Art & Politics
Access Via Exposure (AVE) and Reimagine!  Present: “I Am San Francisco: Black Past and Presence” Exhibition

The City College of San Francisco Rosenberg Library (CCSF) will host a reception for the mixed media exhibition I Am San Francisco: Black Past and Presence which will include a release party for “Power in Place” the latest issue of Race, Poverty and Environment (RP&E)—the national journal for social and environmental justice published by Reimagine!. This event will take place at the 3^rd floor atrium and room 305 of CCSF’s Rosenberg Library at 50 Phelan Avenue from 5 PM to 7:30 PM on September 22, 2016.

The public is invited to join us for exhibition viewing, refreshments, presentations and performances. San Francisco Poet Laureate, Devorah Major will be performing excerpts from her play “Classic Black,” which also looks at the history and contribution of blacks in San Francisco.   For information contact: Jarrel Phillips, Exhibition Curator and Lead Artist, 415.350.2222 / jarrelp@gmail.com / avesidea.org / reimaginerpe.org

Theatre

Actor Dameion Brown as “Othello” in the Marin Shakespeare Company’s production, is getting standing ovations. since the production started. Still in previews Brown who told Marin Shakespeare Company Artistic Director, Lesley Currier that he wanted to play the African warrior, “Othello,” has with this role had a dream come true.

Since MSC production of “Othello” opened, August 26 for previews, Brown is a Formerly Incarcerated or Convicted Person (FICP), just released after serving 23 years of a life sentence.  Brown played Macduff in Solano State Prison’s Macbeth in 2015 under the direction of Lesley Currier as part of Marin Shakespeare’s Arts-in-Corrections programs funded by the California Arts Council and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He is delighted to be giving back to the community through his work at Community Works West, teaching parenting skills with the EPIC Program – Empowering Parents In Our Community – and cultural awareness classes with an emphasis on anger management and conflict resolution. He is a Case Manager for Transitional Age Youth (TAY), helping youth ages 18 to 25 realize they can make better choices about their lives. Visit http://marinshakespeare.org/tickets/  The performances are at Forest Meadows, 890 Belle Ave. San Rafael CA

Berkeley Arts Festival presents: Solitary Man: My Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison with Jazz Improvisation with Charlie Hinton & Bill Crossman. Directed by Mark Kenward

Take the dose about 40 minutes before the love making begins as this is the normal time of copulation that you get after taking the known buy levitra deeprootsmag.org. This drug is well known to be very effective in generico levitra on line treating pulmonary disease and stress in men. Every single guy you can try here sildenafil delivery who used these magic pills for once, is using it again and again, and recommending it to everyone. It was proven that women viagra online aside from its side effects, Penegra cannot also be combined with other medications such as nitroglycerin for angina (heart problem). Two performances: Friday, September 23 • 8:00 p.m. is a benefit for Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. Sunday, September 25 • 4:00 p.m. is a benefit for Black Lives Matter. Venue: 2133 University Ave. Berkeley (between Shattuck and Walnut)

Charlie created Solitary Man based on letters and visits with prisoners in Pelican Bay SHU/solitary confinement. The show takes place in November, 2014, a year after the largest prisoner hunger strike in history. Pianist Bill Crossman will improvise music throughout the performance. Afterwards, we will have an update about Pelican Bay and the “security/welfare” checks that are waking up prisoners every 30 minutes in solitary confinement units throughout CA.  Suggested Donation $5-10, no one turned away Facebook: /solitarymantheplay

Dance
Congratulations to Raissa Simpson on her MFA this Spring, and on her upcoming 4^th PUSHfest, Friday-Sunday, September 23-25. Ms. Simpson’s new work, an Afrofuturism piece, collaboration with composer, Erica Mulkey: “Mothership,” is in Program A only.

PUSH Dance Company presents PUSHfest, a mixed-genre (modern, ballet, hip-hop, ethnic, and multi-disciplinary) dance festival that situates 18 mid-career and emerging choreographers in two different and exciting programs at ODC Theater, 3153 17^th Street, San Francisco, Friday-Sunday, September 23-25, 2016.

Four Shows – Program A: Friday, Sept. 23 at 8pm and Sunday Matinee, Sept 25 at 4pm; Program B: Saturday, Sept 24 at 8pm and Sunday Evening, Sept 25 at 7pm.

ODC Theater, 3153 Mission Street at Shotwell, San Francisco, CA 94110. Tickets for PUSHfest are priced $30 general admission, $28 advance, $15 Senior\Student, $50 festival pass for both programs, and may be purchased at http://www.pushdance.org/festival.

On the Fly:
Justice Now! All Access–Oakland for Abortion Rights at New Parkway Theatre in Oakland
Sept. 10, 4:15 p.m. to 7 p.m. https://www.facebook.com/events/1714749882123850/  Justice Now, Join ACCESS Women’s Health Justice, and Shanelle Matthews as we take over the New Parkway Theater to livestream the All Access 2016 event, a night of music and comedy taking place in cities across the U.S. to celebrate the vibrant majority of Americans who support an individual’s right to access abortion. With a headlining event in Cleveland, satellite events in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami and Chicago, and 30+ local events across the country, All Access will show that we stand together to ensure equitable access to abortion in every community. Livestream performances by: Sia, Natalia LaFourcade, Leslie Jones, Host Jessica Williams, and more. Tickets are $10.  White Man on a Bus by Bruce Graham @ Flight Deck in Oakland Sept. 15-24, 1540 Broadway, Oakland. For tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2580683 Live video interview with playwright following the Sept. 17, 8 p.m. performance. Tickets: $5 (youth); $15 (adult, preview).  Synopsis: Ray, a wealthy white business executive, rides the bus through a struggling black neighborhood and past the state penitentiary every Saturday. For many on the bus it doesn’t make sense. Why would a rich, white, businessman give up his life of luxury to ride a bus? On his weekly ride, Ray befriends Shatique, a young African-American woman putting herself through school and battling to raise a son on her own. As they get to know each other the threads that tie them together gradually unravel in a complex web of moral ambiguity, race, privilege, and revenge.  Theatre Rhinoceros presents… THE BROTHERS SIZE by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by Darryl V. Jones, Sept. 24 – Oct. 15, 2016, at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson St., (at Battery St.) in San Francisco. Visit www.TheRhino.org  Joyce Gordon Gallery’s 13^th Anniversary Exhibition Season continues with “Artmatism and Geometic Abstraction: Bill Dallas and John Whitehead,” Sept. 2-Oct. 1. The artist reception and talk are Friday, Sept. 2, 6-9 p.m. (Talk at 7 p.m.). JGG is located at 406 14^th Street, Oakland. Gallery Phone: 510.465.8928 Poetry at the Beat Museum in San Francisco: “Positive Change, By Any Means Necessary” This event is for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Saturday, September 24, from 2 to 6 pm. Charles Blackwell is one of the featured poets. Also at the Beat Museum this month is the 9^th Annual Beat Museum Poetry Festival, Sat.-Sun., Sept. 17-18. The Beat Museum is located at 540 Columbus Street in San Francisco.  Brava presents: TYPE/CASTE, A Solo Show About Acting While Black (& Queer) (http://www.rotimionline.com/Type/Caste)Written and Performed by Rotimi Agbabiaka, Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe at Brava Studio, September 15-October 1, 2016, Thursday-Saturday | 8pm Synopsis: A queer, black actor dreams of a dazzling career on the American stage but will first have to leap over obstacles placed by an industry that isn’t always welcoming to applicants who are neither white nor straight.

 

Wanda’s Picks August 2016

Remembering the Ancestors

A libation for all the born and yet to be born. A libation for those whom we miss and miss and missed. We call the names of those whose lives will never die as long as we remember their names. . .  Ashay! We ready ourselves for their return. Open our eyes so we can both see and recognize their presence.

My grandson was born with his face up his fists lifted in a salute. Legend Omar Lyles is rushing into the present . . . we see him raising his head – holding it steady so he can see hours after birth, my other grandson Robert’s astral twin would speak so clearly to his parents—they knew he was not traveling alone. Ashay!

