“Unconscious Bias and Race…” and other twinks

racialicious America Healing: Unconscious Bias and Race: These are the notes for the Plenary Session on Unconscious Bias and … bit.ly/JNfC3s

shadowandact WB Sets Release Date For Jackie Robinson Biopic Starring Chadwick Boseman, Nicole Beharie bit.ly/J5KsOW

africatechie The Most Powerful Women You’ve Never Heard Of foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/
(FP) via @baldaufji

TwitchFilm Atmospheric Trailer For Nonzee Nimibutr’s DISTORTION goo.gl/fb/a3P26

shadowandact Watch Compilation From Wendell Pierce-Produced, Raisin-in-The-Sun-Inspired Drama Clybourne Park (Opens Today [4/20/2012]) bit.ly/J7q06Y

shadowandact Cedella Marley, Daughter Of Bob Marley, Talks To S&A About Definitive Marley Doc (Opening Today) bit.ly/IDCQ8u

AtlanticCities Why young Americans are driving so much less than their parents, via @Richard_Florida bit.ly/HEc0iz

democracynow Tuareg Rebels in #Mali Declare Independence: Part of an African Awakening for Self-Determination? owl.li/a9LsK

africatechie Delta State Government To Make Asaba The ‘Silicon Valley of Africa’? bit.ly/GSSZd2 by @techloy

zephoria “The White Savior Industrial Complex” = fabulous commentary from @tejucole on #stopkony & similar projects: bit.ly/GEJcHo

africatechie VIDEO: China’s investment in Ghana is ‘very welcome’ bbc.in/AF476W (BBC)

imaniperry On African Americans, Mental Health and Suicide, by @AmyAlex63 & Alvin Poussaint amazon.com/Lay-My-Burden-


imaniperry Suicide and Black Men bet.com/news/health/20


africatechie Nigeria’s Boko Haram: between rebellion and jihad bit.ly/wVFQTX (Reuters)

africatechie In Praise of Brain Drain: Want to help the developing world? Hire away its best minds bit.ly/rsYNEP (FP)

nilerodgers RARE 1983 PHOTO: David Bowie Rick James China Club Grammy and Grace Jones – bit.ly/yrpCdP

brainpicker 25 iconic Saul Bass title sequences in 100 seconds j.mp/uxgbPq

denisejacobs Great resource: Searching the Brain for the Spark of Creative Problem-Solving— NYTimes.comnyti.ms/tiiBnZ

“Kino Lorber Releasing Restored Version Of ‘Ganja & Hess’…” and other twinks…

shadowandact Kino Lorber Releasing Restored Version Of "Ganja & Hess" on DVD and Blu-ray 5/8 (Cover Art & Specs)bit.ly/HY2WF8

studiomuseumA very interesting @nytimes article on contemporary African artists:ow.ly/aj9Fr

shadowandact Brazilian Martial Arts Flick "Besouro" Gets Name Change For USA Release; Now Streaming On Netflix As "The Assailant" bit.ly/GPIdRX

shadowandact The White Savior Industrial Complex bit.ly/GDMJ2z

Indiegogo INTERVIEW: After hearing the ‘kora’, Steven Pile decides to open a solar-powered music school in Gambia bit.ly/zQxA5v

shadowandact 7th Annual Women Of Color Arts & Film Festival Announces Opening, Closing, Centerpiece Films bit.ly/wQgewY

shadowandact Rural African American Life In The 1930s-40s (wonderful color photographs) bit.ly/x1FE9K

shadowandact Watch Trailer For Vin Diesel’s "The Ropes" Series; Season 1 Now Streaming On Netflix bit.ly/xnrsIZ

Nikyatu RT @Terencenance: Post-blackness is a car wreck between semantics and self hate. The whole concept should be re-names post-wackness

Nikyatu RT @Terencenance: The Help, Red Tails, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty and the Problem With Black Cinema tinyurl.com/7trds4x

