The 21st Annual
DAY Dream Weekend of Events

3 Events | One Location | 3:00p-9:00p Each DAY
Metropolitan @ Generations Hall

310 Andrew Higgins, New Orleans, LA 70130

FriDAY, July 3, 2015
DAYEscape

Hosted By:

Demetria McKinney + DJ D-Nice

Music By:

DJ MARS + DJ Jon Quick

http://tinyurl.com/p4us4hz

SaturDAY, July 4, 2015
The 17th All White Affair
The Most Anticipated DAY Party of the Weekend

Hosted By:

The Lifestyle Specialist—Kenny Burns + Raheem DeVaughn + Ryan “Ryan King” Cameron

Music By:

DJ Big Reeks + E-Clazz + DJ Trauma + DJ Neaux + Raj Smoove + DJ Jon Quick

Featuring Complimentary ORS DryStyling & Giveaways

http://tinyurl.com/pcxnp72

SunDAY, July 5, 2015
The LOVE Life Lounge

Hosted By:

Hip Hop Royalty—MC Lyte

Music By:

E-Clazz + DJ SupaStar

Featuring Complimentary Makeovers + Dark & Lovely Au Naturale Styling Stations

http://tinyurl.com/nbvw9xk

Tickets Available Now!
VIP Table Inquires, Multi DAY Ticket Packages & Group Ticket Sales (10 Persons or More)

Contact: ew@insights-mpc.com

IN JAZZ WE TRUST: Music in Motion

Washington, DC  – Acclaimed choreographer, Princess Mhoon, presents IN JAZZ WE TRUST: Music in Motion, an evening of dance works that look at the rich tradition of jazz music. Featuring legendary compositions of some the greats, this concert will take you on a visceral journey of timeless beauty of an era past.

With work commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Princess Mhoon has been called a visionary of her generation. “Known for her chameleon-like quality, Mhoon’s movement seamlessly connects modern, ballet, hip-hop, and African dance styles, and has been seen nationally and internationally. She is a 2015 Helen Hayes nominee for Best Choreographer in a Musical.

Approximately 45-50 minutes in length, Mhoon and dancers will look at the depth of relationships between lovers what it means to be an American, examined through the lens of jazz music. Mhoon’s choreography will exhilarate the audience as we take them on a journey through time.

Purchase Tickets Online
Sunday June 14, 2015
6:00pm & 8:30pm
Atlas Performing Arts Center
1333 H Street NE
Washington, DC 20002

MORE ABOUT PRINCESS MHOON

​​​​With work commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Princess Mhoon has been called a visionary of her generation.” Known for her chameleon-like quality, Mhoon Cooper’s movement seamlessly connects modern, ballet, hip-hop, and African dance styles, and has been seen nationally and internationally. She is an experienced dance educator and has taught throughout the United States and abroad. Mhoon has served on faculty at Howard University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance and a Master of Arts degree in Public History from HU. Her research focuses on Dance History and the African-American experience in dance. Princess Mhoon has been recognized as one of Dance Magazine’s 2006 “Top 25 to Watch” in the world for her Choreographic Development Project titled This Woman’s Work.

A native of Chicago, Illinois, she began her training with Alyo Children’s Dance Theatre, Joseph Holmes Dance Studio, and Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago. Mhoon Cooper has received numerous awards and scholarships for her excellence in dance including recognition from the American Dance Festival, Dance Magazine, Howard University, Career Transitions for Dancers, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

She has performed and toured with the world renowned Ronald K. Brown/Evidence Dance Company, Rennie Harris Puremovement, The Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble, Nathan Trice Rituals, and Deeply Rooted Productions. She is the founder of DANCING FEET, an integrated arts program that includes classes and workshops for schools and outreach institutions.

