Media Contact: Elizabeth Burke-Dain, 312.369.8695
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2009
“Rap Sessions”
Rap Sessions Community Dialogue: Is America Really Post-Racial?
April 16, 2009
For the third consecutive year, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media will co-present the Chicago installment of “Rap Sessions Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop.” Led by Bakari Kitwana, Rap Sessions is a national tour of townhall-style meetings that illuminate issues of vital concern to the hip-hop generation through discussions with leading hip-hop activists, scholars and artists. The goal of these dialogues is to assist existing social change efforts and best identify solutions to the challenges of our time. “Is America Really Post-Racial?” aims to contribute to the call for a national discussion on race addressing emerging claims of “post-racism.” What does it mean to be “post-racial” in the hip-hop generation? Hip-hop, the youth culture of our time, has become synonymous with race even as it appeals to global cultures. Likewise, have we truly arrived at a post-racial era when the n-word is daily prevalent in hip-hop lyrics and culture?
SPEAKERS:
Jabari Asim, Editor-in-Chief of Crisis Magazine, author of “The N-Word: Who Can Say it, Who Shouldn’t and Why.”
Lisa Fager Bediako, President and Co-Founder of Industry Ears, Inc.
Tricia Rose, Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, author of “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America.”
MC Serch, host of VH-1’s “The White Rapper Show” and “Miss Rap Supreme.”
Moderated by Bakari Kitwana, author of “The Hip-Hop Generation,” co-founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, and Fall 2008 Institute Fellow.
WHEN: Thursday, April 16, 2009. 7:00pm
WHERE: Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Avenue, 8th Floor
COST: Free and open to the public
MORE INFO: 312.369.8829 or www.colum.edu/institutewomengender
ASL services available upon request. Please allow 48 hours advance notice.
Presented by: Rap Sessions and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media.
Sponsored in part by Boeing, The Jamestown Project and Campus Progress.