Arts today 4.4

Vol 4.4

JUNE 22, 2017

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Bell

EARLINE Featured Artist pg #70

View this and past issues from our website.

WOMEN OF...

DR. MALAIKA HORNE

pg. #26

MISSOURI VOTER...

DESIGNER WINS...

pg. #40

pg.#44

PIERRE BLAINE

OPERA THEATRE

I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

(Nina Simone)

pg.

2

#BlackDollsMatter

Buy Now!!!

Bring a sense of pride and strength to the extraordinary girl in your life.

Madeline Delilah Doll and chapter book www.stagemotherproductions.com Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IN THIS

ISSUE: Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program in partnership with Infinite Scholars Program

6

IN THE NEWS POLITICAL HISTORY...

10

The Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program wishes to acknowledge some of the students in our city that have accepted the promise of a college scholarship for accomplishing the following criteria: 1.

2.

3.

4.

95 percent school attendance 3.3 or better cumulative grade average 22 or better composite ACT score No major discipline problems

INFINITE SCHOLARS

Through our mentorship program with Infinite Scholars, the Moline Acres Police Department wishes t OP/ED help fulfill the hopes and dreams of families in our community wishing to send their children to colleg The Infinite Scholars program uses it extensive nationwide network of 500+ colleges and universities t find a college scholarship for students who achieve the criteria above. The Moline Acres Police Department is committed to helping our students accomplish these criteria. The motto for this progra is “Our Badges Create Scholars.”

26

40

Moline Acres is located in North St. Louis County, Missouri. To learn more, contact the Moline Acres Police Department at 314-868-2433 or Infinite Scholars at 314-499-6997.

WOMEN OF COLOR PAY DISCRIMINATION DR. MALAIKA HORNE

MISSOURI VOTER LAW PIERRE BLAINE

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58

Pictured are Moline Acres Chief of Police Colonel Ware, Police Officer Donaldson, and students Charmaine and Charles.

ART OF FOOD LENA O.A. JACKSON

AFRICAN AMERICANS BERNIE HAYES

pg.

4

LIVE / WORK / PLAY NATE JOHNSON

12

16

AD SPACE

48

44 OPERA THEATRE DESIGNER WINS...

OPERA THEATRE

MICHAEL BROWN'S MOTHER...

VICKIE NEWTON A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, or because everything she does is golden. A writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

Junot Diaz, Professor of Writing,

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2008

Established 2014 Volume 4.4 St. Louis, MO www.the-arts-today.com/ Layout/Design www.bdesignme.com

NOTE:

As the publishers of The Arts Today Ezine we take care in the production of each issue. We are however, not liable for any editorial error, omission, mistake or typographical error. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of their respective companies or the publisher.

Copyright Š 2017 - All rights reserved.

COPYRIGHT:

This Ezine and the content published within are subject to copyright held by the publisher, with individual articles remaining property of the named contributor. Express written permission of the publisher and contributors must be acquired for reproduction.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IN THE NEWS

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS for the Annual Fellowship Programme for people of African descent

GENEVA (21 March 2017) – The United Nations Human Rights Office today announced the opening of the application period for its annual Fellowship Program for People of African Descent.

The Fellowship Program is one of the key activities taking place during the UN International Decade for People of African Descent, which was launched to effectively improve the human rights situation of Afro-descendants worldwide.

Every year, the Program offers an intensive learning opportunity to people of African descent on human rights issues of particular importance to Afro-descendants globally. Topics include: human rights law, forms of racial discrimination, access to justice, and racial profiling, among others. Fellows learn about a wide range of UN anti-racism legal instruments and mechanisms, which can help them in combating racism and racial discrimination and in the overall protection and promotion of human rights.

Application Process:

“Through our Fellowship Program, we want to empower a new generation of advocates to combat racism everywhere, and to advance the human rights of Afro-descendants. While the abolition of slavery brought freedom, many of the deeply discriminatory social structures were never torn down and remain to this day. Our past Fellows are using their human rights knowledge to open new avenues for recognition, justice and development for Afro-descendants in their countries,” said Yury Boychenko, Chief of the Anti-Racial Discrimination Section at the UN Human Rights Office.

Following the completion of the three-week long programme, past Fellows have carried out human rights awareness and capacity building initiatives for civil society working to promote the rights of Afro-descendants in their respective countries. They have also supported civil society engagement with UN during fact-finding missions to their countries. A number of Fellows have successfully received grants for local projects; contributed to discussions about national plans of action on combatting racism; and lobbied for new anti-racism legislation.

pg.

6

Applications and additional information are available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ Issues/Racism/WGAfricanDescent/Pages/ FellowshipProgramme.aspx). The Fellowship Program application period begins on March 21, 2017 and runs until May 31, 2017.

Applicants must be fluent in English, should have a minimum of 4 years of work experience related to promoting Afro-descendant rights and must be currently employed by an organization working on issues related to People of African Descent or minority rights. They must submit their CV and a letter from their organization, certifying their status.

Selected Fellows must be available to attend the full duration of the Program, which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland from 13 November to 1 December 2017.

Additional resources: Video of past Fellows: https://youtu.be/BSiCHpZ_6PA UN Decade for People of African Descent: http://www.un.org/ en/events/africandescentdecade/

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"Life of Frida Kahlo" with Lauren Johnson Reception and Lecture Sponsored by: Mary Strauss Tuesday, June 20th from 6:30 ­ 8:00pm at the International Photography Hall of Fame Lauren will focus on Frida and her art, and will bring in Frida’s relationship with Diego for some background.

Lauren A. Johnson is a Ph.D. student in art history at Washington University in St. Louis. Lauren specializes in American art of the long turn of the twentieth century, and earned her M.A. at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Previously, she served as a curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

The lecture is Free IPHF Members/$5 Non­Members Enroll by phone 314­535­1999 or email info@iphf.org

Copyright © 2017 International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum, All rights reserved.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

OP / ED SECTION

Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program in partnership with Infinite Scholars Program

The Moline Acres Police Department College Scholarship Program wishes to acknowledge some of the students in our city that have accepted the promise of a college scholarship for accomplishing the following criteria: 1.

2.

3.

4.

95 percent school attendance 3.3 or better cumulative grade average 22 or better composite ACT score No major discipline problems

Through our mentorship program with Infinite Scholars, the Moline Acres Police Department wishes to help fulfill the hopes and dreams of families in our community wishing to send their children to college.

The Infinite Scholars program uses it extensive nationwide network of 500+ colleges and universities to find a college scholarship for students who achieve the criteria above. The Moline Acres Police Department is committed to helping our students accomplish these criteria. The motto for this program is “Our Badges Create Scholars.�

Moline Acres is located in North St. Louis County, Missouri. To learn more, contact the Moline Acres Police Department at 314-868-2433 or Infinite Scholars at 314-499-6997.

Pictured are Moline Acres Chief of Police Colonel Ware, Police Officer Donaldson, and students Charmaine and Charles.

pg.

10

Editorial Rebeccah Bennett TRUTH: This is not the first time that this country has been run by a bigot.

It is not the first time that we have experienced political isolation and social rejection.

Founder and principal of Emerging Wisdom LLC.

A

nd it is not the first time that we have had to figure out how to metabolize our grief and fear in ways that did not immobilize us, but caused us to actualize our power to change the world.

PERSPECTIVE:

Right

and forefathers lived through horrors that were generational in scope and scale. They persisted through times when there was little chance of a better tomorrow, much less a better life – not even for their kids. Yet they responded to their lot in life by creating resistance movements, aid societies, educational and religious institutions, banks and co-ops, art forms, innovations and spiritual practices that continue to make our lives

now it might do us some good to call upon our ancestors for wisdom, strength and guidance. Our foremothers Copyright Š 2017 - All rights reserved.

better today. Remember that their blood is our blood. Their strength is our strength. They are the ROOTS and we are their FRUITS.

PRAYER:

We call upon our ancestors, those upon whom the sky fell.

We call upon our ancestors who experienced all manner of degradation, humiliation, violation and death. We call upon our ancestors, people who swung from trees and were forced to live on their knees. We call upon our ancestors, many of whom persisted, survived and endured without destroying themselves or others. May whatever it is that nourished and sustained them come more fully alive in us. Ashe.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Would you like a printed copy(s) of an issue mailed to your home?

Send your request to us by email **Remember to include the volume/issue** Cost may vary per issue.

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12

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IVE WORK PLAY

Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017 St. Louis

I

hope that you are doing well. Last month was certainly magical in St. Louis, and there is certainly more to come!

I like to think of June as the sweet spot between Spring and Summer. Al Bernstein once said that with Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June. I certainly agree with that statement as the weather is beautiful and as usual, there are some great things going on here in St. Louis. I have a few event suggestions for you to help make it a great month. Hopefully I'll see you at some of them!

JUNE

1

thru

JUNE

4

Tonight, and continuing through most of June, Circus Flora: Time Flies soars under the big top as aerialists and acrobats portray the magic of time through movement - high above the ground. It will be a great time for everyone!

This weekend, you might find me at the muchanticipated Webster Arts Fair , which provides a lively and local retreat into all things creative. This 3 day event attracts over 20,000 people who will be enjoying great food, entertainment, and of course, art!

Also tonight, the New Leaders Council presents the Be You Ball, which is a celebration of selfexpression and progressive values. Guests are encouraged to dress up in a manner that best represents what progressive means to them while they dance the night away , snack on delicious treats, and engage with local artists and activists all at T-Rex in an environment designed to stimulate our collective view of what is possible for the future.

Check out the newly renovated Kiener Plaza on Friday and Saturday evening for some live music as St. Louis Uncorked returns! This free 2 day event promises to be fun for all ages with food, drinks, live music and more. You might find me and my babies there on Saturday night to check out Gavin DeGraw , who puts on a great show!

We saw him when he performed at the NCAA Final Four Basketball Tournament in St. Louis a few years ago, lots of positive energy!

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Local Events JUNE

Also on Saturday, The 11th Annual St. Louis Brewers Guild Heritage Festival will be in Forest Park where you can enjoy over 100 different styles of beer crafted by 50 different brewers. There will also be live music and food! Afterwards, you can head over to the 5th Annual Cigar Box Guitar Festival , or check out the Rock of Ages Band is at the St. Louis Symphony.

