Fishbone Flys the Black Rock Flag High

Christopher Johnson, who produced today's interview with black punk legends Fishbone, writes in to share his true, life behind the music story.

Black punk runs deep in my blood. Well, sort of. It definitely runs as far back as my cousin Shaharazad, who I used to roll with as a little, snot-nosed Johnson on the Metro Bus in Washington, DC. We were quite the scene: me, in whatever sad kid gear my mom would dress me in; she, in all things spiked - hair, wrist bands, leather jacket; heels, too, sometimes. Folks from the pioneer DC punk band Fugazi knew her as Cookie, and she was also tight with the godfathers of black hardcore, Bad Brains, four Rastafarians who ripped the Chocolate City's early hard rock scene and set a standard for the punk world - black, white, other.

Bad Brains came from my hometown, and today, as a bona fide DC punk (and a b-boy, and a go-go fan, and so on), I'm proud to have them as part of my cultural heritage. But the first black punks that I can actually remember being exposed to hailed not from my Miss Washington, DC, but from clear across the country. For my 11th or 12th birthday, my big brother bought me my first Walkman cassette player - the kind that came with a shoulder strap and drank big batteries - and he included a mix tape he'd made for me featuring an LA band called Fishbone. At the time, I knew Prince, Culture Club, and 5 Star. But this? I'd heard nothing like it before. Big, super-caffeinated ska rock with green dreadlocks that flipped its finger right up in the world's camera lens as it bounced off the walls. I knew all the words in just a couple days. I was baptized.

It was years later, when I guess I cared a little more about race, that I found out Fishbone was black. By then, I knew about Bad Brains, Swiz, Burn, and a bunch of other rock bands big and small lead by brothers. It mattered a lot because, as a pubescent black punk, sometimes my white peers made me feel like I was stepping into their house and I ought to tread lightly. So to see that folks who looked like me were running things on stage... I was so proud, and I also understood I had a right to this music and this scene.

Anyway, Fishbone was my first, so it was great to meet two of the original members. Two funny brothers who have been in the rock game for a long time. And if I ever thought I was off about race mattering in punk rock, it was all cleared up when we said goodbye. I gave Angelo and Norwood a pound and a hug each, and said thank you (for taking risks, for stepping out of molds, for giving me permission to dress and act and walk and be a punk too). They looked me dead in my eyes, brother to brother, and said their "you're welcome" and I knew they got it.

Do you raise a black-rock freak-flag high? Are there photos of you hidden in a drawer with a spiked Mohawk? Write us and tell us about you first encounter with music black folks aren't supposed to love.

(Also, while you're at it, pay a visit to our pal George Kelly's new blog blipter.info, which tracks all things black and alternative.)

Gary Dauphin

6:11 PM ET | 05-31-2007 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Where Were You During the Great Bisexual Panic of 2003?

Today's calm and reasoned Sex & Sexuality segment on bisexuality is a far cry from the dominant media take on bisexuality just a few years ago. For those of you with elephantine media memories, 2003 was the year most stories about people who love both genders could be summarized in an all-caps exclamation: "DOWN LOW MEN ARE GIVING OUR WOMEN AIDS!!!" Fueled by a several-thousand-word, August of 2003 expose in the New York Times called "Double Lives on the Downlow," tales of black DL men seemed to be everywhere that year and the next, this despite the fact that, as gay activist Keith Boykin would put it in an interview with Farai, "almost everything we've been told about the down low in recent years is wrong."

As Boykin explained in a posting on his blog:

Much of the discussion about the down low recently has portrayed women as "victims" of black men. Framing the issue this way disempowers women from the ability to protect themselves, reinforces negative stereotypes about black men and encourages an unhealthy battle of the sexes in the black community.

The media machine behind the down low business (and it is a business) has tried to exploit women's fears about the DL in order to make a quick buck. But fear is not the answer. Education is. Knowledge is power, and all women and men need to know the truth.

The high-water mark of DL hysteria was likely a 2005 Oprah interview where author Terry McMillan confronted her gay ex-husband Jonathan Plummer, a segment that mixed celebrity, gossip, DL-intrigue and the sad dissolution of a marriage into one, slightly sensationalistic package. Since then, stories about the DL have largely been of the "is he, or isn't he" variety, with consideration of how bisexual people might actually live falling by the wayside.

But take a listen to our segment and decide for yourself. Is bisexuality "the new closet"as Boykin puts it, or is it a sexual identity unto itself as today's guest Jennifer Baumgardner asserts? Much of our own conversation in the newsroom about this segment centered on whether or not society views bisexual women as more "acceptable" (or is that more titillating?), whereas bisexual men are a threat, imagined (in our community, at least) as eager to sleep with everyone - women of other races, other men - except black women. Do you think that's the case? Let us know!

