Author: Vinegar Hill Magazine

Categories
Entertainment

Musings Concerning Black Film

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The body of work is comprised of seven reels of footage that represent Williams’ film as well as documentary footage of the mostly black cast—a group of 50 to 100 Harlem-based recording artists, actors, and dancers—and mostly white crew interacting between takes. The film is a love story of sorts but features similar motifs of minstrelsy used by white filmmakers of the period. Independent black filmmakers working over the next twenty years would change this course by developing a black cinematic sensibility known as race or uplift films. These works out of Tuskegee University, emphasized education and social and economic self-sufficiency as counters to the on-screen stereotypes portrayed in white films. While few of these films survive, they set the tone for an aesthetic that continued well into the 1950s. However, their ability to carry a strong message into the future, was thwarted once Hollywood realized that African Americans clamored to see themselves on film. Between the Wars, portrayals of the stereotypical lazy slave by actors such as Stepin Fetchit (Lincoln Perry 1902-1985) were popular because, for African American audiences, their trickster-like activity subverted white dominance. The racial politics of the next three decades made such films unpopular and by the1950s, Hollywood films focused on individuals rather than describing communal racial attributes. Thereafter, Blaxploitation films of the 1960s and 70s responded to the time and re-inscribed the machismo of the black power movement. Although black actors had leading roles, these movies were criticized for their misogyny and portrayal of violence and drug use.

Today, African American filmmakers find themselves in a period very similar to that of early filmmakers. Fueled by the country’s ever increasing xenophobic sentiment, African American filmmakers are intent on writing their own narratives. Unlike previous decades, the range of storytelling is multiple and appears in all genres. The black film renaissance has been heralded. With increased numbers of producers and directors of colors in film and television and the increase in distribution lines, including film festivals for both documentary and feature length film, we have never before had the kind of access to African diaspora narrative as we have today. HBO, Netflix and Amazon all ensure that films across the diaspora are available to viewers. Nonetheless, issues still remain that limit the availability of black films in wide distribution. Realizing they cannot rely on a Hollywood that believes that black films are not as lucrative, they are taking on their own distribution. For instance, in 2011, the African American Film Festival Releasing Movement – a distribution collective founded by Ana DuVarnay and now called ARRAY, was formed to help get independent films by African Americans and women into American theaters. The organization offers a series of films and through their website simplifies the booking process.

Charlottesville is a prime example of the changes in black film distribution. In the past, films for black audiences had very short runs if they were seen at all. With the growth of the Virginia Film festival, more opportunities are available to see black film. In the last three years this has further increased with the advent of the Maupintown film festival, a collaboration between the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center and filmmaker, Lorenzo Dickerson. The festival began as a means for Dickerson to showcase films he was making about local history. The festival has since grown to a three days and features fifteen films that represent the diversity of peoples of African descent.  The festival amplifies the Heritage Center’s all ready existing film program.

For more information about Maupintown Film Festival go to www.jeffschoolheritagecenter.org or www.maupintownmedia.com

Categories
Health and Wellness

Yoga for Mind Body & Soul

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Now more than ever, people are turning to alternative wellness and fitness strategies to manage stress, cope with mental health issues, and deal with chronic medical conditions. Within the African-American community, many of these issues are compounded by stigma, limited access to resources, and systemic injustices. Recent data collected by the US Department of Health and Human Services suggests that African-Americans are 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than their white counterparts.

Over sixteen years ago, I turned to yoga to combat these very same issues and it has had a profound impact on my life. It’s become a lifelong tool for managing anxiety, boredom and stagnation. It is something I have been able to use for self-care no matter my level of fitness, body shape, or financial status. When you can trace the source and direct the flow of your breath, you can control almost anything in your body. As a trauma survivor, yoga has been the way that I stay grounded and how I learned to cultivate compassion and develop boundaries. It’s been my most important teacher outside of parenting because it is constantly giving me myself over and over again.

A typical yoga practice consists of exercises to help you feel calm and focused, followed by a series of physical poses that help you to move your body while staying connected to your breath..  It is a kind of moving meditation that hopefully allows you to learn something about yourself during the process. Flexibility, mental clarity, strength, and relaxation are some of the most common goals and benefits. Most classes end with a brief relaxation or time to reflect.

