#ebacc

 AWSUM ISLOVE / SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2017

As you rave over Luke Cage, and soon Marvels’ Black Panther, Black SuperHeros have had a presence and history that out dates these two series. While this may the first time Black Superhero’s have been prominent on white owned media platforms, independent Black owned media platforms have been doing this for decades.

There are #AfrikanSuperHero movies, t.v series, & comics written, produced, directed & illustrated by actual Afrikans & the Afrikan Diaspora.

 Black Comic book conventions such as E.B.A.C.C (www.ecbacc.com/wordpress4) (Yumy Odom, Founder and President)  of the largest Black Comic book convention on the East Coast was created in May 2002 in Philadelphia.  The Schomburg will be doing its 7th Annual Black Comic Book Festival in January 2018, co-produced by John Jennings. The producers of the festival are replicating it in California. In the Midwest for have MECCAcon ( https://meccacon.wordpress.com/) (founder, organizer, CEO, Maia Crown Williams)

OYA: RISE OF THE ORISHAS  is a short film originally released in July 31, 2016. Created by Nigerian-UK filmmaker, Nosa Igbinedion, it was nominated for the Efere Ozako Award for Best Short film. You can currently watch the new installment, YEMOJA:Rise of the Orishas, on demand via the website.

(www.riseoftheorisha.com/)  

This generation of Black-African Super Hero creators has done what #SidneyPoitier #HarryBelafonte, #RubyDee, #OssieDavis, The Black Arts Movement, & many more have done before them. Most millennials, born between 1980-1999, only know Ruby & Ossie as the old couple from Spike Lee’s, “Do the Right Thing” film. What you probably don’t know is that they owned/operated a production co. for audio recorded cassettes of music and ent. Emmalyn II Productions Co., Inc. and a business consulting service Dee-Davis Enterprises in 2010. Ossie was a film, television and Broadway actor, director, poet, playwright, author, and civil rights activist. Ruby was an actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and civil rights activist. 

Ivan Dixon, director of “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” in 1970, was an actor, director & producer from 1957 to 1991 . Brock Peters, producer of 1970 film “Five on the Black Hand Side” made his film debut in Carmen Jones in 1954, and sang background vocals on the 1956 hit "Day-O" by Harry Belafonte. He did voice overs in Batman: the animated series, and Darth Vador for the radio adaptation of the original Star Wars trilogy for National Public Radio (1981-1986).

White owned media saw the mass amounts of money that was being made by independent Black owned business & entrepreneurs that contribute to African diaspora characters. Not only was it making money, but it was taking money from their pockets as #BlackConsumers went to their own for empowering images of themselves. Prior to this, they cared nothing of us (and still don’t) only our money.

A living, elevated example of that transition, is Pamela Thomas. Culminating her collection as an adult, she looks back at her childhood. Disappointed with the  lack of empowering Black representation, if any,  in main stream comics, she looked elsewhere...and found it!  The Museum of Uncut Funk, (http://museumofuncutfunk.com/) is an online digital museum of BlackSuper Heros, She-rah’s, & paraphernalia that, “ celebrate[s] our contribution to history year round!” Everything from Fat Albert, The Jackson 5 cartoon, Mr. T comics, The Harlem Glob Trotters cartoon, and stuff I never knew existed. Her traveling exhibit, “ Funk Turns 40: Black Character Revolution” debuted at The Schomburg in 2014. That exhibition also eye-marked a new curation style for the Schomburg center; the walls were painted in bright solid colors dipping the viewer inside the luscious array of diversity and beauty, that is Black culture. It was this authors official introduction to Black Characters & the History of Black Characters. Since then, everything in regards to Black characters on t.v. and advertisements, failed in comparison. We have set a very high bar. That bar, is the norm for the independent Black image creators. Since then, everything in regards to Black characters on t.v. and advertisements, failed in comparison. We have set a very high bar. That bar is the norm for the independent Black image creators mentioned in this article.

“ Since then, everything in regards to Black characters... failed in comparison. We have set a very high bar. That bar, is the norm for the independent Black image creators...”

And again, my people have drunk the Koolaid of a white owned representation of something Black, thinking it will be "sweeter" & “cooler” than what we create for ourselves. This is a falsehood, (& an act of cultural treason) that must stop. Wanting Black content is not enough. We have to want ourselves.

* Pay Attn  to the Dates.* Your vision got drowned out by the white accredited version of a Black Superhero. (HHHmmmm) Their approval is not necessary for us to be fabulous, amazing, talented, disciplined, successful, & valued.

 The best pple to represent our stories is US! And it is EXCELLENT!

In Order of Mention:

The Schomburg Center: Black Comic Book Festival ( https://www.nypl.org/locations/scho...)

Cosplay at the 5th annual Black Comic Book Festival

John Jennings  (http://jijennin70.tumblr.com/)

EBACC

Yumy Odum: Founder/ Ceo Of EBACC (East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention, Inc)

MECCAcon

Maiya Crown Williams; CEO, Founder, Organizer of MECCAcon: (photo from www.sugarcayne.com)

Nosa Igbinedion ( https://www.nosa-filmmaker.com)

Sidney Poitier /  Bahamian Actor, film director, author and diplomat.