(And please: don't post gossip about which celebrity or rapper you are 1000% percent sure is bi, this because, well, let's say you know. Save that for the gossip blogs, or, barring that, your memoirs!)

Gary Dauphin

5:38 PM ET | 05-30-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Staying On Message

You'll admire all the number book takers
Thugs, pimps, pushers and the big money makers
Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens
And you wanna grow up to be just like them, huh,
Smugglers, scrambles, burglars, gamblers
Pickpockets, peddlers even panhandlers
You say: "I'm cool, I'm no fool!"
But then you wind up dropping out of high school
Now you're unemployed, all non-void
Walking 'round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd
Turned stickup kid, look what you've done did
Got sent up for a eight year bid

Grand Master Flash's The Message

Ever since its rise in the early 90s, the folks behind of the so-called gangster strain of hip hop music have defended their money-making tales of urban mayhem not by claiming artistic license, but by insisting their songs and videos only reflect the reality on the streets. This is the "CNN of the Black community" theory of hip hop, and no rapper - from Chuck D to "Fitty" - seems able to resist labeling themselves as a kind of journalist, a citizen reporter bringing you do-it-yourself audio diaries long before the first blogger ever darkened a monitor or web-page

In the aftermath of the Imus debacle the hip hop=street truth equation has taken something of a beating, leading folks to reevaluate whether or not the music is reflecting reality or distorting it. Public radio, of course, has a slightly different mandate from, say, Def Jam, which might be why few rap records have the straight-forward eloquence of Omar Leech, who contributed his story of getting into (and then out of) gangs for the StoryCorps Griot Initiative. Leech shared his story without expectation of fame and fortune and that might be why he so neatly sums up the emptiness and loneliness behind the facade of urban bravado:

All this time I did in prison, didn't a person from my gang ever write me one letter, send me one penny. And right then it just dawned on me. That's not family, those aren't friends. And when I come home, what? They want me to hold a pistol? Or they want me to punch this guy for running his mouth? I'm a grown man. [So] me coming to Atlanta from Toledo was like running for my life. That's exactly what it was. [more]

Still, though, the "CNN of the streets" argument still has its partisans. Can you name a hip hop lyric that conveys a so-called truth about the black urban experience, something you'd expect to see on an urban cable news channel? This should be something recent (sorry, we already used the Grandmaster Flash lyric up top) and something that depicts the often harsh reality of street-life without sugar coating it in testosterone and bling. If we like what you send, we'll use it on air during the forthcoming Hip Hop music series that we have scheduled to begin in a few days in June.

Gary Dauphin

7:23 PM ET | 05-29-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Signs of Faith in the American Landscape

Producer Roy Hurst recently put together a segment on a new book called Bible Road: Signs of Faith in the American Landscape. He shared these thoughts about the piece:

I recently had a chance to produce a conversation between Farai and photographer Sam Fentress about his book Bible Road. If you look at the NPR.org webpage for the segment, you'll notice that it also includes a video version of what you heard on-air supplemented by images from Fentress' book.

It's kind a of a first for our program. We've had slide shows before but never a video presentation. Sometimes cool things come across your desk and inspire you to say, "This has to be described." In the this case it was more like: "Lets SHOW some of it."

When I was putting this together I spoke with Mr. Fentress by phone. I was always asking for more stills. (The video doesn't show the half of them.) He and I ended up having an interesting conversation about whether or not the makers of these signs were "zealots" Mr. Fentress didn't think so, and I couldn't help but think that he was uncomfortable with such a loaded word.

Thing is, I am not a Christian, and yet, at the same time, I was inspired by the passions expressed within the photos.

But I would also like to throw the question back to the audience. What do you think? Does it take zealot to paint signs like these?

Gary Dauphin

8:26 PM ET | 05-25-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

So You Want to Blog

Earlier today Farai, News & Notes tech contributor Mario Armstrong and I had a great conversation about blacks and blogging. (You can listen to the discussion here.) Just to recap, and to spark discussion, we wanted to go over some of the sites and resources we discussed on air.

How do I get a blog?

Setting up a weblog is easier than ever. Sites such as Blogger, LiveJournal, and Wordpress offer easy-to-use, free services that anyone with access to the internet can join.

Where do I find other African American bloggers?

