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TransactionalPR

~ Community-Identity-Communication

TransactionalPR

Tag Archives: cross-cultural

2012 Olympics and Aprés Post-Colonialism

28 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by metagcarstarphen in History, Literature, Observances

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2012 Summer Olympics, cross-cultural, Diversity at Olympics, England, Franz Fanon, Opening Ceremonies, Post-colonialism

I don’t know about you but I love the Olympics, especially the summer games.  Thanks to technological advances, my family and I have choices about how to keep up with this mega-event, including recording the whole thing so we can pick and choose how to watch what we want from it.  So, when the night was quiet, I gazed at the much-anticipated opening ceremonies for the 2012 competitions—every minute of it.  I even watched most of the commercials, which collectively broke records in the amounts of money being spent.  I noted the ad for The Dark Knight Rises movie, and was relieved at the short, tasteful version I saw in the wake of the recent tragedy in Aurora, CO.

Over the hours of the broadcast as I was captivated by the opening pageantry, I was duly impressed by the colors, lights, activity, music, comedy and drama of it all.  The character of “James Bond,” played by Daniel Craig and a body double for the Queen jumping out of a plane?  The comic antics of “Mr. Bean,” played by Rowan Atkinson, against the musical background of a classic masterpiece?  And, then there was the recurring and moving inclusion of young people of all ages, through choirs, dancing numbers, including a particularly captivating segment paying homage to literature and fantasy.  All of it and more presented a visual feast for viewers, and some of these pictures from the London-based Daily Mail newspaper can attest:

However, after a while, I began to think of the writings of Franz Fanon.  Fanon (1925-1961), a brilliant psychologist and scholar who was born in Algeria and educated in France, wrote incisively about the colonial European and Anglo legacies that brought both prosperity to their nations but turmoil to those they conquered.  England, the core of the once ubiquitous British Empire, showcased part of that history in its multiethnic performances throughout the night.

Even the parade of nations, that traditional processional of participating nations, highlighted this past as former colonies—Canada, Australia, Ghana, India, Nigeria, the United States and countless more English-speaking countries—participated as sovereign nations in their own right.

So, it was interesting to see how the “narrative” of England’s historical past played out in 2012.  The arc of the story moved from showing English roots in an agrarian society, progressing through an Industrial revolution and arriving at a very 21st –century peak of technological achievement.  In this story, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, reigned like a rock star (encouragement for nerds everywhere).

But omitted was the legacy of African slavery and the military-driven occupation of nations literally across the globe that fueled the prosperity contributing to the Industrial Revolution, upon which so much of the good fortunes of Western civilizations depend.  Fanon wrote searingly about this legacy and for the first time, gave voice to psychological and social scars left upon the colonized through this experience.  A foundation in his honor has established a Fanon Foundation website, and one page in English gives good insight into the complexity of his life and work, although some parts of this site are under construction still.

Should the Olympics have put a spotlight on these complex issues? Absolutely not!  Should we ourselves know and remember these issues even during a highly entertaining event?  Absolutely!

But in this “after” post-colonial era, we need to know that the multiculturalism we benefit from, and sometimes celebrate, did not happen accidentally, but through the pain and sacrifice of our often contentious ancestors.  We need to resist the temptation to paint our shared history with a happy tableau of diversity without being attuned to how our varied selves have come together. 

And, we need to look at current events, such as the Syrian rebellion and other “Arab Spring” movements partly through the lens of post-colonialism, because we will not understand anything completely without this measuring stick.  To do this, we all have to support education at every level in our schools that venture to bring difficult truths to our students.  We have to allow this without castigating such discussions as unpatriotic, communistic, or erroneous.

In the meantime, I will continue to follow the Olympics through the comprehensive coverage NBC and others will offer.  I will celebrate, as we all should, this exceptional time and space the Olympics provides when we can both root for country, yet celebrate the achievements of our global neighbors.  I think the symbolism of the torch’s lighting before the parade of nations showed it best.  Seven athletes with individual torches ignited seven more, which artfully spread through an array of over 50 more combustible lamps on the floor.  Then, on some invisible cue, they all rose in the air, and together formed one flaming ball.

We all come from different places, but together, we are one world. One planet. One destiny.

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Soledad O’Brien: A Destiny for Diversity

22 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by metagcarstarphen in Influencers, Women's Words

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cross-cultural, Diversity, PRSA, race stories, scholarships for girls, Soledad O'Brien

I recently returned from the 2011 conference for the Public Relations Society of America, which was held in Orlando, Fl.  The allure of all things Disney was potent, but I found myself absolutely entranced by the meetings, conversations and networking at this powerhouse conference.  Over 3,000 people aligned with the public relations profession—as practitioners, educators or college students—attended this meeting and the energy was palpable.