The Box, a Review
(do not read until after you have seen the play)

Sarah Shourd’s “The Box,” directed by Michael John Garcés at Z-Space in San Francisco for a limited run closing July 30, looks at solitary confinement from the perspective of those inside.

When we walk into the cavernous theatre there is a young woman standing in front of six cells, two cages high.  During the show, two guards move the men by sliding the three towers (two cells each).  The men wait, watch and pace. Behind the waiting girl, the units are occupied, three men on the top levels of all three cells, two on the lower—the middle cage has a vacancy. The men are seated, lying down, standing, holding the bars or yelling, screaming, talking, ranting. One man has his head in his hands. This is not a normal space we find ourselves in— those members of the audience seated next to me complain that the play has not started, without realizing we are in the work the moment we consent with a ticket purchase. Prison guards walk the perimeter of the cages—two officers, one a man, the other a woman.

My neighbors, check their watches repeatedly, note times passage until the lights dim. When the show officially starts, I have a slight headache and my heart is racing.

This is certainly going to be a different experience. We are all in solitary confinement, we just get to go home. Suddenly, what Robert H. King, (Angola 3, prison activist, survivor 31 years in solitary confinement) says often about imprisonment rings true—minimum and maximum custody depends on location. We are all serving time. Those of us outside are not shackled physically, and the bracelets don’t make noise, but we are limited in our movement and mobility. If we break State rules (implied and stated) we see how easily the noose slips around wrists, ankles, necks.

Theatre is such a brilliant medium, and “The Box” is theatre as it was meant to be used. Written by a woman who also experienced this phenomena, 410 days captive in an Iranian prison, Shroud uses her experience and that of the many people interviewed and befriended when she was released and traveled the nation advocating for those confined to these boxes for days, months and years.

In her collection, “Hell is a Very Small Place: Voice from Solitary Confinement,” edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway and Shroud, we hear the voices magnified on stage. Added are scholars like Stuart Grassian, Terry Kupers and Jeanne Theoharis who add additional perspectives on this peculiar aspect on an institution which civilized societies abhor and resist, since punishment not rehabilitation, is the outcome of incarceration, no matter how well intentioned.

Actor Steven Anthony Jones’s “Ray De Vaul is a political prisoner, former Black Panther Party member who was imprisoned at 19 and is 57 when we meet him. He has been in the hole or administrative segregation or in the box, for 19 years—a record for such cruelty.

Chris H. Holland as “Rocky Ashburry,” fills the empty cage. He is a child—a foster care tragedy. Though the other men, especially, Ray, try to help him manage the solitude and isolation, his tenure in the box is hard to watch. He is waiting for a hearing where he is charged with hitting an officer; however, he has witnesses, so the kid thinks the outcome will be favorable.

Carlos Aguirre’s “Victor Santiago” is one of the few men who have regular visits. The young woman we saw outside the prison before the lights dim, is his daughter, Olivia Santiago (actress Gabby Battista). Victor writes his daughter and we see photographs and letters from his child in his cage on the wall. He sews shorts for the men and makes them caps when the weather turns chilly. His family is in touch with him, so unlike the new arrival and others, like “Jake Juchau,” a white supremacist, in the box for killing his black cellmate, he is not as alone.

Clive Worsley’s “Jake” is studious and self-mutilates himself. He cuts himself up and speaks of a time when he was rushed to the infirmary for treatment—the lit room, the caring nurse and her encouragement to live. Jake likes to write and curse Ray, who is right above. The two seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but actually “The Box” brings them closer when Rocky’s suicide makes them see how the prisoners shared humanity is a key factor to their ability to bring attention to the cruelty of solitary confinement.

The men decide to go on a hunger strike to chance their circumstances. It is a hunger strike to the death if necessary and everyone is invited to participate. There are four men left in the cages at that point—Rocky is dead and Manual Fernandez’s “Carlos” has been removed from solitary.

There is a question whether “Looneytunes” aka Albert Roderick (actor J Jha) is capable of participating since he has obvious mental health challenges, but Ray says everyone is invited and they have to present a united front to the institution.

Jake reads and studies and gets college degrees. His writing wins awards and he gets lots of letters. He says the letters give him hope. He calls an old girlfriend whom he has not spoken to in six year or so to help him get the word out. She does. The strike drags on for 45 days and longer; the prison is getting negative press as hundreds of men starve themselves for justice.
The guards are edgy, especially the female guard, “Officer Miller,” excellently portrayed by Valerie Weak, whom no one likes. She is tough and even cruel to the men. Together, she and Officer Jones (actor Michael J. Asberry), trick Victor into leaving his cell (at that time, in a wheel chair) for a meeting with mediators.

He is sabotaged. A tube is stuck down his throat and he is force-fed. When the two return for Jake, they have a fight.

Jake knows his legal rights and so does Victor, but the two guards under orders from the prison administration do not respect their rights. Jake fights back and is killed. He also injures Officer Miller who goes into the cage and strikes him repeatedly after Officer Jones tases him.

Steven Anthony Jones Ray, shows the very real psycho-emotional effects of solitary confinement. Well-adjusted inside, Ray tells Jake, in a phone conversation that he misses the quiet in the cell. He says outside is too noisy. Jake encourages his former cell mate that it will get easier. He is adjusting and will be fine. Ray doesn’t look fine. His adjustment seems difficult and his family doesn’t seem to know what to do to help. I wonder what will happen to him when the play ends yet the issues facing those left behind continue.

“The Box” takes the audience into a world not many people in the room have experienced, despite the thousands of Americans suffering from this prescribed and legal human rights abuse and torture.

 

Sunday, July 31 at Eastside Arts there is a Townhall to discuss the recent deaths of women prisoners at CIW and CCWP

California Coalition for Women Prisoners presents… Shout Their Names
State-Gendered Violence in the Women’s Prisons & Beyond

Sunday July 31, 3 pm, EastSide Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd, Oakland

A Townhall to share information and action plans on the suicide crisis in the Women’s Prisons, prison guard assaults on gender non-conforming People inside, and updates on police murder of Kayla Moore, Jessica Nelson Williams and others.

Sponsored by the California Coalition for Women Prisoners
info@womenprisoners.org 415-255-7036 x 4

Breaking a Monster, a film review

The linguistic parlance today is framed in story, especially tales from the crypt—a counter-narrative told on late night television. The shows just before the TV used to shut down for the night. Remember those days? Days when TV was not all night, rather ended sometime after midnight, back on in the morning. Everyone went to bed, even the picture tube.

Enter “Unlocking the Truth,” three young Brooklynites with a hit single, “I am a Monster.” Say what?! Three boys, 12-13 year olds, whose hit single articulates a fear surrounding blackness, especially embodied by the male child. Is Malcolm Brickhouse speaking into a chasm where fear lies inert yet deadly, or is he teasing the snake coiled in the basket waiting to strike?

Black boys who play heavy metal and speed punk are not an anomaly; however, given the $1.9 million dollar Sony contract for five records, plus promotions, one might think it was.  Friends, Malcolm Brickhouse (vocals/guitar), Alec Atkins (bass) and Jarad Dawkins (drums) seem to have been in the right place at the right time, prepared and talented enough to step into their dreamscape once the genie blinked and Alan Sacks appears, an elder with industry know how and connections—but are these dreams or nightmares?

Where is the light switch?

Their journey unfolds in the film “Breaking a Monster: A Film about the Band ‘Unlocking the Truth’” (92 mins, 2016), directed by Luke Meyer which opened in theatres late July at Landmark Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and Opera Plaza in San Francisco. The film chronicles the band’s first breakout year. What makes this story remarkable is the way the three boys, two whom have been playing since seven, before they bring Jarad into the group. The boys rehearse and plan, then with Malcolm’s parents’ help play at New York’s Times Square to large audiences on weekends.  A member of the audience records the boys performing one afternoon, then uploads the video on Youtube where Unlocking the Truth becomes an overnight sensation—TV coverage attracts the attention of Sacks in Los Angeles who flies to Brooklyn to meet the families.