Yoga in the media doesn’t look very inclusive. People may worry that they will not fit in or that the poses will not work for their bodies. One of my goals is to change the face of yoga and dispel common myths. There are a number of resources in our community like Common Ground Healing Arts that provide affordable classes, are accessible to beginners and bodies of all shapes and fitness levels. On the third Sunday of each month, I teach a class just for Women of Color, where participants are able to experience healing amongst their peers without the burden of racial stress. It’s also important to know that a yoga practice makes room for the individual’s own spirituality and requires no worship or religious commitment.

Yoga may not be for everyone, but I do believe that everyone should have the choice! 

Categories
Politics

Treating the Symptoms Rather than the Illness

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In August 12, 2017 Charlottesville became a hashtag. Not for some UVa related event, but for a protest that ended in violence and in the death of Heather Heyer. The protest was centered around the proposed removal of the Robert E. Lee statue and it engulfed the nation in the long-standing conversation about the fate of Confederate monuments.

Violent white supremacists carried their pride and fear on their faces, in their arms with guns, and in their malicious acts over the two-day long event. Counter protesters came out to show their disapproval of these white nationalists groups, and the streets of Charlottesville looked a lot like my hometown of Berkeley, California; it was filled with anger and revolutionary energy. However, the statues, while without question were and are magnets for hate groups, are simply a symptom and a symbol of a deeper more complicated issue in our Nation: the 400 year old culture of white supremacy and oppression of people of color. Removing these statues is indeed symbolic, but what does it actually do? What happens when they all fall?

On the surface, swiftly removing these icons of hate and bigotry, the very magnets that drew in the hate groups to protest, represents the public’s outrage on a national stage. These monuments mean a lot, to a lot of different people. Their removal represents a symbolic victory over the vestiges of the brutal Jim Crow system of segregation and violence.

However, history shows that you can’t legislate respect. Taking down monuments will not necessarily decrease white supremacy. Confederate statues create landscapes that remind us of our racist past and present. By their very being, these monuments endorse white supremacist ideas.  While there are reasons to take down symbols of hatred, we should not expect too much from their removal. Once these statues come down, those same hate groups will remain, as they have for centuries.

The real work lies in the long-term. White supremacist ideology is firmly baked into our nation. It is manifest in everything from the blanket Eurocentric curriculum found in almost every school– kindergarten through college– to these very statues that we speak of. It takes hours to knock down a statue. It takes generations to breakdown white supremacist ideology.

Most Americans are conditioned to treat symptoms rather than the illness, and these statues are just symptoms of white supremacy. We need honest and mediated dialogue between each other, across racial, economic, and political lines. This illness won’t disappear without the tireless work of our collective citizens. This is not an easy task, and frankly we may never fully succeed.

This isn’t to say that the motivation and performance of removing these symbols of oppression will go uncelebrated. Surely this moment in history is significant and will move the conversation forward in some ways. But, how do we combat white supremacist ideologies, the intangible force that creates a culture of oppressions, fear, and violence? The same large-scale energy and dedication seen in this movement needs to address and combat the more nuanced and complicated manifestations of this ideology as it relates to poverty, lack of educational equity, housing inequalities, vocational disparities, etc.

We cannot become blinded by the momentary excitement of this movement. These icons represent one of the biggest social problems in our nation, but they are not the problem themselves. There is much hard work ahead, and it is easy to react and galvanize in moments like these, but how will we act afterwards? What will you do after the monuments fall?

Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz, Ph.D., Research Associate James River Institute for Archaeology, Founding Director The Shared History Project

thesharedhistoryproject.org

Categories
Community Development

Juneteenth Celebration

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Juneteenth is a celebration that commemorates the ending of slavery.  It dates back to 1865 in Galveston, Texas. The celebration is also known as Freedom Day, Emancipation Day or Independence Day. It is celebrated on June 19th. The name is derived by blending June and nineteen. Historian, Hari Jones, reminds us that African Americans actively participated in freeing themselves from slavery on that day by enforcing the Emancipation  Proclamation. According to President Abraham Lincoln, “Without the military help of the Black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” That fact gives us a reason to rejoice and reflect on the determination, fortitude and resiliency of our ancestors.

Categories
Politics

Why Feminism?