BlkCinemaAtLarg RT @Skrap_Zemrag Why the Oscars should cast out "The Help" and welcome in "Pariah" bit.ly/xI6ZgM via@guardian

TwitchFilm New Teaser For Kenji Kamiyama’s 009 RE:CYBORG goo.gl/fb/wuKGT

shadowandact "Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone" Gets DVD/Digital Release Pickup And Release Date bit.ly/x1TGds

shadowandact First Look At Danny Glover And Kimberly Elise In Upcoming Western "Hannah’s Law" bit.ly/zneruJ

shadowandact Top Grossing Films Of 2011 + Top Grossing Films With Black Characters In Starring Roles bit.ly/sB0ANl

brainpicker 25 iconic Saul Bass title sequences in 100 seconds j.mp/uxgbPq

Message Media ED Talking Points

ХудожникTroy and Bryan speak!

Here are my talking points for the upcoming talk. I do not expect to hit even 5% of what’s written here but this may serve as guide for what I should have said. As always, when I send you something I welcome feedback—I’ve never expected to grandstand and perform alone. Just like any child at play, I have the traditional expectation that, whatsoever I do, others can do just as well and often better.

General Preamble

  • The “mainstream” is a polluted river, an unsustainable environment. Speaking “outside of the mainstream” often means you are investing in the future of universe—not your next paycheck.
  • Most technical people “of color” worked in cultural isolation and risk getting too comfortable with being alone or functioning in a social scene where they are the only person “of color.” The need to be collective is not just a pretty ideal from the 1960s. It is a mental health exercise.
  • The ethnic origin of my intellect is not European—this is not an outburst of irresponsible hatred but a carefully considered revelation that has taken decades for me to see.
  • Recommended reading Black Life in Corporate America. This book takes testimony from the previous generation.

Answering Dr. Shani

  • My current title is “Silverlight Consultant”—I’m a contractor for 20th Century Fox Filmed Entertainment. I am not a permanent employee—this means that I have to pay for medical insurance with my own money. This also leads me to the topic of “at will employment”—which means that I can walk in to the office on any work day and be told that my contract is cancelled. Since the end of legal slavery in the United States, it’s an American tradition to find me early and often to tell me that my contract is cancelled!
  • My educational journey—and my professional career—are dominated by Black women. This means that—as far as I am concerned—I have a classical African education. When I went to UCSB, I knew I was there because they had all of the material equipment—access to physical resources. All of the metaphysical came from deliberate preparation and attention from my family and the Black activist educational community of that time. When crack cocaine hit hard during my teens in the 1980s all of this went away—and the extreme isolation began which has never ended to this very day.
  • The first person to help me was my mother. All people come through women so it is natural that women should know all people—this is fundamental theme of traditional, pre-Columbian Black Africa—and this ancient ideal was glimmering faintly and brightly in my mother. My mother taught me personally how to read. As far as I am concerned, it is a sign of wealth and prestige for a child to be taught directly by his parents—this working class American tradition of parents leaving their children with strangers for hours per day for years is the greatest rip off of “modern” humanity. My father made it possible for my mother to teach me because he went to work to provide a home for my older brother, me and my mother. My father was an aircraft mechanic for Western Airlines—so as a child I could look up at the sky, see a huge airplane and know that my father worked on it to make fly. We often forget that Compton has an airport—my father was flight instructor there for years (my father’s teacher, by the way, was taught by one of the Tuskegee Airmen). My father built a train set that took up half the garage for me and my brother—so I was motivated to become technical at an early age. I used to sit out by myself there in that garage in my robe and pajamas trying to get the trains to run—this is the earliest stage in my life where having technical skills became important to me. My father is also a Bible scholar and he unintentionally introduced me to critical thinking and literary criticism by going over scripture with me. But then my mother and father divorced—my brother flipped out and became “the man of the house” which led him to gangs and then crack cocaine hit
 My mother and father were both teachers. My mother got her teaching credentials and masters so she was very involved in the K-through-12 educational scene of the 1970s and 1980s. My mother became a nerd of sorts about finding often very exotic educational programs for children—she even barged her way into getting me into the Korean YMCA one summer! There were two very important institutions she got me into: The Museum of Science and Industry and the King/Drew Medical Magnet—both of these environments exposed me formally to the world of computers.
  • The traditions of the place we now call Africa are the key to my personal sanity—my personal mental health—and the deep reservoir of biofuel that powers my intellect. This power allows me view the Western world from outside of its worldview—and inside of it simultaneously. To give you an example of how far you can fly with such personal, internal freedom I remind us of the name Kwabena Boahen of Stanford University. He says plainly, “there is not enough Africa in the computer.” See his TED Talk that took place in 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania.