Everywhere! But if you check blog directories such as Technorati.com, you can do a search for "African American" and find literally thousands of black bloggers. Additionally, since birds of a feather tend to flock together, a good place to find black bloggers is on... black blogs! Sites like Negrophile.com, maintained by blogger and writer George Kelly lists hundreds of African American blogs, each one of them in turn linking to other sites you might enjoy.

How do I blog safely and anonymously?

A blog is a public forum, so commonsense rules apply. Anything you don't want your boss or your mother to know about doesn't belong online.

That said, though, there are resources that someone interested in anonymity can use. Reporters without Borders publishes a handbook for bloggers and cyberdissident for use by folks in politically unstable or repressive countries, providing tips for how to maintain your anonymity while also connecting with the global community of bloggers. Additionally, advocacy organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation keep a close eye on privacy and freedom of speech issues online, making them an invaluable resource for folks with concerns.

Those are very, very preliminary basics. Have you started a blog recently? Have you used any of these resources? Let News & Views know how it's going for you!

Gary Dauphin

7:53 PM ET | 05-25-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Out on the Street: Crowned

Every now and then a story or event doesn't make it on the air, but that we'd still want to share with you. Assistant Editor Jeneé Darden wrote in this account of her first church hat.

A few weeks ago, I completed a black female fashion rite of passage: I wore my first church hat.

My journey to hat-related bliss started in 2004 when I attended a fashion show hosted by the National Council of Negro Women in Oakland, Calif. The guests and models were decked out in beautiful suits and grand hats, and I was captivated by the colorful crowns accented with lace and jewels.

The array of models was just as diverse as the fashion, but one lady stole the show. She was a short, elderly woman adorned in a bright, black and white satin suit. And her hat was unforgettable, a large, wide-brimmed number trimmed with black and white feathers that matched her suit. It sat low on her head, but I got a peek under the brim at the confident, fun smile on her face. She wore the entire ensemble like it was her own skin, and when she strutted down the catwalk she owned both it and the audience.

Fate was at work, because I ran into the model that so captivated me at my hair salon a few months later. Her name was Mrs. Helen Peppers (yes, that's her real name!) and I immediately knew I had to hang out with her. For a then 77-year-old mother of seven, grandmother and great-grandmother, she turned out to be one fashionable lady. Mrs. Peppers models for various churches and organizations throughout Northern California, and at her quaint apartment in East Oakland she showed me the towers of shoe and hat boxes that house her fashion treasures. The suits, the gowns, the jewelry and the shoes made me feel like a little girl about to play some serious dress-up. Mrs. Peppers also imparted some valuable style advice, from the key to her strut (Give a bright smile to the audience and think: "Wouldn't you like to have what I'm wearing?") to her secret to beauty. ("Beauty is touching someone else's life.")

I left Mrs. Peppers apartment spiritually motivated and vowing that someday soon I'd be attending an event that would call for one of those glorious hats.

Fast forward to earlier this month and I'm finally shopping for my first hat. My sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho, was hosting our Western Regional Conference in Las Vegas. One of the events was a tea luncheon and sorors were asked to wear hats, sundresses and gloves. I was nervous at the start of my search because I'd never worn anything so extravagant on my head. But, it turns out that hat shopping is addicting! I morphed into a different woman with each hat I tried on. Sometimes I was mysterious, other times classy. But overall, I felt like a queen. Now I understand the hat craze among women.

After hitting countless stores I found my crown the night before I left for Vegas. A low-brimmed golden halo, hugged in satin and topped off with a ripple of curly bows. I tried it on and instantly felt fun, sophisticated and regal. And yes: I definitely strutted a bit when I walked into the luncheon.

As for Mrs. Peppers, she is now nearing 80-years-old and still dressing to the nines. She's been battling cancer the last few years, but that hasn't stopped her. I still haven't mastered Mrs. Peppers' strut. But, as a journalist, I try to use her beauty secret every single day.

Do you have a favorite church hat story or picture? Write your stories in the comments to this post, and email us your pictures and we'll put them up on News & Views.

Gary Dauphin

8:26 PM ET | 05-23-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Farai and the Family Stone: Behind the Scenes

One of the things we'd like to do with News & Views is give you a sense of what it takes to get the show on the air every day. Christopher Johnson, erstwhile News & Notes producer, stepped up with this account of what it takes to get the show on air.

Hey y'all, this is Christopher. I'm the one who put Farai's interview with the Family Stone together. (For the uncut, blog-only version of the conversation, go here.) Talk about a task! Without getting too tech about it, Larry was in Minneapolis (he now thumps bass for the Purple One), and Mz. Rose Stone lives about an hour outside of our LA studios. That meant coordinating the two funkateers with our own host, then getting all the right music for the story, making sure the facts were straight before the interview... whoo! It was some large, but labor-of-love, lifting.

