[LISTEN] Interview with Hip Hop Artist, Akua Naru

Akua Naru is the premiere female Hip Hop artist in Europe. She's from the inner-cities of the U.S., and she travels the world telling stories of reality and justice that we all can relate to. I am sharing this video because for street lit / urban fiction readers and fans, it's important that hip hop - authentic, original, cool, gritty, jazzy, hip hop, is still alive and well. Akua Naru's work definitely fits that bill. Listen to her 10-minute interview to learn more about her work and why she does what she does - as an American woman traveling the world telling her story. Where in the world is Akua Narua (right now)? Lagos, Nigeria.

Post by underyourskin.

Ice-T Presents: Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (Official Trailer)

Here are some early reviews of the film:
-- Michael A. Gonzales, via Ebony.com
-- via Vibe Magazine
Official Website: IcebergSlimMovie.com

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Takin' It to the Streets: Protests Emerge Across Nation in Response to Zimmerman Verdict

The New York Times has released a very good slideshow of images depicting yesterday's 100 rallies in support of Trayvon Martin around the nation.

If you're connected to me on social media, you'll know that I've been pretty vocal on Facebook and Twitter about this historic development in America's story. I've been posting daily: articles, commentary, images, and news developments all week. I have been unapologetic on these platforms about my content. No, my content has not been about libraries. No, my content has not been about street literature / urban fiction. No, it's not about education or hip hop. And, guess what? Some of it has been word-of-mouth info (shudder the thought).

As a librarian - an American librarian - an African American librarian - my intellectual mission is always more nuanced than my usual topics. Indeed, any librarian who is worth their education in gold, will at times, embrace a social stance for justice, that will be based on belief and experience - not someone else's facts and references. We're talking about real life here, and librarians do live it. If a librarian tells you otherwise - go to another library. Seriously.

As an American Black woman who is mother to 5 Black women who all dream of marrying and having families with Black men, it feels like the message that the Zimmerman Verdict sends is that American Black men's lives are worthless in the U.S. This in turn, makes Black women realize that their wombs are worthless, which in turn, means they - are worthless, too. This tells the Black American community that their lives do not count, that we are worth less than dogs (I do feel that the comparison to Michael Vick going to jail for dog-fighting is an appropriate parallel).

This verdict heralds in a tough time for American identity discourse because the injustice felt by the African American community (with the support of a wonderfully diverse American public) empowers us to have voice, to speak, to scream cosmically, our displeasure about being hated and how that hate is embedded within the infrastructure of this nation's systems.

But I believe that the scream is not from the verdict itself. I believe that this cosmic scream is in response to the verdict feeling like a band-aid being ripped off an old, festering wound, that just won't fucking heal. We realize that nothing has changed for Blacks in America, since 1619, just keepin' it real. Fundamentally, nothing has changed for us, in spite of the history in place that says things have (e.g. Civil Rights Movement, The Voting Rights Act (that has been gutted recently, also), Affirmative Action, President Obama's elections, to name a few). African Americans now realize with crystal clear clarity that in the nation of our birth, we are seen as sub-human. We are valued as less than animals. Since we know this is the biggest lie ever told: we're not havin' it.

Take that in for a moment, if you can. I mean really - take that in. Imagine you are born in a land where you are told from the cradle that you're a second class citizen --- the country's history tells you that and the country's infrastructure punctuates that, on a daily basis. In response, your family indoctrinates your humanity to set your mind and spirit in motion to navigate that reality in various ways so that you can at least survive childhood, if you're lucky. Coming of age into adulthood, it is anticipated that you will enjoy this human experience as a working, productive adult, free to worship your god, love your partners, take a walk alone or with friends (if you can do this without harassment), enjoy national pastimes alongside countrymen, create a family, get old, maybe travel a little bit, and make enough money to live out your life as best you know how.

Through a full lifespan there may be days when being "black in America" is not a salient issue. Note I said - through a full lifespan. If you're lucky, there are days when you get through racial hardships with a graze, not with a gunshot wound to the chest. You brush it off your back and keep it movin'. In between the usual bullshit of "being born Black", there are better days. Trayvon Martin's baby and childhood pictures show "better days" ... but being Black in America, the message is clear: you only get one time, one chance, one encounter, one day, one slip-up, that can make or break your very existence. Here's the problem: America's streets are landmines littered with banana peels.

