A Black Man In A White World.

And I'm a coloured person in a world than cannot see the beauty of colours...

Michael Kiwanuka - 'Black Man In A White World'

Michael Samuel Kiwanuka (born 3 May 1987) is an English soul musician and songwriter who is signed to Polydor Records. He has been compared to Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers, Randy Newman, Terry Callier, and Otis Redding, as well as Van Morrison and the Temptations. In January 2012, he won the BBC's Sound of 2012 poll.

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“I guess it became a statement,” Kiwanuka says of the political-yet-personal lyrics. “All of this stuff has been going around my head since I was a teenager. The differences in culture — everything. Where I fit in European white society. Does colour really matter? It’s pretty obvious that certain kinds of records are bought by certain kinds of people without any crossover. I’m sort of in the middle of that. If you are around it your entire life it weighs on you.”

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Lyrics

I've been low, I've been high
I've been told all my life
I've got nothing left to pray
I've got nothing left to say

All the black men in a white world
All the black men in a white world
All the black men in a white world
All the black men in a white

I'm in love but I'm still sad
I've found peace but I'm not glad
All my nights and all my days
I've been trying the wrong way

I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world

I feel like I've been here before
I feel that knocking on my door
I feel like I've been here before
I feel that knocking on my door
And I've lost everything I had
And I'm not angry and I'm not mad

I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world

I've been low and I've been high
I've been told all my life
I've got nothing here to pray
And I've got nothing left to say

I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world
I'm a black man in a white world

I'm in love but I'm still sad
I've found peace but I'm not glad
All my nights and all my days
I've been trying the wrong way
I don't mind who I am (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world))
I don't mind who you are (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world))
I'm not wrong, I'm not wrong (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world))
Oh it's alright, it's alright (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
Oh it's alright (I'm a black man in a white world)

Oh it's alright (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
It's alright (I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world, I'm a black man in a white world)
(I'm a black man in a white world)

Songwriters: Dean Cover / Michael Samuel Kiwanuka

Black Man in a White World lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Another African American man killed by the police for no reason

Quoting the Guardian because the NYT won't let you read breaking news for free...

I'm appalled, I'm infuriated. America has failed its people and has failed the world.

This man was killed on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination.

What more do you need?

This has to stop!

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New York police shoot dead black man holding metal pipe

The man was shot 10 times by four officers in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Reuters

Thu 5 Apr 2018 04.04 BST

Crowds gathered on the streets of Brooklyn to protest about the shooting on Wednesday. Photograph: Kevin Hagen/AP

A black man has been shot dead by police in New York after he pointed a metal pipe at them.

Police had responded to emergency callers who said the man was aiming a firearm at pedestrians in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an official said. 

The man took a two-handed shooting stance and pointed an object at police and three plainclothes officers and one uniformed officer shot 10 times, the chief of department, Terence Monahan, told a news conference.

“This was a call of a man pointing what 911 callers and people felt was a gun at people on the street,” Monahan said. “When we encounter him, he turns with what appears to be a gun at officers.”

#Breaking: NYPD officials give update on Police involved shooting in Crown Heights Brooklyn https://www.pscp.tv/w/bZVY1jFETEVCRE9XeXFCS0p8MXlwS2RtWFpZeWpHV285nRTH4s12QSgtEiZe9kEzFwHU6sYIfkpyaCdyJDEx …

— NYPDBrooklynNorth (@NYPDBklynNorth) 1:35 AM - Apr 5, 2018

Crowds gathered on the street to protest about the shooting. Some shouted “oppressors” as they faced off against police officers who had cordoned off the scene of the shooting with police tape.

Andre Wilson, 38, told the Daily News that he had known the victim for 20 years, describing him as a quirky neighborhood character. 

“All he did was just walk around the neighborhood,” he said. “He speaks to himself, usually he has an orange Bible or a rosary in his hand. He never had a problem with anyone.”

The shooting follows a number of killings of unarmed black men by police that triggered street protests and led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Police were investigating, Monahan said, adding that surveillance video obtained from stores nearby showed the man brandishing an object that looked like a firearm. 

The man, whose name and age were not immediately released, was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead. 

A police shooting of an unarmed black man in Sacramento, California, has sparked several days of protests. 