Malcolm’s mother and a father recognize their son’s talent early on and decide to support him and his friends in their careers, even if this means learning about show business along the way and trusting industry adults who know the trade better once Sacks enters the picture and the boys literally blow up—Brooklyn, NY too small to contain their talent. This does not mean Malcolm’s parents turn their boys over to strangers. No, one parent always seems to be in the room, especially when decisions are made or contracts negotiated. Malcolm’s parents voice their disagreement when necessary as do their boys when proposals are not to their liking. Malcolm’s mother exercises her parental rights to the chagrin sometimes of her son, as do the other parents. When Mr. Brickhouse says Jarad’s and Alec’s parents trust him and his wife with their sons, he means it and takes his responsibility seriously. We see him sigh and wish aloud he could spend all his time with the boys, but he has only so much vacation time.

The boys who are 12 and 13 in the film, have to read contracts and make decisions about the music and their lives which their manager doesn’t always appreciate or like.  We see artistic integrity vie with the economics of show business. There is a scene where the boys, Alec specifically, holds out when the artistic content of a proposal for a music video undermines the lyrical content. There are also disagreements on branding when the boys tell producers they don’t want their image trivialized by cartoon characters. Unlocking the Truth is serious. The senior Mr. Brickhouse objects when one of the white producers suggests a gesture which is too similar to a gang sign.

We see the boys play and joke and have fun, and push Sacks’s buttons to the point he wants to kick them out of his office at a rehearsal, but Sacks see his role with “Truth” as an opportunity to be a better grandfather to someone else’s kids than he was father to his own children. At times the boys want to play and Sacks says the boys don’t have a work ethic, that everything came too easy for them, when in fact, the boys are as good musically as they are because they are serious and spend hours rehearsing before Sacks turns up on the scene. And as he meditates and listens and gets as excited as we do listening to the boys play at their first recording session—the outtake a brilliant piece of music, it all comes together – the effort and patience he exercises, well worth it.

When the goal is monetized though, the boys lose some of the energy which inspires them to play in the first place.  Before Sony, there was time for movies and friends and skate boarding, bike riding – hanging out with friends—the contract or multiple year agreement means the boys have to give up their carefree lives and focus on the product—records, concerts, deals, product, marketing.

Skateboarding has to go if an accident might mean Malcolm can no longer play. What are these kids to do when their summer is spent traveling to concerts in Canada, Austin and elsewhere?  We see them texting or playing video games on their phones while the adults are making deals with their lives. Some critics say the band, Unlocking the Truth, is a token for an industry which sees black teens playing rock as a great investment, one that pays off.  It does for everyone. This summer with the film release the boys toured with their first album, “Chaos,” which dropped June 17.

We see Malcolm learn to sing. His music filled with visually compelling content. I wonder what he was thinking when he wrote, “I am a monster. . . that’s what you told me baby.” The video has the boys dressed in black jeans, leather jackets . . . playing the song in an alley—well lit, as people pass by, one a platinum blonde woman whose back is to the boys. I wonder if she is the one who calls the characters in the song, “monster(s).”

As more and more black boys and black men are slain by police and others, the idea that a youth calls himself a monster could validate the claim that he is not worthy of life or is this language a clever counternarrative meant to disturb, as Michael Jackson did with his “Thriller” debut in 1982?

The boys, Alec Atkins, Malcolm Brickhouse and Jarad Dawkin, play well and whether or not the audience understands or likes rock, “Unlocking the Truth” band is talented and the vocal content fresh, as is the film. “Breaking a Monster” is a wonderful look at the music industry, the Alan Sacks (industry guru and manager’s) redemption song and the coming to fruition the dream of these three young men. Perhaps the monster broken here is an industry which has a history of eating black boys (black artists) alive and cleaning its teeth with their bones.

Unlike “The Pact” (2002) doctors: Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, (from New Jersey), these kids didn’t meet in high school, but the commitment to each other and to the hard work necessary to realize their success as artists is equally admirable given their ages. Like all kids, they want to have time for girlfriends (Atkins) and skateboarding (Brickhouse). However, as the lead singer and composer, Malcolm feels the pressure perhaps and at times creativity suffers as fun becomes work, love becomes a pay check—who is making money off “Unlocking the Truth” band? The agents – Sony and Sacks or the group?

However, artistic integrity prevails as the boys get used to stardom and pull on inner resources and the guidance of parents and musical mentors (whom we do not see in the film, but learn of in other materials and interviews). We see Brickhouse practicing, growing more confident as a singer (which he says he is not).  As the youngster and his friends stop playing and start listening and learning, then stepping up to the plate, their potential manifests at levels they hadn’t seen. It is lovely seeing the pride in their family and communities’ eyes—the friends on the block who find inspiration in boys just like them.

Falls are inevitable, but the love of Malcolm Brickhouse’s parents is a safety net he knows he can depend on no matter what happens. I wish we could have seen more of the other two families, learned more about who they are. We see Alec folding clothes with his mother and learn that he is moving away from the apartment complex where all his childhood friends are. Malcolm says that he can’t play outside like he used to, because his stardom makes him too easy to recognize. Then he says that people see his face, but they don’t know him, the true Malcolm. He even has to switch to another school, one that is smaller. We see the boys reading Lois Lowry’s novel about a dystopia universe called, “The Giver” (1993), an interesting shot given the storyline. Visit www.breakingamonster.com

The universe explored in the film is an honest one, where the boys play what they know, what they feel what they see. As young as they are, Unlocking the Truth is certainly a band to watch. Hope their tour brings them to northern California next time (smile).
The guards are edgy, especially the female guard, “Officer Miller,” excellently portrayed by Valerie Weak, whom no one likes. She is tough and even cruel to the men. Together, she and Officer Jones (actor Michael J. Asberry), trick Victor into leaving his cell (at that time, in a wheel chair) for a meeting with mediators.

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Jake knows his legal rights and so does Victor, but the two guards under orders from the prison administration do not respect their rights. Jake fights back and is killed. He also injures Officer Miller who goes into the cage and strikes him repeatedly after Officer Jones tases him.

Steven Anthony Jones Ray, shows the very real psycho-emotional effects of solitary confinement. Well-adjusted inside, Ray tells Jake, in a phone conversation that he misses the quiet in the cell. He says outside is too noisy. Jake encourages his former cell mate that it will get easier. He is adjusting and will be fine. Ray doesn’t look fine. His adjustment seems difficult and his family doesn’t seem to know what to do to help. I wonder what will happen to him when the play ends yet the issues facing those left behind continue.

“The Box” takes the audience into a world not many people in the room have experienced, despite the thousands of Americans suffering from this prescribed and legal human rights abuse and torture.

Concert

AfroSolo Arts Festival 2016 at Yerba Buena Garden Festival present: Tammi L. Hall and Dr. Linda K. Ricketts, Saturday, August 6, 1-3 p.m. at YBG (Mission Street between 3^rd and 4^th Streets) in San Francisco. For information on this free concert visit afrosolo.org or call (415) 771-2376.

Art Exhibitions

50 Years in a Flash: Celebrating the Photography of Jim Dennis,
August 5-27 at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14^th Street, Oakland. Visit www.joycegordongallery.com

The artist reception and talk is Friday, August 5, 6-9 p.m. The talk is at 7 p.m. Jim’s birthday celebration is August 18, 6-11 p.m. at Geoffrey’s InnerCircle, 410 14^th Street, Oakland. The closing reception is a Portrait Session with a makeup artist, August 27, 1-4 p.m.

