"BlackOut" Dialogue Society Past Events
“United or Divided?: Black and Latino Race Relations” 9/17/2007
The topic of this discussion addressed the numerous articles and reports on violence between Blacks and Latinos in school and in prison that began to appear in the media, and whether there is a presumed alliance between these two ethnic groups. The goal of this discussion was to show that while there is intense competition for limited resources and electing officials at a bureaucratic political level between ethnic groups, often times at the community or grassroots level organizations that represent different ethnicities or cultures do work together. Support of this distinction were taken from the Chicano and Black power movements as well as more contemporary examples. Second, students also discussed the role and class nature of the media in exploiting these conflicts.
“Attending Historically Black Universities and Tribal Colleges” 10/03/2008
Students came together for an informational on our Center’s Historically Black College/University exchange Program. Invited from the community were graduates of Black universities and Tribal Colleges who shared their experiences with students and talked about why it would be beneficial to spend a semester or academic year at one of this institutions.
“Welcome To New Orleans” 10/17/2007
The topic of this discussion was based on the independent documentary, “Welcome To New Orleans”, directed by Rasmus Holm. The focus of this discussion revolved around how Katrina exposed the degree of racial inequality and economic inequality that exists in our country. Through critical dialogue, students began to see how race and class interact to create highly oppressive conditions. The second half of our discussion looked at how community activists and citizens come together to form community organizations that serve to the basic needs of local residents and resist their displacement from their neighborhoods.
Using Nas’s famous quote, this discussion asked whether or not Hip Hop and other art has been permanently wrecked because of materialism and commercialization, or if it is still an energetic critical voice of society? Using a segment from “Hustle and Flow” to start the dialogue students along with invited local hip hop artists discussed what they saw as the social origins of hip hop as an avenue for poor youth to publicly address the conditions they saw. The purpose of this subject was to show how progressive forms of art still exist, but battle against being corrupted by commercial value and politically silenced by corporate and government interests. Comparisons of strategies to disinform the public by hyping rap beefs, marketing negative hip hop artists, character assassination were made to the COINTELPRO strategies used against the Black Power movement during the sixties to discredit its message to the public. Local artists discussed contemporary forms of Hip-Hop that still hold true to its conscious roots.
"Race, Media, and the American Culture of Violence and Competitiveness" 11/28/2007
Students used the Michael Vick incident to explore how violence and control are perpetrated and condoned on a Macro level in terms of war, military industrial complex that includes media, and how race has been used to construct an enemy in the aggressive black male stereotype. Students analyzed how monopoly news media criminalize violence among racial minorities and the poor, but are then used by the ruling class to propagate war.
"Black History Month for whom?" 1/30/2008
Students discussed the relevance of Black history month in today’s society. The purpose of this topic was to get students to think critically about why Black History Month exists and whether they feel it should or should not continue to exist. The conversation touched upon aspects of commercialization and cooptation by corporate entities, racism, white identity, and celebrating Black History Month through servicing those in our communities infuse new meaning to it.
Working with the student group, Women Without Borders out of the Women’s Studies Department, the topic of this discussion was on discussing the different ways in which feminism is defined and whether politically the term has maintained a progressive meaning. Based around the Viewing of “Norma Rae”, students defined how they viewed feminism along the boundaries of race, class, and gender over time. Because the film does not mention feminism at any point, students were asked to consider whether Norma, and the movie, fit the definition of a feminist. Students challenged the traditional roles of women in Hollywood, and society, by analyzing Norma’s transformation towards having confidence and pride in her class position in society and femininity. As the flyer demonstrates, what does a feminist look like?
“Black Panther: The Revolutionary Artwork of Emory Douglas” 4/23/2008
The BlackOut Dialogue Society emerged out of the informal BlackOut dialogue meetings. Our first big event on April 23rd was to invite former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas to campus. His lecture attracted students from various departments such as Art, Sociology, Journalism, and History. It was open to the public with encouraged participation at the high schools and community colleges as well.