Art Beat featuring Dr. Shani Byard!

Dr. Shani Byard

Wednesday, February 8, 8pm PST @Blog Talk Radio Online

Hosted by Kinte K. Furgeson

Live listener call in #424-222-5228

Shani Byard, Ed.D., Founder/Executive Director

Message Media Ed—School of Black Leadership in the Digital Age
A unique learning center designed to close the digital divide
and advance leadership and innovation in the African American
community of South Los Angeles.

4923 W. Adams Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90016 323-708-2526

http://MessageMediaEd.org

Center Hours: Tues-Fri, 3-8pm (*unless otherwise noted)

“we need more teen coming of age films for young black girls” and other twinks

Nikyatu @Nikyatu Nikyatu

we need more teen coming of age films for young black girls. #intheworks

Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly Tim O’Reilly

Fascinating account of how big hospitals drive up healthcare costs, and claim false savings against inflated numbers http://bit.ly/ymCnTd

California Team @SafeRoutesCA California Team

County Dept of Public health finds cost to build a Walkable and Bikeable SoCal in 25 years: $40B http://wp.me/p16qn2-LM

Uche Ogbuji @uogbuji Uche Ogbuji

I’m pretty impressed with Chinwe Azubuike’s work. Definitely a Nigerian poet to watch http://africanartists.blogspot.com/2008/06/poetry-by-chinwe-azubuike.html #poetry #nigeria

Biosphere 2 @B2science Biosphere 2

RT @rellimluap: New blog post: Biosphere 2 and the joy of failed experiments http://shar.es/f1B4Y

African Entrepreneur @africatechie African Entrepreneur

In Praise of Brain Drain: Want to help the developing world? Hire away its best minds http://bit.ly/rsYNEP (FP)

Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly Tim O’Reilly

Depressing chart showing overlap between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department and White House http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/fh4eca65e4.png via Russ Nelson

Questo of The Roots @questlove Questo of The Roots

THIS is the number one entry in my greatest #JamesBrown performances. Live on The TAMI show http://youtu.be/b2nybY647F0

Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly Tim O’Reilly

Very cool visual perception demo. Motion-induced blindness http://michaelbach.de/it/mot_min/ #scifoo

Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly Tim O’Reilly

Damon Horowitz explains why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities http://bit.ly/nMutQE

Dave Winer ☟@davewiner Dave Winer ☟

Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again. http://r2.ly/8ffj

Engadget @engadget Engadget

Tesla CEO Musk says the days of batteries are numbered, ultracapacitors will power us into the future http://engt.co/dOCB12

Engadget @engadget Engadget

NASA’s MESSENGER begins orbit around Mercury [3/18/2011], will start beaming back science early next month http://engt.co/eu5FkO

Engadget @engadget Engadget

GE’s new phase-change based thermal conductor could mean cooler laptops — literally http://engt.co/fNxZ7b

Charles Schwab Corp @CharlesSchwab Charles Schwab Corp

Accrdng to @usedgov the avg cost of tuition @ 4yr public college is ~15K. Read up on diff types of savings plans http://cot.ag/eqiq1D ^LT