The Black Woman Is God: Reprogramming that God Code at SOMArts continues through August 17

The exhibit curated by Karen Seneferu and Melorra Green features the work of over 50 black women artists in a variety of genres: film, mixed media installation, sculpture, paintings, photography – in a range of sizes covering entire walls to intimate corners. We travel below ground into spaces where lives are born and secret formulas are calculated . . . brews stirred. Karen Seneferu, an installation artist whose work in mixed media continues to amaze— has a red room where dressed in a striking green gown for “SOMArt’s Night Out” recently, invited guests to lie down on their tummies and in real time tell audiences what they thought about the work. (You can watch the recorded footage at the artist’s Facebook site.) More than an exhibition, The Black Woman is God is Kemetic nouveau sistahood at a time when black lives are not just trivialized and dismissed, the black woman singularly continues, like Ezili Danto (Hagar or patron saint for all the single mothers) takes care of the orphaned children. God provides. She finds the water in the desert for her baby just by whispering to the angels—Zamzam still flows to this day, quenching the thirst of pilgrims in the desert. Yes, this is a metaphor and a reality for those making Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Seneferu’s work looks at what is in our world, whether it is a discarded penny or a bird that befriends her, then leaves a blue feather when he departs. With a sharpened sense, her work deepens the gaze allowing us to experience the overlooked or unknown.

I remember her digital nkinsi dolls who provide protection against much of the distracting noise that keeps us from hearing our true voice, a voice located in a region beyond physical touch. Karen’s tribute to her ancestors—a mandala piece in the shape of Africa peopled with furniture, seeds, statues, photographs, created for ProArts many years ago then transported to the Sargent Johnson Gallery, for the Maafa 2003: Black African Holocaust Commemoration (in October) was her entrance into a public space as a fine artist whose craftwomanship has only blossomed and billowed and grown into its current magnificent size.  Karen Seneferu, Kimara Dixon, and Salifu Mohammed inaugurated our season of Remembrance that year. It was also our first art exhibition of which we have had four others: Laney College (2004; 2008), Prescott Joseph Center (2008), and an Oakpod collaboration at an independent gallery in Oakland.

SOMArts Gallery Hours are Tuesday–Friday 12–7 p.m. and Saturday 12–5 p.m. at 934 Brannan St. (between 8th and 9th).  The exhibit is free.

 

Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, July 27-October 23, 2016

Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery features a large selection of photographic cartes de visite of the famed former slave, as well as other Civil War–era photographs and Federal currency, none of which have been exhibited before.

The exhibition is organized by Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities at UC Berkeley and author of “Enduring Truths. Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance” (University of Chicago Press, 2015), the first book to explore how Truth used her image, the press, the postal service, and copyright laws to support her activism and herself. Many of the photographs included in the exhibition were a recent gift from Professor Grigsby to BAMPFA. Visit Hashtags: #SojournerTruth #BAMPFA
Public Programs

 

Carte de Visite Workshop

Sunday, July 31, 2 p.m.

Create your own personalized carte de visite inspired by those on view in Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery. Make a photographic portrait, using props and text to experiment with self-presentation, then make your own set of calling cards using the Art Lab’s Risograph printer. With artist Raphael Noz.

Included with admission

 

Family Fare: The Story of Sojourner Truth

Saturday, September 10, 11:30 a.m. & 1 p.m.

 

Compare and contrast a series of portraits with guide Shivani Sud, including those on view in Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery. Then, with artist Kaya Fortune, connect with the experiences of Sojourner Truth by making collages using reproductions of historic photographs, autographs, and stamps from the Civil War period. For kids ages 6 & up and their families. Free for kids plus one adult.
Black Activism and Photography from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement

Saturday, September 17, 1 p.m.

Former slave Sojourner Truth strategically deployed photography as a form of political activism. In this roundtable discussion presented in conjunction with Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery, UC Berkeley professors Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby (History of Art) and Leigh Raiford (African American Studies) and photographer/photography historian Makeda Best of the California College of the Arts consider how photography has been used in the African American struggle for political change.

Included with admission

 

Sojourner Truth Reading Group: Frank B. Wilderson III

Saturday, September 17, 5 p.m.

 

Join award-winning writer, poet, and UC Irvine professor Frank B. Wilderson III for a screening of his 2005 film “Reparations . . . Now,” a critical documentary that captures the terror of unnamable loss shouldered by twenty-first-century descendants of slaves, followed by a group conversation about the issues raised by the film.

Included with admission

 

Sojourner Truth Reading Group: Regina Mason

Friday, October 7, 7 p.m.

International speaker, author, and storyteller Regina Mason is the third great granddaughter of ex-slave and autobiographer William Grimes. In this talk, learn the fascinating story of how she took history into her own hands by authenticating her ancestor’s book, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, the first American fugitive slave memoir.

Included with admission

Hashtags: #SojournerTruth #BAMPFA  http://www.bampfa.org/press/sojourner-truth-photography-and-fight-against-slavery

On the Fly:
Salsa in Berkeley, August 21, 12 noon-6 p.m. (Every 3^rd Sat., through October)at Center and Shattuck. Visit http://www.downtownberkeley.com/eats-beats-brews-14

We lost many loved ones this past month from Kamau Amen Ra to community organizer, prolific writer and longshoreman, Brother Cleophus Williams, to my dear Sister Monica Pree, not to mention Muhammad Ali. My condolences to all.

Black Lives Matter?

July 4 is a time when many of us reflect on Independence Day, a day marked by the blood of African Ancestors of the Middle Passage—the first to die, a black man, Crispus Attucks (March 3, 1770) in what became known as the Boston Massacre[1]  Frederick Douglas’s eloquent query: “What to the American Slave is the 4^th of July?”[2] On the eve of the 240^th Anniversary this freed British colony asks what is freedom to an emancipated population who have to wear signs “Black Lives Matter”? I was surprised to see a sister in a BLM tee-shirt in superior court in Accra.  We were there late June for a murder trial. Two elder black women were killed over land.

Black Lives Matter signage reminds one of the signs, “I Am a Man,” the silent protest in Memphis by striking Sanitation Workers (1968) and subsequent solidarity marches.  The reason why the strike was held was following the death of two sanitation workers, “Echol Cole and Robert Walker died when they were crushed to death with the garbage and nobody noticed – crushed in the back of a garbage truck because during a sever rain storm, they were not allowed by the city to seek shelter from storms. Why because white folks in Memphis at the time didn’t like or want any of the all black sanitation workers to stop in their neighborhoods. Cole and Walker couldn’t fit inside of the truck, so the crawled in the back where the garbage was placed and a broom feel on the lever and crushed them to death with the garbage” (http://thyblackman.com/2013/04/08/thy-federal-government-forgets-i-am-a-man/). The complete statement is: “I am a man. I am a man, not a piece of garbage.”

We have to model what we want to manifest. If Black Lives Matter, then these sacred lives have to matter first to us.

Douglass[3] says to his white audience: “. . . You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina.

“You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty.

“You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse!

“You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country.

“You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

“Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

“But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

“Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped

“To palter with us in a double sense:
And keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the heart.

“And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape” (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/).

Reread, listen to actor James Earl Jones read Douglass’s prophetic words which James Baldwin echoes in his seminal “The Fire Next Time” (1963) as do Ta-Nehisi Coates[4] (Baldwin’s philosophical protégé), “Between the World and Me” (2015) and actor, Jesse Williams in his recent BET acceptance speech. [5]

Ghana, Land of the Ancestors Part 1

When I landed in Accra, Ghana’s West African capital on Tuesday evening, May 31, I’d been traveling for two days with an unexpected layover in England. We arrived several hours late. Yet my new friends, Wade, Sweetie and Duke, were not deterred in the sweltering heat of the evening. I gave Sweetie and Duke gifts and packages and then they took public transport home to Tema, while Wade and I headed for the mountainous region of Aburi, where I stayed for the first week.  Completely off the grid, Wade’s three story home is solar powered, with a filtered water system. He has planted native flowering and fruit bearing trees throughout and has housing for his employee who maintains the property in his absence. The road into this paradise is prohibitive to anyone without a 4-wheel drive. In this way, Wade hopes to ward off the encroaching move to tame the bush. Everywhere we see felled trees dating 100s of year’s old, fallow land waiting for developers. It’s hot and the shady spots natural canopies provided here and elsewhere throughout the region is one of many short-sided responses to development. However, Ghana is not the only place where trees are slaughtered. Look at the recent felling of trees circling Lake Merritt and the ones covering the land Peralta Community College District sold to developers. The “oak” in Oakland is all that is left of the trees covering the city landscape. Cowboys wear chainsaws on their belts—smiles and notches along their buckles mark incalculable losses.

