Thursday, March 28, 2024
Culture

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If you have been watching Luke Cage, the Netflix Marvel Comics sensation that literally broke Netflix, then you may have noticed all of the symbolism throughout the show. The most dynamic piece of symbolism being a tribute to Trayvon Martin represented boldly whenever Luke is rocking the black hoodie. A black hero, in a black hoodie, AND the fact that he is BULLET PROOF, impenetrable from cops and bad guy bullets – it just makes you smile doesn’t it?

Fast forward to last week, one passenger on a New York subway train decided to share is happiness and positivity. The passenger after sharing his good news decided to encourage others to share their good news as well. What soon followed was a domino effect of smiles, joy, and other passengers sharing their good news. Crispin Booker was on the train that day and tied in the fact that because of Luke Cage, he can now be seen as cool:

“Just about a month ago, I’d be considered a scary guy with a hoodie; black, beard. But just a month ago on Netflix, Luke Cage made it cool,” he said to the crowd’s laughter. “I’m happy to tell you guys I’m turning 30 in December. I’m young, I’m black, and I’m beautiful. Sexy too. I came to share with you guys that I work in Manhattan. I work for a hedge fund. I’ve donated computers to the education system in a small Caribbean island called Grenada. So I am that new face of the black, tall, dark fellow in a hoodie…with a beard. I’m here to share my good news with everybody and hopefully you get to share too.”

After Booker’s positive confession, he prompted another guy named James to tell his story of being released from jail and down on his luck, to now having a job and making “pretty good job”.

Folks should do this more often. Thanks Luke Cage!

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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How much do you really know about the candidates running for President of the United States? Did you know that besides Hillary and Donald, there are five other candidates to choose from that will be listed on your ballot?

Do you know who is running in your district for Senate or the House of Representatives? How about more of the local elections, do you know who’s running for County Council or for your local School Board? Finding all of this information, if you are a registered voter in South Carolina, is easy. Simply log on to info.scvotes.sc.gov, fill in your name and date of birth and you can review a copy of the sample ballot. The ballot will list everyone running, from President to whoever is running in your district, like your Coroner and County Treasurer. If you live outside of South Carolina, review your local board of elections to find out where you can find a sample ballot.

Reviewing and researching the people running for office in your district will prepare you to make the best decision possible, especially when it comes to your local elections. Here is a copy of page 2 of the sample ballot for my district below:

sampleballotpage

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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A graphic promoting the Voter Registration Deadline

Due to Hurricane Matthew, the deadline to register to vote has been extended to October 11! If you are mailing in your ballot, you must have it postmarked with Tuesday’s date (October 11).

If you need to register to vote, check your registration status, or complete a change of name/address, or view sample ballots; visit: http://www.mvp.sos.ga.gov.

To confirm your registration prior to this date. Absentee voting by mail will be available through November 4, 2016!

If you do not vote, i don’t want to see you on Facebook whining and complaining…. just stop.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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Janice Johnson Dias

She’s been featured on Ellen, Michelle Obama has honored her, she has shared a platform with Oprah and she has recently been named editor-in-residence for Elle Magazine. Her name is Marley Dias, she’s 11-years-old, in the fifth grade, and she is making waves as the founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, an initiative to collect stories about young girls and women of color.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” That was the question posed by Marley Dias’ mom after the 5th grader voiced her frustrations regarding the book choices being offered within the classes at her school. 11-yr-old Marley had reached a level of frustration because she loved books. At home, she had a diverse array of books to choose from, however her choices at school were limited. She tells NPR what caused her frustrations:

“We were only reading books such as ‘Where The Red Fern Grows,’ ‘Crash,’ the ‘Shiloh’ series and ‘Old Yeller,’ so I noticed that. Then I was frustrated because I was never reading books about black girls or any different type of character.”