When you listen to the final piece, you'll hear Rose and Larry introduced as if they are in the studio at the same place and time, Larry's voice mixed in throughout the piece just like Mz. Rose's via the miracle of digital editing. Mr. Graham actually got a little turned around in his big city (blame it on the driver, he says), and he arrived at his studio about 20 minutes late. Farai and Rose already had a good thing going, so Larry was able to slide right in to an already warmed-up chat.

But dont get it twisted - despite the different times and places they both were excellent, and in the (very) long version we posted on the blog for you to hear, you'll get all the Graham & Stone you could ask for.

Don't funk too hard, y'all. I'll pop back in soon with some more producer's notes on segments I've put together. - Christopher.

Do you have any questions about how the show gets on air? Drop us a line here on the News & Views blog and we'll get you the answer.

Gary Dauphin

2:02 PM ET | 05-23-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Blogging, Part II (How to Blog)

Hey folks:

I just want to say how thrilled I am to hear from you on the blogging (in general, and while black) issue.

Thanks to Ernise, Amanita, Lester (hey!), Nona, Willie, and Moji.

Willie... great suggestions and we are working on it. Ed, by the way, has his own syndicated TV show called "Our World with Black Enterprise".

Ernise, it's great that you're blogging about your fitness training. Send us a link.

-------------------------------------------------------

Nonna, the price issue is a big one. Computers are getting cheaper all the time, but iPods and digital music players are still pretty pricey. There are community organizations that can help connect folks with technology and high-speed internet. Check out, for example, Beehive and its parent group One Economy. Full disclosure: I used to work for them.

Some cities, like San Francisco, are working to have the whole city have free wireless internet.

If you are willing to shop around AND are knowledgeable about computers or have someone in your life who is, you can get cheap used ones on sites like Craigslist or Ebay. But buyer beware!

A good compromise between new and used is buying refurbished models from major suppliers like Dell. Refurbished models are used; re-built; and have a warranty.

All of these company names are NOT endorsements but examples, and you have to look at what's right for you.

I think in the future not only will technology get cheaper, but also people will develop more collective ways of using technology. The best way to go online for free right now is at your local public library. In the future, perhaps libraries and community organizations will develop sign-out systems for MP3 players. You leave a cash or credit card deposit and get to take an iPod for a week for free. Sound crazy? Well, I remember I used to live near a tool lending library... where you could check out garden and power tools! Anything is possible.

--------------------------------------------------------

Moji: thanks for asking how to start.

First, you have to pick a way to get your blog up and running. One of the best ways is the free and fast Blogger. You can use basic design templates; and they will give you free hosting... meaning you don't have to pay for anyone to access your page. If you do choose to make a more complicated site, you will probably have to pay to buy a domain name and for internet hosting. We can talk about that some other time.

The other thing you have to do is decide what you are blogging about. This can change over time.

You also have to decide what you want in terms of safety and personal information. I would NEVER give out my address or home phone over a blog. But know that depending on how much other information you give, people may be able to find that out. It's always a risk.

With most blogging programs, there are ways to decide how many people you want to allow into your circle. You can decide that YOU have to choose who can SEE the blog.... or who can respond... or let it be a free for all.

You should also learn some basic html commands. These allow you to do things like post links to other websites. A good source for learning about these is WebMonkey.com.

If you want to go deeper, you can often find community-based classes on learning computing and on the web in general.

Anyway, this is plenty for now... thanks for the input... send more! And more soon.

Peace,

F

Farai Chideya

5:35 PM ET | 05-21-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

The Uncut Rose Stone and Larry Graham Interview

Today on News & Notes, we aired an interview between Farai and Rose Stone and Larry Graham, original members of Sly and The Family Stone. Stone and Graham had come into the studio to discuss the release of a new box-set featuring the group's first seven albums, this timed to celebrate the band's fortieth anniversary.

The pair spent over half-an-hour talking to Farai, leaving us with way too much material for a 12-minute, edited segment crammed with audience comments from our blog and music clips. So many people wrote in to the blog to share their favorite Sly and The Family Stone song that we figured you'd also want to hear the entire discussion, which we've uploaded here. (One note: Larry's driver got lost on the way to the studio... Rose kicks off the interview solo and he joins in later. So if you don't hear Larry at first, DON'T PANIC!) Just click on the link and enjoy!