Escape from the perils of development brought black Americans to Ghana, but the bush is getting a process or perm. With immigration to America the goal for a young Ghanaian population, preservation or conservation is an underfunded ideology, despite Ghana’s philosophical origins in the work of Dr. Osagefu Kwame Nkrumah who said: Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below the soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.[6]

In Aburi, which is home to the famed Botanical Gardens as well as many indigenous shrines and the revered dwarf community, I met a more relaxed Ghanaian community. The “rich American” stigma never left; however, the pressure was a lot more subtle than that in the metropolis Accra which bustled like all such cities cross a multiple nation state.

I’d just completed and turned in my final grades at work, just two night earlier, so the travel book I’d purchased was relatively unmarked. I decided to let Wade or Kwame, show me his Ghana. He was one of the many black Americans I met who’d discovered an oasis, their Eden more than 20 years ago and carved out paradise in the midst of global economies intent on stripping such places of its natural resources—goods and people. I was immediately enraptured by the multiplicity of butterflies. They were everywhere—beautiful, colorful, free-spirited.

Butterflies are symbolic of the ancestors— Oya guardian of the cemeteries and transformation. I also thought it interesting that death as spectacle is here, something I had never seen outside New Orleans. Yet, here in Ghana on Fridays and Saturdays, huge tents cover mourners, as families host large public ceremonies to honor their dead.  Red and black are the mourning colors—then a year later, the colors are white and black. Shops selling funeral bouquets are also along most roadsides. I’d planned to pick one up for my dad, but time got away and I was not able to purchase one. I saw many wreaths in the tomb-like cells at the slave castle dungeons of Elmina and Cape Coast.

At first, I thought the bouquets were Valentine’s Day wreaths, but its June. One closer inspection, I saw that they were bouquets for the dead. In the northern region, Tamale and further north to Paga and Wa, where there are more Muslims, the prolonged ritual of death is lessened. In the north, there is a Catholic population, perhaps the largest in Ghana. While we were at Mole National Park, we visited the Larabanga Mosque, the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa, dating back hundreds of years. The Larabanga Mosque is a historic mosque, built in the Sudanese architectural style in the village of Larabanga, Ghana.

A couple of days later, we visited the Old Navrongo Catholic Cathedral Building where the women in the community painted the interior using traditional aesthetic methods in the illustrations and materials. The church, made from mud bricks (1920) sits on grounds which also has a co-ed boarding school, another larger church and a smaller chapel built in 1907. We met Sister Martina Naa, a retired school administrator and nun, who kindly allowed me to use one of the student’s toilets.

What I loved about Ghana, my first visit which encompassed visits to mountainous Aburi, Cape Coast, Kumasi, Tamale, Salaga, Paga and Accra, and places in between, my goal to trace the histories of the slave trade from marketplace to ship holds – was the black Diaspora community and its economic impact on the Gold Coast. The Ghanaian flag which has within the Garvey’s Black Star exemplifies what Dr. Osagefu Kwame Nkrumah meant when he said he is African, not because he was born in Africa. Rather, he is African, because Africa is in his heart. He also said that African unity and collective governance is the key to global power.

On the Fly:
The Black Woman is God Exhibits open at Impact Hub Oakland, SOMarts in San Francisco, San Francisco Public Library, Larkin Street, Main Branch.  San Francisco Mime Troupe present: “Schooled,” opens July 2-3 at Cedar Rose Park in Berkeley. Shows are 1:30 p.m. (music) and 2:00 p.m. (show). Opening performance is at Dolores Park in San Francisco, July 4.  Visit sfmt.org for the complete schedule of shows through Sept. 2016. “Schooled” looks at the importance of education in shaping citizenry. In the play, co-written by Michael Gene Sullivan and Eugenie Chan, we meet a civics teacher (actress, Keiko Shimosata Carreiro), a hyper-vigilant parent, and her son, plus corporate mogul who wants to privatize education. Velina Brown as Lavinia Jones, black mother who is concerned about her son’s (Thomas Jones) education illustrated by her active participation in his school (much to his chagrin). It looks as if Thomas is not paying attention, but he is listening. He uses critical analysis to question and challenge his mother, peers at Eleanor Roosevelt High, and Fredersen J. Babbit, CEO of LAVA (actor, Rotimi Agbabiaka). I was seated next to members of American Federation of Teachers. I am a member of Peralta Federation of Teachers. The fate of Eleanor Roosevelt High foreshadows the fate of our nation this election year. The small cast (which plays multiple characters) was fantastic as was the even smaller band (3); however, I learned from Michael Gene Sullivan that the reason the cast/band is smaller than others in the past speaks to SFMT funding shortfall.  SFMT needs donors who give in the thousand dollar bracket. SFMT would like to tour last year’s production “Freedomland,” which looked at the prison system and solitary confinement. $10,000 is needed to do this.  23^rd Annual Laborfest is July 2-31, visit laborfest.net or call (415) 642-8066;  San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 36, July 21-August 7. Visit sfjff.org or call (415) 621-0523; 2016 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, is July15-24 2016 at Custom Made Theater, 533 Sutter Street, San Francisco. For information:  415-626-2176, http://bayareaplaywrightsfestival.org/; Campo Santo presents H.O.M.E. (Hookers On Mars Eventually), A new play by Star Finch for Campo Santo, June 29–July 10, 2016. H.O.M.E. will take place in The Rueff at A.C.T.’s Strand Theater at 1127 Market Street, San Francisco. Taking place from Oakland to Mars, in search of Home. H.O.M.E. follows the journey of a prostitute on a mission to reconnect with the son she abandoned. She believes that she must tell him their story in person as a form of rebirth before he crosses into his twentieth birthday. It just so happens that her son now lives on Mars. As part of Campo Santo’s Residency at A.C.T., and our 20th year of creating and premiering new works, we bring a new voice, a new play, a new writer—and a new way of looking at our city, the future, and home. Visit http://hookersonmars.bpt.me/ The first full-length play by San Francisco native Star Finch, H.O.M.E. features performances by Britney Frazier, Davia Spain, Lauren Spencer, Michael Wayne Turner III, and Jasmine Milan Williams; Fillmore Jazz Festival  http://www.fillmorejazzfestival.com/index.php  El Cerrito | WorldOne Festival: World Music & Circus Festival | 2016 Sunday, July 3, 2016 – 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm | Cost: FREE; Cerrito Vista Park | 950 Pomona, El Cerrito, CA and July 4, 2016: Monday’s admission-free family-friendly event is full of fun, food and entertainment from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. with music on the Main Stage until 6:30 p.m. http://www.el-cerrito.org/july4  Stern Grove Concerts (19th and Sloat Blvd.) continue in San Francisco, Sundays, June 19-August 21 at 2 p.m. Visit http://www.sterngrove.org/line-up.html  “Hurt Village” by Karori Hall closes Ubuntu Theatre Project’s inaugural 2016 season! The play opens July 15-July 31 at Grace Temple.  “Hurt Village”, directed by Nataki Garrett (Associate Artistic Director of CalArts Center for New Performance) is a site-specific performance at an historic Eastlake church.  Hall, whose “Mountaintop” had a successful run this spring in El Cerrito, tells another compelling story, it too set in her hometown, Memphis.  “Hurt Village” takes its title from the nickname of a black housing project in Memphis, Tennessee.  The central character of the play is a thirteen-year-old girl, Cookie (an aspiring rapper), and as we follow her story we see the deeper struggle and complexity behind the family’s struggle to relocate and improve their well-being. The struggles Cookie faces illustrate the seeming impossibility of rising out of this socio-economic strata: a community rampant with drug addiction; an estranged, and now debilitated father returning from a military tour; empty government promises; neighborhood violence; and the burden of being a young black girl whose society places no value on your life.  Ubuntu’s inaugural season focuses on threatened homes, and “Hurt Village” is a clear representation of that theme. The residents in this play are not only being forcefully removed from their homes which echo the theme of gentrification throughout the Bay Area, but heartbreakingly renders the complexity of the situation with suffocating limitations that are placed on them throughout their daily lives. For tickets and information visit: www.ubuntutheaterproject.com or call 510-646-1126. 