In that incident, officers responding to a report of someone breaking windows shot to death 22-year-old Stephon Clark in his grandmother’s backyard on 18 March. The officers feared he had a gun, but he was found to have been holding a cellphone, Sacramento police have said. 

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Link:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/new-york-police-fatally-shoot-black-man-holding-metal-pipe?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The Ghost Writer

Souvenirs from an important story I saw eight years ago. Appealing to me again now.

Do you know how we call a "ghostwriter" in French...?
A "Nègre". A Negro... A.k.a. a Slave.
Shocking?
Or maybe revealing...

The Ghost Writer (2010) - Official Trailer 

With Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan 

The Ghost Writer (2010) 

Official Trailer A ghostwriter hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister uncovers secrets that put his own life in jeopardy.

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The Ghost Writer (released as The Ghost in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 2010 Franco-German-British political thriller film directed by Roman Polanski. 

The film is an adaptation of a Robert Harris novel, The Ghost, with the screenplay written by Polanski and Harris. 

It stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall and Olivia Williams.

The film was a critical and commercial success and won numerous cinematic awards including Best Director for Polanski at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival and also at the 23rd European Film Awards in 2010.

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Review

by 

Peter Bradshaw - for The Guardian

The Ghost Writer

4/5stars

    

Roman Polanski's deft take on Robert Harris's political thriller is the director's most purely enjoyable film for years

Roman Polanski's latest movie happens to be about a public figure, once hugely admired, now disgraced, fearing extradition and prosecution and confined to virtual house arrest in a vacation spot for rich people.

Did the director, when he shot this film, get a chill presentiment of how personal it was all going to look? Maybe. But it didn't stop him making a gripping conspiracy thriller and scabrous political satire, a Manchurian Candidate for the 2010s, as addictive and outrageous as the Robert Harris bestseller on which it's based. Polanski keeps the narrative engine ticking over with a downbeat but compelling throb. This is his most purely enjoyable picture for years, a Hitchcockian nightmare with a persistent, stomach-turning sense of disquiet, brought off with confidence and dash.

More here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/12/roman-polanski-ghost-writer

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"Noire est la couleur" - doc about African American artists

Documentaire télévisée sur l'art dans l'histoire récente des Africains Américains :

"Noire est la couleur":

Les artistes africains-américains et la ségrégation

ARTE

53 min.

Disponible du 01/04/2018 au 14/04/2018

A voir ici : https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/066342-000-A/noire-est-la-couleur/

Aujourd'hui, Jean-Michel Basquiat n'est plus le seul artiste africain-américain à être entré de son vivant dans les grandes institutions américaines. Kerry James Marshall, Whitfield Lovell ou encore Ellen Gallagher y sont également célébrés. Ce documentaire raconte la longue marche des artistes africains-américains pour leur reconnaissance, dans une société marquée par la ségrégation.

Il n’y a pas si longtemps, un visiteur du Metropolitan Museum of Art à New York aurait eu bien du mal à découvrir la peinture noire américaine. Ce n’est plus le cas désormais puisqu’elle a enfin trouvé sa place aux cimaises des plus grands musées des États-Unis. Quel regard les artistes africains-américains portent-ils sur le monde par rapport à leurs confrères blancs ? La spécificité de la peinture noire apparaît sans conteste dans sa dimension politique. Car l’acte de naissance de l’art africain-américain réside dans la représentation de l’émancipation du peuple noir, tandis que sa maturité s’acquiert parallèlement à la lutte contre la ségrégation raciale et pour l’obtention des droits civiques. "Pour un artiste africain-américain, créer est une déclaration politique", analyse ainsi le peintre Whitfield Lovell.

La question raciale
Aujourd’hui, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) n’est plus le seul artiste africain-américain à être entré de son vivant dans les grandes institutions américaines. Kerry James Marshall, Whitfield Lovell ou encore Ellen Gallagher sont également célébrés, au même titre que cette étoile filante qui fit longtemps figure d’exception. À l’heure où la question raciale enflamme à nouveau les États-Unis, ce film raconte à travers des archives rares et les voix d’artistes, d’historiens de l’art, de collectionneurs et de galeristes la marche des artistes africains-américains pour se réapproprier leur image et la faire vivre.