On Sunday evening, you might find me at the 11th Annual Saucy Soiree, down at Union Station. Come and taste and sip generous samples from over 40 Readers' Choice winning restaurants and bars from Sauce Magazine! There will be live music from the Jeremiah Johnson Band and Analog Thief!

For a bit of a different flavor, you can head over to the St. Louis Pagan Picnic on Saturday or Sunday in Tower Grove Park.

Also on Saturday, don't miss the 16th Annual Green Homes Festival where you can experience a hands-on, day-long festival of learning, playing, and engaging with people of all ages and backgrounds with an interest in sustainable, healthy lifestyles at Missouri Botanical Garden.

You'll definitely enjoy being part of the St. Louis art scene on Sunday at the David Bruno Gallery opening receptions for:William Conger: This / That; Judy Child: Revelations; and Bunny Burson: And Still I Rise. Rise is one view all day and night from the Window on Forsyth. Color, form, and texture will never be the same.

Also on Sunday, you can head over to The Dark Room in Grand Center for some jazz during their Brunch Sessions.

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www.the-arts-today.com

Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IVE WORK PLAY

On Monday, you can check out the Shakespeare Festival St. Louis as it graces the grassy knolls of Forest Park once again! This summer the play is The Winter's Tale.

Also on Monday, The Kingdom House Golf Tournament fundraiser is an opportunity for you to contribute to an organization that benefits so many.

On Tuesday, Norah Jones will be blessing the stage at the Peabody Opera House. You could also check out a nostalgic musical treat with the big band sound of the Glenn Miller Orchestra at Webster Groves Concert Hall on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Twangfest kicks off its 21st annual music festival at Off Broadway. This years lineup includes Black Joe Lewis, Robbie Fulks, Chuck Prophet and more!

Also, it is "Wine Down Wednesday" at Olive On The Hill. Enjoy drinks and small plate items under the pergola.

JUNE

5

thru

JUNE

11

On Thursday, I'll be in San Francisco for the Sustainable Homeownership Conference at UC Berkeley. However, if I wasn't, you would find me at the projects+gallery for the opening of Almost Now, Just Then. Which is an exhibition that will feature work by Saint Louis artists Lyndon Barrois Jr., Addoley Dzegede, Jen Everett, Kahlil Robert Irving, Katherine Simรณne Reynolds, and WORK/ PLAY. Aerwards, I would be at the Whitaker Music Festival as it continues at the Missouri Botanical Garden with the Americana singer/songwriter styling of Jack Grelle.

Later on Thursday, you would find me at The Dark Room as they promise a sultry evening of kick-back and relaxed listening with one of my favorites, jazz pianist Ptah Williams who will be playing along with guitarist Eric Slaughter.

On Friday start your weekend with an ear to the Music Record Shop's New Music Listening Party. Take advantage of 10% off purchases and sip complimentary beer from 4 Hands Brewing. Records will be spinning all day.

Also on Friday and Saturday, the 2nd Annual Miles Davis Festival will be hosted at the Webster Groves Concert Hall.

On Saturday join me at the Clayton Music & Wine Festival where we will enjoy an evening featuring music, food, and wine in Carondelet Plaza in Downtown Clayton. Musical performances will include The Gaslight Squares, Sarah Jane & the Blue Notes, and Miss Jubilee & the Humdingers Also on Saturday, Great Rivers Greenway brings together area businesses, nonprofits and clubs to offer outdoor activities for people of all ages at the Life Outside Festival!

The annual Central West End Home and Garden Tour takes places on Saturday and Sunday, featuring the mansions of Fullerton's Westminster Place. Take a stroll through grand residences and reflect on the architectural craftsmanship of some of St. Louis' fabulous private dwellings. While you are in the CWE on Saturday, you might as well check out the Central West End Cocktail Party , which will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first cocktail party on record! There will be live music, food, and of course, cocktails!

On Sunday, you can check out the United States Air Force Thunderbirds as they perform astounding aerial feats at Scott Air Force Base. Wow... hear those engines roar!

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IVE WORK PLAY

What's the buzz, tell me what's a happenin'! Well, The Muny opens its 2017 season on Monday with Jesus Christ Superstar. My dad used to watch the movie version of the musical every week when I was a kid, I couldn't stand it then, but I love it now!

Tuesday marks Family Night in the History Clubhouse at the Missouri History Museum. St. Louis history is hands on for everyone tonight!

STAGES St. Louis presents "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", based on an inspiring biblical story about possibility. It's another "amazing" musical by the one, the only, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Keep Dreaming...

On Thursday, head over to COCA to check out their bizSESSION: Making room for Creative Thinking with Dan Goods. He is on a on a mission to translate abstract concepts into meaningful stories. His day job as visual strategist and storyteller for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory informs his story.

JUNE

12 thru

JUNE

18

Also on Thursday, the Contemporary Art Museum will be host to the screening of an award winning documentary that discusses the life and demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project, which made international news, and how this tale of an urban-renewal program gone wrong has influenced public-housing initiatives ever since.

The RFT Music Showcase kicks off on Friday in The Grove at the Atomic Cowboy and continues into Saturday with more than 100 live performances at 9 different venues in The Grove!

On Friday, two distinct vocal styles and performances are lined up at The Fabulous Fox... John Legend: Darkness and Light Tour and Celtic Woman: Voices of Angels.

For all you skywatchers, on Saturday the Solar Eclipse Expo at Greensfelder Recreation Complex in Queeny Park offers an educational experience about the rare and ever-intriguing alignment of sun, moon, and earth.

Father's Day is Sunday and you might find me and my dad over at Brennan's enjoying a scotch and cigar. You could also head down to Ballpark Village for Family Fun Day Series! This free event will feature a variety of sports themed events, rides, mascots, face painting, and more!

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IVE WORK PLAY

What we love about St. Louis is that it's home to great musical venues all year long, and especially in summer! Melissa Etheridge is at River City Casino and Hotel on Monday night.

Tuesday brings a Food Truck Event to Frontier Park in St. Charles... and the Municipal Band Concert on Thursday.

More music can be enjoyed on Wednesday as the 2nd Annual (for St. Louis, anyway) Make Music Day St. Louis takes place throughout various neighborhoods in the Lou!, including the CWE, the Loop, riverfront, Kiener Plaza, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Ferguson, and more location! This is a free live music festival that takes place every year in over 700 cities around the world. Come out and enjoy some music and say hi to your neighbors!

Just Image: The John Lennon Experience is at the St. Louis Symphony on Friday.

MAY

19 thru

MAY

25

The girls have a field hockey tournament on Saturday, but afterwards, you may find us at The 5th Annual Chesterfield Wine & Jazz Festival for an exciting evening of contemporary, straight-ahead and fusion jazz. The Midwest's finest outdoor jazz festival features violin virtuoso Tracy Silverman with chart-topping classical/jazz artists Bach to the Future.

Imagining harmony is also what we'll do at Pride STL/PrideFest 2017 on Friday and Saturday. Head out for a weekend of fun and support diversity here in St. Louis and around the globe. It's a wonderful, colorful world. Celebrate!

Westport Plaza brings the region's best vintage artisans and retro retailers to a one-of-a-kind shopping event at The 4th annual Vintage Bliss Market on Saturday and Sunday.

You can check out the opening of Reigning Men: Fashion in Menswear 17152015 on Sunday at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

IVE WORK PLAY

Ferguson 1000 has a specific program of assisting in the growth of minority businesses. Head down to T-REX on Monday for the Ferguson 1000 Business Roundtable as minority businesses will be assisted with the 3C's, Contacts, Contracts and Capital. This Business Mentor program will match minority businesses with businesses in their respective industry to assist in the growth of their firms.

It's Give Back Tuesday at Katie's Pizza and Pasta. 100% of the day's earnings go to a selected nonprofit. So... Get a meal and Give a gift!

At Left Bank Books on Wednesday, 2016 Pulitzer prize-winning author Viet Thangh Nguyen discusses and signs his bestselling novel The Sympathizer -- a gripping story about dual identity during wartime.

JUNE

26 thru

JUNE

30

The inaugural year for the Eureka Farmers' Market opens on Thursday and continues through October. A few other Farmers' Markets that you might consider include the Tower Grove Farmers' Market, or the world famous Soulard Farmers' Market. Enjoy some Tropical Moose shaved ice and visit the Kirkwood Farmers' Market. Support local agriculture and small business!

On Friday take the kids to see The Secret Life of Pets at the Alton Amphitheater. It's always fun watching a movie outdoors. Concessions available.

Also on Friday, and more for the grownups, Marquise Knox grooves at the National Blues Museum as part of the Howlin' Friday series.

The Downtown St. Louis Architecture Walking Tour continues on Saturday for several months, and June's sunny days and cool temps make this a great time to sightsee downtown with guides from Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

The Grand Center Theatre Crawl has been extended to 2 days this year! You can join me and my bride in checking out the finest offerings of the bustling St. Louis theatre scene by rotating through venues in Grand Center to check out 24 local theatre groups in short performances... for free!

Yes, we have a great month ahead of us! Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

All the best. -Nate P.S. The latest Housing Report shows that the median sale price in April was $168,500, up from $159,900 in March. That increase demonstrates motivation for buyers, so if you're thinking about selling, count on receiving a reasonable return on your most important investment, your home! Let me know what questions I can answer for you. We would love to help you achieve your real estate goals!

Nate K. Johnson ABR,CRS,GRI Broker/Owner Real Estate Solutions 314-575-7352 Direct | 314-558-6025 Fax | 314-514-9600 x 102 nate@livingstl.com | www.livingstl.com

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

BLACK COMIX RETURNS - African American Comic Art & Culture

A hardcover collection of art and essays showcasing the best African American artists in today's vibrant comic book culture.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

♀

Women of Color &

Pay Discrimination

In 1963, President Kennedy signed into law The Equal Pay Act. Yet more than a half of a century later, women are still pushing for their wages to be on par with men’s.