 

There is a Celebration of the Life of Kamau Amen Ra, Friday, July 15, 2016, 5-9 pm at Eastside Arts Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd., Oakland. Visit: www.eastsideartsalliance.org

All who loved Kamau are welcome to come.  There is an exhibition of some of his work.  Guests are asked to bring a dish to share. If anyone is a musician and would like to participate please contact Muziki Roberson muzirobe@sbcglobal.net

 

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p24.html

[2] Frederick Douglass delivered this speech July 5, 1852

[3] Here is actor James Earl Jones reading Douglass’s speech: http://www.democracynow.org/2015/7/3/what_to_the_slave_is_4th

[4] Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of the New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me (Random House, 2015) and National Book Award nonfiction nominee, will be on campus Wednesday, October 7, for a full day of interaction with Howard students and members of the Howard community. His visit will culminate in a major address and book-signing event at Cramton Auditorium at 7:00pm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsMKQsKV9Xg)

[5] http://www.democracynow.org/2016/6/28/jesse_williams_powerful_bet_awards_speech

[6] http://www.azquotes.com/quote/856243

ED not only happens in senior men, as it is a much more convenient, easier, and quicker way of obtaining one’s needed medication. cost levitra http://www.icks.org/html/04_publication.php?cate=SPRING%2FSUMMER+2013 This is viable icks.org viagra buy for men, positively not for ladies. A weak erection is, in fact, a massage is closely associated with yoga, and is recommended for men who suffer from impotence or weak erection can look for herbal http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1483321954_add_file_7.pdf purchase levitra online remedies, which create great problems in the further study of their benefits to the American public. Even the old men who have undergone the MRgFUS, experience improvement in their condition within first six months of unprotected sexual activity (or 12 viagra cialis achat months if the girl doesn’t tell you she has a boyfriend at the very start of the conversation, don’t believe her either. In Concert: Geri Allen with Special Guest John Handy

Pianist, Geri Allen is at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek on Saturday, July 30, 2016 for  two shows – 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.  John Handy, saxophone, is her special guest. Geri Allen is one of the finest jazz pianists performing today. To learn more about Geri or John visit www.geriallen.com, www.johnhandy.com or listen to music samples of either performer at www.youtube.com. For more information or tickets visit the website at www.lesherartscenter.org.

Two Reviews

Breaking a Monster, a film review

The linguistic parlance today is framed in story, especially tales from the crypt—a counter-narrative told on late night television. The shows just before the TV used to shut down for the night. Remember those days? Days when TV was not all night, rather ended sometime after midnight, back on in the morning. Everyone went to bed, even the picture tube.

Enter “Unlocking the Truth,” three young Brooklynites with a hit single, “I am a Monster.” Say what?! Three boys, 12-13 year olds, whose hit single articulates a fear surrounding blackness, especially embodied by the male child. Is Malcolm Brickhouse speaking into a chasm where fear lies inert yet deadly, or is he teasing the snake coiled in the basket waiting to strike?

Black boys who play heavy metal and speed punk are not an anomaly; however, given the $1.9 million dollar Sony contract for five records, plus promotions, one might think it was.  Friends, Malcolm Brickhouse (vocals/guitar), Alec Atkins (bass) and Jarad Dawkins (drums) seem to have been in the right place at the right time, prepared and talented enough to step into their dream scape once the genie blinked and Alan Sacks appears, an elder with industry know how and connections—but are these dreams or nightmares?

Where is the light switch?

Their journey unfolds in the film “Breaking a Monster: A Film about the Band ‘Unlocking the Truth’” (92 mins, 2016), directed by Luke Meyer which opened in theatres late July at Landmark Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and Opera Plaza in San Francisco. The film chronicles the band’s first breakout year. What makes this story remarkable is the way the three boys, two whom have been playing since seven, before they bring Jarad into the group. The boys rehearse and plan, then with Malcolm’s parents’ help play at New York’s Times Square to large audiences on weekends.  A member of the audience records the boys performing one afternoon, then uploads the video on Youtube where Unlocking the Truth becomes an overnight sensation—TV coverage attracts the attention of Sacks in Los Angeles who flies to Brooklyn to meet the families.

Malcolm’s mother and a father recognize their son’s talent early on and decide to support him and his friends in their careers, even if this means learning about show business along the way and trusting industry adults who know the trade better once Sacks enters the picture and the boys literally blow up—Brooklyn, NY too small to contain their talent. This does not mean Malcolm’s parents turn their boys over to strangers. No, one parent always seems to be in the room, especially when decisions are made or contracts negotiated. Malcolm’s parents voice their disagreement when necessary as do their boys when proposals are not to their liking. Malcolm’s mother exercises her parental rights to the chagrin sometimes of her son, as do the other parents. When Mr. Brickhouse says Jarad’s and Alec’s parents trust him and his wife with their sons, he means it and takes his responsibility seriously. We see him sigh and wish aloud he could spend all his time with the boys, but he has only so much vacation time.

The boys who are 12 and 13 in the film, have to read contracts and make decisions about the music and their lives which their manager doesn’t always appreciate or like.  We see artistic integrity vie with the economics of show business. There is a scene where the boys, Alec specifically, holds out when the artistic content of a proposal for a music video undermines the lyrical content. There are also disagreements on branding when the boys tell producers they don’t want their image trivialized by cartoon characters. Unlocking the Truth is serious. The senior Mr. Brickhouse objects when one of the white producers suggests a gesture which is too similar to a gang sign.

We see the boys play and joke and have fun, and push Sacks’s buttons to the point he wants to kick them out of his office at a rehearsal, but Sacks see his role with “Truth” as an opportunity to be a better grandfather to someone else’s kids than he was father to his own children. At times the boys want to play and Sacks says the boys don’t have a work ethic, that everything came too easy for them, when in fact, the boys are as good musically as they are because they are serious and spend hours rehearsing before Sacks turns up on the scene. And as he meditates and listens and gets as excited as we do listening to the boys play at their first recording session—the outtake a brilliant piece of music, it all comes together – the effort and patience he exercises, well worth it.

When the goal is monetized though, the boys lose some of the energy which inspires them to play in the first place.  Before Sony, there was time for movies and friends and skate boarding, bike riding – hanging out with friends—the contract or multiple year agreement means the boys have to give up their carefree lives and focus on the product—records, concerts, deals, product, marketing.

Skateboarding has to go if an accident might mean Malcolm can no longer play. What are these kids to do when their summer is spent traveling to concerts in Canada, Austin and elsewhere?  We see them texting or playing video games on their phones while the adults are making deals with their lives. Some critics say the band, Unlocking the Truth, is a token for an industry which sees black teens playing rock as a great investment, one that pays off.  It does for everyone. This summer with the film release the boys toured with their first album, “Chaos,” which dropped June 17.

We see Malcolm learn to sing. His music filled with visually compelling content. I wonder what he was thinking when he wrote, “I am a monster. . . that’s what you told me baby.” The video has the boys dressed in black jeans, leather jackets . . . playing the song in an alley—well lit, as people pass by, one a platinum blonde woman whose back is to the boys. I wonder if she is the one who calls the characters in the song, “monster(s).”

As more and more black boys and black men are slain by police and others, the idea that a youth calls himself a monster could validate the claim that he is not worthy of life or is this language a clever counternarrative meant to disturb, as Michael Jackson did with his “Thriller” debut in 1982?