As is the custom at such meetings, there was a dizzying selection of workshops and special presentations, and I attended as many as I could squeeze into the two-and-a-half days I was there.  For me, though, one of the highlights was the keynote presentation by CNN reporter, Soledad O’Brien.

Soledad gave a very impassioned call for communicators to enliven the facts of a story with more narrative  storytelling approaches, and implored the PRSA audience to embrace the conference theme of  “imagine, create and inspire.”

But, there was more to her story, as she elegantly wove her personal story into the narrative of her speech.  Soledad recounted her family heritage as the daughter of a Cuban mother and an Irish father, recounting some stories about how here parents came to form their bond.  As she told it, her father approached her mother repeatedly for a date, and was routinely turned down by this proper, Catholic young woman.  When she finally relented, they attempted to go out to restaurants that routinely refused to serve them.  Estella ended up inviting Edward for a home-cooked meal, and the romance blossomed from there.  When this couple decided to marry, interracial unions were still illegal in some states, including they one in which they lived.  So they traveled to Washington, D.C. where such marriages were legal, but returned home to resume a life that was for a long time afterwards, was not legally recognized.

History tells us that interracial marriages became universally legal in the United States with the Supreme Court decision in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case – settled the year after Soledad was born.  Sharing her family story smartly allowed Soledad to teach by example.  She could have railed against the injustices of an unfair law.  Instead, she told us stories that in their uniqueness reminded us simultaneously of their connections to us all, through the shared human experiences of love, commitment, and triumphs over adversity.

One can see the influence of Soledad’s personal story over her current work with the In America series.  These documentaries explore underrepresented communities through the prism of race and other differences.  What Soledad illustrates through her work so brilliantly is how communicators can intelligently tell stories that report on racial identity as a part of what animates people’s lives, decisions and social standing in the United States.  This is the future of diversity: complex, compelling, and integral to how we communicate about, and to, each other.

This is the theme of transactional public relations and this blog—that there are relevant stories all around us where we negotiate identity along racial lines.  Our challenge is to recognize these stories, to share them, and to empower our communication with these narratives.  We discuss a lot about the need for “relationship-building” and “dialogue,” but without a protocol for accounting for race, our exchanges can be, at times, counter-productive.  I’ll say more about this later.

Something Soledad did not mention—and in front of an audience of potential publicists—was her newly formed foundation to provide scholarships for girls between the ages of 15 to 21.  A project that she and her husband initiated, this effort is raising funds and hopes to solicit applications from girls in 2012, according to an Essence Magazine article.  Making opportunities for young women striving to find their identities through education sounds like a grand project, indeed.

What is your story?  What opportunities exist out there for more transactional communication?

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Nick & Jerry made music and history

24 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by metagcarstarphen in Music

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Black Music legends, cross-cultural, Jerry Leiber, Nick Ashford, R&B

This week, we lost two musical giants, literally within a beat and a song between them.  One was Jerry Leiber, who was part of the musical team of Leiber and Stoller.  Jerry was the one who created lyrics to Stoller’s music, and their list of hits runs long.

The 78-year-old artist had more hits than I have listened too, I confess.  But, he is the man behind one of my all-time, favorite songs, Stand by Me.   The 1986 soulful version sung by Ben E. King is the ultimate anthem of loyalty, and love.

The other loss was Nicholas Ashford, half of the Ashford and Simpson team that rocked the charts with hits for artists like Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye.

Like Jerry, Nick was the poet of his team, the one who found just the right words to fit the right beats.  For me, and millions of his other fans, the song that just sums up the Ashford & Simpson magic was the one they recorded, Solid As A Rock  This is a grown-folks love song that tells you what it takes to keep a relationship going after the thrill of the chase is a memory.

When Jerry shared his background in interviews, he told his story of a Jewish kid who loved Black Music  and grew up in a poor African American neighborhood in Baltimore.

Nick grew up in Michigan and grew up in the Black Church, with the power of gospel music as his inspiration.  He found his way to Harlem where he met his future wife, Valerie, and together launched a successful career and marriage.

Jerry and Nick came from two different worlds but they shared a love of musical styles that came from the same alchemy of blues, rhythm and pop and African American traditions.  Their hits made devotees out of listeners all over the globe,  crossing boundaries with each ton 10 hit they created. Our debt to their combined talents is enormous.

Sometime soon, treat yourself.  Listen to some of their hits with a glass of something sweet and hopefully immersed in even sweeter memories.

That’s what I’m doing tonight.

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Dr. Meta G. Carstarphen

Professor
Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication
405.310.9081
mcarstarphen@ou.edu
**Check out my personal blog about learning, life, and engagement at http://metaprof7.wordpress.com

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