The issue has spawned a number of terms indicating the gravity and the seriousness of the problem. It includes: ♀Unequal pay for equal work ♀Gender wage gap ♀Gender income difference ♀Pay inequities ♀Male-female income

♀Pay inequality ♀Gender gap in earnings ♀Gender wage divide ♀Pay discrimination

To solve this pesky and longstanding problem, groups are still seeking to have Equal Pay for Equal Work. Simply put, this means men and women who do similar work with similar job titles, education and experience are paid the same. Under this definition, rarely are women paid the same as men. The exception is reportedly in the modeling industry where women models are paid more than males.

Although there’ve been long hard slogs to close the wage gap, there’ve been small incremental gains. For example, in 1963, the pay differential was 59 cents; now it’s around 78 cents. Unfortunately, placed in the broader scope of things and at its current pace, women won’t receive parity until 2059. So do the math, if you will, and it can be reasonably

pg.

26

assured that many women who are currently in the paid workforce will not be able to enjoy pay equality no time in their work life. Sadder is after retirement, their pensions will be less, if they’re still in existence.

So even in their golden years, women face pension pay gaps.

The issue could be viewed in two ways: Number one, because of sexism, women lack access to opportunities and are either chronically unemployed, underpaid or lagging behind in the labor force and Number two, when women do work on par with men, they’re paid less.

This is a gross display of a double standard and a double whammy of both lack of access to opportunities and pay inequality.

White non-Latino males are the benchmark. This yardstick of measuring the salaries of White men against those of all women is used because generally White males are the most privileged, wield the most power and make the highest wages. As an aside, although Asian American men represent a tiny minority, in general they make higher wages than White males.

Root causes are structural impediments many times buried deep into systems that perpetuate wage losses for women. It could be unwritten, non-verbal even invisible yet discrimination persists and normalized in practice. Suffice it to say, it’s illegal to discriminate, so it becomes a sort of de facto and de jure dichotomy. It’s clearly manifested when you see White males at the top and White women further down and most women of color at the bottom. Hence, men are the beneficiaries of women’s mobility held at bay. Men reap these differentials and gain in

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

WOMEN OF COLOR AND PAY... cont.

power relations and income. Some call it a gender tax on women. Put another way, women are subsidizing men’s salaries and propping up their power.

One of the basic causes for pay discrimination is the undervaluing of women’s work, particularly in traditional female occupations. The work of women of color is undervalued even more. Yet, all women stand to lose: rich or poor, young or old, Blacks, Whites, Latinas, Native Americans and Asian Americans. Men also lose, particularly men of color. This is also a worldwide problem; there’s gender bias throughout the globe. Some places such as the Scandinavian countries do better while others in less developed nations are abysmal. Reportedly, Iceland is scheduled in the not-to-distant future to eliminate the gender wage divide once and for all. This is most likely the only country in the world that will have this distinction.

The reason experts explore and examine root causes so assiduously is an attempt to get at its genesis as well as understand the deepness and pervasiveness of structural barriers. First there are the roots, the tree, the branches and the leaves. In other words, a root cause is an initiating cause that spreads through the system. The tree came from the seed and the seed from the tree and so on. This way we can have further insight into its myriad complexities, because knowing history, sharpens analysis, aids in problem solving and shapes public policy. Since forever, the biological function of women has been childbirth; which some contend is how the problem began. While this is the most powerful and precious act of human beings, that is, producing the

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sanctity of human life, it has also placed mothers in an exceptionally precarious position, hampering their ability to work and compete outside the home, which gives men the upper hand. As a result, they’re frequently held back, rendered lower status and economically exploited.

Over the last several decades, women have been entering the labor force in increasing numbers. Depending on her education, women can lose up to $2 million over the course of their careers. Women of color are shorted even more. This is why the tagline: “I want my million dollars,” by the Wage Project, which seeks to eliminate the wage gap, resonates so much.

The Wage Project website notes: •

•

•

A high school graduate loses $700,000. A young woman graduates from high school this year and goes straight to work at $20,000 a year. Over her lifetime, she will make $700,000 less than the young man graduating with her.

A college graduate loses $1.2 million. A young woman graduates from college into a $30,000 starting salary. Over her lifetime, she will make $1.2 million less than the young man getting his diploma in line right behind her.

A professional school graduate loses $2 million. A young woman gets a degree in business, medicine, or law and graduates into a $70,000 starting salary (along with staggering student loan debts). Over her lifetime, she will make $2 million less than the young man at her side.

According to the PEW Research Center, July, 2016, compared to one dollar made by her White male counterparts: • • • •

Asian American women make 87 cents White women make 82 cents.

African Americans -- 65 cents Latinas – astoundingly low 59 cents

In some states, White men earn more than double the wages of Latinas.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

pg.

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Hello, I would love it if you took a moment to check out my GoFundMe campaign: CLICK GOFUNDME LINK BELOW TO DONATE https://www.gofundme.com/black-archaeologist-season-4

Your support would mean a lot to me.

Thank you so much!

- Michael Lambert

Black Archaeologist.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

WOMEN OF COLOR AND PAY... cont.

Equal Pay Day 2017 was April 4, which includes all women. It shows how far into the year women have to work to earn what men earned in the previous year. But since women of color have borne the triplets of race, gender and class oppression, Equal Pay Day is also observed according to ethnicities of color. Below are the breakdowns.

• • • •

Asian American women - March 7 African American women – July 31 Native American women – September 25 Latina women -- November 2

There are also wage disparities between women of color and men of color. Black men have a pay disparity comparable to White women.

Put it this way, the wages of women of color are at the lowest rung of the ladder. Black women in particular are demonized via stereotypes, misperceptions, misinformation, disinformation and negative images further devaluing their status and their work. Even though, race, gender and class bias has diminished somewhat, this fundamental ideology persists in the U.S. Other contributing factors are outdated and unfair notions that men are the sole breadwinners, still justified by some employers to pay men more. While in point of fact women are increasingly responsible for financially supporting their families, particularly women of color.

Women are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in more than 60 percent of American families. Hence our livelihoods are increasingly dependent on women’s wages.

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Another contributing factor is race and sex segregation in the labor market. Similar to Blacks being steered into certain neighborhoods, women are also steered into certain occupations, hence the “pink ghetto” of HR (human resources) where professional women are increasingly concentrated. There are also more narrow recruitment methods deployed. At all levels, including senior-levels, there’s a general lack of consideration for mentoring, grooming or putting women on the fast track for special assignments and promotions.

Of the 500 occupations in the U.S., women are concentrated in only 21.

Women are concentrated in mostly traditional occupations, which pay less. Women of color are concentrated even more. Traditional occupations include teachers, nurses, social workers, clerks, domestics and service workers. On the other hand, men who work in traditional women’s occupations are generally paid more. There are also many circumstances that preclude women from casting a broad enough net for advancement. For example: • Insufficient networks can be a barrier to women’s access to opportunities. Most women have more kin (family) networks than non-family networks.

• Traditional family networks are more pronounced among women of color. They are expected and socialized to be almost solely responsible for the domestic/family sphere, including housework, cooking, childcare, etc.

• Many women hold down full-time jobs while responsible for the domestic sphere. “The double-shift” as they call it. This also is a work-life balance problem.

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WOMEN OF COLOR AND PAY... cont.

• The Mommy track where women are shunted aside after maternity leave. Working mothers are penalized while working fathers are rewarded.

• The sandwich generation also can be a barrier. Women are expected to take care of aging parents and other older relatives plus see after their families and work.

Getting back to networks: Men tend to have more occupational networks, while women, as earlier noted, have more family networks.

Studies show that those who have more occupational (or non-kin) networks tend to have more access to job opportunities. Playing golf or poker, going to conferences, participating on boards and joining clubs can facilitate networking opportunities for career advancement, that is if you have the time and women who are married and/or with children usually don’t have the time.

A man may work from dusk to dawn, but a woman’s work is never done. (An unknown quote dating back to the American Revolution.)

Faring not much better are women in senior level occupations. Women lawyers who make partner face a 44 percent pay gap, according to Bizwoman, 11/30/16. African American women doctors fare even worst, a mere 52 cents compared to their White male counterparts.

There are only four Black CEOs (men and women) in the Fortune 500 as of 2015. There are fewer women of color: Indra K. Nooyi, Pepsico, an Asian-Indian American and Ursula Burns, Xerox, first African American CEO in the U.S. stepped down the end off 2016. Other African Americans, such as Rosalind Brewer, head of Sam’s Club, retired in January this year.

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Despite headwinds that push back progress, women are stouthearted and determined. They’re, in fact, creating tailwinds, bringing up the rear, to fight back against the intransigence or stubbornness of the power structure.

The glass ceiling is one of the most vexing, stoking the noxious winds of sexism in the workplace. The glass ceiling is when a woman is doing everything right but still not getting ahead. Like carbon monoxide, it’s one of those odorless, invisible vapors that swirl around and engulf virtually every woman worker. In addition to unequal pay, it includes low rates of promotions and high rates of turnovers. Sexual harassment also plays a foul role, where women many times are held back if she doesn’t cooperate sexually or under duress, she may leave. Case in point is the recent ousting of Bill O’Reilly, TV host and head money maker at FOX News. Reportedly he had a bad reputation for harassing scores of women, yet his behavior was tolerated for years.

Women are projected to account for 51 percent of the increase in total labor force growth by 2018. Sixty six million women are currently employed in the U.S. with 73 percent working full-time jobs and 27 percent on a part-time basis. So this problem of pay discrimination will worsen without sufficient attention.

These antiquated and patriarchal notions of women’s work (for example, unpaid in the domestic sphere or underpaid in the work place, the public sphere) must be jettisoned if we’re to treat women fairly and

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WOMEN OF COLOR AND PAY... cont.

remain a global competitor. As many have noted, due to the evolving service, information- and knowledge-based economy, the nation is moving exponentially into a more feminized, technologically driven and robotized workplace.