Gary Dauphin

7:04 PM ET | 05-18-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

MUSIC AND MEMORY: Que Le Pongan Salsa!

We here at News and Notes LOVE listening to music... We love everything from hip hop to punk rock to jazz to one of my favorites, SALSA music.... Yes, SALSA music... But, I'll get back to that in a minute....

This shared love of music is what inspired us to create our Wednesday staff song pick of the week segment where each week we share with YOU some of our favorite songs. Our inaugural segment featured one of Farai's favorites, Billie Holiday's song "Don't Explain". I chose hip hop artist Mims' song,"This is Why I'm Hot" as my first song pick a few weeks ago.

This week I was called up to bat again. After combing through my mental playlist of favorite songs, I finally chose the song "Brujeria" by El Gran Combo. It's a song that brings back fond memories from my childhood.

What few people know about me is that in addition to being biracial (my mother was white, my father was black) I am also in many ways tricultural. I was raised for most of my childhood by my white biological mother, but I spent a good portion of my childhood in the home of our Puerto Rican neighbors, Marie and Josie Cosme.

As a child, their house was quite simply my favorite place to be. Titi Marie and Grandma Josie (as I've always called them) consistently provided a respite from my less than stable life at home with my mother. During my teenage years they stepped in and became my foster parents and I lived with them until I graduated from high school.

Simply put, I can't remember a time as a child when they weren't around just as I can't remember a time when I was unable to recognize the smell of my favorite dish arroz con gandules con habichuelas (rice with peas and beans) cooking on the stove. I don't remember a time when I wasn't listening to salsa music. So it made perfect sense to me to pick "Brujeria" by El Gran Combo for my song pick as an homage to the Cosmes, who helped raise me.

I am a big believer that music in many ways provides us with the soundtrack for our lives. In upcoming weeks, you will hear from more of our staff members who will share with you the songs that help make up theirs. Some of these songs have served as inspiration, while other songs have literally changed their lives... and some we hope will just be downright fun.

Over the course of the past week, many of you blogged about YOUR favorite Sly and The Family Stone song. We even read a couple of your posts on the air during our interview with Larry Graham and Rose Stone. Now we want you to tell us which song(s) make up your life's soundtrack. What song reminds you of an old love? What song has inspired you? What song has helped you through hard times? Tell us the story.

On a lighter note, over the course of the past few days since my song pick has aired, many of my fellow Noters have been teasing me about one line in the piece in which my Titi Marie commented that I was such a beautiful child. Quite a few of these colleagues (and some of my friends) have had the audacity to demand proof! So to satisfy their curiosity (and now yours) and to defend my Titi Marie's comments, I dug deep (REAL DEEP) to find these pictures of me as a child with my Titi Marie:

Nicole Childers

12:28 PM ET | 05-18-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Blogging as a Geezer... Virtually, That Is

Hey Peeps:

I've been a bit shy about blogging, not because there's not anything to blog about, but because there's so MUCH to blog about.

I started blogging in 1995, before blog was a commonly used term, under Pop and Politics. The site still exists, and it's still a blog, but I don't blog there. (It's a university nonprofit that helps train the next, and diverse, generation of bloggers.....)

I still blog from time to time. I have a personal domain which is down for reconstruction (working on turning it into a photo blog just for fun) so I will spare you that URL.

Being in the blogosphere for so long makes you think.

The MAIN thing you think, after 12 or so years is: why?

I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean it in the best of ways. You ask yourself things like: is this personal or business? How much of my private life do I share with the world? Will old posts come back to haunt me? Is this unsafe? Is it, in some way, INSANE.... spilling words (and these days, pictures, video, audio) into a vast universe that does not care about you specifically, only if people link to what you have to say?

I've been online in a meaningful way for fifteen years. When I was a young reporter at Newsweek, I had a modem the size of a paperback book. I used a bunch of cords to connect that modem to the phone lines AND the computer (which was all text... green on black). I loved it. I loved the interconnectivity, the ability to network, the intimacy of being in a new world.

I was a pioneer.

And yes, I was a black pioneer. As I was traveling around the country reporting in places that had probably never seen a black reporter, I was also participating in online forums that didn't have any black participants, except me.

So, I'm an internet geezer. I'm not by any means the most technically skilled person. I just have the perseverence--the stick-to-itiveness, if you will--to surf the wave of technology. And yes, that was a cliche.

So... hey... I'm going to blog about being a long time blogger. And you and I are going to talk...

I want to hear from you if you blog

or if you don't

or if you have questions

I believe in DIY. I believe in making your own mark on the world. I believe in being able to bear up when you mess up... i.e., say/post something stupid. I believe in improving your game.

