19 Search results for "genius grant"

California professor committed to improving strained relationship between police, black community wins prestigious genius grant
A professor whose research is helping a California police department improve its tense relationship with the black community is among 21 winners of this year’s MacArthur Foundation “genius grants.” The Chicago -based foundation announced the 2014 recipients on Wednesday, who will each receive $625,000 to spend any way they want.
Long-time Photographer Carrie Mae Weems Honored With $625,000 “Genius Grant”
It all started when she got a camera from her boyfriend on her 20th birthday. “Suddenly this camera, this thing, allowed me to move around the world in a certain kind of way, with a certain kind of purpose,” Carrie Mae Weems later said. Now, she one of the most well-known photographers in the country, and as a recipient of the coveted MacArthur Fellowship, “Genious Grant,” Weems can create even more wonderful art.
Jordan Peele will finally bring his Black horror genius to HBO with ‘Lovecraft Country’
by Andrew Keahey Jordan Peele is really killing it lately. First, there was the unprecedented success of his horror opus Get Out, for which he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Now, he’s been announced as the showrunner for a new, updated Twilight Zone. His next horror project, Us, will star Winston Duke and […]
“Genius” businessman can’t stop first government shut down where president’s party controls all of Washington
“I’m getting tired of your shit. You don’t never buy me nothing,” Erykah Badu free-styled on her prophetic track “Tyrone” in 1997. The song captures a protagonist whose unbalanced emotional, financial and romantic labor led her to rhythmically collect her dude, a dude who could have also been collected by the homeboys he was so […]
What Azealia Banks, Cardi B, and Black Cornell students decrying African immigrants reveal about Black scarcity
Where I grew up, Black was the end of discussion. People clung to what law professor Juan Perea deemed the “black/white binary paradigm of race,” a bare-bones conception that acknowledged only whiteness or Blackness but did not allow for meaningful engagement with ethnicity. In college, I learned about different kinds of Black people. I met […]
Nobel Prize Winner Gary Becker Advocates Paying Parents for Student Performance
University of Chicago economist Gary Becker advocates for paying parents based on their child’s performance in school. In doing so, a major barrier to a student’s academic success – a financially-unstable homelife – would be alleviated.
When people defraud the world by impersonating Black womanhood
I always think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) whenever someone pretends to be a Black woman or disingenuously evokes our aesthetics. While there are many who outright pretend to be Black women, there are also those convinced that they can somehow actually become Black women and others who simply benefit from appropriating our […]
White feminist Paganism and the colonization of Heaven and Earth
By “DJ Ferguson” If you were to listen to “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin—really listen to the words and let their meaning sink in—it becomes clear after a few verses that despite its name the song is not about immigration. It’s about colonialism. We come from the land of the ice and snow From the […]
Producer Jahaan Sweet Speaks Black Art and the Joke that Helped Him Graduate from Juilliard
By: Imani J. Jackson Asking people how they self-identify is more instructive than presumptively assigning them labels. So I asked Jahaan Sweet, during a recent hour-long, sit-down interview in an artsy enclave, who he is. “I consider myself a music maker.” He added that he is a burgeoning businessman, “I just like to create shit.” […]
Stay Mad Then! : In Defence of The Right To Be Angry
On Kanye West, Azealia Banks and a call for a deeper reading of their rage. By Jay Dodd Kanye’s narrative has been riddled with often sloppily generalised tantrums. While we must hold him accountable to his “seat at the table aspirations,” we often, as consumers of his frequency of Blackness, only hear him as whiny child begging […]
Confidence Men and ‘Prison Reform’
The following piece is from Truth Out. It was written by Kay Whitlock. By: Kay Whitlock Smoke and Mirrors is a new series that dives into the details of “bipartisan prison reform” to reveal the right-wing, neoliberal carceral sleight of hand that’s really at work. It asks hard questions about the content and consequences of […]
The 2nd Act in His Unlikely Pursuit: A College Degree
The following piece is from The New York Times. It was written by Kenneth Rosen. By: Kenneth Rosen Born and raised in the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, Queens, the largest public housing development in the country, Derrick Lawson dreamed of a life outside the projects. Perhaps one day his interest in computers […]