As manufacturing jobs, more suited for men, muscled its way abroad, many men were caught in a lurch. Disaffected males, particularly White males, have received a great deal of attention, with pundits claiming joblessness and alienation as reasons working class White males voted in droves for Donald Trump for U.S. president. Yet, Black women and other women of color have faced disaffection and alienation for centuries with nary a peep. Historically, they’ve suffered a litany of disparities and being left behind in this new economy. Nevertheless, it would bode well to address their plight in a more urgent and forthright manner.

The YWCA is another agency tackling this important issue. In St. Louis, Mary Ferguson, PhD, a racial justice advocate at the Y, is doing great work in this area. On its website, titled, Empowerment and Economic Advancement, it states:

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… Women of color are overrepresented in low-wage industries that lack basic workplace protections. There is no doubt that women are central to the economic well-being for their families and play a critical role in our nation's economic prosperity. Despite this, 21st-century workplace policies are out-of-date and do not adequately support a woman's ability to balance work-family demands.

Let’s hope that the YWCA, the Wage Project, AAUW, legislators and other groups quicken the pace to ensure pay equality becomes a reality before 2059 so that women currently in the workplace can feel more respected, recognized and fully compensated for their contributions.

Equally as important are huge swaths of women who rarely make a living wage. Families (including children), communities and even the society would be much better off as the YWCA has noted, not to mention advancing the status and dignity of this often underrepresented group.

Said Rachel Toalson, poet, essayist and journalist as well as mother of six: “I get it. Our society is still finding its way into gender equality. We are still fighting for equal rights for women. Traditionally, men were the breadwinners and women the caretakers. So this is a new’ thing for some of us, but as a society, we should be farther along than we are.”

Malaika Horne, PhD, is an academic writer and journalist.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

#NextArtFriday

Fashion x Art x Poetry x Music.

Join us for a mixed media experience sure that reminds us that fashion design is an art that should be exhibited in galleries.

The core of the night is a fashion show that is not to be missed.

VISIT pg.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Missouri Voter ID Law

UNconstitutional

By Pierre Blaine

The current Missouri Voter ID law is unconstitutional and does not solve any voter fraud issues in the state.

The initiative process which was used to get citizens of the state to vote this law into existence does not mean it does not have to be constitutional.

In the state of Missouri, we have political operatives using the initiative process to implement conservative ideology which has political objectives.

When the state legislature passed a similar law, the state Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional.

The court indicated in its ruling that the law especially impacted people of color, young voters, seniors, people with disabilities and women.

There is no proof of “voter fraud” in the state of Missouri that has impacted voting outcomes.

of Missouri has stated that the state is interested in everybody voting.

The state indicates that voters will be able to vote and that even if they do not have a state issued ID, they can vote provisionally. However, courts all over the United States are striking down these voter ID laws. States are not allowed to make an end run around voting rights by forcing burdensome changes to election law and then fail to provide the required funding for proper implementation,” said Sophia Lakin, an attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. Texas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are among the states that have been reprimanded by the courts for implementation of voter ID laws and confusing voter education.

“Missouri’s highly restrictive photo ID law was designed to make it harder for people to vote,” said Denise Lieberman, co-director of Power and Democracy at the Advancement Project.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state of Missouri to block the law from being implemented during the City of St. Louis’ special election on July 11, 2017.

The voter-ID law in Missouri will negatively impact minority and elderly voters. The ACLU of Missouri and racial justice group the Advancement Project filed the lawsuit charging that the state has failed to provide mandated funding for voter education, free voter IDs and birth certificates for voters who could not afford them and training of poll workers. The Missouri NAACP and the League of Women Voters are also part of the lawsuit and have questioned why the state of Missouri needed a new voter ID law in the first place.

The Secretary of State

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Strict voter requirements mean that voters without acceptable identification must vote provisional ballot and must take additional steps after the Election Day for their vote to count. Non-strict voter requirements mean at least some voters without acceptable identification have an option to cast a ballot that will be counted without further action on the part of the voter.

Is it an

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accident that Voter ID laws are going into effect in states with Republican majorities in their legislatures and with Republican governors? Make no bones about it not only are Republican legislatures suppressing the vote in this country, but they are using the Supreme Court of the United States to validate the 21st century version of voter suppression.

Anyone being denied access to vote because they cannot afford to get state issued photo ID’s should contact the League of Women Voters, The ACLU or the Missouri NAACP and let them know of your personal encounter in voting in Missouri.

History is repeating itself, Dr. King is prophetic and in his ‘How Long, Not Long’ speech delivered at the completion of the Selma to Montgomery March at the State Capitol of Montgomery, Alabama on March 25, 1965 laid out the root cause of racial segregation at the time.

He explained that the powers that be were dividing whites from the blacks so they would not see themselves as allies but enemies so they would not formulate a voting bloc. Separation kept wages low. At the end of Reconstruction in the United States, the Populist Movement began to educate poor whites and blacks that low wages was the real enemy and not each other. The Southern strategy dismantled this alliance by passing laws which made it illegal for blacks and whites to come together. This effectively killed the Populist Movement of the 19th century. Are we going to sit back and allow the Republican Party to continue to dismantle the Progressive Movement of the 21st century or are we going to fight back?

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vs.

JUNE 23 at Busch Stadium Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

rd

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Opera Theatre Designers win at 2017 Tony Awards

MEDIA ADVISORY: MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2017 Contact: Kelsey Nickerson, PR Coordinator OTSL website: www.ExperienceOpera.org OTSL Box Office: (314) 961-0644

St. Louis, MO, June 12, 2017 –

Two Opera Theatre of Saint Louis designers received Tony Awards last night for their work on Broadway. Christopher Akerlind, Opera Theatre’s resident lighting designer, and Jane Greenwood, renowned costume designer, were both recognized for their outstanding work in their respective fields.

Christopher Akerlind, Opera Theatre’s resident lighting designer, was awarded the Tony for Best Lighting Design of a Play for his work on Broadway's Indecent.

Akerlind’s work was first seen at Opera Theatre in the 1990 production of The Marriage of Figaro. He has continued to design for OTSL almost every year since,

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and designed all four productions for the 2017 season.

Akerlind was previously awarded the Tony for Best Lighting Design of a Musical for The Light in the Piazza in 2005. He has also been nominated for five other Tony Awards, honoring his work on Rocky (2014), Porgy and Bess (2012), 110 in the Shade (2007), Awake and Sing!

(2006), and Seven Guitars (1996).

Jane Greenwood, who has designed costumes for three OTSL productions, was awarded the Tony for best Costume Design for Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes on Broadway, a production starring Cynthia Nixon and Laura Linney. She has received 20 Tony nominations for numerous Broadway productions and a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award for her extraordinary body of work in 2014. Greenwood’s designs have been seen at Opera Theatre in Flight (2003), The Secret Marriage (2004), and Jane Eyre (2006).

Opera Theatre’s 2017 Festival Season runs for two more weeks, through June 25, 2017. The season features Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, the American premiere of Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton’s The Trial, the premiere of a new performing version of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie’s The Grapes of Wrath, Mozart’s Titus (La clemenza di Tito), and the annual Center Stage showcase concert featuring members of OTSL’s young artist programs. For tickets and more information, visit ExperienceOpera.org or call the box office at (314) 961-0644.

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s About Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is one of the leading American opera companies, known for a spring festival of inventive new productions, sung in English, featuring the finest American singers and accompanied by members of the St. Louis Symphony. As of its 2016 Festival Season, Opera Theatre has presented 25 world premieres and 26 American premieres — which may be the highest percentage of new work in the repertory

Described by the Sunday Times of London as “one of the few American companies worth the transatlantic fare,” Opera Theatre of Saint Louis annually welcomes visitors from nearly every state and close to a dozen foreign countries. Although the size of

Upshaw, Matthew Polenzani, Sylvia McNair, Erie Mills, Dwayne Croft, Kelly Kaduce, and Lawrence Brownlee.

Opera Theatre has always been known for distinguished leadership: founding general director Richard Gaddes was succeeded in 1985 by General Director Charles MacKay, with famed British stage director Colin Graham as Artistic Director and Stephen Lord (1992 – present) as Music Director. Timothy O’Leary was named General Director in October 2008 with acclaimed stage director James Robinson succeeding the late Colin Graham.

of any U.S. company.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is funded in part by the Regional Arts Commission, Arts and Education Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Missouri Arts Council, with audience building programs supported by The Wallace Foundation.

Generous leadership support for the services of the St. Louis Symphony is provided by Jack C. Taylor and the Taylor family.

the theater typically limits box office income to less than a quarter of the budget, the company has consistently produced work of the highest quality while never accumulating a deficit.

Opera Theatre also has a long tradition of discovering and promoting the careers of the finest operatic artists of the current generation. Among the artists who had important early opportunities at Opera Theatre are Christine Brewer, Susan Graham, Nathan Gunn, Patricia Racette, Thomas Hampson, Jerry Hadley, Dawn Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

The Soul of Harmony: Book One: The Promise written and illustrated by Craig Rex Perry

About the Book The Soul of Harmony is a music driven, action adventure that follows the near capture of young Harmony Walker and her famous dad, blues and jazz musician John "Eazy" Walker. Seduced by promises of fame and fortune, Harmony enters into a pact with a mysterious woman and accepts possession of a Magical Mouthpiece, with the promise to return it in one year. Unbeknownst to the Walkers, the Mouthpiece was stolen from the Horn of Gabriel by the woman who is actually an evil demon in disguise named Demonica Shadows.

After one year of fame, fortune and travels, Harmony refuses to return the ancient artifact thinking the woman has forgotten about it, but the evil woman finds them and uses her demonic powers to change Eazy into an old man and sets about claiming Harmony's soul!

Narrowly escaping with their lives and finally understanding the power of the Mouthpiece, the Walkers run from the forces of evil that are waiting and watching for their chance to regain possession of the magical artifact!

“

Review:

The Soul of Harmony is a real treat, Perry's illustrations are simply stunning! This gorgeous art, combined with the mysterious adventure of a young girl named Harmony Walker, makes for a truly captivating read. Harmony is a story about family, music, and a girl's love for her father. Will Harmony be able to correct her mistake? I can't wait to read more.