So... let's talk!

CU L8R

(THAT was just a joke. I do not in any way endorse text message slang. Except as a joke. A bad one...)

Love, peace, and hair grease.

F

Farai Chideya

4:10 AM ET | 05-17-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

From The Mind of the Married Man...

Thanks for the comments about our segment on sex and marriage. It was part of the sex and sexuality series running this month and we thought it was an important discussion to have.

For those who missed it, on Monday Farai and I had a four-way discussion with two marriage/relationship experts about the highs and lows of sex for married folks. We could have gone on for hours concerning this subject, and as the senior married person on the staff, I suppose I had the most experience on the panel.

Everyone had interesting points to make, but what struck me as I listened back to the discussion later, was how it invariably broke down into two camps: the male view vs. the female view. And that's okay, I guess. Men and women certainly see sex differently, and the ring on the finger doesn't change that very much.

What may be different here (or at least, that was our hope) was that the discussion brought honest feelings from both sides out in the open. We're considering returning to the subject in the future to perhaps explore it further and at greater depth. If we do, it would be helpful to hear the ideas/opinions/curious questions that any of you may want to contribute.

And the News & Views blog is the perfect forum for it.

So, what is your most interesting (but safe for publication!) story regarding sex and marriage?

Tony Cox

1:05 PM ET | 05-16-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Who's Your Mentor?

On Monday (May 14th) we'll be running a segment about a national shortage of blacks participating the Big Brother/Big Sister program. The segment reminds me of just how much I wanted a mentor when I was growing up in England. Despite being surrounded by adults who grew up mainly in Africa, and who more often than not volunteered their advice and suggestions (not all of them taken well by me), I really wanted someone who could show me the way and tell me it was OK to have the specific issues that I had at the time.

The closest thing I think I had to a mentor was a family friend, Sandra Oppong, who was three years older than me. Like me she was an artist, and she thought Salt-N-Pepa were the best thing since, well, ever. She even got their hairstyle. (Hmm...) And she liked 5 Star, too. You know you remember them; they were the UK's answer to the Jacksons, only their Michael was a girl called Denise who actually kinda looked like Michael.

(That picture of 5 Star doesn't have much to do with mentoring, but I figure it's not every day you get a reason to put up a picture of 5 Star.)

For two years I sought Sandra's guidance on pretty much everything, but then we grew up, and we both changed. And while we remained friends, we just had different interests. She became a designer, and I went off to study history and literature. At university I found myself wishing I had a mentor again, especially after being told (rather patronizingly) I was somehow special for being one of less than TEN British-born black people accepted into my university that year.

Thankfully, I, along with a few other black freshmen, were found by a group of older students. They were of varying backgrounds, and they were able to help us negotiate our first year at university, because they understood what it was like to be different because of class, (lack of) wealth or ethnicity.

I also found mentors in my friends, who, like my first set of university mentors, come from diverse backgrounds. There was Tim, the English 'wide-boy,' (as I sometimes jokingly call him), who loved the band Pantera and also had (and still has) a very healthy obsession with Earth, Wind and Fire, and there was Priscilla, who became one of my mentors despite being younger than me. (When we first became friends, she depended more on me for advice!) These friend-mentors are now part of my extended family.

With time, I've come to realize that your mentors don't have to be older than you. They don't even have to look like you, they just have to be willing to relate to what you're feeling so that they can help you take your first steps toward progress, be it emotional progress, career progress, or just getting through the day.

Did you find a mentor in an unexpected place or person? Share your story with News & Views!

Christabel Nsiah

7:04 PM ET | 05-11-2007 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Like a Virgin....

This is the first time I have ever blogged.

I always wondered what it would feel like, and I confess, it's not (quite) as intimidating as I had assumed it would be.

So, now what?

Tony Cox

3:59 PM ET | 05-11-2007 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

What's Your Favorite Sly and The Family Stone Song?

One of the things we want News & Views to do is invite you, our audience, into the process of putting together topics and segments.

Next week we'll be talking to members of the legendary rock-&-soul band, Sly and The Family Stone. The group has a new box-set out with re-mastered recordings of its first seven albums.

What we want from you is pretty straightforward: What's your favorite Sly and The Family Stone song? Tell us here, and, if we like what you wrote, we might use it on the air!