ABOUT DC JAZZ FESTIVAL

ABOUT ATLAST PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

SunDAY, 06.21.2015

ATTIC NYC

251 W 48th St, Hilton Garden Inn Times Square

16th floor, New York, NY 10036

DOORS Open | 3:00pm – 11:00pm

Music By

DJ Trauma + DJ FREI Speech + DJ Frenchella

RSVP@allwhiteaffairtour.com for Complimentary Admission before 5:00pm

VIP Tables + Sections, CONTACT ew@insights-mpc.com

PRESENT

The All White Affair

SATURDAY, June 6, 2015

SUITE Food Lounge | 375 Luckie Street, Atlanta, GA
3P-9P

HOSTED By

Ryan “Ryan King” Cameron

APPEARING LIVE
Hip Hop’s Royalty BIG DADDY KANE

MUSIC By

E-CLAZZ + DJ NEAUX + DJ Trauma

Online Tickets AVAILABLE Now! Bitly.com/AllWhiteATL

VIP Tables + Sections Information

E-Mail: ew@insights-mpc.com

$5.00 JD Honey & Gentleman’s Jack Cocktails

To win Free All White Affair tickets compliments of ORS & Jack Daniels’ Honey & a Trip for Two (2) to New Orleans for Essence compliments of Amtrak, follow us on twitter & IG @insightsKW

For tickets & more information visit:
www.allwhiteaffairtour.com

In the wake of the protests against police brutality and the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis released a video meant to deter people who used the outcry as an opportunity to destroy property. The passion he brought to his Hall of Fame football career is there, but his rambling, out-of-touch commentary is missing almost every important historical aspect regarding why the protests and property destruction happened in the first place.

This is my take on what Ray was saying…

By Be Moore

In 1991, Howard University rested squarely in the hood.

Now, the university hasn’t MOVED, but think of the hood as a sort of tide that rises and encompasses areas, and other times recedes, leaving traces like flopping fish on the ground after a tidal wave. We we’re under water.

Along with hood, comes hood fixings. Familiar things that you’ve surely seen before: bad graffiti, low grade food, and trash that rolls like tumbleweeds. Another key element to the hood is an ever present lack of respect for it’s residents.

Up the street from Drew Hall lies the closest source of “food”, a Chinese carry-out named Howard China. One night, while broke and starving as we often were freshman year, a couple friends and I ventured up the block to this incredible oddity where they served gigantic fried chicken wings over fries, all smothered with an, at the time, unfamiliar hot and sweet red sauce. It was absolutely delicious and even better it was CHEAP.

After we placed our orders and of course paid in advance (ref: hood rules), another young customer who presumably lived in the neighborhood walked in to pick up his meal. Whatever the issue was, he was unhappy with the service or his meal and a conflict began between he and the woman working the register, in which they yelled at each other through the dozen holes or so drilled through the bullet proof glass. The shouting match ended with the customer storming out with his food, and the cashier yelling…

“Nigger, you’ll be back TOMORROW!”

I know she wasn’t talking to me, but I heard her message loud and clear. She believed that because her business provided a necessary service that it didn’t matter how she treated people. She also believed that her value was higher than the that of the people she served.

She was wrong on two counts, about me and my boys at least: 1 – we weren’t niggers, and 2 – we would NEVER be back.

This all comes to mind again today, more than 20 years later, as America responds to the deaths of American citizens at the hands of police with no inditement (Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Sean Bell…) What will be the SUSTAINED response of the people? Do we have the wherewithal and patience to affect change?

Will we go back?

Michael Brown, killed by Officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014

White supremacy is an ideology. It is based upon the belief that White culture and “Whiteness” are superior to other cultures and races of people. It also includes the idea that the opposite of Whiteness is “Blackness”, which positions Black culture and Black people as inferior to all others. One important White supremacist notion is that Black people are inherently and unavoidably dangerous. Large Black men like 6’ 4” 292lb. Michael Brown are assumed to be an imminent threat to everyone around him. Whether he was a threat to Darren Wilson on August 9^th, 2014 is completely irrelevant. Because our country operates on a White supremacist foundation, its justice system, and the majority of its people will be convinced that Brown deserved to be shot and killed. Michael Brown’s size and ultimately his Blackness imbued him with superhuman strength and a superhuman criminality, weapons allegedly far more dangerous than the gun Darren Wilson carried.

It was 157 years ago when the Supreme Court of the United States declared that:

“In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument…They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.”

Dred Scott, a troublesome”property”

Those were the words of Chief Justice Roger Taney in the wake of the Dred Scott case (Scott v Sandford). He declared unequivocally that our country never intended for Black people to be considered human beings—much less citizens—while on American soil. Dred Scott, a Black man from Missouri, was relegated to the status of “property”; not a human, but a “slave”. And for his benefit. Today, a Black man form Missouri was relegated to the status of “thug”; not a human, but a “nigger”. Whether they called him one or not, the justice system treated him like one. That’s far worse.

