Newspaper Page Text
2
GO
ISSUES
INSIDE MOREHOUSE, MARCH/APRIL 2012
Inside Morehouse is
about the people who
make up the Morehouse
College community.
To tell those stories,
WE NEED YOU
to send us your ideas,
comments and thoughts,
along with your news,
information about your new
books or publications and
your commentary for
sections like My Word.
To send us your information,
contact Inside Morehouse
Editor Add Seymour Jr. at
(404) 215-2680 or by e-mail at
aseymour@morehouse.edu.
For up-to-the minute
information about the College,
go to www.morehouse.edu
or visit Morehouse on
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
and Tumblr.
www.morehouse.edu
mn Youfflffa
MOREHOUSE
Director of Public Relations
Toni O’Neal Mosley
tmosley@morehouse.edu
Executive Editor
Vickie G. Hampton
vhampton@morehouse.edu
Editor
Add Seymour Jr.
aseymour@morehouse.edu
Calendar Editor
Julie Pinkney Tongue
jtongue@morehouse.edu
Photographers
Philip McCullom
Jim Robinson
Add Seymour Jr.
Graphic Design
Glennon Design Group
Web Services
Hana Chelikowsky
Administrative Assistant
Minnie L. Jackson
Inside Morehouse is
published monthly during
the academic year by
Morehouse College,
Office of Communications.
Opinions expressed in Inside
Morehouse are those of
the authors, not
necessarily of the College.
What They’re Blogging About...
Morehouse faculty and staff are very active in the blogosphere, giving their opinions about a wide range of topics.
Here are a couple of the latest blogs written by two Morehouse faculty members.
“Whitney”
By Stephane Dunn, co-director, Cinema, Television and
Emerging Media Studies Program; assistant professor,
English
NewBlackMan
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2012/02/whitney.html
T am at some once-a-year fancy gala -
■ Hfeu 1 the kind of thing that makes you suf-
♦JgKL fer through three-inch heels and a bitter
mM February wind to see and be seen. Half
A into the spinach with arugula and pecans
'fikyU salad with orange sesame dressing, a whisper
L §|f J&W * builds and people begin to forget the discrete
j lap level text check and they’re holding the
Blackberries and iPhones up close, squinting
and reading, texting, and sighing then they look up across the table
at a stranger formerly of little interest who looks back asking the
same question: Is Whitney really dead?
And soon, the Facebook posts and Twitter feeds confirm
it, and I keep eating bread and butter and there are voices in
the background. There’s a program and distinguished people
are getting awards and people are clapping, but in my head I’m
screaming with clenched fists like Florida Evans: Damn, Damn,
Damn! Whitney Houston is dead. I want to scream it really and
stop the program just for a second, just to confirm, something
momentous has happened. The awards and the chatter go on and
a movie is running through my head. 1978’s “Sparkle,” a pretty,
sultry brown girl starts to sing her way out of the ghetto with her
little sisters. She falls for a user and an abuser and then she’s on
drugs and bruised and dead. The remake marks WTritney’s return
to the big screen, only WTiitney
(q doesn’t play Sister but now she’s
dead, too.
1 want real By 3 a.m., I’m sitting on the
tall/ ahruit hnww same couch in the same spot where
iaiK aDOUI now I was sitting on June 25,2009, when
folk can be pre- a of m y y° uth P assed awa y
, , , , with a headline: Michael Jackson
pared tor De 1 nQ has died. And now, another head-
inside of fame and m >' y« un §
adult lire. I flashback to college,
hOW they can be last dance of the school year, end
RRVPd hpfnrp of Apri1, and my heart is break ‘
oaVcU UCIUItJ ing. My first adult love is crash-
they lose ing. 1 don’t want to let go, but it’s
over. He asks me to dance. I want
tneir voices. to be close to him, but I want to
say no. Whitney’s singing: Where
/ / do broken hearts go, do they find
their way homeland I know it’s
his goodbye, and we’re not going to
make up ever again...
I think about me and my sister friends going to check out
“Waiting to Exhale” and wearing out that soundtrack and lip sync
ing and I think about Whitney, sitting there pregnant and fine in
that video singing that Dolly song from earth to heaven and back
and wondering, ‘how can the girl sing like that’ and then I glimpse
myself cranking up the radio ’cause they’re playing Whitney’s song,
and I gotta marvel all over again. And I will always love youuuu. I
see me cringing every time some wannabe-the-next-Whitney dared
take on one of her songs and arguing folk down who don’t know
better. Nobody sang that national anthem like WTiitney. Nobody.