Gary Dauphin

1:42 PM ET | 05-11-2007 | permalink | comments (28) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

The StoryCorps Griot Initiative

You may have noticed that News & Notes is now running a weekly feature in partnership with the StoryCorps Griot Initiative. As the StoryCorps website explains:

StoryCorps Griot is a one-year initiative, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to collect interviews from at least 1,750 African Americans. From February 15, 2007, through February 28, 2008, the StoryCorps Griot Initiative will make stops of up to six weeks in nine locations across the nation, partnering with radio stations, historically black colleges and universities, and other cultural institutions and membership organizations, to record and distribute the stories of 1,750 African Americans. The StoryCorps Griot Initiative will place a special emphasis on the stories of World War II veterans and men and women involved in the Civil Rights struggle. [full item]

You can listen to our first StoryCorps segment here. Over the next few months, StoryCorps will be in Detroit (May 10-June 16), Chicago (June 21-July 27), and Oakland (Aug 2-Sep 7). If you're going to be in those areas, check the Story Corps website for locations and times, and who knows: maybe you'll end up on the air.

Gary Dauphin

8:32 PM ET | 05- 8-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

'Little Mosque on the Prairie'... in NYC?

Photo courtesy the Museum of Television and Radio and the CBC.

Periodically, News & Views will be providing updates and addendums tying stories that have appeared on-air to real-life, "on the street" events. Editor Anthea Raymond writes in with one such update, following-up on a recently-aired segment about left-field Canadian TV hit Little Mosque on the Prairie:

Not everything we do here on News & Notes is directly about African Americans, but we're always curious about cross-cultural encounters and the often instructive mis-understandings they produce. Take Canadian TV sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie. The series is set in a small town in rural Canada and its comedy comes from how a small group of Muslims bumps up against their Christian neighbors. Those of you in the New York City area will have a chance to meet the stars and creators of the show at a Museum of Television and Radio event, A First Look at 'Little Mosque on the Prairie' on May 13, 2007.

Thanks, Anthea! What interests us about a show like Mosque is that it's a novel twist on the "ethnic first" story, this fish-out-of-water story (or, in this case, Muslim-in-the-plains-of-Canada story) the comedy kissing-cousin to more serious and historic firsts like the headline News & Notes aired today about the first black woman to trek to the North Pole. To be the first anything, whether it's at the North Pole or the Great Plains, is to step a door behind which literally anything can be waiting, from pride, to tragedy, to, of course, occasional comedy.

Do you pay attention to black firsts? Do you think the era of black firsts has passed, or that milestones like the first satellite launched by an HBCU still have meaning? Have you come across any black firsts you think we should know about? Let us know!

Gary Dauphin

1:58 PM ET | 05- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Thank You, 'News & Notes' Folks!

I got a chance to go to Columbus, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan, this past week/end and met LOTS of News and Notes listeners. I actually don't like the word "listener" as much as participant..because what you tell us really does shape what we do.

I was at the Columbus Museum of Art on Thursday night giving a talk on the art of intervention... part of the museum's great annual conference. The speech was linked to the Schiller Collection, works of art that have a connection to society and social justice. Met some great folks who listen in Ohio on WCBE and from the other places they were visiting from.

And in Ann Arbor, I went to a wonderful African-American book club, "In Good Company." It meets at Nicola's Bookstore. Met LOTS of folks who listen on WDET.

Thanks folks!

Farai Chideya

1:50 PM ET | 05- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Tupac Lives?!

Have you heard the one about the special black social security numbers? What about the how black voting rights are going to expire in 2007, 2008, 2009 and so on? What about the tall, internet-fueled tale of Oprah and Tommy Hilfiger? As Tony Cox shared during Friday's News & Notes headline segment, designer Tommy Hilfiger appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show last week to dispel a hoary, internet rumor. The story? Strangely enough, that Hilfiger had once appeared on Oprah's show, where he made some pretty racist comments.

The rumor was, needless to say, false from top to bottom. Hilfiger had never appeared on Oprah until last week, and he has never been quoted anywhere making anti-black statements. Nonetheless, it's a safe bet that emails pushing the rumor will continue, only this time using Hilfiger's actual appearance as a peg.

The hoax-trackers at website Snopes.com have been following the Hilfiger hoax since 2002:

Rumors that Tommy Hilfiger made a racist remark exploded onto the Internet in the fall of 1996 after a news article purporting to be from a Philippines tabloid began making the online rounds. These self-same rumors had been in circulation at least nine months earlier, but the appearance of this article brought them to critical mass. [full item]

Such stories have a difficult, peculiar resonance for African Americans. The black community is often dependent on word-of-mouth to get important information out, and some stories that sound hoax-y, like the South Carolina CVS black hair-care scandal, turn out to have grown out of actual incidents.