Ben Chapman yelled an almost endless string of racial slurs at Jackie Robinson a manager of the Philadelphia Phillies

A cornerstone of racism in the United States is the use of White supremacy to systematically and systemically enforce White cultural supremacy and Black inferiority. Conversely, we’re consistently taught that a “racist” is a person who uses one of seven or eight naughty words to describe people’s race. I couldn’t care less. I’ve often told people that you could put Ben Chapman outside of my apartment and have him call me a nigger to and from my car, while I’m getting my mail, and while I grill my food. It would be annoying as hell, but I would trade dealing with that “racism” for fixing the real racism that causes the schools in my southern Seattle community to mis-educate the Black, Brown, and Yellow kids they overwhelmingly enroll, or that causes the disproportionate unemployment that affects minorities in my community. That racism is real. It’s a problem. Name-calling is not.

Racism is the reason why Michael Brown’s criminality went on trial instead of Darren Wilson’s. And the grand jury’s failure to even put Wilson on trial is the latest in a long line of events reminding us that Black lives are forfeit in the face of White supremacy in our justice system. I know many try to argue that justice isn’t biased against colors of skin, but is biased towards green. The implication is that the remedy for a corrupt justice system is to buy your own slice of the iniquity. I’m not into finding solutions that don’t answer fundamental problems, so that’s a non-starter.

While Robert McCulloch was telling the world about the victory for White supremacy in Missouri, I was at work tutoring. I was helping college students in a sociology class learn how racism, classism, and chauvinism undermine equity and justice in our society. A Black man teaching a group of young White men that part of responsible citizenship is ensuring fair treatment and opportunity for everyone—especially those who are currently impugned by systems designed to relegate them to less-than-human status.

White supremacy and racism continue to rot the very core of our country. But little by little, those of us fighting for social justice are finding ways to cure the infestation. It is one way we can do our part to get justice for Michael Brown, when our justice system will not.

In this episode, the season opener, Jeff and Skillz discuss their experience with the crowd during the CIAA Tournament. I won’t lie, I literally laughed out loud.

Watch with caution, as you might see yourself in the video. Or worse, your moms.

“Play cousins?”

For those of you without it, I’ll give you some cultural capital in context.  Stick with me, because I’m about to engage in come circuitous storytelling:

I’ve been outside the country for the latter part of the last few months, so I missed a rack of happenings in American popular culture.  Amongst the movies, new songs, and references I noticed when I got back was this “Ooh kill em”, often used in hashtags.  A quick internet search had me landing on this gem:

First of all, if you’re not familiar, Vine is the latest phone app that allows you to overshare things in your life no one else wants to see.  Thankfully you can only film these “events” for six seconds at a time.  However, every once-in-awhile one of these videos is so funny/clever/bizarre/annoying that it deserves our six seconds of attention.  Or more.

Since posting their Vine videos, lil-dancin’ Terio and his co-signing cousin Maleek have become internet-famous, inspiring everything from NBA point guard copycats to hip hop diss records.

So what does all of this have to do with cultural capital, play cousins, and fictive kinship?  Maleek and Terio aren’t related by blood.

In this epic Complex interview (you gotta listen to the audio.  Nobody short-sells answers like a nervous six-year-old!), the following exchange occurs with Maleek, Terio’s 16-year-old cousin who provides the footage and the soundtrack for his dancing and hooping protégé:

Interviewer: And so, how’re you guys related?

MALEEK: That’s my lil’ cousin.

Interviewer: Is there like, a parent’s sister’s son or something?

MALEEK: Nah, we like…he like, stay next door to me

Translation: they play cousins.  (Not a grammatical error).

Brotha and Sistah vs Brother and Sister: Are y’all Really Related?

In academic-speak, this is an example of the formation of a fictive kinship, a relationship in which people who aren’t related by blood claim a familial bond.  These relationships occur between and within all races of people. African Americans in particular have a long-held desire to unify through shared experiences, largely due to a unique and sordid American history of having their cultural practices denied and ridiculed.  For example, during American enslavement, Black family structures were routinely destroyed by the trade of humans across the Atlantic and between colonists.  This African American practice of identifying each other as “brotha”, “sistah”, and yes, “play cousin” developed as a valuable way to ascertain who was “down”, as well as in creating extended functional families.  These ties were especially important when blood bonds between Black people had been broken. Today, Black Americans still use these fictive kinships in the same way.