After her mom posed the question asking what she planned on doing about it, she launched her own initiative and called it #1000BlackGirlBooks. The goal: to gather 1000 books that better represented black girls. Instead of gathering 1,000 books, Marley and her team collected over 7,000 books. Since the start of her campaign Marley has collected $3,000 in donations from At Stacked Books, Barnes and Noble has donated books to her book drive, and Ellen in collaboration with Shutterfly donated $10,000 to #1000BlackGirlBooks. Now that she has surpassed her goal, Marley hopes to “donate to other schools where students are experiencing the same frustration”.

Walk into any major bookstore retailer and there is an obvious lack of diversity when it comes to literature depicting black characters – especially children’s literature. In a recent blog, Kelly Jensen of At Stacked Books stated:

“It didn’t hit me how difficult finding ‘black girl books’ truly was until I’d exhausted the obvious, exhausted the less obvious, and still have some money left over to find further titles. I am eager to see how Marley completes this dream of hers, as well as what her library will look like, but I’m also saddened to see so clearly the very thing she was talking about (and that so many others have and continue talking about): these books are not out there, not obvious, and that needs to change.”

Recent statistics gathered by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center stated, of the 3,500 books surveyed in 2014, only 84 were written by Africans or African Americans and only 180 featured Africans or African American characters.

Meanwhile, Marley has been described as “an agent for change” and she has many new goals and initiatives planned in order to spread awareness about the need for more cultural representation in American literature. Marley is confident about her cause,

“I will continue to do my part at getting black girls’ voices heard, Not just one voice but all of our voices to be heard. That’s why I collect a variety of books where black girls are the main characters. The books are diverse, like black girls are diverse.”

By the way, if you are interested in beginning or expanding your own collection of ‘black girl books’, some of Marley’s favorites are listed below:

ypl_woodson_brown_girl_dreaming one-crazy-summer-bookcovers chains i-love-my-hair-book-cover

Sources:

CCBC

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

“What we fear most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.” – Tim Ferriss

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To be honest, walking into the Southern Discomfort forum held at Redux in Charleston, S. C. , my cynicism was at an all-time high. “Here we go again” I thought, trying to explain to white people our angle, our thought processes, our frustrations and our feelings of living in a society, where after 400 years, still hasn’t fully accepted or embraced US as equal individuals. Though the “slave baby” image sparked the need for this forum, it was actually not as shocking to see as some may suggest. I mean the drawing of the big nosed, big head, chained at the ankle, slave baby pales in comparison to some of the memes, costume party attire, mock lynchings, frat boy party themed events, we have seen – especially since Barack Obama has become President of the U.S. Racism and its ugly head, has really turned the fuck up since POTUS and his black family hit the White House. What was more shocking seemed to be the disbelief white people were having at the fact that someone had actually drew this picture.

I couldn’t understand at first why so many people were surprised at the drawing. Given the obvious separatism that exists within the music communities in Charleston, the outright imaginary line between the white and black music scenes – why would anyone be shocked that someone was comfortable enough to do something deemed racist? If every event in downtown Charleston caters to people who all look the same, if every event in the historic district plays the same music that attracts the same types of people each and every week – at what point didn’t anyone realize that something weird was already going on. In a town that makes billions in revenue on slave culture, the descendants of that culture are put through a type of inspection when they hit the doors of clubs and bars downtown – assuring that their t-shirts aren’t too big, their clothes are too hip-hop, and confirming that the “look” like they won’t be a problem once they enter into an establishment. This is nothing new, so why now are people expressing their shock and awe at the depiction of a slave baby?

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There could be a number of answers to these questions. Could it be that now there are more residents in Charleston who are not traditionally of southern descent? Are there more northerners moving south who may be use to more diverse cultures and less use to outright racism? Is the influx of people into Charleston who have more diverse backgrounds the push we need in order to get white people who aren’t afraid to call out the fuckery of ‘slave baby’ and anything else that may be considered offensive? Do any of these questions really matter?

With sweat beads peaking from foreheads around the room, people gathered inside a quaint gallery, shoulder to shoulder, standing room only, room temp of at least 85 degrees or more – I saw people of all colors, ages and backgrounds gather together for almost four hours in order to commit to hearing, voicing, understanding, empathizing, agreeing, and disagreeing in a constructive manner. Today, what broke my initial feelings of cynism, was the idea of being a part of something very unique; something that we don’t typically see here in Charleston. It was not only a chance for people to express their frustrations at the outright lack of equal opportunities available within the Charleston music scene, but it was the realization that others were actually LISTENING.

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The outrage from all sides, expressed about the lack of judgment stemming from the drawing of ‘slave baby’ was heard and great points were made. I believe the band member that drew the caricature was clear about the impact he had made with his ‘artwork’. Tyler, who took some heat during the forum received no sympathy, however to say that there wasn’t any empathy felt on his behalf would be a lie. Let’s just keep it real, we all have said and done some jacked up things in our lives, some things we have never had to be held accountable for, and never had to apologize. Many of us have never had to be held publicly accountable for our wrong-doings, and the average person probably couldn’t handle that type of judgement during a public forum. I imagined myself in his shoes, after saying something completely fucked up to someone (which i’ve done by the way) and having to be judged publicly for my actions. How would i deal? So yes, there was a SLIGHT feeling of empathy toward that guy. #shugs

The forum turned from the subject of the drawing to something most were not expecting. Participants discussed the difficulty for hip-hop artists to book venues in many of the clubs/bars in downtown Charleston. As Matt Monday voiced his frustration of attempting to contact and book a local venue for over two months, calling on his white counterpart (who is also a hip-hop artist) was able to get an answer from the same venue within two hours. More questions were raised: Should blacks work on owning their own venues? Should hip hop artists have to ‘water down’ their music by adding a live band in order to appeal to venues in downtown? Should we even spend money with a venue known to give hip-hop acts a hard time?

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The Royal American and The Commodore, two very popular venues in downtown Charleston were in attendance, and really attempted to answer some hard questions posed by the crowd. What some may have deemed as an attack on venue owners, may have been misconstrued as frustration misdirected toward other venues who did not participate in the forum. In all, based on the conversation, both venues said they are willing to accept any act that has a following and could pull a crowd, as long as they complete the proper booking procedures.

The almost four hour long forum simply cannot be summed up in this post. Were any goals achieved? If you attended the forum or viewed it online on you can answer that question. For me the answer is yes, there was one important goal achieved. After the forum, the conversation, the questions, and the heated debates made me, as an INDIVIDUAL take some time to reflect on how I could work on making things better within the music community here in Charleston. As a member of media and a publisher of a magazine, what more can I do to push the culture forward. For me, THIS should have been in the hearts and minds of those who attended the conference. Forget that dumbass caricature – there are more important issues at hand. There were artists in attendance that I didn’t even know existed, why is that? There are people having a hard time booking venues, what alternative ideas can be developed that can avoid artists having to go to venues who don’t really want them there? How can we utilize the abandoned buildings and commercial real-estate in this city to create a new, refreshing underground hip-hop culture? Why are some of these so-called hip-hop artists hesitant to use venues that are owned by blacks in North Charleston? If the forum didn’t leave YOU with an internal need to assist in helping fix the problem, then you wasted four hours of your life on a Sunday evening.

So, is it safe to say that anything was “resolved” at the Southern Discomfort discussion, well…

via GIPHY

Let’s just say the look on some faces after the forum was over, still told a story that the level frustration is just as real as it was prior to the start of the event. But, now that we know better, let’s do better. Let’s support these artists and take some of the suggestions made at the forum and implement them. Let’s just do some things different from the way we have always been doing them, and let us ALL push this amazing music culture forward.

SHOUT OUT TO DIASPOURA, VERY HYPNOTIC SOUL BAND, CHARLES COMODY, KJ & ELLIOT AND I’M SURE A HOST OF OTHERS WHO ALLOWED EVERYONE TO TAKE PART IN THIS EVENT.

Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion

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