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http://www.afronerd.com/2022/01/gn-maus-cancelled-new-music-streams.html

 

Afronerd Radio can now be heard LIVE courtesy of Apple Music/Itunes

Well, it's snowing in NYC people!  Why not check out the latest installment of Afronerd Radio's The Grindhouse in between shoveling out of the muck?  Showtime, per usual, starts this Sunday at 6 p.m. eastern on the BTalk 100 internet broadcasting network.  Listen to your mystically-powered AFROnerdist hosts as they unpack on the following issues: the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, has been banned by a TN school board as school systems across the nation are targeting works that depict historical events;  a recent Atlantic article posits that older music is actually dominating the newer music market to the "tune" of 70 percent and the crew have their theories; Oscar-winning actress, Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada, The Dark Knight Rises) might be revisiting similar feline territory courtesy of Marvel Studios; in remembrance of the 2-year anniversary of the passing of basketball icon, Kobe Bryant, Zaya Wade's (Dwyane Wade's transgender daughter) wearing of Bryant's jersey has riled certain critics;     

comedian and popular Spotify podcaster, Joe Rogan, while interviewing Canadian clinical psychologist, Jordan Peterson, seemed to be confused about the term "Black" when describing people of African descent;  Ant-Man and the Wasp actress, Evangeline Lilly (purportedly like her fellow Marvel comrade, Letitia Wright) has come out as an anti-vaxxer to the chagrin of many Marvel/Disney supporters; Lastly, Dburt checked out Amazon Prime's new animation series, Vox Machina and he liked what he viewed so far....let's discuss.   

One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF

https://www.thenerdelement.com/2022/01/29/descendant-sundance-review/

Margaret Brown’s documentary Descendant centers around the Alabama town Africatown and the individuals believed to be the “descendants” of the last slave ship to reach America shores in 1860. The schooner called the Clotilda was used by Timothy Meaher to fulfill a bet he made stating he could bring slaves back to American even after it was made a capital crime. Meaher did as such and burned the ship off the coast of Mobile Alabama to cover up his crimes after unloading the slaves near what is now called Africatown. The passengers on this boat were enslaved for roughly 5 years before being set free to settle Africatown.

As an African American woman who like many can only research their history to a certain point, the thought of having family members that were able to pass down their traditions, who knew where they were from, who retained part of their native language is exciting. And while some of the tradition would be lost in those 5 years spent as slaves a lot more could be salvaged vs those that were forced to conform over hundreds of years.

The subject matter for this documentary is intriguing, unfortunately the execution of telling the story fell short in some areas. The documentary pulled you in different directions making you question what the focal point was. Descendant starts out as a historical retelling using found footage, interviews with descendants and historians, and the reading of memoirs to give the viewer a vivid idea of who the people of Africatown are. It then takes a turn and goes into a treasure hunt looking for the lost Clotilda (which they did find in 2019), turning once more to suggest that the inhabitants of Africatown are facing environmental concerns from neighboring plants, and then again to building a case for reparations. These subject matters are all fascinating in their own right but thrown together in one documentary makes for a bit of whiplash by the viewer.

Despite this, Descendant is a documentary worth viewing. Descendant does a great job illustrating how a community healed after such traumatic experiences something many of us have not seen in this detail. Netflix just purchased the streaming rights along with President and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground, so it will be available for those with a Netflix subscription soon.

The post Descendant Sundance Review appeared first on The Nerd Element.

https://blacknerdproblems.com/saga-55-review/

Writer: Brian K. Vaughan / Artist: Fiona Staples / Image Comics

The Wendy’s Social Media Manager No Longer Has Time For Your Nonsense.

Saga’s back. The epic, space, fantasy opera that has captured the collective attention of nerds across the universe has returned in glorious and true form. Almost like piloting a treehouse rocket to evade authorities and a long standing war to which you and your familial unit are literally the antithesis for.

Welcome back to the fold, where Brian K. Vaughan makes you meditate you on the meaning of ideology one moment, snort at the next page, and then weep slowly into your childhood blanket you dug up specifically to cry into. Where Fiona Staples continues to amaze with immaculate set piece after immaculate set piece, brilliant renditions of assorted characters, and the occasional surprise full spread of sultriness. You know, just to remind you that you shouldn’t be reading it at work (or at the very least make sure no one can sneak up behind you lest they get the wrong idea).

It’s Just A Jump To The Left

Saga #55 is cognizant of the fact that time has passed in the real world, as Hazel’s narration explains that three years have also passed in her world since her father died. Marko’s death in Saga #54 was one of the most devastatingly emotional moments in all of fiction. As several animes and TV series have done in the past, the time skip in narrative allows for us to recallibrate. We get the echoes of their grieving, but we do not wallow in it, with the understanding that anything important that happened in the intervening time will be explained. It’s not exactly what I was expecting, but it’s a very sensible choice. Getting to open the issue with an older Hazel capable of getting into even more mischief is a welcome way to start 2022.

Finding Your Place In The Universe

The meta-narration of surviving and evolving ideas sets the stage perfectly. Brian K. Vaughn has clearly been thinking a lot about how transformative a work Saga has been. The care he and Fiona Staples show for the characters is endearing. This is science fantasy at its finest, a unique blend of allegory and imagination that forces us to reckon with the frameworks we participate in and treats us to an epic story as it unravels.

The extended 44 page issue uses the additional space very effectively. The extra heaping allows us to catch up on with the ensemble. The aftermath of Marko and the Will’s brawl is felt in full force and Vaughn and Staples have set the stage brilliantly for the next part of our journey.