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Let me break it down: I am a feminist so that my daughter, and all daughters, are safe walking at night, are valued for their minds and deeds instead of their appearance, are taken seriously when they speak up at home or in school, can seek any level of education they desire, will not be sexually harassed by their bosses, will have access to contraception when and if they decide they want it, will be believed and have recourse if they are raped or abused, can be elected to the highest positions in government, and are recognized for the incredible labor and contributions to society of bearing and raising children. I am a feminist so that if our daughters choose not to bear a child, they do not lose their lives due to a deadly infection from an unsafe, unsterile “back-alley” abortion.

One definition of feminism is “a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights for women.” Does this definition surprise you? Maybe you thought feminism was about hating men? Or burning bras? Or was over? Or was just for middle-class white women?

Notice the definition says there are a range of feminist ideologies. We see a range because women’s lives are lived in different contexts. The day of the recent Women’s March on DC, there were similar rallies and marches in 60 countries around the world including Kenya, Germany, Canada, Italy, Lebanon, Australia, Serbia, Uganda, Greece, India, Mexico and Poland. The women marching that day probably did not agree on everything, and had different priorities, but in the face of Donald Trump’s blatant misogyny, racism, and denigration of immigrants and Muslims, they were at least temporarily united. Whether that unity will hold and be effective in dismantling this new regime and nationalist grab for power is yet to be seen. Unfortunately, history would show us that time and time again, women of privilege can be co-opted to overlook the complexities and urgencies of less privileged women. But not my feminism.

Feminism involves movements because women have had to organize and fight for their rights: the right to vote, the right to own land, the right to use contraception even if they weren’t married, the right to an education, the right to be in the military, the right to run for political office and to participate in government and policy decisions, the right to determine when to have sex, the right to be a faith leader, the right to equal pay for equal work, the right not to be considered a man’s property, the right to choose a profession…and the list goes on. None of these rights have come without struggle. They have been opposed, often violently, by men, and sometimes by other women.

There is a Women’s History Month in recognition that the experiences of women have been ignored, have been left out and minimized in traditional narratives, just as Black History Month is necessary because the majority that controls our education system is entrenched in the perspective of people who “have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white” as Ta-Nahesi Coates explains in his extended letter to his son.

Kamala Harris, the Democratic Senator from California who spoke at the Women’s March on DC, stated that the economy, national security, criminal justice, immigration and health care are all women’s issues. Harris said, “We are tired as women of being relegated to simply being thought of as a particular constituency or demographic.”

In addition to the list above, I would include, as women’s issues: child care, housing, education, the military, the media, sports, and the arts. Can you think of an area of life in which women’s rights and perspectives are irrelevant? Do you see how the traditional work of women — cooking, cleaning, clothing, and caring goes uncompensated? Is made invisible? Is consumed greedily while the cost to women is ignored?

I end with this thought: there is a lot of discussion about who we commemorate in our community. People are starting to think critically about the preponderance of shrines to the Confederacy. As a feminist, I’d like to broaden that discussion to consider why so many of our statues and commemorations are of men. Where are the statues of women? Where are the major holidays recognizing the contributions of women? Where are the buildings and streets named for women? What woman would you most like to see honored?

Gail Esterman

Categories
Entertainment

Black Theater Charlottesville

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In the 1870s the Jefferson School moved from the Delavan hotel to a new building purchased with funds raised in the African American community and supported by the Freedmen’s Aid Society. At the center of the new structure was a stage where students practiced elocution and presented Christmas pageants. Although from humble beginnings, there is ample evidence that performance was an important aspect of Charlottesville’s African American cultural life. As was the case in African American communities nationwide, the tradition was encouraged by local churches where annual nativity pageants and other opportunities to demonstrate oratory skills, were an essential source entertainment.

With the building of the Jefferson High School, and the inclusion of its stage, performance continued to be vital form of entertainment well into the 1940s. A quick survey of Crimson and Black yearbooks between 1940 and 1951 reveals a strong interest in theater. For instance, in the 1941 yearbook, members of the dramatics club number 59 students and by 1944 interest doubled warranting that the club be organized by grade. In 1951, the last year of Jefferson High School, the dramatics club had a few less members but continued the tradition of successful participation at the Virginia State Theater competition in Petersburg.