Harry Belafonte

Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis (Power Couple) 

Ivan Dixon

Brock Peters

The Museum of Uncut Funk / Pamela Thomas

HCIC Pam Thomas, with actress of Blaxploitation films, Pam Grier.

For a full article review with pics on the Funky Turns 40 exhibit http://www.a-r-t.com/funky/

Premier of FunkyTurns 40 at the schomburg; 2014

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Other Independent African Diaspora Creators Links:

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Banned Cartoons: What images of the African Diaspora ( & references to our culture) used to look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNr...

OYA: Rise of the Orishas (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMb...)

The Rise of Sango and tthe Lagos Comic Con https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duV...

Michael Rima (Visual Effects artist):

Full disclosure: this wasn’t going to be this week’s topic, but something happened yesterday. I am luck enough to work with teachers to try and improve their practice, and work with small groups of students. Yesterday, a cool, enthusiastic teacher asked me a very important question whilst we were discussing ways to avoid burnout and stress. “How do we fix the profession?” What a great question!…

Is there a word1 more likely to cause stress and panic amongst teachers than OFSTED? We get a phone call, up to 48 hours before arrival and then they’re in, looking at everything and anything they want. Then they disapper, and providing everything is okay, they disappear for three years. They are switiching to a new framework now, which means apparently, fewer inspections right now and none in…

Ken Baker describes how Gove & colleagues have failed for last 10 years in creating a technical educational setting for our nation!

On Monday while MPs in the House of Commons were arguing about whether to hold election no 3 in four and a half years, their colleagues in the House of Lords took part in a debate under the title “Vocational Education and Training – Question for Short Debate” Lord Baker of Dorking participated and explained how poor our STEM educational provision has been over the last decade thanks primarily to…

Don't be fooled by the dismissing of arts as 'soft subjects' and the government's outdated instrumentalist focus exclusively on employability, STEM and eliminating anything that is not about preparing people in state education for being worker bees. It is winding back the clock to the days when people of a certain social class were 'factory fodder'. Even Kenneth Baker, Margaret Thatcher's Education minister, has referred to the government's EBacc as a 1904 curriculum and proposed a pretty decent alternative EBacc which incorporates arts subjects and narrows the divide between academic and technical subjects post 14:

http://www.edge.co.uk/…/14-19_education_-_a_new_baccalaurea…

Higlighted within this is the fact that we are in a completely different economic situation to factory fodder days in any case; rearing people for jobs that technology SHOULD render obsolete will leave them without the skills necessary to actually survive in society or the 'knowledge economy' or, indeed, a post-work economy!!! STEM is all good but needs to be STEAM >> Science, Technology, Engingeering, ARTS, Maths.

It is the ethical and creative application of these disciplines that will sort the world out, not subject purity and a dismissal of arts, philosophy and things like media studies as 'SOFT'. THEY ARE NOT FUCKING SOFT!!! They are rigorously analytical, encouraging critical thinking BEYOND the confines of the subject in question. They empower people to critically engage with the world and thus create active political subjects. This is why they want to get rid of them!!! Except if you go to public, private schools, academies or grammar schools, which can set their own curriculum and most often have far superior arts facilities than state schools. You only have to see the prevalence of old Etonians like Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch. These people are not in that position because they're a 100x more gifted than a kid that might be an incredible actor but will never know because have never had those opportunities!

There is a sinister agenda behind this along the lines of NOT FOR PLEBS. The fate of people in state education is most often decided by people who have never set foot in a state school, never mind been educated in one, and people that display open contempt for teachers, experts and research into what works best. And it changes every few years to make things even more ridiculous and confusing!

Whilst much of it might be this way because 'that's how it's always been', school's whole emphasis on traditional academic subjects - and the subsequent alienation of those who don't perform well academically - needs to stop!! Baker's report highlights that up to a third of learners are disengaged by Key stage 4. Having been to a state school myself where it certainly felt more like 2/3, that doesn't surprise me at all. Fortunately, I was a high achiever academically and my parents trusted my choice to pursue art after school. There are many different kinds of intelligence and competence and privileging those who are academically gifted demoralises and disempowers those that aren't.

I am always reminded of Lady Bracknell's quote from Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest: "The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."

I don't know what the answers are yet but one of the things I want to get round to doing when I am through this PGCE and out of this current spell of depression is to make some videos and writing with more of a concrete focus or topic, some of which will be education, the curriculum and its fundamental role not only in preparing people for being in society but for making people 'more fully human', as Freire would say.

I'll get off my Soapbox now and get on with my rather dull Personal Skills assignment... but I am SO BUZZED about getting stuck into the curriculum module!!!

Secondary education has taken a wrong turn: report finds serious problems with Government’s narrowing of eduction

A new King’s College London report, commissioned by the NUT, uncovers serious problems with the EBacc, the Government’s attempt to steer all schools towards a narrow range of subjects. (more…)