It’s Good To Be Back

I’ve read many great comics while Saga was on hiatus, but Saga still hits different. Vaughn’s writing takes you through an emotional rollercoaster that leaves you reeling. Staples’ art has your eyes wide open in awe of the spectacle and then blush at the risque. Saga in its totality is the medium at its pinnacle. A sequential combination of words and visuals that captivate, that makes one relish the turning of the page. You can’t not talk about Saga when there is Saga, and it’s good to be back. Emotionally devastating still. But oh so very good.

10 out of 10

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The post Saga #55 Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.

https://blackgirlnerds.com/book-review-recitatif-a-story-by-toni-morrison/

If you want to talk about “classic moments,” one of my favorites is a 1998 interview that writer Toni Morrison did with Charlie Rose. Like most journalists, Rose prodded at Morrison — with questions about race. Specifically, when would she stop writing about race, meaning, writing about Black culture and Black people?

Morrison answered, “The person who asks that question doesn’t understand he is also raced.”

I’ve watched the interview several times. Not only did Rose misunderstand what race meant, he didn’t realize that he’d brought a knife to a gunfight. He thought he was equipped to outwit THE Toni Morrison, a Black woman writer who’d won the Nobel Prize in Literature, in a debate about Blackness and its relevance in storytelling.

It is that brilliance she brings to Recitatif, her short story that was originally published in 1980 in different collections now being released for the first time as a stand-alone book. Recitatif tells the story of Twyla and Roberta — one white, one Black — who meet in a shelter when they are eight years old. The girls’ races are never revealed.

Morrison herself describes this story as “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.”

Twyla and Roberta are both wards of the state. They spend four months together in the St. Bonaventure shelter. We learn they are there for different reasons: Twyla’s mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick. The story is told from Twyla’s point of view, which may lead you to believe she must be Black, since her author is Black. But then I realized that was too simpleminded towards Morrison’s complex experiment.

I read the book three times. Easy to do, as the story is a quick 38 pages. No matter how closely I read, I could not absolutely say which of these girls is Black and which is white. I kept going back and forth in my decision. In the story, we get to see them become adult women who sometimes run into each other. I paid attention to their language, description of their clothes, their husbands, their jobs, their children, their lives. It’s like a puzzle of a story, then I felt like I was playing a game. When she called Recitatif an “experiment” she meant it.

Like me, I know you’re probably wondering what recitatif means. It is derived from the word recitative.

recitative | noun

1: a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech and that is used for dialogue and narrative in operas and oratorios also : a passage to be delivered in this style

Morrison is giving us the challenge of trying to decipher ordinary speech. We hear the words of Twyla and the words of Roberta, and although they are separate, we cannot differentiate them the way we need to. This is how she makes the experiment work — writing the story in such a way that every phrase straddles the fence between what we think is “Black” and “white” vernacular. Truth is, most of us think we can distinguish a Black or white speaker, based on the tone and rhythm. Morrison challenges that theory.

As readers, we visualize what characters look like and how they move through the world. In Recitatif, it’s impossible. For example, when Twyla says, “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” What kind of mother tends to dance all night? A Black one or a white one? Whose mother is more likely to be sick? Even with their names — is one blacker than the other? The story challenges what you think you know, and forces out biases you have deep down inside.

As the story progresses, Roberta leaves St. Bonaventure first, and a few months after so does Twyla. The girls grow into women. Years later, Twyla is waiting tables at a Howard Johnson’s, when Roberta walks in with hair “so big and wild” that Twyla can barely see her face. She’s wearing a halter top and hot pants, sitting between two guys with big hair and beards. They are going to see Jimi Hendrix — and we can argue whether his music is Black or white. Then, in another twist, we learn that Twyla doesn’t even know who Hendrix is.

Morrison also addresses cruelty in the story but not the kind that typically divides Black and white. She focuses on the kind within the system. There is a woman who works in the kitchen at St. Bonaventure, Maggie, whose position is considered lower than the girls. Maggie is old and mute. Twyla mentions that she can’t remember whether she was nice or not but that she rocked when she walked because she had “legs like parentheses.”

Once, Maggie fell over in the school orchard. The older girls laughed and mocked her, while Twyla and Roberta stood there and did nothing. “She wore this really stupid little hat — a kid’s hat with earflaps — and she wasn’t much taller than we were.” In the social status of St. Bonaventure, it’s clear that Maggie is at the lowest of the low.

What’s interesting is that Maggie’s fall doesn’t go away. On another encounter between Twyla and Roberta, there is conversation about what happened to Maggie. At the beginning of the story, we learn that Maggie “fell” down. Roberta claims Maggie was Black and that Twyla pushed her down. This causes pain for Twyla because she does not remember anything about the event. This is another element to the story that we never learn the truth of.

I believe that Morrison wants us to feel embarrassed about how we treat the helpless, even if we too feel helpless. Even though Twyla and Roberta are in a shelter (seemingly helpless), Maggie is helpless as well, being old and unable to speak.

This one-and-only short story by Toni Morrison does not disappoint. Her writing is brilliant, as always. You will devour it like I did and be well-satisfied. I found it impossible not to want to know the races of Twyla and Roberta. I wanted to sympathize with both, yet as the girls became adult women, I was annoyed at how they pushed each other’s buttons. I believe this is the angst Morrison wants us to feel. Recitatif reminds us that it is not Black or white to be poor, oppressed, ignored, or different.

The last line in the book is, “What the hell happened to Maggie?” Of course, it is not supposed to be clear. Whatever happened to Maggie was done by people — people like Twyla and Roberta, people like you and me.

Recitatif is available February 1, 2022.