Réalisation : Jacques Goldstein

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Quelques illustrations :

"Bird in Hand"

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"Wiglet"

Ellen Gallagher (born December 16, 1965) is an American artist. Her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is held in the permanent collections of many major museums. Her media include painting, works on paper, film and video. Some of her pieces refer to issues of race, and may combine formality with racial stereotypes and depict "ordering principles" society imposes.

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Kerry James Marshall challenges the marginalization of African-Americans through his formally rigorous paintings, drawings, videos, and installations, whose central protagonists are always, in his words, “unequivocally, emphatically black.” As he describes, his work is rooted in his life experience: “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it.” Marshall’s erudite knowledge of art history and black folk art structures his compositions; he mines black culture and stereotypes for his unflinching subject matter. In Black Star (2011), a nude black woman bursts through a Frank Stella-like canvas, commanding attention and daring viewers to consider how she has been (and how she should be) seen and portrayed.

"Past Times", 1997

"Vignette", 2003. Photograph: Adam Reich/MCA Chicago

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I could share so many more...
Powerful gorgeousness.

1998-2018: Banksy's 20 year anniversary

In 1998, another Bristolian artist had his major breakthrough. 

After Damien Hirst, launched as one of the key actors of the Young British Artists movement by Charles Saatchi, after Massive Attack's massive success with Mezzanine...

 Banksy made a wider name for himself with this large piece of graffiti, created with his sidekick Inkie, at the Glastonbury Festival in July 1998... 

Here is "Silent Majority": 

Different views:

This piece, painted on a friend's truck, was finally sold for more than £ 445. 000 in Paris in 2015...

Since 1998, Banksy left Bristol for London and went global, especially from 2000 to 2006, having a predilection for murals in New York and in Palestine.

He regularly comes back to his hometown.

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More in my book...

Happy 20-year fun, Mr Banksy. 

The Young Karl Marx - Trailer for England:

The Young Karl Marx by Raoul Peck - Trailer for England:  

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels meet cute in this intense, fervent film about the early development of communism from I Am Not Your Negro director Raoul Peck.



In May, at the Watershed, Bristol, my HQ :) !  

My name will be there...  
Watch out. 

"Io Sono L'Amore" / "I Am Love"

Souvenirs from London, in 2009. Loving Italy with all my heart.

If you've liked 'Call Me By Your Name'...

Do watch 'Io Sono L'Amore'...

I Am Love (2009) 

Official Trailer #1 

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Milano. Inizio Io sono l'amore. 

Opening "I am Love"

I Am Love (2009) - The Lunch

I Am Love / Clip 

April 1998 - April 2018

There we are, April. 

In two weeks, the key album of the history of Bristol's recent music scene, Massive Attack's Mezzanine will turn 20 years old. 

Initially, last summer, the band was planning a few events to celebrate and my book should have been out in English around that time. 

Yet... Bristol and especially this band wouldn't be Bristol if there was not any delay, turn around, second thoughts and last minute desire for further perfectionism... Just as it happened in the making of the album itself!

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In July 1997, the band therefore released an E.P. featuring a first extract from the coming record, 'Risingson', to please fans and their label. 

Here is the B-side, a song sampling a part of Siouxsie and the Banshees' 'Metal Postcard':

Massive Attack - 'Superpredators'

And the original, as a bonus:

Siouxsie & The Banshees - 'Metal Postcard'

'Risingson' and its very telling video...

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The whole story soon:

Massive Attack: Out Of The Comfort Zone 

Paperback – September 3, 2018

by Melissa Chemam (Author)

This book is dedicated to the history of the band Massive Attack and to their relationship with their home town of Bristol, a city built on the wealth generated by the slave trade. 

As a port Bristol was also an arrival point for immigrants to the UK, most notably the Windrush generation from the Caribbean in the 1950s. 

Author Melissa Chemam's in-depth study of the influences that led to the formation of the Wild Bunch and then Massive Attack looks into Bristol's past to explore how the city helped shape one of the most successful and innovative musical movements of the last 30 years. 

Based on interviews with Robert (3D) del Naja and others, the book examines the inner tensions between the founding members of Massive Attack - 3D, Daddy G and Mushroom - their influences, collaborations and politics and the way in which they opened the door for other Bristol musicians and artists including Banksy. 

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The book is published under licence from Anne Carriere in France by Tangent Books. 