The boys, Alec Atkins, Malcolm Brickhouse and Jarad Dawkin, play well and whether or not the audience understands or likes rock, “Unlocking the Truth” band is talented and the vocal content fresh, as is the film. “Breaking a Monster” is a wonderful look at the music industry, the Alan Sacks (industry guru and manager’s) redemption song and the coming to fruition the dream of these three young men. Perhaps the monster broken here is an industry which has a history of eating black boys (black artists) alive and cleaning its teeth with their bones.

Unlike “The Pact” (2002) doctors: Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, (from New Jersey), these kids didn’t meet in high school, but the commitment to each other and to the hard work necessary to realize their success as artists is equally admirable given their ages. Like all kids, they want to have time for girlfriends (Atkins) and skateboarding (Brickhouse). However, as the lead singer and composer, Malcolm feels the pressure perhaps and at times creativity suffers as fun becomes work, love becomes a pay check—who is making money off “Unlocking the Truth” band? The agents – Sony and Sacks or the group?

However, artistic integrity prevails as the boys get used to stardom and pull on inner resources and the guidance of parents and musical mentors (whom we do not see in the film, but learn of in other materials and interviews). We see Brickhouse practicing, growing more confident as a singer (which he says he is not).  As the youngster and his friends stop playing and start listening and learning, then stepping up to the plate, their potential manifests at levels they hadn’t seen. It is lovely seeing the pride in their family and communities’ eyes—the friends on the block who find inspiration in boys just like them.

Falls are inevitable, but the love of Malcolm Brickhouse’s parents is a safety net he knows he can depend on no matter what happens. I wish we could have seen more of the other two families, learned more about who they are. We see Alec folding clothes with his mother and learn that he is moving away from the apartment complex where all his childhood friends are. Malcolm says that he can’t play outside like he used to, because his stardom makes him too easy to recognize. Then he says that people see his face, but they don’t know him, the true Malcolm. He even has to switch to another school, one that is smaller. We see the boys reading Lois Lowry’s novel about a dystopia universe called, “The Giver” (1993), an interesting shot given the storyline. Visit www.breakingamonster.com

The universe explored in the film is an honest one, where the boys play what they know, what they feel what they see. As young as they are, Unlocking the Truth is certainly a band to watch. Hope their tour brings them to northern California next time (smile).

“Breaking the Monster” is a film which all black boys should see— it shows how dreams are possible if a person articulates them, puts in the work like Malcolm, Alec and Jarad were willing and continue to be willing to do, and of course have supportive adults one’s side.

The Box, a Review

Sarah Shourd’s “The Box,” directed by Michael John Garcés at Z-Space in San Francisco for a limited run closing July 30, looks at solitary confinement from the perspective of those inside.

When we walk into the cavernous theatre there is a young woman standing in front of six cells, two cages high.  During the show, two guards move the men by sliding the three towers (two cells each).  The men wait, watch and pace. Behind the waiting girl, the units are occupied, three men on the top levels of all three cells, two on the lower—the middle cage has a vacancy. The men are seated, lying down, standing, holding the bars or yelling, screaming, talking, ranting. One man has his head in his hands. This is not a normal space we find ourselves in— those members of the audience seated next to me complain that the play has not started, without realizing we are in the work the moment we consent with a ticket purchase. Prison guards walk the perimeter of the cages—two officers, one a man, the other a woman.

My neighbors, check their watches repeatedly, note times passage until the lights dim. When the show officially starts, I have a slight headache and my heart is racing.

This is certainly going to be a different experience. We are all in solitary confinement, we just get to go home. Suddenly, what Robert H. King, (Angola 3, prison activist, survivor 31 years in solitary confinement) says often about imprisonment rings true—minimum and maximum custody depends on location. We are all serving time. Those of us outside are not shackled physically, and the bracelets don’t make noise, but we are limited in our movement and mobility. If we break State rules (implied and stated) we see how easily the noose slips around wrists, ankles, necks.

Theatre is such a brilliant medium, and “The Box” is theatre as it was meant to be used. Written by a woman who also experienced this phenomena, 410 days captive in an Iranian prison, Shroud uses her experience and that of the many people interviewed and befriended when she was released and traveled the nation advocating for those confined to these boxes for days, months and years.

In her collection, “Hell is a Very Small Place: Voice from Solitary Confinement,” edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway and Shroud, we hear the voices magnified on stage. Added are scholars like Stuart Grassian, Terry Kupers and Jeanne Theoharis who add additional perspectives on this peculiar aspect on an institution which civilized societies abhor and resist, since punishment not rehabilitation, is the outcome of incarceration, no matter how well intentioned.

Actor Steven Anthony Jones’s “Ray De Vaul is a political prisoner, former Black Panther Party member who was imprisoned at 19 and is 57 when we meet him. He has been in the hole or administrative segregation or in the box, for 19 years—a record for such cruelty.

Chris H. Holland as “Rocky Ashburry,” fills the empty cage. He is a child—a foster care tragedy. Though the other men, especially, Ray, try to help him manage the solitude and isolation, his tenure in the box is hard to watch. He is waiting for a hearing where he is charged with hitting an officer; however, he has witnesses, so the kid thinks the outcome will be favorable.

Carlos Aguirre’s “Victor Santiago” is one of the few men who have regular visits. The young woman we saw outside the prison before the lights dim, is his daughter, Olivia Santiago (actress Gabby Battista). Victor writes his daughter and we see photographs and letters from his child in his cage on the wall. He sews shorts for the men and makes them caps when the weather turns chilly. His family is in touch with him, so unlike the new arrival and others, like “Jake Juchau,” a white supremacist, in the box for killing his black cellmate, he is not as alone.

Clive Worsley’s “Jake” is studious and self-mutilates himself. He cuts himself up and speaks of a time when he was rushed to the infirmary for treatment—the lit room, the caring nurse and her encouragement to live. Jake likes to write and curse Ray, who is right above. The two seem to be on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but actually “The Box” brings them closer when Rocky’s suicide makes them see how the prisoners shared humanity is a key factor to their ability to bring attention to the cruelty of solitary confinement.

The men decide to go on a hunger strike to chance their circumstances. It is a hunger strike to the death if necessary and everyone is invited to participate. There are four men left in the cages at that point—Rocky is dead and Manual Fernandez’s “Carlos” has been removed from solitary.

There is a question whether “Looneytunes” aka Albert Roderick (actor J Jha) is capable of participating since he has obvious mental health challenges, but Ray says everyone is invited and they have to present a united front to the institution.

Jake reads and studies and gets college degrees. His writing wins awards and he gets lots of letters. He says the letters give him hope. He calls an old girlfriend whom he has not spoken to in six year or so to help him get the word out. She does. The strike drags on for 45 days and longer; the prison is getting negative press as hundreds of men starve themselves for justice.
The guards are edgy, especially the female guard, “Officer Miller,” excellently portrayed by Valerie Weak, whom no one likes. She is tough and even cruel to the men. Together, she and Officer Jones (actor Michael J. Asberry), trick Victor into leaving his cell (at that time, in a wheel chair) for a meeting with mediators.

He is sabotaged. A tube is stuck down his throat and he is force-fed. When the two return for Jake, they have a fight.

Jake knows his legal rights and so does Victor, but the two guards under orders from the prison administration do not respect their rights. Jake fights back and is killed. He also injures Officer Miller who goes into the cage and strikes him repeatedly after Officer Jones tases him.

Steven Anthony Jones Ray, shows the very real psycho-emotional effects of solitary confinement. Well-adjusted inside, Ray tells Jake, in a phone conversation that he misses the quiet in the cell. He says outside is too noisy. Jake encourages his former cell mate that it will get easier. He is adjusting and will be fine. Ray doesn’t look fine. His adjustment seems difficult and his family doesn’t seem to know what to do to help. I wonder what will happen to him when the play ends yet the issues facing those left behind continue.

“The Box” takes the audience into a world not many people in the room have experienced, despite the thousands of Americans suffering from this prescribed and legal human rights abuse and torture.