Thusly, this verdict makes it crystal clear: in spite of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, voting rights, Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Oprah, Tyler Perry, Spike Lee, Jazz, Black Hollywood, Hip Hop, African American literature, the existence of a Black economic elite, The Cosby Show, Black lawyers, teachers, ministers, librarians, social workers, intellectuals, Supreme Court justices, authors, singers, athletes, inventions, scientists, activists, parents, and on and on .... at the end of the day - no African American accomplishment or contribution matters to mainstream America. Yous black. Your skin color means you are sub-human. You don't count. Your life is not worth a damn. Thanks for all the basketball games and music, but your children's lives are not worth a damn. Your ancestors and everything they went through, for mainstream America, we don't give a hot damn - yous an animal that can be shot dead on the streets because we said so; better yet, because we feel like it. And in a court of law - we AGREE on that fact, yo.

Imagine how that feels when that reality hits you. When you really, really understand with clarity that you can even have the most powerful person on the planet look like you, come from a similar heritage than you, marry one of your sistahs, hail from one of the most identifiable hoods in the nation, and by his own painful acknowledgement, not even HE, not even his life, his wife, his children's lives - are worth a damn. At the end of the day. For real, for real.

That's the reality of what the Zimmerman Verdict has illuminated upon America as a whole, in my opinion; and that's a deep, bitter pill to try to shove down a nation's throat. And that is why American Black people are angry/frustrated/disappointed/disillusioned, and why President Obama interrupted the Press Corps on Friday to break it down for mainstream America, and why you even have celebrities like Jay Z and Beyonce on the streets marching in protest. Because they too realize that with all their so-called political power, hollywood or hip hop royalty, and incredible money and accomplishments, their lives are not worth a copper penny to American society. No matter how hard they work - their LIVES - their heartbeats are worthy of just one thing: a bullet. Given Jay Z's work, I'm not surprised that he feels some kind of way about that idea. It makes sense that he's on the streets with the people.

So if you are not African American or Latino American or a person of color in America - and all this "Trayvon Martin drama" is starting to get on your nerves, or you look at patrons in your library, or students in your classroom and feel some kind of way because you just "don't get it" - try to put yourself in our shoes. Try. Look at your family and at yourself in the mirror and ponder what it feels like to have to accept that your land of birth doesn't value your life - at all.

Think about how that feels since you KNOW you're a human being, and you KNOW you're a child of God. Think about how you can be born and raised, standing, breathing, and living in a country, walking on soil that your ancestors bled and died on, to come to the sobering realization that your very existence is at war with the very grounds you walk on - every moment. of every day. 24-7. all your life. For real, for real? That's a reality that any sane person would not be able to digest. You don't have to be Trayvon Martin or look like Trayvon Martin, or share a cultural heritage and history with Trayvon Martin to understand that somethin' ain't right with the American cultural consciousness.

So in kind, just think of America as going through a huge digestive problem right about now. Because truth be told, that is exactly what is going on - as a nation we're trying to figure out how to digest one more piece of poison called injustice that smells horribly of manure. We're resisting because we're full of this poison and we're sick because of it - all of us - black, white, brown, yellow, polka-dotted, - whatever. As Americans, we're bloated with being force-fed inhumane ideas about who and what we are to one another.

We're constipated with the scourge of racism that is a cancer in our hearts, minds, and guts. So resistance to the verdict is not going to feel good to any of us. And an ideological balm may not be enough to soothe the aches and pains of ancestral memory. Thus, think about what will be required to bring this  organism called America to full health - and you'll have a deeper understanding of how the anger and frustration and tears of Black America must be healed by us all. Personally, I feel like America owes Black people a 400-year old apology.

Thank you for listening.

Video: OccupyEducated.org Creates Online Library for Occupy Movement

Greetings: I realize that I've been posting a lot of videos of late, but I share what comes. Lately, a lot of things relevant to street literature have been visual in nature. I believe this is a good thing, as I believe that video is just another form of text. This particular video is very poignant ... please take the time to view it at your earliest convenience ... Time: 03:49 //

This video was originally uploaded to YouTube: December 4, 2011

The Streets as The Stage for Revolution

I watched and read the news this morning and thought about how powerful the streets are in inscribing society's shifts and movements in history - every street, every where... These are the stories that become archived as newspaper stories, chapters in history texts, subjects of memoirs, and plots for novels.