�

- Rebecca Sims-Nichols

The book can be ordered from Amazon at: http://amzn.to/2kgUgoo or Barnes and Noble.com at http://bit.ly/2l8aXla

About the Author: Craig Rex Perry has been an illustrator and designer for over 30 years. With his signature style, he has worked for Global brands including Disney, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Hasbro, Gianni Versace, NIKE Addidas. His comics, illustrations, apparel design and graphics have adorned the pages of magazines, newspapers and consumer products.

Perry is a graduate of the School of the Arts in Chicago and Otis Parsons in Los Angeles. He has a long history of book illustration with Empak Publishing, Hyperion, Jump for the Sun, Disney, Warners and Dreamworks. The Soul of Harmony is first in a three book series.

Visit Rex online at www.rexstudios.net For more information, contact Rochon Perry at rperry@cedargrovebooks.com

website: www.cedargrovebooks.com | twitter.com/cedargrovebooks | facebook.com/cedargrovepublishing pg.

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Michael Brown’s Mother Graduates

and Achieves Longtime Goal by: Vickie Newton

The most famous graduate at the commencement celebration for Jennings High School in the St. Louis area touched hearts around the world three years ago when she uttered these pain-soaked words, “You took my son away from me.”

When Lezley McSpadden made that statement, she had just learned that a Ferguson police officer had shot and killed her unarmed teenage son, Michael Brown. The death of her son and the civil unrest in Ferguson and around the nation that followed ignited a new dialogue about police brutality in America. It also left her and her family devastated.

“I had been beating up on myself,” McSpadden explains.

In her book Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil, McSpadden wrote about the day she brought her son home from the hospital after his birth: “I thought my family was going to be really disappointed in me, but when my Auntie Bobbie, picked up Mike Mike, and held him gently in her arms she looked in his eyes and said, “You better not keep my niece up all night ‘cause she gotta go to school,” I was nearly brought to tears by her powerful words.”

There were also days the math lessons were difficult and her 12-year-old son served as a tutor. “I laughed about it,” the proud mother said. Her son and other children along with “those who wanted me to rise from the ashes” motivated her to stay focused.

Her determination stirred up memories connected to the pep talks she had given Michael during his senior year of high school. McSpadden said, “Instead of having to take up a trade, I explained to him, ‘You can take this diploma anywhere. This piece of paper is just that powerful.’”

Her voice is tinged with sadness, but McSpadden didn’t allow it to overpower her. She turned to her daughter, Deja, who also graduated this year. “She lost her best friend and to see her do so brilliantly…just to see her focus and not let everything going on around her be a distraction, I commend her more than anything,” McSpadden pointed out softly.

While Deja plans to attend Tennessee State University this fall, McSpadden looks forward to motivating others and speaking out against injustice. But, for now, she wants to savor the satisfaction of achieving a goal she set years ago. “It’s such a feel-good moment. I felt myself beginning to heal,” she admitted. “I think I deserve that, and I want other people who have been hurt…if it’s something you didn’t conquer in life, go back and conquer it.”

But even with her fierce commitment to school, the responsibilities and challenges of being a teenage parent overshadowed McSpadden’s resolve. She quit school but vowed to return someday. And, she did.

“I think a cap and gown is one of my favorite outfits,” McSpadden said laughingly. “And to have my kids see me in my strong moments because they’ve seen me broken down in my weak moments means so much.”

For a woman who needed to call upon her inner fortitude to survive the past few years, McSpadden returned to that place again to fuel her desire to graduate. But, she also tapped into some new resources.

Her instructor at the adult education program became a friend. According to McSpadden, “I had my days where I would shut down, but I still showed up. My instructor could relate because she too had lost a child. She related to being there physically but not mentally.”

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HOT GLASS BLOOMS TO LIFE AT THIRD FRIDAY!

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Joe Gfaller, Director of Marketing and Public Relations (314) 963-4293, jgfaller@opera-stl.org Kelsey Nickerson, Public Relations Coordinator (314) 963-4296, knickerson@opera-stl.org Maggie Stearns, National PR Consultant (203) 770-1634, stearns.maggie@gmail.com OTSL website: www.ExperienceOpera.org

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Announces Full 2018 Season Newly Announced Casts Include Susan Graham and James Morris in Regina and Jennifer Johnson Cano and Andriana Chuchman in Orfeo and Euridice Season Includes Directorial Debut of Patricia Racette as well as the World Premiere of Full-Length Version of An American Soldier

by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang.

St. Louis, MO, June 5, 2017 – Timothy O’Leary, General Director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, has announced the complete repertory for the 2018 Festival Season, which will run from May 19 – June 24, 2018. The newly announced 2018 productions are Marc Blitzstein’s American masterpiece Regina led by Susan Graham and James Morris, and Gluck’s mythological romance Orfeo and Euridice starring Jennifer Johnson Cano and Andriana Chuchman. Previously announced 2018 productions include Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s An American Soldier, which will receive its world premiere as a two-act opera, and La traviata, featuring the directorial debut of Patricia Racette.

Regina will mark the return of mezzo-soprano Susan Graham to the OTSL stage in the opera’s title role, as well as the OTSL debut of bass-baritone James Morris in the role of Regina’s brother Ben. Ron Raines returns to OTSL (after debuting in the company’s first season) to sing the role of Regina’s other brother Oscar. Ms. Graham made her professional leading role debut at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in 1988 in Vanessa – the beginning of a career which has brought her to the world’s greatest stages. Hailed by The New York Times as “an artist to treasure,” Ms. Graham will take on one of the most complex and fascinating characters written for the American stage. Blitzstein’s opera is adapted from Lillian Hellman’s ground-breaking play The Little Foxes, which depicts epic struggles of class, gender, greed, and goodness in a family of ruthless Southern capitalists in the aftermath of Reconstruction. The iconic character of Regina has been portrayed in the play and film versions by artists from Bette Davis to Tallulah Bankhead to Elizabeth Taylor. The production will also reunite OTSL Artistic Director James Robinson, who will direct, with Stephen Lord, in his first OTSL conducting engagement as the company’s Music Director Emeritus.

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Christoph Willibald Gluck’s revolutionary Orfeo and Euridice will also feature a homecoming of OTSL artists who have gone on to major international careers. In the role of Orfeo, mezzosoprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, who has built a celebrated career at the Metropolitan Opera and venues around the world, returns to Opera Theatre, where she first began as a high school student in OTSL’s Spring Training program, and later as an OTSL Gerdine Young Artist. As the New York Times writes, “Her voice seems to come out of a happy nexus of heart, soul, and brain that lends an authoritative weight to every note.” As Orfeo’s beloved Euridice, soprano Andriana Chuchman returns to OTSL after receiving rave reviews as Boonyi/India in Shalimar the Clown during the 2016 season and going on to performances at such acclaimed companies as the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera. In the role of Amore, Maria Valdes makes her OTSL debut. Gluck’s telling of this ancient myth transforms Orpheus’s descent into the underworld to rescue Eurydice into an eloquent affirmation of the power of love and music to overcome all obstacles. The new production is directed by Ron Daniels and conducted by Pierre Vallet.

As the latest addition to OTSL’s New Works, Bold Voices series, the company presents the world premiere of the full-length version of An American Soldier. Composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang have teamed up to create a candid and moving account of the story of Chinese-American Army Private Danny Chen, whose tragic death during his deployment in Afghanistan resonates powerfully today. Private Chen will be sung by tenor Andrew Stenson, making his Opera Theatre debut. Wayne Tigges, last seen as Mr. Maguire in 2015’s Emmeline, appears as Sargent Aaron Marcum. OTSL favorite Michael Christie conducts, and Matthew Ozawa makes his first appearance at OTSL as stage director, with OTSL Artistic Director James Robinson collaborating as co-director and dramaturg.

As previously announced, Verdi’s La traviata brings audiences the debut of legendary soprano Patricia Racette as a stage director. This lasting tale of love and sacrifice has moved audiences since its 1853 premiere, and features some of the most famous melodies in all of opera. Ms. Racette’s debut as a stage director follows a gradual expansion of her career, including her increasing role as a sought-after master class artist. Conductor Christopher Allen, who leads The Grapes of Wrath in the 2017 season, returns to the podium to conduct an electrifying young cast. Sydney Mancasola sings Violetta, and Geoffrey Agpalo is her young admirer Alfredo.

Baritone Joo Wan Kang makes his Opera Theatre debut as Germont.

For one night during the 2018 Festival Season, on June 19, the annual Center Stage Concert returns for a one-night-only event of extraordinary singing. Featuring the Richard Gaddes Festival and Gerdine Young Artists, this concert features highlights from classic operatic repertoire. Music Director Emeritus Stephen Lord will lead members of the St. Louis Symphony for this exclusive performance.

“We could not be more excited about these artists and operas,” said General Director Timothy O’Leary. “Each of these works is a masterpiece of its kind, from the greatness of Gluck to the brilliance and insight of modern masters like Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang. The stories in An American Soldier and Regina speak powerfully to questions of identity that shape our most

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meaningful conversations today, just as La traviata and Orfeo speak to truths about the human heart that never change. It is a joy and privilege to work with such astonishing artists – both homecomings to OTSL and exciting debuts. I’m so thankful to the whole Opera Theatre family for making this possible.”

OTSL will welcome leaders from across the international opera community during the 2018 season, as the host for Opera America’s annual conference, June 20 - 23, 2018. Over the course of these four days, over 500 industry leaders will travel to St. Louis to discuss innovations, issues, and opportunities in the field of opera today, working to ensure the future health and vitality of the entire industry. This is the second time that Opera Theatre has hosted this event, the largest gathering of opera professionals in North America.

All performances in the 2018 season are accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony and are performed in English with projected supertitles. Performances are presented at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the campus of Webster University.

Subscriptions to the 2018 season are available for purchase now. Subscriptions can be purchased by phone or in person during the current 2017 season, and will be available online at the end of June. Early bird subscription tickets start at $79. Prices increase after September 30, 2017. Single tickets will be available for purchase starting in October, 2017, with prices starting at $25 per ticket.

About Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is one of the leading American opera companies, known for a spring festival of inventive new productions, sung in English, featuring the finest American singers and accompanied by members of the St. Louis Symphony. As of its 2017 Festival Season, Opera Theatre has presented 25 world premieres and 27 American premieres — which may be the highest percentage of new work in the repertory of any U.S. company. Described by the Sunday Times of London as “one of the few American companies worth the transatlantic fare,” Opera Theatre of Saint Louis annually welcomes visitors from nearly every state and close to a dozen foreign countries. Although the size of the theater typically limits box office income to less than a quarter of the budget, the company has consistently produced work of the highest quality while never accumulating a deficit.

Opera Theatre also has a long tradition of discovering and promoting the careers of the finest operatic artists of the current generation. Among the artists who had important early opportunities at Opera Theatre are Erie Mills, Jerry Hadley, Christine Brewer, Thomas Hampson, Sylvia McNair, Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, Dwayne Croft, Patricia Racette, Matthew Polenzani, Nathan Gunn, Lawrence Brownlee, Kelly Kaduce, and Jennifer Johnson Cano. Opera Theatre has always been known for distinguished leadership: founding general director Richard Gaddes was succeeded in 1985 by general director Charles MacKay, with famed British stage director Colin Graham as artistic director and Stephen Lord (1992 – present) as music director. Timothy O’Leary was named general director in October 2008 with acclaimed stage director James Robinson succeeding the late Colin Graham.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is funded in part by the Regional Arts Commission, Arts and Education Council, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Missouri Arts Council, with audience building programs supported by The Wallace Foundation.

Generous leadership support for the services of the St. Louis Symphony is provided by Jack C. Taylor and the Taylor family. ### pg.

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An artist's duty, as far as I am concerned, is to reflect the times.

(Nina Simone)

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Baba Askia Toure' I am an innovative, epic poet, who created two major books, "From the Pyramids to the Projects" (Africa World Press, 1990), and "Dawnsong!," Third World Press, 2000). "Pyramids" won an American Book Award in 1989. And in 2003, "Dawn-song!" won the 2003 Stephen Henderson Poetry Award, presented by the African-American Literature & Culture Society, an assoc. of the American Literature Assoc. Since then, I've done other books, of which I'm truly thankful.

However, what I desire to bring before the Facebook reading body, is the fact that I've innovated the Nile Valley epic, in the volume, "DawnSong!," which was critiqued by Dr. James E. Smethurst, and also a young, Black female Ph.d graduate candidate...otherwise there was complete "silence" from the Black Literature Community, about the first Nile Valley epics written in the English language!

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I

t is a well-known fact that African-Americans are trailing whites in the areas of business, education and housing. The most evident admission is that the unemployment rate for blacks is twice that of whites. There have been proposals and plans to help solve these problems, but what are the real reasons behind the inequalities and inequities?

I have some personal observations and opinions. I understand racism is widespread in the region and blacks are still the last hired and first fired. But I also ask why?

I believe that it is hard for young black men and women to get a job wearing a bandanna or stocking cap on their head, and speaking in the language of gangsta rappers and hip-hop disc jockeys. I assume to look for a job with gold teeth, baggy pants or mini-skirts might be a turn-off to some employers. I also presume that using videos and movies actors for role models will not get you in Black Enterprise.

I used to disagree with persons who said the music of today reflects the lifestyle of the artists when they rap about gang violence, drugs and murder. I have changed my mind.

I am now convinced that these young thugs and want-to-be gangsters are duplicating what they see on the video channels and in the movies designed to attract young AfricanAmerican males and females. I am certain the writers and producers of the films and videotapes that are directed to this population are made without regard to consequences in the African-American community. They are not targeting their community.

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How heartbreaking, depressing and disappointing it is to see and read news reports of African-American men killing each other day-to-day, over drugs or territory. How horrible it is to hear of people killed while attending a funeral, or a person ambushed while doing laundry. How frightening it is to hear of couples killed while sitting in their automobile. How can you kill children?

These are just a few of the many examples I could give relating to the carnage on our streets. And people wonder why the elders are afraid of the persons who are supposed to protect them.

I have been writing about the influence of negative and destructive images in our community for years but no one is listening.

I have been asking the St. Louis Clergy Coalition and the St, Louis Ministerial Alliance to develop a campaign against the steady schedule of lewdness and filth that is broadcast to the public. Does anyone care?

I applaud the activists who are campaigning to stop the killing and the violence.

Wouldn’t it be great if we planned to have 30 nasty videos and 30 filthy compact discs removed from television and radio stations every 30 days? Don’t the people realize the influence these images have on young minds?

What will it take to move the village to action?

The Federal Communications Commission has finally come into the argument. The FCC

once fined a radio station $7000 for playing a record the agency considered ‘indecent.’

The FCC acted in response to a complaint by a listener. Just One Listener! The agency’s indecency policy provides clear guidelines about what language the First Amendment protects and what language the FCC must ban from the airways.

The goal is to protect young listeners because the courts have highlighted that there is something invasive about broadcasting because it comes into your home. So you see, you can make a change.

You, the Clergy Coalition and anyone who wants to get involved can start a campaign to clean up some of the immorality, denigrating lyrics and lewdness and vulgarity that invade the African-American community. If your leaders won’t do it, do it yourself. You can you know. Perhaps if young people saw positive role models and heard lyrics reflecting true African-American culture, they would have a better chance for a rewarding future and a better quality of life.

Bob Law, Ira Jones and I, and a dedicated group of broadcasters, journalists and activists are crusading to make positive, lifesaving changes to and for our community. Won’t you help? Please!

Bernie Hayes

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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John Jennings Associate Professor Visual Studies SUNY Buffalo tumblr: http://jijennin70. tumblr.com/

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Interview with Veronica Newton Runaway enslaved patrol...

Listen as Sociologist Veronica Newton explains how runaway slave patrols served as the foundation for today’s police departments. pg.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Portfolio Fundraiser Moves to Artist's Studio Janet Riehl's "Women & Wardrobe: The Riehl Collection" exhibit has finished it's successful run at The Portfolio Gallery and Education Center. It brought in $2,000 to help with much-needed building repairs. Many people went home with framed ($150) and unframed ($50) prints they love, and a good time was had by all.

Folks have said they would have loved to have seen the show, and were sorry they missed it. Janet has decided to host At Home evenings on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. so you can! Come visit, enjoy the work, and of course buy whatever calls to you.

Any profit realized will continue to benefit Portfolio Gallery.

If you'd like to come, please contact her at janet.riehl@gmail.com.

Janet and Robert Powell, director of Portfolio Gallery and Education Center appeared on Fox 2 news. http://fox2now.com/2014/07/29/women-wardrobe-and-art-on-a-cell-phone-atportfolio/# Janet and her art was featured in the Alton Telegraph. http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/home_top-lifestyle-news/50095336/Artists-workmakes-Riehl-results#.U-Tbf1Ao7qC

Come on out! Meet some new people and enjoy some playful, colorful, and sensuous art inspired by African Women.

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OLIVE BAR ROOFTOP O P E N TO N I G H T Click to RSVP COMPLIMENTARY ENTRY 10PM-11:30PM(ladies) and 11:00 (Men)

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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After three days of deliberating, the jury in the Philando Castile trial acquitted the police officer who shot and killed the Minnesota man during a traffic stop last summer.

It was yet another disappointment for a Black family robbed of a loved one by a police officer who claimed he “didn’t have a choice” but to shoot. The verdict sent shockwaves throughout the country, prompting Chelsea Clinton to offer her condolences.

Philando’s uncle spoke with TheVillageClebration last year about his nephew.

Click here to listen

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Featured

Artist

Submission

BIO - Earline L. Bell

Entrepreneur, Artist & Photographer, Earline L. Bell is an expert in cultivating originality and creativity. A native St. Louisiana and a self taught artist and photographer with a life long passion for unique art expressions. Ms. Bell's artworks have included African American women characteristics with unique 3D visual designs, by applying space and surface design principles while incorporating various textures onto flat space. Her unique artworks lend an air of tranquility, beauty and creativity while captivating the imaginations and speaking in many emotions.

Ms. Bell has overseen and has exhibited community based art projects though out the greater St. Louis metropolitan area, St. Louis University College, Webster University Gallery, City Museum, Grand Center Art on the Plaza, MO Black Expo, St. Louis Development Corporation Cultural Events, Art Affair Old Post Office Plaza - Downtown STL, STL Urban Street Sales, and many other local businesses. Ms. Bell has taught art educational workshops for the City of St. Louis Recreational Division and Tower Grove Manor Senior Community Living.

Publisher & Chief Editor of “Experience Downtown St. Louis Residential Living” President of the Downtown St. Louis Resident’s Association, December 2008 December 2014 Board Member of Partnership’s Community Improvement District, December 2008 - December 2014 ***Served on Downtown Partnership’s Social Service Committee, Washington Avenue Task Force, International CEO Search Team, Marketing Committee, Neighborhood Watch Committee, Public Safety Committee, Economic Development Committee & Residential Affairs Committee.

7th Ward Committeewoman, January 2012 - January 2014 Board Member of Art St. Louis, January 2014 – Present Art Society of Downtown St. Louis, Executive Director, November 2016 - Present Unique Productions, Owner & Art Consultant, January 2009 - Present

Provide creative developmental art workshops to underserved communities for today’s youth.

Art on the Block & Art On Wheels current programs.

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Earline

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Bell

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

BLACK Archaeologist

We ask the question in this episode , “if superior black beings from another world landed here on Earth, and learned the true history of black people in America, how might they react.�

Watch our other episodes on YouTube, TechNubian1, and don't forget to donate $5.00 to our upcoming fourth season, our Gofundme link on Facebook, I Love Black Archaeologist.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

What do I do?

I help the college bound teens of busy parents write extraordinary college entrance essays. And, I provide perceptive leaders with trustworthy diversity & inclusion facilitation.

My book, Chop: A Collection of Kwansabas for Fannie Lou Hamer, is available at www.femininepronoun.com

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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Greetings everyone! I hope you are well. Just a personal note from me to say I would love to speak at your college, university, high school, corporation or company, or community. As some of you know I am the author of 12 books, including The Education of Kevin Powell: A Boy’s Journey into Manhood; I do work like this across America and globally, as both a speaker and change agent bringing all kinds of people and communities together for real and honest dialogue, for practical solutions and action steps; and I am a co-founder of BK Nation, our non-profit that focuses on civil rights and human rights for all people.