Period.
It s after 4 a.m., and I keep thinking and remembering
and hearing that voice, and how much it hurt over the years to
think of her hurting and not singing and people talking about
her and judging and her becoming one of those stories of the
wayward star gone the way of drama and drugs. I never gave
her up. I claimed her survival and her triumph...
I want real talk about how folk can be prepared for being
inside of fame and how they can be saved before they lose their
voices. I want new ways to protect and arm those ambitious
geniuses against the snares on the way to fame and fortune. I
want her not to be like those other too surreally phenomenal
songstresses from Billie to Judy and Amy.
Whitney Houston, dead at forty-eight. ■
“Recommended reading: Autesserre’s Dangerous
Narratives”
By Laura Seay, assistant professor, political science
Texas in Africa
http://texasinafrica.blogspot.com
O everine Autesserre has a must-read article
i O out in [Oxford Journal’s] African Affairs,
Wr “Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives
1§§ on the Congo and Their Unintended
jm Consequences.” The article unpacks the
Kl Jjgak problems with the oversimplification of
. the Congo crisis and its solutions into
three dominant narratives: conflict miner-
als, rape, and state-building. In doing so,
Autesserre focuses on a wide variety of international efforts to
address the Congo crisis, including those undertaken by advo
cacy organizations, NGO’s, the United Nations, the African
Union, and foreign diplomats. While acknowledging some
successes, she raises the following central question:"...we can
wonder how the illegal exploitation of resources came to be
seen as the main cause of violence, sexual abuse as the worst
consequence, and the extension of state authority as the pri
mary solution to the conflict, to the exclusion of other causes,
consequences, and solutions.”
In analyzing these questions, Autesserre is careful to note
the appeal of simple narratives: they are easy to understand,
thus these narratives can mobilize a wide variety of actors who
lack detailed expertise. Having a “straightforward solution” is
also appealing; if activists and policy makers can identify a clear
perpetrator of wrong with a
clear way to stop that perpetra- (g
tor’s wrongdoing, it’s easy to
get attention and action. FOf thOSG
She finds widespread W F, 0 Hneplw fol-
misperceptions that natu- VVIIU UUbtJiy IUI
ral resource exploitation is |0W thG COflfMet
the primary cause of violence . . , ,
and the first issue that must ITlinGralS OGDatG,
be addressed to stop it, despite AlltGSSGITG’S ObSQU
widespread evidence to the
contrary. Likewise, the over- VStiOPIS Ofl thG
:, h ^7of f rawareness of those
don from other forms of Ho- working in Congo
lence that are equally horrific,
such as non-sexual torture, kill- On tllG CailSGS Of
ings, and recruitment of child mnflirt wwill ho
soldiers.” And the emphasis on GUI NULL Will UG
state-building as the only pos- Of particular benefit,
sible solution to the region’s _^ a
problems ignores the fact that q. / /
the state is a predatory disaster.
The misallocation of attention to three oversimplified
narratives has real consequences, and, in Autesserre’s analysis,
those consequences are largely negative. She concludes:
“However, by leading interveners to focus overwhelming
ly on these issues, and to neglect other causes, consequences,
and solutions, these narratives also have a number of perverse
consequences. They obscure most interveners’ understanding
of the multi-layered problems of the Congo. They orient the
intervention toward a series of technical responses and hinder
the search for a comprehensive solution. They lead interven
ers to privilege one category of victims over all the others.
Even more disconcertingly, they reinforce the problems that
their advocates want to address, notably by legitimizing state
building programmes that reinforce the harassment of the
populations by state officials, and by turning sexual violence
into an attractive tool for armed groups.”
Autesserre’s article is an important contribution to a grow
ing body of peer-reviewed research based on solid fieldwork
suggesting that the overwhelming focus on conflict minerals and
rape is misguided and actually causing harm to the very people it
purports to help. We are long past the point of needing realistic,
pragmatic advocacy narratives and solutions that acknowledge
and respond to the complexities of the DRC crisis. Congo’s
people deserve nothing less. ■