LFP Multimedia

Bernie Sanders murals across the country.

Films watched in 2016.

#17: Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)

★★★★★★★★☆☆

In the US, the scant media coverage on the trial of former Oklahoma police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, who is accused of sexual assaulting 13 black women, is just one example of the deafening silence and apathy around violence toward black women. Only a few op-eds on websites covering the African American community have led the charge and asked, where is the outrage?

Some scholars and activists maintain that what’s missing are in-depth statistics regarding women and girls victimized by police. For others, the oversight is part of a broader problem: the media’s failure to provide a detailed context of how racism affects black women.

But all agree the core problem is the lack of acknowledgment that an offense has even been committed. As a result, victims have to survive the violence itself, but also deal with the pain of never having their pain recognized, either in courts or within their communities.

Armah says black people have a legacy of intergenerational trauma due to unrelenting cycles of violence. She coined the term “emotional justice” – the process toward remedying it. It requires finding and creating the language to describe this trauma and articulating it as a reality; creating space to explore it; dealing with it by developing a counter-narrative.

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The reality of black male privilege may be hard for some to discuss or envision against the backdrop of well-documented cases of unarmed black men being killed by police. Yet, when looking within African American communities, there are some spaces where men’s issues dominate conversations, while ignoring what’s happening with black women and girls equally.

“It’s been very painful for black women and girls to remain silent and to be sacrificed. We’ve been made martyrs in the racial justice movement,” says Farah Tanis, co-founder of Brooklyn-based human rights organization Black Women’s Blueprint (BWB).

Conviction rates for suspects accused of raping black women are lower than when the victims are non-black, says Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, the director of the African American Policy forum and co-author of the #SayHerName: Resisting Police Brutality Against Women report.

Crenshaw and others began using #SayHerName at Black Lives Matter protests in 2014 when they noticed the absence of the names of women and girls who were killed by police. And while the case of Sandra Bland in July 2015 recharged the momentum behind the phrase, Crenshaw still wants black women to be put at the “center of our concerns”.

“We can say ‘SayHerName’ but if you don’t know the names of women also killed by police, we don’t know the different circumstances under which they are also vulnerable to losing their lives,” she says.

“Until we can remember the names Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson,Natasha McKenna along with the names of Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Michael Brown, the movement will be limited to only the things that we can see, and those have largely been understood as the things that make black men vulnerable to police violence.”

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Valerie’s grandmother was murdered. A white drunk driver purposefully ran her down in Jim Crow-era South Carolina. There was no arrest, no public condemnation and no real closure for the family.

Now in her late 50s and living in New York, Valerie (not her real name) pours water into a bowl of soil to lift up her grandmother’s spirit. She pauses, before saying: “What my family won’t talk about is that my grandfather used to beat my grandmother regularly, and she may have been walking around with a concussion on the day she died.”

(via vivalaviebohem)

Va voom!

DJ Deckstream (R.I.P.), Substantial, & Nujabes (R.I.P) - January 2000 in Asakusa

Hip Hop lost another insanely talented beat maker. 

I learnt about Deckstream back in 2011 (or late 2010) while searching for HydeOut’s early vinyl releases… He was Monorsick, at that time and his remixes had deeply impressed me. I fell in love with his music’s unique style. 

The first song I listened to was his remix of Ain’t no Mystery (Nujabes & L Universe)… Like… WOW! Then came the remixes of “Lyrical Terrorists” (Subs & L Uni.), ”Don’t Even Try It” and it was a magical mindblown.

After finding him on facebook, and seeing that he changed his name to Deckstream, and the first song I listened to (by Deckstream this time) was “Life is Good” feat. Mos Def. You should totally listen to his remix of CL’s “Bozack”, Exit Sign feat. Nikki Jean and literally all of his releases & Soundtracks. 

Marcus D made a playlist with his favorite DJ Deckstream tracks on soundcloud for those who aren’t familiar his music. Another traffic car accident. R.I.P. Monorsick aka Deckstream. One luv.

His biggest song with Subs is ’Home Sweet Home’ which people often mistake as being produced by Nujabes. He also produced More Than A Game & Kalitwutchuwon2 and a slew of remixes from Subs’ debut album, To This Union A Was Born (2001).

“He’s also worked with a lot of amazing artists from around the world such as Lupe Fiasco, T-Boz (of TLC), Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Verbal (of m-flo), Shing02, Nikki Jean & many more.”