AMC Recap

  I won’t inundate you with information about the Allied Media Conference, especially since I’m sure you’ve read a number of recaps and daily blogs, leaving mine (although brilliant) to the lonely hearts, last minute, insomniac skim-throughs.

I will highlight three sessions that left me either wanting more or pondering the issues raised long after they ended. I mean, of course, besides meeting Grace Lee Boggs on the registration line the minute I walked in and later attending her captivating symposium, A Paradigm Shift In Our Concept Of Education. I urge you to visit the AMC website (linked above) for a brief description of all the amazing workshops and the dedicated, inspiring people who organized them.

(Mini photo)          

The first two sessions on Friday morning set the tone for the rest of the weekend. Each session was powerful, intelligent and fun. My business partner attended Pop Ed for Radical Teaching presented by Scott Kurashinge and I headed to Plug into The Lamp Post: Youth-Led Media For Community-Wide Education and Action. The session began with an 18-year old poet giving us a peek into the world he lives in Detroit. With words he showed us his pain, his dreams and his wish for the future. At 18 he has already learned to let the world in, to heal by giving, and to release that compartment in his heart that most of us save for therapy. When he finished, I stood to give him a standing ovation, apparently too much for a group more conservative about expressing emotion. I stood anyway.

The rest of the session was an interactive dialogue led by the youth and young adults who participated in Detroit Summer’s Live Arts Media Project (LAMP) They gave us details on how they engaged the community, developed their CD and created a curriculum “for how to use the CD in classrooms.”

I was tempted to stand and “woo-hoo!” one more time, but fear of embarrassing myself twice in one session got the best of me.

 The second highlight was a session led by D. Blair (Pam Halladay was not in attendance), History of Black America As Told Through Music. Blair emphasized the importance of slave music to black culture and black music. He talked about the rhythm of the chain gang, how black church music has its roots in the creativity of the slaves who first sang the songs, the silencing of black classical composers, how to understand traditional hip-hop, and the idea that those normally regarded as uneducated and without power can be our heroes. He sang the lyrics to Maya Angelou’s poem I Rise, forcing me to close my eyes and experience the poem in a new way. I Rise, I Rise, I Rise!

Last, presented by Davin Thompson, The Dot Workshop, an introductory workshop in freestyle rapping. This was an especially interesting workshop to follow D. Blair’s History of Black America, as part of Davin’s focus was the history of hip hop, and the impact of social and cultural issues such as the introduction of crack cocaine to urban areas in the 1980’s. We began by listening to Curtis Mayfield’s “Little Child, Running Wild” off the classic Superfly and comparing it with a song by Tupac Shakur, So Many Tears . Then he did a ‘cypher’ with six participants, showing how to build off a rhyme. He closed at the end with something of his own, which was fantastic. It was great seeing so many young people there interested in hip-hop, ready to breathe new energy into this vital music.

Honorable mentions:

· Radical Women and Transgendered Persons of Color Blogging Caucus for welcoming me with open arms, allowing me to express my own issues and giving me the space to speak without judgment.

· Ivettza Sanchez and Brittany Shoot of Node 101: Intro to Vlogging (videoblogging) for being the most approachable, down-to-earth, comedic women of the weekend.

· Jordan Flaherty who was part of the Solidarity Journalism panel, for only giving a brief (but interesting) recap of what he does at Left Turn Magazine and immediately addressing the people in the room as the important part of helping the independent media function.

· These guys for expressing silently the theme of the conference – togetherness.

(Another mini pic)

What we should all purchase:

· Documentary: NO! by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

NO! Explores the international reality of rape, other forms of sexual assault and healing through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism, and cultural work of African-Americans. This groundbreaking, award-winning documentary also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia.

· The Lamp Project CD:

The Live Arts Media Project is Detroit Summer’s Summer Youth Leadership Intensive. They spent six weeks exploring questions around “The Drop-out Crisis, Education, and The Future of the City” through interviews and creative workshops with youth and the artist-activist community of Detroit.

· Zines by Women of Color (list provided by UBUNTU!)