Kamau Amen Ra, Presente!
By Wanda Sabir

I was in Ghana when I received news that Kamau Amen Ra made his transition, and it was at an exhibit at the British Museum in London walking through the chambers of Ausar that I reflected on a life well-lived, that is, photographer, Kamau Amen Ra.  As I looked at the treasures discovered recently in Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, cities which lay at the mouth of the Nile, part of the “lost cities” exhibition, I thought about the human treasures undiscovered who walk among us, like Kamau Amen Ra. I think Kamau called America or the Western Nations (EU included), Babylon, a place where treasures remain unearthed or hidden except for those with keen eyes or vision, both something Amen Ra possessed.

These cities, prior to excavation (over the past 20 years, led by world-renowned archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team) lay at the mouth of the Nile, and are named after, according to museum literature: “the Greek hero Heracles, Thonis-Heracleion. [Thonis-Heracleion was] one of Egypt’s most important commercial centres for trade with the Mediterranean world and Canopus, was a major centre for the worship of the Egyptian gods. Their amazing discovery is transforming our [present] understanding of the deep connections between the great ancient civilisations of Egypt and Greece.”

“These buried discoveries are seen alongside fascinating objects from major Egyptian museums for the first time in the UK.” Certainly, one’s next stop is the Nile Valley in Egypt: Luxor, Aswan, Cairo and Alexandria.

Sacred and Commercial centers, these reimagined cities, Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, are evidence of the greatness that was Kemet despite eventual occupation. The cities thrived as Greeks were welcomed[1] and eventually took over leadership as gods beginning with the reign of Alexander III, then his general Ptolemy. We see evidence of the shameless commodification of the sacred: from Greek name of one of the cities to the export of goods during what is called “the cult of Osirus.” The interplay with African gods and rituals and that of the Greek, for purposes of eventual domination is cleverly crafted as Greek deities are erected next to Kemetic ones with hyphenated names like “Ausar Sokaris.”  For Ptolemy to be accepted as pharaoh (following the death of Alexander the Greek), he has evoked the look of the natives with ceremonial items. His sister/wife is depicted with locs.

Later Dionysus is exchanged for Ausar, the sacred family: Ausar, Auset and Heru, part of lineage Helena rulers claimed. No longer, Kemet or the land of the blacks, these impostors donned African spirituality like Zionists don Judaism. The last native pharaoh was Nectanebo II (360-342). His head was found discarded near others at the Canopus temple. The introduction of Christianity leads to the dumping of statues like his and Serapis (the whitened Ausar).

The earth god, Geb and sky goddess, Nut, gives birth to Ausar, Auset and Set. Ausar is reincarnated and is said to be the patron of the underworld and Auset is the mother goddess (Yemanja) and patron of magic. Their child is Heru. Together with son they form the sacred family Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

Primary research is where the truth lies. The artifacts carry their own tales of capture. Audio tours and catalogs cannot erase the desecration of sacred objects and the submersion of Canopus where Ausar was celebrated and honored between mid-October and mid-November. Large vessels, like a type tub was used to grow vegetation which would simulate the god’s rebirth. Auset appears on her beloveth’s tomb as a bird fanning him.

After the Immaculate Conception (Auset uses magic to awaken her deceased spouse, King Ausar where she conceives their son, Heru), Heru is hidden in the wilderness from Set, his uncle. Bes[2] protects him. There is a lovely stele with Heru as a mature youth ready to face fate. There are enormous edifices throughout the exhibition which speak to the majesty of the period, despite their philosophical dilution or assimilation with the Greeks.

As I walked through the exhibition and looked at the names of Amun (king of ancient Egyptian gods), juxtaposed with the Greek god, Zeus, I thought about Kamau Amen Ra, the black god, and the subtleties of blackness (as in melanin) and black power.

Kamau witnessed with his camera. Like the creator god, Amen, he loved shaping and sculpting light (Ra), color and form. Amen-Ra, the photographer, references the hidden aspect of the art form. Unlike other visual mediums, the photographer is often surprised by what he captures—no matter how skillful the eye and precise the instrument there is magic in medium.

On any given day, he’d share his new cameras and what features were unique to each. I never saw Kamau without a camera except when he was at work with the developmental community he supervised on a job site or when he’d play his reed at the Berkeley Flea Market. I remember one time he showed me cards he’d made of photos taken with his Sony. He then walked me around the Flea Market framing each shot in my hand. He showed me how he used illustrator and color accents to make the images unique. Just before I went to Ghana in May, Kamau sent me a link to a new camera when I told him how much repairing the flash on my old camera would cost.

Mid-west native, Kamau was my introduction to black Chicago. Lorraine Hansberry my literary introduction, Kamau a history I could touch. He told me about going to DuSable, a black high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood, playing music and his AACM[3] and Art Ensemble mentors. I always wished I’d interviewed Kamau. His passing is like several libraries burned down.
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Kamau was underappreciated, yet he didn’t let it keep him from doing his work. His more recent work as a curator at the San Leandro and Berkeley Public Libraries were opportunities for the Bay Area communities to see the breath that is black photography, with an emphasis on jazz or creative arts. The receptions were showcases which pulled together the best of the black aesthetic—visual, musical and movement. The book on black artists in the bay area owes much to Kamau’s archives. I recall discussions with him when that book came out about doing his own book.  I was interested in helping. Kamau Amen Ra and Kimara Dixon and I used to be a team. They would take the photographs and I’d write the stories. Kamau then started writing and his photos made the back pages of the San Francisco Bay View the talk of the town.

I think his foray into curating was a way to keep his work out there. Certainly we need to have a Kamau Amen Ra Photography Exhibit and Award to be curated by a jury of his peers. (I’d like to volunteer as coordinator for 2017 and would appreciate hearing from other interested parties, especially friends and artists who knew him well.)

I would also like to have a book next year filled with Kamau Amen Ra moments: personal testimonies, stories our brother shared.
Kamau, like many elders was under-employed and had to work when he should have been retired. His pension was not enough to support him, and Kamau was not extravagant.

His the story of another elder, Brother Tahuti, whom we lost last year.

I hope she doesn’t get angry with me, but Sister Makinyah Kouyate, who is 90, July 1, is another elder who lives alone.

A friend’s sister in Birmingham (just outside London) says that her husband, social worker (child and adult protective services) has to rescue elders who are alone and lonely.  From Zimbabwe, in Africa if the family is not around, neighbors will take care of elders. Kamau was found by a neighbor. Brother Tahuti was found by a neighbor too.

We need to look at better ways to care for our elders, even if they resist (smile). We can call daily and drop by with meals, offer transportation, give these elders money, ask about their health, pay for treatment — be the kind of family and community we’d like for our dear ones.

Let’s let Kamau’s passing be the last elder passing whom we did not know was ill or needed our support.

Kamau was our Gordon Parks with the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey pulsing through his veins. What a powerful combination. Ashay!

There is a Celebration is the Life of Kamau Amen Ra, Friday, July 15, 2016, 5-9pm at Eastside Arts Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd., Oakland. Visit: www.eastsideartsalliance.org

All who loved Kamau are welcome to come.  There is an exhibition of some of his work.  Guests are asked to bring a dish to share. If anyone is a musician and would like to participate please contact Muziki Roberson muzirobe@sbcglobal.net

[1] According to British literature, Egyptian leadership did not impose their spirituality on visitors, rather built temples for these outsiders to worship freely.

[2] I couldn’t help but think about “Porgy and Bess,” and this older tale where “Bess” protects Heru. Bes is a scary looking dwarf god, similar to crippled Porgy whose goodness dwarfed by his physical presentation. “Porgy,” a novel written by Charleston, SC, native, DuBose Heyward (1926) is read by George Gershwin who shows interest, but is too busy at that time.  So what happens is DuBose with his wife, Dorothy’s assistance, adapts the work for stage which runs for 367 shows. The Theatre Guild run is quite successful, and attracts other interested parties like Al Jolson; however, the musical adaptation is still to come, when the George/Ira Gershwin connection (1934) that seals its famed theatrical fate (http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/porgy&bess.php).

[3] Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians