#macarthur genius

[dailyhistoryposts]

Elouise P. Cobell

The woman who gave her name to perhaps the most important class-action lawsuit in history, Elouise P. Cobell | Yellow Bird Woman (1945-2011) was a Native American activist and elder of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Niitsítapi).

Born on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, Cobell grew up attending a one-room schoolhouse and living without electricity or running water. She attended Montana State University, but left before graduating to care for her mother.

Cobell returned to her family ranch and became the treasurer for the Blackfeet Nation. She founded the Blackfeet National Bank, the first national bank owned by a Native American tribe and located on a reservation. She received a MacArthur genius award for this.

Using part of that money, Cobell filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government. As treasurer, she had found numerous irregularities due to theft by the government. The case became known as Cobell v. Salazar (Salazar being the Secretary of the Interior when the case was settled, though the Department of the Treasury was also part of it). The case was first filed in 1996 and settled in 2009 in Cobell's favor.

Cobell v. Salazar was settled for $3.4 billion, allocated to the plaintiffs and to repurchase land that had been stolen under the Dawes Act of 1887. It also created the Cobell Educational Scholarship Fund.

[uwmspeccoll]

Black History Month: Dawoud Bey

American photographer Dawoud Bey’s Seeing Deeply is a 40-year retrospective of Bey’s career, including photographs from 1975 through the last several years, published by the University of Texas Press in 2018. Bey has been heralded as inheriting the legacy of Harlem Renaissance artists and leaders like Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava, especially through his commitment to photographing American adolescents in marginalized communities with an empathetic lens.

My interest in young people has to do with the fact that they are the arbiters of style in the community; their appearance speaks most strongly of how a community of people defines themselves at a particular historical moment.

Beyond this is a continuous commitment to put Harlem front and center through street photography, portraits, and large-scale art photography, honoring the community’s physical environment as well as its’ citizens, earning him the MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant in 2017. Bey’s efforts, like artists before him such as DeCarava and James Van Derzee, labor under the time-honored tradition of creating space for the next generation to build upon their achievements. In short, they walk so others can run. We see this impact next week with I Can Make You Feel Good by Tyler Mitchell, an extraordinarily unique depiction of a Black Utopia!

Learn more about Dawoud Bey and his impact.

View more Black History Month posts.

-Emily, Special Collections Writing Intern

[hakimbe]

I confess, there were moments yesterday where I was frustrated by the lack of force, deadly or otherwise, used by law enforcement yesterday on that display of entitlement and unchecked privilege. But then, I paused. Leaned into the emotion and located where it was coming from. It was coming from a place of grief. From the broken record of body bags that remind people that look like me that our protest, our riots, are in the name lives taken. Ours are of fear and last resort. Our grievence is one of the unloved. A country that has not reciprocated the level of sacrifice we've made for it. A country we have, to date, been unable to make love us, the way we deserve to be loved. The way it loves others. Theirs, yesterday, was a riot of fears that have yet to be realized on American soil. Fears hypothetical, yet inevitable. Fear of not being first. Fear of not being most. Fear of not getting their way. Fear of an uncertain future. Our fears, our riots are evidence based. An documented legacy of unsolved, not prosecuted, acquitted and systemically encouraged lethal violence. We march for our lives. Yesterday's "rally" was for a lifestyle. Today, our only certainty is an uncertain future...every time we leave our f****** house. They are rioting against what tomorrow might bring. We are rioting against what the past has wrought. Change is what we are fighting for, because the "way things are" hasn't worked for us since the founding of this nation. That is the desperation in our protests, I am unsure of the perceived discomfort in theirs. They are rioting to keep things stagnant, when rational science (and time) teach us that change is the only constant. "An important function of almost every system is to ensure its own perpetuation." - Dr. Donella H. Meadows, MacArthur Genius I no longer wish that they "got what was coming to them" yesterday...I just hope that next time they are the same color as me, that they are met with the same level of compassion and lack of contempt. 🙏🏾 #JacobBlake #CapitolRiots #US #Capitol #USCapitol #Kaepernick #DonellaMeadows

[krispyweiss]

Rhiannon Giddens to Release Four Children’s Books

- First title, “Build a House,” to appear in fall 2022

Rhiannon Giddens is adding children’s-book author to her already-impressive resume.

Giddens has contracted with Candlewick Press to release four titles for youngsters. The first, based on the lyrics to “Build a House” and illustrated by Monica Mikai, will be released in fall 2022.

“Stay tuned for more,” Giddens said in unveiling her new author’s website.

A 2017 MacArthur genius grant recipient, Giddens is artistic director of Silkroad; a solo artist; a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters; an actor on “Nashville;” scorer of the 2019 ballet “Lucy Negro Redux;” and the composer of “Omar,” an opera premiering in May 2022.

And, she’s an author.

6/24/21

[jshoulson]

Today’s Poem

Toy Boat   --Ocean Vuong (newly-minuted MacArthur Genius)

For Tamir Rice

yellow plastic black sea

eye-shaped shard on a darkened map

no shores now to arrive — or depart no wind but this waiting which moves you

as if the seconds could be entered & never left

toy boat — oarless each wave a green lamp outlasted

toy boat toy leaf dropped from a toy tree waiting

waiting as if the sp- arrows thinning above you are not already pierced by their own names

[jshoulson]

Today’s Poem

Words --John Keene (newly minted Genius)

When you said people did you mean punish? When you said friend did you mean fraud? When you said thought did you mean terror? When you said connection did you mean con? When you said God did you mean greed? When you said faith did you mean fanatic? When you said hope did you mean hype? When you said unity did you mean enmity? When you said freedom did you mean forfeit? When you said law did you mean lie? When you said truth did you mean treason? When you said feeling did you mean fool? When you said together did you mean token? When you said desire did you mean desert? When you said sex did you mean savagery? When you said need did you mean nought? When you said blood did you mean bought? When you said heart did you mean hard? When you said head did you mean hide? When you said health did you mean hurt? When you said love did you mean loss? When you said fate did you mean fight? When you said destiny did you mean decimate? When you said honor did you mean hunger? When you said bread did you mean broke? When you said feast did you mean fast? When you said first did you mean forgotten? When you said last did you mean least? When you said woman did you mean wither? When you said man did you mean master? When you said mother did you mean smother? When you said father did you mean fatal? When you said sister did you mean surrender? When you said brother did you mean brutal? When you said fellow did you mean follow? When you said couple did you mean capital? When you said family did you mean failure? When you said mankind did you mean market? When you said society did you mean sickness? When you said democracy did you mean indignity? When you said equality did you mean empty? When you said politics did you mean power? When you said left did you mean lost? When you said right did you mean might? When you said republic did you mean rich? When you said wealthy did you mean wall? When you said poor did you mean prison? When you said justice did you mean just us? When you said immigrant did you mean enemy? When you said refugee did you mean refusal? When you said earth did you mean ownership? When you said soil did you mean oil? When you said community did you mean conflict? When you said safety did you mean suspicion? When you said security did you mean sabotage? When you said army did you mean Armageddon? When you said white did you mean welcome? When you said black did you mean back? When you said yellow did you mean yield? When you said brown did you mean down? When you said we did you mean war? When you said you did you mean useless? When you said she did you mean suffer? When you said he did you mean horror? When you said they did you mean threat? When you said I did you mean island? When you said tribe did you mean trouble? When you said name did you mean nobody? When you said news did you mean nonsense? When you said media did you mean miasma? When you said success did you mean sucker? When you said fame did you mean game? When you said ideal did you mean idol? When you said yesterday did you mean travesty? When you said today did you mean doomsday? When you said tomorrow did you mean never? When you said hear did you mean hush? When you said listen did you mean limit? When you said write did you mean wound? When you said read did you mean retreat? When you said literacy did you mean apathy? When you said fiction did you mean forget? When you said poetry did you mean passivity? When you say art do you mean act?

[jshoulson]

Today’s Poem

From the Desire Field --Natalie Diaz (newly-minted Genius)

I don’t call it sleep anymore. I’ll risk losing something new instead—

like you lost your rosen moon, shook it loose.

But sometimes when I get my horns in a thing— a wonder, a grief or a line of her—it is a sticky and ruined fruit to unfasten from,

despite my trembling.

Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. Let me call it, a garden.

Maybe this is what Lorca meant when he said, verde que te quiero verde—

because when the shade of night comes, I am a field of it, of any worry ready to flower in my chest.

My mind in the dark is una bestia, unfocused, hot. And if not yoked to exhaustion

beneath the hip and plow of my lover, then I am another night wandering the desire field—

bewildered in its low green glow,

belling the meadow between midnight and morning. Insomnia is like Spring that way—surprising and many petaled,

the kick and leap of gold grasshoppers at my brow.

I am struck in the witched hours of want—

I want her green life. Her inside me in a green hour I can’t stop. Green vein in her throat green wing in my mouth

green thorn in my eye. I want her like a river goes, bending. Green moving green, moving.

Fast as that, this is how it happens— soy una sonámbula.

And even though you said today you felt better, and it is so late in this poem, is it okay to be clear, to say, I don’t feel good,

to ask you to tell me a story about the sweet grass you planted—and tell it again or again—

until I can smell its sweet smoke, leave this thrashed field, and be smooth.

[melvillehouse]

“Whiteness is not inevitable”: Claudia Rankine on “the racial imaginary” » MobyLives

During recent visits to three different bookstores, National Book Award finalist and MacArthur “genius” Claudia Rankine was met with confusion when she sought recommendations for “books on whiteness.” “You know,” she recalled in an interview with Steven W. Thrasher…

Poet and MacArthur genius Claudia Rankine will create the Racial Imaginary Institute in downtown Manhattan.