenge for feminists of color will be making the fight for gender justice relevant to a younger generation tokenized by Clinton’s sisterhood posturing while holding Obama accountable to the future of feminism.
Segment 4: Developing the Royalty Within with Kemetic Yoga Instructor Nadia Pillay
According to the Society of Kemitic yoga, the early origins of yoga go back thousands of years to the continent of Africa, and specifically to ancient Egypt, or Kemet. To talk about the rediscovery of this ancient art and defining yoga in terms of its African foundations, is Nadia Pillay, licensed instructor of Kemetic Yoga.
Kemetic Yoga Workshop
Sunday, June 29, 2008
2-4pm
Lotus on the Nile Wellness Center
4307 S. Crenshaw Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90008
323.295.6887