Its French title is En Dehors De La Zone De Confort - De Massive Attack A Banksy €

(978-2-8433-7809-6)

About the Author

Melissa Chemam is a French journalist and author who has worked for France 24, the BBC World Service and Radio France International, as well as many magazines, and for the filmmaker Raoul Peck. Since 2003, she has been based in Prague, Paris, Miami, then in London, Nairobi and Bangui, travelling into more than 40 countries.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

“Suddenly, Massive Attack are happening”, writes Miranda Sawyer in Q Magazine in March 1991. “A silver album! That ‘all-important’ critical acclaim! Even seminal world rockers U2 want to meet them!”… From the caves of Bristol’s underground and forbidden parties, the non-musicians will emerge worldwide in only a few months…

From 1989, the work that Massive Attack’s three core members have started take a more definite shape, and it becomes clear for Cameron McVey and Jonny Dollar that an album is on its way, and not an ordinary album. Produced without a definite plan in mind, their art, which creates after “cutting and pasting” from an extraordinary playlist of references, seems to work magically, just like 3D’s art of collage at the time…

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Link: https://www.amazon.com/Massive-Attack-Out-Comfort-Zone/dp/1910089729

Cambridge students fighting for equity

Interesting move!

Cambridge university 'decolonisation' row spreads as students target several courses, documents reveal

•  Camilla Turner, education editor 

30 MARCH 2018 • 9:30PM

Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/30/cambridge-university-decolonisation-row-spreads-students-target/

Cambridge University students’ “decolonisation” campaign has spread to Classics, Physics, Chemistry and Engineering, a document reveals.

Over 30 university departments will be targeted by students as they step up their efforts to examine whether courses are too dominated by white, male, Euro-centric perspectives.

Working groups have been set up to discuss possible changes in a number of subjects, according to a spreadsheet seen by The Daily Telegraph. 

The Classics Society has held a panel discussion to discuss “what decolonisation would look like”, while  a “decolonising Physics reading group” is up and running, the document says.

The Geography Faculty is described as being “fairly far ahead” in its efforts to decolonise the curriculum, while the Law, Sociology and Architecture faculties have  set up a decolonisation working groups.

Chemistry, Medicine and Engineering are all featured on the list of subjects that have been earmarked for further campaigning, according to the document which was posted on the “Decolonise Cambridge” Facebook group.

The Decolonise Cambridge Facebook group earmarked more coursed which needed further examination, according to the group's document

The document explains how students in the Department of Politics and International Studies “managed to get the department to place decolonisation as core agenda in the upcoming changes to the curricula” with a student and staff faculty meeting due to take place next term.

Decolonise seminars are due to run in the History and Philosophy of Science department at the start of the Easter term.

Jessica Tan, the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Education Officer at Cambridge University students’ union, said she plans to set up a team to centralise efforts to decolonise the curriculum across a range of different subjects.

Last year, The Daily Telegraph revealed that English Literature lecturers and tutors "could actively seek to ensure the presence” of BME writers on their course, under proposals discussed by the Faculty’s Teaching Forum.

The move followed an open letter, signed by over 100 students, titled “Decolonising the English Faculty”.  

Other leading universities have refused to bow to pressure from decolonisation campaigns aimed at names of buildings and statues, as well as their curriculum.

Oxford University refused to bow to pressure from the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which called for the statue of Cecil Rhodes to be taken down from Oriel College over his links to imperialism.

Meanwhile, Bristol University announced that it will not rename the Wills Memorial Building despite campaigners claiming it is named after a slave trader.

The National Union of Students’ (NUS) campaign called Liberate My Curriculum was set up to “expose institutional racism” within higher education and bring together individual decolonisation campaigns at various universities.

Ilyas Nagdee, the NUS Black Students’ Officer, said that there are numerous examples of Britain’s imperial past being “celebrated without any context or challenge from the institutions which are meant to be Britain’s centres of critical thought.” He said this includes a statue of Queen Victoria at Royal Holloway University, Churchill College at Cambridge, as well as the Cecil Rhodes statue at Oxford and the Wills Memorial Building at Bristol.  

Mr Nagdee said that the NUS campaign is “predominantly borne out of the frustration of students of colour who have not seen their history reflected in their textbooks”.  

He added: “The whitewashing of history is then exacerbated at university not only in the content of courses but within the spaces of learning.”  

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