 Black-on-Black Male Crime Mentorship

I don’t know what the day-to-day interactions between Maleek and Terio look like.  I do know from my own experiences with the teenaged “old-heads” in my neighborhood where I grew up in Ypsilanti – and with my older play cousins in North Carolina who I saw when I visited my parents’ homes – that these dudes were excellent part-time role models and informal mentors.  They were flawed no doubt (I’m thinking right now about the time when this old-head named Tim tried to tell how you had great sex with girls.  Looking back, there’s no way in hell he had learned anything for himself; that bullshit had to have come from sneaking into someone’s porn collection), but they were well-meaning and had nobly taken on a role passed down to them by older play cousins who had done the same for them.  To be clear, I’m not talking about some Big Brother, Big Sister-type of relationship where these dudes provided daily and guided interactions.  I’m talking about those times when me and the rest of the young bucks had our bikes in a circle talking about girls/bikes/cars/sports and a couple of the older dudes would roll up on their bikes and start schooling us.  Just from reading and hearing the interview, I could hear at least the same type of bond between Maleek and Terio.  Are they closer than that?  Maybe.  But I know play cousins when I hear them.

Ideally these two kids maintain a healthy relationship and Maleek becomes or remains an important mentor for Terio.  It doesn’t have to be some “wonderful story” where Maleek becomes the main influence in Terio’s life, deters him from joining a gang, pushes Terio to go from wannabe rapper to English professor, Terio writes a best-selling novel, and Tyler Perry directs the movie version of his life (starring a light-skinned dude, of course).  Maybe Maleek is just the fun “cousin” whose video-based encouragement plays a small part in helping Terio feel just that much better about himself.  That’d be a realistic and important outcome.  Hell, despite Tim’s ridiculous sex advice, he always told me how smart I was, and he taught me how to pop a wheelie.  It’s that type of mentorship that makes play cousins special.

This article originally appears on alineinthesand.com.

Maurice “Mo the Educator” Dolberry has taught grades 6 through 20, and has worked at both public and independent schools from Minnesota to Florida to Washington and other places in between. He is currently an adjunct college instructor while working on his PhD in multicultural education at the University of Washington.  Maurice has been a mentor, old-head, and play cousin for a long time, but refuses to give bad sex advice.  Ooh kill ’em!

Maurice “Mo the Educator” Dolberry ©2013

If you haven’t seen it yet, here is the news story about 7-year-old Tiana Parker. She’s a former student at Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Deborah Brown Community School, whose father ultimately pulled her out after being repeatedly told by the school to change his daughter’s hairstyle. Tiana’s dreadlocked hair was in violation of the school’s dress code which clearly states, “Hairstyles such as dreadlocks, afros and other faddish styles are unacceptable.” (see page 13).

That’s the basic story, but this goes so much deeper.

This isn’t a simply a question of where Tiana Parker should go to school; thankfully she’s got the privilege of having an involved parent who has taken her out of DBCS. This debacle actually invokes larger questions of what we’re teaching children about their ethnicity and how to combat respectability politics.

A school is constantly teaching students. From what is taught in the curriculum, to what’s not taught in the curriculum, to the behaviors it punishes or promotes, a school is a really complex learning system that goes infinitely beyond what’s typed in the textbooks it uses. For Tiana Parker, Deborah Brown Community School has taught her that her hair, styled in its natural state, is “faddish”. “Unaccepable”. One ugly irony – and what also ends up being taught at DBCS – is that children whose hair is hot ironed and chemically straightened to look drastically different from its natural state are “normal” and “acceptable”. Even with the possible health issues notwithstanding, why should a school teach a child that a genetic part of their ethnicity – nappy hair – is “unacceptable”? Especially a publicly-funded school like Deborah Brown? And as a social justice advocate, I ask why we should allow such sentiment to exist unchecked in the first place?

I don’t know what kind of education Deborah Brown Community School provides otherwise, but in this case, they’ve taught Tiana Parker a horrendous and despicable lesson about her Blackness.

Maurice “Mo the Educator” Dolberry has taught grades 6 through 20, and has worked at both public and independent schools from Minnesota to Florida to Washington and other places in between. He is currently an adjunct college instructor while working on his PhD in multicultural education at the University of Washington. Even though he’s bald, Maurice loves the texture of his nappy hair… unfortunately it’s only on his face now.

Maurice “Mo the Educator” Dolberry ©2013