These stories then inform the world; as in this newsclip (below) that talks about how Egyptian men are taking lead from the historic U.S. Million Man March of 1995, to stage their own Million Man March for revolution in their country, today.  The bottom video shows American young adults standing for justice at University of California - Davis (UC-Davis), even while tolerating civil rights abuses by those in power, just 3 days ago. We are living in powerful times, where the streets are screamin' - there is so much going on - everywhere. It's as if the entire world is standing up at the same time. 

The streets are always talkin', inscribin', and signifyin' our human experience, because we, the people, are the headliners upon the stage of the streets. We write our stories as we live them.

Tahrir, Egypt: A call for "Million Man March"

November 22, 2011

Davis, CA, USA: Students being pepper-sprayed
at college campus protest
November 18, 2011

Mark Naison, Ph.D. said it best: "There is a definite connection between street literature and the movements curently taking place all over the world led by young people. Street literature was the improbable expression of people the society had locked away and locked out, in prisons and ghettoes, which forced its way into a world of book publishing that had written off the audience street lit was reaching. The Occupy movements were equally unexpected and equally impertinent. Both were movements of party crashers!" - Facebook, 07:01 a.m. EDT, 11/22/11.

Bloods and Crips Support Occupy Atlanta (GA)

Bloods and Crips Support Occupy Atlanta « CBS Atlanta

The Guardian (UK) Posts Article on Street Lit

Greetings! When you get a chance, this article is worth the read, and the comments section is building with some interesting op/eds. I want to thank my colleaguefriend, Kristina Graaff, for the headsup on this piece.

Click Image to Access Article

"The People Won!" - Julia, age 13

Wael Ghonim.
Image Source: allfacebook.com

"I am not a hero, O.K.?
I am not a hero.
I am a very ordinary person.
The heroes are the ones in the street."

-- Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who helped organize Egypt's initial protests, following his release from jail; the next day, Ghonim addressed a huge rally in Tahrir Square.

This quote and caption is from page 17 of the February 21, 2011 issue of Time Magazine.

Wael Ghonim being taken away by Egyptian police,
circa January 31, 2011.
Image Source: http://pumabydesign001.wordpress.com

The Stage of the Streets

Image source: buzzyuk.com

As I watched the protests of Tunisia, and now Egypt unfold, I cannot help but wonder: what stories are being told about this revolution? Who is telling them? And what are they saying? What literature is being written or will be written? What is that literature saying or going to say about the people claiming their voice on the stage of the streets?

The media is saying that most of the Egyptian protesters are from poor neighborhoods (Richard Engel, MSNBC News, 28 January 2011). Forty-percent (40%) of Egyptians are unemployed and living on less than $2 a day; 2/3 of the population is under the age of 30. (Dylan Rattigan, MSNBC News, 28 January 2011). This is a youth revolution that started via conversations of text from posts on social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter (Hauslohner, A."On the Arab Street, Rage is Contagious," Time magazine, 07 February 2011 issue, p. 38). I believe that these events illustrate the power of stories from the streets. I believe that these events also illustrate the power of social media to organize and galvanize groups for good and important things like, social justice.

The news media is speculating about the spread of this unrest from Tunisia to Egypt, to the country of Yemen. What this brings up for me is the power of the streets and how that power is actualized by way of information traveling via conversations. The streets are a stage on which our history is lived, enacted, and documented.

However, I am also learning that just like in our American culture, in Arab culture, "the street" is not a welcome term. World-renowned journalist, Christopher Hutchins, discusses in his article on Slate.com that the "arab street" is "a vanquished cliche' " that pundits and politicians need to lay to rest. He talks about how when media talks about "the streets" in Arab locations, it is regarded as a place where terrorists and insurgents live and thrive, and not as a place where everyday people shout to be heard. He wants us to be clear about this distinction. He bemoans how people outside of Arab culture exact privilege to conflate terrorists as the voice of everyday people.

I believe it is important that we watch and learn what "the street" means in various contexts. Just as the literary genre of Street Lit in an American context is quickly misunderstood and mis-contextualized as primarily populated with gangsters, pimps and addicts, it seems similar misunderstandings occur in other cultural contexts as well. "The streets" does not automatically mean "criminal" especially when we perceive the streets as a stage upon which all people seek and claim - voice.