Many of those listed as participants in Jefferson’s dramatics club would go on to become members of the Charlottesville Players Guild, an adult group that at the height of its membership, had as many as 40 participants. The group, begun in the mid fifties, performed one and three act plays locally and regionally. They remained a mainstay of local community theater into the late 1960s.

Today, the terrain does not appear as fecund. To get a sense of the state of black theater in Charlottesville, we talked to two leaders in today’s theater scene, Caruso Brown and Leslie Scott-Jones:

Caruso Brown came to Charlottesville twenty years ago and quickly became involved in theater through the drama ministry at Mount Zion First African Baptist Church. When he arrived, Live Arts was a singular source for theater which he continues to frequent. Although the opportunity to view live theater has grown since his arrival, Brown feels that there is a dearth of work that appeals to the black audience. As such, he produces, directs and writes plays that have black characters and are religious or history based; at times, he presents secular plays that have a strong family value message. Because his plays usually are presented at Mount Zion, he is able to recruit actors from the congregation and the house is usually packed. He has also presented work at Live Arts and has traveled the group as far as Maryland. Nonetheless, he still expresses a certain despondency regarding black theater Caruso states that he “doesn’t think it has the draw that he hoped it would.” He suggests that this is owing to the fact that community theater is not viewed as a legitimate form of artistic and cultural expression. His hope is that with continued opportunity to see black plays as well as performers, people will come to understand that theater brings to life the written word. It gives people an opportunity to understand historic moments because they are able to experience the pathos as it is acted out in real time. With more venues interested in representing a broader spectrum of American life, he is assured of the future of black theater. Caruso echoes many of the ideas expressed by Leslie Scott-Jones.

As a student at VCU Jones recalls her professor’s definition of theater. He called it an “imitation of life”. He impressed upon us that “as artists, as directors, actors and designers, we were creating a world. A world that started with the words from the playwright and ended with a performance. He wanted us to understand that everything we created had to be nuanced and intricate. It had to be relatable. Not necessarily real, but believable. For this to be achieved it has to be recognizable to us in some way. It has to look like us, or to talk about us, and it absolutely has to be rooted in the human condition so people who aren’t like us can suspend their disbelief for two hours and empathize with us.”

Over the past six years the six major theaters in the Charlottesville area have produced a total of three shows written by an African American. Does that number shock you? It should. Charlottesville and the surrounding counties combined, according to 2010 census data, is over 70% African American, yet theaters in the area are not representing us or telling our stories. The problem is complex and involved but, when it comes to promoting, and showcasing African American talent in town, most theaters have had issues of consistency and comprehension.

Theater in a small town like our little hamlet is community theater, which is completely dependent on the people who pay to see the shows for continued existence. Unless you have a loyal audience base, who will support you taking artistic chances, and most of the time even if you do, you must carve out a niche for the type of theater you will produce. Deviation from that cookie cutter can be a risk that most community theaters just aren’t positioned to take. To keep the lights on and the water coming out of the faucets, they give the audiences what they want.

The problem with this line of reasoning is it assumes your audience is as well versed in theater and artistic endeavors as the people making it. You give them what they want so they buy tickets or donate. When do you challenge them? When do you ask them to think? When do you tell them the story they may never hear? When do you show them a life they will never live, and ask them not only to accept it, but empathize with it? That is what art is supposed to do, in small and grand ways it is supposed to move you. It is supposed to induce a visceral reaction as complicated and beautiful as our everyday lives. That can’t be achieved without allowing all members of the community to speak their truth, tell their stories, and create something completely indigenous to them for consumption by, and comprehension of, the entire community.

Black theater. Theater written and performed from the black perspective is what’s missing from the artistic community in Charlottesville. Alice Walker said, “If art doesn’t make us better, then what is it for.” This community has suffered for it, without any realization of the suffering itself. The notion that there is no audience for black theater in Charlottesville has been disproved by the recent success of Fences by August Wilson at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. Over six performances more than three hundred people attended the show. For a show inside a venue new to live theater, that is an outstanding first showing. Comments from audience members add to the praise. The center means to top that with plans to produce all ten of August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle over the next five years. The next production, Jitney, is planned for an opening mid-September. The landscape is changing, black theater has arrived in Charlottesville.

Andrea Douglas and Leslie Scott-Jones