Still, in the age of instant, ubiquitous email, unverified hoax emails can spread like wildfire. So, the next time an email demands of you--

DO NOT DELETE THIS MESSAGE!!
SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK!!!

--that's probably a good sign you should hit delete. If you're still compelled to hit send to pass the story along to friends, remember that good judgment and the use of hoax databases like Snopes (or just plain google) are your best defense against ending up on somene's spam list.

But all that said, CNN told you Tupac lives, right? Do you have a favorite urban myth? Been burned by a factoid you innocently sent off to your entire office? Let News & Views know!

Gary Dauphin

12:36 PM ET | 05- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Changes to 'News & Notes'

Regular listeners might have noticed that there have been some changes on News & Notes. DON'T PANIC. All that's happened is that in our ongoing, Herculean effort to bring you the best show possible, we've decided to make a few adjustments to our format. The core News & Notes experience (i.e., solid, informed conversations about the news, events and issues affecting the lives of African Americans) will remain the same.

That said, though, the changes start at the top --or, at least, at the top of the hour. From now on the show will begin with our host Farai Chideya reading a selection of news headlines of relevance to African Americans. So, for example, today we mentioned Tommy Hilfiger's appearance yesterday on the Oprah Winfrey show to dispel longstanding rumors that he is racist. We also talked about the House of Representatives' expanding the meaning of hate crime to include gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. Our goal with these headlines is to make News & Notes more timely, and over the next few weeks we'll be revealing even more new features on this blog that will allow us to interact with you around news on a regular basis.

In addition to daily headlines, we've launched daily, topical segments that will allow News & Notes to keep an eye on a specific set of issues and stories over the long haul. These will include standing segments on politics, economics, health, lifestyle and African news and events. Many of the voices you've grown to know and appreciate from our daily roundtables will be appearing in these segments, bringing their expertise to more focused and directed one-on-one conversations with Farai.

In February we brought you the first of many special series' we are working on. We hope to use these monthly series as a way to explore the issues we think are important to the African American community. We started with our Leading Ladies series on women in positions of power back in March. Last month, we brought you a series on money called "Minding your Money". This month we are featuring a series on sex and sexuality. In upcoming months we will be working on even more series' on topics like Hip Hop , Education, and Religion. From time to time, we will ask you to help us by sharing with us your personal stories, submitting your ideas and suggesting experts.

Every Tuesday we'll be bringing you an audio feature from the Story Corps Griot Initiative.The Initiative travels the country collecting the stories and recollections of black Americans. We've partnered with them to help amplify the voices of our audience. Keep an eye out on this blog for updates as to where the Griot Initiative will be next, and you may find yourself, in the words of Donna Summer, on the radio!

Lastly, each Friday we will end the show with a segment we call Snapshots. In this segment we will feature short essays and sage advice from a cadre of storytellers. We hope that their essays will not only give you a glimpse into their lives but that they will also inspire you. In our first installment that aired today, Betty Baye gave us a snapshot of the Kentucky Derby.

That's it for now. One thing we're always asking ourselves at News & Notes headquarters is: what does the audience really want to hear? Are there stories or areas that you'd like us to cover more effectively? Less? Take a listen to the links provided above and let us know what you think!

Nicole Childers

6:51 PM ET | 05- 4-2007 | permalink | comments (24) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Party Over Here!

Hey folks--I am so excited! I am excited about doing the show, and our new format, and--like just about everyone on the show--our new time.

What a lot of folks don't know is that we're a Los Angeles-based crew that has been doing our show live at 6 a.m. That meant we had to arrive at 4 a.m. That meant we were always sleepy.

Now that our show is live at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT)--we're able to hit more of the day's headlines AND function on a full night's sleep. Call it a win-win.

A big shout-out to all the people who stream and podcast us around the world. We just got a letter from Kuwait and another from Mexico City.

We've got a lot of excitement coming up, including our Sex and Sexuality series this month. Stay tuned for more. And thanks!

P.S.--if you're wondering what the pix is, it's a countdown to our new time... every day we'd mark our progress. That's how thrilled we were.

Farai Chideya

7:40 PM ET | 05- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

'News & Views' FAQ

Everything you ever wanted to know about News & Views, but were afraid to ask.

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Gary Dauphin

7:35 PM ET | 05- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (10) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)

Discussion Guidelines

Every website has its own rules, and these are ours. If you break these rules, please don't be surprised if we block your comments.

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Gary Dauphin

7:28 PM ET | 05- 1-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post | trackbacks (0)