darkmatter

On stage at a recent gig in New York, Gil Scott-Heron complained that the designation of February as Black History Month (BHM) was just another example of black people getting short changed: having oppressed them for centuries through slavery and exploitation, the system now conspires to cut short their heritage celebrations by consigning them to the shortest month of the year. Though only half-serious, Scott-Heron’s rye musings are indicative of a certain scepticism with which some have come to regard ‘minority’ history months.

The upcoming Cultural Studies Now conference at the University of East London will be a major event examining the critical productivity of Cultural Studies as a discipline and political project. The conference raises a number of key issues:

‘Cultural Studies, as the paradigmatic interdisciplinary project, has always been defined by its relationships to proximate sets of ideas, practices and institutions. As Cultural Studies has grown and matured, its borders have multiplied. Cultural Studies has affected and been affected by contiguous disciplines, academic and non-academic institutions, political movements and projects, and creative practices of many kinds.

Boxed In is a recent essay by Sonya Dyer under the Manifesto Club banner. It is a rather predictable critique of public funding of black arts and artists. The core of the well-versed argument is that racially targeted state funding only leads to the ghettoisation of black artists. As the essay illustrates, it is not very difficult to give numerous examples of failed ‘diversity’ schemes and projects. Without going through the rather partial examples in the essay it is worth highlighting the real limitations of the argument:

Yet another post about Big Brother (BB) racism, but the last one you’ll ever need to read…

1. Was Emily Parr calling her fellow housemate a ‘nigger’ a racist expression? Yes…and stop asking such dumb questions. Regardless of whether with malicious intent , or just “speaking carelessly” as CH4 inanely put it, the term ‘nigger’ is steeped in a history of symbolic violence. Emily “nigger-is-a-friendly-term” Parr lives in a white fantasy land believing that this word can be inoffensively expressed to fellow contestants.

Something unusual happened yesterday in a city built largely on the artifice of celebrity. Millionaire heiress and ‘Simple Life’ star, Paris Hilton was led screaming from an LA courtroom to an uncertain future and the possibility of actually completing her 45 day jail sentence for driving offences and contempt of court violations. ‘Star’ might be a little excessive to describe Hilton’s invariably hapless efforts on the said TV programme to forego the umbilical comforts of a mobile phone and credit cards for the ’simple’ pleasures of an honest day’s work. What sticks in the mind, though, especially in the light of everything that’s happened since, is the flagrantly staged nature of her encounters with everyday folk and their work and home lives. The knowing smirk behind each frame gently reminds us, in case we’d forgotten, that this is just a game, the latest sitcom to feed off the carrion of ‘reality TV’. And like all games, it only carries on for as long as the players want to play - hence the cut, the commercial break, diverting out-take sequences and the media filtered knowledge of Ms Hilton’s ubiquitous presence on the not so pedestrian global party circuit.

Anxious? Mixed Bipolar Disorder? Varicose Veins, need Botox, difficulty sleeping? Just a sample of the full page ads littering the front, middle and back pages of LA Weekly which incidentally sees itself as more Village Voice than Sunday Sport. Such luminaries as the Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Institute of Beverley Hills and the American College of Phelbology (don’t ask!) occupy pole position in the race to capture the reader’s disposable imagination and presumably disposable income. Later, much later, we learn of the sociopathic exploits of ‘Chester the Molester’, a sadistic rapist/serial killer who preyed on vulnerable black women in his South Central neighbourhood and whose crimes went undetected for over a decade.

‘The Message’ or at least a version of the rhythm track spills out of the Buick’s windows. From my vantage point the sound leaks through from the concerns of another age. I’m sat in the car parked next to it in an industrial lot. Remembering. People pissing on the stairs because they just don’t care. But the lyrics belonged to some other place, equally distant, vicariously sampled. The Buick itself whispers ‘old timer’ at upstarts in their hybrid imports. Young Turks with nervous smiles, never really sure what they’re laughing about except that when the laughter ends, the trouble begins.

Hip-Hop has emerged as a serious area of study in the US. This article in the San Francisco Chronicle - ACADEMIC HIP-HOP? YES, YES Y’ALL by Reyhan Harmanci gives a useful overview of the rise of Hip-Hop studies in the academy.

Stevie never said, ‘California, just like i pictured it’, so beyond Baywatch, the OC and one too many films, there’s not a whole lot to go on as LAX looms large in the after dinner sky. Virgin Atlantic, appropriately, securing its patch of quasi-virgin terrain. Waiting in line to be questioned, fingerprinted and processed, and not a Pakistani cricketer in sight. Mind you when you hail from a land where chapati flour is now synonymous with bomb factory in the minds of many, we’re all suspects in the eyes of the law, especially when it comes fully holstered and with an itchy trigger finger.

A list of essential cricket books to read while watching the World Cup:

C.L.R. James (2005)[1963] Beyond a Boundary, Yellow Jersey Press, New Ed. Press

Ashis Nandy (1990) The Tao of Cricket, Penguin Books

Mike Marquese (2005) Anyone But England: An Outsider Looks at English Cricket, Aurum Press

Michael Manley (2002) A History of West Indies Cricket, Andre Deutsch

Ramachandra Guha (2003) A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, Picador

Rahul Bhattarcharya (2005) Pundits from Pakistan: On tour with India, 2003-04, Picador

Is ‘adopting’ a ‘Third World’ baby the ultimate charitable act for white western superstar celebrities?

Madonna’s acquisition of a baby from Malawi appears to pale into insignificance in comparison to the enthusiasm of actress Angelina Jolie. She has adopted babies from Cambodia (2002), Ethiopia (2005), and has recently filed to adopt from Vietnam.

Well, finally Jolie’s dedication has been recognised in the film world…

For a more serious take on this issue, see the Celebrity Colonialism article