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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. ■