Volume 3, Issue 1 (2013) Rap is...

Mamay

This piece was inspired by artist Mad Squirrel's experiences with tokenism, silent racism (Trepagnier 2006), and White gazes (Yancy 2008) while teaching, living, and traveling in the new, progressive South.  It is a phenomenological commentary on the Jim Crow state-of-mind that continues to pervade many Southern institutions -- most notably institutions of education during the age of Obama. Its title references the infamous song from the 1927 film "The Jazz Singer," which was performed in blackface.

The second part of the piece was written in 2010 during the BP Oil Crisis ("drop you in the gulf and feather you when you get out"). Today, April 20th, 2013 marks the third anniversary of the start of the disaster. How quickly we forget about three months of uncontrolled oil spilling into our oceans and devastating our environments and local economies -- all the result of Corporate Interests and our reliance on fossil fuels.

Mad Squirrel, Eric Steuer, and the editors at Catalyst are excited to release "Mamay" in the interests of keeping that tragic event fresh in all our memories.

Works Cited:

Trepagnier, Barbara. 2006. Silent Racism: How Well Meaning White People Perpetuate the Racial Divide. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Yancy, George. 2008. Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.