Oakland-based Brontez Purnell draws from a mash-up of comedic styles that’s one part In Living Color, two parts Chappelle Show and one part Golden Girls. The result is brilliant satire influence by a distinctly gender fluid, Queer positive and Black perspective. Check out his short film for the Visual AIDS project, The 100 Boyfriends Mixtape (The Demo).
Today director Ryan Coogler and Marvel Studios dropped another edge-snatching preview of the most anticipated superhero film in the diaspora’s history. It seems Coogler’s visionary film crew and talented cast (which includes Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Michael B. Jordan, and Academy Award nominee Angela Bassett) are channeling Parliament Funkadelic and Sun Ra with a side of LaBelle. The trailer’s soundtrack draws from the Godfather of hip hop, Gil Scott-Heron, and his everlasting track The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Black Panther arrives in theaters Black History Month 2018.
Progressive Pupil announces its programming line up for the 2017-2018 academic year. With the award-winning documentary Black and Cuba, prize-winning one-woman show 9 GRAMS (recently featured in The Advocate) and always thought provoking workshop Coping With Microaggressions; our programs contribute to learning at universities, nonprofits and corporations throughout the US and abroad.
Muhammad Ali (l.) and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (r.) in Louisville (AP Photo via The Nation)
“Like Muhammad Ali puts it, we are all—black and brown and poor—victims of the same system of oppression.” – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Happy Birthday Muhammad Ali! Mainstream media continues to revere him for his extraordinary achievements as an athlete and his influential oratory style (How many of us have alleged to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”?). However, Ali is beloved to the progressive community and the African diaspora for his candid criticism of racial discrimination and poverty as well as his refusal to be inducted in the US Army during the Vietnam War due to his religious beliefs. Ali could have exercised his class privilege, entered the army and fought entertaining exhibition bouts without ever being in any physical danger. Instead, he chose to take a principled stand which in the short run cost him millions of dollars and some of his peak years as a boxing champion. In the long run, Ali’s example made him a legend.
To learn more about Muhammad Ali, see the Academy Award-winning film When we Were Kings, or read this Dave Zirin article in The Nation.
Director Dr. Robin J. Hayes highlights an interview with Carlos Lloga on what it means to be AfroCuban.
Want to learn more? Click HERE to watch Black and Cuba in full, or check out BlackandCuba.org if you are an educator looking to screen the film at your institution.
Director Dr. Robin J. Hayes discusses the historical and cultural significance of the Monument to the Maroons.
Want to learn more? Click HERE to watch Black and Cuba in full, or check out BlackandCuba.org if you are an educator looking to screen the film at your institution.
Director Dr. Robin J. Hayes describes the the travelers’ motivations for journeying to Cuba.
Want to learn more? Click HERE to watch Black and Cuba in full, or check out BlackandCuba.org if you are an educator looking to screen the film at your institution.
(from l. to r.) Rachel Dolezal, Dorian Corey and Andrea Smith
I am, in the words of Black twitter, #ActualBlack. I say this not to endorse “identity policing” but to point out:
I have parents, grandparents and great grandparents who were forced to cope with the following forms of White supremacy (in chronological order): the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, lynching, segregation, mass incarceration, and microaggressions.
My body, skin, hair, voice, accent (or lack of accent), sashay, and personal aesthetics are to some degree disturbing in all public and private institutions (except for prisons and the morgue).
I did not sign up for this club, but I am proud to be a member.
In all seriousness, I have been thinking a lot about the question: Why has the outing of Rachel Dolezal and Andrea Smith as White – allegedly – caused such a sensation?
Black and Cuba director Robin J. Hayes discusses “Socially Engaged Art as a Tool for Social Justice” at UnionDocs Socially Engaged Documentary Art Seminar Sunday June 21, 2015 10:30am 322 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211. For filmmakers, artists and cultural producers, the seminar offers vital information about the theory and practice of documentary making with a purpose. Tell them Progressive Pupil sent you and get 20% off conference registration with promocode SEDA15. Learn more at http://www.uniondocs.org/socially-engaged-documentary-art/. Share with a friend who wants to make films for their communities.