Here is a link for my full BIO: http://www.kevinpowell. net/about.php And attached are details about some of my topics. I would love to work with you.

I thank you all, Kevin Powell

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:34-40 NIV

We seek to impact the world with the love of Christ one life at a time!

Hopelessness and desperation are on the rise in a world where the greatest segment of the population possesses the least amount of resources.

We need your help! Please help us fight this epidemic by sending your tax deductible donations/contributions to: For His Glory Ministries of St. Louis P.O. Box 1942 Maryland Heights, MO. 63043 http://calvarychapelslc.com/homeless-ministry/ For other ways in which you can help please contact Pamela Ford at pamelaford98@gmail.com or 314-216-0744.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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ART OF FOOD

Chef

INSPIREDII Peanut Butter Parfait Perfection Traveling has become research for me, at least that's the excuse I'm using from here on out. At the end of May I was able to go with my family to Denver, Colorado to watch my little cousin graduate from high school. After the graduation my uncle packed us all into his 15 passenger van and gave us a memorable mountain tour as we drove from Broomfield into Boulder. Of course touring and driving through the mountains after an hour or so, makes you work up an appetite.

We ended up stopping at a vegan café called Native Foods. The food was good, but the dessert was AMAZING! So amazing that I was sitting there at the table trying to figure out what ingredients they put in it to recreate it when I got back home to St. Louis. The peanut butter was soooo smooth, the banana bread & chocolate chips complimented it perfectly. But the coconut flakes were the best surprise adding a nice little unexpected flair to the flavors.

As usual, make this recipe your own. Plate it however you want. Put in a mason jar, a martini glass, Tupperware container so you can take it to go, etc. If you're vegan, I suggest using coconut yogurt as a substitute to the plain yogurt.

You can also opt to use your favorite banana bread recipe or take the faster route and buy your favorite banana muffin from the store. Whichever way you choose, it's a quick and easy dessert that is sure to please. h to put together.

You'll even be impressed with yourself when you're done. ~Léna O. A. Jackson To contact me, get more recipes, find out about events I’m apart of, or to even order some of my food: www.facebook.com/gspDore www.instagram.com/gspDore gspDoreinfo@gmail.com

Peanut Butter Parfait 2/3 C Peanut Butter, pref. whipped 1/3 C Yogurt, Plain or sub Coconut Yogurt 2-4 Tb Powdered Sugar 1-2 tsp Vanilla Extract 1 piece Banana Bread or Banana Nut Muffin 1/8 C Mini Chocolate Chips 4 Tb Sweetened Coconut Flakes, optional

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In a medium sized bowl combine peanut butter, yogurt, powdered sugar & vanilla extract. By hand with a spatula or with a hand mixer, whip the ingredients until well blended.

In a mason jar, clear tumblr cup or whatever you desire, it's time to start layering the parfait.

Starting with the coconut flakes, chocolate chips, crumbled banana bread/muffin and then the peanut butter mixture. Make as many layers as you want and top it off with the chocolate chips & breadcrumbs.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Doré

Bon Appétit, pg.

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Walking the Blue Line: A Police Officer Turned Community Activist Provides Solutions for the Racial Divide

By Terrell Carter Bettie Youngs Book Publishers

$15.00 paperback

“As I recall my experiences, I find it incredulous that people in law enforcement honestly believe and say that a racial divide and racial profiling don’t exist. An officer’s mind is divided: first, between the police and the general public and second, between the police and minorities.”~ Terrell Carter Walking the Blue Line follows the author’s experiences growing up as a black child in St. Louis, MO, a racially charged city still trying to overcome its divided past, and his five year journey as a law enforcement officer which led him to reevaluate his views on citizens and police alike. Readers are taken on a compelling journey as he details personal stories of the challenges of navigating this new world, including how he had to testify against a former partner for falsifying a major drug arrest.

Terrell details the thoughts and tactics of police officers based on their training in the police academy and lessons they learn on the streets and how this information can help citizens better understand why officers do what they do while still holding them accountable for protecting and serving their communities.

Walking the Blue Line can be ordered from www.terrellcarter.net, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and traditional booksellers.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

R A T S L AL M O TO R S , I N C .

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OVER KEVIN TAYLOR (314) 427-6550 office (314) 540-8618 cell (314) 423-9133 fax sales@allstarmotorsinc.com kevin.taylor.sales@gmail.com

WE SELL VEHICLES FOR CASH. PRICES ARE NEGOTIABLE. 9201 ST. CHARLES ROCK RD. \ ST. LOUIS, MO. 63114

MAKE ME AN OFFER. www.Allstarmotorsinc.com pg.

98

Rickkita Edwards teaches Core:Cardio & More @ North Co.Rec Center

every Mon-Wed- Fri.

5:30 PM-6:30 PM

She also teaches "WaistNWeights" every Mon

@ Faith Miracle Temple

7:15 PM-8 PM

Contact me today for personal training sessions!

314-566-9125 I.G WaistNotFitness | FB WaistNotFitness | Email:WaistnotFitness1@yahoo.com Copyright Š 2017 - All rights reserved.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

“Acting White”

Share your Story Dear friends: I have been asked to write a chapter in a book that will address colorism in education. My chapter will focus on “acting white.”

Specifically, when I was growing up, I was a “smart” student. My top performance in school, doing homework, raising my hand to answer questions, etc. often drew the accusation from my African American classmates and friends that I was “acting white.”

Now, I know there are psychologists out there who say this is not true and does not exist. But alas, it was absolutely true for me. I have written about this in past works. I will do so again for this new book. I do know that many young folks today who continue to have such allegations hurled at them so feel free to share this email with whoever and have folks email me directly.

I did a survey on this very question about 7 years ago and the results were consistent with my experiences decades ago. I’d like to update my earlier survey. I would love to hear from anyone out there who has a similar/related story either involving yourself or someone you know. I would like to include your story in the chapter. I will conceal your identity if you request.

Do you have a story to share? If so, please email to me at: norwood@wulaw.wustl.edu.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead Kimberly Norwood , Professor of Law | Washington University School of Law pg.

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

ART OF HEALING

Your Ad or Article could be here!

Contact us if you have a contribution to the ART OF HEALING.

pg.

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RICKKITA EDWARDS

CARDIO-CORE & MORE AT NORTH COUNTY REC. CENTER

TIMES: MON WEDS FRI 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

She teaches a class 2 Mondays a month at Faith Miracle Temple 7:15 pm - 8:00 pm.

(ALL CLASSES ARE FREE)

COMING SOON! WAIST-NOT FITNESS PERSONAL TRAINING #GETWAISTEDBYRICKKITA

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

Ajuma Muhammad Author of 101 Proven and Effective Strategies for Empowering Black Boys

WATCH NOW!

1 0 Strategies

f o r E m p o w e r i n g B l a c k B oy s 1. Black boys should maintain a healthy relationship with God. 2. Black boys should honor and always respect their parents.

3. Black boys should embody greatness in everything they do.

4. Black boys should take pride in their history and culture.

5. Black boys should empower their community through leadership and service.

6. Black boys should be role models in their communities.

7. Black boys should honor, respect and protect the black woman.

8. Black boys should work to establish an economic foundation in their communities.

9. Black boys should travel internationally to better understand their place in the world.

10. Black boys should love themselves!

www.ajuma.org

pg.

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Copyright Š 2014 by Ajuma Muhammad

Book of Poetry by

Lenard D. Moore

th on 30 iti d Ed ite ry Lim ersa niv

An

http://www.mountainsandriverspress.org/Home.aspx

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

James Baldwin and Metanarratives pg.

106

August 2, 2017 will the 93rd anniversary of James Baldwin’s birth in Harlem Hospital. December 1, 2017 will mark the 30th anniversary of his successful escape from the penitentiary of languages. Between 1924 and 1987, Baldwin paid the price of his ticket, using his intelligence, his ethical and moral authority, his haunted eyes, and his tragicomic imagination to create a legacy. That legacy has been transformed by cultural theories and practices into a gumbo. It mixes the flavors of extreme American neo-liberalism with the filé of an evangelical religiosity and a teaspoon of essential nationalism. The resulting soup (which might not pass muster in a strict construction of Louisiana cuisine) is being advertised as the cure-all for the current, dominant American malaise. Like any cure-all, the legacy has a telling effect, but it proves ultimately to be ineffectual. To discover what is, without doubt, authentic in Baldwin’s legacy (Henry James would have called it “the real thing”), we ought to go back to that other country whence came the ingredients.

It is as useful to think of the spaces we inhabit as locations in a panoptical prison as it is to consider those places as coordinates on a stage. Actors and inmates have a shared existence with people who exercise obscene power and people who live and die unaccounted for in the scribbling of history. You and they and I are condemned and incarcerated by bondage, enslavement. Had James Baldwin not recognized as much, he might never have said to Quincy Troupe

It’s difficult to be a legend. It’s hard for me to recognize me. You spend a lot of time trying to avoid it. A lot of the time I’ve been through so many of the same experiences Miles has gone through. It’s really something, to be a legend, unbearable. I could see it had happened to Miles.

Again, it’s unbearable, the way the world treats you is unbearable, and especially if you’re black. (189) [Troupe, Quincy, ed. James Baldwin: The Legacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989] As Baldwin knew by way flesh and blood experiences and moral consciousness, or quickly learned after he left the United States for Europe in 1948, if we want sanctuary ----well, we have to work and create our own versions of damnation/ salvation by virtue of cognition and perception.

We produce metanarratives (narratives about narratives) as we read Baldwin’s fictions and essays, witness a production of one of his plays, and view documentaries about his life or videos of his interviews and speeches. We normally don’t talk about metanarratives. We talk with other people about our reactions

Copyright © 2017 - All rights reserved.

something Baldwin wrote or how his body language and use of his eyes drew more than casual notice to what he was saying.

To speak of our reactions as metanarratives is to disturb the commonplace, to highlight that our reactions to artists and their works belong to special categories of feeling and thinking.

Growth of interest in Baldwin derives, in part, from jouissance.

Interest in Baldwin has increased remarkably since 2000, particularly in efforts to appropriate his legacy more for cultural discussion than for political analysis, i.e. rewriting histories of the Civil Rights Movement. We come to a high point in 2015 with Toni Morrison’s assertive blurb for Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015): “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is TaNehisi Coates.” Morrison oiled the machinery for redemptive jouissance, made it less creaky. The newer appreciations for Baldwin were preceded by a broadening of academic criticism.

There is a slight danger, Douglas Field noted in All Those Strangers: The Art and Lives of James Baldwin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), “that some criticism veers toward a dissipated picture of Baldwin as a writer who is ‘postcategorical’ and without any cohesion” (145). For Field, the criticism assigns Baldwin to an “uncertain place in American literature”(146). The best and brightest American writers inhabit that place where their portraits are not dissipated and their legacies pulsate in defiance of being turned into museum objects.

Cultural memory of Baldwin is equipment for living. It can be enhanced by reading the online, open access James Baldwin Review I offer two examples of metanarratives-in-progress.

RAOUL PECK’S BALDWIN The book is short --- 25 pages of introductory material + 109 pages of text and images + 1 blank verso + 2 pages of CREDITS +1 page of BIBLIOGRAPHY + 1 blank verso + 1 page of PERMISSIONS +1 blank verso +2 pages listing ILLUSTRATIONS --- a total of 143 pages to be read at one sitting.

Peck, Raoul, ed. I Am Not Your Negro: From Texts by James Baldwin. New York: Vintage International, 2017.

As the companion for Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro (2016), the book is a mosaic of Baldwin’s unfinished “Notes Toward Remember This House, “ snippets from other works by Baldwin, images and quotations from television and film, and slivers of song lyrics.

One does not read the mosaic. One consumes it. Consumption is contingent on whether one begins that task before or after viewing the film. Dealing with the book before seeing the film prepares one to listen to Baldwin’s voice, Samuel Jackson’s narration, and other archived sounds with more than usual attention and to attend with passionate interest to the film’s visual rhetoric. Using the book after witnessing the film helps one to check nuances that one’s eyes and ears missed or misinterpreted

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

JAMES BALDWIN... cont.

in the darkened cave of a cinema. These diverging affective and efferent experiences reveal much about the processing of past and contemporary information, much about how one’s mind navigates sight and sound. How one contextualizes Peck’s manipulation of Baldwin’s legacy.

Witnessing is all. In the cliché-saturated ambience of “# Matters,” moral judgment is a vexed affair. That is to say the circumstances under which one witnesses Peck’s reconstructive witnessing of Baldwin’s unfinished effort to locate the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. matters greatly. One’s age, ethnic identity, citizenship, and depth of interest in the conditions of being human are crucial in finding meaning and significance in the film and book versions of I Am Not Your Negro. They determine, to paraphrase Peck, whether it is possible to have “a deep and intimate personal reflection on [one’s] own political and cultural mythology, [one’s] own experiences of racism and intellectual violence” (xi).

When a friend suggested we should set up a panel discussion of I Am Not Your Negro after viewing the film, I objected. The only panels that have practical legitimacy, as far as I am concerned, are those constituted by people who belong temporarily to a community of seeing and hearing at one time and in one place.

Members of such a nonce community should tell one another, not be told by a panel of critics and experts, what is important about what and how the film galvanized them to think and to feel, and perhaps to vow to do. Raoul Peck’s commendable interventions by way of film and book demand multiple and quite diverse enactments of community, an investment in being human that the first quarter of the 21st century tries daily to assassinate. James Baldwin’s gift of brutal confrontation demands nothing more and nothing less if the world’s population is to defeat all enemies by saying “I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO” and acting accordingly.

discuss.

Between May 9th and 12th , the digital restoration of James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket was screened at three locations in New Orleans ---Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club, The Old US Mint, and Ashé Cultural Arts Center. The James Baldwin Project (access jamesbaldwinproject.org ) has sponsored screenings at many sites across the United States.

The film aired for the first time on August 14, 1989 as part of the PBS American Masters series. Now the citizens of New Orleans had an opportunity to produce their metanarratives through conversations after each screening with musicians, community people, National Park Service rangers, and the filmmakers Karen Thorsen and Douglas Dempsey. At Ashé, Monica McIntyre’s lyrics and music established a mood for viewing the documentary ------I’m thinking of Cassandra Wilson’s innovative performances for no apparent reason as I listen to McIntyre. For one hour and twenty-seven minutes, we sat enthralled by the film. We sat transfixed as the devil found work. I moderated the conversation that followed.

James Baldwin (2 August 1924-1 December 1987)

Most of the metanarratives were about feelings ----amazement that the film was as relevant to the Age of Trump as it had been to the final years of the Cold War; testimony that the film induced a state of balance (a catharsis) grating against an assertion that the film galvanized the amoeboid concerns of #Black Lives Matter; recommendations that the film be part of a national conversation, that it be used in public schools and community spaces to promote face-to-face discussions; concern that social networking magnifies emotion and diminishes critical thinking about social problems; pointed questions for Thorsen about the genesis and making of the film.

We have a great deal to watch, to listen to, to think about, to

There was my own “losing it” by way of giving a mini-lecture

KAREN THORSEN’S AND DOUGLAS DEMPSEY’S BALDWIN Discussion Notes: Ashé Cultural Arts Center 6:00 p.m., May 11, 2017 Karen Thorsen, director & co-writer Douglas Dempsy, co-writer James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket Length of film ---1 hour, 27 minutes PBS American Masters ---14 August 1989

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on Baldwin’s prophetic moral authority. Moderators ought not lecture; they should manage. My memory of having had a late night conversation with Baldwin in the 1980s undermined my sticking to the script, but my transgression had a purpose.

I wanted my fellow citizens to know that the price of our tickets was further remembering of history (the process and the stories) and contextualizing the film by using our individual sociocultural literacies, of constructing metanarratives of moral ambiguity. I wanted them to reconsider the gravity of Baldwin’s having shaped his legacy and his legend within the narrow space of a black-white American social binary, minimizing how the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Asian immigrants actually fit into the American past, present, and promised future.

My metanarrative focused most on Baldwin’s helping us to know why, at least for the so-called Western sector of humanity, the implacable anger of the Old Testament God is more important than the bromides of Christian love that flavor Baldwin’s splendid legacy.

I Am Not Your Negro challenges and is challenged by James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket. But that is my opinion. Watch both of the films. Think. Generate your own metanarrative.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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Volume 4.4 June 22, 2017

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Sycorax's Daughters

~ Edited by Kinitra Brooks, PhD, Linda D. Addison, Susana Morris, PhD. Forward by: Walidah Imarisha

A powerful, revealing anthology of dark fiction and poetry by Black women writers. The tales of what scares, threatens and shocks them will enlighten and entertain you.

Sycorax’s Daughters’ stories and poems delve into demons and shape shifters from Carole McDonnell’s “How to Speak to the Bogeyman” and Sheree Renée Thomas’ “Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight” to far future offerings from Kiini Ibura Salaam’s “The Malady of Need”, Valjeanne Jeffers’ steampunk female detective in “Mona Livelong: Paranormal Detective II” and others.

These thought-provoking twenty-eight stories and fourteen poems cover creatures imagined— vampires, ghosts, and mermaids, as well as the unexpected price paid by women struggling for freedom and validation in the past—slavery to science-fiction futures with transhumans and alternate realities. Leave the lights on and join these amazing authors as they share their unique vision of fear.

Tiffany Austin - Tracey Baptiste - Regina N. Bradley - Patricia E. Canterbury - Crystal Connor - Joy M. Copeland - Amber Doe - Tish Jackson - Valjeanne Jeffers - Tenea D. Johnson - R. J. Joseph - A. D. Koboah Nicole Givens Kurtz - Kai Leakes - A. J. Locke - Carole McDonnell - Dana T. McKnight - LH Moore - L. Penelope - Zin E. Rocklyn - Eden Royce - Kiini Ibura Salaam - Andrea Vocab Sanderson - Nicole D. Sconiers - Cherene Sherrard - RaShell R. Smith-Spears - Sheree Renée Thomas - Lori Titus - Tanesha Nicole Tyler - Deborah Elizabeth Whaley - L. Marie Wood - K. Ceres Wright - Deana Zhollis

Review:

“

Sycorax's Daughters introduces us to a whole new legion of gothic writers. Their stories drip with history and blood leaving us with searing images and a chill emanating from shadows gathered in the corner. This anthology is historic in its recognition of women of color writers in a genre that usually doesn't know what to do with us.

”

- Jewelle Gomez, author The Gilda Stories

About the Editors: Kinitra D. Brooks, Ph.D. is an associate professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research interests include contemporary African American and Afro-Caribbean, black feminism, and horror studies.

Linda D. Addison grew up in Philadelphia and received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon University.

She is the award-winning author of four collections including How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend. She is the first African-American recipient of the HWA Bram Stoker Award® and has published over 300 poems, stories and articles.

SUSANA M. MORRIS, PhD. is an associate professor of African American literature at Auburn University and co-founder of the popular feminist blog, The Crunk Feminist Collective.

Sycorax's Daughters is available for Preorder on Amazon until March 10. Follow this link. http://amzn.to/2lsxgz3 ~~ Rochon Perry Publisher, Cedar Grove Publishing website: www.cedargrovebooks.com twitter.com/cedargrovebooks facebook.com/cedargrovepublishing

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Closing in on my goal for “Fire this Time” - if everyone would do two things 1) support the making of this film with just a $20.00 donation and 2) encourage 2 of your friends to do the same - it will allow me to license some additional footage and photos - you can donate now by going here: http://www.cmt-tv.org/#!join-the-team/c1195 CMT-TV.org is a 501c3 non-profit organizations thus your donations are tax deductible - thank you - the making of this film will help me attract more resources which will allow real community filmmaking in STL -Phillip W. Johnson Producer of the #Ferguson Film Fire this Time

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